I have two printed signs stuck to a window next to my front door. They are self-explanatory.
There remains a constant deluge of unwanted, and of course unread, leaflets and other rubbish pushed through my letter-box. All of the above, as promised by the lower leaflet, goes straight into the recycling bin (very concerned about the Environment).
I spoke to our postie, who sometimes also delivers printed garbage, and asked why he doesn’t take note of the notices? He replied that, in his case, postmaster instructions state that, as the Royal Mail is being paid to deliver the garbage, he has to post it, or lose his job. As to the other squads who roam the streets, pushing Charity begging bags, Pizza lists, Chinese menus and other rubbish repetitively through the same letter boxes week after week; he shrugged and said, “Well, you have to remember, most of the other delivery guys can’t read!
They speculate that a photoshopped picture of the wedding of Eugenie to Jack Brookbank was inserted to provoke anger and dismay.
Everyone knows that Windsor Council removes all the beggars and homeless days before the big event, so they don’t distract people with their moaning, open sores, etc.!
I am a great believer in the fruits of modern technology. I also assent to the belief that, where possible, large infrastructure projects should encompass, wherever reasonable, attempts to limit their impact upon the unspoilt nature of our countryside.
I also believe that T’Internet (Computers, silicon technology, chips, server and connectivity) is possibly the second most important invention in modern history, the first being the invention of the printed word. I mention this opinion because, during my tattered memory searches, dredging forgotten facts from my school days and Merchant Navy life when still a young man brought, through ‘Google’ search, a definitive position of a time when I swam in 25,000 feet deep water in the Pacific Ocean, whilst our ship was drifting whilst we were waiting for the swells to die down so we could berth at Ocean Island, to load guano. That same guano, one of the richest and purest forms of fertiliser, has also resulted in the near desolation of both Ocean and Nauru Islands, as the phosphate workings have, over the last ninety years, have denuded the entire island landscape of any possibility of living as the native population used to do. A book, whose title was recovered after a search lasting approximately three clicks on a trackpad, named ‘A Pattern of Islands’, which I read in my late schooldays; was the story of a trainee early Twentieth-Century British Colonial Administrator, in his twenty-five years on the Islands.
However, I digress: back we go to modern technology, but not leaving fertiliser. Trial bores and other techniques discover a huge deposit of potash under the North Yorkshire moors. The company involved in the search made the usual planning applications, as it was a huge project to dig a huge and very deep shaft to gain access to the potash seams, and then transfer the product some thirty miles to a new dock on the river Tees. Now the usual method of transporting this type of material is by a series of conveyor belts across the country. These belts being surface mounted, all the company would have to do would be to survey and choose the best route, to avoid the necessity for bridges, short tunnels etc. and the landowners and farmers could be compensated for the trouble felt during the construction period and the nuisance of having a large industrial transport scheme across their lands. The cost? My own estimate, for a run of approximately thirty-odd kilometres, would be about £40 million pounds.
But, ‘hey oop’, as the average liberal, environmentally alert & conservation-minded Yorkshireman might state, ‘You can’t run your conveyor routes there: thats all inside the North York Moors National Park! It would be a permanent huge scar upon an area of natural beauty, and it cannot be allowed!’
So the Potash Mine company, being dead clever,said ‘Oh, forsooth, and Nay; Lad’. We shall tunnel from the minehead all the way to the dock in Teesside, and you won’t even see it. True, we’ll have to dig four sites to allow the tunnel boring machines to be set in place, as well as the huge cranes building the actual minehead plant, but once its up and running, we’ll be planting trees to disguise the site, and you won’t see anything! The actual cost of a tunnel boring machine, weighing in at 1,800 tonnes and measuring 220 metres long, costs over £200 millions each, but we don’t mind buying four, because we love the environment!’
So, Sirius Mining got their Planning Application approved, and the liberals were unhappy, but mollifiedbecause they won’t see the conveyor belts, because they’re all enclosed in that tunnel. So the views across the North York Moors National Park will be unsullied, and as we head South, all we’ll see is the grass, and the sheep, and the .sweeping grandeur of the Moors ……….
The ‘comedy’ slots on both BBC tv and radio, over the years, have become dominated by the Left, with very few exceptions. This, given the normal viewpoint of the Beeb, which just does not reflect any centrist or right-wing viewpoints at all, is, unfortunately, to be expected. The totally biased, and to my own mind abominable ‘The News Quiz’ dominated by hard-line left so called comedians such as the weirdy ‘Sandy Toksvig’ and the late, very-unlamented Jeremy Hardy; with their constant digs at President Trump and any other right wing targets: was typical of the BBC’s so-called comedy output.
Up until a couple of days ago, the BBC’s ‘Have I Got News For You’ was a programme I normally like and watch. Most unusually, there was some kind of balance, with Left and Right being equally exposed to ridicule, and also with the presence of the formidable intellect of Ian Hislop, the author, writer, Private Eye editor; and, for my own mind, one of the most influential voices in the broadcast media.
At 09.00 minutes into the Episode 8 show, the scripts touched on the milkshake attacks on Nigel Farage, Tommy Robinson and the Candidate MEP who involved himself with ‘Not Rape’ comments about a Labour MP. The attacks were jovially received and commented upon, with a small demur from the Labour MP, but in the main, those attacks were brushed aside as literally, ‘Acceptable Standards of behaviour in Politics Today’. Milkshake deluge was ‘acceptable behaviour’ knowing the recipients; was funny, seen as humorous, and ‘understandable”. These comments were general from all on the panel, inclusive of Ian Hislop.
I do wonder if these attacks had been carried out on Labour or indeed on Tory politicians on the stump; if they would have been judged with the same degree of humorous understanding, and acceptance that it was all ‘A Jolly Jape’: and that, given the political stances of Farage, Robinson et al; just ‘TO BE EXPECTED’!
Lee? Most of us who actually watch, remember and drink from the fountains of truth know who Lee Rigby was. He was the unfortunate soldier targeted by two Terrorists. He died because he was wearing a T-shirt from the military charity Help For Heroes. not a military uniform, but, to all intents and purposes he may as well have been. These two murderous thugs were out for ‘Jihad’, but the police refused to kill them, as they hoped. Instead they subdued them, arrested them, and then, after due legal process, both were given full life terms.
But Ignacio? Ignacio who? Exactly! He was the MAN who stepped forward, and attacked the jihadis who were killing innocent civilians in the Borough marketplace. His weapon? A skateboard. He had returned from a skateboard session, and was angling towards a pint in a bar when he saw a woman being stabbed by one of the Muslim Jihadi terrorists. So he hit him with his skateboard; and he died for his bravery, died from the blade wounds which slashed through his skin and into his valiant heart.
And why is it exactly that Ignacio’s name is virtually unknown? After all, he posthumously received a George Cross for his bravery, that decoration being handed to his parents who had travelled from Spain. Why is it that this HERO is not remembered in any way, shape or form anywhere on the streets of our Capital City, where he gave his life in an attempt to protect others!
We do not hear anything from the ‘chattering classes’ of his bravery. Is this lack of publicity because of a lack of knowledge? Nope; in my own estimation it is because of one thing, and one thing only: Ignacio Echevarria’s death was caused by Islamic Extremism. His death is at the door of Islam, and some of its followers. By Muslim fanatics faithful to a Religion which tells them that if they die, and take ‘unbelievers’ with them, they will inherit ‘paradise’; along with the eighty virgins. He died for the one thing which is virtually silenced these days, because if you speak of Muslim terror, or Muslim rape and grooming gangs, you are breaching the virtual embargo against anything which tells the truth.
We have a statue of a Terrorist in Parliament Square: Lee has two memorials, one in a church, the other on a pavement slab.
Lets have a street, or a London square, named after Ignacio, who died fighting for others!
Andrea Leadsom has waited, patiently, for nearly three hard, bitter years, working for a woman who, some believe, was responsible for the diversionary tactics which forced her to withdraw from the Tory Leadership race.
She made an off-hand remark about Theresa May during a newspaper interview, in which she suggested being a mother meant she had a larger stake in society than May. She admitted she had been left in tears at the weekend after a stream of colleagues said she was inexperienced and had been insensitive. She was also targeted by comments saying she had padded her CV regarding her position at a firm of investment bankers. Instead of battling on, and at least giving the Tory electorate a chance to state their choice, she withdrew, and let May become Prime Minister by default, or coronation; or whatever!
She had served In the previous Cabinet, she then served under May in DEFRA, and then as Leader of the House. Some naively considered her a May loyalist, but I believe she was patiently awaiting the time when Theresa May really depended upon the Cabinet’s backing, as she foolishly pushed for the Withdrawal Bill (with added referendum and ‘worker’s rights’)
Like the very successful assassin she has turned out to be, she knew exactly the right time to slip the dagger in between the ribs of this foolish woman who had proclaimed ‘Leave’, and then had done everything to abort that ‘Leave’ procedure.
Now that’s the sort of politician I understand; and if I were still a Tory Party member, I would give her my vote for Prime Minister!
As with many commentators, I have my doubts about Tommy Robinson. He is divisive, he is clever and calculating, he is, and has been, a target for both the Establishment, the Political elite and the Mainstream Media. I watch his many videos and broadcasts, he seems to be a one-trick voice, but a threat to the established order? What can one voice achieve? Quite a lot, it seems.
We have noted the seeming ‘its all a bit of a joke’ reporting of the ‘milkshake’ attacks on Tommy Robinson, and latterly on Nigel Farage. Its not just a ‘bit of a laugh! What are the chances of some twisted individual deciding to uprate the ferocity, by buying a milkshake container, and after emptying it, refilling with drain cleaner or another acid? Would that be deemed ‘just a bit of fun’?
If OoL readers have not yet clicked, I upload a video of the Tommy Robinson MEP campaign meeting in Oldham. The video shows the Tommy Robinson viewpoint regarding the truth of how the attacking force were lead and guided by THE POLICE through various streets to the actual place where the meeting was taking place. Seen any of the reporting of this meeting, held by a candidate for the European Parliamentary Elections? Headlines such as :-
Tommy Robinson: Police vehicles damaged during clashes at campaign event in Oldham
Violence as Tommy Robinson visits Oldham
Police blast ‘ill-informed speculation’ after Muslim Defence League and Tommy Robinson supporters come face-to-face in Oldham
Nazi scum’ Tommy Robinson supporters and rival protesters clash in ugly scenes
Oldham: Riot police clash with group of protestors
The video sections where the attacking force was assembled and marched/guided were obviously uploaded by members of the attacking force themselves, so that might be interpreted as the police officially condoning this violent assembly; but that again is only my interpretation of events. It does look as thought there was a guiding hand from above helping these people massing towards a confrontation. I would only point out one more significant fact; some of these Muslim attackers came from Halifax, thirty-eight miles away from Oldham!
A member of the Grenfell ‘survivors’ is quoted as saying “‘We are living in a limbo, increasingly frustrated and we need to know there will be some resolution soon. A slow justice is a painful justice for all of us.’ She was presumably talking about the allegedly-terrible trauma being inflicted on this bunch by the leader of the Grenfell Inquiry, as he has refused to publish an Interim Report. This omission is of course part of the trauma; in that these ‘survivors’ are precluded from standing in clumps, adjacent to the burnt-out tower remains, and being filmed by every gullible tv news crew, as they state, once more, how terrible it all has been, and how no-one’s been arrested, or even slung in jail, for the high crime of making the tower block in which this rag-tag army of illegal immigrants, shysters and bogus asylum seekers lived, warmer. The Inquiry chairman has acted so despicably because, in legal terms, “ Sir Martin Moore-Bick has previously said he does not consider it appropriate to make interim recommendations ahead of the report.”
I mean, how terrible, that these people haven’t been provided with hour-by-hour updates on what the Inquiry Chairman is thinking! It truly beggars belief how badly these people have been treated. These poor people, who have collectively been paid some£27,000,000.00 as part of the wonga collected in the immediate aftermath of the fire itself. Add to that total the amount spent on hotels, new flats and not forgetting that block of sixty flats paid for by the City of London which were given to some of the surviving families. Although it is thought that some of the new tenants will be slightly less pleased to find they cannot share the Dedicated 24 Hour Concierge & Private Leisure Facilities, including Swimming Pool, Gym & Cinema. Affordable Housing rules are subtly different, but they will be so grateful! Or will they?
Me, with that sort of cash and super accommodation on offer, I’m thinking of cladding my own home in the same materials, which were all approved in terms of Building Standards as that around Grenfell; and taking my chances for a similar spot in LIMBO!
Gazing at the updated EU Parliament polling statistics, I see what has been published and stated about Farage and his Brexit Party; and then check what the ‘Man’ has said about his Party’s policies, and I am slightly perturbed.
We all know about Farage’s past, from his earlier days as a metals broker in the City, to his transformation of a moribund Political Party of protest, into a political machine which was so feared by Cameron that he was forced to concede an In/Out Referendum on Europe to try and stem UKIP’s march onwards.
But no-one seems to have forecast the massed bands of voters transforming their allegiances from the Old Political Parties to this brand spanking new identity. The only ones who had any inkling that this ‘tsunami’ was rolling towards the EU polls were those who, despite voting ‘Leave’ in that historic Referendum, knew why they were accompanied by the other 17.4 million. They knew that, amongst those millions, were at least three million who had NEVER VOTED BEFORE!
I haven’t much time, normally, for political pundits. Most political animals disrespect the ‘plebs’, those strange people who watch ‘Corrie’, or ‘Eastenders’, or ‘Love Island’; or indeed any of the so-called ‘Reality’ TV shows (so-called because they are truly light-years away from true reality). The politicians, and their hangers on, along with the TV and media journalists, just do not understand, or even attempt to understand, the real lives of the sixty million who provide their comfy houses and flats, whose taxes pay for their pouting and preening on various TV and Radio programmes.
I’ll give you one example of how much they simply do not ‘get us’. Recall, if you would, the tornado of criticism which landed, fair and square, full in the face of ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown; speaking to an elderly Rochdale resident: when he called an elderly lady, who had the temerity to state that she didn’t like all these immigrants coming in; “some bigoted woman”! Imagine, an elderly lady, the very stuff of Middle England, telling a Labour Prime Minister the truth; as she saw it! The damage limitation went on for days! The simple truth that Westminster lives and operates in its own ‘bubble’ is well known; not so well known is the studied indifference to the woes and worries of ANYONE who lives outside the M25. We are there to vote, every five years; and vote in the way which is expected: and then to bloody shut up and respect our betters!
I am fairly well-read and educated when it comes to politics. I read, voraciously. I devour news stories because I want to know the truth about the decisions taken on my behalf, and why my views aren’t taken into account?
We went to the polling stations, that June morning now almost three years ago, and we told them, “We want to Leave”.
Millions of people thought as I did. But two-odd years later, I sadly recorded the epitaph to a dream. I said,” So, the 17.4 millions glumly watch as our dreams are squashed flat, folded up, packed carelessly away, labelled ‘Not Wanted on Voyage’. “T’was a nice dream whilst it lasted, but reality is peeking, slyly, around the corner; the European trash, the Elite, the Remainers have all but won. And we don’t even own a Yellow Vest between the lot of us!!!”
And then, because of the machinations of surrender had not been complete, because some MPs wanted this: and other MPs wished for that; we were forced to ASK for a Brexit Extension, and then another Extension, and then someone noticed the truly fabulous fact that we had to vote in the EU elections, because we hadn’t left, and we were still an EU member state. And then that bloke popped up his head, right above the parapet, and stated “I’m Back’! From nowhere, Farage’s Brexit Party has enlisted 100,000 members each paying £25.00, so that they have a nest-egg of over £2.5 million; along with massive ratings on every poll recorded.
We do not, as yet, know much about Farage’s Brexit Party; mainly because he hasn’t told anyone. He might just sweep the Euro Elections, giving a boost to his message towards Westminster “I’m Back.” But I’ll reserve judgement until I see if he makes promises he might keep, as opposed to promises he will keep. He is, after all, JUST ANOTHER POLITICIAN.
Penny Mordaunt wants to relieve British troops of the worry from prosecutions for actions of decades back. She wants to bring forward legislation which would prevent prosecutions for alleged crimes committed by British soldiers in foreign mis-adventures. Fair enough, but, being a POLITICIAN first and foremost, she will not extend this relief to soldiers who were doing nothing more than their sworn duty as loyal soldiers of the Crown, fighting a war against a bunch of terrorists in the British province of Northern Ireland
Strangely enough, I would support these legislative actions, and would also support legal actions against soldiers who are believed to have committed crimes in Northern Ireland during the Troubles: but with one specific caveat. I would wish to see all those IRASinnFein terrorists, who have been conveniently pardoned or ‘forgotten’, to be also pursued with the same vigour as those soldiers who were performing their duties lawfully.
If that was promised, and those terrorist murderers were threatened with Justice, we would soon see a change, both in promised prosecutions, and in vilifying and threatening men now in their seventies and eighties, who wore the uniform and pledged their lives to protect us.
We are all susceptible to influences. Whether in what we read, or watch, or indeed listen to. Some may be malign, some merely inappropriate. Some influences are stated as being impartial, such as the whole output of the BBC, but people who have at least one operating brain cell can sort the few grains of truth from the sheer avalanche of partial bullshit which pours out of the BBC’s multitude of organs; all paid for, incidentally, with your cash.
But at least the BBC is open, or less opaque that others. There are very few news organs within the borders of this Dis-United Kingdom which I would trust wholeheartedly, and even fewer on the world’s stage. When Google first broke onto the Internet’s presence, the two guys who literally invented this amazing method of algorithmically listing items and news in a preference system, they held to a phrase which was supposed to show that they intended to be impartial. They had chosen the term, ‘Don’t be evil’. Yes, it’s about providing their users unbiased access to information, focusing on their needs and giving them the best products and services that they can. But it’s also about doing the right thing more generally – following the law, acting honorably, and treating co-workers with courtesy and respect. That ideal has long disappeared from the Google masthead.
Google is, by virtue of its leadership, its generic growth, one of THE most successful corporations on this planet. But it also has grown into a Left-wing Monolith. Right-wing and Centrist ideas and thinking are, literally, frowned upon. If a Google employee holds Right-wing sympathies, he or she keeps them held very close, for fear of ridicule, harassment or worse. And so this Left-Good / Right-Terrible philosophy has oozed, like the slime it conceals, into all of Google’s products and productions.
YouTube is a Google product, bought by the Internet monolith for $1.65 billions, purchase date 2006. For long enough, it was a free-wheeling empire, with ‘anything goes’ as its unofficial slogan. But time change, and as the Leftwinger grip on all four major platforms has increased, so has the ideology captured what used to be a place where you could speak your mind, and nothing else happened. True, all these platforms are privately-owned companies, but ‘free speech, which used to be prevalent and welcomed, is in very short supply.
Tommy Robinson, as some on this and other places have averred, is due for either a major attack, a major ‘accident’, or, to be blunt, is murdered by the State. He is, again speaking bluntly, an outcast amongst outcasts. But the man has courage, he will not be silenced, and, as noted, he is standing for the European Parliament. He still broadcasts on YouTube, is silenced on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. He still lives on Youtube, but if you click onto the URL; you see:-
The following content has been identified by the YouTube community as inappropriate or offensive to some audiences.
I have watched this video, and so should you, because I cannot detect anything inappropriate or offensive at all!
Matthew Hedges, the man who wasn’t spying, now complains that the Foreign Office failed him. His stated reasons for visiting the Arab Emirates was to gain knowledge for his PhD. A PhD is a postgraduate doctoral degree, awarded to students who complete an original thesis offering a significant new contribution to knowledge in their subject. It was stated that he had been working on a thesis about civil-military relations in the UAE since the Arab Spring, based on readily accepted literature. He went to the United Arab Emirates to conduct a series of interviews to help flesh out some of the theories and some of the empirical evidence that he had actually collected.
Now Mr. Hedges seems to be an educated man, who has lived in Arab Muslim countries, with their well-known adherence to Islamic ideas about Justice, the Rule of Law: and strong ideas about foreigners who come to their countries, and proceed to tell them how much better we do things in the Western World. So this alleged ‘academic’ goes on this trip into the Emirates, and proceeds to ask lots of questions about military systems adopted and proposed within the Emirates. I mean to ask only two questions. (1) Is he living in some strange cloud-cuckoo land; where no-one does anything underhand, and everyone tells the truth? And (2), If he doesn’t live within the aforementioned Cloud-Cuckoo country, is he truly as daft as he sounds?
And then folks, this Hedges bloke, who strangely enough works for a Cyber Intelligence company in the UK, gets himself arrested on spying charges while preparing to leave through Dubai International Airport. Now I have worked with Muslims, Arabs and others who inhabit the so-called Muslim Crescent, and there is one common denominator amongst all those lands, and the autocratic rulers of those unfortunate lands, and it is this, they have a supreme contempt for Democracy, and those nations who adhere, in any kind of way, to the ideals of Democracy and the Rule of Law. Whatever the Sultan wants, the Sultan gets; and so on down the ladder.
Long time back, living in South Africa, one of my wife’s friends was married to a bloke who was a hotel manager. He told me that he used to run a big hotel, part of a well-known American chain, in Kuwait City. Amongst many others, the hotel had a contract with an American Airline to house their pilots and stewardesses for stop-over purposes. A junior member of the Al-Sabah family, royal rulers of Kuwait, who was present in the hotel foyer when a group af airline staff were booking in, sent a message to the front desk asking for the room number of this tall blonde stewardess, part of the airline staff.. The guy at the front desk, because he knew the hotel’s, as well as my mate’s policies on guest privacy, kicked the request up to my mate; who refused, point blank, to tell this greasy Arab which room the stewardess was allocated. The request was issued once again, but with the added message that the nephew of the King’s second cousin was asking. The request was firmly but politely refused. Twenty-four hours later, my mate was given twenty four hours to leave the country, his wife was given a month to sell up and leave.
That, my friends, is but typical of the power, and how that power is used, in the Arabic World. So when some wide-eyed Brit comes down the wadi, asking all sorts of leading questions about which military systems and hardware; the same bloke who writes, approvingly, of the Muslim Brotherhood and how it is perceived across the Arab World, is it any wonder that this fool wasn’t arrested earlier?
So he is arrested, questioned, shovelled into solitary confinement, and in a five-minute-long trial is convicted of spying charges. And the wider world erupts! Terrible, they state. The Brit. Foreign Office sends for the UAE Ambassador. Folks, I have to ask: “What the f**k did they expect”?. The court wasn’t held at the Old Bailey; it was in Dubai; where very different standards prevail. After six months, he is pardoned, and kicked out. And now this silly prick is submitting a ‘formal complaint’ to that same Foreign Office. And our Foreign Minister? Promised a review. What a waste of time!
Fire, Pillage & Plague 