Illiterate Echo

What passes for journalism these days in the Sun, Mail, and Express is no longer even the act of reporting. It's voyeurism with a keyboard – a breathless regurgitation of what Brenda from Scunthorpe said on Facebook about something she doesn’t understand and couldn’t locate on a map if her life depended on it.

This isn’t news. It’s a digital séance, summoning the uninformed opinion of the masses and presenting it as if it were expert analysis. There was a time when newsrooms employed reporters – you know, people who went out and found things out. Dug. Questioned. Investigated. Now it’s some poor sod trawling Twitter for outrage, pasting five random reactions under a “backlash” headline, and clocking off early.

"Fury erupts!" cries the Mail, as three people on X (formerly Twitter – God help us all) say something mildly irritated about a topic none of them fully grasp. "Brits left fuming!" howls the Express, as if all 67 million of us have united in incandescent rage over a BBC presenter’s shirt pattern.

It’s not journalism. It’s a kind of automated Chinese whisper. One bloke says something daft on social media, some other daft bloke quotes it, and suddenly it's in the tabs like it’s public sentiment incarnate. And the worst part? It feeds itself. Readers see these so-called stories, comment beneath them, and their comments get quoted in the next article. Ouroboros would be proud.

The traditional role of the press – to inform, to scrutinise power, to explain – has been chucked in a skip behind the printing works. In its place: clickbait guff based on the emotional incontinence of strangers. No depth, no nuance, and certainly no attempt to check if the people being quoted know their arse from their elbow.

It’s the journalistic equivalent of eavesdropping on two drunk lads at a bus stop and writing it up as public policy.

This is how we end up with a population convinced that "people are saying" means "it’s true", or that the shoutiest voice in the room represents the nation. It's infantilising, corrosive, and lazy to the point of scandal. But the tabs love it – it’s cheap, it's fast, and it gives the illusion of democratic participation, when really it’s just the amplification of ignorance for profit.

So next time the Express announces that “Brits are divided” over something, remember: it usually means some bloke called Gaz posted “load of old cobblers” under a government tweet and got two likes. And instead of ignoring it – as any functioning society should – it became a headline.

Fleet Street is dead. It was drowned in a sea of emojis and caps-locked fury.

Sacrifice

Nigel Farage, fresh from defending his right to say appalling things with a smirk, has now declared that men are more deserving of top jobs because they’re willing to "sacrifice their family lives" in pursuit of success. Not that it’s phrased as abandonment, mind you – it’s painted as valour. The selfless executive trudging out the front door while the toddler reaches out for one last cuddle. You can almost hear the Elgar swelling in the background. Heroism, thy name is Dad’s empty chair.

Let’s unpick that, shall we? Because it’s not the man who’s sacrificed – it’s the bloody family. It’s the kids who don’t see their father from one end of the week to the next. It’s the partner – usually female – who juggles school runs, sleepless nights, and the slow erosion of her own career because someone has to hold the fort while the other one plays at being indispensable in a lanyard. This isn't noble. It’s a system that rewards neglect and calls it ambition.

And let’s be clear: the man made a choice. That’s what this “sacrifice” really is – an option taken, not a price extracted. He chooses to pursue advancement over presence. He chooses the promotion, the bonus, the long hours. The family doesn’t get a vote. They are the sacrifice. They pay for his decision, often in silence, with lost time and frayed connections, while he’s applauded for being the one who had to "make the hard call".

But according to Nigel, this is why men naturally rise to the top – because they’re willing to ditch their families and flog themselves for the paycheque. Women, in contrast, make "different life choices", which is the polite way of saying "they’re not heartless enough to sod off and call it sacrifice".

What he’s really saying, of course, is that the system is fine as it is. That if women aren’t at the top in equal numbers, it’s not because they’ve been structurally excluded, overlooked, underpaid, underestimated, or funnelled into part-time roles to keep the wheels turning at home – it’s because they’re just not trying hard enough. Or worse, they’re being "given privileges" under the guise of diversity and inclusion. As if the playing field has ever been level.

Let’s remember, this is the same man who praised Donald Trump for scrapping DEI policies. According to Nigel, these are dreadful things that hand out jobs based on skin colour or sexuality, as if HR departments across the land are doling out directorships in some sort of progressive raffle. In truth, DEI programmes exist to counteract centuries of structural inequality. But Farage doesn’t see inequality – he just sees competition. And when you're on the side that’s historically had a 3–0 head start and you’re still being caught up, you call foul.

Asked why business was historically dominated by white men, Farage replied, with all the insight of a drunk uncle at a wedding, that it was because "the country was white men". Not “run by”, you’ll note. Not “stacked in favour of”. No, apparently Britain was just white men, wall to wall, presumably springing fully formed from the soil with a briefcase and a Brylcreemed side parting. Women, it seems, were off-screen. Minor characters in their own households, raising children and propping up the nation without so much as a footnote. Empire, war, science, trade – all carried out by men who, if you believe Nigel, built it all unaided while the womenfolk stuck to sponge cakes and sewing.

And when he finally points to a woman in his own party – their by-election candidate – he’s quick to assure us she wasn’t picked because she’s a woman. Heaven forbid. Just the best person for the job. It’s always funny how they say that when the entire party is 100 percent male in Parliament. Apparently there’s been no woman in the entire country, until now, who made the grade. Not one. What rotten luck.

This isn’t about fairness. It never is. It’s about preserving the illusion that those at the top are there because they’re just that brilliant, and that any attempt to open the door to others is an attack on "merit". But the truth is, if the playing field were genuinely level – if sacrifice meant something different, if childcare and emotional labour were properly valued, if success didn’t demand stepping over your own children to reach it – then a lot of the men currently running things might look a bit less like visionary leaders and a bit more like blokes who got lucky.

Farage doesn’t want to dismantle unfairness. He wants to rebrand it as tradition. And if that means romanticising the lonely office hero who hasn’t been to a school concert in ten years, well, pass him a biscuit. But don’t pretend it’s sacrifice when it’s really abdication – and don’t forget who’s left paying for it.

Sleepwalking

In February I developed some simple questions for Reform Ltd supporters which I posted as a blog. I've been lobbing them into the online Reform echo chambers on Facebook of late. Just polite queries, really. Thought-provoking, evidence-based, politically neutral, you might say – the kind that prod gently at the contradictions and cognitive knots tying Farage supporters to their man.

You’d think a movement so proud of its "common sense" would relish the chance to set the record straight. They don’t. In fact, most can’t even get past the first question. That one’s on Brexit, naturally. The second they see the B-word, the shutters come down. “Brexit wasn’t done properly,” they chant, like it’s a magic spell. When asked what "properly" actually means, the answer – if you’re lucky enough to get one – is usually something so spectacularly daft it would have made Liz Truss look an economic genius. Bring back border checks! Scrap EU standards! Cut ourselves off entirely! It's the political equivalent of sawing off the branch you're sitting on, because you don’t like the tree.

None of this is surprising, really. What’s clear from these encounters is that the average Reform supporter has never read a Reform policy in their life. Not one. They couldn’t tell you what the party would do with the NHS, with pensions, with the cost of living, with foreign policy. Ask about tax, and they mumble something about “flat rate” without realising it would gut public services and line the pockets of the already wealthy. Ask about climate change and you’ll be met with a grunt or some lazy meme about "woke nonsense" from someone who didn't even pass physics GCSE. Dig into immigration and it becomes very clear, very quickly, what’s driving this particular political bus.

Because when all else is stripped away, what’s left is ugly. Reform’s rise isn’t fuelled by economic theory or social cohesion. It’s not about sovereignty or global Britain or any of the slogans they bandy about. It’s racism. Plain and simple. Dressed up in patriotic bunting and wrapped in a Union Jack, but racism all the same. A fear of the other. A knee-jerk reaction to brown faces in high places. They’ll say it’s about "culture" or "British values", but that’s just the polite veneer on the same old poison.

And here’s the real danger. By supporting Farage and his merry band of populist grifters, these people are sleepwalking into fascism. Not jackboots and sieg heils – not yet – but a softer, subtler version that eats away at institutions, demonises minorities, and sneers at the rule of law. A movement that wraps itself in "freedom" while quietly dismantling the freedoms of others. That wails about democracy while undermining it at every turn. That calls itself “Reform” while offering nothing but regression.

It’s all very Weimar, isn’t it? The economic turmoil, the demagogues, the scapegoating, the hollow promises. And just like then, the people most at risk of being crushed by the system are the very ones cheering it on, convinced the enemy is their neighbour, not the crooks pulling the strings.

Reform is not a political movement. It is a marketing strategy aimed at the angry and misinformed. It offers no answers. It offers no hope. Just a target to hate and a flag to wave. And if we’re not careful, it will drag this country even further into the mire than Brexit already has. Reform voters don't seem the have the mental capacity to work out the consequences of Farage's policies - all they hear is; "Stop the boats!" and that's what captures them, regardless of the fallout from the other policies. Those policies get in under the wire.

So yes, I’ll keep asking my questions. And no, I don’t expect many answers. Because if they actually stopped to think – if they read, listened, considered – they might have to face an uncomfortable truth. They’ve been had. Duped. Conned by the very people they think are on their side. And once that penny drops, it’s no longer just ignorance. It’s complicity.

Crime & Punishment

There’s a certain irony in how we approach crime and punishment. Society spends years trying to stop toddlers from turning into little monsters, only to throw grown-ups into a system that guarantees they come out worse. We wag fingers at misbehaving children, scold them for mixing with the wrong crowd, and lecture about consequences - and then shove offenders into prisons that are basically networking hubs for criminals, where the ‘wrong crowd’ is the only crowd.

It’s the same old battle: punishment versus rehabilitation, nature versus nurture. Some people think that locking criminals away and making life miserable will scare them straight – just as Victorian parents believed a good thrashing would instil lifelong virtue in their offspring. But fear-driven discipline didn’t exactly create well-adjusted, happy children; it bred resentment, defiance, and the occasional serial killer. Likewise, prisons built on punishment alone don’t reform criminals – they manufacture reoffenders.

Look at the numbers. In England and Wales, nearly 50% of adults released from prison reoffend within a year, with the rate rising to 64% for those serving sentences of less than 12 months. In the US, the five-year recidivism rate is over 76%, a staggering indictment of the system. Countries with punitive justice systems – the UK, the US – have appalling rates of reoffending. Why? Because prison, in its current form, is the equivalent of sending a naughty child to a school run entirely by other naughty children. They don’t come out better; they come out fluent in delinquency, with a new set of criminal contacts and an even bigger chip on their shoulder.

But when you bring this up, the same tiresome crowd starts banging on about ‘soft justice’. Apparently, anything short of medieval dungeon conditions is just coddling criminals. Never mind that Norway, with its plush ‘hotel’ prisons, has one of the lowest reoffending rates in the world. Their system treats inmates like humans, focuses on rehabilitation, and, shockingly, produces fewer criminals. Meanwhile, Britain sticks to the ‘lock ’em up and hope for the best’ method – which, given the state of our prisons, seems to involve throwing inmates into a pressure cooker of violence, drugs, and institutionalised incompetence.

And here’s the real sting – the punitive approach isn’t just ineffective, it’s eye-wateringly expensive. The UK spends approximately £4.4 billion annually on prisons, with each inmate costing the taxpayer around £47,000 per year. Meanwhile, reoffending costs the economy an estimated £18 billion annually – far more than the cost of rehabilitation programmes that have been proven to reduce crime. Worse still, shifting to a more rehabilitative model would require an upfront investment, meaning the initial expenditure would hit government finances before the benefits materialised. The long-term gains – reduced crime, fewer victims, and a lower burden on the justice system – would far outweigh the costs, but that doesn't fit with the short-term thinking of politicians obsessed with electoral cycles. The UK government spends billions annually on prisons, yet reoffending costs the economy even more in policing, legal proceedings, and lost productivity. It’s the worst kind of false economy. For every pound spent on proper rehabilitation, there’s a potential saving of far more in reduced crime, fewer victims, and lower long-term incarceration costs. 

The same money wasted on keeping people locked up in failing institutions could be used to stop them ending up there in the first place – better education, mental health services, addiction treatment. But no, we prefer to throw good money after bad, because ‘being tough on crime’ sounds better in a soundbite than ‘actually solving the problem’. The irony is that the politicians clinging to this outdated model aren't even serving their own fiscal interests - just their electoral ones. A properly reformed system wouldn’t just reduce crime; it would cut costs in the long run, free up resources for essential public services, and boost economic productivity. But when the rewards take longer than a single parliamentary term to materialise, no one in power wants to touch it. Pragmatism loses to populist pandering every time.

And it's not just prisoners affected by their environment. Prison officers, spending years immersed in the same brutal conditions, often end up compromised themselves. Corruption, violence, and smuggling scandals involving officers are disturbingly common – a 2023 report found that more than 120 prison staff in England and Wales were dismissed or convicted for corruption-related offences over a five-year period - proof that even those meant to uphold order aren’t immune to the system’s corrupting influence. If nurture plays a role in criminality, then surely we should acknowledge that forcing people – both inmates and staff – into dysfunctional institutions makes it more, not less, likely that they will adopt criminal behaviours. If working in prisons can lead officers to offend, how can we expect prisoners to emerge rehabilitated?

It’s the same mistake people have made with children for centuries. Slap a label on them – ‘troublemaker’, ‘thug’, ‘criminal’ – and that’s what they become. Victorian parents did it, assuming some kids were just ‘bad seeds’, destined for the gallows. We do the same with ex-cons, branding them for life and then wondering why they can’t get a job and end up back inside.

The answer isn’t complicated. If you want fewer criminals, stop designing a system that churns them out like a factory. Just as children need boundaries, guidance, and a chance to learn from mistakes, so do offenders. Prison should be about rehabilitation, not just revenge. But that requires society to admit that the people inside aren’t monsters – they’re products of their environment. And if we’re serious about reducing crime, we might want to start by fixing the places that manufacture it.

After Trump?

It’s the end of March 2025, and we’re already ankle-deep in the slurry. The Department of Government Efficiency is sacking federal workers faster than Elon can rename Twitter, birthright citizenship is under legal siege, and the U.S. now treats Canada like a hostile power with tariffs that’d make even Lord Palmerston wince.

But this isn’t about Trump anymore.

He’s not the story – not really. He’s the symptom. The warning flare. The man-shaped black hole around which a dying republic spins. What matters now is the aftermath. The inheritance.

Political philosophers – the ones who usually dwell in dusty corners of academia or pace around YouTube looking worried – are sounding the alarm. Francis Fukuyama, once bullish about the global triumph of liberal democracy, now concedes it may have been a short-lived exception. Timothy Snyder sees echoes of 1930s authoritarian creep, sharpened by tech and turbocharged by denial. Jason Stanley has been warning for years that America is slipping into fascism not with jackboots, but with memes and merch.

Vlad Vexler, the philosopher-turned-firewatcher, calls it “performative governance” – democracy as empty ritual. The votes are still counted, but meaning and accountability have quietly slipped out the back door. Meanwhile, Slavoj Žižek, between references to Hegel and bodily functions, notes that Trumpism isn’t an anomaly – it’s the logical endpoint of a system that long ago gave up on substance and now runs on spectacle.

And then there’s Yanis Varoufakis – leather-jacketed Cassandra of European collapse – who sees it all as the final unravelling of what he calls “Technofeudalism.” His warning? The danger isn’t just authoritarianism – it’s the merger of big state and big tech into a self-sustaining elite. In that model, Trump’s chaos is useful theatre – a distraction while the extraction continues. Rights get trimmed, the commons gets sold, and the public gets fed cultural gristle to chew on.

Because after Trump goes – whether in four years, two years, or via cholesterol – the template remains. Future strongmen, free-marketeers and frothing populists now have a handbook. And it reads: break norms, cry fraud, repeat. Turns out all those democratic “checks and balances” were more like polite suggestions. Nice ideas. Decorum.

The risk isn’t just that Trump finishes his term with a gutted civil service, an increasingly compliant judiciary, and a cowed Congress. It’s that he proves it works. That you can get away with it. That democracy doesn’t die with a bang – it gets outsourced, streamlined, and told to reapply for funding next quarter.

And the world watches. Hungary smiles knowingly. Modi raises an eyebrow. Farage – now somehow an MP – probably has a private WhatsApp chat labelled “When it’s our turn” without ever articulating a local council pledge for the May local elections.

For Britain, this isn’t abstract. It’s an echo. We’ve got Reform frothing about national service and pub closures, the Tories cosplaying Churchill while fumbling basic governance, and Labour still terrified of its own shadow. Nobody dares say the B-word. The EU? Apparently we’re still pretending it never existed. We might as well be trying to out-stupid America.

So what happens after Trump? After four years of screaming headlines, weaponised grievance, and a political culture built on vibes and vengeance?

Either the centre wakes up – not with a speech but with a strategy – or we’re in for a long, grim decade of ever-slicker authoritarians. The sort who smile for the cameras and swear they’re “just streamlining government” while quietly burning the architecture of democracy behind them.

Trump may go. The chaos might ease. But the damage is done. And unless we’re prepared to fight for truth, trust, and a politics that actually gives a damn about people – someone worse will pick up where he left off.

Of course, there’s a glimmer – a faint one, but there – that Trump’s second term could be so chaotic, so transparently self-serving, that the spell finally breaks. That enough people look around at the scorched landscape – trade wars, democratic drift, tinfoil rhetoric passing for policy – and think: actually, no thanks.

Yascha Mounk calls it the “corrective backlash” – the idea that societies have a kind of political immune system. Push things too far into absurdity, and the public recoils. Fukuyama, too, hasn’t entirely given up. He suggests that the very excesses of populist rule can reactivate civic engagement – if, and only if, the institutions haven’t been gutted beyond repair.

Even Žižek, in his roundabout way, has hinted that the real danger for the populist right isn’t their enemies – it’s their own success. Once in power, they have to actually govern – and when all you’ve sold is rage and nostalgia, delivery becomes a problem.

So yes – there’s a chance. A crack in the wall. Trump’s second term might become the cautionary tale that cures the fever.

But hope is not a plan. And without mobilisation, strategy, and the kind of bold, values-driven politics that doesn’t flinch at hard truths – we may just trade one wrecking ball for another with better hair and a more agreeable accent.

Health Supplements

Food supplements have become the latest snake oil, haven’t they? Take turmeric, for example. A bright, earthy spice with actual health benefits – if you use it properly. But instead of chucking it into a curry or stirring it into your rice, people are shelling out a small fortune for turmeric pills, convinced they’re getting some miracle cure in a bottle. Spoiler alert: they’re not.

Here’s the thing about turmeric – you need at least two teaspoons of the stuff every day to have any real effect. That’s not a sprinkle; it’s a hearty dose. And to make matters more complicated, it works best with a bit of fat and black pepper to help your body absorb it. But the supplement industry would rather you didn’t know that. They’d rather you buy into the idea that popping a few pills a day is the fast track to better health. It’s not just misleading – it’s a racket.

And let’s not ignore the obvious. You can buy a bag of turmeric at your local shop for the cost of a latte, and it’ll last you weeks. Those fancy little bottles of pills? They’ll cost you five, ten, sometimes twenty times as much for a fraction of the actual spice. It’s daylight robbery, dressed up as wellness.

But the real irony is this: turmeric is food. It belongs in your kitchen, not your medicine cabinet. If you’re serious about using it for its anti-inflammatory or antioxidant properties, you’re better off cooking with it. Make a curry, add it to soups, or stir it into your morning scrambled eggs. Not only will you save money, but you’ll also get the spice as nature intended – complete with its flavour and nutritional punch.

Of course, this applies to more than just turmeric. Ginger, garlic, cinnamon – all of these have been turned into overpriced capsules when they’re readily available, cheap, and versatile in the kitchen. The supplement industry preys on the idea that health is complicated, that you need their products to unlock it. But you don’t. You just need to eat real food.

So don’t be fooled by the slick labels and lofty promises. Next time you’re tempted by a bottle of turmeric capsules, head to the spice aisle instead. Your wallet will thank you, and so will your taste buds. Health isn’t found in a pill; it’s found on your plate.

Vitamin D supplements, however, are a different matter. Vitamin D is normally topped up through sunlight, but there isn't much of that in winter - especially this winter. Foods containing vitamin D include red meat, oily fish, eggs and liver, but not in sufficient quantities to be beneficial in the darker months, so, beyond sitting in front of an ultra-violet light (and risking skin cancer), like those of my age used to do as kids (to beat rickets), vitamin D supplements are beneficial, especially in older people who may not get out enough.

The Death of Stalin (Signalgate)

There’s a scene in The Death of Stalin where the politburo grandees – all desperate not to be next on the firing list – stand around Stalin’s twitching corpse, debating whether he’s dead, who should fetch a doctor, and whether said doctor has already been purged. Every word is weighed, every glance a potential betrayal. It’s a masterclass in fearful incompetence wrapped in bombast.

Now enter Signalgate – America’s own descent into farce, only with fewer medals and more mobile phones. In this reimagining, we swap the smoky corridors of Soviet power for a Signal group chat, where Trump’s top brass – Vance, Rubio, Hegseth and Waltz – planned military strikes on Yemen as if arranging five-a-side football. Then, in a moment of outstanding digital idiocy, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz accidentally invited The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, into the chat. Not just any journalist – one of the sharpest political editors in America.

Picture Beria accidentally looping in George Orwell. That’s where we are.

And just like the Kremlin’s old guard, they immediately fell back on the oldest trick in the authoritarian playbook: attack the journalist. Goldberg, they now imply, is the villain. He was reckless, disloyal, possibly even subversive – for being there. Not for leaking anything. Not for asking awkward questions. Just for having eyes and ears.

It’s pure Stalinism in its modern form. In the film, terrified yes-men shout over one another to appear loyal, all while quietly sharpening knives behind backs. Truth is a liability, and messengers are dealt with. In today’s America, when the truth emerges not through espionage but through sheer clumsiness, the same tactics apply. Create noise. Smear the witness. Hope the public lose interest before the facts land.

The real absurdity lies in the double standard. These are the very same characters who howl about free speech, who puff up their chests about holding power to account, who claim the press should be fearless. Until, of course, it turns its gaze on them. Then it’s all about "national security", loyalty tests, and trying to paint the journalist as the problem – not the people discussing airstrikes on a glorified group chat.

It would be laughable if it weren’t so bloody serious. In both cases – Soviet and Trumpist – power is wielded not with care or competence, but with bravado and paranoia. The Death of Stalin was supposed to be a satire. This lot appear to be treating it as a training video.

Dual Garage / Dining Attire

I have made a discovery of great import, one that could revolutionise the way I dress for all occasions. I have, after years of searching, found a pair of overalls with a zip fly. Not some fiddly, buttoned contraption that requires the dexterity of a concert pianist just to take a leak, but a proper, sensible zip.

These are Parkside bib overalls from Lidl. Who knew that the Germans, in their efficiency, would be the saviours of the incontinent man? Or, in my case, the man who simply cannot be bothered with an impromptu game of 'find the buttonhole' when nature calls.

Now, these overalls are clearly designed for serious work. Reinforced knees, sturdy stitching, enough pockets to lose one’s house keys in several times over. But my wife – ever the pragmatist – has suggested an entirely different use for them.

I should wear them when we go out for a meal.

This is not, as one might assume, because she wishes to cultivate the appearance of a woman dining with a seasoned agricultural labourer. No, it is because she has observed, with the accuracy of a forensic scientist, that I cannot eat a meal without wearing at least some of it. Apparently, I am a magnet for airborne sauce. If there is gravy, it will find its way onto my shirt. If there is soup, I shall inexplicably baptise myself in it. If a single rogue pea can defy gravity, it will land in my lap.

Her reasoning is that the bib overalls offer a built-in napkin, or perhaps a shield, against my inevitable food-based self-sabotage.

And she has a point. The sturdy fabric could withstand a full-scale spaghetti explosion, and with the number of pockets available, I could even keep emergency wet wipes and stain remover on my person at all times. I might look like a retired welder who got lost on his way to the jobsite, but at least I wouldn’t be wearing my meal home.

There is, of course, the social stigma of wearing industrial workwear to a fine dining establishment, but let’s be honest – I am unlikely to be found in a Michelin-starred venue discussing the bouquet of an overpriced Shiraz. More likely, I’ll be in the local pub, hovering over slow cooked belly pork while fending off a pint of still cider or a delicious Argentinian Malbec that’s contemplating a trip down my sleeve.

So, the overalls are staying. If Lidl could just start making them in tweed, I might even wear them to weddings.

The Merc 500 SL

After eight long years of fruitless fettling, the Mercedes 500 SL has finally deigned to run properly and has emerged, blinking, into the light with a fresh MoT and only a mild list of advisories – the automotive equivalent of a retired racehorse being declared “sound enough to walk to the pub.” This particular beast, my beloved R129, boasts a glorious 5-litre V8 that once purred like a panther but for most of the last decade has spluttered more like a damp lawnmower.

Back in 2017, in a fit of naïve optimism, I handed it over to the first garage. They had it for three years. Three. Entire. Years. That’s not a repair – that’s a custody battle. I suspect they occasionally poked it with a stick, but actual progress was limited to vague mutterings and large invoices. Eventually, I retrieved it, still misfiring like a knackered jazz band and, after a hiatus, dropped it off at the second garage – Paul’s.

Now, Paul’s a good bloke and knows his way around an engine bay, but because I was on mates’ rates, the SL was permanently shunted to the back of the queue, behind paying customers and passing tumbleweed. He’s had it for over three years. I half expected to find ivy growing through the wheels when I went to pick it up. But lo – he finally declared it fixed and handed me the keys with the air of someone bestowing a newborn child.

I made it exactly twenty minutes down the road before the misfire returned like an unwelcome relative. But Paul had a theory. “Fill the tank,” he said. “Right up to the top.” I raised an eyebrow. This sounded less like mechanical advice and more like folk medicine. But I did as instructed, and – I kid you not – the misfire disappeared. It seems my SL has developed a taste for abundance. Paul opined that the new fuel injectors and the crap in the bottom of the tank was to blame and it simply needed flushing out.

There are a few fresh scratches, of course, that definitely weren’t there before – presumably garage staff performing interpretive dance across the bonnet – but I didn’t even flinch. The bottom half of the car already looked like it had done a tour of Afghanistan, and the hardtop’s finish was more faded than a 1970s sitcom. Fortunately, I know a brilliant Romanian sprayer who’ll make it look like new. Then it’ll be handed over to another Romanian I know who valets like he’s detailing the Crown Jewels. Both work at the place I drive for. Between the two of them, the SL will be showroom-fresh – or at least no longer resembling an abandoned council skip.

The oil light, meanwhile, is permanently illuminated, despite the engine being positively brimming with the stuff. I’ve checked. Obsessively. The fuel gauge refuses to show more than a quarter full, without ever troubling itself with accuracy. Occasionally, for reasons known only to Stuttgart and the spirit world, it lurches into ASR mode – traction control kicking in when I’m coasting gently along at 30, with not a hint of wheelspin or drama. It’s like being shouted at for a crime you haven’t committed.

But the real villain of this saga was the wiring loom. Mercedes, in a moment of green-tinged lunacy, decided that biodegradable insulation was the way forward. Which is all very noble until you realise that cars aren’t supposed to rot from the inside. Over time, the loom imperceptibly disintegrated, shorting wires and resulting in the mystery misfire. Diagnosing anything was impossible – the car was basically screaming in binary.

The solution? A brand-new bespoke loom, flown in from Germany, no doubt hand-crafted by precision-obsessed engineers named Uwe. It’s sorted the lot. The misfire is gone. The gremlins have buggered off. The V8 roars once more, and for the first time in years, the 500 SL behaves like a car rather than a haunted toaster.

So yes, it’s still got quirks. But it’s back on the road. It’s mine. And it runs. Which, after everything, feels like nothing short of a resurrection. And if it ever misbehaves again, I’ll brim the tank, mutter something vaguely Teutonic, and hope Paul hasn’t changed his number.

I'll get to fully sorted, drive it for the summer (attending a few classic car shows) and then sell it to fund the restoration of the Triumph GT6 which, according to Paul, would benefit more from a supercharger on the existing 2 litre straight 6, rather than a full-blown transplant of a Mazda 1.8 turbo engine.

Meno-pause - Really

A thought struck me the other day.

Whoever coined the term menopause was clearly more concerned with polite phrasing than biological accuracy. Pause, they said, as if the whole business of menstruation just takes a little breather before returning refreshed, like a tea break. It doesn’t. It stops. Full stop. No pause, no restart, no "see you next month." Done and dusted.

But language loves a euphemism, doesn’t it? Death becomes "passing," bald becomes "follicly challenged," and the permanent cessation of menstruation gets dressed up as a temporary intermission. Perhaps Charles-Pierre-Louis de Gardanne, the 19th-century French physician who popularised the term, thought menostop sounded too harsh. The Victorians did like to soften the blow of anything remotely connected to women’s bodies.

Yet the reality is far from a pause. Hormones fluctuate, cycles stutter, and eventually, the shop closes for good. If we were being honest, we'd call it menofinish, menodone, or even meno-thanks-very-much. But no, we get pause—a word that suggests limbo rather than finality. It’s the linguistic equivalent of pretending the sun’s just nipped behind a cloud when it’s actually set.

Of course, this isn’t just about biology. It’s about how society frames women's experiences: soften the language, downplay the impact, make it sound less definitive. A pause sounds manageable, almost gentle. A stop? That’s too final, too real, too much like admitting that time marches on, indifferent to delicate sensibilities.

So, here’s to calling things what they are. Menopause isn’t a pause—it’s the end of an era, with all the hormonal fanfare and physiological fireworks that come with it. Let’s at least give it a name that respects the reality, rather than tiptoeing around it with linguistic fluff.

Signal Failure

In what can only be described as a staggering feat of strategic incompetence, the Trump White House has managed to mistake an encrypted messaging app for a military strategy simulator – and in the process, texted top-secret Yemen war plans to a journalist. You couldn’t make it up. But then again, with this lot, you don’t need to.

Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the usual rogue’s gallery of political mediocrities were apparently coordinating airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen using Signal – yes, the same app people use to arrange surprise birthday drinks. Only in the fever dream of Trump’s America could national security be outsourced to a group chat.

Enter stage left: Michael Waltz, National Security Advisor and living proof that ex-Green Berets don’t necessarily make great admin assistants. In a masterstroke of digital ham-fistedness, he accidentally adds Jeffrey Goldberg – editor-in-chief of The Atlantic – to the group chat. Within minutes, the nation's classified military playbook is effectively forwarded to the press. This wasn’t a hack, mind you. This wasn’t cyberwarfare. This was someone hitting the wrong contact. The fate of Middle Eastern diplomacy, brought low by fat fingers and poor contact management.

Frankly, we should count ourselves lucky he didn’t accidentally add Putin. Though one suspects that if he had, half the chat would’ve simply read “as discussed” anyway.

Naturally, the chat thread read like something between a Tom Clancy knock-off and a sixth-form debate club. Vance wanted to delay the strikes to better align with European PR and protect the oil markets. Hegseth – apparently under the impression he was auditioning for Call of Duty: Joint Chiefs Edition – pushed for immediate action to “restore deterrence,” seemingly forgetting that deterrence tends to work better when the enemy doesn’t get a copy of your battle plan in advance.

When caught, the response from the administration was as farcical as the incident itself. Hegseth denied war plans were shared, insisting “nobody was texting war plans,” as if the chat was all emojis and cat gifs. Trump, never one to miss a chance to defend incompetence, brushed it off, praising his team’s “transparency” – which, fair play, is one way to describe leaking top-secret operations to the press.

The fallout? Predictable outrage from Democrats, who for once didn’t even need to exaggerate. Chuck Schumer called it a “spectacular intelligence failure,” though frankly, it’s hard to call something a failure when intelligence never entered the equation in the first place. And now, with the NSC scrambling to investigate itself and Signal chats presumably being rebranded as ‘Top Secret Command Centres,’ we’re left with the bitter realisation that a good number of America’s most powerful officials couldn’t organise a piss-up in a Pentagon brewery.

This is what happens when you treat government like a reality show and appoint yes-men, ideologues, and glorified YouTubers to positions of global consequence. They don’t just undermine institutions – they humiliate them. With every blunder, every autocorrected disaster, they remind the world that the adults have well and truly left the room.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are left staring into the digital abyss, wondering how long before someone forwards the nuclear codes to a group titled “Weekend BBQ?” Or maybe they already have.

The Cookbook

There’s a peculiar ritual that plays out in middle-class kitchens up and down the land. An annual pilgrimage to Waterstones (or, for the truly lazy, a one-click Amazon splurge) to procure the latest must-have cookbook. These hefty tomes, often adorned with smugly grinning chefs and artful arrangements of ingredients no one actually owns, are then ceremoniously plonked on the kitchen counter before being flicked through exactly once, never to be touched again. Less a cookbook, more an aspirational paperweight.

Take Ottolenghi, for example. A man who has single-handedly kept the sumac and pomegranate molasses industries afloat. His books are a joy to behold. Pages dripping with Middle Eastern sunshine and garnished with just the right amount of food-stylist nonchalance. But let’s be honest. No one has the patience to track down Persian barberries on a wet Tuesday evening. His recipes are read wistfully, bookmarked optimistically, and then abandoned in favour of beans on toast.

Nigella, meanwhile, is the siren of the seductive snack. Her books promise effortless indulgence, but somehow, in the cold light of day, an evening of whipping up a "cheeky little something" invariably gives way to eating crisps straight from the bag while standing over the sink. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is another culprit, luring unsuspecting home cooks into believing they’ll suddenly develop the wherewithal to forage for wild garlic and ferment their own butter. Two weeks later, the book is wedged under a wobbly table leg and normal service is resumed.

Then there’s the Christmas influx. Every year, without fail, Jamie Oliver or Gordon Ramsay will churn out a festive doorstop promising to revolutionise your roast. It will be unwrapped with enthusiasm, skimmed through while digesting a third helping of turkey, and then unceremoniously shoved onto an already overstuffed shelf alongside its predecessors. Because, despite the best intentions, Christmas dinner will always be made the same way your mother did it, because that’s how Christmas dinner works.

But not all chefs are guilty. Nigel Slater, bless him, gets it right. No unnecessary flourishes. No demands for obscure herbs that sound like a skin condition. Just proper food, simply made, with ingredients you might actually have knocking about in the fridge. His books don’t sit gathering dust. They’re splattered, dog-eared, and genuinely useful. Proof that not every cookbook has to be an exercise in overambition and self-delusion.

The grandest joke of all? The sheer volume of cookbooks bought by people who never cook. Entire bookshelves dedicated to the culinary arts, yet the oven is used exclusively for storing frying pans. It’s performance literature. A way to signal one’s cultural sophistication without the inconvenience of actually doing anything. A pristine copy of "The Nordic Baking Bible"? Clearly, this is a person of taste, even if their idea of home baking is defrosting a Tesco’s croissant.

So the cycle continues. The cookbooks keep rolling in, their spines barely cracked, their recipes untested. But no matter. When the next beautifully photographed collection of unfeasibly complicated dishes lands in the shops, we’ll all fall for it again. And that, my friends, is the true secret ingredient of the publishing industry. Blind, unwavering optimism.

Parlez-vous Shouting? The Anglo-Norman Guide to Communication

It is a well-documented fact that the English, when confronted with a foreigner who dares not to have mastered our mother tongue, resort to a time-honoured strategy: speak slowly, repeat frequently, raise the volume, and gesticulate wildly. This peculiar tradition, passed down through generations, is often dismissed as mere linguistic ignorance, but I propose that it has its roots in the grandest of historical cock-ups: the Norman Conquest.

Let’s consider 1066, the year the French-speaking Normans strolled in, knocked poor Harold off his perch, and installed themselves as rulers over a population who hadn’t the faintest idea what they were saying. The Anglo-Saxons spoke Old English, a good honest Germanic tongue full of words that sounded like someone choking on a lamb bone. The Normans, meanwhile, jabbered away in Anglo-Norman French, a language that made them sound terribly important but was about as comprehensible to the locals as a malfunctioning bagpipe.

And so began the great Anglo-Norman game of charades. The newly crowned lords, unwilling to learn the language of the peasants (as was proper for an aristocracy), had to find other means of issuing orders. They took to shouting their demands, repeating themselves in slightly different phrasings, and, when all else failed, pointing enthusiastically at things while hoping the message got through.

Imagine a Norman baron attempting to extract rent from an Anglo-Saxon farmer:

“RENTE! RENTE! … YOU PAY – YES? COINS – IN MY HAND. LOOK – HAND! MY HAND! GOLD! GIVE!”

Cue the terrified Saxon handing over whatever he had while pretending he understood a word of it. Over time, this method of communication embedded itself deep in the English psyche. Why learn the language when you can simply say the same thing louder and with more flailing?

Yes, there was a problem when the Saxons had to communicate with the earlier Vikings. They could communicate with effort, patience, and a few hand gestures, yes, but Saxon and Norse shared many common words, both being Germanic in origin. It was probably easier than a Norman trying to communicate with a Saxon - at least a Viking wouldn’t have had to resort to shouting!

Fast forward a few centuries, and the British Empire only reinforced this habit. As English officials fanned out across the globe, they continued the Norman tradition of shouting slowly at bemused locals. It was a system that worked well enough – at least, until the locals got tired of it and sent the British packing.

Even today, the legacy remains. Go to any Mediterranean resort and you’ll see the modern English holidaymaker, pint in hand, bellowing “FISH AND CHIPS?” at an overwhelmed waiter. The response is always the same: a blank stare followed by a desperate attempt to escape. But undeterred, the Englishman persists: “FISH. AND. CHIPS. DO. YOU. UNDERSTAND. ME?” – as if volume alone can bridge the linguistic chasm.

And so, we must accept that the great Anglo-Norman survival tactic lives on. A thousand years later, the English still communicate with foreigners exactly as their Norman overlords did with their Saxon subjects – loudly, insistently, and with an occasional mime routine. The Normans may have lost their grip on England, but their most enduring legacy remains:

The belief that if someone doesn’t understand you, the solution is to shout at them until they do.

Bay Rum

There comes a time in every man’s life when he realises nature has gifted him a moustache so luxuriant it demands a level of reverence usually reserved for cathedral organs and steam locomotives. Not the sort of thing you can just ignore or casually trim like a teenager’s first beard. No – it requires presence. Gravitas. Authority.

And yet, what does the world offer in return? Wax. That ghastly, claggy nonsense designed to keep things in shape while sneakily smearing itself all over one’s glasses by mid-morning. No matter how sparingly applied or delicately combed, it always ends up somewhere it shouldn’t – usually on the left lens, somewhere between the bridge and a faint air of despair.

I put up with it for a while. Thought it was the done thing. Beard balm, moustache wax, a little tin in the pocket like some Edwardian snuff fiend. But the bloom wore off when I found myself cleaning my specs more often than my car.

Then came the revelation – Bay Rum. That glorious potion of yesteryear. Clove-scented, alcohol-laced, and utterly unapologetic. My father used Bay Rum. I remember the smell from when I was small – sharp, warm, reassuring. The sort of scent that said, “Everything’s under control,” even when it plainly wasn’t. Every time I uncap the bottle, there he is again – standing at the bathroom mirror, steeling himself for another day of whatever life was hurling at him.

I splash it on once each morning. That’s it. No faffing about later, no midday mop-ups. The hair – fine as it is – stops playing at being a haystack and lines up obediently. The moustache, once a wax-dependent diva, now falls into line like it’s been spoken to firmly by a no-nonsense sergeant major. Bay Rum breaks the overnight hair bonds like a sharp word in a quiet pub and sets everything back in order before you’ve even had your toast.

And it vanishes. That’s the beauty of it. Unlike water, which hangs around in the roots like an awkward guest, or wax, which turns up again on your spectacles at inconvenient moments, Bay Rum does its job and leaves. No mess. No residue. Just a faint whiff of tropical barbershop and paternal memory.

So here’s to Bay Rum. The quiet hero. No influencer ever mentions it. You won’t find it trending on TikTok. But it gets the job done with the quiet confidence of a man who’s fixed a boiler with a spanner and a frown. I’ll take that over a thousand beard oils and vanity pomades any day.

Progress, my friends, isn’t always shiny. Sometimes it smells like cloves and reminds you of your dad. Progress can also be deleterious - I'm 70 today.

Mixed Metaphors

There's nothing quite like the linguistic carnage of a well-mangled metaphor to remind you that some people should be kept at arm’s length from public speaking. Today’s offering, which I heard a union leader utter - "We need to grasp with nettle by both horns" - is a masterpiece of verbal demolition. It’s as if someone set out to construct a sturdy bridge of rhetoric, then absentmindedly dynamited the foundations halfway through.

Let's break this down, shall we? "Grasp the nettle" is a fine old phrase about tackling something painful head-on - literally derived from the fact that the best way to handle a stinging nettle is to grab it firmly so the hairs don’t penetrate your skin. Logical enough. "Take the bull by the horns," meanwhile, is a similarly bold image, evoking a valiant struggle with a half-tonne of angry steak. But shove the two together, and you get a confused, angry plant-based minotaur that demands to be both clutched and seized in ways that defy nature, physics, and good sense.

It’s one thing to mix metaphors for comic effect, but this sort of linguistic train wreck doesn’t so much illustrate a point as kneecap it. And let’s not forget the grand tradition of similarly brilliant syntactical blunders. Who among us hasn’t been told to "burn that bridge when we come to it"? Or to "put all our eggs in the same basket and hope it floats"? Perhaps we should "cross that chicken when it hatches" or "let sleeping dogs gather no moss."

We live in an age where public figures regularly take the English language out back and beat it senseless with a shovel, yet somehow, these accidental strokes of genius remain oddly endearing. So, in the spirit of innovation, let’s propose a few more delightful metaphorical abominations:

• "We need to swim against the tide before the ship has sailed."
• "Let’s not count our chickens before the fat lady sings."
• "That’s the pot calling the dead horse black."
• "We’re not out of the woods, but let’s burn that bridge anyway."
• "It’s like shooting yourself in the foot to spite your face."
• "I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot bargepole in a haystack."
• "Let’s get our ducks in a row before they come home to roost."

Perhaps it’s time we recognised this phenomenon as an art form. After all, if we can glorify abstract painting and atonal jazz, why not linguistic surrealism? A well-timed mangled metaphor can tell us far more about the speaker than any carefully scripted speech ever could. And in today’s political climate, where we’re led by people who couldn’t pour water out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel, I say - let them mix, muddle, and mash away. If nothing else, at least we’ll get a laugh out of it before we’re all up the creek without two paddles to rub together.

The Face of Fascism

Fascism never kicks the door down with a dramatic drumroll and declares itself open for business. It slinks in quietly, starts tutting about how things aren't like they used to be, and before you know it someone’s got a clipboard and a list of who belongs and who doesn’t. It’s the political equivalent of your uncle in the corner muttering into his sherry about the good old days while blaming the nearest foreigner for the price of eggs.

The people who fall for fascism aren’t necessarily born bad. Some are just bored. Some are angry. Some are thick as mince. Often it’s a mix of all three. The classic type is the perpetually aggrieved – the one who’s convinced someone nicked their birthright, their job, and their chance at a starring role in a country they imagine once belonged entirely to them. They can’t quite tell you when it all went wrong, but they’re dead certain it was someone else’s fault. Immigrants, feminists, Brussels, the lad next door with a man bun – take your pick.

Then you’ve got the ones who love rules, just not the sort that apply to everyone equally. They bang on about law and order, but what they mean is order for you, and a big stick for anyone who doesn’t look like they belong in a wartime propaganda poster. Give them a man in uniform, a shiny badge, and a slogan involving the word "great" and they’ll follow him into the sea, waving a Union Jack and shouting about sovereignty.

Don’t forget the conspiracy crowd. These are the ones who think Covid was invented to sell face masks, the moon landing was filmed in a shed, and the Queen was replaced in 1974 with a clone trained by MI5 and Morrisons. Fascism, for them, is just the final piece in a jigsaw of nonsense. It’s all about secret elites, mysterious cabals, and the idea that if they can just shout loudly enough on Facebook, they’ll be welcomed into the Illuminati with a free carvery and a lifetime subscription to GB News.

There’s also a certain type of bloke – and it’s usually a bloke – who thinks modern life has emasculated him. He’s terrified of women who speak in public, minorities who ask for rights, and supermarkets that sell hummus. Fascism gives him permission to puff his chest out, blame everyone else for his failings, and imagine himself as a warrior rather than a bloke who gets winded tying his shoes.

And then there are the nostalgics. These ones dream of a past that never existed – where everyone knew their place, the bins were always emptied on time, and the telly signed off with the national anthem. The past they pine for was grim, grey, and full of rationing, but they’ve convinced themselves it was a golden age, mostly because no one asked them to think too hard or share anything.

On the other hand, the people who resist this nonsense tend to be the ones with friends. Not just people they drink with, but actual friends from all walks of life. If you’ve ever had a proper laugh with someone from a different background, you’re a lot less likely to fall for the idea that they’re the enemy. It’s difficult to hate what you understand, and fascism relies heavily on ignorance and shouting.

Curious people are another problem for fascists. Ask too many questions and the whole edifice starts to wobble. If you understand that the world is complicated and messy and not easily solved by slogans, then the idea of a strongman with a five-point plan and a grudge starts to look a bit silly.

Humour, too, is fatal to fascism. It thrives on seriousness and fear. Start mocking it and it starts to melt. Fascists hate being laughed at. They crave respect, not ridicule. The moment you start treating them like the tragic little cosplay tyrants they are, the magic wears off.

Those who’ve actually suffered real oppression aren’t often seduced by the idea of doling it out to others. If you’ve been on the receiving end of jackboot politics, you tend to recognise it early and call it what it is – cruelty with a slogan.

So in the end, fascism is a grift for the insecure, a fantasy for the mediocre, and a threat to anyone with a working moral compass. It sells certainty where there is none, offers pride to those who’ve done nothing to earn it, and blames everyone except the bloke in the mirror. The best way to resist it? Laugh at it, live openly, ask questions, and keep reminding people that the good old days weren’t that good – and probably weren’t that old either.

The Password Paradox

There I was yesterday, six in the morning, alone on the car dealership forecourt, indulging in a spot of pre-opening graft. Not polishing bonnets or lining up air fresheners, no – I was dismantling the old wooden decking outside the sales container. The container itself – once the nerve centre of the business in leaner times – is now scheduled for removal and replacement by a more modern variant.

But the wood had to go, and early morning was the only chance to deal with it undisturbed, because come ten o'clock the gates open and in roll the browsers with strong opinions and weak budgets, taking up parking space I had devoted to my trailer.

So, there I am, crowbar in hand, pulling up decking like a man possessed, when I suddenly remember – I’ve left my phone at home. Not misplaced, not tucked in the glovebox. Properly forgotten. Still sat on the kitchen counter, humming quietly to itself while I’m out here in the cold making splinters.

Not usually a disaster. But this morning I’d planned to message the boss – just in case he was trying to reach me, or had some early instruction like “could you give the kitchen a quick wipe.” So I thought: no problem. I’ll log into WhatsApp via the office PC. We live in a world of cloud-based convenience, after all.

Except we don’t. First hurdle: my WhatsApp login is rather complex and I can't remember it.

Fine, I think – I’ll get the password from Dashlane, my digital brain, which is the only password I have to remember. Except Dashlane, with all the warmth of a customs officer on his third unpaid overtime shift, says: “We’ve sent a verification code to your phone.” Two-step verification!

And that’s when it hits me. I am in the office. On the office machine. At the dealership where I work part-time. The security cameras are capturing my every move in glorious 4K. But because I don’t have my rectangular permission slip – the phone – I am apparently no more trustworthy than a Russian hacker in flip-flops.

It’s not just frustrating – it’s farcical. In our increasingly “smart” world, the system is too stupid to believe it’s me unless I can unlock my own phone to get permission to access my own password to access the messaging app on a known device in a known place doing a known job.

This isn’t two-factor authentication. This is two-fingered insult. Yes, there probably is a work-around, but it would take an hour to read all the blurb. I can't pone Hay on the office phone, because I don't know her mobile number - when I phone her, I don't punch in her number, but her name. We all do that, because the only number we can remember is our own.

We’re not some backstreet banger yard with plastic flags and dog-eared logbooks. We sell proper stuff – late-plate Audis, low-mileage Mercs, BMWs that have never seen a child seat. Our clients expect polish and precision. And yet, behind the curtain, I’m a grown man scuppered by a missing phone, locked out of everything while trying to send a message like some Dickensian office boy begging the foreman for a slate and a stick of chalk.

Next time, I’ll write “CALL ME ON THE OFFICE PHONE” in thick black marker on a bit of discarded composite cladding and prop it up directly in front of the high-definition CCTV. The boss can read it from his laptop while sipping his artisan pour-over, marvelling at the cutting-edge efficiency of his high-end used car operation. He'll know I'm there anyway, as I triggered the alarm at 6am and switched it off, and he gets notifications whenever the alarm is triggered.

Primitive? Maybe. But at least that doesn’t require facial recognition and a code sent by semaphore.

It only struck me later that I could have phoned my mobile - Hay could have answered it. Duh!

Barbarians at the Gates of Rome

You’ve got to hand it to the American right – when they go in for a project, they really go in. Project 2025 isn’t just a shopping list of things they don’t like (though it does read a bit like the grumblings of a retired colonel dictating letters to the Daily Telegraph). No, it’s a full-blown plan to tear up the wiring of the US government and install something a bit more... compliant.

According to the Heritage Foundation – the ones pulling the strings – it’s a “strategy” to restore executive power, tame the federal bureaucracy, and roll back all the woke nonsense. In reality, it’s a blueprint for an ideological purge. A sort of "Make America Theocratic Again" playbook.

Here’s the gist. They want to sack tens of thousands of civil servants and replace them with loyalists. Climate regulations? Gone. DEI programmes? Axed. Abortion rights? Bulldozed. LGBTQ+ protections? Not on their watch. Basically, if it happened after 1968, they want it reversed.

And they dress this up as restoring democracy. That’s the bit that’s almost funny – if it weren’t so chilling. Because nothing says "democracy" like firing people for insufficient ideological purity and handing total control to one man at the top. It’s less “government reform” and more “banana republic chic”.

One of the more telling aspects is their hostility towards universities. Because make no mistake – an attack on universities is an attack on truth itself. Universities, at their best, are predicated on the idea of seeking truth – through evidence, challenge, debate, and rigorous thinking. To undermine them is to say, quite baldly, that truth no longer matters – only loyalty. And when that happens, we’re no longer dealing with politics. We’re dealing with a cult.

It’s a strategy, yes – but not for governing well. It’s a strategy for seizing and holding power, for silencing opposition, and for reshaping the state into a blunt instrument. It’s the sort of thing you’d expect from Orban or Erdogan. But in the Land of the Free? Trump’s early second-term actions – methodically dismantling federal oversight, gutting civil rights protections, and withdrawing from global commitments – echo the Vandals’ sack of Rome: swift, ideologically driven destruction dressed up as restoration. Just as the Vandals stripped Rome of its institutions and treasures under the pretence of liberation, Trump's alignment with Project 2025 cloaks its radical restructuring of American governance in the rhetoric of patriotism and efficiency. But beneath the surface lies a deliberate unpicking of democratic norms, much like the Vandals’ legacy – not builders, but breakers, whose name became synonymous with wanton ruin.

Facebook Selling

Selling things on Facebook Marketplace is a bit like online dating. You get messages full of enthusiasm, promises of commitment, and then – nothing. The silence stretches out, your hopes fade, and you realise you've been ghosted by a stranger who once showed so much promise.

It always starts the same way. You list something – let's say an old coffee table. Within minutes, the first message arrives: "Is this available?" A reasonable question, except you’ve literally just listed it. You reply "Yes." Nothing. Days pass. They have vanished into the ether, presumably abducted by aliens or struck down by an existential crisis over the nature of flat-pack furniture.

Then you get the serious ones. They gush about how much they want it. "I’ll definitely take it!" Great. You arrange a time. You tidy the house. You cancel other plans. You sit by the window, expectantly, like a dog waiting for its owner to return. And what do you get? Nothing. No message. No explanation. Just radio silence.

Maybe they died. Maybe they were kidnapped by pirates. Or maybe – just maybe – they’re one of the thousands of absolute timewasters clogging up Marketplace, playing some bizarre, commitment-free game of virtual window shopping.

Some will string you along for days. "I can come tomorrow!" Tomorrow arrives. "Sorry, something came up. How about Saturday?" Saturday arrives. "Car trouble. Maybe next week?" This goes on until you finally accept they were never coming and that, somehow, you have been emotionally manipulated by a stranger over a £20 item.

Then there are the hagglers. They message with an offer so low it borders on insulting. "Will you take a fiver?" No. "Tenner?" Also no. "Okay, I’ll pay full price. Can I collect tomorrow?" You agree. Then, of course, they never show up.

And don’t even get me started on the ones who arrive, inspect the item like an antiques expert on the BBC, and then say "I’ll think about it." You’ve just driven 20 minutes to meet them in a supermarket car park, and they want to think about it?

The solution? Ruthlessness. First-come, first-served. No reservations without a deposit. Confirmation messages an hour before meet-ups. And, most importantly, a willingness to call people out. "Are you actually coming, or are you just another Facebook Flake?" Works wonders.

The sad truth is, selling on Marketplace is a war of attrition. You will be ghosted. You will be messed around. You will question your faith in humanity. But every now and then, a genuine buyer appears – they show up, they pay, and they take the bloody thing away. And in that moment, you remember why you put yourself through this nonsense in the first place.

Because you needed to get rid of that coffee table.

Classic Elegance

Some men buy themselves a flashy sports car for their 70th birthday. Others might splash out on a cruise or a fancy bit of jewellery for the wife, just to keep the peace. Me? I bought a 2002 Gaggia Classic for £210. Some might call that a midlife crisis in reverse. I call it a solid investment in decent coffee.

You see, back in the early 2000s, Gaggia still knew how to make a machine that would last longer than a politician’s promise. The pre-2009 models were proper bits of kit. Made in Italy, brass group head, a three-way solenoid valve, and none of that cost-cutting nonsense you see in later reissues. It’s a real machine for real coffee, not some flimsy, plasticky box designed to look good on an Instagram flat lay.

Of course, being two decades old, it needed a bit of fettling. The steam wand was the original pannarello – a fiddly, froth-spitting contraption that does its best to stop you making proper microfoam. Out it went. I ordered a Rancilio Silvia steam wand, because if you’re going to steam milk, you might as well do it properly. Then there’s the shower screen. The stock one does the job, but the IMS, Combat, Nanotech version gives better water dispersion and is easier to clean. That’s on the way as well.

And then there’s the PID. The Gaggia Classic, in all its brilliance, still relies on an old-school thermostat to regulate temperature, meaning it fluctuates more than a Tory minister’s principles. Enter Mr Shades, the go-to for a PID kit that stabilises the brew temperature and makes each shot consistent. I’m looking into it, because why not? If you’re going to go all in, you might as well go properly overboard.

All in, my Gaggia setup will still cost far less than a brand-new machine of questionable quality. More importantly, it will make coffee the way it should be made. No faff, no gimmicks, just solid engineering and a bit of hands-on know-how. Oh, and this model is eminently modifiable.

No.2 Son, Bruno, worked as a barista while studying for his degree at Winchester University and has turned me into a coffee nerd. Seventy years old and still learning. And, crucially, drinking good coffee.

The Illy Francis X7.1 I bought a few weeks ago in going to have to go back on e-Bay - it just doesn't compare. All retro bling and no substance.

Heathrow

So, Heathrow goes dark. Not because of a cyberattack, a drone incursion or a freak weather event – but because a bit of oily old infrastructure caught fire. Yes, in the 21st century, Britain’s busiest airport – a linchpin of global travel and the national economy – was crippled by a transformer leak and a blaze at an electrical substation. Not a direct hit from a hypersonic missile, but something that could’ve been triggered by a dodgy fuse, some bad wiring, or – more worryingly – someone with a can of petrol and half a grudge, or a KGB 'tourist' on his way to Salisbury.

And what caused the fire? Transformer oil – the sort used to cool high-voltage equipment that still underpins our national grid. Flammable, messy, and straight out of the 20th century. It's as if we're trying to modernise the country while still relying on Victorian plumbing.

Let’s be clear: the issue isn’t just that the oil caught fire – it’s that flammable liquids are still part of critical infrastructure in 2025, with no suppression, no fallback, and no excuse. Airports have diesel backup generators for power loss – which is quaintly reassuring – but if the substation itself goes up in flames, that’s game over. Flights grounded. Passengers stranded. Security compromised. Heathrow was left as vulnerable as a server room with no firewall.

Now, some might say that a transition to renewable energy would’ve prevented this – but let’s not get carried away. The fire wasn’t about the source of the electricity. Wind and solar still need to be fed into the grid, and they still rely on substations, transformers and the same bottlenecks. So no, switching to renewables wouldn’t magically prevent this sort of fire.

But here’s the rub – a renewables-based grid is naturally more decentralised and distributed. It doesn’t lean so heavily on single points of failure. It builds in resilience almost by design, with local generation, battery storage, and smart switching. In a modern, renewables-rich system, Heathrow wouldn’t be depending on one vulnerable substation with a bath of flammable oil bubbling away inside. It would have layers – fallback, redundancy, autonomy. In short, it would be able to ride out this kind of event, not collapse because of it.

And here’s the clincher: grid reform is needed anyway. We cannot hit net zero, no matter how many wind turbines or solar farms we build, unless the electricity grid is completely overhauled. That means smarter distribution, upgraded substations, responsive local generation, and yes – replacing outdated, oil-filled transformers with systems that don’t go up like a chip pan when things go wrong.

And let’s not forget Heathrow’s third runway. If we’re going to pour billions into expanding an already strained and over-centralised transport hub, then the supporting infrastructure has to come up to scratch. You can’t double the traffic and still rely on kit that belongs in a 1970s substation. Expansion without resilience is just hubris with planning permission.

And if you're Vladimir Putin – watching from your bunker with his coterie of ex-KGB cronies – this was a gift. Not because he caused it, but because now he doesn’t have to. What better propaganda victory than to see a key Western airport crippled by its own crumbling infrastructure and decades of underinvestment? Why bother hacking the grid when we’re doing such a fine job sabotaging ourselves with false economies and ageing kit?

The government, of course, will promise a review. They always do. But if that review doesn’t end with a root-and-branch overhaul of national infrastructure resilience, starting with transformer tech, then it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. That means stripping out oil wherever possible, decentralising the grid, building in redundancy, and ensuring that no single fire can shut down a hub that handles tens of millions of passengers a year.

This isn’t about renewables vs. fossil fuels – it’s about whether our national systems are fit for purpose. Right now, Heathrow’s power supply looks like something that would struggle to keep a retail park running. It’s embarrassing. And dangerous.

We’re lucky this time. It was probably a fault, or a leak, or thermal runaway. But next time? It might not be. And if we’re still dousing flames with buckets while the airport shuts down, then frankly, we deserve what’s coming.

Wake up, Britain. Our enemies won’t need to bring us down – not when our infrastructure is doing it for them.

Just as an amusing aside - I was listening to the early morning news yesterday and the hazards of live reporting came to the fore. The reporter on site, who was obviously making it up on the fly, said; "Planes will have to land and take off from somewhere else." How would you get a plane at Heathrow to take off from somewhere else without dismantling it and moving it by road?

Wash Out

Once upon a time, before privatisation turned the UK's water industry into a money-guzzling racket, the chief executive of a regional water board earned a perfectly respectable salary of about £41,000 a year – or around £110,000 in today’s money when adjusted for inflation. Not too shabby for a public servant overseeing a vital resource. But then came the great sell-off, that Thatcherite fever dream where essential infrastructure was flogged off to private interests under the delusion that competition would make things better, cheaper, and more efficient.

Fast forward to today, and what do we have? Not just an industry awash with sewage, but one drowning in corporate greed. The average water company CEO now pockets £1.1 million a year – that’s a tenfold increase even after accounting for inflation. And for what? What exactly justifies this obscene rise in executive pay? Are our rivers cleaner? Is our water cheaper? Have these corporate wizards worked some magic that eluded the humble public sector?

The answer, of course, is a resounding no. Instead, we get sewage-spewing monopolies, leaky pipes, and hosepipe bans while these CEOs wallow in bonuses and perks. The supposed efficiencies of privatisation have translated into deferred infrastructure investment, skyrocketing consumer bills, and an industry more concerned with dividends than drainage. Meanwhile, the public – that great unwashed (literally, if the water companies have their way) – pays through the nose for a service that’s arguably worse than it was before.

Privatisation was meant to bring competition and innovation, yet water companies operate as regional monopolies. You can switch your energy supplier, your broadband provider, even your bank, but if you’re sick of your local water company dumping sewage into your nearest river, tough luck. You’re stuck with them, no matter how much they pay their CEO to sit atop the sludge heap.

The real tragedy here is that water – one of the most fundamental necessities of life – has been reduced to a cash cow for the few at the expense of the many. And while politicians wring their hands and make empty threats about cracking down, the cycle of profiteering continues, with consumers left to pick up the bill, both financially and environmentally.

So, let’s call it what it is: a racket. A taxpayer-funded rip-off that sees the rich get richer while we get charged more for a service that was once competently managed by the public sector. If this is the great success story of privatisation, then it’s time to rewrite the ending – preferably one that involves bringing water back into public hands, where it belongs.