(1850) It was inevitable that the day would come where I was too cream-crackered. That was quite an afternoon and am quite out of it, need sleep. Going to do that I’m afraid and shall be back later. Cheers all … evening. I looked through all drops … ta. Later. (1854)

 

“Yes, it gets a bit confusing here and there, and even with a small cast, figuring out who is who, what’s going on and the timeline can be perplexing. The fabulous opening shows a young woman being kept chained to a wall, appearing as if she is about to be shot in cold blood. This gives a sense of Gothic horror to the film, but then it switches to the domestic setting of the home of Sonia Dresdel and Colin Gordon, a middle aged couple having a discussion, and interrupted by phone calls and visitors.

Then there’s an apparent violent murder in an oddly shaped country home, involving Karel Stepanek whom we see about to be bludgeoned. News of his murder gets around, and the frequent appearance of a strange old man (Michael Martin-Harvey) creates more questions than answers.

The audience gets to meet other suspects which include Dresdel’s friend (Eleanor Summerfield) and her husband Hubert Gregg, adding a bit more confusion but a lot of suspense. This is worth putting up with 75 minutes of little detail, but within that detail, there are the hidden details which are revealed in the very suspenseful last 15 minutes.

That is when everything comes together so neatly, and you realize how clever this really was in keeping you wondering what type of mystery you were watching and if it would ever go anywhere. Technically excellent, this feature is terrific black and white photography and superb editing, and a musical score that adds to the suspense.

(You) have to go in with a patient mood because otherwise, you could be frustrated quickly and move on to something else.”

(1011) The cunning plan at this stage, dear reader, is to get this post up, then look for a film, have none just now. Then I’m going to have to disappear till late afternoon I’m afraid. (1049)

 

10. Moosh corner

9. IYE from the Wail

8. From TDS this morning

7. Anne H

Some of you will know about this.

6. Svetlana

(0825) It’s going to be a piecemeal day today, I’m trying not to let it descend into a mess. All right, have just been through all the sshots and they are heavily US intensive but there was one I just cropped, about the UK, one only … and I’m going to run it at OoL (it’s my day). Here, think I’ll cover DAD and Steve, then drop all the Georgia Kemp material into one post. Then go get some breakfast. Later, I’ll run the YT on Kennedy and the Chagos thing. Who knows after that? Plenty of material. (0849)

 

5. Over at OoL

https://orphansofliberty.blogspot.com/2026/02/are-you-eighteen-or-older.html

4. The Kemp corruption files

… which I was able to quickly gather last evening, quite ouecemeal I’m afraid, which is how material usually comes in.

3. Steve at 1284

Apologies for the shorter signposting but it’s all over there at 1284.

• Majority Leader Thune Is Already Waffling and Backing Away from Passing SAVE Act for Secure US Elections
• Islamist Terrorists Running Iran Are Killing Thousands, The Courageous Protesters Need Help
• British Police Open Investigation Into Peter Mandelson
• Iran-US talks, real diplomacy or attack trickery
• The Epstein Files Illuminate a 20-Year Architecture Behind Pandemics as a Business Model
• Epstein, Western Decline, & The Moral Collapse Of The Elites
• Much more.

2. DAD at 1284

a) Closing Arguments in Marine Le Pen’s trial: harsh verdict looms?Marine Le Pen’s political future hangs in the balance in the closing arguments of the trial of her parliamentary assistants.

b) They start young in France. Pau (64): Detained for theft, a seven-year-old child threatens the headmaster and an employee of his school with a knife.

c) Another reason not to buy Nike. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced Wednesday that it has opened an investigation into Nike, which is suspected of discriminating against white employees. This action comes amid a broader challenge to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies by the Trump administration.

d) As The Spectator pointed out on January 17, ”violence against British Jews is more common than at any time since their readmission in the 1650s,” by Oliver Cromwell, 366 years after they had been expelled by Edward I.

(0632) Dear reader, auspicious day in many a way. Just awoke now to some personal news, plus from midday today or to be on the safe side … elevenses … I have to be out of action up to five hours. So any blogging until our evening must me from now to about 1030 to be on the safe side. Thus far less output.

So that’s today, plus a few Fridays from now it’s reprised. Also mentioning Andy and glad he could make it through … did not like the sound of age-verifying. I’m having none on’t. Plus I have some sensitive material which I’ll have to bury and signpost, plus one of those people last night making contact from different continents had a baby while we were at it … mother and child fine.

Now, I’m thinking I’ll close this topic off of the 60s and early 70s, with material which has been dropped to me, plus it affects people I know personally. DAD and Steve will lead the usual day’s doings after this below.

 

The Day the Music Died (third and last for now)

Only minutes ago, the last of the newsletters dropped into the inbox. One of these was Quora and the text below is from an Italian of the era, I presume a NY Italian … it’s about Del Shannon, early 60s pop icon, possible Runaway being the first pop song my own new sentience remembers, sitting in the back of a burgundy Ford Zephyr. Here’s the Quora text (below the song itself):

“Del Shannon. Popular pre-Beatles singer, mostly remembered for the huge worldwide hit, Runaway. He had a few more hits in the States but remained extremely popular in the UK where he had a number of big hits.

From what I’ve read, he liked to do everything himself including the minutiae of organizing his own tours rather than leaving it to a road manager and others. This put a strain on him that was not necessary and he took to drink for this and a fading career.”

JH: We could also bring Buddy Holly back into this with that haphazard Winter tour:

Back to Del Shannon:

“He was prescribed a new drug to combat his depression. I remember at the time it was Prozac, the first of a new type of antidepressant. I remember it particularly well because it was prescribed to a friend of mine at the same time. It was for panic attacks and the doctor told him that it was new and one of the side effects was that it was good for these attacks as well as depression. My friend told me that it messed with his head and he felt really weird and had to come off it.

Shortly after this the news came that Del had shot himself. It was later reported that he had been prescribed the same drug just a couple of weeks earlier and that some users were complaining of suicidal thoughts. Reports of these side effects began to emerge and led to widespread controversy. Del’s widow sued the drug company and was, reportedly, granted an out-of-court settlement.”

JH: Into this, we could bring Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Morrison, so many others taken in their prime years … human wrecks. Was it the “devil’s music after all?” It was not just the “British Invasion”, though that contributed. Significant that the Beatles and Stones led this “Invasion”, this new empire from over here. Elvis the King himself went downhill and the Jester had already, by his own admission, made his pact with the one the Stones had sympathy for … and you tell me all this is fanciful?

And even weirder was I was right in the middle of it at the time, I was there, getting into all the new music until signing out once Floyd had taken all the melody away and left desolation row instead … or the pompous and depressed:

In a white room with black curtains in the station
Black roof country, no gold pavements, tired starlings

Music to slash your wrists by, a mantle later assumed by Leonard Cohen, the marriage wrecker. May I suggest one more time listening to Miss American Pie, this time through two highly unlikely young, black folk, encountering it for the first time as a song, but not the riff, which they’d heard … don’t expect deep understanding, as they’re a young black couple (married, about to have children) from a quite different era to 1971, plus Don McL was singing of 1959 … this thing goes way, way back:

All right. Back to 2026 and a lady one year younger than I am (so we’re both quite young still) not long ago wrote to me, noting that there was obviously something I was still working through from back when we were together … because she was the other person in that summer romance which had no restrictions, no parental chaperoning, which in itself was interesting because my own father was quite withdrawn and not a well man (war injuries), plus her father was off in another town working during the week.

So we were in that Woodstock situation of freedom to do as we wished and yet … and yet … we were still in that early pop music state of romance, not today’s one night stand body counts. Had it been a year or two later, who knows? It all took a dark downturn for youth in the next few years, culminating with the Sex Pistols in the late 70s.

And another thing present … she was from a churchgoing family … yep, you heard that right … and Don CL sang:

Oh, and there we were all in one place
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again

And then:

And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite
I saw Satan laughing with delight
The day the music died

And then:

And in the streets, the children screamed
The lovers cried and the poets dreamed
But not a word was spoken
The church bells all were broken

And the three men I admire most
The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died

Dear reader, are you getting the idea yet what was going on in those days? Don McL knew fully what was going on … he was part of it. And we two summer romancers, right on the cusp of growing up, a dangerous time … me the Reynardine, she the innocent abroad … I ended up as you see me now, a partly reformed sinner, not totally succumbing to the lifestyle and she? Well as she put it … no longer churchgoing but more “holistic” she called it in late 2025. And yet she seems to have found the right person, thank goodness.

And that’s it, dear reader … the timing of that romance carried with it highly significant western historic elements, far more so than I for one first supposed.

And now, putting it into a 2026 setting, with all the things we’ve written and read about today, with Moosh and her pics too, with what our readers write, with what we wrote last evening, with what we’re about to write this morning … in my case, only till about 10a.m. … how far has the west fallen? Is there any chance of coming out of it?

The lady who just had a baby last night, my time … married, has it together to a point, hubby and father beside her … what chance that family? Were they on their own … I’d say a great chance, given that they are trad, still of the old faith, not taking the next train to the coast, unwanted … ah, but what of the west!

Will the west allow them? Will there even be a west? I think that’s all I wanted to say on the topic …/END.

(1720) Evening all.

 

26. Am going to return to The Day the Music Died

Let’s start with Emerald’s C.S. Lewis quote (Wed 23). Right, the Enemy’s greatest achievement can be summed up in a quote by Martin Luther:

“For where God built a church, there the devil would also build a chapel … in such sort is the devil always God’s ape.”

There’s another I can’t find for now but it says that devil’s greatest achievement is convincing normies he does not exist, though the evidence is all around and rock stars and actors pound it into people that he does. At the same time, even by the definition of dualism … if he exists, then the opposite, God, by their logic, also exists … yet few believe it, despite the magnifence all about, even human design.

Then we get to the false prophets. Look at Bookmarks above. Then we go to the atheist, creating all sorts of clever explanations for that which does not require explanation but it’s far more clever to be seen as a sage, yes? Much earthly kudos and admiration.

One thing they’re all tied to is the here and now, the short term future, limited by human perception. Existentialism. The concept of an ancient battle to the death, the nature of the soul and why it’s seen as a prize by both sides is beyond the secularist to comprehend.

While Don McLean was referring to the music, meaning the innocent type which dominated even till maybe 1967 (song was late 1971) but Beatles, Stones and others killed it off, Brando, James Dean, Spock, Leary, Woodstock and the new hoe culture, stoked up on Lucy at that time … while that killing off of the Music in McLean’s eyes was happening and very few of us youngsters were aware of it, it was twisting us nonetheless … Woodstock, Monterrey, Laurel Canyon, Manson, Sharon Tate … until the porn today and the very safety of girls and the souls of boys in mortal danger.

This was one of the comments under that reaction vid I ran:

Right in the middle of that time frame, almost dead centre, I had my first real affair and am communicating with her even today. It’s not too fanciful to say that before that summer was largely innocence, give or take.

After it, the next five years, saw it disintegrate … actually in line with our own adulthood coming upon us. Music itself became complicated, jagged, torn, 12 atonalism as the summum bonum of pop … straight out of the Frankfurt School. The aim was to remove any connection with any chance of finding genuine succour.

There’s a trad prayer which says: bless, guide, protect, comfort, give courage to. The vast majority turn their back on that … the canal boat girl I know online has just gone to hospital, a mess. She’s fond of memes, AIs, of kickbutt warrior girls taking care of themselves, alone. Amelia type. Yeah?

And who is grinning? Go back to Don McLean:

And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite
I saw Satan laughing with delight
The day the music died

Interesting, eh, from a pop singer? But even more interesting was:

And of course, the wise men in their ivory towers, plus ggl AI, are in complete denial about “conspiracy theorists” … fine, let it be so. Just as with the invasion, it will finally hit people … or it will not, in which case, I was a whack job all along, I’m fine with that. You pays yer money, you makes yer choice.

There was a LOT more going on back then … even the Jester was asked and smiled that he had made his choice … to take today … back then in the day.

Toodles sent the Fox interview with DMcL on the 67th Anniversary of that day.

(Beware though that there’s a high pitched noise behind it most of the way through.)

25. Wasn’t sure whether to run this

… saw it in passing, it might not mean a lot to many. Then again, it might.

Imagine Melbourne, Oz, sprawling at the top (north) of a huge diamond of water (The Bay), at one of the points, the angles. The Bay is maybe 60 miles south, 50 miles across. At the western point is Geelong, at the east a town called Frankston.

Right, at it’s southernmost geography are the two points, between which The Bay gives out onto Bass Strait, thence Tasmania quite a ways away. Between those two points … Lonsdale to the west and Nepean to the east, is a treacherous strip of water called The Rip … many boat victims over the centuries.

Ok, at each of those “heads” are military forts. I’m not sure I’ve been to the one pictured, may have. Either way, they are military defence positions and though modern warfare may have reduced their usefulness, they still guard The Bay. Labour, with its UK type profligacy … invaders, other countries in the third world, you know the drill … Labor are bankrupt of course. Guess what:

24. More interconnections

23. Think on’t

22. DAD at 1284

“The BBC HATED Me: Witch-Hunt Exposed in Bombshell Interview: Alex Belfield”

21. Steve corner

UK:

“The defenestration of Lord “Petie” Mandelson at PMQ’s today was quite something. Members will soon be voting on whether to release the ‘risk assessment’ performed on him before his appointment as UK Ambassador to the United States. The result could finish Starmer.”

Spain:

“They are saying it out loud. They want to replace citizens with foreigners so they can gain power. Leftist Spanish MEP: “I hope for ‘replacement theory,’ I hope we can sweep this country of fascists and racists with immigrants.””

War room at 1284:

• Rep. Keith Self On Sharia Supremacists In America: They’re Not Here To Assimilate. Other Foreigners Who Have Come To The US For Many Years Have Wanted To Assimilate. The Muslims Coming Here Have No Intention To Do That

• Mike Howell On The Future Of Mass Deportations: If We Don’t Deport We Aren’t Gonna Have A Country Left

• Natalie Winters Rant Blasting Weak Republicans For Cratering On Mass Deportations

• Ben Harnwell: outrage as “Spain’s AOC” calls for Spanish to be Replaced by third-world illegal Invaders

• Peter McIlvenna: Islam Is Not An Abrahamic Faith. It Opposes Everything That Is In The Word Of God

• Peter McIlvenna: Jesus Said ‘I Am The Way, The Truth, And The Life’. He Didn’t Say I’ve Come To Bring Doubt Or Confusion. We’ve Accepted This Confusion Of Christianity Instead Of The Confidence Of Christianity

 

Right let’s get off this topic of Bishops, shall we? And look instead at their wives!

The 1947 film “The Bishop’s Wife” was nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture, along with Best Director for Harry Koster and the film’s original score and film editing…the film captured the Oscar for Best Sound. How this film managed to not receive nominations for its performances is beyond me… I thought…No, I knew that I was simply enchanted by the film “The Preacher’s Wife.” That was until I finally sat down to watch this version, filmed over 50 years earlier called “The Bishop’s Wife.”  The storyline is similar. A Bishop is caught up in trying to raise funds for a cathedral…in doing so, he compromises his values, his marriage and his family. One evening he prays for the answers…in walks an “angel” who guides him through the journey of finding the answer.  I don’t believe that faith, per se, is required to fully appreciate this film. Though, I can’t help but believe that one’s faith would be greatly enhanced by the film. The film’s message is one of principle…one of love…one of family. The film is such a wondrous reminder that miracles do exist, and that we are called to be that miracle to each other.  Cary Grant, in a magnificent performance, plays the Angel…named Dudley. Grant, in the role played by Courtney Vance in the later film, adds so much to the role that Vance never could. Grant gives it a dignity, a gentleness, a kindness that escaped the later version of the film. Even Grant’s facial expressions…in each and every moment…well, they just sparkle.  In the role of the Bishop, David Niven gives the role also a dignity that was lacking in Denzel Washington’s performance. Of course, in Washington’s defense…he added a warmth and humanness that is lacking a bit from Niven. There were times I began to wonder why this wife, played by Loretta Young, would have fallen for such a distant, dignified man when she was so full of life and love and joy. I wished that Niven had toned it down just a touch and shown a bit more warmth at some point. There is a scene towards the end of the film that just displays brilliant lighting…Niven is walking up the sidewalk towards the Professor’s apartment…the screen is darker…as he moves towards the apartment step by step the screen begins to lighten. It’s as if he’s moving into the light…discovering his answer…ending his journey. It’s subtle and yet so masterful.  Young, as “The Bishop’s Wife”, grows the most throughout the film and watching her transition is a joy. Her scenes with her husband, her young daughter and with Dudley are as beautiful as they are different.  In supporting roles, James Gleason brings light to Sylvester, a cab driver who befriends Young. Monty Woolley as The Professor, Matilda played by Elsa Lanchester and Gladys Cooper’s Mrs. Hamilton are all wonderfully portrayed. Even the role of the young daughter is carried off nicely by Karolyn Grimes. “The Bishop’s Wife” is a joyous film…it is far above “The Preacher’s Wife” because we are allowed to focus on the characters, instead of the distractions of special effects. In this film, “little” miracles are done onscreen…yet, they are interwoven into the fabric of the film instead of dominating the film. The music complements the film instead of overpowers it. “The Bishop’s Wife” is a beautiful film. © Written by Richard Propes The Independent Critic

(1201) Afternoon all. (1329)

 

20. Mary might have loved that confectionery

19. Moosh corner

18. On other pages

There are two up at UHC-WP and one at NOWP.

17. TDS today

16. AI trick?

Failed MATRIX?… Have you ever imagined a folder changing color live during a newscast? The curious fact happened during a broadcast by Sky News. Former British Treasury Chancellor Rishi Sunak's portfolio mysteriously changed color over the course of a broadcast.🧐🤔 pic.twitter.com/uGbYZ8PFDJ

— UFO mania (@maniaUFO) February 4, 2026

That sounded reasonable as a community note until I saw “Snopes” … just can’t be trusted.

1. Which denomination’s Bishop wears a chasuble or cope?
2. What is the Bishop’s Gambit?
3. Which Bishop inspired Santa Claus?
4. Which comedy programme had an episode called The Bishop’s Gambit?
5. Which TV Series had a Bishop plus Derek Nimmo?
6. Is the Church of Scotland governed by Bishops?

(1004)(1018)

 

15. Snowdrops

14. Any which way to shut the gobby down

13. Whatever could this be about?

12. Amelia

11. Andrew B

At UHC-WP.