Larry’s Diary, Week Two Hundred And Sixty-Seven

Monday

Good morning, my Puffin friends. It was lovely and sunny when I woke up this morning, quite different to the rain and wind that were forecast. So, I hurried off downstairs and out into the back garden, only to find it was raining while the sun was shining. I looked for a rainbow—Robber Reeves could do with the pot of gold—but there wasn’t one.

Big excitement in the office as Legohead got a call from the Donald. The President finally decided he had time to talk, but only after speaking to umpteen world leaders he understandably thinks are more important, including the President of Colombia. He told him that if he refused to accept plane loads of deportees from the USA, he would slap 25% tariffs on Colombia, rising to 50% if there was no movement in a week. In addition, he would impose a ban on any Colombians coming to the US and banking sanctions. Colombia backed down within half an hour and said that they would send their presidential aircraft to help. But Legohead’s people spun his conversation as the ‘first call to a European head of government’ and that it lasted for 45 minutes. What they didn’t say was that for 40 of those 45 minutes, Legohead was on hold while the Donald sorted out Colombia and played several holes of golf.

I also hear that the American Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has a call booked to speak to the Tottenham Turnip this morning. Apparently, this will be Rubio’s 36th call to a country’s Foreign Secretary since coming to power. He has already spoken to the minister in charge of foreign affairs in places such as Israel, Australia, Poland, and Costa Rica. That firmly shows just how highly the Turnip and Britain are regarded in the States. I wonder how the government is going to spin this put-down.

The ceasefire in Gaza came under a lot of strain at the weekend when Hamas broke the conditions of the agreement by not releasing a female civilian as agreed. Apparently, the agreement called for all female civilians to be released first, and a list of names had been agreed. However, on Saturday, it was four female teenage army conscripts who were released. Hamas even dressed them up in new green boiler suits to make them appear to be in Israeli army uniforms, when we had seen them snatched in pyjamas and civvies. This was a case of Hamas playing politics and trying to indicate that they were in charge of the releases. But the Israelis hit back by stopping thousands of refugees from returning to parts of Gaza. The civilian, Arbel Yehud, is now going to be released on Thursday.

The seventh and final Astute-class nuclear-powered submarine, currently being constructed at Barrow-in-Furness, was the subject of a surprise announcement by the Ministry of Defence late yesterday. The announcement said that the name of the boat was being changed, on the suggestion of the King, from HMS Agincourt to HMS Achilles. I’m not sure why the press release was slipped out late on a Sunday night—could it be in the hope of it not being noticed by the media? Personally, I don’t object to the new name; Achilles has been a name used by the Royal Navy seven times in the past and was first used on an ironclad in 1863/4. I really don’t know why the boat’s name was changed, but I understand that it was originally expected to be called Ajax, but that was changed to Agincourt before construction started. Could the latest renaming have something to do with not upsetting the Frogs, whom we thrashed at the Battle of Agincourt?

It has been pointed out to me that at London’s Waterloo Tube station, there is a sign that is nearly 30 years out of date. The sign in question is above a modern one directing passengers to the Jubilee, Bakerloo, Waterloo & City, and Northern line services, and it points travellers towards the British Rail International Terminal. Well, it is very wrong on two counts: British Rail has not existed since 1997, when it became the Rail Delivery Group using the trading name of Network Rail. Also, international services moved from Waterloo to St Pancras in 2007. Hasn’t London Underground got anyone bright enough to replace such an outdated sign with one pointing to the Main Line Station?

In Bristol, the council is considering reducing the main black bin refuse collections from fortnightly to monthly, saying they need to do it to save money. They say that about 45% of what is placed in the black bins could have been put into the recycling bin and that 25% was food waste. They supply food caddies, but many are not used. I wonder—if they do decide to change to four-weekly collections—what will happen to recycling collections. Will they only be collected every four weeks? I can’t see how food left uncollected for four weeks could ever be fit for recycling. Likewise, can you imagine what dirty nappies would be like after a month?

Tuesday

Good morning, and it’s back to wind and rain this morning. So, Mad Red Ed Millipede now thinks that he can get China to join his Green Crusade by talking to them. That is so stupid it just emphasises how pathetic he is. If he thinks talking to China is going to change their position one iota, he is just plain daft. China only does things that either advantage China or disadvantage the rest of the world.

Have you seen the clip from last year, doing the rounds on the internet, of Legohead making a speech on council tax? In the speech, he says, “Liebore will freeze council tax next year. That means not a single penny more.” Well, how does he explain how the government has given exemptions to a number of councils to let them increase council tax by double figures? In fact, Oxford Council is one of seven being allowed to put their tax up by 25%.

The word is that the third runway at Heathrow will be announced on Thursday, and I heard someone in the office joking that Red Ed Millipede and Sad Dick had agreed that a new runway could be built if it was agreed that planes were limited to a 20 mph speed limit and subject to the London congestion and emissions charges. But seriously, I suspect that we are going to see some severe restrictions on the use of the new runway—things like banning night flights and using sustainable aviation fuel.

You have got to feel sorry for Manchester United players, who had to endure a three-hour coach journey back to Manchester on Sunday evening. They had just won their game at Fulham but found that their flight back to Manchester was cancelled due to Storm Herminia. Instead, they whistled up not one but two super-luxury coaches. Unlike ordinary people, the highly paid first-team squad and trainers can’t possibly be accommodated on one coach—they have to be spread across two. The coaches eventually dropped them off at Manchester Airport at 01:30, where they had left their cars before the flight down. But what really drew my attention to this story was the pictures of all the flash cars the players were seen driving out of the airport. Nothing ordinary for these pampered souls—it’s all Range Rovers, Porsches, Rolls-Royces, and Bentleys. But the manager took the woke prize, as he had an electric Porsche Taycan Turbo Estate.

Here’s a remarkably stupid story. Because of Storm Herminia, people in many parts of the country were warned that if their rubbish bins go out on a Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday, they should be extra careful in case they get blown into the road. Householders could be fined for causing an accident or littering. It seems rather unfair that if you miss bin day, it might be a fortnight until the next one, and then they might refuse to take more than a single bin full. But if you do, and it gets blown over, you could be in trouble.

If you are a fan of Coca-Cola and its various brands, then it could be bad news. The Belgian company that produces and bottles most of the drinks for Europe has discovered that a vast amount of their production has been contaminated by chlorate, which is a by-product of chlorine-based disinfectants. The affected products are Coca-Cola, Sprite, Fanta, Fuze Tea, Minute Maid, Nalu, Royal Bliss, and Tropico, some of which aren’t sold in the UK. The good news is that it is only drinks in cans and glass bottles we have to worry about—plastic bottles and draught are apparently OK. The UK’s Food Standards Agency says that they are ‘investigating’, so that’s all right then. I only drink Pepsi, so I’m OK.

Big cannabis growers have got wise to being caught by having giant electricity bills, and these days they just bypass the meter. But I read that last week, a house in Cove Road, Farnborough, was raided by police, and 170 mature cannabis plants were seized. The giveaway here was a water leak that affected the house next door. Apparently, the gang had moved on from using illegal immigrants to water the plants, and the automated watering system had gone wrong. Can I suggest that we should be investigating any house that is supposed to be empty but has the windows blacked out, uses loads of electricity and water, and where the frost and snow melt off the roof very quickly?

Wednesday

Hi folks, grey and grotty early, but the sun has come out now, and it is looking better. But my, is it still cold. Legohead says he is going to invoke the spirit of Saint Margaret and “cut through thickets of red tape”. I can’t believe that for one moment. He has already set up nearly forty investigations to kick things into the long grass and taken down the painting of the Iron Lady. He is telling us what he thinks we want to hear. This is just words—where is the action?

I have just been reading about a 78-year-old female Just Stop Oil protester who has had her prison sentence increased. She was initially sentenced to 20 months in prison following a protest in 2022. She was released from custody in November last year but was ordered to wear a tracker anklet. Unfortunately, due to a medical condition that Gaie Delap suffers from, she was unable to wear an ankle bracelet, and none of the wrist bracelets were small enough to fit her wrist. Consequently, she was recalled to prison; however, she didn’t return. Nearly a month later, she was arrested, and the court sentenced her to 20 extra days in prison (the time she spent ignoring the recall). Of course, JSO think this is terribly wrong and have called for her to be released immediately, which isn’t going to happen. She is now due to be released on 7th April.

If you are going on holiday to India, be careful what electronics you take with you, as some fairly common consumer electronics need a licence. Two things in particular could get you in trouble—GPS receivers and satellite phones. I don’t know how common satellite phones are defined in India, but new iPhones and Android phones have text access via satellite for emergency services, and nearly every car has a satellite navigation system these days, as do mobile phones. I wonder if, in India, you automatically get a licence when you buy a car or a mobile phone.

Northern Trains have asked train makers to make proposals to them for 450 trains to be delivered over ten years. They have asked for a mix of electric and diesel-electric trains, but the diesel-electric trains should also be capable of being converted to battery-electric at some future stage, and all the trains should be of the same style. The new trains will replace about 60% of the complete fleet of Northern’s trains, many of which are 30 to 40 years old. The idea of having some capable of being converted into battery-electric is to meet the government’s requirements for green trains. Northern has sent an ‘Invitation to Negotiate’ to Alstom, CAF, Hitachi, Siemens, and Stadler. The current plan is to have bids back by 2026 and the first trains delivered by 2030. I wonder if it will all work out as planned.

Good news for users of C2C train services—Network Rail has finally finished the track work they were supposed to have done in November and December. The work included replacing 3,800 metres of worn-out rail between Leigh-on-Sea and Southend Central stations. The new track is expected to last 50 years.

I hear rumours that Ferguson Marine, the company that made such a mess of building the two ferries for CalMac, is negotiating for a badly needed contract. Although the state-owned shipbuilder is not saying anything officially, the word is that they will be contracted to build blocks for the Type 26 frigates being manufactured by BAE Systems. I wonder if they are buying the work with low-priced bids.

Thursday

Good morning, happy readers, and for once, the sun is out, and it’s not raining. Has Legohead finally realised that if you keep claiming you are going to grow the economy, you need to have some policies that increase growth? He thinks that an extra runway at Heathrow is going to do it. I fail to see how a new runway in 10 or 15 years is going to produce any growth before then.

So, the Russian ex-Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich was working a tax fiddle with his hedge funds and yacht fleet to avoid VAT. The billionaire seems to have had multiple companies, all ultimately owned by him, that hired the yachts from one another, with the consequence that he avoided paying the VAT. According to the BBC’s investigation, he could owe the country £1 billion in VAT. The speculation is that much of the money was pumped into Chelsea FC to buy players and subsequently make Chelsea successful. I doubt anything can be done about Chelsea’s past successes now, but it does rather tarnish their ‘history’.

The government has come up with another brainwave. They are talking about amending the Road Traffic Offenders Act to bring in new offences for cyclists. The new offences will include “cycling on a road dangerously” and “cycling on a road without due care and attention”, as well as mandatory light use at night and offences relating to cycling behaviour in London’s Royal Parks. Of course, these offences will be dealt with strictly by fixed penalty notices and/or education courses. That’s not going to work—throw them in prison and crush the bikes.

London Transport has finally restored the Piccadilly Line service between Rayners Lane and Uxbridge. The service was suspended last year because of a shortage of Piccadilly Line trains due to excessive wheel wear. Fortunately, this section of the Piccadilly Line is served by the Metropolitan Line. The service was expected to be restored earlier this month, but the repairs to trains took longer than scheduled. The 50-year-old trains have suffered very badly from leaves on the line. Apparently, two storms in the autumn produced huge dumps of leaves that the trains couldn’t cope with. The new trains, which are on order for delivery starting later this year, have a different design of wheel and bogie that should cope better with leaves on the line.

Another 500 fines for alleged fare evasion have been quashed in a three-minute hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court. Once again, it was Northern Rail, TransPennine Express (TPE), and Great Western Railway (GWR) who had brought dozens of prosecutions against passengers using the controversial single justice procedure, which they were not entitled to do. The Chief Magistrate, Paul Goldspring, declared that the cases should be deemed “void” and any fines paid should be “reconciled”. More than 350 Northern cases, 180 TPE cases, and 36 GWR cases were declared a nullity at the hearing, meaning it is as if the proceedings never existed.

The Minister of State for Social Security and Disability of the United Kingdom, Sir Steven Timms, has had his knuckles wrapped by the Liebore government. Timms and three backbenchers—Afzal Khan, Naz Shah, and Abtisam Mohamed—attended a dinner at a Muslim Council of Britain event, despite a government ban on engagement with the group. A government spokesperson said, “He has been spoken to.” I’m sure that has made everything better and he will not do it again.

So, the Liebore Party has managed a big split over the development of a third runway at Heathrow Airport. On the “in favour” side, we have Legohead and Robber Reeves, and on the “against” side, we have Sad Dick and Red Ed Millipede. Can someone get me some popcorn (preferably toffee) while I sit back and watch the battle? Red Ed was nowhere to be seen today when Robber Reeves announced that the government would be backing the new runway. However, Sad Dick crept out from under his stone and said, “If this goes ahead, I will be going to court.” Why doesn’t Legohead push back at Sad Dick? He is the party leader—is he scared of the Muslim vote?

Friday

Hello from a very windy and very wet London, where I ran down the garden as fast as my little legs would carry me. Today is the fifth anniversary of Brexit, and I remember it like it was yesterday. What a pity we still haven’t done it properly, and loads of Liebore MPs would love for us to rejoin. I just hope it doesn’t happen.

A nasty aircraft accident occurred yesterday in Washington, DC, when an American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas, was in collision with a US Army Black Hawk helicopter. The AA plane was a Bombardier CRJ700, a small regional jet with 60 passengers and four crew, while the helicopter was a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk with three on board. Both aircraft crashed into the freezing Potomac River, with reports saying the airliner came down in bits, but the helicopter was in one piece. At the time of dictating this, only 30 bodies had been recovered, with very little hope of finding any survivors. I’ll be interested to know who was at fault. Apparently, the plane was on its final approach to Ronald Reagan National Airport, and the helicopter was on a training flight.

Astronomers recently thought they had identified a new small asteroid approaching Earth and likely to crash into it. But it was nothing of the sort, because, on closer inspection, it was realised that it was actually the Tesla convertible that Elon Musk launched into space as a publicity stunt. The Minor Planet Center, which officially registers and names asteroids, had already given this ‘asteroid’ the designation 2018 CN41 when it was first spotted but had to withdraw the designation when it was realised what it was. The Tesla is in orbit around the Sun and was a dummy payload on the first flight of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket. Apparently, the alternative was to launch a concrete block as the dummy payload, but Musk thought a Tesla was more fun.

Still on the subject of space, I see that the Government has decided to put £20 million into our own space rocket, Prime, built by launch company Orbex. Prime is set to take off later this year from the Scottish spaceport SaxaVord and should be the first UK-manufactured and UK-launched orbital rocket. Of course, it is only a small rocket with a small payload, launched by a small company that employs just 140 people. I understand that the position of this spaceport, in the far north of Scotland, puts it in an ideal place to launch satellites into a polar orbit.

Ryanair, the airline famous for doing things as cheaply as possible, has announced that from May this year, they will only be issuing digital boarding passes. At the moment, passengers have the choice of paper or digital passes. The big problem with digital passes is that you need a smartphone to be able to use one. Of course, lots of people have smartphones, but a significant proportion don’t. The mobile operators say about 90% of mobile users in the UK have a smartphone, but in the over-65 age bracket, this drops to 65%. On top of that, there are around another 10% of people who don’t have a mobile phone at all, and once again, the majority are old, poor, or poorly educated. I guess Ryanair has looked at these statistics and decided that this demographic is not likely to be their customers.

Back when Bozzie was London Mayor, he ordered 998 New Routemasters for Transport for London. These buses were hybrids; new buses today are mostly fully electric. Now at least 13 years old, TfL has set about refurbishing the New Routemaster fleet, much of which is only a superficial spruce-up. Even so, it has just been announced that 665 of them had been refurbished by the end of 2024. However, the target was 650 by the end of 2023. Why is it that this country is never capable of hitting a target?

Over in the US, the kids have got a good reason not to eat broccoli. It seems that the Food and Drug Administration has detected listeria contamination in 12 oz bags of broccoli florets being sold in Walmart supermarkets. Consequently, the FDA has banned its sale in 20 of the US states. Listeria is a nasty bacterium and causes intestinal problems that can lead to death, especially in young children, old people, and the frail. The infected packs have all been removed from sale, but the FDA warning is still in force ‘because some people may have bought the broccoli and frozen it.’

Saturday

Good morning, everyone. It’s grey and chilly again this morning, but at least, for a change, it’s not raining. I had a pleasant evening last night as the folks in the office took advantage of Legohead not being here and sent out for KFC. It’s a while since they last had a Fried Chicken Friday, but I hung about and got quite a lot of bits given to me. I had a lovely time eating and being made a fuss of.

In the States, a man who won a free week-long Caribbean cruise for two on an NCL trip has had a bit of a problem. The man took out insurance for himself and his girlfriend from NCL. Unfortunately, on the third day, he went down with a severe dose of flu and spent the last four days in bed. He had visits from the ship’s doctor and nurses and was prescribed several medications. On getting his final account, he found he had been charged $47,638 for medical expenses, and it had been charged to his and his girlfriend’s registered credit cards, maxing them out. He asked why the insurance hadn’t covered it, and the answer was that it was only for $10,000. It’s a bit different here in the UK, where if you travel on, say, P&O Cruises, they will not carry you without adequate insurance and insist on a certain minimum cover, depending on exactly where your trip is going. It is particularly high, with a £4 million minimum for the US and Caribbean. My scribe tells me that for his recent cruise, his insurance medical and repatriation cover was “unlimited.”

One thing that slipped under the radar when Robber Reeves made her big speech earlier this week was a new railway station at Tempsford in Bedfordshire. A new town is scheduled to be built at Tempsford, so a new station is sensible. She said it is to be built on the East Coast Main Line. The village of Tempsford lies between the A1 and the East Coast Main Line, to the north of Sandy and east of Bedford. But it was what she implied that was interesting, saying passengers would be able to get to London King’s Cross in under an hour and Cambridge in 30 minutes. But there is no existing railway line to Cambridge. There is the proposed East West line that would link Oxford and Cambridge, much of which has been under construction for years, and it will pass close by on the leg from Bedford to Cambridge. Does this announcement mean that Tempsford will be an interchange station between the two lines? We shall just have to wait and see.

I read that 60,000 motorists could have their speeding convictions quashed for speeding on a main road in south London. Transport for London reduced the speed limit on the road from 50 to 40 mph and put up temporary signs. However, after so many people were fined in the first year, campaigners started investigating, and it was realised that the temporary signage TfL had erected was too small. TfL has now put up permanent signs of the correct size, but that means 60,000 fines appear to have been wrongly issued.

This week, there have been seven different national opinion polls published. While most have had Liebore still in the lead, the interesting thing has been that in every single one, Reform has been ahead of the Tories, and in two, they have been in the lead or joint lead. In others, Liebore has only been leading by 1 or 2%. What I draw from this is that the Liebore vote has fallen somewhat since the general election. The Tory vote has also gone down, maybe by a bit more than Liebore, and both those sets of voters have moved to Reform. The political momentum seems to have swung to Reform. I wonder if I will still be Chief Mouser when Nigel becomes PM.

I hear that Barcelona have a problem with where they can play their last two home games this season. They normally play their home matches at the huge Nou Camp stadium, but it is being rebuilt to house 105,000 spectators. So, Barcelona have been playing their home matches at the 58,000-capacity Olympic Stadium, and that is where the problem lies. The Nou Camp rebuild is supposed to be ready in February, but it is running late and won’t be available to them this season. Barcelona hadn’t reckoned on this and hadn’t hired the Olympic Stadium for their last two home games of the season, against Real Madrid and Villarreal. In fact, it is due to host several music concerts, including the opening of the Stones’ new tour. Barca have been offered the use of the Spanish third-division stadium Nou Estadi Costa Daurada, but it only has a capacity of 14,591, which is a quarter of Barca’s season ticket holders. I understand Barca are even investigating playing those last two matches at Wembley! However, all bets are off if the Stones’ concerts can be postponed.

In Switzerland, the canton of Basel-Stadt has just made a rather awkward mistake. They have sent out a notice to over 100,000 taxpayers, giving them the wrong URL to pay their tax. Instead of the ultimate top-level domain address of .ch, the flyer showed .bs (presumably thinking it was for Basel-Stadt), but this is actually the domain for the Bahamas. It was realised that to reprint the leaflet and send it out again would cost over $100,000, so they decided the cheaper option was to buy the .bs domain name from the Bahamas for $1,000 and automatically redirect any payments to the correct .ch address.

That’s me done again for the week. It’s not been a very good week for Legohead and his crew, especially as I have just seen an opinion poll on national voting intentions that put Reform on 26%, the Tories on 24%, and Liebore on 23%. This has really upset the atmosphere in the office, and you could have cut it with a knife amongst ministers in here this morning. It’s a bit warmer and sunnier this afternoon, but I’m still not going to the windowsill. I’m going to curl up on a chair in the entrance hall again this week. Chat to you all next week!
 

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