Morning music
On this day a year ago
BBC “licence fee”
The whole idea that people should pay a compulsory “licence fee” (tax), not even for the BBC as such but for simply owning a TV, is completely unjust and also completely antiquated; I had thought it a hangover from the 1950s or even 1930s, but in fact it was introduced (for radio) in 1923! Here we are, a whole century later, and this nonsense still exists (for TV; the radio version was scrapped around 1980).
What does the BBC offer that is different from, let alone better than, other providers? Most of its drama and other offerings are full of politically-correct and tendentious rubbish, and its news broadcastings are System propaganda as boring as Soviet TV. It pays newsreaders half a million a year, and a loudmouth ignoramus ex-football player (Gary Lineker) as much as two million a year. Why? Why does it do that, and why is the public taxed via this “licence fee” (enforced heavily) for something so poor?
In the past, the BBC might claim, at least with some limited credibility (in the 1960s, 1970s) that it offered an, overall, more elevated cultural level than commercial stations (at the time one a couple existed in the UK, of course). That is now certainly not credible. BBC 2 has been very dumbed down over the years, and the only BBC TV channel on a consistently-high cultural level, BBC Four, is going to be closed within a few years.
The licence fee has to be ended, starting with the criminal-law sanctions. The BBC has to have its rice bowl taken away.
Incidentally, I had a now-deceased friend, the Russian language and literature lecturer and translator, and Dostoyevsky expert, Ig Avsey (a good fellow, about whom I have blogged a couple of times), who had a long-running battle with the TV licensing nuisances.
In fact, Ig was a genuine non-licence-needer, in that he actually did have no TV in his house, though he had one in a garden shed, which TV he used solely to watch obscure Russian films and other material, such as Smoktunovsky’s famous “Gamlet” [Hamlet]. I have no idea why the TV was in the shed and not the house. Ig was a considerable eccentric.
After it was realized that Ig had never had a licence, a long correspondence with the licence-enforcers ensued, which lasted for something like 20 years or longer, but he never paid for a “licence”, and (in law) never had to (as far as I know, that TV was not able to receive broadcasts at all).
This whole nonsense of a “licence fee” is just ludicrously out of date.
Tweets seen
Is that true? I do not know.
cf. the constant push to get blacks and browns into the English countryside, either as visitors or as actual residents.
Helicopter. Ocean. Endex.
More seriously (?), these untermenschen are a total millstone round the necks of our society, which will be unable to progress until it rids itself of them.
Seems to be a trial of strength rather than a fight for somewhere with huge strategic value, unless I have missed something. The Daily Telegraph video shows something closer to the trenches of the First World War than anything else.
The situation in the Bakhmut (former Artyomovsk) area seems unclear. Perhaps the forces of the Kiev regime are fighting there so as not to have to fight for more important places further north or west.
Moldova is not far from being a “failed state” (just like Ukraine).
Ha. Makes me wonder whether the Russian Army should have driven west rather than south…(only joking).
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the current conflict, the fact is that, historically, the Russian people, at their best, have been on a far far higher cultural level than those of Ukraine. You only have to think of the great composers, writers, poets etc.
Neither side in the conflict will negotiate over Crimea, but only fight for it. The population of Crimea is at least 90% Russian, as matters stand.
If Ukrainian (Kiev-regime) forces actually attack Crimea, I think that Kharkov, and possibly Kiev, will face attack on a large scale, and even nuclear annihilation.
“Jack Monroe”
I notice that the “Bootstrap Cook” is losing Patreon donors. As of today, “only” 483 sending her between £3.30 and £44 a month, compared to 502 donors (utter mugs) a week ago. If this keeps up, she may eventually have to genuinely live on small amounts of money. Not yet though— 483 donors still means a monthly income, possibly taxfree, of between £1,690 and £21,252 from that source alone.
More tweets
Lavrov reminds me of the affluent pre-revolutionary Russian gentry, of whom an old peasant said to Gorky, on a passenger steamer going down one of Russia’s wide rivers, “like billiard balls they are, always travelling, rolling here and there over the Earth” [Gorky, Literary Portraits].
More music
Environmental vandalism at Wellingborough, Northamptonshire
Hard to believe that that kind of environmental vandalism is still fairly common. It may be that, as with dealing with the migration invasion, or MP thieves, the law has its limits…
From the newspapers
“The study by the photo agency Shutterstock and reported by The Times found half of marketing departments had increased their use of racially diverse pictures over the previous year and a third increased their use of gay couples.
The overwhelming majority that used images of gay couples or ‘non-traditional’ families said they did so *even if it did not fit with their brand*.
Half said they were using fewer white people because they no longer represented ‘modern society’.“
[Daily Mail]
Once again, the “conspiracy theorists” are proven correct.
Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan. The Great Reset. The Great Replacement. White Genocide…
Late tweets
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 
Hello! Many things to comment on:
1) Who gives a f… about that disgusting Jewish colony called “Germany” and her pathetic “army”? Anyway, who would attack Germany? (LOL)
2) That Ukrainian POS teaching his son to hate the Russians is a perfect, and awful, example of how easy is to brainwash people, particularly those with tiny brains.
3) The ecological murder perpetrated at Wellingborough by the f… local council and their hateful goons (a.k.a. “the Police”) has left me speechless. You know what I would have done if I had some armed people with me, don’t you? (LOL) Yes. I know, I am a blood thirsty Italian… (LOL)
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Claudius:
The Wellingborough vandalism is typical, in that such damage is usually perpetrated by private interests, but where not, by local councils. In this case, by both.
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I forgot! Here is an excellent interactive map of the Russian-Ukranian front that is updated every 24 hours:
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/36a7f6a6f5a9448496de641cf64bd375
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Claudius:
Thank you. I have bookmarked that. Of course, such detail does emphasise the bogged-down nature of the conflict. Only some oblique or big move will break that, unless the Russian forces can launch a steamroller offensive with a much larger army.
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Here is an interesting assessment of the military situation by an American military think-tank. “Use it with caution” (LOL)
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-26-2023
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Claudius:
Thank you. That does seem plausible.
It occurs to me that, unless the frontline Russian Army can be boosted to about twice its present size (and properly equipped and trained), the only source of effective fighting troops to bolster the Russian Army would lie to the east, in China. Were China to send armies west, fresh troops with massive armament, *that* would ensure victory east of the Dnieper, and possibly over all of the Ukraine.
The problem that such a deployment would give the Putin —or any— Russian government, though, would be that such a deployment would effectively make Russia a vassal state to China, dependent on Chinese arms and men.
For me, the problem would be that I could not countenance non-Europeans ruling over Europeans, in a large area of Europe itself at that.
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