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

Monday

Good morning, my good friends, and it… guess what, it’s drizzling here in London, I could have predicted that with a Test match to be won. I saw that Angel Eagle doing the rounds on the TV this morning. Surely the government has someone better to offer the media, or are they all sitting on a beach in the south of France or in the second home in Italy. Well, she was announcing another £100 million for Border Security, which is a spit in the wind. But all she could talk about was a change of tactics. What the hell that meant I don’t know. I did notice that once again the Liebore spokesman of the day refused to do on Talk, it’s as if they are scared of being asked tough questions.

The Met Police seem to have messed up with the demonstrations at the Britannia Hotel in Canary Wharf yesterday. The local residents, mostly women and children, sat down in the road and had a good sing-song. Everything was quite peaceful until people turned up in masks and started being nasty. In the meantime, the locals moved to sit peacefully on the pavement. The Police then issued a general order banning protesters from the area for 30 days, on the grounds that the residents of the hotel felt intimidated. However, the legality of this was questioned by several groups and lawyers. The Police then said it was all a misunderstanding, the locals were not banned, only a specific group of people who they didn’t identify. What a cock-up.

I am sorry to hear that broadcaster James Whale has finally entered a hospice and looks to be on his last legs. He was diagnosed with terminal kidney cancer four years ago and has been in slow decline ever since. Until a few weeks ago he was still presenting his weekly programme on Talk, even if he was only doing an hour or so before not feeling well enough to. But six weeks ago he was told that he was in the final stages, and a few weeks ago he entered the hospice. I understand he has had a constant stream of his broadcasting friends visiting him, and they report that despite looking well the cancer has reached his vocal cords, and he is losing his voice, not the best thing for a speech-radio presenter.

I see the press have caught up with the rumours reported by your cat reporter last week, several of the Lionesses are in line for medals. And most of them have the same people getting the same gongs as I predicted, have they been reading my diary? One tiny bit of information I did learn was that Chloe Kelly didn’t get a medal after the last Euros because the committee didn’t want to award the whole team as it was only the Euros and not the World Cup. I suspect that excuse won’t hold this time.

A bit of progress to report on the Rolls Royce Small Modular Reactor (SMR). I told you way back that Roll had an agreement to build about 3 Gigawatts SMRs (6 or 7 × 470 MW units) in the Czech Republic. Well, it seems that Roll have signed a memorandum of understanding with the huge Czech engineering company Škoda, to manufacture some of it reactor parts to be included in factory-built modules in the UK. Rolls also has an agreement to build 3 reactors in the UK. That means at least 9 for their factory to make, and probably a whole lot more, as only 3 in the UK is a ridiculously small number, and Rolls are years ahead of their European competitors.

If you have visited Euston Station recently you will probably have noticed they have a new digital departure board. But it is the one it replaced that this tale is about. The 2001 LED board is now housed in the Margate warehouse of a self-confessed railway nut and multimillionaire. The warehouse also houses Jeremy Hosking’s private collection of railway locomotives, carriages and even his own private train. But what I find most interesting is that the departure board is still plugged into the Network Rail information grid and displays the up-to-the-minute Euston departure information to only those few who work in the private museum.

I hear that Manchester United have hit a problem with their planned 100,000-capacity ‘New Old Trafford’. The plan is to build the new stadium on land close to the existing stadium, allowing them to continue using the existing stadium while the new one is under construction. So, they need to purchase a ‘Freightliner’ terminal to have enough space. But the talks between ManUre and Brookfield, the owners of Freightliner, have hit the buffers over the cost. ManUre value the land at £40 million, while Brookfield say it’s worth £400 million. Brookfield are in no hurry to sell, as the site is still suitable for their operations. They have identified a new site but are in no rush to move. I think Brookfield have ManUre over a barrel.

Tuesday

Good morning everyone, lovely morning for me with lots of sunshine and Felix Chicken for my breakfast. I am not so sure it’s a good day for Legohead although he is pretending it is. The protests at immigrant hotels are growing daily, now a row has blown up about two immigrants in a rape case in Nuneaton who the Police tried to withhold their nationality (Afghan) and ethnicity. Now I hear the infamous ‘one in, one out’ scheme starts today, and I can’t see any good coming of it as we won’t be having any less illegal immigrants in the country.

Yesterday I wrote a bit about James Whale being on his last legs. This morning, I learn that he has finally succumbed to his cancer. It’s strange how someone who came over so opinionated seems to have been exactly the opposite in real life with everyone saying what a nice man he was off air. RIP James.

I understand that American Airlines has taken delivery of the first of its 50 Airbus A320XLR planes. But there is a problem, although they have the plane American can’t use it because it has no seats. When an airline buys a plane it can take the basic finish as offered by the maker, but much like buying a new car, it comes with a multitude if options. In the case of this order, American picked the seat manufacturer and type of seat and they haven’t been delivered so the plane hasn’t gone to the states, instead it has gone into Czechia to await the seats which are not expected to be available until late this year.

Workers at Boeing’s military aircraft division are going on strike over wages. The 3,200 people make and maintain the F-15 fighter, and some missile systems, have turned down an offer of a 20% wage increase, a $5,000 ‘ratification’ bonus and other benefits. Like the machinist who were on strike earlier this year they want more. The machinists finally settled for 38%, but it was spread over 4 years. It’s not as if Boeing don’t have enough other problems, this one will be worth watching.

Yesterday the cruise ship Celebrity Celebration was sailing in the Ionian Sea off the bottom of Italy when it lost all power. It was without electricity for over two hours, drifting at the whim of the currents and wind. The passengers had no air conditioning, no water, no toilets and only cold food. I understand that when the power was restored passengers were given a free drink and free access to the Internet. I learn the ship is heading, at a slow speed, to Messina and it’s not yet clear if its itinerary will be changed.

The hotel booking web site booking.com is facing class action in the EU from a group of 10,000 hotels over the ‘best price’ clause in their contract. The clause used to say that hotels could not offer guests a room, on their own website for less than the price they gave booking.com. In 2024 the EU’s ECJ ruled this practice illegal, and the clause was consequently dropped. The class action is to cover the years from 2002 to 2024 when it was in place. I just wonder how the hotels can quantify how much the best price clause cost them as they got more money from customers using using booking.com.

In Spain a hotel has been fined for the common Spanish practice of taking a photocopy of a person’s ID card when they check in. By law a hotel must record several pieces of information such as the person’s name, ID card or passport number, nationality and date of birth. But by taking a photocopy of the ID card they recorded “excessive information” as they had information that was not required by law, such as the guest’s photo, the card’s expiry date, and even the name of the guest’s parents. Is this what we are going to have in the U.K. if Tony B Liar gets his way and we introduce ID card. What will it say for people who don’t know their parents’ name?

Wednesday

Hi folks, just like yesterday it’s a lovely morning, sunny and warm, so I’m going to have a nice day. Unlike Legohead who I think is going to have another rotten day. It has emerged that the ‘one in, one out’ scheme has a lot of loop hoops in the agreement. For a start it is only experimental and runs for just one year, after which the French can walk away. No one under 18 can be returned so I suspect we will be seeing loads of ineligible 17-year-olds. But the biggest loophole is that anyone with an outstanding ‘human rights’ case is ineligible to be deported. But it gets worse, we must notify the French who we are sending back within 14 days of the immigrant arriving in the country, and the French then have 14 days, which they can extend to 28 days, to decide whether to accept the person, who then must go to France within 3 months. The agreement is an open cheque to Human Rights Lawyers.

In China the world’s biggest wind turbine has just been turned on. The 20 Mw machine made by Mingyang Smart Energy is still experimental but is absolutely huge, 242 metres high with blades 128 metres long and capable of supporting 96,000 homes (when the wind blows). It all sounds wonderful until you read that it has been found it changes the weather around it, the wind pattern is changed as is the temperature. If that is the effect of one turbine, can you imagine the effect of a whole 400-turbine farm in the middle of the North Sea. According to the Millipede Wind power is going to save the world, if what the Chinese have discovered is true they might just be killing it.

I read of an American car reviewer who got a $160 ticket while testing a Nissan Rogue. The reviewer was pulled over for not displaying the rear number plate correctly. Apparently the car was still being prepared and had not been registered so no number plate had yet been issued. Instead it was using the American equivalent of trade plates as supplied by the dealer. These plates were secured by magnets, but the whole of the rear of the car is composite so the tester had secured the plate to a metal rear door. The cops were not impressed and issued a ticket saying it is a rear number plate not a side number plate and wouldn’t let him drive the car until the driver fixed the plate with screws.

In Denmark Aalborg Zoo has appealed for people to donate their unwanted pets to them, in what they call a ‘recycling scheme’, so they can feed them to their predators, particularly lynx. They only want healthy animals, particularly hamsters, chickens and horses. They want the predators to be able to eat the complete animal, including the fur and bones as they would the wild. I better watch out, Legohead hates me.

I always knew the Germans were sticklers for the rules, but surely this story is taking it a bit far. An overnight ANA flight from Tokyo was denied landing because it was 18 seconds earlier. Frankfurt airport closes overnight because of noise restrictions. It shuts at 11 pm and reopens at 5 am. The ANA 787-9 was due to land at 5 am but, due to a tail wind, was a fraction early. The pilot asked for clearance to land at 04:59 and 42 seconds but was told by air traffic control to do a circuit. In doing so, it probably made more noise than if it had been allowed to land, but to the Germans rules are rules.

Next for your delight I have a strange tale from New Zealand where a 27-year-old woman has been charged with child cruelty. She was travelling by coach between Whangārei and Auckland and placed her suitcase in the under-coach luggage compartment. When the coach stopped at the bus depot in Kaiwaka, 60 miles short of Auckland, the driver was getting the luggage of people getting off out of the compartment when he saw a bag moving. Worried, he called the police, and they found the woman’s two-year-old in the case. The child was said to be well but rather hot and is undergoing tests in hospital.

The fire station in Bath has been declared as not fit for purpose. It seems that the doors of the 1930s Art Deco building are too narrow for modern fire engines, and there have been numerous cases of the engines catching the doors when answering an alarm. Avon Fire and Rescue Service has submitted a planning application to the local council for permission to knock down the fire station and rebuild with a modern building. Of course, the local Heritage Society wants to save the old building and have it listed. The society wants the building to be ‘sympathetically modernised’ but the Fire Brigade say it is impossible to bring the building up to current standards because of its age and design. However, the Fire Brigade has promised to retain some of the features of the old building, including the crest on the façade of the current building and the fireman’s pole.

Thursday

Hello folks, cloudy and mild for my excursion down the garden. Legohead has just announced that we have detained the first illegal immigrants to send to France, which he says is imminent. I bet it isn’t, due to the timings built into the agreement. Anyway, it is probably never going to happen as they will all be on the phone to their Human Rights Lawyers.

I had to chuckle when I read in the paper that Robber Reeves has managed to get some growth in the economy. No, not in GDP, but in the so-called ‘Black Hole’. When Liebore came to power 13 months ago they were quick to blame the Tories for leaving them a Black Hole, which seemed to change in size every other day. I think the last I heard they were saying it was £20 billion, while the OBR said they could only find a maximum of £7 billion. The papers today are now quoting a report saying we have a £50 billion Black Hole and the only option Reeves has is to put up taxes, something she has promised not to do.

So Killery and her sex maniac husband Bill have been summoned to appear before a US House committee investigating the case of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Apparently Bill Clinton’s name appears on the manifest of flights on Epstein’s plane flying to his private island. The media is reporting that on one flight the former President received a massage from a girl who was a victim of Epstein. This should be an appearance worth hearing.

Another huge problem at Heathrow, where the road tunnel to the centre of Heathrow and Terminals 2 & 3 was closed for several hours. This caused utter chaos as people were dropped off by buses and taxis at Terminals 4 & 5 and then tried to use the Tube or the Elizabeth Line to reach Terminals 2 & 3. Both services became hugely overcrowded, and at one stage the Elizabeth Line service stopped short of Heathrow because it became dangerously overcrowded. I suppose this one can be blamed on whoever runs the road system at Heathrow.

I have been reading about a little dog in Chicago who just landed his owner with a $500 vet’s bill. His owner was about to take Louis the Maltipoo out in her car when he stood there on three legs, holding up his injured left paw. His owner rushed the dog to the vet, where after an examination and X-rays it was revealed that Louis had nothing wrong with his paw, he just doesn’t like riding in the car. The dog has now started holding up a paw whenever taken on a car trip, but the give-away is that when holding up one paw gets tiring, he switches to the other.

This week Ukraine seems to have launched several drone attacks on Russia’s oil and gas infrastructure. They have taken out several oil refineries, including in Crimea, and hit at least two 500 miles from the Ukraine/Russia border. In addition, pictures on the internet show an attack on a huge railway goods yard with numerous tank cars blazing. The Russians say one refinery was damaged by debris from a shot-down drone falling on the huge refinery near Moscow that produces 6% of Russia’s petrol. Belatedly, the Russians have shut down the internet locally to the hit refineries, but not before pictures of massive fires and dozens of explosions were posted. Russia has stopped all oil exports for the month of August, and the internal price of petrol and diesel has leapt.

It’s not only in the UK that politicians lie on their CVs. In Spain a rising star of the People’s Party, 33-year-old Noelia Núñez, has been forced to admit she didn’t complete the double degree in law and public administration her CV said she had. She has now stood down from her position on the party’s Steering Committee. Apparently this has led to a rush of Spanish politicians editing their CVs before the media outed them. Wouldn’t it be nice if our politicians, guilty of the same thing, followed the example of Ms Núñez.

Friday

Hi everyone, a nice morning, not a lot of sun, but it’s quite nice outside. It looks like we are going to have a heatwave over the next few days down here in the south of England. I hope the forecast is right. I want to spend time on the windowsill.
Tesco are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Clubcard with the launch of a limited-edition Birthday Cake sandwich. The brioche-style bread has a filling of strawberry jam, soft cheese, vanilla frosting and sprinkles. The £3 sandwich, which can be part of a meal deal, is only on sale until the end of the month. I’m told it tastes very much like a jam sandwich, but as cats don’t usually eat jam sandwiches, I can’t give you my views. I think I will stick to meat. As you know, I am a lover of chicken, but turkey and beef are quite acceptable.

I read of a huge fight on the Royal Caribbean private island CoCo Key. I have seen nothing about what caused it. However, the bit of video I did see on the internet had about 30 people, male and female, all black, fighting in a big swimming pool in front of a swim-up bar. I understand one person was taken away in handcuffs by private security. However, it seems Royal Caribbean are doing their best to keep the full story under wraps.

Here’s an odd little story about a Canadian woman who went on holiday to Mexico. On her return flight, it was insisted that she check in both her suitcase and carry-on bag. The flight went to Toronto where she connected with her internal flight to St John, Newfoundland, where both bags were missing. The Apple AirTag told her the main suitcase was still in Toronto and it turned up a couple of days later, but the carry-on bag was still missing. Some weeks later, Air Canada called to say they had her bag, but when she opened it, half her stuff was missing and had been replaced by all sorts of odd things, including a hunting knife, two male washbags including razors and medication, a boarding pass from 2020, and a boarding pass scanner. Air Canada have denied all responsibility.

Last week I told you about the ‘Stop Driving’ letters being sent out to owners of certain older Citroën cars in the U.K. Today I learn that a similar letter has gone out to some Citroën owners in the Republic of Ireland. As a much smaller country, there are only just under 2,000 cars subject to the recall, but it seems that many have ignored the request to book their car in for the work to be done. Irish owners have now received three letters from the manufacturer, and those in Ireland who have ignored the increasingly urgent order to stop driving the car until the work to replace the airbag has been completed are about to get another letter, but this time it will be registered.

Are you one of the 250 million people who purchased a Nokia 1100 phone back in the early 2000s? The Nokia was cutting-edge technology for a while, but it was killed off by the emergence of smartphones with touchscreens in 2010. If you have nostalgia for those simpler days, I have good news for you. Nokia has launched a 2025 version of the 1100, and it looks rather like a smartphone but with a fixed keyboard instead of a pop-up touchscreen one. It is 5G enabled, and like the iPhone, its body is made from aerospace-grade aluminium. It can support most apps including Google, Google Maps, YouTube and Instagram. However, it is the battery life that is amazing. It is claimed that with normal use you will only need to recharge it once every four weeks. On standby, it should last 65 days, and even with an intense regime of calls and messages, it is said a charge will last two weeks. It has just gone on sale in India. I wonder if it will be coming to the UK as it only costs 3,000 Rupees (£26).

It seems that HM Brixton Prison has been in a virtual lockdown for over a week because a set of keys went missing. The worry was they had fallen into the wrong hands, maybe a prisoner who was planning an escape, or they had been stolen and copied. So, the prison has been madly rushing to replace every lock in the building. What happened to the keys? Well, it seemed that a warden took them home with him, and it was six days before he admitted what he had done and returned them. I wonder if they will now face disciplinary action, because once those keys left the prison, they were compromised, as no one knew if they had been copied. I also wonder what the cost of replacing the locks was.

Saturday

Good morning, my happy readers, and it’s another bright, sunny morning and getting warmer. I see that Rupert Lowe, the MP for Great Yarmouth, dropped a clanger yesterday. He spotted a dinghy off the coast and raised an internet hue and cry about illegal immigrants heading for the town. However, the dinghy was actually taking part in a charity row to Scottishland. Lowe has said he will donate £1,000 to the charity to try to make amends.

I hear that tickets for a breakfast with Robber Reeves at the forthcoming Liebore conference are proving a hard sell, even though they’re cheaper than last year. In fact, I understand that there is a buy one, get one free offer on, and they are still having problems shifting them. Last year, so few tickets were sold the event was cancelled. I wonder if they can make it a double.

I read that Royal Caribbean has tightened up on its drinks package rules. The basic rule says that if one person in a cabin buys a drinks package, then everyone in the cabin must buy the same package, provided they are old enough to drink. They have, until recently, made a few exceptions, such as if someone in the cabin was pregnant or if someone didn’t drink alcohol. But they have now followed other cruise lines and will make no exceptions. My scribe tells me that he worked out he would have to drink 12 pints of beer a day to make the drinks package pay, so he doesn’t bother to buy one.

I hear of a new mineworkers’ strike. The 40 workers at the National Coal Mining Museum are to go on strike over a wage increase. Apparently, the workers have rejected a 5% offer, and their union, Unison, says they want an extra £1 an hour, which the museum says equates to an 8% increase, which they say they can’t afford. It’s a long time since we had a miners’ strike (although the nearest these workers come is leading underground tours), but I hope we aren’t going back to pitched battles between the mineworkers and the police.

The Government homelessness minister, Rushanara Ali, has just made some of her tenants homeless. She was renting out an east London four-bedroom house for £3,300 per month before she served the renters with the statutory four months’ notice last November, using the excuse she was going to sell the property. Just weeks after taking possession of the house, it was back on the market, but was now being offered at £4,000 per month. So, we now have a homelessness minister who makes people homeless. It was not really a surprise when she decided to resign, joining several other ex-ministers, including the corruption czar who has been summoned for corruption. Then there is a Chancellor who lied on her CV and umpteen other members of the government who have been found out lying about their abilities and experience. Gosh, this country is going to the dogs.

I read an interesting thing today, that the Chinese Navy moves its old frigates and destroyers to its Coast Guard, meaning that they are operating virtually a second navy. Other countries have Coast Guard forces that only operate small boats, like cutters. There is then an unofficial rule that the proper navies do not intervene in clashes between Coast Guard forces, on the basis that they are very limited clashes due to the size of the ships. But China is playing a bit of a game here, as their Coast Guard is unlike any other nation’s Coast Guard.

After many years in the planning, the Italian Government has finally approved a bridge across the Strait of Messina to link the Italian mainland and Sicily. Today’s price for the bridge is €13.5 billion, and it will have a span of 3.3 km between two 450-metre-high towers. The area is actually very seismically active, so it will have to be designed to resist earthquakes. In fact, I understand that the Sicilian city of Messina has been destroyed three times by earthquakes. The bridge will be a combined rail and road bridge, so it will be an end to the train ferries that currently link the railways on the mainland and on Sicily.

Well, that’s me done for the week, and it’s another windowsill nap for me this afternoon. Today it is rather nice out there. I do enjoy my afternoon snooze in the sun. I have to make the most of it before winter comes. Chat to you all next week.
 

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