To my mind, most of them sounded nice, musically, but the lyrics were largely as meaningless as an Elvis Costello song … however, he could certainly string phrases together and even create a storyline.
To my mind, this song below painted a picture and a tense build-up to a climax of anger, not unlike the films we’re watching … only he does it within a nine minute song. There are many interrelated layers … kudos to the man, credit where credit is due.
Tomorrow morning, I’m running something Toodles sent about what she saw today. Meanwhile, though I now know how Island is going to end, I can’t get the frame of mind going to finish it. Yet. Have a good evening, all.
25. Late for me to post
… but two things are hitting the fan … one you probably know about Yusuf departing. The other is far nastier … Trump and Musk trading barbs … and now Musk has tweeted that Trump was in the Epstein files … that explains why Pammy was doing nothing.
Now I haven’t a clue about the veracity of any of it but the enemies of America must be chortling.
24. Now for Farage unless he drastically shapes up
… start with an apology to Rupert and Ben. H/T DAD at 1067 by the way, for the newsflash.
23. Moosh corner
22. Jeffries is goin’ down down down bebe
21. Some US news
20. Steve and war room at 1067
“We’ll Soon Be Speaking To Robots In Mandarin.” Joe Allen Sounds Alarm On A.I. Race With China
Jack Posobiec On Ukraine’s Drone Strike Being Hidden From POTUS By Intel Community
Natalie Winters On The US/CCP Trade War: China Has A Stranglehold Over Critical Minerals
“It’s Christmas week, and in the office of City & Colonial Bank in Haversham, it’s a quiet day. The small staff is managed by Harry Fordyce (Peter Cushing), a business-only nerd who exudes no warmth, no holiday spirit, and does not fraternize with the help. He won’t even let the staff put up Christmas decorations.
Today there is a ten pound discrepancy and he’s making a big hullabaloo about it, even though the error was spotted.
In walks Colonel Gore Hepburn (Andre Morrell), who represents the bank insurance company. He is doing a surprise inspection of the security. When he’s alone with Fordyce, he informs him that he’s a thief, there to steal the bank’s money, and that he’s holding Fordyce’s wife and child hostage. One signal from the window, and they’re done with.
Hepburn has the robbery planned down to the second, and Fordyce must play along. In the outer office, Hepburn acts like an efficient man, checking out the floor signals. Fordyce is a wreck but tries not to show it. He carries out all of his instructions, which include putting the money into suitcases (Hepburn’s “luggage”).
Very suspenseful film, and one wonders if Hepburn will be able to get away with the robbery, and if Fordyce will be implicated in any way.
Peter Cushing is tremendous in the role of Fordyce, cold, stern, and highly disciplined, living a life where there are no shades of gray and mistakes are not permitted. As Hepburn, Andre Morell is excellent, charming even when he’s talking about the most deadly things.
The ending is a little rushed and a tiny bit confusing, but the story is a nice little take on “A Christmas Carol” with Scrooge Fordyce learning a few life lessons. Highly recommended. I saw this on a double disc with “Stop Me Before I Kill.””
The Deep State Goes Viral by Debbie Lerman is a deeply troubling book. Subtitled ‘Pandemic planning and the Covid coup’, the thrust of the book is that the United States response to Covid, largely followed across the world, was meticulously coordinated. Moreover, it was not a coordinated public health response, as sold to the public, but a military response coordinated not by public health experts but by the US Department of Defence and then, beyond the shores of the United States, by NATO.
12. Graft
Apart from that wag, the vast majority at both concerts I’d say were lefty dogooders, fully believing this graft was not happening … that the money really was getting to the needy.
(0930) Morning all … have not checked the weather. Rain? (0947)
11. D Day tomorrow
10. And so it goes
9. Meanwhile, in Ireland
8. Lara
Always knew she told truth on Benghazi and here we are how many years later? Really she is a hero! God Bless you Lara! Keep up the good work! pic.twitter.com/p6H6R6pxjJ
a. Jeffreys* could only be so boldly treasonous, with zero fear of consequences, were that lot convinced that this is now “leading beyond authority”, the British motto of Common Purpose, the communist organisation in Britain under Labour.
Money speaks but massive money is almighty in their eyes … dangerous fanatics, quite opposed to the Constitution as it’s been historically interpreted. Jeffries and cabal are obviously quite convinced they’re taking the House next year by trickery and judging by Johnson and the current budget fiasco, you’d have to think they’re in with a chance … on what … 17% of the vote?
b. What Californians and those in other blue states have bought into is the notion that they are separate to and above the US of A and its Constitution. 1865 showed that not to be so … it was might which resolved it and it will be might this time, even if only in the wholesale arrest of the Dem and RINO perps.
But that casts DJT as the Dictator, though it be Constitutionally accepted in this case … e.g. arresting Roberts and Jeffreys for abetting insurrection. Which is uncannily like the new Hegelian dialectic.
Which then brings in the return of Jesus.
Whitsun (also Whitsunday or Whit Sunday) is the name used in Britain and other countries among Anglicans and Methodists for the Christian holy day of Pentecost. It falls on the seventh Sunday after Easter and commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus’ disciples. (Wiki)
Were I a betting man, I’d say it’s still too early for that … unfortunately horrors aplenty come first.
c. The Ukraine … whoever is advising DJT has zero idea how existential this is for the Slavic peoples … they only need look to Stalingrad for an idea. Having lived there, I can vouch that it’s indelibly ingrained, due to over a thousand years of abuse. Napoleon found out, Hitler found out. Nukes alter the picture but that’s M.A.D. … which works both ways.
In terms of the Ukraine, Putin or whoever must run NATO off Slavic territory first, however much it takes. End of.
5. Steve at 1066
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries Vows to Unmask ‘Every Single ICE Agent’ *
Law Enforcement Dismantles Major Drug Trafficking Ring Operating in Seattle
Britain Imposes Balsamic Blasphemy Law
Trump says Says Russia Plans to Respond to Attack
Rep. Luna Torches House GOP for Delays in Codifying Trump’s DOGE Agenda
Price of Silence: How Dead Soldiers Threaten to Drain [The] Ukraine’s Military Budget
‘Children’s Health Solutions’ discusses anxiety, ADD, ADHD and vaccine injuries in chn
Louisiana state lawmakers advance bill banning Chemtrails
Survivors testify: MKs participated in sadistic sexual ‘rituals’ involving minors
Much more.
……
*Stand alone post later on this.
4. DAD at the Battle of Hastings (NOWP)
a) According to Le Point […] more than 100,000 Afghans now live in France. This migratory movement, which began in 2015.
b) Yesterday the Dutch cabinet had to resign. Prime Minister Dick Schoof has offered his resignation to the king. The reason is that Geert Wilders (PVV) pulled the plug on this cabinet.
c) According to Actu Lyon, a […] queue formed in Lyon’s 2nd arrondissement at the end of May in front of the pop-up store Jennah Boutique, which specializes in “modest fashion” for “modest Muslim women.
d) A bakery faces a €7,500 fine for opening on May 1st. A thug who fired a mortar at riot police officers was sentenced to a three-month suspended sentence and a €500 fine. ????
(0204) Various difficult things to address first. (0325) Going to try for sleep again, which will mean another latish start I’m afraid. (0327)
3. Finally, in the middle of the night
There’s this thing called “minor added inconvenience” which one can put down to just scriptkiddy incompetence if feeling charitable … or else one can call it death by a thousand cuts, whereby little moves made by a hostile cabal slowly do the boiling frog on us … until something previously good now becomes unworkable.
Last evening, my YT recommended suddenly took a radical turn when about a dozen and a half old films, plus newish BBC and other radio plays filled my “recommended” page … all my birthdays, yes?
Well, I thought so but as I started sampling, two things became apparent:
a. The radio plays are poor and that in itself is a complex “discussion”. There’s some sort of “luvvy” thing going on, almost a Dunning-Kruger, where a feted writer (at the Beeb, say) is not as well received by listeners to the same extent.
For example, in The Missing Wife, key inconsistencies in the writing permeate, e.g. thinking that police would proceed in a certain way (this is more Dixon of Dock Green than today’s rainbow and thug plod) when they just would not, in listener’s minds and memories … but that’s just part of it.
The acting. There’s this kind of “between jobs” actor/actress who, suddenly employed on this radio play, acts the hell out of the part to within an inch of its life. And all of them are part of the same school of overacting … the villain melodramatically bad to the bone, no relenting … where the poor, put upon victim is oh so victim the entire way through …
… plus the whole thing’s so … “modern” … where there’s no niceness any more, no gracefulness, just irritated, short shrift. And that’s from the 70s/80s, before the sicko Wokery started to come into it, a bit like with Doctor Who. Christopher Ecclestone departed for a reason … he was no London or Cardiff luvvy.
b. A technical flaw. I did test this out against a control group of YTs. YT seem to have zoomed every one of these films or episodes on offer in this way … on a pad, presumably on a phone too, we can two finger zoom and reduce the image size within the frame. There’s a range, a limit to the zoom out, the reduction in image size.
That zoom-out lower limit has now seemingly been reduced to the point where the characters’ acting half fills the screen and nothing either side appears, no one seated, no one reacting … just the central acting enlarged full frame. Of course you can make it even more exaggerated … but one cannot zoom out enough.
Now if this is so, then it ruins film showing, embedding, in blog posts … you do see the implications. So I checked against, for example, a National Gallery vlogcast, also a Jago and the new man … they were fine, correct size and proportion. It’s only films where it’s an issue.
It might be that the YT techie PTB decided to go to a different width and height proportion, which would then fill the frame and result in that zoom effect.
And again … is it Dunning Kruger incompetence, a la Rachel from Accounts … or is it something more sinister … on someone’s say-so, increasing petty annoyances to the point where it’s no pleasure any more? Another analogy is reducing the dog’s chain one link at a time … ratcheting, never back and forth. It’s a bit like banning smoking in beer gardens.
2. There are issues both in Congress and Parliament right now
In Congress, it is what Elon calls a pork barrel budget, plus Ron Johnson:
After Elon's tweet heard around the world yesterday, I invited Sen. Ron Johnson on the show. He is currently a NO on the One Big Beautiful Bill. He walks through what would need to change in the OBBB for him to get to a YES.
And that obstacle? Whether it’s my age and decreased hearing or the tinnitus … whether I’m the only one on planet earth who notices this or not … but the moment a vlogger starts with the atmospheric noise (maybe he’d call it mood music), which drowns out and distracts from the message … far from enhancing it … then there’s a clear issue.
And this is just such a vlog. There is a quotation I ran a few times at N.O., which said that the moment a scientist tries to influence us by his manner => it is suspect science. Ditto with anything else on youtube.
18 minutes lost … maybe not to all, esp. the younger set, but shirley I cannot be the only one where drowning out a speech with mood noise is counterproductive? And I have seen many comments to this effect on various YTs and other vlogs.
Looking at Jago and trains or this new chap with road junctions … even Steve Bannon … it is spoken vouce after the noisy intro.