Tag Archives: Sonning

Diary Blog, 13 May 2025

Afternoon music

Tweets seen

The Overton Window is moving at last…

Anything from any Indians, Pakistanis, or other non-whites on this issue can be disregarded as biased and/or with an agenda.

In effect, though, the UKIP of 2014 is still around, having passed through two further incarnations— Brexit Party and now Reform UK.

As to the LibDems, their facade is still standing, thanks to the LibDems being the default non-Lab/non-Con alternative-choice or dustbin party, but as a party putting forward real ideas, they are almost a nullity.

In the end, only a real social-national party can deal with the problem. Reform, for me, is just an underwhelming way-station.

That polling may be accurate but, if it is, leaves out the important voting effects. Hardly anyone of or above State Pension age supports the “confiscation” of universal Winter Fuel Payment; very few aged 55+ support the “confiscation”. Most of those supporting Starmer-stein and Rachel Reeves in this will be under 40, perhaps even under 30.

The WFP “confiscation” will have electoral repercussions right through the present Parliament and on to the next general election. One of several factors which have already sunk fake Labour.

Were I to publish on the blog what I think should be done with evil “immigrants welcome” (“invaders welcome”) expenses cheat Yvette Cooper, I should probably have to endure the nuisance and boredom of the UK’s poundshop Stasi police at my door (yet again)…

[Yvette Cooper welcoming the invaders trashing our country. In non-legalistic lay terms, meaning in simple language, this is treason]

Like most of Starmer-stein’s Cabinet, Yvette Cooper is a member of Labour Friends of Israel.

Moscow must be (?) becoming more convenient than I remember…

Last time I was there was 18 years ago, in 2007.

As frequently noted on the blog, though, immigration on such a huge scale impacts all other issues— housing, NHS, crime, tax, economy, environment, water supply, State pensions and other benefits etc.

The next general election may not be until 2029, so much ground to cover before then, but those numbers would result in a House of Commons with 310 Reform MPs (on the cusp of a working majority), 169 Lab, 72 LibDem, 36 SNP, 33 Cons (etc).

The Conservative Party, as in another poll yesterday, relegated to a pretty poor 5th place in the Commons. Among the 94 Con MPs likely to be ejected would be Mel Stride, James Cleverly, Suella Braverman, Jeremy Hunt, David Davis, Jesse Norman, Robert Jenrick, Rishi Sunak and, last but not least, Kemi Badenoch.

That would pretty much finish the Con Party.

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html

The opinion polls now commonly have Reform not only as top party preference, but also top by some distance from Labour and the rest.

Bracknell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracknell.

I was last there in 1974, I think, aged maybe 17. Having dropped out of school [https://rbcs.org.uk/], I worked for a while as temp dogsbody for an agency that sent me to various places short of workers. The one in Bracknell was at the Waitrose warehouse (next to Waitrose HQ). I was there for a couple of weeks. I used to go there daily from Caversham Heights (north-west of Reading) on my 75 cc Italian scooter (absolute top speed 60 mph, normal top speed 50).

I remember the brief experience mainly because, one fine day, two Thames Valley Police detectives from Reading wanted to interview me in the office. They did so, and fingerprinted me. Apparently, the other agency workers, who all arrived and departed by minibus, had already been interviewed. I was told that quite a lot of Waitrose canned products had gone missing.

Well, it turned out that all the agency workers except me had been “having it away” with Waitrose’s stuff. I was cleared almost immediately, I think mainly by the absence of fingerprint evidence against me, but all the others were, I was told, charged with theft. I had had no idea that they were “having it away” with tins of salmon or whatever. Naive me.

Not that I was necessarily more honest than the others (who were all much older than me, in their thirties or forties); I just had no use for whatever Waitrose products they had apparently been stealing.

Bracknell was very different then, I think, and smaller; the same is true of my old school at Sonning, looking now at its website. Pretty much only the original old house (Holme Park house) is the same; a whole large complex is now around it. New facilities, new buildings, even a new road system:

[Reading Blue Coat School, Sonning, Berkshire]

More tweets seen

400 of the bastards! In a single morning!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-14700843/DAN-HODGES-biggest-problem-PM-doesnt-want-stop-boats.html

Hard-hitting critique of Starmer-stein. In my view, though, not hard-hitting enough.

Starmer-stein is of course, and in ordinary language, a traitor.

Comforting, in a way, that only 20% of the population is irredeemably stupid (or malicious?).

The government of “Ukraine” (the Kiev-regime fake state) is a brutal and corrupt dictatorship, ruled mainly by Jew-Zionists.

Late music

[The Banksters, controversial mural in East London, later censored (painted over by order) after complaints from Jewish organizations that it was “antisemitic”]

Diary Blog, 15 November 2024

Morning music

Tempus fugit

Hard to believe that my literal day of trial was a whole year ago. Still, I remain here, remain online, and the blog continues to be published almost daily, while some of my self-appointed enemies have gone up the chimney.

Tweets seen

It is tempting, of course, simply to label Keir Starmer as an idiot, and in many respects he is, but one must never forget that behind “elected” dictator Starmer stands NWO/ZOG, as indeed the whole global Jewish/Zionist/Israel lobby.

Look at how Starmer now joins with another such puppet, Macron, pushing the idea that the brutal and shambolic regime of the Jew dictator Zelensky in Kiev should be given more missiles, more powerful missiles, and the approval to launch them deep inside Russia, even at Moscow and other major cities.

My own experience of the suborned or brainwashed Essex Police, as they were in 2017:

Our octopus friends

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14085209/Scientists-reveal-creature-rule-Earth.html

Octopuses are the species that are most likely to take over the world after humans, scientists say. 

World leading experts claim the eight-limbed creatures are primed to become the dominant force on Earth should humanity die out. 

In the event of a wipeout through either wars or climate change, the marine invertebrates are said to possess the ‘physical and mental attributes necessary’ to evolve into the next civilisation-building species.

[Daily Mail]

From the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14085037/Donald-Trump-Tulsi-Gabbard-intelligence-chief-alarm.html

Concerns have been raised across the globe about Donald Trump selecting Tulsi Gabbard as his Director of National Intelligence.”

[Daily Mail]

She sounds eminently suitable. A woman who does not necessarily go along with the NWO/ZOG cabals…sounds good.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsi_Gabbard.

More tweets seen

In fact, recorded and released in late 1964. The above date presumably relates to one of the TV broadcasts. I was 8 years old at the time; I remember Petula Clark singing that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downtown_(Petula_Clark_song).

Lukashenko told Trump: Make America great, but not in such a way that you harm the whole world EMPHASIZED THAT THE NEW AMERICAN LEADER IS EXPERIENCED BUT ALSO A BULLDOZER AND CAN TAKE IT…

President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko: America is a leading economy, a leading country, one could say – a monopolist in every aspect, including in politics. So: it would be good if he didn’t take it with him. Donald has it – he can take it“.

Better-known as “Krivoy Rog” (“Curved Horn”), a name coming from the local geography; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kryvyi_Rih. To the west of the Dnieper, central Ukraine.

*An open letter to Donald Trump from Uri Geller: “You have the power to bomb Iran. Use it!”*

Dear Mr President Welcome back, and congratulations on your epic victory! You have a lot to fix, though my paranormal powers tell me you will have a phenomenal presidency in which you will achieve many great things for #America and the world.

I will be right about this, in the same way I have been proven right many times in my life about events before they have happened. For 50 years I have been the world’s most investigated psychic and now the future of our planet could depend on what I am about to say directly to you. Mr President, you are the only one who can avert a catastrophe – but you HAVE to act. Everyone in the world saw how unbelievably close you came to death on that stage in #Butler – and everyone in the world saw how God saved your life. I am not religious but I am convinced God performed a miracle witnessed by millions in order to give you a vital mission.

Mr President, in 2018 you did a courageous thing in the face of huge opposition, by withdrawing from the #nuclear treaty. Your wise decision set back Iran’s nuclear programme by years and put its tyrannical regime on a trajectory towards collapse. Tragically this was undone by the weakest, most duplicitous administration America has ever had – and the results are clear to see: the Middle East is now in flames, and Iran is speeding towards a nuclear bomb.

With my powers of remote viewing – and do not forget, I was used for my abilities by the #CIA – I can see deep inside Iran’s nuclear factories and I know exactly what they are doing. I am telling you: #Iran is building a nuclear weapon. This is not speculation. They are doing it right now!

Mr President, we do not have much time left. If Iran gets the bomb then the world is finished! I see terrifying visions of what will happen if this apocalyptic regime is not stopped. #Israel will be first – and America will be second. Make no mistake – destroying America is Iran’s ultimate goal.

A nuclear attack on Israel will kill millions – and an attack on America will kill many more and make the US unlivable. Radiation will last for a century, a nuclear winter will set in, food will not grow, entire species will die and life as we know it will end. Do not be fooled – Iran has the intent and will make up any lie possible to pretend it doesn’t. It will use nuclear talks as a cover to buy time. It is sometimes said that #Khamenei issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons but this is false. Khamenei is deceitful – and fatwas can be undone. He is 85 and ailing. He is a fanatical religious zealot, and the bomb is the only way he can make sure the regime will survive. I can read his mind – Khamenei wants to get it while he is still on this earth – and no-one will defy him.

Mr President, Israel was caught off-guard and had #7October. Do not be the president on whose watch Iran got nuclear weapons. Do not let it manage to even assemble a bomb! Do not let it become a North Korea, which can now not be disarmed. Strike NOW! You will never have a better opportunity. Together with Israel you must attack Iran’s nuclear sites and bomb them to pieces. I believe this is the mission for which God saved your life. Do not sit on your hands, time has almost run out. If you do not do it now, Iran will get nuclear bombs during your presidency.

This is a fact. I can see it like I have seen other events before they happened. Do you want that for your legacy? Do not forget, Iran tried to kill you! If you do not act, it will hold America to ransom. Be the president who took out this regime for the sake of humankind. You have the power. Use it. @realDonaldTrump#Trump@elonmusk#ElonMusk#MAGA#Election2024 @khamenei_ir

Geller is an interesting character. Hard to know what is pure fakery, what he at least believes he sees or intuits, and what is possibly even a MOSSAD attempt at oblique influence.

When I was at school in Berkshire (England) in the early 1970s, Geller became a sensation in the UK and internationally, and bought a large Arts and Crafts house in the nearby village of Sonning (where George and Amal Clooney, and other celebrities and famous figures, including Theresa May, now have houses).

Geller relocated back to his native Israel (occupied Palestine, if you will) in 2015.

I have read Geller’s memoirs, but am still undecided about what is real and what is fake about him. At any rate, he is even today, at age 77, a very influential figure in popular culture, something which must be of interest to MOSSAD etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uri_Geller.

Late tweets

Excellent.

Late music

[painting by Victor Ostrovsky]

Diary Blog, 24 July 2024

Morning music

[The bridge over the Thames at Sonning, Berkshire. I was at school, in the early 1970s, only a half-mile away, and the grounds of the school went down to the Thames (on which I rowed when aged 13/14) only a short distance from that bridge]

Talking point

Tweets seen

How long before Starmer-Labour introduces similar measures in the UK? The justification will be something similar to that in the cartoon below.

The two aspects mentioned are a convenient “go-to”.

Those who question the System narrative, or suggest an alternative and/or better way forward for society, are often already “criminalized”, usually at the behest of the “usual suspects” (((“them”))).

“Labour” is now just a label, as is “Conservative”, “Liberal Democrat”, and “Green”.

Echoes of Weimar?

Late music

[painting by Leonid Afremov]

Diary Blog, 5 February 2023

Afternoon music

[painting by Joyce Norwood]

On this day a year ago

Tweets seen

That idiot is such a hypocrite that he probably does not know that he is a hypocrite.


Incidentally, reading Clooney’s entry in Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Clooney], I realized that I have seen not one film or TV series featuring him. That must be why I was puzzled, many years ago, when I kept hearing things about him on the TV; I was thinking “George Clooney? Who’s that?“.

He has good taste in domestic property, though. His house on a river island at Sonning, Berkshire, is very classic (Georgian), and in a beautiful location across the Thames from some of the grounds of the school I unwillingly attended in the nearly 4 years 1970-1973; and his house on Lake Como, in the Italian Lakes region, is also beautiful and in a beautiful place.

The evil and yet idiotic “SAGE” “scientists”, msm “me too” groupthinkers, and UK “health” bureaucrats would have been right at home in early Renaissance Italy, insisting that the Sun goes around the Earth and describing the truth as “heresy”.

State “quiet killing” of hundreds of thousands of elderly people thought of, by the State, by ministers and by most MPs, as simply “surplus to requirements”.

I examined some of the history of “democracy” a few years ago: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/01/15/has-parliamentary-democracy-as-we-have-known-it-until-now-had-its-day-in-the-uk/.

“Jack Monroe” attracts the very worst supporters on Twitter, perhaps even worse than the “FBPE” loonies. Her core “constituency” is not “the poor”, but the unpleasant and/or mentally-disturbed.

I think that there are at least half a dozen regular “Jack Monroe” Twitter “sock accounts” regularly posting while she pretends to be “taking (another) rest from Twitter”.

It took me a while to realize the extent of it, but my opinion now is that “Jack Monroe” is, or has become, an outright fraud.

Incidentally, the new book by “Jack Monroe”, Thrifty Kitchen (which seems to consist, judging from what one reads in the msm and on Twitter, of recipes from the BBC and other sources already available for free online), is not selling.

At present, according to the Amazon Book Sales Calculator, only a few dozen copies a day, if that (about 600 per month) are being sold on Amazon (which must be the major outlet). In fact, nearly new copies (the book was only released a few weeks ago) are available on Amazon for as little as £7.

I was interested to see the reviews on Amazon. The 5* ones (about 70%), may or may not be genuine, and have only a handful of up-votes each, suspiciously, whereas the 20% of reviews awarding only 1* (with some wishing that they could award zero stars) have hundreds of up-votes: 400, 500, or more. Telling.

All the same, 498 utter mugs are still signed up on Patreon to send her a total of between £1,743 and £21,912 per month (probably in the region of about £5,000, realistically). The very silly, or outright loonies, I should imagine.

More music

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Bortkiewicz]

That composer, of whom I had never heard until today, seems to have been one of the millions displaced by the large-scale disruptions and dislocations of the 20th Century.

Stray thought about the NHS

I suppose that, as usual, I have to preface my remarks by repeating that I do favour the core principle of the NHS, i.e. that it should be free at point of use.

Beyond that, I was just trying to think of any other service or product which is defended mainly on the ground that it is free or cheap. Air travel using “low-cost” rubbish airlines, such as Ryanair? I suppose that that is one.

I understand that what people do is pay a ludicrously-small amount (eg £50, £20, or even £10) each way for the flight, but then have to accept that everything usually provided gratis is charged for, and that the flight will land a long way from where you really want to go, such as “Paris Beauvais” airport (Beauvais is 55 miles from Paris) or, I think in the past, even “Paris Amiens” airport (Amiens is 160 miles from Paris by road or rail).

Still, I see the point. Hard to complain about £10 each way London (Stansted) to/from La Rochelle, even if the service etc is near rock-bottom (though I concede that I myself have never used Ryanair). Incidentally, La Rochelle Airport is right by the city.

Ryanair is very successful, so people obviously buy into the concept at the prices on offer. See also: https://www.ryanair.com/flights/gb/en/flights-to-france.

What else do people accept almost purely on the basis that it costs little? Not much, I think. State primary and secondary education? Possibly.

Still, Ryanair flights do arrive as promised, much of the time. Can the same be said of the NHS? I fear not, or often not, these days.

No-one (except perhaps the ultra-wealthy) wants to swap the NHS for an American-style system, but there are alternative systems that might be examined. What is not helpful is for people to shout out meaningless slogans about “our NHS” etc, to refuse to see what a poor service it is often —not always— offering now, and to refuse to think about how (beyond simply funding it better) the NHS might be improved.

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Interesting. Is that a ploy to get “Boris”-idiot back? Or maybe some of them want sinister “let’s bomb Russia” candidate Tobias Ellwood as PM. That would solve all our problems— permanently…

While it is true that Labour are only popular by default, in a basically unfree and binary system, they are still well ahead at present.

I am not so sure that the Conservative Party might not be electorally better-off ditching the Indian money-juggler, and even going back to “Boris”-idiot, but better not that latter; they really need someone relatively untainted, and someone British/English, i.e. not non-white. That might not save them completely re. the next general election, but it might be enough to produce a hung Parliament.

I sense that Labour is, even in these conditions of shambolic incompetence in government, not truly “popular”, but many people are becoming desperate for something. If only there were a proper social-national party, credible and organized, but there is none.

A new Conservative Party leader would mean yet another unmandated or unvalidated PM, the fourth since 2015 (or fifth, if you include the first two years of “Boris”-idiot). What price “democracy”?

More tweets

Late music

[outside Reichskanzlei, Berlin, May 1945]

Diary Blog, 2 January 2022

Afternoon music

[Astoria Hotel, Leningrad, early 1950s]

Tweets seen

After nearly 50 years, I still have not come to a conclusion about Uri Geller, still do not quite know what to make of him. I have read one of his books of memoirs, and at least one book about him. I was at school in Sonning, Berkshire, early 1970s, when Geller had a UK television show special which was watched by many millions. Spoons were bent, clocks started after years of being broken. It was not long after that, that Geller bought a house in the village, where he lived until mysteriously decamping back to Israel several years ago.

My own inclination is to think him an amalgam of skilled conjurer, genuine psychic, and fraud, but that is only my guess. I know that several professional conjurers have gone on record as stating that they themselves knew how to do what Geller does in terms of bending spoons etc; some others have called him an outright fraud. However, I myself have heard tales which (for what they are worth) seem to support the view that he does have some genuine psychic powers.

An enigma. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uri_Geller; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonning; https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-59609232.

Twitter has only limited utility now, but is still useful to me (expelled from Twitter in 2018 via the machinations of a pack of Jews) as a shorthand way of filling my blog with a variety of views and information, mainly the latter.

I do not bother to sign petitions. This one is no different. MPs and others do not change their minds because of petitions; neither do petitions get rid of them.

I fully expect Ghislaine Maxwell to follow the Jew Epstein up the chimney, unless she either succeeds on appeal or gets a sentence that is very lenient. She knows too much and may be willing to disgorge.

Blair is a humanoid devil.

Unusual glass, for port. As for me, I do not think that there has been a Christmas/New Year time when I have drunk so little. The bottle of Beluga vodka I bought before Christmas still has a little left, and a bottle of Remy Martin VSOP cognac I was given is intact, save for a glass or so. I have drunk no wine, no beer even, and Waitrose ran out of my favourite 40% Kirsch well before Christmas. I was given a little gift pack of three quite decent ports, but the whole pack only added up to about a fifth of a full bottle.

Answer: you cannot and should not debate with such “people”.

Symbolic?

A large fire has severely damaged the Houses of Parliament in the South African city of Cape Town.” [BBC] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-59850904.

A pity, speaking architecturally, but the place is just a corrupt monkeyhouse and part of an elected dictatorship now anyway.

Perhaps symbolic of the slow decline of South Africa over the past 30 years.

More tweets

“They” declared war on us secretly, long ago, while usually pretending to be benign, well-intentioned, “liberal”, and/or “victims” (until they had economic and/or political power).

https://twitter.com/DCrispface/status/1476175578642321413?s=20

Interesting. Worth reading, though I personally do not believe much of it.

The Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan in action. Who is behind most of it? The (((“you-know-who”))) element… The blacks themselves are just the puppets, being played.

https://twitter.com/LozzaFox/status/1477629968565903361?s=20

That part-Jew clown [Johnson] is, however, a sinister clown, and pulling his strings are (((others))) far more sinister.

What will make British people take action? Anything?

Plod should mind their own business about free speech

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/02/policing-sex-and-gender-debate-worrying-freedom-of-expression.

That is particularly so when the police are so often willing to act as the flunkey militia for the Jew-Zionist element, meaning such as the “Campaign Against Antisemitism” [CAA] and the “Community Security Trust” [CST]. Here below is an experience I had several years ago. There have been others, but “what goes around comes around” when I am attacked: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2017/07/13/when-i-was-a-victim-of-a-malicious-zionist-complaint/.

And just before Christmas, in a landmark judgment that has attracted surprisingly little commentary from human rights lawyers given its profound implications, the court of appeal went further in ruling that the College of Policing’s guidance that the police should record all non-crime hate incidents, as perceived by those taking offence at them, is an unlawful incursion on citizens’ freedom of expression.” [The Guardian]

Little commentary…“? Not so surprising when you consider that most “human rights” lawyers of any prominence in the UK are Jews…

 “...the College of Policing tells police officers to record as hate incidents all those perceived by the person reporting them as motivated by hostility, including unfriendliness or dislike.

This has become open to manipulation, with sinister consequences for freedom of expression. Anyone can complain to the police if they don’t like something someone says. It will get recorded as a hate incident, in a way that could significantly damage careers and reputations but with none of the due process of a criminal charge. And it is impossible to understate the chilling impact of getting a call from a police officer warning you off exercising your democratic rights.” [The Guardian]

Educated guess: Jews make a great proportion of such complaints, and are likely to have contacts which themselves have contacts with compliant police “officers”.

There is no democracy without freedom of expression. That the police have unlawfully acted to shut down legitimate political debate in 21st-century Britain should remind us that, even in mature democracies, the most basic human rights should never be taken for granted.” [The Guardian].

[Update, 2 January 2023: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2022/01/15/diary-blog-15-january-2022-including-an-outline-of-the-failure-of-the-latest-jew-zionist-attempt-to-prosecute-me/].

Late tweets

Canada. Another (((infested))) country. The Covid and facemask nonsense is only part of it.

https://twitter.com/RealBlackIrish/status/1477721787375013893?s=20

What distinguishes the Covid police state from previous tyrannies, even the Soviet one, is the level of direct intrusion into personal and family life.

Do you expect anything better from radio loudmouth Julia Hartley-Brewer? I had to put her right on a couple of legal points years ago, when I had a Twitter account, and after actually trying —vainly— to argue with me, she blocked me. Typical. Just an airhead, really.

Meanwhile, the Dutch “liberal” and (((infested))) Covid police state is once again taking off the velvet glove:

Late music

On this day a year ago

Call No Man Happy Until He is Dead

It is generally believed that the saying “call no man happy until he is dead”, attributed to Herodotus [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodotus], was originally uttered by Solon [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solon]. Perhaps. Many believe that the saying dates back only to the 19th Century. At any rate, the saying has stood the test of time. The basis of it certainly has.

How often have we seen the spectacle of the “famous”, the wealthy, the “happy” or those we perhaps imagine should be happy, brought crashing down, often to obscurity as well as ruination? It was ruminating on this that caused me to write today. Some may think (assuming much, as many do) that I am thinking of myself, once a barrister, once living in (at various times) a Little Venice house, a penthouse apartment, a Caribbean villa, a large English country house with 26 bedrooms, but now cast down and living in extremely reduced circumstances, on a limited income etc and having to give thought to what things cost and so on.

I am sorry to disappoint those who hate me (usually without reason). My life has been one of considerable ups and downs, particularly financial. Every one of my luxurious habitations was supported, as by bookends, by relative and occasionally absolute poverty at each end. Such irregularity fosters a philosophical and perhaps stoical and/or fatalistic attitude missing in those who, having always known wealth and entitlement (or who achieved the same from humble origins) find their lives as well as livelihoods swept away by Fate. These are those who jump off buildings, massacre their families before shooting themselves etc. People with my attitude just think “tomorrow is another day”.

If even my thoughts and feelings are not truly me, in the Egoic sense, if my body is not me, then how little is my bank balance me, how little are my cars, former dwellings and (now long gone!) Rolex watches “me”? Scarcely at all; not at all.

A few examples:

  • Terry Ramsden, now completely obscure (and, presumably, broke, or maybe not: you never know with his type) but “famous” in the 1980s, and so wealthy that he could bet £500,000 each-way on his own horse at the 1986 Grand National (it came fourth; Ramsden profited by £1 million).

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2004/apr/03/horseracing.comment3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Ramsden

  • Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, born into a wealthy family and with every possible material advantage. Judging purely from what I saw occasionally on TV, I thought her useless and brainless, but others thought quite highly of her, I am told. It was reported that she died alone, having not seen anyone for days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara_Palmer-Tomkinson

  • Various national leaders: Gaddafi (killed by a mob of Libyans, who first shoved a pipe up his rear end); the Shah of Iran (deposed and everything he had worked for destroyed; died in exile); Adolf Hitler (shot himself when the forces of East and West, that is to say Sovietism and finance-capitalism, burst into his capital, having battered down by air and land everything he had built); Stalin (died surrounded by sycophantic ghouls who feared and hated him; a ghastly death, dragged down by unseen forces).

I think too of others, people I have known personally. For example, in my own class and/or year at school, there have been a variety of outcomes (to date: that is one race still not at the finishing post).

One boy became a police officer, at least one an Army officer; a third became a helicopter pilot, later Captain of the Queen’s Helicopter Flight and, later still, the personal pilot of King Hussein of Jordan (he must always have had the makings of a royal servant, having had at school the nickname “Crawler”…). I suppose several boys became office bods, accountants etc. One unacademic but amusing fellow became a banker in Switzerland, of all things; another one, actually part-(francophone)-Swiss, became a structural engineer with his own firm in Paris. Another became, eventually, a chartered surveyor who has written a series of property-conversion manuals. Several no doubt inherited their families’ businesses. A number became BBC producers etc. Some did time in prison (all for GBH, oddly: was it something in the water?) or so I heard. In fact, that last sentence is wrong, because I did read in the Daily Telegraph about one boy (an Organ Scholar, if I recall aright, who used to play the massive school organ), who became a music teacher and (hence the interest of the Press) when in his thirties was convicted of sexually assaulting one of his piano pupils.

Life is always surprising. Who knows where my next port of call will be?

Afterword [19 July 2018]

In fairness to the school I last attended,

https://www.rbcs.org.uk/

it has, since the 1970s, become rather more organized in sending its charges on their way. In fact, reading “Old Blues’ News” [https://www.rbcs.org.uk/old-blues-association/] and the other newsletters they put out about activities and careers etc is alone enough to make one fatigued, so active and driven seem the sharp-elbowed middle classes reported upon. The ranks of former pupils are now replete with quite well-known and even famous people to add to the commanders of ships and heads of economic enterprises: actors and actresses, TV people, film people, and the odd “celebrity” who is “famous” enough to be known even to me (I suppose that those “Old Blues” would include TV presenter Jeremy Kyle and MP Alok Sharma).