Tag Archives: Hastings

Diary Blog, 18 August 2026

Morning music

[the Great Gate, Trinity College, Cambridge]

On the blog 3 years ago

On the blog 2 years ago

On the blog 1 year ago

Interesting social history vlog about the Isle of Wight

Tweets seen

As blogged previously, the American ship of state is rudderless, and has a maniac at the wheel.

[“Bayo Alaba – Labour MP for Southend East and Rochford since 2024. Bayo is the owner of seven properties which are rented out. He is the fourth biggest landlord in Parliament. His old boss and friend at Redbridge Council Labour MP Jas Athwal tops the list.

Controversy has surrounded Bayo as a landlord. He was reported by @_TheLondoner to have evicted a mother of two and made her homeless. One week later, Bayo tweeted that ‘“Nobody should have to spend the night on the streets.”’

Bayo has accepted the following donations:

£10,000 from the Trevor Chinn funded/Morgan McSweeney run consortium @LabourTogether/ @ThinkLabour

£3,000 from Ruth Driscoll of @mariecurieuk

£10,000 from the @CommunityUnion

£2,000 from the @CWU

£6,133.53 from @unisontheunion

£5,000 from @GMB_union

With his £93,904 salary, expenses (£48,070.94 claimed since 2024), donations, the rent from his seven properties (undisclosed), his share dividends in Alaba Properties (the company linked to the COVID-19 ‘bounce-back loan), Onit Events Ltd and StreetFestiveLive Ltd, his allowances and perks, Bayo was doing very nicely indeed at Westminster until his suspension for alleged financial irregularities.”]

In fact, Bayo’s suspension is only a Labour Party one; he is not suspended as MP, so is still getting all the salary, claimed expenses etc.

Note the £10,000 given to the moneygrubbing n*g by Trevor Chinn’s Jewish lobby/Israel lobby set-up. Also, what is that £3,000 from a Marie Curie organization person? Hopefully not from the charity itself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayo_Alaba

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/aug/17/labour-mp-bayo-alaba-investigation-covid-loans

Import the lower races and peoples, and you also import their ways of life, and their ways of doing things. Simples.

Interesting, though slightly tendentious, vlog

I have seen a few other vlog posts by that couple. Russia. China. Eritrea. North Korea. I believe that they are making quite a good income from this, maybe as much as £100,000 a year.

Interesting views, and not entirely wrong, but (as seen in their other vlog posts) rather naive in some respects. For example, the man there (Matt) has little time for the idea that immigrants in the UK have led to a housing shortage, yet the facts speak for themselves. Literally millions of immigrants have arrived even in the past decade, let alone the past 40 years. That may not be the only cause of the UK housing crisis, but it is a major one, and I would argue the major one.

[an old picture, showing Muslim apostate (he says not) and pro-Israel loonie politico, Sajid Javid… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sajid_Javid; the “4 million” is now the ?15 million]

They try to avoid direct political stances; in this case, the man originated in the UK and so may be more “triggered”, as people now say. I note that his wife/girlfriend (Julia) refers to Spain in the 1960s/1970s as “Fascist Spain”, which is not (entirely) correct. The Falange [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falangism] was only one strand, albeit a leading one, in Franco’s government.

I might add that, in other videos seen, I did not notice the woman make reference to the more negative aspects of Sovietism.

I got the opinion in one or two of their other videos that they are in danger of falling into the trap of some tourists or visitors who go to many many countries for a short while, but perhaps fail to understand much about them. There is a superficiality.

Once, in 1998, when I was in Egypt for three months, I met, at the oasis of Siwa, an American woman, a New Yorker, who was travelling around the world to gather material, mainly photos, for a book. She had been to pretty much every country in Asia, for example, including Burma (Myanmar, if you like), but she had been to each country for only a day or two.

Certainly one can get an impression of a place in a day or two, but superficiality is inevitable unless one at least has the background knowledge to make some sense of the impression. That American woman did not have the background. Her impressions were of the “is this Tuesday? I must be in Egypt” variety.

Incidentally, that American woman stayed at the oasis for about 20 hours; arrived on the once-a-day bus one afternoon, and departed the next day, presumably having taken a few photos to illustrate her book about her world travels.

In a way, I like the attitude of those two vloggers, who try to see the best in people etc, but that can lead to a kind of “touristic” naivety.

Still, well worth seeing, I thought.

Nick Griffin’s blog

https://nickgriffin544956.substack.com/p/how-the-state-tries-to-manipulate

Also well worth reading.

More tweets

Well…I do not agree with Sophie Meaden, firstly because I am not generally a cruel person, and also because I (would) prefer to eliminate enemies of the people cleanly and swiftly. That is more honourable.

Arguably, the untermensch in question deserves her enhanced penalty, but to do it to him would lower the honour and prestige of the State.

Tell the truth and shame the Devil“, or should that be (((devils)))?

Incidentally, I see from a Wikipedia photo that, outside Goldfinger’s own Hampstead house, there is parked a Jaguar.

[1-3 Willow Road, Hampstead, once the home of architect Erno Goldfinger]

A Russian or partly-Russian friend of mine, now deceased, the university lecturer and noted translator of Dostoyevsky, Ig Avsey, always called any Jaguar seen “a Jew-boy’s gondola“, which always made me laugh. God knows where he got that from.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/dec/09/ignat-avsey-obituary

Ig was eccentric, devoted to Dostoyevsky (especially), usually entertaining, as well as being —not infrequently— mildly infuriating. I have blogged once or twice in the past about him:

More tweets

More villages…

Kharkov, Odessa and Kiev have to be taken.

Late tweets

[“Whilst having no time whatsoever for Reform strategically they did the right thing by suspending him. He says the Tories are broken and yet has supported every wrong cause going from IDS to Brexit, Johnson & Truss. He has slagged off his new party endlessly. He has with great pride pulled off big defections. You should be hanging your head in shame if you’re a defector, it’s a disgrace. Most of all the raving narcissism of this man, the desperation to be on tv shows and radio stations is repulsive. I’ve stopped listening to his own podcast which had other excellent hosts but he drowns them out. He’s trouble with a capital T – anyone calling him a Tory moderate is a fool – he’s always been a hard right-winger and dangerous. I said Reform were mad to take him – and here we are.“]

Going back about 16 years, I have never heard anything worth hearing from that Montgomerie character. A very odd person. He looks drugged or something in that clip.

To give or sell British weapons to the Kiev regime is just mad.

Earlier today, I saw/heard some stupid woman Labour MP and (I think) minister (I could not identify her) on BBC News saying that “the UK will continue to stand with Ukraine.” Apart from the stupidity of the fact and the slogan, I could not fail to think how just wrong and ridiculous it is that birdbrains like her are actually (as a collegium at least) ruling over or governing (however ineptly) this country, rather than it being governed by people like me. Well, one has to be honest…

…and such bombs might not require planes to drop them or missiles to deliver them. For example, they might be smuggled into the USA or elsewhere as “suitcase bombs”, though not easily (they might be of considerable size).

Late music

Diary Blog, 11 September 2024, including reminiscence about the “9/11” attack in 2001

Morning music

11 September 2001

Well, here we are again. On the “original” 11 September, meaning “9/11” 2001 (in the American format), I was in the back of a taxi driving down the Strand in London, with an American colleague. Mid-morning. He received a call from his wife in Charleston, South Carolina. Something about a plane crashing into the World Trade Center in Manhattan.

My colleague relayed the news to me, and the typically know-all London taxi driver told us that he already knew all about it.

My American colleague asked me where we could get to a TV. I replied that our office in London (off Berkeley Square in Mayfair) had one, but that there used to be a Dixons (electronics and home electrical goods store) in the Strand. We saw it, disembarked and went into that store. Hundreds of TV sets, all showing what looked like a disaster movie. A few customers wandering around, looking at the goods, seemingly unaware of the enormity of what was happening, vicariously, in front of them.

After about 10 minutes looking and listening, we left and went to my then office. The staff there were getting the latest on-the-ground and diplomatic news.

My American colleague was both grim and angry, and muttered something about how “we” should respond in the same way the Israelis always did. Needless to say, I disagreed, though as politely as I could. For one thing, the origins and motives of the perpetrators had not yet been established (he was saying that it must be the Iraqis, which of course turned out to be wrong). I do recall remarking that if a state was proven to have been behind the attack, then it was undoubtedly an act of war in terms of international law.

Of course, the 2001 WTC attack was used as the fuel for the American-led invasions of both Iraq and Afghanistan.

I well remember my American colleague’s anger, which I think was general across the USA, from what I not only saw on TV but also what I noted once or twice in the USA not long afterward; I flew to Washington about a week or so after the attacks.

I myself was relatively unemotional about it, despite the horrible images and evident suffering etc. That’s just me, I suppose. After all, many horrible things happen in the world, and the Americans themselves perpetrate quite a few of them. Having said that, the attack was an appalling outrage from almost any point of view.

Since then, of course, the Trade Center attack has spawned a hundred “conspiracy theories”, including the so-called “Dancing Israelis”: see https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12768362.five-israelis-were-seen-filming-as-jet-liners-ploughed-into-the-twin-towers-on-september-11-2001/.

That report is really worth reading. The Israeli intelligence connection to the “9/11” attack is more than a simple “conspiracy theory” that can be simply laughed off.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks_advance-knowledge_conspiracy_theories.

After the attacks on New York and Washington, the former Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was asked what the terrorist strikes would mean for US-Israeli relations. He said: “It’s very good.” Then he corrected himself, adding: “Well, it’s not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy for Israel from Americans.”

[Herald Scotland]

As with the Kennedy assassination, some of the “9/11” conspiracy theories, mutually contradictory as some are, cannot be entirely discounted.

One thing that I found odd at the time was that members of the bin Laden family living in the USA at the time were flown out of US airspace on private jets only a day or two after the attacks (the Pentagon also having been hit), and authorized in person, it seems, by George W. Bush, the U.S. President, and at a time before ordinary commercial flights were allowed to resume.

Of course, since the attacks of 2001, the area of the attack has been redeveloped.

The original “Twin Towers” complex was a very powerful architectural statement, partly because of the two almost identical main buildings:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_(1973%E2%80%932001)

In fact, there were minor differences. I went up both towers. Once only, in 1989, onto the open observation deck of the South Tower:

…and also once only to the Hors d’Oeuvrerie and Cellar in the Sky near the top of the North Tower, where I enjoyed the view and a couple of glasses of Californian Chardonnay with my first wife, an employee of the Federal Government. That would have been in 1990 or 1991.

In fact, during the years 1989-1993 I was occasionally at the World Trade Center, but only because I sometimes used the PATH line from Newark (New Jersey) into Manhattan, a service that terminated either at the WTC or at 33rd Street/Herald Square in Midtown (I more often went to Midtown).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_(rail_system)

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Silverstein#September_11_attacks

The rebuilt area is still quite striking but perhaps not quite so much as the original:

[the redeveloped area of the World Trade Center]
[by night]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_(2001%E2%80%93present)

Incidentally, one of the things I noticed about the South Tower was the speed of the very large express lift/elevator (the size of a room), which transported tourists to the floor below the Observation Deck in a matter of only a couple of minutes, if I recall aright. I think 107 floors. There was a staircase from there to the outside Observation Deck.

Tweets seen

I did not see the U.S. Presidential TV debate. Such “debates” are always rubbish (going back as far as the famous Nixon-Kennedy ones). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_United_States_presidential_debates.

Having said that, such shouting matches and trivia do have their effect on voter response.

At this point, I have no idea who supposedly “won” the TV debate, or who is going to come out on top in the election.

The “Twitterati”, or Twitter/X twits, heavily pro-Kamala Harris, think that she has “won” the TV debate, but that is near-meaningless: they were also sure that the Remain side would win the Brexit Referendum, and that Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.

America is now so polarized that it would take a President ten times better than the two present contenders rolled together to patch it up.

Starmer-Labour is a Labour Friends of Israel project.

More reminiscences

It seems that today is a day for Memory Lane.

I notice that Larkbeare House in Exeter, not far from the barristers’ chambers where I was professionally based during the years 2002-2008 (though actually resident much of the time after 2005 and until mid-2009 in France), is up for sale.

Larkbeare House was, at that time (and, indeed, since 1876), the Judges’ Lodgings. High Court and Circuit Judges on the Western Circuit of the Bar [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuits_of_England_and_Wales] would stay there when sitting at Exeter.

I attended a couple of receptions there in 2006/2007.

Judges’ Lodgings, which go back hundreds of years, came into existence as a way of isolating judges from the opinions and potential pressures of the local populations, and also protecting them from potential intimidation or protest.

The sale is a sign of the times. The misgovernment of David Cameron-Levita and George Osborne decided to sell off most of the remaining Judges’ Lodgings. Judges now often stay in hotels when on circuit; to my mind not entirely satisfactory.

Incidentally, if anyone wants to buy the property, the “guide price” is £4M.

More tweets

More tweets

Listen to that little bastard (Hamish Falconer MP). Parroting the exact same words that many “Conservative” MPs did 2010-2024. No difference whatsoever. “Tough choices” etc. The little bastard has never had to make a “tough choice” in his life, let alone one that impacted him personally.

Incidentally:

The son of Charlie Falconer, Baron Falconer of Thoroton, who served as Lord Chancellor under Tony Blair, Falconer attended Westminster School and then St. John’s College, Cambridge, graduating in 2008 in Human, Social and Political Science,[4] before joining the diplomatic service. Falconer worked in the UK government’s Department for International Development from 2009 to 2013, and then the Foreign and Commonwealth Office until 2022.[5] His diplomatic career centred on national security and humanitarian relief, including hostage recovery.[6][7] Whilst in the Foreign Office, he spent a year at Yale University as a “World Fellow”.[8]

Since leaving the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office, Falconer worked as an associate fellow at the IPPR,[6] and was a Policy Fellow at the think tank Labour Together alongside standing as a candidate for Parliament.

[Wikipedia].

A horrible little System-careerist bastard, in short. Moreover, one born with a double-size silver spoon in his mouth.

Starmer and his cohorts, including the said horrible little careerist bastard, are sending £3 BILLION a year to the brutal Jewish dictatorship in Kiev, apart from anything else. More than they are confiscating from British pensioners.

The “Conservative” government of that little Indian money-juggler had to go, had to be binned, but what has replaced it (as I predicted, though not alone) is a kind of useless, pointless, sleazy, box-ticking Blair Mark Two government of would-be dictatorial idiots, headed by chief idiot Starmer.

Everyone and every organization helping to facilitate evil rubbish of that sort should be purged.

Also seen there, jeering, is bad-joke “Lord Chancellor” and Secretary of State for Justice, Shabana Mahmood, a Pakistani woman whose entire “legal career” (even including Bar pupillage) lasted for only about 3 years, mostly spent being a “gopher” at a firm of solicitors.

What a line-up of unpleasant individuals. Look at sour-faced would-be dictator Yvette Cooper! Has she been told that her Labour Friends of Israel subscription is due? Have some of her latest fake expenses claims been queried?

They are already worse. Starmer-Labour, Friends of Israel-Labour, has nothing it really wants to do, except sit as a “government”, get paid well, make connections with big business, and “govern “, punishing anyone who expresses alternative views of the world.

They have no policies worth a plugged nickel, and they have no mandate— only 4 out of every 20 eligible voters voted for them, and most of those were people wanting only to bin the “Conservative” Party.

[No, wait! I voted Labour!“]

Starmer-Labour has a list of people they want to kill off or at least imprison and/or silence: pensioners (hardly any of whom vote Labour now), alternative political voices, those opposed to Israeli war crimes and the UK Jewish lobby.

This is a (barely-)”elected” dictatorship, composed mainly of people who can fairly, if loosely, be described as traitors.

Talking point

Britain (and some other countries, such as Sweden) in 2024?

More tweets seen

That Dunt individual is not objective. I believe that he tweeted or retweeted about me a few times in the past. Unpleasant, and usually wrong in his views.

Starmer and his cabal think that the recent protests and their “riotous” offshoots are as bad as it gets for him and Labour. Think again. 4+ years of this type of quasi-tyrannical misgovernment and anything could happen.

From the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13838731/Keir-Starmer-Rachel-Reeves-energy-bill-hikes-cap-costs-Downing-Street-flats-winter-fuel.html

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are set to be insulated from the impact of energy bill hikes as pensioners face a struggle without winter fuel payments. 

The PM and Chancellor only pay a taxable benefit on running costs at the grace-and-favour apartments – capped at 10 per cent of their ministerial salaries.

It means that they contribute around £3,000 to cover all utilities and other expenses, and the sum will not go up when the Ofgem cap increases by 10 per cent next month.

…critics have warned that thousands of pensioners on low-incomes could die through lack of heating when the weather turns.”

[Daily Mail]

Late tweets

Well, here she is: aged about 28, and her only work experience has been a bit of “intern” and “volunteer” activity: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helena_Dollimore#Political_career.

These are the know-nothings that purport to rule over us (of course, just lobby-fodder; and a kind of much better-paid advice centre worker).

As I have said, Iran’s tactics of uncertainty keep Israel off-balance, but such tactics cannot be kept in deployment forever. In the end, Iran will have to either put up or shut up.

The way things are going, Britain’s future looks very dark (literally), but I should still much prefer this country not to be blasted and irradiated by nuclear war…

The UK must withdraw all support from the Kiev regime.

Tell me about it!

A few of my own experiences of persecution over the past decade:

I shall have a little more to say about all that either tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

Late music

[c.1941: Wehrmacht soldier chats with a Parisienne on the promenade of the Palais de Chaillot, by the gardens of the Trocadero, and across the river from the Champ de Mars and Eiffel Tower]