We're not structurally racist after all

 Hi All, 

After the BLM riots and knocking down of 'racist' statutes last year, which were provoked by the death of an American thousands of miles away and in which the police did bugger all (unlike every other single protest of the last year, strange that the police were willing to haul white middle class women  for just standing in a public space and away in hand cuffs three weeks ago, but not black people actually causing criminal damage  last year ), the government set up a commission to investigate. 

The commission basically says were are not a structurally or institutionally racist country. Cue a blacklash from the left be it on Twitter, media or the Guardian, as they only want to talk of oppression and- this is where I broke with the left about 12 years ago when I was at university - they pathologically need  to put this country down as a shithole, be it by her history or current place in the world or social structure and race relations. I would never suggest that British history is without blemish, but the desire to see even positive things in a negative way. You can't say Churchill was a British hero anymore because someone somewhere has decreed him a 'racist' and also responsible for 'genocide'  and equally get offended when you point out the reality of what the Nazis did to us Jews,  would have done to BAME people had they controlled what was the then British Empire. But no, mention that word and it gets even worse- not that anyone would dare as you'd probably be called a racist and either loose your job or get the police onto you (which is funny when you've had 3 burglaries in the past 3 weeks on the street and its as if the police act as if it is on mars). 

 I agree with the report that we are indeed have a model race relations in this country and we are not some racist and or shithole place. If it were , then people would be leaving here en mass, the left suggested this would happen over Brexit and we've neither seen Europeans go back nor thousands flock to the continent. The City is still Europe's financial capital and life goes on. 

In fact to live in Britain in 2021 is probably one of the best times to live, for most people. We don't have children up mines or as  chimney sweeps, we've got schools and university access for all, there's a minimum wage, there's a free at point heath care system. The life expectancy of people is going up and up. All the while the left like to see us as living in some racist or hell hole  jungle , with a history akin to the Nazis. Yet people still come to this island and will take great lengths to do so, such as trying to cross the channel in dinghies. France is across the channel, another rich first world country. So the would be asylum seekers could and should stay there, but they choose, really want to go and come to the UK . They clearly don't get the message of the left, that we are such a terrible place, that they shouldn't even bother trying to get here in the first place.  They don't because they know what the left refuses to acknowledge  :  we're a nice place to live and pretty decent people. There are racists, but that doesn't make a nation one. People do worry about culture, religion and their control over what they see as their country. And it doesn't mean that you have to accept the left wing idea of open borders for any one and everyone to come and live here as they wish and use the health services. That doesn't make you a racist. 

The Anniversary of the Minotaur and Passover wars

 Hi All,

It was 38 years ago today, that the Earth finally declared victory against their foe the Minotaurs : a war which lasted 4 years and saw the freeing of trillions of human slaves, who were the descendants of three colonisation ships which had disappeared during the 1990s and which the less technologically advanced Minotaurs had enslaved. Exo-Wombs and time dilation accounted for the huge increase in population. 

The start of the war occurred when the Minotaurs started a pre-emptive strike against the 5th Fleet based at the Mau system, a shock which was akin to when Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941,  although revisionist  historians note that President Garibaldi mired in (baseless) scandal accusations had the week before called for action against the Minotaur. Such politics was quickly forgotten as Earth's defence forces liberated world after world, revealing the depravity, torture and experimentation as well as the bitterness of slavery itself , it quickly took on the scope -as far as the citizens of Earth were concerned - of a 'moral' or 'just' war. 

The war was started by a right wing President-Antonio Luigi  Garibaldi- and for most of it was bitterly opposed by most of the hard left, although its moderate and central wing flocked to support this national war and emergency  . The majority of the population - over 90%- supported the war and every year since it has ended there's been a public holiday in remembrance and celebration, which in true human fashion combined solemnity, with food and alcohol. 

The Witter sphere, a galactic micro blogging site and a bastion of whoever shouts the loudest, such as left- liberalism, especially of the student variety,  wasn't happy  at the anniversary celebrations :

 how dare anyone celebrate a galactic war, started by the 'fascist right', even if it were for the noble cause of anti slavery - which it actually wasn't - it was just a war to defend Earth's imperialist agenda, against helpless native aliens 

 all these war criminals had actually done  was to free these human slaves, only to shackle them to the yoke of capitalism. 

This racist  event must be cancelled. 

President Antonio Luigi  Garibaldi : a xenophobic  war criminal 

current President (then Major General) F'szoorg, along with, the senior Parliamentarians who lead their respective parties in each chamber should be tried by the interstellar community as war mongers.

Why did ( Marine Captain)  Emma Dumas (  Current Senate Leader of the left) save  the bigoted phobe  (Marine Major) Mark Shalhoub (Current Speaker of the House) in battle? 

What? Gerhard Mohammed  (Current House Leader of the Left) and Sir Gordon Godfrey ( now Senate Majority Leader) served and flew together on the Carrier Michel Bariner ? 

Why do the establishment left support this anniversary, it's just war monger imperialism 

What time is the demo? 

Are we bringing our own vegan food?

Mother Earth should be 'liberated' from the evil deeds inflicted on her by wicked humans: Gia needs us"

It is true that these far  left  types did have a hard time understanding this part of history, which in their view portrayed slavery as a sole product of the Anglo-Saxon Male Imperialist Capitalist  Patriarchy, undertaken by them to enslave women and people of colour,  gays, lesbians, trans people and anyone else the left could announce as an oppressed minority group,  whether in chains or by capitalism. The war of the Passover as it became known (as strangely enough the war began and ended just before the Passover festival) defied this logic, as you had an Italian male President  leading a war to liberate male and female humans, who were of all human races, enslaved because they were human, not because of their skin tone. 

Even more annoying to the left was that these now ex-slaves and citizens made a success of themselves on the newfound colony worlds.  Slaves in the view of the  left, were supposed to be ragged, poor and illiterate, needing democratic socialism as the knight in shining armour to save them from this oppression. It was true, these ex-slaves were poor and illiterate, in fact none of them had first or family names, just numbers as names,  but all were determined to make the most of their newfound freedom and embraced with relish 'the Earther dream' of self improvement from one's current status,  of being reasonably well off, which was achievable by merit, by hard work and determination, regardless of one's birth status and a desire that one's children would accomplish for themselves even more, fully embracing and believing in the 'Earther Dream' with gusto, they , after all, had nothing to loose and everything to gain. And made it so and helped to start an economic boom which later historians would call the 'gay '90s' (2090-2099). 'the gilded age' (2100-2119) and the 'roaring twenties' (2120-present). 

New bar tariffs

 Dudes,

New pub  initiative post lockdown:

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Passover !!

 Hi All,

It's Shabbat tonight and over the weekend we are celebrating Passover!

Hope everyone has a good one and see you later on the other side. 

Open thread. 

The googolpexianaires

 Hi All, 

The Gilded Age of Earth  was in full swing ,30 years of relative peace and posterity which  began in "the gay nineties" and was continuing into the mid "roaring" twenties. 2124, 4 years after President F'szoorg won his second term of office and achieved what no other President had done, which was to admit more members into the United Union of Earther States than any other Presidents : in part because Parliament who actually did the deciding on these matters was continually divided by fears that one party or the other would benefit from this or that state joining. When States did join, it was often at the expense of a big political compromise, such as massive tax cuts or spending programmes. In any event , 140,000 systems owned by private enterprise, religions and wealthy individuals  as well as Federal planets, were reformed as 4,778 States , which when combined with those already in the Union gave a total  5,065 States and according to the census (there hadn't been one since 2099) a polity of 120 trillion people. 

This fuelled internal and interstellar  trade, helped along by infrastructure spending and the fact that the Federal Government under the "equal footing clause" of the Constitution had to take on the public debt of these new states, from the state to the City and Municipal level.  The debts were particularly high for those places that had been founded by private enterprise: buying and in most cases having to terraform a planet is extremely costly, let alone running one. The Treasury was rightly concerned about taking on too much debt, but David Elharar, the Galaxies joint richest man, found a loophole. 

The loophole ? Of the 4,778 territories, his business owned 1,249 and he personally owned 1 system, as did his business partner Jacob Horowitz. All of 1,251 territories had their own currencies and  subsequently also had their own central bank. The plan was that Elharar would be licensed in all  of theses territories to mint coins to the value of the total debts that the Federal government was going to pay off, plus any interest. For services rendered Elharar also obtained authority to mint  themselves a little bit extra coinage, as a "fee". 

These sextillion- in face value -silver   Francs, Marks and Dollar coins would be deposited into a safe at each bank, labelled as a "gift" for the Federal Treasury. Upon becoming a state, The Bank of Earth, the Federal Central Bank, would take over these regional Central Banks and credit amount of  the face value of the coins into the account that the Federal  Treasury had with them, at the agreed exchange rate that would be written into the charter making the state into a territory. In so doing the Treasury would suddenly find itself with the necessary funds with which to pay back the debts of these colonies. 

The risk of inflation, which such in effect money printing would usually produce,  Elharar advised the Federal Treasury, was minimal because of the flourishing Interstellar Trade across three galaxies facilitated a massive Forex (foreign exchange) market in which demand for Pounds was high, in part because of a positive balance of payments, but also to pay for the necessary shipping, insurance and toll fees to access the only two known wormholes, which because Elharar owned, had to be paid in Pounds.

In any event the plan went ahead and thanks to that little 'fee' , David Elharar (and his long time business partner) became googolpexianaires (that is ten to the power of a googolplex, or in other words a number which even mega computers struggle with, as near an infinite as a human mind can get in terms of numbers).  This should have made them both happy, but not when they appeared in front of a Parliamentary Committee to be questioned in a way that tried to  embarrass and humiliate:  by all of the left on the committee, but also several of the populist right. It was good theatre and they gave as good as they got- I suppose being twenty years shy of 200 does that- and strangely the public gave them a plus 60% approval rating, which increased the poorer the demographic and they did especially well among women between 36 and 50, which maybe explains why David has so many wives . What was embarrassing was when those same Parliamentarians and Senators came looking with their begging bowl for campaign funds. They were politely told to bugger off. 

Shabbat Shalom!

 Hi All, 

Open thread as usual. 

The Jovians

 Hi All,

The Jovians are for all intents and purposes human, but ever since 1999, they and their Earth brothers are forever split on their attitude toward the crystal and genetic engineering. Whereas Earthers have chips inserted into their brains to allow for solar internet access and the ability to process massive amounts of data, the Jovians used Jupiter crystals. Found in the mid region of gas giants these crystals are natural data storage devices, but with a side effect of giving the user telepathic and mild telekinesis abilities. When the leader of the Jovians died, he reappeared revealing that he had a cloned body of himself and had inserted the crystal into the brain of this clone, thus allowing him to live on after death, revealing that during death he had a divine revelation and a new society to be created, which apparently the people of Jupiter confirmed by their telepathic link.  

The rest is history, the Jovians and quickly joined together in creating this new society and free from the 'shackles' of Earth's ethics committees began intensive genetic upgrades, but also into foetus's. Back on Earth, this enraged the religious who claimed that all of this stopped the divine judgment and God's role in the resurrection of the dead or that it interfered with reincarnation and Kama. The world's atheist leaders also dismissed this as 'another cult' and took the view that all you'd be speaking to was the equivalent of a tape being repeated rather than an actual human being. More universal  objections were questions around the clone's status as a human being and what had happened to that clone's personality and secondly the slippery slope argument around genetic engineering. 

There was one catch for Jovians is that the crystal can only be used 12 times, it isn't understood why. The temporary solution was to build a complex AI computer, made up of the largest of this crystals to download the personality once the crystal had lost its ability, a cyberspace heaven. The long term solution was eventually discovered: there are coloured Ruby (found in hot Jupiter gas giants ) , Emerald (Uranus)  and Sapphire (Neptune)  crystals. Each of these can extend usage considerably with Sapphire crystals being the best: alas these crystals are extremely rare and there is a waiting list on the JHS (Jovian Health Service), even though half of these crystals are imported. The cost price per ounce is well over £1 trillion.

While Earth and Jupiter still trade (Jupiter controls the He3 trade, fuel for starships)  there is little love left between them. While Jovians themselves are a generally peaceful people, they do have their 'black sheep' , their understated euphemism for the tiny fraction of the population that rejects their society, which mostly leads them into super villain or criminal mastermind territory. 

The games of the super rich

 Hi All, 

The early years of the 2120s, the roaring 20s where full employment, home ownership and general living standards went stratospheric for the 95% as well as the 5%. One of the few times in history that the ultra rich would unashamedly splash their cash and be in a race to showcase this wealth with every more extravagant displays of wealth, without having guilt mongers attack them at every stage or face populist outrage for doing so (except the far left, but that's them all the time -jealous and continually devising ways to make everyone as poor as possible so they can achieve their equality for all paradise). 

If the 'little people' were getting a money shower from the trickle down theory, the super rich were getting a Niagara Falls worth of it: from' Portal Mansions' to Star Yachts, to owning popular  sports clubs, Aerospace Bentleys, fine and modern art and eating black Rhino steaks, to life longevity,  whatever they desired money bought them.

It was in terms of sport that the super rich enjoyed showing off their money, for example: 

Portal  One : Akin to F1, except this race takes place on land, air and space, across planets and sometimes various solar systems. There are multiple Grand Prix throughout the year, the most famous one being the Grand Prix of Mercury, where the race starts, covers the entire solar system, through to the 3 stars of Alpha Centuari and finishing on the ocean planet Mu, some 708 light years away. 

Zero gravity bowls : Bowling , but in zero gravity. 

Anklo Croquet :  Croquet played on the back of an Ankylosaurus, with the 'ball' being a dense ball of liquid mantellic hydrogen and the stick being the Ankylosaurus tail .

T- Rex Polo : Polo, but instead of horses substitute a T-Rex and much larger sticks and balls. 

Water Jousting : Similar to medieval jousting, except  using 'laser lances' , it is under water and rather than a horse, you must have a choice of a  plesiosaurus or great white shark. If you are hyper rich and can afford it you can have a mosasaurus or a megalodon .

Land Jousting : Similar to medieval jousting, except using 'laser lances'  and  you have a choice of mount, being T-Rex or Triceratops. If you are  super super rich you can find all sorts of different combinations , e.g. Saber Toothed Tiger vs modern Tiger , or Woolly Mammoth vs African Elephant . 

The E-me chip and banking

Hi All, 

Banking and Finance was somewhat different in the 22nd century. Thanks to the e-me chip, a chip inserted into the brain, it is the equivalent of having all of your aps, mobile phone and social media rolled into one. This includes having your own e-vault, wherein your salary is paid directly to you, thus bypassing banks, but like a mobile phone network you have to pay fees dependent on how much data you are using. 

Banks do still exist, but they are in competition with a multitude of finance and credit companies who reply not on depositors but on the multitude of investment and 'go fund moi' funds. The banks no longer offer current or checking accounts, but focus on 'savings and loans', unless you are a very wealthy individual and can afford to open an account with a private bank.  The Merchant and Investment Banks are still around, but they were always different to  the banks the general public used in the 20th and early 21st century. There are also the mega composite banks, who have a finger in every pie. 

To support the mortgage market there is the Federal Property Investment and Development of Real Estate Assets Company, called in shorthand The Derech (Hebrew for 'path') who sell bonds to investors and use this cash to buy up Mortgages from the market, which enhances liquidity and also transfers credit risk. Whilst Derech was a Quango, it is now a privately listed company, although many alien investors perceive it to be guaranteed by the Earth Fed government , in the same way they believe the Church of England's Investment Company, the Church Commissioners, are fully back-stopped by the British government.

All of this is regulated by multiple different agencies, but not by The Bank of Earth, the Central Bank of the Federation, whose main job is to act as a banker to the government and as a secondary, a banker to the banks, who whether they are the the Kingsman Reef Building Society or the colossal Mega Bank JP House & Co have accounts at the Bank of Earth. It is mandated to have responsibility for overall 'financial stability', 'full employment' and 'low inflation' and unlike other central banks is able to lend directly to the government (not as unusual as one might think: the 'role model' Bank of England was founded to finance England's wars against France and later on  France's Banque De France was created by Napoleon for money against England).  The Bank  is not allowed, however, to undertake bailouts. It is a lender of last resort, but it is only permitted to prop up a bank in this way if it is deemed to be solvent and has enough good assets to lend against. More often than not, banks are taken over by the Federal Insurance Quango,  then sold off or put into administration , with depositors getting a maximum of £25 million back. 

The Bank is overseen by a Chairman (usually a 'grandee ' or 'elder statesman'  from the ruling party) , but is run by the Supreme Governor and his Officers, with the board of directors called 'Regents'.  The Officers of the Bank tend to be permanent non political appointments, whereas the Supreme Governor has a 7 year term. When there is a vacancy, depending who is in government, the left prefer academics and economists, whereas the right prefers an actual banker or businessman. 

Shabbat Shalom !

 Hi All,

Israel welcomes more Ethiopian Jews to the homeland of the Jewish people. 

Shabbat Shalom!  

The Wormholes of Tau Ceti and Sol

 Hi All, 

By 2121 Earth is a galactic space power, in terms of Gross Galactic Product, territorial extent, population and military might. Earth also controls the two wormholes known to exist, akin to the strategic importance for trade as the  Suez and Panama Canals back on Earth. 

The first is at La Marais a Department of the French speaking Tau Ceti System, this wormhole will take you to the Andromeda Galaxy.  It and the infrastructure  surround it on both sides  are owned and operated   by the Elharar -Horowitz Interstellar Property Development Company Plc. There are several thousand species encountered so far and several hundred colonies settled,   but the only real power in Andromeda  is that of the Koobe. The Koobe are a Confederacy of many different species and AI, living in vast space habitats. Technologically advanced, their primary philosophy is hedonism. The primary trades are in Earth's vast arts and literature, energy and cuisine. 

The second is actually in the solar system on an Earth  Trojan Asteroid called Cranmer's Rock (the asteroid was initially owned by the Church of England) and is also owned by Elharar -Horowitz Interstellar Property Development Company Plc. It will take you to the edge of  Galaxy IC1101, the largest galaxy in the universe and a Duchy of the Byzantine Empire called Lafendu. This was only discovered 8 months ago, but already trade is picking up. There are colonial opportunities because the actual wormhole is in a small pocket galaxy roughly 45,000 light years in diameter and is claimed by no-one. 

Why is the population of Earth so big?

 Hi All, 

By 2121, the population of the  Earth sphere of influence across 3 galaxies  (as distinct from Lunar and Jupiter humans) is over 100 trillion: 

Human : 80 trillion

Sszoorg: 20 trillion 

Holograms of Hardlight composition  : 1.66  trillion

AI & Androids  : 3.75 trillion  

Alien/Extra Terrestrial : 120 billion

The reason for such a high population figure is three fold ; 

1) After world war three, the population of Earth halved, both as a consequence of the war itself and its aftermath in the Northern Hemisphere of a nuclear winter and nuclear summer as the depleted ozone layer gave Europe, Russia and Canada a climate akin to the tropics, but led to cancerous deaths and mass starvation. When the world government was created and after the 'discovery' of the Sszoorg and native Martians, the planet began to recover creating a massive baby boom between 1976 and 1996. Even well into the 22nd century, humans, especially those of the Northern Hemisphere have much larger families averaging 6.6 children per family as a result of the psychological shock of those years. Like wise the Szoorg  maintain high birthrates, but started from a much smaller base.

2)  The Szsoorg ' Artificial  Cloaca'  was invented by them to increase their birth rate at a quicker pace, it is basically a machine which combines the male sperm and female ova to create their eggs, which are then incubated until hatched. The Cloaca was modified for human use and became known as the 'exo-womb',  except it was initially only available for wealthy women who were 'too posh to push' and who didn't want the scar marks of a caesarean, but today they are widely used by middle class women who freeze and store their eggs and wait until they have an established career before having a family, which is possible because the average life expectancy is now 120 (a middle class woman  statistically can  live 30 years  more than their working class counterparts, who tend to have children at a younger age, and live longer than any other group, aside from the 1%  elite , but don't tell Guardian readers that one as they would have kittens).

3) Exo-Wombs Mark II are similar to their Mark I counterparts, but have a small nano Quantum Portal attached to them. In the event of an unwanted pregnancy rather than abort the baby, the foetus is transferred to the exo-womb via portal and born as any other exo-womb baby.

4) The Growth embryos and Exo-Wombs Mark III- the most controversial. This technology grows an embryo into an adult within 12 months. Initially used by the military to compensate for war shortages, they are now used by companies wherein recruitment for specific roles is difficult and more importantly used as a population boost  for space colonisation . It is actually cheaper for companies to do this than build high cost and high maintenance androids and AI. They are controversial because of issues around corporate slavery and exploitation, however, by 2088 full civil and political rights were confirmed  by the supreme court and written into law by  the 62nd Federal Parliament. 

5) The Emancipated Slaves of  Niagara Falls , Garissa and Olympic. These three are names of colonial ships  which crashed in the unknown regions space, circa 1999. The remains were discovered by a hostile species which we call the Minotaurs because of their resemblance to the creature of Greek mythology. These creatures enslaved the survivors of these three ships, using the technologies and  exo-womb Mark III to create and perpetuate a mass slave population and expand into space . That was until 2109, when they began raiding  Earth outposts and colonies, further  border conflicts began later that year and a full blown war was under way by 2110. In  2111 operation 'Moses'  was undertaken , which saw the mass liberation and exodus of  the  human slaves from the Minotaur Empire, effectively doubling the population of Earth's sphere of influence overnight. 

All of the above helped to fuel the colonisation of systems and planets and the total Earth sphere of influence spread over 3 galaxies is 139,972 systems, 1.3 million planets, 23,455,045 moons and billions of asteroid, orbitals, habitats and space stations. 

Care to comment on? Well no actually I don't

 Hi All,

 People have asked me to write about the Harry-Megan farce. 

Sorry but I switched off when he started complaining about how his 'allowance' (F^ck sake) had been cut off... What? What? A man in his mid 30s with a wife a child and another one on the way,  is moaning to the world that he should have a grant from his dad in order to survive, even though he is one of the world's most famous men and could get a well paid  job tomorrow ?  Actually men  should go and get a job to support their family , not rely on their parents for handouts. 

So no, I'm not wasting time on them pair!

Earth's Trojans

 Hi All,

In any one year Earth travels a distance of 584 million miles around the sun, but also trailing and leading (in front/behind) in this orbit  are several thousand space stations, habitats, industrial facilities and 'space trailer parks' and mined out  meteoroids, clustered together into estates and which have been converted into middle class semis and detached houses . In addition to these man-made objects are Trojan asteroids,  of those populated 12  are leading and 17 trailing, mined for their ice, gas and metal. These are so called because they were first discovered in Jupiter's orbit, wherein scholars names them Trojans and Greeks, after the ancient Trojan Wars. Every planet has a couple of Trojans, but Jupiter has so many because of her sheer size, but Earth's orbit was home to 33 billion Humans and Szsorg and a tiny percentage of extra -terrestrial aliens. 

Earth Trojan 312 is a smallish Earth Trojan Asteroid about the size of Rutland. It's new owners were quite obsessive about exploring this seemingly boring lump of rock. It look six weeks, but a  small  limpet class industrial station was able  attach itself to the rock to do a deep level scan of what was underneath. The scans showed something remarkable : after 1 and a  half a mile of rock , the interior was hollow. Precision tools drilled into the rock finally getting through to the other end, they'd made a gap big enough to put a ruler through width ways. This was just enough to put a portal through the crack, which enabled the team to send through a series of probes and drones. What they discovered was quite remarkable.,..

Floating Ships

 Hi All,

This is a legitimate photo of a ship off Cornwall. No it isn't an antigravity drive or aliens, but apparently a very clever mirage or optical illusion called a Fata Morgana.

Shabbat Shalom!

 Hi All,

Shabbat Shalom!

The Meaningful Vote

 Hi All,

Meanwhile.. back at Lambeth Palace.

Lightning flashed and clouds bellowed. It was a thunder snow storm over Lambeth Palace. 

The Most Reverend Christine Humphrey, 115^th Archbishop of Canterbury slumped in her chair as she placed the receiver back on the phone. It had been another difficult call and another rejection. This time from the Council of 12 Apostles of the Latter Day Saints, who simply couldn’t commit quadrillions of Saint's money to bailing out the Church of England’s colonial property development. The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, who was visiting the Faithful of Mars, was uncommittable  and Pope Patrick  of Rome, advised in his West of Ireland brogue  that women’s ordination was a stumbling bloc for the Vatican Investment Bank to consider a line of Credit, besides which he wondered aloud why he should invest in a mere 'ecclesiastical community' rather than a 'proper' Apostolic Church ? The Southern Baptist Coalition refused on the basis of ‘so-called same sex marriage’ and the Scottish Presbyterians of the Kirk weren't even answering her calls: like the Methodists and Congregational Reform Church , they'd gone to ground. 

Humphrey been told of the terms of the bailout on offer from Treasury an hour ago. It just seemed too much! Humphrey looked longingly  at the Mini bar and various decanters her predecessor had installed. There was a signed picture of Bishop Spong above it. But now was not the time for a stiff sherry, but a stiff upper lip! 

She called the Royal Bank of England and asked to speak to the Governor; will you really call in our loans today? Yes and you have no choice but to accept the deal!

There was a knock at the door and her Chaplain ushered in the Church accountant, a Partner at one of those prestigious galactic Accountancy and Consulting firms which cost millions, but don't seem to do anything. She quizzed him about a plan b, other than the one that was on offer. He said that the only on on offer was this one and the alternative was bankruptcy, which would be a catastrophe for the banks and the economy. She asked him if they'd done any work on such an outcome? He replied that they hadn't, she insist that they did. The accountant took note and said they would start on it right away. 

Once he was back in his offices at Canary Wharf the accountant contacted his real client, whom he didn't know, but who paid for 'information'. Pleased that his regular fee of £25 million has already been put into his e-vault, he advised his contact of the conversation that he'd just said. 'OK' was the terse reply. Seconds later he got a ping saying £100 million had just been deposited into his e-vault. 'Keep us informed:  bonus due  the moment they tell you to sign off a bankruptcy petition'.

Favours owed. Favours given.

 Hi All,

'So what does everyone think we should do?' Asked Kat as she looked around the table.

'You first' I suggested.

Kat took another gulp of wine, having almost demolished her first bottle. 

The New Maldives

 Hi All ,

The New Maldives, terraformed into a habitable place of  sub-tropical islands and seas, a contrast to the snowy weather of Birmingham in late winter. It used to be one of our colonies, before it became the 157th State 34 years ago, not that we control the politics of this state, but most of its Parliamentary delegation has worked for us at some point or other. Today, we still own 10% of the moons surface.  New Maldives, initially populated by refugees from the old Maldives back on Earth, before it disappeared like Atlantis,  has a Swiss style GDP per capita and a thriving population of 33 million. New Maldives itself was part of 34  moons of a hot Jupiter some 1,000 light years from Earth. There enough heat and light radiated from the gas giant and star that it was relatively easy to terraform.  It cost a lot, but EHC plc continues to make a decent return on the investment. Exactly how you are supposed to start and finish a colonial project. 

Why have a Bishop of Venus in the Church of England and other questions

 Hi All,

1) Some people have asked me about why I have a Bishop of Venus in my story when Venus clearly isn't part of England and someone noted that there 42 Dioceses and not 60. My answer is why does the Church of England have a Bishop of Europe? There's 60 Dioceses because, like Venus, they are extra-planetary. They didn't become part of the 'Anglican Communion' as separate entities, because the Church can't afford to let them go because of their income, trust funds and legacies. For example Venus has always had a tiny proportion of Anglicans relative to its population, about 1 million, but just as  Venus is one of the richest states in the Earther Union, so those 1 million contribute billions to the Church's Treasury. A communicant in the English Dioceses gives on average about £10 a week, a Venusian communicant about £10,000 a week.

2) Why is the currency the pound and not the dollar? The currency is officially  called PFY a combination of the Pound, Franc and Yen, the currencies of the founding members of the Earther Union after world war three in 1962, as America didn't join until 1974 (the Israeli currency was the Israeli pound, Lira is another word for pound  and so did the commonwealth use pounds, New Zealand, Australia  and not dollars except for Canada and the Caribbean) . It's shorthand that we say pounds or use the £ sign. As for understanding prices, divide anything I use by 25, so if your salary is £25,000 it would be £625,000 in 2120.

3) Why Birmingham as the Capital City? Why not.