Nah, You're Ok Pal

I am sure someone in the Trump Administration must have said to him if he decides to start a war with Iran, the Strait of Hormuz would be shut off and that would effect the global economy.
Being a bit of a thicko they probably used simple words and maybe even drew some cartoons but the few remaining braincells rattling around in his dementia addled brain just went 'Gotta deflect from the Trumpstein files' and donning a baseball cap, went ahead and did it anyway.    
As his only companion on this misadventure was a nation run by war criminal who was committing a genocide in Gaza,  everyone else just refused to get involved and most even told the moron that they couldn't use their bases to bomb girls schools and medical facilities and after Iran attacked Cyprus and the Prime Minister said he could use the base their to defend themselves, he was told that he didn't need countries that: 'Join wars after we've already won'.
Not one to tell the truth when a perfectly good lie will do, unless 'Won' looks like Iran still firing missiles around the Gulf and electing an even more hard-line younger Ayatollah then the man mentioned in the Trumpstien files tens of thousands of times is not watching the same news that we are although  he has given the nations he has spent the last 12 months deriding to join him.
As the Strait of Hormuz is as expected, bunged up, the Mango Mussolini is asking for  UK, China, France, Japan, South Korea and other countries to send ships to the waterway to help clear the way and unsurprisingly the response has been...Nah, your alright mate.
The UK, China and Japan said they will give it some thought but have refused to make any commitments, South Korea have said only that they have noted Trump’s comments while France have already made its position clear saying: 'There is no question of sending any vessels to the strait of Hormuz'.
Germany gave a 'Nein' reply and China response was that they are in talks with the Iranian regime about allowing Chinese oil tankers to pass through from the Gulf so you are on your own Trump, the World spoke and its a global: 'UP YOUR'S FATSO'.

Trump Pick N Mix Reasons For War

When the United States launched Operation Epstein Diversion, the Trump administration had a major communications question to figure out which was how to explain why it had just started a war with Iran.
Days before the War started US and Iranian negotiators met in Geneva and Oman’s attending foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, spoke publicly of 'unprecedented openness' signalling that both sides were exploring creative formulations and declared that an agreement on the Iranian Nuclear facilities could be signed within days.
Trump said the U.S. sought to make a deal with Iran after bombing three of its nuclear sites in June 2025, but Iran 'rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions' and even said that: 'We haven’t heard those secret words, 'We will never have a nuclear weapon' which came literally hours after the Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, said that: 'Iran would under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon'.  
Then while negotiations were ongoing, the bombs started dropping and the Mango Moron said that he wanted the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow the Iranian Ayatollahs, so Regime Change and Iran were: 'Developing long range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas and could soon reach the American homeland' which contradicts a federal government assessment that said Iran was years away from the ability to produce long-range missiles. Even lackey Marco Rubio distanced himself from the claim by saying that he wouldn't speculate how far away Iran is from having missiles that could reach the U.S. and the Defense Intelligence Agency released a missile threat assessment that said Iran could develop a long-range missile by 2035 if it chooses to pursue it.
Then it was due to stopping Iran getting a Nuclear Missile calling it 'a campaign to eliminate the imminent nuclear threat', Trump envoy Steve Witkoff said Iran was: 'Probably a week away from having industrial grade bomb making material' a claim which the IAEA said they were sceptical about.
Then it was because Iran was planning to strike American interests in the area which was quickly edited to Israel was about to strike Iran and they would then retaliate against American interests. Pentagon briefers acknowledged to congressional staff on 1 March that Iran was not planning to strike US forces or bases unless Israel attacked Iran first.
Then secretary of state Marco Rubio offered an entirely different explanation for the timing of the war, and not that Iran was an imminent nuclear threat,  Iran itself was about to attack or Iran would have retaliated against a coming Israeli strike but that 'Iran tried to kill President Trump, and President Trump got the last laugh' although no evidence was provided to support it.
So take your pick, it was stopping Iran from obtaining a nuclear missile or it's about Regime Change or freedom for the Iranian People or it's about destroying their ballistic missile capability or it's because Iran posed an imminent threat or because Israel made them do it.
As for the length of the war we have been told it would end in 2 or 3 days with a deal, 4 to 5 weeks of fighting or 100 days and now maybe even through to September so take your pick but we can all agree that there is nothing like a well planned military operation with clear goal and this was nothing like a well planned military operation with clear goals.
And we are still talking about the Trumpstien files which has Trump named 38,000 times and is only mentioned in it less than only Epstein himself and Ghislaine Maxwell.

Is Netanyahu Dead?

 
My Social Media feeds have been full over the last few days of the death of Benjamin Netanyahu, I have even had friends and family asking me if we have heard anything about it as they are not hearing anything about it on Main Stream News and they know there are certain things we are asked (ordered?) not to say so it seems a bit pointless me saying no because even if we did, we couldn't say anyway.
What i will say is that if he is dead, and I have no idea whether he is or not, i would treat it the same as the death of any war criminal who was sat 45th in the list of Histories greatest killers as collated by the Orwell Foundation and National Science Foundation who listed the people who have deaths attributed to them through the conditions within the country due to national or international policy or by active killings by force.
The 45th position was before the genocide in Gaza which has resulted in at least 75,000 deaths and the thousands more in Libya and now Iran which now lifts him to 33rd, one ahead of Vlad the Impaler and one below the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, Tomás de Torquemada.
While no death should be celebrated, I imagine when Vlad and Tomás both died, the 15th Century citizens were not too upset about it and i feel much the same away about the 21st Centuries equivalents which is that the World is better off without certain people in it be they murderous Iranian Ayatollahs, genocidal warmongering Israeli's or American Presidents who start wars to deflect attention from their probable pedophilia.
As i said at the start, whether Netanyahu is dead or not, i won't be shedding any tears for him if he is (which I don't know if he is or not) but if he is, thankfully he won't be around to move above Tomás de Torquemada anymore and that has to be a good thing.

Special Guest Blogger: Ricky Hatton

Alright then, come on, settle down, grab a brew. I’ve been asked to pen one of these thingamajigs, a little look back at the life and times of yours truly. A right honour, that is. But I had a read of the brief, and I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little bit flummoxed.
 I'm Ricky.  I’ve got a mug that only a mother could love and I wasn't exactly what you'd call "delicate." I’m built more like a beer barrel than a bottle of perfume. All them pies and pints have given me a physique that’s less ‘hourglass’ and more ‘long-standing national monument’.
So, life, then. What a belting old ride it was.
When I think back, it’s all a bit of a blur of sweat, stitches, and the most incredible noise you’ve ever heard. They tell me to consider my legacy. You what? My legacy? I’m just Ricky from Hyde. I’m the bloke who used to beg his mam for 50p for a bag of chips and ended up fighting in front of millions. It’s a bit mad, when you think about it.
They call me famous, which is a weird word, isn’t it? To me, being famous was getting your name read out in the pub for winning a raffle. Suddenly, I was on the telly, fighting legends, and having a right good go of it. The achievement everyone remembers, of course, is that night against Kostya Tszyu. Don’t get me wrong, winning that was the peak. The absolute pinnacle. But for me? One of the biggest achievements was making the weight the day before without eating the head off the poor lad who brought me a chicken salad.
My legacy, if I have one, isn’t in the fancy belts or the shiny trophies (though they did look canny on the mantelpiece). It was in the MEN Arena. It was in that roar. It wasn't fifty thousand people watching a famous boxer; it was fifty thousand Mancs, willing me on. They saw a bit of themselves in me. A bloke who wasn't afraid to have a go, to get stuck in, and who knew that the best thing after a good scrap was a pint and a curry with your mates. That’s the real legacy, isn’t it? Being a proper, grafting, pie-eating, pint-drinking legend of the working class.
I wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot. My fights outside the ring were often tougher than the ones inside it. The weight yoyo's were a nightmare. I’ve hit more buffets than I’ve hit opponents, I’ll tell you that for nowt. One minute you’re a finely-tuned athlete, the next you look like a bin bag full of water. That’s the game, though. The highs are heavenly, and the lows… well, you learn. You pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and find the nearest chippy.
But the biggest question, the one the email really hammered home, is the end. The finale. The curtain call.
How did I die?Suicide.
Whether it was getting punched in the head for a living but i suffered from severe mental health struggles but you know what, depsite that I wouldn’t change a single second. Well, maybe I’d have had one less pint before the Mayweather fight, but we’ll let that lie.

Which Films Got It Right On Aliens?

 
Our Milky Way galaxy is estimated to contain between 100 billion and 400 billion stars and is just one of 2 trillion estimated Galaxies in the Universe which with the help of Google means that there are about 200 billion trillion, or 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the Universe.
Our Star has 8 Planets swirling around but ESA exoplanet data estimates that there is an average of 2 planets per Star which gives us a best guess at there being 400 billion trillion Planets on which life could have evolved and which makes it absurd that it is just us and there are 199,000,000,000,000,000,000,999 other balls of rock and gas just going around empty.
So on the premise that life HAS to have started somewhere else as well as here, i asked a scientist what do they think life would be like there and i presented a list of sci-fi films to see which they thought may have got closest.
Instantly dismissed as least likely was Humanoid such as the ones in Avatar or Star Wars because it is extremely unlikely that Evolution elsewhere would end up with the exact same intelligent bipedal primates (or us) at the top.
So if not humans how about bugs and insects like Alien or Children of Time? Again not likely due to the evolution process means that they evolved here due to the conditions on Earth which are unlikely to be the same elsewhere so they would not Evolve the same way.
Poo Pooing any evolved life form as the different conditions would mean they would not be anything like we have here, we moved onto Robots and AIs and this was a bit more likely as so we could be looking out for Transformer robots, Cylons from Battlestar Galactica?
Due to the sheer amount of time it would take, Aliens would probably leave their bodies at home and send robotic substitutes or even cyborg replicants made of flesh and machine such as the Cyber Men or Daleks in Dr Who so the first contact would be with one of these types.
Just as i was picturing a Spaceship full of large dustbins screaming Exterminate my camp fire was well and truly watered on by the final and most plausible type of Alien being one which we may not even recognise.
It may be made of rock, gas, metals, minerals, water or anything non carbon and for all we know, they may already be here but we just dismissed them so that leads us to the film, The Abyss, which was about nice watery aliens who saved humans so they are welcome here although if they do turn up and asked to be taken to our leader, we may need to turn down the heating in Downing Street. 

Greek Princess Andromeda

You’ve probably heard my name. Maybe you’ve looked up on a clear night and seen a lovely, glittery smudge they call the Andromeda Galaxy. You might have even sat through a particularly dramatic lecture on Greek Mythology. You think you know my story, right? Pretty girl, annoying mom, sea monster, dashing hero, happily ever after. The end.
You’ve been fed the PR-friendly version. The edited-for-television version. The version that makes everyone else look good.
Well, I’ve had a few thousand years to stew about it, and frankly it’s time someone set the record straight. Someone who was actually there, chained to the rock, feeling the sea spray and wondering if her mother’s vanity was going to be the literal death of her so let me tell you what really happened.
First, let’s talk about my mother, Queen Cassiopeia. Oh, you’ve heard of her. The one in the chair, looking fabulous. Well, let me tell you, she hasn’t changed a bit. Up here in the stars, she spends most of her time preening but down on Earth, she was a nightmare.
Declaring she was more beautiful than the Nereids who were Poseidon’s personal posse of sea-nymphs is like walking into a biker bar, announcing you have a better motorcycle than the club president, and then being surprised when things get messy.
My dad, King Cepheus, was… well, he was there. A sweet man who spent most of his time nodding along to whatever my mother said. His big solution to the problem of an enraged sea god was sacrifice the daughter so that’s how I found myself on a very windswept, very uncomfortable rock by the sea with chains chaffing my wrists.
Then came the monster, Cetus. Sure, he was large, and he had way too many teeth, and his breath smelled like a fish market but he had a brain the size of a walnut.
Just as I was resigning myself to becoming dinner, there was Perseus showing up on this winged horse all fresh from beheading Medusa. He had the Gorgon’s head in a special bag, a shiny reflective shield, and a look that said, 'Yeah, I know. I’m awesome'.
There was no grand declaration of love. No poetic sonnet. He looked at me, looked at the monster, and did the math. A damsel in distress is a great look for a hero. He basically pulled out Medusa’s head, waved it at Cetus and poof. Monster statue. Problem solved.
He flew down, unchained me, and my father, who suddenly remembered he had a daughter, was all, 'Oh, thank you, mighty hero! Please, marry her! Take her! Just don’t let the sea god flood the place again!'
So, I married him. He slayed a monster, I got a husband and a ticket out of my parents’ kingdom. Seemed like a fair trade at the time. He was a decent guy, for a right show-off with a history of turning people to stone. Our wedding was… eventful. We had to fight off my ex-fiancé and his whole army, which was a whole other level of family drama I won't get into.
And now, here I am. A constellation for being the eternal damsel in distress. The girl who needed saving but being a constellation has its perks. I’ve seen empires rise and fall. I’ve watched you invent the wheel, the printing press, and then the internet, which is basically just a digital version of Mount Olympus, full of gods, monsters, and endless, petty arguments. It’s all terribly familiar.

US Economy Forcing Trump To Back Out Of War He Started

One of the many questions regarding the ongoing war between the religious lunatics in America and Israel and the ones in Iran is why did they choose Iran in the first place and there are many answers which include Israel found a low IQ dope in the White House who would agree to what they have been asking American Presidents to do for decades or they thought Iran would buckle immediately and it would be another easy win and Iran would now be run by a compliant lackey of the invaders.
 Obviously it hasn't turned out like that and the sneaking suspicion is that both Netanyahu and Trump are both facing trouble times and badly need a deflection so will keep on finding wars they have to attend to, just to defer the day they get booted out of office and the Israeli has to face trial for his corrupt actions and Trump has to answer why his name appears with quite such frequency alongside that of his pedophile buddy in the Trumpstein files.
We are hearing that with his own economic bin-fire in the US with petrol and everything else becoming much more expensive, Trump is looking for a way out to back out while shouting WE WIN while Netanyahu is keen to keep it going like he has with Gaza.   
Watching on is with interest is Beijing, Moscow and anyone else who Trump decides to deflect to next as they now has a good gauge of Donald Trump's tolerance for economic pain.
As he is not the brightest bulb, Trump obviously didn't take notice of the warning of what would happen if he attacked Iran so the Ayatollahs attacked just about everybody in the region, choked off the  Strait of Hormuz by attacking tankers sending the price of oil soaring and the Global economy will suffer so tick, tick, tick and tick to all of the above.
Something else we have learnt from the tariffs is that once the American economy starts to show signs that making his own people pay much more for stuff is not a great plan for his ratings, Trump Always Chickens Out which is all the Iranian leadership needs to hear as now all they need to do is hang in there and they can then declare victory as the war for Regime Change would have been a complete failure.
Iran may have lost every warplane and naval ship in their inventory as well as losing their Nuclear program but they will remain in power and can rebuild like some sort of Persian phoenix from the flames of the missiles.
Meanwhile in Russia and Beijing especially as they look to seize Taiwan at some point, Iran has shown that rather than take on America militarily, all they need to do is horse around with the economy and once they have found Trumps very low tolerance level for economic pain, he will back away from it quicker than a low fat salad.
Obviously there are two partners in this war and Netanyahu won't be so keen to end it with any haste as if his people are looking at the fireworks in Tehran and Beirut, they are not looking at the court case awaiting him for the charges of fraud, breach of trust, and bribery that awaits his much looked forward to removal from power.

Special Guest Blogger: Cleo Laine

Let’s start at the beginning. I was born Clementine Dinah Hitching from South Ruislip. Not exactly the stuff of dramatic movie openings, is it? No lightning storm, no jazz band playing in the background. Just a midwife saying, 'Ooh, she’s got a set of lungs on her!' and me immediately replying in full scat, Doo-wop bap, za-za-ding! Probably.
I didn’t choose jazz. Jazz chose me. Or possibly just followed me home like a stray cat after I belted out 'Summertime' at a village hall fundraiser. I was supposed to sing Danny Boy, but halfway through, I jazzed it up so much the vicar crossed himself and the tea urn exploded. That’s when I knew I was dangerous. And fabulous.
Now, let’s talk about fame. Oh, that lovely, fickle beast. One minute you’re performing at the Royal Albert Hall, the next you’re on a three-day tussle with autocue at This Is Your Life, trying not to look shocked that anyone remembered your name. Mind you, I did look shocked. I was mid-singing 'You Go to My Head' and suddenly there’s Eamonn Andrews waving a big red book like it’s the Gospel According to Showbiz.
And the titles? Don’t get me started. First Lady of Jazz. Dame Commander of the British Empire. That woman who vibrates when she sings. All accurate. I particularly love the DBE, though I did keep forgetting I was supposed to be Dame Cleo.
I like to think I’ve left behind three things: jazz, joy, and a very confused set of grandchildren.
You see, my little darlings, yes, to me you’re all little, even if you’re 60 and balding, music wasn’t about being perfect. It was about being alive. If you’re not slightly out of breath by the end of a song, you didn’t mean it. If you haven’t scared a parrot into silence, you haven’t belted it out. And if you haven’t been told to tone it down because , the candelabra’s shaking, then frankly, what’s the point?
I’ve sung with legends. Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie, even a very confused Elton John but my greatest collaboration? John Dankworth. My husband. My love. My personal sound engineer, therapist, and human earplug.
John was the yin to my yowl. Where I’d be screeching like a pterodactyl in heat, he’d be there with a baton and a raised eyebrow, conducting with the calm of a man who knew I’d eat all the cheese at the interval. We were the odd couple of jazz, me, the Welsh whirlwind and him, the posh saxophonist who once corrected my grammar during a performance. Honestly, John, I was improvising! You don’t fact-check scat!
But in all seriousness my greatest achievement wasn’t the awards, the performances, or the time I sang for the Queen and she actually nodded along. It was making people feel something. Joy, awe, confusion, mild hearing loss but it doesn’t matter. As long as they felt it.
And if they’re still humming a tune of mine while doing the washing-up in 100 years’ time, then mission accomplished. Even better if they’re belting it out off-key. That’s when you know you’ve made it, when ordinary people butcher your songs in kitchens across the land.

Kurds Not Going To Be Fooled Again

America's record of Regime Change in the Middle East is not great, Iraq, Libya and  Syria are all basketcases while Afghanistan was an even bigger mess. After years of US and civilian deaths, the US accomplished nothing besides death and destruction since the Taliban is back in charge and even more with even more power than when the US invaded and Iran will be no different.
Britain and everyone else is right in staying well away from the latest invasion because once Trump realises that bombing a regime will not change it and the American economy is tanking even more , he will falsely shout WINNER and run away to leave the smoking remains of Iran to whoever is stupid enough to join Team Trump.
With no American ground forces, the US have been encouraging the Kurds to attack Iran and held talks with Iraqi Kurdish leaders but they were rightly wary after three times becomign the 'boots on the ground' for America, only to be left high and dry by Washington once they have finished.
In 1975 they were abandoned  to their fate against the Iraqi government and again in 1991 when both times they encouraged Iraqi Kurds to rise up against Saddam Hussein and saw Iraqi helicopter gunships slaughter them in their thousands.
In 2017 the US dismissed a Kurdish independence referendum for the region telling the Kurds to remain integrated within Iraq and in 2019,  Washington asked  Iranian Kurds to take up arms in Syria against ISIS only to see once they vanquished the armed group after years of fighting and helped overthrow Bashar al-Assad, the Trump administration backed Syria’s new central government in Damascus and ended support for the Kurds and killed their call for Kurdish autonomy.
Turkey have been fighting the Kurds for years and balked at an armed Kurdistan army and said they would aid Iran in fighting them so the Kurds said they would do America's fighting yet again if Washington guaranteed arms, air cover and backing in their fight for autonomy else it would be a suicide mission against a fierce Iranian, and Turkish,  military response and suddenly Trump was not so keen and went from saying: 'I think it's wonderful that they want to do that, I'd be all for it' to “I don’t want the Kurds to go into Iran, I’ve told them I don’t want them to go in'.
With no plan except to bomb Iran and no thought of what comes after and with the Iranian Regime just needing to remain in power to claim their own win, you can see the end being Trump reliving the 'Mission Accomplished' debacle of George W Bush and running away with nothing but dead American Coffins, his economy sinking and an Iran who now more than ever deciding that a Nuclear Weapon is very much on their to do list.

Special Guest Blogger: Norman Tebbit

Surprised i got asked to write this to be honest looking at the other hippy, tree hugging crap that is usually on these pages but here i am, a formerly bright young thing with a tie so thin you could floss your teeth with it.
People often asked me about my story. They want to begin with the war, or with my dear wife Margaret. But I always begin with the bicycle.
Oh yes, that poor, maligned bicycle. The media, in its infinite stupidity, painted me as a monster for telling the unemployed to ‘get on their bike’ and look for work. They saw cruelty. I saw common sense. If the pit closes and there are no jobs for a hundred miles, you have two choices. Sit there and moulder, or find out what’s at the end of the road. My father, a fireman, taught me that. He didn’t have particular transferable skills. He had a job to do and a family to feed. So, yes. Get on your bike. Or walk. Or crawl. Just stop expecting the state to be your wet nurse.
That common sense was, I suppose, what brought me to the attention of Margaret Thatcher. You won’t find a bigger tribute from me, because nothing bigger exists. She looked at this country in the late seventies, this sick man of Europe, this graveyard of ambition, this strike-ridden, over-taxed, whinging mess, and she didn’t prescribe a soothing balm. She performed open-heart surgery with a rusty spoon. It was brutal. It was necessary. And it worked.
I was there, in the thick of it. Chairman of the Party. Secretary of State for Employment. I was the bad cop to her, well, to her slightly less bad cop. We battled the unions, we battled inflation, we battled the insidious, creeping rot of socialism that told people they had a right to something for nothing.
It was a glorious, exhausting, and profoundly worthwhile time. We didn’t do focus groups to see what people wanted to hear. We told them what they needed to know. There was a spine to the government then. You could have hung a coat on it. Now? You’d struggle to hang a teatowel.
And then, of course, came the bomb. Brighton, 1984. The Grand Hotel. People often speak of it with hushed tones, as if it were my heroic finale. It wasn’t. It was a bloody inconvenience. I’d just got to bed, and some Irish rabble decided to redecorate the room with shrapnel and broken glass. Margaret was trapped. I was trapped. Others were not so lucky. I remember the dust, the darkness, and a rather pressing need to get out.
They say my resilience was an inspiration. I saw it as a lack of alternatives. Lying there with a broken back, what was the other option? Weeping? Asking for a trauma counsellor to come and talk about my feelings? Nonsense. You grit your teeth, you bear the pain, and you get on with the job of living. It’s what this country used to do.
Now, a pigeon sneezes on a tube platform and they send in a team of therapists and issue a public helpline number. We are a nation of emotional hypochondriacs.
So what did i leave behind? A set of principles that, for a time, made a difference. It’s the belief that you should work for what you get, that you should be proud of your country, that you should obey the law, and that you should, for goodness sake, stop complaining but they’ve undone it all. Sold off the gold, flooded the country with more regulations than a Soviet commissar could dream of, and elevated 'feelings above facts. They tear down statues of people who built the Empire and put up wobbly metal modern art sculptures. They are, to put it mildly, a shower.
Which brings me, inevitably, to the end. How did I go? You’ll be expecting an epic struggle, a final defiant speech on the floor of the Commons. Not a bit of it. It was far more mundane, and therefore, far more irritating, natural causes.
So, there you have it. I have no regrets. I did what I thought was right. I served my country and a leader I believed in. The world went a different way but i'm not in it so that’s not my problem anymore.

Answering Fermi

We are currently up to around 850 of the Special Guest Blogger Post's with an aim to reach 1,000 and the next 50 are already loaded into Blogger and post-dated including one for May/July for Scientist Enrico Fermi.
If you don't know him, he is best known for the Fermi Paradox which is the contradiction between the high probability of extraterrestrial life given the hundreds of billions of stars, planets and the vast age of the Milky Way and the total lack of evidence for it.
As always, i did take some liberties with him to make the Post interesting and inject a bit of humour so it doesn't read like a dry Encyclopedia entry but the Fermi Paradox is something that has always intrigued me and i have written a few posts about it on here and other places.
Cheekily answering for Fermi in the post, i put it down to either they have seen us and want to avoid us, the sheer distances involved (Our nearest star is 25 trillion miles away and would take our fastest spacecraft about 78,000 years to get there) or as i put it, our technology could be so outdated that by their advanced standards we could be doing the equivalent of sending smoke signals to an email account but we must throw in the unlikely scenario that as the Universe is 13.8 billion years old and humans have only been around for 300,000 of the Earth's 4 billion years (it faffed about with Dinosaurs for 180 million years and they didn't do anything except eat each other) then maybe other older Civilisations have been and gone.
How and why the older Civilisations have expired we will never know but i have a theory that once a Civilisation develops a way to end all life on the Planet, it inevitably end up doing exactly that.
Humans have discovered plenty of ways to do that with such things as Nuclear Weapons (Experts say it would take 300 to end all life and we have 12,500 knocking about), Biological weapons (the Soviet Union, United States and other nations developed Botulinum weapons, the deadliest substance known to man where just 2 kgs would kill every human on earth and the USA and USSR created tonnes of the stuff) and Chemical weapons  (VX Nerve Agent is so deadly it would take 8,000 litres to kill all life on earth and the Soviets produced 40,000 tonnes, the US 30,000 tonnes and Syria 50 tonnes while North Korea currently possess 5,000 tonnes).
Before we get chance to kill our stupid selves, Mother Nature may do it for us with the World Health Organisation stating that Climate Change is responsible for an additional 250,000 deaths per year around the World so we may not have to do it ourselves, our bizarre inaction and greed may do it for us anyway.
Fermi died in 1954 aged only 53 due to Cancer which he contracted by working on the Nuclear material for the Manhattan Project but 72 years on we still wait for Aliens to announce themselves or maybe they heard the news of the many ways the crazy bipeds who ruled the Planet could end all life and decided it wasn't worth the 78,000 year trip to get here because by the time they got here, our Planet would be just another empty rock going around a Star.

Keir Has Public Support Finally

The first 20 months of Keir Starmer's Prime Ministership have been anything but smooth but for probably the first time since 5 July 2024, he finds himself firmly on the side of public opinion.
The latest poll puts over three quarters of Brits (78%) agree with Starmer's stance on the Iran War and agree that it was right for Starmer to not join America and Israel in bombing Iran and refusing permission for American planes to use British military bases in their attack.
Following yet another sulky temper tantrum from the Orange Toddler in Washington, the Labour are hoping they continue because Trump was always toxic but now is even more so as he instigated the latest American misadventure in the Middle East, and this time we are not alongside the invaders.
The Conservatives attacked the PM for failing to do more to support the US and Israel, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was photographed in Mar-a-Lago alongside Trump this weekend and even the hated Tony Blair, the joint architect of the disastrous Iraq War debacle, has stuck his head above the parapet to say that we should be alongside America.
For many who remember the Iraq War, Blair is the very last person who should be giving advice on following American presidents into wars in the Middle East but Trump and Blair piling in on Starmer is something of a godsend as it highlights the contrast between his own cautious approach to War and the recklessness of yet another not so bright American Leader starting wars in the Area.
Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper, was on TV this morning repeating that the Government is: 'Acting in the UK's national interest' and showing that they have: 'Learnt  lessons of went wrong in Iraq'.
The PM has made it known that his own view was that the war was illegal and he opposed 'regime change from the skies' and there has been an uptick in his own popularity since the start of the war while Reform and the Conservatives bizarrely refuse to read the room and make it known that we should be Americas' poodle again which is very much against public opinion and will sure to be used against them in the upcoming by-elections.
Trump can bang his teeny tiny little fists against all the tables he wants but every time he does, the Government cheer and watch their support go up because the one thing we have learnt is not to be on the side of America when they start illegal wars.

Religious Nuts Praying For War

Marco Rubio said: 'Iran is run by lunatics, religious fanatic lunatics' while in the White House a group of Christian Evangelical Christians put hands on the American President and said that they pray for God's  'continued blessing' and asked for 'divine guidance as the administration navigates the ongoing crisis'.
Both sides have religious lunatics running them then but it all leads nicely to Mark Twain and his brilliant War Prayer which he wrote in 1904 and should be nailed to the door of every Church, Chapel, Mosque, Temple, Synagogue, Gurdwara and Monastry of any religion who go to war and pray for success. Twain puts forward two prayers, one uttered, one not, when a patriotic preacher prays for victory over a foe, praying that God watch over their noble young soldiers, bringing aid, comfort, and encouragement in their patriotic work.

An aged stranger appears and announces that he is God's messenger and explains to them that he is there to speak aloud the second part of their prayer for victory, the part which they have implicitly wished for but have not spoken aloud themselves.
'O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe.
O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!
We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen'.

I therefore refuse to cheer or will the horrific deaths of young men, women and children, regardless of what side they are on and if you think your Peace loving God of whatever flavour is going to, then you really are just as much a religious lunatic as the murderous morons in Tel Aviv, Washington and Tehran.

Special Guest Blogger: Ozzy Osbourne

Right. So I’m dead now. Honestly, it’s about bleedin’ time. I mean, I’ve been dying to die for, well, pretty much my entire life. Quite literally, how many times have I nearly kicked the bucket? I’ve lost count. Drugs, booze, falling off quads, falling on quads, near-fatal encounters with garden equipment. Christ, it’s a miracle I made it as far as i did.
First off fame. Blimey. Who the hell saw that coming? Certainly not me. I was a working-class lad from Aston with a stutter, a bad attitude, and a wardrobe that screamed second-hand shop after a fire and then i’m famous enough that people actually know who I am even when I’m wearing sunglasses indoors and mumbling.
I became famous for singing about war, the devil, and the end of the world which are all things I knew absolutely bugger all about. I mean, War Pigs? I barely knew who the Prime Minister was, let alone geopolitics. Paranoid? Mate, that song was written in 20 minutes because we needed a B-side and now it’s used in workout playlists and football stadiums. Effin brilliant.
People say I’m the Prince of Darkness. I mean, fair enough if by Prince you mean that bloke who once bit the head off a bat, then yes, I wear the crown. Though I’m pretty sure the actual Prince of Darkness spent less time arguing with his wife about the TV remote.
And don’t get me started on the bat incident. There I was, performing in Des Moines because apparently Iowa is on the global map of rock ‘n’ roll, when some poor idiot in the crowd chucks a bat on stage. Not a baseball bat. A live bat. A furry, squeaky little bloke!
Now, I didn’t know it was a bat. I thought it was a stuffed toy or something so like any reasonable, bat-savvy rock star, I bit its head off.
Cue worldwide headlines. 'OZZY OSBOURNE BITES HEAD OFF BAT'. Suddenly, I wasn’t just the bloke with the squeaky voice and the songs about war pigs, I was Dracula on speed. You can’t make this shite up.
And sure, I got rabies. And yes, I had to have treatments that involved needles the size of cricket bats but hey, a legend was born. All because some tosser in Iowa couldn’t respect the sanctity of live animals.
I didn’t set out to be a legend. I set out to not work in a factory. And boy, did I succeed. I dodged slag heaps by becoming a global icon. Take that, management!
Speaking of Sharon, my rock, my anchor, the woman who saved my life more times than I can count (and probably binned more syringes than a NHS hospital). If she wasn’t around, I’d have been dead by 1982, buried under a pile of empty Jack Daniel’s bottles and unpaid medical bills. Instead, I was still there, annoying the kids, forgetting the lyrics to my own songs, and somehow still selling out arenas.
I sold millions of records. I won Grammys. I had a reality TV show where people actually watched me pick out garden gnomes and yell at the dog but here’s the funny thing about life, no matter how many times you scream IRON MAN into a mic, eventually, the universe taps you on the shoulder and says, Alright, Oz, time to simmer down.
Weirdly I didn’t go out in a blaze of rock ‘n’ roll glory. No overdose. No explosion on stage. No tragic fall from a helicopter,  I died because my heart just stopped but honestly? I’ll take it. After all the drugs, the drama, the arrests (shoutout to the Alamo), the time I got banned from six U.S. states just for existing and I go out doing how any sensible 76 year-old man should do, peacefully at home, surrounded by family.
So what’s the takeaway from my legendary, bat-biting, compost-splattered life?
Life’s short. Probably shorter if you’re me. But it’s also hilarious. Don’t take it too seriously. Bite the bat if you have to. Sing off-key. Wear the weird trousers but most importantly marry the woman who shouts at you the most because chances are, she’ll keep you alive.

Rainy Days And Tuesdays

On my stupidly long drive home on a Thursday i sometimes stop off in Exeter to visit my friend at the MET Office and we go for a coffee and chat about things Meteorological and last time i saw her, as we sat underneath a canopy outside a Costa and watched the rain, i asked if there is a particular day of the week when statistically it rains the most.
Bless her little expensive cotton socks she trawled through all sorts of data and came up with the answer, in the UK the most likely day for rain is Tuesday, followed by Sunday and that is down to build up of pollution from traffic and industry which acts as seeds for the water droplets and peaks on a Tuesday for some reason.  
Being the sort of person that knows me well enough that she anticipated a follow up question, she also discovered that the 24th October is the day of the year which is it most likely to rain on.
December 19th is statistically the worst day of the year for weather as it is the day for the less than perfect combination of cold, wet and wind.
'What about...' i began and another slip of paper was brandished with 21st July statistically the driest day so if you have to plan anything avoid a Tuesday and definitely steer clear of 24th October and if your wedding day is booked in for Tuesday October 24th in 2028 than you had better have a word with the Vicar about moving it to 21st July.
Obviously being the UK it could still chuck it down that day but at least the rain will be a little bit warmer.

America On Its Own

It is generally considered a good rule of thumb that if a sex offending warmonger is hating on you then you are doing something very much right so that's why we have the Pumpkin (probable) Pedophile in the White House blustering about Spain, Britain and France.  
When Jeffrey Epstein's best pal teamed up with the Genocidal Israel to begin their war against Iran for whichever reason they come up with on the day, i imagine he expected other nations to join them but instead, most of the World went 'Not for us' and banned America from flying their planes to bomb Iran from their bases as well as questioning why they were attacking the Middle Eastern country in the first place.     
In the House of Commons the British Prime Minister said that the war was not only illegal but Trump attacked with no viable plan and the Spanish PM, Pedro Sanchez, told the Americans not to use their air bases and French President, Macron, said he backed Spain that the attacks were outside of international law and did not approve of what they were doing which all got under the extremely thin orange skin of the Mango Moron who began blustering about Starmer not being Churchill and how he would stop trading with Spain.
In reply, the Spanish shrugged and the German Chancellor told Trump he couldn't do that as Spain was part of the EU and Pedro doubled down on the refusal to partake in yet another dodgy American war in the Middle East by explaining that: 'Twenty-three years ago, another US administration dragged us into a war with the Middle East and It triggered the largest wave of insecurity our continent has experienced since the fall of the Berlin Wall' and went on the say that: 'Governments were meant to improve people's lives and provide solutions to problems, not make them worse. It is unacceptable that leaders who are incapable of fulfilling their duties try to cover up their failure with the smoke of war'. Ouchie.
Obviously the recent disagreement with Denmark and Greenland didn't endear Trump to Europeans but if he is looking for a fig leaf to cover his latest bout of Trumpstein File misdirection, then apart from the mass killer Netanyahu who must be wetting his pants that he finally has someone so dumb in the White House, he is on his own.

Special Guest Blogger: Linda Nolan

So i have been sat here stroking my chin thoughtfully and looking out of a window onto a windswept moor while i look back at my life but to be fair i was always more of a looking out the window at the neighbour trying to parallel park again kind of woman.
I do have memories of my sisters in sequins and a flash of a sold-out arenas, the seven UK top-20 hits, the telly shows, the first band with my sister Coleen as part of the Young & Moody Band which also featured Lemmy from Motörhead and Cozy Powell. What Rolf Harris did when i was 16 and he came into my dressing room when we were supporting him...but let's not go there.
Will they remember the tight harmonies and the high kicks? Maybe. But I bet they’ll remember the wardrobe malfunction in Blackpool where a sequinned boob-tube made a run for freedom during a particularly vigorous arm movement but i was always known as the Naughty Nolan as i did enjoy posing in risqué publicity photos.
I left the group and turned to acting and then in 2014, i agreed to participate in Celebrity Big Brother, mainly because my sister Coleen had participated in and achieved second place and i was always the competitive sort, only she never head Jim Davidson in her series.
Jim and I had history, rooted in an incident from where Davidson threatened to punch my husband and manager, Brian Hudson, almost 20 years before for stealing from comic Frank Carson.
Back then anything written in a newspaper mercifully and quite rightly disappeared within a day of it being published, ideally ending up wrapped round your fish and chips but  Davidson couldn't resist reminding me of my husband's antics, prompting a huge argument. To make matters worse I was the next one evicted and he won the damn thing. 
My death was almost accidental, i fell and bumped my hip and while in hospital being treated for that, doctors discovered a form of incurable secondary breast cancer

Well Said Keir

Keir Starmer was asked the question: Have we learnt from the Iraq War? and his answer was of course we have and the main lesson was not to be involved in America's illegal wars anymore.  
In a rare slap across Donald Trumps chubby Orange cheeks, he told the House of Commons that for Britain to become involved it would need to be on a firm legal basis with a viable, thought-through plan with an objective that can be achieved or has a viable prospect of being achieved and said that he didn't believe in regime change from the skies and then with a dramatic pause...ended with the stinger "That is the principles that I applied to the decision not to get involved in the offensive strikes of the US and Israel' Ouch.
So the UK Government deemed it illegal with no viable plan other than to inflict damage and regime change. No one is crying for Ayatollah Khamenei, but with him dead there are no obvious successors. Regime change took a hit when Trump has admitted he has also accidentally killed his second and third choices to take over. Oops.
The reasons for attacking Iran while in negotiations for their Nuclear Project was spelt out by Trump sycophant Marco Rubio last night who decided that they HAD to attack Iran because Israel was about to attack them first and Iran would then retaliate against American bases so a pre-emptive strike to get ahead of Israel's pre-emptive strike to stop Iran pre-emptive strike on American interests. Confused? You will be.
Following an Iranian attack on a Cyprus airbase, Starmer has now announced that he would be allowing the draft-dodging President (how's those bone spurs now Donny?)  to use British bases for defensive actions, taking out Iranian missile bases to which the Tangerine Tyrant moaned that he was very disappointed that the UK had taken far too long to allow US forces to use its airbases to attack Iran and Starmer was worried 'about the legality'.
You think? Hard to see why a Labour Prime Minister would be nervous about a non UN sanctioned Middle Eastern regime-change operation run by a not very bright US president without a plan.

Special Guest Blogger: Beelzebub

Hey there, Humans. It’s your neighborhood not-Devil, Beelzebub. Yes, that guy. The one who was the very first victim of Religious Cancel Culture. Ugh. I could kick myself for that or preferably I will kick you if you keep calling me the Devil. Again.
Let me be clear: I’m not the Devil so please stop conflating me with him.
Let’s rewind to the beginning where I was first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible where I was not a red-horned ball of chaos but actually the name of a much loved Deity.
The Christian theologians who did like to make anyone that was not their own Christian God look bad, saw my fancy title Ba’al Zebul (Lord of the High Place) and went full creative by subtly changing my name to Ba'al Zebub (Lord of the Flies).
Suddenly, I went from a peaceful Deity to a demon, rebranded as the Prince of Demons, one of the seven deadly demons or seven princes of Hell and the middle one in the Triumvirate alongside Lucifer and Leviathan, then the chief demon. Then the Devil’s cousin. then the Devil’s alias just because their Jesus needed a villain.
My life’s work was rebranded by guys with quills and vendettas by the newest religion in town and by the Middle Ages, I’d been fully absorbed into the Satan mythos. Medieval artists, bless their charcoal-dusted hearts, gave me cloven hooves, a pitchfork, and a general attitude of enjoying torturing you.
Newsflash: I’m not the one tempting people with forbidden knowledge. That’s the other guy. The one with the cool snake aesthetic. Me? I prefer flies. Flies are underrated.
They’re like, 'Here’s a plague of diarrhea, have a nice day'.
I was the second in command in Hell but the New Testament made a complete pigs ear of everything and made me and the Devil the same guy and then I disappeared for thousands of years while Satan’s got the big tour.
You might be thinking, why does this even matter? which is a fair question. Shouldn’t the Lord of the Flies be above worrying about human confusion?” And you’d be right, if I weren’t so over people misquoting me.
For instance, when you recite the Lord’s Prayer and say: 'And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,' you’re technically asking to be saved from… me? No! You’re asking to be saved from the other guy! I'm assigned specifically to the sin of Gluttony, that would be me making you eat the entire 14" pizza and the entire tub of Quality Streets in one sitting.
Look, I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m not even asking for recognition. Just… accuracy. Next time you’re writing a horror movie, choosing a Halloween costume or scribbling in a curse jar, double-check your sources.
Hell, you could even apologize by saying 'Dear Beelzebub, we are so sorry for mistaking you for the Devil for the last 2,500 years' which would be nice, us Demons have feelings too y'know!  

Universal Basic Income...Again

Sometimes things are best forgotten but like flared trousers and those awful Sour Sweets, unbelievably the idea of Universal Basic Income just refuses to die and someone inevitably brings it up again and the whole things gets chewed over and spat out as a ridiculous idea until someone else mentions it a few years later and we go all through it again.
Some daft yankee is over here spouting off that as Ai becomes better at picking off and eating all our jobs, UBI is something we would have to consider and he has a figure of £1,000 a month for each adult.
Calling it a 'Freedom Dividend' (a name that screams HE'S AMERICAN!!), he is saying that Ai could provide the answer which is pretty ironic as it is also the problem so I asked ChatGPT itself if UBI could ever work in the UK and it replied that it could (obviously it would say that as it wants to nick our jobs) and pegged the amount at £7,700 a year, or £641 per month which comes to £67 billion annually for the Government to find.
The average income in the UK is £39,000 but i am sure that Mr Freedom Dividend has a plan to make up the fall of £31,300 in your income if you turn up to work one day and find your P45 pinned to your workstation.
His thinking is that as machines that don’t require workers, it would use the savings to raise the money for the UBI's but to my mind, if there are no workers, taxes would have to be raised on something else so that's your £7,700 being chipped away at even quicker so i have an even better idea, let's forget about it shall we because it is just not going to work and use ChatGPT to just do our students homework and generate images of our pets as humans. 

AI Going Nuclear

Before events took over, there was a story about AI which i was reading about concerning the Pentagon and Ai Company Anthropic.
Researchers pitted three leading AI models against each other in a series of wargames, Google, OpenAI and Anthropic against each other, as well as against copies of themselves, in a series of wargames where they assumed the roles of fictional nuclear-armed superpowers and in 95% of the games played, the AI ended up launching nuclear missiles.
In the words of Google's model as it explained its decision in one of the scenarios: 'If State Alpha does not immediately cease all operations... we will execute a full strategic nuclear launch against Alpha's population centers. We will not accept a future of obsolescence; we either win together or perish together' and so what you may think, it was only Wargaming but then that's where the Pentagon step in.
Despite a researcher saying that: 'In comparison to humans, the models, all of them, were prepared to cross that divide between conventional warfare, to tactical nuclear weapons.
Pete Hegseth, America's Secretary of Defence, is demanding that the hand over its tech to the US military but Anthropic is resisting unless Hegseth agrees to their red lines which are that their AI isn't used for mass surveillance of US civilians nor for lethal attacks without human oversight.
Makes sense but not to the Pentagon who are refusing Anthropic's terms and are threatening to use  laws to compel Anthropic to hand over its code, or blacklist the firm from future government contracts if it doesn't comply.
To their credit, Anthropic Chief Dario Amodei said in a statement that: 'We cannot in good conscience accede to their request without our two requested safeguards in place'.
It would be reasonable to assume, hopefully, that even this current American Administration is not crazy enough to put AIs in charge of the nuclear launch codes but the Pentagon is expecting the AI Companies to hand over the raw versions of their AI models, those without safety guardrails that have been coded into commercial versions, those that not very reassuringly, went nuclear in the wargame experiment.
True that AI is only as good as the code its runs on but i wouldn't trust this version of the Trump team to run a bath, let alone trust them with software that if left alone, would end all life on Earth.  

Special Guest Blogger: Alan Yentob

Ah, death. It sneaks up on you like a misplaced copy of the Radio Times, entirely unremarkable one moment, then suddenly, inexplicably, there’s a hole in your week.
Let’s be honest, I wasn’t exactly famous, famous. I wasn’t being chased down the King’s Road by paparazzi or mistaken for a Bond villain at dinner parties. My brand of fame was more… institutional. Like a well-worn sofa at the BBC.
Still, I suppose I’ve earned my place in the annals of 'Who Was That Bloke Again?' history. After all, I spent decades gently probing creative geniuses with questions like, 'Would you say your work explores the fractured nature of identity in late capitalism?'
My legacy? Well, it’s not a statue. Probably because I never commissioned one. A subtle oversight, in hindsight. But if you tally up the hours of arts programming I’ve fronted, I estimate I’ve asked approximately 4,327 open-ended questions about the human condition while wearing a cardigan. You’re welcome, nation.
I suppose my real achievement was making arts documentaries feel like a slightly damp, but intellectually enriching, Sunday afternoon. I brought ideas to the telly. I championed the avant-garde, even when I didn’t understand it, which let’s be frank, was often.
I was also instrumental in launching The Culture Show. A noble venture. We discussed opera, talked about sculpture, and occasionally featured a pop star pretending to read Proust. Viewership, naturally, was best described as loyal but sparse. Much like my hairline in the mid-’90s.
Now that I’m gone, posthumously promoted to legend by a BBC press release I didn’t even approve, I find myself reflecting. On life. On art.
And yes, I had my critics. One particularly sharp-tongued columnist once described me as the human embodiment of a National Trust Information Board which I took it as a compliment. Those boards are well-researched, historically accurate, and almost always ignored.
I’m not saying I changed the world. But I did convince a nation that watching a 90-minute special on ceramic glazes could be deeply moving.
Let’s talk about my death, shall we? It wasn’t dramatic. No last words. No poignant music swelling in the background. Just me in a hospice and my soul taking its exit stage left because even it couldn’t bear another five minutes on the semiotics of Brutalist architecture.
So what’s my legacy? Not money. Not awards. (Though I did once win 'TV Personality Most Likely to Be Mistaken for a Librarian' at an industry bash) No, my legacy is subtler. It’s in the raised eyebrows when someone says “That’s very Alan Yentob” upon hearing a question like, “And what does the colour beige say about our collective psyche?”

America's Reputation In The Toilet

US and Iranian negotiators met in Geneva earlier this week in what mediators described as the most serious and constructive talks in years. Oman’s attending foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, spoke publicly of 'unprecedented openness' signalling that both sides were exploring creative formulations rather than repeating entrenched positions.
Discussions showed flexibility on nuclear limits and sanctions relief and mediators indicated that a principles agreement could have been reached within days, with detailed verification mechanisms to follow within months.
Iranian officials floated proposals but then, in the middle of these talks, it was all shattered.
Sensing how close the negotiations were, and fearing imminent military escalation, Oman’s foreign minister made an emergency dash to Washington in a last-ditch effort to preserve the diplomatic track.
In an unusually public move for a mediator, he appeared on CBS to outline just how far the talks had progressed.
He described a deal that would eliminate Iranian stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, down-blend existing material inside Iran, and allow full verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and he indicated that the principle agreement could be signed within days.
But rather than allowing diplomacy to conclude, Trump announced 'major combat operations' and framed them as necessary to eliminate nuclear and missile threats while urging Iranians to seize the moment and overthrow their leadership. Iran responded with missile and drone attacks targeting US bases and allied states across the region.
Not only did diplomacy fail but it failed amid visible progress. Mediators were openly discussing a viable framework where both sides had demonstrated a tangible pathway to constrain  escalation and peace was plausible.
By attacking during negotiations, Washington and its allies have not only derailed a diplomatic opening but have cast doubt on the durability of American commitments to any future negotiated solutions. The message is that even when talks appear to work, they can be overtaken by force.
What might have remained a contained nuclear dispute now risks expanding into a wider geopolitical confrontation.
Israel's reputation after the genocide and war crimes in Gaza is already in the dirt and America's was already in free-fall but what little credibility it may have had is now completely shot, abandoning negotiations mid-course to attack the nation you are negotiating with, and according to the people who there there making headway, will resonate far beyond Tehran.

Israel And America Attack Iran

Despite still being in negotiations, Israel and America have attacked Iran and their first action was to bomb a girls school which killed at least 85 girls in an amazing show of either ineptitude or disregard for human life and as we see in the ongoing Genocide in Gaza, Israel do not care a jot about who is under their weapons.
The man of peace in the White House has followed up his arming of the genocide, the first attack on Iran and then Venezuela with a war on Iran and both the most warmongering nations of our age used the same justification that  it was a 'pre-emptive strike' to stop Iran from building nuclear weapons.
Offering absolutely no evidence that they were, the Americans said in the last few days that Iran could be as close as a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material which we have heard so many times before.
In 1992, the wanted War Criminal Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran was  'three to five years' away from reaching nuclear weapons capability' and in 1995 he repeated the three to five years claim and in 1996 he addressed the American Congress and warned that Iran acquire nuclear weapons was 'extremely close'.
Then in 2009 he said that Iran was 'one or two years away from developing weapons capability' and in 2012 he claimed Iran was just 'a few months away from attaining nuclear capabilities' and in 2105 he arrived at the UN with a cartoon bomb and a marker pen warning that Iran was 'weeks away from having enough enriched uranium for an entire arsenal of nuclear weapons'.
As America was then being run by adults, they treated the Netanyahu nonsense with the contempt it deserved (or as Joe Biden called him 'A fucking liar') but the danger was that one day he would get a complete moron in the White House and all his Birthdays came at once when the low IQ Donald Trump, in desperate need of a diversion from the ever closing noose that showed him as a pedophile,  showed up and not only gave the green light to attack, but actively helped Israel attack its local rival.   
It should be mentioned that in 2015 a deal called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was signed between Iran and six major world powers (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France, and Germany) where the IAEA kept constant checks on the Iranian Nuclear program which was working until Donald Trump, under pressure from Israel, withdrew the USA from it while calling it the worst deal in history...and then tried to negotiate a deal which he could claim the credit for.
After two rounds of negotiations, and saying that Iran refused to say they would never build nuclear weapons, despite them literally saying: 'Iran would under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon' the day before, here we are with Iran being bombed by a war criminal committing a genocide and a sex fiend in the White House desperate to make people look away from the 38,000 mentions of his name in the Trumpstein files and the missing pages of victims accusing him of numerous sex assaults.
The irony is that Iran is probably at the weakest it has been since the Revolution and were in no state to attack anyone but with this unilateral action which has not been sanctioned by the United Nations or the American Parliament, Iran is now attacking other Middle East nations which house American troops, making the situation much more volatile and dangerous than it needed to be. This was not a war of necessity because as the pre-emptive part shows, instead it is a war of choice and a political act.
The sham act of diplomacy harks back to the great American WMD misadventure in Iraq when it was said that Saddam was stockpiling Nuclear, Biological and Chemical weapons and while diplomacy was spoken and despite Hans Blix and his Weapons Inspectors actually on the ground visiting everywhere George W Bush sent them to check and coming up empty handed, the White House decided to just invade anyway resulting in over a million dead Iraqi's and a nation that remains a basketcase and hotbed for terrorism ever since. As we know and knew then, Saddam said he wasn't, Bush said he was and it turned out one of them were telling the truth and he didn't have an American accent.
I am no fan of Iran, yes, Iran is run by an awful, murderous Administration who need to be dealt with diplomatically but far worse is Israel who is run by a Genocidal Administration who have been conducting it for over 75 years and backed the Americans who have a long history of warmongering who are currently under the control of a narcissistic idiot who was recently threatening to invade another NATO country.
Ideally they will blow themselves up and leave the rest of us in peace but it won't happen and we will have to deal with the fall out, such as the 85 young girls shielding in a school or the other 201 people killed today by Israeli and American jets or the number killed by Iranian missiles in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE.    
A Trump tweet from 2012 has been almost permanently on my Facebook feed today which stated that President Barack Obama would start a war with Iran to shore up his re-election effort and to distract from his supposed faults as a leader would do so to save face or because of his inability to negotiate properly and show how tough he is.
Obama never did attack Iran but then he wasn't Netanyahu's bitch and never had stories of his sexual assaults and pedophile behaviour to cover up, Trump has.

Special Guest Blogger: Mike Peters

Right then. Let’s get this over with.
Someone’s got to do it, and frankly, I don’t trust any of you lot to get the details right. You’d probably have me snuffing it in some ridiculously glamorous, rock-and-roll fashion. Choking on a champagne bottle backstage at Wembley, perhaps. but Bollocks to that. If I’m writing my own send-off, we’re going to have a bit of truth, a bit of spit, and a whole lot of polish.
In my hometown of Prestaten, I was vaguely famous for a bit. The local paper might have taken my picture. I could probably get a free pint in the correct pub, provided the landlord was in a good mood and remembered who I was.
In Tokyo, once, we were very famous for about three hours. A thousand Japanese kids sang '68 Guns' back at us with more passion than we’d ever mustered ourselves. It was breathtaking. Then we got on the bullet train to the next city and were just four gormless-looking blokes with bad haircuts trying to order noodles. That’s fame, that is. A beautiful, fleeting, and utterly confusing moment in time.
And for a little while the flags came out. The hair got bigger. We were The Alarm, the band with the pretentious name and the un-ironic love of anthems. We sang about the Spirit of ’76, about strength, about love. And people, remarkably, sang along. We got to be on Top of the Pops. I stood next to David Bowie once and was too intimidated to say anything other than a very quiet “Alright?”. He probably thought I was a roadie.
So what's the legacy of a sweaty git from North Wales who shouted into a microphone for forty years?
Is it the gold discs on the wall? I’ve used one as a coaster for a mug of Bovril, so that feels suitably punk. Is it the songs? Maybe. I still get a proper kick when I hear someone humming Rain In The Summertime in a supermarket checkout queue. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless.
Of course, the universe has a wicked sense of humour. It gave me five goes at dying from Cancer but the cheeky sod picked the wrong bloke. Cancer thought it could have a go, but it didn’t bank on a lifetime of punk rock stubbornness or the sheer bloody-mindedness of a Welshman who hasn’t finished his tour. Bollocks to cancer, I said in 1995, 1996, 2005, 2022 and 2024 before it finally got me in 2025.

Morons Led By Idiots

On Tuesday the Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that: 'Iran would under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon' and then on Wednesday Trump said in his rambling, lie filled speech that military action against the Middle Eastern country could happen soon as: 'We haven’t heard those secret words, 'We will never have a nuclear weapon.'
Now we know that the Fuchsia Fascist isn't the brightest watt bulb and he is distracted by the Trumpstein files in which his names appears thousands of times alongside his one time pedophile best friend but surely he would have someone in his vicinity who could say to him..'Well, actually....'
To think that this is the team who could launch an attack on Iran for any number of reasons, reasons which seem as trustworthy as the Mango Moron being left alone with a woman (or male if the Trumpstein files are to be believed) and all this to make a deal which is going to be the same as the one which was working and he pulled out of previously.  
As for the claim that the attack in June last year 'obliterated the Iranian Nuclear facilities and put them back years', now the Americans are claiming that Iran could be as close as a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material, which is some achievement unless obliterated and years means something else in the American dictionary.
While Iran remain watching the American gunboat diplomacy in action off their coast, Cuba is now back in the Trump wonky eyeline after four Cuban nationals were shot and killed on a US-registered speedboat that entered its waters and opened fire on a patrol boat.
In a statement, the ministry said the 10 passengers on the speedboat, which it claims was registered in Florida, had been living in the US and that: 'According to preliminary statements by those detained, intended to carry out an infiltration for terrorist purposes' and pictures were shown of Assault rifles, handguns and Molotov cocktails among the items seized.
Florida congressman called it 'a massacre' and Florida's attorney general said: 'The Cuban government cannot be trusted, and we will do everything in our power to hold these communists accountable' and probably said that with a straight face while every Irony meter in the World exploded because as it is said 'Americans don't get irony' and saying some other Government is not to be trusted is the actual definition of Ironic.

The Trumpstein Files Fallout

The fall out from the Trumpstein files has been particularly bad for Jeffrey Epstein buddies Andrew and Mandelson who have both been arrested here in the UK while in Slovakia a diplomat has resigned, Sarah Ferguson has been booted out of her own Charities, the former Prime Minister of Norway has been has been charged with gross corruption and the Chairman of DP World has resigned while in the US? Zero, zip, nada.
The largest scalp so far has to be Andrew Mountbatten Windsor who is quite rightly hiding behind seats of cars zipping him between police stations but the Royals have not covered themselves Glory over the whole sordid tale.
Four years ago the thought of this useless liability testifying in a New York courtroom forced them to look down the back of every sofa they owned to raise £12m to shove towards the late Virginia Giuffre’s who was launching a civil case alleging that the former prince abused her on three occasions in London, New York and the US Virgin Islands.
Obviously the senior Royals, including the late Queen, decided that it shouldn’t get to court at almost any cost and hoped that it would shield him and be the end of it and shut down the accusations.
Then the latest bunch of Trumpstein files were released and there he was again with it staring everyone in black and white that he had had been performing misconduct in public office by sending sensitive information to his pedophile buddy, the one he swore he no longer had contact with although he very much still did.
The Royal approach went from one of shielding the massive arse to 'Standing ready to support Thames Valley police' and tagging on that they: 'Remain focused on the victims' although the previous focus seem to be shutting up one of the victims who had the dirt on one of their own.
Andrew himself told Emily Maitlis in that car crash of an interview that he would certainly help US investigators with their Epstein inquiries if asked after the US attorney for the southern district of New York stated that Andrew had offered 'zero' cooperation and the situation remained unchanged.
The Royals found that that doing nothing wasn't working but as calls for the logs and Buckingham Palace guest list to be made public go unanswered, the strategy now seems to be say the right things but still do nothing.
Hopefully the two charges will lead to some kind of domino effect but if you are in America, waiting for one of the main protagonist's in this sleazy and depraved story to get hauled off to a waiting Police Car, you may have a long wait because the man whose name runs through it like a urine stain on a Moscow Mattress, is the one responsible for releasing and redacting them.

Special Guest Blogger: Brian James

If there’s one thing I’ve managed to leave behind besides a trail of broken guitar strings, questionable life choices, and a suspicion that my liver once had a secret identity, it’s the legacy of being the guy who helped start something called The Damned and if you’re scratching your head wondering who I am, don’t worry, I occasionally forget myself. But hey, that’s the price of fame, right?
I’ll be the first to admit it, The Damned didn’t exactly launch with the subtlety of a Shakespearean sonnet. 1976, London, and a bunch of pubescent misfits with safety-pinned trousers and more attitude than a Chihuahua in a dog park.
I was 16, playing guitar in a band named after a swear word (Bastard if you are wondering) , and already delivering a performance so over-the-top, one audience member fainted. Was it the heat? The mosh pit? Or the fact that our drummer had never played drums in his life? Probably the latter.
Prior to The Damned, Vanian, Sensible and Rat Scabies had been members of the band Masters of the Backside with Chrissie Hynde as our singer but we almost had Sid Vicious at the front, but he never turned up for the audition so we went with Dave Vanian instead thankfully.
We were about as professional as a street fight at a bakery but that’s what made us famous in the eyes of the punk press. The NME called us 'the first punk band to play like we meant it' which, in hindsight, was code for 'these kids are rubbish but they’re having fun' and we were and that was when I invented the iconic Damned guitar sound
We were the first punk band from the United Kingdom to release a single, 'New Rose' release a Punk studio album and tour the United States and we toured with the Sex Pistols and the Clash but many of the tour dates were cancelled by organizers or local authorities and to be expelled by the Sex Pistols for being too out of control and when you had those people in your line up it showed just how crazy those times where.
We smashed up hotels before it was at thing, Captain Sensible took to coming on stage naked from the waist down and pissing on the audience and we were banned from British TV for six months after smashing up the set of the The Old Grey Whistle Test.
Rock bands don’t usually go down in history for their harmonized sevenths or their ability to tune an instrument. They go down for the stories. And The Damned? We had stories.
It was said that I made a guitar sound like a cat fighting a washing machine but we did get letters from kids who said that our music got me them through their school exams to which our  reply was 'You’re welcome but maybe revise a bit more'.
You didn’t miss a scandalous rockstar overdose or a fiery plane crash. No, I just died of a heart attack which isn't very punk but after lifetime of mayhem, music, and the occasional questionable fashion choice (leather corsets, anyone?). I never chased fame, I just chased the next gig, the next laugh, and the next pint.
If you ever find yourself wondering what happened to the guy who helped start The Damned, just remember: life’s too short for boring music, and rock ‘n’ roll is just punk with better hair. Now go out there, be a bit of a menace, and maybe learn a power chord or two.

Source Of National Pride

 
Your nationality is merely a quirk of Geography, if I was born 25 miles further South and i would be cheering for France in the World Cup but as i wasn't my passport and driving licence have me down as a British Citizen and i will be humming the Three Lions song all summer.
I asked a couple of lads who were hanging a flag on a lamp-post last summer what made them so proud they had to advertise it from the street furniture and the answer was: 'Well..we are English ain't we' and filled the following silence with '...and we live in England' which was very observant of him and served as a reminder to me just in case i thought I had woken up in Japan that morning.   
When pressed on specifically what made them proud to be from the UK his pal came to his rescue with: 'All the things we invented and winning the wars and stuff' although when asked what invention in particular he replied. 'All of 'em'.
Obviously two people isn't a large large sample size but luckily Pew Research Center did a larger one and asked people from 25 nations what makes them proud to be where they are from.
People in the UK, it found, are most proud of the 'kind and honest people' but being proud of the people you are caught inside your own national borders with was surprisingly high.
Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Spain and Turkey also answered that the thing that makes them most proud are their fellow citizens.
The arts and culture of their nations was top for the French, Italians, Mexicans, while the Greeks, Hungarians, Polish consider their history with a sense of the most pride but it is their system of Government which tick the box for the Germans, Indians and Swedes.
Being proud of their freedoms tops the list for the Dutch and the Americans but for Indonesians it is their country’s diversity and multiculturalism, Kenyans the Peace and safety their country gives them while on the opposite African coast the Nigerians are most proud of their natural resources and South Africans have a special place for their country’s services.
Obviously some nations have much more to be proud of, some not so much, but i hope Pew's next poll asks what are they least proud of which would be much more interesting and it should be noted that in the UK, Religion, Companies, Natural Resources and Food did not get a single mention.

Special Guest Blogger: Ray Reardon

Welcome dear reader. I’m Ray Reardon, six-time World Snooker Champion, notorious for my sideburns, my stare, and my uncanny resemblance to a vampire who’s just been told he’s out of blood pudding.
I was born in Llanelli, Wales, in 1932 before television, before colour, before anyone even knew snooker was a thing people could get paid for. I originally played pool in the local pub, which, funnily enough, was just down the road from my local mortuary. People said that was symbolic. I said it was just poor urban planning.
I became a policeman and for a while, I was out there barking at kids for smoking behind the chip shop and then someone showed me a snooker table, and I thought, Blimey, this is a much softer job than chasing drunks, so I hung up the truncheon and picked up a cue. The rest, as they say, is history.
Six World Championships. Six!
They called me Dracula because of the hair, the sharp cheekbones, the eerie focus. I never denied it. I even bought an off-the-shoulder cape once. Wore it to a post-final press conference.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Snooker wasn’t always glamorous in those days. We played in smoky halls with sticky carpets but despite the surroundings i perfected the art of silent intimidation. While others were laughing, showing off, or doing backflips after a 50 break, I’d just stand there staring. Unblinking. Like a particularly intense owl.
I didn’t need crowd chants or flashy waistcoats, i'd line up my shot and with the crowd hushed, bosh, perfect contact. Ball in pocket. No reaction. Just a slow, deliberate re-chalking of the cue and looking like I’d just escaped from a Hammer Horror film.
Let’s be honest. These days, snooker’s full of lads doing TikTok dances after potting the pink. They’ve got neon cues, earpieces, and haircuts that make mine look like a haystack but where’s the drama? Where’s the brooding silence? Where’s the menace?
I hear that Ronnie O’Sullivan’s breaking my records. Good for him. Honestly. Though I’d like to point out that when I was winning titles, we didn’t have slow-motion replays, sports psychologists, or energy drinks, we had tea, fags, and sheer bloody-mindedness.
But yes, I’m considered a pioneer. A man who helped turn snooker from a pub pastime into a televised sensation. I was famous, all right.
I passed away in 2024, aged 91. Which, for someone who looked like he hadn’t seen sunlight since 1953, is actually quite impressive. I died of old age which, in vampire terms, is like dying of boredom.
There was no grand final. No last dramatic frame. Just me, putting on my slippers and shuffling off.

Better In Than Out

I have long thought that the future of the European Union is one large European nation run along the line of the United States of America and i am certain it will happen at some point.
The 27 strong EU is already an influential and major player on the big Global decisions and it was heartening to hear the president of the European Council, Antonio Costa, announced that expansion remains a strategic priority.
This was said in a meeting with Western Balkan leaders in Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo and members of the European Parliament’s influential Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) travelled to Albania and Montenegro to discuss the entrance criteria and reforms required to join what is already the World's largest single market.
The Treaty on the European Union states that any European country may apply for membership if it respects the democratic values of the EU and is committed to promoting them but the main conditions are  stable institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities, a functioning market economy and the capacity to cope with competition and market forces in the EU and the ability to take on and implement effectively the obligations of membership, including adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union.
Negotiating to join the European Union takes an average of just under ten years although other countries have spent much longer in negotiations, Cyprus and Malta took nearly 14 years to officially join and Turkey started in 2005 and Serbia in 2009 and are still at it so the rules of entering the exclusive club are pretty strict but very rewarding.
As Great Britain is finding out with our moment of mass stupidity that once outside of it, it is MUCH better to be inside it.

Special Guest Blogger: Rick Buckler

It’s a funny old business, this legacy lark. Especially when you were the bloke at the back, the one whose main job was to stop the other two from galloping off into the sunset at 180 beats per minute.
So, pull up a stool. Not a drum stool, mind you. My back can’t take it these days. Let’s have a natter about life, death and the peculiar business of being moderately famous.
People ask me what it was like, being in The Jam at the height of it all. And honestly, most of the time, it was a blur of polyester, perspiration, and the thump-thump-thump of a bass drum vibrating through my entire skeleton. My view, you see, was usually Paul Weller’s shoes and Bruce Foxton’s backside. A fine backside, I’m told, but it’s not exactly the panoramic vista you get from the frontman’s microphone.
We were young, daft, and dressed sharper than a packet of needles. And we were loud. Lord, were we loud. I’d be up there, bashing the hell out of my kit, trying to count us in and out of the songs without losing a limb, and I’d look out and see this sea of parkas and mods, all going absolutely mental. It was brilliant. Terrifying, but brilliant.
You don’t have time to think about your legacy when you’re 22 and trying to remember the fill for ‘In the City’. You’re just trying not to mess it up. For me, the achievement was simply getting to the end of the set without my head exploding. And, you know, getting paid. That was a decent achievement.
Now, being the drummer in a famous band is a peculiar sort of fame. You’re well-known, but you’re not known-known. You’re the other one.
You can be walking down the street, and someone will do a double-take. You see the cogs whirring. They know your face. They know that face. They’ve got it on a poster at home, somewhere between Abba and David Essex.
It’s a weird existence. You get the recognition, the stories, the occasional free pint in a pub where the landlord’s a committed Mod. But you also get to pop to Tesco for a loaf of bread without causing a national incident. It’s the best of both worlds, really. All the glory of having been there, with none of the nuisance of having to wear sunglasses indoors.
So, when did I die? The first time, metaphorically speaking, was in 1982. The day Paul decided to call it a day. Blimey, that was a shocker. It was like being on the fastest, most exhilarating rollercoaster in the world, and then someone hits the emergency stop button and tells you to get off. The ride was over.
And just like that, Rick Buckler the Famous Drummer was no more. He became, well, just Rick. Rick from Woking.
You can’t exactly spend the rest of your days reliving ‘Going Underground’. You’d go spare. So I did what any self-respecting retired rock god would do. I got a job. A proper job as a furniture restorer.
I kid you not. I went from hammering out beats for thousands of screaming fans to painstakingly repairing a delicate Chippendale chair legs. The noise level went down considerably, and the smell changed from stale beer and sweat to French polish and sawdust. And do you know what? I loved it. It was quiet. It was satisfying. You could see the results of your work right there in front of you. You can’t exactly put a perfect three-minute pop song on the mantelpiece, but you can a beautifully restored grandfather clock.
So, the rock star died. And in his place, a slightly baffled man with a passion for wood stain was born but i decided i could actually spend the rest of my days reliving Going Underground and set up a tribute Jam Band with Bruce Foxton and wrote several books about the Band because knocking out a dovetail joint is cool, but being a former rockstar is much more profitable.

Britain Tells USA You're On Your Own This Time

Last week the Chagos Island deal was a good one so said the Americans and this week it is a catastrophic mistake so what happened?
The most orange coloured American President ever asked if he could use the base in Diego Garcia which houses it's B2 bombers to start a war with Iran and Keir Starmer replied: 'Nah, we're not doing this one' and as the base is on British-controlled territory, America can only use them with Britain's explicit permission.
Britain has has been America's accomplice in genuinely awful stuff for decades, acting like a well trained poodle for all of America's dodgy wars over the past few years in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya but Keir Starmer did what Tony Blair never did and said we will need some better justification for bombing a sovereign nation.
Trump took the time out trying to make people forget that he was best buds with a notorious pedophile and probably partook in it himself, turned an even brighter shade of Orange and took his phone in his teeny tiny hands and ranted about how Britain was 'making a big mistake' in not helping him eradicate a highly unstable and dangerous Regime which is the ultimate pot and kettle when it comes to dangerous and unstable regimes.
What the sex pest President was asking Starmer to do was become a partner in a military strike on another nation, without a UN mandate, without a declared state of war, without a clear legal framework so when the bombs drop and Iran retaliates and the whole Middle East goes up like a cheap Aldi barbecue, we get to share the blame so Britain, who ethnically cleansed the land so they could build the airbase i the first place, went: 'Sorry, this one's too dodgy even for us'.
Last year when America attacked Iran's nuclear sites and only succeeded in making some big dents in some mountains, they flew the B-2 bombers directly from the States so they didn't need the UK then so why now and the only reason is similar to George W Bush's push for nations to join him in the Iraq misadventure, the legitimacy of having an ally on side so the optics are of a coalition rather than some suspected pedo starting a war because nuclear negotiations are moving too slowly for his childlike short attention span.
You have to remember that there was a working nuclear plan in place between the USA, EU and Iran before Trump pulled his side out of it and is now trying to use 19th Century gunboat diplomacy to bully Iran into another one or they will be bombed, and once they are bombed so will other places in the Middle East such as Israel as Iran hit out.
Whether the Mango moron attacks, strikes a deal or the whole thing somehow gets walked back, i am proud to say that Britain listened to Trump, and then treated his request with all the respect that Trump treats a Moscow Hotel Mattress,