Risk

Our very own Hero of the Soviet Union-on-Sea David Ralfovich Miliband in the Ukraine...

1) "The Russian President says he is not afraid of a new Cold War. We don’t want one. He has a big responsibility not to start one."

2) "I want to reaffirm the commitment of the United Kingdom to support the democratic choices of the Ukrainian people."

3) "It is clear to me, standing here today, that this is a European country."

In reverse order...

3) Ukraina is not and never has been a European country. Pedantic of me, but GIR (Get It Right). You may say, shades of "a small country far away of which we know little", but then what did we actually do for the Czechs or indeed the Poles in 1938/9? Apart from getting creamed by the Wehrmacht in two weeks in 1940 (see point 2 below)?

2) You and whose army? And so, what "commitment"?

1) Europe is massively dependent on Russian energy supplies. The Russians only have to twitch the gasoilcoal taps a little bit to... no, I can see why they are not afraid of another Cold War, and how seriously they are going to take their Big Responsibility.

So it is really all down to the Americans, and Milliband's Europosturing seems more dangerous than silly (or vice versa).

Georgia

A fascinating and detailed account of the lead-up to the Russian-Georgian war from Michael J. Totten.

And an interesting view on the Russian strategy.

What A Nice Man What A Very Nice Man

From Thursday's Times (hrumph rustle rustle rustle), a Business Big Shot profile of John King, CEO of the House of Fraser...

Two years later he saw the first jet crash into the World Trade Centre near his home in Manhattan. "I was getting a coffee on the Pier and the first plane went into the tower. I rushed home and took a picture. If I think I'm having a bad day, I look at that."

Res ipsa loquitur. But I cannot help adding, what an utter cunt.

Hopeless

Hopeless? Not quite.

Incorrigibly and shabbily* alcoholic, unloved, unlovable, unemployed, unemployable - as a consequence penniless - also obsolete, out of time, washed up, wiped out, entire of itself & for whom the bell hath already tolled, is true, but...

Readers: What? You too?

Self: Yeppity yep, and I say again but... there is (are?) always Toots and the Maytals.



* we're talking the table round the back of the bar in the Sussex Arms opposite the Texaco petrol station in Hove. I, I who have danced with duchesses and the daughters of oil sheikhs. I who have looked down my nose at Mr Peter Stringfellow and would again given the chance. Eheu fugaces.


Update: but... then again...

What My Baby Do Not (Hélas) Unnerstan'

Sitting on a million
Sitting on it every day
Cain't make no money giving your
Stuff away
Why don't you do now
Like the millionaire do
Put your stuff on the market
And make a million too...



Valuable 'lifestyle' consultancy from the Harlem Hamfats.

Petite Fleur

Take it away, Mr. Bechet...

Fun Time

Also I do party balloon animals (illustration not provided) but I am only licensed for the simpler one-balloon life forms.

Mostly bacteria.

If you want anything with a head and legs that says woof, like a dachshund or something, you will have to retain a more highly qualified practitioner.

And please don't start up about prokaryotes being complex organisms despite the lack of a nucleus and mostly any membrane-bound organelles.

I'm just doing my level best with a bag of balloons.

Choo Choo

Hallelujah I'm safe from sin
The Good Lord's coming for to see me again!

This is a kind of remedial visit thing. I never thought I'd end up a trailer park ho, and I haven't because 1) I don't own a trailer 2) if I did I wouldn't know where to park it 3) I am too old to ho.

Update: it has already occurred to me that lurking about the recesses of the Texaco petrol station in Hove muttering "do anything for a penny, Madam" may not be the killerest of pitches.

Even though I have Sta-Prest tapes in the creases of my trousers, so that whatever the external stains, accidents, etc my troons still have that freshly-pressed sharpness appearance to them.

I cannot understand why my clients (potential) keep shying away from me. I am beginning to feel like a Member of Parliament, only they get paid a stipend whatever tricks they do or don't turn.

PPS my daks are nicely turned down so that the break is exactly where it should be about 1" below the ankle, that is when I am standing upright.

PPPS perhaps I should lay off the White Lightning and try to show my trousers to their best advantage more often. What do my readers think?

Poove City

Everyday life in Brighton grinds to a halt for the Pride March today.

Not 'Gay Pride', just 'Pride', as if being a shirtlifter were the only thing in the world to be Proud of.

Proud, arrogant even, those robbers of the date locker who are taking the Anglican church apart because they insist on putting their 'sexuality' before their bishoprics.

I have nothing against pillow biters but I wish they'd shut up about it.

Readers: You live in Brighton, we take it.

Blogster: Hove, actually.

Clever Corinthians

More findings on the extraordinary Antikythera Mechanism, with a jolly topical Olympic angle.