Cummings or Hancock @ G7

There's a choice to be made - either Cummings has told the truth, or Hancock has. Agreed, both might be being a tad economic with the truth, but one has to look at it in the round.

There's no doubt that Cummings was the individual who narrowly brought Brexit over the line, against all predictions, by using lies. However that doesn't mean to say he's lying now, especially when one considers he was being handsomely paid to do a job in the run up to Brexit. He's no longer being paid to lie, nor is he touting for business from this government.

Yes, he told a whopper about the eyesight test, but he was then on the inside the tent looking out and Boris was desperate to retain his services. He's now firmly outside the tent.

Hancock, however, is fighting to preserve his job, which is a great incentive to mangle the truth. His biggest mistake was to insist there was no PPE shortage, which is as blatant a lie as could be told when we all have the benefit of hearing the news at the time and witnessed the dodgy PPE deals, many of which came to nothing, and thus colours his version of everything else he says. He's also part of a government that has weaponised lying as an arm of policy.

I somehow suspect that Cummings has the smoking guns needed to prove his case, but has kept his own powder dry until such time as Hancock was given the opportunity to hang himself in front of the Select Committee, which would make it worse for him. 

My money is on Cummings triumphing and I believe we can expect a steady drip-feed of evidence from Cummings over the next few weeks, in the form of texts and emails. He's a canny operator, when all's said and done.

As for the G7 meeting, I was under the impression that all the horse trading was done well in advance of the leaders descending on the venue by flunkies and that the meeting was merely a jolly and a PR exercise for the media where the results of the deliberations are announced. Yes, there's a bit of social mixing and maybe a few stern warnings issued, leader to leader, but essentially it's all flim-flam.

A Picture of the Queen

So, some post graduate students at an Oxford college (Magdalene) voted to remove a photo of Her Majesty from their common room and the lunatic fringe of the right is in uproar.

It's a common room, not the entrance to the college. It's not an official stance by the college or the whole of Oxford, merely a small bunch of post-grads in one college.

If we're to be told what to hang in our common rooms, isn't that a bit North Korean? They had a vote, after all, and that's called democracy.

I have a suspicion that there's more to this than can be seen at first glance. They're post-grads, so they're not representative of the college. Those who know the college concerned maintain the common room in question is frequented by no more than about a couple of dozen post grads from a cohort of a couple of hundred - a very small group. There is a number of possibilities here:

1. They merely decided to replace the decor left by the previous inhabitants. Who doesn't change the decor a bit when moving into a new house? It had been there since 2013, after all. 
2. A large percentage of Oxford post grads are foreign and it's not beyond the bounds of reason that a large proportion are from the Commonwealth and resent a symbol of colonialism in their common room, as stated. 
3. They possibly are republicans, like myself, who abhor inherited privilege. Why can't I be King? Answer, because I wasn't born into a particular family. It's pure nepotism in an age of supposed merit.
4. They orchestrated this as a prank to watch the lickspittles run around like chickens with their heads cut off at the insult to Her Majesty. How would anyone have known about the story unless the students released it themselves?  
5. The students are engaged in a study into how the right wing press manipulates their readers and the results from the study will be published in a year or two, with a couple of the students gaining a PhD from it. This one's highly unlikely, given it's Magdelene College and its specialised subjects, although there is a department of politics.

I wonder how many of those who were commenting negatively actually have a photo of the Queen in their living rooms and, if not, why not? They also probably had no problem with Boris lying to Her Majesty (in my experience of social media, Royal fawners tend to be Brexiteers, Markle haters, those who don't like footballers making a peaceful anti-racist gesture and Boris sycophants).

Perhaps the government should we push for the creation of a new police department that visits our homes to ensure we all have a portrait of Her Majesty on our walls? The Royal Portrait Squad...

The Bench

A friend on an e-group I'm a member of was crowing about Meghan Markle's new children's book, The Bench, being panned by critics (he's no fan of Markle, for some inexplicable reason). He maintained it was selling at 50% because book shops couldn't shift it.

I did a little searching and discovered that 

1. It has only been out for a day or two.
2. It was on a two-for-one deal in a WH Smiths in Newcastle. Such deals are done by the publisher, not the shop. It's a marketing tactic to increase sales and hence interest. 
3. It was panned by critics in the News Corp press and the Daily Mail - the publications leading the attacks on the Duchess of Sussex and the chief protagonists in the War on Woke.
4. All other reviews were positive.
5. It's already in Amazon's top 40 list.
6. The positive reviews on Amazon UK are all verified purchases.
7. None of the negative reviews when I looked on Amazon UK are verified purchases - they're negative comments by people who have apparently never even read the book.

Seems the gutter press is leading an assault on Meghan. Nothing new here.

When a review begins and ends with; "A piece of self-indulgent crap," then you can rest assured it's not a review of the book, but someone expressing their hate-filled view of Meghan Markle. 

The acid test is whether your children like the book, not whether you like the writer. I wasn't particularly fond of the literary style of The Hungry Caterpillar and though the plot of The Jelly Monster was somewhat thin, but my kids absolutely loved them and insisted I read them time after time.

I haven't bought or read it, so I'll reserve judgement.

Motorhome Plumbing for Bikes

The quality of the plumbing in motorhomes and caravans is appalling. Everything is as flimsy as hell, and bloody expensive to replace, despite being totally unfit for the job at hand.

Over last weekend we experienced a leak around the hot water boiler dump valve - it was either the dump valve itself or the cold water feed connection to it.

I went across to our local caravan and motorhome emporium to get a new dump valve and had already paid for it before I realised I'd parted with 31 quid!

I could have simply used a couple of jubilee clips and a cheap, domestic brass valve, as the pressure is very low.

As it transpired, it wasn't the dump valve itself, but the non-return valve which had come apart. Not being able to find a suitable replacement, I simply Superglued it back together as a temporary solution.

I'm seriously contemplating stripping the entire van of all piping, valves and pumps, replacing same with some decent domestic plumbing that's infinitely more robust and easier and cheaper to fix.

I did some further research on getting off grassy fields in wet weather and came across something called a sand ladder, which is designed for getting off sand, but equally effective on grass and mud. User swear by them.

I bought a set for £26 and they arrived yesterday. They're .made of very robust plastic with one side being rough as a badger's bum and covered in what looks like sand, but is just rough plastic and eminently suited to gaining traction for tyres. The grid-like structure ensures they sink into the grass and don't move. Can't wait to try them out in anger.

The e-bike was dropped off at the bike repair shop yesterday for the motor wheel and Pedal Assist Sensor to be fitted and the gears and brakes to be adjusted. They're closed today, but it should be ready for collection on Thursday afternoon or Friday.

The petrol driven bike has had the aftermarket exhaust fitted, which now requires a tad more adjustment to ensure it stays clear of the pedals.

I'll probably get to work on assembling the carburettor over the weekend, unless the new clutch for the ride-on-mower arrives between now and then - that's a it more pressing.

Taking a Knee for Crickety Anne

West German Chancellor, Willy Brandt, took the knee in 1970 as a gesture of solidarity, humility and penance towards the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Taking the knee has a long and honourable history in showing solidarity.

Current popular usage began with Colin Kapernick, who took the knee before BLM ever used it. BLM may well have appropriated it since the death of George Floyd, but only in the same manner that the far right in the UK has appropriated St. George's Cross and the Union flag. Does that mean to say we should no longer use St. George's cross, or indeed the Union flag, because of their association with the BNP and Ukip? Dyed-in-the-wool Conservatives would be apoplectic at such a suggestion.

Some on the right are fond of saying that BLM is a Marxist organisation. While it is true than two of the three original founders describe themselves as Marxist trained, it is now a highly decentralised mass movement encompassing many political philosophies from multiple countries, all united by the desire to see social justice for people of colour.

The far right want us to believe BLM is Marxist and will trot out this trope at every available opportunity in order to denigrate it - it's merely an extension of the Culture War, where terms are used without actually understanding what they mean and are cherry-picked for effect. For example, for American Republicans anything not Republican is automatically assumed to be Communist, and this tactic, commonly known as the fallacy of the undistributed middle, is now filtering across the Pond. Nuance is anathema to the Culture War warriors.

Inexplicably, Tory MP Brendan Clarke-Smith compared the gesture to footballers performing the Nazi salute during a 1938 match against Germany in Berlin. How one can veer from Marxism to Fascism is beyond me, but even more surprising is the comparison of a gesture of support for social justice and anti-racism with totalitarianism, when totalitarian regimes have a history of suppressing minorities.

As for booing players who take the knee at an international football match - what is wrong with these people? There is only one, inescapable conclusion, however much they may try to excuse their actions with weasel words. Actions speak louder than words.

They're simply knobs. It's perverse to believe there's nothing more patriotic than booing your own team, believing it's going to improve their performance, especially the black ones. Booing black football players is a well known tactic of racist thugs at matches. 

If you're a booer, ask yourself why you're really booing, especially when it has been explained by Gareth Southgate, in detailed and eloquent terms, that it's nothing to do with Marxist ideology. Do you believe his reason for why team members are taking the knee, or your own warped interpretation? The only people who really know are those who are taking the knee and have explained their reasons. 

One excuse is that sport should not be mixed with politics, but what is international sport? It's international combat without the casualties, and war is, as Clausewitz observed, the continuation of politics by other means. International sport is an avenue for national pride and boycotting sporting events for political aims is well established and successfully isolated South Africa during apartheid.

Let's move on to Jodie Turner-Smith and her portrayal of Anne Boleyn, which is sending the right wing into paroxysms of huffing and puffing with righteous indignation.

The writer, Eve Hedderwick Turner, wanted to portray Anne Boleyn as an outsider, and what better manner in which to do that than having her played by a black woman. This is even more poignant with what's happening with Meghan Markle - a current outsider (for some) whom the right-wing press love to hate (but, of course, it's not because she's the first woman of colour in the Royal Family - or so they maintain).

In Shakespeare's time men played female parts, but no-one complained. Many white actors in film have portrayed characters of a different race - most notable of late is Joseph Fiennes' portrayal of Michael Jackson, for heaven's sake. 

The TV production is a drama, not a documentary. Strict adherence to history is not high on the list of priorities when it comes to film - drama is the priority, else it's very boring. Licence and liberties are taken with dates and the order of events and dialogue is not what was said at the time, which is usually totally unknown. Is there any danger that children in school will be brought up believing Anne Boleyn was black? Highly doubtful, but what if they do?

Ironically, those shouting loudest about historical accuracy have no problem portraying the addition of factual, documented and relevant detail to National Trust properties as 're-writing history' and are more than happy to promulgating a totally false and mythologised narrative about luminaries of the 18th and 19th centuries involvement in the slave trade. Again, a symptom of the Culture War in which the aggressors end up tripping over themselves through logical contradictions.

Lastly, the TV adaptation of the story is art. Art is not always faithful to reality. Show me a film with a maritime theme and I'll pick factual holes in it from now to eternity - it's dramatised for effect and I have to accept that. The history of a National Trust property is factual, not drama, unless you're making a BBC period drama series.

If you're huffing and puffing with righteous indignation, look deep inside yourself and ask why you're really doing it. 

Finally, lets turn our attention to the matter of the cricketer, Ollie Robinson, who sent some pretty despicable tweets when aged 17 or 18. Oliver Dowden and Boris Johnson have excused the Tweets with Dowden saying; “Ollie Robinson’s tweets were offensive and wrong. They are also a decade old and written by a teenager. The teenager is now a man and has rightly apologised. The ECB has gone over the top by suspending him and should think again.”

However, in the case of Shemima Begum, who was younger than Robinson when she ran off to join ISIS, Johnson saw fit to remove her passport and declare her stateless. Both have apologised, but Robinson's apology has more weight with Dowden and Johnson. One wonders why? Again, a case of the missing intellectual consistency - that could be a Sherlock Holmes story.

Some would argue that Begum's crime was worse, but no-one died as a result of her action. The greatest damage was to Begum herself and her family. We don't know what damage Robinson caused, but he seems to not have been averse to a bit of race baiting, which could have made his targets feel devastated.

Both should face the music - Begum should return to the UK and be tried and suffer the consequences of the law, if found to have transgressed it; Robinson should be subject to an investigation and, depending on the result, should possibly suffer a short period of suspension. Most professionals are suspended during an investigation, and that period of suspension while the investigation is under way may be enough. Just accepting an apology at face value, however abject, is not the right message at a time when racism is on the rise in sport, especially as he was also released by Yorkshire in 2014 for what his coach, Jason Gillespie, called “consistently displaying behaviour that isn’t professional”. 

So much for a government that maintains it's fighting racism. There again, Rory Stewart said of Boris Johnson; "Johnson is, after all, the most accomplished liar in public life - perhaps the best liar ever to serve as prime minister. Some of this may have been a natural talent - but a lifetime of practice and study has allowed him to uncover new possibilities which go well beyond all the classifications of dishonesty attempted by classical theorists like St Augustine. He has mastered the use of error; omission, exaggeration, diminution, equivocation and flat denial. He has perfected casuistry, circumlocution, false equivalence and false analogy. He is equally adept at the ironic jest, the fib and the grand lie; the weasel word and the half-untruth; the hyperbolic lie, the obvious lie, and the bullshit lie."  

The Conservative led and gutter press-abetted Culture War is a nothing more than a war on decency and an attempt to take us back to the good old days of the 1960s.

If you were to tell me where you sat on a single one of the issues above, I could almost guarantee to tell you where you sat on the remaining two, as well as issues such as Brexit, cutting foreign aid, refugees, ignoring the Ministerial Code and a host of other contentious issues.

An Injection of Cash

Let me get this straight: Boris Johnson is organising the G7 meeting at the Carbis Bay Hotel in Cornwall this week in order to inject some much-needed money into the local economy. His words, not mine.

For starters, it's very hard to get a booking at the Carbis Bay Hotel, or indeed any hotel - the rooms can be sold many times over in the high season, so no gain there. If they were to be booked in the low season, then there's a good argument that it would indeed inject some cash into the local economy. It's a simple question of supply and demand - if accommodation is in short supply, then there's no additional money; if there's an excess of accommodation, then it is indeed a welcome boost.

Secondly, it's highly unlikely that the G7 delegates would be availing themselves of the local facilities in St Ives and distributing their largesse - the security would simply be a nightmare. I can't really see Angela Merkel or Emmanuel Macron Go Karting in Hayle or playing Crazy Golf in St Erth, much as it would be hilarious. They'll be ensconced within the security ring for the entire week, so no economic gain there. Your average Joe Punter certainly would be spreading some lolly locally.

Thirdly, those who booked the hotel would expect a huge discount for the block booking - discounts not available to the average punter who has been shut out of the venue. I suppose there is an outside chance than the owner of the hotel is a member of Boris' Chumocracy and is being allowed to charge an exorbitant room rate in return for a donation to the Tory Party, but I think it unlikely. Actually.....

PC Penhale might get some additional overtime, but that's unlikely to transform the economy.

Talking of the police, it has been reported that some 130 homeless people have been turfed out of their council-funded accommodation to make way for the extra police that will be drafted in from other areas. So, that is an injection of cash, but at a cost to the local homeless people. Given this was temporary accommodation for the duration of the Covid crisis, you could argue this would have happened anyway to make room for paying guests.

No - this is merely another of Boris' meaningless PR stunts that he hopes the public can't see through. It's almost as if those advising him have never actually run a business before.

There is an outside chance Boris will persuade the other 6 world leaders and their staff to have a go on the UK's longest zip wire at the St Ives Holiday Park. He has previous in this respect.

There again, we may see the emergence of the Carbis Bay Hotel variant of Covid.

Emergence

We had an emergence of dragonflies from the pond on Friday, which is strange, as I thought they spent a couple of years underwater as nymphs.

Not the best photos, but these are the husks they left on stalks of grass after breaking out of their nymph bodies. I find metamorphosis absolutely fascinating.

Above is a live one in the process of metamorphosing and below is a dragonfly sunning itself after having broken out.

Exhaustion on the Intake

Overheard:

Chairman: "This spiral bannister is getting a bit of a patina on it."

Hay: "You have a patina about you - especially on your white T shirts when eating. A similar patina to Sir Les Patterson."

The 3rd party exhaust for the motorised bike has arrived.

We're away in South Devon in the van for the weekend, so No.2 Son has been left with the mission, should he chose to accept it, of attaching and routing it so it clears the pedals.

I was going to leave him the objective of building the carburettor, but I think that's best left to me. I don't think anyone in the household, except me, has ever seen a carburettor, let alone built one from a box of bits.

I checked with the local bike repair shop yesterday and they're prepared to put the Pedal Assist Sensor and motor wheel on the e-bike before they set to work on tuning the gears and brakes, thus ensuring I won't ruin the work I will be paying for by installing the parts after the tuning. Seems a bit of a cheat, but it's entirely driven by pragmatism.

I've noticed that there's a sudden upsurge in the number of bikes available on Facebook Market - there are some really good bikes at very reasonable prices. Seems many of the people who bought bikes during the lockdowns are now divesting themselves of them.

Mis-Selling Delta Variants

What's with this new nomenclature for Covid strains - Delta variant? Does that mean we have to steer clear of people recently arrived from the Galaxy's Delta Quadrant? Naming a variant after its source country at least gives you a clue to keep clear of anyone recently arrived from that country. Naming a variant after the country where it fist evolved also, in light of the government's confusing travel information, also lets you know which countries on the Green List to avoid. 

The argument, apparently, for using Greek letters is that naming a variant after where it developed gives rise to xenophobia - another Greek term. No, it doesn't give rise to xenophobia - the xenophobia was already there, in Xenoland. Bastard Kent people and their bloody variant!

I was listening to LBC the other day and the discussion concerned the lack of catering workers and au pairs from the EU. Some wag phoned in and complained that rather than moan, we should all work together to make Brexit a success. I was desperate to ask him how one exactly makes rabies a success? Working together to make Brexit a success is code for asking one to simply shut up and stop reminding those who voted for Brexit what an idiotic choice they made, and there's nothing anyone can do to make it a success, except work to rescinding it.

Have you been mis-sold a government by this man?

You may be owed thousands of pounds in compensation!

On 'Have I Got News For You', Cummings was apparently shredded for being the person who put Boris in position as PM, but they're completely wrong. If I and many others could see though the lies, why couldn't the rest of us? It's the people who voted for Boris, despite the evidence of their eyes and ears, who are responsible, not Cummings.

Piano Trike

On Saturday No.2 Son and I went to Lee Bay in Devon for some kayaking. After a couple of hours on the water we took a walk along the SW Coast Path to Ilfracombe for something to eat.

While wandering through the streets I heard a girl singing accompanied by a piano and, on turning a corner to where she was, I saw this:

A piano trike.

No.2 Son had some cod and chips while I had Cheesy Chips a-la Ilfracombe. Hideous!

No attempt, whatsoever, to melt the cheese!