Strangely Perfect

A Cracking Week Off? I had a week’s holiday of sorts last week.  On returning I found that this website had been cracked. (I already had intimations that something was wrong because of site stat failures and an email from @Justin Asking, sometime commenter to this website and others).  Anyway, so it was.  Unfortunately, I [...]

Guidelines for a Better World Laws are like sausages — it is best not to see them being made.  Perhaps I should re-phrase this as: The Rules of Law and International Diplomacy are like sausages — it is best not to see them being made It’s a strange world out there.  Two recent political events [...]

Heysel and Beyond Being justifiably upset by the events at the Heysel Stadium many years ago, the recent comments on a video I made about it … … on the 25th anniversary of the awful event made me recall some TV reporting of what was reputedly  to be a Juventus “fan” brandishing a gun on [...]

Coroner and Law I’m often struck when reading the papers or news, to see the coroner’s verdict on someone’s death as: Ending his own life while the balance of his mind was disturbed Well they have to say something, it’s their job, but the phrase is very peculiar. Take this couple, the Milners, who were [...]

Golden Syrup Years ago, when I was a lad, my mum used to make us all porridge for breakfast in winter.  On the top, I’d spiral a big dollop of Lyle’s Golden Syrup and then, while eating the porridge, I’d read the tin. Yes!  There was a different flapjack recipe every time! But also, as [...]

In this post Dangerous EffectiveCleanse – and Scams Too! two weeks ago, I mentioned how a scumbag webhost called byet.org is redirecting a client’s Amazon Shop clicks to that other pustule of conmanship called MyBookFace.net Checks Well I’ve just checked and it’s still on. (Someone wants to get that fixed!)  At the bottom of the [...]

Comparing The West and The East There is currently a world-wide flu epidemic and it’s interesting to compare the responses of various countries to it, with the historical pandemic of The Plague, i.e. the Black Death. Flu In the USA, it’s been called “Mexican Flu” sometimes quite pejoratively, especially at it’s outset and especially by [...]

Introduction Many years ago when I was living in France and during a prolonged period of French atomic weapon testing on the Moruroa atoll, the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior, was blown up in a New Zealand harbour. Initially, it was thought to be an accident. Now, as soon as this happened, I thought “who has [...]

Everyone, it seems, both in the East and West, even China, is now aware of the huge forgery that gave last week’s Iranian election result to the cross-eyed one. However, when talking about the brave people marching through Tehran’s streets, saying “everyone deserves freedom” etc etc, we should cast our minds back only a few [...]

Such was the comment made in the Guardian by paul lester as part of a review of a band called The Northwestern.  This is a FYI quote: It’s not often that one truly great band breaks up and another, equally good but different one forms in their wake with some or all of the same [...]

Oleg Deripaska? Oleg is one of the world’s richest men.  Getting his Physics degree as the old USSR collapsed, then buying up shares in Aluminium smelters, getting an Economics degree and then setting up Basic Element, a vast metals empire, he somehow rid the company and industry of the Mafia, but no-one knows how. But [...]

In the above video, shot with a mobile phone and first reported at the beginning of April this year, some blokes, watched by a load of other blokes, whip a young woman for breaking some law. At that time, the Taliban blokes (for it is them) had just come to an agreement with the Pakistan [...]

Harriet Harman For the last week or so, the highly paid Paxman has become obviously annoyed at the continuous devious behaviour from every politician he’s interviewed.  They all say “we understand the public’s anguish” – but, as Paxman notes, they do fuck all about it.  As many have noted, if you go into a shop and [...]

The Next Dalai Lama Rejects Buddhism and Hero Worship, that is! Way back in 1986, the next Dalai Lama, a little Spanish boy, was chosen.  Apparently, Osel Hita Torres can’t take it, a life deprived of television, movies (save one), football and girls. He’s now a film student in Madrid. He rejects all that his status [...]