Awkward afternoon. Being about to cook late lunch, with two TV shorts up to give myself time to do that, there is also the HQ Sunday programme … films leading into jazz, later to start the evening politics.
Into this comes Steve with Minnesota and Nick Shirley, a big international topic today out there.
Brainwave strikes, such as it is. It’s been concerning me that UHC-WP is currently only being used for archives, important though those archives are. Remember though that it has the smallest disk space for saving material, needs to be used sparingly.
However, how about I run Steve’s expanding links there:
Going to run two shorts now (feature length film tomorrow) … the first via AKH, ta. Not altogether enamoured myself with Peter Vaughan (Grouty), though his acting chops are unquestioned. See how you go.
There was some town, can’t recall … Dearborn ? … and some young reporter was showing the centre … name stores closed, some boarded up, derelicts around, plus the “ordinary” homeless … town quite dead, business moved from the town. Sad. Demonrats. Imports.
Don’t worry (or do nae fash yersel’ in Swahili) … we’ll be back into the dark politics soon enough.
Finding yourself with time to reflect is not always a good thing at this age … it prevents things getting done … things you’re convinced at the time are necessary, but ultimate mean little. And if your life’s been all over the place and your memory barely patchy now, then surprises still take you from the past.
I was going to write sonething about the uncanny way … you can be sure it was never planned more than a short time ahead … the uncanny way I spent the ends of decades over here and the middles of decades downunder … also the way the 3rd year in a decade and the 8th tended to have major changes for me … not always, e.g. 2023 did not seem to have any major changes I know, but 2008 did.
I was going to write about that but realised it was boring. Another equally boring theme was the years through music … for example, I was at the MCG (scene of yesterday’s cricket farce), watching a Grand Final between Melbourne and Collingwood and there’s a distinct memory of the stand … these were multi tier concrete extrusions and being between two was daunting, also a long way from the playing field, in the northern ladies stand, also it was not an exciting game … also, someone had a radio on and some new song about Bread and Butter was playing … I thought it was catchy, the singer had a weird voice.
Which was weird in itself because my team was Leeds United with Don Revie, which itself was weird because we were Bingley Bradford based with Park Avenue being the team, soon to come into focus again with Billy Bremner and my fave Peter Lorimer. It’s a bit like this later attachment to Geelong, having never lived in that town.
Many fine things were laid upon my table and I was perfectly happy to enjoy them for years … often until changes were forced upon me … upon us … by changing times … or women. A look at my history shows long periods in one place, admittedly dotted with plane trips to other places to spend a few weeks.
Time machine cranked up … back to a few decades back … for some crazy reason, while I was generally on the water here, sailing:
… I was also, one day, at that football ground beside it at a major league reserves game between South Melbourne and Geelong and for some crazy reason, I thought it would be fun to help out the Gee cheer squad helping hold the megabanner on that turf … ten feet from where this captain was standing:
The key there is in his agility. In rugby, as my job was to bring down big men (I was open side flanker, reasoning that it was better to hit them than they hit me) … I relied heavily on the lumbering of big men, whereas I was fast off the mark, often avoiding haymakers, then getting in some of my own.
On this day, this man … 6’4″ and 240 lbs, was talking to his lot and then he turned, looked at me and kept looking. Errrr … thoughts of escape entered the head. Then he turned back to them … phew. Thinking later about what had interested him, I knew in “one point something seconds” he could have covered those ten feet and laid me out … maybe I did not seem like a cheer squad type, who knows?
Particular years fade into obscurity over time but certain incidents stand out. Why did I live through the Russian financial collapse, then come home to the British one? Stormy Petroleum I suppose. Why was I in north-eastern France in a farmhouse, the daughter showing me her pet duck and the following Friday we had her own homemade foie gras, never seeing her pet again? These things are sent to puzzle us.
Hubby of the lass I’ve known longest … since I was ten … he said I was a drifter … nope, I stay for longish periods … on the other hand, if something’s happening, I used to be in the middle of it.
(0627) Morning all … still dark, can’t see the weather out there. Have a good one. (0705)
11. The criminal Walz
10. Moosh corner
9. Dumbfounded … not
8. DAD at 1245
a) There is ‘Two Tier’ Justice in France, also. The victim of a break-in and theft without forced entry at his Parisian residence, François Hollande [former President of France] received exceptional judicial treatment … versus On November 10, while Bertrand was teleworking from his home in Marly-le-Roi, a man entered his garden and stole his bicycle. Delays and lack of effort to find the thief, even though a clear image was captured on Bertrand’s security camera.
b) More ‘Two Tier’ justice in France. Lille (59): Hit-and-run after an accident with serious injuries; the driver leaves, the investigation is closed without further action… versus husband of the mayor of Lille was investigated for hit-and-run: he fled the scene after seriously injuring a motorist…. case dismissed.
c) Elon Musk: “Without large-scale remigration and an increase in the birth rate, Europe will no longer be Europe.”
d) Why France’s ‘Republican Front’ Is Losing Its Power. Many voters now see blocking the far-left as more urgent than maintaining traditional anti-RN alliances.
7. The issue of being realistic
It’s a near impossible task for even those of us with hides like rhinocerii … to recognise extant, quite possible danger and to force oneself to renmain calm to a point … versus either sinking into the slough of despond or being recklessly foolardy or going three wise monkeys. Plus the danger of becoming inured against constant horror to the point we become callous and incapable of feeling. That is … no longer human, like many of the invaders.
It’s also no way for a “civilised” society to operate.
Thus, when Lord Toby of the Daily Sceptic (see blogrolls) tells tales to frighten the children or the sheep, is he being that nasty older brother or sister … or is he being quite on the money? And if he quotes The Sun, a sensationalist rag, says this below, a journo piece rather than straight reportage, how to take it? As we would The Guardian?
“Aimen Dean spent eight years in the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) – forming close bonds with Al-Qaeda operatives and gaining exclusive insight into their insidious minds.
His risky work for MI5 and MI6 helped foil a number of attempted terror attacks, including a plot to bomb the New York Subway.
Despite the SIS’s valiant work, Dean told the Sun there are “hundreds” of enemy agents waiting in the shadows – ready to unleash carnage in the UK.”
Are the security boys just as much onto each agent across the land, as they are onto every lady (Lucy, Tina), ready to pounce? Is it more like 911 when known agents were allowed through to do their thing or on Oct 7 when Net the Yahoo ordered the iron dome switched off early morning (so the story goes)?
Where I am is currently not in a caterwauling through tannoy area and yet half a mile away is a terrorist centre, plus the council is building mult-occ dwellings on green belt land not all that far away in another direction. One threatened “renovation” some years back just up this road was thwarted.
Personal security … well I’ve written of it often enough but realistically … age, fitness level … there’s only so much one can do.
White House Press Sec Karoline Leavitt Expecting Baby Girl in May
Mamdani Appoints First Lesbian New York City Fire Commissioner with Zero Firefighting Experience
Trump Strikes ISIS In Nigeria on Christmas
(Chas3) Goes Full Woke: Parrots ‘Diversity Is Our Strength’
Guliapole falls. Zelensky, 60-day ceasefire. Oreshniks Belarus. China sanctions US MIC. Somaliland
Russia Brings Massive Law Claim For Frozen Assets Return
AI’s thirst for power is testing grids worldwide
9 Signs That Leaders All Over The Globe Have Come Down With A Really Bad Case Of “War Fever”
More.
1. Over at OoL is a list of MPs
This was the intro over there:
“This post is in three parts, in three places on the net … below is a list of MPs who called for him to be brought back from an Egyptian prison … over at Unherdables are some comments on it … X has the creep’s utterances many times over.”
20. Just how woeful England and Australia have become as nations
… just how far they have culturally sunk. The match itself? I extracted the only readable portion of some would be journo’s puff piece at the BBC:
“The fourth Ashes Test between Australia and England at the MCG was Test cricket cubism, the great game broken apart and stuck back together in abstract form, with a hint of Brydon Carse batting at number three. This is not a defence of the pitch which produced England’s first Test win in this country for almost 15 years and the second two-day Test of the series.
Leaving 10mm of grass on the surface, resulting in 36 wickets falling in less than six sessions, is not a fair contest between bat and ball. Not so much the Boxing Day Test, but the Boxing Days Test.”
The second para there is fair … the pitch was woeful, a lottery, it diminished both sides, faced with that awful spectacle, complete with snipers on the roof it seems. It was not cricket. England made fewer errors … well done … there was no sport, no art involved. In fact it was bizarre at a supposed premiere facility.
But it gets worse. The BBC puff piece, supposedly on cricket, went on about some sodomite singer in pink, whose ghastly uniform is preserved within the MCG members pavilion, so it seems. Somehow that has something to do with cricket.
Whole thing is awful.
19. Moosh corner
18. A word a day
17. England’s well kept canals
16. Steve at 1245 with war room
Raheem Kassam: You May Be Wondering, “Why Should I Care About What’s Happening In The UK?” JD Vance Said It Correctly. There Is A Chance That In The Next Few Decades, The United Kingdom Will Become A Muslim-Majority Nation
Daniel Suhr: The Polls Are Clear. The American People Have Completely Lost Trust In The National Legacy Media. That’s Why It Is Important That Policymakers Encourage Local TV And Revisit Their Antiquated Regulations
