Larry’s Diary – Week Two Hundred And Forty-Three

Monday

Good morning and it is not a very nice morning here in London, although it’s quite warm it is very dull, and I wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised if it rained again. Obviously, the big news of the weekend is that Sniffer Joe has said he is withdrawing from the presidential race. But I am wondering if he jumped, was he pushed or did he really make the decision to quit himself? Yesterday morning Sniffer said he was still standing, and at 14:45 he was tweeting he was still running. Then at 18:45 came the announcement he was out of the race with yet another tweet, this time a “letter to the nation” with a digital signature. Well, call me cynical but shouldn’t such an announcement have been made in person? Which makes we wonder if someone else put out the tweet and made the decision for him or is he so ill he couldn’t make the announcement himself.

So where do the Democrats go from here? It is very difficult to know, officially Camel Harris is now their official candidate as she was on the Biden-Harris ticket and under election law the money donated to their joint campaign can only be used by her or must be returned to the donors. Another problem is that she is black and that means that she can’t be replaced by someone white without a lot of moans. However, the biggest problem is that she is totally useless and appears to speak nonsense. I think if I were one of their high-ups I would write off the next four years and start looking at the 2028 election and who they have who could run against JD Vance.

Rumours this morning about what the EU wants for a rethink on the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between us and them. Apparently, number one on the list is more EU access to our fishing waters and Liebore are thinking about agreeing so that we have a closer arrangement with them on trade. This is a major sellout and if Liebore had admitted this before the election they would not have been elected.

Back in June last year, BT had a catastrophic systems failure that effected the 999 service that it runs in the U.K. This resulted in over 14,000 calls from 12,000 callers being missed. It is unclear if people died because of this cockup. Apparently, BT had a so-called ‘Disaster Recovery Platform’ in place, but it was totally inadequate and collapsed under the volume of calls. OFCOM have just announced that they have fined BT a total of £17.5 million, saying part of the fine was for not preparing an effective emergency plan.

So, the CAA is telling the airlines that they don’t have to pay compensation to passengers whose flights were cancelled because of the CrowdStrike software failure because it was ‘beyond their control’. If I were a hotshot lawyer, who had lost his flight, I suspect I would be asking the airline if they had control over the software they bought and used, hence the problem was not beyond their control.

While on the topic of air travel, big news for Airbus just days before the Farnborough Air Show. The European regulator, EASA has finally certified the latest version of the Airbus A320 family, the A321XLR, two years after it first flew. XLR stands for eXtra Long Range and this plane is a real game changer as it can operate profitably on long-range routes that don’t have enough customers to support twin-aisle jets. It has taken a long time to certify this version of the A320 because since the scandals about the Boeing 737Max certification emerged, regulators have become ultra-cautious, and this plane has a new extra central fuel tank. The A321XLR has over 550 outstanding orders from 27 airlines and the first ones into service are expected to go to Iberia and enter operation later this summer.

I heard the humans talking about the Camel making a special speech at 16:30 this afternoon so I made the effort to watch it in the Number 10 office. But what a total waste of time, it was all MSM puff. She said absolutely nothing about running for president or starting a campaign. Instead, all she could talk about was some athletes and how wonderful President Bye Bye Biden had been. Then she got off the stage. I wondered if she has been told that Bye Bye is never coming back to the White House and that she is going to be promoted to president for five months. Is she keeping her powder dry?

Tuesday

Morning all, a bit damp in London this morning although the forecast for this afternoon is much better with it being warm and sunny. I hope to be able to get all my patrols done this morning so I can get out when it gets sunny. So, it looks like the Camel has got enough support from Democratic Party delegates to win the party nomination for president. The Donald must be ecstatic.

It looks like Boeing are winning the order book race after the first day of the Farnborough Air Show with the announcement of orders from both Korean Air and Japan Air Lines. JAL has ordered 10 Boeing 787 Dreamliners with an option for 10 more. Korean Air is the big one though as it has ordered 20 x B777-9 and 20 x B787-10 with options for 10 more Boeing 787 Dreamliners. Airbus hit back with one smaller order from Royal Bhutan Airlines for 3 x Airbus A320neo and 2 x A321XLR. Airbus also announced an order for 20 x A330-900neo from VietJet, but this was the conversion of an MoU announced in February. I really wonder how long Boeing have been storing up those orders to make a big splash on day one of the show?

The word I hear is that Airbus has had to turn down orders for its highly popular A320 family of aircraft because they can’t make the deliveries early enough for the airlines. There is the odd position on their production lines for the odd one or two aircraft but if someone wants 50 or 100 they will have to wait until 2030 for the bulk of them. Of course, there are slots available for other planes and I understand Airbus could well be announcing orders for the A330neo in the next few days. My spies tell me negotiations are currently taking place with Virgin and several Middle East carriers. I will keep you up to date with what I hear.

An interesting story reaches me from Brazil where scientists have been buying sharp nosed sharks from fisherman who have caught them in their nets and testing them for drugs. The sharks are returning levels up to 100 times above normal for cocaine. This type of shark lives only in coastal waters so it is believed that this indicates a build-up of cocaine in the water off Brazil. I suspect there is a great white out there somewhere who is a dealer.

The BBC published the list of its top-earning stars this morning and once again the highest paid is Gary Lineker on £1.35 million. But this is only a list of those employed directly by the BBC. Lots of people you regularly see on the channel don’t make the list because they are not directly employed but are employed through BBC subsidiaries hiring independent production companies to make programmes and their salaries are never revealed.

I read that on Saturday a cricket match in Edinburgh had to be abandoned because the cricketers were abused by football fans attending a friendly match between Glasgow Rangers and Tottenham Hotspurts. For some reason the football was being played at Edinburgh’s Hampden Park and the East of Scotland Cricket Association Division Seven tie between Murrayfield DAFS Cricket Club and Stewart’s Melville Cricket Club at Edinburgh’s Roseburn Park. The cricketers report that fans shouted sexist, homophobic and racist abuse at them causing the match to be abandoned and this was despite 100’s of police being in attendance for the football.

Well, I promised to update you on orders for the Airbus A330neo, but I didn’t expect it to be quite so soon. Virgin Airways has this afternoon confirmed that it has placed an order for 7 x A330-900 which they say will complete their fleet renewal. I must repeat that any order for the Airbus A330 is good news for the U.K. as the wings are made here and the engines are Rolls-Royce Trent 7000. In addition, Japan Airlines has turned its commitment to buy 20 x A330-900 and 11 x A321neo into a firm order. Late this afternoon Berniq Airways announced a firm order for six A320s. I wonder what else is coming today.

Wednesday

The weather has changed again and it’s a pleasant morning here in London, sunny and warm. I forgot to mention that I watched Nigel Farage’s parliamentary maiden speech on TV in the office. He didn’t mess around, called them a rejoiner parliament and then suggested that there should be a referendum on leaving the ECHR. Well, I quite agree with him, but I would also like to have a referendum on Net Zero. Perhaps we could hold them at the same time and save money.

The new government didn’t take long to have its first rebellion amongst its MPs. Last night there was a vote on the two-child benefit payment cap. Of course, it was seven far-left MPs (who followed the Tramp) who defied the whip. So Legohead has suspended them for six months. So now the likes of John McDonnell who backed the SNP motion alongside Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Imran Hussain, Apsana Begum and Zarah Sultana will have to sit as independents. I wouldn’t be surprised if they joined up with the Tramp and formed a new party.

I see that KLM is getting the first of the Airbus A320s it has on order this month and the first A321 next month. KLM used to be a very nearly all-Boeing airline but then it decided it needed to replace its old Boeing 777’s with new planes and the winner of the competition was the Airbus A350 of which they have ordered 50 (and 40 options) which will replace not just the Boeing 777 but the few Airbus A330ceo planes it has in its fleet. KLM then decided it needed to update its fleet of old Boeing 737s, some of which were 30 years old and seemed to have settled on the 737Max, but before they placed the order, the Max was grounded following two crashes caused by the design. KLM had a rethink and realised that the A320 family was a perfect fit for them, offering lower seat miles, noise, emissions and improved passenger approval. Hence the order for 100 with 50 options, the first of which are now arriving and will replace their 42 various 737s.

In airline news, not really from Farnborough, EasyJet has announced its 3rd quarter numbers, and they are up 16% at £236 million for their financial year’s 3rd quarter. But they also confirmed that the board had approved a provisional order for 56 x A320 family planes, and this was now a firm order. Interestingly, they have taken the opportunity to upgrade 18 of the planes from the 180-passenger capacity A320 to the 244-passenger capacity A321.

I hear that Carnival has just placed an order for three new Cruise ships for delivery starting in 2029. Nothing special about this you might think as cruise companies buy new ships all the time. But this order is for a new class of ship which will replace Royal Caribbean as the operator of the world’s biggest cruise ships in passenger numbers. At 230,000 tonnes, the ships will be 19,000 tonnes less than the Royal Caribbean ‘Icon’ class ships but will carry just under 8,000 passengers, about 400 passengers more. At the same time, Carnival also ordered two new Excel class ships for delivery in 2027 and 2028. I understand that all the new ships will be LNG-powered.

A bit of Just Stop Oil news this morning. Seven of the cult were arrested this morning close to a barbed wire fence protecting non-public areas of Heathrow Airport. I understand they were taken into custody on suspicion of conspiring to interfere with a site of key national infrastructure under the Public Order Act. I wonder if they will be joining their colleagues in jail. Meanwhile, I see that the mother of one of the JSO cult who was sentenced to four years imprisonment for blocking the M25 held a press conference at which she complained it wasn’t fair that poor little Cressida was going to miss her brother’s wedding. If you can’t do the time don’t do the crime.

So, there was a two-hour delay to commuter trains out of London the other evening due to a trespasser on the line. But this particular trespasser was a large tortoise. I really can’t believe that it took two hours to find and move a tortoise, surely it couldn’t run away and hidden? Apparently, the tortoise had been on the run for six months from a house about two miles from the spot it was found.

Thursday

Yuk, a nasty wet morning here in Westminster. I only got a little damp when I ventured out, but it has started raining harder now I am back for my breakfast Felix (beef today). I just saw that video of the copper at Manchester Airport kicking that man in the head that has got the media up in arms. I will be withholding my judgement until I get confirmation of what happened just before what the tape shows. The word is that the man who got kicked had just punched a WPC in the face breaking her nose. We shall see.

I hear that the Treasury has decided not to mint any more 1p and 2p coins this year. They have said there are plenty already in circulation and denied it is a forerunner to withdrawing them from circulation. Well, this cat is not so sure. The new Liebore government would love to go for a fully digital currency so that every transaction would have to go through on a plastic card or a bank and so there would be a record of it. They could then bring in something they have long talked about, a digital transaction tax. Of course, it would start low and then creep up as time 
goes by. And what better way to ensure you tax all visitors to the country.

The second story today is about the rule of unintended consequences. The Russian military has been using quite a bit of electronic warfare in its battles with Ukraine. In particular, they have been trying to jam the GPS signal that Ukrainian drones use to attack Russian forces and in particular Russian Air Force bases near the Ukrainian border. But unfortunately, the jamming has been stopping the system that Russian long-distance truck drivers use to pay tolls and subsequently many have been getting fined. This has led to several protests by truck drivers. I can’t see the Russians easing up on the jamming any time soon.

Yesterday, day three, was a very quiet day at the Farnborough Air Show with no new orders announced by either Boeing or Airbus, I wonder if they are saving them up? In fact, the only orders for new planes announced yesterday were by Afrijet who placed an order for an additional ATR72-600 and Air Tahiti who have ordered four ATR 72-600 aircraft. So, a good day for French plane maker ATR. However, I hear the rumour that later today the Saudi low-cost airline, Flynas, will be signing a Memorandum of Understanding for a huge order with Airbus.

This morning Red Ed has said that GB Energy is to build wind turbines on the seabed owned by the Crown. That is all the land under the sea from the high-water mark to the twelve-mile limit. This is more pie in the sky stuff, as we all know that wind power is unreliable, and statistics show that wind turbines can only generate power for a maximum of 60% of the time. So that means we must have a parallel generator available; be it oil, gas or nuclear powered. But it also means we need to build new grid cables to bring the power from the wind turbines to the consumer. This is generally not the case with land-based power stations as they are normally built where old stations and grid connections already exist. So, what does this mean to you and me? Well, we will be asked to pay for a backup system and a new grid system.

A big fuss this morning about a shark in the Thames. It seems a woman called Charlotte was lunching with her friend, Olivia, when she spotted first the fin and then the shark and then filmed it on her phone before carrying on eating her sweet potato fries. If anyone bothered to look it up they would have found that there are five species of shark known to live in the River Thames. This was almost certainly a tope shark, the biggest of the five, and completely harmless to people.

When they did away with toll booths on the Dartford crossing of the river Thames in 2014 they introduced pre-paid Dart charge accounts as one method of paying. Over the years, many of these accounts have become dormant and they contained about £5.3 million. News has now emerged that the government has decided to grab most of this. £300,000 has apparently been paid out in refunds and £100,000 put aside for future refunds but the government has claimed the remaining £4.9 million. Are they that short of money?

Friday

Well, it’s a lovely sunny morning and I am a happy cat because I have just found Felix Chicken in my bowl. The word I hear is that the chancellor is going to moan about a £20 billion black hole in the nation’s accounts which she was unaware of. I can’t see this being in the slightest bit likely as Liebore had full access to the books in the run-up to the election. I suspect it’s just that now they are in power they have realised all their ‘fully funded’ spending plans were nothing of the sort and they have not accounted for things like the £10 billion the teachers’ wage settlement is to cost.

I told hold you yesterday that Saudi airline Flynas was going to sign an MoU with Airbus for a huge order, well they did just that late in the afternoon. The MoU is for 75 x A320neo family aircraft (+ 55 options) and 15 x A330-900neo (+ 12 options). The purchase of the A330-900neo is an interesting one, as most of the orders placed recently have been for the bigger -1000 model. I learn that these -900s will be fitted out with 400 seats in two classes and will use the latest Rolls-Royce Trent 7000 engine. If it really is for the latest version of the Trent, it will be one of the first sales of the type which has just been certified and should be available later this year when it is supposed to offer much-improved performance and fuel saving. Even later came the announcement of an MoU for 5 x A350-900 by Abra Group, the U.K.-based parent of South American airlines Avianca and Gol. Not a bad day for Airbus.

I read that in Nigeria a 468Mw power station has not been able to generate a single watt of power for the last six months because the pressure of the natural gas being delivered to the plant is too low. It looks like the gas supplier has got their calculations all wrong and has breached its contract. The line that feeds the plant also feeds other customers, so too little gas is available at the power station. A number of solutions are being considered, including a new high-pressure line, high-pressure compressors and a partial bypass of the customers, but no decision has been made and even when it is, it will take many months, if not years to implement. Meanwhile, a multi-million-pound power station sits idle and loses money. I suspect the lawyers will be rubbing their hands together.

I hear that with the Olympics only officially opening today, athletes and officials are already complaining about the food on offer. Apparently, there has already been shortages of things like eggs at breakfast and grilled meat at lunch and dinner. Possibly this is because the numbers they are catering for have been slightly underestimated, as many have arrived earlier than expected in the planning. But the French say they are scaling up and expect to serve some 13,000,000 meals over the Olympics to competitors and officials. But it may also be that they have not reckoned with the demand for breakfast eggs in a nation that thinks breakfast consists of a croissant with butter & jam and a coffee. They have, I learn, been expecting 25% to be vegetarian, which may explain the shortage of grilled meat at dinner. I suspect they will find this is going to be total and utter rubbish prediction.

Today starts a busy weekend for Southampton when it will be visited by 10 cruise ships over the next three days. Four will be in port today, four tomorrow and two on Sunday. If you make a very conservative count of the extra people who will be thronging the city I reckon you can easily get to 100 thousand, but it could be a lot more. For example, P&O Iona is in port tomorrow and she carries 5,200 passengers on her own. But it is a turn round day so you can double that and then add to that at least 1,000 of 1,800 crew will be going ashore. So that makes 11,400 people from one ship without adding in the number of friends and relatives dropping off, picking up and just waving goodbye. I bet the taxis, shops, restaurants and hotels are happy.

On the morning of the day that the Paris Olympics are to open, someone has attacked the signal cables on four TGV high-speed lines into Paris, although the attack on one other of the lines was foiled. The cables have been set on fire and could take some time to repair/replace. The French TGV services and the Eurostar from London to Paris have been having to detour onto slower lines with some services being cancelled. Obviously, the trains from London have been delayed and the trip on the slow line seems to have added around two hours to the journey. Of course, the French Police say it is terrorism, but the question is who and why. At the moment, there is no answer to that.

Do you remember Kenny Tutt, the Worthing bank manager who won MasterChef and decided to open a ‘fine dining’ restaurant in Worthing? Well, he went bust just about a year ago with the business going into liquidation owing £1 million. The restaurant, ‘Pitch’, has lain empty ever since but I hear it is to become a branch of the up-market bakery ‘Gail’s’, where they sell sausage rolls for £5 and upmarket loaves. But what of Tutt? Well, I hear he now runs a small chain of up-market burger joints, called Pattie Guy, with outlets in Brighton, Worthing and Hastings.

Saturday

Good morning my friends, and it’s another beautiful day, has summer finally arrived in London? I watched a bit of the Olympics opening ceremony on the big telebox in the office. Heck was it bad, I got bored, went to sleep and when I woke up it was still going on, so I retired to my cat basket. Trust the Frogs to put on something so dreadful and so long. At least I now know where the rain has gone!

I had to chuckle when I heard that Japanese F1 driver Yuki Tsunoda has been relegated 60 grid positions for Sunday’s race in Belgium. As there are only 20 cars in the race, I’m not sure how that works. Does he have to start way back behind everyone else, I guess not or he wouldn’t be able to see the start lights go out. Apparently, the rules say you are penalised 10 starting grid places for every power-related part you use over a certain number. Well, it seems you can have four engines in a season and he is already on number five so that’s ten places, and he has swapped five other power things too many times so that is 60 places.

BAE has started to build the first demonstrator aircraft for the Tempest project, the 6th generation stealth fighter we are developing with Italy and Japan. Obviously it won’t be in the air for a couple of years yet, but it is nice to know we are capable of doing it and not having to rely on the Yanks. Mind you, I worry that Liebore will just cancel the project to save money, it’s what they usually do.

Over in the US of A, American Airlines seems to have shot itself in the foot. The airline has tried to cut out travel agents and flight bookers due to the commission that it was paying them and has been trying to deal directly with companies for their business flights. But it has backfired and, in the latest set of company results, it is revealed that they have lost $1.5 billion of turnover. Companies don’t want the extra work involved in arranging trips and sorting out schedules and interconnecting flights, so have simply instructed their travel agents to switch the booking to the likes of Delta, United and Southwest, who are rubbing their hands together at getting the extra business. I am interested to see if American persist with this harebrained idea.

I wandered through the office a bit earlier this morning just as the Aussies buggered up a dive in the ladies three metre synchronised, leaving us in third place and our first medal of the Olympics, the first in this class ever. Mind, I had to laugh as we finished behind the Americans Bacon and Cook, so that’s American Bacon – which to my mind is overcooked.

I hear that a Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 has crashed just after take-off from Moscow killing both pilots and an engineer. The plane was one of the fleet of 10 owned by Gazprom and had been in for maintenance and was on a test flight. So, the speculation is that a mistake had been made in the maintenance. The Superjet 100 has not got the best of reputations and has been involved in a large number of accidents for the number of the type flying.

I understand there were a few cock-ups in the Olympics opening ceremony last night, although I missed them probably because as I said earlier I fell asleep through pure boredom. One of Lady Gaga’s backing dancers fell off the stage, the announcer called The Republic of South Korea, North Korea, and they got the Olympic flag upside down. I bet they won’t be the only ‘incidents’ we see before the closing ceremony.

OK, I’m done for the day and I’m off to claim my spot on the windowsill in the sun, it is rather pleasant this afternoon. I nearly forgot to mention that Legohead got caught up in the French train troubles yesterday, but he did get manage to get to Paris in time for the opening ceremony. However, I did see a photo of him with other politicians when he was wearing a Team GB jacket, when everyone else was wearing a plastic poncho in the pouring rain. I note he skipped out before the end. And he took the pee out of the Rich Boy for getting wet and leaving the D-day celebrations early. Chat to you next week.
 

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