Lucky Dip

2025-12-01

If you are lamenting the current wintry British weather, spare a thought for those for whom the sun no longer shines - not until well into next year anyway.

"Ah but they are used to it" you cry - but so are we. British weather is still mild by comparison with similar latitudes in Europe, thanks to the benevolence of the Gulf Stream. And we benefit from daylight sunshine reasonably often during winter months, even if nowhere near sufficiently often to make Ed Miliband's fantasies into a viable power grid. Even so, a deep freeze winter is thankfully something of a rarity.

So how do those for whom a deep and dark freeze is an annual occurrence cope with their lot?

2025-11-28

Will the AI world end in Utopia or Nightmare?

Will the AI rule us, or "enhance" us as the WEF would have it, so that we will work for them, own nothing, and be "happy" (define "happy")?

Or will we somehow wriggle out from under and make use of an AI that is our faithful servant?

Or that appears to us to be our faithful servant, much as Parliament has contrived (but ultimately failed) to appear to us? I would place quite a large bet on the AI making a vastly better fist of appearing to us as our servant whilst manipulating us into complying with what it wants us to do, than Parliament.

Perhaps the ultimate AI would be called "Jeeves", would know us (and our relatives friends and acquaintances) better than we know ourselves, and would always know how to politely and resourcefully get us out of the scrapes that we get ourselves

2025-11-22

The UN's Climate Control Event COP30 did not go according to plan.

After all, nothing destroys an illusion like reality, and the reality is that none of the much-foretold climate-warming catastrophes deigned to come true, even as the worst effects of the push for Agenda 2030 become glaringly apparent.

So was it all for nothing?

I don't think so.

It has had / will have the singular effect of destroying the trust that uncritical people have reflexively placed in the UN's authority.

Watch what happens now to the WHO, the WHO-WEF partnership, the UN aid programmes and much else besides.

As a fish rots from the head,

2025-11-18

"Forewarned is forearmed" as they say.

Political activist Nick Griffin ("far right" I hear you cry - but rather far right than far wrong in my view) has opened Pandora's pollitical Box and speculated on how a Reform Party victory in the Commons might play out at some time in the not so distant future.

Would political pragmatism prevail, or would battle royal commence?

Of course it's idle speculation at this point, but perhaps it's time to start to mull over the possibilities...

2025-11-12

Browsing the net (as one does) I happened upon a Wikipedia page in honour of the Telegraph's satirical column of yesteryear (not to be confused with their current offering under the same title).

As a one-time dedicated Telegraph reader, Peter Simple's imaginary world ofsocietaltragicomic over-earnest fashionably-deluded or simply bonkers characters would invariably bring a chuckle to contend inconveniently with ingestion of breakfast. His great facility in applying appropriate names to his inappropriate characters never ceased to amuse, names which effortlessly conjured the stereotype that we had never even considered existed.

If you too are of similar antiquity and like me never imagined that Peter Simple's make-believe Way of the World was exactly whither we were all inevitably headed, then this may bring it all back

2025-11-11

Sky News has the story.

From the BBC Charter:

"To provide impartial news and information to help people understand andengage with the world around them: the BBC should provide duly accurate andimpartial news, current affairs and factual programming to build people’sunderstanding of all parts of the United Kingdom and of the wider world. Its contentshould be provided to the highest editorial standards. It should offer a range anddepth of analysis and content not widely available from other United Kingdom newsproviders, using the highest calibre presenters and journalists, and championingfreedom of expression, so that all audiences can engage fully

2025-11-09

Bearing in mind the old adage of "how can we tell when politicians are lying?" - "when we see their lips move", perhaps in this day and age politics has become so unencumbered by truth that this question has no further relevance.

Nevertheless politicians as a class (with noble but limited exceptions) still seem to believe that lying to us plebs is nothing they should be ashamed of. It's routine. Indeed it's fundamental to the way that elected government is run - they tell us that they represent us, their constituents, in Parliament, when in truth they represent those shadowy figures who control the political parties (and possibly also the Civil Service) behind the scenes by means fair or foul. They just don't talk about it.

In the case of America, one could be forgiven for thinking that "behind the scenes" turns out to be the Israeli lobby, without whose financial support it seems impossible to get elected.

The UK polity may also be

2025-11-03

This is a compelling note from an old hand at the game of modern life, and how best to play the hand that has been dealt to our modern young men, who survey the world in which they find themselves, and wonder where to start, what it is about...

Can one really put an old head on young shoulders?

No, they must make their way as best they may like everyone else, but perhaps they may start out slightly better informed than the State education establishments would leave them.

Not everyone will agree with all of this, but it strikes me as a genuine attempt to put forward a few home truths that will likely have eluded them so far...

It won't be right for everyone, but it could be valuable for some, perhaps for many.

See what you

2025-10-31

Lots of dubious "content" on social media and elsewhere re the phenomenon known as 3I/Atlas, mostly speculation, and perhaps mostly excitable in nature, and definitely influenced by a huge dollop of hype for purposes that remain obscure.

So who better to disperse this hype than the very unexcitable but hugely knowledgeable Ken Walker?

(27 minutes)

Like / Dislike this video here.

Do try not to panic...

2025-10-30

What would you say if you could talk to your 1990s self?

There's been a lot of water under the bridge since then...

Cyntha Koeter shares her perspective...

2025-10-30

This is a round up of the latest scuttlebutt from China. 

"This... connects the dots between these seemingly separate events... the Chinese Communist Party is under siege"

(14 minutes)

Like / Dislike this video here.

2025-10-29

This site doesn't do party politics, but that doesn't mean that we don't do politics. After all, the fact that many people take no interest politics doesn't prevent the politicians from poking their noses into the people's affairs. Especially now that CBDC-linked Gov Ids are are believed to be feasible, they can poke right the way down to the individual citizen and what he had for Sunday dinner.

"You had an extra slice of toast for breakfast on Satiurday so to keep the world cool your bread ration is now halved for next week and your price per British standard loaf will be increased by one third"

Note that they don't have to get the actual facts right - it's sufficient to make sure that there isn't any effective way to challenge their facts. In fact it's probably better to get them wrong because then the individual will have no choice but to give up the unequal struggle for correctness and just submit to whatever "they" impose. Life is too short

2025-10-29

We invented the steam engine (so we are told) and from that, Steam Rollers (now more prosaically called "road rollers") and of course, railways.

Of course, "Health and Safety" wasn't such an industry in those days, so people had a comparatively free hand to get themselves into all sorts of scrapes at their own risk, without fear of some busybody with a clipboard coming round to tell you what you couldn't do and quite possibly slapping you with a fine.

But isn't the US showing the way with MAGA? 

Could we not do something similar here in the UK?

(This is not financial advice)

We might have to tear up a few rule books, but those have been proliferating for so long that we have become scared to move lest we offend some unelected and unimagined

2025-10-26

The Knights Templar, a religious order of centuries past (bearing in mind that taught history may have been falsified, so work with us here). Perhaps all were not destroyed, but some survived to bring us "the Great Awakening" of today.

Far out? These days I'm beginning to acclimatise to "far out" notions...

There is a long preamble to this film, which in the interests of your time, is omitted from the video as shown below. It is however included in the linked video on Rumble (or you can restart the video below from time zero), but it adds over an hour to the running time and is probably of little interest unless you have been eagerly following Charlie Freak and his friends.

Charlie Freak is the man who brought out the original video of Trump's (pre-Covid) "Capitulation Tour" (watch a slightly shorter version of that

2025-10-26

Dominic Frisby clearly enjoys himself, and so should we all.

2025-10-17

There are plenty of political reasons why we might not want a digital id, or CBDC (since they will inevitably be linked).

But there are technical reasons, as well as the  government's track record on security issues.

Not to mention the myriad 'industry' snouts (not to mention fly-by-nights) that may already be homing in on this latest government feeding trough, some of whom are unlikely to have security issues at the forefront of their priorities...

(23 minutes)

Like / Dislike this

2025-10-16

There's no shortage of pundits to tell us what we ought to believe, but to get a reasonably complete picture is a rarity.

Here's a pundit who may be unfamiliar to most, and is for sure unconventional - yet her round-up of today's world strikes me as perhaps one of the most perceptive as well as thought-provoking.

(47 minutes)

Like / Dislike this video here.

2025-10-15

This is a brief canter through the 'Q' posts, which may delight conspiracy theorists and turn off those who don't suffer from that affliction in equal measure.

It's only a few days old (!) but already feels a bit "last year"...   it isn't.

Israel indicates the end game - but pay attention, I don't think we are quite there yet... there is still unsettled business to be concluded on various fronts, notably Ukraine and Israel (two sides of the same coin?) but also Europe China and the rest of the world.

There are two ways to judge Trump's actions - at face value (they don't exactly work together on this metric) and as pointing up those miscreants that he wants investigated (makes more sense and keeps everybody confused).

Happy hunting.

2025-10-15

What we See is Not What They Got, because apparently they didn't get diddly squat in the first place.

Have they been taking modelling tuition from Professor Ferguson?

Dr John Robson spills the beans on our very own Met Office.

2025-10-14

Well, along with France (and interloper Italy in 5th) we have secured the top 13 places, add in Sweden to make that the top 15!

Not sure that this is a cause for celebration, since this is an assessment of Europe's "most dangerous cities" according to Numbeo’s Crime Index, well ahead of Odessa and (presumably) every other Ukrainian city. Hmmm...

It's not "scientific" in so far as it is based upon "citizens' perceptions". So yes, there's scope for imprecision in attempting to measure such a concept across different countries languages populations and their differing customary expectations. 

Bradford Coventry and Birmingham head the chart in the "very high crime" range along with Marseille, Grenobe, Naples, Montpelier and Liège. 

Paris Lyon Nice Manchester and London not far behind.

Eastern Europe by contrast looks pretty content, although it's