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

Monday

Good morning everyone and hello from No. 10. Another nice quiet weekend here in the street, no sign of JoJo cat yet, and Legohead only seems to come in during the day and even then he comes and goes via the back door. Obviously, the big news of the weekend was the attempted assassination of The Donald. He was extremely lucky to have turned his head as the gunman fired so he only got hit in the ear. I’m waiting to find out why the gunman wanted to kill The Donald but, in the meantime, my commiserations to the family of the audience member killed and to the two injured.

In Ukraine, they seem to be having some success against Russian drones by shooting them down from a 50-year-old Yak 52 propeller-driven trainer plane by the copilot using a shotgun. The Russians have a problem as not only does the old plane have a very small radar signature making it hard for Russian radars to detect, but the radars are tuned to pick up fast jets and the Yak is slow. By not venturing closer than 50 miles to the front line, it also keeps out of many anti-aircraft missile’s range and gives itself time to avoid the longer-range ones. But it is the use of a shotgun that intrigues me, this is like going back to the early days of aerial combat in WW1 when Sopwith Camels shot at Fokker Triplanes.

I hear that for four days now an RAF Chinook helicopter is stuck in a field near Bere Regis. I understand the helicopter was taking part in an exercise when it suffered a hydraulic failure and made an emergency landing. It has been guarded by members of the RAF regiment while waiting for spare parts. It was supposed to have been fixed last Friday but apparently when it was started up the hydraulic line split fully. The RAF say they hope to have it repaired by early this week. I suspect that the maintenance mechanics have had the weekend off or surely it wouldn’t have taken so long to change a pipe.

Over the last month or so, the number of orders for aircraft sales announced by Boeing and Airbus seems to have dried up. But has it really? I suspect that what has been happening is that the big plane makers have just not been telling us about them and keeping the orders in their pockets with the intention of outdoing each other at the Farnborough Airshow next week. The biannual show opens in a week’s time and is almost always the place where the manufacturers announce several big orders. Who will be this year’s winners, Airbus or Boeing? We will know by Saturday week.

I have been reading about Tibbles the cat and her part in the extinction of the Scott Island wren in New Zealand. After several shipwrecks, the New Zealand authorities decided to build a lighthouse on Scott Island off the coast of the South Island. The man appointed as lighthouse keeper took his family and their pet cat Tibbles to the unpopulated island. The only problem was that Tibbles was pregnant and shortly after arriving on the island gave birth to eight kittens who became feral. Within a year the cats had wiped out the total population of the local wren that was flightless and found nowhere else in the world.

Did anyone see Jet Lag Joe making his address on the Trump shooting last night? Once again, he couldn’t read the autocue properly and twice referred to the ‘battle box’ instead of the ‘ballot box’. But it was when he stumbled off the stage when just how sick he is became apparent. He could hardly walk and had his hands out in front of him like he expected to fall over at any moment. But his right hand seemed to be immobile with a cocked wrist. The more I see of him on the TV, the more I expect to see him pull out of the presidential race.

The Donald had a bit of good news this morning when a federal judge in Florida chucked the case of holding on to classified documents out of court. The grounds were that the special prosecutor who brought the case had been appointed illegally and consequently didn’t have the powers to bring the case. The special counsel, Jack Smith, was ruled to have not been appointed legally as he was appointed by the Attorney General and that under the constitution he should have been appointed by Congress with approval by the Senate. On the face of it this is a big win for The Don, but there could yet be an appeal.

Tuesday

A very good morning to you all. I wandered down the garden for my constitutional and I had only just got there when the heavens opened. Gosh, did it rain, it came down as my mother cat used to say ‘in stair rods’ – whatever they may be. Lots of speculation this morning about the King’s Speech this morning, but not much talk about Liebore’s problems in Wales where the Welsh First Minister (or whatever they call him in their own language) is in deep trouble. In the just past general election, the Liebore share of the vote fell in Wales. Now I hear that this morning four Welsh ministers have resigned calling on, Vaughan Gething the FM, to resign. Liebore only have a majority thanks to support from the likes of Plaid Cymru. This is one to watch.

So, The Don has picked his VP running mate and it’s someone called JD Vance, who I have never heard of. Reading a bit about him, he appears to have been an ‘anyone but Trump’ a few years ago but has had a conversion and is now a strong Trump supporter. I suspect now the announcement has been made the MSM will be trying to dig the dirt on Vance.

I just watched a video on the internet of the destruction of a Russian T90 tank. The tank was equipped with an anti-drone cage, but it was of little use because the Ukrainians used an RPG to remove a track. The crew abandoned the tank and left open the commander’s hatch and the door in the cage. So, the UAF flew a $550 drone through the door and dropped an RPG warhead in through the open hatch which set off the ammunition stored in the tank’s turret. Resulting in a $550 drone taking out a $4.5 million tank.

Not long-ago, Wilko stores collapsed with the closure of over 500 branches. Some have reopened as branches of the likes of B&M and Poundland. But several of the stores were bought by the new owners of the Wilko brand and Wilko stores are now trading in five places, Plymouth, Exeter, St Albans, Luton and Rotherham. The new owners have just announced their intention of opening 400 branches, but have given very little detail, like where or when. However, they do say that there are plans for the first 50 stores in the pipeline.

Gosh, I didn’t expect my first story of the day to develop quite so quickly, as it has just been announced that Vaughan Gething, the Welsh First Minister, has resigned. He has been very controversial since getting the post, among other things he brought in the 20mph speed limit, refused to return a £200,000 donation to his FM campaign from a man convicted of environmental offences and sacked a minister whom he claimed had leaked the story that he had told ministers to delete phone messages during Covid so they weren’t available for any enquiry. But he was beaten to resigning this morning by England manager Gareth Southgate. Could they be looking at a job swap?

News reaches me this morning from Spoons. The first bit is definitely good news, they have a special offer on for breakfast. You can get fried egg, bacon, sausage and hash browns for £2.99p instead of the usual £5.41p in 78 of their London pubs for a while. The other news might be seen by some as good news and others as bad news, but all Spoons with TVs will be showing the Olympics. So that’s all but 17 of their 801 boozers that won’t be showing the games.

Up in Scottishland the government is looking for bids for the replacement of its smaller ferries to the islands and around the Clyde. It seems that one of the existing small ferries is now over 50 years old and in desperate need of replacement, but the government doesn’t want to repeat the farce of the two big ferries currently being built. The new ships will be electric-powered, and the initial order is expected to be for seven ships with a further three at a later date. I understand the Scottishland Government Is talking about spending £175 million on the first boats and upgrading the ports with shore power. Ferguson Marine, who have made such a mess of the current order, will be amongst the bidders and as it is now in public ownership could well win the order.

Wednesday

It’s a lovely morning here in the street, warm and sunny and the forecast says we are in for a mini heatwave, at least in the South of England. A bit of good news this morning, the June inflation figure was flat at 2% which is bang on where the economists like to see it. Of course, the Tories were still in power in June so of course it is nothing to do with Legohead’s lot. Still, I bet he claims that it was all down to Liebore.

One thing that the new government has been very quiet about is the number of illegal immigrants crossing the channel in small boats. Rather than reducing numbers, up until last night 1,185 had arrived since they came to power and that is mainly in a period when the weather has been unfavourable. If the forecasters are right, and we are in for a good week, I hate to think what the numbers will be in another fortnight. Incidentally, I hear that Afghans, Kurds, Iraqis and Iranians are flooding to the border now that the threat of being sent to Rwanda has disappeared. Legohead has taken away a deterrent and replaced it with nothing. The idea that getting all the agencies working together as a panacea is clearly rubbish, does Legohead really think they have never worked together before?

It is the State Opening of Parliament this lunchtime and Liebore have been selectively leaking some of the 35 bills the speech will contain. Of course, these include several of the things that were in their election manifesto like re-nationalisation of the railways, the creation of Great British Energy and the target of building 300,000 houses a year which is exactly the same number the Tories promised and failed to build. I wonder how they will re-nationalise the railways when many of the operating companies are foreign-owned and have long contracts? It’s alright saying we will take the contracts back as they expire but that may not be for years. Are they going to take the train leasing companies into state ownership, how much will that cost? Then we have no idea what Great British Energy will do, I hear it is not to be a generator or distributor of electricity, so just what will it do?

At the 2022 Liebore Party Conference a resolution was passed to huge cheers and applause. The party was in favour and would introduce Proportional Representation. But it wasn’t in the 2024 manifesto, and despite many party members being in favour, the parliamentary party isn’t. Well, why would it be, having just won an election using the first past the post system with a reduced vote share since the last election. The problem with PR is that it tends to lead to coalition governments and if the results of the last election were repeated under PR, Reform would have had more seats than the Limp Dumps and Liebore would have to be negotiating a coalition.

I read that the US Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Mason, found itself under fire from anti-ship ballistic missiles for the first time shortly after it joined the Navy’s counter-Houthi mission. A tanker called M/V Central Park was boarded by five Somali pirates and the crew locked themselves in the ‘Citadel’, a safe room from which they can control the ship. They put out an SOS and the Mason came to the rescue causing the pirates to flee in a skiff before giving up when shot at by the Mason’s helicopter. Unfortunately, the pirates had damaged the Citadel door and the crew were trapped inside and it was while sailors from the Mason where working to get them out, the ship detected an incoming anti-ship missile. The missiles were engaged and splashed several miles short of their target.

Elon Musk has announced that he is going to move the HQ of his two major companies, Space X and X from California to Texas. The reason appears to be because of the Democrat government of California introducing what Musk considers to be woke laws. Apparently, he particularly objects to a new law which prevents school staff from telling anyone, including parents, information about a child’s gender identity. Musk moved the HQ of his other major company, Tesla, to Texas in 2021 and he is a resident of the State which I hear has no income tax.

Greggs the Bakers has applied for planning permission to open a national storage and distribution centre at Symmetry Park in Kettering. The planned building is 311,551 sq ft of logistics space on a 25.1-acre plot and is aimed at serving all 2,500 Greggs shops across the nation. But Greggs have announced plans to open another 500 shops, consequently there is provision in the application for the building to be expanded by an additional 100,000 sq. ft.

Thursday

Morning all and it is supposed to warm and sunny today, but it isn’t yet! I hope the forecast is right and it gets better later. I woke up this morning to the news that Jet Lag Joe has got Covid again. I’m not sure but I think it’s his third time, even though he has had all his jabs. Under the current rules he doesn’t have to isolate, he says he is going to do so voluntarily. I wonder if this will be the excuse for him stepping down from the presidential race? If he does, it should be the Camel who replaces him. But as she has absolutely zero chance of winning against The Donald, she is going to be manoeuvred out.

I hear of an Australian man who recently was writing a book about the Royal Australian Airforce during World War 2. He approached the Airforce and asked for a list of all their WW2 bases in Australia. The Airforce apologised and said the information requested was classified so wasn’t available. The author pointed out that the war finished over 70 years ago, so there was no need for the list still to be classified, so how could it be declassified. The RAAF said the only body who could declassify it was Allied South West Pacific Area Command (SWPA). Unfortunately, this had been disbanded after the war so it couldn’t be declassified.

Two weeks after polling day, news has emerged that Wandsworth Council mislaid 6,558 votes at the count for the Putney constituency. So, the declared election vote was not correct. The council says that the problem was a mistake on a spreadsheet, and it didn’t actually make a difference to the result as the missing votes were spread across all the candidates. I am not an expert on election law, but wouldn’t you think that the election in that constituency should be rerun and the Returning Officer and his officials replaced?

An interesting story reaches me from Wales where I hear that the national 20mph speed limit is to be replaced after being implemented less than a year ago. It wasn’t a popular policy before it was brought in by Welsh Liebore, but it has been a disaster in practice with millions ignoring it and it costs a fortune to change all the signage. So, the announcement has been made that the 20mph limit is on the way out, but it is going to be September before it can be fully implemented. I suppose they have a lot of old road signs to find and reinstall. What a waste of money by a Liebore government who always have the begging bowl out for more English money under the Barnett Formula.

Legohead has gone off to Blenheim Palace today for a meeting of European leaders. This isn’t an EU meeting but a meeting of all European nations. So the meeting is open to the 27 in the EU and the 20 (or so) who aren’t, including the U.K., Switzerland, Iceland, Turkey, Ukraine, and Georgia. This is a meeting of countries and unlike the EU is a talking shop not a legislature and is perhaps what the EU should have been. Mind you, Legohead thinks he is going to start talking to the EU at the meeting about illegal immigration. Fat chance of getting anywhere.

News reaches me from Czechoslovakia that much to the disappointment of EdF, the Korean company Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) has been selected to build two new nuclear reactors at the site of an existing nuclear power station. The order is said to be worth $22 billion, and the Czechs are immediately going into talks with KHNP over the purchase of two further reactors at a second plant. What I find interesting is that both Russia and China had been banned from bidding on security grounds and that a Czechoslovakian spokesman has said that on just about every criterion the KHNP bid was superior to the EdF bid. I have often wondered why we haven’t asked Korea to bid for nuclear power stations in the U.K.

The Liebore election manifesto said that they would set up Great British Energy as an investment hub that would not own generators but would facilitate private investment in ‘Green’ power. Now in power, that has gone by the board, and in the paperwork that came with the King’s Speech it says that GBE will build and own wind farms and solar farms. So, we have been lied to and this is nationalisation by the back door. GBE will be able to build just where it wants and when it wants with the backing of government, and access to as much money as it wants. I wonder how many private companies will be able to compete with that monster. It’s like having the CEGB back.

Friday

Well, it’s a lovely sunny and rather warm morning here in London. When I walked through the office on my way back from my constitutional, lots of people were twiddling their thumbs in front of ‘blue screens of death’ on their computers. People were moaning about Microsoft, as it seemed that it was only their computers that were down. People on Apple Macs and iPads appeared to be OK. Now I hear that the problem seems to have been caused by a software company called CrowdStrike, an antiviral software supplier. They seem to have updated their software worldwide overnight and this has killed many Microsoft PCs and servers.

I hear that Greece is on the brink of taking 32 of their older F-16 fighter jets out of service because they can’t be upgraded to the latest ‘Block 70’ standard. Instead, they will be buying F-35s. But the latest I hear is that they will basically be trading in the old jets to the US. The idea is that they can then be upgraded to a higher level (but not the highest) and then gifted to Ukraine who would clearly love to get their hands on more F-16s to add to the fleet of F-16s they are about to inherit. But I also hear that Ukraine is in early talks with Sweden over the acquisition of old Saab Gripens that are to be replaced by the latest models. Again, this is said to be around another 32 planes, but introducing a new aircraft is not easy because of training and support. Introducing more of a type already in the fleet is much easier.

When Russia invaded Ukraine; Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania stopped buying electricity from the Russia and Belarus grid, something they had been doing since they had signed a purchase agreement back in 2001. They have now informed the Russians that they will no longer be members of that grid as of 7th February next year, terminating the 2001 agreement. Instead, they have signed up to the European wide grid and will synchronise their systems with the European system the following day.

I hear that Turkey, having blown their relationship with the US over buying Russian anti-aircraft missiles and consequently not being allowed to buy the F-35, are still looking for an air defence fighter aircraft. They have been offered various Russian planes but have not been impressed with their performance in the war with Ukraine. The current favourite rumour is that a purchase of around 40 Eurofighter Typhoon jets was agreed in a side meeting at last week’s NATO conference in Washington. It will be interesting to see to see if this is announced at Farnborough next week.

Yesterday it was the turn of Sir Ed Davey to appear at the Post Office Horizon Inquiry. I just love watching these people squirm under the forensic examination of the inquiry’s lead counsel Jason Beer. Davey took a slightly different approach to his excuses from most of the other high-ups who have given evidence and seem to have suffered a collective bout of amnesia and can’t remember events and being briefed. Sir Ed admitted being briefed but basically said the briefs were all wrong. Interestingly, many of the departmental briefs seemed to be direct copies of Post Office briefs. I wonder if there were people in the Ministry in the pay of the Post Office or were they just too lazy to work things out for themselves. Anyway, Sir Ed came away looking like an idiot who had bought the Post Office propaganda, hook, line and sinker.

Before the war with Ukraine began, Russia’s President PooTin is supposed to have described the T90 as “the best tank in the world.” At that time Russia is reported to have had around 67 of this model in its ranks but has been adding to them over the last two and a half years of fighting at the rate of only about five a month, despite desperate attempts to increase the production rate. This week, according to the open-source investigative project Oryx, the 100th T90 was destroyed. The T90 has proven to be very vulnerable to the western Javelin anti-tank missile which attacks the tank from above, where its armour is thinnest and even the old-fashioned rocket-propelled grenade which is employed to blow its tracks off. Thus, making it extremely vulnerable to other forms of attack, like Bradley FVs then being able to get close enough for its small gun to penetrate the tank’s armour. The Russians have another new super-duper tank, in limited production. The T14 is only available in very low numbers, and it is yet to be risked in the Ukraine war.

It looks like TfL could have a major problem with a whole load of prosecutions for people not paying for a bus ticket. For many years TfL sent a document to people being prosecuted and had the same document online, which stated that not having a bus ticket was a ‘strict liability’ offence. This is a legal term which means you have no defence, so people immediately plead guilty. On top of that the cases are held on the single justice system, in front of a magistrate sitting in an empty court, often without legal representation. Now it appears that there are legitimate defences, so TfL has misled thousands of people and a decision has to be made as to cancelling thousands of convictions.

Saturday

Good morning people, it’s dry again but duller in London today. However, it is still warm and was too warm for me overnight and I had a bit of trouble sleeping, which is unusual for me. I hear that today is National Jump Day. Everyone is invited to jump up and down at 11:38 and 13 seconds. The idea is that if everyone jumps at the same time, we change the earth’s orbit and make it daylight for longer. Fat chance.

With the Croydon trams now 24 years old, Sad Dick the London Mayor has had to acknowledge that they are due to be replaced. To this end I hear that Transport for London has been asking potential suppliers to show just what they can offer in a kind of beauty contest. Apparently, the idea is to help TfL prepare a specification against which the various makers will eventually bid. Two things that will definitely be included in the eventual specification are said to be air-conditioning and phone charging points.

I hear that in Cornwall the council are rolling out new rubbish bins to replace the existing bins. Like all these new services there seems to be all sorts of separate bins for everything you can think of including ‘food caddies’. But what made me chuckle is that the council seems to have forgotten about all the old bins. The county is divided into areas, and I hear that in the North Cornwall Metropolitan Area they receive over 10,000 complaints, not about the new bins, but the old bins. It seems that the council initially made no provision to collect and dispose of all the old bins, but because of the complaints they are now having to collect them. I suppose that thousands of old plastic bins will now be going to landfill. I wonder what archaeologists will think when they dig them up in a 1,000 years’time.

A civil engineering company in Hull has started putting up its signs warning drivers of road works in the local Hull dialect. One said ‘Er Nrr Rerd Werks’ which translated into ‘Oh No Road Works’ and was stolen and missing for six months. The story was in the local press and a lady messaged them to say her son had stolen it, given it to her as a present and it was in her bedroom. The company got it back in exchange for a full-size photo of the sign. Another of their signs said ‘Yer Jerking, Merr Rerd Werks’ which in case you haven’t guessed it translates to ‘You’re Joking, More Road Works’. This was also stolen, and the company jokingly offered a ‘Pattie Butty’ for its return. They got a message back, in cut-out newspaper letters, saying ‘Sign is safe! I don’t like Pattie Butties.’

I must say that I was delighted to see that the courts have at last got tough with the Just Stop Oil morons and sent them to prison for long spells. Four of them got four years and the fifth defendant got five years but he was one of the JSO founders and organisers. Of course, the usual lefties moaned and moaned, cried unfair and demanded that Legohead should do something. For once Legohead has got it right and said he will not be interfering with the sentences.

The F-35 Lightening jet fighter has at long last started to be delivered with its latest upgrade. Three planes have so far been delivered to the US military at the latest level, Technical Refresh 3. The TR3, the latest production model, has a big increase in computer power and computer memory. This is said to allow the aircraft to detect threats at an increased range and to allow it to deliver weapons at a greater range with more accuracy. But what the plane really needs is the improved jet engine that is being developed and should be available soon.

I really can’t believe what I have just read. According to the creator, Hello Kitty is not a cat, but a little girl. I must admit I have never seen a little girl with cat’s whiskers but according to the creator she lives in a London suburb and has a twin sister Millie who is her best friend. She also weighs two apples and is three apples tall. Oh yes, her surname is White. I think they are spinning me a yarn, I know a cat when I see one.

That’s yet another week done, and although it’s dull here this morning, it is quite warm enough to go and snooze on my favourite windowsill next to the front door. I was introduced to the President of Ukraine yesterday and he called me a kit. I always thought that was a measure of fish equal to 10 stone, I know I have put on some weight but not that much. Chat to you next week.
 

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