The Gestapo Speech
Projection thy name is Donald. Continue reading The Gestapo Speech
Projection thy name is Donald. Continue reading The Gestapo Speech
Book touring with a 49 day British Prime Minister. Continue reading Malaka Of The Week: Liz Truss
The posh malakatude, it burns. Continue reading Malaka Of The Week: Boris Johnson
Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. Continue reading Saturday Odds & Sods: Christmas On TV
On Laurence Fox’s journey from respected actor to unhinged wingnut provocateur.
You say Elgin, I say Parthenon. Let’s call the whole thing off. Continue reading Losing Their Marbles
The malakatude, it burns. Continue reading Malaka Of The Week: Suella Braverman
B is for bluster and bullshit. Continue reading Bye Bye Berlusconi & Boris
Not Everything Sucks: Northern Ireland Edition. Continue reading The Good Friday Agreement Turns 25
Run Chris Run. Destroy Chris Destroy. Continue reading Chris Christie: Trump Destroyer?
Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. Continue reading Saturday Odds & Sods: Jack Straw
Spanning the globe with campaign notes from the US, UK, and Brazil. Continue reading The Exhausted Majority
Do that UK Jive. OK UK, do that UK Jive. Continue reading UK Jive
Queen Elizabeth II’s legacy isn’t perfect, and it should be okay to say that. Continue reading Legacies Can Be Complicated. Death Doesn’t Change That.
Elizabeth Windsor, 1926-2022. Continue reading The Queen Is Dead, Long Live The King
Thoughts on the fourth British PM in six years, Liz Truss. And Boris Johnson’s place in history. Continue reading Bye Bye Boris, Hello Blind Truss
Things got bad enough for Boris Johnson that he kinda sorta resigned. Continue reading “The Charge Of The Lightweight Brigade”
Boris Johnson’s record is even worse than his hair. Hence the coup attempt. Continue reading The Jubilee Coup
It’s a hard, hard world. Continue reading No Easy Way To Be Free
To Quote: “Boris Johnson’s buffoonery contrasts with the courageous leadership of President Zelensky. To compare a referendum to women and children fleeing Putin’s bombs is an insult to every Ukrainian. He is no Churchill: he is Basil Fawlty.”
Some thoughts on Boris Johnson, Basil Fawlty, and clowns running governments. Continue reading Fawlty Tory
Random thoughts on an overcast Friday morning with a special appearance by Dick Nixon to show in historical context that time has been kind to him Continue reading A Little Bit Of This, A Little Bit Of That
One of the best things about travel is you get a different perspective on what’s going on in the world.
You also get a different perspective on how the rest of the world sees Americans.
Keep in mind I’m on board a luxury cruise ship. This isn’t your seven day six night Carnival “fun ship” where it’s cheap to get on but expensive once on board. This is the kind of cruise for an older, wealthier clientele so of course it tends to skew conservative.
And then there is the flaming liberal, me, unafraid to voice an opinion and prepared by six years of vicious mudslinging to battle to the death on every issue.
Except I’m not. I am having insightful conversations with people of all political stripes that end more often with toasts to each others health than knives in each other’s backs.
Example: A self described “very right wing” British gentleman I met and had drinks with, (something becoming an oddity in itself in the US) was heard by me to utter “well at least you got rid of Trump” when the subject of politics came up.
That brought me up, as they say in the UK. “You didn’t like him?” I inquired. That lead to, gasp, a civilized discussion of politics and especially what it means to be conservative. He didn’t even fully approve of Boris Johnson but of course the British system means that while you may support and vote for the Conservative candidate in your constituency, sometimes one must have to gulp twice, smile through gritted teeth, and accept the leader of the party when he takes the office of Prime Minister.
Stiff upper lip and all that, don’t you know.
Meanwhile he was puzzled at how America could have fallen for, his words, “a carnival showman with no clear political agenda other than to stay in power”. I mentioned that not once but twice Trump didn’t win the election, but rather he won the Electoral College, another concept my friend from the UK was totally stumped by. I wanted to go into a history of that most peculiar institution, but more drinks arrived just then saving my breath and I’m pretty certain his sanity. We toasted each other, fist pumped, and moved on to other subjects.
Another example: A Canadian couple from British Columbia and I had a chat that swerved into the politics of Canada-US relations. Now these folks were more liberal than my UK friend, voted for Trudeau, and were totally aghast at what happened during the Trump years and in particular the way Trump had treated Trudeau. “He acted like our Prime Minister was a political novice who didn’t understand the complexities of foreign relations when in fact the opposite was true”. I pointed out that that was Trump’s modus operandi, to cleave his faults onto the other guy while proclaiming himself the “expert”.
“Well that’s certainly not the way to deal with others” they proclaimed, insinuating that type of behavior was more playground than political. Our conversation ended with smiles and fist bumps.
In which Adrastos kicks Jimmy Carr around for kicking down. Continue reading Malaka Of The Week: Jimmy Carr
Bozza’s booze bother. Continue reading Party On, Boris
Shortages of, well, everything. Fuel, groceries, hope. The party in charge of the government shucking and jiving at it’s party conference, on the one hand singing karaoke and on the other blaming everyone but themselves for the country’s problems. Citizens incensed that even after election year promises not to raise taxes, taxes will indeed be raised. All as inflation rages, a pandemic endures, and no end is in sight for the misery.
Some third world s***hole nation?
No, this is England.
More specifically this is Boris Johnson’s England. The England of Brexit, the England of “You can’t tell us what to do Brussels”, the England that reveres it’s monarchy as the monarchy becomes more soap-operay and less relevant every day. This is the England that said “21st Century? Nah, thanks mate, we’ll stick with the 20th. Course it’d be better if it were the 19th”.
Rue Britannia.
A recent article in the no longer failing New York Times points out the disconnect the English public is experiencing with their Tory government. While the Tories spent a weekend partying at the party conference in ever so manly Manchester, the public was attempting to find food at the grocery stores and fuel for their cars. A shortage of lorry drivers (that’s truck drivers for all us US of A types) has the supply chain for many items ground to a halt. Why the shortage? Lots of them were older men who took the pandemic as a sign to retire. Meanwhile newer younger drivers were prevented from getting the proper licenses because the licensing offices were closed because of the pandemic.
Ah you say, so it’s all about COVID. Well, it’s a contributing factor, but a bigger reason is that 20% of the nearly 100,000 drivers needed to keep the English economy moving left the country when it voted to leave the European Union. Why? Because they were the so-called “wave of immigrants” who were keeping the English working man from having a good paying job according to the Brexiters. Hence those immigrant workers took the attitude that it was better to jump than be pushed and went over to the Continent for a surer paycheck, oops I meant pay cheque, and the better employment standards they were used to under the EU, standards that the English were proudly declaring they were going to do away with.
All products ultimately make it to your shelves via a motor vehicle. It’s the basic number one fact of the consumer society. And if there is no one to drive the motor vehicle, despite the best intentions of Waymo or their competitors, the shelves don’t get stocked. Same for the gasoline that your dino-mobile runs on. It doesn’t get to the pump without someone bringing it there first.
Thus England has lines down the block for petrol (gas) stations. Headlines in newspapers scream about “lines lasting days”. That fabled English stiff upper lip gets more and more difficult to maintain when sitting in a queue just to get some petrol. Keep in mind also that just as petrol stations can’t get the black gold, Texas tea, neither can the public buses that ferry so much of the population. And when a modern country’s population can’t move about freely the economy of said nation starts to grind to a halt.
And what does the Prime Minister, the head of government, say to all of this?
When Donald met Boris. Continue reading Kangaroo Tales
My birthday was last Thursday. We celebrated by going to Brigtsen’s a great restaurant in Uptown New Orleans. It was my first time eating out with a mask mandate in place and only my third time in an eatery since the lockdown. It was kind of weird but so am I.
As a result of the weeklong festivities, this edition of Saturday Odds & Sods will be somewhat truncated. Pity that I’m not a show biz kid so I can’t make this pun: “born in a truncated.” I guess I just did…
Cubist artist Georges Braque may not be synonymous with summer, but the Beach Boys are. This week’s theme song was written by Brian Wilson, Van Dyke Parks and two dudes I’ve never heard of for the Beach Boys 1973 album Holland. It’s nautical yet somehow still naughty or some such shit.
We have three versions of Sail On, Sailor for your listening pleasure: the studio original, Ray Charles with the Beach Boys live, and Los Lobos from their new album of California songs, Native Sons.
Now that we’ve sailed the ocean blue but not in 1492, let’s jump to the break.
Hair raising tales from Downing Street. Continue reading Quote Of The Day: Boris Johnson’s Hair
Tally ho, eh wot? Continue reading The Curious Case Of The Tea Party Royalists
Today On Entitled Rock Star Theatre. Continue reading Malaka Of The Week: Van Morrison