Saturday, October 30, 2021

WEEKENDER: They are really are taking the p*** now, by Wiggia

Yes, they're having fun at our expense:
                                  

Not only disregarding a vote but hardly anyone in the Chamber for something this important, not important to them obviously, very different scenes when it comes to discussing their own pay rises or expenses.


If nothing else, this government can be charged with not representing the people who voted for it. Hardly a thing they touch or mandate is what the people want. We have been by-passed by a group with an eighty seat majority and absolutely no effective opposition; in fact all the parties are interchangeable even if the lead characters are just a facsimile of what we once called leaders.

I can’t remember a time when so many friends, family, acquaintances, people I speak to in everyday life and elsewhere all believe we are led by self-serving cretins.

Never before have we seen so many globalists at the top table brazenly speaking of changes that must be made and our political appointees behaving like lapdogs. Johnson and Bill Gates should get a room together, how dare he give Gates over half a billion of our money towards world wide vaccines? With the track record Gates has in that area (India, anyone?) he should be shunned not feted, yet they all fall in line. It might be said Johnson is just returning the favour Gates made by financing big pharma-associated individuals and organisations here.


Soros continues to fund items in the UK after interfering in Brexit which he had no right as a foreign national to do, backing an anti Brexit organisation headed up by Gina Miller (who only wanted to make sure Brexit was legal?)  Why are these people allowed free rein in our matters, when the protocol is to remain out of other nations elections and referendums? Even Obama got in on the act; was there any response from our politicians? Not a peep.


Meanwhile the climate change brigade are frothing at the mouth in case the COP26 meeting is a failure. Boris is already worried about this, but the news that his scientific advisor Sir Patrick Vallance has reiterated we must fly less, if at all, and stop eating meat to save the planet has perked him up no end.
Though doubts are emerging on the whole project in many quarters as the scales fall away.


Elsewhere more evidence no one knows what they are talking about has emerged as an old ‘scientific’ prediction has resurfaced.


The professor responsible for this prediction made a journey to the Arctic to see how much had come to pass six years after his doomsday scenario and he had to use an ice breaker to get there….

'Just to put ice on the cake (sorry) it has been reported that the icebreaker supply ship is having trouble resupplying the Polarstern because the Arctic ice is too thick, at about 5 feet. It appears that the supply ship was using too much fuel breaking the non-existent ice and after getting to the Polarstern it would need refuelling in order to get back.'

No doubt the good professor planted more trees to counter his carbon footprint!

We also have yet another branch of Extinction Rebellion spouting more nonsense: Animal Rebellion in an interview stated that using animals for foodstuff was not only harming the planet but immoral; a branch of PETA no doubt. The fact we have been eating meat since man evolved on this planet escapes them. Various claims are not justified including the amount of water needed to produce beef: the water is 'green' - it is recycled, it has no effect on drinking water.

And naturally all the by products of cattle are neatly side-stepped. When asked about milk, after a pause... ah, plant-based milk will replace it! It can’t of course and that would also mean no cheese, yoghurt and all the other food items that need milk. They are all mad, but you can guarantee that if the banning of red meat comes to pass not only will the main income of many countries, such as Argentina, be curtailed but you will see all other animal-based food products next in line for the same treatment.
It may well be as a nation we press on with this lunacy and ‘lead’ the world as our Premier thinks we will, but somehow I think we will be on our own in this; certain nations will never follow us down this virtual signalling dead end.
 
And yet again Boris goes along with this nonsense, no one calls him out.

It is striking that both the Climate Change Committee and the Treasury have refused to perform a cost-benefit analysis of the Net Zero project. Not really surprising: every real world article on the subject has shown huge costs against extremely vague promises; if the true cost to every man woman and child in the UK got out there would be or should be a rebellion - a real one.

Hydrogen is being pushed as an eco alternative to fossil fuels. These two charts show just how much electricity has to be used to make the hydrogen and also the amount of emissions produced from those two processes. As a commentator said it would be better to use the electricity in the first place. Battery-powered lorries, unless there is a revolution in battery design, add too much weight; that alone makes HGV using them uneconomical.




The max insulation required to make heat pumps work is not in any way doable for the bulk of the housing stock. The cost is way out of reach for the average family and offering £5000 as a grant to convert your gas boiler to a heat pump (£5000 of the same tax payers' money) is a joke. An Italian study has come up with a figure all in to make houses zero carbon: 100,000 euros.

A good explanation of why heat pumps are an expensive folly for the vast majority of properties:


Even the BBC could not ignore the obvious…

Heat pump grants worth £5,000 to replace gas boilers not enough, say critics

                                                                                                  
Meanwhile MPs get us to pay for their driving in London emission zone:


And celebrities continue to outbid each other on how virtuous they all are. The likes of Emma Thompson's well trailed hypocrisy has been joined by Joanna Lumley of Eastern travelogue fame now telling us we should not fly as she jets off to Rome for a film. She claims accusations of hypocrisy are jealousy as she and other celebs offset their carbon emission with tree planting and carbon credits (whatever they are); I would love to see proof of all this tree-planting that celebs assure us they do, many if it is true would have estates like Sherwood Forest by now.

That’s different of course, and putting in his two pennyworth is Arnie, telling us much the same and how he has ‘recently’! converted his Hummer to battery power; a vehicle that weight with an equivalent battery is likely to drain the grid, and it probably cost him the equivalent of  a small house to do it. He also is slowly cutting out meat from his diet and is healthier for it he says, or his heart doctor says. Is he off-setting all that stuff bodybuilders used when competing, allegedly! They are all clowns.

COP26: Arnold Schwarzenegger angered by world leaders' climate policies


There is nothing wrong with a balanced approach to cleaning up our act, but it has to be balanced against available technology so we don’t enforce poverty on the population. That technology is still in the future; you cannot bring it forward with unwarranted panic measures over something that is really not happening in a way that is any different from weather patterns over the millennia, and taking the Canute approach will not make the slightest bit of difference.

They really are 'extracting the Michael.'

And finally a snippet from the world of the 100+ genders, very funny but how many trans staff does Oxfam actually employ, or is one enough these days to remove items from sale or dismiss people for wrongthink?

We have taken the decision to withdraw the product Wonder Women Bingo as it has been brought to our attention that it is not in line with Oxfam’s values.’

Oxfam, which campaigns to end poverty and improve women’s rights, told The Mail on Sunday last night it had cleared the game from its shelves after transgender staff complained about it.

It added: ‘We took the decision to remove the game from sale following concerns raised by trans and non-binary colleagues who told us it didn’t live up to our commitment to respect people of all genders.’


Totally bonkers.

Friday, October 29, 2021

FRIDAY MUSIC: Foxes and Fossils, by JD

Foxes and Fossils is a close harmony covers band which began when Tim Purcell and his daughter Sammie recorded the Simon and Garfunkel song 'America' in his home studio.

He explains what happened next: 

"I’d had a home studio for years and recorded all of my girls at one time or another so this wasn’t the first time Sammie and I had sung or recorded together but it was the first time I ever thought about putting an act together with her. The idea took root and began to grow. What if we added a few more pieces; a better guitarist, maybe a bass? What if both were good singers? The more I thought about it I began to realize that this might be my chance to put together that strong vocal ensemble I had always dreamed of."

And his dream has come true with some fine close harmony singing and as well as several million 'hits' for these and other YouTube videos. 

They have released three CDs so far as far as I know but, being an old fossil myself, I am not sure how the business of buying and selling digital downloads works (whatever digital downloads are; that is not one of my skills!)








Thursday, October 28, 2021

Covid and flu: a Hallowe’en terror tale

As the pandemic goes on, some have queried the State’s facts; now, I’m beginning to wonder about its logic.

Here is the Daily Telegraph, relaying the message promoted by ‘health chiefs’ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/07/flu-deaths-could-hit-60000-worst-winter-50-years-say-experts/ :

Flu deaths could hit 60,000 in worst winter for 50 years, say experts

 More than 35m people will be offered jabs after health chiefs warn that lockdowns and social distancing have led to a drop in immunity

Note that the story is not about a new, deadlier strain of flu; it’s about the weakening effects of lockdowns and social distancing. By implication, we should have gone out and about and mingled with others to keep ourselves strong.

Why does this reasoning not apply to Covid?

Also, there is double-think about the use of the needle. Our long-standing strategy with flu is vaccination, focusing especially on the elderly and vulnerable, but even now, officials aren’t proposing to vaccinate the whole country against flu. Contrariwise, with Covid the plan is to jab everyone aged 12 and up https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55274833 , despite a January study saying that severe allergic reactions to the Covid vaccines are ten times commoner than with those for flu. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/06/cdc-says-severe-allergic-reactions-to-covid-vaccine-run-10-times-the-flu-shot-but-still-rare.html In particular there is mounting concern about inoculating healthy youngsters when they are naturally so resistant to the disease.

As for consumer resistance, a recent official news release sought to overcome it by a skilful muddling of issues. The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/oct/08/nhs-aims-to-give-35m-flu-jabs-amid-warnings-of-up-to-60000-deaths quoted Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, England’s deputy chief medical officer, on the need to take jabs for both flu and Covid:

‘Covid-19 will still be circulating and with more people mixing indoors, sadly some increases are possible. For the first time we will have Covid-19 and flu co-circulating. We need to take this seriously and defend ourselves and the NHS by getting the annual flu jab and the Covid-19 booster when called.’

(I don’t understand that ’first time… co-circulating’ bit; or rather, I don’t accept it. At what point in the last 20 months has either disease ceased to circulate? Perhaps he was misquoted, or ‘misspoke.’)

In any case, one suspects that this story was a ‘nudge’, persuading us to extend our confidence in the overwhelmingly safe flu vaccination to the more doubtful corona jab, even though the latter is still being delivered under emergency-use terms that protect the pharma companies from compensation claims.

Then add fear (’60,000 could die!’) to the cauldron (it’s nearly Hallowe’en, after all); and finally, an assertion of authority. The Cabinet’s Behavioural Insights Team recently made the mistake of publishing a study celebrating the public’s gullibility, or as they put it, ‘powerful tendency to conform’ and ‘deep set reverence for legitimate government authority’; it was swiftly taken offline, but not swiftly enough! https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/10/22/report-corona-shows-public-have-deep-set-reverence-for-govt/

The government claims to have saved 130,000 lives by the corona vaccines https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-film-launched-urging-public-to-get-flu-and-covid-19-vaccines but health issues are complex and it can take years for experts to agree an analysis. For example, if there are 30,000-plus excess flu deaths because of lockdown and social distancing, that figure might be used to adjust the total of lives saved. Then again, how many have died and will die in the years to come, because of lower fitness levels, inappropriate responses to stress, mental health issues and the panoply of negative socioeconomic consequences of failing and failed businesses, reduced employment income for workers, and unemployment?

Perhaps one ‘canary in the mine’ early danger warning can be seen in mortality statistics that do not mention the coronavirus on the death certificate. Looking at the ONS weekly figures this year from week 27 (start of Q3) up to the most recent available (week 41), every week in 2021 except one has seen the most deaths since the equivalent week in 2010. To put it another way, let’s look at each year’s total for that 15-week period:


There is a gradually rising trend anyway, presumably because of a growing and ageing population; but 2021 is clearly above the trend.

Further, deaths from Covid in the same period are much higher this year than last. For Weeks 27-41 in 2020, there were 3,423 where CV ‘was mentioned on the certificate’; in 2021, 8,885 (or 7,691 if you count only those where CV was the ‘underlying’ i.e. main cause of death.) Adding those in for last year and this, total deaths from all causes in this 15-week period are running at c. 1,000 a week more than the highest equivalent (in 2017 – point 8 below) of the previous eleven years:


If this pattern continues it will need some explanation. Something is going on, and I suspect that factors may include the indirect effects of the anti-Covid strategy and the people’s behavioural responses.

Perhaps those who ‘know better’ might pause in their censorship, mockery and vilification of those who have concerns, lumping us all together with conspiracy theorists, the half-educated and hysterical under the scornful term ‘anti-vaxxers’, and consider whether they themselves may possibly be mistaken in one or more respects. They mean well, of course, but to err is human.

For an example of how good intentions can lead to disaster, consider the case of the Amazon’s Yanomami tribe, many of whom were inoculated against measles in 1968; thousands subsequently died of the disease. One of the anthropologists who administered the vaccine later admitted that the strain used was dangerous for immune-depressed people, producing ‘severe symptoms in people suffering from anaemia, dysentery or chronic exposure to malaria, and the Yanomami suffered from all three.’ https://dwhume.com/darkness_documents/0034.htm

If we accept the latest official suggestion, that our immune systems have been weakened by lockdowns and social distancing, then perhaps that may help explain 2021’s outbreak of the ‘worst cold ever’ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-58624295 . We might go further and ask whether our resistance to Covid itself may have been dangerously lowered – and maybe the risk of severe anaphylaxis has been raised; who knows for sure?

All vaccination is a calculated risk, but in the current case I feel we still do not have enough information to make an accurate personal calculation; instead, we are getting propaganda and redaction. I took the gamble and was double-jabbed over six months ago; I didn’t react badly, but there has been a bit of an ache in my chest for a long time as though I was coming down with flu; and I have been sneezing a few times a day, for weeks and months. Maybe it’s a coincidence, maybe not.

Now I’ve been nudged by post, and hounded daily by text, to get the booster jab. Will I do it? On balance, considering my circumstances, probably yes. Am I sanguine about it? No.

THURSDAY BACKTRACK: Music and news from 60 years ago - week ending 28 October 1961

  Cliff Richard storms in at #2 with 'When the girl in your arms is the girl in your heart':



Some memorable events (via Wikipedia):

22 October: 'Chubby Checker performed his 1960 #1 hit, "The Twist" on The Ed Sullivan Show, reigniting the popularity of both the dance and the record. The song returned to the Top 100 three weeks later, and became the first and only hit single to reach #1 twice.'

 Also on that day: 'Presidential and legislative elections were allowed to take place in Haiti by dictator François Duvalier, but only Duvalier supporters were allowed to run for office. Duvalier had his name printed on each ballot paper, with the result that he was re-elected unanimously.'

24 October: 'A group of prominent campaigners for the preservation of the Euston Arch, including James Maude Richards, went to see British prime minister Harold Macmillan to argue for it to be dismantled and rebuilt elsewhere. Their arguments were unsuccessful, and the arch was demolished two months later.'
But it may come back. Bits of the original were recovered a few years ago:
    ... and if the money can be found, it may be rebuilt:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3900478/Euston-Arch-set-rise-nearly-60-years-Government-declares-war-cult-ugliness-modern-public-buildings.html

25 October: the first edition of the UK satirical magazine 'Private Eye' is published(History)

27 October: 'Berlin Crisis: Five days after the initial incident involving Albert Hemsing, 33 Soviet tanks drove to the Brandenburg Gate to confront American tanks on the other side of the border. Ten of the tanks continued to Friedrichstraße, stopping 50 to 100 metres from the checkpoint on the Soviet side of the sector boundary. The standoff between the tanks of the two nations continued for 16 hours before both sides withdrew.'
Image source




UK chart hits, week ending 28 October 1961 (tracks in italics have been played in earlier posts)

Htp: Clint's labour-of love compilation https://www.sixtiescity.net/charts/61chart.htm

Tuesday, October 26, 2021

Epipanicacademic attack - flu vs Covid

This from the Daily Telegraph:

Flu deaths could hit 60,000 in worst winter for 50 years, say experts

More than 35m people will be offered jabs after health chiefs warn that lockdowns and social distancing have led to a drop in immunity

_____________________________________________________________

'Coughs and sneezes spread diseases' was the old slogan; now the implication of the above is we should mingle, mingle, mingle to keep up our natural immunity.

So why does this not apply to Covid?

Or is the warning something to do with what He Who Must Not Be Named has suggested, i.e. that our immune systems have been weakened by having to deal with the deliberate infection by injection of the various anti-CV cocktails?

Tell me whatever story you like - but keep it logically consistent, please.

I'm provisionally prepared to accept that, on balance, I may be less at risk having a vaccination than not; but I don't know where to look for a fully reliable and unbiased quantitative assessment of the relative risks, with appropriate admissions of uncertainty.

If you can't trust us with the truth, don't be surprised if we have difficulty in trusting you.

Saturday, October 23, 2021

BACKTRACK: Featured hits of 1961

Click the link for the record, and news of the time:

1961

Kenny BALL - Midnight In Moscow
Shirley BASSEY - Reach For The Stars
Dave BRUBECK - Take Five
Petula CLARK - Romeo
Jimmy DEAN - Big Bad John
EVERLY Brothers - Temptation
Billy FURY - Halfway To Paradise
Billy FURY - Jealousy
Eden KANE - Well I Ask You
Cleo LAINE - You'll Answer To Me
John LEYTON - Johnny Remember Me
John LEYTON - Wild Wind
Ricky NELSON - Hello Mary Lou
Sandy NELSON - Let There Be Drums
Elvis PRESLEY - Are You Lonesome Tonight
Elvis PRESLEY - His Latest Flame
Elvis PRESLEY - Surrender
Elvis PRESLEY - Wild In The Country
Cliff RICHARD - A Girl Like You
Cliff RICHARD - I Love You
The SHADOWS - Kon-Tiki
Del SHANNON - Runaway
Helen SHAPIRO - Walking Back To Happiness
Helen SHAPIRO - You Don't Know
Johnny TILLOTSON - Poetry In Motion
Frankie VAUGHAN - Tower Of Strength
Danny WILLIAMS - Moon River

1962

Kenny BALL and His Jazzmen - March of the Siamese Children
Pat BOONE - Johnny Will
Chubby CHECKER - Let's Twist Again
Bobby DARIN - Multiplication
Eden Kane - Forget Me Not
Elvis PRESLEY - Rock-A-Hula Baby
Cliff RICHARD - The Young Ones
Cliff RICHARD - Wonderful Land
Leroy VAN DYKE - Walk On By

Friday, October 22, 2021

FRIDAY MUSIC: Paddy Moloney, a tribute, by JD

 Paddy Moloney of Irish tradtional folk group The Chieftains has died; he was 83.

"With a career spanning six decades, the Chieftains remains one of the most influential and heralded music groups to emerge from Ireland - and all led by Paddy Moloney, the charismatic performer at the heart of the group.

"In 1975, influential music publication Melody Maker ran its annual poll running down its best of the year, and there, claiming the honour of group of the year, was the Chieftains, beating the likes of Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones and Queen.

"That's a folk group, that performed largely vocal-less Irish traditional music while sitting down and whose image was largely 'guys in the back corner of a pub', beating some of the biggest groups to ever plug in an amplifier."


Paddy Moloney, The Chieftains founder, dies (1938 - 2021) RIP

PADDY MOLONEY VIRTUAL IRISH FESTIVAL OF OULU PERFORMANCE, NOV 21, 2020

The Chieftains also travelled to Galicia on several occasions and shared the stage with Carlos Nuñez in some very lively concerts. These two videos have appeared here previously but there is no harm in posting them again!



Below: Concerto de The Chieftains en Ortigueira 2014 con Phil Cunninghan, Milladoiro e a Escola de Gaitas; and beneath the video was this tribute to Paddy in the comments:

"Maybe that was the last chance to enjoy the live music of The Chieftains in Galicia, at least that was my last one. Now Paddy goes on his way to Tir na nOg, to meet there the greatest bards of all times. Galicia owns you many thing Paddy, as well as all the Celtic music world. Até sempre!"