(1602) Evening all.

 

20. Just how woeful England and Australia have become as nations

… just how far they have culturally sunk. The match itself? I extracted the only readable portion of some would be journo’s puff piece at the BBC:

“The fourth Ashes Test between Australia and England at the MCG was Test cricket cubism, the great game broken apart and stuck back together in abstract form, with a hint of Brydon Carse batting at number three. This is not a defence of the pitch which produced England’s first Test win in this country for almost 15 years and the second two-day Test of the series.

Leaving 10mm of grass on the surface, resulting in 36 wickets falling in less than six sessions, is not a fair contest between bat and ball. Not so much the Boxing Day Test, but the Boxing Days Test.”

The second para there is fair … the pitch was woeful, a lottery, it diminished both sides, faced with that awful spectacle, complete with snipers on the roof it seems. It was not cricket. England made fewer errors … well done … there was no sport, no art involved. In fact it was bizarre at a supposed premiere facility.

But it gets worse. The BBC puff piece, supposedly on cricket, went on about some sodomite singer in pink, whose ghastly uniform is preserved within the MCG members pavilion, so it seems. Somehow that has something to do with cricket.

Whole thing is awful.

19. Moosh corner

18. A word a day

17. England’s well kept canals

16. Steve at 1245 with war room

• Raheem Kassam: You May Be Wondering, “Why Should I Care About What’s Happening In The UK?” JD Vance Said It Correctly. There Is A Chance That In The Next Few Decades, The United Kingdom Will Become A Muslim-Majority Nation

• Daniel Suhr: The Polls Are Clear. The American People Have Completely Lost Trust In The National Legacy Media. That’s Why It Is Important That Policymakers Encourage Local TV And Revisit Their Antiquated Regulations

 

 

There are two films but think I might go for these two TV episodes instead … Peter Gunn followed by Simon Templar. Have watched half of the PG … it’s pretty good.

(1219) Afternoon all, here we go again.

 

15. Not good

14. Crossfire Hurricane

13. That’ll do nicely, thank you

12. It’s not just what it says

….. it’s who says it:

11. This ain’t good

 

Yes, I remember the Moke on beaches in Oz … they were popular with the younger set, then faded away.

As the narration says, the small wheels and lack of covering made the Moke impractical in cold, wet climes and yet my ragtop 30s style delight I drove had a very powerful heater, the ragtop was sealed and I tested it in the Cairngorms around this time of year … she came through with flying colours.

The Moke though was far more open than that, plus there was an open sports market then as well, e.g. the Sprite, plus the ubiquitous VW kombi was more for surfing and bonking types. Plus the Mini itself.

(0623) Fairly cool or chilly just now … stay rugged up, all you in similar clines … I unnerstand they’re in shorts in Bama. (0646)

 

10. Moosh corner

There may be less Moosh for a few days … family gathering.

9. It’s all crooked, with ulterior motives

8. Usually one gets just a few retweets or acknowledgements

… but now and then, a topic is picked up on.

7. The lady who knows

6. It’s a labyrinth, the whole bleedin’ thing

(0529) Morning all … have a good weekend. I see either snow or frost out there … either way, it’s wet. We have a double bday on our hands here …. have not had permission to name yet. (0605)

 

5. Don’t underestimate the diabolical intelligence

… plus the endless funds required to keep everyone shtum or dead. Drug trade, trafficking of women and kids, foreign criminal govts … but it still requires some materminds. As a Christian, it’s dead easy to say the devil, henchmen and women, placemen and women at all levels … or you can comp,icate it and go the Jeremy Irons route in The Time Machine.

Less fanciful is sheer bureaucracy … everything tabulated from the ages … what worked, what did not, what worked for a period of time … what fell away, requiring a new scheme of misery-bringing. Enough to make a person turn to drink or God.

4. The plan to bring down Trump

3. Steve at 1244

• Fani Willis Hit With Explosive New Allegations Tied to Massive Democrat Money Laundering Scheme
• How God Used Mice and a Water Leak to Give Us the Most Famous Christmas Carol of All Time – ‘Silent Night’
• Nigeria strikes, Hegseth more to come. Zelensky going to Mar-a-Lago. Hunter, Ukraine viper’s den
• Hidden mineral deficiency drives joint pain, weak immunity and slow healing, studies reveal
• US Sanctions EU Officials for Free Speech Suppression in Major Widening of US-European Rift
• Two-thirds of Americans support social media ban for teens under 16
• More over there.

2. Writing on the wall for Brennan?

1. DAD at 1244

a) Small victory for common sense: European Council decides against using Russian Assets to finance Ukraine….

b) b) ….more information on a)….The real reason the EU just stopped the $105B seizure of Russian Assets by Alexander Leo Smith.

c) France: now without a Budget for the Year ahead.In Paris, each and every government attempt to reach a budget agreement has failed miserably.

d) An investigation is underway to identify the driver who injured two gendarmes from the Remiremont motorcycle brigade…. The investigation, currently classified as attempted murder, has been entrusted to the Remiremont research brigade.

e) Finally….NANTES, yet again. A 17-year-old boy tries to sell a sweater on Le Bon Coin (a French online marketplace). He falls into an ambush and is stabbed by three teenagers aged 14 to 15.

(1752) Evening all.

 

11. Moosh corner

10. Erika’s eyes

Now have a look at NOWP. I saw this too:

“No, a daughter’s eyes aren’t always the same as her mother’s because eye color is a complex trait from multiple genes, not just one, meaning a daughter gets a unique mix from both parents, potentially skipping generations or showing different shades (brown, blue, green, hazel) depending on dominant/recessive genes inherited. While they often share similarities or a dominant color, variations are common, and sometimes traits reappear from grandparents.”

9. As the lady says

8. The govts’ purpose behind allowing this in each western nation?

7. More Uke corruption

 

“I have a sort of mission to track down and see all of Fritz Lang’s American movies and welcomed the opportunity to watch this post Second World War Drama starring Gary Cooper. The film has its longueurs but on the whole tells a good story and contains at least one memorable set-piece by the great director.

Cooper’s Hollywood roles tended to fall into two broad categories – shy bumbling whiter-than-white innocents ( see “Mr Deeds…”, “Meet John Doe” or “Ball Of Fire”) or calm, grace-under-pressure heroes like here. For me he does both equally well and while you can see that the man has aged as he enters the twilight of his career, he still carries off with aplomb the lead role.

He also convinces in his relationship with his younger love interest, Lilli Palmer, who besides her good looks, displays maturity and sensitivity in her role as a behind-the-lines Resistance fighter.

The story has a topical theme too, the race to the Atomic bomb and Coop’s character gets in a hefty diatribe early on about the perverse uses that science is being put to by men before he’s drafted by an old comrade, now in the American secret service, to attempt to rescue a pair of fellow-scientists from enforced collaboration with the Nazis.

For me the story hangs together well, the acting as indicated, is good and the cinematography throughout is fine. The story does drag a bit in the middle as Cooper and Palmer start to get to know each other but is enlivened by the memorable “dirty-fight” between Cooper (and Palmer) with a pursuing enemy agent. No hay-maker punches here with enhanced sound effects, instead the fight encompasses face-gouging and finger bending before erstwhile peace-loving scientist Cooper dispatches his protagonist by strangulation.

Lang then piles on the suspense with a scene reminiscent of “M” as a little boy’s ball innocently bounces to where the fresh corpse lies, threatening discovery, only for Cooper to quickly improvise a cover-up. The fight scene (indeed some of the plot elements too) surely entered Hitchcock’s thoughts when he produced his 1960’s Cold War thriller “Torn Curtain”.

Lang also doesn’t shirk the brutalities of war, for instance the German nurse’s brutal slaying of elderly, maternal scientist number one and the casual announcement later by a female Nazi agent that the second scientist’s kidnapped daughter has also been cold-bloodedly slain.

On the whole a good, solid movie, not without its faults but another worthy entry on my Lang-watch list.”

 

Always having previously gone to the Test in either Melbourne or Headingley (think I once went to the WACA for a one day, never the Gabba, Lords nor The Oval) … I did see something about snipers on the roof of the cricket …

… maybe it was being fixated with Christmastide, maybe with so many being fixated on snowy landscapes (wishful thinking before New Year here, even on the NE coast) … well my mind was not on the cricket until I saw this:

Oh my goodness … Boxing Day Test at the Gee! I would have been there for sure, living a half mile away in Richmond. Then I took a second look … what’s this 2026 thing? Shirley it goes Boxing, Sat, Sun, rest day Monday, then Tue, Wed. Yikes … I’ve completely forgotten, must look it up.

Considering that this post was going to be about the sidebar pic, one of Irina’s. Thing was … in Russia, we never needed to fantasise about snow … coming up to New Year, it was always there, soft new snow on top of the hardpacked as we walked to the state opera house across the square, snow in the air. And on the weekend, short drive from town … long, snowy lane for walks and shaslik in the clearing. Toboggan too.

Fantasyland? Together with the army of females dressed in fur, with hoods … yes indeed. But these three days now have also been divine, talking to so many up and down the land, in the Antipodes, in North America, Greece, France, Russia too.

It’s a bizarre situation, it messes with the head … I’d love to go all Little Englander but just can’t these five days … every time I try, one of the friends from another land writes. We’re forced into our own sort of “good” globalism. Fight them? Would I heck as like, even were they lefty.

However, should they attack, alongside the infidel invader, seriously attack … well of course I’d have to go after them alongside our patriots. But I’m having enormous trouble these three days having anything but a lovely time, filled with food and liquid, wanting to snooze every few hours.

Not sure how you’re placed where you are.

…..

(1332) Hmmmmm, no rest day, started Christmas Day … appalling. Seems the pitch was doing too much with the ball, suppresses the strokemaking. As a former medium-fast (lower district level), obviously I favour the ball, esp. for spin but there’s such a thing as way too much. I once bowled on a shocker of a pitch and there was no skill involved … it was near unplayable. (1336)