Архив рубрики: Kaliningrad: Mick Hart’s Diary

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.

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

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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Russia aims for pre-Covid Near Normality

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 333 [10 February 2021]
or Russia’s Near Normal vs the West’s New Normal

Published: 10 February 2021 ~ Russia aims for pre-Covid Near Normality

There are a few weeks to go yet before I can legitimately celebrate my first Covid self-isolation anniversary, but as that peculiar milestone approaches there are other positives that merit raising a glass or two.

Top of the pops must be the worldwide thumbs up for Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine. Following news of its approval by one of the UK’s most prestigious medical journals, the Lancet, begrudgingly the West’s media has been forced to concede that Sputnik V flew first past the finishing post in their international vaccine race, proving against all odds that the classic adage ‘who dares wins’ is still the winning formula.

The ‘bugger, we got it wrong’ factor is almost palpable in hindsight, as the great bastions (I think that’s the right word?) of the neoliberal press twist and turn within themselves to corkscrew a last derogative spin out of what remains of their discredited cynicism, and inevitably in the process come away from it all looking and sounding rather mardy.

With the EU let down somewhat embarrassingly by a vaccine supply bottleneck and other problems with its two main vaccines, one developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, and another by Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech, let’s hope that neoliberal globalist politics will not get in the way should Angela Merkel’s welcome mat need to be rolled out quickly for Sputnik V. After all, the international nature of a pandemic requires international co-operation.

Pre-Covid Near Normality

Another reason for celebration, but one tempered by caution and common sense, is the understanding that daily coronavirus cases in Russia are down 50 per cent from their peak in mid-December 2020*. With infection numbers said to be travelling in the right direction, downwards, it would appear that in some parts of the country steps are being taken to relax coronavirus restrictions*, a move which represents an entirely different approach to the ‘no light at the end of the tunnel’ endless lockdown scenarios with which my family, friends and the rest of the nation are faced in embattled Britain.

In Moscow, limitations on opening times of pubs, restaurants and clubs are due to be removed (I should say so!), and full-time teaching in universities is to be resumed.

Cheering news for those who have been staunch and consistent critics of the efficacy of masking-up is that based on evidence of increasing immunity the days of mandatory face masks might soon be over in Russia. And not before time.

Recently, I was pulled up by a tram conductress ~ one of those large redoubtable babushkas ~ for being maskless on public transport. I had not forgotten to wear my mask, and neither was I making a formal protest; the face towel had simply chosen to leap from my pocket as I was boarding the tram. I did try to improvise by wrapping my scarf around my mush, but this stout defender of rules are rules was not the sort to take prisoners. Fortunately for me, my wife procured a spare mask from her handbag and honour was seen to be done ~ in other words, I narrowly escaped the humiliation of having my maskless arse kicked off the tram.

Had this happened it would have been a grave injustice, as I, for one, have found wearing a mask to be particularly useful recently, possibly not as a hedge against catching coronavirus but most definitely as an effective face glove, as temperatures in Kaliningrad plummet to minus 20. If the weather carries on like this debunking global warming, I will have no choice but to snip off the fur-lined flaps from the sides of my spare ushanka (hat) and attach two bits of elastic to them.

However, whilst we wait for this to happen, here is a quick recap of the latest response to coronavirus as reported in Russian media:

🤞There is hope in the air that soon we might all be enjoying more air as part of nationwide demasking.

🤞As there are no strict lockdowns in Russia, they will not be lifted, but spirits may still be lifted by relaxing what restrictions there are.

🤞Normal service is beginning to be resumed in the nation’s universities and, most importantly, in the bars, clubs and restaurants.

😁Sputnik V gets 10 out of 10 in the International Vaccine Race and quick to criticise critics 10 out of 10 for egg on their face. And doesn’t it serve them right!

*Sources
https://www.rt.com/russia/513951-measures-pandemic-slowly-receding/
https://www.rt.com/russia/514381-face-masks-ban-possible-lift/

Awesome Königsberg Cathedral Organ Concerts

Culture on a cold evening

Published: 8 February 2021 ~ Awesome Königsberg Cathedral Organ Concerts

We recently received a kind invitation to attend an organ concert at Königsberg Cathedral. This was the first time that I had been to a concert there, and I was keen to discover if the sound of the cathedral’s pipe organ was as impressive as it looked.

With temperatures outside falling to as low as -17 degrees, we were surprised, happily surprised, to discover that in spite of the capacious size of the cathedral it was warm and comfortable. For a cathedral that had been reduced to a shell in the Second World War by RAF bombing and subsequently and painstakingly restored, the atmosphere and ambience is superb. Lighting is important in any environment, but particularly so in exhibition and concert halls, and here it cannot be faulted.

The colonnades, sturdy walls and Gothic vaulted ceiling served the acoustics well, the hard surfaces reflecting the quieter notes distinctly and the deeper tones with generous resonance. The organ rolled, rumbled and reverberated, the multiple dense sounds thundering spectacularly from numerous points within the buildings chambers.

I will admit that I am not much of an opera aficionado, but on this occasion I felt that the dulcet tones of the singer complimented and contrasted perfectly with the rich and varied tones of the pipe organ.

At the close of the concert, we chose to walk around the back of the cathedral, past Kant’s tomb. My wife, Olga, rightly commented that here, outside and within the cathedral, you can still feel the spirit of the city of Königsberg.

This was so true, and I felt rather guilty that I had not visited the cathedral more frequently since moving to Kaliningrad.

I confess that since the death of our friend Victor Ryabinin in the summer of 2019, I have been purposefully avoiding the cathedral and the surrounding area. The cathedral and Kneiphof island are only a stone’s throw away from Victor Ryabinin’s former art studio and as such constituted the epicentre of his cultural and historical world. There were so many memories that I did not want to face, and so many more, like this evening’s, which he may once have been a part of but now never will ~ at least in person.

But you cannot hide forever, and I was glad that I had agreed to go to the concert.

Even in the falling temperatures and with noses like beetroots, Olga managed to snap off some photos of the cathedral on a cold winter’s night, which capture the magical quality of the external lighting and how it is used to imaginative effect.

Brrrr: It was time to rattle back home on the number 5 tram and, once indoors, make with the cognac!

Königsberg Cathedral Organ Concerts:
Königsberg Cathedral website: http://sobor39.ru/

Concert details for 6th February 2021

Titular organist of the Cathedral, laureate of international competitions, Mansur Yusupov

Soloist of the Kaliningrad Regional Philharmonic, laureate of international competitions, Anahit Mkrtchyan (soprano)

Music and song featured works from the following composers:

A. Vivaldi
A. Scarlatti
G. F. Handel
J. Pergolesi
J. S. Bach
V. Gomez
M. Lawrence,
A. Babajanyan

It Always Snows in Russia!

… and sometimes it doesn’t

Published: 22 January 2021 ~ It always snows in Russia

Before moving here, whenever I mentioned to a fellow Brit that I was visiting Kaliningrad, I would be asked, “Where’s that?” As soon as I had educated them geographically, among the predictable responses based on prejudice and cliché, an old stalwart was, “Russa! Brrr, it’s cold out there …”

Try as I might to explain to them that since Kaliningrad was the westernmost point of Russia the climate was not that much different to the UK’s, the stock images of frozen rivers, ushanka hats, voluminous fur coats and, of course, snow ~ lots and lots of snow ~ proved impossible to shovel away.

It always snows in Russia!

When I first came to Kaliningrad in winter 2000, there was snow, and lots of it (see Kaliningrad First Impression), and I do recall seeing a tower-mounted digital thermometer somewhere in the city giving a temperature reading of minus 27 degrees. Harbouring the same stereotypical notions of Russia’s salient attributes, this first encounter pleased me no end, providing me with photographic evidence to confirm what Brits had always known, that Russia was cold and that it snowed a lot.

There was more snow to Russify my experience when I travelled to Kaliningrad in 2002. We entered the exclave via Lithuania, where it was also snowing heavily, and the journey by train across the snow-bound wastelands was all that the heart could desire.

This stereotype was to melt away, however, in the winter of 2004. This was the year that a new-found friend of ours looking for adventure and a woman, decided to accompany us on our Christmas trip to Kaliningrad. He knew that it was cold (it’s cold out there in Russia), and his knowledge had been bolstered by the tales that I had told and the photographs that I had shown him. He was excited, and set about preparing himself for Siberia, buying up large stocks of woolies, U.S. military surplus coats and the all-important long johns. His suitcases were fat and heavy.

Who said that it always snows in Russia?

Not disappointed, in the first three days of our arriving in Kaliningrad, the temperature had dropped well below those in the England we had left and, more importantly, there was snow, lots of swirling snow. And then, quiet suddenly, the mercury shot up the thermometer tube, the snow melted, the rain came, and it stayed that way for a month. As I believe I have said before, there is a world of difference between Kaliningrad in the winter rain and Kaliningrad in the snow. Those who live here will know what I mean.

Last year, winter 2019-2020, was like everything else that year, miserable. It was, literally, wishy washy: a winter of muck and puddles.

So, how refreshing this winter to see some snow. It has not been that heavy, but it has been persistent and cold enough for successive falls to settle and to transform the city and regional landscape into a childhood memory of how winters used to be.

Oh, but it’s alright for me, or so my critics tell me. I don’t have to go anywhere. I don’t have to scrape the ice and snow off the car in the morning and then brave the roads on my way to work. On the contrary, I can sit at home, look out of the window and admire the Christmas-card view. And they are right. But I am unrepentant and remain that way. There have to be some advantages in getting starry, and this is one of the few.

Come rain, snow, hail or shine my wife goes out whatever, and this is as it should be. Someone has to do the shopping. And she also has to obtain those much-needed photos for Arsebook, which I can then requisition and use here for my blog.

Russia! It always snow there!

To bring things up to date, for the past several days or more it has been snowing lightly, and today, at the time of writing, it was at it again. Temperatures are low enough to ensure that what comes down stays put; just enough for picturesque, but not enough for concern.

This morning, the scene at the back of the house through the patio door was wonderful. It had snowed quite a lot during the night and the rooftops of the old German houses all had snow on them, some in total, some in places, and the fruit trees had become crystalline, petrified, the smaller branches and twigs very nearly pure white and the trunks and boughs though not completely covered with snow were artistically contrasted by what had collected upon them.

Our pear tree was the most wonderous thing. One side of the trunk was peppered with a white drift of snow and the rest, the smaller branches and twigs, coated into nobly clumps, so that taken as a whole it resembled a giant cauliflower. The rest of the garden had all but disappeared, replaced by a smooth white plateau, except for the Buddha, and he was wearing a snow-white hat in the unmistakeable shape of a British policeman’s helmet. Wherever did he get it from?

Kaliningrad Buddha wearing a snow hat. It always snows in Russia! — No he is not a silly Buddha!

Later, as I was stood in the kitchen making a cup of tea, my eyes caught movement and lots of it through the gap between two houses, which for most of the year is obscured by leaves and foliage. All I could see was different coloured objects darting hither and thither, and then it dawned on me that without the obstructing verdure the small park across the road was visible and what I was witnessing was the congregation of numerous families, mothers with their children, and that the different coloured objects, some zipping across the plateau and others sailing down the banks from every conceivable angle, were children on their sledges.

Children sledging. It always snows in Russia! — **Children on sledges, Kaliningrad, Russia, January 2021**

Olga, who walked through the city centre yesterday, said how delightful it was to see children with their parents playing snowballs and whooshing about on sledges. It was a good old-fashioned traditional family sight, and it reminded her of her youth. It reminded me of mine as well. Whenever there was snow, which became less and less frequent in England as the years rolled by, we children would hammer each other with snowballs. We also had a sledge, a one-of-its-kind made from the light alloy parts of a scrapped Flying Fortress, a B17 bomber, salvaged from Polebrook’s United States’ wartime aerodrome. What happened to this culturally interesting and nowadays valuable item? One of my brothers, with considerably less acumen than myself for the singularity of historical artefacts, deciding that he would clean out one of the family barns after a forty-year hiatus, skipped the sledge and kept the junk. Oh, don’t worry, we take every opportunity to remind him of his folly, in no uncertain terms.

From the kitchen to the living room, looking out of the window at the Konigsberg house opposite that has never had anything done to it at least since perestroika, I noted that the two toilets lying in the back garden ~ where else? ~ had become snow toilets, a rare sight indeed, but not as exclusive or controversial as the giant phallus, complete with two enormous snowballs, that some imaginative and enterprising young men would erect a day or two later somewhere in Kaliningrad.

This made the news, and, of course, Facebook. Personally, we had a bit of fun with this, by which I mean we conducted an experiment. Olga posted the media story to Facebook, and then we sat back ready to compare the different reactions from Russian commentators and those in Britland. As we anticipated, the Russian response was one of condemnation and disgust, whilst the Brits reacted in a flamboyant spirit that ranged from artistic criticism to unbridled glee.

Me? I just felt sorry for the virtue of virgin snow, but I consoled myself with the thought that outside of our circle something like this would never be condoned in the UK for fear that it would offend the delicate sensibilities of feminists, race-grievance wardens and the entire woke community: a giant phallus made of snow! Sexist! Racist!

Snowballs!

Backing Biden Will Not Bring It Back

Joe, Joe, how does your garden grow? With arrogance and bullshit and $$$$$ all in a row (steady on!)

Published: 20 January 2021 ~ Backing Biden Will Not Bring It Back

Today is supposedly a great day for liberals. Joe Biden is about to have his arse officially parked in the White House chair. But against the fanfare of gushing, fulsome headlines yawning on about ‘A New Dawn’, ‘Make America Great Again’ and ‘America is Back’, you can feel the unease exuding.

For most liberals, correction all liberals, Biden is looked upon as the new Obama, which, indeed, he is. To be more precise he is Obama mark II. Apart from colour, the difference between them is negligible, if not invisible. Biden is the same old frontman, there to reinstate, re-enact and recycle all the second-hand directives, programmes and doctrines that Obama left unfinished when he was ousted out of office. He is all that, make no mistake, but he is not the saviour by any means with which the liberal faithful delude themselves.

That neoliberal ship sailed long ago. In America, its passing was marked by the election of Trump; in the UK by Brexit; and in Europe by the fragmentation and ongoing decline of the European Union. Everybody knows this, even the liberals themselves know this. They also know that they have to change course, if only by a healing fraction, but how and in what direction?

They have grown so used to the power of arrogance, so addicted to it, that it has become their master and they its servant. They cannot give it up. They do not know how. They know no other way. It has always driven and steered them, and it drives and steers them now.

This is obvious from the ‘progressive agenda’ that Biden’s bosses working behind the scenes are pushing for him to adopt; the same, if not worse, agenda that brought about the Democrat’s downfall four years previously, and which, if they cannot moderate, will bring them down again.

Backing Biden will not bring it back

Casting Biden as Obama mark II is to raise false hopes and to ignore the inconvenient fact that in the four years that Trump held office the political landscape has changed, and changed irrevocably. Reverse gear is not an option.

But the real problem for liberals is that they simply just don’t get it. This is obvious from the number of articles that keep bubbling to the surface, bursting to know the answer to the enigmatic rise of populism and presuming arrogantly that at some point soon it is simply going to phut away.

This handful of headlines, taken from a random browse of Google UK News, reeks of that delusion.

‘Rising US populism tops risk managers’ fears’

‘Trump goes, but global populism may still grow’

‘After Trump, Is American Democracy Doomed by Populism?’

‘Right-Wing Populism May Be Wounded, But It’s Certainly Not Dead’

‘Sweden’s Identity Crisis and the Rise of the Far Right’

‘What explains support for authoritarian populists in Hungary and Poland?’

The last headline wants to make you both laugh and cry ~ surely liberals cannot be that dense? Can they?

It is not difficult to glean from these headlines that neoliberal globalism is only concerned with power and money (just in case you did not know that). And it is no coincidence that the media outlets that are most concerned with the ‘phenomenon’ that they dub ‘populism’ have a strong economic bias or are specialist financial publications {political bias can be checked using https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/}. During the Brexit debacle, the UK’s liberal mainstream media also weighed heavily in on the economic ramifications, almost to the total exclusion of any societal and cultural concerns. So: civil liberties, forget them; equality, who cares; gender issues, what a laugh; LGBT, BLM, BS (stands for Bullshit). They are the sprats, you are the mackerels.

But take heart, you are still an important mackerel. Even democracies that only exist in name, especially democracies that only exist in name, have parties that need you to vote them in to legitimise democracy and to give them the right to claim that the power that they wield reflects the will of the people ~ at least in theory. Of course, with backing from the right people, the right being the rich and the powerful, that sticky stage could be arguably bypassed and the voting rigged to work in a specific cabal’s interests ~ who said that, Joe?!

The second thing to pick up on from these headlines is the arrogance factor. Such can also be found in article standfirsts or intros. Take these two, for example:

“His [Trump’s] toppling was a setback for global populism, but this political phenomenon may not yet have peaked.”

“The Trump presidency has demonstrated the appeal of populist authoritarianism to many Americans. The way the country responds to the attack on the U.S. Capitol will indicate how long this movement lasts.”

This is the arrogance of which I have already spoken. Liberals from the top to the arse end, just don’t get it that legacy populations have had enough of forced multiculturalism, divide and rule diversity, LGBT this and ‘its’ and ‘others’ that and endless cartloads of pandering PC ‘isms’.

Populism, as they call it, is not a passing phase; it is not a strange ‘phenomenon’; it is not a transient ‘movement’; it was here first; it is the status quo; it is based on the bedrock of history, of respect for and preservation of nation state, sovereignty, heritage and ancestral home, and it is the failure of liberals to accept this, this fundamental truth, that, as sure as Obama never deserved to be given the Nobel Peace Prize, will lead to their demise.

It is this arrogance, or perhaps fear, that makes liberals the western world over act as if time stands still. It is a misconception that has them believe that their finger is on the political pulse when it is actually poised on the self-destruct button.

And yet, somewhere, somehow, in the delusive fog which they have created for everyone else and in which they have lost themselves, they do realise, in a hazy sort of way, that as sure as day follows night and as Biden follows Obama, that if they do not hurry with their impeachment of Trump, the mistakes that Biden will make, which he has to make as Obama’s clone, will surely see history repeat itself.

And yet even if they do succeed in removing the threat of Trump, does that remove the threat? if they can have an Obama mark II what is to stop a Trump mark II? Nothing. Trumpism, as the liberal media have coined it, is not going to go away ~ not anywhere, anyway, soon or ever, and neither is it going to fail, falter or stand still. It is going to grow, both in support and strength, because the soil of arrogance in which it is rooted, that exceptionally fertile soil which Obama & Co provided, is due to receive its biggest consignment of grow-bag bullshit yet. Look, here comes Joe with his wheelbarrow!

Backing Biden will not bring it back

And so today they celebrate the inauguration of old Joe, the Democrat’s Chauncey Gardiner: the red carpet will be laid out, banners will be held aloft, the usual suspects will cheer, the rappers brass band will play and the language of the liberal media will be sweaty with nervous clichés and full of that rich manure to which I have alluded. But even now, before the rank fakery, the razzmatazz and false party atmosphere dies out with the fart of the last champagne cork, from Capitol Hill to Big Ben, Joe looks less and less convincing as the screw that they have chosen to turn on the lid of the populist pressure cooker and more like the final nail in the coffin of the neoliberal globalist dream.

Today is Joe Biden’s inauguration, let him enjoy it.

Tomorrow the world watches and waits for the inevitable mistakes that he will make. Be thankful that he is in office.

More positive remarks about Biden: Is Biden Their Last Straw?

No Lockdown in Kaliningrad Russia

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 310 [18 January 2021]
or Business as Usual

Published: 18 January 2021

There is no lockdown in Kaliningrad, Russia. In fact, I think I am right in saying, and I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong, that there is no lockdown across Russia, and it would be deceitful of me if I did not say that when I see what is happening back home that I breathe a sigh of relief that I left the UK when I did.

I am not talking about the numbers, the figures, the statistics the doom and gloom wreaked by the UK media’s representation of how bad the virus is supposed to be, but about the lack of transparency, unambivalent information and, of course, the notorious punitive measures which no one in authority seems able or willing to say are actually making a difference, apart that is from ruining people’s livelihoods and subjecting many it seems to psychological and emotional duress.

No Lockdown in Kaliningrad, Russia

Here, for better or for worse, things continue to be pretty clear cut. We wear our masks, some of us reluctantly and others with zealous intent, where we are told that we are supposed to wear them ~ some of us ~ and we try to avoid large crowds and crowded places ~ some of us ~ and some of us self-isolate.

Bars, restaurants and shops are predominantly open as usual. Hospitality outlets appear to be implementing a table-distance rule, and some establishments close early. Masks are required inside public places, such as in shops, the working environment and on public transport. Also, when I travelled by train last week from Kaliningrad’s main railway station, I was subjected to an electronic temperature check before passing through the security gates.

I am able to report that among our social circle we know about eight people who have had coronavirus, both here and in the UK, or, to rephrase that for accuracy, have had a seasonal respiratory illness that has been classed as coronavirus, and, I am glad to say, whatever it is they have had, they have had it mild.

So far, I know of no one here, in Kaliningrad, Russia, who has had the vaccine and only my mother, in the UK, who is no spring chicken, and a friend of ours around the same age also in the UK, who have had their first jabs.

No Lockdown in Kaliningrad, Russia

The situation here regarding voluntary take-up of the vaccine, and not just the Russian vaccine but any vaccine, is no different than it was when I wrote about it last month: lots of recalcitrants and one or two wait-and-sees. Me? The jury’s out. My wife? No.

So, for the time being, at least, its Carry On Mask Grumbling and keep on taking the homemade vaccine: a combination of quality beers and vodkas. Come to think of it, I must be about due for my follow-up treatment.

No Lockdown in Kaliningrad Russia: Beer & Face Masks — **TIME FOR YOUR VACCINE!**

Is Big Tech censorship a coronavirus clue?

Is the reaction to coronavirus just another symptom of liberal malaise?

Published: 12 January 2021

I hear tell that Joe Biden is destined to become the fraudulently elected President of the United States. I have also been told to believe that the crowd that gate-crashed Capitol Hill were a ‘mob’, whereas, in a bizarre comparison, Black Lives Matter are peaceful, praise-worthy protestors. There are even pictures to prove it, according to The Guardian and, of course, the BBC.

As intelligent readers you will not have failed to recognise the inequality and discrimination at work in these remarks and thus the tittersome irony.

We are told these things. But what do we believe?

‘DC police made far more arrests at the height of Black Lives Matter protests than during the Capitol clash’ ~ CNN Investigates

‘BLM v Washington DC riots: How were the police responses different?’ ~ BBC

So, Capitol Hill was a ‘riot’; BLM was a ‘generally peaceful protest’.

“Yeah, right …”

Ignoring for the moment that the unfortunate incident at Capitol Hill is being distorted in the most cynical way to cast fresh and potentially provocative aspersions on US law and order (Maxwell Smart: ‘Ahh, the old deflection trick, chief!’), we do know unequivocally that Big Tech unilaterally banned President Trump from Facebook and Twitter. This peculiar, but hardly unexpected, turn of events prompted this response from that bastion of free speach, my personal friend, Lord Wollocks:

“We all know that Facebook and Twitter have been ruthlessly implementing a partisan censorship programme in which anybody who rocks the neoliberal boat is given the big heave-ho. Nobody, not even the ‘useful idiots’, really believe that this ideological deplatforming is anything but censorship, even though it hides behind sanctimonious catchalls like ‘banned for inciting racial hatred’, ‘banned for inciting religious hatred’. As the old saying goes, ‘One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’. And mark my words: Arsebook and Twatter would take that comment down faster than a pair of a trousers on a self-proclaimed man.”

We do know that Black Lives Matter is not banned from social media platforms.

We don’t know what’s happening with coronavirus, or rather the way in which both the British establishment and the ‘sshhh, you suspect who’ State in America is managing it, mismanaging it or even stage managing it? But it is certainly disturbing that the two countries that pride themselves on being the world’s beacons of democracy are pissing on their own wicks, and that fewer and fewer people are inclined to believe that it is an accidental up-wind blowback but rather that what is being done to us is being done deliberately and with malice aforethought.

Certainly, hitherto unprecedented draconian police-state measures enacted in the name of controlling the Covid-19 virus are casting a long, dark shadow over the freedoms and so-called democratic rights of the beleaguered people of these two nations. In the UK, social distancing, muzzle wearing, lockdowns, limitations on the number of people who can mix together, even in their own homes, bring disturbing reports on a daily basis of police who are far too ready to exceed their celebrated policing-by-consent authority, and in some lackaday instances are acting in a brute-force manner not unlike the Stasi (see this video by Nigel Farage Say NO to a Police State).

Is Big Tech censorship a coronavirus clue?

So, we ask ourselves the question, and many people are asking this question? Are these punitive practices all part of a neoliberal globalist plot. Has Trump’s Presidency, Brexit, the imminent disintegration of the EU, all of which are symptoms of an increase in the shift away from liberalism to patriotism, triggered such a shit-fit among the neoliberal political elites that they have been forced to play their hand, to strike when coronavirus is hot! Ahh, the last resort of scoundrels!

Those who subscribe to the theory that the Kalergi Plan is an essential pillar of liberal hegemony, but one which has quite unexpectedly buckled beneath resilient patriotism, may well be of the opinion that as long as Hungry and Poland continue to hold out against intimidation from the Brussels’ mob who want to force them to open the migrant floodgates, dissatisfaction with the Federalist project in Spain, Italy and Denmark and the gathering traction for Frexit, indicates that the game in Europe is almost up. Is this then where the intervention of unbelievable philanthropic billionaires, Big Tech, the media and social control comes in?

**Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi** (image attribution: see end of article)

Now it would be easy for me at this point to force-feed you my opinion, but why resort to mainstream media tactics when opinion on social media, that heaving crust on a hot volcano ready to erupt, offers a far more accurate insight into the mood of the people. I like nothing better than to wassail around on the internet ignoring mainstream media but dipping into it now and then to read the comments of readers. I am also more inclined to go looking for the truth, or the best thing to it, in the journalism provided by independent, alternative media outlets and only resort to Twitter and Facebook in search of those endangered species, the brave few struggling to speak their minds before they are caught in the dragnet of liberal censorship.

For example, here is an interesting comment posted recently on Facebook (Note all quotes from other sources here have been copied verbatim and with no censorship on my part):

‘Over 70 billionaires got together on Trumps inauguration day to determine the future (& to make certain it wouldn’t be trump). They each pay dues of 250 million a year to a Soros organization (he has over 100) They meet annually. They will only get richer & control us more. They are all, every last one of them, in bed with the Democrats. Their goal = power. control, $$$$, and to supplant america with their values, their desires, their economics, their health system, their business methods, banking systems. etc..& put in an overwhelmingly large bureaucratic government that can be transitioned into a global one when they are ready. This sounds like science fiction, or a conspiracy theory, but sadly it is not.’

Read this article, With unilateral censorship of a sitting US president, Big Tech has proven it’s more powerful than any government. Does it lend credence to what has been claimed above?

The following quotes have been taken from the ‘comments’ section of the above article:

‘They [UK/America] allowed socialism and feminism to ruin their society and family values. Now they pay the price.’

‘The big tech is already a branch of the “Shadow Government/Deep state” that has complete control of Congress overall. The big tech social media have been infiltrated by the CIA just like the major corporate news have been for some time now. Read the book “Press-titutes Embedded in the Pay of the CIA”(2019), by Udo Ulfkoette. Stay away from Facebook, Twitter and such. I have never used them. Find other alternatives. We cannot allow freedom to perish. Peace.’

‘Wait till the Democrats pass their ‘hate speech’ laws. Say the wrong thing, you get canceled, lose your job, hell, they may even take your children away from you. That is how insane this is becoming.’

Well, I don’t know about that, but certainly, Big Tech seems to have made one of the biggest blunders of their electronic existence:

‘We will not be SILENCED!’ Trump tweets from official @POTUS account after ban, posts scrubbed within minutes

“We will not be SILENCED! Twitter is not about FREE SPEECH. They are all about promoting a Radical Left platform where some of the most vicious people in the world are allowed to speak freely.” {quote taken from article cited above in which it is attributed to Donald Trump}.

I have the distinct feeling that Trump is not the sort of person to be bullied or censored into submission, and neither are his 75 million US voters. The trouble with ‘push is ‘shove’.

Trump is not for giving in or backing down — *(Image credit: http://clipart-library.com)*

Within this nightmare world of a panic-stricken globalist movement that will stop at nothing to preserve its disintegrating one-world government dream, it is, I admit, most tempting to imagine coronavirus, as imperfect as it is, as an ill-conceived or ad hoc smokescreen, barely functioning for the insidious purpose for which it was invented and inevitably doomed to failure, but nevertheless, for the moment, a powerful force for division, diversion and control, a force that offers a shortcut to the social instability that diversity was meant to procure but which, in spite of the efforts of NGOs and craven complicit governments, has been too long in the making to retain its viability.

The part played by Big Tech in this Orwellian scenario reveals itself in those blocks you get on Facebook when you try to post anything on coronavirus that does not conform to the official narrative and where you are peremptorily redirected to a page that purports to contain the truth. A very fine thing indeed, except that it is their truth ~ or so many of us suspect.

The internet, however, is an unwieldly beast, as its frightened proprietors are beginning to discover, and no matter how these contemporary Citizen Kanes ~ the Mr Zuckerbergs, Sundar Pichais and Jack Dorseys of this world~ attempt to rein it in, it will eventually break away from them, as it is doing now. Truth will always out in the end and when it does comes casualties …

Is Big Tech censorship a coronavirus clue?

Is this a fragment of that truth or not? I found this article which exists in the asteroid belt on the other side of the mainstream media suspicious enough in content for it to raise an eyebrow. It is published in The Daily Expose, a media outlet I must confess with which I am not acquainted, but am somewhat relieved to discover that in spite of its provocative name the temptation has been resisted to choose as its logo a man in a mac.

England – Does official NHS data support the Government’s Dictatorship?

In this video (quick, before they ban it!!), its protagonist, Dr Shiva, who describes himself as a ‘scientist, engineer and educator’ and is summarily dismissed by the mainstream media as ‘a conspiracy theorist’ (he and the other 75% of the West’s population who have been railroaded into this concentrated camp and where the figure is growing exponentially) looks at the bigger picture: the ‘where we are now and what is to be done if we still want to be a free people’.

Suck it and see: Dr.SHIVA LIVE: What Happened In the Past 4 Years. What Is To Be Done, NOW.

The political classes, mainstream media, Big Tech, big business corporations, the mega-rich and, alas, a gaggle of untalented and overpaid celebs who will jump on any bandwagon for a bit of free publicity, universally condemn these ideas as conspiracy theories, but the problem with all of these institutionalised factions is that they are wide on criticism and short on answers.

Take coronavirus, for example. Of all the respiratory diseases known to man (its & others etc) no one can deny that Covid-19 is one of the most, if not the most, eccentric and improbable of viruses. Not only is there no consensus about how and why it effects people differently but there also appears to be scant agreement about the measures required to contain and address it. Thus, until it is proven otherwise, you cannot blame a groundswell of people for believing that fraudulent viruses are as credible as fraudulent elections or even that the two go hand in glove.

In the last analysis, Big Tech and Big Media are owned by the sort of people who tell us what they want us to know and to believe what they want us to believe. Big media no longer reports the news, it creates it according to its own political, economic, ideological bias etc, leaving Big Tech to filter out all opposing variants and sell it on as gospel.

There is a lot of good, quality and more reliable reporting out there in the non-mainstream media, and if you take a moment to look around you will be surprised what you will find. Of course, you may have to put up with being labelled a conspiracy theorist, a member of the Far Right, a Fascist by the likes of The Guardian, The [not so] Independent etc, and you can be sure that those liberal pseudo-moral high-grounders Twatter and Arsebook may block your comments and posts, they might even deplatform you, but if that does happen console yourself with the fact that not only must you be right today but on the right side of history forever. Moreover, such violations of freedom of speech and democracy grant you, the victim, lifetime membership to an exclusive but rapidly growing club that is destined to change the world we live in and change it for the better. So wear your deplatformed badge with courage and also wear it with pride!

Wherever they think they are taking us and wherever we want to go, It is going to be a bumpy ride, the road to the truth usually is, but hang on in there, fight back when you have to and continue to take the knocks. In the end it will all be worth it:

Right, as they say, always prevails.

Image attributions:

Feature image: (Photo credit: Author: CeeMon / pixabay.com; https://www.freeimg.net/photo/1874812/smokeandmirrors-magic-mirror-blackmirror)

Photograph attribution for Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi: [Unknown photographer – ÖNB, Bildarchiv Austria, Inventarnummer Pf 3944:B(2)(https://www.bildarchivaustria.at/Pages/ImageDetail.aspx?p_iBildID=20223510), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69147423]

2020 Memories are made of this

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 292 [31 December 2020]
or Goodbye 2020, if I never see you again will it be too soon?

Published: 31 December 2020 ~ 2020 Memories are made of this

The End is Nigh! Well, you would think so from the aggregated hype bubbling furiously over the past 12 months in the cauldrons of the western media. Never before in recent history has the press had the opportunity to indulge itself in a Groundhog Field Day like the one that has been handed to them by the pandemic (or is that scamdemic?). But enough of the soothsaying and a tad more soothing-saying, if you don’t mind. The end is nigh for 2020: Time to reflect on the past 12 months.

My period of voluntary self-isolation began back in March 2020, and like most people I have evaluated the quality of my life during this epoch as a series of stops, starts and checks. However, on looking back I realise that although the impediment of coronavirus fear and its attendant restrictions have cast a long shadow over our social life, it never succeeded in inflicting a total eclipse. As my wife is fond of saying, “Humans can adapt to anything in time”, and whilst in my books I have committed the cardinal sin by steering clear of bars and other places where people tend to congregate, in retrospect 2020 was far from totally written off. Indeed, in spite of muzzle-wearing and fetishistic hand-sanitising, we did still have a life ~ we met friends, took several trips to the coast, visited art galleries and places of historical interest, entertained at home and, most importantly, used the extra time that we had at our disposal in the most constructive ways.

We certainly managed to get more done around the house and in the garden ~ especially in the garden. This is Olga’s pet project: converting what was a slab of inherited concrete into a proper, functioning outdoor area, where she can enjoy the flowers and trees, and I can enjoy a pint.

Years ago, in the mists of a different time, I worked on a magazine called Successful Gardening, from which I learnt that my greatest contribution to any practical endeavour in this field would be to make myself scarce, which is exactly what I did. So, I have to confess that the lion’s share of the work was done by my wife. Yet, I feel no need for excuse making. Gardening is a sport, and like any other sport, some you participate in; in others you are a spectator.

Where coronavirus is concerned, it is for my family and friends back in the UK that I feel the most sorry. The UK media has not had the opportunity to be this gory and ghastly in its coverage since Jack the Ripper terrorised Whitechapel. Not even brutal acts of terrorism, which are officially swept under the carpet by deflection techniques that focus on holding hands and candle-lit vigils, come close to the penny dreadful coverage that coronavirus receives. It would not be half so bad if 1 + 1 = 2, but nothing about the measures being taken to combat coronavirus in the UK ~ the draconian measures ~ seems to add up, and, as with Brexit, the country appears to be split yet again, and uncannily yet again, as with Brexit, the fault lines are political and a peculiar inversion of the status quo.

In complete contradiction to the overt emphasis placed at any other time on civil liberties and the evils of the so-called surveillance society, 1984 and all that, it is the left that appears to be screaming for lockdown, mask-wearing and any other hard and fast rules. Indeed, they do not seem to be able to get enough of it, and, with the illiberality that is customary with liberals, are spitting tar and feathers at anyone who is impudent enough to advocate liberty above home slavery. The megaphone message is: Do as you are told! Stay in! Don’t go anywhere, or we are all going to die!!.

Admittedly, there are a lot better things to do with your time than dying but is being bolted and barred in your home for what little there is left of your life it? The older we become the more precious life becomes, but so does living your life. It is the Bitch of having been born at all.

The problem, or at least one of the salient problems of getting old ~ and for some inexplicable reason we all tend to do it, get old, I mean ~ is that you reach the stage where you think you can hear each grain of sand dropping into the hour glass, and whilst it is normal on the push-penny arcade machine of life to brace yourself for the moment when inevitably your turn will come, when you will be bumped off down the chute, the media over the past 12 months has not missed a trick in reminding us that the man with the cowl and scythe is busier than he has ever been pushing coins into the slot.

No one can deny that there has been a lot of death about, and sadly we were not spared. Our good friend, Stanislav (Stas) died in November 2020. Immediately, rumours abounded that he had died of coronavirus, the majority of people having become so obsessed with the virus that it has become almost impermissible to die from anything else. Stas did not die from coronavirus. But he did die, and with his passing we lost a very good and much-loved friend.

Without doubt, one of the most perplexing things about getting older is that not only do you have to come to terms with your own mortality, you also have to come to terms with the loss off those who are nearest and dearest. Each loss tears a hole in the fabric of life that can never be repaired.

But enough of this morbidity. Like everything in life, what some people lose on the swings others gain on the merry-go-rounds, and whilst we can conclude that whereas it has been a troubled year for most of us, especially those on the frontline ~ doctors, nurses, paramedics and the rest ~ if you have the good fortune to be a mask producer, the director of a pharmaceutical industry, a media magnate, I do not suppose that Mr Coronavirus seems such a bad fellow after all, and this is without mentioning the increased yields experienced in the funeral industry.

Enough said: In a consummately original and unplagiaristic moment, my valediction for the year 2020 is that it was ‘the best of years, ‘t’was the worst of years’.

Think of 2020 as a painful tooth that needs to be extracted by the dentist: you might miss it, but you will certainly be glad it has gone …