Welcome

Dame Maggie Smith passed away, or as the news called her, Professor McGonagall, or as I called her, Professor McGone. I'm increasingly starting to think that the Harry Potter movies had a curse on them as we've now lost Hagrid Snape, McGonnagol and Lady Malfoy. In another few decades there'll be no actors left!

Prime Minister Kier Starmer came under increasing pressure after the details leaked out about how he was given free use of an £18m penthouse without declaring. I saw one newspaper go ......

There was a 2nd bungled attempt on Donald Trump, this time by someone who the government claims is a white male Trump Supporter despite them having a Kamala Harris bumper sticker on the back of their truck. Rest assured, progressives close to Biden have assured the public that the next round of candidates to do the job will be restricted to only African American women. Of course, given the murky circumstances of "how did they know trump was going to be there at that time," once more questions have been asked about the role of the 'deep state' in all of this. And if you question whether that is even a real thing, I would just remind everyone that the only part of the government that listens to you is the NSA.

Former Harrods owner and Princess Diana conspiracist Mohamed Al-Fayed was exposed for assaulting numerous women over his decades at power, and the BBC were just glad to report it wasn't one of there own being accused this time! Although as always it says a lot that they took over a year to report on it with the women all being told to be quiet and sit on the sidelines. One lesser known fact about Al-Fayed was that he owned a large estate in Easter Ross Scotland and supported independence, once stating "I am ready to be your president" so presumably if the vote had gone the other way, he could have been yet another Scottish leader being arrested by the police.

Israel orchestrated a staggering operation leading to the death and injury of thousands of Hezbollah operatives, after they breached a supply chain and placed explosives into the pagers that the terrorists use to communicate. I looked for a quote but Hezbollah's head of communication was unavailable for comment, obviously. It's a scary old game the espionage one. I was once told don't tell secrets in the garden because the potatoes have eyes, the corn has ears, and the beanstalk.

A lot happened this week. The actor James Earl Jones passed away, presumably now referred to as James Earl Bones. To be fair I recently rewatched Star Wars and his breathing sounded pretty bad even back then.

It was also the 2 year anniversary of the death of Queen Elizabeth and I was thinking back to that day and how I spent most of it checking my phone, for poor taste jokes from friends. It's funny now with hindsight to realise now that Huw Edwards was also doing the same thing, checking his phone every few minutes, when the BBC cut to a different presenter. Albeit for very different reasons.

But there was also a presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris which as always was rather a waste of time. Two people reading out preprepared lies for well over an hour, it was like watching a couple at a dinner party going through a divorce except at least you might get a beef wellington or a risotto out of that. I did find it hilarious about how the organisers did their hardest to only fact check Kamala and thus give her the edge but then the only soundbite to come out of it was the one about how Haitian migrants in Springfield are stealing and eating pets in Springfield Ohio. As a reminder the way the argument works is that we're at stage (1) "No one is eating anyones pets" In another week we will move to stage (2) "Why do you care so much if people are eating pets?". Then in October the newspapers will have an article (3) "Why eating pets is a good thing" before eventually putting out campaign adverts (4) "Refusing to eat pets is white supremacy #VoteKamala"

I did get a chuckle out of a satirical piece by the Babylon Bee about how a local Chinese Restaurant had been forced to close due the lack of available animals to pass of as Sesame Chicken and in mosts respects I think the story is partially true albeit wildly overblown, but it's irrelevant. Nobody changed their minds on who to vote for and that's still probably true even after they tried to get Taylor Swift to endorse Kamala Harris. My reaction to that is probably just to remind everybody that 90% of Taylor Swift's songs are about she's terrible at choosing the right guy.

England beat Ireland 2-0 in a strange football game, it was a win on Irish soil, with a manager who used to play for Ireland and the goals were both scored by former Irish player. I guess stealing Rice makes a change from when the English stole the potatoes.

Grenfell Tower was back in the news as it seems the maintenance, eventual demolition, and memorial will have cost the government £340m - they must have money to burn! (or is that in poor taste?)

France finally got a Prime Minister in the form of Michelle Barnier who was once described as the Joe Biden of french politics, meaning he'd been in politics for decades with plenty of experience and insight. And now his detractors can even join in, describing him like Joe Biden as a pejorative. Presumably he will now be presiding over the Ukraine situation but it reminds me of a quote from Jacques Chirac who said "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure" to which Rush Limbaugh responded "As far as France is concerned, you're right." It's like the old joke about how Paris has all those tree-lined boulevards because the Germans like to march in the shade. But now they're cutting them all down because the Arabs like to march in the sun.

Video footage emerged of Angela Rayer, who was seen in Ibiza at a rave. She currently has the same position as Michael Gove's old job, someone who was also seen in Ibiza under similarly strange circumstances. Although I guess that dancing in a nightclub makes a change from dancing on the graves of pensioners.

This week I thought we'd check with the state of the US election, where battleground states like Ohio look set to see more drama than when they filmed the Shawshank redemption there, and just like the end of that film we're all going to have to crawl through some proverbial, to reach the end of it. This week saw 3rd party candidate RF Kennedy drop out of the race and urging his opponents to vote for Trump, and it was certainly very brave of former President Trump to invite a Kennedy to the campaign given that he's already at risk of assassination attempts.

Elsewhere, Kamala Harris was officially crowned the Democratic party's candidate. This is the party that claims to be the only one that wants to save democracy and have done so by 1) Ignoring the primary votes and forcing Biden out 2) Choosing the party candidate without asking the members to vote 3) Launching court cases to prevent RFK running as a 3rd party candidate in swing states 4) Then launching battles to keep him on the ballot now that they realise that him running will benefit them. I'd use that expression about "destroying the village to save the village" but at this point they don't even need to actually destroy anything, as long as they can get CNN to show some stock footage and warn people that Trump might bring nasty working class jobs back to the village.

But this election will largely be decided by a handful of battleground states so how are things playing out there?

- Arizona is a remarkably tight race this time around and one of the few where swapping Biden to Harris played to the Democrats' benefit. You could make some metaphor up about Biden being a cowboy riding into the Arizona sunset, although this was more like some kind of nasty gunfight where a posse of bad actors rode into town and shot the sheriff.
- Elsewhere in the sun, Nevada looks on pace to hand Trump the state by 5%, especially with a policy of eliminating tax on tips and thus telling the IRS that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
- Wisconsin is an interesting one with polling showing that Harris is up 1%, despite, Trump outperforming his 2020 standing, almost as if the polls are dubious at worst.
- Michigan is probably going to remain blue, that's the party colour too, although its also the frigid temperatures this November. On the other hand, it has a huge Muslim population and we're yet to see if Kamala will carefully handle the Israel-Palestine issue, or whether we can expect some gaffe that is undoubtedly as hilarious as it is horrendous and tragic. Possibly something where she think that the West Bank is on Wall Street or that the ruler of Jordan is Michael Jordan.
- Georgia on the other hand will flip red, Trump only lost it by 0.2% last time and every poll since has shown his support growing.
- Pennsylvania is one that might also be out of play. Kamala was expected to pick the state governor for VP but changed her mind at the last minute, a snub that didn't go down well with many. Also add in that it's a state where RFK has more votes that will now go Trump's direction and it will likely be a decision they regret, although it's also worth looking up the allegations that governor Shapiro covered up a murder several years ago and maybe they didn't shoot themselves in the foot. Although to this day Shapiro claims that Ellen Greenberg 20 stab wounds were the result of a suicide that definitely doesn't need re-examining.

There seems to have been a bit of action in Ukraine with the Russians losing a lot of land. It's quite astonishing how many years this has now been going on for, although it makes a lot more sense when you think of it as 2 drunks outside a pub. I did find it uplifting to hear that President Macron wants to send French troops to the conflict, although I guess somebody has to be there to surrender and end it.

You always have to question the motives about what news we're allowed to read, the Ukraine War is a good example of something where all we have to work with is the propaganda from both sides. It reminds of years ago when the Sunday Sport ran that article about a double decker bus being found on the moon, and how presumably the Mail would have added a paragraph about it being 20 minutes late, and the Guardian would tacked on a bit blaming the Conservatives for wasting money on a space program rather than schools. And so following on from last week, a mum and her daughter were stabbed at Leicester Square. The authorities have been keen to hush any discussion of ethnicity and the like, or to upload videos of the Romanian who murdered the 11yo in broad daylight to social media sites like Twitter

Some people have also been arrested in relation to actor Matthew Perry's death earlier in the year. "You think you know who your friends are..."

Youtube's former CEO Susan Wojcicki died at the age of 56. I'm imagining some people attempting to give her emergency CPR and they go to look up a video on youtube about how to do it but there's a minute long advert for VPNs or Squarespace, so they were too late. I'm not normally one to celebrate the loss of someone but this is a woman who thought that the purpose of YouTube and Google was to re-educate the masses and help to elect in a neofudalist society organised around social credit scores, mandatory annual vaccines and absolute obedience.

There was more violence around the UK with a picture doing the rounds of someone stealing a Banksy artwork painted onto a satellite dish, and at first I thought it was Rishi Sunak, finally getting that sky dish he said he wasn't allowed to have for all those years.
I also saw pictures online of a branch of Shoezone being looted, and it came as no surprise that for all the Nikes and the like being taken, nobody was leaving with and work boots. There was also a branch of DFS burned down although with any luck the company will let them pay the fine over 5 years interest free credit.

All while the police stand from the sidelines, unsure about whether it's better to allow huge amounts of crime to take place, or to risk offending a few student activists. You can even insult the royals too now, William and Kate were on a recent walkabout where the men refused to talk or acknowledge her because she's a woman and it's against their culture to respect her. Let's see how far things get before the government maybe has to actually accept there's a problem, watching them deny what's going on and try to deflect is like when you're at work and you watch a senior manager who earns 3 times what you do, struggling to save a PDF or get a powerpoint to be full screen.

One interesting point to note is that the vast majority of the damage and crime this week has been done by the left-wing counter-protestors. There's a quite deliberate ploy where anti-immigration protestors put out a story about how they're organising a protest, only to stay at home and watch as the the only attendees showing up are the left wing anti-protestors and violent minorities, who then proceed to riot and trash the shops, whilst the police stand by doing nothing. Angela Rayner made a wildly ignorant comment about the EDL, despite the fact that that organisation hasn't even existed for several years, you may as well blame the violence on Skellator, or the deatheaters from Harry Potter. Some of the rioters had their first court appearance this week in Liverpool, personally if I were the judge I'd hand them Everton season tickets.

Elsewhere in the midst of the culture wars, there was the fallout from the Olympics scandal whereby the winner of the gold and silver womens' boxing medals both tested positive for having a Y-chromosome. I'd have thought the easiest way to settle the argument is to make a change to the rules and let women boxers punch below the belt. And there's also a story about the olympic medals themselves being shoddily made and already starting to rust. It's all very unsurprising for anyone who's familiar with French manufacturing of late. I once bought a Pequignet watch from a bloke down the pub for 20 quid and the thing fell apart by the next weekend, although now I think about it, it was probably a counterfeit.

There were horror scenes in Southport at a Taylor Swift dance party, when it was revealed that the racially charged mass stabbing had also been set against the backdrop of a Taylor Swift soundtrack. The ethnic violence in the UK is quite something to watch, if you go online and see the footage shot by people who were there, rather than the videos the the BBC have deemed ok to release. A friend of mine, obsessed with the EU, said that voting for Brexit was like watching a library being burned down by people that can't read, although it did finally happen during a race riot in Liverpool

It's the Olympics which is being hosted by France which means you confusingly have the Paris Olympics, followed by the Par Olympics, don't get the two confused. A friend mentioned something about the triathlon event being insane, but then I realised they meant 'in the Seine' but then it turned out they were talking about it being an open sewer and utterly insane. There was also a controversial opening ceremony, although it at least fulfilled its remit of giving me a renewed sense of optimism, albeit it's optimism in the belief that Putin brings about the downfall of liberal progressivism. Anyway, it all at least made a change from the Tokyo games during covid with empty stadiums that made me nostalgic for low level Scottish football games. There were allegations of drug use then too, made clear when the athletes walked and waved to the non-existent crowds in an empty stadium. If those athletes were running fast, it was because they were chasing the dragon. I have a friend who's in his 40s and we recently decided to nickname him the Olympic Flame, because he never goes out, these days. Anyway, at time of writing, Britain is 5th in the medal count, maybe more on it next week.

Huw Edwards was back in the news, at least he was on it, rather than presenting it, after being charged on 3 incidents of making indecent images. Welsh people are often named after the thing that they do, such as Jones the Post, or Davis the Food, or Edwards the Children. Anyway, I'm sure he can afford a good lawyer, given that he's been on paid leave the last year on half a million quid, let's see what happens when it goes to court, although knowing the way the BBC and the world works these days, I'd imagine that if the police caught him watching illegal videos on his television, they'd be more inclined to prosecute him for not having a TV license

This week saw former President Trump take to the stage at the Republican National Convention where he was even introduced by former wrestling star Hulk Hogan, which made a change from last weekend which almost saw an appearance by The Undertaker. This followed a week where the media tried to unpick the mess of that happened at the Trump Rally and the likes of CNN and the BBC realised that Trump is very likely likely to be in the White House for the next 4 years. Of course, for many people he also lives rent-free in their head, all the time, with ludicrous hyperbole being bandied around. If I counted the number of counterbalanced opinions I'd heard on the likes of Radio 4, you could do it on one hand, even if your hand had been horribly injured in an industrial accident

In the meantime conspiracy theorists from both sides have suggested a number of theories about what really happened, from the deep state trying to assassinate him, to Mr Trump staging it all himself. Certainly if it were all a TV show then it would be getting fantastic ratings by now going into the season finale in November. Maybe the final episode would have a plot twist where the Chinese start a war in Africa and Joe Biden demands that someone ask Nelson Mandela to do something, and it's also revealed that he's unable to remember any of the launch codes.

It is remarkable that having looked at the conspiracy evidence, you're left with the horrible realisation that one of two things must be true: either the secret service either planned it all, or they were just remarkably incompetent beyond anything that would be conceivably forgivable. Apparently the snipers nest was never investigated, even when they were repeatedly warned about a weird gunman being up there, because the sloped roof posed a health and safety violation for the agents. After the attack you see the agents struggling to get their guns out of their holsters, many of them were overweight and unfit for the role and there's a lot of talk about them simply being diversity hires and being put on the Trump team, rather than risk having them around the actual President. Perhaps that's true, and if so then I feel sorry for them: being over-promoted into a role they're completely incapable of doing and then being put on public display to be ridiculed when they mess up.

One of the more compelling arguments in favour of a conspiracy would be the money trail, huge amounts of money were placed on short selling the Trump Social shares the day before, almost as if someone knew something was going to happen to him, and then there's the timing of it all: if Trump had been successfully bumped off then with just 2 days to go to the Republican Convetion, senior people in the party could have done a deal behind closed doors and put anyone they wanted on the ticket. There's also an interesting case to be made about the lady with sunglasses who sat behind Trump, filmed it all on an iphone and has not come forward since. Many are claiming it's Janeen DiGuiseppi, assistant director of the FBI and the resemblance is pretty uncanny.

Or perhaps the secret service are just another branch of the government and as such are about as useless as you'd expect. If it takes months to renew a passport or to get the city to aprove a building permit, why would you expect a government team tasked with guarding Trump from assailants to be any more compitant?

This week there was a failed assassination attempt at former President Trump, with some fearing that recently acquitted Alec Baldwin had decided to show up.

If the attempt to permanently remove Trump from the race was all a plot concocted up by someone on the Biden team, then it should come as no surprise that it was a incompetent disaster, I'd barely trust Kamala Harris to take out the recycling, let alone a political opponent

The shooter was supposedly a 20 yo lone gunman although there's a BBC Interview where some supporters explain that they repeatedly told the secret service about a suspicious man on the roof with a rifle but were ignored. In the meantime most legacy news outlets ran with the story about how Trump had collapsed on the stage, as if to compare it to one of Biden's many gaffes. You do have to admire the irony that most people crazy enough to shoot Trump are so avidly against the 2nd amendment that if you tried to organise a conspiracy, you'd likely struggle to find someone with a decent aim these days, maybe that's what happened here. Maybe they should get some red MAGA hats where it stands for "Make Accuracy Great Again"

And talking about good aim, the person who took that photograph of the former President and the Flag, with a fist in the air, is surely a front runner for a Pulitzer prize this year. As to everyone else, a member of the public was killed by the missing shots and the rest Trumps supporters are chanting about how they stand with him, but just possibly not behind him

As to Biden, this week he got president Zelensky mixed up with Vladimir Putin, at a conference that insiders say undid months of political work that might have led to a peace treaty. Until last night I was originally going to draw a cartoon of Biden going on Wheel of fortune and the puzzle category is "President of Ukraine" and he's already got the letters Z,L,N,S,K & Y but takes a failed go at solving the puzzle.

This week saw Rishi Sunak depart Downing Street, before stopping off at William Hill to collect his winnings and apply for a cushy job overseas where he won't have to pay tax. He's the sort of person that I half expect to pocket the good cutlery on the way out if he weren't extremely wealthy. Moving into Number 10 is Prime Minister Kier Starmer, and Angela Rayner has been very keen to know which house she will be getting, so she can ask a junior minister to sublet her existing house and make sure that all her money similarly gets parked offshore so the taxman won't get his hands on it. In the mean time a number of Conservative MPs were given the sort of thrashing that brought back memories of boarding school days, and for a while I thought Nigel Farage was scared of sheep although it turned out I'd misunderstood a question about is lamb a phobia.

All things considered, I doubt much will actually change, the two parties are largely indistinguishable these days, and so we turn to the 2 other elections that 100% will have an impact on Britain's place in the world. Those being the elections in France and America.

In the US Joe Biden continues to hold on, some have commented that he maybe just doesn't like the idea of stepping down because most of the time when he tries to get down some steps he makes a stumbling fool of himself. Donald Trump was caught on camera this week calling him "A broken-down pile of crap" - I wonder if they'll ever inscribe that quote on a huge piece of marble in DC although the key takeaway here is that Biden survived. Despite the desperate struggles going on behind the scenes to replace him, it's highly unlikely we'll be seeing president Michelle Obama, unless he dies in the night. If that did happen, it might just be a coincidence, it might have nothing to do with the Clintons this time. Honestly, it's a shame he doesn't retire and do adverts for the NRA and talking about people taking things from his cold dead hands like Charlton Heston used to do.

Meanwhile France continues to treat politics like their football performance in the Euros and have a real battle on the right wing, mostly between people born in France and those born overseas. The whole country really is a tinder box set to explode and the deception by the media over how bad things are is no different to the lies they maintained about Joe Biden. It's worth noting that since 1789 the French have had 3 monarchies, 2 empires, 5 republics and 15 constitutions, all with the end goals of establishing clear principles of government. Those in turn were supported by the army, the church, the peasantry, and the well-off depending on what way the wind was blowing and in all honesty it might be time for something new again. The Olympics kicks off in a little over 3 weeks time in Paris, let's just hope nobody leaves any of the equipment from the Javelin, Shooting or Archery lying about the streets.

There's an exciting question doing the rounds about who will survive in their job longer: Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak or Gareth Southgate. Certainly in the case of the latter two, a lot of people are wonderring if the England team will even be able to vote in the UK election or use a ballot paper, seeing as they seem unable to ever find the box and when they do they struggle to put a cross into it.

But just like the football, Thursday night saw the repeat of something that also seems to happen every 4 years: a debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. This is the third such time Trump has been in the debate, and like the TV show Westworld, the best season was probably the best: that was the one where he said that Hilary was lucky not to be in Jail. This year it was switched round with Biden talking about Trump being a convicted felon before losing his train of thought, pausing and appearing to glitch up worse than that Horizon computer system the Post Office bought. My favourite parts of the debate would probably be [1] when the two of them went off on a bizarre rant about which of them had the better golf handicap [2] when it cut to the CNN studio and it was like a wake as all of them realised the true horror of what had just unfolded. It reminded me of that scene in the Simpsons when Homer designs a car and his brother realises he's now bankrupt.

Even for those who have been aware of Biden's failing faculties, the performance was fairly shocking, there was no doubt that he should bow out gracefully. The New York Times and numerous major donors have called for such. But Biden and his handlers have said he's staying on, will keep campaigning, and he's going to visit South Carolina. He'll also be going to other states, like Confused State or Semi Conscious State but jacked up on a cocktail of pick-me-ups.

At this point with hundreds of millions of ballot papers only a month or two from being printed, it's actually fairly difficult from a practical perspective to replace Joe as the candidate, at least without making the new presidential candidate Kamala Harris who is probably the only person other than Hilary Clinton who would be guaranteed to lose to Trump in November. The only other option on the table is using the democratic party's 'behind the scenes' apparatus and skip the convention, disregard the primary votes and put in someone like California Governor Newsom or one of the other suggested upgrades, all of whom are white men, and all at a time when most of the party activists claim that promoting anyone to seniority other than a woman of colour is fascism. Who would I put in though? Well there is a candidate out there and he's been president before but only served one term. That would be Jimmy Carter, and strangely he's probably still just about more popular and certainly less divisive than Trump or Biden. (But maybe also stick a safe pair of hands on the ballot paper as the vice presidential candidate just in case).

This week a jury decided that Donald Trump might be the first criminal to be voted in as president if he wins in November, or at least he would be the first politician to be voted in *after* they got caught. There's lots of examples of people who got away with it but as a basic one Bill Clinton did the exact same thing as Trump when he paid Paula Jones $850,000 to drop a sexual harassment lawsuit and that is of course s the tip an exceedingly large iceberg. I say iceberg, but it's more like an island, that belonged to Jeffrey Epstein. There are also roughly 100 people who worked closely with Bill and Hilary who have since died from a suicide or an accident. I don't want to get too 'tinfoil hat' but 9 of the police officers involved in the Anthony Wiener investigation, all went on to kill themselves afterwards. If we're kicking around other names, remember when Dick Cheney shot someone, or how George Bush's wife killed someone in the 60s? Or

Let's talk about the Trump court case though and why the result will be overturned on appeal
1) The judge overseeing the trial gave money to a pro-Biden political organisation, a plain violation of NY law.
2) The crux of the case comes down to quite an obscure piece of logic, alleging that the falsification of business records was committed "with intent to commit another crime" but refused in court to specify what that crime was. That goes against numerous rules, mainly the one where you have to tell the defence what the accusations are.
3) The Jury supposedly was made up of 12 people who may or may not have voted in the previous election in 2020, yet somehow come to this with an open mind. If you look through the records, one even claimed in the jury selection process that they were a member of the social media site Trump Social, in fact that was part of the claim that the jury was a mix of both sides. I'll personally wager money that at some point in the next 10 years that person accidentally reveals that to have been a lie to get on the jury and winds up facing perjury charges. In America, unlike in the UK, it is completely legal for jury members to discuss the trial and write books about it. One of them will slip up, as sometimes happens, and overturn it as a mistrial.

But I digress, none of this matters of course and nor will it in this case. Trump's poll ratings jumped 6% on the news of the guilty verdict and he raised $39m in one day, while Joe Biden showed up in Philadelphia to a rally attended by less than 100 people, in what is a crucial swing state this November. It's a shame because Biden has a lot of achievements to his name: The standard of living for Ukrainian politicians is up 200% and more women of colour than ever before are getting the chance to pilot the drones that attack children in Yemen and Syria. There was an interesting poll in the newspaper that claimed that young American women don't want to date men who plan to vote for Trump, although unfortunately for them the men that support Biden only want to date other men. Meanwhile there was a case of a grocery store that did a President Trump sales promotion where it rolled back prices to what they were 6 years ago. Given the backdrop of the country, the court case didn't gain the democrats a single vote and in an cruel twist for progressives probably cost them hundreds of thousands of votes as black and minority voters emphasise with the narrative that the justice system was stacked and rigged from the beginning. One thing certain is that Trump will not be going to jail this year, the appeals process will drag on into next year if he isn't elected before then.

There's an election coming up, and the outcome is almost certainly going to see one of the worst endings of a party, since that get-together that Michael Barrymore had at his swimming pool. The grand announcement came as Rishi Sunak cobbled together a press conference whilst standing out in the pouring rain and ruining a perfectly good suit which is all things considered a pretty good metaphor for his uniquely disastrous and out of touch leadership style. It's also especially bizarre given that he was the one that as chancellor would have signed off on the invoice to construct that purpose built media center at number 9 Downing Street. That's the press room that's inside. One can only imagine that it was maybe double booked that morning owing to yet another IT screwup, or maybe it was still strewn with empty bottles of wine from Tesco and Rishi thought it would therefore remind people of the better times when Boris was in charge. I say "better" but not a lot has changed really, inflation is still horrible and energy prices are still artificially high due to the Net Zero stuff that China and India don't give a monkeys about. Although at least under Boris' watch the news could normally be relied on to end with one of those "and finally" comedy stories, typically about which one of Nicola Sturgeon's friends and family were being investigated by the police.

Longer term viewers of the channel will be aware that I typically go away for a month's holiday every summer and this year is no exception, I'm booking my flights this weekend to minimise any chance of seeing Kier Starmer on the television. For those also looking to book summer sojourn you could try France - right now you get €1.17 to the pound, there's a free boat home leaving Calais every night just after the pubs kick out, and the home office free hotel of choice is a travel tavern outside Hastings, although if Kier wins then you get upgraded to a 4-star Marriott outside Sevenoaks.

Also in the news:
Film maker Morgan Spurlock passed away, and the grim reaper has a new documentary out about it, called Super Scythe me. I'm imagining Morgan getting a tour of the afterlife and the devil tries to scare him with some flaming magma, but Morgan says it's not too bad and that he had to endure those piping hot Mc Apple Pies for a month.

Up in the sky, there was yet another near miss from a Boeing plane after one briefly dropped several thousand feet and narrowly avoided disaster. There's a terrifying iPhone video online of the passengers and hand luggage being thrown all over the cabin and Boeing officials were quick to blame simple old-fashioned "turbulence" although I'm surprised they didn't blame the Singapore Airline's CEO who promised shareholders he'd shake things up this year.

There was a diplomatic row afer Ireland, Spain and Norway decided to formally recognise Palestine as a state. I'm not sure why this is news, most of us have seen the pictures and the place certainly looks like it's a right state these days.

A new controversial portrait of King Charles was revealed this week which sees the King surrounded by red, in a quasi-modern-art style. Reviews seem to be mixed, although I don't really mind it and it does have the one massive benefit that if the Just Stop Oil protestors ever get near it with a tin of red paint, they won't be able to damage it that much. Personally though, the style of it reminds me a lot of that very brown and beige coloured painting, from Ghostbusters 2. That haunted one that tried to kill people and take over the world, although maybe the plan is to stick it somewhere next to an old haunted painting of Queen Victoria or something.

Talking about the king, this week he also discussed his recent struggles with the cancer diagnoses and revealed that the treatment has cost him his sense of taste. I don't think losing his sense of taste comes as a surprise to anyone, I mean this is the man that left Princess Diana for Camilla.

In other news, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico was shot this week and authorities say he's "Not out of the woods yet" That's pretty shocking, it's been several days now and the ambulance is still stuck on some forest track in a wood somewhere? And you thought the NHS had problems.

Magician David Copperfield has been accused of doing a number of bad things with ladies, and we're not talking about the time he sawed that one in half. One of the girls was only 15 at the time so it's not really a joking matter, although I can't help but crack the observation that he might finally have go go to court and reveal his secrets.

Meghan Markle was in Nigeria and gave a motivational speech to a group of teenage schoolgirls, saying "I see myself in all of you" I'm going to be honest, I'm pretty sure she stole that line from one of Prince Andrew's old chat up routines.

It's only a month to go until the King Charles banknotes enter circulation and a lot of people are getting excited. Personally I don't get the excitement, most 50 pound notes have had traces of charlie on them for years

There was also the case of the dine and dash couple who attended the first day of their court case. It's a pretty open and shut case, although they might get off on the technicality that, going by how fat they are, they couldn't credibly "dash" anywhere

And it was Eurovision this week. Maybe were surprised that the Israeli entry wasn't a cover of the 1969 hit Boom-Bang-A-Bang. I saw someone online saying that that they'd rather have a Palestinian entry in the competition, so I pointed out that it wasn't a great idea, given Hammas' recent track record when it came to music festivals.

The focus of the conflict there recently moved to US universities where the last week or two have seen a number of angry student protests in the news. One of the more high profile examples was at Columbia, where students decided to occupy part of the campus, vandalising it and demanding an immediate end to the war, which is quite strange given that the university hasn't fired a single shot in the conflict, nor is it involved with US arms exports. You may as well protest the war by refusing to eat toast unless it's cut into triangles. It is of course worth noting that as usual, this is a story that was blown somewhat out of proportion by the media, the anarchy depicted on 24h news is actually about 2300 students, out of 15m college kids and about half of them turned out to not even be students. Perhaps it's a DEI thing though, and the angry people with too much time on their hands self-identify as students, as well as gender, and of course it all makes about as much sense as if identified as a bus. At least the last of those would make partial sense, I could use that empty lane when I drive to work without worrying about getting a fine in the mail. On the other hand, these protests are quite humorous in places, there's compilations of graffiti where they've mis-spelled the word 'Palestine' and are demanding that the college provide "humanitarian aid" because they're a bit hungry. I actually saw an alleged hunger strike in New York where 3 students hadn't eaten anything for 6 hours and were already demanding medical oversight, trauma councilling and threatening to sue. I could make a comparison to the Indian or Irish hunger strikes and the genuine struggle those people went through but it's quite depressing and I'm getting on a bit here so let's end with a joke. What's the difference between Alice in Wonderland and Bobby Sands. Alice got out the Maze.

Humza Yousaf finally did everyone a favour and decided to resign as Scottish First Minister and two notable things stand out: 1) His long list of achievements is actually just a single item of "not being arrested like the last one" and 2) The only people lamenting him stepping down are those on the unionist side of the aisle who will be forever grateful for him personally killing the independence movement for a generation or two. I'm not sure what he's planning to do next although his brother is currently facing charges of drug dealing so there's probably job going spare in the gang there if he wants to switch careers. It would be interesting to see him somehow take a profitable drug dealing empire and incompetently run it into the ground with mounting financial losses.

The question of what he'll do next is a legitimately interesting one. Most failed politicians are at least liked by some portion of the electorate and have enough contacts and career experience to pursue something in the private sector, yet he has none of that. He's too young to be offered a seat on a board of directors and no serious business would want to be associated with him anyway. Nor does he have any long term clout or reputation to cash in: say what you will about Nicola Sturgeon, if she avoids prison she will very quickly pick up some kind of (quite well paying) academic position overseas talking about her 20 or so year's experience at the top of the tree. Even Gordon Brown for all his faults was still respected enough to front charity work and talk about his 10 years as chancellor. Things don't look rosy for Humza and his chances of getting a decent job are certainly not helped by the Scottish job market imploding due to his own policies of raising taxes and forcing businesses to move south of the border.

It's at this point I should probably add a personal note which is that I went to the same school as him and from what I can tell from wikipedia, I must have been in the year above him, and yet I never heard of him until 2 or 3 years ago, I don't remember him from prizegivings or chess club or the like. He seems like the sort of middling person who simply got ok-ish grades and whilst others went on to pursue high flying careers, he spotted that a lot of nationalist politicians were quite keen to insist that they weren't in racist, despite it fact being a key component of the the SNP's manifesto. It's the equivalent of a bloke in the pub saying one of his *best friends* is an ethnic minority so he can't possibly be a bigot, despite being actively lifted out of said pub by the police for shouting racial obscenities. That bloke may well even have been Alex Salmond, he's done far crazier things on his drunken adventures, as anyone who's seen him stumbling around on an East Coast train will testify; although I guess Banffshire to London is a 10 hour train ride and the drinks trolley is on expenses. Anyway, needless to say Humza leaves with a depressingly large pension that few of us will ever get, although he can't claim it for decades and will presumably have to do something to make ends meet. Perhaps he could become a social media star and start a YouTube or TikTok channel. Maybe do one of those unboxing videos, where he empties a ballot box and realises that the contents are all the votes are for the Labour party candidate and not him.

This week there bizarre scenes after several royal horses, one covered in blood ran amuck around the streets of London. I'm vaguely imagining Rishi Sunak going to have his fortune fortune read, and the old lady turned over a tarot card depicting a bloodied horse running past parliament and him asking if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Big Ben also tolled the wrong number of chimes that day and if it was all indeed a sign of the end of days then it's notable that due to government cutbacks the news only showed images of half the required numbers of horses of the apocalypse.

If Rishi is short of a few quid then he could have done worse than to pop into the bookies and put some dosh down on the grey one to win. Personally, I don't know much about horses and I once asked a friend if he knew anything about Shetland Ponies, and he responded "Very Little"

As to these royal horses the London Household Cavalry says that they're in a stable condition, or maybe they're just in a stable, it's unclear what they meant. Hopefully they'll make a recovery and next be seen after they're promoted to the royal engineers, seeing as they clearly skilled at making a bolt. And if not then I guess you or I will be able to see them at B&Q in that aisle where they sell floor adhesive.

Meghan Markle launched a new hustle and this time it's a range of jams. The idea presumably arose after they lost the Spotify deal and their accountant said they were in a financial jam, or possibly when they were stuck in a traffic jam trying to gt the airport in LA. Anything, I've not tried any myself, nor have I tried the one that King Charles sells because i think paying a tenner for strawberry jam you could make yourself is utterly bonkers, but the advertisers assure us that it's that's meant for everyday normal middle class people, just like her, after they get home from the private polo or before they fly out to Tuscany on a private jet. At least with Harry's book you could pick it up in the charity bin and use it prop a door open with, although I guess if it ends up on the clearance aisle, you could use it to trap wasps.

In New York they chose the jurors for Donald Trump's show trial. It makes you wonder if the city was importing in the tens of thousand of illegal aliens, simply to try to assemble a jury of 12 people who didn't vote last time or have any preconceived ideas going into the trial. We've been given a few details such as Juror 8 lives on the upper east side, is retired, and watches CNBC. Apparently juror 5 is a teacher who gets her news from google and tiktok. Given the state of affairs I'm not sure whether an teacher choosing to trust tiktok over other sources is a good thing or a bad thing, although my money is on the thing being a mistrial or a hung jury, and thus being a $50m waste of money that will achieve nothing other than possibly guaranteeing him a win in November's election. In the mean time a man set himself on fire outside the court house as part of a bizarre protest. It's not the first time that someone got badly burned when Trump came to town, but normally it's a building contractor or something.

OJ Simpson passed away this week at the age of the 76 from cancer and I guess OJ can now finally rest knowing that his wife's killer is dead. In the meantime a spokesperson for prostate cancer has come out and defended his the disease saying that they won't rest until the real killer is found, but for now most of us more interested in seeing what the funeral procession will look like. I'm imagining a hearse slowly driving down the LA freeway. Possibly pulled by horses, or more specifically a white bronco, with a slow driving police entourage.

Angela Rayner has also remained in the news with her slow burning financial scandal trundling along and the general consensus is that she's unlikely to resign being that everyone's at it anyway and that the party is likely to be re-elected anyway so why would she walk away from the possibility of a 6-figure job and expense account falling into her lap before the end of the year. The law's a funny old thing, I had a friend from college who had a nice house and a decent job until he got involved in drugs, and now he has has a mansion, 4 acres of land and drives a Bentley. And I guess that's what makes the Angela Rayner story worse: if she'd intended to break the law then there's far more safe lucrative ways to do it than becoming a Shadow Secretary of State. But that's the sort of joined thinking that gets us to the place where the government has a website dedicated to healthy living, yet the very first thing that pops up is a message telling you to accept cookies.

And finally I was about to talk about that Iranian attack on Israel but all seems to be well for now seeing as Israel shot down 99% of the incoming missiles. I'm pretty sure Alec Baldwin had a better hit ratio on his last film shoot.