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Cardinals are traveling to Italy in order to start selecting the new Pope. Always a jester, President Trump threw his hat into the ring put out an AI picture of him in the role, one which he probably would like simply because it's a lifetime appointment although I suspect, knowing his taste in decor and gold and gilding, he'd find the Vatican a tad plain. Anyway, I think the vote starts on Wednesday when they start emanating smoke from that chimney, as the Vatican Bank starts setting fire to fin ......

I was away over Easter but came back to a text message asking "what is brown and half eaten?" to which the answer is "the Pope's Easter egg." Not so much a pontiff was a pon-stiff and it certainly makes you wonder if Liz Truss was on holiday in Rome, after what happened with her and Queen Elizabeth. In fact it was actually King Charles who'd visited the pope the other week, so maybe he's cursed and if so, then I'd urge him to fly out and try patching things up with Meghan. As to broader conspiracies, Klaus Schwab resigned as head of the World Economic Forum the same day, the the Prophecy Of The Popes by St Malachy suggests the next one will be called Peter and see the end of the world take place. The new WEF chair btw is a former Nestle CEO who says that clean water should not be a human right.

Elsewhere in the news though? Well some more from the Trump Tariffs story after an American friend told me that his Vietnamese masseur had said the from now on she would only be able to love him medium time.

There's a very salacious story doing the rounds online that there's a video of Prime Minister Starmer being intimate with Lord Waheed Alli. In response his wife said she's going to stand by Kier, especially when he goes near the computer.

Katy Perry went into space as part of a Jeff Bezos publicity stunt to have an all-women astronaut crew, something that the Soviets did 60 years go. Please be clear that this was not space, it was a 10 minute automated flight to 60 miles up, it's like saying that you're an astronaut because I went on that ride in Florida and got to meet C3PO, or that I'm a race car driver because I briefly met met Jackie Stewart in the lounge at Heathrow. On the other hand, the embarrassing PR has been enough to make people forget that she was involved with Russell Brand a few years back. And for what it's worth, these missions have slightly iffy success rate so maybe next time swap out Katy Perry for Katy Price and while you're at it maybe Rachel Reeves to.

Reviews are in for Meghan Markle's new jam. Some of the words being used are "bitter" "nasty" "stale" "bland" and "sour grapes" although that's just her, apparently the jam is quite tasty.

Russel Brand was finally charged for a number of offenses, in the same week as former snooker champion Game Dott was in the news for interfering with underage girls. He apparently potted a red, a black, and another red before missing an easy yellow and ending up with a break the same age as his alleged girlfriend

A crash helmet used by Jackie Stewart was signed by Michael Schumacher as part of a charity auction. Schumacher was afterwards umored to have said, I wish I was wearing this 12 years ago.

There was an outcry after a job posting in London that said "only immigrants from India will be considered" The company apologised and said it was a mistake and that only MALE immigrants from India would be considered.

There's emergency legislation being drafted in the UK to nationalize the steel industry after it was forced to close due to government legislation. Legislation that was supported on both sides it should be said. Steel manufacturing, and metal refining in general are completely incompatible with the concept of net zero, and as an example, the amount of electricity needed to make just one drinks can is the same as if you took a hairdryer and left it turned on for an hour. Most refineries or smelters require entire power plants just to themselves, the aluminum smelter in Anglesey had its own dedicated nuclear power plant before they were both closed down. All part of the plan that "Green energy will pay for itself" which is a strange thing to say given that the more green decides are installed and the more wind farms are installed, the more expensive it becomes. I have a friend whose wife wanted an expensive dinner for their anniversary so he drove her to the local BP garage, grabbed her a microwave meal and filled the car's tank up to the brim. That' in the UK at least, elsewhere of course the cost of energy is plummeting and oil is the cheapest it's been since the covid.

Val Kilmer passed away, the actor famous for films like Top Gun, or Batman Forever or as it's now known, Batman Not Forever. For what it's worth I'm not surprised, he was coughing his guts out in Tombstone and that was over 30 yers ago. Anyway, his agent says he's set to star in Heat 2, next week at the crematorium

China has banned cigarette smoking in schools. Luckily for the children though it will still be permitted in the workplace

Marine Le Pen was banned from running for election next time, because the authorities have to stop democracy to protect it or some such nonsense. For what it's worth, she was technically guilty of the crime though and to paraphrase the old expression, "Le Pen is not mightier than Le Fraud"

However, this week's biggest news was the Tariffs that President Trump imposed on Foreign imports. Higher taxes and protection for US blue collar jobs, it's a policy that everyone from Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi have spent half a century arguing for but because Trump did it it's a bad thing now. The products really fall into two categories

1) A tax on cheap Chinese tat like stuff at wall mart and $5 t-shirts. I joked a minute ago about Chinese children smoking in factories but that really is what fuels the cheap clothing market and if you believe in an fair wage for a days work then there's literally no reason other than exploitation that explains why clothes are made in the Far East. There's an old Ricky Gervais joke where he's shown a the artwork a friend't child made, to which he says it's rubbish and points out the quality stitching that a 5yo made when he was sticking his jacket.

2) Fancy European stuff, for the people who live in America but build their lifestyle and public perception around how they drive an Audi or only by French wine or join a conversation about the Super Bowl in order to shut it down and explain that they don't watch sport at all. In some respects I imagine that those sort of people will actually welcome the price increases, so that it becomes less attainable by the riffraff, the sort of plebs that had to work for their money or whose parents didn't get them a place at college by writing a big cheque.

As to the reaction it was comical. Irish leader Micheál Martin said he goal "is to protect Irish jobs and the Irish economy" Except he has no such powers, that will be decided by people in Brussels. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said her administration will do “everything we can” to work towards an agreement with the United States" except she can't do a single thing, because she's in the EU and those decisions are similarly made by the unelected people in Brussels, who have literally nothing to lose, and everything to gain by being as obstinate and attention seeking as possible. On the other hand the UK is literally being offered either a 10% rate or even a zero percent rate, but it would be conditional on things like free speech and not, as an example, prosecuting people for praying in their own house, which the Scottish police have actually done. It reminds me of the joke where Kier Starmer saw and old lady struggling with 2 shopping bags so his went up to her and offered to lighten the burden, by cutting her pension in half so she could only afford one bag the following week.

There were a couple tragedies this week, with an earthquake in Burma. Amonst the dead were an Elvis impersonator called Amul Shookup. There was also a Russian submarine sinking and apparently Hollywood are looking to make that story into a film entitled, "The Hunt for Someone Sober".

Vice President Vance traveled to Greenland which is in the midst of an argument about whether it wants to be a Danish territory, an independent country, or the 51st US state, presumably with MAGA meaning "Make America Greenland Also" or "Make America Go Away" if you're the Danish, or "Morons Are Getting Arrested" if you're the owner of one of those Tesla Dealerships, or perhaps if you're my local Indian restaurant then "Mouthwatering Aromas, Great Affordable"

As to Greenland, the territory is a potential spot for a war to break out given its strategic location and it's thus doubly worrying that the capital is called Nuuk. Let's just hope there's no horrible misunderstanding or people mistyping things onto a phone, and in an unrelated note this week it was leaked that war plans were being discussed at the highest level over a social media app called Signal.

It will make for an interesting time when they declassify records in 50 years, particularly when we have to explain the memes and references to kiddos who've never seen or heard of the Simpsons or Game of Thrones. I'm imagining someone posting that Lord Of The Rings meme picture, the one with Sean Bean as Boromir, expect he's explaining that 'one does not simply walk into Iran'. Or maybe a Sean Bean from Game of Thrones being killed. On the other hand it could be worse, it could be Sean Bean was in that set of National Treasure films where he runs around DC and Philadelphia trying to steal all the gold or the like. The 2070s could be quite fun really.

George Foreman passed away, or as he's now presumably known, George Formallyman, and his family have since found a gravestone so good they put his name on it. I actually found out about this news when a friend texted me saying "George Foreman Dead" and I replied back "check the fuse in the plug" And then I realised it was the boxer and my first question was how it happened, like to Jake Paul get paid $50m to beat him up or push him down the stairs

There was a crisis in the world of aviation after a massive explosion at Heathrow Airport which for once was a result of an electrical substation failure, rather than a Boeing plane dropping out of the sky. There's now talk about whether the incident was terrorism and it's doubly good news for the Pope, who was released released from hospital the next day and so has a lock-tight alibi for events that night. In the mean time we're presumably waiting to see if that Russian pair that tried to murder the Skripals a few years back turn up having been on holiday again. Perhaps they visited Hatton Cross or Acton to see "Historic famous Lidl shop"

There's also been a wave of attacks by leftists against Tesla vehicles, the irony being that for every one they burn, the insurance buys yet another one off of Elon Musk, making him even more wealthy and powerful. They'd probably achieve their aims better if they applied for a sales job with a rival car company, but then we're dealing with people whose knowledge of cars is poor enough that if they tried to syphon off petrol from an RV, they'd probably end up going for the sewage tank, although that would be a glorious sigh to witness.

In other Elon Musk news, the Nasa astronauts that have been trapped in space for last 9 months finally returned to earth after a rescue mission by SpaceX. All good news apart from one of the married blokes who was starting to enjoy the peace and quiet and not being asked to stack the dishwasher by the wife or take the bins out.

Manchester United announced plans for a new stadium although given their precarious season this year, I assumed it was a new, far smaller, stadium for when they get relegated. I was also disappointed that designing it wasn't done as a challenge on The Apprentice. I'd love to have seen the contestants make a mess of it and Lord Sugar commenting, "not so much Old Trafford as Old Scaffold"

March 14th marked the anniversary of the death of Kark Marx and many capitalists would like to remind everyone about how that was likely his greatest achievement, apart from those old black and white comedies from the 1940s.

A UN judge living in the UK was found guilty of owning a slave and there was a fairly shocking outburst in court when she angrily claimed it wasn't a crime because she had diplomatic immunity from the UN. Surprisingly the UN actually dropped this and she's due for sentencing which likely proves that the UN considered her guilty of the worst crime of all: being caught.

In another case of strange justice, a protestor tried to scale Big Ben and the police decided to take him down with a cherrypicker. A friend of mine suggested they should have cut to the chase and taken him down with a rifle instead. Meanwhile the politicians inside the building were busy discussing the new Trump Tariffs, saying they'll "keep options open" with the Labour MPs adding "in addition to keeping the border open" and also presumably having an open bar, for MPs only of course.

Meanwhile those tariffs announced in DC coincided with democrats going from the party advocating for mandatory electric car ownership, to firebombing Teslas and then wondering why they're not viewed seriously. In a further case of irony, the same people will advocate for a ban on Tesla because Elon Musk's supposedly nazi ideology, yet then drive home in a Mercedes, a BMW or a Volkswagens. Asides from the cluelessness, it makes you wonder if they actually just don't like Tesla because it's an American car brand. Although on the plus side they might do everyone a favour and move onto firebombing the supporting infrastructure like wind farms.

The long grift that is the Ukraine war headed to Europe this week with Kier Starmer promising to write as many strongly written words as possible and to commit all the generals he has, as long as by general you mean general hopes an generally vague commitments that don't involve any more money or real commitment. I imagine him going on the radio to invoke Churchill, promising that "Other countries shall fight them on the beaches, perhaps the French or Dutch shall fight them on the landing grounds"

Certainly if I was the Germans I'd want a very strongly signed agreement that everyone was absolutely ok with them raising an army and going on a rampage through Poland to fight a war with Russia, you really want to make sure there's no ambiguity about whether people are ok with that or not this time.

Of course, while the US is being discussed in the European press as the most important thing in the world, the news cycle in DC has long since moved on. The main story there this week was yet more DOGE savings, including a story about the TSA losing their union collective bargaining rights after it turned out that many major airports had more staff employed in union activism than actually screening the passengers. Apparently it's a way they let tenured staff quasi retire with a pay rise. Admittedly though, and speaking as someone who travels transatlantic a lot, I'd frankly be ok if they all just disappeared to the pub and chatted about lefty activism all they wanted, rather than hassling passengers at a security cordon, but then I guess grew up traveling in the world before 9/11. The response by the media of course remained as rational as internet fan fiction and the late night legacy news discussion shows are almost indistinguishable from their satirical equivalents.

Queue the New York Times claiming that Trump cheated in the election while Trump himself gave a fairly amusing speech in DC mentioning how he would be booed by the democrats even he cured cancer. Then as a followup he decided to prove the point by giving an honorary Secret Service membership to a terminally ill child and was immediately vilified for it by the left. Meanwhile, the South African government, always rational, decided to cancel a contract with Starlink after remembering that it was owned by Trump's buddy Elon Musk, and then a minister there suggested that the country should develop it's own system instead. I guess it's a real shame that there isn't a South African equivalent of Elon Musk, apart from the one that lives in America, and fled from South Africa.

Apparently there's a sale on the lego store, people are lined up for blocks.

Hollywood legend Gene Hackman died this week. He was famous for playing Lex Luther, or as he's now possibly known, Ex Luther. Either way, we're waiting the results of the autopsy but I think the body will be in the crypt tonight. Many people have discussed the supposed 'curse' of superman. Christopher Reeve spent his later years paralyzed, Richar Pryor got MS, Margot Kidder had mental health issues and Henry Cavill's recent career is a train wreck, but unfortunately not a train wreck where superman saves the day.

Westminster MP Mike Amesbury was back at parliament after serving a 10 week sentence for punching a man in Cheshire. Say what you will he stuck to his election promise to fight for his constituents.

Control of the James Bond franchise passed to Amazon, which is sad given that we know what will happen next. When they made that ghastly Rings of Power series, they showed less respect to JR Tolkien than they do to the Chinese slaves that make most of their products but I think it was best summed up by a cartoon in the New Yorker where Bond is strapped down and asks "do you expect me to talk" and Bezos replies, no I expect you to star in a series of increasingly bland tv shows, that all have significant viewership drops after the 1st episode.

And in the US, Ukraine president Zelenskyy showed up for talks and discovered that not only had rainbows disappeared with the end of DEI, they'd also gotten rid of all the pots of free gold at the end of them. The week or so prior, Elon Musk had asked all civil servants to list 5 things they'd done in their job the prior week so I was honestly waiting for him to write Zelenskyy an email asking "what did you do with the $350bn we gave you?" At this stage I expect that he maybe got back to the hotel to discover that Trump has also changed the password to the White House Netflix account so he'll have to stop mooching off that too. But then his fortunes turned when he flew back to Kiev via London and Prime Minister Starmer said he backed Ukraine. I said 'his fortunes turned' but I mean about how about Zelenskyy felt awkward and sorry in comparison to Kier Starmer. Ukraine is about to likely get vast amounts of foreign investment when peace finally comes, I know where I'd rather be in charge of. Of the 2 leaders, only one of them got invited to Washington with press enthusiasm, whereas literally nobody cares what comes out of Number 10, unless it's a resignation of course.

In Florida 15 people were injured after a passenger train collided with a fire engine, although I guess at least the fire engine was there to put out the fire. Swings and roundabouts really. There was also another accident after a plane crashed in Toronto, many were quick to blame DEI policies and blame an all-female flight crew which is a very ignorant thing to say because look at how the plane landed upside down, clearly the cause of the accident was DEI policies resulting in an inexperienced all Australian crew that didn't realise they had to turn the plane over when you fly north.

There were new recycling plans in England and apparently all houses will be given 4 separate bins. This is being portrayed as an environmental issue although I don't think the policy is being implemented for any purpose other than raising money, when they fine people for getting them mixed up on a Thursday evening. Personally speaking I always try my best with recycling: next door barely manage any more than milk bottles and some amazon boxes whereas I make sure my recycling bin is always filled to the brim with beer cans and wine bottles. Meanwhile In Wales there's talk that the government is going to ban Greyhound racing, presumably by putting up yet more 20mph signs and speed cameras

In the US it was revealed that until the mid-1970s the code to launch the nuclear missiles was in fact 12 zeros in a row. It's unclear how many times Joe Biden somehow still managed to forget the number. Also in the US there were fresh revelations from the DOGE group. FEMA last year spent $59m on luxury hotels in New York so that the city politicians could downplay the scale of the immigration situation. This was at the same time as FEMA (1) claimed there wasn't enough money to help hurricane victims and (2) was instructing its workers to avoid giving out aid in areas liable to not vote for Kamala Harris.

Health & Human Services were forced to cancel $180m of contracts that were specifically covering "administrative affairs" - ie not medicine or doctors salaries. One line item included $168k on an exhibit to glorify Anthony Fauci, and it may as well have been one of Fauci alongside a golden calf and possibly Obama dressed up to look like Moses coming down from the mountain, proclaiming "thou shalt not stand within 6 feet of someone unless you pay $100 to Pfizer first"

And it was revealed that the cost-cutting is starting to hit a limit whereby the government is literally unable to lay off workers fast enough. It seems that in the 1950s the US Government started processing exit paperwork and then shipping it by road and storing it 230 feet underground in a former limestone mine in Pennsylvania, and thus the rate at which the government can eliminate federal employees is in fact limited by the speed of the lift-shaft in and out of the mine. It reminds me of the old joke, what do you get if you drop a piano down a mineshaft, and the answer is A Flag Miner. As compared to if you drop it onto a military based in which case it's a flat major.

It was Valentines day on Friday and if you were unaware of that fact then I guess that either you were single, or you found out the hard way and now you are now single.

There was yet another tragedy in Germany after a car ran into a crowd of 30 people and the german government was keen to state that there was no evidence that there was a religious motivation, despite the yelling in Arabic and the investigation having to be routinely paused so that the culprit could take time out to pray towards Mecca. Those on the left will likely blame the car, which was white, and be quick to jump on the fact that the car was made in Cowley Oxfordshire so the attack was therefore British in origin.

In the US there were more fun and games with the Doge group eliminating yet more government spending and it's worth while remembering that when you're investigating fraud and someone yells at you to stop, there's a pretty solid chance that that's the person committing fraud, especially if they're trying to get a judge to stop the investigation continuing. One highlight of this was a fairly amusing series of events where Reuters news did a hit piece attacking Elon Musk, then Musk posted a tweet online asking online if Reuters were being paid any money by the deep state, and low and behold Doge went and revealed there was indeed a government contract, with millions being paid to Thompsons Reuters for a "Large Scale Social Deception"

The left also went into meltdown because there's a $400m contract out there to buy armoured Teslas from Elon Musk, although the conveniently left out the part about how the contract was actually drafted at the tail end of the Biden administration. As for the broader impact of all this, the house prices in and around Washington DC are down a lot now if you look on property websites. Evidently people are being forced to sell up and go find jobs elsewhere, in the private sector, so be on your guard if you're a recruiter in the the north east, these are the calibre of people who get asked to describe themselves in three words and reply "really good at math" Admittedly years ago when I was younger I saw an advert for a business analyst and it said 40-50k but it turned out that the interview process was more involved than simply phoning up and giving the answer of 10k.

More nonsense after the Scottish government had to deny that it was planning to ban pet cats for 'environmental' reasons. Personally I'm all for the ban, assuming they mean that awful film with James Corden in it

Grenfell Tower was back in the news after Angela Rayner said that it would finally be demolished. This is 8 years after the fire, although I imagine that Angela spent some of that time checking with lawyers about whether she would be allowed to buy it on expenses and sub let it out.

More trolling from Donald Trump after he proposed taking over the Gaza Strip and converting it into a Florida style Riviera of condominiums, hotels and golf courses. Trump famously loves golf so I can't help but wonder if he misunderstood what his military advisers meant by a series of bunkers.

Also in America the number of genders hit 10 year low after a number of executive orders preventing men from competing in women's sports amongst other things. Compare and contrast to the UK where the "Science" Museum was in the news after a new exhibit informed visitors that Lego is institutionally homophobic on the basis that it clicks together with male and female connectors which are apparently "heteronormative" and encourage bias in children. Strangely they don't mention this in the section about electricity and how plugs work.

It was a busy week in America though as the DOGE (or Department Of Government Efficiency) continued to take a hatchet to wasteful government spending offering almost all government workers a choice of redundancy payments or an end to work from home, which of course is designed as an excuse to eliminate tens of thousands of unnecessary jobs. There is now talk of doing a full audit of spending by the IRS and it's worth remembering that the democrats opposed to that are the same people that wanted the IRS to hire 87,000 more agents to audit more taxpayers. The cuts to overseas aid flagged up quite a smorgasbord of waste, it turns out that taxpayers had funded a $45m DEI program in Burma, $32k for a transgender comic in Peru, over $3m for the BBC, $1.5 to fund DEI programs in Serbia, $20 for in Iraqi version of Sesame St, $56 to the Egyptian tourism board, $27 to George Soros' legal fund, $11m to a Vietnamese recycling scheme, $70k to fund a DEI musical in Ireland, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree, etc. I jest of course, there were no geese a laying but there were apparently lots of trans ladies dancing, all at the taxpayer's expense.

This week I should also apologise for being a day or two late, I'm in Philadelphia and was busy watching them win the Super Bowl although for what it's worth while America was distracted with that, the rest of the US was apparently also distracted by the president saying that he'd eliminate the department of education, eliminate the production of new penny coins and there was also a report out saying that Josh Shapiro (the guy that Kamala nearly picked for VP) was involved in the Trump assassination plot last summer. Quite the week really

Idris Elba backed a plan to stop UK knife crime by only selling blunt kitchen knives, he's not the sharpest knife in the box himself.

Wayne Rooney is inn talks to become a pundit on Match of the Day, which I assume will end up with the show being relegated to BBC2 next year.

But this week also saw two major crashes, one was the AI tech stocks and the other was a plane crash in Washington DC although it's easy to get the two stories confused as the government is notoriously staffed by what voters would describe as only artificial intelligence. As to tech stocks first, I find it somewhat unsurprising, the NVDA market cap was recently $3.6 trillion which is 3 times more than Exxon, Shell, BP and Chevron put together, and I just don't yet see how you make a business the combined size of the oil industry when it's main selling points are free recipe ideas, helping you conjure a work email in the style of Shakespeare, or making crude photoshop memes. Typically it's a given that technology only becomes mainstream when the adult entertainment business gets involved, whether that was VCRs, the internet, video compression, credit card security or the like, so I imagine the Metropolitan police are already looking to set up operation Chat GP Yewtree.

As the plane crash, 64 people died although one highlight, if you can call it that, was when President Trump was asked if he would personally visit the crash-site and he pointed out it was in the middle of a river and asked the press reporter wanted to film him going swimming in the Potomac. As to the cause, blame was placed on the role of diversity in hiring practices, and that was swiftly criticised until it was revealed that not only was the traffic control tower understaffed and had been for years, but that several white men in their 30s had come forward saying they were declined a job working there specifically because there were strict quotas to be met by the FAA. It was government policy that DEI had to come ahead of safety.

Those quotas covered not only race and gender but also diversity of competence. There's specific references in the guidance to hiring people with "severe intellectual disability" and "psychiatric disability" so clearly the airport was boxed in and chose understaffing over purposeful endangerment although no doubt some activist with pink hair will be glad to at least know that the helicopter was a Black Hawk. And then the next day another small plane crashed in Philadelphia, killing 7, 6 of whom were from Mexico, and the president's response was to place a 25% import tariff on Mexico. Perhaps the idea is to incentivise home-grown all-American plane crashes, to which Boeing are presumably rubbing their hands with glee seeing as they've been investing in that idea for years.

Manchester United's youngest ever player, David Gaskell, died at the age of 84. Certainly if their youngest player was 84 then it explains why they've been playing so badly this week

Prince Harry was in the money after his latest grift netted him £10m off newspaper The Sun and honestly at this stage I wish someone would commission a tv show based on him, where a former royal plays the role of Del Trotter or Arthur Daley, always on the make and up to something. But anyway, £10m That should keep Meghan going for a couple weeks I guess.

And Donald Trump got stuck into his first week at work, highlights of which included renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, deporting hundreds of illegal migrants, and announcing plans to fully declassify the files on various things like the Kennedy Assassination. There's a video clip of him where George W Bush is seen smiling, presumably because Trump might have mentioned JFK, UFOs and the Epstein Island in the past but he never once talked about the 9-11 papers that are presumably locked up for decades to come. Personally The secret I'd like to know is how Trump remains alive and seemingly in good form. He sleeps for only 4-5 hours per night, he has the most stressful job on the planet, gets shot at by assassins, drinks 10+ Diet Cokes per day and has a well know inclination for fast food and not exercising.

His friend Elon Musk has posted in the past about having steak and eggs for breakfast and not sleeping although this week he was also in the news after supposedly making a nazi salute which looked more like punching the air if you ask me. Either way it was the likes of CNN reporting on it so who cares although now I think about it, in the 1960s the US needed actual Nazis to win the race to the moon, so why would we expect getting to Mars to be different? Perhaps next year he'll release the Tesla Model SS and people can talk about how he went from being the Henry Ford of our generation to becoming the Henry Ford of our generation.

In other fake news though, Kamala Harris has decided to now blame her election defeat on her husband, absolving personal responsibility being of course the classic playbook for democrats. It's amusing is that her complete inability to accept responsibility or accountability was one of the defining reasons she lost, along with being a terrible candidate who was anointed by the party leaders rather than than the electorate. Albeit at least they'll keep losing as long as they avoid open primaries and keep putting up terrible candidates. Anyway, at this point I'll stop banging that dead horse, although a neighbour asked if I knew what was worse than banging a dead horse, and apparently the answer is shooting a live cat. Anyway, I need to go now and put up some signs outside, I've not seen Mr Tiddles since Thursday.

This week has seen the aftermath of the Los Angeles fire, with people returning to investigate the ruins of their burned out homes and potentially lobbying for the Hollywood Boulevard to be rename the Hollywood Walk of Flame. The fires are mostly contained now although that means it also reached the 2nd depressing stage, the one where burglars come in to loot what's left, although in a twist of irony the one thing that seems to remain in good condition is the stone fireplace.

In other ironic news, Kamala Harris' home in the Brentwood neighborhood managed to survive the fire intact but was subsequently ransacked by illegal migrants in the days after the fire. Elsewhere in LA there was an instance of a police officer arresting a burglar who was dressed up as a fireman, all while In Britain police are yet to do anything about Rachel Reeves who is masquerading as an economist and competent chancellor.

Back in LA though, Harry and Meghan were quick to capitalise on the PR potential and arranged a photoshoot hugging some survivors of the wildfire. I mean come on, the people just saw their home burn to the ground, have they not suffered enough? I think the cringiest part is that she's sporting an LA Dodgers baseball cap, as if to imply she's a regular blue caller mom, in much the same way as politicians from Martha's Vinyard sport a bottle of Miller Lite, or that time Gordon Brown claimed he was a massive fan of the Arctic Monkeys. At the very least she could have gone with an LA Rams one, that team's currently a Super Bowl prospect with a game this Sunday. Or maybe gone with a different team so that she could coordinate the outfit with some Red Sox or White Sox.

And finally in news elsewhere, surrealist filmmaker David Lynch died. It's expected that the funeral eulogy will be delivered by a dwarf talking into a trombone while a blindfolded man paints a swan with turmeric, with a musical performance of The Lark Ascending accompanied by a lady screaming whilst being hung upside down. It's not my cup of tea, although it's probably more entertaining than watching Tottenham play.

This week I turned on the TV to see what I thought was a new Roland Emmerich movie, but instead it turned out that Los Angeles was on fire. Now huge swathes of it look like that other Los Angeles movie with Snake Pliskin except now I think about it there's a scene in that one where Kurt Russel goes surfing with Peter Fonda and the water would probably have helped a lot here and at the very least a fictional character wouldn't have been able to make the situation worse, unlike the mayor or the governor.

What didn't help was hiring a fire chief based on their pronouns rather than firefighting or management expertise. There's an ominous NPR article from 2 years ago which accuses the fire service of being "mostly white" and excitedly discussing a new program to replace the culture and management.

The last 2 years also saw the city cut the firefighting budget by $20m, laid off all the firefighters that didn't participate in the covid jab, they spent lots of money painting fire hydrants in diverse rainbow colours, diverted water away from the city as part of an environmental scheme, opted to sell too much what remaining water was left to the highest agricultural bidder, whilst at the same time opting to not build more water retention infrastructure like pipes due to 'environmental' concerns. Then you compound it with changes to insurance regulations that caused companies to simply quit the state leaving tens of thousands of people uninsured against fires. And it would maybe be ok if there was enough equipment left to deal with it except they sent hardware and money to Ukraine and then investigated swapping over to electric fire trucks. Oh, and also the water pumps that keep the hydrants' pressure topped up were also turned off because some idiot in charge thought they should cut the electricity to prevent electrical fires from breaking out.

Maybe at this point I should lighten the mood here with a joke I heard down the pub? Q: What's the most common type of tree in Los Angeles. A: Ash

It's almost as if things would have been ok if they had promoted people based on competence and experience rather than DEI which turns out to be an anagram of "die" which lots of people now are, dead. It's only now with over $100bn in damages that even the Hollywood stars are left thinking that the city should have spent more time focussing on how to fight fires and less time trying to fight "toxic masculinity" - it wouldn't be surprising if someone on a 6 figure salary at city hall accused the fire itself of being racist or saying it would never have happened if Kamala was in charge of the country. I say "Hollywood" but perhaps they'll change that sign to say "Firewood" with any luck it's probably old enough that it has asbestos in it so it'll be ok. I am also waiting for the 2nd genuinely hilarious part of the story to come out where the red carpet brigade in beverly hills discover that it will takes years and years to even begin to rebuild their houses due to the Kafka-esque bureaucracy and permitting system in California. They all voted for it mind, and that's before you even begin to get to the part where you attempt to hire a building contractor and discover that there's a years' long back-log and that those firms also can't easily hire additional people because they have to comply with strict gender and and diversity laws when it comes to employing people.

I've quite often said that things always have to get a lot worse before they start to get better but this may well be the inflection point where California decides to head back in the other direction. Until last week there was talk about Governor Newsom running for the president in 4 years time, but this morning I actually read an article suggesting that the state could flip back to republican because people have finally had enough of this rubbish now that it impacts them personally. It reminds me of an interaction I saw online where someone said 'if you abolish taxes there won't be money for the government to spend' and a few people had replied "Yes, that's the whole point"

In the last week there was pair of terrorist attacks in America, one in New Orleans and the other in Las Vegas. The FBI are putting out the usual story about a lack of a motive, although Coldplay just released some new material so I think that I can figure out what happened. There's not much to joke about really when it comes to tragedies such as these although I looked up the details of the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded in Vegas. It seems that the driver actually lived in Denver Colorado and to get to Las Vegas in an electric vehicle, he actually had to make 8 charging stops along the way, presumably at an hour apiece, so it's not very surprising he was feeling suicidal by the time he got there.

I jest of course, it's all just part of the wonderful diversity of modern life, and the religeon of peace, by which I mean there's a piece of foot over there, a piece of arm up against the window, etc. And if you think we should maybe vet the people or at least deport people convicted of horrific crimes then just remember that you'r just part of the problem, somehow. Someone took that rhyme about "sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me" and decided that the frivolity of sticks and stones should be extended to knives and guns, but that words should now require a custodial sentence. It's the sort of legal gymnastics that reminds me of that joke about how in the bible God created snakes before he created lawyers because he wanted the practice.

In the UK 2 people were recently released after just 6 months for killing a 14yo teenager with a machete in Elswick, whilst two others (Tyler Kay & Jordan Parlour) were given 20 months in prison for social media posts. It's worth beating in mind that Kier Starmer used to be Director of Public Prosecutions and has now ruled out the possibility of ever having a public inquiry into the ghastly Rotherham abuse scandal and subsequent police coverup, on the grounds that it might stir up a bit of racial tension if people find out what police deliberately allowed to continue happening for year after year. Of course this is also the same Labour Party that had Patricia Hewitt who for years campaigned to reduce the age of consent down to 10 and whose cabinet ministers are now refusing to outlaw incest because it might offend ethnic minorities where the practice is rife, despite the subsequent costs to the national health service and society in general.

In Germany of course they famously always take things too far, even more-so with this sort of stuff, and there there's currently outrage at the story of Mursal Mohamed, a Somali migrant who beheaded and disemboweled someone at a homeless shelter and whose defense lawyer is now trying to prevent deportation on the grounds that Mursal has said he will be quick to simply make his way back from Somalia so the government shouldn't even bother wasting money on the flight. Contrast with fellow german immigrant Mikuzi Ikeya, a Japenese catholic immigrant who studied at Stuttgart, pays taxes rent and speaks german but is going to be deported because one of her university modules was canceled during covid and the government says she therefore didn't technically earn enough course credits to graduate.

I'm fed up going over these grisly details so I'm going to call it a day here and go outside to go skating. Just be careful out there with the winter weather mind, the Met Office has put out a "yellow snow warning" so just be careful you don't accidentally get any snowballs near your mouth.

Luigi Mangione, who assassinated the UnitedHealthcare CEO, was in court and decided to go with "not guilty" which was surprising bordering on comically delusional, seeing as it was all on camera. Some expected him to take pride for his twisted left wing manifesto and maybe burst into song about it being the wonderful crime of the year. He's currently being held at the same jail as Diddy and there's some fairly amusing cartoons doing the rounds about the Nintendo character Diddy Kong hanging out with the Luigi from the Super Mario games, and how if they broke out of prison the resulting chase might resemble Mario Kart

Keir Starmer's brother died on boxing day, Starmer made a series of comments about him being a "lovely bloke" although most people listening at the press conference were placing bets to see whether the Prime Minister would use the event as yet another excuse to crowbar in that old line about how their father had been a tool maker when they were growing up.

It's been quite a week for air crashes. This morning I saw that a South Korean 737-800 Jetliner crashed killing 177. This is all on the backs of KLM flight 1204, Azerbaijan flight 28243, Air Canada 2259. You could make a comparison to London busses, except there's been a blackout of news relating to London transport after a car mysteriously crashed into some pedestrians. With regards to the South Korean one, there's a few comments being made about how none of the landing gear were deployed and you can go view the fairly shocking footage online. My main concern watching it though was seeing that some smart alec had build a massive concrete wall at the end of the runway. It seemed to all be vaguely in control until they smashed into that thing and it is worth noting that once more, the only handful of survivors were sitting in the tail section of the aircraft. Always something to consider, although do you have to spend the flight next to the toilet so swings and roundabouts I guess.

Curiously, there's an article from exactly one year prior where the BBC asked "Can Boeing come back from this crisis?" And so I guess the answer was a resounding no although passengers will be reassured to know that the planes continue to be manufactured to the highest diversity standards.

Manchester City have been on a run worse than a Saudi Arabian doctor at a German Christmas Market. This was of course the news that a Saudi national ploughed a car into a Christmas market killing 5 and injuring more than 200 people. Just looking at some of the major news outlets, the attack was blamed on a car, a vehicle, a BWM, a car, an automobile and in one desperate attempt to quell the speculation, the German government tried to suggest the Saudi terrorist was actually a right wing member of the AfD. It's a display of detective work that they haven't tried since the aftermath of the Reichstag fire, although luckily nobody's buying that story. I makes me nostalgic to the era when we didn't need "fact checkers" although in retrospect we only realised we needed them when truth started getting out. As to the driver, for what it's worth, a friend of mine saw saw the footage of the tragedy and said if you think that's bad you should see what the BMWs on the M3 are like; I mean I remember years ago seeing a BMW driver using their indicators so I did the correct thing and phoned up to report the car stolen.

Anyway, talking about people that members of polite society look down on, Peter Mandelson was back in the news after being appointed the ambassador to the US, a move which was met in part by bemusement, because he's an unknown figure in the US unless you were part of the Jeffrey Epstein crowd, although a few people from the Clinton era remembered him and there's a quote out there where someone simply refers to him as "a moron" which in some respects is a compliment, it implies that he's simply a buffoon, rather than calculated and yet also on the wrong side of history when it comes just just about everything. I vaguely remember a cartoon back in the day where Mandelson's career was compared to the recent car crash that Princess Diana died in, I think there was also some story doing the rounds about him being flown into his new Hartlepool constituency and mistaking mushy pees for guacamole, so at least we might all get a good reverse story when he visits his colleagues at the Mexican embassy. Certainly he appears to think his job is to defend the EU and criticize President Trump, who will no doubt revel in the excuse to reward the lack of diplomatic tact with tariffs and grind the economy into the dirt and for what it's worth there were so many better candidates. If it had to be a Labour stalwart, they could have gone for Ed Balls who at least has experience and contacts in America. Or maybe kill two birds with one stone and send them Greg Wallace. I mean his TV career is over but he knows about canapés and I get the impression he's quite like the diplomatic immunity these days.