Monthly Archives: February 2025

Monday [11 to 16]

(1117) Not enough “lasses at lunchtime” pics, sorry, so Friday for that. Also not enough quiz questions yet. However, there’s a film waiting for early afternoon. (1139)

 

16. TCW link middle column, blogrolls


15. Documentary coming up


14. Naturally




13. He makes a good point


12. Same old same old … every western nation


11. Anything to stop bonhomie and the exchange of ideas

Life of Riley

 

Confess I was always soft on Riley, Wolseley, Rover … old marques, even if the first is an extended Mini. Buy one? Of course, even if the turning indicator had to be switched off manually … especially (partly) because of that.

But note this, from Penseivat 👇🏻

I had a Riley Elf in the mid 60s, after having a Mini. Basically, the same badly designed car, only with a slightly larger boot (it would have been more practical as a hatchback). Mine had a tendency to eat fanbelts, which either indicated the fanbelts from the main dealer were rubbish, or their tension guides were wrong (my wife’s nylon stocking being used in one occasion to allow us to continue the journey, very slowly).Made a further mistake by swapping it for a Renault 4. Long story about that car. Please don’t show a video of how good they were, because they weren’t.

Monday [1 to 5]

(0557)(0637)

 

5. Sometimes something like this appears


My approach is to sit it to one side and see what corroboration appears, it being a serious charge.

4. DAD at 964

a. Bayrou on immigration: “Why do you think that the entire West is struck by these issues? It is a questioning of everything that we are, we Westerners…..”

b. Bogdan Świeczkowski, Pres of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal … has accused Tusk, his cabinet, and several high-ranking members of parlmt and judiciary of acting as a criminal organization…..

c. When is a Refugee not a Refugee? When they are Palestinians, according to critics of Trump’s plan for Gaza.

3. Aberdeen based Xer “Rustler”

… after looking through here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/seasonal-influenza-and-covid-19-vaccine-uptake-in-frontline-healthcare-workers-monthly-data-2024-to-2025


2. Result in New Orleans


Highlights for us outside the USA, inc for Toodles and me:

Loud cheering for DJT, much booing for Taylor Swift, forecast result on its head, pity for the Chief’s QB who seems a good Christian MAGA. I’ll add more here as and when … it’s 0502 just now.

For Toodles and me, the QB was an ex Alabama college player, Jalen Hurts. I’d tweeted, just into the game that I had not a clue about the teams but liked the team in green more … the underdog Eagles.

There were many American tweets saying it was Eagles vs the NFL … shall go take a look now.


1. Steve at 964

Four: Trump news … Noem and FEMA … FBI leak on ICE … more….

Three: Congress Spent Over $500 Billion in Expired Programs Last Year … Hegseth … Sacks … Wikileaks … much more…..

Two: Uke sit-rep … Trump Putin talk … more…..

One: Ban mRNA Injections in US … federal lands for oil and gas drilling … RFK Jnr. … Gaza plan alienating Arabs … more…..

Sunday [12 till close of play]

(1700) Evening all.

 

18. Superbowl’s just starting

Which team and I betting on? Neither. Which supporting? Quite like the green colour. Plus they seem underdogs. There’s apparently some singer there too pretending to be a virgin.

17. In a slight bind

… in that I’d like to run some memes and other lighter things late in the day but just scoured Gab and X and it’s pretty humourless. Worse would be starting Monday with all the gruesome fayre. There are two immediate issues I’ve material on … South Africa, where the ANC has gone full payback on the Boer, and Ireland, where the first “Palestinians” are about to be dumped.

With the Afrikaners, it’s complex. The Boer is the farmer and cropper, husbander … the ANC does nothing but steal and kill. Yet many Boers are asking DJT to help them stay there on their farms, not seek asylum in the States. How?

Going back to Chuckles’s days, he and haiku were in Kwazulu Natal, where I was given to ustd that Rorke’s Drift is now long forgotten. However, apparently the crime stats are almost as bad, e.g. in Durban. Maybe it’s the Oz factor but, though the steppe and hills seem wonderful down there … I can see why they’d love the land itself … just how they can stand being swamped is beyond me. Then again, I could never ustd the Raj in India. And after having almost been kidnapped in Egypt, I can’t ustd wanting to go there.

We had friends, my parents did, who were in the diamond biz in SA … never u’stood, me, what all the world-fuss was about. Also Rhodesia and Kenya. Had a think about the apartheid thing … just didn’t feel strongly one way or the other, when young … feel more strongly now.

I can’t see how the Boers can stay there much longer … do they want their families tortured and slaughtered? As for North Africa and the Arab lands … no thanks. I’m thinking the Boers would feel more at home in Queensland, more their type of people, not down south … Sydney and Melbourne sound like they’ve fallen, like London, Brummieland and Bradford. Manchester now too.

Anyway, enough of that.

16. Steve at 964

War Room snippets – interesting conversations…

a. Harvard Kimo Gandall: The Epitome Of Post-Modern Western Ideals … To Spite God

b. Professor Wax: “We Are Degrading And Debasing The Institutions Of Western Civilization.”

c. Harvard Law’s Sam Delmer Gives Assessment Of Campus Political Climate

d. Ambassador Carla Sands On Greenland’s Interest In US Involvement

15. Anomalies continue


14. Not in praise of mops


13. Steve at 964

Hearts of Oak: The Week According to .. Karli Bonne

Also over there … DoGE meltdown and Border Force results thus far..

12. Over at OoL

https://orphansofliberty.blogspot.com/2025/02/a-leisurely-sunday-read-watch-it-folks.html

Sunday [9 to 11]

(0915) Cunning plan, laze & gem, is to run some sort of Sunday type music next, there’ll be a filum later, jazz around 1530, we resume hostilities around 1700. (0949)

 

11. IYE url can be accessed in the sidebar just now (0942)


For those struggling with this … may I suggest clicking on the day in green in the sidebar, then the url? Two clicks. ☺️

10. On the subject of dates being important to individuals

… as well as to an entire country … the dates February 9th to 23rd are important to me … or at least were in the past. That fortnight contains many bdays, inc. my own, which I do not celebrate for various reasons, not least age.

There were best friends of old, two girls in there, plus Valentine’s, plus the Russian sphere Day of Men as it has become, formerly day of the armed forces, on Feb 23rd. Then a gap until March 8th’s Day of Women.

It used to be pretty packed, this fortnight, less so now … Valentine’s has dropped off my list for one. Why not celebrating the bday? No qualms about my age … what is … is … but thing was … it always brought on bad news and there’s some poised right now in ‘25 to descend like a sword of Damocles … it’s uncanny how it always seemed to wait until around now. Last time I had a birthday party was my 49th … I avoid them like the plague … ditto with funerals. Occasionally I used to go to weddings but not now.

By the way, it’s not today, I assure you, not till later in the fortnight.

9. Saw this on Quora

In The Band’s song The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, Virgil mentions May 10th but Richmond actually fell on April 2nd. So why was Old Dixie driven down on May 10th?

In my most polite, humble, tactful & respectful way, I’d like to say that, in the lyrics, Virgil was just stating facts, like him & his family starving in the winter of 1865, & that the C.S.A. Capital of Richmond, Virginia had already fallen over a month previous to him mentioning May 10th, which was a most important date to him.

Why, you may ask? Well, I’d like to point out that the 10th of May 1865 was a very important date in the Chronology of the American Civil War because that’s the day the (Southern) Confederate States Government ceased to function or exist due to the capture of its President, Jefferson Davis & the subsequent dissolution of that same Confederate government.

At that point, almost all existing organized resistance ceased & the Southern Cause was Lost. It was seen as the final nail in the coffin, so to speak, so that day proved to be historically most significant,…and therefore, it was “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”

Also, to greatly add to its importance, especially in Virgil’s mind, May 10th, 1865 was also the same day U.S.A. President Andrew Johnson declared the virtual end to organized hostilities between the North & South, formally ending the American Civil War.

At that date, It was also proclaimed that the belligerent rights of the rebels was at an end & that any rebels found fighting after that date were to be viewed as guerrillas, bush-wackers and/or outlaws, to be dealt with accordingly.

It’s been said that almost all the bells in the country were ringing, whether joyfully or sorrowfully, after the war weary people of America read and/or heard those announcements & proclamations, respectively, of the fall of the C.S.A. government & the formal end of the Civil War on May 10th, 1865.”

JH: How ‘bout that eh?