Welcome

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 ne ......

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.

Syrian President Assad fled the country after a coup and is now living it up in Moscow. It's unclear what he'll do next but if he's able to flee that quickly at the sight of danger, then he's probably quite well qualified to captain one of those Italian cruise liners like what happened a few years ago.

Saudi Arabia was selected to host the 2034 world cup. The tickets aren't on sale yet but I suspect some people will give their right hand to get ahold of them.

The CEO of United Healthcare was gunned down in New York by an assassin who was later picked up at a McDonalds. It's a rare combination, a vigilante who is clearly very motivated about people's healthcare, yet also apparently is a fan of the McRib, seeing as he was stopped in Pennsylvania at one of the few restaurant locations that offer that seasonal specialty. It leaves you wondering if he'd have killed more people if he got there early and was told they were only serving the breakfast menu.

Someone who also worked at McDonalds, for a day at least on the campaign trail, was president elect Donald Trump, who has been very busy, setting out policies and trolling Justin Trudeau with a suggestion that the US could maybe just offer to annex Canada into becoming a 51st State if they don't like the idea of paying tariffs. He also showed up at the ceremony to reopen Notre Dame Cathedral; Britain sent along Prince William, although his uncle Prince Andrew wanted to go after he misread it as being something about a naughty dame.

The Trump world tour is of course being covered by the legacy media exactly the way you'd expect and as a good example, in 2020 the Metro ran with a headline "Joe Biden and Kamala Harris named Time Person of the Year" and quite recently the same paper ran with the headline "Donald Trump joins exclusive club enjoyed by Hitler, Stalin, Khrushchev and Khomeini.

It is in fact quite hard to remember that Joe Biden is in fact still the president although I doubt that he even remembers that either these days, at least when he's not trying to abuse his power by getting his friends and family off the hook from the police. The White House recently came out with a pardon for his criminal son Hunter, covering crimes going back 11 years and even covering crimes he's not been charged with yet, implying that what went on was far worse than people realise. But generally the way it all worked was that he spent years sending taxpayer money to Ukraine, Ukraine then paid huge payment to Hunter's personal bank account, then Hunter paid a big cut of it to Joe, and then finally Joe Biden used executive powers to prevent anyone going to jail over it.

Benjamin Netanyahu was indicted by the ICC. I think the cricket committee accused him of ball tampering during his recent match against Hamas. Although in all seriousness that court was like a modern day Dreyfus trial and it will likely end the same way.

Paddy McGuiness is under fire after a claim that he stopped off mid-way through a charity cycle to have a slap up meal at a Michelin Star restaurant. If I were his lawyer I would argue that he had a puncture and thought the Michelin place could sell him a new tyre.

Former deputy PM John "2 jags" Prescott died this week at the quite astonishing age of 86 years, so hope for the rest of, although I think he was a lot sportier in his youth. Anyway, that farm worker from Wales has presumably been invited down to the funeral to throw one last egg at the procession.

I'd actually heard that Prescott died of a heart attack after seeing the new Jaguar advertising campaign this week, in which they went Bud Light and decided to appeal to young gender-obsessed activists, rather than men over 40 who like roguish V8 sports cars. At a certain level I will admit to seeing their argument about needing to differentiate themselves from like the likes of BMW or Audi. On the other hand, I can't remember seeing *any* jaguar advert of late and they really could have just made a short advert about a cad with a 5 o'clock shadow speeding along the Thames embankment to go fetch his much younger girlfriend, and then gone onto double car sales. Except what we have is a company presumably about to pivot to a range of electric vehicles, a genre that the public have no desire to buy, all sold with a new logo nobody recognises and which may as well be cheap imports from a Chinese manufacturer. It's also worth contrasting things with the new advert for the Volvo Ex90 in which a white father worries about his daughter's safety as she leaves home, it's filmed by the bloke that did Oppenheimer and Inception and it's brilliant, although when I do next get a car, it will likely be an Alfa Romeo Stelvio. Anyway, let's close with a classic: What's the difference between a Jaguar and a Mercedes? Princess Diana wouldn't be caught dead in a Jaguar.

There have been protests at a pub in Oxfordshire which is under fire for being called The Midget, after protestors said the name was offensive. The owners pointed out that it's actually named after the sports car the MG Midget which was produced nearby. As usual it's likely just attention seeking protestors looking for an excuse to be angry, it's pretty much a certainty that it would be the gender equality protestors out if the car had been the MG B GT.

There's the United Nations Climate Change conference in Azerbaijan, which is like holding an AA meeting down at Wetherspoons. Some people say that it's no laughing matter but then so is Radio 4. And in the meantime the whole thing will be as boring and pointless as that Mike Tyson fight, and possibly more expensive to host.

The Archbishop of Canterbury resigned after saying the position had become untenable, although I misheard the news at first and thought they said under-ten-able. Talking of which a musician from the Wallace Gromit films was convicted this week, apparently he worked on the Wrong Trousers.

It's also been the aftermath of the US election which was about a calm and sensibly discussed as you'd imagine. Highlights included left wing panels saying that America was apparently still too racist enough to elect a black president like Kamala Harris, despite actually having already electing Obama 16 years ago, and then re-electing him. Then it was blamed on sexism, although Hilary actually got 3m more votes than Trump when she ran. Then minorities were again blamed for being race traitors, at which point I was expecting Dora The Explorer to show up to say that Mexican Word of the day was Nacho. As in Nacho President. There's also a lot of talk about how Trump's cabinet has zero African people in it, although then they ignore the fact that Elon Musk is from South Africa but why let facts get in the way of a good argument. In the mean time the Republicans now hold the house, the senate, the white house and the supreme court, which is probably upsetting for Democrats because if he's actually won 4 years ago, he'd not have had the house, thus wouldn't be able to get anything done, and in a few weeks time he'd be leaving office.

Anyway, elsewhere when it comes to heads of state, Prince William has said that when he's king he's going to be "royal" but with a small R. Curiously enough his uncle Andrew is also known his preference to small Rs. Allegedly.

The US election is finally over and the likes of the BBC are shocked, as if nobody saw Trump winning, and win he did. The writing was on the wall when Trump played to a packed house in New York of all places, which was instantly compared to something the Nazis did in the 30s but I'll be honest, it was like something Hitler would have done then it was certainly most racially diverse and pro-Israel fascist rally I'd ever seen, and if playing Maddison Square Garden makes you a fascist, I guess I've been misunderstand those Billy Joel songs all these years.

Another major sign of what was coming was when the Amish, a group that don't take part in elections, decided to all come out to vote for Trump in a swing State after the US Government decided that they'd have to start using electricity and modern production methods if they wanted to own farms and not be raided.

Overall though, nobody should be surprised that Kamala Harris didn't do well with voters. Last time she ran in the primary 4 years ago, she was a drunken fool that did abysmally and was one of the first to be forced to drop out. Then having been given a diversity hire job as vice president, she wasn't popular, presiding over the immigration crisis and seemingly proud of the economic mess she oversaw. Then after Biden stepped down, she was crowned the candidate, without having take part in a primary which it was recognised she'd lose that to someone like Gavin Newsom. Then she refused to discuss policies or anything she would do, all while cackling like a demented fool and being unable to give basic interviews without extreme editing and ear pieces. Then they decided to run with the campaign that if you don't think an ethnic minority woman should get a turn, you're a fascist, as well as promoting the Project 25 stuff which is basically the left wing's version of the Q Anon conspiracies. I think the best part was maybe Obama and some others telling a mostly Muslim crowd in Michigan that they should vote for a pro-Israel candidate and that Trump might support the Palestinians.

In the end it concluded with a discussion on CNN comparing this year to 4 years ago, and a map showing that Kamala had failed to outperform Biden in literally every single county in the country, not even one. Then the panel sat there, speechless and unable to comprehend why shouting at people hadn't worked, or why the working class seemingly thought their job and the cost of petrol should take priority over the rights of prisoners to get state funded sex changes. Something that Kamala supported, along with flooding the job market with immigrant laborers to keep wages low, yet another thing she refused to deny when pressed by concerned interviews. Eventually the echo chamber at CNN got to the point of calling black people "white supremacists" thus concluding an election that was seemingly written by a comedy writing team of Armando Ianunci & Chris Morris.

It's only a day until election day in the US and as usual it's all coming down to the wire although that could just be a lie designed to get more people to get out and vote. This week saw Biden call half the electorate human garbage although it's unclear if it was a mis-speak, or if he was hoping to throw Kamala Harris under the bus for making him retire. In response Donald Trump showed up to a rally in a garbage truck, thus winning over a large section of unionised labour that would probably have voted the other way, and also forcing the media to explain what Biden had said. After that circus I'd say that I've not seen democrats this angry since Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party decided to free the slaves.

For what it's worth, Kamala would be a complete disaster, unable to string a coherent sentence together, widely mocked and probably the worst example of a diversity hire most people have seen. And yet I actually stand to win a huge amount of money if she does win, because about 6 months ago I bet on the winner not being Trump OR Biden. On the other hand, Trump has survived more assassination attempts than she has interviews, even the ones where she got the questions in advance. Here's a good analogy: if you've ever used spray paint before, and you shake the can and hear the little ball inside bouncing around, that's what I think inside of Kamala Harris' head is like.

In the UK it was the budget, delivered by labour chancellor Rachel Thieves, or maybe it was Rachel Reeves. Either way the pound is down about 5% since last month and national insurance is going up, which means businesses will be hiring fewer people and the only billionaires paying taxes will be normal people who win the Euromillions. If you are after a good accountant, I'd recommend going with one who has a specific tax loophole or law named after them.

I read this week that quantum physicist Erwin Shrodinger was outed for some horrendous things he did and we have to be careful with language, but's let say he died in 1961 so its a shame he never got to enjoy Jimmy Savile on the tv. It does make you wonder though if he invented that story about the cat as a way to distract the police, and that he had a kidnapped child in the box.

Kemi Badenoch was elected the leader of the Conservative Party. She's of Nigerian heritage so I can't help but wonder if the other MPs all fell for a very convincing email about how she'd change their fortunes.

Former strongman and larger than life celebrity Geoff Capes passed away and a spokesperson for the family said it would be a heavy burden to carry, presumably referring to if they're asked to be a pallbearer. It's been nearly a week, and when one door closes another one opens, so another spokesperson, this one from Guiness World Records, said he now held the title as the world's strongest smelling man.

One of the Rotherham anti-immigrant protestors, Peter Lynch, died in prison this week. Ironically, it leaves a vacancy at the prison for some of the asian migrants in Rotherham who were abusing underage girls. In othee prison news there was talk about freeing up cells by having prisoners tagged and placed under house arrest to service their sentence at home. It's at this point most of us wished the home secretary could put on a Les Dawson impression and talk about it was a harsher sentence being stuck at home with the mother in law. Maybe the one about the mother in law saying she'll dance on his grave and Les saying he hopes so because he plans to be buried at sea.

In the US it's only a week or so until the election and there's now talk of Trump winning the popular vote, not just the electoral college. He went on the Joe Rogan podcast and also did a photo-op at McDonalds to capitalise on the story about how Kamala Harris' claim to have worked at McDonalds is nonsense and a lie designed to appeal to people who think she's snooty and elitist. It could have all gone the other way really but it's telling that Kamala couldn't get a minimum wage job and then decided to blame white people and the opposition fascists. The whole thing has a slightly fever dream quality to it, especially with people like Leonardo DeCaprio being wheeled out as an attempt to appeal to regular normal working class people like him. It makes you want to look for one of those spinning totems like in that movie Inception, where you weren't sure of what was real and what wasn't. The ending of that movie is often discussed, was it real or not, but surely the answer is that it was all make-believe because it concluded with Leo having a wife the same age as him.

Liam Payne from the band One Direction died this week after falling from a hotel balcony in Argentina. A hotel spokesperson said that was not what they meant when they offered express checkout. Although there's been talk of a tribute concert, with Madonna singing "Don't Cry For Me Argentina", the Rolling Stones Jumping Jack Flash followed by Street Fighting Man, and maybe also that song "Jump Around" by House of Payne.
Russel Brand was back in the news. It seems he's become a quasi-christian spiritualist and is peddling a lot of pseudoscientific things like crystals and amulets and suchlike. One of these supposedly protects you from wifi and bad energy. It costs £180 and is therefore the funniest thing he's done in years.

England has a new Football manager, and this time it's a German, which is somewhat controversial although to his credit, he might bring a lot of expertise at attacking Poland and France, at least as long as the United States aren't in the tournament.

Donald Trump was at the Al Smith dinner, which is a fundraiser, and he gave a fairly good speech. Kamala Harris chose not to attend, although her team released an alleged "comedy sketch" video which was about as funny as a bleak Thomas Hardy novel. This is in marked contrast to the other videos released which are accidentally funny, such as the one where she pretends to be a normal person in the grocery store, or where her running mate Tim Walz is shown hunting pheasants with his buddies, although none of them have any guns to do so. Anyway, I'll close out with some of the better lines from Trump's talk:

- He said that he wasn't worried about the White Dudes for Trump group because the mens wive's and the wives' boyfriends were all voting for Trump.
- He said he had to hurry up with the speech and wrap it up because the New York City government was waiting to turn the building into a free shelter for illegal migrants as soon as they cleared out.
- He mentioned Kamala Harris' proposed childcare plan, and gave her some very sound advice, warning her to not let her husband go near any of the nannies this time.

Let's start off with a joke: Kier Starmer, goes to a pub and asks for a whisky and the bartender hands him gets a scotch on the rocks, and Kier says "I didn't ask for ice in it" and the bartender says "neither did them pensioners" That also reminds me of the one where Gordon Ramsey goes into a pub, orders a drink, demands to see the manager and asks him if the ice cubes are fresh or frozen.

There was the aftermath of the Israel attack on Hezbollah and you almost have to feel sorry for the blokes interviewing for the vacancies in the leadership positions, when by definition they were considered so irrelevant that Israel didn't include any of them in the 2000 or people they targeted the other week.

There's a quite astonishing pair of headlines in the Telegraph this morning. One is about R Kelly's daughter accusing him of sexually abusing her as a child. And right next to it is one where Meghan Markle is explaining how she was the most bullied girl in the world. In fact no, not just girl, "one of the most bullied people" so presumably even the boys had it better, and that by definition includes all the ones held captive by Diddy, another story for another day.

There have been a terrible pair of hurricanes in the Carolinas and more recently Florida and with a fear of looting, Florida passed a new gun law granting extended conceal carry laws for use in the event of a state of emergency. Those state of emergency include hurricanes, earthquakes, and living in Florida. This was all followed up by a Kamala Harris word salad interview on the show 60 Minutes which was telling in that even the legacy media are turning on her incompetence and her claim to be defending democracy after over-riding the vote, not risking letting the primary voters have a say, and using legal action to tilt the balance of power in various races. A tired and haggard Barack Obama was then trotted out to tell young black men to do as they're told and vote for the mixed race lady, and then there was then a viral and fairly blistering response from one of them explaining that the patronising attitude is exactly why they're all voting for Donald Trump in November - the candidate who favours 'reducing inflation' over the circus that is gender and identity politics. Talking of which, I've got a friend who let me know he's got a data with a girl who self-identifies as a wheelie bin, so I hope he remembers to take her out on Thursday evening.

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 with the headline "Labour are starting to feel the heat" which I guess is in stark difference from the pensioners he recently sold down the river who will not feel any heat now that he's scrapped the Winter Fuel Payment.

Just Stop Oil were up to their usual nonsense throwing some soup over Van Gogh's sunflowers. It makes me sad that they're so humourless and unimaginative, if it were me I'd go throw sunflowers at on of those Campbells Soup paintings by Andy Warhol.

There have been interesting moves in Europe with Germany reinstating border controls, following the spiralling situation of seemingly endless stabbings and violent crime, all carried out by undocumented migrants from Africa and the Middle East. It's quite a piece of legal gymnastics: You can't have border controls because the Schengen is enshrined in treaty and no country can propose changes. Therefore Germany is justifying what it's doing on the principal of a unique higher law that overrules it which raises the question of what happens when other countries start flagrantly breaching EU protocol. Perhaps Italy or France will cite what Germany's up to when choosing to ignore the rules about budgets. This very may well be the ignition point of how the monetary union falls apart, or perhaps not. It makes me think of the old saying about the optimist and the pessimist and whether the glass is half full or half empty but personally I always thought if the optimist really was one then he'd cheekily swig the last half glass of wine and assume he'd get away with it. Especially if it's France or Italy we're talking about.

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.