Falling On A Bruise

Special Guest Blogger: Phrixus

2026-06-27T00:30:00.007+01:00

I was born in the kingdom of Boeotia, son of King Athamas and his lovely wife, the cloud-shaped goddess Nephele who was the dream-girl who could summon clouds on demand while Athamas was a solid, if somewhat gullible, ruler who believed anything that glittered.
Enter Ino, the second wife, who entered my life with all the subtlety of a thunderbolt. She was a firebrand, a political operant and apparently had a very specific talent for turning family gatherings into dramas. When she decided that I (and my sister Helle) were a threat to her own children’s inheritance, she promptly commissioned a wicked scheme involving a cursed grain seed. The idea? Starve us to death, then blame it on a divine punishment.
My mother, who could have turned the whole scene into a fluffy white cloud of denial, was forced to flee the kingdom while Ino was setting up the first recorded instance of step-mother sabotage. From a mother who could conjure clouds to a step-mother who wanted to starve you, Greek families were the original drama queens.
When the kingdom’s wheat fields turned into a landscape of wilted ghosts, I found myself in a very precarious situation. The only way out? A ram that could literally fly and this was a golden ram, not a regular one. The fleece was shimmering and the horns were pure gold.
The ram appeared out of thin air (or maybe the gods—see below) and offered us the ultimate upgrade 'Hop on, folks, I’m headed to Colchis' and Helle, my sweet yet clumsy sister, leapt aboard first, full of excitement but i was more cautious.
The ride, however, was not the usual and a gust of wind threw Helle off the back. She fell into the sea, which was later named the Hellespont in her honor, a kind of ancient dedicated to the memory of.
I, on the other hand, clung to the ram’s fleece like a hamster to a plastic ball. The creature swooped over the Aegean, performed a few unasked for barrel rolls, and eventually dropped me on the shores of Colchis.
Colchis, as you may know, is modern-day Georgia and in my day, it was the hottest destination for heroic tourists with sun, sea, and a king who made sure no one left without a souvenir.
King Aeëtes, ruler of Colchis, greeted me with the same hospitality you’d expect from a host who just learned that a golden fleece has been gift-wrapped by a foreigner.
He was a man of refined tastes, he liked fine robes, solid gold thrones, and most importantly a golden ram as a tribute to his ancestral line. When I showed him the fleece left by the animal, Aeëtes accepted.
Now, I’m told that the Golden Fleece later became the centerpiece of the famous Argonautic Expedition with Jason and his merry band of misfits spending years hunting down the fleece, battling Harpies, and solving riddles that would make even modern escape rooms look like child’s play.
But let’s focus on me. My role in the whole saga? The first Golden Fleece supplier and then i settled down ro work as a Shepherd, Wine Merchant but settled on sitting on a hilltop, sipping fermented grape juice, and offering unsolicited life advice to passing travelers and became a footnote in Jason’s epic later quest.

Fridge Socks

2026-06-25T14:30:00.000+01:00

The surface of the Sun is 5500°C and i had the misfortune to spend the day in Central London today where the temperature was just a tad under that.
Thankfully the heatwave is due to break this weekend but we still have to make it through the sweaty armpits and sleepless nights to get there but the Red Cross have offered some helpful hints to stay cool, and one of them is wear socks.
People tend to put socks on to keep them warm but the Red Cross say that to keep cool at night during very hot weather, put a pair of socks in the fridge during the day and slip them on your feet before getting into bed.
There is some science behind it apparently because research has shown that putting your feet in cold water is a way of reducing your core temperature so cooling your feet is a good way of cooling your whole body.
I normally put my pillow case in the fridge for an hour before going to bed which gives you a 15 minute window to drop off before it warms up but after a yoghurt related incident i am very careful about it.
Apart from the new twist of footwear, the Red Cross does have other tips for how to keep cool at night in a heatwave such as sleep on the lowest level of your home due to the heat rising, wear as few clothes as possible and also turn off electrical devices, which can generate heat.
They also say to avoid alcohol and caffeine in the evening, drink plenty of water to stay hydrated and take a lukewarm or cool shower to bring down your body temperature before going to bed although they don't explain if you should wear your socks in the shower cubicle.
Anyway, might be worth a try and you never know, if you are not careful then your feet may smell of Blueberry Yoghurt by the morning.

Special Guest Blogger: Richard Lawrence

2026-06-25T00:30:00.009+01:00

If you ever find yourself scrolling through the life of US President Andrew Jackson, you will see it mention that he survived an assassination attempt in 1835 and that’s about as much credit the historical record gives me.
No mention of my dramatic entrance, the spectacular mis-fire of not one but two pistols, or the fact that I was the first person in the United States to ever try and kill a sitting president. It's as if the world has forgotten me.
I was born in 1800 in a modest farmhouse in a small town in England and after emigrating to America, i worked as a painter and decorator and got the reputation of being able to slap a fresh coat of whitewash onto any surface faster than a horse could change direction and my life took a sharp turn in 1824 when I was hired to paint the interior of the local tavern, The Singing Sawhorse.
The tavern’s owner insisted on serving his patrons the finest whiskey in the county and while I worked and one evening, after a particularly generous tasting days work, I knocked over a barrel of whiskey. It rolled, clattered, and, in a spectacular display of physics, crashed into a candle and the resulting blaze set the tavern’s thatched roof on fire. I spent the next three hours dousing the flames with buckets of water.
That night, as I lay in a straw-filled mattress, I dreamed of Andrew Jackson, the man who would later become president, standing in the middle of the burning tavern, clapping his hands and goading me and I awoke with my heart pounding, my mind buzzing and a lingering scent of brandy.
A few weeks later, while browsing a pamphlet, I read about how President Andrew Jackson was vowing to crush the Bank and thought he must be stopped before he destroys the very fabric of our society.
That was the moment I realized my true calling was not just to add colour to the world, but to remove the colour from the one man who threatened to paint it all grey. And so my mission was born.
I visited the local blacksmith, who also doubled as the town’s gunsmith and bought a pair of flintlock pistols that had been used by a local militia during the War of 1812 but the Blackmith assured me they were still fully functional
On the morning of January 30th, 1835, I boarded a stagecoach heading to Washington, D.C. and I arrived early, pushed my way through a crowd of curious onlookers and took my spot.
When President Jackson arrived he seemed unaware of my presence despite standing five feet away, doing my best impression of a non-suspicious gentleman.
I raised my left pistol, aimed, and pulled the trigger. Click. The flint mis-fired. I tried again, this time with my right pistol and got another click. The audience gasped, the guards stared, and I was left standing there staring at two dead weapons and Jackson beating me around the head with his cane.
The guards moved in, and I was swiftly escorted out, handcuffed, and escorted to the nearest police station. At that point, I realized that perhaps I’d missed something essential, a functioning gun, and the world’s first presidential assassination attempt was a spectacular dud.
The trial was a circus and the defense attempted to argue insanity and the judge found me guilty but not sane enough to be executed and that began my tenure at the U.S. Public Hospital for the Insane and the rest of my days doing oddly soothing activities.

Israeli Genocide Deliberately Targeting Palestinian Children

2026-06-24T15:00:00.000+01:00

A United Nations report was issued today on the Israeli occupation and continuing genocide in Palestine.
It found that Israeli authorities and security forces are deliberately targeting Palestinian children resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip and war crimes in the West Bank, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory said in a new report today.
The Commission, which already concluded last year that Israel had committed genocide against the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip, found that the intense scale and systematic nature of the Israeli military operations have continued, resulting in unprecedented death, injury and trauma of Palestinian children.
The Commission reiterates that the deliberate targeting of children is one of the key elements establishing genocidal intent of the Israeli authorities and security forces to destroy the Palestinian group, in whole or in part, in Gaza.
'The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces' said Srinivasan Muralidhar, Chair of the Commission. 'Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law.'
They found that Palestinian children have been arrested and subjected to torture and other severe forms of mistreatment in Israeli prisons and detention facilities, with no information on their whereabouts. Israeli security forces have also used sexual violence against children as part of the collective shaming and oppression, entrenched within a prolonged, ethnic, gendered, and intergenerational pattern of Israeli occupation and hostilities.
Israel’s targeting of neonatal and maternity care centers in Gaza have directly harmed the survival of newborns and Palestinians reproductive future, including rises in miscarriages, birth defects and lasting vulnerabilities among newborns, resulting in the destruction of Palestinian newborn life and the population’s continuity. Starvation imposed by Israel through blockade and siege have further caused the death of Palestinian children and severely impacted the health of many others, depriving them of essential nutrition and increasing disease risks amid reduced immunization, food insecurity and destroyed health services.
The Commission has identified military units within the Israeli security forces responsible for killing and injuring of Palestinian children and makes recommendations to Israel and to all Member States to ensure accountability for such crimes.
Criminally, there are still some defenders of Israel despite knowing all that we know and them committing almost every act of the 1948 conventions on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Not as bad as the NAZI's, but definitely in the same division and as well as hunting down the heinous Israeli leadership overseeing this evil, anyone who has backed and armed the nation should also be held accountable.

Special Guest Blogger: King Alyattes of Lydia

2026-06-23T00:30:00.015+01:00

When you’re a king, you get a lot of time to think and a lot of people to remind you you’re not a god.
I was born in Sadis, the 5th ruler of Lydia which was a city that smelled of sandalwood, fresh figs and the faint hint of future gold and the founder of the world’s first minted money.
My father, King Sadyattes, was a stern man who believed in a strict bedtime and an even stricter treasury in a time when the Lydians had built their empire with swords, but we kept it with money.
In my 20th year I inherited the throne and a mountain of debt. The Lydian economy was a mess of barley-bundles, cattle-cattle, and the occasional promise of goat-skins.
Before money, people had bought things with cows and pigs, which were not very efficient for the purpose because you had to feed them and keep them safe all the time and sometimes they died.
My advisors kept suggesting 'tribute' to offset our debts but the peasants just grumbled and one day i wondered what if we could give people something that isn’t perishable, like these gold rocks we keep finding laying around and i called my Chiefs and said let’s turn this precious metal into something everyone can count.
Thus, the Lydian Lion was born, a gold coin stamped with a roaring lion, a symbol of our kingdom’s strength. I held a grand ceremony, tossed a handful of the new metal into the crowd, and shouted that now they could buy a goat and the crowd went wild and all the goats were sold out in an hour.
Suddenly the Lydians had this money stuff, which was small and easy to keep and you could hide it in a sock under the mattress, which hardly ever worked with cows and pigs. Also, it had little pictures on it, which were interesting to look at. At least, more interesting than cows and pigs anyway.
Money was so easy and convenient and didn’t moo all night, you started saving up for things, and selling things in the nearest market town, and settling down, and not hitting neighboring tribes as often as you used to.
Oh they went on about how much better life was in the old days, before there was all this money and peacefulness around, and how much more enjoyable things were when people used to get heavily armed in the evenings and go out and make their own entertainment but no one was anxious actually to go back there.
So there you have it, I invented money because I was tired of bartering goats for barley and needed a way to keep my treasury from smelling like livestock.
In my 24th year, the Cimmerians, those nomadic warriors who thought sweeping the plains meant stealing your treasury, decided to raid Lydia. My generals suggested a full-scale war, but I opted for a more creative solution. I invited the Cimmerian chieftain to a banquet and told him a story about a king who could turn any enemy into a friend by giving them a shiny coin.
The chieftain, slightly intoxicated, laughed, clapped his hands, and asked for a coin as a souvenir. I gave him a Lion, and he left with a promise never to raid again plus a hangover that made him swear never to cross a Lydian border again.
After the Lion stamped its first round in Lydia, the rest of the ancient world went crazy and the Persians tried to copy our metal but ended up with blunt, square discs that looked more like doorstops than currency and in an effort to keep up with demand, I hired a team of artisans to create different denominations such as a gold Lion for the big-time deals, a silver Electrum for everyday purchases and a bronze spade for peasants buying seeds.
Every great empire has its oops moment. Mine involved a sudden influx of counterfeit coins. A rival city-state, jealous of our mint, started stamping their own versions of the Lion, only theirs looked more like a sleepy cat. The peasants were confused, the merchants got angry, and I, being the diplomatic king I was, hosted a Coin-Swap Festival where everyone could bring in their suspect coins.
Moral of the story is if you can’t beat them, invite them to a party and give them a shiny bit of metal as my little metallic circles changed the world. We’ve gone from barter to coins, from coins to paper, and now people are using bits that you can’t even hold.
My name appears in textbooks as the man who invented money which is flattering and humbling but I never actually invented the idea of exchange, I just made it much more shinier.

Red Heat Warnings

2026-06-22T16:30:00.000+01:00

Met Office forecasters have issued a rare red weather warning for Wednesday and Thursday in the face of extreme heat and humidity, while a red heat health alert has been issued in England indicating: 'A risk to life for even the healthy population.'
The weather warning covers from Swansea to London and runs from Salisbury up to Birmingham with areas outside this area under an Amber warning.
In force on Wednesday and Thursday, forecasters are saying they expect maximum temperatures to exceed 37C, perhaps rising to 38 to 40C and accompanied by high humidity, exacerbating the potential for discomfort and health impacts, with very warm and humid night times also reducing the ability for people to recover overnight.
The MET Office warning includes the line that: 'Significant disruption to daily life is likely and the public should take every effort to make precautions and adapt their daily routines where possible to cope with these levels of heat, which up to now have been extremely rare for the UK with with substantial disruption to travel, energy supplies and possibly widespread damage to property and infrastructure'.
Friederike Otto, a professor of climate science at Imperial College London, said: 'Our first 40C day was supposed to be a wakeup call, but clearly someone hit snooze. Hitting 40C again, and in June this time, would be incredibly alarming. There’s a sad inevitability to all of this, with scientists like me trotting out the same quotes year after year. Yes it’s climate change, yes it’s us, no it’s not El Niño. Simply put, we remain on a one-way trip towards a more dangerous future, and it’s time we hit the brakes'.
Sadly, the only people who could have hit the brakes have continually failed to do so for decades and this is the inevitable outcome of our own sheer stupidity.

Starmer Out

2026-06-22T16:00:09.237+01:00

Here we go again then with Britain ready to have its 7th Prime Minister in 10 years and the new name on the door is widely expected to be Andy Burnham who is almost facing a clear field in his run to 10 Downing Street.
It has been a bit of a wild ride for Keir Starmer who does come across as a very nice man but not a very nice Labour man and though it was the Mandelson Affair which ended him, the writing has been on the wall for quite some time but while he will remembered for his missteps, he did have some successes.
Keeping Britain out of Trumps disastrous war in Iran, the Social Media ban for under 16's, bringing down waiting lists for the NHS and the employee and renter rights were all rightly applauded but i always had the feeling that Starmer wasn't connecting with the general public and came across as quite bland an uncharismatic although he did say in 20204 when he was elected, maybe what Britain needs is a boring Prime Minister, which is exactly what we got.
Andy Burnham's plans are not that well known which seems a strange situation for someone about to take the top decisions in Government but whereas Starmer was not Labour enough for the parties Back Benchers, Burnham is making all the right noises at the moment although what he can do within the Party Manifesto he will have to work under we willo find out soon enough.
As for Britain, Cameron quit in 2016 after losing the Brexit vote, Theresa May also gave up when she couldnt get her Briexit deal through the House of Commons in 2019, when his party refused to Govern under Boris Johnson in 2022 after it was exposed he was partying (and lying about it) through the Covid crisis he was replaced by Liz Truss who sunk the economy and was swiftly substituted just over a month later for Rishi Sunak who heavilly lost the 2024 to Keir Starmer.
After 717 days he will now be handing back the keys to Downing Street and the nation once again thinks, maybe this time it will work.

Special Guest Blogger: Artemisia I Of Caria

2026-06-21T00:30:00.012+01:00

Ahoy, ye land-lubbin’ scribblers and history-snob swabs! I’m Artemisia I of Caria, but call me Arty, nay, wait, that’s too common. How ‘bout The Salty Siren of Halicarnassus? Aye, that’ll do. Ye’re here ‘cause ye’ve heard tales of me, I s’pose, that madcap pirate queen who out-sailed the gods and out-drank Poseidon himself! Well, gather ‘round, ye scallywags, and let me paint ye a portrait of me life with a brush doused in rum.
They say I was born into a royal family. Pfft. Royal? I was the daughter of a petty king who thought strategic alliances meant marryin’ off his daughter to the nearest lunatic with a navy. But let me not bore ye with the boring details! The upshot? I grew up in a sandbox of political chaos, where diplomacy was a code word for steal each other’s treasure and pretend it’s ‘trade.
By the time I was old enough to tie me own laces, I’d learned that power ain’t given, it’s taken with a sword and Rum solves all problems.
So I did what any self-respectin’ Carian noble would do and I joined the pirate life. Aye, the high seas were callin’ me name, and I answered with a cutlass in one hand and a map in the other.
Now, I know what ye’re thinkin’, ye land-locked parrot, was i any good at this piracy lark? I’ll have ye know I once outmaneuvered the entire Greek fleet while dressed as a man in a too-small tunic. It was excruciatingly itchy.
My ship? The Ship of Destiny, a creaky old tub that looked like it’d sink if ye so much as sneezed on it. But I loved her like a first mate. And love, me hearties, is what made me a legend. When the Persians asked me to join their navy, I thought, Why not? I’ll take their gold, their trust, and then their ships. Classic Arty.
At the Battle of Salamis, I did the near-impossible and saved the Persian Empire while secretly sabotagin’ it. It was a masterstroke. The Greeks? They’re still scratchin’ their heads, wonderin’ how a woman in a man’s tunic managed to pivot their history like a drunk docker at a tavern.
I didn’t become a pirate for the glory. No, no, no. I did it for the free rum, the fire ships, and the excellent view of the chaos.
And don’t get me started on my death.I was kicked in the arse by a man half my size. True story. A rival pirate, jealous of me plunder, ambushed me while I was nappin’ on a rock. I dueled him with a coconut (long story) and lost. But before I croaked, I made sure to steal his hat and wear it to me grave. That’s how a real Pirate goes out, a thief till the end!
So there ye have it, ye rum-soaked bilge rats, me life, me rules, and to tell ye to raise a glass, question authority, and never, ever pass up a chance to dress as a man and lead a fleet into battle.

What Was It For?

2026-06-19T16:00:00.000+01:00

In his first term, Trump scrapped the 2015 Obama-era nuclear accord known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action which was in force between 2016 and 2018 and the White House has been on a PR offensive since the details of this deal came out because all it does, at the cost of thousands of lives, is put us back to where we were on February 27th, the day before the ill judged bombing started.
Iran may be asked to reaffirm that it will not acquire a nuclear weapon but then that’s what it's been saying for years anyway and even repeated it during the February talks in Geneva when the Strait of Hormuz was open for shipping and American and Iranian negotiators were discussing a nuclear deal so the question must be what exactly the war was for?
Israel has been gunning for Iran for decades and persuaded Trump that by killing the supreme leader on the first day, it would cause a collapse of the undoubtedly corrupt and highly repressive regime but it has not just survived but has been empowered as it has now discovered the power of controlling a global economic chokehold is a far more usable, and much cheaper, weapon than a nuclear program.
In return for reopening the Strait, the MOU's language says the US will lift its counter blockade of Iranian ports, waive sanctions allowing Iran to earn billions of dollars from exporting oil and start the process of returning billions more to Iran by unfreezing assets that it held abroad.
When they went to war President Trump said the regime in Tehran would fall and told the Iranian people to prepare for a once-in-a-generation chance to take back their country and not long after that he called for its unconditional surrender but what we ended up with is a memorandum of understanding which is an agreement to talk about Iran's nuclear program while handing key inducements for Iran. If the talks progress, the US has said it will lift sanctions and hand over a reconstruction fund for Iran worth at least $300bn.
No amount of White House spin will make anyone think that America and Israel have made any gains from what we had with JCPOA in 2016 and even what we had on February 27th but with Israel and the USA licking their wounds and the thick end of $114 billion of taxpayers money spent, I would guess Iran must be feeling quite pleased about this deal.

Bye Bye Keir

2026-06-19T15:00:00.000+01:00

Keir Starmer must be feeling a bit giddy today because Andy Burnham has completed the first step of his journey towards turfing him out and moving his furniture in 10 Downing Street.
The hardest bit done, he know has to find 81 MP's to back him which he already has and win the leadership contest which seems like a foregone conclusion because it is hard to see Starmer emerging from this with the keys to the Black Door still in his pocket.
My problem was Starmer was always that he wasn't Labour enough and Burnham is making big promises to warm all Socialists hearts such as gradually Nationalising water, energy and transport and a massive program of affordable housing.
To say that since they gained power the Labour Party has been a disappointment is an under statement and the latest YouGov poll showed that 37% of the country think there should be a change at the top of Government and we may just get our wish.
I get that after 14 years of ideological right wing nonsense from the Conservatives there was a lot to fix, the inherited economy was dreadful and the services so hollowed out by cuts and austerity that it was never going to be a quick fix and STarmer has done some good things with closer ties to the EU and the recent Social Media ban for under 16's but otherwise we were heading towards wasting the opportunity to actually do something.
Unfortunately for Starmer, he will be remembered as that guy who led the Labour Party into power after 14 years and then piddled it all away doing very little when he finally got in and then got replaced.
Labour is a Socialist Party, it should act like it and under Burnham, we can only hope it does.

Special Guest Blogger: Greek Goddess Astraeus

2026-06-19T00:30:00.002+01:00

Hello, dear readers or should I say hello judges and lawyers because I’m the the original Goddess of Justice, though I’m reliably informed I’ve since become the chick in the sky with the scales. Blimey.
The Golden Age of Humanity was a riot. I descended from the heavens all wide-eyed and wielding a sword (because nothing says fairness like looking like you’ll slice someone’s head off), determined to make the world a better place. My mission? To root out injustice, balance the scales of morality, and generally act as a very posh morale officer.
My first mistake? Assuming humans would appreciate me.
Imagine, if you will, a Bronze Age village. A man steals a goat. Another man insults a priest. A third man just wants to know why the river’s upstream. My job, I thought, was to intervene, to bring order to the chaos. Instead, I got a crowd of 300 all shouting, 'Sort them out, Astraea'.
Honestly, it was like herding cats and by the time I’d decided the goat needed to be returned and the insults needed to be quantified in livestock, someone had set the village on fire. Justice, I realised, was not a popularity contest.
I tried. I really did. I adjudicated disputes, judged the guilty, and even let my hair down (metaphorically as virgins can’t literally do that, obviously) to mingle with the masses. But then came the Iron Age, and with it, professional injustice and kings who thought fair meant because I say so.
One day,I simply left. Poets say I ascended to the stars in a blaze of glory, transforming into the constellation Virgo. Rubbish. What actually happened? I stormed off. Yes. After a particularly egregious case of a tyrant executing a farmer for thinking incorrectly, I muttered, 'Right, that's it, sod the lot of you' and took the scenic route to the afterlife. I just departed in the same way that one departs a party when it’s clear no one is paying attention to what you’re saying about the weather.
I gathered my sword, my scales, and my dignity and I marched toward the sky and thus, Virgo was born, eternally peering down at Earth with the disdain of a goddess who tried to fix the human world and make it fair and failed gloriously.

Learning From Dion's The Wanderer

2026-06-18T15:30:23.856+01:00

I made a weird discovery today while walking along listening to my headphones, my steps matched exactly to early 60's song 'The Wanderer' by Dion and the Belmonts.
When i got in i googled the beats per minute and found out that song was 116 bpm's so stands to reason that other songs at the same rate would also match my walking speed so off i went to Google again and found tonnes of songs so weeded out the ones which would make me stop to push them forward and ended up with a playlist of American Girl by Tom Petty, Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Grandmaster Flash's White Lines, We Will Rock You by Queen, Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana, Should I Stay Or Should I Go by The Clash, Iggy Pop's Lust For Life, Town Calle Malice by The Jam and Megadeth's Symphony Of Destruction.
Apparently a step rate that syncs with 116 bpm is excellent for a brisk, moderate-intensity walk of about 3.5 to 4.0 mph which elevates your heart rate and strengthens your heart, lungs, and endurance while still allowing you to comfortably hold a conversation.
For most people, a general walking pace is about 90 to 105 steps per minute but musically 116 bpm's would fall under the Allegro Moderato (Moderately fast) range which while not an extreme high-energy or frantic speed, it comfortably leans toward upbeat.
All of this i never knew until today so thank you Dion.

A Child Protection Lecture From America????

2026-06-17T15:45:00.000+01:00

The American embassy in London has published a notice advising the UK government not to ban social media for the under-16s and the appropriate answer would be who the feck asked you anyway?
Maybe the Americans thought we would appreciate some advice from a nation where the leading cause of death in children and adolescents is gunshot wounds and their answer is not to stop mass shootings in schools and colleges by banning guns like a sensible nation, but hold shooting drills in the classrooms where they practise clambering under their desks.
When the shooter almost made it into the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in April, rather than drag the President out of the room, why not just get him under a desk? It's what they think will protect the American youngsters when someone is rampaging through the school, halls with a military style rifle why not the rank and file of the Government.
We could also go into the sex pest President being almost certainly a pedophile as well who is protecting his child abusing chums in the Trumpstein Files who he knocked around with throughout the nineties so having a nonce at the top of Government isn't exactly screaming child protection.
Either way, lectures from Donald Trump’s administration about anything should be noted, then quickly dismissed as utter nonsense and never mentioned again because the worst case scenario is that come November he will neutered by his own people in the Mid-Term elections and will limp to the next Election in 2028 as lame as his boasts that he beat Iran in his latest debacle or the many online doctors are right and he will not even make it that far as he is not so much knocking on Deaths door but standing in Death's hallway discussing the coat stand.

Special Guest Blogger: Barbara Payton

2026-06-17T00:30:00.011+01:00

If you’ve heard my name, it’s likely been whispered with a sympathetic cluck of the tongue or, more likely, a lascivious gasp. I’m the cautionary tale, right? The blonde bombshell who lit up the silver screen for a hot minute and then spectacularly combusted. The girl who had it all and then frittered it away on men, booze and a series of decisions so daft they’d make a reality TV producer blush.
And you know what? They’re not entirely wrong. It was a bit of a carry-on but they miss the best part that it was quite often a bloody good laugh.
Let’s start at the peak, shall we? Hollywood in the late ‘40s. The Studios owned you, body and soul. They told you what to wear, who to date, and what to think. They looked at me and saw a set of cheekbones that could cut glass and a certain rebellious sparkle. I was their next big thing. Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, with the divine James Cagney. I was a contract player at Paramount, a bonafide starlet. It was all very glamorous and utterly exhausting.
Then came the men. Oh, blimey, the men. The history books love a good scrap over a dame, and I gave them a humdinger. Franchot Tone and Tom Neal. Two handsome, successful actors who decided the best way to win my affections was to beat each other to a pulp in a street. Honestly, chaps, was all that necessary? All that over a silly girl from Minnesota who was just trying to find a decent gin house in this town? It was romantic, I suppose, in a ridiculously Neanderthal way. Franchot won the fight and my hand in marriage. Tom got a suspended sentence and a starring role in my next film. See? Everyone’s a winner.
That, my dears, was the turning point. Not the fight itself, but the fact that my life had become more interesting as gossip than as cinema. The public didn’t want to see me act, they wanted to watch the real-life drama. And who was I to disappoint?
This is where my so-called fall from grace, kicks in. They talk about the alcoholism, the dead-end roles, the arrests for shoplifting and, yes, prostitution. They paint a picture of a broken woman, a ghost haunting Sunset Strip before she was even a proper ghost.
And yes, my fondness for a martini (or five) before lunch turned out to be a rather poor long-term career strategy. My bank account started to look less like a vault and more like a sad, empty teacup. So, I made some money on the side, and on my back, and all fours for men who were willing to pay me. A girl’s got to eat, hasn’t she? I was always a terrible businesswoman but there’s a certain freedom in hitting rock bottom. Once you’ve sold your mink coat for a fraction of its worth and spent the proceeds on a bottle of hooch and a packet of fags, you stop caring what the gossip columns say.
I wasn't a cautionary tale, that’s so dreary, my real legacy isn’t in a dusty film can, it's in the glorious, messy, human truth of it all. I loved too hard, drank too much and made mistakes with the enthusiasm of a puppy chasing its own tail but I wasn't a victim, I was a participant.
Which brings me, rather unceremoniously, to the end which was of heart and liver failure aged 39 which frankly was a bit of an anticlimax after all the drama. The final curtain fell with a whimper, not a bang.

Israel The Fly In Any Peace Ointment

2026-06-15T18:00:00.000+01:00

As i never tire of saying, Israel treat ceasefire's with the same respect that Donald Trump treats Moscow Hotel mattresses but as the warmongering Orange bell-end is discovering, war is Israel's favourite pastime.
It was no coincidence that just as the Americans and Iranians were within touching distance of a ceasefire agreement, Israel decided to bomb Beirut once again, hoping that the Iranians would react and the whole ceasefire talk would come to a shuddering halt but Trump was desperate for a exit ramp to this debacle and apparently yelled down the phone at Netanyahu to halt his killing in Lebanon.
We are yet to hear the full details of exactly what is in the peace deal but Iran are shouting they won and America are doing the same but it is hard to see what America has gained from the 104 day war that wasn't on the table when the war started.
The main line is that Iran agreed to not having nuclear missiles but they didn't have any anyway and Israel have been saying for decades that they are weeks away from building one and every American President treated that with the disrespect it deserved until Israel found the perfect idiot sat in the White House to believe them.
Israel are saying today that the deal which stipulates that all fighting in the region must stop, including between Israel and Hezbollah, is: 'Bad for Israel and for the entire free world' and says Israel: 'Will have to continue the campaign to bring down the regime ourselves and ensure that Iran never acquires nuclear weapons' which raises the question that if that conflict flares up again, will Iran then target Israel and if so, will the US retaliate against Iran or will Washington leave Israel to fight that one on its own?
Israel's defence minister is also saying that its forces intends to stay in Lebanon and it is as plain as the bloated stomach on Donald Trumps obese body that Israel will attack again once the ink is dry on the agreement and for one obvious reason.
Wanted War Criminal Netanyahu is been under pressure to keep it going because he is facing elections in a few months' time which opinion polls suggest will see an end to his time in office and increase the likelihood of him being jailed on corruption charges, so he is gambling that portraying himself as a war time leader, protecting Israel's security, increases his chances of political survival so people will die in Gaza and Lebanon to keep him out of jail as he sees it.

Well Done Labour For Under 16's Ban

2026-06-15T15:18:20.605+01:00

Well done to the MP's in Parliament who have finally done something about the Social Media platforms who, as the Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, said yesterday: 'Have had more than enough time to act on social media safety for teenagers'.
Calling Australia plus, the policy bans all under-16s from all the main social media platforms and prevented from chatting with strangers on platforms not covered by the ban, such as gaming apps, as well as live-streaming and it is down to the platforms to be responsible for enforcing it and overseen by Ofcom.
The broad support across the political spectrum means that regardless of what happens to Keir Starmer in the upcoming weeks, it will go ahead but the big question is how will it be measured to be a success or failure?
The Australian model showed that in the immediate rollout of the ban, platforms restricted or closed approximately 4.7 million accounts belonging to teens under 16 so that could be taken as a win but is it purely down to the numbers or an increase in positive mental health outcomes or less time under 16s spent on their phones?
Social Media have had their own way for far too long and have actually backtracked on online safety and reduced oversight into what gets posted so well done politicians who are doing something to protect under 16s which is a darn sight more than the media platforms ever did.

Special Guest Blogger: Memphis Minnie

2026-06-15T00:30:00.013+01:00

They called me a pioneer, an icon, a trailblazer for female musicians. It’s terribly flattering, of course, but it also makes me want to laugh until my corsets pop. A pioneer? Good heavens. I was a woman with a guitar and a rent to pay. Pioneering was for chaps with silly beards and maps of places they had no business being. My only map was the one on the back of a Greyhound bus ticket, and the only place I had business being was any stage that would have me.
They like to talk about my humble beginnings. That’s a polite way of saying I was born in a ditch, more or less, in Algiers, Louisiana. My dear old papa was a sharecropper, which is a fancy word for farming someone else’s land for the privilege of not starving to death. Fun times.
I was the eldest of 13 children The first thing I ever got that was truly my own wasn’t a doll or a pretty ribbon. It was a guitar. A beat-up, six-stringed bit of wood with a neck like a bent spoon.
People get terribly misty-eyed about me running away with the circus when I was thirteen. They paint it as a grand, romantic adventure. It wasn't. It was loud, it smelled of elephants and the pay was almost non-existent but I learned a few things. I learned how to sing over a lion's roar, how to sleep on a moving wagon without falling off, and most importantly, how to make a racket that people would actually pay a nickel to hear.
Then came Kansas City Joe McCoy. Bless his cotton socks. Oh, we made a beautiful racket together, didn't we? They called us The Kansas Joe & Memphis Minnie Show. It was a merger, really. I’d write a song, he’d sing it and then we’d go out and charm the socks off a room full of tired factory workers and dubious-looking characters. I wrote 'Bumble Bee' for him. A little tune about being sweet on someone.
They talk about my thumping style, how I played that guitar like it owed me money. B.B. King, a lovely chap, once said I was the best guitarist he’d ever heard. Fine praise from a man who could make an instrument weep.
But the part that truly tickles me is 'When the Levee Breaks'. I wrote a little ditty about a rather damp and unpleasant experience. A spot of inclement weather, you might say. A flood. Ruined a perfectly good pair of shoes which brings me to the grand finale. The curtain call. My tragic end. Let me assure you, it was nowhere near as dramatic as they make it out to be.
I’d been ill for a while and my body was giving up the ghost long before the ghost was ready to leave. I was in a nursing home in Memphis after a series of strokes and i went from a young, energetic woman who recorded over 200 songs to to a cranky old woman in a bed, and the next thing, I wasn't even that.

Well Done Scotland Fans

2026-06-14T16:50:10.616+01:00

Due to the time difference, i have only seen a couple of the World Cup matches so far but thankfully all the England games are at a decent enough evening time so that works out fine for us in the red and white part of the windswept island off the coast of France.
Something i have noticed is some very boring football kits so far although there isn't much you can do with a nations kit i guess as they tend to be either one or two block colours although the Croatian one does always catch the eye as it reminds me of a red and white tablecloth but from what i have seen in pictures, the Norwegian home kit is by far the winner.
As a fellow British nation it is nice to see Scotland get some points but the crowds of other countries will have to go some to beat the absolutely brilliant chants they sung out around the Boston Stadium to the tune of 'Donald Where's Your Trousers' but the words changed to 'Donny's shit his trousers' and ‘He’s fat, he’s bald, he likes ‘em twelve years old, Donald Trump, Donald Trump’.
I can't see Scotland going very far in the competition but they have given me my favourite moment so far.

Trump Birthday Message

2026-06-14T12:00:00.000+01:00

Billy Joel sang 'Only the good die young' and i don't know if that is true but today is Donald Trumps 80th Birthday so read into that what you will but Stalin was 74 when he died, Idi Amin 78, Robert Mugabe 95, Augusto Pinochet 91, Pol Pot 72, Kim Jong Il 70 and Ceausescu 71, Ariel Sharon 85 and the warmongering Genocide committer Benjamin Netanyahu is 76 and still going so Billy could have been on to something.

It is traditional to not say bad things about someone on their birthday so for once i am not going to mention him almost certainly being a pedophile, his morbid obesity, his sexual assault and fraud charges, his warmongering, terrible business acumen or even how he is turning America into a laughing stock because it's the guys birthday and we just don't do that so none of that here today.
Instead, i am going to hand the floor over to the brilliant Greta Thunberg who has written a magnificent birthday message to the 47th President.
'My initial thought was to give you a one-way ticket to The Hague as a birthday gift, but that comment would probably go above your head. I will instead give you a can of alphabet soup; the sentences you poop out will be more coherent than anything you have ever said. Now you can finally take part in meaningful public discourse'.
See, that's nice, she wants to give him something to eat for his birthday, such a thoughtful young lady.

Special Guest Blogger: Greek Goddess Hera

2026-06-13T00:30:00.001+01:00

So. Here I am. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here. Well, one gets bored. One has eternity to reflect. And let me tell you, when you have an infinite amount of time to think about your life, you start to notice things. Mostly, you notice what an absolute shambles the whole operation was.
My name is Hera but you might know me as Juno if you prefer the Roman interpretation, a bit more stoic, a bit more concerned with drainage and aqueducts, but essentially the same Queen of the Heavens. Goddess of Marriage, Women, and Childbirth.
Honestly, the reputation is a touch unfair. A bit of a hatchet job. They forget that I was, in essence, the CEO of a family-run, multi-universal corporation, and my husband was,well, Zeus.
Where to even begin with Zeus? Imagine the most charismatic, powerful, and utterly untrustworthy man you’ve ever met. Now give him the ability to turn into any animal he fancies and a thunderbolt. That’s my husband. Our marriage wasn’t a union of souls, it was a permanent crisis. My daily job was less about weaving the fabric of destiny and more about paternity tests, damage control, and trying to stop my brother-husband from procreating with the entire Mediterranean livestock population.
A swan, he said. It was for art, he said. Leda, apparently, was thrilled. I was not. Do you have any idea how much paperwork is involved when your husband incarnates as a bird and fathers a set of twins? Then there was the bull with Europa. The golden shower for Danaë. Let me tell you, when your husband’s primary method of seduction involves fraud, bestiality and what can only be described as meteorological financial crime, you’re entitled to get a little tetchy.
And yes, alright, I may have taken it out on the subsequent offspring. Heracles. He strutted about so sending a couple of snakes to his crib was a perfectly reasonable response in my opinion but what would you do if the man who swore to honour and cherish you kept bringing home illegitimate demigods by the dozen?
I was quite proud of my imaginative punishments. Io turned into a heifer, Leto chased across the earth so she couldn’t give birth, poor Semele burnt to a crisp. It all sounds a bit dramatic but someone had to be the adult in the room.
I was the one who had to enforce the rules. I was the one who championed women and not by simpering and encouraging them to be all soft and lovely, but by showing them what happens when you let a man run amok.
I guided the hands of midwives. I blessed the unions that were actually based on love and respect so I wasn’t just about tearing things down, I was about building strong, stable Zeus free families.
My end was a gentle, almost insulting, retirement as one day, the prayers stopped coming. Not all at once. They just thinned. The grand temples became dusty tourist spots and the offerings went from whole burnt oxen to a few wilting flowers and a fiver for the collection box.
Olympus grew quiet and the ambrosia started tasting a bit stale. We were still gods, of course. Immortal. But we were gods on a pension, a profoundly boring ending imaginable.

39th Time Lucky For Peace Deal

2026-06-12T16:06:28.080+01:00

For the 39th time, Donald Trump has announced that a peace deal with Iran is imminent and for the 39th time Iran said not so fast Fatso and the whole thing grounds to a halt and they start threatening each other again.
The Mango Mussolini in the White House said that the U.S. is close to signing 'a great settlement with Iran' which will be signed 'over the next few days' which will result in 'Iran agreeing to never developing a nuclear weapon'.
Iran for their part have said that the Iranian negotiating team have dismissed reports that a deal is ready to be signed and is a complete lie and completely untrue and as Trump lies as easily as he breathes and Iran wouldn't admit to a peace deal, it is hard to know who to believe but if you have been wrong 38 times before, i'm tending to go with the Iranians.
Trump has been looking for an Exit from the war he and Netanyahu started almost from the first day when Iran didn't buckle under and fought back and 3 months later here we are still with missiles still zinging around the Middle East and the Strait of Hormuz still shut but when the deal is eventually signed, and it will have to be one day, it wont be better than the JCPOA deal Trump carelessly tore up in 2018.
Much will be said about Iran not ever having a Nuclear Weapon but they were not going to anyway, on the very day the invasion started the Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, said that: 'Iran would under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon' which means that the last 3 months would just get us back to where we were when America attacked Iran during the negotiations.
The reason for the sudden keenness to wrap things up seems to be that Trump is meeting Europeans at the G7 Summit in France next week and will meet up with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz who have all criticised the U.S. and Israel for their highly iffy war and he wants to avoid all four reminding him that said it would be a mistake, and it has been a catastrophic one.

Space X Shares

2026-06-12T15:32:22.341+01:00

My husband has long discussed buying shares in something and leaving them until we retire and he was mulling over Space X which launched today at £100.07 ($135) per share and when he asked me for my thoughts because i am into all things Space related, i replied that i would be more interested if Elon Musk wasn't involved because he is a complete dick.
Financial experts are saying that the shares are overpriced at £100.07 but on release they are expected to go up to as much as £141 driven by massive hype before settling down to what they consider it to be it's real price of around £47 per share.
I asked a Financial Agent who is on top of these things and he said to hold fire as Space X is tens of millions in debt and lost billions last year and are already billions down for this year already and did post a warning that it 'may not achieve profitability in the future' so don't touch it.
Not that i disbelieved him but i asked Ai anyway and it came back with the pluses being it has massive growth potential with its Starlink satellite network and is the front-runner in modern commercial space exploration but the minuses are it is hugely in debt and the shares are hugely overpriced so pretty much what our guy said anyway.
I did buy some 'pretend shares' worth £1676 in January acting on Ai's suggestions to see if i trust it enough for next year and buying 'actual' shares and halfway through the year I am £466 up, which is nice.

Special Guest Blogger: Queen Jadwiga

2026-06-11T00:30:00.009+01:00

Hello, lovelies. Jadwiga here. Yes, that Jadwiga. The one they called ‘King’ of Poland. And, if the gossip mills are to be believed (and they usually are), a saint. It’s all a bit of a kerfuffle, frankly,
Let’s start with the title, shall we? It’s the first thing everyone gets wrong. They called me ‘Jadwiga Król’. ‘King Jadwiga’. Not Queen, you understand. King. A bold fashion statement for a ten-year-old, I’m sure you’ll agree. Imagine it. One minute you’re in Hungary, perfecting your curtsy and trying not to get jam on your best gown, the next you’re being shipped off to Poland to be the absolute monarch. The crown was dreadfully heavy. It kept slipping over my ears.
The coronation was a whole palaver. All these formidable lords with beards you could lose a small badger in, kneeling before a child who was mostly concerned about whether they’d serve plum tarts at the feast. They’d debate matters of state for hours, and I’d just be there, thinking, 'When will these werido's shut up'.
Being Queen (or King) wasn’t so much about wielding ultimate power as it was about learning to look incredibly thoughtful while, in reality, you were deciding which pony to ride later.
Then came the marriage to my darling, lumbering, pagan Lithuanian. History frames it as a grand union, a masterstroke of diplomacy that joined the crowns of Poland and Lithuania. And yes, it was. But let me tell you, from my perspective, it felt less like a fairy-tale romance.
Our first conversations were a riot. He spoke Lithuanian, and a smattering of Ruthenian. I spoke Polish, Hungarian, Latin, and a decent amount of French. It was the United Nations in a single bedchamber. We communicated mostly through pointing, exaggerated gestures, and the helpful translation of a monk who looked permanently terrified.
Lovely man, Jagiello. A bit rough around the edges, but he had a good heart. And he did bring Lithuania to the party, which was quite the coup. I just had to spend the next few years teaching him not to wipe his boots on the curtains.
The Saint Jadwiga thing was a terrible misunderstanding, blown out of all proportion.
Take the ‘miracle of the shoe’, for instance. The story goes I gave a poor artisan my velvet slipper so he’d have something of value to pawn. He carved its likeness into stone, it was declared a relic, and voilà, one step towards sainthood. The reality? It was a perfectly good shoe! It’s hardly turning water into wine, is it? It’s basic footwear redistribution.
Then there’s the black cross on the church wall. I apparently prayed before it so fervently that it embedded itself into the stone. Medieval stonework was notoriously shoddy, damp and porous but i did help people by founding hospitals, giving to the poor, restoring the university. But not because I was aiming for a halo. It just seemed polite. You see a kingdom that needs a bit of a boost, a university that’s seen better days, you roll up your sleeves and get on with it. It's common decency, not a fast track to celestial acclaim.
My death wasn't my finest hour, I’ll admit. After all the political intrigue, the royal mergers, I went the way so many women did back then, through childbirth.
Our daughter, Bonifacia. A beautiful little thing but she was, to put it mildly, a stubborn arrival. She took her time, and in the process, did a rather significant number on my internal arrangements. It was all a bit undignified, I can tell you. A far cry from the majesty one is supposed to cultivate. I was 25. Far too young to be handing in my notice.

Ai Saying Spain To Win World Cup

2026-06-11T00:01:00.000+01:00

In times past, when we wanted to know which team would win the World Cup, we have turned to creatures such as Paul the Octopus to tell us what would happen but now we have an Ai algorithm from TU Dortmund University, Molde University College and TU Munich who have collaborated to forecast the entire World Cup and it has predicted the most likely course of the tournament and the most likely winner based on an algorithm of the combined strengths of the squads, FIFA ratings, individual players, the teams results over the last eight years and other information about the teams such as the probabilities for the number of goals for each team.
It used these variables and simulated each match 100,000 times to determine the tournament’s most likely course and arrived at the eventual winners binge Spain with a winning probability of 14.5%, closely followed by England and France, each at 12.4%, Germany at 11.2% and Portugal 8.9%,
It's not looking good for the nations with home advantage with the United States only having a 1% chance which is better than Mexico and Canada who both have a 0.6% probability of lifting the trophy.
Before you go rushing out to whack your months wages on Spain based on the information, the same algorithm did predict the 2019 Women’s World Cup winners would be USA but missed out on the 2022 men’s World Cup although they are saying that the algorithm now is more refined and although i do expect it to be a bit more accurate than an eight-limbed mollusk, i'm sticking with the eventual winner coming from either Argentina or Brazil based on the heat and humidity knackering the chances of the European teams.
In my works sweepstake I pulled the Netherlands (5.6%) and Japan (1.3%) and i don't need AI to tell me that's my £4 done but the Bookies favourites are Spain and and then France and England which would be handy if England gets the final because then we would avoid the usual 'Who do we support now?' dilemma once we are knocked out.

Are We Ready To Know What’s Out There?

2026-06-10T17:45:00.000+01:00

Steven Spielberg's Disclosure Day is released today and is being called the third act of the Spielberg Alien trilogy after Close Encounters and ET but this one is about exposing the government's cover-up of extraterrestrial secrets, a well trodden conspiracy theory which began in 1947 when a UFO supposedly crash in Roswell, New Mexico.
After both of the previous films, there was a dramatic increase in reported UFO sightings and we can expect more this time also and in 2021 a US government report was released that showed they had investigated decades of unexplained aerial sightings in US airspace and there were 20 unidentified flying objects that they are unable to explain but did not rule out rule out extraterrestrial activity as a possible explanation.
What i always tell people getting over excited about aliens visiting is that what they are talking about is UFO's with extra emphasis, italics and underlining of the Unidentified part of those three words but Spielberg himself has said that there is now a critical mass of people fascinated with the question of whether we are alone in the Universe, and if someone knows we're not alone, why haven't we been told but i wonder if aliens do exist, should we be told and if we were, how would we react?
In February, former president Barack Obama said aliens were real before hastily clarifying that he hadn’t seen any evidence but then, would he tell us anyway?
In HG Wells’ classic sci-fi novel The War of the Worlds, alien arrival prompts societal collapse as people flee from cities and in Carl Sagan’s novel Contact, the existence of aliens sends religious groups into mass panic and History is littered with examples of new information about our place in the Cosmos not going down well.
Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for his theory that every star was a sun and had it's own planets, Galileo Galilei was sentenced to permanent house arrest for saying the Earth was not the center of the Universe and Nicolaus Copernicus only avoided a similar fate by releasing his heliocentric model theory by dying very soon after.
My own view is that Aliens MUST exist because there are just far too many planets in the Universe where life could have started but do i believe they are coming here in Spaceships and a Government has covered it all up?
No i don't as the sheer distances involved would make it unfeasible but i live in hope that one day something other worldy might turn up and asked to be taken to our leader and that would start the argument how who exactly the leader would be because there are a few at the moment who if they met, would lead to them to decide to go ahead with the Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy solution of demolishing the Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass.