Morning music
On this day a year ago
Saturday quiz
Well, another victory this week over political journalist John Rentoul: I scored 8/10, beating his 6/10. I admit that a couple were lucky guesses, notably the answer to question 6.
I did not know the answers to questions 8 and 9, the latter particularly galling because my blog post about the following by-election has proven very popular with readers. I could picture the errant MP, knew which constituency he represented, and almost got the name, but not quite.
Unbelievable Britain, 2022
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/brazen-burglars-who-broke-family-28585443
Tweets seen
The last tweet is close to my opinion, having observed, but not closely, the “Bootstrap Cook” phenomenon over the past decade. I think —obviously my own opinion— that “Jack Monroe” was at least basically sincere before she realized that there was real money to be made “in them thar hills“. Since then, her claims have become less plausible, and in some cases extraordinary. To what extent her admitted heavy drinking (she now claims to have become a non-drinker) and alleged drug-taking played a part must be a subject for conjecture.
There are still many people around who continue to take “Jack Monroe” at face value. As of today, there are still 667 mugs paying money to her for absolutely nothing in return (it is alleged), via the Patreon website. Between £3.50 and £44 a month, every month. Do the maths, as people say.
OK, but one has to ask what Germany gets out of this. Not even cultural influence, if the courses are being taught in English, though that is, I concede, arguable.
Also, if the students are black or brown, i.e. from less-developed parts of the world, they may eventually decide to find some way to stay on, such as marrying German women and so further diluting the gene-pool. Ah…maybe that is why the System in Germany is promoting this— it must be part of the working out of the Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan.
More tweets
It seems to me that, probably, the “Jack Monroe”/”Bootstrap Cook” career as a mass media sort-of “celebrity” is at or near its finish, though this country is now so screwed that one can never be sure.
Having said that, the 667 mugs on Patreon show no sign of ceasing to subsidize her lifestyle, so she is still getting between £2,334.50 and £29,348 each and every month from that source alone, in cash, and possibly/probably taxfree.
I find it quite likely that “Bootstrap Cook” will carry on at a lower-profile level, in the pseudo-socialist, affluent semi-“celebrity” niche, along with numerous others, such as Owen Jones, Billy Bragg, and the like.
Hang them high! Only joking. Well, sort-of…
As the Germans say, “put beggars on horses and they ride them to death“.
I have no idea whether any of the “pedo” aspect is true, but I have just noticed that “@DaveAFAF”, a pseudonymous Twitter account which has been pointlessly trolling me for almost a decade (under that name and also under its former name of “@slatfascists”), seems to have suddenly disappeared. If gone for good, good riddance. That tweeter is mentally-unstable, and particularly so when it forgets to take its prescribed medication (as it once admitted on Twitter).
Not an unknown phenomenon on “antifa” Twitter: see https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/07/18/theyre-coming-to-take-me-away-ha-ha/.
Several of those mentioned in the 2019 blog post above are now suffering more seriously, and from not only mental but also physical ailments; some are even living out their last days. When will they learn?
Afternoon music
More tweets
I have already blogged to the effect that many of the recipes of “Jack Monroe”, as photographed and then published on Twitter, make me feel unwell just looking at them.
I have just watched that clip, which was broadcast about two years ago. Not something I would normally waste time watching. Strange idea of a show about cuisine, though— a presenter chef (?) who is cooking strips of fish coated in crushed cornflakes, another (I presume genuine) chef but who had apparently lost his sense(s) of taste and smell; then, as a final bad joke, “Jack Monroe”/”Bootstrap Cook”, who seems to be unable to contribute anything at all (from the brief clip shown, about 10 mins in all) to the discussion.
I wonder how much that kind of nonsense pays? I mean to the guests. At a guess, maybe £500 or so. Maybe even £1,000. If so, “a nice little earner” to add to the rest.
Having said that, I have seen people online claiming that most guests on Saturday Kitchen and similar shows do not get paid at all but do it for the publicity, which makes sense. After all, if the TV people were offering even £500 for a short appearance, presumably they could get better, more interesting, guests. From the point of view of the guests, too, it makes sense, if some viewers thereby are persuaded that you are a person worth reading online and/or donating money to…
She is apparently talking about the Government. She does not want to “hand over the details of 1000s of vulnerable people, explicit info about their benefit claims...[etc]” to the Government which…has all that information anyway (on DWP and/or HMRC computer —and other— files). In other words, she is once again talking nonsense.
This is the blog investigation mentioned above in that @AwfullyMolly tweet: https://awfullymolly.com/2022/11/26/jack-monroe-2020-part-3/
I have come to the conclusion that “Jack Monroe” is not a very nice person…(except that she may or may not be an animal-lover; if she is, then good, as far as that goes).
By the way, though I am not a dentist, I am told by someone who saw the Saturday Kitchen clip that “Jack Monroe” has at least 6 “very expensive” dental implants. Maybe £15,000. Why she has them (assuming that the opinion I heard is accurate), I have no idea. Eating mineral and/or vitamin-deficient food? Or is there, er, another explanation?
What I have learned about “Jack Monroe”/”Bootstrap Cook” since I blogged about her at the end of September makes me think that I was far too kind in that assessment (always my weakness): see https://ianrobertmillard.org/2022/09/30/diary-blog-30-september-2022-including-an-assessment-of-jack-monroe-aka-the-bootstrap-cook/.
I should be blogging about larger issues, but I could not ignore what seems to have been sheer brazen “taking-advantage” of people, including very vulnerable people.
Late tweets seen
For me, the point is not so much that “Jack Monroe” has constructed what Soviet Intelligence used to call a “legend”, i.e. an embellished or untrue “backstory”, or whether she ever was really “poor”, but the fact that she is taking somewhere between £2,300 a month and as much as, at max, £30,000 a month from people via Patreon, has plainly not supplied the goods and services offered (at least to most donors) and, equally plainly (even after 4 months of public criticism), has no intention whatever of refunding those donors, many of whom seem to have been genuinely poor (unlike “Jack Monroe”, who might have been described, arguably, as “poor” for a few months, maybe a year, years ago).
I might add that I myself have seen, over the past two months, when I have been looking, not even one tweet saying that that tweeter had donated to “Jack Monroe” via Patreon and then received whatever was promised for that level of financial support, and/or was happy with it.
“Happy Holidays” was invented by Jewish retailers in New York City, who did not want to have to recognize Christmas. They justified “Happy Holidays” by lumping Christmas in with the Jewish festival of Hanukkah [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanukkah], which is a Jewish-supermacist festival, totally different in ethos to Christmas (read the Wikipedia article above), and then adding to that the ludicrous and contrived “African-American” festival of “Kwanza” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwanzaa] invented in 1966 by a half-caste criminal who now calls himself “Maulana Karenga” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maulana_Karenga].
As Wikipedia puts it:
“Hanukkah[a] (/ˈhɑːnəkə/; Hebrew: חֲנֻכָּה, Modern:Ḥanukka, Tiberian:Ḥănukkālisten) is a Jewish festival commemorating the recovery of Jerusalem and subsequent rededication of the Second Temple at the beginning of the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century BCE.[3][4]“
There it is. An ethnic and political revolt, leading to a military victory. Totally different, in fact arguably the polar opposite, to Christmas, with the latter’s message of peace on Earth.
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 