It's The Best Of Times, It's The Worst Of Times

As usual, when the Government makes a pigs ear of things and times get tough we look towards that long haired man tied to a cross for inspiration.
'Some things in life are bad' sang Eric Idle, 'They can really make you mad, Other things just make you swear and curse, When you're chewing on life's gristle,Don't grumble, Give a whistle, And this'll help things turn out for the best'.
Yes, we are being measured up for a large enough handcart to fit us all in for that trip to Beelzebub's place but there are some things you can do to cheer yourself up.
If you feel down about your shares dropping like a banker from the 7th floor of the Lloyd's building, clamp your mobile to your ear and have a bash at that hard Sudoku in the Times. Studies at the Bristol Oncology Center have found that people exposed to mobile-phone radiation were 4% faster at certain mental tasks than others.
Want to take your mind off the rising cost of a loaf? Don't do anything drastic like go to bed early, channel surf as you'll use up 20% more energy watching television than lying in bed. Find something with Piers Morgan on it and you will use up even more energy trying to throw the remote through the TV.
Hacked off because you can't sell anymore bodily organs to fill your car with Petrol? Slam your favourite CD into the CD player and turn the volume up to 10 because loud music activates a primitive acoustic sense in the ear which stimulates endorphins. Of course it will make you go deaf and annoy the neighbours but you will get that twinkle in your eye. I would avoid Justin Bieber Cd's though, the only thing twinkling will be your CD player as it bounces off the pavement below.
Hang on though Lucy i hear you say, i am on over £150,000 a year so i'm actually richer thanks to Liz and that other guy and sure a full blown recession means misery for most but for a few others it can be a great time.
Recession is good for property auctioneers with many of the properties sold at auctions having been repossessed from the financially-stretched by their mortgage company and with so many people watching their cars being carted away on the back of a repossession lorry and ending up at a car auction where they will be sold for a fraction of the price.
Shares in utilities companies, food retailers, chemists and tobacco companies always rise when the going gets tough. Obviously the company price of repossession firms will rise briskly with the all added business as well so it's not all bad as long as you find yourself on the right side of it and you can
block out the noisy lamenting of the newly homeless family on the way back from the bank.

Stay Healthy The Scientific Way

To some drinking alcohol, eating chocolate, smoking and chugging down coffee is a sure way to get an early one way ticket to the cemetery but not to the science community, all those things are actively improving your short term memory, reducing your blood pressure and taking preventive action against neurological disorders.
Scientists have found that nicotine absorbed from cigarette smoke not only shortens reaction time and improves short term memory but helps prevent the onset of various forms of dementia as well as suppressing appetite so you will keep your marbles longer and stay slimmer which is certainly easier than doing laps at the local pool.
Danish researchers have found that drinking alcohol reduces the tendency of blockages to form in blood vessels, reduces the risk of kidney stones and helps protect against dementia, increase bone mineral density in women and even lowers blood pressure and the Netherlands National Institute of Public Health and Environment have found that chocolate contains a chemical that could prevent cancer and heart disease. Brocolli or a heart disease preventing Mars bar, hmmm, tough one that.
The University of North Dakota found that the Caffeine in Coffee lowers the risk of Alzheimer's and strokes and dieticians stated that a Latte provides 40% of the calcium, 25% protein and 35% of the vitamin D recommended each day as well as lowering the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Eating dark chocolate could help control diabetes and blood pressure, Italian experts say. Wahey. Researchers found eating dark chocolate each day for 15 days lowered blood pressure.
There we go then, they may not have posters for these things at the doctors surgery but by laying on the sofa with a cigarette in the ashtray, coffee in one hand, Bacardi Breezer in the other whilst stuffing Snickers into your mouth, you are following a Scientifically proven diet to actively improve your short term memory, reducing your blood pressure and taking preventive action against neurological disorders.
Ok, you may also be spotty, wheezy and twitch constantly but better safe than sorry and it is a cross we must bear for these health regimes.

Repurposing The Christmas Tree

A few years ago we had a real Christmas tree but ironically it didn't only not look like the actual Christmas trees we were used to but we were finding pine needles in the carpet until Summer so we have always had the artificial plastic ones ever since and in the cupboard we have quite a selection of different sizes, one of the smaller ones i used to put presents under for our July mid-year Christmas but the rest will be left to take up space until one of us gets around to dragging it down to the bin but in some homes they are being dragged out and given a hellish makeover for Halloween.
Forget tinsel, angels and candy canes and think bats, cobwebs, skulls, black baubles and pumpkins because the Halloween Tree seems to be catching on (more than my mid-summer Christmas idea anyway) and the Christmas tree gets a second annual outing .
Halloween always seem so much more of an American thing but a Halloween Tree could become a new British tradition which is currently buying a load of sweets and then turning off all the lights and eating them in the dark while ignoring the doorbell.
If All Saints Eve is not your thing then alongside the skeletons and witches is all the early Christmas Stuff so you could make an start on your Christmas  shopping, its only 86 days away you know or 2 pay days for those of us paid monthly.

And We Thought Things Could Only Get Better

Considering that Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng have only been in the big chair for 23 days and for 12 of those politics was suspended for the funeral of the Queen, that they have managed to tank the British economy, forced the Bank of England to raise interest rates to try and dig them out of a hole and give Labour a 17 point lead in the polls in what amounts to 11 days is pretty impressive in a WTAF kind of way.
Their mini-budget, or fiscal event as they deemed it, did have the effect of bringing most people together because almost everyone who wasn't earning above £150,000 per annum hated it including most of their own side, rumours have it that letters of no confidence have already gone in to the 22 committee and that took Boris Johnson almost two years to reach that stage and he was an outrageously awful Prime Minister.
Obviously they couldn't take the blame for the spectacular fall in the economy and did the media rounds this morning trying to blame everyone else including Putin and the Labour Party but as far as i am aware it wasn't Putin who handed out £45 billion of unfunded tax cuts and Labour have not been in power since 2010 so that's a bit of stretch even for this pair.
So hapless is Liz Truss that even when she went on the BBC local radio stations this morning to try and calm things down and stop the financial panic it resulted in the markets falling even further which would be funny if it wasn't so serious.
The record books show that the Prime Minister with the total shortest period in office was George Canning, who lasted 119 days in 1827, but the way she has started  lasting another 96 days in power seems highly improbable although if she is still there then nobody will know because we won't be able to afford the electric to turn on our TV or radios, those who haven't sold them and now live under an upturned wheelbarrow that is anyway.

Sweden And Italy Will Learn The Hard Way

At some point the Swedish and Italian populations must have looked across at Great Britain and the United States and seen was an awful job the right-wing Conservative and Republican Parties did and you would assume would have swerved voting in a right wing Government but nope, they looked and must have thought we'll have some of that and stand to have shiny new Governments in place shortly.
As Italy have got a not so great history with a far-right Government you would have thought that not adopting the old slogan of Benito Mussolini's fascists: 'God, fatherland and family' would have been a no brainer but then there are not many right wing Government members will likely to trouble any Brains Trust meetings.
She has also spoken out against the LGBT lobby and called for a naval blockade to halt migration so that doesn't bodes well but Italy going right wing is less of a surprise than Sweden who are to be ruled over by the far-right anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats who have raged against climate change, the EU and have a strong anti-migrant stance.
Soaring energy and food prices caused by war in Ukraine are being put forward as the reason why the right wing are growing in Europe, in France Marine Le Pen made it to the final vote and Hungary, Poland and Spain have all got extreme right wing governments of different shades and people are pointing to the rot setting in following the 2008 recession and austerity measures which allowed the right wing to to harness the dissatisfaction of those who felt they were left behind.
Why that would lead people to move to the right is not something i can grasp, if anything you would think that voting for a Government that favours the rich and ignores the poor would be the worst option but the right have been very good at demonising others for their nations woes, mostly immigration and inparticular Muslim immigrants, who are depicted as being incapable of integration and anti-Christian and responsible for freeloading off the welfare state, rising crime rates and terrorism.
If they had been paying attention to the UK and US, they would have seen that it didn't end well in America and the UK Government is not even pretending to care about the poorest in society now so not sure why they think it will be different in Sweden or Italy but we can only hope that it is not too disastrous for them before they come to their senses and vote in some proper politicians again.

Trickle Down Economics In A Nutshell

If i got given a pound for every time i have heard the words 'Trickle Down Economics' since Friday i would be able to easily benefit from the staggering higher rate tax cuts proposed by the British Government but nobody has although it is one of those things a blagger can throw into a conversation to convince people that they know what they are talking about but i went one better and asked an actual, real life economist what is it, does it work, has it ever worked before and what should they do instead.    
First the What is it? In short it is cutting taxes for the rich at the top of the economic pyramid, in the belief that it will enable wealthy owners to create more jobs for middle and lower class citizens, meaning the benefits trickle down through to the bottom of the pyramid therefore benefiting everyone
and the lost tax revenue is regained by the economic boost created by these jobs and the workers now have more money.
Then came the 'Does it Work?' and basically, nope because inequality grows, there is no significant effect on jobs or growth as nothing trickles down at all. I found a 2020 report from the London School of Economics and Political Science who compared the results of countries that passed tax cuts to the richest in society from 1965 to 2015 and found that 'tax cuts for the rich had no significant effect on employment of GDP which were both nearly identical in countries that decreased wealth taxes and those that didn’t significantly reduce the taxes on the rich in both the short and medium term.
A 2015 paper by the International Monetary Fund argues that there is no trickle-down effect as the rich get richer and if anyone knows, it's the IMF.
What about 'Has It Ever Worked?' and again it's a big fat nope as economies don’t require the rich to become even richer, it requires economic growth caused by spending money and the wealthy don’t spend their money. If a billionaire gets another few million in tax reduction, that money goes straight to a bank account and does nothing for the local economy at all. America has tried it a few times under Reagan and Bush who both slashed tax on higher earners but inequality soared and the incomes of the Top 1% of earners tripled and resulted in cripplingly high interest rates and a threefold increase in US Government debt. President Trump gave it a try with his 2017 tax cuts but they failed to stimulate growth and did not lead to sustained business investments and increased the US debt from $19.95
trillion when Trump was sworn in to $27.75 trillion when he left office.
Finally, what should they do instead and he said why give something to A in hope that it would trickle down to B when you can just give it to B to start with and cut out the middleman? The IMF report agrees, stating that to grow the economy, you have to increase the income share of the poor and middle classes.
So it's all a busted flush then and Liz and Kwasi are taking us to financial ruin but let's end with a real life example, Amazon and Jeff Bezos who has more than enough money, courtesy of tax cuts, to pay employees well. Instead, he increases his fortune through continual exploitation, abuse and underpayment of workers. No one benefits except him and the other wealthy executives at the very top of Amazon.

Only 93 Days To Christmas

Works Christmas Meal Booked. Checked
Christmas Cards in the shop. Check
Watched a Christmas Film. Check
Eaten a Mince Pie. Check
New Christmas Jumper in Wardrobe. Check
Heard whinge that Christmas starts to early. Check

Yep, its still only September but already the Christmas vibe is beginning although if i had my way one Christmas would run into the next one and the decorations would never be taken down, i did make a suggestion that we have a half-way Christmas in July but apart from Hallmark and Australia, nobody here took me up on it but small acorns (or chestnuts) and all that.
It is that time of year when the Halloween stuff is on the shelves alongside the Christmas decorations in the shops but once we get past October 31st and then Bonfre Night on 5th November then its full steam ahead for Christmas although my husband and i do have the small matter of a Covid delayed European Tour in November and i have been eyeing the Weather Apps because one of those places has to have snow in November, i've bought some very fancy winter snow boots and hate to think i wasted my money when i could have worn normal, not fur lined boots and spent the money on something sensible.
So its onwards and downwards into Winter although with the spiraling costs of electric, it might not be quite so sparkly as many homes may leave the Christmas lights in their box this year.
   
 

Not The Best Of Starts For Liz and Kwasi

Well it never started off well, the Chancellor criticising other Conservative governments, of which both he and Liz had been part of and had voted for measures they were now trashing after today announcing a series of economic measures, ended with the pound falling to a 40 year low,the FTSE 100 shedding 2% of its value and speculation that the Bank of England will now have to raise interest rates even more than they were going to otherwise.
Kwasi Kwarteng heralded 'the beginning of a new era' seeming to have forgotten that the Tories have been in government for the past 12 years but if it is a new era, today's immediate winners of the £45bn worth of tax cuts are the top 1%, the 660,000 people who earn more than £150,000 who will now benefit from the scrapping of the top 45% rate of income tax by an average of £10,000 a year while the biggest losers are those at the very bottom of society on low incomes and benefits who face being penalised if they don't work more hours.
Even some on their own side came out and called it 'politically toxic and economically dubious', a few while still in the chamber not long after Kwasi Kwarteng had taken his seat and kudos to the wag who came up with Kami-Kwasi, that's going to stick.
Every time you think the government couldn’t possibly sink any lower it finds another level but i'm trying to be stoic about it all, we are where we are which is a new era of economics, boldly going where no British Government has gone before, although to be fair that's because it would be so obviously disastrous but Liz and Kwasi have faith in their plan and Liz has said that she is prepared to be unpopular which feels very fortunate because to 95% of the nation not receiving a whacking great pay-rise, she is about as popular as Thrush today.

We Could Be In For A Very Bumpy Ride

The silver lining to the Queen dying was that the Government got to kick its heels for 10 days but now she is safely in the ground and Liz Truss and her motley Crew of right wingers are unleashing all their ideological policies and fresh on the heels of shoveling tonnes of money to the bankers in some warped trickle down idea, cancelling the corporation tax rise and cutting National Insurance, they are reopening the fracking fields because a few earthquakes seems to be a price worth paying.
The Bank of England have looked at the plans and increased Interest rates already and nobody from the Government has come out to explain how all this will be funded especially the National Insurance cut which was bought in only a few months ago to raise funds for the NHS.     
If they are not putting up tax, the only thing they can do is cut the amount they spend but nothing has come out about that yet but we have heard that everything will work out well in the end because the boost provided to the economy by all this will lead to faster growth and higher revenues for the Treasury.
The Conservatives are behind in the polls, time is short before the next election and most of what the Government are proposing are widely unpopular so the biggest winners have to be the Labour Party but in the next two years there is plenty of scope for things to go horribly, awfully, atrociously wrong for us all.

Removing Russia From UN Non-Starter

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy has done a great job of keeping his nation in the spotlight and his latest idea is to remove Russia as a permanent member of the Security Council due to its invasion of Ukraine and demanded a: 'just punishment of Russia for a crime committed against the values of the United Nations'.
The United Nations Permanent Members are Russia, UK, USA, China and France and are a remnant of the victors in WW2 and all 5 have a veto which can scrap anything the other 192 countries decide should happen so one country is able to defy the will of all the others if it is detrimental to their own interests.
That's why we have America who will hear no criticism of the genocidal action of Israel and in the recent past with Iraq and Afghanistan, if a country like the UK or US wants a war and the United Nations say no, they just ignore it anyway.
With the exception of Israel, the United States and United Kingdom have probably been the World's greatest warmongers of the past 70 years as well as the greatest arms exporters but somehow they are now being asked to uphold peace by banning Russia from holding the veto.
In the entire United Nations existence, the Russians have thrown down its veto 123 times, the US 83, UK 43, France 18 and the Chinese have wielded their veto 6 times.
Russia does need to be sanctioned, just as the US and UK should have been for their unwarranted actions but the problem seems to be that once the UN has been defied, there is no sanction against the countries attacking another one without the UN say-so so the problem isn't with the United Nations but the lack of
punishment for defying it.
China will more than likely stop any action to remove Russia but there doesn't seem to be much support for the Zelenskyy idea, mainly because the US and UK know that it wasn't that long ago that they were in the position of Putin and Russia and if history is any guide, will be again.

What FGTH Never Told Us About Nuclear War

Frankie Goes to Hollywood told us that when two tribes go to war a point is all that you can score and helpfully includes the advice that when you hear the air attack warning you and your family must take cover but no matter how many times i listen to it i have not heard them say in the unlikely event of an apocalyptic nuclear explosion, make sure it's not a hair-wash day but then it could be because it s hard to make anything rhyme with conditioner.
With Putin threatening to plant a Russian Nuclear Missile in your garden sometime soon, luckily the American Government are picking up Holly Johnson's slack by offering the advice that in the event that the four minute warning is sounded, avoiding conditioning your hair.
It also says to seek shelter and avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth and once safely inside, remove any contaminated clothing and jump into a warm shower and wash your hair with Shampoo but UNDER IN CIRCUMSTANCES MUST YOU CONDITION YOUR HAIR!
The reason is that the Conditioner will cause radioactive material to stick to your hair which is excellent advice but to honest having tangle free, manageable hair will be way down my list of things to do if a Nuclear Missile is winging its way over behind screaming, crying, drinking copious amounts of alcohol and wetting every pair of knickers that i own.

Avoiding The TV Today

Pretty much the whole World is coming to say farewell to the Queen today with Royals from all over the World wedging themselves side by side into Westminster Abbey but as it can only hold 2,000, it's a single representative from each country and their partner only so they have managed to leave a few off the guest list including Donald Trump who it was mooted could turn up but it was decided that he is such a wide load these days that he would take up the space of 3 people so his invite never made it off the desk.
All of Europe's Royals and Leaders will be there while representing the USA will be President Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden along with representatives from other nations who are in British Commonwealth and those that don't have a monarchy including China who are sending their Vice President, rumours are that President Xi Jinping was worried that if he showed his face in London, he would be mistaken for Paddington Bear and he doesn't even like Marmalade sandwiches.
Representatives from Iran, North Korea and Nicaragua will also attend but on the not invited list are Russia, Belarus, Myanmar, Syria, Venezuela and Afghanistan while the Vatican have said that Pope Francis will not attend the funeral but then to be fair, Catholic's have never gone down that well within Royal circles anyway so might be better he stays at home and watches it on Television.
The Queen’s funeral is being shown aroud the World to a potential audience of 4.1 billion which would make it the most watched global broadcast in history and here in the UK today has been designated a national bank holiday to allow us to watch the Queen’s funeral and i intend to do my utmost to respect the memory of Queen Elizabeth II by ignoring it completely and going shoe-shopping in shops which will be almost empty due to every else being sat infront of the TV.

Next Move - Naked Chess

Chess. The ultimate meeting of minds where two of the very best strategists joust together, face to face across the 64 squares of the Chess Board, the panoply to encapsulate the unspoken nobility of competition in the time honoured tradition until the loser is vanquished and the victor tries not to squirm too excitedly
in his seat due to the anal beads.
Yep, you read that right because the Chess World is in turmoil due to a cheating allegation involving anal beads. Allow me to explain.
American Hans Niemann is the up and coming star of the game and has risen up the rankings to play World Champion Magnus Carlsen, a Norwegian chess grandmaster in the third round of the 2022 Sinquefield Cup, think World Cup but without any of the excitement, and things were not going well for the Norwegian, having lost his 53 match winning streak in the previous round when suddenly he stood up, declared he was quitting and stormed off and took his little horsey with him.   
In the post match interview Carlson said of is decision: 'If I speak, I am in big trouble' but friends decided to speak for him and said that the Champ withdrew as he believed his opponent was cheating as Niemann had signals conveyed to him via anal beads.
Niemann addressed the situation by denying the allegations and offered to play the rest of the games naked in order to show people he wasn’t cheating so the viewers of the Sinquefield Cup could be watching naked chess for the rest of the tournament.
Unfortunately, nobody has explained how signals could possibly be conveyed through anal beads but the commentators will be careful in future when they talk about Niemann's favorite opening.

Running The Economy Liz Truss Style

 An old and wise Economics teacher i used to know had a saying which went something like: 'Government's make things unfair for everyone so, ergo, to them things are actually fair' which sort of makes sense, at least more than his other favourite saying which was about how he had a good feeling about Tottenham's chances in the League this season so he had obviously been dropped on his head a few times as a child but when it came to matters of pounds and pence, he knew his stuff or i assume he did because i never got economics.
To me, if you have more coming in then you have going out then you are doing well and i guess you could scale that up to apply that to running a countries economy, don't spend more than you have so i am confused by the mini-budget coming our way which is promising all sorts of things.
The UK Debt under David Cameron was £811 billion and we all remember the severe austerity measures and cuts he said he HAD to introduce to bring it down but the last time i paid attention, the UK has a debt of £2,365.4 billion today which means that successive Conservative Prime Ministers have not so much brought it than let it balloon horrifyingly over the last decade but now we have Liz Truss having a go and she doesn't seem so concerned about what we owe.   
Her Government have already announced an energy cap which will cost the Government £150 billion to go with the £39 billion cost of living payments they have paid out and are preparing to announce £30bn of tax cuts, doubling the rate that high earners start to pay the higher rate of tax, scrapping of the 1.5% National Insurance rise and ditching the planned corporation tax rises which would have poured an additional £20 billion into Government coffers.
How you can balance the books by bringing less into the economy is not just something that i'm struggling with, the Institute for Fiscal Studies have issued a WTF statement saying: 'Cutting taxes is clearly going to lead to more government borrowing and therefore debt' and if they are scratching their heads over the Truss plan, then me with my budget planning skills which consist of counting how many days until pay-day have no chance of understanding what they are playing at although i'm afraid what else is coming our way from the Nasty Party although i do have a half-arsed theory about it all which goes like this.
The Conservatives are way behind in the polls and with an election in 2 years time, they are quite rightly expecting to get routed as the cost of living and inflation spirals out of control so they know Labour will have to pick up the pieces of the economy they have ruined, probably including tax rises and cuts to all manner of important things which means the Tories can spend the next four years in opposition and blame Labour for all the nasty things required to balance the books and at the time of the next election in 2028, the beleaguered public will kick Labour out and they will be elected in again.
Very sneaky but the alternative is if they are not playing the long game, then they are even more incompetent then we thought.

Historical Royal's Not So Quietly Expiring

 Being Royalty comes with a lot of obvious perks but there is no escaping death and it is assumed that Queen Elizabeth II died peacefully in her bed surrounded by her family but History Books show that some of the previous British Monarchs were not content with quietly expiring but went out in a way so ridiculous that people would have talked about them for years even if they hadn't been Royals which actually makes their stories that much more badass and disgusting.
King Harold II is probably the most famous Royal death with the arrow in the eye which inspired far too many 'keep your eye out for those archers' jokes but James I of Scotland's death came when he attempted to escape his assassins by running into a sewer, remembering only once he was in there that he had it blocked up three days earlier as it run under his tennis court and William II was shot and killed by his friend who aimed an arrow at stag whilst they were out hunting but missed and got the King in the chest instead. Obviously the friend panicked, run off and left him there and some locals found the dead King and returned his body in the back of their cart days later.
Richard the Lionheart also received an arrow in the chest when he came across a young archer on a French Castle's battlements, the boy was batting away arrows with a dented frying pan and the King laughed so much he dropped his shield and the lad took the opportunity to fire an arrow through him.
King Alexander III of Scotland met his end falling off a cliff whilst out walking in the dark while Mary Queen of Scots death was a lot more gory, losing her head on the third stroke of the executioners axe, the first two missing her neck and hitting the back of her head and the Scots continued their run of stupid Royal deaths when James II of Scotland took delivery of his new canon, stood too close to it when it was test fired and according to the history books 'was stricken to the ground and died hastily' which Duncan I of Scotland also did when he became the first victim of friendly fire in battle, which involved 30 of his own men accidentally stabbing him repeatedly in the head.
Toilet's play a part in some Royal deaths, King John died of diarrhea after eating too many peaches, a very constipated George II had a heart attack while straining on his Regal lavatory and Henry I indulged in a hearty meal of lampreys and then indulged in a sudden and very smelly disturbance in what passed for a toilet in the 12th Century which leads us nicely to the two most icky Royal deaths.
Edmund II was known as Ironside but unfortunately for him his sides may have been made of iron, but his bottom certainly wasn't as it was speared while sitting on the toilet by a man who was lurking underneath it but the most grisly end of any British monarch has to be Edward II who was killed by his estranged wife who hired some men to kill her husband but not just any old death, they put much thought into it.
Not wishing to leave visible marks of murder on his body, they held him down and shoved a red hot poker up...well you can guess where they shoved it but it was said that his screams were heard, not unsurprisingly, far beyond the Castle walls.
I guess knowing how some of her relatives went to meet their maker, the Queen avoiding the bathroom and quietly expiring in bed was a good choice.

Palace, Mansion or Castle?

The cry is that the Queen is dead, long live the King but the question is where will the King live because while his subjects may be concerned with keeping a roof over their head, he has a choice of roofs from the multiple residences he has at his disposal.
He could opt for one of the Palaces such as the 775 room Buckingham Palace or if he fancies a bit of friend mars bar there is The Palace of Holyroodhouse in Scotland but it only has 289 rooms so he could find it a bit cramped with all his servants and footmen although St James's Palace is even smaller but it does come with its own riding school.
There are the Castles, Windsor Castle was his mum's weekend home although Balmoral is the official residence in Scotland but Hillsborough Castle is just a short hop across the Irish Sea in Northern Ireland although the Castle of Mey is much more homely with only 10 bedrooms.
Maybe living in Palaces and Castles is not going to be a thing for a modern King so he may plump for one of the mansions at Highgrove House, Clarence House, Sandringham House, Dumfries House, Palladian country house or Tamarisk House.
One thing is for certain is that being King does come with some tough decisions which us common folk do not have to worry over, such as whether to live in one of the 3 Palaces, 4 Castles or 6 Mansions, nobody said being a King was easy.

Hmmm...

I have been banging the Climate Change drum since the mid 80's and one thing that i have consistently heard is that science will find a find a way to dig us out of the hole we have foolishly got ourselves into and it seems like they may have a plan which they say will dial down the global thermostat and refreeze the North and South Poles to hold back the rising sea levels, but it seems mighty risky.
Described in the scientific journal Environmental Research Communications, they say if high-flying jets sprayed 13m tonnes of Sulphur Dioxide particles into the atmosphere above the Poles, this would reflect enough sunlight to cool the melting icecaps by 2C.
Sounds good in theory but my concerns are around any unintended consequences of releasing that material directly into the atmosphere and also this is only treats the symptom and not the cause which means even less effort would go into de-carbonisation so rather than buy time while we reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we will continue polluting our air unabated.
The United Nations has a moratorium on attempting any form of geo-engineering at scale until experiments have shown it is entirely safe and i would be very wary of such an extreme measure until it is guaranteed 100 safe although at least the scientists are trying to find a solution because something needs to be done and quickly because left to the useless politicians, we are consigned to a slow death by our own stupid hand.

Best Chance To Bury Bad News For UK Government

I don't trust the Conservative Party whichever leader they have and as this is the ultimate best time to bury bad news, we should keep and eye on what gets pushed through while everybody is looking elsewhere.
We have a new Government who are promises big things such as restarting fracking, an even more extreme immigration policy, a Heath Minister who has voted consistently against abortion laws and an Equalities Minister who said that he wanted to protect children from 'damaging and inappropriate nonsense being forced on them by radical activists' which was widely interpreted as aimed at the LGBTQ Community.
Johnson hit upon the ploy of calling the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and offering more military aid to his country in their battle against Russia whenever the headlines were not favourable to him so the bad news (Police Fines, Rwanda, MP's resigning, awful local elections results) was buried under Boris sticking it to Putin.
It's not just the Conservatives, the Labour Party were not averse to doing the exact same thing during their time in power so when you read your newspaper or watch the Broadcast News, remember to carry on reading and listening after the bits about the Royal's because the Government will never have another opportunity like this to slip things through.

Other People Died Last Thursday Also

 It is sad whenever anybody dies and it is undoubtedly an awful event and a matter of deep, deep sadness for the family involved as when someone you love dies it goes without saying that the sadness is all encompassing but every day we hear about the deaths of people unrelated to us and in comparison it barely registers once the news item moves on or we turn the page of the newspaper.
On average, in the UK, 1,564 die each day, during the pandemic the grim figure hit a peak of 2,900 a day and for each of those deaths someone, somewhere was in mourning and while we may empathise with those who have lost loved ones and reflect on those who touched our lives from afar, as tragic as the death of the Queen was for her family, i don't understand the outpouring of grief about someones death that we never actually knew and most of us never even met.
It is right that when that person is high profile, we reflect upon their lives achievements and discuss it but we do that with anyone who dies even if they are not deemed famous enough to take the top story slot on the news or a pull-out souvenir section in the newspaper which doesn't make their passing any less sadder.
Kevin Bridges is getting a hard time for saying of the Queen that: 'She’s not going to be the only old woman to die this winter' and he is right, the Office of National Statistics report into Excess Cold Homes Deaths in 2021 was 8,500 people in England and Wales last winter and with the ongoing cost of living crisis and sky-rocketing energy bills, sadly that number is widely expected to be easily exceeded this winter as old people will likely die because they can't afford to turn on their heating.
It is fine to feel sad about the Queen and for her family but remember that on average 1,564 other families also lost loved ones last Thursday and they went without mention and there will be more old woman and old men who will die this winter and some you may know or have met and for that you can blame the Government, the Utility Companies, Vladimir Putin or whoever you want to point the finger at but the Queen never died due to her being unable to afford to turn on her heating so yes it was sad and condolences to the family but there are more cases worthy of real sympathy than a multi-millionaire who lived in Castles and Palaces, travelled in a golden carriage and had her every whim seen to for her whole life.

King Charles 1, 2 and 3

Going to be strange hearing the new Monarch being called King Charles because in my mind both the previous King Charles are linked with Oliver Cromwell in the 17th Century and a reference point for the English Civil War, the Plague and the Great Fire of London.
The first Charles sparked the English Civil War in 1642 (think Cavaliers and Roundheads) when he got stroppy with Parliament (the Roundheads) over his overspending, religion and wars in Europe which didn't end too well for him as his head ended up in a basket which allowed Olivers Cromwell and his brilliantly named New Model Army to run things until the Monarchy was reinstated (the reformation) and the second Charles took over in 1660 and undid all the things Cromwell banned such as Christmas.  
The Plague and the Great Fire of London in 1666 get a mention because King Charles II helped to put out the fire and the fire ended the Great Plague so that's a hatful of historical events and dates stored in my brain.
It's pretty unlikely that Charles Version 3 will spark off a war with Parliament, the Royals these days are more about jetting off around the World and waving at people than passing laws and this one isn't going to mess with my cack-handed way of remembering history classes unless he really annoy's Liz Truss and the Conservatives and then we will be looking at Elvis Costello to make another brilliant song about how he would rather be anywhere else but here today.

Just Saying...

Far be it from me to start any conspiracy theories so i am just going to throw this out there alongside the other wacky one's that states the Queen was a lizard person and a member of the illuminati running the Globe.
The last person The Queen met was the Liz Truss on Tuesday as she travelled up to Balmoral to met the Queen to be appointed the country's Prime Minister and invited by Her Majesty to form a new government.
The latest Prime Minister was the 15th the Queen has met and pictures from the meeting show the two smiling and shaking hands and Truss even kissed the Queen's hand upon her appointment before flying back to London to make a speech from the steps outside Downing Street about meeting the Queen and explaining how she will tackle the looming cost of living crisis.
Meanwhile back in Balmoral the Queen was suffering from what the Palace called 'Medical Issues' which as we found out a day later, resulted in her death Thursday afternoon.  
Now Mrs Truss is known for changing her mind and her anti-Royal stance may very well have changed also since she called the idea of the Royal Family 'disgraceful' and she was 'against the idea that people can be born to rule because of the family they are born into'.
At the time, she described herself as 'left wing' and was a member of the Liberal Democrat Party and was speaking at the party's conference in favour of a motion to abolish the monarchy although she did later have a change of heart, swapping the one she had for another made of stone as she went from left wing to right wing and joined the Conservative Party where she told reporters she realised that her anti-monarchist stance was a mistake.
To be fair, the Queen did look very frail and thin at the meeting and probably didn't feel up to meeting Boris Johnson and then Liz Truss in quick succession which would be enough for anyone let alone a 96 year old, but even a Tory wouldn't be that careless, as we found out during the Covid-19 debacle, their preferred method of killing off old people is much more subtle.

Stop Googling, We Get One Day Off

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has died. Buckingham Palace confirmed the news in a statement reading: 'The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon' and so Operation London Bridge swings into effect although the question i got asked the most was 'Do we get a Day off?' so to save you Googling, yes we do but just the one, the day of her funeral.
So what happens now that London Bridge has fallen? Prince Charles immediately becomes King Charles III and William and Kate are promoted to the Prince and Princes of Wales, Government departments drop their flags to half mast and the UK officially enters 10 days of mourning with the day of the funeral, expected to be on the 10th Day, a designated Bank Holiday although it is not compulsory for employers to grant the day off.
King Charles Coronation is also a Bank Holiday although the preparation takes months so it is not expected anytime soon and possibly not even this side of the New Year although Camilla will not be Queen, her title will be Queen Consort which is the official title for the wife of the monarch.
Other changes now are the words to the National Anthem are changed and new postage stamps and currency created.

Stop Moaning About Fracking You Eco-Snowflakes

Liz Truss spoke in favour of fracking during her campaign for the Tory leadership and as part of her energy plan as electricity bill's soar, she is widely expected to shortly announce the end of the fracking ban which was imposed in 2011.
Unbelievably, all those environmental types have kicked off complaining that the reason it was banned in the first place was due to it causing earthquakes in Blackpool and even that moron Boris Johnson went from hailing fracking as 'glorious news for humanity' and energy companies 'should leave no stone unturned, or unfracked' to announcing that all fracking must cease immediately after a British Geological Survey linked earthquakes, polluted water supplies and building subsidence to the process.
The New Government are expected to explain patiently yet again that Britain needs to find new sources of Energy due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Fracking is the way forward to keep the lights on as well as boosting tax revenues, creating jobs and drive down household bills so everyone's a winner.
Of course we all know that in America where fracking has been going on for over a decade, the Environmental Protection Agency has said the chemicals used are known carcinogens and toxins which has led to air pollution, chemicals leeching into the water table and polluting people's tap water causing respiratory, kidney and neurological damage and yes, it has led to seismic activity and subsidence in homes but consider the alternative of wind farms and solar panels, nobody wants them ugly things in their neighbourhood when they can have a whacking great fracking well.
It may be banned in New York, and several European nations such as France and Bulgaria have banned fracking altogether who have followed the general rule of thumb that any human activity that causes earthquakes and poisons the water supply is not to be encouraged but it is different here and its unlikely we will have anything like the River in Australia which contained so much methane which seeped into the water from the fracking wells that it literally exploded when a local MP put a match in it.
It is therefore vitally important that we pollute our water system with dangerous chemicals and cause earthquakes in Britain as it will make us less dependent on the gas of Russia so stop moaning you eco-snowflakes, it's all about thwarting Putin so don't put anything fragile on high shelves and if it does get  really chilly this winter, we can always set fire to our rivers or tap water to keep warm.

Tory Reverse Evolution Continues With Truss

We were starting to think he would never go but finally, Boris Johnson has left the building and the Conservative Party reverse evolution process continues as Liz Truss picks up the reins and drags them along behind her.
My first question is why do Politicians not use their real Christian names? Boris Johnson's actual name was Alexander, Gideon Osborne wanted to be called George Osborne and Liz Truss answers at home to Mary Truss although with what she has announced so far, some people have already decided a new name for her but i think it is unfair to label her as a right wing fruitcake before she has announced exactly what she will do, there is plenty of time afterwards for that.   
What is undeniable is that since 2010 and the Conservative Party took over, the Party has changed leader 4 times and each one has been worse than the previous one and the first one, David Cameron, wasn't great with his austerity measures and Brexit referendum which hollowed out the country which Theresa May then took on with her Hostile Environment immigration policy and then the horrendous Boris Johnson who was a disaster in every sense and is currently the holder of the 'Worst Prime Minister Ever' Title although Mrs Truss is looking as if she will give him a run for his money as she has gone so far to the right that she is in danger of falling of the page.
When your very first policy is Tax Cuts to ease the cost of living crisis, and when it is pointed out that it will be more advantageous for the richer people by thousands of pounds each far more than the lower paid who will find a few more pound in their wages, described it as 'fair' that the higher paid will benefit
because 'high earners need help also', then it doesn't bode well that she will change direction away from the shoveling money upwards and crossing their fingers that it will trickle down, which was always a busted flush of a policy which Capitalists adhere to.
Maybe she will surprise us and become one of the greats and be an improvement on the other Conservatives who came before her although even with that bar set so low that a worm would struggle to get beneath it, it hasn't started off that well. 

Which Lessons To Mothball?

School's are generally big buildings and take quite a bit of heating and as most Brits are facing a winter of selling the family silver to turn on the radiators, School budgets are being squeezed and discussions are going on around what may need to be sacrificed to allow for the heating bill and the majority of decision makers are coming down on what can be left out are Music lessons.  
For me lessons can be put into category's of essentialness with some which will have a detrimental effect on the students if they miss them so English Language, PE, Science and Math's are Category 1, History, Geography and English Literature are Category 2 which leaves the Category 3 Lessons which are classes such as Music, Drama and Art which i agree are important, but not as important as the first two categories and can therefore be mothballed if any of them really need to be and immediately reinstated once the crisis is over.
Budding musicians, actors and artists may not agree and i admit that when i was at school those were three lessons which i particularly enjoyed and especially Music which set me out on a lifetime of murdering classic tunes on my guitar and i do return to my paint and brushes every now and then and produce paintings which sometimes come out looking close to what i had in my minds eye and sometimes looking like they had been painted by a 4 year old at Nursery School, more Sinkhol than Warhol.
It is not so easy for me to make a case for Drama but then apart from a few school plays, i have never done anything which includes dressing up and pretending to be someone else although i can appreciate a decent actor or actress when i see one but i would put understanding Music and Art and how they are created and the emotions they can stir as more influential so sorry Drama but of the three, you would be the one i put on gardening leave in November and tell to come back in April.

Breaking The Year Into Chunks

Apparently the end-of-Summer blues is a thing and with the changing season comes Autumn anxiety and depression and my first thought are who are these people who have panic attacks over Summer ending and all i could come up with are people with Summer jobs and kids who hate school.
When i noticed that the article was from the New York Times and it had helpful tips from Psychologists and Health experts on how to make the transition more smoother i thought ah, it's an American thing because if anything, most Brits are glad to see the back of Summer.
Of the four seasons, Summer and is probably my least favourite and i have bleated on here far too many times about stingy things, sunburn, hot sticky nights and third degree burns from my car seat but obviously some people like those things and miss them when the Calendar changes to September but what do the Experts say those (strange) people should do to avoid the Autumn depression.
If it wasn't obvious it was American than the first helpful tip made it plain because no-one in Britain would suggest you need to: 'Honor your own emotions and apply the treat yourself like you’d treat your friend rule' but apparently that's what the Psychologist's from the Emotion Regulation Lab suggest.
Okay, no idea what any of that means or what the treat yourself like your friend rule is although maybe it is something in America like no jay-walking or not playing Dominoes on a Tuesday or something but the next piece of advice is one that i fully subscribe to, look forward to something.
Many people like Halloween so there's that coming in October but they suggest it could be Christmas, Thanksgiving, the football season starting, a Birthday, a bit of Work leave, a new movie coming out or just about anything, just something that makes life a little more pleasant.
It is exactly how i set out my year, each January i sit down with my fresh new calendar and write in everything for the next 12 months breaking the year down into weeks between events so Husbands Birthday in January, Valentines 14 Feb, my birthday in April etc and when my annual leave is and if we are going anywhere, weddings, parties, anniversaries so every month while i walk past the calendar in the hall, there is something in blue biro standing out.       
Maybe that's why i don't feel anxiety or depression when the season changes and hey, maybe i have been treating myself as a friend all along and i just didn't know it.