May 8th Going To Be Interesting For PM

It seems it is only a matter of time before Keir Starmer is removed either by his own Party or by taking himself out of Downing Street and it was blatantly obvious what the Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, was thinking.  
Popular amongst his Labour peers, the problem was that he was not a Member of Parliament so he would have to solve that little problem first and so when Greater Manchester MP Andrew Gwynne said he was stepping down due to 'significant ill health', this paved the way for Andy Burnham to potentially run in a by-election in his constituency.
Starmer's allies emphatically tried to shut that down while supporters of Burnham egged him on the second problem to overcome was that all potential Labour MP's have to be vetted by the nine man panel of the Labour Parties National Executive Committee who voted 8-1 to block the Manchester mayor's bid, citing the concerns of cost the having to hold not only a Bye Election but one for the Manchester Mayor when they have upcoming local English, Welsh and Scottish elections to pay for.
Not sure how much sway Starmer had in the NEC decision but having someone so obviously just waiting to step into his shoes would have been a problem for him especially if the Local elections is the royal tonking that the Labour Party are fearing where it would be difficult for Starmer to continue and that was always the Catch 22 for him.
Allow Burnham to run and amplify the drumbeat of a leadership challenge that is already growing or block him and face the fury of his supporters and the accusation that he is running scared of a leadership challenge and harden opposition against him.
All this is very useful for Wes Streeting who is the other name commonly cited to replace Starmer and he has made no secret he would someday like to lead the Party although at the moment he is saying all the right things but he must be smiling that the kickback for Burnham will land on Starmer, therefore losing him even more support.
The morning of the 8th May may be very interesting.

Historians Say Trump Isn't Hitler

Time around the World is strange. In Britain at the moment it is 23:15 and in France it is 22:15 meanwhile it in America it is the mid 1930's Germany as the Trump Administration turn up the full fascist, or so i thought because scholars and historians i spoke to have it closer to the mid 1920's, mid 1920' Italy to be precise.
Benito Mussolini is considered the creator and founder of Fascism, developing the ultra right wing ideology and where most people would associate the present Trump Administration with early Hitler, historians argue that the comparison is stronger with Il Duce than any with Adolf Hitler who took what Mussolini had, and made it his own.
The similarity, according to people who study these things, are like Mussolini, Trump uses simplified, repetitive, and emotionally charged language to bypass traditional media and connect directly with a mass movement rather than just a political party and both tried to cultivate an image of hyper masculinity and alpha-male dominance.
Mussolini’s promised to restore the glory of the Roman Empire parallels the 'Make America Great Again' (MAGA) slogan and both centered their platforms on the idea that the nation had been weakened by corrupt elites and 'internal enemies' and only they could restore its past greatness.
Both tried to dismantle democratic norms such as the judiciary and the press as well as trying to manipulate media outlets and both relied heavily on nepotism in their inner circle, Mussolini’s appointment family members to his ministry and so has Trump with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump in official advisory roles.
Both have Paramilitaries doing their dirty work. Il Duce had the Blackshirts causing systematic street violence while Trump has ICE currently doing the same while both utilised the technology of their time to bypass traditional gatekeepers such as Mussolini who created LUCE, a government agency that produced propganda newsreels shown in every cinema while Trump created Truth Social which enabled him to speak direct to his followers without censure and cause a constant barrage of misinformation designed to make the public question reality.
Experts have linked Trump’s use of alternative facts to Mussolini’s methods, where the leader's declarations are promoted as the only truth, dismissing established facts as lies.
Like Mussolini, he cast established journalists as 'enemies' and attempted to replace them with a direct, unmediated 'truth' so Mussolini and Trump both positioned themselves as truth-tellers in a landscape they characterised as dominated by a corrupt and dishonest press and positioned themselves as the only ones to believe despite what the evidence showed.
Both tried to centralise power, attacked and attempted to prosecute opposition and targetted minority groups and while Trump often wears hats that says 'Trump was Right about everything', this is almost the same as Mussolini’s slogan 'Mussolini is always right'.
Mussolini’s face was plastered on posters, buildings, and textbooks across Italy to create a sense of omnipresence while the U.S. context is different but Trump is keen to have his name associated with everything and have his name on everything.
While Mussolini scapegoated Bolsheviks, plutocrats and ethnic minorities, Trumps administration targets the Deep State, radical leftists and illegal immigrants.
The slogan, One of Ours, All of yours' which the Trump administration used when defending the ICE agents after they killed a US citizen, is not directly attributed to Mussolini himself but was used within the context of Nazism in  general,particularly in relation to the tactics used by Benito Mussolini’s Italian Fascist regime to eliminate opposition and demand total obedience to the state.
Finally Fascism was inherently expansionist and Trump has wanted to add Greenland as well as mentioning adding Panama and even Canada to the United States so make of that what you will but as we all know Mussolini was overthrown by his own side and hung upside from a lamppost and as the American people stir to protest what is happening there, we can only wait to see if the comparison runs right through to the end. 

Ryanair V Musk

We all know that Elon Musk is a tool of the highest order and he uses his X Platform to throw out sarcastic barbs to anyone who gets under his amusingly thin skin which is exactly what the Ryan Air boss, Michael O'Leary, has done.
O'Leary is also a complete tool and when Musk asked O'Leary if he would consider installing Starlink satellite internet service aerials on his planes, O'Leary replied that it would cost his company about €200-250m per-year by impacting the aerodynamics and adding to their fuel bill and said he would pay not attention to the idiot.
An irked Musk replied that O'Leary was an utter idiot, a chimp,and called for him to be sacked and even queried about buying Ryan Air for himself for which the reply came that due to EU Rules: 'Non-European citizens can’t own a majority stake in a European airlines' but said that he could always invest in Ryanir as it would be a: 'Significantly better investment than X' and launched a 'Big Idiots Seat Sale' which was 'only available for Elon Musk and any other idiots on X'.
He also said in a dig at the Grok scandal, that he would always be available to: 'Address (undress??) Elon Musk's latest Twitshit'.
What Musk obviously didn't know when he started the spat was that O'Leary is infamous for trolling morons and is damned good at it so if Musk is thinking of replying to the Irishman's provocations, we can expect even further and more hilarious replies aimed at the man who even Donald Trump called 'A bullshit artist' which must have stung coming from someone who lies as easily as he gains pounds.
The worst thing about it is that Michael O'Leary is the one that everyone over here is rooting for which is like last season when Title chasing Arsenal fans were cheering on Tottenham because they were playing Manchester City.
Obviously Tottenham lost but it did take quite a few showers to wipe away the stench and that's what this is like, damn you O'Leary (but go ahead and embarrass the South African idiot even more). 

Board Of Piss

Any Board that has Tony Blair, Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump on it is not a great Board and to call it a peace board is a grim joke when one is actively committing genocide and is wanted by the ICJ, one has just invaded and kidnapped the leader of Venezuela to claim its oil and threatening to invade another while another lied his way to a war which resulted in a million dead and the fourth is in the third year of invading its neighbour so hard to think any of them would know what Peace was even if was rolled up into a newspaper and swiped around their warmongering heads.      
Invites went out to most World Leaders and sensibly all the important countries have ran a mile from it so on the board are  Bahrain, Morocco, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Hungary, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE, Uzbekistan and Mongolia with Russia and Israel set to join soon and China yet to reply which isn't a great line up.
It was originally established to oversee the rebuilding of Gaza, but now has a far broader mandate, including promoting global stability and conflict resolution around the world, conflicts which most of the Peace Board are either involved in or are the cause of so good luck with that.
I assume it is seeking to use their 11-page charter to bypass, or even replace, the United Nations  and the chairman is the orange buffoon himself, Donald Trump who serves as the final authority on the interpretation of the charter and holds veto power over key decisions, including membership removal and executive board actions, membership which last three years unless the members contribute more than £1bn.
The United Nations does need to be looked at, its model of some countries able to veto anything is a nonsense but rather that than a board with most of the worst World Leaders on it in charge of peace but i dont think the UN need to worry, everything Trump gets involved with ends up a failure so they just got to wait it out and get the popcorn ready.

Under 16 Social Media Ban Coming To UK Soon

After the House of Lords backed a ban on under-16s using social media, it is now almost inevitable that Britain's teenagers will be joining their Australians counterparts in seeing a 'blocked' message when they try to access their accounts.
An amendment to the government's Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill is currently making its way through parliament and a consultation has been launched on how it worked, and is working in Australia, which they are calling 'highly effective' to make sure no under-16s can become users.
The Prime Minister was initially opposed to such an outright ban but has faced pressure from not only his own backbenchers but parents, celebrities, charities and teachers which has softened his view.  
It has been one month since Australia enforced the social media rules for children by banning such platforms for those under the age of 16, and during that time, social media companies have removed almost five million Australian accounts held by minors with Meta/Facebook, Snapchat and TikTok losing the most accounts and the resulting revenue streams and with Britain and other nations now seriously looking at the same policy, the Social Media companies are not happy.
But it seems almost certain a ban will be coming in some shape or form and a Government spokesman said: 'We will take action to give children a healthier relationship with mobile phones and social media'.
I completely agree that it should be banned for under 16's, i have seen the harm it does to young,. impressionable minds and I have heard the argument that it should be the parents responsibility and not the Governments but if it is backed by Law, then that makes it much easier for the parents to enforce so get on with it Keir, the sooner the better.

Keir Playing The Trump Game

The first rule of the Trump Game, played by politicians around the world, is you do not talk about the rules of the Trump Game. The object of the game is to pretend that the President of the United States is a normal, rational person and on no account are you ever to admit that he’s nasty, vain, venal, unstable and obviously unaware that his own doctors are testing him for signs of dementia.
The 2026 round of the game got off with the US military attacking Venezuela and kidnapping its president while making it clear that it was all about the oil and every British politician  bent over backwards to not say anything bad about it, even gobshite Nigel Farage just pushed his head a little further up Trumps bum  and Keir Starmer mumbled something about not rushing to a decision therefore giving himself time to reflect on whether invading other countries, kidnapping their leaders on made up charges and literally stealing their oil was a bad thing but then we are finding out that is what Starmer does.
Not content with threatening tariffs against the UK and seven EU countries for not just handing him Greenland, the deranged Donald has now sent a letter to the Norwegian prime minister to complain about not winning the Nobel peace prize and to say he was so ticked off he was thinking of starting a war instead.
Up stood Keir, cleared his throat and claimed that Greenland’s sovereignty could only be determined by Greenland and Denmark and our values are resolute and Trump taking Greenland was a line in the sand and we all thought, here we go, Keir has had enough and is going to tell the sex pest where to go, only he never.
Instead Starmer said it was time to take the heat out of the situation and this was not the time for overreaction. What was needed was a cool head. Calm diplomacy. No need to make a drama out of a crisis. Just sit down with the man who thought digesting bleach would sort out Covid and talk things through. Man to man as once Trump had had things explained to him, he would have a rethink. Realise he had acted a bit hastily. A gentle reminder that starting a trade war with the largest single market in the World was a wee bit over the top.
All of which was fine if the other person has an IQ higher than his shoe size and could respond sensibly to reason, a proper grownup and not a man-baby who tries to bully those around him and is surrounded by sycophants and lickspittles and a party who will not dare challenge him.
We can all agree that changing the fat orange lumps mind with persuasion and diplomacy would be a good thing and maybe Keir will prove us all wrong but we all know that isn’t very likely and their isn't anyone in the White House who will whisper in his strangely coloured ear, 'With respect Sir, you are being a real dick over this'.
We keeping hearing Dementia Donny may not have long left, hence his obsession with naming as much as he can after himself but if we are waiting for the Love Actually moment: 'A friend who bullies us is no longer a friend. And since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward, I will be prepared to be much stronger.', this isn't coming from Keir Starmer who is a World Champion master at the Trump game.

Feeling Ill In Space

Space . . . is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. You may think it's a long way down the road to the shops but that's just peanuts compared to space, our nearest neighbour is about 240,000 miles away and takes 3 days to get there so it was lucky the recent medical emergency happened aboard the International Space Station which is is 250 miles above our heads and only 24 hours away.
To protect the crew member’s privacy, Nasa hasn’t disclosed details about what happened but medical evacuations in Space are rare, this is the first time in 25 years, but the evacuation raises the question if we are looking for manned missions further out from the Earth?
A trip to Mars typically takes 6 to 9 months and coming back home if you are suffering a medical issue wouldn't be easy but Astronauts do undergo rigorous medical screening before selection for conditions that might worsen in microgravity of Space which could explain why the emergencies are so rare but what health issues occur in Space?  
The scientists at the European Space Agency have always been very helpful when I have Space type questions so I emailed them and asked the question to them and they were very quick to reply with an answer.
According to them skin irritation is the most frequently reported medical issue during spaceflight ranging from dry skin, rashes, hypersensitivity reactions and impaired wound healing  as the  cold, dry, low-humidity spacecraft environment exacerbates these problems.
Congestion and headaches affect most astronauts, particularly early in a mission as without gravity pulling fluids downward, blood shifts toward the head, causing a puffy face and 'space sniffles' as well as many Astronauts suffering from changes pressure in the eye, leading to optic nerve flattening and vision changes.
Sleep disruption is a thing as circadian rhythms are disrupted and musculoskeletal injuries are common, generally from the exercise designed to protect astronauts’ bones and muscles.
Watching returning Astronauts being carried away on stretchers after being on the ISS only reinforces my belief that if we do make it to Mars,  after 6-9 months of travelling, the astronauts would be in no fit state to do anything once they got there and nobody wil be waiting for them with a stretcher and a hospital to check them over.
Obviously if the boffins could come up with a Spaceship that duplicates the Earth's gravity then that would solve many of the problems but until then the sick astronaut has my sympathies because when you are not feeling at your best at work, there really is no place like home, shame it was whizzing 250 miles below them at 17,500 mph, 16 times a day. 

EU's Anti-Coercion Instrument Option

I had never heard of the EU's Anti-Coercion Instrument until today but suddenly it is all we are hearing as EU countries meet to decide how to respond to Donald Trump imposing Tariffs on essentially all the EU nations over Greenland.
From what I am hearing, their are 3 options up for discussion with the first being holding fire and waiting to see if the man who is famously called TACO, does indeed chicken out over the next few days as Trump has repeatedly threatened tariffs against countries only to then delay, reduce or quietly scrap them and with US markets Nasdaq pre-market trading showing a fall of 1.5%, that is a possibility.
The second option is to do nothing as this weekend the EU signed a major free trade agreement with five South American countries known as the Mercosur bloc which they think will soften the blow of what they lose in the US market, leaving the American consumers the only losers.
Thirdly is the Anti-Coercion Instrument which is being pushed hard by the French President Emmanuel Macron and involves imposing retaliatory tariffs on the US, limiting US investment and trade with Europe and restrict access to the Worlds largest single market.
There is unanimous agreement in European capitals that a forced seizure of Greenland cannot be allowed but there as yet, is no agreement in yet on how to respond and the discussion  is being assessed by each leader with the fear that the ACI would almost certainly prompt a backlash from Trump and deepen the looming trade war.
Almost everyone has already agreed to delay the ratification of the EU-US trade deal that was agreed last summer but as the new tariffs won't kick in until 1 February, the EU feel the time  gives the EU a window to decide and act.

State Pension Conundrum

The UK has something called the Triple lock when it comes to State Pensions which means that each year it is raised by whichever is the highest, average earnings growth, inflation or 2.5% and at the last Budget in November the highest was inflation so the State Pension increased by 4.8% which means the full State Pension is now £240.25 a week or £12,493 per year.   
The Triple Lock is one of those rare moments where all parties have a cross party agreement to keep so regardless of which party is in charge, they go with it but as there is a gap of approximately £5bn between what is received by the Treasury in National Insurance Contributions and what the treasury pay out, the wisdom of the Triple Lock is being questioned especially as it is dangerously close to the tax free Personal Allowance figure of £12,570 at which point, even if the State Pension is your only income, you will be receiving a letter from HM Revenue & Customs with a tax demand.  
Out of the 44 European countries, the UK has the 11th most generous pension with Luxembourg the best and Armenia the worst and YouGov have a very confusing survey conducted across the nations of Europe with regards to their own State Pension.
The survey found that most Europeans believe their country’s state pension system is not generous enough and although most are concerned that state pensions will become unaffordable, do not support the given options for overhauling it.

Reduce the amount all pensioners receive in state pension payments? No.
Tax state pensions? No
Increase immigration levels to generate tax revenue? No
Raise the minimum age for state pension? No
Increase tax levels on working-age people? No

Probably not surprisingly, when pensioners were asked if their pension amount was too low they agreed it was but when asked what measures they would support to make state pension schemes more affordable, the reply was a firm 'No' to everything so not sure what the answer is but whatever they do, don't ask the opinion of Pensioners first!

Woohoo...Free Onions

It is amazing what you can find walking along the beach such as shells, pebbles and bags of onions.
A few weeks ago 16 containers fell off a ship round by the Isle of Wight and after bobbing around in the English Channel for a few weeks, they are starting to wash up alongside the Southern coast, and for Brighton we got the container full of onions.
Last week in West Sussex hundreds of thousands of bananas washed up and thousands of bags of chips had washed up near Eastbourne and with our thousands of bags of Onions, that's a decent meal although after what our Water Companies have been dumping into the Sea, it might be prudent to leave them for the Seagulls and the Local Council have been urging people not to take the Onions home as they 'may not be fit for human consumption'.   
Apparently, items washed up from ships must, by law, be reported to the Receiver of the Wreck within 28 days, or it may be considered theft.
Here's the legalese bit: 'Any item washed ashore from a ship, whether wrecked or not, constitutes ‘wreck’ under the law. Such goods belong to whoever had title to them before they fell into the sea. Where the goods are washed up as the result of a shipwreck, they must be declared to the receiver of the wreck, by the person finding them, within 28 days. The receiver may subsequently pass them back to the finder (if the owner cannot be found). Otherwise, a payment for the salvage of the goods may be payable by the receiver to the finder.
Failure to report items of wreck found is a criminal offence and the retention of goods ‘unofficially salvaged’ could lead to a prosecution for theft.'
So reading that, just finding thousands of bags of Onions on the beach must be reported else it is considered theft and face a possible fine so to everyone i spoke to today on the beach, Onions? What Onions? We didn't see any Onions? 

The Board Of Peace

As the Peace Process in Gaza has seen Israel continuing to bomb Gazan's and almost 500 have been killed since the agreement, the Board of Peace which is being set up will have their work cut out on many fronts.
As if disarming Hamas isn't going to be a job in itself, it also has Israel moving it's Yellow Lines to claim even more of Gaza for itself as well as the less then inept aid delivery Israel delivers and the continued slaughter of Palestinians in the territory so good luck with it.   
On the confusingly multi layered board, sits Tony Blair who it is being said 'gets the region' after his time as the Middle East Envoy and due to his 'achievements in pushing through the Good Friday Agreement'.
Leading the UK into five major conflicts within his first six years, Iraq (1998), Kosovo (1999), Sierra Leone (2000) Afghanistan (2001) and the infamous 2003 invasion of Iraq so it's fair to say he does get the region, he was part of the disastrous Chuckle Brother duo who bought so much death and destruction to it and as for his achievements in Northern Ireland, John Major and Mo Mowlam did all the years of negotiating and hard yards to be removed from power and the newly elected Tony Blair swoop in to sign the agreement, stand there smiling at for the photographers in Stormont and taking all the plaudits for ending the troubles.
What Gazan's think of having such people as the ever more fascist and Israel loving Donald Trump, and warmongery Tony Blair deciding their future is no surprise but Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also been asked to join the Board and as he is pretty much the only one who has spoken out about the Israeli genocide and it is no surprise that the Israeli's are objecting to his inclusion because he is 'contrary to its policy' which is obvious includes packing off the Palestinians from their land and claiming it for their own.
The Board of Peace are tasked with not only running the administration of Gaza, but also its reconstruction as most of the strip was destroyed by Israeli bombs and bulldozers which killed more than 71,000 Palestinians and includes, at some point, an international security force but the biggest problem they will face is stopping Israel from continuing to murder, ethnically cleanse, grab the land and continue the genocide which they have been conducting against Palestinians for over 7 decades.

Trump's Latest Toddler Tantrum Backfires

The Orange faced best friend of various pedophiles in the White House must have been very angry when he found the remote control in his stomach folds and turned to the News on to see that European countries had sent some of their military to Greenland after his latest attempt to bully the Arctic Island into becoming American failed spectacularly, so angry with us Europeans in fact that he is going to make Americans pay more for things to show that he is not to be messed with.
The Marmalade Mussolini wannabe has announced that from February 1st he will impose 10% tariffs on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland and these will rise to 25% from June 1st and will be: 'due and payable until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland'.
Seems a bit like holding a gun to your own head and threatening to blow your own brains out unless you get your own way and Europe responded by saying, 'Want us to hold your coat?' because Epstein's sex pest mate might not be the brightest, and his multiple bankruptcies prove that when it comes to economics he is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but even he must realise that it's a massive act of self harm.
I called one Economist to explain it and taking out the swearing and insults, the bits I can use are: 'What the....EU...Single...Market....idiot....pedophile protector....Lee Harvey Oswald....the fat Dickhead'.
Luckily less sweary Economist's were lining up to explain that you can’t impose tariffs on individual EU countries because of the European single market so imposing tariffs on one is imposing tariffs on all 27 of them because tariffs are the same across all EU countries.
A report i read said that Trumps tariffs have cost each American 16% more than they would otherwise be paying so go ahead Fat Boy, make us give you Greenland by punishing your own people.
What a moron, tried to bully little Denmark but it's 450.4 million friends in the EU stood up and said 'Something you want to say you little handed sex offender?'  

Americans Rise Up Finally

I have often wondered why Americans are not protesting and demonstrating in the street as Trump goes more and more Fascist and it seems that finally they are with news of clashes between the hired thugs of ICE and protesters in Minneapolis.
On the back of one of Trumps blackshirt goons shooting a woman in the face three times last week, and the lies the Government then said to try and discredit her, protesters have been clashing with the brave federal agents who hide their faces who fired tear gas into the crowd.
The Tangerine Tyrant went onto Social Media to spout nonsense about professional agitators and insurrectionists attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job which unfortunately seems to include murdering and kidnapping American citizens and the Mango Moron is now threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to deploy troops to Minnesota.
Maybe it will all die down or maybe it will snowball to other cities and states but as Trump tired to persuade troops to shoot protesters when they protested outside the White House in 2020, he won't be giving the orders to speak nicely to then so to the protesters, keep going and maybe take over institutions and take names as he suggested the Iranian protesters do.

Greenland Saying Naamik

Greenlander's have said in a very loud voice that they want to be Danish and not American, and to be fair who could blame them, one look at the madness going on over there and nobody in their right mind would think: 'You know what, I fancy some of that'.
Being American they would get a better flag, the Greenland Flag is pretty rubbish but  that's about it, oh they they get an increasingly Fascist Government run by a sex pest and pedophile protector but despite the orange moron banging his teeny tiny fists on the table and demanding Green;land become the 51st State, it ain't happening.  
The Danish and Greenland Foreign Ministers who turned up at the meeting today with JD Vance and Marco Rubio saying that said that it would be a very short meeting if America didn't back down and as it was barely 50 minutes between the photographs of them going in and then the photographs of them coming out, it wasn't a success.
Apparently Marco Rubio was tasked with: 'Crafting a proposal to purchase the semi-autonomous Danish territory' but that comes with a £700bn cost estimate but it’s not entirely clear how it was calculated because most of Greenland is Ice and snow with a few Polar Bears mingling around but Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said that the island would not be owned or governed by Washington and 'If we have to choose between the US and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark, Nato and the EU'.    
The European parliament leaders issued a statement declaring their 'firm support for Denmark and Greenland' and they 'unequivocally condemn the US ambition to control the semi-autonomous territory' so the tangerine tyrant will just have to make do with Jeffrey Epstein Island instead, i hear that's available and he know where that is.

Reform Just Tories 2.0

Is there no former Conservative MP that Nigel Farage wouldn’t accept as a member of Reform. OK, he might draw the line at Liz Truss on the grounds she is deranged and Boris Johnson might be a problem but those two aside, it seems that anyone is welcome from the Party that was unceremoniously booted out in record numbers 18 months ago.
Today, making it a round 20 sloppy seconds is Nadhim Zahawi who has made the step across from right wing Conservative to even further right wing Reform and as he was unveiled at the Reform Conference and immediately journalists gave a  run through some of his career highlights so far.
A successful businessman turned Tory politician who thought it was just fine to claim the heating for his stables on parliamentary expenses and then being appointed chancellor by Boris after the resignation of Rishi Sunak, only to stab him in the back and call on him to step down less than 48 hours later, a loud backer of both the economic disaster that was Truss and then the Covid Partying Boris and then the infamous sacked as chair of the Tory party for having forgotten to mention he was being investigated over a £5m unpaid tax bill when he was in charge of the Treasury, a fact he and failed to mention this to any of the three prime ministers he worked for!.
As Reform becomes a convalescent home for former Conservatives whose political careers had reached a dead end, mention was made of previous comments that Zahawi had made about Farage, mainly that he only offered division and that he could never live in a country run by Farage as well as the observation that under Reform’s immigration proposals, Zahawi’s family would have been deported on arrival into the country.
Nadhim only shook his head sadly, Nige said all was forgiven and the notoriously thin-skinned Nadhim began to get a bit tetchy and obviously wondering why did these damn journalists people keep bringing up the past?
Reform voters must be wondering if by the time of the next election, the whole party will consist of the previous Government which they grunted about so angrily.

Iran Next For Regime Change?

It is being reported that over 2,000 protesters have been killed in Iran as the demonstrations which started out as Economic protests ave evolved into political ones, reaches its 15th day and the Iranian Government crackdown on any dissent.
Now that Donald Trump has a taste of regime change in oil rich nations, he is threatening to send his military to Tehran and posted last night that 'Help is on the way' and told the protesters to keep going and we may have seen a sign of what to expect with troops begin evacuated from key US military bases in the region.
When the Pentagon launched strikes against Iran’s nuclear site last June, it hastily removed troops from it's bases which did receive retaliatory strikes by Iran and Tehran are saying they will again target US military bases in the region in retaliation for any strikes from Washington.
The last thing we want to see is another war in the Middle East, the last one America started in neighbouring Iraq only ended recently after decades but  if America do attack, and if Iran respond and if Israel take time out from their ongoing Genocide in Palestine to join in, then all bets are off as the potential for escalation grows.
Defence experts are not expecting a rerun of Venezuela with an American patsy put in charge, the Iranian Government is not expected to fall easily and cleanly, but a limited strike to encourage the protesters and threaten the Regime that there may be worse to come although if even a limited strike is responded to, then off we go into the unknown again.
Unfortunately, it does seem that by moving their military out of harms way, things may be happening soon. 

Turning Off The Internet?

More and more I am hearing older people say with all the problems the Internet is causing, especially Social Media, why don’t we just turn the whole thing off and go back to a previous world of landlines, letters, engaging with the real world and face to-face-contact which was fine before it all came along.
As a famous Supercomputer once said (which admittedly did go mad and try and kill everyone but let's gloss over that): 'I can’t let you do that Dave' because the problem isn’t the internet, it’s the people.
I imagine questions about television, radio, newspapers, the printing press off and books were raised after their inventions also.
Today I have read a newspaper from around the world, looked up within seconds what a Fungible token is, emailed people on a whole other continent, looked up the Lyrics to 'Ant Rap', booked an MOT  and i will later do some grocery shopping online and  without Google Maps I would probably still be driving in circles in the middle of Cardiff although in some regards, it was  thanks to Google maps that I was driving around in circles in the middle of Cardiff in the first place.
It is hard to argue that the internet has done a lot of harm with Social Media and allowing dingbats with a keyboard to post misinformation and nonsense conspiracy theories but it is a magnificent technological achievement which allows access to knowledge, connected people and transformed learning so rather than ban the internet, we should civilise it by just banning the social media companies that spread hatred on it.
The internet is a communication medium, it is not the communication itself. Blaming “the internet” is like blaming the post office if you get a nasty letter and anyway, it’s far too late to put the genie back in the lamp so should make social media responsible for the accuracy of what they publish, in the same way that the media (in the UK anyway) is responsible because yes  it can be a bit of  a cesspool at times but we can't throw the baby out with the bath water.

Not Defending Your Right To Free Speech

Every now and then the idea of protecting Free Speech crops up and I admit that I have never really understood the freedom of speech thing or the demands to defend to the death the right for someone to say it because to me, if you are about to say something ridiculous, insulting or just plain ignorant i would prefer it that you kept your big fat gobs shut and said nothing at all.
Speaking to other people (freely), it seems that I am not the only one confused on what it actually is as everyone claims to support it, yet few agree on what it actually allows what you can and can't say and where and when can you say it.
Legal experts point to Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that: 'Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers' which seems to be saying you can say what you want where you want but hang on, the UK's Article 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998, guaranteeing free expression but has restrictions for public safety, preventing crime like hate speech, incitement, harassment, defamation, or national security, with recent laws like the Online Safety Act 2023 and rules for universities balancing expression with preventing harm and ensuring campus safety.
So we can't say what we want because there are limitations unless you are in a University which are protected by a specific act, the  Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023) so a good rule of thumb is if you are about to say something ridiculous, insulting or ignorant make sure you are in a University first although us British do have our own way of dealing with it, say something absurd and we won't defend the right for you to say it, we will take the piss out of you mercilessly, which also seems to work.

Artemis 2

Artemis 1 sent an uncrewed capsule to and from lunar orbit, Artemis 2 will send a manned crew around the Moon and pave the way for Artemis 3 which will see humanity back on the Moon for the first time since 1972 and most excitedly, pave the way for a permanent base on the Moon.
The second Artemis Mission is penciled in from anytime between February 6th and April 6th pending any problems after they start testing the rocket on January 17th which is when they wheel it out to the launch pad and rigorously put it through it's paces before they allow four humans to sit atop 733,000 gallons of fuel, ignite it and send it upwards at 24,500 mph.  
Even if it does pass all it's pre-launch checks, there is still the weather to worry about which is why NASA have given 15 different dates between February and April so it ultimately could be down to Mother Nature if a leaky fuel pipe doesn't mess it all up as it did with Artemis 1 which pushed back the whole program as Artemis 2 was penciled in to launch September 2025.   
Though it won't land on or even enter orbit around Earth's nearest neighbor, Artemis 2 is a test that all of the spacecraft’s systems operate as designed with crew aboard in the actual environment of deep space and if that goes well, will see humans bouncing around on the Lunar surface again although NASA will only give the date for that as no earlier than 2027 and the reason for the vagueness is that Space X, who were tasked with designing the upper stage to carry the astronauts to the surface, are having issues with their design.
If NASA doesn't make it then the Chinese are seemingly full steam ahead for planting the flag of the People's Republic of China in the Moon dust in 2030 and their own moon base when their own human landing mission lands which is penciled in on President Xi's Calendar for 2030.
I have always thought it was absurd that we just stopped after 1972 and didn't build on what we knew then and start building moon bases and using the Moon as a launch pad for further exploration but after waiting over 50 years to go back, hopefully we are back into the Space Age again although i'm still hoping that someone can get the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) going again which would see us grab an asteroid, tow it along and place it in orbit about the moon, because our own pet Asteroid would be really cool.

Iran Under Fire

Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene if Iranian authorities kill protesters although the Ayatollah Khamene hasn't yet threatened to intervene in American over Trump's  Blackshirts shooting protesters in the face at point blank range but that may be on its way.
Obviously being a ruthless theocracy, we should all be hoping the rulers in Iran are overthrown as all theocracies should be and they have already shut down the internet and reportedly killed 45 protesters as what started as economic protests, spread across the country and what the supreme leader said was instigated by America who all but admitted it by Trump who said that: 'The US is ready to help protesters in Iran'.
In the background is the exiled son of the former shah of Iran who called for protesters to take to the streets and seize control of their towns so we could be on the cusp of regime change in Iran but then we thought that after nationwide demonstrations in 2022 when the last mass protests erupted and they ended with 551 dead, tens of thousands arrested and the Government still in charge.
As of today, the 14th day of the latest protest, 217 protesters have been confirmed killed and hospitals across Iran are reportedly being overwhelmed by injured protesters, many with gunshot wounds but if Trump is saying he will come guns blazing on the side of the protesters and change the leadership of yet another oil rich nation, that death toll will be eclipsed on the very first day.

Bye Bye X

The UK Government has asked the media regulator OFCOM to consider 'all options' related to X including banning access to the site over its AI, Grok, generating sexual images of women and young girls.
Under the Online Safety Act, OFCOM can block the social media platform or fine them tens of millions and are deciding what to do about X's artificial intelligence chatbot digitally undressing people without their consent and they were less than impressed when asked to stop it, X just limited the use of the image function to those who pay a monthly fee with a message that: 'Image generation and editing are currently limited to paying subscribers and users can subscribe to unlock these features' which Downing Street called 'insulting' and urged OFCOM to reach there decision in days, not weeks.
Elon Musk, being a complete tool, responded by saying that the UK Government were 'looking for any excuse for censorship' and 'They just want to suppress free speech' and including an AI generated picture of Prime Minister in a bikini which is sure to help his case.
The EU are currently investigating X for breaches of their Digital Services Act and Australia, who recently banned the use of social media for under-16s, are waiting to see the outcome and may impose their own ban but Indonesia banned the AI on Saturday but how easy would it be for the UK to ban X?
A tech expert said that it would be pretty straightforward to do as ISP's would just be ordered to block traffic to X's domains and apps but since America and Musk went full fascist, the problem may be political.
X has approximately 17 million users in the UK and that is a good swathe of users to lose if as hoped, OFCOM does pull the switch but if the EU do the same, that would be a further 102 million users lost so fingers crossed X will become a thing of the past and then we can look at the other Social Media firms who may well have their minds focused by the action.

Storm Goretti

Going to be a bit wild, be careful people. The Met Office issuing a red warning is rare and people 'need to take it seriously', according to the Met.

Severe weather conditions on Snowdon have led to "areas of unstable snow" in several areas which could "lead to serious falls or trigger localised avalanches" and people on the Channel Islands have been warned to "stay home" between 8pm and midnight tonight and "Only call the emergency services overnight if there is a risk to life".

 

Met Office wind warning in Cornwall upgraded to red 'danger to life' alert

The Met Office has upgraded its wind warning for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly from amber to red, saying the weather will now pose a "danger to life".

It says Storm Goretti will bring "dangerous stormy winds," starting from 4pm until 11pm today.

The forecaster adds that people should expect "damage to buildings and homes, with roofs blown off and power lines brought down" and "flying debris resulting in danger to life". 

Near the coast, very large waves are predicted with potential for beach material to be "thrown onto... roads, sea fronts and homes".

Power cuts are also expected and may affect mobile phone coverage.

The Met Office adds the storm will bring "a period of exceptionally strong northwesterly winds" to the Isles of Scilly and parts of Cornwall," with peak gusts of 80mph to 100mph or more.

 

 

American? Nah Canadian Eh!

To think of all the trouble Tony Blair had got himself in by inventing weapons of mass destruction just so that he could have a legal pretext for invading Iraq. These days, he would just have said: 'Look guys, let's take out Saddam and get our hands on the oil' but wars for oil were done differently back then and World Leaders felt they had to try and at least make up something to justify it but seemingly not so much now.
What the Iraq War in 2003 did lead to, apart from ISIS, over a million dead and a reported $2 Trillion cost burning its way through bank accounts, was anti-American sentiment. Blair we made such a Pariah in his own country that not only was he forced out but when he popped his head up decades later to sell his iffy book, people threw shoes and eggs at it and he had to be bundled out the back door for his own safety.
Keir Starmer was at pains to point out that Britain was not involved in any way, shape or form in the kidnapping and latest warmongery by America in Venezuela but what this does return us to is the point in 2003 when Americans abroad adopted the strategy of 'pretending' to be Canadian to avoid confrontation.        
There has always been an undercurrent of anti-American feeling swirling around Britain and Europe since i can remember but it was always low level and not particularly powerful however after GW Bush and Tony Blair's Middle East adventure, it snowballed into such proportions that it even rated a question in the House of Lords.
A 2005 Pew Trusts research poll found that then anti-Americanism was deeper and broader than at any time in modern history and back then it was found the main reasons that the rest of us outside of the USA failed to hold up America as a shining example was Bush, Iraq and Israel.
Today it would be Trump, Venezuela and Israel and although it is wrong to label all Americans, how safe might they feel venturing into a hostile resentful world even if they don't support Trump? As soon as they open their mouth to speak their accent will give them away, unless they say they are Canadian because to our ears they sound the same.
Unfortunately, we are stuck with the Carrot coloured man of peace bombing and kidnapping leaders of oil rich nations until time he is no longer in charge and as i just read that despite being morbidly obese, each day he eats two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fishes and a chocolate milkshake, plus 12 sugar free diet cokes so it may not be that long anyway and then American's can stop pretending to be Canadian because as my Canadian friend told me 'It's like trying to pass off a Robin Reliant as a Porsche'. 

Picking Cure Over Prevention

Climate science has made one thing clear, global heating is behind today’s extreme weather and it is almost certain that greenhouse gas emissions warming the planet will lead to catastrophic weather again this year.
Unfortunately we have been too stupid to stop the planet warming while we still had the chance so all we can do now is adapt to it and minimise the risks to life from such events where the result is paid for in lives from floods, storms, droughts and deadly heatwaves.
We had COP30 in November but nothing came out of that but it is not the Earth that is danger, that will happily carry on turning whether we are on it or not and with deluded rightwing governments extremely hostile to fazing out fossil fuels, a raging Mother Nature will make sure there will be less of us this time on the Planet next year than there otherwise would be.
It isn't just the poor countries that will suffer, so will the rich ones because it isn't until an incident which kills many people, such as the floods in eastern Spain that killed 230 people, that the politicians actually do something because the investments needed to defend communities from flood, fire and heat are not attractive to Governments.
Due to the missed opportunity over decades to limit the damage and deaths that extreme weather will cause, it is case of us trying to now somehow live with it and adapt to it but the changes which have been made with things such as flood defences and dredging rivers will not be enough when the warming climate really kicks in,  a UN report put the figure it would cost globally to secure ourselves against the worst effects of Climate Change at £310bn annually.
That is on top of the cost of Net Zero and redusing our emissions so the humans on the planet are not in a good place at the moment and we only have our own stupid selves to blame. 

American Defence Full Of Holes

You got to hand it to the Colombian President, Gustavo Petro, who didn't go down the route of some World Leaders who signaled their disapproval of America's imperialism and killing of over 100 civilians whilst kidnapping of the Venezuelan President, he dived straight in head first.
'A clan of paedophiles wants to destroy democracy in Columbia. Harsh, yes, but that’s the reality' were the opening words before going on to explain that Trump's action's were trying to distract from the Epstein files
The American defence of their actions is full of holes, if they wanted to go after the drugs angle then the US Intelligence themselves say that Cocaine comes from Colombia and Fentanyl from Mexico, Venezuela is a place they pass through and if they blame the Venezuelan regime, they are happy to leave the regime intact with the people surrounding Maduro still there and the number two behind
Maduro is being sworn in as we speak and appears acceptable to the Trump regime.
But the imperialistic military action comes at a time when Trump has also freed or pardoned other convicted drug dealers and people accused of ties to drug gangs and cartels - notably the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, who had been convicted in the U.S. of helping smuggle more than 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S and was sentenced to 45 years prison time .
Also freed by Trump was Ross Ulbricht who was serving a life sentence for creating a dark web site known as Silk Road, used by drug traffickers to buy and sell drugs and also Larry Hoover, who was serving multiple life sentences in federal prison for drug trafficking as well as freeing and deporting to El Salvador a man named Cesar Humberto Lopez-Lario, accused by the DOJ of being a high-ranking leader of the drug gang MS-13.
In his first disastrous term in the White House, Trump also freed Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, Mexico's former Secretary of National Defense who was on trial for partnering closely with drug cartels that funneled vast amounts of drugs into the U.S.  
What they are not saying, and only Donald Trump is repeating, is that they are keen to get their hands on Venezuelan oil on behalf of the American oil companies and for the profits for America but they are playing down that angle and going with the drugs.
Obviously nonsense to anyone not gullible enough to believe the weak Trump justification and as the USA has a veto at the United Nations, nothing is going to happen there but at least it is a chance for the International Community to say America, and Trump, are wrong un's and this was ALL about the sex pest getting his teeny tiny hands on the black stuff in the ground in Venezuela and yes Mr Colombian President, deflecting attention away from the Epstein Files .

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, Back To Work We Go

And just like that, it’s back to it. When your work productivity ground to a halt around the start of December, and you cheerfully set your Out of Office just a few weeks later, you never, in a million years, expected January to arrive.
But the days turned into nights and nights into days one too many times, and here we are. It’s 5th January, all your resolutions have already been abandoned and it’s back to the grind.
It’s cold, it’s dark, payday is further away than Jupiter, and your inbox is overflowing with people you promised you’d get back to in the new year.
You drag yourself out of bed to the blare of your 6 a.m. alarm and slip into your dressing gown, discovering its pockets crammed with empty chocolate wrappers and shuffle downstairs, flick the kettle on and catch sight of the Christmas tree that’ll soon be out on the pavement or stuffed back in the garage.
You open the fridge, and even though just two days ago you swore this would be your healthiest year yet, you stuff the few bits of Ghetto into your mouth for breakfast.
You were going to start running every morning, but bugger it, start it tomorrow.
‘Right!’ you say, while sipping your first cup of tea of the day. Right… let’s get to it. Let’s go back… to work!
New you, new socks, new shoes. You’re back to reality. The decorations are down and Christmas is all over for another year. But don’t worry, it’ll be back before you know it.
Here’s the rest of the year in one short list:

 January: Recovery, work, Tax Return.
 February: Valentine’s ready meal and bottle of wine.
 March: Spring is finally here! It’s still cold and grey, though.
 April: Chocolate eggs.
 May: Slightly warmer days.
 June: Garden furniture back out.
 July: Oh, it’s raining for an entire month.
 August: Far too hot for three solid days. First thought about Christmas.
 September: Start wearing a scarf again.
 October: Halloween.
 November: Fireworks.
 December: Can’t believe it’s December. It’s bloody Christmas again.

Naming The Full Moon's

Tonight is the first full moon of the year and the full moons across the year have a name with most coming from the Native American culture so tonight's is called the Wolf Moon, named after the howling of hungry wolves lamenting the scarcity of food in midwinter.
February's is the Snow Moon for obvious reasons as the Native American's would see it while being typically cold and surrounded by Snow.
The Worm Moon is March's offering and named after the worm trails that would appear in the newly thawed ground while April gives us the Pink Moon due to the abundance of early blooming (assumingly pink) wildflower and May's full moon is the Flower Moon thanks now blooming flowers that occurs as spring gets going properly.
June is the Strawberry Moon as the Native Americans would harvest the fruit in June and July's Buck Moon is so called due to the antlers of the male deer beginning to regrow  this month and August gives us the Sturgeon Moon because as the name implies, there appear in large number during this month.
The Full Corn Moon rises in September as this was when crops were gathered at the end of the summer season (this is the one we call the Harvest Moon) and October is the Hunters Moon because this is when the Native Americans went after the summer-fattened deer and fox and its the Beaver Moon in November as this is when the Beavers built their winter dams
December is the Cold Moon as it heralds the start of Winter but some times we get 13 Full Moons in a year and two in a month and this is called a Blue Moon but nobody knows why its called that but it did give us the saying 'Once in a Blue Moon' as the two in a calendar month happens roughly every 2-3 years when the first Full moon is very early in the month with the last one being in August 2023 and the next one coming May 31st 2026.

World Reaction To American Warmongering

As the Mango Moron in the White House finds himself in such esteemed company as Putin in Russia and Netanyahu in Isreal as invaders you would expect the rest of the World to be rightly condemning America's latest occupation of an oil rich country and it did spark an influx of comments from some, but others weirdly disapproved but in such as way as not to criticise the man who only a few weeks ago was crying about not receiving a peace prize.
Slaps on the back and a well done from Israeli Prime Minister, War Criminal and Genocide committer Benjamin Netanyahu who said: 'I salute your decisive resolve and the brilliant action of your brave soldiers' and the Terracotta Tyrant's pal in Argentina, President Javier Milei made straight for the Trump colon by calling it: 'Excellent news for the free world'.
On the disapprove but don't upset the Fuscha Fascist are Colombia (deeply concerned) and Spain who said: 'The situation in Venezuela must be resolved exclusively by peaceful means, through dialogue, negotiation, and respect for the will of the Venezuelan people in all its expressions, without external interference and in accordance with international law' while French President Emmanuel Macron said the transition: 'Must be peaceful, democratic, and respectful of the will of the Venezuelan people'.
Outright condemnation came from China who said they were: 'Deeply shocked and strongly condemns the use of force by the U.S. against a sovereign country and the use of force against the president of a country' and Russia who accused America with a straight face that they had: 'Committed an act of armed aggression against Venezuela' and called the pretexts used to justify such actions as 'Unfounded' and 'Ideological'.
Brazilian President, Luiz Inacio Da Silva, said America had: 'Crossed an unacceptable line' and was 'A grave affront to Venezuela's sovereignty' and the Belarus President ,Alexander Lukashenko reached for the Caps Lock to type on Social Media that 'The President of Belarus CATEGORICALLY CONDEMNS the act of American aggression against Venezuela'.
Uruguay said it: 'Rejects, military intervention by one country in the territory of another' and Chile's President, Gabriel Boric said they: 'Express our concern and condemnation of the military actions of the United States in Venezuela'.
The Iranians, as expected, said they: 'Condemned the U.S. attack on Venezuela as a blatant violation of its national sovereignty and territorial integrity' and Malaysia said they: 'Opposes all forms of foreign intervention in the internal affairs of other States, as well as the threat or use of force'.
Cuba President, Miguel Diaz-Canel issued a sharply worded condemnation, accusing Washington of carrying out: 'A criminal attack against Venezuela' which they described as 'state terrorism directed at the Venezuelan people' and Mexico kept it simple with: 'Mexico condemns the military intervention in Venezuela'.
Offering no comment at all were Germany's Friedrich Merz and the UK's Keir Strarmer with Merz saying they will take their time to evaluate what happened and the UK's Keir Starmer was keen to ensure Brits that the UK Government was not involved whatsoever and he would: 'Want to establish the facts first but international law should be upheld' and the European Commission, Canada, Guyana, Italy, Belgium, Paraguay, Indonesia and Denmark who all said they were: 'Monitoring developments closely' while Trinidad and Tabago were also keen to let it known that they: 'Were NOT a participant in any of these ongoing military operations'
Most nations pointed towards International Law and the United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, said he: 'Emphasized the importance of full respect, by all, of international law, including the UN Charter' and was 'Deeply concerned that the rules of international law have not been respected'. Assuming he meant  Article 2 of the Charter of the United Nations which states: 'The UN and its members must follow, focusing on sovereign equality of states, good faith fulfillment of obligations, peaceful settlement of disputes, refraining from threats or force, non-intervention in domestic matters (except when peace is threatened), and cooperation with the UN, ensuring even non-member states respect these principles for peace. Key aspects include sovereign equality (Art. 2(1)), peaceful dispute resolution (Art. 2(3)), and the prohibition of the use of force (Art. 2(4)).
Obviously as the USA has a veto at the United Nations and as we found out with Iraq and Afghanistan, they can get away with literal murder, so nothing will happen there but FIFA might want to rethink the peace prize they handed to the Apricot Arsehole sex pest after this weekend.

Who Was Hugo Chavez?

With what is going on in Venezuela, I have been asked by several people too young to know who was Hugo Chavez and why do i rant about how great he was?  
I make no bones about, i thought the man was a shining example of what all World leaders should aspire to and you only have to look at the state of the Country that he inherited from the brutal right wing dictator Perez, and compare it to how it was when he left it in 2013, dying of Cancer.
In 1998, the majority of Venezuelans lived below the poverty line and after Chavez won the Presidential election he made it a priority to lance this particularly unpleasant boil.
He nationalised the country's oil reserves and set about using the revenue from the oil business to be used to finance social and development programmes.
Chavez began literacy campaigns, built free medical centres and hospitals and constructed schools in the poorest neighbourhoods as well as subsidising supermarkets to reduce the cost of food to the poorest families.
What Chavez did was not such a revolutionary idea, he just let the people keep the profits from the natural resources of their country to better their lives.
To compare 1998 to 2013 figures make astounding reading.
1,628 doctors in 1998, 19,571 in 2013, 250,000 free school meals in 1998 and in 2013 there was 1.8m.
Access to education dramatically increased, including more than 1 million people participating in free adult literacy classes, leading to Venezuela eradicating illiteracy by UN standards.
The 60% of the population in poverty in 1998 was down to below 30% and the Venezuelan economy grew by almost 80% with inflation down from 120% in 1998 to just under 20% and malnutrition related deaths fell by 50% during.
Don't expect those bent on condemning Chavez as a power crazed megalomaniac to applaud these impressive achievements, two Venezuelan students i spoke to about him complained that 'He only helped the poor' which is praise indeed although the irony was lost of them being International Students who were obviously doing okay, but the rest of us can maybe agree that he has set about solving the problems of the most vulnerable in Society, one year he even imported 124,000 toys from China and sold them at 20% of their price to hard up parents for their children's Christmas presents.
What Chavez had was oil being sold at $100 a barrel, what Maduro inherited when he took over was the oil being sold at $40 a barrel and that's where the problem's started but thanks to Chavez, for 15 years the lot of the poorest, illiterate, sick and hungry got better and he helped a lot of people which is a massive success in my book and there are not many politicians who can boast that after they leave office.

This Makes Me Smile

There are some stories which make me smile and none more of the reported third place Elvis took in his own look-a-like competition and Dolly Parton being beaten into 2nd place in hers by a drag queen.
Charlie Chaplain apparently was also beaten in a similar contest by two people who were apparently more like Chaplain than himself and you would think that the guy who voices Elmo on the Muppet Show would pretty much be the automatic winner of any Elmo impression competition but he failed to convince a bunch of judges at an event with one saying that even he could do a more convincing Elmo impersonation.
These came to mind while reading about Violin virtuoso Joshua Bell, him with the £3.5 million Stradivarius violin and is generally accepted as the best violinist in the World and known for playing complex masterpieces on his expensive instrument.
The story was that days after selling out a concert in Washington at hundreds of pounds a seat, he performed a free mini-concert at a subway station for 45 minutes, performing six classical pieces in all.
Assuming he was a busker, he raised $32 from passer-by's, brilliant.

Trumps Venezuelan Oil Grab

Back in the day when America invaded other countries for their oil at least they had the decency to lie about it, even George W Bush went to the trouble of making up the WMD and links to Al Queada  before going into Iraq but Donald Trump didn't even bother, plumping for regime change and oil rights as justification for bombing and kidnapping Nicolás Maduro and his wife although there was the Fentanyl flooding America and Maduro being some sort of Drug Boss nonsense but according to a US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) report, Fentanyl is produced mainly in Mexico and crosses into the US almost exclusively via land through its southern border and Venezuela is not mentioned as a country of origin for Fentanyl smuggled into the US in the DEA's 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment so that was rubbish straight away.
Maduro called it using the Fentanyl as an excuse to try to depose him and get its hands on Venezuela's vast oil reserves and Trump pretty much confirmed that when he said recently that: 'They took our oil rights. We had a lot of oil there. As you know they threw our companies out, and we want it back' so spot on Nicolás, you called that 100% right.
For a man who wet his pants when he wasn't given the Nobel Peace Prize, Trump sure has no problem not only using his own military but providing the arms for others to use but while Trump is blustering about what a great success the operation was, the details are yet to be seen and we all remember how he said the same thing about Iran but that ended up amounting to dropping tens if millions of pounds worth of bombs to put a dent in a mountain and put back the Iranian's Nuclear program weeks according to his own intelligence Agencies.   
So here we are with the latest press conference to discuss the unprovoked and illegal coup where Trump said American oil companies would move in to fix infrastructure and will be: 'Taking a tremendous amount of wealth from the ground and get reimbursed for everything we've spent' with the US selling oil to other countries, that's the US, not Venezuela.
So naked Imperialism and regime change to enable an oil grab but Trump has done nothing since taking office except massively increase the number of people around the world who would hope that if there was going to a regime change, it will come in the United States.
That said, nobody is talking about the sex pest and probable pedophile appearing in the Epstein files today though.

Stranger Things Finale

Unusually for me, i got in on the ground floor with Stranger Things, my usual tactic is to join things halfway through and play catch-up but there I was in 2016 telling people about it and how they should give it a go.
My plan was to watch it at 1am New Years Day when it landed on Netflix just to avoid anyone telling me what happened but when i saw it was 2 hours long I changed to watching it last night instead and avoiding reading or talking about it yesterday.
Something i always notice in American series such as this is the budget  which was a reported $50-$60 million per episode and the 8 episodes of Series 5 costing a hefty $400-$480 million which to put into context, the Downton Abbey TV series cost around £1 million per episode but then i guess they didn't have to CGI Demogorgons chasing Lady Sybil around the family's estate which must have been a bit of a cash saver, although it may have made it more watchable if they did.
I am aware that there are some people who may not have watched it yet so I hesitate to give away any spoilers but it seems like not everyone liked it, one reviewer i just read said the CGI was almost as bad as the Flash and AntMan 3 which i wouldn't know because i haven't seen them as i'm an adult and not 13, but i liked it.
It has action and just the right amount of emotion which is unusual for an American show which usually overdoes the sentiment and emotion and left a bit of a question mark over Eleven right at the end for you to take whichever way you wanted.
For a show which seemed to be based on the game Dungeons and Dragons, it was a lot better than that makes it sound but I would say to Netflix that was $400-$480 million well spent and i hope you have some left over for the new Buffy The Vampire Slayer which apparently cost $2 million per episode to make although it will probably cost just that alone to make Spike and Angel appear as they did when we last saw them in 2004, that's a lot of heavy make up.

How Will 2026 Play Out?

It appears that 2025 left some unfinished global stories which will rumble on into 2026 and these include Keir Starmer's leadership of the country, the Russia/Ukraine War, the Epstein Files, Venezuela, China and Taiwan and Israel and Palestine so how do I expect these to play out over the next 12 months?

Keir Starmer is struggling and he must know it and the Labour Party certainly does because 2025 came to an end with some big figures in the Party maneuvering themselves into position should he fall or be pushed.
I don't think anything will happen and tinder will be kept dry until the Local Elections in May where a set of bad results, and nobody thinks they won't be awful, will probably see him and the Chancellor step down rather than be forcibly removed and hand the country over to a new pair who, hopefully, will be a bit more like the old Labour Party than they have been so far.
     
There is a reason why Vladimir Putin appears to be swerving the Europeans when it comes to talking peace because he knows that all the time Donald Trump is in charge of the peace talks, he can just string him along and play Trump who bizarrely seems to be coming down on Moscow's side despite them being the invaders and issuing demands of Ukraine to make peace but the Europeans are very much on the opposite side and are very keen to stop Trump bulldozing Zelenskyy out the way and rewarding Russia and I can't see that changing so I expect to still be talking about it next January.

The Epstein Files are not going anywhere and with millions of documents yet to be released, we are only at the start of it so this year will see us being drip fed photo's and documents which implicate some powerful people, including increasingly Donald Trump who will do his usual blustering of 'fake news' and 'conspiracy' but as even his own people are now turning against him as the evidence piles up he will either step down (unlikely) or try to deflect the attention by introducing even more Draconian laws in America or even starting a war.  

The USA military has now blown up over 30 small boats coming from Venezuela with no evidence shown that they are drug boats and so concerned are many nations that they have stopped supplying the USA with intelligence but the Trump Government are threatening to take a step forward from their current actions and attacking Venezueala itself to remove Nicolás Maduro and replace him with a much more America friendly Maria Corina Machado who, as Trump said himself, would hand out Oil Contracts to them like sweeties.
At some point in the next 12 months it will probably happen but as America found out in a lot of conflicts recently, removing a leader is easy but keeping the peace afterwards not so much.

China ended the last year militarily encircling Taiwan who they claim is part of China but the sticking point has always been the agreement made by the USA to help Taiwan defend itself but President Xi must be looking on at what is happening in Ukraine and Israel and seeing two nations invading and murdering scores of civilians and the USA actually backing them and Trump is making no noises about stopping China, he is even visiting Beijing in Spring and expect Xi to start leveraging pressure on the US to row back its allegiance to Taiwan in exchange for economic easing, particularly of the rare Earth Minerals America are so desperate for. We probably won't see Taiwan invaded this year which will be all about laying the ground for it next year.

Just like Putin in Russia, Netanyahu in Israel has found Trump to be very amiable in allowing it to do what it wants when it comes to Palestine where it has been committing a Genocide and Netanyahu knows that he can string Trump along and make promises he has no plan to keep while scrubbing the Palestinians out of their land but the fly in the particular ointment is that he has elections in October 2026 and he knows that the only thing keeping him out of prison on fraud charges is the Presidency which he is unlikely to win so nothing much will change, and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine may actually be fast tracked, until late next year.   

Grrrr......

My 'Keep Religion Out of Christmas Campaign' seemed to be going well, I hardly heard any mention of Jesus last year and it was his birthday on the 25th so that's good going but then he has been sidelined in favour of the Jolly Fat Man with the presents for a while now so give it a few years and it will be 'Jesus who? and we can all stop killing each other over which of the religions is more peaceful because religion will be consigned to the history books along with the Earth being flat and eating bread crusts will make your hair curly.
Hopefully we can move onto old cliched phrases that we hear over and over in certain situations which really need to be taken out of circulation such as when you go out for a meal and the sharing platter arrives and someone says: “Well here’s mine, what’s everyone else having?' or if you ask someone if they want sugar in their tea and they reply: 'No thanks, I’m sweet enough' for which hard labour in a Siberian prison is too kind.  
Another one is when you are washing your car and the neighbour walks by and says 'You can do mine next' or 'You’ve missed a bit' which has you scanning Law Books to see if there is some long forgotten law still on the statute books which allows you to tie them to your bumper and drag them across the City.
Another one is if you ask someone the time and they say 'Time you got a watch' or look at their wrist and say 'Hair past a freckle' or when you drop and break something, you hear a voice say: 'Don;t think you wanted to do that', no shit Sherlock.
If you someone starts a sentence with: 'No offense, but..' or 'I'm not Racist but...' then it doesn't stop what follows being offensive or racist and if something 'goes without saying' then why are you still going to fecking say it?
'Can I get' to a shop assistant should be answered with,'No, i'm here so i will get it for you' and 'Hot enough for ya? in the middle of Summer should be punishable by being held upside down by your ankles from a car park and being asked high enough for ya?
Probably the worst one is when you ask someone a question and they reply: 'I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you' which has you wishing someone would because then you wouldn't have to hear that cliched utterance again and 'Working hard or hardly working' should be met with the reply harder than you obviously.

2026 A Sporty Year

It's a sporty kind of year this year which starts with watching people slide down hills from 6 February in the Winter Olympics in Italy.
As it is in a fellow European Country it won't be on at a ridiculous time for us so we can see Newton's Theory of Gravity in full effect as men and women in super close fitting clothes slip and slide around and either end up in a snowy heap or bouncing around a podium wearing a medal.     
Next up is the Football World Cup in June being held across Canada, America and Mexico where England expects...expects to sail through the group stage and just as the Media start to build us up as potential Champions, then get knocked out by the first half decent team we play and as it is over there, means that people over here may well be turning up to work next day bleary eyed and then falling asleep at our desks.
The Commonwealth Games is then launched in Scotland in July with only a select few nations who had the privilege of once being taken over and pillaged by Britain can join so silver linings then, yes we may have taken all your resources back in the day but you do get an invite to run and jump over things in summertime Glasgow, so bring your wellies.
As well as the big International events, we also have just entered the sharp end of the Premier League Season which Arsenal are hoping may finally be their year to win as well as the Champions League and the Rugby Six Nations so much to hope that your Television doesn't pack up for.

Legislative Changes Coming For 2026

In 2026, the UK government is implementing a wide range of legislative changes focused on employment rights, social security, housing, and public health which will leave some better off, some worse off but such is the width of the changes, everyone will be affected somehow.

From January junk food averts will be banned before the 9pm watershed and a new MMR vaccine (measles, mumps, and rubella) will be introduced for children which will now also include Chickenpox
From March all English councils will collect food waste, garden waste, paper/card and other dry recyclables separately.
From April, the National Living Wage will rise to £12.71 per hour and £10.85 for 18-to-20-year-olds and there will be new 'Day One' Employment Rights Act which grants workers the right to paternity leave and ordinary parental leave from their first day of employment.
Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) will be paid from the first day of illness and a new Government Department (Fair Work Agency) is being created to enforce Employers are abiding by employment rights and paying the minimum wage.
Cuts to Agricultural and Business Property Relief take effect meaning farmers with assets over £1m will be subject to a 20% tax rate and the dividend tax rate will increase by 2% to  10.75%.
All Social Security benefits will now be folded into The Universal Credit and the basic standard allowance will increase from £400.14 to £424.90 but additional health payments for new claimants will be reduced to £217 per month while the Two-Child limit has been scrapped allowing families to receive payments for all their children and the State Pensions will increase by 4.8% in April and disability benefit by 3.8%.
From May the end of "No-Fault" Evictions will be introduced meaning landlords will need a legally valid reason to evict tenants
From September businesses (such as Gyms and streaming services) will not be able to roll over services without first sending a renewal reminder.

All in all nothing there to scary although the Farmers will continue bleating about having to now pay inheritance tax although they still have a far better deal than the rest of us and I am all for a new Government Department to enforce employment rights because employers have been getting away with skimping on their workers rights for far too long and who hasn't been stung by companies just rolling over services so good job Labour, about time.     

Ai Shares Tips

I asked Google a few years ago what shares i should buy with a pretend £1000 and I made £2683 minus the original £1000 outlay which means £1683 profit which isn't to be sneezed at but that was in 2013 and now we have Ai and i have heard many people reporting they use it to get their shares and stocks tips so i asked AI, what shares should i buy in 2026?

It did give me some warnings about how it cannot provide personalized financial advice and the stock market involves significant risk, and past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results etc etc blah blah but then it listed some UK and International Companies i should invest in today, which was nice of it.

The issue was i was going to use my pretend profit of £1683 but the price ranges from £10.84 to £3028 per share so my £1683 really wouldn't go very far so i got rid of some of the more expensive ones and ended up with the following:
 
Shield Therapeutics: 10.84  155 shares    10 = 108
Jadestone Energy: 22.50      74 shares      10 = 225
Panthera Resources 23.20    72 shares      10 = 234
TechnipFMC : 44.68            37 shares      10 = 446
Brave Bison Group 66.35    25 shares      10 = 663


10 Shares in each comes to £1676 so i walked into my fake bank, slapped down my fake £1676 onto a fake desk and said 10 shares in each please and i will be back in December 2026 to cash them out and if they do well, regret bottling out of using a real bank and real money.