Larry’s Diary, Week Two Hundred and Forty-Eight

Monday

Good morning happy readers and it looks like it’s going to a nice week for the last week of the school holidays down here in the South. So Liebore said they were going to stop cronyism, but that’s another one of their lies as instead they have been bringing in their donors in left, right and centre and giving out passes to access all parts of No, 10. I had to laugh at reports saying, “it was an unfortunate error.” But it was repeated again and again.

I suppose the big news this morning is that the new Liebore government has developed a plan on how to tell my adoring public when I buy the big cat basket in the sky. Apparently they are worried that the public might think they have had me done away with. Do you remember how the plan for the Queen’s death was code-named London Bridge and her death was announced to government ministers with the phrase “London Bridge has fallen.” Well, I can tell you the plan for my demise is code name ‘Larry Bridge’ in a nod to the late Queen. I wonder if they are planning a state funeral for me and a burial in Westminster Abbey or chucking my body in the gardener’s incinerator?

Yesterday was ‘family day’ at the Notting Hill Carnival, supposedly a fun day. Well, I hear that 7,000 police were deployed, 90 people arrested and three stabbed including a 32-year-old woman who is said to be in a life-threatening position. According to Sky TV the day was ‘mostly peaceful’. Today is the main day of the ‘Carnival’ when most trouble seems to occur. At the beginning of this year the Met and City of London forces had an establishment of 35,000 people, although this includes back room and senior officers. So 7,000 represents a substantial proportion of London’s police and gives a huge opportunity to criminals in other parts of London.

The law on giving tips to workers in the likes of cafes and hairdressers is due to change in October. At the moment if you give a cash tip to a person then they are entitled to keep 100% for themselves. Admittedly some establishments operate a tronc so that workers in say a kitchen can get a share, but they are not legally entitled to a share. However, if you pay by credit or debit card, when a business owner gets money in their bank account they don’t legally have to give any of the tip to their workers. As of October, this changes and the money must go to the workers. Mind you I don’t know how this new law will be enforced.

Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) has just issued an update on the group’s cruise ship order book to coincide with its latest half-year financial report. The group has placed orders for eight new ships this year, but interestingly since the announcement of a four-ship order for NCL earlier this year for 200,000 tonne ships, this has become 4 x 225,000 tonne ships of a totally different design. They have four Prima class ships still to come from a six order from a few years ago but the last two are now to be methane ready. Then they have two ships on order for their Regent Seven Seas brand and two for their Oceana Brand. That’s a hell of a lot of ships on order.

In Ireland a new railway station has just opened a mere 15 years after it was built. The station at Kishoge only cost €6 million but would have cost a lot more in today’s money. But why was the station left without a service for so long? Well, it seems that it was built to serve a huge new housing estate that was long delayed and is only being opened now that the passenger demand is there. On a weekday 96 trains will stop at the station. That could increase if the DART+ South West project proceeds as the proposed service passes through Kishoge station.

The word on the street is that Robber Reeves is going to have to back down on cancelling the OAPs’ winter fuel allowance. The problem seems to be that the whips have calculated that there are a high number of Liebore back benchers who want the allowance reinstated. Adding up the numbers from other parties who are against the plan, the calculation is that the government would lose a vote in parliament as all the non-government parties are against the cancellation and Liebore rebels would ensure a restoration motion would pass. Robber Reeves can’t risk the government being defeated so early in its life, so the only option is to back down in some way that she can pretend isn’t backing down!

Tuesday

Hi folks, another lovely morning to wake up to with loads of warm sun. I have never understood why we have school holidays in August when statistically the weather is better in June and July. But then we rarely do sensible things in this country.

I am not in the least bit surprised to read that the amount of aggravation at Notting Hill Carnival on bank holiday Monday far exceeded Sunday’s trouble. There were another 230 arrests, including 49 for possession of an offensive weapon, 37 for assault on an emergency worker, eight for sexual assault, nine for possession of a Class A drug, 40 for a Class B drug and I nearly forgot five more stabbings. I wonder if Legohead will have them up before the beak this morning as they are all obviously far-right.

In the US of A the largest private bus company, Mega Bus, has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and has started shedding services to try to stem the losses. The company says that bus travel in the US has not yet recovered from Covid. It used to operate routes connecting over 500 cities in the US and Canada, but had dropped all services in Texas, and it has also stopped its routes between Atlanta, Charlotte, Durham, Richmond, and Washington DC. In New York the routes between the city and Washington DC and New York and Pittsburgh have been handed over to new operators. I must admit that my first thought on intercity bus travel in the States is Greyhound Lines, but even they are now owned by German company Flixbus.

Do you remember the door plug that fell out of an Alaska Airway Boeing 737 Max back in the spring? Well, apparently the man who would normally fit that door on the final Boeing production line was on holiday on the day that particularly plane door was fitted. The man, a long-term employee of Boeing, explained how the door fitters used to be trained to work on any door, but about 10 years ago Boeing changed the system so each door type had an assigned fitter. He said that he was the only fitter left who had been trained on every door, so he was the one normally called in as cover when anyone was on ‘vacation’, he had no idea who had fitted the door when he was on ‘vacation’.

Mark Zuckerberg has finally admitted what we all knew to be the case, Meta platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, censored accounts discussing things like vaccinations and face masks during Covid. But he explained it was done under pressure from the US Government of Biden/Harris. He then went further and admitted that the FBI had put the company under pressure not to allow discussion or news on Hunter Biden’s laptop. If it happened in the US you can bet the same thing happened in the U.K.

A tiny update today on Mary the puppy that Lily Allan returned to the animal rescue she got it from in New York. You may remember that Allan said the puppy had ‘ruined her life’ after it chewed the passports of her and two of her children from a previous marriage. The animal rescue said it was their policy to always take back animals if an adoption didn’t work out. It now appears that Mary has been adopted by a new family and is thriving in her new home. Personally, I am on the side of the puppy, only an idiot would leave passports around for a puppy to chew.

I was rather annoyed this morning when I wasn’t allowed in the rose garden because Legohead was giving a speech to ‘an invited audience’ of his cronies. However, I did get to see it on the TV in the big office. It didn’t surprise me that we had a two-tier question session after the speech. Reporters from the likes of GB News and Talk TV weren’t allowed to ask questions, while all the questions came from the Liebore-supporting BBC, Daily Mirror and Guardian. So consequently, he only got easy questions and no one asked why the people who were arrested in Notting Hill over the weekend were not in court this morning and in prison this afternoon.

Wednesday

Good morning readers, it’s another nice morning here in Downing Street with plenty of sunshine. Legohead is missing again today, I understand he has gone to Germany to talk to the Führer about ‘resetting our relationship’ with the EU. Didn’t you all vote to reset the relationship when we left the EU? I think Legohead is half right, things are going to get worse before getting even more worse.

I read that in the American mid-west, a company running 25 KFC outlets has suddenly closed them all down without any explanation. But if you dig a bit deeper it seems that the company that runs the franchises, EYM Chicken, is owned by EYM Group who last year filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. EYM Group also run franchises for Burger King, Denny’s, Panera Bread and Pizza Hut. EYM Pizza has also filed for Chapter 11 and closed more than a dozen outlets, so the speculation is that EYM Chicken is heading in the same direction.

In another move to get people to stop using real money and to move to credit and debit cards, 40 Tesco Extra super stores have stopped taking cash in their cafes. The question is why? Well, the answer is very simple, it is cheaper for the company. Firstly, the banks charge them more for handling cash than for taking the payment digitally. Then there is their own cost of having a cashier, an accounts person to count the takings and armoured vans to collect the cash and take it to the banking hub. It is much cheaper to make a one-off investment in buying ordering points and make the customers do the work, as it is becoming more and more obvious with the self-service point explosion in McDonald’s, KFC and the likes.

Contractors working for National Highway on the A428 on the Cambridgeshire-Bedfordshire border have had a bit of a surprise. The initial contractor exposed a collapsed Roman well. It is thought this well was built in about 100 AD and fell in before it was finished. It is thought that the second well was then dug but to save it from collapsing like the first it was lined with wooden board. The area around the wells is now being explored and has so far revealed a small community including a carpenter’s shop with loads of offcuts and a 2,000-year-old ladder.

Sprite, the lemon-lime flavour drink that was introduced by Coca-Cola, because the rival Seven Up was doing so well, looks to be relaunching a flavour that it tried out for a short time at the beginning of this year, on a permanent basis. Sprite Chilli is perhaps an odd name for a peppermint flavoured drink, but it proved very popular for the short time it was available, so it is strongly rumoured to be coming back. My spies say both regular and zero-sugar versions should be on the shelves within weeks. Perhaps I might try it but I normally only drink water.

This week’s cat story is about Jess who was for many years the station cat at Andover. As with many station cats Jess was well-loved and died last year at the age of 19. Today a statue representing the tuxedo cat is being unveiled at Andover station. The cost of the statue was raised by selling souvenirs and a ‘GoFundMe’ page. I wonder if they will put up a statue of me in Downing Street when I go, I think I would like that.

Tonight is the opening ceremony of the Paris Paralympics. This time it is being broadcast by Channel Four and they intend to show every event either on its main free-to-air channels or on special free-to-view streamed channels. Of course, it is a lot cheaper to buy the rights to show the Paralympics than the Olympics, so it makes a cheap TV time filler for Channel Four. I might pop into the office to watch the ceremony; I only hope that it is better than the Olympics and that it doesn’t rain.

Thursday

Hello my friends, it’s lovely and sunny again this morning, is this what they call summer? So Legohead wants to get nearer to the EU but says don’t worry we are not rejoining. I’m afraid I just don’t believe him. He is just incapable of telling the truth and continually does things he says he won’t do. Yesterday his government announced its intention to ban smoking in pub gardens, outside of sports grounds, outside night clubs, in ‘small’ parks and outside a hotel, which was not in their manifesto. Then he starts talking about a “reset” with the EU, again not in the manifesto. Eight weeks in power and I suspect millions are regretting voting for him and wish they had voted for Reform instead.

I hear rumours that the government is planning to put up fuel duty in the budget. The word is that they are looking at adding 10p a litre to the current rate that has been frozen for the past 14 years. In reality the price of fuel has fallen in the past few years, and this has not been passed on to the motorist. Instead, the retailer’s profit had gone up from 5p a litre to the current 20p a litre. How many litres of fuel does your car’s tank hold, probably 60. So that’s an extra £6 fuel duty every time you fill the tank, but don’t forget you are also paying 20% VAT on the extra 10p so that’s another 2p a litre in the government’s coffers. Last year they took just short of £25 billion in Fuel Duty so this will get them another £2.5 billion and half a billion in VAT.

Thames Water are whinging again. This time it is because the regulator has only allowed them to increase prices by 23% when they want 45%. They claim they need that level to fix all the problems they have with leaks and sewage discharges. Over the past few years they have been spending a fortune on shareholder dividends and directors’ wages. I’m not normally in favour of nationalisation without compensation for a company’s worth but I am willing to make an exception over Thames Water.

How long has Sue Grey got before she must go? The word is that she is rubbing many of the Liebore politicians up the wrong way and causing consternation in Downing Street. Having stuck the knife into Boris as civil servant her time was limited as it was realised she couldn’t be trusted. So, she jumped before she was pushed and joined the Liebore Party. Now she is causing problems like previous unelected people have done in the past. I now classify her along with Cummings, Mandelson and Campbell and I’m sure that she can’t last and will soon be writing an angry column in the Guardian and appearing on election night TV, as no one else will want to employ her.

The latest popularity ratings for Legohead have fallen to the worst ever with the last polling I have seen reporting an approval rating of 39% and a disapproval rating of 45% which add up to an overall rating of -6%. But I did hear on the TV this morning that the overall rating had slumped further, to -16% but there were no details. Has Legohead decided that he deliberately wants to be the most unpopular PM ever or is it all the fault of the evil Tories and the far-right?

Recently, whenever I see someone on the internet they seem to be either watching some yank learning about Britain and how it is much better than the US of A or it is a man flying a tiny drone over an industrial estate or a police station. Many of the Yanks don’t seem to work and make their money from sponsors or advertising. Mind you, loads of people send them British food to try. Great big box’s full of all sorts of things like British cakes or British crisps, particularly British chocolate which they all seem to say is better than American chocolate. As for drones, the people who make the videos know the law and all make use of the CAA regulations that are practically non-existent for lightweight drones (under 250g). In just about every case the factory security object to being overflown and call the police who turn up, look at the drone, see its weight and the pilot has the proper certificate on the drone, and that the man is flying it from a public place. They then tell the security that the pilot is totally within the law and leave. Very occasionally the coppers try to apply the law for over 250g drones, but they soon back down when the pilot shows them the regulations on his phone.

Six-hundred-and-fifty Channel migrants crossed over in small boats yesterday. This followed 750 the day before. The weekend had been quiet as the weather in the Channel had not been good enough for small boat crossings. This brings the number to just short of 7,000 since the election in which Legohead promised to ‘smash the gangs’. That seems to have been going well! I understand that they have still not managed to find anyone willing to take on the poisoned chalice that is head of the new Border Enforcement team (or whatever they land up being called). I hear that they had thought they had lined up an ex-Scotland Yard head policeman, but he wanted nothing to do with it. In the meantime, illegals pour over the Channel in huge numbers taking advantage of the weakness being displayed by the Liebore government.

Friday

So far this week I have not had to report a single rainy day. I wonder if Thames Water are about to declare a drought. I don’t know if you knew we have a Thatcher room in the old house at Number 10. It is the old room that Lady Thatcher used as a study, when she lived here, and it contained a portrait of her that was worth £100,000. The picture was commissioned by an old PM, Liebore’s Gordon Brown, and paid for by an anonymous donor. But it has now been removed by Legohead, because the poor darling has called it ‘disturbing’. It’s a portrait of the greatest PM since Churchill, so how could it be disturbing, or is it an excuse to sell off the portrait to throw some money into his infamous ‘black hole.’

At the third attempt billionaire Richard Desmond has secured planning permission to build 1,360 homes on the Isle of Dogs. The 6.15-hectare site used to house Westferry Printworks that was owned by Desmond’s Northern & Shell publishing company. This time round the vast development has been tweaked to include 30% low-cost houses as recommended by Sad Dick so the Borough of Tower Hamlets has finally approved the development. I suppose that this is what is considered a good development as it is on a brownfield site. The scheme is going to be opened in phases in between the next two to eight years so it will make a very tiny contribution to Legohead’s 1.3 million new homes a year. Also included in the scheme is a 1,200-place secondary school, a rejuvenated dock front, over two hectares of public open space together with ground-floor shops, restaurants, community centre and workspaces. What odds they are in the last phase and get cancelled?

Heinz have just launched a new product, spaghetti carbonara in a can. Apparently it is aimed at those people who like me, either can’t cook or won’t cook. Needless to say, I won’t be trying it because spaghetti is made from wheat and cats shouldn’t eat it. As I have said before, a cat’s metabolism is designed to work on meat alone and we are perfectly happy to have meat every day. A nice meaty pouch of Felix Chicken is ideal for me. I promise I will not be testing this product.

In the Kursk Oblast the Russian traffic cameras are still working and according to Telegram they are still linked to the police computers and locals are still being issued with speeding tickets. This seems a bit tough if you are now living in an occupied area and are having to race to avoid Russian drones and Russian aircraft. I wonder if the postman is still delivering the fines or if they are coming by email? Are Ukrainian tanks and APCs being issued speeding tickets and if so who does the fine get sent to and do they really expect them to be paid?

Looking at the customers for the biggest Boeing Jet the 777X it is interesting that none of the three biggest United States carriers, American, United and Delta have placed a single order for the big plane. Recently the boss of United explained that the plane is just too big for them. The consensus view is that it just doesn’t fit with the operational model of the three big US carriers who all fly long haul multiple hubs in the United States quoting that they fly from seven hubs to London and would probably not be able to make money flying a 777x. Instead they fly planes about 100 seats smaller like a Boeing 787, Airbus A330 or A350-900. While the like of British Airways, Emirates, and Cathay Pacific have a single major hub and have all ordered the 777X.

ASLEF have called off the threatened strike this weekend and on the next 10 weekends on LNER East Coast Main Line. It seems they have had talks with LNER over whatever the problems were, and settlements have been agreed. The problem I have with this affair is that the union has never explained what they were upset about or what has been agreed with LNER. It could have been a petty problem, or it could have been something much more serious, but we are not being told. I am pretty sure if it was a serious problem, they would have been jumping up and down to tell us about their ‘huge win’ but as they have not been, I suspect it was something tiny that the union had blown up.

I was getting ready to write about GB being the perpetual runners-up on the opening day of the Paralympics, with three silver and one bronze medal, when all of a sudden we won two golds in the evening session in the swimming pool. The best bit today was when a cyclist was given the big build-up and we were told all she had to do was get around the track to get a medal. The girl got about 30 yards before she fell off her bike. We have now jumped up the medal table and at the end of day one we are second to China.

Saturday

Morning all my diary readers, it’s not so nice here in Westminster this morning, it is greyish and a bit breezy. I suppose that can be expected as tomorrow is the first day of meteorological autumn. Parliament starts again on Monday, so I expect to see a lot more of Legohead. Then in two weeks time it’s the Party Conference season and it’s in recess again until the 7th October. Why don’t they put the summer holiday and conference season together?

Earlier this week planning permission was granted for the construction of the tallest building in Britain outside of London. If it proceeds this new building will be constructed in Great Jackson Street, Manchester and will be 71 storeys and 213 metres high. That is just 10 metres taller than Manchester’s current tallest building, Deansgate Square South Tower. Neither of them really comes anywhere near the Shard, which is next to London Bridge Station and at 309.6 metres is Britain’s tallest building. The building in Deansgate is at the time of writing Britain’s 10th highest building, the other nine top ten tall buildings are all in London.

It seems that every time Gail’s Bakery try to open a new shop there are loads of objections. I have heard it said that this is because it has a connection to Israel, but I don’t know if this is true or not. The new branch in Worthing’s Warwick Street has overcome planning objections by taking a building that was previously a restaurant, so no planning permission for change of use has been necessary. I understand that the products sold, and their prices, are at the extreme opposite end of the spectrum to Greggs. So perhaps it’s a good thing that the two establishments in Worthing will be just about as far apart as it is possible to get while remaining in the town’s main shopping area.

I wonder if the announcement that Metro Bank is to start charging its three million users 2.99% for using their debit cards is the thin end of the wedge? Admittedly it is to be brought in initially for usage overseas but how long before the temptation to charge for use in the U.K. kicks in? Other banks won’t let the chance to make more money go and soon it will be the norm. It’s no wonder that the ‘Powers That Be’ want to move us all to digital payments, they don’t make money when you spend cash.

An interesting bit on the news today. The number of illegal immigrants coming to the U.K. since Liebore came to power eight weeks ago, is one-third of the total number that have arrived in small boats this year. So, in the first 27 weeks of the year while the Tories were in charge two-thirds of the total number of the boat people arrived and the other third arrived in the eight weeks of the Liebore administration. Liebore told us the Tories were weak on illegal immigration and they had a ‘fully funded plan’ to ‘smash the gangs.’ It is clearly not working.

The NHS has a plan to go into pubs, clubs and workplaces to weigh and measure people. The idea is to identify people who are obese and to save the NHS money treating heart attacks and strokes. The problem I see is that the NHS just doesn’t have the people or funds to carry out this plan. Of course being weighed and measured is initially going to be voluntary. Well, I can’t see many people volunteering, so if the scheme is seen to be failing to get volunteers will it suddenly become compulsory? One other question, will the NHS staff who carry out the scheme be weighed and measured first?

Yesterday was the last day of the football transfer window and before it shut at 11 pm I had hoped to see Legohead get transferred abroad. I’m sure he would go down well in Hungary or Romania maybe even Brazil or Venezuela. Then we could have brought in someone nice and sensible like Mette Frederiksen from Denmark, she also looks nice. I wonder how much the transfer fee would be for the Don?

That’s me done for the day and although it’s not terribly warm it’s good enough for the windowsill so I’m off out. I might pop back in and see if there is any decent sport on the TV in the office, it’s a busy day with football, cricket and the Paralympics. Chat to you next week.
 

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