DUFF & NONSENSE!

'Went the day well', Barack?

Oh dear, this blog is in danger of sounding like one of those tedious Leftie sites where they do nothing but spew forth anti-American agit-prop.  I don't mean it, my American buddies, honestly I don't, and you will notice that by and large my shells are aimed at political/military establishment targets of the same sort that we have 'over here' and at which I constantly take aim.

Even so, my entire life seems to have had a background noise produced by the US Air Force bombing the you-know-what out of this, that or the other enemy who will, according to which prat general is running the air force at the time, be utterly destroyed in just a matter of time.  How much time, you might enquire?  Sorry, that's classified information, moving along  . . .  I regret to say that with the exception (and it was a pretty big exception) of Vietnam our home-grown tits - 'over there' you have 'prats' but 'over here' we have 'tits' - have bounced along behind like little children following their father and shouting 'please, Daddy, can I have a go?'

All this bile is provoked by a report in The Telegraph based on American intelligence assessments that after gazillions worth of dollars spent on a huge aerial bombardment of IS the result is:

Almost a year after the US launched its multi billion dollar military campaign to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant the violent jihadist group shows no signs of weakening, according to the assessments of American intelligence agencies.

Its hold on social media and flow of oil revenue means it can draw on a steady stream of recruits and has held on to almost all its territory despite losing 10,000 fighters.

At the same time, it has managed to expand into new theatres in Libya, Egypt's Sinai peninsula and Afghanistan. 

“We've seen no meaningful degradation in their numbers," a defence official told Associated Press, citing estimates that put the group's strength at 20,000 to 30,000 fighters, the same as last August when the strikes began. [My emphasis]

All this comes out just as 'Dim Dave' is pursing his little lips in an effort to look, you know, really, really hard, and promising that her 'Majesty's Right Royal Air Force' with, er, their last twelve aircraft will absolutely and definitely be right up there alongside our American allies - you can rely on us, Mr. President!

Jessica Stern, co-author of Isis: The State of Terror, said, “The problem is that there's no clear policy,” she said. “We don't know what we want the end state to be.”  Yep, that about sums it up, I'd say!

 

 

A star was born, er, but nobody noticed #6

 

Sorry, darlings, but I was too old for Hamlet but I was able to play his randy, ambitious and murderous Uncle Claudius.  It was interesting - well it interested me! - when later on I gave up the acting lark and took to directing, including a production of Hamlet, how different the view of the play is from, so to speak, the inside looking out, as compared to the over-view required of a director.  I enjoyed the role but learned very little about the play itself.  However, what I do remember vividly is night after night spitting out the line:  Do it, England; For like the hectic in my blood he rages.  This, of course, is after I have despatched my errant nephew to England on a false diplomatic mission  but actually the message he bears is a request to the English king to execute him - pronto!

 

 

Then I was given the chance to play 'The Great Man Himself' - William Shakespeare - in a delightful little play called The Boy Juliet.  This was written by the late Royce Ryton, one of those honourable 'band of brothers' usually referred to as 'jobbing playwrights'.  He had one major success with a play called Crown Matrimonial which caused some ripples in its day by portraying a living member of the royal family - the then Queen Mother. He had a few minor successes but somehow he never quite broke into the big time.  I can barely remember The Boy Juliet except that it pre-dated the film Shakespeare in Love with which it shared the notion of a girl somehow getting to play a female role on stage during Shakespeare's time - an action that would, in reality, have led the participants straight into jail had they been discovered.  I remember thinking at the time that it was a delightful comedy and that it deserved a bigger audience.

 

You will have noticed that I am not wearing the moustache or beard favoured by the real William Shakespeare because, as I told the long-suffering director, I can't stand all that stuff glued around my lips when I'm acting.  However, darlings, I am prepared to make huge sacrifices for my 'art' and so you will notice that I shaved back the front of my hair line to provide a suitable Shakespearean dome!

 

There was Auschwitz, and the Gulags, and now, we have America

But before I begin and before my American readers reach for their hunting rifles and come looking for me, yes, yes, I know, we, by which I mean the whole of western civilisation, are party to this enormous crime against humanity.  But, dammit, if you are going to claim the leadership of the western world then you must carry the responsibility.  I am prompted to this subject which I normally try to avoid because the arguments become both furious and pointless by the Steyn article I linked to in the post below.  In it, Steyn draws some very uncomfortable comparisons between Germany under the Nazis, and America increasingly under the cosh of the progressives.  I want to point to another huge stain on American decency, and to repeat myself, I do realise the stain has spread 'over here'.

Since 1973 the American authorities have authorised the killing of 53 million babies.  Let me repeat that - 53 million babies!  It would seem to be an impossibility to add any more shame and disgust at such a mass atrocity but you can, oh dear me, yes, you can!  Today, there is now a thriving trade in 'baby parts':

The CMP [Centre for Medical progress] has released three videos since July 13, the latest of which shows an interview with former StemExpress employee Holly O’Donnell, who says she was hired to “draw blood and dissect dead fetuses and sell the parts to researchers.”

She said employees at StemExpress, a for-profit company, tried to maximize the financial benefit of each fetus by obtaining the most profitable organs.

“The harder and more valuable the tissue, the more money you get,” Ms. O’Donnell said. “So if you can somehow procure a brain or a heart, you’re going to get more money than just chorionic villi or umbilical cord. That’s basically what it is. So I guess that’s an incentive to try and get the hard stuff.”

Needless to say, StemExpress needs must find a good and reliable source for all these profitable 'baby parts' and who better than one of the biggest of the mass killers in the USA, Planned Parenthood. Their top management people have been caught out on secretly recorded film recently discussing the, er, finer points of just what is the best way to yank out the remains of a dead baby without doing too much damage to its organs which are worth big bucks. 

In the meantime, the 'liberal' American media are doing their usual class act of shutting their eyes, sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting 'la-la-la-la-la' as loud as they can.  Most of the political class are doing the same.  A favourite question amongst Anglos and Americans is to wonder just how much the German people knew about the concentration camps at the time.  Well, at least our descendants will have a very clear answer when they ask how many of us today knew about this mass slaughter and its disgusting side trade - all of us!

Steyn online and right on the ball

I am very grateful to my e-pal Malcolm Pollack of Waka Waka Waka for pointing me in the direction of Mark Steyn at his acidic best.  Where, one wonders in some desperation, is America heading?

Oh no, it's back to 'skool' again!

The moment I have been dreading has arrived!  Today Microsoft unveiled their all-new, all-singing, all-dancing MS10, er, thingie.  My IT Manager (aka: 'SoD'), had warned me that it was imminent.  That means, of course, that I will have to go back to 'skool' to learn how to use the damn thing but worst of all, of course, is that the headmaster is 'SoD' and he's a hard, mean taskmaster!

I do realise that in this modern world everything is constantly on the change but it is irritating when you finally get the hang of something, they - yes, it's always that mysterious entity called 'they' - suddenly change it all.  But, to be fair to one of my 'New Best Friends', Bill Gates - good ol' Bill! - I understand that this is the last major change from Microsoft.  From now on they will eschew grand openings of revolutionary computer-thingies and instead will simply and quietly make small adjustments as they go along with this new system.  Very sensible.

I understand from my 'IT Manager' that we will not be switching immediately so there is no chance of this distinguished blog suddenly disappearing - sorry, did you say something?  When I make my great leap into the unknown I will provide you with plenty of warning.  The changeover shouldn't take me more than a year or two at the longest!

 

Is it because he has a titchy willy?

I refer, of course, to Mr. Walter Palmer of Bloomington, Minnesota, a tooth-puller by trade and an animal killer by inclination.  He is the proud owner of the head of 'Cecil the Lion', a favourite, apparently, of tourists visiting a National Game Park in Zimbabwe.  (Couldn't they have come up with something more, er, 'butch' as a name than 'Cecil' for such a magnificent beast?)  Here is a photo of him lying down with one of his 'pals', courtesy of The Mail which has the full story:

 

Apparently, 'Little Willy' Walter Palmer and his Zimbabwean guide went in for some dodgy practices in order to lure 'Cecil' out of the Park area where hunting is forbidden and thus allowing 'Little Willy' to shoot the beast with a crossbow.  This only wounded the animal and they had to track him for a couple of days before finishing him off with a rifle.  He was then beheaded and skinned.

'Little Willy' has previous in this kind of thing, pleading guilty a few years ago to lying over an infringements of rules in an American Game Park.  Here he is with another trophy:

What a 'He-man'!

Now I stand before you, so to speak, conflicted (is that the correct word these days?) over this story.  I am well aware that 'Cecil' was definitely no 'Goody Four Paws'.  His kill rate amongst all the other 'cuddly-wuddly' creatures in his 'hood was pretty huge.  But at least he did it out of necessity. He did it to stay alive.  'Titchy Willy', on the other hand, carries out his slaughter for - dread word - fun!  Or perhaps pleasure is a more accurate word because there is, one feels after looking at various pictures of 'Little Willy' and his dead trophies, something distinctly masturbatory about this practice.  Notice, for example, that he strips off to the waist before hugging his dead leopard and flexing his muscles.

Now, as I indicated, I am at risk of sounding hypocritical because, for example, I support the practice of hunting foxes on horseback here in the UK.  So, as someone else said not too long ago in a different context, "What, at this moment, does it matter?"  Well, I can only dissolve into utter soppiness and produce one word - beauty!  You really do need a heart of stone - and a very small willy - to deliberately stalk and kill an animal of such awe-inspiring beauty.  And it's not as though you require any courage to do it.  Armed with an enormously powerful rifle and with a couple of equally well-armed guides there is little or no chance of the hunter suddenly becoming the hunted.  It is cold-blooded slaughter.

What interests me now is whether or not the Zimbabwean judicial system will seek the extradition of 'Little Willy' and if they do, what will be the re-action of the (non)Justice Department of the USA who are so fond of reaching out world-wide for the collars of those they accuse of wrong-doing.  Will they allow 'Little Willy' to be extradited?  Don't hold your breath!

 

So what is this 'democracy' thing?

In the comments thread to my previous post, Alexey, a Russian, asks, not unreasonably, what exactly is 'democracy'?  Immediately we run into a cultural collision.  There is, it seems to me, a  tradition in European philosophy that demands exact definitions of terms.  In the Anglo-Saxon tradition this is avoided where-ever possible.  The greatest example, perhaps, is the fact that the British constitution has never been written down.  It is just a great pile of ancient and modern practice that has accumulated over a thousand years.  On the way, of course, various practices have been quietly (or on occasion, not so quietly) dropped, and so by this 'two steps forward, one step back' process we have edged towards the situation we have now of rule by parliament.

Obviously, in keeping with my English heritage, I am not too keen to define 'democracy' like some French philosophe but I suppose it is possible to point to some characteristics which you would expect to find in a democracy.  First and foremost is rule by a freely elected parliament whose members must face their electors on a regular basis.  Second, but just as important, perhaps even more important, is the establishment of an independent judiciary to whom appeals can be made when parliamentary or electoral rules are broken.  Those two factors are, it seems to me, the absolute cornerstones of democracy.

Now, before my regular moaners and groaners start telling me that parliament is the political equivalent of 'a ship of fools', I quite agree.  But that is because they are people, just like us and, let's face it, most of us are fools too!  Democracy will never produce perfectly wise rulers which is precisely why the absolutely critical factor is the ability, enshrined and protected by law, that we get the chance regularly to throw the rascals out.  And yes, they will probably be replaced by another collection of fools but that is infinitely preferable to having some truly stupid maniac in total command for as long as he likes - or until he is murdered.

Of course, none of that helps my Russian e-pal, Alexey, because I am describing a state of affairs that has arisen over centuries of trial and error.  His poor country and people are locked into a prison run by thieves and robbers who have absolute control over the police and the judiciary.  How they move from where they are to a state of democracy I simply do not know.  All I do know for certain is that it will be very painful!

 

How do you get a nation from A for Autocracy to D for Democracy?

Tricky question, best answered by a professor of the history of political philosophy but, alas, all you've got here today is me!  (Mind you, I did pass 'O'-level history!)  I am prompted to the question by the current state of China and also by my Russian e-pal, Alexey, who is facing the problem at first hand.

It seems to me that "that old common arbitrator, Time" is a huge factor.  Consider English history from 1066 and the slow, halting, sometimes regressing, progress towards the sort of democracy we have now.  Of course, the greatest advantage we enjoyed in this 'hit and miss' advance over the centuries was that we are an Island and thus avoided the constant interference of neighbours.  That was not a condition enjoyed by most of our continental neighbours, although, given its huge size and inhospitable climate, Russia was almost an Island.  Unfortunately, for them it worked the other way because their royal dictatorial leaders were free to make war on their neighbours and as we all know, there's nothing like a good war to help a regime increase its grip on the population.  In fact, that is another feature of English 'isolation' in that for us, making war on countries across the sea was very difficult and very expensive but if it was undertaken it did not impinge directly on the English population and our political institutions.

Despite my negligible knowledge of European history, I would suggest that democracy only became a real possibility when the country concerned suffered a cataclysmic disaster.  Germany springs to mind.  Although it had a fledgling democracy after WWI it was easily swept away by Hitler and only in the ruins of their cities after 1945 did the Germans (irony alert!) under the diktat of their conquerors finally accept a full and functioning democracy.  Similarly, the French went through the horrors of the revolution and Bonaparte's war, followed by yet another mini-revolution before they finally reached democracy.

So what of Russia and China today.  Twice in the 20th century, Russia almost made the step-change into democracy.  The first time it was slaughtered (literally at birth) by the Bolsheviks and the second time the very worst sort of mixture of naïve Americans and greedy bankers moved in and they were quickly out-foxed by the Russian 'kleptocracy'.  Today, Russia is a dictatorship, not political but financial.

China, on the other hand has absolutely no experience of democracy.  It is locked in the death grip of the Party, all of whose members only joined because, like racketeers everywhere, they wanted a share of the spoils.  In a nation made up of a huge number of different ethnicities and traditions, to say nothing of languages, and therefor of a multiplicity of different needs, it is vital for the Communist Party of China (CPC) to grip every detailed facet of life in the entire country.  However, to help sweeten their dictatorial pill they needs must grow the economy and share the wealth with the people.  Thus, they have seized on western capitalism - without really understanding how it works, an ignorance shared by most westerners involved in capitalism!  Like a Ponzi scheme, all will be well just so long as the wealth tap keeps flowing.  However, the minute it slows to a trickle, or even worse, it stops, then that is the moment the chop suey hits the fan!  I do not even wish to contemplate the catastrophe through which the Chinese people will have to suffer before they come out the other side and - perhaps! - realise that democracy, for all its inefficiencies and faults is infinitely better than dictatorship.

(Visitors expected any minute so apologies for any typos which I will correct later!)

 

You need a heart of stone not to fall about laughing at this one

We, and I include myself on an occasional basis, often fall into the error of thinking that all those jumped-up dictators are sharper, shrewder and ten steps ahead of the likes of 'Dim Dave' or even 'Ol' Big Ears'.  For example, 'Vlad the Impaler', with keen geo-strategic insight carried out his own 'pivot to the east' by cuddling up to the Chinese and signing a new and huge pipe-line deal that will whoosh oil and gas across to his new best friends.  This would be accomplished by his prize energy company, Gazprom.  I am deeply indebted to the Streetwise Professor for deflating all that hot air in one deadly blog post entitled with equally deadly accuracy 'Putin's pivot to obscurity'.

On a Monday morning in which the Chinese stock exchange fell another 8% - 8%! - despite the government using emergency laws to discourage selling, it comes as no surprise to learn that the Chinese have about as much use for expensive Russian energy as we in Britain need more rain!  Plus, and you can blame those damned Aussies, apparently they can supply Liquified Natural Gas  (LNG) for a fraction of Russia's price - good on yer, Aussie mate!

The good Professor points to three very basic problems facing 'Vlad' and his gangsters

    1:  The pipeline itself is eye-wateringly expensive mostly because the crooks who run     Gazprom insist on building it themselves because, well, how else are they going to     skim off the top?

    2:  The pipeline goes to western China which is precisely where China does not want     it!

    3:  And in any case today China doesn't want the stuff because, as mentioned above,     the Aussies can supply it cheaper and also it is now obvious that the Chinese     economy is in deep doo-doo and sinking fast - oh dear what a pity never mind!

Suddenly the world is a very lonely place for 'Vlad' so its just as well he has one good and true honest friend - Sepp Blatter!  Here they are together, kissing in the back row:

 

 

Your Monday Funnies: 27.07.15

It's pissing down with rain - again - so after I have done my duty and cheered up all you wage-slaves as you arrive in your offices - please don't drip on the carpet! - I'm going back to bed!

A crusty old man walks into the local Baptist Church and says to the secretary,
"I would like to join this damn church."

The astonished woman replies,

"I beg your pardon, sir.. I must have misunderstood you. What did you say?"

"Listen up, damn it. I said I want to join this damn church!"

"I'm very sorry sir, but that kind of language is not tolerated in this church."

The secretary leaves her desk and goes into the pastor's study to inform him
of her situation.

The pastor agrees that the secretary does not have to listen to that foul language.

They both return to her office  and the pastor asks the old geezer,

"Sir, what seems to be the problem here?"

"There is no damn problem," the man says. "I just won $200 million bucks in
the damn lottery and I want to join this damn church to get rid of some of
this damn money."

"I see," said the pastor, "And  is this bitch giving you a hard time?"

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Seamus and Murphy fancied a pint or two but didn't have a lot of money between them; they could only raise the staggering sum of one Euro.

Murphy said "Hang on, I have an idea."

He went next door to the butcher's shop and came out with one large sausage.

Seamus said "Are you crazy? Now we don't have any money at all!"

Murphy replied, "Don't worry - just follow me."

He went into the pub where he immediately ordered two pints of Guinness and two glasses of Jameson Whiskey. 

Seamus said "Now you've lost it. Do you know how much trouble we will be in? We haven't got any money!!"

Murphy replied, with a smile. "Don't worry; I have a plan, Cheers!"

They downed their drinks. Murphy said, "OK, I'll stick the sausage through my zipper and you go on your knees and put it in your mouth."

The barman noticed them, went berserk, and threw them out.

They continued this, pub after pub, getting more and more drunk, all for free.

At the tenth pub Seamus said "Murphy - I don't think I can do any more of this. I'm drunk and me knees are killing me!" 

Murphy said, "How do you think I feel? I can't  even remember which pub I lost the sausage in."

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I was standing in a bar in Cairns, North Queensland and this little Chinese guy comes in and stands next to me.

I said to him, “Do you know any of those martial arts things, like Kung-Fu, Karate or Ju-Jitsu?”  

He says “No, why the fluck you ask me dat, is it coz I Chinee”?

“No”, I said, "It’s because you’re drinking my beer you slanty eyed little  prick.

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Here are some 'Oirish' quickies:

Joe says to Paddy: "Close your curtains the next time you're making
love to your wife.  The whole street was watching and laughing at you yesterday."

Paddy says: "Well the joke's on them because I wasn't even at home
yesterday."

...............................................

The Irish have solved their own fuel problems.

They imported 50 million tonnes of sand from the Arabs and they're going to
drill for their own oil.

...............................................

Paddy says to Mick, "Christmas is on a Friday this year"

Mick says "Let's hope it's not the 13th."

 

Right, you must have dried off by now so get on with your work!

 

The Sunday Rumble: 26.7.15

'Nippon not No. 1':  In so far as I ever think about the Japanese, I lazily reach for the stereotype of a highly disciplined people trained to do exactly what they're told.  Well, according to a story at Zero Hedge, the 'natives are revolting'!  Apparently Prime Minister Abe and his magical economic theory 'Abenomics' (prop. Goldman Sachs - yeeeeees, quite) are working well for those with huge investments because it keeps the stock exchange on a high but, alas, for poor old 'Sukka Noodle' at the other end of the financial scale, times are hard.  On top of that, Abe's government is steam-rolling through a change to the post-war constitution which will lift the post-WWII law restricting Japanese armed forces to self-defence only.  Given the proximity of a mighty China just across a sea that the Chinese are claiming as their own, you can understand Abe's concerns.  But the 'People' (dread word!) 'no likee' and they are demonstrating in huge numbers.  Of course, this could just be the 'usual suspects' from the Japanese branch of the 'International Corbyn-Castro Collective' but according to the story Prime Minister Abe needs to have a care.  And 'Ol' Big Ears' needs to watch out, too, because if the Left push Abe out and then decide to cuddle up to China that will change the entire geo-strategic outlook for the Pacific.  (Are you reading this, Australia?)

 

Booker deserves his bit of triumphalism:  For years, nay, decades, Christopher Booker has been blowing raspberries and, as per the late Auberon Waugh, shouting, "Show us your willy" at all the silly 'Warmers' and their ludicrous political non-science.  Needless to say, throughout he has been subject to heavy 'incoming'.  So today he has, and deserves to have, a bit of a triumph.  In today's Telegraph he reports, with some understandable relish, that:

Two events last week brought yet further twists to one of the longest-running farces of our modern world. One was the revelation by the European Space Agency that in 2013 and 2014, after years when the volume of Arctic ice had been diminishing, it increased again by as much as 33 per cent[my emphasis]. The other was that Canadian scientists studying the effect of climate change on Arctic ice from an icebreaker had to suspend their research, when their vessel was called to the aid of other ships trapped in the thickest summer ice seen in Hudson Bay for 20 years.

And his list of similar clown-like prat-falls by sundry Greenies must surely be the stuff of a new TV comedy series:

So taken in had others been by all these dire predictions, that in 2008 the activist Gordon Lewis Pugh, after speaking at a conference alongside Al Gore, set out to paddle a kayak to the North Pole – only to have to abort his trip after a few days because “the ice was too thick”. In 2009, the three-man Caitlin expedition, sponsored by a “climate risk” insurance company, and backed by the BBC and the Prince of Wales, set out to walk to the North Pole. Their intention was to measure the thickness of the vanishing ice with an electronic instrument, but it froze so hard that they had to resort to a tape measure. Again, after a few weeks, they had to be airlifted back to a rescue ship because the constantly shifting ice was “too thick”.

In December 2013, the world followed agog the plight of yet another “scientific expedition”, when 52 climate activists, accompanied by reporters from the BBC and the Guardian, sailed into the Antarctic to measure the effects of global warming on its sea-ice. By Christmas their ship was so dangerously trapped by thick, multi-year ice that they had to be helicoptered to a Chinese ship 10 miles away, which itself then got so trapped in ice that they had to be airlifted again to two other ships even further away. 

Oh my giddy aunt, no more, please, no more, my sides are splitting.  Well done, Booker, if anyone deserves a baronetcy it's you.

 

Kiddie-winkies, don'cha hate 'em?   Well, I don't, er, not all of them and not all the time, just most of them most of the time!  No, that's not true, either.  So long as they comply with the two statutes contained in Duff's Law, that they keep still and keep quiet, then I quite like them.  I may be repeating myself here (what again?) but a few weeks ago there was an embarrassing episode at lunchtime in a local restaurant when a little kiddie-winkie kept screaming every three minutes - you could have set your watch by him.  Anyway, in due course, yours truly stood up and bellowed across the dining-room telling the parents either to shut it up or move it out.  I said this was embarrassing but not to me, only to the Memsahib and our friends!  I am reminded of all this by an article in the IJ Review in which a similar eruption occurred 'over there' and made national news.  However, the reporter goes on to feature another version of the 'screaming kiddie-winkie syndrome' in which a family with three children entered a restaurant  and the 'titch' went off on one at which point Mum heaved him out of his high chair and took him outside.  This happened for a second time and so Dad took him outside again.  Mum asked for the check but was told that it had already been paid by another customer who was impressed with her way of dealing with the brat.  This reminded me of a personal experience whilst enjoying a lunch in a coffee bar and a man came in on his own with not one, not two but three boys of double-trouble, urchin age.  Their behaviour was impeccable and whilst I didn't pay for their lunch I did pause on the way out to congratulate the Dad on his children's behaviour.  See, sometimes I can do 'nice'!

 

Jolly good show, you can always rely on an Aussie:  As you know 'games', by which I mean the sort of thing 'hearties' go in for, are not high on my list of priorities.  However, I do still keep some residue of enthusiasm for Grand Prix racing.  I was delighted today to see one of the best races for some time.  I was double delighted to see an Aussie driver take out that Finnish-Monacan-German sulk, Nico Rosberg, in the last few laps.  It's the sort of thing Aussies do so awfully well!  By doing so, he allowed our frightfully decent, British chap, Lewis Hamilton, to score some points even though he was down the field and thus extend his lead over the afore-mentioned Nico Sulk.  God Bless Australia!

 

The 'Kiddie-Winkies Kollective' kould win! Sorry, sorry, I kouldn't  couldn't resist the alliteration.  What I mean is that it appears to be the kiddie-winkies who are rushing to join the Labour party and vote for Comrade Corbyn.  I have remarked before on the 'juvenilation' of British (and American) politics since the ridiculous notion of lowering the voting age was agreed.  The juveniles are joined - and encouraged - by many older, more cynical realists from the old Communist party and Militant Tendency - remember them?  Thought the Labour party had smashed them back in the '80s, did you?  Then think again, they're still around and they could capture the Labour party if 'Karl' Corbyn wins the leadership.  That would be a disaster for everyone but the prospect does contain one gleam of gold.  There are already mutterings from the Left for the Labour party to swing against the EU in the forthcoming referendum.  That, as they say, could very interesting!

 

Emperor Obama scores another one:   And so, slowly but surely, the American constitution is tipped on its arse and more and more power moves to the White House and away from the Congress.

'The Cousins', given their history of malfeasance by government departments, have a system where-by Congress can appoint Inspector Generals with powers to enter and search all documents, paper or computer based, if there is suspicion of wrong doing.  Not any more!  The emperor has spoken, or his satraps have, and from now on the Inspector Generals Corporals will have to ask permission of the Cabinet minister concerned first!  The Conservative Treehouse sums it up in pictures:

 

 

No more rumbles today  

 

This blog is for sale

Or if I can put it this way, このブログは販売のためであります.  That, as you will instantly have recognised and translated, is the Japanese for "This blog is for sale".  For some time now I have been considering the immense wealth potential of this blog which has an international readership of about seven, well, eight when 'JK' comes down from 'them thar hills'!  I have been prompted into action by the fact announced today that the Financial Times has just sold for £844 million to Mr. Magoo, chairman of the Menosee Corporation, or something like that.  Now I have no desire to denigrate the FT, a splendid Fleet Street institution even if recently it went all a bit soppy Leftie and its readership disappeared faster than the inhabitants of Hokkaido on being told that a tsunami was approaching! 

Of course, I understand that many of their tiny readership are the movers and shakers of this globe but that's equally true of this blog.  'JK', otherwise known as 'the sage of Arkansas' (although that might be because of his whiskers), reads and inwardly digests every single newspaper in America and provides us with his, er, distilled wisdom.  Similarly, 'Jimmy' keeps us all up to date on Scottish matters even if his accent is a tad difficult to read!  Very regularly, 'BOE' flies over and drops a one-line bomb on Europe - with deadly accuracy, it's his training, you know, and we have not one but two regular Australian correspondents although at the moment one of them is dead drunk in some European bar as he completes his Grand Tour.  'Cuffers' keeps us all up to date on the very best vintages to be found in Italy even if some of his reports become a little slurred towards the end.  And we have some regular and shrewd insights from our North Carolina correspondent - in between fishing trips, that is.

So you see, Mr. Magoo of Menosee Corporation (I had to repeat the joke because some of you might not have got it first time round - do wake up and pay attention!), this truly international blog is exactly right for your global corporate plans to take over the world - er, hope it goes better for you than your last effort!  Anyway, because you're such a nice polite gentleman (but I do wish you'd stop all that bowing), £500, er, cash, natch!  Oh alright then, twenty quid and a sack of rice that glows in the dark!

  

Connections

Now then, children, we're going to start the day with a song, altogether now:

Your toe bone connected to your foot bone,

Your foot bone connected to your ankle bone,

Your ankle bone connected to your leg bone,

Your leg bone connected to your knee bone,

Your knee bone connected to your thigh bone,

Your thigh bone connected to your hip bone,

Your hip bone connected to your back bone,

Your back bone connected to your shoulder bone,

Your shoulder bone connected to your neck bone,

Your neck bone connected to your head bone,

I hear the word of the Lord!

Oh do come along, 'BOE', sing up and look as though you are enjoying it; and 'JK', it's no good you gargling with that, er, throat medicine Barney Magroo sold you; and Andra if you must keep hooting through that Aboriginal tube-thingie then please keep in time!

Now where was I?  Oh yes, the title to this brilliant essay - don't even whisper it, Jimmy! - is "Connections".  You see, in this global age, we are all 'connected'.  I know, I know, this is the sort of incisive, original thinking which makes this blog worth every penny you pay for it.  Oh, I've just remembered, none of you pay anything - cheapskates!

Now where was I again?  Oh yes, 'connections'.  I was struck by an article this morning by A E-P in The Telegraph in which he reports that:

Russia has fallen into full-blown depression and faces a mounting fiscal crisis as oil and gas revenues plummet.

Output from country’s state-owned gas giant Gazprom has collapsed by 19pc over the past year as demand shrivels in Europe, falling to levels not seen since the creation of the company at the end of the Cold War.

A report by Sberbank warned that Gazprom’s revenues are likely to drop by almost a third to $106bn this year from $146bn in 2014, seriously eroding Russia’s economic base.

Of course, if it was just one sector, even a huge one like oil and gas, then no doubt 'Vlad the Impaler' with the aid of his secret policemen would find a way round but, and I know it will surprise no-one, the rest of Russia is fucked, too!

We’ve seen the full impact of the crisis in the second quarter. It is now hitting light industry and manufacturing,” said Dmitri Petrov from Nomura.

“Russia is going to be in a very difficult fiscal situation by 2017,” said Lubomir Mitov from Unicredit. “By the end of next year there won’t be any money left in the oil reserve fund and there is a humongous deficit in the pension fund. They are running a budget deficit of 3.7pc of GDP but without developed capital markets Russia can't really afford to run a deficit at all.” 

A report by the Higher School of Economics in Moscow warned that a quarter of Russia’s 83 regions are effectively in default as they struggle to cope with salary increases and welfare costs dumped on them by President Vladimir Putin before his election in 2012. “The regions in the far east are basically bankrupt,” said Mr Mitov.

So where is the connection, you ask, not unreasonably?  Unfortunately I have lost the source article but about a week ago some economics swot wrote a piece warning that Australia - yes, Australia - is heading for the Barrier Reef and for much the same reason.  Hitherto, the Australian economy has thrived under a colossal demand for minerals and coal of which Australia has 'oodles of boodles' underground.  But now demand for commodities, particularly from China which has kept our Aussie pals in silks and satins, has slumped.  There was one key statistic I spotted the other day, electricity use in China has dropped!  Thus, this diagram courtesy of Zero Hedge explains why:

 

You can see where the Chinese government desperately sought to use its dictatorial powers to inject demand into their economy but one by one they have all failed.  And then there is gold which the Chinese bought and stored in eye-wateringly huge amounts as well as mining their own as fast as they could - they have a division of the People's Army which is employed solely on gold mining!  Well, 'velly solly, Comrade' but the gold price just fell back down the mine!

So you see, it's true, one damn thing leads to another and then on to yet another.  So all I can say is, if it's raining in Moscow today then buy an umbrella for tomorrow - where-ever you are!

ADDITIONAL:  Well, I thought you all needed some high-class, analytical economic reportage now that the Financial Times has been flogged off to the Japs.  I can hear it now - "All Blitiss officers editors will work!"

 

A star was born, er, but nobody noticed #5

At the time I was self-employed ducking and diving with my 'bits of old shrapnel'.  I came home one day slightly late for lunch, rushed into the kitchen to knock up a cup of tea and a sandwich and, as I always did, I switched on the radio.  It was the afternoon play on Radio4 and, dammit, it was an 'Oirish' play and after 20-odd years of 'The Troubles' the Irish accents grated on me.  Unfortunately, the kettle was boiling so I couldn't switch off straight away and thus, slowly, the language caught my attention.  It was intensely poetic whilst at the same time being formed of commonplace, street argot.  I had just about listened to a couple of minutes of it when the 'phone went and that was the end of it.  I never learned the name of the play and in fact I forgot about it.

About a year later I heard that someone at my AmDram group was intending to produce a play based on 'The Troubles' and instantly it came back to me and I wondered if it was the same play.  I read half of the first page and immediately recognised the style.  The play was Rat in the Skull by Ron Hutchinson, a much under-rated playwright in my opinion whose works deserve a wider audience.  The play is simple and simply staged taking place almost entirely in a London police station in the 1980s.  A young, cheeky but fanatical IRA bomber has been caught.  A bitter, hardened, RUC police officer is sent over from Belfast to interrogate him and hopefully turn him.  His efforts are monitored by two uncomprehending London coppers who are sick of the whole Irish problem which has turned their city into an armed camp.

The play is out of the ordinary in that most plays, books, articles about 'The Troubles' are nearly always on the side of the romantic Irish rebels fighting for their freedom and all that sort of yuk!  This was the first one that I had ever read which gave 'the Proddies' a fair voice.  Much of it is done in almost monologue form which, if delivered well, is riveting because of the quality of the writing.  Here are two extracts, the first from 'Demon Bomber' Roche, the IRA man and the second from Det. Insp. Nelson, RUC.  Try reading them slowly to yourselves and imagine the Irish accents, soft and lilting for Roche, hard and grating for Nelson:

ROCHE (sitting beneath blown up photos of his facial injuries received from D. I. Nelson)

"The holiday snaps.

Dear Mum, this is me in the Big Smoke.  I've seen all the sights, the Tower, the zoo, MacDonalds, the big red buses and the bottom sides of coppers' boots from the wrong way up.  They showed me the doings.  I was sat on my hunkers, somewhere north of the Northern Line, minding my own business, wondering whether to pick my nose or go for a slash, and a sledge hammer comes through the door, without so much as a by-your-leave. Followed in short order by half a dozen of the larger size of cop, waving guns and shouting hallo.  One of them shakes me by the balls and throws me across the room before I've a chance to say I didn't catch the name and I'm not that way inclined even so, and then it's down the stairs, the Human Brick, and into the wagon.  Through the black arse-end of which many a good man before yours truly has found himself, and never a reason given him neither.  Then in come the massed bands of the Metropolitan Police shouting hallo again, to sit on my head by way of keeping me company to Paddington Green.  They grow these lads big, believe me.  They like them big and ugly. . . ." and so on.

Here is a bit of D. I. Nelson at his sardonic best:

"NELSON:  Does it not say in there that the Roches have been blowing up innocent passers-by and RUC men as far back as as as, and who's Roche the Runt to buck the trend and let his grey-haired mother down, well into her eighties and still pulling Proddie winkies off.  There's the birds to think about.  The priest has far and away the better chance of pulling them, and despite the glamour of the gunman, down those back streets a fella has to be looking over his shoulder all the time.  You never know.  The skinny blonde with the big knockers and come hither eyes you meet at the ceilidh might just turn out to be an SAS sergeant once you get her back to your place.  But Rochey, like all his sort, puts women down the list.  He'd rather by far be running his hand along the barrel of a gun than along his own conjugal equipment.  Runty wasn't put on this good earth to breed sons, he was sent here to kill those of other men because the Roches, man, boy and dog on the mat were wedded to the cause.  And off he sets, in a beret two sizes too big and a borrowed pair of sunshades, to war, with a mother's blessing ringing sweetly in his ears, 'Fuck those Orange bastards, son.'"

I had an odd 'relationship' (if that is quite the word) with all the different characters I played.  I warmed to some of them (Barney Cashman), felt slightly repulsed by others (George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), but actually the technical difficulties of trying to impersonate and thus illustrate someone else's character was, for an amateur like me, too engrossing to allow time and space for personal likes and dislikes.  However, when I played the tragic D. I. Nelson I did (I think!) imbue it with a certain amount of personal passion because of my sympathy for him and what he stood for.  Whether that improved or detracted from my performance I do not know.

It is a cracking little play and I enjoyed playing in it enormously.

 

He's such a spoilsport that Dan Hodges

Readers may have detected the merest hint of shrieking, hysterical glee in my contemplation of the Labour party as it thrashes and bashes itself to pieces before my very eyes.  I have tried to be more mature and to consider calmly the wider political implications but ... but ... oh my giddy aunt ... please, no more ... it's all too hilarious for words ... my sides are aching ... please stop!  At which point along comes that wretched Dan Hodges in The Telegraph to pour a sour but shrewd mix of commonsense and intelligent analysis that ruins all the fun! 

First of all he does what he did before the general election and blows away all the froth, particularly the polling companies' froth, and tells it the way it will be - Jeremy 'Karl' Corbyn will not win, it will be a toss up between Burnham and Cooper.  Damn!  Still, even if 'Misery' Hodges is right and we get a Labour leader who is at least a resident of Planet Earth and not Planet Moonshine there will still be plenty of room for clown-like humour as they totter around in their big, ill-fitting shoes and red noses pouring buckets of water down each other's baggy pantaloons.

Perhaps my analogy is wrong.  Perhaps, if Burnham or Cooper win it will be more like one of those old comedy movies when all the little piglets down on the farm escape from their pens and the Three Stooges have to try and round them up.  The Labour party 'piglets are, of course, all those 'Russell Tsipras' look-and-sound-alikes who were, hitherto, normally confined to the outside fringes of the party conference.  But now they have tasted not only freedom but power.  Suddenly, or so they think, people are taking them seriously.  They are the new kids on the block and they know that the capo di tutti capi (aka: Len McCluskey) with his members' millions will be offering total support.

So the question arises, which of the two of them, Burnham or Cooper, will be the best at dragging the Labour party back to electoral respectability?  I know very little about either of them but from my vague impressions I don't think Burnham has what it takes.  In fact, the one who deserves to wear the trousers is Yvette Cooper.  Not the least of her advantages is that she is married to that political thug, Ed Balls.  Now he would know how to deal with the unruly kiddie-winkies in the Labour playground!

 

Me no likee lookee!

As you will have gathered, my expertise in high finance is exceedingly low.  According to the 'Memsahib' (aka: the Finance Director), my expertise in low finance is also dead dodgy!  But you see, I'm a 'broad picture' sort of a man, I don't wish to be bothered with trivial detail, just give me the fundamentals and I'll take a stab at a judgment.  For example, as I have told you all before, China is fucked!  For the last week or two 'Tyler Dunne' at Zero Hedge has been reporting on some extraordinary behaviour going on inside China.  For a start, and most ominously, capital outflows are reaching flood levels.  For those of you who lack the required knowledge of high financial terminology - I heard that! - "capital outflows" means lots of dodgy geezers with heavy suitcases making for the airports as fast as they can.  Well, not really, because it's actually worse than that.  It means huge numbers of exceedingly rich Chinese who live and work inside the country can see the warning signs and they're clicking on their computers in order to get their money out as fast as they can.

In today's Telegraph, A E-P has trawled the international high finance swots and their opinions seem to coincide - China is in big trouble!  The government through a mixture of new financial and legal restrictions backed up by a thuggish police force have reigned in the free-ish market that was developing and now it is back to government diktat.  For a while, this will work, or at least, it will give the appearance of working but in the end it will fail.

 

Houston, ooops, sorry, I mean London, we have a problem

Actually the problem effects the entire country but heh! why spoil a good headline?  The problem in a nutshell, or to be precise, a nutter's shell, is Mr. Jeremy Corbyn MP who, according to the polls - yeah, yeah, I know! - is set fair to win the leadership of the Labour party.  If for once the polls are right then Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition can look forward to being run by a 'Russell Tsipras' clone!  Such a victory would confirm that once again the Labour party has returned to the kindergarten.

For the benefit of my foreign readers, and my Brit readers sensible enough not to get too close to politics, I should explain that Russell Brand Jeremy Corbyn is a genuine North London, pseudo-intellectual loony who will support any quasi-political movement, especially if they carry guns and murder people, and whose political beliefs are somewhere to the Left of Karl Marx.  I have often remarked here that it is always the little things that tell you so much about people so if I tell you that Mr. Tsipras, sorry, Mr. Corbyn ditched the second of his three wives and the mother of his children because she insisted that their son attended a Grammar School rather than the rotten , failing Comprehensive which, although it provided a rotten education, complied with 'Comrade' Jeremy's political views.

So if the Labour party wants to implode and thus add to the gaiety of the nation why should I, a miserable, craggy, old reactionary, complain?  Well, as my hero, Edmund Burke, made clear, for parliament to work you need two functioning political parties.  If Corbyn wins I will not be surprised to see the Labour party split after they lose the next election - or even before!  The problem for me is that the Tory party, particularly when it is run by a man who couldn't spell 'ideology' let alone try and work one out for himself, will become increasingly stroppy and rebellious in the absence of a serious threat from the opposition.  Europe looms and the 'antis' are gathering their strength.  If, as seems probable, 'Dim Dave' returns with little or nothing and still refuses to urge an 'OUT' vote then "there may be troubles ahead" including the possibility of a Tory split.  Or, just maybe, his cabinet will insist that either he admits that Berlin-Brussels is adamant on no change and urges a vote accordingly, or he resigns and little Georgie Osborne takes over.

Oh what a shambles!

 

And now the blood seeps up through stones beneath the Acropolis

The Greeks think they have been through hard times but, to paraphrase, 'they ain't seen nuttin' yet!'  Sky News is running a disturbing story today from Athens where a charity, set up 20 years ago by a businessman who lost his young son to cancer, is facing the all too real prospect of shutting its doors because donations have virtually disappeared in the deep freeze of austerity.  This particular charity takes in abandoned babies and the number of those is increasing as impoverished parents find themselves unable to cover the cost of extra children.  Most babies are simply abandoned but some are rescued from 'homes' where the parents in their despair have given up and resorted to drugs or alcohol.

But there is even worse news for Greece.  I read somewhere, sorry, I forget where, that huge numbers of Greek businesses have been leaving the country as fast as they can and setting up in neighbouring countries.  These, of course, are the very entities upon which Greece would have depended upon for any chance of a recovery.  So as the EU apparatchiks play their silly financial games with Monopoly money by lending to Greece so that Greece can repay its loans to them, then Greece as a separate, independent entity will cease to exist which is what the Euro-fanatics want and if the abandoned children of Greece die, well, what was it that guy said about omelettes and eggs?

 

I know, I know, I went a.w.o.l. again - so sue me, already!

There were two reasons for my absence over the past day and a half.  The first was a severe dose of 'the domestics' - no, no, not a huge row with the 'Memsahib', I learnt the folly of that on about the third day of my honeymoon, now I just do as I'm told!  No, the problem was that our fridge/freezer went on the blink.  The double problem was that it is built into the 'fancy-dancy' kitchen units that, so the estate agent told me at the time, made this such a very desirable residence - yeeeeees, quite!

Anyway, all this entailed an evacuation of the contents of the broken unit which had to be squeezed into the spare fridge/freezer in the garage which, needless to say, was almost full.  A 'discussion' on, er, the merits, shall we say, of storing all this crap most of which came off the Ark and what precisely the chances were of a nuclear holocaust requiring us to have enough rations for five years came to an abrupt halt when I was told to shut up and just get on with it!  That done, I then contemplated the problem of removing the old 'box' from the afore-mentioned 'fancy-dancy' kitchen units. Not the least of the problems was that the rather exquisite kitchen designer had insisted that the fridge/freezer, despite having perfectly good doors of its own, should have extra doors attached to its front that matched the woodwork in the kitchen. What passes for my brain began to ache at the complexities of exchanging these two mammoth boxes without actually destroying the kitchen and my marriage!

And lo, there then came forth my saviour - Kevin!  He is mildly eccentric for a 'Zummerzet' man in that he hardly talks.  However, he is the local expert on all sorts of kitchen gadgetry.  He treated my hesitant offers of help with barely concealed contempt - shrewd fella'! - and within minutes (or so it seemed) the old box was out and wheeled away down to his van and then in came the new.  I forgot to tell you that to add to what I considered to be insurmountable difficulties, the monstrous-sized fridge-freezer was raised up on a plinth!  Had I attempted to remove the old one my death certificate would have read "Crushed by a fridge"!  Anyway, 'Kevin Superman' simply wheeled in the new one and by sleight of hand - or something - hey presto, it was in!

Speaking as a man who uses a hammer to drive in screws, I cannot begin to express my absolute admiration for practical men like Kevin who, in my pantheon of heroes, is up there alongside open-heart surgeons, atomic physicists and that weird swot in a wheelchair who speaks funny!  It is an undoubted fact that the entire world works only by dint of the likes of Kevin!

 

Your Monday Funnies: 20.7.15

A rather heart-warming story to begin with:

 

A couple from a circus go to an adoption agency, to inquire about adopting a child. 

The interviewing social workers are however a bit doubtful about their accommodation given the circus background. 

The couple produce photos of their 15 metre long caravan, the back half of which is a beautifully equipped nursery.

The social workers then are doubtful about the standard of education that would be provided. 

"We'll employ an Oxford don who'll teach the child all the subjects along with Mandarin and ICT skills", the couple advise.

There are then doubts expressed about the child’s healthy upbringing. 

"Our full time nanny is an expert in paediatric welfare and diet", they reply.

So the social workers are finally satisfied, and ask what age of child they were looking for.

 

"It doesn't really matter", they said, "so long as he fits in the cannon"

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A doctor addressing a large audience in Oxford opens the floor for questions. 

"The material we put into our stomachs should have killed most of us sitting here, years ago. Red meat is full of steroids and dye. Soft drinks corrode your stomach lining. Chinese food is loaded with MSG. High trans-fat diets can be disastrous and none of us realizes the long-term harm caused by germs in our drinking water. But there is one thing that is the most dangerous of all and most of us have, or will eat it.. Can anyone here tell me what food it is that causes the most grief and suffering for years after eating it?" 

After several seconds of quiet, a 70-year-old man in the front row raised his hand, and softly said, "Wedding Cake".

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A HEART SURGEON

Because of his stupidity and clumsiness, his teacher was always yelling at him, "You're driving me crazy, Tyrone."

One day Tyrone's mama came to school to check on how he was doing.  The teacher told his mama honestly, that her son was simply a disaster, getting very low marks, and that she had never seen such a stupid boy in her entire teaching career.

The mom was so shocked at the feedback that she withdrew her son from school and moved out of Detroit, relocating to Cleveland.

25 years later, the teacher was diagnosed with an almost incurable cardiac disease. All the doctors strongly advised her to have open heart surgery which only one surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic could perform. Left with no other options, the teacher decided to have the operation which was successful.

When she opened her eyes after the surgery she saw a handsome young doctor smiling down at her. She wanted to thank him, but could not talk. Her face started to turn blue, she raised her hand, trying to tell him something but quickly died.

The doctor was shocked, wondering what went wrong so suddenly. Then he turned around and saw our friend Tyrone, a janitor in the Clinic, who had unplugged the life-support equipment in order to connect his vacuum cleaner.

And you thought Tyrone had become a heart-surgeon!

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A 5-year old boy went to visit his grandmother one day.

Playing with his toys in her bedroom while grandma was dusting, he looked up and said, 'Grandma, how come you don't have a boyfriend now that Grandpa went to heaven?'  

Grandma replied, 'Honey, my TV is my boyfriend. I can sit in my bedroom and watch it all day long.  The religious programs make me feel good and the comedies make me laugh... I'm happy with my TV as my boyfriend.'  

Grandma turned on the TV, and the reception was terrible. She started adjusting the knobs, trying to get the picture in focus. Frustrated, she started hitting the backside of the TV hoping to fix the problem.  

The little boy heard the doorbell ring, so he hurried to open the door and there stood Grandma's minister. 

The minister said, 'Hello son, is your Grandma home?'  

The little boy replied, 'Yeah, she's in the bedroom bangin' her boyfriend.'

 

 The minister fainted.

 

 

The Sunday Rumble: 19.7.15

One of our Aussies is missing!   Well, he was up until yesterday, anyway.  I refer, of course to the estimable 'AussieD' who has graced these columns with distinction for absolute yonks.  However, foolish but brave, 'AussieD' undertook a holiday trip to this 'septic Isle' - and he then went on the missing list.  A search was instigated around the seamier parts of Soho but no trace was found bar a few empty cans of Fosters.  Yesterday, I managed to contact him and a misunderstanding was sorted out.  I assumed he was on a quick tourist trip of the type usually arranged for visiting Aussies - you know, three days in Soho then a day in Stratford to say they've been there and back to Soho again.  But not so, apparently he is on 'le Grande Tour' covering not only Britain but also the continent.  He promises me that he will return to these distinguished columns as soon as he gets back to 'Oz'.

 

All the boring-snoring news not worth printing:  You can tell it's Summertime when you sense that the dandruff-ridden hacks of Fleet Street are prepared to print any old garbage just so long as it fills a few pages. Thus, we've had The Sun ("We love it!") showing us an old 1933 home-made movie film of various royals, including Her Maj, aged about 7 at the time, larking about on a lawn and practicing the latest rage of the time - Nazi salutes.  Her uncle Edward is in the group and we all know that he was an admirer of Hitler and maintained his admiration up to at least as far as the war and perhaps even further.  None of this impinges on the reputation of Her Maj and her immediate family who, if I may remind you, chose to remain in London throughout the blitz.  I really do 'love the Sun' even if I never read it but this non-story smacks of desperation.

 

Whatever happened to "peak oil"?   I remember years ago that when I first ventured into the wilder Leftist fringes of Blogdom all the 'Greenies' were shrieking about 'peak oil', that is, the notion that due to the greed of human consumption soon oil would run out.  My opinion that one should never disregard human ingenuity and that solutions would appear both in techniques for making oil/gas go further and also in finding new sources for it.  Needless to say, I was pelted with rubbish and told that I knew nothing.  This week, the Rigzone site had an article on the 'Utica' shale site which spans West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York - but it's still not the biggest site in the USA.  Hitherto, the US Geological Society estimated the 'Utica' field had a potential of 38 trillion cubic feet of gas and 950 million barrels of oil.  That was three years ago but today the figures have been revised upwards by West Virginia University to 782 trillion cubic feet of gas and 1.9 billion barrels of oil.  The Iranians (and Saudis and Russians) had better get selling their oil/gas as fast as they can because it's only a matter of time before the price drops like a stone.  God bless America!  (Hat tip to IHTM)

 

Take cover!   A quite terrifying sight on my TV today, in between the non-stop bloody 'tippy-tappy-putt-putt' as all those idiots up in Scotland play hockey-at-the halt through a veritable tempest of rain and wind, as 'Dim Dave' purses his little lips and goes all macho and militaristic on American TV telling the 'cousins' that we are side by side with them and share their determination to utterly destroy IS.  Not content with frightening the pants off me with that, the BBC then marched on Gen. Richards, former 'Chief of Tits' and a man who provided no answers to our military humiliations in Iraq or Afghanistan but who now stands directly behind Dave prodding him in the arse with a bayonet and urging him to 'crack on'!  Apart from having our bedraggled name on the flag, so to speak, the Americans have absolutely no use for us and our titchy, pathetic air force so we should just cheer them on from the side-lines but keep well out of it.  It can only be a matter of time before the 'Hairies' get hold of some AA missiles and you can bet that it will be a Brit plane which is hit first and we will be forced to watch the captured pilot having his head chopped off!  Dave is a tit, too!

 

Julie Birchill thrashes around in her anguish:   I am second to none in my admiration of Julie Birchill, the polemicist.  Equally, I am derisive of Julie Birchill, the grieving mother who moans and groans about the adversities of life and how she should have done more to support her drug-obsessed son who hung himself recently.  She lists various things she might have done as well as measures that should be taken by the government to assist drug-addicts and the mentally ill.  She misses entirely, of course, the one single thing she could have done which was to be a dull, boring, proper wife and mother instead of the rip-roaring, drug-taking, lesbian-loving, multi-husbanded tearaway that she was.  That way, her son might have glimpsed a completely different, safer, saner world.

 

Two brains Krugman:   Well, actually he might well have more than just two brains, I mean, what with him being a Nobel prize winner in economics and all that.

 

Anyway, he's brainy enough to back both ends against the middle:

1998: “So what are the effects of increasing minimum wages?  Any Econ 101 student can tell you the answer: The higher wage reduces the quantity of labor demanded, and hence leads to unemployment.”  

2015: “There’s just no evidence that raising the minimum wage costs jobs…”

Yeah, well, er, thanks for that, Professor, I think . . .

Hat tip to IHTM

 

  No more rumbles today

 

 

Come back, 'Cleggy', all is forgiven

Now look, I demand my right to be at the head of the queue of those wishing to give 'Cleggy' a good kicking now that he is well and truly 'down and out' and serving a 5-year sentence 'ooop north' in Sheffield when he was secretly hoping not to be returned to parliament but instead to be offered a European sinecure somewhere warm and Mediterranean.  I deserve my place at the head of the queue because over recent years I have earned a 'Long Service and Bad Conduct' medal in my campaign to rid us of this unctuous upstart ... but ... but ... let us not be too hasty, 'the times they are a-changing!'  Perhaps, just, perhaps, it's time to cry, "Come back, Cleggy, all is forgiven!"

The other day I thought my neighbour had gone mad and was drilling holes through the wall but it turned out to be the new leader of the il-Lib-non-Dem party being interviewed on radio.  My God, the man spits out words faster and longer than a Vickers machine-gun!  "Calm down, dear", I thought as he raced in high-speed circles like a car at Le Mans and making much the same racket.  I don't know what he was saying because for once I found the 'do-flicker-thingie' and zapped him.  This year the Lib-Dem MPs will have no difficulty in reaching their party conference to be held in the village hall at Snodbury-Futtocks-on-the-Hill because they will all fit into a people carrier.  If this zillion-words-a-minute maniac remains as their party leader then after the next election all they will need is a motor bike!

 

There he is, Mr. Tim Farron MP, and let me tell you that he talks the way he looks!  There is some irrelevant tosh being chucked around on the grounds that Mr. Farron is a convinced, evangelical Christian.  Happily, Ms. Isabel Hardman over at The Coffee House dismisses all that and points out, sensibly, that if you were to question all MPs on their "world view" you might wish to emigrate - well, she doesn't put it quite like that but go read her very sensible article.

I don't know what Mr. Farron believes in and I care even less.  However, I don't think I can stand listening to his fusillades of words over the next five years.  I may have to consider Australia - yeeeeeeeees, quite!

 

 

First it was endless 'plink-plonk', now it's 'tippy-tappy-putt-putt'!

A few days ago I was moaning about the endless 'plink-plonk' showing on my TV screen as the entire country came to a halt for Wimbledon.  No sooner was that gone, along with 'grunt-grumble' Murray, than we're now into non-stop 'tippy-tappy-putt-putt' from somewhere north of the border.  I gather this particular location is the premier golf course in the entire world.  Well, I can tell you now, having gazed at it for two days, it has to be the most boring bit of Jock countryside you could ever wish to avoid.  It's as flat as a witch's tit and you can see miles and miles and miles of endlessly boring Jock countryside.  The course itself is covered in a thousand and one little hillocks and is regularly swept by gale-force winds which change direction every hour on the hour. Thus, the result of the game is a total lottery!

Of course, 'back in the day', the golfers indulged their eccentricities by dressing up for pantos, wearing ghastly, loud check-trousers, hideous shirts covered, occasionally, by even more hideous sweaters and that at least provided us all with some good belly laughs as we realised what appalling taste they had.  But today, under the iron grip of their sponsors, they all dress more or less the same in grey/blue/black track suit uniforms of the sort you see chaps wearing down the gym - or in jail!

That's not to say that there hasn't been some amusement to be derived from this eye-stabbingly tedious 'game'.  There has been the sight of the great Tiger Woods being well and truly out-played by amateurs - too, too delicious!  Then there was Sir Nick Faldo - 'Sir'!  What's he ever done to deserve a 'Sir-hood' when a Great Man of the Theatre such as myself who has electrified audiences the length and breadth of, er, well, Twickenham passes unrewarded by Her Maj?  Where was I?  Oh yes, poor old Faldo being driven up and down the course in a little buggy because he'd lost his balls - or something like that!

I realise I may have ruined several old friendships with mates who live and breathe 'tippy-tappy-putt-putt' and I'm sorry but, honestly, there's only so much one can put up with.  Thank God it only lasts four days! 

 

What Greeks began the Italians will finish

Regular readers may recall that from time to time over recent years I have repeated my claim that it will be Italy that finally brings down the shaky edifice of the EU.  I am not an economist so I am unable to flourish stats to prove my point.  However, I do have a shrewd idea, some might call it a prejudice, as to the reality beneath Italian political society.  In a nutshell, it's mendacious, crooked, corrupt and rotten to the core.  Yes, of course, there are honourable - and brave - Italians who are aware of the fact that their beautiful country is being flushed down a sewer and who do try to struggle against the tide of filth but, alas, they are few and far between.

I will not attempt to sum up the total economic situation in Italy, instead I will simply repeat one statistic from an article in The Daily Telegraph by Nick Squires, youth unemployment in Italy is over 40%!  Eh?  What?  40%!  In the meantime, of course, the country is drowning in immigrants from across the Med and more from the East.  Mr. Squire's grim but well worth reading article just concentrates on conditions in Rome which appear to be squalid, shambolic and near collapse.  Reading some of the grim comments  from readers below the article it appears that the rest of Italy is in a similar condition of advanced decay.

I really do weep for Italy because many years ago we had two holidays there, one on the Amalfi coast and the other just outside Florence, and I loved the country.  But there is no avoiding the inevitable, it's arrivederci, Italia!  And when it happens it will make the Greek imbroglio look like a picnic!

 

A star was born, er, but nobody noticed #4

Yes, sorry, yet another turgid chapter from my less than scintillating theatrical history.  I heard a rumour to the effect that our 'neighbours', Teddington Theatre Club (TTC), were planning a production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee.  Out of curiosity I bought a script and I can still remember vividly where I was when finally I turned the last page, sat back in relief and hoped that I would never meet any of those ghastly people ever again!  Well, needless to say, I failed to get another part I was after and so, tart that I am, I thought I would take another look at the play.

I am always careful to avoid superlatives especially when it comes to 'luvviedom' but that play is drama at its very best.  It isn't easy to watch (or act!) because it shows four people slowly but surely flaying the skin off each other.  In essence, a middle-aged college professor and his equally middle-aged wife living on a campus somewhere in the America north east and after a staff drinks party, invite back to their house a very much younger married couple, he being at the start of his academic teaching career.  Then, slowly but inexorably, the psychological blood begins to flow!  It becomes clear that the older and more sophisticated couple, George and Martha, have considerable marital problems and soon their vicious battles embroil the youngsters, Nick and Honey, who, and no surprise here, have their domestic problems, too.

It all sounds too ghastly for words but Edward Albee pulls it off by complying with Aristotle's three principles of theatrical unity, that is, unity of place (one location), unity of action (the plot extends uninterrupted by sub-plots) and unity of time (that is, theatre time equals real time).  In this play all the action is centred on the living-room of George and Martha.  The play runs nearly three hours with two small intervals and covers just the one evening in the lives of the characters just as it is one evening in the lives of the audience.  The director of our production decided, brilliantly, to play it in traverse, that is, with the audience on two sides.  Thus, we the actors were like mice scuttling about in a cage in a laboratory.  The feeling of claustrophobia was intense. 

 

Again, playing an American, I had the problem of getting the accent right - or at least, as right as I could.  George was an uptight, Massachusetts academic and I remembered that sort of 'Brahmin' type spoke very similarly to upper-class Brits.  It's very easy to do a Brit toff's voice because all you have to do is lock the lower jaw so that it barely moves.  Suddenly, you'll find yourself hitting all those consonants that hitherto you simply slurred over - well, at least I do!  Then add the faintest of American accents and you come out sounding like Cary Grant even if, as in my case, I didn't much look like him!

The lady in the photo whose name I have forgotten (mea culpa!) was an absolute eye-opener for me.  I spent weeks before the rehearsals trying to work out the psychological imperatives driving George to do and say what he does and then I met my 'Martha'!  She didn't bother with any of that pseudo-intellectual guff, she just got on and acted the part the way the words led her.  She was brilliant, truly, the star of the show.  I'm glad I did  the play because although it is exceedingly tough stuff it is drama at its very best.  Alas, the film, which starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton who were made for the roles of Martha and George not least because I suspect that they shared many of their characteristics, never quite works for me.  Obviously it was rewritten and the action escapes outside the confines of the living-room which deflates the claustrophobia.

I suppose it is still performed here and there so if a production comes near you I do urge you to give it a try.  The smaller the theatre, by the way, the better it will work.

 

Will the kiddie-winkies and the Neanderthals take over Labour?

I ask because that eye-ball rolling Leftie, Jeremy Corbyn MP, who entered the race for the leadership at 100/1 odds has now moved to 5/1 and there are distinct rumours circulating that he is now poised to take the Labour party leadership.  Obviously, the fact that he is somewhere to the Left of Karl Marx means that the Neanderthals who lead the unions are in full support.  In addition, there are the thousands of 'wannabe' Russell Brands who constitute the 'kiddie-winkie caucus' and provided that Corbyn can spell out his policies in words of only one syllable they, too, will rally in support.  That just leaves the rump of middle-aged, middle-class, traditional and fairly sensible Labour party members but their numbers, alas, have been shrinking for years and the past five years of 'the Milipede' have decimated their ranks.  On top of that, some Tories who are all "very naughty boys" have been joining the Labour party for £3 and voting for Corbyn - shockin'!

Whoever wins the leadership is going to face a truly Herculean task in making the Labour party electable.  Frankly, only an implosion by the Tory government will allow them even to sniff at victory for at least fifteen years.  (Mind you, the Tories are quite capable of it!)  Part of me is cheering and jeering but part of me is not.  Our system depends on a vigorous opposition to keep governments honest, well, fairly honest!  Fraser Nelson sums it up over at The Coffee House:

But on a serious note, Britain really would be the loser if Corbyn wins. If that happens, Labour really will go into meltdown – the question will not be whether it will win in 2020; it’s whether it will survive until 2020. Every government needs a strong, hungry and effective opposition – especially this government, which is prone to to alternate between complacency and panic. The depressing thing about David Cameron is that he just doesn’t function properly unless someone is holding his feet to the fire. [My emphasis]  If no one does, then we’ll have worse government. No one – Labour or Tory – will benefit.

Part of the problem is the decline of interest in politics in general.  The days when joining either Labour or Conservative parties was the norm for millions of people have long gone.  Ideology of any sort is not encouraged and government has become 'managerial', merely a corporate effort to ensure the trains run on time!

 

I'm not lazy, honestly I'm not!

Just quoting chunks of other people's writing is not 'good practice' on a respectable blog, after all, it's the job of the blogger to do the writing for good or ill - and I heard that!  But I am a subscriber to In Pursuit of Copiousness, a site that sends out quotations from past and present literature.  To be honest, most of the quotes leave me untouched but today's is from 'No Country for Old Men' by Cormac McCarthy.  One of my top favourite films and I like McCarthy's writing despite his idiosyncratic style.  This, I assume is the grizzled old sheriff played superbly in the film by Tommy Lee Jones:

 

“Here a year or two back me and Loretta went to a conference in Corpus Christi and I got set next to this woman, she was the wife of somebody or other. And she kept talkin about the right wing this and the right wing that. I aint even sure what she meant by it. The people I know are mostly just common people. Common as dirt, as the sayin goes. I told her that and she looked at me funny. She thought I was sayin somethin bad about em, but of course that’s a high compliment in my part of the world. She kept on, kept on. Finally told me, said: I dont like the way this country is headed. I want my granddaughter to be able to have an abortion. And I said well mam I dont think you got any worries about the way this country is headed. The way I see it goin I dont have much doubt but what she’ll be able to have an abortion. I’m goin to say that not only will she be able to have an abortion, she’ll be able to have you put to sleep. Which pretty much ended the conversation.”

 

– Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men (pp. 196-197)

In a nutshell!

 

 

Bloody Frogs and damn Yankees, too!

Honestly, what my poor country has had to put up with over the years!  Well, before I go off on one I had better explain.  Recently a dear friend gave me a terrific history book entitled "La Grande Armée" by Georges Blond.  Yes, I know, a history of Bonaparte's army and written by a Frenchman - quelle horreure!  But Blonde is an excellent historian and he does not simply recline around the palaces and the General Headquarters, he takes you down to 'grognard' level to help you understand what life - and death - was like for the ordinary soldiers in Bonaparte's army.

Anyway, he starts quite properly with the French army forming up around the Boulogne area waiting their chance to cross the channel and finish off, once and for all time, 'les rosbifs'.  At its height, Bonaparte had about 140,000 men waiting for the word to go, so Britain faced an almighty threat.  But then, up rocks this damned Yankee, Robert Fulton, of whom I had never heard until I read this book.  He actually designed and built the first working submarine - out of wood!  And then the rascal invented torpedoes and mines to go with it.  All of this he offered to the French who, thank God (He is obviously a Brit), they were too thick to accept.  Then the get-rich-quick kid from 'over there' crossed the Channel and offered it to us Brits - and, yes, you're right, we were too thick to accept it as well!

I'm only on page 42 and I am utterly captivated by this book.  Treat yourselves - but buy it via Kindle if you can because it weighs a ton!

 

When will the first bomb go off?

I ask because Greece has just been conquered without a shot being fired.  Greece is no longer an independent state with it's own foreign and economic policies made by its own government and endorsed by its own parliament.  It is now the first openly colonial vassal-state of the United States of Europe and its affairs will be run entirely by sundry apparatchiks in Berlin-Brussels.  I stress 'openly' because, of course, there are several others, like Portugal, Ireland and Spain whose governments like to pretend that they are independent and they are just so long as they keep repeating, "Ja, mein Herr!".  But the Greeks, now, have nothing with which to hide their humiliation. 

They, or their political leaders, share much of the blame because none of them had the guts to walk out, suffer mightily, and then gradually regain their prosperity by means of their own efforts and their own currency.  The Greek people are not craven.  I suspect that at the moment they are seething quietly, still in a state of shock, but as the Euro-ratchets are turned tighter and tighter and ever tighter, shock will give way to fury - and then 'there will be blood'.

I just hope the Euro-fanatics in their arrogance make every effort to crush all Greek opposition using whatever means they have.  Similarly, I don't just hope but actually pray that they will swagger on with their policy of insisting that British funds are used to help pay for part of this Greek 'deal'.  Little Georgie Osborne is stamping his foot and insisting that we will not pay but the Euro-fanatics are puffed up with 'victory' and they're stupid enough to insist.  Good!  Then, hopefully, the British people will see the true nature of the leaders of the United States of Europe. 'Dim Dave' now has no chance of coming back from his negotiations (pleadings?) with more than the pickings of his nose!  So when the referendum comes, possibly in the midst of a bloody Greek insurrection, then, Britain, you will know what to do - vote 'OUT'!

 

I'm a berk, ooops, sorry, I mean, I'm a Burke

Or to be precise, I'm a 'Burkean'.  I think I always have been without realising it because I have never had much detailed knowledge concerning Edmund Burke, he was simply a name that floated in the background of some of my history books.  Now, however, I have read Jesse Norman's superb biography and all is revealed.

Burke, despite being Anglo-Irish, was a quintessential Englishman.  Decent in his private life and equally so in his political philosophy.  He could see when the balance of the State was dangerously out of kilter either in the form of over-weaning Royalty or their lickspittles in the aristocratic Tory party.  Thus, he spent most of his life in the Whig party which was not without its faults but within which he tried, tried and tried again to move in the right direction.

You shall know a man by his enemies, so they say, and Burke's enemies were the continental (mainly French) philosophes, like Rousseau, who were captured by the new scientific revolution and saw Mankind as merely a huge collection of indistinguishable molecules which could not be ordered but which must be left to do as their will took them.  Individual liberty (or licence?) was their driving force and its malignancy lives with us to this day in the Anglo-American sphere.

Burke saw that individualism was not the sum total of Man's parts.  Man was and is always a communal animal.  Whether it be via family, or locality, or religion or politics, always Man seeks to form communities or groups through which particular desires can be satisfied or at least proclaimed.  This proclivity of Man reaches its heights in the formation of political parties who can be free to push and pull within the confines of a free parliament.  Thus, Burke is the man who can claim to have formed the beginnings of the Party system in Britain through which the views of the many can be expressed, roughly but never perfectly, by the few.

Today, he is seen as a (small 'c') conservative although he spent most of his life fighting against the great bastions of Tory misrule.  Despite his own Protestantism he constantly urged the emancipation of the Catholic Church both in England and in Ireland.  He waged constant political and legal 'warfare' against the East India Company which he saw was an oppressive, greedy monopolist literally grinding the faces of the poor in India.  He urged the King and his dim Tory sycophants to deal fairly with the American colonialists.  All to no avail as we now know.

It is difficult to summarise his philosophy into a logical body of thought, in the manner of a Rousseau, or later, a Marx.  Burke tended to take events and judge them separately based on their inherent pros and cons as tested against his natural instincts and intelligence.  Thus, when it came to revolution he was all in favour of the 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688 because despite his support for Catholic emancipation he realised that England was now a Protestant nation and King James's plots amounted in effect to a religious coup de main.  However, he was entirely sympathetic to, albeit, sorry for, the American revolution.  The French revolution, however, was an absolute anathema to him and everything he believed in.  He foresaw immediately that it would be a total disaster not just for France and its people but for all of Europe.  By the time the Napoleonic wars ended in that little field in Waterloo, millions had perished from Russia to Spain.

I am truly grateful to Mr.Jesse Norman for his excellent biography of a fascinating man and a truly great Englishman.  The book educated me in the easiest possible way being written with a light, elegant but careful touch.  I recommend you buy a copy for your Summer hols reading:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Edmund-Burke-Visionary-Invented-Politics/dp/0007489641

 

Your Monday Funnies: 13.7.15

Dammit, I've just had that lad George Osborne on the 'phone moaning because production stats have fallen like a stone this morning and he reckons it's because the Monday Funnies are late, and will I kindly pull my finger out and get on with cheering up the proles.  Well, sorry and all that but I had to visit my quack and then go to the local clinic for some X-rays and, of course, I had to pay a visit to my favourite coffee shop for an 'Americano' (I'm still not sure what that means but I am assured it is the strongest black coffee available) and a portion of my favourite almond and lemon slice.  So better late than never . . .

This first is a quote:

“Paradise would be a place where everybody has guaranteed employment, free
comprehensive healthcare, free education, free food, free housing, free clothing, free utilities, and only law enforcement has guns. And believe it or not, such a place does indeed already exist: It's called Prison."  

Sheriff Joe Arpaio

Maricopa County, Arizona

Is that man running for President and if not why not?!

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::;

And now some totally un-PC one liners:

 

It has been announced that the police are going to be allowed to use water cannons on rioters.  They are putting in some Tide washing powder to stop the coloureds from running. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Two Muslims have crashed a speedboat into the Thames barrier in London. 

Police think it might be the start of Ram-a-dam. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Following the riots in Tottenham, it's important to remind ourselves that not all black people are stereotypical liars, thieves and arsonists. Many are drug dealers. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Riots in Birmingham last month caused over £1 million worth of improvements.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

 

Eleven people were hanging on a rope, under a helicopter.

10 men and 1 woman.

The rope was not strong enough to carry them all, so they decided that one had
to leave because otherwise they were all going to fall.

They weren't able to choose that person, until the woman gave a very touching
speech.

She said that she would voluntarily let go of the rope, because, as a woman,
she was used to giving up everything for her husband and kids or for men in
general, and was used to always making sacrifices with little in return.

As soon as she finished her speech, all the men started clapping...

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

 

A man wanted to get married. He was having trouble choosing among three likely candidates. He gives each woman a present of $5,000 and watches to see what they do with the money.

The first does a total makeover. She goes to a fancy beauty salon, gets her
hair done, new makeup; buys several new outfits and dresses up very
nicely for the man. She tells him that she has done this to be more
attractive for him because she loves him so much.

The man was impressed.

The second goes shopping to buy the man gifts. She gets him a new set of
golf clubs, some new gizmos for his computer, and some expensive
clothes. As she presents these gifts, she tells him that she has spent
all the money on him because she loves him so much.

Again, the man was impressed.

The third invests the money in the stock market She earns several times the
$5,000. She gives him back his $5,000 and reinvests the remainder in a
joint account. She tells him that she wants to save for their future
because she loves him so much. 

Obviously, the man was impressed. 

The man thought for a long time about what each woman had done with the
money he'd given her.

Then he married the one with the biggest BOOBS.

Men are like that, you know!

 

Right, back to work and get those productivity figures up!

 

 

 

 

Well done, Bercow!

Normally, of course, the Bercows are useful to this blog for providing a steady stream of prattishness which provides the 'Editor-in-Chief', er, that's me, with useful in-fillers when I slump here in my PJs and dressing-gown without a single thought between my ears.  He is one of nature's natural clowns and all the funnier because he is totally unaware of it.  But hanging in my sitting-room opposite my chair is Bernard Buffet's painting of a clown and the melancholy that lies beneath the cheerful grease-paint is sobering.

         

 

    John Bercow                                   A clown 

As we all found out a few weeks ago, his flamboyant, brain-dead wife, Sally, ran off with another man.  Not just any old man but Bercow's cousin.  Yeeeeees, quite!  Having looked at his photo I can only suggest that amongst the other remedial treatments she obviously needs, a visit to Specsavers might be in order.

Not just a fat-faced slap-head but a lawyer, too - yuk!  Anyway, according to The Mail today this rat has slunk back home to his missus and the Bercow's have come to an arrangement where-by they will still be apart but will share long weekends together with their children.  As always, of course, it is the children who are the 'collateral damage' in these 'civil wars'.  It is for them and them alone that I wish the Bercows well in their tentative rapprochement.

 

'The Kraut' squidges 'The Donald'

My e-pal, JK, frequently raises the mysterious subject of 'The Donald' but fails to be explicit on whether or not he thinks 'The Donald' is, in the famous words of "1066 and All That", "A Good Thing" or "A Bad thing".  I'm not complaining because deciphering JK's comments is the equivalent of doing The Times' crossword puzzle, it's entertaining and educational.  Of course, I do realise that I, too, may be sinking into incomprehensibility (cor, that's a Big Word!) because many of my British and European readers might not have a clue as to who 'The Donald' is - and even worse, they might not give a toss anyway!

So let me explain that 'The Donald' is a 'title' for Mr. Donald Trump, the well-know, er, well, I'm not too sure what he is well-known for except being exceedingly rich - and there's nothing wrong in that. A quick skim-read of his Wiki entry gives the flavour of the man and this particular extract adds some spice:

In March 1990, after an analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott said that Trump's Taj Mahal project would initially "break records" but would fail before the end of that year, Trump threatened to sue the firm unless the analyst recanted or was fired. The analyst refused to retract the statements, and was fired by his firm.^[177] Taj Mahal declared bankruptcy for the first time in November 1990.^[178] A defamation lawsuit by the analyst against Trump for $2 million was settled out of court.^[179] The analyst's statements regarding the Taj Mahal's prospects were later called "stunningly accurate".^[180]

From his Wiki entry it appears that 'The Donald' is an exceedingly successful businessman and that not the least of his abilities seems to be the way in which he can raise enormous sums of money for grand projects which later go bust but only after 'The Donald' has made a graceful exit!  There is, I feel, more than a touch of 'Del Boy' about him.

 

              

         The Donald                                                                        Del Boy

Once again, 'The Donald' has announced his intention to run for President of the United States.  It's probably not true but it seems like he has been making this announcement every four years for the last 30 years!  And each time, he suddenly withdraws his candidacy at the last moment.  Is this, I ask myself, a man on whom one can rely?  Well, 'The Kraut' doesn't think so.  According to The Daily Caller:

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer ripped into real estate mogul Donald Trump Monday night, dismissing him as a “rodeo clown” and his antics as “not serious politics.”

In the same article,  George Will, another eminent American commentator, said this:

“Donald Trump now has learned from this that every four or five days, he could say something that would make him sound like the guy nursing his sixth beer at the end of a bar in Duluth,” Will said earlier in the program. “But because he’s a billionaire, people will pay attention to it, and he can take all the oxygen out of this campaign with regularly recurring outrages like this.”

Sorry, Donald, old chap, but it sounds to me that you're 'not quite 16 annas to the rupee'.  Of course, that applies to most of the politicians in the race but there, you see, is the art and craft of the true politician - they never let it show.  You, on the other hand, flaunt it.

 

Who will rid me of this never-ending plink-plonk?

God, Wimbledon fortnight is 13 days too long!  I have mentioned before my hatred for all hearties, well, with one or two, or maybe three, exceptions but these 'plink-plonk' merchants drive me up the wall.  My normally serene, even temper - did you say something? - is tested to the limit not least by the fact that the 'Memsahib' has Wimbledon running on both of our TV sets so there is no escape.  Still, at least I can sit in one room with the sound turned off and thus escape the shrieks from the so-called ladies and the grunts from the, er, well, 'grunts'!  Of course, one or two of the 'gels' are rather attractive but do remind me not to make a pass at Miss Sharipova, I dread to think what she sounds like at, if I may put it delicately, a climactic moment which, naturally, she would quickly reach in my arms - look, if you're going to keep interrupting!

Then, dread thought, there is the 'MacMurray' phenomenon!

 

          

               Judy Murray                                                        Andy Murray

Look, I'm sure if you met him you would find him to be a dear, sweet, wee bairn and it is just an unfortunate defect of birth that he has a mouth the size of the Channel tunnel.  Can't think where it came from.  Anyway, none of that would matter if he would just stop issuing forth from it a series of incomprehensible Jock grunts and mumbles.

Oh Lord, the ladies' final is about to start so I think I'll just slip out and do some gardening!

 

'Roussell Branditis' finally gets the message

And the message to Alexis Tspiras, the Russell Brand of Greek politics, is as clear as a King Tiger tank, "For you, ze var iss over!"  Well, why should we worry?  As that brilliant geo-politician, the late Mr. Neville Chamberlain, once said, it's all "a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing."  (Er, how did that one work out for you, then, Mr. Chamberlain?)  In fact, of course, we should start worrying immediately and plan for a horrendous European future.  The likes of 'Juncker the Drunker' and his henchmen will be cock-a-hoop at their success in winning the second battle of Thermopylae.  (You will remember, of course, that at the first battle all the Spartans died, so farewell, then, Comrade Tspiras, your time is nearly up!)

On the back of this triumphant victory, the Euro-fanatics will move everything to tighten their control over the nation states of Europe.  They will now treat 'Dim Dave' with the contempt he no doubt deserves but which will mean that he will now be lucky even to be handed a fig leaf to cover his nakedness as he tries to renegotiate British terms inside the EU.  This will enrage the Europhobes in the Tory party and Dave will come under intense pressure to urge an 'OUT' vote at the referendum.  Were he to refuse, it could create a permanent split in the Tory party leading to a mass exodus towards the welcoming arms of UKIP, or perhaps, the formation of a new Right wing party.  I should add, if only for political balance, that the Tories might not be the only party to split over Europe.  There have been one or two remarks made recently by Labour pols indicating their dissatisfaction with the Berlin-Brussels axis.

 ADDITIONAL:  The following is quoted by the ever-excellent Café Hayek from a friend of theirs called Roger Koppl.  His link, alas, is on Facebook - which I do n0t do!

Can we please stop pretending to know better than “the Greeks” what “the Greeks” should do! Greek pensions, austerity, and debt are international political issues only because the Troika bailed out private creditors such as Goldman Sachs. The Troika could have let Greece go into default and let Goldman et al. be left holding the bag. [My emphasis]  But allowing private losses to large, nominally private financial institutions is not a “viable” option for the apparatchiks of the international financial system. Now the majority of supposedly informed and intelligent opinion on the topic is given over to opining on the proper division of suffering between German taxpayers and Greek residents. The profits from Greek financing have been privatized. The losses are being socialized. [My emphasis]  It’s the cronyism of the experts, and it’s dirty business.

 

 

'So, the other day I 'ad this cheetah in my cab ...'

It's difficult to tell who is the most affronted in this photo from The Telegraph:

Photo: Barcroft

The gentleman concerned, or should I say, the concerned gentleman, is Mr. Mickey McCaldin, an Irish tourist visiting Kenya's Maasai Mara game reserve.  The spotted intruder who jumped in without so much as a 'by your leave' did not leave his name!

According to Mr. David Horsey, who took the photo:

"The [cheetah] family had been looking for a gazelle for a few days with no luck.

"As we'd been [following the cheetah family] around for a couple of days, I think they were used to the jeep so the mum jumped on top to get a better view.

"I think the other cheetah tried to follow her up but went a different way.

"Once it had got bored of Mickey it turned away and looked out of the vehicle for a few minutes.

"It just jumped out afterwards."

Pheeeew!  I bet the 'Oirish' celebrations that night went on for some time and I understand the local lions complained about the noise and the hippos said, "Heh! There goes the neighbourhood."

 

A star was born, er, but nobody noticed #3

My fame as an actor may not have gone round the globe but it did creep slowly the five miles down the road from Twickenham to the Teddington Theatre Club (TTC).  Actually, it was probably that I heard on the grapevine (both clubs shared members) that there was a cracking play coming up with an excellent role in it for a middle-aged man.  Like all actors, 'am' or 'pro', I am a tart at heart and so off I went to try and get it.  The play was Pack of Lies written by Hugh Whitemore.

This is a gem of a play but very, very English, and English of an earlier, post-war England.  Set in 1960/61, it is a play of betrayal, both national and personal.  At its heart are a middle-aged, middle-class family, Barbara and Bob Jackson and their teen-age daughter living in that most suburban of London suburbs, Ruislip.  The play centres on Barbara, a quiet, shy, introverted Englishwoman, you might say, a typical suburban housewife of that period.  Across the road live another couple, Peter and Helen Kroger, who are 'Canadian'.  Helen is outgoing and friendly, bordering on brash in an exotic North American way which breaks down Barbara's English reserve and a real friendship blossoms.

Or at least, it seems 'real' up until the moment that a Mr. Stewart of MI5 calls on the Jacksons one evening.  Apparently, there is a man visiting the Krogers fairly regularly who is of interest to them and they would appreciate it awfully if Mr. and Mrs. Jackson would allow them the use of their spare bedroom as an observation post to watch for this man's comings and goings - but, of course, 'mum's the word', lips sealed and all that sort of thing and definitely absolutely nothing to be said to the Krogers.  Thus, Barbara's friendship with Helen is put to its first test by this small piece of deceit.  Later, it transpires that actually it is the Krogers as well as their visitor, 'Gordon Lonsdale', who is of interest to MI5 because all of them are part of a Russian spy network.  Barbara's tiny betrayal is now seen against the massive betrayal of her 'friend', Helen Kroger.  The strain on her is the emotional centre of the play.

Of course, as some of you are beginning to recall, this entire story is based on the all too true story of the Portland spy ring via which 'Gordon Lonsdale' (aka: Konon Trofimovich Molody, a Russian KGB operative) subverted an ex-navy Petty Officer and his girlfriend who both worked at the Navy's submarine HQ in Portland into betraying their country.  'Lonsdale' took his information to the 'Krogers' in Ruislip where their quiet suburban house was later found to be packed with the very latest high speed communications and micro-dot equipment. 

In 1961 all of them were arrested.  The 'Krogers', it turned out, were in fact Morris and Leontine Cohen, both American communists who had worked for Soviet espionage for decades including operations against the atomic weapons centre at Los Alamos.  There is another theatrical link to the 'Krogers'.  Whilst in Britain he set himself up as an antiquarian book dealer.  Through this trade he met and socialised with Frank Doel, the manager of an antiquarian book shop in Charing Cross Road.  Doel, of course, was the other half of a long-running exchange of letters between himself and Helene Hanff, the New York writer, who later published these letters in book form and which were transformed into both a play and film '84 Charing Cross Road', a production of which I wrote about recently.  To add a little spice to this tale, from Wiki: 

Whilst in London, the Cohens were friends with Frank and Nora Doel. Frank Doel is the bookseller whose correspondence with the author Helene Hanff became the bestseller, 84 Charing Cross Road. In her follow-up book, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, Hanff reported an anecdote told her by Nora Doel.^[2] One New Year's Eve, the Doels gave a party at which Lona Cohen (aka Helen Kroger)

"arrived looking very exotic in a long black evening dress. 'Helen, you look like a Russian spy!' said Nora. And Helen laughed and Peter laughed and a few months later Nora picked up the morning paper and discovered that Helen and Peter Kruger were Russian spies."

Better watch out, it's a small world! 

Anyway, here I am playing the very smooth Mr. Stewart from MI5 soothing away the fears of the nice, innocent and trusting Jacksons.  Be honest - what do you think of the 'rug'?  As I told you in my last tedious post on my acting career, my hair fell out in chunks after the strain of playing Barney Cashman so TTC allowed me to hire a tremendously expensive wig from the top wig- supplier in the West End.  Smooth and blond - or what?  The actress playing Barbara was one of the very best I ever worked with, Jenny Samuels (Tudor), who worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company and even went on a company tour to New York with one of their productions but, like so many others, she never quite made the breakthrough and had to settle down as a spinster librarian in Teddington.  She was a very dear friend who, alas, died too early.

I really enjoyed Pack of Lies, beautifully observed and so very English of that period with emotions only hinted at but all the more painful for it.

 

Whoopi for Whoopi!

I don't quite know why but these days I seem to be surrounded by names but I am not too sure who they are or even why they are, if you follow my meaning.  If you don't then just think the name 'Russell Brand' and ask yourself who is he and why does he exist?  Yeeeeees, quite, you take my point.  There is obviously a 'Planet Sleb' out there somewhere on which these people, or phantoms, exist but don't ask me where.

All of that grumpy old man stuff brings me to Ms. Whoopi Goldberg.  At least she has an interesting name, unlike Russell Brand, because the first name makes her sound very happy and the second name sounds very Jewish which is always a mark in favour so far as I am concerned.  Needless to say, this being the fantastical world of 'Slebdom', she is neither very happy nor at all Jewish being as black as the ace of spades, because she's just indulged in a major hissy-fit and I am happy to say that I am fully in support!

Apparently there is another black American actor who has been worshipped by the suckers the people of the USA for decades, a certain Mr. Bill Cosby.  I vaguely remember him in some TV series back in the day when TVs ran on steam but for the life of me I can't remember what it was all about.  Anyway, he became a huge Hollywood star and has been living off it for decades - and why not?  But alas and alack, today there are reports from former girlies, now plump matrons, I assume, who claim - and I know you will find this hard to believe - that this Hollywood star made improper sexual advances on them.  Yeah, yeah, whodathunkit?!

Anyway these accusations have reached fever pitch in the American media which means that Mr. Cosby is as good as hung, drawn and quartered.  At this point, up pops Whoopi - hallelujah! - on her TV show and lays into not only the self-same media that helped her to fame and fortune but also the thousands of her fans who have criticised her for defending Mr. Cosby. As she points out to the howling mob, to date Mr. Cosby faces no charges and has not even been arrested!  The Wrap reports:

Goldberg compared Cosby’s case to the boys of the Duke lacrosse team, who were falsely accused of rape. Her voice gradually grew louder as she continued to respond to people attacking her for defending the comedian.

Well done, Whoopi, jolly good show and all that, er, but could you remind me exactly who you are  . . .

 

'That woman' must be spinning in her grave!

And what, pray, is a 'living wage'?  I ask because for some inexplicable reason, although cheap headlines and even cheaper political gamesmanship are almost certainly involved, a so-called Conservative chancellor has seen fit to make it mandatory at £9 an hour.  Are we to believe that anyone being paid ten bob less than this 'living wage' will automatically drop dead?  And what business is it of yours, Chancellor, to tell the butcher, the baker and the candle-stick maker what they should or should not pay their employees?

We are told constantly that employment rates in the UK exceed anywhere in Europe which is part of the reason all those shrewd young immigrants do whatever they can to reach these shores.  They don't hang around in France which has the highest minimum wage in Europe because, guess what, they also have one of the highest un-employment rates.  Have you been taking private lessons from Pres. Hollande, Chancellor?  And were you not one of that chorus of Tory bully boys who laid into poor little 'Milipede' for daring to suggest that he would control the price of the nation's energy?  Now you have gone one better, or worse, by controlling the nation's wage rates!

And so, netted out, you have squeezed yet more money from the Banks and Big Business - and all for what, pray?  Oh, to keep our defence budget up to 2% of GDP, a notional figure once plucked from the air by American politicians.  You only have to read the 'stream of unconsciousness' emanating from that hot air merchant, General the Lord Dannatt, as he is styled these days.  Here is an example of what passes for thinking in the High Command:

The spending announcement will also be very welcome news in Washington, reaffirming Britain’s status as a dependable ally of the United States. For too long now, service chiefs in America have fretted about our apparent military decline, with many voices declaring that we were becoming less capable, less reliable and not their partner of choice.

Er, would that be the same "service chiefs in America" who have just axed another 40,000 soldiers, m'Lud?  And the same "service chiefs in America" who despised our hopeless operational failings in Iraq and Afghanistan and were forced to take over entire British sectors because you and the other total tits in command were clueless?  Well, at least "General the Lord Dannat' is happy because according to The Telegraph summarising his views:

Spending measures announced in the Chancellor's July Budget mean Britain can  hold its head high on the world stage

Someone please pass the sick bag - quickly!

 

 

So what's the Greek for 'when I say NO I mean YES'?

I ask because of a startling story from 'A E-P' in today's Telegraph in which he reports that the Greek prime Minister,  Roussell Branditis - oooops, sorry, - Alexis Tsipras, actually wanted a 'YES' result in the Greek referendum despite urging his people to vote 'NO'!  I don't wish to cast aspersions, Ambrose, old chap, but you really do need to be careful out there when the ouzo starts flowing! 

                       

                                        Russell Brand                                          Greek prime minister

 

Ambrose isn't too clear on his sources but according to him:

Greek premier Alexis Tsipras never expected to win Sunday's referendum on EMU bail-out terms, let alone to preside over a blazing national revolt against foreign control. 

He called the snap vote with the expectation - and intention - of losing it. The plan was to put up a good fight, accept honourable defeat, and hand over the keys of the Maximos Mansion, leaving it to others to implement the June 25 "ultimatum" and suffer the opprobrium.

Eh?!  What?!  Oh God, pass the ouzo!  Well, like just about everyone else, I guess it is now just a matter of days until 'Grexit' occurs and then the non-fun begins.  The Greek people will suffer mightily as all the necessities of life disappear.  Not just jobs and cash but hospitals will close, medical supplies will disappear, food will become scarce particularly as winter draws on, energy supplies will become intermittent and so, gloomily, on and on.  It will not do to be old and frail in Greece over the next few years.  The only positive thing is that in Greek society the family looms large and they will need that buttress to cling to.  Meanwhile, I assume the parasites in Berlin-Brussels will be organising long-term relief supplies.

It is now clear what a monstrosity the whole idea of a single currency was and yet still the likes of Clegg and Kenneth Clarke defend it to the death, er, that's Greek deaths, of course!

 

Such fun watching the constructionists dodging the collapsing structures!

In Berlin-Brussels and in Beijing they are learning, the hard way, a bit of old Scottish wisdom written by 'Rabbie' Burns who was upset by the sight of ruined mouse nest he had inadvertently ploughed through:

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane         [you aren't alone]
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft a-gley, 
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promised joy.

But alas, somehow, don't tell me how, I don't think the likes of 'Junker the Drunker' or Pres. Xi Jingpin will be well versed in Burns' poetry, any more than all the other lunatics in history who have been swept away with delusions of grandeur for some man-made scheme 'guaranteed' to bring ever-lasting happiness.

The Chinese bureaucracy, like their European equivalents, simply cannot understand the limits of Man's knowledge.  Thus, the Chinese, in attempting to move away from total control in order to grasp the tempting fruit of capitalism fail to realise that the fruits concerned develop in the fertile fields of liberty backed by an independent judiciary.  The Eurocrats, by contrast, already gifted with liberty by the blood and treasure of two of the most democratic nations on the planet, have cast the gift away in pursuit of a chimera in which liberty must be sacrificed to the construction of an entirely new political and economic model.

Today, we can see the cracks and fissures in these 'constructs' and it is only a matter of time before collapse.  "There will be blood", there always is because some how, for some reason, we never learn.

 

 

Never mind Athens, just keep watching Beijing

 Following my usual editorial policy (who sniggered?) that one picture is worth a thousand words from me, here is a chart from The Telegraph which should take your mind off all those silly hissy-fits being thrown about all over Europe:

Please note the time scale at the top - just three weeks!  Now we can sit back and watch yet another authoritarian, command and control regime which played with free market ideas without ever really understanding how they work.  Just like Berlin-Brussels, really!

However, to be fair to the Chinese authorities, all is not entirely lost, it just depends when, as a Chinese peasant or factory worker, you decided to gamble your savings on what looked like "a stairway to paradise":

If it was before April this year you may still be on a profit but I bet you're a worried man!  But not as worried as the apparatchiks in the CPC (Communist Party of China) who by now may realise, as Mr. Peter Spence reports, that "There are now more stock market investors in China than members of the country's Communist party, according to Bloomberg - 90m versus 87.7m."  'Clikey'!

Anyway, the CPC in something of a panic over their late discovery that, unlike State statistics, what goes up in free markets usually comes down again, are now desperately trying to 'do a Canute'.  According to 'Tyler Durden' at Zero Hedge, having used various financial policy shifts to no avail they have now reverted to type and in order to stop the selling that has depressed prices they have banned selling by all pension funds!

What's the Chinese for 'free market operations'?  Probably, whatever I say it is, according to the First Secretary of the CPC!

ADDITIONAL 7.7.15:  No good news this morning.  This from Zero Hedge:

Despite all the hopes and prayers of illiterate farmers everywhere, Chinese stocks refuse to hold a bid and down 3-4% at the open amid suspension of around 160 individual securities. In the pre-open to open, Shanghai Composite is down 3.2%, Shenzhen is off 3.5%, and China's Nasdaq - ChiNext is down 3.8%. This leaves ChiNext down over 40% from its highs as the cost of insuring downside in Chinese stocks explodes to record highs. As China goes through the 1929 playbook to save its 'market', it appears "momentum" has shifted.

Confucious, he say, he who catch capitalist tiger by tail ... aaaaaaaaaaargh!

 

Your Monday Funnies: 6.7.15

Not much time this morning as we prepare for a day out at one of the most exciting places in Dorset - Sutton Poyntz.  Yeeeeees, quite, as well as speaking incomprehensibly they're not too hot on spelling either down here in the south west but I blame the Romans who were responsible for much of Dorchester which is close by.  Anyway, here are your Funnies and the first, of course, is in the worst possible taste - so no change there, then:

Effective suicide counselling:
       
A desperate looking woman stood poised on the edge of a high cliff about to jump off.

A filthy tramp wandering by, stopped and said, "Look, since you'll be dead in a few minutes and it won't matter to you, how about a shag before you go?"  

She screamed, "NO! Sod off! You filthy old bastard!  

He shrugged and turned away, saying "Okay, I'll just go and wait at the bottom then."

       
She didn't jump.........

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Nightmare Dinner Party 

She wanted to serve her guests mushroom-smothered steak, but she had no
mushrooms and no time to buy them.  Her husband suggested, "Why don't you go pick some of the mushrooms that are growing wild down by the stream? 

"No, some wild mushrooms are poisonous." 

"Well, I see squirrels eating them and they're OK." 

So she picked a bunch and washed, sliced and sautéed them for her dinner.
Then she went out on the back porch and gave Spot, their dog, a double handful. Spot ate every bite.

All morning long, she watched the dog.  The wild mushrooms hadn't affected him after a few hours, so she decided to use them. 

The meal was a great success. 

After everyone had finished, her daughter came in and whispered in her ear, "Mum, Spot is dead." 

Trying to keep her head about her, she left the room as quickly as possible, called the doctor and told him what had happened. 

The doctor said, "That's bad, but I think we can take care of it. I'll call for an ambulance and I'll be there as quickly as I can.  We'll give everyone enemas and we'll pump out their stomachs and everything will be fine. Just keep them calm." 

Before long they started to hear the sirens as the ambulance tore down the road.  The Paramedics and the doctor had their suitcases, syringes, and a stomach pump.  One by one, they took each person into the bathroom, gave them an enema, and pumped out their stomach.  After the last one was done the doctor came out and said, "Everything will be okay now," and with that he left. 

The hosts and the guests were all weak and knackered sitting around the living room when the daughter came in and said to her mum, "I can't believe that guy!" 

"What guy?"                                                                

"You know, that one who ran over Spot; he never even slowed down."

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This is grossly Kiwi-ist - so you can guess where it comes from!


Barry, the Aussie builder, was going through a house he had just built, with the woman who owned it.

She was telling him what colours to paint each room. They went into the first room and she said, "This room to be a light blue."

The builder went to  the front door and yelled out "Green side up!" As he went back she said the next room was to be red.

The builder again went to the front door and called out "Green side up!" Once back with her, she said "This one to be tan."

And again he went to the front door and yelled "Green side up!" The lady, very curious,  said "I keep telling you different colours but you always yell "Green side up."  What do you say that for?"

"Oh, don't you worry about that," said the builder, "I've got a couple of Kiwi’s laying turf out front."

 

Right, back to work!  I'm off to sample the strange delights of Sutton Poynz - so long as I can convince my satnav that it's not a spelling mistake!

 

A star was born, er, but nobody noticed: #2

Yes, emboldened by global success, oh alright then, by my success in the 100-seat Mary Wallace Theatre in Twickenham in the role of Lucio (see my earlier post), I was conned into my next role by the very attractive lady secretary of the club who assured me, darling, that I was just so, so right for another huge but desirable role.  I was still very new to the club so I didn't like to ask why, if it was so desirable, that they didn't have actors queuing at the stage door?  No, no, I was told with great sincerity (later I learned that she was an exceedingly accomplished actress in her own right!), the role could have been written for me.

Well, what could I do?  I accepted and then bought a copy of the script to find out that the hero I was so right to play was Barney Cashman, a middle-aged, married dope desperately trying to get the hang of the sexual revolution before he was too old.  The play was written in 1969 by one of the great American playwrights, Neil Simon.  I think if you asked me why I still love America I would answer that it's because they have been making me laugh since the old black-and-white Laurel & Hardy films. At the time, late '80s, Neil Simon was simply the latest in a long line.  Alas, the play is now somewhat dated but I hope that after a few more decades it will come back to be appreciated again.

Barney is a decent married man who runs a fish restaurant.  Throughout the play there is a running gag about his worry that his hands smell of fish and might ruin his attempted love life.  He courted his wife when she was sixteen and they married and now they have three children.  Alas, at the age of 47 he realises that everyone except him is getting off on the sexual revolution and he is desperate to have an exciting affair.  Unfortunately, he is such a cheap 'schmuk' that he uses his mother's apartment during the day when she is out working.  His first try is with a very tough 'Noo Yawk' lady he picked up in his restaurant and who eats men for breakfast!  Poor Barney is hopelessly out-gunned and the assignation ends in disaster.

His second try is with Elaine 'Bobbi' Navazio who is best described as a young, er, 'actress/singer/dancer/mod-el'!  She is a complete 'ditzy' and was played superbly by this young woman whose name, I am ashamed to say, has vanished from my memory.  She really was an excellent young actress but so nervous that Stage Management had to push her on stage at the opening.

 

Bobbi inhabits a sub-world so different from anything poor Barney has experienced that it might as well have been Mars.  Here is part of the dialogue:

Bobbi: If I don't get a show in New York I may do a series of one-night concerts in New Zealand [takes out some photos] - I just wanted to show you some stills from this movie I was in so you'll believe I'm really an actress.  That's me on location in Malibu.  And these are the stars, Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, and the Beach Boys.

Barney:  Oh, yes.

Bobbi: It was a cute picture.  They used the basic story of 'Wuthering Heights' and worked in surf riders.

[...]

Bobbi:  [Picks up the phone and listens]  Can you believe this?

Barney:  Who are you calling?

Bobbi:  My answering service!  At least, she promised she'd take messages for me.  I have the worst damn luck with room-mates.

Barney:  You live with someone now?

Bobbi:  Heinrich Himmler.  I can't afford my own place yet so in the meantime I'm living with this Nazi vocal teacher.  She's not just German, she's actually Nazi.  Wears black shirts, boots, the whole thing.

Barney:  My God!

Bobbi:  Great coach, though - if you don't mind being whipped.

Barney:  You're not serious.

Bobbi:  Oh, Wilhelmina Weirdo.  She paid four hundred dollars to have a three inch scar put on her face.  My suspicion is she's sexually - what's the word?

Barney:  Aberrated?

Bobbi:  No worse than that.

Barney:  Worse than aberrated!

By now poor dumb Barney is teetering on a world he never knew existed.  His Jewish, middle-class sensibilities are totally scrambled and thus his second attempt at infidelity ends in fiasco.  By now, in some desperation, Barney tries his hand - with his wife's best friend - yeeeees, quite!  - Jeanette Fisher.  This has arisen as a result of a minor, very minor, flirtation at a recent party.  Poor Barney gets it all wrong - again - because Jeanette is a manic depressive who is distraught over her husband's infidelities.

Well, at least I can remember the name of this actress, Mo Pompini, not least because she has remained a good friend.  'Barney the Schmuk', tries everything including an effort to appear 'mucho-macho' but everything he tries dissolves in Jeanette's non-stop tears.

Last of the Red Hot Lovers by Neil Simon is a diamond of a play.  It plots the track of a 'wannabe' Lothario who, following a trio of disasters, realises that he is better off being true to himself - and to his wife.  Along the way there is a superb script written by one of the funniest writers on Broadway.  I was still close to 'corpsing' over some of the lines and 'business' even during the final run.  I had two problems with the play.  The first, which the attractive and seductive lady secretary failed to warn me, was that whoever played Barney was on stage for the entire play which was, in effect, a non-stop two-hander.  No wonder I was the only sucker actor they could find!  Second, there might have been a problem with the accent which had to be 'Noo Yawk' Jewish.  Fortunately, whatever other failings I possess as an actor, I am quite good at mimicking other people's accents, thus, in developing Barney's I kept the late, great Walther Matthau in the front of my mind at all times!

There was one slightly unfortunate result of this colossal acting effort on my part - a few months later my hair began to fall out in large tufts! Thus, I shared the same fate as many young teen-age girls and late, middle-age ladies, the embarrassment of alopecia. Never mind, my next role as a super smooth MI5 officer meant that I was provided with a blond wig by one of the top theatrical wig-makers in the West End!

I am spending the day down Dorchester way tomorrow so you will have to wait until the evening for my definitive views on what looks like a romping win for the 'NOs' in Greece.  My advice to Dave - beware the Greeks bearing anything!

 

 

I want Janet Daley to have my babies!

No, no, that's not an insult, it's a compliment, despite what you might think!  Of course, there are certain, er, difficulties involved given that she's 71 and I'm 76 - mind you, an exceedingly vigorous 76, let me tell you, well, I will be after I have taken my meds!

To be serious, Ms. Daley is an American-born journalist who I do not think would be insulted to be described as an Anglo-American given that a great deal of her life has been spent here where, amongst other things, she has become a regular commentator at The Daily Telegraph.  I gather that in her youth she was a red-flag-waving Leftie which is hardly surprising given that she attended the University of California, Berkely - yeeeeeeees, quite!  Well, we all do silly things when we're young but real growing up entails recognising the silliness later on.

She is a woman with wide interests including philosophy, art, design and literature as well as politics.  Her commentary is almost always astute to the point where you, the reader (oh, alright then, me!) tend to end up slapping your forehead and wondering aloud why you didn't think of that!  Today she points to the real tragedy/comedy of the Greek-Euro stand-off as a clash between to two political philosophies which are so out of date that it's rather like watching Monty Python knights fighting each other with plastic swords.

She sums up the position of the Greek people with exquisite wit:

To the extent that they have had any involvement – or culpability – in this matter, the Greek people must come to terms with the consequences of electing Russell Brand to head their government.

Oh God, I wish I'd thought of that one!

But there is something to be learned from this: there has to be, doesn’t there? Otherwise it would just be too grotesquely stupid, too appalling, too depressing to be endured. The key is in the drama’s tragic inevitability (a subject which Greeks understand well): the two antagonistic camps in this epic confrontation are playing up to the worst possible caricatures of themselves. The EU or, properly speaking, the troika of international financial governance, are presenting themselves as a parody of merciless, demonic money-lenders who are now determined to humiliate and pauperise their victims. This theme of public mortification is one that Syriza has made much of. And their punitive repression appears to license childish rebellion on the part of those who resist their diktats.

This pair of outmoded maniacs are re-fighting battles which were won and lost decades ago.  'Russell Brandism' is the stuff of student unions and, 'as any fule do no', there is no one thicker than your average 'Uni' student - except possibly some of their tutors!  The outmoded old coots in Brussels are simply refighting the post WWI world all over again.  A world in which free peoples voted in favour of Hitler and Mussolini (and even those without a vote in Russia simply adored their 'glorious leader', Joseph Stalin!), thus, there can be no more democracy permitted because 'The People' (dread words!) cannot be trusted. 

What we used to call, back in the '40s and '50s, "the man in Whitehall" who always, according to him, "knew best" has now metastasised into the Brussels apparatchik who will bring down ruin and starvation in your land if you fail to obey orders!  There will be added relish to their disciplinarian regime when they get around to applying it to us British.  Despite old enmities built up over the centuries between the various European nations, they will bury them all on an instant when given the chance to express their mutual detestation of all thing British.

Don't say I, er, and the distinguished Ms. Daley, didn't tell you!

 

"Don't panic, Capt. Mainwaring!"

Yes, once again I quote the wise and famous words of Cpl. Jones from Dad's Army, even if, when he uttered them, he was always in a state of high panic!  (If anyone asks you exactly what 'irony' is, use that as a perfect example!)  Anyway, it is perhaps a bit early for me to offer this advice because as usual the GBP (Great British Public) show no signs of panicking in the face of sundry Islamist 'loony-toons' shooting them or trying to blow them up or chopping their heads off if they're actually daft enough to travel to Islamic countries.  In my lifetime there was real cause for panic what with the Germans raining bombs down on our cities killing and wounding tens of thousands.  Of course, I, being a true blue Brit did not panic because, er, well, actually I was only around two to four years old at the time and I had been evacuated to safety - pheeeeew!  Had I been older, of course, I would have done a 'Cpl. Jones' with all the histrionics at my disposal!  But wimps like me apart, the Brits of WWII did what they're awfully good at - they just got on with things the best they could.

Thus it is today but the contemporary GBP has to cope with a factor not experienced by our WWII generation, another  sort of 'GBP' - the Great British Press!  Even a glance at the WWII press gives an impression of quiet, factual reporting of events and, yes, I know they were under censorship rules but even so the language was restrained and sensible.  Can we say that of the reportage of Islamist attacks on British  people today?  Well, they sort of try but, alas, I can only give them 'E' for Effort.  The drive for sensationalism is such that all balance goes out of the editorial window.  TV news with its relentless 24-hour coverage leads the way by showing the same gory pictures over and over and over.

One thing the media could lead the way on is language.  I always used to smile at the amount of time various Communist parties spent on choosing the exact word or phrase to convey an idea, whether true or, usually, false.  Thus, today, thanks to the media, all we hear about are 'terrorists'.  Now that word has a definite romantic appeal to certain kinds of people, you know, the sort who still worship the memory of that disgusting, psychopathic 'scrote', Che Guevara.  We need another word to define them more accurately and bring their image more into focus.  'Psychos', perhaps, or just plain 'Loonies'.  Young people in particular might not be quite so keen to join an outfit generally referred to with disdain and derision.

 

 

Like two sets of in-laws meeting!

First of all apologies for my late arrival but a) it has been a scorcher, b) it was qualifying for the Brit GP and c) Wimbledon is on.  Pretty feeble excuses given that a) I tend to cringe indoors if it's hot, b) my interest in F1 motor racing is fairly minimal and c) I loathe 'Plinky-Plonk', as I call tennis.  So alright then, I'll 'fess up, I have been feeling dead idle all day!

Also I have a partial excuse in the absolute fact that the news recently has been tedious beyond belief.  There is simply nothing more to be said or written concerning Greece and its travailles.  Everybody and his uncle, and his cousin, and his wife's best friend, have all gone on and bloody on about Greece, including me, and the absolutely obvious fact is that no-one knows for sure what will happen.  The Greek government are a classic example of the loonies taking over the asylum.  The Euro-crazies stumble around in circles praying - for the first time in their sordid little lives, I would suspect! - that the Greeks vote 'YES' at which point they will produce the whips and chains and truncheons to restore discipline - vee haf vays of making you obey!  If the Greeks vote 'NO' then they will produce the whips and chains and truncheons to make sure everyone else obeys - and that includes that utter drip David Cameron.  No disaster must be allowed to occur without suitable advantages being taken.  Thus, whichever way the Greeks go, the rest of Europe will be bound even tighter to the Berlin-Brussels axis.

Actually, none of that was the main reason for me writing this post.  Sorry, what I wanted to tell you about was a book review I saw in The Telegraph today - alas, I can't seem to find the review to provide you with a link.  Anyway, it's called Yanks and Limeys and is written by Niall Barr.  It concentrates on what might be called the 'marriage of convenience' between America and Britain, beginning in WWI and ending, er, well, I'm not sure, but given the goon in the White House and the total tits in and around Westminster, then about now I would guess.

Obviously it dwells considerably on Anglo-American relationships between the top brass on both sides.  From what I have read of the subject in other books I would suggest mutual detestation is the only way to describe it.  There is some comfort for us Brits in the fact that whatever 'mutual detestation ' existed between the allies was as nothing compared to that which existed inside the US military.  I would venture that many an American general or admiral loathed their opposite numbers with far greater venom than they did the Germans!

Apparently, Eisenhower comes out of it pretty well which given his patience and endurance in trying to rule over this nest of vipers is well deserved.  He might not have been a strategic genius but who else could have stopped Montgomery and Patton from killing each other?

 

When the wilfully clever 'stoopids' destroy the innocent

In an article in The Daily Mail, Natalie Clarke touches upon the brief, 29-year-old life of Jack Landesman who killed himself recently.  Landesman was the son of Julie Birchill and that is all it takes for you to make the link to my title.  Let me say immediately that Ms. Birchill is one of my favourite commentators, she is never less than acidic and can spot a pomposity at a hundred paces.  Alas, what she cannot do, and it was obvious even to an outsider like me for some years, is look in the mirror and apply the same searing truth-telling to herself.

Birchill was, if you like, a 'daughter' of the great 1960s sexual revolution when finally western societies embraced the world views of people like Nietzsche and Ibsen.  'Self' was, and still is, the new godhead.  Thus, Birchill racketed through a hedonistic life style in which those who depended on her to the utmost, her children, were, in effect, spurned.  One, quite literally; and the other, the unfortunate Jack, led to believe  by his mother's example that gratification of self stood far higher than discipline or sacrifice.  

Today, and it began before her son's suicide, Julie Birchill is seemingly lost in the rough seas between Christianity and Zionism and it seems from her Wiki entry that each time she approaches the shore of either of these religions the life-long practitioners drive her off with sharp sticks!  She is, it seems to me, one of those infuriatingly good people who are just too dumb to see the trail of wreckage they have left behind themselves.

Even so, in this, the most harrowing of times for her, I wish her well.

(NOTE: I'm out for most of tomorrow so no blogging)

 

A star was born, er, but no-one noticed: #1

Continuing the utterly fascinating saga of my theatrical career - who said that? - in which my talent rose and rose without anyone actually noticing, I come to my third role, that of Lucio in Measure for Measure.  Now I began this series of posts because I was provoked by an interview with a theatrical grandee who pointed out that many of Shakespeare's jokes are totally unfunny.  I could have told him that having once played Launcelot Gobbo for six nights  - and having 'died the death' on each of them! 

However, I had now picked up 'the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd' and so I discovered the Richmond Shakespeare Society with their small but perfectly adequate - and permanent! - theatre by the side of the Thames at Twickenham.  They produced several shows a year but at least two were always Shakespeare.  I was 'in like Flynn'! 

Lucio was a very different character from Gobbo.  Not a 'clown' as such but just a very funny and outrageous character.  When I heard that Measure for Measure was coming  up I thought it might be a good idea to read the play - yeeeeees, quite!  Anyway, I sat down in my tiny study one night, picked up the script and within a few pages I was chuckling and then in certain places I simply burst out laughing - and that was just reading it off the page!  You can read a decent synopsis of the play at Wiki.

The director decided on a modern dress production.  (As did I when much later I directed it - Big Mistake!)  However, she wanted Lucio played as a down-market spiv-pimp type.  I had trouble with this because it is obvious from the words that although as a human being he is a total ratbag, by breeding and upbringing he is a gentleman.  Still, the director directs and must be obeyed and so 'I just followed orders', as it were.  I also had a difficulty with the accent.  She wanted me to sound like an escapee from East Enders but delivering Shakespearean text without hitting a consonant was not easy.  In the end I had the bright idea of chewing gum which, if you try it, you will see that it is almost impossible to hit your consonants.  After a few rehearsals with the gum, I had the sounds in my head and I could then dispense with the gum! 

 

This was a picture taken in the dressing-room with one of my fellow actors, a lovely lady as you can see, but alas, for the life of me, I cannot remember her name.  However, the main thing is that I got some laughs and after the aridity of Launcelot Gobbo I can't tell you what a bonanza that was.

My next performance was in a play which was so funny that I could hardly stop myself from 'corpsing' during performances. 

 

Portrait of a plonkerette

Sorry, sorry, about yesterday's no-show but, alas, funereal obligations intervened.  No, no, not mine - you should be so lucky! - but that of a friend and neighbour.  Somewhat idly later in the day I cruised the news but it is all so eye-stabbingly tedious and I really couldn't think of anything useful or even interesting to add to the mountains of commentary.

But then, this morning, I turned to The Telegraph to read an article concerning one of our leading lady 'plonkerettes' about whom I have snarled on previous occasions, but joy of joys, the article was written by yet another 'plonkerette' of championship proportions of whom I had never heard until today.  So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you not only Ms. Alison Saunders, our less than distinguished Director of Public Prosecutions but also Ms. Joan Smith, writer of nonsense.

 

 

                Humpty Dumpty                                                     Coco the clown

By now after several months in the job as DPP in which we have seen a steady stream of daft decisions, and the latest concerning the Janner case has caused such an uproar that Ms. Saunders has been forced to change yesterday's porridge which, I am informed, constitutes her mind! Well, we all know what a total 'plonkerette' she is but Ms. Joan Smith is a new kid on the block as far as I am concerned.  I simply cannot be bothered to analyse her piece in detail, if you're not sleeping well you can try it, but one piece of her personal life stands as a strong indicator concerning her inherent dumbness.  She had a 10-year relationship with Denis McShane, the well-known Parliamentarian thief and shagger extrordinaire.  Perhaps Ms. Smith uses the same brand of porridge as her heroine, Alison Saunders, because anyone with an ounce of judgment would spot McShane for the devious, lying, dishonest, little rat that he is.

I ask again, is there a factory, somewhere 'oooop north', where they churn out these dim-witted women?  And why can't it be taken over by that similar factory in south California which at least has the good sense to churn out dumb blondes with big tits to please elderly gentlemen like me as we slump semi-comatose before our TV sets?