COME FLY WITH ME... OR PREFERABLY - DON'T BOTHER!

                

             COME FLY WITH ME...  THOUGH PREFERABLY  - DON'T BOTHER!

Now I have to own up to the fact that I do not possess a passport.  I did, but it ran out sometime in the early naughties.  My last flight to foreign climes was 1999 or 2000 when I flew to Canada for a trek by rail, taking the route from Toronto to Vancouver before flying back home from the west coast to London Heathrow Airport.  My only flights since that time have been to the Isle of Man, the last of which must be ten years ago at least.   All the aforementioned proves is that I am not a 'Frequent Flyer'!

With the above in mind it is somewhat comforting to know that I am not out of step with the average Brit, or for that matter the average overseas chap or chappess.  It would appear that around one per cent of English residents are responsible for just under twenty per cent of all overseas flights.  The term 'English resident' does not infer that the the bloatedly rich traveller is indeed English, merely that he or she is a resident.  I do wish these surveys would reflect origin, race, colour, religion... oh and possibly if they are partial to Gala Pie, the latter statistic being only for personal interest.

Following on from the initial one per cent statistic, it appears that ten per cent of flyers took over fifty per cent of flights, twenty per cent took seventy per cent while all flights were taken by just fifty-two per cent. 

I have long advocated against the expansion of not only Heathrow Airport but any airport.  It is without doubt one of the most wasteful industries in the world.  Oh what joy it was to witness the whinging, whining  and wringing of hands of those involved in the aviation industry during the early days of the first lockdown.  The demands for government handouts, the call for international flights to continue, and if they couldn't, resume with undue haste? And for what?   To deliver more travellers around the world spreading covid faster than hospitals can play catch-up?  Those in charge of airports and airlines think only of the bottom line of their balance sheet.  It would have been seen as a much stronger government if we had stopped all flights in and out of Britain at the start of the pandemic and still not opened our borders to this day, and beyond. 

For once I am agreement with the Green Party.  I would introduce a tax on frequent flyers, they are contributing heavily towards the worlds pollution, they should pay accordingly.  I also agree with stopping the air-miles incentives, they are akin to 'Buy two get one free' type promotions available in supermarkets throughout the land on a daily basis.

It's not as if air travel, be it to exotic destinations such as The Seychelles, The Bahamas or Leeds/Bradford fills you with any sense of longing.  The very thought of spending three hours queuing at check-in some five hours before your flight is actually scheduled to depart, sipping undrinkable tea purchased from a licensed bandit who pays the airport's owners a fortune just to build his grubby little retail booth and then 'served' by some servile youth whose accent you can't understand fair blows the mind and no mistake!   

You then look forward to your flight, hoping that take-off will be without incident, you know the sort of thing, a suicide bomber, they can generally be relied upon to disrupt any airborne journey, not to mention the in-flight entertainment film that you've just got into as you never saw 'The Remains of the Day' first time round. Then there's those who should never be allowed to fly, the under 16's.  It gets worse as the age decreases, right down to babies - screeching, screaming screwed up faces with yet-to-be-formed social graces who constantly demand breast milk from mummy... well it used to be mummy,  I suspect any nipple will do in our unrestrained world of rights and bent genders. 

As if the above isn't enough, you spend the duration of the holiday hoping your wallet, phone and passport remain in your possession whilst you wander round the ancient streets of some dirty, decrepit, town masquerading as a tourist attraction, before the flight back to Blighty.  If only you could feel some respite on touchdown, but no!  You then queue to disembark after what seems an inordinately long time sitting within touching distance of home turf. Twenty minutes then passes before your luggage has been delivered by some uncaring set of oafs to the carousel.  Another twenty minutes ensues until your own hoves into view, but your wait has been so long, through that now-glazed weariness you miss it and have to wait for it to come around again, yours being the last off the plane - naturally!

And finally, finally the end is in sight, if not the exit.   This is where you push your trolley through customs hoping beyond hope that you are going to be let back into your country of birth by some bugger who doesn't originate from these shores and has the audacity to ask if you have anything to declare, other than your sanity, and that was doubtful once you'd made the decision to go abroad in the first place! 

Given the option, a six mile queue on the M25 at Clacket Lane Services would still my preferred form of  misery, at least there will be a Sainsbury's selling Gala Pie at the end of motorway rainbow be it Kent or Essex... aaaahhhhh... food heaven, and not a bazaar in thought or sight...

PASSPORT TO PIMLICO

                                                            

                                                            PASSPORT TO PIMLICO...  

During my now early morning habit of swiping my mobile phone for basic news, my attention was drawn to an article in The Guardian regarding an ongoing race row.  Written by a journalist called Nazia Parveen  it tells of unrest felt by pupils at Pimlico Academy in London.  Apparently back in September 2020 the little loves, you know, those with a chip on their shoulders the size of a plank, tore down a Union Jack that had been erected outside their school and took it to a large nearby housing estate and burnt it.  The reason for this vandalism was due to their fact that they felt the flag was insensitive and inappropriate and that  it should be removed.  Funnily enough, that attitude is exactly why if I had children of school age now I would move heaven and earth for them never to attend a school populated with oiks like that and work all hours to send them to a private school.  

Over half of the school's pupils are residents of this ghastly blot on anyones landscape.  I have viewed photos of the building blocks that make up the ironically named 'Churchill Gardens Estate', it is truly depressing.   I didn't see mention of it in the article, but surely there is, has been or will shortly be, a petition to rid the ghetto... sorry, sorry... estate of any reference to one of Britains finest?   One of Britains finest 'Whites', that is!  It's a hop and a skip, let alone a jump away from slavery when mention is made of Britains Second World War Saviour.  I do not look forward to, but expect the day when it is renamed 'The BAME Estate' or the 'The BLM Estate'... Perhaps 'Black Pride Gardens' might be more endearing to the residents.  I was going to say 'ratepayers', but I wonder how many do contribute to the services they so readily criticise?  Or what about the 'Windrush Estate'!  Now that's more like it, though I can just see some wag painting the following underneath the name board: 'Where were the U-Boats when you needed them!  

It was a month before the flag burning incident that the pupils started a petition against the schools' newly imposed and allegedly strict uniform policy.  No doubt seen as invoking their human rights, the sad saps were upset that hairstyles should not be full to the point of blocking the view of pupils sitting behind them. What on earth is wrong with that, other than being told to do something they didn't want to do.  More interested in their rights than someone elses ability to see the blackboard no doubt.  Did I just write the word 'blackboard'!  I'm so so sorry, I promise on Nelson Mandela's life - and not overly-recent death - that I will in future refer to all coloured  boards as just 'boards'!  Oh how cleansed I feel, purged of guilt, free from accusations of anti-wokery...  or it could be that I really couldn't give a monkey's and it will forever be a blackboard, though 'giving a monkey's' could be a vote-loser in parts of our once great capital and the main reason why, as a Battersea Boy, I rarely soil my shoes in that dirty, drug, knife, gun and generally crime-ridden hole that London has become.

Another of the schools' policies involved colourful hijabs and the management's desire to restrict the degree of brightness of this headgear. Another complaint centred around the lack of black and ethnic history being taught and focusing on British kings and queens.  Unbelievable!   An un-named teacher who resigned over the issue said, 'If you are only hearing the perspective of the white, middle classes - it becomes very restrictive and shuts off our ability to build empathy with those from different backgrounds - it becomes isolating for students from minority backgrounds.'   I'd love to meet this ex-teacher and very glad she wasn't teaching my children!   As is all too common in this country now, any request to an ethnic minority to conform to a traditional school theme  is immediately perceived as racist, pupils claiming that new policies penalise Muslims and those with afro hairstyles.  The petition shows exactly who has the say in school management, and it certainly isn't the managers, more a case of the monkeys being in charge of the zoo... what's that I hear you say?   You can't use that phrase for fear of upsetting somebody?  Tough!!

The petition, according to the quote in The Guardian reads: 'We as students have the right to express ourselves however we choose, and also have the right to have our natural hair whether it be big hair (or) small hair or loads of facial hair or no facial hair'.  Notice the use of the word 'rights' - twice it features,  and that is the crux of the matter.   No thought to smartness, pride in collective manner, discipline... OBEYING THE RULES!... oh no... its rights that count for the ethnic  not-so-small minority.  Deference to migrants decades ago has wrought havoc within what we termed 'British Society'.   Doffing our collective caps to every minority group that throws an anti-colonial tantrum leads to the slippery slope of change, and for what?  Surely there is more to running our third world country than spending/wasting time and money on placating and pacifying those that struggle with our culture and society.   If I was confronted by one of the baying hounds of self-serving cultural inadequacy I'd mention, very politely of course, that there is an alternative to the constant sneering and sniping that manifests itself from the likes of the pupils and parents who signed this petition.   The alternative is simple and appropriate to anyone of any colour or race - if you don't like it here you don't have to stay...  Bugger off to pastures new, they are always greener, so I understand.  Why are we so soft in this country?   Gutless, absolutely gutless!  

With such 'diversity' in south west London, I wonder just how much longer will it be before a passport is indeed required to visit the inner sanctums of the 'Republic of Pimlico' - twinned no doubt with Kingston, Jamaica!

THE ART OF RECLAIMING OUR STREETS

                                       

                                          THE ART OF RECLAIMING OUR STREETS...

The death of Sarah Everard is one mourned by all throughout the land, none more-so than her immediate family and boyfriend.  She is not the first female killed by a male and sadly will doubtless be the last.  Her abduction and subsequent death is currently subject to investigation.  The fact that the man arrested and now charged with her murder is a serving Metropolitan police officer makes the case even more newsworthy.   My sympathies also go to the police, this is last thing they need, another excuse for the left and others with a lifetime's agendas to goad them with.  That the officer in question had been involved in an indecent exposure incident three days previously is also part of the jigsaw as to why he was considered a suspect.  As with most crimes, it will all come out in the wash.  Only then will the world know the truth, until then it is a patchwork of speculation. 

The Yorkshire Ripper was responsible for a number of murders over a long period of time.  All the victims had family and/or friends who suffered great loss.  As someone who has lost a son of his own in unexplained circumstances,  I know what Sarah Everard's family must be going through.  What I'd imagine is the last thing any family needs is those hell-bent on causing disruption to society doing it in your name.

What is it then that gives this group 'Reclaim Our Streets' the right to hijack another family's grief and organise protests under the emotive banner of 'Vigils' and gather unlawfully on Clapham Common, London  and other towns and cities throughout the UK?  I have watched these hard-faced angry, driven ladies with a collective cause banging on about rights and men.  A female peer, sitting in that highly undemocratic chamber known as the House of Lords had some interesting and skewed thoughts on violence against women.  The lady concerned is a member of the Green Party and regales under the title of Baroness Jones of Moulscomb.  Not being familiar with her, I looked her up and there is a photo of her in full flow giving words of perceived wisdom to all those who give not a toss as to how she feels on the matter.  A more miserable looking cove would be hard to imagine.  She has the appearance of a female who's just smartened herself up after years of  camping at Greenham Common.  She was, apparently the London Deputy Mayor at some stage, what on earth did that once fine city do to deserve her?

Her address to fellow Club members included the following: 'In the week that Sarah Everard was abducted and we suppose, killed... I argue that at the first opportunity for any bill that is appropriate, I might put in an amendment to create a curfew for men on the streets after 6pm. I feel this would make women a lot safer, and discrimination of all kinds would be lessened'.  Can you imagine the furore if a male suggested a curfew for females after 6pm on the grounds that they were 'Asking for it!'  There would be hell to pay for any male making such a statement, and rightly so, but a female can make that ridiculous suggestion adding as she did, that she was 'Just trying to make a point'. Strange, deluded lady, but then she is a member of the Green Party, which just about sums her up really.

What infuriates me is that in a time of Lockdown and a combined effort to continue moving in the right direction with Covid, these 'Reclaim Our Streets' organisers were determined to go not only against the law regarding public gatherings but raise a lot of money very quickly in order to challenge both the police and the government through the High Court.  To my mind this has very little to do with Sarah Everard and everything to do with an opportunity to discredit the government, the Home Secretary in particular and make things as uncomfortable as possible for the police.  I'm not a great admirer of Cressida Dick, but she, and all her officers are on a hiding to nothing.  Despite being advised not to go ahead with their demonstration...sorry, protest... sorry vigil, there was a gathering on Clapham Common.  Women were arrested and taken away in handcuffs, frankly I'm appalled by the crass stupidity and bloody-mindedness of these people.  If they want the streets to be safe to walk through then they're certainly not helping the police by diverting precious man... and woman power from the streets by having them attend their misguided and mischievous gathering.

I have to say, as a lad who grew up in Clapham Junction and spent school holidays playing football and cricket on both Wandsworth and Clapham Commons, I was always told by my parents to be 'Home by dusk'.  It's what any sensible parent would have said in the 50's and 60's.  I wouldn't have walked the route Sarah Everard took as a teenager back then, I certainly wouldn't attempt it these days.  One has to ask why she felt confident enough to make that long journey on foot at that time of night.  Yes, any woman has the right to go about her business unhindered, but reality tells you that you have to take precautions, and the basic rule is to keep risks to a minimum. 

Sadly, social media is constantly used to drum up support for those with nothing better to do than snipe, bitch and in some cases seek to destroy society and democracy for their very limited ideals. 

'Reclaim Our Streets'?  I'd rather we reflected on our collective social duties, but in a culture of 'Me, me, me', I suspect that is about as long a shot as an announcement that as of 6pm this evening, there will be a bobby on the beat in every street in Britain... One can but remember the good times...

CATS, PIGEONS, AND A YANK IN THE ROYAL COURT

                        

                               CATS. PIGEONS, AND A YANK IN THE ROYAL COURT 

The British press are rubbing their collective grubby mitts over the Meghan Markle interview on a chat show fronted by some black female American Presenter.  The world's press and TV are awash with the interview.  The Black and Asian Broadcasting Corporation (officially still entitled the BBC) are beside themselves with news, views, interviews and opinions - providing they are the right views and opinions of course - listen to Radio 4's Woman's Hour for clarification!  One word and one word only is central to the story - RACE!

No-one can be in any doubt of my contempt and dislike of the Royal family.  I am not overly-fussed by many of the household's members.  I have serious reservations about any family being born into such wealth and privilege.  I have serious misgivings over the army of employees funded by the taxpayer in order to keep this strange band of inbreds cocooned in their little world of advantage and opulence.  But... and it is a big but!... they really have no right of reply in the manner afforded to the man and woman in the street. 

Nobody interested in this story should really be surprised that a member of the Royal family broached the subject of race.  It is a discussion that would be broached in any residence should their offspring marry someone of different skin colour.  That it appears to be only one member of the Royal household would seem to me to be a complete fabrication of reality and a denial of normal human response, intrigue and basic desire at any given opportunity to smirk at a very white institution having to come to terms with that dreadful word 'diversity' as it hit them head-on!  Surely that would have been the first thing anyone would have asked the minute Harry made it clear to Daddy and Step-mummy... oh, and William and Kate... that he was to marry a mixed heritage (half-caste as was) thrice-married unknown Yankee actress and bring her into the Royal fold.  It's moments like these that you'd give a lot to be a fly on the wall for just those few minutes and witness the shock as it all sinks in to those within the cloistered surroundings of whichever palace everyone was gathered, when the news was broken and 'The Family" came to terms with the awfulness of the situation.  My advice to the Monarchy and all who sail in her is to sit tight and say nothing.  Princess Needy and her puppy have brought disgrace and disappointment to our country and should be left to paddle their own celebrity-culture driven canoe as far into the never-ending cesspit of showbiz quagmire as their ambitions allow.  Strip them of all remaining Royal titles, privileges and rank. Once out of our country and what it gave you, stay out!

I'm on the side of the Monarchy on this one.  They are damned if they do, they are damned if they don't. Looking back for a moment to Princess Di, I have always been of the opinion that she was disposed of by what I can only refer to as 'The Establishment'.  Without going into the details, the mysteries surrounding her demise, the questions that remain unanswered - and will probably stay that way - you have to ask, what if she was pregnant at the time of her passing by Dodi Fayed?  He would have brought a bit of colour into the lives of those at Buckingham Palace, had their relationship blossomed. I cannot see Prince Philip being comfortable having to chat about his father's shop in Knightsbridge and having to address the newly announced addition as Viscount Ahmed or Prince Faisal of Rochdale!  A Royal Muslim in the Family would surely have been seen as taking diversity several thousand steps too far - and far too soon - by about a century, I'd say!

It is good sport for the world's press, social media, and those who take the first opportunity to criticise the rights of others to have an opinion that doesn't match their own.  It is equally good sport for those with an artistic, rebellious and humorous nature to save the day whilst making mine!

WhatsApp has been the source of several Meghan related pics and cartoons.  There was one sent yesterday of the Queen sitting in a Royal car holding a gun whilst driving.  The caption reads: 'When you spend £32 million on your  grandson's wedding and his wife starts bitching to Oprah...'  Another pic has the Queen and Prince Philip sitting on a sofa (settee as was in Battersea) with both of them holding a giant golliwog. The caption reads 'All I said was...will he look like this?  The last in the trio has a photo showing Queenie, our Phil, Harry, Meghan - holding her sprog - and a black woman who I presume is either the Yank's mother or someone who's into photo-bombing.  Anyway the punchline is the colour chart the Queen is holding in her hand.  Alongside the lighter colours is the word 'Okay' and besides the darker tones is written 'Not okay'.  Now that is good, clean British humour when baited by what is basically imported trailer trash attempting to change centuries of inbreeding by gatecrashing our institutions and thinking they'd be accepted within our society, a society of class and standards.  Remember, all Americans are Red-necks, it's just that some wear suits and look smart... but don't let that fool you! 

Just read that the Breakfast Show on ITV this morning had a little problem aired live between their weather man and Piers Morgan.  You can always rely on Piers to be the voice of reason, the ordinary man's champion.  It's days like this I'd love to see Boris announce 'our Piers' as Minister without Portfolio, directed to instal common sense into every government department and scupper the aspirations of those intent on destroying - literally in some instances - our heritage and culture.

Thought... A Piers Morgan Bank Holiday'... More cats and pigeons?