Tag Archives: Lastminute.com

Diary Blog, 17 May 2023, with discussion about economic sanctions on Russia and on 1970s Rhodesia

Morning music

[“the Fuhrer as friend of animals“]

Reminder

Tweets seen

We must never forget “the men behind the wire”.

This looks hopeful, on the face of it. Kennedy is all for taking away the ricebowl of the Kiev regime. At the same time, Biden is very clearly mentally unfit to continue in his office.

Economic sanctions

Economic sanctions either do not work at all or have unexpected consequences. When I visited Rhodesia in 1977, aged 20, I half-expected to see a country weighed down by sanctions imposed by the UN. What I found was a country where those who owned cars mostly drove quite new ones. The UK complied with the sanctions regime, but France, Germany, Japan etc did not, judging by the cars seen on the road. Outside the capital, Salisbury (now Harare), though, there were often empty roads— one sanction that did have an effect was that on fuel, which was rationed.

I noticed that books were hard to get. The main bookshop (I was told it was the main one) in Salisbury had few if any serious books (and none of my then-favourite Penguin Classics), but plenty of books from South Africa, most seemingly (my perception, anyway) about how to take care of your horse/dog/cat/tropical fish. You could buy Wilbur Smith adventures, another South African import [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilbur_Smith]. Also, no American or British news and current events magazines, no Time, Newsweek, Spectator etc. Rather poor South African magazines such as Scope were available. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scope_(magazine).

The dearth of serious reading material was probably the result of both sanctions and the disinclination of most Rhodesians to spend time on intellectual pursuits even of a superficial nature.

As to other effects of the sanctions regime against Rhodesia, imported booze (from Europe or North America) was almost unobtainable, but that did not affect me personally during my time there, because my main drink, apart from water and orange juice, was beer, and the local product was of high quality (Lion Lager or Simba, pronounced “Shumba“, or South African Castle Pilsner, my favourite).

The Rhodesians tried to get around sanctions by diversifying, producing admittedly inferior substitutes for previously imported products. Everything from chocolate to whisky, and even some firearms. I remember seeing ads in the local press for a highly inaccurate submachinegun called the Rho-gun. I seem to recall that the price was about $290 (Rhodesian dollars, not exchangeable outside the country officially, though I did manage to sell quite a few —at a poor exchange rate— to a businessman in Gaborone, Botswana, after I left Rhodesia).

See: https://guns.fandom.com/wiki/BHS_Rhogun and https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Rhogun. For sale to (white) Rhodesians with the appropriate permit. The Rhodesian military had far better arms, mostly either from South Africa or from elsewhere (and pre-dating UDI Independence from the UK). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodesia%27s_Unilateral_Declaration_of_Independence]. See also: https://www.nytimes.com/1977/01/03/archives/travelers-get-armed-guard-on-a-road-vital-to-rhodesia.html.

I noticed that “white goods” such as refrigerators, icemaking machines etc were very expensive, whereas locally-produced food such as oranges, nuts, and biltong (meat, often beef or antelope, dried in the sun) etc was not too expensive.

As for exports (supposedly impossible under the UN sanctions regime), the Rhodesians were able to export minerals and some fruit etc. Years later, I discovered that the Soviet Union, one of the states pressing for harder sanctions against Rhodesia (and South Africa) had in fact been secretly buying Rhodesian exports (at a substantial discount). Chromium and other minerals, and Mazoe oranges (sold in the Soviet Union as “Chinese”, apparently). All shipped out of Mozambique.

Tobacco was another prime export, sold on world markets by a sanctions-busting operation based, I think, in Rotterdam.

The idea that Russia will be “brought to its knees” by economic sanctions is a pipe-dream. In fact, such sanctions help Russia in a “be cruel to be kind” way. They force Russia to diversify, and to improve agriculture and horticulture. The sanctions have also forced Russia to create new trading links, and to strengthen existing ones.

More music

[regrets for the silly and weaselling intro to the music, and the equally silly graphic…]

“Human rights abuses”

The next time some bought-and-paid-for “British” or American politician-for-hire, or some Jew neo-con publicist, or fake “centrist”, talks about “human rights abuses” by Russia or others, remember the behaviour of the USA itself. Here are a few examples:

More?

In tropical heat and/or blazing sunshine as well…

The above two images show the American concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, on the island of Cuba.

…the fact is that the German camp guards of WW2, and even the brutal Soviet guards in their labour camps, behaved better than the Americans have in recent decades.

Behind the executives, and the paid-for public faces, the New World Order (NWO), and much of that is tied in with World Zionism, and Israel.

More tweets seen

Unless a true movement can emerge in the UK and mainland Europe pretty rapidly, that must be correct.

Exactly.

In 2016, one of the five tweets that got me disbarred, at the instigation of two connected packs of Jews, was that describing Sarkozy —accurately, except that he is not a full Jew, only part— as “a corrupt little Jew“. Well, scroll on 6-7 years and here we are…

Incidentally, my disbarment was both wrongful and actually unlawful: see https://ianrobertmillard.org/2017/07/09/the-slide-of-the-english-bar-and-uk-society-continues-and-accelerates/.

Another of the five supposedly “grossly offensive” tweets posted by me, as a result of which I was unlawfully disbarred, was that describing snivelling cocaine user and drunk, Gove, as corrupt, as a fraudster and as a freeloader, and also as being in the pocket of the Israel/Jewish lobby.

Well, any argument on that now?

Look at the above news report. Speculators and parasites are favoured by Gove’s latest policy U-turn. Not all are Jews (and not all Jews are speculators and/or parasites) but, at the same time…

So, of the five “offensive” tweets, turns out that, in fact, two were undoubtedly —and now provably— simple true statements of fact, as were also (in reality) the other three tweets in question.

Corbyn was not even decently “antisemitic”, despite the constant (((whine))) about him. In general, a complete idiot.

700,000 immigrants last year. That’s “net”, meaning maybe a million entered but 300,000 (mainly real British people going to Australia, NZ, Canada etc) left.

Britain as a dustbin.

As, I think, Lord Green of Deddington said in the Lords recently, that amount of immigration means that, just to stand still, Britain requires 300 new dwellings every single day!

Horrible little blots such as Tom Harwood are now showing tiny bits of the Green Belt as scruffy here and there. The exceptions that prove the rule— the Green Belt must be saved and, yes, improved.

Starmer can now, I hope, kiss goodbye to his desired Commons majority in 2024. Much as I want rid of the “Conservatives”, Starmer-Labour is now showing its hand…and it is looking even worse.

More tweets

It has nothing much to do with “dream of home ownership“. In any case, who wants to own a concrete or brick box in a hellhole landscape, and in which “neighbourhood” your “neighbours” may well be persons of backward culture not long off the boat (literally)?

Is that an honest poll? I wonder. Of course, the public has had 1-2 years of brainwashing or conditioning.

I wonder whether the results might have been different had the question made the point that if Ukraine joins NATO and has a war with Russia, it will be mandatory for all NATO states to join in. That is to say, it would be mandatory to join in a war against Russia which would almost certainly either be or become nuclear.

I suppose that, even were the question to elucidate the situation to the people asked, a few lunatics would still want to fight Russia, but most might think that the utter destruction of their homes and whole way of life would be a high price to pay for supporting “Ukraine” (the Kiev regime)…

Starmer still no more popular than Sunak, give or take a couple of points. Both stupid wasters unpopular with 60%-69% of the voters.

I daresay that, in a month’s time, once people realize that Starmer wants to continue to import millions of unwanted migrant-invaders, and destroy what is left of the still-beautiful English countryside so that millions of hutches can be built to house them, the popularity of Starmer —and so, Labour— will fall further yet.

The whole two-party system (with LibDem/dustbin add-on) is very ingrained. It is, in itself, a potent form of conditioning or brainwashing.

Thoughts

Thinking about that visit to Rhodesia in 1977: many people imagine that a collapsing society looks like Germany in 1945 (or 1923). Not so. I was in Poland (several times) in 1988 and 1989; also, in the DDR/East Germany, and Czechoslovakia.

The whole socialist system fell apart in late 1989. Yet the police still patrolled, the borders were maintained and guarded (until the Berlin Wall fell), utilities still worked, and there were few political demonstrations, let alone riots or the like. Letters continued to be delivered. Shops remained open, even if they had little to sell in some cases. The seismic changes were about to happen, but there were only slight external signs of that.

One got a sense of considerable discontent, talking to people in Poland and Czechoslovakia (on those visits and elsewhere as well), but the surface normality prevailed. The police still functioned, even in Poland (I myself picked up two tickets for, in the American phrase, “jaywalking”, i.e. crossing the road at the wrong place). Fined on the spot…twice. A recidivist.

Turning from those situations to the UK, there often seems to be little public appetite for swift political change. Frustrating for many of us.

We have seen, over 20 years, almost uncontrolled mass immigration (including, now, direct migration-invasion in small boats across the Channel, thousands of the bastards per day), crushing “austerity” for the poorer half of the society, ridiculous policies about the “Covid” “panicdemic” etc, an inability of Government to supply (directly, or via the private and/or third sectors) services vital to the people (such as trains, road repair, NHS or other healthcare, social care for various groups). Also, a failure to guard our borders, and a failure to clamp down on real crime (theft, drug abuse, social nuisance etc)., while kow-towing to Jewish/Zionist pressure re. social media non-crime.

Now we see idiots such as Ann Widdecombe criticizing parents who cannot afford to feed their children cheese sandwiches, while pumping billions out to “Ukraine” (the Jewish regime in Kiev) and to house and feed unwanted nuisances who have arrived via unauthorized Channel crossings.

Talk to people, and you get a sense of weary resignation in them, rather than anger, though that may also be there, under the urbane English exterior.

Still, there is everything yet to play for. The NSDAP vote in Germany was only 2.6% in 1928. Events happened, and the NSDAP triumphed only 4-5 years later.

From the newspapers

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/may/17/online-estate-agent-purplebricks-sold-charles-dunstone-strike

Purplebricks, the once high-flying online estate agent that reached a peak valuation of more than £1.3bn, has been sold to Charles Dunstone-backed rival Strike for £1 with all of its more than 750 staff put at risk of redundancy.

Purplebricks launched in 2014 and received early backing from Neil Woodford, the former star stockpicker. It floated on London’s junior market, Aim, in December 2015.”

[The Guardian].

Another example of the madness of crowds, and the madness of finance-capitalism, though I concede that there are arguments to the contrary.

Remember Lastminute.com? The newspapers boosted that simple and actually not very clever idea, made an entitled/privileged and silly woman (and her Jewish business partner) incredibly wealthy in the speculative scramble, but it ended with the small shareholders all wiped out; cheated, in reality.

The woman was even elevated to the Lords by David Cameron-Levita. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lastminute.com and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Lane_Fox.

The only thing that can be said is that at least most of those small shareholders lost only a few hundred pounds, if that, their share allocations having been very small.

Lastminute is still, I think, trading, technically. I tried to use the booking service once, about 20 years ago. Useless.

As to Purplebricks, looks as if many shareholders are now left with the value of their shareholding being worth little more than 1% of the peak valuation.

Late tweets

https://twitter.com/RedSisterr/status/1657482955101544454?s=20

https://twitter.com/RedSisterr/status/1657482986726789122?s=20

https://twitter.com/RedSisterr/status/1657483015679795202?s=20

https://twitter.com/RedSisterr/status/1657483052912721920?s=20

https://twitter.com/RedSisterr/status/1657483078527336448?s=20

https://twitter.com/RedSisterr/status/1657483127080591360?s=20

“Jack Monroe”, someone with a 10+ year history of successful “grifting” and fraud, yet a few nincompoops in the msm have still not woken up to her dishonesty.

Looks as though she is more or less washed up now as a public figure or minor “celebrity”, despite 430 mugs still sending her a total of thousands of pounds each month via Patreon.

Late music

Diary Blog, 16 November 2022

Morning music

[devastated central Warsaw, 1940s]

On this day a year ago

On the blog 5 years ago

Ukraine

In case readers missed my late comment yesterday re. the “missile hits Poland” report:

Either this incident was accidental, or the explosions are a false flag by the Zelensky regime, created to drag NATO into war with Russia. Either way, it was plainly not a deliberate attack on Poland, and thus should not trigger Article 5 of the NATO treaty.

In any case, now that states such as Poland, the Baltic states etc belong to NATO (which should never have happened), Article 5 should be abrogated. It is now nothing less than a dangerous trigger mechanism which may put all of Europe (and quite possible both the USA and Russia as well) to sword and flame.

This situation has been caused, at root, by the reckless NATO support for the Kiev regime. This is not our fight, and never has been.

Latest news:

Reuters is reporting that a Nato source has informed the new agency that US president Joe Biden has informed the alliance that the missile that fell into Poland, killing two people, was a Ukrainian air defence missile.”

[Guardian]

Russia defence ministry: missile claims ‘deliberate provocation’, wreckage ‘identified’ as Ukrainian S-300

The Russian defence ministry is issuing a robust statement denying involvement in the explosion in Poland.

Reuters has snapped the following key lines:

  • Russia says it carried out a massive attack on military targets and energy infrastructure in Ukraine on Tuesday.
  • The strike achieved its goals.
  • High-precision strikes were carried out only on Ukrainian territory and no closer than 35km (22 miles) from the Ukrainian-Polish border.
  • Allegations of Russian missiles falling in the Polish village are a deliberate provocation to escalate the situation.
  • Photos of the wreckage found in Poland are identified as elements of the Ukrainian S-300

[Guardian]

As I commented late yesterday, quite likely a “false flag” operation by the Kiev regime of the Jew Zelensky. The Kiev regime is desperate to get NATO directly into the war on the Kiev side, or to get Russia attacked by NATO.

Other tweets seen

More accurately, by secret and hidden cabals embedded in the West.

We know what has to be done, across the Western world; we just cannot publish what has to be done, eg in the UK, because of repressive restrictions on free speech. The evil has to be rooted out.

More tweets

There should be official and/or police investigations into the whole “Jack Monroe”/”Bootstrap Cook” situation.

That Bernal idiot, who (incredibly) lectures in law in East Anglia, is also one of the unthinking “you can have free speech but not freedom from the consequences” brigade, which mantra would effectively designate Stalin’s Soviet Union or Mao’s China as places where free speech existed.

Very little, if anything, written by Bernal on Twitter can be taken seriously, in my opinion.

More Jewish fraud. When will people wake up? Having said that, look at infamous Lastminute.com. One of the “entrepreneurs” involved was not Jewish (Martha Lane Fox) and she made millions out of naive small investors. Not only not punished, but made a member of the House of Lords, and appointed to numerous public bodies. She is presently also Chancellor of the Open University.

More tweets

As of today, 666 (ha ha) “patrons” (regular donors or, as I prefer, “mugs”) supplying “Jack Monroe” with up to £10 each and every month via the Patreon website. Up to £6,660 per month (minus any Patreon fees), and probably taxfree. In cash. Every month. Plus book royalties, appearance fees, off-the-cuff donations, other sources of income (eg Child Benefit, Child Tax Credit etc).

I have yet to see a tweet from even one genuinely “poor” person who thinks that Jack Monroe —“Bootstrap Cook”— has helped his or her existence. All tweets supporting her come from fairly affluent journalists, msm people, some lesbians and/or persons of the LBGTQXYZ brigade, fake “doctors” operating psychotherapy scams, retired people living in rural or semi-rural comfort, and/or readers of the Observer and Guardian. I suspect that some supportive tweets are in fact from “Bootstrap Cook” herself, using aliases, though I cannot prove as much.

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

Elixir of youth?

Strange. I happened to see the chambers bio of someone who was at the “Bar school” (the Inns of Court School of Law) at the same time as me (1987-88), and in the same little practice group of about half a dozen or so people; all our surnames began with “M”.

I was told at the time (and in confidence) that this particular person was a great deal older than he looked, was (if memory serves) about 45, and had been a commended officer of the Flying Squad, who had arrested a shotgun-carrying robber in a bank branch. He looked to me somewhere between 28 and mid-thirties, no older.

I was told that said person (whose name it is unnecessary to mention) did not want it to be generally known that he had been in the police, because there was at the time rather a prejudice at the Bar against policemen becoming barristers. Perhaps. That is what I was told, anyway.

I noticed that the said student was good at listening rather than talking, for example when in a pub after our “practical exercises” (in those days, Bar students used the courtrooms of the Royal Courts of Justice after hours in order to playact being “Counsel”, supervised by a real barrister acting as “judge”).

The person in question blended in easily. I would never have thought that he had been in the police, had I not been told.

As mentioned, I was told that the said person was about 45 (I think that it was either 45 or 46). Now this was in 1987, maybe 1988. I see now that, after what I understand to have been a pretty successful career at the criminal Bar (though he has not taken silk), he is still practising and, as far as I can judge from his (presumably not too old) photograph, looks no more than 50, if that!

Various idle thoughts intrude: does he have a ghastly portrait of himself hidden away somewhere, as in The Picture of Dorian Gray? Has he found the fountain of youth, or the elixir of youth? If what I was told back in 1987-88 was true, he must be 80-81 years old!

I can only conclude that I may have been told a load of rubbish, yet even if one knocks off a decade from the age as related to me in 1987 or 1988, he must be ~70. Puzzling.

Incidentally, I do not think that I am breaking the confidence entrusted to me about 35 years ago. Apart from the time that has elapsed, I have kept the “secret” since 1988 and even now have not identified the barrister concerned. In any case, whatever the sensibilities of the Bar re. police becoming barristers may have been, 35 years ago, the pre-legal career of that individual must surely be taken to have been creditable, if anything.

More tweets

The missiles seem mainly to be targeting critical infrastructure such as electrical power plants. If this offensive is “terroristic”, then what were the massive American bombing and missile attacks on Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Serbia etc, not to mention, further back, Vietnam, North Korea, Germany etc?

Late tweets

There you have it: Jews and part-Jews ruling over a mass of cultureless and raceless economic serfs— the Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan.

Quite.

Just imagine that. Millions of idiots, including politicians, journalists etc, were quite ready to endorse the incineration of Europe, North America, and much of Russia, all because a couple of stray Poles (unfortunate or unlucky, so be it) were killed by a missile that now turns out not to have been Russian at all, but from the Kiev regime.

The GRU or SVR should have eliminated Zelensky before any trucks or tanks started to roll in February 2022.

Late music