Stalinist Britain

 Hi All,

OMG. Just watch this video. The establishment (deep state) are really going after Brexiters.... First Boris , now Farage!

Would Russia ever seriously think of nuking Britain?

Hi All,

First it is necessary to describe what I mean by nukes. There are 2 kinds. The first are called ‘strategic’ and this is often the ones used in world war 3 scenarios on youtube videos. They are called strategic because they are the more powerful of the 2 and are specifically designed to destroy strategic sites of the enemy’s homeland, be that naval ports or entire cities. They can be launched from missile silos, submarines and aircraft. In the cold war the submarines – the UK now only has nukes on subs- gave nuclear weapons states a ‘second strike’ capacity due to their virtual undetectability in the oceanic depths, this simply means in the USSR destroyed the UK, a British sub could have retaliated in any event. The missiles used are designed to carry more than one warhead and several decoys, to allow for an enemy being able to shoot them down before they explode. A nuclear explosion in the air (an ‘airburst’) will cause more destruction, because of the blast and pressure waves, but a ground explosion will kill more people due to the fallout of radiation.

The second type of nukes are called ‘tactical’ and are smaller in destructive power. They are there to destroy or halt an enemy army, rather than to destroy cities. In effect they are the modern version of nuclear canons.

The sad thing is that the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan (at 15-20 Kilotons) would nowadays be considered to be ‘tactical’ in their destructive potential and the ‘strategic’ nukes can range from 100 kilotons to 2 megatons. The largest ever detonation was by the Soviet Union and this nuke was so powerful at 58 megatons that they decided not to test the even bigger version which would have been 100 megatons.

So now we know about the different types of nukes, the question is would Russia use them in the context of the constant threat or call to use them against the UK? My answer is, alas, yes I believe that they would if they were pushed into a corner. In a way we westerners cannot understand, life in Russia is far more brutal and life, because of the collective ideal of the Soviet era is seen as more expendable . If you don’t believe me, look at the willingness to use human wave attacks and trench warfare in Ukraine. The Russians use their canon fodder troops to flush out Ukranian positions, after which they send in their better forces.

So how exactly do I think the Russians would be willing to use nukes and how do I think they would think they would ‘get away’ with such an attack.

The first thing is to ask yourself why a country like the UK has nukes in the first place. It was in part because the UK (and France) believed it would be a way of saying they were still great powers, but also because there was a suspicion (not unfounded) that America would not sacrifice New York for London (or Paris). Thus the UK would need a separate force to make sure the Soviets never gambled on this belief.

Now let us flip this and ask yourself would a British Prime Minister sacrifice London (the centre of the entire elite and the dominant part of the UK) and or the rest of the country for… Skegness. Or Londonderry. Or Aberdeen. Or Swansea? Whatever the bluster of the various Prime Ministers of our country and the pandering to the tabloids about pressing the ‘red button’ (which doesn’t exist) to look ‘hard’, I doubt that any rational PM would be prepared to do so. In fact I suspect that the woke civil service blob, let along the military would try to stop or sabotage anyone who tried.

In terms of why the Russians would be motivated to launch a nuke at the UK, I would suggest a situation in which the war in Ukraine was going badly and maybe Crimea has been lost. The Russians are about to be humiliated and think that this only happened because of the NATO alliance sending over aid. To try and stop the fall of Crimea and to halt aid to Ukraine, the Russians launch a nuclear strike at the UK. They dare not do so to America because they saw the response to 9/11. If America were to be hit, they would utterly destroy Russia. But UK? Maybe not. The UK is the size of Alabama. The Russians see us as woke and weak and see an opportunity.

The Russian strategy is called Maskirovka or deception tactics. This is what they do : they attack a provincial British town, say, Northampton, but with a tactical sized nuke, similar in size to those dropped on Japan, via airburst. This, according to nukemap will lead to 31,940 deaths and 55,550 injuries. In the east midlands there are 14 beds per 10,000 people. In the whole of the UK there are 158,000 hospital beds. You can see how, just on the basis of trying to treat people with severe burns, injuries from collapsing buildings and ARS, that an attack on a relatively small UK town would have on the NHS, forgetting any political or economic problems. It would all told be a catastrophe for the nation and a humanitarian crisis. Which is exactly what the Russians are counting on. In these circumstances I have no doubt that America, Europe and the Commonwealth would rally to Britain’s aid, but this is what Russia hopes. Those resources for Ukraine are now going to Britain instead.

But what about the risk of retaliation? This is where the ‘deception’ strategy comes in. They either deny Russian involvement and claim it was the bogeyman or claim that somehow their sub captain (like they do in the fictional hunt for red October) has ‘gone mad’ and set the missile off ‘by accident’ until the brave crew managed to restrain the poor unhinged fellow. But is it worth creating world war 3?

The Russians gamble that at worse they will be treated like North Korea, in that their state will function, but be cut off from the world. At best they can still continue trade with Brazil, China, India, South Africa etc. But they don’t think Joe Biden (or at least his handlers) - who is a well know Anglophobe- would risk war over it or at least a nuclear exchange. They don’t even think the Brits would have the balls to try a conventional attack and even if they did, they would conclude that Britain’s forces are too small to even intervene in Ukraine, let alone invade Russia. A final calculation would be that while allies would help Britain in a humanitarian crisis, they would not want to go to war over this, especially after the smooth talk of the Kremlin about accidents. Maybe back channels to the Germans and French say something like ‘yes we hit Northampton. This is warning. We won’t attack further, but if you hit us, we will obliterate the UK’. Or something like that.

What do readers think? Is that the way it would go? Or would Russia do something else? Thoughts below in the comments section !

Russia and Foggy Albion

 Hi All,

[Note :  "Foggy Albion" is the name, used in an endering way, by Russian Anglophiles to describe Great Britain].

If you were Russian and watching their state TV (the propaganda arm of the Kremlin) you would think that Britain and not America was the world's super power in that it is Britain who is often cast as the primary enemy of Russia. It is the UK that is seen as being behind various plots to stop Russia in Ukraine, be it Nordstream, the blowing up of the Crimea Bridge or anything else that goes wrong for Russia, it is MI6  and not the CIA that's cast as the villian.  There are frequent calls by nationalist pundits on mainstream media outlets (the analogue of the BBC or CNN) for Britain to be nuked or attacked in one way or the other be it via arming the IRA or killing Rishi Sunak.  In fact one Duma member and Putin crony went so far as to say that London would be nuked before Warsaw or New York.

While it is true that London has been called 'Londongrad' because of the Russian billionaire 'oligarchs' (the nationalist complain that this money should flow back to Russia) and it is also true that Britain is the second largest contributor to the Ukraine war, matters lie deeper than this.

For a start there is a strand among the  Russian elite that is  Anglophile . In St Petersberg- where Putin actually comes from-  there is a place called the English Embankment, which is similar to Knightsbridge or Chelsea in London in so much as it is a posh well to do area. It is called the English Embankment as from  the 18th century it was where the British had their Embassay and incidentally built an Anglican Church, which apparently has the only English pipe organ in the Russia, but also the home of the Russian elites.

On another note Sherlock Holmes is extremly popular in Russia, the most well known series starred Vasily Livanov and Vitaly Solomin, as Sherlock and Watson between 1979-1986 although there have also been modern versions of Sherlock in Russia, which is- if you can understand Russian- more entertaining than 'Dr Strange' and the Hobit version we were subjected to via the BBC.

The Anglophia I think stems from the fact that Putin and his Junta are all Siloviki, that is a cabal of former KGB Officers who have controlled Russia for the past 20 years and of course the KGB's number one enemy was MI6. Unlike Britain, Russia has not adopted well to the decline of position from Super Power to a Great or regional power. As far back as 2013 Mendev was calling the UK an 'irrelvence' in global terms. Today that has changed to a chorous of nationalists hating Britain. I think Russia was taken aback by the fact that post Brexit, the British stuck to NATO and the response to the invasion of Ukraine  and that Britain does still have strengths in the intelligence sphere.

The other unfortunate lie that is never really challenged is the idea that post cold war Russia was stripped bare by the first lot of oligarchs (the ones who fled to London post Yeltsin) and that good olde Vlad took over as a nationalist to save Russia from these locusts. In fact Putin and his cronies have made personal gains from ruling Russia in the same way as every other Russian leader has. Look at the Russian army's failures in Ukraine. Stripping tanks for petrol and selling it off, replacing armour on tanks for cheap cardboard and the same for body armour, tampons for bandages etc. What this shows you is that the system is corrupt and people from the top downward have been on a gravy train for years. These problems did not surface (well they did in terms of the Kuznetsov) in the Syrian campaign because this was the Russia way in war : carpet bomb whole cities until they died or starved, not worrying about civilian casulties and droping cheap and non 'smart' weapons in densely populated areas, including hospitals. 

Oh to get back to the times of Foggy Albion!

The Bank Manager who is there to mange till labour take over

 Hi All,

A bit of political opinion. Sunak is slick and as arobaticTony Blair, but he is too much of a bank manager, rather than a real leader or someone with confident charisma in his own right. He is basically there to keep the seat warm & try to manage things for Labour to take over, to wit we will be in the EU within a few years. Not surprising given the relentless propagandaof the broadcast media, the Guardian and others as well as permament obstruction from the woke civil service & the targeting of anyone remotely conservative under the accusations of 'bullying' , who are still in the Blairite mould, of which that creature is certain to make a comback after his disasterous war in Iraq. In fact I think the labour leftists and co are going to be disappointed by Starmer or we are all going to be in shock if he goes far left. But I can't sense anyone wants more leftish woke. It is just that people feel they are fed up of the conservative party and that it has failed. It is continuing in a mixture of neo-liberal policies, when there is a worldwide drift away from such ideas. It isn't conservative in the social sense of community or family values either. It has failed on Brexit. Maybe we need Labour to go on full woke as a way of overturning the blob and the whole rotten thing? That's if we aren't all nuked beforehand.

 In any case back to Sunak, who has managed to break all of his own rather modest pledges, but thinks that we just have to sit back and accept the 'pain' over mortgage rate rises, while the Governor of the Bank of England slams people for wanting to have pay rises at inflation or above. This is the guy who earns over £500,000 a year, courtsey of the same taxpayers he is hammering. Oh and it is his and Sunak's fault for this mess in the first place. As it was put to Sunak on Sunday, he is living in alternative universe. 

At this rate the Tories will be out of power for a long time, because what they've done is appease no one. They tried to keep house prices high by not building, but at the same time allowing half a million people to enter the country in net terms. That means a population the size of Leeds every year coming into the country. How is this a sustainable trajectory? And incidentally I would suggest the real thing isn't the gap between the rich and the poor, but the gap between those who have a stake in the system and those that don't. If more people can buy their own homes, it produces more people who do have a care for the system, but if almost no-one can own their own property, then this means that the siutation is ripe for turmoil and far left or far right politics, as people simply don't care about preserving the status quo. Hence a key motivator of Brexit. If people can own their own homes, which by logical extension means people becoming more wealthy,  they will naturally become more conservative and this is the foundation of the conservative party. Having failed to do that, then the conservatives represent... who?

The Good, The Bad and the using of Dr Google

 Hi All,

The good news is that I have not touched any booze for over 100 days! Yay me!

The other good news is that following my biposy I do not have any blood cancer, although they still want to send me for a PET scan, Positron Emission Tomography. Sounds like Mr Data's brain from Star Trek, but in reality involves a scan in which I am injected with radiation and have to avoid pregnant women and children for 24 hours. Apparently my spleen has gone down to 20 cm, but should be 12 cm. Apparently 2 of my veins (high and low) have merged and pumped the spleen- 'engored' -she said full of blood. There's nothing to worry about, apparently and I will just have to deal with this slight pain for the rest of my life.

The bad news is that I had a Fibroscan today and scored 19.5. A normal liver function should be 7 or below and above 19 (out of 75) is (so I later googled)  liver cirrosis and I have no idea if this means that once you are over that line if you can reverse this or if that's it, there's nothing to be done. I appreciate that as a patient I should know about the result, the thing is that I had no-one avaliable to provide explanation and analysis or as they say 'the next steps', this being the job of my consultant who will get the results and then I will have to be given an appointment for this, which given the current state of the  NHS could be months. It is also true because of my abceses that the result can be wrong to some extent.

 So the end result is a feverish use of google- yes google-! to try and understand this, rather than wait however long it takes to get an appointment. Am I wrong or foolish in doing so? Perhaps. The NHS would say yes, because you can't trust everything on the net,  but at the end of the day it is my life and therefore my concern to want to know what will happen to me in terms of health and life expectancy. Having said that much of the google stuff is couched in the language of medicine. Just like religions have their languages, rather than vanacular, medical language is as complex and the stuff you are trying to find out about. So maybe reading google is not the best thing to do. 

In any case I have a life to live and that's what I'm going to do.

Iguitr qui desiderat pacem, para bellum

Hi All,

So the coup in Russia failed. Or did it? I've been told by Putin bots that apparently being able to seize a quarter of Russia's military assets and then march half way to Moscow unopposed was actually Putin's genius and one of his "4 dimensional chess player moves". The theory goes that Putin and Wagner Group actually staged this coup attempt in order to weed out potential threats to Putin to see who did or didn't not come out in support. The problem with this opinion is that secure dictators don't flee in an aeroplane with the transponder switched off. Nor would any one with a sound mind allow for their own air pilots to be killed by Wanger, given that the Russians are already suffering from a manpower shortage in capable pilots or for that matter show how exposed Russia is if they were ever in a situation in which the Ukrainians pushed Russia across the border.

In any event it seems that this had been building for months and this also puts the lid on another conspiracy theory ; It was the CIA. In actual reality, it is doubtful that any western intelligence service would want to put Prigozhin into the Kremlin as a puppet ruler, given that he and his acolytes were complaining not about the war itself, but the failures of it and therefore wanting to 'win' instead. In fact compared to many Russian nationalists Putin is something of a 'moderate', given that there are those out there who are advocating nuclear strikes and radioactive tidal waves against Britain. As to why these nationalists focus on Britain, rather than Amerika or NATO in general? Well that is because America is by far a stronger power, but Britain - whatever Americans like to say about it- is actually the most vocal supporter of weapons supply to Ukraine and per capita is giving a lot to this war effort- is seen as something that Russia could easily defeat in the equivalent of a Musk- Zuckerberg 'cage fight'. It would be one thing to nuke New York, but another to nuke Southend on Sea. Or at least from the Russian nationalist perspective.

In fact this may seem light laughable hyperbole, but Russia does see us as a threat. No-one in Parliament was given a chance to vote on this, as we did with Iraq. The liberal newspaper The Guardian and the other centre- left papers are this time in full support of Ukraine, unlike Iraq. This to my mind is due to the fact Putin is a good hate figure over LBGTQWERTY Plus 'activists'. The right see it differently in geo-strategic terms and the alt right don't want to get involved at all. What all this means is the equivalent of the nonsense of the clapping for the NHS during pandemic, an utterly un-British display of sentiment when what was needed was practical help, not virtue signalling rubbish. In any event the British public are not prepared on the consequences of an undeclared war against Russia and while it is a good virtue signal, putting up a Ukraine flag in civic and private buildings is a clear sign of taking sides, but people seem to think of war as being like the one against ISIS. In that campaign a handful of RAF warplanes were dropping bombs, rather than the trench warfare that is going on right now in Ukraine. Both wars in the same sense of buying a chocolate bar and a BMW can be classed as shopping.

If we did cross the threshold into full war, when that happens, it will not be like the first gulf war, but like world war 1trench at best, but at worse it would be a limited or near total nuclear confrontation. Even in a limited nuclear attack- say the Russians destroyed Gloucester or Northampton- using Hiroshima level nukes, which would be considered in today's terms 'tactical' and not 'strategic' nukes as 20 kiloton weapons have been replaced by megaton range weapons, then that would be enough to bring the NHS to its knees, among other things. In respect of the trench warfare scenario, you may think we have all the smart and stealth weapons to hand, but Russia does attrition well. The sheer expense of this weapons and the lead time (that is the time it takes to replace stocks) means that even America, let alone Britain or Germany, would quickly run out of them.

If you don't believe me, just look at the quick depletion of weapons that France and Britain experienced during the limited warfare of the Libyan civil war or why British soldiers in Afghanistan were dubbed 'the borrowers' by their American counterparts. Warfare today is built on the premise (similar to that before WW1) that things will be over by Christmas and that high tech 'force multipliers' will win the day. America spends $600 million per F35, but produces far less than other, cheaper aircraft, which in the hands of trained pilots can do a lot of damage. Israel against the Soviets in the war of attrition springs to mind, where MIGs were downed by Israelis flying French Mirages. The Royal Navy has far less submarines than previously because of the belief that a single sub can somehow not get overwhelmed by dozens of older and cheaper Russian or Chinese versions.

Look at world war 2, when it was Germany who had a better staffed (Stalin had purged his army corps and replaced them with political cronies), better fed, better trained and technologically advanced army. But the Russians simply had more men and were able to mass produce cheaper tanks which prevailed on the battlefield. I could well imagine a scenario in which the modern weapons are used up or are simply overwhelmed by the amount of enemy forces and because of the times it takes to replace them, armies revert back to trench warfare. Russia is prepared for this, given that their ideal war model is one of attrition and this is why Ukraine is having problems in its much vaunted counter offensive.

Russia is heavily dug in with minefields and trenches, it may be ordering dishwashers to get modern chips (imported via Kazakhstan) for its military, but it also has plenty of cold war tanks that don't rely on modern tech. Thus attritional warfare in which it matters you have quantity and not quality may well swing things in Russia's favour, unless the west begins conscription. 'The Draft' as American's would say, would not be popular if NATO were enter the Ukraine war today. It is one thing to virtue signal and another to be willing to die for someone else's country that is not an ally or historically an ally . Unless a European country or even Britain was attacked directly (if God forbid Gloucester or Northampton were nuked) then there would be no rush of men willing to enlist.

But I digress. The thing is we didn't have a discussion on this and that is important because now we are fully committed to this war, which is a proxy fight between NATO and Russia. Now we can see why Poland, the Baltics and east Europe support Ukraine (except for when it comes to grain supplies!) as these countries have for the past 300 years come under Russia's 'near abroad'. From the Russian perspective this desire to dominate central Europe is nothing to do with imperialistic ambitions, but as a self defence mechanism. The gateway to Russia's main population and industry is steppe and easily attacked from the west. So given that Russia has been attacked from the west multiple time and the last time this happened 25 million Russians died, you can see why from a 'nationalist' perspective they'd want to control as much of the gateways as possible.

I am not excusing this imperialism, but explaining it, for it is true that NATO is a defensive alliance and not an offensive one, to the extent in the Baltic states, there is no 'BAOR' (British Army of the Rhine) as there was in the cold war Berlin/Germany. There is only token force in the Baltics for the very sane reason that NATO doesn't want to provoke Russia with a garrison border, but the result is this tiny NATO force wouldn't hold out for long in a NATO-Russian war.

And yes it is true that a full blooded Russian Nationalist would go further and say if Russia could, then the entire Eurasian landmass should be under Russia's control.. This was tried in the 19th century and was ultimately checked by 1) the creation of a unified and strong German Reich. 2) The British Indian Empire in what was called 'the great game' and 3) The Japanese in China, culminating in Russia's humiliation in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904/5.That Russia under the Soviets had India as an ally was challenged by the Chinese claims to Russian territory and if I were a Russian strategist I would be more concerned with China's imperial ambitions. The Chinese did not have the will or power to do so for the past 100 years, but today they do (which in true fashion the Chinese think of it as retaking stolen or rebel territory that really belongs to the PRC).

It is not that I am a Putin bot, but full disclosure I have Russia Jewish relatives ( albeit via Essex and France, called 'Refuseniks', whose grandparents were put into Siberian Gulags) by marriage and it is not true that every Russian is a warmonger oligarch. In fact for the ordinary Russian, they are trying to live just like anywhere else, but are fed the propaganda (as Russia has no free press) that everyone in the west wants to nuke and attack Russia, given half a chance and yes they are told that Ukraine is run by Nazis propped up by the equally fascist NATO who will do to Russia what the Nazis did in 1941.

To conclude I am not writing against Ukrainian aid or welcoming refugees. Or for that matter direct intervention. What I am trying to convey is that the British public is being led into a war that we are not prepared for and we are not having this fully explained or disclosed to us as to why it may or may not be in the national interest to do so. That Britain was woefully unprepared for Afghanistan and Iraq was bad enough, but all the Treasury does is cut the military and yet at the same time this military is supposed to act in the same fashion at its Imperial height of 1900. These two things are criminal and when we do go to war we will be found wanting and on our knees. The politicians and the civil servants who decided all of this will be long retired and making a fortune on the lecture circuit and newspaper columns.

Composer Mercenary Groups

 Hi All,

To coup or not to coup? One of my Russian relatives in her typical Russian humour complained that if they were going to have a regime change led by a Chef and a Mercenary Group, they could at least have the decency to have chosen a Russian, rather than German composer. In fact given that Russian propaganda complains about Ukraine being run by Nazis, it is somewhat strange that their chief PMC is called 'Wagner Group', given the Nazis love of said composer. Why, she said, couldn't they have opted for a name like the Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff Group. This got me thinking. If we had a similar PMC here in Britain, what would we call it? The Elgar Group maybe? And perhaps rather than a Chef, maybe it would be lead by the Prime Minister's hairdresser? That would be equally as strange and what is going on in Russia right now. 

God save the Queen?

 

Hi All,

Is it just me- yes I’m no clinician – but how can the Democrats allow for this chap to continue to be POTUS ? Surely it is obvious that Biden’s better days are long gone and he really should be retired, given his  clear impaired cognitive abilities?  Surely they must have new and better talent than this living fossil ? Okay that’s classic British understatement, but even in Europe I don’t think they’d keep this guy going.

Shabbat Shalom

Hi All,

Shabbat Shalom!

Open thread as usual.

Conspiracy theories and conspiracy theories

 Hi All, 

The conspiracy theory world is not confined to America and in Britain there is also a counter cultural set of urban legends & people in tin foil hats writing out on Twitter from their wine cellars  as a sole light swings back and  from the ceiling, barely illuminating the room. For example some people say that  Prime Minister Spencer Percival was assassinated not by a lunatic, but by time travelling CIA agents,  as he was going to pull Britain out of the Napoleonic Wars. Prime Minister  Alec Douglas Hume was, by all accounts, the first British leader to have met Martians, who only came to Britian in the ‘60s due to received  Radio transmissions &  had been swept up in ‘Beatlemania’, having been devastated after Elvis went into the army. Another was the Loch Ness Monster or Nessie was the head of a ‘pod’ of intelligent marine Dinosaurs, who lived deep below the waters of the Loch (the ‘Nats’ who had long since abandoned their love of Nessie, who was branded a  Unionist trick, a tool of English domination & oppression, which showed Scotland as ‘backward’ without England).

Today’s 21^st century UK conspiracy theories, like all of these tropes, start with facts and end up being interpreted in a particular way. The first example of this was that of UK rearmament, which over the past 5 years has seen the defence budget go from £50 billion to £350 billion, making the UK the 2^nd largest defence spender after America, which apparently occurred at the same time of mass UFO siting in Slough, Tooting Bec and Woking. Some also point out that this expenditure was paid for by a massive export of gold- 3,600 tons a year- which came from where?- and  involved the Bank of England buying this at market prices in pounds and then swapping it for dollars at America’s Fed, in order to stabilise the exchange rates and inflation.

Connected to this was a further conspiracy theory : 5 years ago Britain’s boffins (well actually some mad scientist in his shed, with a slight German-Yiddish accent) had come up with a working nuclear fusion reactor, by using 1 gram of  Helium 3 & deuterium the energy created was enough to power Milton Keynes for a whole 10 minutes. But in any event the UK, having been forced out of the EU space agency due to Brexit, landed a team on the Shackleton crater of the Moon. Following this the UK set up a base and mining facility and today brings back approximately 1.4 million ounces of Helium 3, in short more than enough for America (plus Europe or China) and given that the UK only needs 27,000 ounces. The conspiracy theory being that the moon base was a fake (even though 30,000 people live there) and that the man in the shed boffin was really a deep state MI6 agent and the real people behind the fusion discovery was… aliens.

The third conspiracy theory of note was that of The Pembroke Islands. This archipelago of 120 islands, population 17,000, is located 1.3 miles of the Scilly Islands and like them can achieve a ‘Mediterranean’ type climate. The conspiracy theory is that ‘google maps’ have ‘blotted’ the islands out of their system. Further wilder conspiracy theories say that the UK government actually has a secret base on one of the islands , where it holds a ‘magic mirror’ of folklore, which can apparently send people to alternative and parallel Earths.

 None of these conspiracy theories could, of course, be true.

The Auction of English history to save Scotland's NHS

 Hi All,

The main impetuous of space exploration was due to the events of 2025. In that year Britain was struck by a series of small asteroids, which while devasting to several towns and cities, was just a harbinger of things to come, for an asteroid twice the size of France (or Texas) was on its way to Earth and the UK would be ‘ground zero’ for this catastrophe.  The British, Americans and Europeans had secretly known about this and had prepared a shield device, which seemed like something out of science fiction. Unfortunately in that year, the POTUS, recently elected on an American first ticket and having already pulled America out of NATO, decided that the shielding would be used for America and America alone. The Europeans in a huff, also declared that they would develop their own shielding technology, quickly followed by Russia and China who had been canny enough to spy on the Americans and reverse engineer the technology. This didn’t stop remainers from trying to re-join the EU, which the French firmly said ‘non’.

Juliet against the Patriarchy

 Hi All,

It is the mid 21^st Century and humanity has reached the stars, exploring and meeting new civilisations. While Earth managed to get there by her own merit (merit being a dirty word in some circles) , the revolution in industry, medicine and transportation, was helped by the initial trade deals of first contact. For every do-gooding civilisation that refused to export advanced technology to humans, there were plenty who were willing to trade tech (in reality it was akin to humans giving away the technology of antiquity). In return for this technology, the aliens ransacked places like the British Museum, the Hermitage, the Louvre and New York’s art galleries. It wasn’t just the west who permitted this, as the ‘Benin Bronzes’, returned to West Africa as part of the West's ‘de-colonisation’ and' anti-imperialism',  were immediately  flogged off by that country to Roswell Greys from Zeta Ritculi, in return for a Warp Drive.

Nice weather, naughty NHS

 Hi All,

Well we are currently enjoying the sunshine and am reading 'the daily star'. Why, you might ask am I reading this paper, when I could read a broadsheet. Well it is simply because I find that the broadsheets of the left and right have increasingly become 'hacks' in the worse possible sense. For example if one reads one of the 2 left of centre papers, which at least used to be 'intelligent' all you read nowadays is intersectional arguments and constant moaning about Brexit ,Trump and Brexit. It is as if they have gone beyond a self -parody or satire of themselves. The same is true of the right of centre papers. So why not read about aliens, women being better at BBQ's and things about AI. Plus they have much better headlines. 

In any case I need to relax as my ongoing recovery is being frustrated. I think I've been to the hospital or GP at least 1 day of the week for the past couple of months. One thing to note is that if you can get appointments, it is good if you don't work, because if you do it's a nightmare to organise. The latest thing is the bioposy result (I also have issues with high blood pressure, which we dealt with last week finally, although calling up the pharmacy today, I have to wait until 4 for my diabeties and blood thinners). 

Now that biposy was one of the most painful thing I've undergone in my life, I could feel the blood/marrow being sucked out and the 4 times attempt (by 2 consultants) to get the bone out meant something that is supposed to take 10 minutes, took an hour.  But waiting for the results, which haven't come has meant no less than 3 cancelled appointments. Today they tried to get me to go on monday, but after checking they didn't have the results, so there is no point in going. The latest cancelled appointment was because of the doctor's strike. Why book me in if that's the case? Plus I tried to get another thursday appointment, no the consultant doesn't do clinics on that day. So why did I origionally have a Thursday appointment? Don't ask. 

Anyways enough about me. Hope you are all okay.

Shabbat Shalom!

Periodic Table

 Hi All,

Do you know the periodic table? If not then this song will help. If yes then enjoy the song!