Whether it be called Christmas or Yuletide, the essence is the same.

No more wars within the European family and, now that Sovietism has perished under its own weight, no more wars with Russia or the Russian people.

[I made the same points on Christmas Eve last year, suspecting but not knowing that they would be even more urgently relevant in 2022].

On this day a year ago

Saturday quiz

Well, this week brings another victory over political journalist John Rentoul; he scored 4/10, but I trumped that with 6/10. I did not know the answers to questions 4, 6, 7, and 8.

Tweets seen

Even were Ukraine (the Kiev regime) able to defeat Russian forces, decisively, in the field, which is unlikely, that result would only then lead to the use by Russia of tactical or even strategic nuclear weapons, or to the decision to use fleets of bombers to reduce Kiev to rubble. Putin cannot accept the loss of “captured” territory in the “Russian” areas of Ukraine (Crimea and the Donbass), whatever happens

Maybe. That does chime with Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, of course. A prophet, of sorts.

My assessment from 30 September 2022 (I am far more critical now, having seen more evidence): https://ianrobertmillard.org/2022/09/30/diary-blog-30-september-2022-including-an-assessment-of-jack-monroe-aka-the-bootstrap-cook/.

From the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11571009/Government-introduce-unlimited-fines-PRISON-sentences-illegally-cut-trees.html

At last, something the Government has done and of which I approve.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11570541/Divorced-gay-vicar-quits-parish-amid-claims-drunken-rows-string-girlfriends.html

Typical of the Church of England in 2022— slab-faced lesbian priestesses preaching the gospel of “woke”. Time to disestablish this institution.

Twitter

The layout seems to have changed overnight. No longer is there a “latest” (tweets) column, allowing one to peruse a timeline in sequence by subject. This is very poor, eroding much of the point of Twitter.

More tweets

Clegg and his Spanish lawyer wife now live in one of the most expensive neighbourhoods in the USA, near San Francisco. He betrayed the British people before taking the Facebook shilling (in fact, millions) and fleeing to the United States.

Sean Penn needs a good kicking.

“Dr” Louise Raw crowdfund appeal

The kefuffle around the crowdfunder launched by “Dr” Louise Raw to (ostensibly) sue Jeremy Clarkson continues, with people not only saying that it is doomed on its own terms (for legal reasons, and as I pointed out a few days ago on the blog), but suggesting that the whole thing is a “grift” or near-(?) fraud by Louise Raw, something which I doubted when I wrote about it (if only because it seemed to me that it would be difficult to get away with a blatant fraud of that sort). Maybe I was too kind.

I had thought that Louise Raw would not want to taint her “militant” or pseudo-revolutionary image to her mug followers on Twitter by keeping some of the money for her own use. On the other hand, the said “woke” mug Twitter followers are usually pretty dim, as can be seen in some of their responses to the legal critique of this doomed attempt to sue Clarkson.

Come to that, look at the fundraiser promoted by Roanna Carleton-Taylor on behalf of “grifting” fake “historian” and “journalist”, Mike Stuchbery (along with some Paki-stani solicitor whose name I forget). They raised about £12,000, which as far as I know has never since seen the light of day.

Unless I discover otherwise, I shall believe that, on the balance of probabilities, those monies were split between “Roanna” and Stuchbery, with the solicitor getting a bit by way of “professional fees” (for doing almost nothing but sending one letter to Tommy Robinson). Certainly, no legal action was ever launched. About 800 “woke” mugs donated to that crowdfunder.

Stuchbery still has over 88,000 Twitter followers, though Roanna Carleton-Taylor has apparently withdrawn from online activism (I have no idea whether or not the police took an interest in her and/or her husband’s other activities, as claimed by some people). Anyway, there it is.

See also: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/10/23/a-few-words-about-mike-stuchbery/ and https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/11/27/mike-stuchbery-and-tommy-robinson-legal-dispute/.

Then, of course, we have —what increasingly looks like— a continuing and outright “grift” by the so-called “Bootstrap Cook”, who calls herself “Jack Monroe”.

As of today, 643 mugs, donating regularly via Patreon, are closing their eyes to the very telling exposures of “Jack Monroe” which have appeared since, especially, August 2022; they are supplying her, in aggregate, with monies amounting to some sum between £2,300 and £30,000 each month. Maybe, at a pure guess, about £6,000 or so, monthly. Probably taxfree, too.

“Jack Monroe” also had a crowdfund appeal going from May 2022, ostensibly in order that she could sue MP Lee Anderson and political activist/commentator Martin Daubney. People donated, but (quelle surprise) the “defamation case” has never been initiated, and the monies donated have disappeared into what might be called the “Jack Monroe” lifestyle fund…

“Jack Monroe”, despite everything, not only still has that cadre of 643 utter mugs sending her money every month, but also has no fewer than 563,000 “followers” on Twitter.

See also: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2022/09/30/diary-blog-30-september-2022-including-an-assessment-of-jack-monroe-aka-the-bootstrap-cook/.

Even that ridiculous West Indian woman who caused a fuss recently at Buckingham Palace, and who literally “cosplays” as a tribal African, not only managed to rip off £170,000 before people started to look into the affairs of her blacks-only “charity”, but also, tellingly, has since then managed to get hundreds of mugs to donate another £36,000 in order to help to buy “her charity” a house. Unglaublich!

In other words, those “grifters” have not at all been damaged by what some have been calling outright theft of donated monies, because they make the right sort of “politically correct” or “woke” noises.

Perhaps that is what will happen to Louise Raw’s crowdfunder, i.e. a small amount will go to a solicitor, and Counsel, in return for a nicely-written Advice advising that legal action against Clarkson is impossible, after which Louise Raw will (I speculate, of course) keep whatever is left, perhaps donating a thousand or so to a domestic violence charity (on the publicized record, for public show).

Louise Raw is notably reticent with some information, e.g. as to her own background, including where she studied for her “doctorate” (if any) and her first and Master’s degrees (if any). It may be that she never will give information as to where the bulk of the monies raised went (or shall we say “disappeared”?). All she would have to do, on that hypothesis, is to say that the monies went to suitable “good causes” and that the “good causes” “requested no publicity” or some such. “Jack Monroe” has tried that one in the past, and the mug donors just accepted it as true, so…

More tweets seen

The first tweet above of course refers to 1. The absurd Marlene-something-posing-as-African; 2. “Jack Monroe” (and her dog’s dinner “cooking”); 3. Dr. Julia Grace Patterson (was very briefly an NHS doctor, now lives off “grifting” and/or selling useless facemasks etc); 4. Either Louise Raw, or notorious fox-batterer Jolyon Maugham, the narcissistic New Zealand-educated barrister and “activist”, and his largely pointless “Good Law Project” (anyone who saw his lamentable ignorance on Christmas University Challenge recently might prefer to keep their money).

Incidentally, I just saw a few tweets by “Jack Monroe” about how hard it was for her (supposedly a recovering alcoholic) to find mince pies in the supermarket made without alcohol. Surely a quasi-professional cook would make her own, especially at Christmas? Oh, well, there it is.

Those refer to Louise Raw and her stupid (or maybe not so stupid, if indeed it is a “grift”) crowdfunder.

I was just trying to remember what were the best fees I myself ever got for one-off written Advices when I was at the Bar. I do not include advice given when I was a salaried lawyer overseas in the late 1990s (Kazakhstan, Caribbean, elsewhere), and provided to large companies such as Raytheon, because I was then charged out at about USD $400 an hour, but that money went to the law firm(s), not me personally.

I think that the best fees for basic written Advices that I myself ever had were somewhere in the region of (in the money of 15-30 years ago) somewhat short of a thousand pounds (you could/might double that to put it in the money of 2022), so fairly modest compared to Counsel in the best —or best-padded— chambers.

I do recall, when working in Charleston (South Carolina) in 2002, telephoning to London to ask the Clerk of one of the top company law chambers in Gray’s Inn as to how much a written Advice from one of their QCs would cost. The document in question was 17pp long, but the only important bit consisted of only two paragraphs, and on only one page. A few alternatives were offered, but the bottom line was— £4,000 to £5,000. Again, maybe you would have to increase that by 50% or even 100% today, but even so, the £15,000 appealed for by Louise Raw seems high, particularly in view of the non-commercial subject-matter.

“Wokes” such as “Dr” Louise Raw always claim to be speaking up etc for the people, but the said “wokes” seem to forget that they chose the losing side re. Brexit, in the 2017 and 2019 General Elections, the 2016 US Election etc. Not that I myself favour Trump or the “British” Conservative Party, or even mishandled Brexit, as such, but the “wokes” are in a Twitter (etc) echo chamber where they refuse to even listen to, or see, any views contrary to their own; indeed, they try to “deplatform” people, as do the Jew-Zionists. Louise Raw is a prime example of an “I’m not listening” “woke”. No wonder they always get things wrong.

Incidentally, Louise Raw is on Twitter as “@LouiseRawAuthor”. “Author“?Technically so, because she has had one (non-fiction) book published, a decade or so ago. Is that really enough, though, to validate a self-description as an “author“? Maybe in her world, just as it seems to be OK, in her world, or mind, to call herself “Doctor” based on a “doctorate” granted (if indeed she has one) on the basis of the same subject-matter as her sole book, a strike of match-factory girls in London in 1888.

Late music