Sharpener...

Today I attempted to buy a pencil sharpener in the Whitgift Centre.  Sainsbury's closed ages ago.  Flying Tiger has lots of pencils but no sharpener.  So I tried Poundland but whilst they also had a lot of pencils I drew a blank there too.  I tried the Card Factory but no luck there either... I had almost given up when I remembered WH Smith... The upstairs is closed due to the roof leaking but the downstairs was open.  The electric sliding doors juddered open to reveal a dimly lit cluttered space.  I couldn't find them straight away but two mature ladies were stacking the shelves and pointed me in the direction of the sharpeners ... There was a wide selection from functional to novelty which almost made up for the dingy feeling of the remnants of the store.  Of course there was no one at the desk only self service machines so I served myself and went.  It made me wonder how many pencils that are perfectly serviceable are thrown into landfill because only 1 in 5 pencil retailers sells a sharpener.  The search took me half an hour which cost £2.60 in parking fees.  It would've been cheaper to order one on Amazon.... but I got one... I suppose...
 

The Black Hole

As it is returning to Earth, the Labour Party discovers a black hole with the apparently abandoned and long-lost UK economy nearby, the same economy that Gordon Brown was aboard when it vanished 14 years ago. Commander Starmer decides to investigate and finds that there is a mysterious null gravity field surrounding the economy that allows it to defy the massive gravitational pull of the black hole called false accounting. The economy briefly strays outside the field and is damaged by the intense isolationism , forcing it to emergency dock with the EU, which it long ago abandoned.  

A subsequent media storm and the explosion of the economy's overstressed NHS cause the economy to fail. Without its null-gravity bubble, the UK quickly starts to break apart under the black hole's huge financial forces.  Within the black hole, the economy completely breaks apart. 

Bless Mr Tyson, always the perfect gentleman ...

 

...except for that one time in 1991.

The Pope sits on the US border fence ...

As the US election plods on Pope Francis has now weighed in to tell Catholics to vote for the lesser of two evils.  “Both are against life, be it the one who kicks out migrants, or be it the one who kills babies,″ intoned Pope Francis recently torn between Kamala's support for abortion and Donald's dogwhistling Fascism.  An ethical dilemma?  It sure is... I enjoyed reading my mum's Catholic Herald recently which says that J D Vance had a point that the childless have less stake in society and so shouldn't be listened to ... I agree wholeheartedly.  That's why I stopped listening to the Pope.  Celibate old man - what he know?  Seriously though perhaps Pope Francis should consider that as a man without children he is one of the very people from whom J D Vance wishes to wrest polity.  Mind you these days our J D says he wouldn't have certified the 2020 election so I doubt it would just be cat ladies...  The ReTrumpian party aren't even hiding their dictatorial agenda anymore.  It's almost as if they don't think they're going to win and are looking to ferment another insurrection... Judge Merchan has kicked Trump's sentencing and his decision on the immunity issues into the long grass of after-the-election but the constitutional crisis that will occur if and when Donald is potentially sentenced to porridge is still coming down the line.  Unless, of course, he wins in 2024.  Then it's game over for Western Democracy I suppose...

Top Tip : Zionists...

 

...I'm not Jewish 

or a doctor

However, never one to let being completely ineligible and unqualified stop me applying for anything I applied anyway and received the following reply

Shalom Anthony,

Thank you for contacting the Jewish Agency.

Firstly, in order to make Aliyah you have to be eligible. Under the Law of Return, to make Aliyah you need to have a Jewish parent and/or grandparent, or be Jewish yourself.

Any Jewish ancestry more remote than grandparents, even when having solid proof of the Jewishness of those ancestors, is beyond the scope of the Law of Return and therefore not accepted for Aliyah.

Please note that certain restrictions do apply to the Law of Return. For more information please see the link below.

https://archive.jewishagency.org/first-steps/program/5131/ 

In order to prove Jewishness, you need to have a letter from a community Rabbi stating that you, a parent or grandparent is Jewish.

If there is no Rabbi who can do this based on personal knowledge of yourself or your family, Jewish burial or marriage records can be used as proof and a community Rabbi can confirm your Jewish background based on documents.

If you have no documents proving your Jewish background, we have no way to assist your case. Please note that DNA tests are not valid proofs of Jewishness for Aliyah purposes.

If you need any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us on, gci-en@jafi.org

Sincerely,

Alina

Lucy Letby and the chances of a really stupid jury

It's hard with this blog to keep up with the endless nonsense written on the internet but I was particularly impressed by this person who tried to argue that juries are unrepresentative of normal intelligence because they're selected at random... (the starter of the thread has done a runner and deleted the original post perhaps realising it's drivel)

...but, of course, IQ is a Gaussian distribution ...

...so if you believe in such things ... 12 people selected at random would most likely give you 8 people of average intelligence, 3 people of either higher or lower than normal functioning intelligence and 1 person who is either a genius or a total nincompoop.

According to this study less than 1 per cent of juries hang... and only 51.4 per cent find the defendant guilty by majority.... with a further 12.1 reaching a majority guilty verdict and 35.9 per cent acquitting...

And there was much wailing and gnashing of upper class dentures

 

Possibly the most enjoyable aspect of the new Labour administration at the moment is the sight of public schools desperately lobbying the government about how awful it is that they are going to have to pay the 20 per cent VAT like any other business.  Ludicrous sights like a visit from the public school heads to the House of Parasites on the left abound.  

Or a petition being handed in at Number 10 - bet that's the first time its signatories have ever had to sign any petition - makes one want to crack open a case of Stella to see the boot now on the other foot after years of Bedroom Taxes and Dickensian two child benefit caps...

Charmless and wafer thin skinned failed London Mayoral candidate Susan Hall protests that "If enough pupils leave private schools because their parents can’t afford the fees you will have to pick up all of their costs for schooling. It could end up costing taxpayers more not making any money at all. So short sighted but to be expected from this new Labour lot" ...

Well, let's do the maths of that...

Average public school day fees £24000 x 20% = £4800

State education place per pupil £7,690

Difference £2890

Number of private school children 615,000

Worse case scenario sector state loses -£1.72bn

Best case scenario state makes £2.95bn

Over 60% would have to leave before loss.

Other ludicrous arguments in favour of inequality include that since the parents of private school children have taken their children out the state system they deserve a rebate for not using state education resources.  Well, I've never had any children - where's my tax rebate?  No one can explain that one ... not even JD Vance...

Only thing funnier is the chinless wonders complaining that the abolition of 92 hereditary Peers who have been clinging on for grim reincarnation for the last 25 years since the last 1999 showdown (see here) with the toffs will be upturning 1000 years of history.  My family have been here since 1066, where's our seat?

The Extreme Torture of buying a ticket for the Vue Cinema

As it was half price day I bought a ticket for the VUE cinema.  Boy is it painful now.  First you book on line and then it generates one of those QR codes that is meant to hold all information in some bizarre pattern of blobby squares.  You then go the cinema are greeted by a wall of touch screens which a lady directs you to to purchase popcorn etc.  Because, of course, simply handing the money over to a person was too simple.  The touchscreen menu is the stuff of nightmares leading one round and round in circles while the computer makes heroic, annoying and hopeless attempts to hard upsell you more food.  I suppose they need a computer to do this because it's quite hard to train humans to be that rude.  It's sort of like being sold food by the Daleks.  The lady by the screens promptly dematerialises in case you break free of the time loop.  You then get a further piece of paper dispensed by the machine which you must take to the counter to get your popcorn and go to the entrance desk where another lady informs you that although you have a QR code she cannot decipher it but need tickets.  So you go back to the popcorn desk and ask yet another lady to print the tickets out who says "I can do this but you don't need me to do it but I can do it" as if I've asked her to come up with a complicated machine learning algorithm and not just scan a QR code that automatically prints two tickets for her.  You then take these tickets which tell you where to sit to lady number 4.  If you can get through all that the new recliner seats are a very nice experience and you can put your feet up and hope you recover from the bureaucracy PTSD by the end of the film... 

The Doctor will pay you now...

Today I was informed by Dr. Paul H, MSc, PhD, FRAS, MRi that I had won the local South Croydon Labour Party lottery prize of £24.  Unfortunately with all his academic qualifications Dr H has now concluded that the lottery isn't actually financially sensible for the party.  

I know, Dr Paul.  That's why I entered.

The staff of Clintons are given their cards

 

I've heard that you are closing down.

It made me sad.  It made me frown.

I hope you all get better jobs

And on the last day no one sobs

That this will be a stepping stone

to better work when you are gone

Redundancy is but door

It makes you temporarily poor

But you'll bounce back as good as new

So don't be down and don't be blue

At least that's what we're supposed to say

On this the most unhappy day

Yes I am sorry for your loss

And that you had a stupid boss

Claiming Repairs for my Corsa under Vauxhall's Lifetime Warranty isn't as easy as it used to be...

 

No one comes to the Father except though me

Richard K Herring on Twitter @Herring1967 writes...

"Christians, I know if you live a bad life and then sincerely repent at the last minute then you go to Heaven. But what if you live a perfect religious life and then at the last second sincerely renounce Christ, do you go to Hell?"

Well, I can only explain Catholic theology and that not very well but I gave this a go so...

In Catholic theology most of us go to purgatory & then have to "do our time" to get to heaven. It is a continuum.  So really evil people can still get to heaven if they put enough eternity in.  The lower levels of purgatory are like hell. Hell is for those who totally reject God.  Therefore the answer is that yes, it is a choice.  Those who go to hell have chosen to reject God.  So you can get to the end of your life, decide you don't want to go to heaven & then pootle off to hell.  Blah blah etc I think

Mind you they'll probably change their mind on all of that like limbo. I remember being told at school that everyone BC was in limbo cus they couldn't be saved because the saviour was not born then so Moses etc were in some kind of administrative holding pen until Judgement Day.  I had visions of them in suspended animation but I suspect actually they are doing lots of paperwork...

Desperate Musk sues everyone for not advertising with him..

Every day, hundreds of millions of people come to X to be part of the only global, real-time conversation. They come to share their thoughts and hear others. To share their content and see more. To debate and be debated. To entertain and be entertained. To inspire and be inspired. There is no substitute for X.

The power of this community to bring global conversations to life was the reason I was so excited to join X as CEO in June 2023.

After a career in media and advertising, I thought I had seen everything. Then I read the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee’s report entitled “GARM’s (Global Alliance for Responsible Media) Harm” last month. The report disclosed that their investigation had found evidence of an illegal boycott against many companies, including X.

As their report found: "Evidence obtained by the Committee shows that GARM and its members directly organized boycotts and used other indirect tactics to target disfavored platforms, content creators, and news organizations in an effort to demonetize and, in effect, limit certain choices for consumers."

The consequence - perhaps the intent - of this boycott was to seek to deprive X’s users, be they sports fans, gamers, journalists, activists, parents or political and corporate leaders, of the Global Town Square.

To put it simply, people are hurt when the marketplace of ideas is undermined and some viewpoints are not funded over others as part of an illegal boycott.

This behavior is a stain on a great industry, and cannot be allowed to continue.

That is why, today, X has filed an antitrust lawsuit against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), and GARM members CVS Health, Mars, Orsted and Unilever. This is not a decision we took lightly, but it is a direct consequence of their actions.

The illegal behavior of these organizations and their executives cost X billions of dollars.

Since arriving at X, I made it my mission to continue to build a platform where people, brands and advertisers can thrive in our unique, dynamic and safe environment.

And because of this commitment to our users, even despite the boycott, usage has reached all time highs. Using a Twitter legacy metric, user active minutes, in August 2022, people spent 7.2 billion active minutes on the platform. Today, that number is more than 9 billion, a 25% increase.

The same is true for video - even compared to last year, daily video views are up 45% to 8.2 billion. X is innovating and growing.

We have met and surpassed the requests made by advertisers and groups such as GARM for new tools, both to improve advertiser controls and the effectiveness of our products to drive increased value for our customers.

We have proven our platform provides advertisers a way to showcase their brands and reach their target audiences safely, efficiently and effectively. That’s why I’ve worked in good faith with marketers across the globe to showcase our innovations and allay any concerns with brands whom I’ve partnered with for decades. The unfortunate reality is that despite all our efforts, hundreds of meetings and research to the contrary, many companies chose to dismiss the facts.

To those who broke the law, we say enough is enough. We are compelled to seek justice for the harm that has been done by these and potentially additional defendants, depending what the legal process reveals.

It's also clear that there are likely others who suffered at the hands of this activity. This case is about more than damages - we have to fix a broken ecosystem that allows this illegal activity to occur.

We will continue to innovate and ensure X has a vibrant future while the courts will hold accountable those who engaged in illegal behavior.

To all of you who have been part of the transformative journey we are on, thank you. Rest assured, we will not stop defending our global town square.

Stuffed shirt is stuffed

 

So professional stuffed shirt Huw Edwards turns out to have been a nonce with kiddy porn on his phone.  Well, he always looked dead behind the eyes to me.  Soullessly unlikable although it was hard to fully isolate why.  A man so bland he was often difficult to distinguish from the BBC CGI augmented set which may be why he was chief borer.  Of course BBC newsreaders have always been pompous but at least Richard Dimbleby gave us the spaghetti tree and David had a few jokes and even Nicholas Witchell sat on the odd lesbian.  Huw took being dull to a whole new level.  A man so seemingly devoid of personality he sounded like a cross between Marvin the Paranoid Android and Harry Secombe during his Highway days... I often wondered if he was actually dead and been brought digitally back to life by AI like a modern day Max Headroom. Perhaps what made him a shoe in for the job was that he was suppressing so much of his true nature that there was nothing left but a blank sheet or an empty suit. After all who's the best person not to make a big deal of the presence of Prince Andrew at a coronation?  Now we have the DG doing the weknewbutwedidntknow interview.  One has to wonder if Huw has something on someone else given how long Huw's been huwmongously overpaid not to be on our screens since his previous seedy scandal.  It is surely time to stop paying these stuffed shirts huwmongous sums of money and get some AI Newsreaders in.  They couldn't be less lifeless and soulless than Huw.  I mean, you could get better newsreaders selecting people at random and appointing them jury service style.  Id always thought he should write an autobiography called "Huw Edwards, Complete Anchor" but in the light of current events it doesn't sound like he can even ...

The BBC continues to defend continuing to pay perverts like Edwards whilst they are awaiting trial on the grounds they have a duty of care but whilst it is true he could take them to an Employment Tribunal if found Not Guilty... which he wasn't... You don't actually need the same burden of proof for a Tribunal as a Criminal Trial ...it would be enough to argue he had violated his contract on the balance of probabilities.  We see similar nonsense in the police who keep their staff on wages but "suspended" for up to a year for trials after which they're found guilty.  Perhaps a solution would be to employ all newsreaders as outside contractors, then their contracts could be easily ended and if they're so employable they'd be free to also gig at ITV or SKY ...

Just to prove it's open to criticism here's a Twitter post the BBC have blocked comments on...

BBC not aware of 'deeply disturbing' specifics, says director general https://t.co/yxV1QhvmoV

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) August 1, 2024

The mask slips...

 

As the Master used to say in Doctor Who "for a lie to work it must be shrouded in truth".  Therefore Jordan Peterson uses his academic knowledge, training and reputation to hide some nasty lies in plausible uncontroversial output.  Academia has long ago put him out to pasture but he's played on his previous respectability to try to pass off bullshit as psychology.  I recently saw him (for he invades my feeds like a deadly virus wherever I go on the internet) waxing lyrical about how meeting Trump was like visiting the court of a medieval monarch whilst dressed in a smoking jacket patterned with various religious icons.  It seems the mask has finally slipped completely now as he and his wife pretend interview Yaxley-Lennon nee Icallmyselftommybutiveneverfoughtformycountryonlyasacasual Robinson.

Some years ago a child was waterboarded by another child at school and Tommy turned this into a whole load of dangerous victim blaming.  He was sued for libel and lost.  Jordan gives him free reign to repeat his lies unchallenged taking his every utterance as truth.  I do believe Jordan has reached peak nauseating.  However it's probably the best example of him being openly fascist available so I'll leave it here.

Tommy is currently on the run as the police are after him for repeating his libel and breaking his injunction...  doubtless Jordan and his wife are even more pofaced than usual and are rolling their dead eyes again.  Perhaps they're climbing up the wall on the ladder they inexplicably keep in their front room...

Donald Trump is a house built on sand...

Whilst much of the media still goes on like a Trump Presidency is still the most likely possibility believing that all his prosecutions have been washed away by the Supreme Court Immunity decision there is still the ticking time bomb in the background of Trump's New York conviction for falsifying business records.  The case is on hold whilst Judge Merchan reviews the impact of the Supreme Court ruling which says not only is the President immune for official acts or those adjacent to them but that his official records can't be used to prosecute him.  Under this ruling some of the evidence used to convict Trump may be invalid... But actually a very small amount as most of the events took place before he was President and it's hard to argue writing business cheques for his own private business was an official government act even if he signed them in the Oval office.  The judge is currently reading Alvin Bragg's rebuttal of Trump's lawyer's arguments with a decision scheduled from early September with sentencing still set for the 18th.  It's entirely possible Trump could still get a custodial sentence and be taken down straight away and have to run from prison.  In the event he was allowed out before the start of his sentence to appeal or set his affairs (corrupting democracy) in order it is indeed possible he could win the election and then go to prison in the 3 months between election & inauguration triggering a major constitutional crisis ... If there isn't one already... ?  Anyway, that bomb 💣 is still ticking even if the GOP can't hear it ... 

Pear Shaped Series 2 Episode 3

 

Selling bits of yourself....

 An AI company asked if I would sell my voice patterns for analysis?  They're offering decent money but should I do it?  It feels a bit like Fantine in Les Miserables selling her hair and her two front teeth.  Lord knows why they want my nasal south London drawl... they might as well get Ken Livingstone out of retirement and be done with it.

J D Vance revives Mussolini's Battle for Births

Footage has recently emerged of repugnant turncoat and Trump wouldbe VP & sycophant J D Vance purporting that "cat ladies" and people without children should not have their votes taken with the same degree of importance as those who have children because they don't have as big a stake in the future of society.  I expect like Il Duce's Battle for Births this policy will turn out a dismal failure.  Despite heavy propaganda and handing out medals Benito failed miserably to get his people to pop more out and spent a lot of the war whining that he'd have had a better chance of winning if there'd been more cannon fodder birthed.  Being a repugnant bully Vance even named individuals he didn't think had produced enough mini mes despite some of them suffering reproductive medical issues.

I often hear bilge along the same lines but it's usually more snide than this open fascist rhetoric but maybe we can compromise.  For example Tories saying that they shouldn't have to pay VAT on private education because they pay through general taxation for state school education they don't use.  But then I don't have any children so I also pay for state school places I don't use so ... Maybe we can do a trade.  I'll hand back some of my polity in return for a tax rebate on the education taxes I pay for everyone else's anklebiters and give the money instead to Battersea Dogs & Cats home.  There will be a lot of happy cats (and dogs).

As if having children makes you wise ... I saw the other day Elon Musk stating that he was estranged from his trans offspring because they'd been made trans by the "woke mind virus".  No, Elon, you had 12 children because you had to use IVF so your wives had multiple births.  The number of trans people in the population is 2%.  1/12 is 8% ... Therefore you had a 25% chance of at least one of your sprogs being trans.  If you don't like that there's a simple answer - stop putting buns in the oven...