Special Guest Blogger: Alex Salmond

Greetings, I’m Alex Salmond, former First Minister of Scotland.
Let me start by saying, growing up in Aberdeen taught me anything it was that that the North Sea can throw a decent tantrum.
My political awakening? That came during a heated debate over whether Scotland should be allowed to keep the oil. Spoiler: We were.
I joined the SNP because, frankly, I couldn’t stand the alternative: a lifetime of Tory or Labour and it was me who fought for the abolition of university tuition fees and the scrapping of prescription charges, you are welcome Scotland.
Ah yes, 2014. The summer of white stags, white Bens, and white-knuckled negotiations. Running the independence campaign was like herding Highland cows with a map written in Gaelic. But we nailed it. I mean, 55% said nay, but really it was a moral if not actual victory.
Highlights? Oh, where to begin. The debates where I schooled the lot of them with the precision of a man who’d spent decades practising how to say 'Westminster' with the disdain of a cat who’s just been forced into a bath. The media coverage, which treated Scotland’s political future like a particularly dramatic soap opera. And let’s not forget the night of the result, when I donned my kilt.
Then came Brexit, the political equivalent of a rogue wave. Suddenly, Scotland was the only place in the EU that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be there. I retired from politics in 2017, not because I’d seen enough, but because I’d seen too much. The SNP? They elected Nicola Sturgeon as my successor, which was a bit like choosing your most brilliant, no-nonsense cousin to take over the family estate. She’s done wonders.
I hope they remember the Independence fight and the oil and not the the 14 offences, including attempted rape and sexual assault because i was found not guilty and nor the Russia Today Show i fronted for several years and certainly not how i died of a heart attack while reaching over for a bottle of tomato ketchup while at a banquet in North Macedonia.

Nothing New Under The Sun

There was no Social Media in the 17th Century but what they did have was the Printing Press which caused a very Social Media like fuss when the cost of printing reduced so much that anyone could print anything, and they did in the form pf pamphlets.
The sudden explosion of cheap print unleashed a tidal wave of inexpensive pamphlets that could be produced and distributed with unprecedented speed. Before this surge, most information flowed through relatively narrow channels but suddenly, anyone with modest resources could circulate opinions in the streets.
This led to what historians describe as pamphlet wars, in which anyone with a beef weaponised print to attack their enemies, circulate conspiracy theories, and harden ideological lines. The tone of many pamphlets was and filled with character assassinations and exaggerated claims designed to inflame readers.
Authorities were so alarmed by the loss of their narrative control that Parliament passed measures such as the Licensing Order of 1643 in an attempt to suppress 'scandalous and unlicensed printing'.
Today the British Government are attempting their own version of the Licensing Act to suppress scandalous and unlicensed digital messages, especially those aimed at our children so confirming that old proverb that nothing is new under the Sun meaning events today are merely repetitions of what occurred before, only now with Mobile Phones rather than a more unwieldy Printing Press.

Gissa Job

As a young lass of 16 i walked into a career of Journalism and 40 years later i am still doing it so with 11 working years left i often think i would like to try my hand at something else before i hang up my notepad and start complaining about my state pension but looking around i didn't see much to entice me away from my office desk optimally positioned next to the kitchen.
According to new research from the business financial platform Tide, British job applicants are missing out on lucrative tech sector careers because they don’t understand the roles, even after it has been explained to them but i was intrigued by the advert i saw for an Empathy Engineer in the Tech sector.
£110k a year and all it called for was experience in being a proactive disruptor with excellent communications skills and a world-class library of proven frameworks.
'Dear Sir/Madam' i emailed, 'I am interested in your Advertisement for an Empathy Engineer so please forward details of what the post entails' and the reply was 'someone who considers the social, cultural and emotional factors that influence how society interacts with technology, and focuses on blending the human perspective with tech-driven problem-solving'.
'Thank you' i replied, 'What exactly does that entail?' and the reply came 'Implementing game mechanics, narratives and experiences that foster empathy, emotional intelligence and social awareness among players, promoting meaningful connections and understanding within virtual worlds'.
Unfortunately I missed out on that one which i was gutted about but there was also an advert for a belonging manager at the same company.
'Dear Sir/Madam' i emailed, 'I am interested in your Advertisement for a Belonging Manager so please forward details of what the post entails' and the reply came 'The role of a belonging manager is to embed an inclusive culture at the heart of the organisation, ensuring employees feel valued, included and heard'.
Ah ok, think I will stick to Journalism for the moment if it's all the same. 

Immigrant Ratcliffe Bemoaning Immigrants

Manchester United owner Jim Ratcliffe is one of those special types of patriots, the type that would do anything for his country except live of pay taxes in it.
Overlooking that his squad is made up of 75% non English born players, the businessman who urged people to vote for Brexit and then naffed off to Monaco once it turned into a car crash, has been spouting off about how Britain is being colonised by immigrants.
He backed up his assertion by quoting completely wrong figures and explained that immigrants cost the UK too much money although it must have slipped his mind when he went begging the Government for £125 million to pay for funding his business Ineos or the £2 billion Wembley of the North stadium project despite having £17.5 billion shoved away in his off shore bank account.
While the usual right wing dullards such as Nigel Farage have of course applauded the United co-owner’s ‘straight-talking’ it has not gone down so well in less racist circles. The UK prime minister, the Greater Manchester mayor and assorted United fan groups have been among many, many folk to condemn his deranged comments about and making a point of pointing out the hypocrisy given his own immigrant status as a tax-dodging resident of a Mediterranean principality.
Keir Starmer took a break from fighting to save his own job and barked that Ratcliffe should apologise but it was more likely the FA assessment into whether Ratcliffe has brought the game into disrepute and banned from Old Trafford that forced him to weasel the non-apology apology that he was sorry if his choice of words offended anyone.
Obviously, only sorry that Britain is not as enlightened as him for being appalled by his terrible, far right-wing views.

Special Guest Blogger: Steve Wright

Hello, Posse. Or should I say, the Celestial Posse? It’s your old mate Steve, filing what you might call my final show report. No need to adjust your screen, you’re not dead. Well, I mean, we’re all dying slowly from the moment we’re born, aren’t we? Cheery thought, that. But I’m the one who’s already popped his clogs, shuffled off this mortal coil, handed in his P45.
The big switch-off itself, you ask? Very peaceful. Very dignified. Was listening to a bit of Barry White, getting ready to make a cup of tea, and then… unexpected technical difficulties at The Steve Wright Experience. The big transmitter in the sky just decided to, well, stop transmitting. One minute I was wondering if I had enough Hobnobs, the next I was floating past the pearly gates being asked for my reference number. Turns out it was the same one as my BBC staff pass. Typical. Efficient, the big man upstairs. Loves a good bit of bureaucracy.
I’m told I left behind a ‘legacy’. Honestly? I just that I made your drive home from work a bit less rubbish.
I hope my legacy is that time I played a ridiculous record you hadn’t heard since you were 14, and you sang along at the top of your voice, badly, in traffic. I hope it’s that I made you snort at a ‘Fascinating Fact’ about a man from Swindon who could balance a fridge on his chin. I hope it’s that for three hours every weekday, I was the daft, slightly saucy friend in the passenger seat, pointing out the absurdities of it all.
That was the secret, wasn't it? It was all a bit of a laugh. The show, the ‘Posse’, the ridiculous characters like Mr. Angry from Purley, lazy Sid the Manager and Gervais the Hairdresser… it was all born from the simple idea that life is often bananas, so we might as well join in.
We spent years in a tiny studio, playing records and talking nonsense. And for some reason, you lovely lot tuned in. Millions of you. I still can't quite get my head around it and the Best DJ of the Year was a great moment although voters probably thought I was someone else and not silly old Steve from Greenwich, him from Thames Valley Radio then Radio Luxembourg before landing at the BBC with a face perfect for radio (there was a reason why i didn't present that many Top Of The Pops) and a profound fondness for a decent biscuit.
You know, they have ‘Fascinating Facts’ here, too like did you know that when you here they don’t judge you on your good deeds or your sins? They judge you on your karaoke song choice. If you picked ‘Angels’ by Robbie Williams, you’re fast-tracked. If you chose ‘Agadoo’, you have to sit in a corner and think about what you’ve done.
So, legacy? Somewhere, a car is stuck in a jam on the M25. And the person inside is probably having a terrible day. And I hope, I really, really hope, they’ve got the radio on. And I hope it’s playing something that makes them tap their fingers on the steering wheel. Something brilliant. Something silly. Something that, just for a moment, makes everything feel okay.
After dying from a ruptured stomach ulcer, it was time to fade this old jingle out so to finish my famous line that i wish my first word was 'quote, so when i die my last could be unquote so thank you for everything...unquote.

I'm With The Kids

The ITV Peston Show runs a Youth Tracker which polls 18-25 year olds and the latest poll has some interesting results with 86% saying they would rejoin the EU.
The 2016 means that all of those polled would not have been old enough to vote at the time but they are ones who face the future outside of the European Union, and they can obviously see what a car crash it has been thanks to the 52% who either listen to the warnings or just didn't care and will continue to be until someone has the nuts to hold another referendum.
This generation never asked for Brexit, yet it affects them the most so there is hope that at some point, and hopefully not i the far flung future, we can reverse the calamity of Brexit although there are some deluded souls who are still pretending that the future will be brighter outside of the EU who obviously haven't been paying attention.   
The Poll also found that they think Jeremy Corbyn would be a better Labour leader than Keir Starmer and i would heartily agree if that ship hadn't already sailed and Corbyn was now in a separate left wing Party.
More good news is that almost 60% say they would never vote Conservative and the big winner with that age group is Zack Polanski, the leader of the Green Party.
I think the Kids are alright, we just need them to progress into politics and we can put the downright awful years of the Conservatives and Keir Starmer behind us.

Next Step In Forcing Governments To Fight Climate Change

In the 80s and 90s the environmental call was to make people aware what was coming if we didn't change our ways but i was always optimistic that once people realised the trouble we're in they would do whatever they possibly could to mitigate climate change.
I imagined it would be universal and Global Governments would all work together in a similar way to how they did in the late 1980s to protect the Earth's ozone layer by phasing out ozone-depleting substances emitted by human activities.
Here we are now in the 2020's and its getting hotter thanks to man made climate change where in the 1980's CO2 where 338-339 parts per million (ppm), they have continued grow to over 422 ppm today and actually increased from roughly 1.6 ppm per year in the 1980s to over 2.6 ppm per year in the last decade.
Climate scientists are saying that the current Australian heatwave with the heat reaching record-breaking temperatures of close to 50C, was five times more likely to occur thanks to man made Climate Change so weather warnings get louder, weather maps get redder yet they are somehow ignored.
We can take action individually but to make wholesale change it is going to take work at the Government level so what will it take for the dishonest, greedy and selfish politicians who continue to accept donations from fossil fuel companies, and therefore put their interests above its citizens?
It is unlikely that even whole cities burning or a planet wide drought causing a series of weather-related crop failures will focus minds because the 2.5 million annual deaths from air pollution, over 546,000 yearly deaths from heat exposure and 154,000 from wildfire smoke are not causing pause for thought so maybe we should start holding our governments to account for the scale and the climate related deaths.
Surely that is the next step, for families who have lost loved ones in the increasing number of fires, extreme hot heat, floods and other climate change induced disasters, to start suing the politicians who keep green washing their policies, approving new fossil fuel projects and continuing policies that add to the emissions that cause climate change, instead of doing everything that they can possibly do to introduce policies to cut emissions and fight climate change.   
If the laws we currently have cannot make people responsible, perhaps we need new laws. And if our politicians won't legislate them, perhaps we need different politicians.

Special Guest Blogger: Timothy West

Ah, hello. Timothy West here. Or rather, Timothy West there, honestly, if this is eternity, they really ought to sort out the heating. And the Wi-Fi. I’ve been trying to check my IMDb page for a full twenty minutes. No signal. Frankly, it’s disgraceful.
So yes. I am, as the youngsters say, dead. D-E-A-D. Pushing up daisies. Six feet under. Kicked the bucket. It’s rather disconcerting, really. One minute you're eating a rather excellent scone at the National Theatre, the next you're being ushered through a celestial security checkpoint by a bloke in a toga who insists his name is Kevin who patiently explains that harps are not a thing.
So i was a furniture salesman first and then an Actor. All Creatures Great and Small. Upstairs Downstairs. Edward & Mrs. Simpson. I’ve had a go at everything, haven’t I? Theatre? Check. Shakespeare with the RSC. Television? Oh, yes — so much television. Radio? You bet, I’ve narrated more audiobooks than the entire cast of The Archers combined. Movies? The Day of the Jackal anyone?
But let’s not pretend I was Olivier. I was more… reliable. The sort of chap they’d call when Olivier was busy being Olivier and needed someone dignified but not too imposing and doesn’t mind wearing a wig.
And the wigs! Good lord, the wigs. I’ve sported so many hairpieces and some of them looked startled badgers had taken up residence on my head.
I married well, Prunella Scales. Yes, that Prunella. Sybil from Fawlty Towers. Tiny, fierce, and capable of silencing a room with one raised eyebrow. We were happy, even when I accidentally called her 'Sybil' during an argument about bin day.
Now, as I drift through this peculiar post-life limbo (still no harp, Kevin, still no harp), I wonder: what did it all mean?
Did my 1978 portrayal of a constipated vicar in Crown Court change the world? Perhaps not.
Did narrating 14 seasons of Great British Railway Journeys teach the public anything useful? Well, they now know how to pronounce Eccles correctly so that’s something.
So here’s to the lot of it, the spotlight, the flop, the wigs, the scones, the snoring, the love, the pratfalls, the CBE for my services to drama and the occasional bout of mistaken identity (no, I am not John Thaw).
I lived. I worked. I tried (mostly) to be kind. I once forgot my lines during a live broadcast and blamed it on 'technical difficulties' which was neither true nor dignified. But I got away with it as us National Treasures can occasionally.
My demise came when first i fell over and damaged something important and months later I’m dead and looking for Kevin to tell him I want that harp. And a better signal. And possibly a cup of tea. I expect eternity to be slightly better organised than this.

Israel Confirms Accuracy Of Death Toll In Gaza

Ever since the Gaza genocide started, Israel and its supporters took every opportunity to disparage and dismiss the death and injured figures in the occupied Palestinians territory, arguing that they were overblown or even fabricated by Hamas to try and encourage everyone to treat the awful death toll with suspicion.
The UN has always stated that the numbers were accurate as the data published by the Hamas health ministry includes the full details of the deceased and confirmed by Gazan hospitals and morgues.
Now that a senior military intelligence official admitted last week that Israel has checked, and accepts the death toll published by Gaza’s health ministry, which currently stands at more than 73,600, those who peddled the line that the death toll was not to be trusted are shifting the goalposts and arguing that while the overall death toll of 73,600 may be accurate, what actually matters is the ratio of civilians to militants among them which is extremely low.
This lie falls apart immediately as details from Israel's own military database which was seen by several media outlets and  being used in it's Genocide prosecution at the ICJ, indicated that 83% of Gaza’s dead were civilians.
One Israeli Officer said: 'People are promoted to the rank of terrorist after their death' including children to bolster the weak Israeli defence that they are killing terrorists or Hamas members  wheres according to data obtained from this database, Israel had killed 8,300 militants, the other 65,300 you are safe to assume were civilian Palestinians slaughtered en masse with impunity and recklessness.
Tragically the health ministry’s figures do not include the grim figure of the 10,000 bodies at least still thought to be under the rubble nor do they include deaths from Israeli caused starvation, disease, hypothermia and treatable health conditions which studies show mean the true total may in fact have gone well beyond 100,000.
We won’t know for certain how high the horror death toll since 7 October really is until Israel stops bombing Gaza and stops preventing the media from being able to report from the strip on the abhorrent genocide Israel has, and continue, to commit.  

Rain, Rain Go Away

It was explained to me once that the difference between Drizzle and Rain is that if you can see the drops landing in a puddle it's rain, if not it's drizzle but Great Britain has far to much stuff falling from the clouds to have just two names for it, so we have 188 apparently.
As Meteorologists are saying that it has rained somewhere in Britain every day since January 1st then i imagine over the last 40 days every name has been used and as we have another week at least of the wet stuff, i imagine a few more could be added by the time we have a day when we don't need an umbrella but why has it been such a wet start to 2026?
Usually we can blame being on the cold and wet side of the Jet Stream and that is true but we also have to look at Scandinavia, or rather the High Pressure system which has taken up residence there and not allowing the low pressures systems to whizz across the UK and soak the pavements of anyone else on the other side of the North Sea.
The Jet Stream has been buckled down towards Spain and North Africa due to the extreme cold air sinking down from the Arctic over North America so the Low Pressure systems have been  having a rare old time crossing the North Atlantic and unhindered by the Jet Stream deflecting them up towards Iceland and away from us, they have been steering a path for  our shores bringing frequent rain but whereas generally they throw themselves across us within a day, they have been stopped by the Scandinavian High which has been sat over Sweden and Norway and caused blocked weather patterns so the rain system stalls, slow down and gets stuck over England because the High Pressure doesn't let it continue.
By the time that Low has dumped all its rain on us and starts to fizzles out another one has come along and takes it place which is why so many places have has record amounts of rain so far this year.
The Met Office is saying that there are signs that the High Pressure is shifting slightly or enough at least to let the Low Pressure systems continue on their trek over the UK and into the North Sea but they were keen to emphasis that there are only hints of this and to not leave the brolly at home just yet.
Getting your hair wet everyday isn't fun but at least it gives you the chance to impress people with your knowledge of when it is raining, drizzling or just plain old chucking it down again.

Special Guest Blogger: The Vivienne

First things first, the obituary must lead with the important stuff. I was the nation’s first-ever Drag Race UK champion and fabulous. My exit was reportedly more stylish than Posh Spice’s entire 1998 tour wardrobe, and caused significantly less international incident.
Yes, that’s the stuff. I want my legacy to be cemented in the facts, darling. I won. The first one. A small, humble achievement, you might have heard of it. Before me, there was just… well, there was Drag Race, but it was all a bit… American, wasn't it?
I brought a certain Scouse grit, a specific brand of polished bitchiness, that the world just didn't know it needed. I turned the UK from a charming little novelty act into a global powerhouse of drag and I did it all on a diet of fags, gin, and a relentless, borderline pathological desire to be the shiniest thing in the room.
What else will they remember? The looks, my God, the looks. I’ve corseted my ribcage into shapes that would make an architect weep. I’ve glued down more eyebrows than I’ve had hot dinners. My body was a roadmap of pain with aching feet from stilettos that could double as murder weapons, a back held together by sheer force of will and the occasional dose of ibuprofen.
But was it worth it? Listen, when you can walk into a room looking like a divine, otherworldly creature who has just beamed down from Planet Fierce to inform the mortals that their hair is, frankly, a bloody mess… yes. It’s always worth it.
Of course, The Vivienne doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Behind the sequins and the attitude is a fella. A lad from Liverpool called James who pays the council tax and occasionally forgets to take the bins out. This is where the self-deprecation comes in, you see. The Vivienne is a legend. James is… fine. He’s the one who has to deal with the aftermath. The one who scrubs the glitter out of the sink.
James is the sensible one. The one who tells The Vivienne, 'No, we can’t afford that custom-made crystal-encrusted gown, we’ve got rent to pay.” And The Vivienne, bless her, looks back from the mirror and says, 'Bollocks to that, get the credit card babe'.
He was the yin to my yang. The calm to my storm. The one who remembers to buy milk. And while you all came for the queen with the sharp tongue and the even sharper cheekbones, a little part of my legacy is the quiet fella who just wanted to make people laugh. He’s the engine in this ridiculously over-decorated, high-maintenance sports car. And he was absolutely knackered which is why we both pegged out at the age of 32, dead after a cardiac arrest bought on by a Ketamine overdose.
Let’s be frank. In 100 years, will anyone really remember my season 9 snatch game? Probably not. Will they recall the exact shade of lipstick I wore for the final? Unlikely. My legacy isn’t in the trophies or the TV appearances. It’s not in the brand endorsements or the sold-out tours.
My legacy is the permission to be a bit of a bastard. To be witty, and sharp, and maybe a little bit too much for some people. To wear the absurdly high heels even though you might break your ankle. To tell someone their outfit is a disaster with a wink and a smile, because life’s too short for bad fashion and long faces.
So I say stay Vivacious. Or don’t. See if I care.
 

Booing At Opening Ceremony

Prior to the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics, The International Olympic Committee President made a plea for respect and to not boo any of the competitors carrying their flags, and just in case the San Siro Stadiums Music was turned up and the crowd noise dimmed on TV but at the first glimpse of the Israeli and the American flag, it was obvious that the music still wasn't loud, or the crowed noise dimmed enough, to disguise the crowd of 75,000 making their feelings known .    
As the games are spread out across Northern Italy at five Games Clusters, each Cluster also reported jeering, booing and whistling as the Stars and Stripes and Star of David showed itself.
The IOC faced pressure to ban Israel from competing over the genocide in Gaza but they rejected those calls, saying the usual thing about it not being political although that falls apart when you consider Russian and Belarus athletes are only allowed to compete under a neutral flag if they haven't openly backed the war in Ukraine so that's a nonsense excuse.
Ukraine and Venezuela received enthusiastic roars though and I am assuming many of the 232 American Athletes will be wandering Italy saying 'American? Nah mate, Canadian'. 

History Of Computing Words

Usually whenever i get email and it is whanging on about Computers i send it winging its way straight into the Junk Folder but i had a great one from The Museum of Computing regarding the history of everyday computer terms.
Interestingly, some words from our online vocabularies have been with us a lot longer than their modern meanings apparently.
People were talking about Streaming in 1368 but they meant a beam of unbroken light and not  the playback of an online video or listening to 80s songs on Spotify.
If you asked about Hardware in 1450 you would be shown tools, utensils, nails and even arrowheads because it was what they called metal items back then because there wasn't much call for Hard drives or Motherboards back then.
A Firewall today may keep your computer safe from viruses but in 1578 it was literally a barrier-like wall of flames although it later became a thick partition wall inside a building before the computer nerds made it mean keeping your computer safe.
Surf has been used since the 1600's to mean the foamy crash of the sea on the shore before dudes with surf boards stuck an -ing on the end and then dudes with an internet connection in the 90's took it to mean surfing the net.
The first broadband was the name of a technique for drying corn way back in the early 1600s and Upload and Download is from 1870 and was what farmers did to their carts, meaning putting on and taking off large bales of hay.
Bandwidth was a word uttered by Meteorologists in 1885 to mean measuring how large a band of rain was to help their forecasting and it was Offline and Online was a phrase you would hear from railway workers in 1918 and meant something that was transported by rail, or not.
We have the 2nd World War to thanks for Spam, as fresh meat was in short supply in 1937 so the army servicemen were sent tinned 'spiced ham' which was less perishable and we’ve been dealing with unwanted spam in our inboxes ever since.
When Richard Dawkins wanted a word to mean a unit of cultural transmission in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, he came up with Mimeme which was edited down to Meme as it rhymed better with Gene.

Thank you The Museum of Computing although i can't promise i wont still junk the next one you send me.

Special Guest Blogger: Denis Law

If you’re reading this, one of two things is true: either you’re still alive and scrolling aimlessly, or you’ve finally tracked down the ghost of a 70s footballer so let me cut to the chase, you’re here because you want to know about my life, my career, and how I tragically exited this earthly pitch. Spoiler: it involved pancreatic cancer, not a tackle.
But hey, let’s not dwell on the how, let’s celebrate the why. Buckle up and listen to how I went from kicking tins to kicking goals.
I was born in Scotland but even as a kid, I knew I was destined for greatness because while other boys were playing keepy-uppy with their socks, I was dribbling a tin can around.
My move to Manchester United in 1962? Well, that was the real 'I told you I was special' moment. So good was that team that even the other team supporters started tipping their hats.
In 1968, we won the European Cup. I scored 238 goals for United. I was the first British player to earn a FIFA World Player of the Year nomination but off the field I was a husband, a father, and the master of the 'I’ll do the dishes later' excuse. My wife, Evelyn, put up with me for 63 years.
They put up a statue of me at Old Trafford. It’s me in my prime mid-sprint, muscles flexed an plenty of hair gel and i always envisioned i would go by maybe a heart attack mid-fight with a linesman, or a sudden burst of glory in my 90s, sprinting through a shopping mall like it’s the Champions League.
Instead, I got pain, forgetfulness from the Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia and the ref blew the final whistle.

Bye Bye Keir

I had such high hopes for Keir Starmer and the Labour Government but it seems that they have done all they can to make sure they only one serve on term and the Peter Mandelson scandal has pretty much rubber stamped that Starmer will be lucky to see May out with the keys to Number 10 jingling in his pocket.
Bringing someone who had already been sacked twice was a strange choice but the feeling was that as Mandelson and Trump moved in the same Epstein circles, he would be a good choice as our diplomat to deal with the capricious  American Leader even if it meant, as Starmer admitted, he knew about the links with the now dead pedophile when he appointed him.
Now that it has all blown up in his face, it is hard to see how Starmer can carry on as the Prime Minister but even more worrying for Labour is, there is no natural choice to step into his Hush Puppies.
I was backing Angela Raynor before her tax scandal was exposed so I have cooled on her and Andy Burnham has been blocked  from becoming an MP so he can't do it and the only other alternative is Wes Streeting and he is as popular as a fart in a lift with the other Labour members so successors are thin on the ground.
My suspicison is that he will hobble on until the May 7th Local Elections and then be toppled because nobody will want to take over before then, especially as Labour is expected to be giving a right royal walloping by the general public so heads will be kept low until then so he can be blamed for the poor results.    
The Cabinet seem to be pinning the blame on Morgan McSweeny who was the man who persuaded Starmer that Mandelson would be a good choice and it is he that they are hoping will be the sacrificial lamb but ultimately it was Starmer who had the final say and his excuse that he asked Mandelson about his links with Epstein, and Mandleson lied to him, seem at best extremely weak but in all honesty i wouldn't mind seeing him go, i'm just worried who we will get in his place.  
Unless someone rises unexpectedly out of the pack, i would have to hold my nose and say Raynor but being the least worst option is not a ringing endorsement. 

Winter Olympic Penisgate

The 2026 Winter Olympics are upon us and for the next 16 days we will be watching people slip and slide their way onto the podium and Britain, the land of on average 13 days of snow per year, are confident that we can beat our best medal haul from a Winter Games of five this time around and are optimistic that they will be loading 7 or even 8 onto the flight back home from Italy.
The  Skeleton, Figure Skating, Freestyle Skiing, Snowboarding, Bobsleigh and Curling are the disciplines which UK Sport have put circles around to finish in the top 3 but our grand total of 34 medals is not great compared to Norway who top the all time medal table with 405 but then they do have the advantage of lots of snow which is a bit of an advantage.
What we do seem to hear of at every Olympics are drug cheats and this year there has already been claims that some ski jumpers are trying to gain an advantage by injecting illicit substances and as the potential scandal is being called 'Penisgate', have a guess where the injections are going.  
Last year two of Norway’s Olympic medallists, were given three-month suspensions after the team was found to have secretly adjusted the seams of their suits in the crotch area at the 2025 World Ski Championships which made the jumpers suits larger and therefore reduced their descent rate due to the increased wingspan but now that gig is up, apparently some ski-jumpers have been reportedly injecting their penises with paraffin or hyaluronic acid in order to enlarge their penis's and fly further.
I have no idea what it does or how it works but the World Anti Doping Agency President, Witold ­Banka, has said he will take a look at it which shouldn't be too hard because those suits are pretty tight so it shouldn't be that difficult to see a skier who has injected his penis, the tears in his eyes should be a tell tale sign even if the first thing to cross the line isn't the tip of the ski's.

Special Guest Blogger: James Earl Jones

Yes, I died. It happened. My voice, once described as a thunderstorm whispering sweet nothings into your soul, finally took a permanent break.
But let’s be honest, folks, I didn’t die so much as fade out dramatically with a voiceover. I mean, if you’re going to exit this mortal coil, do it with gravitas. Do it like the final scene of a Shakespearean tragedy, except you’re not, your Darth Vader.
Let’s take a stroll down memory lane and its a funny thing about being the voice of God, Mufasa, and the soul of every public service announcement about deforestation, I didn’t talk until I was five. That’s right. My voice took a leisurely detour through selective mutism and my parents just said i would speak when i was ready, and boy was I ready but I never meant to become the voice of evil space emperors although I didn’t get royalties on the voice for decades because I signed away the rights for $7,500. Seven thousand. Five hundred. For the voice of Darth Vader.
But hey, I’ve got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a couple of Tonys, an Oscar (lifetime achievement, but still no small feat when your face isn’t usually visible). And let’s not forget The Lion King. I played Mufasa. A lion. A majestic, noble lion.
I lent my voice to everything, commercials for cereal, car insurance, mobile phones. I once narrated a commercial for toilet paper but you got to earn a dollar, even if it does smells faintly of aloe vera and lavender.
I finally lost my battle with diabetes aged 93 but don’t want to be remembered only for the voice, I want people to remember that I was an actor but your voice matters,even if you don’t use it for decades. Even if it sounds like a mountain clearing its throat. Speak up. Tell your story. Recite Shakespeare. Narrate your grocery list and order a chicken sandwich in Gregg's as if you are about to start a World War.

Epstein’s Little Helpers

While the horrors of the Epstein files continue to reverberate, Britain can at least be proud that anyone associated with him has been vanquished with Peter Mandelson losing his Labour membership and out of the House of Lords and will probably end up in a Prison Interview Room for all manner of wrongs  while Prince Andrew lost everything including his name and his wife Sarah Ferguson has been removed from her own Charity and what was left of her reputation after being photographed sucking on the toes of someone not her husband, is in ribbons.  
Maybe the Police interviews will come along later but as yet nobody named in the files has had a knock on the door and while being in the file does not mean you are guilty, it does mean that you obviously knew what was going on and said nothing.
Epstein’s little helpers have included Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Noam Chomsky, Ehud Barak, Steve Bannon as well as Mandelson and the former Prince and Ghislaine Maxwell has claimed in recent court filings that 29 men and associates of Epstein were 'shielded by the US government through secret settlements' which could explain why the files that have been released have been so heavily redacted and why the remaining 3 million files are staying locked in a filing cabinet.
This shows that there really was a network of incredibly famous and powerful men willfully looking the other way at 'their friends' underage sex crimes and many carried on looking the other way even after he was convicted.
Strangely the go to excuse seems to be that they were unaware at the time that Epstein and friends were trafficking females and sexually assaulting minors which seems extremely unlikely but some even carried on being best pals even after his conviction for abuse of minors in 2008.
As for Donald Trump, his name runs through the files like a stick of rock and he has been accused of many awful and depraved things and they are probably true, he has been found guilty of sexual assault, his own wife said he raped her while he was forced to shovel $130,000 to a porn star to buy her quiet and then there was the tape where he actually admitted he grabbed women's genitals so it isn't a stretch to believe that he was in on the game with Epstein all the way through their decades of friendship.
What all the releases show is that all these figures knew what Epstein went to prison for and overlooked it as evidenced by their continued association with him
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor famously said he cut him off in 2008 but email exchanges from after 2008 showed him to be a liar, Sarah Ferguson was emailing him in 2011, Musk in 2012 and 2013, Branson in 2013, Barak in 2017 and Bannon in 2019  
Twenty of the Epstein survivors recently released a statement saying that information about them was included in the latest file release:, 'While the men who abused us remain hidden and protected' and that is the problem at the heart of it, the lack of consideration for the abused and trafficked women and girls by so many of the richest and most powerful men alive.

Special Guest Blogger: David Lynch

Look, I didn’t plan to die. I mean, sure, I’ve seen the script, everyone’s got one, and mine had “Fade to black. Roll credits. David Lynch dies. Fade out.” Classic third act. But the whole thing came rather abruptly. And frankly, I wasn’t dressed for it.
When I died, one minute I’m in my cabin in Montana, sipping black coffee so strong it could revive a fossil, and the next I’m floating above my body like a confused helium balloon at a children’s birthday party.
Dying has given time to reflect on my legacy. What did I leave behind apart from movies and TV that made people say: 'What did I just watch?
I started out as a painter. Yes, believe it or not, before I was terrifying suburban moms with Eraserhead, I was just a quiet guy in Philadelphia trying to express myself through oil on canvas.
Then I made Eraserhead. A little movie about fatherhood, industrial decay, and a deformed baby that took five years to shoot and Critics called it unwatchable and audiences called it a mistake and yet, somehow, it launched my career. Such is life.
Then came The Elephant Man. A beautiful, tender film about humanity and compassion and after that, I did Blue Velvet. I wanted to show the rot beneath the picket fences. I succeeded.
And  then, a town with more secrets than a therapist’s notebook and people loved it.
But enough about my filmography, I’m proud of what i made. Sure, I confused people but I never tried to make sense and I did it all while wearing the same outfit every day since 1985, black suit, white shirt, pencil tucked behind the ear like a brain antenna. I didn’t dress for fashion. I dressed for focus. Also, dry cleaning is expensive.
So what would I consider my greatest achievement? The Palme d’Or? The Oscar nominations? I would say awakening inside people the realisation that life is short and very, very strange

America's Gunboat Diplomacy

 
Gunboat Diplomacy was a popular tactic by the British with the mosr famous example being the Opium Wars where the British parked their warships off the coast of China to force them to relegalise the drug opium which was very lucrative to the British Empire and we really didn't like it when the Chinese Empire, our best customer, began to see the unfavorable side of massive, widespread heroin addiction and banned it. We aLeo said you can hand over Hong Kong as a place to land our Opium cargo as you are at it.
It wasn't just the Brits, most nations where at it to intimidate other, less powerful entities into concessions but it kinda fell out of favour until recently when America has picked it up and brushed it off as they park warships off the coast of Iran although the reasons are constantly changing and the current ones are no Nuclear Weapons, stop killing protesters and stop funding militia around the Middle East.
Now i am no fan of Iran or any of the Middle East theocracies and if they could all just dump the Religion thing the World would be a much more tolerant place and neither do i want any nations to have nuclear weapons or any of them to kill protesters regardless of where they are, Iran, America or China but we have to be consistent.
If you go left at Tehran and continue through Iraq and Jordan you will find Israel who have, and continue to commit a Genocide, killing over 70,000 Palestinians since October 2023, mostly women and children including guiding them to 'safe places' before then bombing them.
Just this weekend another 31 were killed and since the Peace Deal they agreed to in October 2025, 509 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military and it is America who have been giving political and military backing for the Genocide to continue.
Yes, Iran is run by an awful, murderous Administration who need to be dealt with diplomatically but far worse is Israel who is run by a Genocidal Administration who have been conducting it for over 75 years and backed by a warmongering nation who are currently under the control of a narcissistic idiot who was recently threatening to invade another NATO country.
America, Iran, Israel....a pox on all their houses.  

Just Handed Back What We Stole

The Chagos Islands had been in the news recently as the UK plans to hand them over to Mauritius which makes it sound as if we are doing it out of the kindness of our hearts but handing them back would be more appropriate because it wasn't given to us, we took it.
As most people woulds struggle to find it on a map, look for the Indian Ocean and work your way down from India and there it is south of the Maldives in the British Indian Ocean Territory and that gives you and idea of how we ended up with it.
Originally part of France, we took it off them in the early 19th Century and in the early 1970's, Britain forcibly expelled the natives at the request of the United States as they wanted to build a military base  there and forcibly transported 2,000 people to Mauritius and the Seychelles and prevented them from re-entering the islands   
Mauritius claimed the Chagos Archipelago as part of Mauritius and in 2019 The International Court of Justice agreed and stated that the UK had an obligation to return the islands to Mauritius hence where we are today with the transfer of sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius agreement expected ratified some time this year.
Under the terms of the deal, the Chagos Islands are immediately leased back to the UK for the next 99 years and Mauritius will receive an annual rent of £165 million from the UK for the first three years, followed by £120 million annually for the subsequent ten years. Thereafter, the £120 million annual payment.
There you have it then, we are giving back which was there's anyway but as for the people forcibly removed...they remain forcibly removed, another consequence of the awful British Empire and the awful American militirisation of the Planet.

Special Guest Blogger: David Soul

Hi, its me, yes, that Guy from Starsky & Hutch and the “Don’t Give Up on Us” guy. And, apparently now the dead guy also.
Let me get one thing straight: I did not plan on dying. I mean, sure, I knew it would happen eventually, smoking 60  day for decades helped with that, but I assumed I’d at least be consulted first. One minute I’m contemplating whether oat milk is a scam (it is), the next I’m checking my own pulse and finding there isn't one.
Now, don’t get me wrong, death isn’t all bad. The peace and quiet is nice, no more autograph seekers asking, “Weren’t you in that cop show? and 'which one was you, Starsky or Hutch?” while I’m just trying to enjoy a coffee in Hampstead Park.
I may have been born American but i died a Brit, obtaining citizenship in 2004 because i loved Britain apart from the weather which is lousy. I actually sort of knew the woman who runs this blog, our seats at Highbury were quite close by and we would nod at each other occasionally, both Arsenal fans see, i even frequently appeared in Arsenal matchday programmes and club magazines over the years.
Obviously i am most well known for the Cop show but when i started having hit songs i know some people wondered why this guy who was all about driving fast cars and flinging himself at bad guys could suddenly think he was a pop star. They didn’t realize that I was a singer and musician long before I made any mark as an actor.
In England I carried on my acting career and would pop up in several shows but mainly did theatre even after the Internet announced i had died in 2009.
'Wait, you’re still alive?' people would say followed by the request for a selfie and one woman in an elevator said I looked like that actor from the old TV show and when i said 'That’s because I am him', she replied, 'Nope, he’s dead.'
Whether it was for my singing or my acting, I was described as a legend which is sweet but i did suffer with back pain from decades of bell-bottoms and legends don’t spend forty years being introduced as 'David Soul, you know, the guy from Starsky & Hutch'.
Still, I suppose I can’t complain. I had a good run. I chased bad guys in a red Ford Gran Torino. I made women swoon with my sideburns. I topped charts. I made cameos on Hawaii Five-0 and Casualty and there is even a remastered Starsky and Hutch on streaming platforms in high definition although nobody really needed to see that close-up of my 1976 haircut in 4K.

May 8th Going To Be Interesting For PM

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

Historians Say Trump Isn't Hitler

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

Ryanair V Musk

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

Board Of Piss

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

Under 16 Social Media Ban Coming To UK Soon

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

Keir Playing The Trump Game

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

Feeling Ill In Space

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

EU's Anti-Coercion Instrument Option

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

State Pension Conundrum

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

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

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

Woohoo...Free Onions

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

The Board Of Peace

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

Trump's Latest Toddler Tantrum Backfires

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

Americans Rise Up Finally

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

Greenland Saying Naamik

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

Reform Just Tories 2.0

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

Iran Next For Regime Change?

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

Turning Off The Internet?

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

Not Defending Your Right To Free Speech

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

Artemis 2

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