Tag Archives: Nikolai Tolstoy

Diary Blog, 8 April 2020

An interesting video, worth watching:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1385&v=c4Aps2NPe54&feature=emb_logo

This video is not merely about vaccination (nb. I myself am not an “anti-vaxxer”, by any means), but about large-scale transnational changes taking place around us.

A few basic thoughts I have had over the years about a possible “33-year cycle”

1923: seeds of WW2, as in Italy…the March on Rome (late Oct. 1922) and Mussolini asked to become Prime Minister (October/November 1922); the invasion of Corfu (1923) ; Russian Empire becomes the Soviet Union on 30 December 1922; in Germany, the Beer Hall Putsch of November 1923; hyperinflation across Germany (1923, though inflation in Germany had been increasing from 1921).

1956: Suez Crisis, when Israel joined with UK and France against Nasser; this was the start of the Arab/West conflict in the modern era; Khrushchev’s Secret Speech denouncing Stalinism (in which he was himself one of the worst offenders), leading to the Thaw, and eventually (not in a straight line) the total collapse of Sovietism; also, the first big rebellion of the satellites, the 1956 Hungarian Uprising; final end of WW2 rationing in the UK and start of consumerist UK in 1955-56; [and my own birth];

1989: the fall of all kinds of socialism and even social democracy worldwide, inc. effective fall of the Soviet Union (officially 1991), fall of Berlin Wall, Chinese transition to full capitalism behind “Communist” facade; Cuba becomes effectively private enterprise after 1989; also, the NWO/Israeli attack on the powerful states of the Arab world starts in Iraq; in the UK, the end of Thatcher’s rule leads to Labour Party abandonment of “socialism” even in its party constitution;
Also, George Bush snr. proclaims the NWO openly in early 1990;

2022: [personal note: I shall be 66 on 2 September 2022]

It will be noted that these years also link themes: 20thC socialism, the Arab/Muslim v. “West” situation etc.

Our companion animals

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/apr/08/sanity-stability-stress-relief-why-pets-important

A few of today’s tweets

Let’s start with a typical Twitter conformist, tweeting typically —and typically meaninglessly (the police who ride around in jeeps and cruise up and down empty motorways, or fly drones over national parks, are of course not “putting their lives on the line”):

I just noticed that this odd-looking creature has no less than 551,000 Twitter followers. She must be one of the ever-growing mob of “celebrities” and the temporarily famous.

Ah, God bless Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Spraggan  Seems that she is a lesbian singer who nearly won the TV talent contest, X Factor, in 2012. I myself had never heard of her, but that is not her fault; pop singers and talent shows are not my milieu.

So what other tweets are being sent out today?

Sweden has not had a “lockdown” so far, and it looks as if it will not have one. It has also, as far as I know, not had a Swedish equivalent of Britain’s “clap for the NHS” either. Not that most nurses and doctors (etc) in the NHS do not “deserve” a clap (and a decent pay rise) for their valuable work, but for the virtue-signallers of Twitter what seems to matter is the almost enforced “me-too-ism” (cf. Poppy Day and its surrounds).

https://www.thelocal.se/20200228/coronavirus-the-everyday-precautions-to-take-if-youre-in-sweden

Hitchens is of course right here. The economy of the UK, of the EU, of much of the world, cannot in fact be shut down indefinitely without almost everyone in this country starving to death eventually. A “lockdown” must of necessity be temporary. The first question is “how temporary?”

https://twitter.com/RafiBSingh/status/1247644182803558402?s=20

https://twitter.com/PaulThomason1/status/1247452640688181250?s=20

The problem with comparing the Coronavirus situation in the UK to that obtaining in USA, Sweden, Italy, China etc is that

  • every country has different demographics, lifestyles, transport, health services etc;
  • every country is collecting statistics differently (e.g. as to what is a “Coronavirus” death in the first place): to take a reductio ad absurdum example, if someone has flu and Coronavirus, is his/her death from Coronavirus or simply with Coronavirus? What about if someone has Coronavirus, feels unwell and, perhaps even as a result, crashes his/her car and dies?;
  • every country has a different level of testing in place. Some test only those in hospital, some test medical staff, some (e.g. the UK until now at least) test hardly anyone.

The result is that, in looking at “the statistics”, we are comparing apples and oranges.

https://twitter.com/Catholic76/status/1247575479638507520?s=20

Is the UK a “free country” any more?

Silly question (of course it isn’t).

First of all we had all the “race relations”, “community relations” etc laws, then came the crackdown on other freedoms, including Internet freedoms, mostly at the behest of the Jewish lobby. Now the System is experimenting to see how far can it go in restricting quite ordinary daily activity, such as a motorcyclist going for a spin, or a family walking across the Derbyshire moors. The Coronavirus is being used as a fine cover story for a dry run for total System tyranny (though the Coronavirus situation iself is bad enough, of course). The mass media have ceased even to try to question government policy (as was also seen throughout the 2010-2019 “austerity” repression. Same now:

https://twitter.com/meemstd/status/1247799322676056066?s=20

The Underground travellers (who probably have little choice) being blamed, impliedly, for crowding the trains, when, as we have seen, the trains are crowded because people like NHS staff still need to travel, and because that hopeless little Pakistani, Sadiq Khan, reduced the number of trains being run.

Dictatorships and tyrannies have had sycophant newspapers for a couple of hundred years, radio since about 1920, TV stations since (for this purpose) the 1950s. A new element is the online mob, particularly on Twitter; happy to be slaves of the System if they can hate the targeted dissenters.

Idiot Corner…

https://www.thejc.com/news/world/direct-links-between-rise-in-antisemitism-in-germany-and-spread-of-coronavirus-says-commissioner-1.498931

In view of the fact that North West London is a major “hotspot” for Coronavirus, as are parts of Paris and certain urban parts of Israel, it might be more accurate to say that the spread of this virus comes not from “antisemitism” but from a quite different direction…

“Always look on the bright side of Life”…

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/08/jewish-chronicle-and-jewish-news-to-be-liquidated-and-staff-laid-off

It seems that quite a few non-Jews (and even some non-tribal Jews) are not too sad to see the end of at least one Jewish (Zionist) lobby outlet!

https://twitter.com/simonmaginn/status/1247884431622148101?s=20

https://twitter.com/SOCdem55/status/1247887914710601729?s=20

Oh, this is great! Faux-“revolutionary” scribbler (and part-Jew) Owen Jones is crying about the Jewish Chronicle closing down!

I know! Let’s all “clap for the Chronicle”! When the clocks chime 25, tonight…

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/01/04/a-brief-word-about-owen-jones/

Ha ha!

Imagine if I hit the Euromillions and put in to the administrators or eventual liquidators the only bid for whatever is left of the Jewish Chronicle! Ha ha! I wonder what I could put on the front page once I become the new proprietor? Something historical?

JewQuarterVienna1913

I could even have a section devoted to historical revision. Alison Chabloz writes nicely…

Maybe Pollard would agree to stay on as Editor (under suitable supervision and control, of course…), if I were to make him an offer he would be unable to refuse…

I just thought of another good aspect to the Jewish Chronicle closing down: Stephen Applebaum, Twitter troll (who secretly, using pseudonyms, trolled quite a few anti-Zionists, mostly women, with equally horrible Stephen Silverman and other “Campaign Against Antisemitism” bastards), will now find it even harder to pose as a soi-disant “film critic”. As far as I know, the Jewish Chronicle has been the only newspaper to print his occasional reviews for years.

(“@grubstreetsteve” is his present personal Twitter account, along with “@rattus2384”).

Ha ha!

ds3

It even looks like Pollard! But if the cap fits, Applebaum too…

Quite a few Jew scribblers —including several connected with the Jewish Chronicle—enjoyed my being disbarred in 2016 (no doubt in ignorance of the fact that I had in any case ceased active Bar practice in 2007-2008). Not all will now lose their jobs, livelihoods, maybe even houses and flats, but some will. As for the rest, their time will come.

Example:

A sad day“…not for me! Bye!…

Ha ha! Just what I needed on a day like this (a boring day, and me living under a “Conservative” pseudo-communitarian ZOG semi-dictatorship)! A boost like no other! I begin to see, in minor key, why people always said that Saddam Hussein was never so happy as when his enemies were being killed off! Well, some of mine are not being killed off, just losing jobs etc, but in times like these, one must take one’s pleasures where one can.

I still like the idea of winning the Euromillions jackpot and then buying the rump of the Jewish Chronicle! I could staff it with anti-Zionist Jews, the ones the Zionist Jews hate: Gilad Atzmon could do the show business stuff, while the commentator-at-large might be…hm, let’s see…Mira bar Hillel!

Coronavirus view from Israel

“Israeli virologist urges world leaders to calm public, slams ‘unnecessary panic’

‘People think this virus is going to attack them all, and then they’re all going to die,’ says Prof. Jihad Bishara. ‘Not at all. In fact, most of those infected won’t even know it’”

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-virologist-urges-world-leaders-to-calm-public-slams-unnecessary-panic/

Well, he sounds as though he knows all about it…

A leading Israeli virologist on Sunday urged world leaders to calm their citizens about the coronavirus pandemic, saying people were being whipped into unnecessary panic.

Prof. Jihad Bishara, the director of the Infectious Disease Unit at Petah Tikva’s Beilinson Hospital, said that some of the steps being taken in Israel and abroad were very important, but the virus is not airborne, most people who are infected will recover without even knowing they were sick, the at-risk groups are now known, and the global panic is unnecessary and exaggerated.

That’s not the way it is at all. It’s not in the air. Not everyone [who is infected] dies; most of them will get better and won’t even know they were sick, or will have a bit of mucus.”

But in Israel and around the world, “everybody is whipping everybody else up into panic — the leaders, via the media, and the wider public — who then in turn start to stress out the leaders. We’ve entered some kind of vicious cycle.”

He urged the public to internalize that “we’re talking about a virus that is not airborne. Infection is via droplet transmission… Only if you are close to someone who has the virus, and you get the saliva when he sneezes or coughs, can you get ill. And if you don’t then maintain personal hygiene,” primarily by washing hands.

Referring to Italy’s national lockdown, he said that “quarantine is an effective precaution, but there has to be temperate use. You can shut down a whole country, but there are other means.”

At this stage, he said, “we know how the virus behaves, how it spreads, and which groups are in danger. We know now that his virus is primarily dangerous to old people, and to people with a history of chronic disease, and those who are immunocompromised.”

[The Times of Israel]

By the way, if anyone is surprised that I quote an Israeli in my blog, my response is “why not?”

If I want a great performance of Rachmaninov, I might turn to Vladimir Ashkenazi, if I want one of J.S. Bach, I might choose Evgeny Kissin; if Chopin, Emanuel Ax…

So long as “they” do not hold power, all is well. In fact the professor I quoted is, though Israeli, not a Jew, but the principle holds good. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-arabs-in-israel-fight-pandemic-as-first-class-doctors-but-second-class-citizens-1.8681493

The Countess and the Russian Billionaire

Just watched the above-named documentary. The main character was Alexandra Tolstoy [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Tolstoy], an adventuress of several sorts, married to but estranged from Sergei Pugachev [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Pugachev], a former “banker” and criminal “businessman”, who is now on the [Russian] wanted list for having allegedly made off with about a billion US dollars’ worth of State assets.

Pugachev is in fact a slightly unusual Russian gangster-businessman, in that he really is Russian (not Jew or whatever). Looks like a “tough guy”, but if the question is whether to bet on a exiled tough guy or the Russian state, I know where my money is going…

Oddly enough, I once met the father of Alexandra Tolstoy, who is the interesting writer Nikolai Tolstoy, a former cavalry officer of the British Army [perhaps so only briefly; Wikipedia says nothing of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Tolstoy]. I was introduced to him in 1981 or 1982 (I think 82) at the Russian Refugees jumble sale at Chelsea Old Town Hall in the King’s Road (the sale is or was a Russian New Year tradition going back to the Russian Revolution(s) and Civil War, when many anti-Bolshevik Russians came to the UK penniless).

A friend of mine flew to Switzerland with Nikolai Tolstoy not long before that, in order to help with information for his book, Stalin’s Secret War. That would have been 1980 or 1981.

As for my impression of the lady in the documentary, perhaps I should not say, but after all she did volunteer to be judged by the TV public…Well, to me she seems as thick as two short planks, for one thing. As to why she divorced her first husband and married Pugachev, I think that a good deal of the answer, probably 90% or 80%, was his wealth, at a mere guess. She has dead eyes.

As for her being too bored in France, it is clear that, for her, the world revolves around London, Harrods, Harvey Nicholl’s and her no doubt equally empty-headed friends. Her children too, of course…

Alexandra Tolstoy seems to want us to feel sorry for her, though she could well have simply continued to live in a beautiful belle epoque place on the Cote d’Azur, with her children, and her husband (and his guard force). I have seen too many people really suffering in the UK and elsewhere (including the former Soviet Union) from lack of quite modest funds to feel sorry for a woman who has a “cottage” (actually a quite decent modest house) in middle England, not to mention her parents’ place, a nice house in a pleasant part of Oxfordshire with an outside swimming pool (the pool was not shown in the documentary).

I certainly do not believe that she is in any danger at all from Putin or the Russian state. If she herself felt in danger, she would not now be once again running tours to the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, and herself visiting those republics.

Pugachev? He may be in more danger. There are warrrants out for him in Russia, and if he sets foot in the UK, a warrant for his committal to prison (for 2 years) for contempt of a High Court order. If the Russians get him, though, he may end up, like his 18th Century namesake, in a cage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pugachev%27s_Rebellion#Defeat

 

Letting Off Steam About Libel

My attention was caught by this news report:

https://twitter.com/jimwaterson/status/1118518659830505472

Now many who read my blog will know that I was, in the 1991-2008 period, at various times a practising barrister (in England) and an employed barrister (mostly overseas). Defamation was not one of my specialisms. I would have liked it to have been. It is an interesting and lucrative field, often involving interesting and/or famous people, though certainly not demanding the highest legal skills or intellectual gifts (contrary to the general public belief).

I did a few cases of libel while at the Bar, though all were advisory; none reached a substantive court hearing. I did advise, pro bono (unpaid), and when only a student, on a libel matter the result of which made the front pages of the more serious newspapers: Flegon v. Solzhenitsyn [1987].

Unable (as a mere student) to appear before the judge and civil jury (all defamation cases then had a jury), I nonetheless attended court most days, sometimes all day, wrote (mostly ignored) instructions and good advice for the plaintiff (now dumbed-down to “claimant”), and advised generally on tactics etc (also mostly ignored). I was told by another attendee that once, I having told Flegon’s assistant to give Flegon a note while he, Flegon, was (speaking very loosely) “cross-examining” a witness, I bowed myself out of [High] Court, only for the judge to demand of Flegon, as soon as I had gone, “to see that note that you have just been given”. Apparently, the judge read the note and told Flegon (who was proving a massive pain to the judge in various ways) to “listen to the good advice that you have been given, Mr. Flegon”! My first commendation by the Bench!

The Daily Telegraph said, when Flegon died (16 years later, in 2003):

His remarkable success at repeatedly getting manuscripts out of the Soviet Union led to the widespread view that he must have had contacts in the KGB; but in 1987 he won £10,000 libel damages in the High Court from Solzhenitsyn over an allegation to that effect in the Russian version of The Oak and Calf. Unable to afford a barrister’s fees, Flegon conducted his case himself, in faltering English.

Well, returning from the past to the present, we often see people, usually on Twitter, either talking about suing this or that person (often another “tweeter”) or expressing an opinion on defamation cases before the courts.

The average Joe has no idea about legal matters, and yet many opine about the law and practice of defamation, perhaps because it tends to attract msm publicity. For example, the tweet below betrays no hint that the tweeter knows that people have never been allowed to get legal aid for matters of defamation.

Despite having been expelled from Twitter, I read the tweets of others, particularly those whom I consider “persons of interest”. Often, en passant, I see tweets by various idiots either threatening others with legal action or recommending that others sue —often named— other parties in defamation. Few seem to understand either the relevant law (which has changed somewhat in recent years) or the practical aspects.

In the Kezia Dugdale case reported today, the Scottish judge decided that the words written were defamatory, but that the defendant, Ms. Dugdale, had a defence (that of fair comment). By the way, note that that defence has now been replaced, in England and Wales, by a defence of “honest opinion”, but this case was heard in Scotland under Scottish law.

Now the claimant in that Kezia Dugdale case, a Mr. Campbell, obviously does not understand the law, having tweeted only today that the law or legal system is, in effect, asinine because the judge decided that the words were defamatory and yet had decided against him! Like many many others on Twitter etc, the said Mr. Campbell does not seem to understand that even if words are defamatory on their face or by implication, the defendant might yet have one or more of the available defences.

Time and again on Twitter (I am not on Facebook) I see people, innocent of any useful legal knowledge, claiming that words which are not defamatory anyway are defamatory, or (where the words might be defamatory) ignoring the available defences.

Prominent among the above are Jews on Twitter, who often invoke the name of “Mark Lewis Lawyer” (the Jew-Zionist lawyer who recently fled to Israel after being found guilty of professional misconduct: see Notes, below). In fact, his publicized defamation cases were all (the ones I saw anyway) very simple and straightforward, requiring little real legal expertise. My honest opinion is that he is a copper-bottomed self-publicizing poseur.

Take a look at the above paragraph. It might or might not be considered in part “defamatory” (or it might be considered as a whole or in part a “mere vulgar insult”, which would not be actionable in any event). Also, even if the statements above, or some or one, were to be considered defamatory, I have defences open to me should the supposed “top defamation specialist” reach out from his mobility scooter or wheelchair in Israel to sue me (he has so far not done so in respect of any of the rather many blog posts which I have written about him in the past months). I have the defences of, inter alia, “Truth”, “Honest Opinion”, and “Publication on a matter of public interest” available to me.

There again, the armchair lawyers of Twitter rarely consider other factors, chief amongst which is whether the defendant has any funds. If not, large sums (in some cases, hundreds of thousands of pounds) might be expended in pursuit of a defendant who (like me) would simply declare bankruptcy if faced with a money judgment. Bankruptcy in England is now little more than an inconvenience lasting for a year (in most cases) for someone without capital (whether in cash or real or other property) or income. There are few advantages to being broke (as I now am and, incidentally, as “Mark Lewis Lawyer” now is); one of them, though, is the useful one of being effectively “unsueable”.

There are other factors, but this is a blog post, not a legal treatise.

It is usually the case that the best advice that can be given to a potential litigant in defamation is “don’t”! Three examples:

  • Oscar Wilde. Wilde need not have brought the libel action which eventually led to his disgrace, imprisonment, exile and early death;
  • David Irving. A fine and persecuted (by the Jew lobby) historian, but not a lawyer. Need not have brought the case against Deborah Lipstadt, an American Jew-Zionist academic supported and funded by the worldwide Jewish/Zionist lobby. Insisted on appearing for himself. Said to have lost £2M in costs to the other side, at least on paper. He also, more importantly, had his books removed from large bookshop chains; some were even pulped. Large publishers dropped him;
  • Count Nikolai Tolstoy. The only one of the three whom I have ever met (once). The only one of these three who was the defendant (there was also a co-defendant in his case). He lost, but eventually paid only £57,000 of the £1.5M awarded against him initially; he paid the £57,000 years later and only after the death of the plaintiff, Lord Aldington.

So, Twitter armchair lawyers and the perpetually outraged: don’t put your daughter on the stage, never wear brown in town and stop threatening libel suits against people, even if you can get lawyers you can rely upon…

Notes

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%BD,_%D0%90%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA

https://www.dworskibooks.com/index.php?route=information/news&news_id=3

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1430648/Alec-Flegon.html

https://www.scotsman.com/news/kezia-dugdale-this-case-was-never-about-the-definition-of-homophobia-1-4909617

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17580304.kezia-dugdale-releases-statement-after-winning-defamation-case/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde#Wilde_v._Queensberry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving#Libel_suit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Tolstoy#Controversy

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Books-David-Irving/s?rh=n%3A266239%2Cp_27%3ADavid+Irving

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/26/section/3/enacted

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/26/crossheading/defences/enacted

Blog Posts About “Mark Lewis Lawyer”

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/01/11/update-re-mark-lewis-lawyer-questions-are-raised/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/12/22/mark-lewis-lawyer-latest-update/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/12/20/self-publicizing-supposed-top-lawyer-mark-lewis-full-transcript-of-disciplinary-hearing-judgment-now-released-by-tribunal/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/12/19/the-latest-revelations-about-zionist-supposed-top-lawyer-mark-lewis/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/12/13/more-details-about-mark-lewis-lawyer-and-his-abusive-social-media-presence/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/12/11/mark-lewis-lawyer-disciplinary-case-now-updated-to-11-december-2018/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/11/23/mark-lewis-lawyer-tries-to-have-part-of-the-case-against-him-thrown-out/