Street Cat Bob
I read the (first) book about Street Cat Bob about 7-8 years ago. A very touching story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bowen_(author).
I was unaware that Street Cat Bob had died (last year, it seems). I was, therefore, also unaware that a little statue had been commissioned in his honour. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-57855092.
The point made by James Bowen is also valid; that is that people deserve at least a second chance (as Street Cat Bob gave him).
Many people who read my blog may have gleaned that, at times, my life has been spent in fairly comfortable conditions: inter alia, living in a Little Venice villa, a penthouse in the former Soviet Union, a villa with a private beach in the Caribbean, a Cornish country house (presently on sale at £7 million) and, as a child, living mostly in good areas of South-East England and Sydney.
The above, however, is only part of the story. There have been far less comfortable situations. One of those was when I returned from living for a few months in Egypt in early 1998. My last salaried legal contract (in Kazakhstan) had ended not long before I went to Egypt. I ran out of money in London (I have never been very good at “bourgeois” budgeting), and acquired some travel money by selling my watch (a Rolex Seadweller; later I had others but at the time, only one).
On return from Egypt to the UK, promised contracts in various countries fell through one by one. I had really no money at all and, at first, nowhere even to stay.
Even after that was arranged (via Russian friends), the next few months were, to say the least, difficult. I walked a lot and, if I took the Underground, may sometimes have forgotten to pay the fare! Even food was in short supply. Certainly I lost quite a bit of weight!
Often I trudged disconsolately past Julie’s restaurant in Holland Park [https://www.juliesrestaurant.com/; https://www.standard.co.uk/reveller/restaurants/julies-restaurant-reopened-holland-park-london-a4230606.html] in the cold rain, stared at by the patrons behind the windows, seated in warmth and comfort…
My own previous visit there, a couple of years before, had been a bibulous occasion when my then girlfriend, swathed in furs and jewels, had insisted on driving her Mercedes home, (with me as passenger— I had no driving licence then), despite her being (at an educated guess) several times over the drink-drive limit. Terrifying. She nearly turned the very large and heavy car over at least once. Thankfully, at that very late (or early) hour, there was little traffic.
Life can certainly have its ups and downs.
Suffice to say that, though I never had to sleep on park benches or in cardboard boxes in the cold Spring of 1998, those three months with effectively no money were hard going…
Adolf Hitler knew the poorer aspects of pre-WW1 Vienna, and never forgot his experiences there.
People who have never known something of the peaks and troughs of existence are at a disadvantage when it comes to understanding people in higher and lower sections of society.
Alison Chabloz
It has been confirmed that the persecuted singer, songwriter, and satirist, Alison Chabloz, has been released after a total of several months in prison at the instigation of the Jewish/Zionist lobby.
Tweets seen today
Interesting. I had no idea that Keir Starmer was connected directly with the sinister Trilateral Commission [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilateral_Commission]. That certainly makes Starmer’s hostility to, eg, Julian Assange more easily understandable.
I thought twice about reposting that tweet, because I find it hard even to look at the bastards.
Early afternoon music
“Labour” (ZOG) news
German (ZOG) news
The international Jew-Zionist lobby is crowing at the prospect of a 96-y-o German woman being tried and (inevitably soon to be) convicted for having been a typist, at age 18, in a German camp in what is, now, Polish territory or, as the Germans say, “unter polnischer Verwaltung“.
“They” never reach the limits of their desire for “vengeance”, even on someone who was merely a young girl typing in an office.
I was interested to see that comments appended to the (typically pro-Zionist) Daily Mail “report” (propaganda): about 90%, maybe more, of the readers voting were in favour of the persecuted old woman.
So when can we expect 96 y-o American women who were 18-y-o typists at, say, Los Alamos in 1945, to be tried for “facilitating” the attacks at Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Never? Why not?…
…und so weiter…
More afternoon music
Some music I recall from when I lived in Australia aged 10-13 (late 1960s):
Vietnam was a constant; some of the young men in my father’s office had to do tours of duty in Vietnam (by reason of the SEATO Treaty); I recall being introduced to four of them at midnight one hot summer night, on Balmoral Beach (the nearest or easiest beach for my family). In prospect was the likelihood, not very pleasant, that I myself, at age 18 (September 1974), might eventually have to go.
As it happened, though, the war had ended by that time, and my family had anyway returned to the UK by Christmas 1970, so I never did have to track through the jungles of Indo-China.
Another constant of the years 1967-69 in Sydney was the hippie influence (in mainstream and commercialized form). I remember this, from 1967:
More music
Mind control at St. Andrew’s
Other late tweets
“This is going to be the biggest crash in world history. We have never had this much debt pumped up… the debt to GDP ratio is out of sight,” Mr Kiyosaki said.” [MSN Money]
Those who live will see…
Ian Robert Millard 
Re. streetcat named Bob: very touching book. I keep meaning to check out the movies that were made! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai3hleBXRpo. 😁
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Watcher:
Yes. My first thought was always that regular users of heroin and other such drugs should be culled, pro bono publico. However, perhaps that *would* be too harsh and too sweeping. Had that happened to the author of Street Cat Bob, it would have been not only harsh but unjust (and deprived both him and Street Cat Bob himself, and indeed the people as a whole). Mercy is justice that is just not only with respect to the past and present but also to the future. Food for thought…
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Hello Ian: Very good words. When I was young (a long time ago…) I also had similar, cruel thoughts about the homeless or the drug-addicts. My wife and I love animals but we have a special, soft spot for cats.
Incidentally, remembering your comments on the famous gentleman-thief “Raffles” I watched yesterday the 1939 film with David Niven and I realised why it was a flop. It starts very well but the ending is really stupid and ludicrous.
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Claudius:
It is hard to get the Raffles character right. David Niven was too effete, whereas a later portrayal by another Brit actor, Anthony Valentine, was not 19thC-gentleman enough. That balance has to be there: ruthless criminal but with some decent instincts too, and the criminal concealed by a facade that is partly genuine.
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Talking about gentlemen detectives what do you think of Lord Peter Wimsey? I found Ian Carmichael OTT. They made a new version in the late 1980s with Edward Petherbridge and I heard is much better but I have not watched it.
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Claudius:
I recall reading a few of those stories as a child/teenager, so about 50 years ago! Do not remember much. I have seen some 1970s or 1980s TV adaptation, may have been with one of the actors mentioned by you.
In the 1920s through to about 1940s or 1950s, the British liked their detectives, esp. amateurs, to be titled, or at least wealthy!
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Hello Ian: Yes, I have noticed that tendency thanks to two excellent books that taught me a lot about the character of the English people. “The English Gentleman” by Philip Mason (1982) and “The Return to Camelot” by Mark Girouard (1981). Obviously, between, let’s say 1700 and 1950 most Englishmen admired the character and manners of their ruling class (some of them out of ridiculous snobbery for sure). As the ruling class decayed so did the ideals and standards of the people.
It is logical that most Englishmen today revere and admire uncouth, scruffy and vulgar characters, the more vulgar the better. That is cultural bolshevism for you, and let’s not even begin to analyse the self-hatred and guilt for being White and English.
Regards!
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https://twitter.com/ANPI_Scuola/status/1443576163817844749?s=20 Off topic: Italian Mayor who welcomed migrants jailed for aiding illegal migration, yet the Antifa cranks are still defending him! Says it all really! 🤔
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Watcher:
He is probably connected with some form of mafia (people-smugglers). “Off with his head!”, as the Queen in Alice in Wonderland says.
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