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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.