Larry’s Diary, Week Two Hundred And Eighty-Two

Monday

Good morning, my happy readers. It’s a bit cloudy this morning and I see, according to the forecast, it’s going to rain in London later this morning. Legohead held a presser this morning to announce the government’s new approach on immigration. Apparently he has been on the Reform website and pinched half their ideas. But what interested me was it was all about legal immigration, not a word in his speech about illegal immigration. I understand 200 illegals crossed the Channel in small boats this morning before he started his speech at 08:30!

Over the weekend I heard that we are to supply Ukraine with another five Raven mobile anti‑aircraft systems on top of the eight we have already sent them. You might remember that these devices are a lash‑up of a Supacat chassis and a couple of missile‑launch rails to allow the system to fire air‑to‑air missiles in a ground‑to‑air mode. Of course, the system is a bit more, with acquisition and guidance electronics, but apparently it has proved to be fairly effective against low‑ and medium‑height drones, aircraft and helicopters. What I want to know is, are we going to allow our forces to have some of these? I know we have the Sky Sabre system, but Raven is for close‑in support that Sky Sabre has missed.

This week’s cat story comes to you very early this week and features Leia from Deal in Kent. The cat was missing for three weeks before she was found beneath the floor of a neighbour’s kitchen. When the cat went missing, the kitchen was being refurbished with the floor open. But later the same day it was closed up and tiled over. Three weeks later, the cat’s meowing led to its rescue. It was found with a half‑drunk can of lager, but it’s not known if Leia drank it. The cat had lost half its weight when found and it is not known if it found anything to eat while entombed, but if it had it would have been rodents or bugs. Leia had a trip to the vet and is basically well but a little traumatised.

I really don’t understand what is going on with these reports about Qatar giving (or maybe loaning) the Donald a luxury Boeing 747‑9. The tale starts when the Donald was President for the first time and realised how old and decrepit the two Boeing 747s that served as Air Force One were. His administration ordered two new 747s from Boeing. That was nearly eight years ago, and Boeing are currently saying they are scheduled for delivery in 2027. The Don saw one of Qatar’s luxury planes a few months ago when it was in Florida, and reports then claimed Qatar were going to gift one to him. However, I hear it might be against US law. So the two governments are discussing a loan and the plane going to the Trump Presidential Library when the new planes are ready, meaning he can use it when his presidential term is over. I shall be interested to see what happens.

I see we now have a new bridge across the River Clyde in Scottishland. The new bridge joins Renfrew with Clydebank. The £117 million cable‑stayed bridge is the third longest bridge in Scottishland and the twin carriageways break in the middle of the river and swing on to both banks to allow large ships to navigate the river. The Scottishland Government say this bridge will lead to 1,400 new jobs and pigs might fly.

I’m in the West Midlands. I hear there is a problem where the tram lines cross the entrance road into the Very Light Rail Innovative Centre on Zoological Drive in Dudley. The road is currently on a raised temporary service which matches the level with the tram lines, but it is due to be removed, and the council will have to sort out the level so they match. Dudley Council has authorised the spending of £100,000 to sort the problem out, but I hear their cost estimates are nearer £350,000. If more funding can’t be found, the costs are likely to have to be found by Transport for West Midlands, which means the council taxpayers of the West Midlands.

Interesting story on the radio about a man who produced complex pictures that were turned into jigsaw puzzles. After one based on springtime in Britain had been on sale for many years and was the company’s best seller, it attracted the attention of the company’s new managing director, and she wrote to the artist to ask him to remove the ‘Orange Men’ from the picture as they were not acceptable in Ireland. The artist knew there were no ‘Orange Men’ in the picture; they were in fact Morris Men waving handkerchiefs and with bells around their ankles. There followed a row with the artist, and he no longer works for the jigsaw makers.

Tuesday

Good morning everyone, it’s back to a lovely sunny morning in London today. Legohead is not very happy as someone appears to have been busy setting fire to his North London house, old flat and an old car of his. I somehow suspect he will be blaming the ‘Far Right’. The Met have been out in their forensic suits checking his front door. I bet if your North London front door got a bit scorched the Met might give you a crime number and tell you to contact your insurance company, so something is going on here and once again we are not being told.

The ONS numbers for unemployment came out this morning and don’t make good news despite what Robber Reeves tells us. The numbers employed for the first quarter have been firmed up and they were down 0.2% or 53,000. But the provisional numbers for April were down another 33,000, which is being widely blamed on the increases in minimum wage and National Insurance, which only kicked in at the beginning of the month, pushing up employment costs.

Legohead’s speech yesterday said he was going to crack down on immigration and make it take 10 years before immigrants got leave to stay and only then if you could speak good English. But this is from the man who wanted free movement and told us that all immigration was good for the country. However, most of these plans won’t come into play until 2029! Mind you, the number of illegals has passed 12,000 so far this year with another 600 arriving today alone. With the weather looking set fair in the Channel for the next fortnight, I can see that number will be coming in every day, adding to the enormous daily amount it is costing to keep them in the UK.

The American airline Delta has just pulled a clever trick to avoid the punishing new tariffs the Donald has introduced. Delta has just had its latest Airbus A350-900 delivered to them in Japan. The delivery flight was non‑stop from Toulouse to Tokyo, where the plane was turned over to Delta. It is now operating flights from Tokyo to the States, but as it is officially only visiting the USA each time, it is not subject to the tariffs it would have been if it had been based in the USA. As Delta primarily uses its A350-900s to Asia and Oceania, this is quite an easy trick for them to pull and, unless something happens to reduce EU tariffs, I expect they will be doing similar for the seven remaining -900s they have on order. They also have 20 × A350-1000s on order for delivery starting in 2026, so there is time for the tariff situation to be sorted before then.

The UK and Swiss Government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding to investigate a direct train service from London to Switzerland via the Channel Tunnel. There are several problems in the way of a service. There is no company currently considering a service, Swiss stations would have to install customs and immigration facilities, and new Channel Tunnel-capable trains would have to be acquired. However, it would be nice to get on a high‑speed train in London and off in Basle or Geneva. Much better than fighting your way to and from city centre to airport and back.

The UK’s Deed Poll Office oversees the names that you are allowed to call your children on their birth certificates. Although, unlike some other countries (France?), there is no list of names that are actually banned. It is, however, interesting to note that in recent years they have stopped people calling their children:

“Cyanide” – prohibited for its association with poison, but their twin

“Preacher” was accepted.

“Martian” – cast aside over concerns of ridicule.

“King” – disallowed due to its titular implications.

“Princess” – blocked to avoid creating a deceptive impression.

In New Zealand they have recently banned children being called “Lucifer”, “4Real” and “Anal”, while Germany bans using “Adolf Hitler” and “Osama Bin Laden”. Can you imagine being a teacher and having an Anal in your class, I bet they would be a real little Sh1t.

United Airlines have placed yet another order for Airbus A320neo family aircraft; this time it is for 40 × A321neo. Apparently these planes will take the place of an order for Boeing 737 Max which United have given up on ever being certified and going into production. The order takes their backlog of Airbus A320 family orders to 270 planes and 45 × A350-900s. In addition, United are due to start receiving 40 leased A321neo planes next year.

Wednesday

Hi folks, it’s another lovely sunny and warm day. The police are once again refusing to tell us the nationality of the person arrested for arson attacks on the £2,000,000 home that Legohead is renting out in Kentish Town, a rented flat he used to live in with a previous girlfriend, and a car he sold to a neighbour. The papers seem to be hinting that the man arrested is working for a ‘hostile state’. The last time the authorities refused to pass on information it was the Southport murderer, and that led to riots and criticism for needlessly withholding information. I bet that if this man was a white Briton we would know everything about him, including his inside leg measurement.

Are we going to see a couple of by‑elections in the next few months? Yesterday the Tory MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, Patrick Spencer, was charged with a sexual assault. He joins the Labour West of England mayor and MP, Dan Norris, who has been arrested on suspicion of rape and child sex. Both have seats that are easily winnable by Reform if they are chucked out of Parliament or resign. Norris beat Jacob Rees‑Mogg to the seat of North East Somerset and Hanham at last year’s general election. The word I hear is that Mogg could quit the Tories and join Reform if he was offered the chance to stand for the seat. Now that would be an interesting by‑election.

The bays in council car parks are normally all 4.8 metres long and the size hasn’t been increased in years despite cars getting longer. There are several models now that are over 5 metres long and don’t fit the bays. Subsequently, some councils have banned oversized cars from their car parks. So, if you own a big car from Kia, BMW, Tesla, Mercedes, Audi, Range Rover or Rolls‑Royce, you might want to check if your council officially bans your model.

I have been reading about alcohol‑free beer and why it costs almost the same price as an alcoholic brew. It seems that the reason is that you need more ingredients and it is a more expensive process, but the tax is about half. With a profit margin all this comes to just a bit less than alcoholic beer. Not being a beer‑drinking cat, water is my tipple of choice. I have no idea if a pint of non‑alcoholic Doom Bar is as good, taste‑wise, as a pint of alcoholic Doom Bar, but I do read that alcohol‑free beer is now an £800 million‑a‑year industry and growing.

I hear that P&O Ferries (not P&O Cruises—that is a division of the US company Carnival Cruises) is messing around again. This time they are seven months late filing their accounts for the year ending 31 December 2023, after their sacking of all their unionised ship crews and hiring cheap foreign non‑union labour. Labour MPs have been watching P&O Ferries closely and are considering calling their chief executive, Peter Hebblethwaite, before the Business and Trade Select Committee if he doesn’t give them satisfactory answers to written questions they have sent him. Suspect financial problems: their accountants, KPMG, quit last month complaining that they had only been able to partially prepare the accounts. The full accounts for the previous year were 13 months late and they had to borrow £300 million from their owners not to go bankrupt. I suspect something similar is happening this time.

At the end of this season Everton FC are moving to a new‑home, 53,000‑seat stadium at Bramley‑Moore Dock. They are leaving Goodison Park, their home for 132 years. The club had plans to demolish the old stadium and spend £82 million building housing, a care home, retail units and a park. But what is to become of the old 39,732‑capacity stadium? It is to become the permanent home of Everton Women, who until now have played most home matches at Walton Hall Park, a stadium that has only a 2,200‑capacity with just 500 seats. Of course, Everton Women will have to play much better next season to fill the stadium, but the more they can pack in the more money they will take and the better players they can acquire. Arsenal Women have made the most of playing many of their home games at the Emirates Stadium and have sold out the 60,160‑capacity ground on several occasions. Although this season they have had to play several of their home games at their 3,500‑capacity old stadium due to fixture clashes with the men’s team, they have an average home attendance 20,000 more than the second‑highest team. This means an enormous boost to income, and that means better players—and Everton Women are about to benefit from a bigger stadium and a brighter future.

Yesterday Peter Sullivan was released from prison after wrongly serving 38 years for a murder and rape he didn’t commit. After 38 years, authorities have retested DNA found on the murdered girl’s body and it is not his, so it would appear to be a slam‑dunk case. He has been eligible for release on parole for many years now, but the Parole Board has refused his application because he wouldn’t admit he had committed the murder and rape, so he was not considered rehabilitated. It’s a bit of a catch‑22 situation: you can only be released on bail if you admit to doing something that you know you didn’t do. The law is an ass.

Thursday

Good morning everyone, not so sunny this morning and quite chilly if I can’t get out of the breeze. Chris O’Shay, the boss of Centrica, the owners of British Gas, has written on LinkedIn that Net Stupid Zero is not going to reduce our bills by a single penny. In fact, the opposite is more likely: we will all end up paying more. Millipede promised us that if we elected Labour our energy bills would be reduced by £300, but that just hasn’t happened; the bills have gone up by £300 instead. I really can’t see Red Ed Millipede lasting much longer.

The government has decided to move 12,000 jobs out of London. This will allow them to down‑close 11 buildings in London. They will open two new ‘government campuses’ in Manchester and Aberdeen, as well as moving jobs to other towns and cities such as Birmingham, Leeds, Cardiff, Glasgow, Darlington, Newcastle and Tyneside, Sheffield, Bristol, Edinburgh, Belfast and York. The Cabinet Office minister, Pat McFadden, said this was going to save £94 million by 2032. This is really a flea bite; it is not aimed at reducing the numbers employed as civil servants from the bloated numbers which have grown hugely since the onset of Covid.

You have probably read of Marks and Spencer’s problems regarding their system being hacked by people trying to extort money from them. I now learn that they are to claim on their cyber insurance. It seems that the policy has a £100 million limit, and they are likely to bump up against that limit. Apparently they are covered for direct losses, like loss of sales, and for indirect losses, like claims from suppliers and customers who may have had their data stolen. With Harrods and the Co‑op both also being hacked in the last couple of weeks, the insurance companies must be sweating.

Yet another mad idea from Red Ed. This time he wants to introduce a scheme for people to save from their wages each month so they can buy a heat pump. At the moment, a replacement gas boiler will cost about £2,000. The government currently has a maximum £7,500 grant available to purchase the actual heat pump, but you will need to pay for its installation and super‑insulating your home. This can cost you over another £10,000 or more. I hear of an old Victorian seaside guest house where the electricity company has been pushing for the owner to install a heat pump, but a survey has revealed he would need to put in double glazing to make it work, and the hotel is subject to a preservation order and is not allowed to install double glazing.

A couple of months back, Mexico decided to introduce a port tax for passengers arriving at their ports. This particularly affected the big American cruise companies such as Celebrity and Royal Caribbean. The British companies don’t tend to visit Mexico very often and the likes of P&O include all port fees and taxes in the overall holiday cost you are quoted, so you would hardly notice the cost. But if you travel on, for example, a Carnival Cruise departing from the States, that is not the case and port fees and taxes are added on to the quoted fare. So, when Mexico said they were going to charge passengers $27 port tax as of 1 July it annoyed many passengers as it was to be added to their bills. Yesterday Mexico changed its mind and dropped the cost to $5. I wonder if Mexico realised they were losing visitors.

I hear that it looks like those sub‑postmasters who have rejected pathetic offers of compensation over the Horizon scandal are beginning to see improved offers. I read of one sub‑postmaster who rejected a compensation offer of £51,200 and has now been offered a payment that has increased by 900%. I hear that on average people are being offered, on average, £137,000 more on appeal. Why is the government trying to get away with penny‑pinching payments?

An interesting row has exploded over David Lammy and a taxi fare. After being in Italy for the King and Queen’s visit it seems he used a transfer company to take him and his partner to a French ski resort. It is now that the detail gets a bit murky. The taxi driver says part of the fare was prepaid by the transfer company and Lammy refused to pay the remaining £588. Lammy said he paid in full in advance, but the driver drove off with his luggage. The driver went to a local police station to complain. Now it is in the hands of the police. Another story to keep an eye on: if Lammy is charged and found guilty we could have another by‑election.

Friday

Hi everyone, the sun is back this morning, and I am happy, but you can’t say the same about Legohead as his plan to offshore illegal immigrants to Albania fell apart on live TV. First came a surprise visit to Albania, that the media were only told about at the last minute, and it was briefed that he was going to sign a deal to send illegal immigrants to Albania while they are waiting for decisions on them being accepted is made. Then Legohead did a couple of interviews in which he talked about ‘offshoring hubs’. But the best came on live TV when, in a joint press conference with the Albanian PM, he said how he was in talks with Albania about an ‘offshoring hub’, only for the Albanian PM to say that when they did a deal with Italy they made it clear that it was a one‑off deal and they were not in talks with anyone. It was delicious.

I keep hearing rumours that Pakistan jumped at the chance of a ceasefire in the conflict with India because the Indians had taken out a nuclear reactor that supplied most of its fissile material and they then hit the major nuclear weapon storage site in the Kirana Hills. Neither India nor Pakistan has said anything official, but there have been reports of two earthquakes, both of around 4.5 on the Richter scale, which could have been large explosions. It is understood that both India and Pakistan have about 170 nuclear warheads. But what is intriguing is that Pakistan is known to store its nuclear warheads separately to its missiles, and they need to be brought together in the event that they are to be used. Video on the Internet purports to show an Indian missile hitting a storage site. I really have no idea if this is what happened, but it makes a good story.

The news that DHL are to merge some services in the UK with Evri doesn’t exactly excite me. Hermes had an awful name for parcel delivery, with many never arriving, or being damaged in transit, or having items removed from the parcels in transit. So, in an attempt to lose its terrible reputation it rebranded as Evri and quickly gained a similar reputation to Hermes. On the other hand, DHL have a better reputation perhaps because they tend to specialise in delivering more expensive items such as electronic devices that need signing for, while Evri deal in cheaper items, like clothing, which is often just dumped on your doorstep and sometimes ringing the doorbell. DHL also handle bulk letter delivery in the UK, something that Evri have never done. I understand the new joint company will deliver both types of parcels as well as packages and letters, while DHL will continue with its international business. All this, of course, is subject to regulatory approval.

Sometimes you read something in the press and wonder if what you are reading is true. The media reported today that Qatar Airways had ordered 210 Boeing 787 planes valued at $96 billion during a visit to Qatar by the Donald. I decided to dig a bit deeper and what do I find? Well, it is true that Qatar Airways have ordered a load of 787‑9s, but actually they have ordered 130 × 787s, but this includes 10 orders that were already on the Boeing order book as from an undisclosed buyer. In addition, they have ordered 30 × 777‑9 planes, but this would appear to be a partial conversion of a 50‑plane option they already held. The remaining 50 aircraft are more options, and the $96 billion is the list price if all 210 planes are purchased. However, no one placing an order of this magnitude pays the list price; I would expect them to get the planes for around half list price, and there seems to be a bit of double‑dipping going on as the value of the converted options was announced some time ago with another order for 50 × 777‑9 back in 2024. Still, not an order to turn your nose up at.

Here’s a little tale I found interesting. In the Red Sea the United States Navy have been using Navy Standard missiles (cost $2.1 million each) to shoot down Houthi ($50,000) Iranian‑supplied drones; consequently, they have been looking for a cheaper alternative. The Russians have been using the same drones against Ukraine, and they too have been looking for a cheaper alternative than expensive missiles to shoot them down. The answer the Ukrainians have come up with is to use a system supplied by L3Harris and BAE Systems. A truck‑mounted launcher fires cheap unguided Hydra 70 rockets that cost just $20,000 each at the drones. But the trick is they add an Advanced Precision Kill Weapons System (APKWS) supplied by BAE Systems to the unguided rocket, converting it into a guided missile. The cost of BAE’s APKWS is said to be around $22,000 each, when bought in bulk. Together you have a missile that is cheaper than the targeted drone. Of course, you have to buy the launcher and its software, which is around $2 million, but it can be used multiple times. There is video on the Internet of Ukraine taking out Russian (Iranian) Shahed‑136 drones with the system both on land and from small boats in the Black Sea. Have the Ukrainians found the answer to an American dilemma?

A bit more about the blackout on the Iberian Peninsula has emerged. The initial failure is now said to have been at a substation in Granada, which caused a loss to the grid of 2.2 GW. This was followed seconds later by the tripping of more substations in Badajoz and Seville. This then cascaded across the whole of the Iberian grid, causing the nationwide blackout. Now all we need to know is what caused the initial failure at the Granada substation.

A quick little snippet for you that I learned this week. The penultimate station on the Morden branch of the Northern line is South Wimbledon. But that was not always its name. When it first opened in 1926 it was called Merton Grove. But the local residents objected because it didn’t sound posh enough. So, it was renamed as South Wimbledon. I don’t know if today that would be considered posh.

Saturday

Good morning my happy readers, it started off a bit dull this morning, but it has turned out nice and sunny now. Legohead is not around this morning he’s probably trying to get his story together for Monday announcement about his ‘EU Reset’. I bet he is going to pretend how marvellous it is going to be for the UK while coming as near as he can to rejoining the EU without actually doing so.

So, the man who set fire to the two houses and a car associated with Legohead turns out to be a 21-year-old Ukrainian. The question is why he is here, is he skipping the country to avoid conscription or has he taken the Russian shilling to start the fire, as some people have done in various places, or has he some kind of problem with Legohead. Rumours say it is the latter. Of course he might just be a nutter. I guess that it might all be revealed one day.

This season Arsenal have given first team debuts to two players who have progressed through their academy, saving the club a fortune in transfer fees. One of the pair has even been called up by the national team and certainly didn’t look out of place. Strangely the pair are best friends and have always been together at the academy since joining aged 7. But I hear that Arsenal would have loved to have been able to play a 3rd youngster in the first team, but at 14 at the beginning of the season just ending, Max Dowman was too young. The lad was 15 in January and consequently will be eligible to play for the first team next season and as he is already training with the first team squad on a regular basis I expect you will see him next season. He has been playing for both the U18 and the U21 teams this year and those who have seen him play say he is the best player of his age in the world. I wonder how much he will save the club in transfer fees.

Do you remember a couple of weeks ago when Hasim Abidi, the brother of the Manchester Arena bomber who threw boiling oil over Prison guards. Well, it seems that he was getting a roll and a packaged pat of butter with his evening meal and he saved up a whole load of those little pats. When he had enough he melted them all and threw the resulting hot oil over his guards. As he is serving 55 years Abidi has little to fear about his behaviour in prison so I doubt this will be the last we hear of him.

Another story reaches me from the world of football. This week a big betting company TGP Europe has handed back it licences to operate in the U.K. following it being fined £3.3 million for breaking money laundering rules and ailing to carry out sufficient checks on business partners. But what does this have to do with football I hear you ask. The answer is that various TGP companies are the shirt sponsors of AFC Bournemouth, Fulham FC, Newcastle United FC, Wolverhampton Wanderers FC and Burnley FC. The Gambling Commission has written to all of those clubs warning them that if they continue to ware shirts advertising the gambling websites there are adverting illegal gambling and could be sued. Mind you I understand that all the sites have been closed down so are they really advertising illegal gambling? I guess it’s all in the hands of the lawyers at what shirts those clubs wear this weekend.

Woke air-traffic controllers want to change the name of a lot of airline waypoints as they consider them to be naughty. Waypoints being dropped include PIKEY, UTITI, OKNOB and RATPU. If I was an airline pilot I would love to have the Air Traffic Controller tell me to fly via RATPU to PIKEY. The problem is that the convention is that waypoints have 5 letter names that should be unique. Unfortunately, this is not always the case and several airline accidents have been caused by inputting a waypoint into a planes navigation system that had a duplicate name.

Tonight is the final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Basle, Switzerland. I am not really interested in the songs, most of them are a terrible noise. But it is interesting to watch the voting, years ago the best song won, but now it’s all the blocks voting each other so Greece always votes for Cyprus and vice versa although with the new semi-finals format I don’t know if both have made this year’s final. What I really want to know is how do Isreal and Australia get to take part. I might have a sleep and then watch the voting.

That’s me finished for another week and I have a decision to make. The sun is out and it is looking like a nice warm afternoon so I am off to the windowsill to enjoy my afternoon snooze. But should I come back inside later to watch the Cup Final on the TV. I think it will depend on how comfortable I am when the football starts. Chat to you all next week.
 

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