Following the decision of the Labor Party in Australia to pass a motion endorsing what they call ‘the reunification of Ireland’ (actually it means the break up of the United Kingdom in legal and constitutional terms), I decided this day to pen a letter to the appropriate department at the Australian High Commission in London….
Stop right there, good people! The hour of doom is at hand. We’re no longer just in the global warming phase. As of 2023 the world, Barry McGuire-style, is truly on the eve of destruction. How do we know this? Because the esteemed UN Secretary General, António Guterres, says so. Yes, the SC of an…
According to the UK media (never paragons of accuracy), Monday will herald the beginning of the most visible manifestation of the government’s unwillingness or incapability (delete as appropriate) to control our borders. Portland Port, near Weymouth, will be blighted by the presence of the giant Bibby Stockholm barge (https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/bibby-stockholm-asylum-seekers-robert-jenrick-dorset-cornwall-fire-brigades-union-b1098924.html) where the government will begin housing…
It was an exciting atmosphere down in the newsrooms of Sky and the BBC on Thursday evening. The usual commentators were getting ready to give their usual analyses; Jo Coburn’s voice positively quivered with excitement as the counts at the various centres were taking place; John Curtice was wheeled out like a mature bottle of…
On Saturday, 8th July, my best mate and I were travelling back to Yorkshire from Brighton on the 19:57 Grand Central train service. As the train pulled out of London King’s Cross station, the catering manager announced the buffet car would be opening shortly. After reeling off a quick list of available snacks, she informed…
Hamtramck. It’s a place in the United States most on here will not have heard of. In the heyday of car production in Detroit, this small city in the suburbs was notable for its huge Polish-American population who mostly worked in the motor industry. Since the decline and fall of Detroit (with de-population rates unparalleled…
When I look at the fate that has befallen the former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, I feel obliged to see it through two separate lenses: firstly my own, and then that of the millions of other voters who elected the Conservatives with an 80-seat majority back in 2019. The reason I wish to make this…
If you’ve driven on the roads in Britain during the summertime, you’ll be familiar with a process road workers call ‘surface dressing’. This involves spraying bitumen binder (a sticky tar-like substance) on a clean, dry road surface, over which stone chippings are spread (small, consistently-sized aggregate). The surface is rolled to embed the stones into…
When the whole furore surrounding allegations of bullying was first made against Dominic Raab, I was reminded of a scene in the most recent series of ‘Happy Valley’. For those who recall the series aired earlier this year, it was when Catherine Cawood (the local Halifax police sergeant) was called to her grandson’s school when…
When the late Ballard Berkeley played Major Gowen in the epic comedy series ‘Fawlty Towers’, we laughed at his bungling attitude, his forgetfulness and his ignorant opinions. You see, back then witless folk were the objects of comedy ridicule and light-hearted banter. Today, they’re elected to the most powerful political position on the planet. How…
Union Pacific. No, I’m not talking about Cecil B DeMille’s 1939 classic starring Barbara Stanwyck. I’m referring to yesterday’s declaration that Britain had signed its biggest trading agreement since Brexit. It was a glorious moment watching all the usual media and academic celebrities going into Twitter meltdown when the announcement came through that the United…
‘Strangers on the Shore’ is the penultimate episode of the evergreen classic ‘Only Fools and Horses’. During the course of the storyline Del Boy, Rodney, Trigger and Denzil accidentally sneak what they assume to be an illegal migrant from France to the UK. Unable to speak English, the migrant is called ‘Gary’ by the brothers…
When I was a teenager, passing my driving test was my ultimate ambition. When arriving at school, I had to pass the teachers’ car park from the playground to the main school compound and I would look enviously on whilst my tutors arrived in an array of impressive automobiles (my favourite being a black Alfa…
‘Will they or won’t they?’ Those are the questions the media are feverishly asking themselves of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party as they pore over the latest offer on the Protocol devised by the government in conjunction with the European Union. Their answer should become clear in the next few days. Understandably, they have refused…
It was memorable song when released in the spring of ’68. It’s become a karaoke classic since. In chart trivia terms it was yet another failed attempt by Tom Jones to recapture the success of his first two releases. Alas, unlike ‘It’s Not Unusual’ and ‘The Green Green Grass of Home’, ‘Delilah’ did not make…