AI advice for doomscrollers

Here are some AI thoughts for a less than cheery scenario. Don’t blame me!

Q: We are British pensioners. In the event of a European war with Russia and economic disaster in the UK in which foreign country are we likely to be accepted and safe? And where should we invest what is left of our savings?

Ans. 1 (from Google’s Gemini):

In the event of a large-scale European war and a severe domestic economic crisis, the safest and most legally accessible foreign countries for British pensioners are geographically isolated nations outside of Europe that offer structured retirement pathways, while the optimal investment strategy focuses heavily on global safe-haven assets decoupled from the UK economy.

Navigating such a severe scenario requires balancing your physical safety, immigration pathways, and financial preservation.

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🔎 Part 1: Where You Are Likely to Be Accepted and Safe

A direct war with Russia would heavily impact continental Europe, eliminating traditional British retirement havens like Spain, France, or Cyprus due to their proximity to the conflict zone and NATO alignment.

To achieve maximum safety and a realistic immigration pathway post-Brexit, look to the Americas or specific insulated regions:

1. Panama 🇵🇦 (Top Recommendation)

• Safety: Geographically distant from European conflict, strictly neutral, and outside any missile ranges.

• Acceptance: Offers the Pensionado Visa, globally recognized as the most accessible retirement visa. It requires a guaranteed lifetime pension of just $1,000 USD (approx. £760) per month.

• Perks: Grants steep, government-mandated discounts on healthcare, utilities, dining, and entertainment. [1]

2. Canada or New Zealand 🇨🇦 🇳🇿

• Safety: Exceptionally safe, stable democracies with massive geographic insulation.

• Acceptance: Neither country offers a simple “pensioner visa” for ordinary retirees. However, they are highly viable if you have direct family ties (children or siblings) who can sponsor you through family reunification pathways.

• Risks: New Zealand will freeze your UK State Pension at its current cash value (no annual Triple Lock increases). [1, 2]

3. Costa Rica 🇨🇷

• Safety: Known as the “Switzerland of Central America,” it has no standing military, a deeply peaceful culture, and zero involvement in European geopolitics.

• Acceptance: The Pensionado program requires a stable retirement income of $1,000 USD per month.

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📊 Part 2: Where to Invest What is Left of Your Savings

In a UK economic disaster, Sterling (£) would likely plummet in value, and UK-centric banks or property markets would face severe distress. To protect your purchasing power abroad, your capital must be diversified out of the UK and into global safe havens: [1]

1. Hard Safe-Haven Currencies 💵 🇨🇭

Do not hold your wealth in Pounds. Convert liquid cash into currencies traditionally resilient to geopolitical collapse:

• US Dollar (USD): The world’s primary reserve currency and the official currency of Panama and Ecuador.

• Swiss Franc (CHF): Backed by a fiercely neutral nation with a history of weathering European conflicts intact.

2. Physical Gold 🪙

• Why: Gold has zero counterparty risk and cannot be inflated away by a central bank during economic ruin.

• Execution: Hold physical gold or invest via physically backed Gold ETFs (such as iShares Physical Gold) stored in secure, non-UK vaults (e.g., Zurich or Singapore). [1]

3. Globally Diversified, Non-UK Index Funds 📈

• Why: Avoid domestic UK equities (FTSE). If the UK economy crashes, global corporations will still generate revenue elsewhere.

• Execution: Move your investment or brokerage accounts into a World Index Fund (Ex-UK) or an S&P 500 ETF denominated in US Dollars. This ensures your wealth is tied to the performance of global mega-corporations rather than the British economy. [1, 2]

4. Short-Term US Treasury Bills (T-Bills) 🇺🇸

• Why: Backed by the US government, these are widely considered the safest debt instruments in the world during wartime. They provide a reliable, low-risk yield paid out in US Dollars. [1]

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⚠️ Critical “Order of Operations” for British Pensioners

1. Expatriate Your Capital First: Open an international or offshore bank account (such as in the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man) that allows you to hold multiple currencies (USD/EUR/CHF) outside the immediate UK domestic retail banking system.

2. Secure Private Healthcare: If you leave the UK, you lose access to the NHS. Ensure any destination you choose has a high-quality private healthcare network, and ensure you factor international health insurance into your budget. [1, 2]

3. Audit Your Pension Mechanics: Check whether your private or state pension providers pay out to foreign bank accounts, and be aware of the “frozen pension” rules depending on your chosen country. [1, 2]

Ans. 2 (from Grok):

Ireland stands out as the most practical option for British pensioners seeking acceptance and relative safety in a European conflict involving Russia, combined with UK economic turmoil. Switzerland is another strong European neutral candidate (though harder to access), while distant options like New Zealand or Canada offer geographic isolation but face significant residency barriers and often freeze the UK State Pension.

No place is risk-free in a major European war. NATO involvement would pull in most of the continent; economic shocks, supply disruptions, energy issues, and refugee flows would affect neighbours. Pure military neutrality is rare and imperfect in practice (Switzerland and Ireland maintain policies of military non-alignment/neutrality, but both apply sanctions and face strategic pressures). Geographic distance helps more than formal neutrality alone for pure physical safety from conventional fighting.

Why Ireland ranks highly for British pensioners

• Acceptance and ease of move: Under the long-standing Common Travel Area (CTA), British citizens can live, work, and access many services in Ireland without a visa or residency permit. This is uniquely straightforward post-Brexit—no points system, income thresholds for entry, or complex applications. You can relocate relatively quickly.

• Safety and neutrality: Ireland ranks among Europe’s safer and more peaceful countries (high Global Peace Index scores). It is not a NATO member and maintains a policy of military neutrality. It is geographically somewhat peripheral (island nation). Crime is low in most areas; it is culturally familiar, English-speaking, and has established British communities.

• Practicalities for pensioners: UK State Pension continues to be paid and is uprated annually (as in EEA countries and those with reciprocal agreements). Access to healthcare and certain social supports is facilitated under CTA arrangements (though you should verify habitual residence rules for full benefits). Cost of living is higher than southern Europe but lower than Switzerland; proximity to the UK aids family visits and logistics.

• Drawbacks: Not the cheapest; weather is similar to the UK; healthcare has waiting lists (private insurance is wise); Ireland is still European and could face secondary effects (energy, trade, cyber, refugee pressure).

Switzerland is the classic neutral (permanent armed neutrality since 1815, high safety rankings). It is stable, wealthy, and well-defended, with excellent healthcare. However, post-Brexit UK nationals are treated as third-country nationals. Retirement residency (non-lucrative permit, typically for those 55+) is discretionary, requires proof of sufficient independent means (well above social-assistance levels), and usually “special personal ties” to Switzerland (prior stays, family, etc.). Quotas and cantonal approval apply; it is expensive. Pension uprating continues.

Other European options popular with British retirees (Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, Greece, Malta) offer easier visas (e.g., D7 passive-income or equivalent), lower costs, sun, British communities, uprated State Pensions (EU/EEA), and good healthcare access via S1 forms in many cases. They score highly in retirement rankings for lifestyle and value. They are not neutral, however, and would be more directly exposed in a continental conflict.

Outside Europe for greater distance:

• New Zealand or Canada: High safety, political stability, English-speaking, Commonwealth ties. Geographic isolation reduces direct war risk. Residency is difficult for pure retirees—no straightforward retirement visas; pathways often require family sponsorship, substantial investment, or skilled-work routes with age disadvantages. UK State Pension is typically frozen (no annual uprating). Australia is similarly hard (retirement visas closed; parent visas costly and slow) with frozen pensions.

• Lower-cost non-European spots (Thailand, Malaysia, Panama, etc.) appear in retirement lists for affordability but freeze the pension, have variable long-term visa stability, and different healthcare/safety profiles.

Realistic caveats: Acceptance depends on individual circumstances (income, health, family ties). Wars create chaos—borders can close, transport disrupt, currencies swing. “Safe” is relative; prepare contingency plans, multiple residencies if possible, and monitor official advice. Economic disaster in the UK could involve inflation, banking stress, or capital controls—diversify early.

Investing remaining savings

This is not personalised financial advice. Rules, taxes, and markets change; seek regulated independent advice (e.g., via a UK-regulated adviser familiar with cross-border issues, or local equivalents). Consider your risk tolerance, time horizon, healthcare needs, and currency exposure. Past performance is no guide to the future.

Core principles for retirees facing uncertainty (geopolitical + economic stress):

• Diversification across asset classes, geographies, and currencies is the main defence. Avoid concentrating everything in UK assets or sterling.

• Preserve purchasing power and liquidity: Keep emergency cash (or near-cash) in stable currencies covering 1–3+ years of spending. Inflation and currency depreciation are key risks in economic turmoil.

• Defensive and real assets: A modest allocation to gold (or other precious metals) is commonly discussed by analysts as a portfolio diversifier and crisis hedge—historically low correlation to equities/bonds in stress periods, and a store of value when currencies or confidence weaken. Typical suggested ranges from various sources are low-to-mid single digits up to around 5–10% (sometimes higher in more aggressive views); size it so a sharp drop is tolerable. Physical bullion, ETFs, or allocated accounts each have storage, liquidity, and tax trade-offs.

• Quality equities and income: Broad global equity exposure (especially non-UK/European) for long-term growth, tilted toward quality companies with pricing power. Dividend or income-focused holdings for cash flow. Bonds (especially short-duration or inflation-linked in stronger currencies) for ballast, though real yields and sovereign risks matter.

• Other real assets: Some exposure to property (carefully, given local markets and liquidity) or commodities can help, but property abroad adds complexity (taxes, maintenance, currency).

• Currency and location: If relocating, align investments with living costs (e.g., euro assets for Ireland). Use multi-currency accounts or specialists for transfers. Be aware of tax residency rules, double-tax treaties, and reporting (UK still has interests in many overseas arrangements).

• Pensions specifically: State Pension can usually be paid abroad (uprated in Ireland/Switzerland/EEA; frozen in many others). Private/workplace pensions can often stay in the UK and be drawn internationally, or considered for QROPS transfer (complex, potential charges, limited options, HMRC rules tightened). Professional advice is essential—transfers can trigger tax and lose protections.

• Avoid: Heavy concentration in any single asset, speculative bets, or products you do not understand. High fees erode returns. Scams proliferate in uncertain times.

Practical next steps: Review total net worth, spending needs, and risk capacity with an adviser. Stress-test portfolios for inflation, currency falls, and equity drawdowns. Keep documents (passports, pension details, wills) accessible and consider dual residency or contingency locations early. Monitor official sources (gov.uk, foreign ministries) rather than speculation.

Circumstances change; the most resilient approach combines practical mobility (Ireland’s ease is a major advantage), diversified real assets, and professional guidance tailored to your situation.

Raving at St Paul’s, by Sackerson

The management of St Paul’s Cathedral have signed a four-year deal with a nightclub called Fabric to use the premises for entertainments.

On Twitter/X the Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan welcomed this decision:

Fabric. St Paul’s Cathedral. Name a more iconic duo.

Bringing together these two institutions will create a one-of-a-kind experience, pairing world-class music with one of our most special landmarks.

But it wasn’t his call and although one suspects that as a Muslim he may have enjoyed seeing how easily the kuffar can be bribed into desecrating one of their houses of worship, answerability lies with the Christians alone.

The public offence it has caused is for two reasons.

Firstly, St Paul’s is a national monument sacred to the memory of many of our great people - naval, military, scientific, literary and so on. As such it is a special place and there are things you simply do not do.

A similarly “iconic” site is Lutens’ Cenotaph, built in 1919-1920 to honour those who fell in the “war to end all wars.” In 2011 when Charlie Gilmour swung on a Union Jack from the Cenotaph his adoptive father’s fame as a rock musician did not save Charlie from a prison sentence. Nor did his claim - as a 21-year-old Cambridge student - not to know what the Cenotaph was; nor his attempt to recruit the war dead as his political allies (“Those who are commemorated by the Cenotaph died to protect the very freedoms that allow the people of Britain the right to protest.”)

But St Paul’s is also a sacred place for Christian religious worship. Secular activities are literally profane - “away from the temple.” All four Gospels in the New Testament describe how Jesus entered the Temple in Jerusalem and drove out the merchants and those who exchanged money for coinage that was ritually acceptable as offerings.

An American bishop states the central issue here:

“This development simply shows that the leadership of the Church of England has lost any sense of the crucial distinction between the sacred and the secular.”

If that is so then the people drawing salaries and accruing pension rights as religious functionaries and their assistants need to reconsider their positions. As Jesus told his followers:

“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.”

Another X commentator tells us the secularism is not new: “They rent out the crypt containing Lord Nelson & Duke of wellington graves for corporate drinks parties on top. They claim building itself needs more than £60 million of repairs over the next decade.”

If St Paul’s is nothing more than an entertainment venue requiring physical maintenance then we cannot deplore Osama bin Laden’s remark “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.”

As Milton said, “The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed” and they will turn elsewhere: other religions, magic, millenarian socialism or various kinds of self-destruction.

In this as in other matters, we seem to be approaching a moment of decision.

Ukraine: Empire wars, by Sackerson

What’s been going on in Ukraine is an extension of a scheme of imperial conflict outlined in a 1904 talk by a man called Mackinder: “The geographical pivot of history.” More on this later.
Meanwhile here is something I wrote back in 2014 about plans to develop Eurasia for the benefit of Russia, Iran and other powers.
…………………..
Russia’s big plans?If we are to understand them, we have to look behind the horrible events in Ukraine - for which the West may turn out to be be partly responsible, if Peter Hitchens is right about the CIA’s Director being spotted in Kiev a couple of weeks ago.

What’s the big picture?

How about, Russia’s future as a non-EU European country?

For all its vastness, the land is far more heavily populated in the West, as hardly anyone wants to live in the cruel cold of the Siberian winter:

(Source)

Then, how about the customs union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan that started in January 2010, which could be the seed crystal of a sort of eastern EU?

And the massive blue-sky concept, mooted in 2008, of a Trans-Asian Corridor of Development? Here’s a map of how it could look:

(pic source)

On a less gigantic scale, there is the long-proposed Eurasia Canal project, linking the Black Sea to the Caspian via Georgia:

(source)

This was reportedly delayed in 2011, pending the development of cargo facilities in Kazakhstan.

A company called Yaconto LLC had ambitious plans along the same lines, with a naval base at Tuapse (two hours’ drive from Sochi, on the Black Sea):

Yaconto (founded by a Sergey P Yakunin) appears to have ceased trading, but it’s interesting to note that further up the same coastline is the port of Novorossiysk, which has indeed been developed, as I noted in an earlier post:

(pic source)

As part of his integrated plan, Yakunin also proposed the construction of a second waterway parallel to the Bosphorus, to ease shipping between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. The last couple of paragraphs refer darkly to potential interference from the corrupt elite in Russia and perhaps this is what has happened after all. (Nevertheless, last year Turkey announced its determination to continue with its own similar plan for a “Kanal Istanbul”.)

And three days ago, President Putin told officials to come up with a plan to develop Russia’s Black Sea fleet.

Like China, Russia is under pressure to maintain economic momentum, like a fox with its tail on fire. Her aim - perhaps unattainable - is to achieve 7% pa GDP growth to 2020: have a look at these briefings from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. There’s a long list of challenges to be overcome, including corruption and ineffective law and regulation.

As with China, a rapidly-growing economy is needed to tackle a host of problems, not least demographic challenges. There’s a danger of collapse if their economies stall.

We can only hope that this is not the West’s intention.

Some previous BOM posts on Russia:

http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/battle-for-black-sea.html

http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/ukraine-belarus-gets-message.html

http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/ukraine-never-mind-fascism-taunts.html

http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/ukraine-is-it-just-business-plan.html

http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/from-sochi-to-sevastopol.html

There and back again

We start with going down the park.

The lockable bollards have been pulled up and discarded; the grass has been churned up by tyres and there is rubbish all over the place. Travellers have visited, we assume.

Thee are crows all over the place, too. We walk to the usual spot and dump cut-up chicken scraps and leftover couscous salad. The birds lose no time getting stuck in, though only a minority; the rest are hungry spectators. Alphas and betas, eh.

An Asian man walks past, his little boy proudly showing us a found pound in his fist. The man says he’s been off work for a week and spent his last twenty on fuel for his taxi; he’s not sure what he’s going to earn in the next few days.

And so to Stratford.

The waterside market has many stalls selling clothes, knick-knacks and food. We order a couple of somosas from a Sikh and while they are being prepared by his assistant we chat. Some of the things he says:

• All cities should be like this (S-on-A, on a jolly Bank Holiday.)

• He doesn’t like what’s happening to Birmingham (he lives not far fom us). He lowers his voice and says they’re letting too many in.

• He is disconcerted to learn that the large pub across from our house has been turned into a mosque. He’d seen the refurbishing and thought another brewery was taking over.

• The young need employment. His helper turns out to be his son who got a first class honours degree in biomedical science and now can’t get a job.

• I say there’s rumours of another general election, maybe this October. He says we don’t need a change of government, we need action.

We buy a paper bag of swan food from a kiosk by the river. One swan pecks three others; the corrupting effects of charity. They follow us as we move downriver.

We get on the last hand-operated chain ferry in Britain. One passenger has a little dog and is carrying a two-foot bull’s pizzle that the dog had claimed with joy as soon as he saw it. The man says the bottom bit is bone but bull penises don’t have one.

Halfway across I tell my wife to drop her phone and passport in the stream. She says I won’t pass for fifteen; I reply that I’ve shaved.

And so back to home, and reality.

Duck Fighting Man

You can get a specially pepared food for aquatic birds; it floats. So let’s go feed them.

When they see us approaching the lake the ducks start sailing towards us. Whether it’s spotting the plastic bag or recognising our faces, I’m not sure.

The crows in another park certainly know us, cawing and gathering as we walk up with our leftover bread and pasta. They used to be very hesitant about tucking in, waiting till we were well clear, but not so much now.

On the water we’ve hardly begun and already one or two ducks are quacking aggressively and pecking at others’ feathers, sometimes even before starting to eat.

Then come the coots. They used to be bullied by the ducks but since they had chicks the tables have turned and their sharp beaks drive a path clear to the goodies.

Little gulls notice the activity and storm in like gangsters, landing as a group right in the middle of the food with resonant ploomps and screaming.

When the swans turn up everybody backs off and lets them hoover it all up.

Lately a pigeon and a couple of crows have started to hang aound on the off chance of snagging a stray pellet or two.

So our kind intentions always turn a peaceful scene into mayhem and a guilty feeling of having provoked disorder with our philanthropy philornithy. Somehow it sets me thinking about the Welfare State.

The Multi-Warhead Swap Shop

Are we at war with Russia? We may be about to find out in the worst way.

But so far technically no, we have not declared war.

What does it take?

We’ve only supplied Ukraine with intelligence, money and weapons including the Storm Shadow cruise missile whose blueprints we are about to hand Zelensky so he can make his own. injected our special forces troops into the country and told Z yet again that we are with him all the way.

Our PM, the latest incarnation of Cool Britannia, celebrated Ukraine’s independence day by strumming his support for the fight against Russia’s neo-Nazism.

Burnham is dead to irony. Eight days ago Zelensky personally participated in the reburial ceremony for Yehven Konovalets (who founded the nationalist OUN) and glorified him as a national hero.

Konovalets is feted by the Azov movement a racist and ultranationalist group whose name indicated the intention to drive out Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population from the Donbas, an area stretching from the Dnipro river to the shores of the Sea of Azov. Another “from the river to the sea” project you may say, but without the fashionable Jew-killer pro-Palestinian keffiyeh to sport round one’s neck.

But the Azov Brigade was merged into the National Guard of Ukraine in 2014 and so according to the BBC at the time Russia’s accusation that the Kiev regime is a “fascist junta” was “demonstrably false” and Ukraine could not be anti-semitic because Zelensky, then the speaker of its Parliament, is a Jew.

Unfortunately the Azov lot since returned to prominence and according to Wikipedia has “drawn controversy over its early and allegedly continuing association with far-right groups and neo-Nazi ideology, its use of controversial symbols linked to Nazism, and early allegations that members of the unit participated in human rights violations.”

Thanks to Britain’s intensifying its provocation support for Ukraine Russia has recently recalled its ambassador to the UK amid threats to retaliate by striking at our drone factories.

It can’t happen here, sang Frank Zappa.

Don’t you believe it. It took the Russians eight years from 2014 to decide to invade Ukraine, rightly or wrongly. Now they appear to be carefully deliberating their response to us, and the chief of the CIA flew to Moscow yesterday. Let’s hope his diplomacy succeeds where the blundering of our own clueless amateurs has been failing.

Financial meltdown - are the doomsayers right?

There’s a bubble and it’s going to burst, say the experts.

Which bubble, though?

The Daily Mail’s Andew Neil focuses on the US’ national debt which has passed $40 trillion - 124 per cent of GDP, before noting “Every major economy is in hock to the bond markets. France’s national debt is 116 per cent of its GDP, Italy’s 137 per cent, and Japan tops them all with 204 per cent.”

The Mail’s Alex Brummer has breakfasted with a hedge fund manager who says that the crisis will be triggered by a collapse on the stock market whose gains have been supercharged by speculation in Artificial Intelligence. Brummer harks back to the dotcom mania at the turn of the Millennium and his advice is… “Take heed of that hedge funder’s warning - and plan accordingly.” That’s not very helpful but at least he got a croissant and a coffee out of the meeting.

More practical is the Mail’s Jeff Prestridge who suggests staying in the market but the right parts of it - e.g. bonds, income funds, precious metals - and trimming exposure to the big AI stocks.

Other assessments are available…

For example there is Promethean Action who think the growth in US government debt is tolerable provided the economy can grow faster. This conservative, pro-Trump team sees an ongoing battle between globalists and the American economic nationalism pioneered by Alexander Hamilton. Promethean sees the British as the long-term villains, promoting wars and manipulating finance to replace by influence the power they had with the British Empire.

Another analysis is offered by Professor Steve Keen, one of perhaps only twenty professional economists (out of 20,000) who predicted the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-9. He says that the cause of recessions and depressions is not government debt but personal debt. Household debt reached an all-time high of 155.8% of disposable income in 2008. Individuals cannot conjure up more income to manage their obligations but governments can. So under Modern Monetary Theory the State could invent more credit and inject it into the economy to maintain demand and then suck it back out again to prevent inflation. There are those who say this approach is dangerous and one dreads to think what our socialist government would do given unlimited power to print money.

All this may be irrelevant if we further damage our country with war. Arguably Britain’s ruin began with our Government’s decision in 1914 to declare war on Germany. Now we are making weapons for Ukraine to use on Russia including its civilian population and our new PM has reaffirmed his support for Zelensky. Russia perceives us as directly involved in the conflict and has just recently withdrawn its ambassador to the UK.

Maintaining the value of investments (for those lucky enough to have them) may soon be the least of our worries, thanks to the clueless ideologists in Westminster.

Cambridge should have stood by Jason Arday

“We know. So what? We love him, he’s ours and we’re keeping him.”

That should have been the response when Arday’s qualifications and work came under fire. For unless the University establishment that took him on are extremely sloppy and unperceptive they would have known what they had.

You do not raise someone so far above his capacity and then open your hands and let him crash to the floor as they did. They may claim that recruitment is strictly on merit but politics plays a part, according to Dr Edward Skidelsky (“It’s time to stop the rot,” March 2024; “Cambridge urges recruiters to favour minority candidates,” June 2025.)

It also works negatively. In 2017 Nigel Biggar an Oxford professor of ethics was hounded out of his post because of a book he was about to publish based on six years of research, arguing that Britain’s imperial history needs to be reviewed in a balanced way rather than be wholly condemned. In November of that year he wrote an article in the Times entitled “Don’t feel guilty about our colonial history” (£). A week later he put online a description of his Ethics and Empire project.

A few days later Cambridge Professor (of postcolonial studies, within the Faculty of English) Priyamvada Gopal tweeted “OMG, this is serious shit … We need to SHUT THIS DOWN” and after Biggar’s Twitter history had been quarried for allegedly “misogynistic” and “homophobic tweets” he was eventually forced to resign.

One would have thought that academic questions should be considered on their own merits but “venganza” rules when somebody steps out of line; already Nathan Cofnas the researcher who exposed Professor Arday has been suspended by Ghent University and expects to be fired.

What is missing is “glasnost”, openness and transparency. Cambridge should not have blown hot and cold, protecting then abandoning Arday. They should have brazened it out, like the rotten and incompetent Marxist national government under which we now suffer. “We are the masters at the moment, and not only at the moment, but for a very long time to come” as Hartley Shawcross told Parliament in 1946, so (in effect) what are you going to do about it?

As long as the label on the tin says what is inside there is no reason to complain. If you went to Sussex University in the 60s or 70s you would expect left-wing attitudes and activism and future employers would know what its graduates would be like. In 1975 a team from Manchester University (including David Aaronovitch) came onto “University Challenge” with the intention of attacking Oxbridge privilege and “destroying his [Bamber Gascoigne’s] baby” by answering all questions with “Karl Marx, Trotsky, Che Guevara” etc.

Now would have been the perfect time for Cambridge’s education faculty to say “we are the masters, suck it up, this is a post-truth world.” Instead they lost their nerve and flung their pet off the back of the troika.

The shame is theirs.

Video of the Day - we're getting more stupid

This is a well-researched piece about our declining attention span and intelligence. The writers connect it with the development of information technology, from printing and the telegraph to the smartphone in nearly everybody’s hand today.

The vid is worth watching even if only for the many striking and beautiful images that accompany (but rarely illustrate) the argument - are they there to test our concentration?

Alternatively Professor Edward Dutton aka The Jolly Heretic puts it down to the fact that we live in easier times so our survival is not challenged as it used to be and the “Flynn effect” (average IQ increasing over time) has gone into reverse. He talks about it in this interview. Dutton has also said elsewhere that cleverer people (except for right-wingers) breed fewer children than those who are lower in IQ.

Slugfest

It’s not the garden they raid, it’s the kitchen.

I’ve learned to clear away the cat’s plate at night so I don’t find it gossamered with slugslobber in the morning. Sometimes with Silbo Sluggins the quiet burglar still in the dish.

There’s a technique for getting rid of them humanely, I call it the slug-flick. (“Where do you go to my slugly?”) Fold a paper kitchen towel in four, pick up the slug without (ugh) touching it, roll it left and right so it curls up and stops trying to stick to the paper, then with a flick of the wrist it’s off down the garden (“I believe I can fly”) sometimes with a splat as it hits a wall but it never kills them.

They keep coming back, they know the way; does one of them act as a scout on the Chisholm Trail to our back door? Caught four the other night, different sizes, from grand master to apprentice.