Arsebook - Expat in Kaliningrad, Russia

“It’s all bollocks!” Brits shout. But they don’t know whose …

Published: 9 March 2022 ~ Sanctions Backfire as Brits do Bollocks on Social Media

Frustration and impotence of western leaders attempting to punish Russia for its military operation in Ukraine has boiled over into social media. Brits, in particular, appear to have taken a direct hit from WMS (Weapons of Mass Stupidity), either that or perhaps they are simply reacting badly to something in their vaccines. Meanwhile, enlightened, tolerant, liberal EU states, weary from months of doubling down on authoritarian Covid measures, turn to Russia instead in a concerted attempt to cancel its culture. But not everything is bad news, at least Russia has gone and banned Facebook.

I must say that I could not have picked a more historic time to be in Russia since perestroika.

Only a couple of weeks ago, I was writing from the perspective of a ‘Self-isolating Englishman in Kaliningrad’, now I find myself in the peculiar position of being an Englishman in Kaliningrad sanctioned by the West.

Following Russia’s special military operation to ‘demilitarise and de-Nazify’ Ukraine, protect the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) from alleged increasing aggression and Russia itself from the threat of nuclear weapons, my wife, Olga, asked if she could copy something I had written in my diary pertaining to these events and post it to Facebook (that’s Arsebook to me). At first, I thought not, for I knew that by doing so we would unleash a barrage of banalities and insults from the UK’s armchair Arsebook experts, those who presume they know everything but in fact know bugger all.

However, the Imp of the Perverse got the better of me, it came to pass and before you could say Russophobia my prediction had come true.

The comments incited by my Facebook post ranged from off-topic, anti-Russian hysteria to amusing expletive-laden tirades or, where the commenter was seriously lost for words as well as articulation, good old-fashioned personal abuse. One astute fellow, who must surely have a master’s degree in political analytics, put: “Thank you for writing so much, but it’ all bollocks.” 😁 Well, I say!

You’ve got to value a response of this kind, if only for its effortless nature and the potential universality of its application. I have read and heard the same summation used in a variety of analytical contexts, such as in the critical acclaim of the works of Johannes Brahms (‘It’s all bollocks!’); the paintings of John Constable (‘It’s all bollocks!’); the poetry of John Keats (‘It’s all bollocks!’) and the essays of Kant (‘It’s all bollocks!’).

Thus, should you be told that your Arsebook post is ‘all bollocks’, not to be confused with ‘It’s the dog’s bollocks’, which has entirely different and inverse implications, not only will you have the satisfaction of knowing that you share the honour with some of the world’s most accomplished people but also that your opponent, who has nothing constructive to say, has put his mind, such as it is, to bed and wrapped it up in a big white flag. Ahh, the incomparable joy of Arsebook one-upmanship, or should that be ‘up yours’!

Sanctions Backfire as Brits do Bollocks on Social Media

To be honest, writing anything above three short sentences on Arsebook is counter-productive if not resoundingly futile. The platform is full of people with lots to say about nothing, usually in impoverished English, which races away from their keyboards before their brains are properly engaged.

For example, no sooner had I posted my take of the situation in Ukraine on Arsebook than some opponents to my views decided to jump into their time machines. Returning to the 21^st century a split second later, they then proceeded to make half-baked connections between past events in Soviet history and the current situation in Ukraine which, by time and circumstance, had no bearing whatsoever on the current state of affairs and made me wonder if, in their desperation to make such connections, they had not wilfully set out to short circuit the world of reason.

But at least comments of this nature require some imaginative flair, which is more than can be said for run-of-the-mill insults.

Facebook personal insults can be fun. However, whenever I am confronted by them, I have to put myself on a short leash (It’s just something I do at the weekends.) or risk even the faintest trace of diplomacy evaporating in an irresistible eagerness to lock horns.

The upside of personal abuse on Arsebook is that given time it eventually reveals that certain unpleasant something about the Arsebook ‘friend’ that you always suspected but could not quite put your finger on. Now you can use your boot! Goodbye Arsebook ‘friend’!

In my previous post I wrote about unfriending people on Facebook as a last resort. To that I should have added, except in circumstances where the level and frequency of stupidity becomes a burden on one’s time and intelligence, at which point san fairy ann is essential. As an adjunct, particularly joyful is when someone who you have longed to unfriend announces that they are unfriending you. Thank you, Lord! Thank you! Come to think of it, I wonder why I never opened a Facebook account myself, just to ‘make friends’ to unfriend.

For the present, and possibly for a long time to come, Arsebook issues and its petty little world have been put on the back burner or even taken off the boil. In response to the sweeping, and in most cases backfiring sanctions, imposed on Russia by the West for its special operation in Ukraine to ‘de-Nazify and demilitarise’, Russia has given Arsebook the big heave ho. Isn’t it amazing that what you always knew you could live without you can? This applies to most things liberal.

According to the West, the sanctions that it is feverishly unloading on Russia will mean that we who live here will have to do without a lot of things. Most Russians of a certain age are no strangers to hardship, and even I, brought up in that materialistic nirvana the UK, started life with one stern tap, no hot water and an outside bog, so although it may be hard it may also be nostalgic.

On a day-to-day basis watching the sanctions as they are announced is a lot more entertaining than watching BBC news, even though the lack of credibility shares some common ground. Joe and Bojo throwing a tantrum as they take back their lollipops because no one wants to suck on them in exchange for vassal status has a certain pathos, don’t you think? Especially when you factor in the value-added knowledge that those who make the sanctions are effectively sanctioning themselves. Such is the way of the global world created by the globalists.

However, you’ve got to hand it to the double act, the rabbits that Joe and Bojo are pulling out of the sanctions hat is a wonderful way of distracting from their recent and ongoing failures.

As for the sanctions themselves, most of those rabbits are old hat, which is possibly why for the Russians the act contains few surprises.

Those sanctions that fall into the economic warfare category, ie sanctions relating to the banking and finance industry and threats about cutting one’s SWIFT off are only to be expected as is anything to do with Big ‘Gates’ Tech, as these are the standard stockpiled weapons of the neoliberal globalists. (However, let this be a salutary reminder to any country out there who is thinking of joining their club: he who sups with the globalist should indeed have a very long spoon!)

But this is typical grist to the mill. The more interesting sanctions are those, which after years of implanting Russophobia into the composted minds of the West, have grown in psychological stature to a point where they can be used to suffocate and to cancel culture. Or so the attentive gardeners would like to kid themselves.

I am talking here about those sanctions that are aimed at cultural organisations and at talented individuals, which, in recent days, have seen Russian sportsmen ostracised, top-draw Russian musicians sacked and even Russian cats barred from international competitions for not choosing their place of birth more carefully.

In New York scheduled performances by a famous Russian opera singer were cancelled because she refused to withdraw her support for Russian President Vladimir Putin. A simple case of extortion.

In Italy, the celebrated 19^th century Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky narrowly missed being removed from the University of Milano-Bicocca’s syllabus, and would most certainly have been had not the Italians taken to social media and called on the head of the university (I believe his name is Dick) to back off and go and grow a pair! “It’s all bollocks!” I hear the Brits shout. No, it’s called cancel culture.

If Russians seem surprised by this behaviour, it is not surprising because they live in Russia and not in the West. The English, what is left of us, are no strangers to cancel culture; it is what globalist governments do. They socially engineer societies in such a way that the indigenous culture (in the UK white culture) is systematically trashed in preference for third-world imports. Take note! If they can do it to their own people, then they will certainly do it to you, especially if your cultural values run counter to their freak show and its carnival stalls of woke.

Ironically, sanctions in a globalised world are unreliable tools of oppression. Their effectiveness depends ultimately on their ability to penalise without incurring penalty. Unfortunately and ironically for the globalists, a good many of the sanctions that they are implementing will have, and already are having, a boomerang effect. The obvious one, refusing Russian gas, is already translating into higher energy prices in Europe and especially in the UK at a time when the income of the average Brit is squeezed right down to the peel.

There are many examples of backfiring sanctions, which I am sure will come to light in the measure and fullness of time. For now, however, my personal favourite is the projected world shortage of fertiliser.

“It’s all a load of bollocks,” bellow the brainwashed Brits!

“You won’t be saying that,” I say, “when all you are left with is bullshit!”