Sunday, 13 July 2025

Special Guest Blogger: Great British Goddess Britannia

My journey starts off in sunny Rome as a Goddess of wisdom and knowledge, a helmeted female warrior holding a trident and shield and ends as the patron deity in the not so sunny Albion.
Back in my Roman days i was called Minerva and anything to do with music, poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, weaving and the crafts came under my domain. I also created the Olive tree and after Medusa and Neptune got up to hanky panky in one of my temples, I turned her into a monster, replacing her hair with hissing snakes and turned any living creature she looked upon into stone but it was when the Romans invaded Britain that my sweet, sweet life took a swerve.
During the Roman occupation of Albion, it was common for carpenters to own tools ornamented with images of me to invoke a greater amount of protection from the goddess of crafts which all seems very sensible.
Some women would also have images of me on accessories such as hairpins or jewellery and as the Romans liked to invent Goddess for the places they ruled over,  and because they were not willing to give up Minerva, they began calling the place Britanniae and invented the persona of Brittania who was basically me sat with a shield and holding a spear.
When the Romans gave up and went home in the 5th Century, i continued to be the deity and the later Kings began putting me on coins and titles in charters but I really came into my own following the Acts of Union which joined the Kingdoms of England and Scotland and saw Britain the rainy, windswept island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the coast of continental become known as Great Britain but still remained a rainy, windswept island in the North Atlantic.
My image as Britannia was used as an emblem of Great Britain, i even had a song about Britannia rules the waves which would have really ticked off Neptune but he was a dick so i didn't mind that so much.
Due to the British Empire i was suddenly everywhere but somehow the Victorians never managed to invade Rome so i never got a chance to get my own back but musicians do get a little effigy of me at the annual Brit Awards  but although i was pretty ticked that i was forcibly moved to Britain, it isn't so bad, i mean the weathers crap, the food isn't great and don't get me started on the politicians while the only waves it will be ruling these days are the ones in the swimming pool at Butlin's but it's not so bad here although i do find that strange Rhyming Slang they use a bit confusing where your plates are nothing to do with kitchenware, your boat is not the one with oars and any mention of Bristol's and Hampton's are not meant in any geographical way whatsover.

Saturday, 12 July 2025

Junior Doctors Losing Public Support

Last year, when the Junior Doctors were striking, they have almost universal support from the public even though it meant possible cancelled appointments and longer waiting times and when they got the 23% payrise from the incoming Labour Government to end the strikes after years of being underpaid by the previous Government, it was thought richly deserved.     
Twelve months on and with the same Doctors threatening industrial action and demanding a 29% pay rise this year, the public support isn't there with only 23% of the public supporting them this time.
Their argument is that under the 14 years of the Conservatives, their pay fell by 52% so they are after the outstanding 29% for pay restoration of what they believe they 'should' be on if they hadn't had such draconian pay restraints.
Polling by Ipsos found that less than a quarter of those asked supported the Doctors in their planned five-day walkout on 25 July and the British Medical Association leader acknowledges that public support had fallen but argues that: 'The public should expect their doctors to be valued properly' which we do but even the most strident supporter will feel that after receiving a 23% increase last year, to threaten to to strike again and disrupt people lives for an even bigger pay rise this year is a tad too much brass neck, or as many people said in such a way to ensure they don't make the final edit on the news, taking the piss.
They could go on strike without popular support from the public but it is very unlikely that we will see repeats of the scenes from last year with cars tooting their horns in support and the general public joining them on the picket lines, this time it will be old ladies wagging their umbrellas in disapproval at them and jeers centered around them being greedy and questioning their parentage.   

Can I Smell Burning?

It was lucky that the Devil went down to Georgia to play in a fiddle contest because if he come to the UK over the last few days after 15 mins he would have gone sod this, its too hot and buggered off back to Hades because it has been cooking eggs on a car bonnet hot.
As the owner of a skin so pale it is almost transparent, i always take care to avoid sunburn but every year i get caught out and this year was no exception, after popping outside for a quick pull on the vape mid afternoon and as it was only a quick pop, not bothering with any protection, i ended up spending 20 mins outside yakking during the hottest part of the day and came back in with a face and shoulders the colour of Santa's suit.
Happens every year and it is about this point in the season when i have been stung or bitten several times and have to smell of after-sun for the next week and avoid wearing anything that touches the affected areas, i think Summer can bugger off now and pine for the cold of Winter.
I was told a while ago that Sun-Cream is not as effective as staying covered up as it doesn't completely block the sun as well as a cotton blouse or a pair of trousers and if i do wear sun cream, don't pat the extra for Factor 50 as it is only fractionally better than Factor 30.
Many people don't understand what the  Factor 30/50 means and i want sure so i Googled it and found it means that Factor 30 allows you to spend 30 times longer in the Sun than if you were not wearing anything.
The caveat to that is knowing how long you can spend in the Sun before you burn to start with, if it's 10 mins than you get 300 minutes of frolicking in the Sun before toasting  (10 mins x 30) or if you burn at 20 mins, you get 600 mins (20 mins x 30). If like me your skin burns the second a sun ray hits you then get about 30 seconds but to be complicated about it, the time is adjusted by the time of day so the above maths is just a rough guide across the day and between 10am and 5pm you will get burnt quicker and therefore have a shorter time than outside of these times.  
The answer than is to stay covered, try to avoid direct sunlight between 10am and 4pm if possible and if not apply sun cream and do the maths as above for your skin type but most importantly, if you pop outside for a quick vape in the heat of the midday sun, don't spend too long gassing about the Women's Euro's.

Friday, 11 July 2025

I Blame The Parents

The Swedish migration minister, Johan Forssell, knows exactly who is to blame when children break the law, the parents.
Forsell has built a reputation on claims that parental responsibility is the only real way to prevent crime and even said that parents should be held legally accountable for the crimes of their children and advocated for harsher punitive action including harsher punishment for minors but it was those damned lefists who deny the role of 'parental responsibility as a method for crime prevention and the best way to prevent criminality is attentive parents who give their children love and set clear boundaries'.
Guess what happened next..go on..try to work out what happened next to the right wing gobshite screaming at parents for the actions of their children.
Give up? Well...his son was exposed as active with violent far-right and neo-Nazi groups and pictured making Nazi salutes so as good as his word, his father Johan took his own advice and dished out some harsh parental responsibility.
Actually, scrap that, what he did was say he was clueless that his own child was involved in neo-Nazi groups and blamed Social media platforms instead for what they are doing to our children.
He is now refusing to resign from the Government so what we can take from that is when the dipstick says parents should be held to account for the atrocious actions of their children, he meant other parents, obviously.

Oh Dear

Donald Trump claimed he had warned Vladimir Putin over any attack on Ukraine, saying: 'If you go into Ukraine, I'm going to bomb the shit out of Moscow' and he also claims he made a  similar warning to Chinese President Xi Jinping if Beijing was to invade its neighbour Taiwan.
The White House also announced they were imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for releasing a report earlier this month which showed how US companies were aiding and enabling Israel's genocide in Gaza .
Threatening to start World War 3 and sanctioning someone for showing American complicity in a genocide, that's the Nobel Peace Prize in the bag then.

Special Guest Blogger: Tsutomu Yamaguchi

There are two types of people in this World, the glass half full and the glass half empty types and some may say that i was one of the most unluckiest men in history and others say i was the luckiest but i lived to be 93 but i almost checked out twice in 1945 and earned the label as the man who got nuked twice and survived.
August 6, 1945 and the war was winding down, the Japanese were negotiating an end to hostilities and i was a 29-year old engineer for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and was on a a business trip in Hiroshima which was deemed a safe place as it was a civilian city with no military significance so i was a surprised as anyone when the United States dropped the world’s first Atomic Bomb and incinerated the city.
I was about two miles away from the epicenter of the blast which killed 140,000 of my fellow citizens, but I was nevertheless temporarily blinded, left with my eardrum destroyed and horrific burns over much of the top half of my body.
The next day, i suffered more radiation exposure as i made my way to the city center in an effort to find a way to hightail it back home to the safety of home, home being Nagasaki.
Us Japanese are an industrious lot and i was back at work three days after the nuclear holocaust that nearly killed me. Then, while detailing the events of the prior few days to my boss, a familiar blinding light suddenly filled the room as a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, killing another 100,000 people and devastating the city so thoroughly that, in the words of our mayor: 'Not even the sound of insects could be heard'.
I spent many years wrapped in bandages for my resulting skin wounds, and i went completely bald from the radiation and when i died of stomach cancer it was said that it stemmed from all the radiation I suffered but when you escape certain death twice when a quarter of a million of your citizens never, I  can't complain too much.

Wednesday, 9 July 2025

Stay Cool Britain

Yellow heat health alerts, warning of impacts on vulnerable people, are now in force with temperatures expected to hit 34C (93F) in the UK this weekend and are valid until at least 15 July .
Good luck trying to get to sleep in that but you could try a fan if you can stand the whirring noise or throw open a window if you don't mind an insect party in your bedroom.
I go for the pillow case i the fridge for 60 mins before bed tactic which works fine if you drop off in the first 30 minutes or so and a cold water bottle helps but something i hear a lot but never understood is drink a  hot cup of tea to cool down.
A while ago I asked some people from hot countries if they drink hot drinks to cool down and the resounding answer from people who should know was WTF...ARE YOU MAD !!!!
The science behind it, as it is, is that by drinking something hot, you bodies core temperature increases so you sweat and sweating cools you down but as the sweating only cools you down to the temperature you were before drinking the tea elevated your temperature in the first place, it's quite pointless and if someone hands you a hot cup of tea when your hot, you would be better off waiting for it to cool down and pouring it over yourself.
So it's Factor 50, a cold water bottle and emptying out my husbands tins of beer from the fridge to make room for my pillow it is then.

The Bayeux (Canterbury) Tapestry (Embroidery)

Strange to see a visiting President given a State visit and nobody protesting or holding up banners decrying his orange coloured skin or him being a sex offender but this is the French President and not the weird one with little hands and we seem to like the French guy.
In exchange for a visit to Buckingham Palace and a slap up dinner, he is offering to lend us the Bayeux Tapestry to gawk at but to be honest, i have seen it and to be polite, it's not as impressive as you may think.  
The bit everyone looks for first in the 230ft long tapestry is the section where Harold has the arrow in his eye but accounts at the time had Harold skewered through the heart by a Norman Knight, his head chopped off while his guts were strewn across the ground and his left leg cut off at the thigh. Oh, and then his corpse was castrated just for good measure but that's a lot of needlework so instead they just knitted an arrow in his eye instead.
It is therefore reasonable to assume that the rest of the Bayeux Tapestry isn’t 100% reliable, for a start it’s not a tapestry it's an embroidery and it's from Canterbury and not Bayeux and you can only assume when William the Conqueror was told he was to be presented with an epic work which had taken years of painstaking labour by dozens of devoted artists to commemorate his victory other the English, he wasn't expecting some fancy needlework.  
Could explain why he didn't display it in the Royal Palace and had it shipped to Bayeux in France and why you never hear the line that history is embroidered by the winners.

Peace?

Benjamin Netanyahu has presented the nomination letter he sent to the Nobel Peace Prize awarders stating that: 'President Trump has demonstrated steadfast and exceptional dedication to promoting peace, security and stability around the world'.
That would be the mass murdering leader of Israel who has an arrest warrant against him for genocide in Palestine and crimes against humanity who is openly discussing creating a concentration camp to ethinically cleanse the region supporting a sex offender and fraudster who has not only been providing the weapons to commit the genocide but initially made the suggestion for the ethnic cleansing and recently instructed bombs to be dropped on Iranian nuclear facilities in a pre-emptive strike to stop them building the nuclear weapons that his own intelligence community said they were not doing.   
So far over 300 candidates have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize this year and if the Committee decide that Trump is more worthy of the Prize than the other 299 for 'bringing peace to the region', then the Swedish definition of 'Peace' must be very different to the definition the rest of us use.

Why Not A Wealth Tax?

The idea of a Wealth Tax had been mentioned a few times but nobody has ever implemented it but Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are widely thought to be considering it and most tellingly have refused to rule it out to help balance the books when asked about it.  
Keir Starmer has repeatedly said that those with the broadest shoulders should carry the largest burden which tugs at every old Socialists heart as what we should be doing anyway but how would it work?
A wealth tax, so it was explained, is aimed at reducing economic inequality to redistribute wealth and to raise revenue and is a direct levy on an individual's, household's or business's total net wealth, rather than their income.
Advocates of the tax propose an annual 2% tax on wealth above £10m which has been calculated as affecting 20,000 people but would raise £24bn a year which is equivalent to putting 2p on income tax.
In Europe France, Italy , Norway,  Spain and Switzerland have a Wealth Tax but the argument is that if you squeeze the rich, then they bugger off elsewhere with their money but also up for consideration is a one off Wealth Tax and the one shot economic boost that would give but another alternative is to just get the tax rates fair in the first place.
At the moment the British tax system seems tilted towards the rich with only the higher rate payers receiving tax relief for Gift Aid and pension contributions, the basic rate tax payers get nothing for charity donations or putting into a pension and anyone earning up to £125,140 pays tax at 40% while anyone above that to any amount only pays an extra 5%.
Whether it is a one off or a repeated annual tax then i can't see why Labour are just thinking about it when the options are annoy 20,000 people and raise £24 billion or put 2p on income tax and annoy every working person in the country.

Special Guest Blogger: Gao Jianli

During the Warring States Period, I lived in Yan which was a small and fairly weak state in the north-east of China, King Zheng armies were not particularly pleasant to Yan and a committee met and a plot was hatched to assassinate the King.
The chosen assassin was my friend Jing Ke, and it all went horribly wrong. Jing Ke was killed, and Yan was overtaken by the Kings troops rooting out the committee and as a close friend to Jing, i knew that my days were numbered if i was recognised so i changed his name and found work in a wine shop.
I may not have been a great planner but i was a master at playing the Lute and my fame grew quickly which with hindsight was not so clever given i was trying to maintain a low profile but finally King Zheng heard about the wonderful lute player in Yan and commanded an audience which is when things went wrong very quickly because someone in the King's Palace recognised me as an associate of the former attempted assassin and I was immediately arrested.
Fortunately for me, the urge to brutally lop off my head was set against my wonderful lute playing so we reached a compromise, i would live as long as i continued to play for him oh, and they would pull my eyes out to render me harmless which i weighed up as better than the alternative .
So, i continued as the King's lute player, faithfully playing my lute from a safe distance from the Ruler and as time went on, I gained the King's trust and he beckoned me closer and closer so he could hear my beautiful music which is when i hatchd my plot and began slowly filling my lute with little bits of lead and bided my time to act.
After a few weeks my Lute was heavy and by now i was literally playing at the Kings feet and when i finished that day, i stood up and with a mighty swing, aimed my lead-filled lute at the King's head.
Being blind, i obviously missed completely but the big man with the axe never and i was executed on the spot.

Monday, 7 July 2025

Improving Democracy

Politics is a vital part of all our lives, almost everything depends on political decisions from how we travel to how our children are educated to how much tax we pay on our wages and we are always told that if we don't like what the Government is doing, then we can always vote them out of Office.
That sounds great in practise until you consider that  once in power a Government is there for four or five years until the elections roll around again and having no way to force an election if the Government turn out to be a duffer is my biggest gripe but it isn't just me, a poll from Pew Research asked 30,000 respondents in 24 countries if they were satisfied with how Democracy was working in their country and 65% replied that it sucked so they asked a follow up question: 'What do you think would help improve it?'
The overwhelming answer in 19 nations was 'better politicians' and by that they mean ones that are more responsive to their needs and are more competent and honest.
Second was curbing the influence of special interests and combat corruption and in third place is focusing policy on economic conditions such as taxation, inflation, wealth inequality.
The fourth answer is better informed citizens who are more willing to participate in politics and fifth is greater citizen representation by making it easier to vote and the people consulted more via referendums on important topics.
I agree with the poor standard of politicians and christ the UK have had more than their fair share over the years and i am behind the more referendums part, I have banged that drum for years but in truth there are many forms of Government, some are better than others, but we can look around now and honestly say something has to be better than what we have but with AI becoming more important in running our lives, there must be something said for removing humans from the decision making process because we have made a bit of a pigs ear of it so far.

Special Guest Blogger: George Foreman

The road from ruthless boxer to grill master isn't a very well worn one but it is one i made with a little stop to meet Jesus in between.
As one of seven children, we grew up poor and the way i sort out of it was by taking things that other people had by threatening to beat the crap out of them if they didn't hand over their money but as lucrative as mugging was,  it was an advert on TV bought with the money i nicked off other people that changed my life.
The TV ad was for an organization called the Job Corps and i signed up and did some training for jobs like bricklaying and carpentry and got a job in San Francisco, California and after work i would go to the local gym and one evening they were showing the Ali fight against Floyd Patterson and i thought, 'You can earn money for punching people'? So I thought i would have a go at it.
Turns out i was good at it and got picked to go to the 1968 Olympics and got to the final where i beat a scary guy from the Soviet Union and turned Pro.
In my first 32 fights i won they all, 29 by knockout but then i had the brilliant and unbeaten Joe Frazier stood in front of me and so i slapped him about for two rounds and the referee stopped it before I killed the man and i was crowned the World Champion.
One thing a boxing champion needs is an adoring fan base but i didn’t do anything to help this along, i was pretty anti-social back then and saw no reason to get warm and cozy with the fans.
The big name at the time was Mohammad Ali and we got offered $5 million and the location was set as Zaire, mainly because the promoter Don King was pals with the dictator there.
The Rumble in the Jungle they called it  and Ali sat on the ropes for seven rounds while i punched him and then exhausted, he knocked me out in the eighth.
I carried on fighting after the loss but after one bout, and feeling like i was going to die,  i asked God to spare me and if he did I would hand over my boxing prize money to him.
Obviously i lived and became a  minister at the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ but i had that promise to hand over my Boxing purses so aged 38, i made  a comeback and put my healthy lifestyle down to reducing the fat in my diet and that opened the door to my next venture, as a grill salesman for the George Foreman Grill which made me more money than my entire boxing career.
My last TV Appearance was on the The Masked Singer dressed as a Venus Fly Trap but i died  as a two-time world heavyweight champion and an Olympic gold medalist with 81 fights, 76 wins and 68 by knockout and to some i was a Boxing Legend, to others, the guy who made grills on an angle.

Saturday, 5 July 2025

Naming And Shaming Israeli Genocide Enablers

UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has published her report into what she calls: 'the transformation of Israel's economy of occupation to an economy of genocide' and has not held back in naming and shaming the companies that assist and enable Israel in their genocide against the Palestinians and ashamedly 'enable and profiting from crimes including illegal occupation, war crimes, apartheid, forced displacement and genocide in the occupied Palestinian territories'.
In the first part she names the companies who provide the technology and weapons to commit the genocide as Lockheed Martin, Leonardo S.p.A, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and FANUC Corporation and points the finger at companies delivering the components, parts, weapons and raw materials as A.P. Moller and Maersk A/S transport.
Providing the technology for Israel for surveillance are IBM, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Microsoft, Alphabet Inc. (Google), Amazon.com, Inc and Palantir Technologies Inc.
Providing the heavy machinery for purposes settler and colonial destruction are Caterpillar Inc, Leonardo DRS, HD Hyundai, Volvo, Heidelberg Materials AG, Construcciones Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles and Keller Williams Realty LLC.
Companies accused of helping in the denial of the basics for life are Drummond Company, Inc, Glencore PLC, Chevron Corporation, BP PLC and Paz Retail and Energy Ltd while those trading in the illegal settlements are Bright Food (Group) Co., Ltd, Orbia Advance Corporation, A.P. Moller, Maersk A/S, Booking Holdings Inc. and Airbnb, Inc.
Financial Institutions financing the Genocide by providing loans and buying Israeli Government bonds are BNP Paribas, Barclays, Blackrock, Vanguard, Allianz, AXA, the University of Edinburgh and the Technical University of Munich.
She ends the report by explaining that in her view: 'While life in Gaza is being obliterated and the West Bank is under escalating assault, the present report shows why the genocide carried out by Israel continues: because it is lucrative for many.'
She recommends that: 'The corporate sector, including its executives, must be held to account, as a necessary step towards ending the genocide and disassembling the global system of racialized capitalism that underpins it' and sanctions and an arms embargo must be applied to Israel, all trade agreements must be suspended and  corporate entities face legal consequences for their involvement in serious violations of international law and reparations paid to the Palestinian people along the lines of post-apartheid South Africa.
She also urges the International Criminal Court and national judiciaries to: 'Investigate and prosecute corporate executives and/or corporate entities for their part in the commission of international crimes and laundering of the proceeds from those crimes.'
You have the report and the names of those enabling the genocide so over to you United Nations.

Special Guest Blogger: Shah Jahan

My full title was Shah Jahan the Magnificent and i was, when my father died i defeated my brother and crowned myself Emperor of Hindustan and leader of the Mughal's.
When i wasn't executing most of my rival claimants to the throne, i commissioned many monuments and presided over the aggressive campaigns against the Deccan sultanates, the Portuguese and the Safavids while suppressing several local rebellions.
I may have been the Emperor but i was also a ferocious soldier which meant a lot of killing and a lot of pillaging. People would say please don't pillage me and i would say no, i'm pillaging everyone, you included and vastly expanded our territory but my real love was my wife, my second wife not the first one, the lovely Mumtaz Maha, and together we had 14 children and 18 happy years of marriage until she died in childbirth and i was so distraught, i had the Taj Mahal built as an enduring tribute to her and her body laid to rest inside.
It really did upset me, so much that i only took three more wife's after her but it was with another enduring erection that created a far less savory legacy.
In 1657 i fell ill with what was called 'stangury' and it turned out that the aphrodisiacs that i had been taking to perform with my much younger fifth wife led to the retention of urine for three days, and left me almost at death’s door.
News of my supposed imminent death reached my four sons who, upon learning of my illness, immediately went to war with one another over the succession. Aurangzeb won and I was disposed and relegated to a prison for the rest of my life with my eldest daughter to nurse me in my dotage.
I did recover but by then Aurangzeb had launched a bloody religious war in India that eventually killed millions and i did try to rebel, even trying to arrange the assassination of my usurping son who had been kind enough to send me the severed head of one of his brothers.
In the end, though, nothing came of it and i remained in prison, staring out at the Taj Mahal until i joined my wife there seven years later.

Friday, 4 July 2025

New Party For Disaffected Labour Supporters?

The Labour Party has always been the Party for the left and how we chortled like drains when the hard right Reform Party came along and split the vote on the more stupid side of the ideological fence  and Labour swooped into power amidst a chorus of the Red Flag.
A year on and Labour have been, well...not great as they picked up the clothes dropped by the Conservatives and went headlong after the pensioners and the disabled to which Labour supporters cried WTF Keir???  
Hiding in the shadows and with his Labour membership ripped from his hand, stood Jeremy Corbyn who was one of my favourite Labour leaders as he was more radical than most but the 2019 election came too early for him but now he is back and the signs are that he is forming a new, left wing party with the more Socialist members of the Labour Party.
Zarah Sultana has announced that she is setting up a new political party with Jeremy Corbyn as an alternative to the Labour Party which is great news and it will be atractive to Labour supporters who feel that their Party has moved too far away from it's Socialist roots although it does come with the risk of splitting the left leaning vote and allowing one of the god-awful right wing parties back in.
We will have to wait and see who joins and if any of the Big Beasts at the current Labour Party step across which will be key to it being a success but as i said in a previous post, if this current Government are not willing to pull their heads out of their arses and remember they are the Party founded on Socialism and the party of the downtrodden and working person, then the best they can do is step aside and allow in a proper left wing Party that does.

No Guns For You Catholics

It is said that Great Britain has an unwritten constitution so it was surprising that i managed to find one, the 1689 British Bill of Rights which waffles on about things like free elections, freedom of speech within Parliament, freedom from government interference, the right of petition, just treatment of people by courts and the right to petition the monarch as well as a few Doe's and Soe's and the odd Abrogated but the bit that caught my eye was that: 'Subjects which are Protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions and as allowed by Law.'
As I am Church of England, after first checking exactly what a Protestant was and if i was one ( I am) i set out to look about ordering myself a gun and was deciding between a Pistol, semi-automatic, Rifle, Machine gun, Shotgun or a Revolver and deciding between a Kalashnikov or a CZ75 when i thought i had better check that it hadn't been removed later on and apparently it is still on the books so i plumped for a CZ75, small enough to fit in my purse and not cause too much of a bulge under my blouse because i would have to get one of those cool leather shoulder holsters like they had in Cagney and Lacey.  
I was practising my best Dirty Harry 'Go Ahead Catholic, make my day' drawl in the mirror with my hairdryer when i noticed the last bit of the sentence '...as allowed by Law' so i checked with the local Police and it turns out that although the ruling is still valid, the Firearms Control Act of 1903 which prohibited the sale of guns to individuals makes it a no-no.
Turns out that it was decided that allowing citizens to own guns was considered madness and no sane nation would allow such bat shit crazy laws so banned them.
Fair enough, would be a bit insane to allow people to own and keep guns in their homes but luckily I didn’t order the CZ75 but I might still get shoulder holster as i could keep my vape in it.

Thursday, 3 July 2025

Special Guest Blogger: Pope Adrian IV

After the Pope Joan debacle, it used to be that to become Pope, you had to sit pants-less in a horseshoe-shaped chair and let a couple of cardinals see if you had the goods. If you passed, they'd yell 'Testiculos habet et bene pendentes!' (He has testicles, and they hang well!) It's true, in those days it took real balls to become Pope because in 12th Century Europe, every nation was intent on killing each other and the Roman Emperor hated me personally.
I began life in Hertfordshire, England and travelled to the south of France to study law but i felt the Church calling me and went on to Avignon and the joined the Abbey of Saint-Ruf.
I was appointed Abbot and in my role met Pope Eugene III who liked my no nonsense style of strict discipline and religious zeal and thought i could do a job ending the conflict between the Christian
Catalonians and the Muslim Al-Andalus which i did by saying i would bang their bloody heads together if they didn't stop fighting which got me promoted to the Bishop of Albano.
The Pope then sent me to Scanidaniva which was a much tougher task as the Swedes and Norwegians were in the middle of a vicious, full blown war and I thought this would take some special negotiating, either that or i just reorganise the Church in both nations and say you can't kill each other now because you are all the same which worked but when i excitedly got back to Rome to tell the Pope the good news, i found out he had died and the Cardinals were in the process of choosing a new one and in i stepped, flavour of the month, and got given the job, the first Brit to gain the role.
My problem was that Italy was divided with the  Byzantine emperor in the North and Norman Kings in the South fighting over it and me stuck in the middle and it didn't help when i argued with the Romans that the Church is the defender of Christians and not them which really did not go down well.
I had better luck with the Irish though and solved all their problems by giving Ireland to the English and passed a decree that serfs should be free to wed whoever they wished, without their master’s blessing, since marriage was sacrosanct but the Byzantines were causing me a real headache so i planned to excommunicate the Emperor to rid me of him but never got a chance.
Quite embarrassing really, but i choked to death by swallowing a fly which had been floating in my goblet of wine but i was a trailblazer and proof that anyone can become Pope and the Church welcomes all, as long as you’re not gay or into science or anything like that anyway.

Wednesday, 2 July 2025

Not Trusting Israel In Any Peace Deal

Donald Trump has claimed that Israel is ready to agree to a peace deal with Hamas as he seeks to broker a ceasefire to the war in Gaza that has claimed almost 60,000 lives, 600 killed by Israeli troops over the last few weeks when they arrived to collect food at aid stations.
The details are sketchy but we know Israel has agreed to a 60-day ceasefire and immediately we must ask if Israel is keen on the deal, then it must be seen as overly favourable to them.
Unfortunately we have been here before, it was only a few months ago that Israel reneged on the last ceasefire and began attacking Palestine again so hard to think that this will be any different especially as it is only a 60 day pause to the genocide Israel has been conducting.
A temporary ceasefire rather than a permanent one is due to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knowing that if he agreed to a permanent ceasefire, his Government full of warmongering right wingers hell bent on continuing the war and eliminating the Palestinians would collapse and bring forward his many court cases alleging fraud and corruption which carries a ten year prison sentence.
With the prospect of jail, Netanyahu is in no rush to permanently end the war and a temporary ceasefire, which means he could restart it any time on any of the trumped up charges he used last time, could see a return to the slaughter.
I am no friend of Hamas but i would say to them if a murdering maniac is keen to pause the war, and if Donald Trump is behind it who we saw was only willing to throw Ukraine under the bus to satisfy Russia and end that war, then i would proceed with extreme care because if it is satisfactory to Israel, it will certainly not be for the people of Palestine and we would see a return to the status quo which saw Israel murder the Palestinians and steal their land with impunity for the past 75 years.

Tuesday, 1 July 2025

The End Is Sort Of Nigh

So far, human beings have managed to avoid being completely eradicated like so many species in the history of life on Earth but scientists put the Earth at halfway through a 10 billion year life-span after which it will run out of energy, expand and engulf us all but hey, we got another 5 billion years to worry about all that so party on, or so we thought.
Scientists at  the University of Toho in Japan have crunched the numbers and come up with a date when life will become hospitable, and it is a lot less than 5 billion years.
The Sun's death will be a slow process but they have taken into account atmospheric conditions and the reduction in Oxygen, rising temperatures and deteriorating   air quality and pegged the date for when life will be completely unable to survive on Earth as the year 1,000,002,021, give or take a few years.
My calculator shows that we've got around 999,999,995 years left which seems a long time but it's a lot shorter than the original 5 billion years we thought we had although the way things are going, we will be long gone by then anyway.

Special Guest Blogger: Philip II of Spain

Spanish culture flourished during my reign, beginning the Spanish Golden Age and creating a lasting legacy in literature, music and the visual arts and we considered Spain as the center of the Christian world and me as the chief defender of Catholic Europe.
I fervently believed that God was also a fanatically Catholic who savoured the smell of burning heretics and had a real beef with Elizabeth, the Queen of England after what her father did to Catholicism but nobody told me that God had changed sides in our war with the British.
I assumed God was vexed by the shenanigans of the Protestant Queen and told my military commanders: 'You are engaged in God’s service and in mine, which is the same thing' and that was to be put to the test in 1588 when the Almighty and I launched an invasion to rid the world of the English Jezebel and re-establishing Catholicism over there.
'I am so convinced that God our Savior must embrace it as His own cause, that I cannot be dissuaded' i said when i waved off my Holy Armada against the English.
I chose the Duke of Medina Sidonia to lead the attack but he tried to pull out saying he didn't feel worthy to lead such an important mission (and he suffered from seasickness) but i assured him that God would guide and help him so off he popped along with 130 ships and 30,000 soldiers and sailors all pointing their ships towards the southern coast of England.
I even made sure the ships had plenty of priests aboard just to give God a little nudge if he needed it during the skirmishes but they turned out to be no use at all as the English battered our ships due to, ironically, an act of God when a great wind whipped up and drove the Spanish Armada farther toward the North Sea and as it attempted to make its way home around Scotland and down the western coast of Ireland, savage storms destroyed much of the remaining fleet.
My reputation never recovered and many European princes and religious leaders turned against Spain but worst of all and the greatest insult was God favoured the English over me...THE BLOODY ENGLISH!!

Monday, 30 June 2025

Go For It Keir, Or Just Go

To say that since they gained power the Labour Party has been a disappointment is an under statement and to see a YouGov poll today showing that 37% of the country think there should be a change at the top of Government should focus a few minds at the Party Headquarters.    
I put the problem squarely at the door of Keir Starmer who seems more intent in trying to keep everyone happy rather than enact Labour policies which promised 'Change'.
I get that after 14 years of ideological right wing nonsense from the Conservatives there is a lot to fix, the economy they inherited was dreadful and the services so hollowed out by cuts and austerity that it was never going to be a quick fix but as the first two Labour cost cutting policies were to remove payments to Pensioners and then the disabled and then ramp up the defence budget, us Labour supporters are left wondering what is so different to the last lot?
If Starmer is not going to be bold and give us real change, he should step aside and let someone who will take over, someone like Angela Raynor or West Streeting who are much more in the 'Labour' mould and would shake things up.
If Starmer wants us to rejoin the EU as he hinted at or bring in a wealth tax or hammer the Non Doms or ramp up Capital Gains and Inheritance Tax to raise the funds to pay for things then do it, you have a huge majority in Parliament and can do literally anything you want to do because at the moment he is doing nothing, just annoying people with his inaction and giving us nothing different to what the Conservatives gave us.
No point in playing safe because you have already wasted a year in a five year term and you are losing the chance very few get to actually hold the power and ability to do something.
We have had right wing policies under the Conservatives and they were terrible for the country but they had the conviction to enforce them so pull your head out of your arse and remember you are the Labour Party, founded on Socialism and the party of the downtrodden and working person and act accordingly because the worst that can happen is you are removed from power in four years, which is going to happen anyway the way you are going and then you will only be remembered as that guy who led the Labour Party into power after 14 years and then piddled it all away doing nothing worthwhile when he finally got in.

Sunday, 29 June 2025

Calling For More Deaths Just Wrong

I have no problem with musicians spouting off their political beliefs and i had no problem with the Rap act, Bob Vylian, performing in front of a screen supporting Palestine but when they began chanting 'Death to the IDF', that went too far and they are now quite rightly being investigated by Police for any criminal offence committed .
Unfortunately, when they began chanting many from the 30,000 crowd joined in which saddens me because regardless of our beliefs, we shouldn't be calling for the death of anyone because this is exactly why we find ourselves in the situation we do now.
Yes the IDF has been committing genocide against the Palestinians for decades and that is abhorrent and the Israeli Government should be tried for War crimes but what Hamas did in October 2023 was also a War Crime and just as abhorrent.
It is killing, or trying to kill, the other side which keeps the pot bubbling and fosters the hatred so we need new leaders in Palestine and Israel, leaders who want to live in peace with each other and not annihilate one another.
I am not a friend of the Israeli or Palestinian Governments, the leaders can get into a big field and lob bombs at each other all they want for all i care but my concern is always the poor, innocent buggers stuck in the Middle, the Palestinians and Israeli's who suffer and die under their awful Governments.
Calling for more death won't solve anything, it just keeps the embers burning. 

Special Guest Blogger: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Child prodigy, Musical genius, supernatural composer, my likeness won’t come around any time soon.
I began banging away on the keys at age three, composed a concerto at four, a symphony at eight, and mastered the violin soon thereafter.
My sister Maria Anna was also a prodigy on piano and my Father knew a cash cow when he sired them and said Salzburg was too small for us, and that the world should hear us play so took us both on a concert tour through the courts of Munich, Paris, and London, visiting two hundred cities in the next ten years.
We played all over Europe, and kings and queens came to see us! We were like an early version of the Kardashian Family, except a lot more talented.
By age sixteen, I had picked up musical ideas the world over and had written twenty-five symphonies, I was a melody machine, spinning off operas, string quartets, and sonatas far ahead of their time.
I married Constanze Weber who was from a musical family and she sang like a bird and I wrote several solos for her over the years but some courts and patrons wouldn’t touch me with a fifty-foot cello bow as they considered me arrogant and lazy.
Six hundred works, twenty-one stage and opera compositions, fifteen masses, forty-one symphonies, twelve violin concertos, seventeen piano sonatas, twenty-seven piano concertos, twenty-six string quartets. I'd rather be a lazy genius than talentless dolts like them.
To supplement my income I began teaching, as well as performing in my concertos as conductor and soloist but i did have an expensive lifestyle but luckily I had a fiscally sound wife and Constanze was quite smart when it came to money. Heck, she probably kept us from starving by moving us into a smaller house, got some loans, and negotiated a royalty deal for publications. Loved that woman!
Antonio Salieri, the court composer to the Holy Roman Emperor didn't help as he was jealous of my effortless talents and on several occasions tried to ruin me, he alone made the public despise my opera Le nozze di Figaro.
My last years were spent in Vienna, crafting some of my most brilliant masterpieces and worrying nonstop about our finances as I was spending more than I brought in and my health was rapidly declining and my last piece was a composition called Requiem. Some mysterious Count Chocula type wanted it for his wife’s funeral, and I needed the commission.
Then I got sick with Kidney disease and realised I was basically writing my own requiem but I hear that there is a thing now called 'the Mozart Effect' where parents plays my music to newborn children and think it will make the child smarter which is a great idea, especially if I get a royalty cheque out of the deal. 

Saturday, 28 June 2025

If You Support Israel You Are On Wrong Side Of History

Israel’s pre-emptive attack on Iran and the American assistance in blowing some holes in the side of a mountain overshadowed the ongoing carnage in Palestine where during the 12 day battle, over 550 Palestinians were killed by the IDF, manywhile attempting to secure food and water from the sites set up by the Israeli's in a combat zone.  
It defies belief that the Unicef spokesperson, James Elder, should have needed to spell that out this week that: 'We cannot be asking civilians to go into a combat zone so that then they can be killed with the justification that they are in a combat zone' and yet each day Palestinians continue to be killed en-mass while attempting to collect aid for their families from food hubs in Gaza.
Unfortunately, mid the Israeli genocide, Palestinians are being forced to make a choice between risking being shot and letting their families starve to death in what Médecins Sans Frontières has described as: 'Slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid'.
Overall, the grim death toll of the Israeli version of their own Final Solution, stands at 56,331 people who have died in Israeli attacks since war began but many consider this an undercount with bodies still buried under the mass graves of building rubble and think the total will exceed 80,000 and that is before they even begin counting the the toll of those dying from hunger and dehydration.
One day thankfully this will all be over but the vision of Netanyahu and the Israeli Government is one which includes the disappearance of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank where 3 Palestinians where shot by the IDF yesterday for resisting settlers who were burning down houses and attacking Palestinians.
When future generations read about Gaza with horror at the true scale of the slaughter and wonder how we allowed it to happen and how a country was allowed to bomb homes, aid centres and hospitals and shoot dead civilians who were bought to the point of starvation and enticed to distribution hubs to then shoot at them.
The people with real power, the politicians who supplied the weapons and gave cover to the genocide, minimized the Israeli war crimes and atrocities by allowing Israel carte blanche to do whatever it liked, history will judge all these people and those who supported it and by supporting it, if you believe this all began in 2023, then you deserve to be castigated if you answer the question asked by future generations of what did you do in the Gaza genocide, you answer that you supported it.

Alanis Is Back

 It is great to see Alanis Morissette back in the news again, when they come to write the playlist of my life her Jagged Little Pill album will feature because her 1995 offering was huge, in the UK the album spent a total of 221 weeks on the charts and is 13th in the list of best selling albums ever at 33 million Worldwide so that is a lot of people who warbled along to: 'It's like raiiiiiiiiiiin..on your wedding day' and from the Album, Ironic was probably the one people know best although for me, the best song was always 'Forgiven' which starts off a slow ballad type raging against her Catholic upbringing and ramps up during the next 5 minutes to a brilliant crescendo which shows just what an amazing voice she had. It's also an amazing song to play along to on the guitar
The whole Jagged Little Pill album was an angry sounding bitchfest and it turned out to be the high-point in the Alanis career trajectory because she never hit those heights again, her subsequent Albums being much more contented affairs but i guess when you hit such peaks early on, you are never going to climb to the top of that mountain again.
Brilliant to see her back though and being appreciated by a younger generation because her album and the songs from that album really were that good.  

Most Popular Songs Per Year

The Official Chart Company have identified the biggest streaming hit for every year since the chart's inception in 1952 and have compiled the UK's most-streamed songs from the calendar year in which they were released up until 2022.
Not sure what service they used or it was a hotch pot of all of them but Music streaming began around 1999 but didn't really hit its stride until 2010 so it is actually a list of the most streamed songs from the last 15 of those years but it has thrown up a real mix of some decent tunes, some what the hell tunes and some i have never heard of.
Amazingly one of my favourite songs ever, Johnny B. Goode by Chuck Berry, was never actually released as a single in the UK and was never a hit here but it is the most streamed song from 1958 but looking through the list i was a bit non plussed by the rest of the selection.
I would really need to find all the songs from each year to judge but did 1971 really have such poor pickings that John Denver's 'Take Me Home Country Roads' is the top offering from that year and how can 1988's most streamed song be 'Everywhere' by Fleetwood Mac when you have Guns N Roses magnificent 'Sweet Child O'Mine' just standing there.  
Something i did pick up on was that i obviously stopped paying attention around 2005 because apart from the odd song, 2011's Someone Like You by Adele and 2015's Cheap Thrills by Sia, i knew hardly of them which only clarifies the science that we tend to stop listening to new music around our mid 30's. 
Obviously musical tastes differ and that is a good thing but my personal list would look very different and i will have a look through each year later but for now the top songs by year of release are:

1952 - Singin' In The Rain by Gene Kelly
1953 - That's Amore by Dean Martin
1954 - I've Got A Woman by Ray Charles
1955 - Tutti Frutti by Little Richard
1956 - I Walk The Line by Johnny Cash
1957 - Jailhouse Rock by Elvis Presley
1958 - Johnny B. Goode by Chuck Berry
1959 - Put Your Head On My Shoulder by Paul Anka
1960 - At Last by Etta James
1961 - Stand By Me by Ben E King
1962 - Cry To Me by Solomon Burke
1963 - Be My Baby by Ronettes
1964 - My Girl by The Temptations
1965 - I Can't Help Myself by Four Tops
1966 - Paint It Black by Rolling Stones
1967 - Ain't No Mountain High Enough by Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
1968 - (Sittin' On The) Dock Of The Bay by Otis Redding
1969 - Here Comes The Sun by Beatles
1970 - Your Song by Elton John
1971 - Take Me Home Country Roads by John Denver
1972 - Tiny Dancer by Elton John
1973 - Jolene by Dolly Parton
1974 - Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd
1975 - Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen
1976 - Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac
1977 - Dreams by Fleetwood Mac
1978 - September by Earth Wind & Fire
1979 - Don't Stop Me Now by Queen
1980 - Another One Bites The Dust by Queen
1981 - Don't Stop Believin' by Journey
1982 - Africa by Toto
1983 - Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) by Eurythmics
1984 - Wake Me Up Before You Go Go by Wham
1985 - Summer Of '69 by Bryan Adams
1986 - Livin' On A Prayer by Bon Jovi
1987 - I Wanna Dance With Somebody by Whitney Houston
1988 - Everywhere by Fleetwood Mac
1989 - We Didn't Start The Fire by Billy Joel
1990 - Thunderstruck by AC/DC
1991 - Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana
1992 - Creep by Radiohead
1993 - What Is Love? by Haddaway
1994 - Juicy by The Notorious B.I.G
1995 - Wonderwall by Oasis
1996 - No Diggity by Blackstreet Ft. Dr Dre
1997 - Bitter Sweet Symphony by The Verve
1998 - Iris by Goo Goo Dolls
1999 - No Scrubs by TLC
2000 - Dancing In The Moonlight by Toploader
2001 - How You Remind Me by Nickelback
2002 - Lose Yourself by Eminem
2003 - Mr Brightside by The Killers
2004 - Let Me Love You by Mario
2005 - I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor by Arctic Monkeys
2006 - Naïve by The Kooks
2007 - Fluorescent Adolescent by Arctic Monkeys
2008 - I'm Yours by Jason Mraz
2009 - Party In The USA by Miley Cyrus
2010 - Love The Way You Lie by Eminem Ft. Rihanna
2011 - Someone Like You by Adele
2012 - Let Her Go by Passenger
2013 - Riptide by Vance Joy
2014 - Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran
2015 - Cheap Thrills by Sia
2016 - Say You Won't Let Go by James Arthur
2017 - Shape Of You by Ed Sheeran
2018 - Someone You Loved by Lewis Capaldi
2019 - Dance Monkey by Tones & I
2020 - Head & Heart by Joel Corry Ft. MNEK
2021 - Bad Habits by Ed Sheeran
2022 - As It Was by Harry Styles

Potentially Life Saving Idea..But

The NHS have announced that by 2030, every baby born in the UK could have their entire genome sequenced under a new initiative to 'predict and prevent illness' which checks for hundreds of genetic conditions and at first i thought what a great potentially life saving idea, but then i thought some more on it and saw some potential problems with it.
The genetic result will suggest a child has a higher probability of developing a certain disease later in life but us Humans have a tendency to suffer the psychological problem of hearing 'you might get sick' and hearing 'you will get sick' and acting accordingly which could have huge implications of how children are raised, how they’re treated and how they could see themselves as they age, almost like a patient in waiting.
There could even be treatment for diseases they never develop and real stress and psychological damage around an anticipated future of illness, we still bear the scars from Covid when we all thought we were going to catch it and the be a statistic read out in the Prime Ministers Daily Briefings
I still think it is a good idea but i struggle to see how the emphasis can be put on how being higher risk does not mean it is a certainty because you cannot change the way we think, and unfortunately we always think the worst.

Friday, 27 June 2025

Special Guest Blogger: Buddhist God Pigsy

Originally holding the title of Marshall of the Jade Emperor's Heavenly armies and commander-in-chief of 80,000 Celestial sailors, i did have an eye for the angels and a face for stuffing food into at every opportunity but being a great General meant my many indiscretions were generally overlooked until one day i guzzled too much peach wine and misbehaved with Chang’e, Goddess of the Moon. Oops.
She raised such a fuss that armed guards hauled me off to the Jade Emperor who decided my punishment was to be cast out of Heaven and sent to be reincarnated on Earth, where i fell into a pigs sty on a farm and was reborn as a man-eating pig-monster.
I saved the farmers daughter from being kidnapped and such was my reward that the grateful Farmer  offered her to me in marriage and to become part of their family but my animal nature soon took over and though i managed to do quite a lot of work in the fields, I also manages to eat so much that the farm was losing money.  
The farmer sent a servant to the nearby village to offer gold to anyone who could rid them of me and the pilgrim Tripitaka was passing with his guardian, the Monkey King, who offered me a way back to heaven if I help them in a quest. I reluctantly agreed and they named me Pigsy.
We travelled to India, carrying Tripitaka’s baggage and fighting demons along the way until finally our quest was fulfilled and i achieved enlightenment.
I was made Cleaner of the Holy Altar in Buddhist Heaven which may sound like a very menial job for an ex-Marshall of the Heavenly Hosts, but thousands of worshipers send offerings to that altar every day and I get all the leftovers I can eat so win-win as far as i'm concerned.

Wednesday, 25 June 2025

Welfare or Warfare?

Announcing you are increasing defence spending in the same week that the Government face a vote on cuts to Welfare probably wasn't the brightest move but since they came to power the Labour Party haven't been that hot.  
On Monday the Prime Minister announced that the UK was set to increase spending on defence to 5% of GDP in the next decade adding a further £30bn to take spending to £75bn but today, faces a possible Parliamentary defeat in his attempt to cut £5bn from Welfare payments due to 'the welfare bill is unsustainable and must be dealt with'.
A third of his own side have signed an amendment to next week's welfare vote that could see his welfare reforms killed off although it would take more than that as he currently has a working majority of 165 votes and is confident that they can face down any rebellion rather than watering down the bill and especially in light of the embarrassing U-turn on the Winter Fuel payments.
Keir Starmer then has a big argument with his party in the coming days and an even bigger one with the public if his Chancellor has to announce cuts to services and tax hikes in the future in order to fund buying tanks, bullets and drones.
If i had my way i would cut defence spending to the bone and use that money to improve peoples lives, £75bn would build a lot of schools and hospitals and fix a lot of roads because it is our money he is spending and he has made the political decision spend it on the machines of war, the moron.  

Stretching Meaning Of Obliterated Somewhat

Whether it was obliterated, destroyed or damaged, the potty mouthed tyrant Trump is saying that the attacks by the American B2 bombers have set back Iran's nuclear program 'decades' although the American intelligence people are not quite so certain.
Admittedly it is the same intelligence agency that Trump dismissed as wrong when they tried to explain to him that Iran had no Nukes and were not planning to make any but six 13.5 tonne bombs and 35 cruise missiles later, a report from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency estimated that the attacks set Iran’s nuclear program back 'only a few months' which is stretching obliterated a bit far.
Iran said they moved all the good stuff out before anyway so Trump's  'spectacular military success' would be applicable if the aim was to make some really big holes in a mountain for which the warmongering Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or 'fucking liar' as Joe Biden called him, has expressed his gratitude to US President Donald Trump for his actions, saying they will 'help lead the Middle East and beyond to a future of prosperity and peace' which comes with oodles of irony considering that in the past year he has helped lead his nation to war on Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Iran so peace while he is in charge seems a forlorn hope and as it will bring forward the charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery for which he could face 10 years in prison, not going to happen soon.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) boss Rafael Grossi says that Iran maintains the industrial capacity and technical knowledge for its nuclear program so all that was achieved was that at $500m a pop, America dropped £3bn worth of bombs to alter the Iranian skyline and prove to Iran that if they didn't think they needed a Nuclear Bomb to ensure it wasn't attacked, aka the North Korea defence, it bloody does now. 

Special Guest Blogger: Benvenuto Cellini

Being great in one area of your life doesn't mean you can't be a complete tool in another and I admit that I earned the admiration of the world through my genius work while also doing terrible things.
Do you know the table sculpture Cellini Salt Cellar where i molded gold into an incredibly detailed and intricate sculpture or maybe the even more famous sculpture of Perseus with the Head of Medusa? Some of my greatest works of art and that's without mentioning the autobiography which was been described as one of the most important documents of the 16th century.
At the age of 16, I was gaining a reputation as a bit of a hot head in Florence and after yet another street brawl, my father sent me to Siena where i discovered my passion for sculpture and from there to Rome where the phrase, 'it's not what you know but who you know' was written for me.
I made sculptures for the Cardinals and Bishops and Pope Clement VII was a big fan of mine which came in very handy when  my brother was killed and i killed his murderer in turn and through the influence of several cardinals clutching beautiful table sculptures and a quiet word from a fanboy Pope, I obtained a pardon.
Then, in 1527, the Sack of Rome happened, and i killed two of the occupying soldiers during the invasion which found me great favor with the new pope, Paul III, which again was very useful when three other men suspiciously wound up dead around me.
A few years later, while busy beating a man to death, a witness saw me and threatened to turn me in so i promptly killed the witness before the man could testify against me and fearing my credit with the Pope had run out by now, i went to sculpt in France.
There, i became the subject of a civil lawsuit over illegitimate children but before that filing could work its way into court, I crippled the plaintiff’s legs and fled town back to Florence and straight into an accusation that i had sodomised one of my students for which i was fined 50 golden Scudi and four years of prison, remitted to four years of house arrest thanks to the intercession of my friends the powerful Medici family.
I married and lived out my life in peace but my legacy would be some amazing works of art and the realisation that if you are pals with the Church, you can literally get away with murder.


Tuesday, 24 June 2025

Avoid A Newspaper Today Dan

In the olden times, anything written in a newspaper disappeared within a day of it being published, ideally ending up wrapped round your fish and chips. These days, of course, newspaper content lives on seemingly for ever on the Internet which can be annoying for Politicians who can change their thinking at the drop of a hat, if you asked some if they still thought what they wrote a few months later they would reply that they probably didn’t even think it by tea that day so heaven only knows what Tory MP Daniel Hannan thinks about Brexit today.  
Back in 2016, Brexit supporting Dan prophesied about what the post-EU sunlit uplands would be like on this very day in an article in the Times and it began with 'It’s 24 June, 2025, and Britain is marking its annual Independence Day celebration. As the fireworks stream through the summer sky, still not quite dark, we wonder why it took us so long to leave. The years that followed the 2016 referendum didn’t just reinvigorate our economy, our democracy and our liberty. They improved relations with our neighbours'  which shows a remarkable ability to be absolutely wrong about everything.  
I assume Dan the man has been eyeing his calendar nervously hoping nobody would remember his Mystic Meg predictions , too busy looking in the local newspaper for the nearest venue of all the street and firework parties i assume to celebrate that 4% hit to our GDP?
Somebody really should explain to him that despite his wishes, agriculture and fishing are not booming, the UK is not the foremost knowledge-based economy in the world, steel and ceramics have not become competitive again and the EU is not withering and dying without Britain.
Birmingham and Leeds are not financial capitals of the world, the UK has not become the centre of world shipping, shale oil and gas has not driven down energy prices and Universities have not flourished and the Brexit supporters are keeping their head's downs, embarrassed that they were taken in by numpties like him promising them the World but the World he delivered was akin to Mars or Venus.   
Forshame that man, or not if you have none, but i am looking forward to your predictions for the state of Britain on 24th June 2035. 

Tips For Yanks Coming To UK

During the last 12 months, more than 6,000 US citizens have applied to either become British subjects or to live and work in the country indefinitely which is the highest number ever according to data released on Thursday by the UK’s Home Office.
In total, 6,618 Americans applied for British citizenship with most arriving since November following the election of Donald TACO Trump as the 47th US presidency and American immigration lawyers say they are receiving an increasing number of inquiries and point to the chaotic political landscape amid Trump’s government.
So what can Americans expect when they leave the political dumpster fire of a country to come here?

No Wild Animals: The most dangerous animal we have is a hedgehog.    
Decent Tea: Hot and made ina  kettle as it should be.
Driving: No complicated crossroads, we have Roundabouts.
History: We have houses, pubs and a company that makes washing up bowls which are older than your America.
Spelling: You can get to use that letter 'U' you learnt about in School
Guns: No risk of dying of multiple gun shot wounds while out on a shopping trip.
Humour: Blackadder, QI, Red Dwarf, Monty Python, Fools & Horses, Vicar of Dibley, Father Ted...enough said.  
Prince Harry: He will still be there so he isn't here.
Weather: The fun of leaving for work in brilliant sunshine and arriving drenched to the bone.
Accent: Learn how to speak proper English (unless you go to Liverpool, Newcastle or Birmingham)
Chocolate: Honestly, you haven't tasted Chocolate until you have had a Cadburys Easter Egg.
Dates: DD/MM/YYYY else we will completely miss your Birthday
Eggs: In the cupboard and not the fridge.
Ground Floor: The floor on the ground, not the First floor.
Chicken: The only Chlorine you will find is in the Swimming Pools.
Christmas Crackers: Little explosives to go with your Christmas Lunch.
Religion: Unless you wear a dog collar, don't mention God.   
NHS: Put your purse away.  
Fag, Shag, Fanny: Not an homosexual, a carpet or a backside over here   
Rhyming Slang: Find something that rhymes (China Plate = mate), then we shorten it (OK China)
Taps: We have two which are clearly labelled and even coloured red and blue.
Showing off: Boasting is a quick way to learn some new British swearwords.
Being American: If anyone asks about your accent, easier to say you are Canadian, you all sound the same to us anyway.

Oh, i'm sure you will get the hang of it once you are here.

Monday, 23 June 2025

My Blogging Style

When i was growing up one of my favourite reads was the Newspaper Sketch writers and my favourite was the 'By The Way' and later renamed 'Beachcomber' column because it was silly and funny and when it was created during the First World War, the writer, Major John Bernard Arbuthnot, said he wanted a column which took a news item, rolled it around bit and then clapped a Harpo Marx wig over it which was very well received at a time of such National struggle.
When i started blogging around 1999 as part of a group of friends doing on an online magazine type blog, i decided that would be my style which didn't really chime with the style of the blog we was writing so around 2004 i began my own blog where i could slap as many Harpo Marx wigs on news items as i wanted.
The problem was unless people know you are writing a sketch, they just assume you are making things up or flat out lying because sketch writing is very much a British thing and not really done outside of our shores, the act of taking a situation and pointing at the absurdity and silliness in it rather than the 'serious' part of the news was not clear although then it was the Gulf War and many people didn't like my slapping a Harpo wig on the players like Tony Blair or G W Bush at such a time and spent more time defending that the posts were not meant to be 'factually accurate' as it was a sketch but i soon realised that the style could be off-putting and the humour something of an acquired taste so i began the Falling On A Bruise blog around 2007 and tried to intertwine the two.  
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't but all those years of reading the Beachcomber columns certainly did have an influence on me because when i am looking for angles for pieces, i always dive head first into the silly and absurdness of it all and then usually have to reign myself back in, lesson learnt from earlier experiences where some stories were deemed not inductive to the silly and absurd.
Sometimes i just can't help myself and the urge to lampoon is too strong, i mean just look around some of the people who are leading us, but other times i try to combine to the two into one post which could come across as making fun of a serious topic but i maintain that some situations are always going to end badly so we might as well have a bloody good laugh about it. It's the British way. 

Special Guest Blogger: Goddess Asherah

Men! Bah! I was the Mother Goddess and wife of God when he was going under the name of Yahweh and together we had seventy-seven god children, or was it eighty-eight? Whatever, we had so many that I lose count but as no-one has heard of most of them, it probably doesn’t matter anyway.
Back then I was known as 'She Who Walks Upon The Sea' which was weird because i never but anyway, i was held in very high esteem by my many worshipers who erected many wooden pillars and statues in my honor, so many that my husband, being a man, felt a little threatened by his woman.
We were ruling side by side as a divine man and wife but hardly anyone remembers me so what happened you may ask? Obviously, men happened.
I was not only edited out of the Holy texts such as the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament when the Christians began taking bits and pieces for their own religion, but they started referring to me as a sacred tree in an effort to hide me although references to me did have to be edited out in later versions of the Bible because they missed a few references such as in Deuteronomy 33.2-3, when i was said to be 'at his right hand'.
After being written out of the Christian Bible, to kick me even further away from my ex-husband, I became morphed into a Pagan goddess and worshiping Pagans was a huge no-no and any statues to me had to be destroyed because of the whole False Idols bit of the commandments.
Obviously, today's Christians don't want to know that their top banana has an ex-wife knocking around and definitely don't want to acknowledge the 77 or 88 kids we  had together, preferring to concentrate on the one Godly offspring which was a result of making a 14 year girl who was betrothed to another pregnant because that is so much better apparently.

Sunday, 22 June 2025

God On Trump

At least the Tangerine Taco left his ridiculous looking MAGA hat at home when he announced that it was time for Iran to make peace now that he had ordered his country to attack them but that's Trump logic for you, as stupid as he looks with his Orange clown make up.
Flanked by three of his administration, Plague, Famine and Death, the self confessed sex pest ended his self congratulatory speech about firing 30 Cruise Missiles and dropping seven 13.5 tonne bombs on another country with: 'God bless the Middle East. God bless Israel, and God bless America'.
Don't know what God made of this imposition of his precious blessing time and energy, so lets ask him.
'It's a bit of a liberty to be honest' said the Almighty, 'as if i haven't got enough on my plate already what with answering prayers, saving The King of England and trying to orchestrate all these Holy Wars. I really could do without dubious politicians organising yet more for me to do although i have had dealings with these warmongering American Presidents before.'
Obviously reading my mind about the Bush consultation before the Iraq War, the big guy sighed and shook his omnipresent head, 'Yep, there was that Bush fella but i told him what i tell everyone when they ask for help in a war, I'm God. If i want to get rid of someone I can just give them bird flu or food poisoning so if Trump has asked me i would have said that I didn't need some jumped up little draft dodger with bone spurs to help me.'
I wanted to press him further on the meaning of life, origins of the Universe and exactly what he thought of what those that he made in his own image were doing to the environment that he had cobbled together in under a week and did he think he would have made a better job of it if he hadn't had Sunday off, but before i had chance, he got called away to an incident.
'Sorry but the King is digging about inside his toaster with a knife again' he said rolling his eyes and ordering Gabriel to fetch his winged chariot.
'I'll tell you what' he said as he ushered me towards the door 'None of my other creations give this  much hassle.'

It Shouldn't Have Come To This

Benjamin Netanyahu has been gunning for Iran for decades and finally he found a dumbo in the White House who not only gave him the Green light to go ahead and attack the Country but dismissed his own intelligence Agency to join in with it.
The fact that the situation came to this is a direct consequence of his 2018 decision to tear up the joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA) agreement negotiated during Barack Obama’s presidency that limited Iran’s nuclear capabilities in return for sanctions relief.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, addressed US Congress to argue against the JCPOA but Obama made the case that the only alternative to a negotiated agreement with Iran was yet another war in the Middle East.
It was working and the IEAE continually monitored Iran Nuclear capabilities but then Trump was then elected and mindlessly exited the JCPOA and put the economic sanctions back Iran.
Biden had talks with Iran to revive the JCPOA but Iran did not trust the Americans to not go back on their word again and Biden saw that Iran was continuing to comply and the more moderate  president Hassan Rouhani was running the country but when the Iran Proxy, Hamas, slaughtered over 1,000 Israeli's in 2023, that was an end to any negotiations.  
US intelligence consistently stated that Iran was not actively pursuing a Nuclear weapon but Netanyahu continued to repeat that an immediate military action was needed to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb.
America and Iran were in negotiations but now the more hardline Ebrahim Raisiwas elected as Iran’s president and he demanded tougher terms for any future nuclear deal, the lifting of sanctions and guarantees against another US withdrawal.
Ultimately, though, the conditions that led to this war would almost certainly not have arisen without Trump’s mishandling of Iran policy, his abysmal leadership skills in his first administration and being Netanyahu's bitch.

Saturday, 21 June 2025

Still Wavering On Assisted Dying

 I was always wavering on the Assisted Dying  which has just passed through the House of Commons, mainly because it was open to exploitation but it has been toughened up to make it harder to access.
The assisted dying debate was last heard in the Commons in 2015, when it was defeated by 330 votes to 118 but this time it passed with 314 votes for and 291 against, with Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who will have to deliver the bill, voting against.
The amended bill will now allow terminally ill adults with fewer than six months to live to apply for an assisted death, subject to approval by two doctors and a panel featuring a social worker, senior legal figure and psychiatrist and exclude anyone trying to join the program on grounds of Mental Health or Anorexia and will not be started until 2029, giving more time for it to be pored over.
Campaign group Dignity in Dying hailed the result as: 'A landmark moment for choice, compassion and dignity at the end of life' and i get all that but still i am not wholeheartedly behind it although a recent poll showed 70% of people support assisted dying but the opposition has come from the Medical Profession who were challenging it up til the very last moment.  
The Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Royal College of Pathologists and the Royal College of Physicians raised concerns about the bill and it is one of those emotive subjects where i can see both sides but if the professionals are against it, then the 49% for and 51% against debate i have internally over it remains.

Five Things I Learnt About Cruising

1. Dress for where you are going not where you are coming from. Beautiful and Sunny in Southampton when we sailed away, cold and wet in Norway when we arrived and sandles and flimsy tops were not cutting it but at least the Norwegian Economy benefited from a Cruise Ship full of passengers woefully unprepared for a Norwegian Summer.

2. People will ask how many cruises you have been on and if you say this is your first, they will offer 'advice' on everything, and i mean everything including the fine details of every single one of their previous cruises..every...single...one.

3. Another question is where do you work but they are not asking you out of interest and you could actually say anything as they are just hoping you will say it back to them so they can then go into details of their job and try and make it sound exciting as one guy who sold Air Conditioning did until we did the watch tapping 'wow, is that the time' thing and buggered off to another part of the ship.

4. The Americans onboard were very nice and well mannered but nobody beats the Japanese, they were excruciatingly polite and smiley and would always stop for a chat as were the Indians but they are not so keen to engage in smalltalk but as for the British, unfortunately the drunk ones staggering around the pool at midnight and singing loudly were the folks from my own country.   

5. Ducks. Lots and lots of ducks and not the feathered kind, the plastic type which passengers hide all over the ship and when you find one you take a picture and rehide it again.

I thoroughly enjoyed my first cruise, so much that we are looking into doing one for our Anniversary in November but the Sea Gods were good to us this time, those virgins i sacrificed to Neptune before we set off obviously worked so that's a tip, just before you set off prepare an altar and invite a computer programmer around.

Someone's Lying

Seemed weird just watching the news rather than be involved in disseminating it but i am due for a full catch up at work tomorrow but from what i have gleaned so far:

Iran and America were in talks about the Iranian Nuclear Program
The IAEA announced that Iran were not in co-operation with them and been enriching uranium to 60% purity
Israel launched a 'pre-emptive attack' against Iran as they say it was on the verge of building a nuclear bomb although they gave no evidence
The American Director of National Intelligence said there was no evidence Iran is building a nuclear weapon.
Donald Trump said she was wrong and he didn't  care what she said and Iran could have a bomb in weeks.
Israel and Iran have been trading missile strikes with each other ever since.
Israel calls for regime change in Iran.
Donald Trump is mulling over joining Israel in attacking Iranian Nuclear Sites.

All seems very much like the build up to the Gulf War and the infamous 'Weapons of Mass Destruction', where G W Bush and his sidekick Tony Blair said they had to go to war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq who were stockpiling Nuclear, Biological and Chemical weapons and Saddam said he wasn't. Turns out one of them were telling the truth and he didn't have an American or British Accent.
Now the Israeli and Americans are saying Iran are weeks or months away from developing a nuclear weapon, the Iranians, as well as the American Intelligence Service are saying they are not so swap out Britain for Israel and we are exactly where we were in 2003.
Meanwhile, the Israeli genocide in Palestine continues with them continuing to call people to distribution sites and then shooting them dead, 51 on Friday.
Maybe i missed something but a pre-emptive strike and calling for regime change against a Middle Eastern country who are being accused of developing weapons of mass destruction which they deny? Been there, done that, watched the bloody mess and abhorrent death toll that caused. Don't learn do we. 

Special Guest Blogger: The Sundance Kid

My name was Harry Longabaugh but I was called the Sundance Kid because i was a youngster when i first broke the law and i earned that name because i was imprisoned in Sundance, Wyoming which could have been worse, i could have been arrested in Colon, Michigan and that's a nickname nobody wants.
My life was full of gun-slinging, daring robberies and thrilling escapes and the fast living did eventually catch up to me, though not until I was in a whole other Continent.
I was the Kid because i first landed in jail at 19 when I headed up North to work on my cousins farm and made my way to Sundance, Wyoming, where I stole a gun and an horse but my first stint as an outlaw was postponed for 18 months courtesy of a magistrate and Harry Longabaugh may have gone in but it was the Sundance Kid that came out.
I got a job as  a ranch hand and a sideline in rustling cattle and horses across Montana and into Canada but the pay was lousy and i had found a new pal in someone with an equally cool name, Butch Cassidy, and his Wild Bunch and we robbed trains and banks and we became well known all across America but to law enforcement mostly.
We were involved in several thrilling gunfights but it was the one where i shot two officers which put a price on my  head, $30,000, and my face on Wanted Posters with Dead or Alive beneath it and i was very keen on it not being dead so Kid and I decided to lay low for a while.
As we were off the grid the long arm of the federal government set the Pinkerton Detective Agency onto us and those guys were not the sort to politely inform us that we were under arrest and that it would be best for everyone involved if we just came along quietly so we went where their eye's couldn't find us, Argentina.
We purchased a 15,000-acre ranch but old habits die hard and we held up a bank which alerted the Pinkerton's where we were so legged it into Chile and I adopted a new name but the name may have changed but the love of a gun fight never and after shooting an Officer, escaped to Bolivia.  
We did consider giving up the outlaw life but that lasted as long as it took to knock over a courier carrying the payroll for the local Silver Mine but we made the mistake of taking the mule to carry the money which embarrassingly had the branding of the Mine on it which led to our last stand but it wasn't the authorities that killed me, it was my pal Butch who finished me when i was fatally wounded and then took his own life, both of us riding off into the sunset.

Thursday, 19 June 2025

Special Guest Blogger: Moses

1350 BC was not a great time for the Israelite's. We had been subjugated by a certain Egyptian Pharaoh to a life of bondage and misery. But along came  a Hebrew chap who also happened to be an adopted Egyptian prince, the Great Prophet of Judaism, the leading light of the Israelite's and God's right-hand man, little old me.
Close encounters with God are very rare and as email was still a few millennia away, Yahweh appeared to me in the form of a burning bush on the side of a mountain and issued a rescue plan with me as chief perpetrator. I ask God the kind of personal questions we’d all like the answers to but Yahweh was not entirely forthcoming but it was worth a try.
When God started giving me detailed religio-political instructions for confronting kings and leading an entire nation out of slavery, fair to say I was not overly enthusiastic.
Sure my Princely Egyptian status got me the ear of the Pharaoh, but when it came to 'Let My People Go', the ear was a little hard of hearing.
It was a tough gig I had been handed so i tried to show them that God was all powerful so had a contest with the best wizards but despite me turning sticks into snakes, pulling rabbits from hats and even performed my sawing a Mummy in half trick, they were not impressed.
I conjured up plagues of boils, locusts, frogs, gnats and other nasties with only the Israelite's remaining unscathed and that got the Pharaohs attention and he booted us out into the desert wilderness.
The Jews complained non-stop about the sand in their sandles and the lack of food and water so I went to consult with Yahweh, who provided two stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments.
Many of these rules were practical tips for keeping a society healthy under difficult circumstances but to some it just seemed like an excuse for me to boss them around. Which, to be perfectly honest, I did but i didn't have much choice.  
The Ten commandments may be a good starting point, but they're so negative. Thou shalt not do this and thou shalt not do that. What about things you shalt? Thou shalt have a nice cup of tea and a biscuit, for example.
Anyway, after forty years of wandering the desert, the Israelite's finally reached the Promised Land but i didn’t quite make it.
We arrived at Mount Abarim and as we gazed down upon Canaanite, i looked up the Heavens and asked God if i should lead our people into the City.
Expecting something for my lifetime of devoted service but he said nope, neither dead nor alive shalt thou go into the land and God kissing me upon the mouth (bit weird in all honestly), i dropped dead which seems a tad ungrateful but religion is like that, bears may lay down with lambs and princes mix with paupers but to the Big Guy, you are as inconsequential as a speck of dust, but nah, i'm not bitter.

Tuesday, 17 June 2025

Special Guest Blogger: Montezuma

In 1502 i became the ninth emperor of the Aztec Empire. Ruling the city of Tenochtitlán, i was revered as an intellectual, warrior, and chief priest who had a nasty habit of sacrificing folks on pretty much an hourly basis.
My coronation was one big party, guests were given mescaline which is a powerful psychedelic drug to make the bash seem even more spectacular but i didn't need any stimulation to master the practice of tearing a victim’s heart out and tossing the body down the pyramid steps.
These ritual killings actually became a full-time job for me and I was an equal opportunities executioner and killed the  young, old, virgins, maidens and when you have a theater made out of 135,000 skulls it might sound a bit excessive but we prayed to over 1500 Gods so had many of them to appease so occasionally i would start a war just so we could capture warriors for sacrifice.
I conquered many area tribes and was despised for my looting, taxation, and murder in the name of religious zeal and my empire stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific but my reign sadly came to an end with the arrival of Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés in 1519.
We mistakenly thought he was a god as Aztec legend, Quetzalcoatl, who was a bearded white deity showing up to bring on the apocalypse and he arrived the exact year the god-king is supposed to show up, and with a white beard, how was we meant to know it wasn't him?
Cortés convinced many tribes to aid in his effort to oust me, and in fairness most of them hated my guts anyway as I kept killing their warriors, and rolled into Tenochtitlán and stormed my Palace.
I was not a great leader for nothing and to make sure it was a God and not someone coming to murder us all, I sent along a look-alike dressed as me but he never came back so assumed he had either been killed or take to Aztec heaven so still thinking it was indeed Quetzalcoatl, I welcomed him with open arms and offered him gifts of gold, jeweled necklaces, and even the highest honour, flowers from my own garden.
Bad idea as the Spanish took me hostage and threatened to kill me unless i went onto the balcony of the palace and told his angry followers to back off.
The crowds became even more furious at me for appearing meek and stoned with rocks and chucking spears. Injured and no longer in charge, I was held captive until my death a few days later and with me gone, so did the Aztec empire.