Monthly Archives: June 2020

Variety of Beer in Kaliningrad

Mick Hart’s totally biased review of bottled beers in Kaliningrad (or how to live without British real ale!)

Introduction

Published: 30 June 2020 ~ Variety of Beer in Kaliningrad

Everybody knows that vodka is Russia’s national tipple, but it may come as surprise to learn that the second favourite is beer. From personal observation, I would say that here in Kaliningrad young people tend to favour beer over vodka, which would explain why the variety and availability of different beer types and brands have mushroomed in pace with the numerous new bars, restaurants and hotels that have opened in recent years.

Previous article: Preface (Mick Hart’s totally biased review of bottled beers in Kaliningrad (or how to live without British real ale!)

Gone are the days when if you felt like a beer you either went to the billiard hall or stopped off for a jar and a chat with friends at the side of the road. The little yellow two-wheeled tankers that provided this service have since been pensioned off, as far as beer is concerned, but can still be seen today now dispensing another traditional Russian drink of the non-alcoholic variety known as Kvass.

The increase in on-licensed premises since I first came to Kaliningrad in 2000 is nothing short of phenomenal and, coronavirus willing, may it continue to be that way. To service this industry there is not just a greater variety of Russian-brewed beer but also many international imports, both mainstream brands and interesting lesser known products, offering plenty of scope for exploration.

The craft beer bar has also made its debut in Kaliningrad. I believe there are five such outlets, the most popular and well-known being the Yeltsin Bar. These fairly small, but magnificently well-stocked beer bars, are reminiscent of the UK’s micro- or pop-up pubs but offer a substantially greater quantity and variety of beers at any one time sourced from around the world and purveyed on a rotational basis.

Variety of Beer in Kaliningrad

The brewed-on-the premises concept is also well established, with brew bars producing their own house brands and proudly displaying their brewing equipment for all to see on the premises. A good, large and exciting example of this would be the Pivovar Restaurant Brewery just off Victory Square in the centre of Kaliningrad, where the rows upon rows of deep copper brewing kettles and those mounted monolithically behind the bar are nothing short of magnificent

British ales are obtainable in Kaliningrad, such as Fuller’s ESB and various IPA varieties, most conspicuously in the Sir Francis Drake English-style pub, the first of such bars in Kaliningrad, which was certainly functioning when I first came here in the year 2000. But, as might be expected, the British ales that are served here are the keg export equivalent of their real-ale counterparts. But hey! ~ you did not travel all this way to drink a pint of Charlie Wells, did you?

Bottled British-brewed craft ales are also no stranger to Kaliningrad. You can expect to find both mainstream and more exotic brands in Kaliningrad’s specialist beer shops, and some supermarkets, both small and large, often stock a surprisingly diverse range of British beers.

Imported beer is, not very strangely, more expensive to buy than home-grown varieties, whether bought for consumption in restaurants or bars or as an off-sale from specialist beer shops. The typical price of half a litre of British beer in the Sir Francis Drake, for example, would set you back 250 to 360 rubles, which is between £2.90 and £4.18, whereas a half litre of Russian beer in one of the Britannica bars (a chain of British-themed ale houses along the lines of Wetherspoons) will leave your pocket a lot less stressed at around 130 rubles (£1.51).

Naturally, beer purchased from supermarkets can be obtained at more economical prices. My favourite Kaliningrad bottle beer, Ostmark (strong), which weighs in at a not inconsiderable 6.7% alcohol by volume ~ rather too strong for my normal preference of 4.5% max, but with more taste than most lager beers ~ costs between 160 rubles and 136 rubles for a 1.35 litre bottle, the price differentiation can be explained by the presence of two small supermarkets close to where we live, one of which is cheaper. In the cheaper supermarket, special offers occur on a daily basis, and I have seen good quality beers in 1.35 litre bottles going for less than a quid. Incidentally, this same supermarket does a good discounted range of quality vodkas as well, from around £2.80 for a 75cl bottle.

Another must for the beer connoisseur and further testimony to the take-up of beer in Kaliningrad specifically and Russia overall are the well-patronised specialist beer-dispensing shops. These establishments offer a wide selection of Russian and imported speciality beers on tap, which once purchased are conveniently decanted into screw-topped 2-litre plastic bottles.

Surprisingly, given its relatively small size, one of our local supermarkets incorporates an outlet of this nature. It stocks around 10 different beers on tap as well as some bottled varieties. The beer is good, both in terms of variety and quality, and is also competitively priced, making this venue a particular favourite of my brothers when he visited us last summer.

Variety of Beer in Kaliningrad

In Russia, beers tend to be grouped into categories determined by their hue: light, red and dark. In restaurants or bars, you will also often be asked whether you want a particular beer to be filtered or unfiltered. Simply translated this means that you have a choice between cosmetic surgery or beer in its natural state.

As the articles which follow deal exclusively with beers that I have been buying at random from our local supermarkets in 1.35l bottles, the light, dark, filtered and unfiltered taxonomy is only relevant insofar as appearance is concerned, and you can only really determine this once the bottle is open and the contents have been poured.

These beers may not be the crème de la crème in the sense that they are supermarket bought, not purchased from craft-beer outlets, but they do have something very important going for them: they have helped to sustain me through the isolating process, and during social distancing have become a much appreciated part of my personal New Normal in the wake of closed bars whilst the dreaded spectre of Coro continues to stalk the land.

😏 Feature image: Mick & Olga Hart enjoying a beer on the terrace at the palatial Residence of the Kings, Kaliningrad, in the pre-coronavirus summer of 2019

Coronavirus in Kaliningrad 25 June

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 98 [25 June 2020]

Published: 26 June 2020

After hiding out for what seems like forever and making a splendid job of it, even if I do say so myself, I had to see a doctor last week. We hypochondriacs have to, you know. We are a bit like train spotters. When the mood takes us, we are sat there outside the medical centre notebook in hand, recording the types and make of doctor as they come and go.

Although I instinctively feel that the majority of people are being lulled into a sense of coronavirus false security by the relaxing of this and that, I, for one, am not. So, I did not relish the thought of laying myself on the line (an old train spotter’s metaphor) by exposing myself (an old hypochondriac’s joke) to the greater risk of coronavirus-catching in one of Kaliningrad’s medical centres.

Whether it is better or whether it is worse, I have no idea, but the medical centres here ~ at least, the ones that I have been too ~ are nothing like the huge great rambling hospitals that we have in the UK. I realise that there are hospitals here as well, but my doctor-spotting experiences have so far, and thankfully, been limited to clinics or centres, all of which have certain things in common.

As with Kaliningrad’s dentists’ surgeries, before you cross over the threshold into the reception area it is mandatory that you don a little pair of light blue, transparent, elasticised protective-shoe thingies over your footwear.

The reception usually comprises a tall counter, divided into numbered sections with three or four receptionists behind it.

You say who you are, reference your appointment and off you go, Dr spotting. What you do not do is head off into a monstrous waiting room full of the world and its wife, and several others, of every ethnic extraction known to person.

No, you set off along a series of little narrow corridors with lots of numbered doors on one or either side. Once you find your allocated door, you take a seat. There are five or six opposite each door. Now, the corridors are rather tight, but there are very few people in them, and every two seats have the third one rendered void as indicated by the presence of a red strip of vertical tape, thus alerting you to the social distancing rule.

All in sundry are wearing masks, naturally ~ it is the New Normal, you know ~ but the nature and layout of the building means that folk are still quite close.

In UK hospitals, in the never-ending sized waiting rooms there is more space but, as we all know, lots and lots of people, so perhaps the two differences equal themselves out.

Coronavirus in Kaliningrad 25 June 2020

We did travel by taxi to the centre, with all windows open and masks on, but we walked back home. On the way we discovered an old German block of flats on its last historic legs and marveled at the existence of such things in a large modern city such as this, and the natural habitat in which it stood, which has to be for me one of the enduring joys of Kaliningrad’s character ~ this place of eclectic contrasts. I am so used to England, where every square foot of land has been built upon and every barn and factory requisitioned for residential housing, and every garden carved up for more housing, and every piece of city space gentrified beyond necessity that to find a large garden which is what it has always been and a leafy lane with a fence constructed out of old barn sides and doors, takes me back to the England of my youth, where Britons were Britons and things were real, not virtual.

As for this old German building, alas, its days are numbered. But we did pay homage to it by taking a couple of photos of the building and its surrounds.

Mick Hart celebrates the natural environment of Kaliningrad — Mick Hart celebrating Kaliningrad’s natural environment

Coronavirus in Kaliningrad 25 June Diary of a Self-isolator — Remains of a Königsberg building ~ Kaliningrad 25 June 2020

On our walk back home I also noticed, with a strange sense of alienation before relief, that there were people sitting eating and drinking in the outside area of one of the Britannica pubs, a phenomenon witnessed again and on the same street at another café bar.

It was grand to see these drinking establishments engaged again, although I am not quite ready myself to return to the café-bar circuit!

Coronavirus in Kaliningrad as at 25 June 2020**
👁2373 people have been infected in the region
👁Of these, 1356 recovered
👁38 coronavirus deaths since the start of the pandemic
👁17 cases of coronavirus infection identified today

Source (accessed 25 June 2020):
**https://www.newkaliningrad.ru/news/briefs/community/23819274-v-oblasti-za-sutki-vyyavili-17-novykh-sluchaev-koronavirusa-vypisannykh-menshe.html

Is the UK in Multicultural Meltdown?

Riotings the Name, Blackmail the Game

Published: 24 June 2020

I am not sure what it seems like to you but from where I am, in Kaliningrad, Russia, it appears as if the UK has descended into multicultural meltdown. The ‘mainly peaceful demonstrations’, to cite the demonstrator-friendly British press, orchestrated in the name of Black Lives Matter, have seduced some and disgusted others.

In the midst of the social disorder, a Russian friend telephoned us to say how appalled he was to witness what was happening in the UK and asked the unanswerable question, what is the UK government doing about it? I was unable to provide him with a credible answer. I realised that the apparent apathy was not strictly down to the government but a systemic paralysis of the entire British establishment. I tentatively suggested that just because the unrest had not been nipped in the bud when it should have been did not necessarily mean that the movers and shakers, the people in authority, had moved behind the last statue standing and were shaking there, wherever that was, but if at home self-isolating or preferably around the boardroom table somewhere in Number 10, hopefully they were growing a pair. The same astounded man pointed out that amongst the black rioters whites were running amok. I corrected him ~ no, I said, these are callow students or liberal-left extremists.

Hot on the heels of the first riots came a terrorist attack, which, if the prime suspect is a Libyan asylum seeker as the mainstream press reports, is not only tragic but also embarrassing. I wondered how long it would be before the terrorist faction raised its ugly head. After all, the riots are receiving so much good publicity from the UK’s liberal media that your average terrorist probably feels upstaged.

The riots have certainly upstaged coronavirus, albeit temporarily I suspect, but the rioters, like other groups that hunger for the limelight, are bound to stage a sensational comeback this autumn, the likes of which Tony Blair is bent on emulating but alas can only dream of. And what if a substantial number of these rioters through their self-made inability to social distance catch coronavirus and die as a result? And will the government be blamed for it, for making them take to the streets as the only means of leveraging racial justice, and will it then lead to a second wave of rioting? And will that become a conspiracy theory also?

According to western mainstream media sources, top of the conspiracy pops is the George Soros conspiracy theory. It appears that he has kicked the number-one favourite, the Bill Gates conspiracy theory, into second place. Rumour is that extreme right wingers are blaming everything on George Soros, but then if he is funding the migrant invasion of Europe on multiple fronts and bankrolling certain adverse world events, as many people believe, I suppose it is only natural to ask the question why? Even the most philanthropic, billionaire or otherwise, cannot fail to see that something is going terribly wrong, unless that wrong for some is terribly right for others? But then, what do I want with conspiracy theories? There is enough real trouble going around without icing it with conjecture.

Sticking to the facts, it does not seem that long ago when I was editing scores of articles about championing diversity, embracing multiculturalism, celebrating enrichment and wondering what one had to do to land oneself a job as a diversity director at 55 grand a year. What went wrong? Was it ever right?

Now, whenever I have the misfortune of catching a glimpse of the news I get these goosebumps and something of a shiver. It is all do with that large black cloud hovering over our summer of discontent. Is it a plane, is it a bird or is it the doom-laden shadow of Enoch Powell’s wilderness?

The other thing that is tainting the air is the mood of the British people ~ something that every British government fails to acknowledge or grievously underestimates. The British nation, that is almost everybody who does not live in London, is waiting in that tolerant way for which it is renowned, or simply enduring as it has always done (but remember, endurance and tolerance can surely run out!) for its absentee leaders to do something, to rise phoenix-like from the ashes of appeasement and grasp the bull by its nettles. I, for one, understand the reticence: Blackmail is never an easy business, but if Hollywood has taught us anything it is pay the blackmailer once and you will never stop paying.

Meanwhile, the mob are flying on a magic carpet fuelled by government qualms, indecision and sponsored by media showcasing, the bit of power is between their teeth and the scent of success in their nostrils. And, the impresario whisper is we ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

Really, it would have been better in the long run if someone had taken the initiative and pulled the rug out from beneath the mob before it left square one, instead of allowing the game to continue up the ladders and down the snakes.

What we can say, without taking sides, is that a mob is a mob whatever and whatever the stated cause.

Powell’s wilderness is one thing; his river quite another.

Is the UK in Multicultural Meltdown? — If he had a statue I bet it would be listed in ‘The UK Guide to Offensive Statues Handbook‘
[Photo credit: Allan warren / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0); https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Enoch_Powell_6_Allan_Warren.jpg)]

❤Feature image (Union Jack): Dawn Hudson: https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=127662&picture=uk-splat-flag)

Bottled Beer in Kaliningrad

Mick Hart’s totally biased review of bottled beers in Kaliningrad (or how to live without British real ale!)

Preface

Published: 21 June 2020 ~ Bottled Beer in Kaliningrad

Prompted by no other motivation than a love of beer drinking, I have decided to review some of the bottled beers I am drinking here in Kaliningrad, Russia, whilst the bars remain closed due to social distancing rules. This is the preface to a series of posts on that most hallowed of subjects, beer. It places my own beer-drinking experiences in a biographical and historical context and is a precursor to explaining how I am surviving without real ale in Kaliningrad, the alternative beers available and a personal review of the quality and marketing success of the bottled beers that I have sampled. As they say, it’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it!*

Bottled Beer in Kaliningrad

When I told fellow Brits that I was moving to Russia, three responses stick in my mind. The first, and the most obvious, was aghast amazement that I was leaving behind the most celebrated democracy in the world (Ha! Ha!). The second, a rather cynical comment on the number of times I visit the doctors, was made by one of my brothers: “It’s a long way to travel to see Dr Kelly each week!” And the third, “How are you going to survive without real ale?” The last one worried me.

I was a victim of the first wave of lager drinking, which infected the UK back in the 1970s. I will not call it a love affair, it was more like sex for sale. In those days, the UK pub industry was dominated by the Big Six ~ six major breweries that had consolidated their monopolies by buying up many smaller regional breweries and their tied houses and incorporating them into their business portfolio. Real beer had long since been challenged, and in many public houses replaced, by what CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale) pejoratively dubbed ‘fizz’, keg beer, which was spearheaded in the 1960s by the now infamous Watneys Red Keg Barrel, both brewer and beer having since become a cipher for poor quality, mass produced.

Watney Mann in Bulk — A former Watney’s brewery tanker reincarnated as a water tanker for farm use.
**(Photo credit: Roll Out Red Barrel;**
cc-by-sa/2.0 – © Michael Trolove – geograph.org.uk/p/1028498)

It is an irony of fate that the beer and the brewery which set out, and partly succeeded, in changing the drinking habits of the nation ended up as the beer-drinkers’ pariah.

Remember the Firkin pubs?

Of the many insults levelled at Watney’s, possibly the quintessential one, certainly the one that I remember best, was when the Flamingo and Firkin in Derby, one of the David Bruce-inspired craft-ale chain of pubs, refitted the gents toilet with an oversized water cistern masquerading as a Red Barrel. The barrel design, shade of red and even the Watney’s name emblazoned across the front in a typeface identical to the one that Watney’s used, was the pièce de résistance of piss taking, and in that respect it was in the right place.

Whilst no one can defend with any credibility the instigatory role that Watney’s played in the fizz revolution, Red Barrel was not alone for long. Who can forget the dubious delights of such mass-produced keg mediocrity as Ind Coope’s Double Diamond (‘Double Diamond Works Wonders’ ~ it didn’t) Whitbread Trophy (‘Whitbread Big Head Trophy Bitter the pint that thinks it’s a quart’ ~ well it would; it was all head, no strength and as inflatable as a hydrogen balloon) and Charles Wells’ Noggin (its bar-top beer-pump head made of wood to look like a nautical mooring post complete with rope wrapped around it, presumably to remind you that the 15 pence you had just spent was ‘money for old rope’).

The bland and sterile taste that these truly revolting beers left in one’s mouth was gradually, but then meteorically, replaced by something not dissimilar. It, too, was gassy, bland and sterile but sold well, thanks mainly to the money thrown at it in mass advertising campaigns that succeeded in hiding its meretricious nature behind a macho, blokey image, similar in aspiration to the rugged sexuality exploited by aftershave brands Brut and Hai Karate and enlisting the same flared trousers, tight-fitting tank tops and downturned droopy moustache approach.

Make way for lager

Initially, the lager market was aimed at female and young mixed clientele, but its rapid uptake quickly recommended it as a manly alternative to keg, escalating sales into brand warfare as brewers vied with one another to gas-tap their product into the number one slot.

My lagers of choice at that time were Lamont, Tuborg Gold and Tennent’s Extra. But the gold standard in lager for myself and my drinking confederates was undoubtedly Stella Artois, which, unfortunately, we could only seem to find in freehouses, and in our area these were few and far between.

My return to beer drinking and my induction into real ale is a vivid memory. It was 1979 and I was on a pub crawl in Norwich with a fellow student from the University of East Anglia, a chap called Clive. We had not known each other long, but long enough to know that we both liked beer. We met in the student’s bar on the then Fifers Lane campus. It was a full house that evening and a group of us were sitting on the floor surrounded by beer cans. Clive had just rolled in from a late game of squash. “A fitness fanatic,” I thought. I revised my opinion six pints later, but I have to say it was beer at first sight.

Clive was a Londoner and as such, insofar as beer-drinking trends were concerned, he was far ahead of the game than folk like myself who hailed from the sticks or from small provincial towns, places at that time where the only escape from the big brewers and their bog-standard fare was the occasional hard-to-find freehouse.

It was Clive who introduced me to real ale. We were in a pub overlooking Norwich market when Clive asked if I would like a pint of Director’s. As a lager drinker, used to less esoteric names, such as ‘Extra’, ‘Gold’ and ‘Red Stripe’, I remember thinking ‘what a bloody silly name for a beer’. Moreover, I had not drunk anything from a wooden handle pulled at the bar since my light and bitter days. Gas-tap beer was typically dispensed through a little plastic box with a light bulb behind it, whilst lager frothed and foamed worse than the liberal-left from out of conspicuous chromium taps, large, brassy and brazen things which over the years have become incredibly more stupid. Where does the light and bitter fit in? We were young when we started drinking in pubs, about 14 I think, but even then we eschewed Charles Wells’ bitter, which, unfortunately was a staple brew in most of the pubs in our area. We could drink it, but only ‘half-and-half’, that is a half pint of Charlie from the handpump diluted with light ale from the bottle.

Silly name or not, Directors was my first pint of real ale, and to me, at that time, it tasted like nectar. I was hooked from the first sip. Here, at last, was something different; something which had flavour!

All praise to CAMRA!

It was CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale) which revived the fortunes of real ale and put the final nail in the keg-bitter coffin. CAMRA launched a relentless campaign throughout the 80s and 90s, encouraging small and later micro-breweries to experiment with and increase their beer type and range and as the ‘cold tea’, as my cockney friend called ale, caught on the major brewers were forced to follow suit and up their real-ale ante to keep pace with the craft-beer experts.

Local beer guides and national Good Pub Guides coinciding with the arrival and development of the soon to become ubiquitous beer festival, which ranged from large-scale events featuring scores of brewers from around the country, fast-food outlets and live music to mini-festivals held in pubs, compounded and accelerated what for real legacy Britons such as myself is a unique and treasured part of our national heritage: proper beers and British pubs! No wonder that our saviour from the European Union, the indefatigable Nigel Farage, is himself a beer connoisseur!

Opening time at the Rushden Cavalcade beer tent c.2017

But these are troubled times, comrades. Coronavirus’s New Normal is sweeping across the land like an out-of-control temperance league and ideological agendas threaten British life with a rehashed version of British heritage. Our only hope is that beer-drinking patriots stand firm in the face of adversary. Keep the beer-drinking faith and stamp the virus out! Pubs are a national treasure and beer the jewel in its crown.

It is not ‘Time Gentleman, please’, yet gentlemen!

Bottled Beer in Kaliningrad

In the next astonishing instalment of Mick Hart’s totally biased review of bottled beers in Kaliningrad, we will see how exactly Mick Hart adjusted to the New Drinking Normal of no real ale!

*If you make your obsession your profession you will never work again ~ so some clever fellow once said. Well, I was fortunate to make one of my obsessions, beer, my profession for a while, and yes, if I had not moved on to something else, I might never have worked again! I was fortunate enough in my publishing career to work on and contribute to various licensed trade publications, hospitality titles, pub guides and drinkers’ manuals, which also gave me the opportunity to interview brewers, publicans and report on real ale and cider festivals. Consequently, I can vouch for the fact that you can have too much of a good thing, so I switched from drinks’ publications to medical ones, thus exchanging the fear of becoming an alcoholic for becoming a hypochondriac.

NEXT ARTICLE IN THIS SERIES: Variety of Beer in Kaliningrad

Plyushkin Bar & Restaurant Kaliningrad

No Mention of the Extreme Left

SSSShhhh Don’t Mention the Extreme Left!

Published: 17 June 2020

On encountering this news article¹ about the continuing civil unrest pertaining to Black Lives Matter protests and the scuffles in Westminster on Saturday 13 June, my reaction was that it was a prime example of imbalanced journalism. I am sure it is not intentional. See what you think?

Whilst the headline ‘Ten year jail sentences for desecrating war memorials’¹is encouraging, leading the reader to the erroneous conclusion that the article’s focus will be on bringing to justice vandals and subversives who throw national monuments into rivers or deface statues of national heroes, it transpires that the acts of desecration are disproportionately narrowed down to one clash in Westminster and (at the time this article was written) an alleged act of disrespect, that of a man with ‘far-right connections’, urinating next to a monument.

The first couple of paragraphs look promising, but as the quotes are rolled out the narrative seems to hang on a piece of elastic, which keeps pulling it back in one direction.

‘Robert Buckland, the Justice Secretary, Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, and Suella Braverman, the Attorney General, are understood to be discussing proposals to make it easier to prosecute people who damage monuments to those who died during wars. The measures under discussion could also cover some of the statues currently being targeted by activists.’

Here we see statues being targeted by ‘activists’ but without reference to the political affiliations of the activists, or, indeed, their collective identity. The following paragraph reads:

‘… the Cenotaph daubed with graffiti, while demonstrators pulled down a statue in Bristol and are targeting many others across the country. In another incident last week, paint was found to have been thrown at two memorials in Lincolnshire.’

This paragraph tells us that the Cenotaph was ‘daubed with graffiti’ but it does not tell us who daubed it, the same applies to paint throwing in Lincolnshire. We are told that it was ‘demonstrators’ who pulled down the statue in Bristol, but we are not told who the demonstrators are and there is no mention of their ideological background.

In itself that would be no problem, if it was not for the fact that no such reticence was exercised in the censorship department when it came to attributing identity to those people who travelled to Westminster on Saturday 13 June 2020 to protect the country’s heritage statues.

‘On Saturday, missiles were thrown at riot police attempting to move far-right activists away from Whitehall as their self-proclaimed mission to protect the Cenotaph and statue of Churchill descended into hours of violence.’

Here we have ‘far-right activists’ ~ a clear and categorical identification attributed to, presumably, all those in attendance. And then something strange (or, rather, not so strange) happens: the entire article pivots on one incident:

‘One man linked to a far right group was seen urinating next to the memorial to PC Keith Palmer, who died protecting Parliament from a terror attack in 2017.’

Forget for a moment the ambiguous ‘linked to’ and the ‘far-right’ label and concentrate on the phrase ‘next to the memorial’, and then read this:

‘Home Secretary Priti Patel condemned the incident. “We have seen some shameful scenes today, including the desecration of Pc Keith Palmer’s memorial in Parliament, in Westminster Square, and quite frankly that is shameful, that is absolutely appalling and shameful,” she said.’

Priti Patel states that ‘we have seen some shameful scenes today’, but then we have seen some shameful scenes all week, not the least of which has been the necessity of boarding up Winston Churchill’s statue and the Cenotaph to protect them from ‘demonstrators’ intent on criminal damage. She also asserts that PC Keith Palmer’s memorial has been desecrated.

At this point in time (when the article was published) the alleged far-right affiliated man had been described as urinating ‘next’ to the statue not on it. So was he being intentionally disrespectful? He was later found guilty of outraging public decency but not of acting with intent.

As disagreeable as this incident was, it should not be used to eclipse offenses of an even more disturbing nature, such as dragging statues off plinths and dumping them into rivers, daubing paint on the Cenotaph, attacking Winston Churchill’s statue and causing widespread civil unrest. Neither should it be used as a pretext for diverting our attention away from the many other distasteful acts committed during the recent period of civil disorder by people who certainly have no right-wing connections or by making tenuous links intended to demonise all counter-protestors as being of far-right extraction.

Back to the article: After a couple of paragraphs in which various commentators refer to the conservatives as the ‘party of law and order’ and the ‘defender of our culture and our heritage’, the article quickly reverts disproportionately to this one protest in Westminster and the ‘shameful behaviour’ of the far-right. Remember that the headline of the article leads one to believe that is about bringing statue violators to justice not just far-right activists in Westminster and a man relieving himself on the street.

‘Mr Johnson said “racist thuggery has no place on our streets”.’

Quite right!

‘The violence – which came as Black Lives Matter protestors gathered in mostly peaceful protest elsewhere around the country – were described by Ms Patel as “thoroughly unacceptable”.’

‘In mostly peaceful protest’? So has the Black Lives Matter ‘protest’ been mostly peaceful? According to this BBC article², it would appear so: ‘Some peaceful anti-racism protests also took place in London and across the UK’

Apparently, these peaceful protests took place elsewhere but on the same day as the one in Westminster. But were there any not-so-peaceful protesters from or associated with the Black Lives Matter movement in Westminster on Saturday 13 June?

Political fog over Westminster — Dense fog over Westminster
(Photo credit: Sandra Ahn Mode on Unsplash

Moving on:

‘In their public letter to this newspaper, Ms McVey, along with MPs including Lee Anderson and Brendan Clark-Smith, state: “The recent protests have been dominated by criminals who are undermining the very real fight against racism by burning flags, vandalising sacred war memorials and attacking police officers and this has caused outrage in our newly won constituencies in the Midlands and the North.

‘”It’s time for these subversive individuals to be arrested, prosecuted and punished in accordance with the law.” ‘

Here! Here! But who are these people who are ‘burning flags (and which flags?), vanadalising sacred war memorials and attacking police officers’? To whom do they owe their political allegiance?

Quickly wheel on Ken Marsh!

‘Ken Marsh, Chairman of the London Metropolitan Police Federation, called violent protesters to be jailed. “A faction of people only had one intention – to be violent and unlawful, they didn’t come here to protect the statues, it’s just disorder and unruliness.

The first sentence is spot on, but then he has to ruin it by referring specifically to this one protest in Westminster, which, in the context of this article, implies that the only assaults the police have had to contend with during the Black Lives Matter furore are those from the far-right on Saturday 13 June.

Let us ask the question again? Are we to believe that each and everyone of the counter-protesters (there’s an expression that is typically reserved for the left) were of far-right persuasion and that on this day in Westminster the police had no one else to contend with, that is to say no unruly and violent behaviour from the subversive left?

No Mention of the Extreme Left — (Photo credit: Alexander Mils on Unsplash; https://unsplash.com/photos/mCUI2v4LomE)

When it comes to obtaining a clear and credible picture of events, especially when intuition suggests that those events are having difficulty passing the politically correct litmus test, you could do a lot worse than give the UK mainstream media a wide berth and look elsewhere. And, indeed, as I trawled through the UK press in the rapidly disappearing hope of finding something that sounded more tenable, I found myself repeatedly reciting the Rolling Stone’s refrain, “I can’t get no, satisfaction”, and then I went to India*.

It is a bit of a bugger when you have to travel halfway around the world to find something that has a ring of truth about it, but in my opinion I found it here in an article titled ‘Patriots defending statues clash with Black Lives Matter protesters and police in London’, an article which appeared online on The Times of India website*.

The Times of India³ report cuts through the PC soup served up by the UK media, dissolves the ambiguities and provides, in my opinion, a clear and balanced perspective of what shaped the events that day. You will also note that it pulls no PC punches when it comes to identifying who is who.

‘A hundred people were arrested and 27 people including six police officers injured when patriots defending statues clashed with Black Lives Matter protesters and riot police in London.

‘Black Lives Matter (BLM) had officially called off their protest on Saturday when war veterans, football supporters and other groups, including far-right Britain First, announced they would be travelling to the capital to defend its statues and war memorials after many had been daubed in graffiti by Black Lives Matter activists last weekend.’

On the subject of the composition of those who travelled to London to defend its heritage, The Times of India refers to war veterans and uses the all-important word ‘including’, with reference to the presence of the ‘far-right Britain First’: ‘including’ the far-right but not made up exclusively of the far-right. It also states unequivocally who it was who ‘daubed’ the statues.

However, it is the second paragraph that most importantly distinguishes the account of what happened in Westminster on that day from the UK mainstream media narrative:

‘Despite being called off, hundreds of Black Live Matter protesters still did turn up and they ended up facing off against the counter-protesters, causing outbreaks of fights and violence all day.’

The remainder of the article covers something that either was omitted or marginalised by the mainstream UK press, that Britain’s war veterans who had travelled to London to protect the statues from thugs (political affiliation withheld) were not exactly chuffed to learn that they had been labelled “extreme right-wingers“ by London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

But then it is not only Mr Khan who likes to label people ‘extreme right-wingers’. And here is your homework. Flick through the UK media coverage of the past week on this whole sorry episode of civil unrest from when it started to, and including coverage on, the urinating man, and see how many times you can spot references to the ‘far-left, extreme-left’, and how many times the words ‘extreme-right’ and ‘far-right’ crop up. In fact, you can repeat this exercise for news stories from the UK media over a 12-month period in the full and certain knowledge that this is a far less reprehensible hobby than destroying the nation’s heritage.

It is a sad reflection on the state of the UK’s much-vaunted free press that at a time when it is shouting the loudest against so-called fake news, we, the public, are still attempting to get over the first hurdle and find news that is accurate and that, in order to accomplish this, we have to look elsewhere.

References [accessed 13 & 16 June 2020]
1. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/ten-year-jail-sentences-for-desecrating-war-memorials/ar-BB15rB0n?ocid=spartan-dhp-feeds {link no longer available [12/04/22]
2. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-53031072
3. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/uk/patriots-defending-statues-clash-with-black-lives-matter-protesters-and-police-in-london/articleshow/76365525.cms

*The Times of India(TOI) is an Indian daily newspaper owned by The Times Group.

❗Feature image: (Photo credit: Yeshi Kangrang on Unsplash; https://unsplash.com/photos/14RqNPmDOno)

Statue Erections Matter UK

An Address on Statue Erection in the UK by Chief Police Officer Raymond Ironside for CricketDick County, North Dorsetshire

Published: 15 June 2020

Keyfacts
Venue: The Village Hall
In attendance: 7 people (The Chief of Police, His Auntie (from Virginia) and something else that could not fully decide on which box to tick and was therefore counted as 5 Others)
Tickets: Parking ones £85; O.A.P.s double the price for living so long and drawing their pensions; Students ~ we’ll pay you to stay away
Refreshments: Imperialistic tea and biscuits free at twice the price in the Indian Pavilion

Chief Raymond Ironside’s address:
Good afternoon, it is so nice to see such an excellent turnout for this event (looking out of the window at an Antifart-induced riot that is going on outside over monocultural yoghurts being sold at the village fete).

First an apology (we’re good at that). Many of you have written to us at the police station asking where the police station is and why it isn’t where the police station should be? We apologise for never replying ever, and twice never on Sundays, as the postman, sorry postother, hasn’t a clue either ~ that is about who or what he is and where the police station has been relocated to. Some people believe that is in Mr Sado Khan’s Hall of Smoke and Mirrors, others that it was last seen disguised as a mobile yam and breadfruit shop. We advise people who don’t know their arse from their elbow to do what we always do whenever we want to find it: ask a policeman.

Taking into account the current trend for not being able to spell and the younger generation’s flatulent use of the word ‘like’ and ‘LoL’, even if we had received your letters, we would have had to employ an interpreter, and as the recorded message tells you on all those helplines you love to ring, ‘our interpreters are all busy helping other customers at present’, most of whom have come to Dorsetshire in the middle of the night, when they are least likely to be seen, in small boats without a TV licence.

CricketDick Police are, however, on Facebook. That’s our Facebook page. You can’t miss it. It’s the one with a mugshot avatar complete with number underneath. Please note that the face we are using is a fictitious one in order to comply with the Data Protection Act and the We Dare Not Arrest Anybody Who Looks Like That Anymore in Case of a Riot Act.

Now we know that there are an awful lot of you ~ and a lot of you who are awful ~ who are concerned about the increasing numbers of burglaries, muggings, knife crimes, terrorist activities and murders in CrippleDick but never mind that, today we are here to talk about the dos and don’ts (mostly the don’ts) of statue erection. This is most important as transgressions of the erection laws carry stiff penalties, as I believe my colleagues, Detective Constable Ron Condom and Police Woman Cliterthroe, advised you last week during the talk they gave to the ‘High-5 Size-55 Yoga Pants Club’ on Camel Toes Matter. Get this wrong and it could, as the missionaries used to say, land you right in the soup. Indeed, contravention of the I Should Not Be Proud of My National History Act, carries a penalty of 5000 Obamian Dollars, two years in parts of London where I really don’t want to be, or both.

This is why I say if you do intend to raise a statue in your back garden, on your patio, in your front room or on the empty plinths in Parliament Square ~ and every other municipal centre in England ~ please remember that there are a few legal points that you need to take into account before your erection takes place.

Here, I am reminded of the case Viagra vs Cialis, which was thrown out of court and hit someone on the head who had so many rights they didn’t know what to do with them. He, she, or whatever it was, was compensated to the tune of their own national anthem with a package consisting of two kilos of hashish, the winning numbers of the EU lottery, housed for free at Buckingham Palace and was offered an unlikely position, which IT’s husband complained about, on the Statue Shatterers Board of Directors. It was also offered an OBE but turned it down on the basis that it was racist, imperialist and you couldn’t snort or smoke it.

I know I am here to talk about statues, but our job, the job of the Defunded police (now consisting of one man and his bicycle and a huge handbook of what he can’t say, do or arrest), is first and foremost to ensure equality and fairness is exercised in all thongs pertaining to inclusivity. We will only arrest if there is absolutely no other way or whilst we are looking the other way as instructed in the statuet book.

Here is a checklist of things you should ask yourself before you put up your statue:

1. Is your statue of a pale complexion?
2. Is your statue a pre-eminent historical figure who has made an inestimable contribution to the nations’ stability and advancement, without which the current generation would lack the entitlement to which they presume they have a God-given right?
3. Has your statue ever owned a pair of dark coloured underpants with a white band of elastic around the top?
4. Did your statue read Noddy when he was a little statue?
5. Has your statue ever, with or without your knowledge, been labelled by the liberal media as Far or Extreme Right because he or she is not a self-culture loather who objects to national identity theft?
6. Has your statue ever been caught listening to the National Anthem?
7. Did anyone hear your statue say ‘Good Riddance’ when Meghan Markle shipped out?
8. Is your statue more inclined to cheer Churchill than another statue in the near vicinity?
9. Does your statue confuse the word ‘rap’ with ‘stereotypifying crap’?
10. Was your statue a friend of Jimmy Savile’s statue, or anybody else’s statue who worked for the BBC?
11. Has your statue ever owned the Vera Lynn Collection?
12. Does your statue’s family have centuries-old British lineage or were they given a piece of paper with citizenship written on it, or did they not come from the East but knew Ron Geest?
13. Is your statue balanced or does it have a large chip on its shoulder?
14. Does your statue play cards ~ regularly and deal from the bottom?
15. Is your statue an inanimate object that if pulled down will not make a ha’p’orth of difference to the person it represents as he died in 1835 and is too busy laughing in his grave?

In addition to these questions you should also give appropriate consideration to the decorations that surround your statue ~ Union Jacks, Sunday lunches, a pair of Morris dancer’s socks, the entire BBC collection of the Black & White Minstrel Show and a certain record about Christmas by a man whose surname is very similar to someone else’s (unfortunately), should be avoided at all costs. For advice on street signs, please address your queries to Nickerless Sturfried at Scotty Parliament, or email: nomorereferendumsplease@straw.grasping.sc.

And remember, if you intend to do anything with your statue that does not concern the local leftwing council planning department, please seek advice from your local leftwing council planning department. If in doubt, you should always hide your statue in your loft, under a heavy tarpaulin away from skylights, where it could be noticed by third-class passengers hiding in the wheel-wells of passing airliners and offend their sillybilities.

Next week, your visiting lecturer will be (name withheld in accordance with The Name Witholding Act) who will be discussing her latest books, which she wrote in Yarlswood, Rewriting British History and Blackmail: Apologising and Appeasing with your statues down.

Statue Erections Matter UK — The Time-Travelling Policeman says, “I love it here in 1910. We are all well-funded, you can stand in the middle of the road and be really embarrassed if you get hit by the once-weekly bus, the government and law-abiding public all support us, the Riot Act takes care of anything vaguely subversive and all our statues and national monuments are safe and happy within their ancestral home!

The UK Guide to Offensive Statues Handbook
“If you don’t know where they are they’ll box them before you trash them!” ~ described by the B.B.C. as a ‘mainly peaceful demonstrator’

Max Aschmann Park Kaliningrad

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 84 [11 June 2020]

Published: 14 June 2020

We were outside and walking down the street! It felt alien and wonderful at one and the same time. ‘O brave new world that has such people in’t!’ And, as I reflected on recent events in the western media, by the kindness of history, where we were today, no such people innit …

We were on the way first to the post office to post a letter to my mother and family, which I had started writing in March but had not posted due to coronavirus close-down, and then our mission was to find the whereabouts of Königsberg’s Max Aschmann Park.

Max Aschmann Park Kaliningrad

We knew it was not far away, and we were aware that it is a park of some magnitude, but our objective was to discover the way in, so that at some point in the not-to-distant future we could lessen the more austere effects of isolating by going on a picnic.

It was a beautiful summer’s day and Kaliningrad was at its greenest and, therefore, at its best. On the way we bought a couple of ice creams and stopped off at a small park not far from where we live. In the centre of this park, and a few feet away from where we were sitting, was a Soviet statue. I winked at him. “You’re safe mate,” I thought. “This is not the UK.”

Proceeding from here, feeling extremely grateful that I was far enough away from the multicultural malaise that is now, as Enoch predicted, blighting every aspect of British daily life and threatening to obliterate its cultural identity, we spotted, peeping through a small fringe of trees at the side of the road, another monument. Further investigation revealed that this great carved slab of granite sitting on a concrete plinth and vandalised only by the same natural influence that vandalises our bodies ~ Time ~ was German and of Königsberg origin, dedicated to 100 graduates of the Altstadt Gymnasium who lost their lives during the First World War.

Königsberg monument WWI Altstadt Gymnasium — WWI MONUMENT, KÖNIGSBERG (Kaliningrad), IN MEMORY OF 100 GRADUATES OF THE ALTSTADT GYMNASIUM WHO DIED IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR

As the photograph in this post shows, the monument is flanked by two trees which, as the architects intended, have now grown into mighty and impressive sentinels.

WWI GERMAN MONUMENT KÖNIGSBERG (Kaliningrad) MARAUNENHOF SUBURBS

Criss-crossing the streets a couple of times, and feeling a little foolish asking people ‘do you know where the Max Aschmann Park is?’ aware as we are that the park is huge, our bearings suddenly returned to us. Olga declared, “We are on the road that leads to the yellow church.” I also knew that this road led to a couple of café bars, which I also knew, courtesy of Coro, sadly would be closed.

In the heat of the day, against the green and blue backdrop of trees, shrubs and sky, a reference to this time last year flashed through me. It was a little schizophrenic moment, a duality of emotion, part sorrow, part joy ~ one rooted in grievous loss, the other in poignant memory. For a split second I saw, and quite vividly, our deceased friend Victor Ryabinin walking by our side, as he could well have been in life. The moment passed as quickly as it had arrived, and I was left with that bittersweet sensation to which we are helpless when we miss someone dear to us, something between chasmic wistfulness and eternal gratitude, the longing for yesterday softened by the sense of privilege for paths that could so easily not have crossed on our strange little journey through life.

My wife, being an advocate of predeterminism, saw it as a fait accompli ~ whatever will be is meant to be ~ and she must be right, because in next to no time, after a brief excursion into the grounds of an interesting church, we arrived at the undisclosed entrance to Max Aschmann Park.

We had never been here with Victor, but Boris Nisnevich does refer to it in his biographical essay An artist that can hear angels speak. Victor cites the park as one of the places that had been earmarked for restoration, although rumour has it that whilst some remedial work has been undertaken the project has stalled.

The Max Aschmann Park

The Max Aschmann Park was named after its benefactor who, in 1903 bequeathed the Maraunenhof estate to the city of Königsberg together with a substantial sum of money to aid in the park’s construction. The 25-hectare park took seven years to complete. By the 1940s the park had been greatly improved and expanded. It was now approximately three times the size of the original and equipped with an elaborate network of ponds, natural habitats ringed and intersected with paths and bridges, woodland groves, sporting facilities, playgrounds, curious buildings and monuments. As with most of Königsberg, the park fell victim to the Second World War and, thereafter, was neglected. Its abandoned status made it the perfect venue for itinerant drinkers and a place to rendezvous for impromptu barbecues, further contributing to its fall from grace. Sporadic maintenance has taken place in more recent years and plans for a more elaborate renovation programme are known to have been discussed. Victor Ryabinin, artist and local historian, refers to such in Boris Nisnevich’s biographical essay An artist /that can hear angels speak, but rumour has it that any plans that may have been discussed have been postponed indefinitely which, if true, is rather sad.

Our meeting today with Max Aschmann would be brief. As I said earlier, we were on a reconnaissance mission. But we followed the winding block-paved road that led to the park and tarried awhile in the wooded perimeter at the side of a large pond, a delightful interlude interwoven with beaten tracks and so natural that you could have been anywhere, anywhere that is except in the suburbs of a bustling city.

We wended our way home via a different route, stopping off at a magazin for victuals and, oh yes, a couple of litres of beer. Well, it was such a nice day after all …

One of these beers, a monopolistic mainstay of the Soviet era, has an interesting history, which, if I can remember anything about it after drinking the beer, I will jot down for your edification.

Hmm, it will soon be time to open Mick’s Bar.

Statues that cause offence

Offensive Statues of the UK

The UK Guide to Offensive Statues Handbook

Published: 12 June 2020

The UK Guide to Offensive Statues Handbook, not to be confused with Enoch Powell’s biography, is the Who’s Who of offensive statues in the UK ~ a must for the Statuephobic!

The first publication of its kind to provide a comprehensive list of UK statues that should have been torn down before they were built, the ‘Rioter’s bible to statue destruction’, as the Gardroomism refers to it, has been cunningly contrived to give maximum exposure, even to those statues that are wearing trousers, to every statue known to ITs in the UK.

Statues that cause offence

This handy pocket-sized booklet, that fits conveniently into the crutch piece of a pair of cheap synthetic jogging bottoms, bright pink trainers, the inside of your hoody and/or the cargo pockets of your camo trousers, without interfering with your weapons or statue-dismantling tools but at the same time guaranteeing an impressive bulge in all the right places, pinpoints with satellite precision the exact whereabouts of statues that are just asking to be defaced, desecrated, daubed with paint or thrown symbolically into strange places .

The book gives all the vital statistics ~ of Shanice , the editor ~ and also those of the individual statues, along with visibility profile, material construction, nearby rivers and lakes, whether or not the local police station has been rehoused in Martin’s the newsagents across the road and the exact locations of CCTV ~ essential information for all those who have nothing better to do than to get themselves recorded on film looking stupid for posterity as they grapple with a lump of stone or bronze (how future generations will laugh!)

There is also a splendid appendices for those statue molesters who prefer to do their statue attacks at night, showing the location of street lamps, and advising you on where to buy miners helmets with lamps on top for maximum hands-free statue removing.

Offensive Statues of the UK

What makes this book most appealing to statue destructors is its unique Tossability analytics paradigm (width x height x length x weight) assessed against the number of men, women, Its or Others that will be required to uproot each statue and run away with it down the street. By measuring the height of the wall over which you are going to throw it, you can then apply the Tossability calculator, which will give you, the Tossers, the exact number of Tossers needed to toss, together with elevation, lift, and trajectory parameters. Don’t forget that before attempting this exercise each group should appoint a Chief Tosser. This is a legal requirement of Health & Safety (you wouldn’t want to break the law now, would you?).

An original feature of this book is the statue’s subject Checklist! A list of politically incorrect offenses: an A~Z and back (provided in 33 ethnic languages, including Welsh) of documented, suspected and thoroughly bogus politically correct offences from which statue-shifters can choose to justify acts of vandalism (You will need these when interviewed by the liberal left media and as a Get Out of Jail Free card in the unlikely event that any one dare to arrest you and take you to liberal left court.).

The checklist lists all the main offenses that statues can commit:

✳Racism

✳ Sexism

✳ Homophobia

✳ Xenophobia

✳ Inciting Racial/Religious Hatred

✳ Too few women in the board room

✳ LGBT It & Other issues

✳ Fox Hunting

✳ Being Heterosexual

✳ Watching Black & White Films

✳ Thinking the B.B.C. stands for something else

✳ Starring in Gone With The Wind

✳ Having an Auntie who lives in Virginia

(add others as necessary)

Where can I get a copy of The UK Guide to Offensive Statues Handbook?

In spite of all efforts to the contrary, the police force has not yet been abolished and never will be, which explains why the Handbook has a limited print run and a high pulpability probability.

The good news is, however, that the ~~manual~~ personual is half-price x 2 to P.R.I.Cs. (Political Representatives of Immigration Councils). It is not necessary to be a PRIC but having a P.I.S.S. (Politically Incorrect Sensibility Status) and being a D.I.C.K (Director of the Institute of Chartered Knuckleheads) qualifies you to three free copies, and DICK Heads, those of you who are career statue removers, can apply, when you learn to spell, for lifetime membership.

Statue Heavers Institute & Trades Executive (S.H.I.T.E.) members, on presentation of their Antifa credentials (a blank piece of paper with no C.S.Es), receive a number of loyalty benefits, including a handy Get out of Jail Free card; a free holiday in a place where statues have never been heard of; medical insurance for groin sprains and ruptures (statues are heavy!); riot loyalty points; and discounts on licensed products, such as blank sweatshirts with statues removed from the front and your name and doss house address on the back; back-to-front hoodies (the ultimate in unrecognisability); and a free introductory course on banner etiquette at SHITE’s headquarters in Brixton, which includes how to spell and how to hold your banner the right way up and the right way round (IQ Test not required).

Our sisters’ publication, Offensive Statues of the Deep American South, is available from Lee’s General Stores, Confederate Street, Alobama ~ but hurry, as there are not many left!

More in the series of Our Guaranteed to Offend publications from PC Press include:

⛔ Offensive Painters & Paintings

⛔ Offensive Authors & Books

⛔ Offensive Poets & Poetry

⛔ Offensive Architects and their Offensive Buildings

🛐Offensive things that are waiting to be discovered which we will pull down later (in association with Craven Govt Publications)

Statues that cause offence — “Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up”
(Photo credit: Sarah Brink on Unsplash; https://unsplash.com/photos/TZyEMoSB9Tw)

Further writings of a Statuesque nature

Watching the Riots on TV
Life without a Television Licence
Will Life Change After Covid-19

Watching the Riots on TV

Musings on the 10 June 2020 ~
or the joy of being TV-free (Part 2)

Published: 10 June 2020

“Threw the television out and it was one of the best things that I ever did,” so said my friend Collin, as I recorded in my previous article.

What ignited this conversation on independent minds and symbolic images of TV sets tossed resolutely into rubbish skips, was the mutual notoriety that we had both gained from the public knowledge that neither of us owned or watched TV. Whenever I revealed this fact to anyone, I could guarantee responsive shock of seismic proportions: “What, you haven’t got a telly?!” ~ they would cry in disbelief.

Time for a bit of Frank Zappa

This is not to say, unfortunately, that I am happily oblivious to what is going on in the world. In today’s technologically hard-wired world, even though I eschew ownership of a so-called smartphone, I still use a computer for research and by which to write, and on this necessary evil the news is but a click away.

When I want to know what is happening, feel the need to know what is happening and/or just feel the need to annoy myself, I go to Google News, that is Google aggregated news, or as I have christened it, Google Aggravating News. And there it is: the whole world and its ills. However, lest we forget, it is the whole world and its ills predominantly filtered through the lens of the liberal left.

At no other time in my personal history of non-TV ownership have I had so much reason to rejoice as recently. I cannot imagine how awful it must be to be placed on a strict diet of coronavirus doom and gloom. I know that there are people out there who suffer from the same inability as mobile phone users ~ they simply cannot turn the telly off. How do such people survive? Do they survive? In this age of news surfeit, with rolling news channels churning out the same disturbing images over and over again, underscored by the same relentless and inevitably biased commentary, it is a marvel we can think at all. We do, don’t we?

Frank Zappa again.

Reasons to be cheerful part 2 was when I heard from my wife, who is an inveterate social media twiddler, that it was riot season again. No, I am not a liberal subversive. My joy came from the realisation that as I did not have a TV, I could ‘tune off and drop out’ ~ that sounds suspicious!

As soon as I was apprised of the facts, white cop USA kills black suspect, I thought, ‘Hello, here we go!’ I knew as you did, that we were in for a grand media fest: acres of newsprint and airtime given over to mob rule, rioting, street unrest, arson, violence, looting. I had, in effect, one of those distinctly déjà vu moments.

Watching the Riots on TV — I’VE BEEN WATCHING THE RIOTS ON TV
(Photo credit: Michael Lis on Unsplash https://unsplash.com/@mq1?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)

The following day a couple of articles in the UK liberal press confirmed my suspicions that the fallout from a crime committed on the other side of the world was about to be encouraged in the UK.

Naah, I thought, don’t need it. My status as a non-TV owner would grant me some immunity, but in order to batten down the hatches I would need to avoid goggling on Google. One part of me was arguing, surely not. That is to say, that surely people are not so stupid as to start rampaging through the streets in the midst of a pandemic. It was a little ray of logic that I knew was but a straw. Letting go of that, I life-rafted into the comfort zone of where I was located, thankfully far away from the artillery of the western media and scenes of abject capitulation that surely would follow as dark follows light. Alas, my incorrigible twiddling wife driven by her social media addiction, could not help but leak snippets of information to me, which I tried to avoid as if they were carnivals.

With Covid-19 conspiracies cascading around our ears like confetti at a fallen angels wedding, who could blame anyone for entertaining the suggestion that in the matter of the riots extreme liberal factions are at work behind the scenes provoking and antagonising, attempting to disempower law enforcement agencies so that they ultimately lose control of the streets. Or is it all just an epic miscalculation? After all, something similar happened in the UK about thirty years ago with the premature curtailment of stop and search laws, the disastrous result being …

I was just thinking wistfully bring back the Sweeney, flared polyester trousers, thick knotted Axminster ties and proper-job policing, when the words of my old childhood physician echoed in my ears, and other parts of the body. “Clear the decks!” he would say, meaning drop your trousers, which he always asked you to do when you presented with an earache. They’d certainly have pulled his statue down if he had had one erected! Come to think of it, they probably wouldn’t.

With his words ringing in my ears (he never did get to the bottom of my tinnitus) and my trousers still on, it did make me think that it was time to take evasive action before the decks of my mind became strewn with the sort of liberal tat that I would not get five bob for if I took it to Peacock’s auction.

“Wife!” said I, “Desist!”

I do not know whether she understood me or not, but the cat did, as he promptly sat on her mobile phone.

And so it has been that for the last four to five days I have, how does the expression go, simply ‘not gone there’, and by boycotting Google News and in fact any kind of media output, I have harvested the twin benefit of not only avoiding the ghost of Enoch Powell but also losing touch with coronavirus confusion. It has certainly been a win-win situation!

Of course, with Arsebook never far away, my wife continues to sneak information piecemeal to me, but I have adopted the expedient of placing my hands over my ears. It cannot be right can it? That they uprooted Nelson Mandela’s statue in Parliament Square and tossed it into a cabbage patch? Perhaps it was Lord Nelson’s statue or the statue of Ron Nelson, a fish and chip man from Scunthorpe … or could it have been …*

*For one night only, due to Rioter’s demands, BBC 1 presents the National Historic Figures Statue Desecration Ceremony live from the Arthur Hall (please note that Prince Arthur is currently being investigated under the Racist Statues of England Act so will not be in attendance. The fact that he died many years ago does not make him less culpable of things he never said or did in an age which is so remote from our own that even a female Dr Who is having difficulty finding it.)

Will the rioters remove The Statue of Liberty? — What du yu reckon when it’s gone ~ Martha & The Vandellas?

If you live in a country that has not yet ventured down the road of multiculturalism, pause for a moment. The social experiment comes at a price, and the interest on the debt is something you’ll never repay ~ Source: a man who did not make it into The Museum of Tolerance but was later inducted into the Hall of Sagacious Fame (please note statue removed) and was then prosecuted for inciting commonsense

In brave new America, leaders kneel and looters are saluted.

Life Without a Television Licence

Musings on the 9 June 2020 ~
or the joy of being TV-free (Part 1)

Published: 9 June 2020

“It was, undoubtedly, one of the best things that I ever did ~ throwing the telly out. To be honest, I did not exactly throw it out; we dispensed with it.” These profoundly philosophical words were delivered to me back in the pre-coronavirus year of 2018 by Colin, a friend and colleague. Although he lived his life free from the encumbrances of a TV set, he was still haunted and persecuted by the dreaded spectre of the TV licence and those who sought to uphold it, come what may. This is his story:

C: We were living in temporary accommodation whilst the property we had purchased was being renovated. The rented house came complete with no TV aerial. We assumed that we would not be living there for long (it turned out that we were in occupancy for a year) and, consequently, arranging for the aerial to be installed was put on the back burner and left there until it just vanished with a poof.

Life without television

C: That was almost 15 years ago, and we have never looked back. Obviously, each year, and multiple times in each year, we would receive those amusing reminders from the BBC Licensing Gestapo. Silly circulars spewed out by computers threatening you with all sorts of Spanish Inquisition-type ordeals to force a confession out of you that yes, yes, it is true ~ I am watching the BBC secretly and without a licence!

C: As I never had a hobby, such as voting Labour, I would amuse myself by collecting each threatening letter, noting how the totalitarian menace escalated from the first reminder, which was a gentle nudge, into strongarm tactics, first informing you that you were ‘under investigation’ and then that any day now you could expect a SWAT team to come busting into your home.

C: My favourite letter was the one that implied that a visit from the Grim BBC Licensing Reaper was nigh. It went along the lines of ‘Will you be in on Saturday 10^th March?’ ~ the implication being that this was the day when the Witch Finder General and his torturers would descend upon your home. The obvious answer to that would seem to be ‘no’? And I must confess that I was tempted to write back to these people who were destroying the planet with junk mail, saying ‘No’. But as they are an usually cunning lot those at the BBC, I decided that I would be in on Saturday 10^th March but never on any other day of the year. That would teach them!

Life Without a Television Licence — It’s called watching TV without a licence.
(Photo credit: Gaspar Uhas on Unsplash)

C: A friend, well-meaning I suppose, asked me why I did not just write and inform the authorities that I did not have a TV. But, as with most things in life, it was not as simple as that. You see, I did have a TV, an old one, but as far as I knew it was incapable of picking up a broadcast signal. Our sole use for this mechanical contrivance was to use it as a monitor for watching DVDs. But, said I, as if I had been a conspiracy theorist all my life, I have this recurring nightmare, which is that after I have confessed in writing that I have a telly in the house but one that receives no transmission, I receive a visit from the nice BBC licensing man. He listens to what I have to say about the TV having no broadcast reception. Asks me to switch on the set, which I willingly do with a smile. He then thumps the top of the set and up on the screen pops, like some odious PC-revised corrupted historical drama, the BBC in all its biased glory.

“Time to be thoroughly indignant,” I suggested. “I have never given a penny to the Labour party, so why should I be forced to fund the BBC?”

C: Precisely. There were a couple of times in my life when the BBC dragnet closed in on me. One occasion was when I was living in London. I had just stepped out of my front door when I was approached by two officious-looking gentlemen carrying black clipboards.

“Excuse me sir,” one said, “we are from the BBC licensing authority …”

C: What is it about innocence that manifests guilt? For no reason other than, other than …

“Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Imp of the Perverse’,” I ventured.

C: Quite so. I instructed my female partner to ‘run for it’. We dashed across the lawn and hopped into the Range Rover, the two goons armed with clipboards hot on our tail.

“At least you were not in a bubble car,” I consoled. “If you have to make a getaway make sure you do it in style!”

Life without a television licence

C: The second ‘there but for the grace of God’ occasion occurred some years later. There was no telly registered at my address, so you can be sure that even in the middle of a postal strike the only post to get through was harassment mail from BBC licensing, oh, and from the Reader’s Digest.

C: In anticipation of the Devil’s invocation at any moment, I had instructed my son, who was about seven year’s old at the time, not to answer the door at any cost, as it could be a man from the British Bias Corporation. In fact, to help me in this endeavour I had employed to good effect, or so I thought, one of the licensing authorities’ very own letters, which I had Sellotaped to the inside front door as a reminder that at all times caution must be exercised.

C: My son, although he could not entirely comprehend the significance of this act, appeared to understand that this was a red flag, so all was alright there then until, that is, one morning when I was eating toast a knock came at the door. Caught off guard by the Marmite and the sun shining over the defunct TV set, I opened the knocked-on door and who should be standing there ~ yes, none other than the BBC licensing man.

“Hello, Mr X?” he asked.

C: I said ‘yes’ just before I clocked his identification badge. I said ‘yes’; I thought ‘Bugger!’.

C: He then went off into a sanctimonious verse and chapter explanation of how there was no registered TV set on the premises, concluding his officious speech with “do you have a television set” on the premises?

C: Never a borrower or liar be, so I interceded with although I was Mr X I was not the Mr X he was looking for. No, in fact, I was his brother. I was looking after the house whilst he was on holiday. Could he come in? Not really. It would not be right and proper, not with me being a mere house sitter. The officious looking man with his shiny ID badge reluctantly complied, advising me to advise my brother that he had been visited by the BBC television licensing authority and, make no mistake, they would be back. They were never seen again.

C: The third occasion of harassment by the Biggus Brotherus Clan took place when I was managing a shop. The shop occupied the ground floor, and we were resident on the top storey.

C: I remember the occasion as if I had seen it on television …

“Which, of course, you had not,” I proffered.

C: Absolutely not. I was in the ground floor office chatting to a customer when I saw on the security monitor a black car pull up outside. After a minute or two, the occupant bounded out of his car and began to walk towards the front door of the shop. There was something about his manner, even though I was seeing him on camera and at a distance, that I did not like, something … bumptious is the word.

C: He arrived at the office door, a young man in his mid-20s, black haired in a black jacket, round faced and already going to seed.

“Do you have a flat here?” he asked.

C: “Why, are you a flat fancier?”

“Sorry?”

C: “I’m sure you should be.”

C: I had spotted his ID badge.

C: He repeated his question.

C: “And who is asking?” I asked.

C: He thought for a moment. His stomach was definitely running towards podgey. Not good in a man of his age. And then, pulling himself up to his full height, 5ft 2, he announced grandiloquently and with great purpose: “I’m from the BBC licensing authority?”

C: “Get away,” I replied, “Well you should be ashamed of yourself. A man of your age should have a proper job.”

C: The smirk vanished: “Do you have a television?” he asked curtly, head swivelling around the office door like an aerial surmounted on a mythical TV license detector van.

C: I replied in the negative, and before he could deliver his next question, he having already taken a deep breath to do so, I added.

C: “Neither can we access broadcast television on the office computer, the radio, the toaster, the microwave, the vacuum cleaner or the lawn mower.”

“What about in the flat?” he snapped.

C: “What about what in the flat?”

“Do you have a TV up there?”

C: “Probably,” I replied, “but that’s the boss’s flat. He lives in London …”

C: This time he interrupted me, concluding my sentence mockingly with “…and he isn’t here at present and you don’t know when he will be.”

C: “That’s about the strength of it.”

“And I don’t suppose you can let me see inside the flat.”

C: “Oh no,” I confirmed, “my mother always told me to avoid strange men and, well, you are something to do with the BBC.”

“BBC licensing authority,” he announced, that little pride creeping back into his voice again.

C: Well, I had had about enough, so I told him that as I had not invited him into the premises, he had no right to be here.

C: He argued that this was a shop and not a private residence.

C: I directed his attention to a sign which said that the management reserved the right to refuse entry … and now I was exercising that right; adding that if he intended to return he should only do so in the presence of a police officer and don’t forget the warrant.

C: With that, he turned on his heel and stomped out of the shop, cutting a very different figure to the one who had marched in ~ except for the podgey gut. He had hesitated before he had left the car, but there was no hesitation now. On went the engine, into gear went the car, it shot backwards and then, with a flurry of gravel sparking up from the back wheels, off it went and him with it, and it was very good riddance indeed.

The moral of this story is that whilst you should beware of men bearing strange gifts ~ such as a gross of out of date Luncheon Vouchers ~ you need to be equally cautious of anyone wearing strange ID and be considerably alarmed by anyone, man, woman or other, who confronts you at home or anywhere else for that matter and tells you with a misplaced sense of pride that they work for or on behalf of a particular British broadcasting company.

Vintage TV and living room — “Have you got a licence for that … er, for … for your cushion?!”
(Photo credit: Petr Kratochvil; https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=302427&picture=retro-living-room)

*I am aware, of course, that the accepted taxonomy is ‘TV licensing authority’, but as the license fee purely benefits the BBC, in my opinion, and the opinion of many others, they are The BBC TV Licensing Authority ~ and other things besides.