Special Guest Blogger: Jimmy Carter

When a man in a small town in Georgia says he is going to run for president most people assume he’s either a bold optimist or a prankster. When I announced my candidacy back in 1976, the peanut growers in Plains could barely contain their excitement because a lot of us thought that campaign trail might finally involve a good stretch of blacktop for hauling our harvests to market. Little did I know that the trail I would eventually walk would be a bit messier than any dirt road.
If you ask any kid in the 1970s what a president does, they probably picture a man in a suit, a stovepipe hat, and a silver tongue but in January 1977, while the nation was still wrestling with the aftershocks of Vietnam and the energy crisis, I was sneaking a few bags of peanuts into the West Wing. I’d packed them in a briefcase, hidden beneath a stack of Energy Policy memos, and whispered to the Secret Service that if the world blows up, at least we’ll have a snack.
The Iran hostage crisis left a sour taste in my mouth that no amount of roasted peanuts could remedy. Sixteen Americans held captive for 444 days but in 2002 the Nobel Committee decided that a former president who had never started a war deserved recognition.
When I left office, one of the ideas I carried home was simple, a nation’s power isn’t measured by the size of its military arsenal and I  spent my post-presidential years traveling to places that most presidents would consider off-limits, North Korea, Cuba, the Middle East but I have to mention the elephant, or the orange, in the room.
I’ve never been one for naming and shaming I prefer gentle persuasion, soft-spoken reason, and a steady hand on the plow but when a president turns the presidency into a nation’s version of The Jerry Springer Show, I can't stay quiet.
When I first saw Trump’s campaign rally (a sea of red hats and a man with a hairdo that seemed to have been designed by a wind tunnel), I thought this is a man who sales himself as a sack of peanuts that’s golden, buttery, hand-roasted only to discover that they’re actually raw, unsalted, and have been sitting in a warehouse for three years.
You might think that life after presiding over the free world would be a perpetual carnival of speeches, memoirs, and endless applause but in truth the fact that I never added Bomb Maker to Peanut Farmer on my resume is my highlight and the way i treated my Presidency like a Peanut Harvert, I sowed ideas, watered them with dialogue and weeded out the misinformation, and eventually reaped the results whether they’re sweet or a little salty.

Cut Defence Spending, Not Increase It

He may be on the way out but Keir Starmer today announced a £15bn defence plan but said some infrastructure projects will 'no longer go ahead as planned'.
Maybe it is a good idea that I am not in charge because Defence spending would be way down my list of priorities, to me spending £80bn a year on things to kill people, while scrapping some road and energy projects to fund it is obscene.
In a World where we are spending 2.7% of GDP on weapons to destroy and kill while only 0.5% on Aid to save lives makes me think something has gone very, very wrong with our priorities.

10 Years Of Brexit

The 10 year Anniversary of that toxic Brexit vote has just passed where the country, or rather 52% of us, swallowed the lie that we would be better off outside the European Union rather than it in and learnt the hard way, that we aren't.
The Labour Government, worried that the wounds are still too fresh to open a debate of rejoining the EU, has been slowly realigning ourselves with Brussels with agreements to ease trade frictions, closer regulatory cooperation, security partnerships, selective participation in EU programmes and a gradual unwinding of bureaucratic barriers but know that whatever we agree on, it will always be inferior to full participation in the European Union.
For the United Kingdom, the costs are hard to ignore with persistently weaker growth, lower levels of investment and a diminished capacity to shape the very rules that continue to affect it.
The EU recently made an offer that we could rejoin on the same basis as that when we left but rather than snap their hands off, Labour  saw a still politically sensitive issue and politely turned it down.
At some point we will have to rejoin, the other option is persisting with the current arrangement and the economic stagnation and polls are showing that the rejoiners is outweighing the leavers and the longer we refuse to accept our future is with our nearest neighbours, then the poorer we will be for longer.

Special Guest Blogger: Wayne Osmond

If you’ve ever heard a teenage boy in the 1970s belt out One Bad Apple while wearing a jumpsuit that could double as a parachute, you probably already know me.
If you’ve never heard a teenage boy in the 1970s belt out One Bad Apple while wearing a jumpsuit that could double as a parachute, you’re about to get an exclusive, behind-the-curtain look at the wild ride that was my life.
I was a singer, a brother and the unofficial family spokesman of a family who grew up in Ogden, Utah, the fourth-oldest of nine kids. Our house sounded like a choir rehearsal that had been left on repeat for 24/7.
The bathroom was our first studio. The tiles reflected my voice back at me with the enthusiasm of a supportive audience (or a cheap echo chamber, depending on how you look at it). I remember my first performance which was  a rendition of He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands that left my mother clutching the sink for dear life. She later told me that if a baby had been born that day with that voice, it would have been put up for adoption. I take that as a compliment.
Fast forward to eighth grade and I had discovered the power of a good hair flip and in 1970, I was 15, still figuring out how to tie a tie and me and three of my brothers (Alan, Merrill, and Jay) began singing as a barbershop quartet when our family signed with MGM Records as a white version of the Jackson 5. Suddenly, we were the answer to every parent’s prayer for wholesome entertainment. We were on TV, on tour, and on every family’s ‘70s mixtape.
It’s hard to separate family from business when you’re the Osmonds. We’re basically the musical equivalent of a Swiss Army knife where there’s a tool for everything, but you sometimes end up cutting yourself on the fork.
After the family’s massive commercial in the early 1970s performing a variety of pop genres as teen idols, we transitioned into rock music for several albums and then we split and while some of my brothers went into putting out country music but I decided it was time to step out of the shadow of the Osmond brand and into my own. I recorded Wayne Osmond in 2002, a collection of songs that ranged from heartfelt ballads to a surprisingly catchy disco-rock number called Disco Inferno.
The album didn’t top the Billboard charts but it gave me a chance to sing my own songs, and not have to coordinate choreography with eight other family members but in  1997 it all came to a screeching halt when I was diagnosed with a brain tumor which was successfully treated at the expense of my hearing, leaving me deaf.
I may not have been able to hear it properly but I still played the guitar until 2012 when stroke took away that away and then another fatal one in 2025 which took away everything.

Brilliant Anti-Trump World Cup Chants

It is being said that Dementia Donny is staying away from the World Cup Games, and especially those involving English speaking countries, because of the chants being sung about him.  
White House officials are claimed to be attempting to shield Trump from the hostility on the terraces, particularly from fans of English-speaking nations and he is famously touchy about basically everything from his many, many appearances alongside the other pedophiles in the Trumpstein Files to his obesity and silly hair, so American TV Companies are muting the crowd noise on TV transmissions but that doesn't stop some sneaking through in mobile phone videos, and there have been some crackers in the group stages.
In recent months, he has had to contend with widespread booing whenever he attends major sporting events in America, but this is another level entirely and the English went with the rather crude 'He's Fat, He's got piles and he's in the Epstein Files, Trump's a C*nt, Trump's a C*nt' as well as: 'Trumps just a big fat pedo, Trump's just a big fat pedo' to the chorus of White Stripes Seven Nations Army and the basic to the point 'Orange Pedo Bastard'.
The Australians were a bit more tuneful with their: 'Aussie boys we're on a bender, Donald Trump is a sex offender' but so far the best has to be Scotland.
They began with: 'He’s orange, he’s bald, He likes them 12 years old, Donald Trump, Donald Trump' but they really peaked with the inspired 'Donald's shit his trousers' to the tune of 'Donald where your troosers'.
With a few weeks left i am looking forward to what Football fans came dream up to further insult the almost certain orange pedophile in the White House and find myself really hoping England or Australia make it to the Final to hear them for himself where he is sure to show his bloated face.

Special Guest Blogger: Phrixus

I was born in the kingdom of Boeotia, son of King Athamas and his lovely wife, the cloud-shaped goddess Nephele who was the dream-girl who could summon clouds on demand while Athamas was a solid, if somewhat gullible, ruler who believed anything that glittered.
Enter Ino, the second wife, who entered my life with all the subtlety of a thunderbolt. She was a firebrand, a political operant and apparently had a very specific talent for turning family gatherings into dramas. When she decided that I (and my sister Helle) were a threat to her own children’s inheritance, she promptly commissioned a wicked scheme involving a cursed grain seed. The idea? Starve us to death, then blame it on a divine punishment.
My mother, who could have turned the whole scene into a fluffy white cloud of denial, was forced to flee the kingdom while Ino was setting up the first recorded instance of step-mother sabotage. From a mother who could conjure clouds to a step-mother who wanted to starve you, Greek families were the original drama queens.
When the kingdom’s wheat fields turned into a landscape of wilted ghosts, I found myself in a very precarious situation. The only way out? A ram that could literally fly and this was a golden ram, not a regular one. The fleece was shimmering and the horns were pure gold.
The ram appeared out of thin air (or maybe the gods—see below) and offered us the ultimate upgrade 'Hop on, folks, I’m headed to Colchis' and Helle, my sweet yet clumsy sister, leapt aboard first, full of excitement but i was more cautious.
The ride, however, was not the usual and a gust of wind threw Helle off the back. She fell into the sea, which was later named the Hellespont in her honor, a kind of ancient dedicated to the memory of.
I, on the other hand, clung to the ram’s fleece like a hamster to a plastic ball. The creature swooped over the Aegean, performed a few unasked for barrel rolls, and eventually dropped me on the shores of Colchis.
Colchis, as you may know, is modern-day Georgia and in my day, it was the hottest destination for heroic tourists with sun, sea, and a king who made sure no one left without a souvenir.
King Aeëtes, ruler of Colchis, greeted me with the same hospitality you’d expect from a host who just learned that a golden fleece has been gift-wrapped by a foreigner.
He was a man of refined tastes, he liked fine robes, solid gold thrones, and most importantly a golden ram as a tribute to his ancestral line. When I showed him the fleece left by the animal, Aeëtes accepted.
Now, I’m told that the Golden Fleece later became the centerpiece of the famous Argonautic Expedition with Jason and his merry band of misfits spending years hunting down the fleece, battling Harpies, and solving riddles that would make even modern escape rooms look like child’s play.
But let’s focus on me. My role in the whole saga? The first Golden Fleece supplier and then i settled down ro work as a Shepherd, Wine Merchant but settled on sitting on a hilltop, sipping fermented grape juice, and offering unsolicited life advice to passing travelers and became a footnote in Jason’s epic later quest.

Fridge Socks

The surface of the Sun is 5500°C and i had the misfortune to spend the day in Central London today where the temperature was just a tad under that.
Thankfully the heatwave is due to break this weekend but we still have to make it through the sweaty armpits and sleepless nights to get there but the Red Cross have offered some helpful hints to stay cool, and one of them is wear socks.
People tend to put socks on to keep them warm but the Red Cross say that to keep cool at night during very hot weather, put a pair of socks in the fridge during the day and slip them on your feet before getting into bed.
There is some science behind it apparently because research has shown that putting your feet in cold water is a way of reducing your core temperature so cooling your feet is a good way of cooling your whole body.
I normally put my pillow case in the fridge for an hour before going to bed which gives you a 15 minute window to drop off before it warms up but after a yoghurt related incident i am very careful about it.  
Apart from the new twist of footwear, the Red Cross does have other tips for how to keep cool at night in a heatwave such as sleep on the lowest level of your home due to the heat rising, wear as few clothes as possible and also turn off electrical devices, which can generate heat.
They also say to avoid alcohol and caffeine in the evening, drink plenty of water to stay hydrated and take a lukewarm or cool shower to bring down your body temperature before going to bed although they don't explain if you should wear your socks in the shower cubicle.
Anyway, might be worth a try and you never know, if you are not careful then your feet may smell of Blueberry Yoghurt by the morning.

Special Guest Blogger: Richard Lawrence

If you ever find yourself scrolling through the life of US President Andrew Jackson, you will see it mention that he survived an assassination attempt in 1835 and that’s about as much credit the historical record gives me.
No mention of my dramatic entrance, the spectacular mis-fire of not one but two pistols, or the fact that I was the first person in the United States to ever try and kill a sitting president. It's as if the world has forgotten me.
I was born in 1800 in a modest farmhouse in a small town in England and after emigrating to America, i worked as a painter and decorator and got the reputation of being able to slap a fresh coat of whitewash onto any surface faster than a horse could change direction and my life took a sharp turn in 1824 when I was hired to paint the interior of the local tavern, The Singing Sawhorse.
The tavern’s owner insisted on serving his patrons the finest whiskey in the county and while I worked and one evening, after a particularly generous tasting days work,  I knocked over a barrel of whiskey. It rolled, clattered, and, in a spectacular display of physics, crashed into a candle and the resulting blaze set the tavern’s thatched roof on fire. I spent the next three hours dousing the flames with buckets of water.
That night, as I lay in a straw-filled mattress, I dreamed of Andrew Jackson, the man who would later become president, standing in the middle of the burning tavern, clapping his hands and goading me and I awoke with my heart pounding, my mind buzzing and a lingering scent of brandy.
A few weeks later, while browsing a pamphlet, I read about how President Andrew Jackson was vowing to crush the Bank and thought he must be stopped before he destroys the very fabric of our society.
That was the moment I realized my true calling was not just to add colour to the world, but to remove the colour from the one man who threatened to paint it all grey. And so my mission was born.
I visited the local blacksmith, who also doubled as the town’s gunsmith and bought a pair of flintlock pistols that had been used by a local militia during the War of 1812 but the Blackmith assured me they were still fully functional
On the morning of January 30th, 1835, I boarded a stagecoach heading to Washington, D.C. and I arrived early, pushed my way through a crowd of curious onlookers and took my spot.
When President Jackson arrived he seemed unaware of my presence despite standing  five feet away, doing my best impression of a non-suspicious gentleman.
I raised my left pistol, aimed, and pulled the trigger. Click. The flint mis-fired. I tried again, this time with my right pistol and got another click. The audience gasped, the guards stared, and I was left standing there staring at two dead weapons and Jackson beating me around the head with his cane.
The guards moved in, and I was swiftly escorted out, handcuffed, and escorted to the nearest police station. At that point, I realized that perhaps I’d missed something essential, a functioning gun, and the world’s first presidential assassination attempt was a spectacular dud.
The trial was a circus and the defense attempted to argue insanity and the judge found me guilty but not sane enough to be executed and that began my tenure at the U.S. Public Hospital for the Insane and the rest of my days doing  oddly soothing activities.

Israeli Genocide Deliberately Targeting Palestinian Children

A United Nations report was issued today on the Israeli occupation and continuing genocide in Palestine.
It found that Israeli authorities and security forces are deliberately targeting Palestinian children resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip and war crimes in the West Bank, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory said in a new report today.
The Commission, which already concluded last year that Israel had committed genocide against the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip, found that the intense scale and systematic nature of the Israeli military operations have continued, resulting in unprecedented death, injury and trauma of Palestinian children.
The Commission reiterates that the deliberate targeting of children is one of the key elements establishing genocidal intent of the Israeli authorities and security forces to destroy the Palestinian group, in whole or in part, in Gaza.
'The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces' said Srinivasan Muralidhar, Chair of the Commission. 'Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law.'
They found that Palestinian children have been arrested and subjected to torture and other severe forms of mistreatment in Israeli prisons and detention facilities, with no information on their whereabouts. Israeli security forces have also used sexual violence against children as part of the collective shaming and oppression, entrenched within a prolonged, ethnic, gendered, and intergenerational pattern of Israeli occupation and hostilities.
Israel’s targeting of neonatal and maternity care centers in Gaza have directly harmed the survival of newborns and Palestinians reproductive future, including rises in miscarriages, birth defects and lasting vulnerabilities among newborns, resulting in the destruction of Palestinian newborn life and the population’s continuity. Starvation imposed by Israel through blockade and siege have further caused the death of Palestinian children and severely impacted the health of many others, depriving them of essential nutrition and increasing disease risks amid reduced immunization, food insecurity and destroyed health services.
The Commission has identified military units within the Israeli security forces responsible for killing and injuring of Palestinian children and makes recommendations to Israel and to all Member States to ensure accountability for such crimes.
Criminally, there are still some defenders of Israel despite knowing all that we know and them committing almost every act of the 1948  conventions on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Not as bad as the NAZI's, but definitely in the same division and as well as hunting down the heinous  Israeli leadership overseeing this evil, anyone who has backed and armed the nation should also be held accountable.  

Special Guest Blogger: King Alyattes of Lydia

When you’re a king, you get a lot of time to think and a lot of people to remind you you’re not a god.
I was born in Sadis, the 5th ruler of Lydia which was a city that smelled of sandalwood, fresh figs and the faint hint of future gold and the founder of the world’s first minted money.
My father, King Sadyattes, was a stern man who believed in a strict bedtime and an even stricter treasury in a time when the Lydians had built their empire with swords, but we kept it with money.
In my 20th year I inherited the throne and a mountain of debt. The Lydian economy was a mess of barley-bundles, cattle-cattle, and the occasional promise of goat-skins.
Before money, people had bought things with cows and pigs, which were not very efficient for the purpose because you had to feed them and keep them safe all the time and sometimes they died.
My advisors kept suggesting 'tribute' to offset our debts but the peasants just grumbled and one day i wondered what if we could give people something that isn’t perishable, like these gold rocks we keep finding laying around and i called my Chiefs and said let’s turn this precious metal into something everyone can count.
Thus, the Lydian Lion was born, a gold coin stamped with a roaring lion, a symbol of our kingdom’s strength. I held a grand ceremony, tossed a handful of the new metal into the crowd, and shouted that now they could buy a goat and the crowd went wild and all the goats were sold out in an hour.
Suddenly the Lydians had this money stuff, which was small and easy to keep and you could hide it in a sock under the mattress, which hardly ever worked with cows and pigs. Also, it had little pictures on it, which were interesting to look at. At least, more interesting than cows and pigs anyway.
Money was so easy and convenient and didn’t moo all night, you started saving up for things, and selling things in the nearest market town, and settling down, and not hitting neighboring tribes as often as you used to.
Oh they went on about how much better life was in the old days, before there was all this money and peacefulness around, and how much more enjoyable things were when people used to get heavily armed in the evenings and go out and make their own entertainment but no one was anxious actually to go back there.
So there you have it, I invented money because I was tired of bartering goats for barley and needed a way to keep my treasury from smelling like livestock.
In my 24th year, the Cimmerians, those nomadic warriors who thought sweeping the plains meant stealing your treasury, decided to raid Lydia. My generals suggested a full-scale war, but I opted for a more creative solution. I invited the Cimmerian chieftain to a banquet and told him a story about a king who could turn any enemy into a friend by giving them a shiny coin.
The chieftain, slightly intoxicated, laughed, clapped his hands, and asked for a coin as a souvenir. I gave him a Lion, and he left with a promise never to raid again plus a hangover that made him swear never to cross a Lydian border again.
After the Lion stamped its first round in Lydia, the rest of the ancient world went crazy and the Persians tried to copy our metal but ended up with blunt, square discs that looked more like doorstops than currency and in an effort to keep up with demand, I hired a team of artisans to create different denominations such as a gold Lion for the big-time deals, a silver Electrum for everyday purchases and a bronze spade for peasants buying seeds.
Every great empire has its oops moment. Mine involved a sudden influx of counterfeit coins. A rival city-state, jealous of our mint, started stamping their own versions of the Lion, only theirs looked more like a sleepy cat. The peasants were confused, the merchants got angry, and I, being the diplomatic king I was, hosted a Coin-Swap Festival where everyone could bring in their suspect coins.
Moral of the story is if you can’t beat them, invite them to a party and give them a shiny bit of metal as my little metallic circles changed the world. We’ve gone from barter to coins, from coins to paper, and now people are using bits that you can’t even hold.
My name appears in textbooks as the man who invented money which is flattering and humbling but I never actually invented the idea of exchange, I just made it much more shinier.

Red Heat Warnings

 

Met Office forecasters have issued a rare red weather warning for Wednesday and Thursday in the face of extreme heat and humidity, while a red heat health alert has been issued in England indicating: 'A risk to life for even the healthy population.'
The weather warning covers from Swansea to London and runs from Salisbury up to Birmingham with areas outside this area under an Amber warning.
In force on Wednesday and Thursday, forecasters are saying they expect maximum temperatures to exceed 37C, perhaps rising to 38 to 40C and accompanied by high humidity, exacerbating the potential for discomfort and health impacts, with very warm and humid night times also reducing the ability for people to recover overnight.
The MET Office warning includes the line that: 'Significant disruption to daily life is likely and the public should take every effort to make precautions and adapt their daily routines where possible to cope with these levels of heat, which up to now have been extremely rare for the UK with with substantial disruption to travel, energy supplies and possibly widespread damage to property and infrastructure'.
Friederike Otto, a professor of climate science at Imperial College London, said: 'Our first 40C day was supposed to be a wakeup call, but clearly someone hit snooze. Hitting 40C again, and in June this time, would be incredibly alarming. There’s a sad inevitability to all of this, with scientists like me trotting out the same quotes year after year. Yes it’s climate change, yes it’s us, no it’s not El Niño. Simply put, we remain on a one-way trip towards a more dangerous future, and it’s time we hit the brakes'.
Sadly, the only people who could have hit the brakes have continually failed to do so for decades and this is the inevitable outcome of our own sheer stupidity.

Starmer Out

Here we go again then with Britain ready to have its 7th Prime Minister in 10 years and the new name on the door is widely expected to be Andy Burnham who is almost facing a clear field in his run to 10 Downing Street.
It has been a bit of a wild ride for Keir Starmer who does come across as a very nice man but not a very nice Labour man and though it was the Mandelson Affair which ended him, the writing has been on the wall for quite some time but while he will remembered for his missteps, he did have some successes.
Keeping Britain out of Trumps disastrous war in Iran, the Social Media ban for under 16's, bringing down waiting lists for the NHS and the employee and renter rights were all rightly applauded but i always had the feeling that Starmer wasn't connecting with the general public  and came across as quite bland an uncharismatic although he did say in 20204 when he was elected, maybe what Britain needs is a boring Prime Minister, which is exactly what we got.   
Andy Burnham's plans are not that well known which seems a strange situation for someone about to take the top decisions in Government but whereas Starmer was not Labour enough for the parties Back Benchers, Burnham is making all the right noises at the moment  although what he can do within the Party Manifesto he will have to work under we willo find out soon enough.
As for Britain, Cameron quit in 2016 after losing the Brexit vote,  Theresa May also gave up when she couldnt get her Briexit deal through the House of Commons in 2019, when his party refused to Govern under Boris Johnson in 2022 after it was exposed he was partying (and lying about it) through the Covid crisis he was replaced by Liz Truss who sunk the economy and was swiftly substituted just over a month later for Rishi Sunak who heavilly lost the 2024 to Keir Starmer.
After 717 days he will now be handing back the keys to Downing Street and the nation once again thinks, maybe this time it will work.

Special Guest Blogger: Artemisia I Of Caria

Ahoy, ye land-lubbin’ scribblers and history-snob swabs! I’m Artemisia I of Caria, but call me Arty, nay, wait, that’s too common. How ‘bout The Salty Siren of Halicarnassus? Aye, that’ll do. Ye’re here ‘cause ye’ve heard tales of me, I s’pose, that madcap pirate queen who out-sailed the gods and out-drank Poseidon himself! Well, gather ‘round, ye scallywags, and let me paint ye a portrait of me life with a brush doused in rum.
They say I was born into a royal family. Pfft. Royal? I was the daughter of a petty king who thought strategic alliances meant marryin’ off his daughter to the nearest lunatic with a navy. But let me not bore ye with the boring details! The upshot? I grew up in a sandbox of political chaos, where diplomacy was a code word for steal each other’s treasure and pretend it’s ‘trade.
By the time I was old enough to tie me own laces, I’d learned that power ain’t given, it’s taken with a sword and  Rum solves all problems.
So I did what any self-respectin’ Carian noble would do and I joined the pirate life. Aye, the high seas were callin’ me name, and I answered with a cutlass in one hand and a map in the other.
Now, I know what ye’re thinkin’, ye land-locked parrot, was i any good at this piracy lark? I’ll have ye know I once outmaneuvered the entire Greek fleet while dressed as a man in a too-small tunic. It was excruciatingly itchy.
My ship? The Ship of Destiny, a creaky old tub that looked like it’d sink if ye so much as sneezed on it. But I loved her like a first mate. And love, me hearties, is what made me a legend. When the Persians asked me to join their navy, I thought, Why not? I’ll take their gold, their trust, and then their ships. Classic Arty.
At the Battle of Salamis, I did the near-impossible and saved the Persian Empire while secretly sabotagin’ it. It was a masterstroke. The Greeks? They’re still scratchin’ their heads, wonderin’ how a woman in a man’s tunic managed to pivot their history like a drunk docker at a tavern.
I didn’t become a pirate for the glory. No, no, no. I did it for the free rum, the fire ships, and the excellent view of the chaos.
And don’t get me started on my death.I was kicked in the arse by a man half my size. True story. A rival pirate, jealous of me plunder, ambushed me while I was nappin’ on a rock. I dueled him with a coconut (long story) and lost. But before I croaked, I made sure to steal his hat and wear it to me grave. That’s how a real Pirate goes out, a thief till the end!
So there ye have it, ye rum-soaked bilge rats, me life, me rules, and to tell ye to raise a glass, question authority, and never, ever pass up a chance to dress as a man and lead a fleet into battle.

What Was It For?

In his first term, Trump scrapped the 2015 Obama-era nuclear accord known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action which was in force between 2016 and 2018 and the White House has been on a PR offensive since the details of this deal came out because all it does, at the cost of thousands of lives, is put us back to where we were on February 27th, the day before the ill judged bombing started.
Iran may be asked to reaffirm that it will not acquire a nuclear weapon but then that’s what it's been saying for years anyway and even repeated it during the February talks in Geneva when the Strait of Hormuz was open for shipping and American and Iranian negotiators were discussing a nuclear deal so the question must be what exactly the war was for?
Israel has been gunning for Iran for decades and persuaded Trump that by killing the supreme leader on the first day, it would cause a collapse of the undoubtedly corrupt and highly repressive regime but it has not just survived but has been empowered as it has now discovered the power of controlling a global economic chokehold is a far more usable, and much cheaper, weapon than a nuclear program.
In return for reopening the Strait, the MOU's language says the US will lift its counter blockade of Iranian ports, waive sanctions allowing Iran to earn billions of dollars from exporting oil and start the process of returning billions more to Iran by unfreezing assets that it held abroad.
When they went to war President Trump said the regime in Tehran would fall and told the Iranian people to prepare for a once-in-a-generation chance to take back their country and not long after that he called for its unconditional surrender but what we ended up with is a memorandum of understanding which is an agreement to talk about Iran's nuclear program while handing key inducements for Iran. If the talks progress, the US has said it will lift sanctions and hand over a reconstruction fund for Iran worth at least $300bn.
No amount of White House spin will make anyone think that America and Israel have made any gains from what we had with JCPOA in 2016 and even what we had on February 27th but with Israel and the USA licking their wounds and the thick end of $114 billion of taxpayers money spent, I would guess Iran must be feeling quite pleased about this deal.

Bye Bye Keir

Keir Starmer must be feeling a bit giddy today because Andy Burnham has completed the first step of his journey towards turfing him out and moving his furniture in 10 Downing Street.
The hardest bit done, he know has to find 81 MP's to back him which he already has and win the leadership contest which seems like a foregone conclusion because it is hard to see Starmer emerging from this with the keys to the Black Door still in his pocket.
My problem was Starmer was always that he wasn't Labour enough and Burnham is making big promises to warm all Socialists hearts such as gradually Nationalising water, energy and transport and a massive program of affordable housing.
To say that since they gained power the Labour Party has been a disappointment is an under statement and the latest YouGov poll showed that 37% of the country think there should be a change at the top of Government and we may just get our wish.
I get that after 14 years of ideological right wing nonsense from the Conservatives there was a lot to fix, the inherited economy was dreadful and the services so hollowed out by cuts and austerity that it was never going to be a quick fix and STarmer has done some good things with closer ties to the EU and the recent Social Media ban for under 16's  but otherwise we were heading towards wasting the opportunity to actually do something.
Unfortunately for Starmer, he will be remembered as that guy who led the Labour Party into power after 14 years and then piddled it all away doing very little when he finally got in and then got replaced.   
Labour is a Socialist Party, it should act like it and under Burnham, we can only hope it does.

Special Guest Blogger: Greek Goddess Astraeus

Hello, dear readers or should I say hello judges and lawyers because I’m the the original Goddess of Justice, though I’m reliably informed I’ve since become the chick in the sky with the scales. Blimey.
The Golden Age of Humanity was a riot. I descended from the heavens all wide-eyed and wielding a sword (because nothing says fairness like looking like you’ll slice someone’s head off), determined to make the world a better place. My mission? To root out injustice, balance the scales of morality, and generally act as a very posh morale officer.
My first mistake? Assuming humans would appreciate me.
Imagine, if you will, a Bronze Age village. A man steals a goat. Another man insults a priest. A third man just wants to know why the river’s upstream. My job, I thought, was to intervene, to bring order to the chaos. Instead, I got a crowd of 300 all shouting, 'Sort them out, Astraea'.
Honestly, it was like herding cats and by the time I’d decided the goat needed to be returned and the insults needed to be quantified in livestock, someone had set the village on fire. Justice, I realised, was not a popularity contest.
I tried. I really did. I adjudicated disputes, judged the guilty, and even let my hair down (metaphorically as virgins can’t literally do that, obviously) to mingle with the masses. But then came the Iron Age, and with it, professional injustice and kings who thought fair meant because I say so.
One day,I simply left. Poets say I ascended to the stars in a blaze of glory, transforming into the constellation Virgo. Rubbish. What actually happened? I stormed off. Yes. After a particularly egregious case of a tyrant executing a farmer for thinking incorrectly, I muttered, 'Right, that's it, sod the lot of you' and took the scenic route to the afterlife.  I just departed in the same way that one departs a party when it’s clear no one is paying attention to what you’re saying about the weather.
I gathered my sword, my scales, and my dignity and I marched toward the sky  and thus, Virgo was born, eternally peering down at Earth with the disdain of a goddess who tried to fix the human world and make it fair and failed gloriously.

Learning From Dion's The Wanderer

 I made a weird discovery today while walking along listening to my headphones, my steps matched exactly to early 60's song 'The Wanderer' by Dion and the Belmonts.
When i got in i googled the beats per minute and found out that song was 116 bpm's so stands to reason that other songs at the same rate would also match my walking speed so off i went to Google again and found tonnes of songs so weeded out the ones which would make me stop to push them forward and ended up with a playlist of American Girl by Tom Petty, Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Grandmaster Flash's White Lines, We Will Rock You by Queen, Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana, Should I Stay Or Should I Go by The Clash, Iggy Pop's Lust For Life, Town Calle Malice by The Jam and Megadeth's Symphony Of Destruction.
Apparently a step rate that syncs with 116 bpm is excellent for a brisk, moderate-intensity walk of about 3.5 to 4.0 mph which elevates your heart rate and strengthens your heart, lungs, and endurance while still allowing you to comfortably hold a conversation.
For most people, a general walking pace is about 90 to 105 steps per minute but musically 116 bpm's would fall under the Allegro Moderato (Moderately fast) range which while not an extreme high-energy or frantic speed, it comfortably leans toward upbeat.
All of this i never knew until today so thank you Dion.

A Child Protection Lecture From America????

The American embassy in London has published a notice advising the UK government not to ban social media for the under-16s and the appropriate answer would be who the feck asked you anyway?
Maybe the Americans thought we would appreciate some advice from a nation where the leading cause of death in children and adolescents is gunshot wounds and their answer is not to stop mass shootings in schools and colleges by banning guns like a sensible nation, but hold shooting drills in the classrooms where they practise clambering under their desks.
When the shooter almost made it into the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in April, rather than drag the President out of the room, why not just get him under a desk? It's what they think will protect the American youngsters when someone is rampaging through the school, halls with a military style rifle why not the rank and file of the Government.
We could also go into the sex pest President being almost certainly a pedophile as well who is protecting his child abusing chums in the Trumpstein Files who he knocked around with throughout the nineties so having a nonce at the top of Government isn't exactly screaming child protection.   
Either way, lectures from Donald Trump’s administration about anything should be noted, then quickly dismissed as utter nonsense and never mentioned again because the worst case scenario is that come November he will neutered by his own people in the Mid-Term elections and will limp to the next Election in 2028 as lame as his boasts that he beat Iran in his latest debacle or the many online doctors are right and he will not even make it that far as he is not so much knocking on Deaths door but standing in Death's hallway discussing the coat stand.

Special Guest Blogger: Barbara Payton

If you’ve heard my name, it’s likely been whispered with a sympathetic cluck of the tongue or, more likely, a lascivious gasp. I’m the cautionary tale, right? The blonde bombshell who lit up the silver screen for a hot minute and then spectacularly combusted. The girl who had it all and then frittered it away on men, booze and a series of decisions so daft they’d make a reality TV producer blush.
And you know what? They’re not entirely wrong. It was a bit of a carry-on but they miss the best part that it was quite often a bloody good laugh.
Let’s start at the peak, shall we? Hollywood in the late ‘40s. The Studios owned you, body and soul. They told you what to wear, who to date, and what to think. They looked at me and saw a set of cheekbones that could cut glass and a certain rebellious sparkle. I was their next big thing. Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, with the divine James Cagney. I was a contract player at Paramount, a bonafide starlet. It was all very glamorous and utterly exhausting.
Then came the men. Oh, blimey, the men. The history books love a good scrap over a dame, and I gave them a humdinger. Franchot Tone and Tom Neal. Two handsome, successful actors who decided the best way to win my affections was to beat each other to a pulp in a street. Honestly, chaps, was all that necessary? All that over a silly girl from Minnesota who was just trying to find a decent gin house in this town? It was romantic, I suppose, in a ridiculously Neanderthal way. Franchot won the fight and my hand in marriage. Tom got a suspended sentence and a starring role in my next film. See? Everyone’s a winner.
That, my dears, was the turning point. Not the fight itself, but the fact that my life had become more interesting as gossip than as cinema. The public didn’t want to see me act, they wanted to watch the real-life drama. And who was I to disappoint?
This is where my so-called fall from grace, kicks in. They talk about the alcoholism, the dead-end roles, the arrests for shoplifting and, yes, prostitution. They paint a picture of a broken woman, a ghost haunting Sunset Strip before she was even a proper ghost.
And yes, my fondness for a martini (or five) before lunch turned out to be a rather poor long-term career strategy. My bank account started to look less like a vault and more like a sad, empty teacup. So, I made some money on the side, and on my back, and all fours for men who were willing to pay me. A girl’s got to eat, hasn’t she? I was always a terrible businesswoman but there’s a certain freedom in hitting rock bottom. Once you’ve sold your mink coat for a fraction of its worth and spent the proceeds on a bottle of hooch and a packet of fags, you stop caring what the gossip columns say.
I wasn't a cautionary tale, that’s so dreary, my real legacy isn’t in a dusty film can,  it's in the glorious, messy, human truth of it all. I loved too hard, drank too much and made mistakes with the enthusiasm of a puppy chasing its own tail but I wasn't a victim, I was a participant.
Which brings me, rather unceremoniously, to the end which was of heart and liver failure aged 39 which frankly was a bit of an anticlimax after all the drama. The final curtain fell with a whimper, not a bang.

Israel The Fly In Any Peace Ointment

As i never tire of saying, Israel treat ceasefire's with the same respect that Donald Trump treats Moscow Hotel mattresses but as the warmongering Orange bell-end is discovering, war is Israel's favourite pastime.    
It was no coincidence that just as the Americans and Iranians were within touching distance of a ceasefire agreement, Israel decided to bomb Beirut once again, hoping that the Iranians would react and the whole ceasefire talk would come to a shuddering halt but Trump was desperate for a exit ramp to this debacle and apparently yelled down the phone at Netanyahu to halt his killing in Lebanon.
We are yet to hear the full details of exactly what is in the peace deal but Iran are shouting they won and America are doing the same but it is hard to see what America has gained from the 104 day war that wasn't on the table when the war started.
The main line is that Iran agreed to not having nuclear missiles but they didn't have any anyway and Israel have been saying for decades that they are weeks away from building one and every American President treated that with the disrespect it deserved until Israel found the perfect idiot sat in the White House to believe them.
Israel are saying today that the deal which stipulates that all fighting in the region must stop, including between Israel and Hezbollah, is: 'Bad for Israel and for the entire free world' and says Israel: 'Will have to continue the campaign to bring down the regime ourselves and ensure that Iran never acquires nuclear weapons' which raises the question that if that conflict flares up again, will Iran then target Israel and if so, will the US retaliate against Iran or will Washington leave Israel to fight that one on its own?
Israel's defence minister is also saying that its forces intends to stay in Lebanon and it is as plain as the bloated stomach on Donald Trumps obese body that Israel will attack again once the ink is dry on the agreement and for one obvious reason.
Wanted War Criminal Netanyahu is been under pressure to keep it going because he is facing elections in a few months' time which opinion polls suggest will see an end to his time in office and increase the likelihood of him being jailed on corruption charges, so he is gambling that portraying himself as a war time leader, protecting Israel's security, increases his chances of political survival so people will die in Gaza and Lebanon to keep him out of jail as he sees it.

Well Done Labour For Under 16's Ban

Well done to the MP's in Parliament who have finally done something about the Social Media platforms who, as the Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, said yesterday: 'Have had more than enough time to act on social media safety for teenagers'.
Calling Australia plus, the policy bans all under-16s from all the main social media platforms and prevented from chatting with strangers on platforms not covered by the ban, such as gaming apps, as well as live-streaming and it is down to the platforms to be responsible for enforcing it and overseen by Ofcom.
The broad support across the political spectrum means that regardless of what happens to Keir Starmer in the upcoming weeks, it will go ahead but the big question is how will it be measured to be a success or failure?
The Australian model showed that in the immediate rollout of the ban, platforms restricted or closed approximately 4.7 million accounts belonging to teens under 16 so that could be taken as a win but is it purely down to the numbers or an increase in positive mental health outcomes or less time under 16s spent on their phones?
Social Media have had their own way for far too long and have actually backtracked on online safety and reduced oversight into what gets posted so well done politicians who are doing something to protect under 16s which is a darn sight more than the media platforms ever did.

Special Guest Blogger: Memphis Minnie

They called me a pioneer, an icon, a trailblazer for female musicians. It’s terribly flattering, of course, but it also makes me want to laugh until my corsets pop. A pioneer? Good heavens. I was a woman with a guitar and a rent to pay. Pioneering was for chaps with silly beards and maps of places they had no business being. My only map was the one on the back of a Greyhound bus ticket, and the only place I had business being was any stage that would have me.
They like to talk about my humble beginnings. That’s a polite way of saying I was born in a ditch, more or less, in Algiers, Louisiana. My dear old papa was a sharecropper, which is a fancy word for farming someone else’s land for the privilege of not starving to death. Fun times.
I was the eldest of 13 children The first thing I ever got that was truly my own wasn’t a doll or a pretty ribbon. It was a guitar. A beat-up, six-stringed bit of wood with a neck like a bent spoon.
People get terribly misty-eyed about me running away with the circus when I was thirteen. They paint it as a grand, romantic adventure. It wasn't. It was loud, it smelled of elephants and the pay was almost non-existent but I learned a few things. I learned how to sing over a lion's roar, how to sleep on a moving wagon without falling off, and most importantly, how to make a racket that people would actually pay a nickel to hear.
Then came Kansas City Joe McCoy. Bless his cotton socks. Oh, we made a beautiful racket together, didn't we? They called us The Kansas Joe & Memphis Minnie Show. It was a merger, really. I’d write a song, he’d sing it and then we’d go out and charm the socks off a room full of tired factory workers and dubious-looking characters. I wrote 'Bumble Bee' for him. A little tune about being sweet on someone.
They talk about my thumping style, how I played that guitar like it owed me money. B.B. King, a lovely chap, once said I was the best guitarist he’d ever heard. Fine praise from a man who could make an instrument  weep.
But the part that truly tickles me is 'When the Levee Breaks'. I wrote a little ditty about a rather damp and unpleasant experience. A spot of inclement weather, you might say. A flood. Ruined a perfectly good pair of shoes which brings me to the grand finale. The curtain call. My tragic end. Let me assure you, it was nowhere near as dramatic as they make it out to be.
I’d been ill for a while and my body was giving up the ghost long before the ghost was ready to leave. I was in a nursing home in Memphis after a series of strokes and i went from a young, energetic woman who recorded over 200 songs to to a cranky old woman in a bed, and the next thing, I wasn't even that.

Well Done Scotland Fans

Due to the time difference, i have only seen a couple of the World Cup matches so far but thankfully all the England games are at a decent enough evening time so that works out fine for us in the red and white part of the windswept island off the coast of France.
Something i have noticed is some very boring football kits so far although there isn't much you can do with a nations kit i guess as they tend to be either one or two block colours although the Croatian one does always catch the eye as it reminds me of a red and white tablecloth but from what i have seen in pictures, the Norwegian home kit is by far the winner.
As a fellow British nation it is nice to see Scotland get some points but the crowds of other countries will have to go some to beat the absolutely brilliant chants they sung out around the  Boston Stadium to the tune of 'Donald Where's Your Trousers' but the words changed to 'Donny's shit his trousers' and ‘He’s fat, he’s bald, he likes ‘em twelve years old, Donald Trump, Donald Trump’.
I can't see Scotland going very far in the competition but they have given me my favourite moment so far.

Trump Birthday Message

Billy Joel sang 'Only the good die young' and i don't know if that is true but today is Donald Trumps 80th Birthday so read into that what you will but Stalin was 74 when he died, Idi Amin 78, Robert Mugabe 95, Augusto Pinochet 91, Pol Pot 72, Kim Jong Il 70 and Ceausescu 71, Ariel Sharon 85 and the warmongering Genocide committer Benjamin Netanyahu is 76 and still going so Billy could have been on to something.  

It is traditional to not say bad things about someone on their birthday so for once i am not going to mention him almost certainly being a pedophile, his morbid obesity, his sexual assault and fraud charges, his warmongering, terrible business acumen or even how he is turning America into a laughing stock because it's the guys birthday and we just don't do that so none of that here today.
Instead, i am going to hand the floor over to the brilliant Greta Thunberg who has written a magnificent birthday message to the 47th President.
'My initial thought was to give you a one-way ticket to The Hague as a birthday gift, but that comment would probably go above your head. I will instead give you a can of alphabet soup; the sentences you poop out will be more coherent than anything you have ever said. Now you can finally take part in meaningful public discourse'.
See, that's nice, she wants to give him something to eat for his birthday, such a thoughtful young lady.

Special Guest Blogger: Greek Goddess Hera

So. Here I am. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here. Well, one gets bored. One has eternity to reflect. And let me tell you, when you have an infinite amount of time to think about your life, you start to notice things. Mostly, you notice what an absolute shambles the whole operation was.
My name is Hera but you might know me as Juno if you prefer the Roman interpretation, a bit more stoic, a bit more concerned with drainage and aqueducts, but essentially the same Queen of the Heavens. Goddess of Marriage, Women, and Childbirth.
Honestly, the reputation is a touch unfair. A bit of a hatchet job. They forget that I was, in essence, the CEO of a family-run, multi-universal corporation, and my husband was,well, Zeus.
Where to even begin with Zeus? Imagine the most charismatic, powerful, and utterly untrustworthy man you’ve ever met. Now give him the ability to turn into any animal he fancies and a thunderbolt. That’s my husband. Our marriage wasn’t a union of souls, it was a permanent crisis. My daily job was less about weaving the fabric of destiny and more about paternity tests, damage control, and trying to stop my brother-husband from procreating with the entire Mediterranean livestock population.
A swan, he said. It was for art, he said. Leda, apparently, was thrilled. I was not. Do you have any idea how much paperwork is involved when your husband incarnates as a bird and fathers a set of twins? Then there was the bull with Europa. The golden shower for Danaë. Let me tell you, when your husband’s primary method of seduction involves fraud, bestiality and what can only be described as meteorological financial crime, you’re entitled to get a little tetchy.
And yes, alright, I may have taken it out on the subsequent offspring. Heracles. He strutted about so sending a couple of snakes to his crib was a perfectly reasonable response in my opinion but what would you do if the man who swore to honour and cherish you kept bringing home illegitimate demigods by the dozen?
I was quite proud of my imaginative punishments. Io turned into a heifer, Leto chased across the earth so she couldn’t give birth, poor Semele burnt to a crisp. It all sounds a bit dramatic but someone had to be the adult in the room.
I was the one who had to enforce the rules. I was the one who championed women and not by simpering and encouraging them to be all soft and lovely, but by showing them what happens when you let a man run amok.
I guided the hands of midwives. I blessed the unions that were actually based on love and respect so I wasn’t just about tearing things down, I was about building strong, stable Zeus free families.
My end was a gentle, almost insulting, retirement as one day, the prayers stopped coming. Not all at once. They just thinned. The grand temples became dusty tourist spots and the offerings went from whole burnt oxen to a few wilting flowers and a fiver for the collection box.
Olympus grew quiet and the ambrosia started tasting a bit stale. We were still gods, of course. Immortal. But we were gods on a pension,  a profoundly boring ending imaginable.

39th Time Lucky For Peace Deal

For the 39th time, Donald Trump has announced that a peace deal with Iran is imminent and for the 39th time Iran said not so fast Fatso and the whole thing grounds to a halt and they start threatening each other again.
The Mango Mussolini in the White House said that the U.S. is close to signing 'a great settlement with Iran' which will be signed 'over the next few days' which will result in 'Iran agreeing to never developing a nuclear weapon'.  
Iran for their part have said that the Iranian negotiating team have dismissed reports that a deal is ready to be signed and is a complete lie and completely untrue and as Trump lies as easily as he breathes and Iran wouldn't admit to a peace deal, it is hard to know who to believe but if you have been wrong 38 times before, i'm tending to go with the Iranians.  
Trump has been looking for an Exit from the war he and Netanyahu started almost from the first day when Iran didn't buckle under and fought back and 3 months later here we are still with missiles still zinging around the Middle East and the Strait of Hormuz still shut but when the deal is eventually signed, and it will have to be one day, it wont be better than the JCPOA deal Trump carelessly tore up in 2018.
Much will be said about Iran not ever having a Nuclear Weapon but they were not going to anyway, on the very day the invasion started the Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, said that: 'Iran would under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon' which means that the last 3 months would just get us back to where we were when America attacked Iran during the negotiations.    
The reason for the sudden keenness to wrap things up seems to be that Trump is meeting Europeans at the G7 Summit in France next week and will meet up with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz who have all criticised the U.S. and Israel for their highly iffy war and he wants to avoid all four reminding him that said it would be a mistake, and it has been a catastrophic one.

Space X Shares

My husband has long discussed buying shares in something and leaving them until we retire and he was mulling over Space X which launched today at £100.07 ($135) per share and when he asked me for my thoughts because i am into all things Space related, i replied that i would be more interested if Elon Musk wasn't involved because he is a complete dick.
Financial experts are saying that the shares are overpriced at £100.07 but on release they are expected to go up to as much as £141 driven by massive hype before settling down to what they consider it to be it's real price of around £47 per share.
I asked a Financial Agent who is on top of these things and he said to hold fire as Space X is tens of millions in debt and lost billions last year and are already billions down for this year already and did post a warning that  it 'may not achieve profitability in the future' so don't touch it.
Not that i disbelieved him but i asked Ai anyway and it came back with the pluses being it has massive growth potential with its Starlink satellite network and is the front-runner in modern commercial space exploration but the minuses are it is hugely in debt and the shares are hugely overpriced so pretty much what our guy said anyway.
I did buy some 'pretend shares' worth £1676 in January acting on Ai's suggestions to see if i trust it enough for next year and buying 'actual' shares and halfway through the year I am £466 up, which is nice. 

Special Guest Blogger: Queen Jadwiga

Hello, lovelies. Jadwiga here. Yes, that Jadwiga. The one they called ‘King’ of Poland. And, if the gossip mills are to be believed (and they usually are), a saint. It’s all a bit of a kerfuffle, frankly,
Let’s start with the title, shall we? It’s the first thing everyone gets wrong. They called me ‘Jadwiga Król’. ‘King Jadwiga’. Not Queen, you understand. King. A bold fashion statement for a ten-year-old, I’m sure you’ll agree. Imagine it. One minute you’re in Hungary, perfecting your curtsy and trying not to get jam on your best gown, the next you’re being shipped off to Poland to be the absolute monarch. The crown was dreadfully heavy. It kept slipping over my ears.
The coronation was a whole palaver. All these formidable lords with beards you could lose a small badger in, kneeling before a child who was mostly concerned about whether they’d serve plum tarts at the feast. They’d debate matters of state for hours, and I’d just be there, thinking, 'When will these werido's shut up'.
Being Queen (or King) wasn’t so much about wielding ultimate power as it was about learning to look incredibly thoughtful while, in reality, you were deciding which pony to ride later.
Then came the marriage to my darling, lumbering, pagan Lithuanian. History frames it as a grand union, a masterstroke of diplomacy that joined the crowns of Poland and Lithuania. And yes, it was. But let me tell you, from my perspective, it felt less like a fairy-tale romance.
Our first conversations were a riot. He spoke Lithuanian, and a smattering of Ruthenian. I spoke Polish, Hungarian, Latin, and a decent amount of French. It was the United Nations in a single bedchamber. We communicated mostly through pointing, exaggerated gestures, and the helpful translation of a monk who looked permanently terrified.
Lovely man, Jagiello. A bit rough around the edges, but he had a good heart. And he did bring Lithuania to the party, which was quite the coup. I just had to spend the next few years teaching him not to wipe his boots on the curtains.
The Saint Jadwiga thing was a terrible misunderstanding, blown out of all proportion.
Take the ‘miracle of the shoe’, for instance. The story goes I gave a poor artisan my velvet slipper so he’d have something of value to pawn. He carved its likeness into stone, it was declared a relic, and voilà, one step towards sainthood. The reality? It was a perfectly good shoe! It’s hardly turning water into wine, is it? It’s basic footwear redistribution.
Then there’s the black cross on the church wall. I apparently prayed before it so fervently that it embedded itself into the stone. Medieval stonework was notoriously shoddy, damp and porous but i did help people by founding hospitals, giving to the poor, restoring the university. But not because I was aiming for a halo. It just seemed polite. You see a kingdom that needs a bit of a boost, a university that’s seen better days, you roll up your sleeves and get on with it. It's common decency, not a fast track to celestial acclaim.
My death wasn't my finest hour, I’ll admit. After all the political intrigue, the royal mergers, I went the way so many women did back then, through childbirth.
Our daughter, Bonifacia. A beautiful little thing but she was, to put it mildly, a stubborn arrival. She took her time, and in the process, did a rather significant number on my internal arrangements. It was all a bit undignified, I can tell you. A far cry from the majesty one is supposed to cultivate. I was 25. Far too young to be handing in my notice.

Ai Saying Spain To Win World Cup

In times past, when we wanted to know which team would win the World Cup, we have turned to creatures such as Paul the Octopus to tell us what would happen but now we have an Ai algorithm from TU Dortmund University, Molde University College and TU Munich who have collaborated to forecast the entire World Cup and it has predicted the most likely course of the tournament and the most likely winner based on an algorithm of the combined strengths of the squads, FIFA ratings, individual players, the teams results over the last eight years and other information about the teams such as the probabilities for the number of goals for each team.
It used these variables and simulated each match 100,000 times to determine the tournament’s most likely course and arrived at the eventual winners binge Spain with a winning probability of 14.5%, closely followed by England and France, each at 12.4%, Germany at 11.2% and Portugal 8.9%,
It's not looking good for the nations with home advantage with the United States only having a 1% chance which is better than Mexico and Canada who both have a 0.6% probability of lifting the trophy.
Before you go rushing out to whack your months wages on Spain based on the information, the same algorithm did predict the 2019 Women’s World Cup winners would be USA but missed out on the 2022 men’s World Cup although they are saying that the algorithm now is more refined and although i do expect it to be a bit more accurate than an eight-limbed mollusk, i'm sticking with the eventual winner coming from either Argentina or Brazil based on the heat and humidity knackering the chances of the European teams.
In my works sweepstake I pulled the Netherlands (5.6%) and Japan (1.3%) and i don't need AI to tell me that's my £4 done but the Bookies favourites are Spain and and then France and England which would be handy if England gets the final because then we would avoid the usual 'Who do we support now?' dilemma once we are knocked out.

Are We Ready To Know What’s Out There?

Steven Spielberg's Disclosure Day is released today and is being called the third act of the Spielberg Alien trilogy after Close Encounters and ET but this one is about exposing the government's cover-up of extraterrestrial secrets, a well trodden conspiracy theory which began in 1947 when a UFO supposedly crash in Roswell, New Mexico.
After both of the previous films, there was a dramatic increase in reported UFO sightings and we can expect more this time also and in 2021 a US government report was released that showed they had investigated decades of unexplained aerial sightings in US airspace and there were 20 unidentified flying objects that they are unable to explain but did not rule out rule out extraterrestrial activity as a possible explanation.
What i always tell people getting over excited about aliens visiting is that what they are talking about is UFO's with extra emphasis, italics and underlining of the Unidentified part of those three words but Spielberg himself has said that there is now a critical mass of people fascinated with the question of whether we are alone in the Universe, and if someone knows we're not alone, why haven't we been told but i wonder if aliens do exist, should we be told and if we were, how would we react?
In February, former president Barack Obama said aliens were real before hastily clarifying that he hadn’t seen any evidence but then, would he tell us anyway?
In HG Wells’ classic sci-fi novel The War of the Worlds, alien arrival prompts societal collapse as people flee from cities and in Carl Sagan’s novel Contact, the existence of aliens sends religious groups into mass panic and History is littered with examples of new information about our place in the Cosmos not going down well.
Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for his theory that every star was a sun and had it's own planets, Galileo Galilei was sentenced to permanent house arrest for saying the Earth was not the center of the Universe and Nicolaus Copernicus only avoided a similar fate by releasing his heliocentric model theory by dying very soon after.
My own view is that Aliens MUST exist because there are just far too many planets in the Universe where life could have started but do i believe they are coming here in Spaceships and a Government has covered it all up?   
No i don't as the sheer distances involved would make it unfeasible but i live in hope that one day something other worldy might turn up and asked to be taken to our leader and that would start the argument how who exactly the leader would be because there are a few at the moment who if they met, would lead to them to decide to go ahead with the Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy solution of demolishing the Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass.

Special Guest Blogger: Anthony Head

It was a bout of pneumonia that reminded me how much I miss the simple pleasure of inhaling fresh air after a life of flitting between coffee commercials, vampire slayer support groups and an ill-fated bid for the TARDIS.
It was the early 80s and British television was on the look out for fresh-faced lads with a decent accent and an unsettling ability to stare intensely into a camera for half a minute and so enter Nescafé and half of the the Gold Blend couple.
The ad ran for 12 installments over two years and introduced me to the viewing public while it was performing backing vocals for the synth pop band Red Box which introduced my rich Baritone vocal delivery.
As i was a serious actor type and was becoming known as 'The Gold Blend advert guy', i moved to America and got a call from Joss Whedon, the American writer who was looking for an English actor to play the part of Rupert Giles, a librarian turned vampire wrangler and my audition was me delivering a proper Shakespearean monologue but i later found out that that I got the job due less to my acting chops but conveniently looking like a credible librarian and sounding terribly British.
I spent 7 seasons as a pretend librarian which was generally a paid hobby for bookworms who enjoy shushing toddlers and pretending to care about the Dewey Decimal System but it does take some skill to be the only grown up in a group of teenagers surrounded by pre-digital tomes and hex bags and deliver the line: 'Buffy, you can’t just go around sucking people’s blood for fun' and looking serious while you brandish a crossbow and explain that saving the world was not a valid excuse for missing third period history.  
Shortly after Buffy ended, I was approached by Matt Lucas and David Walliams, who were in the throes of creating the Little Britain phenomenon and needed someone who looked like a Politician for their show and I took the part, mostly because a stint as a comic politician would stop me being called Giles from Buffy for the rest of my life after it had replaced the Gold Blend Guy stereo type.
Coffee commercials, vampire librarians, parody politics and a dash of synth-pop backing vocals but i was hoping my next adventure would be aboard a TARDIS and in the early 2000s the job was up for grabs so I auditioned for the Eighth Doctor but they decided to go with Paul McGann instead.
Reflecting on one’s legacy is a treacherous business. Most people want to leave behind a foundation, a scholarly breakthrough but I, on the other hand, spent the better part of a decade trying to ensure the apocalypse didn't show up on a School day.
I later played the King Uther Pendragon in Merlin so making the leap from mild-mannered librarian to tyrannical King of Camelot which is some pivot  but my professional life was a blur of stage plays, television sets, and the occasional musical episode where I had to sing about my feelings to keep the apocalypse at bay so not a bad career even if it that’s swerved through more dramatic U-turns than a London taxi driver on a Saturday night which will give the obiutuary writers frantically googling my IMDb page a headache but it was all a blast all told and I single-handedly made instant coffee seem like the height of romantic intrigue, navigating a love affair one brew at a time.

World Cup Already A Farce

Only a few more sleeps until the World Cup despite FIFA trying to ruin it with their extortionate ticket prices and handing it to a nation sliding quickly in Fascism.
In 2017, when the World Cup was first awarded to the USA, Canada and Mexico, Fifa chief suit, Gianni Infantino, said: 'It’s obvious when it comes to Fifa competitions, any team, including the supporters and officials of that team, who qualify for a World Cup need to have access to the country, otherwise there is no World Cup' and as it stands, Iran will compete although the Mango Moron wanted them replaced by Italy, though the can only participate under specific visa conditions such as when playing their group games in Los Angeles and Seattle, players must enter and leave the USA soil the same day while team support staff have been denied entry altogether.
Iranian fans though, according to their nation’s football association, are not even allowed that and have had their ticket allocations pulled but it is not just teams, staff and fans that are being restricted.
Omar Artan, one of Africa’s top referees has been denied access to the USA and was refused entry at Miami airport and Iraq striker, Aymen Hussein, was held and questioned for nearly seven hours at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, while the team’s photographer was barred from entering following checks on his phone found messages that were not very nice about the thin Orange skinned Fuehrer currently making his nation a laughing stock again.
Members of the Senegal national team were forced to undergo detailed bag inspections on the airport tarmac immediately after landing in San Antonio, Texas and elsewhere, Uzbekistan’s squad were searched by drug-sniffing dogs at their training camp in New York.
So with players, referees and fans denied visas and the specter of ICE raids on stadiums, the World Cup is bound to descend into an absolute farce and everyone outside of the USA cheering for Paraguay, Australia and Turkey wins against the hosts and the brilliant prospect of the USA being knocked out of their own competition at the first opportunity, hopefully.  

Here We Go Again?

As the Calendar ticks over to the 101st Day of the Iranian war which was only meant to last a few weeks, it appears that Iran's military has not been as 'totally destroyed' as Trump said because Iran launched barrages of missiles and drones towards Israel as it promised it would if Israel attacked Beirut.
Israel have always seen the phrase 'ceasefire' as a reason to not cease firing at all and during the ongoing ones with Lebanon and Gaza, the death toll continues to grow, UNICEF put the figures as 1,000 in Gaza since that ceasefire was declared and hundreds of children have been killed in Lebanon.
The latest spark was when Israel was just minding its own business, casually breaking the ceasefire as usual when Iran decided to strike back for no reason, we can only assume it was either antisemitism or because Israel sent rockets into two high rise residential blocks in densely packed civilian areas in Beirut (aka Hezbollah strongholds) killing and wounding civilians, including six women and children who may or may not have been terrorist leaders.  
Iran fired their barrages into Israel although Israel said most of the incoming rockets were intercepted by those air defences that Americans taxes are paying for despite the war raising the costs of everything Stateside, so you may find paying much more for everything Americans but those missiles to defend a country committing a genocide are not cheap.
Iran did say they planned to launch a full week of continuous strikes on Israel which outraged Donald Trump who was shocked that another country just decided to bomb another one, very much not what Israel and America would do.
Thankfully no casualties were reported in Israel or following the Israeli retaliation strikes in Iran but it all stopped when Trump demanding both sides agree to another ceasefire because they usually work out so well when Israel is involved.
Today it was announced that Iran shot down a US helicopter which was just flying around off the coast of Iran and Trump is now saying that the US must, of necessity, respond to this attack which opens the door for a second round of the Iran War and missiles flying around the Middle East once again .
What has not yet sunk in into Trump's dementia riddled brain is that Iran did not back down during the last onslaught and will be unlikely to back down this time either so here we go again in the long running Trump's 'Distract from me being exposed as almost certainly a pedophile' War he started but seems unable to end.

Special Guest Blogger: Greek God Pollux

Son of Zeus, one half of the Dioscuri, an Argonaut, and, if we’re being perfectly honest, a bit of a legend in the pugilistic circles of ancient Greece. It’s not easy being a Greek god, you know. There’s the smiting, the thunder, the endless family dramas… it’s all a bit of a palaver. Most people think it’s all nectar and ambrosia, but let me tell you, the ambrosia plays havoc with one’s digestion.
To understand my story, you must understand my other half, my brother, Castor. The handsome, brilliant, wonderfully mortal one. You see, our mother, the lovely Leda, had a rather eventful evening. First, her husband, Tyndareus. Then, a few hours later, Daddy Dearest himself, Zeus, who had popped in for a chat disguised as a swan. (A swan. Honestly.)
Long story short, Castor and I were born as twins, but he drew the short straw in the divine paternity lottery. I got the immortality, the godly strength, and a natural affinity for perfect hair. He got mortality and a frankly dreadful sense of direction. We were thick as thieves, of course. We did everything together. We learned to ride, to hunt, and most importantly, we learned to throw a punch but not having the usual Godly pedigree, he couldn’t just mix with the Gods in Heaven, who are notoriously snobbish about such things.
Boxing wasn't just a brutal pastime for me. It was an art. A dance. While other chaps were all brawn and aggression, flailing about like they’d stumbled into a hornet’s nest, I was all about technique. Footwork is everything. It’s the difference between a glorious victory and getting a black eye and a swollen nose. I was the original featherweight of the divine world,  quick on my feet, dazzling in my movement, and with a right hook that could, quite literally, knock a god into next week.
Then came the call for the big one. The Quest for the Golden Fleece. Jason, bless his cotton socks, was putting a crew together. The Argo. A lovely little ship, but the onboard catering was an absolute nightmare. I signed up, of course. Castor came too. Someone had to keep an eye on him.
Looking back, it was like the world’s most chaotic stag do. You had Heracles, flexing his muscles and complaining and Orpheus, strumming his lyre and getting all morose and then you had us, the twins, the poster boys. We were the ones who kept the ship’s morale up with a spot of sparring and witty banter.
We had scrapes, of course. The Harpies, a gaggle of dreadful winged women with the table manners of a pig. The Clashing Rocks, which were a navigational nightmare but we got through it because at the end of the day, when things got pear-shaped, they knew who to call. The son of Zeus.
Life, as they say, is a series of matches. You win some, you lose some. And then there’s the one that ends your career. For us, it was a spot of bother over some cattle. A very silly, very tragic squabble with our cousins, Idas and Lynceus. One thing led to another, a few punches were thrown, and well, it all went a bit tits up.
Castor, sweet, mortal Castor, took a fatal blow and in that moment the world just stopped. I was a Greek god, yes, but I was also a twin and half of me had just been KO’d for good.
There I sat there, next to my brother’s body, completely and utterly lost. What’s the point of immortality if you have to spend it alone?
I was having a full-blown divine tantrum on Mount Olympus wailing at Zeus, who was trying to polish a thunderbolt and my father, for all his swan-based transgressions, is a soft touch at heart. He made a deal. A rather good one, I thought. I could share my immortality with Castor. We’d spend one day on Olympus, one day in Hades. Alternating forever.
And so we did. until eventually, Zeus, in another fit of paternal fondness transformed us into a constellation. Gemini.
The Twins but I suppose it could be worse. I’m up here, twinkling away with my brother for eternity and it's a good view.

Most Polite Nations Ranked

Anyone who has travelled a bit will notice that the inhabitants of some nations are just a bit more polite than others and while each country has it's share of grumpy buggers who won't hold open a door for anyone following behind or say thank you when you stop to let them out of a road, some have more than their fair share of those we do so if only we had some sort of league table of which nations are the most polite and who have not yet mastered the art of not being dicks?  
Luckily we do so thank you to the digital remittance service who surveyed 5,000 global customers and asked them based on their personal experiences, who was the most polite nation based on criteria of respectfulness, friendliness, patience, following social rules, treating strangers  and politeness.
Topping the list by a wide margin is Japan, which earns more than a third of all votes (35%) for the most polite country in the world and then Canada (14%) clinches second, then the United Kingdom (7%), China (4%) and Germany (3%) claims the fifth spot.
The rest of the top 10 are The Philippines (2.3%), Sweden (2.2%), Denmark (2.1%), Finland (1.9%) and rounding out the top ten is South Africa (1.8%).
Australians come in 11th (1.7%) which gives them bragging rights over New Zealand in 16th (1.2%) and Norway at 17th (1.1%) is the lowest of the Scandi's  but South America and Africa don't come out of it very well with only Brazil (1%) and South Africa representing their entire continents.
With Canada's second place, they are 11 places above the USA (1.6%) in 13th but that won't come as a surprise as Canadians have long been known as some of the friendliest people on the globe.  
If your country is not in the top 25 then they did not receive any votes whatsoever and it is safe to assume that you really should try harder, or in my best polite British way, your contributions currently lack the desired level of politeness.

1    Japan
2    Canada    
3    United Kingdom    
4    China    
5    Germany    
6    Philippines
7    Sweden    
8    Denmark    
9    Finland    
10  South Africa
11  Australia    
11  Switzerland    
13  United States    
14  India    
15  Ireland    
16  New Zealand    
17  Norway    
18  Netherlands
19  Thailand    
19  France    
21  Brazil    
22  Spain    
23  Belgium
24  Italy
25  Austria

Special Guest Blogger: Queen Maria I of Portugal

So You Think You Had a Bad Century? They said to write what i know, and what I know, rather a lot of, is being dead.
I was born the daughter of King Joseph I. A solid start. A bit of an earthquake in ‘55 did a number on Lisbon, but we rebuilt. We’re Portuguese, we’re made of sturdier stuff. Life was a whirlwind of gowns, politics, and the general business of being a royal. Then came the marriage. To my uncle.
Now, before you all get your historical knickers in a twist, let me tell you it was a different time. Keeping it in the family was less of a scandal and more of a logistical convenience and anyway, bonking people you could go halfsies with on a Grandma’s Day present was cheaper. They said it would simplify things and wedding your mother’s brother is about as simple as explaining quantum physics to a cat.
My husband, Pedro, was a dear man, bless his heart, but the family dinners were a logistical nightmare of awkwardness. Still, we muddled through. We had children. Lots of them. A whole little brood of potential heirs and spares. And for a while, things were… well. Pious.
That’s my first nickname, you see, The Pious. I built a massive, beautiful church in Lisbon, the Basílica da Estrela. A bit of a bargain with the Big Man Upstairs, if I’m being honest. I’d promised him a whacking great basilica if he’d grant me a son. He did. My little Joseph. And then, a few decades later, He rather rudely decided to take him back.
This is where things started to go, as the British say, a bit pear-shaped.
First, my dear Pedro, Uncle-Husband, popped his clogs. Fine. One is expected to bury one’s husband. Sad, but part of the job description. Then, my eldest son, my brilliant Joseph, the heir to the throne, the one I’d built the basilica for, died of smallpox. Right. That’s a blow. A real, solid, knock-you-for-six kind of blow.
The universe was playing a rather cruel hand of whist, and my hand was full of twos and threes. My nerves, which had never exactly been a fortress of iron to begin with, simply dissolved.
If they’d had therapy and a steady supply of gin and tonics in the 1790s, I’d have been first in line. Instead, I got convulsions, a permanent state of aggrieved mourning, and a new nickname. Maria the Mad.
My brand went from ‘The Pious’ to ‘The Mad’ quicker than you can say ‘French artillery’ because  just when I was getting comfortably settled into my melancholy, along came Napoleon. That short, grumpy fellow with a hat fetish decided my country looked rather fetching and that he’d quite like it. The Portuguese court had a collective, royal panic attack. The decision was made that we had to get out. Pack your bags, grab the crown jewels, and don’t forget the state papers.
We fled to Brazil.
Let me tell you, it was not the glamorous exile they portray in the paintings. Think of the most stressful family holiday you’ve ever taken. Now add ten thousand courtiers, the entire royal treasury, the threat of imminent invasion, and a journey across the Atlantic in ships that were, to be frank, a bit leaky. We essentially relocated the entire government to a colony that was, at the time, mostly jungle and mosquitoes.
We turned Rio de Janeiro into the capital of the Portuguese Empire. The heat was oppressive, the humidity ruined my hair, and my son, John had to deal with everything as I was mostly confined to my quarters, a shadow queen muttering about the past and praying furiously. I wasn't mad, you see. I was just profoundly, unendingly, and justifiably done with it all.
I’m the queen who lost her mind and fled to the tropics. But I’m also the queen who ensured the Portuguese monarchy survived when it could have been completely snuffed out.
In the end, I died in Rio, far from the basilica I’d built and the son I’d lost. Not in a blaze of glory. Not in some dramatic, poetic fashion. I simply… stopped. Fizzled out like a damp firework in the Brazilian heat after a long, loud, and extraordinarily chaotic show.
A wife who married her uncle, a mother who buried her child, a queen who lost her country. I survived an earthquake, a French invasion, and the internal collapse of my own sanity. I fled an empire with my court in tow and managed to do it all while wearing a truly corseted dress and a heavy crown.
I’d call that a win, wouldn’t you?