(1325)(1425)

 

Turn by turn, they tighten the screws, ratchet us that bit more

Have a look at Andy’s and IYE’s comments on Tue 5 but to that, I’m going to add this:

Obviously we don’t know the whole thing … I’m puzzled that the old fella is not already on their books, probably used to wandering down from home and it being friendly and straightforward.

For a start, the NHS is now run by firms … Lucis Healthcare or whatever … we’ve covered a fair bit here of late on it, inc. comments on waiting times to see a doctor, having a test, procedure etc. I myself have largely avoided all that like the plague and thank the Lord … the overall health is fine.

If the chap is a long time on their books, in the central computer, then why on earth are they going through the whole thing again? I suspect it’s because they’re setting up an NHS “app” for him. No possibility of just transferring the data already there? Thought not. Some new “manager” deciding it all has to be redone from scratch.

I did get a text saying I could no longer order any medicines without using the “app”. That’s fine, said the chemist I phoned, we know about that … your particular ones are covered by somethingelseorother. Fine, fine. So the trick is not to be ill. I don’t mean lurgy or the cold causing heart thingies … they’re par for the course … no, I mean a real issue, even knees or gut or something like that. Injury.

Gutwise, I had decided anyway, before the latest delivery, to drop the beef for awhile in favour of chicken soup (lurgy etc.) … my Doctor Toodles said that with my blood group, might be better to ease up on it … I do obey Dr. Toodles … eventually. I’d dropped breaded cod for salmon, kept the quiche for now, trimmed of pastry.

At the same time this morning, this appeared in the inbox … all about acid. Uh huh, I explored:

Gulp … doesn’t leave us much to eat:

Being a person of faith in the Good Lord, I couldna help thinking that He’d been at work here. Anyway, shall try it, starting with the chicken broth this evening.

But coming back to this old chap and if it’s going to happen too, to any one of us … not a fun prospect. I’m not having any procedure unless something awful has happened … the abode is good, things are working fine, was talking to the neighbours, the house is good … can’t help thinking though that they were going too well.

Sure enough … Apple icloud inserted itself onto my new 256Gb ipad with a bright red warning, which simultaneously darked the app to make us frightened. Unless I agree to these new Ts and Cs immediately, they will shut me off and I can only have 50Gb of images and other media.

But that REFUSAL will then be reported, do I ustd, to Papa Apple and as you have a new ipad, you might not be able to use it. AT ALL.

I looked through the endless Ts and Cs and only two were iffy … the first a demand for my birthdate, without which I could no longer use Apple products … and that if my polutical opinion is held to be unacceptable, I’m to be struck off, DO I HEAR?!!!

I accepted, just to see what would happen. Now they did say I could opt to turn off icloud if I wished … with consequences. I left it on.

Went to X … wish I’d screenshot the panel … X working normally … cloudflare has an immediate problem, try later … your ipad working normally. No access to X for me. HQ working fine for now.

Suddenly in HQ, it logged me out, I logged back in, a panel appeared, asking me to put in login and password “to complete” the saving. I pushed “later”, the login worked. I also got in to X via there.

My regular people were not available to me unless I specifically entered their handles. Yes, they were having issues too. To communicate with any of them, I had to use a newly created passcode.

And so it goes on. Bit by bit by bit by bit.

Downstairs, awaiting the food, planning to tell the driver he was across my driveway, he was one of our regulars from the area, English, nice chat, a bit of banter, all AOK. Food was fine I found out upstairs.

A girl was fast walking at a rate of nots, maybe mid 30s mother, fairhaired … wondered if she was nice or a wokeleft karen.

Well well well … guess what just happened a second time?

Ah now … curiouser and curiouser at 1512, our time:

 

This is one case where I do not react well to the idea of females being in trouble, in danger, whilst a male monster is roaming about … and yet the reviews are good, AKH seems to like it. So let’s do it:

“THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE is one of the best known in the “old dark house” genre. These films typically feature a disparate group of characters who inevitably find themselves alone and trapped within a huge, rambling and spooky old house on the night of a storm, with a killer amongst them. What’s notable about this outing is just how stylish it is: the story is nothing special, but the style makes it.

The story features a black-gloved killer (complete with POV shots) who hides in wardrobes and stalks his young, female victims and strangles them. In one of the movie’s most infamous shots, the viewer sees a victim from the killer’s point of view, and she’s missing her mouth; symptomatic of his disturbed mind, and highly eerie with it. The whodunit aspect of the storyline is played up strongly, with some red herrings thrown into the mix, although it’s pretty easy for a modern viewer to guess the identity of the murderer.

THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE features some decent performances, particularly from Dorothy McGuire, playing (unusually) a leading role as a mute. That the viewer becomes accustomed to her muteness and, eventually, even forgets about it is testament to her performance. Elsewhere in the cast, there’s a barnstorming turn from grand old dame Ethel Barrymore who rules the roost from her deathbed, and a nicely comic performance from the BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN herself, Elsa Lanchester, as a drunk cook.

In the end, the film works because of the visual flourishes. As in a film noir, there’s a lot of creeping about in the shadows, and silhouettes of various things and people play a big part. The emphasis on a deranged killer is a neat precursor to the later gialli and slasher films of the ’70s and ’80s, and there’s little padding on the bare bones of the narrative. It’s a good ‘un.”

(1002)(1026)

 

15. Moosh corner

14. Housekeeping again … HQ

This is the opening window when I came in here earlier:

My eyes first go to the main column, then over to the sidebar, which is just as much signposting … click on the green, datestamp link, up comes the post with comments below … to my mind, all are explorable.

Now, were I to copy and paste IYE’s Donny and Pfizer, it’s doubling up. On the other hand, I need the boys (and gals) to see that I do read and explore, so the occasional comment is needed. Someone such as AKH does it a bit differently in comments (separate page). Seems to work.

Now, how to acknowledge NOWP drops? Well, you see me signpost from here, which means I’ve been through and read all.

Sometimes though, I do double up to emphasise. That’s basically my mindset overall.

13. Risk taking

12. Mahmoud

11. Discuss?

 

(0620) Morning all … grey 8/8 cloud cover, toxic. (0838)

 

10. Powell, McSweeney et al

9. Though the next few are all about toxic Britain

… at the parlmtary, public level, I’m running them separately, as different angles on the same toxic mess.

8. Impressive by Redacted

Juan has dropped a long and a short at 1206 … excerpt:

“For the better part of this year, I have been noticing publicly on the Twitter, and on these pages, how the financial interests of the global/political establishment elite, and a host of affiliated Technocrats formerly outlined as the Sea Island group, seemingly have been working an operation to divide MAGA.

That operation is to separate President Trump from his support base.

President Trump has been navigating this dynamic, sometimes failing -not surprisingly given the scope of the issue- yet keeping his focus on the larger objective, the ‘ultimate solutions’ approach he is known for.”

Have a look at the whole thing … it gives an alternative view to a point.

7. Over at OoL

https://orphansofliberty.blogspot.com/2025/11/rupert-has-plan.html

6. Housekeeping

The use of HQ, NOWP and UHC-WP does come back into focus as part of the unherdables complex … it also seems to have settled into the various roles.

HQ is the distributor page … short to medium length, a news service to read at speed, links elsewhere. Higher protection, uses the sidebar as a second post column in its own right … often needs no further development as it distributes in the same way as the main column … both eventually disappear off HQ front page.

NOWP is the reader drop page, less need for the sidebar reader list because of its numbered layout … suitable for any length post, signposted from HQ. HQ and NOWP work in tandem. Standard WP protection.

UHC-WP is increasingly the Reader Archive page, standard WP protection, also for the occasional post from me.

Other archives are either through HQ pages accessed through the navbar: Other … or NOWP itself, which is one huge archive. There is also Jstack which poses some problems.

Jstack has turned out to be the least post-composition-friendly, also least reader-friendly, unless it’s a fellow substacker. It does have an advantage in that it feeds to Protonmail, so I can read comments in there. Each of the other pages feeds to gmail. Protonmail is of limited use unless you need to communicate non-ggl.

My daily routine is gmail first, for communication with the ladies plus DAD, sometimes Amfortas or Andy … it is fed by NOWP, so anything in comments at NOWP comes through there. HQ though gives no feed to anywhere, so it needs accessing second. Third stop is Proton, which is fed by other emails less publicised.

Another way of communicating, only for those very close, are DMs at X and Gab (mainly Julia, Moosh). Lately, X has been trying to prevent me communicating with close people it identifies, also vice-versa, by means of increasing strictures. It seems not to like Roobeedoo.

(0540)(0606)

 

5. Potty-mouthed Waitrose

4. Bondi

3. Steve at 1206

• Reports Suggest [Maduro] May Destroy His Own Infrastructure and Blame It on the US or His Opposition
• US Takes Out Drug Boat in Caribbean Sea Under Newly Unveiled “Operation Southern Spear”
• Trump Demands House Republicans Vote to Release Epstein Files
• Real-Life Proof Obamacare is the Biggest and Most Obscene Shakedown, Scam, and Rip-off in History
• Russia’s Massive Strike On Odesa Targets Port Infrastructure And NATO Supplies For The Ukrainian Armed Forces
• Russian Army Expands Border Buffer Zone In Kharkiv And Blocks Seversk From North
• South Korean study finds a 27% increase in risk of developing cancer within one year after COVID vaccination
• Two Thousand Locals March Against Sussex Asylum Seeker Camp
• Labour civil war as MPs publicly attack Shabana Mahmood’s radical asylum reforms
• Much more.

2. Jack Smith

1. DAD at 1206

a) France is a narco-state – official. Emmanuel Macron will conven a meeting at the Élysée Palace …..”on the implementation of the drug trafficking law” and “the situation in Marseille,” following several tragic events in France in recent days.

b) Extending the lifespan of EDF’s nuclear power stations to fifty or even sixty years remains an “advantageous option” and is even more “competitive” than building new reactors, despite soaring maintenance costs, according to a report by the Court of Auditors….

c) Do we see a ‘chink of light’ regarding vaccines? (Although some are fighting back.) Although mandatory flu vaccination for residents and caregivers in nursing homes was rejected by MPs, in Deux-Sèvre….

d) Is the Vatican retreating on the Latin Mass ban? Pope Leo reportedly plans to grant generous, renewable permissions….

(1725) Greetings this evening, chaps and chapesses.

 

22. Moosh corner

21. Relying on Labour to set you free?

20. Thimerosal

19. Reeves and the countryside

18. The criminal Hobbs

17. Needs another Cromwell

16. Steve and war room at 1206

• Oscar Ramirez: The President Of Mexico Is Absolutely Bought And Paid For By The Cartels. After A Mayor Was Assassinated, She Claimed It Was Illegal To Go To War With The Cartels
• Ben Bergquam: Gen Z In Mexico Is Fighting The Cartels While The Radical Left In America Fights To Protect Them. Democrats Have Aligned With The Cartels, The Jihadists, And The Communists To Destroy This Country

 

“This is one of my favourites of the Hickson Miss Marple series. Miss Marple is alerted to goings on at Yew Tree Lodge by an ex maid, Gladys but by the time she gets there, there have been three murders already including Gladys herself! The nursery rhyme of the title is largely irrelevant but the story is well plotted and the conclusion satisfying. I don’t feel enough is made of the plight of the pathetic Gladys – the book does this so much more effectively and you really end up hating the murderer as a result but apart from that it’s pretty good. The cast here is generally excellent. Tom Wilkinson is one of the better accompanying detectives and there are good turns from Stacy Dorning as the airhead second wife, Rachel Bell as the childlike Jennifer and Peter Davison as the charming Lance. Miss Marple finds a kindred spirit in the formidable Miss Henderson of Fabia Drake. My favourite though is Selina Cadell’s Mary Dove – exactly as I pictured her in the book! A satisfying mid series entry.”

(1332) Cunning plan is … this post, then the Pocketful of Rye double episode. We also have AKH’s Spiral Staircase and my find The Ninth Guest, plus a top Holmes episode The Blue Carbuncle but the latter raises an issue. Advent is Nov 30 onwrds, Christmas you know … this film is Christmas Dayish but we can’t be sure it will still be around then on YT … hmmmm, shall think about it. (1351)

 

15. On the YT earlier

14. Pammy?

13. Children Needing a scam fake charity

… don’t touch with a barge pole:

12. Be circumspect on this one … needs corroboration

11. EUSSR

 

One thing I’m trying to resist is shying away from looking at a vlog because of its narrator’s voice. There are, sadly, a few online with unfortunate voices … The History Guy was one, this guy is another. Both nice chaps, knowledgeable, their blogs informative. To me, it’s not even their geographical origin … I don’t mind some Nu Joisey voices, some Brummy, I quite like Rab C Nesbitt but not so much Jamesy in that show. No, methinks it’s more pitch, timbre, stridency … this chap below has an excellent look at the Falkirk Wheel but I wish he’s soften the voice a bit. Not to worry.

(Speaking of voices, my own can put people to sleep, ditto with the blog … when I had private clients, they were as much there for the soft tone, coffee and nibbles as for the material itself. Unfortunate when, halfway along, they used to drop off to sleep.)