All Over Bar the Streaming

I bade farewell to Neighbours, again, yesterday.  The Australian soap has long been an indulgence of mine and when it first ended a few years ago, it was a wrench - it may have been trivial, lightweight, TV, but it had been a constant in my life for decades - sometimes as just a casual viewer, sometimes as a regular viewer.  As I've mentioned before, as one gets older, programmes like Neighbours, where you can be reassured that nothing really bad ever happens and that, in general, everything always turns out for the best, become more important.  They provide us with reassurance that, no matter how bad the real world gets, there's always a place you can retreat to for comfort and stability.  This time around, though, the soap's demise felt like a damp squib, with an air of sad inevitability surrounding it.  That Amazon, it's home in this latest incarnation, would pull the plug after only a couple of years, despite good viewing figures and audience appreciation, was hardly surprising.  It's just typical of modern streaming TV, where the main players just don't seem to give a damn about the building of loyal audiences for existing properties, instead seemingly thinking that what will keep audiences is throwing up a constant diet of new shows instead of developing existing ones.

It is one of the many reasons why I have never bought into streaming TV, or at least the established streamers that dominate the market, (I have no subscriptions whatsoever).  Their approach to TV simply  doesn't engage me.  In truth, rather than being innovative, constantly providing viewers with new viewing experiences, they instead simply constantly re-hash older ideas and properties.  Originality - despite what they might want you to believe - is not their strong suite.  They prefer to serve up re-treads of old films (ludicrously expanded to unsustainable lengths), existing TV properties or adaptations of books, demonstrating little respect for the source material in the process.  (My expectations for the Amazon-led James Bond revival are not very high, based upon their previous track record).  Of course, the specific reason for Amazon pulling the plug on Neighbours was that it had outlived its usefulness to them - they'd originally revived it as part of their launch of FreeVee, their short-lived  ad-supported streaming service, for which they needed shows with established audiences, to draw people in with.  But then they axed FreeVee and Neighbours was folded into the main Amazon streaming service, still ad-supported, but costing money to produce but with, I'm guessing, only a minority of its audience taking out full subscriptions to the service.  (Amazon relentlessly kept trying to get me to sign up to Amazon Prime, right up to the final episode of Neighbours, to no avail).  We were only there to watch Neighbours, the rest of their shit was of no interest, so we, ultimately, were of no interest to Amazon.  That's the thing, unlike conventional, linear, TV, the streaming guys have no concept of public service or loyalty to viewers.  TV shows are just product, an item of inventory to them - if one doesn't sell big, ditch it and replace it with something else and hope that sells instead.  But, to look on the bright side, Amazon's cancellation of Neighbours means that I no longer have to engage with their shitty streaming service - their Roku app is amongst the slowest and most cumbersome I've had the misfortune to use.  Every cloud has a silver lining, as they say.

All-American Christmas

So, do Trump's tariffs apply to the stuff Santa Claus has manufactured at the North Pole and exports to the US every Christmas?  Because you can guarantee that he's deliberately undercutting US toy manufacturers by employing cheap immigrant labour - I mean, those elves aren't indigenous to the North Pole, Santa brings them in illegally from the Third World via his sleigh.  That's the thing: there's really no such thing as elves, they are all just poor bastards from places like Somalia, forced to wear fake pointed ears and the like and work in Santa's workshop all year around.  In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Santa was running a 'people smuggling' racket on the side, every Christmas bringing illegals who have paid him thousands of dollars, into the US hidden on his sleigh.  Probably wrapped in paper, disguised as presents.  Doubtless, that's why, over the past few years, increasing numbers of American kids are waking up on Christmas morning to find some dodgy-looking Mexican, Haitian or Somalian in their stockings.  It's an outrage - Santa's endangering US kids.  Is the year that Trump finally sics ICE onto Santa when he enters the US?  Mind you, Trump being Trump, it is just as likely that he demands Santa buys one of those 'Gold Card' visas in order to continue operating within the US.  Or maybe he could demand that Santa move his toy-making operations to the US, in order to avoid tariffs legally, rather than by smuggling them in via sleigh every year.  Instead of poorly paid illegal immigrants, he'd be able to employ poorly paid US workers.

But if Trump was to ban Santa from the US, who or what would he replace him with?  Presumably an all-American patriotic substitute.  A benevolent old man called 'Uncle Donald Christmas', perhaps?  The Christmas icon guaranteed to forget whatever it was you put on your Christmas list and instead stuff your stocking full of tacky, overpriced, Trump memorabilia.  Probably made in China.  But hey, this would be a Christmas icon who embraced true American values - his 'naughty and nice' lists would be based around observance of things like whether or not you voted for Trump, or if you had posted things critical of him on social media.  Venturing dissenting opinions - like the fact that Charlie Kirk was a creepy racist with a disturbing fixation on young people, for instance - would ensure, not just being put on the 'naughty list' but also a one way trip to a secret Federal prison without trial and due process.  All of which, no doubt, would be used to justify the imposition of a 'surveillance state' upon the US, with phone calls, e-mails and social media constantly monitored so as to update citizens' status as either 'naughty' or 'nice'.  The actual process of ordering presents would be outsourced to some tech giant - whichever one had made the most generous contribution to 'Santa Donald's' seasonal fund - with everything done online via a 'Christmas Portal'.  Payments via credit card, debit card or PayPal only accepted.  Because let's face it, isn't that the missing piece of Christmas that has ruined it for many over the years: rampant capitalism?  Sod all that 'Goodwill to all men' crap - the Democrats, the poor and immigrants can go screw.  Christmas should exclusively be for those who can afford it.

Erasing the Uncivilised

So, we in Europe are all headed for civilisational erasure, eh?   The complete and utter lack of self-awareness of the fascists currently in control of the US government never ceases to surprise me.  Here they are, in their latest 'National Security Strategy' document, trashing European governments, characterising them as 'weak' and overrun by immigration (for which read 'non-white people in general'), basically because they still insist upon observing civilisational norms with regard to governing themselves, while, the while, they are presiding over a country riddled with corruption, mired in violence and more deeply divided every day.  If any state is destined for 'civilisational erasure' in the foreseeable future it is surely the US, a nation whose government appears to be simultaneously waging a war against its overseas allies, whilst also doing so against its own people, creating potentially catastrophic division with its racist anti-immigration campaign.  The latter, presumably, being what it thinks Europe should be doing to its own immigrants, (which is why the US is so intent upon installing extreme right governments in their own image wherever they can), throwing out such 'outmoded' notions as the Rule of Law and human rights.  These are, of course, the cornerstones of democratic civilisations, weakening and suppressing them are what will lead to 'civilisational erasure', not immigration, (as the US is proving within its own borders).  Because, let's face it, if immigration was the root cause of such things, then the US surely wouldn't ever have counted as a functioning civilisation, would it?  (If the US is truly serious about getting rid of all those pesky immigrants, then why don't they start by deporting themselves and giving the place back to the Native Americans?  Not that anyone would take millions of psychos as refugees).

If nothing else, all of this should stand as a stark reminder to Europe's leaders that attempting to appease bullies like Trump and his cohorts, which they have done with all their pussy footing and fawning around him, simply doesn't work.  If you don't stand up to them in the first instance, then they'll just keep coming back and shitting all over you.  Sure, I know all the arguments about how we can't afford to alienate the US because of security, trade etc, but we've still ended up in a position where they are slapping punitive tariffs on us, attempting to undermine NATO and betray Ukraine in order to cosy up to non-democratic Russia and are doing their best to encourage right-wing extremism in our countries while lying prostrate before them.  At least if we'd all stood up to them, we'd still have our pride and integrity intact instead of being humiliated.  We're now in a position where, really, we have nothing to lose by telling them to just fuck off.  If they want to pursue some kind of isolationist policy then fine, let's isolate them.  The rest of the world needs to establish new trade networks, political networks and security networks that exclude the US.  Refuse to accept US citizens in our countries, even as tourists.  Let them marinate in their own shit as Trump and friends turn the US into one huge cess pool.  Even if and when they finally get rid of fat boy and his hangers on and return to some sort of civilised state, we still need to keep them quarantined.  They need to get the message that we're tired of them and their hypocrisy: sanctimoniously lecturing the rest of us about freedom and democracy whilst practising repression and corruption at home.  As you've doubtless guessed, right now, I've just about had it with America and Americans.  They can all go fuck themselves until they sort themselves out.  I'm done with them.  You know, I wish that I could guarantee that for the rest of the run-in to the festive season I'll be posting only fun-filled Christmas-themed content, but I can just guarantee that the orange shit gibbon and his idiot followers will commit yet more atrocities between now and then, which will have me ranting and raving here.  I apologise in advance.

Nazi Bastard's Schooldays

"It's absolutely outrageous to suggest that, when at school, I ever referred to any fellow students who happened to be Jewish as 'Shylock'," declared far-right MP and leader of the Regressive UK party Noel Fromage today, as he defended himself against allegations from fellow schoolmates that, when a pupil at exclusive private school Dullard College, he had engaged in racist language and abused and intimidated students from minorities with praise for Adolf Hitler and his works.  "Look, as everyone who knows me will tell you, there's no way that I'd call some Jewboy a 'Shylock' - every educated person knows that the correct anti-Semitic term is 'Kike'.  Just as I most certainly wouldn't have called a black boy in my year a 'wog' - that term is more correctly used against Arabs.  For blacks it should be 'Nig Nog' or similar, while 'wop' is reserved for Italians, 'Dago' for Spaniards and 'spics' for Hispanic types in general.  Really, these things should be included in the National Curriculum to ensure that today's youth is properly educated in such matters."  According to Fromage, even if he had used such terminology it would only have been 'harmless schoolboy banter' of the kind heard in playgrounds up and down the country to this day.  "None of it was intended to directly offend and insult," he claimed.  "It was all meant in jest, you know, like when you call a chap with glasses 'four eyes' or someone with a prominent proboscis 'big nose'.  All quite harmless.  Or it would have been if I'd actually said it, which I most probably didn't.  I mean, who could possibly remember what was said to them forty or more years ago, especially if it was a harmless bit of racist abuse spoken in jest?"

Fromage has also been accused of parading around in an SS uniform at meetings of the school's Combined Cadet Forces (CCF) and attending a Christmas party dressed as Hitler.  "It wasn't even a fancy dress party," recalls Jim Chunk, who was in the year below the MP at Dullard College.  "He just turned up dressed in a Nazi uniform, with a smudge of black boot polish just under his nose.  He goose-stepped about and threw Nazi salutes, shouting 'Sieg Heil' at everyone."  In another Christmas related incident, Fromage allegedly worked part-time in a Santa's grotto one Christmas while in sixth form.  "He thought it hilarious to pull off his Santa hat and beard, to reveal that he was wearing that fake Hitler moustache again, not to mention an Iron Cross, throw a Nazi salute and shout 'Goodwill to all men, except the Jews and the wogs!' or 'Gas a Jew for Christmas!', while laughing uproariously," claims Chunk.  "There were complaints from parents when it turned out that the presents he handed out to kiddies, when unwrapped, turned out to be copies of Mein Kampf."  Again, Fromage has denied the allegations, calling them 'gross exaggerations' of the truth.  "I won't deny that I liked dressing up - lots of teenagers do. Nowadays, they'd just call it 'cosplay'," he asserted.  "It would also be completely inaccurate to describe the uniform I wore to the CCF as an SS uniform - it was quite clearly a Panzer Division tank commander's uniform.  People really need to educate themselves on such things.  I really don't see what the fuss is about - these days you have boys attending school in bloody dresses and full make up, for God's sake and nobody bats an eyelid.  Now, that's outrageous, if you ask me."  Fromage also batted away criticisms of his boyhood admiration of Hitler.  "Look, people fixate far too much on his politics - if you can get beyond that, then I think you'll find that he was actually a fascinating and talented chap - have you seen his watercolours, for instance?" he asks, adding that, as an adult, he obviously no longer idolises the Nazi dictator.  "Clearly, since then, I've broadened my education of art and, whilst still appreciating his works, realise that there are far better artists out there."

Come Back Sepp Blatter, All Is Forgiven...

It really is quite astounding, but FIFA's draw for the 2026 World Cup, presided over by the organisation's president Gianni Infantino and including the award of the 'FIFA Peace Prize' to Donald Trump, has achieved what we all thought impossible.  It has made us nostalgic for the days when Infantino's disgraced predecessor, Sepp Blatter, presided over FIFA.  It suddenly seems unimportant that the latter's tenure was mired in corruption, (although we should note that Blatter himself was recently cleared of corruption charges), and characterised by the bullying of various national football associations that objected to FIFA's gradual land-grab of club football, instituting such things as the Club World cup, which, even in its original form, was hugely disruptive of domestic league programmes.  Because, despite all of that, under Blatter, FIFA at least confined its corruption to football and didn't go around handing out spurious 'peace prizes' to quasi-fascist would be dictators and sex offenders who are currently gearing up to invade Venezuela (and possibly Greenland) whilst simultaneously trying to reward Russia's aggression by forcing Ukraine to concede territory to Moscow as the price of 'peace'.  Halcyon days.  It's just another example of how bad things seem to have gotten that we look back in nostalgia at the likes of Sepp Blatter, or even George W Bush, thinking 'well, maybe they weren't so bad, after all'. Even if, as in the case of the latter, they actually did invade somewhere - they still seem like a class act compared to the orange bollock currently occupying the White House.

These latest FIFA shenanigans just emphasise how, depressingly, everything has become about money, or, more accurately, the greed for money.  More and more money, because, it seems, these people can never have enough.  Nothing else, it seems, matters any more.  Morals?  Integrity?  Sportsmanship?  Fairness?  Decency?  None of them are enough to trump the profit motive any more.  Now, I'm not naive, I lived through the eighties, I know all about how materialism can be used as a powerful political motivator - it kept Thatcher in power for far too long.  But that was before the internet came along and the likes of Google and Meta got their claws into it and started telling everyone that if you were just creating stuff for pleasure, because you wanted to share your ideas freely with others, then you were an idiot.  Because, hey, you can monetise all of that stuff!  Hence the rise of all those You Tube 'stars' and web 'influencers' who were apparently coining it despite having no creative abilities whatsoever, instead peddling trivia and nonsense for paid clicks and sponsors.  The fact that, by comparison to the total online population, they were a tiny minority, didn't deter people falling en masse for the delusion of wealth through monetisation.  Once the idea was established, it went far beyond the web, with every organisation and enterprise doing their best to squeeze every last ounce of monetary value from their products, with sport in the forefront.  Suddenly events like football matches weren't available free-to-air because the organising and regulating authorities could get obscene amounts of money from cable and satellite broadcasters to sell them to fans on a pay-per-view basis, instead.  Then there are the sponsors - just look at the number of sponsors each football club has now.  They have separate sponsors for first team kits, training kits, U-21 kits and so on.  

This FIFA shit show just reminds us of the ultimate outcome of this grasping greed - you inevitably find yourself having to cosy up to the unspeakable, like Trump, or the Saudi Arabian government, in order to secure your revenue streams and continued expansion.  Because the bigger you are, the more product you have to exploit and wring money from, right?  Right?  Except that, eventually, you'll reach saturation point and you'll come up against the limits of demand as fans just don't have enough money to cover it all anymore.  I suspect that FIFA is fast approaching that point.

The Blessed End of Eurovision?

At risk of speaking in bad taste, I have to say that it finally looks as if something good might come out of Israel's war against the citizens of Gaza.  Namely, the collapse of the Eurovision Song Contest.  With the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) refusing to ban Israel from next year's contest, (although, strangely, they had no qualms over kicking out Russia when it invaded Ukraine), four nations have already announced that they will boycott the contest, with more apparently likely to follow.  With luck, the furore over Israeli participation will sound the death knell for this horrendous annual event which, for far too, long, has been allowed to blight our lives in the name of 'entertainment' and 'international brotherhood'.  In truth, it has always been a politically motivated ode to utter mediocrity with little artistic merit.  In recent times it has just become one big gay joke.  Quite literally.  Not to sound homophobic bit I, along I'm sure with many others, find that the turning up of the campness levels to eleven does nothing to make the farrago any more entertaining.  Rather, all it seems to do is to reinforce existing stereotypes about the gay and trans communities.  If nothing else, if the Eurovision Song Contest does breath its last as a result of this issue, we in the UK can at least be spared our annual ritual humiliation when it comes to the voting.  I mean, I honestly don't see why we should keep paying (the UK is one of the main sponsors of the contest) to be pissed on.  It's high time that we told the bastards to just fuck right off.  And this Israel business provided the perfect pretext for doing so - we could have walked out on a matter of moral principle.  So naturally, we haven't taken the opportunity, instead just meekly going along with the EBU in effectively denying what has been, to all intents and purposes, a genocide in Gaza, perpetrated by Israel.

But why are Israel in the European Song Contest in the first place?  Last time I checked, they definitely weren't in Europe, either geographically or by virtue of being a member of the EU.  The standard answer, of course, is that the contest is organised by the EBU, of which Israel is a member.  But again, the question is why?  If they aren't a European country then surely they shouldn't be in the EBU?  But if the EBU and the majority of its membership apparently don't have the balls to kick Israel out, then they should at least have the decency to try and be balanced by inviting Gaza to participate.  Sure, Gaza isn't in Europe nor even a member of the EBU. (although if, as Israel claims, it is still part of their territories, then surely it is), but the EBU long ago set a precedent of allowing outside nations to participate, be they Israel or Australia.  The great thing about such an initiative is that it would give the EBU the moral high ground, while simultaneously guaranteeing an Israeli boycott, thereby resolving the whole issue.  Another bonus is that it would have the likes of the Daily Mail spluttering into their headlines, denouncing it as an appeasement of radical Islam.  You can see the sort of stories they'd run: claiming that the Gazan contestant was really a Hamas terrorist who had murdered Israeli children, or that Gaza planned to win the public vote by whipping up public sympathy by fielding a singer who had suffered multiple amputations as a result of Israeli bombings.  Accompanied, no doubt, by a chorus made up of the badly burned and mangled bodies of dead Palestinian children strung up as puppets and made to dance behind the singer.  I know, I know - poor taste again.  But hey, if the Israeli attacks on Gaza and the EBU's craven refusal to take a moral stance aren't in worse taste, then I don't know what would be.

Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969)

Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969) is, in many ways, a problematic entry in Hammer's Frankenstein series. The year of its release is significant, placing the film on the cusp of a shift in Hammer's horror output - while it still has the trappings of their successful period Gothic format, it also looks forward to the next decade, as the studio's output became more sexually explicit and gory, as they tried to compete with the new generation of horror films from the US that had been heralded by Night of the Living Dead (1968).  Ironically, at the very moment that Hammer was winning accolades like the Queen's Award for Industry for the financial boost the success of its horror films globally had given the British economy, the very formula which had served it so well beginning to lose its popularity with audiences.  Consequently, the studio's then owner, Sir James Carreras, realised that if the films were to continue to compete successfully in a changing marketplace, then new elements had to be introduced.  Which is why, at his instigation and over the objections of both stars and director, the infamous rape scene was inserted into Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed.  The scene feels as jarring today as it did in 1969, completely out of character for Frankenstein - as played by Peter Cushing he was always amoral and obsessed with proving his theories, but his interest in women was always peripheral and he always seemed asexual.  Whilst he might use blackmail and intimidation to gain the compliance of those he forced to assist him, sexual assault, like using direct violence, would simply seem too crude to a man of Frankenstein's sensibilities.

Of course, Hammer's Frankenstein films had never been as consistent as their Dracula movies.  Unlike the latter, they never really formed a coherent and consistent series of films, with continuity noticeably lacking between the later entries.  While the first two, Curse of Frankenstein (1956) and Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), form a distinct sequence, with the latter a clear sequel to the first, the third entry, Evil of Frankenstein (1964) abandons their continuity and gives Frankenstein and his monster a whole new origin story told in flashback.  (This was undoubtedly down to the fact that while the first two were bankrolled by Columbia, the third was backed by Universal, who seemed to want it to fall more in line, stylistically and thematically, with their own earlier Frankenstein series).  Both Frankenstein Created Woman (1967) and Frankenstein Must Destroyed seem to be entirely self-contained stories with no obvious links, other than Cushing's Frankenstein, to either each other or the earlier films.  The character of Frankenstein himself was also not entirely consistent over the course of the films, starting as an amoral over reacher in the first two, although still retaining some redeeming human characteristics, by the third he seemed somewhat more worldly, complaining not only of the injustices visited on his work by the authorities, but also their misappropriation of his physical possessions.  In Evil, at least as far as his relationship with his assistant was concerned, the Baron seemed less misanthropic and possessed of more of a moral compass than usual, (the true villain is the hypnotist who uses the monster for his own murderous purposes, to Frankenstein's disapproval).  By Frankenstein Created Woman, he's regained some of his earlier steeliness, but has developed a sardonic sense of humour (as demonstrated in a court scene) and retains some the slightly more compassionate side glimpsed in Evil.  But by Frankenstein Must be Destroyed, apart from his hubris, the Baron seems devoid of virtually any normal human characteristics or emotions.  he has, in effect, become the monster, (something foreshadowed in the opening scenes of a scientist being decapitated by a figure with a scarred face, which turns out to be a mask which, when removed, reveals Frankenstein's face).

Which latter point at least links it thematically to some of the earlier entries in the series: at the end of Revenge, his brain has been transplanted into nw body, while Frankenstein Created Woman opens with a frozen Frankenstein being thawed out by his assistants (echoing scenes of the monster being thawed out from blocks of ice in Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943) and House of Frankenstein (1944)).  Indeed, the peroccupation with identity and the monster appearing human rather than grotesque are also themes carried over from Frankenstein Created Woman, with Frankenstein having used the life energy of his executed assistant to revive the assistant's dead girlfriend, leaving her with a crisis of identity in the earlier film, while in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, one scientist's brain is transplanted into another man's body, again resulting in questions of identity.  So, even if tonally somewhat different from its predecessors, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed has a clear themsatic line of descent from them.  Ultimately, Frankenstein Must be Destroyed emerges as a strong entry in the series in spite of the disconcertig elements imposed upon it, with Terrence Fisher, as ever, directing masterfully and a strong cast, led by Cushing and including Simon Ward and Veronica Carlson, delivering equally strong performances.  The biggest criticism that can be levelled at the film is that it is overlong, due largely to the insertion of the rape scene and the late addition of a series of scenes involving Thorley Walters' bombastic and bumbling police detective, which distract from the main narrative and slow down the pace.  One can only assume that the studio felt that it needed these lighter toned scenes to try and moderate the otherwise relentlessly grim tone of the main narrative.

Along with the previous year's Dracula Has Risen From the Grave, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed marks the peak of Hammer's Gothic period.  The films that followed, even those with Gothic themes and settings not only had noticeably lower production values, being produced on much shorter schedules, but also significantly upped the sex, gore and violence.  It is notable that for their next Frankenstein film, Horror of Frankenstein (1970), Hammer decided to go back to the beginning and effectively remade Curse of Frankenstein, but this time as a black comedy, with a new young, swinging and sexy Frankenstein in the form of Ralph Bates.  Not surprisingly, it was a complete misfire and for their final entry in the series, Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell (1973), Hammer brought back both star Peter Cushing and director Terrance Fisher.  But by this time the horror scene had decisively moved on and, amongst the acres of bare bums and boobs on display Hammer's contemporaneous lesbian vampire 'Karstein Trilogy', or the swinging London of their present day Dracula films, it felt decidedly old fashioned.

Losing the Plot?

'Is Trump losing the plot?' seems currently to be the question on the lips of many US political commentators.  Well, have I got news for you guys - we're way past the point of asking that question.  It's been patently obvious to any sane and rational person that the Orange Shitler is completely off his trolley since the day he took office in January.  Lat's face it, he was patently insane during his first term, but the US media seemed incapable of communicating this truth.  Until now, that is.  Finally, they are starting to dare to whisper that he might be, well, exhibiting symptoms of senility.  Again, not shit.  Their problem is that they've spent so long attempting to normalise his behaviour, even during his first term, that it has become increasingly difficult for the media to acknowledge that they were wrong and by covering up for the Mango Mussolini, they have done the US electorate a severe disservice.  But why have they previously been so keen to try and characterise the Trump administration as being somehow 'normal'?  Perhaps it is because so much of the US media is owned by billionaires who, even if they aren't publically conservative-leaning, see Trump as an ally in their attempts to subvert those democratic processes they see as harmful to their own interests.  Maybe it is simply fear - fear that if they don't curry favour with the fat bastard then he'll use the full force of the state to intimidate them.  In either case, they are neglecting their duty to speak truth to power, the main function of any media in a democracy.

But it isn't just the US where we see this happening - just look at the way in which the British press are going out of their way to normalise not just Nigel Farage but, increasingly, also the mortgage fraudster and convicted thug turned 'citizen journalist' and extremist rabble rouser 'Tommy Robinson'.  Despite the fact that, to be frank, the kind of views they are known for espousing are basically fascist, they are now presented to us a legitimate political players.  It's not just the usual suspects, the right-wing millionaire owned print press, who are culpable here:  the BBC's current chief political correspondent Chris Mason, for instance, seems to have a major league crush on Farage, praising him and giving Reform UK an easy ride whilst simultaneously launching assault after assault, often on the thinnest of evidence, at the government.  I'm not saying that the government shouldn't be held to account, it most certainly should, but I'd expect the BBC's overall political coverage to be just a little more balanced and consistent in its tone with regard to the different political parties.  I mean, it isn't as if we don't already have right-wing TV news channels that give regular platforms to the likes of Farage, so we surely don't need our national, publicly funded, broadcaster to jump on that bandwagon as well, do we?   But if they don't we'll have the various Farage mouthpieces, like the Telegraph, bellowing that they are all a bunch of lefties and should be shut down.  Are we getting to the stage, I wonder, when we have to storm the offices of these rags, waving flaming torches and shouting 'Kill the monster'?

Pigeons From Moscow

Flocks of cyber-pigeons.  That, apparently, is the rumoured new Russian super weapon.  According to a report I heard on the radio this afternoon.  A report, as ever, to be treated with caution as it originates with a Russian tech firm.  But, for what it is worth, the Russians are allegedly putting brain implants into pigeons, so that their movements can be controlled.  The idea being that, as they are pigeons, nobody will pay any attention to them until they explode, fly into aircraft jet intakes to cause crashes, or just crap en masse all over our cars.  It all sounds more than a little fanciful, the sort of bollocks the Russians tend to come up with every so often to see what they can get the west to swallow.  Yet it has just enough of a sliver of credibility - the Russians are known to have previously experimented with using animals in war, such as spy dolphins, for instance - that it is precisely the sort of thing that both some politicians and  some in our intelligence services might grasp at and start running with, despite a lack of any hard evidence to back it up.  Thus, precious resources will be wasted on trying to gather intelligence of these 'pigeons of death' and devising counter measures to protect against them.  Indeed, don't be surprised if, sometime in the near future, we see mass culls of pigeons in the UK with little or no official explanation.  It will mean that some crank in the intelligence services will have succeeded in spooking a government minister or two.

If nothing else, this story is somewhat insulting toward pigeons and birds in general, presuming that they are easily controlled by external forces due to their lack of intelligence.  In my experience, (particularly my recent experiences with the local swan population), birds are anything but stupid, being remarkably observant and capable of some impressive feats of reasoning.  (One of the young swans I regularly feed, who I've known since he was a bundle of grey feathers following his parents around the pond, not only seems to recognise me as an individual, but has correctly assessed me as a soft touch who will indulge his antics, has lately taken to going through my jacket pockets if I don't give him my full attention and instead feed other birds - he's observed that when I arrive at the pond, I carry the bag of seed in an outside jacket pocket, so now insists on checking whether I'm holding out by having a second secret stash hidden in my pockets).  Besides, do we really think that Russian technology is up to producing a brain implant that can influence the behaviour of even birds?  I've seen that recent video clip of the unveiling of Russia's latest humanoid robot, which staggers around and falls over like the average Geordie after two pints, (if only they could make it throw up as well, then the resemblance would be uncanny).  But hey, if nothing else, this story opens up another front for the World War Three doomsayers of the UK tabloid press - doubtless they'll soon be running headlines about the risks posed by Russian robo-birds, warning of dive bombing killer gulls, expploding Christmas turkeys and the like.  Accompanied by unhinged calls for the government to allow people to booby trap their bird feeders, so as to slaughter the little feathered bastards by the dozen as a precautionary measure.

Death on the Boating Pond?

The question is - just how far will the Trump administration's illegal sinking of small boats on the pretext that they are somehow involved in a 'war' being pursued against the US by foreign drug cartels actually reach?  I mean, for now, they just seem to concentrating on the waters around Venezuela, (the fact that Venezuela is an oil rich country the US is currently trying to force regime change upon is purely co-incidental, of course), but will the continued need for headlines to bolster Trump's ego force them to cast their new wider?  Will there come a point where US missiles start sinking small boats on the Serpentine, or pedalos in Blackpool, say?  Because they too could be manned by drug smugglers, planning to sail to the US with huge cargoes of narcotics.  A small non-ocean going pleasure craft would be the perfect disguise, wouldn't it?  Who would suspect two guys pedalling a tiny craft shaped like a swan across the Atlantic of being top international drug smugglers?  Plus, they'd have the perfect cover story if stopped by the US coastguard or Navy:  they somehow took a wrong turning while on the boating lake in Llandudno and were convinced that they were heading back toward Colwyn Bay.  Will canal narrowboats be safe from roaming US fighter jets?  Will they try sending nuclear subs down the Trent and Mersey Canal to try and sink them before their deadly loads of drugs reach US shores?  Right now, we're at the stage where nothing those fucking lunatics in Washington might do would surprise me.

Of course, here in the UK we have our own controversies surrounding 'small boats'.  So far, the rabid right-wing morons have confined themselves to condemning the RNLI for doing their job and rescuing their occupants when they start to sink.  Apparently, we should just let them all drown: women, children, the lot.  But I'm more than slightly surprised that Nigel Farage, Mr Fascist Rent-a-Quote himself, hasn't been calling for the RAF or Royal Navy to sink them before they reach UK shores.  Because, after all, they are 'invading' the UK, doubtless with a 'hostile takeover' of the country in mind, via being exploited as low paid illegal labour in those dodgy shops selling dodgy goods and acting as money laundering fronts.  I'm even more surprised that, on one of his many trips to the US to grovel at his idol's feet, Farage hasn't tried to convince Trump that these small boats crossing the channel are, in fact, chock full of Islamic fundamentalist drug dealers merely using the UK as a stepping stone to peddle their wares in the US.  Thereby giving the US a pretext for bombing rubber dinghies in the English Channel in the name of defending America.  Because  that's the sort of shitty thing he'd do - get somebody else to do the dirty work then claim credit himself for 'saving England' from the dusky skinned hordes of invaders at our gates.  Perhaps if that succeeded he could move on to persuading Trump to bomb Birmingham on the grounds that it has been taken over by Jihadists planning to export their violent terror to the US.  Anything seems possible these days.