Tag Archives: Beckenham

Diary Blog, 28 March 2024

Morning music

[Prague before the Second World War: Old Town, Cathedral, Vltava, Charles Bridge]

Tweets seen

Ukraine is falling to pieces. Having said that, many of Britain’s roads are now little better.

No doubt the pro-immigration, pro-multikulti drones (paid or amateur) will be flooding social media and the msm with “it was ever thus“, “London was always like that” etc. No. Not true. Not on this scale. 100x worse than it was in the 1970s, let alone 1950s.

PUTIN: EUROPE IS FEAR-MONGERING ABOUT ME TO FEED ZELENSKY “What they say about us, that we’re going to attack Europe after Ukraine, is complete nonsense. It’s intimidation of their own population solely to get money out of them. This is happening in the context of the fact that their economies are sinking, and standards of living are falling.” Source: @Sputnik

Is it untrue? I think not. Look at the UK. Gradually falling to pieces, and really not so slowly now.

https://twitter.com/djuric_zlatko/status/1773088839617151127

A reference to those detained and convicted in relation to the recent terrorist attack in Moscow, who may spend their lives as of now in so-called “coffin” cells measuring 4-6 square metres; cells as tiny as 6 feet by 6.

It troubles me that the apparent terrorists were treated with such brutality, verging on sadism (to say the very least), on the day when they were detained; also, that the now-mandated conditions of detention seem worse than simply inhumane; as bad as, or worse, than those suffered by some prisoners in America’s “Supermax” prisons.

It is not that I think that the terrorists “deserve” better treatment but rather, that to treat even such individuals as they have been treated and continue to be treated, diminishes Russia itself, just as Guantanamo, Bagram, Abu Ghraib etc diminished, and continue to diminish, America.

More tweets

Not if a multiheaded civil war happens in the UK, but when and exactly how. Sometime in the next couple of decades. Probably within one decade.

More music

[Akademgorodok, Western Siberia]

Late tweets seen

Terrible, but even so swamped by the total of supposedly “lawful” migration— hundreds of thousands every single year now.

From the horse’s mouth. Pity, though, that Jewish-lobby creature Jenrick cannot use English properly: it’s “uninterested“, not “disinterested“, in this and similar cases. A common, and irritating, mistake in modern English usage.

As for Sunak, and as said many times before on the blog, a little Indian money-juggler who does not look like, behave like, nor think like a Prime Minister of the UK.

https://www.mattgoodwin.org/p/are-the-british-tories-dying

It seems that Goodwin reads this blog. Actually, I have reason to believe that he does. In the past, when his views were rather different (pre-2018), Goodwin blocked me on Twitter. Good to see that he has at least partly woken up.

The endgame will either be later this year or, perhaps more likely, after the national elections in the USA and UK, so sometime in 2025.

Late music

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Diary Blog, 19 November 2023, with brief reminiscence of Charleston, South Carolina, and mint juleps

Morning music

[“At the end stands Victory”]

Peter Hitchens

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/columnists/article-12765795/PETER-HITCHENS-Liberty-fought-tyranny-barely-noticed-court-hearing-week-believe-one-important-cases-time.html.

Liberty fought tyranny in the High Court in London last week, in what I believe is one of the most important court cases of our time. The issues were simple. Is it permissible to disagree publicly with the British Government‘s foreign policy?

If not, how much do you have to disagree with it to be in trouble? And can you then be severely punished without a proper trial?

I have a strong personal interest in this, since I often (in fact, almost always) disagree with British foreign policy. This frequently seems to have been made by bomb-happy teenagers who have never looked at a map, opened a history book or done any proper travel.

These are surely huge issues for any country. Apart from anything else, if foreign policy cannot be criticised, how long before domestic policy is protected in the same way?

[Mail on Sunday/Daily Mail]

Well worth reading.

[cf. my own trial, just now finished (at least at first instance)].

Tweets seen

From over a year ago but nothing has changed since then.

Anyone who thinks that misnamed “Labour” will be somehow better than the equally-misnamed “Conservatives” is self-deluding. Having said that, the “Con Party” does deserve to be stamped on and reduced to a tiny caucus at the 2024 General Election.

Stop the migration-invasion. Remove those not wanted in this country. Eliminate rogue landlords and buy-to-let parasites. Build decent homes for British people.

Bob Stewart was at least well-known. Any replacement will probably attract fewer votes even before the slide in Con Party fortunes is taken into account.

Beckenham has been a fairly safe Conservative seat since its creation in 1950. The Conservatives won easily even at the General Election of 1997, and the scandals around Piers Merchant [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_Merchant] did not prevent his successor from winning the seat at the by-election (also in 1997): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beckenham_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_1990s.

That it looks as if Beckenham will go Labour in 2024 is of wider significance, and underlines the almost existential crisis of the Conservative Party.

Another fact of straw-in-the-wind significance is that the likely new MP for Beckenham is one Marina Ahmad, a Bangladeshi who moved to the UK when 6 months old. The Great Replacement?…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Ahmad; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Stewart_(politician)[.

[Update, 13 October 2024: in the end, Marina Ahmad was shoved aside (I think after being labelled “antisemitic”) in favour of one Liam Conlon, the 20-something son of Keir Starmer’s collaborator, former civil servant and would-be queen bee, Sue Gray, who held the position of Chief of Staff at 10, Downing Street from July 2024 until (it seems) her interference and politicking made Starmer demote her and chuck her out of the first circle of power in October 2024. Conlon won the new Beckenham and Penge seat with 49.3% of the vote. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beckenham_and_Penge_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2020s; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beckenham_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s].

Mint julep

A word about a favourite drink, though one not had by me for some 20 years.

I must descant a little upon the mint julep, as it is… one of the most delightful and insinuating potations that was ever invented, and may be drunk with satisfaction when the thermometer is as low as 70 degrees.

There are many varieties, such as those composed of claret, Madeira, &c., but the ingredients of the real Mint Julep are as follows. I learned how to make them and succeeded pretty well. Put into a tumbler about a dozen sprigs of the tender shoots of mint, upon them put a spoonful of white sugar, and equal proportions of peach and common brandy, so as to fill it up one-third, or perhaps a little less.

Then take rasped or pounded ice, and fill up the tumbler. Epicures rub the lip of the tumbler with a piece of fresh pineapple, and the tumbler itself is very often incrusted outside with stalactites of ice.

As the ice melts, you drink.

I once overheard two ladies talking in the room next to me, and one of them said, “Well, if I have a weakness for any one thing, it is for a mint julep!”–a very amiable weakness, and proving her good sense and good taste. They are, in fact, like the American ladies–irresistible!

[Captain Marryatt— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Marryat].

The typical mint julep of today, however, uses quality Bourbon more often than peach brandy and cognac.

Dickens also enjoyed the odd mint julep: https://www.foodhistory.com/foodnotes/leftovers/bev/julep/01/.

[Charles Dickens, Washington Irving, and a giant mint julep]

Reminds me of happy times in Charleston, South Carolina, which I visited a few times in 2001 and 2002.

[Charleston S.C.]
[conservation district, Charleston S.C.]
[The Battery, Charleston S.C.; I stayed nearby]

Late music