Morning music
Saturday quiz
Well, this week 5/10, as against the 2/10 scored by political journalist John Rentoul. I knew the answers to questions 2, 4, 8, 9, and 10. I also “knew” the answer to question 3, but could not bring it to mind.
News from the multikulti society
https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/student-doctor-raped-women-travelodge-11065250
“A student doctor who raped two women in Devon and Cornwall has been jailed for 14 years.
Chris Clark, 32, of Battersea Park Road in London, was convicted by a jury at Truro Crown Court of two counts of rape.
He was sentenced to 14 years in jail by the court on Friday, July 17.“
[Cornwall Live]
Wall. Squad. End.
Tweets seen
Talking point
Interesting YouTube documentary. Worth watching. I knew most of it (and a good deal besides), but there were a few things I did not know.
Brighton has changed even in my own lifetime [b.1956]. I went there a few times as a child in the early 1960s, and to the racecourse a few times in the early 1970s, and once more in 1997. I had one quite nice and successful day in 1974 at Brighton Racecourse, but lost all my winnings the same day at the evening meeting of the Hove Greyhound Stadium a couple of miles away.
I have only been to the “dog tracks” a few times in my life, but never had any luck there. Not as pleasant as a real racecourse (with horses) either.
As a matter of fact, I think that dog racing is a thing of the past: all but one of the tracks I have seen (once only, in each case) are now defunct, turned into (inevitably in the UK) housing developments or business parks. Hove is still racing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton_%26_Hove_Greyhound_Stadium.
Wimbledon closed in 2017, and the site now houses 600 apartments and a football stadium: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wimbledon_Stadium.
Reading closed in 1974 (I think I attended the final meeting), was replaced by another stadium, but that also failed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Stadium_(Oxford_Road).
Brighton Races are still “a thing”, as people now say. An element of criminality has always been there. I recall seeing detectives from (maybe) the Serious Crime Squad or the regional crime squad looking at mugshots in the Members’ Enclosure in 1974, maybe seeking a wanted man.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton_Racecourse
I also appeared as Counsel once only at the appallingly badly-designed Brighton County Court, in 2006 or 2007. At least I won there.
Reverting to that video, I noted that it covers the career of the notorious Sabini, an Italian gangster and so-called “King of the Razor Gangs”, who extorted monies from bookmakers across southern England, and particularly at Brighton.
When I stayed (about half of each month) in England in 2005-2008, I often lived (for up to 10 days per month) at the Royal Oak inn on Dartmoor.
Apart from the usual local crowd, a group of very polite local boys and girls in their late teens would often come in to socialize and play snooker in an adjoining room. One, usually there with his girlfriend, introduced himself as Something (I think Tony) Sabini (or was it Sabatini? I think Sabini, anyway). My ears pricked up, especially when he said that his family had originated (having left Italy), many decades previously, in the Saffron Hill area of Clerkenwell, the one-time “Little Italy”, of which a few traces still remain. That is where the gangster, Sabini, had been born and brought up. An obvious connection. The area is mentioned in one or two of the novels of Charles Dickens as being rather evil.
The young man (certainly no criminal) was surprised that I knew more than he did about that area of London (he lived with his affluent family in a farmhouse near Dartmoor). I of course never asked what his family did for a living, but they had money; one day he cleared his bar tab— nearly £800, and in real terms you could double that in 2026 money.
I think that, as with the Mafia in the USA, descendants of the original criminals in the UK tend to be, not infrequently, entirely respectable people with (if they have money) business interests untainted by crime.
Brighton is hugely different now as compared to the 1970s; maybe less pleasant. I drove through, a few months ago. Far too busy, far too much traffic, far too many restrictions, far too built-up.
Late tweets
This whole “cut benefits” stuff is a ridiculous dog-whistle. Something like half or even two-thirds of the whole UK population get some form of state benefit, depending on definitions. Legally, the State Pension is a “benefit”, as in Pension Credit (topping up income of the over-65s to a minimum extent. Also, Child Benefit given to virtually all parents.
There is no “essential” immigration, unless there is an Einstein or Sakharov out there.
As for saving this country via elections, particularly involving parties completely in the Jewish lobby/Israel lobby pocket, forget it.
The UK harbours an alien “fifth column” of Israel loyalists, working away largely concealed, within our society.
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 