Author Archives: Captain Codpiece

It’s that man in the Russian hat in Bedford!

May this fair land we love so well in dignity and freedom dwell

28 May 2023 ~ It’s that man in the Russian hat in Bedford!

Great news! That is, great news if you are a dinosauric socialist or a politically challenged liberal: the results of the UK local elections suggest that Labour are back on track to break into Number 10 next year. It is rumoured that when this catastrophe happens, the first item on Queer Stammer’s agenda will not be to reverse rampant crime on our streets or stem the terrorist threat but to reverse Brexit in all but name. A politician, who wishes to remain Anonymous, as he hasn’t had a sex change, has disclosed that a bill will be produced (abracadabra!) that will ensure that whilst officially the UK is no longer a vassal state of the Evil bully-boy Union, the bureaucrats in Brussels will be firmly back in the driving seat.

Beyond rumour is the sure certainty that the UK’s immigration crisis, that is the one the Conservatives are powerless to prevent because, and I quote, of ‘legal challenges’ ~ time for Sorryarse’s UK legal-system to be investigated and overruled ~ is about to go from bad to worse.

The lefties have always been advocates of open-door immigration. After all, it was introduced by Mr Blair and his cronies as a pre-emptive measure to shore up the loss, which they rightly anticipated, of the white-working-class vote when the old grassroots socialists finally cottoned on, which eventually they did but only after it was much too late, that under Mr Blair’s stewardship New Labour had ceased to be the party of whippets, flat hats and pigeons, and that they and their tired old Marxist policies had been well and truly shafted. No one, not even the Neanderthal socialists, asked for multiculturism, and yet many just went along with it because since their grandads voted Labour they hadn’t the gump to ask themselves why they should do the same.

Neither did we ask for a free-for-all immigration fiasco. In fact, the majority voted Brexit to call for a halt to immigration, and what did we get in return? The net result under Tory rule is that immigration has soared to hitherto inconceivable heights. We also voted Brexit to loosen the pseudo-liberal stranglehold on every law that governs our land, particularly countercultural laws that originate from and are weaponised by the European Convention of Human Rights, the sole-serving purpose of which are to pave the way for mass immigration, a move that Britons pay dearly for, always in cash, often with lives. This, we are told, is social enrichment, when all that is enriched by uncontrolled third-world migration are the symbiotic coffers of the UK’s legal profession, the political mannequins on the end of the strings and the shadowy globalist figures whose hands control the strings that make those mannequins dance to their tune.

We will greet them on the beaches!
Sir Winston Chapelcliff

The proof is in the political pudding: You can vote as much as you like in Britain, but you’ll never get what you voted for. Other democracies around the world are routinely dismissed in Britain by its media and its political class, who refer to them as ‘managed democracies’, the implication being that we should think ourselves jolly lucky that the democracy in which we live is perfectly mismanaged.

At the end of the day, and every day, the cronies that govern our country, whichever party to which they belong, happily and arrogantly ride roughshod over all we believe in and all that we hold dear. Even now, as Enoch Powell’s predictions of ‘Rivers of Blood’ flow from cerebral to credible, the British media continues to praise the heinous game of migration chess foisted on us by a man whom it egregiously applauds as a ‘philanthropic billionaire and champion of human rights. They over egg the diversity soufflé whilst putting down the culinary critics who see it for what it is, as sickly as sick can be, by labelling them as conspiracy theorists and disciples of the far right. And should everything else in their bag of tricks fail, leaving nothing to dissemble with, they fall back on their second-rate act, drop Putin’s name into the mix and blame it all on the Russians.

Hats enough of hat!

You have just read the preface of two seemingly disconnected but actually interdependent actions: the singing of a song entitled There Always Was an England and an overwhelmingly strong compulsion to put on my Russian hat.

Look, it’s that man in the Russian hat!

Earlier this month I took my autocratic Russian hat for a test drive in the English countryside. On a date not to be disclosed for fear that they might travel back in time and attempt to rewrite history (the lefties are always at it), I plonked my hat upon my head and went for a stroll around Bedford.

Now, at any other time in the glorious history of our sovereign country, this would have posed no problem, but today, with almost every English town and city looking, sounding and feeling like the asylum version of Noah’s Ark, keeping a firm hand on one’s tiller is a crucial prerequisite for navigating dangerous urban waters.

This, as it happens (Jimmy Saville was fond of this phrase) is a convenient water-related metaphor, because the first place that my Russian hat took me was along the side of Bedford’s Embankment, next to the River Great Ouse.

Noah is not an English name, so there is a very good chance that he was one among a group of men idling near the water’s edge looking as though they had landed from Eastern Europe. Perhaps Noah himself had brought them?

You could tell that they belonged to the Tracksuit Bottom Club, because all were wearing tracksuit bottoms. They were gathered in a circle, and one of the men, the one with the most superior bottoms, was addressing the rest in earnest, or possibly Lithuanian, or it might have been Ukrainian (do they have a language?). The group was listening so attentively that its leader must have been giving them tips on how to work the benefit system, which was fortunate for me, as I glided past them in my hat like something hypersonic and, undetected by enemy radar, arrived at Bedford’s Suspension Bridge without comment, let or hinderance.

A thing of beauty!

It was a lovely day to be standing above the River Great Ouse wearing a Russian hat. A couple of swans went by, who must have been working for border security because they took as much notice of me loitering in my Russian hat as they would a flotilla of boat people cruising into Dover.

A bus pulled up outside the Embankment Hotel, and from it alighted a gaggle of shadowy personages who went inside the building. Was it one of those freebee buses paid for by the government? Sorry, I mean paid for out of the British taxpayers’ pocket? “Don’t go to the Embankment bar,” whispered a prophetic voice. It was the same voice that long ago had advised me quite correctly to “Avoid the BBC licence fee as one would avoid the plague!” Yet again, I thought it prudent to act on its advice. As an Englishman in England, I had to watch my step! I watched them all the way back to Bedford Town Bridge.

Where did you get that hat?

If there is one thing in life that never ceases to amaze me, and I assure you it’s not the Labour party, it is just how useful bridges are when you want to cross from one side to the other, and Bedford Town Bridge is no exception. Built in 1813 and expanded in 1938, the bridge insisted I stand upon it and have a photo taken wearing my Russian hat!

You can tell it is not a selfie, for, if it was, I would have been pouting and looking like a ten-year old thanks to the camera’s filter. Not having any tats, well, not that I can show you, and without a ring stuck through my snout or a bolt thrust through my lip, the risk of doing something like that, taking a selfie that is, was slim to say the least.

I had my photo taken and then pressed on, passing numerous people young and old alike, who didn’t even see me let alone my Russian hat because every zombie one of them was twiddling on their mobile phones as if they’d sold their soul to Bill Gates, which in effect they had.

Within less time than it takes to invent a pandemic and cash in on those fatal jabs, I came at last to the High Street, which was busy, busy, busy. As I had not been asked to produce my passport, I assumed I was still in England. It’s just not that easy to tell anymore.

I crossed over the zebra crossing, well why not? That, like bridges, is what they are there for, and continued in the same direction in which I had been going. All of a sudden, a strange looking fellow dressed in a pea-green T-shirt clutching a first-prize trophy that had been given to him gratuitously by the world’s most apolitical club ~ it ironically goes by the name of Eurovision ~ turned tail and ran. Had he seen my hat? The last I saw of this funny little man, he was heading towards the offices of the Government in Exile located on Britain’s ‘Take Anyone Street’. Man, that’s an awfully crowded street ~ innit!

I was now standing in one of Bedford’s most populated thoroughfares, next to Debenhams, that has closed, not far from Beales, which has closed, just around the corner from Eurovision Stores, many of which, like borders, are open (A round of applause from the Liebour party!). So far only two people had noticed my hat. I don’t know how they did it, as both have silly great faces of metal and all they do all day long is stand and stare at each another. These ‘statues’ in the centre of Bedford are worth every penny that you, the taxpayer, paid for them: trust me, I’m a politician.

From here it was all downhill to Ethnic Street, or Midland Road as it is sometimes known. Surely someone here would be a specialist in spotting Russian hats? But no, so off we went to Wetherspoons. It being at this juncture not just as good a place to stop as any but the place where stopping is most desirable, and that’s an unarguable fact! — you wouldn’t want to walk further, believe me you really wouldn’t.

Over a thoughtful pint in Wetherspoons we, my camera crew and I, considered chancing our hat in Bidenham, er sorry I meant to say Biddenham, the home of the Ukrainian flag, but came to the conclusion that as the virtue-signalling folk who live there exhibit obvious limitations in independent thinking, the likelihood of any one of them understanding Cyrillic was much less in their favour as was looking silly in the eyes of the world.

Perhaps I should start a beginner’s course in reading Russian hats at Bedford College. We could follow the immigration paradigm: First come, all served! Discounted fees for the naive, especially those voting Green or Labour. But hurry, as places and brain cells are limited! Just quote the password dorac!!

It’s that man in the Russian Hat!

I take my Russian hat for a walk in the English countryside

18 May 2023 ~ It’s that man in the Russian Hat!

Now, you are probably wondering what I am doing standing in the English countryside wearing a Russian hat. The object of the exercise could have nothing to do with incongruity, for, if so, I might just as well have donned a bowler hat, a top hat or a jester’s cap with bells on. Perhaps I wanted to court controversy among the thistles and the cow slips or rehearse for the main event, which is to strut my stuff through the centre of town dressed in Russian hat and wearing my Putin T-shirt. Don’t forget your trousers!

It, the hat, happened shortly after accidently watching UK news’ latest coverage of that overinflated load of old codswallop the Eurovision Song Contest. The commentator, who was an Indian woman, was ‘informing’ the studio news anchor, who was a black woman, that many people were disappointed that Eurovision’s organisers had decided not to give top billing to Mr Zelensky. Presumably, the plan had been not to parachute him in to join a stage full of second-rate performers but to feed him to us by videolink. What a treat that would have been: Ukraine’s Mr Zelensky emblazoned across our screens yet again. I wonder had he not been rejected if he would have been wearing his signature pea-green T-shirt. Had it been a fashion show I am sure he’d have won first prize. Let’s thank our lucky stars that such technology as widescreen monitors was not around in Hitler’s day: imagine the propaganda advantage at events like the Nuremberg rallies.

In case you have forgotten, but how could you? Last year’s winner of the Ukrainian-vision Song Contest was Ukraine. Now there’s a surprise. But not as surprising as the statement issued this year, an official statement no less, that the Eurovision Song Contest is a strictly apolitical event, hence the spurning of Mr Zelensky.

All well and good, except it wasn’t. From that moment onwards, every other word on the telly and every second image relating to the contest had a Ukrainian slant and every colour was the colour of the Ukrainian flag. They even managed to conjure up a troupe of Ukrainian refugees, who swirled around in fancy dress whilst saying, ‘It’ [the contest venue and by default the UK] was so Ukraine-oriented that ‘It’ felt like a piece of Ukraine itself.

“Huh,” someone snorted, the UK feels like anywhere else except England, so why not give a piece to Ukraine.”

“It’s all so peculiar,” remarked our old friend and colleague, retired scientist, Dr Martin T. It was certainly that and more and so unfair to Mr Zelensky that in protest at one of the sickliest dollops of televised tripe for years, I took to the great outdoors ~ wearing my Russian hat!

By the way, if by some strange miracle Ukraine does not win this year’s Ukroney Visible Song Contest, what’s the chances of them coming second just behind Croatia. Apolitical event my arse!

It’s that man in the Russian Hat!

I suspect you may be thinking that wearing a Russian hat in the middle of the English countryside is not particularly brave of me. However, wearing a Russian hat in the middle of the English countryside does not necessarily preclude you from being noticed.

Mick Hart in Russian hat in the English countryside

England, as you know, is critically overpopulated. Due to lax immigration laws, meaning bogus immigration laws, there are arguably more people to the square foot in the UK than anywhere else in the world ~ land mass considered. The situation is so dire that hotels in England now require that you share a room with an illegal immigrant ~ his mum, his brother and his auntie ~ and foot the bill for the whole caboodle. Taxes are on the rise; it must be Putin’s fault!

Take the day, for example, when I went frolicking across the English countryside wearing my Russian hat. At a sly guess, I estimate that I must have spotted and been spotted by at least 10 people, all well-to-do middle class ladies, walking their dogs and their husbands, each done up to the nines in those cloning country clothes that they buy and which costs them an arm and a leg. (There are other bits to the clothes as well. They are not that unaffordable that you have to buy them in installments.) Even their dogs were wearing Barbour jackets!

Not so much escaping from Johnny foreigner than from Innit Abdul and his boating chums, not only did these country folk, mainly from the city, have the right to be where they were by birth and by decree of cultural lineage, they were all to a man and a woman (no gender deviants here) of certified prime-beef middle-class stock.

Take note: The English middle-class are not just highly amusing in every which way imaginable, they are also extremely versed in the art of not concealing the fact that wherever they might meet you, in the countryside or anywhere else, they really would rather not. And should such a misfortune arise, which in a country as overcrowded as ours it is odds on favourite it will, they really, really and very much really would rather they did not acknowledge you.

Fortunately, however (or not, depending on your point of view) common decency and civility have yet to be so completely destroyed by the age in which we live that a watery smile, nod of the head even perchance a forced ‘good morning’ are considered permissible exchanges before the two parties go hurrying past in opposite and opposing directions.

It is this inability of the English middle class, the inability to be natural, open and honest always and at any time, which might explain why no one recoiled in abject horror at the sight of my Russian hat. I cannot begin to tell you how disappointing it was that no one in a state of shock fell headlong into a ditch, in spite of there being around us some very deep ditches indeed, stepped backwards into a cowpat, went screaming hysterically across the fields or produced a Ukrainian flag, cunningly concealed about their person, and proceeded to wave it in front of my face as if it was a crucifix and I the evil count. (Incidentally, looking like a right count is an inherent problem for many British MPs.) It was all so disappointing. “Morning!” they muttered, through stiff upper lips and then full steam ahead, they were gone.

This resilience to reaction, this tightrope walk between thought and the spoken word, is indicative of the extent to which the English, particularly those who like to be thought of as ruralites, have slipped and missed the net. The war generation, real people with real values, have sadly faded away, leaving in its place an inferior gene pool of hand-me-downs, some browbeaten by political correctness and bottle fed on woke, others who read the Daily Mail and as a result spend their days in a perpetual state of inert fulmination, still labouring under the dangerous delusion that an Englishman’s home is his castle rather than accept the truth that it is the last refuge of an endangered species.

In my grandparents’ day, indeed in my parents’ day, someone certainly would have asked, “What are you doing in that Russian hat?” Your average English country bumpkin, unschooled in the art and social science of snotty middle-class snobbism, would have certainly asked the question, and even in today’s UK, with white middle-class flight gathering momentum from such horrible places as Londonistan as the third-world hoards romp freely in, every English village is still able to boast at least one Village Idiot whose legacy role it is to ask important questions like ‘What are you doing in that Russian hat?’ even if the hat you are wearing is a Eurovision sponsored one adorned in the avatar colours of the ubiquitous Ukrainian flag.

A welcome in the hill sides!

Having failed dismally in the heart of the English countryside to elicit the faintest response to my Russian hat ~ a flock of sheep went ‘mare’, they must have been liberal lefties ~ I then decided to take my hat through the centre of the nearby village, stopping on the way to harangue people in their gardens as they mowed the lawn or dug up dandelions, but not one of those I encountered mentioned my Russian hat, perhaps because they were all pretending that they could not read Cyrillic, thought of me as a football hooligan or had jumped to the conclusion that I was one of those who had come ashore in an inflatable rubber dinghy, thanks to the village idiots who get paid a lot of money for falling asleep in the Palace of Westminster.

If this was phase 2 of Russian Hat in Provincial England, then phase 3 was Russian Hat in an English pub. Admittedly, the optimum pub to have tested the hat would have been The Three Tonnes in Biddenham.

Biddenham is a small village once sequestered on the outskirts of Bedford which has in more recent years, like so many villages outlying towns, suffered the misfortune of having been swallowed up by a greedy backhander-facilitated urban sprawl. Nevertheless, judging by the type of houses and the toffee-nosed people who own them, imagining Biddenham as anything else than a bastion of British Conservatism is as difficult to grasp as a turd you might try to polish. And yet for all its aspirations to be a snooty upper-class English village, it has allowed itself to become a pole for flying Ukrainian flags. Biddenham is a prime example of the extent to which middle-England has been infiltrated by the snidey politics of erosive liberal left woke and the sabre-rattling inertia of those who live by the Daily Mail and who will no doubt eventually die of it.

As such, Biddenham’s Three Tonnes would have been the perfect pub in which to wear my lovely Russian hat. But as we were somewhere not so near, we had to go elsewhere.

In total, we visited two pubs and in both my hat went with me. The first of the two hat venues was rather busy. Here, eyebrows were raised and inquisitive glances passed, but whether this was my hat at work or the photographs we were taking as we took it in turns to wear the hat, is a matter for conjecture.

The second pub was quieter than the first and the only reaction that we got in here, Russian hat or not, was the typical ‘strangers in town’ scenario. For a moment it rained excitement, but once everyone was satisfied that we posed no threat to man or beast and that we had not just rowed up the high street in a Royal Navy-assisted dinghy or jumped out of the back of a lorry from France, ‘normal’ service was quickly resumed.

Mind you, had the latter been suspected we might have been given a pint or two, plus free accommodation for as long as we didn’t deserve it and for which we certainly would not be entitled.

On emerging from the pub after a thoroughly hard day’s hat wearing, I commissioned this innocent photograph of me in my Russian hat looking peaceful, reposed and quite at home in the company of a traditional English phone box. Aww, now ‘aint that a lovely picture …

Mick Hart in Russian Hat next to a British telephone box

Episode 2 of It’s that man in a Russian hat, takes us next to the African/Caribbean/Asian/Lithuanian and Ukrainian town of Bedford. Stay tuned to this channel folks!

Related things
Have a good Victory Day, Russia!
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Have a good Victory Day Russia!

It looks different on British TV, but that’s what you pay your licence for

9 May 2023

This is the first time in four years that I am unable to attend the 9^th May Victory Day celebrations in Russia, as I am ‘over here’ at the moment as distinct from ‘over there’.

Olga sent me an email from Kaliningrad this morning, saying: “It is a lovely morning today and the sun is shining for us to put the flowers to the monument of the fallen in the Second World War. Praying for peace and love in the world.🥰❤”

In my reply, I asked her to say hello from me to our mutual friends and let them know that although I am over here, I am thinking of them over there and am certain that Russia will prevail.

Have a good Victory Day Russia!

As I may have mentioned once or a hundred times before, I do not watch telly, but in the past few weeks I have had access to a television set. My first reaction to this novel but invasive experience was, as I had been forewarned, every other commentator, reporter, news anchor, every TV programme, no matter what it is, and every second advert features a person of colour. Said my brother, “Is this what they mean by a colour TV?” I mused on this question before replying judiciously, “When I was young, there was only black and white. We couldn’t afford a colour TV.” Can we afford one now?

In one sense, however, it, TV and life, is more black and white than it ever was. Take, for example, the Eurovision Song Contest, that once flagship of European propriety and conservatism. The last time I watched this programme, someone was jumping up and down to the innocent refrains of ‘Puppet on a String’, now, it would seem, we in the West are all puppets umbilically attached to somebody else’s lifeline, fed on televised pap poisoned with propaganda. Eurovictim is no exception. The song and prance programme has gone the same way as everything else in the West ~ a festering fest of genderism and mass consumption politics for those who like to be told what to think rather than think for themselves.

The other leitmotif of British TV, apart from the black and white issue, is, of course, Ukraine. Am I mistaken or has the ‘o’ in Eur’o’vision assumed the shape of a heart with an infill of colours taken from the Ukrainian flag? What is apparent is that Mr Zelensky gets an awful lot of British TV air space, either through open or covert reference, or in the unastounding character of himself.

“If it ‘aint c…s!” someone cries, glaring at the pub TV, “It’s that f…..g w….r!”

When Mr Zelensky appears on our British TV sets, he does so wearing his ubiquitous T-shirt. There is much talk of the need to defend universal democracy couched in such a way that it sounds like an appeal for more money and more weapons. In the meantime, Mr Z, perhaps you would be so kind as to tell us, we the British people, to which charity we can turn to pay our gas and electric bills?

And on that note, I’d better switch off the computer, as I can see the metre whirring round like a member of the transvestite left at a real-fur coronation.

My message to the Russian people on 9^th May 2023 is simply this: stay firm, trust in your convictions and keep the faith. The importance of your heritage, past and history is non-negotiable. When it’s gone, it’s gone. And don’t we English know it!

Have a good 9th May!

LINKS
Victory Day 2022 Brings Record Turnout
9th May Kaliningrad Victory Day 2021
9th May Victory Day Kaliningrad 2002 & 2020
Immortal Regiment Alexei Dolgikh

Charles III Big Day Sees Rural England go Flagtastic

In England’s Green and Pleasant Land

6 May 2023 ~ Charles III Big Day Sees Rural England go Flagtastic

It wasn’t my intention to be in England during the coronation, even though I naturally received a personal invitation from the Palace to attend. I would have accepted, but I am rather busy at the moment sifting and sorting junk, or as I am often wont to call it, ‘highly desirable antiques and collectables’.

To tell the truth, as there is neither a telly nor connection to the internet in the gaff where I am staying, if it hadn’t been for BBC Radio 4 and the sudden inexplicable festooning of houses with Union Jacks and bunting, I may have been none the wiser. What’s that you say? Am I joking about my personal invitation?

Charles III Big Day Sees Rural England go Flagtastic

It has to be said that in spite of the British media’s best efforts to mar the historic occasion with programmes and articles devoted to the as usual tedious and typically predictable leftist bleating to abolish the monarchy, it was most satisfying and inspiring as we winged our way through the last bastion of Englishness, the English countryside, to behold and admire the enduring support for the good old English monarchy.

Whilst liberal lefties throughout the land will not be satisfied until they have ousted the monarchy and installed in its place something sun-tanned of suspect gender preferably wrapped in a blanket and have stuffed the remaining rooms of Buckingham Palace with 8 million-pounds-a-day grinning illegal migrants (How much does the monarchy cost us? I’ve heard it said a penny a day.) at which point in our country’s decline, we will be forced to rename Buckingham Palace by changing the ‘B’ to an ‘F’, the miserable machinations of the country’s self-culture loathers pale feebly into insignificance against the inspiring sight of flags and bunting streaming across the length and breadth of heritage-conscious rural England.

The Royal Mint, pandering to the liberal myth of harmonic multiculturalism, may have slapped something really ridiculous on one of their 50 pence coins ~ a piece of woke for your pocket ~ but the real currency of a united kingdom is unequivocally that which is visibly and tangibly expressed in the pride that we take in flying our flag and its relevance to our heriditary monarchy.

Yes, it is a pity that allegedly ‘King Charles has chosen the colours of the Ukrainian flag for his coronation’, (or so it has been Twattered) but the mentally stable amongst us (and there are still some left in the UK, honestly!) are quite capable of dismissing such folly as a 50-pence-piece worth of public relations. No doubt in the fulness of time it will also be revealed for the consumption of the liberal masses that throughout his coronation his royal highness’s royal underpants were LGBT monogrammed.

Whilst there are some things in life that do not bear thinking about, others exhilarate. Feast your eyes on the following photographs snapped by yours truly as I travelled recently through a small village in the heart of north Bedfordshire. What they could not fit on a 50 pence piece, they should inscribe on a note of more value.

Have a good Coronation celebration weekend. God Save the King! God save us all!

Charles III Big Day Flags in Bedfordshire

A linked post

Woke and Hypocrisy: God Save the King!!

An Art to Brew Beer in Kaliningrad

An art to drinking beer in Kaliningrad

28 April 2023 ~ An Art to Brew Beer in Kaliningrad

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

Article 25: An Art to Brew

I bought this beer for two reasons: one, I liked the label; and two, I liked the dumpy bottle with a carrying handle attached to the top.

In order of attraction, the label appealed to me because it appeared to me to be something to do with steampunk. At the time I hadn’t got my glasses on and at the time I was more interested in getting something into a glass, preferably something called beer, and drinking it.

The steampunk allusion, which was also an illusion, was purely provided by pipework. It could have been a pipedream, after all steampunk is still a relatively young person’s predilection, but even without glasses and in my ardent desire to fill one, I could make out something that was illustrative of line-drawn plumbing, which was good enough for me.

The shape of the bottle with its plastic swing-tilt handle has two strings to its bow: novelty is never dull, and handles are good for carrying things with. So, I picked the bottle up by its handle, paid for it at checkout and out of the shop I went, all steampunked-up and ready to go.

At home, tucked away in my ‘never to grow up’ drinking den, my wife cleared up any pretensions I may have fostered about the nature of the illustrated label and also assisted me in interpreting what I was having trouble with: surely this beer that I had just bought whilst in a steampunking mood and carried home with the help of a novelty handle could really not be called ‘The Art of Brewing Czech Bar’?

Good Heavens! Whatever Next?

That’s easy. Next was getting it out of the bottle, into the glass and drinking it.

At last, it was where it should be. But first the aroma.

The beer had a bitter, hoppy smell, and I liked it.

I put my glasses on and looked at the glass. It was in there, alright, and it was giving me the three ‘Cs’: Crisp, Clear and Clean. It had poured with a big head but, being a modest kind of beer, became less big headed as each second past until effectively self-effacing itself.

The first taste proved to be not as bitter as I thought it would be. You could say that it erred more on the soft and mellow side ~ and that’s exactly what I am saying.

No one that I know of has ever ridiculed themselves by calling me a sweet man, either behind my back or in front of it, and I am not about to make the same mistake with this beer. What was sweet about it was that it was dry, not as old boots but pleasantly dry: it was the Hush Puppies of the 2020s, which is not as daft as you sound, at least not when you marry the concept to its leading attributes, which are, as I have noted, soft and mellow.

Are you familiar with the word ‘lacing’? No? Well, you haven’t read enough typically serious beer reviews, have you! But what the cliché doesn’t know the heart won’t grieve about, so we will have no more nonsense where that is concerned. And who cares anyway, if the foam from the beer sticks to the glass or not?

What is more significant is that the dry initial taste travels successfully through the finish and as for the aftertaste it is continuity all the way.

Let’s hear it from the brewers

“Beer varieties brewed under the Art of Brewing brand have a noble taste. [It is a] Golden lager, brewed according to the classic Czech recipe. [Its] bitter richness and pleasant sharpness in taste is achieved through the use of a special combination of hop varieties during brewing.”
The Brewers

Those nice chaps from the Trehsosensky Brewery are not not to be believed. In fact, having sampled other brews in their stable (What is the strangest place where you have drunk beer?) my verdict is that there is absolutely nothing deceitful, underhand or horrifyingly globalist in what the brewers have to say.

An Art to Brew Beer in Kaliningrad

I’ve read reviews about this beer which, although not exactly scathing, have taken a begrudging stance, implying that it is passable but dull. I do not agree. An Art to Brew Czech Bar stands head and shoulders above mediocrity and, whilst it may never take the crown from beers acknowledged universally to have travelled every road of excellence and made it to illustrious, it has enough going for it in singular taste and quality to nudge it around the bend into the aspirant class. Doubt what you hear? That’s odd, because I am typing this, not talking to you, but now I can tell you straight, you should road test one today!

😀TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS
Name of Beer: An Art to Brew Czech Bar
Brewer: Trehsosensky Brewery
Where it is brewed: Ulyanovsk, Russia
Bottle capacity: 1.3 litres
Strength: 4.9%
Price: It cost me about 137 roubles (£1.50) [at time of writing!]
Appearance: Golden
Aroma: Bitter and hoppy
Taste: Dry, mellow with a delightful hint of bitterness
Fizz amplitude: 4/10
Label/Marketing: Intriguing
Would you buy it again? Anytime
Marks out of 10: 8

*Note that the beers that feature in this review series only include bottled beer types that are routinely sold through supermarket outlets and in no way reflect the variety of beer and/or quality available in Kaliningrad from speciality outlets and/or through bars and restaurants.

Three Kaliningrad babushkas in a bread shop

And the moral of this story is?

31 March 2023 ~ Three Kaliningrad babushkas in a bread shop

On the subject of cakes and pastries, my wife popped into a bakery recently to avail herself of the delicacies there and whilst on the premises was witness to an altogether Russian experience, which reveals and underscores the generation gap.

Ahead of her in the shop were three babushkas who were each having difficulty deciding which loaves of bread to buy: plain white or dark and grainy.

The young man behind the counter, seeking to introduce some levity into the proceedings, cajoled his three stout customers with, “Come on ladies, whichever loaf you choose, I’ll throw in a strip show just for you.”

Three Kaliningrad babushkas in a bread shop

In the UK, no young man behind a bread shop counter, or anywhere else for that matter, would dare to put such temptation, however jocularly meant, in the way of ladies of a certain age for fear of being ravished.

My wife immediately responded to the young man’s offer with “That would be nice!” but the triumvirate was not amused. Far from incentivised, the ladies were clearly horrified. ‘If looks could kill!’ as the expression goes.

Nevertheless, the young man’s words did bring closure to the babushka’s indecisiveness, for grabbing the nearest loaves that they could lay their hands on, money quickly changed hands and with a mutual squaring of shoulders and unified snorting, they left the shop at a gallop.

Said the young shopkeeper to my wife, “Hmmm, that didn’t go down too well, did it!”

It was a pity, because he seemed to be a nice young man with a very fine line in understatement. Let’s hope that until he lands that job as a stripper, he will use his loaf more carefully!

Do you know?
Do you know that the Russian word for ‘bread’ is ‘khleb’? Of course you do. Ok, so do you know that the favourite type of bread in Russia is said to be rye rather than wheat? You know that, too. What you don’t know, however, is that Yeast karavai, a round loaf beautifully decorated with ears of corn and foliate motifs, features in the wedding ceremony. Before the reception commences, the newly weds take turns to bite into the loaf. The size of each bite is then compared, and the one who has been judged as having taken the largest bite is duly pronounced the dominant partner from then on in the marriage. How’s that for deciding equality! Neat, nice, no questions asked. When the time came to enact this ritual at our wedding, the bite I took was so prodigious that had my glass of champagne not been placed fortuitously close at hand I could have choked in the process. Hence the expression in matters of matrimony, more perhaps than in anything else, be careful not to ‘bite off more than you can chew’.

Image attributions

Warning triangular street sign: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Vector-clip-art-of-blank-warning-triangular-street-sign/30243.html

Loaf of bread with face: https://www.clker.com/clipart-loaf-with-face.html

Slice of bread with cute face: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Bread-slice-icon/73022.html

Russia’s Love of Cakes Differs from the UK’s

A socio-cultural perspective on Russia’s cake habit contrasted and compared with and illuminated by one or two supplementary notes about having your cake and eating it in Great Britain

26 March 2023 ~ Russia’s Love of Cakes Differs from the UK’s

Cakes. I don’t imagine for one moment that when somebody in the West mentions Russia, cakes are the first thing that spring to mind. Equally, I’m willing to wager that the UK media has written precious little lately, or written little at all, about the magnificent variety of cakes in Russia and the widespread availability of them in spite of those silly old sanctions.

They certainly would never divulge that the super-abundance of cakes in Russia is part of a western plot organised and funded by the Sorryarse Open Cake Society to swamp the Federation with cakes similar to the way in which it is suffocating the western world with boat loads of useless migrants. I am not so sure about cake, but the spotted dick that they are creating is filling up with currants.

Whoa now! Hang on a minute! Blin, yolkee polkee and blaha mooha! How dare you lump our delicious Russian cakes in the same inflatable dinghy with a gaggle of grinning third-world freeloaders destined for 5-star hotels at the expense of the British taxpayer!

Sorry, I stand corrected and in the same breath exposed. It is true that I am no Don Juan in the sense of loving cakes. However, as one of the last of the few true Englishmen, I concede to enjoying a nice slice of cake whenever the mood so takes me and when the opportunity avails itself, regarding it as the perfect accompaniment to the English custom of afternoon tea.

Alice in Wonderland, The Mad Hatter's Tea Party

All well and good, but neither affrontery apologised for nor my confessed willingness to embrace the iced cake rather than the swarthy migrant amounts to diddly-squat when it comes to explaining the cultural differences that set cake worship apart in Russia from the same proclivities in the UK.

Cakes are cancel proof

Cancel-proof, like most things pertaining to Russian culture, as the West is finding out and finding out the hard way, Russia’s love of cakes is in a sacrosanct league of its own. For example, it is not often, if indeed at all, that you will see men in the UK roaming around the streets with a big sticky cake in their hands. There is every possibility that you will see them holding another man’s hand, or, if you are really unlucky ~ or lucky if you are a touring photographer assigned to defining British culture ~ some other part of their brethren’s anatomy, but never a cake in hand. In the UK there seems to be an hypocritical subtext at work, an unspoken reservation which, ironically, can be taken to imply that even in these enlightened times cakes and men in public together is tantamount to poofterism. Alack a day, but there you have it.

Russia’s love of cakes differs from the UK’s

Having established that men publicly carrying cakes is just not British (but then what is and, more to the point, who is?), we arrive at a striking contrast. I’ve lost count of the number of times when entertaining at home (dispel all images of magic tricks, juggling and karaoke), that on opening the gate to greet our Russian guests, at least one man will be standing there with a large stodgy cake in his grasp. As for dining out, I have yet to go to a restaurant with my Russian friends where rounding off a meal without a sumptuous sweet, most of which resemble cakes drenched in cream and syrup, would turn an everyday event into something of a precedent. Perchance it ever occurs it would breach the unexpected like a hypersonic missile bursting through a dam. Cakes just don’t come in on a wing and a prayer in Russia; they are part of the national psyche, in which whim and caprice can play no part.

Cakes R Rus is a company yet to be incorporated. Why it has not been incorporated when cakes in Russia are so evidently popular remains an enigma and neither does it explain, incorporated or not, the never-to-be-answered question why in Russia are cakes so popular? It is a matter for conjecture that often what presents itself to us as at best half-baked turns out in the long run to be quite overdone. Not so with cakes. Cakes are interwoven into every Fair Isled fabric of daily, popular and expressive life. Judge this on the merit that there are almost as many sayings, comments and literary allusions to cakes as there are cakes themselves. We will come to that shortly.

Speaking from experience, all shops in Kaliningrad, that is to say all food shops ~ except the butchers, the fishmongers, the caviar emporium ~ well, you know what I mean, however small are guaranteed to stock one or two and even sometimes three fairly large round cakes, whilst supermarkets offer flotilla to armada capacity of rich, lavish, opulent and seductively sumptuous cake varieties, sufficient in type, taste, size and price to float everyone’s cake-craving boat.

For the love of cakes

In addition to these general outlets, Kaliningrad is no stranger to the specialist boaterie, sorry I meant to say bakery. There are any number of small independent bakeries (I won’t tell you how many as that would be telling.), but the most noticeable because prolific chain is undoubtedly Königsbäcker. Why not Kalininbacker? What a silly question.

Königsbäcker sells pastries, bakes and cakes, and many of its cakeries ~ sorry I meant to say bakeries ~ also have not-for-sale super-large black and white prints on their walls blown up from original photos of Königsberg as it used to be before the British and Soviets blew it up ~ cake shops and everything else. These images are so poignant that they are enough to make you want to buy double the amount of cakes that you would have bought had you not seen these pictures, just to get the placebo effect.

Prints of Konigsberg in Konisgbacher pastry shop. Kaliningrad

Now we have both stopped crying, I will try to explain how the perception of cakes in Russia differs to the perceived role that cakes play in modern British society and why; and in the course of doing so you may suspect that you have stumbled on a hint that enables you to answer the question, why in Russia are cakes so popular?

Exactly how the Russian cake mentality diverges from the English equivalent is not as subtle as you might first think. So, for all you cake afficionados out there, let me explain. Here goes!

First and foremost, bugger off The Great British Bakeoff, which was opium for the masses. Like coronavirus, which also kept people at home glued to the television, The Great British B!*off is simply the forerunner of something more dreadful to come, such as The Great British Bakeoff in the Nude and its sequel I’m A Cake Get me Out of Here now previewing on the Ashamed Channel.

The Great British Bakeoff lost all credibility for me when one of the female contestants was allegedly discovered substituting self-raising flour with Viagra. When the cake flopped, she was most disappointed; aren’t we all when cakes don’t rise. But her story had a happy ending, three to be precise, for when the show was over, after tea and cake with three of her male competitors, she left the studio a satisfied woman. So satisfied, in fact, that she continues to pay her BBC licence fee, even to this day!

Anyway, Great Bakeoffs or preferably no Great Bakeoffs, in my experience, the celebritising of cakes has very little impact on consumer purchasing habits. UKers may gasp in unison when confronted on the goggle box by Big Cake El Supremo, but it’s a different story altogether when you see them buying down Asda or Iceland. Small synthetic packet cakes are the type that Brits are likely to plump for, something cheap and abundant, over-stuffed with sugar and convenient enough to fit in one’s pocket. (Hey you, watch out! There’s a store detective about!).

**Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake baker’s man bake me a cake as fast as you can** (The cherished belief that all bakers are highly motivated individuals lends itself to scrutiny)

It occurs to me (which is the get out clause to ‘it occurs to nobody else and why would it?’), that cakes in Russia are rather more special-occasion items than tear open a packet of Kipling’s as quickly as you like and let that be an end to it!

Kipling’s individual apple pies are not at all bad, although when the sell by date is infringed by disreputable store owners, and this happens more often than it should in the UK, especially in shops run by immigrants, the pastry tends to go dry and then falls in embarrassing flaky bits down the front of your jumper. In winter, when it may or may not be snowing, such things may pass unnoticed but once the Christmas jumper has been discarded and the dark nights have been replaced by the bright relentless spotlight of spring, the shards of pastry in which you are covered can begin to look like dandruff. Mr Kipling may very well make exceedingly crumbly cakes, but to stop yourself from being conned and from looking like a bit of a prick in a jumper covered in pastry, choose your cake stores with care and always check the sell-by-date if you have no other option ~ and options are getting fewer ~ than to buy from P. Akis Convenience Shores, many of which are concentrated in and around the Port of Dover.

Cake places revisited
🍰 By Volga to Yantarny Russian Easter and Beautiful Coast
🍰 Balt Restaurant Zelenogradsk
🍰 Soul Garden
🍰 Mama Mia

Inspired by my last comment, I am tempted to ask, do you remember the 1970s’ individual fruit pie phenomenon, first square with a piece of grease-proof paper wrapped around them and then circular in their own tin-foil base? Tasty! But, alas, like most things in life, they tended to shrink as time went by. Any road, can apple pies truly be classed as cakes? I suppose they can if you drop the word ‘pie’ and substitute it for ‘cake’, and am I stalling because I have bitten off more than I can chew in my self-appointed role as Anglo-Russian cakeologist?

Russia’s love of cakes is holistic

As I said (I hope you’ve been paying attention!), cakes in Russia are rather more special occasion cakes than tear open a packet of Kipling’s as quickly as you like and let that be an end to it. Kipling’s individual apple … (ah, we’ve done that).

Moving on: I am not suggesting that they, Russian cakes, are strictly reserved for births, weddings and funerals, but they do come bearing people, noticeably to home get-togethers, private parties, social gatherings and such like. They also occupy pride of place among boxes of chocolates and flowers as a way of saying thank you to someone who has rendered a kindness to another mortal soul or who has performed some official function above and beyond the call of duty.

In these contexts, presentation shares equal importance with noshability, which possibly explains why the appearance of Russian cakes, with their white-iced coverings, frothy cream crowns and candy sequined and fruit-festooned adornments, make our traditional English jam and cream sponges look like poor relations; same bourgeoise boat perhaps but not at all on the upper-deck level as their ostentatious Russian counterparts. Sigh, how ironically times can change and with them cakes as well!

But let’s not leave it here! Whilst we, the English cannot compete with glitz, there is still something to be said for our good old-fashioned sponge cake, something that wants to make you sing not ‘There will always be an England’, because it’s much too late for that, but ‘There will always be a sponge cake’. There is something solid, enduring, traditional and no-nonsense about plain, old English sponge cakes; something wonderfully neo-imperial, boldly neo-colonial, something so 1940s’ stiff-upper lip that frankly I am astonished that these thoroughly English cakes have not been singled out by ‘take a knee’ cancel-culturists and cast like so many heritage statues over walls and into ponds with the blessing of the judiciary. Is it too soon to feel mildly complacent?

A socio-cultural perspective on cakes

The socio-cultural and historic significance of cakes may strike you as more than a mouthful, but history is replete with examples where the icing on the cake is the role of the cake itself. Spectacles such as birds flying out of giant cakes has been going on since the time of ancient Rome (not now, of course, because of animal rights laws) and scantily clad frosted women have been leaping out of artificial cakes since the 19^th century (not so much these days because of the feminist movement). I am perfectly aware of the existence of the Cambridge Stool Chart, but tell me is there a Cambridge Movement Chart as well?

And you thought they were just coming in by dinghies!!

Literary cake tropes have fared much better than their visual counterparts. Boris Johnson (who had a cake named after him in Kyiv no less ~ where else?), borrowed and modified the well-known phrase ‘Have our cake and eat it’ in his bid to convince democracy of the benefits of Brexit. What he forgot to tell us was that behind the scenes the British and French governments had arranged for a migrant shuttle service ~ full coming, empty returning ~ thus ensuring that after Brexit the cake would be ‘had’ alright, had and eaten by others, nibbled away like vermin at cheese, leaving only the crumbs for the British.

Slightly more famous than Boris Johnson but not, as far as I am aware, cake enriched by name is Mary Antionette. She is credited with saying ‘Let them eat cake!’, and although she probably said nothing of the sort, her disregard or misperception of the plight of her country’s poor is nowhere near as offensive as the Conservative party’s debasing betrayal of Britain’s Brexit electorate.

Boris ‘Cake’ Johnson, sometimes referred to as ‘that Big Cream Puff’, is not alone among the star-spangled luminaries of showbusiness who have had honorary cakes named after them. Cake-named celebrities include Elvis Presley and also a number of Russian personalities such as the Russian ballet dancer Anna Pavlova and the first human space traveller Yuri Gagarin, both of whom the West tried to cancel just because their cakes were better than the one that was baked for Boris in Kyiv according to Biden’s recipe (that’s Biden as in empty chef’s hat not as in Master Baker). My question is, isn’t it about time that someone in Russia named a cake after my favourite crooner Kobzon?

Whist I wait for this honour to be bestowed, we will hold our collective breath in anticipation of Jimmy Saville, Gary Glitter and also Adolf Hitler, oh and don’t forget our Tony ~ Tony ‘Iraq’ Blair ~ duly having cakes named after their very illustrious personages.

And what is so wrong about that? A good many famous people and not so famous places have had cakes named after them. The most obvious in the person category being Mrs Sponge, who lent her name to the sponge cake. It’s fact! Her first name was Victoria. She lived at 65 Coronation Crescent, Corby. (Source: Alfred ‘Dicky’ Bird)

Another famous namesake cake is the Battenberg, named after Prince Cake, and in the towns and locale category, that is to say places that have given their names to cakes, we have the English Eccles cake, named after Scunthorpe, obviously, and the Sad cake named after Wellingborough. It’s a ‘going there thing’: so don’t!

The metropolis has its own cake, historically known as the White Iced Empire but renamed in more recent years, if not entirely rewritten, as Black Forest Ghetto. Chocolate Woke, as it is colloquially known, is also sometimes referred to as the Liberal Upside Down cake. It is often confused with the Fruit-Bottom cake which, though not all that it is cracked up to be, sells like proverbial hot cracks during Londonistan’s Gay Pride month. If you have the extreme good fortune to be in the UK capital during that festive month, do make sure to skip lickety-split down to London’s Soho, the capital’s LGBTQ geographical and moral-less centre, and treat yourself whilst there to a slice of the famous Navy Cake from Hello Sailor’s bun shop or a ‘once tried never forgotten’ Golden Rivet Muffin from the café El Bandido’s.

All of this is a very long way from Kaliningrad, I am pleased to say, and everybody else who lives there is also pleased to say. May it long remain that way.

Meanwhile, whilst you are waiting to have a cake named after you, if there is anything in this treatise on Russian and British cake ethics which you believe I haven’t covered, if you really feel that you must, jot down the one or two points that you think I might have missed and then consign your trunk of comments care of the cake in MacArthur Park . After all, ‘It took so long to bake it …’

A piece of trivia for you: Did you know that Kaliningrad does not have a Soho? That’s right, no Soho, but it does have a Bow-Wow, that is ‘dugs that bark like buggery’ (copyright expression, currently on loan from my Uncle Son).

Image attributions

Mad Hatter’s Tea Party: https://picryl.com/media/alice-in-wonderland-by-arthur-rackham-08-a-mad-tea-party-c65b66

Vintage sponge cake: I found this image at <a href=”https://freevintageillustrations.com/vintage-sponge-cake-illustration/?utm_source=freevintageillustrations&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=downloadbox”>Free Vintage Illustrations</a> / https://freevintageillustrations.com/vintage-sponge-cake-illustration/

Girl jumping out of a cake: Image by <a href=” https://www.vectorportal.com” >Vectorportal.com</a>, <a class=”external text” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/” >CC BY</a> / https://vectorportal.com/download-vector/woman-jumping-out-of-a-cake-clip-art/22430

Nursery Rhyme Baker’s Man: I found this image at <a href=”https://freevintageillustrations.com/pat-a-cake-nursery-rhyme-illustration/?utm_source=freevintageillustrations&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=downloadbox”>Free Vintage Illustrations</a> / https://freevintageillustrations.com/pat-a-cake-nursery-rhyme-illustration/

Cake places revisited
🍰 By Volga to Yantarny Russian Easter and Beautiful Coast
🍰 Balt Restaurant Zelenogradsk
🍰 Soul Garden
🍰 Mama Mia

Lies and Democracy are they now the same thing?

Wake up! It’s not the coffee you’re smelling!

14 March 2023 ~ Lies and Democracy are they now the same thing?

When I left the UK for Kaliningrad in 2018, friends, acquaintances and business associates, but not family, who have ceased to be surprised by anything I do, responded to my decision in various ways, often extreme. I chronicled their reactions in a previous post: Moving to Russia from the UK.

When I returned to the UK after a three-year hiatus, some months after the (what shall we call it?) situation in Ukraine, I fully expected to meet with a barrage of acrimony lend leased from US propaganda and regurgitated by the UK media but was pleasantly surprised to find that the gauntlet I was prepared to run never materialised.

Brits who knew me, or knew of me, and where I now hailed from, were either conducting themselves with diplomacy or UK media had moved their mindset on ~ as it easily does ~ away from Ukraine, which in terms of audience captivation was yesterday’s news, to such earth-shattering speculations as does Prince Harry have a rogue allegiance gene passed down from his mother’s side of the family?

Does Prince Harry have a rogue allegiance gene passed down from his mother’s side of the family?

Ukraine was still in the limelight, still is in the limelight, as the fate of the globalist West depends on winning its war of attrition, but by the time I arrived in the UK it had already been put on the backburner to make way for more Woke and to annoy ‘far-right fascists’, ie the vast majority of white Brits who are genuinely concerned about the future of their country, with daily news and statistics regarding the state- and Sorryarse-sponsored cross-Channel immigrant invasion.

I agree that the UK’s immigration catastrophe is far more significant to my fellow countrymen than throwing taxpayers’ money away on a conflict which, if the western powers that control the UK government so desired, they could end as quickly as they started it. But UK politicians are in no hurry to do that in the same way that they are in no hurry to stop illegal immigration. Why the UK must lay out the red carpet for thousands upon thousands of Channel-taxied migrants and pay more than seven-million pounds a day to keep them in a style to which they are not accustomed, ie free bed and lodging in 5-star hotels (Ouch!), is beyond most people’s grasp, with the exception of the politically enlightened who understand only too well the moral and financial corruption with which the plan is funded. But why should we listen to them? According to the UK media, people who rebut pseudo-liberal machinations are not only right-wing fascists they are also conspiracy theorists.

Everything has a sell-by-date and even the British media, as skilled as it is in whipping up frenzies, cannot be expected to sustain an interest in Ukraine for long when other issues, like the immigration one, can be used just as effectively to foment controversy, up the sale of newspapers and harvest more clicks on their websites with which to con their advertisers. That’s why they call it the ‘corporate media’ folks.

Lies and Democracy and Social Media Spooks

The muted response from my fellow Brits to the situation in Ukraine when I last returned to England was in stark contrast to the overarching rabidity that broke loose in February 2022 at the time it was announced that Russia had taken the initiative out of the hands of the West. For UK corporate media this was ‘breaking news’, whereas on liberal-state compliant social media it was more like breaking wind, albeit on tornado scale.

Lies and Democracy spread by social media

Within minutes, not hours, my wife’s Facebook account was inundated with messages. Some of these, although panic fuelled and completely out of proportion to the events unfolding, were genuine messages, messages of concern: ‘Are you alright?’ But the majority, the mainstay, were liberal lefty, frithy-frothy and within this category, at the very epicentre, within the liberal eye of the storm, particularly and typically rabid and virulent.

Indeed, the repercussions were so electrifying that on the morning after the start of the mission in Ukraine, I wondered why I had started it? As the day went on, the vitriol on my wife’s Facebook account steadily accreted. I spent the entire morning batting back the incoming. At first it was all good fun. I can outrage anyone who wants to be outraged. But, after a while, I realised that if I was going to respond to every rant and rave, I would need to employ a PA (Personal Assistant) or at least an SS (Shit Stirrer).

Within three days of CSM (Crisis Social Media), during which more avatars were changed to funny little flags than had been changed to silly little rainbows two or three months earlier, and more underpants changed, I imagine, through the exigencies of cloned rage-fulfiment, my wife made the decision, before Mr P could ban Facebook, to close her Arsebook account. You know the expression, ‘you can have too much of a good thing’, well, three days of winding up the ranters was enough. It had to be brought to an end. There are more important things to do in life than play the liberal-left’s division game.

Nevertheless, I have to say that I cannot remember a time in recent history when I have enjoyed myself so much. In many respects I felt sorry for my fellow countrygenders. I could not fathom, and I still cannot fathom, why so many people on a tiny island are so eager to believe everything and anything that the media tells them, particularly as those same people on that same small island had been well and truly led up the garden path and thereabouts shafted by the self-same media about a crisis that they, the media, had in considerable part created ~ I am referring, of course, to coronabollocks.

You would have thought by now that the UK media would be the most distrusted corporate conglomerate this side of a fairy tale and as for the governments they represent, who would want to believe or trust either Liebour or the Cons?

The Labour/Conservative lies and democracy process is like a seesaw: up and down but nothng changes.

See Saw Nobody’s Sure
If Brits will have a New Master
Democracy is a cross in a box
But it’s always a liberal Disaster

Think Brexit. Why did most of the UK, real legacy Britons, not those with pieces of paper in their sweaty mits that say they are British, vote to get out of the EU? Rhetorical question: because they were and are sick of mass immigration and EU implemented Woke. And what did the British people get after Brexit? ~ mass illegal immigration on an unprecedented scale and more Woke than can be spread on a field during a rural shit-spreading season.

And whilst we are it, why would you trust and did you trust the Liebour-Con pact before Brexit? Who asked you if you wanted multiculturalism? Who asked you if wanted widespread Woke? And that’s just for starters. The urban shit-spreading season started long ago and is a lot fouler and smellier than anything that can be thrown up and about in the sticks.

So, for years, specifically since the crowning of Tony Blair (and wouldn’t you like to do just that!) your political parties, your government, your managed democracy, your corporate media have been lying to you, so why should you believe what they say about Ukraine?

The original Ukraine story (though not highly original) is this:

“The United States reaffirms its unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders, extending to its territorial waters. The U.S.-Ukraine relationship serves as a cornerstone for security, democracy, and human rights in Ukraine and the broader region.” ~ U.S. Department of State 😉

Obviously, given their ulterior motives, the US’ ‘unwavering support for … sovereignity and territorial integrity’ and ‘human rights [think cancel Russian culture]’ does not extend to Russia or to any other counry for that matter that is wise enough to reject the culture-crushing embrace of psuedo-liberal neo-imperialism.

The Brits, led by the Yanks and with poor old Western Europe dragged kicking and whining into the fray, and Turdeau joining in just because of what he is ~ a nasty piece of pseudo-liberal narcissism ~ cranked up the propaganda bandwagon and all aboard they went. First there was Vietnam, then Iraq, then Yugoslavia, then Afghanistan (for a comprehensive list see: US Interventions ) … so why should we believe that Ukraine is any different?

The US and its hangers-on are constantly flitting around the world looking for ‘places to liberate’. They are constantly bringing ‘democracy’ to people and to places who are doing quite nicely without it, thank you, at least without that liberal brand of democracy that has snake-oil written all over it. Moreover, they do about as much good as Christian missionaries did running around in Africa back in the 19^th century; in fact they do much worse. Sometimes, often in fact, they let their intentions slip, exposing themselves like novice flashers. For example, when that little phrase pops out of the open flies of democracy ‘intervention and regime change’. In other words, we are going to intervene in the private affairs of sovereign countries and install a liberal puppet. Watch out! There’s a lot of them about!

In the old days, chaps like Napoleon would meet their adversaries on a piece of land somewhere, and there they would slog it out; for Biden and the Brits Ukraine is such a field.

It’s not cricket, old boy. No, it certainly isn’t. What it is though, is this:

“The West wants to divide Russia into different entities in order to … put them under its control.” [The West’s plans for the division of Russia are set out on paper, Putin said – RIA Novosti, 26.02.2023]

And in case you are determined at any cost not to believe what commons sense tells you, stop social media twiddling (leftist bias) get out onto the internet and cast your eyes around. There are plenty of political commentators, political analysts, journalists, authors, geo-political institutes and just plain old Joe Public out there who agree with President Putin and many of those in agreement are citizens of the West. ‘Huh! All far-right extremists and fascists I expect!’ {An Independent My Arse reader.}

Being all liberal lefty on liberal lefty social media is all well and bad if all you are interested in is mutual backslapping or worse, but if you really want to know what real people think you have to broaden your horizons. Do you remember your father telling you that? Sorry? Oh, I forgot, we don’t have fathers anymore, least not in the UK.

Lies and Democracy and the spin they put on your money

So, read nothing, view nothing, but ask yourself this simple question: When in the history of recent conflict has the West spearheaded by the US poured so much money into one country in order to (now don’t laugh) underwrite its continued democracy?

Billions of dollars in the United States are being diverted from homeland projects into the holey bucket that is Ukraine. In the UK, whose special place in the special relationship ensures that they always follow, millions of pounds have been and are being squandered on Ukraine, depriving UK citizens of much-needed funding for causes closer to home.

How many hospital wings could we build with the money that has been siphoned off? How many hospital staff could we entice to stay by increasing wages? How much money could have been devoted to cancer research and so on? Can the UK really afford this massive taxpayer drain on its already crumbling economy? If we are not careful, we will not have enough money left to pay for those hotel suites that migrants have been promised as they are ferried in VIP-fashion to a liberal fanfare at the Port of Dover. “Ooh, lovely tolerant Britain!”

The UK's Ministry for Lost and Bogus Causes

Questions beget questions. Here are some more you should ask yourself and then your political classes: How many more jabs for coronavirus? How many more immigrants? How much more Woke? How low the standard of living? How high the cost of living? How much more state-funded terrorism? How much more Black Lives Matter? How much more LGBT? How many more knife-ridden streets? How much more anti-social behaviour? How much more Stasi police force? How much more propaganda. How many lies, how many lies, how many lies, lies, lies …?

Don’t forget to register to vote? Why?

Image attributions:

Muck spreading: Image by Pete from Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/photos/manure-muck-spreader-field-6135606/
Tornado: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Vector-clip-art-of-weather-forecast-color-symbol-for-tornado/18973.html
Seesaw: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Kids-on-a-seesaw/75311.html
Plaque: https://www.clipartmax.com/download/m2H7Z5m2N4m2A0i8_brass-plaque-clipart-brass-plaque-clipart/
Pinocchio: https://www.clipartmax.com/middle/m2i8H7Z5d3i8d3A0_cartoon-filii-clipart-pinocchio-and-jiminy-cricket/ <img src=”https://www.clipartmax.com/png/middle/53-537576_cartoon-filii-clipart-pinocchio-and-jiminy-cricket.png” alt=”Cartoon Filii Clipart – Pinocchio And Jiminy Cricket@clipartmax.com“>

Taurus Beer in Kaliningrad

Bull-headed whilst drinking Taurus

11 March 2023 ~ Taurus Beer in Kaliningrad

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

Article 24: Taurus

Oh, come on! Even those of you who are far too rational to have any truck with mystic nonsense know that Taurus is an astrological sign and, for what it’s worth, the second astrological sign in the modern zodiac. No, not the Ford Zodiac. Who remembers those long bench seats and that tricky column gear stick?!

The zodiac sign for Taurus is the bull. Zodiac people are said to be hard-headed, down-to-earth, tenacious, reliable, loyal, and sensual. I wonder if the latter quality is why so many wear the cuckold’s horns?

Reviewing Taurus Beer in Kaliningrad

So, this beer that I am reviewing today, this pilsner, is named after the second sign of the zodiac. It has a bull’s head on the label, so it must be so, but we won’t know if the label stands for zodiac sign or something else until we attempt to drink it. Well, they ~ the brewers and distributors ~ are hardly likely to adorn the bottle with a hefty pile of bull droppings, are they?

Now, I’m not a pilsner man … blah … blah … blah …. Yes, you’ve heard it all before, but that does not mean that I am not afraid to try it. I once tried a liberal girlfriend. At least, I think she was a girl? Maybe, she was a feminist.

There are some out there who say yes, but … and they don’t get any further because they are drinking a good strong ale, but others say a pilsner is a pilsner is a pilsner, and most of them are me. But what the tongue doesn’t taste the tum can’t grieve about, so whilst you can’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs (why would she want to?), you can occasionally, on a hot afternoon, get a real-ale drinker to forget his religion and sip an ice-cold lager.

And if that lager is pilsner, make sure that it is ice cold, or it could taste like the bull I am hoping this pilsner will not be.

Mick Hart reviews Taurus Beer in Kaliningrad

So, off we go with the top and up to the nostrils: ‘Dull, sour smell’ ~ make a note of that.

I pour it into the glass, and it looks light. I am relieved about that; don’t want to be asking, what did you do with the water that you washed the bull’s hind quarters with?

I sip it; I taste it; I swig it: Dull metallic taste. “Just as I thought, Watson!”

“Well, you silly bugger Holmes, why on earth did you buy it?”

“Why, because I have this ‘Year of the Bull’ tea towel, which I knew would make for a very interesting photograph even if the bull’s head attachment makes it a very inconvenient tea towel.”

“What a load of bullocks!” In the farmer’s field opposite. {Watson is looking out of the window into the farmer’s field opposite.}

The strength of the beer is not OTT. It weighs in at a very respectable 4.6%, which in the hereabouts, Kaliningrad, would be seen as lightweight but in the UK regarded as A-OK. For example, a matador could drink it and still not be incapable of waving his little red handkerchief.

As with many lagers, iced over from the fridge as if imported from a Siberian winter, pilsner is nothing to do with taste but all to do with coldness and getting it down your throat, hence the expression ‘Lager Louts’. Obviously, no regard for taste and quality equals no regard for decorum.

Drinking Taurus Beer in Kaliningrad

Some pilsner lagers evade the spell checker and by the time you have finished drinking them, let alone writing about them, they have turned into something else. I am relieved to say, however, that Taurus does qualify as a pilsner, not a pisner. It has all the ~ we won’t say qualities, but we will allow ourselves to use the word usefulness ~ of an alcoholic drink that comes in handy on a hot sweaty day.

And that was the penultimate sentence, which leaves you wondering how exactly, given the Taurus-bull connection, I resisted including a word like bullshit.

😀TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS
Name of Beer: Taurus
Brewer: Kalnapilis Brewery
Where it is brewed: Panevėžys, Lithuania
Bottle capacity: 1 litre
Strength: 4.6%
Price: It cost me about 127 roubles (£1.38) [at time of writing!]
Appearance: Light
Aroma: Dull, sour
Taste: Typical pilsner
Fizz amplitude: 4/10
Label/Marketing: A load of bull
Would you buy it again? Hmm, debateable …
Marks out of 10: 4.5

Men’s Day in Kaliningrad Brings Out the Soviet Guns

Mick Hart stars in his own Soviet version of Guns and Poses

Published: 5 March 2023 ~ Men’s Day in Kaliningrad Brings out the Soviet Guns

Every year, on the 23^rdof February, Russia celebrates what is officially known as Defender of the Fatherland Day. Originally called Red Army Day, it was granted public-holiday status in recognition of the Red Army’s 1918 inauguration during the Russian Civil War. Known thereafter as the Day of the Red Army and the Navy, and later the Soviet Army and Navy Day, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the holiday was given its current name by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

At state level, the day honours the patriotism and sacrifices made by Russia’s military veterans. A formal ceremony is held in Moscow and in other Russian cities, with daytime parades and processions and evening concerts and firework displays. At national level, custom has morphed the day into a time when women honour their menfolk ~ not only military men but all men. Presents are given by Russian women to husbands/boyfriends, fathers, sons, brothers and also to male work colleagues, turning Defender of the Fatherland Day into the better known generic name of “Men’s Day”.

In the UK, liberals encourage ethnics to spit at our troops, not serve them in corner shops and berate them for wearing their uniforms in public. Transgenderism is rife and misandry encouraged. But the one thing that the UK does have that Russia doesn’t is Gay Pride Month …

Men’s Day in Kaliningrad Soviet Exhibition

Russia’s Men’s Day plays host to a variety of events, and this year we were invited to attend a display of Soviet militaria at the Kaliningrad Retro Car Club’s HQ, a former aircraft parts repository of historic Luftwaffe origin.

The exhibition was organised and delivered by a group of Soviet history enthusiasts/re-enactors.

Soviet Re-enactors Men's Day Kaliningrad

On display were documents and printed ephemera relating to WWI and Soviet uniforms from both WWII and postwar periods. To generate the spirit of the occasion and to provide the public with a better idea of the look, style and fit of the uniforms, each re-enactor was dressed either in an officer’s or other ranks’ uniform and most were equipped with combat gear.

De-activated antique guns

The mainstay of the exhibition was a display of small arms, predominantly WWII in character, ranging from handguns to tripod-mounted machine guns. The cache was diverse and impressive and included within the Soviet mix were weapons of German origin. All of the guns displayed were deactivated collector’s pieces.

Although I have handled an extensive variety of classic vintage firearms thanks to my early and enduring interest in all things historic and later in my role as a dealer in militaria, some of the guns in today’s exposition fell into the category of ‘known but not encountered’ and others had eluded me.

The Browning automatic, which was the standard sidearm in WWII for both Allied and Axis forces, was an old friend: it was one of the handguns I have actually fired.

The semi-automatic Mauser, whose production dates to the 1870s, is one of the most distinctively profiled and therefore easily recognisable handguns of all time. The copy on today’s menu was interesting in that it could be fitted with a hardwood stock, a useful accessory upgrading its stability to that of a short rifle and being hollow in part it doubles as a storage case or holster.

Another familiar gun, and one that I have also fired, is the PPSH. The PPSH-41, a submachine gun instantly identifiable by its high-capacity drum magazine ~ 71 rounds when fully loaded ~ was one of the Soviet army’s most widely used infantry weapons. An icon of the period, it features extensively in photographic depictions of Soviet soldiers in battle, is often incorporated into figural war monuments and regularly appears on commemorative badges. Weighing around 12 pounds (5.45 kg), full magazine included, the first reaction of the inexperienced gun user on picking up the PPSH is usually how heavy it feels. It is without doubt a weighty specimen, but, unless you are a seasoned gun user, all guns when first encountered seem surprisingly heavy and also surprisingly clunky.

Although in many respects the Soviet PPSH bests the M1A1 U.S. Thompson, on the UK shooting range some years ago I felt less comfortable firing the PPSH than I did the Thompson. Weight for weight, there is not much difference, but the absence of a pistol grip or side grips on the PPSH means that the weapon has to be held with the supporting hand behind the drum or by cupping the drum itself, a necessity which I personally found impinged upon its accuracy. That said, the PPSH drum mag with its superior load capacity is compensation enough in any realistic performance-related comparison of these two iconic weapons.

Mention iconic firearms in the context of Soviet history and the buzzword is likely to be not the PPSH or the Mosin-Nagant but, yes, you’ve got it, the Kalashnikov. No Soviet firearms exhibition would be worth its salt without the presence of this gun, a weapon universally revered for its outstanding reliability under conditions of an adverse nature and a gun which ticks almost every box, if not ticks every box, as best in its class in the assault rifle category.

Used the world over, the Kalashnikov was and continues to be one of the most popular weapons ever produced. No serious gun collector would regard his collection complete without one. Today’s exposition featured two AK versions, fixed wood and folding-stock variants. We sold both types, deactivated of course, through our UK vintage/militaria emporium.

Another old favourite, which whenever I see it reminds me of the times we spent with the UK re-enacting group, the Soviet 2^nd Guards Rifles Division, was the Degtyaryov machine gun. The Degtyaryov, DP-27/DP-28, was the standard light machine gun of the Soviet military in WWII. The large rotating drum magazine mounted on the top of the gun shaped its unique appearance, inspiring Soviet soldiers to nickname it the ‘record player’.

The Makarov pistol, or PM as it is known, which in 1951 became the Soviet military’s standard sidearm, is, in its definitive form, so well-known and accessible that the sight of one is unlikely to rock the gun community’s world, but you never can tell with guns what variants are out there; specific demand and experimentation are capable of producing the most unusual hybrid version of otherwise commonplace guns. Take the example displayed today. This version of the ubiquitous semi-automatic Makarov had undergone a modification that makes it look as incongruous as a woman’s body defaced with tats.

Makarov with drum mag at Men's Day Kaliningrad exhibition

In details of proportion, the erstwhile small firearm seems to have taken leave of its senses. Strapped beneath its pistol grip is a drum magazine every bit as big and as chunky as the one that is used by the PPSH. However, as wild, whacky and clumsy as it appears, and although the variant was never widely produced, for a while at least this ambitious conversion was heralded as a useful addition to Russia’s law-enforcement armoury, since it enabled officers carrying shields who only had one hand with which to hold their gun to sustain fire over longer periods before needing to reload.

Today’s small arms cache in the old Luftwaffe building was a window on the world of Soviet weaponry. From my point of view, having handled a fair amount of military weapons over a lifetime’s interest in all things history, some were old acquaintances but others took their place in the never-ending learning curve ~ the converted Makarov is a case in point. The past is littered with revelations waiting for someone to pick them up. There is always something new to discover, always something new to learn and the joy of both never grow old. It is one of the enduring delights of the antique/vintage scene.

Soviet Uniforms

The uniforms displayed also brought back memories of our vintage shop and the re-enactments that we took part in as members of the 2^nd Guards group.

As I believe I mentioned in a previous post, re-enactment is a serious historical business. Everything has to be just so, an exact replica of what it was like back in the 1940s. Considerable time and effort is diligently expended in researching and getting the uniforms right and in allocating to those uniforms the correct insignia worn and where and how it was worn. Anything less than perfect is sure to be met with a stern rebuke from the re-enactment group’s leaders and spark derision in those who purport to know more than you do about such important details, one’s group peers especially and, more embarrassingly, military veterans.

At first sight, the Soviet uniform looks pretty basic, and it was. At the time the Second World War broke out It hadn’t changed much since the First World War. It certainly does not compare with the rigid formality of British wartime uniforms and the flash, Hollywood modernity of their American counterparts, whose uniforms and equipment had a certain style all of their own. But what the Soviet uniform lacks in formality and also in panache it more than makes up for in functionality, being lightweight, durable and easy to wear.

As a re-enactor and military clothes dealer, I have worn the uniforms of both Allied and Axis forces, both officers’ and other ranks’, and if I had to sum up each country’s uniform using one definitive word for each, my choice of words would be: American, ‘stylish’; British, ‘itchy’; Soviet, ‘comfortable’.

When re-enacting, the only bone I had to pick with the Soviet uniform was the inclusion of fresh, white, linen neck-liners, which have to be changed and sewn with irritating regularity into the underside of the tunic collar. As an actor on a film set, someone does this for you. It is altogether different when you have to do it yourself: for example, when cold and bleary eyed after a night beneath the rainy skies with only your canvas poncho for protection. Warning: Re-enactment is a serious business.

Men’s Day in Kaliningrad

The reals stars of the Soviet military display held at the Kaliningrad Retro Car Club HQ were the guns, but it would be inexcusably remiss of me if I was to leave the show without giving credit where credit is due for one of the best collections of Soviet gas masks that I have ever seen exhibited at a militaria event.

The impressive collection was the inspiration and work of a young bloke called Valordia. He confided in me that the official requirement of wearing masks during the coronavirus scare had added impetus to his collecting zeal and that during those two surreal years he had substituted cloth masks for gas masks from his collection. Good for him! I thought. I often tried to be different, too, by wearing my mask around my knee. It’s never been the same knee since. It seems to wheeze a little!

Valordia’s gas-mask collection begins with a fairly basic item from WWI, extends through the interwar years, encompasses WWII and finally comes to rest with a state-of-the-art modern mask, modelled by last years’ model (and some) me. In case you didn’t want to recognise me, there I am in the photo, standing as large as life and twice as beautiful in my designer gas mask next to Valordia. This mask has some interesting gimmicks, such as interchangeable this and that’s, and also features a drinking tube for the wearer to take in liquid refreshments (Mine’s a pint of Landlord, please.) whilst remaining safely enveloped in rubber.

Mick Hart modelling a modern Russian gas mask on Men’s Day in Kaliningrad

It’s food for thought, but the accessorising capability of this mask stands it in good stead for nomination as the Gates/Davos prototype ~ the first live-in coronavirus and other nasty man-made-diseases facemask, a must-have accessory for the globalist’s reset future. With a built-in smartphone as standard, which I think we can safely assume it would have, proud wearers will continue to be urged to post their selfies to social media, thus preserving social media’s ongoing cloning affect. The beauty of the mask will be that even more than ever none of your ‘friends’ will know who you are and what you really are, which when assessed at its most fundamental level is what social media is all about: a world of revolving masks in a hall of revolving mirrors. The ‘Like’ tickers and back-slappers will function as before, seeing nothing and knowing less, there mutual appreciation assured as they woo each other with fulsome comments about how young and lovely each of them look hidden behind their filters. Don’t mock! It could happen. It could be a win-win situation, for those who are steadily losing.

But I digress: In an age when everything and everybody seems smartarsephoned, it is reassuring to discover that there are others in the world who share your ardent belief that there is no time like the past, and reassuring again when the other parties concerned are considerably younger than yourself. Keep up the good work, chaps!

Whilst my response to the Soviet exhibition was one of unreserved enjoyment, I completely understand why some people cannot understand why guns, old or new, should be a source of fascination. Unlike my youngest brother, who holds several medals and trophies for marksmanship in most small-arms categories, I do not. It is true that in my youth, I would occasionally run around armed in the middle of the night, not I hasten to add in an urban setting but for the perfectly reasonable purpose of poaching his lordship’s estate. In my dotage, however, guns, have taken their place among the many varied man-made objects invested with an intrinsic ability to stimulate appreciation for their craftsmanship, aesthetics and historic interest alone. And yet, despite such commendable sensibilities and the reservations from which they stem, come the day of the exhibition I could not resist the alpha temptation to pick up and tote a sawn-off or two. Both the shotgun and the rifle, even with modified barrels and stocks, were surprisingly tactile and disturbingly balanced.

Disturbingly unbalanced is the expression on my face captured in the photo where I am holding one of these guns. In that photograph I seem to have achieved a curious manly man hybrid somewhere between Clint Eastward and Bop Hope, either that or my pants are too tight.

Mick Hart with sawn-off gun in Kaliningrad

Looking at my photo (above), I think we can safely conclude that a manly image is not so easily come by as convention would have us believe, even when its Man’s Day and even when you are holding a gun. But you’ve got to admire Squint Westwood’s brass and, if only as an act of charity, give me six out of ten for trying.