[painting of Grenzpolizei (border guards) patrolling the DDR border zone pre-1990; https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Grenzpolizei. I once or twice crossed such a zone, but with permission and in a car, not on foot and not with Alsatian dog “Fido” chasing me…]
Memory Lane
I happened to see that someone with whom I was slightly acquainted at school in the early 1970s died a couple of years ago. Not someone I really knew, or knew well, because he, Matthew Perry by name, was in the “B” or “C” stream of my year, whereas I was in the “A” stream.
In fact, I really only became acquainted with Perry —and he was never a friend as such; I never visited his home or went anywhere with him— because, if I remember aright, we were both in the Bridge Club. An amusing fellow, with several stories to tell, often about (horse-) racing or gambling generally. The sort of person one might, in an older person, call “clubbable”.
I noticed from the piece I saw (from the online mag of my old school —incidentally, I should never have recognized him from the appended photo, perhaps taken in an unwell later year) that, after his school years were over, he had done well in pharmaceuticals, but had also flown aid to Africa (Uganda, I think it said).
Quite a few people of the same or similar age to myself, and whom I knew as a small child, older child, or generally in youth, are now no longer on this Earth. In fact, the same goes for several people I knew in later life. A reminder that we have to do what we can, accomplish our mission (of whatever kind) while still here.
Tweets seen
This is not Mark Lewis of Patron Law, but – assuming the SRA can complete a competent investigation – it will discover Lewis was out of his depth in my litigation and made several ‘mistakes’ which should end his career.@MLewisLawyer@sra_solicitors@LawPatronpic.twitter.com/N1LyYI2e6q
Unmanned weapons systems tests were conducted in the DPRK under the leadership of the country's leader Kim Jong Un
According to the Central Telegraph Agency of Korea (CTAK), the leader of the DPRK expressed great satisfaction with the test results and called the development of… pic.twitter.com/jCstOVVc66
French police have detained over 300 people during nationwide rallies against the government’s plans to cut social spending, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said:https://t.co/lLtIisboTUpic.twitter.com/DYjfdPzFa6
Reform on 30% while Labour & Tories scrape the teens – that’s not a protest vote anymore, that’s a political realignment. Britain’s had enough of the old parties. ⚡🇬🇧 #ReformUK
There is a distinction to be made between housing migrant-invaders in old military or naval bases prior to swift deportation, and housing them there (especially with few restrictions on their movements) on an open-ended or indefinite basis.
Many Jews are actively helping the migration-invasion of this country. Look at Simon Myerson, the unpleasant barrister abusive on social media. He, with a few minions, set up a “charity” expressly designed to bring more Afghans to this country.
Incidentally…
WHAT THE …
A major investigation into Afghans imported into the UK by our politicians finds:
➡️many “under threat” went back to Afghanistan for holiday
➡️many faked claims of Taliban threat & staged torture videos
Russian air defense systems shot down 1,667 fixed-wing drones, four guided bombs, and four HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems over the past week, the Defense Ministry reported: https://t.co/mwecyXJ4czpic.twitter.com/6BHprf9MBr
The Hamas political leadership in Gaza launched a noisy gambit on the chessboard nearly two years ago. Had I been in their position, I should have played that deadly game differently, in a far more oblique way…quietly extending a very very deep tunnel system under Israel, perhaps digging for years, until that network extended as far as Central Israel, then branching out.
“Measure seven times, then cut” [Russian proverb].
That made me smile. Based, of course, on the famous or infamous photos showing Stalin with Molotov, Voroshilov, and Yezhov. After Yezhov had been dismissed (and shot), the photo was doctored, as shown below:
“Just like that!”, in the words of Tommy Cooper.
“What would they do if they held a (socialist) party, and no-one came?”…
EXCLUSIVE: A group of around two dozen grassroots organisers has launched a surprise bid to lead the new leftwing party, provisionally called Your Party, after a public spat broke out between co-founders Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn.
Political splits happen in almost all parties, and Marxist-oriented parties are notoriously prone to them, but I do not think that I have heard of a party of any kind splitting into two —or is it three?— factions before the party has even been officially formed! Comedy gold…
Late tweets seen
🇪🇪🇷🇺 BREAKING: Swedish Air Force, part of NATO in Estonia, releases photos of Russian MiG-31 jets violating Estonian airspace.
Taking the news as an accurate picture of what happened, this seems to be a counter-productive move by Russia. Putin needs to get the Western public opinion on his side, or at least neutral.
Only in broken Britain could people claim asylum from a country, then jet back there on “holiday” while taxpayers foot the bill.
It proves the system is a farce and our leaders are either too weak or too complicit to put a stop to it.
…and what is to stop the few actually being sent back to France from then returning to the UK on another rubber boat? Nothing, albeit that their fingerprints etc will be on file.
Russia has increased the production of some types of weapons exponentially, and for some products, almost 30-fold, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced while speaking with workers at the Motovilikha Plants:https://t.co/EHB6JVBrurpic.twitter.com/53PAyK9BD4
Reminiscences:temps perdu, and thoughts about mortality
When one is well over 60, as I now am (68; b. 1956), thoughts may naturally turn to mortality, life and death, and questions larger than the everyday concerns of life. That may be so when one notices that many people one has known in life are now defunct.
Some of the people I have known, or have merely met briefly or peripherally in the past, are still alive; many, however, are not. Some of those who are no longer alive have died from various natural causes (and are too numerous to list), others expired from unnatural causes (such as a Nigerian princess I knew, shot dead in Lagos in the late 1990s) or from causes or reasons unknown (such as the ex-husband of a lady I knew in the 1980s, which ex-husband apparently drowned in the Thames at London). A few, friends of friends rather than people I knew well, sadly died via suicide many years ago.
These thoughts came again to mind yesterday when I noticed information online to the effect that a former American colleague, a major-league American lawyer called Tim Scrantom, died some time ago, in 2021, apparently of a brain tumour. He was diagnosed in April 2021, and died 6 months later.
[Tim Scrantom, 1956-2025]
Tim Scrantom was a couple of months younger than me, a fact which sharpens my reminiscence.
I met Scrantom after a headhunter in New York suggested to him and his two main colleagues, in 2001, that I might suit his niche law firm (based in Charleston, South Carolina). I was telephoned in Turkey, where I was then resident, and we arranged to meet in London at one of my usual haunts, the Churchill Bar at the Hotel Russell in Russell Square.
I drove back to England via Greece, Bulgaria, Romania (the latter two then not EU states, and very ramshackle), Hungary (excellent country), Austria, Germany (calling in at Berchtesgaden), Luxembourg, and Belgium.
The upshot was that Scrantom and I became colleagues, he based mostly at Charleston (the office was at East Bay Street, in the conservation zone of the city), I mostly in London, though we both visited various offshore jurisdictions, once or twice in tandem, as when we went to Liechtenstein one day (well, I did; Scrantom had left his passport at the Mayfair Hotel, and only discovered that fact when we met at Heathrow, prior to flying to Zurich…).
Scrantom was a genial host. He invited my wife and me to dinner in Charleston in August or early September 2001 and, on a later solo visit, I visited his home on Sullivan’s Island, by Charleston, where he lived with his then wife (I believe they divorced later) and young daughter.
Scrantom, though a graduate from American law schools, an attorney in several states, and a professor of law as well, was also a barrister of Gray’s Inn in London. I was a barrister of Lincoln’s Inn, though many years later (2016) wrongfully and unlawfully disbarred at the instigation of a pack of malicious and politically-motivated Jew-Zionists.
Scrantom, incidentally, was a modest fellow, very much a “Southern gentleman”, born in Georgia and from a wealthy background. I liked him. I never knew (until yesterday) about some of his earlier adventures, such as sailing around the Bahamas on his yacht, exploring the Himalayas, or visiting edgy places in Cambodia and elsewhere in South-East Asia, though he did tell me that he knew several of the people portrayed in the famous book and film Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_in_the_Garden_of_Good_and_Evil_(film)], the events of which occurred in Savannah, Georgia, where Scrantom’s family members were largely based.
In September 2001, I was with Scrantom in a taxi in the Strand, London, when his wife called to say that New York was under attack. We interrupted our journey (to the Berkeley Square area of Mayfair) to get out at a Dixons store to look at the TV screens.
I well remember him later fuming that Iraq “must have” been behind the attack on the World Trade Center (that was the neo-con and American msm line at the time, of course) and that “Israel has the right idea” (i.e. bomb the hell out…). Well, he was wrong, of course, and we disagreed about that. Like most Americans, and despite his intelligence and education, he was influenced by the pro-Israel propaganda so pervasive in the msm in the USA (though his main colleague, Ron, a hard-driving former USAF officer, was more alive to the menace of Jew-Zionism, and he was, as one might expect, also pro-USA to the hilt).
I do not much like the concept (and Jew-Zionists in England use “litigation insurance” to pursue pro-Israel “lawfare”), so maybe it is just as well that our professional connection was mainly severed in 2002, when I decided to return to the ordinary practising Bar in England. I then moved to a large country house in Cornwall, and was based professionally at Exeter.
As already mentioned, I liked Tim (though not his then wife, to be frank; I only met her once), though I should say that he and his two main colleagues had no idea at all about how to run a law firm.
Life is short, something few if any really understand when in their twenties or thirties. We all have to try to accomplish something, not in a careerist sense, but for the future of the Earth, while in any particular incarnation.
[180 East Bay Street, Charleston, South Carolina; offices of Tim Scrantom in 2001-2002]
[painting of conservation zone, Charleston, South Carolina]
[painting of the conservation zone or “French Quarter” of Charleston, South Carolina]
[The Battery, Charleston, South Carolina; a couple of my colleagues lived near there]
Tweets seen
🚨 Something very dark is happening in the #EU. Today, half a million people in Croatia's capital Zagreb turned up at a concert by a band linked to fascist ideologies. Crowds cheered, lit torches as the WW2 Nazi slogan "Za Dom Spremni" was chanted.
That idiot, a (?) 30-something wannabee or occasional scribbler, tweeted something about me quite a while ago, I think in 2023 or 2024. He seems to be very pro-Jew-Zionist and pro-Israel, and his msm scribblings (it seems as part of teams, not sole bylines) were 6-11 years ago. A few more recent scribblings have been for online outlets (of which few have ever heard). https://muckrack.com/colin-cortbus/articles.
Apparently, that Cortbus person was once a UKIP activist (when a student, about 12-14 years ago).
I notice that that individual has only about 2,500 Twitter/X followers. When a pack of Jews had me expelled from Twitter in 2018, I had 3,000 followers (and that had been artificially lowered); by now I would have had tens of thousands of Twitter followers. Ah well…so much for “free speech” in this country…
Incidentally, I was unaware about that event in Zagreb. Looks as though parts of Europe are waking up.
I remember this. He was one of the few to speak out.
…but look at that dishonest little Pakistani, Sajid Javid. Wrong once again. Remember his denial of the link between the migration invasion of tens of millions into the UK, and housing shortages?
Make that nearer to 10-15M, though…(plus births).
"One year on, only 16 per cent of British people say they feel satisfied with the performance of the Labour government. It is already one of the most unpopular governments in the history of polling, while Keir Starmer has a net rating of minus 54."https://t.co/TeNg9izukB
— Sprinter Observer (@SprinterObserve) July 6, 2025
Economic sanctions rarely work. When I was in Rhodesia in 1977, the roads outside the capital, Salisbury (now Harare) were empty, but that was not because of sanctions (fuel rationing only lasted 1965-1971). New cars were often seen in the city, though none were of British manufacture; French, I think Spanish, or other. Sanctions had limited effect— things such as books, Scotch whisky etc. Nothing really major. Tobacco, oranges, chrome etc were still exported (often under false flags).
— Sprinter Observer (@SprinterObserve) July 6, 2025
Compare Putin to pathetic and dishonest Starmer-stein, or that truly ridiculous “diversity hire”, Lammy.
🇷🇺 The number of people who want to enlist in the army under contract has increased significantly in the Zaporozhye region — the Russian Ministry of Defense pic.twitter.com/xv4QKFhz3Z
— Sprinter Observer (@SprinterObserve) July 6, 2025
Not so much “wild geese” as Muscovy ducks…(only joking).
— Sprinter Observer (@SprinterObserve) July 6, 2025
Unsurprising. Why should the peoples of Central and Western Europe (and USA) risk nuclear war for the sake of Zelensky’s brutal, shambolic, and very corrupt cabal? Most Ukrainian men are themselves trying to avoid serving in the Kiev-regime forces.
Israeli publication Haaretz reported that the US military used 93 THAAD interceptors in 11 days to defend Israel, revising previous cost estimates from $800 million to about $1.2 billion.
With an annual production rate of about 36-48 THAAD interceptors, the US used up nearly two… pic.twitter.com/XFd1v6VJQR
— Sprinter Observer (@SprinterObserve) July 6, 2025
[“Israeli publication Haaretz reported that the US military used 93 THAAD interceptors in 11 days to defend Israel, revising previous cost estimates from $800 million to about $1.2 billion. With an annual production rate of about 36-48 THAAD interceptors, the US used up nearly two years’ worth of the missiles during the war.“]
Syria wildfires devour countryside Firefighters rush to fight blinding blaze in Latakia Governorate pic.twitter.com/8FuwAuIwh6
— Sprinter Observer (@SprinterObserve) July 6, 2025
Saraya Ansar al-Sunnah, an Islamist militant group operating in Syria and Lebanon that split from HTS, has claimed responsibility for deliberately starting the wildfires that have ravaged the Latakia mountains over the past four days. pic.twitter.com/t1cWRR5lGI
— Sprinter Observer (@SprinterObserve) July 6, 2025
Horrible. I hope they suffer for committing such crimes against the natural world. Barbarians.
Strange to think that, when I drove to the end of the almost-empty Karpas Peninsula in Northern Cyprus in early 2000, I was only 60 miles from Latakia in Syria. 60 miles, but a different world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpas_Peninsula.
Few people noticed why exactly Israel launched a war against Iran on June 13. Here are three hidden reasons:
1. Just days earlier, the country was rocked by its largest pedophile scandal in history—one involving several high-ranking politicians. 2. Before the war, Iran… pic.twitter.com/g9guL9VlL9
— Sprinter Observer (@SprinterObserve) July 6, 2025
[“Few people noticed why exactly Israel launched a war against Iran on June 13. Here are three hidden reasons: 1. Just days earlier, the country was rocked by its largest pedophile scandal in history—one involving several high-ranking politicians. 2. Before the war, Iran hacked three terabytes of files from Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, which is known for collecting compromising information on global politicians. 3. Israeli PM Netanyahu risked losing power due to the unpopular proposal to draft ultra-Orthodox Jews into the Israeli military“]
I wonder what there is in that about Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, Prince Andrew, Dershowitz, Clinton, Trump etc.
If MOSSAD or AMAN had that stuff, does the SVR now also have it, or some of it? About Trump, for example?
I presume that Lewis is hiding out in Israel. He has or had a flat in Eilat, a fact that he concealed from the Solicitors’ Disciplinary Tribunal when he was found guilty on several charges in 2018. Indeed, his Counsel told the Tribunal that Lewis should have his fine greatly reduced because Lewis’s only assets were his clothes, a mobility scooter, and a private pension worth £70 a week.
Mark Lewis is little better than a confidence trickster.
Incidentally, Lewis was an abusive husband when married briefly (one year) to the Z-list “celebrity” and, briefly, Sky News newsreader, Caroline Feraday (amusingly, best-known for having been sacked by text message by BBC local radio about 15 years ago).
Not that I care at all about Lewis’s abusive behaviour to his then wife, who now lives in a “nowheresville” in the outer regions of Los Angeles (see my blog posts).
The Feraday woman joined with Lewis in attacking me viciously on Twitter (about my opposition to the Jewish fake WW2 “reparations” scam); in fact she initiated the attacks, with which Lewis then joined in. Until then (many years ago, about 2012 or so), I had never heard of the bastard, or her.
I’m being privately prosecuted by the ‘Campaign Against Antisemitism’ under the Communications Act 2003.
They say some of my posts on this platform (X) were ‘menacing’ against Jews and Zionists.
I had my first hearing today and I’m currently on unconditional bail until a trial… pic.twitter.com/2qfxKjxczq
Mark Lewis was (maybe still is) a “patron” of that evil and squalid organization, the “Campaign Against Antisemitism” or “CAA”, working with its main characters, such as Gideon Falter (a proven liar and, arguably, perjurer) and the Jew-Zionist Israel fanatic, posing as “Head of Investigations and Enforcement”, whom we can call “Slitherman”.
An example below of Lewis’s abusive social media activity, which (after several years) got him into trouble (though not via me— unlike the Jew-Zionist troublemakers, I do not waste time making endless complaints to police etc):
(in fact, in 2018, it was revealed that Lewis constantly abused people on Twitter etc, even a young Jewish boy; Lewis blamed his medications for his abusive behaviour…).
My own Twitter account, as explained, was deleted by Twitter itself in 2018 at the instigation of effectively the same pack of Jews, while Caroline Feraday deleted her original Twitter account a year or two ago, mainly because it was too embarrassing for her in various ways. She has another Twitter/X account now (with only 115 “followers”, despite she herself following 166 Twitter/X accounts).
Caroline Feraday’s now-deleted Twitter account had, at one time, tens of thousands of “followers”, all fake, all bought by her and by “Mark Lewis Lawyer”, who himself bought nearly 80,000 in an attempt to seem important, popular etc. Legal business news outlets even commented, cautiously, about the dishonest fakery of Lewis and his then wife.
Caroline Feraday now works for local public radio station KCLU in Ventura County, California, a subsidized radio station (National Public Radio network) with (putting it jokingly) about half a dozen listeners.
A few years ago, Caroline Feraday was publicly begging on GoFundMe, in an attempt to raise a mere USD $5,000. Sic transit gloriamundi…(and “celebrity”)…
I think it will become clear ‘mediocre’ is very generous.
More like ‘grossly unprofessional’ and perhaps even worse than that.
The head of the Metropolitan Police has said the law 'does not have an age limit' after an 83-year-old reverend was arrested for supporting Palestine Action, which has been banned as a terror group. https://t.co/lm4BohxHqy
“Cor, ‘ee’s well ‘ard!” (when arresting a woman of 83 doing basically nothing; the police are, shall we say, “not so hard” when confronting, if they ever do, predators and scavengers, such as those usually found living in caravans…).
Pathetic.
BREAKING 🚨🚨🚨
Growing calls for The Spectator to be proscribed a terrorist organisation after convicted wife beater Rod Liddle wrote this. pic.twitter.com/2v5D29fQgC
I have seen the odd thing over the years from Rod Liddle with which I have agreed; quite a lot with which I disagreed. Also, my impression (I have never met him) is that he is rather an unpleasant person.
🚨 This is Rod Liddle.
– 1 conviction for punching his pregnant ex.
– 1 article where he explained he couldn’t be a teacher because he “could not remotely conceive of not trying to shag the kids”
I could suggest something, but would not want some Jew-Zionist troublemaker making yet another contrived complaint to the police “service” about me.
Israeli forces continue to fire at starving Palestinians as they attempt to receive food aid from an American company center in the southern Gaza Strip pic.twitter.com/7KRYc3PAmT
— Sprinter Observer (@SprinterObserve) July 6, 2025
The Israeli Jews are so brave, when firing at unarmed and defenceless civilians…
— Sprinter Observer (@SprinterObserve) July 6, 2025
🇮🇷 From 12 days war: Tehrani fathers will never miss sleeping on rooftops which is traditional during summer, even during ongoing Israel airstrikes. pic.twitter.com/NWojUy2U6n
— Sprinter Observer (@SprinterObserve) July 6, 2025
“A serious government wouldn’t continue with the lie that it can solve our country’s housing crisis while building 184,000 homes last year at the very same time as it’s adding 431,000 people, equivalent to the size of Coventry, to the population each year”https://t.co/TZFtpCruXv
Ukrainian forces have lost more than 200 troops and 13 drone command centers in the responsibility zone of Russia’s Battlegroup East, the battlegroup’s spokesman Alexander Gordeyev said:https://t.co/xOWoz8Vluzpic.twitter.com/gZ54GDRBdz
Russian troops have narrowed the distance to the settlement of Konstantinovka in the DPR to 6.5 km, military expert Andrey Marochko told TASS on Sunday:https://t.co/rlZ5eY6mZ3pic.twitter.com/RXGE9fdfTX
Sometimes people say something about what may happen, and even that they may do something; later the said thing happens, but you do not know whether that is co-incidental, or whether the people you spoke with were responsible.
Example: when I was in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1977, aged 20, I happened to be acquainted with an Englishman about my age, maybe a year or so older, who had been (for whatever reason) chucked out of the training course for the Rhodesian SAS (which, unlike the British original parent version, recruited directly, not only from soldiers already serving in other units).
That young man told me that he and a few friends had an idea to break into the HQ of the Bank of Rhodesia and steal its foreign currency reserves. I laughed, thinking it impossible. Some time later, though, when I was back in the UK, I happened to read (I think in the Daily Telegraph) a small piece reporting on how that institution had indeed been broken into, and a large part of the foreign currency therein stolen. I think that the sum mentioned was either USD $5M or £5M pounds sterling (in today’s money, that would be at least £50M). As far as I know, no-one was ever arrested, nor the funds recovered.
So was that co-incidence, or was that humorous rogue whom I knew slightly (and whose name I cannot now recall) one of the culprits? I shall never know, neither shall I ever know whether he is currently sunning himself in Monte Carlo alongside a suitable blonde and a Campari-soda, or was, before long, dead in a ditch somewhere in Africa.
Life is always a puzzle.
More tweets
Hey @elonmusk as an American in Russia, thanks for this platform. I’ve been censored by @instagram at 300k followers & YouTube for sharing my experience in Russia and love for this incredible country, something that’s considered a crime nowadays. I truly hoped the new @POTUS… pic.twitter.com/yelclRRzPH
— Sprinter Observer (@SprinterObserve) June 8, 2025
The birth-rates of UK, France, Germany are higher solely because of the blacks and browns that now live there.
Russian troops have reached the western border of the DPR and are advancing in the Dnepropetrovsk Region, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Sunday:https://t.co/2umHwKG7uSpic.twitter.com/a3mXAsMJcm
[swimming pool “Moskva”, at Kropotkinskaya, reputedly once the largest in the world, and where I swam every morning on my first visit to Moscow, in 1993; the photo is from about 1980. The pool is no longer in existence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moskva_Pool]
I was just perusing the online newspapers, looking at a few current crimes and trials. While doing that, I noticed the continuing trial (in fact, retrial) of one Constance Marten, whose retrial has been in progress for a month or so (the original trial stopped in summer 2024).
Obviously, the present retrial is in progress and so I cannot say anything by way of comment about the material facts or subject-matter. In any case, I do not know anything of the case, beyond what little I have read in newspapers or seen on TV news from time to time.
No, what struck me was something peripheral to the case.
On reading some accounts of the trial and retrial, I saw the photograph of one of the accused:
[Constance Marten, defendant]
I happen to have very good facial recognition skills. The picture reminded me slightly of someone I encountered a few times in the mid-1980s.
At the relevant time, about 40 years ago, I had a girlfriend who worked as an interpreter at a high level, working —inter alia— with people such as the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher (eg when Gorbachev visited the UK), and with organizations such as the U.N. Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.) and various Soviet dance groups, including the Bolshoi.
Thus it was that I encountered a young woman, 20-something, who was also interpreting, but on a lower technical level. More general or social interpreting.
The Bolshoi touring ensemble was, appropriately, large, well over 300 in all, everything from dancers to costume people and even a few persons from the U.S.S.R. Ministry of Culture, i.e, KGB minders etc. The job of the last group was not really, or primarily, to prevent defections of the kind seen in the 1960s and 1970s, but to guard against anti-Soviet (mostly Jew-Zionist) protestors (re. Shcharansky and other refuseniki) and to stop people getting into trouble. For example, the famous choreographer, Grigorovitch [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yury_Grigorovich] once got into a lift in Dublin (I was already there and just about to push a button) when a harassed fat bully KGB type stormed into the lift and rudely took over, pushing the button required to get his (well-drunk) charge back to the right floor.
Such a large ensemble required several interpreters.
Incidentally, I never met Grigorovitch (as such), but always used his wife’s laminated Bolshoi Ballet clip-on lapel pass to get past the security lines and get in to see the shows (fortunately, the individual name was on the other side of the pass, and there was no photograph!). His wife was the prima ballerina, Natalia Bessmertnova [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalia_Bessmertnova]. She was too grand to actually wear or carry her laminated pass.
Incidentally, and incredibly, Grigorovitch is still alive at age 98, despite the abuse his liver must have suffered over nearly a century.
So I met that young woman mentioned, who had the unusual name Amabel (apparently one more common in both the Middle Ages and the Victorian period). I cannot now be sure, but thinking back, I think her surname was Marten or Martin; I had forgotten that until now.
Amabel was a pleasant young woman, I think probably quite a nice person generally, and was from, I was told, a wealthy landowning family who had houses, including large country houses, here and there, both in England and Ireland. In fact she and her —I was told, rather socially unacceptable to her family— boyfriend spent much of their time “looking after” (as she told me) a family-owned country house in some obscure part of the Irish countryside. My own girlfriend’s take on that was that it kept the boozy Irish boyfriend away from the family’s social circle.
I met the boyfriend once, in the large hotel in Dublin where the Bolshoi were all quartered, and where I was (unofficially) also staying (in my case for free). He was all right, and bought me a pint of Guinness, but I could see why her family may have preferred to keep him at arm’s length. I am not good at guessing ages, but anyway some years, several years at least, older than Amabel, with heavy black spectacles, and plainly drunk at three o’clock in the afternoon. In his thirties, maybe late thirties.
I was told that Amabel had told my girlfriend that when she, Amabel, was in St. Petersburg (then still Leningrad), she had been touring the Hermitage [https://www.hermitagemuseum.org/?lng=en; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermitage_Museum] when she saw some old English china. Some pieces had a representation of a large country house on them and, as she excitedly recounted to my girlfriend “...it was our house!” (pronounced “ower hice“…), referring to the family’s main seat, in rural Dorset.
Well, I got on rather well with Amabel on the very few times we met (I think only on that tour), and may have occasionally gently mocked her “upper class” background and social circle. Her (I think younger) sister, whom I met once somewhere, in England, I think, was a rather cold formal person (I thought), supposedly a one-time girlfriend of Prince Andrew (she eventually married a merchant banker).
When the Bolshoi ballerinas were relaxing, some were taken to Stratfield Saye, the seat of the Dukes of Wellington, halfway between Reading and Basingstoke, where a former schoolfriend of Amabel happened to be either the Duchess or the wife of the son of the then Duke, and who later succeeded to the title. I think the latter, thinking about it. A favoured few were allowed to ride some of the horses from the stables there.
[main entrance to Stratfield Saye House]
[part of Stratfield Saye House, Hampshire]
After 1985 or 1986, I never saw Amabel again, and I have no idea at all how her life went. The only time I even heard of her was when she and her sister were mentioned (c.1989) by a forthright and wealthy lady who was helping (with others) to save the Rudolf Steiner Bookshop in Museum Street, near the British Museum, in London (that bookshop had to close, but the Rudolf Steiner Book Trust, which I established, and of which I was an unpaid director (with anthroposophist Nelson Willby and his American wife Melissa) for a couple of years, established Wellspring Books, which had premises in New Oxford Street for many years, and which still exists online. https://www.wellspringbookshop.co.uk/.
I remember that forthright lady partly because she would refer to her husband, a Jewish businessman, as “a six-pointer“, as if he had been bred from an unusual breed of animal.
Even that was 35 or 36 years ago now.
It was only today that I thought to see whether Amabel was related to that defendant. Turns out that she almost certainly was or is. The Dorset “hice” seems to be Crichel House (or “hice”):
The house was owned by one Napier Marten or Napier Sturt Marten [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napier_Marten], born about 2-3 years after me, in 1959. He has or had no fewer than five sisters, one of which is or was Amabel Marten. He also has four children, one of whom is Constance Marten.
The house and 400 acres of the estate land was sold in 2013 for £34M to an American billionaire hedge-fund operator, one Richard L. Chilton.
Well, there it is. Looks like the Amabel I encountered a few times in the mid-1980s is or was (I assume she is still around, but who knows?) the aunt of the accused, Constance Marten. Small world.
BREAKING: Constance Marten and her partner Mark Gordon have been found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter over the death of their newborn baby.https://t.co/hDJK7xLiSI
(scroll down until you reach the bit about Amabel Marten and her husband, one Kieran (or Ciaran) Clarke etc; he apparently died in 2004 at the age of 52, and may or may not have been the person I met in Dublin in or about 1985 or 1986. It seems that the above house was only bought in 1990 or 1991).
“A man was punched in the face on the Piccadilly line after asking a fellow passenger to move his bags from a seat and a buggy blocking the aisle. British Transport Police are now appealing for witnesses following the attack on board the carriage between 8.20am and 8.40am on Monday, March 31.
The attacker is described as black, with dreadlock hair, wearing a grey tracksuit and was accompanied by a woman with a buggy and suitcase.”
“A terrified woman woke up to find a rapist licking her feet. Ahmed Fahmy, 46, raped and sexually assaulted women in hotels where he worked for over 16 years between 2008 and 2024.
Other reports also heard Fahmy fondled women’s toes. Cops first investigated him in January last year after reports of rape and sexual assault by two women who had been staying at the hotel in West Heath Drive, Barnet, where he worked.“
“A Croydon machete gang, who ‘brought knives to a gun fight’, got more than they bargained for during a raid on an Albanian cannabis farm, a court heard. Seven men and one boy – aged between 17 and 32 – were were armed with knives and machetes, while wearing balaclavas and construction gloves, when they faced off with gun-toting Balkan weed farmers, it is alleged.“
Donald Trump said he has set his own deadline for participation in the talks on the peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian conflict, but did not disclose it:https://t.co/6upTPjZQGppic.twitter.com/ktNXo8BMxA
The EU has ceased to be a "safe haven" for businesses and undermined its reputation as a reliable partner, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing:https://t.co/rEKjEeUTMfpic.twitter.com/gCzetwE3vB
'The United Kingdom is the home of freedom of speech and yet the Labour Party is actively threatening it. If Labour had any sense, it would bring an end to this review and clamp down on this authoritarian streak within its party.'@GoodwinMJpic.twitter.com/3eQLLidGv2
Note that Labour, even then, would still have 119 MPs, because the vast majority of non-whites in the UK vote Labour. There must come a point at which this form of “democracy” ceases to be legitimate.
How can Labour MPs campaign for a Pakistan airport while rubbish piles up in streets? Because a dangerous new sectarianism is taking hold of British politics. My latest in the @DailyMailUK today https://t.co/e1EkgJsUDB
Any deployment of peacekeepers to historical Russian lands would risk a third world war, Russian Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu warned in an interview with TASS:https://t.co/itGfbJv5yKpic.twitter.com/ZdgzNXmzJw
Any real British government would not accept these American weapons on British soil. They make the UK even more of a potential target.
️Gaza: The suffering and torment of Palestinians continues, including due to the forced need to leave their homes and become displaced people pic.twitter.com/paCLfDWY1I
Gaza's oldest man was also temporarily displaced; the 103-year-old man was evicted by Israeli during the Nakba in 1948 to Gaza, and in 2024 his house was destroyed by Israeli strikes. pic.twitter.com/syu9PlXU5i
🚨At dawn the Israeli Musta’ribeen disguised as Palestinian civilians and medical personnel stormed Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin & assassinated 3 Palestinians, Martyrs Basil Al-Ghazawi, his brother Muhammad and their companion Muhammad Jalamneh; pic.twitter.com/kXaFlXNMKr
Yet more evidence of how ridiculous Britain's post-Brexit immigration policy really is. We were promised high-skill, high-wage, highly-selective, low-cost immigration. Instead we got low-skill, low-wage, non-selective, non-graduate & high-cost immigrationhttps://t.co/9mY88fZaM7https://t.co/RlJshYXNhO
The Office for National Statistics just forecast that between today and 2036 Britain's population will grow by 6.6 million people –6.1 million of which will be due to international net migration
…and the rest will be from births to immigrant or previously immigrant or other non-white mothers.
If a social-national government cannot take power within the next decade, Britain is doomed and British society will become a chaotic and brutal dystopia.
Exclusive: BBC staff are being told not to hire candidates who are “dismissive” of diversity and inclusion.
A recruitment policy document says that applicants should be asked to “what opportunities do you see for you to promote, celebrate or encourage diversity and inclusion in…
“Exclusive: BBC staff are being told not to hire candidates who are “dismissive” of diversity and inclusion. A recruitment policy document says that applicants should be asked to “what opportunities do you see for you to promote, celebrate or encourage diversity and inclusion in your role?”
The guidelines tell recruiters “don’t hire; [candidates who are] unsuited to the organisation” if they are “dismissive or derisory of diversity and inclusion and surrounding topics”.
Managers are also directed not to offer jobs to candidates if they show a “lack of interest in learning more where no evidence of education and understanding of diversity and inclusion was given”.
Commenting on the recruitment guidelines, a BBC source said: “The BBC is not a welcoming place for those with conservative opinions. Management talks about diversity, without embracing diversity of thought.
The place that I have given years of my working life, and that I sincerely cherish, currently feels captured by Left-wing activists and is unable to deliver on our core principle of impartiality.”
“Hiring on the basis of adherence to diversity and inclusion ideology excludes most conservative-minded people, and indeed much of the population.”
[Steven Edginton, Daily Telegraph].
The BBC, even more than other msm, is a nest of treachery and evil, as shown by its propaganda output during the “Covid” scamdemic/panicdemic.
Are you in the Armed Forces? Worried about woke initiatives or witnessed woke training? Please get in touch, DMs open. All discussions anonymous. https://t.co/nef0HuMYxa
I was just thinking, “just like the Soviet system of having at least one ‘politichesky rukovoditel‘ (political director, executive, supervisor, or commissar) attached to each ship or Army formation, and assisted by ‘sekretnye sotrudniki’ or ‘stukachi‘ (‘secret co-workers’ or ‘informers’).”
Meanwhile, in the real world, Britain is still being invaded daily…
It’s out of the headlines right now , but thought you should know seven boats carrying 1,000 illegals came ashore at the weekend- up on the same period last year. Forget the PR, it’s not going away.
It is with great regret that we report the death of Catherine McArdle, Deputy Librarian. Catherine passed away peacefully on Sunday 28 January. She had worked at the Inn since 1988 and was a much-loved colleague and friend. We send our deepest condolences to Catherine’s family. pic.twitter.com/DtjnfLDpL0
— The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn (@lincolnsinn) January 30, 2024
Sorry to see that notice. I was a member of Lincoln’s Inn from 1986 until I was (wrongfully and unlawfully) disbarred in 2016, at which point my membership of the Inn was, effectively, terminated automatically.
As a very frequent user of Lincoln’s Inn Library, I knew Catherine for many years (1988 to about 2002). She was from the North (maybe North East) of England, from a family in a coal-mining community. Beyond that, I knew little of her personal life, though I believe that she got married at some point after having joined Lincoln’s Inn (and the photograph in that tweet, showing a ring, would seem to support that).
A nice person.
[The Library, Lincoln’s Inn, London]
Mortality. It comes to us all. Catherine, I now see, was actually 6 years younger than me. It reminds us that we must stand up for truth and justice etc while we live, no matter what challenges the forces of Evil array against us.
The brave IDF dressing up as women and medical staff to murder 3 patients they allege are ‘terrorists’ in a hospital Now tell me Israel is a normal, democratic state pic.twitter.com/5swxmmX0q6
Well, looked at from an ethics-free view (and/or from the Israeli point of view), that operation has the hallmarks of skill and cunning. Equally obviously, to kill patients prostrate in a hospital (one photo shows a single bullet-hole in the centre of a hospital pillow, with blood around it) is pretty abhorrent and, indeed, very wicked, something one would associate with the worst criminals and terrorists.
Frederick Forsyth was or is very pro-Israeli. I saw something from him once to the effect that terrorists who then gain state power (as happened in Israel/Palestine when the various Jew-Zionist terrorists of the Irgun, Palmach, Stern Gang /”Lehi” etc became part of the Israeli power structure) can leave their terrorism behind and become “normal” political leaders of “normal” states.
Forsyth’s view may have had its arguments when he was most fervently pro-Israel, in the 1960s, 1970s, but now the facts have changed or become more evident: Israel’s massacres of Arab civilians every few years, and of course the truth coming out more in the West about the ethnic cleansing (mass murder, and theft of land) carried out by the Jews in Israel/Palestine from 1948 to the present day.
Forsyth himself, who always strikes me as rather dim, at least politically, was cheated out of much of his invested money by a Jew he trusted (“Roger” Something), insult then being added to injury by the said Jew receiving a mere suspended sentence for the embezzlement of millions of pounds. That episode is, incidentally, absent from Wikipedia. “They” seem to have been “editing” (sabotaging) again…
Yitzhak Brik: a ceasefire for two months will mean the end of the war
“Anyone who today thinks that we will enter a two-month period without hostilities and after that we will be able to return as if nothing had happened should understand that the United States will not give us… pic.twitter.com/CjepcsaPTT
Regular readers will be aware that I am to be sentenced tomorrow for allegedly having posted “grossly offensive” (anti-Jew-Zionist) material on 5 out of some 1,700 blog posts published since this blog started in late 2016.
It may be that part of the sentence will include a restriction on the publication of the blog. If so, the restriction might last for a year. We shall see.
Freedom of expression on political, social and even historical topics is as good as dead in the UK, and those responsible are, for the most part, those who may well be called “the usual suspects”.
I hope to resume blogging soon, but if that proves not to be the case, I wish all well-intentioned readers well, and hope to resume transmission in due course.
Ian Robert Millard 