Saturday 5th & Sunday 6th April 2025

[refitman]

Morning all.

[refitman]

BlackRock are praising Labour. We're so fucked.

[Frog222]

Article from October 2023 .

Now in 2025 I'm wondering how many ports and city regions have not yet been taken over by the likes of Blackrock under the guise of Freeports and Enterprise Zones ?

In the pipeline, silently supported by Starmer-Lab and the Tories, as European Powell has explained so often !

[Frog222]

20°!
Off to the beach for my delayed April Fool immersion in La Manche .

[refitman]

20°!
Off to the beach for my delayed April Fool immersion in La Manche .

It's lovely and sunny (and warm) here in S.Yorkshire too. The blossom is gently falling from the trees on the high street and it's very pretty.

[refitman]

Good video on the Trump Tariffs, how they will (or rather won’t) work and why tariffs are used at all.

[refitman]

[Frog222]

RE the"good video" above , I was watching on twitter James Surowiecki (who was mentioned in it) when he 'discovered' the inanity of the Trump Formula , it just seemed too crazy to be true .

Moral of that, nothing is too crazy in Trumpland .

[Frog222]

Shome exaggeration as the tide was lower than the map's standard level. The long south to north line was actual immersion, the last bit walking back on the sand . ( Time exaggerated too, more like 13 minutes or so, I forgot to switch of my watch )
Still I think i got close to Daughter's rule of thumb, which is one minute per degreeC.

Had a coffee afterwards with friends at the beach "Were there many people there ? "

" No, I was alone at 13.30, all the French were still at table ! "

They had to admit it was the truth

Squads of them did turn up as I was leaving .

[Frog222]

First tho admittedly small! laugh of the day --

[Frog222]

BBC Sunday programme mentioned Dietrich Boenhoffer in a Black church in Harlem , 1930's .

I switched off to go to Wiki because I wanted to know MORE .

"Under cover of the Abwehr, Bonhoeffer served as a courier for the German resistance movement to reveal its existence and intentions to the Western Allies in hope of garnering their support. Through his ecumenical contacts abroad, he hoped to secure possible peace terms with the Allies for a post-Hitler government. In May 1942, he met Anglican Bishop George Bell of Chichester, a member of the House of Lords and an ally of the Confessing Church, contacted by Bonhoeffer's exiled brother-in-law Leibholz; through him feelers were sent to British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden. However, the British government ignored these, as it had all other approaches from the German resistance, considering all Germans to be the enemy."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer

His brother in law --
" Spurred by the murders of alleged plotters of the 1934 Night of the Long Knives, "legitimised" murders carried out on government orders, without trial or sentence, Dohnányi began to seek out contacts with German resistance circles. He made records for himself of the régime's crimes, so that in the event of a collapse of the Third Reich, he would have evidence of their crimes. In 1938, once his critical view of Nazi racial politics became known, Martin Bormann had him transferred to the Reichsgericht in Leipzig as an adviser.[1]

Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, Hans Oster called Dohnányi into the Abwehr of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht. Led by Wilhelm Canaris, it quite quickly became a hub of resistance activity against Hitler.[2] Dohnányi protected Dietrich Bonhoeffer from conscription by bringing him into the Abwehr with the claim Bonhoeffer's numerous ecumenical contacts could be useful for Germany.[ "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_von_Dohnanyi

One of several failed plots, Dohnanyi smuggled the bomb which was put on Hitler's plane, but it was a dud .

[Frog222]

Musing on tyrannicide, see above, do you murder the Orange One or just live in hope that he will implode ?

[Frog222]

Excellent Will Hutton --

" So what to do? What not to do is to accept the Trump framework of trying to get a “deal” by making damaging, unprincipled concessions on standards for food imports, our capacity to regulate the content of digital platforms and our sovereign ability to tax. Only a symmetric, fair deal is in the national interest, and, given Trump’s view of trade, probably impossible. "

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... and-beyond

Making 'deals' with Trump or Putler is like playing footsie with a crocodile, you get shorter

---------------------------------------------------------------

Excellent YT's over the past several months from four Nordic ex- and still serving military, so far Tuomas the Finn but this is one of the others --



In fact Putin has moved troops from the North, so scared he is of 'NATO invasion' ...

[refitman]

Labour really are the dumbest bunch of right-wingers ever.

[Frog222]

Labour really are the dumbest bunch of right-wingers ever.

Compare with the Will Hutton , this is Sarwar --

" The prime minister has rightly sought to navigate these negotiations with a steady hand, ensuring that the UK is in the best possible position to secure a sustainable and fair trade deal. "
https://archive.ph/swAWe

Lots on Trump's soft spot for Scotland

You and Orban, lovely couple .

[Frog222]

As often as we can Second Daughter and I celebrate the anniversary in the sea together, but this morning she and family were on the Cutty Sark and this afternoon, naturally, at the Greenwich Naval Museum .

The pointy bits top and bottom show the actual tide level -



Cold night and for a few days ahead so very pleased with self to have done two .

Now sending to First Daughter who has done it all through the winter, it's good for her MS .

[Sky'sGoneOut]

I must say I'm suitably impressed Froggy!

I went for a jog at lunchtime and got run over...by a small Asian girl on her bike. Despite it being a low energy impact due to her only being about 9 years old on a tiny bicycle I pretended that I was mortally injured for comedic effect but she didn't get it and kept apologising profusely with what appeared to be genuine concern. Which made me feel a bit guilty.

I would imagine when you were swimming it would be like colliding with a baby shark on pogo stick.

Seriously though swimming in the sea is absolutely bloody knackering and I bet it's freezing, so hats off to you.

[Frog222]

Haha Sky , you wicked person making the little one feel bad , but I'm sure it wasn't for long . Educational road safety stuff

I don't swim, just walk chest deep, but it's energetic too .

No coincidence, First Daughter did both days too, but for rather longer than me as the water is actually 13°

Nice little vid --



PS I couldn't walk fast for more than 20 yards before, but after Friday AM transfusion I did 200 on Saturday , at speed, before stopping to catch breath . Today I did the circuit at normal walking pace with no pauses !

Bedtime, may catch Radio4's Sunday night politics thinggy ...

NN

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Labour really are the dumbest bunch of right-wingers ever.

Yes it must be said Anu...sorry Anas is making a bit of an arse of himself (and his party). Just look at those graphs, as I've mentioned previously Labour have managed to lose half their voters in Scotland in a matter of months.

It would take me a while to find it but I remember posting the stats about where those votes are going and suffice it to say there's no mystery about where Reform's support in Scotland has magically appeared from.

Of course Scottish politics is weird and now and again a single party will hoover up the majority of the Unionist vote as Labour did at the last GE and they rarely go on to hold on to it all because Unionism spans the political spectrum, but to lose 50% in little over 6 months must be some kind of record. It took years for them to squander their Scottish gains under Blair.

I do feel a bit sorry for Sarwar though, I mean look what he's having to work with South of the border, and at least some of his ministers have been producing rumblings of discontent about putting the boot into the poor, which is more than can be said for their spineless English counterparts.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

I don't swim, just walk chest deep, but it's energetic too.

Plus it demonstrates your fearless disregard of having your toes nipped by angry crabs. Unless you're going to tell me you wear shoes.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Musing on tyrannicide, see above, do you murder the Orange One or just live in hope that he will implode?

Speaking hypothetically from a Classical point of view murder/exile every time. Or even better trick/con somebody else into getting rid of them them for you. The Athenians did it best. When they finally got sick of the tyranny of the Pisistratidae (Pisistratus and his sons) they bribed the oracle of Delphi to keep telling the Spartans to rid the Athenians of their tyrants which eventually they did.Today that would be like the Democrats tricking the Chinese to invade America and get rid of Trump and all his family. Which obviously demonstrates the difficulty of scaling up ancient city state conflicts fought between blokes in bronze armour with spears and the modern world where such an action would result in a global nuclear conflagration.

They say we should always learn from the past, but probably not in this case.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Anyway, just in case anyone was concerned I seem to have got over...well whatever you want to call it...'my dissatisfaction at the Labour party fucking up my life', at least for the moment.

And just in case he's reading this, stop being an arse AK and get yourself back here, I miss your infuriating intransigence.

[Sky'sGoneOut]