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

Monday

Good morning, my friends. There was a bit of watery sun about when I strolled to the bottom of the garden for my poo behind the gardener’s shed. Something had been digging down there. It could have been another cat or maybe a fox, but I suspect it was probably the gardener. Back to the house, and as if by magic, there was Felix in one bowl, fresh water in the other bowl, and the radio was tuned to Mike Graham on Talk. I generally approve of him; he hates Liebore, the Tories, the Limp Dumps, the SNP— in fact, the only people he has good words for are Reform, and that is with reservations.

Well, I heard Heidi Alexander, Secretary of State for Transport, on the radio this morning, and really, I don’t know why I bothered. In a five-minute interview, she just waffled on. I think she was only asked four questions in total because she rabbited on for the rest of the time. She said absolutely nothing of interest and nothing new, in some of the longest answers on record. What an absolute waste of time.

The National Grid has rather dropped Heathrow Airport in it this morning by telling the BBC that the airport had no need to shut down when that substation caught fire late on Friday evening. Apparently, there were two other substations both working normally and supplying the airport with grid power, but it was a decision of the airport to shut down for nearly a day. The airlines say they lost over £100 million; that is just the cost to the airlines— what about the other financial implications on things like missed holidays, missed business, and the 5,000 tonnes of goods that pass through the airport daily?

It is now a bit clearer why Mad Red Ed Miliband went off to China last week. He went to talk about buying thousands of solar panels that he wants to install on the roofs of schools and hospitals. Just what is the point of installing solar panels when we know that they are useless most of the time? I don’t know how much they will cost, but I suspect the money might be better spent on books, teachers, and repairs— especially to the thousands of schools with RAAC concrete.

Portugal has decided that it is not going to proceed with an order for the F-35 fighter jet. The official reason is that they are worried about its availability. It is reported that at any time only 30% of the fleet are available to fly. On top of this, there are worries about US sanctions and whether the Americans have inserted a kill switch into the plane’s software. The planes were wanted to replace Portugal’s fleet of aging F-16s. So where will Portugal turn now? I suspect it will turn either to the Gripen, Rafale, or Eurofighter. I hear Dassault have been very quick off the mark offering the Rafale. Mind you, I also hear that production is very slow, with only one a month coming off the production line at the moment. The slightly better news is that it is expected to double soon and reach three a month next year, but three a month is going to take a long time to fulfil its current order book.

I hear that Britain’s longest-running band is to finally break up after appearing at Glastonbury in June. The band The Searchers was formed in 1957, three years before the Beatles. Now, 68 years later, they have decided to call it a day. Back in the 1960s, they had a series of hit records, including their No. 1 “Sweets for My Sweet” and their No. 2 single “Sugar and Spice.” Guitarist John McNally, aged 83, was one of the founding members of the band and has been taking part in 150 performances a year. He deserves his retirement.

In America, the residents of the small port of Belfast, Maine, population 7,000, have voted to ban cruise ships with over 1,000 passengers. But this is rather pointless, as only one company calls at this port: American Cruise Lines. But American operates a fleet of small ships that are sized between 80 and 160 passengers, so they are not affected by the new rules. It looks like the small town is virtue signalling.

Tuesday

Good morning, everyone. It’s another lovely sunny morning today. I suppose that’s March, and it’s the beginning of spring—the month that is supposed to come in like a lion and leave like a lamb. So far this year, nearly 6,000 illegal immigrants have crossed the Channel in small boats. This is up on last year, despite the weather being unfavourable in January and February. It looks like we are going for a record in the first year of Liebore government.

I forgot to mention it yesterday, but Robber Reeves is in trouble again over freebies. This time, she took free tickets to a concert by someone called Sabrina Carpenter, who I understand is very popular with teenage girls. I heard someone saying, “What is wrong with the Robber taking a freebie from an American singer? She is unlikely to want anything in return for the tickets.” But I hear that the tickets were actually in a box owned by a financial institution. Now that is someone who could benefit from something the Chancellor might do.

India is currently pondering joining the U.K., Italy, and Japan in their 6th generation GCAP fighter. With the USA and China both already progressing with 6th generation projects, there is also a French, German, Spanish project, but it has dropped behind the others due to the countries squabbling about who should be the head of the project. India doesn’t have the best of relations with China, so a deal with them is unthinkable. The Americans are determined to go it alone, so they are out. This leaves two remaining projects, and the U.K., Italy, Japan project is said to look the best bet to India, as they are open to adding partners to the project, and it is reported that Saudi Arabia is likely to join the consortium. India is also eyeing the engine being developed for the GCAP for its own 5.5 generation project, AMAC. They have had an agreement with the States to supply engines for a previous project but have had huge problems getting the engines. All this means that GCAP is looking like India’s likely choice.

I see that bird flu has been detected in a sheep in Yorkshire. Apparently, bird flu had already been found on the farm, so checks were carried out on other animals on the farm. The result was bird flu being diagnosed in a single sheep, and it was destroyed. I wonder how a sheep with bird flu reacts—does it try to fly? But seriously, I wonder if cats can get bird flu. Perhaps I should stop chasing those pesky pigeons.

Imagine the scene: a senior nurse is working in A&E, and prison officers from the local men’s prison bring in a person shackled and handcuffed, who is apparently suffering from a urinary tract infection. After a quick check, the nurse spoke to a consultant on the phone and referred to the person as “Mister” because of where the infection was. Well, the person being talked about overheard and went mad because they wanted to be considered as a woman and were abusive to the nurse, calling her a ‘nigger’, at least three times. The prisoner was a convicted paedophile who had been found guilty of procuring young boys for sex. The nurse stayed calm and continued to treat him, explaining quite gently that she was a Christian, and calling them “she” was an affront to her religion. On the bus on the way home from work, she got a message from the hospital saying she is being investigated for her behaviour. The result is she has been found guilty, given an official warning, moved to a different post, and denied any overtime. How utterly ludicrous. No wonder she is taking them to court.

Australia, the first operator of the Boeing E7 Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning Aircraft, is apparently delighted with its performance. The plane is based on an old Boeing 737 Next Generation and is slowly becoming the NATO and Western nations’ standard AEW aircraft. The Aussies initially ordered four, with three options, and have taken up two more; South Korea has four and is looking at three more; Turkey has four; we have three on order and options for three more; the USA has two on order and is looking at a fleet of 26; and NATO is negotiating for seven. Canada and Saudi Arabia are also looking at the plane. One thing stands out to me about those numbers: why have we got the fewest on order?

The stories keep coming about the ludicrous reasons for illegal immigrants not being thrown out of the country, getting more ridiculous day after day. We have had the paedophile who had to stay because he had children but was not allowed to live with them; the man whose son didn’t like foreign chicken nuggets, and numerous others. This week we have already had the man who couldn’t be sent home because he has lost his mobile phone and can’t check in with his family, and the Iraqi who fled his home because he was caught helping people cheat in an exam and would be arrested if sent back to Iraq. Finally, I hear of the Albanian who can’t be sent home because his son has autism, and the journey would overstress him. It gets worse every day, and it’s only Tuesday.

Wednesday

Hi folks, it’s another nice morning here in Westminster. Well, it is weather-wise, but Legohead is a bit grumpy, and I shall be keeping out of his way. It seems it is time for Robber Reeves to make her Spring Statement after PMQs. I will have finished my diary for the day by the time she gets up on her hind legs to speak, so I expect to talk about it tomorrow. But I did find it rather amusing that the OBR says the Treasury can’t add up, and she will need to find an extra £1 billion.

Alliance Rail have announced a plan to reopen the passenger service on the Waterside Line between Southampton and Marchwood. The plan is to run a train an hour from Marchwood to Waterloo via Southampton starting in September next year. They would also run an additional hourly service from Marchwood to Southampton, making it a train every 30 minutes on the line. There have been several plans to reopen this line to passenger services, even including running test passenger trains all the way to Fawley, but so far nothing has come of them. Alliance says that if they get permission to run trains to Marchwood, they will look at extending them to Fawley. I wonder what Great British Railways makes of all this.

The Government has confirmed the Great British Energy plans (read Red Ed Millipede here) to install £180 million worth of solar panels on schools and hospitals relies on the panels coming from China. There is a bit of a problem here as the Chinese use slave labour to make many of their solar panels. So Liebore, who go on endlessly about slavery and reparations, are now in favour of buying cheap solar panels made by slaves. Sheer hypocrisy.

An interesting bit of news from America. The Department of State has approved the possible sale of 2,000 Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II) guidance kits to Saudi Arabia, which is valued at about $100 million. Why this is of interest to the United Kingdom is quite simple: the manufacturer is the American arm of British Aerospace. APKWS II is a cheap add-on to the standard 70mm unguided rockets that turns them into a precision-guided weapon. The main use of APKWS II will be on helicopters and offer a much cheaper alternative to the AIM-114 Hellfire anti-tank missile.

Still in the US of A, I hear that a 13-year-old boy built a fusion reactor in his bedroom! Jackson Oswalt wasn’t in the slightest bit secretive about what he was doing, publishing every step on his Facebook account. The boy bought most of the parts on eBay and even managed to get some Deuterium for fuel legally. He achieved fusion a few days before his 13th birthday and is in the Guinness Book of Records as the youngest person to achieve fusion. Unfortunately, he also got a visit from the FBI.

The government has decided to investigate a scheme sending failed asylum seekers to a country in the Western Balkans. I find this astonishing. Liebore fought tooth and nail when the Tories wanted to send asylum seekers to Rwanda and scrapped the scheme as soon as they came to power, before the scheme was implemented. Now they seem to have come up with what appears to be a very similar scheme. I am a very confused cat.

Chiltern Railways has been announced as the operator of the first phase of East West Rail when the service starts later this year. The initial service will serve six stations between Oxford and Milton Keynes. It is 60 years since a passenger service operated on this line, and it will be operated by hybrid battery-electric trains. The line is due to be extended to Bedford in 2030 and Cambridge in 2035. Once again, I am confused. I thought that Great British Railways were going to take over all the current train operating companies as their contracts came up for renewal. Surely this would have been a good place to start.

Thursday

Hi everyone, yet another nice morning weather-wise but not so good politically for Legohead. The media has universally slammed the Robber for her useless statement, and this morning the Don has stuck a 25% tariff on all imported cars in retaliation to the rest of the world not buying American cars. We don’t export many cars to the USA as they only want the top-end expensive models like Rolls Royce, Bentley, and top-end Range Rover Discovery. The Don ignores the fact that American cars just aren’t built to European standards or tastes.

As expected, the problems that Robber Reeves is experiencing are, she says, all down to global instability and PooTin attacking Ukraine. However, I thought PooTin attacked 2.5 years before Liebore came to power. Well, they must revise last autumn’s numbers because the OBR said they were nearly £1 billion out. So, where have they gone for the extra money? Back to trim a bit more off welfare. Gosh, I’m glad I am not on benefits.

The OBR doesn’t believe that Liebore will be able to build their promised 5 million houses in the lifetime of this parliament and has trimmed the numbers to about 3.5 million. They also say that the Ginger Growler’s plans to build on brown and grey land won’t work. Even Liebore backbenchers are not happy with the cuts. But I bet they don’t vote the cuts down, though.

Related to the Budget, the government has decided to up its spending on defence and it looks like good news for Babcock. Firstly, the government announced they are to spend £1.4 billion with Babcock on a contract to maintain vehicles. Babcock are developing a dry dock at Devonport to maintain the Dreadnought nuclear submarine fleet. The refurbished Number 10 Dock will have to meet stringent requirements, like being able to withstand a 1 in 10,000-year earthquake, high tides, and high winds. It must also have very robust structures and systems, such as cooling water and electrical power, which need to have multiple backups in the event of failure. To enable nuclear refuelling, it is likely a new Reactor Access House (RAH) will be built like that in Dock 9. That one moves on rails to be aligned over the reactor compartment. Spent fuel can be raised up into the RAH, and new fuel rods lowered into place. At the head of Dock 8, a Primary Circuit Decontamination and Alternative Core Removal Cooling (PCD/ACRC) system building was constructed. The PCD/ACRC building contains the plant used to cool the reactor, apply chemical decontamination, and inject or remove boronated water reactivity suppressant. The building’s equipment and plant are connected by over 20 km of pipework and 150 km of electrical cable in 92 rooms. No wonder the refurbishment is expected to cost £1 billion.

Plans to build a giant plant to make hydrogen using ‘surplus energy’ from wind power at Kintore in Aberdeenshire look to be about to collapse as county councillors have been recommended by planners to reject the planning application. The electrolysis plant would be fed by a power line from the Kintore substation, and hydrogen would be delivered by a new pipeline link to the National Gas’s national transmission system. I hear the council received 83 letters of complaint, many worried about the visual impact on the area.

In Peterborough, Deon De Groot has been found guilty of stealing £220’s worth of Cadbury’s Creme Eggs from a Tesco filling station. Last Saturday, he was seen stuffing eggs into a duffel bag before leaving the shop without paying. The staff waved down a passing police car, who followed him and watched him dump the bag. He was in court this week and was sentenced to 12 weeks in prison, suspended for a year. But he was also banned from entering Cambridgeshire for 3 months. I wonder how they will enforce that.

Up in Perthshire, I hear that there are celebrations that scientists have managed to restock the River Garry with salmon. 60 years ago, the water from the river was diverted to a hydroelectric project and the river dried out. In 2017, water from an upstream dam was released, and flowing water was restored, so it was decided to release millions of eggs from captive salmon over several years. Two years ago, juvenile salmon were found in the full length of the river, with some wild Atlantic salmon in the lower reaches. Last year, wild salmon were found in the full length of the river and now form most of the fish in the river. Sometimes the scientists get it right.

Friday

Good morning, happy readers. It is grey and grotty first thing this morning, but the forecasters say it is going to be sunny by mid-morning; I hope they are right. I had a little chuckle this morning when I heard that Legohead had gone to Huddersfield to make an announcement about improvements to the train service from the city to the likes of Leeds and Manchester, and his train was late.

A new company, Starline, has big plans to run high-speed trains between 42 European cities. They claim they will operate a regular, simple-to-understand network on which fares will be cheaper than the low-cost airlines. One example they give is Manchester to Malaga for less than the current low-cost airline fare of £100. I somehow don’t think that is going to happen. My doubts grew when I saw the proposed route map. It shows trains travelling from Rome to Zagreb, going straight across the Adriatic using a non-existent bridge or tunnel. Similarly, there is a direct line from Paris to Dublin via London and Liverpool. That has even more problems. There is no link planned between HS1 at St Pancras and HS2 at Euston; it was deemed too expensive. HS2 is not going to Liverpool, and you will need to get on a ferry from there to Dublin. I think it’s all pie in the sky.

So, Russia and Ukraine have nearly come to an agreement to stop fighting in the Black Sea. Russia says that it is subject to several conditions, which were apparently never brought up at the original negotiations. But I can’t see this agreement making a lot of difference to the status quo, where Russia, with its big navy, has been forced by Ukraine, who don’t have a navy, to withdraw to ports on the far side of the Black Sea by unconventional remote-controlled boats and long-range missiles. It was Nikola Tesla, who in 1898, first proposed remote-controlled boats, predicting that by using them, small nations would be able to hold big nations at bay. I read that Ukraine has 15 different types of drone boats to select from depending on the task at hand and is about to add a 16th type that can go at 80 mph, driven by water jets and launch torpedoes.

Carnival Cruise Line has just done a quick internet survey asking passengers what their favourite place on board is to eat. There was a list of 8 speciality restaurants to choose from, ranging from Asian via Italian and sushi to seafood. The winner by a huge margin was Fahrenheit 555, which is a steakhouse. It received 58% of the vote; the next was Bonsai Teppanyaki, which received only 16%. A restaurant called ChiBang came bottom with just 2%. I had to look it up, and apparently, ChiBang is a fusion Mexican-Chinese restaurant. I wonder what they serve, how about a noodle bowl with refried beans?

Tonight, the Euromillions Lottery has reached a projected jackpot of £202 million. If one British person were to win it on their own, it would be the biggest-ever British lottery win. The previous biggest win was £195 million on July 19th, 2022, and it came only two months after the U.K.’s previous record win of £184,262,899 with a Lucky Dip ticket for the draw on May 10th, 2022. Imagine how much Felix and cat treats I could get for £202 million.

I had a little chuckle when I read that Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary was given a mock bill when he visited a restaurant called Luvida in Navan, Co Meath. The restaurant added €7.95 for “extra leg space”, €9.95 for “priority booth seating”, and a €19.95 “quiet reservation area” fee to his bill. He was charged for a bottle of Pinot Grigio, battered prawns, mushroom toast, and sea bass dishes that came to a total of €142.30. The manager said they would let him off the extras this time but will charge him next time he comes in.

In Liverpool, Everton FC are holding a series of test events at its new stadium at Stanley Dock. This is all part of getting the stadium licensed and is quite normal. A recent test involved Everton Under-21s playing Bolton Wanderers ‘B’ team, and at half-time, many supporters were surprised and delighted to find that the hot dogs on sale came with blue ketchup. Apparently, this comes from an old joke in Liverpool that Evertonians hate Liverpool so much that they won’t have tomato sauce in the house because it’s red. A dye used to turn the sauce blue didn’t upset the kids.

Saturday

Good morning, everyone. It’s a nice morning here and pleasantly peaceful. The crew in the office ordered in McDonald’s last night and got me some chicken nuggets. Not bad, but I prefer KFC.

I see that LNER has run a test train from Leeds to St Pancras. LNER would normally run the train straight down the East Coast Main Line into Kings Cross, but they wanted to see if there was track on the ECML the services could be diverted into St Pancras. I understand the train left the ECML at Doncaster, joined the Midland Main Line at Chesterfield, and then ran into St Pancras. I hear the train arrived successfully and later ran the reverse route back to Leeds. I’m hardly surprised it was a success. Hull Trains have been diverting into St Pancras for ages now when they have needed to. Of course, the two stations are next to each other in London and share a Tube station, so it would hardly make a difference for passengers.

Tucked in the details of this week’s ‘Financial Statement’ is another £8 billion for carbon capture; this is on top of the £22 billion already put aside for the project. The problem seems to be that no one in the world has succeeded in making carbon capture work for the original quoted amounts, and this extra £8 billion is to cover the likely real cost of Red Ed Millipede’s vanity project. This is far more than Legohead’s fictional black hole and is literally pouring money into a hole in the ground.

So Legohead has lost another one of his backroom boys. This time it is Matthew Doyle, a long-time Liebore adviser who was an adviser to Tony B Liar all those years ago when he was PM. Doyle had been Legohead’s communications chief since Liebore came to power last July and has said he has decided the time is right to resign. Well, the rumours I hear here at Number 10 are that he has fallen foul of Morgan McSweeny. I really don’t know if this is true, but McSweeny certainly seems to wield a lot of power in Downing Street.

People catching trains from London Euston have long complained that which platform the trains are leaving from only comes a short while before trains are scheduled to leave, causing a mad last-minute rush for seats. I have a secret for you regular Euston users. There is an app called Realtime Trains that tells you all sorts of things about the trains, including the platform it is scheduled to leave from. If the platform is shown in black, it is confirmed; in grey, it is likely but not yet confirmed. If you can find your way to the top of the ramp down to a black platform before it opens for passengers, you have a great chance of being one of the first onboard and grabbing a seat.

This week, Amazon finally opened an outlet of its Whole Foods subsidiary in the U.K. for the first time in ten years. The new outlet is in London’s King’s Road and will feature a seafood and a meat counter, fresh produce section, specialty departments, wellness and beauty aisle, bakery, wine and beer area, prepared foods, and a full-service coffee bar. It also has a curated grocery section with local products from over 80 brands. In the United States, Whole Foods has a reputation for good food that is a bit more expensive. I don’t know if the same applies in the U.K.

The FA has announced a short extra transfer window this summer. It seems that it is because two Premier League clubs are to take part in the FIFA Club World Cup. Consequently, the league clubs have voted to open a special transfer window this summer between 1st June and 10th June so that it gives those clubs taking part in the Club World Cup the chance to buy players if they want to before the competition starts. The window then reopens on 16th June and closes on 1st September. Of course, the extra window is open for all Premier League clubs. But what I don’t understand is why the window closes for a week between the extra window and the main window.

I’m done. It’s very pleasant outdoors today, so it will be the windowsill for me today. I hear the forecast is good for at least the beginning of the week, with it being in the low twenties. That’s my kind of weather. Chat to you all next week!
 

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