Football and Exercise

 A couple of upsets in the World Cup knock out stage last night with Netherlands and Germany both going out.  Brazil went through against Japan but did not look startlingly good or anything like we used to take for granted with Brazil.  

Germany played badly in the first half that I was watching, terrible defending and Paraguay scored an easy goal to go ahead. Totally unmarked while the German defence stood around doing nothing.   I went to bed and didn't watch the second half or listen to it.  

Later I discovered the match went to extra time and there was a controversial goal VAR decision when the VAR panel judged that the Paraguay keeper was fouled and disallowed a goal.  VAR adhered strictly to the new FIFA rules that goalkeepers are not to be touched.  I can't see that working in the Premier League but this is the rule in the World Cup so the goal was disallowed.  Lots of disbelief from the pundits, no doubt Shearer was shouting.  "That could never happen, he faked it, he dived".  Well Alan, it just did happen.  

The match then remained a draw at the end of extra time and went to penalties.  Germany had a terrible penalty time and it is said that four players refused to step up leaving  poor ol'  Jonathan Tah having to take one never having taken a penalty before in a competitive game and duly kick it over the bar.  That was it for Germany and Paraguay won 4 3.   This was Germany's  first failure to win a penalty shoot out in the World Cup in 44 years.  

On the basis of what I saw of Germany in this World Cup they did not look the greatest of teams and I am happy for Paraguay.  On the singing of their national anthem alone Paraguay looked like winners from the start. 

Another shock, The Netherlands were beaten by Morocco, a match that also ended in 1-1 and went to extra time and penalties.  Morocco are a good footballing side and I am happy to see them go through to the last 16.  They are another team who never give up and play with passion and winners in the singing department too.  I was once in Marrakech with my friend Allal and I asked to go to the Marrakech v Casablanca game that was on and he refused saying the passion for football in such a clash  is such that he did not feel it was safe for me to go.  Oh well..

We shall see what happens to England tomorrow night.  I think they will have a tough job on their hands with DR Congo.  Tuchel has a difficult team selection to make with plenty of off pitch advice coming his way I can see.  I liked DR Congo when I saw them playing Portugal 10 days ago and DR Congo had Portugal running pretty scared so England need to be ready for them and the counter attack.   It looks like a Ghana type scenario could happen all over again except this time it can't end in a draw. 

Will there be more shocks tonight when France play Sweden and Ivory Coast play Norway?  Lots of fun to come.  

I cut the grass and then sat down to prepare for more new exercises which I have ready for my new regime.  I am slowly getting better but each day takes a while to get started.  I am concentrating on legs and circulation and blood coming back up after its journey down to my feet and no varicous veins.   So important for the over 50s.  The new exercises are an overlap of those already in my regime. Calf raises, elevated legs up the wall, never stand still for more than 30 minutes, move and do some calf raises, and do ankle pumps point toes away and pull back.  

I have also added inner thigh shaping up with clam shell knee, lay on side with ankles together and open and shut legs like a clam shell keeping ankles together.  

Oh for love and happiness on the blog where people call in with pleasant greetings and joy to share with me.    

Stayin' Alive

 Will Sadiq Khan be locked up?  100s of gang rapes in London covered up by him and the Met?Mustn't offend the ecletic mix of folk lest we make them feel unwelcome. 

Do you think a man who promoted fraud and lies and said Leon Brittan had been part of a paedophile ring should be in the House of Lords;  do you remember Tom Watson and the like when you voted? Tom Watson, Labour,  was the man who ruined the last years of Leon Brittan's life and his family with the lies he promoted from a convicted paedophile, fraudster, liar, pervert Carl Beech?  And then Tom Watson  was promoted to the House of Lords on the recommendation of Keir Starmer.   The watchdogs who vetted waved it through despite objections. 

Do you think we should solve the boat illegals coming in by sending planes to pick them up instead and on the soil from where they come firstly give them asylum and then they come in on the planes not as illegals but as refugees?    Then one day with your short memories you will forget the planes and say "Labour solved the problem, we don't have boats any more", forgetting that no, we don't have boats, we just have planes landing at Brize Norton bringing them straight in, easy.   That is how your memories work and Labour know it. 

Over 70,000 illegals have arrived in boats across the channel since July 2024.  How many of them are doctors and nursees now in work?  Doctors and nurses don't throw their papers in the sea, come across the channel in a rubber dinghy, and university students studying at high cost in universities come with a passport, a laptop and a hall of residence to go to. They aren't illegals, they are legits, doctors, nurses, students.  We are constantly told that we need these people as if that excuses the illegals in the boats.  Yes, we need them but not to be used as an excuse for illegals or confused with them.   Most of the illegals are not about to be murdered at home, they are about to murder us, scam us, rob, promote drugs for your children, provide drug runs, and fill our prisons when caught enabling rapists, murderers and thugs to be released early to make room for them.   

This country is ruined and will never recover from the Labour Party.  

It will become a new country full of unemployed, rotting buildings, closed industrial estates, abandoned buildings, gangs of thugs, praying in mosques paid for by China,   no banks (nothing new there)  no money, mounjaro sufferers with bodies that rotted like the buildings, vapers with arteries full of air, dropping dead,  no smokers just dying vapers, hospitals with rotting bodies they couldn't cope with  like Nottingham just found, GPs without a jot of sense unless they are writing out a prescription.  90% of over 75s are on medication, probably make that 90% of over 70s.   In hot weather their bodies can no longer cope because of that medication most of which interferes with sweat, the natural way of cooling.  Mother nature is compromised with all this medication.  Swollen feet don't just happen in the majority of people, they come because of your heart pills and your piles of medication each morning.  Labour introduced financial incentives to GP surgeries to prescribe statins and blood pressure pills.  Before this such incentives were unknown. This was part of Blair's Britain that is entrenched. 

Stayin' alive, stayin' alive. 

And then there is Archbishop George Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, who covered up for Bishop Peter Ball who had been molesting and abusing young boys for years.   Carey hid from the police  letters of complaint and accusations by putting them in the back of a filing cabinet in a bundle and never telling the police. He eventually revealed only letter which was the least damning.   Ball's despicable behaviour was investigated firstly in the late 1990s and he received nothing and avoided prosecution.  The abuse went on for more years.  Meanwhile Blair recommended Carey for the House of Lords.  Carey carried on hiding the letters.  In 2015 Ball was eventually brought to justice.  Carey remained in the House of Lords.  He was allowed to stay in spite of the findings of the enquiry about Carey hiding the letters and knowing what Ball was allegedly doing and saying nothing and talking it down to absolutely nothing.  After the court case Carey resigned from the Church but continued in the House of Lords to where he sits and legislates to this day.  He is now 90 years old.   Did he do what you would have done?  Did Carey show dignity, integrity and be an upstanding member of the Church and community?     Members of the House of Lords are expected to show dignity, integrity, objectivity, openness, honesty, leadership, selflessness, and accountability.  Watson and Carey should not be in the House of Lords. 

 Ball died at home after serving half his life sentence.  Incidentally he came to Norwich for interview as Bishop of Norwich. They turned him down because he asked for an isolated house away from the Cathedral and not in the Close.  They didn't like the sound of him because the Bishop's House in the Close is a splendid dwelling and no bishop had ever turned it down before.  He subsequently went for another job and became Bishop of Gloucester, got his isolated house and continued molesting boys.  In order to pray and be closer to God he made them strip naked, the only way to be close to God, he told them. He also stripped naked.  No wonder he didn't want the Bishop's House in the Cathedral Close.  Like Jimmy Savile he also befriended people in high places such as Prince Charles (now King) and attained an air of untouchable importance. 

I have written about all these things before including Bishop Peter Ball. 

We seem to enjoy covering up for things we don't like in Britain.

Saturday on Sunday

 I wrote this yesterday and didn't publish as I realise nobody is really interested so I may as well not be interested myself in publishing and concentrate on other things.  Blogger may condescend to update the reading lists by Tuesday or Wednesday by which time the last 32 will be midway through the second half, the heatwave will be over, and all this will be old news anyway.  This morning I publish and be damned.   

Oh woe is me of those who know so little about Great Britain.  As we have a net zero zealot in government in the name of Ed Miliband and his fellow net zero zealots in local authority it is decreed that air con is ripped out of houses if already there and it will not be put into houses if not already there.  Please you foreigners be aware of this.   In my vicinity those using portable air con in their offices of the state who are watched by Stasi type officials they are ordered to turn them off and take them away and never use them again. Camden Council (London)  are having complete air con units removed from housing when they see it.

The electric buses In Norwich are not turning on the air con  because the drivers say the buses do not have the electric battery capacity to switch it on without risking failure to get to their destinations and return.

Enough of that for the foreigners.   Close the curtains and stay indoors and the heat will soon be over, it never lasts very long in Britain.   Mind over matter helps a lot along with natural sweat and water taken on board to replace that lost. 

The England game is tonight at 10pm when we play Panama.  Let us hope that some players are rested as we are now certain of going through to the last 32 whatever happens tonight.   Let us hope Bellingham has a fit of spirit and riles them all up. 

France entertained with Norway last night to beat them comfortably 4-1 with both countries already through so Norway resting many players, notably no Erling Haaland.   France played superbly like winners and must be favourites for the Cup after I see such play as last night.   Denbélé with a hat-trick and such entertainment and the team that plays as winners. 

I hope that we learn something in England from the games we see in the World Cup and that the VAR is not holding it all in its hands and the game has been allowed to continue with flow and little intervention.  No more VAR officials holding the tape measure and the set square to the goal line against  the screen with the magnifying glass in the car park next season I hope. Play on and the referees decision is (sometimes) final. 

The six girls I have seen officiating, the one with the pony tail referee and her assistants,  have been impressive at keeping order and flow amongst the men without confrontations.  Perhaps the players are more scared of a woman than of the male referees they are used to.   She keeps order well. She referees with certainty and complete assurance. 

 

As I have said before, Andrew Lawrence says it better than me. 

And finally, the bit I wrote this morning:  I listened to the E|ngland game on the radio in bed.  Sounds like the first half was more of a Southgate half and they sparked up to win with two goals in the second half with the help of Bellingham's grit and spirit. I then slept and didn't dream of winning the World Cup.

The rest of the tournament is far too difficult to work out for my chart so I will have to rely on the experts so I can fill in the last 32 and the fixtures.  I never was any good at algebra. 

Edit  I have now up-dated my wallchart.  It took 20 minutes.  

England play DR Congo on Wednesday,  1st July, kickoff 5pm.

The first game of the Round of 32 is not Germany v Paraguay tomorrow,  it is South Africa v Canada 8pm tonight, Sunday and then Germany is  Monday,  June 29, kickoff 9.30pm.

France play Sweden on Tuesday ,  30th June, kickoff 10pm.

Win for Ecuador Heat and Capitals and Rats (edited)

 Great win for Ecuador against Germany last night. Ecuador go through to the next round along with Germany and Ivory Coast.   Very enjoyable to see a team playing so hard to win a match.  When I see teams like this in the World Cup I despair that England are my team.  Maybe it is better to just be a neutral and enjoy good football, which I do of course when England aren't playing, but I always fall back on to England. 

This happens in every World Cup, I remember South Korea in a Cup gone by, was it really 2002?, and their passion that never seems to quite make it to  England teams.   Perhaps it is to do with our national psyche.  No love for our country seeps into the veins and our feet and our hearts. 

I am enjoying the heat, not having to do anything makes it enjoyable.  I don't fret about the night time or any of the things I see written about that people fret about in the heat.   I am glad we didn't have internet and social media in 1976, we just enjoyed it, outdoor living like I had never seen it before, Marsden beach was like the Riviera.  

I will enjoy my day and the sunshine, please do the same, relax.

In my house no fans, no doors open, just bedroom window. 

If you have that door open to the garden and you feed the visiting wildlife be aware that a rat will walk in to your house without hesitation.  Take that from a farmer.

Quito is the capital of Ecuador.  La Paz is the capital of Bolivia.  Lima is the capital of Peru.

The Ecuador manager had really cool hair.   He is Argentinian and the capital of Argentina is Buenos Aires. 

When a rat finds a good source of food, particularly left overs, chicken, etc. it will remember it like it a good restaurant and it will return.  It will be its first food seeking jaunt in the night.  It may not recognise any boundaries of houses, gardens, ownership or fences, but it will remember a good source of food location.  Rats are not dumb animals.  Ask any farmer. 

England 0 Ghana 0

Excellent defensive performance from Ghana and I did enjoy the game on Tuesday night.  I have only just got around to writing about it because I had other things to say. 

But, and it is a big but, England first half looked like the old Southgate team back again, slow, yawn, hurry move lads, do something.   Bellingham got a bit stroppy at half time which he does when he gets frustrated with play and we see that side of him and he apparently said some choice words to Quieroz and Queiroz should have just ignored it but he drew attention to it later at the Press conference so it all got a bit silly and oh, just grow up, at 73  give the boy a chance and don't make a song and dance about it.  *Brings back memories of Beckham and Keane getting in a few scraps wtih him too now I come to think about it.

Ghana 4 5 1 and that was their defensive block and it was effective.

DJed Spence and Anthony Gordon could not get behind it. 

Quieroz did a good job as Ghana's coach.  You may remember him as Alex Ferguson's assistant once upon a time - Fergie seemed to get on ok with him but I don't remember the boys at Man U liking him much, see above*. 

Yep, I did enjoy it and although I wanted England to win I couldn't help but enjoy watching Ghana because as well as the defence being solid it was also fluid and Ghana tactically moved correctly, and fast. 

Kane touched the ball 6 times in 45 minutes.  

Then after 56 minutes  England did  get behind the defence, but the Ghana centre midfielder and centre sprinted back and covered again and again so nothing happened. 

England will qualify and this match was a bit of a hiccough and it doesn't mean England are out or anything but it is a bit of downer that we still see the selection problems and Rashford not brought on soon enough in that game and why didn't he start the game?  and the two changes in back two with Gordon and Spence  that Tuchel made were probably well thought out but they didn't really work.   Rashford coming on is not mentioned in many reports and yet he made an instant impact.  Yes, I know it was minor and late but it was still an impact.   And then Rice who is so important to the team is nursing a nagging injury.  With a yellow card on top he should not play against Panama.

And further, although not much was said when I was watching on tv,  Ghana should have had a penalty near the end when Ezri Konsa  made a wild tackle from behind  on Prince  and didn't touch the ball and yet the ref waved play on and in the studio Shearer and the other guy said absolutely nothing like "oh we'll just ignore that England fouled Ghana there and why isn't VAR going to take a look?"The joke doing the rounds is that VAR had gone for coffee.  There was an offside flag but that was after the tackle.  Lucky England. 

And finally, whenever I watch Pickford running around on the pitch miles from his goal I always think that one day he is going to cost England a match. 

Saturday is the final group stage game against Panama and no doubt the defence will change again and O'Reilly will be back and Djed Spence on the bench.  Will Rashford start?  I doubt it.  Will Saka start?  Only Tuchel has the answers. 

My chart shows that Panama have been beaten by Ghana and Croatia and England should make that three and also beat them.  They are ranked 40th in the world by FIFA.  England are currently ranked 4th which sounds very generously high.   

Rashford to score and England to win 3-0.

My Mother's Cooking Interlude

 This afternoon I have stewed some plums, my mother would be pleased.  She would stew fruit throughout the summer,  apple, plum and pear seasons and these would be stored in kilner jars for use in the winter.   Everything was seasonal in terms of food eaten and preparation and preserves for out of season.  

There would be pickles, clear brine pickles and I still do these myself.  Also pickled cucumber.  

I prepare pickled red cabbage all through the year, not just at Christmas as some do.  It needs to be pickled and eaten fresh within a couple of weeks or it loses its crispness.   So my habit is to buy a red cabbage once per month and pickle it. 

I eat meat and often roast a joint of beef, ham or pork which lasts me for many meals and with the cold meat I eat my homemade pickles.  In the clear brine I like to do mixed vegetable pickle of whatever is to hand, cauliflower, green beans, shallots, peas. 

I also regularly pickle beetroot to eat with salads.  This is slow process and needs an alarm set to remember that the beetroot are boiling. I have more than once forgotten they are on and the saucepan boil dry.  

My mother mostly used ordinary malt vinegar and black peppercorns for her pickles and a simple dry brine method of salting overnight and then bottling the vegetables 24 hours later.  You can also gently boil the vegetables for a few minutes if you want to soften but I use them raw as my mother did and the simple brine method. The vinegar is boiled and steeped with spices which mum simply used peppercorns, some sugar, a little salt and allspice if she had any in the cupboard.  (The vinegar is allowed to cool before use for these pickles described).  

I prefer to do my cucumber as grated cucumber, peeled, grated coursely and placed in a bowl with salt, pepper and 1 tablespoon of vinegar and a little sugar, cooled and placed in the fridge topped with sour cream or Greek yoghurt. 

My mother would also make Russian salad which I think we all miss from Heinz when we could buy it beautifully ready made., tinned. We always had several small tins in the cupboard.   Quite why Heinz decided to discontinue it I will never understand.   I thought it was popular.   To make your own Russian salad is a bit of a variation of the clear pickles described above but with the cauliflower, beans, carrots, and anything around, peas, turnips, etc. potatoes, all boiled to soften.  Once cold the ingredients are arranged in layers, seasoned with salt and pepper  and covered with mayonnaise.  The best mayonnaise for this is your own homemade rather than a Hellmans.   I don't bother to make Russian salad now because it is too much for me to do for myself. It is sometimes possible to buy it in the Polish section of supermarkets or Polish grocery shops but it never tastes the same as Heinz. 

Mayonnaise recipe mum used was 2 yolks of eggs, 1 teaspoon of French mustard, a little salt, pepper and tarragon vinegar, or star anise infused, and 1 pint of salad oil and 1 tablespoon of cream.  I found this written down but I don't remember seeing her buy oil because she cooked with lard.  She presumably would buy a very small quantity of olive oil.  The yolks and everything else are mixed with a wooden spoon and the oil is then added "drop by drop" then the vinegar and keep stirring all the time.  The cream is added at the end and sometimes can have a little cold water at the end, she has added, if it is too thick.  This should all be made in cold conditions and if it is hot use a basin of cold water to stand the bowl in whilst beating. 

 My mother was a good cook and over the years I have noticed that a lot of her food preparation and ingredients were very similar to the food I have eaten whilst travellilng in Eastern Europe.  Whilst simple, straightfoward food is still eaten in Russia and countries across Europe it is less so in Britain.   I still cook the way my mother did and I am sure I am not alone in this but many generations after me I think have all but abandoned this type of food described here.

My mother also made jam throughout the summer but I don't do this myself mainly for the simple reason that I do not eat enough jam to justify it.  I wait until the church fete and buy the odd jar.  I always have honey in the cupboard which I purchase from a honey stall on the side of the road near here. 

Azerbaijan had many many pickles and honeys and I was in paradise.  The meat was well cooked and the salads and pickles spilled over into bottled fruit and herb drinks that we don't even think about to accompany the food. 

Midsummer Day

 On this day, Midsummer Day, 1942,  my parents got married.  It was also a Wednesday I believe.  24/6/42 reads the same backwards and forwards.  It was a wedding in wartime. 10 months later my brother R arrived and he is off to the Royal Norfolk Show today.  He spoke to me yesterday as he wouldn't be able to ring me today.  He said heat panic wouldn't stop him going.  He is going with his wife of course and they have already been to the pre-Show cocktail party. 

Yesterday I went to the cinema for the first time since my holiday.  I was able to face the walk from the station.  I am progressing.  I went to see Virginia Woolf 's Night and Day, starring Tim Spall, Lily Allen, Haley Bennett, Jennifer Saunders and more and directed by an Iranian not-locked-up film director Tina Gharavi.  Needless to say it is based on a Virginia Woolf novel.  Loosely based on the novel as Gharavi has altered it a bit in the name of movie drama.  It is a strange kind of movie and filming in your face and as I always sit at the front it was very in my face close-ups for character effect but I survived it.  It is set in the time of the suffragette movement in London and young Katharine Hilbery (Haley Bennett)  is a budding astronomer  who wants to go to Cambridge and at that time girls were not even given an interview for physics courses let alone a place.  And what she didn't want was romance or marriage like her father (Tim Spall) wanted for her.  It is a kind of dark comedic story with Tim Spall doing a great job in keeping it all going aided and abetted by Jennifer Saunders.  The film has a glow to it that keeps your attention and it is just the right length, not too long, and not too heavy.  A pleasant return to the cinema for me even though the train was almost an hour late - track problems at Shelford  - and I had to have my coffee after rather than before.

On Monday I met two of my poet friends for an exchange of work and ideas and general feelings about our lives as poets, where we are at with submissions and general mutual hugging.  Graduation is in two weeks but I have opted out of graduation ceremony because from past experience I see it as a family day and standing alone in cap and gown without guests is a very lonely affair.  They are both attending for a quick burst of applause on stage for 10 seconds and no photos booked leaving it to their respective spouses to do the honours.  We will meet up again soon for them to fill me in on any gory details. Last year my head-of-course professor supervising my dissertation at the time took herself away for a week to miss all graduations.  My second marker attended but said he felt like a spare part also when the attendees disappeared to the refreshment tent laid on for family and guests.  It hardly seems believable that 12 months ago I was writing my dissertation, seeing the younger man and up to my eyes in poetry and no blog.  

Messages to the left and right

 Get real. Face facts. Stop blaming the Daily Mail when you hear things about your beloved Labour Party that you don't want to hear.  

Andy Burnham is far left. Fact

John McDonnell, far left, weeps with joy as Burnham elected. 

Ed Miliband is a madman destroying Britain's energy sources. A madman giving us the most expensive utilities in the world. Self reliance on our own resources would make it better than always being at the mercy of others.  (And yes I know it does not automatically make anything cheaper but keep British Petroleum here on side.  Keep business leaders on our side).  Keep the oil industry here and listen to the people of Aberdeen.   A nut case who next stops your heated towel rail and your underfloor heating will be no more.  

Rachel Reeves is a liar who should have been sacked.  (And what on earth was she wearing at the Burnham signing in?)

Angela Rayner is a liar who pleaded ignorance of her own country's laws of tax to which the rest of us all adhere.

Starmer is a liar and he and the Labour Party have ruined this country once again as Labour always do.  And will continue to do under Burnham.

The people of Britain don't matter under this obscene, ignorant Labour Party who are in control. 

Never, ever vote again to punish. 

Never vote for a bunch of communist liars who have no idea about investment, pride, hard work, graft, and who do not care for their own people. 

Never vote for a party who lock up their own citizens who dare to speak, to protest, use freedom of speech or show a flag of their country.

Never vote for a Party who harbour criminals and who let them stay because their feelings might be hurt and their civil rights violated if they had to leave their cat, chicken McNuggets, machete, social worker, and nhs, and benefits behind.

Never vote for a party intent only on revenge, hate and jealousy of those who work hard, play hard and do well.  For every successful entrepreneur many many thousands benefit.

What has Labour given you?  Blair's Britain.  (Blair's Britain became so entrenched that many things remained and were  picked up and run with by the Conservative coalition and the Conservative governments.  New Labour and Blair changed Britain.  You can think what you like but some leaders significantly change a country and become entrenched.  Thatcher was one and Blair was another. 

No designated personal GP since 2004

University tuition fees. 

The way to privatisation of health care and break up of NHS paved by Blair speech 2006.

No mortgages for the young since Darling took his eye off the ball and let the building societies go further and further down the road of junk bonds and lending and then collapse.

A country under the grip of civil rights legislation so crippling that every murderer, insane, liar can get into the country and remain here. 

A country tied to a European civil rights court even though we got out of the EU.

High taxes, business rates, NI to cripple business, large and small.  Petty rules and regulations to stifle and kill expansion, entrepreneurship, investment, and the will to carry on.   Foreign investors who go elsewhere. 

Who sent young British soldiers to war in Afghanistan to come back dead, maimed and ruined?   To fight an enemy that no army has ever defeated.  

Which party later prosecutes young soldiers for doing the job to which they were sent and trained for and then prosecutes them,  holds the threat above them like the sword of Damocles with which they live to this day?  Who made the British Army a place to be avoided?  Why join up if this is going to happen to you 10, 20, 30  years down the line?  Who would?  No, you wouldn't.

Insurance and Scams and Dishonesty

 What lengths will people go to to get money through false insurance claims?  I have been thinking about this over the weekend.  I don't know why, maybe light sleeping in the heat, a dream of a past boyfriend maybe. 

Many years ago I went out with a boy who thought nothing of making false insurance claims.  His most common fraud was to claim he had had his camera stolen on holiday, or his luggage.  I was horrified at this. I remember him saying to me he thought everybody did it.   He would fabricate long explanations of what happened.   I didn't stay with him for very long.  

I have put a stop to my annual travel insurance and it will not automatically renew this time.  I will shop around for my next time if I have another holiday. 

I know that this type of insurance fraud still goes on and people will go to great lengths to build a story and even waste police time in the process. 

We pay a lot for other people's frauds.   

Theft and dishonesty is despicable. 

Challenge, question, sleuth.  

Longest Day and a Variety

 On the election result at Makerfield the country remains divided of course. 

The pound fell and the bond market fell meaning borrowing becomes more expensive as the markets see Britian as more of a risk if Burnham takes the helm. 

If I see one more time what a good man to Manchester he was I will scream.  I wonder how Sir Richard Leese feels at rarely, if ever,  getting a mention for putting Manchester back together again with Burnham forever taking all the credit.  

Manchester remains heavily in debt to billions and has given Burnham a false sense of security with money as local authority money is totally different to central government borrowing.  The bond market should have told him that on Friday if he took a moment to look which I expect he didn't.

Turning to the Dr Louise Newson book I mentioned yesterday it arrived at 4pm and I started reading a little in the evening.  It is a medical book and not an easy read for the layman like me.  I am having to look up words and the Chambers dictionary is not quite enough so some I have to put through Google.  

The message I have seen early on is the importance of cholesterol to the production of hormones.  I have long been against statins and I feel more sure than ever that my decision is the right one.  Although Dr Newson does not mention statins in the book because it is, as I said, more of a medical students or GPs text book than a book of criticism, she tells me that the cholesterol is made in the liver and is vital for all production of oestrogen, progresterone and testosterone and all are made from cholesterol; they enter the bloodstream and they have an effect on every cell in the body.  They improve thousands of cellular actions.   Cholesterol is not so evil as people are led to believe assuming you have a reasonably healthy diet and addressing diet is the important factor.  (I put that in because that is what I try to do).

As I sit here, not on any medication, I feel ok about the statin decisions I have made over the years - I was first told I would take them by a doctor in about 2008 who didn't look me in the eye, just looked down as his prescription pad at the time and said he was giving me the prescription and I said no thank you.  I am still here in 2026 as I write.  That would have been 18 years of putting a pills in my mouth to stop one enzyme in my liver.  Is my body meant for that?  Did my mother's body and grandparents miss out by not having statins?  They all lived into their 80s.   

I was next left a prescription for statins four years ago  in a doctors reception when,  not even seen by a doctor, I had given a high blood pressure reading in a nurses room one afternoon.   I left the prescription refusing to pick it up until I was plagued by phone calls that I needed to pick it up which I eventually did to keep them off my back. I threw the pills in my garage.   I am still here.

(On the subject of Dr Newson and the BBC which I mentioned yesterday.  I see from the blurb on the book that her clinic which was featured on Panorama is a private clinic, not NHS.  I wonder if this is why the BBC of the left portrayed her as a charlatan and were so intent upon closing her down.)  

So that is it for the boring part this morning.  I will continue with the book and Andy Burnham observations. 

I watched the Netherlands beat Sweden last night, a good match and then went to bed at 8pm.  (All the goals in the 5-1 scoreline coming from players who play in the English Premier league). The recipe for a good life is to go to bed when your body is ready.  I listened to one half of the Germany v Ivory Coast on the radio because I like the Radio 5 Live banter.   The only tv commentator who has pleasant banter is Lee Dixon, but Lee cannot do all the games.  All the rest I mute the sound.  They sound like old records playing over and over again.   I can always listen to 5 Live commentators with the tv on. 

It is dull here this morning.   The cats are happy I am up at last.  Today is the longest day.  

I met my friend for Waitrose coffee yesterday;  That was nice and she treated me because I am not well and she understands the life of the elderly woman without children, at home alone with illness because she is one herself. Widowed three months ago and picking up the pieces she is a good person, funny, likes a good Tory as she is one herself, grew up in Dagenham with her father,  a Smithfield butcher.  She is a tonic to know and to not be on the side of the left ruining this country.  I met her on a course during Covid and we became close friends in July 2024 when I stood in Waitrose having bumped into her in the vegetable aisle and I said out loud that Britain had gone down the drain because of the Labour victory. (At the time I had no idea of her political leanings).   She hugged me that day and said she didn't know anybody who would dare to say it out loud.  (She then told me she goes to a book club where she has to keep quiet because they are all lefties.)  We have been close friends ever since.  Her husband was alive at the time and he read my political poems and was a fan. I never met him but at my friend's request I would send him poems via Whats App because she said he would appreciate them whilst in the nursing home and later the hospice.  He did. 

Right, I promise to stop now. 

Round Up of The Week

 Although I am still not well I have been able to achieve some important in the house jobs so maybe not rushing about here and there has its upside.   I am still not well enough to go out to the cinema, catch trains, walk far, go for massage, or  guarantee that I can get from A to B when I arrive anywhere due to fatigue.   The only thing that helps is ibuprofen which takes away the fevers when they come. 

What have I done this week?  I went to Hannah for a hair cut, the first time I have seen her since my holiday so we had plenty to catch up on.  I park outside.  Her news and my news.  Football and holidays - she goes this weekend to Kos.  She loves Greece so has good taste. Kos is new to her though.  Football, we discussed many teams not least England of course.  Tuchel does such good things with the England team that Southgate didn't.  I was very hot while I was there and the fever came.  I remembered an old conversation with Hannah three years ago when she said I appear to have the menopause.  Of course I laughed and said this was many years ago but it set me thinking then. 

I ordered Dr Louise Newson's book on the Power of Hormones on the strength of remembering the conversation with Hannah and being told by my doctor when I asked for a hormone test that they don't do hormone tests on the over 70s.  The book should come today.    The doctor would not budge on hormone treatment or tests though.  I went on my way and bought Yam cream at the time.    

**  Dr Newson is a GP and her husband is a consultant urologist.  The book has now arrived and I am looking at it and will report later when I have read more, if anybody is interested**. 

Medical text books are based on treatment for men, not women.  Dr Newson has been ridiculed for her stance on hormones and cancer links and was subject of a BBC Panorama programme which said she was a charlatan.   She has since been proven correct in her studies but still awaits an apology from the BBC. 

Next, and importantly, I prepared my paperwork for my tax return.  I could do this mostly sitting in a chair.  A little later than most years when I aim to do it in May but then I have an excuse, I had my holiday then.   The papers were all sent off to my accountant and the tax return has now been submitted. All complete and I have the accountants bill to pay.  I then have the July tax to pay.   Everytime I think I might save some money I can't.  

I paid my house insurance.  I have a listed building house so I pay over the top for insurance.  I asked for it to be reduced.  They said I had already stripped out all ways of reducing it and there was nothing left.  I paid it.  I looked back in my cash book and found it has been going up since 2023 by £100 per year.  I pleaded with the girl that I live alone, I live in a safe area from crime, safe from flooding,  surely I am as low a risk as I could be.   She said all this had already been taken into account. 

I paid my electricity, the lowest month this summer so far.   That's something to be pleased about. 

My oil tank needs filling.

My firewood needs some summer-rate logs to be delivered. 

I had a holiday, yes, so I am not destitute.  But I never buy clothes.  Perhaps I will buy myself a summer jacket with the euros I had left over from my holiday. My summer jacket has holes in the elbows which I have patched and mended.   Summer jackets cost well over £100.  Perhaps I should make one on the sewing machine.  

No round up of my week would be complete without a mention of the Makerfield by-election result.  Andrew Lawrence does a good summary, much better than I can say it.   It only takes 2.37 minutes to listen to him.    Read the comments on YouTube, they say it well too. 

Debit Card On Phone - edited

 Whilst I was on holiday in Azerbaijan I received an email from my bank telling me that they had loaded my new debit card on to my phone.  This was news to me as I have never used a debit card on my phone being somewhat old fashioned and slow to catch on and still using the plastic card held against the payment machine.  The whole thing was puzzling as to how they did it, how did they get to my phone etc. etc.  However, as I was in a particularly  foreign land I decided I wouldn't go trying it out until I got home although I had used a debit card for a small supermarket transaction only the night before.  Anyway, I looked at my phone in my hotel room and lo and behold the debit card was there in my phone "wallet".

When I got home I tried it out when I went to the dental hygienist.  A friendly dental receptionist who I know quite well and if it didn't go well I knew it would only be her and me and not too many blushes on my part if I botched it up.   However, no need to have worried, I pointed my phone at her payment machine and lo and behold the payment went through.  I have entered another part of the 21st century.  I don't need to do anything other than wake my phone up and then point and pay, I don't need to find the "wallet".    I have used it a few times since and find it quicker than having to get a physical card out. 

Having found the instructions for loading a second card I went a stage further  yesterday and loaded another card into the "wallet".  I now know how to swipe and use the card I want and how to nominate one card as the default. I am feeling very modern.    

Coincidentally I read the other day that plastic cards are to become a thing of the past and all cards will eventually be phone stored.

I can see a lot of people not liking this and I for one know of several who will not be able to comply or move onwards with this.  One of my brother's does not have a smart phone, he has a phone only for texts and calls.  His wife does not have anything to do with phone banking and does not trust computers with banking.  She still drives miles to go to a bank for all help and even when she gets there it is not a real bank merely a "hub" without money.   My ex partner does not have a phone at all.  

It feels like it is a horrible situation of transition come too quickly for many who won't be ready for it and as if I am living within the pages of a dystopian novel and dehumanisation.   Worrying about paying with cash and the possible disappearance of cash almost pales into insignificance. 

Edit

I re-read the email after Librarian's comment and see that it tells me that Google did the move to the wallet after I had made a debit card payment via Google Shop.    The bank were checking with me that I was happy to authorise it.  

Makerfield

18 June is the day that the Makerfield by-election takes place. 

Rupert Lowe MP is very popular around the Yarmouth area.  He is MP for Yarmouth and he keeps a high profile.  When he first became MP there he was a member of the Reform Party.    He now has his own political party, Restore Britain; in Yarmouth he calls his party Great Yarmouth First.  

In the recent local authority elections his party took all 9 seats on the coastal belt around Yarmouth and knocked Reform to kingdom come in those areas.   

In the rest of Norfolk Reform, and Nigel Farage, did rather better.  In my local authority area I voted the day before I went on holiday and voted Conservative.  Reform narrowly defeated the Conservative candidate, a well known local member of the community who has represented the area on the council for many years.  I was quite surprised when I got home to discover the result. It was very close. Both candidates polled over 1000 votes but Reform just won.

Rupert Lowe is becoming a pain in the neck at the moment.  He is putting his fall-out with Nigel Farage and Reform above everything else in the Makerfield by-election this week.  I have already said  previously on the blog that Andy Burnham is going to win but it somehow grates on me that Rupert Lowe is making it so bloody easy for Labour by splitting the opposition vote. 

Rupert Lowe is 'good' communicator on X and he makes a lot of noise on a daily basis.  He donates all his MPs salary to small, local charities in Yarmouth.  He is well liked and who can blame them.  

He used to come across as a relatively good guy until the fall out with Farage where it appeared that Lowe had been stitched up with some bullying charges and then expelled from Reform.  

Then Lowe started to become  more and more outspoken like a man suddenly let loose with nobody holding him back to the point of making some  pretty mad speeches about becoming Prime Minister and saving the country and being able to repeal everything that the Blair government put in place and which the Tories  failed to achieve in 14 years,  not through lack of trying I might add.  I would almost go so far as to say Lowe has become deranged.  I see his latest X is he will immediately reverse the ban on social media for under 16s if he becomes PM.   It is all pie in the sky. 

A vote for Restore is a vote for Andy Burnham so please people of Makerfield on Thursday think carefully for the sake of the country and don't give Rupert Lowe's candidate your vote.  I don't think we are going to get a bit of luck and she will disappear - the Restore candidate is a woman, Rebecca Shepherd who actually sounds like a very good candidate,  and I don't truly think either way that Burnham is going to lose but it just irks me that Rupert Lowe is putting himself before everything else in this country - like heaven has no rage like love turned to hatred and hell know no fury and all that.   

I don't much care for Farage either but in this instance I would rather the country be saved by a victory for Reform and kept out of the hands of Labour and Andy Burnham heading towards a government coup and becoming PM and taking Ed Miliband with him as Chancellor of the Exchequer.   

What is one hell of a mess at the moment is about to get a hell of a lot worse if Reform don't win this by-election.  

Politically Correct

 One point I may have missed in the write up of the Henry Nowak stabbing is that the family of the murderer told significant lies.  Firstly when the brother of Vickrum Digwa rang the police to call them to the incident he lied  to the 999 operator that it was a race related stabbing of his brother.  He did not relate that it was Henry Nowak who had actually been stabbed.   The police therefore did not know that Henry Nowak had been stabbed.   

Vickrum Digwa then lied  to the police when they arrived that it had been a racial attack on himself. 

Vickrum Digwa's mother, Kiran Kaur,  hid the knife in her house and also lied to the police about the nature of the attack.

Kiran Kaur, the mother, is up for sentencing on July 19th.  She was found guilty of assisting the murderer by hiding the murder weapon and lying to the police.    

Vickrum Digwa's brother, Gurpreet, and father also face charges along with Kiran Kaur.  

Gurpreet faces charges of lying to the police about something he called a racially motivated attack.  The hearing is on 9 July.  There are a number of charges against Gurpreet including one of carrying an axe.   

The father also faces charges relating to weapons in the house. 

All the family are charged with contempt of court. 

The police will be investigating the teaching methods they are using relating to the Police Race Action Plan and Hate Crime Operational Guidance.  A survey of police found that many officers are confused and scared about how to interpret it and fear being seen as racist by the end of the training module.  

This case is about a serious matter of basic police training which the Commissioner of Police is going to look at.

The current unrest in the country relates to this police action - appearing to fall hook line and sinker for the story given by Gurpreet and Vickrum Digwa whilst Henry Nowak pleaded that he could not breathe and at this point they handcuffed him and read him the police caution.  At this point  Digwa and his family looked on and said nothing.  The brothers had already agreed their story before the police arrived.  They thought it would be to Vickrum Digwa's advantage to say this concocted story. 

Many things went wrong that night and it is further unhappiness for the British public that mistakes like this can happen possibly in the name of political correctness. 

Another serious crime has occurred.  In the next one a gay couple adopted a baby boy and in the space of just four months the baby was sexually abused by them, assaulted and died in that time because of this abuse and this case is also going to raise questions of political correctness and why they were not stopped when many hospital examinations took place and injuries were visible but the baby was not taken back into care. The court case has now ended and sentencing and enquiries await.    This case is one of sexual depravity of the  lowest of the low. 

World Cup

 Following a bad day healthwise yesterday I almost pulled out of going to the W.I. cookery demonstration this morning.  However, I had this nagging voice telling me that I can't just give up everything because of this post-viral fatigue thing I have contracted.  So I went.  I felt a bit wishy washy as I entered the room but I made it and it was a positive step and gave me some hope that I can get over this.  

I was quieter than usual I suppose and felt like I was the new girl, although those days of being the new girl were well and truly over in January but they came back to me today for some reason.  Along with the virus and the being stuck in the house for almost four weeks some of my confidence seems to have been lost.   I looked around at the 20 or so faces in the room and felt like I was lost in a sea of happy people all of whom were much healthier than me.  This is probably totally rubbish and I am sure there were some there who are a lot more ill than I am.

Anyway I was glad I went and gradually I began to feel something like my old self although I did not have a lot of energy walking back to the car when it was over. 

The demonstration was on the topic of salads and we saw Waldorf salad being made, and Caesar salad and variations on both.  It was interesting and the finished salads looked good enough for any catering establishment.  At the end we were invited to share them but I didn't eat anything.  

After a rest at lunch time I decided I had to push myself again and cut the grass.  It is getting like a hayfield and I only have to sit on the ride-on mower.  I did it and felt well pleased that I had achieved a good cut and getting it under control.  

Later I cried when I watched Spain and Cape Verde Islands in the World Cup - tears of joy for Cape Verde who in their first ever World Cup held the favourites for the Cup and the current holders of the European Cup, to a  0-0 draw.  A draw of this nature need never be dull and very often they aren't.  This was no exception and in terms of a match to view with excitement and tension it was a much better watch than the Arsenal v PSG Champions League final, though I say it myself.  (If ever there was a dull Champions League final that was the one).  Cape Verde Islands thoroughly deserved the point and their 40 year old goalkeeper was the winner with some fine saves and definitely the man of the match.  It was hard not to be crying with joy and relief for them at the end that their night of glory wasn't taken  from them in the final minutes as we all thought that Spain were bound to snatch a winner.   They didn't.  It was a great football moment in the World Cup and for football in general.   

M R James

 Whilst looking for something to watch on Prime the other night I came across a couple of documentaries on M. R. James and they were brilliant and I highly recommend them.   

The first documentary was called The Haunting of M.R James.

M.R. James was born in 1862 in Kent.  His father was a clergyman who moved to Suffolk, Great Livermere Church in fact, when James was 3 years old.   

Great Livermere Church is a wonderful old medieval church standing in a gently undulating part of Suffolk and I remember the area for two reasons, firstly travelling through there on a regular basis to visit my aunt in Bury and secondly for the sheep sales held out in the open on the Livermere fields.  There I would go as a young child with my brother, he driving the livestock float delivering sheep to the sale, me riding as sidekick.  I would stand on the windswept fields in awe of the sheep pens and farmers gathered and to me as a young child it would look like a million sheep and hundreds of men.  In reality I would guess it would be a thousand sheep and probably 50 men and boys.  There would also be lorries and cars parked upon the fields of course.  We would make our delivery and stay for the sale and wait to see if we could get any business for deliveries of sheep onwards from the sale. 

M.R. James is well known as a writer of ghost stories although his main occupation was that of a scholar of medieval literature, a  medievalist and translator of ancient medieval texts.  He was provost at Cambridge University and also at Eton College.  His father had wanted him to go into the church but young James had other ideas and was said to have been translating ancient texts when he was a very young boy of under 10.  His father was thought to also be a clever man with languages and no doubt taught his son. 

The ghost stories were written as entertainment for his student friends at Cambridge where evenings before television would be spent storytelling over a drink or two. 

The ghost stories that M.R. James is most well known for today were definitely not very important to him in his working lifetime,  they were entertainment.  Of course he had a great interest in ghostly things and dreams but it is not known from where the stories really came: were they entirely imagination or some ghostly experiences he had in the rooms of Great Livermere Rectory and in the lonely fields and lanes around where he lived?

The Second Documentary

One of the best known stoies is Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad and the second documentary I watched on the same evening was Wits in Felixstowe which was the setting for that particular story and is filmed entirely on location in the Felixstowe area with snippets of Ipswich and the Cobbold family, with whom he was friends,  and some very interesting background to M.R. James. As a child my father would take us to Felixstowe so I enjoyed the filming and recognised some of the spots we would go to.  The documentary had the folk song of Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad sung by soprano Patricia Hammond hauntingly in the background. For this alone it is worth watching, she has such a beautiful voice.  The BBC has made two adaptations of the ghost story.  

Both documentaries are free on Amazon Prime and the ghost story Whistle and I'll Come to You is available at £1.98.  

I don't watch or read ghost stories but I did find the two documentaries about M.R. James fascinating.  

Neighbours to the rescue

 As I am suffering from the post viral fatigue - I hesitate now to say long covid having been put in my place by the troll the other day that I don't have long covid, how he would know this I have no idea,  so I am therefore adopting the description of "post viral fatigue" - I have been unable to look after myself or the garden as I should. 

Over the last few days the neighbours have taken over the care of the rough grass and hedge.  John came round yesterday to say he would strim for me - strimming I have not been able to do because I am too weak to lift and control the strimmer.  He said he had noticed the rougher grass getting out of control when he drove past.  I thanked him profusely and accepted his offer of help.  

Sue on the other side has taken care of the hedges by sending her gardener round.  I can manage the ride-on I think and will do that if possible next week to keep the main grass down from being another crop of hay.

Foil wrapped food has also been appearing in the form of cakes and sausage rolls. 

David, my neighbour who fed the cats while I was away, has been taking care of the bins for me. 

I hope I can get out and about again soon but as I said before, it is just a matter of taking it slowly and pacing myself.  I made a trip to the supermarket one day but had to come straight home again as I arrived at the supermarket door and lost all energy and couldn't go in so turned back rather than collapse and being whisked off in an ambulance.  I have subsequently been again and did a small shop of milk and essentials.  Big time spent going round a supermarket is still a no no. 

The sweats appear to have gone and the fatigue and breathlessness are the main problems I am left with.   I am sleeping ok which is a blessing. 

I missed the Creative East singing and dancing session on Thursday, out of the question to join it.  Next week there is a W.I. cookery demonstration where all I have to do is sit and watch.  It is the cookery sub-group and usually only lasts an hour.  That may be my first outing.  We shall see. 

It would help if the weather improved I think.  I have had to have some heating on in the evenings for a couple of hours and the electric blanket to warm the bed too.  Oh for some June weather. 

Blair's Britain

I still like to write.  Some don't.   Fear, indifference, ignorance, total lack of interest in their country stops speech?  Total lack of interest in the future?   Total giving up and "I can't do anything about it" attitude?  I can hear some saying that.  Others will just think nothing is happening which is why I have been highlighting criminal activity in Yorkshire as an example of the fact that plenty is happening everywhere.  

Turning to Makerfield:  Facts from a Makerfield resident:  During the Labour years of 1997 to 2009 council tax went up by 5.7%.  During the Tory years it went up 0.82%.  On the arrival of Andy Burnham as Mayor council tax has gone up by 4.1%.   These were the bad Tories of course.  

Andy Burnham gives lots of posh flats to Manchester, for the wealthy young professionals, or the civil servants who will only vote Labour because Labour will pay them best and give them the gold-plated pensions forever.   Flats for the smart and no flats for the poor.  Manchester recovers from the IRA with streets not seen before. 

Andy Burnham is not the man for Britain.  

Nor is his wife who will benefit from the EV net zero high end contracts in her high end directorship  of the ev charging vehicle company in your street, your neck of the woods, the welled heeled Marie-France Van Heel.  She is the Chief Marketing Director.   You didn't know his wife was that woman did you?  Well you do now.  Don't think it is Tories who are the wrong 'uns in your Britain. 

Before the Belfast attempted de-capitation of an innocent worker happened,  white, male, walking without a care in the world like you do when you are in the street going about your business thinking about your tea, the  British people were upset at the attacks on them in innocent streets and being classed as second class citizens in their own country.    

The first class citizens are the illegal immigrants who come with lies and seeking asylum, machetes, guns, sign-on scams for the whole family at the DSS office,  hate for us and smirks across their faces at the money they can get, at the head of the queue and shove you backwards.   They are homeless so they go to the top of the council house list and your application which has been patiently sitting there for three years goes down a line or two or three or four.   Admit it, you know all this but pretend it is bad to think it because you are brainwashed that it would be wrong to think that you deserve anything, you are not wanted anymore and you are starting to believe that it is right and you must hang your head and accept it because you have been wicked. You begin to subconsciously censor your thoughts. 

Did you know that Britain is the only country in the world that dislikes its own people?  It would seem to be that way.   

In Azerbaijan which many will say is a wicked dictatorship it was clean and safe.  Vaping is not allowed and vapes are not allowed in the country because the wicked dictatorship (I am being sarcastic in case it is difficult to understand via the written word on the internet) do not trust the safety of vaping and not enough is known about the dangers so its people are protected from them. 

When I see teenagers vaping here I want to tell them to stop.  It is a crying shame to see beautiful young people clutching vapes and doing goodness knows what to their arteries and lungs.  In vape shops young people are corrupted and lured in with cheap kicks.   And like the barbers shops in every street of every town,  the vape shops are covers for all sorts of drug deals and money laundering and crime and making teenagers drug runners. 

This country is corrupt and indecent to its very core. Much as the politicians may wish to hide it and pretend otherwise and act puzzled about its subjects, they can't do that for ever more.  Hillary Benn let himself down in Parliament the other day by pretending to not know what an alien let into the country is.  Shame on you Benn. 

My garden grows with grass and wild flowers but its beauty is nothing in this filthy, ruined country.  Once again Tony Blair has a lot to answer for.  

A Change or AOC; who or what is that?

 AOC fumbles for an exit when the going gets tough. 

AOC embraces the woke of the liberals and she is going to fail for this very point. 

Voters remember this at the ballot box.  AOC is not the candidate for the Democrats to win.  AOC struggles to gain traction.  She goes on about Trump weaponsizing the justice system.  Democrats did the same thing in pursuit of Trump.    Pure unfiltered hypocrisy.  

Fumbling stumbling woman when caught in a corner.   

AOC fails to resonate with Americans outside the Democratic bubble on the far left that she lives in. 

She speaks in political deflection and gibberish. 

Intellectual honesty does not exist on the left in the US or in Britain.  

Her message, tax the rich. 

The core reason AOC fails to connect.  Her ideology fails where mainstream voters are concerned.  

Who or what is AOC?  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  

New York Congresswoman.  Democrat as if I need to tell you. 

Makes a change here for me  to look at someone like this in the US.  They all get pretty upset about Trump and she likes to claim things like Americans hate women;  too many liberals like to say that America is ugh. Their country is ugh they say.    Iron clad evidence for this is that Kamala Harris lost.  That is all AOC  has to say when questioned.   Kamala Harris could not survive a difficult question.  She never separated herself from radical woke agenda.  She lost because the American voters found her lacking.  They evaluated her record and she was lacking.    Same is going to happen for AOC.

Who loves America?  Immigrants.   Who loves Britain?  Immigrants.   

A catastrophic candidate for 2028?  Well yes, lets have her like another Kamala Harris, who can't answer difficult questions and whinges on about Trump.  New York doesn't run America, or does it?   No, of course it doesn't.  I bet Mamdani loves AOC.   The rest of America?  No, I doubt it. 

You might be hearing her name a lot so you may as well hear it here first.  Education, education education. 

You want her in charge of foreign policy?  You want to question her on Ukraine? You want to question her on Russia, Cuba and China?  (Please note the three in the same breath).   You want to question her on Israel, well you probably already know the answer to that one, she loves Hamas. 

Long Covid

 I am slowly getting over my Covid and have been in the throes of long Covid now for about 10 days.  I have been suffering from excessive fatigue, breathlessness, no energy and other frightening symptoms like fast heart beat and sweating.  Everything I have follows the path of long Covid so some fear is alleviated by what I am reading on the internet.  There is really nothing you can do but go with it and rest.  You really have no choice but to rest because your body will not do otherwise.  Everything I have had in the diary since being back from holiday has had to be cancelled.   The W.I. outing to Kings Lynn and a poetry reading were both cancelled.  

I have had to place a chair in the kitchen because I am unable to stand for more than a few seconds and all tasks require me to sit down.  Stirring my porridge for five minutes in the morning has been abandoned  more than once whilst I rush for the chair in the breakfast room before collapsing so I have moved a chair to the kitchen.   It is still there but this morning I was able to make my porridge without sitting down. 

I have been too weak to shower.

I believe I have turned a corner. Yesterday I was able to at last clear up my return from holiday and finish the unpacking of my rucksack of the odds and ends of paperwork and put them away.    I also folded and put the clean laundry away.   It had sat at the end of the table for two weeks. 

I did the laundry on arrival home and as it was during the hot week of Whitsun I was able to merely throw the washing over the chairs and bench near the backdoor for drying as I was unable to walk to the linen line to hang it out.    At that point I was actually suffering from the Covid itself which was the heavy cold and respiratory infection of coughing and sneezing and lack of energy.  When that went I thought I was better but I wasn't.   The long Covid settled in after the sneezing and nose congestion disappeared and actually made me feel worse than the Covid itself.  

I have not attended the doctors surgery because I see no point as there is no cure.  I have been taking anti-inflammatory ibuprofen this week just before bed and I believe this may have helped.  I did manage to go to the dental hygienist on Monday and he informed me that I had gum inflammation.  I have never had this before and now believe that this is also an indication of the long Covid and prompted me to take the ibuprofen.   (Long Covid is not contagious). 

Since being back from holiday apart from the Covid I have been happy living at home alone, reading and writing and thinking myself lucky that this is only a temporary illness.   I would not wish to be housebound in this way for ever.   At worst it can last six months or longer but hopefully I am seeing light at the end of the tunnel and will be out and about again soon.   Yesterday I did 10 minutes of light chair exercise, the first exercise I have done since arriving back from holiday.   And I took a shower.   Things are getting better. 

Yorkshire news that it is a county of crime just like the rest of Britain

Knife crime at school gate involving the murder of a white schoolboy by a boy named  Mohammed  Khan who went armed with a hunting knife.  Sheffield.  Sentenced eight months ago to life in prison with a minimum of 15 years.  

Travellers sites.  It did not escape my attention over the recent bank holiday that the field in East Sussex bought by travellers and widely reported as ruining an entire village was funded by a drug dealing traveller turned property developer from East Yorkshire who coughed up £200,000 from his pocket to pay for the field.    It escapes the attention of many people that the main trading commodity for travellers is now drugs and not  pegs. 

Drug crimes.   Further major drug crimes and trials and sentencing have been reported in Leeds this week and drug rings throughout the North Riding.  

Barnsley had a knife point robbery of a shop-keeper; many knives seized and arrests made throughout the city during May. 

Asian taxi drivers in organised gangs sexually assaulted , drugged and raped young girls across Yorkshire and these crimes were the subject of a cover up by local authorities for many many years who did not want to appear to be racist so the girls in the children's homes were sacrificed and all information was ignored and not acted upon.  LAC children as we who have worked in local authorities know, Looked After Children.  Sadly Yorkshire, particularly South Yorkshire,  failed  their LAC children and brought shame toYorkshire and its Labour run local authorities who were found responsible in their failure to protect these children.  

Fights, street crimes, phone snatching, shop lifting, kidnapping, drive by shootings (one happened in Sheffield only a few days ago where an innocent mother out at 2.45 am was shot dead the unintended victim of a drive-by shooting while she enjoyed a beverage before going home to the children, albeit very late to be out but she didn't ask to be shot) all happen in Yorkshire.  

Many may see Yorkshire as a place of quiet hills and dales where nothing ever happens like it does in the rest of the country but please be educated here and see that it does happen just like everywhere else in Britain and in some instances, far worse. 

Edited on 11 June 2026 at 4.30pm

A shop worker in Sheffield, Yorkshire, has been jailed for grooming and molesting young girls.  He admited to drugging and raping young girls from as young as 12.  They were taken to rooms in Sheffield and the abuse took place. Bawan Harwe has been jailed for 29 years.  His accomplice named Sharam Muhamadi  who is from Iran failed to appear in court and is now sought by the police.  He was an asylum seeker in 2021.  These men come from a different cultural background where women are made to cook and stay in the background and only go out with brothers or family chaperone.  They were unaware that unaccompanied girls were also sacred to the British family and they thought they could exploit them.  This is Yorkshire today. 

This has been the most popular post I have written to date.   I am pleased that it has been of service in the way it was meant particularly to overseas readers, who have been many, and who may have had a distorted view of Britain. (It could also be the meddlesome troll returning again and again to see if he can stir up any trouble for me).    Many people live in a bubble I suppose, not reading local newspapers, not admitting reality, not wishing to paint an ugly picture of Britain.  The ugly fact is that crime is all over the place whether it be London, Yorkshire, Norfolk, Devon, Belfast, Hampshire or wherever.  Everyday crime happens and when phones are snatched in London it is not long before phones are snatched in Norwich and beyond.  To see what local crime is going around it helps to read your local paper.    The NFU publish regular statistics on rural crime also, which is rife in agricultural communities. 

Further edit 14 June 2026

Have you forgotten the Religious Studies teacher from Batley?  I had forgotten that he received death threats for speaking of blasphemy and religion to his class one day.  He spoke of Jesus Christ and Mohammed and showed illustrations and spoke of how it is considered blasphemy to show a cartoon of Mohammed.  He then made a mistake of illustrating his lesson with cartoons.  Parents were informed by their children one assumes and soon from the Muslim community the teacher was receiving death threats, and the school was blocked by Muslim protesters at the school gates saying that the Religious Studies teacher had insulted their religion.  A little out of context they took his words there but still it had to be the teacher who was suspended and later lost his job and went into hiding with his family.  5 years later he is still in hiding.   This is Batley news, West Yorkshire, in the old woollen towns of traditional England, now taken over by Muslim culture.  Freedom of speech once again under threat and this time at its extreme.  My memories of religious studies is nuns teaching the bible and if ever there was a class that was mild it was the study of religion.  I cannot imagine an aggressive religious studies teacher and I have a feeling that the Batley teacher was no exception to this memory of mine. 

5 July

3 men from Rotherham have been arrested in connection with the drive-by shooting reported here, paragraph 6.

11 July 

A 28 year old white male suspect in the murder of Ann Widdecombe has been arrested in South Yorkshire. The man was arrested in Rotherham from where he had driven a few days before to Devon to murder Miss Widdecombe. The police confirm they are not looking for anyone else. To have driven 275 miles to her lonely bungalow dwelling on Dartmoor and then back to Rotherham  makes this now unlikely to have been a random killing. It is positively sounding politically motivated.  The silence from Yorkshire about this dreadful murder is deafening.

2 Yorkshire based Romanians were arrested, charged and sentenced for ATM crimes in Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire where they stole £25,000 from various cash machines throughout the counties.  They fixed a secret shelf in the ATMs so that when the machine was supposed to spew out your cash it went to a "shelf" and never reached you.  The brothers would later go back and retrieve the cash for themselves. The customer would walk away from the machine assuming there was a fault.  They would get their card back in the usual way.    One of the thieves lived in Barnsley and one in Selby.  Two women had charges withdrawn which I assume to be the wives/girlfriends of the brothers.  The two men were sent to prison in Britain on fairly short sentences and will no doubt be out in about a year and the sentences will be but a minor inconvenience.  They will be back on the streets on Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire with another ATM scam.  

Donetsk

 British Steel, BP and net zero and Ed Miliband and Britain have little appeal to the British people even though they had plenty to say at the time of July 2024 election and they were "going to teach the Tories a lesson".  Down and back in the woodwork they have returned.  Let us hope that the British people who intend to vote again in elections are listening.  Thanks to Cro and Simone for comments yesterday and to Ilona who emailed me. 

Zack Polanski calls to have IDF serving soldiers from Britain kept under investigation for war crimes. He calls upon our Home Secretary to make a list and track them.   This is a terrifying thought of a list of Jewish people existing to keep track of them because they are Jews who once were living in Britain and went to Israel to join the IDF.    This is your Zack Polanski of the Green Party.  Like my first paragraph points out about British Steel, BP and Ed Miliband  I expect you are not interested. 

The brown eggs/white eggs hens is a story to sum up Britain at the moment.  Everyday is an April Fools Day.

We are also to eat less meat and less dairy which is a decree coming out from the Energy Net Zero minister.  This is too madness but true.   I am believing wholeheartedly that if we are to have our eating dictated by the Minister then he also needs to address the health of the nation and to give serious attention to supplements in vitamins and minerals  which will be needed as the population falls more and more into bad health caused by malnutrition which will follow his calls for the nation to change its diet.  This is serious and education on nutrition needs to be given in schools and a return to cookery and home economics.

Meat in the form of beef and lamb has been difficult to put on a regular menu for some while, since many many moons before the Iran invasion, do not forget that, many have been complaining on blogs about the cost of food for several years since fertiliser was on short supply from Russia when before the Ukraine invasion they reduced the exports to Britain in order to protect their own farmers.  In Britain meanwhile the fertiliser plants closed down.  Fertiliser is needed to grow all the crops in Britain and the world.  In Britain the prices have doubled and doubled again.   Before you blame Iran and the US think back and knock your memory out of hibernation.   

If Zelensky wanted to he could end the war with Russia instead of making it worse by sending rockets to St Petersburg. He is being attacked by Russia, not him attacking Russia.  He is defending.  Zelensky recently attacked a position of Russian civilians.  Is he mad?   Who is this man who goes about raising money for weapons that prolong the suffering of the Ukraine people?   US, European Union, Britain and 47 other countries pay for his weapons. I would stop funding Ukraine's weapons.    Zelensky needs to step off his penis playing piano and get real that he is not a leader who knows what he is doing.   He has become a dictator in a country at war where there has not been an election since 2019.  Give over the Russian Donbas of which Russia already controls 90% and the eastern Ukraine people are Russian and like it and be done with it.   Somebody please advise Zelensky on how to end the war.  I hope there is a man who can do this like Terry Waite.  In those days in the 1980s we didn't know what a jihadi was did we when Waite was also captured.  How social media has let us all into the world of news we would probably rather not know.  

And meanwhile in Britain do not forget, accusations of racism trump everything else. 

Dead end no gamer plays

no worker out of bed

let it be the most of thunder

left to those on the summer trail

Steel and BP and Net Zero

 Get rid of Ed Miliband and his net zero carbon taxes if the British Government's saving of British Steel is to work.  It is admirable that the government is going to take back British Steel  in Scunthorpe to state ownership.  Chinese owners said it is losing a million pounds a day and not viable.    It is like a tug of war in the government office because at one end of the rope we have a government out to save the jobs of 2700 men and at the other end of the rope pulling against them we have Ed Miliband, also part of the government but operating from a different planet,  with another carbon tax on steel rendering any steel made in Britain the most expensive virgin steel in the world.  So put your house in order Starmer and get that carbon tax revoked and the new tax stopped if this mighty step to nationalise British Steel is not to put egg on your faces in a couple of years time.  Is Ed Miliband blind as well as stupid as well as thick as well as an idiot and or are all of you in the Caninet the same? 

Could he think to help British industry, the British public and Britain in the world by holding his hand up and saying he is going to make a big U turn and stop these carbon taxes.   Carbon taxes are not returned to us in the home to help with electricity prices either.  So where do they go?  

I could do with some help in the home with electricity charges and the country could do with some sensible approach to oil production, gas production and self-sufficiency in the land of milk and honey.  BP are threatening to leave the North Sea altogether.  I saw them in the Caspian Sea where they are welcome to drill oil.  The old man in the Caucasus was glad of BP to employ his son.   Here the government decide to tax them some more and take no interest in the fact that in so doing the tax will drive them out of the North Sea. Such is Miliband's hold on us that we are to be the land that grinds to a halt and he doesn't care. 

As I have said before, Britain is on the way out.  Along the way so are you and you and you.  Unless that is you want to stay in bed all day, claim a mental illness, claim unemployment benefit, claim welfare, claim a pension credit, claim a rent rebate, claim an asylum status and throw your Passport in the rubbish, burn it or throw it in the sea, and,  as the government tells you with glee, you may be entitled to multiple benefits and they will find them from somewhere and if BP has gone away then the others that are left in a dwindling suppy of wealth will pay.  As the government squeeze more and more out of British industry then so British industry will disappear. 

Shamed Britain

 This is Britain

And now we have the boy, Henry Nowak,  who lay dying after being stabbed who the police were more concerned with whether he had made a racist remark than saving him so as he lay dying on the ground begging for help the last words  he heard were the police reading him his rights of arrest and clamping handcuffs on him,  dragging him across gravel and leaving him to die.   He had not been racist.  He was the victim of the attack.   He had been the victim of a family who lied and murdered him with a cache of murder weapons in hand.   Murderer Vickrum Digwa and all his family lying and in contempt of court at the same time.  

The 18 year old student handcuffed in his final moment.  Fatally stabbed and then handcuffed by the police.  An innocent boy.  It is enshrined in police documents.  Let this be changed.  "People should be treated differently because of the colour of their skin"  has no place in policing.  It is entrenched in police manuals and they are trained in this way.  It is wrong.   All people should be treated the same. 

Is this the Britain you remember in the 1970s when you were on a visit to Britain or newly travelling around as a youngster, a student or newly in work?  

This is Britain today.  2026.

 That the boy lay dying did not concern Britain and the police.  Like the Asian taxi drivers who raped girls for years no one was allowed to mention it because it was ruled as racist to talk about an Asian raping a schoolgirl and that was the overriding consideration, like the boy security officer in the Manchester Arena who dare not search a bomber for fear of being called a racist, like the Nottingham murders, the Southport murders, the mental health workers, the schools who all feared drawing attention to how dangerous the Southport murderer was,  or the Nottingham murderer was,  for fear of sounding racist, they couldn't say it.   Like it goes on and on and on we cannot cross a man who is not a white man, he is to be given the upper hand, the rights, and above all of us who are British white people who have lived here for ever and ever in our country but now we are the second class whites with no rights and justice is not done.  We are nothing to Britain.   

The AG will review the sentencing.  I hope that will include some of the murderers family for contempt of court for lying. 

Thanks to Lindsay Hoyle who made sure it was discussed in the House of Commons today. The government Home Secretary Shabama Mahmood made a weak statement and Kier Starmer said nothing, he wasn't there and he obviously felt no need to be there for the British public.  

No wonder Farage is gaining so much support.  

Action against a police officer is not going to change anything.

Two tier Britain. 

And as ever, I will be written off as the one in the wrong for writing this.   

Stop bleating, Americans

 Why do Americans regularly bleat on about being embarrassed by Trump?  It is my view that these people have an inflated view of themselves if they think that people are sitting  over here with nothing better to do than mutter "what an embarrassment Trump must be to Americans" over cups of tea.  Of course we don't.   

We've got enough embarrassments of our own to keep us occupied thank you very much.  We have an entire Labour government running this country on the politics of envy and hate for those who might just aspire to getting on and achieving something in their country which along the way may make them a bit of money as well as for the country in tax payments.  

We have a government sitting there not wanting to improve the life of the not so well off but to do the opposite by making the better off suffer, the ones who have never claimed welfare,  those who make a bit of money, who improve the fabric of the country, who pay their taxes.  Make them suffer and we'll give it to the ones who make a way of life of not getting out of bed in the mornings, we'll give it to them as welfare and we'll give it to the illegals as welfare and houses and we'll see that the rest of you suffer.  

If I were you Americans I would be proud that you have a president who actually cares about America.  Our country's leaders do not care about Britain and British people at all.  

Perhaps ebola will be the salvation one day and everything will grind to a halt across the Med and through France.  The American president has already stopped ebola countries entering the US.  You should think yourself lucky.  Our government haven't even thought about it except to say "don't worry, it isn't catching".  

Mr Murrell and Miss Sturgeon

 Once again the blogger reads are not up-dating.  I see one of the few blog lists that I appear on is still showing Saturday as my most recent post.  Sunday on Andy Burnham is totally not there.  Oh well, I keep on keeping on.   So if you are just reading and it is Monday, don't forget you also have Sunday to read as well.  

Today I will write about Peter Murrell, husband of one time SNP first lady, Nicola Sturgeon.  Peter Murrell was the first man of the SNP to her first woman in that he was Chief Executive of the SNP.  Murrell is accused of, and admits, embezzling £400,000 from SNP funds which were meant for the SNP party.  This smacks of African aid getting into the hands of the chiefs who build new houses for themselves from what we are led to believe is our money going to poor little native kids to buy books and provide water.  But that's by the by.  

First lesson for the SNP is do not let a husband and wife team into sole leadership rolls.   This would not have happened in the English Parliament.  Even freebies of football tickets and dresses were soon picked up. 

In the real crime series,  of which I watch a lot,  when the accused says "no comment" it usually means that that person has something to hide and is guilty.   Nicola Sturgeon said "no comment" in answer to all the questions put to her by the police.  She commented to the press that she was fully co-operative.  Saying "no comment" does not sound to me like being "fully co-operative".  No comment is definitely not regarded by the police as "co-operating". 

A question that comes to my mind about her alleged innocence of not knowing that all the goods that were showing up at home were in any way questionable or suspicious is that is she so thick that she did not know that campervans cost a lot of money so no red flags came up?  This is possible and as the leader of the Scottish Parliament at the time and first lady of Scotland I think it is very likely that, like many other politicians, she had no idea of the value of things.  This is actually enough to make you weep.  We see this over and over again with government that the politicians have no grasp whatsoever of the everyday cost of real life and appear so far removed from it that they have no idea of what their policies do to make living from day to day very difficult rendering a coffee to a flask in a plastic bag and no latte  in a coffee shop and forget about saving anything for a rainy day and to Mr Miliband the chance of buying an electric vehicle are way out of reach of the ordinary person.   So did Miss Sturgeon just not know that this campervan cost a lot of money and she might have needed to question where the money came from?  Probably no, she didn't know her husband had spent a great deal of money on it. 

Maybe Mr Murrell said to Nicola that the campervan cost no more than a family car or an SUV and she believed him.  Maybe of the fancy pens she believedthey  were no more than something you would buy in John Lewis gift department.  It is possible. 

However, Miss Sturgeon has a history of lying to courts and tribunals.  She denied any wrongdoing on her part in the Alex Salmond sexual harrassment scandal.  It is a shame that Alex Salmond is not alive to see the current scandal surrounding Sturgeon and Murrell.  

Edit

It is interesting to see more and more coming out about this scandal and Murrell.  It appears that in 2021 Sturgeon prevented any examination of the SNP accounts when the first auditors raised concerns.  This would have disclosed the Murrell frauds much earlier but his wife was firm that no independent examination of the accounts was to take place.      

A thorough examination by the Scottish Parliament is now being demanded of exactly what was going on.  

You think you have scrupulous civil servants and ministers in charge and that they would not dream of embezzling funds and you end up with a man buying cars, campervans and luxury goods from party funds who is nothing but a common thief.   The blocking of examination of the accounts by Miss Sturgeon points more and more to at least a cover up for something she suspected or  to the fact that she knew more than she is letting on.  No comment, I told you, generally means guilty.