CHRISTMAS WREATHS

My local school is having w death making session so i picked a laundry bucket of stuff for them, including lots of rose hips – bright red, but my holly tree is a bit weedy so I supplemented it with bay branches – both evergreen and shiny!; and then i added some rosemaries that is in flower with small blue flowers. I might have a go at making one myself with the rosemary, and may be some sage for contrast? Whatever it would smell great.

I now need to empty the greenhouse of the tomato plants – what to do with the soil in the pots – maybe i will add it to the compost bin? Apple and mulberry trees need pruning, and maybe the apricot although it is not tall, it could do with spreading out.

SUNDAY

Yep, and the world is settling down for a quiet day, I hope. New York and New Jersey have declared a state of emergency as a nor’easter brings havoc and coastal flooding. What I meant by the opening sentence was that Trump and his followers have not thrown up any bile so far today. Although … apparently Trump has invited Putin to the G20 hosted by the USA in December – the UK and EU should refuse to attend, simple.

Weather is decidedly autumnal today, overcast , damp and windy, but not cold. I filled the green wheelie bin with cuttings from the roses and the bay tree, Its full and waiting for tomorrows collection when I will continue with the bay and start on the mulberry tree and the apple. Then the brambles that seem to shoot out overnight.

Reading books is a passion, but not classics – my latest ‘find’ is Brooke Skie, I love her portrayal of buildings as sentient beings and the ginger cat ‘Hemingway’ is a star. I am a sucker for the feel good romantic stories so don’t give me shit about it! Millie Johnson, Katie Fforde and Jo Thomas are also good!

REFORM

To paraphrase the late, great Manny Shinwell when called out by the Speaker for calling all Conservatives ‘liars’, “Not all Reform voters are ignorant, racist, morons – just most” – I am not sure the first word and the last two apply truthfully! I suppose applying the sentence to 25% of voters is a little extreme – but justified!

Google estimates that 22.7million litres of fuels is used to mow UK lawns – use of electric mowers lowers this but still results in tens of thousands of CO2 emissions per year.

OFSTED

Grading a school is unessecary, parents of the children will know if they are engaged or not – and for the majority who are unaware of this, the children themselves will reveal the quality of the establishment themselves. Inspections are fine if done from a supportive stance – if there is an apparent problem then OFSTED should have powers and resources to help remedy the problem, not just give it a black mark and be self-satisfied. My last head, Dr.Horrible, applied to be an Ofsted Inspector more than once and was rejected as he was basically a bully who wanted to criticise others. Teachers in difficult situations need support, not some jumped up control freak, criticising them, but only offering their own version of how teaching should be done. We all learn in different ways, often by our mistakes – if we are not crushed because of them. Teaching changed during my career, from being an absolute delight, to being dominated by meaningless tables and targets. Where was the target of children enjoying school? Why do teachers want to become administrators? Do they hate children and teachers? Unjust criticism is easy, the support less easy.

Military matters – or does it? There seems to be a ramping up of the supposed threats from Russia. For fucks sake, Russia cannot even defend itself from Ukraine – as yesterdays attack on Moscow showed. Putin might try an incursion against Europe and NATO in an attempt to divert weapons away from Kiev. But a real threat seems very unlikely – so the papers and news channels ar just talking bollocks before a budget. The press are using words like threatens and could to describe possible budget tax increases – basically they have not got a clue.

Apples – my tree has only produced 20/30 apples this year! Maybe next year, or maybe my replacement apricot (the last one died)will do better.

BULLSHIT

There is so much BS being bandied about regarding the Defence budget. This morning on R4 there was an expert explaining that the only defence we had against drones was a type of frigate, of which we have 6, 4 out of service and 1 in the Middle East. This is absolute bollocks. The Army has tested laser weapons (£10 per fire) called Dragon Fire; an weapon called Wolfhound and one referred to as RFDEW, the miserable old jerk was just scare mongering for political ends, he did not mantion any of these weapons. I guess they have not been fully tested yet, and not in a war situation, but saying we are defenceless is bollocks. The Battle of Britain was over 80 years ago, and warfare like society, has changed. Almost certainly any defence availabl at the moment will nt kill all drones, but what is the point of £billion air craft carriers and destroyers (even nuclear submarines?) when the enemy can fire off drones costing a grand£ or less? The Ukraine also showed overnight that we should not be overly concerned regarding Russia launching an offensive as per todays Sunday Telegraph headline – PM “fiddles as Putin threatens to burn Europe”. Russia has the ability to lash out but is already suffering from fuel and other shortages due to Ukrainiand drone attacks. Does anyone under the age of 80 actually buy the telegraph? No one in my village!

Lots of hype about El Niño – but is it really going to affect us with other than a bit more extreme weather than normal? The last strong El Niño was estimated to have resulted in agricultural losses of about $40billion. Chocolate and fruits, vegetables imported are the most likely to suffer. So stock up on dried fruit, prices of bananas is likely to be fairly constant.

First apple picked – the total harvest is not looking good!

CLOWN

So America has a clown or a liar for President- probably both. First he says that he was saved from the possible collapse of One Liberty Plaza by two firemen (he was nowhere near – fact, and I am certain he would have mentioned it before, he has never been short of self aggrandisement); then he makes a speech stating that he would make $5000 come to every American as long as they spent it in America – is he going to increase the national debt by another $1.3billion.? and how will he know how the money would be spent.

However it is not only Americans who are really, really stupid (for continuing to support the idiot), we too in the UK have our morons. If any group of people ever warrant the upmost praise it is the crews (unpaid) and staff of the RNLI charity who volunteer to risk their lives at any time of day or night, or conditions at sea to rescue anyone in need regardless of race, religion, creed or lack of intelligence (the last often being the case in summer!). These undoubted heroes are being targeted by the knuckle dragging moron brigde both online and physically. the police are having to patrol to protect boats and buildings and crew members. People like that make me ashamed to be a member of the human race! Whilst I vaguely understand that the knuckle draggers feel hard done by society, I have no sympathy or empathy with them – If their jobs/or lack of are are impinging on their perception of what their lifestyles should be, then there are plenty of jobs available – 111000 vacancies in care for starters. Oh but they think they are too good for those jobs, they will leave them for the ‘foreigners’. Ignorant twats.

Attacks on the RNLI have a personal touch for me, when I got married we had the reception in the Red Lion, Newlyn where I was a part time bar staff, we had the reception in the bar but it was still open to the public, afterwards I learnt that 6 of the crew of the Mousehole Lifeboat were present – all died later in attempting a rescue at Lands End. My granddaughter is also a lifeguard on a beach in Cornwall.. I fucking hate the selfish, ignorant yobs who think they have a right to terrorise others .

The sun is shining and rain looks unlikely for the next 10 days, but if in the south-west have an umbrella handy just in case! I guess the hosepipe ban will not end soon! My water butt is running low, but no worries as the tomatoes are just about finished. Senior rabbis have spoken in favour of the governments action on the West Bank, despite the Chief Rabbi, the Board of Deputies, and the Jewish Leadership Council condemning it.

£1839 – the cost of gaining British Citizenship. Surely it would be better to mitigate this cost with evidence of employment and tax receipts. it seems that racism is ingrained in our society and institutions.

AUTUMN

Not quite yet but a feel in the air says autumn is on its way. Tomatoes have just about finished – earlier than normal, and apples look smaller than last year, but brambles have done well! I ought to cut back garden – but last flowers on buddlea still attract bees, as do the remnants of chicory, Herbs and mints going to flowers, I must learn how to collect seed for next year. I just got some alpaca socks from NZ! not good for miles, but whatever. And latest birthday present from my kids is organic EVOO from Albacete, Spain.

Green Party leader Zac Polanski is hoping to stand for election in Keir Starmers seat in London. I just read about Jenies Jones who is refusing to pay her sewage bill to thames Water – obviously they are prosecuting her, but she has my full admiration for standing up against the corporate nonsense that have become our water companies. The majority of voters want them nationalised – but not a word from the right wing racists in the media, or the BBC which is also run by the right wing.

Macron and Burnham meet and I wonder how this will be reported by the tosspots in the Mail, Sun, Express, and Telegraph?

World temperatures. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62m4gpnp78o

AUTUMN

Whilst hoping for an “Indian Summer” it is noticeably cooler at dawn recently. Forecasts for the next 2 weeks are for changeable weather and nothing to get excited about! Unlike South Korea which is preparing for a lot of rain. My apples are smaller this year and not ready yet, tomato plants are nearly done. Cutting back the herbs .

Note how the racist press lines up to criticise tax increases, but fails to criticise the policies of government, ‘have their cake and eat it’ comes to mind. The luxury of being not in power is that there is no need to justify policies or say how they will be funded. So Reform &Co can talk about deporting people without having to justify how they would staff the NHS and many other industries; they never address the facts about the future demography of the uk.

Apparently the government is running scared of the legal costs of privatising the water industry. Just pass a law – stupid. Parliament is above the law ultimately, so just pass the law, and refuse the judiciary allowance to change it. This may raise other issues, but the government was able to imprison people for showing support Palestine Action posters. The hedge funds that have been ripping off customers of water companies can just fuck off. They will continue to seek out opportunities for easy profits in the UK – and no one will fuck off out the UK unless they are total losers. Where would they go? The Middle East is fucked up enough – maybe Canada?

PUTIN THREATENS THE UK

Should we be worried? I suspect not at the moment – Russia has enough problems trying to protect itself from Ukranian drones, which are increasingly effective. However we should not be complacent – the UK is also allowing US Military to use airfileds in the UK on bombing missions to Iran. So a double threat and Trump is capable of not passing on intelligence via NATO.

In the USA Meta are defending a case brought by 29 states that allege that Facebook and Instagram collected data on children under the age of 13. The case will obviously go to the Supreme Court and the predicted fine is likely to be in the region of $200 billion if Meata are found guilty. The real question should be why is it that they can afford a fine even 3x as big!

North Sea gas supplies will run low in 10 years a report states. So we need to to move quicker on alternatives. It would seem that we have the capability to prove electricity from alternative sources to fill the gap, but not the storeage capacity – yet. I suspect that I could be just about self sufficient in energy with decent battery storage.

We had some rain, which I would classify as Goldilocks Rain! Not too heavy, not too light, just right. Enough to water the garden, but not much runoff – except on the roads! A report states that some of our ancient oak trees over 9m in circumference maybe at peril – just water them then! There are only 114 in England and 98 in the rest of Europe (including Scotland and Wales). An oak tree supports over 250 species of insects.

Meanwhile a study of children in Ulez areas has shown a significant improvement in lung recovery and basically death – So well done Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, and I hope that those who took action against the ULEZ are suitably ostrasized by their communities.

TRUMP

Totally lost the plot; He has threstened to bomb the shit out of Oman ‘if they get in his way!” whatever that means; he has reduced collaboration in a military exercise with Soth Korea because he likes the President of totalitarian North Korea (my very good friend); He has said that sailors complaining about conditions on USS Abraham `Lincoln, “have not had long enough at sea”; whilst equipping ICE operatives with gloves that deliver an electric shock; whilst appointing Kennedy to be Head of Health; whilst obsessing about vanity projects in Washington. Our own looney duo. Jenprick and NotNice said we should forget about climate change and just enjoy the warm weather as it definitely is not caused by human activity and approximately just under 30% of voters will still vote for the wankers!.

I just had a free eye test (NHS) and despite being bored silly and not reading the bottom line, my glasses prescription is the same – although the optician was fascinated by my Christmas condition (like a snow dome). Tens of thousands of non-racists attended a vigil for Jason Arday who was found dead after a relentless hate campaign by the shit press.

The UK water regulator Ofwat is considering rule changes to allow water companies to trial “surge pricing” and seasonal tariffs during droughts, charging higher rates in summer or when usage passes high thresholds to curb demand. Burnham said he will stop this. OFWAT should be renamed OFRIP – not content with letting the water companies may executives and shareholders money taken from customers, they have also accrued vast debts – nationalise with no compensation – NOW!

We had a little wetness this morning, which may keep my neighbours at bay. More overnight and tomorrow hopefully. I did not realise that we were not under a hosepipe ban – Wessex Water do the sewage, but Bristol Water provide the cool stuff. I think I may need to double my present water butt capacity to 700ltrs,

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