DUFF & NONSENSE!

Site Bulletin and some Klee play

Just to warn you that normal service - who giggled? - may be slightly interrupted over this weekend because my IT Manager (aka: SoD) is descending and is threatening to sort out our entire computer system here at Chateaux Duff.  It is possible that I might be forced onto MS10 which will probably mean several weeks of night school to get the hang of it.  Sometimes I can't help thinking that stasis is much to be preferred to progress!

Anyway, to cheer you all up on this wet and windy Friday I am going to offer you another selection from Paul Klee, my favourite artist.  Don't bother trying to understand them or analyse them, just enjoy the colouring and the concepts and let your imagination do the rest.  Actually, if you look at them long enough you begin to see a sort of inner reality:

 

 

 

 

OH MY GAAAAAAARD!      Clicking through a Klee site, I've just stumbled on a reproduction of the tiny Penguin book cover that first introduced me to Paul Klee's work!  I still have it and I can remember exactly where I bought it - W. H. Smith in Guildford High Street, circa 1958 and it cost 2/6!  I had never heard of Paul Klee but the cover picture just took my eye and when I looked inside - I bought the book instantly:

 

 

 

 

 

Not boring you, am I?  I could go on - and on - but that's enough for today.

 

 

The Arkansas Report from your Somerset correspondent

Once again I am obliged to my regular contributor and archivist (unpaid), 'JK', for sending me a link to the 'Arktimes' in a comment thread below.  To be honest, JK, I couldn't work out what was in the link that pertained to the subject under discussion in the comment thread but it doesn't matter because that single page opened my eyes to life in deepest Arkansas - and it rather surprised me.

First of all there was a quite severe criticism of a local restaurant which is not something you usually expect in a local newspaper where all local businesses are praised indiscriminately - well, just in case they have advertising budget to spare - know what I mean?!  However, in 'Arkieland' they obviously tell it the way they see it!

Then there was an article on WWI posters which had been carefully preserved by a local resident.  Gosh, that gal has legs up to her armpits!

 

This warrior isn't actually collecting heads, just helmets, thank goodness!

 

After the Art we moved on to: The Oxford American, the quarterly literary magazine based in Little Rock and its newly appointed editor, Ms. Eliza Borné.

What?!  A French intellectual deep in the heart of Arkansas?  And with what appears to be the highest of high brows.  Sorry, JK, but your image of 'Arkieland' as a place where "men are men and the wimmin are double-breasted" is taking a bit of a knock.  The whole place seems more effete than Highgate!

Still, it's good to see that some things never change.  From a story in the side-bar:

Sen. Jake Files paid off a $6,868.16 hot check the same day he got a $30,000 loan from lobbyist Bruce Hawkins, records obtained by the Arkansas Times show.

Good ol' Jake, what would he do without his lifetime buddy, Bruce, who only lends the Senator the odd buck, or two, or 30 thousand, on the basis of a long and true friendship and nothing more.

Meanwhile I have made my reservation at the Revolution restaurant for Sunday brunch because they assure me in their ad that their Bloody Marys are the very best - so who cares what the food's like?  It is situated on President Clinton Avenue so I bet the waitresses are hot - can't wait!

 

My 'telly' cup overfloweth

If I tell you that yesterday afternoon and evening I watched more 'telly' than I have during the last six months it will provide you with the accurate idea that I am not a great fan of most of its product.  However, please don't think this displays some sort of snobby, superior intellect on my part because the fact is that I have been a 'telly-trogger' for most of my life but at 76 years the novelty has worn off and I can understand and even sympathise with the 'telly' producers as they struggle to find something - anything - new and intriguing to entertain me.

However, suddenly it has all come together for me and with the help of my trusty(?) 'do-flicker-recording-thingie' I settled down yesterday to watch some of the very best  of American crime thrillers - than which, etc, etc.  First, I watched the latest episode of Justified.  I have written about this series before and it is terrific even though I can barely understand a word and only have the vaguest understanding of the various plots.  This is not because of my inherent 'attention disorder syndrome' but simply because they all talk 'Kentuckianese' - yeeeeees, quite!  However, I am able at certain moments to follow the dialogue and I almost stand to applaud the writers who construct wonderfully old-fashioned, long and complex sentences for their characters to deliver in their melodic, rolling Kentucky accents - before they shoot each other!  Yes, indeed, the body count is enormous, so what's not to like?

Next, I watched the first episode of the very latest series of Fargo.  This, of course, was originally a Coen brothers film and really I don't need to say much more than that!  Set in frozen, small town Minnesota it has a deliciously complex set of story lines all with huge and very black threads running through them.  The acting is simply terrific!  The first episode was on last week so you still have time to use one of those 'catch-up-thingies' to watch it and I urge you to do so. 

Finally, last January, I watched the first episode of Breaking Bad on the DVD set given to me by the Memsahib last Christmas.  Don't ask me why but somehow, in someway, I never got round to watching the rest - even though I liked the opening episode - and yes, you and the Memsahib are right, I am a daft old coot!  Anyway, yesterday at my urging we both sat down to watch it together.  In fact, we watched the first three episodes!  Just excellent and I can't wait to see where the blundering chemistry school teacher cum amateur drug dealer is going to end up.

So all in all a lazy, hazy afternoon and evening but unfortunately all that televisual mental stimulus meant that when I went to bed I couldn't get to sleep so I ended up downstairs at one in the morning reading Napoleon's campaign history.  It's an exciting life!

 

Honestly, m'Lud, this will be my last act of thievery

(And if you believe that, you'll believe anything!)

I know, I know, I'm a recidivist nicker of other men's trifles but honestly, some of my fellow bloggers are just so good at turning up excellent stuff and I can't resist cutting and pasting.  Take that Malcolm Pollack at waka waka waka, for example, where did he find this quote from Montesquieu and then publish it just exactly as my own quiet but insistent misgivings concerning the dis-United States of America were rising to the surface?

“It is in the nature of a republic to have only a small territory; otherwise, it can scarcely continue to exist… In a large republic, the common good is sacrificed to a thousand considerations; it is subordinated to exceptions, it depends upon accidents. In a small one, the public good is better felt, better known, lies nearer to each citizen; abuses are less extensive there and consequently less protected.”

– The Spirit of the Laws, ch. 16

For some time now I have become increasingly worried at what seems to me to be the internal disintegration of the USA.  Their 'body politic' gives every sign of being rotten to the core and their political class seems both venal and vicious and stupid beyond belief.  I only watched about five minutes of the recent Congressional hearings into the Benghazi scandal but as an example of how to conduct such an important enquiry it was deeply depressing.  One expects a fair degree of viciousness in the amateur-land of 'Blogdom' but when you see practising politicians actually descending even lower than the worst sort of pig-ignorant blogger it is time to start worrying.

Mind you, I still cling to the slight hope that perhaps it was ever thus and that the only thing to have changed is that via the wonders of the 'internet-thingie' I can now see a lot more at first hand.  There is some evidence for this if you read any history of, say, the Kennedy clan, a bunch of Irish-American thugs who could have given the mafia a run for their money - in fact they did, I seem to remember!  It's just that in the old days of mere newspaper reports, usually days late, their true nature did not appear to us 'over here'.

Even so, it seems to me that the mutual antagonisms between Republicans and Democrats have reached such a low that I'm not sure how long America will be governable.  It is, of course, very, very early days, but I keep spotting the odd piece here or there in the American press suggesting, for example, that Texas should secede from the Union.  Absolute rubbish, the commentariat shout, it'll never happen!  Probably not, I agree, but not impossible and anyway it doesn't matter too much whether the Texans succeed or not the damage will be done even if they just try.

(Things to do right now so I will  publish what I have written so far and come back to it later on)

So, to continue . . .

Of course, political animosity is part and parcel of the democratic process but in America it is increasingly bedevilled by vicious black/white relations.  The Democrat party over recent years has inflicted on the black population even greater cruelties than the old, 19th century, southern aristocracy.  They have nurtured feelings of resentment as they have crowded impoverished blacks into big city ghettos, helped, indeed encouraged, the breakdown of black family life so that illegitimate birth rates to single girls is enormous and the men fall back on the only business available to them - the drug trade.  Needless to say, the Democrats have ensured that as many as possible are hanging from a government teat thus ensuring a large black vote in every election.  Perhaps from this distance I am not seeing straight but it seems to me that black/white relations have never been so bad.  What was once a southern, almost parochial, problem is now a threat to the entire United States.

Not satisfied with that, the Democrat party is busy hosing petrol on the fire by encouraging mass immigration from south of the Rio Grande thus providing themselves with yet another huge demographic they can quickly get on to government welfare rolls and thus ensure a steady supply of yet more hundreds of thousands of votes.  Quite what will happen when impoverished blacks realise that the even more impoverished Hispanics are starting to take their jobs because they will work for less is anyone's guess.  All of this leaves the Republicans floundering and divided in their responses which no doubt explains some of their vitriol.

Returning to Montesquieu's shrewd observation up above, there are some real-life examples which rather confirm his assessment.  The USA, as we can see before our eyes, is a huge but stumbling giant, and the infant EU is like one of those young teen-agers who shoot up taller than their parents far too quickly and then seem quite incapable of controlling their limbs.  Both the USA and the EU share another characteristic, they try, sort of, to run themselves on a roughly (very roughly!) democratic set of premises and there-in perhaps lies their weakness.  Consider two other national giants, Russia and China.  They make no effort to hide their rule by diktat.  And, to be honest, it seems to work for them - although their flirtation with international finance, trade and economics is leading them up an obvious dead end.

So perhaps the old saying is true, size does matter but, as it turns out, the bigger you are the more intractable the problems - and the harder you fall.  At the risk of re-igniting 'SoD' (see comments thread to earlier post), perhaps this is the strongest argument for us to avoid anything other than simple, straightforward trade deals with the EU and instead to concentrate on running our own 'parish pump' affairs the best we can.  Smaller is better!

VOTE LEAVE!

 

How dare The Telegraph defy me!

I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked that no sooner do I write an elegant post in praise of a true blue, er, well, black, actually, British sporting hero endowed with splendidly eccentric characteristics - I refer to Mr. Lewis Hamilton, see two posts below - than some dandruff-ridden oik scribbling for 'Her Majesty's Daily Telegraph' has the temerity to disagree with me!  Yes, I know, unbelievable!  His name is Callum Davis and he wears a beard - yeeeees, quite so, as my old boss in army counter-intelligence used to say, tapping his nose, never trust a fella' with a beard!

However, the irony is that Mr. Davis, after carefully loading his pen prior to his assassination effort, then shoots himself in the foot by writing an article that makes me admire Lewis Hamilton even more than I did before.  It is now quite clear that any other sporting 'heroes' should watch out if ever Mr. Davis decides to praise them!

 

 

Would Karl Marx have enjoyed the irony?

Somehow I doubt it, but then again, there wasn't much in life that that miserable old Prussian did enjoy except the sound of his own spoken words and the sight of the many tons of his own written words.  Well, he might not enjoy today's irony but that's no reason for us not to fall about helpless with giggles.  I am obliged to (another irony) The Wall Street Journal for the details, via Drudge.

Apparently, sundry Marxists are up in arms (metaphorically not literally, thank goodness) over the fact that these days you have to pay to enter Highgate cemetery to view the memorial where the old ratbag is buried.  Obviously the irony of the fact that Marx chose to pay extra to be buried in a privately-owned (SHLOCK-HORROR!) cemetery rather than rot away in the company of the plebs in government-owned sites escapes them.

As it happens, for many years Highgate cemetery has been run and maintained by a charity and they need the money lest the place fall into disrepair as it did not so long ago.  Needless to say, such real world practicalities sail straight over the empty heads of Karl's latter-day 'saints' so at least the old ratbag can be satisfied that the example of his teachings have taken root!

 

Jolly good show, Lewis, awfully well done!

By and large, taken in the round and weighing it all up, I loathe most champion 'hearties'.   Yes, of course, you are right that this stems from a secretly nurtured jealousy on my part but even so just ask yourself this, would you really look forward to dinner with a world champion in almost anything?  To be fair, I hardly follow any sports these days so yet again 'I know not where-of I scribble', so no change there, then!

Even so, I still retain a certain interest in F1 racing and I have enjoyed watching Lewis Hamilton's race to the top, not once, not twice, but thrice!  As a driver he is simply superb but what I also like about him is his persona, if I may call it that.  Gradually, over the years, he has developed into a genuine English eccentric.  Every time I catch a glimpse of him outside the race track he looks like a cross between Coco the Clown and one of those dummies in a shop window where the dressers have only half-finished changing the outfit.  Like a true eccentric, he sails through this with a complete lack of self-awareness.

Of course, we can never be party to the, er, 'conversations' that go on in the privacy of the pit garage and no doubt from time to time Lewis has indulged in 'handbags at dawn' but by and large, in public, he is always polite, pleasant and generous to friend and foe alike.  I think he is a very worthy triple champion and I wouldn't mind having dinner with him, er, especially if he sent over his private jet to whisk me off to California! 

 

Janet Daley gives me - and you - a slap!

And it was badly needed!  Come on, admit it, watching the Labour party turn overnight into a Polytechnic students' union or another chapter in the life of Dave Spart, has produced a giggle a minute.  Even 'Jezza' himself seems like an invention straight out of the old and hilarious Peter Simple columns of yesteryear and I confess that I have enjoyed the joke as much as anyone.  But Ms. Daley provides a chill warning and we need to heed it.

In essence she warns us that the current labour leadership plus, now, a huge swathe of their membership, have absolutely no interest in conventional democratic politics.  The catalyst for her has been the appointment by 'Jezza' of the utterly repugnant Seamus Milne as head of Labour's strategy and communications.  Milne is yet another in a long line of wealthy, upper-class, public school-educated hypocrites who hate their own country and grovel at the feet of any mass murderer provided they are suitably anti-western:

Mr Milne’s views are way, way beyond what is regarded as Left-wing in the North London circles where endless hours are spent talking half-baked anti-capitalist rubbish. He is a supporter of terrorist organisations, an undaunted apologist for the defunct Soviet system and a declared enemy of governments that support free markets.

So far, so normal, for a long line of English-hating toffs - one thinks of the '30s and the likes of Kim Philby and Oswald Mosley whose hatred of their own country drove them to treason but they were, so to speak, outsiders of the main political system.  Today, the Labour party is, as Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, right at the heart of the political establishment - and they hate it with a venom!

In my complacency, I have been looking forward to a series of humiliating and crushing defeats being inflicted on the Labour party beginning with next May's local elections.  However, Ms. Daley gives me another slap and warns me that the current Labour leadership don't give a rat's arse about the results of democratic elections, not least because they believe 'The People' are stupid and have been duped over the years and that it is necessary for real-politik thinkers like them to use 'other means'(!) to seize control and command of the nations affairs:

[T]he Left in its present incarnation is not really interested in arguments about how its own country’s democracy should be organised. And this is not just because it has given up on the idea of ever being elected by the benighted voters who have shamelessly succumbed to the bribery of “consumerism”. It is a positive thing, this renouncing of democratic ambition: the electoral process, known as “bourgeois democracy”, is seen as a fatal and deliberate distraction from the proper business of taking back power from the ruling class.

Real power – and thus real freedom – for the proletariat can come only through seizing the means of production and the economic levers of society. Parliaments, Houses of Congress and elected representative governments of all kinds are a sham because they give the people no direct ownership of the economic forces that control their lives. So the democratic process is worse than irrelevant: it is pernicious because it deceives the population into the false belief that it can decide its own fate.

We have never faced anything like this before in Britain.  Even the 'hard' Left government of Clement Attlee with its programme of mass nationalisation still, so to speak, played by the rules of the game.  Yes, when the Tories eventually won back power the unions kicked off on what seemed like a never-ending series of strikes for this, that or the other but there was never any suggestion by the Labour party leadership that the rules of the game should be ripped up and discarded.  But that is precisely what Corbyn, Milne, McDonnell and the massed ranks of Polytechnic students are aiming for:

We now have an official Opposition whose tacit goal is to discredit the entire enterprise of democratic government as we presently understand it. Having written off – on principle – the possibility of being elected, it can devote all of its time and energy – on principle – to being negative and destructive of public confidence in the political system.

Ironically, the “new kind of politics” will be about style rather than substance because it will consist of nothing but attempts to discredit any measure that the sitting Government takes without ever needing to offer substitute solutions. All you need to do to succeed in these terms is obstruct and attack, as recklessly and irresponsibly as you like. You can exploit every conceivable popular discontent without scruple or consistency. In the process, you do much more than bring the presiding party into disrepute. You make the whole business of elections seem futile. And that, as I said, is not an unfortunate accident: it is the whole point. 

I have said before that Ms. Daley, who was in her youth a hard Left activist, knows where-of she writes.  We are about to enter dangerous and uncharted territory.

 

 

Your Monday Funnies: 26.10.15

The first 'Funny' is really more a lesson of life, or at least, legal life:

A lawyer had a wife and 12 children and needed to move as his rental agreement was coming to an end for the home where he lived but was having difficulty in finding a new home.  

When he said he had 12 children, no one would rent a home to him because they knew that the children would destroy the home. 

He could not say that he had no children, he could not lie, after all, lawyers cannot and do not lie.  So, he had an idea: he sent his wife for a walk to the cemetery with 11 of the children. 

He took the remaining one with him to see homes with the Real Estate Agent.

He liked one of the homes and the agent asked: "How many children do you have?"  

He answered: "12 children". 

The agent asked "Where are the others ? 

The lawyer answered with a sad look, "They are in the cemetery with their mother". 

And that's the way he was able to rent a home for his family without lying 

MORAL: It is not necessary to lie, one only has to choose the right words.   

Lawyers don't lie, they are just creative!

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

 

Did you ever wonder why earrings became so popular with men? A man is at work one day when he notices that his co-worker is wearing an earring.  The man knows his co-worker to be a normally conservative fellow and is curious about his sudden change in "fashion sense."

The man walks up to him and says, "I didn't know you were into earrings."

"Don't make such a big deal, it's only an earring," he replies sheepishly.

 His friend falls silent for a few minutes, but then his curiosity prods him to ask, "So, how long have you been wearing one?"

 "Ever since my wife found it in my truck.”

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

 

A Hotel guest calls the Front desk and the clerk answers, "May I help you?"

 The man says, "Yes, I'm in room 858. You need to send someone to my room immediately.  I'm having an argument with my wife and she says she's going to jump out the window."

 The desk clerk says, "I'm sorry sir, but that's a personal matter."

 The man replies, "Listen you idiot. The window won't open... and that's a maintenance matter."

 

Right, that's your lot this morning and as you've all had an extra hour in bed the boss expects a rise in productivity this week!

 

The (late) Sunday Rumble: 25.10.15

Mea Culpa:   Yes, I'm sorry to be late today and my excuse is a mixture of 'Good News' and 'Bad News'.  The 'Bad News' is that I have been a bit under the weather recently such that I have no longer been able to boast/bore about my habit of hitting the swimming pool five days a week at 7.00 am - you may have noticed an unusual reticence on my part!  However, the 'Good news' is that the 'quacks' have put me on some new meds and as by coincidence we all get an extra hour in bed today, and as I feel a lot better, I decided to take the plunge.  Needless to say, most of the rest of the morning was spent recovering snoozing in bed.  This was followed by a stonking great lunch at The Tippling Philosopher pub and so I thought it best to get something down in writing before I snooze off again!

 

The war game gets, er, war-like:   Odd little story in The Telegraph this morning bringing news of an outbreak of warfare inside the 'high command' of the English Chess Federation.  Apparently one English Grand Master has defected - oh my Gaaaard! -  to the Welsh Chess Federation!  Was this, one wonders, a big mistake or perhaps a deeply cunning ploy?  Chess analysts are working on it.

 

It's 'Fuck the Frogs' year this year:   Apologies for the crude sub-title, I will explain.  Today ...

... gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day ...

because, of course, today is the 600th anniversary of the quite incredible battle of Agincourt when a small, sick, lame and halt English army (with a goodly number of Welshmen, too) literally slaughtered an enormous French army.  And, of course, as you know because I have reminded you(!), this year also saw the 200th anniversary of Waterloo.  No wonder the Frogs detest us!

 

The not quite so Secret Service:   A fascinating piece in The Telegraph, to be screened on BBC on Monday evening, by Frank Gardner, the BBC's Security Correspondent.  He obtained a sanctioned interview with two MI6 officers, one male, one female.  Of course, in the nature of such a thing it leaves more questions unanswered than otherwise but even so it provides a fascinating glimpse.  What is of great comfort to me as a died-in-the-wool traditionalist is that the head of MI6 is still referred to as 'C' and is still the only person allowed to sign letters in green ink.  Of course, whether or not they produce intelligence any more accurate than the tosh provided to Blair prior to Iraq is anybody's guess.  (Psssst!  Don't tell anyone but this is a photo of their HQ and if you slip me a few quid I'll tell you where it is!  Waddya mean, ya know already!)

 

 

"Blow the wind southerly":   Or northerly, or any direction you like, really, because it's an ill wind that doesn't blow the hot air emanating from the media back into their silly, alarmist faces.  I have more or less lost interest in global warming and all that jazz because it is now perfectly clear that the whole thing was a Leftie put-up job.  Hence, I don't visit the excellent 'Watts Up With That' site so often these days.  So I nearly missed a follow-up to all the alarmist rubbish concerning 'Hurricane Patricia' which was supposed to herald the end of Mexico but which ended up more like a wet fart.  However, what was interesting on the site was an anniversary that you will not see celebrated by 'Green War', Al Gore and their like. Yesterday, 24th October, was the 10th anniversary, or if you prefer, 3652 days (including leap years), since America was hit by a category 3 or higher hurricane.  Whodathunkit?

 

    No more rumbles tonight

 

 

VOTE LEAVE: #1

As regular readers will know, this blog is a shy, retiring sort of a blog not given to ramming its opinions down readers' throats, preferring instead to sit back and take a relaxed view of the world and its affairs.  BUT NOT ANY BLOODY MORE!

For years now I have been increasingly irritated by the EU which, it is now clear except to those who are in desperate need of Specsavers, is a German racket in which sundry European poltroons are dished out fancy titles, and even fancier salaries and exes to match, to 'strut their hour upon the stage' whilst pretending to run a fixed game thus distracting attention from their German masters.  Enough is enough!  I warned some time ago that I was pondering upon whether or not to become an 'activist' (who sniggered?), a class of person I normally avoid because they are usually so excruciatingly boring but today's news containing yet another abomination from Berlin-Brussels is the straw that has broken this particular camel's back.

The Telegraph sums up the story:

Farmers will be forced to erect billboards publicising the fact that they have received EU grants, or face having the money clawed back.

Thousands of landowners have been told they must put up permanent billboards which can be seen by the public, or face financial penalties. The new regulations led to warnings that farmers were being forced to become part of the “EU propaganda machine” in the run-up to a referendum on Britain’s membership.

In true Teutonic style the exact und and precise size has been stipulated 'und vee haf veys of making you obey':

Under the new Country Stewardship scheme, landowners receiving more than €500,000 (£388,000) must put up a 4ft by 6ft billboard.

Those receiving more than €50,000 (£38,825) of EU funding must put up a plaque of at least one square foot, while those getting €10,000 (£7,765) must display an A3 poster. Farmers will be expected to foot the bill for the signs themselves.

The regulations set out in the Government’s countryside stewardship manual warn that: “Failure to display the required poster, plaque or billboard, or to replace those which are lost or damaged, will be a breach of the agreement and subject to a penalty or recovery of payments.”

Now I live in one of the most pleasant parts of England.  It's not drop dead gorgeous or anything like that, it's just a gentle, rolling, easy on the eye landscape which just about sums up the very best of English countryside.  Do I want that ruined by bloody EU agitprop signs all over the place?  I do not!  The answer is simple, the VOTE LEAVE organisation must provide us all with anti-EU posters to stick over the top of those bill boards.  Either that, or we arm ourselves with green paint and slosh it over every one of those foul abominations.

The next thing we'll get is orders to our local councils telling them that henceforth all our town centres must display large posters of 'Junck the Drunk' smiling down at us benignly - with a shy little Kaiserin peeping out over his shoulder, winking, and saying, "Did you really think it was all over in 1945?"

 

So then, 'Jezza', wot'cha gonna do?

Yet another fascinating 'problema' (as we Portuguese-speakers put it!) for 'Jezza' and the 'bruvvers' as their socialist and communist comrades in Portugal who have just won 50.3% in a general election are denied the right to form a government!  The particular glove-puppet who issued this announcement is the so-called 'constitutional president' but we all know who had his hand up the back of the presidente constitucional pulling the strings and that was our old friend enemy, 'Junck the Drunk'.  He has ordered that the majority will of the Portuguese people be over-ridden and a right-wing, EU-obedient party which only managed 38.5% of the vote and lost 28 seats be installed as the new government of Portugal.

So then, Jezza, what kind of support are you going to offer the 'comrades' in Portugal?  And in the face of this example of European Right-wing rule by diktat, how are you going to urge us all to remain inside the EU as you said you would?

And whilst I'm on the subject, how are all you dreamy-eyed pro-Europeans going to re-act to this flagrant anti-democratic fist being smashed into the face of a country that produced the 'Carnation Revolution' only forty years ago as it struggled to achieve democracy from under the dictatorship of Salazar?

    Hat tip to A E-P in The Telegraph

 

 

Bad language

 

Yes, I am being a tad lazy today by reprinting a quotation from a man whose views I admire enormously, or at least, I have yet to read anything of his with which I disagreed.  I refer to the ever-excellent 'Theodore Dalrymple' (aka: Dr. Anthony Daniels) who has this to say on the subject, not so much of bad language as indicated in my title, but excruciatingly sadistic language of a type likely to reduce grown men to tears:

"The medical profession used often to be twitted with the mortality of its own members: for if doctors knew so much, how came it that they died like everyone else?

I think a more interesting question is why people who study literature for a living write so badly. After all, death is a fundamental and inescapable condition of human existence; bad writing is not. It seem, however, to be almost an advantage nowadays in academic life, at least in the humanities, to write barbarously. Advancement is secure if you can veer between incomprehensibility and banality, while passing seamlessly through obvious error...

Academic literary study seems these days to be ninth-rate philosophy, or drunken verbiage without the alcohol. Ii'd rather listen to my local pub bore than to a paper entitled 'Open Ended Poetic Closure and the Digital Interface':'The aim of this paper is to read Plath's work through the lens of contemporary hermeneutic discourse concerning the autonomy of text and language, while situating it within recent developments in digital poetry and electronic means of experiencing literary texts.'

I have sometimes tried to write parodies of such language, but try as I might, clarity keeps breaking out. The habit of using language to convey meaning is too deeply ingrained in me now ever to be overcome. I am a dinosaur."

- Theodore Dalrymple, Second Opinion 

I can only ask whether "digital poetry" is the sort of poetry which demands that you raise two digits in response?  Or one digit if you're American.  See, this is an equal opportunities blog!

 

Hurrah, they're back - at last!

I only just spotted this in The Telegraph and if it wasn't near my bedtime I would break open a bottle of champers to celebrate the return of Bellerophon and his famous winged horse Pegasus.

 

Since WWII, when the novelist Daphne du Maurier suggested it to her husband, Gen Frederick ‘Boy’ Browning, then commanding officer of the 1st Airborne Division, they have formed the shoulder-badge for all airborne forces.  About 15 years ago, the anti-Para clique, actually a majority, I guess, in the War Office managed to find an excuse to do away with it.  But, on November 15th, there will be sundry parades in which the Paras will be given back their proper shoulder badges and about bloody time, too!

Lawrence, get the champagne ready - excuse for a family party!

 

One Henry too many

'HENRY V', RSC simulcast at Cineworld, 22.10.15

Big fail, sorry to say.  However, it confirms my almost total mistrust of the London critics who are a complete waste of space!  But first of all I blame that scribbler from Stratford.  In Henry IV parts I & II he explored the 'body politic' of 'not-so-Merrie Olde England' and showed the development of a playboy prince into a man ready to rule.  Those two plays (plus the sad tale of Richard II which precedes them) are amongst his very greatest works and are perhaps the first to show in detail that 'the personal is political'.  To put it bluntly, Prince Hal was a drunken, yobbish 'Hooray Henry' of the worst sort and encouraged in his misdemeanours by that 'butt of old sack', Jack Falstaff.  However, throughout these twin tales we keep catching glimpses of a colder, more detached, more ruthless Hal and so it comes as no surprise when at the end, on becoming king, he rids himself of Falstaff.  So far, so brilliant ... but then 'our Will' went one step further and wrote Henry V, a 'Henry' too far.

To be honest, I don't quite know what to make of Henry V as a play simply because I have never studied it.  Of course, like everyone I have seen the film versions and they, no doubt, have coloured my view of it.  I think the last stage version I saw was with Kenneth Brannagh decades ago and I can remember being somewhat under-whelmed.  Now, I am beginning to realise that perhaps it was the play not the players which contained the weakness.

If so, then there is some excuse for last night's effort which was a bore!  The production in terms of style was all over the place in the usual 'modern' fancy in which some of the soldiers looked medieval and some of them looked like survivors of the Western Front.  Needless to say, they were all colours and in some scenes a girl played a soldier so you instantly kissed goodbye to any sense of history.  Why, I moaned and sobbed to myself, can't modern directors serve the writer and not suppose that somehow their additions and fancies are what Master Shakespeare would have staged if only he had the advice, in this case, of Mr. Gregory Doran, the Principal High Panjandrum of the RSC.  I should add, before the PC Brigade come hammering on my door at midnight, that if you decide to produce a united nations reading of this play, then fine, do it in the abstract and cut back on all the ancient Englishness of it.

I stress that because this is a very English play, or to be precise, a very British play.  We are given the first 'see, there was an Englishman, a Welshman, a Scotsman and an Irishman' joke!  And one of the best items in this production was making the Scotsman totally incomprehensible - brought the house down!  However, those four caricatures make you realise just how deep the roots of nationhood go. 

At the end, one is left wondering quite what this play is for?  Shakespeare shows us that "war is hell" - think we knew that one, Will! - and that politicians, both regal and political, will go to it with a relish if it fits their usually personal purposes.  King Hal simply jumps on the merry-go-round and after a huge slaughter - but mainly French so that's all right - he gets the girl and a new country estate, er, France, actually - oh, and the girl, too!  The play is a chronicle but no more.  None of the characters develop or change.  And 'our Will', having already written the three parts of Henry VI and Richard III, we know that "the wheel of fire" will just carry on wheeling round so one is forced to ask what is the point of Henry V?

This production provided no answers which is hardly surprising.  Some might say that it's worth it for those great battle speeches.  Well, maybe, but not as delivered by the eye-ball swivelling Mr. Alex Hassell, so beloved by the London critics.  He was rubbish!  The words were delivered with great clarity, the man is a tribute to all those dialogue coaches they employ at the RSC, but they came out steadily at a dead even rate of knots and produced nil effect because the bloody man forgot, or was told to forget, that he was delivering verse not prose!  I doubt the man could spell iambic pentameter let alone understand what it means and I can see all those post-modernist practitioners at the RSC telling him not to bother with all that old-fashioned stuff, these days, darling, after all, Sir Peter Hall and Roger Barton are all so yesterday!

Perhaps I can best point up the dismal standard of this production by re-telling a 'joke' that the company used at least twice in order to wring a snigger from their audience whose intelligence they obviously despise.  One of the characters is the 'Constable of France' and thus the first syllable of his title was heavily emphasised at every opportunity and, lo and behold, the sniggers arrived on cue!

Sorry, Will, you should have stopped at Henry IV.

 

 

 

First Greece, now Portugal

The Berlin-Brussels axis will be in a literal spin now because according to The Telegraph, a collection of Socialists, Communists and anti-EU Leftists have managed to form a coalition whose immediate aim is to throw a two-finger salute, well, perhaps a single finger is the preferred sign for continentals, in the direction of the 'Kaiserin' and 'Junck the Drunk'.  Now, Portugal really has suffered some extreme austerity, unlike us, and in the recent election the ruling and collaborating conservative party were brutally reduced in ranks.  Even so, the Portuguese president might still appoint the 'collaborators' to form the next government - so good luck with that one, Senhor Presidente!  Anyway, as the bully boys from Brussels lay into the democratic will of the Portuguese people it will all make for excellent coverage in the UK prints and will add to the support already growing for the 'VOTE LEAVE' movement which, of course, I have already endorsed.

Where are the Talleyrands, the Bismarcks, the Lord Greys?

In the previous post I took swipes at both British and American foreign policy efforts.  'Dim Dave' bombed Libya to a ruin and appears slightly miffed that the scallywags and rascals took over the ruins.  On the other hand, 'Ol Big Ears' pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan as fast as he could and now looks decidedly sulky at the disastrous results.  His policy towards Syria, backed, God help him, by 'Dim Dave', has had two definite results.  First, Assad is still there dishing out mass murder on his population.  Second, the Russians are now well and truly in with boots on the ground in support of their 'nbf' (new best friend), Assad.  So how's that intellectual foreign policy working out for you, Mr. President?

The Streetwise Professor draws back some of the veil in an excellent post entitled "An Innocent Abroad: Fred Hof and the Intellectual Failure of American Foreign Policy".  Rather than tipping a bucket of excrement over the head of Mr. Fred Hof, a policy 'wonk' in the higher reaches of the State Department, I would like to congratulate him for searing honesty way above the call of duty.  In an article in Politico, he offers up a massive mea culpa for the disaster that has overtaken Syria, a country he loves.  He simply could not believe that President Obama could say one thing and do another.  The Streetwise Professor sums it up, thus:

A recurrent theme-implicit, not explicit-is Hof’s incredible naiveté. He was repeatedly fooled by the man he was supposedly working with -Bashir al-Assad-and the man he was working for -Barack Obama. He was fooled because he romantically projected his own beliefs on them, and because he engaged in wishful thinking, when he would have been better served to live by Lily Tomlin’s credo: “We try to be cynical, but it’s hard to keep up.”

As I say, Mr. Hof is both honest and honourable in this mea culpa and perhaps, just perhaps, there may be a budding statesman in him.  In the meantime, and apropos the possible stand off in the South China Sea, see post below, it makes me shudder to think of the dummies running American policy vis-à-vis China.

 

So what happened to 'High Noon: Pacific Edition'?

Honestly, our American 'cousins' are such a tease.  Off and on over the past few months I keep reading headlines to the effect that the US Pacific Fleet is going to 'do a Gary Cooper', by steaming straight down the South China Sea and dare the Chinese 'baddies' to come out and face them mano-a-mano.  I'm not too sure that's a good idea but just in case I have already dug my air-raid shelter!  What is definitely not a good idea is to float it in public but then fail to follow it up.  That smacks of, if you will excuse my diplomatic-speak, as 'huffin 'n' puffin'!  Actually, given that China loathes and detests the USA and constitutes its biggest threat, I'm surprised 'Ol' Big Ears' hasn't followed the same line he has taken with other American enemies and learned the art of 'kow-towing'.

Should he require lessons, he could always ask for a briefing from 'Dim Dave', little Georgie-Peorgie and the British 'Ministry for Foreigners' who are laying it on with a trowel today in a  superb example of proper 'kow-towing' during the visit of Pres. Xi Jinping.  According to 'A E-P' in The Telegraph, this has seriously 'peed off' the Whitehouse and State Department who were already deeply niggled when we supported China's new scam scheme for a rival international monetary organisation which will be a direct challenge to the old Bretton Woods arrangements which are totally under the control of the USA.

Of course, reminding 'Ol' Big Ears' that on his very first day in office he made clear that he detested Britain and everything it stands for and that therefor he shouldn't be too surprised if the Brits begin to hedge their bets, would be a complete waste of time.  He might have big ears but politically and diplomatically he's as deaf as a post!

 

Your Monday Funnies: 19.10.15

Irish and  Scottish 'funnies' to start with today:

 

AN IRISH CHRISTENING

Paddy's pregnant sister was in a terrible car accident and went into a deep coma. After nearly six months, she woke up and saw that she was no longer pregnant. Frantically, she asked the doctor about her baby. 

The doctor replied, ‘You had twins, a boy and a girl. The babies are fine. However, they were poorly at birth and had to be christened immediately, so your brother Paddy came in and named them.’ 

The woman thought to herself,  ‘Oh suffering Lordy, no, not me brother.  He's a clueless idiot?’

Expecting the worst, she asked the doctor, ‘Well, what's my daughter's name?’ 

‘Denise,’ said the doctor. 

The new mother was somewhat relieved and thought to herself, Wow, that's a really beautiful name. I guess I was wrong about my brother, I really like Denise. 

Then she asked, ‘What's the boy's name?’ 

The doctor replied, ‘Denephew.’

 

A SCOTTISH LOVE STORY

 

An elderly man lay dying in his bed.  While suffering agonies on his way to his final moment, he suddenly smells the aroma of his favorite scones wafting up the stairs.  He gathered his remaining strength, and lifted himself from the bed.  Leaning on the wall, he slowly made his way out of the bedroom.  Gripping the wall, he eventually made it to the kitchen. 

There, piled on a tray, were his favorite scones. Was it heaven? Or was it one final act of love from his devoted Scottish wife of sixty years, seeing to it that he left this world a happy man? 

Mustering one great final effort, he threw himself towards the table, landing on his knees in a rumpled posture. His aged and withered hand trembled towards a scone at the edge of the table, when it was suddenly smacked by his wife with a wooden spoon. 

Bugger off, she said, they're for the funeral.

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

 

 I cannot stand people who think they're worse off than everybody else. My mate Don is brilliant.  

He had a bad accident where he lost his voice and both legs. Does he make a song and dance about it?   

No bloody way!

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

 

And now some vintage Tommy Cooper one-liners:

Two blondes walk into a building.....you'd think at least one of them would have seen it.

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

Phone answering machine message - 'If you want to buy marijuana, press the hash key'

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

I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day but I couldn't find any.

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

Man goes to the doctor, with a strawberry growing out of his head.

Doc says 'I'll give you some cream to put on it.'

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

(This one's for cricketers only!)

Guy goes into the doctor's. 'Doc, I've got a cricket ball stuck up my bottom.'

'How's that?'

'Don't you start!'

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

Apparently, 1 in 5 people in the world are Chinese. There are 5 people in my family, so it must be one of them. It's either my mum or my Dad, or my older brother Colin, or my younger brother Ho-Cha-Chu. But I think it's Colin.

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

'You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today. They left a little note on the windscreen. It said, 'Parking Fine.'
So that was nice.'

To the memory of the late, great Tommy Cooper:

 

 

The Sunday GRUMBLE: 18.10.15

Please note the change of title:  Yes, I'm afraid that 'Sunday Rumble', my previous title for this fairly regular spot, simply does not do justice to my hissy-fit rage this morning.  Obviously a conspiracy has been hatched with the aim of reducing me to a foam-flecked, ranting maniac - and don't think I didn't hear that!  First of all, last night there was . . .

 

Strictly Come Shrieking:  Can anyone explain to  me why it is necessary for the ladies, both audience and participants, in Strictly Come Dancing, to SHRIEEEEK constantly, never-endingly, without pause, indeed, without reason? In fact, the only time they cease to shriek, or at least reduce the volume somewhat, is when a couple are 'dancing'.  I suppose I shouldn't complain because whilst I used to enjoy the programme in its early days when they attempted to execute proper dancing, now I hate it and as soon as the shrieking starts, roughly 0.07 seconds after the start, I make my excuses and leave it to the 'Memsahib' who, I can only assume is going deaf.  Well, she never pays any attention to my occasional requests either!

 

But the D&N archivist cheered me up:  Yes, dear old 'JK' has been rooting around in the D&N cellar searching for something or other and in the course of it there was a reference to my absolutely favourite 'cheer up' YouTube.  I've linked to it before but it's worth another visit because it's witty and fun - and Russian!  Yeeeees, quite!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/KgoapkOo4vg?rel=0

Mind you, I hope that by now the husband has stopped his wife from SHRIEEEKING!

 

But then the Bishops ruined everything:  What is it about C of E bishops that makes them into such smug, useless and unbelievably hypocritical tosspots?  Joining the choir chanting the old responses to - 'Something must be done' - they have insisted that the government must take in tens of thousands more immigrants.  And where, exactly and precisely, m'Lord Bishop, do you suggest we put them?  Are you by any chance offering any of those hundreds of empty, unused churches or church properties you own.  Nah, didn't think so!  So now I'm back into foaming-mode again!

 

Well, this battle really was 'Shakespearean':  The other day, in a fanciful mood, I broke the battle of Waterloo down into five 'Shakespearean' acts.  Today, I am obliged to Mr. Josh Gelernter of the NRO for reminding me that next weekend marks the 600th anniversary of a battle that was to become the most famous 'Shakespearean' battle of them all - Henry V.   

Now entertain conjecture of a time 

When creeping murmur and the poring dark

Fills the wide vessel of the universe.

I urge you all to have a read of Mr. Gelernter's essay, it is an excellent summary of a most extraordinary battle:                      

The English army had walked 200 miles and was totally exhausted. Henry’s thousand knights had virtually no food left; his 5,000 archers were living off foraged berries. They were two days from Calais, but a French army of (a best-guessed) 25,000 men had camped ahead of them on the road. 

 

And yet ... and yet ... the English won - BIG TIME! - and Henry V became king of France - poor chap!  I have told you all before that on Wednesday the RSC production of Henry V is to be simulcast to cinemas around the world - not to be missed!  Incidentally, Mr. Gelernter finishes his piece with a totally obscure reference of the sort usually only found in some erudite edition of the Arden Shakespeare:

 

Author’s Note: This piece was written just moments after the Mets clinched an NLDS victory — a victory greater, more astounding, and more remarkable than any since Agincourt.

 

Perhaps my American readers will understand the reference!

 

 

'President HillBilly': tell me it won't happen:  The advantage of a long lifetime of crime and misdemeanours is that people forget all about the first 95% on the charge sheet and then simply shrug at the later entries.  Thus it is with 'HillBilly', a woman once described by her Democrat boss, thus: "I decided that I could not recommend her for any future position of public or private trust.”  He was the general counsel and chief of staff for the House Judiciary Committee, Jerry Zeifman, a Democrat, and the man charged with looking into the Watergate affair in 1974.  The reason for his comment was simple: "Zeifman had learned that in this historic undertaking “she had lied” to him and to others repeatedly."  Whodathunkit?  Read all about it at The American Spectator.

 

 

And now I'm cheerful again  - thanks 'Vlad':  Yes indeed, good old 'A E-P' at The Telegraph has a cheerful article telling us all that Mother Russia is about to take to her bed again.  The Russian economy is now so bad that old style Soviet autarky is the only answer.  In other words, Russia will withdraw into poverty - again - and keep its people 'happy'(?) with loads of Soviet-style agitprop telling them exactly how happy they are - or else!  Of course, for a while they will be happy at the sight of Russian missiles blowing Arabs to bits but after a while they will wonder how much those missiles cost and how many loaves of bread that would have produced?  Stand by for increasing numbers of photos of 'Vlad the Impaler' flexing his pecs.  Poor Mother Russia.

 

 

 

No more grumbles, or snapping snarling rants, tonight

 

 

'Fred Kite' is alive and well - unfortunately

So there I was lying in bed this morning, feeling fairly happy, listening to the radio and looking forward to the huge list of domestic chores the 'Memsahib' delights in producing for me on a regular basis when suddenly I heard the re-incarnation of Fred Kite, one of the late Peter Sellers' greatest creations!

Fred Kite, you will recall - well, you will if you're a Brit and fairly ancient - was the ineffably stupid Trade Union shop steward in the 1959 satirical film I'm Alright Jack.  Well, I'm delighted to tell you that the 'Kite line' continues to this day in the form of some total tit moaning on the radio about the closure of various steel plants across the country.  In effect, he was complaining that the government had failed to step in and take over using 'government money'.  Obviously, no-one had told this latter-day Fred Kite that there is no such thing as 'government money', there is only MY money plus whatever money the greasers in the Treasury can borrow off the international Shylocks and which has to be paid back eventually using - yes, you guessed it - MY money.  (Of course, I realise that there is other people's money involved as well but I do like to nurture a personal grievance!)

So what, you may ask, was this 'son-of-Kite' intending to do with all this government money?  The answer, as I understand it, was to keep on doing what they have been doing which is making zillions of tons of steel - that no-one wants to buy!  Whilst doing so the workers would continue to receive their usual salaries - natch!  And this brilliant plan to keep churning out more and more steel even as the storage capacity for unused and unwanted steel is rapidly reaching saturation point, and whilst the high seas are full of enormous ships with holds full of steel which cannot find a buyer, is the trade union solution to the problem - yeeeeeees, quite!  In the meantime, various ninnies in the Labour party are rushing round in circles crying out that something must be done! 

Well, yes, 'Bruvvers', something can be done and is being done - the steel producing plants will shut down!  The workers, cradled to some extent by our welfare system, will eventually drift off into other jobs where their labours will result in products that people actually want.  In the meantime, if the Chinese wish to flood the markets with steel produced at 'coolie'- level wages, that's fine by me, not least because the things of which steel forms a part will be that much cheaper.

I leave you with my rallying call:  Consumers of the World - Unite!

 

The Battle of Waterloo - not once but twice!

God, I'm brave!  In the last two days I have fought the battle of Waterloo twice over, I know, I know, quelle courage!'  Alright, I didn't actually fight it but I did give my talk and PowerPoint presentation, first to the distinguished Yetminster Historical Society on Wednesday, and then yesterday, to the militant-minded ladies of the West Chinnock Women's Institute.   So you see, I not only 'bore for Britain' on this blog but I also do it face to face - quelle horreure! 

I hate to use this corny old platitude but the battle is, in one sense, almost Shakespearean.  It falls naturally into five Acts.  The first took place on the Friday down the main road from Brussels at a crucial cross-roads called Quatre Bras and, just a few miles directly to the east another cross-road at the village of Ligny.  In this Act, the Prussians were soundly defeated at Ligny but under the command of half-mad old General Blucher they retreated north in parallel with Wellington in order to offer support.  The Brits, plus sundry Dutch and Belgians, held onto Quatre Bras but realising that the Prussians had gone they legged it as fast as they could northwards to the valley at Waterloo - a valley whose military qualities had been spotted by Wellington the year before.

The second Act begins with the assault on Hougemont Farm, led by Bonaparte's younger but highly ambitious brother.  The 'stoopid' gene had skipped 'Boney' but his brother had it in spades because he spent the entire day trying to capture it using, in the end, virtually all of Bonaparte's left wing thus rendering it useless.

The third Act is the advance of Bonaparte's right wing across the valley and up the other side where, to their considerable shock and dismay they did not find a foe shattered by two hours of bombardment from 'Boney's massive artillery (because Wellington carefully kept them behind the ridge line) but instead rank upon rank of British infantry at point blank range emptying the muskets into French columns which promptly broke and ran.

The fourth Act, sees Marshall Ney, 'The Bravest of the Brave' but not, alas, the brightest of the bright who found himself with both wings of his master's army totally unusable.  In some panic, he ordered up almost the entire French heavy cavalry and led them up towards the British right flank with orders to sweep them away.  Alas, they there they were, waiting for him, but all in squares which were impossible to break, not least because the headstrong man had forgotten to order up his horse artillery which could have blown them away.  After two hours of sword-waving the French cavalry, severely depleted, simply melted away. 

Now, it was Act Five, the culmination of this tragedy.  Bonaparte, in desperation, ordered up his Imperial Guard, the most feared troops in Europe, the mere sight of which had induced other armies to break and run on sight of their approach.  Not this time, however, because as they approached the ridge line on the British right flank, Wellington had ordered his own Guardsmen to form line but to lie down in the corn fields.  The French crested the ridge, paused, unsure, and the British suddenly stood up and let them have several volleys at close range. The Imperial Guard halted, shuddered, and then the unthinkable happened - they turned around and marched away!

The play the battle was over.  It is only fair to make clear that throughout this bloody 'production' there was a swelling of off-stage music which grew and grew and added to the drama.  The tune had a simple title, 'The Prussians are coming! The Prussians are coming!'  And indeed they did, led by the gallant Marshall Blucher, they rammed in behind Bonaparte's front line which led to a total French rout.

Darlings, I would have loved to have had a good seat at that show, er, but perhaps not too near the front - definitely rear stalls and close to an exit!

 

Would you buy a second-hand car from this man?

OK, OK, I watched 'Muppet-mouth' McDonnell, the Labour party's new shadow chancellor, the other day in Parliament as he attempted to explain why white was black on Monday but black was white on Tuesday, or something like that.  And yes, I, too, chuckled away like all those Tory backbenchers as McDonnell did his impression of Manuel in Faulty Towers:

 

And yet ... and yet ... as the wretched man openly admitted with the bare minimum of obfuscation that indeed he had been a prize plonker of the first order and had fallen, or rather, had actually jumped into George Osborne's elephant trap, I began - just! - to warm to him slightly.  It must take some guts to stand up in the House before all your political enemies, both those across the gangway as well as those behind you, and admit that you are a total tit!  McDonnell did it with some style and some humour.  Please don't misunderstand.  I am fully aware that the ghastly man holds some sick-inducing opinions on other matters which, were he ever to reach a position of power in government, might actually induce me to emigrate to Australia - yeeeeeees, quite! - but even so I think he passed the ordeal with some credit. 

But the man who really induces feelings of nausea in me is his opposite number, little Georgie Osborne, with his smirky-smiles and new Roman senator hair-style.

 

This man could lie for Britain at the Olympics!  He promised to reduce the deficit in government finances five years ago and he's nowhere near it.  Now he's promising - no, don't snigger! - he's, like, you know, really, really promising to balance the books over the next five years.  It won't happen, of course, and he knows perfectly well that it won't happen but what is likely to happen is some maelstrom in the international economic system - China, Greece, the euro or whatever - will kick off and, hey presto, little lying Georgie will have his excuse for having broken his promise - again!

If that dodgy little chancer actually takes over from 'Dim Dave' then my options will be open and I have it on good authority that Australia really isn't as bad as it looks despite half the country regularly being engulfed in fire whilst the other half dies of thirst and that's to say nothing of the man-eating spiders lurking down every toilet bowl!

 

'The natives are revolting!'

I am obliged to 'SoD' for pointing me to an article in The Telegraph by Matthew Holehouse which starts with an exceedingly old joke:

There's an old joke where a diner in a restaurant complains: “Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup.”

The reply: “Keep your voice down, or everyone will want one.”

That, Mr. Holehouse suggests, more or less describes the response in many parts of Europe to 'the fly in the soup' which is the British referendum and the possibility of Brexit.  Suddenly, people are popping up all over the place saying, 'yummy-yummy, mummy, we'd like some of that'.  The Danish Right-wing sceptic party is holding a very narrow referendum in December on technical aspects of the European justice system which, following the British example, could lead on eventually to bigger and better things.

The Dutch have collected enough signatures to hold a mass vote on another aspect of European policy which has annoyed them.  In Poland there will be a referendum on whether or not to join the euro currency bloc even though it is a requirement for their membership!  And so it goes on, increased mutterings of revolt and rebellion and, of course, it's all the fault of 'perfidious Albion'!

All you regulars know of my reluctance to write in detail concerning the Middle East  on the grounds that trying make sense of that maelstrom is impossible.  I feel somewhat the same way about European affairs.  If forced to it, I would suggest that the Berlin-Brussels axis is far too powerful for any piddling complaints from this, that or the other country.  The only thing which might - just might - bring the edifice crashing down would be a British vote for Brexit.  Alas, the chances of that occurring are, for the moment, fairly small.  However, one must never ignore the possibility of that old political curse striking again - "Events, dear boy, events!"

 

Well, it's one way of putting it

As always the estimable Dr. Theodore Dalrymple - not his real name but he is a real doctor who once practiced in H.M. Prison Service - serves up some sardonic humour:

I asked him why he had tried to kill himself with an overdose of antibiotics. 'I can't be arsed to live no more': How charmingly put, and with that delicate sensibility! If Hamlet were written today, the famous soliloquy would begin: 'To be arsed, or not to be arsed: that's the f---ing question.'

- Theodore Dalrymple, Second Opinion

 

The Three Socialist Stooges

            Tom Watson       Jeremy Corbyn         John McDonnell   

Oh my giddy aunt, I can't take much more!  In just a fortnight the three leaders of a once great party of state have reduced it to a clown-fest.  'Jezza' has achieved what no-one thought was possible by making 'Milipede' look like a serious politician instead of the gawpy 'Frank Spencer' lookalike that he is:

      

                    Ed Miliband                                                         'Frank Spencer'

 'Jezza' has stumble-bummed his way round the leadership of his party and as far as his fellow Labour parliamentarians are concerned he is not so much a lame duck as a dead duck, stripped of its feathers, roasted and merely waiting to be served up!

Then there is John McDonnell, the allegedly hard-headed shadow chancellor who on appointment immediately conceded the Tory line that future British governments must not spend more than they collect.  It obviously took his student union 'thugocracy', now called 'Momentum' - yeeeeees, quite! - a few days to work out what he had done.  Fingers were snapped backwards, knee caps whacked with tyre levers and possibly a bit of water-boarding was used but yesterday Mr. McDonnell, a true man of principle, did a high speed handbrake turn and has now repudiated the idea of a Labour government living within its means.

Finally, whilst climbing quickly into our bio-chem protection suits, we turn to the festering pile of ordure that is Tom Watson.  Over my life I have seen some stinkers in parliament but I would be hard-pressed to find anyone as vile as this wretched, cowardly man.  I suspect, and also I hope fervently, that Watson stays around on the opposition front bench where he will face a continual barrage of insults for his disgusting behaviour over the late Leon Brittan.

Those three stooges really do deserve each other!

ADDITIONAL:  Lest you think I exaggerate, here is the opening of Dan Hodges' latest column:

John McDonnell is a fan of straight talking, honest politics. So he’ll appreciate the following observation. John McDonnell is a useless, incompetent, joke of a politician who should not be given responsibility for making the tea in his local constituency office, let alone hold the office of shadow chancellor of the United Kingdom.

The man is not a dangerous Left-wing ideologue, he is a clown. Actually, he’s both. He’s a dangerous Left-wing ideological clown. He should turn up to his first session of Treasury questions with a false nose, make-up, and giant floppy red feet. Then he should change his name from John McDonell to Ronald McDonnell.

Ouch!

 

Seriously, I'm worried!

As I have explained 'many a time and oft', I try to avoid the Middle Eastern imbroglio for the simple reason that the complexities are so enormous as to be far beyond my comprehension.  My worry is that those set above us, and I do mean those at the very top levels, understand the situation no better than I do.  Cameron has already been demoted to Lance Corporal for his daft enthusiasm in bombing Libya, destroying Gadhafi's regime and allowing an even worse situation to arise from which, of course, he has washed his hands and walked away muttering, "Oh dear, what a pity never mind, but it was nothing to do with me!"

For once the House of Commons showed some extraordinary good sense in voting down Dave's plan to 'do a Libya' in Syria - for God's sake, does the man ever learn anything?  However, the word is that Dave's little lips are pursed with determination to try again to get Britain involved.  I hope the new Parliament is as careful as the old because now a new and potentially highly dangerous element has been added.  Russian military jets are vying with the Americans to see who is the best "glorified ground-pounder" in the business of turning the small amount of civic Syria back into desert.

The matter has now passed out of the detailed control of 'Vlad the Impaler' and 'Ol' Big Ears' and events will depend on sundry senior air force generals, and even worse, on young men with big machines and even bigger testosterone levels!  The sky above Syria has moved from being 'serious' to being 'critically dangerous'.  If 'Dim Dave' had even an iota of common-sense he would keep well out of it and tell all those senior RAF commanders to shut up and take a cold shower!

 

Your Monday Funnies: 12.10.15

Beautiful, sunny autumn weather so you don't really deserve any 'Funnies' to cheer you up this Monday morning but I am the 'Pleasure God who keeps on giving'!  First, some definitions because you know how particular we are on this blog to ensure that we always use words korrectly!

ADULT:
A person who has stopped growing at both ends and is now growing in the middle. 

BEAUTY PARLOR:
A place where women curl up and dye. 

CANNIBAL:
Someone who is fed up with people. 

CHICKENS:
The only animals you eat before they are born and after they are dead. 

COMMITTEE:
A body that keeps minutes and wastes hours. 

DUST:
Mud with the juice squeezed out.

EGOTIST:
Someone who is usually me-deep in conversation.

HANDKERCHIEF:
Cold Storage. 

INFLATION:
Cutting money in half without damaging the paper. 

MOSQUITO:
An insect that makes you like flies better. 

RAISIN:
Grape with a sunburn. 

SECRET:
Something you tell to one person at a time. 

SKELETON:
A bunch of bones with the person scraped off. 

TOOTHACHE: 
The pain that drives you to extraction. 

TOMORROW:
One of the greatest labour saving devices of today. 

YAWN:
An honest opinion openly expressed. 

and MY Personal Favorite!! 

WRINKLES:
Something other people have, similar to my character lines.

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

 

Next some Irish 'quickies' to celebrate their sporting prowess this weekend:

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's in the bathroom and Murphy shouts to  him. "Did you find the shampoo?"

Paddy says, "Oi did, but it's for dry hair and  I've just wet mine."

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

A coach load of paddies on a mystery tour decided to run a sweepstake to guess where they were going  .....  the driver won £52!

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

 

If only it was 'good ol' Bill' running for president instead of his ghastly wife.  The first is from the script of a black comedian: 

Yep, that's right - I miss Bill Clinton! 

He was the closest thing we ever got to having a real black man as President. 

*He played the sax. 

*He smoked weed. 

*He had his way with ugly white women. 

*Even now? Look at him ... His wife works, and he doesn't! And, he gets a check from the government every month.

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

 

*Manufacturers announced today that they will be stocking America 's shelves this week with " Clinton Soup," in honor of one of the nations' distinguished men. It consists primarily of a weenie in hot water.

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

*Chrysler Corporation is adding a new car to its line to honor Bill Clinton. The Dodge Drafter will be built in Canada .

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

*When asked what he thought about foreign affairs, Clinton replied, "I don't know, I never had one."

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

*The Clinton revised judicial oath: "I solemnly swear to tell the truth as I know it, the whole truth as I believe it to be, and nothing but what I think you need to know."

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

* Clinton will be recorded in history as the only President to do Hanky Panky between the Bushes.

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

 

And last of all, an old-fashioned joke:

A Doctor was addressing a large audience.

'The material we put into our stomachs is enough to have killed most of us sitting here, years ago.  Red meat is awful.

Soft drinks corrode your stomach lining.  Chinese food is loaded with MSG.

High fat diets can be disastrous, and none of us realizes the long-term harm caused by the germs in our drinking water.

However, there is one thing that is the most dangerous of all and we all have eaten, 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 75-year-old man in the front row raised his hand, and softly said,

'Wedding Cake.'

 

Right, back to work!

 

 

Went to the theatre - and sat through it all!

I may have mentioned before that the 'Memsahib' and I have walked out of the last two theatrical productions at the interval on the grounds that they were beyond awful and so it was with some trepidation that yesterday we went to the Salisbury Theatre to see Flare Path by Terrence Rattigan.  Now this was a dangerous mission because I have a very deep affection for the play, not least because I once directed it, as well as a huge admiration for Rattigan as a playwright. 

It describes an afternoon, evening and morning in a small country hotel just on the edge of an RAF bomber command airfield, circa 1942.  We meet two of the crew of one particular Wellington bomber, Fl. Lt. Teddy Graham, the skipper, and one of his air gunners, Sgt. Miller.  (Rattigan, himself, served as a gunner in Wellingtons.)  Both of them are meeting their wives for the first time in a while.  Also present is an ex-barmaid, Doris, with the genuine but unlikely title of Countess Skriczevinsky who has married another bomber pilot from the Free Polish Air Force.

Trouble looms with the arrival of Peter Kyle, an Anglo-American film star who is in love with Patricia, the actress wife of young Teddy Graham.  She and Kyle had enjoyed a passionate affair during a play production in the States but she had broken it off and returned to Britain.  One assumes that on the rebound she married Teddy, a very young, stiff upper-lipped airman who is as far removed from the glamorous Peter Kyle as it is possible to be.  But Kyle is no out-and-out rotter.  His life and his career are going down and he really does love Patricia passionately and wants to take her back to the States.

That night should have been a quiet one but suddenly an emergency mission is called and the airman have to return to base.  The residents watch the planes take off and then all they can do is wait.  Early the next morning the planes come in one by one - with the exception of Count Skriczevinsky's.  Later it is reported that wreckage has been seen floating in the north sea.  Thus we learn that beneath Doris's cheerful chatter and banter she bears a deep love for her Polish husband.  Later, when it appears certain that he has gone down with his plane she hands Peter Kyle a farewell letter, written in French because her husband could barely speak English, and asks him to read it to her in English.  This is an intensely emotional scene but written with all of Rattigan's careful understatement - which, of course, makes it all the more weepy!

Teddy's plane lands safely and he and Sgt. Miller are reunited with their wives.  Patricia is now on a knife-edge of uncertainty.  She loves Peter Kyle with a passion but she is married to this immature young man who sounds most of the time like the typical 'wizard prang, old boy' stereotype of a young RAF pilot.  However, during a private scene between the two of them, suddenly Teddy breaks down crying and admits to Patricia that far from being a carefree hero he is, in fact, scared to death and terrified of being taken off ops with the dread letters LMF (lack of moral fibre, meaning cowardice) being marked on his record.  Now, for the first time one assumes, the truly harsh fist of war smacks into Patricia's somewhat gilded life.  She looks down at this truly courageous young man, her husband, sobbing in her lap and realises that she has a duty beyond and above her own personal tribulations.  Romantic tosh, I suppose you could call it, or perhaps more accurately, a bit of wartime propaganda, but again, in Rattigan's skilled hands it comes across as a story of a young woman faced with a fork in the road and choosing to take the harder route.

The play ends on a high because at the last moment the exuberant Polish Count bursts in having been hauled from the sea by a fishing boat.  This occasions more than a few drinks and sing-song party involving the whole cast with the exception of Peter Kyle who leaves in some despair.  In my production of this play, during this final celebration with everyone singing a raucous chorus of a cheerful WWII song, I asked the lady playing Patricia to sit facing out to the audience with an expressionless face.  Patricia has chosen duty over love!

Happily the production we saw yesterday, whilst being criticisable (as are all play productions), was well played and produced.  It is exceedingly difficult for young actors and directors to quite capture the ambience of those far off times but there are still plenty of us old enough, if not to know of it first hand, at least to remember its immediate aftermath. Alas, it has its 'stat black' in the form of Ms. Shvorne Marks, totally miscast as Sgt. Miller's wife.  She redeems the politically correct silliness of the casting director by playing her role excellently well but even so, we are not colour blind and she looks totally out of place.  However, I will give the production 7 out of 10.  It is touring to Winchester, Ipswich, Coventry, Liverpool, Southend and Guildford and I would urge you to see it if you can.

 

My new best friend, James

I refer, of course, to Mr. James Kirkup, the exceedingly wise, shrewd and knowledgeable columnist at 'Her Majesty's Daily Telegraph' who, naturally, agrees with me!  Only last Thursday I wrote these words:

So stand by, here comes another of my forecasts and when it happens remember you read it here first: the next big political split will be on the right!

Obviously my new best friend, James, read them and today he points to the monstrous fissure already beginning to open in Tory ranks.  Yes, of course, it is Europe - what else?  He suggests that only a fairly massive vote in favour of staying in will avert the coming split:

The referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union could destroy the Conservative Party. That is not an exaggeration or a click-bait headline. It’s a simple statement of fact. The chances of that destruction may not be high, but the possibility is real.

It’s widely accepted that a British vote to leave the EU would do enormous harm to David Cameron and George Osborne, forcing the former to quit early and the latter to abandon his leadership hopes. Effectively, the electorate would decapitate the Tory leadership.

For the first five years of his premiership, Dave was able to hide behind Nick Clegg's skirts and claim that he couldn't do what he really, really wanted to do because 'mummy' wouldn't let him.  But now he's on his own.  He threw his party a bone in the form of a promise to hold a referendum but threw it far enough into the future to hope that it would just disappear.  But it hasn't and now it is festering and smelling rather bad because of those damned "events, dear boy, events" such as the brutal beating the Greeks have taken and the fact that Europe is swamped with immigrants and Brussels insists that we take our fair share of the 'swamp'.

'Every fule do no' that Dave is going to get nothing, zilch, nada, nil from his so-called renegotiation.  There is absolutely no way that those Euro fanatics in the Brussels-Berlin-Paris axis are going to allow those bloody Brits so much as a centimetre of wriggle room.  Thus, the only problem Dave and the pro-EU faction in his cabinet are trying to solve now is how to sell the resulting pile of 'brown stuff' to the GBP (Great British Public).  Their efforts should not be under-estimated, remember that Dave's one and only job outside of politics was - public relations.  Yeeeeeeeeees, quite!   The moment of decision for Dave is not far off as the 'Hefferlump' makes clear:

One day, Mr Cameron will have to tell the Conservative Party and, indeed, the country, that Frau Merkel won’t let Britain opt out of the free movement of people within the EU. Perhaps that will be when Mr Cameron proves he really does “have no romantic attachment to the European Union and its institutions”, and announces that, in the light of his failure to have Britain opt out of immigration controls, he is recommending leaving. But we should believe all that when we hear it. [My emphasis]

Meanwhile, my new best friend, James, suggests the following scenario:

Let’s say the vote is 55 "in", 45 "out". What would it mean that 45 per cent of voters had rejected the advice of the Conservative Party leadership on the most important issue of this generation? And where would those voters go after the referendum? When the 2020 election comes, will they meekly scuttle back into their previous party-political hutches like pliant rabbits? If not, where will they go, and who will lead them?

Well, given that the old Labour party no longer exists, its role having been reduced to that of street rabble rousing, Dave has moved the 'Tory'(?) party on to their old centre Left ground which is causing muttering in the ranks of true blue Right-wing Tories.  The realisation that Dave has failed miserably to alter our relationship with an increasingly imperious Brussels and that the Conservative party now positively boasts of its Democratic Socialist ideals should be enough to lead to a schism.  We are by nature and tradition a two-party democracy and in the absence of Labour then the Tories should do their duty and split into two parties, Pink and Blue.

 

'F**k me! What was that?'

Variously those words have been ascribed to the captain of the Titanic in 1912 and the mayor of Hiroshima in 1945.  I have it on good authority - the sources we use here at D&N are always of the highest quality! - that they also escaped the tight little lips of 'Dim Dave' yesterday when the news broke that our 'wonderful NHS, the envy of the world - not' overspent more in the first three months of this financial year than it did in the entire preceding year.  To be precise, the NHS exceeded its budget by nearly £1 billion in just three months!  I am also reliably informed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer needed a high speed trip to the private power shit house of the north wing of his office when he heard the news!

For the benefit of my foreign readers, I should make clear that despite the protestations of the current dork masquerading as the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Church of England is not the national religion, it is the NHS!  The people of Britain (dread words!) kneel and pray to it in adoration despite it being the biggest Ponzi scheme ever invented - well, it was but those 'damn Yankees' have out-done us again with their ludicrous 'Obamacare' nonsense.  But perhaps the financial tectonic plates just shifted and finally reality will bring the temple crashing down. 

Thus, it might not be the European referendum that destroys this Tory government but the NHS.  The hard financial facts will insist that either huge cuts must be made to existing services or eye-watering amounts of tax-payers' money will have to be raised, or diverted, in order to support it.  Nearly three generations of British people have been raised before the altar of free medical care.  You can try telling them that there is no such thing as a 'free' lunch but when it comes to their beloved NHS they will lynch you if you dare suggest such a thing.

Watch out for 'Dave 'n' George' diverting cash from the ridiculous overseas aid budget into the NHS and wonder at the ingenuity of the cover story they will throw up to justify it.

 

I might, perhaps, maybe, think about, becoming a political activist

Yes, I know, me, a political activist, or as the 'Memsahib' might put it with her usual sarcasm, any sort of activist!  I was, once, tempted to do rather more in the political field than just harrumphing into the pages of The Telegraph or The Mail and then hurling them across the room in rage.  That was back in the days of 'that woman' who, as I began to actually listen to her words through that ghastly acquired middle-class accent began, if not to fire up my passions, at least light a match.  Alas, that didn't last long and I sank back into my usual apathy.

However, sometime in the next two years Her Maj's loyal subjects will once again face the most important decision to be taken for the past 70-odd years - do we stay in the EU or withdraw?  The last time we were lied to over and over again by people, starting with Ted Heath, who should, if there is any justice, be dug up from their graves, stakes driven through their hearts and their remains hung up on Tower Bridge pour encourager les autres!  Needless to say, in my opinion, anyone who back in the day urged us to join the euro currency bloc should suffer a similar fate on the grounds that they are either deceitful liars or criminally stupid - which are you Nick Clegg?  ('Calm down, dear, it's only a referendum!')

Right, I'm breathing normally so back to business.  My detestation of the entire European (dis)Union is at such a pitch that were I to fail to do more than just whinge from the side-lines I could be accused of hypocrisy.  The news today that a second Brexit supporting group has been formed is good news and glancing through a list of its main backers it seems to me that VOTE LEAVE has some very hard hitters, both financially and politically.  The other main Brexit group had Nigel Farage at it's head and though I would be delighted to share a pint with him at my local I am not an admirer of his political dexterity.  He has ridden on the back of a swelling anti-immigrant/Europe wave but it failed miserably in the election to reach very far up the beach.  The only deposit left after the electoral tide fell away was UKIP member Douglass Carswell MP, a man I admire but who has turned his back on Nigel's outfit and thrown in his lot with VOTE LEAVE.

I am thinking seriously about joining VOTE LEAVE - have you noticed the propaganda repetition of the title and always in block italics! - and I may well volunteer to trudge the streets of Milborne Port sticking leaflets through my neigbours' letter-boxes.  On the other hand, of course, my enthusiasm may wain and, as so many times before, I will slump into my usual position in front of this keyboard and just moan and groan.

You may wonder what it is about the EU that sparks even this amount of passion from me.  I will sum it up in one sentence:

My country has taken a thousand years to gradually attain a system of law that, for all its occasional faults, supports the liberty of the individual against the ravages of an over-weaning government and thus, I do not want, under any circumstances, sundry Bulgarians, Romanians, Greeks, Germans, French, Poles, etc, most of whom lack any history or tradition of democracy, laying down laws on my country.

 

Er, has anybody seen the Conservative party conference?

Only, I've been looking for it everywhere but all I came across was some TV reportage showing a hall full of men in blue suits preaching socialism, well, except for one lady the other day who spent the entire afternoon indulging in political self-flagellation.  Yesterday there was a very excitable young man in a blue suit - natch! - who was boasting about how much his government intended to give away to everyone.  Surely, I thought, this can't be the Conservative party.  On the other hand it obviously wasn't the new, exciting Labour party either because they were all well-dressed and no-one was spitting at anyone.  It can't have been the 'il-Lib-non-Dems' because they are now just a figment of the imagination of some wild-eyed ex-preacher who thinks he's the leader because no-one has told him that to all intents and purposes they no longer exist.

To be slightly serious for a moment, the Tories have, in effect, complied with the precept of the great military philosopher, Carl von Clausewitz, who advised that the main aim of any commander was to destroy the enemy - not just push them back, but destroy them utterly.  This, to his gob-smacked amazement, 'Dim Dave' has executed.  The Lib-Dems have gone, UKIP failed to get more than one foot on the battlefield and the remnants of the Labour party are running in circles pursued, not by Tories, but by their own peasant mobs.  Thus, 'Dim Dave' stands supreme on the battlefield.  It's not so much that the day is his, it's the fact that the next ten years minimum are his. 

So, it is slight comfort for me to see that he is complying with my assessment of him over the years in that having beaten the socialists to a pulp he is now a socialist himself.  As the ever astute Dan Hodges sums up in the title to his piece in the Telegraph, "David Cameron is the new leader of the British Left".  Even the Left have begun to realise it with several leading Lefties 'twittering' each other to the effect that they cannot see any reason not to vote Tory in the future.

So stand by, here comes another of my forecasts and when it happens remember you read it here first: the next big political split will be on the right!

 

 

A bit more Bardolatry: #2

The other day I gave you an excerpt from Troilus and Cressida, one of the very greatest plays Shakespeare ever wrote.  The passage I quoted dwelt on the subject of Time, that mysterious entity through which we all pass and which fascinated Shakespeare because he refers to it constantly throughout his plays and poems.

Here is a quotation from that equally 'mysterious entity', Jaques, from As You Like It, II.vii.  Here Shakespeare wittily but also somewhat mournfully describes Time as lived through a mortal life.  

JAQUES

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. 

We are all, until the end of days, subjects of Time.

 

Is Theresa May the most ghastly woman in politics?

Well, if she's not, and one has to consider Yvette Cooper and Diane Abbot, to say nothing of 'HillBilly' 'over there', then she is certainly near the top - or do I mean the bottom? - in the 'utterly ghastly' stakes.  Today, at the Tory party conference, she laid into the immigration problem, warning us all that unless we slammed the door shut on all those 'fuzzy foreigners' we would all be doomed!  Fine, Mrs. Whiplash May, you made your points with all due ferocity but, may one ask, who was in charge of immigration for the last five years?  Well, bless my soul, it was you!

So, one wonders, why would an experienced politician denigrate all the useless policies for which she was responsible?  Well, I think what she was doing was what our 'rugger buggers' failed miserably to do last Saturday, and that is, to pass the ball.  She could have hurled it at her old coalition partners, the Lib-Dems, but they are now so insignificant as to be barely visible on the political horizon.  So instead, I suspect, she is blaming it all on the Berlin-Brussels axis and is readying herself to come out as a full-on Brexit supporter.

However, she needs to step very carefully in those 4" heels she favours because a poll published today still shows a majority of Brits favour staying in the EU.  Mind you, we all know now, after the last election, how utterly useless polls can be.  If she judges that there is a better than evens chance of the Brits voting for 'OUT' then, if she plays a leading role in the 'OUT' campaign, she will be very well-placed to take over from 'Dim Dave' when he is forced to resign a lot earlier than the smug prat had planned. 

So watch which way she moves over the next year, it could be very indicative.

 

So where's President 'Cry Baby'?

It seems from 'over here' that every time an American shoots another American dead 'President Cry Baby' appears before the media weeping at the way he has been thwarted in his non-stop efforts to ban guns.  Oooops, sorry, I, er, 'miss-wrote', as they say 'over there'.  Actually, it's every time a white American shoots a black American dead that the President is moved to appear and pluck a blues tune from his heart strings.

All total BS, of course, because if he really gave a rat's arse about Americans shooting each other he had the first two years of his presidency during which he and the Democrat party had total control of the Congress.  He could have passed any laws he wanted but he never made a move over gun laws. 

Needless to say, it is black Americans who are suffering the most, particularly poor black Americans of the sort he regularly soaks with his crocodile tears.  I can understand his reluctance to rush to the microphones and cameras for the vast majority of incidents involving blacks shot dead or wounded for the simple reason that in the majority of cases they are shot by other black Americans!  Two reports are out today and one of them concerns Obama's political home base - Chicago:

A violent September in Chicago ended with more homicides than any other month this year and the second-most shootings, according to data kept by the Chicago Tribune's breaking news desk. Though the summer months in Chicago have traditionally been the most violent, shootings last month decreased little from August and there were about 50 percent more shootings than September 2014.

Needless to say, the delicate little liberals who write for the Chicago-Tribune failed to highlight the fact that three quarters of the victims were black!  My guess is the percentage of perps was about the same.  Similarly dire stats are reported by Fox News in Baltimore, where it appears that the police force under enormous political pressure from the Democrat party cabal that has run the city for decades, have more or less given up on the job.

For the year, the 246 homicides recorded through Sept. 26 put Baltimore dangerously close to the record pace of 1993, when 353 people were victims of homicide. The fact that the spike occurred after April 19 bodes even worse: Before the unrest following the Gray arrest, Baltimore had recorded 65 homicides for the year. A four-decade high of 42 homicides in May was topped in July when 45 people were killed in homicides, making Baltimore the second deadliest city in America on a per capita basis, trailing only St. Louis.

Similar results are being reported from several big cities.  So, Mr. President, what exactly were you doing from 2008 to 2010, improving your golf swing?

 

Yet more German incompetence

In an earlier post, and also in the comment thread that followed, I raised the fascinating subject - well, fascinating to war nerds like me - of German economic idiocy (I cannot avoid the word) prior to WWII.  On any rational basis, Germany should never have gone to war but, alas, Hitler was anything but rational.  I made a particular reference to their automotive industry, or to be precise, industries!  As James Holland points out in his excellent book, in 1935 there was one vehicle for every 65 people compared to Britain which had one vehicle for every 23 people.  By the time war broke out the Germans could only manage one per 47 people whilst Britain had produced one vehicle for every 14 people.  In the USA the figure had been one for every 5 people since 1935.

This lack of automotive industry had crippling side effects when Germany went to war.  Fewer vehicles meant fewer factories compared to Britain and France, and the fewer factories led to a shortage of skilled workers able to produce more and a distinct shortage of mechanics capable of repairing them.to say nothing of fewer drivers and fewer petrol pumps to fill such vehicles as there were.  Meanwhile, Goebbels's fanciful propaganda gave the impression of a fully mechanised German army but in Operation Case White, the invasion of Poland, only 15 divisions out of 54 deployed were motorised.

At this point, Mr. Holland introduces us to a man who might well have died of ulcers given his wartime job.  Oberst Adolf von Schell was a brave man who had fought well during WWI and it was he who drew the very short straw of trying to grip the German automobile industry and make it serve the purposes of the military.  He had studied the American auto industry in the mid-'30s so he had some experience:

There was, however, no mass production as there was in the USA, and no co-ordination of effort, rather a lot of innovative models being produced in low numbers.  There was also a conflict between commercial and military requirements.  The disparate and largely small-scale German motor industry was made up from individual companies that continued to produce their own, different types of trucks, cars and other vehicles.  When von Schell had taken over as General Plenipotentiary of Motor Vehicles, there had been no fewer than 131 different types of truck and 1,367 types of trailer, all of which required different parts, different repair knowledge and, all too often, different tools too.

Suddenly, those old black and white photos of German soldiers struggling through Russian mud with inadequate vehicles make sense.

 

For the most part they were dependent on horses, just like Napoleon in the previous century:

Von Schell 'fought' his war mainly against the entrenched Nazi party which was curiously reluctant to face down the existing but muddled motor industry.  He did extremely well but, happily, not well enough.  The lesson to be learned is simple - never go to war without an intelligent and honest economist by your side!

ADDITIONAL:   Which makes me wonder how many "intelligent and honest economists" do the likes of 'Vlad the Impaler' and 'Kim Il Suks' have around them?

 

 

The 'man from Whitehall' no longer knows best, apparently

There was a time, of course, which began during WWII and which was seized upon by the post-war Attlee government when "the man from Whitehall" knew best about everything.  Consequently, in support of the national interest, he was given huge powers over every aspect of life in Britain.  Gradually, very gradually, his grip around our throats has been eased and now, little 'Georgie-Peorgie' Osborne has announced his intention to free us from the last vestiges of power.  Well, two cheers, Georgie, because whilst it all sounds very, er, 'Thatcherite' I can't help wondering if you have thought the matter through.

For a start, back in the day, the "man from Whitehall" probably, in most cases, did know best not least because he was almost certainly better educated and also he enjoyed the national view from the top.  The oiks and plebs below could barely see further than their High Streets!  Even so, one must acknowledge that these days the 'edukashun' of our top civil servants has been reduced to polytechnic levels and most of them have degrees in joined up writing!  However, if that is the case, what do you suppose the level of intelligence is amongst the troglodytes who inhabit your average Town Hall?

As 'Little Georgie' played multiple fanfares to his dream of a "Northern Powerhouse", led by Manchester which is poised to vote into office its first Mayor for several generations, I wondered if he realised that virtually all the City Councillors are Labour!  Georgie has handed over to them all powers over business taxation.  This is rather like offering a kleptomaniac a day out in Harrods!  You only have to look 'over there' to see what happens when once great cities fall into the hands of tax-raising Left-wing cabals.  Your 'Powerhouse', Georgie, might end up sounding (and smelling) like a wet fart!

Of course, the economic liberals in the Tory party will be cheering him on with their Freidmanite equivalent of "Power to the People" but as the Lefties ratchet up the business taxes, then one by one the businesses will close or move, laying off workers who will squeal for more benefits, the middle or wannabe-middle classes will quietly move south and, hey-ho, the likes of Manchester will end up like Baltimore or Chicago.  So when Manchester and Liverpool go broke, Georgie, who will pick up the unpaid bills?

Jest askin'!

 

Your Monday Funnies: 5.10.15

Bit late this morning because I slept in - yes, you wages slaves, that's one of the pleasures of retirement, you can sleep in on a Monday morning.  Anyway, today we begin with yet more flagrant 'blondism':

Two blondes were walking down the road and the first blonde said, "Look at that dog with one eye!"

The other blonde covers one of her eyes and says, "Where?"

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

The executive was interviewing a young blonde for a position in his company. He wanted to find out something about her personality so he asked, "If you could have a conversation with any person, living or dead, who would that be?"

The blonde quickly responded, "The living one."

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

Two blondes were filling up at a gas station and the first blonde says to the second, "I bet these awful gas prices are going to go even higher."

The second blonde replies, "Won't affect me, I always put in just $10 worth."

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

 

 A young Scottish lad and lass were sitting on a low stone wall, holding hands, gazing out over the loch.  For several minutes they sat silently. Then finally the girl looked at the boy and said, "A penny for your thoughts, Angus."

"Well, uh, I was thinkin'... perhaps it's aboot time for a wee kiss."

The girl blushed, then leaned over and kissed him lightly on the
cheek.  Then he blushed. The two turned once again to gaze out over the loch.
Minutes passed and the girl spoke again. "Another penny for your 
thoughts, Angus."

"Well, uh, I was thinkin' perhaps it's noo aboot time for a wee
cuddle."

The girl blushed, then leaned over and cuddled him for a few seconds.
Then he blushed.  And the two turned once again to gaze out over the loch. After a
while, she again said, "Another penny for your thoughts, Angus."

"Well, uh, I was thinkin' perhaps it's aboot time you let me put my
hand on your leg." The girl blushed, then took his hand and put it onher knee.Then he blushed.  Then the two turned once again to gaze out over the loch before the girl spoke again. "Another penny for your thoughts, Angus."

The young man glanced down with a furled brow. "Well, noo," he said,
'my thoughts are a wee bit more serious this time.'

"Really?" said the lass in a whisper, filled with anticipation.

"Aye," said the lad, nodding.  The girl looked away in shyness, began to blush, and bit her lip in anticipation of the ultimate request.

Then he said, "Dae ye nae think it's aboot time ye paid me the first three pennies?"

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

 

 

A guy sends a text to his next-door neighbour:

"Bob, I'm sorry. I've been riddled with guilt and I have to confess: I have been helping myself to your wife when you're not around, probably more than you. I know it's no excuse but I don't get it at home. I can't live with the guilt any longer. I hope you'll accept my sincerest apology. It won't happen again."

Feeling outrage and betrayed, Bob grabs his gun, goes into the bedroom, and without a word, shoots his wife.

Moments later the guy gets a second text:

"Really should use spell check! That should be "wifi"."

Right, back to work!

 

 

The Sunday Rumble: 4.10.15

It's all the 'Memsahib's fault:   Yesterday was my wedding anniversary - yes, 51 years before the mast - God, I deserve a medal! - and so I took the 'Memsahib' over to the Poole Lighthouse Theatre to see a performance of an early Alan Ayckbourn play.  His earlier plays tend to be very similar, being witty but ruthless dissections of middle-class marriage - so right for a wedding anniversary!  I am a huge fan of Ayckbourn but, alas, we left at the interval of this disastrous production.  I won't bore you with the details but this is the second theatrical production we have failed to sit through in its entirety - regulars may remember the callous 'murder' of Stoppard's masterpiece, "Arcadia" about which I spat blood and nails all over these distinguished columns.  So two theatrical disasters in a row indicates to me that 'someone is to blame'!  Obviously it can't be me so that leaves the 'Memsahib'.  In a couple of weeks we are off to see Rattigan's "Flare Path", an absolute diamond of a play which I once had the great privilege of directing.  If this forthcoming production turns out to be a stinker, too, then I will know who to blame and henceforth the 'Memsahib' will be left at home!

 

The 'splitters' will just have to, er, split:   The 'Hefferlump' in today's Telegraph points out that even a total roasting of Labour at next year's Scottish and local elections may not be sufficient to unseat 'Jezza'.  Under the dim, dumb and daft rules introduced by that intellectual genius, Ed 'Milipede', the 'Dave Spart Tendency' who now form the majority of the Labour party membership will support him to the death - and they have the numbers!  Slowly, it will dawn on the, er, normal members of the Labour party, particularly the MPs, that their only option is to split away and form a new party, either on their own or in cahoots with the Lib-Dems or even the Left-wing of the Tory party.

 

Thank God I have my own Professor to teach me:   You may have noticed a distinct lack of posts around here on the Middle East imbroglio in general, and the Russian intervention in particular.  The explanation is simple - I haven't a clue!  And where-of I know nothing I try, not always successfully, to say nothing.  At those moments I reach for my very own Streetwise Professor who has a proper brain and explains everything with absolute clarity:

1:  Russia is intervening to save Assad from imminent defeat, and to protect its ports in Syria.

2:  Isis is not the most immediate threat to either Assad or the Russian facilities.

3:  Therefore, Russia will focus on non-Isis targets, while claiming to be fighting Isis.

There you are, The Streetwise Professor, everybody should have one!  If you're not convinced, read this masterly summary:

There are no good guys in Syria. Stop pretending there are: there is considerable reason to doubt there ever were. And any differences between Isis and the non-Isis Islamists the Russians are bombing are trivial. They do all pretty much look (and act) alike. And what’s more, pretty much everyone in the West looks the same to them: they all think your head would look just splendid mounted on a spike in the front yard.

 

Ben - who for President?    When Gov. Scott Walker fell victim to DES (Duff Endorsement Syndrome) in which any candidate enthusiastically endorsed by yours truly almost always comes a cropper, I decided to treat the forthcoming Presidential election with its 178 (at the last count) candidates the same way I treat the Middle East - ignore it on the basis of my ignorance!  But today I notice a report in the IJ Review claiming that far from 'The Donald' romping away with the GOP nomination, it is actually Dr. Ben Carson who is leading the race - and by a fairly decent margin, too!  Also, it is claimed that based on actual results in elections since 2004, this particular polling organisation, IBD/TIPP, consistently came out on top for the accuracy of its predictions.  Better start checking out this man who has one considerable advantage - he has never been a member of Congress which means that he can come into your house without being having to remove his shoes!

 

At last the dirty secret is oozing out:   For some time now I have insisted on my belief that rugby is a dirty, drug-ridden game.  There is no way, in my opinion, that some of those huge, bulging hulks could have reached the size they have without a little help from a laboratory or two!  Today, on the radio, I understand there was an investigative programme on the subject.  Truth will out!

 

 

No more rumbles today

 

The 'dismal science' at war

I am no economist, as my bank manager will confirm, but there is no denying that economics is a huge factor in warfare if not always the decisive one as, for example, the truly 'David and Goliath' struggle for Vietnam proved when a peasant army on bicycles humbled the mighty United States of America.  But then again, surely you do not need a degree in economics to judge that the Japanese in 1941 were stark, raving bonkers when they did the equivalent of the skinny, little guy kicking sand in the face of a sleeping Charles Atlas!  Even so, it was a long, hard slog that took a couple of atom bombs to bring to a conclusion.

I raise this somewhat abstruse subject because I have been somewhat startled by Mr. James Holland in his latest book(*) on WWII.  Hitherto, without really thinking about it, I had assumed that Britain was, so to speak, the skinny, little guy being kicked by a huge Germanic Charles Atlas and that it was entirely due to British pluck (and a certain amount of crafty guile) that saw us through to victory.  Not entirely so, according to Mr. Holland writing on the situation in 1939.

For all [Hitler's] talk of Britain and France bluffing, the one who was really doing so was Hitler.  The carefully orchestrated parades, the even more carefully managed showreels of German troops and tanks and skies thick with aircraft, were, to a very large extent, a projection of military might rather than a representative of the reality.  Germany was by no means ready for all-out war.  It did not have enough tanks, vehicles or trained soldiers and certainly not enough natural resources to carry out anything more than a short, sharp campaign against a massively inferior enemy: Germany possessed little iron ore, no oil, no copper, tungsten, bauxite or rubber, and, crucially, did not have enough land, sufficiently farmed, to fulfil the food requirements of both the population and the massive military.  Few, if any, nations had access to all the resources needed for war-making, but unlike Britain and France, Germany's merchant fleet was small and access to global resources was limited.

Meanwhile, for all the concerns of men like Churchill and Général George, the disparity in air power was not as great as they feared.  In Britain, aircraft production was almost on a par with that of Germany; monthly British output was 662 aircraft compared with 691 in Germany.  France was one of the leading powers in the world and had a sizeable standing army, with the administration and infrastructure in place to mobilise more than a hundred divisions in a matter of days should it come to war.

It was true that Britain's army was small by comparison, but it was growing rapidly.  Within the Royal Navy and the Air Force, rearmament had been going on since 1935, and Britain now had the world's first fully co-ordinated air defence system.  It also had the world's largest Navy by some margin and stood at the centre of the biggest global trading network the world had ever seen.  It was rich - the richest country in Europe, even after the depression - had the kind of access to resources Germany could only dream of, and it was, and had been for some time, the world's largest armaments exporter.   With its Empire and Dominions, it also had access to an unprecedented amount of manpower.  In almost every way, Britain was better equipped for a major conflict than Germany. 

Hmmmn, so there goes the myth of 'plucky little Britain'!  The fact is that we should have wiped the floor with them - but we didn't, in fact, in 1940 the German army wiped the floor with us!  Of course, you could say that there-in lies the difference between the 'operational' and the 'strategic'.  Yes, the Germans chased us out of France but that was only 'round one' and the fight was scheduled for 15 rounds! 

Even so, it's worth wondering why we were quite so dismal and useless in those early days?  Part of the answer lies in that fine old tradition of utter uselessness that is now, after several centuries, almost an honourable tradition in the higher ranks of the British army.  It takes a long war to rid ourselves of the ninnies at the top and replace them with men of intelligence.  But also there is, I suggest, another factor.  We Brits are just not that warlike!  We go through the motions from time to time and a few men are killed and wounded and a few flags are waved but full on militarism simply does not flow through our bloodstream in the same way that it does in other countries.  You only have to compare our most important annual military parade, the Trooping of the Colour, which reduces 'militarism' to the level of toy soldiers!  Then compare that with the gross pomp and circumstance of the ludicrous parades organised by 'Vlad the Impaler' or 'Kim Il Suks' (or whatever his name is) in North Korea.  Just like Hitler they will end up believing their own circus-contrived agit-prop - and that's when the trouble will start.

 

(*) The War in the West: Germany Ascendant 1939-1941

 

Will he last until Christmas?

It is now painfully (or delightfully) obvious that 'Jezza' fulfils exactly the old adage that 'he couldn't run a whelk stall!'  After a party conference that had all the characteristics of a meeting of the 'People's Front of Judea', whilst the splitters in the 'Judean People's Front' stayed at home and sulked, it's clear that even if he tried to run a whelk stall within minutes he would be under huge pressure from the polytechnic protectionists of the 'Like, Whelks Are Really, Really Important Faction' and anyway, with 'Jezza's bad luck his stall would be engulfed by hungry pigeons eating his stock and shitting all over it.  Any attempt by him to cull the 'lovely likkle pidgie-widgies' would be met by howls of protest from the equally juvenile 'Pidgie-widgies Are Pets Faction'.  'Jezza', needless to say, would support both!

So, to be more realistic, although it is hard not to revert to absurdist metaphors when writing about today's Labour party, the situation is that on all the great matters of state, defence, the deficit and so on, 'Jezza' finds himself at odds with most of his shadow cabinet and most of his parliamentary party.  However, outside the hallowed halls of Westminster he has virtually the entire population of 'wannabe', current and past alumni from every polytechnic in the land.  (Of course, regular readers will be aware that on this blog all further 'edukashun' establishments from 'Oxbridge' up or down are now classified as polytechnics because that, on a good day, is as far as they can manage.)  So, the situation is that the shadow cabinet has 'Jezza' by the short and curlies but the vast ranks of the polytechnic students who have over-run the party membership now have the Shadow cabinet (and every sitting Member of Parliament) in a similar grip.  It almost beats ladies wrestling in mud!

Mr. Harry de Quetteville in The Telegraph puts my mind at rest with a voting analysis which comes to the conclusion that even if all these new, youthful, energised 'Jezza' supporters actually managed to stub out their 'joints' and get off their arses to vote in a general election, it still would not give Labour a lead.  The situation, which will not have escaped the notice of the average Labour MP, is that the chances of a wipe-out at the next election are enormous.  Thus, I wonder if 'Jezza' will make it past Christmas.  If by a miracle he does, then the results of next year's council elections should crush him utterly.  Such fun!

(Sorry for any typos - I'm in a hurry!)

 

 

The long and the short of it

We have a visitor today and so posting will be light until later on.  In the meantime, this story in The Telegraph tickled my fancy, or at least, it made me smile.  There is more than a touch of the 'Monty Pythons' about it.

Here is Cpl. Bob Roberts, all 5'-3" of him, searching Jakob Nacken, at 7'-6" the tallest soldier in the German army.  Happily, according to the story, both the British soldiers and the German prisoners who were present fell about laughing at the sight!

Ex-Cpl. Roberts, I am delighted to say, is now a great-grandfather of 93 and, perhaps a little late in the day, has been awarded the French Legion d'honneur:

Mr Roberts said: "I didn't take a lot of notice of this guy at the time. I just passed the prisoners on one after the other after searching them.

"But my mates who were watching the rest of the men saw this giant of a guy approach me and I was aware they and the Germans were having a good laugh."

Humour, it appears, is universal.