No peril to The Planet

How much global warming is caused by running a Grand Prix at night under floodlights? None? Well, that’s okay, then.
    A car on fire after splitting in half? Not that either. How about a car upside down? A mere nothing. Another on fire 3 laps from the end of the race? Not even that.

No Recommendation

If Scottish prisons really are ‘fit to burst’, as the headline I saw in passing claimed, it doesn’t say much about the moral standards of the Scots.
    If they get another IndyRef, maybe we should be entitled to vote to help this criminal nation out of the UK.

There’s a novelty

No quarterbacks available in Denver thanks to the plague? Who needs them anyway! Could be ‘Bring your boots and you’ll get a game’ day there. This plague has a lot to answer for.
    p.s. I see Eric The Enemy is still going strong. That’s what the NFL needs – people with interesting names.

Empty whinge

Pensions for town hall staff are paid for by deductions from their salary, not Council Tax, I read. And where do the salaries come from if not from Council Tax? And the other taxes distributed to councils by the government?

Glossed over

Could it be that former Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore has not been paying attention for 25 years? It seems likely if she failed to notice she was surrounded by bigots and hypocrites, and she expected the management to respect her right to hold opinions, even though the Grauniad’s editorial staff admit that anything that doesn’t fit their world view is a distraction, which needs to be edited out.

No effort at all

How do you fill up a TV schedule? Syfy does it by showing a film @ 9 p.m. on Thursday and then showing the same film in the same slot on Saturday, followed by Wednesday's zombie film.

Forever Young

What a great time machine the TV is. There was a familiar face in this week’s The Mind of Mr. J.G. Reeder. Who was that young bloke? Oh, yes. Inspector Morse’s grumpy old boss! Making sleazy films and up to his neck in blackmail and murder!!

Transference

Looking through a catalogue of cut-price books, I noted that Seven Pillars of Wisdom had acquired a gratuitous ‘The’ at the start. I assume it’s one that got away from The Sign of The Four, which is often rendered senseless by amputation of the second ‘The’.

Bias at the BBC? Incredible!

Lots of fulminating on the BBC about Home Sec. Pritti Patel not getting the sack for losing her temper with obstructive civil servants. Strange there was nothing about Gordon Brown throwing phones among his wobblies.

Playtime @ Parliament

What a wonderful time to be a Tory MP. You can rant & rave and vote against the government’s lockdown plans in perfect safety, knowing that Labour has to back Boris to avoid accusations of being wreckers, which makes the rants just impactless gestures.

Street war

Motorists in London are fighting back against the campaign by local councils to drive them off the roads and replace them with bikers by sneaking out on dark nights to sabotage road blocks and surveillance cameras. You can push people only so far . . .

Look out!

Warning: The Sicilian-style tuna lasagne may contain bits of inconvenient bodies if the Mafia has access to your kitchen.

Some legacy

If you cheat blatantly and shamelessly, and get away with it as Diego Maradona did, and you end up as a hopeless coke-head, you become Argentina’s national hero. Especially in the eyes of Britain's enemies like the current president of France.
    Weird, indeed, are the ways of the world. And how sad for Argentina that he’s their best candidate for a national hero.

Mind boggling

‘Computer Wheel Alignment’, I happened to see in background of a set of a TV programme. Which left me wondering who has a computer with wheels on it?

Rot

Where do people get the strange notion that cash is obsolete? If traders want to survive, they'll take cash. Even if they wear gloves when they handle it.

Plain emptiness

Do Nigella Lawson fans like Amanda Platell of the DM really have so little to do with themselves that they'd tune in to watch Nigella drink a glass of water? How sad!

Blue Move

Looks like football matches will acquire NFL-style blue tents for doing concussion protocols now that it has become a focus of attention.

No contest

Family Xmas is ON? That’s not news. It was never not on. The state doesn’t have enough guns & bodies to stop the masses from doing Xmas if they want to.

News to me

Things you learn reading book catalogues: that the Putin regime was involved in the Boston Marathon bombing.

Daft Dooshanks

An emergency pocket phone charger that looks like a tape cassette, and comes in a cassette box for storage, has to be up there in the realm of daft gadgets. Retro badged, of course.

Farmers are the same everywhere

France, Denmark, makes no difference. Upset the farming lobby and they’re out on the streets. Mind you, the Danish mink farmers who were charging around in big tractors have a point if the government has ordered a mass cull of their animals which has no basis in law.

Not sneaky enough!

Our isolated PM is communicating with his staff using a messaging system instead of the traditional written stuff in a Red Box. Which has left his minions frowning over messages received in Carrie’s compact style rather than Boris ramblings and wondering who is actually running the country!

Tidings of guilt & doom

Have Xmas with family & friends and bury them in January & February. How bloody cheerful the plague experts can be!

Cheesed off

The Packer fans are grousing today! They’re convinced their team couldn’t have done worse last night if they’d been paid deliberately to throw the match against the Colts.

Yet another gadget? Yawn.

I see someone is developing an App to translate cat talk. Which seems a waste of time. The Mansion cat has no trouble telling her staff to open doors, deliver more grub, etc., by behaviour rather than speech.

Great finish

Oliveira, a Portuguese national, was on pole for his home MotoGP race; off into the distance and over the horizon. Series leader Mir went out with bike trouble with 10 laps to go. Lots of close racing and riders making corners via a trip towards the car park! Miller did for Morbidelli on the last lap to claim 2nd, miles behind Oliveira.

Full marks for courage

There were 4 riders with a shot at the Moto2 title. Digi was gone right away at turn 1. Sam Lowes, 3rd in the championship, riding with a broken wrist, finished 3rd in the race and the same place in the championship. Gardner scored his first win and Bastianini held on to 5th and the championship.

Here’s racing for you!

Everyone was busting a gut to stay on the track in the Moto3 race in Portugal, with the championship within the grasp of 3 riders. Rat & bag all the way. The Brit McPhee managed 9th and series leader Arenas, who was crowned champion, had an anxious last lap after being shunted back from 7th to 12th.

You can invent an apology for anyone

‘Diana Swindler’ Bashir keeps getting his picture in the papers, strolling around in the wide world when the BBC claims he's ‘too ill’ to help with their inquiries into his scamming.
    Maybe he has a personality disorder, which isn’t obvious to a casual glance.

Just another shower of chancers

Police Scotland gets a good kicking in today’s Sunday Post. Which confirms that the SNP is unfit to run the proverbial whelk stall, never mind an independent Scotland.

Believe it or what

Whatever happened to honesty in advertising? Eating artificial meatless sausages reduces your carbon footprint? Sure it does! But not by any measurable amount.

Culture shock

I’ve been watching The Mind of Mr. J.G. Reeder on Talking Pictures TV and there was an episode in colour last week, which seemed rather inappropriate for a series set when the world was in black & white. Back to reality this week.

Another barrel scraped

No, the Mansion cooking staff don’t need an instruction video from Nigela Lawson to teach them how to butter toast. Sheesh!

Something Boris got right

Is devolution delivering? If you look at the bog that the SNP is making of running Scotland – education, policing, ferries, etc., etc. – then the answer has to be a resounding NO!
    Which means that the Scottish Tories who are moaning at the PM for calling devolution a disaster are just playing politics without conviction.

Interesting CV

I’m still trying to work out if a history of dressing up in a chicken suit to harass Dave when he was The Leader is much of a qualification for being a political adviser and backroom manager.

News to some

Dogger’s Christmas is a book about a stuffed toy dog, not lockdown flouters doing in it public spaces over the festive season? Well, you live & learn.

Technology Deficit

I’ve just read that Gabriel Byrne (allegedly a film star but nothing springs to mind) wrote a memoir on his iPad, ‘pushed the button’ and watched the screen go blank and the entire document vanish.
    What sort of crap software was he using that didn’t make regular progress backups, which would have left him just short of the ending?

Daft? Yes, but it’s the rule

There’s a ridiculous picture in the paper showing the PM standing about a yard – instead of 2 yards – from an MP who tested positive for the plague several days later, and that’s supposed to be why Boris is in quarantine for 14 days. Even though he is currently bursting with antibodies. Sheer madness.

The past is a better country

If you ever wondered why so many people watch repeats from the 20th century in preference to what is on TV these days, it's because the current broadcasters are too scared of the woke and cancellation cults to be even a little daring.

Imposter warning

That's Captain Janeway? was my reaction to the set of Star Trek stamps issued by the Royal Mail. Looks nothing like her.

Virus View

Maybe it’s just me but using a common cold virus to deliver a vaccine for the Chinese plague seems a rather weird idea. People coughing and sneezing with a cold are likely to be super-spreaders if they also have the plague.

Something else strange

I was amused by the theory that if Maggie Hambling’s weird silver statue with a naked woman on top is talked about, that makes all her efforts worthwhile. Notoriety trumps quality and relevance.

An uncoloured future

Life is strange. In the pet world, and the world of vampires, pure-breds are prized and mongrels ain’t. In the human world, the reverse is becoming the rule. Next step, homo homogeniens?

Variations on a theme

I always have a laugh when I see the acronym POTUS for President Of The United States because it’s such a daft word and should apply to something equally daft. And there is scope for variations.
    Joe Biden has declared his dog to be the DOTUS. Which is typical of a politician and will get an argument from every other dog owner in the country.
    My current favourite adaptation is POTKU, which stands for Pits Of The Known Universe. There are lots of places which fit that description these days.

How cunning

His backroom boys have been hurled out on their ears by the backroom female Mafia, so what does the prime minister do? Sneak off into self-isolation for a while to avoid annoying journalists wanting to mock him. Who came up with that one?

Not this for a laugh, that’s for sure!

Okay, there are some weird ideas floating around in the world of cookery, but who in their right mind would want to tackle a dish of curried banana skins?

Eternal question

Who did the West Coast bribe to be spared 60 Minutes on CBS on a Sunday evening during the NFL season? Whoever it was, the trick seems to work time and again.

Come on, really?

Do I want a Christmas takeaway sandwich, burger or pizza? Aaaaah, nope!

Let technology take the strain

Another Daily Mail reader has become wearied by the sheer volume of charity ads on TV. But instead of screaming “Gimme a break”, she should remember that the mute button was invented to save us from having to leave the room and guess when the ads are over.

At last, a result

The Brit, 2nd in the championship, was languishing in 22nd place early in the Moto2 race @ Valencia. Big scrap for the win on the last lap and the injured Lowes was a heroic 14th and still second in the championship!!
    A wonky start for some in the MotoGP race. Crash! No Zarko. Same for contender Quateraro. And Nakagami. There was a last lap duel for the win; Miller couldn’t overcome Morbidelli. And behind them, Mir was becoming the year’s first series winner.

Some alien plot to confuse us?

The rather indifferent 2004 Starsky & Hutch film was on the Syfy Channel last night. Some weird form of satire? And who were those 2 pensioners right at the end who delivered the replacement Starsky car?

Really!

Okay, a dictionary publisher has selected “lockdown” as the word of the year for 2020. But what is the point of a BBC radio prog. soliciting nominations for the word of the year for next year when we have no idea what awfulness will arrive during the next 12 months.

Sincere voice, BS message from the TV ads

Just how stoopid do the energy companies think we are? Being offered carbon-neutral energy is no boon to mankind. It's just puff and PR, and it costs more than real energy from always-on sources.

Still top quality

Today’s Moto3 started off all about Basher Binder. Could he win from his first pole? Lots of close racing and some crashes. And an episode of ‘irresponsible riding’! At the end, it was Binder 5th and the Brit 11th.

One use for it

What are we supposed to do with a 12-page Yorkshire Ripper pull-out? Cut it into handy sheets and hang it in the lavatory?

Scripter’s brain in neutral?

What was the point of Captain Picard telling his crew to head for another star system on impulse power because LaForge had the warp drive in bits? Especially if he completed the journey at Warp 8.8. The distance travelled under impulse power in a couple of hours is a total waste of fuel and a starship captain should know that.

Unhelpful moans

It’s a classic “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”. MPs and others are claiming not letting relatives visit care homes is cruel. But as soon as a visitor with the plague wipes out the residents of a care home, the same gang will be yelling from the rooftops, demanding to know why it was allowed to happen.

No chance of a democratic choice

A woman complained in the paper about the government giving the miserable £10 Xmas bonus for pensioners to ‘people like her’ because she reckoned the money could be better spent elsewhere.
    But nothing is stopping her from redistributing her cash herself and, no doubt, all the pensioners who have no problem with accepting an extra tenner are thinking mental V-signs at her.

Hype, is all

Everyone is checking out the TV show that made chess sexy? Not true if there are millions and millions of people who are unaware of its existence and won’t be watching it even after the plug.

The Age of Reason is long gone

When you compare what sacked FA Chairman Greg Clarke actually said with the slant added by MPs and the news media, you end up with a prime example of confected outrage and character assassination. Which only serves to prove that when They are out to get you, they’ll use any dishonest means at hand and expect to get away with it.

More Junk

Who gives a rat’s arse about Dominic West and his love life? More advert-spacing stuff.

The blind leading

A newspaper poll about the Pfizer vaccine asked punters: “Is it safe?” Well, how the hell would they know? “Has it been tested thoroughly?” Same response. Opinions from people who don’t know the facts are worthless; except to put space between the adverts.

More tripe

The word ‘barrier’ is in need of an apology from newshounds everywhere. ‘Shares smashed through the 6000 barrier of the FTSE 100', we were told earlier this week.
    Oh, no, they didn’t. Because there is no barrier and shares can reach any price the market sets, including dropping below 5,999.

We’ll miss him when he’s gone

Won’t life be dull without President Trump to cheer us up? A leader who doesn’t pretend to respect people who don’t merit respect is a rare phenomenon indeed.

Go like that and go wrong . . .

. . . used to be a catch-phrase on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh In. There was a lot of ‘like that’ from the alleged political experts, who assured us at the beginning of the week that our PM would be at the back of the queue for a phone call from the US president-elect. Another non-confidence builder.

Not a confidence-builder

You are UNPROTECTED!!!! yells the icon for the free version of the anti-virus program AVG in the menu bar. Click on it to bring up the window and you are told that, in fact, you have basic protection without all the paid-for stuff.
    Which means that AVG admits that its basic protection is unprotection and something not worth having. How very honest of them.

Cheerful thought

One day, all this plague business will be over and we shall be left wondering how awful the next global catastrophe will be.

Daffy definition

Transparency: This is my father, who used to be my mother and this is my mother, who used to be my father.

Not worth the effort?

The opening sequence to the Inspector Morse TV episode Infernal Serpent looked rather bleached and ancient. The later quality was first class; in parts. Strange they haven't restored the whole lot to make the joins between film and video go away.

Do they think we’re idiots?

Why do they show pix of the New York City skyline during a Jets MNF match when they're playing in New Jersey, in another state?
    p.s. That Flaco bloke can play a bit. I wonder how much of that $160 million he actually collected from the Ravens?

No rush, mate

Will president elect J. Biden issue an apology for all his past buddying up to IRA terrorists before he makes a state visit here? (Assuming he lasts that long if we’re at the back of the queue.) No one is holding their breath.

Not going to happen

Catching up with what the Panorama interviewer M. Bashir did to swindle an interview with Princess Diana, it strikes me that it was just as serious as the phone-hacking that got the newspaper the News of the World cancelled. But will the perps at the BBC go to gaol? Fat chance.

Just too sensible?

Watching the final episode of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I found that the sub-titles were on black panels so that they can be read against any background, which leaves me wondering why film-makers who put in translations of bits of foreign dialogue can’t do the same.

You really couldn’t make this up!

The TV network ABC in the United States thought all the fireworks on Bonfire Night were us celebrating a Biden election win?
    Well, that really puts us in our place, importance-wise!

Above & beyond

Did anyone actually sit through a 9-hour BBC marathon on US election day? Especially as there was no result on offer. You’d have to be really locked down and devoid of inspiration to do that!

Good for me!

Do I want to put a bet on how long Gopher Joe will spend out of his hole before his VP takes over? I think I’ll just be responsible and not gamble.

Big boots

I was surprised to read that the UK market for food & groceries is about the 3rd largest in the world in value terms, according to ex-minister Theresa Villers. When you look at a map of the world and compare the size of our bit with other countries, this has to be v. remarkable.

Nothing for Brits to celebrate

Not a brilliant start for the Brit in Moto2. Hot fave Joe Roberts crashed out on lap 2; first of quite a few. Oh, no! The Brit was on the front row but he crashed out with 10 laps left.
    Two riders out in the middle of the field on lap 1 of the MotoGP race. More crashes, more long laps, water still coming up through the track at turn 1. Rossi came to a dead stop on the track. Dovi got the blame for Alex Marquez’s crash. DNF also for Cal Crutchlow. Mir became the 9th different winner in 12 races. Unheard of.

How strange

The delightful recordings of Just A Minute, which Radio 4 is offering from its archive, sound curiously wonky. They could almost be something a listener recorded off-air with a rather dodgy tape recorder. I’d have expect the BBC to have de-wonked them before airing them.

Dust duly bitten

The commentators were soliciting a crash right from the start of the Moto3 of Europe race. Didn’t happen until lap 2, and it took out the series leader. The Brit fell off on lap 5; he was on pole but bogged the start. Three more riders gone on their own, one punted off. About an average harvest for this class.

Novelty required

Is the world really holding its breath over the outcome of the election in the US? Most people elsewhere have realized that Sleepy Joe has won and they have the much more important considerations of living with a plague to think about.

Better effort, no sale

The latest VISA credit card scam call, from 01294 405 761, was a makeover of the last one. This time, the voice sounded like a human being, rather than a bad editing job, when it informed me that ‘my bank’ wanted to check up on a payment of £600 to a foreign country (unspecified).

Another crime against humanity

My search for the precise legal meaning of mens rea seems to have been timely with the legal profession trying to confect hate crimes out of things said in a private home during a dinner party.
    In future, if they get their way, meals will have to be conducted with all digital assistant spies switched off and the diners deprived of phones, watches and anything else that could conceal a recording device!

Crime against humanity

Page 327 of the Complete Molesworth includes a mau-mau reference which would definitely result in cancellation of Molesworth 1 by woke wonks.

Worthy but wonky

Last night’s film, Apocalypse of Ice (2020), was a rather incoherent effort combining a global freezing which duplicates something which happened 50,000 years ago naturally, but which now is the fault of the human race, with a desperate battle to preserve a flask containing what was supposed to be a cure for the Chinese plague but which looked like a giant urine sample. Not going to win any awards.

Plaguely peaceful

The Mansion cat took the precaution of going off to hide twice last night; briefly. Despite reports of record firework sales for this year, there seemed to be a lot less whooshes, pops and bangs this year.

Entirely predictable

I note that the Balderdash Broadchasing Creeps are playing the ‘our man is at death's door’ card over not investigating the confecting that went on to set up the Bashir/Princess Diana interview.

Why it’s such a flop

The problem with the exhumation of Spitting Image after 25 years in limbo, it seems, is that it is written for an American audience and features puppets of lots of Americans who are unknown to the average TV viewer in Britain and therefore not recognized.

Infinite supply?

Are there any fireworks left? They were going off all over the place last night before we were plunged into lockdown by SAGE and the Labour party.

So much for Star Trek scripters

The Rumpus Room computer is invited to create a new Sherlock Holmes mystery for Data to solve as he has read all the stories by Sir A. Conan Doyle. Not a mention of the huge back catalogue of fan fiction, however. And the possibility that Data might not have read all of it.

Help needed

‘Mens rea’. Good old legal Latin phrase. The mind of the thing is the literal translation, but what does that mean? I consulted the nearest dictionary. Not a sausage. I went to three others, including a HUGE 2-volume Shorter Oxford and a book of Latin phrases. Still Nowt.
    Consult Mr. Internet. It’s all to do with criminal intent. Did the suspect mean to commit a crime or did it just happen? Time to burn the paper dictionaries? Perish the thought!

No, they’re not to be trusted

Shock, horror! The British Bullshine Corporation used faked news and forgeries to blag a trouble-making interview with Princess Diana. About a million years ago. That’s how long it takes for the truth to crawl out of the Beeb’s bunker.

Further molesworth .

Having reached page 197 of the Pavilion omnibus (1985, £6.99, cheep), I have severe doubts about whether modern kiddies would be permitted to read it. Especially the comments about molesworth’s gran hem hem.
p.s. Do kids still have to learn latin?

We know, we know!

Why do they tell us America is divided ’coz of the presidential election? Every bloody where is divided when there’s an election happening.

Too civilized?

No riots & arson in Austria in response to lives lost to Islamic terrorism? How surprising.

Pay attention, boy!

‘The rule of six torpedoes’, I read. What, another bloody rule? I thought. Then I realized that it was the start of a whinge about the existing rule of six torpedoing something.

Another one with an ‘F’?

The things newspaper science wonks come up with! ‘Hydrogen is obtained from rainwater by a chemical process called hydrolysis’. Wrong! says my teenage expert. Electricity is used in a process called electrolysis to reduce H2O to its component hydrogen and oxygen.

Mission impossible

Is it possible to shame Ken Livingstone? I would have thought not. Trying it makes as much sense as pretending that the state of Israel can do no wrong and Mr. Livingstone & his allies can’t criticize the conduct of Israel’s government as an absolute ban, irrespective of whether their complaints have merit.
    It is also impossible to take newspaper whinges from the likes of Margaret Hodge seriously if you know her shameful history in local government.

Being helpful

Any Zenistas who are stuck for something to wonder about could ask themselves: ‘How far can a one-legged man run?’

It’s like a tree falling in a forest

We are invited to believe that Zen students have spent centuries wondering what is the sound of one hand clapping. The ‘sound’ is a product of an impact and the human ear. No impact, no sound. No human ears in the forest, no sound.
    Nowt to wonder about. Except why the Zenistas wasted their time on something so pointless. Assuming they ever actually did.

Big up, bigger down

Sign a $99 million extension to your contract with the Baltimore Ravens and what happens? Out for the rest of the season with an ankle broken yesterday!

Opportunists always prosper

Cat psychologists, it seems, are making a bomb out of lockdown, which is driving a lot of felines batty as their routine changes. Here at the Mansion, nothing much has changed and we seem to be blessed with a cat who is adaptable and non-neurotic.

Double-O gone @ 90

“We are working to understand this huge event”, Sean Connery’s son is reported as saying. But what’s to understand? You live, you prosper or not, you die. Nothing complicated about that.

Ancient history chiz chiz?

I’m currently reading through an omnibus edition of the quartet of volumes about nigel molesworth, the self-styled curse of st. custard’s, and wondering how much modern school kids, who didn’t go to a grammar school, never mind a boarding school, would get out of it. Because getting all the references involves a pretty broad education.

What’s on ITV3?

ITV is getting really desperate if it has to do half a dozen plugs on the trot for the Spitting Image take on the US election. Shame we’ve been warned that the scripts are crap.