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.