I was talking to a neighbour and the topic of carbon mitigation came up, because that’s something the politicians are very keen on. Neighbour vouchsafed;
“Ach, these politicians trying to tell us they can control the weather. They can’t control the contents of their own trousers now, can they?”
I almost fell off the wall laughing.
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.
‘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.
Just found the missive below in my spam bin, ostensibly from that bunch of cnuts at mediamatters, an organisation so polarised that a certain Mr A Hitler has been heard to say; “Mein Gott! Zat’s a bit extreme chaps. Heff you tried a chill pill?”
We at https://www.mediamatters.org/ need your help to stop Evil Musk from taking over twitter. If you don’t help https://www.mediamatters.org/ then we cannot be considered friends. We intend to publish a list of websites who do not respond positively to our request for solidarity, which will not be good for your business. Emboldened by Musk’s Twitter takeover, anti-trans figures are celebrating by breaking the platform’s rules on hateful conduct Join the men & women emboldened by Musk’s Twitter takeover, anti-trans figures are celebrating by breaking the platform’s rules on hateful conduct © 2022 Media Matters for America
Well chums I’ll try and let you down gently but no, I won’t be on your side on this one. And I sure as all shooting don’t want people like you as ‘friends’. I don’t want to be in ‘solidarity’ or even the same room with a bunch of poisonous perversion pushers like you. And I am quite happy for you to publish this website on a ‘list’ as one that ‘will not respond positively’. Then will you please take the time and trouble to fcuk right off.
By the way, if you’d actually bothered to read my ‘about’ page before posting your barely veiled threat you would be fully aware that I consider that men are men and women are women, and “vive la difference!” You can’t rewrite the laws of biology for the mentally ill. And gender dysphoria is officially classified as a mental illness. Only crazy people want to be chemically sterilised and surgically mutilated because they’ve got the notion that they’re the wrong sex. They can’t change their DNA. XX is XX and XY is XY. Biology is biology. That bit of science is settled.
Nor do I consider Elon Musk ‘evil’ for buying out Twatter. The people mediamatters work for on the other hand who indulge in ‘cancelling’ other voices…. Nah, I’ll let you lot ponder that one. If you have even the least shred of self-awareness.
By the way, you can’t do anything which ‘won’t be good for my business’. This blog is a hobby. It is not monetised in any way and I derive no income of any kind from it.
Sheesh. Some people.
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”
Currently pulling twelve plus hour days on and off site, so not much time (or energy) for blogging. However, the little video collation below should be compulsory viewing for anyone demanding “There should be a law!”
It’s an entertaining list, light hearted but not exhaustive. Governments poisoning alcohol during prohibition is one notable omission, and I’m sure any viewer will be able to think of a few more…..
First thing I was out in the yard last week dumping stuff in one of my two compost makers. Minding my own business, lost in my own thoughts when something bounced across the yard and halted less than four feet away. “Bill!” Mrs S saw it first. The creature bounded away after giving me a startled look. Well it would, wouldn’t it?
“Well I’m damned.” I remarked as a white bobtail disappeared around the corner of the storage shed. “He was a big one.” For a moment I thought it was a hare, but hares aren’t that big, are they? Having completed my double take. I looked it up. The shape of the eyes, length of ears and gait all said ‘Irish Hare’. And they are, at least in our locale, almost double the size of your average bunny wabbit.
Did think at first that it was a rather large rabbit, but having checked all the game trails that criss-cross my fields, there was no sign of a warren. So that rather nailed it. Rabbits, at least in my experience, don’t tend to stray far from their bolt holes. Hares? No idea, but I know of at least two. One that haunts our fields and another that bounded past the place we have decamped to while the builders are having at the internal demolition.
Speaking of our builders, the little scamps. This is what they’ve been up to. See short video below.
So we’re bunking elsewhere for a while. The money supply is just sufficient, but there’s still a lot of DIY to be done. Mainly in the paint and decoration side of things, but we’ve chosen our colour scheme, ordered the fittings and sorted out what we want on the floors. Mrs S has been most painstaking in this regard. Well the house is her part of the ship just like the fields and planting are mine. We have no intention of being caught in the artificial poverty trap of ‘Green-ness’.
Wonder what I should do about the Hares, if anything, because there’s a powerful lot of meat on one of them. What’s that famous line? “First, catch your hare.” allegedly from De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae. Attributed to Medieval Jurist Henry of Bratton.
Well that’s that then. The eyesore tree that dominated our view is now gone. Funnily enough it was two trees grown so tightly together (See inset) that it looked like one. The tree guys were at their wits end trying to get the metre diameter stump up. I did tease them that Leprechauns were hanging onto the roots so’s they couldn’t pull it up.
Even after I’d paid them, they were giving the remaining roots dark looks and promising, Schwarzenegger like, that “They’d be back” I love people who have that much pride in their work. Whether they will be back is moot, but there you go.
Now for those of you tree huggers having a conniptive fit over the loss of a mature, albeit diseased arboreal specimen, fear not. I may have had a couple of trees removed, but in it’s place I am planting dozens. Willow, Birch, Hazel, Blackthorn and Maythorn. Maybe a few Beech and Perchance an Oak as windbreaks. All native species. Then I have more heather to plant and wildflowers to sow.
That’s without the half dozen apple trees, all Bramleys, that I’ve baggsied from the local agricultural suppliers. I have a recipe for a red hot barbecue sauce (Organic, mais bien sur) with an apple and tomato base, for which nothing but Bramleys will do. No added preservatives, no tricks, no unpleasant bending, but dynamite for barbecues.
The hives go in next week too. Only three, but that will be enough to start test batches of Mead, Honey Wine and Midus by the end of the year. I have been recruiting taste testers, and do you know? Not one has refused? Either I’m a bloody good judge of character (Not true) or they’re all keen on free samples. What do you think?
As most of my neighbours are livestock farmers, I foresee a lively barter market with my Mead products, honey and chickens changing hands for beef, lamb, pork and venison (Yes, one of my neighbours has a herd of deer). A pound of organic honey might trade for a couple of good steaks or other meats.
Seeing as the real McCoy of filtered organic honey retails for around ten euros a pound, never mind the extortionate amounts asked for Manuka, local opinion is that heather and wildflower honey is best, ten euros a pound is a fairly low midrange price. Heather and wildflower is what I’m going to try and produce. I know one guy in County Clare who sells his at eight euros for eight ounces. And that was when some of his hives were producing over a hundred pounds of liquid gold each in 2021. His apiary runs into over a hundred of hives. I’m strictly small beer by comparison, but I do intend to grow.
I don’t care about the radical vegans who want us all to eschew animal protein for an entirely plant based diet, all I’ve got to say about them is that they simply don’t understand agriculture or how to get food out of land unsuitable for arable crops, of which Ireland and the UK have a great deal. These radicals don’t understand that the ‘Food pyramid’, long held as the ‘ideal’ dietary model, was a 1960’s political construct. Any ‘science’ behind it is flaky at best.
There is also the corollary that the ‘food pyramid’ has been dietary gospel for over sixty years, and during that period the rates of Diabetes II and heart disease have skyrocketed. Look it up for yourself if you don’t believe me. The stats are all out there.
Said groups also think sufficient electricity can be produced by those big silly whirly things that stop producing their usual trickle of power when the wind stops blowing.
Like yesterday. Lovely sunny day, hardly a breath of wind. South of us in Galway are some of said silly whirly boondoggles, and not a blade was stirring. As for bonehead Boris in the UK wanting to smother the land in solar panels, perhaps he should cast his eyes over to Germany, where such schemes have failed big time. Fracking and Nuclear are the only reliable ‘green’ solutions to the British Isles energy needs. Only the French have it half way right and they have 10% ‘renewables’.
But then these ‘Green’ groups are anti anything that works. In the fluff that passes for their prefrontal lobes, the pollution from mining poisonous elements like Cobalt that are needed to produce sparky cars, solar panels and wind turbines get a free pass, but for a technology with a much lower mortality than Wind Farm maintenance, they get up in arms and attach themselves to major arterial routes as well as other objects. No one in any place of political power should be paying them any mind at all. Same for those who can’t tell a biological male from a female, then wonder why a six foot plus biological male is scooping up all the girls medals. Well duh.
As far as an antidote to the current insanity is concerned, getting close to the soil and turning off the TV is always a good move. It settles you. Puts your mind back on track. Allows you to think. Even if the only green things you have to tend are a couple of window boxes, or some potted tomato plants. Growing things teaches patience and brings much needed quietude to the soul.
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.
Well only a minor scrape, demolition dust bringing tears to my eyes, the creaking sensation from under utilised muscle being given the treatment and a significant trickle of moisture down my back in a surprisingly warm Springtime Mayo sun.
Wall one is proving a tough nut to crack because someone used a 1:1 mix of sand and cement for the mortar instead of the more traditional 4 sand and 1 cement mix for block work. This has cured into a substance tougher than the breezeblocks it was used to bind together. And when you’re trying to take a wall down block by block, it makes for hard work, even with a Bosch SDS hammer drill, lump hammer and brickies chisel. Even with drilling holes in the joint and dumping White Vinegar or Muriatic acid down the holes to weaken the mortar. See story so far in pictures below.
It just makes for slow going, that’s all. If I had a 5 kilo sledgehammer and a Hilti breaker I dare say I’d be moving much faster, but I don’t have either of those so I’m not. Although I do have a 115mm stone cutter disc in my box of tricks. Will try that out this afternoon. Cut, not drill or chisel.
Anyway, in parting I’d like to share an old bit of ‘nonsense’ poetry from the late great Spike Milligan. It nails a certain mindset perfectly.
Dr David Mantle
Dr David Mantle went to Bintle Bontle Boo,
To see the tonsils of a man he hardly even knew,
Dr David Mantle got to Bintle Bontle Boo,
And the man with tonsils said, “How do you do you do?
Say “Ah!” said Dr Mantle then “I can’t believe it’s true!”
“You have three tonsils hanging where there should be only two!”
“Only three!” The patient cried, “Oh my, what shall I do?”
“There should be fifty hanging there! Oh dear, tut-tut boo hoo!”
Doctor David Mantle fled from Bintle Bontle Boo
“I think that man was mad.” He said.
And I agree. Do you?
Guesses in the comments as to whom I am referring, or what.
Well it had to happen. It was ideal sowing conditions for my wildflower seeds, so off I traipsed to my top meadow, 4kg of seeds in hand to pick out a pattern which should emerge in full bloom throughout the Summer, and should be visible on Google Earth some time whenever they decide to update their satellite imagery.
Seeds sown in the pattern I wanted, I began to make my way back down to the workshop once more. There dear reader I made a grievous error. I forgot to keep to the high ground and put my welly boot on a patch of grass that looked like terra firma.
Well, not so much firma, but definitely terra. Rather glutinous terra at that. Feeling my boot sinking alarmingly I swivelled at the hip and brought the offending piece of footwear clear of the sucking morass. Bugger! The next step had me sinking deeper into a concealed tractor rut left courtesy of the previous owners. Again I managed to get my boot out. The third time I wasn’t fast enough and the twist needed to extricate my boot pitched me onto my hands and knees into soggy ground to a litany of creative cursing, calling myself a few choice epithets for being so careless. My boots twisted free and I managed to stumble to my feet, spattered to my chest in County Mayo’s finest wet topsoil.
I spat some mud out of my mouth, no idea how it got there, and recovered my composure before leaving the seed box in the workshop and locking up.
Reading the aforementioned, a reader might be forgiven for thinking I was discombobulated. Not so. Being the good little boy scout that I was (Until that unfortunate incident with Arkela and the two girl guides) I was prepared. In our spacious farmhouse there is a large downstairs bathroom that I have nicknamed ‘Decon’. Tiled floor to ceiling it’s an ideal place to strip off and get clean after a mucky day grubbing like a peasant. So that’s what I did, depositing my muddy jeans and shirt in the washbasket as I had been instructed some weeks before by Mrs S, then enjoyed a nice hot shower and put on fresh clean clothing. My wellington boots were placed where previously specified to dry off prior to a brush and scrub off for next use. “Are you in the shower Bill?” Asked Mrs S through the door.
“Yeah. Took a tumble and got mucky didn’t I?” I said insouciantly, focussing on getting the correct leg down the right leg of a clean pair of trousers. “All sorted.”
Five minutes later there was a great wailing and gnashing of teeth from the laundry. “Bill!” Cried Mrs S. “Your jeans! They’re filthy!”
“Yes I know.” Quoth I mildly. “My boots got stuck when I was coming back down the meadow and I fell over. I put them in the basket for washing. Didn’t you see me go down? Must have been quite comical.”
“No?” She said, somewhat alarmed. “You fell over?”
“Yes.” I replied. Look, I’ve already told you this. Snarled my sarcastic subconscious. “I just got a bit mucky, that’s all.” Were the words that diplomatically came out of my mouth. Best to make light of the situation. Bill Stickers rule of all human interactions; do not make it worse.
“But your jeans are filthy!” She complained again. I stayed mute. When people get into an emotional state over ephemera I have found you might as well be talking gobbledegook because they stopped listening five minutes ago. So my mouth should stay firmly clamped shut, as anything I said at this point would be taken in evidence, rephrased, inverted and taken great issue with.
Yes the jeans were filthy, Yes they need cleaning. I am now clean and was not injured. The jeans only need a sluice off in the sink and a quick run through the washing machine. Can we convert this mountain back into a molehill please? I have better things to do. At least that’s what I thought but did not say.
Mud, doncha just gotta love it?
Staying away from the fakery in the news because I’ve got better things to do. Mrs S is spending more of our capital on the house than I’m happy with, but it’s either that or have it hanging around in a bank account waiting to be looted to pay for the politicians mistakes.
At least if we give it to the builders, sparkys and plumbers, they make an honest buck or five and we will get a nice snug and cosy home out of it. Big ticket items are the internal insulation, new bathroom, replacement windows and gas heating system with a years gas supply thrown in for swapping out our old kerosene based system. Good deal.
Talking of gas, I’m told we’re not far from some possible fracking potential. If that were true I’d be making the call and hosting the rig up in my top field, charging top dollar for the privilege. Sod the farcical warble gloaming that never seems to happen. Screw the idiot demonstrators too. Hope some of them catch a well deserved kicking this April 11th.
Anyway. Biggest guffaw is dedicated to Trudy Blackface talking about freedom being important. Well, apart from for Canadians that is. Civil rights for Indian workers and the Ukrainians, but if you aren’t a member of the ruling party Mac, you’re SOL. No wonder he got booed out of London UK.
Bad news for me is that I still have to file taxes on Canadian income in Canada, despite having filled out all the right forms to say we’ve gone for good. In order to be free of the CRA, I have to get rid of all Canadian income and investments, and by the look of things, ditch my passport and lose one of my pensions as well. So, two sets of accountancy fees every year. If I’d have known how tough it is to leave Canada, I’d have said ‘No’ to going there in the first bloody place. Talk about the ‘Hotel California’.
Still somewhat bemused about all the nutters banning Russian cats and taking vodka off the shelves, you idiots do know that Smirnoff is a UK owned brand, although I wish I’d had the presence of mind to snag a few litres of Russian Standard, those are going to be collectors items, changing hands in shadowy circles for fifty times the purchase price at least. As for bankrupting Chelsea FC because the owner is Russian born. Oh for heavens sake! You’re not at war yet. Although some people desperately seem to want a war.
Personally I don’t, but the media and politicians seem to be dead set on talking our way into one. Maybe they want to deflect from the COVID debacle, where a) they shut whole economies down for something akin to the 1957 Asian Flu and b) the vaccines were very little use and were promoted even though serious side effects were known about at the time. Look up that Pfizer report. 8 pages of possible side effects. Holy smokes!
Anyway. Today I spent a few hours in the top meadow working out the best location for my beehives and trees. I’m seeding the area this weekend with 8kg of wildflower seeds and preparing half a dozen fence posts for a windbreak.
Perhaps I will plant the words “Feckin eejits” or something suitably obscene in floral form to demonstrate my disdain for the current insanity, so some satellite photographer can have a giggle. Or a fit of the vapours. I’ll see how I feel on Saturday.
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.
The almost always amusingly on point AwakenwithJP gives us his take on the current situation in Ukraine,
Well it made me chuckle.
Busy in the shed over the last couple of days. We’ve been talking to the builders and have to start moving our kit into storage ready for having new heating, insulation and plumbing put in. Massive disruption of the household means we’re going to have to leave the house for up to six weeks starting in May. So. The shed has to be cleaned and prepared as a secure storage area for our worldly goods while we’re away.
Right. This means sweeping, steam cleaning, hive building and planting so that the decks are cleared for a few months ahead. Then after that there’s the chickens Mrs S will be taking care of, sheds and coops for me to build. I can’t let our chickens go totally free range as a quick examination of some of the local road kill tells me there’s wild Mink in the area, and they’re worse than foxes on chickens. Ah, the joys of country life!
Our closest neighbours know we’re Anglo-Canadian and have taken to being quite sympathetic toward us. “Jaysus that Canada’s in a sorry state.” Commented our postie. “You folks okay now?” To which we replied that we are fine, how’s yourself now and God bless, eh? “Terrible business over there. You got family there still?” Yes we have, but they’re battling on and as soon as the opportunity presents itself may well be bailing out of BC for less oppressive pastures.
Other word from Sister in law is that Western BC’s contribution to the war effort is to take all Russian Vodka off the shelves of liquor stores. Which is a bitter blow for those oppressed souls seeking much needed liquid relief from the nonsensical COVID regulations that will be in force for the next few weeks.
Speaking of which, the mask mandates over here lapsed Monday, and I spent a happy hour in and out of shops without a face covering, just because I could. There’s still too large a proportion of the perennially petrified wandering about still wearing useless surgical masks, but I just smile gently at them as I pass on by. Maybe that way I’ll even convince one or two to take the horrible things off. That’s working on the premise that you catch more wasps with honey than with vinegar.
And also because it’s been a really nice sunny day. Which makes a change. Manchester in the UK is reputed to always be rainy, but that’s not a patch on here in western Ireland. We get our weather fresh off the Atlantic. Which means it’s been howling around the eaves a bit over the last few nights making sleep difficult. However the forecast is for more placid breezes for the next forty eight hours so maybe I’ll catch up on the old Z’s then.
Other than that it’s been a good day. Plumber sorted. Electricity account sorted. Underfloor heating negotiated and going in during the warmer months. Waiting for the window guy to get in touch for a final measure up as our double glazing is in a parlous state. Which reminds me, in my eccentric roundabout way, of an old joke;
Percy the Penguin is driving his automatic (Penguins can’t drive manual gearbox cars- something to do with their big webbed feet) across Death Valley USA when his cars air conditioning goes on the fritz. Fortunately for Percy, he finds an Auto repair shop in the next desert town and puts his car in for repair.
While the mechanic searches for the cause of the malfunction, on this hot Death Valley day with temperatures in the mid forties Celsius, Percy, being an Antarctic species in need of a chill down, finds the local ice cream parlour. The ice cream is so good that he rather forgets himself and totally pigs out on Maple Syrup and Cookie Crunch flavours. As he is submerging his beak into the third helping, his phone goes. The auto shop has found the problem and want him to come over to discuss payment.
Rushing out of the ice cream parlour without bothering to wipe his sticky face and beak he finds the mechanic smiling. “Fixed it” Says the mechanic. “Forty bucks.”
“Gosh. That’s cheap.” Said Percy, handing over his credit card. (All Penguins have credit cards because they never handle cash – it’s the flippers.) The mechanic swipes the card and hands it back. “So what was wrong?” Said Percy, curiously.
“Well.” Says the mechanic. “Looks like you just blew a seal.”
“Oh.” Said Percy, catching a glimpse of his messy beak and face in his reflection and panicking because Penguins are very vain. Something to do with wearing the equivalent of formal attire all the time. “N-no, no really,” Stammers the flummoxed Penguin. “it’s just ice cream.”
I’m here all week.
The Bill Sticker Alternative 