CABINET OF CURIOSITIES (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Wile E. Coyote]

A curiosity is how the only bit of Marxism that really became mainstream is the Leninist analysis of wars and imperialism. It gave middle class lefties the excuse to ignore the so-called Labour aristocracy in their own homelands and concentrate on the colonial exploitation of folks abroad, the needs of incoming migrants, and other exploited groups, who were not in well paid jobs.

Business has been willing to oblige this global fantasy by outsourcing abroad, and selling ethically for profit, untroubled since the seventies by home-grown union power.

Mason's attempts to organise homeless musicians against the bomb, with refugees against border controls, and tree lovers aginst nuclear power, all into a mighty popular front agianst fascism, might work arithmetically in his own mind, as lots of young folks, migrants, want to embrace these causes but there again..... they also want to buy their own houses.......bit like the Labour aristocracy.....

[Mick Harper]

Mason came out with a classic bit of Marxism: capitalism requires ever-growing production/markets. So he blamed Global Warming on capitalism. This is both neat and true. We wouldn't be in this mess if we had taken his advice and been queuing all day for a loaf of bread.

[Wile E. Coyote]

To put Mason's piece in context, which is arguably overstating the threat.

In 2020

US GDP= ($20.94 trillion)

China=($14.72 trillion)
Italy ($1.886 trillion),
France ($2.603 trillion),
Germany ($3.806 trillion),
U.K. ($2.708 trillion).
Canada ($1.643 trillion),
India ($2.623 trillion),

Russia’s GDP is ($1.483 trillion)

That's smaller than the UK.......are they really going to invade?

[Mick Harper]

As I say, Russia may aspire to equality but the only thing it is equal in is fookin' tanks and once you've driven them up to the border and pointed their guns at someone what else can you do but go home again? China would never make this mistake. Even America's given it up. Mostly.

Oh, yes, and energy supplies.

[Mick Harper]

46 Tesco mini sausage rolls. I bought them as an investment but they were a bit more-ish.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Faced a bit of a quandary in Sainsbury, as could not decide which item to purchase for the homeless food bank. You can't go for "Taste the difference" as this is only encouraging dependency, and the "Basics" range signifies to others that you are plain mean.

Still, to help folks like Wiley, Sainsburys has started getting rid of the Basics range and putting on different labels like "JJames" "Greengrocer" or "Imperfect" on its products designed for shoppers that want to give to the homeless food bank. This was a neat idea, until I found out what was going on, trouble was once I had worked it out, it weighed on my conscience and started leaving a rather nasty taste in the mouth. Bit like I imagine it would for the homeless. No, this would not do.

In the end I sorted it, after about 20 minutes' creative looking I opted for a tin of Fray Bentos. I triumphantly announced this at the till, "It's for the homeless", just to make sure that nobody thought I was intending to eat these "war rations", only to be told the Food Bank were not collecting.

It's a nightmare.

[Mick Harper]

I may start going to food banks myself. Before, I was too poor so I would have stood out amidst the primary school teachers and NHS staff, but as the fashion dwindles I may be able to slip in towards the end of a sesh without getting 'the look'.

[Mick Harper]

Joke Of The Day

[Wile E. Coyote]

A guy is visiting the museum of natural history. He is examining some fossils and asks a curator how old they are.

"Those fossils are 65 million years and six months old" says the curator.

"How can you be so precise"

"Because the sign below the exhibit says they are 65 million years old, and I started here six months ago."

[Mick Harper]

Yours is more universal, yes, but mine is funnier. As long as you are old enough to remember "Tunes makes you breathe more easily". Fortunately the readership age profile of both this site and my books falls comfortably in this range.

Except for Hatty who always says, whenever there are questions in our Zoom quizzes about TV in the Golden Age, "We couldn't afford a television." They probably couldn't afford cough sweets either so it wouldn't have mattered. If only they had had food banks in her young day.

[Mick Harper]

Statistics Guardian-Style

[Mick Harper]

Every time I go shopping I either forget the eggs or I forget the bacon. There's a medical term for this but I can't remember what it is.

[Mick Harper]

At the end of December someone called Jayson Frascatore posted up an article on medium.com entitled The Most Useless Language Learning Method I’ve Ever Tried, And Why It Fails. On 10 Jan I posted up what I thought was an innocuous reply

[Mick Harper]

KitKat honeycombe. What's the verdict? Yes, it's a million billion times better than ordinary KitKat but is that enough? Heritage questions are not to be resolved by the simple brandishing of numbers.

[Wile E. Coyote]