1. Bertie Wooster’s middle name?
2. The sleuth in At Bertram’s Hotel?
3. Next closest bridge upstream from Old London?
4. William Wilberforce’s main cause?
5. Aside from K of the R, England Swings was whose song?
6. Recognise the song below?

 

(1412) Afternoon all. (1459)

 

20. Uh huh

19. It was Them all along

Obviously Putin’s no angel, he’s done many questionable things, even in the conduct of the war, but threaten Russia from next door … what does anyone with a brain expect? Would be the same with any major country.

18. Reform

17. If I’m still dwelling on the last post

… then it was because I was close to the scene for some time … though not in north LA. In the late 80s, I was finally in north LA, Hollywood, beyond Hollywood, up in the hills but as the narrator says … by then it had all changed … a chic rich area, expensive homes. I saw some of those hotels featured in songs.

My understanding is that the hippy lot had moved over to Topanga Canyon, nearer the coast. This was in comments under the video:

Yes … the post Fri 16, to be sure, was written as an older man who has seen what’s what. However, in the early 70s, I had not seen and it was all going down. I’ve mentioned a forest weekend away and some drug crazed guy putting an axe through his foot. The Laurel Canyoneers tend to put the demise down to the drugs, what they do to left lib brains.

You see, without the left libs, there’d have been no “creatives”, no scene … you’d not get a lot of creativity in music and film with us lot at unherdables at our age today (please dispute that) … we’d get a civil, safe society, good for families. In our 20s, some of us were in the process of riding the snake … yes, it had some excitement, I grew up a bit in my 30s … a bit.

(1159)

 

This one could have been done as a feature post under a name but something about the contents suggested it’s very much related to political posts here … it’s about Laurel Canyon again … but from a different, less conspiracist angle, which is not to say he has it covered … as he misses the significance of Melcher, Zapper, Manson, Wonderland … there is so much missed, e.g. about Zappa’s father’s ties to Them, let alone Melcher’s satanic ties … if ever there were a tale of what happens when people leave portals open, this was it.

The theme mentioned just before the video was replicated in the DiCaprio movie The Beach (2000) … the same old theme of socio-politically naive thinking … thinking they can create an innocent paradise … but they miss the whole point that the monsters they invite in are themselves when portals are left open to evil, when normal civility is subordinated to me me me, when no strong code is in place to protect.

Compassion? None when the new monsters sink further and further, a la Palpatine, into the murk. In fact viciousness replaces all human virtue.

(0930) Like wow. Last post, I scribbled: “There’s a good film but I’d prefer it on Saturday … let’s see how it pans out today … the cunning plan is no plan.” Well, YouTube certainly had a plan … eight short docs, plus two discarded … shall suffice as film length, plus going looking for a Valentine’s thingy now if there are any good ones. Uncanny that that should suddenly happen … must be for all you lovers out there. (1155)

 

15. Jack

14. IYE today

Here’s today’s update from Monk3ywerx

“Middle East Watch – T- 1DAY and Counting ”

Also:

13. Moosh corner

… or bring back smog:

12. Bring back steam trains

Not sure Dearieme would agree with those sentiments … dirty, smelly things.

(0828) I simply do not have any lasses at lunchtime ready, no point forcing this. Nor do I have a quiz yet but could make one by late afternoon. There’s a good film but I’d prefer it on Saturday … let’s see how it pans out today … the cunning plan is no plan. (0830)

 

11. Moosh corner

… better than poisoning pigeons in the park:

10. Lawless demonrat judges

9. The Ukraine

8. Grifters

7. AKH on Starmer the Llama Harmer*

HERE

“Anyone unconstrained by ideology has known for some time that UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is too limited, too ideologically motivated and too evasive to be an effective political leader. Knowing this from an early stage was partly due to the pattern recognition that is intuition. The reasons came later when the painfully obvious incompetence kicked in.”

* Attributed to Lee Anderson (Reform), on his way to work.

 

(0633)(0657)

 

6. Need we say more?

5. Actually the night before

4. Steve at 967

Five: Thomson Reuters, a Far-Left Propaganda Arm, Receives Funding from the U.S. Department of Defense … Afghan Migrant Plows Car Through Protest Crowd … much much more…..

Four: McConnell Vile Statement Against RFK Jr. … Trump v Biden legatees … reciprocal tariffs … much more…..

Three: Uke sit-rep … Trump Putin … more…..

Two: EU v Trump-Putin summit … Egypt Gaza vision … hating Musk, French farleft hatred for its people … much more…..

One: RFK Jnr … DOD Controlled COVID Program From the Start … USAID … EU … much more…..

3. DAD at 968

a) The French Customs brigade intercepted a refrigerated truck from Spain. Inside, customs officers discovered a cache in which 60 kg of cocaine were hidden.

b) What is it with politicians that they think that tax monies are for their personal use? Three weeks in Tahiti for the Maire of Paris and five others.

c) The Italian government will introduce electronic tracking for migrants and turn its offshore centers into repatriation hubs, sidestepping judicial roadblocks.

d) As European Commissioner for Health Olivér Várhelyi was working on a new update for the EC’s tobacco directive … in 2025, smoking cigarettes, alternatives to smoking and possible bans on both were expected to be heavily debated topics.

(0522) Morning all. Dark out there. (0612)

 

That TDS piece on generations

HERE

The big thing for me was a Gen X going on about a Gen Zee, no mention of Boomers any more, nor Millennials. Millennials we’ve done so much on over recent years, Gen X I’ve generally laid off, due to most of my friends being Boomer or Gen X.

However, there was a time when all you ever heard was GenXers like Vox Day interminably moaning about wicked Boomers. And Boomers’ views on Gen X? Still living with parents, resenting Boomers having the jobs (prepared to work, not feckless?), earring in one ear, given to raves, drugs, techno, less educated … don’t shoot the messenger, juss sayin’ what Boomers said. Perceptions wildly divergent from how each saw itself.

With hindsight, I’d say Boomers were “play radicals” … certainly better educated, due to their parents, the Great Generation, but sadly, those parents gave us too much rope and we were sitting ducks for all the evil forces preying on us. Overall though … we were certainly free … ride our bikes and graze our knees, interminably fighting and wrestling, tumbling.

Thing was … in the middle of that were the Woodstock generation, then prog rock … preyed on by The Pill, by Phillips’s narcotics … and the miscreants in all that were born around 1935 … Depression years … was it some sort of radical payback, using us? Timothy Leary, Frankfurt School, Spock.

Gen X were the first tech gen to be sure … we latched onto it of course but it was driven by Gen X … as well as utter cynicism about society, potty mouthed too. I’m truly Boomer/GenX cusp, yet I feel close to DAD’s lot too … I used to admire the older boys and girls of the 50s and their fashions, their ways … the Big Kids. Millennials were my students … son and daughter types.

Was interesting reading a Gen X going on about Gen Zee … the world turns and now Gen Zee are the new journos and doers … see Karoline Leavitt (1997, Millennial/Gen Zee cusp).

Just going to finish this (still dark out there) with that tale I’ve mentioned a few times … we were by the summer seaside, there was a fair/carnival, with marquees, we were the kids, the new young radicals (what’s the matter with kids today).

There was a ring or small arena … boxing, singing, a band … and the MC was introducing a group of older kids in real 50s costumes (I was maybe 11/12) … swirling skirts, boys with ties … and I thought … wow, they’re so cool but so old, I dare not go up to talk to them.

Suddenly, to some rockabilly song or whatever, they started jiving, so they called it. I mean, this was not just what you saw in old movies … these were actually the real deal … they’d always been like that. And man, they could dance, they could really dance, joined up dancing I call it … mesmerised I was, realising there was a half generation ahead of us who were way cooler than us.

Never forgot that.

(0412) Another early morn. (0508)

 

Opening sermon on this dull grey Friday

First up … Steve …

Sermon? Was that its religious reference, its interminable, sleep-inducing droning or its attempt to morally instruct? Nevertheless, it does suggest an alternative heading today:

What people choose to talk about, their topics, says more about them …

… than the subject matter they cover …

… which to my mind is not a particularly profound observation … but awakening today, there were things in the queue from Andy, Steve, IYE, Dan Wootton, TDS and others and in each case, there was of course the subject matter, good reads … but there were also curiously idiosyncratic and smile-inducing choices … for example, Andy at 968:

Entertaining but it also had me thinking … which of our tavern patrons visits the Grauniad and BBC fairly regularly, plus listens to LBC? Plus appears to be our nocturnal nightwatchman, thank goodness?

Next was Dan Wootton, who’s prime concern was …

… before even getting to his concern of the day …

“Helping me create a media revolution” …? You wot? It was about there being tensions between Ginge and Whinge, with Harry storming off to Canada afterwards … presumably to be closer to his family, in his mind.

Then came TDS on generations, but that will be item 2 in a short while, plus IYE.