Main Stories?

Many things in the media annoy me, usually the slanted opinions, lying headlines and obsession with empty people.  This is one example.   A CEO, from the ESA, who nobody had heard off, from a company few people knew existed, was caught at some pop concert hugging a female no-one knew. 

This became front page news for days, why?

Who is he, who is she, who cares?

The people who indulged this news item will have no idea what his company does, no idea who he is, yet they will have followed the story for days, until another scandal involving people they do not know arises.  

As it is, the company and he have parted, he is not upholding their values, apparently.  What those values are, bad publicity I think the one they mean, and with me having no intention to search out the company and find out what they do and who he is, and what their values may be, all leads me to wonder why I am wasting time on this.

Well, this follows the other scandal, 'Masterchef.'

Now this is not a programme I would watch.  No cooking programme is worth watching these days, they are all soap operas, concerned with the presenters, not the cooking.  There again, there are few programmes I would ever watch these days, bar the football.  

Here complaints re someone's behaviour was ignored for years by the BBC, until it got into the media.  Now he has gone, we await the next one.  He too, and it will be a he, will be some sort of sex pest, pervert, deviant, or loud mouth, bullying the staff and getting paid far too much money, and will feel untouchable, unlike the women around him.  

The BBC is indeed full of perverts, and most get long well enough for the most part, however, this type of thing reveals the depth of corruption, bad management at all levels, and also the publics desire to know more about the meaningless empty lives of TV celebrities.  Something I myself do not care for.  They are all broken people, all desperate for attention, and few are worth knowing.

Who will be next to turn attention away from slaughter in various parts of the world, the billionaires running the Labour Party, now seeking to increase the pension age (IDS wishes to increase this to 75), and many other serious subjects pushed to the small places in the media by stories such as this.

It was ever thus.

Cat Nap

Can there be anything more productive than a noon time catnap?

Sleeping 8 hours a night is OK by me, if you can get more than four straight hours that is, but that 15 minutes at midday is the best sleep off the day.

Whether this is because we are made to sleep in the middle of the day or whether I am just too old to continue after lunch I know not.  However, hot countries tend to close down between noon and three, in Spain football begins at nine in the evening when the cool of the day arrives, not at midday as is more suitable in Scotland.  Does the weather then determine our sleep patterns?  Certainly, the light mornings have me up by five am some days.  Winter makes this more unacceptable.  Quite how they cope in Sweden I fail to comprehend. 

Male lions sleep for around fourteen hours a day, only getting up to take the biggest portion of whatever the wife has brought in, and then returning to sleep it off.  Cats must be very close to this also.  Could it be, I am becoming a cat?  

 

Quotes

Amazon

 

David Beckham

Maths is totally done differently to what I was teached at school.

Is the pope catholic.  No, I'm serious. I really need to know.

I definitely want Brooklyn to be christened, but I don't know into what religion yet.

Brian Clough

Beckham?  His wife can't sing and his barber can't cut hair.

Telling a player to get his hair cut counts as coaching as far as I'm concerned.

The River Trent is lovely.  I know, because I have walked on it for 18 years.

Others

The linesman flagged initially because he thought I was an Oldham player.  Fair enough, I did have a replica shirt on...but I also have a big furry head.

               Chaddy the Owl  the Oldham FC mascot, given offside during a match.

He's just got the Midas touch right now.  Everything he touches turns to silver.

                                                                                                                    Richard Keys

One accusation that you can't throw at me is that I've always done my best.

                                                                                                                  Alan Shearer

As a boy I was torn between being a footballer or joining a circus.  

At Partick Thistle I did both.

                                                                                                                   

Alan Hansen

It took a lot of bottle for Tony to own up.

                                            Ian Wright, referring to Tony Adam's alcoholism.

There are more available.

Dens Park, Dundee 1937

Archaeological Vandals, & Spam...

A handful of us met together last night for our SPAM meeting.  

This is a glorified get together of men from the Kirk, a chance to socialise for a while. With many dragged away by the wife for family affairs, holidays (get them in before the kids leave school) and other excuses, only 5 of us arrived, and one of them was a stranger.

This man, who's name I missed, was talking as I arrived and still talking as he left some time later.  The others, especially those who talk much, could not get a word in edgeways.  I wonder who he was?

You know it is bad when you look at the others and blank faces greet you.  

Anyway, I discovered a thing called 'Belhaven Black.'  This is a type of stout originating somewhere in Scotland, but probably far from Belhaven!  I liked it.  It was only as I climbed the stairs back home did I realise how strong it was!

So, for us it was a quite night.  Few words spoken, ears burning, and we could not play the old men wishing we were young again.  I did learn the 75 years old had been out on his aged BSA motorbike, running around Suffolk.  He is planning a trip to the war graves in France, forced to take 3 others with him, much against his better judgement.  I'm not sure his wife knows this yet.

For some reason I was quite tired this morning.

Ken747

Flag Fen Roundhouse.  A reconstruction designed to inform re the people who lived here around 3500 years ago.  Discovered in 1982 the site has been comprehensively researched and a great many items have been discovered concerning the life styles of the residents from so long ago.  The roundhouse was reconstructed to indicate the homes used by the peoples of the time.  A flat somewhat watery existence with rising sea levels making life difficult I suggest.

However, the pint of this is simple, someone had burned the roundhouse to the ground!

Vandals, or just stupid people playing games, late Sunday evening smoke was noticed above the treetops.  Firemen were quickly on the scene and while they could not save the roundhouse itself, now used as a museum, they did manage to prevent any further damage on the site.  The roundhouse, built by volunteers, has been completely destroyed and will have to be rebuilt from scratch. 

To do this the general manager of the site is seeking support from local businesses regarding materials, timber, thatch, scaffold etc, as well as volunteers and around £50,000 to pay for it all.  

One stupid person, or deliberate vandal, has destroyed, at great cost, much excellent work that provided an experience many who visit the site will never forget.  Can we hang him? 

 

Angela Unite!

                                                      Telegraph

I love the way the Tory press always find a picture of someone they dislike scowling.  There are of course many smiling Angela's to be had but the 'Daily Telegraph,' always finds a scowl.  Lucky for us this one is in colour, usually they are black and white.

Angela is scowling because she belongs to the union 'Unite.'  They support the workers in Birmingham, one of England's largest cities, who are on strike.  They are on strike because the Labour council, like several Conservative ones, has bankrupted the city by poor management and the council now wish to cut the dustman's wages to help pay for this.  These men are losing £8000 a year they cannot afford to lose, to pay for the council mess.  'Fire & Rehire' operations have also been suggested by the Labour council.

No wonder they go on strike.

However, the Labour government, which proclaims it is standing up for the workers, has refused to stand up for the workers, and is backing the Labour council and telling the workers to get back to work, and accept a large pay cut.

The workers refuse.

Now, 'Unite,' the union Angela Rayner finds she has been suspended after a vote amongst the members because she has supported the council, not the workers.  She, on £91,000 as an MP, and considerably more as a member if the cabinet, is telling the struggling workers to accept a pay cut!

No wonder she has been suspended.

Today the temperature in may places is touching 30% C, that's the late 88'sF.  Now for months as this strike has continued the refuse has piled up in Birmingham, and as far as I know nothing has been done about it.  Can you imagine the smell?  

The leader of the council, and several other councillors have also been suspended by 'Unite,' and 'Unite' will now consider their support for the Labour Party altogether.  They gave £500,000 to Labour during last years election.

Angela claims she thought she had resigned from 'Unite' a while ago, but she remains on their list and also on the list of Members Interest in the House.

Exploring London's Tower Bridge (and the London Bridge that isn't in Ari...

Brain Fog

 

I appear to be having trouble with this.

Downloading some items from the Western Front Association led to a mind fault.  I sent them to the correct position, from where they would be further deposed in appropriate files.  The named files were empty!  

Several years of downloading items I hardly look at had disappeared!  I felt bereft.

Then, having reminded windows and all tech geeks in the near and distant area what I thought of them I hesitated.  Further to the hesitation I then dug out the stick with WFA info upon it.  Here I discovered I personally, with deliberate purpose, had downloaded all the years of unread items into a safe place.

Why had no-one informed me that I had done this?

Suitable action was taken, I stopped informing tech geeks everywhere my opinions of them, placed the latest info into files I will now ignore, and rested easy.

Why do I keep forgetting things?  

It is common for me to fill the kettle and find myself several minutes later wondering whether I have had my tea or not.  I wonder this because I have filled the kettle, sat down having forgotten to switch the thing on.  I forget items in supermarkets, especially when they are on the list I have in my hand!

There is more to say on this...but I am struggling to remember it...

Interesting to hear Reeves and Starmer talk of taxing the wealthy.  You know that when it happens it will not hurt the really rich, their friends and supporters, but will take a portion from here and there and give it back to them somewhere else.  As always.  

I find it hard to imagine these people taxing the wealthy, that is not what the wealthy put them in place for.  The peasants pay tax, not the rich.  Just look at Trump, he has given the poor billionaires another trillion dollars free, the money comes from the health care of the poor and schoolchildren.

That is what they wish to do here also.  Just ask Steve Bannon, he knows.

Point Over There...

The neo-liberal fascist movement took another grand step forward last night.  Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill, in which Billionaires pay less tax, and the Trump voters lose their health care, was passed by 2 votes in the House.  The rich get richer, the poorest will suffer.  

The House of Commons is beginning to wonder what Starmer is playing at by cutting winter fuel payments and stealing from the disabled, Trump's victory reveals why.  The billionaires are behind this.  They practised with Brexit, found they could destroy a country by lying and pointing at 'migrants,' those foreigners amongst us.  They ignored the fact that since Brexit foreigners find it easier to come to the UK.

Now they have elected Trump, and though he was restrained last time he is back, the billionaires who control the press are quiet, they pay less tax, and the peasants can pay all the tax that is required simply by telling them that this 'is the American way,' and those who are not dying because of it will rejoice.

It takes some skill to identify a portion of a nation that will believe loose facts and not seek to define actual facts, yet the neo-liberals have done this.  The EU rejected them, though Hungary is a problem, and so far with stands the obvious nonsense.  How long can this last?

One US senator claimed some 83 Billionaires are behind Trumps latest bill.  They are the ones, along with many others here, and that nice Mr Putin, working to destroy the west from within, an old political trick.  Farage, Trump, McSweeney, Steve Bannon, Daniel Hanan, and the media owners all work for their benefit, not yours.  The privatisation begun by Thatcher opened the way, now we have two nations so divided and with such closed minds to how a coup has occurred and they are paying for this.  

Where are the politicians with gravitas, the 'Big Bears,' who can change this situation?  

They do not exist.  

I tell you, it's a judgement, and worse to come.

Still Hot

High above us, a four engined aircraft makes its steady way towards North America somewhere.  I envy them the air condition, the flight overseas, and the snow awaiting them in Canada.  Otherwise I am happy enough here at the moment.

The laptop is slow, the heat is to much for it. The laptop is burning!  Everything is slow, and it is touching 30c here, that's 90f.  The BBC sight claims it is 35%, the Met Office, only 325.  The grass in the park has actually been burnt by the heat, few are sitting in the park, though when schools come out the brats will congregate under the trees opposite.  Few dogs to be seen in the afternoon.

In the cool of the House the Nazi Party are continuing with their policy of killing the poor and feeding the rich.  It makes you wonder who is paying them?  Decent people from all sides are asking why?  The temporary Labour PM is ignoring them and listening only to the Neo-Liberals who pay him.  Kill babies, kill the weak and elderly, now kill the disabled and unfortunate, all to save pennies.  Pennies that could be recaptured by taxing the rich and ensuring the £120 Billion tax dodged each year was claimed.  But those are the people paying for this.  The rich get richer the peasants pay tax, thus it has always been.