Special Guest Blogger: Mike Peters

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

Morons Led By Idiots

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

The Trumpstein Files Fallout

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

Special Guest Blogger: Brian James

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

Source Of National Pride

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

Special Guest Blogger: Ray Reardon

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

Better In Than Out

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

Special Guest Blogger: Rick Buckler

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

Britain Tells USA You're On Your Own This Time

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

The Right To Repair

Wow the EU do come out with some cracking legislation and under this one going through the European Parliament, manufacturers of certain products will be required to make them easier to repair.
Many manufacturers, intentionally build products in a way that does not allow for disassembly, making it impossible to replace defective components when they break so  consumers are forced to scrap the entire item, when there is actually very little wrong with it.
Thanks to the new EU legislation, manufacturers of washing machines, dishwashers, televisions, lights and fridges are required to make their products easier to repair and spare parts will also have to be made available to professional repairers.
The EU state it will prolong the lives of popular household items and dampen demand for new ones, thereby reducing carbon emissions, cutting waste and saving consumers money.
Manufacturers, seeing their profits in Europe taking a huge dip, fought for concessions restricting the rights of consumers to repair products themselves which is fair, amateur repairs to phones and other electronic devices could prove dangerous and we all remember the Grenfell fire which killed 72 people and was started due to a faulty fridge which highlights the dangers posed by defective electrical goods, and raises legitimate questions about non-specialists repairing them.
As our parents said, they don’t make them like they used to and soon that will hopefully be true and something to celebrate.