Foreswearing

Right, so over in the UK a chap called Charlie King is going to be sat down, have stern words said to him in a draughty old stone barn, and have an extremely heavy hat put on his head. All the while a bunch of people outside will be shouting “Hooray!” or “Boo!”, all the while blaming the poor chap for stuff he has no real power over. Such is the burden of monarchy, for all its wealth and apparent trappings. All that smiling and waving when you really don’t feel like it.

So there’s a new coronation oath is for individuals to give their allegiance to the new King? As an Expat, I have mixed feelings. I think that when it comes to pomp and ceremony, the UK, or rather London, wins hands down. Elsewhere, not so much. I miss the old place sometimes, but the bits I really liked are in a place twenty years and a couple of hundred miles away. There’s no way back there. Not without serious collateral damage.

Mrs S, however, is going to watch the coronation livestreams, but I’ve got too much work to do. I won’t be swearing allegiance to anyone either. Not without my fingers firmly crossed behind my back. Experience has taught me that people who want you to swear oaths are usually the first ones to break their word, so forgive my cynicism and let me forswear any swearing. Apart from the four letter kind when we get sold out yet again.

During the next couple of days when it promises to be damp, I have a kitchen to refit with new handles and hinges. Then there’s a few other jobs to do. We didn’t have a kitchen refit as part of the renovations because we were holding cash in reserve for the main works. Besides, the sold wood doors we have are in pretty good shape, therefore I’m just replacing the old hinges and handles and giving the rest a good old scrub. The ones I’ve done so far are looking good.

Then while it’s allegedly going to be sunny I’m going to give my hives a quick look over. It’s still a bit cool to do proper hive inspections, and here in the wilder west it’s been cooler and wetter than usual. So I’ve had to hang back and wait for the weather to warm a little more.

Yet I still keep coming across these videos which insist that dear old planet Earth is going to boil and we climate sinners are all going to DIE! Har har har! So there you deniers! Personally I’ve never seen that. My path to climate scepticism began around 2000, when I began to notice all the wild predictions failing to come true.

Right. Okay. How true are all these claims of climate doomstering when put in context? For that kind of hard information it’s best to go to the guys on the ice.

What? Are we really only in a short term optimum heading into another cooling phase? Better finish my planting then.

As for ‘misinformation’ or is it disinformation or malinformation, a.k.a. lying? Seems to me that all these claims of falsehood are coming from those responsible for pushing the most massive piles of bovine excrement in front of us and over reality for their own venal purposes. Yet these are the people who demand our unthinking loyalty? Seriously?

By way of illustration. Norman Fenton does the numbers on the vaccine. Oh. You mean to tell me the mainstream narrative was and is misleading? Surely not. But my names not Shirley.

As an aside, I made some time to glance at the mainstream ‘news’ and some talking head was saying that “The Government should do something…” Hah! I’ve got news for him, they did, and that’s why we’re in the mess we’re in.

Anyway. There are seven fruit bushes to plant out on Saturday, five rose bushes to set out into a new protected rose bed and I’ve just potted out six Willow rootstocks with freshly sprouted rootlets. So that means I’m on target for a total of thirty trees this year, no subsidies applied for.

What else? All the Portuguese Laurels have been moved, and are bedding into their new locations nicely. Mrs S and I raided our local Nursery for some exotics to put in the main garden. Those are planted and settling in. The lawns are coming along and the greenhouse project will be completed in another week or so. Then we’ve got house guests coming all the way from London.

Hi ho. In between times I have to look at getting a new brush cutter.

Life at the moment, is far too busy for swearing oaths. But I’ll leave the last word to Neil Oliver in this interview.

Update: Having watched the actual crowning and parades, I was struck by two main thoughts; Doesn’t Charles look ancient? And; the march down the mall was magnificent, superbly disciplined and timed. Which just reinforces what I said at the start of this post. When it comes to ceremony, pomp and circumstance, no-one does it better than the UK.

Everyone knew?

Have a watch. Go on. How the Epstein scandal is seeping out into the mainstream. This is how deep the rot goes. It’s everywhere, and the killer phrase was that if you moved in certain circles “Everybody knew” and therefore knows, presumably.

All right, she’s pushing her new book, but I think I might order a copy. Because you can bet your bottom dollar that there’s way more to come out.

Gosh, it’s not so much ‘pushing a conspiracy theory’, more handing out ‘spoiler alerts’. But if you’re an investor, this is the kind of warning sign you look for.

Wonder how far the tentacles of power and influence actually reach? The thought does strike that if a certain foundation is involved, you can bet your best boots that the corruption is everywhere.

Clear as glass

The bottom meadow is a riot of dandelions with loads of buttercups sprouting at the moment. My bees are foraging like it’s going out of fashion and when I walk around the meadow in the intermittent sunshine, it is buzzing like a hundred far off servers with dodgy fans. All is quietly busy. Hive inspections will happen when the temperature is in double digits and dry for more than twenty four hours.

Indoors, Ikea unit building, dying printers and keyboards have been one of the many discombobulations to have leeched on my time. Measuring, cutting and building have been biting into life, so little time or inclination to blog. Not really much time to get into a routine. If I don’t have time or emotional energy to reply to any comments, talk among yourselves. Have fun and keep it clean (ish).

My greenhouse project creeps ever closer to completion. One of the hurdles I face is that the smaller panes of glass that were donated to me for this project are of 10mm toughened safety glass in panels of 165cm by 71cm (61 by 28 inches or around 5ft by 2ft 4) Each panel weighing upwards of 29kg or a smidgeon over 64lbs. Although one double glazed unit I had to fit the other day was over 100lbs (Over 45kg). All right, it included the frame, over 1.6metres on a side, but it was, with the help of a little ingenuity and home made counterweights, fitted. Looks a bit rough and ready, but my glazing passed the 90km/h wind test the weather threw at us recently.

Now I’ve seen first hand what can happen if you are careless with glass. Especially a pane of that size. If handled carelessly, it may slip and turn into an instant guillotine blade, easily capable of severing a limb. And as I happen to like my arms and legs where they are, I treat each pane with extreme care, especially as this has entailed having to lift each one to around 7ft (About 2.1m) above the ground at the bottom edge. So I’m taking it slowly and not trying to be all tough and brave, instead shutting down operations when the wind is gusting above twenty miles an hour. Which is quite often.

A stiff breeze on that size of glass would be enough to take me off the top of my platforms and ladders, so I go slowly and carefully, and only work on the big panes when the weather is fine. Did I mention I’m doing this single handed on an existing building with minimal tools? Because I am not an expert greenhouse constructor I prefer to apply the adage “Better safe than sorry.” Nuff said.

When it’s been too wet and windy for anything else, outdoors I’ve been wrestling twenty year old Portuguese Laurels out of the ground for re-planting as a screen in a new raised bed. Well, Mrs S says it keeps me out of mischief. And away from the keyboard.

However, little by little things are coming around, although there’s still lots to do. So we have split the work down into separate projects, and I work on mine as time, energy and resources allow. Lack of expertise notwithstanding.

As for being an ‘expert’ on anything, I am very happy not to wear that badge. Because to be an expert implies that you are top of your field and know most of everything on a given topic. Although I have been told I was an ‘expert’ on a few occasions when my boss at the time threw a systems manual at me, telling me I had a weekend to learn an entire new operating system or network application. Which meant no leisure time of social life. At the times in question it often felt like some unpleasant game of Tig (or Tag, if you are one of our transatlantic readers) as if to say “You’re IT! Har-har!”

Given the above it seems to me that being an ‘expert’ in any field is being the guy who lost their weekend to reading a long and very dull book, then expected to translate the contents for others first thing Monday, even if you (and they) don’t fully understand the topic.

Notwithstanding, my own lack of expertise is something I wear with pride because to be an ‘expert’ means one has little more to learn, or to be at the forefront of that learning. So you will always find me figuratively lying down under the fount of all wisdom, trying to keep my throat open like for doing a yard of ale. Mrs S complains that I always have at least four books on the go, left laying around the house to dip into when time allows. And I readily concede that in all topics there is always more to learn. From psychology and medicine to physics or whatever. And when I’m not sure I will always defer to trusted texts that stand up to scrutiny. Those that have been consistently been experimentally proven. And of course source data when time allows.

As a demonstration of this principal, I am not an expert driver, although I am competent enough to get behind the steering wheel of most cars and safely drive around without hitting anything. Even if Mrs S does complain that I like to ‘throw it about a bit’ when driving. This comes from decades of driving various vehicles all over the place on variable quality roads. From delivery truck driver to road warrior technician. But I do not consider myself an ‘expert’ driver. More experienced than average, yes. Competent, yes. Complacent, no. Experience has taught me that complacency makes me careless. Careless gets me hurt. I do not like being hurt.

On the other hand I’ve worked for self-proclaimed ‘experts’ and ‘gurus’ in the past, and my experiences have sometimes left me distinctly underwhelmed, not to mention having to spend my time cleaning up their (or my) cock-ups. In my book ‘Expert’ does not mean infallible. So when anyone says “Ah, but experts say….” I tend to respond “Which experts are these, and what’s their track record?” Which are pertinent questions.

I say this because ‘experts’ got us into the current series of messes we’re in. From the banking crisis, through COVID and all the climate crap to the Middle East and Ukraine. Oh by the way. Have a watch of the video interview with Ex-CIA insider Ray McGovern below. It should give you an idea of what is behind the whole Ukraine business. If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, the interesting bits about why the Russians invaded are discussed around the nine minute mark.

While the way the Russians wage war is brutal by western standards, they are fighting, what is to them a limited war, because otherwise they could have steamrollered the Ukrainians like the US did to the Iraqis. Then again, as Mr McGovern aptly points out, back in the 60’s the west almost got into a full fledged nuclear war over Russia parking nuclear missiles 90 miles from US soil. So having NATO nuzzling around your borders must feel exactly the same to the Russkies. Hitler and Napoleon still loom fresh in the Russian psyche.

Not that there are any ‘good guys’ in the whole business. Not the governments of the USA, UK, EU, the Russians, the Ukrainians or Chinese. That much is as clear as the glass I’ve been fitting recently.

Back again

Busy fixing storm damage and trying to get rid of broken glass. Had to happen. Some of the glass set by for my greenhouse project got smashed. Nothing important, but it’s going to cost me to get rid of all the shards. I’ve got spare panes, so I’m not really worried.

Then there’s the septic system. I’ve had my head and shoulders inside ours with a camera recently, trying to work out why it isn’t working properly. Not a happy situation. Yuk and double yuk.

But I’d rather be doing that than bother to go see a US president who is currently trying to con us all that he’s more Irish than Cú Chulainn. Fecking senile auld eejit.

Talk amongst yourselves.

So much for all that

Reshaping the grounds continues apace. There’s a new border wall in the grounds (Good grief ‘grounds’ whoever would have thought I’d ever live in a house with ‘grounds’ rather than just a back yard or a garden?) and planting is almost compete for this first batch.

As for the tin foil hat part of the equation, everything we managed to work out for ourselves turns out to be true. From the lab leak theory to the manipulation of data and scare tactics abused by our own governments and media.

‘The Lockdown Files’ are now public domain, and how a massive disinformation campaign by the powers that be is laid bare for all to see. All for hubris and ambition. We the public have been horribly betrayed by all sides of mainstream political life, a few backbenchers being notewothy exceptions.

So much for being a ‘conspiracy theorist’. There has been a conspiracy, and it is one of many to the detriment of the public of many nations, no theory required. Oh yes, and did you ever wonder where the whole ‘transgender’ thing came from?

Jennifer Bilek says “Follow the money trails, they do not lie….”

Dismissal

Have you ever contacted your elected representative (Of whatever party) to have your concerns dismissed? Your sources decried as the work of ‘Cranks’ or ‘Deniers’ and ‘Nutters’? No matter how experienced and qualified from reputable sources. Or have said representative outright ignore your concerns?

We’ve seen a lot of this over the past few years. In conversations with true believers, I’ve heard of people like Dr Will Happer and Dr Richard Lindzen described in less than glowing terms despite their credentials. Fun fact; did you know that Dr Lindzen has published around two hundred and fifty scientific papers? A staggering amount of work. Dr Happer is a veteran Physicist and respected adviser who got fired at the behest of failed divinity student Al Gore. Then there is the ‘unpersoning’ of qualified scientists who questioned the mRNA vaccines, citing well founded concerns over the lack of testing and trials, even sinking so low as to indulge in personal attacks on actual victims of the vaccines.

You can call them all the names under the sun for believing (Based on empirical data) that there is no ‘climate catastrophe’, impending or otherwise, but doing so does not invalidate their work, nor make them need ‘re-education’ like the Ontario College tried to do with Dr Jordan B Peterson.

The thing is that academia and science have been taken over by people who are neither proper academics, nor scientists. These Administrators are the ones responsible for the wrecking of careers and an attempted suppression of certain avenues of science. And there has been an explosion in the numbers of said administrators, acting like the notorious (At least in the UK) Doctors receptionists of old.

These are the people causing all the minor disagreements in academia and science to fountain into open sewers of bad information, enforced by these administrators. Then there are the disseminators of ‘malinformation’ or ‘disinformation’ two ugly neologisms that have been pushed into public discourse to cover up the crimes of those pushing progressive political agendas. The mainstream media and politicians of all stripes, with a few notable exceptions, were responsible for the vast majority of bad information, and even helped suppress reports like the one currently coming to light as discussed by John Campbell below.

Alphabet corporation were leaned on by the Biden White House to suppress dissenting voices on Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Not to mention the doctors and nurses from all over the world struck off for daring to challenge the official party line.

Apparently challenging the official line automatically makes you ‘far right’, a term so over-used that it has lost all meaning. But to nick a line from a YouTube comment thread; “You may call me far right, but I think you’ll find I’m often not far wrong.”

Bills

Money is tight, even for frugal souls like Mrs S and I. However, we’ve surfed the latest set of price fluctuations by halving our electricity bill. Not that this hasn’t had a cost. We’ve spent six figures on gutting our new home and insulating properly, said insulation keeping our energy use within sensible limits. So we haven’t been hit that hard by the sudden rises in energy prices.

Looking at our energy use before the building works and afterward, the difference is quite startling. We currently use one third of the electricity and fuel that we used to before the upgrade. That’s over a sixty percent reduction. Which ain’t too shabby. Our overall cost of living hasn’t risen as much as it has for far too many others during the Government-created crises of COVID and Ukraine.

Given that our joint income has dropped significantly, this is no bad thing. We’re on top of the finances, and watching the next move by the banks like hawks. Three down in the US, with serious ripples running through Europe, Credit Suisse being a case in point. Then there’s another potential 2008 scale property crash on it’s way from the US as two major investors are having serious difficulties. Fortunately we have no exposure in the two mainly affected market sectors, those being property and tech. We’ve even maintained a modest keeping-up-with-inflation growth in our investments.

However, to do this we rely on accurate and timely information. Something which is at a premium nowadays. We shifted our investment portfolio in advance of the Ukraine business, and have long since divested our portfolios of anything pharmacologically related. Because those affected sectors will be the next to take a big hit.

If you listen to the mainstream those naughty Russki’s are taking a pasting. If you find a way of tapping into less available information, you will find statements from the front line where Russians are sending out small ‘sacrificial’ patrols, presumably of the most unpopular squaddies, to locate actively manned Ukrainian positions, and when they are fired upon by the Ukrainians, the Russian heavy mortar teams hand out a lesson on how not to be seen.

Then there is a widely discussed possibility of the Russki’s waiting for the Ukrainians to attack in Spring when the ground dries, before making them pay for every inch in Ukrainian blood and the West’s weaponry in a Verdun-scale set piece of attritional butchery. My sources? Well, Redacted on Rumble do some, then there is the Kyiv Independent, ostensibly an independent English language outlet. This article by retired US Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor might prove eye opening as an informed opinion piece.

Like I’ve said on several occasions, ICC arrest warrants or no, neither the Russkies, the US and their aligned powers, nor the Ukrainians are ‘good’ guys. It’s atrocities all round. Even if over three hundred of the forcibly relocated children have already been returned to Ukraine by the Russians.

And even if the Russians have said they want to talk peace, the current US administration aren’t interested, so the war will go on until there are no more Ukrainians left but those in western asylum accommodation.

That’s a hell of a bill to pay.

A good day

It’s funny how your perspectives shift when you’re working for yourself, developing a place, and doing the hard graft of whipping it into the desired shape. We’ve been doing a lot of that recently. Our old heating oil tank is drained and set up behind my greenhouse to be. Old excavator and tractor tyres left by the previous owners have been shifted to make planters for our fruit trees. Other old tyres, previously used as silage weights will be cut in half, painted and hung on an east facing wall to make planters for herbs. The excavator tyres were bloody heavy, but once I’d levered them upright were easy enough to roll up the track to where the new fruit trees will live.

The idea being to prune the fruit trees into low fan shapes so they can be picked without the need for ladders. This will of course reduce the possible yield, but we’re not doing this as a commercial crop, mostly for personal use and maybe as a sauce base, because I’ve got a dynamite recipe for a spicy hot sauce, which with the Mead products, might prove worthy of a commercial venture.

Where the oil tank was will be a decorative feature of a green screen of Azaleas to hide the new gas tank from public view. Which has entailed a little episode this morning with me, three layers of cinder blocks, and an eight pound sledgehammer. Result: Bill 6, blocks 0. A home win and about two hundredweight (All right, about 100kg plus) of rubble. The rubble will form the infill behind a loose built double wall of cinder block and decorative brick, over which I will dump half a dozen barrowloads of topsoil and drop in some store bought trailing plants over the weekend. Result; instant flower bed to brighten up the main yard.

Then there is the ongoing saga of the drains, which we found this morning were backed up to the closest inspection hatch to the house. So I ended up spending three noisome hours with drain rods and high pressure hose clearing some fifty feet of backed up sewage. Not the nicest job in the world, but the ‘gloop’ when I finally breached the blockage was music to my ears, whilst watching the shit level drop suddenly was a curiously pleasing sight.

My nose had shut down in protest three hours before, so after dosing the freshly cleaned soil pipes with some bicarbonate of soda, I closed up the hatches. For my efforts, Mrs S treated me to a lovely supper of fish, chips and mushy peas that I didn’t have to cook. I also have a cold beer at my elbow, having showered and rid myself of the scent of effluvium. Life could be worse.

It’s funny how a successful days hard graft can be so satisfying. But it is. Especially when the work is for yourself. Even when your hands are cracked and bleeding. Now this is just my opinion, but the pleasure of a successful job completion is hard to beat. You tend to appreciate it more. Even though the rewards may seem small to others. It’s how you feel about them that counts.

All this to the background of a release of ‘the lockdown files’, which simply confirmed what I had been able to surmise for myself over two years ago. Specifically that the UK government, like so many others, hadn’t a bloody clue. The last three years (And probably the next ten) have been a completely government created crisis.

Some might call it being a ‘conspiracy theorist’, but I just look at my ability to extrapolate outcomes as a talent which has served me well, especially when investing. If I get called names because I’m a little ahead of the curve, frankly me deario’s, I don’t care. The name calling of those of us able to assimilate and interpret the data correctly has been wrong in context, subtext and fact. So yar boo sucks to the majority of the mainstream media, whose coverage has been so damaging. So much for ‘disinformation’.

It should give me pleasure to be proved right. Well it does, and then again it doesn’t. But do I really care? Not really, because overall, despite everything, I think I’ve had a really good day.

Getting your own back

Busy clearing trees and shrubs today, opening up the garden a bit more and getting ready for the removal of about ten overgrown Leylandii. While Mrs S was telling me how to cut down trees, a task I have successfully performed on various occasions for several decades without supervision, my mind wandered onto the topic of these insane ‘fifteen minute cities’ and how to fight back against this insult to liberty.

Protesting seems to do no good, as the eco-zealot instigators seem so convinced of their rightness that they will ignore any heartfelt pleas and go ahead anyway. If pressed they may simply label the opposition ‘domestic terrorists’ and carry on regardless.

However, one idea that did occur to me while hauling branches was to surreptitiously obtain the vehicle registration numbers of the people responsible for instituting and enforcing these unfair regulations and stick copies of them over the number plates of several random other vehicles in the area, or perhaps the next zone over.

Now given how rarely most people actually look at their own vehicle registrations, this would seem a wizard wheeze if well done. It would certainly make a nonsense of the automated camera enforcement. Because if offending councillors / officials vehicles start racking up multiple fines without going anywhere it might give them cause to reconsider their ill judged authoritarianism.

Those intent on making mischief for the offending instigator might even simply walk past a few ANPR cameras with a copy of an offending councillors number plate emblazoned on their back while walking the dog, identity perhaps concealed by a large hat and scarf. If the cops show up, the number plate sign could be readily discarded, or even left in a place where the ANPR cameras would keep registering the number, and the rest left to the automated system generating thousands in fines for the net zero advocates, overloading the system. Interested parties might even share number plates so that the eco zealots get fined from multiple fifteen minute cities.

The glory of this jolly jape is that a crime will not have taken place. Well, not really. Knowing what I do about how these systems work, it is apparent to me that all sorts of entertainment might be had without going anywhere near the offending eco-zealot, or anything which might be construed as stalking. All that needs to happen is that their own systems are turned against the most deserving.

Bankrupt the net zero bastards, say I. It’s only what they deserve. For those unfortunate to get caught in the fifteen minute trap, it’s called getting your own back.

Let the games begin. This could be fun.

That Trans question

While clearing the last of the old decking and prepping the area for the new rose beds, I found myself pondering about this whole trans business. All the agonised cries of ‘misgendering’ and so forth. Also the desire to be considered ‘real women’ and be allowed into hitherto inappropriate places like women’s changing rooms. That and protecting biological women from the predations of the faux-trans, i.e. males who just put on a dress and claim this is all it takes. It seems to me there is a logical and relatively low cost solution that can be applied to the satisfaction of all. Well possibly.

This may upset some people for various reasons, but upsetting a few people seems to be a hobby of mine. And in my perambulations through YouTube comment threads this becomes ever more common. However, in the spirit of tolerance and equity I would like to say that I feel the vociferous male to female trans lobby has a point, and that they should be allowed access to women’s spaces, but only on one unbreakable condition; they have to give something up first. Specifically their sexual impedimenta, because those are the bits that cause the problems for women.

In medical terms it should be stipulated that if these ‘trans’ people want to join the desired club or clubs, then they should at least be willing to pay the basic membership fee of becoming at least half way female. Specifically a penectomy and bilateral orchiectomy before being allowed to access said spaces. Or to put it more crudely;

As for going the whole hog. Well I’m afraid unless a new technology is developed that can totally alter your XY to XX, superficially neuter is about as good as anyone is going to get. Brow ridges and superficial features can be altered, sexual organs removed surgically, organs can be shrunk by hormones, but our biology is immutably linked to our sex at birth. It’s no use simply calling yourself Loretta one gay morning and walking through the distaff door. This isn’t people being cruel or ‘hateful’, it’s simple anatomy and physiology. It’s just about safeguarding those (on average) not as physically strong or robust.

Women and men think differently too, that much cannot be denied. It’s biologically baked in. Our endocrine and reproductive systems have evolved our brains for different functions. Males tend to be larger, faster and heavier too. There is, admittedly, a little crossover, but only in extreme cases, and no amount of social conditioning will make it otherwise.

There is also the simple point that since time immemorial men have formed male only groups and women have formed female only peer groups. This is natural. It is a function of instinctive human behaviour for those who fit certain personality and gender subtypes to seek out those who most resemble themselves and what makes them comfortable. Like football clubs or various special interest societies. Or even simply a loose social group who wish to use a particular social space at a given time. They all have a common thread and no amount of busybody social engineering can change that.

So my point is that women need exclusively female spaces / company, and men need exclusively male spaces / company to fully relax and function well. It’s a social / emotional need as much as anything. If you are one of that tiny minority of inbetweeners then you’ll just have to form your own exclusive spaces and leave everyone else’s alone. No-one is really excluding the inbetweeners, it’s just that the inbetweeners are busy painting themselves into a corner and a lot of excitable and ignorant people are trying to hold a tiny mirror up to reality and chop off all the bits that won’t fit. Which never works.

Personally, I think the Who nailed it back in the 60’s.

As for the whole pronoun business, there is an important bit of wisdom that was vouchsafed to me by a one time boon companion; You are who you are, but nobody else is. Don’t expect them to be. This axiom has passed destruction testing and I think it applies here in spades.

Anyway. That’s enough pontificating from me for the moment. There is work to be done outdoors and it is my function to do it. I don’t care that the UK 77th Brigade were told to monitor and harass those critical of the lockdowns and masks. Or may even now be assisting the UK Police in finding people who they think are saying subjectively ‘offensive’ things. We knew it was our own military and law enforcement being weaponised against us., and the suffering those units have induced is real. Which means governments all over the world are criminalising dissent, no matter how well founded that disagreement is.

I did say at the time that there was a section of the ruling class pushing these crazy ideas. Like the strange idea is that you can alter human behaviour by suppressing it. Well you can, for a while, but only as long as the suppression is dialled all the way up. Think of what the powers that be are doing as stretching our social elastic all the way to it’s limit. At some point said social elastic will snap, and those doing the stretching will get hurt.

This situation could be avoided by simply dialling back the suppression, but I don’t think certain parties have the simple common sense to desist. They seem too arrogant for that.

What can you do in….

What can you do in fifteen minutes, and why are these policies being implemented right now? It’s been a rainy day, Mrs S is fiddling with indoor pot plants and the weather means work outdoors (For me) has shut down. So I’ve time to ponder the social and economic insanity coming down the track. Being country dwellers we fall well outside the boundaries of these insane restrictions, so they won’t really affect us much. Yet.

If the restrictions look like coming our way, I’ll do like one ex-employer did, which was to install a thousand litre diesel storage tank and buy my diesel in bulk. As I recall one tankful was enough to get a fully loaded Mercedes van to most places in the British Isles and back, and we carried a 5 gallon jerrycan for emergency use. He saved a couple of hundred per thousand litres by paying wholesale prices, and we stopped having to mess around with fuel cards and the like.

Then there’s the news that the UK 77th Brigade intelligence unit was spying upon it’s own citizens during the pandemic, relaying reports to politicians who then set the dogs on them via online platform providers. Well colour me not surprised. Our ruling politicians and states seem to be deep in the pockets of the Davos party and pharmaceutical companies pushing their dodgy under-tested (and emergency use only) products. So really we shouldn’t be that shocked.

The science in support of both pandemic and forthcoming ‘fifteen minute cities’ and attendant lockdowns has become deeply politicised and corrupted. Those entrusted with the powers of state have been abusing that trust by effectively criminalising large swaths of their populations for the sin of objecting to being imprisoned in their own homes (Yet again). No doubt the states crimes against the public will go unpunished for the moment, so long as the public keep voting for the usual suspects. However, protests are gathering sway, and if silenced may well build into a roar that will shiver the cosy sinecures out of their comfortable lives.

We know that the powers meant to protect us are being used against the public. How long that will continue is down to those whose blind compliance is allowing everyone to slide ever further toward societal breakdown. And that will get really messy when the shit eventually hits the fan.

Call that democracy? Because I don’t.

Feet of clay

Minor local panic. There’s a bunch of ne’er-do-wells currently frequenting our locality who broke into a neighbours house and ransacked their place while they were out. Apparently there’s been an increase in such burglaries / home invasions of late. Make of that what you will.

Personally I think our mini crime wave is a predictable phenomenon derived from the current series of economic and moral crises. Leading to desperate and feckless people doing unpleasant things. As they always have.

In anticipation we have strong doors and high security locks, so said scrotes will give Chez Sticker the go-by as too much trouble. We’re also in a lot more. Add to that there’s often a big guy (me) around the house and yard, or looking out of the window, cars in the driveway and yard. Oh, I’m friendly enough, but life has taught me due caution.

Nevertheless, it gave me an incentive to rig a couple of extra security lights. I’m also looking at putting up some discreet external cameras so we know who is trying to access our domicile. External gates now sport a couple of hefty looking padlocks to deter unwelcome callers, the external boiler house door is now kept locked, as are the sheds, unless we’re outside working.

My security philosophy is all about layers. One closed gate might not stop a thief, but if they have to make a lot of noise to get past more than one barrier, the majority of the morally weak will walk on by. If you have a dog with good territorial instincts, so much the better.

The same with valuables like documents and jewellery. The cheap and not so important you can keep to hand. The nicer stuff goes in a concealed lockbox in a not so obvious location. Or two. Nothing too complicated, just not obvious and awkward to open without demolishing half the house. Just enough to not advertise that you too, like the idols of old, have feet of clay.

Talking about feet of clay. I see that globalist premier of New Zealand has resigned, citing ‘burnout’. Good riddance to bad rubbish. I wish Trudeau would do the same. All the other weak political figures like her are currently at Davos, listening to charlatans spout bullshit about their ‘clever’ solutions. The majority of which have always failed before. They are that clueless and desperate. Rather like our local ne’er-do-wells.

Seems to me that our political classes, in the main, are so scared of losing votes from noisy minority interests they won’t grasp the nettle of economic reality to ultimately benefit the majority. Said reality currently playing out before our eyes. In the meantime we have to securely lock our doors and check the insurance policy.

A thought experiment….

I wonder…..

Another day, another WTF!?

Today I’ve been fine tuning the décor in the last bathroom. Sealing cracks and ensuring everything is completely water tight. Then there’s the entertainment for Crimbo. I think a Roku box will do the trick. Note to self, remember to disable the ad tracker function.

There’s a quote, often wrongly attributed to Voltaire which goes ; “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” Which seems ever more germane. Even if the real quote comes from a ‘white supremacist etc’.

Now I work on the principle that what is true is true, no matter who says it. Even a stopped clock is ‘right’ twice a day. Even the David Icke’s and Alex Jones’s of this world. Although most of their output should always be taken with a hefty pinch of salt, but then again, so should some ‘official’ sources. Like the politicians and mainstream journalists who have shown themselves to be untrustworthy, and any information from them should, like the crazies, be treated with extreme scepticism.

This post was sparked by the claim that Russia has jailed 400 people in 2021 for saying things that Putin doesn’t like. Now how many people have been arrested and convicted of ‘Hate Crimes’ in the UK during the same period? What do we know? For the period March 2020 to March 2021 there were 124,091 recorded ‘incidents’. I’ve tried finding out how many of those reported incidents resulted in a custodial sentence, but from what the stats tell me I’m fairly certain that for wrongspeak alone, not merely as a contributory factor to another offence, it’s way more than 400.

As for convictions; for the year up to March 2020, there were 9,340. Over 85% of every case going to court resulting in conviction during that time. These are official figures, and while I look upon some official sources when it comes from the mouth of an appointed spokesperson, a little digging into the reports will often find what’s really happening.

Compare that with the cleanup rate for burglaries; only 6% of burglaries a year are solved by police across England and Wales. As for murder, the cleanup rate is approximately 70% averaged out since 2016.

Sounds like someone’s plucking the low hanging fruit when it comes to crime, doesn’t it? A easy collar and conviction for ‘hate crime’ vs solving a real crime? No contest really.

Someone objects to children being subjected to alphabet soup faction propaganda in school? That’s a ‘hate crime incident’ which could land the complainant in jail if they press too hard. Not only that but the mere listing of a person having committed a suspected offence has until recently been enough to put them on a naughty list, which could prevent them getting a job or any other service while self avowed perverts and their foul doctrines are allowed through the school gates with apparent impunity. One could easily be forgiven for thinking that this is so because there is a cabal of those with similar tastes having infiltrated the mechanism of government.

Compared with the 400 that Putin’s regime has jailed for talking out of turn, out of well over twice the population of the UK, the linked stats do paint a rather disturbing picture. Which leads me to comment that the western world is not only upside down, it’s unsustainable, inside out and back to front. And despite avowed intent to make things ‘fairer’ is making life more unfair by the year.

However, there is heartening news where Elon Musk has made it plain that those who ‘doxx’, that is release someone’s address or real time location data on that platform will have their accounts suspended immediately. Which is good. One of the extremists prime weapons is exposing others to risk by letting their pet clockwork mice know exactly where the targeted person is. Next I would like to see is people stripped of their online accounts and shoved before the beak if they go after someone’s job or finances by threatening the transacting company or employers.

If we’re going to sanction people for saying something we don’t like, let’s at least make the process even handed. Then and only then might this high tide of outraged toddler behaviour ebb and we can all get on with our lives without having to watch every word.

Right. Last jobs before Christmas; finish bathroom cleaning, fit light fitting in porch and get ready to start work on the new greenhouse. Wine racks are full. Whiskey and spirits ready. Enough dry goods and canned foodstuffs to withstand a siege. I’d say we were ready for Christmas.

Fake world

Bearing in mind that I’ve never heard anyone give me a good reason why we should kill trees for Christmastide (Or Mithrastide if you’re going to be pedantic), I went out looking for a potted up fir tree we could use every year that wasn’t plastic. And I found a nice selection at a local nursery. As two thirds the price of a dead tree that will leave needles all over the place, or a quarter of the cost of a decent artificial one. All I need to do is keep it trimmed, bonsai style and we’ll have a tree for the next three to five years before I plant it out up in our top meadow.

Now with heating working properly, but still a suspected mouse issue, it’s back to normal. For a given value of ‘normal’. Christmas tree and all the goodies are on order for the festering season. We’re so ahead of the game I barely have to cook.

This ‘normal’ is mainstream media gaslighting and misrepresenting the valid concerns of people over the costs of the migrant crisis and many other issues throughout western countries. Ordinary Irish and British people gaslit as ‘racist’ or any other ‘ist’ for saying “Why are you spending all this tax money on freeloaders?” See reports below, which you won’t see unspun on any mainstream platform. At least none I’ve seen.

This is our tax money the government is throwing away. Yet people are being maligned for complaining about the immigration laws not being upheld?

Then there’s the nonsense about ‘hate speech’ on Twatter. FYI; incidences were down since Musks takeover, not up as reported in the New York Times. Although simply saying the dictionary definition of ‘Woman’ as an adult human female’ apparently qualifies as ‘hate’. Which is a ludicrous point of view held only by those with the thinnest skins.

As one who has received more than his fair share of real abuse (And the occasional real death threat) during his working life, the whole fakery of the mainstream media, from broadcaster to broadsheet and tabloid is staggering. Having watched the tabloid press in action, I’ve long known that they will blacken the name of innocent people for a headline. But I used to have a pathetic faith in the broadsheets and broadcasters like the BBC. Now being able to search for primary sources direct, although not a Ph.D or ‘expert’ (Funny how they’re so often dead wrong) can make up my own mind.

Until the last ten years I just never knew how fake the mainstream media world really was.

To close. While I was composing this blog post, a little WordPress message popped up while I was copy and pasting. It read; “What are your feelings on eating meat?” Well A) that’s no-one’s business but my own. B) What the f*cking hell are WordPress up to? It seems to me there are too many worthless mouths out there with keyboards minding other people’s business.

Maybe they’d be happier if they just stopped and go on with their own lives? Mmm. Upon reflection that might mean they had to do some productive work.