Meningitis Outbreak Not Another Coronovirus

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

Special Guest Blogger: Billy Bonds

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

Destiny Calling For Aston Villa

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

How Starmer Reached His Iran War Conclusion

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

Special Guest Blogger: Dickie Bird

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

Nah, You're Ok Pal

I am sure someone in the Trump Administration must have said to him if he decides to start a war with Iran, the Strait of Hormuz would be shut off and that would effect the global economy.
Being a bit of a thicko they probably used simple words and maybe even drew some cartoons but the few remaining braincells rattling around in his dementia addled brain just went 'Gotta deflect from the Trumpstein files' and donning a baseball cap, went ahead and did it anyway.    
As his only companion on this misadventure was a nation run by war criminal who was committing a genocide in Gaza,  everyone else just refused to get involved and most even told the moron that they couldn't use their bases to bomb girls schools and medical facilities and after Iran attacked Cyprus and the Prime Minister said he could use the base their to defend themselves, he was told that he didn't need countries that: 'Join wars after we've already won'.
Not one to tell the truth when a perfectly good lie will do, unless 'Won' looks like Iran still firing missiles around the Gulf and electing an even more hard-line younger Ayatollah then the man mentioned in the Trumpstien files tens of thousands of times is not watching the same news that we are although  he has given the nations he has spent the last 12 months deriding to join him.
As the Strait of Hormuz is as expected, bunged up, the Mango Mussolini is asking for  UK, China, France, Japan, South Korea and other countries to send ships to the waterway to help clear the way and unsurprisingly the response has been...Nah, your alright mate.
The UK, China and Japan said they will give it some thought but have refused to make any commitments, South Korea have said only that they have noted Trump’s comments while France have already made its position clear saying: 'There is no question of sending any vessels to the strait of Hormuz'.
Germany gave a 'Nein' reply and China response was that they are in talks with the Iranian regime about allowing Chinese oil tankers to pass through from the Gulf so you are on your own Trump, the World spoke and its a global: 'UP YOUR'S FATSO'.

Trump Pick N Mix Reasons For War

When the United States launched Operation Epstein Diversion, the Trump administration had a major communications question to figure out which was how to explain why it had just started a war with Iran.
Days before the War started US and Iranian negotiators met in Geneva and Oman’s attending foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, spoke publicly of 'unprecedented openness' signalling that both sides were exploring creative formulations and declared that an agreement on the Iranian Nuclear facilities could be signed within days.
Trump said the U.S. sought to make a deal with Iran after bombing three of its nuclear sites in June 2025, but Iran 'rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions' and even said that: 'We haven’t heard those secret words, 'We will never have a nuclear weapon' which came literally hours after the Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, said that: 'Iran would under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon'.  
Then while negotiations were ongoing, the bombs started dropping and the Mango Moron said that he wanted the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow the Iranian Ayatollahs, so Regime Change and Iran were: 'Developing long range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas and could soon reach the American homeland' which contradicts a federal government assessment that said Iran was years away from the ability to produce long-range missiles. Even lackey Marco Rubio distanced himself from the claim by saying that he wouldn't speculate how far away Iran is from having missiles that could reach the U.S. and the Defense Intelligence Agency released a missile threat assessment that said Iran could develop a long-range missile by 2035 if it chooses to pursue it.
Then it was due to stopping Iran getting a Nuclear Missile calling it 'a campaign to eliminate the imminent nuclear threat', Trump envoy Steve Witkoff said Iran was: 'Probably a week away from having industrial grade bomb making material' a claim which the IAEA said they were sceptical about.
Then it was because Iran was planning to strike American interests in the area which was quickly edited to Israel was about to strike Iran and they would then retaliate against American interests. Pentagon briefers acknowledged to congressional staff on 1 March that Iran was not planning to strike US forces or bases unless Israel attacked Iran first.
Then secretary of state Marco Rubio offered an entirely different explanation for the timing of the war, and not that Iran was an imminent nuclear threat,  Iran itself was about to attack or Iran would have retaliated against a coming Israeli strike but that 'Iran tried to kill President Trump, and President Trump got the last laugh' although no evidence was provided to support it.
So take your pick, it was stopping Iran from obtaining a nuclear missile or it's about Regime Change or freedom for the Iranian People or it's about destroying their ballistic missile capability or it's because Iran posed an imminent threat or because Israel made them do it.
As for the length of the war we have been told it would end in 2 or 3 days with a deal, 4 to 5 weeks of fighting or 100 days and now maybe even through to September so take your pick but we can all agree that there is nothing like a well planned military operation with clear goal and this was nothing like a well planned military operation with clear goals.
And we are still talking about the Trumpstien files which has Trump named 38,000 times and is only mentioned in it less than only Epstein himself and Ghislaine Maxwell.

Is Netanyahu Dead?

 
My Social Media feeds have been full over the last few days of the death of Benjamin Netanyahu, I have even had friends and family asking me if we have heard anything about it as they are not hearing anything about it on Main Stream News and they know there are certain things we are asked (ordered?) not to say so it seems a bit pointless me saying no because even if we did, we couldn't say anyway.
What i will say is that if he is dead, and I have no idea whether he is or not, i would treat it the same as the death of any war criminal who was sat 45th in the list of Histories greatest killers as collated by the Orwell Foundation and National Science Foundation who listed the people who have deaths attributed to them through the conditions within the country due to national or international policy or by active killings by force.
The 45th position was before the genocide in Gaza which has resulted in at least 75,000 deaths and the thousands more in Libya and now Iran which now lifts him to 33rd, one ahead of Vlad the Impaler and one below the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, Tomás de Torquemada.
While no death should be celebrated, I imagine when Vlad and Tomás both died, the 15th Century citizens were not too upset about it and i feel much the same away about the 21st Centuries equivalents which is that the World is better off without certain people in it be they murderous Iranian Ayatollahs, genocidal warmongering Israeli's or American Presidents who start wars to deflect attention from their probable pedophilia.
As i said at the start, whether Netanyahu is dead or not, i won't be shedding any tears for him if he is (which I don't know if he is or not) but if he is, thankfully he won't be around to move above Tomás de Torquemada anymore and that has to be a good thing.

Special Guest Blogger: Ricky Hatton

Alright then, come on, settle down, grab a brew. I’ve been asked to pen one of these thingamajigs, a little look back at the life and times of yours truly. A right honour, that is. But I had a read of the brief, and I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little bit flummoxed.
 I'm Ricky.  I’ve got a mug that only a mother could love and I wasn't exactly what you'd call "delicate." I’m built more like a beer barrel than a bottle of perfume. All them pies and pints have given me a physique that’s less ‘hourglass’ and more ‘long-standing national monument’.
So, life, then. What a belting old ride it was.
When I think back, it’s all a bit of a blur of sweat, stitches, and the most incredible noise you’ve ever heard. They tell me to consider my legacy. You what? My legacy? I’m just Ricky from Hyde. I’m the bloke who used to beg his mam for 50p for a bag of chips and ended up fighting in front of millions. It’s a bit mad, when you think about it.
They call me famous, which is a weird word, isn’t it? To me, being famous was getting your name read out in the pub for winning a raffle. Suddenly, I was on the telly, fighting legends, and having a right good go of it. The achievement everyone remembers, of course, is that night against Kostya Tszyu. Don’t get me wrong, winning that was the peak. The absolute pinnacle. But for me? One of the biggest achievements was making the weight the day before without eating the head off the poor lad who brought me a chicken salad.
My legacy, if I have one, isn’t in the fancy belts or the shiny trophies (though they did look canny on the mantelpiece). It was in the MEN Arena. It was in that roar. It wasn't fifty thousand people watching a famous boxer; it was fifty thousand Mancs, willing me on. They saw a bit of themselves in me. A bloke who wasn't afraid to have a go, to get stuck in, and who knew that the best thing after a good scrap was a pint and a curry with your mates. That’s the real legacy, isn’t it? Being a proper, grafting, pie-eating, pint-drinking legend of the working class.
I wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot. My fights outside the ring were often tougher than the ones inside it. The weight yoyo's were a nightmare. I’ve hit more buffets than I’ve hit opponents, I’ll tell you that for nowt. One minute you’re a finely-tuned athlete, the next you look like a bin bag full of water. That’s the game, though. The highs are heavenly, and the lows… well, you learn. You pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and find the nearest chippy.
But the biggest question, the one the email really hammered home, is the end. The finale. The curtain call.
How did I die?Suicide.
Whether it was getting punched in the head for a living but i suffered from severe mental health struggles but you know what, depsite that I wouldn’t change a single second. Well, maybe I’d have had one less pint before the Mayweather fight, but we’ll let that lie.

Which Films Got It Right On Aliens?

 
Our Milky Way galaxy is estimated to contain between 100 billion and 400 billion stars and is just one of 2 trillion estimated Galaxies in the Universe which with the help of Google means that there are about 200 billion trillion, or 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the Universe.
Our Star has 8 Planets swirling around but ESA exoplanet data estimates that there is an average of 2 planets per Star which gives us a best guess at there being 400 billion trillion Planets on which life could have evolved and which makes it absurd that it is just us and there are 199,000,000,000,000,000,000,999 other balls of rock and gas just going around empty.
So on the premise that life HAS to have started somewhere else as well as here, i asked a scientist what do they think life would be like there and i presented a list of sci-fi films to see which they thought may have got closest.
Instantly dismissed as least likely was Humanoid such as the ones in Avatar or Star Wars because it is extremely unlikely that Evolution elsewhere would end up with the exact same intelligent bipedal primates (or us) at the top.
So if not humans how about bugs and insects like Alien or Children of Time? Again not likely due to the evolution process means that they evolved here due to the conditions on Earth which are unlikely to be the same elsewhere so they would not Evolve the same way.
Poo Pooing any evolved life form as the different conditions would mean they would not be anything like we have here, we moved onto Robots and AIs and this was a bit more likely as so we could be looking out for Transformer robots, Cylons from Battlestar Galactica?
Due to the sheer amount of time it would take, Aliens would probably leave their bodies at home and send robotic substitutes or even cyborg replicants made of flesh and machine such as the Cyber Men or Daleks in Dr Who so the first contact would be with one of these types.
Just as i was picturing a Spaceship full of large dustbins screaming Exterminate my camp fire was well and truly watered on by the final and most plausible type of Alien being one which we may not even recognise.
It may be made of rock, gas, metals, minerals, water or anything non carbon and for all we know, they may already be here but we just dismissed them so that leads us to the film, The Abyss, which was about nice watery aliens who saved humans so they are welcome here although if they do turn up and asked to be taken to our leader, we may need to turn down the heating in Downing Street.