Tag Archives: Sunak

Diary Blog, 13 July 2023

Morning music

[Beaulieu, Hampshire]

Battles past

Tweets seen

Nadine Dorries?! Unexpected.

See also: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/08/11/the-jew-epstein-and-prince-andrew-the-british-royal-family-has-another-scandal-maybe-its-time-to-just-get-rid-of-them/.

Goodnight VIenna Kiev?

Alarming indeed. If there is a nuclear attack, though, there may be no warning at all.

The world has managed to avoid nuclear war so far, at least after 1945, and more by luck than judgment, arguably. Will that luck continue?

Looks as though “the musicians” are about to start playing again…

More music

From the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12294253/Council-orders-Welsh-luxury-hotel-sacked-staff-house-migrants-stop-works.html

Pushback may be, at long last, starting.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12293495/PETER-HITCHENS-Drug-decriminalisation-doesnt-work-just-ask-Portuguese-Dutch.html

Eliminate drug abusers. They drive the whole illegal-drug economy.

More tweets

Just visualize that— a million new, and also unwanted, inhabitants in the UK in the space of a couple of years. The equivalent of a city such as Birmingham.

Anyone who supports or promotes mass immigration or migration invasion into the UK is, in real —not legalistic— terms, just a traitor.

I recall that Michael Palin, about 18 years ago, in Michael Palin’s New Europe, sympathetically interviewed both Yulia Tymoshenko (at the time, Prime Minister of Ukraine) and her then very attractive daughter, who was about 25 and was a former student at the LSE and, according to Wikipedia, Rugby School (I had thought Cheltenham Ladies’ College; maybe I mixed her up with someone else).

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yulia_Tymoshenko; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenia_Tymoshenko.

At that time, Eugenia Tymoshenko was married to an Englishman called Sean Carr, a rock music singer, who was then in his late thirties. He was also featured on Palin’s show. A bearded motorcyclist. The couple divorced about five years later.

Since Palin did his TV show, Yulia Tymoshenko has been convicted of corruption etc, been imprisoned, appealed, been released, and is now an MP again, and the leader of a political party. Her daughter has remarried and has a high profile but is not a politician, and the English (I think Yorkshire) rock music person, Sean Carr, died in 2018 at the relatively early age of 49 or 50.

Ha ha…

https://twitter.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1679525038465118208?s=20

One of the five (5) tweets that resulted in my unjust and in fact unlawful disbarment in late 2016 (8+ years after I gave up Bar practice) was that describing Gove, entirely accurately, as something like a freeloading, fraudulent puppet of Israel and the UK Jewish lobby. At that time I had no idea that he was also both a drunk and a cocaine abuser. A country less decadent than the UK would have dealt with Gove long ago, and certainly would never allow the bastard into government.

Silver Skates

Saw a Russian film this evening: Silver Skates, set in 1900. Rather un-Russian in that it was quite watchable, had a plot that was not obscure, and a relatively happy ending. Not bad. Well put-together.

There were a couple of small historical errors, but overall it was a fairly impressive effort. Slight, though. Not in any way deep or thought-provoking. As I say, rather “un-Russian”.

Late tweets seen

Second tweet not entirely accurate. While it is true that GCHQ was established under that name only in 1946, it seamlessly took over the similar though (in the pre-1939 era) much smaller org known as the Government Code & Cypher School, which operated from a number of places between the two world wars, one being a station or outstation located in the Dog Kennel Hill (East Dulwich borders) and Denmark Hill border of South London. That base, not mentioned in the Wikipedia entry below, was active certainly until the late 1980s, though I think not used by GCHQ (possibly by MI5 or other org ) at that time. For all I know, it may still be in use, if not turned into a housing development as has been almost everything else in Southern England.

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

[GCHQ, Cheltenham]

Well, after all, that was the status (in the UK) of SIS until about 30 years ago. A real organization that operated under the legal fiction that it did not exist.

I have repeatedly blogged to the same or similar effect.

The “Parliament” of Kosovo. What a joke.

Late music

Diary Blog, 27 June 2023

Morning music

[painting by Dominic Beer]

Battles past

From the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/columnists/article-12236039/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-Elton-John-brings-curtain-Glastonbury.html

Thousands of village halls across Britain are facing closure because they do not comply with new anti-terrorism legislation introduced after the Manchester Arena atrocity.

Jobsworths are insisting that venues of all sizes have to implement strict security measures, including training and evacuation plans.

[Daily Mail].

How depressing, and how typical of what this country has become.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12235127/Hollywood-talent-agency-supremo-Jeremy-Zimmer-dismisses-Meghan-talentless-broadcaster.html

“‘Turns out Meghan Markle was not a great audio talent, or necessarily any kind of talent’: Hollywood talent agency supremo Jeremy Zimmer dismisses Duchess as a talentless broadcaster after Spotify axed its £18m deal with the Sussexes.”

[Daily Mail]

All that The Harry Formerly Known as Prince, and Meghan Mulatta, have to sell is tittle-tattle about the Royal Family, with a few “woke” bits and pieces tacked on. They are pretty much a one-trick pony, and of little interest.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12234769/Dolphins-use-high-pitched-voices-babies-study-finds.html

Tweets seen

Essex, again. Just like that other online “grifter” and fake, “Jack Monroe”.

So “Supertanskiii” was at Glastonbury, where tickets cost £340 minimum? Seems that ranting pointlessly on Twitter etc against this admittedly incompetent “Conservative” government, while begging for donations, is fairly lucrative, though she claims that she was “booked to perform” at some kind of fringe event at Glastonbury. As what, another one-trick pony?

So maybe she did not have to buy a ticket. I have no idea.

Of course, many, perhaps most, of the “antifascist”and other ranting fanatics on Twitter are not quite normal mentally.

No-one, I see, has suggested that that Glastonbury “mental health” incident might have been invented, inflated and/or exploited as a “grifting” opportunity (in the manner of “Jack Monroe”). Who knows?

My own visit to the Kremlin, in 1993, was less formal. I paid my (?)20 roubles (in the money of 1993) and bought tourist entry, together with entry to the Kremlin churches (some shown in that tweet), which were very interesting (I was the only visitor to the churches then, probably because it was early in the day, about 0900 hours, and I had been one of the first “tourists” into the Kremlin).

[Kremlin from the air]

I was the second tourist visitor into the Kremlin that sunny day in the early summer of 1993, and would have been first had a Russian family not got ahead of me as I slept in the sun, sitting on a wall by the not-yet-open ticket kiosk, and having already done an hour of hard swimming at the almost-empty huge open-air swimming pool “Moskva” in Kropotkinskaya (now replaced by a replica of the cathedral that was on the site prior to the 1930s).

[Swimming-pool “Moskva”, 1970s, near Metro-station Kropotkinskaya]

Looking today at the website below, I see that the little wooden ticket kiosk (with its typically Soviet inconvenient little ticket-window about 5 feet from ground-level) is now no more, replaced by a large ultra-modern ticketing hall, tickets also being available online (something of course not dreamt-of in 1993).

[ticket-hall at the Kremlin today]
[State Palace —the former Supreme Soviet— and Trinity (Troitskaya) Tower]
[Moscow Kremlin]
[dark and threatening clouds over the Kremlin]

More tweets seen

The USA, even more than Russia (arguably), is a colossus on legs of straw. Socially, the USA is disintegrating.

More tweets

“Supertanskiii” is sort-of similar to the “Jack Monroe” “grift” but, unlike “Jack Monroe”, she does not even pretend to offer “recipes” looking like mixed-up dog food, or indeed to offer anything at all beyond a continual “f*** the Tories” Twitter rant. Incredibly, though, some mugs are actually willing to chuck donations at her for that.

When you see the sort of utter mugs that send money to “Jack Monroe” or “Supertanskiii”, you start to understand part of why this country is in such a mess, at least in places and in aspects. Too many mugs. This has nothing to do with the blacks, browns, Jews etc. These are all or 99.99% white British people who imagine themselves to be well-meaning or at least “progressive”. Not the same mugs who support “Boris”-idiot, far from it, but on the same sort of unthinking level.

The same sort of “mug-dom” is seen in those who imagine that replacing Indian money-juggler Sunak with Jewish-lobby puppet Starmer is going to change everything for the better. Wake up.

Afternoon music

From 1965. More civilized days, in general.

A “bad” organization, and the DDR (East Germany) was perhaps a “bad” country overall, but life is not usually black and white. When you are my age (66), and have lived and/or worked in much of the world, you understand that.

[small railway station, East Berlin, DDR, 1970s]

A neglected blog post

I see that there were a few hits today on the following (linked) blog post from about three years ago. One of my least-read posts, in fact; I think, unfairly…

Late tweets seen

He has woken up, and is trying to awaken others, but the Westminster monkeyhouse is completely corrupt.

Will any hero eventually do what is required?

Late music

[central Kiev after devastation in WW2]

In World War II, the city again suffered significant damage, and Nazi Germany occupied it from 19 September 1941 to 6 November 1943Axis forces killed or captured more than 600,000 Soviet soldiers in the great encircling Battle of Kyiv in 1941. Most of those captured never returned alive.[95] Shortly after the Wehrmacht occupied the city, a team of NKVD officers who had remained hidden dynamited most of the buildings on the Khreshchatyk, the main street of the city, where German military and civil authorities had occupied most of the buildings; the buildings burned for days and 25,000 people were left homeless.” [Wikipedia]

Further destruction took place during the second Battle of Kiev in 1943.

Diary Blog, 24 June 2023

Morning music

(but what is now happening in Rostov and elsewhere right now strikes me as more like the rebellion of the Streltsy in the 17thC than the opening of a second Russian Civil War; we shall see). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streltsy_uprising.

Battles past

Saturday quiz

Well, this week brings another victory over political journal John Rentoul. I scored 7/10 as against his 4/10. I did not know the answers to question 5 (actually, I “hit the post” with the name), or questions 6 and 9, and I pretty much guessed numbers 3 and 7, if truth be known.

From the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12227635/Border-Force-intercepts-3-000-migrants-month.html

The Home Office is planning to house hundreds of migrants in marquees across the country.

The government’s plans come as today it was revealed that the number of Channel crossings by people in small boats so far this month is now higher than the number for June last year.

According to official figures, 312 asylum seekers were intercepted in eight boats by UK officials yesterday.

[“Intercepted“? You mean “ferried to the UK”].

This brings the official number of migrant crossings this month to 3,303 in 68 boats – an average of 49 people crammed into each inflatable dinghy or other small craft.

More people thought to be migrants arrived in Dover earlier today as people smugglers took advantage of the weather of low winds and no rainfall.

Border Force vessel Ranger was spotted this afternoon patrolling the 21-mile Dover Straits after dropping a group of migrants at the port.

[Daily Mail]

Get that— the “Border Farce” vessel (taxi service for migrant invaders) dropped off a group of invaders at Dover, then went out looking for more “customers”…

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/21/iceland-suspends-annual-whale-hunt-in-move-that-likely-spells-end-to-controversial-practice

Iceland suspends annual whale hunt in move that likely spells end to controversial practice.

Decision comes after a government report found the hunt does not comply with Iceland’s Animal Welfare Act.

Iceland’s government has said it is suspending this year’s whale hunt until the end of August due to animal welfare concerns, a move that is likely to bring the controversial practice to an end.

Animal rights groups and environmentalists hailed the decision, with the Humane Society International calling it “a major milestone in compassionate whale conservation”.

Shocking video clips broadcast by the veterinary authority showed a whale’s agony as it was hunted for five hours.

The country has only one remaining whaling company, Hvalur, and its licence to hunt fin whales expires in 2023. Another company stopped for good in 2020, saying it was no longer profitable.

Iceland’s whaling season runs from mid-June to mid-September, and it is doubtful Hvalur would head out to sea that late in the season.

Annual quotas authorise the killing of 209 fin whales – the second-longest marine mammal after the blue whale – and 217 minke whales, one of the smallest species. But catches have fallen drastically in recent years due to a dwindling market for whale meat.

[The Guardian].

At last. Good news.

Tweets seen

More music

More tweets seen

…but why call her (“Jack Monroe”, alias Melissa Hadjicostas) “they“? It’s not “their silence” but “her silence”. Proper English.

Jack Monroe is an out and out fraud.

Is that so? Truth or speculation? I do not know at present.

Thinking ahead, what happens if the present Russian Government is toppled? What replaces it? Would that be one willing to (in effect) surrender to the NWO/ZOG cabals, or one willing to really take the fight to Zelensky in Kiev?

Nothing firm is known as yet.

Truth is, of course, the first casualty. Speculation abounds, and of course the “usual suspects” are stirring everything, as are other pro-Zelensky tweeters.

I imagine that even the Russian overseas diplomatic missions do not know what is going on, not even the SVR and GRU.

Again, who he? I have no idea. Is he a Wagner operator, or merely someone pretending to be one? If it is true (as claimed by many on Twitter) that official checkpoints are merely waving Wagner units through without check or opposition, then that mirrors what happened in previous Russian upheavals, from the Yeltsin and Gorbachev eras right back to the two Russian revolutions of 1917.

What now? Is there time (and the requisite high-level military support) for Putin to order a massive and unrestrained strategic missile attack (a last-ditch and bitter action to achieve battlefield victory) on Kiev, regardless of the Wagner Group situation? We have to just sit and wait to see.

Well, if Prigozhin actually topples Putin, then he follows in the tradition of Russian revolutionary leaders (and others) having (in the Russian word) “sat” in prison. Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky etc. They were there mainly for political crimes, though, whereas Prigozhin was imprisoned for crimes of acquisition: fraud, theft, robbery, burglary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#Early_life. He did 9 years altogether.

Also, the conditions of confinement for the Bolshevik leaders were comfortable, once they arrived in Siberian exile. Houses in remote villages, not much restraint on their liberty, and Lenin was even allowed a hunting rifle with ammunition, as was, I think, Stalin!

Prigozhin’s 9 years of Soviet-era prison must have been far less easy. He’s a tough ex-con, among other things.

At any rate, it looks at present as if PMC Wagner is the Praetorian Guard of Russia now. Tomorrow? Maybe, maybe not— “tomorrow is another day“…

More tweets

(the “FMs” refers to “flying monkeys“, the term used by “grifter”/fraudster “Jack Monroe” for her fanatical supporters, many of which have mental problems).

Ha. If “Jack Monroe” were to eat glue, at least she might be unable to utter more lies. Well, it’s a thought…

“Jack Monroe” is still, as of today, being sent between £3.50 and £44 a month by each of 414 utter mugs. Thousands of pounds being sent to her monthly, in cash, and for absolutely nothing.

An old blog post

I just noticed that one of my first few blog posts, from late 2016, got a couple of hits today. I still think that the topic, the “tipping-point”, is one well-worth examination: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2016/12/27/tipping-points-in-politics-and-life/.

More tweets seen

Are they wrong about Rachel Reeves? I think not. I have examined and assessed her briefly a few times on the blog: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2021/05/10/diary-blog-10-may-2021-with-thoughts-about-rachel-reeves-and-the-floundering-labour-party/; https://ianrobertmillard.org/2023/05/23/diary-blog-23-may-2023/.

If the opinion polls are correct, Labour may form the next government, but when people vote “Labour”, they are actually getting pro-Israel careerists and money-grubbers such as Rachel Reeves, who is little different, though possibly better-educated, than the likes of Iain Duncan Dunce Smith.

Labour is now just a label; some of its own MPs have said as much.

Lower-case “h”, please…

Senior Lecturer in Law, Sheffield Hallam University“, says the Twitter profile. Seems not to be on the general list of staff: https://www.shu.ac.uk/about-us/our-people/staff-profiles?letter=K. However, see https://www.shu.ac.uk/myhallam/support-at-hallam/multifaith-chaplaincy/chaplains-and-faith-advisors/lesley-klaff. “Faith adviser“.

Alarming.

Slightly reminiscent of the staged “popular uprising” against Ceausescu in 1989. Not that it was not popular in the sense of many, probably most, Romanians liking it, but it was not popular in the sense that the “plebs” took an active part. It was a stage-managed thing, and many of those on the streets were aware of that. They knew that they were just “spear-carriers” in a show put on for the overseas and domestic TV audience.

Late tweets seen

It really is incredible how many people (at least on Twitter) think that saying “effing Tories” and making the right noises about the cost of living under them (with the assumption that fake “Labour” would be much much better, of course) constitutes something massive. As for those “recipes”, have you seen them? I should prefer bread and cheese, or just bread…

“Jack Monroe” is not the only one making a fairly good living out of Twitter “activism” of that sort. There are a number of others, e.g. “@supertanskiii”. Completely useless pseudo-activists who are basically “grifters” (at best).

That useless NIgerian parasite, “@FemiSorry”, is another one.

True or bluff? I have no information (reliable information) at all.

The lack of real ideology (going beyond vague nationalism and fawning over replicas of pre-1917 Russianism such as the Orthodox Church) in Putin’s Russia worked only so long as there was relative peace and prosperity. Now, the peace and much of the prosperity has gone or is going, and hope with it, and that leaves a vacuum. Russians need more than bread alone.

Looks as though a deal has been struck somewhere behind the scenes.

Late music

[Tiger tanks on the Ostfront, 1943]

Diary Blog, 23 June 2023

Morning music

[painting by Volegov]

Battles past

Strange

As regular readers of the blog will know, yesterday afternoon I was at the Magistrates’ Court at Southampton for a while, at a case management hearing in relation to the prosecution of me instigated by the evil and malicious pack known as the “Campaign Against Antisemitism” (any trial will not be until November or December 2023, or possibly even on a date in 2024).

Later, in mid-afternoon, I was driving out through the nearby suburbs of Southampton. I happened to pass a pharmacy or, as people used to say, a chemist’s shop, on a mini-roundabout: the Bassett Pharmacy.

The Bassett Pharmacy, which I recognized from having seen a picture in the newspapers a couple of years ago, was called the Sunak Pharmacy at one time, and was owned until 2014 by the mother of Rishi Sunak, the Indian money-juggler presently posing as Prime Minister.

The Bassett Pharmacy sits on the corner of the road, next to a dentist’s surgery; there are a couple of other shops, one called, amusingly, “Talons— hair and nails”. Round the corner, a scruffy small area with cars parked, then, around another, similar, corner, an Indian-Bangladeshi restaurant, a cafe, and several more shops.

What struck me was not that a prime minister might have come from such humble circumstances —that is not so unusual, thinking of Mrs. Thatcher, John Major and others— but that Sunak should have originated there (I think that his family lived in a house not far away) and yet now is almost suffused with great wealth by reason of his own finance-business activities and also marriage into one of India’s richest families. What a contrast. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rishi_Sunak.

I wonder whether the money-juggler will still be Prime Minister this time next year. The opinion polls say no, but these things rarely work out as expected. I have no completely fixed view, despite the evident incompetence of the present government.

Tweets seen

As some lady said during the French Revolution, “those who live shall see…“, but I should not be surprised.

Some people, and peoples, never learn.

Late tweets seen

Will there be some kind of second Civil War in Russia somewhere down the line? Maybe.

Uh-oh…what is going on? Just when the Ukrainian counteroffensive has been beaten down and run out of steam.

Is this true? What a time to have an internecine squabble, when the first priority must be to eliminate the Jew-Zionist regime in Kiev.

Late music

[Moscow State University]

Diary Blog, 21 June 2023, with some thoughts about “narcissism”, “Jack Monroe”, and a personal memory

Morning music

Battles past

“Jack Monroe”, “narcissism”, and narcissists

I had missed that. It seems that there is now a template for suing “Jack Monroe” in the County Court. I wonder whether many people will be doing that.

Still no explanation from BBC Question Time as to why “Jack Monroe” was invited onto the show not long ago, thus facilitating more of her fraudulent activities. She was exposed years ago as a continual liar, and increasingly, certainly since mid-2022, as an outright fraud.

I myself have been surprised, over the past year, as to how outrageous the “Jack Monroe “grift”/fraud is and has been.

Thinking about the “Jack Monroe” fraud and/or “grift” reminded me of a similarly untruthful character I encountered 30 years ago.

When I returned from the USA in 1993, and started to try to make a living at the Bar (based in exceptionally-poor chambers in London), I did both civil and criminal cases, though I was never much at home in the criminal courts.

At that time (maybe still today, I do not know), solicitors employed unqualified stray persons as “outdoor clerks”, who would attend court hearings on behalf of the instructing solicitors, and in support of Counsel appearing. They had no rights of audience but were more or less messengers and “spear-carriers”.

Such “outdoor clerks” were people most of whom had no legal training at all: out-of-work actors, retired people in need of a financial top-up, all sorts. The advantage in employing them, for solicitors, was the low cost. I seem to recall that a recently-retired lady I knew got £10 or so (maybe £40 or £50 in today’s money) to attend. Most of the hearings were brief, and even with the waiting around etc, the “outdoor clerk” was usually free by lunchtime if not before. Any more-serious hearings, including trials weightier than minor traffic matters, would usually be attended by an articled clerk (trainee solicitor) or a solicitor in person.

One fine day, I was sent to appear in the magistrates’ court somewhere, and was met at court by an outdoor clerk, a rather swarthy mustachioed person, maybe late thirties, who looked more like what the police might term a “villain” than any kind of quasi-legal representative. As soon as he had introduced himself, a furious man accosted him and said “I need a word with you!“, upon which the pair adjourned to a nearby room where I could see them arguing.

The outdoor clerk, one Mitch Baird, then re-emerged, explaining that the furious man was a solicitor with mental health problems. I accepted that explanation by default. I was thinking more about the case in hand, the first appearance of a defendant in an indictable case.

After that, I was instructed on other matters (civil as well as criminal) by the same firm of solicitors, headed by a Jew called “Maxwell”, so encountered Mitch Baird fairly frequently. I met his West Indian girlfriend, with whom he lived (when around). A pleasant woman. I also met her mother. Their house (belonging to the mother) was a large detached Victorian house in the Stamford Hill area of London better known for its population of Hasidic Jews. I even attended a kind of garden party there, well-attended by an eclectic mix, including at least one Metropolitan Police detective (I would never have guessed his occupation).

That all-day barbeque/garden party, which I helped Baird to set up, was also notable for the amount of booze consumed: Baird and I alone drank (I think) 12 (it may have been “only” 8, but even so…) bottles of Bulgarian red wine between us (it seems impossible to me now…), before, late in the evening, heading to Le Caribe, “London’s only silver-service Caribbean restaurant” (now long-closed), a mile or so away, for a couple of imported (Trinidadian) Carib beers at the bar, overlooking a scene of gold-festooned Yardie types dining nearby. Baird then drove me home to Little Venice and dropped me off there. God knows what his alcohol reading would have been, had he been stopped.

Well, suffice to say that the said Baird was not to be trusted. Reports and complaints gradually emerged. For example, he had, apparently, actually taken money in cash from the family of a young Trinidadian visitor for legal defence, when the latter was supposedly legally aided! I had appeared for the defendant, managed to get the charge dropped as well (possession of an offensive weapon), but was never paid (Baird had obviously not put in the requisite legal aid papers).

In a civil case involving defamation, Baird had (in my own chambers, after a conference), got the lay client to make out a cheque for £2,000 to Baird himself. I was myself totally unaware of those facts at the time.

When the lay client discovered that my written advice was that the case was unlikely to succeed, he complained to my clerk that he had been cheated by both the Jew solicitor, “Maxwell”, and by Baird (I was cleared by the client of dishonesty but described in his letter as having not understood what a good case he had! His letter had gone to the Law Society (the solicitors’ body), I think, with the names of all concerned, such as MILLARD, in capital letters, as in the files of the Security Service. That detail has always stuck in my memory.

The lay client had demanded that my clerk, or I myself, somehow get back his money.

Though I was myself blameless (as was my almost useless clerk of the time), I could see the situation snowballing. My clerk had discovered that the £2,000 cheque (worth at least £6,000 today) had been paid into a bank account controlled by Baird’s girlfriend, Baird having himself been blackballed by all banks. I therefore pressured the girlfriend on the telephone, telling her (truthfully) that she could go to prison if the money was not handed back.

I am not a natural bully, but needs must, and after a great deal of bitter tears, the girlfriend did agree to give the money to my clerk, who returned it to the lay client.

I believe that Baird split up later with that woman. No loss (to her). She was probably unaware that she was but one string to his bow. In fact, a very nice St. Lucian bar owner woman had told me that various West Indian women were always telephoning the bar for Baird, leaving messages etc.

Baird then had the cheek to telephone me at chambers and threaten to “give you a good hiding”, as he put it, if I refused to give him, via my clerk, the £2,000. I invoked the name of the Metropolitan Police, then put the telephone down. I never heard from Baird again.

In the interim, though, I happened to meet, at court, that furious man described at the beginning of this story. It turned out that, far from being the lunatic described by Baird, he was a most reasonable fellow, a solicitor who had employed Baird in the recent past as outdoor clerk, and who had discovered that Baird was stealing money, tricking clients out of cash, demanding cash even when the defendant was legally-aided etc.

That solicitor also gave me some background. It seemed that Baird’s parents were mestizos from one of the main Caribbean islands (I forget which), and that his father was a pillar of the community (I think a surgeon). Baird was white-ish but his half-brother not. Baird himself had apparently been a shocking disappointment and source of shame to his parents, by reason of his various behaviours in the Caribbean.

That solicitor had told me how it had taken him a long time to untangle the skein of fraud, theft, and lack of any responsibility, of Baird. The Law Society had been on the solicitor’s neck, I think.

I was contacted not long afterward by that half-brother of Baird, who begged me to meet him and his Polish girlfriend to discuss the matter. Turned out that he worked in a senior (he said) or middle-management (my guess) role at Citibank. He was afraid of scandal tarnishing him, especially the fraudulent aspects of his half-brother’s behaviour.

I met the couple at Ronnie Scott’s, the famous Soho jazz club, which I had not visited previously, and which I found quite interesting. The “Citibank” Baird and Polish girlfriend (a blonde dentist), who seemed to have some kind of VIP membership (we were able to jump the queue to get in) were not unpleasant, and we discussed the problem amicably enough before parting.

What struck me at the time is how the fraudulent Baird had managed to get away with many things because most people, most of the time, believe most of what is told to them, especially when they are introduced (by others, or via mass media “validation”) to the fraudulent individual in such a way as to lull suspicion.

It takes time to wake up to the lies of a hard-core narcissist.

Here we come to the similarity with “Jack Monroe”, the so-called “Bootstrap Cook”. She was introduced to the public by sort-of-trusted organizations and people. The Guardian. The Observer. TV shows. Nigella Lawson, the Jewish TV cook. Others.

That validation (which to some extent continues— incredibly, “Jack Monroe” was on BBC Question Time recently, long after her “grifting” and outright fraud was exposed) makes many tend not to question her bona fides.

Even now, you see on Twitter those unthinking people perfectly happy to accept that “Jack Monroe” crowdfunded to “sue Lee Anderson”, then did not sue Lee Anderson (a few of the mugs even think that she did sue— and won!), and then (as she claims) donated all those crowdfunded monies to an unnamed food bank, indeed to one which she refuses to name. Meanwhile she tries to pull the old “mental health”, “physical health”, and “fear of stalkers and trolls” stunts, which she has used many times previously when suspicions about her gather.

Some commentators think that I am wasting my time on “Jack Monroe” and her mug supporters. Probably, but it makes me angry to see vulnerable, well-meaning, often elderly and, not-infrequently seen, disabled and sick people being taken for mugs by that cheat and liar, who is just laughing at them, if only they were able to wake up and see it.

Where are the police? Still seizing “racist” teddy bears? Still snooping on Twitter or blog posts?

Finally, I have no idea what happened to the egregious Mitch Baird. Maybe the bastard died. Many of those who target me seem to live relatively short lives. Or maybe he just faded into terminal obscurity.

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Leni Riefenstahl, Olympia

[The 1936 Olympic Games, Berlin— Hitler and the people]

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From the newspapers

This is the kind of untermensch we have been importing into this country for years, indeed for decades. I am generally anti the death penalty, but a general social problem now exists, and it may be that some brick walls and firing squads may eventually be necessary to solve it. When exactly that day will come, I do not know, but I know that it will come, and will have to be faced.

See also: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6034729/Asylum-seeker-raped-student-17-cemetery-replies-did-not-jailed.html.

He will be deported after serving his jail term.” So they say…

In any case, a thousand enter the UK for every one deported.

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Ha ha. Next, the idiot will be declaring war on Mars or Middle Earth. Better call for his nurse…

Ukraine is now not, in any recognizable way, a state at all. It only exists because propped up in every way by money paid by the taxpayers of the EU, UK, and USA.

What an incredible waste of money. Take away Zelensky’s ricebowl.

Ha. That might be an even bigger challenge for Greta Nut than making sense or accurate predictions.

See also: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/09/29/greta-thunberg-system-approved-wunderkind/; and https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/08/16/the-extinction-rebellion-levellers/; and https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/04/19/is-the-world-running-out-of-time/

“Thought for the day”…

“Thought for the fanatical Jewish lobby”…

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“Thought for the police?”…

Jesus H. Christ! The NHS is hugely underperforming, the UK’s roads are becoming badly potholed, people cannot get places to live, but the Indian money-juggler presently posing as Prime Minister is throwing your money at the Jewish regime in Kiev!

Late tweets seen

Billy Bragg will not do anything likely to annoy the Jewish lobby. He has seen what happens to entertainers (which I suppose he is) who get on the wrong side of the lobby. He wants to continue his trade…

As a matter of fact, Bragg may not be as famous as he imagines. I had not, I think, heard of him until a few years ago, maybe a decade ago (but not really knowing anything about him).

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

Not so amazing when you consider that the Jewish lobby has a stranglehold on mainstream media across much of the Western world, and especially the Anglophone world.

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[Tangier]

Diary Blog, 23 May 2023, including some material about Rachel Reeves

Afternoon music

Reminder

From the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12113191/KAROL-SIKORA-Labours-fanatical-ideology-means-never-cure-sickness-NHS.html

Worth reading.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/22444597/rachel-reeves-jobless-brits-economic-recovery/

“[Rachel] Reeves said: “What I want to see is people who are already in Britain being trained up for the jobs that are available in the economy… there are many people who are not in work who with the right support, could get into work.

She threw her weight behind plans to devolve back to work support to town halls, with localised drives to get people off benefits and back into work as part of a focus on “incentivising people“.

[The Sun].

There is no real difference between the drivel spewed out by Labour Friends of Israel MP Rachel Reeves and that emitted by Conservative Friends of Israel MP Iain “Dunce” Duncan Smith over the past 13+ years.

Localized drives” to harass the unemployed and/or disabled, and to take away the tiny incomes (from the State) that they need? Sounds as if any people without high income or capital voting Labour-label will be turkeys voting for Christmas…

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12112113/UKRAINE-carried-Nord-Stream-pipe-blast-German-police-suspect.html

German investigators are pursuing leads which could implicate Ukraine in carrying out the mysterious Nord Stream pipeline blasts last September, according to a new report.”

[Daily Mail]

Take away Zelensky’s ricebowl. Why start a world war for a pack of corrupt Jews in Kiev?

Tweets seen

Always remember “the men behind the wire”…

Goodnight Vienna…Kiev

Idiots such as “Boris”, Liz Truss, and now the Indian money-juggler, Sunak, have been busy painting a big bullseye onto the UK…

Look at Ukraine under Zelensky’s regime— no economy left, except for harvesting grain and potato, pensions and State employees only getting paid because the West, mainly USA, is squeezing its own taxpayers for this garbage. “Ukraine” only has arms and ammunition because NATO states and others are funnelling them to Kiev free of charge. The Zelensky regime has shot or arrested opponents and dissidents, closed down trade unions and critical newspapers. As for ordinary justice, young girls suspected of shoplifting get sellotaped to trees on city streets and verbally (and maybe physically) abused.

Ukraine, as it now is, is a “failed state” in all ways.

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[Glacier Peak]

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Any stray Russian or “Ukrainian” missiles would be welcome.

Well, there it is. The Dutch situation was, in reality, the Dutch Experiment. A limited try-out.

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I am feeling particularly happy and gung-ho right now.

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The UK police, many of them, are far more interested in doing fake “communitarian” things than doing their proper job, “proper job” meaning deterring or investigating those old boring crimes such as murder, other offences against the person, crimes of acquisition etc.

No, all too many of them have embraced all too readily their new role of being the militia of a toytown “woke” police state, and a poundland KGB, snooping on tweets and other online material (whether they understand that material or not). Still, what goes around comes around, in the end…

The above clip is a typical example. The police in question are chatting about (?) football or (?) Eurovision, and are ignoring the unlawful blocking of the road… until their chat is interrupted. Then they take action, but against a victim of the malicious little pseudo-eco mob, not the mob itself!

Sometimes you can just see what may well happen not far down the road, and if the police fail —continue to fail— to stand with the British people, they themselves will fall victim.

Virtually subhuman. Drop him and the whole troop down a black hole.

Actually, I admit that I am wrong. Not “virtually“…

Many very silly people think that the Suffragettes [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette] were justified in their “direct action” programme, a kind of low-level “terrorism”, because without it, women would never have been granted the vote. The only thing about that, though, is that it is not true.

Women all over the world gained the vote in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, almost all without violent protest. Indeed, the Suffragists in the UK were on that same road: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage.

As to whether “the vote” really is useful, in 2023, that is a debate for some other time.

See also: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/01/15/has-parliamentary-democracy-as-we-have-known-it-until-now-had-its-day-in-the-uk/.

A “mysterious Labour donor“? What kind of J.. would that be?

Can’t quite recall what (((type)))…

Wait until her connections to the Israelis come out…

Reeves is a vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel,[51] contributed a chapter to a book about Israeli politics and society,[52] and supports the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation.[53][54]

[Wikipedia] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Reeves#Political_positions_and_views.

Still, she and her sister, and the husbands of both, have a “nice little earner” going on: both sisters are “Labour” MPs, and the sister is married to yet another Labour MP, while Rachel Reeves’ husband is also well-embedded in the present System: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Joicey.

Add up the salaries of that quartet, their personal expenses, their “perks”, and their various other income streams, and you are probably looking at £1M-£2M p.a.

I am now old enough (66) to remember when “Labour” was at least notionally connected to “the working man”, or what were once called (by Labour MPs) “working people“.

Late tweets

Say what you want about Erdogan, he hustles, in the American phrase.

Ha ha! “I’ll have whatever he’s having“!

Ukraine will never join the EU, never join NATO, and may well not exist in its present form by 2030.

The USA may be waking up to the dangers of supplying “Ukraine” with endless American arms and cash. Cut off the supply.

Were the pieces of equipment supplied on the nod, without an end-user certificate?

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Diary Blog, 25 April 2023

Afternoon music

[Jean Pierson, 1964, Sunlight from the Mediterranean]

From the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12008193/Father-son-jailed-life-murdering-thief-WW2-dagger-samurai-sword.html.

A father who murdered a burglar outside his house had previously posted a photo of the vigilante played by Charles Bronson in the Death Wish movies on a neighbourhood group with the comment: ‘This is who we need.’

David King put the photo of Deathwish anti-hero Paul Kersey on the WhatsApp group in June 2019 after the wheels of his wife’s BMW M3 were stolen.

The career criminal [burglar/car thief] was left with a 5in-deep wound to his chest and the injury to his knee. He was so distressed as he hammered at a nearby door for help that he smashed the glass.

” Car thief/burglar] Neil Charles, 47, who had 66 previous convictions, turned up at the estate shortly before 1am on June 20, 2021, and was spotted on CCTV trying the doors of the Kings’ cars.”

[Daily Mail]

66 previous convictions…

Frankly, I think that those citizens are heroes, albeit that they arguably went too far in the heat of the moment. The sentences of “life, with minimum 21 years” (the father) and 19 years (the son) were very very harsh in all the circumstances. I should have thought that a minimum term served of, say, 5 years, would have been enough to mark any judicial disapproval (judicial, not societal— most British people would back the father and son, at least in principle).

The police too often show themselves completely unfit for purpose, useless, and the same is often true of the courts. People like singer and satirist Alison Chabloz actually get imprisoned in the UK for (in her case) lampooning some Jewish behaviour in song or in cartoons, while real criminals, who stab or slash people, or steal cars etc, are effectively let off.

Finally, I see that the Daily Mail has shown no photograph of the killed individual. I wonder why not…

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12008435/Killer-murdered-grandfather-running-car-jailed-26-years.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12008403/I-pharmacist-chemists-stopped-stocking-life-saving-drugs.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12007637/Metropolitan-Police-constable-charged-using-dead-peoples-bank-cards.html

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/24/young-people-british-student-universities-exams

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/24/fake-hitler-diaries-to-go-on-public-display-in-germany

David Irving was the academic hero of the above story. The report in the Guardian downplays his role.

I once heard a taped speech by Irving (given to the then-active discussion forum, the Clarendon Club, in the 1980s) which went into his role in some detail. Incidentally, Irving showed himself to be a confident, assured, and amusing speaker.

The Guardian report notes that System historian Hugh Trevor-Roper [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Trevor-Roper] was damaged by his failure to see through the Hitler Diaries fakery, but downplays that too, in my view.

Trevor-Roper (a freemason who was very pro-Jew-Zionist) is still regarded by many as worth reading, while the Jewish lobby has demonized Irving and trashed his reputation, despite his books being far more interesting and accurate in relation to 1933-45 (Trevor-Roper covered a far wider historical time-scale in his works, from the early Enlightenment to the contemporary era).

Tweets seen

The “caring sharing” NWO/ZOG regime (in France) in action.

NWO/ZOG protocol…

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See also: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/01/09/on-recent-events-in-france/, my assessment of Macron from 2019.

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Andrew Neil used to be, maybe still is, the best political interviewer around, but a few years ago started to come off the rails a bit, ranting about “Nazis” and “neo-Nazis” etc on his now-binned late-night BBC 2 TV show. Then he became part of the System “Covid” propaganda campaign.

See my assessment (updated) from a few years ago: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/09/16/deadhead-mps-an-occasional-series-the-therese-coffey-story/.

Macron has become the first “unpopulist” President of France for a long long time.

Important because, should Biden retain the US Presidency after 2024, and then retire or die, Kamala Harris will automatically be sworn-in as President!

Late music

[Destiny, photograph by Sebastian Lucyzywo]

Diary Blog, 8 April 2023

Morning music

Saturday quiz

Well, this week brings me another victory over political journalist John Rentoul. He scored 4/10, but I trumped that with 6/10. I did not know the answers to questions 2, 7, and 9, and thought at first that I had got question 1 right, only to discover shortly afterwards that I had selected the wrong group of 17thC activists, dissenters or dissidents. So 6/10 it is this week.

Tweets seen

Reminiscent of the Tarkovsky film, Stalker:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalker_(1979_film)]

In the well-known words of Marx, “first time— tragedy, second time— farce” and, while it seems wrong to call an event as bloody and terrible as Bakhmut/Artyomovsk “farcical”, one has to compare it to Stalingrad, which at least was genuinely strategic. War is hell, and is often not even logical.

[Stalingrad, 1943]

Looking beyond the Bakhmut/Artyomovsk situation, we see that the Kiev regime has a problem of recruitment to its armed forces, made worse by the fact that about 20% of the Ukraine population has fled beyond the borders, and that includes many families with teenage children who will now not be conscripted.

If (I do not know) Russia is recruiting and training new “levies”, then it may be that, after the losses suffered by the Kiev-regime forces recently, the Russian armed forces may be able to advance steadily for the first time in quite a while.

As to arms and ammunition, the NWO/ZOG supplies to the Kiev regime are enormous but possibly (I do not know) inadequate as compared to the usage and/or attritional rate. We shall see.

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Not sure what Labour thinks that it is achieving by these attacks on Indian money-juggler Sunak. After all, Labour has for some time been far far ahead in the opinion polls, the present Sunak government seems headless at times (as did its predecessors), and people generally know that Sunak is, firstly, very very wealthy and, secondly, non-white (both of which tend to make him an unpopular PM). So why make these absurd “sex crime” attacks on him?

What makes the absurd attacks even more absurd is that there is no shred of evidence that Sunak himself is sympathetic to any form of child abuse or other sex offence(s), let alone any evidence that he himself is some kind of sex criminal. So why do it?

It may be that Starmer has tripped over his own shoelaces here.

Good question. Access to clean water is a problem in the world, but is mainly caused by aspects of poor government in Africa and elsewhere.

As to WaterAid, I can remember it running ads about 40 years ago. I know nothing against it.

I see that its income has risen from £1M in 1987 (it was founded in 1981) to £113M (as of 2019): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WaterAid.

As with other problems in the world, what is often lacking is not just money but intelligent and white European government.

Meanwhile, in the UK…

Let’s hope not, looking at the heir apparent and the rest.

After my wrongful (and indeed actually unlawful) disbarment in 2016 (see https://ianrobertmillard.org/2017/07/09/the-slide-of-the-english-bar-and-uk-society-continues-and-accelerates/), I was invited not only to speak to several members of the msm Press (a Daily Mail slug even came to my door) but also to talk on, or be interviewed on, various online “radio stations”. I declined all, mainly because I doubted that my contribution would have much effect on the “big scheme of things”. I believe that Radio Albion was one of those.

The present repression, driven entirely by the fanatical Jew-Zionist element, is destroying what little free speech and freedom of expression still exists in this country.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11949421/Moment-six-police-officers-raid-Essex-pub-seize-15-golliwog-dolls.html.

Essex Police, the same Toytown cops who wasted a day of my time back in 2017: see https://ianrobertmillard.org/2017/07/13/when-i-was-a-victim-of-a-malicious-zionist-complaint/

This is the bizarre moment police stormed a couple’s pub and seized their golliwog dolls – saying the toys were a suspected ‘hate crime‘.

Benice Ryley, 61, was quizzed by six officers after police received an anonymous complaint about The White Hart Inn in Grays, Essex.

She and husband Chris, 64, who is currently abroad, had displayed their collection of 15 dolls after receiving them as gifts from customers over the years.

On Tuesday, Essex Police raided the pub and confiscated the dolls, saying they were investigating a ‘hate crime’. They also took a book about the history of golliwogs.

Branding the incident a ‘waste of taxpayers’ money’, she continued: ‘When the police officers came, I pointed to the dolls and said they haven’t done anything.

‘The gollies all went quietly – none of them resisted arrest at all. I think the racist people are the ones who complain – it’s their problem, not us.

Mrs Ryley is demanding the dolls are immediately returned and has vowed to put them back behind the bar.

She fumed: ‘It is unreal – we haven’t broken the law and there is no legal stuff that says I can’t display them. It’s just silly.’

A spokesman for Essex Police said: ‘We are investigating an allegation of hate crime in Grays reported to us on 24 February.

[Daily Mail].

So who made the anonymous and timewasting complaint? A spiteful golliwog? Or one of “the usual suspects”, as in my case of 2017? We do not know.

Incidentally, look at the comments of the Daily Mail online readers. Others have voted about 12,000 against the police action for every half-dozen in favour.

Stop the invaders coming here, and remove those already here.

Ha. “I’m lovin’ it!

I looked up that weird young or young-ish woman. A failed journalist or, rather, online scribbler, from Canada (what is wrong with Canada?), and who cannot keep her tendentious and ignorant views out of even her Linked-In profile. Sacked a month ago from her most recent job (at “Global News”, which I think is linked loosely to the BBC’s commercial arm).

Probably unemployable as a journalist, looking at her near-hysteria.

One of her other tweets said “You’re supposed to have the right to freedom of opinion. But what if misinformation and disinformation is making that right hard to actually enjoy?” She simply misses the point. “Freedom of opinion” is self-standing. It does not exist simply so that she can “enjoy” it…

I urge anyone with a Twitter account (I do not have one— a pack of Jews conspired to have me expelled in 2018 and I now see little point in returning) to follow tweeter “@Nature_and_Race”.

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[Katyusha rocket-launchers in action, 1940s]

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…and on Twitter.

The compassionate face of elite soldiering— I like that. The bearded man, though, introduced himself to the remarkably resilient old lady not as a soldier but as “a correspondent…from Russia.”

Well worth listening to.

First, the whole crazy finance-capitalist system of speculation going haywire, then the “Covid” “panicdemic”/”scamdemic”, then the economic sanctions against Russia, and now the unwarranted and almost unlimited support for the Jewish-Zionist regime in Kiev. The whole house of cards of the Western world is quite likely not far from collapse.

Maybe the SVR is not as incompetent as I had surmised. On the other hand, the NWO/ZOG gameplan re. Russian and its “near-abroad” has been obvious for years. I have been blogging and, before 2018, tweeting about it for a decade or so. In fact, I was aware of the overall strategy as long ago as 1990, when the Soviet Union was still officially still in existence.

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Diary Blog, 2 April 2023

Morning music

[Ely Cathedral]

On this day a year ago

Ukraine

[the writing on the side reads “We are the musicians”, presumably a double reference to the Wagner Group and to composer Richard Wagner]

Peter Hitchens

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11928353/PETER-HITCHENS-country-misled-vital-matter-wasnt-Boris-Johnsons-parties.html.

“Trans” nonsense

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11928467/A-schools-casual-phone-call-mother-shopping-Waterstones-left-turmoil.html.

Society in the western world has for some time been displaying signs of total lunacy, and in various ways.

More from the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11928405/Putins-school-sexpionage-New-book-reveals-honed-skills-secret-academy-near-Moscow.html

See also: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/sep/29/guardianobituaries.veronicahorwell.

Rather ironic surname (of the Guardian journalist, that is), in view of the subject-matter.

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The Jew Zelensky is somewhere between dictator and figurehead, or between figurehead and puppet, and his regime has shot or imprisoned its political opponents, closed down trade unions, and repressed free speech.

It is noticeable that, in Western news photos and footage, the Ukrainian children repatriated to Ukraine, after having spent time in Russia, always look happy and well-fed.

Why on Earth would Russia, which left Marxism-Leninism behind 30+ years ago, want to invade Western Europe (inc. UK)? How could it even try? The whole idea is ludicrous.

Wien— das ist’s!

More “trans” nonsense

We know the way all of that is probably going to end, somewhere down the line…

What is it when, like —and yet unlike— those souls noted in Gray’s Elegy, some “wade through slaughter“, not “to a throne“, but simply “pro bono publico“? Duty? Higher law? “For the welfare of the people is the highest law“: salus populi suprema lex esto [Cicero, De Legibus].

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[Eton College Chapel]

I’ll vote for that…

That comes out very strongly in certain recent msm/System campaigns, including (but not exhaustively) the “trans” nonsense, pro-“Ukraine” (Zelensky regime), “Black Lives Matter” (etc).

Exactly.

Late tweets seen

…apply that to contemporary “Scottish” politics…

American memories

Idly “surfing the net”, I came across a brief obituary of a lady I had met a few times between late 1989 and early 1993, during which years I spent about half my time in the USA (mostly in New Jersey and New York City). I shall not name the lady or her family.

In 1989, I travelled with my then fiancee from New Jersey (near the Jersey Shore) to Fox Chapel, an affluent semi-rural area near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, we having been invited to spend Thanksgiving with a family there.

The couple who owned the large, comfortable house were in their fifties, and their daughter, aged about 25, was a friend of my then fiancee. The father of that family was a nuclear scientist, and his wife what the Americans charmingly call a “homemaker”, a much more respectful term, I think, than the Anglo-German terms “housewife” or “hausfrau”. American to the core, they had both been born and brought up in the Mid-West, but had also lived in Belgium, and had travelled very widely, to dozens of countries from Mexico to the Soviet Union.

The house, though on a semi-rural, semi-suburban road with a few other similarly-large houses, had a large hinterland, mostly not so much a “garden” as a tranche of forest; I think they said about 40 acres, where some of Pennsylvania’s millions of deer were often seen.

The lady’s husband was a tough but very decent type, very solid (in both senses), rather like a more intelligent version of John Wayne (to my European perception). He was a fan of American football, and I think that he had played football himself at college (university) level.

I admired the lady’s collection of Palekh lacquer boxes [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palekh_miniature], and also their very American cars, his a Cadillac (I forget the model), and hers a Lincoln Town Car, probably my own favourite at the time, though I myself did not have a licence then (I only held a driving licence —a foreign one— from 1999, and a UK one from 2002).

The couple were very hospitable to me; I have always remembered them with good feelings.

I last saw the couple in Maryland, in (I think) 1992.

The lady mentioned died a few years ago, it seems, aged 85 (at that time, at least, her husband was still living). I was unaware until today, not having kept up with any of those I knew or met so long ago.

I have been struck recently by renewed realization at how transient life is in any one incarnation. We must do what we can while we are still on the Earth.

Late music

Diary Blog, 25 March 2023

Afternoon music

On this day a year ago

Saturday quiz

Well, I only scored the same as political journalist John Rentoul this week— 5/10. I did not know the answers to questions 4, 7, 8, and 9; in the back of my mind, I knew the answer to question 1, but could not bring it to mind, so counted that as a “did not know”.

From the newspapers

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/mar/25/garden-multilayer-forest-biodiverse-tom-massey-rhs.

Tweets seen

Yes, tweeter “@DevilsAdvo1971” certainly did shut up when confronted by not only facts but also evidence directly from one of the many people scammed by “Jack Monroe”. So many people are desperate to believe in something, or someone.

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Yes. I recall talking about similar issues in 1976 with a couple with whom I was then friendly, a (supposedly ex-) getaway driver-turned-limousine service-owner, and his wife, both in their thirties (I was 19 at the time). The discussion was about the relative merits of the Western way of life as compared with the Soviet socialist system.

That fellow’s comment has stayed with me: “what matters to me is not the detail about how it works but what way of life comes out the other end.” Like many —more-or-less— “villains”, he was basically quite “Thatcherite” in his views (though this was three years before Margaret Thatcher actually became Prime Minister).

Indeed. In the late 1970s, the inefficiencies of the subsidized industries, and the (neo-Luddite) power of the trade unions, were the stuff of legend, but the “Thatcher Revolution” went far too far in various ways. All the same, people realized that some change was needed.

I have blogged previously about how the ~33-year cycle works. In 1989, old-style socialism died, but that did not happen overnight. In the UK, the change had been in preparation for many years, starting notionally with the Thatcher governments.

Telecoms policy illustrates the point. The State-owned British Telecom was privatized in 1984: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_Group. Even in the mid-1980s, it could take a long time for the average customer/consumer to be supplied with a telephone. It sounds ludicrous now, of course.

I knew someone from my schooldays who owned a couple of houses in South London, rented out by the room. He wanted the tenants to have a coin-operated telephone, and arranged with British Telecom to have one installed. After several months, he was getting angry that the telephone had not been installed. He was fobbed off with various reasons (excuses) until, finally so exasperated at the lack of action, about a year after he had asked for the installation, he called British Telecom to say that he was cancelling the order, only to be informed that the telephone was going to be installed a couple of days later. Which it was. Still, a whole year just to get a telephone!

That kind of rationing did not affect people equally. I remember being told, in the late 1980s, at dinner in Lincoln’s Inn, and by (now-deceased) Lord Justice Parker [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Parker_(judge)], that when he was first appointed a judge in, I think, 1969, that appointment had co-incided with his moving to a country house in a rather out-of-the-way part of Essex. There was no telephone.

Parker had then contacted the manager of the (then) GPO for the area to request installation of a telephone. He was told that it might take several months, if not longer. He then said that he needed a telephone for his work. The telephone manager had asked what work. “I have just been appointed a judge“. The manager then apologized, and said that a telephone would be installed that week. It was.

I imagine that the later Lord Justice of Appeal put his case quite forcefully. I certainly found him a rather unpleasant person, that one time that I spoke with him.

It sounds antediluvian now, when anyone can buy a basic mobile telephone for a small amount of money, and get it from a supermarket or other outlet in a matter of minutes.

The point is that the heavily-subsidized nationalized industries of 1945-1980s had become sluggish and a drag on economic efficiency. However, the privatization trend went too far in the late 1980s and 1990s. Now, the taxpayers fork out huge sums to notionally private enterprises, from railways and offshoots of the DWP and NHS, to the farming industry and others. We are getting neither proper service nor value for money.

The same is true of the “tax credits” payments put in place by Blair and Brown, and also the current “Universal Credit” low pay boondoggle. It subsidizes poor-paying employers out of public funds. That cannot be right.

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To my mind, the loss is $30 cash plus the cost price of the goods minus the profit margin on the goods. I admit that I am no economist (or mathematician)…

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

More from the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/property/article-11899481/The-property-owning-couple-bought-ENTIRE-Welsh-village-raised-rents-unaffordable-prices.html

Put a beggar on a horse and he rides it to death” [German proverb].

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11901377/Asylum-seekers-say-like-living-jail-hotels-taxpayers-footing-bill.html.

The number of hotels being used to house asylum seekers in the UK is about to reach 400 as migrants continue to cross the Channel in small boats, MailOnline can reveal.

Currently 395 hotels in the UK are understood to be being used to accommodate more than 51,000 people at a reported cost of £6.8million a day – but the number is constantly increasing as the Government battles to start moving some asylum seekers to Rwanda while their applications to stay in the UK are processed.

[Daily Mail]

The continuing cross-Channel migration-invasion will put the final nail in the Conservative Party coffin, even though Labour will be no better re. the problem.

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The “democratic” pseudo-statesmen who feel the need to be heavily protected from those they claim to represent. Adolf Hitler never needed such measures, certainly not in the six years of peace 1933-1939.

What a contrast.

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Just as one cannot see a single TV ad now in the UK, nor any drama series, even one set in 1950, and even one set in 1590 (!), that does not have numerous blacks in it.

It’s a start, no more.

Whatever happens in and around Bakhmut/Artyomovsk, the war in Ukraine has all but solidified. We see ever more detailed maps and reports about ever-smaller areas. Russia needs a massive gamechanger in order to retake the initiative on the large scale.

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