Category: General

Hong Kong was always going to be China’s acid test. Thatcher, Britain’s last conviction PM, was never keen on returning it to China. She never trusted Beijing to abide by its commitments further than to interpret the Anglo-Chinese Joint Declaration whichever way suited it best. Originally inclined to hold onto the colony, she relented only because the Chinese were prepared and able to starve and dehydrate Hong Kong into submission.

Hong Kongers knew what they could expect. Some, such as Carrie Lam and Jackie Chan, sold their souls to the Party. Both have done well out of it. Carrie Lam, for all her uselessness and incompetence, was appointed Chief Executive of the territory. Jackie Chan is the CCP’s poster boy. He is the model that Beijing wants all Hong Kongers to emulate. Speak Cantonese if you wish, be a Hong Konger if you must, but never forget that Xi Dada is your lord and master and that you must bow to Beijing’s whims without complaint or question.

Of course, much of Hong Kong’s business elite have taken this position. So, frankly, has the greater portion of Hong Kong-based criminal syndicates. When there were protests, frequently heated, a singular, obvious fact was pointed out by many advocates of a liberal Hong Kong. The vast majority of thugs and troublemakers could not speak or understand Cantonese. They were Mandarin-speaking. That is, they were brought in from the Mainland to do the Triads’ and Chief Executive’s dirty work for them. The odds of someone recognising a Hong Konger would be too great.

Just thought I’d follow up on Sheona’s question about being able to write original posts.

Not much to really say. I’ve been extremely busy, balancing three jobs and a busy study schedule. Managed to slip out of California for a week to visit Texas. Will fly back to California tomorrow. Would prefer to be in Europe, but Boris managed to destroy that for me and I’m working on getting to Sweden.

It’s a funny old world, innit?

• Ash Barty. Just as Sam Stosur starts getting to be just a bit past it, along comes young Ash. What a girl! Will she take out Wimbledon? I’ll keep my fingers (and toes) crossed.
• Nick Kyrgios and Venus Williams, did you watch their last match? Tennis at its very best, with Nick clearly in awe of playing with such a goddess of the sport. Shame he’s now had to withdraw after injuring himself.
• Covid – we’ve kept our infections and deaths down pretty well, but our vaccine roll-out has been pathetically slow compared with many other countries. Logistics, all is logistics – our pollies hadn’t even heard of the word until a couple of minutes ago!
• China. Has reverted to the 1800s, has gone utterly doolally, has a lot to answer for, and is stupefyingly dangerous. Handle with great care until they recover.

That’ll do for now. 😎

My maternal grandfather fought and was wounded at Gallipoli. It was not his first armed conflict. 15 years earlier, he had joined a Highland unit that had been raised by his brother to fight in the South African War.

Grandfather had several sons, two of whom fought in WW2 and were awarded the MC. He also had some nephews who distinguished themselves. One became a notable commando who was involved in numerous military excursions, including the disastrous Dieppe Raid, the D-Day landings, at which he was piped ashore, and the capture of Pegasus Bridge. Churchill said of him, ‘the handsomest man who ever cut a throat’. Another nephew, also my mother’s cousin, founded the SAS. My own father was in the SOE and was parachuted into Albania, so that side of the family did not do too badly and that is without mentioning the fact that his grandfather fought in the Peninsular War and was wounded at Quatre Bras, shortly before Waterloo. There were other brave men from countless other families, from around the world, especially so from Australia, New Zealand and other colonies. There was a better generation of women in those days as well; one whose members sacrificed their own wellbeing for the good of the nation.

All this is not to say that I am an advocate of war. I am not. What I am saying is that the men of past generations appear to have considerably more courage and moral rectitude than the current lot who seem to be terrified of a disease that poses minimal threat. Those men took huge risks and were prepared to sacrifice their lives to protect their freedoms and the freedoms of their kinfolk. This generation is prepared to sacrifice its freedoms to protect their lives from a disease that has almost no chance of killing them.

I think the real ANZACs along with my ancestors, would be truly horrified by the craven behaviour of their descendants and those who now lead them. For this generation to celebrate their heroics, is an insult to their memory.

As for that wretched New Zealand woman….

The world will miss you.

Rest in Peace – you surely deserve it for a life well lived.

I take malicious joy in watching people here squirm. I know, of course, that it’s not very kind of me. After years of toxic bile directed towards Blighty, the lot have had to face the reality of their own ineptitude. No, Germans trains do not run on time and save for a very select few lines, they’re not particularly clean or brilliant, either. The famed ICE is really no better than the Bristol to London-Paddington GWR line. The country is hardly efficient. If anything, the albatross that is the state weighs heavily on the necks of the country’s peasants.

After so many years of hearing about how Adolfina Honecker, er, Angela Merkel I mean, is a leader superior to Boris, Toxic Tess (not difficult to be) or David Cameron (again, not exactly a challenge) it’s all come undone. Germany has managed to bungle everything terribly. Take, for example, the vaccination drive. Elderly people were expected to complete a ten-step online appointment registration process with a two-step online ID-verification procedure. The procedure would give me a fit of the vapours and I grew up using this technology. I bloody well can’t imagine my 89-year-old nan who has never used a computer in her life or the 77-year-old neighbour who thinks it’s all bollocks to cope with it. (This isn’t a swipe at the venerable, rather a swipe at the fact that Germany is yonks behind the UK, Australia, Sweden and USA in respect to digitalisation)

The glorious German government is now at the verge of collapse with both major parties heading to historic defeats. The CDU and CSU are caught up in scandal after scandal, reaching as high as the health minister himself. (His husband was profiting from government procurement contracts given the company he works for.) Between general incompetence and corruption, the sense that the CDU/CSU just need to leave and that SPD have betrayed everything they should stand for, Germany’s heading to a frightful coalition.

Then, when things were already going badly, they waged war against the Oxford jab for political reasons. This isn’t my opinion, this is the view of the Italian health authority! As Britain passed the milestone of 50% vaccinated, the German government has finally started to grasp that it might need to simplify its vaccination process. Not that it much matters to me. I’ve given notice of intent to vacate to the landlady, made sure that my papers in the UK are in order and have my aeroplane tickets booked. Oh, and I have made arrangements to get the Johnson & Johnson single-shot jab whilst in California. I might as well get something out of my tax dollars.

I am aghast at the global shenanigans caused by one mediocre Mercan actress and her juvenile, brain dead poodle of a husband. The sooner Liz and Phil remove their titles and banish them fully from The Firm, the better. They have turned the UK’s Constitutional Monarchy into a third-rate soap opera and anyone who says so is culture cancelled by the woke brigade – poor old Piers Morgan, for example.

And another thing –

Cressida Dick, who until now I regarded as the best Metropolitan Commissioner of Police since Sir Robert Peel, has screwed up right royally by allowing her officers to act as though they were aspiring to be American thugs (so-called Police) by beating up and arresting many defenceless women on Clapham Common (a place I know well, but that’s quite another story) who were there in memory of a local girl who was recently murdered by a Metropolitan Police thug who had been serving in the Diplomatic Protection squad – that means armed – until his mates finally threw him in the clink.

They should have been supporting the lasses rather than wrestling them to the ground and handcuffing them.

O tempora, o mores!