Special Guest Blogger: King Alyattes of Lydia

When you’re a king, you get a lot of time to think and a lot of people to remind you you’re not a god.
I was born in Sadis, the 5th ruler of Lydia which was a city that smelled of sandalwood, fresh figs and the faint hint of future gold and the founder of the world’s first minted money.
My father, King Sadyattes, was a stern man who believed in a strict bedtime and an even stricter treasury in a time when the Lydians had built their empire with swords, but we kept it with money.
In my 20th year I inherited the throne and a mountain of debt. The Lydian economy was a mess of barley-bundles, cattle-cattle, and the occasional promise of goat-skins.
Before money, people had bought things with cows and pigs, which were not very efficient for the purpose because you had to feed them and keep them safe all the time and sometimes they died.
My advisors kept suggesting 'tribute' to offset our debts but the peasants just grumbled and one day i wondered what if we could give people something that isn’t perishable, like these gold rocks we keep finding laying around and i called my Chiefs and said let’s turn this precious metal into something everyone can count.
Thus, the Lydian Lion was born, a gold coin stamped with a roaring lion, a symbol of our kingdom’s strength. I held a grand ceremony, tossed a handful of the new metal into the crowd, and shouted that now they could buy a goat and the crowd went wild and all the goats were sold out in an hour.
Suddenly the Lydians had this money stuff, which was small and easy to keep and you could hide it in a sock under the mattress, which hardly ever worked with cows and pigs. Also, it had little pictures on it, which were interesting to look at. At least, more interesting than cows and pigs anyway.
Money was so easy and convenient and didn’t moo all night, you started saving up for things, and selling things in the nearest market town, and settling down, and not hitting neighboring tribes as often as you used to.
Oh they went on about how much better life was in the old days, before there was all this money and peacefulness around, and how much more enjoyable things were when people used to get heavily armed in the evenings and go out and make their own entertainment but no one was anxious actually to go back there.
So there you have it, I invented money because I was tired of bartering goats for barley and needed a way to keep my treasury from smelling like livestock.
In my 24th year, the Cimmerians, those nomadic warriors who thought sweeping the plains meant stealing your treasury, decided to raid Lydia. My generals suggested a full-scale war, but I opted for a more creative solution. I invited the Cimmerian chieftain to a banquet and told him a story about a king who could turn any enemy into a friend by giving them a shiny coin.
The chieftain, slightly intoxicated, laughed, clapped his hands, and asked for a coin as a souvenir. I gave him a Lion, and he left with a promise never to raid again plus a hangover that made him swear never to cross a Lydian border again.
After the Lion stamped its first round in Lydia, the rest of the ancient world went crazy and the Persians tried to copy our metal but ended up with blunt, square discs that looked more like doorstops than currency and in an effort to keep up with demand, I hired a team of artisans to create different denominations such as a gold Lion for the big-time deals, a silver Electrum for everyday purchases and a bronze spade for peasants buying seeds.
Every great empire has its oops moment. Mine involved a sudden influx of counterfeit coins. A rival city-state, jealous of our mint, started stamping their own versions of the Lion, only theirs looked more like a sleepy cat. The peasants were confused, the merchants got angry, and I, being the diplomatic king I was, hosted a Coin-Swap Festival where everyone could bring in their suspect coins.
Moral of the story is if you can’t beat them, invite them to a party and give them a shiny bit of metal as my little metallic circles changed the world. We’ve gone from barter to coins, from coins to paper, and now people are using bits that you can’t even hold.
My name appears in textbooks as the man who invented money which is flattering and humbling but I never actually invented the idea of exchange, I just made it much more shinier.

Red Heat Warnings

 

Met Office forecasters have issued a rare red weather warning for Wednesday and Thursday in the face of extreme heat and humidity, while a red heat health alert has been issued in England indicating: 'A risk to life for even the healthy population.'
The weather warning covers from Swansea to London and runs from Salisbury up to Birmingham with areas outside this area under an Amber warning.
In force on Wednesday and Thursday, forecasters are saying they expect maximum temperatures to exceed 37C, perhaps rising to 38 to 40C and accompanied by high humidity, exacerbating the potential for discomfort and health impacts, with very warm and humid night times also reducing the ability for people to recover overnight.
The MET Office warning includes the line that: 'Significant disruption to daily life is likely and the public should take every effort to make precautions and adapt their daily routines where possible to cope with these levels of heat, which up to now have been extremely rare for the UK with with substantial disruption to travel, energy supplies and possibly widespread damage to property and infrastructure'.
Friederike Otto, a professor of climate science at Imperial College London, said: 'Our first 40C day was supposed to be a wakeup call, but clearly someone hit snooze. Hitting 40C again, and in June this time, would be incredibly alarming. There’s a sad inevitability to all of this, with scientists like me trotting out the same quotes year after year. Yes it’s climate change, yes it’s us, no it’s not El Niño. Simply put, we remain on a one-way trip towards a more dangerous future, and it’s time we hit the brakes'.
Sadly, the only people who could have hit the brakes have continually failed to do so for decades and this is the inevitable outcome of our own sheer stupidity.

Starmer Out

Here we go again then with Britain ready to have its 7th Prime Minister in 10 years and the new name on the door is widely expected to be Andy Burnham who is almost facing a clear field in his run to 10 Downing Street.
It has been a bit of a wild ride for Keir Starmer who does come across as a very nice man but not a very nice Labour man and though it was the Mandelson Affair which ended him, the writing has been on the wall for quite some time but while he will remembered for his missteps, he did have some successes.
Keeping Britain out of Trumps disastrous war in Iran, the Social Media ban for under 16's, bringing down waiting lists for the NHS and the employee and renter rights were all rightly applauded but i always had the feeling that Starmer wasn't connecting with the general public  and came across as quite bland an uncharismatic although he did say in 20204 when he was elected, maybe what Britain needs is a boring Prime Minister, which is exactly what we got.   
Andy Burnham's plans are not that well known which seems a strange situation for someone about to take the top decisions in Government but whereas Starmer was not Labour enough for the parties Back Benchers, Burnham is making all the right noises at the moment  although what he can do within the Party Manifesto he will have to work under we willo find out soon enough.
As for Britain, Cameron quit in 2016 after losing the Brexit vote,  Theresa May also gave up when she couldnt get her Briexit deal through the House of Commons in 2019, when his party refused to Govern under Boris Johnson in 2022 after it was exposed he was partying (and lying about it) through the Covid crisis he was replaced by Liz Truss who sunk the economy and was swiftly substituted just over a month later for Rishi Sunak who heavilly lost the 2024 to Keir Starmer.
After 717 days he will now be handing back the keys to Downing Street and the nation once again thinks, maybe this time it will work.

Special Guest Blogger: Artemisia I Of Caria

Ahoy, ye land-lubbin’ scribblers and history-snob swabs! I’m Artemisia I of Caria, but call me Arty, nay, wait, that’s too common. How ‘bout The Salty Siren of Halicarnassus? Aye, that’ll do. Ye’re here ‘cause ye’ve heard tales of me, I s’pose, that madcap pirate queen who out-sailed the gods and out-drank Poseidon himself! Well, gather ‘round, ye scallywags, and let me paint ye a portrait of me life with a brush doused in rum.
They say I was born into a royal family. Pfft. Royal? I was the daughter of a petty king who thought strategic alliances meant marryin’ off his daughter to the nearest lunatic with a navy. But let me not bore ye with the boring details! The upshot? I grew up in a sandbox of political chaos, where diplomacy was a code word for steal each other’s treasure and pretend it’s ‘trade.
By the time I was old enough to tie me own laces, I’d learned that power ain’t given, it’s taken with a sword and  Rum solves all problems.
So I did what any self-respectin’ Carian noble would do and I joined the pirate life. Aye, the high seas were callin’ me name, and I answered with a cutlass in one hand and a map in the other.
Now, I know what ye’re thinkin’, ye land-locked parrot, was i any good at this piracy lark? I’ll have ye know I once outmaneuvered the entire Greek fleet while dressed as a man in a too-small tunic. It was excruciatingly itchy.
My ship? The Ship of Destiny, a creaky old tub that looked like it’d sink if ye so much as sneezed on it. But I loved her like a first mate. And love, me hearties, is what made me a legend. When the Persians asked me to join their navy, I thought, Why not? I’ll take their gold, their trust, and then their ships. Classic Arty.
At the Battle of Salamis, I did the near-impossible and saved the Persian Empire while secretly sabotagin’ it. It was a masterstroke. The Greeks? They’re still scratchin’ their heads, wonderin’ how a woman in a man’s tunic managed to pivot their history like a drunk docker at a tavern.
I didn’t become a pirate for the glory. No, no, no. I did it for the free rum, the fire ships, and the excellent view of the chaos.
And don’t get me started on my death.I was kicked in the arse by a man half my size. True story. A rival pirate, jealous of me plunder, ambushed me while I was nappin’ on a rock. I dueled him with a coconut (long story) and lost. But before I croaked, I made sure to steal his hat and wear it to me grave. That’s how a real Pirate goes out, a thief till the end!
So there ye have it, ye rum-soaked bilge rats, me life, me rules, and to tell ye to raise a glass, question authority, and never, ever pass up a chance to dress as a man and lead a fleet into battle.

What Was It For?

In his first term, Trump scrapped the 2015 Obama-era nuclear accord known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action which was in force between 2016 and 2018 and the White House has been on a PR offensive since the details of this deal came out because all it does, at the cost of thousands of lives, is put us back to where we were on February 27th, the day before the ill judged bombing started.
Iran may be asked to reaffirm that it will not acquire a nuclear weapon but then that’s what it's been saying for years anyway and even repeated it during the February talks in Geneva when the Strait of Hormuz was open for shipping and American and Iranian negotiators were discussing a nuclear deal so the question must be what exactly the war was for?
Israel has been gunning for Iran for decades and persuaded Trump that by killing the supreme leader on the first day, it would cause a collapse of the undoubtedly corrupt and highly repressive regime but it has not just survived but has been empowered as it has now discovered the power of controlling a global economic chokehold is a far more usable, and much cheaper, weapon than a nuclear program.
In return for reopening the Strait, the MOU's language says the US will lift its counter blockade of Iranian ports, waive sanctions allowing Iran to earn billions of dollars from exporting oil and start the process of returning billions more to Iran by unfreezing assets that it held abroad.
When they went to war President Trump said the regime in Tehran would fall and told the Iranian people to prepare for a once-in-a-generation chance to take back their country and not long after that he called for its unconditional surrender but what we ended up with is a memorandum of understanding which is an agreement to talk about Iran's nuclear program while handing key inducements for Iran. If the talks progress, the US has said it will lift sanctions and hand over a reconstruction fund for Iran worth at least $300bn.
No amount of White House spin will make anyone think that America and Israel have made any gains from what we had with JCPOA in 2016 and even what we had on February 27th but with Israel and the USA licking their wounds and the thick end of $114 billion of taxpayers money spent, I would guess Iran must be feeling quite pleased about this deal.

Bye Bye Keir

Keir Starmer must be feeling a bit giddy today because Andy Burnham has completed the first step of his journey towards turfing him out and moving his furniture in 10 Downing Street.
The hardest bit done, he know has to find 81 MP's to back him which he already has and win the leadership contest which seems like a foregone conclusion because it is hard to see Starmer emerging from this with the keys to the Black Door still in his pocket.
My problem was Starmer was always that he wasn't Labour enough and Burnham is making big promises to warm all Socialists hearts such as gradually Nationalising water, energy and transport and a massive program of affordable housing.
To say that since they gained power the Labour Party has been a disappointment is an under statement and the latest YouGov poll showed that 37% of the country think there should be a change at the top of Government and we may just get our wish.
I get that after 14 years of ideological right wing nonsense from the Conservatives there was a lot to fix, the inherited economy was dreadful and the services so hollowed out by cuts and austerity that it was never going to be a quick fix and STarmer has done some good things with closer ties to the EU and the recent Social Media ban for under 16's  but otherwise we were heading towards wasting the opportunity to actually do something.
Unfortunately for Starmer, he will be remembered as that guy who led the Labour Party into power after 14 years and then piddled it all away doing very little when he finally got in and then got replaced.   
Labour is a Socialist Party, it should act like it and under Burnham, we can only hope it does.

Special Guest Blogger: Greek Goddess Astraeus

Hello, dear readers or should I say hello judges and lawyers because I’m the the original Goddess of Justice, though I’m reliably informed I’ve since become the chick in the sky with the scales. Blimey.
The Golden Age of Humanity was a riot. I descended from the heavens all wide-eyed and wielding a sword (because nothing says fairness like looking like you’ll slice someone’s head off), determined to make the world a better place. My mission? To root out injustice, balance the scales of morality, and generally act as a very posh morale officer.
My first mistake? Assuming humans would appreciate me.
Imagine, if you will, a Bronze Age village. A man steals a goat. Another man insults a priest. A third man just wants to know why the river’s upstream. My job, I thought, was to intervene, to bring order to the chaos. Instead, I got a crowd of 300 all shouting, 'Sort them out, Astraea'.
Honestly, it was like herding cats and by the time I’d decided the goat needed to be returned and the insults needed to be quantified in livestock, someone had set the village on fire. Justice, I realised, was not a popularity contest.
I tried. I really did. I adjudicated disputes, judged the guilty, and even let my hair down (metaphorically as virgins can’t literally do that, obviously) to mingle with the masses. But then came the Iron Age, and with it, professional injustice and kings who thought fair meant because I say so.
One day,I simply left. Poets say I ascended to the stars in a blaze of glory, transforming into the constellation Virgo. Rubbish. What actually happened? I stormed off. Yes. After a particularly egregious case of a tyrant executing a farmer for thinking incorrectly, I muttered, 'Right, that's it, sod the lot of you' and took the scenic route to the afterlife.  I just departed in the same way that one departs a party when it’s clear no one is paying attention to what you’re saying about the weather.
I gathered my sword, my scales, and my dignity and I marched toward the sky  and thus, Virgo was born, eternally peering down at Earth with the disdain of a goddess who tried to fix the human world and make it fair and failed gloriously.

Learning From Dion's The Wanderer

 I made a weird discovery today while walking along listening to my headphones, my steps matched exactly to early 60's song 'The Wanderer' by Dion and the Belmonts.
When i got in i googled the beats per minute and found out that song was 116 bpm's so stands to reason that other songs at the same rate would also match my walking speed so off i went to Google again and found tonnes of songs so weeded out the ones which would make me stop to push them forward and ended up with a playlist of American Girl by Tom Petty, Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Grandmaster Flash's White Lines, We Will Rock You by Queen, Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana, Should I Stay Or Should I Go by The Clash, Iggy Pop's Lust For Life, Town Calle Malice by The Jam and Megadeth's Symphony Of Destruction.
Apparently a step rate that syncs with 116 bpm is excellent for a brisk, moderate-intensity walk of about 3.5 to 4.0 mph which elevates your heart rate and strengthens your heart, lungs, and endurance while still allowing you to comfortably hold a conversation.
For most people, a general walking pace is about 90 to 105 steps per minute but musically 116 bpm's would fall under the Allegro Moderato (Moderately fast) range which while not an extreme high-energy or frantic speed, it comfortably leans toward upbeat.
All of this i never knew until today so thank you Dion.

A Child Protection Lecture From America????

The American embassy in London has published a notice advising the UK government not to ban social media for the under-16s and the appropriate answer would be who the feck asked you anyway?
Maybe the Americans thought we would appreciate some advice from a nation where the leading cause of death in children and adolescents is gunshot wounds and their answer is not to stop mass shootings in schools and colleges by banning guns like a sensible nation, but hold shooting drills in the classrooms where they practise clambering under their desks.
When the shooter almost made it into the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in April, rather than drag the President out of the room, why not just get him under a desk? It's what they think will protect the American youngsters when someone is rampaging through the school, halls with a military style rifle why not the rank and file of the Government.
We could also go into the sex pest President being almost certainly a pedophile as well who is protecting his child abusing chums in the Trumpstein Files who he knocked around with throughout the nineties so having a nonce at the top of Government isn't exactly screaming child protection.   
Either way, lectures from Donald Trump’s administration about anything should be noted, then quickly dismissed as utter nonsense and never mentioned again because the worst case scenario is that come November he will neutered by his own people in the Mid-Term elections and will limp to the next Election in 2028 as lame as his boasts that he beat Iran in his latest debacle or the many online doctors are right and he will not even make it that far as he is not so much knocking on Deaths door but standing in Death's hallway discussing the coat stand.

Special Guest Blogger: Barbara Payton

If you’ve heard my name, it’s likely been whispered with a sympathetic cluck of the tongue or, more likely, a lascivious gasp. I’m the cautionary tale, right? The blonde bombshell who lit up the silver screen for a hot minute and then spectacularly combusted. The girl who had it all and then frittered it away on men, booze and a series of decisions so daft they’d make a reality TV producer blush.
And you know what? They’re not entirely wrong. It was a bit of a carry-on but they miss the best part that it was quite often a bloody good laugh.
Let’s start at the peak, shall we? Hollywood in the late ‘40s. The Studios owned you, body and soul. They told you what to wear, who to date, and what to think. They looked at me and saw a set of cheekbones that could cut glass and a certain rebellious sparkle. I was their next big thing. Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, with the divine James Cagney. I was a contract player at Paramount, a bonafide starlet. It was all very glamorous and utterly exhausting.
Then came the men. Oh, blimey, the men. The history books love a good scrap over a dame, and I gave them a humdinger. Franchot Tone and Tom Neal. Two handsome, successful actors who decided the best way to win my affections was to beat each other to a pulp in a street. Honestly, chaps, was all that necessary? All that over a silly girl from Minnesota who was just trying to find a decent gin house in this town? It was romantic, I suppose, in a ridiculously Neanderthal way. Franchot won the fight and my hand in marriage. Tom got a suspended sentence and a starring role in my next film. See? Everyone’s a winner.
That, my dears, was the turning point. Not the fight itself, but the fact that my life had become more interesting as gossip than as cinema. The public didn’t want to see me act, they wanted to watch the real-life drama. And who was I to disappoint?
This is where my so-called fall from grace, kicks in. They talk about the alcoholism, the dead-end roles, the arrests for shoplifting and, yes, prostitution. They paint a picture of a broken woman, a ghost haunting Sunset Strip before she was even a proper ghost.
And yes, my fondness for a martini (or five) before lunch turned out to be a rather poor long-term career strategy. My bank account started to look less like a vault and more like a sad, empty teacup. So, I made some money on the side, and on my back, and all fours for men who were willing to pay me. A girl’s got to eat, hasn’t she? I was always a terrible businesswoman but there’s a certain freedom in hitting rock bottom. Once you’ve sold your mink coat for a fraction of its worth and spent the proceeds on a bottle of hooch and a packet of fags, you stop caring what the gossip columns say.
I wasn't a cautionary tale, that’s so dreary, my real legacy isn’t in a dusty film can,  it's in the glorious, messy, human truth of it all. I loved too hard, drank too much and made mistakes with the enthusiasm of a puppy chasing its own tail but I wasn't a victim, I was a participant.
Which brings me, rather unceremoniously, to the end which was of heart and liver failure aged 39 which frankly was a bit of an anticlimax after all the drama. The final curtain fell with a whimper, not a bang.