How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb.

Well. As the fictional Chinese curse has it, “may you live in interesting times”. The times are certainly getting interesting. Mother Russia has had enough.

The media are all “Boo hiss, evil Putin” , but there’s a bit more to it than that.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/28/nato-expansion-war-russia-ukraine

Mr Putin has had enough of the American puppet regimes being used as weapons platforms on his borders.

And he’s sick of nazis.

https://rantt.com/what-is-ukraines-azov-battalion

So far, so good.

But as with all wars, it the civvies who suffer.

As usual I have been taking a contrary view to that which the media want me to believe. As you can see.

I was shouting into the void on Twitter, trying to work out what was annoying me so much about the Ukraine hysteria. “Invasion is bad. War is bad. Agreed. I think it’s the fact we can invade a sovereign nation and slaughter a million of it’s citizens (Iraq). And Palestine lives this. So is it Russia doing it that’s bad, or doing it to white people?”

“And the media hypocrisy. We saw Wikileaks. We know the casual atrocities we were routinely committing. Whilst our media was saying “…Our brave boys”. Now it’s “Mother takes a stranger’s child to the border. I cried” The gall.”

But don’t worry. Bozo was on the case.

Our foreign secretary started gobbing off prompting Putin to raise the nuclear defence level. The papers, in no way feeding hysteria, helpfully published a housing price guide.

Warrington gets cleanly vaporised, which is a relief. I can’t make out how many hit the M6 through Birmingham, but frankly it’s not enough.

(Garmin being my satnav watch, how I record all my run data.)

The Tories were all supportive of the Ukranian people, right up until they wanted to flee the warzone to come here.

Then they went full loony.

Bozo stamped on that one, thankfully. No point in winning votes if you’re vaporised, I suppose.

The fascist thing was them pushing through the policing bill while everyone was distracted with the war. Now police have the power to purge the gypsies, harass black people (stop and search, which massively targets black people) and jail for peaceful protest. As someone just tweeted: “Did you know the punishment for peaceful protest in Russia is 7 years in prison? I’m sure glad I live in a Western democracy like Britain where the punishment for peaceful protest is only 10 years in prison.”

Closer to home, the Brits were taking it calmly.

And I nearly got called up.

Some weren’t convinced the architects of the million civvie slaughter in Iraq were the most moral authority against Putin.

Before all that we had some weather.

And Royalty

I got some sage motivational message from an app that records my run data

I was window shopping bikes again. I was very tempted by this, as it was (relatively, for a Harley) cheap.

I was very, very tempted. My obsessing was reaching critical levels but then I stumbled upon some statistics. It has 51bhp, weighs as much as Wales (564lbs/ 256kg) and has a (somewhat optimistic) top speed of 103mph. My Daytona is 123bhp, 364lbs/ 165kg, and capable of 160mph. It’s not that I want to be flat out all the time, but I had a retro motorbike that had 49bhp (and 195kg) and it couldn’t accelerate away from family cars at the lights. It was pitiful.

Crisis averted.

Then I was looking at something to carry all my kit to races so I wouldn’t need to ask Wendy for her car (races are invariably on Sunday when she wants to drive her mate to church). I saw this.

It’s a 400cc superscooter. There’s a huge stash area under the seat and a top box. Heated grips, muffs, all enclosed so no getting dirty… It would be a cheap and practical beast of burden. But… it’s a scooter. It’s ugly. And due to parking space, I’d probably have to get rid of my Daytona. For that eyesore. It would be an affront to man and god. I let that go as well.

I wasn’t tempted (£950 and not in great nick) but I also saw my learner bike from the 80s up for sale.

10.5 screaming bhp, 0-60, allegedly.

Looking at it now, I am a bit tempted. No. No time for any distraction from the plan this year.

We got our new gas bill. It’s already gone up from £68 per month, 4 months ago, to £96, then £114 to pay instant arrears, now this from April.

£132 per month. Someone is getting very rich out of freezing the poor to death.

I had a look online. Compare The Market said “Deals for you: zero”

They can’t even offer a switch deal. I went onto one Wendy recommended, £155 per month cheapest. But that was fixed for 12 months, the current one could go up again in September. And we could have had nationalised energy companies. But Brits chose to hate foreigners instead. As The Smiths sang “And your prejudice won’t keep you warm tonight”.

More Brexit bonus:

Last bit of politics, honest.

Huge if true:

In other news, Wendy has had a really bad bout of the plague weakness. She seems to be a lot better now but it is nasty. And it disproves the post viral fatigue claim of a direct correlation between physical exertion and weakness. There is obviously more to it than that.

I’ve got it now. Not bad, but it makes sticking to the plan more challenging. Which I totally don’t need.

My Duolingo has hit a wall. I can’t get this into my head. I can’t see a rule.