There Is Another Genocide Going On

 
While everyone is paying attention to the Israeli genocide going on in Palestine, there is another one happening right now in Africa in Sudan where Human Right Watch are saying Sudanese forces in the Darfur region are initiating a genocide against non-Arab ethnic communities.
 The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), along with allied militias, have been ethnically cleansing the region and since April 2023 and have killed tens of thousands in a systematic campaign to remove, including by killing, ethnic Massalit residents.
The HRW report found that women and girls were raped and subjected to other forms of sexual violence, detainees have been tortured and destroying critical civilian infrastructure, targeting neighborhoods
and sites, including schools, in Massalit displaced communities and then looted, burned, shelled, and razed neighborhoods to the ground, after emptying them of residents.
According to HRW, these attacks constitute “ethnic cleansing” as they appeared to be aimed at destroying in whole or in part the Massalit in West Darfur and have called for an investigation into genocide.
The International Criminal Court are currently investigating and have said that they have: 'grounds to believe that both the paramilitaries and the army are committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
While Israel is rightly being castigated for their genocide in the Middle East, we shouldn't be blinded to the one going on in Africa.

Younger Generation Plonkers

Say what you want about the younger generation, prats, pillocks, plonkers and tosspots because they wont understand you anyway because young people appear unaware of some of the insults we throw at them, the Numpties.
In a survey of 2,000 under 28 year olds, 62% had never heard of Lummox, 60% didn't know what a Bampot was and Blighter (54%), Ninny (51%) and Cad (47%) were all insults which would sail over their innocent heads.
They may not all be Drips (42%), some may take umbrage at being called a Tosspot although 36% wouldn't, the dirty Toerags (34%) and a third would just look at you gormlessly if you said they were a pillock (33%) or a Nitwit (27%).    
If any of them had watched Only Fools and Horses they would know about Plonker although 25% said had never heard of it and 26% wouldn't know what a Git was which means i have wasted so many decent insults throw at under 28's because that is one i use most of the time.
So let's celebrate the Prats (25%) and Numpties (22%) and insult them even more because otherwise our words will be replaced by thing like 'Karen' or 'Boomer' which just do not have the same satisfaction as calling someone a miserbale git or a 9 carat gold Plonker.

Israel At Eurovision

The Eurovision is keen to keep its non-political stature but while Israel is performing after rewriting its song to stay in the competition, it is not going to be easy to stop nations slipping in their protest against what horrors the nation are inflicting on the Palestinians in the Middle East.
The main protests from the participants, and i am sure there will be some, will come in the Live Final when it can't be edited out and already we have seen some small signs of what's to come when the Irish singer, Bambie Thug, wrote anti-war slogans all over her body and was only allowed to go on stage once she changed it.
The opening singer wore a Palestinian Keffiyeh patterned cloth around his wrist which organisers said 'compromised the non-political nature of the event' and out out a statement which said that while the
Organisers understood the concerns and deeply held views around the war in the Middle East but the song contest is a music event and is not a competition between nations or governments.
Security around the Israeli singer, Eden Golan, has been trebled and there was a small protest outside the Malmo arena on Tuesday but a larger one is being promised for Thursday's second semi-final and Saturday's Final which has the potential to be a flashpoint.
I am conflicted as while i fully support the protests against the genocide in Gaza, and wonder about the moral compass of anyone who isn't, i feel for Golan who is just there to sing her song in a competition but i would like to see some protest by the performers, just small ones, to mark that we can't just pretend it isn't happening and on the Worlds largest music competition in front of hundreds of millions is the perfect place for us Europeans to show Israel that we know what you are doing, and do not support you. 
At today's rehearsal Golan was booed by the crowd as she performed her song Hurricane which was hastily rewritten after the original, 'October Rain' was deemed too controversial.
The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation has made an official complaint to the Eurovision Organisers about the booing and asked it to prevent a repeat of the incident but i can't see how it can be stopped in a live event.
Extra police have been drafted in from Denmark and Norway as protesters have been gathering outside the Arena with Palestinian flags, placards against Israeli participation and smoke canisters but with feelings running high amongst Golan's fellow musicians, the protests will probably also be coming from the stage and tonight's second semi-final will have Organisers nervous.

Stepping From Tory To Labour

In the last ten days, two Conservative MP's have defected to the Labour Party which raises a couple of questions around where our political parties now stand.
The Labour Party are much more centre left these days under Keir Starmer while The Conservatives have moved so far to the right that they are within touching distance of the parties they had dismissed as ideologically extreme right wing not that long ago so do the more moderate Tories see themselves as closer to the Labour Party than they do the headbangers which seemed to have taken over their own party?
That would be a concern for me that Labour have shifted so far away from their left-wing roots that Conservatives feel they fit in but i think the answer is much more mundane, they see the Conservatives as a sinking ship destined for the rocks of the upcoming General Election and any now switching sides are doing it out of preservation for their jobs.    
In a statement, the former Conservative MP Natalie Elphicke who made the short walk across the floor of the Commons today to the Labour benches said that she sees the modern Labour Party as the one looking to the future although it wasn't that long ago that she was at loggerheads with Labour's shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves over free school meals, campaigned for Liz Truss to become prime minister in 2022,  and defended the Rwanda deportation scheme so although a magnificent coup for Labour, is she really at home with the Socialists of the Labour Party?
She has said that she won't be standing at the next election so it can't be that she is hoping a change of party will save her seat and from her previous comments she hasn't become a  Karl Marx reading lefty so maybe we shouldn't look at it too deeply and just enjoy the obvious uncomfortable stomach punch to Rishi Sunak which maybe is just what it really is.

Eurovision 2024

37 Nations are called but only 1 is chosen and the reward is to host the following years Eurovision Song Contest because it's that brilliant time of the year again when the good, bad and the awful of Europe is asked to pop along and bring a tune with them and let us decide if we think it's much cop.
Sweden, as last years winners not only get to host it this year but get an automatic bye to the Final along with France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK which is handy for Germany, Italy and the Swedes because none of their songs are going to lead to their representatives pulling any muscles lifting the glass microphone trophy.
The rest navigate a semi-final appearance so many will drop by the wayside and my scoresheet has Australia, Azerabijan, Geiorgia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Norway and Ukraine putting on a brave face as they are told their services will no longer be required in Saturdays Final.
Of the rest Albania, Belgium, France, Portugal, Denmark, Latvia, Slovenia and Israel have shown up with ballads, Serbia's is so ploddingly slow it is in danger of going backwards but of the slow songs, Belgium's stands out but heart wrenching lyrics seem so last year because this year it is the turn of the electro-pop acts including Spain, Netherlands and the UK which has a very Frankie Goes To Hollywood Relax video performance about it with much semi-naked men in posing pouches doing things which will have the Director screaming go to the Long Shot at the cameramen.
Eurovision wouldn't be Eurovision without some nations being completely barmy and Finland has really upped it's billiantly loopy game this year with a man hatching from an Egg and singing while prancing around in his flesh coloured underpants which is as magnificent as it sounds and we really must hope it makes it out of the semi finals as a reward for being barking mad.
Ireland have taken a different path and have something called Ouija Pop complete with a screechy chorus and demons and devils cavorting onstage while Estonia have gone with a Zombie Folk band with a  song which sounds like a 3 minute football chant.
The Czech Republic singer lives in Brighton and her song is one of the ones i have placed an asterix next to as one i expect to end in the top 4 along with Croatia which is one hell of an earworm of a song called Rim Tim Tagi Dim about a young man selling his cow, saying goodbye to his cat and leaving for the big city which i guarantee will have you humming long after the next few acts.
As for the UK, i predict a left hand side of the board finish with Croatia, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Estonia and Poland fighting it out at the business end of the league table but as this is Eurovision (and i barely ever pick the winner) it could be any one of the novelty numbers, gothic witchcraft or rave throwbacks that take it and that's why i love Eurovision.

Hey Tories, Leave That Rishi There

I don't blame the Conservatives for refusing to call a General Election although after the Local Elections this week, they have been left in little doubt that when they do get around to it, a vast majority of them will be looking for new employment so Turkeys not voting for Christmas seems an apt metaphor.
The party, which brought the UK austerity, Brexit and an almost weekly scandal has been consistently trailing Labour by around 20 points in opinion polls and results from local elections held across England on Thursday where the Conservatives lost 453 councils appear to confirm that they are on their way out of power after 14 years.
The feeling of overwhelming incompetence surrounding the Tories was summed up when Boris Johnson turned up to vote in his South Oxfordshire district without a valid ID which was a rule he personally introduced in 2022.
With an election having to be called before January 2025 due to the five year Fixed-Term Parliament Act, the whispers are that the election will be November 14th and we know Keir Starmer will be in the red corner but it is unclear if Rishi Sunak will be cowering in the opposite one as gossip of his own side removing him continue to swirl.
As a Labour Party member i was obviously hoping that the Conservatives would get a good shellacking but i was hoping for a moderate walloping and i am now thinking maybe the trouncing was a bit too good and the hapless, unpopular Rishi will be replaced by somebody a lot more competent which could hinder Labours plans.
Labour lost the 2019 election by so much that they are going to have to undertake an almost unprecedented swing to take power, their starting position is so far back that in normal times it would take a minimum of two or possibly three general elections to overhaul and if the Conservatives kick out Rishi for someone the public could warm to such as the moderate Penny Mordant rather than an instant dislikable right wing nutjob such as Suella Braverman then the Labour lead could narrow considerably.
Hopefully Rishi is deluded enough to believe he could turn things around but the one thing the Conservatives are great at is stabbing their leader in the back, front and both sides if they think it is going to cost them power but i say leave Rishi alone, he is doing a great job, a great job of making sure the Tories will be a bad memory by 2025.    

Better Hold On Tight

 
Since 1973, Hurricanes have been measured by a five-category rating system with Category 1 for winds up to 95mph up to Category 5 with winds of 157 mph or more.
Due to Global Warming and warmer seas meaning Hurricanes becoming more intense meteorologists are arguing for a Category 6 to be introduced for storms with sustained winds of 192 mph or more.
Since 2013, there have been five global storms that would have made it to Category 6, when Hurricane Patricia headed towards Mexico in 2015 it had sustained winds over the Pacific Ocean of 215 mph and 2024 could add to that list as for the past year global ocean temperatures have been consistently breaking records and given that ocean heat is what fuels the biggest, most destructive hurricanes, scientists are worried.
Researchers at the University of Arizona have predicted an extremely active North Atlantic season with an estimated 11 hurricanes, five of them being Category 3 or higher and worryingly for anyone in their path, the hurricanes are intensifying quicker due to the warmer seas fueling them and therefore becoming much more dangerous as a city preparing for a 95mph hurricane could suddenly be hit by a 150mph one due to it intensifying just before it hits land.  
To add to the scenario, La Niña conditions in the Pacific could help form and intensify hurricanes this summer so batten down the hatches because it could get bumpy as man-made Climate change is here to remind us what happens when we foolishly mess with our environment.

Israel Lied About UNRWA

Following the bombing of the Al-Ahli hospital in northern Gaza, killing hundreds of people, Israel said they had bombed it to hit a terrorist base inside the hospital, then changed it to an Islamic Jihad rocket had fallen short and then when it was pointed out that they did not possess rockets of such power to do that much damage and hospital bosses explained that Israel already bombed two days previously and claimed Israel had pre-warned them it would attack it, Israel announced they would investigate but that seems to be what they do when they have caused the deaths of innocent civilians.
The usual manoeuvre is that Israel commits a massacre, Israel denies massacre, Israel announce an investigation of the massacre and then the news cycle moves on and the last massacre is replaced by another massacre and the cycle starts again and it is exactly what we have seen for decades with school bombings, UN building destroyed, aid worker and journalist deaths, death of children in the West Bank, mowing down of starving civilians at food trucks and exactly what we saw with the claim that the UN Agency, UNRWA, had been infiltrated by Hamas.
The Israeli government did not provide any further detail or evidence for their claim that 12 of UNRWA's 13,000 employees in Gaza had participated in the October 7 attacks and that hundreds of UNRWA's employees are members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
An independent review, ordered by the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, found no evidence to support Israel’s claim that the agency has been infiltrated by Hamas and pointed out that UNRWA had been providing Israel with its staff lists since 2011 with no previous concerns raised.
Countries were warned that by withholding funding to the largest relief organization in Gaza, would risk a famine and cost lives.
After three months of the review which has cleared UNRWA and pointedly mentioned that Israel could not provide any supporting evidence, as Palestinian children literally starve to death, many countries are now resuming including Norway, Sweden, Australia, Japan, Ideland, Canada, Finland and Germany who who are the second largest donor to UNRWA.
In the UK MPs have written to foreign minister David Cameron, demanding that funding is restored without delay.
America, the largest donor, has yet to re-establish their aid despite the US’s own National Intelligence Council saying during the review that it had 'low confidence' in the Israeli claims.
So it was a lie but why would Israel lie when that lie would lead to a man-made famine threatening lives across the Gaza Strip?
Consider that Israel have killed over 34,000 Palestinians, have destroyed 80% of Gaza including the infrastructure and Health facilities and made plans to 'evacuate the whole of the Gaza Strip' and told the people of Gaza that they should 'evacuate and go to the vast expanses on the other side of Rafah at the Sinai border in Egypt', then it seems obvious they are trying to force the Palestinians off their land so they can move their own people in, a practise they have been been doing in the West Bank.
More evidence for the Genocide Claim against Israel currently before the The International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court and they won't be able to pretend to make an investigation to get out of that one.  

Journalism Under Fire

In a World where fake news, disinformation and conspiracy theories are rife, the freedom of journalists to report is under attack from the people who would really rather not have the spotlight shone into the murky corners they inhabit and that is not just in authoritarian states but is happening right under the noses of people in nations which are considered democratic.  
The UK Government have a draft legislation which would criminalise journalists if they reported or handled information that could be deemed likely to assist a foreign power and it was only the intervention by the European Court of Human Rights which called a halt plans to make MI5 and other agencies able to access journalists communications.
According to the annual World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), attacks on press freedom around the world are intensifying with political attacks on journalists including detention, suppression of independent media outlets and widespread dissemination of misinformation.
The Middle East regions performed the worst in terms of restrictions and controls on journalists by government forces through violence, arrests and draconian laws, compounded by violence against journalists.
Since October 2023, over 100 Palestinian reporters have been killed by Israel in Gaza and journalists have been killed in Sudan, Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon while four of the world’s biggest jailers of journalists are Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran.
Latin America has increased political repression of journalism, Argentina's new president, Javier Milei, has boasted about his assault on the free press and has shut down the country’s biggest new agency and the US has performed badly due to increasing attacks on journalists from political officials, including public calls to imprison reporters.
There has been 20 journalists killed in Nigeria and reporters were targeted in Madagascar while covering anti-Government protests and Burkino Faso has suspended dozens of foreign news organisations after reporting on the alleged massacre of hundreds of civilians by the military.
In Russia, over 1500 journalists have fled abroad since 2022 and Belarus has banned all independent media under the pretext of combating extremism while China has detained more journalists than any other country in the world and reporting in Afghanistan and North Korea is banned and Vietnam and Myanmar have been undertaking mass imprisonment of journalists.
Journalists gather, assess, create and present news and information to the public, ensuring citizens are informed while acting as a check on power, holding the government and other institutions accountable and stand as a bulwark against a tide of misinformation which is exactly why government and other institutions are trying to undermine and lessen the freedom for us to do our jobs effectively.

Your Medical Sex But Societal Gender

When the NHS announced that they will be working towards same sex hospital wards, the inevitable question was always going to be what about the transgender patients and they shot back with the perfect answer, they will base it on their biological sex.
There does seem to be much confusion around a persons sex and their gender which are two very different things, your sex is determined by what set of Chromosomes nature gave you but your gender can be whatever you decide you want it to be and no medical procedure can change your chromosomes so when i was growing up what we called a 'sex change' was actually a gender change, you can chop things off or have things added but your sex is going to be the same because you have an X or a Y.
It was explained to me a long time ago that Medical science has a pretty clear definition because as well as the most common pairings, you also get XXY, XXX, X and XYY but simply if there is no Y Chromosome present, its female, if there is one then it's male so you could have as many X's as you liked, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXY if it was possible but that one Y would mean male and because the female is XX and 50% of the chromosomes comes from the mother, one of them has to be X which is why it is impossible for humans to get a Y or a YY.
Gender on the other hand means you may look, sound, act or even have the genitals of the opposite sex, the World Health Organisation defines your gender as 'the socially constructed characteristics of men, women, boys, and girls that relate to biological sex' which is a bit woolly but kinda means your gender is whatever you decide your gender is and not what society says it should be based on socially agreed-upon characteristics and that is when we get into the whole thorny world of public bathrooms and pronouns.
I am therefore fine with medical bodies basing a persons 'sex' on their biological make-up, i could turn into a man tomorrow and start wearing mans clothes and even have genital surgery but i would still have the internal workings of a woman which could need to be dealt with medically and i wouldn't be getting a prostate anytime soon.    
The bottom line is that the boundary between a persons sex and their gender gets confused and you may get someone on a hospital wards who considers themselves a woman but is biologically 'male' and would prefer to be on a female only ward but that is a question for society to answer around same gender wards because it is rightly up to each individual to determine their gender and their choice should be respected but when it comes to the NHS and medical issues, your sex is decided in the womb and medically you would treated as male or female depending on the internal workings of your body.

Nice One Humza

You do have to wonder what was going on in the Scottish First Ministers mind when he sacked the Greens from his Government.
With the SNP's holding a majority of 1 in the Scottish Parliament, by sacking the two Greens for being too left wing, he went from a minority Government to one with less seats than the opposition who must as thought it was Christmas, Birthday and Hogmanay all rolled into one and immediately put in for a vote of no confidence in the SNP leader Humza Yousaf,  and the Greens, still stinging from their ousting said they would vote with the opposition against Yousaf.
With parliamentary arithmetic now against him he tried to talk around the only ALBA member to join him but she must have remembered that when she left the SNP, he said she was 'no loss' and told him to do one so Yousaf was left with little choice but to jump before he was pushed and resigned.
Immediately the SNP went looking for a candidate to replace him and the early favourite is Kate Forbes, the same woman who was forced to back down in her leadership campaign last time due to being too religious and getting herself in a heap of trouble by espousing views which included being against abortions, premarital sex, same sex marriage and trans rights which she disagreed with due to her deep seated faith.
With a general election looming,they are now looking towards John Swinney who only retired a year ago to spend more time with his family to come back as an interim leader but whatever happens, it really is in tune with the madness that has been happening with politics south of the border. 

What's So Great About Britain Then?

Britain was a rainy, windswept island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the coast of continental Europe but today in 1707 the Scots joined up with Wales and England and we became known as Great Britain but still remained a rainy, windswept island in the North Atlantic.
Before any Scots make jokes about how it was them who made us Great, it referred to the increased size of Britain rather than how magnificent it was now we had bagpipes and haggis in the mix but over time the 'Great' in our name has become more of the how distinguished and illustrious us Brits are rather than the additional 30,078 square miles tagged onto the top end of England but other nations may wonder just what is so Great about us Brits, well let me explain.

The seaside. All countries that have a coastline have a seaside and most have piers but it was us Brits who came up with the idea of the Pleasure pier, some of which were built while Napoleon was still stomping around Europe and Beethoven was just finishing his 6th Symphony and was starting work on his 7th.

Sport. We gave the World football, rugby, cricket, field hockey, squash, tennis, badminton, darts, snooker, golf, rowing, boxing, curling, horse racing and something called Bandy whatever the hell that is. Sure the rest of the World are now better than us at all of them without us Brits, they wouldn't have the sports to be better than us at.

Comedy. If there is one thing us Brits excel at, it's having a strange sense of humour and the sarcastic, self-deprecating sense of humour can be an acquired taste i agree but we laugh at things which are funny, unfunny, tragic or just downright stupid which is why we have shows such as Blackadder, Red Dwarf, Fawlty Towers, Only Fools and Horses, The Young Ones, Allo' Allo', Monty Python and Father Ted to mock pretty much everything from religion to War to Interstellar Space.

The BBC. The oldest national broadcasting organisation in the world and easily the best thing you could spend 46p a day on for no annoying ad breaks.  

Music. Yes we have not only come up with bands such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Sex Pistols, Muse, Black Sabbath and ELO but we do have a knack of coming up with some amazing guitar players also so pluck your g-string proudly Slash, Eric Clapton, Brian May, Jimmy Page, David Gilmour, Ritchie Blackmore, Mark Knopfler, Matt Bellamy, Johnny Marr and Tony Iommi to name a few.  

Chocolate. I don't know what everyone else does to their chocolate but wow you are bad at it.  

Inventions. We can turn on the light bulb in the living room and watch the television while drinking some cool beer from the refrigerator or go on a computer on the World Wide Web to watch trains or discover the theory of evolution or Gravity and explain it on the telephone in the English language thanks to British inventors.

Punk. Without British bands like the Sex Pistols, The Damned, The Clash, Buzzcocks and The Stranglers to inspire later generations, today's music would be...well...even worse.

Rhyming Slang. Only the Brits could take a perfectly normal thing, find something that rhymes with it and then shorten it even more so we could ask about your plates and not mean your kitchenware, your boat and not mean the ones with oars, your Gregory and not mean your relative and mention Bristol's and Hampton's and not mean in any geographical way whatsover.

So Britain has many faults, the food, our politicians, the right wing numpties and our not so pleasant history of slavery and empire but there are a few things we can point at and say, yeah, maybe we are not so bad after all .

Avoid This Post If It's Your Birthday Today

How many people do you share a birthday with? If there are roughly 8 billion people on the planet and there are 365 days in the year (forget leap years, my maths is shaky enough as it is without adding that into the sums) and i make it on average 219,178,082 share a birthday and if you one of them who are celebrating another trip around the Sun and are reading this today then many happy returns of the day and how you feeling?
I ask because i have just become aware of something called the birthday effect which is the chances are you’re going to die on your birthday.
The birthday effect is a recognised statistical phenomenon from research in Switzerland, Japan and the United States which discovered that your risk of dying is higher on, or near, your birthday, 13.8% of a greater risk actually.
The US study, using Social Security details, found that women were more likely to die in the week immediately after their birthdays than in any other week of the year while men were more likely to die in the week before.
The theories are that birthdays lead to celebrations, which can lead to increased alcohol consumption, which can lead to increased death by any number of means or that seriously ill people view birthdays as survival milestones and tend to succumb on the days or either side of it or more boringly, death certificates with the date of birth entered where the date of death should go by mistake.
Renaissance painter Raphael died on his 37th birthday, William Shakespeare on his 52nd and Ingrid Bergman on her 67th so if today is your Birthday, don't leave it to the evening to blow out the candles on your cake, you know, just in case.

Asking God What Went Wrong?

Always amazes me how some of the more religious types in society say that there's is all about love and peace and then prove it by slaughtering each other to prove it and none more so than in the Middle East where we set up a country for a religion following a horrific genocide against them, only for them to then militarily occupy the people they shared the land with and inflict their own genocide against them so i think what would their God think about it? So i asked him.

'You're really the god in these parts where all these religious killings take place?' i asked and the big guy sighed 'Yes but in my defence i thought it would be so easy, you know. Just one small planet and making people out of clay and old toenails and things but with all the sin and sinning i drowned the lot in a flood and thought I could start all over again. Do it properly. But it's all going completely wrong.'
'Quite depressing, really' i agreed and he nodded and continued 'I did try shouting, smiting, getting angry all the time but then i changed tack and went all love and peace but it turned out that if you actually stopped the smiting, people wandered off and worshipped someone else. Hard to believe, isn't it? They'd say things like: 'Things were a lot better when there was more smiting' and 'If there was more smiting, it'd be a lot safer to walk the streets'.
'There are lots of other gods so why not share the burdan with them?' i inquired.
'There are and by now i thought i would be semi-retired and sitting on mountaintops and casting thunderbolts and all the rest of it like those other chaps. Although very hard thing to steer, lightning. Mostly we waited until a thunderbolt happened to hit some poor soul and then said it was his fault for being a sinner. I mean, they were bound to have done something, weren't they?'
'Well...I guess so' i agreed.   
'There would be a bad weather front, a few silly shepherds would happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and next thing you know it was standing room only on the sacrificial stones. I mean, I tried. God knows I tried, and since that's me, I know what I'm talking about, i even made commandments which boiled down to 'Thou Shalt Really Try to Get Along with One Another'.
'How'd that work out for you?' i asked
'Not great' he replied blowing his nose. 'The first lot that tried it was slaughtered by the followers of the god in the next valley who told them to kill everyone who didn't believe in him'.
'So what's you next plan to clear up the mess you made? i wanted to know.
He shrugged and replied: 'I'm thinking to hell with it all, I'd go to another planet and do it all more sensibly' and with that he bid me farewell and walked away whistling God Only Knows by the Beach Boys.

This post comes with a massive nod to TP and the Archchancellor, Bursar, The Dean, the Librarian and Ponder Stibbons of the Unseen University.

Iceland Most Peaceful...Again

The Global Peace Index measures 23 quantitative and qualitative indicators including military expenditure, relations with neighbouring countries, human rights, prison population and murder rates to find the most and least peaceful countries in the world and as usual 2023 ended with Iceland at the top of the peaceful pile with Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand and Austria making up the rest of the top 5.
Unsurprisingly Afghanistan is at number 163 and the least peaceful along with Yemen and Syria with Ukraine recording the largest fall, down 14 places to 157th place.
The Peace Index counted 91 countries now involved in some form of conflict, with the Middle East and North Africa the world’s least peaceful region and Europe the most peaceful region.
Amazingly, despite everything they have suffered, Palestine is ranked at 134th, only 3 places below the United States of America, while Israel stands at a lowly 143rd, only two places above Myanmar who also stand accused of Genocide.
Interestingly, the five permanent members of the UN who have the final say in the most important decisions concerning global war and peace do not come out very well from the survey.
The UK are the highest at 36, then France at 67, China is 80th, USA 131st and Russia are inside the bottom 10 in 158th place so maybe we should consider removing the bizarre UN Veto these countries hold at the UN (and pull out whenever their own interests are of concern) and let the people in Reykjavik, Copenhagen, Dublin, Wellington and Vienna run world affairs for a while.   

Cheering For Bernie

I do have a lot of time for Bernie Sanders ever since he got a long time missing light bulb fitted outside my garage (long story) so in any argument between him and the Israeli Prime Minister currently slaughtering civilians in his Genocide tour of Palestine, there will only be one winner in my eyes, and it isn't the one sat in Tel Aviv.    
It all began when Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that US Universities were being overrun by antisemitism on a scale comparable to the rise of Nazism in Germany and Israel is being falsely accused of genocide but the Jewish Sanders hit back by saying that it wasn't antisemitism to hold the Israeli leader accountable for his extremist and racist policies and it was insulting the intelligence of the American people to try and claim it was.
'No Mr Netanyahu' he explained in is video, 'it is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that, in a little over six months, your extremist government has killed over 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 78,000, 70% of whom are women and children' and then spent the next 2 and a half minutes listing a catalogue of destruction of infrastructure, hospitals, universities and schools, along with the killing of more than 400 health workers and blocking humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza, causing thousands of children to face malnutrition and famine.
When the two candidates the American people are facing are one who can barely make it though a sentence and another who is a currently facing jail time for criminal fraud charges and was recently fined $5 million for sexually abusing a former magazine writer, someone like Sanders stands head and shoulders above both of them and at the very least no garage would be without a light bulb.

Peace For Everyone Between Every River And Every Sea

George W Bush, after the 9/11 attacks, had a line where he would try to cowl people into supporting his attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan by saying you were either with him or against him and the same sort of thing is going on now with the idea that if you are not supporting Israel then you are supporting Hamas.
Obviously nonsense and there was an American student on a campus just after the American polices unnecessarily overhanded brutality on protesters who said something which i thought hit the nail on the head for most of us wanting to see an end to the bloodshed in the Middle East, saying she wanted: ‘peace for everyone between every river and every sea'.
The media doesn't help by labeling protests as 'pro-Palestinian' or 'anti-Israel', during the Iraq War there were 'anti-war' and 'peace protesters', not 'pro-Iraq' or 'anti-UK' protesters and Britain and America supply Israel with weapons with which the Israeli's have killed  tens of thousands of people, decimating homes, hospitals and schools but these actions are not portrayed as 'anti-Palestinian', although that is who they are firmly dropped and fired onto on what the highest court in the World, the ICJ, has ruled in all likelihood falls under the banner of genocide.
So support for the Palestinians is not support for Hamas who must be removed entirely and nor is it anti-Israel or antisemitic which is another trope which gets thrown around to try and stop any criticism of Israel but what is unmistakable is that the safety and security of Israeli's and Palestinians are dependent on both states being safe, secure and run by people who want to see peace.
Hamas and this Israeli Government both have the same agenda of prolonging a conflict which has been going on for decades, namely they are killing and punishing the 'other side' to keep themselves relevant and in power, the ones who can stop the atrocities coming across the Gaza–Israel barrier wall.
The only solution to a hopelessly one sided battle which has been going on since the 1940's is for Palestine and Israel to realise that for both to live in peace, both have to be safe with leaders interested in ensuring a peaceful co-existence with their neighbour and that isn't Hamas killing as many Jews as possible or Netanyahu inflicting a murderous genocide on the Palestinians.

Madness Of 2.5%

You sometimes look at the World and the people running it and you think everyone has gone nuts which is exactly what i thought this morning when i saw that the British Government are upping Defence spending from 2.3% to 2.5% of GDP, or £87 billion.
In 2020, the UK government announced a reduction of Foreign Aid from 0.7% to 0.5% of GDP citing a severe economic downturn as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and committed to returning to spending 0.7 per cent when the fiscal situation allowed and in 2023 £888 million was spent on humanitarian assistance.
Obviously they consider the fiscal situation still hasn't allowed them to put it back to 0.7% as they have been dishing out 0.5% ever since but somehow it has improved enough to allow them to drop 0.5% on buying weapons.
So reduce the amount paid out to actually save and improve peoples lives but increase the already staggeringly obscene amount we pay to take and destroy them.
The Treasury confirmed that it would be partially funding the extra defence spending by cutting the civil service headcount by more than 70,000 although the entire pay-bill of the civil service is around £14bn a year, making it unlikely that even deep cuts could make a dent in the extra £75bn needed.
The Civil Service, the Governments actual workforce, is already understaffed and at breaking point which is why it takes up to 6 months for your Tax Return to be dealt with and any repayment issued and months for your passport to be dealt with and why the backlog in the Home Office has resulted in  Asylum applications taking so long that the Asylum seekers have to be housed in hotels while they await their decision.
It really does boggle my mind that in a nation already creaking through Conservative Party austerity and cuts, they plan to make even deeper cuts to afford to buy bombs, missiles and bullets. Sheer and utter madness but you know some people will be cheering it while the infrastructure literally falls down around their ears through lack of funding.

See Trump And Think FAT SWINDLER

The Donald Trump court case currently under way in America can be confusing but i have come up with a handy Acronym which explains it all, FAT SWINDLER.

F is for Four which is the amount of years Trump could face if he is found guilty
A is for AMI who is the publishing company of the National Enquirer who were involved in the scheme to suppress any damaging stories about Trump
T is for the other woman, playboy model Karen McDougal who was given $150,000 for her silence over her affair with Trump

S is for Sexual Assault which is what Trump admitted to doing, saying he would grab women's genitals
W is for Witch Hunt which is what Trump repeatedly calls his trial
I is for Interference which is what prosecutors claim he was trying to do when he falsified his records 
N is for New York where the trial is being held
D is for Daniels, the porn star whose real name is Stephanie Clifford who was given £130,000 hush money by Trump
L is for Liar which is what the main witness and the man who made the payment to Stormy Daniels, Michael Cohen, is being painted
E is for Entries for the hush money payments made under 'legal expenses' in the Trump company books
R is for Records which the FBI seized showing emails, tax documents and business records relating to the hush money payments

There you go so every time you see the former President on the TV just think 'FAT SWINDLER' and it will all make perfect sense.

How Many Is Too Many?

Us humans are a hardy bunch, in the post 'History In 800,000 Year Old Air Bubble', i mentioned how approximately 70,000 years ago the entire human population was reduced to a few thousand following
a super-volcano eruption which caused a severe global volcanic winter of six to ten years and contributed to a 1,000-year-long cooling episode with temperatures dipping by -4.1°C (−7.4 °F).
A number of genetic studies have found that the human ancestor population greatly expanded from only a few thousand individuals that existed about 70,000 years ago and in 2022 we passed the 8 billion population mark so it may have looked a bit dicey for us but we did okay after all, maybe a bit too well because while it took all of human history until 1804 to reach 1 billion, we have been making up for lost time ever since.
In 1927 we numbered 2 billion, then 3 billion in 1960, 4 billion in 1974, 5 billion in 1987, 6 billion in 1998, 7 billion in 2010 and by 3037 it is projected we will hit the 9 million mark.
From 1 billion in 1804 to 8 billion in 2022 is only a matter of 218 years so we really didn't hang about with the reproducing and it was partly thanks to modern medicine and sanitation reducing infant mortality rates and medical science not coming up with the first modern contraceptive until the 1960's
The steep climb in the human population has not come without problems, such as polluting our land, air and sea's and using up the Earth's resources at an increasing rate.
Earth Overshoot Day, August 2nd in 2023, marks the date in the calendar when the human demand for Earth’s natural resources exceeds what the planet can generate within a year and today we need 1.75 planets to provide the natural resources for our consumption for a year. By 2030, we will need 2 planets.
According to the UN’s medium projection our population will peak around 10.4 billion in 2086, and will remain at this level for the remainder of the century although the 'high' end of the projection is  
14.8 billion by 2100 and the 'low' end 8.9 billion which is still way above the calculation that the ideal size of our species using the Earths resources would be around 2 billion people so are there now just too many of us?
The uncomfortable answer to that is obviously yes but that comes with the proviso that there are too many of us in the current way we are living so we need to be smarter and not use so much of the Earth's resources and ramp up the renewable energy sector whilst not polluting the only Planet we are capable of living upon which bizarrely, we seem reluctant to do but with humanity set to be around for many more centuries yet, reliant on a super-volcano literally not cooling our heels, we will have to find a way to rub along together and protect our environment to survive.

Sunak The Socialist?

Reform Party leader Richard Tice has branded Rishi Sunak 'a socialist'. Now i consider myself a bit of a Socialist and on behalf of Socialists everywhere i say i have given your words some thought Dicky and have concluded that you are a moron of Biblical proportions as Rishi Sunak is about as much of a socialist as Boris Johnson is truthful.
I also see Mr Tice that you are now calling yourself a climate change skeptic rather than a climate change denier in the belief that it makes you sound less of a fruitcake and yes, we all saw you get ripped
a new one by the woman from the Green Party on Question time the other day when she questioned you on your scientific background to make such claims and your slack jawed..erm..erm..erm reply will be shown on TV for decades, like that other right wing numpty Mike Graham who claimed you could grow concrete. Comedy Gold.  
Frankly if you're a supporter of him i hope you're kept away from anything sharp before you hurt yourself but then on second thoughts, as Tice's Far Right Party is attracting members from a Conservative Party who have moved so far to the right to be within touching distance of your crackpot beliefs, then let’s hope you continue to spill nonsense like this to be lapped up by the idiots who will split the Tory vote and make it even easier for Labour to get elected. Nice one Dick.

American Action Just Prolonging Awful Wars

America has passed a bill to release £49 billion to Ukraine which the UK Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, called: 'a vital step forward'.
The US House of Representatives also approved bills to send foreign aid to Israel and provide humanitarian relief to Palestinians in Gaza which puts them in the bizarre position of financially backing the nation which is responsible for the Palestinians needing humanitarian relief in the first place.
Why they are supporting one nation which has been brutally invaded by Russia whilst also supporting Israel who are the invaders and actually committing genocide is some twisted logic but while the
conflicts may physically be a thousand miles away from each other, this action will have the same effect of prolonging both these horrific atrocities.
Yet despite 32,000 deaths in the Ukraine conflict and over 34,000 in the Palestinian, Israeli war, the money and arms to continue the fighting does not come with any for stipulations for making peace
in either of the battles where Ukraine is vastly outnumbered and outgunned and Israel has reduced Gaza to rubble and seem intent on destroying what's left with no thought to the slaughter of people they have been actively trying to destroy for the last 65 years.
Why are the American Government, and most of the West, so keen to keep Ukraine and Israel fighting rather than using whatever leverage they have to at least try and bring an end to the wars?
Joe Biden’s embrace of Netanyahu and his government won' t restrain him, he has destroyed Gaza and acted a genocide against the Palestinian people and yet still he can rely on Biden for financial backing while Ukrainians continue to die in a war that they cannot win.
Nobody seems to be offering an end game to either side and handing over weapons and bankrolling one nation to kill more of another nation makes me very uneasy while i have yet to hear of anyone making any overtures of peace talks to end the carnage.

Kid's Questions Not Answered

Being a mother, i have had questions posed to me by my children which i have been unable to answer, such as who finds Jerry Seinfeld funny and why does Johnny's Dad always go around to see Tommy's Mum after his Dad has gone to work although neither make an appearance in a list of the top 10 questions asked by kids parents struggle to answer.
A study by OnePoll found that on average mum and dad face eight questions a month from their offspring which they find difficult to respond to, either because they don’t know the answer or are too embarrassed although it also found that while 47% of parents just respond with an honest 'I don’t know', 28% try to cobble together an answer while 35% tell the youngster to Google it, 23% Google it themselves with another 23% admitting to just making something up and 11% go for that old of favourite of saying: 'im busy go ask your Mum/Dad'.
The study found 'what does God look like?' is the question most likely to leave parents stumped, followed by 'where do you go when you die?', 'What are black holes?’, ‘why is water wet?', 'why do people die?' and 'how did the world begin?' close behind.
'Where do babies come from?', 'why is the sea salty?' and 'why is the moon sometimes out in the day?' completed the top ten.
Other questions which leave parents scratching their heads include 'why is the sky blue?', 'what makes the earth spin?', 'how do planes fly?' and 'Where does wind come from?'
I did plan to answer all of the above questions but i'm far too busy so go ask another blogger.

We Deserve Better

Conservative MP, Mark Menzies, has today quit the Tory Party and stepped down as an MP after being accused of misusing campaign funds which means since the 2019 election, there have been multiple serious allegations levelled against serving MPs, the people who make the laws.
The allegations include drugs taking, corruption, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, sexting, sex harassment, child-sex offences, rape, thuggery, domestic violence, bullying, serial groping, fraud, perverting the course of justice, drunken yobbery, watching porn in the Commons, attending the Commons while knowingly infected with Covid, handing MPs’ private details to a blackmailer and now misusing donor funds...and these are just the ones i can remember off the top of my head which which we know about!
My question would be why does the job of an MP attract a disproportional larger amount of thugs, liars, perverts and crooks than other professions and my second question would be why can’t we do better than the shower of miscreants we currently have?

History In 800,000 Year Old Air Bubble

Air bubbles trapped in Ice Cores taken from Antarctica give us a lot of information and as they go back over 800,000 years, that is a lot of information but scientists have been using it to date major Global events, or rather for the previous 799, 800 years because they measure Carbon Dioxide and it all gets rather hazy after the late 18th Cetury because us humans began pumping the stuff out.
'As the snow was falling, it also trapped pockets of air' says Amy King, a research scientist for the British Antarctic Survey and by drilling into the ice, scientists can extract a long cylinder of ice and analyze the air and gasses from the past as a sample sample of the atmosphere as it was at that time.
The air trapped in the ice reveals information about things like droughts and volcanic eruptions charts the progress of human industry as traces of metals such as copper and lead begin to appear from mining and smelting operations as well as for our large scale use of leaded petrol as well as the rising and decline of CO2.
King explains that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a balance between the things that emit carbon dioxide and things that absorb carbon dioxide such as forests so when there is a massive reduction in human population, there is less CO2 as the forests grow back over land which was previously agricultural land and more CO2 was absorbed by those plants, thus reducing carbon dioxide levels across the world and this is recorded in the ice bubbles.
Around 70,000 years ago, humanity's global population dropped down to only a few thousand individuals due to a massive supervolcano plunging earth into an ice age and pandemics such as the Black Death which killed between 40% and 50% percent of the entire population of Europe and these are recorded in the ice cores.  
While events once had the ability to alter Earth’s atmosphere, due to there being a much larger background emissions of carbon dioxide today compared to the previous 800,000 years as for the previous 799,800 years the concentration of atmospheric CO2 naturally was between 180-280ppm and but since approximately 1850 it has been rising steadily and today it stands at 410ppm meaning we have managed to do in under 200 years what nature couldn't do in 800,000 which puts a massive hole in the numbskull argument that rapid Climate Change and rising CO2 is a natural occurrence that has been going on for tens of thousands of years.

Cloud Seeding In UAE

 
The United Arab Emirates was on the receiving end of a colossal storm during the week which dumped a years worth of rain (5.59 inches in a nation that averages 4.7 annually) in just one day on the country, causing floods and four deaths and questions are being asked whether the UAE's practise of Cloud Seeding was the culprit.
The UAE have been trying to increase precipitation by sending planes through clouds where they spray chemicals to try and make it rain and days prior to the downpour, meteorologists at the National Centre for Meteorology said they flew seven cloud seeding flights and for some that's the smoking gun they needed to pin the blame on the daft plan.
Not so quick said an array of meteorologists who said that cloud seeding can't create clouds from nothing and seeding encourages water that is already in the sky to drop as rain so if the experts don't think seeding was to blame, what do they think was?
The Met Office pointed firmly at Climate Change and the effect of cloud seeding was negligible and said that rising global temperatures are leading to more extreme weather events such as this around the world which may be worth remembering the next time some wally tries to argue that Climate Change isn't a thing because unfortunately it is and even more unfortunately, it is something we have done to ourselves despite decades of warnings of what would happen. Yep, we really have been that stupid.

God Had A Wife?

We have been watching the brilliant Lucifer and all the Biblical characters are there, Satan, Mazikeen, Lilith, Cain, Eve, Uriel and other named Angels and demons and then suddenly up pops God's wife and i was 'God had a wife?'
As i have a man of the cloth literally on my doorstep i went and asked him and got the vague answer that in the old Jewish texts, when God was going by the name of Yahweh, they ruled side by side as a divine man and wife and her name was Asherah and there were statues to both everywhere in ancient times but for today Christian's and Jews there is only God, so what happened?
'Mentions of the goddess Asherah in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) are rare and have been heavily edited by the ancient authors who gathered the texts together' according to an associate professor of Bible and archaeology at the Pacific School of Religion so it seems that she was edited out of the Bible when the Christians began taking bits and pieces from the Jewish text for their own religion, in some cases referring to her as a sacred tree in an effort to hide her although references to her did have to be edited out in later versions of the Bible because they missed a few references such as in Deuteronomy 33.2-3, when she is said to be 'at his right hand his own Asherah'.
After being written out of the Christian Bible, to further kick her further away from her ex-husband, she became morphed into a Pagan goddess and worshiping Pagans was a huge no-no and any statues to her had to be destroyed because of the whole False Idols bit of the commandments.
Obviously, today's Christians don't want to know that their top banana has an ex-wife knocking around and definitely don't want to acknowledge the 70 kids they supposedly had together, preferring to concentrate on the 1 Godly offspring which was a result of making a 14 year girl who was betrothed to another pregnant because that is so much better apparently.

UK Should Avoid Backing Israel Aganist Iran

The Iran strike on Israel was a bit of a strange occasion. They signposted to America what they were going to do hours in advance which gave Israel plenty of time to get their defences ready, and then sent relatively slow moving drones which were thankfully sitting ducks to be shot down before they reached their destination. Hezbollah did not launch a barrage of rockets to tie up the Israeli Iron Dome as anticipated so overall it looks more likely it was an Iranian message to their own people that they hit back at Israel for what they did in bombing the Embassy compound in Syria.
What Israel, and Benjamin Netanyahu, will do in response is now a topic of debate but whatever they do, Britain should not be involved and stay well away from what could spark off a major conflict with multiple players on either side and we would be forced into fighting on behalf of the nation conducting a genocide.
What the Iranian action has done is move the focus away from what Israel are continuing to do in Gaza where the death toll has topped 33,000 and the warned of famine in the North has now arrived and the UN blame Israel for delaying aid delivery and  the European Union's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, accusing Israel of intentionally using starvation as a weapon of war.
The Save the Children US president said, after American aid was refused delivery that she had: 'never seen anything like the level of barriers being put in place to hamper humanitarian assistance' and Amnesty International stated that children are dying from malnutrition and the result of an Israeli 'engineered famine'.
At the start of this phase of a conflict, an Israeli military occupation which has been ongoing for decades, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said 'We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything will be closed. We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly'.
Devastatingly, they have been true to their word so the ICJ should be on the case and doing whatever it can to force Israel into today's version of  the 80's pariah South Africa.

Trumps Truth Shares Tanking

It is undoubtedly true that when it comes to business, Donald Trump has a sort of opposite Midas touch where whatever he touches turns to crap but it didn't seem to put off his deluded supporters who paid for shares in his Truth Social network and then watched on as it tanked regally.
Experts warned wannabe investors that the company didn't  have the fundamentals to back up its obscenely high valuation and Trump Media had lost $58 million in 2023 and made just $4.1 million in revenue but Trump supporters are not known for their smarts and the company has lost more than 60% of its value from its peak of £61.98 on March 26 when it started trading publicly to $26.95 today.  
The Trump company has now announced a massive new influx of 21.5 million shares which will further substantially devalue existing shareholders’ stakes which must annoy Investors who put their cash into the former presidents Truth Social stock.
Analysts have been shouting from the rooftops that Trump's cash grab was nothing more than a scam and that investors should stay far away yet there were plenty of Trump supporters who believed that the shares were, and still may, go through the ceiling but even if it doesn't, some seem happy to show their support for Trump even if it costs them dearly.
See, not too smart when they are out of pocket but Trump stood to make £3bn, now down to $2bn and falling fast so you know what that Truth Social share certificate says about the person holding it?
Yes. Yes, you do. And it’s not that you are in possession of a nest egg or a badge of honor that you helped out your favourite sex offender, it says that you are unlikely to trouble any Brains Trust meetings.  

Footloose In Chechnya

The Chechyn Culture Minister, Musa Dadayev, doesn't figure in many of my blog posts but he is a man who walks to the beat of his own drum, as long as that beat isn't less than 80 beats per minute (BPM) or more than 116 because he's gone and banned all music that is 'too slow or too fast' to conform to the Chechen mentality.
He has now given music artists until 1 June to rewrite music that doesn't meet the criteria to allow them to continue performing it in public which must be a nightmare for Chechen radio stations who will be unable to play many Rythm & Blues (average 70 bpm) Reggae songs (75 bpm),  Jazz (135 bpm), Disco (120bpm), Techno (135 bpm) or Rock (125 bpm) although Hip-hop with an average bpm of  85-115 will be perfect so Cypress Hill and Run DMC should be expecting some royalty checks paid in Rubles shortly.
The BPM of a song can be measured roughly by playing a song for 15 seconds, count how many times you tap along to it (usually the drum beat) and then after 15 seconds times it by 4 to get the beats per
minute although i would avoid  'Thousand' by Moby which holds the record of 1,015 bpm.  
It got me thinking if i, god forbid, ever ended up in Chechnya with my MP3 player, what songs would have a rather large customs officer standing over me ordering me to delete before they let me in and  
that's most of the punk stuff such as Green Day (Average 133 bpm), the Sex Pistols (average 150 bpm) and Ramones (Average 180 bpm) would have to go as would most of the decent Rock and Metal stuff such as Metallica's Whiskey In The Jar (133 bpm) and Madhouse (164 bpm) by Anthrax so of my Top 10 in the Lucy's Museum of Musicians who deserve entry to Lucy's Museum of Musicians, who could i continue to listen to in my Grozny hotel room?
Sweet Child O' Mine (123 bpm) is out as is Hotel California (148), Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll (170), Teenage Kicks (135), Anarchy in the UK (134), Platters Only You (71) Johnny B. Goode (168), Manic Monday (122) and the only two that would be left are I Don't Wanna Grow Up by the Ramones (91) and Stairway to Heaven (82) which isn't great.
My first thought then was to scratch Checnya as a holiday destination next year but on reflection, a country where you can go and legally not hear Disco, reggae or jazz...hmm, lets not be hasty with binning that Chechnya brochure.

Damn You Taranis!!!

Climate change can be blamed for many things and unless you was smoking behind the bike-sheds in those science lessons you would remember the science teacher explaining that warm air holds more water vapour which will come back to us in the form of heavier and longer bouts of precipitation and as Scotland finds itself on the wrong side of the Jet Stream for most of the year, it gets more than its fair share of downpours which a certain football team in the lowlands of Scotland is claiming as an excuse why its games keep getting postponed.
Dundee FC is situated beside the North Sea and after their Scottish Premiership match against Rangers was postponed for a second time as the pitch was deemed unplayable and therefore putting the kibosh up Sky TV's scheduling and annoying the 4,500 Rangers fans who had made the 80 mile trip to Dundee s Den's Park, the club pointed to this being the fifth fixture they have had to call off and pointed their finger squarely at the increased rainfall brought about by climate change for the problems.
Fair enough you may think, if your patch of grass is situated in a place where the MET figures shows it rains on average for 125 days of the year then you should expect a warning climate to have an effect but it kind of falls down when your neighbours, Dundee United, whose ground is 200 yards, is perfectly playable and have not had any games postponed there this season.
Now it could be that being 200 yards closer to the North Sea means that Dundee FC is impacted more than its neighbour, possibly there is a geographical reason why the rain clouds get to Den's Park and then inexplicably empties themselves of rain before reaching the other Dundee's team Tannadice Park or maybe the Celtic God of storms, Taranis, is a St Johnstone fan or, and this may be a bit of a long shot, but maybe the people behind Dundee FC are guilty of not shelling out for a decent pitch and are pinning the blame on something they vaguely remember during those long ago science lessons. Just a thought.  

Labour Shouldn't Take Supporters For Mugs

The Angela Raynor Capital Gains Tax dodging accusations rumbles on and as big as a fan of her and Labour i am, if she did deliberately avoid paying her share of tax when she sold her home, then she should resign or be sacked immediately because the (hopefully) incoming Labour Party have to been seen to be squeaky clean after years of them highlighting Conservative Party corruption, sleaze and dodgy dealings.
The worst possible outcome would be for Raynor to be found guilty and then refuse to put her hands up and admit to and fall on her sword because that would leave Labour open to allegations that they are as corrupt, sleazy and dodgy as the Conservatives and the biggest Labour selling point is that they are NOT the Conservatives.
That she has not presented the 'advice' she was given that she had no Capital Gains to pay when she sold her house and killed the 'chatter' immediately is concerning and just allowed the Conservatives and their friends in the right wing media to target her and initiate a Police investigation and reminding her that when Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak were being investigated by police over Partygate, she suggested they should stand down.
Keir Starmer is currently supporting her although he has claimed that he hasn't seen the 'advice' personally but MP's in the Labour Party had better get used to this level of scrutiny, and how they are dealt with by the senior Politicians, because it is only going to grow.   
I hope Raynor is innocent and i sincerely hope that HMRC and the Police find her not guilty of any tax dodging but as Tony Blair discovered, us Labour supporters will ditch you if you don't play by the rules we believe you should be playing by.

Iran And Israel Face Off

The Israel war in Gaza has many subplots with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel nibbling at each other and the Houthi's in Yemen attacking Western shipping and the West bombing them i return but while they have been simmering just below boiling point, the latest developments between Israel and Iran are threatening to explode alarmingly.
Iran have vowed to respond to Israel killing senior Iranian commanders when it bombed the diplomatic compound in Syria and the World is waiting to see what Tehran will do next and what the response from Israel will be with many nations warning their people in Israel to be ready to leave the country at short notice.
'We will make them regret this crime and other ones like it, by God's will' warned Iran's Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei which drew a response from Israel that if Iran attacks it, Israel will: 'respond and attack in Iran' and then the United States weighed in, putting Iran on notice that it will: 'help defend Israel'.
American media, quoting unnamed US sources, have spoken of an imminent Iranian assault against Israeli targets, with a wave of drones and missiles but the Ayatollah faces a choice because every action it is considering comes with a risk.
Iran's usual response, is to mainly hit back through its proxies Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houtihi's but in January it fired missiles at a Mossad Spy Agency base in Iraq but a direct attack on military targets in Israel is not expected to be on the way, rather operations against Israeli embassies and interests elsewhere in the world and increasing support for it's proxies already fighting Israel.
Another option could be that Iran bides its time, keeping Israel dangling and continually running up and down it's enemies security measures in anticipation of an attack that may, or may not, arrive at some point but military experts are saying Iran is too canny to attack Israel itself, it will bide it's time, let everyone believe that something will happen soon only for it to happen somewhere else at a later date.

Lying Men (And Women)

You can’t argue with the science…museum because they conducted a survey to ascertain facts about lying and they discovered that men lie 30% more than women and on average tell around 3 whoppers a day or 1,092 lies a year which is a lot of deceit lads.
The poll also found that the people the men play fast and loose with the truth to the most are their mothers with the top three lies being 'I’m on the way', 'I had no phone signal' and 'I’m stuck in traffic' and the poll also found that no woman has ever told a lie in the history of the World so the rest of this post will be about men spouting off a lot of porkies to all and sundry.
Actually, that's a lie right there because us women have our fair share of commonly uttered lies too. More often, according to the same study, women tend to lie about how they feel with 'I’m fine' top of the list followed by 'I didn’t drink that much', 'It wasn’t that expensive' and, on receiving a crap gift, trotting out 'It’s great, just what I’ve always wanted' which obviously means it will be appearing in a charity shop window tomorrow.
So us ladies lie less than mendacious men but where we do agree is that it is OK to lie to spare somebody’s feelings so 'Of course you’re not going bald' or 'I have no idea how your 'Best of Country & Western' CD ended up behind the Fridge' is us being nice to each other.

12 Years For A Plan B

I don't know who came up with the figure but apparently we need £43,100 a year in our retirement to live a happy and comfortable old age so with 12 years to go until i can open my Happy Retirement cards, my options are to start some serious saving or come up with a Plan B.
The state pension is currently £221 a week, or just under £11,500 per year which is the 17th in Europe where Luxembourg sit in first place, paying their pensioners £5,211 per month and to get it you must have paid Pension Insurance Contributions for at least 10 years so that's an option, i could go work in Luxembourg for the last 10 years of my working life but that would mean learning Luxembourgish so may have to rethink that.
I could do what many pensioners have to do and keep working for ever but that won't leave much time for sitting around moaning about the younger generation and endlessly telling them how everything was much better in my day so that's not ideal.
The Taxpayers Alliance  issued a report which shows that over a lifetime, an average earning employee will pay £107,045 in National Insurance Contributions (NIC) which means i would have to live until i am blowing out the candles on my 78th Birthday Cake to receive more than i paid in else it goes into  the big pot named Government Coffers to spend on whatever they want.
I therefore have another 12 years to work out my Plan B for a comfortable retirement but luckily, there is a nice government in power that cares about it's elderly people, unfortunately it’s in Luxembourg.

Arming Israel Makes Us Complicit In Genocide

If a country is committing genocide, as defined by International Organisations such as the United Nations and the highest court in the World as well as countless human rights groups, then if you knowingly continue to supply that country with the weapons to continue it then you are complicit in committing that genocide so when the British Foreign Minister states that Britain will not stop selling arms to Israel, then we become implicated in what they do with the weapons we give them.
After over 33,000 deaths in Gaza including over 200 aid workers and 100 journalists, pressure is mounting on Israel’s allies to halt arms supplies with Joe Biden's America by far the major supplier, providing an estimated 68% of Israel’s foreign weapons with Germany, providing around 30% while Britain and Italy send an estimated 1.5%.
As well as weapons, America has provided $158 bn of financial support since the second world war and immediately after the Hamas attacks in October,
passed a bill that would provide $14.1bn in Israel-related supplemental spending, $3.5bn in foreign military financing, and $801.4m for ammunition procurement although it is currently tied up in the Senate.
Human Rights Lawyers in America are pointing to Section 502 (B) of the US Foreign Assistance Act which prohibits aid to governments engaged in gross human rights abuses and the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 which forbids the state department or the Pentagon from providing funding to foreign units that have committed, according to 'credible information', human rights violations which is just , one of the many accusations Israel are accused of performing in Palestine. In February 2023, the Biden administration issued a Conventional Arms Transfer (Cat) policy stating that the US would not transfer weapons where they were deemed likely to be used to commit 'grave 'breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, including attacks intentionally directed against civilian objects or civilians protected as such' but unlike Canada, the Netherlands, Japan, Spain and Belgium who have all announced they would stop shipping weapons to Israel, the arms flow continues.
One reason put forward is that punishing Israel risks alienating pro-Israel Jewish voters in an election year although that is coming at the expense of pro-Palestinian voters who are threatening to desert Biden over his stance on the war.
It is abhorrent that there are some nations who are decrying what Israel are doing in Gaza while providing them with the weapons to continue doing it and shamefully my own country is amongst them
and the murderous slaughtering of innocent Gazan's will continue long after any ceasefire, as has been happening for the past 60 years because this never started on October 7th, Israel has been killing and bombing Gaza for 60 years with weapons provided by it's allies and unless the Palestinian state is recognised and given security at the UN, it will continue long after any ceasefire.

Who Doesn't Love A Goat?

Christmas has gone and so has my husband's birthday which is a shame because one thing he has always wanted is a goat and there is an Italian island who are literally giving them away.
To be honest, whether he did want a goat or not i'm not sure but if one was under the Christmas tree he would have no choice but my motto is you should never look a gift Goat in the mouth and the Italian island of Alicudi has too many and is giving them away free to anyone who can arrange to pick one up.
Goats outnumber the Island population by 6 to 1 and the Mayor has come up with the idea of giving the goats away to anyone willing to take one as he explained: 'We absolutely do not want to even consider culling the animals, so we are encouraging the idea of giving them away'.
Nice man but goats can be a good source of milk and cheese and apparently their leavings are particularly good for fertiliser but the main benefit is they eat anything so you can feed them your food scraps, stuff you find at the back of the cupboard, your husbands gawdy Hawaiian Shirt or that assignment which is late but has been carelessly left on the table, bad goat (good goat).
As we don't have a garden it is a moot point anyway and i'm the only one who used to empty the cats litter tray so i'll be damned if i would cleaning up after a goat so it might be a nice thought but for me it's back to 'accidentally' losing my husbands colourful shirts behind the wardrobe and pretending to look in my bag and swearing i picked up that report this morning.  

Put The Kettle On, Be There Soon Europa

Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's Enceladus are the two most likely places where we would find life in our Solar System as both are thought to contain liquid water beneath their ice sheets , have a stable orbit and geothermal activity but we will never know if life exists on either of them unless we  throw a few missions their way, so that's exactly what scientists are doing with Europa the first of the Moons to be the recipient of spacecraft from Earth.
Europa is approximately 90% the size of our Moon and Nasa believe that there could be a liquid saltwater ocean containing twice as much water as Earth’s oceans and in October, Nasa’s Europa Clipper  will be making the 6 year, 484 million mile trip with the tools to not only detect it but see if there is any alien life swimming around in it or at least the ingredients of the building blocks for life.
As Europa launches huge plumes of 'water' off it's surface, the plan is fly Europa Clipper through one of these and analyse its composition, looking for bacterial cell material which would indicate life is, or was, present and lead to some further investigation and one of the greatest scientific discoveries.
Exciting stuff although by the time Europa Clipper gets there in 2030, by then we may have people living in a Moon outpost because after a far too long lull, Space Exploration is getting interesting again.

Right Look Back, Left Look Forward

The terms politically Left and Right originated in the French Revolution with the National Assembly divided into supporters who wanted change sat to the left and the supporters who wanted to maintain the status quo sat to the right.
If you look at the political slogans today then you can still see that thread running through so for example the Right talk about 'Taking Back Control' and 'We Want Our Country Back' while the Left go for slogans like 'Britain can be better', 'A better plan, a better future' and 'Britain's Future'. 
In America, which has an election around the same time as us,  you have Republican Donald Trump regurgitating his 'Make America Great Again' slogan for 2024 while in 2020 Biden's was 'Our Best Days Still Lie Ahead' and his 2024 offering is 'Let's finish the job'  which shows the Right looking back to a supposed better time and the Left looking ahead for the supposed prosperous times.
There was a recent study published: 'Ideology shapes evaluation of history within the general population' which asked participants from the Italy, Mexico, Poland, UK, US and South Africa to judge whether society would improve over the next 25 years and in every country, right-wingers evaluated the recent past more positively than left-wingers and left-wingers were more optimistic about what humanity could achieve in the near future.
In one experiment for the study, a group of participants were encouraged to reflect on the recent past and again viewing it positively or negatively split down left and right lines with the right-wing participants became more nostalgic about traditional communities, the hierarchical order, stronger family ties and about traditional culture, the state of the economy and left-wing participants less so.
The left wing participants, although more positive about the future were also more concerned of the future dangers in areas such as the economy or climate disasters.
The researchers conclude that this explains why it’s so common for right-wing politicians to appeal to voters with promises to take them back to the good old days, and for left-wing slogans to tell voters to prepare for building a better future.
All makes sense and the Labour Party have already unveiled their slogan for the General Election which is 'Build a better Britain' but the Conservatives are still working on theirs which is probably sensible as their last one was 'You Deserve Better' which was a bit of an own goal considering they had been in power for the past 14 years.
Seems like the left-right ideology of France in 1789 still applies today.

Show The Evidence Or Come Clean Angela

The British Tax System is a bit of a minefield which i why i pay someone to do mine and avoid coming home to find someone from HM Revenue & Customs wheeling my TV out the door to pay a tax bill so i have no idea if Labour's Angela Raynor has been caught red handed not paying her Capital Gains bill when she sold her home and moved in with her husband, but i know a man at the Tax Policy Associates who does.   
Ms Raynor says she took professional advice and said: 'I was not liable for capital gains tax because it was my home and the only one I owned' and the HMRC website states that: 'You may have to pay Capital Gains Tax if you make a profit (‘gain’) when you sell (or ‘dispose of’) property that’s not your home' so simply i asked him if Angela Rayner failed to pay CGT on her house sale and the answer was an unsatisfactory, she may have, it depends.
We know Angela Rayner bought her house for £79,000 in 2007, married in 2010 and moved into her husbands home and sold her property in 20215 for £127,500, making a profit of £48,500 and this is where it gets murky because she chose her husbands address as her main residence, meaning that was where she lived so her other home was a 'second home' and when sold, Capital Gains would have been due on it, an estimated amount of between £3,000 and £1,500 once expenses, improvements and other things are taken into account.
It could be that she spent more on improvements and expenses than being estimated therefore she doesn't owe anything but with Labour seeming to be heading for power, they don't need a scandal over whether the Deputy Prime Minister 'dodged' paying her fair share of tax akin to the Nadhim Zahawi case to explode in their faces before they even set foot in the door.
Angela, who i have a lot of time for, should either publish the advice she got and clear her name or get further advice from a  tax expert and if she made a mistake, hold her hands up, admit to it and make good the tax she owes because most people would understand that our tax system is fraught with difficulty and a mistake was made, what the British people won't accept is a politician gaming the system to avoid paying tax while forcing them to pay it.
Let's not start a Labour Government with a call of they are just as corrupt as the ones we just voted out. 

End Of The World (Again)

The end of the world is coming and it will start in Illinois on Monday according to some of the conspiracy theories running rampant about the coming solar eclipse.
Republican congresswoman, Majorie Taylor Greene, says she thinks it is a sign from God that America needs to repent its sins, saying: 'God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent.
Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come' which is wonderfully whack-a-doodle but right-wing commentator (it's always right wing commenters), Alex Jones, is flapping his gums about
globalists 'using the solar eclipse as a justification for the nefarious plans they intend to carry out'.
Obviously not wanting to be outdone in the crazy stakes are the religionists who are saying that it is the end of days and Monday will be the end of the world, starting in Carbondale, Illinois but before
you laugh, they have evidence.
Apparently they have mapped the eclipse's path of totality and it either six, seven or eight (depending on who you read) places called Nineveh and Nineveh is mentioned in the Bible so the theorists are
leaping to the conclusion that it really isn't worth many any appointments for Tuesday.
I would go out on a limb and say i think you will be okay to make their dental or hairdressers appointment because, and whisper this quietly, a full eclipse takes place roughly every 18 months or so
and i think we would have noticed if the World ended after a previous one so i think you will be alright.

Wragg's Willy Wrangles

What do we know about the MP William Wragg's apology as some of his fellow MP's throw a protective arm around him and praise his 'courageous' and 'brave' apology?
We know that he met someone on the Grindr dating app and after a few exchange's, to use Wraggs own words, the person 'gained compromising things on me' which is a less crude way of saying he asked for dick pics, and the MP gleefully dropped his pants, grabbed his iPhone and posed.
So far, so Member of Parliament but this is where it now gets interesting because now that they had gained the compromising things, the recipient of the photo's of the Honorable Member's Member, began to blackmail him so what is a disgraced MP to do?
Obviously immediately going to the Police never crossed Wragg's mind so instead he opted to start obliging his blackmailer request for the personal mobile telephone numbers of other MPs, Westminster staff and political journalists.
Scotland Yard confirmed it was in contact with Parliament following reporting of unsolicited messages to members of parliament for which Wragg's weak explanation was that he was scared and he was sorry that his weakness has caused other people hurt.
One MP actually went on TV and rather than demand he vacate his position for dropping his colleagues in it by handing out their private numbers, said: 'I think everybody would accept, including William, that he's made a mistake' and how it was: 'far better that somebody recognises their mistakes rather than tries to hide behind it'.
Rishi Sunak is yet to comment if recognising that he had thrown his colleagues under the bus to try and save his own neck is brave and courageous but Wragg is not expected to lose the party whip over the matter, meaning he can remain in the Conservative Party but if i was one of the colleagues who he had handed over their number, then he had better keep those pictures of his todger as a reminder because by now it would be floating down the Thames.

Putting The Fun Into Funerals

Themed funerals are becoming more of a thing and i attended one's where everyone was asked to wear Christmas jumpers and you walked in behind the coffin to the sounds of Mariah Carey singing she wishes it could be Christmas everyday and as solemn and miserable an occasion it was, it did seem to make it more of a celebration of the persons personality than a staid and conventional funeral.
It wasn't to everybody's tastes, the traditional view amongst some is that funerals are meant to be sombre, austere and joyless but it seems the days of the traditional funeral may be coming to an end, the last one i went to actually called it a FUN-eral and stipulated no black clothing and bring along your funniest antidote for the wake afterwards.
It may not please the church and it was apparently quite a job to get a vicar willing to oversee the proceedings that insisted no tears, no dwelling on loss and it was a gathering to rejoice and have a good laugh at what happened when she was alive but if vicars are not happy donning a Snowman jumper then they are really going to struggle with wearing a Darth Vader mask and doing the sermon in the voice of the Dark Lord of the Sith which was one request revealed in the funeral directors list of the funerals they are being asked to facilitate.
Some of the deceased's wished their funerals to have a sci-fi and fantasy theme, with others asking mourners to show up in suspenders and stilettos for a Rocky Horror-themed ceremony.
There was a request by a naturist for everyone to be naked and there are a growing number of requests for 'Santa' to officiate and to conga out of the ceremony.
Mark Screeton, CEO at SunLife said: 'Over the past 20 years we have seen more and more great examples of how people make their loved ones funerals really personal' and i think it is a great idea because the last funeral was certainly a celebration of my friends personality, i have never laughed so much at a funeral but it is hard not to raise a smile when a coffin made to look like a mobile phone disappears behind a curtain to the sounds of Celine Dion singing 'My Heart Will Go On'.

Top God

Since man first looked around and thought, i wonder how all this got here? they have been thinking up Deities to try and explain it and then convince each other that this one is the 100%, absolutely guaranteed right one and on most occasions in their zeal to prove their God is the most loving and peaceful they have slaughtered and massacred believers of other Gods, in a loving and peaceful way of course.
The people at GodChecker have a list of pretty much every Supreme Being that has tried to persuade it's followers that the Big Bang never happened and the Earth was actually made by them a few thousand years ago so they could now stop believing all the overwhelming mass of scientific evidence about evolution and the creation of the Universe but of the 4000+ Gods, who are the ones at the top of the Holy Hit Parade?
In a Top of the Pop's countdown voice with less Led Zeppelin music and more Angelic choir, here are the Top 10 Gods and at 10 we have the Slavic Chernobog who lists his hobbies as being the Lord of Evil and causing calamity, disaster, bad luck and misfortune wherever he turns.
At 9 is Yoruba Godess Oya and when she isn't controlling the weather, she likes to spend her time overlooking funerals and lung disease and she is joined in the top 10 by another Yoruban, Obtala who is teetotal after the whole getting rip snorting drunk and missing out on creating the World, but he did get to create men and women so you can blame him for Piers Morgan.
He may be the top banana in Norse Mythology but Odin is at number 7 in the list who, when he isn't out riding his eight legged stallion, is kept up to date with Earthly goings on by his two ravens and his son Thor may have an impressive hammer but it isn't as good as the one weidled by the God at number 6, the Chinese God Monkey who has the one used to flatten the bed of the Milky Way and uses to give a headache to any demon stupid enough to get in its way.
Top 5 and at 5 it's the Greek Tithonus who went from being a mere mortal to marrying the Godess Eos before being turned into a Cicada by Zeus so that must have been an exciting couple of weeks for him and Norse God of mayem Loki may have a TV Series but was last seen having serpents venom dripped on him in a cavern where he is tied up with his sons entrails.
Yoruba God Shango is many things, god of thunder and war mainly, but he is also known to play drums on the clouds and does like a spot of dancing so a bit like Keith Moon is many respects and just missing out is The Yoruban Orishas who are not one God but more of a cocktail of 1,700 Gods who got together to run the Earth but had to hand it over to someone else after 16 days as they realised they didn't have a clue what to do with it.
At the top of the God Charts, the Numero Uno, crème de la crème pre-eminent God is the Norse Warrior and head Valkyrie, Freya. She is a love Goddess who loves soft music, flowers and going at it like a rabbit with dwarfs, other Gods, mortals and giants if those rumours are to be believed and if you die on a battlefield you could find out yourself because she gets first pick of any slain warriors to go to her palace for...let's call it recuperation.
Special mention to my personal favourite, Voodoo God Baron Samedi, who is just outside the Top 10 because who doesn't love a rum drinking, cigar smoking skeleton in a top hat and a black tailcoat wearing dark sunglasses.

The Genocide Defender's Point Of View

You can't keep a good woman down and it appears that it applies to awful women also because the twice sacked former Home Secretary Suella Bravermann has just been on TV saying that: 'Israel is absolutely not in breach of international law' and to even suggest it was: 'absurd and an insult to Israel'.
It is a refreshing change from that tired old thinking that always blames murder on the murderer and she seems to be taking the view that whilst humanity has become more tolerant of groups who once seemed to be on the margins of society, it is wrong that we can still be offensive about the innocent citizen murdering community.
Maybe she is hoping her ridiculous denials will put across the genocidal murderers point of view with one view being that bombing schools, hospitals, shelters and peoples homes are clearly the fault of the people who live in the areas being bombed.
Now many of us see pictures of buildings reduced to rubble with a bomb sticking out and hastily conclude the bomb had something to do with it but look carefully and it becomes obvious it was caused by the silly sods being in school, hospital, shelters or their own homes at the time.
Benjamin Netanyahu once spoke out for child murderers civil rights by informing us the Palestinians deliberately arrange the 'telegenically dead' to be filmed, to attract sympathy. So it seems Hamas stroll round bomb sites, placing the prettiest corpses on view for film crews because otherwise we’d all think: 'It's a shame i guess but then she was an ugly two year old'.
In less enlightened times, those responsible for such murder and genocide of a population it has been militarily occupying for over 60 years would be snarled at in the street but thankfully we’re growing more liberal, and if Suella and people like her get her way, no longer will genocidal maniacs feel looked down on for carrying out their basic human right to bomb a school full of children or mow down the very citizen's they have been starving when they desperately turn up at a food aid truck.

British Bake Off For Americans

As we know, we handed the American's a structured English language and the first thing they did was mangle it by taking out the letter U and making up silly words for things which already had perfectly good names so you get all the confusion over Crisps, Chips, Gas, Pants and don't even get me started on Fanny but i didn't know that America now gets The Great British Bake Off and nobody on that side of the Atlantic Ocean really knows what any of the desserts are.
The differences between what British people and Americans mean by pudding and biscuit i was vaguely aware of but a British pudding can also be black, steak and kidney, rice, a crumble, Pease, Figgy, Treacle, sticky toffee or even a Roly Poly so not that straight forward.
A biscuit is even more complicated with it being a Wagon Wheel, Malted Milk, Jammie Dodger, Party Ring, Bourbons, Ginger Nuts, Rich Tea, Digestive, Chocolate Chip, Custard Cream or even a Hobnob and some of which may be half covered in chocolate.
Apparently Americans eat biscuits with gravy so heaven knows what the hell that is unless gravy is another word for custard but even that is weird but it seems that everything is called something different so our cookery books refer to aubergines, mangetouts, courgettes, coriander and sultana's while the
Americans will call them eggplants, snow peas, zucchini, cilantro and golden raisins.
So if you hear Paul Hollywood or Pru Leith refer to toffee then think caramel, a traybake is a bar cookie, granola bar is a flapjack, pancake is a crepe but apparently Americans don't even have trifle, Eton mess or banoffee pie so if you are not accustomed to the UK palate then then you should stay well away from bubble and squeak, clotted cream, squashed fly cake, Lardy Cake, Wet Nelly and Dumplings and a Spotted Dick should be avoided at all times.

Rishi Under Pressure Supplying Israeli Arms

What will it take for Israel’s allies to say no more and stop supplying the weapons to them? Obviously not the ICJ calling it a genocide or the growing list of war crimes, the destruction of Gaza hospitals, Security Council Resolution 27/28, restricting medical and food supplies into Gaza, not the 33,000 dead civilians or the 103 journalists or the previous murder of 200 aide workers but the killing of 3 British workers may have tipped the balance in the UK because the pressure is now ramping up on the Prime Minister to stop supplying Israel with weapons.    
Conservative MPs, the former representative of the UK to the United Nations, 600 lawyers and three former High Court Judges have spoken out to warn the Prime Minister that that the UK is breaching international law by continuing to arm Israel.
A 17-page letter from lawyers and members of the Bar explained that 'serious action is needed to avoid UK complicity in grave breaches of international law, including potential violations of the Genocide Convention' and even the former head of MI6 said this morning that the sheer amount of killing by Israel means: 'It is hard not to conclude that insufficient care is being paid to the collateral risks of these operations'.
The UK government has refused to publish its own legal advice on the matter but a leaked recording suggests its own lawyers have advised that Israel has breached international humanitarian law in Gaza which leaves the UK vulnerable to claims of being complicit although Rishi Sunak has only said that
that arms licences were kept under careful review according to regulations and procedures that we’ll always follow which obviously doesn't include Israel deliberately causing a famine, killing tens of thousands of people but does include the profits of UK arms dealers.