Morning music
Saturday quiz
A modest 4/10 this week, though still enough to beat political journalist John Rentoul, who scored only 2/10 (he awarded himself another half-point for knowing the general region of question 4). I knew the answers to questions 2, 4, 8, and 10. I think I knew no.1 (still unsure) as well, and should have got no. 9 too, had I thought longer, but decline to give myself either of those.
Predictions from psychics
“Two of the world’s most notorious and ominous mystics reportedly made the same exact prediction for 2025.
Both Nostradamus and Baba Vanga claim that there will be a deadly war in Europe next year.“
I cannot say that I have much confidence in the accuracy of any of the (supposed) predictions made (read the full feature), but the way the idea of war with Russia is being promoted (mainly by “the usual suspects”) makes me unsettled.
Tweets seen
If it is true that Israel attacked Teheran and that Russian-supplied air defences protected the city, that might be a gamechanger in terms of Israeli capabilities. If it is all true.
Times past
I do not at all keep up with the changes in the legal landscape, and so it happened that I was surprised yesterday to read that Blackfriars Crown Court closed down in 2019. I appeared there as Counsel a couple of times sometime around 1994.
https://www.ft.com/content/e1118f5d-8333-4261-be24-e8372191953e (worth reading, and with very good illustrations).
The Financial Times report mentions that 43% of courts in England and Wales were closed to save money, by decision of the government of David Cameron-Levita, after 2010. I was aware of some of them, having myself appeared in them. Ilford County Court, Penzance County Court, Launceston Magistrates’ Court —a court building more like a deserted mausoleum even when I was there, once only, in (?) 2004, on a County Court civil case relocated there from Plymouth County Court for hearing—; Trowbridge County Court. Some other courts too.
I vaguely recall being sent in 1993 to do some trivial criminal matter at Blackfriars Crown Court, a “Mention”, I think (they usually take a matter of minutes, once you are there and being heard).
With typical contemporary stupidity, the new Blackfriars Crown Court had been temporarily designated as “Knightsbridge Crown Court (sitting at Blackfriars Crown Court)“. The brief had been marked simply “In the Knightsbridge Crown Court“. What a wonderful waste of my time…so I initially went to the court I knew as Knightsbridge Crown Court, in Hans Crescent, near Harrods, only to find that that court building was under repair (prior to being sold and repurposed).
Even more stupidly, Blackfriars Crown Court was not in the Blackfriars area on the north bank of the Thames anyway, but down an obscure side street on the south side of the river. Apparently named thus because Blackfriars Road is nearby. What idiots are employed to make such decisions?
Anyway, it seems that, after all the money spent building and equipping the court building, it was used as a trial venue for only 26 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackfriars_Crown_Court.
So now there is neither a Knightsbridge Crown Court nor a Blackfriars Crown Court.
More tweets
The whole set of assumptions there is absolutely cuckoo.
No, the British armed forces would have no chance at all of repelling an invasion from, say, the German armed forces as they were in 1940, or the Soviet armed forces as they were circa 1975. Certainly not from the Chinese armed forces, should they somehow gather in Northern France in 2024.
The elephant in the room here, of course, is that the above scenarii are simply not the case. China has no plan to attack Western Europe (inc. UK), the Soviet Union ceased to exist decades ago, and Russia now not only has no intention or wish to invade the UK, but no capability to do so, looking at its less than impressive performance in Ukraine.
As for Germany, the Germany of today is not that of 1940, has no interest in invading the UK, and its armed forces are a tiny fraction of the size of those commanded by Hitler (who anyway had no serious intention of invading the UK even in 1940).
Neither do France or Spain, or the Netherlands, historical would-be invaders of England, have any interest at all in invading this country.
Who, then, is this Labour Party military genius, warning us about invasion? Oh, it is one John Healey, a one-time scribbler (for a year), disability rights campaigner (for 6 years) and then a campaigner for a trade union, and also a p/t Open University lecturer. No military experience, of course, unless you include his 4 years as Shadow Defence Secretary and now Defence Secretary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Healey; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Healey#Shadow_cabinet.
The only “invasion” happening, which the present government, like the last one, seems powerless to stop, is the worst kind—migration-invasion of the UK by non-Europeans.
Every year, between a half-million and million invaders are arriving in this country: “small boat” illegals, “asylum seekers”, “fiances” and “fiancees”, “work visa holders”, “student visa holders”, “family members” etc. Plus births to non-whites already in the UK.
What is “Field Marshal” (or is that “field mouse”?) Healey going to do about the one invasion that is not only the only one likely to happen, but the only one actually happening? Nothing. Nothing at all.
Pathetic puppet of the Israel lobby.
From the newspapers
“A man who blinded an acquaintance with a corrosive liquid at an eco-village has been jailed for 15 years.
Jivan Dean, 24, attacked Raven Riley, 21, with sodium hydroxide – an alkaline also known as caustic soda – in a jealous rage after wrongly believing he had contacted his girlfriend.
Dean was seen heating a liquid in a pan on a hob before hurling it in the face of Riley while he was sitting in a chair at a property in Tipi Valley in Carmarthenshire.
Passing sentence at Swansea crown court, Judge Geraint Walters said Dean was dangerous and passed an extended sentence of 15 years in custody with a further four years on licence.”
Such crimes were very rare here until the mass immigration catastrophe happened. In the instant case, the perpetrator is obviously part-Chinese.
More from the newspapers
“The number of people who have crossed the Channel in small boats so far this year has exceeded the total number that arrived in the whole of 2023, according to figures published by the Home Office.“
[Guardian]
Demonstrations and marches against the madness are OK, but will not, alone, achieve concrete results. In the present conditions of repression of free speech, I prefer to say no more, as yet.
It is clear, though, that the madness cannot continue indefinitely. At some point, this million a year influx (the “small boats” being only a few percent of all immigration) will cause UK society to fall apart.
More tweets
The Commonwealth is largely a waste of time and money, and always was. A replacement of lesser binding than the Empire, to some extent a consolation for the Monarch (notably, of course, the late Queen): no longer an Empress or Emperor, but still “Head of the Commonwealth”.
If the present members of the Commonwealth (not all even former British colonies) are getting even more “uppity” than previously, then just say goodbye to them and take away their ricebowls, thus saving the poor old British taxpayers (those that still exist) a packet of money.
As David Irving said, the real Hitler has been lost to view, and presented by System and/or Jewish/Israeli propaganda (in the form of books, films etc) as a kind of supernatural entity of Evil.
More tweets
If Trump can win, at least the prospect of a massive war in Europe, or even across much of the world, will recede.
Macron is an international conspirator. I wrote an assessment of him nearly 6 years ago: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/01/09/on-recent-events-in-france/.
Israel did not attack the Iranian nuclear facilities. Does that mean that Iran will not attack Dimona? Perhaps.
Israel’s chief political lunatic of significance.
The Arabs are mostly gagging to become part of “the West”— surely that is obvious. The only thing that impedes such a development is the existence of the Israeli state. Were the USA to stop supporting Israel, a huge reset of the region would be possible.
Iran, Muslim but not Arab, might be the exception, but would probably come to terms.
“Ukraine may have to give up its territories in order to end the war with Russia, said the candidate for US vice president from the Republican Party, J. D. Vance. “The Ukrainians are going to have to make that decision … They’re already too exhausted,” Vance said on News Nation. According to him, such ideas are already appearing in conversations with Ukrainian officials, especially in private discussions. “They’re starting to talk about it now.” They say this can’t last forever. They don’t have people, they don’t have weapons, they don’t have money,” Vance added.”
Reality seems to be breaking into the Beltway Bubble…
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 