(1710) Evening all.

 

21. The L-ball seems to be over

… from what I can gather, England won.

20. RIP Tom Lehrer

… 97 years young:

19. A more serious post item

Samstagabend.
Partytime. pic.twitter.com/5uRycU0s6p

— Morlock Nr.2 (@MGGA2021h) July 26, 2025

18. Watch this space

17. Moosh corner

… I’d have been in that queue, had I been a toddler

16. Family

15. Every home should have one

14. A fair request, methought

13. Steve at 1118, war room

Whole episode today. Our own Matt Goodwin and Ben Harnwell for the first 38 mins, followed by the reflections of Josh Petit on the snobbery and TDS at the the Royal & Ancient Golf Club.

War Room Episode 4662: Breaking A Nation And Cultural Unity

12. Witchend

John Lee Pettimore: We now know beyond doubt that temperature changes are unrelated to human activity or industrialization, which has improved billions of lives. A peer-reviewed study in the Science of Climate Change Journal (SCC), published March 18, 2025, strongly suggests solar activity and natural temperature cycles cause the climate to vary. The study shows these cycles drive CO2 increases, not vice versa. Climate zealots claim CO2 drives temperature rise, leading to their predicted horrors, which consistently fail to materialize. Here is the peer reviewed study. http://scienceofclimatechange.org/wp-content/upl

@JamesMelville

“We’ve just learnt the brutal truth about net zero. Not even the prospect of cripplingly high bills can stop the Energy Secretary in his blind quest.” https://telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/07/25/miliband-net-zero-crusade-wont-end-until-were-all-poorer/

 

 

Longtime readers here (inc. the former ONO) might recall a few times that What’s My Line appeared, an episode appearing at the foot of this post.

Picture and sound quality are not good but it did have all four regular panelists at one time, not always a given. A very popular CBS show from the early 50s to the mid 60s, many major entertainers, sports people and those from all walks of life appeared … it was civil, mannered, even elegant, the panellists highly popular in that America.

And as you’d expect from nourishing unherdables, the facade at WNL was in some ways a lie, if respectability was one of the criteria. Big deal you may well say … who’s perfect? And whilst words such as illegal and fraudulent were not used … other words such as misleading, unethical and sharp practice were … referring to how panellists often knew contestants but even that could be down to someone tipping them off.

A different type of criticism was, for example, that Martin Gabel was a former card carrying communist, his wife Arlene was leftwing but not a member, John Daly was leftwing east coast Democrat establishment, later boss of Voice of America … the only non-leftist was Dorothy Kilgallen who was murdered investigating Jack Ruby … which leaves leftwinger Bennett Cerf and he’s the main focus of this post.

But first … Jessica Mitford … every bit a communist, the “red sheep of the family”:

One of the six aristocratic Mitford sisters noted for their sharply conflicting politics. Jessica married her second cousin Esmond Romilly, who was killed in World War II, and then American civil rights lawyer Robert Treuhaft, with whom she joined the Communist Party USA and worked closely in the Civil Rights Congress. Both refused to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. They resigned from the party in 1958.

She became a “muck raking” journo, not unlike Dorothy Kilgallen but on the other side of politics, and one of her famous exposes was of Bennett Cerf and The Famous Writers School:

How Jessica Mitford Took Down A $48m Author Scam

Moral of the tale is nothing really changes, the crooks will fold or sell, only for the new owner to open under a different name.

https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKkilgallen.htm#:~:text=Kilgallen%20also%20had%20a%20source,than%20how%20I%20got%20them%22.

 

Before getting onto this, just a warning that today’s “jazz” is not (cough) jazz as we know it from the 20s … two are different and later, one is from Fats Waller.

And so to AKH who mentioned that yesterday’s film was better than the reviews suggested. Reviews are tricky to give the right weight to … Rot Toms for a start are Critics’ Reviews, so grain of salt … IMDb are mixed … some US, some Brit, some old, some younger, some male, some female etc. Even selecting a “middling” rating review still does not hit it.

Same issue arose with this quaint Holmes. For a start, I like these two in the key roles and yes, the series is a strange Anglo-American mix but still entertaining for all that. See what you think.

(0826)(0843)

 

10. Never ends, does it

9. Twofer

8. And so it continues

7. There was something endearing about the lady

6. Simples

 

Enjoy this Gesamtkunstwerk on treachery and betrayal.

(0532) Bleah out there at first light. (0705)

 

5. Thank goodness nothing similar could happen over here

… under our Beloved Sausage:

4. DAD, sadly, is having cyber issues today

We wish him a speedy technological recovery and shall see his letter from la belle France demain. Meanwhile:

3. Flora and fauna

For someone who once had a gardening business for a short time … as a student, tending to the gardens of the horticulturally appreciative … it was best I got out while I did … neither flora nor fauna particularly entered my world, though they very much did that of my parents, herbaceous borders and all, gazebos in the garden.

Don’t get me wrong though … a person can appreciate flowers and furry creatures and they, in turn, might take a shine to you, sensing that liking … and yet … and yet … one’s world did not revolve around them.

“What’s that lovely thingy with the thorns?”

(Slowly, as if to an idiot) “A rose?”

“Yep, that’s the one.”

“And that thingy in the cage?”

“A rabbit?”

“You not worried about myxomatosis or blight?”

(Withering glare.)

Thing was … to my mind, dogs for example were always tragic … no one does pathos and devotion quite like a doggy … but it’s a fulltime job for fourteen or so years and there’s not one day of respite if you truly care for your best pal … a dog is truly not just for Christmas, nor a cat.

My venus flytrap also needs attention, needs to be split and repotted right now, has grown quite lush but then there’d have to be a renaming … not just Enid anymore but also Ethel, Elaine, Eva, Emma, Eloise, Eliza, Edith and so on … they’d soon take over the windowsill, not unlike triffids … and then where would we be?

2. Steve at 1118

• Trump Warns Europe on Immigration: ‘Horrible Invasion’ is ‘Killing’ the Continent *
• Major Win for Girls’ Safety: Five Virginia School Districts Hit with Title IX Violations for Letting Boys in Female Restrooms
• DNI Tulsi Gabbard Fires Back at Barack Obama After He Issues a Pathetic Denial of His Treasonous Actions
• Trump Lands in Turnberry, Scotland to Massive Roaring Crowd
• Kiev Troops Panic As Pokrovsk Defences Crumble; Kupiansk Crisis; Zelensky In Denial
• Much more.

Rupert draws attention to the act which came into force July 25th. He called it a malign act masquerading as dogooding.

The usual detractors of the Act posted on it:

One commenter noted:

“Quite simply I never believed this was about anything else apart from control. Thankfully I have a VPN anyway so it hasn’t affected me.”

Soon, the only acceptable content is going to be in gardening and allotment accounts talking about chrysanthemums and azaleas for goodness sake. Incidentally, the language of flowers is a whole horticultural fiesta in itself … Christie used Miss Marple to refer to it.

Further down:

The language of flowers … worthy of Bletchley, would you not say? In this new era of state censorship?