Tweet Of The Month

And it's a bumper crop again!

Blog Comment Of The Month

Spotted at Samizdata:

Post Title Of The Month

Longrider on Ring doorbell cams:

Quote Of The Month

Tom Paine reminisces on our finest generation:

"My father’s father was funny too – on a good day. When a friend asked if he was “norry” (local dialect for bad-tempered) because of his injuries, he cheerfully replied that no, he had always been norry. His main problem with being crippled (he loathed the euphemism “disabled”) was that it stopped him playing sports. He had played football for his town, cricket for his county and table tennis (“don’t call it ping-pong”) for his country. Losing the ability to play was a serious blow to his competitive nature."

Post Of The Month

 Nick Drew from Capitalists@Work takes a fortuitously timed trip.  

AKA The 'Do Your ******* Job Right' Law....

The NHS is expanding Martha's Rule to all hospital emergency departments in England to help patients and families challenge staff and seek a rapid review of their care if they want. It is named after Martha Mills, who died aged 13 in 2021 after developing blood poisoning, or sepsis. Her family's concerns were not listened to, which later prompted her parents, Merope and Paul, to change that culture by creating the rule.

Good luck changing a culture that sees one’s customers as an inconvenience at best and irrelevant to getting paid at worst.

Patients, loved ones and staff in A&E units will be able to call a dedicated phone number to trigger an urgent review if a patient's condition is deteriorating and they are concerned this is not being taken on board.

And be on hold for half a day, before getting it answered by someone for whom clear English is an unrealised ambition? 

The nationwide expansion should be complete by March 2028, after a trial at seven trusts. It is already being rolled out in all inpatient wards.

Questioned whether busy A&E staff might struggle with a sudden influx of calls, Fowler said this had not played out in the recent tests. "Actually people have used it very sensibly," he added. "We've tested it through winter and across this busy summer, and therefore I am not concerned that when we roll this out we are going to be overwhelmed with calls."

No, I don’t suppose you are concerned, you’ve probably got private health insurance! 

Less Edifying Than Two Bald Men Fighting Over A Comb

That's the scrapping goining on in the States right now over an incident at a lesbian bar. Let Arwa Madhawi (Guardian columnist and author) tell us all about it:

Here we go: those shenanigans, reported in a viral story by the Boston Globe, don’t represent us all. #NotAllLesbians.

But, of course, I shouldn’t be centering myself here.

Oh, don’t be modest, sweetie! What else do you write a column for, after all? 

Nor should I be assuming knowledge in a way which reinforces oppressive hegemonic structures. So let me hold space to share the details of everything that has transpired with all you folx reading who have not had the privilege of devouring every detail of the drama already.

Yes, please do, it sounds fascinating! 

The story begins at the Last Ditch Bar and Arts Venue, which opened up last year as a place for “dykes, transsexuals, gender freaks, workers, and their friends”. One of the bar’s key selling points was that it required KN-95 masks (“or better”) at all times, to accommodate the immunocompromised and the Covid-conscious. Well I say “selling points”, but a big issue with Last Ditch is it didn’t do much selling. In keeping with its values, it had an open-door policy, stating that nobody would be turned away if they couldn’t pay the cover charge, including “unhoused people”. This was very generous of them, but also a formula for losing money.

Who could have predicted that? Oh, wait, everybody who lives in the real world, not the fantasy world these people like to live in! And when the inevitable happened…

In order to try to stop hemorrhaging cash so they could continue to pay rent, the venue eventually decided to move to a mask-optional policy. This caused an uproar. A sample comment on Instagram: “I hope your venue gets firebombed for robbing my fellow immunocompromised people of their Saturday plans just to scrape extra revenue from ablists [sic].”

Narcissists are always the most insufferably entitled people.

And from there the story wades deeper and deeper into “surely this isn’t real, surely this is a psyop by rightwingers who want to make the queer community look unhinged” territory.

Speaking for the right wingers, why would we bother, when nothing we could come up with could ever top the average everyday drama you wallow in?

An emergency Zoom meeting was declared and lasted over three hours. A performer called Soe Noire accused Jackie Matellian, the last remaining operator of the venue (the other founders left; one so they could enrol in clown school), of shedding “WHITE THEY THEM TEARS”.

Strange how the ‘be kind’ people always pivot to the things they love to accuse everyone else of, racism, sexism etc…

The bar was not “a safe environment nor interested in revolutionary praxis”, Noire added.

Nope, I haven’t a clue what that means either… 

Matellian, who is working four different jobs in a desperate attempt to pay off the $50,000 loan for the business, was contrite. “There’s conflict, but we just hope that there’s more repair than conflict,” she told the Globe.

Who the hell loaned her the money!?! 

Alas, it’s the conflict (and the lesbians) which has made this story go so viral. It fits squarely into a genre I will call “moderately ridiculous lefty infighting”, which is beloved by sensible centrist authors and the rightwing press.

Speaking again for them, yes, yes we do! 

But while there is a lot of absurdity in the Last Ditch saga, I think it’s worth stressing that it is still ultimately a story about a woman who tried to create an inclusive space where some of the most vulnerable people in society could feel accepted.

Well, I suppose that’s one take on it… 

It’s easy to laugh at all the shenanigans....

Yes indeed! 

...but the world would be a lot better if it had more people like Jackie Matellian in it: kind, well-meaning people who try to live their values.

I can’t see there’s any shortage of them…successful left wing businesses are like giant pandas, and just as likely to survive in the wild without human assistance! 

Narcissists who use a marginalized identity as cover for bad behaviour can find themselves drawn to places like Last Ditch because it’s the only space in which they will be indulged.

Nah, they are indulged at ‘The Guardian’ too… 

Ah, An Advert For A Company Disguised As 'News'....

Are you on the same page as your colleagues, or does their office chatter leave you scratching your head? Experts at instantprint quizzed 2,000 UK office workers about how well they understand each other's workplace vocabulary.

The results revealed that 68 per cent of workers regularly encounter phrases they do not understand.

It's not new, as was foretold in musicals:

🎶Are certain words creeping into his conversation? 

Words like 'swell?" And 'so's your old man?"🎶

Oh, let’s have a look then: 

'Rage applying' – the practice of applying for multiple jobs after becoming frustrated with your current role – was correctly identified by 81 per cent of Gen Z workers. 

However, just 29 per cent of Baby Boomers knew what this was. 

And how many cared? 

'Coffee badging' – showing up at the office just long enough to be seen and grab a coffee – was even harder to decipher. 

Only 21 per cent of Baby Boomers and 34 per cent of Gen X knew what this was. 

100 per cent of the could identify it as a good way to get sacked, though! 

Other phrases that left older generations stumped included 'Bare Minimum Monday', 'Career Cushioning', and 'Quiet Vacationing'.

It's all so tedious, isn't it?

The Effect Of Middle Class White Women

Some of the most affluent areas of England have had the sharpest rises in the proportion of young people claiming disability benefits for ADHD and autism since the pandemic, according to new research. Claims for the personal independence payment (Pip) benefit for these health conditions were typically proportionally far higher in deprived areas with higher rates of poverty, low educational outcomes and insecure employment.

As my co- blogger James at ‘Orphans..’ pointed out on Sunday morning, this is a recipe for disaster that we are hurtling into as a country….

However, the fastest growth in ADHD and autism-related Pip claims has been in some of the country’s most prosperous areas such as Wokingham, Warwick, and parts of Hampshire and Surrey. This trend probably reflects swifter access to ADHD and autism diagnoses in more affluent areas, say the researchers, in part highlighting the ability of wealthier families to skip long NHS waiting lists and pay privately for clinical diagnoses.

And the propensity for middle class affluent areas to be infested with the sort of people driving this . The fifth horsewoman of the coming economic and societal apocalypse. 

They say the relative gap in Pip claims between rich and poor areas is shrinking, with growth rates in wealthy places such as Runnymede in Surrey outstripping the likes of Blackpool and Stoke-on-Trent. The research also found that Pip claim rates for ADHD and autism were higher among white people than other ethnic groups.

Note they are all the fashionable ‘isms’…

The researchers say this shift is counterintuitive and unique to ADHD and autism. There is no evidence of similar trends in learning disability, depression, anxiety or physical conditions.

Told you! 

Sally Gainsbury, a senior policy analyst at the Nuffield Trust, which carried out the research, said the findings probably reflected “substantial inequality in access” to private and NHS diagnostic services, meaning “people with better resources and more support are often able to get to the front of the queue quicker”. It may also reflect the ability of more privileged individuals to navigate a notoriously difficult and unpredictable Pip claims process, Gainsbury said. Obtaining a clinical diagnosis is likely to increase the chances of a successful Pip claim.

Then make the process harder and far more auditable! 

More Judges Like Justice Cheema-Grubb Please!

Appearing in the dock yesterday, Ali insisted she would represent herself despite Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb's offer of free legal counsel. Ali said: 'Can I just say one more thing? My title is not Ali, my title is doctor. I have worked 20 years to earn that title, I would like to be referred as Dr Ali.' 

But the judge said: 'Well, I am going to refer you by your name. You are a defendant on trial.'

BOOM! Nice one, your honour!  

Prosecuting, Ben Lloyd said: 'The allegation is she [Ali] used social media, namely X and WhatsApp, to post material in support of a proscribed organisation, namely Hamas. 

'It is said she sent messages containing anti-Semitic abuse intending to stir up racial hatred.'

I cannot find any reference to this foul bitch being successfully suspended from her NHS position following her appeal against a suspension in July, so is she still working ad a doctot? With the statw the NHS is in, would anyone be surprised if that were the case?   

Wouldn’t It Be Lovely?

Matt knows we could really do with one between the rnd of August and Christmas...

Sunday Funnies...

 The number of these that aren't in Third World countries is a little surprising.

'All Must Have Prizes' Comes To Gaming?

It’s impossible to pinpoint exactly when big-budget games started assuming that players were irredeemably stupid, but throughout the late 00s and 2010s it became more and more common to see obvious GPS trails showing you where to go, and for characters to talk to themselves to remind you what to do.

The ‘Guardian’ games critic has issues with the newest triple A Marvel game, ‘Wolverine’ not for the gratuitous violence, but because it’s too easy. 

Disclaimer, I haven’t played this and have no desire to, not that I’m averse to violent games where you stab and slash people to death at all, but I prefer not to do it face to face, some element of stealth is required for me. And that’s only if there’s no option to long-distance snipe from concealment!

I am not a game designer, but as a critic who loves challenging games and has thought a lot about them, for me there is a difference between a game’s difficulty and its friction. A game might be difficult for all kinds of reasons, intentional or otherwise: perhaps the controls or camera aren’t great; perhaps there’s a mid-game boss with a bafflingly massive health bar and one devastating unblockable attack; perhaps the balancing is off.

Oh, we’ve all played those - games with no auto save, where one wrong move sends you right back to the beginning to start over again. They are what the term ‘rage quit’ was invented for.

Games with perfect friction are clear about showing you what to do, but not overbearing about helping you do it: there is intentional distance, distance that you must broach with agency, strategy and skill. Friction leaves space for frustration and learning, and a sense of achievement.

A lot of modern blockbuster game design seems hellbent on removing this friction. Not sure where to go? Here – follow this brightly coloured trail of fart gas. Not sure how to climb that building? We’ve helpfully painted the ledges yellow. Have you stood still for 30 seconds? We’ll have another character talk in your ear and tell you exactly what you need to do.

Sounds odd, but it’s merely the attempt to help players finish the game, and a lot of helpful hints can be turned off in settings if you don’t need them. Did this critic even try that? 

At its best, game design like this helps players avoid becoming irrevocably stuck. At its worst, it totally removes agency and challenge – you know, the reasons that many of us play games in the first place. Fundamentally, a game is only fun if you have to do something. I don’t play games for passive entertainment. That’s what binge-watching Netflix is for.

Oh well, some people undoubtedly do play games for that, and it’s nice they have the choice…

I guess the games critic has escaped the stifling clutches of the ‘Guardian’s HR department’s in-house training, or he wouldn’t be criticising anything that made it easier for people with disabilities to enjoy something! 

The Only Thing They Do Efficiently Is Cover Ups

“Furious” patients and victims of disgraced brain surgeon Sam Eljamel have accused NHS Tayside of failing its duty of candour. It comes after the health board’s chief executive apologised for the destruction of logbooks relating to the surgeon.

Isn't that a crime? If it isn’t, perhaps it should be! 

Mr Eljamel was a consultant neurosurgeon at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee from 1995 until his suspension in December 2013. A public inquiry is taking place after patients of Mr Eljamel raised concerns that he had harmed as many as 200 people.

Ms Connor was appointed chief executive of NHS Tayside in 2024, after the Scottish Government announced a public inquiry would be held.During her tenure, the health board has come under fire after it emerged about 40 hard copy theatre logbooks linked to Mr Eljamel had been destroyed by NHS Tayside employees in 2025 – despite a “do not destroy” order that was issued by inquiry chairman Lord Weir in October 2024.

Not an accident in the paperwork-worshipping NHS…. 

An external investigation, undertaken by AAB, found there was “no malicious intent”, and instead said “inadequate” systems and processes contributed to the destruction of the logbooks.

Of course it did. They know how mark their own homework, ands how to cover up what their friends have done.

Ms Connor was questioned about the destruction of the logbooks at the inquiry on Wednesday, and she accepted the incident has “eroded trust and had a significant impact on patients”. She said: “The estimate of 40 was based off how many you could fit within a confidential waste bag, and how many waste bags we know were disposed (of),” she said. “We do not know the number of logbooks that were destroyed.”

A lie! No work is ever done in the NHS without bean-counters being involved.

She also denied it would be “fair” for patients to take the view the problems identified by the external report “bolster an impression that NHS Tayside involves itself in cover-ups”.

Not just ‘fair’, the only possible conclusion. 

Ms Connor also told the inquiry she accepts accountability for the logbooks’ destruction as the accountable officer for NHS Tayside, but said she does not accept personal responsibility. 

Of course she doesn’t. 

“I am not intending to resign as part of this,” she said.

Quite rightly. You should be sacked, and charged instead. 

Thank God They Weren't Issued Guns...

Mr Nicholls said the position of Sussex Police that it was 'coincidental' Mr Burgess's death occurred so close in time to the care home incident was wrong and violence he suffered may have had a 'causative' effect on his death.

Who was Mr Bugess? He was the 92 year old care home inmate and amputee that thsee thugs in uniform batonned, pepper sprayed and Tasered because he was holding a butter knife: 

What disgusting specimens of humanity...

 

With the result that he was admitted to hospital, caught Covid and subsequently died.

East Sussex Coroner Michael Spencer has adjourned the hearing and will decide at a later date on whether to hold a full inquest. Following the incident PC Smith was charged with two counts of actual bodily harm while PC Comotto was charged with one count. Last year both officers were cleared of charges of assault after a trial at Southwark Crown Court.

Twelve jury members really thought that this was an appropriate use of force?  

The hearing has been adjourned until December 15.

Are the facts of this despicable incident going to be any different in a few month's time?  

And Unsurprisingly, He Said 'Me'

Pity a real journalist didn't ask that question.

That Palace statement, questioning Earl Spencer's account of the days after his sister's death, was a total contrast to its normal "never explain, never complain" mantra.

As we asked Earl Spencer: which Charles are we meant to believe?

Why, the one who has only progressed in his life by the deaths of the women in it, of course! 

First his wife, freeing him to do what he wanted with another man’s wife, and then his mother, granting him the title of king. 

That’s the sort of man who’d think little, if at all, of saying that to a grieving brother.

It's Changed Because Of The 'New Swedes', Martin

Last year, a baby named Emanuel was born in Sweden. Before his first birthday, his parents were told that Emanuel could no longer stay in the country. The department of migration ordered his removal, alone, to Iran – despite the ongoing war. Emanuel’s parents were legally in the country. They had Swedish residency permits, but the laws that allowed them to stay were tightened after the baby’s birth, and the family got sucked into a Kafkaesque maze of official hurdles, designed to limit migration to Sweden.

A 74-year-old British man with dementia was told to leave the country after 25 years. Another British man, on a generous World Bank retirement pension, was also told he was not welcome to reside permanently in Sweden because retirement money does not count as salary for the purposes of new income thresholds for migrants. The young, the old, vulnerable people, the wealthy: all are the target of harsh and often aggressive immigration policies. And Sweden’s leaders remain unyielding. “We cannot adjust the law based on each and every personal fate,” Ulf Kristersson, the prime minister, said, commenting on a series of hardline immigration decisions involving children.

Martin sees cruelty in this, but I see desire to save the Swedish nation from the oncoming blight that progressive fools like him have made of it.

Swedes vote in a general election on Sunday 13 September and, according to opinion polls, the centre-left opposition has a slight lead. But even if there is a change of government, many previously unthinkable far-right ideas are now comfortably embedded in the mainstream of Swedish politics.

It’s another thing to add to the list of ‘far right’ markers, the recognising of what unfettered immigration has done to a once pristine country, as encouraged by people like Martin, who of course didn’t stay to enjoy the results of his experiment.

The story of the transformation that now blights Sweden goes back to 2022, when the conservative bloc won that year’s Swedish general election, but only with a tiny margin.

It also launched an attempt to redefine modern Sweden, marking profound policy shifts on immigration, crime, climate and energy, schools and healthcare.

As a Swede who lived in the US for two decades, I was reluctant to admit that my birth country had changed.

Not as reluctant as you're proving to be to admit why it's changed, Martin.  

I brushed away alarming anecdotes as isolated cases, or a brief departure from the status quo. Surely, Sweden would remain itself, guided by the progressive, egalitarian and humanitarian ideals that defined the country and its public life – at least on the surface – when I was growing up.

There must be some way to blame others for this, if only you look hard enough? 

Only 15% of Swedes approve of Donald Trump. And yet ideas quite similar to Trump’s ethnonationalism now define much of contemporary Swedish politics, and are challenging our democratic foundations.

Yes, and for much the same reasons. 

If this authoritarian turn can be widely accepted so quickly in Sweden, where the democratic and humanitarian foundations were until recently solid, it can happen anywhere.

And will happen everywhere, as those who can’t afford to flee overseas like you, or don’t want to, start to fight back against the insanity inflicted on them. 

In just a few years, conservatives have distanced themselves from their two most recent prime ministers, Fredrik Reinfeldt and Carl Bildt, who advocated a more inclusive, centre-right liberalism.

Because such policies don't, can't, work in the face of sustained hostile immigtation from the Third World, and to even ptopose them thows into doubt your claim to be conservative.

This embrace of rightwing populism has also led to a departure from Sweden’s ambitious climate politics and a general turn away from scientific consensus.

Because the people have figured out that's a lie as big and ruinous  as the 'we need immigrants' one!

The Thing Activists Say 'Never Happens'?

Yes, it's happened again:

After being arrested, Maja S. was initially held in the women's section of the Bamberg prison in Bavaria. For the past five months, however, Maja S. has been in the men's section of the Stadelheim prison. The defense lawyer, Peter Dürr, told BILD: 'This is a serious burden in her daily life. She is whistled at during her exercise period, and physical examinations are always conducted by male officers.'

’She’ is nothing of the sort, of course, he’s a man! With a man’s interests and proclivities: 

Around 2,000 files containing child and animal pornography were found in the 55-year-old's possession, as well as a Kalashnikov rifle, according to the police.

The 6ft-tall former cop will likely face three and a half years in prison, according to Judge Andreas Bartschmid, in exchange for the confession.

Only three years?  Well, at least he’s going to the right prison this time!

This Amount Of Organisation And Planning, And Yet No Motive?

CCTV footage has captured the moment a 26-year-old man flees for his life from a teenager armed with a knife just minutes before he was stabbed to death. Afghan refugee Suliaman Tajzai, 18, of Welsey Road in Leeds, pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey on Friday to murdering Farmanullah Sherzad in Westminster in March this year.

And because of the guilty pleas, no questions are being asked. No one seems to care why he did it. 

Footage published by the Metropolitan Police following Tajzai’s conviction has now revealed how the events leading up to the murder unfolded — beginning hundreds of miles away in Leeds. Wearing a blue, white and black jacket, Tajzai is seen entering a corner shop and calmly taking a knife from the shelf on Friday, March 27.He then approaches the counter, where CCTV captures him laughing and chatting with the cashier as he buys the item. Later that day, Tajzai travelled to London and waited outside Farmanullah’s address for him to return from work.CCTV footage then captures the moment Farmanullah sees Tajzai and attempts to flee, as the teenager gives chase armed with the knife he had bought earlier that day.Officers were called at around 10.15pm on March 27 after Farmanullah was found with stab wounds by a member of the public. Emergency services rushed to the scene, but despite their efforts, the 26-year-old was pronounced dead around 20 minutes later.

Seems as if thanks to technology, we know all the details, except the motive. This was not some random killing, this was a targeted one, with considerable planning involved.

CCTV footage later revealed that Tajzai had travelled to London in the weeks before the attack to scope out Farmanullah's home address and where he worked.

Detective Chief Inspector Wayne Jolley, who led the investigation, said:"While no outcome can undo the suffering caused by his death, we hope today's conviction provides some measure of closure and reassurance that the person responsible has been brought to justice."  "This is a devastating case in which a young man lost his life after being subjected to a brutal and senseless act of violence.

Tajzai is due to be sentenced at the Old Bailey on September 18.

He got life. Which means he’ll serve a few years and be released, and probably not be deported. So I think the motive should be investigated a little more thoroughly, don’t you?

What Did I Tell You?

 Mote details of Greta Gerwig's adaptation of the Narnia novels have been released over the weekend. And as predicted when I first heard about it, it's gone down like a sold cup of sick with fans of the beloved children's novels. 

Predictably, the luvvies are riding to Greta's rescue, scoffing at the idea that an artist has any responsibility to adapt a work of literature faithfully. But that’s not why she’s doing this, is it? This is why:

Will I watch it when it launches? Sure, because I always have the Disney versions to fall back on. They were perfect!

Of Course He's Vegan ...

The only surprise is it's taken him this long to announce it.

The actor has been on a tour to promote his new documentary, How to Live on Earth. “The irony is not lost on anyone,” he says. “We’re living in the results of climate breakdown so stepping outside is – literally – a call to action.”

What action? 

His film launches on YouTube this month and the actor hopes it is a “blueprint” for how we interact with our besieged planet in the future. It features Cumberbatch delivering monologues from the cavernous halls of the Natural History Museum in London, in between short films showing how activists, scientists and even chefs are learning a “new way to live on Earth” – one that could stop humanity damaging it.

Chefs? 

Cumberbatch has spent the last two decades trying to reframe his relationship with the planet: he’s tried to live more gently on Earth and became vegan. However, this was a problem during the shooting of The Courier, in which he plays captured British spy Greville Wynne, who languishes in a Russian jail. “They said, ‘You can’t have any fibre in the last two weeks. You need to eat lean meat.’ And I was like, ‘I’m vegan!’”

Once again, I’m reminded of Sir Laurence Olivier’s advice to Dustin Hoffman on the set of ‘The Marathon Man’

No fibre for two weeks must have been tough on the bowels? “Yes, it was, but it was much less than what the character I was portraying went through, because it was a true story.” Although he went straight back on the vegetables, the extreme diet caused his blood sugar to plummet and he became unwell. “People were saying, ‘You should think about eating a little bit of meat now, because your body doesn’t really work under these conditions – you’ve lost so much weight.’”

One must suffer for one’s art, mustn’t one? 

Now, Cumberbatch tries to source the meat he does eat ethically, opting for venison, which in the UK needs to be culled as the country has an overpopulation of deer.

So, he’s ditched veganism, but would he get a private jet? “No,” he says, but adds the caveat: “We just waste our energy if we’re naysaying and calling people hypocrites. The fashion industry is a bigger polluter than aviation, and the food industry massively. That’s all of us, that’s everyone.” Not just movie stars.

Well, after you! 

The 50-year-old has long been an environmental campaigner. He visited the Extinction Rebellion protests in 2019 and has been dismayed by the recent government crackdowns on climate protests, with long sentences given to people who have blocked roads and smashed windows for the cause. “We should have the right in a democracy to peaceful action, even if it is direct action,” he says.

Do you need a dictionary? Smashing windows and attacking police isn’t ‘peaceful’ and we don’t have ‘a right’ to it! 

Cumberbatch and company discuss some blue-sky thinking in the documentary, which to the jaded viewer could seem unrealistic.

Translation: to any normal human, not a dweller in the rarified atmosphere of the luvvies, will seem like unrealistic bollocks! 

“Nature that’s alive is actually far more valuable to us than dead nature,” Cumberbatch says. “So an elephant’s tusk is not worth as much as the elephant alive, in terms of what it brings to the savannah, to make the savannah work as an ecosystem.

Imagine what it’s worth to a trophy hunter, who will pay through the nose for the chance to shoot it, which will have to be done anyway when numbers get too high, because too many elephants destroy an ecosystem very efficiently.

Cash-Strapped Local Councils?

Give me a break! They seem to have plenty of money, so long as it's spent on politically correct foolishness:

Children too anxious to attend school are being represented at their desks by £3,500 robots that let them join lessons from home. The AV1 robot has a camera, microphone and speaker enabling a child at home to see, hear and speak to classmates via an app.

So, a robot that's doing the job of a cheap laptop equipped with a webcam, eh? And it seems to only come in white.

There'll be calls for brown and black models before this thing has booted up, mark my words...

More than 2,000 are being used nationwide, many by children with 'emotionally based school avoidance', or EBSA – a chronic refusal to go to school driven by anxiety.

The robot was developed by Norwegian firm No Isolation, initially to keep children in hospital connected to their classrooms.

A noble cause, I wonder how they feel about seeing it put to use not to support genuinly sick children, but to pander to the latest fad diven by social contagion and weak parenting? Probably don't care so long as the money keeps rolling in... 

Last year Devon County Council bought 16 robots for pupils who struggle to attend because of 'worry, anxiety and overwhelm'.

The authority is one of at least 80 to have taken the AV1 since the Department for Education commissioned it in 2019. The robots are used for EBSA pupils in areas including Somerset, Dorset and Haringey and Islington in London, according to council documents seen by The Mail on Sunday.

 All areas with a large proportion of middle class ineffectual parents, I see....

The number of severely absent pupils with additional 'social, emotional and mental health' needs has more than tripled in six years, from 8,453 to 27,442. A record 151,000 pupils missed at least half their schooling last year, from a pre-pandemic low of 60,247.

Well, well, well, another side effect of the Covid insanity, eh?  

All Fried Food?

There will be a boost for fresh fruit and vegetables and deep-fried food will be banned in what the government has called the biggest shake-up to school dinners in England in over a decade.

Will it include samosas, onion bahjis and gulab jamun as well as the fish and chips then? I wonder…

Under new school food standards, fibre and wholegrains will also be increased, and breakfast clubs will have to follow nutrition rules for the first time, with schools also being monitored.

That’s not going to be cheap, unless they plan to add it to OFSTED inspectorate tasks… 

The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) welcomed the changes, but said they hoped the new rules would not become "another stick with which to beat head teachers".

The changes will come into effect from 2027 and be funded with existing money for schools, the government said.

Then they DO plan for OFSTED to take it on, instead of creating another inspection regime. 

Education Secretary Lucy Powell said they were "once-in-a-generation changes" which would "transform school food for children across the country".

I’m sure we all expected a government to busy themselves with that, instead of protecting the country’s borders, when we entered the ballot box, didn’t we?

Pepe Di'Iasio, ASCL general secretary, said parents would feel "reassured" that schools were providing children with a healthy diet.He said schools needed "more investment" in catering facilities and in the "professional development" of school chefs to develop menus that "meet the ambitions" of the government.

The ambitions of this particular government? One would hope they would be a little more statesmanlike, but in vain…

Breakfast clubs will undergo one of the biggest changes. Historically, there has been no guidance on what they should provide, but from next September pastries and fried-eggs will be off the menu and there will be a sugar cap when it comes to cereals.The government said Coco Pops would no longer be an option and chocolate spread was "not permitted".

No croissants, that’s not very European of us, and whatever happened to ‘Go to work on an egg’? 

Well, You Are How You Feel, Eh?

Being sent a shiny new phone in the post that you were not expecting may sound great, but it could well be a sign you have just been scammed. Criminals might have got into your account, added a new handset to your bill, before asking you to "return" it - to their address. Nearly 30,000 cases like this were recorded last year of what a telecommunications boss described as "at scale, organised crime".

Organised, yes, but like any good scam, reliant on the naivety and/or greed of the mark. As Longrider has frequently pointed out...

So, what sort of greedy naive idiot has fallen for this one? 

The Reverend Jenny Seggar, rector of the Two Rivers Benefice near Ipswich, fell victim to this type of fraud last year and told the BBC's Scam Secrets podcast how the "very plausible" technique unfolded.

There follows a story few people wouldn’t have smelled a rat with! 

When Seggar contacted Tesco Mobile, staff told her the QR code led to a private address - meaning the fraudsters had bagged themselves a brand new iPhone and Apple Watch. "I got back into the car and I thought, 'Oh, I think I've just been really stupid. I don't like how this feels'," Seggaar added.

Yes, you have. 

Seggar's experience is part of a pattern of increasingly sophisticated scam activity across the telecommunications industry. 

Not really that sophisticated at all  

Well, Yeah...

Only one confirmed member of the species is known - a cat living in a rescue sanctuary in Bolivia - but scientists believe others exist.

You don't have to be a scientist to know that, do you? 

Sunday Funnies...

I feel as if a warning on No 12 that a Tom Cruise film 'isn't hisorically accurate' is somewhat redundant.

That's Modern 'Customer Service' These Days...

A retired soldier has revealed his shock at an exchange with a member of staff at the gift shop during a recent visit to the museum in south London.My 11-year-old daughter asked if there would be a veteran's discount,' the former serviceman told the Mail. The reply stunned him. 'The woman at the till said, 'We have nothing to do with the military - that's not who we are'.'

Where were they trying to visit? Why only the Imperial War Museum in London! And there was no description of the menmber of staff in question, but I think we can guess, can't we? 

The IWM said it had begun an investigation. A spokesman said it was 'very sorry to hear about this visitor's experience' and apologised 'if he or his daughter felt unwelcome during their visit'.

Should be a very short investigation, and it should begin in your HR department. 

OK, Boris, Here's An Idea For You...

...let's push for this, and if Pakistan wants a swetener to consider it, we extradite Tulip Siddique. 

Deal? 

He is, of course, Imran Khan, the former prime minister from 2018 to 2022, and his suffering is now becoming a global scandal. Since leaving office he has been subjected to a barrage of politically motivated cases, designed to eradicate him permanently from public life. These charges have been so blatantly without merit that they have mostly collapsed – all except one: an accusation that Imran Khan’s government steered some UK government cash towards a certain property developer, who then made a handsome donation to a university that had connections to Imran and his wife.

Are we expected to meddle in every foreign court case regarding the misappopriation of UK funds, because there's lot of them...

Even if it is true that Imran has some sort of case to answer in the so-called Al-Qadir case (and it is far from clear to me that he does), he has done nothing to deserve the kind of mental and physical torture he is getting. Above all, he deserves to have his appeal heard speedily and by an independent court. Instead he is being left literally to rot to death in jail. That is because this case was never about corruption, since he has been in fact one of the most open and transparent Pakistani politicians of modern times.

Imran Khan tried to change the way Pakistan works, and paid a price. That is essentially why he is in jail.

Thet is, undoubtedly, still a matter for Pakistan, and not for the UK. 

You can object to some of the attitudes he struck, and to his teenage anti-Americanism, but nothing he said or did can conceivably justify the brutality with which the Pakistani generals are treating the former PM: banged up in foul conditions, with deteriorating health, no date for a new trial and no apparent hope of release. Why are they doing it? Simple: they are scared of him. Imran Khan is one of the greatest cricketing heroes Pakistan – or the world – has ever produced. He led his country to its first ever test victories over both India and England, and in 1992, at the age of 39, he steered Pakistan to its first World Cup victory.

Sorry, Boris, but the fact he's pretty good at sport - and boring sport at that - is no better reason to take an interest. 

They Don't Take Such Provocation Lying Down In France, Unlike In Batley

A father has been jailed after telling his son's teacher he would behead her 'if she was a man' in a case that has shocked France. Abdelkader B., 47, was sentenced after a fast-track hearing on Thursday, six days after the threatening incident in Le Fauga, a village with a population of about 2,600 just outside Toulouse.

And unlike here, the other teachers got behind the victim: 

In Le Fauga, the teacher's co-workers refused to go into the school due to the incident on September 4. The teacher has been granted official protection and is now on sick leave.

The Muslim tried to lie his way out of it, but wasn’t successful: 

However, his testimony did not match the victim's or the witnesses', who said the first beheading threat was launched in the car park. He then followed the teacher after she went into the school and was heard saying, 'Don't be surprised if tomorrow [my son] comes with a knife and stabs you,' by another teacher.

In light of France's history, Ms Momasso Momasso, who is also a lawyer for the Toulouse education authority, said the remarks are 'no longer tolerable in France in 2026'.

So when were they tolerable in France?

Abdelkader B. apologised and said he 'was really not proud' of himself', insisting he was 'not a violent person'. He has been sentenced to six months behind bars. He has also been ordered to take a citizenship course and has been banned from going near the victim or contacting the school for three years.

Why expect citizenship from such a creature, he should be deported with all his family, surely?

It is believed that the boy and his younger sister will be moved to a school outside of Le Fauga.

In a Muslim country, preferably! 

You Don’t Have To Be Mad to Work Here…

... but you should be easily distinguishable from the inmates!

Staff falsified records, slept and were on their phones on the night one patient was killed by another on an NHS mental health unit in east London, an inquest has heard.

And that isn’t even the worst part!

Obamwonyi told the inquest Hugo wasn't breathing and he couldn't find a pulse. He raised the alarm but locked the door into the room. He said he thought it was too late to start CPR, and he wanted to preserve the crime scene.

And nor is this, despite the fact anyone who has done first aid training knows you don't stop resuscitation efforts unless the casualty's head is separate from their body! Only a qualified doctor can confirm death!

 

Here’s the worst part: 

Witnesses at the inquest described chaotic scenes. Nurse Chukwuji-Ohanachum was screaming and throwing herself on the ground. According to a statement read in court, she had to be restrained by other members of staff. One member of staff was left to do chest compressions on Hugo until she had to stop, exhausted.

And even worse than that is the probability, nay, the certainty, that this won’t in any way change the NHS desire to hire unqualified Africans. I suppose we should be thankful it’s only at nurse level.

Oh. I spoke too soon.

Always Remember Why You're Hired...

Rapper Macklemore has been dropped from Ed Sheeran's US tour after making pro-Palestinian comments on stage earlier this month.

And predictably, the usual suspects are up in arms about it! 

The artist - whose real name is Benjamin Haggerty - had been the opening act for Sheeran's Loop tour, but was criticised by Jewish groups after saying "Free Palestine" at two concerts and making political speeches. Macklemore stood by his comments on Monday, confirming that he had been cut from the tour and writing in a statement that the real victims are the Palestinian people in Gaza.

Ed Sheeran has not yet commented, and who will replace Macklemore for the rest of the tour is unknown.

And now even more third-rate acts are throwing their toys out of the pram and turning down probably the best chance of paid work to come along in a long time, all to virtue signal over a bunch of Stone Age savages.

The controversy began on 4 September, when Macklemore, a long-time pro-Palestine activist, performed at Ed Sheeran's concert at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. He told the audience: "A big part of the reason why I wanted to do this tour in the first place is so that I could stand up in stadiums like this and say two words that are very, very dear to my heart: Free Palestine."

All of the remaining support acts on Ed Sheeran's US tour have quit, after the rapper Macklemore was dropped from the line-up for making pro-Palestinian remarks on stage. Among them were Finneas, the brother of pop star Billie Eilish, who said in a statement: "Artists must not be silenced when they speak up for the oppressed."

Expecting you to do the thing you were hired for (sing) instead of what you want to do (hector concertgoers) isn’t ‘silencing’, you absurd child!

Another Day, Another Chance For the Police Farce To Step In the Brown Smelly Stuff…

Noah's devastated father, Rhys Woods, this morning pleaded with the public to help, saying he 'cannot go another night knowing he's out there alone' and urging people not to give up hope. Posting to Facebook, Mr Woods said: 'We still have nothing, all the emergency services and all of you have shown how strong this community is, with people coming from far and wide also. 

'The emergency services are very confident that the high risk areas (Decoy pond, railway lines) are all clear

And barely was the ink dry on that public statement when the kid's body was found in that very same pond...

But I’m sure the hapless police comms officer who issued that fateful statement was trained to the hilt on ‘inclusive language policy’ or some such bollocks.

Must Watch Theatre!

A new play about John Major’s rise to power, written by James Graham, will premiere at the National Theatre in London next year, as part of a season that puts political upheaval and global conflict at the heart of its programme.

Wow, really going for the popular events there! 

The National Theatre said the play would explore what leadership means at times of political change, with Graham returning to the recent political history that has become a recurring subject of his work.

What leadership? 

Also on the programme is The Great Indaba, written by Moira Buffini and directed by Rubasingham, which dramatises an extraordinary 1997 meeting in South Africa involving Nelson Mandela’s new national unity government and political rivals from Northern Ireland, as the Good Friday agreement negotiations approached a breakthrough.

Another new play, Samira, by Carmen Nasr, is set during the Arab Spring and will be directed by Emily Burns. The Adeyemis – A Family Saga, a new political family drama by the British Nigerian writer Oladipo Agboluaje, will have its world premiere in the Dorfman theatre, directed by Lucian Msamati and starring Uzo Aduba.

I’m going to the National Theatre in November, but not for any of this politically correct rubbish, to see a production of ‘The Jungle Book’ which promises to hew more closely to the liteature than the wretched Disney abomination.

Among the season’s other new work is Mr Loverman, Natasha Gordon’s stage adaptation of Bernardine Evaristo’s acclaimed novel about a married Caribbean man confronting his sexuality. Gary Beadle, Jo Martin and Danny Sapani are among the initial cast, with Paulette Randall directing.

Ugh, giving that one a miss too. 

There is also a new British musical, Glorious Madness, featuring songs by Joan Armatrading, with a book by Iman Qureshi and directed by Phyllida Lloyd.

A new British musical, featuring songs by an American… 🙄 

Oh Noes! How Horrible! We Must Expand The Definition Of 'Racism' Immediately!

Brace yourself, Reader, guess what's 'racist' now?

A runner in the Great North Run says she was racially abused by a section of spectators.

What did they do? Thow bananas? Make monkey noises?  

She said she noticed England flags while passing through a residential area before hearing people shout: "Protect our kids. Protect our England." 

It's a race run in England, love. Why shouldn't they wave the country's flags? But back to the 'racism', because there must have been more than that, surely? And since our PM was running in this thing, it'll have been recorded.

"And as I went past them next to the roundabout, they booed me," Kirk-Odunubi said.

...

That's it? That's all?  

She said it was her "worst experience" during a race and that "hate has no place in running". 

Hate to break it to you, love, but you aren't owed anyone's cheers. And if this really is your worst experience then there's clearly no real problem with race relations in the UK - quick, someone tell the 'Guardian'!

"This is racism in a space where it should not be," Kirk-Odunubi told BBC Sport.

Give me a break! But of course, the race organisers are taking it seriously, instead of laughing this thin-skinned prima donna out of their offices and telling her to grow up. 

A spokesperson said GNR was "shocked and saddened" by the incident. A statement read: 

"We do not condone behaviour of this nature and we truly believe the event is for everyone. 

"Over 200,000 people turned out in support. It's a real shame that a small subset have spoilt Emma's experience. 

"We are in touch with Emma to understand more about what happened and will be passing on all information to the local police.

They should charge you with 'wasting police time'. 

"We are working with local authorities and the emergency services to understand more about what has happened, and we will of course be taking learnings from this incident to try and mitigate this happening at future events."

What will you do, hire profressional cheerers to stand in the crowd, for the next time, to react when anyone black hoves in sight?

Just Make It Stop!

Ahh, we're back in the wacky world of science fiction and fantasy, as viewed through the warped lens of Reactormag's genital-obsessed columnists.

Growing up as a queer person in Indonesia meant continually starving for representation.

It’s a Muslim country, no one’s going to stick their heads over that parapet, not if they want to keep the on their shoulders! 

However, when I turn to Western media, more often than not I’m met with disappointment—I find that I cannot relate to the queer characters at all.

Really? It’s just a Western conceit that thinks the only important thing is the sexuality then? 

Recently, my friends shared a post about the Amsterdam Rainbow Dress. I get the intended sentiment. It’s a call for inclusivity and equal rights for everyone in every country in the world. Still, I can’t help but wonder, with a definite sense of bitterness: Is that all these countries are to the people behind this project? Why does it feel like the dress is saying “we are more civilized than you are”? The dress gestures at solidarity, but flattens out nuance and historical reality in a way that feels in keeping with a particularly Western, European brand of paternalism that conveniently turns very real people actively fighting for their own rights into caricatures and passive victims.

Welcome to enlightenment! That’s exactly how it works-you’re a tick in the box to the very people who commissioned this post. 

Why do I, a queer person of color, have my existence reduced to the narrative that “your country is homophobic” and yet in the media, white characters get to be queer and live rich lives without being trapped and confined within the limits of an outsider’s view of their existence?

 Because your country IS homophobic, of course. And that's hardly the worst thing about it, is it?

The graphic novel follows Indu, a trans boy from the moon who struggles with culture shock when he and his adoptive mother move to New Earth. The language barrier makes it difficult for him to connect with his stepfamily and make friends at school, but Indu discovers that New Earth’s queer community are happy to welcome him.

We aren’t just a “developing country.” We aren’t going to be reduced to the neo-colonized tourist traps that have taken over Bali. We are so much more; we are of a rich history and culture that’s under constant threat of being forgotten if we don’t preserve it through our own stories.

You haven’t been able to preserve anything else of your culture in the face of Muslim expansion and conquest, have you? 

Cogratulations, Apple!

You've finally come up with a new iphone device I have no intention of buying, I'll stick to my Pro Max model as long as possible instead, ot as long as you continue to make 'em.

Apple has just leapt into the world of foldable devices with the exciting launch of the new iPhone Duo.

They announced the new Pro Max for 2026 which now comes in burgundy, but as I always plonk mine in a case is less of a draw than a new colour used to be when I was younger. And I haven’t completely killed the battery on my current phone yet, so I’ve no need to upgrade.

In a major break from Apple's long-established smartphone designs, the iPhone Duo features a rounded 5.4-inch outer display and a 7.6-inch inner screen. However, on social media, some of the tech company's fans have not been impressed. Social media users have torn into the expensive phone's design, calling the iPhone Duo 'ugly' and 'awkward'.

I prefer 'short-lived gimmick'. 

Users will be able to use the iPhone Duo in any orientation or position, leaving it half open to prop up and watch movies hands-free or holding it partially folded like a book.

I have an iPad and several Kindles, I don't need a phone that transforms itself into a third-rate copy of either!

Working Together For A Safer London?

That's the motto of the Metropolitan Police. How exactly do they go about it? Well...

A Sudanese lorry migrant who stabbed a stranger to death while on police bail over a rampage just 48 hours earlier was jailed for 27 years. Rasheed Rahman, 21, murdered grandfather Mark Carroll, 55, on April 10, 2024 in a park in Camden, north London. Just two days earlier Rahman went berserk on a canal tow-path, punching and kicking members of the public but was bailed by the police.

 🤦‍♀️

In February two months before those two attacks, he broke Iulian Cavaliuc's arm with a wooden club and knifed him in the back on a double decker bus in east London. Mr Cavaliuc reported the attack to police later that day but Rahman remained at large while police officers tried to obtain CCTV footage and find him.

Did they try very hard? 

Despite Rahman's violence, staff at the supported accommodation unit where he lived in Chadwell Heath, east London, handed him a blade a day before the murder. It was this 5in knife he plunged into Mr Carroll in a frenzied outburst.

Not quite as bad as it sounds, he told them he wanted it to cook with. 

Judge John Dodd, KC, at Wood Green Crown Court jailed Rahman for life with a minimum of 27 years, and told him he would be deported.

Why not deport him now, to serve his sentence in Sudan? 

Rahman made a successful asylum application in March 2023 and was granted temporary leave to remain in the UK.

And of course, he was supplied with a lawyer free of charge to plead for clemency. 

John Femi-Ola KC, defending, said Rahman was born in Sudan and saw his sister murdered when the Islamic militant group Boko Haram invaded his village.

Shame. That they didn’t get him as well. 

Mr Femi-Ola said he fled to Chad and then Libya and then came to the UK in the back of a lorry. He was found to be living undocumented in Essex in 2021 and was granted temporary leave to remain.

Of course he was… 

There's Too Many Of Them Here, And They Don't Belong!

But does that mean we should allow members of the public to take the law into their own hands. No, of course not, but it will happen anyway, if the government fails to act. 

I am of course not talking about illegal immigrants - they are well protected - but about invasive parakeets. Apparently, the London catapult yobs find them an easy target, and at least this spares our native wildlife.

A wildlife charity said 43 ring-necked parakeets were found in Priory Gardens in Orpington, south-east London, in just three weeks.

Dead, from likely catapult wielding youths. Well, saves them using native species for targets, I guess...  

The charity is now calling for tighter controls on the sale of catapults to under-18s and for wildlife crime to be given greater priority by police.

Of course they are. 

Gareth Bacon, the Conservative MP for Orpington, has previously called for catapult sales to be licensed.

Od course he has. 

In One Bold Stroke, Two-Tier Policing And The Labour Government's Ineptitude...

This guy at today’s Portsmouth anti migrant demo followed advice on here and dressed up in a Burqa🤣
He was then let off by the police!
Hilarious, if blatant 2 Tier policing though.🤨 pic.twitter.com/BxWBP4h2lU

— Dave (@DaveKent101) September 12, 2026

H/T: Dave at Twitter

Update: 

Shortly after cuing this post up, someone with two brain cells to run together realised how it would look and he was arrested. It'll be interesting to see if he's charged, I can't see the nototiously work-shy CPS wanting to take a punt at it.

Oh, Can You Imagine The Tantrum...

...if #Charles were to take Matt's advice? 

Sunday Funnies...

 Of course, we haven't had the real ending to No 11, and I don't think we'll ever get it at this rate....

Hysterics And Technophobes!

There is now a growing realisation that Britain's second-hand bookshops are being pillaged - not by voracious collectors of prized first editions but by Silicon Valley tech firms for a far more insidious purpose.

What are they doing? Buying things. And treating those things as if they owned them, the bastards! 

Today, the Daily Mail explains how millions of second-hand books are being bought in bulk and sent to warehouses across America, where the pages are sliced from the spine before being fed into industrial scanners, harvested for their text, and later destroyed. This process, known as 'destructive scanning', is the latest method of gathering the vast reams of data being used by Big Tech to train its AI chatbots.

I wonder what Longrider's take on this is... 

'It's a moral dilemma,' says Lucy. 'They're my books, my babies. I feel like we've been eaten by the AI monster. It's difficult. 

Then why are you offering them for sale? 

'I want the sale, but not to somebody who will b****r up everybody's books.'

Well, you gave up the right to demand what should happen to them when you sold them! 

Aside from the obvious concerns over copyright - of which more later - there are fears tech firms could be destroying rare books - even the last remaining editions of some historical tomes. As Lucy herself admitted, some of the books purchased from her store are 'collectable and valuable'. 

It would be perfectly ok if a person bought them, read them once (or not at all) and then put them on a shelf never to be taken down again, I suppose? 

'Bulk-buying books just to rip them apart to scan is shocking, but it's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the brazen theft of copyright materials by the tech giants,' says Dan Conway, CEO of the Publishers Association.

The books are paid for - thrice, once by the original purchaser, and a second time as second-hand books, so it’s hard to see how authors are being hard done by here. 

Most book-lovers would find the practice of destroying huge numbers of physical volumes stomach-churning. Scenes of grinning young Nazis burning towering pyres of 'un-German' books in university cities across the Third Reich in 1933 are seared in the public memory: a 'cultural genocide' that continues to horrify us.

The books aren’t being destroyed entirely, though! Their content still exists, just in digital format. 

Of course, the AI companies would argue they are doing something different: rather than destroying books to censor the material they contain, as the Nazis did, they are destroying them in order to disseminate their contents more widely.

They would be right to argue that, because they demonstrably are. 

Let's Check In On How David Paulden's Green Party Is Doing...

A Birmingham Green Party city councillor has been charged with attacking a member of the public, three police officers and a member of police staff.

Oh. Oh dear. 

Siobhan Harper-Nunes, 66, was arrested on suspicion of assault after police were called to the junction of Monument Road and Hagley Road in the city, at about 17:00 BST on 6 August. Harper-Nunes, of Monument Road, was charged the following day. West Midlands Police said that she was arrested again at Monument Road on Wednesday morning on suspicion of harassment. She remained in custody while inquiries continued, police said. Harper-Nunes will appear at Birmingham Magistrates' Court on 10 September on the assault charges, the force said.

Sounds like a domestic, where she redirected on the cops who turned up.

The Birmingham Green Party has been approached for comment.

What can they really say? 

25 Years Ago...

 ....yes, I checked, it really is.

The US faces growing challenges in countering international terrorism as resources are diverted to other threats, experienced security officials leave and “complacency” spreads, experts have warned. 

It is 25 years this week since the 9/11 attacks launched by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida on New York and Washington, which killed about 3,000 people and led to decades of conflict, radicalisation and instability across the Middle East and beyond. 

Though there have been no successful attacks on anything like a similar scale in the US since, and only a small number inspired by extremist Islamist ideologies, many are warning of growing risks.

As they were in the years and months before 9/11, as it turned out but learning lessons isn’t humanity’s strong point, it seems.

I, Too, Think We Should Ban Nuts On Planes...

...but not peanuts, people like you:

What are you most scared of? Perhaps snakes send a chill down your spine. Or heights leave your knees weak.

Heights, yes, I don't like them. But I don't let that fear rule my life. 

Peanuts may sound like an odd source of phobia, but they have taken on an absurd bogeyman quality for me since my daughter was taken to hospital by ambulance after eating peanut butter when she was six months old. Just the sight of a bowl on a pub bar, or their shells discarded on the pavement, can raise my heart rate – even when I’m not with her.

Nowhere is the sight of peanuts more confronting than at 30,000ft, especially now when millions are jetting back from their holidays. Travelling with a severely allergic child can be a nightmare for all sorts of reasons, but the idea you could be sat next to a passenger consuming the very thing that has hospitalised them is its own kind of hell.

As Tim pointed out, this is a you problem. Not an us problem. 

Most airlines will make an announcement asking passengers to avoid consuming nuts if you let them know that somebody in your party has a severe nut allergy. But I brace for impact when these announcements are piped out. On almost every flight there is at least one passenger who sighs or makes some inane comment, loud enough for everyone to hear, about how annoying it is.

When confronted with someone else's neurosis and entitlement, I'd be surprised if no one did that. 

I didn’t realise the right to eat nuts was a civil liberties issue. How utterly absurd.

Then you're as dumb as a brick. 

I am mystified by this mean-spiritedness. Allergies are not a lifestyle choice but a medical condition.

 It's a very good question, isn't it? 

Take a look at some of the comments under Chloë’s post and you’ll see what I mean. They are staggering in their stupidity. “Fly private or DON’T FLY AT ALL. Don’t make other people’s lives miserable just to please yours!” one reads.

Allergic people can’t be wrapped in cotton wool.

Good, we agree on that!  

Banning nuts on planes seems like a no-brainer.

To a person with no brain, yes. What are airline supposed to do, frisk people for them? 

Banning nuts on planes could send an important message to the broader public. That people with allergies should be able to travel without fear. That compassionate societies make accommodations.

We've made far to many accommodations to modern life and the inability of people to realise it doesn't revolve around them or raather, we've been made to!

.Another Day, Another Senseless Death...

Star Lane in Canning Town was shut in both directions between Manor Road and Durham Road at around 5am on Wednesday, September 9, with forensic teams seen working at the scene. A shopkeeper claimed the incident involved an elderly man who died after being bitten on the hand by a dog.

And yet, unlike the incident in Yorkshire, which quickly generated police appeals to the public and has resulted in a man being charges in short order, there's been little in the news - the 'Mail' has found a juicier story to worry like a bone from across the pond. 

He said: "A customer had a large dog which went for the man’s small dog.

It will be interesting to find out the breed, when - or if - he's evetually caught. 

Another shopkeeper said the man had been walking his small dog home from the park when the incident occurred.

A lot of shopkeepers in this area - did no-one have a suggrstion as to who the mystery man might bre, perhaps a regular customer?  Even Facebook has no commentd on th teo stories they have up. 

Hsve we become so used to the threat it's no longer newsworthy? 

I Think We Need More Tiers...

A mother-of-four has revealed how she was arrested in front of her screaming disabled children after a neighbour from hell fooled police into believing she was the victim of a violent broom attack. Ruzena Gaborova, 48, was left traumatised after spending 13 hours overnight in a police cell after a bitter neighbourhood row with mother-of-six Salina Begum, 47, spiralled out of control in Chatham, Kent. Ironically, Begum's lies were exposed by the very footage she had handed over to police as evidence of the 'assault'.

Because two just won’t cut it anymore! Here we have two different immigrants at war with each other, and the British state agents treat them very differently.

Begum, who has a previous conviction for harassment, was last month spared jail at Maidstone Crown Court as the judge handed her a 13-month sentence, suspended for 18 months, for perverting the course of justice.

Typical! 

Ms Gaborova told the Mail how she moved from Slovakia to Britain 16 years ago and has always been very close with neighbours, until Begum and her family moved in two doors down.

The court heard there was a history of hostility between Begum and Ms Gaborova with 'numerous allegations between the two going back and forth'. This included Begum claiming she was being harassed and racially abused. However, Begum was often shown to be the 'aggressor or instigator' so no further action was ever taken.

And despite this history, plod appear to have trated each new report by her afresh, paying no attention to her history. 

Begum, who was treated as the victim, alleged she had been violently assaulted and handed police footage supposedly showing her being hit with a broom by Ms Gaborova. Ms Gaborova was arrested the following day, but when she provided her own CCTV of Begum as the initial aggressor, police decided to take no further action.

Not wanteing to arrest Begum on suspicion of wasting police time, of course. Gabarova may have bren an immigrant herself, but she clearly lacked the melanin to matter much to our woke farces. 

Just two months later, Begum reported the alleged assault again and submitted the same video.

Didn't anyone notice? 

And then on May 18, 2023, she called the police again to claim she was the victim of another broom assault at the hands of Ms Gaborova. Ms Gaborova was arrested six days later at her home, in front of her children, at around 2.30pm. She was booked into police custody at 3.11pm and detained overnight until her release at 4.12am, the court heard. This adds up to just over 13 hours in police custody.

Shockingly, it would emerge that Begum had again used the same video from the incident in August 2022 - and that the supposed altercation on May 18, 2023, simply did not exist.

Oh, clearly they didn't notice - it must have been as familar as an old 'Cheers' rerun by this timr! 

According to KentOnline, Judge Robert Lazarus scolded Begum for wasting police time by making a 'false complaint about Ms Gaborova'. He added: 'I find it very difficult to trust much of what you have said.' 

'This is a serious offence but... there are sometimes such offences that are much more serious, and I don't think this offence is so serious that immediate custody is the only appropriate punishment.'

Well, no doubt, after all, his honour doesn't have to live next door to this mendacioud bitch, does he? 

Well, If It's A Firing Squad, Perhaps You'll Get One With The Blindfold...

An Egyptian television presenter pleaded for mercy and screamed 'I've never smoked a cigarette in my life!' as she was handed the death sentence on drug charges, according to local media.

Sarah Khalifa and 11 others were sentenced to death by hanging...

Oh, well. 

...on charges of manufacturing, promoting and trading synthetic drugs, as well as possessing and carrying firearms and ammunition without a licence.

I suspect that in Egypt, that latter is not considered as bad as the former. \well, I gurss she's a hopelessly naive woman who fell in with a bad lot and didn't have a clue about the possible consequences? 

Khalifa, 39, who is best known in Egypt for presenting 'Mission Impossible', a programme dealing with crime and security, was convicted by a Cairo court.

Oh, well!  

She wept during the sentencing, begging for 'mercy and humanity', the outlet claimed. Khalifa is also reported to have told the court how she was suffering with a tumour.

One excuse at a time love!  

The verdict is not final at this stage, and is subject to appeal.

I suspect she stands a good chance of an appeal being successful, especially if made direct to the Grand Mufti.  

Ruff Justice

A woman who was in charge of an out-of-control XL bully dog which killed her teenage cousin has avoided prison.Kelcie Reed, 24, received an 18-week prison sentence – suspended for 18 months – after 19-year-old Morgan Dorsett died when she was attacked by the large dog.

I had to scroll back pretty far on my blog, past all the others, to find this particular XL Bully fatality.  

Imposing the suspended sentence with a nine-month mental health treatment requirement, Judge Anna Richardson said: “This is a case that was utterly tragic for Morgan Dorsett’s family and it has also had a huge impact upon you. 

“I accept not a comparable impact, but a huge impact.

It comes as little surprise anymore when a white liberal female judge shows just why she's unsuited to that role - like XL Bully maulings, there's just so much evidence around...the only thing missing is some victim-blaming. 

The court heard the dog attacked Miss Dorsett when she suffered a seizure from the effects of taking cocaine.

Spoke too soon!  

Mr Willmott said there had been previous incidents with Prince where he had killed another dog and Reed had previously posted on Facebook asking for advice on training. “It was apparent this this dog had the capacity to cause considerable harm,” he said.

It was apparent by vitue of it's breed, long before anything else! 

Reed’s boyfriend held a Government exemption certificate for keeping an XL bully and the dog – that weighed up to 55kg – was muzzled and kept on a lead while in public.

Proof once again that possession of a piece of government-mandated paper means nothing to a person trying to stop a fighting-breed mutt weighing as much as a male leopard.

Miss Dorsett’s younger sister, Caeila Dorsett, said her family had many unanswered questions about what happened.

I'll bet they do! Like, why the leniency?  

Sarah Regan, defending, said Reed had no prior knowledge of previous incidents with Prince and the attack on the other dog had never been reported to the police. “What did happen was sudden and unexpected, and could never have been anticipated by her,” she said.

It could have been anticipated by anyone who wasn't stone stupid! 

Miss Regan said Reed had developed PTSD since the incident and was also caring for her nine-month-old baby.

Ah, not so stupid she didn't get herself knocked up so she could plead her belly.... 

Detective Sergeant Rich Glanville, from Avon and Somerset Police, said: “Morgan’s family have shown great courage despite experiencing such a terrible loss and we want to thank them for their patience and support through what’s been a really tough 18 months for them, while our investigation and court proceedings took place. 

“It’s truly devastating that not only have they lost a loved one, but that Reed has not given them the answers about what happened that night – answers they deserve to have. 

“This was a completely avoidable tragedy and was caused because Reed failed to have control over a dangerous breed of dog.”

A dangerous breed of dog that anyone can have as long as they get a piece of paper. A killing weapon, if you wanted to be sure to get away with murder. Almost as good at that as a car.