1p & 2¢

#ARGENG

2026-07-15T16:51:27.000+01:00

Hi Thomas

Please take note of my tactics for tonight and make them yours. This is a unique opportunity and if you fail you're out (and of the job too btw).

So... listen carefully

1. File your team at the last minute available. Leave Argentina hanging...

2. DO NOT FIELD Kane nor Bellingham at the start. Kane will not last 90 minutes so keep his powder dry. The same for Bellingham as the Argentinians (and the referee??) will make sure he will be red carded in the first 20 minutes. Spoiler alert...you cannot win with 10!

3. Start with Watkins and Toney at the front BOTH! with Rashford in the middle right behind them in a mid forward role. Demand that Pickford keep pinging long balls to them exploiting the offside position with the main goal of exhausting Argentina's centre backs in the first half... then unleash Kane and Bellingham! Make clear to Toney and Watkins that they are only playing for 45 minutes and should be "dead" by half-time just like a Keeley's 800m pacemaker!

4. DO NO COVER Messi! Ask your team to "ignore" him and thwart any Argentinian pass to him. All should keep a keen eye and not allow him the ball one step before. He will be frustrated (red carded in your dreams) and will have to come backwards to have a feel of the ball. As soon as he passes it to someone else...start item 4. again

5. Play Rice at left back to cover any dangerous ground that Messi could use. Nico Reilly IN FRONT of Rice

6. Start James and Eze in the midfield

7. If by any chance you score a goal in the first half keep pushing for another one and if Argentina make any attacking substitutions to come back add Kane and Bellingham IMMEDIATELY!

GOOD LUCK 👍

Stay home...

2020-12-14T17:37:00.033+00:00

"Never confound statistics with facts, numbers with science, experiments with results."

Paulo Ferreira

Since the pandemic became well... generalized, the main tone of authorities has been to stay home, protect yourself and others. That has been the rule of thumb they want to be accepted and, to be honest, I accept too. However amidst all these graphs and numbers, theories and tiers, something is failing, something is being missed.

We all saw the curve of the first wave and how confinement was successful on bringing new cases down, reducing COVID19 deaths to a level of normal life that preceded it i. e. (accidents at work, car crashes, general daily life pre confinement)

We then got hit by the second wave and somehow its behaviour is nowhere near the one of the first... new infections are staying resolutely high, death numbers ominously steady, regardless of how many tiers the general population is being thrown at. All these facts (not numbers, facts) are, however, stubbornly new and untested in this modern age. There is no proper answer, no experimental method, nothing to compare results. So... why are we facing more adversity on a second wave when all the scientific models (based on no experience at all) predicted that it would be more benign than the first one?

The thing is... we stayed at home... for months... and by doing so we stopped sharing with our other humans the good, the bad and the ugly we used to pass on on a daily basis. The personal immune barrier we unknowingly used to curate every day, on the train, coffee shop, air plane, gym, market, pub has now been dramatically lowered. That does not mean that our reaction to COVID19 would differ had we been "attacked" during the first wave, but it means that we will get infected and test positive and pass it on more easily than before. Vulnerable people are now more at risk than in the beginning of the year and their reaction to COVID19 exposure can be more catastrophic than 10 months ago. We did not hug, kiss, sweat, shared our bodies at all and that is going to have disastrous consequences to us all, for our lives ahead, regardless of age or sex. That is why care homes are so vulnerable, as their own ecosystem, their "bug vocabulary" is way below of the standard outside life of a daily commuter. That is the reason why Amazonian tribes were wiped out and, for some not yet reached, we are taking extra care to throw "civilization" at them. I am afraid that we are, by staying at home, becoming more and more like them.

All those bugs we used to share, from Australia to Svalbard, are no longer amongst us; even with an efficient COVID19 vaccine, the resumption of a "normal" life is fraught with new dangers we know nothing about yet. We may be scared of COVID19 but post-COVID19 is not going to be a walk in the park even if that's what we have been doing for the past 10 months.

The main problem is that governments, politicians and all succumbed to the bog standard formula of a new disease... it spreads, we need to take measures, we need to find a... vaccine! and that has been the main strategy of all governments on this planet. The pharmaceutical companies had all their Christmas come oh so early this year as suddenly they have a product that is going to be used 20,000,000,000 times at at least $20 a pop. That is why all efforts were driven to this "solution" and not to research why a small minority was dying of an over the top immune reaction to the virus. Again $$$ came into the equation as so far less than 2,000,000 people died and a brand new palliative to reverse the effects of 10,000,000 afflicted would have to cost $40,000 a pop to cash in the same revenue of a vaccine... so no surprise to see where the research is directed at.

Please remember that the AIDS epidemic is under control, life goes on... with no hint of a vaccine so far.

Please remember that herd immunity only happens if we are in a herd! This immunity was constantly being updated on a daily basis. Unfortunately for us all, the last update was on 23 March 2020 and I have to remind you that, as Microsoft and Apple do, if you don't get regular updates, your Operating System becomes "buggy", literally in our case. For us humans there is no such thing as "unnecessary social contact", it is part of our wellbeing, physically and mentally and has allowed us, through trillions of contacts in the last 50 years, to reach 7.8 billion and counting.

We are in trouble now... and when we get out of this one we have no idea what we will be facing after; my guess is an endless cycle of epidemics, confinements, vaccines... no hugs, kisses, just alcoholic gel and PPE.

Ah Happy Christmas to you all by the way!

Milkshake

2019-05-23T20:09:00.001+01:00

"They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing."

Charles M. de Talleyrand

A couple of days ago I had a spat with a Nigel Farage supporter on Twitter... I know most of you will say "It's not worth it", "Leave it" etc. but I would nevertheless highlight how a certain demographics are using liberally the word of Democracy.

I shall leave here the "dialogue" between myself @pfrr and Stephen Keane @stephenkeane233

It all started with my comment on the milkshaked Farage photo by @dailymail:

@pfrr: ... and the milkshake immediately went sour on contact! Stop classifying this as "political violence". Political violence is what happened to Jo Cox.

@stephenkeane233 So in your tiny mind assaulting someone who has a different political ideology to yours is acceptable? You are a fascist if you condone this.

@pfrr I would not mind assaulting Adolf Hitler. How about you?

@stephenkeane233 So Nigel Farage is comparable to Adolf Hitler? Farage believes in democracy leftie remoaners don't. (See Lib Dems bollocks to Brexit) they are neither

@stephenkeane233 You sir are a complete idiot to compare Farage to Hitler. Former is a Democrat, latter not!!

@pfrr You still did not answer my question... "and yet it moves".

@stephenkeane233 No you are comparing Adolf Hitler to Nigel Farage. Hardly s comparison. Former was not a Democrat, latter clearly is. Your point is?

@pfrr Answer my question! What are you afraid of?

@stephenkeane233 As I was not alive and living in Germany in 1939-1945 your question is hypothetical. Mao Zedong caused the deaths of far more people than Hitler. They were dictators, left or right. Nigel Farage is not.

@stephenkeane233 I am afraid of nothing. What is your point? It's OK to kill politicians with the benefit of hindsight? Load of bollix.

@pfrr So what is your hypothetical answer? I have to assume that your refusal will lead me to classify you as a neonazi Hitler sympathiser and therefore this discussion is over.

There was a rant that I could not record (it was over for me anyway) and @stephenkeane233 blocked me from seeing his account. He refused to state that he would had gladly "milkshaked" Adolf Hitler, arguing a protracted principle of Democratic tolerance and non applicable hindsight.

The fatal error most of these illuminati commit, is they think that Hitler's defeat automatically warrants them the status of "Democrats", all the time forgetting that they were only part of the winning side due to a fortuitous geographic positioning. Unfortunately most of the undercurrent of Brexit "Promised Land" support is based on these "winners" rethoric, blighted with racism, nationalism, intolerance... "britishness", starting with Oswald Mosley (part I), followed by Enoch Powell (part II) and now on its III iteration with Nigel Farage. It will soon go away like a stinky fatberg.

Cheeky Chiquito's

2019-03-21T15:51:00.000+00:00

Why do we always have the same lame, "templated" attitude from any Customer Services Corporation?

I know this one starts with a rant and it involves the restaurant chain Chiquito. It all started when my 15 year old daughter went for a meal last Sunday to celebrate the anniversary of a friend. When I picked her she told me the story that I duly conveyed to Chiquito. Here it goes:

This episode was told by my 15-year-old daughter yesterday when I went to pick her up after a meal in Chiquito’s Ashton.

They went to celebrate an anniversary (a group of six girls I believe). They had their meal, all was fine until the bill arrived. They all knew what they ate, what their personal bill was going to be. However, when they added their totals, they were always short. They took a long time to ascertain what was wrong, until someone spotted a “service charge” of £15?

So… they raided their pockets for an extra sum until the total was met. They gave the amount to the waiter(ess?) and as it was more than the total bill, waited for their change… and waited… no one came and after 20 minutes left the restaurant… ungreeted at the exit.

You know how shy teenagers are… you just did the proverbial “taking candy of a baby’s mouth” and for that… shame on you.

I think you get the gist of my frustration and how the restaurant took advantage of the inexperience of the children that were paying for that meal.

Chiquito took 3 days!!! to reply... and did it with (un)expected dimwittedness and meaningless corporate vocabulary. I attach a screen print for your review.

Can you spot the major failure? They charged children without warning them, a no compulsory charge (no news there) and as a "gesture of goodwill" they are giving me a voucher for the amount that they should not have charged in the first place, so no loss there, plus... they want it back! I have to got to Chiquito to use the money that wasn't theirs to start with on their produce. No! Those £15.00 belong to the girls and to be used wherever they like. It is called Money!

If you Chiquito want to have a genuine gesture of good will, invite the entire party for a free meal sometime soon.

The Dictatorship of the Majority

2017-10-30T23:57:00.001+00:00

"The paper vote is an illusion of Democracy, where the electorate has been replaced by an audience panel"

Paulo Ferreira

In my school days I lived an intense political life. It was the time of the Portuguese Revolution, where suddenly a stifling, organised society was replaced by hope, by political debate, by freedom. Very soon, in a matter of days, new parties surfaced and none was better organised than the Portuguese Communist Party. Their knowledge of the political process, of public gatherings, assemblies, voting, was second to none. The scale of manipulation was staggering and soon they took over most of the national structures through a clean cut democratic process. Their youth movement UEC (United Communist Students) soon was agitating school to create student commitees and associations. I remember going to the first assembly to vote the statutes. This assembly was cunningly scheduled for an evening of 1974 at 6.30pm, after school lessons were finished, so there were about 50 people there (on a school of 2500 students).

The chair was voted, the question was asked "is this assembly representative?" followed by an unanimous raise of hands including mine. My logic at 14 years of age was, I was there, I was not going to waste my time to have to do it again. The assembly carried on, most of the attendants were UEC, they had a prepared list of statutes and in 30 minutes all the roles were voted with members of Communist Students. And it took 18 months to root them out because of their directive roles, as per their statutes, they could only be deposed by a General Assembly of more than half of the students (1,250!!!) and with a majority of at least 60%. It was done and Real Democracy won that day.

Why all this? All this because of the infantile way current democracies are running their business... with the vote! Not that the vote is not useful, but it can be counted in a very warped way. It is unthinkable that, something to be voted by the general public as important as currency, independence, leaving an economical area, can be made with a simple vote dictatorship. It is pure laziness and misrepresentation of what Democracy is. Democracy is the will of the people, ALL the people, not the ones that appeared to vote like my "fellow" communists did that evening.

In the classic Athens time, everybody appeared to say their vote, raising their arm. A paper vote is no longer a representation of the will of the people, not for the big issues I mentioned above. It is just a game, harmless in a way, to put representatives in power to speak for the people and, believe me, I have nothing against that process. It is finite, it has a closed term and it tends to even out every period. It works, well, more or less.

It is when big questions are put into the public, with the lame, lazy, Western view of Democracy (by paper, because it is the process that validates scheduled standard intelligentsia in power), that things get corrupted. Big questions cannot be decided by a single majority i. e. by more than 50% of the people that appeared to vote. Why? Because they are not representative.

That is why Scottish Independence, Brexit, Catalunya are a scam, a manipulated process, quite similar to what my fellow Student Communists were using in that Portuguese Summer of 1974. Big questions need to have big processes, big answers. Brexit could only happen if 60% of the registered voters had voted yes, the same for Scottish or Catalunya independence. More, I would even dare to say that the registered voters that wanted to vote "No" did not even need to cast their vote, by default their vote was already stated on the question. It would be up to the ones that want to make the change to mobilise themselves to fulfil the task and be responsible for the outcome. Not like this, with a representation of 20% deciding forever, economic or political secession. That is not a Democracy. That is fascism, similar with votes that were being cast in Italy and Germany in 1930. We don't need that anymore, do we?

She's fit?

2017-07-04T13:17:00.001+01:00

My apologies for this Julie... one day I may tell you the story.

3 questions

2017-06-18T00:13:00.001+01:00

"One can rape the Law without making her scream."

Charles M. de Talleyrand

The image above is pretty much self-explanatory. Politicians have been saying this week that questions must be asked and questions must be answered. I have just 3 questions:

How much did Kensington and Chelsea Council pay for each "Fire Action" sign shown above? This will have to include charges for design, feasibility, plan, expert assessments and any other related expenditure.
Who approved and signed off the above sign? (if anyone)
What are the relationships (personal and / or commercial) between the signataries of 2) and the leadership of Kensington and Chelsea Council?

Any answers to the above will define not only if there was a crime, but also if we are now confronting a new ugly term, waiting to be coined... Institutional Corruption.

Hell on Earth

2017-06-16T17:44:00.000+01:00

"Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do"

Voltaire

I am writing this because it is the only thing I can do. It is too awful to go through it without crying, too raw to put any sense or reason, too avoidable. So, I am only left with words, I am not speechless... yet. I wrote about a similar catastrophe that befell on Lac Mégantic in Québec, Canada, almost four years ago. That time, 47 people died in a blaze of fire of shale gas, when a 50 plus car runaway train, loaded with combustible, descended a mountain, crashed and exploded into the town, without warning. To date, the victims' families are still wrangling through courts, seeking redress, when both the American and Canadian Governments are closing ranks with the rail companies to impede any settlement. Be prepared, because the culprit is once again... Greed.

Three nights ago normal standard folk went to sleep in Notting Hill, just like in Lac Mégantic and similarly, quite a few did not survive the night, I don't know for certain how many (30 so far, maybe 120 in the end). The main difference is that the victims, this time, suffered a long and terrorising death, most expecting to be saved as they were promised they would, others fighting for their lives, trying to escape.

There is a difference between horror and terror. You witness the first and suffer the second. On Grenfell Tower that night, countless moments of terror were suffered by human beings, while spectators witnessed it, people jumping from windows to their deaths, mothers throwing their babies and children in the hope that they could survive, as they knew they wouldn't if they stayed put. People witnessing the blaze from the ground, powerless, in shock, listening to last words from their loved ones, saying their last goodbyes, inhaling their ashes, in what became an enormous, gory, vertical crematorium.

Yesterday morning I tweeted to The Metropolitan Police that this was mass murder, a crime scene. 8 hours later it finally became one.

I had friends telling me that I should not politicise this event, should heal the wounds and build on the solidarity already so evidently displayed. I had to disagree. This event has been nothing else but political. This was an Act of Terror, with multiple deaths, with multiple layers of accountability, so many that they all became immune, "organized" through years by political councillors, Members of Parliament, of Government, "Sir Humphreys" of Whitehall.

Where in this country, or any civilized one, can a landlord (Kensington and Chelsea Council) plan a refurbishing, fund it, request planning permission from their own offices, approve it, inspect it and sign it off? How much more incestuous can one organization be? Social housing in London and all over the country is this enormous cash cow, preying on the most vulnerable. The double-barrelled Conservative Leader of KCC (and so is his Deputy) mentioned constantly the £10 million pound refurbishment done last year for the benefit of the residents, when it is obvious that such refurbishment was a plastic (literally) surgery, to embellish the eye sore that Grenfell Tower was for the affluent neighbourhood. It had nothing to do with the residents themselves, it was just an enormous financially legally corrupt operation, to increase and inflate the prices of the surrounding real estate. It backfired (please forgive me the insensitive pun, I will change it when I think of a better description). How was this money spent? There were 120 flats in that tower. It is £75,000 per flat!
Where was all that money spent? It is as unaccounted as the bodies lying in the tower. The cladding was £500,000. They might as well have covered the tower with hay bales, but I guess that would have been more expensive. The total spent per flat was no more than £5,000, the total given to the contractor (under what circumstances?) no more than £3,000,000, the total hardware, materials and workforce expenditure around £2,500,000. Where are the other £6 million? I tell you... it was spent with "friends", with unaccountable (how appropriate) consultants, feasibility plans, health and safety reports, people earning £500 an hour to maintain their millionaire houses in Surrey and their latest BMW leased vehicle. An army of Armani apparels landed on Grenfell Tower, with immaculate hard hats, clipboards, looking knowledgeably to their surroundings, taking as much time as they needed, as money was not a problem. By the time the build had to start there was not much left. That is why, very soon, you will hear the words of "there will be lessons to be learned" which translates as "we did it the cheapest we could, because that people did not deserve any better". This is the inhumane mindset, arrogant, racist, classist, self-serving, (morally) corrupt.

The Metropolitan Police should request immediately all communications (private and official) between Kensington and Chelsea Council, their council leaders and their contractors, verify all the expenditure and money transactions between all the parties involved (including private ones) and make them public, whether or not there is criminal intent, nepotism or contract facilitating.

I hear Jeremy Corbyn asking for posh flats to be requisitioned to re-house the victims on an attempt of some class revenge porn.

That is not the right way. The Grenfell Tower should now remain forever as is, preserved as a National Monument, no paint, just that charred stack, a blunt reminder to all those layers of governing heartless ineptitude, a mark of respect to all that perished there, to all that will have to remain alive, with those horrifying images, screams and smells they witnessed that night. If the tower is demolished for real estate profiteering, you might as well go and spit on the graves of the deceased.

For me, Theresa May has now become the image, the epitome of all the above failures. That will never change. I know that she goes to church on Sundays as a Christian. I have to tell her, that because of her Lust, her Gluttony, her Avarice, her Vanity, her Wrath, her Sloth, her Envy, for sure she will burn in Hell. That may probably be the only solace for the victims of this event... never have to see her face again.

Amateurs

2017-05-10T15:24:00.000+01:00

"I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep."

Charles M. de Talleyrand

I debated the title of this post between losers and amateurs... amateurs had to win.

Yesterday I went to Event City to attend the launch of the Labour campaign. As a Labour member, I received a few emails inviting me for this celebration and curiosity won. I had to have a look.

I did not know what to expect. I've seen a lot of politics and good launches and good and bad parties and good and bad professionals. I was not expecting this. I arrived at 10.45am for a 11am launch. The venue was half full. I tried to find the hashtag on twitter for this... none to be seen, at all. It transpired later, that the hashtag for The Big Launch was #ForTheMany. By the end of it it was crawling miserably below 30th and behind... Nick Clegg, of all people. I had a look at the banners, the words, the speeches, everything falling utterly short.

The original caller, introducing the event, had a voice so enthusiastic that would have made Eeyore jealous. Finally Jeremy Corbyn came on stage. And talked... the same stuff all over again. The For the Many... not the Few. The rich and the poor... the NHS. My disappointment was indescribable.

I do no understand... why For the Many? Why not for All? Why alienate the Few? The ones that actually have the money and contacts and power to embark in a project if it is worthwhile? And the clichés on the banners hanging all over the venue? They could all have been written by the despicable Ian Duncan Smith.

A More Equal Society... Why more? What's wrong with An Equal Society? Why grading Equality? This is stolen from George Orwell's Animal Farm for sure and has been sorted since 1789, if I can remember, with a so much better Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. But there were more, like "Dignity in Old Age" as if the young are not worth of it, "Creating Good??? Jobs", "Public Ownership of Rail" (why Rail only?), and the good old "Fully Funded NHS".

Jeremy mentioned the news published on the last Sunday Times of the 1000 Richest in Britain. He proclaimed the affront this was to the million people that are using food banks all over the country. He even joked about it, saying that Rupert Murdoch has made Labour a big favour with this publication. He mentioned the 14% of wealth increase and how the world would have come down if all the workers on the good? jobs had asked for an equivalent pay rise. And then he said... the wealth of these people would be enough to maintain the NHS for 6 years!!!!

FFS Jeremy... are you telling me that if we muster the entire wealth of the 1000 richest people in Britain, The Few ones that The Many envy, sipping champagne in their manors, on yachts, gently swayed by the warm Mediterranean Sea ripples, all we can have is 6 years of NHS?? And what happens afterwards? We will have the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge plus Richard Branson and Phil Collins adding to the million plus queue in Food Banks for a tin of beans? And wow Bill Gates gigantic fortune is equal to 10 months!!! of NHS. Beans for him too afterwards. It is not numbers that do not add up only, it is the lameness of arguments, the amateurism... because you are missing the point, the other amateurs around you are missing the point too.

You cannot win an election based on numbers, on jokes, on punditry, on bitchiness. You have to understand that 80% of the residents of this country are living pretty well. If your target is having the million votes of the food bank users you have to do better than alienating everybody else... because Theresa May has already grabbed the Just About Managing, which is a joke in itself. The "Just" About Managing are people that have a house, a car, children, full fridge, school, shoes, clothes, jobs, a fortnight holiday in Cyprus on lilos, gently swayed by the warm Mediterranean Sea ripples. And that is being sold to us all as a matter of horror. You have to remember that, Just About Managing is a mother holding tight to her one year old son, hanging for dear life with another hundred JAMs, on a rubber dinghy, gently swayed by the warm Mediterranean Sea ripples. And all because she had a dream she thought it was worth having a vote for. I have to remind you that 10 years ago she also had a house, a car, a full fridge, a job and Assad as president. Is this the same difference?

You will not win this election on 1% Income Tax reduction or by scrapping tuition fees. People need more. People need to hear the words "I have a dream!". Your cult of personality is not enough. Your well kempt unkempt beard, your well curated ragged wardrobe is utterly dishonest. Because you have no dreams. You have nothing to give to people.

To finish, I will tell you a story. It's the story of a people, exploited by a foreign political elite. One day, one of theirs, destined to become part of that elite, rebelled and said "I have a dream. We can live a life of freedom, in our land, where milk and honey will flow. Who's coming with me?" Remember the bloke? A guy called Moses? Everybody followed, The Many and The Few, the rich and the poor.

Apparently the people in this country want to get rid of the Pharaohs. They need a dream now. Do you have one? Because if you don't, this is going to be a hell of a nightmare.

Dum, dum, dum, dum... dum, dum, dum, dum!

2017-04-05T16:09:00.000+01:00

There are two wonderful comments in this YouTube clip that sum up this extraordinary moment:

1. "They can't say you can't miss what you didn't have. Well, I can!"

2. "14:58 minutes of my life that have been put to good use."

I really missed this trio big time. Never saw them live in concert and that makes me sad. Sad that I can only perceive this beauty through media, not with a direct contact.

Since I heard the double bass riff on "Seven Days of Falling" that "dum, dum, dum, dum..." these are four (very simple) notes that will never leave my head. Even my daughters, with all the biebers and mendes and beyoncés, know these very well, and that makes me proud, gives me the certainty that music is Universal with a capital U and also Human, with an even greater capital H.

The entire repertoire of the Esbjörn Svensson Trio is of an unique intellectual level, an emotional harmony without rival, with a fabulous balanced sonority and narrative, with an assured predicability and shocking surprise at the same time. A music where each bar is smiling at you and leads you to inner places you know so comfortably well, and others you finally found and wish you could have found them earlier.

I am sure none of the three musicians has any lesson to be given, no moral to be passed on, universal intention, elevation of human dignity. They just want to enjoy and reap the reward of being Humans, allowing Time to flow and... stop in rapture.

It is... Religion, but without God. Just Human.

Fourteen minutes and fifty eight seconds of my life (and yours) put to good use. Don't miss it.

Surrender

2017-03-31T15:34:00.000+01:00

Who remembers playing cowboys and indians in their childhood? I thought this was a long time ago but yesterday I saw this kid with a homemade bow and arrow, this bent branch, with a tightened rope throwing a stick as far as 5 metres... there is still hope... not everyone is looking at a 5.5" screen.

We used to spend hours on end on the street, in our estate, 2 dozens of kids making war and peace. The game had these fuzzy rules, two bands, one of cowboys and another of indians, all heavily "armed" with bows and arrows, spears, toy revolvers and rifles for the ones that had wealthier parents, some with "real" hats and frilly trousers, and even boots, others with just chequered shirts and shorts. Most of the indians' fighting hardware was made of giant reeds (arundo donax) a very abundant material. Some were cut to rifle size and, with a few cloth pegs, could imitate a G3 machine gun we used to hear about as standard issue for the Portuguese Army in the colonial war in Africa. There were several continuity problems at the time, with machine gun vocalised sound effects, the odd Al Capone pistol and Thomson sub machine gun 50 round magazine (yes there was one of those too)

The rules of the game I can remember, were similar to a collective hide and seek. The indians would go and settle camp somewhere, then the cowboys would follow on a scout job trying to track and ambush any random indian they could find. If an indian was ambushed at less than say 5 paces (s)he had to stop. The rule was reciprocal. If the distance was bigger, then the potential hostage could run away back to the camp or quarter. Everyone was a referee on this matter, always resolved promptly by both parties.

And then the shout of "Hands up!"... surprising the potential captive... followed by the question:

"Do you surrender?"

No answer was required for this question. Surrendering, becoming a captive or prisoner was an inherent part of the game. Sometimes picked up by the arm, others with the wrists tied with rope for more authenticity, others with handcuffs (continuity fail again...) There was even this case when two were captured and, as there was not enough people to bring both, one was tied onto a tree and soon forgotten, in the heat of the battle. He was released, in tears, much later by an adult passer-by.

It was just like that, no arguing, just surrender, trust the captor, becoming a captive was part of the game, without it there was no reason to play it.

Why all this? Let's roll on 50 years later, now! I look at people that passes by, television characters, people that argue, shouting at each other, looking at couples, young and old relationships... No one surrenders anymore. Surrendering is now shameful, has become a sign of weakness, failure, loss of independence. Maybe too many WWII stories of Japanese soldiers for which becoming a prisoner was the ultimate shame, the kamikaze, the very polite new rule of war made by the Geneva Convention, maybe the behaviour of quite a few recent captors. But somehow, when I recall my game, it never crossed my mind, when becoming captive, that I was less than my captors, we were all equals regardless of our warring status. That was the case for many centuries in a lot of conflicts. This is now lost and it is no surprise, that the war on terror is not working, because it is not a war... it is just terror, from both parties. There is no equality, just disdain... for life.

Maybe it is that never explained proverb "all is fair in love and war". I don't know how old it is, but it comes across as a very recent one. Not surrendering, invoking independence, is a lie as it has nothing to do with independence and all with suspicion. You are suspicious of the person you claim to love and it is on that basis, that you promise to build an everlasting relationship. Independence and suspicion go hand in hand nowadays.

And yet... you surrender every day. You do it! You surrender when you sign that employment contract, when you press "I Agree" on your phone to accept Google's or Apple's EULA, or that app you bought, that Vodafone price plan, that train ticket, you do it every day hundreds of times... and why? Just like in my childhood game... you assume that you are an equal, that you will be treated fairly, that those entities are intrinsically trustworthy. But if it is your partner, the tax man, the police, the Chancellor, oh no, they cannot be trusted. "(S)He cannot be trusted", how many times do you hear this every day applied to a relationship? No, for us the words of Winston Churchill will always resound in our ears:

We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender!

I much prefer the words of Antoine de Saint-Exupery in The Little Prince:

“I am looking for friends. What does that mean... tame?"
"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties."
"To establish ties?"
"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world....”

So next time you start a new relationship (and statistically that will be a sure bet), when getting into that stage you need to utter the words "Do you love me?" just ask instead:

"Do you surrender?"

And if there is an answer... just go.

Let it go...

2016-10-11T13:47:00.000+01:00

"One death is a tragedy, one million deaths is a statistic" — Stalin

I spent this weekend on a "marathon" at the Durham Book Festival. I saw quite a few shows, presentations and presentations that were more like lectures. Some were very very interesting, challenging, others made me angry, being as a consequence also interesting and challenging... and still, as a consequence, I will have to write about it.

One of the events was about "Love and Loss" with Cathy Rentzenbrink and Decca Aitkenhead talking about their experiences and their books "The Last Act of Love" and "All at Sea".

As soon as the discussion started I felt uncomfortable, not because the talk was about death, but because there was no death. Not that I am morbid, at all, and was expecting gory details and external expressions of grief, live. I did not know the circumstances of both writers, but I slowly started seething with the display of luxury of this exercise and its presentation as a standard matter of fact. I am already old enough to have tragedy in my life (quite a few) and lived through many more Stalin statistics as mentioned above. The extravagance of grieving through the medium of a book seems to me far fetched and not a process that can be achieved as a social standard. I could compare this as attending a vintage champagne or caviar degustation forum. I would never go to these hypothetical events knowingly, as my relationship with these indulgences is personal. I would much prefer to buy a bottle or a tin and have it on my own, or with some close friends. I understood the personal need of the intervenients of sharing their stories, but they are exactly that, their stories. I struggle with the "self-help" concept and, in this niche of death, I found it borderline ostentatious. I will come back to this...

We now live on times of "eternity", people don't die anymore, they fight for their place and fame through social media and death does not stop it. One of my great friends Pedro / Pita (read Peter) died 6 years ago of a heart attack, after bravely fighting and post-poning a death by colon cancer ad aeternum, if optimism is permitted. His Facebook page was kept alive year on year, morbidly in my opinion, recently changed I think by Facebook, in a "remembering" page. I am still his friend on this page and my discomfort is evident. How do I "unfriend" him now? How can I? One of the hardest things I had to do was to go to my list of contacts and delete his entry. I grieved and I always will if not for the fact that we also share the same birthday (and always will).

It is a matter how we see friendship and relations... For me friends, close friends, never go away as they made what we are and we made exactly the same for them. Our beings are intertwined, our shared experiences, adventures, discussions, tragedies. When they go is just like we lose a limb, and we need to carry on for the rest of our lives with only one hand or leg, limping or using "hooks" or wooden contraptions, sometimes even changing to the point that we might cuddle a parrot, permanently residing on our shoulder, shouting "Ships ahoy. Arrrh!"... and we keep saying "No it's nothing, it is just a scratch, come on you wimps!" like the Monthy Python Black Knight.

... or we write a book.

That is why I find these stories borderline ostentatious and disrespectful. In a way Cathy's brother will never die, Decca's partner the same. They were put on this limelight without consultation, their lives dissected with the premise that "that is what they would like us to do". We need to let it go, to let them go, so they finally have the chance to rest in peace.

Postscript

On a positive note all this helped me to recall my friend Pita (Pedro Beça Múrias). He was a radio journalist and, when he got told that he had cancer, he started writing chronicles under the title "The Waiting Room Chronicles" that were read on radio and made into a book later on. He loved fishing and had a special relationship with the sea. As a memento I shall translate one of his chronicles entitled (remembering his voice and words)

"Falling asleep hugging a whale"

Beforehand imagine you can hear the chant of a whale
She is my companion on nights of insomnia
Yes it's a whale, so what?
We dance endless waltzes all night through the blue Atlantic Ocean
You cannot fathom the affection she uses to caress my back with her flipper, defusing my anxiety.
Nevertheless my daytime is quite easy going.
But my nights are always longer than the hours.
If it wasn't for my friend Moby, maybe a grandchild of the mythical Moby Dick, who invites me for a waltz ever so often, everything would be so much more difficult.
Sometimes mermaids and sunfish appear dancing at the bottom of my bed... and some poets too.
Pablo Neruda who introduced me to Francisco Coloane, who he calls tenderly "Son of the White Whale" remembering Melville.
Even O'Neill (Alexandre) invited me to chase a grouper through the tall see weed. It is always an adventure with him.
Sofia (de Mello Breyner Andresen) with her Girl of the Sea on her hand.
But it is Moby that I get on with better.
"Do you know something Pedro? Your loneliness could become an invitation to freedom and life!" she said to me one night.
"What do I care!" I replied like a spoiled brat.
"Believe me I know what I am talking about. You have no idea what is swimming against a strong current and then jumping as high as you can, hitting the water with your tail, jumping again... You have no idea."
"Oh Moby it's you who have no idea of the life and solace you bring me. Your example, your strength cruising the oceans without ever feeling alone... With you no one ever feels alone. It is your courage that inspires me to fight this, dancing over the blue sea."

... and it is like this, after these dialogues, that I fall asleep... hugging a whale*.

*listening to Leonard Cohen's "Take this Waltz" is compulsory.

Compound

2016-10-10T16:04:00.001+01:00

(A bit boring now... money, numbers but what I describe below troubles me... have a read)

Preamble

A few years ago it transpired that the policy of cuts and austerity based on Armageddon calculations by two Harvard economists, Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, was fundamentally flawed and based on an Excel coding error. Is the PMT Excel interest formula and its daily application in the finance world an even bigger error?

No this is not about the favourite architectural home style of Osama Bin Laden and US Embassies in the Middle East... This is about a permanent "invisible" effect that is present in all arithmetic calculations that include two entities... Excel and Finance; I have to add these are two of my favourite pet hates.

You can see here on this Microsoft Excel training on Formulas.

Have a look and see what is wrong...

.....

I shall carry on... this has to do with the most used function in Excel, PMT, no not that regular monthly tension that afflicts one third of women, but an ignored tension that afflicts the entire world of accounts. At minute 2:15 there is an example "use 6% divided by 4 for quarterly payments at 6% APR" and later 3.35% divided by 12 since we are going to make monthly payments". There is a small problem with this, actually is is quite big... it is the well known compound effect.

I may have lost half of my audience by now but hang on in there.

I start with a numerical example, with a deposit because it is easier to understand interest on savings: if you place a deposit of $100,000.00 for one year at 10%, after 12 months when it matures you will have $110,000.00. You have 3 main options after the deposit matures... you recall the lot, you recall the interest or you roll it (called Principal and Interest) for another period. If you choose option 3, after another 12 months you will have $110,000.00 plus 10%, $121,000.00, the interest has been compounded. This can be calculated for any number of years (if you never recall your deposit) with a mid-complicated mathematical formula:

F = P (1 + R) (power of N)

F — Final amount

P — Original amount

R — Rate

N — number of periods (week, month, year)

I wrote power of N to signify that the expression (1 + R) is multiplied by itself N times i.e. squared for 2 years, cubed for 3 and so on.

If you left a deposit for 10 years and compounded it, the calculation would be:

F = P (1 + R) (1 + R) (1 + R) (1 + R) (1 + R) (1 + R) (1 + R) (1 + R) (1 + R) (1 + R)

For $100,000.00 at 5% yearly interest, you would receive a total compounded final amount of $162,890. This works perfectly for deposits, for interest gain. However it does not work for loans, the compound effect is overlooked.

Now instead of making a deposit you apply for a loan, same $100,000.00 at the same 5% for 10 years. You make monthly fixed repayments and the PMT formula gives you an amount (calculated on 10% divided by 12!!! as you saw on the Microsoft video and where all errors reside) of $1,060.65 with a total of payments of $127,279.

However if you save monthly $1,061 for 10 years (i.e. if you could save $1,061 monthly) at 5% rate you would end up with $164,599!!! It is an enormous difference against $127,279, $37,320 to be more accurate. I don't like this. It appears that for the same amount of money a bank will lose $37,320 after ten years or at least will start with a loss of $37,320 that they will have to recoup over that period.

I made an Excel table of loans below. I know the amount is a bit stratospheric ($1 billion) but in the big scheme of world finance it is quite common.

You can see that if you make monthly repayments on loans there is always an overpayment "dribble" on the right column. There is always more money present in the system than the one that is really accounted for. In financial systems with low interest, that is almost negligible but it is there. $1 billion generates an extra unaccounted $45,960.89 each year, "ghost money" that will have to be somewhere and, if not taken into account (literally), will somehow cause worldwide unbalance (literally) on financial systems as it does not add up (literally again). On a 6% interest rate environment you can see that $1,677,811.86 of "ghost money" is generated, an already significant 0.116%.

In my view this "ghost money" is what creates inflation and currency devaluation.

On societies or systems with high interest rates the "ghost money" creates utter chaos. At 130% interest will create a bulky 113% of "ghost money" in one single year, which is more than the original loan. That is the reason why most countries with high interest have by default abysmal inflation and an almost worthless currency.

All is right now

2016-09-12T15:01:00.000+01:00

On 9 June this year I published a blog entry with the title "The Biggest Nail House on the Web" alerting for the fact that the twitter account for Apple Inc. www.twitter.com/Apple (@apple) was misteriously dormant. You can see from the screenshot on the right that it was not a verified account by Twitter, it had 33.6K very distracted followers and there was not a single tweet on sight.

Today, 3 months later I had another look and all has changed. The account is now verified, there are a few Apple graphics, it is showing as linked to www.apple.com, based in Cupertino, and there are now 551k followers either very distracted or hopeful. Still not a single tweet has been issued. Knowing Apple I am sure there will be a fanfarre on twitterland created by the very distracted Cupertino publicists (oh they missed this one big time), for the release of their first tweet.

I have the suspicion that someone, in between these two screenshots, got very, very rich. "Distractions" like this can become very costly. Anyway... all is right now.

PS: The nail house is no longer.

Sadiq

2016-08-22T15:34:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I received an email from Sadiq Khan. I got this from the Labour email database and I am really puzzled why I got this spam from a Labour member (and via the Labour party!!!!) to endorse the candidacy of Owen Smith. In this process Sadiq's opinion is as valuable as mine regarding the outcome of the now active Labour leadership process. To my knowledge I was not invited to spam the now half million Labour members, telling them who I think will be best to lead the party. So, once again, shame on whoever allowed this to be sent using the Labour party channels.

Sadiq says

I was deeply humbled to be elected as the Mayor of London in May, thanks to the hard work of Labour members and supporters.
I've played no part in the turmoil this summer and I've thought hard about my role in the leadership election. I've been asked how I'll vote by many of the members and supporters who helped me, and you deserve an answer.
So I want to tell you why I'm backing Owen Smith to be the next leader of the Labour Party.

Owen has the strongest Labour values - he led and won our fight against the Tory cuts to tax credits and disability allowances. The polls show he is the most likely Labour candidate to win the next election.

I am dumbfounded by the fact that Sadiq "played no part in the turmoil"... a poor choice of words and an even poorer choice of action. The lamest excuse for propaganda that "I deserve an answer" based on Mr. Smith's sycophantry (of which he makes part), was used in a shameless way.

How on earth can Sadiq make the statement that "Owen has the strongest" Labour values?? Based on what? Against what? Sadly he doesn't and neither has Sadiq. And then the polls... Sadiq goes for Owen on "polls" that show the "likeliness" of Owen winning the 2020??? election. The values of both are contemptible to say the least.

I had to reply...

Hi Sadiq

Your choice is a poor one. Remember you were elected Mayor of London on Jeremy’s bandwagon Labour resurgence. You had 3 choices:

Support Jeremy out of pure Labour loyalty
Make yourself a candidate for Labour leadership
Keep quiet

You did none of the above which in a way shows how an inadequate, amateurish politician you are (or became)

Labour will survive regardless... I don’t know about you... Comrade

Needless to say that I have yet to receive a reply from such an illustrious politician. Needless to say that Jeremy has already my vote in the bag.

Send in the lawyers

2016-07-04T10:46:00.000+01:00

"Money talks" — English proverb

I am very happy with this morning news. They are sending in the lawyers. It is about time... look what happened when they sent in the clowns?

This is the future of politics in UK and USA with already a very successful result in 2000. Democracy is being replaced by courts. Remember how George W. Bush was elected first time after a wrangle around the Florida votes that was finally settled on Bush vs. Gore (587 votes and $20 million made the difference)?

Do I need to mention Donald Trump? Anglo-Saxon democracy has become a farce... mostly because it is now void of any humanity on both sides of the Atlantic. It is all about money and, if that is the case, you cannot blame the corporations to have a say, and surely they will have a lot to say and a big wallet to back it up. The interests of corporations dictate how these 2 countries need to be ruled. Democracy is now an illusion and votes are nothing more than bread for the circuses, bread only, not croissants, not cake.

I have to say that this time this is a good move from the "shareholders". If I had the money I would have filed this motion myself in the English courts on Friday 24th June 2016.

One Penny

2016-07-03T13:41:00.001+01:00

"Send 2 dozen roses to room 424 and put "Emily, I love you" on the back of the bill" — Groucho Marx

I moved to this country almost 21 years ago. I worked, I paid my taxes, I paid my National Insurance contributions. Now I hear that my "invitation" to leave may be on the table for blackmail negotiation purposes with the European Union.

So... to make it clear... If / when I leave, I want every single penny I spent on NI plus the value of my pension contributions to come with me... around £100,000 I estimate. This will not preclude the right to seek further personal redress in the English Courts for future loss of earnings and Equal Opportunities Rights.

Start digging deep in your pockets. The £350 million Brexit claim is going to look small change indeed. The totals for the 3 million EU citizens living and working in this country is going to be around £1 trillion!!!!! And I want it all... every single penny!

Cinderella

2016-06-30T11:36:00.001+01:00

“The Tories in England had long imagined that they were enthusiastic about the monarchy, the church and beauties of the old English Constitution, until the day of danger wrung from them the confession that they are enthusiastic only about rent.” — Karl Marx

When the result from the referendum was announced last Friday the United Kingdom woke up for a shock. No one was prepared for this outcome... no one, even the winners. And after five days it is blatantly obvious that no one has a plan, except keeping the previous status quo at all costs, now under the heavy make-up (Rimmel instead of Bourjois) of a "liberated" country.

Had this event happened 1000 years ago and there would have been a blood bath. The new order would have decapitated, stabbed, burned all the top supporters and rulers of the previous establishment. Have you ever wondered where the expression "new blood" comes from? Gengis Khan was not adverse to this political procedure as, after every conquest, he would burn to the ground, at exceptional cost, all cities and countries that opposed him. Even the ones that didn't, would have a temporary "culling".

This country is unprepared for this dramatic change, even metaphorically. However this needs to be acted upon and you cannot act upon when you have a parliamentary democracy where 80% of its representatives still support the old order. That is a political conundrum, an impossibility. The result of the referendum can only be legally upheld when approved by the Parliament. How are you going to do it with 80% of MPs still longing for the old Remain landscape? Only by a lot of whipping and turncoating this can be achieved... but why would the voters want their representatives to lie for the sake of expediency?

The last 3 days have been the stage of an appalling display of people that should have left (read "decapitated"), still clinging on to their seats, their privileges, aiming to represent a class of voters that are due to extinction, the elites of the South and London, burping of lobster and champagne. That is not why the majority voted for, why the struggling North, Wales and South West (correlated to the distance from London) voted in majority to Leave. They want a New Order, and this is not achievable with the same old people.

The core Labour voters and the rest of the 17,410,742, the miners turned white van people, don't want any more Milibands, Eagles, Watsons, Camerons, Goves, Blairs, Gordons, Mays, Boris, Farages, etc. They want a New Order, a devolved country, even if it is only England and Wales. And so far, on the new political landscape for which the old order is unwilling to let go, there is only one person that can lead, is prepared and can win this process... Jeremy Corbyn.

It would be an irony that an extreme right politician would finally trigger the October Revolution this country has been evading for such a long time.

You go first...

2016-06-23T11:18:00.000+01:00

Just a quick reminder for the Leave voters, Brexit intelligentsia, history spinners and random British glorifiers...

The Charge of the Light Brigade was not a victory.

PS: As usual no Lords, Earls, Dukes, etc. were hurt in the process.

The British are going...

2016-06-21T13:24:00.000+01:00

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter" — Winston Churchill

This Sunday I watched Top Gear (new) for the first time. All was fine until Professor Brian Cox showed a clip of his next series with him flying in a Typhoon RAF fighter jet at the speed of sound. When he asked the pilot what would have happened if they carried on flying over Ireland the pilot's reply was "They will deploy their Cessna!". Everyone laughed, the audience, Brian Cox, Chris Evans... I didn't. This was again that omnipresent racist British superiority that is all over this society. I was surprised that the producers allowed this to go in. I would have been even more surprised if they would have edited it out (maybe there's still time).

You would be led to believe that this Thursday's referendum is about the UK staying or leaving the European Union. Don't be deluded... This referendum is about being British, it is giving the (good) "British" people a choice between British-hard and British-light. In their own racist superiority Europe is just a very distant backdrop, a fuzzy excuse to yet again for days, weeks on end, appear on the media and on the pub saying "Look, just look how superior we are!". Even the Remain's rethoric is flawed... They want to stay to help??? Europe, to lead??? Europe. What???? Who gave you that remit? How arrogant, how superior, how "British".

Last week I watched David Dimbleby's "Seven Ages of Britain". Henry VIII was there... and I had a sudden flash. Thursday and Brexit is Henry VIII all over again. It is leadership haranguing the masses saying "Why do we need to be controlled by Europe/Pope? We can do it ourselves. Who do they think they are? I can marry who I want as many times I want. I can be God instead of God." And randy, gouted Henry is shown as the epitome of Britishness, on how well you can do, the right to have six!!! wives... and yet you forget that after him you had 200 years of war, civil war, king's beheading, coups, Cromwell, poverty and finally all was only sorted by going to the European supermarket and buying a king from the shelf. A Dutch king!

I am very suspicious of the word British. For me the bad connotations outweigh the good ones by a very large margin. The Union Jack and the way it is waved, has for me the same significance as the US Confederate one, which for me is the "losers' one", so why wave it? It is pure Redneck! The word British has been hijacked in such a way that even when it is mentioned on Parliament by the Prime Minister shout of "British people", I cannot stop thinking of replacing it by the word Racist, because it is used by him with that subtext so very often. It is just like Al Murray, the pub landlord, when he mentions "The Good British people" on his sketches. I used to laugh because I thought he was being sarcastic. He wasn't... He joined UKIP, so there is no joke anymore.

I don't get it... I don't get it why you constantly wave the "British" Royal Family composed by a Greek man and a half-German woman. Oh and the heir of the throne is half-Greek and a quarter German at minimum. You say the Queen wants to brexit when you insidiously asked that question to the wrong person in the palace... You should have asked Prince William! The Royal's "Britishness" you so enjoy, is constantly coloured by the racist rants of the Duke of Edinburgh which you so love and are yet so "British". You just love these newly acquired nationals that oh so well upheld the "British" spirit and integrated oh so well in "British" society... just like the Sonderkommandos did all the dirty work in Auschwitz.

I don't get it why you allowed the word Britain to be hijacked by Britain First... How that "trade mark" was accepted? How is that allowed to happen, unless in some twisted way you condone it in the name of free speech, or ultimately they are just some other "official" Sonderkommandos... as the Queen would say in good English "Honni soit qui mal y pense!"

And Jo Cox... on Thursday night there was this British "luvvy", yes just a few hours after she had died saying on BBC2 Newsnight "oh we should not use her death for political purposes or advantage... that is so unBritish". This hurt me has much if not more than the bullets fired by the killer.

Jo Cox was brutally and cowardly assassinated during this referendum debate. Her death was nothing but political. The assassin, regardless of his intellectual capability at the time, felt entitled to act that way and that entitlement was not given exclusively by the words he shouted "Britain First". When he shouted these words he was not solely claiming the racist political organization that is using that brand. I think he was genuinely shouting Britain! First! Jo Cox's murder was a very "British" murder, made by a "British" person. He could do it because Jo was 5" tall with no physical threat whatsoever, which is a very "British" trait, as you only go in when the numbers are at least 20:1. "British" people have this confusion between bravado and bravery... Even the courage is most of the time... Dutch. Would the Batley and Spen MP be say... Tom Watson... I'm sure, as I type these words, we would still have an MP for Batley and Spen. For what I know about Jo Cox she was definitely, for the sake of humanity, unBritish. And hopefully there are still a lot like her left in this land for redemption purposes, otherwise this Britain is just a second edition of Sodom and Gomorrah's tale.

The assassin is said to have a lot of Nazi paraphernalia at his place... and again I don't get it. Isn't the biggest "British" taunt "Two world wars and a world cup"?? Why having relics of the losers at home? It is as dumbfounding as visiting Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's home in Raqqa and finding this little room full of red crosses and crusaders souvenirs.

I think you need to let the word British go... find a new one... grow up and play and be happy. That will not be resolved this Thursday. The referendum is pretty much a worthless exercise in sorting your emotional/social problems. You have 500 years of bad spin that needs addressing. And it is OK to be afraid and I know it will be hard and painful ... you are like that old battleship that has layers and layers of paint and if you start stripping it of you will see in the end there is no metal left, so you keep on recoating it without even questioning why you need it... or even a Typhoon jet fighter... as a Cessna will suffice!

PS: My British friends will ask me after this... "Why? Don't you like us?" which is the wrong question... This should be "Why? Don't you like me?" and the answer will always be YES. Maybe this is just a minor English grammar problem, of confounding the collective "you" with the individual "you". And you (both) need to sort it.

Dead Man's Hand

2016-03-28T00:41:00.001+01:00

“The hardest tumble a man can make is to fall over his own bluff.”

It all started as a joke... "Hey Donald, why don't you run for President on the next election?" and the guy who suggested this is the main culprit of the cataclism that is going to befall on the most powerful nation on Earth.

Donald never thought about it, knew that he has no skills, no charisma, no statesmanship, no politics or policies but he thought "Hey that's a good one. I don't want it but in the meantime I will get free coverage, loads of exposure, my name on the front (and back) pages... That cannot be bad at all. How hard can this be? If George W. can do it anyone can. Let's do it!"

Then things started getting out of hand... he forced the entrance door of the Republican Party expecting to be refused and to have to run as an independent. For his stupefaction he was welcomed in. By a strange coincidence there was no one there with statesmanship, charisma, policy or policies, all just like him, a total void of discourse to offer to the masses. And Donald can address the masses... he knows (or probably not) that “Since the masses are always eager to believe something, for their benefit nothing is so easy to arrange as facts.” as Charles M. de Talleyrand used to say. And his facts are pretty much similar to the ones used by the rising star of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei 85 years ago, now translated to the supremacy of the American People and Immigration (aka Racism). The only difference is that Donald does not believe a single word of it. He just does it for the "show", for ratings. Worse, he does not know what he believes in, his life is based on pie charts, graphs and spreadsheets, does not have a clue who he is, what he stands for.

He is now panicking... the joke went too far and he can no longer call his bluff as people took his inane pontifications seriously. He is frightened of the American People of those screaming voters, the poor that shout his name, like they did 1983 years and a week ago that agreed with Him, expecting miracles delivered in this world. He can no longer call it a day, it's too late. He also knows that given the choice, when things calm down, the populace will always shout for the name of Barrabas.

The Hatton Garden Principle

2016-03-22T22:05:00.000+00:00

Paper is always strongest at the perforation." — Murphy's Laws

For sure the FBI read my post last week on how to access Syed Rizwan Farook unbreakable iPhone. The news published on the Associated Press today about on how they came across this process just follows a natural human time sequence since my publication. They had to go and buy phones, expenses, budget... you know the drill.

My tweet to @Snowden triggered this entire story

I copy again what is the method based on the Hatton Garden Principle mentioned below (photo describing the method on top of the page)

Addenda for the FBI

Please ignore the doors' arguments. There is always a solution and I suggest you use the Hatton Garden Principle that reads more or less like this... "If the front door is inexpugnable go for the walls". So here it is:

Pick Syed Rizwan Farook iPhone and disassemble it to separate the hard drive / memory where the data is stored (it does not matter if it is encrypted or not)
Copy (don't backup) the contents (files etc.) to 1, 10, 100 equal equivalent hardware
Purchase an equivalent iPhone, create account and password and PIN for that device as usual.
Disassemble it and remove its hard drive
Replace the hard drive of this iPhone with the one you copied previously on 2.
Reassemble your iPhone
Start your iPhone
Hey presto!

No thanks necessary.

If the above does not work use "brute force" i. e. copy 1000 drives and try one by one on 1000 different phones as you will have 10 gos at each. If the PIN is a 4 digit one there are 9999 combination to try.

This works because although Apple has a lot of nerds in encryption they do not think, they are just logical as Niels Böhr used to say. Apple's encryption works locally based on the premise that the "door" is intrinsically linked to the"vault".

The "door" is the PIN when you unlock the phone (banks have those knobs you have to turn either way against a set of numbers), the so desired data are all the values inside the vault and the encryption is a connection between the door's code and the personal drawers keys customers have to access their values.

The claim of Apple is that, if you fail the door access code a few times, the entire vault will self destruct in 9, 8, 7... What they forgot is that you can clone the vault's values as many times you want. They also forgot that the local connection is what it is... local. What is encrypted when you close the "door" will be recrypted when you clone the data with another door and customer keys. They are totally independent and generated at the point of entry because, if you use quantum algorithms and encryption, they are absolute, not time dependent, instantaneous. Any data on an iPhone device, when cloned and loaded on another system should "adjust" itself to the new system if you use the same (i)OS / encryption algorithm. To make it simpler, the jewels and cash in a vault are independent of whatever combination is placed on the door and customer keys, they are also independent of whatever door or keys are being used.

"An outside party" came forward (over the weekend???) and showed the FBI a possible method to access the data on Syed Rizwan Farook's encrypted phone, according to the filing.

"Testing is required to determine whether it is a viable method that will not compromise data on Farook's iPhone," the filing said. "If the method is viable, it should eliminate the need for the assistance from Apple."

This means that the FBI has now cloned Syed's data quite a few times, as I suggested last week, and is trying to check if the instantaneous recryption works. If not, they will have to go through the painstaking avenue of using different devices as many times needed and manually find the PIN (0000-9999 usually i. e. 10,000 possible combinations). This will take maybe another week, as they will probably need to source around 5,000 iPhone 5s, restore them to factory settings, create new Apple IDs and use them for this single purpose.

What really puzzles me is that this is not the most interesting news... The reaction from the Apple(ists) was that the FBI was playing games, they new this all the time etc. No one, no one!! is mentioning that their bull**** claiming that no iPhone can be broken into, is actually that... bull****.

Hey presto... again!

Donald Trump ™ ®

2016-03-20T14:03:00.004+00:00

...or why Donald Trump ™ ® cannot be legally a candidate for the US presidential election...


It is the same suit and tie isn't it?

We have all read the news this week about Hulk Hogan and the landmark court ruling that awarded $115 million in damages on what would have been another trivial Hollywood sex tape story.

The principle is very simple. Terry Bollea was filmed unaware while having sex. The video was published and Terry claimed that his privacy was invaded and his business tarnished. The verdict was very, very straighforward: Terry Bollea gets $60 million for damages and Hulk Hogan ™ ® $55 million for commercial damages. This ruling is not only about privacy, it is also about how private people can inflict or be damaged commercially by actions of a third party. This is as clean cut as it can be... How many people are fired or have a lawsuit each day for bringing a company name ™ ® into disrepute? The third party in this case surely brought Hulk Hogan ™ ® into disrepute by targeting Terry Bollea. The court ruling made a clear distinction between the two personae, Terry Bollea is not Hulk Hogan.

This leads me straight to Donald Trump. This American Republican candidate has lived all his life around his name brand. He does not try to hide it at all, he boasts about it... The man you are voting for is the man that was "built" throughout an entire lifetime. Donald Trump is a salesman and this is the ultimate sales pitch and ultimate sale (give me your votes now, not dollars). It can be resumed in a simple equality that reads like this:

Donald Trump = Donald Trump ™ ®

Trump makes a lot of noise, mostly white, about this. His USP is how the great success story of Donald Trump ™ ® can be transferred to the White House in its entirety. And that is the reason why, because of the equality above, Donald Trump (™ ®) cannot be legally elected for President of the United States of America, just in the same way the "person" on the photo below is as far as I know still unelectable...

As we are now we do not have a clue who Donald Trump is, no one does... and I am pretty sure neither does he.

"Some People" vs. Apple Inc.

2016-03-12T17:48:00.000+00:00

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits" — Einstein

We have been made aware recently of the little tiff between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Apple Inc. regarding one iPhone. This one iPhone is sadly connected to the San Bernardino mass killings of last December with strong Daesh connections.

If you read the news and have a further look at the omnipresent judicial televised circus, you might think that this is a life and death battle between a self appointed defender of Freedom and Privacy and Humanity (Apple Inc. a for enormous profit organization), against a totalitarian institution that wants to have a look at everything we do at anytime (the FBI controlled by the US Government which is voted by The People on a regular basis).

You get sucked in in mesmerising words like, privacy, encryption, operating system, back door, defence, hacking, vulnerability, snoopers, terror, safety, protection, fear... fear... mostly fear. It is curious, or not, that both litigators are using fear to validate their argumentation.

But... this is not about fear or freedom or anything like that... this is only and only just about control, control of who will have the final say on what is private or not, a technocratic corporation hiding behind the blanket of Privacy, against a technocratic organization hiding behind the blanket of Security. Curiously both claim to act in the name of Freedom, both interpreting our / their Privacy and Security in their very very own twisted ways.

To make you understand the issue better I am going to use an old fashioned biblical style parable...

Imagine that tomorrow as Tim Cook is walking around in LA, he gets shot and killed by a fame seeking "lone gunner". Another gun crime victim so common in the country... LAPD reacts and chases the gunner in yet another live TV nationwide broadcasting. Naturally the gunner, just like Syed Rizwan Farook, is shot dead as standard for the sake of expediency... which makes the unavoidable subsequent murder investigation utterly inane.

A criminal investigation ensues and they discover on his body not an iPhone no, but one Hilton hotel card key just like this one. They hurry to the hotel and receptionist to confirm the room number and get this reply:

"Do you have the PIN number linked to this key? If not I am sorry to tell sir but you cannot get in. We respect the privacy of our guests and without the PIN you are unable to enter. Moreover... if you force the entry or try the code more than 5 times the contents in the room will self destroy. That is how much we prize the privacy of our guests! And I have to add that a warrant from a judge will not make any difference to the privacy setup we have in place."

What is wrong with this hypothetical privacy stance from Hilton Hotels? Everything but mostly, albeit technologically achievable, it would have never been allowed to be put into place.

Your own homes (the epithomy of your privacy) can be raided by security forces against a police warrant (check the "key" they use in the UK on your left), your underpants scrutinized, your socks smelled, your food in your fridge, your rubbish bins, clothes, CDs, everything can be searched if deemed by law necessary to the progress of a criminal investigation... everything except your very "personal" smartphone.

The US Government fell asleep and got sucked in the hyper hype of technology advances boasted by Apple Inc. (a for profit organization, did I say it already?). They got caught mesmerised on the gadgets they familiarly looked and touched everyday for hours on end and have now arrived to a point where the point of no return is long time gone. Apple were able to develop tottaly unchallenged and dictate on their iStuff the standard of privacy they deemed "necessary".

Tashfeen Maleek phone is now locked, encrypted (or not how can the FBI know?), and with information inside inaccessible, a modern version of Pandora's box. This has now generated further pseudo — philosophical statements from Tim Cook / Apple regarding back doors, front doors, walls and other architectural vocabulary, further privacy and how safe is safe, still being allowed to express policy on a field for which they have no entitlement whatsoever. They should build stuff and sell stuff. That's it!

I will add another discussed technological advance that is now on the back pages... Remember foetus cloning and DNA manipulation? Now imagine Monsanto (or equivalent) decided a while ago to clone 10 million babies and put them in the "market" for practical purposes without any scrutiny whatosever. Then after some problems, it would be found that this was unethical and their reply would be "Oooh and it is not unethical to now kill 10 million human beings??? How awful are you US Government?"

The same happened with GM food too... However the debate started BEFORE any big steps were taken. Apple didn't. They smoke screened any opposition and hid in this sense of entitlement, of the accepted "status quo", on what I call a very dangerous nerdocracy that in their eyes replaces law, democracy, values... Sadly the US Secret Service also uses the same nerdocratic values to scrutinise their own people, which makes this debate utterly incestuous.

The Law must be restored and with some luck and wisdom someone will be the judge of it, a proper judge, which will rule for The People at last.

Addenda for the FBI

Please ignore the doors' arguments. There is always a solution and I suggest you use the Hatton Garden Principle that reads more or less like this... "If the front door is inexpugnable go for the walls". So here it is:

Pick Syed Rizwan Farook's iPhone and disassemble it to separate the hard drive / memory where the data is stored (it does not matter if it is encrypted or not)
Copy (don't backup) the contents (files etc.) to 1, 10, 100 equal equivalent hardware
Purchase an equivalent iPhone, create account and password and PIN for that device as usual.
Disassemble it and remove its hard drive
Replace the hard drive of this iPhone with the one you copied previously on 2.
Reassemble your iPhone
Start your iPhone
Hey presto!

No thanks necessary.

If the above does not work use "brute force" i. e. copy 1000 drives and try one by one on 1000 different phones as you will have 10 gos at each. If the PIN is a 4 digit one there are 9999 combination to try.

Good luck and Godspeed.

Before you go Mr. President...

2015-10-02T00:13:00.003+01:00

"Guns don't kill people. People do" Yeah, people with fucking guns! #idiots

tweet @rickygervais

A few hours ago another mass shooting in the United States occurred and another Presidential speech will follow suit, the same speech we heard previously after Charleston, with Mr. Obama wearing a sad face, stating the unavoidable routine of these events.

So... before you go Mr. President...

You said last time that the biggest failure you had in your almost 8 years of presidency was the inability to stop these mass murders. The lax gun controls and the iron corset that the Second Amendment imposes on any attempt to limit the "right to bear arms" makes this an impossibility.

It is obvious that the gun lobby, the National Rifle Association and users (both criminals and law abiding citizens) will always constitute a legislative block and this mass murder will not be the last... and you, the President of the USA are unable to stop this in the "most advanced country in the world" with legislation.

I have to remind you though that you are a leader, the leader of the "most advanced country in the world" and if you cannot legislate you should still lead. You can change people's minds instead of hiding behind a few Washington Chambers, counter lobbying and then concluding that you "tried really hard". You can act.

You cannot stop your people "bearing arms" in your country, that is their right. Nevertheless you have 2 options: the first one by parallel legislation and the second one by direct action. I shall explain:

You can make compulsory that anyone "bearing an arm" in public should wear an armband (choose colour... I suggest red) to make other members of the public aware that that particular citizen is carrying an object that is deemed dangerous to the public, in breach of Health & Safety laws. Anyone caught carrying a gun without that said armband should have the gun removed and fined heavily on the spot, with the gun license cancelled for a period of time. This will at last put the onus on the gun holder. And how can decent gun lovers and law abiding citizens, defenders of democracy, object to this law?

Or... better and faster... you can do it the other way around... you can wear a white armband as a statement of "#icomeinpeace" - "I do not carry a gun". You can start leading your people already tonight. No excuses, just act.

PS: To Ricky Gervais... you can do the same too.