DUFF & NONSENSE!

The Sunday Rumble: 21.2.21

Squabbles inside No. 10, so no change there then!  Turbulence in Downing Street as another Vote Leave aide departs | The Spectator.   It's 'handbags at dawn' inside No.10. as most of the PM's advisors are too busy bashing each other to waste any time actually advising Boris.  Not, I hasten to add, that advising Boris is likely to have much effect!  'Bozzer' does it his way, er, when he can be bothered!

 

Whatever happened to 'Wotsisname'?   Suddenly, there was no Trump!  No pics of his magnificently quaffed hair!  No close-ups of his childishly pouted lips.  How he must be hating anonymity!  Ohdearwhatapitynevermind!

 

Farewell, Meghan.   No reason to ever come back.  Nobody will miss you!

 

The ever-excellent Julie Burchill hits it on the head:   The headline to her latest piece in The Telegraph says it all:

   "When will Remainers admit they were wrong about Brexit?"

When hell, or the EU, freezes over, I suspect!

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

 

Off tomorrow to attend a funeral of an old and very dear friend

 

 

No more rumbles 

 

 

 

"I know thee not, old man!"

The recent political demise of [Sir] Donald Trump reminded me of Act v, scene 5 from Henry Vth:

• Henry V.  I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers.
  How ill [yellow] hairs become a fool and jester!
  I have long dreamt of such a kind of man,
  So surfeit-swell'd, so old, and so profane;
  But being awak'd, I do despise my dream.
  Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
  Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape
  For thee thrice wider than for other men—
  Reply not to me with a fool-born jest;
  Presume not that I am the thing I was,
  For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
  That I have turn'd away my former self;
  So will I those that kept me company.
  When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
  Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
  The tutor and the feeder of my riots.
  Till then I banish thee, on pain of death,
  As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
  Not to come near our person by ten mile.
  For competence of life I will allow you,
  That lack of means enforce you not to evils;
  And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
  We will, according to your strengths and qualities,
  Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord,
  To see perform'd the tenour of our word.
  Set on.    Exeunt the [President] and his train
• [Long, shocked pause, then ...]

• Falstaff.  Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pounds.

 

 

The Don's gone but I'm back!

Sorry for going a.w.o.l. - again! - but that's old age for you and until they find a cure for it we just have to put up with it - or die!  Anyway, we bid farewell to 'The Don' and I for one will sorely miss him.  He was such a preposterous 'plonker' of a President but, unlike some of his allegedly more intelligent predecessors, he never led America into a futile war!  Of course, his ego was monstrous but then again not much different from 'Obamarama's or the poisonous Clintons!  Anyway, now we have the 'machine-men' back in charge and does that make any of you feel much better?

The remarkable thing about 'The Don' was that in a city packed full of enemies, as every President quickly learns, he succeeded in becoming his very own worst enemy!  All politicians need a fairly hefty ego but the Donald's was 'yuuuuuuuuuuuuuge'!  It blinded him to almost everything else in his personal universe.  Alas, he is now sentenced to dwell in misery in his favourite, bloated and ghastly resort with nothing to do but ponder on his humiliation - odearwhatapitynevermind!

So, now to Biden and weshallseewhatweshallsee!

 

God bless America!

Perhaps, just perhaps, 'The Donald' has succeeded in providing America, in general, and future Presidents, in particular, with an invaluable lesson.  From now on, Presidents will know with absolute certainty that there are limits to their power.   Delusions of grandeur, of course, will continue because they are all part of the toxic atmosphere of presidential politics in the USA but from now on, the political ghost of Donald Trump will haunt the corridors of the White House and act as a reminder to new incumbents that there is a power greater than themselves which will, if required, act with crushing effectiveness.

Happily on this occasion, the threat to America and everything it stands for was mostly individual and in no way backed by military forces or overwhelming masses.  Even so, it could so very easily have qualified under the heading of 'A damned fine thing, the finest thing you ever saw' in which, of course, the word "fine" is used in the early 19th century sense as meaning 'close run'.  I will use some more 'olde worlde' English to provide Donald with a parting message: "You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

 

 

 

The Sunday Rumble: 10.1.21

Some good news - for a change:   Courtesy of The Mail I bring you these glad tidings:

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will never return to social media after claiming to have dealt with an 'almost unsurvivable' amount of abuse, a source has claimed.

Ohdearwhatapitynevermind!  Don't worry about being missed - you won't be!

 

Three cheers for 'plucky little, er, Taiwan', actually:   'The Donald', in a last mischievous throw of his Presidential dice, has lifted all previous American restrictions on Taiwan - and about time, too!  'Xi Ping-a-ling' will not be amused!

 

The Scottish Play - no, not that one, the real one!  Yet more obscurity from me - sorry, sorry!  I refer to the current claymore fight going on in Edinburgh between the Sturgeon clan and the Salmond clan.  It is always amusing to learn, yet again, that the smaller the territory the more vicious is the fight.  Let us hope that neither party applies that favourite Scottish ploy and 'puts their heed in wi' their bonnet on!'

 

That Starmer fella' is beginning to impress me!   I am grateful - again! - to Guido for informing me of this:

Starmer Rejects FoM and Re Joining EU

Jolly good show, Keir, old chap - ooops, sorry, I mean 'Comrade'!

 

 

 

            More Rumbles later . . .

 

 

 

'A E-P' is spot on!

I refer, of course, to Mr. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard and his article today in The Daily Telegraph.  It is summarised in his opening two paragraphs:

The Putsch has failed. The US military has refused to acquiesce. It has become impossible for Donald Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act or resort to force in a final throw of the dice.

The Pentagon and the National Guard are already answering to a chastened vice-president Mike Pence, acting in concert with leaders of Congress. Effective power has passed. The Trump presidency no longer exists. Trump has been forced to accept an “orderly transition”. He had no choice!

Thank God and praise the Constitution!  Also, praise the American political 'club', normally buried in insults, which almost unanimously revolted against Trump's criminal stupidity!  All great nations have their testing times and this has been one of America's greatest.  They passed with flying colours!

Phew. what a relief!

 

 

 

The greatest disaster in the USA is Donald Trump!

I have hoped, in fact I nearly prayed, that Donald Chump Trump would never, ever, have to face truly serious pressure exerted on the very foundations of the United States.  I hoped that he would 'stumble-bum' his way through the choppy waters of American politics providing us all with a chuckle or three as he did so and then simply - GO!  Well he nearly made it but now on the very last laps he is steering the ship of state straight towards the very rocks which could sink the whole edifice.  That, of course, is exactly and precisely the outcome desired by the extreme Left lurking in the shade of the once responsible Democratic party.

With the other global threat hovering over us all, who the hell needs an American crisis?  The smile on the face of Xi Ping-a-ling grows broader by the day!

 

 

 

Farewell, Chuck, I salute you!

Alas, the death has been announced of one of my boyhood heroes, Chuck Yeager, the first man to 'break the sound barrier'.  As a 'nipper', I was fascinated by high speed planes and the race for one of them to travel faster than the speed of sound.  As The Telegraph puts it in its obit of this courageous man:

A B-29 bomber carried the X-1 26,000 feet (7,925 m) over California's Mojave Desert and let it go. Neither Yeager nor aviation engineers knew if the plane - or the pilot - would be able to handle the unprecedented speed without breaking up. But Yeager took the 31-foot X-1, powered by liquid oxygen and alcohol, to Mach 1.06, about 700 mph at 43,000 feet, as if it were a routine flight.

Later, I was 'gutted' to witness the death of another of my heroes, John Derry, the de Havilland test pilot, whose aircraft disintegrated after he broke the sound barrier at the Farnborough Air Show.  Truly brave men, all of them.

 

 

 

'To deal or not to deal, that is the question!'

As regular readers know, I have always taken a hard line on our departure from the EU.  I have loathed and detested it since first we entered the wretched conglomeration and I remain steadfast, er, sort of, in making our escape.  Even so, today at The Spectator, Mr. James Forsyth gives me pause for thought particularly if the end result is 'no deal'.

No deal would be acrimonious. The EU would probably take a hard-line approach to border checks to try to force Britain back to the table. Boris Johnson would, as the Internal Market Bill proposes, override parts of the withdrawal agreement that he himself signed. The EU would take legal action.

It is impossible to believe that these tensions wouldn’t bleed across into other issues such as foreign policy and defence cooperation. The arguments that would follow a no-deal Brexit could poison UK-EU relations for years – undermining the Western alliance.

All probably true but just how much faith do we really have in the so-called 'Western Alliance'?  Would France and Germany stand by us should we be threatened directly by Russia?  'Maybe, baby'!  Today, can we depend on 'good ol' Joe Biden if Russian push comes to shove?  Well, yes, probably ...  possibly.  Far and away the most critical thing for HMG to do is hang on to our A-bombs and the means to deliver them.  They concentrate minds like nothing else!

 

 

The Sunday Rumble: 15.11.20

Brexit is the true test of Boris:   God knows - and He's not too sure! -  what Boris will get up to now that he has disposed of his two leading advisors.  However, we 'the great unwashed' have one litmus test by which we may judge him - BREXIT!  Either it happens, boldly and clearly, or it does not and ends up as a hopeless Euro fudge in which, as we have learned over the years, we always come off worse!

 

Nazi Germany:   I stumbled upon a TV programme last night which touched on the early days of Nazi Germany.  Good God, those Germans were stupid beyond belief!  Exactly how evil they were is another question.  Even so, surely they did not need a degree in Political Philosophy to see 'the bleedin' obvious', that Adolph Hitler was a charlatan with galloping megalomania who would bring down disaster on their nation.  We were right to bomb them to bits and then invade them and thereby humiliate them.  The only ones I feel sorry for were the children!

 

And still 'The Ginger Ninja' continues with his clown act!    Alas, it was only ever funny for a few days but now, as the flecks of spittle fly from his little gooseberry lips, it has become tiresome and, given the high political temperature that pervades America, it is positively dangerous!  Just go!

 

Alas, this is all too true:  Nick Cohen, at The Spectator site, has Downing Street summed up in his first paragraph:

For all his Falstaffian swagger, Boris Johnson resembles no Shakespearian character so much as Henry VI. He is a weak and vacillating king at the mercy of palace factions. He thinks whatever the last adviser he spoke to told him to think. He has no policies that cannot be changed under pressure or principles that cannot be abandoned if the loudest voice in the room says they must go. He does not know his own mind. At times it appears he has no mind worth knowing.

And whilst we have two clowns operating in Washington and London, the Chinese quietly get on with their malicious business!

 

 

No more Rumbles 

 

 

 

Why do the people of Minneapolis all look suspiciously like each other?

I assume it is the result of decades of inbreeding which also means that they tend to shuffle round with their mouths sagging open and faithfully chanting the latest mantras issued by the (non)Democrat Party.  Thus, it was just recently that a majority voted in favour of cutting resources to their Police Department following the death of George Floyd.

Guess what!  According to Zero Hedge there were 48 homicides in Minneapolis in all of 2019. There are still nearly two months to go in 2020 and so far there have been 74 homicides this year. Doubling last year’s homicide number is not out of the question.

'HOODATHUNKIT'?

Well, obviously not the muppets of Minneapolis!

 

 

 

We bid, 'yuuuugely, a farewell to one president and greetings to another

I shall miss 'The Donald', his enormous, puffed-up ego provided a constant source of humour, not least when it was well and truly punctured by a man who is almost his exact opposite.  Not, I hasten to add, that 'good ol' Joe' doesn't have an equally large ego but he has the good sense to keep it hidden.  Without raking through the details of the last four years, it seem to me that the politics pushed through by 'The Donald' were not that bad.  He never attempted a coup, he never had his opponents executed (which in some instances is a pity!), he never started a serious war and, most important, he was quick to acknowledge and warn of the menace of China.

Now, the great question is how 'good ol' Joe' will make out?  Somehow, I doubt, just like his predecessor, that he has ever had a strategic thought pass through his mind.  What worries me is just how much influence his 'advisors' have over him?  And who are they, exactly?  Our newspapers are wringing their hands and suggesting that Britain's influence will simply melt away.  I wish they would tell us just how much influence we have ever had with a US government?

The big worry, of course, is not Joe Biden's politics but, at his age, Joe Biden's health!  I know precisely nothing about his vice-President but even so I sense some alarum bells ringing!  So, whatever else you do, Joe, keep taking your meds!

 

 

 

"It's all over"

 

Sorry, Don baby, but it's all over.  It was fun - sort of - for a while and it will be to your eternal credit that unlike so many of your predecessors you did not actually rush into any wars.  I hope I live long enough to read a detached and neutral record of your presidency. As a life-long, free-wheeling capitalist you appear to have kept the strangling hands of the State off the free markets that give your country, and the rest of the world, its wealth.  Also, being totally un-self-aware you provided us all with a never-ending source of chuckles.  You will be missed.

 

 

 

 

"In the name of God, go!"

Thus spake Oliver Cromwell 'back in the day', er, April 1653 to be exact, and personally I would redirect those words today to the increasingly ridiculous and dangerous President of the United States.  Hitherto he has been a figure of fun but now, as my Jewish friends might say, "Enough, enough, my life already!"   America has never been perfect but, despite the all too obvious fault lines, it remains a rough and ready symbol of a democratic ideal.  This flouncing, foolish clown is besmirching that ideal and causing immense damage.  And yes, I know the alternative on offer, plus the apparat behind him, is not much better but this ludicrous clown must go!

 

 

 

So who won the bloody thing?

Well, I woke up earlier this morning eager to find out who won the keys to the White House - and then went back to bed again because nobody is quite sure?  It is now just gone 10.00am and still I do not know!  As they are both truly third-rate candidates I don't really care although I remain deeply suspicious of Biden's 'Leftie apparatchiks' particularly as he is obviously too dim, dumb, daft and elderly to control them!  As for Trump, his wild lurches in different directions worry me but I suppose the good thing is that it must worry America's enemies even more!  What I truly dread is the sort of dead heat between them that results in endless court litigation.  It has been obvious for some time that 'The Donald' is incapable of running a whelk-stall but, alas, I suspect that 'good ol' Joe' is finding it even more difficult to tie his own shoe-laces which will leave a 'yuuuuuuuuuuuuuge' power gap at the centre of American politics.

How they must be smiling in Peking!

 

 

Jolly good luck today, Mr. President, you may need it!

Matthew Lynn at The Coffee House this morning provides a useful summary of the best and worst of 'The Donald'.  I am pushed for time - 'Memsahib' orders shopping trip prior to the lockdown! - so I will quote Mr. Lynn extensively:

If the polls and bookmakers are to be trusted, Donald Trump will be the first sitting president to be ejected from office since George Bush Senior, way back in 1992. In truth, he won’t be much missed. His bullying, narcissistic manner demeaned the office. His estranged relationship with the truth made him an unreliable ally. And his lack of empathy made him a poor leader at a time of crisis.

All true, of course, but even so, with my emphasis added  . . .

But in one respect at least he will have a legacy. He is the first leader since Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher to show two things; that you can deregulate; and that you can dramatically reduce taxes. And that both will make an economy more competitive.

When the history books deliver their judgement on the brief Trump administration, the verdict is likely to be mixed, at best. And yet the economic record is in many ways surprisingly strong, not just for its tangible achievements, but for the way it has shifted the consensus.

Alas, the question is, will the dreaded American 'Peeps' acknowledge that and vote accordingly?  Alas, I have no idea but my fingers - and toes - are firmly crossed.

 

 

The (late) Sunday Rumble

God, life's boring!   Even so, as I have remarked before, many a time and oft (perhaps too oft!), sometimes boring is better than exciting!  Part of the problem for me in this 'Covid' era is that my scientific/medical knowledge is miniscule and even though, as my regular visitors will know, I am never averse to making a prat of myself on all sorts of subjects, virus behaviour, along with sub-atomic particle behaviour is way beyond my ken!  In these sorts of situations I simply dig in and keep my head down!

 

Next Tuesday's US election:  Yet another subject about which I have little to say - let alone forecast!  My sincere hope is that 'The Donald' will win, not because I am a great admirer of the buffoon but simply because an (un)Democrat regime would be a disaster!  Here's hoping!

 

I loathe and detest the National Trust!   'Back in the day', the 'Memsahib' was always eager to visit this or that stately, historic house most of which were run by the National Trust.  Not me!  I could only think of the families who had built them and lived in them for hundreds of years before being forced out by rapacious governments.  Today, The Mail reports that the jumped-up bureaucrat who runs the NT is determined to publicise any of the houses whose previous owners were associated in any way with the slave trade.  Well, I expect it gives the smug, stupid woman a warm glow of self-appreciation even if nobody but her and few Lefty twerps gives a toss!

 

Farewell, Sir Sean, and thank you:   I think that Sean Connery's performances as 'James Bond' were simply superlative!  There is no doubt that he looked the part of an exceedingly dangerous man and his growly, Scottish accent added to the menace.

 

No more rumbles

 

Welcome aboard, Judge Amy Coney Barrett

Needless to say, until a few weeks ago I had never heard of Her Honour, Judge A.C.B.  However, now I am very slightly, better informed and she sounds like an 'absolute corker' for the Supreme Court.  Her appointment should - but beware those cheatin' Dems! - hold the Supreme Court to the Right of Centre for a number of years.  That is critical for the USA as it fights off a sustained and ruthless campaign by the extreme Left which, if ever successful, would reduce America to third-world status!  I emphasise the Right of Centre because after decades of non-stop campaigning, the Dems have shifted the political axis to the Left.  In passing, perhaps we should offer up our thanks to the late Ms. Ruth Bader Ginsberg who had the good taste to die just in time and thus free-up a vacancy.  I have minimal trust in 'The Donald' to keep the good ship, USA, to the Right of Centre so all my faith is in the hands of the, er, 'Supremacists'!

 

 

 

The Sunday Rumble: 25.10.20

Who messed with the clocks?   As if a shuffling, old, 81 year octogenarian wasn't confused enough, somebody's changed all the clocks!  I blame .................... (Fill in your choice!)

 

Brilliant news!   I'm reading again!  Well, it's brilliant for me but given that it is likely to provoke me to even more 'boring-snoring' commentary it may not be so good for you!  I don't know why a year or so ago I suddenly switched off from reading, any more than I know why, equally suddenly, yesterday I picked up a book and started again.  The book was simply the nearest to hand and it is a biography of Abraham Lincoln by Jan Morris.  He/she - yes, he/she is, or was, both despite fathering five children, is a well know writer but this is the first of her books that I have read.  So far I have only just reached Lincoln's 20th birthday but already, knowing (roughly) where he was to ascend, I am fascinated.  It helps that Ms. Morris writes impeccably clear English!

 

The real Boris, er, sort of:   And, unsurprisingly, he is simply ghastly!  That is according to Ms. Lynn Barber who has reviewed Tom Bower's just released, un-authorised biography of our very own 'Dear Leader':

Bower never quite states his own position on Boris, though he quotes zillions of his detractors. Max Hastings — perhaps regretting ever having launched Boris’s early success as a Brussels journalist — describes him as ‘a man of remarkable gifts, flawed by an absence of conscience, principle or scruple’. 

"There’s a pattern to Boris’s life: it’s the casual dishonesty, the cruelty, the betrayal, and beneath the betrayal the emptiness of real ambition: the ambition to do anything useful with office once it is attained."

What have we done to deserve such rat-bag, political leaders?

 

'Lord' Lewis Hamilton reaches the zenith:   Yes, I have promoted 'Lord' Hamilton from a mere Knighthood because today he has become the greatest racing-driver of all time - er, well, until some unknown lad who has barely learned to drive eventually reaches the F1 starting grid.  Whilst Lewis deserves his kudos, his Dad deserves his share.  It was his dedication to his son's early career that sent him on his way.

 

 

  No more Rumbles 

 

 

 

Pay attention, America, I'm about to tell you how to vote - DON'T!

I understand and sympathise with the difficulty you face in choosing your next, er, 'Glorious Leader'.  Frankly, I wouldn't give a bent cent for either of them but, hey, this is the way your system works so you must do your duty.  

Given that both of them in their differing ways are quite ghastly it is necessary to look past them and try an weigh up the cabals that stand behind them.  Biden is a politician, or to put it more clearly, is a born-again, lying-liar!  Alas, he is also not very good at it!  There was a time when the Dems had some world-class 'lying liars', like Kennedy and Clinton pere but not these days.  One gains the distinct impression that Biden simply does not know when he is lying!

Trump, of course, is a buffoon, in fact, so much of a buffoon that that he is incapable of recognising his own innate buffoonery!  His ego is of such immense proportions that, like a black hole in space, no light is permitted to enter.  Behind both of them lurk gangs of crooks and con-men all eagerly rubbing their hands at the thought of the contraband to come their way.

Poor America, what have you done to deserve such an outcome?

 

 

The Sunday Rumble: 18.10.20

We bid farewell to bonny Scotland!   Well, there's no way we can force them to remain!  Mind you, if that's "the high road" they are determined to take, then all we can do is shut the door firmly - very firmly! - behind them and wish them good luck in the 'welcoming arms' of the European Union, a.k.a. the German racket!  It is patently obvious that nothing is more important to  'Mrs. MacWhinge' than, er, well, 'Mrs. MacWhinge', actually, and her place in Scottish history.  The fact that eventually it will sink lower than the Loch Ness monster has not yet dawned on 'the wee lassie' but it will, eventually, and I hope I will still be around to attempt my version of a Highland fling!

 

Fascinating book review in The Spectator:  The title of the book written by Catherine Grace Katz sums it up -  The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War.  I might just treat myself to a copy, after all, you can always depend on the ladies to to go to the secret heart of a meeting between men and as meetings go, they do not get much more crucial than Yalta!

 

California - here I do NOT, under any circs, come!   Well, I have just read Douglas Murray's report on the, er, 'golden' state and it stinks - literally!  

Anyone who has visited San Francisco in recent years will have noticed that one of the world’s most beautifully positioned cities has turned into an American dystopia. Nowhere in the first world is actual inequality more pronounced. The proximity of Silicon Valley has made property unaffordable to anyone below the millionaire class. And when that class comes down from their towers or ventures into the centre of the city they encounter sights rarely seen outside of a zombie movie.

The incentivisation of homelessness, dire provisions for the mentally ill and easy access to legal and illegal drugs have meant that even the city’s boutique shopping streets are crowded with people who have made the streets their home. A portion of the responsibility for this lies with Mayor Gavin Newsom who, having made such a success of San Francisco, became Governor of California, to see if he could make his policies fail on a larger canvas.

Needless to say, California is ruled ruthlessly by Left-wing 'Democrats' whose crass stupidity and corruption is obvious to all - well, all except those who actually live there and vote, apparently!

 

What's the Norwegian for "Jolly good show, chaps!"   Well, for once, at least, the Nobel Peace Prize officers managed to reach the correct decision for granting a Nobel Peace Prize, although, to be accurate, it's not so much to whom they gave the prize - it was "the World Food Programme for its efforts to combat hunger and to prevent it being used as a weapon of war" - but whom they ignored".  Thus, the ineffably smug and stupid, Greta Thunberg was passed by!  What can one say, except perhaps, 'Ohdearwhatapitynevermind!'

 

More rumbles later . . .

 

 

 

What's the French for, "Why am I not surprised?"

Or perhaps, a better question is, "What's the French for 'Bang him up!'?  I refer, au naturel, to that French pygmy - or should that be 'pigmy'? -  Nicolas Sarkozy, the former President of France and a leader - mais non, the leader! - of the European Union.  According to Zero Hedge, he has just been charged with taking back-handers from one of the most disgusting North African leaders of modern times:

Sarkozy - who was president of France from 2007 until 2012 - is said to have accepted around €50MM [my emphasis]from Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's overthrown leader, was captured and killed in 2011. As we noted, the amount was more than twice the legal spending limit in French elections for the time, which was €21MM. Gaddafi's alleged payments to Sarkozy also violated foreign financing laws and declares the source of campaign funds.

Rather shrewdly, Zero Hedge suggested that M. Le President should have followed the example of the Clintons:  

If Sarkozy were smart enough, maybe he should've opened up a foundation - like the Clinton's to accept foreign bribes donations.

They do that sort of thing so much better 'over there'!

 

 

'Only in America', er, well, mostly in America!

Look, we all have our 'foodie' likes and dislikes but even so, shooting and wounding your own brother and actually killing his girl friend when they brought home the wrong sort of fast-food order seems a tad O.T.T.!  I mean, I like my cheeseburgers to be 'just so' but murder is well out of order as a means of complaint!  If I felt that strongly about it, I would have murdered every waiter in MacDonald's by now.  Actually, years ago I simply learned that their burgers were rubbish and so I gave up using them.  But, hey, this was in America where they tend to do things differently.  Actually, it was in Arkansas which, of course, is my old e-pal, 'JK's home state - so why am I not surprised?  

"When troubles come, they come not single spies"

As troubled America is learning the hard way!  (Apologies, by the way, to 'old Will' for slightly misquoting him!) No-one is entirely to blame for America's woes, it's just those damned "events, dear boy, events!"  Even so, Mr. Matt Purple asks a critical question in The Spectator this week - "What if no one accepts the election result?"  Gulp!  Well, given the ferment in American affairs these days plus the abundance of personal weaponry and the fervid state of public opinion, a disputed election will be the equivalent of lighting up a cigar in an ammunition depot!

Good luck with that one, Uncle Sam!

For God's sake, America, get a grip!

I am happy - nay, delighted! -  to say that I have not viewed any of yesterday's 'shout-fest' between Trump and Biden.  However, from all reports I would suggest that the only thing the American people learned yesterday was that neither candidate is fit to be the mayor of 'Hicksville', let alone President of the United States!  Hitherto, despite my doubts, I have been sparing in my criticism of Trump.  Not any more!  The man is an ignorant and arrogant pig with an ego the size of Texas and a brain no bigger than his titchy, little 'willy'!  Alas and alack, Biden simply demonstrated his utter stupidity by falling in with Trump's gross game-plan.

God help America and, hopefully, us as well who depend on the USA for so much!

 

 

A Sunday Rumble

God and Donald move in mysterious ways their wonders to perform!   Yes, yes, of course there is a difference between God and Donald although the latter may doubt it!  Anyway, God, for reasons unknown to me, has unleashed the dreaded 'Covid-lurgi' on us all probably because we have all been very naughty boys and girls!  Donald, on the other hand (well, he sits on the right-hand of God!) has taken swift advantage of the death of that old 'Leftie' harridan who occupied a seat on the Supreme Court and swiftly appointed another lady to the post but this one comes with impeccable Right-wing views.  Apparently, this will clinch a Right-wing majority at the Supreme Court for years.  Jolly good show, Donald!

 

Labour lead in poll:  Not, I hasten to add, that I place that much confidence in political polls.  Even so, I would rather not read of a 3% Labour lead over the Tories!  Surely, the Tory 'grandees' must see that Boris is a dead loss as a leader and that Rishi is the man for the job.  So, just get on with it, chaps, and don't think that Boris will be hurt because, according to reports, he is feeling a severe financial pinch as PM and he would earn 'zillions' more in the private sector.

 

An apology to my American friends:  As I have reported some time ago, this bloody-bloody 'fatigue syndrome' with which I am plagued virtually destroyed my vociferous reading habit.  However, just as it occurred, I pulled an old, un-read, paper-back book from my shelf and placed it on my desk as a reminder!  It is a fairly slim volume but, I suspect, the subject is 'yuuuuuuuuuge'!  I'm not too sure how it will go down but I am determined to try!  It is a biography of Abraham Lincoln by Jan Morris about whom, I am ashamed to say, I know very little.  I will post reports as I go.

 

No more Rumbles 

 

 

 

I'm dying - of boredom!

God!  Life sure is tedious, ain't it?  And yes, yes, I know all about the dangers of 'living in exciting times' but even so, this current existence is truly 'boring-snoring'!  Mind you, I suspect that the eventual outcome of this 'covid-virus-thingie' may well prove to be cataclysmic.  Not so much the virus itself but the eventual knock-on effect on the economy and the social life.  Those effects, of course, will eventually reverberate in the political arena.  The one small advantage to us Brits, of course, is that there is at least four years to go before another election which gives Boris the chance not to panic but to act sensibly.  Alas, 'over there' the election race is off and running.  Even so, I think, I hope, I even pray that 'The Donald' and the 'Repubs' have enough support to hold off the mad 'Lefties'.

We shall see what we shall see, er, and all that sort of thing!

 

 

A Sunday Rumble: 20.9.20

Sorry, Donald, but Daniel Hannan has it about right:  I will not attempt to paraphrase his impeccable English, so instead I will take the lazy way out and just paste and quote from his piece in today's Telegraph:

If I were an American, I’m not sure I could bring myself to vote for Donald Trump. It’s not that he lacks achievements. His tax cuts and deregulation worked: the US economy was booming pre-Covid, and unemployment was at a record low. His judges have the humility to recognise that the Constitution is bigger than they are. His success in reconciling Israel with a number of Arab states would have had the global commentariat demanding a Nobel Peace Prize had it come from any other president.

But I keep coming back to his character flaws: the childish lies; the inability to distinguish between public office and private interests; the mafia-like expectation that his supporters should follow him on his own account, changing their views whenever he does.

Yeeeeees, I think that about sums it up!  Even so, Mr. Hannan reminds us:

I don’t think I could vote for Joe Biden, either. I remember watching him at a conference two years ago, and it already seemed painfully clear that, to deal plainly, he was no longer in his perfect mind. With the world in its worst-ever recession, can Americans afford to have him at the helm?

From a British point of view, though, things are far clearer. Trump is unquestionably the more Anglophile candidate. He identifies strongly with his Scottish mother, and sometimes describes himself as half-British. 

'Nuff said!  I think we'll keep him on!

 

The real test for Boris:   Will he have the balls to flog off the BBC to the highest bidder?  It is now a self-inflated balloon filled with rancid anti-British, pro-socialist opinions and a provider of programmes, sport excepted, that hardly anyone watches or listens to!  It's your final test, Boris, just 'man-up' and do it!

 

This day 80-years ago:   Was the height of the most crucial battle fought by Britain since the Armada.  As has been well-expressed in most of the media, it was fought with the essential assistance of sundry Poles and Czechs and others who took to the skies and helped us defeat the Luftwaffe.  At the same time, we must NEVER forget the likes of the late Sir Robert Watson-Watt who was the force behind the construction of the radar defence system which was to prove critical.  Let us salute all of them, pilots and 'swots' alike!

 

Or could Boris 'do a runner'?   Patrick O'Flynn at The Coffee House seems to think it is quite likely:

Few would suggest that Boris Johnson, for all his gifts, ever had a Wilsonian concentration span or a Stakhanovite work ethic. So it requires no great leap of imagination to suppose that the not easy, not spacious, not socially-orientated days he is enduring right now are not what he had in mind for his premiership.

Throw in divorce, fatherhood again at 56, an impending further marriage and a touch-and-go spell in intensive care that may have left its mark on his own capacity and it's easy to see why the gossip has been building that Johnson may do a Wilson early in 2021, once the main loose ends of Brexit have been tied up.

Apparently, Michael Gove is reckoned as a favourite to take over and that would be interesting not least because I have always detected some considerable intelligence behind those owl-like specs of his.

 

 

No more rumbles

 

 

Farewell Justice Ginsberg, welcome Justice, er, who . . .?

There is nothing, in my limited opinion, quite so fascinating as American constitutional 'brou-ha-has'!  The death of Justice Ginsberg and the resulting open seat on the Supreme Court right on the cusp of a Presidential election is mouth-watering!  'Back in the day', when Democrat Party politics were fairly sane, the matter would not have been quite so critical.  Today, alas, the Dems, like our Labour Party, are riddled with dribbling 'ultras' incapable of coherent political reasoning.  It is essential, in my opinion, that whilst 'The Donald' must operate within the law, he must also be ruthless in pushing a Right-wing candidate into the vacancy.  Another 'Ginsberg' would be a disaster!  To paraphrase on her demise, "There was nothing in her life that so became her as her leaving of it!"

"So, who's a naughty boy then?" Er, me, actually!

Yes, sorry, sorry for going a.w.o.l. for the past couple of days or so but frankly what is there to write about?  Even 'The Donald' seems to have faded from the headlines and Boris appears to have put away his clown outfit and is trying his best to appear restrained and sensible - 'E for Effort', Boris!  Even so, it's all very boring even if I keep reminding myself that it is a curse to live in interesting times!

Talking of 'interesting times', there is a fictional program on the 'telly' tonight based on Singapore as war broke out.  I shall watch it because I am something of 'an old Singapore hand, don'cha know'! Happily - mega-happily! - my tour of duty was well after the Japanese invasion and the only invaders we feared was a visit by the US Far East Fleet - sheer hell, I tell you, sheer hell!  Well, just imagine several hundred 'JKs' let loose on the town!  I was amused to read that they had to film it up in Malaysia because there was no part of modern Singapore that looked the part!  Mostly, that was due to the late - and exceedingly great! -  Mr. Lee Kuan Yew who was ruler of Singapore when it was granted independence.  He is one of the exceedingly tiny group of politicians I truly admire.  I lived there during his first years in power and his intelligence was awesome!

Meanwhile, America - yet again! - demonstrates the 'stoopidity' of me moaning about English weather!  The scenes from the western side are truly horrifying.  I can hardly believe the colossal dimensions of the fires ravaging California.  On the whole Americans are a sturdy bunch of people but I do hope 'The Donald' has some imaginative and useful assistance he can offer them in this catastrophe.

 

 

'Buddy, can you spare a dime?'

That, according to Freddy Gray in The Spectator, is now the main message emanating from the Trump re-election campaign!  Yes, poor - and I do mean 'poor' - old Donald is in need of a few 'readies' to help his re-election:

You can tell something about a campaign by the desperation-levels of its fundraising emails. In recent weeks, Team Trump’s digital team has started to resemble a company on the verge of bankruptcy. My inbox is full of emails purporting to be from various members of the Trump family, telling ME in CAPITAL LETTERS how important it is that I STEP UP and PAY THEM.

Heavens to Betsy, hoodathunkit?!  

 

 

 

Do get a grip, America, I'm beginning to worry!

Of course, like anywhere and everywhere, America has, from time to time, been subject to splits and divisions which once even reached civil war but, somehow, in some way, today's divisions seem to be of a deeper and even more serious nature. There is what appears to be a genuine and serious political, even philosophical, divide down and across civil society.  The idea, or the ideal, of America is no more.  In fact, the ideal that was, is now hated and detested by an enormous segment of the populace.  They strive by all means to destroy it and replace it with the very worst and most ludicrous and most dangerous of political philosophies - state socialism.  Actually, to describe that as a 'political philosophy' is the equivalent of believing that Fascism was more than just a gangster's dribble!

I sense, or at least, I hope - and even pray, God help me! - that sitting quietly in the background there is an enormous - and growing! - mass of Americans imbued with solid traditions and common-sense, prepared to take on these hysterical poltroons and send them packing.  Their chance to strike - and strike decisively - is coming in just a few weeks at the next elections.  Get out and vote - and vote 'yuuuuuuuugely'! - and rid your great nation of these hucksters who have slithered into your body-politic!

 

 

Donald's really 'yuuuuuuuge' test is looming in the South China Sea

Every day the tension mounts - according to news reports.  America is determined to sail its ships where international law allows.  China is equally determined to stop anyone sailing in seas which over which it claims ownership.  With an election looming this would be the very worst time for China to test 'The Donald's' resolve!  Equally, it would be an electoral disaster for the President to be seen as weak-kneed.  China seems determined to throw its weight around in the Pacific and it is critical for the West, led by America, to stand firm and call their bluff.

Don't mention the weather!

Just as I see and hear lightening flashes and thunder, I was going to produce yet another dirge concerning the 'bloody-bloody' weather 'over here' but somehow, having just viewed reports from 'over there' on my TV, I think a polite silence is called for!  Crikey, I know they always do things bigger and better 'over there' but those storms blasting Louisiana are something else!  Instead of my usual Limey whinges I will keep 'schtum' and wish everybody 'over there' well as they face those incredible, battering winds and rain.  I was thinking of offering a food parcel but one from me would probably only contain a couple of empty Scotch bottles and I suspect that my old buddy, JK, has more than enough of them!

Or perhaps I could entertain my neighbours by going out onto our communal lawn and giving them some full on Lear:

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,

Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,

Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!

Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once

That make ingrateful man!

Dammit, why did I never get that part?!

 

 

 

Donald or Boris - who shall I start with?

Why give myself hard choices, I'll deal with both of them.  Mind you, that gives me a problem because I am wracking what passes for my brain to try and remember what either of them have actually done!  Needless to say, the fact that both of them have more or less 'gone with the flow' is actually praise-worthy.  Usually, whenever politicians decide to 'do things' the results are disastrous!  That is why it is imperative that both the Labour and Democratic party are kept well away from those damned 'levers of power' because they always have long lists of things to be done - aaaaaaaaargh!

Donald does nothing much but does it very well by providing some unintentional humour with it.  Most of all, apart from a few brown-skinned rascals in the Middle East, he has not bombed anyone.  Who was the last POTUS who never bombed anyone?  Similarly, Boris is surprisingly peaceful for a full-blooded Tory of the 'old school'!  Also, he has shown - so far! -  no inclination to kiss and make up with Michel Barnier, the EU apparatchik responsible for tricking/negotiating (you choose!) us back into that den of thieves aka the EU!

Well done, chaps, just keep on doing nothing much and we will 'lurve' you!

 

 

Who, or what, is Kamala Harris?

I ask because 'Bumblin' Biden has picked her as his running mate in the forthcoming Presidential election.  This is more significant than normal given 'good ol' Joe's' advanced age and his indications of mortality!  The lady might well reach the pinnacle of American and world politics.  I have skimmed sundry summaries of her political career but, like most politicians, there is no clear storyline, first she's this, then she's that and who knows what she will be tomorrow!  The fascinating question is who will actually win the Presidential race?  Despite it all, my gut tells me that 'The Donald' will win.  Even so, what passes as my brain remains in a total dither.

Oh, and by the way, how do you pronounce her name?  Does the stress fall on 'Ka' or on 'ma'?  That sort of thing is frightfully important to us Shakespearean 'luvvies', don'cha know!

 

 

 

I haven't died, I've just melted!

Dammit, Your Majesty, can't you please do something about this weather?  All this heat and sunshine is so frightfully un-British!  I haven't experienced such sustained hot weather since I lived in a tent on the end of Runway #2 at Bahrein Airport!  Such miniscule amounts of energy that I possess have simply evaporated, thus, I lack the will to write anything on the subject of 'Good Ol' Joe Biden's second blunder in appointing some utter dipstick woman as his running mate.  The first blunder, of course, was to run himself!

Sorry, sorry, unable to write anymore, the sweat is literally running in rivulets down my body - not a pretty sight.  

The Sunday Rumble: 9/8/20

Do get a grip, America!   I read today that 84,000 mail ballots have been disqualified in an election in 'Noo Yawk'.  Why am I not surprised and as it is, so to speak, 'bleedin' obvious' that postal votes are always and forever open to abuse and malpractice, why do Americans persist with the practice?  If as an American citizen you can't actually 'haul yo' ass' to a voting centre then you lose your vote - end of!

 

So Brexit wasn't quite the end of the world after all!   According to a Dutch writer at The Spectator:

An article in the Dutch, left-leaning newspaper Het Parool led with the headline ‘Despite Brexit, multinationals prefer London over Amsterdam or Paris’ this week. The piece reports that ‘the feared exit [of companies] from Great Britain is not happening’ as expected, and highlights the fact that Unilever decided to:

“Become fully British, scrapping its dual [Anglo-Dutch] structure [which has been in place for 90 years]. Its headquarters will be London and not Rotterdam, despite the avid attempts of Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

'Hoodathunkit?'  Er, well, me, actually!

 

That Borodin fella is driving me nuts!   By pure coincidence, I seem to have come across his rightly famous composition "In the Steppes of Central Asia" at least three times in the past few weeks and now that damned theme is firmly lodged in my mind.  I'm not really complaining because it is gorgeous but, in the words of my old Jewish accountant, "Enough is enough, my life already!"

 

No more rumbles 

 

 

So who is this Joe Biden fella?

It's all very odd because he's been around for what seems like forever but I, along I suspect with many Americans, know next to nothing about him.  This is a worry because there appears to be a very good chance of him becoming the next POTUS.  He seems to have slithered through the Washington swamp for decades barely leaving a trail behind him.  That must indicate that he is either bone idle or perhaps dead crafty!

Happily, for me as well as 'y'all over there', today Mr. Freddie Gray at The Spectator has a long article on the man which is somewhat illuminating:

Biden has been called a Teflon candidate, but that doesn’t quite do justice to his slipperiness. He’s almost sphinx-like. His low-visibility campaign means he can represent different things to different Americans. To working-class whites, he’s regular Joe, the Irish-Catholic boy from Scranton, Pennsylvania. To black voters, he’s Barack Obama’s loyal vice-president who’s always had that Clintonian knack of sounding empathetic. To suburban women, he’s the elder statesman who will bring back decorum to the Oval Office. To former Republicans and independents, he’s not Donald Trump. To tantrum-throwing revolutionaries, he’s a pushover-in-waiting. [My emphasis]  Biden’s campaign logo features his famous aviator sunglasses — and what could be more American? But those reflective shades are also quite a good metaphor for Biden’s candidacy: you see what you want. 

As Mr. Gray intimates in his article, it isn't so much the man himself we need to worry about but the hordes of 'loonie-Leftie' juveniles who have flocked to his banner, not least because they see a chance to seize it from his withered, old fingers and wave it in favour of their mostly lunatic ideas.

Talking of "withered,old fingers", am I alone in sensing the 'withered. old fingers' of that reptilian wizard, George Soros?

 

 

 

All is not lost, Donald!

Actually, as the furious caterwauling and hysterics have mounted over the past 3+ years the more I suspect that 'The Donald' will romp home in November.  The, er, scientific basis for that is simply 'the feeling in my water' - yeeeeeees, quite!  Even so, the behaviour of the 'anti-Trumpers' is so extremely imbecilic that it cannot have passed unnoticed by 'yuuuuuuge' swathes of potential voters.  Sure, 'The Donald' has his eccentricities but comparing his demeanour with the maniacal crackpots who oppose him must, surely raise his chances.

My favourite commentator, Douglas Murray, puts it this way in The Telegraph today:

That is the impression of Debbie Dingell, a member of the House of Representatives for Michigan and one of the few Democrats who saw the first Trump victory coming. Then, as now, the wise-guys wrote the Donald off. They laughed at him, derided him and could not believe that the general public would vote him in. And yet they did. And as Dingell said this week, “I don’t trust polling. I don’t believe that Biden is 16 points up in Michigan.”

I absolutely agree with the lady because I would not trust opinion polls, particularly political polls, as far as I could piss into a gale - often a sure-fire way to, er, 'get your own back'!  Actually, I would not bet a nickel on the result but I lean towards a Trump victory.

 

 

 

Feeling good this morning? I'll soon put a stop to that!

No, no, don't worry, it's not going to be one of my over-long moans 'n' groans.  Instead, I thought you might be interested in just the headlines at this morning's PJ Media site.  In a very brief, succinct way they capture the moment, I feel, in all its idiocy!

Adult in the Room: Ford CEO Responds to Employees' Demands to Stop Making Police Vehicles

Thursday's Insanity Wrap: Cancel Culture Comes for Orwell, Biology Is Transphobic

Don Lemon Butchers a Key Christian Doctrine While Trying to Lecture America on Statues

Criminal Investigation of Trump Coming: Supreme Court Rules He Must Turn Over Tax Records

Terrified Academics Withdraw Study Showing White Cops Aren't Killing More Blacks

FLASHBACK: Barack Obama Abruptly Halted H1N1 Testing, Undermining Biden's Attacks on Trump

And Then They Came For the Left. And the Left Began to Eat Itself

The Morning Briefing: Jill Biden Wants to Trash Her Husband's Dignity to Be Edith Wilson 2.0

Portland Police Send Scorching 'No Confidence' Message to City Hall: Stop Defending Antifa

Madison Ave. Business Sues Cuomo, De Blasio for Riots, Estimates $100M in Damages

Antifa in Tears: The Fragility of the Woke

New York Times Falsely Blames Churches for Huge Spike in Coronavirus Cases

See, no need to read all those boring stories, the headlines say it all!

 

 

 

Will 'The Donald' win by a quiff?

I simply do not know.  Apart from my inherent ignorance of most things American, I find it impossible to gauge the American mood these days apart from the seemingly obvious fact that the entire country is going mad!  One surprising fact is that 'The Donald', disappointingly to some, has not actually dropped a major bollock!  Yes, he has mis-spoken once or twice but all 'polis' do that because their main business is non-stop speaking but none of his words have started WWIII!  The American economy trundles along despite the hammer blow from this damned 'virus-thingie'.

Meanwhile, the brain-dead, Leftie troglodytes keep up their non-stop efforts to burn and pillage in the name of the Brotherhood of Man - yeeeeeees, quite!  Trump's fairly decent opponent dodders along, guided by his puppet-masters.  Should he actually win, of course, he will no more preside over America than I will!  The apparatchiks are already in close formation around him in order to guide him Leftwards to inevitable disaster.

How much of this do the American 'Peeps' see and understand - 'nottalot', I fear!

 

 

 

The Sunday Rumble: 5.7.20

Sometimes 'the cousins' can be a tad forgetful:  For example, some of them are huffin' 'n' puffin' because Prince Andrew refuses to go 'over there' and testify against Ghislaine Maxwell.  They appear to have forgotten that we are still waiting for that American woman who left a US Air Force base driving on the wrong side of the road and killed a young lad on a bicycle.  She, of course, instantly fled back to the States, never to be seen again.

I bid farewell to F1 racing:  Actually, I have been gradually going off it for some time but now that Lewis Hamilton, who is, I think, one of the greatest racers ever, has joined the unholy chorus of 'Black Lives Matter', then that's it, as far as I am concerned.  He can continue to go round in circles until he disappears up his own exhaust pipe!

Additional:  Perhaps I wrote too soon because I gather that several drivers refused to bend their knees.

Well done, Boris:  I gather from news reports that Boris is on the brink of cutting ALL connections with Huawei.  Obviously, my instructions to that effect have been received and acted upon!

You lucky American 'Peeps':  Have you heard the great news?  Apparently, Mr/Mrs/Ms Kanye West - don't ask me, I've never heard of him/her - is planning to run for the Presidency. Well, I assume it must Mr. Kanye West because his wife, Ms. Kim Kardashian is supporting him.    Should be a shoo-in, don'cha think?

A damned fine run thing that Battle of Britain:  As Leo McKinstry reminds us in The Spectator this week.  As so often in WWII we must thank German stupidity for helping us to win, not least 'Fat Hermann's error in ordering his bombers to switch from attacking Fighter Command's airfields to bombing London.  Hitherto, the German's had been aided in their near victory by the top brass in the RAF, especially Sir Hugh Dowding, whose operational tactics were hopeless.  Eventually, the likes of Douglas Bader who understood the necessity of attacking German formations with large formations, not penny packets, had his way. "A fine run thing" indeed!

 

 

No more Rumbles

 

 

Why would anybody with more than three brain cells vote Democrat?

I ask simply because California, as Democratic a State as you could wish to avoid, is teetering towards bankruptcy.  Well, it wasn't that long ago that Orange County in Los Angeles showed then how to do it!  As The American Thinker puts it:

It has been 25 years since “AA” credit-rated Orange County filed the world’s largest municipal bankruptcy, following a $2.6 billion loss involving a failed leveraged borrowing scheme and accounting fraud. But despite bankers, lawyers and accountants paying $750 million for allegedly aiding OC risky taking, “AA” credit-rated California has not filed audited financials and is using leveraged borrowing to offset its $60 billion shortfall. [My emphasis]

Then, of course, there is the splendid(not) activities of the infantile Democrat Mayoress of Seattle who unleashed the mobs in her city and held the police back, er, well, she did up until they threatened her own $7 million mansion at which point she released them!

Finally, as Mr. Silvio Canto Jnr. asks at The American Thinker, who pays?

From New York City to Chicago north to Minneapolis west to Seattle and south to Los Angeles, everybody is asking the same question: Who is gonna pay for the riots?

Well, of course, it will be the people suckers who voted in Democrat regimes.  Don't blame the politicians, blame the sub-normal idiots who voted them in!

 

 

 

'Xi Ping-a-ling' is an international menace

Yesterday I read that China was manufacturing and distributing fake gold bars.  Well, to be fair, if you are a professional gold dealer then you should have the expertise to spot the fakes.  However, for a nation the size of China to permit - encourage? -  forgery on that scale in a market which is crucial to international trade is yet another sign of their non-stop mischief-making.  

Today I read that China has also been caught out exporting 10,800 assault weapon parts into Florida.  The inference is that they were destined for some members of the 'Black Lives Matter' gang.  Well, at least 'The Donald' has taken some fairly severe actions against China over matters of trade but my question is what is Boris doing?  The sheer numbers of Chinese immigrants/visitors to Britain is alarming, particularly at Cambridge University where the place is flooded with 'wannabe' students.

Get a grip, Boris, and do something!  For a start, cancel that ludicrous Huawei project which threatens to allow China to have total control over our national communications.

 

 

 

The Sunday Rumble: 28.6.20

Understanding is beginning to dawn!   Now, at least, I am beginning to fully understand what "Going to Hell in a handcart means!"  Perhaps, Field Marshall Foch put it better with "My centre is giving way, my right is retreating …", although he added that in response he intended to attack!  Whatever, both 'over here' and 'over there' our societies appear to be disintergrating and the (so-called) 'powers that be' appear to be clueless over what to do.  Sometimes, edging ever closer to our mutual, good friend, Death, is a comfort!

Oh no, I've been 'Hefferlumped' - again!   Well, of course, as I intimated earlier, I have just finished Simon Heffer's superb - and I do mean superb! - history of Britain during the Great War.  So now I have bought his earlier work "High Minds: The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain".  I have no doubt that it will as perceptive and well-written as his later work "Staring at God".  Dammit, I just 'lurve' history and my only regret is that I will never be able to thank the late Miss Purvis, an elderly, unmarried lady, like several others who taught me at school and who were doomed to spinsterhood having lost their beloveds during WWI.

Latest score: Dom 1, Blob 0:  According to reports, Sir Mark Sedwill, the 'Grand Blob of Blobs' (ie: the Head of the Civil Service), is to be fired.  The lesson is obvious now to all the lesser 'blobs' - don't mess with the Dom!  Dammit, up above I intimated that I was asking "Death where is thy sting-a-ling?" but now, I want to live at least another 25 years to find out the background to this example of 'history in the making'!

All this knee-bending is ludicrous!   And I can state here, clearly, that I will never 'bend the knee' to anyone except Her Maj, er, on the understanding that one of her footmen will help get me upright afterwards!

Yes, that about sums it up:   I was much taken with these words from Andrew Stuttaford at The National Review:

What is really killing Italy’s economy, Italy’s banks, and Italy’s public finances are the consequences of Italy’s decision to cheat its way into the euro, a currency for which it — as at least some of those putting together the single currency knew — was never suited.

Italy wasn’t suited to the one-size-fits-all euro then, and Italy is not suited to the one-size-fits-all euro now. The least bad way out of this mess remains, as it always has been, the division of the single currency into ‘northern’ and ‘southern’ units.

But don't hold your breath waiting for Brussels to see 'the bleedin' obvious'!

Who is Zion Lights?   I don't know for sure but I think I want her to have my babies!  Well, I nearly always admire people who learn things and then change their minds.  It's nearly my bedtime so I will not go into the details, just pop over to the CAPX site and read about a remarkable and rather attractive lady.

 

No more Rumbles . . .

 

Who do you love/hate the most - Trump or Bolton?

Well, I hate Trump's ghastly hair-do and Bolton's ugly moustache 'yuuuuuuuuuuuuuugely' but equally!  Even so, it is good that Bolton has been cruising the TV studios to bolster his book sales.  The interviews have provided a giggle a minute as he discloses some of Trump's, er, 'eccentricities'.  Even so, the fact this unbelievably vain, ignorant and stupid man has his finger over the nuclear button does not relieve my sleeplessness although, to be fair, compared to some of his predecessors he hasn't - so far! - actually gone to war with anyone!

The American 'Peeps' have my sympathy for their forthcoming election.  They cannot seriously consider re-electing this buffoon but on the other hand when you look at the equally 'stoopid', fanatical mob who stand poised behind 'good, ol', shufflin' Joe Biden' then perhaps it would be better to vote for the imbecile you know than the hysterics you do not!

God bless - and save - America!

 

 

 

*ALL* lives matter!

I must say that I enjoyed a snort of laughter at the cheeky fellows who flew a 'plane over the Burnley football pitch prior to a game, towing a banner reading: "WHITE LIVES MATTER".  It's about time someone said the equivalent of 'Bollocks to the Bishop' to all those sanctimonious, 'I'm woker than you' praters and preachers. They, of course, are dim enough to believe that their endless marches and demos and chants are helping the incipient problem of so-called 'racism'.  Of course, the exact opposite is the truth of the matter.  More and more people are sick and tired of hearing the constant repetition of the ghastly history of black people which, of course, began centuries ago when black Africans acted as agents for Arab slavers from the Middle East, long before Europeans joined in.  You don't see too many demos in Riyadh about that part of black history!

Of course, the end result is that in Europe and America, more and more white people (like me!) are reduced to tears - er, that's tears of boredom! - by this never-ending campaigning which frequently results in riots and destruction - mostly of black peoples' homes and businesses!  Another result is that more and more, originally sympathetic, white people, are becoming increasingly anti-black because of this non-stop agitation.  Yes, the history of black suffering is enormous but the key word is "history"!  There may be examples of it today here, or more so perhaps, 'over there' but mostly it's history and there is sweet f.a you can do about history.  Some mad dictators try to rewrite history but it never works!

 

 

 

Who wins 'over there' in November?

After years of predicting the outcome of elections 'over there' - and getting them wrong! - I must confess that I have not the slightest idea who will win in November.  The world everywhere is going bonkers!  Apart from anything else, who knows what 'The Donald' is capable of doing or saying between now and then?  Even he doesn't know!  Then there is that 'yuuuuuuuuuge' febrile mass of voters.  Does anyone know for sure which way they will shift over the next four months?  Of course, there are always the opinion polls which will come at us with increasing frequency from all directions but, seriously, do you really place much faith in them anymore?  If you do, I have a very nice, 1958 Ford Cortina with only 27,000 miles on the clock and previously owned by a vicar's wife - honestly!

The fact is that America is simply too 'yuuuuuuuuge' to get a grip of and make sense of a population that shifts hither and thither depending on the latest - usually false! - headlines.  I mean, seriously, does anyone believe what's printed in, say, the New York Times or the Washington Post?  Not, mind you, that I am unsympathetic towards the American 'Peeps'.  Given a choice between befuddled pensioner, Joe Biden, and that fairground barker, a.k.a. Donald Trump, I would find it impossible to choose.  I suppose, you could try and decide by taking a close look at the people who support them them but, alas, on the 'Left' hand you have a bunch of screeching adolescents and on the Right hand you have a gang - I use the word deliberately! - of 'get rich quick merchants' from any of whom you would never buy a used car!

So, my genuine sympathies to the American 'peeps' and I just hope you get it right in November!

 

Brit or American, if you read nothing else today, please read Janet Daley in The Telegraph!

 

 

 

Sino-Indian clash - "A Good Thing" or "A Bad Thing"?

Well, the murder of 20+ unarmed Indian soldiers is obviously an exceedingly 'Bad Thing' but, of course, this is part of the warp and woof of international power politics and thus human feelings are to be ignored!  The end result is that China now has a massive and exceedingly angry neighbour right on its frontier - and that, for the rest of us, is very definitely 'A Good Thing'.  It is also an indication that belief in the superb and subtle craft of Chinese 'real politik' is nonsense.  They are as big a bunch of stumblebums as any other so-called 'Great Power'.

They are already locked into a wrestling match with the most powerful nation in the world and one would have thought that they would have the good sense not to provoke a 'next door neighbour' whose population of 1.3 billion is equal to theirs!  I trust - I hope? -  that 'The Donald' has the good sense to make 'nicely-nicely' with the Indian government, you know, 'hands across the Himalayas' and all that sort of thing.  Even more so, I hope that he offers Australia similar support as China unleashes its ill-temper against the 'Aussies' - as should we, although quite what we have to help them I'm not sure!

Oh God, those damned 'interesting times' have returned!