Wednesday 31 January 2018

The Toothbrush Moustache

Adolf Hitler is remembered for many things but amongst his many crimes against humanity was his facial hair, the toothbrush moustache.
This style of moustache was one of the most popular styles at the beginning of the 20th century with Charlie Chaplin and Oliver Hardy sporting the tuft of hair below their nostrils but the German Chancellor made it an icon of the right-wing Nazi Party and that brought it's popularity to an end as nobody would want to be willingly associated with the Third Reich.
Over recent years the beard and moustache has been making a bit of a comeback but 70 years on the image of Hitler's facial hair is still so strong that the only time you will see it is on the face of someone parodying Adolf or Charlie Chaplin.
The toothbrush style has struggled to rebound and is harshly stigmatised today which is not a bad thing because as moustaches go, it is a bit of a rubbish one anyway but i can't see anyone reclaiming the 'look' so it will forever be known as the Hitler 'tache unless someone hip and trendy begins sporting one and even then they will probably just be derided as looking like Hitler.
That moustache's time has been and gone but to be fair the only two people in history that a moustache looked good on was Tom Selleck and Freddie Mercury.

Climate Change News From 1883

Making your own planet uninhabitable seems a bit of a crazy thing to do but people have been trying to ignore the changing climate for centuries despite the overwhelming evidence and almost every meaningful scientist in the world saying it is real.
Sure you are always going to get deniers in everything but if today's  scientist with years of experience and data get shouted down by ignorant semi-literate insurance salesmen with a blog, it was much harder decades before.
In 1883 national newspapers were reporting on scientists who warned of the dangers of burning fossil fuels and the Nature publication quoted physicist Professor John Tyndall that: 'the increasing pollution of the atmosphere will have a marked influence on the climate of the World. The tropics will be warmer and throughout the world the night will be colder and the days warmer. In the temperate zone winter will be colder and the winds, storms and rainfall greater'. 
In 1912, a newspaper article said that: '7,000,000,000 tones of Carbon Dioxide pumped into the atmosphere annually is making the air a more effective blanket for the earth to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable for centuries'.
In 1938, an engineer named Guy Callendar, pointed out that maybe we should cut back on the whole burning all this fossil fuel thing in a paper called: 'The artificial production of carbon dioxide and its influence on temperature'.
For those who say it is all a Government conspiracy or something the Chinese have cooked up to make U.S. manufacturing less-competitive, this shows that over 130 years ago people in the know were saying maybe continuously belching massive clouds of acrid smoke up into the sky might not be a good idea, something which a thankfully dwindling amount of deluded souls still disagree with today even as the rising sea creeps further into their homes.

Transfers Window Has Ruined My 2018 Arsenal Calendar

Transfer deadline day is always exciting as football fans check their mobile phone at every opportunity to see if their club has signed anyone or the opposite, sold someone.
As an Arsenal fan our transfer business have seen quite a few leave (Coquelin, Walcott, Sanchez, Giroud) and a couple come in (Aubameyang, Mkhitaryan) which is fine unless like me you got an Arsenal calendar for Christmas.      
While i have spent all of January looking at Sanchez who is now a Manchester United player, i also have an Everton player in Walcott to spend August with and December is with Giroud who is now wearing a Chelsea shirt.
It's not in the same league as someone shelling out £50 for a football top with a players name on the back just before he signs for another team but it is a bit of a constant reminder in Sanchez's case, of a player we once revered but we now hope pulls a hamstring which sidelines him for 3 months.    
The options i have is to cut out pictures of the new guys and glue them over the heads of the exited ones or just grab a marker pen and draw glasses and a beard on them which is my preferred option.
What Arsenal sorely need are defenders and with a few hours still to go before the transfer window closes at 11pm, there is still the hope that Arsene Wenger will dig deep into the Arsenal coffers and ruin someone else's calendar.

Tuesday 30 January 2018

Nice Face, Shame About The Ideology


It has been often said that not only are people with right wing tendencies a bit thick, gullible and uninformed but they were also ugly. 
Science and by just speaking to one for five seconds has confirmed the first three but shamefully the fourth is untrue as Susquehanna University and Illinois State University have found that attractive people are more likely to support right-wing parties apparently.
The researchers claim that 'an individuals physical attractiveness may alter their political values and worldviews and influence the way people judge others'.
The conclusion is that better looking people have an easier life so don't see the need for more welfare, aid and government support, unlike their left-wing counterparts.
Can't argue with science so just a bit thick, gullible and uninformed it is then.

Brexit Seems Even Further Away

Hard to believe that as the economic devastation Brexit will cause is slowly being revealed, there are still some people still excitedly calling for it to still happen but today a leaked report shows that whatever way you slice it Britain is going to take a massive hit but that won't stop the ignorant Little Englanders continuing to call for it anyway. 
While we are used to the lies emanating from the Brexit side, David Davis surpassed himself recently by first saying that an economic impact study the Tory government had been carried out 'in excruciating detail' only for him then to explain when he was being pressurised to publish it that it didn't actually exist after all.
Turns out it was done and has now been leaked and shows how Britain’s economy will be worse off after Brexit no matter what trade deal is struck with the bloc.
The report, ‘EU Exit Analysis – Cross Whitehall Briefing’, outlines the most likely scenarios all of which doubt that any benefits from trade agreements elsewhere in the World would be enough to outweigh the losses to the economy caused by leaving the single market and customs union.
As the Government is bizarrely powering ahead with Brexit you can see why they didn't want the information out in public that the bottom line is leaving, however we fall out of it, would make Britain significantly poorer Governments are elected to do the best for their citizens so to know the impact and the devastating effect it will have but still willingly go ahead with it is utter incompetence.
No matter how many times the Prime Minister or a Government flunky explains that they plan to build a strong and stable economy or that the free trade deals with America, India and China will fix the economic fall out from Brexit, we know that she and her cabinet have been told otherwise.
Those of us on the Remain side should be more and more confident that the Brexit madness will quickly seep away along with this god-awful Theresa May Government.

Vaping Not Safe But Safer

When i was a smoker i would only smoke low tar cigarettes as in my mind they were less harmful than normal cigarettes although i actually knew they were just as bad.
When i switched to vaping around five years ago i knew that although a lot less harmful than traditional cigarettes, i was still inhaling nicotine so they were not 'safe' despite the advertisements telling everyone that they were.  
No surprise then that a study by New York University School of Medicine has found that the nicotine in e-cigarettes may damage human DNA and lead to cancer.
'It's certainly concerning, and certainly gives pause if one were to say e-cigarettes were safe and could be used by all people without consequences' said Dr Roy Herbst, chair of the American Association for Cancer Research's Tobacco and Cancer sub-committee.
The researchers say that more work is needed, however, because research in animals can produce very different results in humans but that hasn't stopped the Royal College of Physicians stating that public health policy should encourage tobacco users to switch to a substitute nicotine product, such as vaping.
The reason the Royal College of Physicians are keen to see smokers switch to e-cigarettes is because their figures show that vaping is over 95% less harmful than smoking tobacco.
The only way to be safe is to not smoke or vape at all and the New York University School report may be alarming but if you vape your chances of developing cancer from it is at least 95% less than when you were puffing away on tobacco cigarettes.
It isn't perfect and doing anything that increases your chances of getting cancer by 5% is a worry but the study is set against someone who doesn't smoke and starts at a baseline of nil so it is worth remembering that by swapping to e-cigarettes you improve your chances of not getting cancer by 95% and that's immense.

Monday 29 January 2018

Bible Predicts End Of The World...Again

As the day ends in the letter 'y' the religious lunatics are jumping up and down and today its because their book of plagiarised fairy stories are pointing to the end of the World. Again.
This time it's a few passages in the Bible and our moon which is about to become a 'super blue blood moon' which have alerted the God bothering crowd that the end is nigh once again because no matter how many times you are wrong you just keep predicting it anyway.
So how are we all going to die this time?
Several verses the Bible refer to a blood moon bringing about the end of days such as verse 6:12-14 in the Book of Revelations which reads:
'When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, here was a great earthquake and the sun became black as sackcloth, full moon became like blood and the stars of the sky fell to Earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up and every mountain and island was removed from its place'.
All seems straight forward to me with the sky falling to Earth and all that but it is explained further in the Book of Acts 2:20, which says:
'The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord'.
That's pretty alarming stuff if you are gullible enough to believe it but as we seem to get a regular flow of Biblical prophecies and we are all still here doing all that sinning stuff i think it will be safe to ignore it and enjoy the spectacle of the blood super moon on Wednesday as i'm quietly confident that the world is unlikely to be ending as a result of it.

Waging A War The West Can't WIn

The name Operation Enduring Freedom was always a massive misnomer but when it was launched by George W Bush and Tony Blair in Afghanistan, not many thought that it would still be going on 17 years later but despite hundreds of thousands of deaths and trillions of pounds spent, the only thing enduring is the awful death and destruction.  
Even by Afghan standards it has been a particularly bloody couple of days with a hotel attack leaving 22 dead, then 122 were killed in a suicide bomb attack using an ambulance in the centre of the city and today 11 killed in a military base.
Islamic State and the Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attacks and remain in unison in the hope that by continually destabilising the country and its government, they can take it's place.
Afghanistan is proving itself incapable of being stabilised and yet Iraq and Syria show the price of defeat which leaves the only alternative for the West is to press ahead with a war that isn't working and is unwinnable.
The West needlessly broke it and they can't hang up the Mission Accomplished sign and walk away as that would consign countless millions to the will of the rag-bag group of terrorists waiting to fill the void completely.
The blow-back from the Blair and Bush years is still on-going and won't be ending anytime soon as the West face the prospect of  having to continue to wage and pay for a losing battle.

Sunday 28 January 2018

Coming Soon: Winter Olympics 2018

The 9th February sees the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in South Korea and looking through the list of participating athletes, this one is disappointing for lovers of funny names.
The best i can offer is the Canadian Ice Hockey Rob Klinkhammer, the Pakistan Cross Country Skier Syed Human and the American Alpine Skier Breezy Johnson which is a poor return for the hundreds of athletes there who will be standing at the top of a slope and letting gravity go to work.
Long gone are the days when the likes of Dick Paradise lined up in the American Ice Hockey team against Luca Cunti of the Italian team.
No more Fanny Chmelar doing her stuff on the slopes or Seraina Boner, Herve Bastard or Simona Fartakova and the short track is a lesser place for not hearing the commentator alert us to Satoshi Sakashita on the short track.
We will have to remember the good old days when Welshman Willy Tinkler pulled on the GB vest and we watched A. Wank on the top of the ski jump making a good fist of the job in hand when he came 10th in the individual event in 2014.
As the Winter Olympics favours nations with snows and mountains, Great Britain won't be troubling the top of the leader-board but as long as we finish above those pesky Australians it will be a job well done.

Two Birds, One Stone

Piers Morgan interviewing his good friend Donald Trump which means recently, at some point, Piers Morgan and Donald Trump were together in the same room. 
Yep, i imagine almost everybody had the same thought about what an opportunity missed but i'm sure we will find out later just how long it took medical team to remove Piers head from his American pals backside.


I See A Bad Moon Rising

The media have got rather excited about the Blue moon, super moon and blood moon combination creating a moment not seen in the skies in more than 150 year.
Before we pack our telescopes into the boot of our cars and drive towards the centre of Exmoor though the UK won't be getting the blood bit of the trio as the UK won't get the lunar eclipse which is only visible in Australia, parts of North America and bits of Asia but the moon will still be Blue and Super.
The Blue refers to a second full moon in the calendar month and it won't actually go Blue but it will be 14% larger although that won't be obvious unless you see it at Moon rise or Moon set when it near the horizon.
Not as exciting as the headlines make it out then unless, of course, you are a werewolf, whose 14% increase in size relates to a 14% larger full-moon bloodlust making the night of the 31st January more dangerous than normal for mortals.
In all exciting maybe for Astronomers but the biggest winners will be Silversmiths who will relish the extra business that will be coming their way as people start melting down that cheap jewellery in preparation.
Don't stray from the path, keep off the moors and if the back of your friends hands start sprouting hairs you may want to think about running away very, very fast.

Saturday 27 January 2018

Today's Leaders Working Hitler's Big Lie Technique

Apart from the racism and silly hairstyles there isn't much to link Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Adolf Hitler apart from all three were compulsive liars only Hitler admitted to it. 
In Mein Kampf he explained that a leader could get away with a lie if it was: 'so colossal and repeated frequently that enough people will sooner or later believe it as no one would believe that someone could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously'.
It was a revealed by his ex-wife that Donald Trump kept a book of Hiter Speeches by his bed and it seems to have had an effect because he seems compelled to tell a lie every time he opens his mouth.
Boris Johnson recently repeated his much mocked and discredited £350 million a week for the NHS after Brexit and was quickly slapped down for a second time and is another one who has a strange compulsion to lie.
Leaders have always spun facts and been economical with the truth or even presented the facts in such a way to reduce negativity but there seems to be a tsunami of bold, outright lies with little or no attempt to reframe, reposition, or modify the perception of an issue.
Not that spin was a particular attractive trait, it still led to wars and deaths and leaders got off scott free but now it seems leaders can't even be bothered to lie to us, they just flat out lie giving even a half-decent journalist the chance to destroy their lies immediately, but by then they have moved on, the useful idiots have spread the word and they are on to the next lie.
A particular favourite trick of David Cameron's was the idea that a massive distraction, known as throwing a dead cat on a table, would divert public attention from some ongoing political disaster.
I don't think that the current crop of leaders pathological dishonesty is a new thing but we seem to be in a new time when they don't even bother trying to spin their lies anymore, just make them bigger and repeat them in a way that would make a certain Austrian with a toothbrush moustache very proud.

Friday 26 January 2018

Brexit Referendum Take 2

As we now have an idea what catastrophic stupidity Brexit would be the option for a second referendum is being floated and according to ICM Survey in one of the largest nationwide opinion polls 58% of people favour re-asking the question.
The most cited reason is the concern about the negative impact leaving will have on the UK economy but Brexiteers and Remainers want another referendum for entirely different reasons.
The Brexiters want to win and therefore put an end to any argument that it is not what the British people want while the Remainers want to bring an end to the whole debacle and kill it stone cold dead.
Theresa May is moving unblinkingly towards Brexit but it is the Labour Party who have the power to be the King-Makers as if they shift there policy to Remain, they will blow away the Conservatives when they fall down as they are on course to do as they knife each other in the back.
I am still confident that Brexit won't happen, it would be self-inflicted economic suicide but it is just how we get there but the nation seems to be coming to the conclusion as we hear the details that it would be sheer madness.

Damn Those Pesky Ruskies

It is always an amazing coincidence that whenever a review of the military is on the way, suddenly we are under threat from someone so we need to throw more money at the military.
We have had a succession of bogey men we need protecting from such as Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jung Un and the default bad guys of the Kremlin who are back at the top of the bogey man list this time around.
Russia wants to cause 'so much pain to Britain that it could launch an attack killing thousands and thousands and thousands' so said the Defence Secretary, Gavin Williamson, in a well worn tactic of saying don't make the cuts here otherwise it's KAPOW and a mushroom cloud over Buckingham Palace.
Russia responded by saying the comments showed he lost his marbles and worthy of something from Monty Python which is fair enough as they have just been accused of planning to commit mass murder on us Brits.
The irony that the Defence Secretary wants to secure the funding for weapons that would cause thousands and thousands and thousands of deaths shouldn't be lost here nor the fact that the military has recently taken delivery of a £3bn ship and secured funding of £133 billion for nuclear weapons
which should keep us all warm and snug while the austerity drive goes on.
If Russia really wanted to cause chaos in Britain, it would do what it did in America and make sure the worst Party won the election so campaigning for the Conservatives re-election and keeping a divvy like Williamson in charge of the military should be there mission.

Wednesday 24 January 2018

No To Maggie

Theresa May is not making a very good fist of her time as Prime Minister but she still has a long way to go to become the most unpopular female Prime Minister because Margaret Thatcher has that award stitched up.
It is pretty unlikely that anyone will be erecting statues to Mrs May in Parliament Square long after she has gone but then there won't be one of Maggie either because Westminster City Council have rejected plans to stick one of the 'milk snatcher' on their land.
Citing the cost of the vandalism repair, the Council said in their rejection letter that: 'The grounds of objection relate to the appropriateness of the subject matter, the concern over possible civil disobedience and vandalism'.
Very true, us Brits do have a strange compulsion to put things on Statues, usually wigs and traffic cones and once we discovered that the comic relief red nose fitted perfectly on the face of the Charles Dickens statue in Portsmouth's Guildhall Square he was rarely seen without one so Maggie Thatcher would have been a god-send to statue vandalisers everywhere.
Such was the dislike of the Conservative leader that even 28 years after she was seen in tears peering out from the window of a taxi as she was driven away, the mere mention of her name still stirs people to show their disapproval of her.
Tony Blair is the nearest rival to her for most disliked Prime Minister and his statue would be very quickly spray painted with Anglo-Saxons words but cleaning up the Thatcher statue would be a full time job so probably best you don't give us all such an easy target and let us concentrate on messing with the statues that we already have.

Friday 19 January 2018

Another Asteroid Heading Our Way Feb 4th

If an asteroid 0.7 miles wide, travelling at 67,000 mph hit the Earth it would Herald a new ice age as temperatures fall 8°C around the globe and last for a decade.
Luckily, NASA have us covered and monitor all bits of space heading our way which could collide with us and announce anything they consider as a danger.
Unluckily that is exactly what NASA have done as a 0.7 miles wide asteroid named 2002 AJ129 is currently barrelling towards Earth at the speed of 67,000mph and will come within just 2.5 million miles of the planet on the 4th February.
NASA has given the rock the 'potentially hazardous' status and the National Centre for Atmospheric Research said with brilliant understatement that it: 'would not be pleasant'.
Fortunately, none of those scenarios are likely as NASA are confident that that the asteroid will pass safely by without incident but if you got plans for 5th February you may want to make sure you have kept the receipt, you know, just in case.

Dead People Worth It For Tillerson

Madeline Albright was the U.S. Secretary of State in the late 90s and when asked by a reporter about the half a million Iraqi children under five years old who had died due to UN sanctions, replied that 'we think the price is worth it'.
Quite rightly she was widely castigated for her callous disregard to the deaths of thousands of innocents and the assertion that the obscene number of deaths was a price worth paying to achieve her nations political ends.
Today's US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, has now taken a leaf from the Albright book of heartless apathy towards foreigners by saying that signs of starvation and death in North Korea indicate that US diplomatic strategy is working fine. 
If the number of dead people is how they are measuring the success of their foreign policy then they can say that the last two decades has been an overwhelming success as dead bodies litter the landscape.
That a representative of the United States is happy to see innocent people starving to death shows just how far we haven't moved on since the inhuman Albright and the funerals of dead children being worth it.

Thursday 18 January 2018

Merci Monsieur Macron

In exchange for the British Government shoving £45m towards the French to keep the British border on French soil, that nice President Macron is lending us the Bayeux Tapestry on condition that they can move it without the 900 year old piece of cloth falling apart.  
Merci Mr Macron for sending us a reminder of the time the French gave us plucky Brits a damn good licking but we cannot allow the offer to go without us offering something British in return, apart from the £45 million pounds anyway.
We could return Arsene Wenger to you but you have enough Football managers so what about bread as those silly long things you carry around under your arms is not bread so how about a few thousand loaves of Hovis?
We have your Rosetta Stone still somewhere which you can lend if we can find it or how about one of the Trafalgar Square lions made from the French cannons from ships captured at the battle of Trafalgar.
How about we give you back Les Misérables because we took Victor Hugo's great book and turned it into a not great musical so sorry and take it back and see if you can fix it.
One thing we have which you don't is a Royal Family, so how about we send some of the Royals your way, we have more than enough to spare and some more on the way so take your pick, they come in all shapes, sizes and colours from grey to ginger to bald so pick the ones you like and we will wrap them up for you.

Wednesday 17 January 2018

Trump Did Have Sexual Relations With That Woman

This is without doubt a golden age for journalists and comedians with the reason sat in the White House stuffing his face with cheeseburgers and signing into Twitter.
Just when you think the bottom of the Donald Trump barrel has been scraped you realise that there is still a long way to go as hot on the heels of his 'Shithole countries' comments, his extra-marital affair with porn actress Stormy Daniels is revealed.    
Maybe we should pause for a recap of how we got here with the 3rd fattest US President and the star of Wishes 3 so let's start back in 2006 when Trumps wife, Melania, was at home with their new born baby and Donald was doing some stuff at the Office with that Office being a Lake Tahoe hotel suite and the stuff being Stephanie Clifford aka adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
Shortly before the 2016 election, Clifford claims to have had a series of encounters with Donald Trump, beginning in 2006 and Trump shoveled $130,000 (£94,000) towards her in exchange for keeping her trap shut which she did, denying she and the fat guy with the bad hair made the bed-springs creak in a collection of sleazy hotel rooms.
Trump’s team of lawyers shouted 'FAKE NEWS' and denied any sexual relations between the president and Stormy but overlooked the 2011 interview when Daniels had conducted a lengthy interview (and polygraph test) about the affair with In Touch magazine. Oops.
The magazine have now reprinted the interview and have made space for it in this months edition so everyone can read the gory details of something that cost Donald Trump a six figure sum but never took place.    
Most disturbing is the quote that he compared Ms Daniels to his daughter Ivanka which becomes doubly creepy when you recall how during his campaign he said if she wasn't his daughter he would date her.
As there is seemingly no depths the depraved President pervert will sink to, recall what he paid the Russian Prostitutes to do in that Russian Hotel room, you just know that the clown still has so much further to fall and the media he hates so much will be cheering him the loudest all the way down.
Journalists and comedians can't thank you enough for electing him America.

Tuesday 16 January 2018

Remembering The Cold War Lessons

As a Cold-War kid of the 70's and 80's, a decent part of my childhood was spent under the threat of a nuclear war breaking out at any point and if the Doomsday Clock is anything to go by, we shouldn't have too long to wait for one now.
Since 1991 and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the threat of nuclear annihilation seemed to subside, the Doomsday Clock shifted to 17 minutes to midnight and the talk was of nuclear de-escalation with the Soviets and Americans running down their nuclear stockpiles.
Somewhere between 1991 and today we seem to have lost our way and their is now a proliferation of desks with big red buttons on them and we have World Leaders threatening each other with nuclear war and an American President talking up the use of small nuclear missiles.
Only two nuclear weapons have ever been used in warfare, the first killed 166,000 in Hiroshima and the second 80,000 in Nagasaki giving a total of 246,000 lives wiped out in seconds and chillingly, today's nuclear weapons are over 3,000 times as powerful as those two bombs.
The Tsar bomb that Russia tested on Mityushikha Bay in 1961, released the nuclear energy of 3,333 Hiroshima bombs that levelled the city and caused widespread devastation.
With some unstable countries having a nuclear arsenal and some very unstable leaders in charge of the nuclear button, we seemed to have sleepwalked into another MAD situation but even that threat likely won't stop it.
We had what the nightmare of a nuclear War would look like drilled into us as kids, the millions of people vaporised in less than a second, buildings toppling on people faster than they can react and everyone slowly dying of cancer is scary but it seems people have forgotten that in a nuclear war, nobody wins, we all lose.  
Before nations spend billions they can ill-afford building bigger and better bombs, they need to consider that launching a nuclear missile will not go unanswered and guarantee that whatever devastation you wreak on your enemy, the same will be wreaked on you with weapons thousands of times more powerful then the ones that flattened entire cities and killed a quarter of a million people in under a second 70 years ago and that should be as eye-opening as it gets.

Sunday 14 January 2018

Feast Of The Ass

Today is The Feast of the Ass, a Christian feast celebrating all the donkey-related stories in the Bible but especially the one about carrying Mary to the stable to give birth to God's son and all that nonsense.
Today of course, more so in America where they don't speak proper English, the feast of the ass is something altogether different and includes Buns and Wedgies, probably a rump steak and at the end of the day, under a large Moon, a can or two.
January 1st was the Feast of Circumcision when Christians ate things in celebration of Jesus's foreskin but today is all about the ass so let's raise a glass and shout Bottoms Up to the Saints who are famed for all things ass related.
The Saint to pray to for protection against bowel disorders is Saint Bonaventure of Bagnoregio while for dysentry it's Saint Eulalia of Barcelona you should direct your communications towards.
Saint Fiacre was especially famed for his gift of healing by the placing on of hands but when you hear he is the patron Saint against haemorrhoids, you may not want to think too long about that.

UKIP Proving The Proverb Right Again

Not all right wingers are racist but all the racists are on the right wing and once again the proverb has been proven true by the lovable UKIP Party with their leader's girlfriend, Jo Marney, who sent a series of texts in which she said Meghan Markle marrying Prince Harry would mean: 'the Prince's black American fiancee will taint the Royal family with her seed' would 'pave the way for a black king', said that 'she had a tiny brain' and gave the opinion that 'black people were ugly' and she
did not 'want other races invading her culture'.
The newly elected UKIP leader, Henry Bolton, has come out to say that: 'UKIP does not, has not and never will condone racism' and his girlfriend Ms Marney has apologised and said her messages had been taken out of context.
Not sure what context it could possibly had been taken out of but Mr Bolton has a tough decision to make, either he kicks his horribly racist new girlfriend into touch and remains leader of the bunch of the nasty little Englander's he currently heads or he steps down and stands by the women he only recently left his wife for.
Should be a no brainer but as Ms Marney has proven, brains isn't the most abundant commodity on the right wing.     

Saturday 13 January 2018

Fly Me To The Moon

Next time the Moon is waxing (The Capital D Shape) and you can see the right hand side of it take a look towards the outer edge between 1 and 2 o'clock and just up and to the right of the Mare Crisium you will see a crater called Vestine and after staring at it in wonder send me a cheque because i own that and i charge to view it.
To prove it is mine i have a Lunar Land Deed of ownership from the Lunar Register courtesy of my family who decided what i needed was to own a piece of the land so they got me a hole in the ground, 240,000 miles away.
Legally, i know that what i actually have is a fancy piece of paper worth as much as a fancy piece of paper but unless NASA plan to land in it or someone builds a Hotel in it, for all intent and purposes it's mine and a lengthy course case to prove ownership shouldn't be an issue.  
The Outer Space Treaty (1967) and The Moon Treaty (1979) states that: 'Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means' which means that no nation can claim it but as the language is specific to national ownership, it doesn't stop an individual claiming part of it.
I argued this with my lawyer friend who agreed that there is nothing that expressly forbids individuals from owning land on the moon but any documentation that claims you own land on the moon is unenforceable, and no nation on the planet would recognise it but then again, if i were able to fly up to the moon and build a settlement there, it would be pretty difficult for anyone to stop me.
The ESA hopes to build an 'international village' on the Moon between 2020 and 2030 and NASA has plans of its own for a moon base while The Russian space agency (Roscosmos) is planning to build a lunar base by the 2020s, and the China National Space Agency (CNSA) is planning to build such a base in a similar timeframe so if any of them fancy a prime piece of lunar real estate in a desirable location with great views of the Earth, give me a call and we can negotiate. 

Letting Carillion Go

Capitalism is great until you run out of other people's money and then it's either go bankrupt and employee's lose their jobs or you look for a handout of other people's money which is exactly what the banks did back in 2008 and the reason why the economy has sucked ever since.
Now the Government have a decision to make as Britain's second-largest construction group is on the brink of collapse and the banks are refusing to lend them credit and it is towards the Government and the tax payers they are looking for a £2 billion payday.
Carillion are holding emergency talks with ‎Whitehall officials to borrow significant amounts of new funding from its existing lenders but only if the Government agrees to guarantee payments if they default.
'Without that commitment of support from the Government, administration is all but inevitable' said a Carillion spokesman but the noises coming from the Government is that ministers had decided against providing a direct financial bailout to loss-making Carillion and were also likely to be lukewarm about being guarantor for them reflecting the Governments precarious grip on Parliament
especially if the taxpayer is landed with the £2 billion bill.
The company falling would affect the 19,500 people employees and 20,000 pension scheme members in the UK and cause considerable disruption given Carillion holds so many government contracts from building hospitals to managing schools.
Especially galling is that in 2016 it had sales of £5.2bn and until July 2017 the company was worth £1bn and paid out bonuses to the managers and dividends to the shareholders so to come begging for taxpayer funded bail-out which will add a further £2 bn to debt won't sit well in the age of austerity.
The government has said that contingency plans are in place and it is closely monitoring the situation as long as that doesn't mean a repeat of 2008 when the banks privatised the profits but where very quick to socialise the losses for which we are still paying for a decade later.

What Happened To Zuma?

Last Sunday there was a report that after many delays, the top secret, hush hush Zuma mission had been launched into space with a payload so important that the launch could only be performed under perfect conditions.
Within hours it was being reported that the wait was all for nothing as whatever was being dragged upwards by the SpaceX, Falcon 9 rocket, it was now shooting back downwards again and ended up at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. 
The whispers were that it was a military satellite of some description which nobody would confirm or deny but the SpaceX President and CEO Gwynne Shotwell explained that after reviewing all the data, the problem was not their rocket.
The Pentagon straight-batted any questions by answering that as it was a SpaceX mission and they  conducted the launch, they should be asked what went wrong.
That their multi-billion dollar piece of military equipment is now a nice new home to sealife is excepted but call me cynical but maybe that's what they want us to believe.
We don't know what it was that they was attempting to put in orbit but if is it a spy satellite, saying 'oh dear it never worked' is the perfect response because by it's nature of being something to spy with, you don't want your enemies to know you are spying on them.
Either it is in the Ocean slowly rusting like they want us to believe or it's orbiting above our heads spying on whoever it was designed to spy on like they don't want us to believe.

Friday 12 January 2018

Trump Bottles It Again

The present that keeps giving which is Donald Trump has come up with another zinger to get everyone shaking their heads at him this time he has called several nations 'shitholes' although he has said he never said it. 
What he actually said was: 'if they still want to come here with me in charge, their own countries must be real shitholes' which is something altogether different.
It has been widely noted that the nations he abused are all black but as the poster-boy for the racists and Nazi's of the KKK it is par for the course so it is unlikely he would be afforded a warm welcome if he ever turned up there as he wouldn't be if he ever grows the required sized balls to come here, which he won't as he has pulled out of a UK visit for a second time, blaming Obama.   
The placards are going back in the garage as he once again bottles it in the face of massive demonstrations against him in what is supposed to a 'friendly' nation.
Trump said he was cancelling the forthcoming trip because his predecessor Barack Obama sold the old Grosvenor Square embassy for 'peanuts' and built the new one in an 'off location' despite it being George W Bush who initiated the building's move to Battersea but he won't let a little thing like facts stop him blaming the coloured guy he seems to have a deep hatred for.
Former British ambassador to the United States, Christopher Meyer, said that the President won't come here all the time he is as as unpopular among the British people as he is now which means he won't be coming anytime soon.
Maybe he can visit the Norwegians instead, he seems to like them.

Wednesday 10 January 2018

What’s So Civil About War, Anyway?

One of the toughest recruitment jobs must be to attract people to the military as the Full Metal Jacket quote: 'Go to exotic lands and meet interesting and stimulating people of an ancient culture and kill them' isn't the image our boys want to portray so the Army have come up with the wheeze of trying to attract the demographic who probably don't belong in the military in the first place. 
As part of the Government austerity drive, the Army has gone from 110,000 in 2010 to 78,000 today and are currently losing almost 10,000 a year while only 8,000 are joining.
In order to plug the 2,000 a year gap, the new Army recruitment advertisement includes a new, softer touch such as you can be gay in the Army, you can get emotional, you can practise your faith, you will be listened to and you don't need to be a superhero.
Predictably, the new adverts have been criticised for failing to appeal to the people who are most likely to want to join and former officers are saying the adverts are misrepresenting the Army with their argument being that the macho culture is a necessary part of joining the army.
Whenever i criticise the military, and i do at every opportunity, i get told that the Army does more than just invade countries and kill people which they do but that's it's primary role and what they are trained to do, anything else is just secondary to that main role.
The policy should be if your ambition is to join the military, then you should be the last person we hand a powerful weapon to.  

New Nukes From The Stable Genius

What makes a real American President? A weird haircut? Boasting about sexually abusing women? Mocking disabled people? Defending racists? Maybe it’s the freedom to threaten to destroy a country for developing nukes while you develop and build more while threatening to use them against non nuclear nations?
Yep, all of them but especially the last one as the Trump administration is set to reveal a new, nuclear doctrine, which reportedly incorporates more cases in which it would use nuclear weapons and reveals the development of smaller-yield, simpler warheads.
One of the key changes to the US policy would be an expansion of circumstances in which a US nuclear attack would be considered to include a conventional attack that causes mass casualties or targets critical infrastructure and to remove assurances that they wouldn't target non-nuclear nations.
Making smaller, more 'usable' nuclear weapons would makes a nuclear war more likely, especially in light of the crass and boorish boasts by Donald Trump in showdowns with North Korea and his previous comments regarding the poser that if the US make nuclear weapons, why don’t they use them?
Calling himself 'stable' recently is a very apt because that's the perfect place for this horses-arse of a policy which shows which country is laying the groundwork for the ability to launch a nuclear strike with an enhanced nuclear arsenal and it isn't North Korea or Iran as we keep being told.
Maybe someone should show this genius, in the form of very basic pictures and words of no more than two syllables, pictures of the abhorrent massacre in Nagasaki and Hiroshima the last time an American President wanted to play the tough guy with nuclear weapons.

Monday 8 January 2018

And Then There Was Five

The word hero is bandied about far too much but there are 12 men who could properly carry the title, the men who walked on the moon.
Unfortunately, the moon missions came to an abrupt halt in the 1970's and humans have not set foot on the ball of rock orbiting Earth since 1972 when Gene Cernan was the last to step off the lunar surface.
Of the 12 only five are still alive with the news that John Young, the ninth person to set foot on the lunar surface, died on January 5th aged 87.
Of the five remaining Moon walkers, the youngest is 82 so we could very soon have nobody alive who has walked on anything other the our own planet which is a shame because we haven't moved on to moon bases which should have been the next logical landmark.
With the focus now seemingly moving onto landing a human on Mars, neglecting our nearest neighbour where we could practise building bases and terraforming in an alien environment is a massive mistake of trying to run before we can walk.

Innocent Death Toll Raises

Ah, the supremacist ideology of the West, beyond reproach and underpinned by moral superiority. The West, who have the power to accuse, prosecute and try other nations and leaders of war crimes, or crimes against humanity, or breaches of human rights.
The righteous West, who stand as a bastion of light and good against the forces of evil everywhere and avoiding killing innocents through our actions.
Meanwhile back in reality, a global survey, compiled by Action on Armed Violence, shows that the civilian death toll from air-launched explosives rose by 82%, from 4,902 in 2016, to 8,932 in 2017.
The worst impacted countries were Syria, where civilian deaths increased by 55% to 8,051, Iraq, where there was a 50% increase, to 3,271, and Afghanistan, where 994 non-combatants died.
Strange how the worst affected countries are the ones that the West have targeted and continue to target so well done The West, spreading death and misery everywhere our militaries go while defending ourselves by bombing people in their homes half way around the World.
Bush, Clinton, Obama, Brown, Blair, May and Trump take a bow, the credit for all those deaths are all yours, congratulations butchers of innocents.

From Hollies To Radiohead To Lana Del Rey

Seems a bit rich for Radiohead to be suing Lana Del Rey for plagiarising their 1992 song 'Creep' when they were sued for nicking it off the 1972 Holly's 'The Air That I Breathe' song and forced to share royalties with the band.
The US star claims she offered a 40% cut to the British band and states that her song 'Get Free' wasn't inspired by Creep which is either just a massive coincidence she came up with almost the exact same tune or she is just flat out lying about it.
Radiohead are holding out for 100% cut which seems excessive for a tune that they stole off someone else but then Del Ray offering to give them 40% seems to fly in the face of she didn't copy the tune.
With only a handful of chords ever used endlessly rearranged in more or less familiar ways, it is inevitable that these kinds of things will come up but i find it hard to believe that nobody during the process of making 'Get Free' mentioned how much it sounded like Creep.
That said, if Radiohead do sue her i hope that it's The Hollies who get any money to be handed out.

Sunday 7 January 2018

Rotton Eggs And Tomatoes Ready For February

The sound of placards being stacked away was deafening after Donald Trump pulled out of a visit to the UK because the Prime Minister couldn't guarantee British people won't turn up and shout horrible things at him, but the American President has plans to turn up here in February so get daubing those insults again as they may yet be used.
The wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is proving to be a headache because neither want him there but want to invite his predecessor Barack Obama and Buckingham Palace is currently in discussions with Downing Street with the most likely solution being neither is invited.
The Trump visit is probably going to be in February to open the new American Embassy on the banks of the Thames which is pencilled in for Monday 26th or Tuesday 27th but the Government are not confirming anything just yet but being a working day they hope to minimise the turnout of insult throwing Brits.
That said the date has leaked out and the Stop Trump Demonstration organisers have tweeted out: 'Put this date in your diaries. If Donald Trump attempts to sneak into the UK to open the US Embassy on 26/27th February 2018, he will be met by a million of us' which scuppers any plans to quietly sneak him him and back out again without us noticing.
I would guess plans are being made to drag his heavyweight carcass around with the least amount of contact with Brits, a landing at an out of the way, unannounced airport followed by a boat trip up the Thames to the Embassy would be my guess to limit access to demonstrators and foil the plan to wave angry worded placards at him and out of range of eggs and tomatoes.  
The problem we face now is what aspect of his flawed personality to make into a witty banner, too many choices but i don't think anyone is going to top the one above, that's just genius!! 

Merry Christmas Orthodox Christians

Today is Christmas Day but only for the Orthodox Christians who are made to wait an extra 13 days after the other Christians have unwrapped their presents because they still use the old Julian Calendar.
Being Christan they abide by all the other religious Christian stuff but i wasn't interested enough to look up what Orthodox Christianity is all about, i'm a non-orthodox Christian and i have no idea what my own religion is all about so Merry Christmas to all Orthodox Christians and don't worry about being 13 days behind the rest of the Christian religion because both of you hold views that are centuries out of date anyway so what's an extra near fortnight.

Hunting Ban Remains

Theresa May is one of those nasty little people who get their kicks from destroying animals and as such prior to her disastrous election last year made a pledge to give MPs a vote on overturning the ban on fox hunting, something which she was at pains to explain she is in favour of.
Her train of thought was that the Conservative Party would win enough seats to vote for a return to ripping the British wildlife to pieces for sport but as her majority was slashed, she can't do it now so has bravely span it as doing what the country wants rather than what she wants.
So no repeal of the 2004 Hunting Act but not because it's inhumane and cruel but because Theresa May hasn't got enough support for it from the House of Commons and she knows that her grip on the Prime Ministerial role is tenuous enough that she can't afford another defeat. 
It appears then that the government still doesn't accept that cruel sports should no longer be a part of 21st Century but more importantly we are finding out that right-wing policies have no place in it either.

Saturday 6 January 2018

Weather Extremes In Hemispheres

Some people believe that the earth is closest to the sun in summer and further away in winter but actually thanks to something very big hitting the Earth at some point early in its history to knock it off kilter, instead of rotating with its axis perpendicular to its orbital plane, it is tilted so here we are, orbiting the Sun with the axis pointed in the same direction so different parts of the Earth get the suns rays as we travel through the year.
At this time of the year the top half of the planet is tilting away from the sun meaning winter and the bottom half is tilted towards it giving summer.
To prove it you only have to see the weather differential in America in the Northern Hemisphere and Australia in the Southern.
Parts of the US are expecting what could be the coldest night in the country's history, with temperatures expected to drop as low as -35°C while in Australia the emergency services are warning people to stay indoors as a dangerous heatwave batters the country, with temperatures exceeding 45°C melting the roads.
The highest ever temperature recorded on Earth is 56.7 °C in Death Valley, California while the lowest is −89.2 °C at the Vostok Station in Antarctica.
As the Globe continues to warm and Mother Nature takes the weather that is there and ramps it up dangerously giving killer heat waves, strengthened hurricanes, heavier rainfalls and massive snow dumps, extreme weather will become the norm so it is something that we will have to get used to.

Thursday 4 January 2018

Who's Fighting Who In The Middle East In 2018

The Middle East has always been a tinderbox and in 2018 that isn't going to change but the landscape has even though the players are the same so maybe we can make sense of who are the friends and foes this year.
The Syrian war which has raged for so long is coming to an end largely thanks to the airforce actions of Iran and Russia who beat the Syrian rebels backed by Saudi Arabia and ISIS members who were originally armed by the United States to fight the Syrian army before they turned the weapons on Iraq and American allies.
The Kurds were the foot-soldiers on the ground in Syria and they were backed financially and militarily by the USA and UK although Turkey have been attacking the Kurds who they consider terrorists.
Iran back the rebels in Yemen who are being attacked by Saudi Arabia and the Iranians support Hezbollah in Lebanon who Israel attack on a regular basis backed militarily by the United States. 
As well as Lebanon, Israel have been occupying and attacking Palestinians for over half a century with the Hamas Government armed and supported by Iraq, Iran, Syria and Lebanon. 
Iraq still smoulders but ISIS has been decimated there also thanks to the Iranian and US military.
All in all it's a bit of a mess and now Israel and Saudi Arabia are coming to an uneasy alliance to take on Iran with the USA nodding approvingly on the sidelines. 
The players may have changed but as is always the way in war, it is always the civilians who suffer and thanks to a mixture of religion, and outside nations meddling for their own interests, that will carry on in 2018 and it's good for nothing but the undertaker and the cemetery grave diggers, as it always has been and always will be.

Run Melania, Run!!

Just when you thought there can't be any more embarassing things to be revealed about Donald Trump, up pops his old mucker and writes a whole book about who Rupert Murdoch considers to be 'a f****** idiot'.  
We now have even more to add to the already long list of tax dodging, lying, man-child, multiple bankruptcies, draft dodging, sexual assaults, urinating Russian prostitutes, racist policies, mocking the disabled, Russian collusion and having an abnormally small penis.
He never expected to win and was shocked and horrified when he did win while Melania was in tears but not of joy.
He was angry that A-listers snubbed his inauguration and was arguing with his wife throughout which isn't surprising as the next revelation is that Trump used to boast that sleeping with his friends wives made 'life worth living'.
No surprise then that Melania and him sleep in separate rooms and that lawyers for Trump are seeking to stop the release of the book to contain the damaging allegations which seems far too late as they are already out in the public sphere and besides, Trump is such a buffoon that the respect everyone has for him won't be impacted because you can't get any lower then zero.
He may have won the Presidency but in doing so he has gone from everyone just thinking he is a f***** idiot to confirming it.

Fat Cat Thursday

Kiss ass while you bitch
So you can get rich
While your boss gets richer off you

The dead Kennedy's certainly hit that nail on the head, you can work like a dog to make as much money as you like but at the same time you are making even more money for your boss which seems apt as today is Fat Cat Thursday or the day when the UK's top bosses will have made more money in 2018 than the typical worker can expect to earn over the entire year.
Dubbed Fat Cat Thursday, 4 January marks the day when the average pay of top executives has passed the median annual salary of £28,758.
What it shows is an excessive and unjustifiable gaps between the top and the rest of the workforce, the bosses pay 120 times the average workers salary despite the Prime Minister's proposed crackdown on boardroom excess.
The highest paid boss is Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of advertising giant WPP, on £48.1m and followed by Arnold Donald of cruise company Carnival on £22m and Rakesh Kapoor of consumer goods company Reckitt Benckiser, whose pay packet is £14.6m.
Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, said it was: 'outrageous that bosses were picking up salaries that look like telephone numbers while workers were suffering the longest pay squeeze since Napoleonic times'.
The pay gap between employee and boss has tripled since 2000 and demonstrates just how out of control inequality in Britain has become and why the feeling of resentment between the rich at the top and the poor at the bottom is growing.

Wednesday 3 January 2018

Tory NHS Privatisation Going As Planned

Seven years of Conservative underfunding of the NHS has culminated in this winters crisis with operations cancelled and waits of hours in accident and emergency and 16 hospital trusts to declaring major incidents which has led them to divert ambulances elsewhere and call in extra staff.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has come out and apologised to patients in England affected by a decision to postpone tens of thousands of operations in January.
The frustrating thing is we all know why the NHS is in crisis and we know who to blame, the Conservative Government and their NHS privatisation agenda.
It is so blatantly obvious what their game is as the Government runs down the NHS to such a state that we end up crying out for it to be privatised so we can get a hospital bed and it is even more obvious as Jeremy Hunt, the Health Minister and therefore the person who controls all aspects of the NHS, co-authored a book by a group of Conservative politicians that called for the NHS to be privatised.
Since 2010 when this Government took office, they have raised the NHS Budget by 1% each year so they can say with all factually accuracy that they are paying more to the NHS then ever before but historically the NHS Budget is raised by 4% each year so since 2010, the NHS budget has been raised by 7% when it should be 28% leaving the NHS in effect 21% down.
Throw into the ring the £22 billion in cuts and the 44 hospitals and treatment centres that have been closed with a loss of 15,000 beds and it is no wonder the NHS isn't coping and a shocking 30,000 extra deaths per year are attributed to Government cuts.
Liberal Democrat Timothy Fallon was on TV today berating the Government for their inaction and asking the question just how bad does the NHS have to get before the Government step in.
The answer is they won't step in because this is exactly what they planned, to strangle the NHS until things get so bad that they have no choice but to call in private health companies to take over which has always been the Tories not so secret Holy Grail and Jeremy Hunt saying sorry for what he has done isn't going to make any difference to that.
It is said that Conservative Governments are bad for our health and now they literally are.

Monday 1 January 2018

What Will Happen In 2018

Here we go again with the calendar showing the start of the 2018th trip for the Earth around the Sun but although this year will be worse than last year, it will be better than next year and although i may not have the psychic ability of Psychic Nikki, we can have a good guess at what will happen.

Hurricanes
- The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration give a 60%-80% chance that 2018 will be another La Nina year in the Atlantic which means a repeat of the devastating hurricanes which destroyed so much of the Caribbean driven by climate change and warmer sea temperatures.

Putin - The 2018 Russian election this coming March, congratulations to Vladimir Putin.

Earthquakes - Since the turn of the century there have been 21 Great earthquakes and 227 Major quakes. The odds are that there will be at least one Major Earthquake (above 7 on the Richter scale) in Japan, Nepal, Mexico, Turkey and Iran causing serious damage and loss of life and one Great Earthquake above 8 on the Richter scale causing devastation and major loss of life.

Mass Shootings - CNN shows of the deadliest mass shootings in modern US history, the top five have come in the past 10 years (Las Vegas 58, Orlando 49, Blacksburg 32, Newtown 27 and Sutherland Springs 26). By the end of 2018, Sutherland Springs will no longer be included in the top 5 as more than 26 will be killed in one gun violence incident in the USA in the next 12 months. 

Donald Trump - With the Russian investigation growing ever closer to Donald Trump, the odds at Paddy Power are 4/7 that he will face impeachment proceedings before the end of 2018. For impeachment to happen would take a fair chunk of Republicans to side with the Democrats, it's unlikely to happen as per the two previous times it was attempted. Bookies refuse to offer odds on Trump being assassinated but Betfair nudges punters towards a blanket offer of Trump 'exiting the White House in 2018' at Evens.

Theresa May - She has had what the Queen once referred to as an 'annus horriblis', whatever she touched turned to stuff you really don't want to touch but still she clings on, mostly because nobody wants their fingerprints on the train wreck which is Brexit. As it is pencilled in for March 2019, and as nobody is set to move against her until after that date, Mrs May will not be unseated in 2018 and will continue to lurch through the next 12 months as Prime Minister, shedding ministers who will be stepping sharply away from her as she goes.

Labour - As the details of Brexit continue to leak out and the dogs dinner we are heading towards becomes apparent, the Labour Party will will switch it's party’s stance to Remain, immediately capturing the 48% of remainers and the sizable percentage of Brexiters who have wisened up to their stance and what it means for the UK resulting in a sizable Labour lead in the polls. 

Brexit - As the UK and EU negotiations go on it will become apparent that the choices are between no deal and off the edge of the cliff we go with all the responding devastating hits to the UK economy or what we have now with a deal where we pay to stay in the Single Market and Customs Union but without a seat at the rules making table, the clamour Brexit will subside as it finally hits home what
Brexit means and it not be officially cancelled but the March 2019 exit date will slide before being kicked into the long grass.

Royal Wedding - The marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is set for 19 May 2018, the same day as thew FA cup Final. Arsenal have been in the 3 of the last 4 Finals and i expect them to be there again causing a dilemma of whether to go to Wembley to watch them win a 14th FA Cup trophy or watch Harry get married. If Arsenal somehow don't make it then i have the dilemma of watching the Royal Wedding on TV or glossing the skirting boards and watching the paint dry.

Kim Jong-Un's Desk

In his New Year address, North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un has said: 'a nuclear button is always on my desk' which is just showing off.
On my desk is a monitor and keyboard with a stuck shift key, a coffee mug desperately in need of a wash, a half eaten bag of Maltesers, a snowglobe with sticky chocolate fingerprints on it and bits of paper with important looking numbers on them which i have no idea what they are for.
To be fair i am not a World leader but we do know that the American President also has a red button on his desk but rather than start nulcear winter, it orders a glass of Coca-Cola because it is thirsty work being President and each glass is another step towards even more morbid obesity and Type 2 diabetes so here's hoping he makes ample use of it.
When he wasn't threatening to turn America into a nuclear wasteland, Mr Kim was offering a potential olive branch to South Korea, suggesting he was 'open to dialogue' and how he may even send a team to the Winter Olympics in Seoul.
'We should melt the frozen North-South relations, thus adorning this meaningful year as a year to be specially recorded in the history of the nation' he said with the South Korean president replying their office had always stated our willingness to talk with North Korea at anytime and anywhere.
Good start to the year, reconciliation on the Korean peninsula and i have half a bag of Maltesers left now if i can just find a way to type with having to use the shift key.

2018 Psychic Predictions

Moses had to go to Mount Sinai to hear spirit voices and Muhammad travelled to Mount Hira but in the case of Psychic Nikki they come to her front room to speak to tell her what will unfold in 2018.
Her website lists her clients as Shirley MacLaine, Cher, Rod Stewart, Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, Survivor Contestants, Donald O'Connor, Hal Lindon, Roger Whitiker and many others and she is a regular contributor to The Toronto Sun and if she is good enough for the Toronto Sun then she is good enough for me and anyway, if you got the cojones to wear a hat like that then you must be onto something so here are the 2018 predictions courtesy of Psychi Nikki.

    A fire and explosion at the New York Times Newspaper
    Explosion at Penn Station in New York City
    Donald Trump Impeachment
    America will attack North Korea
    A blimp will explode in the U.S.
    Terrorist attack in Oslo, Norway
    A space ship lands and take hostages
    A member of the royal family will be kidnapped
    Island of Malta almost destroyed by an earthquake
    A movie star will be killed by a shark
    A change in the Monarchy in England
    Israel and Iran attack each other
    A huge heist at the Louvre in Paris; Monet's, Van Goghs, Etc. are stolen
    Elton John and David Furnish will split up
    Kim Kardashian and Kayne West will split
    David Beckham will split from his wife, Victoria
    The Rock has a Motorcycle accident
    Category 5 hurricane wipes out Miami
    An earthquake hits the British Isles
    An assassination attempt on the Queen

We will come back at the tail-end of 2018 and see who got eaten by a shark, console Elton John and David Beckham and see what the US map looks like without Miami..