Larry’s Diary, Week Two Hundred And Seventy

Monday

Good morning, people. Wow, the sun is out this morning for a change, but it’s still bloody cold. I was not outside for very long, and I don’t intend to be outside much more than absolutely necessary. Legohead is off to Paris this afternoon for an ‘emergency’ conference on the ‘Ukraine peace talks without Ukraine’. I bet he flies on a private jet when there is a perfectly good train service. He could have a whole First Class carriage to himself on Eurostar and be there just as quickly when you take into account all the messing about getting to and from airports.

Another big announcement on the NHS and how it is being saved by Liebore. Apparently, they have already managed to make 2,000,000 more appointments than this time last year. Well, just two thoughts on that—weren’t doctors on strike this time last year and appointments almost impossible to get? And how far in advance are those appointments? Anyone can make an appointment for this time next year and see it cancelled because they are dead or the doctor is on holiday.

Today I read that Deliveroo has sacked 105 delivery drivers in a crackdown on illegal immigration. I understand the main problem is that delivery drivers register with the delivery companies and then sell their shifts to others. In this way, illegal immigrants who are not allowed to work do so and get paid. Deliveroo and others can check a driver’s criminal record, insurance, and whether they have a driving licence, but if their shift is sold, this is all circumvented. If a business directly hires someone not allowed to work, they can be fined up to £45,000 per person on the first offence and £60,000 for subsequent offences. No wonder Deliveroo has got rid of this lot—they could cost them millions in fines.

Despite the government pushing for everyone to change from gas boilers and install air-source heat pumps, I see they have quietly dropped plans to heat the House of Commons and Lords by using them. I hear that Portcullis House, where many MPs have their parliamentary offices, was built with ASHPs, and they hate them. There have been reports that the building is always cold, and the pumps give off a continuous whine which annoys everyone. The plan was to replace the gas central heating in Parliament with heat pumps, and as a test, three areas had heat pumps installed. The test results have shown these areas to be much colder, more expensive to run, noisy, and very expensive to install. Consequently, heat pumps have been dropped, and it’s back to new gas boilers. So, we have a case of “do as I say, not as I do.” I wonder what Mad Red Ed has to say on the matter, as the only person in the Cabinet with a heat pump at home.

In an article in The Telegraph today, Legohead talks about sending British troops to be peacekeepers in Ukraine. This idiot never ceases to amaze me. We are in the middle of a military spending review, which I understand is now on its fourth revision because Legohead has rejected the previous three versions. The army is currently at 76,000—its smallest size for many years—and short of equipment, as we have given so much to Ukraine, and this man wants to put what little manpower we have at risk. The man’s a fool.

One of the good things to have happened in the States is that the Food and Drug Administration has finally banned Red 3 dye from the food chain. Red 3 is the name used in the US for Erythrosine, a substance that has been banned over here for many years. The bright red substance has been used in things like red sweets and cough syrup in the States for many years because it was cheap, but tests in Europe showed it caused cancer in lab rats. A statute in the US bans any additive that is shown to cause cancer in animals. The problem with this American law is that the colourant can be used until the tests have been done and the harm proved. In the UK and EU, the dye was banned first and then proved to be harmful.

One of the intriguing things that have happened since Hayaat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) chucked out Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is the ejection of Assad’s allies from Iran. For more than ten years, Iran had deployed military advisers, mobilised foreign militias, and invested heavily in Syria’s war. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) built many bases in tunnels in the Syrian mountains to form a first line of defence between Israel and Iran. But HTS has thrown out all the Iranian forces at very short notice. Very much like the Yanks leaving Afghanistan, the Iranians seem to have climbed onto their transport, leaving arms and food behind. It may be a while before we discover whether this is good or bad news.

Tuesday

Good morning, another cold, dry morning. So, Legohead is off on his travels again next week. Now he is off to Washington to visit the Donald. Apparently, the Donald says Legohead asked for the meeting, and he has no idea what he wants to talk about. Gosh, what would I give to be a fly on that wall? I bet the Donald tells him what is what. As far as I see it, Trump has all the aces, and Legohead has absolutely nothing in his hand apart from offering an official visit. Trump is a sucker for people playing to his ego—perhaps a visit to Parliament and an official dinner with the King at the Guildhall or Windsor Castle will keep him sweet for a while.

I have had my ear to a few doors, and I hear that the government is about to sign off on a huge theme park to be built near Bedford. The project is planned by Universal, who have a giant film-based theme park in Florida. My understanding is that this new one would be similar and include rides based on Harry Potter. The current cost is said to be £14 billion, and the park will occupy around 476 acres in Kempston Hardwick, just outside Bedford, which Universal purchased a few years ago. The development is said to include a new train station and a 500-bedroom hotel. This would be Universal’s sixth theme park and the only one in Europe. It would take six years to build but be partially opened in 2030. As an old cat, I don’t expect to be around to see it completed.

Yesterday, shares in European arms manufacturers leapt on news over the weekend of an emergency meeting of European leaders about the plans to stop trying to stop the war in Ukraine, a European army, a peacekeeping force, and Trump wanting NATO countries to spend more money on defence. Obviously, investors see more contracts coming the way of the likes of BAE, Rolls-Royce, and Babcock. It’s probably too late to buy into them now, but good luck to any of my readers already invested in them.

I hear a whisper that big investors are working in the background to get a merger between Shell (world No. 5) and BP (No. 8). From what I understand, the idea is to form one mega-huge British oil giant capable of taking on and beating the other huge international oil companies like the French Total (No. 6) or American ExxonMobil (No. 4) or Chevron (No. 7). A joint company would make the new venture second only to Saudi Aramco in turnover. It makes me wonder if the government would let it happen—such an enormous company might have too much power for Legohead’s liking.

Tilly, the two-year-old cat from Weybridge, is known to like an adventure, having been known for going on bus rides, straying for days, visiting the local school, and even hiding behind the bar in the local. So, her human, Michael Hardy, who had got her as a stray kitten and, when no one claimed her, had her chipped. When she started going on adventures, he got her an Apple AirTag attached to her collar so he would always be able to find her. But she has outdone herself this time—she decided to take a train from Weybridge to Waterloo, where Michael recovered her from a ticket inspector on the ticket line.

The government is about to cut off its nose to spite its face. The word is that the enormous natural gas field found under Gainsborough in Lincolnshire is going to be left undeveloped for ideological reasons—”Thou shalt not burn gas,” as per Red Ed Millipede. This is despite the gas field being said to contain enough gas to sustain the nation’s total requirement for gas for several decades and to be worth hundreds of billions. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero demands the exploration well be filled with concrete. Mind you, when Reform comes to power in a couple of years, it will be “Drill, baby, drill.”

When the Vistry Group PLC was granted outline planning permission on appeal by the Building Inspector to develop a housing estate for 300 homes in Church Crookham, the plans included a GP surgery and an artificial grass football pitch suitable for 9-a-side football for the U11/12 team for Church Crookham Rovers Football Club. The Vistry Group have now asked for a variation of the planning permission to allow for a smaller pitch suitable for U9/10 7-a-side matches. Talk about cheapskates—I wonder how much a reduced-size pitch will cost them.

Wednesday

Hi folks, once again, it’s very grey out there—maybe not quite as cold. I hear it is going to get a bit warmer tomorrow but will be wet. The ONS tells us inflation has shot up to 3%, more than was expected and the highest since last March. This is before the Robber Reeves increases in National Insurance and Minimum Wage and the price cap on domestic fuel going up—I wonder what that lot will do to inflation.

The Liebore investigation, by David Gauke, the ex-MP who was deselected by his constituents, into why our prisons are so full and not working, has reported. What he has said is that the problem is that successive governments have sent too many people to prison for too long by increasing the length of sentences disproportionately. His solution is not to build more prisons but to put more people on house arrest under restricted movement. The man is a moron.

An interesting series of articles in The Sun on the money this government is wasting on woke projects—like £233,000 on teaching poetry to prisoners in Colombian jails, £247,000 for Exeter University to research gay animals, £199,000 for Cambridge to investigate TikTok dances, £500,000 on electric Porsches for Albanian prisons, and £133,000 on shrimp farms in Bangladesh. So far, they have revealed £23 billion in rubbish woke spending—isn’t that more than Liebore’s “Black Hole”?

If you have ever used London’s Clapham Junction Station, you may have wondered why trains don’t stop at Platform 8. The answer is very simple—if trains were to stop there, the gap between the train and the platform would be too big to be considered safe. The problem is that stepping up into a carriage or down from it onto a platform is considered reasonable, but stepping across a big gap is considered dangerous. The problem with Platform 8 is that both issues occur here at the same time. This platform is built on the outside of a curve, and rail tracks going round a curve are canted. The cant causes the side of the train next to the platform to tilt up, making a big step up and the curve a big gap between the train and the platform. Hence, Platform 8 only has fast trains passing through to Waterloo.

Just two weeks before the launch of the Duchess of Sussex’s new business, American Riviera Orchard, it has had a rebranding. It seems Meghan has seen sense over the name that sounds more like a ‘Just Three Words’ location and renamed the business ‘As Ever’. Still a woke name, but not as bad as American Riviera Orchard. But why leave it so close to the launch day? I think it’s all to do with Netflix. Apparently, they are investors in the new business, and I wouldn’t mind betting that they insisted on the name change. There isn’t much time left to relabel all the packaging and the website.

In India, they currently have 8 GW of nuclear power generation produced by the state-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL). The main conventional power producer is the National Thermal Power Company (NTPC), another state-owned company. Now, NTPC has announced plans to construct 30 GW of nuclear generators over the next two decades at an estimated cost of $62 billion. This should be seen within the framework of the Indian government’s plan for 100 GW of nuclear power by 2047 and 500 GW of non-fossil fuel power generation by 2030. NTPC and NPCIL recently signed a joint venture agreement to develop nuclear power facilities in the country. The joint venture, named ASHVINI, will build, own, and operate nuclear power plants, including the upcoming 4×700 MWe PHWR Mahi-Banswara Rajasthan Atomic Power Project. The Indian government has also announced that it intends to allow small modular reactors, so is this good news for Rolls-Royce?

More problems with the electricity supply on the Greek side of the island of Cyprus. A fault has shut down the oil-fired Dhekelia power station, meaning that the Republic of Cyprus has had to lean on its neighbours in the Turkish north. The two countries have an agreement to support each other’s grids that is not widely publicised, as officially, they don’t get on. Dhekelia is getting a bit old now, but its 60 MW is essential to the south of the island. The EU has demanded the station be closed because it doesn’t meet emission standards, but it has twice had extensions to its closure date as Cyprus has promised to bring its emissions up to standard.

Thursday

Good morning, all, and it is warmer today, but it is wet. So, Reynold is still in the poo over calling himself a solicitor. As happened with Robber Reeves, the government is blaming a staffer making a mistake with his LinkedIn page. But that doesn’t explain referring to himself in Parliament, on his personal website, on Twitter, on election documents, and in many other places as a solicitor. It seems the Solicitors Regulation Authority wrote to him last month demanding he stop calling himself a solicitor. Is he going to survive?

I see yet another Liebore cabinet minister has been caught out telling lies about their qualifications. Jonathan Reynolds, the Business Minister, has been putting it about that he was a solicitor. It was on his LinkedIn account, and he said it in Parliament, but he left his training to become a politician and never finished it. Telling a lie in Parliament is extremely serious and has previously cost ministers their jobs.

The delivery company Evri has just announced that it loses 22,000 parcels a day—that’s 8 million a year. Evri must be the worst delivery company in Britain. You would think that someone would notice a pile of 8 million parcels somewhere! But I jest—apparently, most of the ‘missing’ parcels are ‘lost in transit’, which means stolen by an employee or left on a doorstep, inviting theft by a passer-by. Of course, you get the stories of the parcel being left in a recycling bin on collection day. But my scribe had a case where his parcel arrived, but it had been split open, half the contents stolen, and then resealed with parcel tape.

The Americans claim that the F-35 is the best sixth-generation multirole combat aircraft in the world. The Russians claim it is the SU-57. I think they are both wrong—it is clearly the Israeli version of the F-35, the F-35I Adir. Back in the early 2000s, Israel wanted to buy the F-35, but they also wanted access to the computer code that controlled it so they could upgrade it with their own electronic warfare suite, which they believed to be superior to the one fitted as standard and would allow them to equip the planes with their indigenous missiles. There was a standoff, with the US refusing to give access to the codes, but in 2010 a compromise was reached, and although they haven’t got access to the source code, ports were installed on the F-35I that allowed the Israelis to upload their own code on top of the American code. This seems to work so well that in the Israeli attack on Iran late last year, they took out the entire Iranian air defence system and much of that of Syria’s using 100 aircraft in a single night. I bet the Americans would now like access to the Israeli source code.

Have the Ukrainians been taking a lesson from the Israelis? The media reports that Russian drone operators have been blinded by exploding first-person vision (FPV) goggles. Apparently, the goggles were supplied by voluntary organisations and were thought to be an improvement on the Russian military version. However, the goggles contained explosives that were set off when an internal cooling fan was switched on. Reports say a single individual donated the goggles to several organisations, resulting in approximately 80 sets of Skyzone Cobra FPV goggles going to various units of the Russian Armed Forces. The donor is reported to have flown out of Russia in early February—I wonder if he is now in Israel.

I hear that Wetherspoons have a serious problem. It seems they have a shortage of free-range eggs. This is an essential part of all their breakfasts, from their Traditional Breakfast to the Vegetarian Breakfast. Notices have gone up outside Spoons branches saying that, due to this egg shortage, they will be replacing an egg in their breakfasts with a hash brown. Spoons source their free-range eggs from Northern Ireland, and the suppliers have been hit by bird flu. Couldn’t someone have popped down to the local supermarket? They seem to have plenty of eggs.

If you drink at the Starkey Arms on Manchester Road, Heywood, I would be a bit cautious about what I ordered. During a refurbishment, a can of beer was found in the roof. But this was not just any old can of beer—it was a can of Joseph Holt bitter, something that has not been available for over three decades. The pub is a tied house, one of 127 owned by the Joseph Holt brewery, and it has been decided the full can will go on display in a glass display case in the pub.

Friday

Hello, my happy readers, from a happier Larry. Today is much warmer in London, and it’s not actually raining. So, yet more problems for Robber Reeves. This morning’s ONS figures reveal that January’s tax take was down £5 billion on the OBR’s expectations. The January numbers usually produce a bumper take as it is Self-Assessment time. But this year, it is down, as is the Capital Gains Tax take. I suppose we will just add it to our borrowings.

The Donald is not very happy with the time Boeing is taking in building the replacement for the current Air Force One. The existing 35-year-old planes—there are actually two—have been showing their age for quite a long time and should have been replaced long ago. Previous presidents wouldn’t spend the money, but the Donald placed an order for two new planes during his first presidency. The planes, based on Boeing 747-8 models, were supposed to have been delivered last year but are now not expected to be delivered until 2027/8. Boeing 747-8 passenger planes basically ceased production in 2018, but the 747-8F, the freighter version, continued in production until December 2022. So, these new planes will not really be new when they are finally delivered.

The last story got me thinking—you don’t see many of the scheduled airliners flying the 747 these days. That’s because all the new wide-body jets only have two big engines rather than the four on the 747, making them much cheaper to operate. Consequently, there are only four scheduled airlines still flying the ‘Jumbo Jet’: Lufthansa, Korean Airlines, Air China, and the Russian airline Rossiya. Korean is currently phasing them out, but it could be a few years before they receive all the replacements. Air China uses the vast majority of its 747s on internal flights, but one flies four return flights a week between Beijing and New York. Rossiya uses its 747s exclusively on internal flights from Moscow to the Far East of the country. But with the current embargo on the country, new spare parts are impossible for the airline, so they are cannibalising their fleet to keep the planes flying. So, if you want to fly on a 747 before it is too late, your best bet is Lufthansa, who still fly their 27 747s from Frankfurt to New York, Washington Dulles, Miami, San Francisco, Argentina, South Africa, China, Brazil, Mexico, and Singapore.

The NHS, having spent the £20 billion extra it got in the Robber Reeves autumn budget on wage increases, is asking for yet more money. Perhaps it should be looking at making internal savings first. They could start with the scheme to treat people with mental health problems with comedy. Knowing the NHS, they won’t hire comedians who are actually funny—it’ll be a black, disabled midget who tells woke jokes that no one laughs at. The patients would probably prefer someone like Jim Davidson, who tells loads of ‘blue’ jokes. But he is not woke, so this will never happen, and the scheme will not work.

So, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the US has now been looking at welfare payments and pensions. They report that they have been paying ‘welfare cheques’ to over three million people aged over 120 years old, many of whom were aged up to 160. But the record was held by someone aged over 300 years old, which is older than the United States of America. I wonder how many dead people our DWP is paying an old-age pension (or whatever it is called in woke Britain) to. No one seems to check if pensioners are still alive—it seems to be down to a relative to inform the DWP.

I hear that the real reason that Whinge has dropped the business name American Riviera Orchard is that it is mired in court cases in California about the use of the name, and Netflix has given her a deadline to get the business up and running. Hence the switch to ‘As Ever’, which she says was registered years ago. But she seems to have run into problems with its logo. The mayor of the small Majorcan town of Porreres has accused Whinge of plagiarism. The ‘As Ever’ logo is a palm tree with a stylised bird either side, which is remarkably similar to the town’s logo—this could be fun.

Sad Dick showed that he is no mathematician on the Jobbie programme on LBC. He told Jobbie that the government plan to increase flights from Heathrow from 480,000 a year to 720,000 a year. If either he or Jobbie had thought about it for one moment, they would have realised this was an impossible number—divide by 24, and you get 30,000 planes an hour. That is 500 a minute or 8.3 a second. Of course, where Sad Dick went wrong was confusing the number of flights per year with per day. There are currently 1,300 flights a day at Heathrow—that is 474,500 a year, not a day. As Eric Morecambe used to say, ‘The man’s a fool.’

Saturday

Good morning, everyone. It’s dry, warm, and sunny. Am I going to get to the windowsill today? More moaning from Legohead about Emmanuel Macron getting to talk with the Donald in Washington days before he does. He is really slipping down the world pecking order.

I really don’t know how Hamas thought they could get away with handing over the body of some unknown Gazan woman while pretending it is Shiri Bibas. Surely they weren’t that stupid as to think that the Israelis would just accept the bodies and not DNA test them. Hamas has claimed it was an unfortunate accident and that they had mixed up the bodies. The woman’s husband has already been released alive, but this was supposed to be the exchange of the bodies of the wife and their two young children. As the children were both ginger-haired, I suppose there was less chance of these being the wrong bodies—how many ginger Gazans are there? Incidentally, Hamas says the children died in an airstrike, while the Israelis report the forensics show they were strangled.

The operators of St Pancras station and HS1 have rebranded themselves as ‘London St Pancras Highspeed’. At the same time, they have announced plans to renovate the international portion of St Pancras to increase its capacity from 1,800 international passengers an hour to 5,000 passengers an hour. This would include increasing the immigration and customs facilities. At the moment, international trains run to Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam, but the plan is to add trains to further afield, to the likes of Zurich, Munich, Vienna, Frankfurt, and Milan, as the HS1 line is only at about 50% capacity. I’m sure that Richard Branson is watching with interest now that he is planning to run Virgin Train services from London to Paris.

As of the end of March, if you fly British Airways from London Gatwick to Glasgow, you will find yourself on a plane operated by Irish carrier Emerald Airlines. It had looked like BA were going to close the route due to a shortage of planes, but instead, they have outsourced the route to the small Irish carrier. The different airline means several changes, not least being the cost. A seat to Glasgow from Gatwick on the first day of the new service will cost £100, while the BA flight from Heathrow to Glasgow on the same day will cost £54, and EasyJet’s fare is £34 on the same day on the Gatwick to Glasgow route. While both BA and EasyJet use Airbus A320 family jet aircraft, Emerald will be using the ATR 72, a much smaller turboprop, which flies lower and slower. I wonder who would want to fly on a turboprop that takes two hours instead of 90 minutes on a jet and costs more for the privilege. I suppose that at a lower height, you might have a better view of the countryside you are flying over, but it is bound to be bumpier.

Back in the 1950s and 60s, most eggs sold in shops were white, with just the occasional brown one in a dozen. My scribe tells me that, as a child, people believed that brown eggs were better, and he and his brother took it in turns to have any brown ones their mum brought home from Sainsbury’s or Williams Brothers, the two local high street grocers. Slowly, the supermarkets caught on that people liked brown eggs, and soon it was hard to buy white eggs, with white eggs mainly going to the catering trade. The silly thing is that, in the US, it is white eggs that are favoured. During lockdown, there was a big jump in demand for eggs as people at home consumed a lot more, and supermarkets had to buy additional supplies, and all they could get were white ones. It seems Tesco has been doing surveys, and people now don’t mind having white eggs, so for the first time in 40 years, white eggs are now being mixed with brown in Tesco.

I read that Amazon Prime has acquired the rights to broadcast live French Ligue 1 (their top league) football in the UK, with the coverage to start immediately. But they are going to charge on a pay-per-game basis. It’s only going to cost £2.49 a match, and that will be for everyone, whether an Amazon subscriber or not. Mind you, I’m not sure how many people in Britain are interested in French club football. It was on TNT last season, but they dropped it because of low viewing figures.

I have tried it and don’t like it, but I hear that rhubarb is the product and flavour of the moment. Sales of forced rhubarb, which is usually on sale from January to March, are reported to be up 200% on this time last year. In Tesco, they have over 40 rhubarb products, ranging from fresh rhubarb to rhubarb-scented tea lights via rhubarb and custard sweets. I don’t think I’ll be bothering.

That’s me done again for the week. When is Legohead going to catch a break? Never, I hope. I’m still not going to get onto the windowsill this afternoon as it’s started raining. Once again, it’s going to be the Thatcher room—I can nap without being bothered. Chat to you all next week!
 

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