The Left Sharing Views With The Right

I was asked if there is any right wings views that i could support and after giving it some thought and consideration, i concluded that i hadn't been dropped on my head enough times to find myself supporting anything the racist homophobes on that side believed in and it would be a sad day in the Lucy household when i was forced to hand back my hippy, tree hugging lefty card and throw my lot in with the awful right wingers.
Then i happened across a YouGov poll which have three views which are supported by the political left and right, the support for nuclear energy, believing that the criminal justice system is too lenient and that the House of Lords should be elected.
Firstly, i wouldn't say i support nuclear energy, obviously it is cleaner than what we already have but whereas it isn't stuffing billions of tonnes of carbon into the already heavily polluted air we breathe, it is instead stuffing it into the ground with nuclear waste making that part of the planet uninhabitable for 100,000 years and that's just the low level less dangerous stuff, the high level waste is hazardous for a million years and that's without looking too hard at the health implications of living close to a nuclear site or if one goes Chernobyl, Three Mile Island or Fukishima.
When we have a free source provided by solar, wind and tides the choice of nuclear is strange so support is a bit strong, i would go with better than what we have but immensely worse then what we could have.     
The Criminal Justice system being too soft i do agree with although i think we get to the same conclusion for different reasons. Whereas i see prison as a way to remove someone from society for our safety until they are fit to return to it, the right see it as a punishment and it should be bread and dripping and hard labour which is why they are always banging on about how 'soft' prison is.
I don't get concurrent sentences, what's the point of that, but serving your debt to society and a second chance i am all for as well as serving a whole sentence, if you get 10 years then you should serve 10 years, not 5 and out for good behaviour so again we get to the same place but through very different streets.
Thirdly, the House of Lords being an unelected chamber elected by whoever the Prime Minister decided worthy is a farce. It is full of Lords who have got there for donating millions to whichever flavour of Party is currently running things and as they have a say in our Democracy, they should be decided by us, not by someone as a reward for having deep pockets.
I make that one and a half views that i share with my right wing enemies so i was preparing to give a tree one last hug and nail my lefty card to it before going to look for some migrants to harangue for being lacky feckers coming over here to live the life of riley on my tax pounds and then i thought, hang on, maybe it's not me having some slightly right wing views but maybe it is them having some lefty ones which is more than likely because lets face it, nobody would want to be a right winger and hold abhorrent views on purpose do they?
Welcome to my side right wingers, help yourself to some lettuce and you are welcome to borrow my Communist Manifesto anytime you want.

Brit's Don't Do God

When it was rumoured that Tony Blair was of the religious persuasion his handlers quickly stepped in and tried to avoid the awkward questions by announcing that 'We Don't do God' because they knew that if a high profile figure comes out as a believer, they will be crucifed by the Press and Public.
As it turned out Blair was deeply religious and he and his fellow Bible hugger ignored the 'Shall Not Kill' Commandment and went on a war declaration twice in The Middle East.
One time Liberal Democrat Leader Tim Fallon stepped down when he got the awkward questions around gay marriage, deciding that remaining faithful to his religion and depriving gays of their equal rights was more important than running Britain's third political party and quit when continually pressed by journalists on his beliefs.   
With those examples it is difficult to see what the potential SNP Candidate and high profile evangelical Free Church of Scotland member Kate Forbes thought would happen when she announced she was running for the leadership.
What did happen was after a series of interviews which probed at length on her faith-informed views and she gave her opinion that children outside marriage is wrong, she isn't much of a defender of trans rights and marriage should only be between a man and a woman, many of her own supporters distanced themselves from her campaign and the SNP said that she doesn't reflect their views and should withdraw from the race.
Lesson hopeful learnt for anyone who want to run for political office in Great Britain, Brits don't do God and neither should you.

Yet Another Great Idea From Me

I think it is fair to say that if some nations had a choice, they wouldn't choose to be living right next door to their current neighbours so the solution is simple, a country swap.
Cuba for example would probably prefer to be closer to their ideological comrades Russia and China than the United States of America and it is probably also fair to say that the Israelis had the option, they would rather be living nearer the shores of North America than in the Middle East so they can swap.
America would be happy as it would prefer a more compliant Israel on it's border rather than the belligerent Cubans sticking two fingers up at them so all will be fine on that score.
Likewise, Israel has been at war with almost everyone of it's neighbours at some point in a little over 60 years and nobody in the area wants its stuck there in the Middle East anyway so no problems from that side also as well as the bonus of Cuba being an Ireland so no stealing land or neigbours to oppress.
One sticking point may come that it will be another decade at least until Israel steal enough land off the Palestinians to swap like for like but that's plenty of time for Cuba to wrap it's things up in newspaper and learn what 'Do you want to buy some cigars?' is in Arabic.
Scotland are desperate to leave the British Isles and us English would be happy to phone the removal vans for them and we have the perfect replacement in New Zealand who have a population almost identical to Scotland so its a perfect fit and New Zealander's seem a lot more friendly than the Scots and if they can bring that nice Jacinda woman with them, all the better.
South Korea and North Korea are almost permanently on the verge of knocking seven bells out of each other so i am sure that the South Koreans would love to move away and Iran would be happy to move their stuff and nuclear facilities closer to North Korea where they could test their nuclear capability until the cows come home and Hong Kong's population is close enough to Ireland's to make a move possible, the Hong Kong never wanted to leave British rule anyway and China would find a few million fesity Irishmen tanked up on Guinness less willing to take their nonsense.
Mexico is always being bad-mouthed by its more warmongery northern neighbour and the Japanese are forever having to duck as North Korea's missile tests whistle over their heads so both could be up for a swap and even America couldn't object, they dropped a freaking nuclear missile on them so they owe them anyway.     
The United Nations poo-pooed my other ideas but i think they may be up for this one as it comes with the bonus of not so many flashpoints around the World, someone get me Antonio Guterres on the blower. 

The Nicola Bulley Case

I am of the mind that until they find the body of Nicola Bulley, there is hope that she is still alive somewhere which would be the better alternative than the other outcome but after extensive searches of the area including the river which they assumed she had fallen into, i am starting to hope that she has done a disappearing act of her own violation.
As the fields exits had been monitored and she hadn't left the area or seen to be forcibly taken and her phone and dog was found beside the river, it was assumed it was a tragic accident but after three weeks and no body it was a strange decision for Lancashire Police to suddenly reveal details of her personal life including issues with alcohol and menopause.
The police do occasionally take journalists into their confidence and privately explain things under the agreement that the discussion is strictly off-the-record and not to be revealed publicly so it could be that they did exactly that and some journalist's didn't understand the tacit agreement and published the details and if that was the case then it will seriously erode the police's trust of journalists in future cases.
Until they find a body there is still hope, people have faked their own deaths and just disappeared before and hopefully that is what has happened to Nicola and she is holed up somewhere safe, keeping her head down and waiting for the news cycle to move on. 

Rishi Trying To Salvage What Boris Served N Ireland

For anyone even contemplating Boris Johnson making a comeback, cast a glance across the Irish Sea and have a look at Rishi Sunak desperately trying to salvage something for Northern Ireland after the dog's dinner that Boris Johnson served up as a Brexit deal.
Following Brexit, with Northern Ireland part of the UK and the Republic of Ireland in the EU, where there was previously just a border sign which said 'Welcome to Northern Ireland', there now needed to be a border where all goods from the Non-EU side entering the EU zone needed to be checked and up stepped
the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson who came up with the 'Northern Ireland Protocol' and persuaded his fellow MP's to vote it into effect, calling it 'a great deal that was oven ready' and one which he was 'proud to secure'.
Less than 12 months later he wanted to rip up it up and start again, blaming the EU for breaking the spirit of the thing by going to the trouble of actually implementing it, accusing the EU of acting in bad faith by applying the treaty in the form in which it had been agreed.
The EU warned that other nations considering doing deals with the UK should be wary because it might not keep its word, to which the only reply was to look at who they negotiated the deal with and say 'duh...ya reckon'?
Between mutterings that Northern Ireland is looking at the possibility of rejoining with its Southern Neighbour and Sinn Fein now running things over there, Rishi Sunak is running around to try and keep things together and the early signs are not only positive for Northern Ireland but with a softer Brexit than the previous numpties negotiated.
His plan is to send goods destined for the EU to Dublin and goods for the Northern Irish to Belfast which sounds sensible but doesn't resolve the problem of goods moving between the two which would still require checks at a border so far from being resolved but short of saying sorry EU and can we come back, it's not going to be easy so better get the coffee on, it's going to be a long weekend.

If You Are Wondering What To Spend That £8 Trillion On...

 
If you have a few quid in the bank you may be wondering what to spend it on. Maybe fast cars, a couple of houses and a fancy holiday but how about i try and tempt you with buying your own country and a snip at £8 trillion.
For some reason the Government's Office for National Statistics have worked out what Great Britain and Northern Ireland and everything in it would cost if it was put on the market and have arrived at a figure of £8,063,000,000,000 or 2,330 trillion pints of beer or 13,438 trillion Mars bars but why would you do that when you can own the home of some great football Teams (and Tottenham) and some amazing bands (and the Spice Girls).
The 25 million residential dwellings makes up the lion's share of price tag along with all other buildings such as the 1,257 Hospitals and 141 prisons along with 3,211 bridges and 262,300 miles of road.
As the Worlds sixth largest economy (we were fifth until a little while ago) and with GDP of around £3 trillion, Britain may be a rainy, windswept island off the coast of mainland Europe but we are on the border of the World's largest Single Market, no in it you might notice, on the border with it but for your £8 trillion you don't get one country but four, England, Scotland, Wales and the top bit of Ireland as well as a few odds and sods dotted around the globe such as the Falkland Islands 8,000 miles away off the coast of Argentina.   
We have a rich history as you can see in our museums and have a fine tradition of invention, many of the Worlds inventions originated in Britain such as the Television, Steam Engine, World Wide Web and Hovercrafts as well as being the proud inventors of Canada, America, Australia, New Zealand and Pakistan, obviously we are more prouder of some than others but when you rule over a quarter of the Planet, you will get some turn out not as you hoped.
We got rid of all our dangerous animals a long time ago so the most dangerous beast we have is a hedgehog, we have decent teabags, drive on the left, have shows like QI, Blackadder, Red Dwarf, Monty Python, Downton Abbey and usually something with Stephen Fry presenting it, have an awful Royal family which will give you years of fun and beaches which are available on the three Sunny days we get each year.
The only drawback i can think of is Piers Morgan is still here but his show is now on TalkTV and that's tucked away at the end of the listing before you get into the foreign language channels so you won't even accidentally fall across him so come on rich people, dig deep and 65 million Brits will raise a mug of tea to you.

Ticking Off Our Intergalactic Neighbours

Apparently, there were three reports of Chinese Weather Balloons in America airspace during the Donald Trump era but whenever a very round, large white thing was reported it was put down as Donald going to the fridge for yet another snack but after three reports in the past week, the skies above America could be  
teeming with unidentified Flying Objects.
The first was almost certainly a Chinese Spy balloon but the second which was reportedly much smaller and flying much lower was shot down on the orders of Canada and another was reported over Montana but when an F-22 was sent up to take a look, it found nothing there except some clouds and a few scared looking birds.
The White House are not giving any details except it was cylindrical and silver-ish gray which leaves a void for fanciful notions of just what the US Air-force took aim at and conspiracy theories are growing although there is only two possible answers, either it is a smaller Chinese Spy Balloon or America are shooting down visiting Aliens.
This flying object is just one of many being investigated by the U.S. Department of Defense and only a few weeks ago the Pentagon released documents indicating that it was struggling to explain about half of the hundreds of UFO reports it received last year so if the Americans do put forward the notion that it was just a Weather Balloon, then it would be the exact opposite of the Roswell Incident where a supposed downed Alien craft was dismissed as a weather balloon.
China has reported a unidentified object spotted flying over waters near the port city of Qingdao itself although that could very well be the Chinese wanting to join the shooting down Balloon party but i am sure that all will become clear over the next few weeks and it will either be declared as more Spy Balloons or we will find a fleet of alien spaceships threatening to obliterate us Earthlings with ray guns and lasers.

Pfft...What Do They Know

The Office for National Statistics' has reported that the UK's GDP in the fourth quarter remained the same as the third quarter despite a revised contraction of 0.2% in the third quarter.
On an annual basis, the GDP rose by 0.4% in the fourth quarter, slowing from 1.9% in the third quarter however in December, GDP fell 0.5% from the previous month, after growing by 0.1% in November.
For the year 2022 overall, GDP increased by 4.0% which is a significant slowdown from the 7.6% increase in 2021.
No idea what any of that means but apparently the UK is not technically in recession because that is two consecutive quarters of negative growth and we only had one, the second one wasn't worse than the previous one, it was the same but considering that the last quarter included all that Christmas spending then we can thank Santa for that small mercy.
The International Monetary Fund have said that the UK's economy will lag behind every other country in the developed world in 2023, including Russia which is at war and has most of the World sanctioning it.
The IMF have put Britain's economic awfulness down to 'tighter fiscal and monetary policies, financial conditions and high energy retail prices weighing on household budgets' to which the Government responded with a pfft..what does the IMF know.
The Chancellor explained away the awkward questions of how the hell are we worse off then Russia which is forecast to grow by 0.3% despite everything going on there by saying that: 'This confirms we are not immune to the pressures hitting nearly all advanced economies'.
That would be the advanced economies such as Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Canada, USA, China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and South Africa who are have projected forecasts of growth between 0.1% and 6.1%. Them economies?
As this is the same Government who introduced us to severe austerity in 2010 to 'bring down the national debt' which stood at £760m and when Boris Johnson signaled it was to end in 2019 stood at £1.50 trillion i think i will take my advice from the IMF thank you.
If you ever wondered what the UK would be like after 13 years of Conservative Government, have a look, and if you are still tempted to vote for them ever again, then you haven't look hard or long enough.

Idea's From The Keyboard Of Lucy: The Earth Coming Together As One Nation

In a previous post i pondered on the idea of all the countries in Europe coming together to make one big country called Europa and went back and forth on the advantages and potential problems but decided on the whole if it would stop wars over territory and give enough social and economic advantages, then it would be worth the upheaval but then i thought why stop at Europe, why not make the whole World one massive country.    
The evolution of human civilisation is one of expansion and working together so the small tribes came together to make settlements in favour of the collective good which expanded into states and then nations and that is where we seemed to have stopped and drew our borders and started the whole thing of competing against each other for power, land, control, wealth, ideologies and beliefs.
By declaring the whole planet as one huge country where all it's resources and wealth is shared would immediately stop many of the causes of wars although the main one, religion, would be a sticking point as there are over 4,000 recognised religions declaring their religion as the true one and killing each other to prove they are the most peaceful one.
If we say let's kick that one into the long grass for later than at least freedom of movement would alleviate many of the neighbourly problems so without borders, whole nations of people could move to wherever they wanted to avoid excessive heat, natural disasters, famine or flooding and as all nations would be equal under laws, it would only be the weather and the scenery which would be different.
Economically, as there is one Government, there would be one Treasury collecting and distributing tax and distributing it to make all nations equal so no G7 or G20 making financial decisions for the rest of the planet, just everybody level.  
That does throw up the idea of a World Government representing all and i would like to see something which doesn't set and enforce laws but sets out minimum standards for goods, healthcare, services, energy, human rights and laws across the globe which would be great for planet-wide issues such as climate change although a World leader would leave us wide open to a global dictator and that wouldn't end well.
Mostly, it would stop nations putting their own interests first at the detriment of others and stop wars and provide everybody with the means to live and share our global resources, it's just a matter of deciding to continue what our ancestors began and continue expanding our countries borders until they no longer exist.

Not Plagarism, It's Being Influenced By

A few years ago i had an email from a teacher in Kansas. Apparently he had set his class some homework to write 300 words or so on a topic and half the class turned in almost identical reports so the teacher wrote it into the school's plagiarism software and traced it back to one of my posts.
The class had obviously stumbled across my blog and a post on whichever the subject was, i think it was a Christmas one, and pretty much copied and pasted it and turned it in.
Amusingly, the teacher said that most of the students hadn't even de-Englishfied it and it was full of English spellings and America don't seem to make use of one of five vowels so even if just one of them had done it, they would have been sprung anyway.  
I was reminded of it the other day when my Blog stats showed another anti-plagiarism site traced something back to my blog, this time my 2021 post on  renewable energy, It Really Shouldn't Be This Hard.
Now i have no problem with copyright, once i click the post button i send my posts out into the wild to fend for themselves and therefore available to anyone to do what they want with them if they wish, but a word of advice for students if their teacher is currently looking at bunch of homework books and wondering why it looks suspiciously like that English woman's post on renewable energy.
By all means take what i say if you want and paste it into a Word Document and claim you spent hours writing it but at least change some of the words, stick it through a Thesurus, delete some bits and add some bits to disguise it but at the very least, if you are not sat in an English classroom, de-Englishfy it.
Happy to help.
    

The Man City Punishment

Despite having a team worth £1billion and still lagging five points behind Arsenal having played a game more wasn't unpleasant enough for Manchester City fans then that will be the least of their problems after it was revealed City are facing 115 charges of breaking the Football's financial rules after a four-year
investigation.
The reigning league champions now appear to be staring down the barrel and other fans are having a gay old time trying to guess what punishment they will face because it certainly won't be a fine which would be pointless when they are backed by a bottomless pit of money so it's going to be something much more severe rising from having their titles and cups taken from them to relegation to the Manchester Sunday League.
Illegally cooking the books over a nine-year period with the creative culinary zeal of an episode of The Great British Bake Off, a precedent has been set with Rangers being booted down to the Scottish Third Division for breaches of the same rules and Juventus in Italy were slammed into Serie B with a nine point deduction so relegation looks a likely outcome but for 115 breaches over nine years, it doesn't seem enough for their dastardly cheating so the FA Cup in the years Manchester City won it should go to the beaten finalists.   
Better get some metal polish in Stoke, Wigan and Watford and the League runner up in the League in City winning years were Manchester United on two occasions and Liverpool so they should get the big trophy and then the real punishment, relegation at least two divisions, a transfer embargo so they can sell but not buy any players for 5 years, notbe allowed to play Haarland in the games against leaders Arsenal this season and if Guardiola leaves as he promised he would if they are found guilty, they have to be managed by Sam Alladyce.
Inflicting Sam Alladyce on them may be harsh but i think you will agree, fair.

Thanks Tottenham

It doesn't happen very often but today every one of us Arsenal fans were cheering for a Tottenham Hotspurs win and leaping for joy when Harry Kane slammed the ball into the Manchester City net after 15 minutes.
With the current leaders Arsenal coming up against a revitalised Everton yesterday and a glum looking Mikel Arteta so upset that he confused the Toffees with Burnley in the post match interview, the big spending Manchester side could have closed the gap to two points had they won but they never, so that sucks for them.
Generally whenever i mention Tottenham here it is to make childish and purile jokes about them but not today, no jokes about that vowel in the middle of Conte's name being the wrong vowel or asking Spurs fans if its hard to drink coffee at their Stadium when all the cups are at The Emirates Stadium but none of that today, congratulations Harry on becoming Spur's top scorer, well done on the three points, get well soon Antonio Conte and thank you for making the twitchy vein stand out on the side of Pep Guardiola's head at the final whistle. All Arsenal fans appreciate your effort.

Is It A Bird? A Plane? A Chinese Spy Balloon?

Up until this weekend the most famous weather balloon in America was the one which came down in Roswell in 1959 but the one everyone has been talking about has Made In China stamped on it's side.
It currently lies at the bottom of the Pacific off the coast of Carolina after a US Airforce jet took it down but prior to that it was floating serenely over missile silos in Montana while red-faced officials in Beijing scramble to tell the over-excited Americans that what they were calling a high-altitude surveillance was actually a harmless meteorological data collecting gadget which had accidentally gone astray and offered
an apology for any inconvenience.  
At a time when US-China relations are shaky at best, it isn't great that China have been caught red handed spying on their rival and the US secretary of state has already postponed what was deemed to be an ice-breaking weekend visit to China with President Xi Jinping after the wreckage of Donald Trump’s presidency took relations to a new low with rows over trade, US sanctions and the Coronavirus.
With Taiwan, Hong Kong, the South China Sea and Xinjiang potential flashpoints between the two and with American Intelligence saying they know that Xi had ordered his forces to be ready to invade although they are the same people who swore blind Iraqi's were tripping over weapons of mass destruction, that
can be taken with a salt-mine full of the stuff.  
The first rule of espionage is don't get found out so it would seem strange that the Chinese would deploy an obvious 90ft bright white spy balloon at such delicate times and not use much harder to detect satellites although they probably are, all nations seem to be keeping a wary eye on each other and it wasn't that long ago that America was caught hacking German Ministers mobile phones, and they are on the same side.  
Whether it was a weather balloon or something more sinister we will find out as soon as it is dragged out of the sea, and my money is on a really bad spying mission, but Joe Biden is being accused of being asleep at the wheel for not bringing it down straight away but to be fair he falls asleep wherever he is but it has created some brilliant memes, my favourite being: ' Goodnight Table, Goodnight Moon, Goodnight Chinese Spy Balloon'. Very funny.

£32,200,000,00 Shell Profit While People Die Of Cold

Shell have announced that they made a net profit of £32.2b in 2022, more than double that of 2021 and the highest in its 115-year history.
Galling enough amidst a cost-of-living crisis fuelled by sky-high energy bills and Office of National Statistics expect the 8,500 deaths from cold homes in 2021 to exceed 10,000 this year as pensioners delay turning on their radiators for fear of being unable to pay their heating bill.
Amidst a background of large swathes of the country striking to demand a pay rise inline with inflation, a £32,200,000,00 profit for one of the companies responsible for their plight is exasperating as is the decision by the UK Government not to impose a windfall tax on Shell to try to lighten the heat or eat burden of many.
The Government have taken the line of publishing how much train drivers, nurses and Public Servants earn in a futile attempt to show how the workers are being 'greedy' demanding more, so can we now we can expect the same insult aimed at the Directors and shareholders at Shell?  
Obviously not, that only apply to teachers, firefighters and nurses fighting for fair pay.

Failing Upwards Explains Much

Two phrases which i like to sprinkle around are 'Useful Idiots' and 'Failing Upwards'. The first is usually attributed to Vladimir Lenin about a person perceived as backing a bad cause without fully comprehending the goals and who is cynically being used by the cause's leaders, think the anti-Global Warming groups or Brexit supporters.
Failing Upwards is when a person is promoted despite performing terribly at their previous job and we all know people like that, i have had more than my fair share of managers and wondered how the hell they managed to get where they got to and it's bad enough in your employment but it seems to have become a thing with Political Leaders.
Donald Trump was an awful businessman, bankrupt at least five times including when he was running a Casino of all things but somehow he managed to convince enough people (Useful Idiots) that he was a brilliant business mastermind who would 'Make America Great Again'. He never but despite everything, including confessing to being a sex offender, he failed upwards into the top job in America and we also have two great recent examples in the UK, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.  
Even before he entered politics, Boris was a known serial liar, sacked for making things up on two occasions and when he was made Foreign Secretary he managed to somehow get a prison sentence increased for a woman he was negotiating to get released and burnt through money on vanity projects when he was London's Lord Mayor but yet, he still managed to find the keys to 10 Downing Street in his grubby little hands as did Liz Truss.
Her ministerial career was blunder-strewn long before she became Britain’s most disastrous Prime Minister, as international trade secretary she agreed an awful trade deal with Australia and New Zealand denounced as 'a ruinous failure' by British farmers and Joe Biden called her 'really dumb' after she met him and made contradictory demands of sanctions on Russia when she was Foreign Secretary yet she followed Boris into Downing Street, albeit briefly until she tanked the British Economy.
It always amazes me how people are surprised when people who are so inept at their job then go and become even more of a disaster when they are handed even more responsibility and even more when after their disasters, there are still people who try to defend them which is why today, after Liz Truss tries to make some sort of explanation of why she was quite so disastrous (tried to do it too fast apparently), there are some on the Tory right who agree and are pushing for her incompetent policies to be adopted by Rishi Sunak.
That Truss is still pushing for her policies which have bankrupted Britain to be enacted, that Donald Trump is running for US President again and Boris Johnson is racing around trying to keep himself relevant so he can step back into the Prime Ministers shoes, shows that not only are some people unaware that they spectacularly.
failed upwards, but that there are enough Uself Idiots who see some advantage from continuing to back them but also that they are unaware of their own glaring inadequacies and still consider themselves the best fit for the job, despite everything telling them they really aren't and which explains why we find ourselves in such a dire place today.

Æŋliſh: An Ævolviŋ Languagæ

If i was writing this blog in Middle England times then it would read very different. Firstly i'm not sure how kindly the very head choppy King Henry VIII would take to his subjects writing posts mocking his obesity, his love life or his crippling gout and 16th Century Keyboards would have been laid out very differently as back then the English language was a very different beast.  
Luckily i have a 16th Century keyboard so that first paragraph would be If i was ƿritiŋ þis blog in Middlæ Ængland timæſ þæn it ƿould ræad verȝ diffærænt. Firſtly i'm not ſuræ how kindlȝ þæ væry hæad ȝoppy King Hænry VIII ƿould takæ to hiſ ſubjæcts ƿritiŋ posts mockiŋ his obæſity, his lovæ lifæ & his crippliŋ gout & 16þ Cæntury Kæyboardſ ƿould havæ bææn laid out væry diffæræntlȝ aſ back þæn þe Ængliſh languagæ was a værȝ diffærænt bæaſt.
Seeing as that took me forever i have abandoned the idea of writing a whole post in archaic English but it does prove how difficult it would be to read signs if you travelled back in time, imagine going back to Ancient Egypt where they didn't use letters but got by with hieroglyphics and seeing a sign which read 'Owl, Bird, Foot, Squiggly line, Squiggly line', you wouldn't have a clue if you was outside a shop selling two for one pomegranates or being told to watch out for falling  rocks.
They did actually make warnings to make sure that future generations would not go disturbing the Kings in the Pyramids by putting up stark warning of all kinds of horrid things that would happen if we did enter the tombs of the Pharaohs but we couldn't understand them and so smashed them open anyway.
It appears that since people like Chaucer 600 years ago put quill to parchment we have gained the letters J, U, V and W which he never had access to so we may have 16% more alphabet than him but the alphabet is a constantly changing feast which brings us neatly to the spent nuclear fuel dumps not just in the UK but all over the World.
As the radioactive material will remain dangerous for at least 100,000 years, a 'Keep Out' sign is the absolute minimum but it is extremely unlikely that our descendants will speak any of our languages in 100,000 years and 'Keep Out' will mean as much as Owl, Foot, Toad does to us today so you hope that our leaders are making a plan for that but it probably hasn't occurred to them to warn future generations, as Chaucer may have said, they are a bunch of uſælæſſ baſtardſ afterall.

100 Days Of Rishi

 After all the right-wing policies over the last 13 years crashed and burned, it's close to time to return to proper, grown-up policies but first we have to put up with the Conservatives for at least another couple of years although whether by the time the next General Election rolls around Rishi Sunak will still be in charge is up for debate, especially looking back at his first 100 days in Office.
Some people are making the excuse that all of the problems Rishi faced in his first century of days were inherited from the debacles which were Liz Truss and Boris Johnson and i could have some sympathy with that view if he hadn't been so keen to bring back into the fold some of the very worst Members of the previous administration such as Gareth Williamson, Suella Braverman, Dominic Raab and Nadhim Zahawi, those catastrophes of human kind are all on him.  
You would assume after the multiple Boris lies and nutty Liz Truss blowing up the economy, not being either one of them would be enough to ensure things would take an upward tick but Rishi hasn't so much steadied the ship as guiding people towards the life rafts.
Being the person responsible for making people pay tax and then being found to have a wife who had non-dom status to avoid paying UK tax wasn't the best way to introduce himself nor was having to sack your Cabinet Office minister for sending threatening texts, then your party chair for hiding millions in an offshore account and still facing the inevitable firing of his Justice Minister for bullying his staff and all that between fire fighting the unhelpful efforts inept rumblings of your own Party members who didn't vote for him in any of the three times he tried to lead the Party.
Throw in the striking public and civil servants, train drivers, University Staff and picking an unwinnable fight with teachers, Ambulance drivers and Nurses over pay and conditions while interest rates rise to 4%, food prices up 17% and a cost of living crisis which has been made worse by the IMF announcement that Britain's economic forecast puts it 20th in the G20 league of nations, beaten even by Russia and Rishi hasn't had a war and sanctions to blame it on, and things are far from rosy in the Rishi garden.
The NHS crisis leading to 1,000 additional deaths a week isn't doing his reputation any favours and as his party lays 30 points behind the opposition, the Election draws closer the Tory infighting will only get worse as Conservative Members see the unemployment queue beckoning as they lose their seats so the dog days of  Rishi's short reign will be brutal, hopefully only for the Nasty Party but more than likely for the rest of us also. 

Not A Silver Lining, But A Green One

The saying goes that every dark cloud has a silver lining and as hard as it is to see any in the Ukraine War, there has been one which benefits everyone on the Planet as Europe has turned to renewable energy to replace the gas and oil it previously imported from Russia.
Faced with having to replace its biggest supplier after Russia cut off gas supplies last year, the European Union put more coal power on standby to fill the gaps but it has turned not to such devastatingly polluting measures and instead went green and solar, wind and tidal power and are now generating more electricity than any other source.
Wind and solar generated 22% of electricity in the EU in 2022, overtaking gas (20%) and Coal (16%) and helped helped reduce the energy deficit although a milder than expected winter and concerns over the public concern over the environmental damage we are causing and climate change was a big factor.
The EU still remains one of the world's largest emitters of climate-heating greenhouse gases but the trajectory is for less dirty energy creation and more green power with the Senior Energy Policy Expert at Climate Action Network Europe saying that increasing wind and solar 'can replace fossil fuels' and
saying that it's evidently clear that coal has no future.
Obviously more green power and less pollution is a great thing, unfortunately it took a war and an energy shortage crisis to make it happen where people dying in their tens of thousands each year, sea levels rising and extreme weather events never.

Don't Ditch The Masks Just Yet

If you are anything like me, you have a drawer full of old hand sanitiser and face masks left over from the Coronavirus pandemic but i wouldn't be too quick to throw them out because just as we get over one virus jumping from the wildlife to humans, we could be at the start of another one with scientists warning that
Bird flu has jumped to us mammals.
Bird flu has been found in foxes and otters in the UK and around the globe it's cropped up in dolphins, bears, minks, domestic and wild cats and although the scientists are not sounding any alarm bells for us humans yet, they say they are keeping a watchful eye on it although they believe that the mammals probably ate infected dead wild birds or their droppings.
It was the cases of the mink's which caused a few scientists pens in shirt pockets to be jangled nervously though as the H5N1 virus appeared to spread between the animals, from pen to pen and under the microscope they noticed that the virus underwent a genetic change that meant it was better able to reproduce in mammals which the Animal and Plant Health Agency called 'of significant concern' although they did go on to say that it doesn't mean humans are next in line.
'Potentially infectious contact is likely to be rare' said one scientist on the reassuringly on the BBC today before adding 'right now' as Avian Flu is forever changing and 'there is a constant risk that one of the new strains may spread easily among humans'.
The APHA is now boosting its surveillance program to make sure it tracks any instances of the virus passing from mammal to mammal and would make make the public health departments aware so they can make clear and rapid assessments which should make us breathe a little easier, especially if you turned
the radio off before he went on to say that the viruses responsible for all four of the worldwide human influenza pandemics seen in the last 100 years have originated from birds.

If You Are Stuck For Valentine Gift Idea's This Year...

Valentines Day is only a few weeks away and many couples thoughts are turning to what they can do to show their other half how much they mean to them but if roses, chocolates and cuddly toys just don't cut it anymore, there is website where for £100, you can get necklaces, pendants, bracelets, rings, earrings and keychains made from...well let's just say that Monica Lewinski's blue dress after THAT Oval Room trip would have been perfect.
The Amanda Booth Trinkets business began making trinkets from ashes before expanding their business to include the process of breastmilk trinkets and have now taken the next step and launched Jizzy Jewellery, turning human semen into forever trinkets.
The website explains it could be to mark your fertility journey, a vasectomy gift or just to show someone how much they are loved and advises that you must provide your own samples, obviously.
Amanda explains how she tried out the process of turning semen into jewellery by trying it out on a sample from her husband first of all and when she found it worked, she began taking orders.
She then went on to explain: 'It doesn’t make the office the most fun to be in when it’s drying as it’s not the nicest smell...' at which point i stopped reading and really hoped that hubby will turn up with a box of Black Magic, Daffodils and a card again this year.

Pope Say's Those Gay Types Are Alright Afterall

The Bible is clear on many things, a talking snake told the first woman who was made from a rib from her mate to eat the forbidden apple, another man managed to cram two and seven of every animal onto a 437ft long boat and gays, or 'abominations' as the Bible calls them, should be killed.
The whole quote is: 'If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death' which leaves little room for misunderstanding but the Bible hugging types seemed to select the bits they believe and whilst be all to willing to go with the first bit and hate on them, they don't seem to be not quite so keen to enforce the second bit.
Obviously sometimes the word of God is fine until it makes you look a dangerous whackadoodle but i am sure God is fine with his believers cherry picking the bits they want, when he wasn't wiping out everyone he was a loving peaceful guy afterall so i'm not sure what the big guy will think of his representative here on Earth saying that those gay abominable types, they're alright afterall.
Pope Francis has followed up his previous comments where he called on Christians to seek forgiveness from gay people for the way they had treated them with a visit to Africa, where homosexuals are killed and announced that 'being homosexual isn't a crime' and any laws which criminalise homosexuality are 'unjust and the Vatican should help put an end to them'.
A very welcome Papal message of love to everyone for all bigots and perverts obsessed with the sex lives of other couples to take on board but not everyone is so keen to bring the Church into the 21st Century as the Head of Africa's Catholic Abbots was quick to explain, saying: 'The Holy Father is far from being a supporter of homosexuality, he simply wanted to show that a person who practices homosexuality is still capable of remaining in society'.
That's sweet of him, allowing people who don't fall in love with anyone sanctioned by the Church to be allowed to remain in society which shows that even the most massively fanatic, zealously prejudiced arse can be just a huge fanatic, zealously prejudiced arse if given enough prodding.

Is That An Anal Probe In Your Pocket Or...

Space is big. I mean really, really REALLY big. The nearest star system to ours is Alpha Centauri 4.3 light-years or 25 trillion miles away and my back of a fag packet calculations using the New Horizons spacecraft travelling at 36,373 mph as a baseline, it would take a spacecraft leaving Earth about 78,000 years to get there.
It is an argument i use for why we have not yet met any other intelligent lifeforms from the billions of biliions other planets out there because unless they have found a way to sustain traveling at greater speeds which wouldn't turn them into goo, they are either on their way or have spent so long and many generations to get here that they may well have forgotten what they set off for anyway in their 78,000 year old tech which is just as well according to UFO expert Malcolm Robinson.
The UFO analyst who has been investigated countless extraterrestrial sightings for the last 45 years thinks that aliens have already visited Earth and claims they have an agenda that isn't peaceful.
Robinson started looking at all things UFO to prove that the sightings were not real but after looking at the evidence decided he was wrong and now rather ominously states that: 'I wouldn't say they are peaceful due to the thousands of UFO abductions worldwide' which is a good point so where are you most likely to encounter a hostile visitor from another planet?
The National UFO Reporting Centre shows that the most UFO sightings are in USA, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and Scandinavia so if you are elsewhere and you see a strange light in the sky then it is probably an aircraft or a weather balloon but if you are in one of those five and you see a little green man waving around something which looks suspiciously like an anal probe then you might want to run away very fast.

How To Save Tens Of Billions In One Fell Swoop

Strange how whenever the question of spending comes up, the Government play the 'no magic money tree' card and point to the colossal UK debt without ever mentioning how the debt was made considerably worse by their own person' 40 days in charge last year and the economic stupidity of Brexit. As the BBC Political correspondent Nick Robinson put it to Rishi Sunak, they must be furious at who has been running the economy for the past 13 years.   
The left have been asked continually what they would do to improve the economy and i have chipped in with, amongst others, rejoining the EU, scrap HS2, change the tax system so the mega-rich (and Ministers and their families) have to pay their fair share of tax, force global conglomerates to pay the right amount of Corporation Tax or be expelled from the country and stop shelling out to the Royals but there is one one was can save tens of billions a year immediately, scrap our nuclear weapons.  
The Governments own website spells out that the initial cost of the Nuclear upgrade in 2017 was £133 billion and the annual upkeep of our nuclear weapons is £20 billion a year. If we have that sort of money knocking around to spend on nuclear missiles, especially against a background of a decade of austerity cuts and the ongoing cost of living crisis, then why are we wasting it on a way of killing millions of people rather than building schools and hospitals and paying the staff a decent wage?
The problem with nuclear weapons is if they are ever used, that would be the end of the World, the 17,500 nuclear weapons globally ready to be aimed and fired are all over 3,000 times more powerful than the ones dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki which killed almost 246,000 people in the blink of an eye and 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, in a nuclear war, nobody wins, everybody loses.  
There are a few who argue that we still need to retain our nuclear weapons for our safety although recent years has seen terrorist attacks in America, UK, Israel, China and Russia so the possession of nuclear weapons does not make a state secure and are absolutely no use against terrorists and the only point i can see for them, unless you count contributing to ending all human and animal life on the planet as an aim, is the status it provides so it appears that we are holding on to these extraordinarily dangerous weapons not out of necessity to ensure our survival, but because of the cachet and feeling of superiority it gives us.
There are eight countries who hold nuclear weapons, and none of the other 190 odd nations have been vapourised through a lack of a nuclear devices so it's a choice for the Government, they can continue under-funding essential services and wring their hands how there is nothing they can do when things fall down around their ears or scrap an exorbitantly expensive weapon we will never use or if we do use will mean there will be no need to fund anything else as we will be yet another lifeless rock circling a Star.