Steak!

I love a good steak. Which is great because steak restaurants are big in London right now. All sorts of ‘Gaucho’ type restaurants are in vogue, some where they give you a large chunk of hot stone upon which you can literally cook your own piece of beef to your idea of perfection and others where they serve a particular cut, medium rare, or should that be medium raw.

Notwithstanding, the customer service I have experienced in all of these has been little short of excellent. The quality of beef though, perhaps not as great as I’d hoped. Living in Canada as I do, the quality of steak cuisine is very good, from the on-a-budget version at a Denny’s roadside eatery to more upmarket fare, I have rarely been disappointed but for one thing, there is a cut of beef that knocks every other for six no matter how barely it is cooked. It is not often served on our side of the pond and unlike cuts I have now come to regard as inferior, can be had at a lower price. Possibly because your average Canadian consumer has yet to recognise true quality of this ‘butchers cut’. They’ll happily sink their teeth into the much chewier Rib-eye, but offer them the piece of flesh I refer to and like as not they’ll turn their noses up at it.

The piece of meat I refer to is called a ‘Flat iron’ steak and I have yet to eat its peer from any breed of cattle. Cut from the inside of the shoulder blade on a forequarter, this particular bit of muscle has an entirely different texture and flavour to any other. Firstly, texture. A flat iron steak has an almost buttery feel in the mouth, it almost melts, even when almost tartare. The grain of the meat runs longditudinally from end to end, not cross grained as with most other cuts. Properly butchered there will be no tough membranous tissue which sometimes mars the wonderful saliva inducing mellowness of this cut. Next, flavour. Mass market beef can be a bit of a flavour desert, not so the flat iron. It has a more pronounced beefiness combined with it’s splendid texture, a taste that might have you wondering why the hell you’d want to eat any other part of a steer.

The best news of all is that there is a chain of restaurants in London which specialise in this cut, serving it a little too rare for my liking, but the butchery was good and despite the redness of the meat, slipped down a treat. Did I also mention that they’re also not as expensive as most of the ‘Gaucho’ style steak houses? A full flat iron steak will feed two hungry meat lovers, even if I would have liked a little larger portion (and hotter) of their Horseradish sauce. Their creamed spinach too is enough to restore a badly Bluto battered Popeye and put a twinkle in his eye that his paramour, Olive Oyle, could not mistake.

Now I don’t do shout outs like this often, if at all, but if you want to get away from the fancy stuff masquerading as food whilst in the UK’s capital, you could do worse than visit one of the nine (At the time of writing) “Flat Iron” franchises dotted around town. First come first served. Expect to queue. Don’t forget your dessert. (Oh, the calories, the calories!)

Unless of course you have the misfortune to be a vegetarian, or worse still, vegan. Then I am afraid there is no hope for you. You poor thing.

BTW: No one really ‘hates’ vegans, vegetarians or other diet obsessives as claimed in the Grauniad.  The rest of us find the endless proselytising somewhat tiresome, even annoying, but no-one really hates them.  For example, one of my stepdaughters is a ‘fish vegetarian’ (Won’t eat meat but will eat eggs and fish).  Which I find curious but hardly a Casus belli.  To truly hate someone over their chosen diet would be to say that the matter was worth taking seriously.  Chacun a son gout.

Another day out

Good old rainy London. Gave my new raincoat a thorough testing today. Wandered around Covent Garden and environs sampling pleasures and tastes while dodging the drizzle tainted crowds. Mrs S directed our steps into a couple of expensive venues I would normally never go anywhere near. For example one of the top rated patisseries in London.

Well colour me impressed. The coffee was excellent. Heavy on the Italian influence rather than the bitter American. Quiche that was divine, and as for the Sachertorte, that was light and melted in the mouth rather than leave you feeling like you are chewing stodge, as happens with so many mass produced versions. Exquisite. I’d had an indifferent pint of IPA earlier, so perhaps I was ready for some quality.

We’ve had a deal of discussions with family and friends of late where the discussion has centred around quality stuff and why it’s worth the price. Reason one; longevity. A really good pair of boots will last ten times as long as a much cheaper pair. Why a good quality suit is a good investment (Buy two, with extras if you can – looking smart is never a bad idea) Nice cotton shirts feel better and last longer. M & S basics more comfortable than the cheap stuff from Primark. A little more spent on the basics means you can go cheap on the accessories.

Anyway, I’m standing outside one store on the Kings Road and an expensive car snorted past. Then another and another. People were walking past me in expensive clothes and a thought hit me. Rather a large thought about the economics of everyday life. It made perfect sense and for a few seconds all the dots lined up, I saw the entirety of human economic activity in action and why free markets really do work.

Every single one of us is connected by a massive web of transactions, be those social, emotional or financial. From the single jet of a fountain to the massive money machine that is the City of London, which in turn is connected to all the other major centres all over the world.

Let me enlarge. The single fountain jet provides social value because as humans we like to look at flowing water, it calms and stimulates us, therefore it has worth. However the fountain jet needs water and power to create that worth. These are not free, the power to drive the water has value, as has the water itself, it needs to be sourced, transported through a network of pipes with a lot of other water. The pipes through which the water flows need to be manufactured, channels dug through the ground for them, the complex net of pumps and storage to maintain an even pressure. All of these need human effort and intervention.

Then there’s the electricity that powers these networks created by investment in power plants made out of millions of complex components from heat exchangers and steam handling technology to the massive transformers and circuit breakers which manage the power output (For the sake of brevity I’m excluding ‘renewables’ here, just talking about base load generation). All of which has to be funded and made by finance. Money must be made, credit obtained to pay for the intricate web of costs that underlie even the simplest nut and bolt. Part of what I do as an investor is loan money to larger companies so that they may pay for new machinery to build and maintain those power plants and networks of water pipes. Which kind of brings me round in a circle to the pleasing spectacle of the fountain jet.

Therefore I posit that anything in motion consumes and creates energy and energy is a function of life. Likewise the market of life is in constant motion. Each of us, is whether we like it or not, is interconnected through diverse voluntary transactions to everything else in this world. Thousands of times a day. Every time we step out of the door. Every leaf swept, every drop of rain cleared, everything man made has multiple costs from the parts of a leaf blower and the parts needed to make the machines which make parts for leaf blowers. The credit and finance to pay that cost has to be raised by financial institutions which are the money machine we are all part of, from the beggar hunkered down outside the supermarket to the flash git in his Maserati posing down the street. Sometimes the chains are not obvious, but they are there nonetheless.

Isn’t this a fascinating world we live in?

Update: Tearful phone conversation with Eldest who dwells in the fabled land of Oz. Long term boyfriend just walked out on her, the idiot. That is all.

Getting kitted

Mrs S got me into a store yesterday. I’ve been half heartedly looking for a new raincoat, but some of the prices for what I wanted were somewhat eye-watering. Almost seventeen hundred dollars for a classic Aquascutum? Wowch. So I’d been dodging the issue.

So when she saw the Barbour store on Regents street I was hustled in and forced to act as tailors dummy. They did have a cattlemans full length coat I was a little tempted by, but we decided to postpone a decision for after lunch as they only had it in one rather unpleasant colour. Yes we could have bought online, but that’s not the same experience. So we asked the assistant to put it by and promised to return after a Moroccan style lunch.

The capital streets currently seem calm and busy with tourists, mostly from Europe and South America, at least on the Tube. Piccadilly and environs were their usual self, with little of the outrage and shenanighans we’d been led to expect. As I said to Youngest’s friends over dinner last night, I thought the old place was better than I remembered it from the late 90’s. People politer, air much cleaner but just as rainy. Hence the need for much improved outdoor wear.

After lunch it was back to the store with Youngest as fashion adviser who took one look at proposed purchase and firmly shook her head. “It’s too much” was her judgement. So we cast around for something a little more reasonable and ended up with a slightly more expensive, but equally robust item. Oh, and a heavy felt Trilby. I like hats like Trilby’s or Akubra’s, they give the face a certain framing and keep most of the inclement weather out of your eyes. Also when you’re like me and hairdressers start to charge search fees, they are a comfort. Not to mention having a certain cachet, marking one out as either a gentleman or arrant rascal. Depending upon how it is worn.

Barbour have long held a reputation for being like armour plate. A man’s jacket, for example, takes quite a long time to wear in properly and get that traditional battered look they were famous for, so much so that one impatient fashion victim reputedly got a friend to wrap his brand new Barbour around a Land Rover’s bull bars for a few days heavy off-roading. After which time the garment had gained a little ‘patina’ and the look of a real outdoorsman’s garment (Looking like it had been dragged through blackthorn hedges for years and used as a bed for two incontinent Lurchers and several litters of kittens). Thus adding to the owners street, or should I say field-credibility.

Anyway, the Brexit clock is still ticking because although an extension was requested as required by the Benn act, the EU has yet (At the time of writing) to approve. I think the public mood has been over stimulated with project fear and that the only thing that will mar the air on the day the UK finally leaves is an huge sigh of “About bloody time too.”

Where there is tea

There’s an old World War two slogan that came to my attention yesterday. “Where there is tea there is hope.” attributed to English dramatist Arthur Wing Pinero from his play (Book?) ‘Sweet Lavender – a comedy in three acts’. Saw it first in the Churchill War Rooms, now it seems to be popping up everywhere. On souvenir mugs and teapots, on tee-shirts, fridge magnets, even in sermons. Like a modern interweb meme it seems to materialise in the most unexpected places. See below.

These are frustrating times. People do not do what they are asked and seem incapable of passing on messages correctly, or even performing simple tasks. This is something I often find, when tempted to hurl my laptop across our hotel room because for example the account I’ve been given to manage data has not been set up correctly. Even the most creative solution I’ve been able to come up with won’t work, so I am reduced to reverting to older, more tried and tested methods to get my job done on time. Getting things done has always been an important facet in my life, and to not be that way is incomprehensible. So with Parliament at present. Won’t have an election, won’t deliver on Brexit, in fact will do anything but do the job they were put in place to do.

In these times I always fall back on a morning cuppa to hit my reset button and restore my internal equilibrium before stepping up to meet the challenges of the day and emerge victorious. Well, not always, but I don’t give up without having a damn good go at it. If in a losing fight, it’s always useful to make sure that any aggressor gets the message that one is not to be trifled with lightly. A mug of what I call ‘builders’ tea (English breakfast with milk) always helps. No idea why. Perhaps there’s some obscure biochemical trigger within the blend which calms the emotions whilst stimulating the cognitive faculties? I do not know.

No other hot drink has such a restorative effect. Coffee leaves me buzzed but disorganised and those wishy washy herbal brews are little but flavoured hot water with no readily sensed benefit, yet a traditional English ‘cuppa’ can drag me out from under a metaphorical ton of rubble to fight another day. This is one of those unexplained mysteries of life which can lead to exchanges like;
“Sir, that building collapsed on you. Do You need to go to hospital?”
“No, I’m a bit beat up but I could really do with a cuppa.”

I know I’ve explored this topic before, but can anyone tell me which is the best? Is PG Tips the most efficacious or perhaps Tetley, Yorkshire Tea, or even your basic bog standard brew? Let us plumb the depths of one of life’s great mysteries together.

Time out

Right. Fed up with hearing about the Parliamentary antics and have elected to spend tonight at the theatre after a pleasant steak dinner. An online booking, a skip and a jump on the tube and we’re forgetting all our cares for a couple of hours.

It doesn’t help that all the news, both personal and public, has been unpleasant to say the least. From Elderly Friends dementia to the near-equally eccentric behaviour of the UK Speaker of the House of Commons, I am forced to ask myself, is there an epidemic?

It would explain a lot….

Update: well, we had a jolly fine time at the Garrick watching ‘Noises off!’ with some very polished slapstick routines which had the audience roaring.  Recommended.  We even got free ticket upgrades.

Boris Johnson won his vote on the current Brexit deal by a larger margin than predicted and the comments threads in the FT are more full of pro-EU comment trolls than usual.  Including those praising Barnier as the person who has been tasked with ‘repairing’ the relationship between the UK and EU.  Delusional, much?  Hey he’s 68.  It’s a retirement job.  The likelihood of him ‘achieving’ anything are as remote as the nearest quantum black hole.

Tomorrow I am signed up on a short basic butchery class.  Will try not to remove any of my own bodily particles as part of the learning process.

The only blot on the horizon was seeing Trudeau get re-elected.  Although on the bright side he’s only got a minority government so I hope he won’t be able to do too much more damage to the Canadian economy.

Fingers crossed.

Wandering about

Today we’ve been ambling amiably around the V & A, taking tea surrounded by the sumptuous sculptures of tyrants long gone with the epic line of poetry; “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings, look on my works ye mighty and despair. Nothing beside remains…” echoing around what passes for my cognitive processes. Was going to spend the day in the National Science Museum, but it was full of kids, it being half term. So I elected to wait until next week for that small pleasure.

Otherwise feeling a little gloomy because no matter what we do or say, Elderly Friend, safely in her upmarket Canadian care home, is convinced we aren’t ever coming back to Canada, claiming we have abandoned her. As the days pass we get reports that she’s getting get worse and worse, with ever more of her brain shutting down on the gradual journey into the long night.

We write postcards every day, we send messages saying; “See you when we get home”, nothing seems to make a difference, Elderly Friends short term memory will not encode new information, no matter how many times she is reminded, or how many messages are glued to her apartment wall. Sometimes we get a small respite, but no doubt our voicemail will be filled with increasingly angry and frustrated messages when we get home. We’ll just have to roll with it as it happens.

It doesn’t help that the people we asked to keep an eye on her just aren’t ready to cope with what we’ve been handling for months. So it’s middle of the night emails disturbing our otherwise blessed repose and Mrs S is showing the strain after only a week. As if they want us to fly all the way back across the Atlantic right now to ride to the rescue. Not gonna happen folks. We’ve earned this break and anyone who wants to sabotage it will find our email firmly switched off. We have done our bit and can do no more.

Nothing beside remains…. Just a case of doing our own thing whilst matters beyond our control progress. Preparations are in place for the worst case scenario, which seems to be approaching with the speed of an express train. All we can do is wait.

Sometimes I catch myself offering up a dark little prayer for her merciful demise. “Please God, give her an easy death. Soon.” The person we loved has already left us and we must steel ourselves for the outpourings we know will come from her relatives when her body shuts down.

At least there’s plenty of London to wander around.

Don’t make them angry – too late

Today was a quiet day after all the shouting and posturing from various groups, including that bunch of treasonous vermin in Parliament. The ones desperate to block BREXIT, that is. Also quiet because the silly people of extinction rebellion are getting the message that their antics will no longer be tolerated with good humour.

I get the sense that both groups have worn out their welcome. The most credible polls say a Tory landslide if Bojo, the deceptively clownish UK Prime Minister can get his deal through. If not, the light blue ticket will make serious inroads into the overall vote. Then may the Lord have mercy on the souls of the betrayers of democracy. Or not. Like so many, I no longer care. For heavens sake have done!

I also get a seeming that Corbyn, when it comes to an election, will lose out massively to Farage, because certain leave constituencies would not vote Tory if you tortured them with horrible spiky implements, but they’d back the light blue ticket or stay home with a vengeance rather than back Labour as currently structured. Farage will gain support because he and his don’t like or trust the Tories, they see him as a threat and, dear children he most certainly is. People overall are sick of the artificial delays, many remain first time voters have openly stated that they will not vote so again. The logical conclusion is that disaffection with the anti-democratic antics of Parliament is a palpable force.

Yes, the banner wielding student activists and public sector boomers were out in force around Parliament on Saturday, but when the rain came down, the noisy blue flag waving party, about 1000-1500 strong (My estimate) at speakers corner went silent. I was actually less than two hundred yards away when it all went suddenly quiet. Then carried on walking with a quiet savage smile on my face as Mrs S and youngest were luring me on with the promise of red wine and decent steak. Which, dear reader, I later consumed with gusto and chimichurri sauce.

Now a different kind of rain is about to fall for all these anti democratic protesters. They are making everyone else angry. As we saw with those commuters and the XR protesters, that anger will flare. They had better hire bodyguards next time they pull that crap. Especially outside of London.

What we’re in the middle of now is effectively a new peasants rebellion, a new Battle for Britain and the UK. If Boris falls, so will all the mainstream parties in a real ballot box romper stomper if the people are betrayed yet again. Never mind your soft soap ‘people’s vote’ which is just another way of trying to hold back the growing tidal wave of disaffection. A solemn promise was made. No ifs, no buts. We Brexiteers knew what we were voting for. Out means out. ‘Deal’ or no.

Me, I’ve already voted in Canada and hope my solitary ballot does some good against the corporatism of the Liberals and Tories. Not to mention the other rob dogs calling themselves the Greens and NDP.

Tomorrow I have work to do before pootling off to visit the Science Museum and later a pleasant evening lecture on something hopefully devoid of anything remotely associated with 21st century politics. Tick tock. Pass me a whiskey love.

Londinium again

Touched down and still a little jet lagged but quite enjoying the environs of Kensington and Chelsea with an afternoon bloggers meetup with Tom Paine of The Last Ditch and Leggy from Underdogs bite upwards. Two gentlemen whose intellects left me a little giddy. Or was that just my jet lag? I don’t know. Very enjoyable afternoons talk.

Liked Tom’s idea about travel books. I reckon he should do a series of them. Such as “Tom Paine’s America” Subtitled; ‘one man and a Ferrari go in search of the real USA’. He could do the same for Europe and Russia, as he has travelled extensively in those regions.

Work however, has me starting with a new accounting package, which means I haven’t quite thrown my laptop across the room in frustration, but the temptation is there. Hell of a time to engage on a steep learning curve, but I hear that one of my organisations other divisions has already refused to use this package as structured, so they’ve given it to me to iron out the data entry bugs. Oh for heavens sake! I’m supposed to be on holiday! Grr.

My sense of frustration has been somewhat alleviated by the entertaining spectacle of several Extinction Rebellion idiots getting a righteous kicking from angry London tube commuters. Good, these XR people need a few hard lessons for giving everyone else a hard time. Especially when the real science is against them.

The problem is that the fashionable science regarding climate change XR derive their panic from is unproven and only derived from incomplete mathematical climate models. I’ve seen several credible sources analyse the IPCC report and associated outpourings and their conclusions are totally different from what the climate modellers and XR claim.

The more empirically correct version of climate science is undecided as to the cause, but does not agree that climatic variation is man made, or even anything to do with carbon dioxide. As I’ve said before, we’ve suffered from all of these prognostications of doom from the climate modellers for over fifty years and not a single one has come true. So I am refusing to curtail my travel simply because some eccentrics have got a bee in their bonnet over matters they palpably do not understand.

Saturday promises to be interesting because I will be around Wastemonster visiting various sights and will give any protesters who attempt to bar my path very short shrift. “Excuse me, thank you -byeee” kind of thing. I’m a tourist. A sights to see, places to go, not interested, TTFN attitude. Might even be fun. Might even see the outcome of the BREXIT vote in real time. Who knows?

Got to dash. Meetings with daughter and a decent curry await.

Final pack

Travel days are coming and I’m packed and even more ready than Mrs S, who is fiddling around with the fine detail before we board the great tin bird which will, providence willing, bring us to not so sunny old Londinium for a long overdue break, even if it is in many respects a working holiday.

Today is larder emptying day, and I’m using up the last fresh ingredients before shutting down the kitchen this evening. Tonights repast will be a revisitation of a Cajun remoulade, ingredients below;

A quarter of a large Red Pepper (Fresh Red cabbage can be substituted if no peppers)
Half a stalk of Celery
One Green (Spring) Onion
A quarter cup of fresh Parsley (Not dried)
Half a cup of full on Mayonnaise
Half a cup of full fat Sour Cream or Creme Fraiche (Creme Fraiche is best)
Two heaped teaspoons of Dijon Mustard
Two heaped teaspoons of Horseradish
A shake or two of Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce
A shake or two of Tabasco
Two heaped teaspoons of Paprika
Four heaped teaspoons of crushed Tomatoes or two medium size tomatoes
A third of a teaspoon of Cayenne pepper.

However, because I’m clearing out the last of the fresh stuff, said recipe has been amended to a very satisfactory simplified green version;

Half a large Red onion
five stalks of Celery
A quarter cup of fresh Parsley (Not dried)
Half a cup of full on Mayonnaise
Half a cup of full fat Sour Cream
Two heaped teaspoons of Dijon Mustard
Two heaped teaspoons of Horseradish
A shake or three of Tabasco
1 home grown green Habanero pepper with seeds removed

Just throw it all in the liquidiser and let rip until you have a smoothish sauce. First taste tests indicate that it’s not so hot in the mouth as it’s predecessor. However, the remoulade is tasty and satisfyingly viscous. Might benefit from a squirt of Lime juice, might not. Tonight I shall be serving some with fried Pork steaks and Broccoli mash with garlic butter as I’ve given up on starchier vegetables. My waistline is thanking me for it.

So, tickets and bookings are paid for. Sterling Banking facilities are set. New cell phone in hand. This time tomorrow we’re off and running.

No doubt the desperate anti-Brexit crowd and doltish Extinction Rebellion people will block our path at some stage, but we’ll cross those mildly awkward bridges when we come to them. If push comes to shove there are plenty of decent pubs within short walking distance of our lodgings.

The Mad Max vote

This election, in fact in tomorrows advance voting I am casting a ballot for my local People’s Party of Canada candidate, Maxime Berniers bunch of outsiders. I would urge my fellow Canadians to do likewise. Yet, I hear you ask, why should you vote for a party loaded with bigots, racists whateverophobes and whatever cheap label being tossed around by their opponents?

I’ll give you my reasons and see if anyone agrees with me or not in a sort of dialogue format.

But first; this could be a defining moment for Canada. A different path, away from the cronyism of the Tories and Liberals. A reasonable vision where people who want to be Canadian are welcome and those just looking for a hand out instead of a hand up aren’t. And Max Bernier and his policies are for the little guy. Both the Tories and Trudeau’s Liberals are often been seen to be in the pockets of multinationals, can’t speak for the Greens or NDP, but their instincts are similar, geared ever more toward ever more state control over the lives on individuals. They want the Godzilla of big government trampling over everything, killing necessary infrastructure projects and the employment they would bring to many. Like the Obama administration tried to do. See this cartoon here. Just change Key XL for Trans Mountain and Obama for the Trudeau Liberals trampling Alberta, the energy hub of Canada.

Yeah Bill, but isn’t that Mickey Barmpot just a fascist with a Quebec accent?

No. I would argue he’s less of a fascist than all the rest because fascism is all about state control and race purity. Max and his fellow travellers want to give the power of the one, the power of the individual back to the individual. That’s less state control and he’s publicly stated that he doesn’t care about skin colour or where you came from, but he does believe in the Canadian charter of rights. You know, freedom of speech, conscience and expression within the law. All that old fashioned stuff my parents and friends fought and sometimes died for. In other words, the PPC are all say and do what you like so long as you don’t physically hurt other people. Is that fascism? Doesn’t sound like it to me. If you think that in any way looks like national socialism, maybe you need to do a bit more reading of books instead of burning them.

Yeah, his policies on immigration, that’s just spreading hate isn’t it?

I hear a lot of things coming out of Max Bernier and none of them even remotely resemble hate. Mild exasperation with an abused system perhaps, but not hate. He said he wants a conversation with Canadians about immigration, but that’s not hating anyone, that’s about being a bit more choosy who we let in. We’ve already got widespread gang crime and murders on the streets by migrants. As a recent immigrant myself, I would be interested in ensuring the safety of the people who already live here, not bringing people in from places where tolerance and freedom aren’t societal norms. Just dumping random people wholesale into what for them is an alien culture also isn’t fair on them and it’s definitely not fair on the locals.

Look Bill, he’s just an anti-gay bigot and white supremacist, that’s a fact.

WTF are you on? No he isn’t. I think he actually cares about individual liberty. No-one, apart from a few knuckledraggers really care about what other people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms. I think Max and friends want free people to prosper and thrive, providing Government lets them. If that means sometimes certain people who lead with their emotional chins get their delicate feelings hurt, well sorry chaps, perhaps you need a thicker skin. As for this lefty shibboleth of calling people ‘white supremacists’ when they are most definitely not, that’s firstly overt racism, and secondly it’s so far wrong it’s on the other side of the reality curve coming back on itself. No-one outside of the political bubble believes that nonsense anyway. There’s just no proof. Apart from the racists who keep on yapping that it’s ‘White supremacy’. That kind of talk is just a cynical cover for asset stripping the productive citizen to buy votes from the not so productive. Just like all the talk of ‘Democratic Socialism’. ‘Taxing the rich’ has a long and inglorious track record of watching the smart money disappear like the Cheshire Cat and the greater burden to fall on the middle and working classes who lack the ability to move jurisdictions.

I hear what you say Bill, so shouldn’t we elect the NDP or Greens instead?

Are you out of your tiny mind? The NDP and Greens want more Government control over you and yours. Do you want your life to be inexpertly ordered by people who need a good run up to be half wits? Seriously?

But-but, Bernier’s like Trump, a denier of climate change, aren’t we all going to burn up in twelve years if we don’t shut down our carbon emissions and stop having children?

Okay, here’s my take on the so-called ‘problem’ of man made climate change; we’ve been told for at least the last fifty years that the Earth is doomed unless we stop living wealthy and responsible lifestyles. In the 70’s it was global cooling, the glaciers were going to march over Africa and everyone would have to move to Tahiti. In the late 80’s the ‘scientists’ told us we were all going to boil and drown by the year 2000. Well I just went out on my deck at lunchtime and the temperature is in single figures, the forest fires haven’t choked the sky orange like in 2018, so I guess all that flammable underbrush the Greenies kick up a stink about leaving in place hasn’t grown back enough yet. Up here in BC we’ve had few forest fires compared with last year and it’s not been that warm a Summer compared with previous years. The jet streams have shifted south, so we’re going to have a lot more cold and windy weather this Winter.

Look at it this way. On a purely practical level ‘Carbon emissions’ (Which are an estimate, BTW) don’t seem to make a spit of difference to the weather. As for major weather events, compared with accounts from the 1890’s and 1930’s this is a comparatively mild climatic phase we’re in at present. I can also tell you from a personal perspective that the air is a lot cleaner, even in the industrial heartlands where I first worked. Even in the mid 1990’s the diesel fumes just south of London’s Tower Bridge often used to give me rotten headaches. When I was there last year, the Thames breezes were little tainted by such pollution. London felt like a different city.

As for not having children. Yeah, go ahead, give yourself a Darwin award. Not passing on your genes to the next generation means there will be no one to pay for your frail dotage apart from immigrants with large extended families, whose taxes may well not be able to afford to keep you in the style to which you wish to become accustomed on a state pension. I won’t be around to see it, but you well might. I’ve seen real poverty, living off the limited largesse of the state and it ain’t pretty. Which is why Mrs S and I have invested and saved, allowing extra for inflation. When we die, our kids will have a significant financial boost to help their children through college. Unless some politician siphons it all off to pay for worthless boondoggles and vote buying. If that vote is worth anything when the globalists have had their way.

So yes. I’m voting PPC this election. The other parties can kiss my cosi fan tutte.

Anyone else?

Has anyone else noticed a singular trend in Western politics? How comedy and entertainment is intruding from the lowest to the highest? No? The ask yourself about the previous professions of certain leaders.

Prime Minister UK. Boris Johnson; Journalist and one time host of “Have I got news for you”
President of the Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelensky. Playwright and Comedian
President of the USA. Donald Trump; ex-host of “The Apprentice” Property magnate and speculator
Co-founder of the Italian anti-EU Five Star movement. Beppe Grillo comedian and activist.
Ex=President of Czechoslovakia. Vaclav Havel. Playwright.

All have been entertainers and all taken centre stage in times of revolutionary turmoil against entrenched establishment political forces. Anyone else notice the trend? All social liberals but fiscal conservatives. Victor Orban of Hungary is to the right this particular spectrum.

Oh and Farage, the outsiders outsider, who Boris Johnson’s cabinet have half seriously threatened to nominate as the UK’s EU Commissioner should Brexit fail. Oh boy, that could be a real barrel of laughs.

No wonder the Eurocrats are refusing to negotiate further. Not to mention the fact that they want what they want and the UK had better play ball or else you horrid little British people. Behind all that bluff and bluster they are scared shitless. When the UK leaves the EU without a deal, like the UN, they will run out of other people’s money faster than a drain. Other countries will follow.

The Benn act can tell Boris Johnson to stand on his head and blow bubbles out of his arse, but in the end it won’t matter. The Speaker may collude with foreign bureaucrats. If Boris can’t get a deal because the Eurocrats won’t budge, that’s that. I hate to be a smug bastard (Well only as bit) but I’ve been saying what other people have for a long time. No deal was always the only deal, because the Parliamentary remain faction don’t understand the Eurocrats for what they are, arrogant little men with all the empathy of a bad tempered scorpion on acid. That arrogance has now bred a form of desperate bravado as almost a seventh of the EU budget is about to go AWOL. Like a bad parent chiding a rebellious grown up son or daughter, all they can threaten is “We’ll cut you off!” when in the end event it is they who will be the losers. Like a child leaving an abusive family to start a new life, Britain’s best option is to walk away.

One note about Boris Johnson. This man has hidden strengths. Anyone who watched the old news parody show ‘Have I got news for you’ when he took over the hot seat will be in no doubt as to how thick his skin can be. Both sides of the fashionably lefty panellists used to rip into him something cruel, yet he maintained an air of self deprecating buffoonery and good nature against the cruellest barbs that could be thrown his way.

I notice these things. I think a few more people do as well.

Who told you that?

Which is an exceedingly good question to put to the anxiety prone hand wavers one comes across from time to time. Who, with any real credibility, is saying that the world is going to burn up in eighteen months and what is their agenda. And who says leaving the EU will lead to everything in the UK grinding to a sad and inevitable halt? ‘Activists’ who are all sound and fury, the idiots who have become their own tales, that’s who.

Mrs S and I were discussing this today on a short drive out to the mall. The consensus between us was that all the “We’re all doomed!” faction are a bunch of ignoramuses who believe all the cultish nonsense they’re fed. I believe that no force on earth can stop a man with a true righteous hunger (a.k.a Deus impeditio esuritori nullus), and hunger is what these milquetoast radicals lack. All they have is the vapid echoes of clickbait media releases funded by rich bastards who feed off the stock exchange instabilities the activists create by blocking streets and wasting everybody’s time. The fact that some of these activisty types have been raided by the Met, who have reportedly taken some pink cushions into custody, indicates that these few nonsense merchants have peaked. Especially after that hilariously mismanaged incident with the decommissioned fire engine (See video below).

They’re not only wrong, they’re completely inept as well.

Notwithstanding the above, we were both getting a touch of cabin fever after almost a week without seeing the outside of our little domicile. We also haven’t had a real holiday since last year and need some different air to stay sane. The rain has been enough to keep me out of the saddle and the speed traps have been out in force over this last week. So, instead of picking up speeding tickets, we got out of the house to do a little peoplewatching and see what the rest of humanity in our little corner of BC was up to. To which the answer was, not a lot. Just the usual.

I’m all packed for London and will be making contact with friends and (gasp!) family while I’m there. It’s absolutely true. Two of my family members are actually deigning to travel down to the smoke to see their cousin and sibling (Me). Good gravy, whatever next? What are they really up to? Normally they wouldn’t even cross the road to piss down my throat if my lungs were on fire. Something is up. As in balloon going. I know my clan, to paraphrase the words of Edward Young “They ne’er take tea without a strategem”. I have a suspicion I’ll need my lawyer on speed dial. Might not be such a bad idea to put a London brief on retainer.

Which only leaves me wondering as follows; will BREXIT really happen on time like Bojo the suspiciously unclownish UK Prime Minister says? Or will the Scottish courts go on obstructing, creating legislation on the fly? BTW; Scottish law is slightly, but markedly, different to English law. Which is something the Blair-created ‘supreme court’ seems to be forgetting. Ho hum, less than two weeks to the nineteenth. Tick tock.

As for here across the pond, I think the Canadian populace knows what it needs to do on the 21st, but whether they will kick the corrupt and hypocritical Trudeau and his Liberals far enough out remains to be seen because Scheer, the Tory leader is so damned wet and cut from a similar cloth. Will the conservatives upend the vote, or will the Greens and PPC make inroads? I see few clues. Locally there are few, if any lawn signs on private properties in our neighbourhood and the political doorknockers haven’t yet wheezed up the steep bit of the hill where we live. although my vote is already promised to the local PPC candidate. Can’t speak for Mrs S, she’s always been her own woman, although I suspect she’ll be voting blue.

Dear Remainers

Hello My dear BREXIT remain campaigners,

Just a little missive from over the pond to say hi and point out a few things. If the UK does not leave the EU on the 31st October 2019 you are all screwed. Not just you, but the Brexiteers as well. In fact the whole population of the dear old UK. As an expat, my funds have very little exposure in Europe at present, but yours. Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. You are so totally fucked. Not because of BREXIT itself, but by the continual uncertainty and delay you have caused.

Why do I say this? Well a few reasons actually, and they’re not hard to see from my moderately lofty viewpoint. If the UK bends the knee to the EU, either as a vassal state or still within that bureaucratic morass, I have seen hints that the next decade won’t be much fun for UK Plc as a whole. In fact you’ll only think it’s fun if you’re really into sadomasochism in a big way. This includes all those small to medium sized businesses struggling to compete in an environment ever more skewed by the EU to favour the big corporates.

Point of order here; you Remainers might think that you are on the side of ‘democracy’. Yet any effective democracy will die if the UK stays within the EU. Because the EU as now structured has about as much democracy as had the old Soviet Union. Don’t take my word for this, the documentation is all on the EU’s web site. All the legislation. All those regulations that will begin to tighten around the UK like a seventeenth century hangman’s noose. One that slowly constricts and strangles whilst the feet of the condemned dance in the air. Slow and painful. The economic punishment beatings of austerity will forever be your lot. See Greece.

You see, all the bad things that will follow a failed Brexit will be for your own good. Also to serve as an example for any other bumptious little country with ideas above its station who dares to even think of leaving the glorious EU empire. Also like Greece, your constitution and a thousand years of law will be torn into tiny little shreds. If you have the ill fortune to find yourself in a court of law, the onus will increasingly be on you to prove your innocence against fairly flimsy evidence. Think that’s easy? I could cite the examples of the UK Family courts where most fathers are considered guilty upon the most paper thin allegations. Like the so-called Canadian court of human rights where evidence for the defence can be (and often is) dismissed at whim. You’re there so you’ve got to have done something? Right? Think Twitter hate mobs are bad? These will be worse. Not only that but not falling foul of the rising flood of legislation will be an increasingly more difficult task. You will have lost even the pretext of innocence before the law. The process will go like so; allegation, automatic charging, show trial, conviction, sentence. Defence? Oh dear me no.

By the way, did you know that although the EU does not officially have a death penalty, there is a law on their statute books that allows for one to be imposed should you ‘insult’ the European Union? Go look. It was there when I last checked. So wrongthink might take UK citizens to whatever execution device the Eurocrats deem fit. Be that a bullet in the head or the horror of the Fallbiel. Even if at first it is only those filthy Brexiteers who literally get it in the neck. Don’t think that these self-serving Eurocrat bastards won’t consider mass murder to keep themselves in positions of power and privilege.

My brother in law, a staunchly typical remainer, has indicated that he would be more than happy to fill mass graves just for the ‘privilege’ of remaining within the European Union. So don’t say that it’s all paranoia. Remainers have left those on the pro leave side of the fence with no illusions on associated matters and what they’ll do, given half a chance. So give the pseudo moral outrage a rest. You’re only fooling yourselves.

Add to that, in case of civil unrest I hear that there are plans to deploy non-UK Police personnel and non-UK military personnel on UK territory. Think I’m talking from an orifice not normally used for that purpose? Go look it up. All within the EU’s web pages. The EU Army we were told was an febrile illusion invented by a deluded pro BREXIT faction? That’s there too. Ever closer union? Now we learn that was always the way this was going. The Eurocrats have been working toward that goal since day one. A new German empire with it’s own patrician class that you won’t be able to get rid off.

Free person or modern day serf. Ask yourself this; do you really want to be at someone else’s unfettered beck and call all your life? The EU will make you all slaves to a self-selecting elite. Think it’s bad now?

Oh and the European Central Bank is in serious financial trouble. The printing presses are rolling and ECB interest rates are sub zero. If you haven’t pulled your funds out, do so now. As a small investor I took this step a couple of years ago.

Now there is, however, one bright spot in all the imagined gloom that the remainer pundits endlessly (and tediously) predict. If a ‘no-deal’ Brexit does go through on the 31st October, at least you won’t have to hear another EU Parliament speech from Nigel Farage ever again.

See you in mid-October,

Stay safe.

Bill

P.S. I may be outside Canada when our Federal elections happen, but there’s a thing over here called ‘advance voting’ so Mrs S and I can get our anti-Trudeau ballots in the box before we board our plane.