Drunk with power

Boris is fast running out of any advisors who actually know how to run a government, let alone a country. The Civil Service will become another set of poodles for Dominic Cummings to bully at will. He must be so drunk with power by now and it's only just begun.

Montalbano

Thanks to H.I., I have become sort of addicted to Montalbano. Luckily there are dozens of episodes to watch in 5 or 6 series, so it should see me through the winter, maybe even next.

It is wonderful bit of escapism and you find yourself reminiscing about past holidays in Italy, even though it is set in Sicily.

All the actors are really excellent (apart from the desk-sergeant clown, but he serves a different purpose). It has something for everyone - quite literally. Crime (I'm sure that so many murders could not take place in one small principality, even in Sicily), compassion, comedy, tragedy, beautiful architecture, beautiful scenery, beautiful women, food, drink, great incidental music and... err... well, lots of things.

Each episode is 100 minutes long as well, so it fills in nicely when there are no drama series on worth watching. Give it a try if you haven't done so already.

Dark forces in the Ministry of Magic

As previously mentioned, Boris Johnson has been instructed to tell his new cabinet of incompetent poodles that they are never to speak to the BBC under any circumstances at all, let alone go on one of their programs to be interviewed.

Of all the news programs on the network, BBC Radio's Today is the government's greatest enemy, because they employ highly intelligent, eloquent and impartial journalists who have the inconvenient habit of asking awkward questions at awkward moments, which usually never receive answers in any case.

Today invited whoever the Minister for Health is at the moment to come on the program and give clear instructions about how to prepare for a possible epidemic of the Coronavirus across the country, but he/she (I cannot be bothered to look up a name) refused.

Dominic Cummings knows that there is no new cabinet minister who would be capable of fending off an experienced journalist, and he knows that they also would not have a clue about the department which they are supposed to head. Since they have sacked any truly knowledgeable advisors and his personal area of expertise is Machiavellian politics, he himself is in no position to advise anyone on matters of health in times of potential crisis.

To quote Her Majesty, "I cannot imagine why anyone would want the job of Prime Minister at the moment."

Intellectuals are the first to go

Quote from Dominic Cummings: 'The BBC is the mortal enemy of the Conservative Party'.

Ministers have been instructed to follow the example of Boris Johnson and not appear on any news items for interviews on this or any other matters.

Although the current Governor has pledged to make massive cuts to the expenditure of the corporation, news and drama will be drastically cut even after the dismantling has been initiated.

Wake up everyone. You are being manipulated by your own government (who hold the purse strings to your own money) for the sake of the private global media moguls.

This is will be one of the bigger impacts of the popular vote - something else which could never have been accurately predicted, but only warned of - another scare story.

Even the moderate right will applaud Cummings's plans to sell off yet another jewel in the crown of this country, but the majority of them show the same disturbing tendencies in accusing the far left of enforcing their own extreme beliefs through draconian legislation.

So, what do you think about it all so far? Happy?

I cannot find the four tortoises

The bloke who died in his home made, steam-powered rocket on an American desert yesterday was a flat-earther.

His stated intention for building the rocket was to go into space and prove that the Earth is, indeed, flat. I may be gullible, but I thought that NASA had already established the shape of the Earth beyond  reasonable doubt way back in the 1960s. I believe they have a few photos which show that the Earth is, like the Moon, spherical. There must be more going on here than meets the eye. If it's a joke, it's a very old one.

Perhaps the flat Earth theory is more philosophical or religious than scientific? (Note the upturn in my voice at the end of that sentence).

I began to doubt myself as the morning wore on, so I went to Google to find a decent snap of our home planet, which is the one I have used here. It looks spherical to me.

Maybe he was going to photograph it edge-on? Why didn't NASA ever try that?

Celts versus Celts

Four middle-aged Frenchmen in the pub tonight, planning on going to Bristol tomorrow to watch the rugby. France versus Wales.

They all play for the veteran team of a town in Brittany, and one of them proudly takes his jacket off and lifts his top to expose his local team's T-Shirt, for which he is the Captain. Turns out he changed his shirt in the hostel, and the one he is now wearing is something to do with a sci-fi film. We all laugh.

"I love England", he says. " I love the brown beer. I married a girl from Exeter. She still lives in France. I don't like Europe. I hate Europe, but what have you done with this Brexit ? You are now all economically fucked!"

I tell him that half of this country are fucking idiots. He reluctantly agrees. "You are now going to be fucked by Trump!" he reminds me.

I said "Don't blame me, and don't blame anyone in this pub. This is the pub famous for refusing to serve Nigel Farage".

"Tomorrow we will beat Wales!" He is nothing if not confident.

I remind him that Brittany, Cornwall and Wales are all linked by the Celtic connection, and he tells me that his daughter teaches Bretagne as a language in France. "It is like Gallic".

May the best Celts win.

Are you happy so far?

Priti Patel (with the help of numerous government advisors) is just about to accelerate the collapse of farming, the NHS, fishing, the building program and whatever else you can think of which relies on low-paid immigrant workers doing the sort of jobs which our 1.4 million unemployed have no interest in or aptitude for, by ruling that only the highly qualified and  highly paid will be granted visas after this year is almost out.

We don't need Corbyn to get us in an even worse mess than we are already.