Things I never knew

Blustery weather means my bee colonies still aren’t ready until this weekend. The builders are still doing their thing and we won’t have liveable conditions at our new house until the end of June. So I’m just pootling around with odd jobs, and whilst doing that browsing around the interwebs just for the shits and giggles. It’s a real education out there, I can tell you, or I’d rather not.

You know, those revelations just pile up don’t they? All these things I never knew, like:

Only ‘far right fascists’ or the ‘alt-right’ believe in freedom of speech. Sensible debating of a topic is ‘hate’ and all the perpetrators should be shouted down, their channels of communication cancelled and their fire alarms set off so no-one can have a reasonable conversation. Who knew, eh?

The Union flag of the UK is a symbol of all that is wrong in the world (especially if you’re an overpaid dickhead like Gary Lineker). All Brits (Especially Expats) are bad, bad, naughty people who should be taken behind the bike sheds for a damned good spanking on their bare bottoms. Three times a week and twice on Fridays Oooh Matron!

What about those awful northern European types? Apparently they’re the only category of people who can be insulted with impunity for being their own ethnicity. They’re all members of the American Democrat Klu Klux Klan or similar and must go on ‘anti-racism’ courses to cure them of something many never did in the first place. Like keeping African descended people as slaves apparently. Even though we’re all supposedly from that continent some hundreds of thousands of years ago. Guilty as charged. Take all their money and send them down to the cells.

If you don’t have a University degree on a topic, you can’t express an opinion. Only ‘qualified experts’ can give their version, but only if they are ‘qualified experts’ who have the politically correct opinion, of course. Everyone else can jolly well shut up, and give back that Doctorate you bigot!

Anything that can be called a ‘weapon’ like an air rifle or pocket knife automatically turns the bearer into a raging murderous psychopath. Because it’s never the actual person pulling the trigger or holding the blade, it’s always the weapon that is the problem.

Teaching pre-pubescent children all about outlier minority sex practices is a good thing, so getting f*cked up the chuff by some random pervert doesn’t come as too much of a shock when it happens. Childish innocence is over rated anyway.

Killing a foetus right up to and even during the birth process is a reasonable form of abortion. Doesn’t matter that the ‘cluster of cells’ in question is capable of surviving independently outside of the womb. The cis-normative birthgivers body, their chosen pronouns ‘right’, right?

It’s not your biology or genitalia that matters. It’s your pronoun, even if you only made it up last Tuesday week. So there, ‘hater’.

Innocently getting someone’s chosen ‘gender’ wrong is as heinous and even more evil than slitting their throat with a rusty razor, or doing horrible things to their bodies with soldering irons and sharp objects. So we are told. ‘Misgendering’ is a horrible crime and should be treated with a life sentence in durance vile. Serial multiple murder and mutilation is a minor offence by comparison.

Destroying someone’s personal and professional life by complaining to their employer, University, bank or other service provider about having one’s feathers ruffled, because they supposedly said something online that you disagreed with, is a good thing, allegedly.

Oh yes, and it’s “Get your jab you science denier!” even if you have reasonable doubts about the risk / reward over said ‘vaccination’ whose clinical trials were cut short and attempts made to hide the data. Oddly enough this view comes predominantly from the “My body my choice” activist types.

Disagree and we’ll send your kids to a “Queer ecology camp” for re-education, you bigot.

Well, that’s me educated and no mistake. No wonder today’s social scene is such a minefield, and I’m sure those in the peanut gallery can come up with a few more examples.

I’m just happy that I’ve got a prospective pickup date for my bee colonies. Providing this unseasonably cool weather warms up by the weekend. Otherwise my hives are going to remain empty. As they would if the Queen decided that all those drones were sexist pigs and drove them out into the cold to die with all the excess workers.

Wonderful thing, nature.

Anecdotally speaking

‘North’ is over in Canada visiting her aunt and uncle on Vancouver Island at present. It’s been raining more than usual, according to sister in law. Here in the wilder west of Ireland I’ve talked to a number of outdoors people who reckon it’s cooler than usual. South of the equator in the fabled land of Oz, where other in-laws and ‘South’ reside, according to them, report cooler weather this year and last.

Australian brother in law works the Great Barrier reef and says that it looks good. Canadian contacts complain of Polar bear infestations. My suncream futures are dropping like a rock. My ordered colonies of bees are still not ready for delivery because apparently the weather is too borderline for them to forage properly. Just what in Bill Gates‘ Satan’s left trouser leg is going on?

Now I know this is all anecdotal reporting and therefore not ‘science’, but doesn’t it all sound rather counter-intuitive? I mean, according to the greens it’s getting hotter by the year, the Polar bears are dropping like flies and the Great Barrier Reef should be crumbling into rubble by now and we’re all about to drown because the CO2 levels are rising. Yet none of the dire consequences we are constantly bombarded with by the unthinking activist media or politicians are actually happening. Could it be that the true believers in ‘climate science’ have got it terribly wrong? Or are they (Gasp!) purveyors of the dreaded ‘disinformation?

Shirley Knott.

Also I’ve noted that comments on threads concerning the latest scare story, including two of mine on Longrider’s and Leg-Iron’s places have gone missing. Particularly those saying truthfully and honestly that the Monkeypox is spreading mostly amongst gay men. Have I ticked off Leggy and the Rider that much that they are now deleting my comments, or is this one of WordPresses ‘Happiness engineers’ (or their ‘algorithms’) at work? Or did I simply click the wrong button? At least four times? Mmm-hm. Does it, in the full scheme of things, matter all that much? Because no matter how much propaganda is pumped out there, reality will always have the last laugh.

Next!

Matters with the house proceed slowly. Mrs S and I are slightly hors de combat at present, her with a gastric illness and myself with a bout of stress related muscle spasm which has locked up my back. Not much fun while it lasts but all afflictions and difficulties will pass in their own time.

The pills I’ve had prescribed have limited facility, so just by way of an experiment I’m backing them up with plenty of cold steeped green tea and lemon. The quack has told me to drink plenty of water and the green tea and lemon mix makes plain water a little more palatable, at least to me, so for the next month I’m going on the wagon and seeing what happens.

Talking of afflictions, the latest scare to hit the headlines has arrived. Wait for it DEE-DAH-DAAAH! Monkeypox. Okay, Right. How bad is it really? 7 UK cases since 2017. (Update; 20 overall now) Riight. Is it fatal? Ermmm… Not really. How do you catch it? Close proximity droplet infection or via the mucosa.

Indeed all cases reported to 16th May 2022 were men who had sex with men. So if you aren’t a promiscuous gay male or bisexual, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. Just be careful who you snog. Besides, it’s not that contagious so your chances of getting covered in those nasty blister like lesions are minimal. So you won’t need a vaccine and masks and lockdowns won’t help one iota. Just keeping your naughtier urges under control will keep you pretty safe. So there. Good news there eh? Right. Disaster averted. Home for tea and medals.

As for that WHO pandemic treaty. Seriously? Putting that much power in the hands of unelected bureaucrats of limited intellect? Whoever thinks that is a good idea needs a large dose of cascara. Then when they’ve (eventually) come out of the toilet, their constipated brains might start to work and they would see all the downsides.

At this point I’ve lost all trust in the powers that be. None of them have a clue, leading the rest of us into the situation that, in to part quote the words of late 19th century writer Elbert Hubbard “just one damned thing after another”. However, I’m sure another ‘crisis’ will turn up to divert attention from whatever cockups the powers that be and click hungry media are trying to bullshit us all to death with.

The problem is, that all the current powers that be have to offer are more problems, not workable solutions. They aren’t interested in fixing the problems of ordinary people, just stumbling from one shitshow to the next. Everyone from the USA to China, it seems, are firefighting by chucking gasoline on the blaze. And the fallout is the worldwide inflation we’re seeing.

Contrariwise Mrs S’s car developed a difficult to trace fault and needed an expensive fix. Fortunately we have a good mechanic nearby, and he knew how to solve the issue long term. All done, but still an additional expense we didn’t need.

However, because of the disparities in exchange rates, I made enough on a recent Dollar to Euro transaction to cover it. Just. Because of the incompetence of Brussels over this Ukraine business, the Euro has been dropping in value faster than the Dollar or Sterling, despite huge amounts of money printing, so overall we’re at least no worse off.

On a more bucolic note, Swallows have arrived and are colonising odd places around our property. I swear, these silly birds have even built one of their mud nests on a power cable (See below) between the electricity meter and the front door. Well, they’re in for a summary eviction when the ESB arrive and the power gets reconnected in two weeks time. I’m happy to let them nest in and around the sheds, but in this particular case I’m afraid they’ve picked the wrong spot.

Well that’s all for now, the great works proceed, we’ll have a house worth living in by the end of June (Or else! Says Mrs S) and I can get back into my own bed at night. Then perhaps my back will settle down. Next!

Teeth grinding

A cautionary examplar here. In our house Mrs S and I were careful to instruct our tradespeople that there were two rooms which required only disconnection and reconnection to electrical and water services. No other works were to be undertaken in these areas. Flanders and Swann comically outline the outcome as below.

Well, having given detailed plans of what was to go where, said trades have first trashed installations they were specifically told not to touch. Which has cost me sleep and a layer of enamel off my herkos odonton. Fortunately the fix is less than a grand, so we can cross it off the list. There’s just enough room in the cash supply. Just enough. Providing our tax bill isn’t too high.

Given the friction this creates I can see how easily some major refurbishment projects lead to divorce. However, Mrs S and I are too busy problem solving on the fly. We discuss, debate point by point. We involve. Okay, sometimes the process falls over but mostly we get by. Although just sometimes….. You know? I have to clench my teeth so hard it’s painful.

Fortunately the last floors go in tomorrow and the last of the internal insulation is going in today. I have an offer of bees this weekend, so things are coming together slowly. But oh too slowly, and everyone is on my case about it.

Methinks it’s time to move the last of our funds out of sterling, although all currencies appear to be nosediving, so we’re moving and spending our cash reserves while we can. The inflation trap, sprung by the COVID restrictions is on us. Not the virus you understand, but the fallout from government imposed restrictions and free money for the underemployed, that is going to hit hard. Very hard. It’s going to be worse than the hyperinflation of the late 1970’s, which I can remember well, even though I was only a student at the time.

I recall my Dad being issued a ‘fuel ration’ card, prices of everything skyrocketing, especially heating costs. Having to wear two jumpers indoors because the central heating was too expensive to switch on. Cold winters in which old people literally froze to death. But better than having a modest chance of catching a nasty flu type bug and dying of that now, hey? Now we have the chairman of Tesco and other food retail groups talking about food shortages. And news items have abounded about food banks being under more stress than ever. We never had that in the 70’s. We did have Disco however, and I’m not sure what was worse.

Just remember this; ‘following the science’ and rule by ‘experts’ caused this unfolding economic catastrophe. Doing what the media said did this. Paying people to stay at home did this. The bill for all those restrictions, mask mandates and vaccines that don’t work all that well is coming due and we’re all being stuck with the bill.

I truly believe, having read the stats and watched events unfold, that had we done nothing at all the body count would not have changed. Even the most optimistic studies say that the restrictions only ‘saved’ 0.2% of the potential casualties.

Apropos of what has already begun there is a book title I’d like to share with you; Der zug war pünktlich (The train was on time) by German Author Heinrich Böll about a WWII German soldier on his way to the meat grinding hell of the Eastern front. Well the inflation train is in the station and like it or not we’re all going to have to ride it. Courtesy of clueless politicians and their blockheaded advisers. Oh yes, and all those who censored well qualified people who had a better understanding of epidemiology than those grabbing at the reins of power, who didn’t want to listen to more sane and studied viewpoints. Literally ‘cancelling’ the voices who dared speak out against the chosen narrative.

From my position, it is so teeth grindingly obvious that what is coming at us will put the actual SARS/COV-2 virus deeply in the shade. So Mrs S and I will be hunkering down, doing the self sufficiency thing and in the words of Jack London, “living the Lord knows how.”

Think I’m exaggerating? All you will have to do is wait. The worst is yet to come. Despite that, I shall maintain an irreverent outlook. In the words of Noel Coward “There are bad times just around the corner”

Any damned fool

Laid three new concrete hive bases today ready for their new stands. I’m told fifteen inches is about the right height to keep rats and mice out. So I built three stands of that height to place the hives on and oriented them south and east, like the books say you should.

There’s been a lot of ‘project slippage’ caused by unforeseen events. Supply availability, people not doing what you wanted in good time. Getting bees is proving a sticking point and I’m told that the next Nuc availability will be in a month.

As for the banks, the oft repeated words “We are experiencing extremely high call volumes.” have already reduced Mrs S to floods of tears twice this week and thus got me thoroughly discombobulated.

The money is all there, we just can’t get at it without the landline that the builders trashed. So until we’ve sorted out the phone access next week, I can only pay the trades guys half. Which should be an incentive for them to get us up and running, asap.

However, I’ve stripped out the last of the window glass intact, meaning I have plenty of glass panels for various projects like cucumber frames and citrus growing. Ever since I germinated my first lemon seeds I’ve had this notion to grow my own citrus fruit and store it as frozen organic fruit juice. Might even barter a little. We’re a registered farm business now, so why not? I’ve a location in mind and know how to build some hot water solar panels to retain some residual heat during the depths of winter to keep the frosts at bay. Some cheap half inch black plastic tube under double glazed glass over a black back panel is easy to make. An insulated hot water storage tank (or several) might be a good idea too. All do-able on a budget. Primitive but useful.

As for the outside world, the more I step away from the news, every time I have a brief peruse of the mainstream, the more I’m inclined to think; “Surely any damned fool could see that would happen.” It often reduces me to a near permanent state of “WTF!”

Which begs the question; am I ‘any damned fool’? Because I can see the harm done? By the very people we entrust with the public good? Real life measurable harm like (takes deep breath) Overt sexualising grooming of pre-pubescent children in schools by policy, interrupted education by lockdown, children (and adults) psychologically damaged by obsessive mask wearing and social isolation. People driven to madness by the incessant news media diet of fear. And people hate what they fear, so they are driven to hate. Because they are taught to hate by the very people squawking about ‘misinformation’. To name but a few. Yet who are the mis-informers? No pressure. Answer in your own time.

Not to mention the damage to the fabric of society. Despite increased institutionalised enforcement, under the surface we are observably more divided than ever before. There is more racism, more hatred, more intolerance. And it bubbles up from the poisoned wellspring of mandated ‘diversity’ and enforced ‘fairness’. The “You must think exactly this way – OR ELSE!” corporate mindset. Or else you will go on a list. A publicly visible list of the ideologically impure and unemployable ‘haters’. Available to hiring managers, credit agencies and local authorities to name but three. These lists should not exist in a truly civilised society, but they do. I cite the confirmed existence of the Non-Crime Hate Incident list in the UK, where people not convicted of any crime are put in an effective digital pillory.

Fortunately this matters little to me personally. Out here in the rural west of Ireland people are more down to earth, more in tune with the real world and the turn of the seasons. Social media is seen as the province of teenagers. And very few children have cell phones. Neighbours talk over their garden walls, do favours for each other, show unbidden kindness.

In my mind it is a fundamental truth that authoritarianisms suppression and censorship divides us all, while free, open and honest speech allows people to discuss, examine and challenge, not only the beliefs of others but also their own, in a roundabout way promoting ‘social cohesion’ more effectively than any other method. But then any damned fool should be able to see that, and if that is the case then I am happy to be so described.

Makers and breakers

Having listened to Dr Starkey’s little talk (See below) about Bojo’s fining for breaking the COVID rules. I am minded to think that Boris Johnson should not be fined. Nor any of his Staff, the Chancellor or any of his staff. Indeed I would like all COVID fines to be quashed and if need be repaid, no matter who they were issued to.

The restrictions have served no good purpose, and once the data is fully known, will be found to have been far more harmful than doing nothing but simple common sense (Stay at home if ill) precautions.

Off with their honours.

Oh this could be…

Fun. Elon Musk has bought 9% of Twitter as everyone knows. Twitter tried to block his attempt to buy them outright by offering him a Directorship, with the proviso that his holding would be capped around 14%. Elon rightly refused as his stated objective is to take Twitter private and reform it to be a free speech platform with clearly defined boundaries. Now he has made a hostile takeover bid of $54.20 per share. Ten points above current market value.

A lot of big financials, and the odd Saudi prince have become nervous as Twitter is their key to the communications kingdom. By controlling what is seen as ‘the public square’ they think they control acceptable public opinion. At least the greater share of it. So the share price is wobbling around the $45 mark (Down from $70 last year) as attempts are made to prevent Musk getting hold of it.

So. What is Musk going to do next? I have no idea.

However…… Anyone remember this scene from the movie ‘A Good Year’?

Honestly, I’m all agog. This could be epic.

Update: Viva Frei explains the outcomes below should Musk dump his 9% share of Twitter. Twitter stock will tank. Shareholders lose massively. Directors sued to bankruptcy by angry investors. Musk can do all this with a single sell order.

Anyone who thinks this doesn’t matter isn’t paying attention. The financial ramifications are enormous. This is a stone in a puddle situation. The ripples will get everywhere.

Mrs S and I are thinking of cashing out of our tech and property stocks, but where to go? That is the question. Finance and energy look like the only reasonable sectors. Maybe not even those.

Matters in motion

Oh what fun! Is this fun? I’m not sure. The technician is coming next Wednesday to reconnect the Interwebs at the house. Hopefully the sparkys will have at least got some form of power up by then. Even if it’s just the main distribution board with a partial ring main segment. I’ll do my own thing in my sheds with a proper five bay distribution board running proper lighting and ring main circuits. Not the slightly unsafe mixture of wiring that’s in there now. And it will be done properly. To code.

Such are the joys of ownership. However, I look at it this way; the house will look stunning when it’s done. We’ll have lowered our heating needs to the point where we can heat the house with a hairdryer, figuratively speaking, started growing our own and still have extra for family and friends. It’s the getting started that is the steepest part of the curve.

In the meantime I’m building beehives. Almost (but not quite, situation was recovered) cocked up the first, but now I know what I’m doing, the other two will be easy and be ready for the first colonies the week after Easter. I hope.

My original schedule is all to cock because of delay after delay and unexpected turns of events. Supply chain issues and the artificially inflated costs of Diesel, in turn caused by lockdowns that went on twenty one months longer than absolutely necessary. Not just the Western political farting around that led the Russkies to go all crazy and chuck green conscripts against a determined guerrilla opposition.

This isn’t grown up politics, this is bananas. Does no one understand that stout fences make good neighbours any more? Now we have a massive disruption caused by NATO and EU encroachment on the buffer zone between Russia and Western Europe. To illustrate by analogy, there is a Canadian saying; “Don’t prod the bear.” But isn’t that what EU expansionism has been doing? Pushing those boundaries?

As for skyrocketing energy bills, that’s partly down to believing an atmospheric trace gas controls the climate, which is daft. The physics behind said idea is sketchy at best, and when factored in against all the other influences, CO2 is a mere bit part player. A very small voice in a very large chorus. Because while atmospheric CO2 acts as part of the atmospheric insulation (The term ‘greenhouse effect’ is a massive over-simplification and only ‘works’ during the brightest daylight hours) of our little cosmic ball of rock, the whole ‘back radiation’ thing only exists in mathematical models. And the past two years should have taught everyone how accurate those are. Should have. Yeah.

But this man made climate change is an idea pushed as fact when it’s not, leading to frightened people blockading fuel depots, further pushing the costs of energy production and distribution up, with ‘Green’ levies and ‘carbon taxes’ forming almost 10% on top of an already over-inflated price. Which is crazy.

In response to the current insanity, one of the things I will be doing this long weekend is making things. A smart new wooden bench for our revamped laundry / utility room. Finishing off all the hives. Making stands for them and getting the sites ready while the builders and sparkys do their thing next week.

Whether I can get three bee colonies this year is also looking a bit iffy. It’s not like going to the shops to buy a Nuc (Five frame container) of (40,000 plus Queen) bees. There is a season for buying (Mid April to late May) and you have to wait your turn.

Once I have my colonies of course, things get a little easier. I can do my own bee breeding and expand the Apiary that way. New hives every season. Sell on the odd surplus colony to fund a new hive box. Get registered as a retailer of honey products, get my brewing licence. Experiment and perfect. All takes time.

Matters may be in motion, but I can’t describe the process as fun right now. I’m reading the Farmers Journal, and although the ban on selling turf (Peat) from September 2022 doesn’t affect me, the news that the EU Commission are pushing for a shift to ‘healthier’ (Yeah, right) ‘plant based diets’ annoys. Don’t these eejits understand that only a small proportion of land (Especially in Ireland) is really suitable for arable crops. The rest is best used for grazing and maintaining a healthy biodiversity.

For the record, your diet is what you have adapted to eat, which in turn is based upon what your parents ate, and their parents before them unto the nth generation. A ‘plant based’ diet alone does not supply all the nutrients necessary for good health. A broad mixed diet does. This is because humans evolved as opportunistic feeders and our digestive systems and dentition reflect this. Like with the whole ‘trans’ farrago (which is little more than a licence for perverts), simply because an agenda is being pushed by politicians, it doesn’t mean it reflects reality.

Speaking of reality, does anyone else get the impression that half the population is suffering from a form of Stockholm Syndrome? You know, the ones who step off the sidewalk or seem to jump three feet sideways if they so much as see anyone not wearing a surgical mask? I do try to be kind and gently smile at them, but that only seems to make matters worse.

Oh well, best to plough my own furrow and get on with things. Now where did I put my little hammer?

I stand alone

Well sort of. Mrs S is around keeping me on be best behaviour, but when it comes to where I stand on any given issue, my opinions are my own, arrived at independently, or as independently as possible. Because I’ve always been an ornery cuss who likes going his own way. Sometimes I’m right, sometimes wrong, but always definitively, incontrovertibly, singular. I claim the right to be an individual.

“Yeah but Bill?” One of the less independently minded people out there might argue (Interminably) “No man is an Island. You know that.” A Donneish cod-aphorism I have learned to dislike intensely. In the end analysis we are all alone. We are born alone. We deal with the confused shitshow of life from our own singular perspective. The bad news is that no-one else is going to do the heavy lifting for you. See below;

No matter what sort of society we live in. We all die alone because no-one can do the dying for us. The space in our heads is our own and no one else’s. Oh we might share ideas and concepts with others, some are common to most, but there is no ‘collective’. Everyone is different, and should be (Reasonably) celebrated for their own uniqueness, but not to the point where it gets tacky.

There’s a lot of virtue signalling in Dysfunctional Social Medialand with people posting “I stand with Ukraine” everywhere and locally one of my neighbours has even put up a Ukrainian flag. Alternatively the virtue obsessed will post a rainbow flag, or some other rag they have no real connection with. Or say that Ireland can handle 200,000 extra mouths who have not paid (And probably will never pay) into the system. All for some f*ckw!t politicians ego. Because that’s what too much of this is all about, ego.

We here at Maison Sticker do not feel the need to ‘stand with’ anyone, because I know from long experience that if the shit really did hit the fan, all these virtue signallers would be long gone, saying “Who me guv? Nah, you’re thinking of somebody else.” as they emerge from their places of hiding. Whereupon one might be justified in applying the option of remonstration with a crowbar or nearest lump of scrap metal. Comedian Mike Harding had a solution for those who hide in fallout shelters after starting a war, which paraphrases to; “Weld the freaking shelter doors shut” Which I am fully in agreement with.

As for consequences, I say to these virtue signallers; you put those refugees up that you’re so damned keen on. You who are so keen to see Europe and the world thrown into a war. All for your pre-programmed posturing platitudes. If you switched off the television for a week or three, maybe your brains would start to work and you’d see that there are only bad guys in this Ukraine business. I include the current US, Canadian and UK administrations in that devils choir. The Russian and the Chinese governments too.

As for that dick Zelensky. If he’d laid off shelling Donbas and Luhansk, the Russki’s wouldn’t have had their excuse for invasion. Doesn’t matter that Vlad’s army doesn’t seem to be doing so well. Putin was put into a position where he had to do something, or be thought of as weak. Which would certainly lead to his political, and possibly physical, demise.

As for Zelensky saying Ireland was lagging in it’s support for Ukraine, he can criticise Ireland all he wants. Ireland is a neutral country, we aren’t in NATO, so have no treaty obligations toward Ukraine, and long may it stay that way.

Not that I’m expecting any of these virtue signallers to shut down the flow of war-porn propaganda, that would be too much to hope for. They just love the drama too much. Maybe they need to see some footage of what a nuclear bomb strike actually does. Then point out what would happen in a Nuclear exchange between the US and Russia.

Ever heard the term ‘nuclear winter’? A 10-20 degree Celsius drop in global average temperature after a major exchange? Or a 3-5 degree drop for a ‘limited’ nuclear war? We’re talking 536AD bad here. No summer for two years, no crops, little food. Mass starvation. And that’s the soft option without radiation poisoning for over half the world’s population. Klaus Schwab and all the other fans of Eugenics in the Weird Eejits Foundation would be delighted. Well, so long as their supplies lasted, or the cannibal zombies held at bay.

Possible nuclear war notwithstanding, I have to finish moving house this week to make way for the builders. That and having to open up every day for them. There may be radio silence for a while. There may not. In the meantime, enjoy this little number that dropped into my feed.

Well I liked it.

Just spitballing you understand..

Busy getting set up for the next phase. Sheds are being cleared and made ready, Rhododendrons destroyed. Seeds Planted and trees pruned. Now we’re packing our lives up (Yet again) ready to put them into store for the next three months and I’m putting the finances into place while we make final tweaks to the internal design. Just cutting our cloth to suit our measure to make sure we get maximum bang for our bucks.

There are a lot of stories bubbling under about fake news regarding a certain conflict which remind me of one of my favourite 90’s sitcoms ‘Drop the dead donkey’ written by Andy Hamilton. Specifically the antics of the disreputable Damien Day played deftly by Stephen Tomkinson, as seen below.

I think of it this way; the last two years have spoken not mere volumes but an entire national library about the lack of integrity from the mainstream media. The character of Damien and his antics in search of a big story highlights how easy it is for a dishonest person to manipulate their output. I’ve seen this in real life, where half a dozen noisy protesters in a favoured cause have been hyped into a cast of thousands, and where an unfavoured protest of tens of thousands has been largely ignored.

Canada’s media all get subsidised by the Liberals, so of course they’re going to follow the party line, and I’m pretty sure that there’s a lot of groupthink, virtue signalling and more bullshit than the whole of Ireland clears out of their cowsheds from just about everywhere in the Anglosphere, with only a few worthy exceptions.

Which begs the questions; and it’s just me spitballing of course, but how much of what we are being spoon fed is actually real? We didn’t as far as almost starting the war to end humanity over Chechnya, or Georgia, so why now? Or is this a massive diversionary exercise as the mounting evidence about the COVID shitshow turns out to be total bollocks? Where the FDA and CDC have lied over the mRNA vaccines (Particularly Pfizer) and there’s a big lawsuit being prepared in the USA.

Evidence is surfacing about the massive over-reaction over SARS/COV-2 and harms actually done both to economies and society at large. Not to mention the low efficacy or side effects of the ‘vaccine’.

But preparing the ground for World War Three? That’s completely batshit-screaming rubber room psychotic.

Why are the politicians and media making such a big deal over Ukraine when they were quite happy to accept the indiscriminate shelling of civilians in the breakaway Russophile enclaves of Donbas and Luhansk since 2014?

This whole business stinks. I have no hard evidence of course, but the sheer amount of news reports using archive footage from other conflicts seem to point to a snow job of massive proportions. The mainstream media want a war. Not seeming to have the awareness to understand that it may well be the last story anyone, anywhere, will ever write. Sting’s little ditty from the days of the late 80’s seems ever more relevant because old Vlad has indicated that he will go to the nuclear option if pushed. “There’s no such thing as a winnable war, that’s a lie we don’t believe any more..”

Especially when it comes to thermonuclear warheads. If there’s a miracle and the stockpile hasn’t aged well. Because even nuclear warheads have a use by date. I’ve been told five years after construction is the longest they can be stored and still have a chance of detonating properly because the explosive trigger starts to degrade that close to a high level ionising radiation source like the core of a nuclear bomb. And the Tritium needs to be replaced every twelve years. This is what I am told. Although the 2009 JASON study claimed that fission cores can last up to ninety plus years. Not that I want to find out for real.

However, this being the case and Vlad’s (and the Yanks) bombs are too old, Humanity and the planet might just get away with it. On the other hand, we may not. There are rather a lot of these weapons still in play, and knowing our luck, enough will work perfectly to put a crimp in everyone’s day.

Notwithstanding, today I have been working in my sheds, cleaning, laying down some old carpet, salvaging some garden furniture, creating new electrical conduits, putting in a spur off the ring main and installing some lighting into one shed which currently has none prior to moving our stuff in for storage. Because someone has to f*ck!ng well do something constructive.

Glad we’re here

Cleared all the garden borders today. Builders quotes are in and we’ve got the money on hand. So works are being scheduled and we’ll be out for ten to twelve weeks while the floors are torn up and a totally new heating system put in. We’re spending the bulk of our pennies on insulation, the hope being that by the time we’re done we’ll be able to stay warm and toasty with the equivalent of a heavy duty hair dryer.

So we have to pack up our lives once more while the builders do their stuff. Fortunately we have the storage on site and somewhere to stay is being organised.

Speaking of borders, if you’re Canadian, this might give you pause for thought. People associated with the recent Canadian truckers freedom convoy may lose the ability to have a passport. Watch the whole video below.

Seems to me the bar for ‘terrorist’ in Canada just got so low even a limbo dancer couldn’t get under it. I have Canadian citizenship but bloody hell. Talk about overreach. And my fellow Canadians are stuck with this situation until 2025 unless the people supporting the minority Liberal government stop. Not that they will, they’re all part of the same gang.

I knew Trudeau was going to be bad news when he won the election in 2015, but this latest goes well beyond my powers of extrapolation. Canadians are great travellers, mostly into the US and back, many with family members on both sides of the border. It used to be (as recently as 2012) that they only needed valid photo-ID like an enhanced drivers licence to get into the USA. Now you can be banned from travel because you gave to the truckers?

This is not going to end well. This is going to take a war and several years to sort out. Ah, Mr Putin, there you are.

The mainstream go on about Putin being some kind of supervillain, but I think they’ve got the wrong guy. The real anti-freedom villains of the piece are the globalists, of whom Trudeau is a favoured member. Under that lovely floppy hairdo and iconic socks dwells a heart as black and sociopathic as they come. Putin’s an amateur by comparison.

We’re just glad we got out of Canada when we did.

I think it’s fishy too

Turning off the news is bloody good idea. Those big corporate media people are only telling you what they are thinking, and what they think you should be thinking, According to their world view. Which is often derived from a surprisingly small bubble.

Funny how the guy who has openly confessed to hacking the GiveSendGo site and giving out the Freedom Convoy donors personal details to the Government and media is not under arrest for what is, according to Canadian and US legislation, a crime which would get anyone else jail time and a ban from having an Interweb connection forever and ever amen. As would happen to anyone else but a paid criminal informant. Which is what he freely brags about being.

Also funny how giving money to send gung-ho idiots over to give the Russkis a bit of target practice is okay. But not to put food in the mouths of those peacefully advocating for their civil rights, or put gas in their tanks and help pay the bills.

We’re being conned. By our own Governments. By a freely co-operating corporate media. Conned into thinking that Government can give you everything. The trouble with that idea is that in order to make it work, the Government and their cronies will take everything from everyone, and they’ll leave you on starvation money if you complain.

Then there’s the whole ‘woke’ and green movements, which in the eyes of the Russki’s and Chinese, makes the West look weak and frankly more than a bit weird. Degenerate. Self obsessed. Hey, but they play along despite their own baked-in societal problems, while the Western world devolves away from the rule of law into political oligarchies where your rights are subject to whether you hold the right opinion or not.

Sod it. All a man can do is build his own little haven as a buttress against the worst of the world. I cleared twenty plus yards of overgrown Ivy, Holly and Rhododendron hedge yesterday with another seven done already today. I’ve put weed killer on the stumps to try and finish them off as recommended here. Mrs S has been hacking at the Azaleas. We’re getting there slowly.

All this work has to be done before the hives go in because nectar Bees harvest from Rhododendron flowers can turn into ‘Mad Honey‘, low doses of which can cause euphoria and lightheadedness, while high doses cause hallucinations and, in extremely rare cases, death. And no-one needs that. Especially if part of your medium term business plan is to brew and distil Mead.

Yes, okay, I know the risk is low unless the bees are exclusively gorging on Rhododendron nectar, but I’d rather not run the risk. The last thing I want is poisoned customers. Even if there is a claimed aphrodisiac effect.

While ordinary Honey is often reputed to put lead in one’s metaphorical pencil, ‘Mad Honey’ has also sometimes been used to ensure that one always has someone to write to. Be it a full essay, short sonnet or just a quick scribble. If you catch my meaning.

Sunday, Sunday

Right. World events being as they are, I’m going to ignore that which I have no hope of understanding. Specifically the situation regarding Ukraine and Russia, or why Justin Trudeau is such a tw*t. Although I have an inkling of what cunning old Vlad is up to and am preparing accordingly.

Trudeau on the other hand authorises brute force on peaceful protesters in Ottawa, then has the nerve to stand up and spout some formulaic crap about ‘standing up for human rights in the Ukraine’. If I was the Ukrainians I wouldn’t be expecting any help from Canada. Apart from a deployment of the pronoun police waving their rainbow banners.

Anyway. Today I am close to finishing my mobile work bench and will soon start the process of Hive building. Now there’s a whole range of differing hive designs, from the National and Langstroth to the Warre and Long designs, all of which I’m going to build at least one of each by the end of March when the bees arrive.

The Bees are the nexus, the pivot around which everything else revolves. I have wildflower seeds to sow in mid-March (One days work), trees to order (four days) and a hundred and forty plus board feet of eight and a half inch by five eighths plank. Which will build me quite a lot of hives, so I need to build jigs for all the parts and maybe buy some more water resistant wood glue and a shedload of30mm panel pins.

This is what this Sunday is about. Plotting and planning. We know what building works we need have to have done and what sort of time frame and budget we have. So the decisions made, I’m handing off the day to day management of builders to Mrs S while I do the more physical stuff. It’s going to be a busy Spring and Summer.

In the meantime we’re taking a short time out to have a nice lunch before we pull the trigger on the building works and put our heads down. “Don’t forget the new farmyard gate or the raised vegetable beds.” Says Mrs S. Heavy sigh. Sunday, Sunday. What the hell.

Better dig faster

So Putin has taken it to the wire? Not just a bite as I first thought, but trying to swallow the whole of Ukraine. Right. So we have a real live shooting war on our hands.

Predictably, the markets took a dive. Our broker has repeatedly sent out “Don’t panic” emails to us over the last 24 hours. Not that we’re going to, Mrs S and I are very careful about such things.

While others do headless chicken impersonations we tend to hunker down and make our own assessment. A policy which has served us well thus far.

Still a bit pissed about losing on the Canadian banks this week, but those losses are reducing day on day and we will recoup in the medium term. Even if that dolt Trudeau and his bunch of WEF sponsored f*ckw!ts remain in office. He’s so out of his depth he’s drowning and the actions of the Police after the Truckers Convoy has been pushed out of Ottawa are making him look like a bigger N*z! than the people he rails against.

As for the WEF, I wonder how many of those totalitarian scumbags have taken a cold shower over this Ukraine business? The Russian and associated markets have dropped like a hanged man, and a lot of people, not just Russians, may find their ‘wealth’ but a hollow shell of paper. May that put an crimp in their meddlesome ways.

And this was all so avoidable. The Biden administration, in this memorable quote from a previous administrations military advisor;

“President Biden and his failed foreign policy team set the table and sent the invitation and President Putin came and spoiled the dinner party.”

In the meantime, the Russkies are offering the Ukrainians terms of surrender. Their stated aim being the ‘demilitarisation’ of the Ukraine. Hopefully the Ukrainians and the Biden administration will see the situation as a nuclear car crash waiting to happen and tell the Russians to withdraw providing they in turn make the guarantees of neutrality necessary. If NATO takes it’s missiles away, says Putin, then the invasion will stop. Allegedly.

If they don’t, then I won’t just be buying a new spade, I’ll be hiring an excavator to dig a shelter.

Update: I was out shopping earlier, and while passing the supermarket ‘news’ paper shelf I noted that most of the front pages were beating the propaganda drum for war. Putin is the bad guy and NATO din’t do nuffin by sticking missiles into Ukraine. Which is what the Russki’s are complaining about. Right, phoning plant hire company,,,,

Another update: Apparently Ukrainian President Zelensky wants to negotiate, but the USA doesn’t want him to... Interesting. The low level proxy war which triggered the Russians has been going on since 2014 between Ukraine, NATO nations and the seceding Russian backed locals , with snipers and shelling from both sides in a nasty little tit for tat conflict. And the EU, in it’s push for ‘ever closer Union’ is partially to blame, using NATO as muscle behind it’s drive to expand.

There are commentators who say Putin has ‘lost his mind’. I don’t think so. He’s like a chess player faced with someone determined to play dominoes instead. And I don’t think the Western nations, particularly the current US Administration, come out of this mess looking all that good.

I agree

This ordinary Canadian guy speaks his mind and recounts some personal anecdotes of how the perennial drumbeat of fear porn has turned so many against their own families.

I repeat; the threat is low, the vaccinations pose as much risk as not. Masks and lockdowns are no better than placebos at stopping SARS/COV-2, and are probably far worse for your mental health.

Far too many have been driven barking mad. Maybe a real war will bring them to their senses.

Now I’m off out to get digging a fallout shelter like Colin Furze. Byee…..