I'm No Longer Even Shocked...

The first openly trans lawmaker in the US — who was hailed as a trail-blazer — has admitted to sickening child sex charges involving young kids in a daycare. Former Democratic New Hampshire state Rep. Stacie-Marie Laughton, 41, a biological male who identifies as female, pleaded guilty to charges including sexual exploitation of children last week in a Boston federal court, WMUR reported.

He pled guilty because he didn't really have much choice, being caught bang to rights. The state motto is 'Live Free Or Die', but maybe they should change it to 'Don't Elect Trans Criminals' instead? 

Four pictures of children believed to be 3 to 5 years old were sent to Laughton by former partner Lindsay Groves, who took the horrific images in the bathroom of the daycare where she worked in Tyngsborough, Mass., federal prosecutors said.Laughton — who was called a history-maker following their election to the New Hampshire House in 2012 — asked Groves to take the nauseating pictures and exchanged thousands of text messages about them, according to the feds.

It makes you wonder how bad the opposition must have been, that he could get elected at all: 

Laughton was previously forced to resign twice from the New Hampshire House over separate legal issues — including three felony convictions in 2008 for credit card fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud.

And yet they kept electing him! What are they putting in the water in New Hampshire?  

Well, That Was In Another Country, And Besides, The Wench Is Dead..

Hours before Katie Madden took her own life, she had a tense phone call with her former partner Jonathon Russell. Russell was on bail after allegedly assaulting Madden – he was banned from contacting her – but the conversation took place nevertheless.

Like the tango, it takes two to make a phone call. Why didn’t she hang up?

There was a witness to the call who gave evidence to the inquest into Madden’s death. Mason Jones, a friend of Madden’s, said Russell was “vile” and “abusive”. Although Jones said he could not remember the exact words Russell used, he said: “I recall Jon saying at least once that he was in control of the town and would end her life if she didn’t do it herself.”

Which she promptly did. And her family is OUTRAGED! that he’s not being charged as a result, as is the ‘Guardian’, apparently…

In the days leading up to Madden’s death, her mother, Bernadette Sutton, had told police and social services that she was concerned about the threat Russell posed to her daughter. “By this point, I thought he would kill her or she would take her own life,” Sutton said, in a statement. Nigel Parsley, the coroner, concluded that Madden died by suicide while the balance of her mind was disturbed, but he also cited her relationship with Russell, with whom she had two children, as a contributory factor.“Kate’s toxic relationship, in conjunction with Kate’s known mental health conditions, affected her state of mind and therefore contributed to her death,” he said.

Is that a crime that carries a charge, then?  

Despite this, no police investigation into Bignell’s role in Barter’s death has ever been launched and the Crown Prosecution Service says there is insufficient evidence to bring charges.

Seems not. 

Inquests have a different burden of proof to criminal courts, finding on the balance of probabilities, rather than the criminal threshold of beyond reasonable doubt. There is no criminal due process and nobody is convicted or acquitted.

In other words, coroners get to grandstand and sympathise with the grieving family and it costs them nothing, so they do it. And it seems this one wasn't prepared to sign off on something they could be criticised for later: 

In Katie Madden’s case, although the coroner acknowledged that a toxic relationship contributed to her death, he did not make any finding of unlawful killing. Almost two years on, Madden’s family say Russell has not been investigated in relation to any of the inquest findings or any alleged abuse. This is despite admitting at the inquest that he gave Madden a black eye weeks before she died.

Have the police charged him with assault then?  

Police closed the assault investigation just days after Madden was found hanged at her home in Lowestoft, Suffolk. “The idea that it would just be dropped because she died – it should never be the case,” her mother says.

The police have to cut their cloth according to the CPS's budget. With no live complainant, it's not hard to see why they aren't preapared to go to trial, is it?  

Tweet Of The Month

 Another bumper crop (well, a lot did happen this month!):  

Post Title Of The Month

 Tim Worstall enlightens the bewildered (or more accurately, those claiming bewilderment): 

Quote Of The Month

Farenheit 211 on the suggested 'Freedom Portal':

"There’s not much yet on this Freedom Portal site apart from a graphic that ripples to reveal the word ‘freedom’ and an animation of a rider, presumably a reference to Paul Revere who, during the Revolutionary War, carried news of British troop movements to American Patriot forces prior to the battles of Lexington and Concord. There’s little indication on the freedom.gov site as to how this site will work but the fact that this site was created in the first place is of great consequence. It’s a sort of declaration of war by America not on Britain as a sovereign nation, but instead against an authoritarian political current that for various reasons has gained significant influence in places like the United Kingdom and other European and Anglophone nations."

Post Of The Month

 Bucko goes for a shopping trip.

I Remain Unconvinced...

Ministers must end “barking mad” restraints on civil service pay or risk being unable to recruit the technical and digital specialists it needs to keep pace, a union leader has warned.

Really?  

Mike Clancy, the Prospect general secretary, said the government should end the “rightwing trope” that restrained the pay of highly skilled civil servants and left government unable to compete with the private sector. He said it should be realistic for senior specialists in competitive fields to be paid more than the prime minister.

Can't argue against this! But isn't this more an indictment of the woeful performance of the Prime Minister than the spectacular performance of the civil serpents?

In an interview with the Guardian, Clancy also told the government to take more care with its approach to deregulation, and said it could risk falling foul of its own Employment Rights Act.

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!  

Clancy was the TUC’s lead on the Employment Rights Act, and said he was concerned about how angrily business groups were still lobbying against the changes. He said the government should come out more forcefully to demonstrate that there had been a fundamental shift back towards workers in the labour market.

That'll be difficult, since there hasn't been one.  

Well, Nesrine, If So, It's A Hole He Dug Entirely By Himself

It's not often she makes sense, but I like to highlight it when she does: 

He is in a hole that is too deep to climb out of. The prime minister’s persistent unpopularity is best understood as the result of abundance: there is simply, in Starmer, something for everyone to deplore.In policy, he has taken stances that have established him in the minds of many people as devoid of principle and compassion.

He's still got the shovel in his hands, Nesrine, and there's no sign yet that he's finished... 

On Gaza, Starmer got it wrong from the start. From his early assertion that Israel had the right to cut off water and power, to refusing calls for a ceasefire and then cracking down on protest (a move now judged as unlawful by the high court), the prime minister positioned himself against a huge domestic swell of distress.

'Huge domestic well', Nesrine? Hardly. Only emanating from those people we should really be looking to remove from the country at the first opportunity, the ones we regret ever inviting in.... 

And then there is Starmer himself. Personality alone does not make a politician, and God knows we have suffered enough from big personalities such as Boris Johnson – but you need something. Not necessarily fireworks and charm, but at the minimum just a sense of tangibility.

Starmer is impalpable; not in the sense that he isn’t there, but that he is hiding. He doesn’t dream, he says, nor does he have phobias, nor favourite novels. He communicates in only the most generic terms, in staccato sentences using repetitive themes – “change” or his working-class roots – connected by meaningless “let me be clears” and “make no mistakes”

I agree here, it is strange that someone who was a lawyer could be such a poor public speaker. 

Who is this person’s constituency? Not the left, to which he has made clear in policy and in purges that this is not its Labour party. Not the right, which will never be at home in Labour, no matter how many people it deports or how much capital it courts. And not the centre any more, for which Starmer’s incompetence and lurching from one debacle to the next is becoming increasingly hard to rationalise.

His constiturncy appears to be himself.  

Another One Of Those 'Isolated Incidents'.

A man who was fatally stabbed in a triple stabbing in Croydon was named by detectives as his family spoke of their heartbreak. A murder investigation has been launched after 22-year-old Lorik Abazi was killed in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Just another day in Mayor Khan's London, as our wonderful enrichment kills each other off with depressing regularity, and the police do their best to sweep it under the carpet, so as not to frighten the tourists. 

Police were called to Hesterman Way at around 1.15am following reports of a stabbing. Three men with stab wounds were attended to at the scene, but despite best efforts from the London Ambulance, Mr Abazi died at hospital.Two other men stabbed in the incident, both aged 21, were also taken to hospital. They have since both been arrested on suspicion of affray. One man has potentially life-threatening injuries in hospital, while the other has been taken into police custody. In total seven people have now been arrested.

Just don't mention the gang war!  

“I know a tragic incident like this will concern people locally. We believe this to have been an isolated incident and I hope the fact we have a number of suspects in custody provides some reassurance to people in Croydon. We have increased patrols in the local area and I would ask anyone with concerns to speak to my officers.”

There's an awful lot of these so-called 'isolated incidents'... 

Only Effective If They Are The Type Used In The Ukraine War

Specialist pilots are to deploy drones to catch crime gangs fly-tipping waste in London and other parts of the country. The team of 33 pilots will use 54 unmanned aircraft fitted with laser mapping technology to track from the air illegal waste dumps in the South East and other regions.

Unles it's given these types of drones it's doomed to failure:

London has the highest rate of fly-tipping in the country, according to recent data, at more than twice the English average, with Croydon the worst affected borough.

Really? Worse than my own dear borough, where I cannot walk the 10 minutes to the local station without seeing the overnight activities of my diverse and enriching 'neighbours'?

Ugh...

  

The new Environment Agency (EA) squad will target criminal gangs behind large-scale waste dumping rather than individuals involved in opportunistic and smaller scale fly-tipping.

So, ignoring the 'Broken Windows' effect that did so much to clean up New York, before the idiot Democrats went and elected someone who turned it back into a crimeridden literal shithole again? 

Officers from the agency will also be able to swiftly scan and cross-check lorry licence applications against waste permit records, using a new screening tool.

It's staggering that this is a new thing, and not something implimented from the get -go. 

Now I'm Even More Eager To See It Open...

Pro-Palestine vandals daubed the words 'Free Gaza' and threw red paint over a newly opened branch of Gail's, as activists accused the bakery chain of 'funding Israel'.

I will spend SO MUCH here...

I've been eagerly waiting  this branch's opening day to open in Stratford where I work, as I love the one in Wanstead (the cheese & chive scones are better than I can make myself!) and the news I'll be sticking it to the mad Paeleostinian supporters will make the lunchtime coffee and cake even sweeter!

Gail's has previously faced accusations of being Israel-owned or backing Israel's 'war machine'. The chain was founded as a wholesaler in the 1990s by Israeli baker Gail Mejia and was rapidly expanded by Israeli entrepreneur Ran Avidan from 2005 - but both are no longer linked to the business. It is today owned by Pizza Express entrepreneur Luke Johnson and American investment firm Bain Capital. Bain was among 500 other venture capital firms that signed a letter in support of Israel following the Hamas terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023, and it has investments in Israel, including in AI, cybersecurity and software companies.

Not that that will matter to the insane people in this activist group domestic terrorist group one little bit!  

A spokesperson told The Guardian in 2024: 'Gail's is a UK-based business with no specific connections to any country or government outside of the UK and does not fund Israel.'

Shame.  

It's Also Very, Very Easy Not To .. Millions of Children Manage It!

Jodian remembers her son as a happy child, eager to learn, but she suspected something was wrong when Daejaun's behaviour changed in his early teens. She believes friends from secondary school introduced Daejaun to older boys who, in turn, groomed him into selling drugs. It can be all too easy for teenagers in inner city areas to get involved in this lifestyle, says Michael Jibowu, a former gang member from Woolwich.

The description of recruiting into a gang being described as 'grooming' crops up a lot in these stories lately. Is it because it absolves the perpetrator of responsibility, I wonder?

"Imagine being a young boy and you want to make money. The drug dealers are about, they have cars, they have chains, they have watches," he says. "It's very, very easy to get involved in selling drugs... Sometimes you can say literally nothing and they will approach you.

Then isn’t the appropriate response to continue saying nothing until they give up and go away? 

"Daejaun always wanted to be wealthy, says Jodian. She remembers telling him he had to find ways of making money legitimately: "But then you find that the influence on the outside was greater than mine."

Then you managed to raise a child with no morals. 

Daejaun had made a choice, she says, but adults were exploiting him for their own financial gain.

Of course, it couldn’t possibly be that you raised a defective child, could it? Perish the thought! It must have been outside influences that did it! These people never admit to their own responsibility in anything! 

Not that there isn't a lot of blame for the supposed 'authorities' who have swallowed the 'ethnicity equals victimhood' tropes.

In 2023, Jodian raised her concerns with his school, Woolwich Polytechnic for Boys. It arranged counselling for Daejaun and asked Greenwich Council to provide help for the family. However, Jodian says she remains critical of the school for not sharing important information with her about who Daejaun was mixing with. Some of his friends had been barred from school grounds, but the school did not tell Jodian why. She says she later found out it was because of their links to drug distribution and weapons.

Shocker!  

Woolwich Polytechnic's head of safeguarding, Jo Lumbis, says: "I wouldn't have been able to tell her about the drugs and the knives because that child is entitled to confidentiality. I can't give that information to parents."

I think you may need to rethink your title, Jo, if your concern is all for the privacy of future knife-wielding hoodlums...

Many experts believe the system for dealing with child criminal exploitation is not working properly at present, and children are slipping through the cracks.

Undoubtedly, but let's nor ignore the effect of poor parenting, or no parenting. It's a shame we don't hear from the boy's father in this article, after all. 

Ooh! Oooh! I Can Guess The Answer!

 And I'll have to, as it's behind a paywall.

Could it possibly be 'We stopped doing this' and started dieting..?

Wildlife Campaigners: 'No, Starve Them Instead, It's More Humane'

Culling deer in England will be made easier under a long-awaited government 10-year plan to deal with a population explosion that threatens woodlands, newly planted trees and farmland.The government has unveiled a deer management strategy that will identify priority culling areas and make it easier to carry out licensed night-time and closed-season shooting. Farmers could also be given new legal rights to shoot them to protect their crops.

At last, a sensible and wortehile government decision. Who could possibly object? 

But some animal welfare campaigners said culling was inhumane and not effective in the long term.

Oh. Of course!  

🙄

...a spokeswoman for the animal rights campaign group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said that culling wild deer would not resolve the problem of overpopulation. "Removing deer from the landscape doesn't stop their numbers from rebounding, and, in many cases, a temporary reduction in population leaves more food available per animal, which can increase breeding rates in the survivors," she said.Instead, PETA called for "humane and sustainable" options to be used, including habitat modification, appropriate fencing and limiting access to artificial food sources.

So it's more humane to slowly starve them to death than it is to cleanly shoot them? Well, I suppose that's the sort of 'logic' you can expect from an organisation that's studiously ignored halal and kosher slaughter...

H&S is an issue too:

More than 74,000 deer are involved in collisions with vehicles each year, killing between 10 and 20 people and injuring more than 700, according to the RSPCA.

And don't forget, this is a crisis that has no downside, unless you're a vegetarian: 

The government said it also wanted to promote and support a domestic market for the venison from culled deer, including pushing for more to be bought and served up by schools, prisons and hospitals.

Why 'push' - legislate!  

Coming Over Here, Picking The Pockets Our Home Grown Artful Dodgers Won't Pick....

A Chilean pickpocket who preyed on Tube commuters was caught carrying a contactless card reader in the first case of its kind. Daniel Maldonado Paulson, 35, had only been in the UK for two weeks when he carried out his “ghost tapping” crime spree at South Kensington London Underground station.

Hurrah! Isn't it nice to read a 'good news story' about crime in London for once?  

Plain-clothes British Transport Police spotted Maldonado Paulson scouting the Piccadilly line for victims at 7.30pm on February 7. They swooped when the thief displayed behaviour typical of a professional pickpocket and stopped him on the platform.As police escorted him up the escalator, Maldonado Paulson attempted to flee but was subsequently arrested and handcuffed. He was found to have Sophie Halford’s £1,300 phone which had been reported stolen just 20 minutes earlier and an electronic card reading device.

They haven't said exactly how this worked so presumably, they don't want to encourage copycats. 

The handset was returned to Ms Halford just two hours after Maldonado Paulson took it.

Lucky lady. Let's hope the courts did their part!  

At Westminster Magistrates’ Court on February 13, Maldonado Paulson pleaded guilty to two counts of handling stolen goods and resisting arrest by PC Alison Levi. The defendant, of Alvey Street, Southwark, was jailed for six months.

*sigh* 

Well, I Suppose They Did At Least Get The Species And Breed Right This Time...

 ..which, let's face it. is good going for this particular member of the MSM!

Germiran Bryson, 26, showed up at Las Vegas’ Harry Reid International Airport with her two-year-old goldendoodle earlier this month, only to be turned away when she didn’t have the proper paperwork to bring the pup aboard as a service animal.

*sighs* A two year old dog is in no sense 'a puppy'... 

Sunday Funnies...

 Frankly, I often do think that, no matter the film...

Not Entirely Due To The Technology, Rhett

Last week, Rhett Reese, the co-writer of Deadpool & Wolverine, Zombieland and Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, said “it’s likely over for us” after watching a widely disseminated AI-generated clip featuring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting.

He added: “In next to no time, one person is going to be able to sit at a computer and create a movie indistinguishable from what Hollywood now releases....

Is that not in part because what Hollywood releases these days is mostly garbage?

...True, if that person is no good, it will suck. But if that person possesses Christopher Nolan’s talent and taste (and someone like that will rapidly come along), it will be tremendous.”

Why wouldn't someone with that talent work in Hollywood - is it because he is shut out for having the wrong opinions and only welcomed in if he professes to have changed?

The first iteration of Seedance launched in June last year. The Motion Picture Association, the Hollywood trade association that represents studios such as Paramount, Warner Bros and Netflix, accused ByteDance of “unauthorised use of US copyrighted works on a massive scale”. The actors’ union Sag-Aftra has accused Seedance of “blatant infringement”.

They are worried. Mainly because their closed shop is threatened. Good!   

Unforseen Consequences

Sir Keir Starmer issued a direct plea to London parents to get their children vaccinated against measles as health chiefs were scrambling to contain a “big outbreak” in the north of the capital. The Prime Minister’s intervention highlighted how worried the Government is about the outbreak in Enfield.

And they are right to be, but it’s a disaster entirely of their own making, no matter what they want you to believe. 

Taking a swipe at Nigel Farage’s Reform UK for giving a stage to a doctor who wrongly claimed Covid jabs were linked to cancers affecting the King and Princess of Wales, the PM added: “Public health isn’t a culture war.

 It became one when you acquiesced in the government of the day’s plan to lock down the entire country for a flu variant, and encouraged everyone to get ineffective jabs to ‘combat’ it.

“It’s about keeping our communities safe.

 Which ‘communities’ are these anyway? Remember when the UK only had the one to worry about? 

Health minister Stephen Kinnock stressed that the Government was “very concerned” about the big outbreak in north London.“Our country expects its leaders to stand firmly behind science to protect our children, not to give oxygen to conspiracy theories.”

Dismissing discredited claims of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, he stressed that the jab was “completely safe in terms of the science”.

Yeah, science, from the people that believe women can have penises and men can, if they take hormones, grow a cervix! It is to laugh!

'National Emergencies' Aren't What They Used To Be...

Deepfake nudes and “revenge porn” must be removed from the internet within 48 hours or technology firms risk being blocked in the UK, Keir Starmer has said, calling it a “national emergency” that the government must confront.

Really? Pictures are a 'national emergency'? Even admittedly fake ones, or ones supplied by the 'victim' themselves? Don't we have real life things to worry about? 

Of course, they have to get this through the Commons, and then the Lords, first: 

Companies could be fined millions or even blocked altogether if they allow the images to spread or be reposted after victims give notice.Amendments will be made to the crime and policing bill to also regulate AI chatbots such as X’s Grok, which generated nonconsensual images of women in bikinis or in compromising positions until the government threatened action against Elon Musk’s company.

WE all know the real reason why thin-sknned Starmer has it in for social media, don't we Reader?  

The prime minister said that institutional misogyny being “woven into the fabric of our institutions” meant the problem had not been taken seriously enough. “Too often, misogyny is excused, minimised or ignored. The arguments of women are dismissed as exaggerated or ‘one-offs’. That culture creates permission,” Starmer wrote.

So, Starmer, what are you planning to do about Hampshire Police?  Or would the answer be 'Nothing, because it's not linked to social media'? 

Oh Look, It's The Consequences Of Our Actions Once Again!

 How it started: 

How it's going: 

Just once, I'd like the conseqences to fall on those ptoposing something, and not on everyone else. 

"a childish escapade that got out of hand very quickly"

A 16-year-old girl and 15-year-old boy were cleared of murdering Alexander Cashford, 49, but convicted of the secondary charge of manslaughter at Woolwich crown court. The attack took place in Leysdown-on-Sea on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent on 10 August last year after Cashford had given his phone number to the girl two days earlier. A 16-year-old boy who was also involved in the attack previously pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

The three defendants cannot be legally named because of their ages.

 Old enough to plan to ambush a man and set about him, leading to his death, yet still 'vulnerable children' im the eyes of our ludicrous legal system...

The court heard that the three teenagers exchanged messages with Cashford using the alias Sienna after he had met the 16-year-old girl at an amusement arcade and given her a business card with a fake name.The teenagers arranged to meet him at the seafront in Leysdown-on-Sea at about 7pm, the court was told, before following him as he walked along the promenade with the girl.

Copying, it would appear, the internet notoriety of the so-called 'paedophile hunters', who have set themselves up to catch the Third World predators our police farces don't seem interested in stopping. 

During his evidence, the older boy was asked if, in the immediate aftermath – before they were arrested or discovered Cashford had died – he had thought he had “done the right thing” by attacking him. The boy replied: “Yeah, kind of, yeah.” When asked why, he said: “Because I feel like the police wouldn’t have done anything.”

A chilling indictment of modern youth, and also, may I suggest, how the forces of authority have failed us all? 

The three teenagers are expected to be sentenced in April.

And no-one will face any censure for the failures of society that put them in the dock, and Mr Cashford in a grave.  

So You Think It's Easy To Defend Against Online Harms?

Sir Keir Starmer will today say he is stepping up Government action to protect children online amid growing pressure for him to ban under-16s from social media. The Prime Minister will vow that no social media or internet platform will get a 'free pass' when it comes to children's safety.

Even though the Pakistani rape gangs all did?  

Ministers will also look at ways to prevent children using VPNs - which can bypass age verification systems - to access pornography. And they will consider measures to preserve phone data in tragic cases where online activity is suspected of being involved in a child's death.

They haven’t a clue, have they? If an adult gives a child in their house permission to use a VPN, what can the government do about it? Why do they even consider it their business? Especially considering they mandate VPNs for the public sector when WFH...

The PM said last night: 'As a dad of two teenagers, I know the challenges and the worries that parents face making sure their kids are safe online. 

'Technology is moving really fast, and the law has got to keep up. With my government, Britain will be a leader not a follower when it comes to online safety.

Which is why you immediately jumped on Australia's social media ban for under 16's without even waiting a few months to see how (or if) it worked?  

'We are acting to protect children's wellbeing and help parents to navigate the minefield of social media.'

IF you genuinely cared about children’s welfare, would you have locked them up for a year under Covid and imported infinity Third World migrants to compete with them for scant (and ever dwindling) social resources?  

What’s More Niche Than Niche?

The manosphere is back (Ed: Did it ever go away, then?), and we’ve lost mainstream feminist websites such as Teen Vogue; bigots everywhere are celebrating what they see as the death of “woke”. Put it all together and we have a dismal stew of doom for someone like me, a queer woman and a feminist who’s been a games journalist and critic since 2007.

Perhaps because your immediate focus is on what you are, as opposed to what you do...?  

In the mid-2010s, I worked for a small “geek girl” feminist website called the Mary Sue, and it was a unique pleasure to write very specific articles for a very specific audience. The Mary Sue relied on advertising income, which meant that all of us had to write up to six articles every weekday; there wasn’t time to spend on investigative reporting, for example, or long-form critical essays. I’m still proud of what we achieved, despite the intensity of those working conditions, not to mention the amount of harassment we faced just for existing.

'Harassment' no doubt limited to people's refusal to read said website? 

Later, I left the Mary Sue and went on to work for Kotaku and then Polygon, both huge games websites where I was writing for broader audiences, rather than the hyper-specific one we catered to at the Mary Sue.

Both huge games websites thst were once readable, but are now shadows of their former selves, conquered as they have been by the identity politics crowd,  

But then, in the summer of 2025, my then-employer Polygon underwent a mass layoff and acquisition. We went from a staff of 42 people to just eight. After a particularly disheartening video call with our website’s new owners, I realised I was going to have to quit.

The only surprise was she disn't leap into a cozy spot at Reactormag. Another publication that seems to hire mostly people unable to sublimate their political leanings and personal sexual hang-ups long enough to do their job.

Another one of my colleagues at Polygon – Zoe Hannah, games editor – quit as well, for similar reasons. She hit me up with an idea she had for a feminist games website. “You should do it,” I told her. And then I sat there for a moment and thought about it. No, we should do it!

I believe our website is a necessity in our current political climate. It should have existed before, when I and millions of other girls who grew up playing games were made to feel out of place by media and advertising that was laser-focused on teenage boys. But it’s not too late for me to make sure it exists now.

Well, I wish you luck. You're gonna need it!  

Well, THIS Will Need A Very Specialised Team...

                                             

Who could possibly take this one on? 

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph and the wee donkey"

Most Of Us Don't Fall For This, Emma

When did food become medicine? There’s all the pseudoscientific supplementary stuff, but even normal food has started to feel functional, mere units of nutrition. A tally runs in my head of things I “need” to eat: am I getting enough oats, beans, leafy greens? What about nuts?

The edible sort, or your equally neurotic fellow columnists at the 'Guardian', Emma? 

I’m not sure I remember what I actually enjoy eating any more. I’m certain no one on earth enjoys eating flaxseeds – they have all the personality of polystyrene packaging chips – but I choke them down daily, for my cholesterol and gut health.

Then more fool you!  

A twentysomething man I know told me he knows the protein content of every food, which conjures the spectre of the generations of women unable to erase calorie counts from their brains. We’re making food a source of anxiety, not enjoyment.

I refuse to belive any  normal red-blooded chap would, but then I realise the sort of circles Emma likely runs in... 

It’s a luxury problem...for those with means, dietary neurosis is whipped up and egged on by companies and influencers, convincing us we need “immunity shots”, “brain food” packs and protein bars.

Indeed it is, most of us look askance at this sort of ultra-processed crap and wouldn't eat it if we could afford to.

Could we stop seeing eating as another way to self-optimise and remember it’s a daily joy? With Lent coming up, I’ve decided to observe what I’m calling “anti-Lent”. I’ll be giving up consuming anxiety-inducing nutritional content and instead eating food I love every day. It definitely won’t include sea moss.

Congratulations on joining the majority of people at last!  

Remember When Newspapers Felt A Duty To Inform Their Readership?

A 51-year-old Suffolk woman's appeal against an 18 month ban for drink driving has been upheld at Ipswich Crown Court.

Oh?  They are usually pretty open and shut - what grounds was her appeal made on?

Nicola Charalambous, of Folly Road, Mildenhall had been found guilty of drink driving and driving without due care and attention at Suffolk Magistrates' Court on Wednesday, October 8.However, at an appeal hearing on Friday (February 6), prosecutors withdrew their evidence against her meaning she has been cleared of the charges and her driving ban has been overturned.

 Hmm, suspicious, or what? Shame there's no...oh, what did they used to call them...*snaps fingers...* reporters, that was it! to tell us. 

In addition to being disqualified from driving for 18 months, Charalambous was also fined £180 and ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £144, plus £650 in costs.

Does she get those refunded? We shall never know, if we rely on local newspapers...

H/T : Dave Ward via email

It's Not Just The Muslims!

Campaigners are calling on theatre bosses to stop serving bacon, sausages and ham in their cafes...

Whut?  The usual suspects? No, Reader, and yes.

...at least while Peppa Pig and her family are performing in the same building.

Oh, for god's sake! What happened to people who once did this in response to stupid demands from lunatics? 

 This is how you should have dealt with PETA! 

Grimsby Auditorium in Lincolnshire said this week it would remove pork from the menu when Peppa Pig’s Big Family Show opens next month, after a request from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta UK). The campaign group is sending the venue vegan ham as an alternative. Jennifer White, an associate director at Peta, welcomed the decision, saying she hoped it would remind people “that all pigs are individuals with personalities and not body parts to be chopped up”.

They are both, actually. 

The auditorium told Peta it would remove pork products from the Stage Door cafe menu as a “considerate gesture” during the show’s run on 3-4 March.

Why? Why not tell these charlatans - who kill more animals than anyone - to sit and spin if they don't like it?  

In November, Peta said it had persuaded Chichester Festival theatre to drop pork products from its menus during a run of The Three Little Pigs.

Ah. Because yet more spineless arty types encouraged them... 

So Many Long Names..

Police have charged four people with the murder of a 17-year-old boy in a village in south Wales. Officers were called to Lower Francis Street in Abertridwr, Caerphilly, at about 17:45 GMT on Thursday after reports a teenage boy from the village had sustained a serious injury. He was declared dead at the scene and later named as Tristan Shae Kerr.

What a good old fashioned small Welsh village name, eh, Reader? As for the 'serious injury' it was caused by a zombie knife.

Three men, aged 18, 24 and 26, and one woman, 24, are being held in custody and will appear at Newport Magistrates' Court on Monday, Gwent Police said.

Are any of those called Jones or Evans, I wonder?  (Ed: no,Ricardo Elliot, 26, Connor Palfrey, 24, Elexi Manny, 24, and 18-year-old Georgie Mears). And neither are the authorities:

"We understand that there has been a great deal of interest in this investigation," senior investigating officer Det Ch Insp Jitka Tomkova-Griffiths said. "However we would ask people not to speculate about the identities of those involved," she continued.

It seems Wales is in danger of a severe hyphen shortage.  

It seems feelings are running high, judging by this rather cryptic comment. 

Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke (Ed: !!) told the court that it was "vital" for court proceedings not to be interrupted. "I am well aware that feelings ran high when this case went before magistrates' court [on Monday]," she said.

Another one to watch.  

I Love Modern Twists On Old Fairy Tales...

...and so, it seems, does Matt! 

I Beg Your Pardon?

                                 

The term is 'hangdog'....

Sunday Funnies...

 No 9 is just applying the same rules as Narnia....

Happy 30th Birthday, Little Japanese Time Sink!

During the first wave of Pokémania in the late 90s, Pokémon was viewed with suspicion by most adults. Now that the first generation of Pokémaniacs have grown up, even becoming parents ourselves, we see it for what it is: an imaginative, challenging and really rather wholesome series of games that rewards every hour that children devote to it.

And even those who didn't grow up with it (as I was never a console kid, but rather a PC gamer), now feel the call and like me, take a day off work and travel to the Excel Centre in London to take part in mega-events like The 2026 EUIC.

Over the three decades since the original Red and Blue (or Green, in Asia) versions of the video game were released in Japan in 1996, Pokémon has earned a place among the greats of children’s fiction. Like Harry Potter, the Famous Five and Narnia, it offers a powerful fantasy of self-determination, set in a world almost totally free of adult supervision. In every game, your mother sends you out into the world with a rucksack and a kiss goodbye; after that, it’s all on you.

 No kidding! 

It was designed from the beginning to be a social game, encouraging (and indeed necessitating) that players traded and battled with each other to complete their collection of virtual creatures and train their teams up into super-squads. Today, the internet has entirely normalised the idea of video games as social activities, but in the late 90s this was a novel idea.

Not for us PC gamers, of course, we had MMORPGs like Ultima Online and Everquest...but for the console kids, hooking up to a fellow player's machine - via physical cable! - to play co-op or evolve a 'mon was revolutionary!

But it hasn't all been smooth sailing... 

Today, Tajiri is a reclusive figure. Almost everything we know about him comes from a single 1999 interview with Time magazine. The tone of Time’s piece is shockingly dismissive. Declaring the series “a pestilential Ponzi scheme” it describes the “delinquent” and “criminal” behaviour of young Pokémon fans, and the moral bankruptcy of the whole craze – which, it comforts, is likely to peter out soon, like it did for the Power Rangers. Now that Pokémon has become one of the most enduring and successful entertainment properties of all time, this alarmist attitude seems ridiculous. But the scaremongering was very real.

Thankfully I missed all that, as it was 2016's smartphone accessible 'Pokemon Go' that hooked me in, followed by my first ever console (barring a Playstation 2 I bought to play Cabelas's Hunting games and soon ended up using as a DVD player), the Switch, and recently the much more powerful Switch 2. 

Perhaps understandably, given the disrespectful and, presumably, hurtful tone of that Time interview, and the moral panic that Pokémania unwittingly ignited, Satoshi Tajiri has shunned the limelight ever since. Now 60, he remains at Game Freak and is still involved in the creation of each new Pokémon game (as of 2025, there are 38 in total), though he reportedly stepped back from day-to-day development in 2012.

They haven't all been winners, the most recent, 'Pokemon ZA' changing the combat to real time rather than turn based didn't sit too well with older less nimble-fingered players like me, but the upcoming 'Pokopia' (which I got a chance to play a demo of yesterday at EUIC) looks far more my idea of a cosy and relaxing game to pick up after work.

Pokémon’s story speaks to an important truth about video games: they are a powerful vector for connection between people. Millions are united by these imaginary creatures, born from one boy’s love of the natural world.

Indeed so. If any of those 'Time' writers are still around I hope they now realise just how wrong they were. 

FULL SPEED AHEAD....

 ...AND DAMN THE TORPEDOES*! 

* Sadly, Reader, there are no torpedoes. Nothing can seemingly prevent this dead-on-its-feet government from fatally wounding the country as it thrashes around in its death throes...

The Judicial System Of Great Britain - Protecting The Rights Of UK Citizens?

No, not really.

Pakistani national Sheraz Malik, 28, was found guilty of raping a 'vulnerable' teenage girl whom he and a friend pounced on in a park in the constituency of Reform MP Lee Anderson. Mr Anderson first exposed Malik as an asylum seeker last year after he was arrested for targeting the 18-year-old woman when she was alone in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire.

But a judge stopped the public from being told about the rapist's asylum status by gagging the Press from reporting it until the end of his trial, it can now be revealed.

A jury on Monday convicted Malik of two counts of rape after just a few hours of deliberation at Birmingham Crown Court.

Who imposed the order? One of those 'diverse' judges we were told we desperately needed to 'improve' our justice system, of course: 

At a hearing at Nottingham Crown Court in September, Judge Nirmal Shant imposed a reporting restriction postponing publication of Malik's immigration status until the end of the trial, to avoid a 'substantial risk of prejudice to the administration of justice'.

But don’t focus all your opprobium on her, Reader, the old white male judges are really no better:  

In court Malik was asked why he took advantage of the victim, and replied: 'What else was I supposed to do?' Asked how he arrived in Europe, Malik protested that the question was not relevant – prompting Judge Simon Ash to intervene and side with the defendant.

Malik will be sentenced at a later date.

The entire edifice needs sweeping out like the Augean Stables. For the same reason.

Boy, Was Joe Jackson Right...!

"Don't you know that it's different for girls?"

Harry Potter being a work for children, about children, starring children. Good grief, If a male star had reported that he employed a Hermoine Granger stripper at his stag do, we'd all be looking for his name to pop up in the Epstein Files.

Margot said: 'So we all had a weekend in London when the job was done. And of course, we went to Infernos, and within about 15 minutes, we got kicked out. 

'And while we're getting dragged out by security, I was screaming, “but this is Infernos, you can’t get kicked out of Infernos.” 

'And the bouncer was like, “Look, we allow most things, but when your friend does [redacted], then we kick you out”. 

And I was like, “okay, fair enough!”' Margot did not reveal what her friend had done to alert security, but went on to admit: 'Most of the clubs in Clapham, I'd say, have kicked us out.

Ugh. Am I the only one that wishes we could go back to the times when movie studios employed people to ensure the public didn't find out their stars were degenerates? 

Bet You Won't See The Elites Eating It Though...

“If we’re going to address the world’s insatiable craving for animal meat, we’re going to have to replace like for like.” That means cultivating meat from cells in brewery-like factories or making taste-identical plant-based meats. In both cases, for people to buy them, the products must also cost the same or less than conventional meat.

In most cases, for people to buy them, you'd have to hold a gun to their head. Or maybe that's just me?  

These alternative proteins are the electric vehicles (EVs) of food, Friedrich says; the same experience, but better: “Just like a car doesn’t now need a combustion engine, a phone doesn’t need a cord, and you can take pictures without film, you can make meat without the need for live animals.”

It's Frankenfood. I suppose it's a natural progression from the 'science' that seems to believe it's possible to change women into men and vice versa. 

But such progress will require governments to ramp up their support for the scientists overcoming the obstacles in this still-embryonic field. They have done it before for previous transformative technologies, from penicillin to the internet to renewable energy, Friedrich says.

All vastly useful inventions, that had no viable alternative at the time, or like this, did but it suited governments and lobbyists to pretend the viable alternative had become problematic.  

If China went all-in for example, he says, conventional meat could be all but history by mid-century: “They took EV sales [at home] from 1% to more than 50% in the 10 years to 2025, and that’s a tougher tech challenge and scaling challenge than alternative meats.”

China? You're pinning your hopes on China?! The population of which eats everything with wings that isn't a airplane, and everything that with four legs that isn't a table? Well, good luck with that!

Friedrich is a compelling advocate for his goal of ending industrial agriculture, with answers for the many criticisms: “It’s just a shockingly inefficient way of producing food. It takes nine calories of crops to get one calorie of chicken, 10 or 11 calories of crops to get one calorie of pig meat or farmed fish and 40 to 100 calories of crops to get one calorie of beef.”

That's industrial factory farming. But - for example -  lamb and goat can be produced on land that is useless for any other type of food production.

Frequently raised is the “yuck factor” of cultivated meat. This is overblown, Friedrich says. “People are not eating meat because of how it’s produced,” he says. “They’re eating meat because it’s delicious and affordable. All of the polling indicates significant enthusiasm for cultivated meat, especially among people who eat the most meat.”

Who are you polling, Friedrich ? Is it the people who are expected to eat this? Because, let's face it, this stuff isn't going to be on the menu at Davos or the Oscars, is it? 

I Find It A Perfectly Acceptable Risk...

 ...and so, I suspect, would most people: 

Requiring transgender prisoners to be held in jails matching their sex at birth would breach their human rights and create an unacceptable risk of suicide, a court has been told.

Oh, well...the suicide risk for those not in prison is pretty high too, due to their mental condition,  so *shrug* 

The case follows a Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman in equalities law in April last year. The Scottish government insists it respects that judgement - but said it did not override the need to uphold the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

The sooner we elect Reform and junk this bloody thing, the better!  

The Scottish government's KC, Gerry Moynihan, said the ECHR meant transgender people had the right to live their lives in their acquired gender. He added there had long been recognition in the UK that this included the right to be held in prisons aligning with that.

He said trans women also had vulnerabilities and needs, and the government's judgement was they were best dealt with in the female estate "assuming they don't pose risks to others". He said this offered them "protection against mental health difficulties and the route to rehabilitation," noting that a "trans woman will return to the community as a trans woman".

They will return to the community a man, because that's what they are and what they always will be... 

O'Neill told the court on Tuesday that there was "incredible sensitivity" to the rights, dignity and privacy of trans people, while the rights of "incredibly vulnerable" female prisoners were not factored in. He said the government wanted to retain the flexibility to put "a totally non-violent trans-identifying man" in the women's estate but questioned why female prisoners had to "bear the risk" of this and act as "human shields". O'Neill continued: "What is required is the preservation of women's only spaces. 

"All I am interested in, because of the situation of women, is the preservation of women's dignity, security and sense of safety vis a vis men - that's all."

Spot on. How have we come to this as a nation? Still, we are at least marginally ahead of the open air asylum that is Canada: 

Van Rootselaar was understood to have used his mother's name, Strang, socially and at school. He was named by Royal Canadian Mounted Police on Wednesday and described as a woman.

But he wasn't.  

Amid questions over how Van Rootselaar was described in alerts, McDonald said police “identified the suspect as they chose to be identified” in public and in social media.

The Trans 'community'  is reacting with all the decorum you would expect from a crowd of narcissitic men in frocks, of course:

                            

 

Perhaps French Children Have Changed..?

In French culture, seven is known as “l’âge de raison”, the age at which children know right from wrong and can take some moral responsibility. France’s national rail operator, it seems, puts the age at which a child can be trusted to behave in a non-annoying way onboard a train a bit higher.

Well, yes. 

In launching its new Optimum plus tariff earlier this month, offering spaces onboard its weekday TGV trains between Paris and Lyon with bigger, more comfortable seats, fancy food and no under-12s, SNCF was trying to appeal to the many business travellers who make that journey.

Perish the thought! Unusually for the 'Guardian', who usually feels there's no desire so niche that it shouldn't be satisfied, the desire to not have your work commute enlivened by unruly brats is considered beyond the pale, and they found a columnist who agrees. 

But the move has sparked a backlash and a philosophical debate about the place of children in society, against the backdrop of a worrying decline in French birthrates. “We can’t on one hand say that we are not having enough children and on the other hand try to exclude them from everywhere,” argues Sarah El Haïry, France’s high commissioner for childhood.

And the name of the high commissioner is itself a clue to the social change, I suspect...

SNCF’s move was certainly a surprising one in a country that has a reputation for being family-friendly and respecting children’s right to take part in the rituals of everyday life, starting with the elaborate three-course meals they are served in school canteens. My own half-French children, growing up in Paris, have had customs such as politely greeting neighbours and shop workers drilled into them from babyhood, not to mention sitting patiently in a restaurant and chacun son tour (taking turns) on the swings in the park.

Perhaps the influx of 'new French' don't feel the same obligation that you felt to adapt to the social mores of their new homeland. 

A society that cannot bear the presence of children is “worrying”, El Haïry argues. The former minister has spoken out before about the “no kids” trend, whereby restaurants and hotels are increasingly targeting child-free grownups who are seeking peace and quiet and have deep pockets.

Is it because they have acquired a loathing of well-behaved children with their fortunes? Or is it because well behaved children are no longer the norm? 

One To Watch...

Police have seized two dogs in Havering following a distressing incident in Raphael Park where a two-year-old girl was injured and required hospital treatment. The incident has caused significant concern among local families and park users, with officers confirming that enquiries are ongoing.

The mutts were initially identified as Cane Corsos, but they turned out to be rottweilers...with a reputation in the area for past attacks. As always, social media fills in the blanks:

Not the usual chav with a vicious dog if he gave his details, though of course he didn't wait around for the police.

Well, well, well. Wonder why the police haven't acted before? 

Oh. Never mind. 

Then Make Them Personally Accountable

The family of a 15-year-old boy who was stabbed to death at school by another pupil has said her son’s murder was “senseless and avoidable” and that a report ordered by the school showed too many “red flags” were missed.

Thisis, of course, the family of Harvey Willgoose, stabbed to death by an enricher at his school. One with the now-expected history of poor behaviour that was no doubt excused by well meaning liberal teaching stagg on account of his race.

“I’m determined that no other family should be sitting in court listening to how their child was killed, have to read a report that lays bare how their child could have been protected. I want to use my voice for Harvey’s memory to push for real change.”

Such as? 

There needed, she said, to be better record-keeping and training in schools nationally. The family have called the report “damning” and said it should be published in full so other schools can learn from mistakes that were made.

You don’t think enough mistakes have been made that they should have already learned from, then? I certainly do. 

Yogi Amin, the head of public law and human rights at Irwin Mitchell, which represents Harvey’s family, said the review had identified “weaknesses in leadership”, failure to implement national policy and “serious shortcomings in record-keeping that meant weapons-related concerns and escalating behaviours were not acted upon effectively”.

Maybe start asking why they weren’t? 

Maria Turner, Harvey’s grandmother, said “all the red flags were missed” including one, she said, that identified 130 incidents in Khan’s records which included “violence, weapons, gangs and anger … and the school did not seem to pick up on this”.

Caroline Willgoose and her family are now campaigning for all schools to install knife arches to help prevent another stabbing.

Yes, by all means, let’s start installing elephant proof gates on our schools but never, ever address the elephant in the room, oh dear me no. 

Another Choirboy, I Presume..?

A 15-year-old boy has been accused of attacking a female teacher with a kitchen knife after asking for help with work, a court heard. A schoolboy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, allegedly launched the assault on the teacher at Milford Haven Comprehensive School on Thursday afternoon.

And if the court refuses MSM applications to name him after conviction, we'll never know..

He was charged with attempted murder, grievous bodily harm, and possession of a bladed article on education premises. He was remanded into youth detention over the weekend and will appear at Swansea Crown Court on February 9.

What the hell is going on in our schools? And our country?  

Once Again, The Scottish Government Is Preferable To Westminster's Lack Of Foresight...

Swift bricks will be installed in all new buildings in Scotland after the Scottish parliament voted in favour of a law to help endangered cavity-nesting birds.The Scottish government and MSPs across the parties backed an amendment by Scottish Green Mark Ruskell to make swift bricks mandatory for all new dwellings “where reasonably practical and appropriate”.

Fot once, a sensible and unobtrusive policy from the Greens, one that will benefit the environment with little to no drawbacks. Why can't we have it here? 

Because, Reader, our government is once again proven utterly useless:  

The swift move contrasts with the four-year battle to bring the hollow £35 bricks into law in England. The Labour government last year rejected an amendment to make the bricks mandatory for new buildings, instead introducing them into planning guidance, meaning there is no legal obligation on developers or planning authorities to provide them.

And Wales too, another Labour stronghold, followed suit. 

The Welsh government rejected swift bricks last year, arguing that developers could use the bricks to argue they were meeting “net benefit for biodiversity” requirements without providing other nature-positive measures.

So rather than applaud the nature-positive thing they were doing, the dog-in-a-manger morons in Wales chose to focus on the things they weren't doing? Sounds about right.

In Gibraltar, an important point on the swifts’ seasonal flyway between Europe and sub-Saharan Africa, swift bricks have helped populations recover. Prof John Cortes, the environment minister of Gibraltar, said: “Scotland’s decision on swift bricks is a significant step in ensuring the survival of this species, which has come to depend so much on us. On the ‘Rock’ we have had this policy for several decades and we have seen a declining population of swifts first stabilise and then increase.”

Shortsightedness from Westminster is clearly to be expected.  

We Found A Real One!

A 'talented footballer', that is...

'One of his main passions was football, and he had played since the age of four. He was an Arsenal supporter, and we believe he was on his way home to watch the game later that night when he was stabbed and killed.

So typically 2026. As was the unnecessary coyness from the authorities about the reason for the overwhelming police presence and road closures.

And of course, while the MSM was still in bed, Twitter was making the predictions and getting them right:

A post-mortem examination showed that Oladipo died from a stab wound to his chest. Harper Dennis, 18, of North Road, West Drayton, London, has been charged with Oladipo's murder and with the possession of an offensive weapon in a public place, Leicestershire Police confirmed.

Let's hope he didn't source his weapon from the university canteen. 

Always On Point And Topical...

 ...that's Matt!