About Time IOC

In everyday life, a man can live as a woman and a woman as a man without to many issues and good luck to them, its none of our business, but when it comes to sporting competitions, that is something which i have always said is a step too far because it seems very unfair that women will be competing against with such a massive biological advantage, especially when athletics spends millions trying to catch drug cheats trying to gain the tiniest of advantages.   
Sport did seem to get itself tangled up in knots over it but maybe all it took was the spectacle of men punching women in the face in Paris in 2024 for the International Olympic Committee to decide it may not be fair after all.
In 2003 the IOC decided that that men who fully transitioned to live as women should be allowed to participate in women’s sport but then later in 2016, softened the rules to say that trans-identifying men could compete in female events as long as they took drugs to lower their testosterone.
Then athletics, swimming, rugby and cycling ruling bodies decided to protect their women’s category, they would based inclusion on biology and the IOC position changed to deciding that each sport could make its own rules and then came Paris 2024.
Then came the 2024 Paris boxing rounds and the inclusion of trans women Imane Khelif and Lin Yu Ting, both of whom were biologically men but took testosterone lowering drugs and both who won gold,
Possibly stung by the backlash of having to defend a man hitting a woman, the IOC commission a report by biologists and athletes and last week they announced that: 'The evidence shows that men retain sporting advantage even if they suppress their testosterone' and the IOC now have a decision they can use to decide who is able to compete.
It amazes me just how complicated this has got because to me, and i am aware that this puts me very much on the opposite side of some people who feel this is unfair to anyone who's gender is different to the one they were born with and as i keep pointing out, you can choose your gender but you can not choose your sex, and no operation or hormone drugs will change the biological facts that a person is XY or XX and that should always be the deciding factor and it shouldn't take a biological woman being punched in the face by a biological man to make other people see it too. 

The End Is Nigh For Keir

It’s as good as over for Keir Starmer. However long he limps on, even if he somehow stumbles to the finish line of the next election, his race is run which is amazing for a Prime Minister with a 174 seat majority and four years left in office, but the Fat Lady is practising her scales and gargling with the Aquafresh.
The maneuvers to replace him have began, despite the denials from those obviously jockeying for position behind him and it is shame because he seems a decent guy, just a decent guy who had a chance to make real change after the previous lot and completely wasted it.
My best guess would be that he will limp around to the May 2026 Local Elections where Labour will get a Royal tonking and he will be thanked for his services and ushered away while the Labour Party members put a cross next to who they want to replace him and give the Country it's 7th Prime Minister in just over a decade.
Count them, David Cameron quit after disastrously taking us out of the EU by accident, Theresa May gambled on an election to improve her Parliamentary majority and found herself with a smaller one, Boris Johnson treated Downing Street like a nightclub while ordering everyone else to stay at home, Liz Truss bankrupt the nation in just 44 days and was outlived by a lettuce,  Rishi Sunak was so weak within his party that he sought a dissolution of Parliament months before he had to and was duly toppled by Keir Starmer who could fall into a puddle and make the puddle even wetter.
The question should be then why are the crop of recent British Prime Ministers so terrible at their job?
Some will point to the UK never really recovering from the 2008 Financial crash and there is some truth in that and the things that followed, Brexit, Covid, the Ukraine War only made things worse but many of the events which saw the previous PM's removed were nothing to do with any of them things and were self inflicted mistakes so we can hardly blame them.
Others point to the constant scrutiny by 24 hour news and social media but you would assume that would make them less likely to do stupid things and probably accounts for Keir Starmer who seems much more attuned to the way the wind is blowing, and then doing the required contortions to try and bend as many ways as possible, attempting to try and please all the people all the time.       
Maybe, we as a population, are now just ungovernable with the way we have split into not just left and right but those sides have split into smaller factions which leaves the historical big boys such as Labour and Conservatives, out on a limb with traditional Labour voters breaking away to the Lib Dems, Greens and Your Party and the Tories being cut in half by Reform.
I would guess that the days of one party rule in the UK is over and from now on it will be coalition parties making up the Government but that brings it own problems as deals are hashed out and agreements made but the most galling thing is every MP will tell you they entered politics to make things better, but when they got the chance to actually do it, all of the last 7, to quote one of them, spaffed it up the wall.

Insanity That We Did Nothing

Former US vice-president Al Gore told UN delegates at the Cop30 meeting in Brazil that :'It is literally insane that we are allowing global heating to continue' and according to a report from the Climate Action Tracker, the World is on track for a catastrophic 2.6C temperature rise.
To put that into context, at the mid 19th Century, when the Industrial Revolution really took off, the Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere was 280ppm while today it stands at 425ppm which is the concentration last seen around 4.6 million years ago in the Pliocene Epoch.   
You may hear people (generally the ones with a vested interest to play it all down) say the the atmosphere is always changing and that is true, it does but by humans pumping our poison into the atmosphere it has taken 250 years to go from 280ppm to 425ppm which is many times faster than it increasing this much naturally, ice cores showing it taking tens of thousands of years to match the current human-caused rate.
The rapid pace of the modern increase means that the current human civilization is experiencing conditions never before seen in its existence,  and since the mid 19th Century, global temperatures have risen by 1.3C and Climate Change is taking a strong grip with fiercer storms, wildfires, droughts, floods and other calamities so it is a scary thought what a doubling of this will unleash on our future generations.
Al Gore then is right to say it is literally insane to allow it to happen but then it shouldn't come as a surprise because environmentalists and climate scientists have been telling us for decades and decades what will happen if we don't roll back the CO2, and yet the people who could do something did nothing and here we are and if you think this is bad, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Trump V The BBC

The BBC is finding itself in the middle of the News cycle rather than merely reporting on it and all the usual suspects who would benefit from the BBC no longer being here are wetting their pants in all the excitement.  
The fact is the Panorama edit where they spliced together two comments to make it seem like one long comment was bad and the highest-level scalps have fallen and a producer and editor will be promptly joining them while the US president is threatening to sue it for $1bn.
So why, we must wonder, has the editing of a clip in a documentary that aired in another country, which no one noticed at the time and shortly before he won a Presidential election victory, vexed Trump quite so much?
Throw into the mix that targetting any media that challenges his nonsense utterings to try and silence them is his modus operandi, the BBC reaches more than 25% of Americans (85 million people) and 118 million web visits a month so that is a lot of voters who have access to whatever either the weak US media outlets or the right wings one, are not saying which he would rather they not hear at all.
The best part is the letter he sent to the BBC basing part of his claim on 'reputational damage', which we must ask how much of a reputation has a renown liar who has a recent criminal conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records in a case where he paid hush money to a porn star and a civil case where he was found to have sexually abused a woman and been ordered to pay her $83m while admitting he 'grabbed women by the pussy' so not a lot of reputation left i would assume.
His reputation as the most corrupt, dishonest, and dishonourable man to ever occupy the White House, yes that reputation i can believe.
That reputation while his press office spews out lies on an industrial scale on a daily basis. He has an intent to undermine news organisations in the US and he is trying to silence any criticism of him here now also.
If he wants a fight, by God, we should give him one and the next Panorama episode should concentrate on all his outrageous lies, extra marital sexual shenanigans and a deep dive into the Epstein Files, let's see if he is so keen to go to court to defend them shall we.

Budget Looming

It's the budget on the 26th November but thankfully i am not going to be here because from the 19th November until the 4th December I will be bobbing around in the East Atlantic Ocean on a huge cruise ship while the industrial strength cleaner is employed to clean the fan of whatever Rachel Reeves has hit it with.
I do have some sympathy with the Labour predicament because the previous Conservative administration left her an awful legacy of huge Government debt, a massive blackhole of £20bn-£40bn worth of 'promises' they made and stuck in an envelope for them to pick up and services so ideologically run down over 14 years that it would be almost impossible to just get it back to where it was with one budget and one 5 year administration.
At the last budget, the Chancellor delivered an estimated £40bn of tax rises and financial experts seem to think that this time she is likely to need to raise a further £26bn to get the UK's public finances in order, and that is the crunch, it is not to raise tax to drastically improve the public finances, but just to bring them up to a standard where we have enough public and Civil Servants to ensure the country runs correctly and to fund the NHS correctly.    
Obviously she and Labour are going to get the blame for whatever she does, the Conservatives are already harping that they were correct when they said during the election campaign that Labour would put taxes up and they are right, but right because they are going to have to in order to pick up the dreadful slack that the Tories left them.
Unfortunately, Labour didn't do themselves any favours by immediately cutting the winter fuel allowance which opened them up to accusation so going after the pensioners and they were quite rightly forced to backtrack on that idea as well as climbing down on reducing benefits to avoid a revolt from their own back-benchers.   
Following a pre-Budget press conference last week where the Chancellor never really told us anything but refused to rule out breaking their manifesto pledge to not increase Income Tax, National Insurance or VAT which would realy pout her under the4 cosh if she did so i would like to think was just kite flying to see what the reaction would be if she did do it,  the wise money seems tro be on things such as a Wealth Tax, Mansion Tax, Exit Tax and even the merging of National Insurance and Income Tax which someone with a better calculator than me would raise approximately £33bn so i'm guessing that is where she will be looking.
Anyway, i will not be here and will be avidly avoiding it and will have no phone access until i am back on the 4th December, hopefully with a sun tan, a Cruise belly and a photo reel on my phone to bore people with into the New Year. Enjoy.

So You Are Going To Trump's America...

Where America once said 'Bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to break free', it has added...'oh and the passwords to all of your electronic devices so we can lock your sorry arses up' because stories abound about travellers to the USA having their devices searched.
Even white people turning up at Trump's American borders have been detained, one French Scientist was denied entry to the US recently after immigration officers at an airport searched his phone and found messages in which he had expressed criticism of the Trump administration's research policy and was accused of writings: 'That reflect hatred toward Trump and can be described as terrorism' and he was promptly sent back to France on the next plane.
The US Customs and Border Protection, blubbed in a statement: 'As part of their critical national security mission, CBP officers routinely determine admissibility of foreign nationals using longstanding US immigration law. If an individual has material discovered on their electronic media that raises flags during an inspection, it can result in further analysis' so if you want to go to the USA, a Security expert has given me details on how to prepare your machines first.

1 - Do not go to the USA, simply stay home and leave your phone the way it is, nice and easy and you won't risk ending up being bundled into the back of an ICE van.
2 - Decide before you go if you are going to refuse to hand over passwords to your devices (might look suspicious) or of you will let them look at your devices (which could be possibly worse).
3 - Whatever you decide encrypt your data then turn off face ID and fingerprint unlocking
4 - Delete all anti Trump social media and blog sites like this one
5 - Set up face social media accounts where you just share cat videos
6 - Get a burner phone instead

As a rule, if you are reading this or know me personally then you are probably pretty dubious in their eyes anyway, what with all us lefties being woke, vegan, Israel hating, tree hugging climate complainers so it's best to assume you will get taken aside and questioned anyway.
Obviously the drawback of just not taking your phone is that you can't then be added to any top-secret group chat about bombing middle eastern countries but if it keeps you out of an  El Salvadorian prison then that's a decent trade off.

Why Do We Love Christmas So Much?

The Christmas TV Adverts are starting to fill our screens and already i think i have found my favourite for the year and it comes from Supermarket Lidl who have come up with an absolute corker which pretty much sums up everything i love about Christmas.
We see a young girl who questions what makes Christmas special as she watches people sharing moments of kindness, rather than focusing on traditional Christmas indulgence or materialism and has an absolute killer of a pay off line.
She asks the question, 'Why do we love Christmas so much?' and wonders if it's because maybe everyone's a bit less grumpy and how it is not about 'me, me, me' but more about 'us' and when time isn't about money anymore, its just time and instead of thinking what we want, we wonder what someone else might like and decides that: 'I think we all love Christmas so much because we all want to make each other feel more loved'.
And then the line with which i wholeheartedly agree with....'I think everyday has a lot to learn from Christmas.'
Just brilliant and i hope whichever advertising bod came up with it has been given a few days off as reward to go Christmas shopping and a massive hamper, from Lidl of course. 

Welcome To Arsenal Mamdani

Zohran Mamdani is having a great November because not only has he just added 'Mayor of New York' to his CV, but his Football team also sit top of the Premier League.
Social Media posts from 2011 celebrating Robin Van Persie and having a moan about Granit Xhaka starting in the team have resurfaced with Mamdani spouting forth on all things Gunners so he isn't a Johnny come lately to the red side of North London and another Political Arsenal fan, Jeremy Corbyn, was pictured posing with a 'North London 4 Zohran' Arsenal football shirt.
Keir Starmer is also a fan of the mighty Gunners but before you start thinking supporting Arsenal is a left wing thing, Conservative Party members Priti Patel and James Cleverly are also declared supporters and they are as left wing as William Saliba.
Arsenal do have some very famous fans such as Mick Jagger, Lewis Hamilton, Rihanna, Jay-Z, and actors like Colin Firth, Idris Elba, and Danny DeVito as well as Roger Daltry, Kevin Costner, Robert Pattinson, David Schwimmer and it was rumoured that Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mother were both big fans.
On the 'You sure you wouldn't prefer Tottenham?' list is Piers Morgan and Osama Bin Laden who was a regular at Highbury before he took his talents for hiding in caves to Afghanistan but that is the best thing about the Arsenal, we accept anyone as the transfer of Willian and Francis Jeffers showed.
As for Mamdani's politics, i keep hearing he is a Socialist so we can fully expect him to be sat with Starmer at the Emirates and helpfully passing on tips on how Socialism should work, and maybe some to Gabriel Martinelli, our very own exceptional left winger.

Remember Remember....

Remember, remember, the 5th of November, Gunpowder, treason and plot and in the UK we do remember because tonight is not a night to have a peaceful kip because it is going to be non stop fireworks whizzing around and old sofa's and cupboards set on fire in fields.  
The story of Guy Fawkes is a strange one, firstly he wasn't even called Guy but Guido and everybody hated the Catholics at that time because they seemed to think that they were always plotting something which in this case they were because Fawkes was caught red handed under the Houses of Parliament with 36 barrels of gunpowder ready to blow up King James I and it would have worked if one of his co-conspirators hadn't written to his Catholic MP to tell him to avoid the Commons that day and who told everyone and got Fawkes caught.  
Fawkes was arrested and sentenced to death but as he was being taken to the gallows, he made the worst escape attempt ever and fell off and broke his neck, killing himself in the process.
17th Century justice being what it was, the Government thought he isn't getting away with that and had his genitals removed and burnt before quartering him between four horses and gutted anyway.
Ever since then, November 5th was decreed the day where we celebrate the Kings safe escape from being launched through the roof of the Houses of Parliament but due to Health and Safety gone mad, we can no longer burn real Catholics and have to make do with burning effigies instead while going 'ooh', 'aah' and 'whee' at a few overpriced fireworks and watch a teddy bear in a Donald Trump mask make the ultimate sacrifice.

Dick, Bush And Colon

There wasn't much amusing about the Iraq War but the fact that it was bought to us courtesy of a Dick, a Bush and a Colon (Colin actually but for some reason Americans pronounce it like the part connected to the poop chute) was usually enough to bring a wry smile to the fact that all three lied their way to a massive war in the Middle East.
Colin Powell died a few years ago and while Donald Rumsfeld (who disappointingly didn't have a rude sounding name) has also turned up his toes and now the 84 year old Dicky Cheney has joined him because the last man you would want to go quail shooting with has confirmed the Billy Joel lyrics that only the good die young.
One of the main architects of the War on Iraq and Afghanistan, the last remaining of the quartet, George W Bush, said that: 'The death of Richard B. Cheney is a loss to the nation and a sorrow to his friends. Laura and I will remember Dick Cheney for the decent, honorable man that he was. History will remember him as among the finest' which makes me wonder if there was another Dick Cheney because the one i remember  wasn’t just a driving force in the wars as well as championing torture, but pushed both the Iraq WMD lie and the Saddam is mates with-Al-Qaeda falsehood which resulted in millions of Iraqis and thousands of American soldiers dying.
So with Dick and Colon gone as well as the miserably unfunnily named Donald Rumsfeld, at least Bush had the decency to keep his war mongering head down and not go swanning around like Tony Blair who, to be fair, had to avoid a few shoes and eggs thrown at him when he was last seen in public but there you have it, another completely horror of a person thankfully off the face of the Planet but while we can only hope that the war criminals of today (Netanyahu, Putin, Al Assad etc) don’t get to live quite so comfortably as Cheney did, his friend who's face he mistook for a quail and blasted him with a shotgun, might be relieved.