Morning music
Tweets seen
Slava!
The sad thing is that, at some point, it might even seem that something as devastating as a nuclear attack on our major cities might not be, ultimately, as entirely negative as we usually think (taking the argument to absurdity, admittedly).
Britain took a very wrong path after about 1975 or so.
A very English political “streetfight”.
I have been lamenting that for almost half a century, and still the stupidity of it grows.
From the newspapers
Some attention-seekers will do anything to be noticed or to get into the newspapers; “Jack Monroe” is not the only one.
I have to admit that I agree with most of that, even if it is from Polly Toynbee.
More tweets
Exactly. The self-describing “Left”, mostly unthinking individuals, tend to believe that they are somehow “against the System”, while gagging to be controlled and ordered by that very matrix. Look at how they all complied, to the letter, with the “Covid” police state “measures”— the facemask nonsense, the movement restrictions, even the ludicrous “Rule of Six” thought up by “Boris”-idiot (though tweeter “ihearthockey29” seems to be American).
Same in the UK.
It has been a long time since I was in the Kremlin (I paid my rouble or two); 1993. On my last visit to Moscow, in 2007, I was too busy talking with boring people to sightsee, though I did walk up to GUM, off Red Square, but GUM, like much of Moscow, had changed out of all recognition.
There has always been a big difference between Moscow and the provinces. Indeed, I was told in the 1980s that if you went even 5 or 10 miles outside Leningrad, as it then was, you could find villages where the houses, or some of the houses, were without running water. They all had electricity, though. After all, Lenin himself had defined socialism as “Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country“.
As to who or what groups are affected by Western sanctions against Russia, I would think (I concede that I have not studied it, and I now have no contacts in Russia) that the effect of the sanctions has been to deprive the most wealthy Russians of opportunities to enjoy themselves in Western capitals and large cities, and resorts. The Russian post-Soviet middle class may have been affected in terms of holidays and career opportunities. I have always been sceptical as to whether the vast mass of Russians is affected at all. They buy domestic food, which is plentiful, domestic vodka and beer (and wine, including Crimean), and do not travel overseas anyway.
More tweets
I cannot quarrel with that.
More from the newspapers
“Benefit sanctions slow down claimants’ progress into work and are likely to force them into taking lower-paying jobs that leave them hundreds of pounds a year worse off, according to an internal report that the government tried to suppress.
The findings of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) report echo a series of independent studies showing sanctions – in effect fines amounting to hundreds of pounds imposed on claimants for supposed infringements of benefit rules – are ineffective as a way of getting people into jobs or to work more hours.
The report is embarrassing for the government, which has aggressively promoted sanctions as part of its plans to force claimants to take a job or work more hours. Completed in August 2020, its release was blocked by the then work and pensions secretary, Thérèse Coffey, on the grounds it was “not in the public interest”.
Experts said it was shocking that the government had clear evidence of the negative effects of sanctions for more than two years and had actively sought to keep the findings under wraps while overseeing a huge rise in the numbers of sanctions on universal credit claimants.“
[Guardian]
My assessment of Therese Coffey from 2019: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/09/16/deadhead-mps-an-occasional-series-the-therese-coffey-story/.
It seems clear to me that the State benefit sanctions regime has nothing to do with incentivizing the unemployed, but is basically political, a way of chucking some red meat to the pleb-Cons, the Mail and Sun readers, whether retired or working for small pay. A contemporary equivalent of the Roman games, with all thumbs pointing down.
Botton Village
Interesting documentary, that I recall seeing in the past; I picked up a VHS video from somewhere:
Late tweets
When I was 28, I belonged to the university Taekwando Group. I was not very good, though I managed to get one level up from the bottom before I was injured by a careless kick, and so cracked, or maybe even fractured, a rib or ribs.
No medical attention was required but for the next 3 months I woke up in pain. Once one rose and started to move, it was OK, though it hurt anew if you laughed, just as in the old saying.
Hard-core or what?!
The French have only very limited free speech, but it is going that way in the UK as well. Why? (((You know who)))…
A complete puppet of Israel, like most U.S. Presidents.
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 
Hello! Lots of interesting posts here today! First of all, a word about that little clip posted by “Spriter” that shows a young, beautiful woman, elegantly dressed at a cafe in what it looks Italy or Spain. The video proves and highlights the abismal fall in standards regarding smartness and decorum in Western society; something that was to be expected as it is part of the relentless assault against Western civilization.
Notice: A) The look of surprise, if not of disgust, in the scruffy zombies passing by. B) The awful aspect of the zombies
As a postscript I will add that the same would happen to a man very smartly dressed. A few months ago, I went downtown and decided to treat myself, therefore I wore a beautiful tweed jacket, a matching silk tie, flannel trousers and gleaming Oxfords. Many people looked at me as if I came out from a spaceship. Of course, I ignored them and enjoyed my outing. Nowadays dressing smartly is almost a revolutionary act and a way of saying to this disgusting society “I hate you and everything you stand for”
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Claudius:
Glad you liked the young lady, an (?) Audrey Hepburn lookalike, perhaps. Tres elegante…
Your picture of Senor (or Senator?) Claudius, striding in his gleaming Oxfords (perhaps polished using Parade Gloss), puts me in mind of the portrayal of Guy Burgess in “An Englishman Abroad”, striding through 1950s Moscow (in fact, filmed in Dundee, Scotland).
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Very funny Ian! Thank you! Unfortunately, the film is not available on YT, although there is an interesting documentary about Guy Burgess
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Claudius:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Englishman_Abroad
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I have just found this very interesting interview (made in 1997) to SS-Obersturmbannführer Fritz Darges, who was Hitler’s adjutant between 19374-39 and 1943-44. He confirmed my impression that Bormann was a hateful creature.
Here is also a biography of Darges, a real war-hero
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Darges
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Claudius:
Thank you. Yes. I have recently been reading the memoirs of Linge, Hitler’s “valet” as the book says, though in fact his job had wider duties than that, and he an SS rank (Obersturmbannfuhrer, equivalent —as you know— to Lt.Col.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Linge
Linge details some of Bormann’s behaviour, and contrasts it unfavourably with that of the other leading figures, particularly Goebbels, who was very popular with all the staff at the Berghof.
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Thank you, Ian! Yes, ir is VERY revealing that NOBODY from Hitler’s inner circle had ever said anything good about Bormann. BTW, I shall start Linge’s book this week (I have dozens of books lined-up to be read, I don’t think I will make it…)
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Claudius:
That publishing house seems to have a number of interesting titles.
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