China Airs Views

'Telling it like it is', 'Calling a spade a spade', 'Speaking the plain truth and other English idioms on a similar line were the first casualties of the unofficial trend of political correctness newspeech.

Straight Talking Truth or Racist Nonsense?

 

Of course this infection in the West is not actually followed in other countries, often and especially those, where those who newspeech protects in the West come from, but who strangely refuse to even countenance similar rubbish. This of course can lead to much confusion and misunderstanding. 

Worshipped Like Gods

India's love of film stars is so great and knows such little bounds, that when the stars reach a certain level of stardom, they can almost (well, actually) commit murder and get away with it. Its even been known for actors who play Indian Gods in TV or Movies such as the 'Ramayan' and 'Mahabharata', to have people semi-worshipping them in real life. Treating them as incarnations of the god.

Gandhi Syndrome ....

Something similar as also happened to English actor Sir Ben Kingsley, after he played Gandhi in 1982.

It Lives

The cavern was old, and so was its inhabitant. It was set deep under a mountain crag that was overlooking a wide valley and mountain pass, and upon which men of all ages had built fortresses. First of wood, and then as the centuries passed, of mighty stones. From that great vantage point, a dark kingdom had finally risen and dominated.

It had defied first the Byzantine Greeks, then later the Latin Crusaders, and finally the Turks .... but eventually after many sieges, the mighty fortress had eventually fallen. Blood had flowed like a mountain stream down the crag, as a mighty Sultan decreed that 'all should die' and that no stone be left standing 'one upon the other'. This, so that 'no man should remember' the darkness of their rule, nor the defiance of its former rulers.

Sultan Mehmed II Ordered Castle Dracul Destroyed ....

Up Up And Away

I wasn't aware that Britain is getting a Prime Ministerial aircraft .... indeed so late did I find this out that it may be being used now ... 'Mayforce 1' so to speak. Actually its kinda surprising that we haven't got one already .... the UK is the only G20 nation not to have a dedicated aircraft for transporting either heads of state or government (even Belgium has one).

No One Ever Accuses Britain Of Class Any More
 .... Cheap Yes, Class No.

Now being Britain, and always being hard up for readies we have chosen the cheap option of winging our leaders, and are upgrading one or two old RAF cast-offs. Voyager A330 air-to-air refuelling aircraft for those of you who like to know these things ... and at a modest £10m per plane apparently makes it around the cheapest head of state aircraft around. Apparently it will cost £2,000 per flying hour (compared with an average £6,700 to use either Royal Squadron planes or a long-haul charter).

The Empire Strikes Back

The Dark Side of the force has always been powerful, and its seems that even the Obi Kenobi's have been caught up by it. Admittedly in this case it was an adopted Kenobi, in the form of a Mr Mark Pitt, a 45 year old former British Telecom account manager, but is now a 'carer for the elderly', who currently describes himself as being a 'crime fighter' in his neighbourhood of Clacton in Essex.

The Force Wasn't With Him ...

Mr Pitt chose to change his name to 'Obi-Mark Kenobi' as he is a 'Jedi' .... all was going well until the aforementioned 'Dark Side' of the force entered his life.

Old Friends

Getting old(er) is a strange experience. Apart from the obvious ravages of time, which some of us fight with both (artificial) tooth and nail, and the rest of us accept with grumpy ill grace, there are also the tricks that the passage of time can play on us. For instance I have noticed that increasingly I am seeing in younger peoples faces, echo's of my youthful friends and family.

The Past Sometimes Looks Sunnier Than The Future As We Get Older

On the train I recently almost said hello to a girl, who bore a remarkable resemblance to a young girl of my youth. Of course this was entirely superficial and unlike Mr John Titor, I had not in fact travelled back in to my own past.

Brighton Boyz Will Be GIrlz

Blatchington Mill Senior School is in Brighton (Gay capital of the UK), and no one can say that it doesn't reflect the concerns of those particular residents (who oddly have very few children attending the school). 

The school formerly had but one claim to fame, which was that 'Katie Price' (aka the topless model Jordan) was a former pupil, but its safe to say that the schools ethos has changed quite a bit since her day.

Some Pupils Might Be Confused By
The Choices Of Gender Assignment On Offer.

Nowadays while concerns about make-up may still be in pupils minds, its the make up of the schools sexuality that concerns the governing authorities. So each student recently had to declare their sexuality in a homework survey (no issues about data privacy at this school ... let it all hang out as they used to say) ... which was a sneaky way of doing this. The options offered, were to say the least, baffling (unless you are deeply into the LGBT scene).

Of Mice And Men

Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler's statement of intent for the German people has been out of print in Germany (although not elsewhere, noticeably in the Islamic world where its continued to sell well from Palestine to Bangladesh), but that lock-down came to an end in 2015 when the intellectual copyrights expired. 

Mein Kampf - Critics Edition Still Raised Old Fears

 

These rights had been administered by the Finance Ministry of the State of Bavaria on Hitler's behalf, and thus they had been able to refuse any reprint requests.

Whats In A Name?

Names have been something of a theme recently on this blog. Name calling, Names related to jobs, Witty name banter .... so to finish this run off, here its about name coincidences.

In Romania, the surname Cepoi is very common ... rather like Smith or Jones used to be in the UK. It reflects the countries essentially rural and agricultural existence over the centuries since the Eastern Roman Empire collapsed in the 14th century, and translates as 'Big Onions'. So perhaps it was only a matter of time before there was a local election in one of the smaller towns, where every contestant was called Mr Cepoi.

Will The Real Vasile Cepoi Please Stand Up!

The town is called Draguseni and with a population of just 2,500 the role of Mayor makes you a big onion indeed in that area. So when the election of that role came up in may/June 2016 the candidates were listed as Mr Vasile Cepoi, Mr Vasile Cepoi and Mr Vasile Cepoi. On of them, Mr Vasile Cepoi was the incumbent and the other two were challengers. Strangely none of the three were related as far as they knew.

Recalling Bad Behaviour

While I am still thinking on the subject of MP's who are up to no good, with their underwear down, and frankly who you wouldn't really want in your house, it was brought to my attention that Simon Danczuk, who is still the MP for that benighted town of Rotherham (how many sex scandals can that town take?) is advertising for yet another aide for his London office.

There Was More Honour In Old Time Politicians .....

Now, for those of you who have forgotten his exploits (and we assume that he's hoping to somehow remain as an MP, by keeping, what's for him, a low profile) here's a few lowlights:

No Equality Of Opportunity

If ever there were a couple of subjects that exposes the Labour Party leadership for the bunch of hypocrites that they are, its Anti-Semitism and Education. Now enough has been said, here and elsewhere, about the growth in Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party (hardly a surprising phenomena, given the fact that the Labour Party has a growing Muslim membership in towns such as Rotherham and Bradford etc). So I won't waste my breath rehashing what is an obvious consequence of that trend, to everyone except Jeremy Corbyn and his acolytes that is.

Eton Schoolboys Personify Privilege In Britain? .....

No, what I want to talk about is non state education for the rich and privileged of the Labour Party. So just to illustrate how deep this hypocrisy really is, here is the latest and most left-wing Labour shadow cabinet in decades (if not ever) and their schools:

What's The Problem Now?

You cant make this stuff up any more ....

Sam Told Everyone Not To Lose Their Heads .....

Last year a man who claimed he was a scholar of Islam put in a complaint after studying episodes of Fireman Sam. He claimed that in one episode he had seen a character, from one of the episodes first put out in 2014, disrespecting the Koran by stepping on its pages. He had spotted this by freeze framing the scene until he was able to identify 'Arabic script' which he said was direct from the Koran.

We Don't Need No Co-Education

Not really news this as it has been shown in a number of studies, but girls do better in single sex schools than co-educational ones. Last years exam results (2015) showed that some 75.4% of female pupils in single sex schools attained 5 or more good passes (inc Maths and English).

Co Education Theory Busted By Latest Figures?

View From Up In The Gods

A man opposite me at work is a real cinema goer ... I was going to say 'buff' but that would imply that his views on whether a film is any good or not are of any value. They aren't. But I was curious enough to ask why he goes so much, and why he picks the movies has does to watch ... the first answer was standard enough, he liked 'the big screen and sound .... its what the films were created to be seen on'.

I can see the point of that, and if I wasn't such a lazyarse and cheapskate (have you seen the price of cinema tickets?), I would possibly go more often. But the view from up in the Gods (if we still have those in cinemas?) is not enough to tempt me often.

Elmo Lincoln - Was The First Film Tarzan In 1918

However where we really disagreed was over the films he choose. For instance his next movie viewing venture will be the latest 'Tarzan' remake.

Double Standards Of Criticism

This cartoon by Bill Leak, published after comments from Indigenous leader Noel Pearson, has stirred up another 'race row', this time in Australia.

Aboriginal Race Row ... Valid Comment or Racial Stereotyping?

The comments were apparently about the need for Aboriginal people to take more responsibility for the behaviour of their children, comments I might add that could be applied to many races and ethnicities (see any white UK inner city housing estate, or any ethnic ghetto such as Tower Hamlets).

No Scum Removal

Mahmoud Jaber is a Palestinian illegal immigrant to the UK.

Mahmoud Jaber - Untouchable Immigrant ....

He is also a prolific drug dealer who has been convicted no less than four times for drug offences ... so why has this man not been deported?