Well, this week a modest 6/10. Still enough, however, to beat political journalist John Rentoul, who scored 4/10.
I did not know the answers to questions 4, 6, 8, and 10. I should have known question no. 4 too, having been there as a child and I think maybe even having been on that canal.
Pseudo-liberal scribbler wants less freedom of expression online. Was there ever an era in which so many self-describing “journalists”, “creatives” and, indeed, “radicals”, wanted not more free speech but less?
Sic transit gloria mundi… Paul Johnson, almost if not actually obscure to the public of 2023, was a major political, or socio-political, voice in the 1980s, 1970s, and indeed 1960s. I can recall seeing him on TV in the early 1970s, sternly extolling the potential virtue of having a State-controlled or subsidized newspaper which would be such a newspaper of record that it would only print the unvarnished truth of what had happened in the world. As people say, “good luck with that“… That TV chat was, of course, some years before Johnson turned away from socialism, and embraced Thatcherism.
I heard little of Paul Johnson in the 1990s, and his star faded (in the public eye) to the extent that I was actually surprised, some years ago, to discover that he was still alive.
The type of person who thinks his own views terribly important, to the extent that at least some others in the msm or System politics also think him important for a while, more important than he really is. Still, a prolific author, and certainly someone who influenced the uplands of British thought, though not the views of the man-in-the-street, for several decades.
It could be said that the meaning of the words “Simon Danczuk” is “disgraceful“.
Rassenschande…
How much did the freeloading bastard get from the Daily Mail? He was always in the pocket of the Jewish lobby, so I expect that he gets a few crumbs thrown to him.
Incidentally, the bastard is ten years younger than me but looks ten years older. His life and lifestyle have caught up with him.
At least his godawful ex-wife, Karen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Danczuk, is now forced to read about him while sitting on the dole in depressing Manchester. Thank God she failed to follow Danczuk into the Westminster monkeyhouse (which seemed quite likely at one point).
On the facts, certainly murder, not manslaughter. The jury must have been idiots. How was that not “intending to kill or to cause really serious injury [the victim then dying as a result]”?
Incidentally, I was just watching a 1970s episode of Crown Court, the facts of the case revolving around an overworked and slightly disorganized Accident and Emergency department of an NHS hospital. Plus ca change?
I blogged recently about how I refused the “vaccines” for “Covid”, and —despite a now rather unhealthy and sedentary overall lifestyle— am still fine, whereas my two brothers in the UK and Australia, lifelong sports and golf players, were both “vaccinated” and “boosted”, and both (in the same week last year) had to be taken as emergency cases to hospital, having had heart attacks (btw, both now OK after having had heart by-pass operations).
Co-incidence? Karma? Or what? I know what I think.
This is an old Israeli strategy. Hired photo shoots, hot girls playing pretend, young men suddenly interested in signing up.
“The Harry Formerly Known as Prince” and “Meghan Mulatta”. What a bad joke it all is.
I wonder if I spend money in my work's business account and then simply go "oops I'm a chaos" whether my boss would simply ruffle my hair and go duh, what are you like or report me to the police? #jackmonroe#griftykitchenpic.twitter.com/0nIPi81xZe
I see Jack Monroe is off her tits being an absolute wanker on Twitter again. If only she had the time to sort out Patreon or promote her absolutely bombing book #ThriftyKitchen#griftykitchen#jackmonroetips
Whilst your doing that can I politely ask you to process my patreon refund of £50 ( I have emailed you twice , regarding not receiving anything from you . I was a patreon subscriber from Jan 22 to May 22 last email I told I would have to go to the small claims court otherwise ). pic.twitter.com/ZpAzHfuI6b
Here we go again, Jack Monroe threatening someone (who called her a grifter) yawn. Wonder if she’s feeling nasally today? ❄️ pic.twitter.com/1MP70cZCBa
As yet, and as far as I know, the Jew-Zionist self-publicizer and resident of Israel, Mark Lewis, who was her solicitor on a previous occasion years ago, has not come out of his kennel in recent months to defend the “Bootstrap Cook”.
“Jack Monroe” was threatening to sue Con Party MP, Lee Anderson, in May 2022, and all her friends in the newspapers were writing about it, but since then it has transpired that not only has she not taken even the first steps to suing Anderson, but that she launched a crowdfunder in May 2022, and raised money on that basis to sue Anderson (and the commentator Martin Daubney), but has kept those monies for her own use, as far as can be seen.
The police should be investigating “Jack Monroe” on suspicion of having committed fraud.
Another idea struck me.
“Jack Monroe” lives in Essex, in the Southend area. Her father is a rentier who rents out a number of houses there. He was, I read, once a fairly high-ranking member of the fire brigade there, and also holds an MBE. He may (I do not know) be a freemason, as also are so many responsible officers of the police. Is that a factor in “Jack Monroe” not being (as it at least seems) properly investigated? Again, I cannot say, either way.
I'll raise you a retweet of a retweet. Eagerly awaiting a visit from the Essex Celebrity Twitter Police Squad (another proven Jack Monroe lie thanks to Freedom of Information Act queries).
Or maybe “Jack Monroe” is just not a “celebrity” any more, and so the non-existent “Essex Police Celebrity VIP Twitter Squad” can no longer give her special attention (as “victim” of the emerging truth)? (Only taking the joke further…).
I, on the other hand, find it odd how so many of the remaining hardcore “Jack Monroe” supporters are zealous supporters also of the present inflated nonsense around “LGBTQXYZ”.
I still remain interested as to why there are, as it certainly seems, no young or even young-ish (say under-30, under-40) “Jack Monroe” supporters, and no ethnic minority supporters either, with the exception of a handful of Greek Cypriots I have noticed on Twitter (she herself is half-Greek Cypriot, her original name having been Melissa Hadjicostas).
I have previously suggested a couple of reasons why no ethnic minority people seem to support the “Bootstrap Cook”, one being that many of them know real poverty only too well to accept her nonsense, and the other being that few of them would look at the food of “Bootstrap Cook” with anything other than contempt.
There may be other reasons.
Unbelievably, there are, as of today, 634 utter mugs still sending between £3.50 and £44 a month each to “Jack Monroe”. No wonder she can spend money like a drunken sailor! The puzzle is why so many apparently crazed virtue-signallers want to enable it.
Having your lawyer send a strong letter and actually opening proceedings are very different. Come on Jack – listen to yourself. You’re clearly twisting your noodle to keep all the lies straight.
In any case, “her lawyer” (if any) has not sent a letter (whether “strong“, not so strong, or apocalyptic and written in Hebrew on stone tablets) to Con Party MP Lee Anderson.
Another day, another “Jack Monroe” lie…
Hello. I support you and last year I support ms monroe by paying for a subs to patreon account. After 5 months of not receiving promised meal card recipes or well just anything I had to cancel my subs. I am yet to receive a refund and am yet to see any Comms about this
Oh, okay. Just because YOU haven't seen it, you continue the abuse. Got it. Here's a novel idea. Why not e-mail Jack at the given e-mail address so, you know, to get it sorted?
Hard to see in the screenshot but that blue icon is all the unread messages in her Patreon.
Everything is ignored.
Jack responds to refund requests when someone mentions it on anothers blue tick feed. But then it goes nowhere. It's just for show. pic.twitter.com/VKZwoVLVOu
“Jack Monroe” is, or has become, a fraudster, basically (and far worse than I thought when I assessed her on the blog at the end of September 2022). Having said that, the non-practising doctor tweeting in support of her, Julia Grace Patterson, is not much better.
I don't think reading it would make a difference to her most die hard fans. They'd either think it was lies, despite it being mostly her own words; or they'd make excuses for her. Look at her laughingly admitting sponging money and wasting it, they still don't get it.
We are in a cost of living crisis. What is #bootstrapcook Jack Monroe tweeting about. The cost of food, utilities, signposting people to help support numbers places they can get real change. Oh tweeting about herself as usual. Also choosing to sleep on a settee for no reason.
The flow of migration-invasion would be curbed if either a. the boats were destroyed in the Channel, along with the invaders; or b. the invaders simply disappeared after reaching the UK, never to be heard of again. Either of those measures would deter others from trying to invade.
The @RNLI have completely ruined an exemplary historical reputation. In two years you have sent your reputation down the drain. I don’t suppose you need donations as you are now government funded? Which is fortunate because many U.K. citizens will no longer be donating.
I was thinking today I feel like everybody is just killing time now. I go to work, I go into the town (rarely), I go to the grocery shop, and it feels like everybody is just going through the motions and has really stopped trying or giving a shit about anything.
Can you imagine what the remains of our culture and civilization would look like (and will, unless we take charge soon) if only blacks and mixed-race half-castes were to exist? Think Mogadishu, Haiti, most of Africa, but on a larger urban scale. Just the remains of civilization and greatness, half-reduced to rubble, and the untermenschen crawling over the ruins.
We know who's killing black people, and it has nothing to do with 'white supremacy'. These signs exist only to push antiwhite hatred. pic.twitter.com/GH4myViUZi
How this woman is still employed by @UniKent is a complete mystery. She constantly brings them into disrepute by her appalling language & aggression. Hopefully they will take action as she is clearly in breach of their SM policy.
The whole long thread about Serebriakova is rather interesting. A feeling of Doctor Zhivago about it.
Starting in 1853, Haussman was given free rein by Napoleon to redesign and rebuild Paris.
The core of this urban plan was a system of wide boulevards radiating out from the Arc de Triomphe, intercut by streets and squares, bringing light and better transport to the city. pic.twitter.com/uiZ8wcyzF3
Napoleon, inspired by London, wanted to fill Paris with public parks.
Haussmann created the Bois de Boulogne in the west, the Bois de Vincennes in the east, the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont in the north, and the Parc Montsouris in the south.
There's even something to be said for the way artists once depicted mythological heroes time and time again, given their fame and the demand for such art, and how the same heroes and characters are portrayed so frequently on the silver screen. pic.twitter.com/9yqy59ptO1
She doesn't have a "mother in law". Anyway it's her own fault for plastering her son all over the papers and breadcrumbing enough info to reveal his dad's name, thus making the whole family searchable.
The tweet went the same way as that “Bootstrap Cook” blog post which claimed that she had been “waved through” the police cordon at Grenfell Tower in West London, and (armed with the “building plans“, no less!) more or less took over the rescue etc.
Remarkable for someone who was not, at the time employed by any fire service, or any other emergency service, and who lived about 60 miles from the fire— in Essex, where (for a year or so) she had answered the telephone at a call centre for the Essex fire brigade.
How could she have had the “building plans” for Grenfell Tower? Simply impossible.
That blog post was a remarkable exercise both in fantasy writing, and in trying to create an entirely false story. Some of her fans actually believed it, incredibly.
It emphasizes the psychological (narcissistic) need “Jack Monroe” has for placing herself centre stage. The big story of the time was the Grenfell Tower fire, but that happened 60 miles from Southend, and there was no nexus at all between it and “Jack Monroe”, so she simply invented a scenario in which she was right at the centre of events— striding purposefully through the police cordon to take charge of the emergency. Ludicrous, but some people believed it.
I agree. While one does not expect the editor of The Grocer, Best magazine, or even the Metro, to be particularly aware or intelligent, what can be the excuse of the editors of the Guardian and the Observer?
As blogged before, though, I would be surprised if the msm kept on, for very much longer, promoting the nonsense of the “Bootstrap Cook”, despite her numerous “personal connections” etc.
More tweets
Please read; the most important piece I've written. Mass poisoning has suddenly killed off most sea life for 30 miles by the Tees. The govt claims it's natural; ind scientists warn it's manmade. The govt is desperate not to inquire too deeply as its freeport policy is at stake.
“An obscure company has handed more than £340,000 to three senior Labour figures.
Analysis of political funding has revealed that MPM Connect Ltd has been the third-biggest donor to MPs since the general election.
It has given £183,317 to shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, £100,000 to former South Yorkshire mayor Dan Jarvis and £60,000 to health spokesman Wes Streeting.“
'People were dying with flu between 2020 and 2021, but they were being labelled as Covid…when are they going to talk about the excess deaths?'@thecoastguy discusses whether the establishment are weaponising common illnesses to try and control us. pic.twitter.com/sxYk9xeNjT
Oxford is now emerging as a UK centre of resistance against draconian schemes (also coming to cities) that would force residents and visitors to obtain council permission / permits to drive along the city's main roads. Hundreds have turned out to start the fightback. pic.twitter.com/5NW6IbEbwT
I have been fighting the corruption of science for years now, starting when I realized that early treatment against C-19 was suppressed globally. Battling the rot at the core of the medical sciences has become my life's work. https://t.co/mB28GwJbbv
How many billions of single use face masks ended up in our oceans and landfill – thrown there by the same people who pretend to care about the environment… 😐😷🐋
Not that I disagree with him about Sunak’s “study maths until age 18” nonsense. The most important thing in that regard is to drill very basic maths (multiplication, subtraction, division) into pupils aged 7 or so. I constantly meet young and not so young cashiers at Waitrose who literally cannot work out how many lottery tickets are necessary for X-number of lines at Y-number per ticket. Some have to use a calculator!
Of course, “@TheFreds” are quite right: changing the colour of the deck chairs on the Titanic changes nothing but the scenery.
Because it's pathological. To see people presented with the lies and still say she's the victim of trolls is absurd. Some people won't accept the truth when it's staring at them, it's sad really that people prop up the lies.
Serious pathological/psychological condition, I think.
I posed the question weeks, and I think even months, ago as to whether “Jack Monroe” sometimes makes up things and rolls out a pack of lies almost daring people to accuse her of lying, as in (to take a few examples only) that she was “on the game” (prostitution) in Essex (by reason of impecuniosity), that she attended the Grenfell Tower fire (60+ miles from where she lives), was “waved through the police cordon” (oh yes, the police would really allow a stray interfering rubbernecker to go through…) and even had plans of the building (why would she? How could she?).
The “Bootstrap Cook” said that she was so poor that she had to sell her small son’s toy dinosaur, that she had to take out lightbulbs in order not to waste electricity, and that she had to boil soap to make shower gel (which does not even stack up logically, when 90p shower gel lasts for 1-3 weeks with daily use, and when boiling soap costs money in itself; and why not just use the soap instead of trying to make gel out of it?). Ludicrous.
On several occasions, I have been certain in my own mind that her lies must amount to her thinking “surely the sad bastards won’t buy this one?!“, and then they (those who defend her to the marrow) do buy whatever absolute crap she comes out with at any given moment; while also (631 utter mugs as of today) each sending her between £3.50 and £44 a month!
In other words, at times she is certainly, in the well-known phrase, “having a laugh”, a laugh at the expense of the mugs subsidizing her and the others promoting her, the latter including Nigella Lawson, at least a couple of Labour MPs, and of course the media rats from the Guardian, Observer, BBC and Channel 4.
I think that “Jack Monroe” lies mainly because she enjoys inventing a fake or 90% fake narrative, and because she enjoys making absolute mugs out of those who not only defend her as a supposed —if risible— “champion of the poor” but who also send money to her!
She herself has said recently that her basic lifestyle, inc. rent, utilities, food, adds up to about £4,000 a month. The 631 utter mugs subsidizing her are anyway sending more than that (I am guessing about £6,000 but it may be more) each month.
I have no idea who that particular mug is, nor whether his/her problem is a mental illness or just plain everyday stupidity, but imagine taking money off someone like that on the false promise/threat that Con Party MP, Lee Anderson, was going to be sued for stating, entirely truthfully, something along the lines of the assertion that “Jack Monroe” is basically a fraud (at very least, a “grifter”) “living off the backs of the poor“, which is exactly what she is and does.
It is obvious that “Jack Monroe” is not going to sue Lee Anderson and/or Martin Daubney, though she has hinted at “things going on behind the scenes etc”.
Rubbish. Technically, she has 3-4 months left before the one-year limitation applies, but Lee Anderson has apparently not even received any letter before action.
It’s another “Jack Monroe” lie, in other words.
I think that “Jack Monroe” has one main intent, which is to be the centre of attention. Nothing else. I believe, rightly or wrongly, that even the money she gets from mugs etc. is very secondary to that central narcissism.
Incidentally, the “media folk” are still promoting her— there are a couple of articles even today in the Metro newspaper, giving “tips” and a recipe, and no mention of the scandal(s).
Afternoon music
[Ava Gardner in Pandora and the Flying Dutchman]
Strange to see: I was just reading about Ava Gardner [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ava_Gardner] and saw that she died in 1990, aged 67, at at her home in Ennismore Gardens, Kensington (London), near Kensington Gardens, where she had lived since 1968. I never knew. Had I thought of it at all, I probably would have assumed that she lived in either California or New York City.
I have only been to that exact place once, I think; in the very early 1980s, with someone escorting the then Metropolitan of Kiev (a kind of Russian Orthodox archbishop, the second-highest prelate of that church) who was then visiting London. The Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Dormition is at the end of a kind of hidden-away cul de sac there. We dropped him there, and were invited in (no-one else was around, as far as I can recall). The Metropolitan kindly gave me a bottle of Moskovskaya vodka.
Winner of the first "chinny reckon, that never happened" award of the year goes to Jack Monroe who thinks you get bookings by being unmasked as a fraud, exposed as lying in the press with 6 negative articles in a matter of days, a flopped book launch, and dropped by an agent. pic.twitter.com/zwIdcNORil
In other words, only 1 person out of every 235 is on the side of “Jack Monroe” and her tweet.
Most supporters of the “Bootstrap Cook” effectively say, on the larger scale, “let’s bin the Tories. Once ‘Labour’ are in government, everything will be fine, or start to be fine“…
Does anyone with any sense actually believe that? The migration-invasion (both across the Channel and otherwise) will continue unchanged in numbers, and Rachel Reeves and her fellow Labour Friends of Israel MPs will be even harder on the unemployed, disabled etc than the fake “Conservatives” have been— she said so expressly.
In a binary political system, and one where both main System parties are really almost identical, you cannot change things very much by squashing one party at some election or other, because the other one is thereby strengthened, and the “Deep State” policies continue largely unchanged.
It would appear Tom doesn’t like questions or people pointing out he has deleted tweets. pic.twitter.com/yPbNbPTl9y
That Tom Doorley person is an Irish restaurant critic, who has been oddly biased in favour of the “Bootstrap Cook” for some time; see also https://www.tomdoorley.com/about.
Harry on Rebekah Brooks “an infected pustule on the arse of humanity, plus a shit excuse for a journalist.” Thats a pint in the pump for him. Well said son. pic.twitter.com/RMKnXz4qub
Ha. Well, there it is. For once I have to agree with “The Harry Formerly Known as Prince”!
More tweets
NEW: The far right group Patriotic Alternative Scotland is the subject of a counter-terrorism strategy involving the Scottish Government, The Ferret can reveal. https://t.co/1wpNEnPgkV
Unfortunately, despite being a lecturer, @ItsFreyaVass is only capable of responding to discussion through the medium of Gif. I suspect it's because she doesn't have a strong argument in defence of Jack Monroe's recent admissions.
It’s fine, she clearly thinks she has enough money to never have to feel like this and so is feeling smug. I hope she never has to deal with a sudden and disabling illness that takes away everything she has, like we had.
I just glad the uni I went to had a better class of caring staff and lecturers. I visited yesterday for something and it’s still a very special place to study and be supported.
You’re a very deeply troubled woman, you might want to take your employer off your profile as it really reflects badly on them. Harassing struggling people online isn’t a good look for anyone, let alone someone teaching others.
Even the authorities admit German cities on New Year's Eve were like "civil war". But the best they can do is propose a ban on fireworks. Given the vast amounts of real weapons leaking onto the black market from corrupt Ukraine, worse is to come. #Enochhttps://t.co/nOvhCVjXeZ
I myself am at present disinclined to bother with having my Twitter account reinstated (it having been “suspended” quasi-permanently after a pack of malicious Jews conspired to make a mass complaint in 2018).
There does not seem much else to say, but the backwash from the storm continues.
“Jack Monroe” herself has gone for the main chance, meaning a general “I’m sort-of sorry but will not/cannot refund anyone“, combined with a plea consisting of “I’m not really guilty of anything, because I am sort-of mentally-disturbed, ex-alcoholic, maybe ex-cocaine abuser, with a huge number of physical and mental problems (self-diagnosed autistic, ADHD, arthritic etc), as well as sort-of lesbian, sort-of ‘trans’, sort-of single mother, as well as a ‘shopaholic’, and anyway have spent all the money I took from people [cheated out of well-meaning mugs]”.
I suppose that the hard-core “Jack Monroe” fans will buy all or some of that, and that the 600+ utter mugs funding her lifestyle via the Patreon website will very likely continue to do that, even as she openly mocks them.
I was surprised about several aspects of the piece…I don’t represent the views of the department, but having worked at the Guardian myself – and often enjoyed your writing – I’d love to know where you were coming from with the pub, the meal, the timeline, the pennies, etc.
I tell you what I am shocked by – the constant pile on by people who probably haven't lifted a finger to help the poorest and most disadvantaged in our society.
Tweeter “@cashandcarrots” is another one who seems to believe that “Jack Monroe” has done things that “help the poorest and most disadvantaged in society” rather than nothing except help herself (literally).
I used to work at a charity that did rehabilitation for people with drug and alcohol issues and also extensive work with people who had a huge variety of mental health needs.
*Despite* all of those, look at what Jack Monroe has achieved and done. Could you have done it?
“@cashandcarrots””Michelle” really cannot accept that she and others have been conned by a cunning and manipulative woman entirely out for herself. Even has to pretend that one of the staunchest critics of “Jack Monroe”, “@TruthSignalUK” is somehow part of a [non-existent] “trolling” conspiracy (why would he be, though?).
Tons which is why I know so much about her and foodbanks. I don't have emotions about it. Just objectives that require clearing out enablers who hopefully we're not brought up to assist grifts.
This really isn't a case of 'burn the witch', Monroe has had ample time to deliver on her promises. Instead, she tells lie after lie, gas-lights ppl asking questions and monsters those who call her out.
That Bleasdale person tweets all sorts of rubbish. His tweet about the “Bootstrap Cook” is a good example of entirely false logic, i.e. presenting a false choice.
“Relentless advocacy for people on the breadline“? Not really. She mostly tweets and sends other online messages about herself, mixed with a bit of typical Twitter “I hate the Tories” stuff (I feel similarly about the “Conservatives”, to put it simplistically; but I also “hate” the “Labour” hypocrites). “Jack Monroe” also constantly messages or tweets with a subtext of “please send me money“.
Weird isn’t it? That’s the legacy of social media. Everyone HAS to take a side on every single issue. It’s a bit pathetic really.
That’s what i mean. Most people on here can’t see past their own “side” I too am left of center and loathe the Tories; but that doesn’t change the fact that Monroe is a middle class rich girl cosplaying poor for her own financial gain
I wonder whether the loonies and mugs sending money regularly to “Jack Monroe” will ever wake up to the fact that she despises them and mocks them?
As for the “Bootstrap Cook” herself, what are her talents? Not cooking, that’s for sure, looking at the swill that seems to be the bulk of her cuisine.
Paul, you kinda miss the point. Yes she has done good previously- no doubt. But that has now turned into a grift. She doesn't care about the 600+ who gave her money every month, whilst she was getting drunk and spending £1200 on furniture she didn't want or need
There is nothing wrong with being well-meaning, as tweeter “@PaulOnBooks” seems to be, but that has to go in tandem with an objective outlook. We are enjoined to be “as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves“. Both.
Grifter gets royally rumbled, confirming everything we suspected. Grifter’s cultists still won’t accept it and make up increasingly embarrassing excuses for said grifter.
It's quite remarkable how all these traits function as a handy excuse for actions which impact negatively on others, but directly benefit her, isn't it?
— Hagatha Christie – THEE MRWTT (@EmmaElizaCrouc1) January 8, 2023
So, as a doctor, what is your take on the truthfulness (or otherwise) of Jack claiming to have been drinking a bottle and a half of whiskey AND popping 40 tramadols a day at the same time?
Good advice is never, or only very rarely, to trust a medical doctor who is primarily a socio-political activist.
If I were asking whether it was theoretically plausible for someone to drink, I don’t know, 20 bottles of whisky a day, or something equally absurd – would the same apply?
That Wonky account was tweeting me in defence of JM for ages at 4am the other night. The next morning JM is tweeting about having been up at 4am stressing out. It did seem weird.
“Jack Monroe” has a number, perhaps a large number, of Twitter “sock accounts”, many of which tweet “supportive” messages to her main account. Her level of dishonesty is incredible.
Was claiming a bottle and a half of whisky a day and 40 tramadol your idea too? Anyone with an ounce of sense knows this is just another one of your fantasies. Your problem isn’t addiction it’s delusions.
I never gave Jack Monroe any money, but I was taken in by her for a while. There were always some red flags – for me, mostly that her recipes didn't consider time costs. And it was hard to believe that her loving middle class family wouldn't help her at all. https://t.co/REsKIIGYPd
It’s a tragic irony that Christopher would most likely have taken his lead from the likes of Dawkins and Sam Harris and got the last three years completely wrong. https://t.co/3JQPo1xbXG
By the way, the journalist who attacked me for trying to share the evidence back then is the same disgraceful idiot who wrote the article in today's paper.
For those of you who can't read the article, it's a gushing torrent of dangerous, Bill Gates-sponsored nonsense about benefits still outweighing risks and myocarditis being a common symptom of 'Covid'. @sarahknapton is an absolute embarrassment to journalism, science and ethics.
They have been forced to print 50pct of the truth 2 years later as every man and his dog knows about the carnage that these shots are causing. The latest excess data showing accelerating damage may have triggered this pathetic little article.
This is a long interview with me but it covers a lot of ground and I explain in some detail why I've taken the stance that I have. As well as laying out where I think this is all going. Very nicely put together by the delightful @PlanetUplifthttps://t.co/qm8uxbEoGe
Argentina is a lovely, exciting country with a bad political history. These two — Evita & Juan Perón, commemorated here in Ushuaia, — helped it on its way down economically. In 1900 Argentina was richer than Australia or Sweden. Now its economy is smaller than Ireland’s. pic.twitter.com/TO3fwbB0mM
Whatever one may think of Peron and his wives, the fact is that political leadership is only one factor, albeit perhaps the most important, in whether a country is rich or poor (either overall as a country and notionally per capita, or in terms of how much that wealth is actually spread among the population).
Argentina was once a very wealthy country, certainly. Uruguay too. In fact, right up to the 1950s, Uruguay was one of the most prosperous countries in the world. A number of factors changed that.
There again, between 1918 and 1939, Estonia, Latvia and Czechoslovakia were very prosperous, and the citizens were, per head, much better off than the average of those in, say, the UK, France, or most other states. That changed mainly though not solely because of political changes and invasions, notably the Second World War and Soviet invasion (1940, and later 1944, in the case of the Pribaltika states; 1945 in the case of Czechoslovakia), Germany having also effectively occupied them during most of the war years.
Cuba was, economically, once a vibrant economy, albeit suffused with corruption and inequality. Castro’s socialist regime killed the economy. His decision to replace mixed farming with, mostly, a sugar monoculture (in the 1960s) worked up to a point, so long as the Soviet Union paid over the odds for sugar (and whatever else Cuba could export) but resulted in total collapse when the hidden subsidy was removed in the early 1990s.
Likewise, Cuba’s socialist experiment resulted in an end to development in the residential housing sector. Today, Havana and much of Cuba is falling to pieces, and people try to grow their own food if they can.
Some people say that the Cuban system is good re. medicine and education. “Education” in the basic sense perhaps, though obviously rigid in terms of what can and cannot be taught. As to medicine, perhaps so, again in a basic way, though.
The question is whether the supposed advantages of such a system are enough to compensate, both for the poor economy largely the result of that system and also for the harshness of the system politically and in terms of civil rights.
Russia before 1914 was arguably the fastest-growing economy in the world. War (lost war) and then civil war and political upheavals, followed by the socialist system —especially under Stalin from about 1928— weakened, and also distorted the economy. Collectivization, prioritization of heavy industry etc.
I recall reading the memoirs of the self-publicizing Jew Armand Hammer [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armand_Hammer]; Hammer— Witness to History. He operated businesses in agreement with the Soviet Government during the 1920s, including a concession to produce pencils.
Hammer discovered that the best pencils were produced in Bavaria. He imported to Moscow both machines and German technicians.
On returning to the Soviet Union in the 1970s or 1980s (I forget; 1970s, I think), Hammer was taken to the pencil factory, still operating. He discovered that nothing had changed: the machines were still working, a few of the original workers, now in their sixties, were still there; even his own old desk was standing unchanged in the same place.
An example of the lack of dynamic change in a socialist system.
Having said that, that same system put the first satellite into space, and created some products and programmes not seen even in the finance-capitalist West. Priorities? As Goering said in the 1930s, “Guns before butter“. That is, of course, a political choice.
Political direction is the single most important factor governing the prosperity of a country, but there are others. Where would the oil states of the Middle East be without demand for oil (and gas)? Back riding camels, almost certainly.
In their case, they have money in vast amounts despite their political and religious backwardness. There again, Europeans (and Americans, who are basically European in origin) discovered the oil and gas, extracted it, knew how to refine it, and also exported it to European and other markets. The Arabs only profited because they were there, and because they were on the cusp of the two contending Cold War cultures, neither part of the Soviet world nor the Western world.
Perhaps the best way to put it is that political leadership can assist an economy but cannot create it, whereas the wrong political direction can certainly ruin an economy, especially if that direction is too rigid. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_threefolding.
Peak Twitter? Some “IT bod” from darkest Northamptonshire, one James Drury, tries to trash food blogger Andy Lynes, who is, inter alia, a Masterchef semi-finalist…
Exactly. Families living in conditions so poor that their homes are literally killing them really aren't going to be sawing up tin cans in order to make egg rings. What even is an egg ring anyway?
— Mad, bad, and angry of Mayfair. (@Vanessa17253550) January 8, 2023
Please don’t slur autistic people by suggesting we are so useless and unreliable that we would happily defraud people and gigglingly spend every penny on “whatever”. There are enough negative stereotypes about us, thanks.
If you’re useless with money then maybe you’re just ‘useless with money’. Not every single personality trait can be attributed to having a developmental condition. Jack pathologically avoids taking responsibility by doing this.
Excellent point!! That The Poors need to be 'thrifty' while Jack Monroe is buying multiple £300 sideboards really shouldn't be lost on people! She's promoted by media as one of answers during 'cost of living' crisis but readily admits she can't manage money. Outrageous really.
Definitely. Yes! She's a media creation who became an austerity celebrity during economic crisis. How and why is what I'm interested in. (My interest in her is the bizarre use of Twitter to say 'fuck you' etc when people's concerns have been proved right. Grim soap opera.)
So “Jack Monroe” cannot, by her own admission (or claim) “manage money”, she cannot cook (as far as I can see), certainly not to any kind of professional standard, and she has cheated hundreds, probably thousands, of people out of money that many can ill-afford to lose, yet the msm is still promoting her! As someone who can advise “the poor”, at that! Why?
“Germany and the US will send armoured fighting vehicles to Ukraine, the White House said, in a move that will deliver a big boost to Kyiv’s offensive capabilities.”
“Joe Biden and his German counterpart Olaf Scholz have agreed to send infantry fighting vehicles to help Ukraine fight Russia, a day after France said it would supply its own armoured vehicles to Kyiv in an attempt to create a breakthrough in the 10-month war.
The joint announcement followed a phone call between Biden and Scholz and amounts to a step change in western military support for Ukraine, which has asked for up to 700 armoured vehicles to help force the Russians out.
Ukraine has repeatedly said it needs 600 to 700 infantry fighting vehicles plus 300 tanks from from the west in order to give its military a chance of breaking through the increasingly fortified Russian positions along the frontline.
Until now, however, the US and Germany have been wary of supplying Ukraine with Nato-standard armour, because they feared it would be interpreted by Russia as escalatory. But the decision to supply western armoured vehicles is significant, even if both countries stopped short of sending tanks.“
[The Guardian].
At what point does Russia decide that it has no choice but to use massive force (nuclear or conventional) to raze Kiev and Kharkov to the ground, so that the area of Ukraine east of the Dnieper (about a third to half of Ukraine) can be later rebuilt, and occupied by Russian settlers?
That may sound almost impossible but is actually similar, arguably,to what happened centuries ago when the Cossacks were formed as a group, or connected groups, around the various rivers in southern Russia and Ukraine— Don Cossacks, Zaporozhye Cossacks, Volga Cossacks, Dnieper Cossacks etc.
Whatever the possibility of the above, there is no doubt that the supply of armoured vehicles, advanced missile systems, and tanks, to the Kiev regime constitutes considerable escalation.
In fact, one need not go back too far in history to find examples of Russian forces all but razing cities to the ground, then rebuilding them and filling them with the troops and civilians of loyal satraps: see Grozny in the 1990s— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grozny#After_the_wars.
“Afterwards, the Russians slowly entered the empty city and on 6 February raised the Russian flag in the centre. Many buildings and even whole areas of the city were systematically destroyed. A month later, it was declared safe to allow the residents to return to their homes, although demolition continued for some time. In 2003 the United Nations called Grozny the most destroyed city on earth.”
I read, re. Ukraine in 2023, that Russia has huge numbers of troops not “in theatre”, i.e. not (yet) in Ukraine. That may be because those troops are not trained enough yet, it may be because there are logistical problems in supplying them. If Russia can train them and supply them by next Spring or early Summer, then a vast offensive might be possible, to take Kharkov and even Kiev itself, though if the latter it would be a bloody battle, akin to Stalingrad in 1942-43.
In the end, Russia needs to take Kiev, Kharkov and, if possible, Odessa, along with surrounding territory. If it can do that, then it can write off Western Ukraine and its cities (chief of which is Lvov). That would mean continuing conflict with a regime which would be based on Lvov, but there would be little the Zelensky regime or its successor could do, with almost all Ukrainian cities of any size in Russian hands.
At this point, Ukraine is not a functioning state.
Those “FBPE” tweeters are nearly always absolutely stupid, and often rather unpleasant as well.
The idea that “Jack Monroe” has “worked tirelessly” on behalf of anyone other than herself is ludicrous.
I agree. Criticism and asking genuine questions is not abuse. The same things being called trolling this last week has now been addressed by the publisher and Trussell Trust. The book doesn't help poor people, it just makes middle class people feel better.
Tweeter “@codfather” is the usual “Jack Monroe” partisan: wilfully blind, a certain age (reading between the lines), reasonably affluent (ditto) and certainly not “poor”. Also, vituperative.
In fact, and as I started to understand some time ago, many of the pro-“Bootstrap Cook” tweets are actually from…”Jack Monroe” herself, pretending to be other people. So-called “sock accounts”. Not all, and I think not “@codfather”, but many others.
Jack Monroe continually claims to be the *only* voice for people living in poverty. Her ego knows no bounds. I'm staggered that she's STILL claiming to have made a significant difference to the lives of people currently experiencing hardship. Where's the evidence? #ThriftyKitchen
The sheer delusion that many “Jack Monroe” partisans seem to live in has to be read to be believed; look, for example, at the tweet belkow, from (supposedly) a “professor emeritus at Bristol [University]”:
What the professor fails to see is that “Jack Monroe” has only one achievement (two if you include persuading large numbers of msm people that her whole story is true) — making a pretty good living for herself mainly by tweeting personal trivia, and recipes which look as dire as they are deficient in nutrient.
As for “measurement of food price inflation“, the ONS has made clear that their one meeting with her (at her request) had no effect on any of their work, and was not even noted or recorded. The “Vimes Boots Index”, supposedly being “worked on” by “Jack Monroe”, does not even exist, in reality. So what is left is the commonplace observation that the cost of basic foods has risen faster than that of luxury items.
Once again, a “Jack Monroe” supporter turns out to be a “woke”, and comfortably-off virtue-signaller, in this case an academic, or retired academic.
As I have blogged before, I have so far seen not one “Jack Monroe” supporter who is under 30, is “poor”, or who has ever been in circumstances of real financial difficulty.
Interestingly, also, I see not one “Jack Monroe” supporter who is black, brown, or Chinese. As someone who wants the UK and all Europe to be European, that in a sense is not a problem for me, but is still an interesting thing to note.
My take on that is that the ethnic minorities are too down to earth (and many also with too recent an experience of actual poverty) to take “Jack Monroe”/”Bootstrap Cook” seriously. Also, many would not look twice at the kind of swill she seems to produce much of the time.
Honestly, this is one of the most shocking reversals of the truth I’ve seen in a while. Our government absolutely hates its own citizens. They despise us. And they use our taxpayers money to remind us of it in public spaces everyday. Shame on you @MinBZK. Shame on you, @MinPres.
Incredible!! As someone who cares about the planet. This is what I want to see. Not the #netzeroscam.. our environmental groups who cared about pollution and micro plastics have been hijacked by net zero fanatics pic.twitter.com/w8EoeLZW8j
The same is true in most areas. Politically too. Lenin was just one of a small number of marginalized exiles; Hitler was just an individual who was told to take a look at a tiny party, then joined it as member (possibly committee member) no.7.
Acorn—oak etc.
BREAKING: the Ontario College of Psychologists @CPOntario has demanded that I submit myself to mandatory social-media communication retraining with their experts for, among other crimes, retweeting @PierrePoilievre and criticizing @JustinTrudeau and his political allies.
It is an incredible fact that (what is left of) the print newspapers in the UK are still churning out “editorials” or “leaders” which hardly anyone reads and by which even fewer are influenced.
Ha. Back in the early 1980s, I knew a lady, a civil servant, who rented her basement flat near Central London to an actor well-known then in Australia, but obscure in the UK— Bruce Barry. I got to know him slightly.
At some point, maybe in 1984, Bruce auditioned for the part of Crocodile Dundee in the eponymous film. He told my friend, his landlady, that he had been shortlisted. The only other contender was… Paul Hogan. And the rest is history, as they say.
Bruce had spoiled his chance by going to the final meeting with the film people, at the Ritz in London, beautifully dressed (according to the lady I knew) but then enjoying “a liquid lunch“…
Bruce was fussy about food, living off wholefoods, nuts, avocado, and I think the occasional Australian steak, but drank too much. Drink and women were his downfall.
Not a bad fellow, though rather neurotic, and rather intense, in my view. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Barry_(actor). Bruce had come to London at the age of ~46 to try to break into musicals. His divorce in Australia had left his wife (or one of them) and teenage sons in the family home, apparently a palatial house with grounds going down to the waters of Sydney Harbour, while Bruce himself was left with little.
In London, his first part was the male lead in The Biograph Girl [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Biograph_Girl], a musical about Lilian Gish [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillian_Gish], which closed after (I now see from Wikipedia) 57 performances (I had thought, until today, after only a couple of weeks). Bruce had described it in hardnosed Australian fashion to my friend, the Civil Service lady, as “a bum show“, i.e. not much good.
I recall seeing Bruce on stage a couple of times, once at the Adelphi, in the Strand, where he was the second male lead in Marilyn! He played Andre de Dienes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_de_Dienes (though I cannot have been paying attention because until today I had thought he played Arthur Miller).
Bruce had very kindly given me two free tickets; I invited my mother, who lived in Surrey, and she enjoyed it. Musicals are not really my thing.
The other time I saw Bruce Barry in performance was at the Australian High Commission in London. I think that it was called An Evening with Bruce Barry, and was very good. I attended with the Civil Service lady, and met the real Australian Cultural Attache, who perhaps unsurprisingly was a very pleasant diplomatic fellow, and not a bit like “Sir Les Patterson” as portrayed by Barry Humphries [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Les_Patterson].
Bruce had a girlfriend, a tall Australian dancer who had been a member of the Bluebell Girls ensemble in Paris. One day, Bruce returned to his flat to find her in flagrante with a third party. The end of the affair.
Bruce toured a bit around England with well-known stars such as Rula Lenska and Elaine Paige. I believe that that was in Evita. One star he disliked intensely, though, was Barbara Windsor. He was, apparently, not alone in that. Several disliked her tie-ups with gangsters etc.
In the end, Bruce Barry, having not quite broken through in the way he had hoped, returned to Australia, remarried, and had parts in quite a few TV shows, including The Flying Doctors [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flying_Doctors], where he played a landowner, I was told (I myself never saw it, though the series was shown in the UK).
The last I heard of Bruce Barry was that his second (or third) wife had divorced him, taken his home off him (as I heard it), and left him to drink and regrets.
Disgusting. And I'm talking about the craven masses who keep voting in parties and politicians who oversee such amoral cesspits formerly known as societies across the West
Don't you dare lecture me about the hypothetical dangers of political extremism as you tacitly endorse this https://t.co/bG1lK5RCNN
Said Eritreans should have been executed by firing squad in the main square of Stockholm; it would have been a deterrent to other migrant-invaders (prior to their mass deportation). Sweden is even more mad than the UK.
UK charities watchdog ‘assesses concerns’ about Campaign Against Antisemitism – https://t.co/6CaK4ug59y Commission opens ‘regulatory compliance case’ after complaints that the charity is politically partisan
Jack Monroe threatened and crowdfunded to sue Lee Anderson because he claimed she makes a fortune from the poor. Her talent agency today showed £10-£15k fees she charges for appearances etc. Tell me how what Lee Anderson said was libellous. #GriftyKitchen#ThriftyKitchen
In any case, why would “Jack Monroe” even go to the Grenfell Tower fire? She was never in the fire brigade, except as a civilian office bod answering the telephone in Essex (about 50-60 miles from Grenfell Tower) for a year or so, and years before the Grenfell Tower blaze. If she did go to Grenfell Tower (which I doubt), it could only have been as a “rubbernecker”, and the police would certainly not have “waved her through the cordon” as she claimed. She’s a fake, a total fake.
I’ve been reading @AwfullyMolly’s blog and have had my eyes well and truly opened! I feel for those who donated to Jack’s Patreon and didn’t receive anything in return, and refund requests have largely been ignored. #shameful
Someone should make a series on con-men, con-women, “grifters” etc. Hour-long episodes, each covering two or three perpetrators, a bit like the very interesting In Suspicious Circumstances presented by Edward Woodward [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Suspicious_Circumstances]. A favourite series, presently being repeated on satellite TV.
To be fair to Monroe, she does say in the book she adapts other recipes. Other recipe writers also use a similar process. The issue in this case is apparently targeting the book at less well off people and charging them for something they can get for free. pic.twitter.com/4GuXe8yZU2
At a guess, I should say that copies of Thrifty Kitchen will soon be on sale in charity shops for about 20p. At least “the poor” will then be able to read the book, should they be so misguided.
Prince Harry should be ashamed of his sorry self for that book.
Somehow he managed to go from a Prince to a whiny bitch in two years.
Men, watch how you marry. That Meghan girl got him all the way messed up in the brain.
Prince Harry, who constantly complains about the press invading his privacy, releases a book giving details about how he shagged some woman behind a pub, his drug taking, physical fights with his brother, and what his penis looks like. 🥴
Ha ha. Just thinking again about the very idea that “the poor” need to be advised (very negligently) that, if they have a can without a ring-pull, and cannot find a can-opener, that they should use a hammer (or mallet?) and large knife! “Jack Monroe” obviously thinks that “the poor” are all completely brainless, and either cannot think of that on their own, or think of how to get an opener (less than £1 in some places).
She might as well “advise” people to invest in a Swiss Army Knife (mine has a can-opener which does work, though it’s hard work). The worst “investment” is to buy her book, in my opinion.
Bluebird has issued a statement regarding “potentially risky” hacks and tips included in Jack Monroe’s latest book Thrifty Kitchen, confirming that changes are being made post-publication.
Once the book appears for 10p (at a stretch, 20p) in charity shops, which will be soon, I shall probably buy a copy just to give myself a laugh or two before I chuck it away.
That's not what she is saying. Jack Monroe has not been poor for a decade, but sells books full of ridiculous 'thrifty' (not) hacks and recipes that don't save money!! She's not authentic.
Shes admitted a lot of that is lies, eg she withdrew the prostitute story and changed it by several years. It was a fantasy she wrote for Pink News. Even accused Kris if being a client. Vile. Also withdrew the autism diagnosis story. Absolute congenital liar.
No she's from a millionaire family, her dad didn't put her out on the game as she disgustingly insinuates, nor is Kris a deadbeat dad she often libelled him – resulting in a settlement requiring her to print a retraction, which she did with an article praising him.
…and, so far, despite 3-4 months of Twitterstorm and offline criticism, her Jewish lawyer, Mark Lewis, a resident of Israel, and with whose name (by implication) she used to threaten people who called her fraudulent, has not once emerged from his kennel.
How the bloody hell does washing no frills spaghetti hoops make you a celebrity chef 🤦♀️ Jack Monroe still grifting. pic.twitter.com/V9g6GFZIjS
People bashing Jack Monroe for writing about her lived experience, sharing tips for free online, writing some books, fundraising to send 1000s of copies to foodbanks, and earning a few quid (royalties rarely make a living) clearly haven't heard of Michelle Mone.
a. much of her “lived experience” written about has been fantasy or lies; b. her “tips” are mostly worthless, or actually dangerous to health, or are obvious (eg “buy the budget range at the supermarket“); c. her royalties total around £100,000 to date; d. the monies from “fundraising to send thousands of books to foodbanks” seem partly, perhaps largely, to have been diverted into her own pocket; e. then there was the “sue Lee Anderson” crowdfunder scam; and f. the continuing Patreon scam, bringing her maybe £6,000 each month.
In addition to the above, it seems that, last year, “Jack Monroe” did a number of events, and getting, it seems, up to £15,000 each time.
Not exactly “earning a few quid“…
In any case, should a small-time robber get off just because a big-time robber down the road has committed a bigger crime?
She admitted its all a pack of lies years ago by leaking this photo, and others, but then goes back to the lie. Classic Jack. pic.twitter.com/jwNH0qYaDE
Some types of bungalow do have a room upstairs, of course. #MoralHighGround.
She tried to distance herself by the above quote by saying she was manipulated by a journalist into saying it… and then an audio recording of her actually saying it during a speech in Parliament emerged. Lots of forgetfulness.
Yep! There's a literal recording of her saying it. She went quiet after initially going off an a woe is me rant about her young naiviety and cruel journalist manipulation.
Calorific content. I care because there are genuine poor people out there who deserve a voice that is being taken by someone pretending to be poor. I care because if someone is lying they should be called out on it regardless of what they are lying about. I care because…
She keeps being held up as an activist… but what has she actually, genuinely done? There are charities that do amazing work, that deserve the profile being given to JM. I care because, if you are poor and desperate, buying a cookbook is the last thing you’re going to do.
Fine on £20 a week. Which is false, because her recipes never come to £20 a week, that’s also a lie. I care because I have morals. I care because I’ve known people to struggle. I care because even the trussel trust keep distancing themselves from jack monroe ffs.
Truth: Jack Monroe's dad was not just a firefighter, but a senior manager: https://t.co/AJVs5FR7xs Previously, he was in the armed forces and served in the Falklands. As a veteran, he would/will receive a pension for this on top of his salary.
Just looking again at the Twitter profiles of those who are the angry supporters of “Jack Monroe”: “professor emeritus” (ie retired academic), “noise consultant“, “retired HR lady“, “small businessman“, “writer“, “writer and photographer“, “part of brilliant Marketing Team“, “Pagan…therapeutic counsellor“, “#ACAB #BLM, Rape/Cop apologists blocked, TERFs blocked“, “novelist“, “High Profile hard left twitterer“, “Mother of Mayhem, Psychology student, Not Jack Monroe, Maybe“, “I’m a doctor but not working clinically” [i.e. another “grifter”], “fandom old, makes various media“, “BSc Psychology. History MA. Labour Party Member. MA Creative Non Fiction“, “Widower, autistic, stroke survivor. Tofu eating, Woke Corbynista“, “Labour & Co-operative MP for Oldham West & Royton | Chair, Co-operative Party | Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs” [n.b. if he cannot see through the “Jack Monroe” nonsense, Jim McMahon is unsuitable as MP and possible government minister], “Academic, political theorist, educationalist, former Pro-Director Education at LSE, HoD Department of Government LSE. ‘Woke Realist’ in a good way. Grandfather“, “Writing, blogging married mum of two boisterous boys..Tweets powered by Diet Coke, Earl Grey and wine“, “Educator/Writer/Student“, “Bristol based Graphic Designer. Gets giddy over lovely paper and buttons“, “*Producer|Cam|Editor *PhD #VR@ExeterDoctoral (yr 3, on hold) *Support Worker (#autism)“, “Nature, landscape, holloways, streams, printmaking. Wild swimmer & pluviophile“, “Founder & M.D of the Rabble Chorus, a lovely crowd of 350 community singers, open to all who fancy a bit of music on the side. Environmental activist, musician“, “Books. Music. Language. Science. Theology. Family. Talk. Think. Opinions my own. Pilot and PhD researcher (human factors and linguistics)“.
And so on.
Taken in a line. Just look at them. Not a steel worker, nurse, bus driver, train driver, cleaner, carpenter, plumber or the like among them. The “working class” seems to be absent.
Certainly not absent are the Guardian-readers, small business owners, suburban housewives (who prefer some other designation), well-paid freelancers, retired people (who used to be academics or working in reasonably-paid office jobs etc).
Also well-represented are various species of “Looney Tunes”.
Also absent is anyone likely to be “poor”.
As blogged previously, all her partisans are pseudo-socialists and/or “poverty tourists”, most if not all rather comfortably-off, many either retired or otherwise economically inactive (though not short of money); and quite a few with obvious mental health “issues” and/or problems with rational thinking. Also, various loony “trans” supporters.
Disturbing to see a Labour MP in there too, one Jim McMahon [Lab. and Co-op; Oldham West and Royton].
This savage and unforgiving conflict will probably see huge escalation in 2023, especially in view of the refusal of the Kiev side to negotiate even a ceasefire unless Russian forces withdraw from all areas of mainland Ukraine and Crimea.
The Kiev side probably hopes that Putin will be deposed, and the war thus (?) ended. It may not work out that way, even if Putin does leave the scene.
The “Jack Monroe” Twitterstorm (etc) continues
Jack Monroe is a complete and utter scam artist. You know she’s forever begging her Twitter followers for donations? As if her royalties aren’t enough! Disgusting woman
A not atypical “Jack Monroe” supporter tweets. “Screenwriter and novelist” (unpublished?), and of a certain age. I have yet to see a Twitter pro-“Jack Monroe” defender who is either “young” (under 30) or in any way “poor”.
This comment is staggering. 'A desperate mum given a glimpse of hope' by a book of nonsense, by a grifter, and advised to do something dangerously stupid? No. They dont exist. @bootstrapcook is for giving the MC what they need, nothing else. https://t.co/c1dGTz0COt
I have covered the Monty Python-esque “Jack Monroe” “advice” previously, in several blog posts, so do not want to repeat it all today, but the sheer nonsense of it is incredible (e.g. make a dinner for 11p per head; e.g. open cans using a knife and a mallet or hammer; e.g. make a curry by mixing a tin of peaches and one of chickpeas with some curry powder, and heat in a microwave, etc).
The many tweets below are worth considering:
Hi Chris (or Chris's like minded followers)
Please answer this question asked in good faith.
Why is there so much anger directed at this person?
Is it not worthy of respect that they are at least trying to do something practical to help, whatever you think of them politically?
If JM was 100% transparent in regards to valid questions people have asked JM in respect of certain financial issues that are unresolved. I will give you two concrete examples out of 6 different ones that I recall 2/n
She promised her Patreon subscribers regular posts, regular recipes, essays, postcards, signed content etc all dependent on the value of your monthly subscription amount. There has been consistently over 600 subscribers 4/n
This alone, taking a baseline of all subscribers paying the lowest tier at £1 a month, that’s a minimum of £600 per month, multiply that amount by 24 months (TWO years of no content) that equals £14,400 over the two years or £7200 per year. 6/n
Very modest— I doubt that “Jack Monroe” is pulling in less than £6,000 a month from Patreon alone.
People just really haven’t pushed this issue for the last two years because of a combination of JM citing her ‘various different mental health issues’ on Twitter as well as other ‘issues’ and subscribers 8/n
Thought it would be or sound petty, for the remaining subscribers, they saw that others who did ask and challenge it on Twitter then JM would reply with a nasty comment & all of JM’s twitter followers would 10/n
One particular person who I am sure won’t mind me tagging them and I am sorry if you get piled on again is @frugally_minded who JM vilified and tweeted personal DMs where they explained that their partner 12/n
Didn’t want you to be piled on again like before because of JM but I really think that doubters need to see real people (victims) to realise that genuine people have been affected & treated appallingly before they see through the ‘they are all trolls & smears’ narrative
Having been “down there” in the pit of actual poverty a few times in my life (thankfully never for longer than a few months at a time), I am well-qualified to advise people how to really survive and even somewhat thrive in such circumstances, but I prefer not to publish openly my very valuable and learned/experienced advice. ‘Nuff said!
Many areas have started Food Pantries instead of food banks. These enable you to pay a small amount and access a variety of food on a weekly basis. Local churches often host these so ask your local one if they know of one.#realthriftykitchentips
Lol she tells people to rinse spaghetti hoops and reuse tumble dryer lint. As an actual poor person, I can’t say I’ve ever found a single tip of hers that was actually useful. It’s just drivel that impresses middle class people who imagine that’s how we live
Bcos she lies about being poor, being physically ill & mentally unwell to grift money from people who feel sorry for her. Cos playing as a poor person hurts real poor people bcos we’re told we should be able to feed a family for £20 /wk
She’s constantly pretending she’s been “driven off twitter” by bullies but she’ll be back in less than 48 hrs. As someone who does have ongoing physical & mental health problems, as well as autism & adhd, her BS is glaringly obvious to me. And it’s insulting
I notice that the number of “mugs” sending “Jack Monroe” between £3.50 and £44 each month via Patreon has now fallen to 623, as of time of writing; that’s about 25 fewer than yesterday. 25 mugs woke up (at last).
Stray idea
If you take as a notional starting-point the idea that there are about 40 million people of or over the age of 21 in the UK, and if you consider that the UK has an area of about 92,000 sq. miles, which is about 60 million acres, then that works out at, very roughly, 1.5 acres per person.
Now let us assume that the State took ownership over about 4%-5% of that land, in other words less than a tenth of an acre per person, allotted to any applicant such a plot, and let such people use the land allotted to them in a manner akin to an “allotment” (or, if they want, to do nothing with “their” land, which would help wildlife at least). It might have a huge effect, as well as helping poor people to feed themselves.
The details might need refining, and the concept would need organization, but I think that the basic idea would work.
Incidentally, if any object that the idea involves “expropriation”, I reply that that is so, but it would merely redress a small part of the balance from the time of the “Enclosures” of common land, and/or the “Highland Clearances”. The aim is, however, not backward-looking “revenge” but forward-looking policy.
“Santander is changing its degree requirements in an attempt to increase socioeconomic diversity in the workplace.
The bank will no longer require a 2:1 degree for graduates as recruiters try to find the ‘best candidates from a wide range of backgrounds’ – meaning those with third class degrees will now be able to apply.“
These are the type of backward bastards flooding into the UK with the acquiescence and/or connivance of the (((occupied))) “British” Government.
Maybe Santander will offer some of them a job.
More tweets
Careful. JM's got her lawyer @MLewisLawyer on speed dial. He advised me (via email) on a cival case. He "implored" me to pursue a bent predator cop – Civil lawyer advice that resulted in me getting sexually abused by another predator officer. https://t.co/zcVeTkJwUI
Ha. Not the only time the egregious and self-publicizing Jewish lawyer, Mark Lewis (now an Israeli resident and citizen), gave what at least some of his clients (as reported on Twitter and in the Press, and seen by me) regarded as duff advice.
A former Labour Party politician who resigned his cabinet position at Rotherham Council in 2015 amid reports that he 'pushed back' discussions on the ethnicity of grooming gangs now works as a senior diversity and inclusion manager in the NHS.
Incredibly, seems that that Twitter account is not a parody-account.
…and any parent who (as that one claims) forces his child to be the only one in his school to wear a facemask is not only stupid but cruel and/or crazy, and should face some kind of intervention by the school or others.
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Cary, the working class are irrelevant in all this, Jack Monroe is mostly a product for middle class consumption. She makes Josh and Tamara from Crouch End look and feel like they're 'street' and care about the poor without any real effort.
That has been my impression. Apart from which, this whole idea that “poor people” —or others— need books of recipes is rather odd in the age of the Internet, when thousands of recipes of all types can be accessed in seconds and without payment.
I see from Twitter that, in face of the continuing and indeed increasing Twitterstorm, “Jack Monroe” has, once more, tried two of her favourite tactics— feigning illness, and withdrawing from Twitter interaction until the hue and cry dies down. She has done that (combination) frequently before, the last time only a few weeks ago. She always returns quite swiftly, ready to ignore the many cries of “will you refund the money you took?“.
Cookery books are bestsellers, quite often, but I wonder how many people (I presume mainly women) buy them but then never actually use them to make things? Not a rhetorical question. I actually do not know.
I do recall seeing, as a child of 10 (in 1967), several massive coffee-table-size books in the kitchen of my aunt-by-marriage, in Mosman, Sydney. I still recall the title of one: Larousse Gastronomique [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larousse_Gastronomique]. A huge and thick hardback book.
I have no idea whether my uncle’s wife ever actually cooked anything. I certainly never saw her make anything there, and that kitchen was as pristine as the rest of her large house on the side of a bay (Middle Harbour). There again, she had a cleaning lady and no less than three Norwegian au pairs (there to “assist” with her two adopted children— a baby and a small child), so perhaps the lack of mess or detritus was not surprising.
There was in fact one time I when I saw the said relative make something; in a holiday beach house at Palm Beach (in the area now called the Northern Beaches, the very northmost part of the Sydney area, but it was not called that then). The food in question was lobster with home-made (I think) mayonnaise, the first time I had eaten either; consumed outside. I do not recall having either lobster or proper mayonnaise again until I was in my twenties.
She ignores & blocks anyone who asks for their Patreon rewards. She isn’t transparent with her charity contributions or her Patreon earnings and PayPal requests for legal action which doesn’t happen. And that’s without the wildly varying backstory.
Rishi Sunak and his band of merry men/women like Boris Johnson and the short-lived Liz Truss are a complete JOKE for this country! Yawn. I love this country and they have destroyed it.
Sunak is actually proud of having participated in the lockdown/shutdown of the “panicdemic”, and proud of having sprayed money around like a drunken sailor!
Meanwhile, sick people are not being adequately helped, migrant-invaders continue to be ferried across the Channel, many are suffering financially very much, and the UK’s environment is being degraded.
We are constantly fed an NWO/ZOG msm narrative about how “Ukraine” (the Kiev regime) is “defeating Russia”. Is it true?
What would “Ukraine defeating Russia” look like, ultimately? Presumably, in that scenario, all Russian forces would be forced to leave behind not only the pre-2022 borders of Ukraine but also the Crimea, the population of which is at least 85% Russian and only a few percent Ukrainian now (there are also Crimean Tatars and others).
So, in that scenario, Russia would have been driven back into its own unargued territory, and kept there by Ukrainian/Kiev-regime military might. Is there any logic at all to that?
Russia is, of course, famously the largest country in the world, over six and a half million square miles, so about 72 times the size of the whole of the UK, and 29 times the size of Ukraine (even including Crimea and the Donbass). A country which covers one-eighth of the landmass of the entire planet.
Russia has a population of over 144 million (147 million if Crimea is included); Ukraine had 41 million people (excluding Crimea) in 2021, before the Russian invasion or incursion, but about 20% of the population of Ukraine (I suspect the relatively affluent layer) has fled beyond Ukraine, so the real population, at present, is perhaps 30 million.
Russia has, therefore, almost five times the population of Ukraine.
Russia’s economy may not be booming, now that Western (NWO/ZOG) sanctions have hit hard, but it is still functioning. Russia is getting huge amounts from oil and gas (and mineral) sales, and has, of course, no problem with generating electricity. Russia’s domestic agriculture has actually been stimulated by the Western sanctions which prohibit import and export.
Compare that to Ukraine— it has very limited sources of fuel of all kinds, its electricity generating and distribution capacity is being smashed, possibly beyond easy repair, its industry is scarcely operational, and its agriculture is unable to export easily.
Even before the invasion/incursion of 2022, Wikipedia noted that “Ukraine is the poorest country in Europe by nominal GDP per capita.”
The only material advantage that Ukraine has is that the Kiev regime is in receipt of enormous amounts of Western aid: arms, ammunition, military transport, food, clothing, medical supplies, and money.
There is no suggestion that Ukrainian forces can either invade or destroy Russian territory or cities. There can, likewise, be no suggestion that Ukrainian forces will actually topple Putin or the existing Russian Government (unless obliquely— e.g. should a coup d’etat take place).
The most that the Ukrainian forces can do, the peak of their realistic ambition, would be to expel all Russian forces from the pre-2014 Ukrainian borders, and then dig in, in effect.
Russia’s war aims have never been openly or clearly expressed in a manner that makes any sense, but part of them would be the necessity to demilitarize Ukraine, something that is now impossible without Russian control over the bulk of the territory, including Kiev.
Under other circumstances, Russia might now be sitting on the entire eastern half of Ukraine (ie Ukraine east of the Dnieper), but “we are where we are”, in the tiresome phrase.
As I predicted would happen on the blog months ago, Russian forces have recently been trying to think outside the box by applying “oblique warfare”, targeting the electricity production and generating system deep inside Ukraine, using missiles and drones.
While the Kiev-regime forces have supposedly been downing most of the attacking missiles, the ones that are getting through have been smashing the electrical system of Ukraine to pieces. What next? Possibly the railway network.
Russia is said to be mobilizing more troops, possibly with the idea of a mass assault on Kiev next summer.
Unless a peace treaty or armistice can be agreed and executed, the war can only escalate. However, Russia can only “win” this ghastly mess of a war by taking Kiev and toppling the present Kiev regime.
Hard to see why anyone not very feeble-minded would send money to “Jack Monroe” after reading that Tattle Life exposé . Surprising, therefore, to see that no fewer than 647 utter mugs are still sending her £3.50-£44 monthly, a total of between £2,265 and £28,468, each and every month. “A nice little earner“, in the estuary argot, even if the actual total amount sent is nearer to —at a guess— maybe £6,000 or £7,000 a month rather than the maximum. Probably taxfree as well.
I have no idea whether the Essex Police, Metropolitan Police, trading standards officers, or fundraising regulators are “on the case” or not. If not, though, why not?
“The composer of Jerusalem has been effectively ‘cancelled’ by the Royal College of Music (RCM) because his views on race a century ago are unacceptably offensive to today’s woke students, The Mail on Sunday understands.“
I have also been there (in the 1980s). Just as well that Blake and I do not walk around that part of London now; we might get stabbed by some untermensch, almost certainly non-white.
I recall having a beer at the Clock House pub once, in the late 1980s.
[The Clock House pub, Peckham Rye]
Tweets seen
I don’t say this with any glee: it sucks to be Cassandra all the time. It’s just that I’m nearly 60 & childless, it’s been a bit of a dreadful year here, & I’ll be checked out well before the inevitable social disintegration that’s now looming can do any worse to me.
A brief list of things that the press has declared white supremist in the last two years:
Exercise Healthy food The scientific method Being on time Reading old books Using correct grammar Christianity The nuclear family Opposing the sexualization of children Self defense
Preview my column in toimorrow's The Mail on Sunday : 'Why do we stir up trouble in foreign countries but can’t even run our own?'https://t.co/elimw0DtcB via @mailplus
Peter Hitchens’ column is worth publishing in full:
“What a twisted society we have become. We stir up wars in other people’s countries and praise ourselves for doing it.
But there is no political reward for protecting our own people against crime and disorder on their streets and in their homes. It is no longer clear if anyone is governing the country at all, so busy are we putting other nations to rights.
Burglaries go unprevented, uninvestigated and unpunished, in colossal numbers. Our capital city seethes with uncontrolled knife crime and stinks of marijuana.
Christmas brings news of terrible ultra-violent crimes in supposedly peaceful suburban areas. Migrants stride boldly ashore in unknown numbers. We pay heavy taxes for pitiful services, cratered roads and a health system that is the envy of nobody.
Yet, nothing happens about all this. The surest way to gain praise in politics is to make simple-minded statements about a crisis abroad and demand that we send bombs and shells to some strife-torn state, or actually bomb it ourselves.
The idea that such things are often complicated and dangerous, and may do harm, has faded from view. When Prime Minister Anthony Eden dragged us into his disastrous attack on Egypt in 1956, the entire country was bitterly divided. And rightly so. The archives, when they were opened, showed that the adventure was based on lies, futile and doomed.
When the USA sank up to its waist in the bloody mud of Vietnam in the 1960s, the whole world was at odds. Once again, now that the truth is revealed, we know that thousands of brave men died, and many more thousands of innocent civilians were killed, because of a mistake.
But since the Blair revolution of 1997, pious, allegedly virtuous foreign crusades have come back into fashion. Criticising them gets you into trouble. There is only one permitted view. Few go back to find out how things actually went.
The Kosovo episode, for instance, did not bring paradise to that part of the world. Nor did the Iraq invasion. I know most people now pretend to have been against it at the time but as one who actually was against it at the time, I can assure you that they are mistaken. It had wide support. The same goes for the daft adventures in Afghanistan and Libya.
In fact, the last three did so much harm that it will never be measured. Together they began the era of mass migration from the Middle East and Africa to Western Europe. This is probably the biggest event in human history since the First World War, and perhaps bigger.
How can we do all this stamping about in foreign countries when we are so bad at governing our own and also not very strong? Our country doesn’t work properly. You can’t even see a doctor. The police are equally invisible. Our Army is as tiny as our debts are huge. Our grandest new warship, the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales, has broken down. Even when it works, we have to borrow aircraft from the Americans to fly off it.
None of this will be properly discussed at the rapidly approaching General Election and nobody will stand in that poll who prefers reforming Britain to foreign policy fantasy abroad. Why do we put up with it?“
My rhetorical answer to Hitchens’ rhetorical question? This:
“The British/English people do not rebel against all of the above, not yet anyway, because they are bombarded with propaganda brainwashing 24/7, because few have either the independence of thought, or the (real) education, to stand against the tide, and because the “plebs” think that all that matters, or that the main matter of importance, is whether the “England” sports teams (which are now largely black or brown anyway) win some meaningless game, match, or tournament somewhere or other in the world.”
That, and because those in political life, those of great wealth, those in the mainstream media, who should all be protecting the people, are exactly those who, from malice, evil, or just sheer inability and lack of basic competence (as with “Boris”-idiot, Liz Truss, Woollyhead Trussbanger —Kwasi Kwarteng— etc), are encouraging migration-invasion of this country, are letting standards and services slide, and are preventing —by ever more repressive laws— even obviously justified criticism from being made. They are, in effect, signed up to the Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan.”
[the odd link immediately above now seems to be the only one for the interesting Western Spring article].
Incidentally, I see that the Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday is now, yet again, refusing to allow its readers to comment on Hitchens’ column, no doubt afraid that the readers will leave comments hostile to mass immigration, migration-invasion, “intervention” in foreign wars or countries, or even (could it be?) comments hostile to the Zelensky Jew-Zionist regime in Kiev…
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From bison to pine martens to white storks, it's been a landmark year for species reintroductions in Britain. As we come to the end of 2022, it's amazing to know their footprints are amongst ours in the snow.
Amusing to see affluent idiots like that porcine woman journalist (I remember seeing her commentating on TV years ago— she was constantly pumping out pseudo-“Conservative” and/or “austerity” propaganda during the David Cameron-Levita years) suffering a little by reason of her own virtue-signalling and/or lack of thought or preparation. England has too many of such silver-spoon scribblers. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Mills_(journalist).
The readers’ comments appended to that Daily Mail story are telling.
“£400M slashed from road repair budget” yet billions wasted on the regime of the Jew Zelensky, and so also on prolonging the war in Ukraine. Mad, but also stupid— our roads need repair. It is not a minor matter, but one that affects tens of millions of British people.
Very true. I raised the issue repeatedly when I had a Twitter account (before the Jew-Zionist lobby conspired to have me expelled in 2018); I believe I have blogged about it as well.
In socialist Poland in the 1980s, which I visited a few times, the population was divided, not only by those pro or anti the socialist government, but also, and in more immediately-practical ways, by those who had access to hard currency (mainly U.S. dollars, but also Deutschmarks etc) as against those who did not. Even a few dollars regularly made the difference between having the means to live semi-decently, as against having to struggle.
That’s the divide in the UK now, but with inheritance as the touchstone.
Ukraine
As can be seen from that map, the front is now essentially frozen, indeed literally, despite recent relatively minor advances by the forces of the Kiev regime.
What is more important is not shown on the map.
20% of the pre-2022 population of Ukraine is now living beyond the pre-2022 borders— in eastern, western and central Europe, and in Russia itself.
Ukraine now has a mainly non-functioning electricity-generating and distribution network.
Gas supplies, formerly supplied from Russia, have been halted.
Industry is mostly not in operation.
Agriculture, though continuing, cannot export most of its production.
The Kiev regime only fights on because it has become a complete NATO (NWO/ZOG) proxy, fuelled by shipments of arms, ammunition, petrol/diesel, medical supplies, clothing, other equipment and, of course, money, in vast amounts.
On the Russian side, the problems are different: indifferent military leadership, apparently-poor officership at all levels, low morale among troops, and apparent uncertainty within the high political leadership. Above all, no clear and expressed strategy in relation to ultimate war aims and how to achieve them.
In terms of presenting itself to the peoples of the West via public relations or propaganda, the Kiev regime has “played a blinder” from the start, meaning early 2022; the Russian effort in public relations has been wooden and ineffective by comparison.
“A care agency boss has described the NHS as “a joke” after a disabled man was forced to wait for 48 hours in A&E.
One of David Williams’ clients, who has severe epilepsy, had been taken to the Grange Hospital near Cwmbran, Torfaen, complaining of chest pain.
Mr Williams said he had to wait in a chair with no food for 36 hours.
Aneurin Bevan health board said delayed hospital discharges and winter viruses had led to longer waits at A&E.
Mr Williams, the responsible individual and director of Prestige Care Agency Services, said the NHS was a “failed system”.”
[BBC Wales]
“I don’t think it was any fault of the hospital, I think it’s a fault with the system.”
He added: “There’s a fear of destroying the myth that the NHS is fantastic and the best in the world… I think it needs a fundamental shake up.”
It does.
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It was the press baron Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe, who said: ‘When I want a peerage, I shall buy one like an honest man.’ https://t.co/qEEyyBj6Vp
.@stugray1 . Eurocommunism has no objection to letting business rip. It has shaken off the mistakes of Lenin, and realised that businessmen can be the most reliable allies of cultural, moral and social revolution. https://t.co/byAgPlvBs3
.@arbuthnotting. Surely that fantasy of the British bulldog spirit died forever during the Covid panic. Millions obediently submitted to house arrest, muzzled their faces and ceaselessly anointed their hands with conformist sanitiser, the holy water of Covidism. https://t.co/GpgjNMp3Ws
The “safety first” mob have totally taken over, but not today or yesterday; years ago. Example: the hysterical tightening of laws by both Major and Blair, with the aim of all but removing firearm weapons from members of the public. Why? Because (in the whole of history in the UK) there were TWO gun massacres (Hungerford 1987, and Dunblane 1996), though in fact since the “gun laws” were tightened (and almost all privately-held handguns confiscated) there has been another such “spree killing”— in Cumbria in 2010.
Yes, an explicit request on Friday 13th May 2022 for contributions towards a specific objective.
With all of the other questions regarding financial transparency that Jack currently faces, I am certain she will want to be absolutely open and honest when dealing with this matter. pic.twitter.com/XxmIrY52Ww
https://t.co/7abWpyNYeH Why is there no named solicitor on this gfm? Why has Louise Raw taken it upon herself to speak on behalf of a Black woman who has the means to take the Sun to court herself if she wanted to? What happens to the cash is all the money isn't raised?
1. “Dr” Louise Raw is far from being the brightest tool in the box, despite her supposed doctorate (said to be a Ph.D. based on one particular strike in London in 1888); 2. it raises the Twitter profile of Ms. Raw (and to her that is apparently important); 3. under GoFundMe rules, she can use any monies donated any way she wants, for political or even personal purposes, and the donor mugs will have no say in that.
Incidentally, Meghan Mulatta is not “black” but a half-caste (or “mixed race”, if you prefer). You don’t have to take it from me— look at the words of the Mulatta herself:
“She identifies as mixed race, often answering questions about her background with “My dad is Caucasian and my mom is African American. I’m half black and half white.””
The “tips” in Grifty Kitchen are dangerous, patronising and forget one vital thing – most people struggling or in poverty haven’t always been in that situation and are not stupid or lacking basic resources. I have pan lids, it’s the gas to cook with I can’t afford! #jackmonroe
Hey @TrussellTrust, you're backing this book too right? This is highly irresponsible and also very insulting to people in poverty. I've been poor, I've never not had a tin opener. Poor people aren't stupid. There are a fair few alarming (and harmful) 'tips' in this book.
I'm tired of people telling me that Jack Monroe is a force for good and has done good things for those in poverty, when she has made money off those people and continues to cosplay as a poor person while being positively middle class and doing NOTHING.
At times over the past months, since I really began to look at her activity, I have thought that “Jack Monroe”, “Bootstrap Cook”, tries to “push the envelope” of outright fantasy/lies out of pure devilment, as if to say “I wonder how far I can go before those mugs twig?“, as with her Grenfell Tower “firefighter” fantasy (she did once, long before Grenfell, answer the telephones in some fire call centre, but in Essex, not London); then there was her “I am so poor that I have to boil soap to make shower gel” etc, followed by the implied subtext, “please send me —and my disabled child— money“.
Incredibly, as of time of writing, no less than 647 utter mugs are sending the “Bootstrap Cook” between £3.50 and £44 each and every month via the Patreon website. Thousands of pounds each month. In fact, 647 is an increase of 4 since yesterday; amazing when you know how “Jack Monroe” has been forensically exposed for months on Twitter.
Reading a few tweets, one realizes how dim many of the “Jack Monroe” supporters are. Interesting demographically, though. Few young people, and few of any age who are —in any sense— “poor”.
Christmas University Challenge
Once again a match between two teams of alumni (Balliol v. Hull). I thought semi-final, but I now see on Twitter that it was the final.
The winning team, Balliol, was this time no worse than me, though I should say no better. Overall, I think that I still got more than both teams together. I did OK, I think, if I myself say so; after all, there are 8 of them playing.
[Wanda Landowska at the keyboard, as Tolstoy looks on; probably at Yasnaya Polyana, though possibly at Tolstoy’s house in the Kropotkinskaya district of Moscow. I myself have been in that latter house, long ago, and the parquet floor was similar]
“Cost of living catastrophe“, but that was written (and tweeted) by Sky News in December 2021, about 3 months before the Russian incursion into Ukraine that (we are now told) is the cause of all our woes…
Mainstream media lies.
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[🔴China’s 64th launch in 2022] At UTC 04:43 Dec 29, Shiyan-10-02 space environment detection, new tech testing satellite was successfully launched by CZ3B rocket at Xichang, Sichuan. It’s also the 458th launch of Long March rocket family. HD: https://t.co/oySxQl6WeEpic.twitter.com/zMAMUFkpaY
…and in the middle of the alien crowd, I see the philosopher Roger Scruton, now deceased. “And then there were none“.
A couple of friends of mine in South London were friendly with Scruton, back in the mid/late 1970s. He would arrive by bicycle, in the manner of Cambridge University.
Then a fairly obscure university college lecturer at Birkbeck College (part of the University of London), though already becoming known and communing with the famous and well-connected (including Margaret Thatcher), Scruton later dropped the couple I knew for fear of being associated with them after the popular Press ran a story about how Scruton of the Salisbury Review etc was associating with “fascists” and “neo-Nazis” etc.
In other words, Scruton put career before friendship.
Having said that, Scruton was a considerable figure, sometimes honoured more in the recently ex-socialist states such as the Czech Republic —where I myself once saw a whole bookshop window of Scruton’s works in Czech— than in the UK.
That display was seen by me in Central Prague in 1999; it could not have happened when I had previously been in that city (1988); very few Western visitors were there then, and the works of Scruton (and many others) were banned.
Scruton was born into modest circumstances and, when later both famous and wealthy (as some might say, “box office“, with his high-selling books in multiple translation, and with several income-streams), he took on some of the traditional habits of the English “upper classes”, such as foxhunting, and living in country houses. He also started to take money from tobacco-lobby interests.
[Scruton’s house —2004-2009— near Sperryville, Virginia, USA]
Scruton (whom I myself never met) strikes me as having been, like many, perhaps most people, a blend of the highminded and tawdry, of the original and the very derivative, of the highly ethical and the morally-suspect.
A hugely-talented man, in any event. One could say, without it being too much of a cliché, “a Renaissance man“.
Perhaps better remembered in his works than in himself.
“Blame and praise alike befall, when a dauntless man’s spirit is black and white mixed, like the magpie’s plumage…”
[Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival]
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Just remembering there is literally a button @BootstrapCook can press on Patreon to make the amount they earn from their patrons public….
Perhaps the (at time of writing) 643 utter “mugs”, each presently donating between £3.50 and £44, and every month, might start to wake up if they saw the total income (from that source alone) of “Jack Monroe”, the so-called “Bootstrap Cook”. Somewhere between a few thousand pounds and tens of thousands, monthly.
I'd love to know which part of "questioning an unlikely story and asking for transparency on fundraising & donations, plus promised refunds to be processed in a timely manner" is criminal as Jack Monroe alleges? https://t.co/9A3zUtZnLS
“Criminal?” My idea of “criminal” is pleading poverty or (when, e.g., Tiffany earrings are noticed by alert readers) near-poverty, in order to induce people to donate thousands of pounds monthly to a private bank account, while never or rarely providing the goods and services offered, and (it is said by many) never having intended to perform; or crowdfunding in order to fund a defamation case, with no real intent to launch such a case, and later (it is alleged by many, at any rate) keeping the donated monies for private purposes.
This will only be clarified if, or when, police and/or trading standards officers and/or various regulators properly investigate the activities of “Jack Monroe”, the “Bootstrap Cook”.
No decent meal can be made for either 30p or 11p. This is reaching Monty Python levels of nonsense.
Hi @panmacmillan, can I ask why you have published and are promoting a book containing dangerous advice? Previews of Jack Monroe's Thrifty Kitchen include using a knife & hammer to open a tin can and draining boiling liquid through cloth. Positively harmful suggestions. Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/ILWq8Esi5Z
And here goes Catharine herself. Just like most things coming from Russia she belongs into a museum.
Anyway, the remnants of Russian chapter of Odesa are herewith closed for good, as it has been already the case since 1991. #Odesa#Ukrainepic.twitter.com/uo3wdt9BmJ
Without the Russian connection (there since Kievan Rus in the 9thC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kievan_Rus%27], there would be really nothing of note in Ukraine, and that is exactly what its present Jew-Zionist dictatorship wants; in other words, for there to be nothing in Ukraine that existed before 1991, when this shambolic, corrupt and Jew-Zionist-ruled and exploited republic emerged from the collapse of Sovietism.
A semi-final alumni teams match: Balliol, Oxford v. Exeter, Oxford.
At last, two teams which at least scored about the same as me, not far below as over the past two weeks. Balliol seemed rather better than on their previous appearance (admittedly not hard). Some incredible howlers all the same.
It cannot be denied that this conflict started in 2014, not in 2022.
This wasn't a mistake. This is the same as the Poland incident. The Ukrainians are losing badly and they are desperately trying to drag NATO into the conflict. They want Belarus to go to Ukraine so that NATO can have an excuse to go to Ukraine as well. pic.twitter.com/q0u8UJHWnR
The Zelensky regime in Kiev wants NATO to weigh in on the Kiev-regime side. If that were to happen even more blatantly than is presently the case, a nuclear exchange between NATO (NWO/ZOG) and Russia will be only a matter of time.
Gas in Germany 🇩🇪 has increased from 80 Euro a month to 860 euro a month. Straight from horses mouth. Every one cheering Ukraine hang yr head. Germany once a great country… ruined by leftist socialist green government 🤬 TAKE NOTE AUSTRALIA 🇦🇺
We have a new addition today. There are as many as 7 new kittens. They were just thrown out into the cold and frost. The electricity is off. But they are warm and will receive food and treatment. Kindly support us Paypal- https://t.co/rzrJz12GsS#Ukraine#animalrescuepic.twitter.com/ifXlGstekD
I cannot say whether the above is a genuine cause or not; probably it is. In any case, the true cost of war is the suffering of both human beings and their companion animals.
It is bad that Ukraine, whatever the reasons, is a theatre of war. Let us make sure that the rest of Europe is not dragged into a worse, and greater, war.
.@morphingreality.Here are two: the 1955 railway strike , which hugely accelerated the shift from rail to road. The 1971 Postal strike, which broke the power of the Postal Union and began the break-up of the Post Office (also greatly increasing use of the telephone). https://t.co/o54XgKGxBP
Then of course there was the Miners’ Strike of the early 1980s, which greatly accelerated the decline of the UK’s deep-mine coal industry.
Peter Hitchens on Julian Assange extradition: 'This is a political case…are you a proper country if another country can just reach into your territory and lift out someone it wants to punish?' @ClarkeMicah#FreeAssangeNOWpic.twitter.com/UyROLIItiq
Quite. The UK-USA treaty is basically one-sided, and entirely so in cases with a political element. The UK became a complete colony of the USA (itself under strong Jew-Israeli influence) during the tenure of Blair and Brown, and that has simply continued.
From 14 December 2022. I must have missed that one.
Christmas University Challenge
A quarter-final alumni match between University College London [UCL] and Aberdeen.
Again, neither side impressive, and once again I think that I can claim to have beaten both teams easily. The Aberdeen team was very poor, and the UCL team even worse. A few tweets make the point:
Anyone else getting really frustrated with the time taken by the contestants to answer simple questions on #universitychallenge ? Absolute joke.
Aberdeen University alumni excelled themselves tonight, apparently believing that Rembrandt was born in Milan and even more incredibly, that "Aslef" was the last word of "The Communist Manifesto" 😱😂
The writer, Ken Follett [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Follett], was on the UCL team, and obviously believes himself very clever indeed, a view not supported by this evening’s evidence. He thus joins the club already containing, inter alia, the narcissistic barrister-tweeter, Jolyon Maugham, and the faux-revolutionary oddity and “licensed Bolshevik”, Owen Jones.
Another strange one on the UCL team this evening was one Ria Lina, described as “British comedian“, but whom I now see from Wikipedia is half-Filipina, half-German, and with an American accent, no doubt from her time in an American expat school in the Netherlands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ria_Lina. I had never heard of her. Knew absolutely nothing, and seemed to be chewing something throughout;.
Ian Robert Millard 