a Dirty Martini

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Composited panoramic of the Great Hall, taken Jan 2010 . Click to enlarge. It will eventually.

 

A and I went to Hampton Court Palace in January. He has never been and I was only too thrilled to walk him through the place and share the same sense of history as I do living in this great country. Which he truly does. As much as I want to understand the history of his own country and make every effort when we go. Temporary governments don't define a nation.  And they never will. 

Common Sense

I’d like to vote for a Common Sense Party of which maybe I could be head. 

 

Common Sense manifesto would probably go something like this

 

1)    Common Sense dictates that government involvement in every inch of our lives is not a good much less great thing. By and large public servants are scheming politically correct self serving shits whose motivation is rarely excellent service unless you live in France - and even then they will hold people to ransom to guarantee their own futures (while others have no such privilege– so much for socialism’s equality).

 

2)   By that same token Common Sense would dictate that unfettered corporatism isn’t the way to go -  it too is largely comprised of self serving greedy assholes whose profits don’t necessarily get reinvested as they should be in public services that have to be used and are rarely a CHOICE - rendering the power and success of said choice pretty much impotent.

 

3)   Common sense would dictate that letting the media lead you around by the nose the whole time in everything from fashion to sex and then politics is unhealthy for our culture and our styles of government. Who the hell are these revolting jumped up post-70's luvvies who determine how we dress, how we perceive sex, what is socially acceptable and which political parties we should vote for? Into the dustbin go all the “trailblazers” from newspaper barons to BBC news presenters to Larry Flynt. They’ve turned western culture into a bunfight for the lowest cultural common denominator and would be the first to the guillotine in my  new world.

 

4)   Common Sense would dictate that there is no such thing as equality and that humans don’t HAVE to approve of all human behaviours and shouldn’t be legislated into it or talked into it.

 

5)   Common Sense would dictate that life isn’t fair. If you aim for “a future fair for all” as Labour are proposing, an equal society , what you are really reaching for is an equal outcome for all. That sort of fairness is commonly known as communism, a failed, ghastly, evil and anti human condition. Delivering fairness to one in the grand scheme of things means taking from the other to keep everyone level pegging. Except at the top where the wealthy don’t have to worry about the lower classes as long as they appease their guilt by voting left while trotting off to leafy Hampstead away from those same vulgar masses. In China such assholes wear uniforms. Same difference in my book. I want to punch them all.

 

6)   Common Sense would dictate that concerns about immigration or cultures don’t equate to racism by default.  If you don’t ask a people how they want to live, how much they want to share existing facilities they pay for and determine the guests don’t have to even attempt to get on with their host country, you deliver fear and anxiety and invite contempt by default. It is therefore YOUR fault not the people’s or the resultant political parties gaining favour.  The people didn’t ask to have their country turned into a politician’s guaranteed multi culti power base. That wasn’t ever THEIR utopia. Politicians are supposed to govern of by and FOR.

 

7)   Common Sense would determine that democracy has become a sham - the tyranny of the masses.

 

8)   Common Sense would dictate that this culture, OUR culture, IS superior to others by virtue of what it achieved. Get over it. I won’t be told all cultures are equal either. They are not. I refuse to apologise for who we are or how we got here. I refuse to apologise for anything that happened under Empire. I refuse to apologise for slavery. It had nothing to do with me whatsoever that some African tribeschief sold his own people for a tidy profit to others who wanted to turn a tidy profit. It’s 2010 and I don’t CARE.  Noone demands African chiefs atone for their bloody sins. Publicly atoning for anything is infantile.

 

9)   Common Sense would dictate that a bank bailed out and now owned by the government should not be paying out giant bonuses to it’s bosses for God’s sake. That money belongs to people – people like us struggling to get on the housing ladder after a banking mortgage fiasco of epic proportions. That crap makes me want to cry.

 

10)   Common Sense would determine that with legislation, whilst less is invariably more with respect to government intervention, letting libertines libertarians and liberals free reign of the social asylum the last three decades hasn’t been a good thing.  They’ve chipped away steadily at our values in the name of freedom and where has it got us? I don’t feel liberated at all. It’s 2010 and there are still blog debates obsessing about female beauty, their physical being (US style abortion debates etc) and how the burqa is supposedly right-on in Britain. There is nothing remotely liberating about ANY of it.

 

11)    Common Sense would determine that queuing for a bus was a cool thing to do. I know we all hate being British now and so need to dispense with all those pompous British twee formalities that people laugh at us for but tell me – how is standing at the bus stop in the pissing rain and then being pushed aside in the ensuing bun fight for a seat a better thing. How? Manners and a degree of fair play were things society took upon itself to make life pleasant. We weren’t told to do it, we just did. Liberals legislate manners now in their own pc fashion, both through labels, stigma and worse – legislation. Why? Because they’ve made society a bitter angry selfish and childish place.

Wet Wonderland

London was drowned by rain tonight, which is actually a rare thing these days. Snow we get occasionally but heavy rain is rare. It bucketed down all over the actors actresses and thousands of fans who showed up for the Royal Premiere of Disney's Alice in Wonderland. My boots and coat and dress were soaked through. It was relentless. 

I was attending as a guest, not an employee which always makes a pleasant change. I'm not usually star struck though I admit I was a little bit by Johnny Depp who was gorgeous as ever and remains relatively unaffected for a Hollywood star. 

It's always interesting watching Hollywood Royalty meet English Royalty. And I was impressed to hear the cooing and oohing in the theatre when three little kids presented the Prince and Duchess with a beautiful bouquet and then bowed deeply. So sweeeeeet! I half expected the liberal dweebs around me to thumb their powdered noses.

The ONLY thing that got up my nose the whole night was the Fashion Royalty. This film has been a magnet for them precisely because of who is involved and frankly the incredible piece of eye candy that it represents. Nevertheless it is still a KID's FILM. It's DISNEY for crying out loud. Attended by dozens and dozens of kids.

So what in the hell was model Daisy Lowe doing rocking up dressed like a fucking whore? 

Suspenders, no skirt, and a basque for a film premiere? Seriously?  I realise it's oh so fashionable to walk out dressed like some lap dancing slapper these days and men lurrrve that kind of thing thus making it "beautiful" and acceptable - but it remains whore to me. And with kids around (see picture I linked to) someone should remind her the example she sets. Stupid bloody cow. 

Still I did my bit for the impressionable little female mind sat to my left, a 6 year old in cute Alice stripey tights gazing up at this travesty all eyes. When Ms Lowe appeared on the theatre screen via CCTV my shocked friend turned to me and said "what is she wearing!?" I replied " I dunno. But she's dressed like a cheap whore" loudly enough to be heard. Maybe spelling it out crudely, so that not everyone is endorsing the view that this passes for acceptable fashion, she might grow up with half a chance. But hell what do I know. 

Not Here

 

All smiles from 1 Royal Welsh as the first few days go well on the ground - Operation Moshtarak via Helmand Blog

This is not directed at regular commenters

This is not the blog to express negative doom mongering views about Her Majesty's Armed Forces especially in relation to current issues. I've no doubt there are plenty of other blogs around where that sort of "England is washed up" crap is very welcome in no uncertain terms but it is most assuredly not welcome here. Especially not from people I don't even know and who haven't showed up here previously to give us a thumbs up over PRESENT operations and consequently whose views I might respect. 

Our men and women were out there in Iraq and are out there presently fighting a hellish war in Afghanistan.  

I would happily tell a lefty Brit to take a hike if the best he or she can come up with is a shallow view of America's alleged "defeats" in operations overseas or even shallower opinion on 9/11 and home defense. I've battled with many such people on UK blogs who love linking to stats and figures. So I don't want my posts seized on to be used for similar kinds of trite observations about the UK. 

The situation in the Falklands is vastly different to what it was, with a permanent garrison and permanent heavy weight patrol reducing the need for any Taskforce type panic mission. 

I'm deeply proud of Her Majesty's Armed Forces. We've stepped up to the plate with and without allied support in the past, and we've stepped up the plate to assist our allies when noone else could be bothered, even under a crummy Labour government. We will do so again whenever and wherever we are needed. And we will do so successfully and proudly.  As always. 

Argie Bargie

Oh the delicious irony.  During the Napoleonic Wars the Spanish settlers of Argentina demanded their freedom from a decaying Spanish empire and those Spanish settlers now enjoy the right of self-determination. Dimwitted leftie Argentinians, aka wanabee Europeans, today spit on the memory of their own revolutionaries by demanding that the British settlers of the Falkland Islands have no similar right to self-determination when those settlers make it clear they wish to be British. Argentina has no legal claim over the Falklands whatsoever and never has, it matters not one jot where they are located else what next - a claim on the awkwardly and stupidly carved out Chile too? It would be political suicide for any British government to capitulate so they won't. And it would be foolish and tragic for any Argentinian government to offer up its soldiers to the slaughter for the sake of a useful domestic diversion.

If I were PM this would be my response to the current "crisis" and to Hugo Chavez wading in on the situation. When Latin America isn't busy frogmarching all over its lands with tin pot military dictators banging on about imperialismo with their chaotic perma-revoluciones, rampant favela slums covering most of their countries while it's richer citizens and politicians live the high life in Rio, or in central parts marauding drug gangsters busily using people's heads as footballs, it is turning out thugs in chief who talk such utter crap it's a wonder they qualify for statesmen on the global stage. And a bigger wonder our press take these fuckwits seriously.

Happy Hour

 

"Alcohol is the anaesthesia by which we endure the operation of life"

 

Role Models

 

I love these women.

 

These women are the only ones I know who recognise the burqa for precisely what it represents. They are running a great campaign in support of having it banned. Agree with that or not, they have a just basis for their cause. They are pretty, intelligent, confident, determined.  And mmm, yikes, they are feminists.

 

There are relatively few things that inspire me within the “feminist movement”. Until I started blogging, 6 years ago this month, I wasn’t aware there was such a thing here anyway. I certainly hadn’t considered feminism as a ‘philosophy’ except by it’s notable absence in the face of rising and acceptable Islamic misogyny, or with regards to the pathetic objectifying and genital gazing attitudes prevailing in raunch culture. On that last score, the two sort of complement one another. Western culture had learned to scrape new lows. From the minute I flick open a magazine to watching the TV or a film where women are portrayed (and portray themselves) to that passing moment in Bow east London when a young woman in a niqab and I lock eyes and know precisely what this bullshit is all about.  I don’t feel I have a stake in how any of it plays out which is a pity. Maybe I’m too much of a “prude” on the one hand, too much of a “racist” on the other to offer any criticism of either debate. Besides, falling short of the sensational, it will fall on deaf ears anyway right? Sensational is stripping bare for a camera and offering yourself up for close public scrutiny. Asking - am I beautiful, yes or no, rate me! Sensational is covering yourself from head to toe in black and declaring yourself beautiful, pious, above gaze. Colour me cynical but truly I’ve had enough.

 

And when some two bit magazine sticks that diabolical beaten up whore Rhianna on the cover and sells her as a female role model – well then frankly, we have lost the goddamn plot.

 

Rude Cyclists

Laura made me a picture. I love it! She also has a very very funny Valentine's post up. 

Thanks for the comments on my rant below. Have a great weekend everyone :)

 

Exile in Portales

 

It's February so I'm dedicating a kind of Blog Valentine post to Buck at Exile.   I'm truly pleased and always flattered he takes the time to comment here. I love his point of view in the places I find his comments. We may not see eye to eye on everything I post here or elsewhere I'm sure, but that is often left unsaid - in favour of the lot of things we do agree on. And his genuine appreciation of my random passions for my country make me feel positively happy about the place. I love his memories of England and Europe. He runs a wonderful blog. It's a familiar and lovely part of my daily trip around the net and I recommend it to anyone who doesn't yet know it. Above all though, the man is a true gent and a proper geezer. I've been meaning to write this for a while. Nice to have made your acquaintance Buck.  

A heartfelt 'cheers' from across the Pond. 

Lord Tebbit

Following my rant, Lord Tebbit raised a smile. I love Lord Tebbit. He offers up answers. And made me laugh out loud (bold)

We could treat other non-Christian religions as we have treated the Jewish religion, no better, no worse. We could require schools to teach the history of this country, and I mean teach the history, not to teach pupils to engage in emotionally incontinent spasms about how a Roman soldier might have felt as he was mown down by Boadicea’s chariot, or how a black African being sold by other black Africans to an Arab slave trader might have have felt about that. What is needed is to teach how the people of these islands built a great nation. We might even find allies among women maltreated within their own socities wanting to break out and take part in ours.

And by the way, if you do not want your church to become a mosque, then you had best start going along and sitting in the pews. You are quite likely to find a Pole or a Czech or another central European there.