An everyday story of modern British folklore except it isn't folklore

 News from the front line of My World is that the BBC spokesperson in Tehran does not impart news of what is going on,  she speaks only of Trump.  She uses  her BBC spokesperson front line, on the ground,  as an anti-Trump platform for the world, apart from Iran of course, read on.   The BBC position in Tehran is allowed on the condition that her "news reports" are not broadcast on BBC Iran service.  However, Iran may fear not as she is only knocking Trump in any case.  

As I said a couple of days ago, the media coverage of the Iran war does nothing except puff up the feathers of the regime in Iran. 

To you BBC watchers, see if this is the case.  I don't watch so impart what others have said. 

We no longer have petrol and oil prices on the front pages of the papers.  They have moved over to allow for Starmer and Mandelson news.  Strait of Hormuz is no longer of interest and we fill up our cars in a quieter atmosphere without fears of queues and rationing and calmness reappears in my everyday life of short trips and petrol needs, films, food, and friends. 

The Starmer Mandelson story concerns the appointment of Mandelson by Starmer as the UK ambassador to Washington. in 2025  I state this for overseas readers who may be puzzled.  I am not sure if I have any overseas readers or any readers at all come to that although I have page viewers.   Anyway, Mandelson was a known bad lot and had twice under Blair's government had to resign from Cabinet positions as unfit for office on the grounds of "personal mismanagement".  

Let us keep Starmer as Labour leader as the dangers that lurk around him would finish Britain off.  Rayner going on state visits doesn't bear thinking about. Still ducking £40,000 tax evasion on a house purchase in a wealthy Hove and Brighton locality when of course she knew  but then perhaps she muddled her tax advice with a cheap jack conveyancer who wasn't too clever and let her down but she got good advice on where to buy.  266 miles from her actual constituency, small town on the outskirts of Manchester full of barbers and vape shops and taxi drivers and houses that do not go up in value by the million mark as they do in Brighton and Hove. 

Rudakubana and Calocane move over for Starmer and a St George's Day address where he managed to address the nation without actually saying "England" once.  

This is what the fickle voters of England want with their woke minds stamping their feet and  following their beloved Radio 4 Today and following the BBC News, denials not believed incidentally.   Yes, the radio is on in your kitchen right now and does it register in your brain?  Yes, of course it does.  BBC : The Greens are this and they will save you.   Enjoy what your vote will bring you.  After all it brought Wilson once upon a time and then Blair and now Starmer.  No need for the Greens to mention anti-semitism (in Norwich the Green Party are canvassing on the doorsteps that October 7th was a hoax),  Muslims,  welfare, migrants, murderers, rapists, groomers, knifers, drug barons, more welfare, more asylum hotels (May,  the numbers crossing the Channel will reach new highs in the El Nino weather) leading to yet more unemployed, more NI to pay from Reeves, more tax, more and more and more unemployed (repeat is intentional)  more shut shops, more knives, more ogling of young girls,  more touching, more feeling, more ogling again,  more park deaths with knives,  more welfare, more tax down the drains, more Britain down the drain, more second class citizenship for locals, more first class for illegals with welcome to Britain posters and all welfare dished out on arrival.  More welfare, more welfare, welcome to Britain.  No more jobs, no more green fields and no more dark satanic mills either.  Only fields of solar panels and no food. 

Sign on for welfare, sign on as a 17 year old  when really you're 32, you didn't come from Somalia, you came from Kenya and you weren't in a war zone and your papers all fell in the sea when someone jogged your arm. You paid a shipper to ship you here and he went home to his yacht and he used the sign on papers too to send British welfare to his family in Albania as he thought he might as well have some of it too.  (£53M in welfare from Britain  sent to families in Bulgaria by one gang alone).  

More Government Madness

Once again Parliament illustrates that it does not learn from history, whether recent or ancient.  Even at the most basic level it is clear to see that the money handed over to France by Sunak did nothing to quell the arrival of illegal immigrants across the Channel.  So why does Starmer think it a good idea to hand over another £500M to France?   They want all of us to hand over our taxes at the appropriate times which I have just done in January.  

They want small businesses to survive and pay taxes under crippling tax regimes and now to produce figures every quarter thus burdening them more.  Reeves wants the taxes to run the country.   Sooner or later she is going to find that the small businesses are going to run dry and those tax returns and payments in January and July are going to go away and the big payers will have long gone. 

And now what do we see?  £500M handed to France to stop migrants.  Reeves might as well open a drain lid and shove the money down the drain for all the good it is going to do.  Learn from the mistakes of the Tories.  

Learn that these attempts at stopping illegal migrants by chucking money to France do nothing,  absolutely nothing in addressing the problem.  No common sense whatsoever.  

The numbers crossing the Channel each year are phenomenal, like 44,000, 45,000, you name it they come in droves and summer is on its way with calm waters and idiots in government.  France love to push the migrants our way.  

In Blair's Britain it will never be stopped.  In Blair's Britain when a chicken McNuggets lover cannot be deported because it is against his human rights to deprive him of British McNuggets we are never, ever going to stop illegals entering and staying in this country.  If you think I have made a mistake in saying Blair, I haven't.  Blair created this Britain in 1997 and the 1998 Human Rights Act.  Britain as we knew it was forever gone.  

And still the Kings Trust tells us that 990,000 young people are out of work.  

We are never going to get a government who can join up the dots unless Margaret Thatcher rises from the dead and returns.  

Socials and films etc.

 Yesterday I was going to see Michael, the Jackson film just out, but because it had a start time of 11.30 am I decided against it and will choose a later time next week.  So I went back to the drawing board and found a film starting at 2.15 pm, much better, called The Wizard of the Kremlin.  I had never heard of it and the Odeon were giving it only two showings and with Kremlin in the title it was a must for me.  I mean, me, lover of all things Russian.   It was advertised as a thriller/drama and satire.  Even better.  And nominated for the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival.    Well the long and the short of it is that I loved it.  It is a satire indeed, but not much of a thriller at all, but a good bit of dark humour.    And it fitted very nicely into my way of thinking as expressed in my Sunday post this week and the comments that followed.  Very coincidental.   So perfect I am seeing it again today as the only other screening is the one at 2.15 today.  Jude Law plays Putin, and Paul Dano a fictional political adviser to Putin, Baranor.  It is set in the final years of the Soviet Union and brings in nicely my point about US interference in Ukraine in 2004/2014 as discussed in my comments on Sunday.   The film must be of limited interest I would think and it certainly helps to have some knowledge of Russia besides just "I hate Putin" type of facts, in order to recognise the satire and comedic slant of the film and understand it.   

Today, before seeing the film for the second time, I am going for lunch with my friends who I meet every four to six weeks. This is my birthday lunch a bit late.  We waited so as to avoid the school holidays.  Fortunately the restaurant we ae going to is two minutes walk from the cinema and we are meeting for an early lunch.    

I rang the travel company yesterday just to touch base with them really.  I also rang the insurance company to check that they consider Azerbaijan in Europe because my annual policy is a Europe policy.  They confirmed that it does.   

All is well and it is a nice, small group of 6.  That means that there must be at least one other person travelling alone for there to be a neat even number of 6.  Couples are ok but they can get a bit clingy to each other to the exclusion of singletons although this is by far not always the case.  6 is a very small group although I think Moldova was only 7 and great fun .   Group tours can be of all shapes and sizes.  Readers of Joy, Diary of a Retired Teacher will see that she is currently in a group of 40 visiting Crete, and it sounds like a treat.  So Addy, if you are reading this and still wondering about going on holiday alone, take it on board that group tours are great for those travelling without a partner and you can always choose to spend time alone even when in a group including being as unsociable as you like over breakfast as I sometimes do when I can't face talking to anybody when I have just got up.  A nod and a smile is often about all I can muster at 7am.

Vote Conservative Kemi Badenoch

 Bring back the Tories.  Take out Rayner, Miliband and Andy Burnham.  We will suffer under any one of these three and the country will go further and further down the drain and into oblivion.  3 years is a long time for more suffering of a country teetering along. 3 years is a long while for trade union red robbos to take over anything that is left of industry.    3 years is a long time for net zero madness.

No bond market on our side means no Britain. You may not like many capitalist lending tools but they are vital enablers for government finance spending.   Alienate the bond market at your peril.  

You may have hated Boris Johnson for  a piece of cake that a civil servant who should have known better organised and no office manager said no, you work here and you play outside the office, but no, civil servants cannot be crossed.   I loved the Tories when they helped with electricity payments and money appeared when they said it would and sometimes even took me by surprise. Socialists hated to say it but yes, it helped.   At least it came to us all.  You may have wanted a laughing stock to fill your phone feeds with cakes but at least you still had money and if you had to work from home or not work at all you had a money feed of furlough payments.  Now it is all not so funny after all.  Mandelson is the piece of cake that won't go away for Starmer and it is a far worse piece of illustration  of poor leadership than a birthday cake made in Downing Street ever was.  But let it go so we don't go further down the drain.  Better the devil you know than Rayner or Miliband or Burnham. 

Take the picture of a high street in decline in any city and that is Britain for you in a nutshell.  No head in the sand needed because it is all around us.   Amazon or not, the staff disappear in the shops.  900,000 young people out of work.  National Insurance hikes and minimum wage bills will see to it that that stays, unfashionable jobs and unemployment in the family history ok to stay in bed all day and go out at night. Ketamine for recreation.   

I did see Diane Abbott's wonderful take down of Starmer, the first time I believe I have seen good in Abbott, she actually hit the nail on the head of what people want, truth and transparency and it doesn't take much to remember the times that Mandelson was sacked from Cabinet in the 1990s but as I said before, perhaps Starmer's adviser Morgan McSweeney was just too young to know and should never have been advising Starmer in the first place.  

So this is  what happens when we become fickle and very stupid  in our voting,   We end up with the Labour Party and a near broken Britain edging back to a more breaking by the EU.  Please note Juncker is still there advising Brussels. 

How many followers do I have? 24.  No worries.

I could just write that it is a lovely  day and the trees are full of blossom.  Or I could remind you about a tube strike later this week. 

Darkness to Light and back again

Yes, My World blog is my world and sometimes I share with you my thoughts.  I take it upon myself to write them down.  I do not invite hatefulness to me.  This post is for thinkers. 

If the Middle East is a subject that means only fuel price changes for you then so be it.   The war would be nothing but a disaster for this reason.  CNN and other news channels are experts on this.  I merely mention CNN because it was on my phone this morning and the journalist of the channel knew all the ins and outs of everything to do with the failure of Trump and Netanyahu.   

I am guessing the news media in the west help Iran and Iran puff their feathers out.  Life is odd now that we do not support ourselves with jubilation and love but knock and kick ourselves.   As a news channel the word is the word of the  oracle.  

There is nothing to allure one to the media.  

Wouldn't it be good to have Ukraine as part of Russia again and no more war and just peaceful citizens all in work as Russian bus clippies and scientists and manufacturers and fur trappers and musicians and writers and vodka every night and Ukraine wheat fields without tank damage once more?  If the young leaning left and green are keen for us to all live happily together then there is no reason why Ukraine should not revert back to being part of Russia.  They all speak Russian, have Russian grandmas and heritage and Stalin is long gone.  Even though the starvation will never be forgotten there is a lot to be said for being alive and not dead in a 21st century war  in a country that is just about repairable before it is all lost under tanks and artillery.    A country of green fields of 2004 restored and never the likes of  Obama interfering.  He was always very keen on the EU.  He gave a speech for the Labour Party urging voters to vote Remain in the referendum in 2016 when Corbin refused to give it.  Corbin wanted out.    I think Obama was visiting Brussels at the time and Labour persuaded him to speak out to Britain while he was there. 

 I changed my mind about Ukraine you see.  There is nothing much to be positive about under Zelenskyy.  No talks and no Dondas discussion at the start of war.   We have young Ukrainians who had children under 10 who came here to Britain and made home here and forget their country and their fathers.  I have friend who took in refugee mother and child.  She has no intention of going back, son goes to English school and father teaches in Kyiv and has never gone to war but child doesn't know him anymore and wife has taken a lover here.   I don't think she ever intended to go back and she got refugee status welcome and then she took a job.    The percentages of Ukrainians for and against war gives all sorts of scenarios  and varies a lot.  Some say over 60% want to have talks to end the war and give up some land to Russia.  Some say much less than this.  Some say 25% want to continue with war against Russia and not give in to anything.  Mums just want the fighting to stop and have their boys back.  

No need to just grab men off the street and send them to war with Russia but this is what Zelenskyy did, conscription and dead men and widows resulted.   But then Putin is hated by all because he is hated in writing for being a Russian as Russians are in government very corrupt and a different leader would not change this. The World Cup went very well there in 2018.  Will Russia compete in the World Cup in June?  No.  That is sad for a country to not be allowed to play when they have such a strong football history and hate continues when hate should not be in such a situation of sport and people.  I don't get the punishment of a country dished out by sporting authorities like the Olympics and FIFA.  It punishes the people.  A bit like points deductions in the British leagues for bad financial management of a club.  I think points deductions are wrong. 

Nato madness of manoeurves antagonised Russia.  The UN would  be fair to all parties in their chambers which they are not and I saw them not being fair to Israel in a live UN televised debate and that further put me off the UN.

And the EU not to exist anymore would be good.  It got way too big and nothing whatsoever to do with the Common Market.   We could have just peaceful countries growing crops with fields of tobacco in France and peppers and strawberries and walnuts in the Dordogne and no brambles and weeds paid for in place of crops. 

 Let the EU and Brussels and Luxembourg go away.   Let visas count again and praise be to Greece for letting in the tourists with gay abandon as they are today with sense and well-being first for their own people and swiftness of entry. 

Let the only asylum seeker in sight  be Nuryvev and a French aerodrome.  

Welfare to a minimum and Doris Lessing days of the 1950s London where welfare was non-existent ( Her book I have told you about before is a must read.   Walking in the Shade Vol. 2 when she arrived in London).

Why is nobody signing up for the Army?  Because they might as well sign on.  The Conservatives were going to introduce a short spell of national service but they were not elected so it never happened. 

  

I slept with a blackout across my eyes last night.  I don't have a mask but used a silky black scarf that I bought in Top Shop at Oxford Circus in 2007.  I remember buying it on my way to college one morning.  I used to like hanging around in London.   Anyway, I got 8 and half hours sleep last night so that was a good start to the blackout test.  I have been getting far too much light in my bedroom from light night skies and early morning light.  The scarf didn't bother me lightly looped around my head and sleep came all night.   I don't think I need to spend money on a mask, the scarf will do the job.

This post is ok and I give myself a good mark for writing it and letting some thoughts go out for a meal time chewing of the cud.  

What would it be like to live in Russia?  You might have a dachau, you would speak Russian and learn English at school in some schools.  You could go hunting and fishing and skating  and swimming and play football and learn ballet and singing and go to wonderful museums if you live in St Petersburg or Moscow.  You could visit churches and wonderful monuments to the dead and wonderful statues to the working man.   You would have hot summers and cold winters.  The Black Sea is a wonderful place for a holiday with beautiful beaches and a sea to jump in, shallow for ages and waves to jump.  My favourite ever sea.    You could eat solid foods and drink wine and promenade early in the evening.    Life in Russia is pretty good.  I would like to visit St Petersburg again and spend more time in the Hermitage Museum.  

Fact

Firstly Viktor Orban was not a dictator.  He was democratically elected four times over 16 years.  He was a man who believed in Hungary, keeping it Hungarian, and was a euro-skeptic and a Ukraine skeptic who didn't believe that the EU should fund Ukraine in its war with Russia.  Nobody disappeared under Orban, nobody was tortured, murdered, never seen again.   There were no dark moments, it was all out in the open.  Some dictators for you:  Saddam Hussein - disappeared or killed under him - 1 million people.   Absolute power.   Idi Amin, disappeared 500,000 people.    Adolf Hitler,  millions.  Stalin, millions.  Whatever you think of Orban wanting to keep Hungary's borders closed and Hungary for Hungarians, he was not a dictator, tyrant or murderer,   I don't like to see him maligned by writers.  He did not fight the result or make claims of fixes or unfairness;  he accepted Magyar won.  They were friends and will remain so.  They share many beliefs so maybe the changes will be EU ways but nothing too dramatic in terms of border changes unless EU pressure succeeds.

Second,  Iran must not have nuclear weapons.  That is the intention of Trump  - to rid Iran of nuclear weapons.  Read fully for yourself and you will see. Do not be mislead by ignorant journalists with only political agendas.   This is a world problem and one that should be embraced by the world that Iran must not have nuclear weapons.  

The oil price is coming down again now that the Strait of Hormuz is open.  (After shopping I discovered that it closed while I was out.  Must be Starmer and Macron's fault but they will save us!  US Navy continues to guard.   Imagine working in shippping insurance.   It is a total nightmare.)

England still has Starmer as leader which is probably better than what we might get if he goes.  Be careful what you wish for and better the devil you know. 

After the Axel Rudakubana enquiry we will next have the Valdo Calocane enquiry which has not yet finished (he murdered three random innocent people in Nottingham and is in prison now and so dangerous the prison hardly knows how to deal with him) which follows all the other enquiries where we have murderers in our midst who nobody can touch because they were black and somebody might have been accused of racism if they said there was a problem and they needed special measures to protect people. Like in the Manchester Arena where the bomber didn't have his backpack searched when he came into the foyer late on because the security guard was scared if he did he was going to be accused of racism  because the man was black.  The enquiry found that too.  But enquiries are enquiries and nothing ever changes because I guess nobody ever reads them who has a loud voice.  Only quiet people read them who think they had better continue to shut up and not shout from the roof tops that Britain has to change and stop weaponising language. 

Will there follow a Primrose Hill enquiry one day into what happened when Finbar Sullivan was murdered?  Will there be another similar problem with a knife man?  Will there be more and more weaponising of language which renders all common sense mute and out of bounds?  Yes, I fear there will be because we are there already. 

Will there be a problem here because I have written this. (Hypothetical question. No answer required.)

Be Prepared

My travel to Azerbaijan is gradually coming closer.  I sorted out the euros this week when I had to go to a post office to post a large letter and I asked the lady whilst I was there if they do euros.  "Of course, how many do you want?" came her friendly reply.  We established that the euros she had were pretty much like new and I did a small transaction with her all paid for without hassle as a cash transaction, no need then for identity.  Although euros are not the currency of Azerbaijan we have been recommended to take some as they like euros especially if they are like new and not used.  I am reminded of the time I took that sports massage in Skopje and was asked if I had euros on me and I paid with a 20 euro note.    You never know what I might get up to in Azerbaijan.  

I then continued on for I was now more in the mood for the holiday.  I bought a  foldup daysack which folds to nothing and can be easily packed in my rucksack  for use when I get there on days out for Fanta bottle and phone or whatever.  There will be no handbags or anything out of the ordinary for me and my daily wear there will be much the same as my daily wear here at home but hopefully no need for a heavy coat.  I will leave coat at home and take a thin jacket or a Levi jacket.  

I bought a new tee shirt and this is about the limit of my purchasing.  The man in the shop thought it was very unusual to travel so light but I just think he hasn't lived and there are many of us who keep packing to the minimum.  I didn't bother to discuss it further with him as it seemed a bit too personal in a strange kind of way, I don't know why but I just didn't take to him to discuss my packing.   He was the second guy in the shop I had spoken to and when I had asked the first guy to view rucksacks that were empty as opposed to rucksacks stuffed with paper for display I got a very strange  reaction that most people want to see them stuffed and how they will look and it gives them some idea of what they will hold.  I went along with it but I also took this quietly as totally ridiculous and got him to fish an empty one down off the high hooks so that I could examine it.  All this was done with reluctance like I was stupid.  I can judge an empty rucksack and whether it will fit my requirements much more easily than examining a stuffed one.  In the end I decided that there was nothing different to the rucksack I already have so didn't purchase.  Every question I asked about them I was given a strange look and then he started talking about shoplifters and he had to be all over the shop.  Perhaps he was just unhappy.  He said that he thought I needed a suitcase. I didn't feel like explaining to him that I don't like suitcases.  I then bought the tee shirt and the daysack.

Folk and life seem to get stranger by the day.  Anyway I went home happy in that I had the euros and I had a tee shirt to wear and I had a tiny foldaway daysack that I wanted.   

I don't take spare shoes or spare anything so don't need much space.

The rucksack I am taking has been standing in the breakfast room for weeks and I do test runs with it around the house for weight on my back and things I might take.  I jog around the house with it to check weight.  No lists, just head telling me that all I really need is the passport and visa in any case.  

My oldest brother came round today and I paid him for the ride-on so we are all square.  He said he could have given me some euros but we decided they would probably be too crumpled up for me.  He didn't ask where I am going so I didn't say.  We are a bit like that in my family.