Welcome

Mystic Meg passed away and all across the lands, people commented "She didn't see that coming" When asked about the funeral arrangements, the family said that a lady in black serving drinks might be there and the names John or Alice may be attending too-ooo-oo.

Saudi Arabia and Iran have restored diplomatic ties. Although I won't "beheading" to either of those places any time soon. I remember reading about a man out there who was caught stealing hand disinfectant. Although I guess on the plus s ......

The architect Rafael Viñoly passed away, he was the man who designed London's Walkie Talkie building. I'm told the funeral was very sad but the reception was fantastic

Meaningless statistics are 12% down today

Let's skip straight to the main news which is the Telegraph's horde of 100k secret WhatsApp messages. These were messages to and from Matt Hancock that Isabel Oakeshott (who was writing a biography on him) had access to and she decided to leak the entire thing to the press, to prevent what she calls a whietwash. That makes her about as trustworthy as a politician, maybe she should run for office next time. Her and Matt would get on like a house on fire if she weren't busy destroying what's left of his career and if he wasn't busy getting divorced to shack up with Gina Coladangelo Anyway, what do the messages reveal? Largely that behind the scenes the government's response to covid in 2020 and 2021 was as shambolic as Boris' appearance, but they largely they fit into two categories.

1) Policy errors. There were a number of major decisions made behind the scenes by a secret cabal of advisors that were so incoherant that I wonder if someone of them are now advising Prince Harry. Face masks were introduced in primary schools simply to avoid an argument with Nicola Sturgeon, and then later, care homes were being advised to stop testing in order to make it look like the case count was coming down down. There are lines in the conversation like “the death modelling you have been shown is already very wrong” Just before they decided as a group what week they should declare a new variant in order to get maximum political expediency out of things. All of this is on WhatsApp and it really does retain that social media tone, Matt and friends scheduling a lockdown reads the same as some friends of mine scheduling a boozy Friday night out, especially the bit where Matt is told that there's a photo doing the rounds of him snogging a work colleague after hours. The last politician to have had this little brains was Kennedy after they'd shot him

2) The 2nd part to come out of all this is the naked abuse of power. There's a bit where Matt is talking to George Osbourne, at that point the editor of the Evening Standard, and he offers lots of positive front page news but only in exchange for a full sit down interview. Simon Case, a senior civil servant, mocked travellers returning from exotic foreign holidays and then being forced spend weeks isolating in grubby quarantine hotels by the airport. There's an ominously authoritarian discussion where they actively discuss if it's possible to target Nigel Farage and use emergency powers to have him jailed after he posted a picture of him sipping a pint. Clearly it wasn't just the pint that was bitter. And then there's a discussion about schools reopening and Gavin Williamson laughing about how teachers "really do just hate work" before the pair of them hrow in a curse word and some emojis to make fun of them. Oh well, I guess if work was supposed to be fun the rich would keep more of it for themselves, isn't that right Matt, oh yes I forgot, he finally did get forced to resign and will be stepping down at the next election.

Shamima Begum lost her latest court challenge to regain a British passport. Some of defenders have gone to far as to say she contemplated suicide, to which the rest pointed out that we knew that, because she showed everyone the vest and explosives on a youtube video 5 years ago

Roald Dahl was in the news after the publishing company played the oldest scam in the book by cancelling his original books, waiting for tens of thousands of existing books to fly off the shelf, before reversing their decision. It would be a tragedy if words like stupid or dwarf are going to be banned, because I was looking forward to buying a biography on John Bercow

Joe Biden paid a surprise visit to Ukraine. Although given his ongoing cognitive decline, everything comes as a surprise to him these days.

Ed Sheeran has released a hot sauce. Just be glad it's that and he's not released a new song.

For now the race for head of the SNP continues and this week saw 3 runners and riders:

Kate Forbes is the current finance minister although she's been attacked by many of Nicola's friends, a lot, for being religious and opposing the worst machinations of the transgender movement. But the policy that they really dislike is her desire to have a major reshuffle after she wins which would see lots of people lose their cushy £100k salary and expense accounts.

The favourite to get the job is Humza Yousaf who is also notable in being a great example of SNP hypocrisy at play. Forbes is attacked for being a Christian but Yousaf is a Muslim so he has so far being given a free pass when it comes to these same issues. He skipped out on the debate and vote on gay marriage because the Mosque told him not to support it.

But to spice up the entertainment, there's also Ash Regan whose main policy seams to be that she'd just declare Scottish independence, without even bothering with a referendum. Just like me self-declaring to be the King of Mars or any of these candidates declaring that they'll win the next election. The idea of not holding a public vote on the issue is an almost childishly naive idea one if it weren't vaguely dangerous. It certainly doesn't have any detail about what would happen if a chunk of the country simply refused to go along with it and Union flags remained flying in Inverness, Shetland declaring itself part of Norway, asking London to intervene and refusing to ship fuel south of Perth. On the other hand, perhaps the idea of not holding a vote is just a reflection that the SNP are finally maturing and finally realising that they're flogging a dead horse and voters will never vote for it. If we've learnt anything in the last 10 years it's that politicians holding a binding referendum to rubber stamp something generally works about as well as trying to baptise a cat. I'm not sure where Kate Forbes stands on animal baptisms.

Is it a bird is it a plane, is it a UFO or a Chinese spy balloon? Nope, it turns out it was a $100 project by the local Bottlecaps Balloon Brigade. The $100 balloons were shot down by Sidewinder Missiles that cost $400k apiece. and thus we can probably assume that the missile won't be the only one getting fired. Closer to home I here the MOD has developed a new missile called the civil servant, that doesn't work and can't be fired.

Talking about new vehicles, there's been the collapse of the electric vehicle firm BritishVolt with questions being asked about what went wrong. If you ask me it was probably how instead of getting in someone like James Dyson or Alan Sugar, the firm was headed up by former cricketer Ian "Beefy" Botham who with the best will in the world knows more about engineering a century at Edgbaston than car batteries. In other car news JaguarLandRover have released a new electric vehicle which I think should be called the Range Over

Concerns that Bruce Willis might be racist after he was overheard saying that he didn't recognise his own street any more.

But of course the big story this week was Nicola Sturgeon finally being forced to resign, although even today there's already talk on social media about demanding a 2nd resignation if this one doesn't work out. It is quite an achievement though that through her widespread incompetency across multiple government departments and scandals, she perhaps has done more than anyone to eradicate the possibility of the Scottish electorate voting for an independent SNP-led Scotland. Nonetheless her preferred pronouns are now was/were, and let's hope this lady is not for returning and that this is yet another nail in the coffin for the global trend towards wokery, that surely next sees Justin Trudeau kicked out of office. Given the tendencies of left wing politicians to embrace this garbage, I'm genuinely surprised hasn't let to Labour Mayor Andy Burnham trying to rename his city Themchester. Or possibly force supporters to sing songs in support of Themchester United. The Labour back benches have been remarkably silent on the downfall of sturgeon and her ridiculous campaign to enshrine it as a human right for a rapist to spent his prison sentence at a woman's prison. I did hear that Diane Abbott was described as non-binary, but then they explained it was because she's unable to count beyond 2.

The police arrested 15 people outside an asylum seeker's hostel after a protest turned violent. In a twist of irony, those protestors will now be getting a roof over their head, 3 meals per day and legal representation all courtesy of the British taxpayer

There's a few studies out showing that vaping leads to lowered testosterone in men, apparently one of the first symptoms is the desire to take up vaping.

A crime boss from Brentford was arrested in Thailand after spending 5 years on the run. The article mentions that he only had one leg so presumably a better expression would be on the hop.

Burt Burt Bacharach passed away and apparently at the time he was writing a charity single for the Turkish earthquake, "Rooftops keep falling on my head" It would have been going up a song by a corrupt local building inspector "Walk on by"

I read that cows kill more people that sharks. That came as a surprise to me, I wasn't aware that cows killed *any* sharks

Garry Glitter was released from prison after serving 8 years for his horrendous crimes. I was glad to see that even multinational companies like Unilever are changing up their packaging try to keep him on the straight and narrow this time with everything from washing powder to packs of bin bags carrying a warning message "keep away from young children"

More mystery balloons over Northwestern America. All we know right now is that they're not German because then they'd be red and there would be 99 of them

The US shot down a Chinese weather balloon that had drifted off course, presumably the guidance system was designed by someone called Wong Wei

Health news with talk about a pakora ban. Wait not, they're talking about the fashion designer Paco Rabanne. He's dead.

Locksmith found dead and police are looking for a key witness

The Welsh Rugby Union has decided to ban the Tom Jones song "Delilah" from matches, to which the fans started of course started singing "why why why". Tom Jones was asked if having his songs banned was a common occurrence, to which he replied "It's Not Unusual"

Let's talk about Wales actually, or specifically Mark Drakeford's handling of the place.

There was recently a story about the vast sums of taxpayers money being poured into the loss-making Cardiff Airport. In 2013 the airport was nationalised at a cost of £52m and the place has since written off a subsequent £40m of taxpayer loans, last year alone the first minister wrote a cheque for £8.9m yet it still went on to rack up a loss of £3m. These finances put the place vaguely in line with the nearby football club and if there was a league table of devolution leaders, Drakeford would be fairly low placed too. He isn't as slick as Rishi, as populist as Boris, as furious as Nicola Sturgeon, he's not all over the internet like Sadiq Khan. Instead he's mostly spent his years in power testing out the sort of policies that rarely go any further than an argument at a student union. The welsh government have trialed a standard 20mph speed limit, a 4 day week, a universal income trial and at this stage you may as well hand everyone vouchers to Wetherspoons because that might win you some votes and if it doesn't work at somehow creating jobs then just blame the English, all while potential voters "liquidise the assets"

All of these policies of course end in failure followed by blaming Westminster, for instance this last week it was singled out for not providing enough money to end the nursing strike, despite the fact that Drakeford has the power to raise income tax and pay for it himself, if he thought that people indeed wanted higher taxes to pay for more government. I'd say there's light at the end of the tunnel except the Welsh nationalists have been keen to embrace the sort of green policies that mean that light at the end of the tunnel has had to be turned off due to the soaring price of energy. One of the most asinine policies was during 2020 when the welsh government decided to allow Tesco to open up but only for non-food sales, with taped off and secured areas preventing people risking their life by purchasing dangerous things like shoes or cutlery. Schools meanwhile were closed constantly because it was easier to give teachers a paid year off work then have to deal with their trade union. Drakeford is at best, disinterested, keen to bask in the glories of devolution and grievance politics but without wanting to actually take any responsibility for the omnishambles left in his wake. In a historical context it's a tragedy, people like Nye Bevan, Lloyd George and Roy Jenkins set the national agenda, whiles Drakeford leaves a legacy of whinging and incompetence, Wales has historically done far better and I'd argue that voters deserve far better but then voters also get the politicians they deserve, and vote for. A good analogy for the economy is Cardiff itself: a quasi ghost-town, 9 in 10 of the civil servants working from home, with literally millions of square feet of government offices sat empty but with the lights and heating on from 9-5.

All of this is of course utterly indefensible but his defenders claim that it works both ways and that Wales taxpayers subsidised CrossRail and HS2. I don't personally blame them though, I'd be keen to get a railway built if it meant I could escape or be able to commute to and fro to England. Although my only experience with the Welsh railway system is watching Ivor the Engine which I would hope was out of date by now. Although now I'm thinking about defunct kids tv shows, perhaps Drakeford could pass a bill to get the Wombles to run the bin lorries, or maybe Mr Ben could visit that costume shop and have a stint at being a competent first minister, he couldn't do any worse than the incumbent.

It was Chinese New Year as well as Burns Night. I had a friend who combined the two events into a Chinese Burns Night and I didn't want to go but he twisted my arm

A man was killed by one of those mechanical telescopic urinals in London. Engineers are searching for clues and say they have nothing to go on.

More trouble in the NHS as Midwives are going to go on strike. Maybe next time they can at least give everyone nine months warning

The last of those, the NHS struggles are of course the latest in a series of things that is portrayed by the BBC as being uniquely British and almost certainly due to the Brexit vote, something that happened nearly 7 years and 4 prime ministers ago. If you actually look at what's happening over the water, France has a ban on sales of paracetamol (blaming a Chinese export ban) and Germany is facing shortages in painkillers, antibiotics and heart medication. Curiously the main solution being proposed there is to get the private sector more heavily involved in the German healthcare system, and that would probably go down as well with the BBC as having to report on the fact that the French doctors are also going on strike. They're more likely ask Jim Davidson to come back to the UK and host Question Time
Canada and the US are also restricted the availability of cold and flu medicine, blaming international problems to do with supply chains. They don't have a strike to contend with although I did see a story about terrorists being ready to strike at any time and I wondered when they'd decided to form a trade union. It's unclear if Unison or GMB have ever reached out to the likes of British terrorists although I can imagine Bob Crow going for a curry to meat potential applicants.
But NHS reporting, in part it's due to laziness, it's far easier to take a press release by someone agitating for a pay rise than it would be to investigate complex issues, especially when they don't do anything to advance a preconceived agenda. I'm honestly surprised they haven't claimed that climate change is all due to the British Empire inventing climate change, though I could easily see Nicola Sturgeon trying to apologise for giving the world people like James Watt or Adam Smith. Demanding money from London so she could pay reparations to the third world like some sort of demented 6yo.

The talking down and apologising for history is the latest tactic of Remainers, Rejoiners and others. A serious of increasingly desperate attempts to find downsides to Brexit and ignore the effects of lockdowns and state mismanagement and to dishonestly claim that global issues only affected the UK. The unfortunate thing is that it's not even that difficult to find problems in the NHS to report on, state funded homeopathy is a good example, although to give credit where it's due, I think less evidence there is that homeopathy works, the more effective it is.

Alec Baldwin is going to be charged with involuntary manslaughter over the accident on his films-set last year. In response his lawyer has come out all guns blazing, except in his case it's just a metaphor.

Rishi Sunak was fined by the police for not wearing a seatbelt, even Jimmy Saville was better behaved than that. Admittedly it does mean he will stay true to his word about helping with the government finances, in so much as he's going to be contributing £100 to the coffers. This puts him about twenty quid ahead of Nadhim Zahawi, the former Chancellor who is (of course) under investigation by HMRC. Astonishing really, although if you're going to be out of office in 2 years anyway then what's the point in maintaining a charade of decency.

Ukrainian president Zelensky was pleading with Western governments for some tanks. I'm not sure if the MOD has any spare tanks but I do know a bunch of ambulances sat around doing nothing if he's interested in any of those. Junior Doctors are apparently going to be going on strike soon although that does mean you might be able to see a senior doctor.

Maybe the largest story this week was the downfall of New Zealand Prime Minister Ardern who this week decided to jump before she was shoved as a number of grossly shortsighted policy chickens have come home to roost. Much of this started with a covid lockdown policy that went beyond punitive to bordering farcical, especially when it failed to prevent covid entering the country, all while peoples lives and businesses went to the wall. Just one example was Charlotte Bellis, who was in the Middle East when she found out she was pregnant. She was then banned from entering New Zealand and ended up travelling to Afghanistan because it was the only country she had a visa for. To clarify, this was a pregnant unmarried woman and she was treated better by the country run by the Taliban than President Ardern.

There's an old joke that if you leave alphabet soup on the stove for too long, it could spell disaster. Something else that spells disaster is making it next to impossible to enter a country that's highly reliant on international tourism. Today the borders may be open but the tourist industry will take years to recover, if it ever does and meanwhile the cost of living has gone through the roof, not helped by a green policy that makes the SNP seem vaguely sensible. One initiative to help the economy going was a policy "KiwiBuild" which aimed to construct 100k houses, of which only a thousand or so actually got built and all this is against a backdrop of a crimewave that has made New Zealand look more like New York (in the 1970s). The government made a huge deal about its ban on guns but it's done very little to put a stop or even put a pause to violent crime or theft, which has rather depressingly seen criminals increasingly target basic shops selling things like food.

Oh well, If I ever met the man who invented zero, I'd say "thanks for nothing"
Most New Zealanders feel exactly the same as their former Prime Minister.

A space launch in cornwall went wrong after an anomoly caused it to land in the sea. A government spokespeson was reported to say that they should have gotten Harry Kane to launch it. Whilst a North Koreak government spokesman said that the kingdom would retaliate by firing *two* rockets into the sea. A number of smug neurosurgeons looked at the dejected rocket scientists and commented that it was hardly brain surgery.

Lisa Marie Presley passed away at the age of 54. The family are reported to be All Shook Up.

68 people died in the Himalayas after a a plane crashed near the city of Pokhara in Nepal. I say 68 people although the number could be more after there were sightings of very large paw prints heading up into the mountains

Yet more grumblings from Prince Harry, talking about emotional baggage, I always thought that was an odd expression, I'd go for "griefcase" To play devil's advocate though, people are complaining about him constantly going on talk shows and interviews but if it was a choice of fly to New York to chat with Jimmy Fallon, or spend 3 days stuck in the house with Meghan I'd already be orderring the taxi. As to his next career move, I'd recommend a gig with an insurance company. you could get a no claims bonus guaranteed with Prince Harry Insurance, where it's always the other driver's fault.

It's a new year although that may be confusing to those who are only now just starting to receive their Christmas cards.

The new year celebrations in London included a long sequence of blue and yellow fireworks as a nod to the war in Ukraine. And I'm sure that the Ukrainian refugees watching from the banks of the Thames found the sounds of explosions and gunpowder very comforting.

Pope Francis gave a talk in which he implied that members of the mafia should be excommunicated from the catholic church, and on a completely unrelated note, the former Pope Benedict died very shortly afterwards. The grim reapear was later reported to have said he was going to see the new year in with a Benedictine

Vivian Westwood also passed away. What's that expression? About Fashionably late?

Rishi Sunak unveiled plans to make kids study maths until the age of 18. Presumably so that they can understand their byzantine gas bill calculations

Prince Harry's book has been released, in Spain at least, but the newspapers have all employed some bilingual journalists to report on all the juicy stories. There's, for instance, a section about a physical fight he had with Prince William, which would frankly have made for far better television than that rubbish on Netflix. Harry, by the way, did two tours of afghanistan and killed 25 people, yet it seems he had his lights punched out by a former retired air ambulance pilot. The book is called "Spare" although I'm waiting to see if James Hewitt releases one called "Harry and the half-blood prince" Or maybe they'll make it into a film and they can call it "When Harry met Salty'

Frosty the Snowflake
Was a bitter lefty soul
With an EU flag and a Waitrose bag
And obsessed with banning coal

Frosty the Snowflake
Was a fairytale they say
He was made of snow but the Guardian know
Say how he came to life one day

There must have been some magic
In that face-mask he still wore
for when he and his mate went to visit the Tate
he glued himself right to the floor

Oh, Frosty the Snowflake
Was alive as he could be
he campaigned for more tax and made regular attacks
at the lives of you and me

He went down to the streets of town
Right to the traffic cop;
who just stood right there as the public despaired
While Frosty hollered stop!

Frosty the Snowflake
had to fly to Martinique
but as he boarded the plane he was quick to explain
I'll be back again next week

Because Frosty the Snowflake
was not the same as you and I
he was a hypocrite ass who always flew first class
so the same rules don't apply.

"Its coming home, it's coming home", the plane with England's coming home, if that's what you mean. There's always talk about expectations and whether the bar was set to high, but from what I could tell, the crossbar would have had to be about 8 feet higher for that goal to have gone in. Although on the plus side, if you were one of the fans sat right at the back in seat ZZ99 then you might have stood a chance of catching the ball.
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​​Maybe some less time spent on activism and kneeling down and some more time spent on basic things like being able to kick the ball into the goal without missing. Perhaps when Gareth Southgate gets to chat to the king and visit the palace, Charles will apologise that the peerage is no longer on offer before pointing out that the tbag has stayed in Gareth's cup longer than the football team did. I think the other football highlight of the week was seeing Japan pulling off a remarkable victory by beating possible favourites Spain, I don't think anyone's seen the Japanese lit up like that before since perhaps those B39 piolets at the end of the 2nd World War.
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​​Former Jackass star Bam Margera caught covid and is no in a hospital on a ventilator. I'm wonderring how long it will take someone else in the Jackass cast to fart into the breathing tube
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​​Perhaps I should also mention the Harry & Meghan documentary whingeathon. Honestly, it's like a hangman talking to a condemned man on the way to the scaffold about how he has it worse because he has to to walk home in the rain afterwards and maybe occasionally bump into the king. Apparently Prince Harry thinks all British people are racist which is pretty rich considering that he has a black woman in his house to cook and do all his laundry.

Europol made 49 drug arrests and took down a super-cartel that apparently controlled a third of Europe's cocaine supply. So much for having a White Christmas.

Will Smith did an interview and blamed the Chris Rock incident on pent up anger stemming from an abusive childhood. If only social services had taken him out of the situation years ago and sent him to live with a rich uncle in LA

Christmas is coming soon and Prince Andrew has asked for an Amazon Alexa. Officials have arranged for Alexa to fly out of Rio in the next few weeks. I once asked Alexa “What do women want?” and she wouldn’t shut up for a week straight

I guess one of the main stories has been the ongoing one in which rats are fleeing the sinking ship that is Rishi Sunak's "conservative" party. Sajid Javid announced that he won't be standing at the next election and he joins 4 others this week alone including former work and pensions secretary Chloe Smith. A few news outlets made a comparison of the government to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic but that is quite unfair, because at least the Titanic offered a luxury travel experience for the first 80% of the trip. What do you get when you cross the Atlantic with the Titanic? About half way.

The Labour party also has a dozen MPs standing down but the larger departure is that of Ian Blackford being forced to stand down as the SNPs leader. This is someone who for years has been part of Nicola Sturgeon's inner circle, considered untouchable, and it's an indication that she might too soon be out. For 15 years, the SNP have controlled almost every institution in Scotland, and the continued lack of broad support for independence despite that is clear sign of how inept they really are. In fact I can only think of one job where you get more incompetent the more year's experience you have: Suicide Bomber

I guess for now everyone will remain in a state of denial until events finally happen, the idea the things go wrong slowly, and then quickly. But in my experience, the speed at which a woman says "Nothing" when asked "What's wrong" is inversely proportional to the severity of the coming storm

According to the BBC, two boys, aged 16, died in London after being stabbed a mile apart. That Must have been an exceptionally long knife.

There’s a report out about the number of restaurants being forced to close due to the ruinous cost of gas and electricity. I asked my local Chinese place if they’d struggled with the cost of keeping the lights on, and the owner told me he’d had to Dim Sum

There’s also talk about raising the retirement age, years earlier than planned. As things stand I’m too young to be up in arms about it although from what I’ve heard, retirement is like being on a permanent holiday, except without any money, or sun, or scantily clad beachgoers, or cheap booze. So basically a holiday in Britain then.

I guess the main story from last week was the world cup where there were a series of truly shocking results. Saudi Arabia beat the favourites Argentina, who put their worst performance since the Falklands War. I’ve not seen the Saudi’s celebrate this much since the price of oil last went over $100, with thousands of fans celebrating by punching the air, at least the ones that hadn’t been convicted of shoplifting. The US also held England to a draw. Supposedly they’d hired in a specialist in Shooting. Who, Alec Baldwin? And of course as a backdrop, Qatar have been trying their hardest to make them the worst hosts since Fred and Rosemary West. There have been tales of journalists being silenced just as much as the players and fans. The English FA may have been “brave” enough to put some rainbow lights on Wembley Stadium but apparently their outrage didn’t stretch far enough to allow Harry Kane to wear an armband. I’m personally interested to see what happens if some rain falls during a game, hitting the sun-rays and casting a huge rainbow over the entire stadium. But it’s ok, they spent 2 seconds kneeling down so you know they really mean it when it comes to racism and it’s not just a tokenistic gesture done to appease a vocal minority. As if you could hear a vocal minority when there are 40,000 other fans in the stadium.

It is the start of Qatar world cup, an event that like like Britain's financial mess has been years in the making and which will likely end with England doing very badly. This is a football tournament being played in the desert because the governing body and corruption go together like copy and paste, which is coincidentally the method by which they printed the voting ballots several years ago. I was going to say that they go together like Gin & Tonic or Beer & Football except that brings us to the point that alcohol will be banned at this year's tournament, much to the chagrin on Budweiser. All because once again they're playing it in an punitive islamic police state where even George Best would probably be scared into sobriety. At least that's how I think the the law works there. We've all heard the stories about how it's a brutal justice system, but then I heard someone saying that when it came to shoplifting, the police were fairly hands-off. Either way the absense of any beer makes me feel bad for the England fans, how after all are they supposed to drown their sorrows when they narrowly scrape a 0-0 draw with Wales.

The next item of contension are of course the actual statdiums, most of which will never be used after the tournament and all of which were built to emulate other grand Middle Eastern projects like Babylon or the Pyramids, in so much as they're very flashy and they were built by tens of thousands of slaves and prisoners. The government there has come under international pressure to disclose how many migrant workers died during the construction phase. No number has been released but if you ask me, it's a brave person that eats the stadium hot dogs.

For me the one good thing to come out of this tournament is the fact that questionable teams like Iran might be a force to be reckoned with this time around. They are after all used to the weather unlike teams like France or Germany. This is Qatar's first appearance too at a World Cup, getting automatic qualification in exchange for hosting it. I'm not too sure if they're any good and nobody knows too much about them, I asked a friend if he could name any Qatar players and he responded with Eric Claptop, Brian May & Jimmy Page.

All and all, the thing is going to be a mess, although as a one off experiment in excess I am vaguely looking forward to it. You also have to have admiration for the Fifa officials who have had to defend every single twist and turn of the farce, especially FIFA president Gianni Infantino who deflected from the topic of human rights abuses by claiming that Europe was just as bad and going off on a meanderring rant: "Today I feel Qatari. Today I feel Arabic. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel a migrant worker" I can only assume with that strange list of self-identification, he's thinking of applying for a job at the BBC or with Nicola Sturgeon.

Why did the Just Stop Oil protestor cross the road? Because the angry motorist was dragging her by her stupid purple hair. And talking about protests, someone threw an egg at the King, presumably as part of a “Just Stop Royals” protest. Charles later said he wouldn’t have minded if they’d at least been free range or organic.

Also inflation remains in the news, and I think the biggest giveaway is that the economists and newsreaders are talking about the price of an average “basket of goods” whereas anyone my age remembers the good old days when you could go to the shop and afford to buy an entire trolley’s worth of goods

Perhaps the more interesting story though was from the US this week after a mid-term election was far less exciting than expected. The democrats had expected a terrible outcome that would best be illustrated by means of some photographs of Ukraine or a meteor hitting the dinosaurs although there was no mass revolution at the ballot box. In all honesty that was not a terribly surprising outcome, given that both Roe v Wade was the only argument being made in many races and that doesn’t leave a lot of space for swing voters that may have cared more about the economy. Most US elections are almost entirely decided from the get go with only a tiny percentage of voters actually changing their position on things such as abortion, or whether they are pro or anti Trump. It’s reminiscent of the Scottish elections where the simple presence of the SNP means that most of the votes are already decided long before Alex Salmond has had a chance to be arrested for something. For President Joe Biden, the result is of course considered a huge win although it’s potentially apocalyptic for his party heading into 2024. Biden is an elderly man who at a recent press conference was unaware that his son died from cancer several years ago, who became lost in the white house garden and who is generally seen by most in his own party as a electoral liability akin to the time that Charlie Kennedy was put up in a hotel next to a branch of Majestic Wine. Many democrats had secretly hoped for bad losses that would finally force Biden to agree to stand down in 2 years in favour of someone younger or more eloquent or at least someone who could remember people’s names. Yet now he seems determined to run for a 2nd term, mostly likely going up against Ron DeSantis, the Governor of Florida who straddles a coalition of both Trump voters, as well as minority voters. As Hilary Clinton would call them, a basket of deplorables, but a basket nonetheless makes up at least 50% of the electorate.

Matt Hancock has had the whip withdrawn as he will be taking part in the ITV show “I’m a Celebrity” although it’s unclear whether he will face a challenge where a bosun uses said whip on the contestants as they row across a river. There’s a lot to be said about politicians needing to eat humble pie occasionally but even a lot of Labour supporters would maybe say that the things on the bush-tucker trial go a bit far, with the exception of Dianne Abbot who’d ask what it was I said a minute ago about a pie.

There was an assassination attempt on the former cricketer and president of Pakistan, Imran Khan. I learned of this when someone asked me if I’d seen his new leg break. Sorry, that joke was in poor taste, it’s just not cricket is it…

There’s the ongoing financial mess which quite frankly needs radical changes that nobody seems to be happy to discuss yet. Things like canceling HS2 or foreign aid, or perhaps raising the pension age to 70 or simply not subsidising a chain of pubs within the Palace of Westminster. There are many analogies to be made involving a can being kicked down the road but perhaps the best analogy I head about this is if you imagine a technocrat middle of the road civil servant from the treasury visiting the Wedding at Cana and seeing Jesus turn the water into wine, but then dismissing the idea by pointing out that wine contains mostly water anyway so medium strength wine is therefore only 13.5% of a miracle and that if we wanted cheaper wine we should rejoin the EU, before leaking a story to the Guardian about the whole thing, riddled of course with typos.

Suella Braverman visited an asylum center this week and a few hours later there were press photos of her exiting the place. In and out in under 2 hours? Must have been fast-tracked I guess. Personally I don’t understand the racists complaining about the number of Albanians coming to the UK, are they worried that Britain might somehow end up with a white Prime Minister?

I was driving through a village the other day and I saw a sign saying “Max Speed 50” so I just thought I’d say “Happy Birthday” if you’re out there Max, hope you had a good one.

Rishi Sunak completed his coup and settled into the job, part of which involved proving that he’s in touch with the common man. That’s why he decided to meeting with people who are not as wealthy as he is, like King Charles at the palace and several FTSE100 leaders who have to make do with living in a house and ordering in their own groceries. Rishi and the King have much to talk about and celebrate, he is after one of the longest serving prime ministers this month. Talking about King Charles though, The Bank of England announced that they’re very close to publishing the new banknotes featuring the new monarch. Although a number of city traders said that there’s been Charlie on the banknotes for years.

North Korea has been firing missiles into the Pacific Ocean again. The Japanese government are obviously concerned but admitted that they grateful to the hermit kingdom for continuing to keep Godzilla at bay. Q: How many North Koreans does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: None, because the leadership keeps them in the dark.

James Corden, the television host and and alleged comedian, was forced to apologise after some ghastly stories emerged about his behaviour at a New York restaurant and the way he mistreated members of the studio crew. In response his defenders told people to lay off him because he has a wife and three chins to support

Jerry Lee Lewis has passed away at the age of 87, which is especially tragic because his wife was set to graduate high school next week. As rigor mortis set in, one of the doctors commented that were was a whole lotta shakin going on. Later as he descended into hell the devil was claimed to have seen him yelling “good gracious great balls of fire”

I hear that at hospitals across the land, they’ve given up asking patients if they can remember who the prime minister is, because this last week there has been only one story: Liz Truss’s discovery that a week may be a long time in politics, but 44 days is in fact a darned short time to be Prime Minister although to give her some credit, she managed to outlast Pope John Paul I as well as Brian Clough’s management of Leeds United. Think of her like one of Henry VIII’s wives, in so much as a lot of people never actually saw here and she’ll most likely be remembered as someone who turns up in the answers at a pub quiz.

For me the game was up when I heard Penny Maudant telling the Tories to get behind Liz, because typically conservative politicians only get behind someone when they have a knife in hand. In most other lines of work, 6 weeks would be considered seasonal labor, whether it’s picking hops at a farm in Kent, being the Santa Clause at Tesco, or when a removal company in Westminster realises they need a few extra hands to deal with all the extra work they’re being asked to perform. If the next PM was forced to call an election then that would potentially mean 4 PMs in one year, at which point I think Graham Brady will have filled up his card and get a free coffee out of it.

Of course, Liz Truss’ tenure in the job does come with the one benefit that you get £100k for life assuming she’s shameless enough to claim it. What Am I talking about? She’s a politician who used to work in marketing and was also a Liberal Democrat at one point. Obviously not as dishonest though as matter, which according to physicists makes up everything.

I guess talking about well paying jobs though the people making out on all of this are the removal company that the civil service pays to shift the PMs possessions. Boris made a few references to the Roman leader Cincinnatus who stood down as leader before being asked to come back later but really at the moment number 10 seems more like the late Empire where the position is for sale, hence Rishi Sunak’s coup d’etat with him being ushered in to the sort of public enthusiasm you only normally see at a cancer diagnosis. Why Rishi even wants the job I have no clue, he’ll be out in 2 years time after all. Ah well, for now just bask in the unfolding of history, days like this only come around every few months after all.

Some fossil fuel protesters decided to throw tomato soup onto Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers' at the National Gallery. I can only imagine that they expect the gallery to replace all the oil paintings with watercolours and that in Heinz-sight the gallery regrets letting them in

Robbie Coltrane passed away this week at the age of 72. I’ve not got a joke about that but I hear that Frank Carson does and it’s a cracker.

John Cleese is going to be hosting a program on GB News, focusing on things like cancel culture and the like. As John would presumably be the first to say, “Don’t mention the culture war!”

Prince Andrew is apparently going to be looking after the Queen’s corgis, although that makes sense given he has a lot of experience in grooming. If you’re wanting to rewatch the queen’s funeral btw, the BBC are showing the highlights on Maj of the day.

And all change at Number 10 or should I say number 11 after the Chancellor was sacked in favour of Jeremy Hunt. I knew someone once who was sacked 5 weeks into a job after a bunch of money went missing, Kwasi should just be glad he doesn’t have the police knocking on his door. So with Hunt in the job, I guess it will be a few months of boring nothingness as far as government goes. The BBC seem to think there’s going to be an election but why would the government possibly call one? It’s 50-50 whether there would even be a change of party Leadership, it’s not like there’s a unity candidate waiting in the wings. As for Kwasi though, a lot of it was his own fault, he did himself out of a job really, you don’t need a chancellor if there’s no money left to manage.

And in some personal news, I met Diane Warwick in the street and I asked for an interview but she walked on by.