One way of thinking of the Advent carols at UHC, also the Sunday tradition of some good music for Sunday morn, along with a dearth of political news this morning, plus some Bach I’d like to somehow work into the mix, with its indefatigable oboeist … the cunning plan just now is to run this below, the Bleak Midwinter around 1100 or so, bring the spooky film fwd, run an episode of One Step Beyond later, jazz after that … and that’s as far as your humble blogger can think just now. Enjoy.
I confess I’m puzzled about their state of dress above … seems clearly a rehearsal or audienceless recording … oh well.
(0724) Solstice, whatever you wish to call it, is at 1503 GMT today around here … I’m watching for first light right now, though officially it’s listed as 0824 to 1555. Adore it, just adore it when sunset is earlier than 1600. It’s a feeling of calm, of still, of peace.
First light for each person is a matter of opinion. For me, it’s when the first faraway feature across the valley becomes genuinely visible, even in the slightest, to the naked eye. In practical terms, when I can see to move about the abode.
First light just appeared in the minute of 0747 GMT. There it is. (0815)
5. Uniparty completely out of touch
4. Wokeness is a mental illness and a portal for evil
3. Steve at 1238
JH: Better morning today, augurs well perhaps, that Neil Oliver piece … that’s why we have several sites under the nourishing unherdables canopy. (See 1238).
CNN’s Harry Enten Bursts Out Laughing as He Reveals Congressional Democrats Hit ‘Lowest Ever’ Ratings-‘Lower than the Dead Sea’
Alarming Report Reveals Woke Brown University Campus Security Chief’s Massive Failures Before Mass Shooting and His Disqualifying Past
Fulton County Admits 315K Early Ballots were Illegally Certified in 2020 Election
a) A judge at the Cergy Administrative Court, acting on a petition from the Human Rights League, ordered the removal of the Christmas nativity scene from Asnières Town Hall. The judge gave the town 24 hours to comply.
b) The reliquary of Saint Vivent was broken into and the skull of this popular saint was stolen. The parish of Sainte-Marie-des-Olonnes announced the bad news on its social media accounts on Friday, December 19, 2025.
c) The Great Replacement – the Africa Cup of Nations. Not only is the Île-de-France region of Paris the “star of the competition,” providing 6.5% of the players for the Africa Cup of Nations, but France also supplies the largest contingent of foreign fans during the tournament in Morocco.
d) Every day, every week, they restore crosses, clean wayside crosses, and repair rosaries and crucifixes. The SOS Calvaires association, a remarkable initiative created in 1987, brings together 4,000 volunteers and numerous professionals at dozens of sites throughout France.
… an introspective on many issues just now. (0129)
Where to start? All Saturday, I’d been at odds about many things, not with anyone else, just with myself and I’ll slowly lay them out.
First up I think, in between the blogging, getting food in now that the store has recovered, seeing the horrific things Starmer’s masters have in store, reporting on those, keeping this abode up to scratch etc. etc. … in the middle of this came the usual Quora to the inbox and an item on who were actually the baddies in the Eagles … seems it was Frey and Henley, sued by Felder for being robbed by them (he won), with Walsh not part of that. So for some reason, the Eagles were then on the mind.
Neighbours were slightly noisier than usual last evening but no way any issue, in fact our corner of this huge place gets along famously so far, which is sort of weird, given that they’re all in their twenties and thirties except lil ole moi, yet I still have to operate as I did eight and a half years before the heart attack and the end of the boat project … still doing gym and so on … that itself being eight and a half years since I returned from Sicily and Russia, walking everywhere in those days, up and down hills.
Point being made here? That 17 years which has elapsed is an entire generation that’s come and passed in that time … one of my neighbours was about six when I returned. Anyway, last evening, it now being morning, I’d been looking at reaction videos and one came up on Hotel California.
That’s when I happened upon a real bun fight on X where Bannon was calling Shapiro a cancer … phew, back in Breitbart days eh? Tied in with something called AmFest, a conference in Phoenix for “conservatives” and they were at each other’s throats … whaaa? So I looked it up on X and on Wiki:
Certainly no lightweights there, it seems more like a CPAC … there was apparently one in 2024. Anyway, the split was directly down Israel (Shapiro) versus Islam [Carlson) lines, with pundits and pollies falling into one of those camps or else shaking the head and asking if this was not meant to be a Christian conference? Let alone my OoL post days ago on big wig, big name “influencers” as they now see themselves … I see us in this game as just alt journos on the net, nothing more.
It was all too nasty, really nasty it was … so I went back to Hotel California, which reminds me of this place I live, without the vice, plus Chateau Marmont in LA, with the vice:
… which the young people in the reaction vid could only guess about. You remember my posting an episode of What’s My Line with Johnny Carson and Tuesday Weld and noting the sign he gave her … it was followed by him banning her from his show. She was involved in Marmont, as was most of Hollywood and the music industry.
And I’ve been there at that end of town, physically there, heading for Laurel Canyon, standing at Hollywood and Vine, looking at the stars on the sidewalk. Those two young people in the reaction video were noting the whole thing about being drawn into wrong through one’s own devices … the chateau, programmed to receive, is where you can check out any time you want … but you can never leave. Today’s west, yes?
But the thing which hits home with me, maybe for the first real time … is that the world is in the hands of the youngsters now, despite our rearguard action on, say, blogs like this. Look at the state of the police today. Yet still under the control of bad players … one item on X named them, plus Steinep. They’re ancient, the bad players … and hidden away.
Nuff for now … need to crash. Might be a late start, Sunday, we’ll see. (0201)
(1728) Evening all. Sad day … last of the days getting shorter, which I adore. After tomorrow, it’s downhill until June.
26. Moosh corner
25. Georgia
24. Labs in the Ukraine
23. Bongino
22. Falklands next
21. Dangerous move
20. Enjoy your cats
19. How to break up the EU
18. Johnson and Thune are bad players
17. Steve with Neil Oliver and other matters
A few issues getting it posted here, have done so at NOWP 1238.
Also there: Steve Bannon Speech America Fest 2025.
16. I’m having to redo my X profile, which will be this below attached
Currently stationed NW England … my Xing is on situations in Britain, the USA, the Antipodes, Canada, France, Russia, other European, from an antiWokerati, antiUniparty stance … also important to me is trad design, architecture, transport, art, nature, heritage, gardening, food, drink … but most of all communicating with mid or long term friends here … that’s pretty important … DMs only friends please (no way crypto pushers or hot girls). Trad, non-denominational Christian, formerly CofE.
“What joy: all the witty pleasure of “My Fair Lady” without the tiresome bursting into song. Lovely as that production certainly was, beautifully as it was restored, I find I much prefer the rapid-fire dry wit of this 1938 production of George Bernard Shaw’s 1916 play.
The story is a satire on class and language: two linguists bet cynically on the transformation of a Covent Garden flower seller into a fine lady through speech and appearance alone. Bent on immediate success, they fail to consider the consequences, and their once-unwashed protégée teaches them the casual selfishness of their act. (* * small spoilers from here * *) It’s also a rather modern romance, though I’ve read that Shaw hated this aspect of it and tried hard to neuter the theatre-goers’ burgeoning castle in the air, through an afterword. It clearly didn’t stick, which is why “My Fair Lady” was made and remains the much-adored classic it is today. Poor old Shaw. I don’t feel sorry for him – I’m romantic too.
Leslie Howard’s wonderfully eccentric and flawed Professor Higgins soon had me hanging on his every word, snorting with laughter as line after memorable line came rattling out at classic 30’s/40’s breakneck speed.
I’m British and have at least one eccentric uncle, and I can testify that his portrayal isn’t at all over the top. His alternately adoring and despairing mother treats him with weary tolerance; but she’s kinder than he is; less wilful and less blind, as his friend Colonel Pickering. But with Higgins’ many faults come great wit and intelligence, penetration, a constant challenge to anyone who cares to meet him half way.
But in an intensely class-conscious England where one minutely ‘knew one’s place’, for all his boastful assertions, he’s part of the same rigid social system that is more 1888 than 1938. He goes to the embassy balls, he knows just what to wear, he delights that his protégée is “talking to a Duchess”; and his magnificently arrogant and idle “you might marry, you know, I daresay my mother could find you someone” is something he’d never have said to a woman he truly thought of as an equal. But their need is symbiotic: for her to leave him, and make him recognise her as an equal, though she needed his education.
I love the point where she spells out to him how she sees their relationship. The camera, having previously been very British (i.e. it thinks it’s still at a play, fixed-distance, unswerving), suddenly swoons vertiginously close to Eliza while she tells him how much she loved being with him “all friendly-like”, and not because she wanted him to ‘make love to her’.
The camera switches back to Higgins, forced off his guard by this unexpected honesty and quiet dignity. “That’s exactly how I feel”, he says, and then, after a baffled pause, “and Eliza you’re a fool.” Only that’s exactly what at that moment she isn’t: and we all know it. It’s a crucial moment in the film: it’s funny and sad, and so is this story, really, whichever ending you choose (Shaw’s, or the film’s, or any ending the viewer wishes to dream up).
And Wendy Hiller! I’d never before known of her as a sparkling young actress. Of course she doesn’t have that pearly, matinée beauty – she has something better: the way emotions wash across her face; bright eyes and high cheekbones and a fleeting, occasional beauty that disappears when you look too hard for it.
Hiller herself, I believe, had elocution lessons, and her Eliza’s transformation is never entire: you always know that she’s playing a part beautifully which of course is just what ‘well-bred’ people are themselves carefully trained to do – look no further than the Queen for a modern-day example. No wonder Shaw himself championed Hiller. I’ve loved watching her lately in Powell & Pressburger’s outstanding 1945 “I Know Where I’m Going!”
I defy Shaw: I think they do love each other, but not with swirly-music romantic love. Theirs is more like the relationship of two artists, two dominant personalities who will fight a great deal, but may just produce great work, if they can stay together without cracking. For once, the cosy doors into the future are opening, not closing, and the future is unknown.
Shaw’s scenario was I think a signpost to the world we now live in, where Britain claims to be a meritocracy, nurturing its class awareness on the sly; and where the traditional sanctity of marriage is giving way to something more fluid and egalitarian.”
Steve: The Winter Solstice is the 21st of December this year. Something seasonal sung by the beautiful and very talented Candice Night … Blackmore’s Night – “Once Upon December”
JH: First a literal translation … very best folk group. Hundred summers to you, guys, you (plural) geniuses. A better way to put it revolves around 100 years. In Russia, that’s a trad sort of bravo, wishing you 100 years good life … in other words, the very best to you.
In short, there’s no fully adequate English equivalent. If that was written by a Russian, it’s praise indeed. However, he looks Ukie to me with the “chik” ending. Checking with the exgf.
(0857) Have I said morning all yet? Morning all. (1003)
15. Epstein files
As expected, promise again not fulfilled. As if it ever would be.
Problem I have with it all is how much the real paedoism is still hidden. If you were watching as I was, you would have seen that child with Obama in the boat and I do not mean Giuffre age, as are all officially released photos of them so far. This was a child of dark complexion … from where? Haiti? Maybe nine or ten years of age. That’s the issue, far more than in the Giuffre age cusp. We saw Roberts too but standing in the shallows, not with a child.
14. Second of a Steve double
I had no idea James Woods was Jewish or Israeli, maybe he’s not. I know our Julia is pro British but also sympathetic to Israel. MMutR is pro Israel military.
Complication with anything Jewish/Israeli, is that there are the real Jews and then Revelation 3:9 … wolves in sheep’s clothing. There’s the little complication as well of Christians being the most oppressed group worldwide, even by the whited sepulchres and mob they controlled.
This thing is not all straightforward.
13. First of a Steve double
Not entirely sure where this one was going, what Steve intended, but I’m thinking it was to show we have to be careful with sources. I’ve known for a long time that Newsmax has been iffy, not unlike GB News, Hannity, and a few others. The issue is when they present themselves as “of the right” or MAGA or pro Trump but in fact, they’re playacting, saying many good things but then failing to come in to support.
With Gateway Pundit, which we run each morning as part of the post item … well it’s clearly Jewish perspective … the Hoff Bros. As with Laura Loomer. So what? South Front is clearly Russophile, no question, as is Alex M.
What of me? Taught at a Jewish school, have been in a synagogue a few times in kippar, had a gf I think was Jewish but so secular, it did not really emerge. I’ve been close to a few Jewish ladies. I’ve also been in a mosque as a guest and went to Moscow with a Muslim high up in order to go to the British embassy to secure a visa for his daughter to our school. I’ve been to a local theatre in that city, theatre which was pro Bolgar and anti Rus, I’ve had two almost Mus gfs and two I was in the process of marrying at different times … such that my Uke mate was appalled … it was him or her. I chose him, ha ha. WN2 from some decades ago was Serb. I’ve been close to a French, Spanish, two Austrian girls. Brit of course, Canadian, Oz, NZ. With southern US friends. Obviously many Russian girls, one seriously.
Epoch Times … ultra Israel perspective, like Memri … again, so what? A known known. Problem is not them or those showing the Star of David … again, known known. Problem is those pretending to one thing, as a neutral purveyor of news … but they are not. In some cases in thrall to the corporates, so not religious in the least, or Masonic … and too often wrong, as Newsmax is.
Now, how is a reader to know unless we tell them? And as for me again … my first loyalty is to the Triune God, second to the Cross of St George, plus to the White Rose, plus friends with other home countries, plus Oz, southern US, NZ, Canada, France.
12. Another from this lady
11. DAD at 1237
a) Autonomy, Identity, and the Future of European Farming. Europe must acknowledge that agricultural diversity cannot be effectively governed through exclusively centralised instruments.
b) Tear gas and water cannons deployed against 10,000 farmers protesting in Brussels over Mercosur free trade agreement, which threatens to destroy Europe’s food security.
c) Italy’s last-minute pressure has exposed deep-seated discontent that turned the immediate signing of the treaty into a political risk for the European Union.
d) The UK Electoral Commission’s Statement……”We are disappointed by both the timing and substance of the statement. Scheduled elections should as a rule go ahead as planned, and only be postponed in exceptional circumstances. We are concerned by the possibility of some council elections in May being postponed, and even more by any further postponement to those which already had been deferred from 2025…”
e) NANTES – Again. Railway Police were on patrol at 7:40 p.m. on Monday, December 15, 2025, when they stopped an unaccompanied minor at Nantes train station. The teenager, who claimed to be 16 years old, was in possession of a 7.65 mm handgun with an empty magazine.
Also symptomatic of takeover by the asset-stripping mind … the predatory side of capitalism. The first video is by a most disgruntled real or AI voice … it goes on and in, ostensibly point by point, but actually repeating the same theme over and over.
So why watch it, why expebd this time? Because it has some great turns of phrase, succinct, along the way … so much so that I’m going to watch again and write a few down. And the malaise it describes is very much across the west today in this low moral compass society.
That was that but when a second video (below) emerged, I stopped, sat up and relooked at this thing.
Haven’t looked at this one yet but shall now over coffee.
There are her stated reasons … and then there was Donny and the GOP passing her over for prime positions. Why? Incompetence? Maybe, couldn’t quite cut it, lacked the base, the funds … but there were also some dissident positions she’d taken.
