Special Guest Blogger: King Arthur

And lo, at the hour of England’s greatest need, a King will step forth to lead them and sweep the English to a legendary victory. Could a mere man turn out to be one of the greatest war leaders this land had ever known, famously expelling the invaders and becoming a national folk hero who would inspire poets and storytellers down through the ages?
Well, no, frankly because first things first, i didn't exist. You may have heard talk of Arthur the King of the Britons who was famous for owning a table which was not rectangular and mixed it with Magicians but i agree, the back story is very compelling.
I was supposedly around at a time when Swords where what matters. Swords, that’s what it had all been about. Swords and cutting off heads. That was how you got land in other nations in the old days, and then the rules were changed so that you didn’t need a sword to own land anymore, you just needed the right piece of paper. But some people still hung on to their swords, just in case people thought that the whole thing with the bits of paper was unfair, it being a fact that you can’t please everybody.
I was the son of a strange liaison between King Uther Pendragon and Ygerna, Duchess of Cornwall and raised by noble knight Sir Ector and knighted as King after pulling a sword out of a great anvil and later when the sword broke, having it replaced by The Lady of the lake whose hand rose out of the lake and handed me the magical sword called Exalibur which guaranteed victory.
Yeah, I can see how that would be hard to disbelieve but hate to pee on your campfire but it's all made up.
I didn't marry Guinevere, the most beautiful woman in Britain or chum around with Sir Lancelot in Camelot and the Holy Grail search was made up and Modred didn't kill me but worst of all, I am not laying dead on the Isle of Avalon, waiting to rise up once the people of Britain have need of me again. You are on your own people!

Guess Who's Back Keir

Oh dear, Keir Starmer may end up regretting sacking Lucy Powell from the role of Leader of The House of Commons last week because she is in the final two of the contest for the recently vacant role of Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.
I'm a Labour supporter and even i say the last 12 months of Labour Government have been awful, not Conservative Party awful, but really not good and the calls for the stubbornly boring Keir to be replaced by someone more 'Labour' is growing which takes some doing after such a short time at the helm but after a year of Labour shouting at him to do something different, he only has himself to blame.
I would usually be championing Angela Raynor but that boat sailed when she evaded, and then lied about, her tax affairs so i would have to have a look around to see who is left standing before committing but the role of Deputy seems to be between Powell who has been critical of the way Labour has Governed and Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson who is Number 10's choice.
Unfortunately for Number 10 though, the decision is down to the Labour Party members and Lucy Powell is believed to be the most popular candidate amongst ordinary members which could be awkward for Starmer, especially as her closest friend is Andy Burnham who is widely tipped to be the one to take over if something happens to Starmer, such as he is removed from power by his own Party.
Things could get interesting in the Labour Party which is something nobody has ever said under Keir Starmer.

Special Guest Blogger: Krampus

You’d better watch out because i may be a Christmas spirit but i am more like Satan than Santa. One is a jolly rotund fellow with a fluffy white beard. The other is a menacing shaggy-haired Eastern-European monstrosity with hideous curling horns and huge red tongue. We both do carry a sack though. Not for the same reason.
I see myself as part of a carrot-and-stick approach to children’s behavior. Good kids are rewarded with lovely gifts from Father Christmas’s magic sack. Naughty kids get a visit from Krampus who stuffs them into my sack and carted off back to Krampus HQ to be punished and by that i mean eaten.
But I don't want you to think that i'm all bad, in some regions and traditions I do actually bring gifts. Okay, so they are evil gifts for horrible people, but it’s the thought that counts isn’t it? If you are an adult who despises children, I will sometimes supply such practical gifts as whips, chains and big stickswith which to punish and bludgeon the little’uns.
In many European countries, December 5th is Krampusnacht (The Night of Krampus), a sort of Halloween do-over featuring groups of often inebriated Krampuses (Krampi?) roaming the streets and frightening people.
As its name suggests, it's a gloriously extreme costume parade complete with shockingly ugly make-up and all dedicated to me.

Banning Israel From Eurovision?

I am conflicted over the rash of withdrawals from the Eurovision Song Contest if Israel is involved because on the one hand i want to keep Politics and Entertainment separate but on the other you can't treat a nation committing Genocide to be treated like everyone else as if nothing is happening.
The Irish, Spanish, Belgium, Iceland, Slovenia and now Netherlands are saying they will not take part in the contest being held Vienna in May 2026 if Israel appears.
Earlier this year, more than 70 former Eurovision contestants, including ast years winner, signed a letter calling on the organisers to ban Israel and the Eurovision Organisers did try and nudge them out last year by saying they could not sing their original song but then they just wrote another one and ended up performing amidst boos from the audience.
As Spain is one of the big 5 who qualify automatically for the Grand Final each year because their broadcasters make the largest financial contributions to the Eurovision organisation, so that could focus a few minds in the contests HQ and especially if any of the other largest contributors in France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom withdrawal although the UK's Eurovision Committee has so far declined to comment on if they will participate.
The Eurovision, about to celebrate it's 70th anniversary, issued  a statement which said that: 'We understand the concerns and deeply held views around the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. We are still consulting with all EBU Members to gather views on how we manage participation and geopolitical tensions around the Eurovision Song Contest' .
If several more countries were to withdraw from Eurovision it would have serious ramifications for the format of two semi finals and a grand final as well as financial but as Russia has been asked not to bother due to the invasion of Ukraine, it is hard to see how Israel can be allowed to enter.   

US Civil War 2

There was some guy on the radio last night and he was predicting that the shooting of Charlie Kirk could very well spark a Civil War in America which sounded so hyperbolic that i dismissed it, especially as predictions of a looming civil war has been uttered a few times but i did wonder what would the 2nd American Civil War look like?
I assume they mean it would be between the ideological left and the right rather than slavery this time but then you could tell who the enemy was because it was South against North and they conveniently wore different coloured uniforms so you knew who you were shooting at but it would be tricky to see who is left and right so can't see how that would work.
I have always managed to sort the left leaning males from the right leaning males by hairstyles. In my mind right wing men have short, gelled and smart hairstyles while lefty men usually have long hair that goes in whatever direction the wind is blowing but that is my own rule of thumb but Psychologists have conducted studies which may help Americans pinpoint who in their neighbourhood is today's version of the Yankees and the Dixies.
If you look through a window and front room is messy, cluttered, colourful and contains maps or flags, then they are on the left side of the political fence but if its neat, clean, organized, brightly lit and contains paintings or pictures of buildings then they on the opposite side.
Lefts have more books are are likely to listen to classical music or jazz, enjoy abstract art, like romantic comedies and play musical instruments while the right are more likely to be religious and like country music.
Of course it would be much easier if the left just held their fist in the air occasionally and called everyone comrade or the right wore T-shirts with Swastika's on and gave Nazi Salutes but it isn't that easy  and unfortunately there have been enough Civil Wars in years gone by to know that the winner is always the one who the Army back, and we can't tell who that would be.
I guess what will happen now is some right winger will target a high profile left winger who in return will target a right winger and it will escalate from there but until the left and right come up with uniforms, can't see it happening.

How To Measure A Nation's Success

With the budget looming, we will be hearing much about tax rises and GDP and the state of the economy and using that as a measure of how well Britain is doing and although it may be a fairly useful indicator of a country’s performance, economic performance is not everything.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said that economic growth was the priority of her Labour Government but why should the economy be the priority, why not measure how well Britain is doing by using other measures such as how happy we are, or how peaceful, how healthy, life expectancy, wellbeing, access to clean air or effective public services?
At the end of the 14 years of the Conservative Party, one minister said that over 14 years, Britain's GDP had risen consistently but that obviously didn't impress the voters who at the time of the elction gave the Tories the lowest favourability ratings ever and not only kicked them out but booted them to their worst performance in a national poll since 1832.
Effective GDP Growth obviously wasn't enough for UK voters while the NHS was underfunded, police numbers reduced and the price of everything in the shops shot up so how refreshing if instead of boring us with economics and public service cuts and taxes, how about if the Government said they was going to make serving the population their priority.
If strength of the economy was the be all and end all then the worlds largest economies such as the USA, China and Germany should have the happiest people but none of them feature in the top 20 of the World Happiness Index where the top 3 are Finland (46th in Global economies), Denmark (35th) and Iceland (105th) which proves strength of the economy does not result in happier citizens.
At the end, when we look back wistfully, our personal measure of our life will be if we were happy and that should be the priority of the people making the rules and laws we live by because that will be appreciated more than how much they can expanded our GDP by because that won't matter a jot.

Mandelson Gone, Again

You could argue that Keir Starmer should have seen this coming after repeatedly insisting he had full confidence in the British Ambassador to the US,  Peter Mandelson, he was forced to sack him after the publication of further emails between his lordship and Jeffrey Epstein where Mandelson had written to Epstein saying he believed him to have been wrongly convicted of multiple sex offences.
Obviously nobody was to know that after his first resignation over secret dealings with a millionaire, and then of course the time he resigned over his secret dealings with a millionaire, that his third downfall would come from his secret dealings with a millionaire.
For Keir to lose his Deputy for cheating on her taxes and then the high profile US Ambassador in less than 7 days is awkward and the cherry on the cake was that he got a proper shellacking from the lack-luster Conservatives on the opposition benches who demanded to know amidst the creepy letter to Epstein signed off by 'your best pal' and more rumours of more to come, if the Prime Minister knew about Mandelson's close association with one of the most notorious pedophiles in modern times before he gave him the job.   
I guess Starmer thought that it seemed a good idea at the time to send Peter Mandelson to Washington, nobody does sycophancy better than Pete who is yet to find a rich and powerful person by whom he hasn’t been impressed, and the childlike Donald Trump likes nothing better than people who fawn over him.
Keir now has two problems, the first being to find someone as willing as Mandelson to insert themselves in the Orange Tyrants colon, pending a check whether somewhere there is a cache of emails to a convicted criminal that might look quite awkward first.
Secondly, with Mandelson gone, Keir now has nobody to take the boring lump Trump off his hands for a while during the long 3 day visit because Donny was also a great friend of the convicted child sex offender and being a sex offender himself, now has has nobody to discuss giving a mega-wealthy convicted pedophile the benefit of the doubt with and reminisce about the good old days with their pal Jeff.

Why Wasn't Isaac Herzog Arrested?

It was said that Keir Starmer checked if the Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, had one of the ICJ Arrest Warrants against him for aiding and abetting War Crimes in Gaza as his statements calling for collective punishment for the October 7 attacks which was highlighted in South Africa’s case at The Hague accusing Israel of genocide before agreeing to meet him yesterday.
Somehow he hasn't which is why the Israeli head of state never left Downing Street in handcuffs and shuttled off the a prison cell in the Netherlands.
Sixty MPs from across the parties wrote to the Prime Minister to urge him to snub Herzog who was coming over to make his case against the UK government’s expected recognition of a Palestinian state.
At Prime Ministers Question Time, The Prime Minister said that he was meeting him to make 'absolutely clear that Britain condemned Israel's actions in Palesine and in the bombing of Hamas leaders in Qatar but line of the day went to the SNP's Stephen Flynn who stood up and asked if he would be inviting Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu into No 10 next.
The New Green Party leader, Zack Polanski, called for 'handcuffs not handshakes' and said that Scotland Yard's war crimes unit should be waiting inside Number 10 to take him away for questioning.
I get that sometimes as leader you have to speak to reprehensible people and with that in mind Donald Trump is on his way here next week and there must be a case that as he is providing the weapons and financing the genocide in Gaza, he should also be feeling the hand of the War Crimes Unit on his shoulder for aiding and abetting War Crimes.

Charlie Kirk And The Second Amendment

I had never heard of the name Charlie Kirk until yesterday but by all accounts he was a conservative activist who championed what he considered free speech and right-wing ideas.
As a husband and a father my first thoughts were for his wife and children but then when i began digging into his views i was not surprised to see that some of his views were as moronic and ignorant as expected for an American right winger who seem far more extreme than other nations due to the Gun and God issue there.
A quick search found that he called the Covid distancing prohibitions as a plot against Christianity, promoted claims that Trump won the 2020 election and was a victim of electoral fraud, called abortion murder that should be illegal even in cases of rape, said women should follow the biblical model in relationships and that  birth control medication screws up female brains.
He claimed that the Democratic immigration policies were aimed at decreasing white demographics, called the Civil Rights Act a huge mistake and  opposed gay marriage  but gun rights is where he shone and was the topic of conversation when he was shot and killed.
He had said that to prevent school shootings they should employ armed guards and said last year that some gun deaths every single year is worth the cost to have the Second Amendment.
I assume he meant the death of other people and not his own.

Special Guest Blogger: John Snow

Cholera is a nasty disease and it was everywhere when i was growing up and thought someone should have done something about it, so i did.
I grew up in a poor neighbourhood and was very well-acquainted with the terrible sanitary conditions but drinking foul water didnt hinder my knack for grasping maths and got taken on as a a medical apprentice where i came across many ailments but one particular disease soon emerged constantly, Cholera, which was thought to have been an airborne disease at the time.
I sat and had a think about it one weekend and the common link was polluted water and unsanitary conditions but the older doctors refused to listen, insisting it was airborne and the disease went on uninterrupted whilst we argued about it until one outbreak in Soho killed 500 people in a small area.
I began asking around in the area and worked out that most of the victims had used a shared water supply from a pump but in the same street was a brewery and none of the workers had fallen ill and found that the workers drank a company beer allowance each day instead of drinking water and the brewery’s had its own separate supply from a well out the back.
I got the polluted pump closed down and then another outbreak in Deptford killed 90 people and again it turned out that the victims had all been using the same pump for their drinking water but the authorities were asking for evidence and i had to find a way to show that the sewage which was regularly dumped into the Thames was killing a large number of people who relied on the river as a water source and some water companies drew their water from the Thames downstream of the main sewage discharge.
I found that the rate of cholera fatalities in homes supplied by companies that drew their water from the Thames was a whopping 14 times the rate of those who used other sources and these results attracted the attention of the British government, who banned the collection of drinking water from anywhere downstream of the sewage discharge.
Amazingly many of my medical colleagues were unconvinced and editorials and letters in medical journals continued to advance the airborne theory, and ripped into my ideas of it being in the water supply.
But then something curious happened, my discovery motivated London to build a massive new sewer system that would carry all the wastewater out beyond the tide-line of the Thames and feeling kinda smug, while working in my office i suffered a stroke and died six days later.