Rail Zombie, and other tales.

Traaains…

All rail zombies wear anoraks and have a notebook full of engine numbers. Somewhere I have a book of coach numbers. My ambition was, and remains, to get a book of coal truck numbers and go rust spotting.

I’m working on my tax form. If it’s not done this weekend I have to pay tax on account by the 30th (that’s advance tax based on the previous year’s income). If it is done in time, I get tax repaid because I was way under the tax limit last year. Oh I’d eventually get it all back even if I did end up paying but why loan them anything? They’ll just waste it.

Working on taxes means the procrastination dial is turned up to 11. I will do absolutely anything other than work on tax. I have a Dutch version of ‘The Goddess of Protruding Ears’ by Justin Sanebridge in the works. The English version is already published. I have a G scale railway stacked in the office (traaaaains) and I need to arrange the garden to fit the railway. Fortunately the shit weather is keeping me indoors so I’m restricted to indoor procrastination. There’s still plenty of that.

I’ve been watching the Donnie Trumpton chess game. Not really a fair game because his opponents don’t know it’s a chess game. They think he is stupid (well they think we are all stupid) even though he was born to an immigrant who worked as a maid and became a billionaire and then President. He survived a few doses of bankruptcy and came back. Stupid? Really?

He’s an arrogant arse. You could argue that a man who came from nothing to billions more than once is entitled to be a bit smug but in Balmedie, not too far from here, his golf course for the rich and insufferable has really pissed off the residents. He’s not popular in this part of Scotland.

Still, he plays a good game. He anticipates his (entirely predictable really) opponents and if this was a real chess game he’s ten moves ahead. The latest move, the Melania coat, was a beauty. A woman who can afford, and who is used to, high fashion, wears a grungy Parka with graffiti and nobody sees the clear chess move that entails. They fell for it, hook line and sinker. They fired up exactly as they were intended to.

I didn’t know that the separation of families at the border started with Clinton and continued unopposed through Bush and Obama. I didn’t know it was happening at all. Now I do. And now I, and all those Americans who aren’t frothing at the mouth, know it has been happening for a very long time and they know that Trumpy stopped it. He could have quietly stopped it. Instead he let it fester and rage and make headlines for the first time in about 20 years and then he stopped it.

He’s good. I don’t like him, but I have to admit he is good at this game.

Mrs Clinton, Mrs Bush and Mrs Obama never visited those separated kids. They weren’t supposed to be noticed. Oh but Mrs Trump went to visit. Dressed in homeless chic, off she went. There was Outrage!

I laughed like a hyena on acid when I saw that coat. You could not make a more obvious move unless you tried for a fool’s mate on Kasparov. Melania Trump dressed like a 60’s mod? Come on, if they had put her on a moped with fifty rear view mirrors it could not have been more obvious.

The left responded with all they have. Stormy Daniels. They sent a porn star to visit the children. A porn star.  Yeah, because all those kids have watched her on Kid TV and all aspire to be like her. Jesus, you could not put up a worse opponent to Melania Trump in a flasher coat.

I reckon I’m pretty good at anticipating an enemy move. I one brought a co-worker close to tears of laughter in a meeting when I brought out the answer to every criticism ‘someone’ tried to tag me with. I saw it all coming.

I wouldn’t take on Trump though. And I would never play chess with him for money. I might not like the guy personally but I have to admire his game. He’s very good at it.

But back to serious stuff. Traaains!

I have been populating the coaches for this new set. G scale is 1:22.5 but I can get away with 1:24 and 1:25 too. The difference is minimal. And the size of this stuff means you can have people in seats without cutting feet off.

Here is the coach. The ruler beside it is 2 feet (60 cm) for scale. I have four. Coaches,not rulers!

The people are in various levels of moulding detail. It doesn’t matter too much, they will be inside a coach and not very visible so I won’t go overboard on the details. Pretty rough is good enough in this case.

First example – Train Perv 1

Bit low on detail. Compare with Train Perv 2 –

Just as vile but with better definition.

Again, Man with a Can, crap moulding…

…as opposed to Creepy OIdman

Then again, we do have Random Tart 1…

And Random Tart 2…

… to keep the train pervs pervy.

You might have noticed Random Tart 3 progressing on Twitter. I have something special in mind for that one and for Random Tart 4. Later…

In other news, we have Guardian of the Bags –

The Pizza Addict

Mum Does Not Approve-

The Fat Skinhead

And of course, Nigel Farage –

There are others but that will do for now. There’s a really filthy Batman diorama in progress too.

If I could only force myself to finish this tax form.

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Politically correct suicides

Well, the woeful tales of the Sugaria-compliant soft drinks industry is well known by now. Ribena, Lucozade, Irn Bru… they all had sugar free versions on sale anyway so there was no need to meddle with the originals.

They caved in to the Sugaria Police and are pretending customer complaints and lost sales aren’t happening.

It was heartening to see in Lidl today that their own brand energy drink had almost sold out but the sugar free version still had a full shelf. Anyone buying a sugar free or zero-calorie energy drink needs a forceful lesson in the basic concept of energy as applied to foodstuffs and biology.

So do the idiots making it.

Give in to single issue pompous arses, apply rules your customers don’t want and you will wreck your business. Didn’t the pub trade give enough of a clue there?

Coca-Cola and Pepsi told the Sugaria Police to fuck off. There are two untampered drinks on the market at least. They also make sugar free versions for those who want them.

Of course, it is possible to wreck your business without outside interference by applying political correctness all on your own. You still get to blame the customers you excluded for your lack of business success, naturally…

Oh there are others. Many others.

Now Big Publishing, in the shape of Penguin Random House, is getting in on the act. This article caused such uproar among So-called Justice Wankers that the Spectator took it out of the paywall to let the world see it in context.

Basically, this major publisher is dumbing down its staff and actively looking for authors who fit Diversity Criteria over authors who can actually write. It won’t matter because reading ability is no longer a criterion for staff selection.

However, as with those Ribena and Lucozade customers, the evil white men who aren’t allowed in feminist bookshops and those smokers who once regarded a pub as their second home, Penguin Random House will find their paying customers actually want to read good books. They don’t want to buy a book just because the author is a transexual Bedouin single mother with one leg and a speech impediment.

If she can write a good book, no problem. The point is, book buyers are by and large not the coffee-table virtue-signallers if Islington and will not buy a book just because of the author. They buy a book because of the words inside it and don’t care that much who wrote them.

This is not to say that only straight white perfectly fit folk can write. Stephen Hawking has written some very interesting books while being as disabled as it’s possible to get without being dead. Anyone can write. Religion, ethnicity, skin colour, waist size, number of functioning limbs, height, shoe size, colour and quantity of eyes, nobody who reads books gives a damn. Is it a good story, well told? That is all a reader is looking for. They do not care who wrote it beyond (hopefully) looking for more books by the same author.

So, look out for some Diversity Suicide from Penguin Random House soon. Identity Publishing is a thing now. Doesn’t matter if the book is any good as long as you tick a box they haven’t ticked yet. If you’re a straight black guy with a family, get in quick.They’ll fill that quota quickly. If you’re a one-armed Eskimo lesbian with Tourettes and a criminal record, take your fucking time. That one is pretty niche. The big publishers will fight over your 20,000 word treatise about types of snow as they relate to igloo architecture. You’ll be able to buy your own iceberg within a week.

If you are white, well, you’re bottom of the list. Since Penguin Random House operate in predominately white countries they will fill the white, especially straight white, quota in minutes. Once it’s filled, even Stephen King won’t get in.

Some will consider this a disaster but I don’t think it matters at all. If Penguin Random House start selling crap books, nobody will buy them. There are many small publishers trying to get a start at the big time. If the big boys want to commit their self-righteous suicides, let them. Why cry when businesses deserve to die? Replacements are waiting in the wings. That’s how it has always worked and always will. Nothing is forever. Ask the Roman Empire, KwikSave or Woolworth’s.

There will be no author or staff quotas of any kind at Leg Iron Books, ever. It is all about the writing here. If you have been typing for ten years using only one functional finger and it’s a good book, we’ll edit it and fix it and publish it. I do not care about any of that identity-politics bollocks. I do not care if you are white or black or green. I do not care if you are male or female or if you identify as one of the new Fahrenheit scale of genders. I don’t even care if you think you are a badger. If your book is good I’ll publish it.

Leg Iron Books will never be a big publishing house because it was never meant to be. It was set up as, and will remain as, a place for good authors who can’t get the attention of the big boys to get a foot in the door. I don’t want to be rich enough to pay high rate tax. I won’t work for half pay and I don’t need that much money. I need enough to  feed me, CStM and my train habit. She has income for her own habits 😉

If any SJWs have managed to get this far without passing out, this should finish them.

The staff of Leg Iron Books is entirely white and straight. It is, at least, 50% female so we can tick that one.

Penguin Random House has about 2000 employees. Leg Iron Books has two. Me and Roo B. Doo. I earn pennies, Roo works for extra copies of the anthologies and rare bonuses. For the moment. The determined self-destruction of the big names is good news for this tiny startup publisher, and for all the others too.

There are no plans to extend the staffing although I have been in touch with a very good artist who might do some freelance cover art if I can afford his work. No prices discussed yet but oh boy, he’s good. He’s also largely unknown so getting a credit on a book will help him as much as it helps both Leg Iron Books and the authors.

And he’ll get paid too.

Let the virtue signalling suicides roll. We little businesses, so far pressed down by the big boys, are loving it.

We’d never have had a chance if the big ones were intelligent.

 

 

Ban the Banned

Suzi Quatro could have done something brilliant with this title.

Our Ruddy Home Secretary has decided to ban ‘zombie knives’. Take a look at what she wants to ban.

Three throwing knives, useless in unpracticed hands. They are fixed blade so are already illegal to cary. Already banned.

Some stupidly thin wobbly-edged blade that you could probaby bend in half with your hands. Still, it’s long and half-sharp and illegal to carry in public. Already banned.

An axe shaped so as to be pretty much useless and again, too thin to be practical. Also illegal to carry in public anyway, as are all axes unless you’re off to chop some wood. Already banned.

A lurid green version of a liner-lock knife. Used to be common but it’s now illegal to have a lock knife in public. Already banned.

Finally, at the bottom, some kind of fishing implement I think. It has no purpose other than slashing and is the most non-excusable offensive weapon of the lot. Even before all the other things were banned, I’d bet you’d have been arrested for having that. Anyway, it’s definitely already banned.

Look again at those ‘weapons’. The throwing knives are dangerous if you can use them. The liner-lock is dangerous in the wrong hands. The fishing thing is an obvious weapon. It has no other use. Except maybe for clearing weeds from between patio slabs but it doesn’t look like it would be very good at that. A crack hoe would do a better job.

The axe is a useless toy. It’s far too thin and light for any practical application and even as a weapon it’s not going to do what a cheap splitting or garden cutting axe would do. As for the ‘sword’, come at me with that and I’ll beat you with a broom. It’s pressed steel sheet. That’s why you can buy these things for under £10. They are crap. Sharpened at the front half only and it won’t hold an edge. It’s cheap soft steel. The sharpened bit has non-sharp notches cut into it for no reason at all. It is all just for show. I wouldn’t accept one as a gift, never mind buy it. If gang members are really bragging they have these, they are a laughing stock.

These ‘zombie weapons’ are ornamental toys. I have some ornamental swords that look really impressive but if you try to use them in a real fight, the blade is likely to come off the handle. You grab one of those. I’ll grab the kitchen chopping knives. I will win.

Nobody, as far as I can see in the news, has ever used one of these toys in a real attack. Nevertheless, carrying any of them in public is already illegal and frankly, why would you? Aside from the lock knife, none of them have any practical use and none of them are any use in self defence either. The whole ‘zombie knife’ shit is just an excuse to disarm us more.

On June 1, 2018, footage emerged of a cyclist using a zombie knife to try and smash the window of a car in an apparent road rage row.

That was not a ‘zombie knife’. That was a real and very dangerous big knife. What they propose to ban has nothing to do with that already fucking illegal massive knife. It’s just an excuse.

A long list of dangerous weapons that glamorise violence will also be included in the total ban, putting them on the same legal footing as unlicensed firearms.
They include sword sticks, butterfly knives and blowpipes, as well as a range of martial arts weapons such as deathstars and handclaws.

Sword sticks and butterfly knives have been banned in the UK for many years. I used to use a site called Blades-UK which dropped those from its listings 20 or more years ago. Because they were no longer legal to sell. Yeah. Already banned. Pity I missed out, I’d have liked a butterfly knife.

Deathstars and handclaws come under ‘fixed blade knives’ and are already illegal. I know nothing of blowpipes but I bet they aren’t hard to make.

Our Ruddy Home Secretary wants to make it illegal to have anything sharp at home, whether you take it on the street or not.

I mean, come on. I have a scythe. In this garden, in summer, I need it. It has a grass blade and a ditch blade for the wooded parts. I have oilstones and whetstones and a peening kit. Grinding wheels and files. I have the means to make a tyre iron sharp. And we are to be scared of lurid green toys?

What this country needs is not more bans.

What this country needs is a government that is not entirely populated by idiots.

Yeah. Not happening, is it?

Hey Jude

It has been fashionable for a long time to blame the Jews for everything. It goes back way, way before Hitler. He didn’t start it, he just rode the bandwagon. Jews have been getting the short end for many centuries.

Maybe, sometimes, they did something to deserve it. I don’t know, I wasn’t around centuries ago unless reincarnation is real. If it is I’m sure I wasn’t Napoleon because if I had been I’d have had more sense than to launch an attack on Russia at the onset of winter. I’d probably have been the footman who Napoleon had executed for pointing out that he was an idiot. But I digress.

Jews were expelled from England in 1290 and that’s only 600 years after Mohammed’s edict to ‘keel them all’. I doubt anyone in England knew or cared about Islam at that stage. The Ottoman Empire started in 1299, and Europe didn’t care about it until it invaded, much later. There were no Nazis either. While there might have been some with socialist ideas, the ones that survived were the ones who kept it to themselves. So you can’t blame Muslims or Nazis for that expulsion. Jews have been booted out of countries for many, many reasons.

There have been distractions, of course. Currently Trump is to blame for everything from world peace to the common cold but someone, somewhere, will work the Jews into it somehow.

The current conspiracy theory is that Jews are orchestrating the Islamisation of the West. Well. The West has been beastly to them in the past, it’s true. On many occasions. But the West also gave them Israel and support it. So we honkys aren’t all evil. Also, having been through the Holocaust, does Judaism really want to be guilty of the next one? It seems unlikely.

It’s also true that if you want a belligerent, violent ideology to wreck an enemy’s country, Islam is top of your list. Hindus and Sikhs just keep to themselves, Christians will make you a cup of tea with no sugar if they are royally pissed at you and even Satanists have never done anything on the scale of Islamic terrorism. You want a warlike ideology, there is really only one choice.

But – and it’s a big but – is it really a good idea to populate most of the world with an ideology that loudly and proudly proclaims it wants to wipe your people off the face of the planet? What happens when every country except Israel is Muslim? Do the Jews want the ‘us and them’ thing to reach the point where ‘them’ is every other country on the planet? I seriously doubt that.

I see two options. Either the Jews are behind it all  or they are not. A simple yes/no.

If they are, their goal is not the eradication of Whitey but the eradication of Islam,. If Whitey suffers in the process, well, fuck ’em, they made the Jews suffer enough times in the past. But the goal here would be the eradication of their biggest threat and that is not Whitey Westerner.

See, Whitey is a pretty warlike breed too. Inventive when it comes to killing. Long range weapons and nuclear bombs are all Whitey inventions. Look at the horror genre. Who is writing/filming the really nasty stuff? What’s the skin colour of most, if not all, serial killers?

Yeah, Whitey is no pushover. It’s not the vocal girlie-men you meet in dark alleys, you know. We have mellowed with time, it’s true, but that’s because we let out our evil bloodlust side in TV and films and books. We don’t do that stuff for real any more – but don’t think we aren’t still capable of it. Heck, we’ve spent centuries killing each other in all sorts of interesting ways. Now we just write about it or make movies but it’s not gone.

So, if the Jews want Islam erased, they’d send them to us and let them cause problems until we’ve had enough. From Israel’s point of view, that would result in a lot of dead Muslims and dead Whiteys and Israel can sit back and watch the show.

But… maybe that’s not what is happening. Maybe this has nothing to do with Jews at all. Maybe they are, as has happened before, a convenient scapegoat. A distraction. A handy whipping-boy to take our eyes off the real story.

There was another theory, put very well by an elderly Scandinavian woman, that I can’t find the video of now. This theory basically said that a deal was struck a long time ago for oil. The deal was that we Westerners would get oil as long as we promoted Islam.

Might be utter bollocks, but it doesn’t seem unlikely.

Well the west didn’t do it and Islam eventually said ‘do it, or no oil’. It would explain why our elected idiots are turning such a blind eye to terrorism and threatening to jail us all for heresy though.

Well anyway. Those are the ideas that are out there now. The one I can’t buy into at all is that the Jews are deliberately promoting their mortal enemies into a position where they could crush Israel in a matter of moments. I don’t understand why the Jews – or anyone – would promote their current biggest threat to dispense with a historic threat that is really no threat any more. That makes no sense at all.

Both of the others make sense, but especially the last one because it involves money. Politicians love money so much they’d be willing to die rich, even if it is going to be surprisingly premature.

Come on, Tessie and the rest. Do you really think that if the UK became Islamic they’d let you be in charge of it?

What do you think they’d do with you when you’ve done your job?

Ah, Tessie. Should have studied history rather than geography. But hey, at least you studied something.

Puts you one up on your opposition, eh?

Sweden. A National Suicide

People kill each other with grenades. Bombs go off almost daily. Children raped on their way home from school. Rapists (non-Swedish ones) get the equivalent of community service. And now, another bit of Swedish culture is erased.

Swedish meatballs came from Turkey. 300 years ago, and apparently Swedes have never since modified the recipe to their own tastes.

Well, British curries all came from India but that doesn’t stop us enjoying them. Even though they, like British Chinese food, have been modified to our tastes and aren’t like the originals any more. British tea comes from India too, and Britain without tea would be unthinkable.

St. George, the patron saint of England, came from the Middle East (St. David of Wales came from Merthyr Tydfil, everyone knows that, which is why he eats daffodils and leeks, sees dragons and has a flag that looks like crossed projectile vomiting in the dark. But I digress. Oh… intestinal maneouvres in the dark – isn’t there a song about that?).

Every country in the world has adopted bits of its culture from other countries. England more than most since they invaded most of the other countries in the world. America has been trying to do the same while the English look on, shake their heads, tut and think ‘amateurs’. The English didn’t set up a military base with armour in other countries. They set up an administration run by men in silly hats. World rulers need hats more than they need guns. Humanity has forgotten this.

Just because we like garlic bread and pizza and chips does not mean we now have to give them up due to ‘cultural appropriation’ (the latest guilt trip from the shouty internet morons) and give our country to someone else.

Swedes, you have an opportunity. You can move to Denmark or Norway, the languages are similar enough to get you by right away and you can work out the differences over time. Don’t go to Finland, they just make odd noises there and they are fast heading the same way as your government anyway. But you have an option.

Move out. All of you. Every last Swede. Move out and leave your government with the utter wasters they have invited into your country. Move out and watch the government pay out all those benefits with nobody left to pay tax, Move out, especially if you have a baby daughter, before you have to shed those tears.

Your government does not want you. They do not care about you and will do nothing to protect you. Accept that and move out.

Do that. I dare you. Yes, your country will collapse into anarchy. Watch it happen. Get the popcorn.

And when your government’s darlings have killed off their hosts, and the next winter wipes them all out, you can just move back in.

And this time, be a bit more picky when voting, eh?

As for us in UKistan, well, America would be the easy option language-wise but they don’t really have much tea and they don’t understand irony. Also they are far too friendly for the UK palate and are getting too much of the political correctness virus. Poland or Bulgaria look like better options. Okay, you’d have to culturally appropriate another language but they won’t mind because they are not led by fucking idiots like we are and you won’t have to worry about Allah’s Holy Hand Grenade or the Bomb Vest of Salvation because those countries don’t let the loonies in.

Oh I know there are going to be repercussions and recriminations over this post. I know there will be smug rebuttals with nothing to back them up but assertions and rhetoric and I know the smug bastards will walk away saying ‘I won that’.

Watch me not care.

I know what is coming. I was trained in logical deduction back in the days when science was a real thing. It’s been a clear plan for a very long time now and yes, it’s Marxism again but this time they want to make it global. The previous implementations were practice runs. This time the death toll will run to billions.

And the smug idiots denying it will call out for help one day as they are facing the ground and waiting for the sword to fall. They will cry out ‘Help us’.

And I’ll whisper ‘No’.

Fragmentation

It has been a strange week. I have three books in process, the anthology (waiting for one author’s response on whether the story needs any changes then it’s good to go), Lee Bidgood’s long-awaited novel, another from Mark Ellott that has already been so thoroughly vetted it won’t take long to do. I want to get them all done before April 30th.

So, obviously, now is the time to get calls and visits about a blue cheese mould project and another call asking for help with a student project on lactobacilli. Sigh. I’m determined to get those three books done though. I can sleep in May.

Stranger still is the overnight switch in the weather from winter to summer. This called for a bit of gardening today before it gets completely out of control. My son questioned my buying of a machete since I don’t live in a jungle. My response was ‘ignore that lot for a week and a jungle you shall have’.

The grass, which had been cut twice by this time last year, had lain dormant until today when it shot into life. The petrol for the mower ran out, it’s too long for the push mower and not long enough for the scythe. Besides, the grass is still plagued with fallen pine cones and branches and only the petrol mower can cope with those.

So instead I delved into one of the flower bed/shrubberies I hadn’t dealt with last year beyond scything down its nettle infestation. I trimmed the bushes and started the long job of digging out nettles by the roots. It’s the only way, and even that can take a few years to finally get rid of the bastards.

In there, I found a topiary piglet. Well, having found a deer skull in the holly tree last year I was, shall we say, not too surprised. The bush is hugely overgrown and probably not recoverable but the frame is intact. I can remake this piglet. Probably in a less inaccessible and more visible part of the garden. There are other areas I have not yet touched beyond hacking them into some semblance of order so there may yet be more surprises lurking.

And, at last, I have planted my favourite tulip, ‘Queen of Night’. Hoping for a good display this year. The bulbs overwintered in the kitchen and are sprouting. Yes, the kitchen gets cold enough to do that.

The IQOS microfag smoky thing is still getting used. I haven’t switched entirely but it has outlasted any Electrofag I’ve ever tried. I know, some born-again nonsmoker vapers at the radical end of the spectrum think this thing is evil. I know, some say it’s giving money to the sell-outs at Philip Morris. I don’t care at all about either of those stances. It’s cutting down the number of real fags I smoke and that is good for my wallet, and probably my health. Although I am still not convinced that smoking is anywhere near as deadly as it’s made out to be.

Using it while typing this, I have noticed that setting it down while typing a sentence (10 seconds or so) and then taking a puff, it gives a much more satisfying plume of almost-smoke. If they could make the device and especially the microfags cheaper they’d be on a serious winner here. As it is, the cost differential is minimal. If it was a big difference I’d be far more tempted to switch altogether but… meh.

They do send emails about surveys and those do build up some reserve cash. That’s good. It needs to be cleaned regularly or it starts to taste like smoking dried horseshit, so I plan to use the accrued survey cash to stock up on the cleaning sticks. They work far better than the funny brush thing that also comes with it.

Anyway, I suppose I should get to the actual blog post.

The Labour party has been hit with antisemitism, while the Conservatives have just tried to deport a lot of British citizens, many of whom have been British longer than I have. The Lords of Lib Dem Land and those Lords who have sworn an oath of fealty to a foreign power yet still have a place in the UK government have voted to ignore the electorate and keep the UK in a customs union with the EU even though the majority don’t want that. If you are looking for the Party of Morons in UK politics, well, it’s all of them.

The abolition of the House of Lords must surely be imminent. Or just convert it into a home for mad old duffers. It pretty much is that anyway. These oafs, when they can manage to stay awake at work, have now set the UK with the option to either become a vassal state of the EU or to leave with no deal at all. There are no other options.

This is what a fictional starship captain and his Dark Emperor, the Thin White Adonis, can’t grasp. We are leaving the EU. Blocking the final deal does not keep us in the EU. It just means we leave with no deal. I’m fine with that.

Tessie Maybe, the idiot supreme of our current government, has tried everything possible to distract from the total fuck-up she is making of negotiations with the EU. She has tried to start wars with anyone she can find and now she is concentrating on banning earbuds, plastic straws and coffee stirrers. All of which go into recycling bins, not rivers. I live next to a river and have never once felt the urge to drop anything plastic into it unless it’s a lure on a fishing line. We have been provided with bins for plastic and some nice, sweaty, grubby, sweary chaps come around every two weeks to empty it.

Then it all gets shipped to China or Africa in containers on huge ships that burn thousands of tons of diesel and and when it gets there they dump it in rivers. That is recycling.

Didn’t cotton buds used to be on wooden sticks? Can’t we go back to that? I could chuck them in the fire and get a few extra microjoules of heating here. Can’t do that with the plastic ones, they give off nasty stuff when they burn.

As for straws, we used to have paper ones that were fine for one use. Plastic was never necessary unless you wanted to use it over and over.

And I never liked coffee stirrers. We used to just have spoons.

Why then would I object to this ban? Because it’s a ban and this knee jerk reaction of ‘ban it’ has been pissing me off for a long time. Why not, instead, explore alternatives? Nothing is ever offered. It’s always carrot-and-stick without the carrot.

The farmer here has cut down a lot of trees. There is a massive amount of beech, birch, oak and pine in dead piles. My son has claimed some for his woodworking, I have claimed some for a garden arch and most of the rest will just end up getting burned. There is enough on this one farm to keep a cotton bud company supplied with little dowels for months at least. Why not incentivise that use rather than moan about plastic? Heck, they could come and take this wood for free. The farmer doesn’t want it, it’s just in the way.

Why not incentivise paper straws over plastic ones for single use occasions? Paper and wood can be burned or left to rot and the CO2 they put out is the same CO2 those plants absorbed so net effect = zero. Especially as the crops on the farm will reabsorb most of it, if not all.

As for coffee stirrers, use a fucking spoon like an actual adult. Then wash it and you can use it again.

But no, we have to have a ban. Another damn ban. Another bit of evidence that our government are a bunch of wasters who we pay to do nothing sensible.

And then we have the opposition. Labour. Or, more accurately, the Corbyn Cult of Nazism. Oh yes, you read that right. When I was in school in the 1970s they actually taught real history, not some fantasy past where left was right and all racists were honoured with statues. The real deal. You won’t get that now. Now we have a Government funded organisation called Historic England who will not hire white British employees and who want to tear down historic statues. Common Purpose to the core, and way beyond the absurdity horizon.

Nazis shut down debate with violence and abuse. They ignore dissenting views. They want to control what you say and, ultimately, what you think while they never think at all but act in blind obedience and awe of their chosen cult hero. Remind you of anyone, Jeremy?

Jezza walked out of the parliamentary debate on antisemitism even while his own MPs described the death and rape threats his supporters had sent them. Well, he doesn’t need to hear the results of his instructions, does he?

Then we have the thugs of Antifa and make no mistake, thugs is all they are. They are just looking for a reason to be arses and no matter how tenuous the reason, arses they will be. They are the new football hooligans, their team is whichever they want to fight with today. They fight against homophobia but then recently broke up a gay pride march because it offends Muslims. Really, they have no focus at all. It’s just a fight to them, the reasons are no more than an excuse and they can change by the hour. At least football hooligans stuck to one team.

There is a huge amount of coverage given to the new ‘trans’ movement which consists of about five people, four of whom are better described as drag queens than genuine trans. Chicks with dicks want to have access to little girls in changing rooms and toilets all over the country. A genuine trans woman has told me she wouldn’t like to share a train carriage with some of the loonies she has met, never mind a changing room. But the genuine ones are not part of this movement. This is men in tights looking for an easy target. It’s going to turn out nasty.

Should girls give up their right to privacy so that middle aged men in skirts can ogle them in the swimming pool changing rooms? A bikini with a flat-top and a stiffie below with a couple of pink Kiwi fruit hanging out the sides is not an appealing sight. It’s even more of a mind wreck than fishnet tights with tufts of hair coming out of every hole. I hear little to nothing about women who identify as men causing problems in male changing rooms and toilets. That’s probably because most of us men won’t mind at all if a woman wants to get naked nearby. The threat level is not even comparable, is it?

There has been far less outrage than expected over the paedo grooming gangs who have been left to their own evil devices for a very long time. I didn’t say Muslim gangs for a reason. Those are just the scapegoats. Oh they are guilty as hell but it goes far deeper and if the police were allowed to actually investigate in a proper police way, some very big names will be mentioned. That’s why they aren’t. It’s not really Muslim gangs they were protecting, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. They are being sacrificed now as a distraction to keep us happy that ‘something is being done’. It is not being done, it is being hidden.

The two major parties in this country are falling apart,. The third has already fallen apart and is now determined to bring about a no-deal Brexit and the abolition of the House of Sleeping Lards.

Feminism is in at least a dozen factions. Trans people, a tiny minority, are a prime concern for the Mayor of London who is a Muslim and therefore instructed by his religion to kill them in nasty ways. Gay people hold up rainbow flags with ‘Allah loves diversity’ written on them. No, he really doesn’t. Read the book. He couldn’t be more clear on this.

Knife crime will lead to the banning of knives which are already banned in public anyway (you can have a folding knife with a blade of less than 3 inches (7.5 cm) as long as it doesn’t lock open and that is all you can have). Machete attacks are common so.. ban machetes? See above. They already are banned. Doesn’t seem to make a difference when it’s not enforced, does it?

Acid attacks mean we should ban the possession of acid which is going to get awkward for car battery sales and for anyone who drives a car. Also for anyone who likes vinegar on their chips because you know our elected representatives are not going to think this through at all.

Shootings are increasing so let’s ban guns. Oh wait, we already did. We banned hard drugs too, that must have worked… didn’t it?

Sweden has regular grenade attacks and bombings now. Won’t be too long before London has them too.

My stance on immigration is simple. Anyone can come, anyone at all – but I wouldn’t pay them to come. No free stuff and no preferential treatment. You want to come and live here, fine, but you make your own way.

As for the Windrush generation, as I said, most of them were here before I was born and they were invited. The Home Office trying to deport them now is beyond shameful.

The same Home Office that welcomes back Jihadists who fought against our soldiers.

It’s a strange world when you have to look at your own government and wonder…

‘Whose side are you on?’

 

You have it so you were going to commit a crime with it.

Many years ago I had a butterfly knife in my fishing tackle box. If you don’t know the style, its handle is in two parts, both hinged at the blade so the handle folds over both edges of the blade. I was quite adept at flicking it open, using it and flicking it closed again. Since you held both halves of the handle when it was open it could not close on your fingers in use.

I had that style because I could open and close it one-handed while trying to deal with a line or a fish with the other hand, and because when folded, it was safe to delve your hand into the fishing box without looking.

Then they were made illegal and I couldn’t use it any more. Instead I had a lock-knife. This had a little lump on the side of the blade so you could pop it open with one hand and it would lock open. No danger of it folding on your fingers. Not as handy as the butterfly because you needed two hands to close it again (liner lock – you have to press down a spring on the back while folding the blade) but nonetheless safer than either a fixed blade or a folding non-locking one.

Then they banned those too.

I have never stabbed or cut anyone or even threatened them with a knife, yet now all I am allowed is an unsafe folding knife. I don’t think any fixed-blade knife is legal outside the home but they wouldn’t be safe in a fishing box anyway. They can slip out of the sheath when the box is moved. The non-locking folding one is safe in the box but not safe in use because it can fold onto fingers, especially those slimy from handling fish – and it needs both hands to open it.

The only knife you can carry in public in the UK is a non-locking folding penknife with a blade less than 3 inches (7.5cm) in length. Anything else and you will have to prove to a court that you had a damn good reason to have it. This applies even if you had it out of sight and didn’t even show anyone – if you are stopped and searched and it is found, you’re arrested and charged.

In the seventies, after a camping trip, I got off the train in Cardiff with an eight-inch camping knife on my belt and went shopping. Nobody even noticed. Now they’d have helicopters and armed police surrounding me. I wouldn’t have to do anything, wouldn’t even have to touch the handle of the knife. Mere possession is a crime now.

Oh, and I bought that camping knife, alone, in a shop, when I was 15. Try that now, all you teen warriors demanding ever tighter controls on your lives. By the time you get to my age you’ll need to be over 30 and have three forms of ID to buy a paper clip.

Let me reiterate. It is illegal in the UK, and has been for some time, to be in possession in public of anything bigger than a folding three-inch knife. Anything else and you need to have a good reason to be carrying it.

Do we really need more laws than that?

Well we’re going to get them.

Because…

National figures show police in England and Wales recorded a rise of a fifth in knife and gun crime in the year to September.

Right. So the answer to people committing illegal acts using things that are already illegal is not to enforce those laws, but to make new ones that make more things illegal.

I notice there is no mention in the article of a clampdown on guns. Oh wait, those are already illegal. Criminals don’t care about laws though. What to do, eh? Well, there are a lot of Americans who think gun control will end shootings, including one I came across on Twitter who describes herself in her bio as ‘open minded’ and has a banner saying ‘The NRA are a terrorist organisation’.

Actually, more vegan animal rights activists (1) than NRA members (0) have gone on shooting sprees lately so as terrorist organisations go, I’d say the NRA really haven’t got the hang of it at all.

Back to the knives. The plan is to make even more forms of knives illegal, and to make buying them online as near to impossible as they can make it. Well. That’ll have no effect at all on street stabbings.

If the stabber is over 18 they can get a knife in a local shop. If the stabber is under 18 they will simply take one from their parents’ kitchen. Making them harder to buy will do nothing at all.

You cannot buy a handgun legally in the UK but criminals seem to have no problem getting them anyway. Knives? You can make one in your shed with a hammer, file, whetstone and a piece of fencing steel! You could even make one from oak or hickory. Yeah, it won’t work for long but it doesn’t need to, does it? Actually I won’t go into any more detail on that one because it has details I don’t want to hand out to any Mr. Stabbys out there.

The problem is not knives. Especially since carrying anything bigger than a whittling penknife in public is already illegal. The problem is people stabbing each other. Nobody in Government wants to address that. Oh, we know why but they made it illegal to say it.

Soon it will be illegal to be in possession of a set of kitchen knives in public and impossible to buy them online and have them posted to you. So, if you need kitchen knives, how are you going to get them home?

I have bought whisky online. I once bought a log splitter online. The delivery courier had to check I was of legal age to have them before handing them over. If there is nobody of legal age to sign for them then they won’t deliver. So, under-18s buying knives online can only get them if an adult signs for the delivery. That’s law now. They cannot ‘sneakily order them’ because the delivery agent won’t hand them over to the kid.

It’s the same as the argument that tobacco companies ‘market to children’. It’s as ridiculous as claiming Danish Bacon ‘markets to Jews’. Why would you ‘market’ a product to a group who are not allowed to buy it?

Likewise, it does not matter how hard you market your range of bladed items, scissors or dressmaking pins to those under 18. They are not allowed to buy them. Yes, I said dressmaking pins and scissors. You can get married at 16 in this country but you can’t buy anything sharp until you are 18 so you’ll have a married life with only plastic knives and forks for your first two years and can’t hang any pictures because you can’t buy nails.

This is not ‘where we are going’. This is where we are. Now. Today. And an allegedly Conservative government under the daftest woman ever put in charge of anything is about to make it worse.

There has been a lot of talk about Corbyn’s mob of hate-filled harpies (I’ve met a few and yes, they are) and how the Labour party needs to sort itself out. The damn Tories need a purge too. They are, really, no better. Criminalising people who want to buy a bread knife online? Stating that anyone in possession of acid in public is committing a crime? What the hell do they think is in a car battery? What do they think the chemical definition of vinegar is? Are they going to arrest anyone in possession of a lemon?

Ludicrous? Of course it is. It all is. We have a ludicrous government and a ludicrous opposition. What else can you expect from them?

If someone wants to buy a bottle of sulphuric acid, that should raise a red flag. They might want it for a legitimate purpose of course, in which case they won’t mind providing ID and having the sale recorded. I have no problem giving my name and address and proving who I am when I buy a scythe blade or any of the viciously sharp items in my tool room. I really wouldn’t be happy with a random lunatic having access to those things.

If I buy dangerous chemicals or bacteria for the lab I have to prove I have a lab capable of containing them and that I am a legitimate scientist with the knowledge to safely handle these things. That is as it should be – I can, and have, bought live cultures of some seriously dangerous bacteria in the past. That should not be available to some spotty teen who wanders in off the street. Okay, they’d probably kill themselves before they killed anyone else but even so… do you want to ban all research into intestinal disease becasue the causative agents are dangerous? I bet there are some who do, you know.

The law will just say ‘acid’. Leaving a chip shop with vinegar on your chips? You are in possession of an acid in a public place.  The law they propose will get you arrested for that.

Would the police be so petty? Hahahaha! They recently revealed on Twitter the ‘weapons’ they found in a sweep in London. A butter knife, a rubber mallet and a garden fork. Derisory. No guns, machetes, Samurai swords (why is it always Samurai swords? I find the short double-edged sword much easier to handle). Not even a big camping knife. Nothing that wouldn’t be laughed at by the man in the street but would be taken very seriously by a dusty judge in one of our zombified courts.

So, imagining they are only looking for 20-molar and above concentrated and actually corrosive acids is not being real. They will arrest you for having cranberry juice. Incidentally, if you don’t know what I mean by ‘molar’, please don’t lecture me on acids.

It’s not just acids that are corrosive. Better not hand out blatant clues but getting past the ‘acid’ part and still having something deadly is not actually a problem for those of us who had a genuine education.

Finally, a lot of legitimate businesses are about to bite the dust. I bought a lot of great stuff here in the past – including the heavy hat in the top banner – and I’ll order something – anything – in the next few days to give them a little boost before the government shuts them down. They have never been linked to any crime, ever. Their only ‘crime’ is selling sharp things. Like these guys and a lot of other innocent businesses too.

Once they ban all blades online, of course, nothing will change in the World of Stabby so they’ll ban the sale of knives in the high street too. Think they won’t? Then you have not been paying attention to how this works.

I already have a peening hammer, plain hammer, files, whetstones, oilstones and a grinder in my tool room. If you don’t, then get those things now before they are banned too.

It’ll be the only way to make something to cut your tofu when you grow up, kids.

Oh, and if they still have metalwork classes in schools, take that class and pay close attention. You’re going to need it.

Better wake up in chemistry class too, if that even still exists. You might need that one.