Thursday 30th January 2025

[refitman]

Morning all,

[refitman]

Calvin's been defrocked

[RogerOThornhill]

Yeah, I've just been seeing this. Pretty hilarious.

Now that he has lost his license, that means his time in the US must be limited - wonder whether he will be deported?

[AnatolyKasparov]

Interesting "long read" in the Graun today on the relationship between Germany and Israel.

[Frog222]

AK -- I'd noticed the article but might not have read it ... so thanks for the recommendation !

" To denounce Germany’s Muslim minority as “the major carriers of antisemitism”, as Özyürek points out, is to suppress the fact that nearly “90% of antisemitic crimes are committed by rightwing white Germans”. "

I've been struck by the incantations of "Never Again" , thinking 'not for Jews but the rest of the world is fair game' . Burmese, Sudanese, Ukrainians and all the others are just a few examples .

[Frog222]

Sunny, off for a prowl at the beach before it sets ....

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Will have a go at this later after yet another football/QT clash.

[refitman]

Got home from work and couldn't get down my road, because it was cordoned off. We had all the emergency services out, because a bloke was on the roof of the flats opposite my house, threatening to jump off (only 2 floors). Apparently he'd been up there for several hours, but I only had to wait about 40mins.

[Frog222]

refit -- OUF !

It's the second time this week that I've managed to walk a bit more than 30 minutes at the beach . Thanks to transfusions my red blood cells are back to where they were in September, the last time I did as well . Still low but manageable .

[Frog222]

One of the very best Craces ---

[AnatolyKasparov]

Will have a go at this later after yet another football/QT clash.

That is actually a pretty balanced panel, something they don't always manage.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

RIP Marianne.

[refitman]

[AnatolyKasparov]

RIP Marianne.

Her late 1970s comeback was pretty inspiring.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Question Time came tonight from Melton Mowbray, which would have been the perfect opportunity to invite Jonathan Pie onto the panel but the miserable BBC evidently thought otherwise.

For Labour we had James Murray. Sigh. As a treasury minister James is purportedly one of Rachel Reeve's closest allies and it shows. Listening to this characterless dweeb as he droned on offering vague generalities and trite platitudes as if they were answers it was almost impossible to nail down where he lies on the political spectrum. If I'd had no knowledge of him and was asked to guess based on tonight's performance I'd have said he was a Cameroonian Tory. He certainly lies like one as he happily demonstrated while repeating Reeve's ludicrous claims about sustainable aviation fuel, though to be fair he wasn't stupid enough to start going on about electric planes like she did. Nothing he said sounded remotely convincing, largely because most of it was pointless prattle. I was reminded of an article I read recently about Netflix producing programmes designed for people who aren't watching to have on as background noise. Now there's James' true calling, just let him ramble on while you do the hoovering or chop your veg. Even worse though was while sharing a panel with the Tories and Reform James was the only one who refused to condemn Trump for baselessly blaming the plane crash on 'diversity'. What a spineless prick. Needless to say he was rewarded by the audience with silence throughout, even the rest of the panel ignored him.

For the Tories we had Kieran Mullan. With the departure of Chris Grayling from the commons Kieran has taken on the 'looks like someone has drawn a face on a worm' mantle. To be honest he didn't have a bad night, he wasn't having any of Trump's nonsense, and when the subject turned to new build estates being allowed to be built without the infrastructure they need he openly admitted the Tories had fucked up. I mean yeah he tried to claim they'd left Labour a healthy economy and shit like that but it was just base level Tory nonsense that barely had anyone batting an eyelid.

For Reform we had Zia Yusuf. I say for Reform but a cursory glance at any Twitter thread about Reform reveals their rank and file absolutely fucking hate him because he's a brown Muslim. Which makes the paltry smattering of applause he received this evening when he invoked Martin Luther King and said 'people should be judged on the content of their character and not the colour of their skin' all the more ironic. On the plus side Zia flat out refused to echo Trump's diversity causes planes to crash nonsense, while on the other he hijacked a question about building local infrastructure and went on about immigration as if he really was a puppet with Farage's hand up his arse. The latter resulted in him being criticised by some very cross ladies in the audience who told him off for being a dick (I paraphrase), each of whom got the loudest applause of the night.

For the Lib Dems we had Helen Morgan. Helen was just kinda there, I'm not saying that to be mean, she just was. In all fairness to Helen I'm trying to remember a single thing she said and coming up empty.

For the Mirror we had Alison Phillips. I like Alison, she's good on those press preview things but like Helen above she was mostly just there and when she did try offering her opinion it was clear she's conflicted. How does she criticise a Labour government I'm pretty sure she's as disappointed in as the rest of us, while not appearing to put the boot in? Her solution it would seem is to waffle and deal in generalities without addressing anything specific. Sound familiar?

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Got home from work and couldn't get down my road, because it was cordoned off. We had all the emergency services out, because a bloke was on the roof of the flats opposite my house, threatening to jump off (only 2 floors). Apparently he'd been up there for several hours, but I only had to wait about 40mins.

That'll be one of those mentally ill people that Reeves and Kendall are going to cure by making them penniless.

[Sky'sGoneOut]