A Problem For Future Space Travellers

I am away this week for my Birthday so I am pre-posting this a few days before the proposed plan to send Artemis 2 on its 4 day trip to the Moon where it will circle it for 2 days and then make the 4 day trip back today.
The delayed mission which will send four astronauts on a 10-day journey around the moon and back is pencilled in for countdown between April 1 and April 6 but NASA have yet to confirm the date as the weather on the day could scupper any plans but NASA have said that today is the preferred date with liftoff scheduled between 22:24 and 00:24
Artemis 2 is a test run for Artemis 3 which will see humans return to the moon and establish a long-term presence there and further afield but that's where it gets messy, and i mean literally messy because at some point building a sustainable human presence in space or other Planets such as Mars will require not just solving engineering problems, but also understanding how reduced gravity will affect sex and reproduction.
As yet, no one has had sex in space (as far as I am aware) but it will have to be considered the actual logistics of performing this docking maneuver in microgravity where weightless objects that come into contact repel one another so i can forsee weights or very strong Velcro but that's for the future scientists and astronauts to worry about.
Hopefully today we will see the first steps to rekindling our Space Exploration story, weather and me being able to find a TV and being sober enough to turn it on at 22:24 tonight permitting.

Special Guest Blogger: Dred Scott

Bit of an odd one, this, writing a blog post. One moment you’re succumbing to a nasty bout of tuberculosis in 1858, and the next, you’re in a sort of celestial waiting room with surprisingly good Wi-Fi and an eternity to catch up on things. They tell me my name is rather a big deal down there. Dred Scott. Apparently, I’m in the history books.
But since i'm here I thought I’d clear a few things up. Mostly, that my life wasn’t the grand, sombre march of martyrdom they make it out to be. It was, for the most part, a long, frustrating, and occasionally farcical inconvenience with racism and whips.
I was born into this whole being a slave business. No one asked my opinion on the matter, which I thought was rather poor form from the outset. My first 'owner,' the Peter Blow family, were, by all accounts, decent enough chaps. For people who thought they owned me, of course.
Then came Dr. John Emerson. A blighter in the army. He was my assigned ‘manager,’ if you will. And he was promoted. A lot. This is where the whole kerfuffle kicked off. He dragged me from the slave-holding state of Missouri to Illinois. Now, Illinois, as I’m sure you know, had rather progressive views on the whole ‘people owning people’ front. Namely, they were against it. I thought, Splendid! Fresh start!
But no. Dr. Emerson simply ignored the local laws. Then he hauled me up to the Wisconsin Territory, where the same rules applied. Legally, I should have been free. Instead, I was just a very confused and very illegal slave in a free territory. It was all a bit of a muddle.
After a decade of this continental goose-chase, Dr. Emerson popped his clogs, and his widow inherited me. And here, I had a thought. A rather bold one, I’ll admit. I thought, You know what, I’ve had quite enough of this. I’d served my time. I’d lived in free states. It felt like I’d served my sentence. So, I did what any reasonable person would do. I offered to buy my freedom. A perfectly reasonable transaction, no?
She refused.
So, I did what any slightly-less-reasonable, now-rather-annoyed person would do. I sued her but i wasn’t what you’d call a legal eagle. My grand contribution to my case was mostly just standing there, looking a bit miffed, while my lawyers did the heavy lifting.
The case bounced around the courts for years. It was the ultimate bureaucratic nightmare and then, the big one. The Supreme Court. The head honchos. The final boss level. I imagined them as wise, thoughtful chaps who’d see the glaringly obvious injustice of it all. Silly me. Chief Justice Roger Taney, a man whose face looks permanently sour as if he’d just discovered his tea was cold, wrote the majority opinion.
He declared that no person of African ancestry, whether slave or free, could be a citizen of the United States. And if you’re not a citizen, you can’t sue in federal court. Case dismissed. My entire case, my entire life, was wiped away with a single, condescending sentence. The whole thing, he declared, was an issue for the states to decide, which was a bit like telling the chickens to have a quiet word with the fox.
The verdict, as you might imagine, caused a bit of a stir. It did not, it’s fair to say, calm things down. In fact, it rather poured petrol on the fire. And here I am, a footnote in my own disaster. The man who lost the most consequential court case in American history.  I wasn’t trying to start a civil war, you know. I was just trying to stop being someone else’s property.
So what happened in the end? After all that, after nine judges in Washington told me I was so much chattel, the original Blow family, the very people who owned me as a boy, they bought me and my wife. And then they set us free. So, after a decade of legal battling, it all came down to a spot of old-fashioned charity. You couldn't write it. It's all a bit of a shambles, really.
As for my death? I’m afraid it was terribly pedestrian. Tuberculosis. Not a dramatic last stand. Just a slow, fading cough, and then, pop. It  turns out that the only way for a black man to fully escape the American legal system in the 1850s was, well, to die. A bit drastic, but effective.

God Speaks On US, Israel And Iran Holy War

America’s secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, sports an array of tattoos with Christian messaging, including one which reads 'Deus Vult', which is associated with the medieval crusades and has been reaching for biblical language to describe the war against Iran. He called on God to 'break the teeth and kill the wicked enemies who deserve no mercy' and should be 'delivered to the eternal damnation prepared for them'. In other words, for Hegseth this is a holy war in which he calls on god to 'grant this task force clear and righteous targets for violence'.
We recently saw Trump being anointed by Fundamentalist Christians and praying for 'continued blessing' and asked God: 'For your grace and protection over him…and over our troops'.
Troops are also complaining that they are being told that this war was all part of God’s divine plan referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.
The Israeli prime minister, whilst announcing the start of the war, invoked the Jewish holiday of Purim by comparing present day Iran to ancient Persian who 'rose against us with the
exact same goal of completely destroying our people and today the end of the evil regime will also come' while Netanyahu has also compared Iran to the biblical Amalekites and who the Old Testament God ordered to be completely destroyed including there: 'Men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys'.
Meanwhile in Iran, senior Shia clerics declared the dead Ayatollah as a martyr and as the 'Hidden 12th Imam, who is meant to return on the day of judgement and declared the defence of the homeland as a sacred duty and that it is their duty of all Muslims to support Iran.
God only knows what he thinks of yet another war in his name, so i asked him and he is not a happy chappie as he explained to me.
'I was sitting in my kitchen, scrolling through the War Tracker App' he said 'when I realized the world’s latest scoreboard looked suspiciously like a scoreboard from a medieval tournament. The contenders? America, Israel, and Iran. Their rallying cry? 'God is on our side!'
'Do you any back of the participants?' i asked and he sighed and replied that 'My plan was create galaxies, invent love and get in the decaffeinated Coffee for the Angels' he explained, 'Holy wars, on the other hand, are a bit… extra and I have been on to the celestial HR department to add the clause: 'God will not participate in wars against humans' but they say it's covered under the 'God Moves in Mysterious ways' sub clause. 
I even contacted the USA’s, Israels and Irans representative direct and said that i didn't want them killing each other to show how peaceful they were but all three said that they were just trying to keep the world safe, so how can you argue with mad logic like that?'
'Israel even claimed they had an ancient right of being the chosen people and assumed it was practically a celestial permission slip because: 'We have the holy land so God must be on our side, right?' and i replied that I gave them the land to live in, not a license to launch missiles at anyone who refuses to accept them launching missiles at them and anyway the 'chosen people’ thing was metaphorical. I meant 'chosen one to love' and not the chosen one to fight their neighbours.
I suggested that maybe he didn't make that clear enough in the Do Not Kill Commandment but by now he was in full rant mode.
'As for Iran' he continued, 'They have taken the phrase 'Allahu Akbar' (God is great) to mean 'Allahu obeys whatever is our leaders foreign policy is and their rep even bought a Powerpoint presentation which shows 'Divine Approval Rating: 100%' and the America guy was trying to persuade me that they were  'Just doing God’s job' and 'The Scriptures say…blah, blah, blah' and dismissed my argument that I didn’t create a War‑Instruction‑Manual.
I made love and let there be light and all that so don't not use my name as a shield for violence because i still have the Cosmic pause button and the Angels are demanding i use it else they are threatening to go on strike and stop checking on humans and guarding or protecting them.
So i asked him if he had a message for the warring side and he replied: 'Guys, stop fighting over who gets the right to claim me. I’m busy creating sunsets and rainbows, and I could use a break from all this crap'
There you go then, when it comes to Holy Wars, God thinks you are all dicks.

Correct Move By IOC

I have long said that Transgender women athletes should be banned from female events due to the unfair advantage they have and finally the International Olympoic Committee and caught up and said that they face exclusion from future Olympics to protect 'fairness and safety'.
Kirsty Coventry, the president of the IOC, said the decision had been taken because: 'It would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category' and then made the pointed assertion that the decision was made by the the first female Head of the IOC.
Coventry, a seven-time Olympic swimming medalist, explained that now  all athletes wanting to compete in the female category at the Olympics will have to undergo a one-off SRY (sex determining region Y gene) screening to detect their biological sex  
As the IOC have longed tried toi halt illegal use of drugs wto gain even a small advantage, it is shameful that it has taken this long when the science shows that there is a 12% male performance advantage in most running and swimming events, a 20+ per cent male performance advantage in most throwing and jumping events and 100% in events that involve explosive power such as lifting and punching sports.
There have been some who are disappointed with the charity Dsdfamilies saying that while they understand fairness in competition is important, they are concerned that: 'Proposed processes do not always demonstrate the level of understanding, dignity and respect that this issue requires' which i am not certain what their point is but it is a victory for women who now can be assured that they competing on a level playing field.
The best argument i have heard against athletes transitioning and competing in the sport of their new gender is that this is only a problem with males to females, you don't hear of females transitioning to males and competing and that speaks volumes.

Special Guest Blogger: Marianne Faithfull

If you’re expecting a sobriquet like The Divine Marianne, Queen of Cool, Architect of Bohemian Bliss, you’ll be sorely disappointed. I’m just a lass from East London who wandered into the rock ‘n’ roll circus, tripped over the ringmaster’s ego, and somehow ended up in the tightrope act. Without a net.
I grew up in a world where posh meant a hatbox and trouble meant the randy milkman. My father, a dashing war hero with the constitution of a wet noodle, once told me, Marianne, you’ll go far, but not too far, love. And preferably in a straight line. Ha! If only he’d known.
By the time I was 19, I’d traded my Oxfam-approved upbringing for a flat in Chelsea, a disdain for authority, and a nascent obsession with the Rolling Stones. Mick Jagger once said I had a voice like a chain saw that’s forgotten how to sing. He didn’t say it nicely. But here’s the thing about Mick: he’s a terrible poet, a dubious philosopher, and a man who once paid me in cocaine and compliments. Which, as currency goes, is about as reliable as a bus in Manchester.
To be honest I was rubbish at being a rock star. I mean, look at me. I didn’t fit the mold of the waifish siren or the leather-clad Amazon. I was… a woman. With opinions. And a habit.
And, let’s be honest, a talent for self-sabotage that would make a cactus blush.
My 70s album Broken English? A masterpiece, obviously. But back then, critics called it 'the sound of a woman who’s had one cigarette too many.' Darling, I was one cigarette too many.
And yet! That record became a goddamn feminist anthem. Because nothing says female empowerment like coughing up a lung while singing about being the dog’s bollocks at love.
I also spent a decade battling heroin addiction. But hey, that’s just my way of keeping up with the times. If today’s Gen Z is battling screen addiction, I was battling the same thing but with a needle. Classic.
By the 90s, I’d kicked the habit (mainly because my veins looked like a map of the Amazon and I needed them for blood tests). My voice, once dubbed the raspy whisper of a thousand smoke-filled salons, had evolved into something… gnarlier.
I then spent two decades performing at places like the Glastonbury Festival, where I’d stagger onstage in a dress made of curtains and belt out “Sister Morphine” and  the kids loved it.
But here’s the thing about dying: it’s dull. All the drama, the tears, the existential crises—it’s just one long, drawn-out anticlimax. I tried to spice it up by contracting Breast Cancer, Hepatitis C, Emphysema, Pneumonia and Covid so take your pick which one finally got me but I outlived Bowie, Jackson, Prince and George MIchael and my last tax return.
I’ve been a muse, a menace and a magnate of melodrama but never, ever boring.

Genocide In Gaza Still Happening

With all eyes on Iran, the Israeli genocide in Gaza has slipped out of the headlines but it hasn't slipped from Benjamin Netanyahu's mind because he has carried on doing what he has always done, killing Palestinians.
Since the Ian War began 28 days ago, dozens of Palestinians have been killed including killing 12 at a displacement Camp which Israeli planes bombed but then almost 700 Palestinians have been killed since the announcement of the ceasefire in October 2025 and at least 75,000 since October 2023.
Oxfam has said that despite the pledge that on the Peace Deal conclusion there would be an immediate resumption of full aid to Gaza, Israel is still refusing to allow essential aid to be delivered and 'progress towards recovery is limited and almost not there. This is basic survival in Gaza'.
Wanted War Criminal Netanyahu, who also faces charges of corruption and bribary in his own country as well as being on the list of the United Nations for War Crimes, seems to be looking for a war to keep him in power and after the UN  Security Council this week laid out a detailed plan for Palestinian armed groups to decommission their weapons, Netanyahu is demanding that Hamas disarm or Israel will disarm them 'the hard way'.
One Palestinian woman told the BBC that: 'We pray to God that peace will be imposed, and that the national committee will come and control Gaza' but the National Committee for Gaza Administration, which reports to Trump's absurd Board of Peace, said: 'There is no date yet for a return to Gaza'.
The whole Middle East is literally on fire and there is one common denominator in all which is happening there at the moment, Israel who have been committing a genocide for over 80 years in Palestine and America who have supplied the weapons and funding and now joined in another illegal war alongside the murderers in Tel Aviv.

Starmer Responds To Trumps Barbs

Day 28 of a war that the Fuchsia Fascist has said was already won despite him now readying thousands of American troops to the area but then not much of what he says can be taken as truth, even an ex-CIA leader came out and said that he is more inclined to believe the Iranians than his own President but we had already reached that conclusion anyway.
In a new move Trump is now saying that the Ayatollah is gay which doesn't do anything to improve his standing as having the mind of a spoilt child and we await the reply that you're a pedophile fired back at him and i don't know if the Ayatollah is gay, nor care, but we know that Trump is actually a pedophile and mixed in a pedophile ring for decades and if it walks like a nonce, and talks like a nonce then yep, he's a nonce.
Almost as much in the firing line as the Ayatollah has been our own Keir Starmer who refused to join the warmongers Trump and Netanyahu in the Iran debacle by saying it was not only illegal but Trump attacked with no viable plan and that really ticked off the Mango Moron because he hasn't stopped banging on about it ever since.
The sex pest President has said that the UK government's deal to hand over sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago to Mauritius, because he wanted to use the joint UK base on the island of Diego Garcia to launch attacks on Iran was 'An act of great Stupidity'  and 'A big mistake'.
After Starmer refused permission for America to use the airfield at Diego Garcia, Trump said he was  'very disappointed in Keir' and 'This is not Winston Churchill we're dealing with' and then came out with the bizarre statement that Keir offered to send both the Royal Navy's aircraft carriers to the Middle East but got the reply that 'That's OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don't need them any longer - But we will remember. We don't need people that join Wars after we've already won!' 
The UK government denied it and went to the pain of pointing out that they wouldn't say that because one is in Dry Dock and the other is undergoing a major refit.
He then completely undermined his argument by saying that that Keir Starmer told him that he really didn't want to send any ships to help and said he thought that was terrible and very surprising and he was 'not happy' with the UK.
Then it was back to: 'Unfortunately Keir is no Winston Churchill' and returned to the story of the PM offering to send both Royal Navy aircraft carriers and that he had rejected the offer because 'We want things sent before the war, not after the war is won' which led Number 10 to again deny they made such an offer and patiently explained once again that they couldn't even if they wanted to, which they didn't.  Still obsessing over the ships we refused to send, the next insult was that the UK aircraft carriers aren't the best and are 'toys' and said that Keir Starmer was: 'A liberal and that's the way they think' so credit to Starmer who went on TV today to say that Donald Trump has been putting pressure on him in different ways to join the war but insisted that 'He won't buckle under pressure' nor 'Get dragged into the war' and vowed that he is 'Not going to waver on the issue of getting more involved in the Iran war' or make him abandon his principles or values.
Despite all the bluster, the Iran War is not going well for Trump and his war criminal pal in Tel Aviv and Trump's aides yesterday said that they only show him a 2 minute highlight reel of things being blown up in Iran so maybe he really does think it is going better than it actually is but with the Houthi's now joining in and threatening to bring a second crucial waterway to a standstill, it's not going to end anytime soon and Iran will enter the History Books along with Iraq and Afghanistan of Middle East Wars which left America running away with its tails between its legs.  

Special Guest Blogger: Nicholas Brendon

So, if you’re reading this, I’ve finally achieved the one thing Xander Harris never quite managed and successfully transitioned into the spiritual realm without a resurrection spell or a grumpy British librarian hovering over me with a crossbow.
So, where to begin? My origin story isn't exactly a comic book epic. There were no radioactive spiders, no alien parents, just... a lot of average kid stuff, mixed with an unhealthy amount of television and an even unhealthier dose of self-doubt due to a stutter.
Before I was the guy who didn't have any powers, I was the guy who wanted to throw a 95-mph fastball. That was the dream, Nicky Brendon, starting pitcher for the Dodgers. I had the arm, I had the heart, and I had the ability to look great in those tight white pants. But then my arm decided to retire before I did.
I got into acting not for some some deep, artistic epiphany about the human condition, the  truth was my stutter made every sentence feel like I was trying to navigate a minefield while wearing roller skates. It was bad. I’d get stuck on a B or an S and just… stay there. Forever.
I discovered that if I used someone else’s words in a script, the stutter vanished. Acting wasn't about fame, it was the only way I could say a complete sentence without sounding like a skipping CD.
So, I traded the pitcher’s mound for the soundstage. I traded a baseball for a wooden stake. It’s basically the same motion, just with more splinters.
Then came the late 90s. The glorious era of grunge, dial-up internet, and an undeniable craving for supernatural teen drama. And suddenly, there I was, a guy somehow auditioning for a show about a girl who slays vampires while navigating high school. The role? Xander Harris. The lovable, wisecracking, perpetually unlucky-in-love best friend. It was like they’d read my diary and then added 'fights demons' to make it more exciting.
And thus, my destiny was sealed. For seven glorious, monster-filled years, I got to be Xander Harris which was the greatest gig in the world, even if I did have to wear those Hawaiian shirts.
Playing Xander was a trip. The guy who, despite being surrounded by vampires, witches, and werewolves, still worried about his love life, his job, and whether his friends actually liked him or just tolerated him so I resonated with Xander as we both had a talent for self-sabotage, and an unwavering loyalty to our friends, even when they were trying to turn us into a rat.
The show blew up, and suddenly, I went to people wanting me to sign their foreheads even if i was  the only one in the Scooby Gang who could die from a papercut while everyone else was busy being immortal but I survived seven years of apocalypses, two different weddings (one involving a demon), and I only lost one eye. In the grand scheme of the Hellmouth, that’s a pretty solid win-loss record.
After Buffy ended, I quickly learned that the world really, really liked the idea of me as the quirky, sarcastic best friend even if i wanted to move on making a joke about someone’s terrible fashion sense after they’ve just been dismembered.
I've had some fantastic roles since Buffy, and some that were... let's just say they paid the rent but i really enjoyed the convention circuit! Where else can you meet someone dressed as Spike, lamenting the price of a signed photo, while I'm sharing a table with someone who once played a disgruntled Alien on a forgotten sci-fi show from 1986?
I loved seeing my old castmates there. It’s like a mini-reunion every time. We swap stories, mostly about how old we’re getting, how much coffee we need, and whether anyone remembers that one incredibly obscure episode where a demon made it we had to sing every line. It’s a reminder of the incredible thing we all created together, and it brings a smile to my face every time. Not just because of the nostalgia, but also because I usually get free snacks.
After Buffy things got dark but I’ve never claimed to be a saint. I’ve struggled with the darkness more than most slayers. I’ve had my ups and downs with depression and alcoholism. I’ve been the guy on the poster and the guy on the mugshot. But through all the rehabs, the mistakes, the arrests and the public apologies, you guys stayed even after that one night in LA when things got a little, shall we say, electric.
Getting tasered while you’re drunk is an experience I would give a zero-star rating on Yelp. 0/10. Do not recommend.
My most important fall was an actual fall for which i underwent spinal surgery after I suffered paralysis from the waist down and the spinal surgery to fix that caused a spinal cord puncture and a heart attack and a dignosis of a heart defect which caught up with me.
It turns out that kicking the bucket from natural causes is a lot less dramatic than being eaten by a Preacher-turned-God or losing an eye to a rogue preacher.
There was no dust, no fancy light shows, no Glory, the Mayor or the First Evil it felt like a bit of a plot hole for a guy who spent his twenties fighting the undead which in all honestly, felt like a bit of a letdown.

Special Guest Blogger: Trojan Prince Tithonus

You probably know me from the myth. If you’ve forgotten the details, allow me to give you the skinny. I’m the bloke who was granted immortality but, due to a rather significant clerical oversight on Mount Olympus, not the eternal youth to go with it. A classic case of not reading the fine print before signing on the cosmic dotted line. It’s the long and short of it. My life, the ultimate cautionary tale for anyone making a wish to a capricious deity. Always ask for the full spec sheet, that’s my advice.
It all started so promisingly. I was a handsome prince, Eos was the goddess of the dawn and we were madly in love, the whole nine yards. She couldn't bear the thought of me, a mere mortal, shuffling off this mortal coil. So, she went to Zeus. Now, Zeus was a busy god (lightning bolts, seducing swans, the usual) and I suspect he was dealing with a rather large divine paperwork backlog that day. He heard immortality for the boyfriend, scribbled it on a celestial post-it note, and bunged it in the Approved pile.
And so, my grand adventure began.
The first century was a hoot. The second was… fine. By the third, I was starting to notice a bit of a sag around the jowls. By the fifth, my hair had gone the colour of dusty cobwebs and my back made a noise like a trireme running aground whenever I stood up too quickly. Eos, bless her cotton socks, remained as radiant as ever. Every morning, she’d wake up, fresh as a daisy, ready to paint the skies. I’d wake up feeling like a crumpled, slightly damp parchment that had been left out in the rain.
You think getting old is tough? Try it for three thousand years. It’s not the dramatic sagas that get you. It’s the sheer, grinding, monolithic tedium of it all. I’ve seen fashions come back into style seven times. I’ve watched humans invent the wheel, then invent the self-driving car,  I’ve seen empires rise and fall, philosophies blossom and wither, and through it all, I’ve just been there. The world’s oldest and grumpiest man.
Achilles had his heel, Odysseus had his cunning journey, Me? I have a faulty warranty. I am a footnote. A cosmic blooper reel. When the bards tell my story, it’s not to inspire heroism, it’s to make people awkwardly shuffle their feet and say, Gosh, that’s a bit unfortunate, isn’t it.
Then came the final act. You can’t just keep withering forever, you know. Physics, even divine physics, has to kick in at some point. My body, having reached the absolute peak of decrepitude and one morning, I just… shrank. Went all papery and crackly. My limbs long and spindly, my voice no longer a wheeze but a buzz. I became a cicada.
So, the moral of my story is be careful what you wish for? Read the terms and conditions because one moment you’re the tragic figure who got a raw deal from the gods, the next you’re a happy little insect with a very simple to-do list. And to be honest, it’s a much better gig.

Who Will Join Us At World Cup?

It's the World Cup Qualifiers tonight and pre-kick off we can dream of a World Cup with England, Scotland, Wales, the Republic and the Northern Irish players all turning up at a US Border and presenting their mobile phones to make sure none of them have bad mouthed the orange baboon before letting them in to grace the 2026 World Cup in USA, Mexico and Canada.
With England and Scotland already qualified, it is all eyes on the other three and their two legged ties to see if any of them will be joining us but what with this being a FIFA run competition it isn't as straight forward as that as of the 16 teams playing tonight, only four will make it and if they both make it past this round, Wales and Northern Ireland will play each other so one of the Home Nations will definitely not make it.  
Northern Ireland's opponents tonight are four times winners Italy in Italy but the Azzurri have not qualified for a World Cup finals since 2014 and the last time they failed to qualify before that was in 1958 when they were knocked out by Northern Ireland so what could it all mean? Eff all obviously because at odds of 1/3 on, even the bookies think the Belfast boys chances of winning are as long as a pair of Joshua Magennis's socks.
The Republic of Ireland also have a tough tie against the Czech Republic in Prague and at least Wales are are home and have a better chance against Bosnia and Herzegovina and Manager Craig Bellamy has promised that his team will: ' Go all out, we ain’t sitting back' which we will find out if it was a wise decision by about 21:30.
There is some British interest in the Ukraine V Sweden game tonight which is being played in Spain because even FIFA are not stupid enough to risk a second half drone attack disrupting the game and in the Swedish dug out will be Graham Potter who you may remember from his days leading West Ham to 19th in the League before the Hammers Directors decided that his skill set was best deployed anywhere else but at their London Stadium.   
If it goes as i think it will then i only really expect Wales to be joining us dodging heavilly armed ICE Agents in the USA come June but as football fans know, sometimes miracles do happen in football although the Northern Irish would have to pick Jesus himself at Left Back if they are going to get one in Italy tonight. 

Happy New Year

In 1751 you would be hearing: 'Happy New Year, may 1752 be a good one' because March 25th was the official New Years Day until Pope Gregory meddled with the Calendar and New Years Day got shunted back to January 1st.
It wasn’t just the year start that needed adjusting, as the new calendar was now out by several days which meant that in England, 11 days were lost as Wednesday September 2 1752 was followed by Thursday September 14 1752 in order to right things. The jump must have been very disconcerting if your birthday fell between these dates but apart from missing Birthday cake, it gave us the weird Tax Year we have which starts on April 6th.
Where the new tax year was March 25 (the old New Year) it was moved to April 5, and later to April 6, so March 25 may be a day that for most goes by with little notice now but it was once a major holiday that marked the beginning of the new year.
I always thought that to cram two big days of the year (Christmas and New Years) into the space of 7 days was an awful bit of planning although it does give us 3 Bank Holidays in a short space of time, it also gives us Twixmas which is that weird period between Boxing Day and New Years Day when you lose track of what day it is and nobody wants to do anything because they are too hungover or unable to move due to all the Christmas pudding and roast dinners.
I will add moving the New Year back to March 25th onto my 'To Do' list of when i become Prime Minister.

  

 

The No Talking Talks

According to Donald Trump, he is in negotiations with Iranians about ending the War he started although the Iranians are saying its all nonsense and he is just trying to smooth over the fact that the rising price of oil has just made Americans pay extra on top of the ill thought out tariffs he imposed on his supporters.
To be honest, as Trump has made a Royal balls up of everything i can see why he would be lying that a deal could be made to bring down the price of oil and provide a desperate off ramp from a war that has spiraled out of control but then again i can also see why Iran would deny entering negotiations with a man who has twice bombed then whilst in the process of negotiating so as i wouldn't trust either as far as i could throw a piano, but there does seem to be some evidence that someone is talking to someone over all this.
Pakistan has announced they are acting as a middle man between the two and after Iran made some demands for ending the war, they have now handed over a 15-point US plan to whoever in Iran and Iran poo-pooed them, said that only they will decide when the war ends and shot back with a further 5 demands of their own.
Although the details,of what is in the 15-point plan for ending the war, Israel's Channel 12 has reported it has gathered some of the content, citing a "Western source" and include Sanctions relief, Civilian nuclear cooperation, a rollback of Iran's nuclear program, monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency and access for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz which almost all were offered by the Iranians during talks when Trump  started the war.
The best line is from the Iranians who today said to America that: 'People like us don't negotiate with people like you' which i took to mean that even religious, murderous fanatics think Trump is untrustworthy and loathsome, and they do have a point, you wouldn't ask him to hold your Big Mac while you went to the toilet would you.

Special Guest Blogger: Jilly Cooper

Darlings, I have popped off! Honestly. It’s enough to make a girl reach for a second G&T. And I did.
A quick, ridiculous, and faintly unglamorous end, a fall and hitting my head. Gravity, that vindictive cow. How utterly… tedious. I’d rather be run over by a runaway horse-drawn carriage driven by a naked viscount. I was a Dame and famous for my bonkbuster books for heaven’s sake. One has standards but i almost went twice before, once from a minor stroke and the second time when i was a  passenger in one of the derailed carriages in the Ladbroke Grove rail crash. 31 people died but i managed to crawl our through a window to escape.
Sure I left behind a mountain of books filled with gloriously naughty aristocrats, formidable women with bosoms like howitzers, and more bonking than you can shake a riding crop at so there's that I suppose.
I began as a journalist after the editor of The Sunday Times Magazine saw some short stories i had submitted for teenage magazines and asked me to write some columns and then after 11 years, i began writing books with an explicitly upper-middle-class British perspective, with many many sex scenes or as the tabloids nicknamed me 'The queen of the bonkbuster'.
People forget the sheer graft involved, you know. They see Rivals on the telly, with all those glorious, beautiful people shagging in my name, and they think it was all a jolly romp. And it was! But it was a chaotic jolly romp. My ‘research’ for the romantic scenes mostly involved lying on the sofa, eating a packet of cheese and onion crisps, and asking my poor, long-suffering husband, Leo, is he thought ir was physically possible to do that on a chaise lounge while wearing jodhpurs and holding a glass of Bollinger?
My legacy isn't the books. It's not the gongs from the Queen, bless her. It’s not even the fact I kept the gin and tonic industry in business single-handedly for the past fifty years.
No, my true legacy, I’ve decided, is the number of women i’ve enabled to imagine there’s a magnificent brute on a horse who’s desperate to sweep them off their feet (and then probably do terribly rude things to them).
If my books have given readers a few hours of joy and a bit of a flush to the cheeks… well, then pop that cork. I’d consider that a job bloody well done.
Cheerio, darlings.

Special Guest Blogger: Chuck Norris

I always assumed that death was actually too afraid to check its calendar when it sees my name, the Grim Reaper kept sending me Get Well cards even when I’m not sick just to stay on my good side but its appears he finally plucked up the courage to knock on my door.  
People always asked me, how did you become the man, the myth, the legend and its a long story and starts with Karate, ends with a roundhouse kick to the face of destiny in Hawaii and involves a whole lot of denim in between.
I wasn’t born a martial arts master,  I was actually born a relatively normal human being in Oklahoma and my early years were quiet as I was a shy kid. But then I joined the Air Force and got stationed in Korea where I quickly realised that waiting for bad guys to come to us was a waste of perfectly good punching opportunities and that’s where I met Tang Soo Do among the rice paddies, a Korean martial art.
I came back to the States and started opening Karate schools where i didn't so much push the gentle resistance side of Karate and concentrated more on the fists and feet and in the late 60s, I started competing. I won the World Middleweight Karate Championship in 1968 and held it for six years.
They didn't just give me black belts, they practically begged me to take them and I accumulated black belts like some folks collect stamps. Taekwondo? Check. Judo? Check. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu? I eventually mastered so many styles that I had to found my own: Chun Kuk Do, or The Universal Way.
When I retired in 1974 it was because I ran out of people who were willing to be hit by me for a trophy and a man can only kick so many sparring partners before he starts looking for a bigger challenge so then came the movies.
Some folks ease into acting with small roles, maybe a commercial. Me? My first big break was literally going toe-to-toe with Bruce Lee in Way of the Dragon. Bruce was a dear friend and a phenomenal martial artist. He asked me to play his opponent in the final fight at the Roman Colosseum and it was then that I realised my chest hair had its own gravitational pull. It was a simpler time, one roundhouse kick at a time.
The 1980s were a blur of cordite, sweat and sleeveless shirts but the 80's were a terrifying and desperate time to be alive. The world was entering a recession and governments slashed welfare budgets so they could treat themselves to a nice war every now and again. The United States and Soviet Union stockpiled ever more powerful weapons in a game of Thermonuclear Chicken. Duran Duran walked the Earth unopposed like some New Romantic behemoth and I did Missing in Action, The Delta Force, and Lone Wolf McQuade and then came the 90s and I swapped the jungle for the Texas brush and became Cordell Walker.
Walker, Texas Ranger ran for eight seasons. We didn’t have a script for most of it. The writers would just write Chuck walks into a bar and I’d take it from there with me representing Law, Order, and the ability to kick a man through a plate-glass window while wearing a very nice cowboy hat.
Around 2005, something strange happened. The internet discovered me and memes abounded even if nobody actually watched my films but it did keep the youth of today aware that there is a man out there who only backed down to give myself more room for a running roundhouse kick which most people have at some point tried to replicate in their living room and ended up knocking over Grandma's flower vase or her prize-winning porcelain cat.
Beyond the flying kicks and the unwavering stare, there was a man with a set of principles as solid as my jawline. I was an outspoken Christian, and my faith was always part of me and I loved everyone as long as they were not gay, or into science or anything although i do put my extreme right wing views down to being punched and kicked in the head so much in the 70s but i maintain that America is the land of the free, not the land of the free lunches for minorities. Okay? I don't care if they are the ones serving it. They shouldn't get it for free.
So that's my story then and now i know what the internet is like but this is a somber occasion and humor at this particular time would be inappropriate so you are going to mourn and be sad and somber and you will be respectful. Any deviation from this will result in me coming back and delivering an immediate roundhouse kick to your face.

Special Guest Blogger: Shannen Doherty

If you’re reading this, one of two things is true. Either you’ve finally decided to care about my life story (thank you, loyal fan!), or you stumbled here while Googling 'Is that 90210 girl still alive?' Spoiler: She’s not. But more on that later.
Let’s start at the beginning or as I like to call it, the part where I accidentally became a ’90s icon.
I was born in 1971, which, in astrological terms, means I’m a Cancer.
My big break? Little House on the Prairie. The show where I played a girl who lived in Minnesota and by the time I joined Beverly Hills, 90210, I’d mastered the skill of  pretending to be a rich teenager.
Eventually, I decided to stop playing teenagers and start playing, well, adults? You may have seen my 10 page nude spread in Playboy. Very artistic.
It was a rocky transition but hey, I tried and while I may not have won any Oscars, I did manage to survive Hollywood long enough to realize that no one knows what they’re doing. Not the producers. Not the stylists. And definitely not me because i was labelled the bad girl of the nineties which didn't help when the tabloids regularly featured heavy partying, on set lateness and physical fights but especially particularly my long running feud with fellow 90210-er Jennie Garth.  
My next big hit was being cast in the television series, Charmed where i played one of the lead characters, Prue Halliwell, the oldest of three sisters who are witches but after three seasons i was sacked due to severe on-set tensions with co-star Alyssa Milano.
My attitude probably explains why i was married, and divorced three times, well two and half actually because one of my last acts was to finalise my divorce and the official declaration arrived two days after my death.
Cancer. That's one party crasher we all hope never shows up. In 2008, I got the 'You’re dying, sweetie' news but I’m Shannen Doherty! I didn’t just have cancer, I turned chemo into a spa day (minus the cucumber slices), survivors’ meetings into group therapy and my YouTube channel into a platform for me to argue with my Intravenous Drip pole.
The worst part? Explaining to people that yes, I did have breast cancer which had spread to my bones and brain, and no, I won’t stop talking about it.
I guess now i'm dead I am best remembered as Brenda Walsh and not the woman who laughed in the face of mortality and wore ugly sweaters to chemotherapy but that's ok, as long as i am also remembered for my grit, hope, badassery and gorgeous, glossy hair.

The Truth About Out There?

Hilary Clinton said she would 'get to the bottom' of the alien conspiracies if elected' but then she didn't get elected so that was the end of that but recently Former President Barack Obama told a recent podcast that aliens: 'Are real but I haven’t seen them' but the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have registered the alien.gov and aliens.gov web domains to the official government website registrar and issued a 'Stay tuned!' email complete with an alien emoji in response to journalist’s request for clarification.
Despite now calling UFOs UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) something is coming as we can only hope that the US Government is better at releasing files about Aliens than they have been releasing files about pedophiles.  
I'm not sure how much coverage it got in the USA but a colleague at the American Media company i spoke to told me that last week at that Barksdale air force base in Louisiana, an order was issued to 'shelter-in-place due to an unmanned unidentified aerial systems operating over the installation'. Not saying it is aliens watching whatever they were doing in Louisiana and with the American Government annoying everyone, it could have been any number of nations buzzing Louisiana with something but that lacks imagination.
UFO experts are keen to remind people that a release of files in the 70's revealed that most UFO reports in the 1950s were in fact manned reconnaissance flights that they lied about to protect sensitive national security projects so they are waiting to read things for themselves.  
In 2021 a US government report was released that showed they had investigated decades of unexplained aerial sightings in US airspace and there was 20 unidentified flying objects that they are unable to explain short of they are not US military and could possibly be the experimental technology of a rival power, such as China or Russia but it does not 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.

Nige Don't Love Don Anymore

After the best part of a decade lodged firmly in Donald Trump's colon, The Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage has belatedly clocked that most British people really don’t like the US president and is now desperately trying to distance himself from the Orange turd.
Whether the British attitude is down to his name being in the Trumpstien files only less than Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell or the disastrous Operation Epic Fail the mastermind has unleashed on the Middle East or just because he is an abhorrent human being on every level but Farage, who has his eyes on replacing Keir Starmer into Number 10, now wants us to forget that Farage really, really did like Donald Trump.
He is also keen to hope we get amnesia that only three weeks ago he was ranting at the Prime Minister for failing to jump two-footed into Israel and the US’s Iran operation yet these days he's saying that the UK should avoid 'unnecessary and costly involvement in foreign wars'.
Nobody in the current crop of British politicians have sucked up as long or as hard to Donald Trump as the fag breathed Nige and with Donald Trump being as popular as a cream cake at an Slimmers World meeting with the British, he's been letting it be known that  the relationship between the two men have cooled.
All as believable as a former Prince being in the Woking area not sweating and eating pizza the night he was sexually assaulting one of Epsteins victims but Farage is finding that you are judged by the company you keep and his company for a long time was the guy who is currently screwing our energy, food and mortgage bills while threatening to start the third world war and call us picky, but we don't like that.

Special Guest Blogger: Chris Rea

I never thought I’d die at Christmas. Not because I’m not festive. Oh, I am. I’ve always fancied myself the sort of bloke who’d go out in a blaze of tinsel and mulled wine, preferably after eating one too many Quality Street chocolates. But I didn’t expect it to happen right when my most famous song started playing on every supermarket sound system from Aberdeen to Arizona.
Shuffling off this mortal coil 3 days before Christmas. The irony? It’s not lost on me.
I spent most of my life chasing fame with a guitar and a determination to prove I wasn’t just another bloke from Middlesbrough who liked the blues. And then, somehow, I became famous. Not 'I’ve-got-a-waxwork-in-Madame-Tussauds' famous, mind you. More like 'Wait, you’re that bloke who sang that car song, aren’t you?' famous. But hey, I’ll take it. I once got served before George Michael at a fish and chip shop in Hartlepool because the bloke at the counter recognised my voice. True story. I think he thought I was going to break into song. I did. It ruined his day. And his chips.
I sold over 30 million records which isn't bad considering I had a voice that sounded like it’s been sanding down a coffin for the last 40 years. And yet, people still loved me. Or at least, they love the idea of me driving home for Christmas anyway.
Bless that little ditty. I wrote it in ten minutes during a heatwave, dreaming of snow and family and not getting lost on the M1. I had no idea it would become the unofficial anthem of the festive season.
Every time December rolled around, I become a seasonal deity. Shops blasted my dulcet, gravelly tones at pensioners buying mince pies. Radio stations played it on loop and then i died at Christmas. Perfect timing. Bit of a PR masterstroke, really. Nothing says legend like passing during the peak playback season of your most iconic track.
And the best part? I’m gonna be sharing record space with Wham! and Mariah forever on every Best of Christmas record. Get in.
I may not have had the flamboyant costumes or the stadium tours of the bigger pop acts. I didn’t wear capes or date supermodels or set anything on fire (on purpose). But I sang about driving, about rain, about life being a bit rubbish sometimes  and people listened. And now, whenever someone listens to Driving Home for Christmas, whether they’re stuck in traffic, missing a loved one, or just eating a cold turkey sandwich at 2 a.m., I’m there with them.
So dying at Christmas wasn’t part of the plan. But then again, neither was becoming a cult figure for seasonal driving and remember, if you are driving home for Christmas and you hit a patch of ice, steer into the slide.

Meningitis Outbreak Not Another Coronavirus

A Meningitis outbreak in Kent which has claimed the lives of two young students takes us back to the early days of the Covid outbreak with lines of people queuing up to be vaccinated and concerns over the amount of inoculations available.
At the moment there have been two deaths and 27 confirmed cases and 15 further under investigation in the Kent area and the NHS are warning that they expect cases to rise over the next few days although they are keen to  state that unlike the Covid virus, the Meningitis bacteria is not transmitted through the air and it is safe to use public transport.
As of this morning over 930 students at Kent University have received the immunisations but as they can take up to a week to work and is more of a long term protection, anyone with symptoms should take Antibiotics immediately which work much quicker.
The scientists at the Department of Health are calling this outbreak as 'unusual' and 'affecting more people than expected' have traced ground zero to a nightclub in Kent where most of the victims visited over the last few weeks and are working on several theories including the students sharing vapes as the the bacteria which can cause meningitis is transmitted primarily through saliva.
Also being considered is that the lack of social mixing by students in their younger years due to the Pandemic may have left them less naturally immune to MenB as well as the bacteria itself possibly evolving and changing to be more transmissible.
Obviously there will be scaremongering but nobody in authority is expecting this to spread to other parts of the country and if there are cases from students returning home, it absolutely is not another Covid which was spread through the air and the Meningitis bacteria does not survive very long on surfaces.

Special Guest Blogger: Billy Bonds

Famous? Me? That bird who sings about the poker face is famous. I’m just an old docker's son from Stepney who happened to be decent at kicking a bag of wind around a muddy patch of East London. Blimey. If that’s all it takes to be famous these days, the standards have slipped more than a defender on a greasy pitch at the Boleyn Ground in January.
People talk about me playing career. Captain of West Ham for a decade, a couple of lovely FA Cup wins to stick on the mantelpiece, over 800 appearances. Mind-boggling numbers, aren’t they?
I wasn’t pretty. Never have been. Me hair had a mind of its own, and me running style was described by one journalist as like a baby giraffe chasing a runaway lunchbox. Fair enough. But they didn’t call me ‘Bomber’ for nowt. My job was simple, get the ball, and if the other fella was attached to it, well, that was his Lookout. We’d play on pitches that looked more like the Somme than a sporting venue.
Being captain, though… that was different. It wasn’t about being the best player. It was about being the first one to a fight and the last one to leave. It was about looking at young Trevor Brooking, this elegant artist trying to paint a masterpiece on a canvas of cowpat, and thinking, 'Right, son, you just worry about the brushwork. I’ll handle the decorators.' That was our legacy. A bit of silk and a whole lot of steel. We weren’t just famous, we were family. The fans knew that because they’d cheer for a last-ditch tackle as loudly as they would for a forty-yard screamer.
Then they had the bright idea of making me manager. The Guv’nor. Crikey. As if playing wasn’t stressful enough. Being manager is a mug’s game. You’re responsible for everything. The kit, the tactics, the tea bags, and stopping a 19-year-old with more money than sense from thinking he’s the next messiah because he’s scored in a pre-season friendly.
I lost a good deal of me hair in that job. I reckon I could have made a small wig out of what I found on the floor of the office each morning. But was nice to see those kids like Lampard,Ferdinand, Cole and Carrick come through.
My tactical masterclasses, I’ll admit, were… limited. My main philosophy was: 'Give it to the clever one, and if you lose it, win it back bloody quickly.' Not exactly Arsene Wenger, is it?
But it worked. We had a go. We always had a go. That, for me, is what West Ham is all about. Not the fame, not the headlines, but having a proper go, that and bollicking the linesman all the way down the tunnel at full time.

Destiny Calling For Aston Villa

The Football season is reaching its exciting climax and it is a great time to be an Arsenal fan because of the 4 possible competitons we could win, we are still in contention for all 4 with the first one this Sunday against Manchester City in the League Cup Final.
Nine points clear in the Premier League with 7 games to go, it looks like it would take an almighty collapse to lose while we are playing Southampton in the Quarter Final of the FA Cup and  last night an Eze wondergoal and a not too shabby effort from Declan Rice saw us through to the Quarter Finals of the Big European Cup where Sporting Lisbon await.
I was hoping for the Norwegian side FK Bodø/Glimt just for the romance of a club from the Arctic Circle with a capacity of 8,270 spectators joining in the fun but they blew a 3-0 first leg lead to end up on the wrong side of a 5-3 scoreline. Oh Skam as they say in those parts.
So it is a good time for us Arsenal fans but i would be getting excited if I was an Aston Villa fan also because as fate would have it, they are managed by Unai Emery, a man who knows a thing or two about winning the Europa League having picked up this particular Pot four times and this is where it get strange.
He has won it three times with Sevilla and once with Villarreal but lost in the final with Arsenal whose name does not include VILLA so if I was them i would be booking that double decker bus now for the end of May because destiny has spoken and it is saying the only thing that will stop them winning the thing is a name change between now and the final in Istanbul on 20 May 2026. 

How Starmer Reached His Iran War Conclusion

What's the difference between Donald Trump and a tanker full of oil? One is dense, sticky and heavy and the other one is a tanker of oil and after 18 days the Iran War is still ongoing and despite all the inane White House bluster about having already won, it doesn't look as though it will end anytime soon as the Orange Man-baby keeps begging for help as the missiles continue to fly from Iran and the US economy takes a huge hit because of the ships stuck on the wrong side of the Strait of Hormuz.
I have always struggled to warm to Keir Starmer but the fact that he told Trump to do one when he tried to pressure him into the joining the misadventure has  raised him up in my opinion and giving the reason that the UK Government deemed it illegal and was launched with no viable plan was a slap across the bright Orange cheeks of the US President.
We now know why we reached the decision that it was illegal and the ever changing reasons given for starting it a crock of bull because in the meeting with the Iranian and the US was our own national security adviser Jonathan Powell who briefed the Cabinet that at the meeting the Iranians had made some surprising offers to continue diplomacy which included a permanent deal with no sunset clauses as well as down-blending the stockpile of highly enriched uranium under the supervision of the IAEA inside Iran and a three- to-five-year pause on domestic enrichment with the US being given the chance to participate in any future civil nuclear programs and in return, nearly 80% of the economic sanctions on Iran would have been lifted.
Powell and the other mediators also spoke of concern that the US delegates, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner where out of their depth and had no technical team alongside to rely on but after the opening offers, Powell and the other delegates considered it progressive and fully expected the next round of talks in Vienna on Monday 2 March to bring forward a diplomatic solution but but never happened as the US and Israel launched their all-out attack two days before the meeting was due to take place.
Oman’s foreign minister, Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, who was part of the talks, appeared on news shows to outline just how far the talks had progressed and that he described a deal that could be signed within days and appeared to back up Powell's assessment that diplomacy was working and the war was rushed into at the behest of Benjamin Netanyahu.  
One Gulf diplomat with knowledge of the talks said: 'We regarded Witkoff and Kushner as Israeli assets that dragged a president into a war he wants to get out of.'
It was Powell's advice that formed the basis of the UK government’s refusal to back the US attack on Iran as there was no compelling evidence of an imminent threat of an Iranian missile attack on Europe or of Iran securing a nuclear weapon and as there was a viable diplomatic option, the US and Israeli attack was necessary.
Instead the UK regarded the attack as unlawful and premature since Powell believed the path remained open to a negotiated solution to the long-running issue of how Iran could reassure the US that it was not seeking a nuclear weapon.
Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper, yesterday answered a question in the House of Commons which asked if she believed a negotiated path between Iran and the US was still possible at that time, replied that: 'The UK did provide support for negotiations and diplomatic processes around the nuclear discussions. We did think that was an important track and we did want it to continue. That is one of the reasons for the position we took on the US strikes.'
Trump can bluster and lie all he likes but judging by the complete reluctance of any other nation to join him and Netanyahu in their war, everyone else also reached the same conclusion as the Brits.

Special Guest Blogger: Dickie Bird

So, here I am. Famous, so they tell me. When I were a nipper, running around the cobbled streets of Barnsley, the only famous person I knew were the lads who could afford a second helping of pudding. Then, I couldn’t go for a pint without someone wanting to talk about a catch in Brisbane in 1979. It’s lovely, don’t get me wrong. But it’s also… peculiar.
Me life. Well, it started with a cricket ball. More specifically, with me trying to hit one and missing it by a good three feet. I’ve always said, I were a better player than I thought. It’s just that the cricket bat had a different opinion. I could see a ball swinging in the air a mile off, but when it came to hitting the thing, I had all the grace of a falling wardrobe. It’s why I became an umpire, I suppose. It was the only way I could guarantee I’d be right at the centre of the action, without the embarrassment of being clean bowled for a duck.
And what an action it was. Suddenly I was out there, in the white coat, under the sun, with the greats of the game. Ian Botham, swaggering to the crease like he owned the place… which, half the time, he bloody well did. Vivian Richards, with a smile so wide you could see his back teeth and a bat that sounded like a thunderclap. They were all famous, see. Properly famous. Me? I was just the daft Yorkshireman in the coat telling ‘em to get on with it.
I stood behind the wicket of 66 Test matches and 92 One-Day Internationals. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it? Let me tell you what it really is. It’s 158 occasions of desperately trying not to need the lavatory while the cameras are on you. It’s thousands of hours of squinting at a little red dot and trying to work out if it clipped a bit of wood or not.
But I had me rituals. Oh, aye. They’re what I’m properly famous for, I think. The meticulous polishing of the bails between overs. Making sure they were pristine. Can’t have a grubby bail, can you? It’s just not cricket. And the little signal for the telly replay, finger up, twitching like I’ve sat on a bee.
And the seagulls. Don’t get me started on the seagulls. Lord’s, 1975. One of them big, swaggering London gulls lands on the pitch. Right in the line of sight. I shooed it. It squawked. I shooed it again. It squawked louder and took a step closer, as if to say, ‘You want a piece of this, soft lad?’ We had a standoff. Me, a famous international umpire, and a bird with a greedy eye and a bad attitude. The game stopped. The crowd were in stitches. In the end, I had to get the groundsman to come out with a broom. It was the most undignified moment of my career. And yet, it’s what people remember. Not the thousands of correct decisions, but the time I got mithered by a seagull.
So what am i remembered for now I’m gone? Will it be the immaculate crease? The unwavering eye? Or will it be the story about the time I stopped a Test match because I’d lost me lucky coin? I hope it’s a bit of both because that’s what cricket is, a ridiculously serious game played by people who are, at heart, a little bit daft.

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.