Avinga Giraffe

Merganser (4). Answer: ‘smew’. Who the bloody hell knows stuff like that? Who that’s normal, I mean.

One way of looking at it

No Xmas box for striking postmen? If it was a box round the ear they were due for terrible service, it’s not something they’ll miss.

Sic transit department

In the TV gushing over Pele, there was a photo of him with his shirt off next to a white footballer, also topless. None of the people nattering about the late, great Brazilian icon appeared to spot that the white bloke was the equally iconic England captain Bobby Moore.

Chuck’s Big Day

“Anointed” sounds so much more wholesome than “smeared with creepy crap” when he gets coronated.

Dead giveaway

How do you tell it’s an old sciffy film? People go into space on a shuttle and come back down to the planet in old Apollo capsules.
    And amazingly vital data that will affect the future of everyone can be stored on just one single 3½" floppy disk.

Tell ’em anything

According to some overblown celeb-chef, peeling spuds is an art-form? Right!
    How many million quid is someone prepared to offer for one I’ve just peeled artfully?

We should be told

“59 pages to enjoy” is said on the front page of Tuesday’s Daily Mail, I’ve just noticed as I was putting it in the recycling bin. The page count was . . . 64.
    No hints on offer as to which were the duff ones, though.

Bye-eee!

Have people given up on responding to emails? I sent out 13 to people I know but don’t see regularly over the Xmas period. 3 replies. So I’m now adopting al policy of replying to contact rather than initiating them.

Circular Sayings

The Friend of my Enemy is the Enemy of my Friend.
    BFD.

Not good enough

If the best the Pope has to offer is a hope that his god will enlighten Putin the Poisoner, then he might as well have kept quiet.
    Ain’t gonna happen nohow, nowhen.

Give ’em some!

Nothing like a holiday total shambles to start this week’s AEW Rampage. Follow that with a juggler!
    Mind you, we ended up wishing they had when the ancient Jeff Jarrett was clowning around at the end.

Definite surplus

One of the things we’re not short of is nutters, if the pictures of gangs of people charging into the sea off areas of the south coast are anything to go by.

Rather predictable

Reports from airports tell us that the Army is doing a grand job of moving people through them at a decent rate. Cue scare stories about the country filling up with all sorts of bad guys because the Border Force has walked off the job and the Army isn’t up to it. Right.

They don’t let up

Surprisingly, during last night’s evening rain, there were a few bangs of distant fireworks. But nothing loud enough to disturb a sleeping Mansion cat.

Artificial crisis

Does it really matter if Unilever is selling ice cream to Russia and taking cash out of Putin’s economy?
    Is that more reprehensible that buying his gas and putting cash into Putinstan to pay for the assaults on Ukraine?
    Apparently so to the idiots who are desperate for something to moan about.

Something of a racket?

Episodes of UNCLE are peppered with adverts from charities demanding cash for African countries with never a word about what the governments of these countries are doing.
    Other than strolling off with all the cash and anything not nailed down, of course.

Bucking the trend

There’s a story going around that young people are turning their backs on alcohol during the festive season. What’s not clear is whether they are just saying they are or they’re too zonked on their usual illegal pharmaceuticals to find the booze.

Reason to be cheerful? Nope!

Back to all the strikes again tomorrow? How wonderful.

Welcome Absence

The Mansion cat is pleased that she has been spared having to retreat to her bunker. No Xmas fireworks around here at all.

Problem solved if . . .

What to watch on TV on Xmas Day, given that everything on offer from the usual suspects will be repeats & garbage? How about the daft sciffy film you recorded to watch later. And the Schmuck From Uncle films, of course.
    Venom (2018) on Film4 was quite fun! It’s not often that evil alien monsters are allowed to have a sense of humour. N. Solo didn’t do too well without Iliya, though.

Notable Omission

Wall to wall M*A*S*H, Are You Being Served?, etc. But where was Jessica Fletcher? Mysteriously absent. Has the lady who’s present at so many murders been done in?

Banker

Oh, yes, there it was on Channel four. The Xmas Day repeat of The Great Escape. If Steve McQueen were still alive, he’d be a zillionaire from all the repeat fees.

No sale

I’ve never watched Eastenders and I wasn’t tempted to start yesterday by the prospect of a vicious row over Xmas dinner.
    Not unless the Cockneys started shooting each other, which they wouldn’t on the wimpy BBC.

Anyone fancy a brew?

Don’t the bloody ad breaks on the Legend channel go on and on for EV . . . E . . . R?

Extinctify the lot of them!

Poseidon Rex (2014) has to be one of the daftest sci-fy creature features on offer! And the humanoids are no advert for their species.

T.R. Ipe

Watching a cop film last night, I was struck by the total incompetence of a whole gang of SWAT coppers, who let themselves be wiped out by just TWO bad guy bozos.
    A credibility gap as long as the Grand Canyon, never mind as wide. Mind you, the bozos were blown away just as easily at the end.

This is okay

Okay, it’s raining, but it’s not snowing and it’s not particularly cold and some of us can do without a dose of the white stuff.

Progress!

The collection of Man From Uncle films is now large enough to cope with the Xmas drought.
    Let us rejoice.

Wonderful Idea!

Good grief! What sort of weird confections go into a vegan no-beef Wellington? And hypocritical does a veganist have to be to play at being a carnivore?
    “Look at me, eating something that looks like meat but doesn’t break the rules.”

Waste of time

Why would anyone need to go looking for a recipe for a turkey curry? All you have to do is get any old curry recipe and substitute turkey for the usual protein.

Sucks to you

Who exactly is hoping for a white Christmas with fuel poverty rife? A warm blast from Madeira is more than welcome, even if it puts a scowl on the faces of energy company bosses.

Devolution Disaster

It has been in Scotland if the SNP has spent 6 years rabbiting on about whether people should be allowed to claim to be any gender they like independently of the medical industry instead of getting on with anything that mattered.

Growth Industry

The people who make these guesses are claiming that 70% of men are now obese. Will they be able to get it up to over 80% when the Festive Season noshing has inflated us more?

Unwelcome news

The last thing the strikers want for a Christmas present – inflation going down!

Odd Observation

The BBC’s dancing show seems to be a magnet for people with an unfortunate name. There was a girl called Mabuse, who’s obviously a descendant of Fritz Lang’s criminal genius Dr. Mabuse.
    And recently, there was a fat bloke called Hamsa, a name which is indelibly attached to the Islamist terrorist Captain Hook, who is doing time in gaol in the Untied States whilst his family here gets a million quid a week in benefits from our boneheaded government.

Beyond boggling

Railway strikers on £100K/year. Just how much to the greedy bastards expect to screw out of the travelling public?

Good idea

A neighbour suggested recording a couple of the UNCLE films and watching them next Monday & Tuesday when there are no episodes from the TV series on offer.
    That’s the sort of thinking that makes Britain Great!

Cheap Xmas?

If you can’t get to the shops to buy stuff, and there’s nothing to buy anyway because the transport system is on strike, people might even be able to pay their energy bill!

Yesterday’s bonus

All the stuff you want is in a warehouse somewhere remote or out in a field, spoilt by rain & chewed by foxes. And when the unstriking postman gets his arse into gear, what does he bring you?
    A credit card bill. Gee!

Boooo!

Talking Pictures TV aren’t doing the Schmuck From Uncle next Monday & Tuesday just because they are Christmas & Boxing days. Disgraceful!
    Any old excuse to stick it to the customers.

Infinity Zone

Where do John Wick & his ilk get all these guns that never run out of bullets? And why didn’t he keep using one of them at the end of his 3rd epic instead of having to reload constantly?

First Law of The Universe

Never let time which could be devoted to something useful go unwasted; always have a disaster ready to dump on some sucker who looks like getting somewhere.

Brain-buster

A receptacle for odd scraps (5). Can’t be ‘dog’, that’s only three letters.

Someone doesn’t need a lottery win!

Not if sometime PM Boris Johnson can rake in a million quid from just three months’ speechifying! He needs another go in politics like the proverbial hole in the head.

And another

I wonder if that skipper is related to the Labour MP who thinks putting illegals in holiday camps is the equivalent of shoving them in concentration camps.
    Where does the Labour party get these obviously confused and inadequate wonks?

Well off course

It’s a wonder the captain of the fishing boat who did an Uber for a gang of soggy illegals found his way home if he’s confused enough to blame our government for their plight.
    No one in HMG encouraged them to get into what was an obviously overcrowded and inadequate craft for a journey across dangerous seas.

Will he, won’t he

Now that he has an invite to his grandpa’s coronation next year, will Hapless Hairy show up? Or will he have a diplomatic attack of the dreaded lurgi?
    I suppose it all depends how much someone has offered his appalling wife for the TV rights.

Time not wasted

What sort of Greatest World Cup of all time goes to the lottery of penalties? There should have been replays until one side won properly.
    But hey, ho. Didn’t bother watching it. It was a case of who cares who wins for me.

Obviously, a mistake

Isn’t it warm today? It’s amazing. You go out and it actually feels warm outdoors. Has the climate changed overnight?

One rule for them

There’s nothing like all those entitled strikers to take your mind off a pair of poisonously entitled ninnies. Strange that the railway unions (and all the rest) that cling to their Spanish
practices are never hauled up for cultural appropriation. Same with Londoners pretending to be Africans.

Fast Forward

Anyone who watched six hours of fiction factory mockumentaries about Hapless Hairy and his bullying wife; without being paid to do it; is an idiot of the first water!
    Not much of an advert for the stuff Netflix unloads on paying customers.
    17 pages to ignore at the front of last Friday’s paper!

Give us a break

Upper atmosphere (5). Ether? Bollocks. That’s either a fluid that puts you to sleep or the imaginary fluid light was thought to travel through. Any fule kno that.

Not Everyone

The world might be fed up with Moaning Megan but she is caviar & chips to the newspaper columnists who get the easy job of filling up a whole page with an extended moan about her defects.

Don’t you just hate . . .

. . . those effin flaps over zips that always get stuck in the mechanism and jam it up.

Pass

Something not on the Xmas menu to go with the turkey Pizza of Mass Destruction is cheesy sprout gratin. Sounds revolting.

A plague on both houses

Do we have to cheer the French on against the Argies in the World Cup final or can we hope they both lose or the stadium is destroyed by a rogue meteor just before the kick-off?

Sound Board Symphony

Yo! That’s a brilliant way to shut a crap rapper up on AEW – get Jeff Jarrett to clobber him with a mock guitar.

Unmentionable

Are there official statistics for the number of people who die as a result of being abandoned by NHS strikers? Or is that something we’re not supposed to ask?

Not good enough

Jockeys in a crossword clue always invited ‘riders’. But somehow, Jockeys on the Storm by The Doors rather lacks impact.

Got there first

THRUSH bad guys using drone strikes back in the olden days? How little things change. And there was Angela Lansbury doing The Fast Show sminky-pinky routine!

Ya gotta be rich

400 quid for a reading lamp in an advert? Sounds like something you’d buy from WeSawYouComing.com!

Not in our lifetime?

Will nuclear fusion breakthrough clear path to clean energy? said the headline. No, it’s just the same story that the fusion industry has been outputting since the 1970s, I am reliably informed by someone who was around and interested when all the fusion puff exploded.

LBJ chant recycled

Hey, Hey, Striking for pay,
How many folks have you killed today?
    Killing off customers doesn’t look like a terribly good way of ensuring job security.

Sounds Fair Enough

Are all those who didn’t get round to the front-door clapping for the NHS staff now feeling unbearably smug as their former heroes leap out on strike for crazy pay demands?

Turn about

When you read that government departments waste £7 BILLION per year on wonk stuff, it becomes impossible to feel any sympathy for civil servants who have to have Xmas parties with no mention of Xmas, no booze and nothing to eat which might exclude some minority, real or imagined.

Epic Fail

Couldn’t punch their way out of a paper bag. That’s what you think when you see two TV wrestlers exchanging blows and not doing any damage to each other.

The perils of scrutiny

That Fulani woman’s name is something she invented as part of her culture appropriation campaign. And her charity is under investigation for accounting ‘irregularities’.
    Shudda kept her trap shut but her sort just can’t.

Small fry

Bad news for the posturing rail union boss. All the disruption of the railways is forcing people to find alternatives for travel and there are claiming an increasingly smaller share of public travel.
    Which means that a lot of pruning will be required to make them profitable. Especially if they’re losing a million quid per day.

Show & tell

They’re sure doing a lot of smoking in this film, I thought. When was it made? 2019. Okay, the new normal is that everyone who’s a serial smoker is a scumbag bad guy. The bigger the ceee-gar, the scrummier the bag.

Yodel-ed Part 2

My neighbour had a brainwave. If the big box hadn’t been stolen by thieves who had been following the Yodel van, had it been dumped at the wrong address?
    One of his neighbours was away that week and sure enough, there was a big box, clearly addressed to him, dumped in the wrong front porch.
    Two days later, he got an email from Yodel telling him there was no open-door delivery photograph (well, there wouldn’t have been if the dumpee was out), Yodel had no idea what had happened to the big box and if he had a problem with that, contact the firm he’d bought it from.
    Basically, “Fuck off, we don’t want to know.”
    Which is enough to make any customer Yodel with frustration.

Fall-gal

theGuardian seems to be doing its level best to confect a link between every scandal, big & small, and Baroness Mone in its quest to position her as the ultimate PPE bad person.
    An organization trying so desperately has to have an exceedingly shoddy motive.

Everything comes to he who waits

And that includes the 20.0 Megaquake film those useless twats at Sky bumped from the Sci-Fy channel the other night.
    No surprise that San Francisco was in the firing line. The Mansion cat wasn’t impressed and slept right through the entire state of California under threat of falling into the Pacific Ocean.
    Well, if that would get rid of Prince Hairy & his appalling wife, it’s a price we’d willingly pay.
    Never seen anything dafter than the top of that building floating down river to a collision with a bridge!

You’ve been Yodel-ed

A neighbour went to the Yodel website with tracking data and found he was due for a delivery between 2 & 4 p.m. that day. Didn’t happen. Heeding all the warnings about delays on the website, he assumed he’d been bumped.
    The next day, he did the tracking again and was told the delivery had been made at half-past 2 the previous day.
    But no one had called, there was no big box dumped in his porch or in the safe place round the back, and none of the neighbours had complained about a big box dumped on them and blocking their hallway.
    Back to the website to have an on-line chat with a bloke in India, who said he’d contact the depot to find out what had happened.

Turn the page

Muriel’s Wedding star, I read in the opening paragraph.
    Bink! Nothing. Never even heard of the film, TV show or series, or whatever. No need to read the story.

Good alibi

I get the impression that at least 50% of the audience for the mockumentary whinges by Prince Hairy and his appalling missus were doing it on behalf of some newspaper or other news service.

Lost in the whinge-fest?

The successful return of NASA’s lunar orbiter didn’t get much of a look in with all the strikes and the whinges from Prince Hairy and his appalling wife. Shame we have to wait a couple of years for manned flights back to the Moon to give the media something real and interesting to talk about.

Yes, please

We really need former Buckingham Place staff to be released from confidentiality clauses so that they can dish the dirt on Markel bullying. And all the news media must be gagging for this, if only for something to put between the adverts.

A tiny bit heavy-handed?

Did it really take 3,000 cops to arrest 25 alleged revolutionaries in Germany, some of them quite elderly? The whole thing has the reek of a regime trying to deflect attention from its more obvious defects.

Brown bonkers

Gordon Brown claiming that the last decade of Tory rule is the most corrupt in the history of the universe is a lot rich. Or are we supposed to forget the 13 years of scandal, cronyism and cash-grabbing when New Labour was in charge?

Goes around

I was amused to read that the appalling Ms Fulani’s racially partial charity is at a standstill because she has made it all about her and no one wants to know about anything else.

No sugar, Shirley!

It’s a really good job that we have a dozy Health quango to tell us to shut windows, turn on the heating and wear warm clothing when it’s cold.
    Like it would ever occurs to us to do this unprompted.

Your job gone, mate?

The postman wasn’t on strike on Saturday, so what did he deliver? A letter from his bank telling one of the minions that they want him to go paperless and give up contact via the Royal Mail.

You will do what you’re ordered to

Television viewers will remember someone in Cheers, I read. Well, I’m a TV viewer and I’ve never watched it, so telling me I will remember (or else!) is rather a waste of time.

Definite trend

It seems to be a constant factor. The only Labourites who admit all the strikes are selfish & a disaster are former MPs.

Nowt Changes

If you recorded the BBC’s Xmas menu last year, you can watch it again at times convenient to you as the same old rubbish is being served up again this year.

Smart move

The French World Cup manage was saying he sees no weaknesses in the England team. Well, he would, wouldn’t he? He’s not going to give away things he’s spotted that can be exploited.

How glorious

Wow, gosh! Series 2 of The Schmuck From Uncle is in colour!! But ripping off The Pit & the Pendulum in Greece? Ree-ya-lee!

Wonderful new career

Matt Hancock, the soon to be ex-MP, seems to be doing a wonderful job of upsetting people who can’t get through their day without a good whings.
    It’s definitely an interesting form of public service. And a lucrative one!

Alibi failure

Nurses are going on strike to protect NHS customers (by not being there?) Postpersons are trying to keep the Royal Mail losing £1 million per day. All of which is a big help.

Mouth open, must be lying

The ringleader of the RMT claims it ‘no choice’ about going on strike to stop people from visiting distant family members at Christmas, which is a barefaced lie.
    The union boss, Mr. Grinch, had the choice of taking a 9% pay rise and not going on strike. And he knows it.

Lost cause?

The verdict on Prince Hairy is that he has too much time on his hands to brood and confect grievances, and he should get a job and a life instead of being stuck in an imaginary past.
    Shame this doesn’t look like happening anytime soon. But maybe after his appalling missus of the moment dumps him in favour of a newer stooge?

Another Sky flop

How do you put up a HUGE flag yelling DAFT SCIFFY!!? Call your film 20.0 Megaquake. How could anyone not want to watch this 2021 epic? But when you switch on, all eager to see it, those useless twats at SKY are showing an Exorcist film instead. Grrrreat.

How do you tell winter’s here?

You can’t get anything into the recycling bins; the lids are all frozen shut.

Pensioner’s Outing

How desperate is AEW for ring fodder if they have to drag Jeff Jarrett out of his wheelchair?

Strength of ten!

You can tell the person delivering the advertising leaflets is on good form when you find a takeaway menu half-way down the hall!

Not here

Is there a sense of excitement at England’s progress in the World Cup? It hasn’t exactly got people nattering about it on street corners where I live.

Lasting value

I watched an episode of Dalziel & Pascoe last night; the opener to series 2. It’s now 25 years old but there’s nothing much to date it. Apart from Mrs. Pascoe using a red phone box instead of her pocket phone.

Bending the lingo

If England scoring three goals is Three-mendous, what’s scoring four of them? Four-tuitous?

Fills up the time slot

TV viewers could be hit with an extra 850 yours of TV ads per year if the regulator goes wonky, I read. But only if you watch Channels 3-5, which I don’t.
    It will probably be well over the 1,000 hours if the endless parade of internal ads on BBC 1 & 2 is included.

How did that happen?

A Tory trade minister was sacked and denied the whip with much sound and fury after allegations of misconduct. He’s now back in the fold after the allegations have been investigated and found to be worthless.
    No sound & fury for the reinstatement, of course.

Sometimes Okay

After viewing the highlights of the Cowboys demolishing the Colts on Sunday night (there), maybe I have to admit that the NFL can occasionally deliver the excitement you expect from the CFL.

Not a good idea

They were asking on GB Views last night if Lady Hussey should be rehired after being sacked for upsetting a woman who makes it her business to be upset.
    The answer has to be a resounding NO! She should be allowed to retire and not be exposed to the sort of appalling people who got her sacked and the Royals who gave her so little support.

Rewrite the dictionary

Great response to the stoopid notion that the name monkeypox is racialist – ‘The pox couldn’t give a monkey’s!’
    If it has to be mpox, do we also have to have an mwrench, mnuts, people being a cheeky m, etc.?

Obviously not true

There are some people claiming that the price of food has doubled, which is utter tripe. How curious that the news media seek out their silly stories rather than something realistic. Could they have an agenda?

Weird Bunch

Discovering the Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, I noticed, was on BBC 4 at 11:50 P.M. last night.
    Their idea of Sunday prime time viewing for young persons?

There must be a word for it

What is the opposite of aerodynamic? As in that piece of plastic that you scrunch up into a tight bundle but opens out in mid-air and falls short of the waste paper basket.
    Aerostatic? Aero-obstructive?

Time stands still

The battery in my electric watch croaked. So I switched to an ancient wind-up watch, which I thought I had fully wound but the mechanism is very stiff. Next thing you know, it was 40 minutes slow and in need of winding.
    Some days, you just can’t win.
    Or maybe you’re not supposed to!

Semper Sharkalis!

What’s all this crap? I asked myself. I’d switched on for the last ever Sharknado film and the mob on the screen were going on about Merlin the magician!
    It’s so long since I last saw this epic that I’d forgotten that it’s a romp through mainly American history; plus ours before they had any.

Almost famous

That has to be the description of the owner of a name that seems familiar but needs a brief biog attached with the sucker’s greatest hits to remind the reader what he/she did.

Another meaningless threshold

The BBC is failing working class viewers by providing less than 25% of their telly time? I worked out my average total viewing time and how much goes to TV channels 1-5.
    The answer came out at 15%. Or zero if I don’t get round to watching the lunchtime BBC news.

Another seasonal count

Of the Top 30 Xmas TV Moments, I have viewed 9.
    Is this a record?

Not credible

Chancellor Hunt’s popularity is crashing? Who’s going to believe that? He’s always been a disaster area and he’s never been popular. So no crash possible.

GLSVP**

That culture appropriation woman who got the 83-year-old lady in waiting sacked comes across as a really nasty, vindictive, entitled piece of work. I bet they don’t invite her back to Buck House in a hurry.
    ** Get Lost, S’il Vous Plait!

Didn’t see that coming

Surprise! I’ve actually heard of all of the Amazon Top 20 British authors. And read work by a dozen of them.

Afterthought

That 12 Xmas Disasters film was Tolkein on the cheap – only 5 rings needed to control everything.

Really impressive

That’s rather doubtful claim to fame – being one of the people who painted the coloured dots on works ‘by Damian Hirst’. Pretty much in parallel with whoever attached the canvas to its frame and built the frame for the ‘picture’.

Seasonally Soppy

The 12 Disasters of Xmas (2012) was on Sci-Fi last nite. A Mayan-themed daft sciffy film you definitely won’t see on the Great! Christmas channel!
    Not much Xmas spirit in all the homicidal religious nutters of Calvary, (Alberta?), Canada.

Too offence-resistant

Gulp! If they try hard enough, we were told, some viewers will be able to find U.N.C.L.E.’s The Four Steps Affair offensive! What’s that N. Solo going to get up to? Beats me after watching it.

If only

Last posting dates? We can help with that. That was the subject line of an email from the Post Office.
    Of course, if they were being honest, the message would have to be something like: “Don’t bloody bother ’coz the buggers will all be on strike.”
    But only if they were having an outbreak of honesty. Which wouldn’t happen.

How can you tell when you’re losing it?

When you start wondering what happened to November 31st – that’s a good indicator!

Good description

The NHS, I read, has degenerated into a management-heavy organization that struggles to cope with the costs of failure rather than preventing harm with screening programmes.

One way to do it

Walker, Texas Ranger, gets a week off. In hospital in a coma with the world’s rudest bugger doing the doctoring. Cue an episode of flashbacks until Walker can’t take the doctor any more and has to get the hell out!

Trivial Quibble

Apparently, Wales were on course to a walkover against England. But only as far as national anthems were concerned. Something totally irrelevant to the 3-0 score line in England’s favour.

Time Travel

Ilya got a week off in episode 17, and missed a bloke getting on a plane with a gun in a shoulder holster! They really were different times back then if you could get away with something like that.

Well, yes

Labour’s current leader, Sir Smarmer, is behaving like Dr. Corbyn’s monster with his desire to price the offspring of poor people out of posh schools.
    But it has been pointed out that if the wonks in charge of university selection are deliberately excluding candidates from better schools, he’s doing the poor kids a favour.
    Pretty much along the lines of: “I’m not going to shoot you today, but I might tomorrow.”

Nothing changes

Wow! I hadn’t realized that the Schmuck From Uncle is so old that it started off in black & white. Back then, the Russians were the bad guys; apart from Ilya, of course. And they still are.

Waste of time

Why do bad guys demand a lawyer after Maigret has outwitted them? Won’t do them any good. How come even the clever ones are too dense to see that?

Pulling the ladder up

I suppose it’s inevitable that Sir Smarmer would feel a need to claim he’ll try to force private schools out of business if he gets to be prime minister. It’s what the looney Labourites seem to do. Hypocrisy R Us.

Get out of that

One of the perils of recording films to watch later with fast-forwarding through the adverts is trying to record one daft sciffy film only to find that the TV channel showed a different one for no apparent reason.

Useless bunch

Well, that’s Sky for you. Half a dozen episodes of the final series of Stargate SG-1 left, boot them into touch, who cares? I suppose I can always record some episodes of the Schmuck From Uncle if I get desperate for something to watch in the evening.

Underperforming?

My sofa has grounds for complaint. It hasn’t had 316 drinks spilt on it; something the experts claim is normal; and it certainly hasn’t been allowed to swallow the TV remote control 346 times. Or gobble up £155 million per year in loose change.

Neat idea

French coastguards don’t respond to phone calls from sinking boat people in the Channel. They assume the call comes from British waters and they choose not to get involved to avoid a diplomatic invasion/incident. How very Gallic.

Short-changed

“Sigs” said the sub-title in an episode of Maigret when someone heaved a sigh. Consistently. Did they run out of h’s?
    “Played Mariel with him.” Did they mean ‘merry Hell’? Where do they get these clowns?

Reality deficit

Legendary footballer Bill McNeill. Legendary broadcaster Michael Parkinson. Does that mean they never existed if they’re just legends?

Slow news day?

Newsreader I’ve never heard of stalked by reality ‘star’ I’ve never heard of. And that’s supposed to be front page stuff?

Just plain silly

Saying a World Cup pundit was ‘forced’ off the air after she was told her mother had been killed accidentally is ludicrous. Forced by blokes with guns? What BS.

Unrecorded record

Has a TV wrestling ref ever made the 10-second count for one or both competitors to get back into the ring last more than five minutes? If not, why not?

Up then down

On Thursday: “Nation gives thanks as England captain is cleared to play”. Tripe. Most not bovvered.
On Saturday: “England booed off after horror display”. Goalless draw with USA. Those who didn’t watch were shamelessly glad they didn’t waste the time.

Obviously Censored

PM calls nurses’ demand for a 19% pay rise unaffordable? If he’s a true-blue Brit, ludicrous plus an adjective beginning with ‘f’ would have been appropriate. But is he true-blue?

Another big yawn

Is a scoreless draw with the US really front-page news? Apparently so in some parts of wherever Fleet Street is now.

NFL Thanksgiving Revelation

What sort of name is Saquon?? How on earth did the poor guy’s parents come up with that? Makes him sound like an alien from the planet Zarg.

Fantasy Fringe

54 is mid-life for women? On what planet? Certainly not this one.

No Sale

Sir Starmer’s act doesn’t seem to be going down at all well with people with a working brain. They know the man who tried to sell us Jeremy Corbyn as a brilliant PM is a lawyer. Which means he’ll tell us black is white, yellow, orange, purple or any other colour he thinks will do his bank balance some good.

Had enough

This Sky TV crap of entering your PIN to watch an episode of Stargate SG-1 before 8 p.m. is beyond a joke. Still, I’m looking forward to booting Sky into touch when series 10 finishes.

No escape

I see the TV loan spivs are still around. But they want only 100% interest now rather than the 4,000% demanded by the Wonga puppets.

Right destination?

Giving the RFK Ripple of Hope to Moaning Meghan and her hairy husband has put some backs up. But when you look at who’s received it previously; the likes of Slick Willy Clinton, his poisonous missus and the Democrap Reps. leader Nasty Pelosi; maybe they’re in good company.

One way street

How strange that anyone on the Labour side of the divide who says being wealthy isn’t a sin always turns out to be a former Labour MP.
    Shame they can’t see the light; or admit that they have; whilst they’re actively trying to steal cash from people they think have too much of it with Gordon Brown-style stealth taxes. You know, the ones the Tories have adopted as part of their strategy to make themselves indistinguishable from the party of inevitable disaster.

Going the other way

The Tories are leaping aboard the Labour tax & waste bandwagon and it looks like the Labour leader has done another U-turn to jumping aboard the one for checking migration.
    The manifestos for the next election are going to make very confusing reading.

Right attitude

The manager of England’s football team has the right attitude; taking a swipe at his bunch of slackers for letting Iran put two goals past them. Definitely no bonuses for that.

Which privilege?

It makes rather a mockery of the concept of rules if the internet moaners expect the contestants in a TV show to have to remain diversely mixed all the way through – no matter how untalented some of them minority contestants are.

Some joke

I read with a sense of disbelief that a 16-year-old kid has been given an NHS appointment for 2025 for a non-life-threatening condition.
    Nothing like planning well ahead!

Tripe

England rocked by armband farce? Must be a bunch of real wimps if they really were!

Busted Flush

Man. Utd. is well shot of Ronald Ho. He’s a lot more trouble than he’s worth now.

TV idea

Walter, Texas Ranger – the technical whizz of the Stargate control room moves to a career in law enforcement.

Murder in Minnesota

The NFL does some good bits, though; like Maher kicking a 60-yard field goal at the end of the first half of the Dallas vs the Vikings, only to be told they were still reviewing the previous play; the sideline catch by a team mate that set up the kick.
    The catch was okay and so was the re-kick. Benefiting from the rehearsal? 40-3 final!

Just over-charging

Is the loss of beer @ the World Cup matches any great loss if it costs twelve quid for half a litre of American stuff? That’s a shameful rip-off, whatever way you look at it.

Good One

There was some pretty amazing stuff in Grey Cup 109, particularly in the 4th quarter. Stuff that makes the wider-open and faster CFL put the NFL in the shade.
    All those who were saying it’s about time the East won one are looking smug.

Only fair

Owners of electric vehicles should be paying road tax now, not two years hence. Their tyres are wearing out road surfaces and creating the potholes that councils can’t be bothered repairing because they’re too busy wasting our cash on diversity and other trivial crap.

There’s only so much attention

Comedian David Badeil claims that Jews, like himself, don’t count. But could it just be that with all the available other minorities yelling for attention, his isn’t getting enough to satisfy him?

Modern magic

Something else I read: civil servants skiving @ home can be on a picket line in spirit by being part of a video mob on a large-screen TV waved about by a couple of burly union stooges.

Makes sense

If a nutter is handcuffed to a gantry over a motorway, I read, then he/she isn’t going anywhere and the traffic can keep flowing in perfect safety.
    And any coppers who stop the traffic can be charged with interfering with it and hit with a stonking fine!!

No thanks

Do I want to watch the England football team kneeling down in support of a dead American criminal today? Pass.

Winter draws on

The main topic for conversation this morning seems to be how cold it has gone suddenly. Bring back global warming!

Aptly named

That FIFA bloke who did a weird rant on the eve of the World Cup start is called Gianni Infantino, I read. Infantino is Italian for little baby. Figures!

Who needs turkey anyway?

What’s the big deal about steak for Xmas dinner? Been there, got the T-shirt, highly recommended.

Lots of days off tomorrow

The CFL reaches its Grey Cup conclusion today. At 4 o’clock in the morning, as far as the TV coverage is concerned. There will be a few faces absent at breakfast time tomorrow!

Third time lucky

Well, NASA managed to launch the Artemis rocket and send its payload on the way to the Moon. Will it get there? Will it be able to go into orbit there? Will anything work? Place your bets @ the usual outlets!

Such tripe!

Did the world hold its breath when that Russian missile killed two people in Poland? Hysterical nonsense. Large parts of the world didn’t know what had happened. Fact.

Wot a shame!

Budweiser beer throws lots of cash at FIFA, then the Qataris ban sales of it at matches. Will they get a refund, though?

There are alternatives

Anything on TV? Nope. What’s recorded, then? An episode of Maigret with comic sub-titles and the Classic Albums treatment of Morrison Hotel. Gets the job done when what the usual suspects have to offer is crap.

Zero impact

Welsh actor with same surname as motorcycling superstar & legend throws wobbly at Prince William to get self noticed.
    Majority reaction is: “Who?”
    Oh, dear.

Big Surprise Ending

Charlie’s Hooligans (2019) featuring Captain Picard’s grandfather as the compulsorily retired Bosley? And not a moment too soon, I might add, if he thinks he’s Hannibal Smith reincarnated.

Costa Non-Crisis

It was very encouraging to read through a list of the branded products that have gone up in price by anything from one-third to over 50% and be assured by the Mansion’s shoppers that they never buy them!

Fear not

‘Fears the 1.5c climate target could be axed’, read the headline. Well, one and a half cents ain’t going to buy that much anyway, so no great loss, eh?

Not that easy

‘Paedophiles can view child sexual abuse in 3 clicks’, said the article. In the spirit of seeking enlightenment, I clicked my mouse 3 times. Nothing.
    Maybe I should have done right clicks?

Appropriate job

Shame that Man. Utd. has taken so long to spot that Ronald Ho is a cheat and a back-stabber and thoroughly unreliable. Maybe they should give him a job sweeping up in the stands until his agent can find some other mug who’s willing to buy out his contract.

Also dying to be vexed

A lady journalist wants a sneering comedian banned from HER TV screen. Doesn’t she realize she doesn’t have to switch on when he’s on? Probably not.

More yawning

The idle chatterboxes who have nothing better to do with themselves than whinge on the internet about the mob going to the climate junket in Egypt arriving in 400 private jets are on a loser.
    Like the likes of Creaky Joe would travel on an el cheapo airline to a junket. Moan if no one goes, moan if world leaders do go. It’s all so predictable and worthless.

Crossword Compiler lacking Inspiration

Cooking bulbs (5). Onions! Really? How bleedin’ pathetic can you get? Actually, much more than that if they try.

Any old excuse

Someone found a noose at the site of the library being built for ex-president O’Bummer in the States. Take it down, chuck it away, get on with the job?
    Oh, no. Down tools and throw a wobbly about slavery. Any old excuse not to get on with it.

Even less friendly

The nurses’ union is reported to have hoovered up £50 MILLION to hand to their member in strike pay to keep one going for months. Definitely no bloody clapping. Throwing things, more like.

Soon be over & out

We’re now doing series 10 of Stargate SG-1 on Sky Max, which explains why everything is so familiar. I started watching the complete run-through – back at the beginning of July! – right after an earlier, more leisurely run-though had ended. Babylon 5 next; on DVD or TV. Not bothered.

Not very interesting

Who cares about the Lucan case after a gap of 50 years? He must be dead by now, so he’s never going to end up in the OAP wing of Dartmoor. But there’s always someone who thinks they can make a few bob out of it, I suppose.

Not very friendly

President Creaky Joe seems to have joined Team Putin with his efforts to bully Ukraine into doing a deal that lets Putin the Poisoner get away with his invasion.

Even bigger guess

The £50 BILLION Gordon Brown Hole in the economy is based on deliberately false accounting, I read. Why? In an attempt to discredit the idea that cutting taxes encourages growth and actually increases revenue.
    As Sir Arthur C. Clarke observed, for every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert.

Big Deal

The national average for phone consumption is 19 in the average lifetime. Who the hell cares? And what sort of idiot wastes money on making a guess like that?

One thing in his favour

Out current prime minister can do something that most others can’t. He can annoy the hell out of the Labour scroungers by being rich and there’s nothing they can do about it!

Nah

‘Four weeks that changed the world’ with football as what’s being sold. Sorry, Sky, not buying it.
    Not that encountering refuseniks will stop Sky plugging this show at every opportunity.

Roll up

Is there anyone who isn’t threatening to go on strike in the next few weeks? They’re going to have to get their skates on to cook up a spurious grievance before Xmas.

What sense

Fracking for shale gas is okay in the United States but nokay here. Importing shale gas from the US is a brilliant idea even though it would be cheaper and more environmentally friendly to do it here. But only to politicians.

What fun

Are we going to have a slavery-themed Xmas this year so that the tossers who keep pretending it’s all the British were ever about can whinge even more?

In one eye, out the other

By the time they’ve got through the list of company names at the start of a film, and all the cute animated logos as well, it’s possible to have lost the will to live.

No complaints

I’m definitely not complaining about the weather being warm and sunny at the moment. If this is global warming, it was certainly a great investment on our part!

Had to happen

Crash test dummies are having to be bulked up, I read, to simulate what happens to members of an obese population when they have a shunt. Why, I also read, has it taken so long for the industry to do this when the moans about Fat Britain have been going on for years?

No way traffic

So-called smart motorways looks like something to avoid like, well, the Chinese plague. There aren’t enough people in the control rooms watching what’s going on a lot of the time and the technology for warning about crashes doesn’t work.

That’s enough, thanks

The Aquaman film on TV last night was a lot like the endings of the Supergirl TV series. BIG battles with lots of CGI all over the place over and over.
    I think I’ve reached my lifetime quota of mindless destruction and I don’t need to watch any more of this ilk.

Get Tough

A spot fine of £1,000 for eco-terrorists who stop traffic and get people killed is not enough. They should have their driving licence cancelled if they have one, and have to go through the whole process of passing the test again. And if they have a passport, cancelled too.

More mangled subs

Someone getting a Zertand for the phone in an episode of Maigret, we were expected to believe? Could they mean jeton?
    There is nothing at all called a Zertand, according to a search on the WWW.
    Sack the subtitle proof clown!

Most likely explanation

The TV is suddenly ignoring the remote control. Batteries? First check for a cat’s tail dangling in front of the bit that detects signals from the remote.

One-way traffic

King Charles is all in favour of breast-beating about the slave trade. But it’s strange no one expects the Africans who rounded up their fellow Africans to sell to Arabs & Europeans are ever required to do any.

Institutional Doublethink

One day, we get complaints about schools being full of fat kids. The next, the looney left are claiming schools are full of starving kids. Really? No hope of anything coherent?

Not paying attention

Why are so few men having weight-loss surgery that could save their lives? yelled the headline.
    Has no one told the journalist who cobbled together the story that the NHS is overloaded and no longer working?

We should be told

Is Ed Milibank a genuine dickhead with not even one brain cell to rub together? Or is he just an attention-seeker who hasn’t been given any recently?

Good put-down!

“I see the NHS backlog due to the Chinese plague means you haven’t had your sense of proportion transplant yet.”
    Applicable to most politicians.

Pack it in

Who is it who keeps pulling the plug on GB Views? Last night and the night before during the bit I’d switched over for. Most annoying.

Try Harder

I watched the film Convoy last night. That had to be one of the stupidest and most contrived endings to a film ever.

Not sold

Your webcam is insecure, AVG AntiVirus keeps assuring me. How can that be? I wonder, when I can see it sitting a few feet away from the computer because something else is plugged in to the USB port that it was using.

Is there a choice?

Pure Stupidity, yelled the headline. Is that better than impure stupidity? I wondered.

Out of the tree

Is there anything that’s too stoopid for the climate loonies like Edstone Miliband and War on Want to yell?
    There’s attention-seeking and their mindless psychosis.
    The notion of the UK donating ONE TRILLION QUID, that’s one million million pounds, to countries like Pakistan where people will persist in living in areas which they know will flood is just certifiable.

A vehicle for his anguish, indeed!

How did Mark Rothko get away with it? The TV programme about his work last night suggested that all he did was create a body of work about which pseuds could spout endless drivel!
    Jackson Pollock, from the same tribe of New Yorkers, had something.

Utter Rubbish

We are being assured that warmer autumns are evidence of a climate crisis. Not something people who have to pay less for heating would agree with.

Today’s Question

Would you know James Corden if you tripped over him on a dark night? Can’t say I would.

Do it, Get away with it

Putting shots of the cheat and junkie Maradona in football plug adverts tells us all we need to know about the corrupt management of world football now.

Drop Dead Ed

There must be a special circle of Hell for the likes of Red Ed Fukin Miliband, who have their fist up to the elbow in the taxpayer’s pocket and spend their day coming up with new scams to waste vast amounts of other people’s money.
    No, Ed, we shouldn’t pay for climate change we didn’t cause.

Truth will out

All the usual suspects are fleeing from Twitter now that Mr. Musk is shining a light into the fake accounts and the dodgy censorship practices. Which says more about those usual suspects than him.

Blame but no shame

The judge who did the inquiry into the Manchester Arena bombing gave the bozos in charge of the local emergency services a good chewing. Not that anyone expects them to be shoved in gaol for neglect of duty.
    Nothing ever changes. It was just the same in 2005 when mad Islamists were blowing up London. Lessons will never ever be learnt.

Good for a groan

Knock, knock!
    Who’s there?
Doctor.
    Doctor Who?
Nah, mate, I’m a bloke.

Done for now

A brass band did the Spanish anthem before the MotoGP race. Bagnaia or Quateraro for champ? They were scrapping furiously; would they take each other out?
    Marc Marquez & Miller battled ahead of them until Marquez crashed on lap 10/27. Rins was leading but got little attention. Bagnaia went backwards. Miller went into the gravel with 5 to go, tyres.
    Binder went past Martin for 2nd with 2 laps to go. Rinz was safe for a win, though. And Bagnaia became this season’s champion.

Nothing changes

The really depressing thing about looking back at recent history from about a decade ago is we’re still doing everything now that went on back then. Or the government is.
    Migration control was/is a shambles. Bogus asylum seekers were/are getting away with it. The economy was/is a shambles. Politicians were/are terminally corrupt, etc., etc.
    And the police were/are crap. And the useful idiots were/are trying to stop shale gas recovery.

Real concern

Does anyone have a Royal Warrant any more? I wondered while reading the wrapper on a fancy biscuit. “By appointment to HM The Queen”. But there’s no reason to assume her successor would have exactly the same tastes.

Action, Action

25 laps to decide the Moto2 title. Lots of action to get the comms yelling. A couple of back markers were gone with 19 to go, then the 6th place guy.
    Ogura, the only guy who could beat Fernandez, crashed on lap 8, leaving Fernandez able to fall off and stay champ. Chantra went at the same place as Ogura. Canet crashed from 4th, tyres. Acosta held on to the lead, Fernandez had a go but stayed 2nd. Arbolino was a distant 3rd.

The unsympathetic guru says:

“Oh, wise guru, what do you do if a cat parks on the newspaper you want to read?”
    “Tell her to shift her carcase.”
“What is she just sits there, looking at you?”
    “Then you are a failure as a human being.”

Closing stages

Already champion Guevara took the lead for 23 laps of Moto3 in Valencia. Everyone stayed aboard early on and it was unusually civilized and strung out. Öncü shadowed Guevara well ahead of the rest. Rossi was gone with 15 to go. 2 more gone in the next 10 laps. Can Öncü do it? Into the lead on the last lap but couldn’t stay there.

Complete one-off

That’s something I never do: watch one of the first 5 TV channels all evening. In this case, last night, it was a crap remake of Godzilla, followed by the Top 25 Morcambe & Wise comedy routines on Channel 5.

Very Strange

A Friday before Bonfire Night is usually very loud, whatever the weather. Nothing much last night. Not that the Mansion Cat was bothered. No need for her to take refuge from all the noise in her secret hiding place.

Great Excuse

Apparently, the PM is going to Egypt to sign off on last year’s climate jamboree in Scotland, and that’s why he’s skiving somewhere sunny instead of fixing our problems here. Couldn’t he have given the signing off job to Wee Burney Sturgeon, who’s always telling us Scotland belongs to her?

No, thanks

What a daft idea fried-egg crisps is. Eggs, my local expert assures me, pong because they’re loaded with stinky sulphur compounds. Not something you’d want to experience if you’d shelled out a fiver for a miserable little bag of crisps.

Yawn

Does anyone give a rat’s hindquarters for what Lord Lucan did or didn’t do 50 years ago? Thought not.

Another oddity

Something else strange is that the prime minister & his Chancellor have ruled out sticking people who make a GP appointment then don’t bother to turn up or cancel with a £10 fine.
    Especially if they’re turning their back on millions of pounds as it’s a significant problem.

Ask the expert

Strange no one has consulted Greenhouse Greta about sorting out Putin. Or she hasn’t come up with a plan for tackling the biggest threat on the planet. But doing something useful never seems to be on the agenda for the average plastic messiah.

Still not getting it

I see the prime minister is still still pushing the ‘working hard’ cliché quite relentlessly.
    Strange that his minions haven’t told him that no one is impressed by that garbage any more as it is just a sign of laziness and deficient communication skills.

It was never about the climate

Pretty much the same, in reverse, can be said about the upcoming climate junket in Egypt. Nothing said or done there will make the slightest difference as Putin’s assault on Ukraine is setting the agenda for what’s affordable. Which means it doesn’t matter if our PM and/or King Charles goes/go.

It was never about the football

The upcoming World Cup in Qatar is making more trouble than you can shake a stick at. The self-righteous are trying to stop officials of the Scottish FA and Welsh MPs from going to enjoy a freebie, and the junketers are taking no notice.
    Which is in keeping with the spirit of the occasion, which is a hymn to the corruption at the top at FIFA rather than anything much to do with the once beautiful game.

Another ‘told you so’

The Low Traffic Neighbourhood schemes which are put in place to make life tough for motorists don’t decrease vehicle use and pollution.
    A study has found that motorists have to make longer journeys to reach their destination and therefore vehicle use and pollution are both up where LTNs are to be found.

Better things to do

Oh, dear. The doctor expert in my paper reckons we should spend 30 minutes per day doing video games to keep our minds alert.
    No thanks, especially as an afternoon snooze and spending time in a green space are also on the to-do list for padding out your day. Along with buying his book, of course.

Obviously useless

What do you say about someone wearing a baseball cap back to front?
    “He’s probably got his pants on backwards, too.”

A good reason

The list of times in seconds for how long people should be able to stand on one leg with eyes open and shut ends at 79. Presumably, everyone older has more sense than to get involved in this nonsense.

Not the right message, more of a right mess

Beheading killer gaoled for life on TV
    That’s what the headline said. Leaving the reader wondering if that means the killer was gaoled for life but they decided to behead her instead. And it will be on TV.
    That should be a HUGE ratings hit. Especially in Iran.

Sky TV has gone hopelessly wonk

Enter the TV PIN to watch the end of the kids’ programme Supergirl when you switch on for Stargate SG-1, even though it’s over and they’re in an advert break. Enter your PIN for an episode of SG-1 that’s been on early TV lots of times?
    Have the wonks @ Sky been taken over by the Goa’uld or the Ori?

Feline Priority

Using a computer can be a bit of a problem if there’s a cat parked on the mouse mat, waiting for one to show.

Collision Alert

Power companies that want people to use dodgy appliances at night to spread the demand, I read, will end up in a ding-dong with the nation’s Fire Brigades, who will have to do a lot more work in night shifts when the dodgy appliances self-combust. Like the fridge that did for Grenfell Tower.

No mercy

Should be shown to the judge who failed to gaol a stoopid attention seeker, who showered the statue of Sir Tom Moore with her own human sewage.
    There was no excuse for not sending her to gaol and the judge needs to be brought up on charges of misconduct in a public office.
    Not that fellow judges will do anything appropriate to the miscreant, of course. That would be much too much to expect.

Tell it like it is

Traffic Services: Keeping Traffic Moving.
    Joke. Making huge jams at vanity projects and getting in the way of ambulances, more like.

Grrrr!

What a bummer it is when the sub-titles get out of step with a TV programme. Luckily, it’s not something that happens very often. Hardly at all, really. Which makes it so noteworthy when it does happen.

Putin again?

The price of diesel seems to be creeping up again. Is that more fall-out from Russia’s attack on Ukraine or just the oil companies shoring up their profits before they’re hit with a windfall tax?

Not impressed

Doesn’t it get dark quickly now? You’re tripping over things in the middle of the afternoon. The argument for permanent BST is looking very convincing. And if the Scots want to have their own time zone for their latitude, that’s their business.

Give it a rest

Why are we still getting TV adverts for Black History Month foisted off on us when it was ages ago and irrelevant to most of us?

Tell it like it is? Ha!

If the teams have been paying attention in a North American football match, they don’t need a 3 minute warning (Canada) or a 2 minute warning (USA). But there’s no danger of calling them what they really are – another excuse to bung some ads into the TV coverage.

Not even trying

The basic rule of lying is to come up with something that could just be true. The Russian claim that the Royal Navy zapped the Baltic Sea natural gas pipelines has to have come from someone who got outside a whole bottle of vodka.

Option B, definitely

Are the Royals really in fear & trembling over what’s in Prince Hairy’s latest ghosted ramblings? Or are the fiction factoryhands in the UK just trying to do a favour for their counterparts in California with some free pre-publicity?

An unequal universe

The Hitchhiker’s being guided round the galaxy got a restaurant at the end of the universe. All Daniel Jackson of SG-1 got was a routine diner.

How not to get a smart meter

One of my contacts got a letter about a smart meter with an 0808 number repeated half a dozen times among the bribes.
    One small problem: when he tries to use the phone number, no one ever answers!

Footling Objection

The weird Robert Hardperson of the Daily Wail claims he wouldn’t be at all reassured if some legislation had to be approved in the absence of King Chuck and Prince Andrew was one of the substitutes who signed a piece of paper to keep the lights on.
    Fine. Let him sit in the dark and mope while the rest of us don’t!

Labour-think

Sunak doesn’t count as an Asian-sourced prime minister because he’s rich and clever and he has a rich wife.
    Scum only at the top in the Labour party’s view?
    Brilliant.

Kettles & Pots

If Neatflicks are ghouls for staging Princess Di’s fatal car crash for a TV series, what does that make the news media here, which splashed photos of the event around and gave Neatflicks a load of free publicity?

Got me worried!

I read that the mob who vet people for honours are up to their necks with four lists of names; Boris, Lizzie, QE II and New Year’s; and really struggling.
    So that’s my OBE up the spout for another year?

World-beater

That’s a great talent! A female superbadgal with lethal bad breath that’s a yellow fog! I caught her in action on Supergirl when I switched on early for Stargate SG-1.

What do experts know anyway?

Chronopharmacology is another recipe for vexation. A contact who has had his flu jab thought about being annoyed because he got it in the afternoon and he’s just read that they work better if given in the morning.
    Then he realized that if really had been life-changingly important, his local health centre would have mentioned it.
    Maybe.
    And it’s not as if we’re short of things to be vexed about at the moment.

Wot a duffer!

America’s creaky president gives our latest PM a name check, and bogs up the name! Where do they get these characters?

Unrepeatable

My gardeners both used much the same words when confronted with the news that the RHA thinks everyone should make their garden a haven for slugs & snails to help save the planet from extinction.
    If we had transporter technology, the RHA would end up with more pests to re-home than you could shake a stick at.

Self-promoting trash

Netflicks must be laughing. They don’t have to spend any cash on publicity for their fiction about the Royals. All the knockers are doing it for them.

Not something we needed

Mr. Sunak’s appointment as prime minister was hailed as Britain’s Barak Obama Moment. Which is not good news for us, given that all Obama did was be the first person half of colour to be in the White House but did nothing useful.

Age gone bygone

Films made in the 1990s can contain shots of a 3½" floppy disk. How long will it be before modern people no longer know what these exotic pieces of technology are?
    1.44 MB? What could possibly fit on something with such a tiny storage capacity?

Strange but true

There are people around who seem to be convinced that the little gadget that sits in their kitchen and drinks their power to tell them how much electricity they’re using is a smart meter containing a powerful computer.
    As opposed to the gadget in the meter cupboard or in the box outside the house that is connected to the mains supply and does the actual work. Weird.

Interesting thought

If a general election went the way of the current opinion polls, there would be just 28 Tory MPs in the new parliament and they’d be as irrelevant as the Liberals.

Better than last year

Despite some early clouds, we did actually get to see the whole of this month’s partial eclipse of the sun. Much to the amazement of the cynics, who were expecting it to be rained off, like last year’s.
    Those of us who knew about it, that is. It seems to have been a rather well-kept secret from most people.

Quality Deficit

You have to wonder about the mentality of some of these attention-seeking clowns who glue themselves to things. Especially the ones who glued themselves to the floor of a Volkswagen museum then moaned that they weren’t provided with a pot to pee and crap into.
    It was asking too much for them to bring one of their own, of course.

When you got politicians, you don’t need enemies

How friendly is it to their country for those clowns Starmer & Davey to talk us down and make our economic plight worse for their own personal advantage?

Another Whinger

There is no more revolting sight than a lawyer telling you something he knows isn’t true if there’s cash in it for him. Which is what I think every time Starmer demands a general election and ignores that they put a party in office but have no say in who’s the leader of it.
    Something Starmer knows but chooses to ignore.

Whingers

Trust the Liberals to complain about Liz Truss being entitled to £155K and police protection as part of the package for having been prime minister. Just jealous as it’s not something their leader is ever likely to enjoy.

What’s to go wrong with it?

My eclipse viewer, I noticed after viewing the course of this morning’s partial solar eclipse, carries a warning not to use it after August 12th 1999.
    Good job they didn’t make it instantly visible or I might have started panicking. And as it lives in a drawer when not in use, which is hardly ever, how am I going to wear it out?
    p.s. At least we got to see this one.

One way to do it

Anyone who thinks, or pretends to, that the Netflicks series called The Crown is actual history should have a large M for mug stamped on their forehead to warn the rest of us to keep clear of a nutter!
    On seconds thoughts, maybe that should be an N.

Dêjà Vü

When wondering how we’d get on with a lying hypocrite as prime minister, I’ve been reminded that we’ve already had a rehearsal. With Tony B. Liar. Remember how well that went?

Low to no expectations

Nobody is planning to go out tomorrow morning. Why? Because there’s a partial eclipse of the sun at the end of the morning and everyone expects it to be chucking it down with rain!

No hope

Will a clear-out of useless Tories from the House of Commons solve all our problems? Not if the most vexatious ones are in safe seats.
    And if we think things are bad now, just wait and see what an almighty shambles that lying hypocrite Starmer and his bunch will create.

Another bites the dust

Martin was on pole for 20 laps of MotoGP. He was well ahead of Bagnaia & Bastianini when he had a fast crash right across a gravel trap on lap 7!
    Bastianini took the lead with 10 to go. Bagnaia went ahead on lap 15 and stayed there. Quateraro was a distant third.

Pull the other one

“I am speechless,” one of the commentators claimed after the Moto2 race. And then proceeded to babble on and make a liar of himself. The bloke should be a politician.

Some Drama

Spots of rain before Moto2's 18 laps, 31 deg.C. There was a big crash right away then everyone got strung out. Arbolino was the early leader. Ogura went past him with 6 to go but ran wide on lap 14 and lost the lead.
    Dark clouds! Ogura fell off at turn 9 on the last lap!! Lopez & Dixon were a distant 2nd & 3rd. Fernandez was 4th and now leads the series.

Do it now!

Quick, if you have a smart meter, check if it was made in China. Apparently, they have a kill switch, which hackers can use to turn off you and everyone around you, and cause an overload of sub-stations in your area. Which will go phutt and leave you in the dark for a long time.

Early start? Not if there’s a recording!

The Malaysian Moto3 race was 17 laps on a wide track with wet patches. Big crash for Nepa on lap 2; on the track but everyone avoided him. Lots of place swapping at the front.
    Another on-tracker with 14 to go. Foggia kept taking the lead and losing it. Rossi fell off @ the back of the lead group with 5 to go.
    Guevara took a trip across wet grass on the next lap and went down to 10th. Garcia went ahead of Foggia, but Scotland’s McPhee, who was 22nd on the grid, got past the lot of them for a win!! Sasaki & Garcia joined him on the podium.

Watsongate

I was amazed to read that Baroness Neville-Rolfe, the Cabinet Office Minister, actually thinks that putting people like the disgusting Tom Watson into the House of Lords will ‘keep its expertise and outlook fresh’.
    She sounds as detached from reality as Sir Starmer.

Wishywashful

Is it really reasonable to expect Boris Johnson to form an alliance with the back-stabbing Mr. Sunak to save the Tory party from extinction?
    The way a majority of them are acting, it would be better to let the nation wipe them out by masochistically putting Labour into office. If the population of the UK is prepared to be that stupid, or that desperate.

Brilliant Excuse

The Metropolitan Police force reckons that its policy of not sacking and not naming and shaming coppers with one or more criminal convictions is for their protection.
    How very thoughtful of them.

Justification

Cynical? Moi? Well, how could you be anything else if you’ve been paying attention?

What did she look like!

What sort of twit goes to a do in a frock that looks like a giant plastic bag got up to look like one containing a goldfish bowl? Some girl called Emma with zero taste.

Get Inventing, Chaps!

Anyone who can come up with a non-lethal way of preventing a cat from walking across a laptop’s keyboard the moment I look away from it deserves a Nobel Prize. The Mansion cat can walk across the keyboard and do no harm. She can also switch on a program I was planning to use anyway, which is a pretty neat trick. But she does come close to severe sanctions when she switches the thing off in the blink of an eye.

Somewhat off target

“Northumberland, England, 2020" said the caption in the daft creature feature Reign of Fire.
    Crumbs! That’s two years ago!
    But it’s just as well the bozos who made the film back in 2002 got it badly wrong when they predicted that the country would be overrun buy fire-breathing dragons.

We’re doomed

If the Tories aren’t up to the job of running the country, it’s a shame there isn’t a credible alternative on offer.

I wonder why?

What exactly did sometime Labour deputy leader Tom Watson get his peerage for?
    Services to smearing Tories with obvious lies whilst Starmer was DPP and not putting Jimmy Savile in gaol for doing what Watson was claiming the Tories were up to?
    Furthermore, what was Starmer up to, putting the once-rejected Watson forward again? And what was whoever vets applicants for peerages thinking off, giving one to Watson?

Someone’s happy

Who’s cheering PM Truss to the rafters? The I told you so brigade, who predicted that the Westminster Blob would have the wheels off her plans before she could blink.

It’s TV, not history

What sort of idiot thinks a show made by Netflicks is anything other than fiction peopled by actors wearing the names of real people?

Out of touch

The BBC news was getting very indignant yesterday about people having to live within their means. The myth of the Magic Money Tree lives!

What do they know anyway?

I can’t recall ever darkening the doors of the debating society when I was at university. Which makes the news that 50% of them don’t have one any more unimpactful on me.
    A bunch of kids not being able to pretend they know everything about everything and cancel anyone who doesn’t agree with the ones in charge is nothing to fret about.

Take no prisoners

City fans jeer Pep was the indignant headline. “Maybe they wouldn’t raz him up if he had a proper name,” was one of the unsympathetic responses.

Behavioural analysis

If a cat always goes round in circles anti-clockwise when she’s mithering to go out, does that mean she’s left-footed?

Life always imitates art

I’ve been reminded that my library contains a copy of Brief Candle by Robert Arion, which was published in 1996 and includes a bunch of street nuisances called the Air Liberation Front, whose mission is to liberate air trapped in vehicle tyres.
    Is that where the current breed of tedious Extinctionist deflators got their idea from?

False panic

There seems to be a distinct impression going around that the recent talk about power blackouts was just a wheeze by the candle trade to rack up sales.

Just lazy journalism

Calling the small aircraft that are attacking bits of Ukraine kamikaze drones is cute but off target. The whole point of the kamikazes was that there was a pilot aboard to guide the load of explosives to a target. Not so when a drone pilot is miles away with a cup to tea and a sandwich available if needed.

Someone benefits

If 50% of our universities no longer have a debating society because of the cancel culture, that has to be good news for the local pubs.

No virtue flagged

If everyone in India hates all the benefits the British wished on them in the colonial period; railways, a civil service, an end to princely despots, widow-burning, etc.; they should turn their backs on all of it to demonstrate their sincerity.
    Otherwise, they’re just another gang of grabbing hypocrites.

Wrong!

“Speaks in his own language” the subtitles told us during an episode of the old Maigret. Actually, it was a priest doing Latin at a funeral!

More Mayhem

Martin and Marc Marquez were the early leaders of the 27 lap MotoGP race. Tyres a problem? Quateraro kept making a bog of things and crashed eventually. Miller was crashed out of his home race by a dumb move by Marquez Jr., who would need a police escort out of the country, the comms reckoned!
    Rins made 2nd, and took the lead with 14 to go. Then Bagnaia moved ahead. But it was Rins, Marquez then Bagnaia at the finish.

Didn’t work, though

How do you nick the plot of Macbeth for an episode of Murder, She Wrote? Give it a title trawled from another W. Shakespeare play to throw the viewers off the scent.

Sorted

Lopez had 25 laps of Moto2 all worked out. He had to do a long lap loop as a penalty, so he build up enough of a lead to keep it after looping. A crash on lap 5 needed a stretcher party. No Red Flag, as the comms were going on about.
    Arbolino had a fast crash with 18 to go. Acosta vs Fernandez for 2nd ahead of a series of crashes. Then series leader Fernandez fell off with 10 to go, awarding Dixon a distant 3rd place.

One reason

Why won’t the Nobel Committee give a Peace Prize to Putin? They gave one to Barack Obama even though he hadn’t actually brought peace to anywhere.

Time to be tough

Throwing red soup at a Vincent Van Gogh painting, even safely encased, should be worth an automatic 10-year gaol sentence for the stooopid exhibitionists with no time off and no parole. That’s the only way to stop them.
    And 5 years inside for idiots who obstruct traffic. Maybe with the option of being run over a bit by a steamroller as an alternative to the gaol time.

Not working

The answer to Umbrella (7) can’t be Parasol because that’s just for sun whereas an umbrella is for both rain and sun. Shoot that crossword compiler.

In a mysterious way

In Wednesday’s paper, the Parliamentary sketch writer reckoned Kwasi Kwarteng wished he could have been anywhere else than on the government front bench. Surprise! If he was wishing that, it worked!
    And that was his reward for exposing what the spivs running pension schemes into the ground with their update of the sub-prime mortgage termination campaign are doing.

Any excuse

With all the crises and emergencies they’ve created, you’d expect MPs to be focussed on stuff that matters. But no. The wonks are busy arguing over whether the May Bank Holiday should be moved up to the Coronation Weekend or there should be an extra one after King Charles is Crowned.
    And another extra one on the Friday to make it a proper four-day long weekend?

One way of doing it

Russian troops have abandoned so much stuff in their rush to get away from the Ukrainians in liberated areas that Russia is now the major supplier of weapons to the Ukrainian army!

Wot Next?

The compilers of the NHS website have been banned from using the world illness because it contains an assumption that the patient might recover.
    Presumably, someone was worried that a cowboy lawyer would find an excuse to leap into action whether or not the patient survived.

Tell ’em anything

Yodel’s tracking system doesn’t. Blame it on the Chinese plague?
    For the last week, their website has been assuring me that an order I was expecting was still at the supplier, not their depot, even though the supplier assured me Yodel had it.
    Yesterday, there was a big box parked in the porch.
    No danger of the open door photo that website claimed was essential as the porch doesn’t have one.

Talk big, achieve nothing

It’s all very well for a jury to award a billion bucks to people who sued a conspiracy theorist for upsetting them, but if he’s bankrupt and the state doesn’t allow payout of the size they’re awarding, it all ends up as rather pointless and only the lawyers and the court staff get paid.

Obfuscate, Obfuscate, Obfuscate!

What do you do if you’re the Scottish government and someone is inquiring into one of your blunders, such as the Chinese plague handling?
    Stock the inquiry with people who don’t get on and watch them throw wobblies and quit and throw the whole thing into confusion.

Totally Bogus

“Relax, you’re covered for another 12 months” was the subject line of an email from the TV Licensing mob. As if I had any bloody choice in the matter.

Not needed

Apparently, there’s no need to panic about power blackouts this coming winter. We still have plenty of coal-fuelled power stations still in good working order to bridge any gaps that arise from gas shortages.
    Which means that all the panic-mongering is just that. The can’t-do mob at it again.

Another one

Scotland’s SNP leader, Wee Burney Sturgeon, is another target. All she’s about is making herself president of an independent Scotland. And it doesn’t seem to matter that nothing works there, trams, trains, ferries, the NHS, schools. You name it, the SNP is neglecting it.

Dead Giveaway

Question: How can you tell you’re having a bad day?
Answer: When you find you’ve used up your daily quota of that word before lunch.

F-target

Quite a lot of F-words have to be directed at the clownish leader of the Labour party, Sir Starmer, if he’s nominated the appalling Tom Watson, the bloke who tried to confect a whole gang of Establishment paedophiles on the word of a serial lair, into the House of Lords.

Relatively!

It’s only live once? Not if you have faster than light travel.

Weirder things have happened!

Michael Gove in the House of Lords as a bribe to make him stop making a nuisance of himself? Like that’s going to work. It would just encourage him to keep on with his back-stabbing activities if they did him some personal good.

Not at the wheel

The Bank of England has known since 2018 that the mortgage industry was getting itself into the same sort of tangle as the one that made the banks go bust when Gordon Brown was PM. But did nothing because it’s not the regulator.
    Not so much asleep at the wheel as having a kip in the back seat as the car heads for a cliff.

Maybe not

People over 50 are supposed to be feeling an urge to have a gap year somewhere exotic. How strange when we’re supposed to be in a cost of living crisis and the airline & airport industries are in a state of shambles and airlines are shoving their prices up shamelessly.
    Maybe there’s a lot more dosh sloshing around than the Labour party and its ilk would like us to believe.

Obsolete Saying

“The clock is ticking” a slogan during the London NFL match kept telling us. In the same room as the battery-powered clock with replacement Chinese works, which make the hands glide silently.
    No tick.

All been said

I’m currently reading Frank Herbert’s Children of Dune, which is number 3 of a series of 6 novels.
    A lot of what he says about Alia Atreides’ reign applies to Putin and the state of Russia today. Confirming that knowing that something is wrong doesn’t prevent it from happening again and again.

How are you spelling that?

The world’s oldest supermodel is 91 and called Carmen Dell’ Orefice. Which leaves me wondering how many smirks Ms Orifice’s name has spawned since she started working at 16.

Monster, Monster!

A real hoot from the Legend Channel’s Vintage Vault – The Deadly Mantis (1957), a daft creature feature from the golden age of black & white sci-fi.
    President Creaky Joe would have been just 13 years old when the Mantis attacked Washington.

Man with a plan?

Just what is Michael Gove up to? Is he hoping that if he makes enough trouble, someone will buy him off with a peerage?

Long term strategy

When the subject of panic buying candles came up, one of the group admitted having a whole stack of them; left over from the 1970s and inherited from his parents.
    Wealth cascading down the generations!

NBG

Also on the Post’s front page is an intro to a lengthy piece on the total failure of the SNP regime to do anything for the women who had botched mesh implants. So much for Burney and her gang as saviours.

Who’s to know till it’s too late?

“50% off Domino’s piazza”, the TV ad claimed. But is that 50% off the price? It could equally well be 50% off the topping and/or the taste.

Fluff

There’s a typical bit of political confection on the front page of today’s Sunday Post: a pretence that the SNP is saving Ukraine from the Russian invaders.
    Okay for the wonks at the party conference. Nothing to do with the real world.

And on and on

The same BREAKING: in dramatic red on and on for hours. This is what I have to pay good licence money for? Not good enough by a long chalk.
    BBC = Bloody Bad Crowd

Today’s Mystery

A bloke out jogging along the pavements in a cycling helmet. Was he worried about ecoterrorists beating him about the bonce as a protest against his increased carbon dioxide output?

BBC fail

The bottom-of-the-screen caption bar on the BBC News Channel is a total waste of time at times. BREAKING: Liverpool gets Eurovision. Over and over and over and over.
    So bleedin’ what? What about the real news? Useless BBC buggers.

Political fail

We all know that Labour doesn’t have anyone who can be credible in government in any capacity. Sadly, the Tories seem to be proving they’re in the same boat right now.

Well, why not?

American attention-seeker wears White Lives Matter top at a fashion show and upsets all the racist usual suspects? Well, keeps him out of mischief, I suppose.

Brains in neutral?

What is the London Assembly playing at, taking a pop at the useless Mayor for how he got rid of Dame Whatsit, the useless boss of the Met? She was a disaster area, everyone knows it and London is well rid of her.
    Don’t the Assembly clowns have anything useful to do? On reflection, probably not.

So good they showed it twice

Comedy Central’s customers must really have loved The Meg (giant shark film) last Sunday if they’re having to show it again tonight!

Not paying attention?

“Blockbusters are back this summer” yelled the Sky TV ad. Excuse me, blokes, but the summer is over now.

Nice Earner

Just how much did the legal profession extract from the tax-payer during the prosecution and appeals after those vandals chucked a statue into Bristol Harbour?
    It was obvious at the outset that they were criminals. But no, a ton of flesh for the lawyers and courts. Kerching!

Not sold

Richard Branson might think it’s a brilliant idea but I doubt that the prospect of being waited on by blokes in red frocks will encourage me to fly Virgin.

Just following orders

A big groan for the Kremlin stooges who had to complain to the UN Security Council about the damage to the gas pipelines that was done at Putin’s behest.
    “We just say the words, we don’t necessarily believe them,” is the creed of the diplomat.

Still Munching

Despite all the horror stories about how terrible life is, the latest weigh-ins of primary school kids have shown that one-fifth of those who arrive at a normal weight leave obese.
    Maybe they should be sending the parents there instead.

Empty Spaces

Is there anyone left in Russia after the exodus following Putin’s mock mobilization? The big surprise is that he didn’t have his thugs at the border open fire with machine guns to discourage the escapers.
    Or maybe drive a couple of tanks up and down a queue of cars to really drive the point home.

Highly flexible!

We’re still marvelling at how the gaoled killer Norris managed to go through his normal routine with a mobile phone up his bum. Still, no doubt the screws at Dartmoor has a good laugh when they saw the X-ray. All except whoever passed the phone on to Norris.

Only in America

Chavarious? Where on Earth do parents get a first name like that for their offspring?

Alternatively . . .

Oh, no! We’re being assured that now is the perfect time to cut the cost of Xmas. Maybe we just won’t do it this year to save a lot of dosh and spare ourselves a lot of hassle.

Fair point

Why aren’t the Greenhouse Grotters going bang in all directions about all the methane that’s leaking out into the atmosphere from the Russian gas pipelines to Europe with holes in them?

Is there time to do it?

Every so often, the experts come up with something you just have to do if you want to live forever. But is it much of a life if you’re forever swigging cups to tea and coffee and munching vegetables non-stop?
    The latest fad is eating 5 or more eggs per week. But life just ain’t long enough for all this stuff.

Dunnit

All this hoo-haa about the mortgage industry is just the spivs at it again.
    Substitute Sub-Prime Mortgages for Leveraged Liability-Driven Investments and we’re back in 2008.

Is it worth it?

To be average, you have to have at least 84 bad days per year. How totally wonderful.

Just pointless

Also in the Sunday Post was a story about women breeding & raising children at the arse end of Kenya. Which begs the question: “Why?” Especially if they know they aren’t going to give the kids much of a life. Even if global warming is getting the blame for making somewhere uninhabitable more so.

Also wonky

‘Peerless Guardian columnist?’ Oh, dear, has Scotland’s favourite newspaper joined the Ludicrous Left? How sad?
    Or was it just taking a break yesterday from exposing the endless failings of the SNP government by taking a pop at the mob south of the border?

Somewhat off target

The Meg, a film about a giant shark, on the Comedy Central channel? Not many laughs in that!

Persistence pays off

MotoGP fans need to be (a) keen and (b) waterproof. Will there be any? Yes, an hour late. 25 laps on a soggy track, lots of running wide onto the blue. Bezzecchi had to shed the lead for doing it and Miller took over.
    There were soon 3 red bikes and Marc Marquez ahead of Bezzecchi. Olivera got past Miller with 11 laps to go. Zarco carved through the field and went past Marquez for 4th with 5 laps to go. Loud thunder with 2 to go. Bagnaia stayed 3rd and he’s now just 2 points behind the series leader, Quateraro, who was 17th.

Monster soggy

Rain came bucketing down at the start of the Moto2 race, which had been cut to just 16 laps. Crash and the bike slides for miles! And the rider. It was like a lake @ turn 1 going into lap 2. Chantra crashed out of the lead of his home race. Lopez & Canet swapped the lead; then they were caught.
    Red flag on lap 9 with Arbolino leading from Canet. They were supposed to restart but there was another red flag and the guys got half points for doing half a race.

Bad influence

Digital assistants are not good for children, is the latest news from the experts. They respond without requiring ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, and kids who have access to them are shaping up to become rude adults. But only by our present standards, which are bound to change when the rude kids take over.

Early Bird Fodder

Garcia & Fernandez crashed at the end of lap 1/22 in the Moto3 race in Thailand. Foggia was leading with the action going on behind him. Turn 9 here is also popular for crashes.
    Foggia’s lead evaporated but he never lost it. There were lots of track limits warnings dished out. Sasaki was doggedly 2nd but Rossi got past him. But couldn’t stay there on the last lap.

Times will get hard

What’s the advantage of having a 33 points lead in the polls when you know you’re going to watch it evaporate and have kind people reminding you of how big it used to be?

Not really

Are we going to miss not having a special relationship with the United States while the present incumbent is lurking in the White House? Probably not. Especially as Creaking Joe seems to be pals with lots of people who aren’t friends of ours.

Times not hard for some

Despite all the price matching, Aldi is gobbling up a bigger share of the supermarket trade. They’re obviously doing something particularly right that the bigger ones don’t get.

Not a hand-out

The state pension is not a benefit, someone pointed out when benefit cuts were being discussed. It’s a paid right.
    For which he made 48 years National Insurance contributions, he reminded us.
    Not that any politicians either get that or want to admit it at the moment.

Pull the other one

Labour claiming to be the party of fiscal responsibility will be met with derision as long as people remember that note by Liam Byrne, then chief secretary of the Treasury in 2010.
    That’s the one to his successor that said: “Dear chief secretary, I'm afraid there is no money. Kind regards – and good luck! Liam.” It was claimed to be a joke but after 13 years of Labour misrule, it was actually accurate.

Outbreak of hostilities?

The Labour party want’s to stop fracking because the Tories want it and it would benefit Britain. But their trade union paymasters; the ones whose members will make money out of it; are in favour.
    It will be interesting to see how that is resolved.

Spoke, Wheel

You’re a Russian woman and you want to prevent Putin from shipping your husband off to Ukraine to get killed; what do you do? Threaten to break his bones to make him unfit to be in the army!
    Could work.

Weird way to live

I was struck by the strangeness of something I saw the other day. Someone ahead of me on the pavement walking along holding a phone instead of putting it in a pocket.
    Not looking at it, just clutching it as if their life depended on an immediate response to a call. Not that there was one in the five minutes before a parting of our ways.
    “People are strange,” the Door sang on their second album. They sure got that right!

How frustrating

The SNP regime in Scotland is so useless that it can’t even produce statistics to pretend that everyone is in fuel poverty and they need more cash from England.
    Their statisticians reckon that nothing is possible before next February. When everyone will have frozen to death and the problem will have gone away.

The way it goes

The Labour party spends ages and lots of our money coming up with brilliant scams to relieve us of even more money; only to see most of the major ones crumble into dust, like ending fossil fuel use, when exposed to the light of day at their conference.

The Rule

If there’s something live on TV before something you want to record, tell the box to record the programme after the one you want to be sure of getting the ending of what you want to see.

Impressive!

That’s an amazing bit of technology when you think about it; the AEW ramp from the fake stargate to the wrestling ring that’s a full-colour, decent definition video display that can withstand the heroes bouncing one another off it.

Kill the compiler

Wall pass (3,3) WFT is that all about? O something something, T something something. Nope. Nuffink.
    Next day; the answer is ‘one two’. Still nope.

No extinction yet

Those predicting the end of cars and a total switch to public transport are going to have to think again if the RMT union manages to achieve what it appears to be aiming to do: drive all railway companies out of business.

Is it worth it?

NASA spending £314 million on bashing a tiny asteroid with its half-ton DART spacecraft makes me wonder if what’s here on the Earth is worth the enormous cost of launching something big enough to deflect a decent size comet on a collision course with us.

Oh, no; not me

Am I thinking about Christmas preparations right now, as the TV adverts seem to assume I am? That would definitely be in the ‘Nurse, he’s out of bed again’ category.

A permanent joke

“Watch R6,” said Colonel O’Neill’s subtitles in one of last night episodes of Stargate SG-1.
    Who’s that? A pal of R2D2?
[your six, Ed.]

Not that bright

It will be interesting to see if the Welsh government makes any cash out of its proposed tax on tourists with the country sinking deeper into a cost of living crisis.
    Inflation on butter: 33%.

Do the dirty deed, take the trolling

Message for Tom Utley of the Daily Mail: No, we’re not going to stop vilifying the Lying-In-State Two. They deserve it.

Another random thought

When about to watch Stargate SG-1: “Did the continuity bloke say Sky Macs and are they selling raincoats now?”

Reasonable Conclusion!

I saw Abbey Road described as ‘the last recorded album by the Beatles’, which immediately set me wondering if there are suspected to be other albums but they haven’t been put on the record yet.

No hiding place

There was no escape from Miss Fisher and her murder mysteries last night. She was on both Drama and Alibi.
    Which makes rather a mockery of the trite slogan that “There’s only one channel called Drama” if it just shows the same programmes as the Alibi channel.

Incendiary Event

Miller and Martin were dog-fighting at the front of the pack in the MotoGP session. Tsuda’s Suzuki caught fire on the track rather dramatically on lap 12/24! Turn 9 claimed Darryn Binder on lap 14.
    Marc Marquez was running an unusual 5th for a while. Brad Binder went past Martin for 2nd on the last lap. Bagnaia crashed out of 9th place, losing ground to Quateraro (finished 8th) in the championship, and Marquez was 4th.

Retro + Good

There was an “It came from” night on the Legend channel the other night. “Beneath the sea” then “from outer space”. SF in the 1950s was just straightforward monsters + fright.

Home Front Hero

Canet was on pole for Moto2, two off the front early and the sun was still shining. Two gone by lap 4/22, it became 4 when turn 9 bagged Canet from the lead and the attrition continued relentlessly.
    Lopez and Ogura swapped the lead. Ogura (Japanese) followed by Fernandez pulled a gap on Lopez. Turn 9 struck again on lap 21. No change in the front 3 at the end.

No change

People who do TV shows jump queues that are hours long for everyone else and seem surprised when people get on their case. Yes, they really do live in their own little world and don’t have a clue what goes on in ours.

Makes a change

Race riots in Leicester! Turns out its Moslems vs Hindus over a cricket match that India won against Pakistan and people believing all sorts of garbage on the internet.
    People are the same everywhere.

Surprise! It’s not raining

The track for the Japanese grand prix was a bit of a gobbler, especially as yesterday was rained off and practice was hard to get. A big crash at the back on lap 1/20 of Moto3, and turn 9 claimed more than its share of victims.
    Four off the front, with Guevara leading, became 3 when Masia crashed out with 3 to go. Garcia’s 4th place at the head of the chase group left him with a faint hope for the season. McPhee was 4th for a while but finished 7th.

Going with the money

That’s a good point about posturing Starmer. He’s a barrister turned politician, which means he’ll say anything he’s paid to and any pretence of believing it is ham acting.

Doing us a favour

Something to be said for our new Prime Minister – she’s given us a Chancellor of the Exchequer whose name seems to launch endless inventions.

Motions, going through

It’s all very well for the looney left to moan about people being allowed to keep more of their own money, but they can probably be trusted to spend it more wisely than any government of any complexion.

Will he manage it?

It’s all very well for Putin the Poisoner to rattle his nukes but what everyone in the West is wondering is how much longer he has before some kind person bumps him off and he’s replaced by someone even more appalling.

No excuse for this

SG-C in the subtitles instead of SGC for Stargate Command, the home of the stargate. Is there no bloody quality control at all?

Not giving up

I had one of them phone calls the other day. Some recorded machine voice claiming to be ‘your internet provider’ with a tale about my internet connection being compromised and it’s going to be cut off.
    I suppose they must still be making enough money out of their racket to keep it going, which doesn’t say much for the people they swindle.

Still worth a look

Lake Placid (1999) is an another creature feature that became a series. But the first one is worth revisiting.

Never, Never World

If the papers publish on Wednesday, the script of what the prime minister will tell the United Nations on Thursday, what will they print on Thursday?
    More aspirations and plans rather than things that have actually happened?

Really Desperate?

Absolutely stuck for something to do? Totally and completely out of inspiration? You can always try shaking the cat’s bowl of dried food and try to convince her it’s Mexican Jumping Grub.

Rather repetitious

2 Lava 2 Lantula (2016) was on TV last night. The makers of this daft sciffy film knew it was going to be a daft sequel to the daft original, so they evidently weren’t bothered about giving it a cute title.
    Lavalantualas! Run! Especially from that bloody HUGE one!

Back to the usual slagging off

What’s that deafening sound? Oh, it’s all the BBC mugs and other usual suspects, who had to pretend that Britain is a great place and somewhere that counts on the world stage, ungritting their teeth now that all the pomp and circumstance is over.

Digital Imperative

They do so want the world TV audience for The Queen’s funeral to be four billion. So much so that you expect most of the usual suspects to top themselves in outrage if some bean counter reveals it was only 3.99 billion!

Today’s Tip

Using the TV remote control is so much easier if you point the right end at the TV.

Pointless filler

50 hours of must not miss in the TV listing magazine? How many are something that I’ll watch? A nice, round number. Think of all the things I’ll be able to do with the time saved. And all the dosh unspent by not having all the pay-to-view services needed to consume all 50.

Tosh

You can’t really call an event the Something of the Century when we’re not even one-quarter of the way in to the century.

Worst ever still

I’m still trying to come up with something more contemptible than using a cartoon of the celebrated mathematician Albert Einstein to sell ‘smart’ meters.

Real life?

Crumbs! Bargain Hunt on BBC 1 before the lunchtime news yesterday. Is it really all over?

Interesting slip

Sky Max was revealed in its true colours last night when Sky wasn’t doing adverts. Yes, it really is Sky One rebadged.

Random thought

Just how tiny were the minute guns, which were fired by the King’s Troop of the Royal Horse Artillery?

Too much of the golden!

Sky Max with the ads suppressed during Stargate SG-1 yesterday was extremely revealing.
    The silent breaks went on forever! And underlined just how long you have to leave the mute button pressed in the normal course of events.

Just odd

The concept of someone who’s dead being laid to rest is a curiously archaic notion. When life is extinct, rest and restless no longer apply.

Hopelessly Hype

TEN DAYS that shook the world? Really? Ree-a-lee! Come on! Can we have our sense of proportion back, please?

Afraid not

Am I going to spend 10 hours sitting in front of a TV set today, watching the BBC do the Queen’s funeral? Not unless someone ties me up and tapes my eyelids open.
    But I will be getting on with things indoors as the weather looks distinctly wet in my part of the world.

No contest

Is it really “Britain’s Finest Royal Reporting”? Or would “Most Relentless” be more accurate?
    I know where my money’s going.

Then the big boys

Quateraro, the series leader, crashed out on lap 1 of the MotoGP race; badly; after running into the back of Marc Marquez and dinging Marquez’s bike so badly that he went on to a collision moments later that left Nakagami in the middle of the track with riders scrambling to avoid him. Marquez, unsurprisingly, had to retire.
    Bagnaia was leading comfortably. Bastianini took over with 15 laps to go; until he ran off the track! Who’s got more tyre? Bastianini was just a couple of bike lengths behind Bagnaia, he took the lead @ turn 7 on the last lap and stayed there.

Elsewhere

A curious thing about the walk-past photos of the various lyings in state is how many of the people are staring straight ahead and not actually looking at the main attraction; as if they’re with someone as an escort and doing it on sufferance.

No let up!

A messy crash and a whole gang off on an excursion early in lap 2/21 in the Moto2 race after Fernandez shot into the lead. Arenas gone on lap 3. Then they got well strung out. But there was bunching at half-way to give the comms something to talk about.
    Acosta pulled a gap at the front and Canet pinched 2nd off Fernandez. Dixon crashed out on the last lap.

Pension plan not needed

Speculation seems to have started about when Putin will get the boot after 30-odd years of plundering and despotism. And how high up the window he falls out of ‘accidentally’ will be.

Off to Aragon

A 3-way crash at turn 1 of lap 1/19 in the Moto3 race. McPhee was up with the leaders unusually, Guevara leading. Foggia was back in the middle of the field. McPhee dropped back to a couple of places ahead of him. Garcia was playing silly buggers in the same zone.
    A dramatic excursion and a job for the stewards with 6 laps to go. Guevara scored his 4th win ahead of a huge argy-bargy in the chase group at the last corner.

FOIA!

Switched on the BBC news channel at lunchtime yesterday and they were actually showing some!! Not the endless repetition of the funeral plans. Well, not for the first 20 minutes or so. Then the rot set in again.

Epic fail

What do you get if you watch the Thursday Nite NFL match highlights on Sky? Quarters 1-3 but the useless fuckers didn’t show Q4!

Hardly appropriate

Football gets everywhere. Ukraine’s successes in the north-east of the country are now being described as the equivalent of scoring a goal just before half time against the Russkies.

Dog-fight

The BBC and UEFA seem to be in an arse-kicking contest to see which can claim the title of The Most Miserable Bunch of Bastards. Given the BBC’s greater number of opportunities, I don’t UEFA stands much of a chance.

Not wanted on voyage

The award for the most ignored scribbler has to go to R. Hardperson of the Daily Wail. I might look at the pictures that go with his grievous gushes, but the words are there to be overlooked entirely.

Nice change

For once, the police seem to be handling the attention-seekers and nasty sods about right. The ones who wave offensive messages on a bit of cardboard are being harassed just a bit and dozy buggers, like the one who ran out into the middle of the road to get a photograph of the funeral cortege are being allowed to fade back into the woodwork.