(1636) Evening all. Just hung out the washing, no judges among em … two longish items by Tim Monty and Dame Andrea … think they’d best start the morning tomorrow. Meanwhile, lean political pickings for now.

 

10. Steve at 915

They thought they’d get a whole barrel of pork but ended up with scratchings..

9. Just thought it might be of no interest whatsoever

It’s my compressor readout after reducing or compressing a few items together to go up on the site here. That’s a heck of a saving in disk space. The fact that I never used to do that on ggl … hmmmm, wonder how much that was a factor … the yuge size of the site?

8. Shirley it can’t go on forever

7. Think it’s in Oz by the flag

6. A Labour peerage, eh?

To the daily sceptic? Hmmmm.

 

I’ve run out of politics for now … let’s have a movie:

 

(1104) Morning all. (1104)

 

5. Why do the Augean stables spring to mind?

Suella and The Telegraph:

 

Always scheduled on the winter solstice, this carol … said solstice was on:

As it’s precisely 0930 GMT as I write, it has passed … and I am sad. More as to why below the carol …

In the carol, there’s a mournful or melancholy tone to the earth and nature resting but I for one beg to differ … there is no season so restful, so hushed, so without stress, bar that which humans bring to it … whilst a “proper” perspective, not just in my eyes, might be:

There’s a song I sometimes run at this time, by Richard Thompson, sung by Fairport Convention:

The album was about Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow, and ultimate defeat, but the lyrics do add to the feel of a wintry Britain just as well … requiring of us hearts of oak.

This is my time now, ladies and gentlemen … possibly yours too … a time of intimacy with nature, with our Maker … of reflection … of hush, except for a roaring fire, good cheer, good fayre, bonhomie … I’d vaguely date it from the solstice to maybe January 8 to 10, somewhere there.

(0842) Only just surfacing now, overslept second time. (0924)

 

4. From Capitalists at Work

http://www.cityunslicker.co.uk/2024/12/polly-toynbee-true-believer-hope.html

“The public career of Polly Toynbee is a continuous source of mirth.  How many socialist saviours has she hitched her wagon to, only to have her hopes crushed.  Owen, Blair, Brown, Patricia Hewitt (sic), … and now Starmer/Reeves.  Always bearing the imprint of the last person to sit upon her / brief her confidentially over lunch.

But before the worm turns & the Great Disappointment strikes, whilst her wagon still hitched there’s nothing she won’t do by way of providing what she thinks of as helpful outrider support.  Here’s the latest – in the Graun, as usual: 

The Waspi women suffered outrageous misogyny, but in poverty-stricken Britain they’re not the top priority. The government is right in its decision not to pay the women up to £10.5bn in compensation … a government [does not] have a financial duty to repair historical sexism.

Polly: calm down!  Starmer & Reeves – just like your former beau Brown – don’t mind lying & brazening these things out.  It just doesn’t bother them!  They don’t need your sophistry.”

3. Andy hisself has delivered a Chrissy present to Unherdable Cats

… Burns’s Ode to a Mouse (915)

I wish Andy a speedy recovery too from feline tooth and claw.

2. DAD is not a well cat this morning

… so he’s taking care of bod biz. I join Andy in wishing him a quick recovery (915).

1. Politicised judges and the politics of envy

HERE

“HOW RICH is too rich? According to judge Kathaleen McCormick, Chancellor of the Delaware Chancery Court, in her ruling on Musk v Tornetta in January this year, the 2018 remuneration package given to Elon Musk for growing Tesla into a 1.2 trillion-dollar company was way too generous. At the same time she appeared to mock his aim to colonise Mars.

McCormack ordered a rescission of Musk’s options package. He was thereby deprived of all compensation for his work of the previous five years. Two weeks ago, despite an overwhelming and larger second vote by shareholders in June in favour of Musk’s remuneration, judge McCormick, a politicised Democrat, stuck to her ruling that Musk should get nothing.”