Larry’s Diary, Week Two Hundred And Fifty-Five

Monday

Good morning from a wet and cold Downing Street where it’s a really horrible Monday morning and the window cleaner is busy washing the windows! An opinion poll out this morning shows that if there were an election tomorrow Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, would lose her Sunderland South seat to Reform. The poll is very close with 36.3% to Reform and 36.2% to Liebore. That’s a 9% swing since the July election. Wonder if once that gets to be general knowledge in the constituency how many Tories will throw their weight behind Reform?

Louise Haigh, her of the teenage colour hair, opened her mouth and put her foot in it at the weekend. On the day before the government much heralded their International Investment Summit, she put out an official press release saying the P&O Ferries was a rogue employer. The problem is that P&O Ferries parent company DP World was due to announce a £1 billion investment of two deep-water berths at their London Gateway port which was thrown into doubt. I overheard numerous phone conversations yesterday begging them to still come to the conference and not pull the investment. I hear they are coming, but not what we had to give them to make it happen.

Did you see Elon Musk’s space rocket being snatched back to the launch tower by arms as it came in to land with its engines moving it slowly into position? It was an amazing bit of technology, even if the man himself is not very likeable. But over the weekend he also launched self-driving cars with no driver controls and talking/walking robots. He is one of the richest men in the world and Liebore didn’t invite him to the Investment Summit because of a Twitter spat over two-tier policing. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.

A survey out this weekend asked people what Liebore’s main achievements in their first 100 days was. At the top of the poll with 49% was ‘nothing’. The next highest, with 4% was ‘being honest’ over the financial situation. In reverse, the worst thing they have done is ‘take away Winter Fuel Payment’ according to 35% of those polled. I can’t understand how Liebore think they are doing what the people want.

Liebore came to power promising to ‘smash the gangs’ to stop illegal immigration. They don’t seem to be doing very well do they, and from what I see they are preparing to utterly fail. At the weekend there was an advertisement in the papers calling for companies to apply for a contract valued at well over £500 million to run two illegal immigration reception centres on the South Coast. Now the interesting thing is these contracts don’t start until 2026 and run for six years to 2032. Then there will be an option for a four-year extension. So clearly Legohead sees illegals coming into the country until at least 2036.

I haven’t been watching Strictly Come Dancing, it’s not my thing, but I understand that ex-Arsenal footballer, Paul Merson, is taking part this year. Merson admits that he is an alcoholic and addicted to gambling and is still going to meetings despite being ‘clean’ for five years. Now I hear he is taking no chances that the money he is earning will be drunk or gambled away. The money he earns on the show is being paid into his wife’s account just as is the money he earns from being a football pundit on Sky Sports. Good luck to him, he might not be Britain’s brightest person but handing over his money to his wife makes a lot of sense.

I understand that the Department of Work and Pensions is writing to every one of Britain’s 10 million pensioners to tell them they may not be entitled to a Winter Fuel Payment this year and setting out the rules for those who are still entitled. This is a spot late as if you are entitled to claim one of the benefits that entitles you to WFP and aren’t doing so currently, it is almost certainly too late to apply and be granted WFP for this winter. Mind you now that a First Class letter costs £1.65p I could have saved the DWP £16.5million in one simple step.

Tuesday

Hi folks, cold and dry when I woke up. This morning, I read that fat people on the dole are to get weight loss injections on the NHS. The idea is if they lose weight they will be able to get off benefits and back to work. Well, that’s the theory and if it works all well and good. But I bet you it won’t work like that, the fatties might lose weight, but I bet very few of them go back to gainful employment. If they wanted to work they would go on a diet on their own account.

I hear that businesses based on Worthing Pier are not very happy at the moment, as the council have shut down all access to the pier because of what they say is ‘storm damage’. Apparently a routine inspection revealed a damaged member under the pier and businesses were given 12 hours’ notice of not being allowed on the pier. One smart restaurant has temporarily moved to Littlehampton but is struggling because they have not been allowed any access to collect anything such as crockery, cutlery, glassware and napkins. I understand that repair work is due to start today and should be finished by the weekend.

I see a collection of Caribbean islands are looking for what they say are reparations for slavery on the islands that was banned by Britain over 200 years ago. But it is the crazy amount that is being asked for that is really staggering. The 15 islands, led by Barbados, are asking for a sum between £200 billion and £1.6 trillion. The highest amount is clearly a ridiculous amount of money, when the UK’s GDP is only around £2.6 trillion a year. I would like to know how that was calculated.

After upsetting DP World at the weekend, Transport Secretary Louise Haigh has today upset British voters by offering train guards on Cross Country Trains a £300 bonus if they work a five-day week. The guards normally work a four-day schedule and if they work an additional Saturday they already get paid time and a half. But they are not happy about it and have threatened to strike every Saturday. So, to prevent them from doing so they are being offered a £300 bonus on top of the overtime. Now this could happen four times a month, so that’s an extra £1,200 a month. Isn’t it strange how the sum of £300 keeps appearing?

Russian military bloggers have been talking about an Su-34 being shot down by a Ukrainian F-16 using an American AIM9X missile. Now something seems a little strange about this tale to me. The reports say the Su-34 was 50 km from the front launching a glide bomb and the F-16 was flying over Ukrainian territory. As an AIM9X has a maximum range of 36 km something is not quite right, especially as Ukraine has not claimed the shoot down. I wonder if this was an own goal, and the Russians shot down their own plane, but it has a better look to claim it was the Ukrainians. Of course, it could have been shot down by an F-16 with an AIM120 missile which has a range of up to 180 km depending on the model.

In London the refurbishment programme of the second-generation Routemaster buses seems to have ground to a halt, but TfL are not saying anything. Most buses in London are bought and owned by the route operator like Stagecoach and Go-Ahead. This means that when buses get to about 10 years old they are cascaded down to other cities and towns. But the new design Routemaster is different, the fleet of 998 buses was purchased by TfL who have said that now that many of the fleet are 10 years old they will all be refurbished. Back in January TfL said they had refurbished 600 with a further 50 being finished by April. However, the latest number coming from TfL is 607, so something has happened. The idea now is 750 by April next year but that leaves nearly 300 still to be started. I wonder if this is another result of TfL’s well-documented money troubles.

The Defence Minister, Luke Pollard, has said that the government is still backing the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), the Tempest, with Italy and Japan. The only problem is that there are two problems on the horizon. Firstly, the budget and then the defence review. The Liebore government is known to be short of money and has a reputation for cancelling big projects like the TSR2 which was thought of as a world beater.

Wednesday

Good morning happy readers it is grey and grotty this morning but strangely warm for October. I hear that the inflation rate last month fell to 1.7%, down from 2.2% in August which you may think is good, but the economist say is too low. The target is 2%, because we need a small amount of inflation to foster growth in the economy which Robber Reeves tells us is essential.

Today’s first tale comes from the ‘you couldn’t make it up department’. Apparently all the wind farms and solar panels mean that we need to vastly expand the National Grid to move all the power from where it is generated, in the North Sea and open country to where it is needed like cities and factories. This means that thousands of cables are needed but this has exposed a couple of problems. There is a shortage of copper, so the word has gone out for people to dig out all those old cables you have in the garage, kitchen drawer and garden shed for recycling. But to recycle them and produce the cables we need to supply the power to the factories; they need to have more power.

I read that the first of the new trains for London’s Piccadilly Line was delivered from the factory in Goole to its siding in Ruislip on Monday. The new trains are not expected to go into service until next spring so you can expect to see a build-up in the new extra sidings that have been built at Cockfosters, South Harrow and Northfields. It was interesting to see that the new train had picked up some graffiti on its journey from Yorkshire to London.

At the weekend it was the world conker championships and this year’s winner was an 84-year-old man who has been entering the competition for years but never getting anywhere. But suspicions were raised by some of the people he played as they had their conkers smashed with a single strike. After the championships ended the 84-year-old was searched and a steel conker, painted brown, was found in his pocket. To try to stop cheating the 2,000 conkers used are prepared, drilled and laced by the organisers and conkers for each round are supposed to be drawn from a bag. The 84-year-old was one of those who helped prepare the conkers.

When Wilko went under a few years ago many of their customers were rather unhappy. Many of the old stores were snapped up by the likes of B&M and Poundland but the vast majority of stores shut down. The intellectual right to the name, products and website were purchased from the receiver by the owners of The Range. They have very slowly been opening up new Wilko stores and now have six mainly in the South of England. I hear that store number seven is about to open in Uxbridge London. Not very convenient for those of you in the North of England, Scottishland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but fear not, I hear there are plans for 300 new stores to be opened across the U.K.

Teversal FC, near Sutton-in-Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, is becoming famous in the lower levels of football for its ‘away end’. The visitor’s accommodation used to be sparse, just a flat bit of concrete about ten feet wide behind one goal. But a local Tesco supermarket was closing down and the club picked up the old trolley park shelters and installed them behind the goal to offer protection from the weather for visiting team’s supporters. The club have not even bothered to remove the signs on the shelters that say, ‘Tesco Trolley Park’. I hear people visit the ground especially to take photos of the away end.

Here, another broken Liebore promise. The Home Office has sent out a letter to the providers of hotel accommodation asking them to ramp up accommodation as there has been a surge in illegal immigrants crossing the Channel in small boats. First Liebore said they were going to ‘smash the gangs’ and cut the illegal immigrants coming into the country, but that has got absolutely nowhere. In fact, more illegal immigrants have come into the country in the 100-odd days Liebore have been in power than the prior six months. But Liebore had promised to reduce the numbers in migrant hotels to save money. That seems to have flopped badly as they are looking for additional accommodation. This government is much worse than the last.

Thursday

Hello friends, dry and bright this morning after heavy rain last night. I see another cabinet member has been caught up in Garmentgate. This time it is Lisa NandyPandy, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, who recently told the media that she had not been gifted any clothes or money for clothes. However, it has emerged that she has been loaned clothes that she has given back. So, I suppose technically she is right, but why couldn’t she have been upfront and admitted what she had done at the time, it coming out later has just added her to the list of hypocrites.

This Net Zero business is truly awful; I am pretty sure Red Ed has no idea of the unwanted consequences of his policies. I have already pointed out the problems with virgin steel having to be imported, but now I have been looking at the UK railways where only 38% of track mileage is electrified. Of course, much of the southeastern commuter routes are, as is Merseyside and most of the main lines, but 62% still relies on diesel and plans don’t seem to exist for this remainder to be converted. In the last few financial years next to nothing has been electrified. Why? Well, it seems to be down to cost. There is little doubt that once electrified the lines are cheaper to operate but it’s erecting overhead lines, putting in all the distribution equipment and transformers and buying new locomotives and new electric trains that costs the money. Then I wonder if we have sufficient generating capacity.

The effect of the Machinists Union strike at Boeing is beginning to be reflected in aircraft deliveries. So far this month Boeing has delivered two aircraft, a Boeing 737 and a 787, both of which were completed before the strike and have been undergoing postproduction testing. I hear Boeing hope to deliver one more 737 this month that is currently undergoing acceptance testing by the purchasing airline. The strike at Boeing’s Washington plant has stopped production of the 737 MAX, 767, 777/777X, P-8, KC-46A Tanker, and E-7 Wedgetail which are all produced there and a temporary halt at non-union plants at Washington and Oregon due to parts shortages. The strike was said to be responsible for a fall of $1 billion in the last month’s US balance of trade numbers.

Do you know why Custard Creams are so called? It’s because the inventor’s wife was allergic to eggs and instead they are made with custard powder. But what about the strange pattern on the biscuits? Well, it goes back to before they were invented. In the late 1800s the railways were expanding fast and townsfolks were able to travel out into the countryside. There they encountered ferns and a craze hit the people who fell in love with ferns and fern patterns. And that is just what the pattern on Custard Cream, which was invented in 1908, represents – unfurling ferns.

The European bison has been extinct for many years, probably the last ones were seen in the early 20th century. No bison bones have ever been found in the British Isles, so it is very doubtful they were ever present in this fair land. The nearest discovery of their bones is in Doggerland, the once land bridge to Britain from the European mainland. But did you know there is a small herd of wild bison at West Blean in Kent? Three females were introduced as part of a rewilding programme, and one had a bull calf before the male arrived! Now another three calves have been born bringing the herd to eight. This means that the current enclosure they roam in is a little small and work is in hand to nearly triple their range. I find it a little strange that we are ‘reintroducing’ an animal to the U.K. that never actually lived here.

It looks like there will be a new range of Amazon Kindles launched at the end of the month. It has been an open secret that this was going to happen sometime soon as the old models have been in short supply around the world. Details first leaked on a Spanish technology site but the webpages were quickly taken down. But not too quickly for some people to have got screen grabs. It looks like there is to be a new standard Kindle, a new Kindle Paperwhite, a new Kindle Scribe, but for a time a colour Kindle called ColourSoft. The website leak has now been backed up by technology writers who have been given models to review.

McDonald’s have had a major rehash of its menu for Halloween with some new items and the relaunch of some old favourites. One of the much-missed items coming back is the McRib, consisting of strips of moulded pork with BBQ sauce in a long roll. Unfortunately, many of the people who have tried the new version say it tastes nothing like the old McRib that was withdrawn in 2015. Many customers have been saying the only thing that is reminiscent of the old McRib is the BBQ sauce and it is only supplied in a tiny amount on the new item.

Friday

It’s foggy in London this morning for a change, but my scribe has a beautiful sunny morning down in Worthing, or so he tells me. So Liebore is sending 100 party members to America to campaign for the Camel and the Democrats. Can you imagine what Liebore would have said if the Republicans had sent 100 people over to campaign for the Rich Boy in the last general election? I wonder if they apply for a working visa or do they travel on a visa waiver, which is supposed to be for tourists. I am surprised it is legal.

Here’s a mad story. In London, Sad Dick’s Transport for London has, in the last year, seized some 1,400 cars from people who haven’t paid the ULEZ charge. So what have they done with the cars that obviously don’t meet the ULEZ standard or they wouldn’t have run up penalty charges? I thought they might have had the cars crushed, but no they have been selling them off. The 800 sold so far have raised nearly £800,000. Is the idea to sell them off cheaply to other Londoners and pick up more ULEZ charges so they can do the same thing all over again?

A story from the USA where a little girl came home from school and complained to her parents that a little boy had followed her into the transgender toilet and watched her peeing. The father raised the problem at a school board meeting and was told it was not a problem. So, he suggested that all the women on the board, should head to the toilet right now and he would watch!

I see that a woman is suing Royal Caribbean International over a hidden camera in her cabin bathroom. The cabin steward, Arvin Joseph Mirasol, who has been found guilty of placing the camera, took naked photos of men, women and children, and has been sentenced to 30 years in a federal prison. The woman’s case is based on the fact that RCI should have known what the steward was doing, and she is claiming unstated damages. It is understood that up to 960 passengers on various trips on Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas might have been filmed.

Stellantis, who make Vauxhall cars at Ellesmere Port, are thinking about closing the plant because of the Government’s Net Zero policy. The plan is that the manufacturers will have to pay a levy for every petrol and diesel vehicle they make over a fixed percentage of electric vehicles each year. The percentage of EV is going up each year from 22% this year to 80% in 2030 and 100% in 2035. The big problem is that the population don’t want to buy EVs, they find them overpriced, short on range, and hard and expensive to recharge when not at home and sales in the U.K. are falling. Stellantis say that since the government withdrew subsidies to ordinary buyers, as opposed to business buyers, the general public has not been buying so many EVs. Consequently, they need to think about what they are making and where, but talks with the government are going nowhere.

Another Liebore frontbencher Peter Kyle MP for Portslade and Hove has finally admitted that he was another one who got free tickets to the Taylor Swift concert at Wembley. He is currently the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology. I do wonder if there were any Ministers who weren’t at the concert. He was yet another one who failed to declare on time that he got two tickets worth £584. Why don’t they think they have to declare gifts? That concert would have been a great place to get rid of the whole government in a single swipe.

Well, I must admit I don’t know the truth of this story, but today I have heard both that the Government is about to announce the extension of HS2 to Crewe, what was known as Phase 2A, and that it is all rubbish, and it is not happening. The story says the money will come from private investment. The section of track between Birmingham and Crewe is one of the most congested bits of railway in the country with several big junctions, a twisty route that follows the river Sow and places where four tracks come down to two. A new line bypassing these obstacles would improve the express services and leave the old line for local trains and freight. I suspect we will not hear anything before the budget.

Saturday

Morning everyone, it is a bit damp underfoot, but it seems to have stopped raining and the forecast is for it to be sunny later. I understand that Sabrina Bahsoon, known to many as ‘Tube Girl’, was warned earlier this year by Transport for London (TfL) about filming ‘commercial’ videos on their property. For some years she has been filming TikTok videos on Tube trains and platforms. But she has recently put up videos where she has been sponsored by the likes of Tiffany and Hugo Boss and it is this that has upset TfL. They have told her that if she wishes to use their property for sponsored videos they expect a share of the proceeds. I know TfL are short of money, but this is awful.

This week’s cat story is about Defib the cat who has lived at Walthamstow Ambulance Station for the last 16 years. The cat has been looked after by the ambulance crews since he was rescued as a tiny kitten. Recently a change in local management led to the new boss saying that Defib was too old to stay and that he should be booted out. However, the local MP and the staff at the ambulance station wanted him to stay. A petition on saving Defib has been signed by 62,000 people and the new management has relented and Defib is staying. If Defib is too old at 16, think of me, I am older than him!

I read that the US Space Force is looking to develop a nuclear micro reactor to run an electrically propelled spacecraft. I never knew that electric propulsion worked in space, but apparently it does, and it is ideal for long-distance flight as it can be used to produce a little power over a long time. The idea is to match it to chemical-powered rockets to produce the sudden bursts of power needed for launch or manoeuvre and electric power from a reactor for sustained power. In Earth orbit electric power can come from solar panel arrays but to travel in space they would have to be enormous and, of course, the further you get from the sun the less power they will produce.

The use of drones in the current conflict by Ukraine, Russia, and Israel is getting more and more fascinating. I have seen videos of drones flying through windows into buildings and exploding, drones flying into the back of ammunition trucks and blowing them sky-high, even dropping bombs down the hatches of armoured vehicles. But the film of the Israeli drone finding the Hamas military leader Yahya Sinwar sitting in his armchair is the most amazing I have seen. Apparently, the drone wasn’t looking for him in particular but he was very rapidly checked by facial recognition software and a big hole put in his head from a tank round. I wonder what Sinwar thought when an Israeli drone came into his room.

I find the voting system in the US a little confusing, but then I find a lot of things in the human world confusing. In some states they have already started ‘early’ voting in the presidential election. Well, I suppose that you can vote early in the U.K. if you vote by post, but postal votes are not counted until after the polls close on election night. But it’s not like that in the US. In the State of Arizona, they have been voting for some time and thousands have already voted but the outcome of those votes is announced on a live update. At the moment Republicans are beating the Democrats by 13%.

The US has once again launched bomber attacks on Houthi targets in Yemen, striking at underground weapons storage bunkers. But this time it has been a little bit different to previous attacks where carrier-based planes have been used which although they can carry accurate weapons are limited in the weight of bombs they can carry. This time B-2 stealth bombers were used and as they are not based in the Middle East it is believed they flew and returned to their bases in the US. The reason B-2s were used is that they can carry the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOP), the heaviest bombs in the US arsenal which weighs 30,000 lbs and can penetrate deep into the ground and through thick concrete. I suspect this was also a warning to Iran who have their nuclear separation plants underground in concrete bunkers.

I hear some good news about Christmas TV, there is to be a new Wallace and Gromit movie. This year we are going to see ‘Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl’ featuring the return of that arch criminal Feathers McGraw, who was last seen in the 1993 film ‘The Wrong Trousers.’ Apparently ‘Feathers’ has been in prison up to now, which is why we haven’t seen him recently. I am looking forward to someone in the office putting it on so that I can watch it.

That’s another week done and it is lovely and sunny out there and quite nice in the sun. So I’m off for my afternoon windowsill snooze. The forecast for tomorrow is wet and cooler so I must get some sun on my old bones while I still can. Chat to you next week.
 

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