(1634) Evening all (soon). Did not get the snooze … too much listening to Ramblers and Goofus, plus too much reading of all the nefarious doings. Not all should come to the front page here, the ones which delve that bit further but all accessible. Am about to do coffee, choc, plus that Sachs interview of Rupert, also various sshots in the pipeline. The final Logan Stevenson Temple in place for tomorrow.
19. Moo corner
18. More of the same
17. Steve at 1302
Hearts of Oak: The Week According To . . . David Atherton.
16. IYE in comments
Do check the last comment, plus the earlier link, that’s all I’m sayin’.
Have to say, have to come out with it … of all the bands, The Goofus Five, with Rollini, has to be my fave outfit. Not sure why … just love the jaunty spirit and this last one below … it’s the goods imho.
Those priorities have surfaced in public life with disturbing regularity. In 2017, the Labour MP Naz Shah shared a social-media post suggesting that abused girls should “shut their mouths for the good of diversity”. Her remark was dismissed as an error of judgement, but the sentiment it revealed was not an aberration: it reflected a deeper and recognisable mode of thinking in which the reputational management of multicultural harmony outranks the elementary duty to protect vulnerable girls.”
“I’m not sure why this film was entitled The Undercover Man since it did not involve any law enforcement infiltrating organized crime to bring a case against some criminals. Maybe it was the sardonic humor of producer Robert Rossen and director Joseph H. Lewis since it does involve Treasury agents Glenn Ford, James Whitmore, and David Wolfe operating out of a rather dingy apartment going over syndicate books to make an income tax case against, ‘the Big Fellow’.
After the success they had with taking Al Capone down this way, going after the finances of criminal enterprises has been a tried and true way to go in these matters for law enforcement.
The agents are a good if colorless lot, the real spice in The Undercover Man are some of the various character roles cast by Rossen and Lewis. Barry Kelley is the syndicate lawyer, a very confident fellow right up to the end, he’s one you’ll remember.
Also Anthony Caruso and his family, mother Esther Minciotti, wife Angela Clarke and daughter Joan Lazer. He keeps the tallies for one the syndicate’s numbers parlors, but he’s tasted the high life and now has a mistress as well in stripper Kay Medford, her first credited screen role. He’s memorable too as the luckless Caruso is gunned down in the street.
Another syndicate bookkeeper is Leo Penn and his wife Patricia Barry who flees after Caruso is killed. You’ll know Leo because of his famous two time Oscar winning son Sean. The family resemblance is unmistakable.
The good guys are kept colorless until almost the end. They patiently billed their case with numbers and handwriting experts who tell them where to look for clues and suspects. In the end however Glenn Ford does have to resort to the gun to get out of a tight spot.
Ford’s allowed a little personal life and a bit of family crisis when he thinks he could be putting wife Nina Foch in harm’s way. It’s a bit of a diversion showing these guys are as human as some of the people they’re dealing with.
But The Undercover Man is best when concentrating on the bad and the luckless. Pay particular attention to Caruso, Kelley, and Medford. It’s a good if somewhat unknown noir classic.”
(1213) Phew, only now have I got on top of things today … medical thing tolerable. Afternoon all. Some nice jazz coming up later but better still … just as good next Sunday too … let’s hope we make it that far. Plus a quite reasonable B movie in a few mins. (1241)
10. Moo corner
9. IYE from this morning
Island man 3. “The Intelligence Channel” “….who was running it?”
I interviewed @RupertLowe10 during the farmers’ protests in November 2024 and again in January 2025. Since then, I’ve followed his statements — and his work on the inquiry — with great interest.
And I can say this without hesitation: were I a British citizen, he’d have my full… pic.twitter.com/BUXy3oR99o
(0905) Morning all. There are some not wonderful things at this end, healthwise and thus I had an extra snooze this morning after the JCF Bach, under whose piece, incidentally, I’ve now added a few lines of history. (1146)
6. The day the music died … next chapter
Quora came to the rescue again with a potted history of “early metal” via a chap called Adam Wiltshire:
“For the best part of a decade, I have been arguing that there is one band that does not get enough credit for, in my opinion, being the founding grandfathers of what we would now call metal.
In the early to mid 60’s, the prevalent music in England was blues and jazz. There came a band which changed that, both taking blues and jazz, and for lack of a better word, evolving it, and in turn creating the distinctive guitar sound we all still enjoy today.
In 1964, The Kinks released ‘You really got me’. Originally written to be a bluesy/jazzy number by Ray Davies, vocalist and song writer for the band. It was intended to be a sax and piano number, until Ray’s brother, Dave Davies and lead guitarist decide to play the sax line on guitar to make it heavier and more rocky. They recorded the jazzy/blues version song on sax and piano first to appease their record label Pye.
After recording the laidback bluesy version, Ray decided he preferred the song played on the guitar and asked Pye to re-record with Dave playing the riffs on guitar. The label refused, up to that point their releases had been pretty big flops. Ray refused to plug the song and was basically a pain in the arse for the label because they refused to fund their re-record.
The band funded themselves and recorded the song with the guitar and without the sax and piano.
Dave took it one step further. The story goes he created the distinctive heavy, distorted sound by taking a razor blade to his amp, and poked holes in the speaker cone with a pin. That heavy distorted sound, in my opinion, gave birth to heavy metal in 1964.”
Notes
In light grey … a giveaway that it’s an American article
In orange … a matter of opinion and the subject of this post item
In light blue … funded themselves? Or some lobby funded them?
Dear reader, this is where databases play their role, mental notes set down some time ago. Anyone who’s bothered following these musical musings of mine for years (even if only one or two people) will have noted my fixation with melody, riffs, a groove, even if loud and heavy and at the same time … I’ve a deep dislike of discordant shrieking for the sake of it, like a victim having a vasectomy or being emasculated, which is very much produced by guitars and metal-freaks’ strangled shrieking (though of course, saxes can do that too … free form jazz).
That immediately sets me, for one, at odds with those whose sensibilities are more late 60s and 70s, rather than my 20s, 50s and early 60s. So yes, I do very much make a distinction between, on the one side, Link Wray’s Rumble, sax songs from the mid 50s to the mid 60s, rockabilly, rock steady and that crucial factor … “fun” … versus “clever”, “dystopic”, 12 atonal Frankfurt School agonised-soul noise.
In the latter, I dump Dizzy Gillespie, the felonious Monk, all that “clever” leftwing howling with no soul to it … and so to its logical conclusion … Lou Reed’s metal machine “music”, which had gone too far for even us clever-clever, hip, bright young things of the late 60s, through to punk and the soulless 70s … ELP, Pink Floyd et al.
And straight to why … do you recall the Laurel Canyon story many have posted on, where people like Zappa, of Manson mentality, were plants with three letter agency connections, plus ample funding (Zappa’s father plus many military, e.g. Aquino who went on to write the satanic bible) and to that, add McMartin preschool tunnels, Disney tunnels, Omaha airforce base and renditions … the whole thrust resulting in Epstein and “the elite”. The island.
Kinks “self” funded? Pull the other one.
And look at Ten Years After, Black Sabbath, Zeppelin … which we thought were the cool gang, the clever, grown up “music”, having thrown off our childish innocence … I am sure many a reader now, here, sees exactly where this is leading. The Yardbirds … from R&B with an edge to the free form Page-Beck “I’m a Man“.
Classic case of melodic riffs then captured by the possessed metal guitarist. Every so often, they drop back into a familiar groove from the sheer dystopia, always disguised of course as talented and clever … they’re always “clever”, aren’t they, self- congratulatory? They must do that before the kids latch onto the nasty side of it … just small doses of “jamming”, bereft of order and fulfilment. … then back to the groove.
And my own first RL “romance” was a watershed … her National Velvet, 50s style innocence, yet with bravado (Janet tied her kirtle green) … seeing me as some sort of driven excitement, until I tried to lie her down on a sand dune. In other words, the spectre of rape which did not happen because my background, my mentality, my soul, a year older than her, was very 50s cultural Christianity, knight in white armour and I never would have. Not that summer anyway.
But what if my soul had been from the later punk era? From the discordant, metal-possessed era of the 70s? In other words, what if I’d been born seven or even ten years after?
What then? Drug-fuelled, with her on the Pill?
My parents and hers only let her go freely with me, no supervision, because there was some “old element” inside me, in her too, the very element produced by that more innocent era of cultural Christianity … in other words, I’d brushed up against all those biblical homilies in my youth without being from a religious family in any way.
It was the zeitgeist of an older era and it is precisely so many voices today from Gen Zee who are calling for a return to those times … to the values of those times, to human integrity, Restored.
To be attacked of course by the possessed crazies as far right and nazi.
Expressed as it just has been in this (until now) unredacted post item … the whole thing starts to make sense … and yet another factor … the possessed perp, afterwards, having an eternity for broken remorse … well, look at so many Epstein perps drawn in, in this century.
How many of you saw the Tucker-Huckabee confrontation? It brings in Zionism, Askenazis, Khazars … the Babylonian Captivity … just as in ancient days.
Oh, mocks the autosceptic or one with an Agenda … yeah sure, Jimbo, as if ancient days affect us today.
And my rejoinder … not unlike a crescent moon 1400 years ago, eh? Visited upon us in the west right now.
Johann Christoph was an older cousin of Johann Sebastian Bach who would later describe him in his Genealogy (Ursprung, 1735) as “the profound composer”, suggesting a solid reputation not only within the family but also in wider musical society.[1][2] He is not to be confused with Johann Sebastian Bach’s son, Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach.
Reform has indicated (on X) its intention of contesting Great Yarmouth at the next GE. With Rupert currently on 40 to 60% approval over there, things can change for both sides. Meanwhile, in G&D:
“Thursday, 26 February 2026. It was triggered by the resignation of Andrew Gwynne, who was sitting as an independent following his suspension from the Labour Party in February 2025. Gwynne said his resignation was due to “significant ill health”, and advice from his doctor that it was unsafe for him to return to work.”
Labour is projected to run third, Greens and Reform seem the two but Advance have local boy Nick Buckley. Restore were formed too late to contest it. Naturally, there’ll be skullduggery in the count and it might end up a Green gain for that clown. The key is going to be more how Reform performs after the advent of Restore.
There’ll be no “merger” of Advance and Restore. 🍿🍿🍿🍿
3. DAD at 1301
a) Macron locking down key institutions with allies before elections… Criticism [of Macron] erupted following the nomination of budget minister Amélie de Montchalin, a close Macron ally, as head of the Court of Auditors, one of France’s most powerful and sensitive constitutional bodies….
b) The French National Assembly will again consider the creation of a right to assisted dying on Monday, February 16, 2026, with a formal vote scheduled for February 24. Supporters hope to see the bill passed before the summer….
c) Are we begining to see the end of Net Zero? [ Also d) ] The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change has called on the UK Labour Government to scrap its ban on new North Sea exploration licences and bring the Energy Profits Levy to an orderly end….
d) PARIS: US Energy Secretary Chris Wright gave the International Energy Agency on Thursday a one-year deadline to scrap its support of goals to reduce energy emissions to net zero or risk losing the United States as a member….
“What has mostly been suppressed is the cost of defending against Iran’s response. Iran launched roughly 550 ballistic missiles and over 1,000 drones during the Twelve-Day War. The official “90% interception rate” is a masterwork of selective statistics: it describes the success rate of attempted intercepts. Al Jazeera’s analysis found that of 574 missiles, only 257 were engaged at all. The remaining 317 were never intercepted. Of the 257 attempts, 201 succeeded, 20 partially, 36 failed.”
1. Steve
Tennessee House Passes Bill Protecting Right to Decline Recognition of Same-Sex Marriage
Hungary Blocks $106 Billion EU Loan to Ukraine Until Zelensky Allows Flow of Russian Oil Through Druzhba Pipeline To Resume
US Forces Deployed to Nigeria in Response to Christians Being Slaughtered and Abducted
Trump Defies ‘Anti-American’ Supreme Court, Raises Global Tariffs to 15% Effective Immediately
FBI Internal Emails Reveal Biden White House Coordinated with DOJ on Mar-a-Lago Raid
(JH: Read this in conjunction with the Vox post above) Trump Gives Iran Ultimatum, Demands Dismantling of Nuclear Program and End to Funding for Terrorist Proxies
US Discussed Nord Stream Destruction Plan With Ukraine – German Media
Disappeared In The West: How Ukrainian Children Are Taken To The US and Europe and Why They Do Not Return
UK Puberty Blocker Trial Finally Halted Over Significant Safety Concerns
Ford Carrier Group Enters Mediterranean To Join Biggest US Build-Up Since 2003 Iraq War
