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An Introduction to the Zelenogradsk Coastal Route

Seeing the sites in sight of the sea in Zelenogradsk

Published: 19 April 2021

Preface

This post is based on an extract from an entry in my 2020 diary, written last August, which I would like to use as a prelude to a pictorial piece on the architecture lining the coastal route in the seaside resort of Zelenogradsk on the Baltic Coast in the Kaliningrad region of Russia.

Last May, and subsequent to it, articles began to appear both in Russian and international media, some favourable, some not, which reported that as coronavirus strengthened its grip a boom in domestic tourism had been sparked in Russia to take advantage of and to compensate for closed borders and international travel restrictions {Russia Wants to Spark a Domestic Tourism Boom. Will It Work? ~ The Moscow Times}

Did it work? It would seem so ..

August 2020

Zelenogradsk has a wonderful, long, broad sandy beach, more than enough space to accommodate this year’s influx of tourists. And all you need if you require a more secluded spot is to take the coastal path away from the centre and head off in the direction of the Curonian Spit.

We all know that walking is supposed to be good for you, but should you prefer to travel on wheels, you can always take one of the little six-to-eight-seater charabancs that buzz up and down the vehicular lane along the coastal route. Alternatively, you could rent yourself a bicycle for the day, or a small pedal go-kart, which accommodates a ‘driver’ and a passenger, or invest in one of those zippy little electric scooters that are fast becoming the most fashionable way of adding yourself to motorisation.

Whatever your choice of locomotion, It is worth taking the coastal route just to witness the diverse array of non-pedestrian options whizzing up and down, from the relatively mundane to the unreal, weird and whacky.

An Introduction to the Zelenogradsk Coastal Route

I am never quite sure what to call this stretch of, er? — this route. ‘Track’ creates the impression of something mud-like winding through the dunes and undergrowth; ‘path’ limits it to a contagion of plodding feet; and ‘road’ makes it sound like the M25. In essence, it is a combination of all three ideas, except that it has a block-paved hard surface, is essentially straight, is too wide to call a path and being closed to regular traffic cannot be called a road.

Although motor vehicles of the regular variety are prohibited, as I mentioned earlier, things with engines attached other than human legs do traverse it as, at the same time, so do feet.

Basically, the route is divided into two parts: one side, the broader of the two, is reserved for pedestrian access; the other, about three times the width of a standard bicycle lane, is allocated for vehicles and is divided yet again into two directional lanes.

On the landward side of this route, it is competition time for who can build the biggest and most impressionable hotel. They come in all shapes and in very large sizes, but most share an architectural predilection for the curvilinear forms utilised so memorably, and thus so effectively, in earlier Art Deco building formats.

Brought up to date in the early twenty-first century with the accent on glass and plenty of it, the semi-circular portico and centralised tower stairwell are particularly popular features in these ‘look, I can see the sea!’ hotels.

The odd one out in this nuanced continuity, which diverges in no uncertain terms from the prevalence of the others, is that which in its fundamental shape, external facings and decorative embellishments is a dead ringer for the sort of neoclassical hall that you would expect to find, and do, in the heart of the English countryside.

Neoclassical design Zelinogradsk — **Neoclassical design on Zelinogradsk’s coastal route**

Grandeur of scale, geometrical lines, functional columns, dentil moulding, cornices and balustrades, this building has the lot, and perhaps even a little more besides, for I have noticed that when modern Russian architectural design emulates the ideas of an earlier aesthetic period, imitation is not nearly enough when opportunity allows to surpass.

An Introduction to the Zelenogradsk Coastal Route

A sight that may not be exclusive to this part of the world or to Russia generally, but is ubiquitous enough to place it in a national context, is the unfinished, ‘grey scale’ construction. I have not counted them, but there are perhaps as many unfinished hotels along this route as there are complete ones, although, given the success story of Russia’s incentivised holiday-at-home programme and, news just in, that most of the region’s hotels are already fully booked for the 2021 summer season, it may possibly not be long before these redundant-before-completion hulks are finally brought to life.

Unfinished hotel in Zelinogradsk — **The view from here will be spectacular once they finish building it …**

In addition to hotels, also on this route you will see the last remaining but inevitably fleeting glimpse of homes that hark back to the days when Zelinogradsk was Germany’s Cranz. Although these buildings, once reasonably grand but modest by today’s standards and made doubly so by their bold new companions, display all kinds of interesting and sometimes quite astonishing DIY distortions enacted during the Soviet era, their quaint construction and kinder presence on the environmental scale can still be felt and appreciated, and it is a great pity that given the premium placed on the land that these houses occupy that it is only a matter of time, I suspect, before they are rubbed out and in the name of progress replaced by more of the same by which they are surrounded.

German building Zelenogrask coastal route — **A Cranz home being restored along the Zelenogradsk coastal route**

This stretch of road, causeway, path ~ call it what you will ~ does not go on forever. In fact, it runs out rather abruptly, interrupted by a tall and fairly non-descript hotel and thereafter a series of ground and one-storey flats with, at the rear, integral garages, tiny yards cloaked with high walls and that decidedly late Russian phenomenon, the massy wrought iron gate translucently obscured by polycarbonate sheeting.

An Introduction to the Zelenogradsk Coastal Route

At any point along this route, it is possible that you may wish to descend to the beach below, which is something that you can do thanks to thoughtful sequences of broad steps provided at regular intervals. There is one last chance to do the same at the front of the tall hotel, after which, if you want to proceed further, needs must that you hang a hard left. This takes you into a paved area fronted by what once must have been flats par excellence, but which have lately been dwarfed and left behind by one of the most amazing seaside residential developments ~ amazing both in scale and style extravaganza~ that has ever taken me by surprise whilst I was going around the bend.

But, in the last analysis, if, for some peculiar and indefinable reason, you are not taking this route to look at the buildings, then on the other side of the road, over the hedge, you will see the sea. In late summer, on this stretch of land, I have had the good fortune to witness some of the most sublime sunsets that I have ever encountered, which is another feather in the hotel cap along this particular road, track, path, walkway, esplanade or route. Call it what you will, if you are holidaying in this region don’t forget to travel it or, better still, book yourself an exclusive view from one of the splendid finished hotels. Either way, you won’t be disappointed.

**Sunset: An Introduction to the Zelenogradsk Coastal Route**

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Down a Zelenogradsk Backstreet with an Englishman

Updated: 15 April 2021 / Published: 14 August 2020 ~
Down a Zelenogradsk Backstreet with an Englishman

If, like me, you love social history and the historical insight that different architectural features and the time-honoured states of buildings offer, then wherever you are in this region, in Kaliningrad itself, the small outlying towns or, as we were recently, walking around the backstreets of Zelenogradsk, one of this region’s coastal resorts, you will not be disappointed. Every street is an eclectic cornucopia of surprises. At first sight, there is, as they say, no rhyme or reason in it; it is what it is ~ a haphazard delight of old, new and second-hand ~ but memory lane has its own rhythmic structure and with each successive step you take any suspicion of discord soon converts to nostalgic rhapsody.

Idyllic Cranz Cottage in Zelenogradsk, Russia — **Idyllic Cranz cottage, Zelenogradsk 2020**

Take one of the streets that we walked today. In no specific order, we were presented with old German two-storey apartment blocks, which once would have been quite lowly dwellings, interspersed with little German cottages, juxtaposed with Soviet concrete flats, contradicted by grandiose houses ~ modern Russian villas built in a fantasy Königsberg style, some boasting an impressive intricacy of irregular shapes and forms complete with fantailed turrets.

In contrast with the brand-spanking newness of the late-comers, almost all of the older buildings exhibit multiple signs of age-related wear bolstered by years of neglect, together with ‘they should never have done it themselves’ extensions, inadvisable infills and hasty slapdash repairs, all executed with expediency and cheapness aforethought, using whatever materials came to hand and by people who, by the looks of it, had no basic DIY skills, much less respect and even less sensitivity for stylistic integrity and continuity of any kind.

Paintwork upon paintwork overlaid and showing through; cement rendering failing and falling exposing the original bricks beneath; the weathered and blistered doors knocked-on, opened, shut and left unpainted for many a year; here a piece of bas-relief, there a small rusting plaque; the wooden lean-to crying out for paint; the ubiquitous asbestos roof shoved up there by make-do Soviet labourers; the myriad examples of patchwork and bodging ~ all of which put me in mind of a Victor Ryabinin ‘assemblage’, in which each piece of the uneven jigsaw owns its own significance but together are transformed into a higher understanding of the mysterious way Time has of moulding, reshaping and reforming structures, perception and our lives.

The combination of natural ageing and neglect in these properties are to the ardent history buff and nostalgia junkie alike what stratigraphy is to the professional archaeologist, each strata determining, by its recognised specificity, an indelible link to a certain period or time identifiable by the tastes, the fashions and fads by which it was defined. And each repair and ‘improvement’, however clumsily executed, from an add-on Soviet bunker in drab grey brick or degrading bullying concrete to lashed-up electric cabling that should never have been allowed, are part and parcel of these house’s history, a separate and distinct page or possibly complete chapter in the life of what was and is ~ at least for now.

As strange as it may seem, the streets that these houses are on do not suffer from any sense of disjoint or jumble. They exhibit true, aged-in-the-wood, natural time-honoured diversity, not the falsely sold, theme-park variety or anything forced through agendas. They exist within and as part of the changing seasons of time and require nothing from you, no cosmetic apology not even your appreciation if you would rather withhold it.

As natural as the phenomenon of nature itself, the two join hands and what could be intrusive in any other context becomes a comforting, comfortable soulmate.

Vegetation leans out through fences, both tumble-down and modern, to gossip with grass verge and luxurious-planted flower beds; the trees and bushes crane over these fences to listen in; some of these trees have not had a haircut since coronavirus began and long before a conspiracy theorist invented it. Almost joining aloft in some places, and thereby creating a green and some might say unkempt vista, the verdure tests the beholder’s eye. For me, however, this is where the inherent beauty lies. But as each of us makes our own reality, who am I to say?

Olga remarked that most people would not understand why we adored the ‘mankyness’ of it all. She was referring to the houses as much as, if not more than, to the overgrown gardens, rough garden tracks, hastily erected grey-brick soviet sheds, toppled fencing, unmanaged back yards, wild foliage and everything so natural and so unmolested that it reminded me of the England of my youth, when England really was England; a time when people still lived in small modest cottages with old tin extensions bolted on the side, when gardens were ramshackle with home-made sheds and there was a healthy preponderance of honest to goodness dereliction, land overgrown across rubble, and even deserted houses and barns, barns that were real barns not supercilious conversions ~ the England I knew as a boy, that ‘green and pleasant land’ before every piece of land was gobbled up for investment, every garden gentrified, every humble house knobbed up and every barn des resd, until, by stealth, inevitably and far too quickly, reality gave up the ghost and died, its corpse was carried out and pretentiousness moved in.

Loud scream across the empty void of time!

One architectural style typical in this part of the world which never fails to enthral me is exhibited in those houses/flats which are shaped like a letter ‘E’ turned on its side with the middle arm missing [photo 1].

Down a Zelenogradsk Backstreet with an Englishman. A Cranz/Zelinogradsk house — **1: A typical Zelenogradsk (Cranz) dwelling**

The main structure of the house ~ the ‘E’ stem ~ runs parallel to the street. The two end arms are constructed usually of rendered brick, but the upper-storey sections are, in contrast, constructed of wood panelling with glazed units that run the length and depth of the three sides, usually covering three-quarters of the front [photo 2.1].

A house in Zelenogradsk, Russia. — **2.1: Plenty of history, little conformity**

Wooden design incorporated into Cranz/Zelenogradsk house — **2.2: Zelenogradsk (Cranz) house showing the design of the wooden compartment on the second floor**

Now, I think we can bet our socks that there is a many an erudite work out there ~ book, pamphlet, treatise, internet article ~ on the historical origins of this style and its architectural nomenclature, but for the time being let us just dwell a moment on the Romanticist, fairy-tale element inherent in this feature. Take a look at the photograph that I have provided [photo 2.2]. The carved, pierced and moulded decoration, sometimes referred to as gingerbread trim, is as fanciful as it is quaint, taken together with the contrasting masonry and wooden structure it transforms what would otherwise be a quite plain Jane into something as nice as a Victorian petticoat. The real belt and braces of this property is, as I have already nominated, not the bits that do fit but the pieces that surprise and do not, such as the Soviet asbestos roof and the pleasing modernisation of the entrance and porch, which has no claim aesthetically on the aged wooden compartment above it or for that matter vice versa [photo 2.3].

A tasteful and quaint room extension/balcony in a typical Zelenogradsk (cranz) house — **2.3: Old sits easily on top of new in this example of Zelenogradsk housing**

The next house to attract our attention on this same street had a tall tapering end section. It was not a tower exactly, but its tall perpendicular structure fulfilled the same cosmetic purpose [photos 3.1 & 3.2]. Note the broad arched window in the centre of two peaked-gothic windows, now filled in, and also, peeping through the overgrown bush at its base, a larger arched window with what could conceivably be the original German frames. The green paint peeling from the walls of this ground floor section also has some antiquity [photo 3.3].

Towards Gothic in Zelenogradsk — **3.1: Gothic & Art Nouvea features rub along nicely in this original -feature-rich home**

Down a Zelenogradsk Backstreet with an Englishman looking at old houses — **3.2: Note the two pointed Gothic arch windows on the top storey, now bricked up**

3.3: Yet another original feature: large arched ground-floor window

Photograph 4.1 reveals an interesting stylised diamond carving above the front door that flows into the decorative stonework atop of the door frame in Art Nouveau fashion. Photograph 4.2 gives a closer view, with my wife having received permission from one of the house’s occupants to take a peep inside.

Zelenogrask stonework decoration architecture — **4.1: Stonework decoration above the front door**

Olga Hart Art Nouveau Cranz — **4.2: Stonework decoration melding with the stylised door surround ~ no, I am not referring to my wife!**

Photograph 4.3 shows a door of some age and quality. Note the carving to the glazing frames and the chevron effect to the base panels. The black and white diamond floor is typical of, and quite a universal feature in, European and British homes dating from the late 19^th century through to the 1940s. I suspect, however, that the municipal look inside the corridor, the bog standard (pun intended) two layers of paint, in this case green and white, sometimes blue and white (in old British toilets black and white) are in this case a Soviet makeover. However, photograph 4.4 depicts a handsome wooden staircase complete with a nice line in stepped skirting board, an impressive turned base rail and matching turn-stop, glimpsed on the corner of the first landing. I think we can safely assume that the lovely painting at the top of the first flight of stairs, with dogs scampering through a meadow and a girl gathering flowers, is a work of art of not–too-distant origin. A closer view is available in photograph 4.5. The cat on the windowsill is real! He told me so.

Cranz front door. Down a Zelenogradsk Backstreet with an Englishman — **4.3: A door to be proud of**

Staircase in Zelenogradsk (Cranz) house. Down a Zelenogradsk Backstreet with an Englishman — **4.4: A fine old staircase**

Wall art Zelenogradsk house. Down a Zelenogradsk Backstreet with an Englishman — **4.5: This carefree painting would complement any nursery . The sleeping cat makes an excellent prop!**

Thank you to the person who allowed us access to this wonderful old building!

Down a Zelenogradsk Backstreet with an Englishman — **5: A real character!**

It was the intrusive electric cabling that drew our attention to the next abode, which, together with the many other discordant add-ons and workmanlike ‘improvements’, epitomises the changing times and fortunes which these houses and the people who lived in them experienced. The carelessly non-matching extensions at either end of this particular house [photo 5] have an architecturally masochistic appeal for me. I particularly like the blue and white brickwork on the left which gives way to a dark blue metal superstructure, as if Tim Martin of Wetherspoon’s fame has asked his designers to create a distressed effect, but which I am almost certain, without being absolutely sure, is the consequence of demand supplied in the absence of viable alternatives. The roof, by the way, is once again ubiquitous postwar asbestos. The washing lines, strung between the two extensions, have that real-world feel to them, the one I knew as a child, and thank heavens for the roadside foliage and unpretentious tree.

Zelenogradsk (Cranz) a building of all periods — **6: The accumulative effect of time**

The little dwelling in photograph 6 might, for some people, be nothing more than a cursory example of Roger the Baltic Bodger inimitably at it again, but I like it. The layers of history added are there to be peeled back. Young faces have no story to tell, because they are waiting for life to write its narrative on them, whereas old faces are many stories combined; they tell of the difficult journey from cradle to grave and wear upon them every knock and scar that ever befell their owners.

Gothic revival house in Zelenogradsk, Russia — **7.1: On the same street but a different level**

Hobnobbing from an inverted snobbery perspective is this NeoGothic scintillation [photo 7.1]. It stands without detriment or, in my mind, exclusivity to its older residents, as, like them, it, too, is no less a descendant of this region’s ancestral heritage, and whilst it may be young and brash (or it may be a bold restoration?), the fact that it respects its elders and knows its place in the history of this land is obvious from the deference that it shows to architectural concepts steeped in Germanic origin.

Gothicised house in Zelenogradsk, Russia — **7.2: Gothic revival with magnificent finial, mermaid bas-relief & crenellated window surround**

I am a tower and turret man myself, so need I say more. Although I must, since I cannot pass without showing my respect to the magnificent Gothic finial adorning the turret on this property, the mermaid bas relief on the street-facing wall and the stepped crenellation crowning the ground-floor windows. The effect is impressive-conservative with just enough and not too much to render it late-Russian capitalist.

Whether it is offended in having no option but to reside in the same street as the structure in photograph 8 is debatable, but the fact that it does is undeniably wonderful, in an eccentric kind of way.

This grey-brick shed built by someone I know from Peterborough, who must have slipped into the Kaliningrad region during Soviet times to demonstrate the not-so-noble art of bodge building as counter-intuitive to the bourgeoise dream, has fallen further from grace but made no less interesting by a good dose of ‘urban artwork’. You will observe, I am sure, the give-away clue from which part of the world this nasty urban trend derives. I leave it to yourself and to your conscience to decide whether this deserves the name of street art or is simply a piece of vandalism daubed on a wall by a simpleton. Street art or street arse, you decide?

There were other interesting houses and other houses with interesting and eccentric features on this street, but I will close this post with a view of and on this building [photo 9] which, standing as it does dead centre at the end of the street, the road curving round to the right, said two words to me (and those as well!), ‘block house’.

Zelenogradsk where architecture knows no bounds — **9: It’s all happening in this picture …**

It is a big solid structure with no frills and fripperies; another one of those buildings not unusual in this region that have been knocked around so much that it is difficult to say where exactly they come from and if they will ever be accepted ~ the architectural equivalent to a boat load of third-worlders lacking documentation.

Look at the windows ~ no, not in the boat ~ in the house. It is definitely a case of all shapes, sizes and co. Wood and plastic coexist here simply because they have no choice, a bit like British diversity. Any planning that may have led to this result has been cunningly concealed, and you must ask yourself whether living in it you would be living in harmony or would want to live elsewhere? The exterior has been clad. It is a cover-up, and the confusion of metal flues sit rather awkwardly with the traditional, conservative, red- brick chimney. Nevertheless, as an interesting experiment it is an interesting experiment, although I would strongly advise against the open-door policy as we all know, only too well, to what disaster that can lead!

This review has drawn for its inspiration from one street out of the many historically evocative examples with which Kaliningrad and its regional towns are invested. Stepping back in time has never been simpler and more compelling, so if you do get the chance to follow in my footsteps do not let the moment pass you by.

🚗👍Recommended Tour Guide for Russian & English Speakers: IN MEMORY of OUR GOOD FRIEND STAS

Spring Brings People Out in Kaliningrad

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 394 [12 April 2021]
And what has all this got to do with coronavirus and self-isolation?

Published: 12 April 2021 ~ Spring Brings People Out in Kaliningrad

With the temperature shooting up to a ‘very nice spring day’ 18 degrees, my wife, Olga, had no difficulty persuading me to walk to the central market with her, even though I had consumed four or five refreshing pints of vaccine the previous evening.

As we left the house for the cobbled streets of Königsberg, the birds were singing and, if the neighbours two houses away would only fit their dog with a silencer, we would possibly have heard them.

After a long, hard winter it was delicious to be able to walk down the quiet backstreets, stopping now and again to have a good old gawp, which you do as you get older, at the splendid German houses that line this particular route.

The last time I did something like this in the UK, an elderly lady appeared on the doorstep of her house and asked if we were ‘casing the joint’. My brother replied that we were admiring the architecture, that we only robbed places at night and was she at home this evening?

No such awkward questions were fired at us today, and all we had to contend with was blue snowdrops, lots of them, inside and outside of gardens looking extremely pretty.

Spring brings people out in Kaliningrad

Our route to the city market took us along the lakeside (pond side, if you are a Königsbergian purist). The sun, warmth and dry weather had brought the good citizens of Kaliningrad out in droves, and Olga, who is a staunch anti-mask wearer, was happy to observe that the majority of the populace had exchanged their ‘muzzles’ for happy smiles and the priceless humanity of unfettered facial expression.

Youth Park ~ the city’s amusement park ~ was in full swing, and the children’s play area on the bank of the lake was packed to the gills with happy cavorting children, the skateboarding and roller-blading enclosure was by no means idle and in the nearby exercise arena a man was obviously so grateful not to be in lockdown that it was all he could do not to stand on his head.

Just as I had hoped, the good weather had also brought out the traders and selling public at the city’s flea market, a junk addicts paradise, which should it exist in boot fair-obsessed Britain, that is before the Covid curfews and restrictions, it would be absolutely mobbed.

Serviced by a parking lane that backs onto a stretch of pavement located just before the pedestrianised avenue that leads to the market proper, the pitches, stalls and blankets of this collectors’ cornucopia fan out across the hills and hollows beneath the trees of a long, broad bank, an erstwhile rampart that follows the line of the moat opposite one of Königsberg’s distinctive red-brick forts. This bank can be a muddy Somme when it rains but was thankfully dry today.

I stopped for a while to lust over the dug-up medals and badges that had once ennobled the members of Hitler’s Third Reich, but before I could commit myself to spending more cash than I should, Olga had steered me off, away from the trader community into the general public bargain zone, and before long was trying on a jacket suspended from a tree, urged on by a stout babushka keen to make a sale, whose many other clothing wares were spread across the ground on top of several covers.

The coat was either too small or too big, so this turned out to be a no-sale, but by the time we had traversed the length of the bank, running the gauntlet of the numerous sellers, where once we had no bags we now were carrying four.

Within these bags nestled two interesting bottles, both harking back to the days when this city was Königsberg: one bearing the city’s original name and the other purchased because of its unusual triangular shape and Bakelite top. As with many bottles produced at the turn of the twentieth century and, indeed, throughout the years leading to World War II, both of these bottles were attractively embossed with script, typically identifying either the contents, manufacturer and location of the business and very often all three.

Spring Brings People Out in Kaliningrad — **Mick Hart with bottle ~ unusual in that it does not contain beer**

As a former dealer in items of antiquity, my interest in these humble retail and household products had diminished over the years, simply because in the course of my work I handled so many of them, but my passion for these relics of social history had recently been rekindled when, emerging from a tour of Königsberg Cathedral, our host and friend Vladimir Chilikin introduced us to a purveyor of vintage bottles who was selling his wares on the bridge nearby. Life without junk is at least three things: impossible, unlivable and uncluttered. So, my wife, sympathetic to and an accomplice in my addiction, decided that she would treat me to a Königsberg souvenir, and now you can no longer say that I haven’t got the bottle.

On the subject of old and interesting, we had left home this morning not purely to stretch our legs but to collect a piece of vintage embroidery that someone was framing for us. Unfortunately, the framing shop was closed, but no matter, this simply meant that we would not have so much to carry as we made our way to Flame, our pre-Covid watering hole, situated in front of the lake.

Although the thought of a lunchtime aperitif, a liquid one, did cross my mind ~ junk and beer go so well together ~ I exercised restraint. One should be wise at my age (cough), and besides, when we returned home, I had the final pages of a dissertation to edit.

Spring brings people out in Kaliningrad

We had gone to Flame expecting to find that the outside seating had been reinstated, but it was obviously deemed too early in the year for this, so if we wanted to eat outside we would have to find a bench. We could have eaten inside, but distancing and the heartbreaking avoidance of restaurants and bars continues to be our enduring concession to coronavirus caution.

We found some unoccupied seating on the circular paved area that fronts the newly opened swimming pool and sauna, which is anchored off the side of the lake. It is a curious affair: a T-shaped, lightweight structure fitted with a central dome consisting of stretched fabric or vinyl over triangulated sections of tubular steel.

As Flame was as busy as it had been in the pre-coro era, our takeaway lunch would take 20 to 30 minutes to arrive, which was no hardship. Whilst waiting, we had two cups of excellent coffee and just chilled out, or should that be in today’s favourable temperatures warmed up?

Mick Hart & Olga Hart, Kaliningrad 2021 — **Mick Hart & Olga Hart, Kaliningrad April 2021**

The easy-listening jazz wafting from Flame’s external hi-fi speakers, complemented the meditative mood. Whenever I hear it, I am filled with wonder. Who is it who plugs Flame into the 1970s? I half expect Jim Rockford of 1970s’ Rockford Files fame to come strolling round the corner. Hi Jim!

It was a beautiful atmosphere on the lake front today. The droves had almost turned into a crowd, and everyone walked, talked and behaved as people do when spring first arrives. You can sense it ~ that one long collective sigh of relief: winter is rolling over at last.

We stayed put on our hospitable bench for a good forty minutes. Opposite, three girls were sketching and painting. Whenever I see people painting or drawing in Königsberg, I cannot help but see and feel the presence of Victor Ryabinin.

On walking back homeward we stopped in an area where the lakeside path expands to look and listen for a while to a couple of young musicians playing saxophones. The music they were playing captured and inspired the harmonics of the occasion in this favourite location of ours, on this soft, tranquil, kind and contemplative day.

Woke Attack in Pimlico UK!

Woke Watch PC UK [Case 1]

Published: 6 April 2021

Preamble

This series of posts is devoted to identifying, tracking and reporting on instances of politically correct oppression in the UK, which have become so prevalent and stultifying in recent years that they have morphed into an erosive sub-culture, ironically characterised by self-righteous victimhood and a postured drive for equality. This is the culture of ‘Woke’.

Stymieing free speech and closing down discussion, liberal elements exploit the false altruism implanted in this credo for the prosecution and inverted moral enforcement of a neo-Marxist creed.

Assisted not a little by an ideological media sympathetic to their agenda, the hyper-reaction and sheer volume of publicity devoted to issues of race, gender and other liberal hobby horses has discredited the perpetrators and exposed their agenda. It has also caught them in a trap of their own making, the term ‘Woke’ ~ their term ~ presented originally as a victim’s cry for social and racial justice now widely used to identify over-zealous practitioners and self-proclaimed arbitrators of ‘correct thought’ as defined by neoliberal PC elites.

There is a limit to which even the most tolerant people of the most tolerant country (reference Sewell report) can remain tolerant to daily intolerance and at last legacy Britons appear to have reached that point:

Stay aWoke to the Wokes folks!

If, in a wild and distorted dream or a state of unpardonable and gross inebriation you have even vaguely considered that the ‘liberal way’ could be progressively good for your country ~ or, for that matter, remotely good ~ let these posts serve as a moral reminder: Be careful what you wish for!

In my introductory post to this series, Woke Watch PC UK, I referred briefly to that recent sorry state of affairs at Pimlico Academy London, where children, jumping on the protest bandwagon, were allowed and encouraged to lambast their headteacher and dictate school policy.

The Pimlico Academy circus and the liberal media’s reaction to the Sewell report on racial disparity are perfect examples of the fostered permeation of a woke cult within the UK and the extent to which this virus is cultivated and used as a mind-altering, psychological weapon in our schools. From the government’s reluctance (some have referred to it as ‘moral cowardice’) to institute robust measures to combat the virulence, hope for an effective vaccine grows less and less credible as each day passes. Unchallenged, systemic wokeness is a source of global embarrassment to the UK in the disproportionate media and political space it occupies to the detriment of real issues, such as unsafe streets and spiralling crime, but is at the very least redeemable in its entertainment value.

My attention was first drawn to this farcical piece of nonsense, re Pimlico Academy, when I stumbled upon a report in that most august of intellectual online dispensaries, the Mirror.

Headlined, “Pimlico Academy: Angry pupils stage mass walk-out at school’s ‘racist’ uniform policy”, with the standfirst, “Students and staff are furious over a strict new uniform policy at Pimlico Academy in Westminster, central London, and changes to the secondary school’s history curriculum”, the article immediately set the sirens wailing: ‘Woke! Woke! Woke!’.

From the safety of my anti-PC bunker, not having been enriched for some time now, I read on, hardly able to contain my amusement. According to the report, some angry children were having a tantrum in the school playground (for those of you who are not from the UK, an ‘academy’ is a posh-sounding name for a school; a tantrum is a ‘peaceful demonstration’). ‘We want change’, they shouted. I could hear an echo bouncing back at them from somewhere in Britain’s glorious past, “Don’t we all!” it was saying.

The change that they wanted was not for the drinks machine. They were ~ shall we use a ‘peaceful demonstration’ word? ~ ‘outraged’.

Woke Attack in Pimlico UK!

It may defy belief if you come from a non-PC-crazed background, but in the wonky land of Woke, anybody and anything can be denounced as racist at any time, and somebody with a lot more time on their hands than most of us, but not a great deal of intelligence, had denounced Pimlico’s school uniform as racist. The school uniform was wacist (that’s a cross between woke and racist) because it discriminated against hijabs and hairstyles. The school pupils were also incensed that the school curriculum was not paying enough attention to the antics of Black Lives Matter and were demanding that more time be devoted to Black History Month, like, er, Black History Two Months or preferably 13 months of the year. Durrgh…

The Mirror published extracts from the children’s online post, which, incorporating such terms as ‘protect marginalised races [and] religions’, ‘discriminating against’ and ‘challenging identity’, shows that if they learn nothing else in today’s progressive liberal schools, children are at least well versed in the parrot language of Woke.

Some went on to excel themselves by taking up the cudgel for the gender disadvantaged. And you have to hand it to them, they had really done their homework on the PC prose of choice:

“We believe the idea of gendered uniform for all students is a ridiculous, backwards ideal. This ostracises non-binary and gender non-conforming students, or those who are struggling with their gender identity.”

I really, really do wish that I had been armed with this load of old cod’s wallop when I was at school. In those days, if you did not present in the full and prescribed uniform by the time you had chanted ‘we want change’, you could be guaranteed to have got it, initiated by a swift, stout kick up the arse. The change being a bruise where you did not have one before.

Woke Attack in Pimlico UK!

Whilst some of Pimlico’s school children were writing online statements, others, true to form, were defacing the school walls with graffiti. Some future university student daubed:

“Headmaster Smith should get the sack.”

And why on earth shouldn’t he, with a name like that!

The Mirror goes on to report that, “the Guardian reported that the school was facing mass staff resignations, a student protest and a vote of no confidence in its headteacher.”

It almost sounds like ‘Hooray’?

Mr Smith is a white headmaster and therefore it goes without saying that he should either resign or apologise, or preferably both! ~ be sent to Devil’s Island, somewhere in the Caribbean or Lambeth, and never again be permitted to hold office.

Apparently, the academy’s staff is in such a PC tizz about it all that many of the poor darlings are thinking of quitting their job.

Helpful school caretaker: “Allow me, I’ll open the door for you!”

And it is reported that the entire geography department handed in their notice, presumably because they failed to identify that the country where they live and work is Britain. Mind you, it is not that easy to tell these days, is it, not even for a geography teacher?

Now, I am not sure whether you will appreciate the woke irony inherent in this next quote from the Mirror, but take your time (clue, think of BLM and statues and political allegiances).

“Former Pimlico Academy pupil Liza Begum, Labour’s candidate for the upcoming Churchill ward councillor by-election, visited the protest.”

Well, she would, wouldn’t she!

According to the Mirror, she was proud of the students, adding, ‘it [the protest] was a peaceful event’.

As all such demonstrations, especially BLM demonstrations, are ~ children …

One mother complained that the pupils are not listened to and feel ‘frustrated and disempowered’ (Congratulations, now you know what most teachers feel every day of their lives.) And wanted to know what this would do for them [the kids] when they left school? The answer being, a great deal of good, I suppose, because in the real world, the world outside of school, getting your own way by staging a tantrum, even if the liberal media patronises it as ‘peaceful’, is not something that Bet Fred is likely to give you very good odds on.

Now, I have intentionally left the best for last, which is that after ticking all the essentials on the woke checklist, as ticked by the children at Pimlico Academy, having been primed to do so by their liberal masters …

Racism
Discrimination
Gender issues
Identity
Challenged self-esteem
White man headmaster

… the ultimate demand from the Pimlico children was that the school remove the Union Jack. And, yes, you have got it in one, of course the school capitulated.

Think about it. An institution whose purpose it is not only to educate the young in the academic sense but is also charged with the responsibility of inculcating them with an appreciation of the values and morals of society to help them to integrate into that society, takes down the nation’s flag, having been ordered to do so by a gaggle of school children not yet worldly wise enough to know the fundamental difference between their arses and their elbows. Still, I suppose it was an improvement on last September, when Britain’s future hauled the flag down and burnt it. To quote Del Amitri:

“And nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all
The needle returns to the start of the song
And we all sing along like before … “

The least you would expect is that the entire history department of Pimlico Academy would hand in their resignation, hop into the nearest TARDIS, shoot off back in time and warn Great Britain of what will become of it in the 21^st century unless it takes a firmer grip. What a mess!

The ethnic composition of the child protestors which led to the peremptory and pitiful removal of the nation’s flag is not immediately apparent. A closer look at the photos and videos that covered the playground huff would be interesting from a sociological viewpoint if nothing else, as it would help to ascertain the ratio of children indoctrinated by liberal left mantras in relation to those exploiting them to further an agenda.

Incidentally, did you ever see that wonderful old black and white (cough) film Passport to Pimlico? It was all very different then, wasn’t it, although the title of that film could well have been a presentiment. All the same, should a remake be made today, the film would have to retain its original title since Pimlico is land-locked, so something along the lines of Small Boat to Pimlico would hardly be believable ~ but then again, what is?

Woke Attack in Pimlico UK!

At the end of a wrong day, whether your verdict is woke tsunami or merely a storm in a piss pot, that the Pimlico spat was set against the backdrop of the frenzied reception to the Sewell report on racial disparity speaks volumes about the wider malaise in the land of the Woke and Wonderless.

This ‘landmark adjudication’, the Sewell report, is, of course, covered extensively by the liberal press. The Guardian, for example, asks in one of their earlier articles, before the tone becomes predictably rabid, ‘Did the government’s response to the Black Lives Matter protests measure up? A panel of writers responds’. And the answer, from the liberal perspective is, as we know, of course it didn’t. Whilst some people could be forgiven for equating inadequate response with lack of robust policing, I am not saying anything about this article. Find it, read the names of the contributors, see their panels and photographs, read what they have to say and judge for yourselves.

I cannot quite make up my mind, from a purely woke position, whether the liberal faction so seemingly incensed by the Sewell report’s conclusion that the UK is one of the most racially tolerant countries in the world, would have been infinitely more disappointed had the report returned what they presumed it must do following what they conceived to be an intimidation victory by the BLM riots, namely that the UK is racist to its core and that penance by those responsible can never be paid in full, as there is not enough guilt in Woke land for reparation to replace agenda.

Such Woke expressions of virtue-signalled anger are surely just for the record ~ the broken record. Without doubt, the Sewell report has handed to those who have nothing better to do than to delude themselves into believing that making banners and running amok in the streets will change anything, a golden opportunity: summer is on the way, time to get those hoodies on and crank up the ‘peaceful protesting’! And if it all gets sordid and nasty, then not only is there the old excuse to fall back on, that the police response was ‘neither appropriate nor proportionate’ (from the rehearsed script of Mr Mayor Khan) there is the Sewell report as well. “Ooooh, it made me so angry! I just had to make a banner and go and deface a statue. Er, how do you spell ‘discriminate’?”

Woke me up when it’s all over, yawn …

Here are some later headlines from the balanced liberal press on the Sewell report:

The Sewell report on racial disparity is an attempt to erase progress and sow division [Guardian]

Comment: This assumes that the path to progress must be defined as a never-ending cycle of recrimination, apology and appeasement

The poisonously patronising Sewell report is historically illiterate [Guardian]

Comment: Tantrum time

Race report: Was controversy part of the plan? [BBC]

Comment: You should know. It’s what you do best … but not so well as you did, or everyone would still be paying their license fee

Let’s hope that these headlines were not run after the watershed viewing time for children ~ there’s bound to be tears before bedtime ..

S😉😉EE Woke Watch PC UK!

Reclaiming Freedom in the UK, with Laurence Fox (Uncommon Knowledge interview with Peter Robinson)

Woke Watch PC UK!

Introduction

Published: 2 April 2021

Liberals are upset. The word ‘woke’, originally enlisted into the English language as a weapon to further their ideological aims and bulwark their arsenal of victimhood, has fallen into enemy hands. It seems that ‘white privileged males’, ‘populists’ and even a man who gets paid to be rabid on television, have wrested the weapon from the hand of the mugger. They, along with millions of legacy Britons like them, are turning it to their own advantage in an existential struggle to preserve country, culture, heritage, home and history.

In this series of posts, I will update you from time to time on the wokey pokery that, having been brought to the surface and accelerated by such a monumental political event as Brexit, threatens to undermine, destroy and eclipse what, less than a century ago, was one of the greatest nations on Earth but which now, regrettably, as a result of social engineering and state-sponsored sell out, is little more than Pandora’s Box in a carnival hall of mirrors.

The Strange Woke Case of the White Privileged Male

The liberal left like nothing better than to label anyone who does not obsequiously and unquestionably conform to what Piers Morgan has described as their ‘PC-crazed world view’. Case in point:

For the first time in months coronavirus slips from its number one place in the British media slot and is immediately replaced by lamentable laments about race. It wasn’t April Fools Day when I read about the liberal media’s reaction to the Sewell report on racial disparity and caught sight of the shockless, but none the less discouraging, headline, “Pimlico Academy: Angry pupils stage mass walk-out at school’s ‘racist’ uniform policy”, but it ought to have been, at least then it might have all made sense … a little sense … some sense … no?

On the same day, 31^st March, it was refreshing to see something infinitely less predictable than a load of liberals all crying collectively into the same obsessive snotrag. It was the actor, political activist and leader of the Reclaim Party, Laurence Fox, the High Priest of Anti-Woke, whizzing across London in a traditional, red, open-topped double-decker bus, launching, in an applaudably British way, his London mayoral election campaign against that really nice Asian man, the Woke’s mayor of choice, Mr Sadiq Khan BLM, EU, AGENDA.

Woke Watch PC UK!

Mr Fox, probably best known for his co-starring role in the TV detective series Lewis, entered the political arena after he fell foul of anti-freedom of speech liberals and the predominantly liberal-virulent Twitterati mob for responding to a mixed-race university lecturer during the BBC’s Question Time who accused him of being ‘a white privileged male’. Such an accusation, he said, was racism.

Following the broadcast, the actors’ union, Equity, which is not at all institutionally Woke, called on other actors to denounce him. As a ‘white privileged male’, he had obviously overstretched himself. Racism, as we know, is a one-way street ~ or so they would have us believe. My only regret is that I missed the headline: ‘White Privileged Male Blacklisted’.

I am sure you will agree that there is absolutely no excuse for being a ‘white privileged male’. If you have the misfortune of being one, let it be a lesson to you. You should have chosen the race of your parents more carefully and ensured that both were on the dole. You should also sue them for not consulting you on your gender preferences before they had the temerity to consider giving birth to you.

Woke Watch PC UK!

Piers Morgan, formerly of Good Morning Britain (yes, that’s him, nice, quiet man, never got a bad word to say about anybody), himself since hounded by the same crazed hypocrites as Laurence Fox, Tweeted on Twatter:

“Laurence Fox hounded off Twitter for daring to challenge the virtue-signalling mob. The repulsive abuse & threats these shameless ‘liberal’ (*illiberal) hypocrites spew out on here to anyone who refuses to sign up to their PC-crazed world view is disgraceful ~ [Feb 24, 2020]”

Piers Morgan ‘lost’ his job at Good Morning Britain “because I chose not to apologise for disbelieving Meghan Markle’s claims in her interview with Oprah Winfrey. I thus became the latest ‘victim’ of the cancel culture that is permeating our country, every minute, of every hour, of everyday. Though of course, I consider myself to be neither a victim, nor actually cancelled.” [https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/tv/piers-morgan-addresses-lost-job-20113944 [accessed 31 March 2021] ]

News on the grapevine has it that Mr Morgan, true to his beliefs, has not been ‘cancelled’. He is about to be reinstated (so he tells us), which is something that Laurence Fox has yet to experience.

Woke Up UK!

😉Next post: Pimlico Academy ‘protest’ and the Sewell report ~ one an exercise in wokeness, the other an exercise in futility

Further reading:
Land of Wokes & Snowflakes
25 Reasonable Excuses for Leaving the UK
Katie Hopkins Life After Twitter
Harry & Meghan: The Sad Case of Deja Vu

Lifting the bridge on Leningradskoe beer

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

Article 12: Leningradskoe

Published: 29 March 2021 ~ Lifting the bridge on Leningradskoe beer

Over the past few weeks, I have been playing it safe. Whenever I have had ‘the ‘ankerings’, as my old East London friend used to call the acute desire for beer, I have gone for something tried, tested and approved, which in my case has been Lidskae and Ostmark. But what’s life without a bit of diversity (not too much, mind; look what it’s done to the UK!)?

Previous articles in this series:
Bottled Beer in Kaliningrad
Variety of Beer in Kaliningrad
Cedar Wood Beer in Kaliningrad
Gold Mine Beer in Kaliningrad
Zhigulevskoye Beer Kaliningrad Russia
Lidskae Aksamitnae Beer in Kaliningrad
Baltika 3 in Kaliningrad
Ostmark Beer in Kaliningrad
Three Bears Crystal Beer in Kaliningrad
Soft Barley Beer in Kaliningrad
Oak & Hoop Beer in Kaliningrad

Lifting the bridge on Leningradskoe beer

You don’t drink the label but, as with all that we consume, appearance and packaging is everything. The same rule applies whether you are shopping in the supermarket for pasta or shopping in your local nightclub. Being a lover of the past, it is not surprising that I usually go for beers the bottles of which are labelled as though they belong in the archives of a library’s historic records section or carry a typeface and/or image that speaks of the quality of things that were and which can never be again.

On this drinking occasion, a few weeks ago, I chose something that on first consideration might seem to go against the selective criteria grain, inasmuch as the branding has a stark, cold, metallic-feel about it, but, if you look again, you will see that the purchase compulsion was inspired in much the same way as it was when I chose Gold Mine beer. In fact, if you compare the labels of the two products the dissimilarities are insignificant. Both incorporate cool blue, white and gold colours and both favour cityscape skylines, silhouettes picked out by a mystical luminosity, somewhere between the aegis of dusk and dawn.

Then I was talking about Gold Mine beer; here I am referring to the beer Leningradskoe. In the case of the latter, the imagery concerns itself with Leniningrad, an open river bridge set against the domes and spires of St Petersburg (formerly Leningrad, after it was St Petersburg ~ if you know what I mean?). So, although it is not a million years ago, the historical connection still holds true. I suppose the attraction lies in the disequilibrium, the nearness and distance evoked by the reversing memory of the Soviet Union.

Lifting the bridge on Leningradskoe beer

So, purchase compulsion explained, let’s get down to the drinking of it.

The initial aroma is one of strong corn, in other words it is grainy rather than anything else. It arrives in the glass looking like Gold Mine’s long, lost brother ~ bright and golden. The head fizzes, rises to an inch but dissolves rather smartishly, leaving just a trace ~ a little bit like a lifting draw bridge: up one minute and down the next. The beer’s carbonation does not, from its appearance within the glass, have an overwhelming disposition, but there is sufficient of it to ensure that it holds up the relatively low flavour, rather like a pair of 1940s’ braces. In fact, I suspect that it is the carbonation that keeps the body of the beer afloat, the cunning adjunct that delivers the touch-of-bitter taste which sets it apart from bog-standard lager.

The aftertaste is not strong, but it is palatable, becoming more so after the initial twang has died. To my mind, and tastebuds, it is this feature, two pints later, that most distinguishes and recommends it. In the last analysis, it is a kind of half-way house, occupying a surprising place somewhere between keg bitter and lager, and because in its earlier stages it is clear and crisp, although I was drinking it on the outskirts of winter, in the midst of a nice summer’s day, whilst sitting back in the garden watching your wife do the weeding, I anticipate that it would be cool ~ as cool as the label suggests ~ and also rather refreshing.

So, whilst you are buying your wife a trowel in preparation for summer, don’t forget to treat yourself to a bottle of Leningradskoe. You know, if nobody else does, that you deserve it!

😁TRAINSPOTTING & ANORAKS
Name of Beer: Leningradskoe
Brewer: Baltika Breweries
Where it is brewed: St Petersburg
Bottle capacity: 1.5 litres
Strength: 4.7%
Price: It cost me about 137 rubles (£1.32)
Appearance: Pale golden
Aroma: Strong corn
Taste: Hybrid lager & keg bitter with satisfying after taste
Fizz amplitude: 5/10
Label/Marketing: Soviet
Would you buy it again? Would do
Marks out of 10: 6

25 Reasonable Excuses for Leaving the UK

You can check-out any time you like,
But you can never leave!’

Published: 26 March 2021 ~ 25 Reasonable Excuses for Leaving the UK

You might not believe the BBC, and that is all to your credit, but, as sensible as it sounds, the UK government has indeed ruled as part of its battle against freedom, sorry, I meant to say coronavirus, that any Brit who attempts to flee the Blighted Kingdom could face a fine of £5000.

“This new measure has absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with forcing Britons, and those who call themselves British, to holiday in appalling places like Hunstanton or Skegness, and is not affiliated in any way to the Have a Gay Holiday in Brighton scheme,” said William Butlins, Minister without portfolio but with a family ticket for the Costa del Sol, Wokesperson for the Kickstart Domestic Tourism Campaign.

The ban on people leaving the UK in search of sun, solace and sanity is what one man on a bicycle in Northamptonshire said was a ‘one way street’. He said a lot more, but we could not publish that for fear of the Free Speech Watchdog ~ who lives in the UK and barks in seven different languages, except English. What he meant by ‘one way street’ is that nobody is allowed out but people from everywhere else in the universe are allowed in, especially on small boats that come bobbing daily into Dover. Well, that’s alright then.

However, every cloud has a silver lining, except for the one called Biden’s Agenda, and that has a globalist golden one (incidentally, that is also a ‘one way street’). In the case of being forced to remain in the UK (which serves illegal immigrants right! Be careful what you wish for!) the proviso is that as long you have a ‘reasonable excuse’ you can be released on bail.

For those of you who have not downsized recently and therefore cannot afford, or do not qualify for government assistance, to pay for legal advice, here is a checklist of ‘reasonable excuses’ for leaving the UK.

25 Reasonable Excuses for Leaving the UK

1. Immigration

2. Coronavirus

3. Police State Coronavirus Restrictions

4. You don’t like Boris’s hairstyle

5. You like Matt Hancock’s hairstyle (what there is of it) but you don’t like Matt Hancock

6. You have no intention, now or ever, of paying your BBC protection racket license.

7. You want to go to a country where statues feel safe and heritage is valued

8. You really cannot prefix every statement you make with “I’m not racist, but …” anymore

9. The adverts on the telly do not reflect what it is really like to live in Britain (Thank Heavens!)

10. Political correctness

11. You want to go to a country where they are proud of the nation state

12. You want to go somewhere where you feel that your children are safe

13. You need to see a neck specialist as you cannot turn your head the other way and ignore anti-social behaviour any longer

14. You are frightened that if you write something on social media in the interests of your children’s future, you might be arrested for inciting the truth

15. Now that you have posted proudly “Yippee, I have had my vax,” and changed your Facebook avatar with some pretty rainbow colours, you feel such a prick that you are still locked down in your home

16. As a ‘first in and out of the queue’ early coronavirus panic buyer, you feel the need to travel abroad and stock up on more shite paper

17. You have run out of bog paper and feel embarrassed as the neighbours saw you fill the front room with rolls and instead of not paying your BBC license fee you’ve watched what they broadcast and used it all up as a result

18. I am an escapologist

19. You’ve experienced claustrophobia for the past 12 months, now you’d like to give agoraphobia a try (The UK establishment has given you plenty of aggrophobia!).

20. I want to go so you won’t let me back in

21. Just because you want to control me does not mean that I am going to make it easy for you

22. I am looking for the truth, and I know I won’t find it here

23. I was a liberal, but now I have learnt to see and think for myself

Someone did try using ‘I have grown allergic to the sound of sheep!’ but as a reasonable excuse, it was struck down for failing to register on the Fauci-controlled Baa-ometer.

On reading the 23 valid reasons for leaving the UK, one liberal remainer, who did not want to remain anonymous because he/she/it is an overpaid, untalented celeb with delusions of political grandeur, sneered venomously (well, they do, don’t they!) “It serves them right [It having nothing, of course, to do with gender]. Those who voted for Brexit wanted out of Europe so why should they be let back in!” And then she went straight back to her mum’s house to make a banner for this summer’s BLM riot ~ another reasonable excuse for wanting to leave the country.

So, 2021 promises to be not so much the summer of discontent as spending the summer in a clapped old tent, in your own back garden if you have one and in nobody else’s if they have one and you don’t, six feet apart from one another, wearing a mask, waiting for your 131^st vaccination against alleged mutated strains of a similar number and counting your antibodies to see if you have enough to get you into the pub.

And the last two reasonable excuses for wanting to leave the UK are?

24. I want to send the UK establishment and it’s sheeples a postcard. “Hello Boris et al, I am having a lovely time in the real world. Sun, sand, sea good weather, wonderful bars and restaurants. You can take your lockdowns, masks, social distancing, never-ending vaccines, antibody tests, and pub vaccine passports and stick them up your a!*e! We would like to say, wish you were here, but we’re rather glad that you’re not! And, after all, without a ‘reasonable excuse’, you couldn’t be if you wanted to.

And finally, number 25, the most reasonable excuse that anybody could give for wanting to leave the UK:

“Give me one good reason for wanting to stay?!”

Feature image attribution ~ Scary shadow: https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=281804&picture=man-scared

The Coronavirus Files:

Tracking World Vaccination with the Prickometer
The Great Re-set, Answer or Suspicious Coincidence
Clueless! World Health Game

Harry & Meghan the sad case of déjà vu

How to make history repeat itself to your advantage …

Published: 16 March 2021 ~ Harry & Meghan the sad case of déjà vu

Have you ever experienced déjà vu ~ you know, when you instinctively feel that you have lived through something before; that you are experiencing something that you have already experienced?

When the news first broke that Prince Harry was to marry Meghan Markle I, like so many other people, thought oh dear, it can only end in tears. Doubtlessly, the UK media and presumably others were of a different opinion, that it could only end in adverse publicity for the Royals, some extra pocket money and lotsa dough for the media.

From the media’s viewpoint not only would the inevitable break with the Royal Family make good copy, but it would also enable them ~ at least the dominant liberal faction of the press ~ to indulge themselves in their favourite preoccupation, which, when they are not sniping at Russia, is Royal Family bashing.

Back in the days of Tony Blair, days which most old socialists can barely bring themselves to talk about ~ you don’t broadcast it when you’ve been had, do you? ~ their more limp-wristed colleagues in the liberal camp longed for the end of the monarchy, envisaging instead a new Federal era with Tony Blair as president. Ironically, most of those who had this nickel-plated dream are tarnished by the memory, which is why so many liberals hate our Tony’s guts.

Harry & Meghan the sad case of déjà vu

I got into conversation about my déjà vu feeling with my old drinking partner Reggie Vallance from Shadwell in east London, known to his friends as ‘Call Me Cynical’, who has an opinion about everything.

The conversation began with my remark about déjà vu in the context of the no-longer Royals, Harry and Meghan.

“Well,” says Call Me Cynical, “it stands to reason dunnit. Think Princess Di and old Ken Doddy…”

“Er, no,” I interrupted, “You’re confusing Dodi Fayed with Ken Dodd the English comedian.”

“Strewth, you’re right,” said Call Me Cynical, “One had way too much hair and teeth and was British and the other had way too much money, a good suntan and there weren’t nothin’ English about him at all. OK, I stand corrected. Now, where was I? Right, think of his nationality, think of his colour, think of the alleged reaction of the Royal Family, think of how this ‘acquaintance’” ~ he said this last word slowly and with a certain emphasis ~ “compromised the Royals and then think of the reaction of the press? Got it? Well, there you are my son: no wonder when you think ‘arry and Mugup …”

“Meghan,” I corrected him.

“Who” he floundered, “Meghan mugged Harry?”

We seemed to have jumped a little here and were swinging about aimlessly.

“Listen Tarzan,” I retorted, Cynical was a large lad, “what’s this got to do with …”

“Turn those bloody drums off! Sorry,” Cynical resumed, “I shouldn’t have bought my boy those, the neighbours are terrified! Do you read Shakeshaft?”

It took me a moment. “You mean Shakespeare?”

“Stop throwing that thing about! Sorry,” Cynical apologised again, “I brought the lad a spear for Christmas, and he will keep chuckin’ it abart. I told him, it’s a wall-angar!”

I wondered if his ‘lad’ understood him.

“The reason that I asked whether you read Shakespier is that if you do you would get to understand why you are suffering from a bout of the déjà vus.”

Now, Cynical was beginning to sound like my doctor.

“There’s a lot of Machiavellian stuff in Shakespier …” he continued.

At least he had got the Machiavellian right.

“… and there’s a lot of Machiavellian stuff goin’ down ‘ere with ‘arrold and Megoff. Call me cynical, but Harry ain’t your proper Royal, is he? I mean look at him. His old mum, gord bless her, she weren’t no proper Royal either. Neither of them could hack it! High society, the rigours of Royal life ~ you know what I mean, opening garden fetes in Surrey and what ‘ave yu; ‘arry just weren’t cut out for it. He’s more yu stay at home with his PlayStation type. I imagine that the nearest he got to being Royal was wearing a pair of monogrammed jim jams. Did I say that right?”

“Monogrammed?”

“No, jim jams ~ you wally! And did you ever take a good look at ‘arry’s shoulder.”

“Not really, I …”

“Well had yu dun, you would ‘ave seen a chip the size of Harrod’s! The question is was ‘arry waiting, brooding, biding ‘is time ~ waiting for the moment when he could get the Royal Family’s leg up, as payback for the shabby way he believed his mother had been treated and was Meghim that moment?

“I mean, if anyone knows ‘arry’s weaknesses it stands to reason it would be ‘er, and she would also know that once she’d got him by the …”

“Niagaras,” I proffered, politely.

“Yeh, that’s them. They would be in and out …”

“Steady!”

“ … in and out of the Royal Family faster than you can shout ‘yo-yo’. Now, it don’t take a university degree in common sense …”

“Good,” I thought.

“… to skip onto the next hopscotch square, if your British, and the next small boat in France if you’re not, to work out the rest of the plot. Harry meets Meghan, is seduced by her sparkles, next thing you know it’s the old horse and carriage, feet under Windsor Castle’s dining table, up comes the winging and next they are doin’ a bunk. Give it a month or two and then comes a touch of the Kinks …”

“Sorry, you’ve lost me,” I interjected.

“… you know, the Kink’s ~ the lyrics, ‘tellin’ tales of drunkenness and cruelty’, moaning on about the Royal Family, tellin’ tales out of school, making themselves out to be victims … victims with a capital ‘P’.

“Don’t you mean ‘V’?”

“No, I mean victims with a capital ‘P’ for Publicity.

“Call me Cynical, but the liberal-lefty press loves this sort of thing, because once the race card has been played, they can follow suite, stirrin’ up more division with loadsa articles and programmes on the telly about discrimination and all the usual old guff that most of the UK population don’t listen to anymore.”

“So, where will it all end?”

“It won’t end ‘appilly for ‘arry, and that is a fact! The public might be thick, or they might be overly sensitive, but the media will, and are, finding it difficult to pull the same scam twice. Oh, the liberal-lefty media will make much out of it, they always do, and they will use words like ‘Outrage’ in their headlines and exaggerate the number of Brits that see the world as they tar it, but they’ve got off to a bad start anyway. Ninety percent of comments at the end of online articles and from Arsebook users show that ‘arry and his paramount haven’t got half as much of the sympathy vote as Di got, and most people are glad to see the back of them.”

“And you?”

“Well, I don’t much mind seeing the front of Sparkle, but call me cynical, what goes around comes around. In my mind, the discriminated duo is pullin’ a fast one and like any drag-racing fan will tell you, once the flames and thunder have died away all that is left is the skidmarks!”

“Last word?”

“Underpants! Tell ‘arry to buy some soon. He’s goin’ to need them on this roller coaster ride”

Call Me Cynical pauses.

“At least they won’t be on the tax-payers money!”

Edifying links:
Coronavirus Truth or Trickery, Trick or Treat
Talking Wollocks!
Tracking World Vaccination with the Prickometer
So Frightened of Priti Patel

Running out of kitchen cabinets in the UK

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 365 [14 March 2021]
Anniversary of self-isolating in Kaliningrad

Congratulations to who, exactly? To WHO? Today marks my first anniversary of self-imposed self-isolation ~ of sorts. Three hundred and sixty-five days of watching where I go and who is standing three hundred and sixty degrees front, sides and back of me. Have I passed the test? And, if so, for whom and for what? And what should my reward be? A diploma in philanthropic consideration for my fellow man (no sexism intended) or a degree with honours in credulous compliance. Let History be my judge! And, of course, be yours as well!

Quite frankly, apart from this milestone, there is not a great deal to report about coronavirus here in Kaliningrad, Russia, certainly not about lockdown as there isn’t one. Everything in Kaliningrad appears to be functioning as normal and the only concession that I can see to coronavirus is the mask-wearing thing. And even then, I have noticed that the percentage of people wearing muzzles, as my wife refers to them, has diminished in the past few weeks.

A mask-wearing enforcement policy continues to operate on public transport, as I witnessed a couple of days ago, when a thoroughly inebriated fellow, who had been celebrating International Women’s Day (no gender discrimination here in Russia!), refused to put on his mask whilst travelling by bus. The young bus conductor did his level best to prosecute the law thanklessly handed down to him, but vodka is a wily opponent and the recalcitrant drunk would eventually fall off at the stop of his choice, still maskless but no less gracious, for even in his triumph of the common man over authority he chose not to stick up an offensive finger but holding up two thumbs saluted International Women’s Day as the bus full of masks roared off.

Running out of kitchen cabinets in the UK

Whilst almost everybody that I have spoken to here in Russia are of one mind: they consider lockdown to be a step too far, I cannot help but feel that Western governments do not approve. Not that anybody here cares a fig about them, but it is a point of interest that whatever the West prescribes the presumption is that the world should follow, even if its example runs counter to the common good. But that is the way that global liberalism works: in their language it is ‘intervention’ but you naughty cynics might want to refer to it as globalist interference. In the UK, it is not enough to say, “We don’t do lockdown!” because you have no choice. And even were you to add, “because there is no real proof that lockdown really works, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it does more harm than good”, you still do lockdown because this, presumably, is the democratic way?

It is the epitome of irony that given the official mortality figures for coronavirus in the UK, lockdown has become, at least for liberals, not just a law but a religion ~ Woe betide anybody who questions its logic or the controversial efficacy of sticking a piece of cloth on your face.

Western authorities are sensitive to the fact that many of the methods chosen to combat coronavirus have no empirical evidence with which to back them up, which accounts for their pique when other countries try different approaches that are no less effective than their draconian measures and arguably equal or better.

Thus, we find in the world’s press recently an unsavoury little piece in which it is claimed that the coronavirus situation here in Kaliningrad is far in excess of what it is claimed to be.

The article to which I refer was published by a media enterprise which checks out on mediabiasfactcheck as ‘Left’:

“These media sources are moderately to strongly biased toward liberal causes through story selection and/or political affiliation. They may utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes), publish misleading reports and omit reporting of information that may damage liberal causes. Some sources in this category may be untrustworthy.”

This is the same media source which suppressed information about the coronavirus situation becoming so appalling in the UK that the Co-op was running short of coffins.

I can report that I have been in touch with one of my brothers, who is a carpenter and cabinet maker by trade, and he has verified this shortage. Apparently, a UK government department asked him to convert the fitted kitchens, which he has been making in his living room, into caskets. Lockdown prohibits him from using his workshop so he has to work from home, and anyway because of lockdown no one has jobs and cannot afford to buy kitchens. As he has not sold anything for 12 months, he is only too keen to comply, but I am yet to be convinced that a send-off in a converted kitchen cupboard made from MDF complete with plastic handles will ever catch on. No doubt we shall hear more in due course from the reliable leftist media source that I mention in this article. (I have withheld the name of the media outlet so as to protect the gullible.)

These are the coronavirus case figures for Kaliningrad, 14 March 2021, since the beginning of the pandemic*:
29,294 cases of coronavirus identified in the region
26,863 people have recovered
328 deaths.

*Source: https://kgd.ru/news/society/item/94160-za-sutki-v-kaliningradskoj-oblasti-ot-koronavirusa-umerli-pyat-pacientov [accessed 14 March 2021]

Feature image attribution: Lynn Greyling. https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=84918&picture=cupboard-with-old-iron-amp-kettles

Tracking World Vaccination with the Prickometer

Sorting the Pricks from the Prickless

Preamble

An ex-colleague of mine, whom I have not heard from since his wife became a diversity manager, submitted this essay to me, ‘Tracking World Vaccination with the Prickometer, saying, “I think you should put this on your blog.” At first, I thought it might be something from The Guardian, so naturally I ignored it. But curiosity, not being the sole province of our cat, Ginger, mugged and got the better of me. Two paragraphs in and I was thinking, “Hmmm, this is rum stuff.” So, I did what I always do in times of trouble (they would make good lyrics for a song), I contacted my old friend Lord Wollocks.

“Ha!” he snorted, having read it in less time than it takes to enter Britain illegally, “You know what you can do with this …”

“Wollocks!” I reproved.

“Put it on your blog,” he continued. “Heaven knows, I, and most of my class, come from a long line of pricks. Take my second cousin, The Duke of Megan Merkel, at last removed …”

I got the point. At that moment, our next-door neighbour’s boy, Little Tommy Goodsense, who had been eagerly listening to my conversation from behind the Truth, chipped in, “Mr Rart …”

He’s got a bit of a lisp, bless him, and cannot pronounce his ‘Hs’. When he says WHO, he usually says ‘WO!’ ~ he’s an intelligent child.

“Mr Rart. If it says ‘Freedom of Speech’ on the can, then it should do as it says. Just because they say that Freedom should wear a muzzle does not mean that Covid masks really work.”

“They, Tommy, Who are They?”

But before he could answer, Tommy had seen the light and had quickly emigrated, taking his Noddy books with him.

I realised, of course, what it was that my ex-colleague was getting at in writing and sending me this post. He knew that I was contemplating having it done to me later this year. He knew, in other words, that I was a potential prick, and like the British education system he was out to take advantage of me.

“I’ll show him!” I thought. “I’ll post his manifesto and let that be a lesson to him!”

Tracking World Vaccination with the Prickometer: Chapter (& Verse)

The race to see which country would develop the vaccine first is over; now it is the race to see how many will get the prick in each country and which country can claim that theirs is the first to be full of pricks.

Dr Force-It, whose name is synonymous with prick, vows that all Americans will be pricks by the summer of 2021 and mumbled something about ‘open season on something’, which will make anti-vaxxers think twice before bending over indiscriminately. If all goes according to plan (but whose plan is it?), even if some Americans do insist on remaining prick-free, herd immunity could be achieved by late summer: ‘baa, baa’.

Tracking World Vaccination with the Prickometer

In order for us to understand how well their plan is working, we are indebted to Big Pharma for providing us with the world’s first Prickometer, a cunning tracking device sponsored by the NWO (New World Order), which will please some and confirm the suspicions of others. Already the Prickometer shows that in most European countries pro-pricks are on course for a majority, but what does this mean for the prick-resistors?

Some of us flew to the UK to find out, where we were forced to stay in hotels for two weeks costing us almost two thousand quid a person or be promptly sent to prison. The rest of us travelled by small boats and inflatable dinghies across the English Channel, were bussed to five-star hotels, and each offered a free prick along with British citizenship. We turned the latter down on the grounds that it might affect our benefits.

Whilst we discovered that the Prickometer was a useful tool for persuading the majority to continue to be the majority, its big carrot has been let down by its even bigger stick, which, although it rhymes with prick, is seen by some as a back-passage way of enforcing mandatory pricks. We refer here to the controversial Prick Passports, which Hatty Mancock has refused to rule out, but which prick-resistors feel will soon be used to shaft them.

But what does this mean exactly for society at large, or rather, before total lockdown, the society that used to be at large?

It means that pricks with Prick Passports will be allowed to roam the globe at will (no change there then!) whilst conspiracy theorists and those without a prick will have to content themselves with sneaking out in the dead of night for illicit trips to Skegness or bumming around in Brighton.

Opponents to the scheme worry that once Prick Passports are introduced, it will pave the way for including them for pubs, clubs, restaurants, museums, art galleries, various regions of the UK and hopefully McBidens, in which case the best that prick-resistors can hope for will be to sit at home doing distance holidays on the liberal-left censored internet.

Whilst some are determined to avoid a prick at any cost, others are crying out for one. Take this woman from Scunthorpe (she wished someone would) Mrs Northgob, who having received her first prick free, courtesy of Big Farmer (blast Gates and his spell checker!) went on to equip herself with several different identities: she just could not get enough pricks! And can you blame her? With so many to choose from, Big Pharma has ensured that one-size-fits-all is simply not an option.

But sailoring is not as plain as first it might appear.

A spokes-it for the UK Outrage Industry claims that every ethnic minority no longer under the sun, because they are all living in Britain, are victims of prick discrimination. They are disproportionately short on pricks.

“Give them an inch and they’ll take a yard,” sneered someone who was feeling particularly inadequate ~ he was waiting for Labour to make a come-back.

Leroy, currently doing a 10-inch stretch for procuring illegal pricks, said that it was simply a case of supply and demand, m’lud, and if white bois won’t help white chicks, it might be a dirty job, but someone had to do it!

An International Commission of Inquiry, costing the tax-payer millions, has been convened to look into allegations that the ‘Parades R Us’ community were short of pricks, hadn’t had a prick in months, wouldn’t know what a prick was even if it was offered to them, had had more than their fair share of pricks or could not decide whether they wanted one or not.

Alice Quimby, spokes-something or other for the dating agency Snatch, said that she was personally chuffed that none of her members were prick-oriented. She boasted that they had it licked, the system, that is, and then, just before she got the hump, she adjusted her strap-on ~ seatbelt ~ and before driving off on speed added that her friend Dilis de’ Doe had summed it up in a nuthouse when she said the whole world had gone arse about face.

Terry Twinky, owner of Tinker Tailors the Men’s Infitters (Alterations Made, Shirts Lifted), took umbridge at our suggestion that some of his lads considered themselves above pricks, whilst others in his sister company, sometimes referred to as his sissies’ company, Fudge Packers UK, downed tools and aprons at the mere mention of having a prick.

“I’ll have you know,” he hissed, “that my members have bent over backwards to meet the demands of this government and what have we got for it? Nothing! It was never like this when Jeremy Thorpe was in power!” Upon which, telling us in no uncertain terms that he would not bandy his wotsits and mince his words with us, he turned the other cheek, and walked away like the words he would not say.

Meanwhile on the streets of London, there have not been riots. According to the Indefensible, peaceful pro-prickers who were simply having a nice day out showing off the new banners they had made whilst living with their mums and claiming benefits, had been provoked by right-wing statues and anything vaguely phallus-like. Heckled by Far Right, White Supremacist, Nazis, disguised as two old ladies chanting ‘No more Pricks’, and then sighing loudly, the largely peaceful protest descended into a mild anti-Christ of all riots, about which Theresa May later opined it was ‘highly likely that the Russians dun it’.

Nelson (certainly not Persondella) was the first to get it in the neck ~ or somewhere.

An innocent bystander, who was later jailed for 5 years because it was discovered that he had once voted UKIP, said that he was “horrified”. “One minute, Nelson had been up there, proud and erect on his column, and the next he was sent crashing to the ground. In the ensuing impact, Nelson’s coat tails whipped up and what happened next was just too shocking to report … “

A man named Hardy (I think that’s how you spell it?), said “It Woke mine up!” He is now helping police with their inquiries ~ into people saying mean things on Twitter whilst terrorists roam the streets.

The only other witness, Churchill’s statue, was unavailable for comment since he had been boxed up and moved for his own protection and what had replaced him hadn’t got the intelligence to understand the question.

It was reported in The Gonadstan that the suggestion that the extreme left group Anti-Prick had fomented the violence was baseless, not least because the British establishment, which most likely funds and supports it, denies its very existence. The Gonadstan went on to say that pro-prick supporters had been provoked by something which Nigel Farage was doing, which was sitting outside a public house drinking a pint of beer whilst wearing his tweed cap, looking far too British for his own good and anyone up from Dover.

The British government, its well-paid advisers and members of the shadowy government, unassisted by the House of Frauds, immediately did one: they consulted the Prickometer.

But can the Prickometer help? The answer is no. There is little chance that Nigel Farage will suddenly vote liberal.

So, what does the Prickometer tell us? Well, the Prickometer tells us how many pricks there are per 100 population, the total number of pricks in any one country, the percentage of population that has had at least one prick and those that enjoyed it so much that they have gone back for another and then changed their Facebook avatar to something under a rainbow and had an orgasm. In short, the Prickometer is a reliable source of which countries are swallowing the official coronavirus narrative and which countries are a head ~ according to our expert Dick ~ of other countries in boasting more pricks than others.

In short, the Prickometer tells us that never before in the history of the world have there been so many pricks.