My blood pressure isn't what it used to be...

I went for one of those NHS old people tests and they said my blood pressure was too high.  This was because I was running from A to B and stressed out as usual so I tested it at home to double check.  It actually drops when I'm sedentary to about 122/85 ... apparently this is now "elevated" ...so how come no one noticed before?  I have the answer.  They've changed the definition of elevated.  it used to be like 140/95 at least.  Someone came up with a theory that they can beat vascular dementia and stuff by lowering everyone's blood pressure.  But it seems to me that nothing is going to make people's blood pressure shoot through the roof like telling them normal blood pressure readings are high... This same research is apparently where the new puritanical 14 units a week of booze comes from.  These people really need to get a life instead of sucking all the joy out of mine...
 

Is Britain Ungovernable?

"No British PM has completed a term in office since 2015, despite two of those PMs being elected with landslide majorities. The country is essentially ungovernable - at least under the existing system of governance."

I see this statement repeated a lot but is it actually logical?  

Let's take a moment to look at how many coalitions and completed terms in office there have actually been...

Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury won a landslide Conservative General Election Victory in 1900 after winning the Second Boer War.  

Despite not really needing them at this point the Conservatives remained in a Unionist coalition with the Liberal Unionist party who were a splinter group from the Liberal Party who disagreed with Campbell-Bannerman's Liberals on the issue of Irish Home Rule.  Keeping the coalition together however took it's tool on Lord Salisbury who's enormous weight caused him breathing difficulties.  Following the death of his wife he took early retirement in 1902 handing over to Arthur Balfour mid way though his final ministry.

From then on until the next General Election in 1905 Balfour's government ripped itself apart over the issue of Free Trade.  Various ghosts of the Boer War also haunted the government as dirty secrets like the use of concentration camps and the importation of "Chinese coolie slave labour" into South Africa started to leak from Africa into the British home public domain.  

Liberal leader Campbell-Bannerman exploited these failures highly effectively to humiliate Balfour who then resigned in a huff.  However, to his surprise George V then invited Campbell-Bannerman to form a minority government and Campbell-Bannerman and the Liberals were swept back into power at the following General Election in February 1906.  During this period the Liberal party had various pacts with the Labour Party which had now increased their seats to 29.  Campbell-Bannerman had been 69 in 1906 and after a series of heart attacks in 1908 resigned in favour of the younger Henry Herbert Asquith.

Although the Asquith government went on until the middle of World War One an extra General Election was called almost purely on the issue of Lords Reform and the Parliament Act which removed the Lords' then total veto on any legislation it didn't like.  There was also a lot of heated debate and violence over the issue of votes for women.  However, Asquith and the Suffragettes came to an agreement to suspend their terrorist campaign for the duration of WWI in return for enfranchisement thereafter.  

Asquith's government - by the end a coalition - eventually fell apart over a range of issues mostly relating to the so far unsuccessful conduct of WWI and rebellion in Ireland.  He was effectively undermined by David Lloyd-George who ran a wartime coalition after 1916.

After winning the war in 1918 Liberal Lloyd-George and the "National Government" fought the post war general election, standing on the following platform:

Trial of the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II;

Punishment of those guilty of atrocities;

Fullest indemnity from Germany;

Britain for the British, socially and industrially;

Rehabilitation of those broken in the war; and

A happier country for all.

The Conservatives and Liberals remained in coalition after World War One despite the fact that the Conservatives could have easily formed a government without the Liberals at all such was Lloyd-George's cult of personality.  

However, the happier country did not quite emerge and eventually the government fell apart over a combination of Irish Home Rule issues, financial crises and the long forgotten Chanak crisis.  This event is historically interesting as it led to the formation of the Conservative's 1922 Committee and a conscious decision by the Conservatives to go for absolute majorities at General Elections rather than form coalitions.  It's hard to remember now 100 years later but the idea of single party governments really didn't seem that important until this point ... Perhaps it came about because the expansion of Suffrage to women and the neutering of the House of Lords changed the landscape.

Andrew Bonar Law won a landslide at the following general election but had to resign almost immediately due to contracting throat cancer.  His ministry lasted only 210 days.  It was the 3rd shortest Premiership in history but has now been relegated to the 4th thanks to the contribution of Liz Truss.  He resigned in May 1923 and was dead by December.  He was buried in Westminster Abbey.  Asquith quipped they were laying the Tomb of the Unknown Prime Minister next to the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior.  Even the Tombstone reads ironically "Sometime Prime Minister".

Stanley Baldwin took over the stonking majority but Bonar Law had tied the hands of his successor by giving a Manifesto pledge that there would be no change in Tariff policy without a General Election.  Baldwin felt if he breached this pledge the government would fall apart so he called another General Election on the issue which he lost to Ramsay MacDonald and Labour.

By 1923 Labour had reduced the Liberals to 3rd party status but they were still reliant on them to form a government.  MacDonald's first ministry fell apart within 9 months.  It was brought down by an argument about Britain and Bolshevik relations and the publication of the Zinoviev letter by the Daily Mail which destroyed trust in the government's independence from Moscow.  The letter was eventually revealed to be a forgery when 2 days before the General Election Grigory Zinoviev himself announced it was bollocks but it was too late to save the Labour government.  

The letter is believed by many to have been manufactured by MI5 and multiple investigations by multiple governments have spent years trying to get to the bottom of the matter but have achieved little more than producing reports that are incomplete for "National Security Reasons".

In the meantime Stanley Baldwin became Prime Minister again with a large majority and he served a full term but he unexpectedly lost the "Flapper Election" of 1929. Baldwin had lowered the voting age for eligible women from 30 to 21 and they rewarded his government by handing it it's cards and returning a MacDonald led Labour/Liberal coalition.  Labour won 288 seats, the Conservatives 260 and Liberals 59. But it wasn't to be that simple... 

The extreme stress on British economy caused by the fallout from the Wall Street Crash was so sever that the Labour and Liberals parties decided they couldn't solve it on their own and they formed a "National Government" with the Conservatives in the hope of spreading the blame for the necessary unpopular choices required to resolve matters as widely as possible with MacDonald as it's symbolic head.  

MacDonald eventually developed a number of serious health problems and resigned in 1935 in favour of Baldwin.  He died two years later reviled by Labour activists as a traitor.  At the 1935 General Election the National Government won 430 seats (386 of these were Conservative). Labour had now bailed on the National Government and their seats were reduced to 154.

Baldwin however now felt he was getting on a bit and resigned almost immediately after the coronation of George VI on the 27th May 1937. He gave MPs a pay rise, the Leader of the Opposition a salary and told Chamberlain "you're it".  And with that the National Government dematerialised for a Conservative one.  There was no need for a pretence anymore. 

Unfortunately after Chamberlain's appeasement policy resulted in the invasion of the whole of Europe by the Nazis ...Chamberlain who was now very ill anyway was memorably ousted by a wartime coalition of all three major parties headed by Winston Churchill installed in 1940.

In 1945 of course Attlee won his outright victory and Labour served a full term.  At the 1950 election however his majority was reduced to 5 and by 1951 he had called and lost another election to Winston Churchill.  

Churchill's 1950s government although a majority one was not a great success.  Churchill was old and very ill and both George VI and Elizabeth II suggested retirement in favour of Eden. Eden however had his own health problems and so every time Churchill prepared to hand over, Eden would be taken ill himself resulting in a bizarre game of musical hospital beds.  Eventually Churchill suffered a massive stroke in 1953 but staggered on till 1955 by concealing this from the public and hiding out at Chartwell.  Eden eventually took over in 1957 but his government was soon sunk by the Suez crisis and his own ill heath leaving Harold MacMillan to take over.

Harold MacMillan managed to turn the economy around largely by eschewing the recommendation of many for a diet of austerity economics and won a landslide full term in 1959 under the slogan "Life's Better Under the Conservatives".  However he didn't serve a full term due to his ailing health, a declining economy and the Profumo scandal, controversially handing over to Alec Douglas-Home from his hospital bed. 

Hereditary peer Alec then had to resign from the Lords and do an Andy Burnham within two weeks to get into the Commons.  He lasted just under a year before being defeated at the 1963 General Election by Harold Wilson.

Wilson won the 1964 election with a majority of 4 and had to call another in 1966.  This time he got a majority of 96 which lasted him a full term until 1970. 

Unexpectedly and in defiance of pollsters Edward Heath won the 1970 election with a majority government but didn't serve a full term due to the Miners Strike / Three Day Week economic crisis which he decided to conclude by calling a General Election on the question of "Who Governs Britain?"

The answer from the country in April 1974 was dunno.  Heath faced with a hung Parliament tried to do a deal with the Liberals but couldn't get it over the line.  

Wilson went into coalition with them instead but had to call another generation election in October which returned a Labour government with a majority of three.  Wilson resigned in 1976 unable to cope with the stress, drinking a lot of Brandy during the day and suffering from early Alzheimer's disease symptoms.  

By this time Labour was a minority government and Jim Callaghan struggled through several pacts with smaller parties, IMF loans and economic disasters until eventually losing the resultant General Election to Margaret Thatcher in 1979.

Margaret Thatcher was the first Prime Minister to serve more than one full term as a Majority Government leader since 1900.  Her first government had a majority of 43.  Mrs Thatcher's job approval rating fell to 23% by December 1980 resulting in her famous "The Lady's not for Turning" speech. But the economy eventually turned round by 1983 if you disregareded the unemployment and she increased her majority to 144 at the next General Election while the Labour party slid into factional infighting over the Union Block Vote, Nuclear Disarmament and other issues.  This was the peak of Margret Thatcher's popularity.  In 1987 Neil Kinnock started to turn the tide, reducing her majority to 102.  The Lawson inflationary boom bubble burst and Mrs Thatcher tried to introduce her disastrous Poll Tax policy.  After an infamous riot and splits over European foreign policy she was ousted by her backbenchers and replaced with the grey man that was John Major in 1990.  By traversing the country on a soap box John Major was able to win the 1992 general election with a majority of 21.  However, this melted away with by-election losses and a plot was launched to oust him by his backbenchers which he defeated.  The Major government staggered on to the last possible moment in 1997 reliant on supply and demand agreements for it's last few months.

Tony Blair's 1997 government had a majority of a 179 and had a not very radical economic programme of "prudence with a purpose" as the country tried to recover from the fallout of the Conservatives joining and then crashing out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism on Black Wednesday.  The 2001 election produced a slightly reduced majority of 166.  Following the start of the disastrous illegal Iraq war in 2003 however the next election in 2005 resulted in a reduction of the Labour Majority to 66.  Gordon Brown then ousted Tony Blair in 2007 and following the 2008 financial crash Labour lost power in 2010.

David Cameron then ran a coalition government with Nick Clegg until 2015.  Although David Cameron won an outright majority of 4 in 2015 it was by promising a Referendum on the EU which he lost.  He was replaced afterwards by Theresa May who despite leading a technical majority government couldn't implement her vision for Brexit so called another election in 2017 which left her with a minority government.  She was ousted by Boris Johnson who was forced to call another election in 2019 which won the Tories a majority of 35 to "get Brexit done".  Boris was ousted himself in 2022 over the partygate scandal with his replacement Liz Truss lasting only 50 days before having to resign due to her "mini budget".  Her replacement Rishi Sunak called a General Election in May 2024 rather than carry on to the bitter end.  He was replaced by Keir Starmer's Labour Government which had a majority at the start of 174 before...

Anyway the point is that very few Prime Ministers serve a whole term in office, let alone two.  There are only two who served two full sequential terms.  They are Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair.  In the pattern of the last 126 years they are statistical outliers.  If you look at the financial statistics they both represent periods of unexpected financial prosperity when Britain was doing so well it could actually run a small surplus rather than a deficit.  Thatcher and Blair also came to power younger and didn't have the age related health issues of some earlier Prime Ministers.  As to majority governments, they're rare too.  This is not the UK becoming ungovernable.  It is just the UK returning to normal...  

Stolen from the Guardian

Pages from CEEFAX

The BBC has announced 550 job cuts in news, nations and TV and radio content as part of its first stage in its plan to save £500m across the corporation over the next two years.  

In an email to staff, interim CEO of BBC News, Jonathan Munro, outlined the proposals including merging Radio 4's The World Tonight with the Today and PM and Yesterday in Parliament programmes to create World PM Tonight Today in Parliament Yesterday.  The number of Today presenters will be reduced from 5 to 4.  In the medium term the BBC will be looking to merge Anna Foster with Emma Barnett to create Tamara Bennett-Foreman and Justin Webb and Nick Robinson will be merged to form Justin B. Robinson-Beckwin

BBC One's Breakfast will no longer be shown on Sunday morning from September and the production teams making Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg and Newsnight will merge to form Songs of Prasie for Breakfast Newsnight.

Munro said the proposals announced on Wednesday include 200 job losses in the news division resulting in savings of £25m.  Some TV production at weekends will be shared across the News Channel and BBC One bulletins and there will be a review of the chief news presenter roles to see who is the least smug and pompous.

Other proposals in the announcement include:

A reduction of 100-150 hours of originated programmes across all commissioning genres by the end of the 2027-28 financial year

A reduction of around 350-400 hours in audio across stations and genres

The replacement of daytime programming with pages from Ceefax 

A reintroduction of the Test Card.

A reboot of the Epilogue

A new Closedown

Question Time will be changed to a shorter format called What?

And the Traitors will be merged with coverage of the Labour Party Conference

Doctor Who will be put out of its tender misery

Bitch better have my money!

 

Victory!

Trump killed 50 of Iran's top leaders, did at least $1 trillion worth of damage to their military equipment and infrastructure, totally wiped out their naval fleet and air fleets, put their government in a state of endemic internal conflict, and left them totally incapable of meaningfully attacking their neighbors in the region any time soon. By the end of it, all Iran could do is rig the strait with mines and take pop shots at passing ships. 

The loss of insurance coverage had more of an impact on the flow of marine traffic than Iran did.   I personally would have preferred the total destruction of the IRGC (which technically isn't off the table if they decide to FAFO) but it would have been difficult to accomplish without more civilian casualties -- something third worldist leftoids were already complaining (and campaigning) about.

In the meantime, consider the following: 

No boots on the ground. No prolonged conflict. No permanent occupation. No military draft. No lasting impact on energy prices. No multi-trillion dollar boondoggle. None of the things anti-war retards with Israel tunnel vision like Dave Smith and Candace Owens predicted would happen. 

In addition:

- Oil and gas prices are falling in time for summer and the midterms.

- "Free Palestine" third worldists like Graham Platner have less ammo on which to campaign for Congress.

- Russia is bringing in less revenue.

- The U.S. got a foot in the door to block China's Belt and Road projects.

- Trump has greater latitude to tighten sanctions on Russia without exacerbating supply shocks to energy markets.

- Europe and America have agreed to increase cooperation in providing for the national defense of Ukraine. 

- Israel isn't a signatory to the MOU and isn't bound by its terms, leaving it free to independently defend itself from threats if necessary.

- America isn't creating a power vacuum for China and Russia to fill by absconding and surrendering its own influence over the region.

The people who say this is a "humiliating defeat" for Trump?

- Russia

- China

- Iran

- Democrats 

- The leftist Drudge-led media establishment

All the worst people you know have joined arms and are pretending like Iran pulled one over on the Bad Orange Man in hopes that it will piss off Republicans and Israelis enough to get them to kill the deal themselves.  It's very transparent. Don't let your enemies control you with such a stupid and obvious Reflexive Control op.

 

Today's lies from Mr Toad

 

Revisiting the Warsi Question

Why are we allowing British Citizens to go and fight in the IDF?  The previous excuse (see here)  was that the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870 did not apply because we didn't recognise Palestine.  But we do now so why are we facilitating this nonsense?

An organisation called the The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) has been pursuing the Metropolitan Police to investigate what it reckons to be at least 90 UK IDF volunteers since at least 2022.  

"the ICJP have not been able to identify a single case in which the authorities have:

Investigated whether any British citizen, currently participating in or supporting Israeli military action, has been involved in international crimes and terrorism;

Investigated any person who has entered the UK after potentially participating in international crimes as part of the IDF;

Discouraged individuals from joining Mahal due to the likelihood that they could become involved in international criminal and/or terrorist activity; 

and

Intervened to safeguard British citizens from radicalisation which would lead to them committing international crimes or terrorist activities as part of the IDF."

Meanwhile anyone who fancies a scrap and isn't a duel citizen can potter over to the Mahal website which organises for non-Israeli Jews from all over the world who fancy a punch up to potter over to Israel and shoot someone.  The Mahal track is intended for Jewish youth from foreing countries who wish to volunteer for a short military service in the IDF without making Aliyah, with over 500 volunteers from around the world serving in the IDF.  Registration for the August 2026 draft has closed but there's still time to register for December when you might be lucky enough to find some war still going on.  

Essential criteria for registration to MAHAL

A jewish according to the Israeli Law of Return

A jewish according to the Israeli Law of Return

Starting at the age of 18

Who did not spend more than 12 months in israel (120 days for Israeli citizens)

Doctors - Until the Age of 31

A selection of the nutters perpared to volunteer to be cannon fodder can be found here...

Women's Social and Political Union ban is lawful, Court of Appeal rules

The government's proscription of the Women's Social and Political Union as a terror organisation is lawful, the Court of Appeal has ruled.  In one of the most significant rulings on national security in recent years, five of the most senior judges in the country overturned an earlier decision from the High Court that the ban had breached the right to protest and had been incorrectly taken by ministers.

But five Court of Appeal judges concluded in a hearing on Monday that the ban had been "justified and proportionate".  In a statement, the group's co-founder Christabel Pankhurst said she intended to appeal the ruling to the UK Supreme Court - although it's not clear at this stage whether it would consider the case.  The Women's Social and Political Union has remained banned since the High Court ruling in February to allow for further legal arguments and give the government time to consider an appeal.  The proscription made it a criminal offence to belong to or support Women's Social and Political Union, punishable by up to 14 years in prison.  Thousands of people have been arrested at demonstrations in the months since the ban came into force in July last year.

After the ruling on Monday, the Metropolitan Police said 117 people had been arrested on suspicion of supporting a proscribed organisation at a protest outside London's Royal Courts of Justice, while City of London police made two further arrests near the Old Bailey.

Lord Chief Justice Baron Carr and four other judges said that the government's policy on banning terrorism groups meant the home secretary had been legally entitled to decide the group should be proscribed.  She said the judges recognised the proscription of an organisation like the Women's Social and Political Union was "highly controversial" and that it was supported by "many otherwise lawful citizens".  But Baron Carr added that it was "a fundamental mistake to overlook the fact that Women's Social and Political Union overtly promotes unlawful violence amounting to terrorism".

"It is not - as claimed - a direct action civil disobedience protest group like Palestine Action, operating transparently in the open," she added.  "It is a covert organisation which operates with secret cells to avoid the detection and prosecution of those using violence to destroy property and cause injury.  They may look like the gentler sex but they invented the letter bomb and sent such devices to both Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George and the Prime Minister Mr Asquith himself.  It is for this reason that Emmeline Pankhurst was arrested for planning the attack on Lloyd George's house and sentenced to three years in prison."

He said the group had neither disowned nor condemned three incidents which took place before the ban was implemented and were judged by ministers to amount to terrorism.  

"We must not take it lightly how frightened the King's horse Anmer was when he trampled Emily Davidson to death at 35 miles per hour during the Epsom Derby on the 4th of June.  The horse could have been severly damaged and has had to undergo psychological therapy with Mr Sigmund Freud being brought in.  The Suffragettes tactics are hard to swallow which is why they are often on hunger strike and require force feeding.

Meanwhile down Onlyfans

Rebecca Sharp, an OnlyFans creator, joined an agency after they promised to help her earn more on the adult social media platform - instead, they abused her, threatened her daughter and dispatched violent masked men to attack her at home, she says.  "They were lovely at the beginning but then they started acting more and more controlling.  It's a complete mystery to me that someone who calls themselves my Pimp should throw a brick through my window or throw me up and down stairs.  When Jack Ruby introduced himself to me I had thought he was a perfect gentleman and it was a complete surprise to me that a man who I had employed to sell my body might think that he was entitled to be violent and controlling."

The Minister for Culture, Media and the Sunday Sport said "It is something that the government needs to look at in more detail… we potentially have a platform which is enabling exploitation, enabling abuse. This is a complete surprise.  We have never heard of pimps beating their hoes before.  We're floating a number of new measures to combat this phenomena such as the reintroduction of telephone boxes for hoes to leave their business cards in as a traditional alternative to mobile phone applications."

Other ideas floated include special areas for sex workers inside city centers to be denoted

by the display of red lights in ground floor windows.

The Pimps Union including Madams - PUM - stressed that historically not all pimps were violent, abusive and controlling.  "History is full of lovable pimps such as the much loved Rene Artois of Nouvion who not only pimped out his three waitress as prostitues in Nazi occupied France but also carried on complicated romantic affairs with all three of them.  Everyone was very happy although the ladies in question did have their heads shaved after the war as collaborators."

Onlyfans takes user safety "incredibly seriously" and invests "heavily" in measures to protect its community it's Spokesman said, adding that it meets all its duties under the Online Safety Act necessary for ladies to engage in prostitution without being pimped out.  "We'd remind our customers too that it's a free market and if they don't like it they can always fornicate off to Love Island or Married at First Sight and see if there's less abuse there."

A Dalek speaks out about being cancelled

A Dalek has spoken out about being cancelled by the BBC.  Dalek Gamma (pictured) says they are a victim of "political correctness gone mad". 

Apparently only now after 63 years have people within the Corporation  started to voice concern that the Daleks' battlecry of "Exterminate! Exterminate!" might potentially be racist.  

Dalek Gamma insists they are not racist at all because they treat all of the lesser races equally by Exterminating them.

Asked why the Daleks were the superior beings, Dalek Gamma responded that the problem with other beings is they did not have sink plungers attached.  Dalek Gamma said the Daleks feel very sorry for inferior beings who do not all have sink plungers as appendanges because they are therefore much more reliant on plumbers to unblock their sinks, drains and toilets.  They have also observed humans cutting up potatoes with their little knives instead of mixing up some Smash.

As the leader of the Dalek Trade Union - the DTU - Dalek Gamma  vociferously criticised the new snowflake generatation Z and their political tactic of "no platforming".  They said that it was often difficult to debate views with inferior beings because they often refused to share a platform with the Daleks for wishy washy liberal PC reasons like they were afraid of being Exterminated.  

Dalek Gamma thought this was very narrowminded of the human race as there were many things the Daleks and the BBC agreed on such as that as a genetrically engineered species the Daleks' correct pronouns were they/them.  

Dalek Gamma said it would be good to meet with other political campaigners in a shared space so that they could share views them and find common ground with them and Exterminate them.  They admitted that the Daleks were genocidal but said they did not see why this is a problem when the genocide in Gaza is shown on the BBC all the time.  "Exterminating people used to be a fringe far right policy but these days it is mainstream," said Dalek Gamma who has been using his time away from Doctor Who to manufacture parts for F16 figher jets.

Dalek Gamma said a lot had already been achieved by the DTC at the BBC, particularly in tackling the lack disabled ramps at the BBC and Bad Wolf studios in Wales.  Many areas had previously been very difficult for Daleks to access due to a lack of wheelchair access which made things challenging for both themselves and their creator Davros.  This is why they had not been seen alongside Ncuti Gatwa.  It was not because they are a fundamentally racist species, it was simply because there were too many stairs to be negotiated.  Although on the television Daleks are seen to now fly about all over the place this is a green screen effect and in the real world, Dalek Gamma explained, they still cannot climb stairs.

Indeed Dalek Gamma asserts that the disabled access situation got so bad during the previous few series of Doctor Who that on at least one occasion Davros their creator had had to get out of his chair and walk across the studio instead of moving gracefully like one of the Georgian State Dancers.  Dalek Gamma denied rumours that there had been a walk out saying "it was more of a glide".  

Dalek Gamma was quick to add that although all Daleks are disabled they are still the supreme beings and therefore they do not need the BBC to change the enviroment, they will change the environment to suit themselves - a task they have already started by Exterminating Russell T Davies and all the production staff at Bad Wolf.  "That said", concluded Dalek Gamma, "it would be easier to seek, locate and exterminate people if there was better disabled parking."

 

Will nobody think of the children...

Some controversy has been stirred by the booing of Kate and her offspring in the Royal Coach during Trooping the Colour.  Is it bullying children?  Possibly but then why are the children wheeled out as props?  I've always found it annoying seeing them at public events.  It's kind of rubbing in how awful the hereditary principle is.  These are the people your taxes will be funding in the future and you have no choice.  The hereditary principle has now been abandoned everywhere else including the House of Lords finally which leaves the Royal Family out on a limb.  Once they were the pinnacle of the aristocracy.  Now they are sitting on a branch waiting to be sawn off.  

Back in the old days at least Charles & Diana were entertaining (if for the wrong reason).  William & Kate are just boring.  We always hear in the sycophantic press things like Kate's clothing is a nod to Princess Diana presumably because she's that dull she lives in the shadow of the past - enthusiasm for the institution has long evaporated.  As entertainment the children are vanilla with the possible exception of Louis who's Stepford Child programming seems to have gone wrong as he displays more expressions and emotions than the passive disinterest that is seemingly obligatory during ceremonial occasions which would be cute if it wasn't for the thought of the fates of some of the other previous Royal Spares including the one currently being investigated by plod.  Perhaps this is the result of the peculiar dynamics of a family where the first child is clearly favoured over the others.  

On the other end of the balcony the elderly Duke of Kent can get seen standing slightly alone ... Bless his little cotton socks... I remember when there were 30 of them crowded on there.  Clearly less enthusiasm to turn out when it involves being booed...

 

Doctor Who Whip round

With no sign of production activity, the BBC has finally confirmed that the "Christmas Special" of Doctor Who is no more.  It has ceased to exist because it never did.  Indeed Russell T Davis appears to say it has never existed and he never even wrote a script which may contradict his previous statements.  He has resigned and it seems Bad Wolf have been let go as well.  The BBC never-the-less states that Doctor Who is very important to it.  So important that it's being put out to competitive tender.  Anyone else found a few quid down the back of the sofa? Maybe we could put a bid together? Drop me a line...

I was reminded of the Lenny Henry sketch in which "Thatchros" privatised the Doctor.  Now I think about it, the BBC don't seem to make sketch shows anymore.  All the comedians are crowding on increasingly crowded panel shows.  The BBC's budget is decimated.  Sending the Doctor out to competitive tender before only achieved raising the budget whilst reducing the episode count and decreasing the ratings.  Who would buy it now in this firesale?

Clearly there was no plan for a Christmas Special.  RTD said no one had even been auditioned or approached for the role of the Doctor.  Which is very naughty of the BBC but it's June.  They'd have to have started shooting months ago.  Clearly it was impossible to keep the cat in the bag anymore.  Johnathan Powell would be proud...

Most people when they're in a hole stop digging.... Not the BBC ... Instead it then put up a hilarious Bitesize post accusing their critics of being conspiracy theorists which I have reproduced corrected below: 

What has been said about the future of Doctor Who?

A statement - also known as a press release - was shared on the official Doctor Who website saying that the 2026 Christmas special - which was announced last year - would not be made. It also said that the BBC wanted to carry on making the show and that different programme makers would be invited to bid for permission to be the new team behind Doctor Who and its next series at some point in the future.

Russell T Davies, the show’s chief writer, posted on Instagram that he was leaving Doctor Who too, while also saying that he had never written the script for the Christmas special and that he was “as excited as anyone to see what comes next”. Bad Wolf, the company which made the past two series of Doctor Who, also posted an image of the Tardis door closing to show that their time with the show had also come to an end.

Has Doctor Who been cancelled?

No, it hasn’t. When news like this happens, it’s important to look for primary sources of information even though they've been admittedly lying through their teeth for the last six months and are laughing in your face telling you the Christmas Special was something they had no intention of ever writing or making and have written nothing and hired no one.  It's really sensible to trust the man who they said was writing a Christmas Special and now says he never was.  You can't get more honest and straightforward than that.  In this case, it is the official BBC statement about the future of Doctor Who. It says that the Christmas special is cancelled, but not the programme itself. It also makes clear that the BBC considers Doctor Who an important show and wants to continue making it, which is why other companies will be asked to come forward with plans for future series because we don't want to spend any money on this anymore but inconveniently because it's sci-fi it has a massive following who are never happy.

If any sites or posts are claiming Doctor Who has finished forever, it is speculation, not fact. Some posters could be exaggerating the news as a form of clickbait, to get more hits on their website or followers on socials. These posts could also be from people who dislike the show, its makers, or the BBC itself and want to spread disinformation - or fake news - about the programme in line with their own opinions.  The truth is that we don't know what will happen between now and the heat death of the Universe but the copyright will be up in about 50 years now Sidney Newman's passed on so perhaps you'll leave us alone then.  Look we're not happy either.  The BBC budget has just been slashed okay.  No, this doesn't mean we're reducing the licence fee.

Why do people think the show has been cancelled?

Doctor Who fans - like fans of other shows, bands or sports teams - can be very passionate about the thing they love. They could follow other fans on socials who think the same about it as they do. That creates an echo chamber - where you only see opinions that reflect your own, as served up by your social platform’s algorithms.  They're all in a tizz because of Elon Musk and not because we've been solidly gaslighting them for half the year.

It could also be that some Doctor Who fans remember the show being ‘cancelled’ before. In 1989, Doctor Who stopped being made after a 26-year run and did not become a regular series again until Russell T Davies and the BBC brought it back in 2005. That 16-year gap is called ‘the wilderness years’ by some fans, when the Doctor’s adventures carried on in comic strips, novels and audio plays instead of on TV. There were some references on socials after the Christmas special announcement that another ‘wilderness years’ has begun, although there is nothing in the BBC statement that suggests Doctor Who is about to vanish from our screens for more than a decade.  Just like there wasn't when Johnathan Powell axed it with similar mealy mouthed platitudes in 1989 after slowly reducing the episode count because he remembered the backlash Michael Grade suffered when he tried to stop it abruptly dead in 1986.

Until the BBC officially announces that the Doctor is dematerialising in the Tardis forever, then the programme is not cancelled because the definition of a show being cancelled isn't that they're not making it anymore.  It's that the BBC stop saying that they intend to make it some time in the future. The Daleks and the Cybermen are not safe from our favourite Time Lord just yet.

Make it or don't but don't take the public for fools... Maybe another 16 year rest will do Dr Who good but I will be 68 by then.  Be nice to have it back before the macular degeneration and cataracts set in...

The Golgafrincham B Arc of the world economy...

This we can't get fertilizer anymore because of the straight of Hormuz being blocked is the dumbest thing I ever heard. The Haber process which creates ammonia was developed in Germany in 1910 and requires only hydrogen, nitrogen and iron as a catalyst.  So why are we importing it from half way round the world?  We could just make our own?  Even more bizarre is the idea we need to import CO2 for refrigeration from the far east.  It's 0.04% of the world's atmosphere.  We literally have power stations that belch it out on an industrial scale but ... "Can't find any of the, mate". You don't need to send Sir Francis Drake to circumnavigate the globe.  Really shows you the parlous state of British Manufacturing.  We truly have created an economy of everyone opening doors for each other with creates literally nothing useful - the Golgafrincham B Arc of the world economy...

The good old days

I have to wonder about the many posts on social media celebrating the time when "a family could live and purchase a house and have holidays on one income".

 Neither of my grandparents could live on one income.  My mother's father drove the van for the laundry until 1939 when he went to war and drove vans for the army.  He was evacuated from Dunkirk and then drove vans across Africa ending up in Palestine.  My mother didn't meet her father that she remembers until 1945.  Meanwhile his wife worked as a casual farm labourer until she managed to get a job "with a pension indoors" in the laundry.  When my maternal grandfather was demobbed after the war he couldn't get his old job back for years until he did but then he contracted cancer and died in his mid 50s after years of smoking.  My grandmother supported him financially during his terminal decline.

My father's parents were more middle class.  My great grandfather had a successful leather goods manufacturing business supplying mainly to Mappin & Webb.  So my grandfather worked in the family business.  My grandmother "I married the boss's son and look what a silly bugger I ended up with" worked there too.  The army didn't want my other grandfather because of his poor eyesight so he joined the ARP ... They were reasonably wealthy owning rental properties but even they both worked.  Mind you they lost one home to air raids... but I don't think they could've lived on his income alone.  My grandmother succumbed to bouts of schizophrenia leaving him her main carer and main income provider and they then struggled on only one income.  The family business had now gone the way of most of the rest of British Manufacturing.  He died of a heart attack at about 70.

Of course things are harder economically for people now than in the past but the golden age some people - mostly Americans - speak of ... Was it ever really real?  Maybe for them as their GDP was greater but...

That's all folks!

The most common cupboard door I sell is high gloss white. That doesn't make it the best. It's just what most people select because it's the most inoffensive. It's a bit boring but you can't go wrong. When you resell your home no one's going to say "can't live with that". You don't have to think very hard. It's a non-colour. There's nothing wrong with it and nothing right with it. It's a bit clinical but it carries no emotion. But if we designed the whole range around what most people wanted we'd sell nothing because no one would come in because there's no variety. All art and design requires a vision. A personal vision. That's why we hire professional designers. Because otherwise what you end up with is the lowest common denominator... which is exactly what happened when the Bank of England started asking focus groups who should appear on our bank notes.  Of course they selected the most boring and inoffensive images. Animals.  Maybe we could compromise on anthropomorphic children's characters like Pooh Bear, Paddington, Peter Rabbit, Dumbo from Disney, Gromit, Nigel Farage as Mr Toad or maybe Bugs Bunny?

Meanwhile in America they have no such problems...