Swings and roundabouts…

Slight panic attack this Sunday morning. I got a message from our French accommodation saying that due to personal circumstances they were cancelling our booking for next week. Which led to a ten minute fit of the vapours on my part.

Getting anything cancelled, for whatever reason, always comes as a bit of a shock to the system. Especially at this late stage of proceedings. So I began the hunt for a replacement venue, remembering that it had taken two weeks to select the one that had just disappeared on us.

Could be worse I suppose, we could have turned up to find the place locked up shuttered and bolted, or a spider haunted wreck not fit to house impecunious rodents of a religious persuasion (Had that once before). However, I plunged on, while Mrs S made a couple of calls to people we know. An hour later she popped her nose around the door and told me she’d secured a nicer bolt hole north of Rennes for free. Buckshee, gratis. Which was a nice surprise. So I’m now hunting for refunds on our original booking.

In the meantime we’ve been enjoying the comfort of an open fire along with the odd glass of wine. Which has been nice, given that it’s been fairly wet and windy outside. Nothing like a real fire when it’s miserable outside. Bugger the farcical anti-science of a ‘carbon footprint’.

If you think I’m wrong, go search the scientific literature – take migraine medication with you. The inconveniently real science (hard data) says CO2 is a symptom more than a cause of temperature rises, and human ’emissions’ have no direct effect on weather, or the effect is too small to measure. The ‘models’ claim otherwise. but they’re models, not real.

On the domestic front I feel I’ve been letting the side down recently because the specialist pump I’ve been scouring the interwebs for is rarer than rocking horse droppings in mainland Europe, and getting stuff from the UK (Where the spares still exist) is a nightmare at the moment. Mainly because the EU are still pissed off with you uppity Brits for daring to even consider leaving their bureaucratic tax and regulation trap.

However, the right part has finally been ordered today, even if the price is a third as much on top of the usual unit and shipping costs just to enter the EU (Even though her car is of EU origin – irony alert). Despite this, things are getting done, even if it does feel like I’m pulling my own teeth sometimes.

Mind you, talking of life in the old country, it’s no longer ‘free’ isn’t it? Not that it ever was, but at least you used to be able to discuss what you wanted to without government interference. Now video sharing platform Rumble.com may be about to get blocked in the UK because it told a minister of the crown a polite but firm ‘No’. Will the UK be able to do the same with Musk’s ‘X’, the platform formerly known as Twitter? Or even demand access to service providers VPN logs.

Now that would mean all your secure traffic would be open to scrutiny. All your private financial transactions. Open to being being hacked by some foreign power. Think of it. All of your business. Everything subject to a quick tax grab when government have pissed all your tax money up the wall on ‘woke’ bullshit and vanity projects like HS2. Or given it to the waves of illegal migrants.

The overt reasoning behind this is to shut down high profile critics like Russell Brand, who has (had) a six million plus audience on YouTube. Rather like they shut down Alex Jones and others in the USA. Methinks old Brandy Wandy was getting close to the truthy woothy and sharing it with his audience.

Then there’s the UK’s “Online safety bill”, more rationally referred to as the Online Fascism bill which enables effective bills of attainder. Such as the abolition of fair trial, cornerstone of property rights and the rule of law. Say if a politician or their influencers and sponsors don’t like your opinion, they can shut you down. In more ways than one. This must not be. The economy won’t stand it.

However, despite the gloom, my money is on the law of unintended consequences screwing with the ‘online hate bill’ which does nothing to protect children, and will probably be used to shut down whistleblowers or anyone trying to draw attention to serious issues. Like grooming gangs, challenging fake science or highlighting the many harms done by pandemic measures. Because that is it’s real purpose. To protect the decision makers from the consequences of their mistakes.

I predict a massive ‘fail’ for this kind of law because it will be blatantly abused by those already with privilege. Laws of this nature always are.

Anyway, I’m off for an enjoyable week or two of Gallic respite. Catch you all on the flip side.

TTFN

Does anyone else feel overwhelmed by the conflicting sources of information out there, from the misinformation peddled by the US and other Western administrations? COVID and the excess death count due to vaccines and lockdowns, the ludicrous arguments dragged out to support ‘global boiling’ and minority organisations going after certain people and blackmailing their memberships into ‘cancelling’ them.

Neil Oliver had the right idea. “Are my views incompatible? Okay, I quit.” Any organisation that ‘cancels’ anyone has limited facility in their membership anyway, and if you can’t freely speak your mind on a topic, it’s time to walk away. Because if you can’t have an open and honest conversation, there’s no point in playing the game. Also, maybe it’s not your ‘views’ that are the real problem?

Also; you know all those Ukrainian refugees we were encouraged to welcome? Looks like they’re going to be sold down the river to feed the Ukrainian war machine, with repatriation in the works for all military age males, even from neutral Ireland. Money has been offered with few takers, but as the Ukrainian regime runs out of fighting age men to throw into a modern version of the Somme or Verdun, mandatory repatriation has been mooted. So it may well be TTFN and off to the meat grinder for you, sonny Oleg.

However, repatriation for Ukrainian refugees isn’t likely to happen if how repatriations for other groups is any guide. Might happen in more hardline states like Poland or Estonia, but countries like Britain or Ireland where deporting actual criminals is no easy task? Dog in the euro-manger Hungary have stated they won’t be sending refugees back into a war zone to feed the US administrations proxy war against Russia. (And the warmongers call Orban a ‘fascist’? – do they not understand irony?) Germany and a few others are backing away from mandatory repatriation of fighting age men. Still ‘standing with Ukraine’? How hollow that virtue signaling now sounds.

Ask yourselves these questions. 1) Who seceded over poor treatment by a particular party after they took power? 2) Who began shelling civilian targets for over eight years for their daring to vote to secede? 3) If this is a ‘war for democracy’, then how come a democratic vote was answered by military force? Answer honestly. Look it up if need be. 4) Who are the real bad guys here? Specifically? Don’t make excuses for them, no matter who they are.

On the home front, at present it feels Like I can’t catch a break. The weather has been so poor there’s no honey at all this year. Mrs S’s car needs a rare and hard to find power steering pump, and I think I’m in the dog house, even though it’s not really my fault.

The rain is back with a vengeance and I’m waiting for contractors to turn up yet again. So while I’m waiting I’ll sort out the underground cable to the sheds and get those securely wired ready for when they’re water tight and drying out. Externally there’s no point in railing against the machine, all I can do is tell it to sod off and mind it’s own damn business, because perhaps it’s a club I don’t want to belong to.

Weimar, a lesson from History

Regarding ‘hate speech’ laws currently being pushed through various legislatures, this is not the first time such legislation has been tried and failed. Anyone remember Weimar era Germany? The Weimar Republic maintained a number of criminal provisions for ‘hate crimes’. Authorities censored advocacy of violence and criticism of the government.

Along with certain enabling acts, these laws allowed a minority party to take power, then use those laws to overturn the state. We are rapidly approaching this position in the ‘civilised’ West. And the ‘enemy’ is not who the mainstream media and authority tell us it should be.

Read this series of essays on the topic.

In the words of Sam Clemens “History may not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme”

That being the case, I have work to do, Resources to squirrel away and some extra insulation to put in. There are sheds to waterproof and a little security work to finish before we take our break in France.

Going wholesale

Lots of things happening and so little time left to blog. Although ‘pooter problems have rather put a crimp in that activity. By way of illustration, one of my machines has been resurrected so many times it’s got a season ticket.

However, for the first time in a couple of weeks I’ve had time to sit back and recount the deeds of the day. The first of which was the arrival of a brand new chest freezer last week, which now lives in our refurbished boiler house, which has been sealed, patched, de-infested, painted and a brand new security lock on the door. I’ve also reinforced the frame, so anyone trying to kick that one in, like they did to one of my neighbours a while back, will only end up with a very poorly ankle.

Then said freezer has had to be filled with enough grub to keep us going through the Winter. The idea being that this will cut down on journeys to the supermarket as we now have enough freezer storage to rival a small village shop. So we will be shopping at the wholesalers once a month rather than a supermarket. Overall this will mean at least two layers of savings. The first being on short hops out twice a week as a saving on gas (Petrol / Diesel), the second buying at wholesale prices rather than retail. Then there’s the time I won’t spend standing in checkout queues. Which is all good. Also when I’m ready to crop in the greenhouse or from the Veg patch it all gets frozen and stored. That being the case our new kit should pay for itself in less than a year.

The weather here in the wilder west is still a bit Autumnal, like it has been from June through to the end of August. We were promised twenty Celsius today, but I don’t see it getting much past eighteen. Was hoping to give our lawns a light cut, but they’re still too damp for our little electric mower. Maybe Sunday afternoon. Or Monday. Met Eirann has promised us a dry spell, but I’m not holding my breath.

As for the rest of the property, the only real success on the growing front has been with weeds. So a bit of hoeing has been par for the course, for which my back is now punishing me. However, I’ve hit the brambles hard enough to keep them under control, so that’s okay. I have my Shiatsu Massage pad deployed, which helps.

Haven’t been paying much attention to the news of late, apart from having a mild chortle at the failure of these ULEZ schemes at the hands of a bunch of guys calling themselves ‘blade runners’. Then there’s Trump’s continual political persecution on specious grounds. The continuing failure of Ukraine against the Russki’s. Oh, and a little thing called the Digital Services Act, a piece of EU legislation which is an attempt to shut down ‘disiformation’, but as the chief purveyor of such appears to be from voices of authority like western governments, then that might lead to some very interesting cases.

Because what goes around always comes around.