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, 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.

Israel The Fly In Any Peace Ointment

As i never tire of saying, Israel treat ceasefire's with the same respect that Donald Trump treats Moscow Hotel mattresses but as the warmongering Orange bell-end is discovering, war is Israel's favourite pastime.    
It was no coincidence that just as the Americans and Iranians were within touching distance of a ceasefire agreement, Israel decided to bomb Beirut once again, hoping that the Iranians would react and the whole ceasefire talk would come to a shuddering halt but Trump was desperate for a exit ramp to this debacle and apparently yelled down the phone at Netanyahu to halt his killing in Lebanon.
We are yet to hear the full details of exactly what is in the peace deal but Iran are shouting they won and America are doing the same but it is hard to see what America has gained from the 104 day war that wasn't on the table when the war started.
The main line is that Iran agreed to not having nuclear missiles but they didn't have any anyway and Israel have been saying for decades that they are weeks away from building one and every American President treated that with the disrespect it deserved until Israel found the perfect idiot sat in the White House to believe them.
Israel are saying today that the deal which stipulates that all fighting in the region must stop, including between Israel and Hezbollah, is: 'Bad for Israel and for the entire free world' and says Israel: 'Will have to continue the campaign to bring down the regime ourselves and ensure that Iran never acquires nuclear weapons' which raises the question that if that conflict flares up again, will Iran then target Israel and if so, will the US retaliate against Iran or will Washington leave Israel to fight that one on its own?
Israel's defence minister is also saying that its forces intends to stay in Lebanon and it is as plain as the bloated stomach on Donald Trumps obese body that Israel will attack again once the ink is dry on the agreement and for one obvious reason.
Wanted War Criminal Netanyahu is been under pressure to keep it going because he is facing elections in a few months' time which opinion polls suggest will see an end to his time in office and increase the likelihood of him being jailed on corruption charges, so he is gambling that portraying himself as a war time leader, protecting Israel's security, increases his chances of political survival so people will die in Gaza and Lebanon to keep him out of jail as he sees it.

Well Done Labour For Under 16's Ban

Well done to the MP's in Parliament who have finally done something about the Social Media platforms who, as the Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, said yesterday: 'Have had more than enough time to act on social media safety for teenagers'.
Calling Australia plus, the policy bans all under-16s from all the main social media platforms and prevented from chatting with strangers on platforms not covered by the ban, such as gaming apps, as well as live-streaming and it is down to the platforms to be responsible for enforcing it and overseen by Ofcom.
The broad support across the political spectrum means that regardless of what happens to Keir Starmer in the upcoming weeks, it will go ahead but the big question is how will it be measured to be a success or failure?
The Australian model showed that in the immediate rollout of the ban, platforms restricted or closed approximately 4.7 million accounts belonging to teens under 16 so that could be taken as a win but is it purely down to the numbers or an increase in positive mental health outcomes or less time under 16s spent on their phones?
Social Media have had their own way for far too long and have actually backtracked on online safety and reduced oversight into what gets posted so well done politicians who are doing something to protect under 16s which is a darn sight more than the media platforms ever did.

Special Guest Blogger: Memphis Minnie

They called me a pioneer, an icon, a trailblazer for female musicians. It’s terribly flattering, of course, but it also makes me want to laugh until my corsets pop. A pioneer? Good heavens. I was a woman with a guitar and a rent to pay. Pioneering was for chaps with silly beards and maps of places they had no business being. My only map was the one on the back of a Greyhound bus ticket, and the only place I had business being was any stage that would have me.
They like to talk about my humble beginnings. That’s a polite way of saying I was born in a ditch, more or less, in Algiers, Louisiana. My dear old papa was a sharecropper, which is a fancy word for farming someone else’s land for the privilege of not starving to death. Fun times.
I was the eldest of 13 children The first thing I ever got that was truly my own wasn’t a doll or a pretty ribbon. It was a guitar. A beat-up, six-stringed bit of wood with a neck like a bent spoon.
People get terribly misty-eyed about me running away with the circus when I was thirteen. They paint it as a grand, romantic adventure. It wasn't. It was loud, it smelled of elephants and the pay was almost non-existent but I learned a few things. I learned how to sing over a lion's roar, how to sleep on a moving wagon without falling off, and most importantly, how to make a racket that people would actually pay a nickel to hear.
Then came Kansas City Joe McCoy. Bless his cotton socks. Oh, we made a beautiful racket together, didn't we? They called us The Kansas Joe & Memphis Minnie Show. It was a merger, really. I’d write a song, he’d sing it and then we’d go out and charm the socks off a room full of tired factory workers and dubious-looking characters. I wrote 'Bumble Bee' for him. A little tune about being sweet on someone.
They talk about my thumping style, how I played that guitar like it owed me money. B.B. King, a lovely chap, once said I was the best guitarist he’d ever heard. Fine praise from a man who could make an instrument  weep.
But the part that truly tickles me is 'When the Levee Breaks'. I wrote a little ditty about a rather damp and unpleasant experience. A spot of inclement weather, you might say. A flood. Ruined a perfectly good pair of shoes which brings me to the grand finale. The curtain call. My tragic end. Let me assure you, it was nowhere near as dramatic as they make it out to be.
I’d been ill for a while and my body was giving up the ghost long before the ghost was ready to leave. I was in a nursing home in Memphis after a series of strokes and i went from a young, energetic woman who recorded over 200 songs to to a cranky old woman in a bed, and the next thing, I wasn't even that.

Well Done Scotland Fans

Due to the time difference, i have only seen a couple of the World Cup matches so far but thankfully all the England games are at a decent enough evening time so that works out fine for us in the red and white part of the windswept island off the coast of France.
Something i have noticed is some very boring football kits so far although there isn't much you can do with a nations kit i guess as they tend to be either one or two block colours although the Croatian one does always catch the eye as it reminds me of a red and white tablecloth but from what i have seen in pictures, the Norwegian home kit is by far the winner.
As a fellow British nation it is nice to see Scotland get some points but the crowds of other countries will have to go some to beat the absolutely brilliant chants they sung out around the  Boston Stadium to the tune of 'Donald Where's Your Trousers' but the words changed to 'Donny's shit his trousers' and ‘He’s fat, he’s bald, he likes ‘em twelve years old, Donald Trump, Donald Trump’.
I can't see Scotland going very far in the competition but they have given me my favourite moment so far.

Trump Birthday Message

Billy Joel sang 'Only the good die young' and i don't know if that is true but today is Donald Trumps 80th Birthday so read into that what you will but Stalin was 74 when he died, Idi Amin 78, Robert Mugabe 95, Augusto Pinochet 91, Pol Pot 72, Kim Jong Il 70 and Ceausescu 71, Ariel Sharon 85 and the warmongering Genocide committer Benjamin Netanyahu is 76 and still going so Billy could have been on to something.  

It is traditional to not say bad things about someone on their birthday so for once i am not going to mention him almost certainly being a pedophile, his morbid obesity, his sexual assault and fraud charges, his warmongering, terrible business acumen or even how he is turning America into a laughing stock because it's the guys birthday and we just don't do that so none of that here today.
Instead, i am going to hand the floor over to the brilliant Greta Thunberg who has written a magnificent birthday message to the 47th President.
'My initial thought was to give you a one-way ticket to The Hague as a birthday gift, but that comment would probably go above your head. I will instead give you a can of alphabet soup; the sentences you poop out will be more coherent than anything you have ever said. Now you can finally take part in meaningful public discourse'.
See, that's nice, she wants to give him something to eat for his birthday, such a thoughtful young lady.

Special Guest Blogger: Greek Goddess Hera

So. Here I am. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here. Well, one gets bored. One has eternity to reflect. And let me tell you, when you have an infinite amount of time to think about your life, you start to notice things. Mostly, you notice what an absolute shambles the whole operation was.
My name is Hera but you might know me as Juno if you prefer the Roman interpretation, a bit more stoic, a bit more concerned with drainage and aqueducts, but essentially the same Queen of the Heavens. Goddess of Marriage, Women, and Childbirth.
Honestly, the reputation is a touch unfair. A bit of a hatchet job. They forget that I was, in essence, the CEO of a family-run, multi-universal corporation, and my husband was,well, Zeus.
Where to even begin with Zeus? Imagine the most charismatic, powerful, and utterly untrustworthy man you’ve ever met. Now give him the ability to turn into any animal he fancies and a thunderbolt. That’s my husband. Our marriage wasn’t a union of souls, it was a permanent crisis. My daily job was less about weaving the fabric of destiny and more about paternity tests, damage control, and trying to stop my brother-husband from procreating with the entire Mediterranean livestock population.
A swan, he said. It was for art, he said. Leda, apparently, was thrilled. I was not. Do you have any idea how much paperwork is involved when your husband incarnates as a bird and fathers a set of twins? Then there was the bull with Europa. The golden shower for Danaë. Let me tell you, when your husband’s primary method of seduction involves fraud, bestiality and what can only be described as meteorological financial crime, you’re entitled to get a little tetchy.
And yes, alright, I may have taken it out on the subsequent offspring. Heracles. He strutted about so sending a couple of snakes to his crib was a perfectly reasonable response in my opinion but what would you do if the man who swore to honour and cherish you kept bringing home illegitimate demigods by the dozen?
I was quite proud of my imaginative punishments. Io turned into a heifer, Leto chased across the earth so she couldn’t give birth, poor Semele burnt to a crisp. It all sounds a bit dramatic but someone had to be the adult in the room.
I was the one who had to enforce the rules. I was the one who championed women and not by simpering and encouraging them to be all soft and lovely, but by showing them what happens when you let a man run amok.
I guided the hands of midwives. I blessed the unions that were actually based on love and respect so I wasn’t just about tearing things down, I was about building strong, stable Zeus free families.
My end was a gentle, almost insulting, retirement as one day, the prayers stopped coming. Not all at once. They just thinned. The grand temples became dusty tourist spots and the offerings went from whole burnt oxen to a few wilting flowers and a fiver for the collection box.
Olympus grew quiet and the ambrosia started tasting a bit stale. We were still gods, of course. Immortal. But we were gods on a pension,  a profoundly boring ending imaginable.

39th Time Lucky For Peace Deal

For the 39th time, Donald Trump has announced that a peace deal with Iran is imminent and for the 39th time Iran said not so fast Fatso and the whole thing grounds to a halt and they start threatening each other again.
The Mango Mussolini in the White House said that the U.S. is close to signing 'a great settlement with Iran' which will be signed 'over the next few days' which will result in 'Iran agreeing to never developing a nuclear weapon'.  
Iran for their part have said that the Iranian negotiating team have dismissed reports that a deal is ready to be signed and is a complete lie and completely untrue and as Trump lies as easily as he breathes and Iran wouldn't admit to a peace deal, it is hard to know who to believe but if you have been wrong 38 times before, i'm tending to go with the Iranians.  
Trump has been looking for an Exit from the war he and Netanyahu started almost from the first day when Iran didn't buckle under and fought back and 3 months later here we are still with missiles still zinging around the Middle East and the Strait of Hormuz still shut but when the deal is eventually signed, and it will have to be one day, it wont be better than the JCPOA deal Trump carelessly tore up in 2018.
Much will be said about Iran not ever having a Nuclear Weapon but they were not going to anyway, on the very day the invasion started the Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, said that: 'Iran would under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon' which means that the last 3 months would just get us back to where we were when America attacked Iran during the negotiations.    
The reason for the sudden keenness to wrap things up seems to be that Trump is meeting Europeans at the G7 Summit in France next week and will meet up with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz who have all criticised the U.S. and Israel for their highly iffy war and he wants to avoid all four reminding him that said it would be a mistake, and it has been a catastrophic one.

Space X Shares

My husband has long discussed buying shares in something and leaving them until we retire and he was mulling over Space X which launched today at £100.07 ($135) per share and when he asked me for my thoughts because i am into all things Space related, i replied that i would be more interested if Elon Musk wasn't involved because he is a complete dick.
Financial experts are saying that the shares are overpriced at £100.07 but on release they are expected to go up to as much as £141 driven by massive hype before settling down to what they consider it to be it's real price of around £47 per share.
I asked a Financial Agent who is on top of these things and he said to hold fire as Space X is tens of millions in debt and lost billions last year and are already billions down for this year already and did post a warning that  it 'may not achieve profitability in the future' so don't touch it.
Not that i disbelieved him but i asked Ai anyway and it came back with the pluses being it has massive growth potential with its Starlink satellite network and is the front-runner in modern commercial space exploration but the minuses are it is hugely in debt and the shares are hugely overpriced so pretty much what our guy said anyway.
I did buy some 'pretend shares' worth £1676 in January acting on Ai's suggestions to see if i trust it enough for next year and buying 'actual' shares and halfway through the year I am £466 up, which is nice.