Архив автора: Captain Codpiece

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.

“Never before in the history of the world has so many pricks been administered by the machinations of the few” ~ Sir Wokeston Chapelhill

WHO SAID THAT!!! DOWN WITH HIS … STATUE!

Note: We have had to substitute ‘prick’ for ‘jab’ as ‘jab’ is the registered trademark of World Exploitation Inc.

Something for the World’s End, Sir!
UK Lockdown New Board Game
Exit Strategy Board Game
Clueless World Health Game

Image credit: Blidfolded dart player:
Openclipart
https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Blindfolded-darts-player/68889.html

Image credit: Shoe banging tantrum
http://clipart-library.com/clipart/362082.htm

Russia Pays Tribute to its Men

Say it with shaving cream …

Published: 23 February 2021

Most of you will know about International Women’s Day. It is the day in the UK when feminists, The Guardian and The Independent celebrate feminism and in Russia femininity, but how many of you know about Men’s Day?

Russia Pays Tribute to its Men

Men’s’ Day in Russia is actually called Army Day. It began life as the Defenders of the Fatherland Day and, as the title suggests, was reserved for those who served in the military but has now been extended to incorporate all members of the male sex.

And today, 23^rd February 2021 is that day: a day on which all Russian men will be looking forward with unalloyed joy to receiving the traditional Army Day gifts: socks, shaving cream and aftershave.

Apparently, the gift policy has become so predictable that it is rumoured that Russian men have renamed the day ‘The All-Russian Day of Shaving Cream’ and some have even formed a pre-emptive coalition, stocking up in advance on socks, shaving cream and aftershave in the hope that their wives or girlfriends will get the message and present them with something quite unexpected.

Perhaps I can help them.

Russia Pays Tribute to its Men

Not many people know that I was once in the Russian military, although, as the photograph shows, it was some time ago.

Nevertheless, working on the premise that ‘when in Rome …’, and having made sure that I had enough shaving cream and aftershave to sink a US aircraft carrier, I took the precaution of purchasing not just one pair, but two pairs of thick woolen handmade socks from my local babushka. Now, I thought, let’s see wifey how inventive you can be.

Result?

It’s enough to make the nation jealous: How many Russian men can say that they are a proud owner of a masculine blue towel monogrammed with a Russian tank and flag?

The temptation to sit down tonight wearing nothing else but my blue towel whilst drinking home-made vodka with a polar meeshka may be too seductive for me to resist and far too much for my wife to bear (pun intended).

I think I can safely say that next year, it will be back to the socks and shaving cream.

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Moving to Russia from the UK

Why I left the UK and moved to Kaliningrad

Published: 20 February 2021

I was sitting in the office of our antique shop. It was a bright, sunny afternoon one Saturday in June. A couple whom we knew as being members of the 1940s’ crowd had just parked their 1935 vehicle on the small forecourt out front. I greeted them as they entered the shop, and they said to me, in a disappointed tone, “We have just heard that the shop is closing; that you are selling up and moving.”

I replied in the affirmative.

After saying how much they would miss the shop and us (which was nice of them), they enquired where I was moving to. Over the past six months I had become an expert at answering this question. Turning away to place an advertisement on the shop’s ad board, I casually replied, “Russia.”

Nine times out of ten, on hearing this, the astounded party would cry: “Russia!”. And some even fell back a few paces, as if thrown from the bombshell I had just dropped.

On this occasion I was deprived of my fun, as the people concerned turned out to be the one in ten: they expressed no astonishment on learning that I was planning to leave ‘our wonderful democracy’, in fact they empathised with me, sounding envious that I was ‘getting out whilst I can’, and saying “we don’t blame you” and “we would like to do the same.”

Mick Hart & Olga Hart in their Vintage & Antiques Emporium — **Mick Hart & Olga Hart in the Vintage & Antiques Emporium**

But I did not decide to leave the UK and give up the country where I was born and everything I had ever known simply because it would furnish me with a first-class opportunity to laugh at the way the UK media brainwashes people.

It is true that my wife is Russian, and some people when apprised of this fact took it for granted that this is why I wanted to move to Russia, the logic being that had my wife been Martian I would want to move to Mars or, even more irrational, had my wife come from Wisbech I would want to move to the Fens. She hadn’t, and I didn’t, and I wouldn’t. Would you?

There was, of course, a bit more to it than that.

Moving to Russia from the UK

My wife, Olga, moved to England in 2001. In Russia she had been a qualified teacher of English with 10 years’ teaching experience, but as we know, or are led to believe, educational standards in the UK are far superior than those in any other country, so her qualifications and teaching experience was immediately rendered null and void.

Being a worker not a shirker, within two days of arriving in England, Olga set out to find gainful employment, no matter what it was, and after a couple of weeks managed to obtain the envious position of waitress at d’Parys Hotel in Bedford. Not bad, we thought: from qualified teacher with 10 years’ experience to table servant in two weeks: Welcome to the UK!

Nevertheless, it was a job — a thankless job. No sooner had she started than she fell foul of a bossy young lady with a rank inferiority complex and seriously challenged people skills, whom I would eventually christen ‘Fat Arse’ ~ for reasons that would be quite apparent to you had you been acquainted with her ~ and by extension (heaven forbid!) d’Parys then became known to us and our close circle of friends as DeFatties.

Incidentally, this rebranding of the hotel almost caught us out when my seven-year-old stepson, who liked to be taken to d’Parys for chicken nuggets and chips, blurted out one Sunday afternoon, “I like it here in DeFatties!!”

“DeFatties?” asked Olga’s bemused manager.

“Er yes,”I quickly replied, “Daniel calls it that because I always say that we are off to d’Parys for chicken nuggets and fatty fries, instead of saying chips, and although he’s doing well with his English, he does tend to confuse his words a little.”

But I digress.

During this period of her induction into the side of British life which immigrants rarely anticipate, Olga did manage to find temporary work with an agency that needed tutors with foreign language skills to act as a guide and mentor for overseas students. She juggled both jobs and eventually migrated her waitress skills to what was then d’Parys’ sister enterprise, The Embankment Hotel in Bedford.

The Embankment Hotel, Bedford, UK (December 2019)

Whilst labouring here, in addition to working towards her UK Citizenship ‘exams’, she was also studying for a postgraduate degree at Luton University, and in the meantime landed her first education post in the UK as an advisory teacher for EMASS (Ethnic Minority Achievement Support Service).

This meant that she would have to give up her job in the hotel trade, an outcome which my stepson Daniel heartily disapproved of. His mother becoming a ‘teacher’ was a definite step down from hotel waitressing, with its chicken nuggets, fatty fries and often free ice cream.

Although the EMASS job was a demanding one, Olga enjoyed it. As she said later, she felt as if she was actually doing some good and although it was not that well paid, most importantly, she liked the staff and got on well with her boss.

It was about this time, as Olga passed her QTS (Qualified Teaching Status) exams, that I asked her, whilst she still had chance to change her mind, was being a full-time teacher really what she wanted? I had visited a couple of schools in Kaliningrad, Russia: once to collect Daniel from primary school and, on another occasion, to pick up some documents from the Russian equivalent of a UK comprehensive. On both visits I had been struck by how well behaved and polite the children and students were and how attentive and orderly they were in class compared to their British counterparts.

I was not without experience of what British schools were like. I had a near brush with school culture when I left university. Not having the faintest idea of what I wanted to do in life, I fell prey to what in those days was standard career’s advice, which was to dragoon you into teaching. Reluctantly, I went through the motions, which included three-days’ ‘teaching observation’ at a school of one’s choice ~ I chose The Ferrers School, in Higham Ferrers, Northants*.

This brief introduction was enough to convince me that by not pursuing it further I would escape a career worse than death, and that, remember, was back in the 80s, when although British schools and life in Britain generally was all going terribly wrong at least it had not gone so utterly wrong as to be irredeemable.

But, in spite of all my remonstrations to the opposite, Olga ignored my pleas, held her course and set sail into the Poe-like maelstrom of UK education, reasoning that this was her job, this is what she had been trained for and this is what she wanted to do. Besides, she enjoyed teaching and enjoyed being a teacher.

UK schools like Poe's Maelstrom — Illustration for Edgar Allan Poes’ A Descent into the Maelstrom by Harry Clarke
(Attribution: Harry Clarke, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Soon after qualifying she landed a job at the now no-longer-in-existence Harrowden Middle School, Bedford, and soon after that she stopped enjoying teaching and stopped enjoying being a teacher. This was the UK: being a teacher in the UK was nothing like being a teacher back home in her native country, Russia.

There are so many accounts that I could narrate to you about my wife’s experiences as a teacher in the UK, but I will leave that for a later post. Suffice it to say, it was every bit as bad as I had described it and worse, and it was no coincidence that the first school at which she worked, Harrowden, soon earnt itself the sobriquet of ‘Harrowing’.

If you are familiar to any degree with the UK education system you will not consider it to radical of me to say that UK schools and universities are little more than political indoctrination factories. The educational equivalent of ‘from the cradle to the grave’, but in this instance from primary school to university, the principal function of the education system is to inculcate, without fear of question or second thought, the dubious doctrines of so-called liberal progressiveness, particularly with regard to socially engineered and politically correct enforced multiculturalism and, in more recent years, gender engineering.

PC brainwashing in the UK ~ why Moving to Russia from the UK was a good idea

This, let us refer to it as political paedophilia, filters down from the top, through the career school heads and the ultra-left liberal staff to be consolidated by the biased nature of the texts and writers studied and reinforced by a daily helping of liberal-leftism from the BBC.

At the time that Olga was teaching, the BBC was head-over-orgasm in a tawdry sycophantic fantasy with Barack Obama, pulling out all the stops to cast him in the unlikely role of the Patron Saint of Democracy. When he was ousted in 2017, Trump was immediately framed as Bogeyman Number Two, just behind Vladimir Putin. Although Olga was unwilling to take an active part in this political grooming of youth ~ and refused to point blank ~ she had to endure considerable bullying before her case was heard, viz that she was there to teach English not enforce political views and corrupt the minds of the young.

Be careful whose sweeties they are and who you accept them from!

There are many other problems associated with working as a teacher in the UK, such as inflated bureaucracy, unnecessary paperwork, unpaid overtime etc, but these ills are universal to a good many other jobs and professions. However, one that is exclusive to teaching, and which stems from the same invasive fungus root of ‘liberal progressiveness’, is the continual round of daily abuse that teachers have to contend with both from feral pupils and their belligerent parents.

Every single day in my building, there are egregious acts of student misconduct going unchecked. Teachers are losing hope that things will ever get better, and we are tired. We are expected to be therapists, social workers, substitute parents, punching bags, and outlets for student rage and verbal abuse. Teaching is only a small percentage of what we do anymore.
Extract from Letter from Teacher – Dear JCPS

Once again, I do not intend to expatiate on this here but will leave that subject for a later and more detailed post on the parlous state of the UK’s education system, in which I shall provide specific examples of incidents that my wife experienced whilst teaching.

After 20 years on the frontline of Britain’s schools, my wife had had enough. It was time to call it a day ~ get out. In many ways, this was a great pity, as teaching had been her life. In the UK, in addition to her teaching qualification, she attended and successfully completed many professional development courses and received numerous compliments and accolades from the heads of the institutions in which she had taught, from members of the teaching staff and also from pupils.

Mrs Hart thank you for being a fabulous teacher. Englishman in Kaliningrad. — **The rewarding element of teaching ~ so sad that UK’s schools are the victim of a pernicious ideology**

Throughout her career, she had seen many teachers come and go, both long serving and new: some who had been ‘dreaming of escape’ for years and just could not take it anymore; others, fresh from college, who lasted less than a week before making the brave but timely decision to embark on a different career.

As if an Orwellian education system, lunatic skewed political correctness and state-sponsored delinquency was not enough, another baptism of western malfeasance awaited my wife.

In the time that she had been resident in England there had been several anti-Russian campaigns prosecuted in the extreme by the UK’s media, but in her last three years of living there the establishment and its media’s attempts to trash all things Russian and stir up rampant Russophobia had gone into overdrive, having obviously been prioritised by those who control our governments.

It was no coincidence then, and it is no coincidence now, that the anti-Russian Blitzkrieg had been launched at a time when both the British and American public’s trust in the neoliberal way had resoundingly hit the skids. The last thing that an imploding democracy needs is its 5-year cross-tickers looking elsewhere for the national, traditional values that no longer exist in their own back yard. And UK politicians would do well to remember that making history is a considerably less stable proposition than valuing and celebrating history, not to mention rewriting it or simply giving it away.

Moving to Russia from the UK to escape political correctness

At last, incensed by the liberal propaganda machine and suffocating political correctness, Olga broached the subject to me of getting out ~ of leaving the country.

So, did I agree to go just because I am a fine husband and devoted to my wife? It would be so easy at this point to say yes, and by doing so pedestal myself as a martyr to feelings other than my own, but the truth is that it took almost three years before I, too, decided that I had had enough of the liberal canker that was so malevolently blighting the land that I loved. English born and bred, a legacy Briton with roots ~ my grandmother’s brother fought and died for his country in the First World War; my two uncles also fought in the Second World War, and my father’s brother, who was a Major in the Second World War, was awarded the Military Cross (M.C.) posthumously) ~ it should not have been an easy decision to make, and it wasn’t.

In the interim, whilst I was weighing my decision, I used to joke that the next time I went on holiday to Kaliningrad I would ask for political asylum on the grounds that I could no longer live under the oppressive liberal yoke: open borders, anti-social behaviour, ethnic-linked but never officially admitted-to crimes, increased internet censorship, and all the other politically correct baggage ~ the petty, ridiculous, meaningless stuff that is blown out of all proportion and which saturates our daily life, such as should we have a female Dr Who? how many women are there in the UK’s board rooms? not enough black actors on television, should same sex couples be allowed to adopt children, LGBT issues, gender issues, race issues and aarrrrggghhh!!

And then comes Brexit, with its liberal-motivated back-stabbing, double dealing, wriggling, writhing shiftiness and utter contempt for democracy — the liberal leavers screaming (and don’t they just!) that we must have a ‘people’s vote’ in the name of democracy when by the democratic process that is exactly what we had, it was called a referendum. (Apropos of this, it amused me recently to see the headline in one of the UK’s extreme left newspapers which claimed that if Trump was not impeached it would be a ‘threat to democracy’. Talk about ironic!)

Even though Democracy ~ battered, bloody, tarnished, sullied, bribed, threatened and subjected to all manner of shameful legal illegalities ~ would eventually break free from its criminal leave abductors, thanks primarily to Nigel Farage, by now my mind was made up. We were sailing on a cultural Titanic. It was time to leave the sinking ship

There were some who asked, “Why not got to Spain?” and “Why not go to France”. I suspect my reply was somewhat too obtuse for them: “The EU ~ NGOs ~ Merkel”.

And now, when fellow Brits ask me ‘do I like living in Russia?’ I play their game. Knowing what they want to hear, I reply, in a suitably pained tone: “Why did I do it …?” And as a triumphant smile begins to dawn on their faces, before they can say I told you so I quickly conclude my statement with, “ … leave it so long, I mean. I should have moved ten years’ ago!”

Next (when I have time to write in between beers) ‘What I like about life in Kaliningrad’

I found time: What I like about Kaliningrad!

**All you need is a a way-back machine to be proud to live in Britain again!**

*Note: My school observation took place in the 1980s, so I am not qualified to comment on The Ferrers School today.

Image attributions:
Brainwash tap:
https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Danger—brainwashing/71010.html
Ghoul with sweeties bag:
http://clipart-library.com/img/1687772.png
No to political correctness:
Wikipedista DeeMusil, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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