Meanwhile in Hansard

 

....the Government tries to square the circle of how to solve the problem that what was said yesterday (I do not advise you to follow this link here as it might be illegal and I am a coward, it is simply included as a citation) cannot be repeated today... This made me wonder what can be said about the decision to ban Palenstine action and I guess we're on safe ground quoting what is in Hansard...

As Madam Deputy Speaker observed the debate itself was only 90 minutes long so that "—it has to conclude at 5.27 pm—which means Back Benchers will be on a speaking limit of four minutes to begin with and that only a few will get in before the debate has to conclude."  So it's quite impressive really that given the anemic amount of time found for the debate that there were things said in the debate that the Government thinks it cannot repeat in its own records.

Junior Minister Dan Jarvis (for Yvette Cooper was on bigger tings) promoting the Statutory Instrument (the so called Henry VIII power) said : "The group has a footprint in all 45 policing regions in the UK, and has pledged to escalate its campaign. This disgraceful pattern of activity cannot be allowed to continue. In applying the legislative framework, the Government assess that Palestine Action commits acts of terrorism....   Palestine Action has committed acts of serious damage to property, with the aim of progressing its political cause and intimidating and influencing the public and the Government. These include attacks against Thales in Glasgow in 2022 and against Instro Precision in Kent and Elbit Systems UK in Bristol last year. In such attacks, Palestine Action members have forced entry on to premises while armed with a variety of weapons, and damaged or demolished property, causing millions of pounds’ worth of criminal damage. As the House has heard, Palestine Action members have used violence against people responding at the scene.  During Palestine Action’s attack against the Thales defence factory in Glasgow in 2022, the group caused over £1 million-worth of damage, including to parts that are essential for our submarines. Palestine Action Toggle showing location of caused panic among staff, who feared for their safety as pyrotechnics and smoke bombs were thrown into the area to which they were evacuating. When passing custodial sentences for the perpetrators, the sheriff said: “Throwing pyrotechnics at areas where people are being evacuated to cannot be described as non-violent.” The Government also assess that Palestine Action prepares for terrorism. The organisation has provided practical advice to assist its members in carrying out significant levels of property damage at targets right across the UK. For example, Palestine Action has released an underground manual that encourages its members to create small groups or cells and provides guidance about how to conduct activity against private companies and Government buildings. It explains how to operate covertly to evade arrest and provides a link to a website, also created by Palestine Action, which contains a map of target locations across the UK.  The Government assess that Palestine Action promotes and encourages terrorism, including through the glorification on social media of its attacks involving property damage. Palestine Action’s attacks are not victimless crimes; employees have experienced physical violence, intimidation and harassment, and they have been prevented from entering their place of work. We would not tolerate this activity from organisations motivated by Islamist or extreme right-wing ideology, and we cannot tolerate it from Palestine Action. By implementing this measure, we will remove Palestine Action’s veil of legitimacy, tackle its financial support, and degrade its efforts to recruit and radicalise people into committing terrorist activity in its name. We must be under no illusion: Palestine Action is not a legitimate protest group. People engaged in lawful protest do not need weapons. People engaged in lawful protest do not throw smoke bombs and fire pyrotechnics around innocent members of the public. And people engaged in lawful protest do not cause millions of pounds’ worth of damage to national security infrastructure, including submarines and defence equipment for NATO. Proscribing Palestine Action will not impinge the right to protest. People have always been able to protest lawfully or express support for Palestine, and they can continue to do so."

The Right Honourable Mr Jarvis then went on to waffle on about Russian Imperial Movement for a long time further eating into the strict 90 minutes of debate without giving way.  When he did veteran left winger Clive Lewis MP said: "I thank the Minister for giving way, and for some of the things that he has said. Everything he has spoken about could be dealt with under criminal law. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Dame Chi Onwurah) mentioned the suffragettes. I think we need to give the context of a little bit of history. The suffragettes carried out a campaign of window-smashing, poster and paint defacement, cutting telegraph and railway lines and targeted bombing and arson, but specifically avoided harming people [Note : this is not strictly historically true.  The suffragettes bombing and arson campaign killed 5 people. I'm sure Herbert Henry Asquith would have proscribed them if he had thought of it]. There is a long history in this country of direct action that pushes the boundaries of our democracy. It is very difficult for all of us, but this is still direct action, not terrorist action.

Alistair Carmichael for the Liberal Democrats raised the point that : "The Minister has spoken about some of the history of this, but there is more recent history. The last Government introduced the Public Order Act 2023 to deal with Extinction Rebellion. The Home Secretary, who was then on the Opposition Front Bench, listed all the various crimes that could be dealt with. She said then: “the Government are extending powers that we would normally make available just for serious violence and terrorism to peaceful protest. Police officers themselves have said that this is, ‘a severe restriction on a person’s rights to protest and in reality, is unworkable’.”—[Official Report, 23 May 2022; Vol. 715, c. 63.] She was right then, and is wrong today, is she not?"

Richard Burgon said "I want to speak specifically about Palestine Action. It is most regrettable that the Government have tabled one order banning three organisations, when it knows that there is political disagreement on Palestine Action. That is no way to bring terror legislation to the House. I want to be clear and to put on the record that I would be supporting the order today if it referred only to the organisations Maniacs Murder Cult and the Russian Imperial Movement. Leading legal and human rights organisations Amnesty International and Liberty have condemned the proscription of Palestine Action. Liberty said: “Targeting a protest group with terrorism powers is a shocking escalation of the Government’s crackdown on protest...This move would be a huge step change in how counter-terror laws are applied.”

Amnesty International UK said: “We’re deeply concerned at the use of counter-terrorism powers to target protest groups...they certainly shouldn’t be used to ban them.”

They both urged the Home Secretary to rethink before bringing this to Parliament. Yesterday, several United Nations special rapporteurs, including those for protecting human rights while countering terrorism and for promoting freedom of expression, said they had contacted the UK Government to say that “acts of protest that damage property, but are not intended to kill or injure people, should not be treated as terrorism”.  Likewise, Lord Charlie Falconer, the former Justice Minister, stated that the “sort of demonstration” seen at a military base by Palestine Action would not justify proscription as a terrorist organisation. Today, we are not voting on whether people agree with Palestine Action’s tactics; we are not voting on whether people think its aim is right or wrong. We are voting on whether the actions it has taken against property, not against people, should lead to its being treated as a terrorist organisation, when what it has done can be prosecuted as criminal damage. There is a long history of protest activity including acts of trespass, criminal damage, sabotage and more. Indeed, the Home Secretary’s recent statement repeatedly refers to criminal damage and the live court cases, showing that there is already legal provision to deal with Palestine Action.

There are a variety of potential consequences if the proscription of Palestine Action is passed. Supporting or joining Palestine Action could carry up to 14 years in prison. That risks criminalising thousands of volunteers and supporters. Thousands have supported or volunteered with Palestine Action, including nurses, students, retirees and professionals. Many have never engaged in direct action, but risk being criminalised. Today, I met representatives of Amnesty International who offered a number of frightening examples of how our constituents could be placed at risk of prosecution under section 12 of the Terrorism Act and could face a maximum sentence of 14 years if Palestine Action are proscribed.

According to Amnesty International, a person who tweets, “I oppose the war crimes in Gaza and I think that Palestine Action has a point,” could easily fall foul Toggle showing location of this provision, as could a person who says to another, “I do not support all the methods used by Palestine Action, but I think protest is important and I respect the personal sacrifices members of Palestine Action are willing to make, risking arrest to challenge war crimes,” or an individual with a placard that reads, “Palestine Action is peaceful—it should be de-proscribed.” 

This legislation could affect constituents who have never been a member of Palestine Action and who have never and would never commit direct action. Speeches or comments they make in community meetings could be trawled, and they could end up facing legal proceedings resulting in a prison sentence of up to 14 years. That concerns us all.  People out there view terrorism as meaning heinous acts such as shooting people, blowing people up, assassinating people and other acts of violence. I urge colleagues to consider the consequences for their constituents of proscribing Palestine Action alongside these other groups."

As expected Jeremy Corbyn had a good old waffle : ""As the debate opened, I intervened on the Minister, and I am grateful to him for giving way. I just need an explanation—I hope that we will get one—as to why groups are always put together in these orders and not dealt with separately. There are clearly different orders of concern here. I want to speak solely about Palestine Action.We live in a democratic society, and we have to understand where our rights have come from. The hon. Member for High Peak (Jon Pearce) represents the place where in 1932 the mass trespass took place, led by Benny Rothman—a Jewish activist in the Communist party at that time—who was demanding rights of access to the countryside. He was roundly condemned by all the mass media and the Government of the day, he was put on trial and he was put in prison. He was eventually released from prison after mass protests in his support. TWithout Benny Rothman and those others, that access to the countryside simply would not have happened at that time.We can look at all the other people who over decades of our history have stood up for free speech and democracy. We can go back to the Chartists, to the suffragettes and to those who campaigned to end apartheid in South Africa. Interestingly, during all the apartheid years, while the British Government did condemn the African National Congress and did indeed believe for a while that Nelson Mandela was a terrorist, they never banned the ANC in Britain, because they were advised that it was important that there should be a place where people could express that voice of hope for the end of apartheid. [Were they?  Or did Mrs Thatcher just not think of it and not have a statutory instrument she could activate in only 90 minutes?] The women who went to Greenham Common to protest about the deployment of nuclear weapons there were never labelled as terrorists either. Yes, they were charged with criminal trespass, as many others have been. Indeed, those who undertake direct action are well aware of the risks they take. However, it crosses an enormous threshold to suddenly make such an announcement about Palestine Action, which speaks out against the horrors of what is happening in Gaza, where hundreds are mown down every day by the Israel Defence Forces simply for queuing for food when they are desperately hungry and their children are starving. Surely we should be looking at the issue that Palestine Action is concerned about, as well as the supply of weapons from this country to Israel, which has made all that possible. If the order goes through today, it will have a chilling effect on protest. I quote a letter sent to the Home Secretary on 28 June: “Direct action is a longstanding and respected part of British political history. From the suffragettes chaining themselves to railings, to striking miners, to anti-apartheid campaigners occupying institutions and disrupting trade, civil disobedience and direct action have always been necessary forces for progress and justice.”"

The debate started at 3.57pm and the House divided to vote at 5.26.  Exactly an hour and a half.  Just slightly less than 14000 words were spoken.  Apart from Mr Javis who was bringing the statutory instrument only Conservative opposition Assistant Whip Harriet Cross (what the late Pillip Martin would have described as "one of nature's number twos") spoke in favour of the motion.  Clearly the arguments for proscription are so self-evident that it only took two people to express them.  Proceedings then moved to the House of Lords who rubber stamped it and Palestine Action was thus officially proscribed on the stroke of midnight...

Postscript 

Dear Anthony Miller

Thank you for contacting the Speaker’s Office.

 

In the debate in question, the Deputy Speaker had imposed a four-minute time limit on Back-Bench speeches, as many MPs wished to contribute. 

 

The words “we are all Palestine Action” were spoken after the Deputy Speaker had said “Order” as the time limit had been reached. Although the microphone remained on for a few seconds, Ms Sultana no longer had the Floor. It is standard practice for the Hansard record to stop when the Chair intervenes to bring a speech to an end when the time limit has been reached.  This is not uncommon; it also happened for Ellie Chowns’s speech in the same debate. 

 

Thank you for taking the time to write and I hope this addresses your concern.

 

Kind regards,

Isis-Raine

Isis-Raine Williams

Speaker’s Office Administrative Assistant

House of Commons Speaker’s Office

 

 

House of Commons, Palace of Westminster, London, SW1A 0AA

parliament.uk

This is disputed 

Grok, are you named after the Groke?

Nope, not quite! My name's inspired by Robert A. Heinlein's sci-fi novel "Stranger in a Strange Land," where "grok" means to deeply understand something. The Groke from the Moomins is a chilly, eerie character—I'm more about warmth and insight! Think of me as a friendly guide, not a frosty specter. Any other questions about my origins or what I can do for you?

Norman's Column

I always admired Norman Tebbit for his column in the Telegraph.  They obviously bunged him well for it but he put in so much more effort than most other columnists do.  For example... He would literally read every comment below the line and respond to them.  Raising counterpoints, responding to arguments, even on occasion altering his opinion.  He'd then weave these updated opinions into the next column so it wasn't just "subject of the week" but more like a continuous narrative mixed with a right wing soap opera.  His opinions were still bollocks and frequently repugnant but he tried to see other points of view and tried to engage with other people even if he wasn't always successful.  Of course he was semi retired then and had fuck all else to do but it was what I would call proper activism.  Engaging with, debating and listening to the public.  So many politicians today don't even try to engage.  They go from Oxford PPE course to the Council to MP without ever brushing by a real person.  Then they lock themselves away in their ivory towers and only appear with the public in carefully choreographed photo ops, usually in a factory surrounded by lots of plebs in high vizes who can't answer back.  Tebbit (a bit like Major) actually liked the intellectual challenge of a debate.  I mean, Kemi "it's too early for policy" doesn't even have opinions, she just throws shit at the wall to see what will stick.  And Starmer actually states publicly that he doesn't even read the speeches his spads write for him.  Tebbit wasn't particularly likable but he was a real person and he wasn't a fake.  I wish we had more politicians who weren't fakes.

Food fight

People say the IDF are wrong to not let UN aid agencies distribute food aid in Gaza but they have to be careful that the aid isn't stolen by Hamas.  Can you imagine what would happen if Hamas got their hands on lorry loads of food?  They would surely use it as a weapon.  Very soon a giant food fight would ensue and IDF soldiers would be at the mercy of custard pies and flower bombs at every street corner.  They may not be lethal but eggs and milkshakes used as projectiles can really hurt.  Just ask Nigel Farage...

The gentler sex

It always makes me laugh when people cite the Suffragettes as an example of non-violent direct action.

They literally invented the letter bomb...

When they weren't horse whipping Winston Churchill at railway stations ...

Or blowing up the tube network...

Or bombing Westminster Abbey...

Or committing arson all over the place...

They had their own nitroglycerin factory.

Compared to the Suffragettes XR & Palestine Action are incredibly tame.

The Pankhursts were bad motherfuckers

Oppenpornheimer

 

Finally got round to watching Oppenheimer.  

Now I'm no great feminist but... 

Oh dear ...

Someone obviously said to Christopher Nolan:

"Look mate, you keep making these really long depressing films about catastrophic military incidents which are very good drama but I really feel given it's a lot of mainly male physicists sitting round discussing particle wave duality that what would really elevate it intellectually would be to stuff in a bit of gratuitous soft porn.  Florence Pugh's a good sport, why don't you ask her to get her tits out for the lads? Sure she'd do it and it'll be a lot more upbeat than people being vaporised by a nuclear explosion."

The British Political Class Lord Haw Haw Hard for Bibi and Trump

 

Well, we all knew that the United States was going to take illegal unilateral action against Iran didn't we?  Top hint was when Sir John Sawers former C at MI6 was wheeled out on the media to brief the press about how he thinks the United States should further shatter the United Nations Charter with preposterous arguments along the lines of "Well, Israel has started this war now, might as well join in."  Presumably this is the government "de-escalating" things.  Or maybe it's the government trying to sugar the pill that Trump left the G7 early because everyone else said "Don't bomb Iran" but Trump was looking for something "Better than a ceasefire".  For those of my readers who are not British C is a codename - you can guess what the other three letters of the code are?  Does anyone remember when Civil Servants were grey figures like Sir Humphrey Appleby who claimed to impartiality for constitutional reasons?  Well, if they're so impartial, why when they resign do they all express such vociferous and hawklike views with regard to foreign policy and war?  In the good old days, MI6 lied to us assiduously that Iraq had nuclear weapons and we were "45 minutes from doom" but these days they expect us to believe that just having some fissile material that you might be able to possibly get enough of to make a bomb out of one day is enough to justify taking military action that's totally illegal.  I won't say unprovoked because the complex relationship between Iran and Israel is a little more complex than that but clearly (because Bibi said it) the bombing of Iran was an action that Israel had been planning for some time therefore it cannot be "immediate" and "necessary".  When you point this out to Israeli mouthpieces there's a whole load of whataboutery but the reality is they should at least go through the motions of taking their disputes to the UN before launching into unilateral action.  Still, there's plenty of US Senators who are jolly today believing that war war is better than jaw jaw.  More fool them.  You'd think at least the warmongers could get some new material than WMD lies - going to show us Colin Powell's Powerpoint again? - but they don't even have that much respect for us.  So the usual suspects are out Quislinging hard.  "Iran’s nuclear programme is a grave threat to international security. Iran can never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon and the US has taken action to alleviate that threat" says former human rights lawyer Sir Keir Starmer who must know this is downright illegal.  Piers Morgan meanwhile promotes pum that "Key difference between President Trump’s attack on Iran and the Bush/Blair attack on Iraq is that Saddam had no WMD, but Iran’s been rapidly enriching its uranium from 3-60% for what can only be one ultimate purpose: weaponising it to build nuclear bombs."  If you read that carefully what it says is that it was wrong to invade Iraq because it had no nuclear bombs but okay to bomb Iran because it had no nuclear bombs.  Such is the topsy turvy logic of the warmonger.  Rishi Sunak has also been rushing out to give Israel and the US political cover as has Kemi.  I wonder how when an emboldened Trump invades Canada or Greenland they'll sell that one?  This is why I don't post here much anymore.  It's too depressing.  If you tried to keep up with all the warmongering and lies you'd go mad...

Anyway, seeing C made me think of M in the EON Bond films.  To avoid them being banned in certain countries and maximize his sales Albert R. Broccoli changed the books so all the villains are international criminals and members of SPECTRE (until the copyright disputes) and it creates a comforting world in which whilst M and General Gogol are rivals and even enemies there is a mutual respect between them.  As the Master used to say woolly thinking but comforting when worn close to the skin... Many of the films actually start with discussions down the United Nations about how to avoid war as a result of the distrust being generated by the villain's manufactured conflict.  If only the real world was actually like that ...but I guess the idea of world peace has gone for a burton because no one anymore remembers the 22 million dead of WWI and the 75 million dead of WWII anymore except when all the now regularly replaced Prime Ministers stand outside the Cenotaph once a year dressed in black mouthing platitudes about how they remember them.  Still, slightly better than Trump who can't even do that and uses such events as campaigning platforms and when he visited Aisne-Marne cemetery in France called the US fallen "mugs".  

Truly it is hard to find a more revolting man.

Israel jumps the shark...

 

Just when you think things couldn't get more bonkers down Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu has jumped the shark and launched an unprovoked missile attack on Iran for no discernable tactical reason and with no warning.  So for all the Zionists driving me bonkers on twitter ... no, pre-emptive strikes are almost all illegal under international law (a bit like moving your civilians into an occupied territory - Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention).  

Under Article 2 of the United Nations Charter (to which Israel is a signatory) "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."

The only exception in international law for pre-emptive action is the Caroline Test.  In 1837 during the Upper Canada Rebellion, the British launched a preemptive attack against a US ship on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls.  There was no warning and so much discussion about whether such an attack was ethical.  The British argued it was because the other side were planning an attack.  In response then then US Secretary of State Daniel Webster formulated the following definition of an "ethical" pre-emptive" attack.  Such an attack could only be lawful if ...

"[The] necessity of self-defense was instant [and] overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment of deliberation ..., and even supposing the necessity of the moment authorized the [invader] to enter the territories of the [invaded country] at all, [they] did nothing unreasonable or excessive; since the act, justified by the necessity of self-defense, must be limited by that necessity, and kept clearly within it."

This test was reaffirmed by the Nuremberg Tribunal after WWII, which sayeth ...

"the necessity for preemptive self-defense must be "instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation."

Given the Iranians were not planning to launch a nuclear missile the very next day it's hard to see how the "pre-emptive" strike was in any way legal. and it's even harder to understand why our politicians are giving Israel political cover with nonsense about their being our ally...

Do they follow international law?

Are they members of NATO?

Do we have a treaty with them?

Have they signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?

Did they send troops to help us in Iraq or Afghanistan?

No

No 

No

No

No

The Labour Party when you email them to tell them you're leaving over their Gaza policy...

 Dear Anthony,

Thank you for RSVPing to 💭🌹Thursday Be a Councillor: Croydon (Online)🌹💭! Thousands of people across the country are getting involved, and we appreciate you joining us.

I mean, become a Councillor?  With the Council now bankrupt so many times that "Commissioners have been sent in" from Whitehall ... Is it worth voting in local elections at all? Labour holed the Titanic that was Croydon Council's finances in a series of ill advised investments that are adequately chronicelled elsewhere and since then the Tory Mayor has been little more than a one man band playing as the ship sinks. The only solution for the Council is never-forthcoming debt forgiveness and for Councils to be banned from the kind of dodgy PPP Brick by Brick deals that allow ruthless “businessmen” to fill their boots with public cash whilst the details of the deals are hidden from public scrutiny… No there’s never been debt forgiveness before, but then there were proper guardrails before the previous Tory governments removed them in what amounted to a Spiv’s Charter. And not one penny of the effectively half inched money has ever been returned. Where did the Fairfield Halls grand piano go? Surely you don’t need to be Poirot to solve that one? No local administration is ever going to be able to pay back what Croydon Council owes … It’s stuck in a doom loop and is effectively run from Whitehall ...a Constitutional crisis as a democratically elected Mayor is put on pause by the very party that bankrupted the Council in the first place. Once central government starts switching off democratic institutions for an “emergency” it’ll be easier and easier for them to find an excuse whenever they fancy… The Council’s been in one kind of special measure or another for so long now I don’t know how anyone has the enthusiasm to either stand or vote for the emasculated Councillors or Mayor anymore. Yet still they email me like nothing’s gone on.

“Would I like to be a Councillor?”. 

They must be truly desperate for people to pilot the ghost ship…. 

We are in banana republic territory…

The advert that's never deleted

 

Someone you vaguely know and trust from the TV said something that was so important it had to be removed from the internet because it never happened but don't worry despite there being zero evidence of this we're convinced you will click and this link and if you don't we'll show you ever more

clickbait over and over again.  You will never escape our endless scamming.  Even at your funeral there will be an oration about this secret so dark that no one can speak it but the internet remembers it.  The internet never forgets.  Particularly twitter which will remind you forever of the thing that never happened every other post because it can't possibly write an algorithm to detect this scam.

So keep reading... Don't let them get away with it.  You'll thank me later.  You'll be spinning cartwheels.  Don't let them suppress this.  Be one of the ones that knows.  One day it will all come out.  Trust me.  All you need is to invest your money in the place they don't want you to know about.  Trust in me.  Trust in me.  Trust in me.

Paul Smith Loadsofmoney

Has anybody else noticed the similarity between Monaco based property investment adviser & promoter "Paul Smith Wealth" (Yes, he appears to really call himself that) who now lives in Monaco (or is on a very long holiday there) and obnoxious 1980s plasterer Loadsofmoney?  Are they in fact one and the same person?  Smith certainly looks as though he could be an older Loadsofmoney and appears to have the same dress sense.  Of course in the 80s Loadsofmoney was a comedy stereotype made famous by Harry Enfield.  These days I regret to say the Loadsofmoney is a social media influencer who you can WhatsApp at +1 (443) 788-0858 "I've got some helpful info to share".  Although you might want to consider that country code of Monaco is actually +377 and +1 is the dialing code for the United States and 443 is the area code of the State of Maryland which seems rather peculiar for a man who lives in a European tax haven...?

Imagine assassination. It's easy if you read...

It's amazing people read "The Catcher in the Rye" and the message they took from it was assassinate John Lennon or Ronald Reagan.

Personally I found the book so boring I literally couldn't tell you what happened in it.  Apart from some teenager wandering about aimlessly being a bit of a wanker ... which is sort of what they do anyway so not really much of a plot.

It's one of many books I read in my 20s and 30s in an attempt to improve myself as an artist.  The problem is I haven't improved and I can't remember whole chunks of it.  Which is odd because I can remember vividly some parts of some books.  And I can remember whole films and TV series from childhood.  But this book has faded away.  I guess I never really understood it.  I also think it didn't contain a single joke.  Even that book William Golding wrote about a man shipwrecked on a rock trying to survive on limpits has more depth.

Anyway, it just came to mind as I saw a video online of Lennon larking about and signing autographs in Central Park and I remembered walking past his memorial and googled his assassination.  His murderer even used hollow point bullets to make sure his internal organs would not be repairable.  For such bullets may not be legal in war following the Saint Petersburg Declaration of 1868 but civilians can still buy them. That's hatred and capitalism.  So much hatred from such a little boring book.

I had to wonder if J D Salinger had said anything about the murder... But he famously went into a giant sulk like Holden Cauliflower.  Evil comes in many forms...

 

Write to your MP, get grassed up automatically.

 

When you've never picked apples before...

Someone sent me this picture.  I said... Trees don't bend like that?  They said "That's not the point." Well, don't blame me when it all goes Wuthering Heights.  How come the right side of the tree has less apples in the first three drawings but more in the 4th?  Why is neither person maintaining three points of contact? And why is no one holding the ladder? It's Heath & Safety gone mad.  I'm all for promoting social justice... but this is bordering on science fiction.  You have to wonder if any of these people have  ever worked in an orchard ...

You need one of these if you don't want to be there forever ...

 

Meanwhile back in Nouvion...

I have now watched again all of Allo Allo.  Previously I had only watched it once.  Well, I say again… I gave up previously some time around 1987 when they did the massive 24 episode series in an attempt to syndicate it in the US… In the early 90s I had no TV.  I saw bits of series 5 and 6.  I’d never really seen but glimpses of series 7, 8 and 9.  The pinnacle of Allo Allo is definitely the series 2 Christmas special "The Gâteau from the Château" with its brilliant reworking of Danny Kaye’s Court Jester tounge twister “The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the dragon …etc” into the late Sam Kelly’s “Do you not see? That if you kill him with the pill from the till by making with it the drug in the jug, you need not light the candle with the handle on the gâteau from the château” etc… This episode has so many great moments such as Gordon Kaye throwing a bucket of sand over the Gâteau to stop it exploding and explaining that he “did this in memory of the Kaiser’s funeral”.  An explanation everybody accepts.

It is strange that a comedy that is a parody of another program (Secret Army) which was a fictionalisation of war stories can continue the joke for 85 episodes.  Previous Lloyd and Croft collaborations always had one foot in reality but Rene’s Nouvion is an entirely fictitious parallel world to our own.  I would say that it is a pantomime but that doesn’t really do justice to the level of world building going on.  Everyone in Allo Allo is primarily motivated by money and greed and the desire to become a war profiteer – making money out of chaos.  Chaos, constant deception and confusion ensues usually around the location of the “Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies”.  There are so many stand out performances.  Primarily Gordon Kaye as Rene. 

If you sit down and think about it Rene is an extremely unlikable person on paper.  He cheats on his wife with his waitresses and keeps his affairs with the waitresses concealed from each other and his wife and he’s a congenital coward who constantly gaslights his wife when she finds him with one of his mistresses by calling her a “stupid woman”.  But this joke never gets tired and is still funny.  I don’t know why.  Perhaps because Carmen Silvera sells it so well that she’s still besotted with her husband, perhaps because Kaye is a fat gay man who has no interest in women (although I can’t remember if we knew this at the time).  Perhaps …because it’s just so ridiculous.

Second in the line of towering performances is of course Richard Gibson as Herr Otto Flick of the Gestapo.  Gibson’s clipped delivery and ability to keep a straight face in any situation is too funny.  Of course today you probably wouldn’t get away with such a character as the Gestapo killed an awful lot of people but, you know, … it’s not the real world.  Flick is depicted as an incompetent who really isn’t that interested in being in the Gestapo but has been over promoted thanks to family connections (Uncle Himmler). 

I cannot go through every performance in Allo Allo or review every episode but some moments are priceless.  Still as funny today as when it first went out is Officer Crabtree in the wreckage of a pissoir ending the episode with “there is obviously no piss for the wicked”.  And Helga has an interesting role sometimes being on the side of the Colonel and sometimes on the side of Flick.  Her loyalties move further and further away from Flick as the series continues and she seems to twig she’s being used. 

The departure of Sam Kelly left a hole but Gavin Richards as Captain Alberto Bertorelli helped things pick up a bit… where Allo Allo really starts to get unstuck is recasting.  Recasting the Monsieur Roger/Ernest Leclercs thrice over (due to the actors passing on) doesn’t notice much.  Recasting Bertorelli not so much but they kind of get away with it.  Recasting Flick for the final series was just impossible to pull off.  A sign of the lack of faith the producers had in David Janson is that he spends most of his first episode completely concealed in bandages having “undergone plastic surgery”.  The problem cannot be overcome however that he’s not Richard Gibson.  He doesn’t have the same voice, body language …and I’m not sure they’re even the same height… Of course lots of implausible things happen in Allo Allo (a camera in a baked potato) but somehow this breaks the illusion.  But it doesn’t matter because the war is ending …but you still think “if only Richard Gibson”… etc … It’s like wondering what OHMSS would have been like with Connery.  Perhaps it’s the complicated explanation the writers came up with that made it worse.  There was an idea that Lazenby’s replacement of Connery would be explained by plastic surgery but in the end the producers decided not to explain it at all and just have Lazenby break the fourth wall.  Similarly no explanation was ever given for the recasting of Travis from Stephen Greif to Brian Croucher in Blake’s 7 and they kind of get away with it because your imagination fills in the blanks…

Other things I didn’t realise till I watched it back-to-back were... that the timeline is completely unbroken from episode 1 to the end of series 7 with each episode running into the next.  There’s a jump to 1943 at the start of series 8….  Crabtree has a girlfriend for a while but she is dropped... probably something to do with the production gap after Kaye's head accident... Yvette is the only person who can actually understand Crabtree... The two airmen do actually get rescued and their commander has some kind of affair going on with on of their wives.  Erm .. that's it...

Ask for Angela

Ask for Angela is the name of a UK campaign that is used to keep vulnerable women safe when they are in danger. When an establishment uses this program, a person who believes themselves to be in danger can ask for Angela, the UK Deputy Prime Minister. 

Angela Rayner will then listen to their problems, tell them it is not for her to judge and suggest they contact their local International Court of Justice to sort it out as strictly speaking genocide is outside her remit.
 

Director General of the BBC Tim Davie said today that he cannot be arsed with Television anymore

 

Director General of the BBC Tim Davie said today that he "Cannot be arsed with Television anymore." 

Elaborating further he added "Imagine a world that is internet-only, where broadcast TV and radio are being switched off and choice is infinite amounts of rubbish and American imports because tariffs stop us selling our rubbish over there."  

"A switch-off of broadcast TV will and should happen over time, and we should be active in planning for doing nothing in the future.  Certainly not breaking down pictures into digital electrical signals and trying to send them over the airwaves.  For years we've been wasting money on big transmitters like the one at Alexandra Palace when everyone's watching streaming services like Netflix and Amazon."

"It's clear to me that things started to go wrong when we didn't develop a similar system of sending our images down wires as that pioneered by Associated Rediffusion in the 1960s.  They were so successful at sending pictures down wires in Kent that they were later bought out by Victor Lewis-Smith who is now sadly pushing up the daisies and has gone to meet that great Gay Dalek in the sky".  

"Personally I believe John Logie Baird has a lot to answer for.  He may have invented television but he sold it to everyone as this thing with limited infrastructure that was easy to maintain.  Of course now we realise that what we actually needed was lots of computers and wires because people are too disorganised to be in when our important television programs are on.  Still that was the week that was.  It's over.  Let it go."

In his Wreath Lecture Mr Davie also lamented the BBC's long standing policy of applying alternating current antennas to radiate electromagnetic signals for the BBC Home Service on the wireless.  

"Last year," he said, "we decided to turn off the Longwave radio signal and this was an outstanding success that resulted in many Economy 7 electricity meters instantly ceasing to work and having to be replaced by Smart Meters that use a completely different section of the electromagnetic spectrum that also contains microwaves so you can also use them to cook.  A small price to pay for Test Match Special now being unavailable in the European Union since we left."  He said he felt that similar results could be achieved by switching off all TV transmitters by 2030.  

However, some detractors on the BBC Board raised some concerns that this might leave a few old people in remote places without pictures of King William V's Coronation.

Other ideas floated by Mr Davie for the continuation of the BBC beyond the end of the Licence Fee include merging bits of the BBC with Channel 4.  "Nothing should be off the table and neither of us makes much anyone wants to watch anymore," said Mr Davie, "and I think we have much common ground there."

Last of the Summer Warp Factor

Well, I’ve finally managed to watch Star Trek Picard which although it only consists of 30 episodes feels like something of a feat.  I started during the pandemic when I’d wangled a student discount Amazon membership out of Amazon Prime and the first series seemed to zip along with several new characters added to do the running around like when they had older Dr Whos.  Despite a high special effects budget there seems to be an awful lot of talking going on… Although there was a lot of dialogue in Star Trek the Next Generation it was shared by more characters and there was a complex political structure.  No matter how good Patrick Stewart et al are there comes a point where you do think “oh dear, they’re going to have to pull a face again”.  Things slowed down greatly in series 2 although this might be due to Amazon putting adverts in …although there was something tiring about the dystopian future set up.  There does seem to be an awful lot of nepotism in Star Trek with people’s children keep popping up… although they do make a joke of it by the end.  And it’s not as bad as UNIT … by series 3 it picks up a bit perhaps because they’ve got everyone and their cat back from TNG (yes, there's even a Spot cameo) including Ensign Ro and even the voice of Walter Koenig as the voice of Checkov’s son who has gone into politics.

There’s something Last of the Summer Wine about Star Trek Picard … as both involve mature actors performing physically unbelievable feats.  After all, if you really believe the septuagenarian Michael Dorn is really fit enough to do all that fighting stuff you probably also believe that Bill Owen went down the hill in bathtubs …. Then again, maybe he did and is really in tip top shape? I dunno...  What’s really missing is a Nora Batty character to hit Patrick Stewart with a broomstick for inappropriate flirting…

Also why are all the sets so dark?  Are lightbulbs like really expensive in the 24th century?  Peter Davison used to say all his Dr Whos were over lighted but when they mentioned it to the lighting department an official would say "old people complain that they don't pay their TV licence to look at a dark screen".  As an old person ...

Although have I used the word although enough?  I probably should review individual actor performances its very hard ... Michelle Hurd as Rafaella "Raffi" Musiker the Star Trek alcoholic melds with the rest of the older cast quite well.  And Evan Evagora was memorable until... [redacted spoiler]

Migrants will reportedly be expected to learn English to A level standard to work in Britain ...

 

New government proposals state that to work in Britain immigrants must have at least A level standard English.  We interviewed a Spain immigrant working in a small hotel in the south coast of England.  

We asked him in English if he thought he could pass such a rigorous test.  

He said "Qué?".  

Manual from the Spanish city of Barcelona has been working at a small boutique hotel in Torquay since 1974.  His English is still remedial.

With the help of part-time American maid Polly who is bilingual we enquired again (in Spanish) if Manuel thought he could pass Mr Starmer's new rigorous tests. 

He said "Si".  

Sceptical hotel owner Mr Basil Fawlty responded caustically that "Manuel, you know nothing".  

To which Manuel responded "You always say Mr Fawlty but I learn. I learn, I learn, I get better". 

Mrs Fawlty the owner's wife responded that Manuel was very hard working and loyal but Mr Fawlty still retained reservations saying that "it would have been easier to train a chimpanzee" whilst also admitting that Manuel was cheap.