A final farewell to the late Michael Green: I notice that there were one or two of you who were as saddened by the death of Michael Green as I was. Yesterday there was an obit in The Telegraph for whom, back in the day, Mike used to write. Worth a read because it also features a filmed interview with him.
Who said that economics is "the dismal science"? Well, of course, it was that gloomy Jock, Thomas Carlyle, but he was not entirely accurate. 'Over there' - where else? - they have an economic measure called the Vice Index in which they keep track of spending on gambling, alcohol, drugs and prostitution:
Trump's tax cuts provided a brief, er, stiffening in the spending but in the equivalent of a couple of minutes it was all over! Typical, as your average American housewife might say! My thanks to Zero Hedge.
Sorry, Sir Winston, my bad! I owe the great man - and he was ' great man' albeit with great flaws - an apology. For decades I have blamed him for despatching HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse to Malayan waters where they were promptly sunk by Japanese aircraft. I once flew over the site of their demise and you can still see the outline of the ships below the water. Yesterday, I discovered that it was not Winston's doing but that of the naval commander concerned who went down with his ships. Also, I was amazed to learn that the Japanese navy and air force deliberately held back from the scene so as not to interfere with rescue efforts from smaller ships which saved the lives of hundreds of British sailors. I will have more to say on this topic when I have fought my way through to the end of Richard Lamb's book "Churchill as War Leader".
Ach, 'Mutti' rules again: You have to hand it to the little German dumpling, she has oodles of Haftkraft which, according to my German language advisor, er Google Translate, actually, mean 'sticking power'. I pretend to no detailed knowledge of Germany's internal politics but the coalition between a Right-wing party and a Left-wing party, both of whom were given a spanking by their electorate at the last election, smacks ('geddit'?) of two people in the sea clinging to each other before the next wave sinks them!
Time to auction off the 'BBC - British Bullshit Company': There was mild panic here at 'Chateau Duff' the other day when my TV lost the signal to Sky News. This meant that I had to switch to the dreaded, and dreadful, BBC. It helped slightly, of course, that as per usual I always have the sound off and merely glance from time to time at the ticker-tape at the bottom to ensure that none of those bloody politicians have had the infernal cheek to declare war without notice! It is now clear beyond doubt that the BBC is totally Left-wing and anti-Brexit. The insolent nobs don't even bother to show a bare minimum of balanced reporting. On top of that they are paying themselves eye-wateringly huge salaries at our expense. Sell 'em off!
It takes a turd to love a turd: This irrefutable scientific theory is confirmed yet again by the mutual love and adoration and respect between, in this toilet bowl, Mr. Tom Watson MP, and in that toilet bowl, Mr. Max Mosley.
A Turd Another Turd
I will leave it to the gallant Mr. Stephen Pollard, editor of The Jewish Chronicle, to explain the details but I advise you all to wash your hands afterwards!
A "paper dragon"? A fascinating article at The American Thinker by Peter Skurkiss who offers a view of China and its future role in the world which is markedly different from the shivers of fear usually produced when one contemplates exactly where this gargantuan country is headed. He summarises, thus:
[T]he Chinese still face a combination of nearly insurmountable problems, ranging from China's enormous debt to its inherent corruption and polluted environment to its unsolvable upside-down demographics.
So, good luck with all of that, self-appointed President-for-Life Xi Jinping!
To the deeply religious there is no compromise with heresy: Another of the potential mothers of my children, from whom I have still not received a reply to my generous offer, offers a spot-on summary of why Mrs. May's sensible, pragmatic approach to the EU 'agitprop' will be spurned and scorned. As the highly intelligent and attractive Ms. Janet Daly spells out in The Telegraph, the Brits are approaching our problem with Europe from a standpoint of compromise without realising that to them it is a matter of deep religious belief and conviction and any attempt to vary the details is heresy! It is London Protestantism versus Roman Catholocism all over again! She sums it up, thus:
But what she [Mrs. May] could not acknowledge was the most serious impediment to agreement, what everybody out there in the real world will have gathered by now: “pragmatic” and “cooperative” do not come into it. The EU project is theological and what Mrs May is proposing is heresy.
The ties that bind EU member states are moral absolutes. They are deliberately transformative: specifically designed to alter the nature of nation states and make sovereign governments less powerful. Hence, the objection to “cherry-picking”: acceptance of the whole credo is essential. If you reject the essential truths, you cannot expect to get the benefits of some of the rituals.
Exactly so!
No more rumbles today
"As an amateur thespian, Green developed a keen ear for the absurd, whether on-stage or off. He was always nervous about the actor’s traditional cri de guerre “break a leg”, having once done just that by falling off stage and being ferried to hospital dressed as an 18th-century pirate complete with eye patch and wooden leg."
That gets SoD's "Beyond the awesome horizon and into magical legend" award.
SoD
Posted by: Loz | Sunday, 04 March 2018 at 10:18
Marvellous!
Thank you D and N! I've never been able to put a face to the man, and only heard a very short interview with him ages ago.
Am now going to seek out his two novels again!
Posted by: Scroblene | Sunday, 04 March 2018 at 10:59
"the Vice Index in which they keep track of spending on gambling, alcohol, drugs and prostitution:" Whew! Fishing has yet to make the list!
Posted by: Whitewall | Sunday, 04 March 2018 at 13:29
Re the Chinese, there are a lot of them, however none of them are ten feet tall as some hysterical Westerners seem to believe.
Posted by: Whitewall | Sunday, 04 March 2018 at 18:16
And, Whiters, it takes a secret police force the size of an army to keep the various disparate regions in line!
Posted by: David Duff | Sunday, 04 March 2018 at 18:20
Vice with respect to retail sales is an interesting correlation. Here are some others:
http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
Posted by: Bob | Sunday, 04 March 2018 at 18:45
Re EU negotiations.
Ms Daly has a point. But additionally the EU is concerned with maintaining as much power, wealth and prestige as possible, and should they start being reasonable with us others will expect the same- and then where will they be.
It seems to me that in bending over backwards to be as conciliatory as possible Mrs. May has afforded the EU multiple opportunities to appear unreasonable, even bullying. They've hardly missed any.
At this rate we'll have a majority for leaving at any price even greater than that shown in Mr. Blair's Facebook poll.
Posted by: Pat | Sunday, 04 March 2018 at 21:34