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WORD KNIVES OUT Issue #54, Mid February Edition 2021

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Mid February 2021

POLITICS AND EVENTS

THE IMMINENT ENVIRONMENTAL CASTASROPHE FACING THE WORLD

f you haven’t experienced a flood, the likelihood is you’ll know someone who has and there’s mounting alarm, from the government and public. A report last summer, made by a government agency said that within 30 years, catastrophic coastal flooding we had expected to happen once a century will happen every year! Average summer temperatures in 2050 are likely to be 7.4 degrees higher. It’s not just environmental agitators who are worried – people at the heart of the world of money are panicking. Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of England is sounding the death knell for business unless it acts quickly. So is François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Bank of France. The Financial Times is full of stories about collapsing glaciers and typhoons wreaking havoc. The global elite of Davos – world leaders, chief execs and policymakers – are discussing what can be done. Even the Murdoch family has split over it, with son James blasting his father over climate change denial trumpeted throughout his media empire. Meanwhile, he’s built himself a house in a remote part of Canada with its own water and energy supply, for when it all gets nasty.

TURNING BACK THE

Britain has experienced some of its hottest and wettest weather on record over the last 10 years

- no one seems to police the developers, as the Environment Agency reported to the Select Committee on Flooding last July.

You know it’s serious when the government, which has for years slashed money for government departments is now giving the Environment Agency a cash boost.

Leaky older houses in areas where flooding is going to be increasingly common, will have to be made ‘resilient’. In other words, the people living there have accept that flooding is inevitable, and put in concrete floors and cement walls. So that flood water won’t be out of their homes for almost a year while they dry out but more like a week.

The money isn’t principally for things the public think it should be for, such as dredging rivers, it’s for planning and

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building infrastructure to ensure we lose as little as possible. Devastation is definitely on the cards with 10.4 million homes at risk. New roads and railway lines have to double up as flood defences. New housing has to be flood-friendly – in other words, if local councils decide to build on flood plains (the clue is in the name) there has to be a plan for where the water will safely go instead. Developers and councils have to think about ‘natural flood management’ – in other words, paying farmers to allow their land to flood.

More important than the ruined homes and businesses, the emotional turbulence flooding causes is the threat of serious public unrest. It is already happening.

There is a problem though

Our society has become

increasing short-term: make money today and bugger tomorrow. It’s true for the get rich quick schemes in the City of London and it’s also become true for those who were once profoundly resistant to new-fangled ideas – our rural communities.

The days of pigs in the farmyard, chickens clucking around the orchard, and cows in flowery meadows are long gone. Farming is part of the agrochemical industry—dependent on annual applications of poisons supplied by corporate giants like Bayer and Syngenta. It’s tied closely with insurance companies and banks (in other words, the City and its financial institutions) and it more or less has to be in order to function at all. Spray, or no pay.

POLITICS AND EVENTS

Mid February 2021

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WORD

D WILL BE A HEAVEN SENT OPPORTUNITY FOR POLITICAL EXTREMISTS

E TIDE Asset stripping – common enough in industry, is fundamentally flawed when it used on the countryside. The natural world provides our food, filters the air, regulates the temperature and stores the water we depend on but this has been forgotten.

In the race for riches or just economic survival, this truth has been put firmly to the back of our collective mind. Hypnotised by what friends and neighbours believe, affirmed by what is printed in the papers and broadcast on TV, the public and the farming community alike has trusted companies, governments, agencies, councils, corporations. And if not trusted exactly, felt that there wasn’t much anyone could do about challenging it. After all, no one would let that happen if it really

spelled disaster – would they?

Part of the solution to climate change genuinely does involve rural communities. Peat, soil on its way to becoming coal, is found on mountains and in moorland. It’s a good source of fuel, and hard to put out once it’s alight. Yet moors are often burned to keep heather short, how game birds the rich like to shoot, prefer it. If it hasn’t dried out too much, moorland soil is like a sponge and can hold water that otherwise would speed downstream, flooding towns and cities on its way to the coast. Dry peat, as everyone knows from when they attempt to water a dried out potted plant,

resists rather than absorbs water, so it’s important to retain the moisture. That means changes. As for peat at sea level – many low-lying peaty landscapes, like the Fens, have lost vast amounts of fertility and depth. The soil surface blows away when

grandfathers not our fathers. Natural solutions take time, and can be controversial. If you’ve been flooded, they don’t deal with the problem quickly enough. Environmentalists and climate Cassandras look like baddies at this time. it’s left bare after ploughing. The volume of lost peat soil is significant, reducing its capacity to hold water. That land is flooding too. Helping to sort out these problems means going back to practices familiar to our

RETURN TO AUSTERITY OF THE 1930s A shocking photo showing more than 200 people queuing in the snow for food at a soup kitchen just yards from Glasgow’s city chambers has been blasted as “an indictment of national failure”. The image of queues for Kindness Homeless Street Team’s soup kitchen in Glasgow’s George Square has been shared thousands of times on social media after the community group revealed 220 people braved snow and sub-zero temperatures for help on Monday. Social media users branded the photo “shocking and humiliating” while some compared it to Soviet Union in the 1930s.

Disaster is all around us, and things are going to get more difficult. People are justifiably furious. Government agencies talk about ‘adaptive strategies’, ‘long termagreements’ and ‘flood-risk investments’ to avoid stating the bleeding obvious – that some of communities are in real trouble. People sense it and are enraged. No one seems to be listening. But there is someone waiting in the wings to welcome and diect the disenfranchised and the angry, a climate sceptic who says environmental issues are a con, that windfarms are a waste of money, bike lanes are ruining our cities, someone who is – as so many people in rural areas are pro-motorist through lack of choice of alternatives - king of the chancers Nigel Farage.

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Mid February 2021

POLITICS AND EVENTS

BEST OF THE WEB The Dutch beat lockdown Hopes for a weekend’s skating were running high in the Netherlands yesterday as days of subzero temperatures froze lakes and ponds across the country, allowing the Dutch a welcome break from a two-month lockdown.

“This is the perfect reason to go out and have a little fun with the museums and everything being closed,” one person said as she strapped on her skates in Amsterdam’s of Molenaarsgraaf skating club on the outskirts of Rotterdam had been out with a tape measure on Thursday, drilling a small hole in the ice to measure its thickness and be sure that locals could venture into the centre of the pond safely. In the centre of Amsterdam, queues formed around skate repair shops as locals prepared for a weekend’s skating.

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Covid forever The head of the EU’s disease control agency has warned that Covid-19 could last indefinitely even as global infections slowed by nearly half in the last month and vaccine rollouts gathered pace in parts of the world. In an interview with the AFP news agency, Director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Andrea Ammon, urged European countries in particular not to drop their guard against a virus that “seems very well adapted to humans” and may require experts to tweak vaccines over time, as is the case with the seasonal flu. “So we should be prepared that it will remain with us,” she said. After the latest harsh wave of a pandemic that started in China more than a year ago, glimmers of hope flickered as an AFP database showed the rate of new Covid-19 infections has slowed by 44.5% worldwide over the past month. More than 107 million people have been infected worldwide and

nearly 2.4 million have died from Covid-19. But disease experts warned that vaccines will not end the pandemic unless all countries receive doses in a fast and fair manner. Writing in an open letter published in the Lancet medical journal, the authors said with vaccine stockpiling in wealthier countries, “it could be years before the coronavirus is brought under control at a global level”. he Welsh built T Stonehenge? Researchers studying an ancient monument in west Wales believe it may have had some of its standing stones taken and repurposed to construct Stonehenge some 280 kilometres away. The team from University College London (UCL) made the bold claim about the ancient smash-and-grab while studying the Welsh stone circle named Waun Mawn, which predates Stonehenge by about 400 years, according to carbon and other dating from charcoal and sediment samples analysed. The world famous

Stonehenge, built sometime around 3000 BC, is located near Salisbury in southwest England but has been found to contain several rather cumbersome bluestones allegedly taken from the site in Wales.

I ndia’s to build homegrown alternative to Google India’s space agency has partnered with MapmyIndia, a tech company specializing in digital map data, to build an alternative to Google Maps. The announcement comes as India rolled out local alternatives to Twitter and WhatsApp. The new project was announced by the Indian Space Research Organisation and MapmyIndia late on Friday. The two have not yet specified any timeframe within which the service might arrive, nor revealed what it will be called. The ISRO said the “collaboration will enable them to jointly identify and build holistic geospatial solutions utilizing earth observation datasets.” MapmyIndia was even bolder about the prospects of the joint project, with the company’s CEO Rohan Verma promising the service will “be a much better, more detailed and comprehensive, as well as privacy-centric, hyper-local and indigenous mapping solution for Indians, compared to foreign map apps.”

POLITICS AND EVENTS

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WORD

Mid February 2021

THREE YOUNGSTERS GUILLOTINED FOR RESISTING THE NAZIS

WHITE ROSE MOVEMENT

n Nazi Germany 1942, a group of medical students at the Munich University, held meetings to talk about poetry. They each read a poem and the others had to guess the author. On this particular occasion a student by the name of Hans Scholl read out a poem that the others, on hearing, believed it must be a recent poem because of things it talked about, such as... “Mounting the rubbish heap around him/ He spews his message on the world.” ... “The masses lived in utter shame/For foulest deeds they felt no blame.”

The students could see the similarities in this poem about a tyrant, with Hitler, and the way the German people had accepted the terrible things that were happening around stop Hitler and the Nazi Party, them but did nothing. The poet to make people question what predicts at the end of was going on right in his poem, that... front of them. In “this nightmare amongst their period will group were ON THE 22ND OF pass with the J u r g e n FEBRUARY 1943 THE overthrow of Wittenstein, THREE OF THEM the tyrant, Alexander WERE THE FIRST OF and one day Schmorell, THEIR GROUP TO BE his reign will Hans Scholl, be looked Willi Graf MURDERED... back upon, and Christoph and talked Probst. They about, like the called their group Black Plague” WHITE ROSE. The poem turned out to be written by Gottfried Keller in 1878 about a political situation in Switzerland After this poem their discussion group talked more about politics than poetry and thinking of ways to peacefully

Within weeks of hearing of the groups believes, other students at the university joined, along with Hans sister Sophie Scholl and her Philosophy teacher – Professor Kurt Huber, the students all became active members.

They managed to print six different pamphlets in total before Hans and Sophie Scholl were caught by the caretaker of the university throwing some out of the windows at the top of the university.

THIS WEEK IN HISTORY 15th -22nd February 15th February 1971. The decimalisation of British coinage is completed today. (Decimal day) . 2013. A meteor explodes over Russia, causing 1500 injuries after the shock waves caused windows to blow out and buildings to rock. 16th February 1965. Dr Richard Beeching chairman of the British Railways Board recommends that a quarter of the British railways are closed down. Over 2,000 local railway stations went and nearly 70,000 thousand jobs. 2010. The Hamas Commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh is assassinated in Dubai. Israeli Intelligence are suspected. 17th February 2006. Washington ask Palestine to return the $50 million in aid they had been given. They didn’t want the recently elected Hamas led government to have it. 18th February 2005. Fox hunting with dogs is banned in England and Wales. 19th February 2016. Harper Lee author of the famous ‘TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD’ dies in Monroeville, Alabama. USA. 21st February 1965. Malcolm X is assassinated 22nd February 1997. The birth of ‘Dolly the sheep’ the first cloned adult mammal. 2005. American Priest Paul Shanley is sentenced to 12-15 years in prison for raping a male child.

This nightmare period will pass with the overthrow of the tyrant, and one day his reign will be looked back upon, and talked about, like the Black Plague

Sophie managed to get hold of a manual printing press, after which they began printing and distributing pamphlets around the university and all around Germany. Some were posted to people out of the phone book. They also put graffiti around Germany criticising Hitler and the Nazis’ They managed to print 6 different pamphlets in total before Hans and Sophie Scholl were seen by the caretaker of the university while throwing some out of the top floor windows. The caretaker reported them to the Gestapo who in turn caught them with some of the pamphlets still on them. They were arrested and along with Christoph Probst whose draft for the seventh pamphlet was still in Hans’ bag. On the 22nd of February 1943 the three of them were the first of their group to be murdered... by guillotine.

THE

WORD

Mid February 2021

POLITICS AND EVENTS

LASHINGS OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION FOR THIS CROWD

Top 5 worst people ever to have dinner with as voted for by our readers

Margaret Thatcher Second most right wing PM ever after Blair. Thatcher always lacked a sense of humour. Best known for taking free school milk away from children and starting wars.

Keir Starmer

Adolf Hitler

Probably made of wood so cheap to feed but less conversational skills than your average tulip. Best not known.

Best known for starting wars… (I sense a pattern here.)

Stalin Started few wars but killed thousands of people who opposed him. Had Trotsky murdered (so something to worry about as you eat your dessert.) Notoriously drank a lot and had awful table manners.

Tony Blair Best known for starting wars and taking Socialism away from the Labour party. Known to his friends as, “Miranda.”

Runners up in our poll King Henry 8th. Best known for his awful table manners and less than modern approach to his treatment of women. Others include: Jimmy Saville, the Tories favourite sex offender. Dennis Nilsen, who ate his guests. Lucretia Borgia who poisoned her guests. And a special mention to Vlad the Impaler.

POLITICS AND EVENTS

Mid February 2021

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ACCUSED OF CRIMES NETANYAHU AND TRUMP FACE TRIAL

BEST MATES BEING HELD TO ACCOUNT

Training to be a teacher I had learned about the Kibbutzim. Wasn’t that a bit of socialism?

he first of these is known as Bibi in Israel. A former Israeli colleague called Bibi’s wife Biba because of her fondness for shopping. Like her husband she is no stranger to the courts.

If so, having stayed in one, boredom and socialism must go together. They also, these days, go together with a big dose of capitalism - I encountered a TOYS R US kibbutz.

It is the Summer of 1996 in Liverpool. I am chatting to four Israeli students and complaining about our Prime minister. “You are lucky”, they say, “We’ve got Netanyahu”. I naturally assumed that he would not last long. Those were the days when the HQ of the Israeli Labor Party on Hayarkon Street in Tel Aviv had a prominent sign that announced to the World that it was the LABOUR Party. As Israeli English has become more American so its politics has rushed rightwards. Funny that. While I Hayarkon let me turn, a moment, Trump.

am on Street for to

A key to the continuation of Netanyahu has been, not only ever greater and ever deeper alliances and accommodations with some seriously loony groups in Israel, but also a despicable deployment of fearmaking. At one time the bogey man was Iraq, then it became Iran.

a fortress with all sorts of sophisticated electronic stuff on the roof.

It faces the beach where, after work and a REPUBLICANS WILL He moved nice meal in one SAVE TRUMP’S the US Embassy of the non-kosher ORANGE SKIN from that street restaurants FOR HIM in Tel Aviv to nearby (there is Jerusalem didn’t he? even an Irish theme Are we sure? pub almost opposite) staff can enjoy a beer on the The Tel Aviv building is beach as the sun sets over the

Mediterranean. It is a veritable Rolls-Royce of an embassy. Would you want to go and work in religiously constrained Jerusalem? I believe that all the real work is still being done in Tel Aviv on a street that boasts other embassies and a hotel in the Residents’ Lounge in which I overheard chat about how to persuade Shimon Peres to stand for President.

A year or so later, saw the man there himself. To my surprise I saw he wore makeup. The receptionist told me he always did. Netanyahu has, I think, survived by moving ever rightwards. I began my 13 years of visiting and working there with a sort of immature belief that it was possible to find a kind of socialism there.

BORIS GIVES BENEFITS A BASHING It is late Friday. You know you are skint. To prove it you open your purse. And there you find a pristine twenty quid note. The kids can have milk with their breakfast and a few chips.

CLAP FOR THE POOR Every Friday night as the poor are searching their purses looking for that twenty quid note we shall be asked to stand on our front door steps clapping. Won’t that make them happy?

Not for much longer will this happen. I am reliably informed that de Piffle is shortly to announce a new policy. Or, rather, a new application of a well-tested policy. Its name?

Meanwhile, SPADS ARMY, having lost Dominator Cummings, seems to be coming back under the control of Sir Humphrey once again. Some algorithms have been put back

in the drawer. SPADS are being taught how to spell big words such as CONSULTATION.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? What went wrong with Trump’s administration? He did. What is the biggest problem facing the administration of Our Great Leader? He is. Who knows this most deeply? The Tory Party does. Thatcher had a majority of

one hundred when her own party put her to the sword.

As every Tory Zoom Meeting comes to an end the participants pour out a large whisky and watch recordings of the speech in which Geoffrey Howe, ever so politely, repeatedly knocked her to the canvas. He will know his time is up when Norman Tebbit turns up with a new bike for him.

Trump, the utter, the complete, dupe, has colluded in this by trashing carefully constructed international agreements about and with Iran. You want to stay in power? Tell the voters that you are the only one capable of protecting them from an enemy. Your task? Manufacture an enemy. I wanted to write more about Trump. About how he will escape justice (He has, Editor) because 17 Republicans cannot be found who understand the USA Constitution.

THE

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Mid February 2021

POLITICS AND EVENTS

MOCKDOWN, NOT LOCKDOWN BECAUSE OF POVERTY PEOPLE ARE CHOOSING TO WORK WHILE INFECTED RATHER THAN GO HUNGRY

Covid19 remains out of

CONTROL HERE IN THE UK T

he UK currently has an estimated 750,000 people infected with Covid right now. The number dying is falling again, but it is still 1,000 per day. From a high of nearly 4,000 hospital admissions per day due to Covid, there are still over 2,000 per day and 26,000 are currently so ill they need to remain in hospital.

A glance at the roads shows that we’re in Mockdown! This is confirmed by a huge drop in the number of people on furlough compared with last year and a reduction in the

number of those working from home. School attendance figures remain on the rise with 25% of primary pupils and 5% of secondary pupils currently attending. Many people cannot afford to self-isolate because their employer will not pay them; statutory sick pay is lamentable and the vast majority of workers are not eligible for the one off £500 award. Some are choosing to work while infected rather than go hungry. All of these problems need to change or it is inevitable that more mutations of the virus

The Labour Party Leadership has abandoned all opposition to the government’s strategy

will occur in the UK when we have already had two.

I know why the Tories are carrying on this way: they’re Tories and the strategy was herd immunity from the beginning. When pressure comes from workers looking to end the crisis or businesses wanting to normalise with the crisis carrying on Tories are inclined to listen to business. Increasing SSP or any other payment to workers will of course be resisted as well, which is why, one year in, there has been little change. In fact, they are fighting tooth and nail to remove the £20 a week increase to Universal Credit and not to give free school meals to children outside of term time.

Of course the vaccine rollout could be undermined by a vaccine-resistant strain and it’s perfectly correct to push government to close our borders. But when that’s one of the few things the Party Leader is calling for and one of the most worrying variants was discovered in Kent one has to ask why? All of this and the threat further mutations pose to the vaccine is what makes me ashamed to be a Labour Party member today. In my mind it’s because this sits comfortably with a xenophobic approach to politics. It’s simple dog whistle racist flag shagging. It’s blaming Johnny Foreigner for the problem when the problem is as likely to be home

grown as coming from abroad.

It is made worse by the fact that such tweets did not appear before the government decided to take action to close our borders and Sir Keir called for schools to remain open the day before we were to return from the Christmas closure. I’ve no doubt centrist types will make excuses; they are a cult after all. The reality is the Labour Party Leadership has abandoned all opposition to the government’s strategy. If you don’t believe that just go back to the beginning of the crisis and look at the opposition provided by Corbyn and compare it to now. Disgusting.

The Trial of George Floyd’s Alleged Killer The jury will have to unpick some complicated science.

they were actually trained to use.

The trial of the police officer accused of killing George Floyd is due to begin in early March and already the politics are heating up. The defence strategy will be that Floyd died of a heart attack brought on by drug use. They are essentially making the trial an attack on George’s character: noncompliance brought on by drug use and officers using restraint

There have been two autopsies after the Floyd family demanded a second one. The first concluded the cause of death was a heart attack. Floyd had a pre-existing heart condition and an attack was brought on by drug use combined with the stress of the officers’ actions during the arrest. The second autopsy concluded that death was caused by asphyxiation. This leaves room for “reasonable doubt” in the Jury’s minds.

In many respects the US is a broken country

Choosing

the

jury

expected to take three weeks as the defence will reject any juror with even the vaguest sympathy for Black Lives Matter or to defund the police. Juries rarely convict police officers tried for killing people in the line of duty in the US; we all remember the case of Rodney King. These and other factors, including TV attacks like this, mean there is a more than 50/50 chance the officer will walk away. Some legal experts are already saying the officer will be found not guilty, which means the national guard is being mobilised for the duration of the trial and millions of dollars

have been made available for law enforcement. It seems Biden’s first big challenge to the coalition that propelled him to the Whitehouse is around the corner. The fact is, whatever the jury find many black people in the US have already formed an opinion, which is why the protests were so

protracted. They watched a video of a man die beneath a police officer’s knee after begging for over nine minutes to be relieved because he could not breath. Policing was tried by the court of public opinion and found guilty. In many respects the US is a broken country. We may in fact be witnessing a repeat of the fall of Rome; that was also a painful and protracted process. The next instalment will be on our TVs very soon, unless the move to delay is granted as it is now being argued that protests following an acquittal would be a Covid ‘super-spreader’ event.

POLITICS AND EVENTS

Mid February 2021

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WORD

The Patient’s Eye

I GET MY Vaccination Coronavirus, what did it ever do for us?

An Early Obituary written in 1957 We have lost our workers’ rights. The Gambols Year Book in 1957 had a cartoon robot and the subtext was that robots are going to take over our work and give us more leisure time; that will never happen. My daughter aged 26 was given her own department of AI and robotics; she closed down whole departments and whole buildings replacing them with AI. Companies with robots compete with other companies with robots, to keep their market share; today is the war of the robots taking our jobs and our freedom; our future will be one of uncertainty with anxiety, depression, and suicide. Will we still want children in a society with no future? Nikola Tesla built a device that produced free electricity but it was destroyed by his backer as you can’t make money from something that’s free. There was another revolution in this country when Thatcher privatised everything she could (giving us freedom to choose between ways of making money for other people.) I was happy not having the anxiety of making the right choice in case I was paying more than I should. I am 68 and would be content to get off now; all I can be is a drain on society, with my pension, hospital treatment for cancer, being looked after in an old folks home and adding to my carbon foot print when I am cremated.

ne day last week I received a text message asking me to book a vaccination against Coronavirus. My wife had been telephoned several days before and was done within 25 minutes of the call; I said I’d stick to the booking I had and drove the car, the round trip taking about 35 minutes in all. She had the AZ/ Oxford vaccine. The Wednesday night of my appointment was cold and miserable, with sleet in the sky

I don’t make policy; I just give vaccine

and ice on the ground. We set off and parked the car in the same place. I walked round the back to the entrance and joined a queue of the sick and old, each pretending to keep 2 metres from each other. After about half an hour I got to the door and stepped out of the night, into another queue down several corridors. It was to be the Pfizer vaccine. After what seemed like about 45 minutes it was my turn and I entered an unventilated room where a masked doctor began asking me questions; before long I was

asking him questions.

AFTER WHAT SEEMED LIKE ABOUT 45 MINUTES IT WAS MY TURN

“How comfortable are you with the interval between first and second jab having been extended to 12 weeks?” “Well I don’t make policy; I just give vaccine.”

“That wasn’t what I asked, doctor; I asked how comfortable you were with that.” “It’s a decision made at governmental level by government itself,” he said.

Can someone make a happy video showing us a bright future so that I can die knowing my life hasn’t been in vain? Robbie

“Politicians,” I replied. “Lawyers, journalists, bankers.” “As I say,” he went on. “The British Medical Association is in discussion with the government about it all.” “And what does that mean in practical terms?” He shrugged his shoulders, I bared one of mine, and the deed was completed painlessly. I was led to an unventilated waiting room and sat down 2 metres from a masked old chap with a flat hat, and told to sit for 15 minutes. People came and went and though I felt slightly

compromised I put that down to having been completely isolated and Covid secure for 332 days. The statistics say that between 1 and 8 days after vaccination there is a raised risk of developing the illness. One suggestion is that people relax their guard following the jab. My view is that vaccination centres might not be quite so secure as they could be, but after more than a week I seem to be still clear of any symptoms. Watch this space. Patient.I

THE

WORD

Mid February 2021

POLITICS AND EVENTS

NATURE’S COMBS ASSURED THE FINEST FEELING WOOL CLOTH

rom your seat at the bar you see the landlady greet the two ‘rusticlooking’ gents like old friends, and bemoan how time has flown-by since last year. With pints in hand they take a table at the far end of the room. The landlady turns to you and says ‘they’re tazzle-men from Somerset – customers’ll start arriving within t’hour. It’ll get reight busy!’ If you were in ‘The Angel’ on an early spring evening between 1830 and 1850 you may well have seen such an encounter. The ‘tazzle-men’, coming mostly from the south west of England or from the West Riding were teazle sellers who used the Inns of Leeds and Huddersfield to meet their customers. But what is a teazle? And what were they used for? You may have seen teazles growing wild on waste-ground or as ornamental plants. Up to 2 metres tall, with egg-shaped flowers on separate spiky stems. In summer their pale blue flowerheads attract all sorts of insects, and by autumn the seeds in the spiky flowerheads are a favourite of goldfinches. However it’s the ‘soft but spiky’ nature of the heads that made this plant so useful. Since Roman times or earlier, brushing woven woollen cloth

Brushing pulls-out the ends of some fibres, making a softer surface

A TAZZLING TALE “Will you pop down to the Angel and get us some teazles?” with teazles was used to ‘soften’ the surface. Several teazles were fixed into wooden holder and the cloth stretched over a frame. Brushing pulls-out the ends of some fibres, making a softer surface, more suitable for blankets or coats for example. In the early 1800s this labour-intensive process was being replaced - with cloth being pulled over a rotating drum (a ‘gig’) fitted with rows and rows of teazles. (Maybe 1,000 in

each machine). However the teazle heads wore and broke with use, and required regular replacement. Each factory might consume 20 million heads in a year.

producing around 50% of the UK woollen cloth, UK teazle supplies were supplemented by imports from Spain, France and USA. A decline in demand for woollen cloth and success with machines fitted with

EACH FACTORY MIGHT CONSUME 20 MILLION HEADS IN A YEAR

At its peak in 1850, with the Leeds area

metal teeth meant that by 1900 there were only some specialist manufacturers still using teazles – for the manufacture of such as cashmere, mohair, billiard cloth, tennis ball cloth. So visit the Angel for a pint when it’s possible - but you’ll be there a while if you’re waiting for ‘tazzle-men’. Various information comes from ‘Teazles and Teazle Men’ by R A McMillan 1973, courtesy of Leeds Industrial Museum.

CATS CORNER Homing a stray or feral cat You don’t get a cat; the cat gets you. Its family introduce a big dog, or a noisy baby, or worst of all, a rumpbumptious kitten; the cat walks. The previous owner acquiesces to the inevitable, and you get a cat with a name you haven’t chosen, forgetting that you’ve now a cat you didn’t choose either.

In our case there had been a furry nuisance looking in the windows of our daughter and son in law’s house, or should I say their cat’s house. Ralph did not like this tabby and white interloper one little bit. He was named Colin by our daughter. Ralph had had to watch from his windowsill while Colin

had it away with his girlfriend two doors down, and cried sadly during the climax of the act. A kitten the image of Colin featured in the subsequent litter. Once Ralph had been

A furry nuisance looked in the window

neutered I was tasked with getting Colin’s pockets picked too. We assumed it would stop them fighting. I began leaving plates of food out at midday in the street near their house, and he’d come at the sound of our car. He was hungry and pathetic. We were given a plastic kennel

by a cat charity and Colin took up residence in it on rainy days and on it when it was sunny. He began cleaning himself and popped his head out when I placed his food in front of it. One time I stroked his head; it was the softest, smoothest fur I’d ever felt. I was starting to like this little guy. My son in law tried to touch him and the cat opened up the palm of his hand resulting in a nasty wound. Colin was totally wild. Neutered or not the cats still fought and he had to be trapped again and homed our daughter firmly instructed. Nobody would take him in him so we quarantined the boy in our garage. For a fortnight he lived, slept, ate, and chased mice in

there. He did his toilet in a tray of garden soil. He discovered a square of AstroTurf I used as a doormat, and decided it was his urinal. I chopped it in two and put the half in another tray. After a number of weeks of looking at each other through the various windows of the garage it was time to open the door and let him picnic on the path. Colin ate enthusiastically, looked around at the garden he’d been studying for weeks, and trotted confidently off. “That’s it,” my wife said. “He’s gone.” “Hmm,” I replied. Continued next edition...

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AS SOCIAL MEDIA GAGS THE LEFT TURN TO A NEW FREE PLATFORM

CAZKI.COM a new social(ist) media platform

FOR MANY PEOPLE, UNLESS THEY THINK IT UP THEMSELVES THEY DON’T WANT TO BE PART OF IT

he project began when various user groups realised that other social media platforms were censoring, shadow banning, and blocking them for simple and uncontroversial things like, for instance: lack of confidence in a particular political party, disapproval of racist actions by foreign states, unhealthy friendships between the US and UK

governments and hostile regimes across the world, multinational corporations, corruption, fraud, human rights abuses, underfunding of the NHS in preparation for sale, inequality, sanctions against the very poorest in society, and other things that seem acceptable to the rest of the press and social media.

“We need our own media,” then when one was provided, ignoring it. Important Labour figures, in, out, and between in and out of the Party would ask whether it was time for a broad left newspaper, radio station, TV, social media, yet refused to acknowledge that these have been in existence for up to five years, with thousands of supporters.

People would say things like

For many people, unless they think it up and control something themselves they don’t want to be part of it. Think that scene in Monty Python’s film Life of Brian when

It won’t spy on you for the Government, select your “news” feed, or sell your details to advertisers…

rebel groups sit in a room and describe different factions between them, and the ‘Popular Front’ is one guy on his own. That was the Establishment laughing at us. No more! What Cazki does: l Provides a safe haven for free and fair discussion l Allows groups to create messages and posts for their cause l Creates a unifying platform for the Left l Costs you nothing, yet you are not a product to be bought and sold

So, it’s LOCK DOWN or LOCK UP Ten years in clink if you break the rules concerning travel but a pay rise for driving to Barnard Castle!

Government reminds me of an inexperienced teacher who encourages the kids to be boisterous (£10 for every diner to eat out) but then, seeing things get out of hand, over punishes them. Detention! But today something more significant is on my mind, yours as well, I am sure. It is the launch, in 1906, of HMS Dreadnaught that immediately made all other battleships obsolete. Who

had

the

most

battleships by far? The UK did.

Suddenly, not only did they become out of date but we had also provided a template for our competitors. That was not all bad. Why not? The First Sea Lord, Admiral Jacky Fisher, was extremely dynamic and improved our ship-building efficiency enormously. Other nations had ideas for a similar battleship design, particularly in Italy, but at best they were dilatory. That was never Fisher. He saw problems, he researched, he analysed, he planned and

It won’t spy on you for the Government, select your “news” feed, sell your details to advertisers, or snare you with click bait. Join ; the name was chosen at random but turns out to be polish for ‘pliers’ or to ply ones trade. We like it because they cannot use the name to denigrate us. We need you; you need us; we each need one another.

I was fortunate to have worked with someone who should have worn a tee-shirt emblazoned with JUST DO IT!

he took action. What made him resign eventually? Churchill’s stupid Gallipoli campaign.

Yes, think a bit first but do roll up your sleeves from time to time and take action.

Churchill was at the time the politician in charge of the navy.

Instead we have politicians responding to ‘Houston, we have a problem’ with ‘Hang on the footy’s on the telly’.

For now I shall hold back on him, except to say that when attending an International Summer School, I wrote an essay ‘How do you become a Great War Leader?’ My answer? ‘First start your war.’ My point being that Churchill did so much to encourage the WWI victors to harm Germany that WWII should be more accuately seen as WWI Part Two.

l Builds a site which will grow and improve with use.

Boris thinks he is Churchill. Starmer is nowhere near being a Fisher. “What this country needs is intelligent dynamism as we had when National Insurance and the NHS were set up!

We have a TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE government. So far we are approaching 120,000 Covid deaths. The number need not have been anywhere near that. He and his government should not be allowed to get away with their crimes.

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FORGOTTEN BANDS SCARCELY REMEMBERED BAND

REMINISCING A BIT OF SIXTIES’ STUFF

nd then there were the Clayton Squares, the Swinging Blue Jeans and The Undertakers who drove around in a Dormobile with a coffin strapped to the roof. Many, many more.

But why would you listen to any of them while there was live jazz to be heard? What changed my mind was hearing Alexis Korner. Then I went to the Tower Ballroom in New Brighton to hear a rather unexciting Manfred Mann. I was upstairs while downstairs dancing seemed to be most of the Drama Society of the University of Liverpool. I am not sure if Maggie Ollerenshaw was among them that night

I went to the Tower Ballroom in New Brighton to hear a rather unexciting Manfred Mann

February 1964 the Beatles landed in the USA. But who remembers Liverpool’s number one group, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes? Always higher billing than the Beatles. Their drummer? Ringo, of Beatles fame! but every time I watched Open All Hours I could not help remembering how great she was on stage when a student. Anyway, the Manfreds dash off to be replaced by a far more exciting group, Screaming Lord Sutch. Jack the Ripper was fantastic. Incidentally, when and why did Group become Band?

Society entitled Beat and the Gangs in Liverpool. I seem to remember that his point was that whereas once every district had a gang now every district had a group. I wondered how he knew. He was from the Wirral. Bought a car from Paul Morgan for £35. It broke down. Paul was the editor of our award winning student newspaper and later made a lot of money out of free newspapers.

eet Sw WHEN

AND WHY DID GROUP BECOME BAND?

Colin Fletcher, a fellow student (he sociology me politics), gained fame for his article in New

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Daily Mirror journalists came to see us. I was told off for using the word ‘thus’ in an article. Not a word for a newspaper I was informed. Cliff - Seymour Griffiths is off researching guitar effects pedals

The DeArmond Tone and Volume Control Last issue extolled the beauty of the fuzz box. The Kinks had allegedly deliberately torn the speaker of one of their cabs in order to get the wonderful guitar sound on their 1964 “You Really Got Me,” which is said by some to be the first example of Heavy Metal guitar; that’s debatable to say the least. Various companies made fuzz boxes including Arbiter, who made the famous Fuzz Face. It looked like a face. It sounded like someone tearing their soul out. One effect pedal which is making an unexpected comeback is the Tone and Volume pedal, epitomised by Big Jim Sullivan’s contribution to Dave Berry’s sensational hit “The Crying Game” in 1964. Session player Jimmy Page provided supporting guitar on the track. It was merely a volume knob and a ‘passive’ tone control in a box not unlike the swell pedal on an electronic organ. There had been a few attempts to adapt such pedals a decade earlier by jazz guitar players Chet Atkins (Hot Toddy and Slinkey) and Peter Van Wood (Summertime) but manufacturer DeArmond created their model, which went up and down and then side to side, with fantastic results. Within a couple of years organ company Warwick had developed an “electronically active” version that became known as the Wah Wah but that’s another story. By 1967 everyone had forgotten the Tone and Volume Pedal, though you can buy them again if you search the Internet. (It was merely a volume knob and a ‘passive’ tone control in a box)

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All’s fair in love’n’war and national tastes! There’s scarcely a field that has not been used as a tool in promoting national identity aiming to reinforce the historical image or cultural heritage of states and nations.

The Middle East is well versed in this art of propaganda; people from this region often exceed themselves and go beyond the realm of sensibility by using food to serve as an emblem in their quest. Dishes are put on the table not to be savoured but to have their origins contested and ingredients dissected to satisfy an obscure religious or transient political appetite. Turks, Greeks and Armenians; Israelis and Arabs, in particular Lebanese; and even Arabs among themselves become competitors in this culinary wrestling game. The sibling rivalry between Arabs tend to fall under a benign tickling of the national pride. Nonetheless, it represents a good place to begin our discussion before delving into more sour and harder plates to digest. There’s a fierce competition among Lebanese, Palestinians and Jordanians as to who prepares the best knefe to which the tourist is oblivious to unless recounted by the fanatic local pastry master. Knefe is a dessert made from cheese pastry soaked

in sweet sugar-based syrup. Fried nuts such as hazelnuts, pistachios or walnuts can be sprinkled on top of the cooked scallops. Some later additions tempered with the original recipe. These are found mostly in the open, all encompassing and welcoming city of Dubai where diverse nationalities brought their contribution to knefe rendering it their own. It’s widely known that not only do conquerors impose their will on the land but also in the kitchen. Having fallen under the Ottoman influence for nearly five hundred years many Turkish dishes are present in the culinary Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian repertoire such as Daoud Pacha; named after an Ottoman ruler as well as an array of dishes from Aleppo in Syria with its close borders with Turkey. One such controversial plate is the meatballs with cherry sauce whose origins shift from Turkish to Armenian depending on the side sharing the story. Equally fought over are dolma and kebab; loukoumades and baklavas in which Turks and Greeks share a similar animosity when it comes to authorship over these food. Israelis and Arabs have been trapped in a long stranding violent conflict spilling its content in many fields made

prominent in their passion for hummus. This world renown culinary humble dip of mashed chickpeas seasoned with tahini and lemon juice is ubiquitous in this part of the region.

brochures declaim falafel to be “Israel’s national snack”. Whereas Arabs insist on the roots of this food, a plate that cuts across social stratum enjoyed by rich and poor alike.

calling may differ. In Greece it’s a briki while in Turkey it’s called cezve and in the Arab world it’s known as kahwa. Here again the brewing method is what sets them apart.

In 2008, the dip became the subject of a much heated debate locking Israel and Lebanon in cultural copyrights and culinary heritage in an attempt to claim ownership over hummus by setting a Guinness World Record for the largest hummus dish. Articles featured in local newspapers digging in archives to pin down the beans’ elusive origins. Soon the falafel followed suit and found itself in the hot pan. Jews label it as “Jewish Falafel” in fact, Israeli tourist

Assigning faith to food is pretty ridiculous, it’s like saying Pizza is Catholic, Ouzo Orthodox or Saki Buddhist. In a secular world, even McDonald’s is placing its stamp by concocting its own falafel version.

It’s time to turn the tables around this bloated and thorny topic. Instead of divisiveness food is a mean to celebrate, to bring people together. It is with chefs the likes of Yotam Ottolenghi who delights in preparing a fusion cuisine to tighten their aprons and spread the message from the kitchen counter out to the wider communities.

Last but not least, another forum where Turks, Greeks and Arabs quarrel over is coffee. This bitter dark hot drink often enjoyed after a copious lunch. Deep down this renown drink is pretty much the same though the

It’s far more enjoyable to break an egg to make omlette rather than stir feuds.

COMPLAINT AGAINST DEPUTY LEADER DROPPED

eir Starmer’s admirers within the professional antisemitism complaints group, the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, is not best pleased with him for being a two-faced shifty politician. Despite his repeated pledges to root out antisemitism (wherever it is claimed to be on the left) the CAA says that the party has quietly dropped the

inquiry into its complaint of antisemitism against the party’s deputy leader Angela Rayner, without saying a word to them. The CAA, the source of many, if not most, complaints against Labour party members, and which is still hounding Jeremy Corbyn, complained that Rayner, and other MPs, had “promoted” a book which they say claims that the “American Jewish

establishment exploits the Holocaust for political and financial gain.” The zionist group submitted their complaint on the very day the Equality and Human Rights Commission issued its report on the party’s handling of complaints which led to suspension of former leader Jeremy Corbyn from the party (since reversed) and continued suspension by Starmer of Corbyn as a member of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Ignoring the CAA’s insistance that no inquiry should be held by Labour until the party has in place the EHRC advised independent disciplinary system.

Hanging judge Starmer

Corbyn’s been strung up

For once ignoring outside interference from Zionist sources the party launched its normal biased inquiry and then closed it, all without

Official inquiry into Deputy Leader Angela Rayner, accused of anti-semitism by professional Zionist complainers, is quietly launched and just as quietly shut down without any announcement

saying a word. A rather miffed CAA chief executive, Gideon Falter was quoted as saying: ”The investigation of our complaint against Angela Rayner has been a sham.” But he promised Rayner is not going to get away so easily. “We will be re-

introducing the complaint to the (party’s) independent disciplinary panel when it is set up. “British Jews should be under no illusion that despite Sir Keir’s promises, under his leadership the skulduggery apparently continues at Labour Headquarters,” he added.

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PART 1 Aryan bull pig ‘You can call me an Armenian chicken farmer or an Aryan bull pig, but don’t call me incompetent.’ Bojos response to a student magazine attack on his bid to be President of the Oxford Union, 1982. Johnson’s family has roots in Turkey, which included Armenia in the days of the Ottoman Empire. Apparently that was more relevant then. Bafflegab Deliberately unintelligible language or jargon used for the purposes of obfuscation by politicians. Basically the whole of Boris Johnsons output. Boondoggle ‘It is known to the politicojournalistic class as a junket, jolly, freebie or boondoggle; and which is classified, for the benefit of irritable taxpayers, as a conference.’ On an Anglo-Italian conference in Venice. Daily Telegraph, March 11, 2004. Noun: wasteful project; a term originating in 1930s America. As in “Christ Domenic that Track & Trace App is a sodding Boondoggle for your mates at Serco!” Cachinnate ‘For three whole minutes [Churchill] stands there, while the Tories cachinnate and the Opposition benches try to make noises of sympathy… This is a disaster, a living death…’ Conservative MPs laughed at Churchill, while Opposition MPs supported him when he dried up due to a brain malfunction during a speech in support of workers’ rights in 1904. From his book The Churchill Factor, 2014. Verb. To cachinnate; to roar with laughter, from Latin cachinnare ‘to laugh loudly’. Apparently using a dead language IS big AND clever. Carpetbagger An outsider who meddles in politics. Used at the end of the American Civil War to describe Northerners who moved South to avail themselves of political opportunities in the defeated states. A bit like Donald Trump promising to ‘drain the swamp’ before dump slurry in it instead. Chip-o-rama ‘Stop this chip-o-rama rubbish!’ Reply to a Labour MP’s complaint that top universities take too many old Etonians. House of Commons, March 15, 2007. Borisism, noun. Based on

Mr Johnson’s Dicktionary

A WORKING PERSONS GUIDE TO MR DE PFEFFEL JOHNSONS POSH BOY B.S. So instead of laughing in embarrassment at your limited understanding of Etonian in-jokes, you can now decode what the supercilious Berk is on about (Berk, Cockney rhyming slang from Berkley Hunt: C**t). the proverb ‘having a chip on one’s shoulder’ — a grudge or sense of entitlement. In 19thcentury North America, when two men were in dispute, a chip of wood would be placed on the shoulder of one and the other would try to knock it off. Could also have been about the lower orders penchant for Pommes Frites. Cockalorum A boastful and selfimportant person; a strutting little fellow. If cockalorum suggests a crowing cock, that’s because cockalorum probably comes from kockeloeren – an obsolete Dutch dialect verb meaning “to crow”. Basically Mark Francois Cumberword A useless waste of space - a very hurtful 15th century insult. Cumber was a verb that originally meant “to destroy’ or ‘to burden’. So a cumberworld is a person who hinders the world without any useful purpose. As in ”Where’s that Cumberword Grayling these days, we’ve a Commons Select Committee to fob off with him!” Cursus honorum ‘My ambition silicon chip has been programmed to try to scramble up this cursus honorum, this ladder of things.’ On political ambition. Desert Island Discs, Radio 4, October 30, 2005. Noun: the ascending order

of public offices; from Latin ‘course of honours’. A posh way of saying ‘Climbing The Greasy Pole’ although that phrase has negative connotations in the Dorms of Eton. Dorbel A nincompoop. Derived from the name of a 13th century scholar named Nicolas d’Orbellis. He was a supporter of the much-derided philosopher John Duns Scotus, whose followers were the original “dunces”, it will be noted that the nickname ‘Scotuses’ didn’t take off. Endocrine orchestra ‘She was blonde. She was beautiful… And she had just overtaken me… I wasn’t having it. If there is one thing calculated to make the testosterone slosh in your ears like the echoing sea… it’s being treated as though you were an old woman by a young woman… The whole endocrine orchestra said: ‘Go. Take.’ On driving an Alfa Romeo. From his book Life In The Fast Lane, 2007. Noun. The endocrine glands produce hormones. In other word ‘It gives me the Horn!’ Emplpeomaniac Someone with a mania for holding public office. It’s from Spanish and is a combination of empleo (employment or public office) and mania. It is curable and can be treated by a General Election

Epiphytes ‘When you hear Matthew Pinsent speaking, you feel your littleness. What are we politicians and journalists? Just... epiphytes upon our national culture.’ On the Olympic rowing champion Matthew Pinsent. From his book Friends, Voters, Countrymen, 2001. Noun. A plant that grows on another plant. Translates as “I’m a bit of a weed’ Foozle An old fogy or someone who is behind the times. Vanity Fair novelist William Makepeace Thackeray ,cos we’ve all read that, is thought to have used it first and it derives from “foozle”, meaning to waste one’s time. Desmond Swain is a good example. Fustilarian One of Shakespeare’s best put-downs, coined in Henry IV, Part 2: “Away, you scullion! You rampallion! You fustilarian!” Falstaff exclaims. Describes someone who wastes time on worthless things. See Chris Grayling for a full, in depth explanation. Gammerstang A tall, ungainly or awkward person. Emerged in the late 16th century from Scottish and northern English dialects. The insult is usually applied to a woman – from gammer short for grandmother and stang meaning “pole or stake”. Just

imagine Theresa May in Ill fitting stilettos dancing to Abba. Gibbering rictus ‘You feel as if your buttocks have been suddenly clamped by the leather seat… My face was being pushed back into a gibbering rictus as the G-forces kicked in…’ On the experience of driving extremely fast. From Life In The Fast Lane, 2007. Noun. open-mouthed with fear. In other words his ringpiece was puckering. Gobsmacked. Gnashgab Whinger An 18th century northern English word for someone who is always complaining. Like the Proletarian scum! Grobian A clownish, slovenly person. Came into English usage from 15th century German, as grob means rough, coarse or vulgar. Guppygate ‘You don’t know about Guppygate and you don’t care? Good. Let’s leave it at that. It is a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing.’ On being quizzed over a secretly recorded plot in 1990 to supply a fellow Old Etonian, convicted fraudster Darius Guppy, with the contact details of a journalist so he could have him beaten up. Friends, Voters, Countrymen, 2001. In other words conspiring to beat up a journal is fine, we’ve all been there, no one cares. Highbinder A corrupt or scheming politician. In 19th century English a highbinder was a ruffian or gang member. In America it was used to describe gangs and secret societies and by 1890 had come to mean an unscrupulous or lying politician. Pot calling the kettle black there Bojo.

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Mad Madge Talks Across Oceans Of Time FROM BEYOND THE WALL OF LOST SPIRITS, LOOSED TEMPORARILY FROM THE HORRORS OF ETERNAL TORMENT, AUNTIE MAGGIE ANSWERS YOUR LETTERS. A VERY MAGGIE CHRISTMAS

Dear Margaret I have been appointed by Keith Starmer to be on the Labour parties anti-Semitism advisory board but I don’t think it goes far enough in not allowing criticism of Israel. Yours, Benjamin Netanyahu Well then Bibi old sausage, I’m sure you will fit right in the New New Labour Party. You will no doubt run into Margaret ‘Mad Hedge’ Hodge who ‘identified’ dozens of anti-semites on a daily basis when Corbyn was leader,

she’s been quiet a church mouse recently. Dear Maam Thank you for showing me your previous tips on how to stifle democracy. I applied everything you taught me to our parish council meeting last week. Have you any more advice? From, Jackie Weaver Well look who it is, Wielding authority on Zoom like a modern day Boudicca. If I were you I would take a leaf out of Keith Starkers book

and just suspend anyone who disagrees with you. Of course they may quote Articles of Association and rules at you but at least in the socially distanced, on-line world you can just silence any difficulty at the flick of a switch. Hello, Margaret Could you tell me how to help as my allotment has been taken over by poisonous weeds? Yours, J Corbyn from Islington. I’ve told you before and

I’ll say it again, you old Trot, you get what you deserve in British Politics and if you keep campaigning for such ridiculous causes as ‘Peace and Justice’ you are bound to fail. As for your allotment, sod it it’s winter stay in and have a cup of nettle tea, or whatever you tree huggers drink. Hippy! I met her in a club down in old Soho. Where you drink champagne and it tastes just like coca cola.

She walked up to me and she asked me to dance I asked her her name and in a dark brown voice she said Priti Patel. How do I recover from the shame of that? Anonymous I used to think that song by The Kinks was a bit transphobic but with your take on it, I find it truly horrifying. I imagine that you have several years psychotherapy ahead, start by droppin’ the g at the end of words, it’s very annoyin’.

Cause of mysterious dark streaks on Mars found Evidence of landslides on Mars may also raise the prospects that the Red Planet was once hospitable to life.

A new study, published Feb. 3 in the journal Science Advances, found that melting ice is combining with the Red Planet’s salty subsurface permafrost, resulting in a chemical reaction that creates a “liquid-like flowing slush.”

Scientists think this slush causes landslides that leave dark, narrow lines known as recurring slope lines) on the Martian surface. While the icy slush is currently too salty to harbour life, that may not have been the case 2 billion to 3 billion years ago, the study’s lead author Janice Bishop, a senior research scientist at the SETI Institute, told Live Science in an email.

period, NASA’s High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) camera captured images of small landslides, known as “slumps,” and the RSLs, which she believes are features of landslides.

Scientists have known about the landslides, some of

which occur near Mars’ Palikir and Krupac craters, for at least a decade, Bishop said. During that

Previous studies suggested those dark lines on the surface were related only to the chemical reaction between the underground chlorine salts and a large amount of sulfate. The new research takes that idea and expands it to include the permafrost, resulting in brine, or water with a high concentration of salt.

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BIZARRE NEWS Message In A Bottle

Australian man leading a tour group on a Western Australia beach discovered a message in a bottle dated from April 1979. Ashley McClintock said he was leading a quad bike tour at Wagoe Station, near Kalbarri, when he spotted what he initially thought was litter on the beach.

A round up of Internet News you didn’t need to know..... TAKE A KNEE TO PATEL The more political knowledge I acquire the less I seem to understand it. But I retain the urge to keep on trying to make critical sense of stuff. At times I tell myself to ignore all the big words and remember the days when we 3/4/5 year old lads played at Goodies and Baddies. We wore caps and if you were a Baddy you wore it back to front. Took me years to work out why. The helmets of German soldiers. Remember? So, how to classify a few politicians? Corbyn a Goody but no good at playing if it involved fighting. Starmer? Elected to lead the Goodies he switched to the Baddies. Cameron and Osborne? They very loudly told the World that they were Deficit Goodies but they were Austerity Baddies.

“I thought it was somebody’s water bottle so I asked the last person in the group to pick it up,” McClintock told The West Australian. “It turned out it was an old bottle with ‘poison’ written on it.” The bottle contained a water-damaged note on a piece of folded cardboard. The message was dated April 3, 1979, and signed by “I Cassidy.” “If this is found four years or more after it is sent reward will be offered. Contact address on other side. If it is found less than this, 50c for each year but please contact I Cassidy,” the message reads. The address on the other side was damaged by water, but appears to have listed a location in Geraldton or Carnarvon. McClintock said he hopes Cassidy will hear the news of the bottle’s discovery and get in touch. Carl Makes It Home

A cat who went missing from his owner’s Texas home turned up four years later in an Arkansas neighbourhood 600 miles away. Justin Brown, of Springdale, Ark., said he and his neighbours had been caring for a stray cat in their neighbourhood for the past year, and recently he and his family decided to capture the feline and bring him to Lyon’s Veterinary Clinic in Tontitown. A Vet scanned the cat for a microchip, and he was identified as Carl, who went missing from Jason Ludlum’s Bay City, Texas, home four years earlier.

A favourite, Jacob Rees-Moggy? Made a virtue of and boasted about never changing a nappy. Sorry Jacob Old Fruit but all that means is that your entire political life has been full of shit, unchanged shit. A Baddy. Why do we produce people like him? And The Bullingdon Boys? I would sack all the teachers that perpetuate this appalling socially stratified society. They do not educate. They stratificate.

Ludlum and his wife, Angi, said they have no idea how Carl ended up traveling from North Texas to Arkansas. Carl appeared to have been well-taken care of and was in good health. Indoor Racer

A driver broke the indoor land speed world record when he reached a speed of 102.65 mph in his electric Porsche at a New Orleans convention centre. Leh Keen, driving an all-electric Taycan Turbo S Porsche, said the car’s quick acceleration and powerful brakes were crucial to setting the Guinness World Record for the fastest speed achieved by a vehicle indoors. Keen said the most complicated part of the record was dealing with the polished concrete floor at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. “I didn’t really appreciate the scale of the record attempt until my first exploratory run.

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The surface is so unpredictable, so slick, that you have to have complete trust in your car,” Keen said. “It truly was like ice -- and you’re accelerating flat out, facing a really hard wall at the end. Suddenly, even in a massive space like the one we had, it seems very small.” He said despite the challenges, he was confident he would beat the record. “To accelerate so hard on such an erratic surface was incredible. Not for a moment did I doubt I could

do it,” he said. Keen’s speed of 102.65 mph was enough to beat the previous record of 86.99 mph, which was set by Finnish driver Mikko Hirvonen in 2013. Old Horn Blown

18,000-year-old conch shell believed to be the world’s oldest instrument of its type was played by a horn player for the first time in thousands of years as part of a study by French scientists. Researchers from France’s National Center for Scientific

Research, the Museum of Toulouse, the University of Toulouse and Quai Branly Museum teamed up to study the shell found at the Marsoulas Cave in the Pyrenees mountain range in 1931. The scientists, who published their study in the journal Science Advances, said the tip of the conch shell is broken in a way that appears intentional to create a 1.4-inch diameter opening. The team said a study of the opening indicates a mouthpiece may have been attached to the instrument at some time in the past. The scientists said carbon dating performed on charcoal and bear bone from the same cave indicate the shell is likely about 18,000 years old. The team recruited a horn player who was able to make sounds with the shell resembling the notes C, C-sharp and D. Gilles Tosello, co-author of the study and an archaeologist at the University of Toulouse, said the team has not yet determined whether the shell was meant to make music or whether the sounds it made were connected to other rituals. “It could have been used as a communication tool,” he told CNN. Tosello said the scientists are now working on a 3D replica of the shell to learn more about the shell and the sounds it can make.

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Hope and Good News

alawi: Due to the new S. African strain of the corona virus Malawi has had to close schools again. However this hits the most marginalised children hardest. Whilst schools are places to learn, they also provide nutrition, mental health and psychosocial support, as well as health and hygiene services. School attendance has also proved to reduce the risk of violence and early pregnancy which occurred after schools were previously shut last year.

Faced with these hard choices the Ministry of Education has tried to find ways of alleviating the hardest hitting consequences of school closures through developing self-study materials and radio lessons. However, in a country where only 4% of the rural population has access to electricity, there is a significant lack of radios and electronic devices in homes.

In Southern Malawi they have a plan to support some of their most vulnerable students. By distributing solar powered radios, their studies could continue despite the prevalence of energy poverty in the region. See:

Netherlands/Nigeria: In a huge victory for Friends of the Earth and Nigerian communities, Shell Nigeria has been ruled by The Hague Court of Appeals as liable for damages from pipeline leaks in the villages of Oruma and Goi. The court also ordered the Nigerian unit and its Hagueheadquartered parent company Royal Dutch Shell Shell Nigeria to build better warning systems so future leaks can be quickly detected. It is the first time that a court has held a Dutch transnational corporation accountable for its duty of care abroad. Commenting on the verdict, Rachel Kennerley, climate

Good News Stop Press Saudi Arabia: Ali al Nimr is no longer facing the death penalty in the country. Reprieve’s investigators, lawyers and campaigners have been fighting for Ali since 2012. It’s so great to finally celebrate this win. He spent 9 years on death row for so-called ‘crimes’ linked to attending pro-democracy protests - like teaching others to administer first aid - when he was just a child. A Saudi court finally resentenced him on Sunday. That means he should be back home with his family by the end of this year. But Ali isn’t the only person who depends on the Reprieve community. For more about their work go to:

campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said:

“This is a fantastic victory for Friends of the Earth Netherlands and Nigerian communities suffering the damages of oil drilling. For too long companies like Shell have been shirking their responsibility for the impact of the dirty industry they push on communities around the world. Thirteen years of fighting for justice has finally turned this around, and today’s judgement is a wakeup call for polluting companies and governments everywhere. The UK government should be ending all its investments in fossil fuel projects overseas, unless it wants to face legal challenges.” Green Alley Awards:Public voting has opened for the Green Alley Award, Europe’s first startup prize for the circular economy. This is where rubbish is utilised rather than raw materials are used to manufacture products. See more at:

to the ongoing violence there, it has an unemployment rate of more than 40 percent, and problems with access not only to clean water and electricity, but also basic construction supplies.

However I came across outstanding work done by a young female Palestinian engineer Majd Mashharawi when watching a Simon Reeves documentary which featured Gaza in one episode. She has developed a new and innovative way of making bricks, which she hopes could make Gaza less dependent on outside help. She uses rubble and ash to create a cheap, light brick that can be made locally. The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely-populated tracts of land in the world. In addition

Majd spent years perfecting the mix after graduating from the Islamic University of Gaza. Called “Green Cake”, the invention has won an innovation prize in Japan, and its inventor has been designated one of the “Most Creative People” in 2018 by the Fast Company media outlet. She says, “Gazans should not just rely on international aid, but should strive for selfsufficiency. It feels like you are doing something (for) your country. You are not just shouting and saying we want to be free,” she said. “You’re not just seen as victims. We can build. We are our future.”

POLITICS AND EVENTS

Mid February 2021

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A NEW HOME FOR SOCIALISTS WHO REJECT STARMERISM

LEFT LABOUR

here is no sign that revolutionary socialist parties are getting anywhere. The parties headed by former MPs are making little traction.

People who leave the Labour Party have difficulty finding a home. Left Labour is set up to be that home

the House of Lords, Finance, Industry, Tax, Pensions, Health, Social Care, Housing, and We in Left Labour have Education. We are going to largely left Labour. All are Left fund it by making the rich pay of Labour. their fair taxes. Teams are being set up to write online We expect a huge position papers to influx of members buttress the very A HUGE short manifesto when the INFLUX IS 2021 Labour we intend to EXPECTED WHEN Conference issue. is seen to be THE LABOUR stitched-up We are CONFERENCE IS going for by the Right. SEEN TO BE We respect that individual people need to membership STITCHED-UP feel that they tried only. It is to save the Labour important that the Party. trade unions take part. They must encourage their Ours will be a democratic members to be active in Left socialist manifesto. We are going Labour. further than the 2017 Manifesto on nuclear disarmament, We will take on the Labour green issues, proportional Party in their safe seats. It will representation, abolition of be a straight fight for Labour’s

WORD

working class heartlands between democratic socialism and right wing Labour. In over 60 of the seats, there is no risk at all of giving a seat to the Tories. In some areas there are no safe Labour seats. If local activists wish to work on seats that Labour threw away, we support them. We need to

contest over 100 seats to gain a party political broadcast. We will have activists from 500 other seats helping with money, with telephone canvassing, and with doorstep activists.

Labour MPs. We do not oppose them because it is a waste of resources to have one socialist fighting another. We will welcome and support them when they come to us. How will the rump Labour Party, short of activists and probably short of money, defend its safe seats, defend its marginals, and fight the seats it hopes to win? That is their problem.

All of us, all our lives, have been fed lies about socialism and socialists. To break that conditioning, For information Left Labour needs about Left Labour please to be working the go to www.leftlabour.org doorsteps for two . SEATS years continuously, TO BE using punchy social CONTESTED Charles James is messaging, the Convenor of Left punchy leaflets, Labour. Charles worked for the and doorstep Labour Party in every General activism. A Election since 1966. Charles recent survey wrote http://chasjames.com/ showed that home/socialism-politics/the20 per cent effective-activist/. of the UK population Secretary of a 3,000+ do not have member CLP, Charles resigned the skills to from the Labour Party last use social December because he had no m e d i a . confidence in the values, the They tend competence, or the integrity of to be old the Labour Leadership. or poor or both. Charles set up Left Labour because there was no T h e r e democratic socialist group he are left wing wished to join.

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POLITICS AND EVENTS

CORBYN IS HAVING THE LAST LAUGH ABOUT BROADBAND

Labour was right to Promise Universal Internet Access B

oris mocked Corbyn’s plans to supply free internet access, until COVID struck and he had to eat his words. In what feels like a decade ago, the party Labour made a groundbreaking announcement in November 2019. Then leader Jeremy Corbyn promised that under a Labour government, telecoms companies would be partly nationalised to supply free broadband nationwide. In what would be a new organisation, under the title British Broadband, the scheme would provide equal access to the 21st century’s most valuable resource, the internet. As we saw recently with the Gamestop stocks incident, the internet has the ability to empower the working man and help to level an

unequal playing field. Funded by taxes on global internet giants like Facebook and Google, this could have been the key to unlocking hidden potential across the UK. Unfortunately, we weren’t so lucky. In a one-two punch, Boris Johnson and Covid-19 were introduced. What did Johnson think about this plan for universal internet access? Standing in front of his campaign bus back in 2019, he called the plan a “crazed communist scheme”. Then Chancellor Sajid Javid said of Labour’s plans, “This is primary school politics not grown-up government”. And maybe without Covid-19, we may have never realised how wrong they were. Recent figures from Ofcom estimate that more than 880,000

children live in a household with only a mobile internet connection. The Office of National Statistics states 0nly 51% of households earning between £6000-£10,000 annually have an internet connection. With households earning more than £40,000 annually, that number is at 99%. Analysts at Cambridge University summed it up: “if you are poor, you have less chance of being online”. Being stuck at home, working families need help to connect to the one thing that allows them to engage with schools, employment and their friends. Boris had to eat his words, as he has since promised assistance with internet access. That’s too little and too late in my books. We should be ending the digital divide in our country once and for all.

BOLD POLITICS AND EVENTS

Mid February 2021

Building Our Local Democracy

‘Be the change you want in life.’ Gandhi. BOLD is a non politically aligned campaigning group in Greater Manchester encouraging the public to be more actively involved in local and national issues. Tel. 07794835959

E-mail: (Membership Secretary)

Definitions of democracy Cambridge - ‘the belief in freedom and equality between people, or a system of government based on this belief, in which power is either held by elected representatives or directly by the people themselves.’ Collins - 1. government by the people or their elected representatives. 2. a political or social unit governed ultimately by all its members. 3. the practice or spirit of social equality. 4. a social condition of classlessness and equality. 5. the common people, esp as a political force. 1. Encourage more people to exercise their democratic rights, in order to bring power and decision making closer to the people. 2. Promote more democratic accountability and transparency in national and local government, public and private bodies. 3. To remain politically neutral.

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Mid February 2021

POLITICS AND EVENTS

POLICE HAD TO BE CALLED WHEN IT BECAME MORE THAN CR

KNITTING MAY NOT

et’s start with a warning. If you live with a knitter or have fond memories of Aunt Maureen clicking her needles, then you may be about to wonder how well you really know/knew them.

A look beyond the seemingly mountainous yarn ‘stash’ of the average knitter reveals a world ranging from bawdy British humour to wartime espionage, taking in great doses of activism and social support along the way. It’s not just the UK where some acts of knitty solidarity and support are shown either. In the US, knitters are currently gripped by Bernie’s mittens when he was recently seen sporting a pair of mittens knitted out of recycled wool. Now demand for similar mittens has soared. Fortunately, there are several free interpretations of these available on the ‘Ravelry’ website, simply search ‘Bernie’s Mittens’. In 2017, Washington saw thousands of women wearing pink, hand knitted ‘pussyhats’ march in protest at Trump’s misogyny. Australia had the ‘Knitting Nannas against Gas’ busily knitting, educating and protesting about the environmental damage caused by fracking. Mystery and controversy often appears within the world of ‘knit and purl’. Where and when knitting originated seems to be unknown, with several theories of its evolution and many knitters have locked needles over whether this or that old pattern is called ‘Old Shale’ or ‘Feather and Fan’. Then there is ‘Ravelry’, the knitters’ online library, causing uproar among Trump fans by banning Trump supporting knitting patterns. A few years ago, l was in a Facebook knitting group where the police had to intervene after an argument between knitters which became so intense that threatening messages were sent. So there you have just a glimpse into the not always sedate, world of knitting. No wonder Miss Marple was such a keen knitter.

Pussyhats On the morning of 21st January 2017, nearly half a million women marched on Washington DC in opposition to and defiance of Trump. Many thousands wore hand knitted hats in bright pink which included ‘ears’, created by the corners of the knitted tube, which were called Pussyhats, playing on the word pussycat and an act of defiance against Trumps words of “Grab ’em by the pussy”.

Ravelry Calls Out Trump On 23rd June 2019, Ravelry , a knitting and yarncraft online site with millions of visitors, issued a statement in which they said, “We are banning support of Donald Trump and his administration on includes support in the form of forum posts, projects, patterns, profiles, and all other content. - We cannot provide a space that is inclusive of all and also allow support for open white supremacy. Support of the Trump administration is undeniably support for white supremacy.”

Farmhouse Kitchen Cloth

Grab some cotton yarn and enjoy this old time favourite dish cloth knit. Often referred to as ‘Grandmothers Favourite’ this little project takes a lot of beating. For the beginner there’s lot’s of plain knit but with an increase or decrease to start every row, it provides great practice while the corner to corner knit provides an easy but fun knit for the experienced. Although termed a dishcloth this is equally at home as a wash cloth and indeed even coasters. It is totally adaptable so can be knitted to any size using any weight of cotton yarn. Perhaps the best thing of all about this favourite is that it means you can do away with those flimsy disposable cloths, so knit a few for yourself and a few for friends and family, you’ll be doing your bit for the environment while enjoying the perfect cold weather craft. Using any weight yarn and needles a size or 2 smaller than recommended for the yarn. Cast on 4 stitches Row 1: knit 4 Row 2: k2, yo, k to end of row *Repeat Row 2 until the sides are the measurement you’d like (I go anywhere between 18 – 25cm for cloths) Row 3: k1, k2Tog, yo, k2Tog, k to end of row *Repeat Row 3, decreasing each row until you have 5 stitches left on your needle Row 4: k2, k2Tog, k1 Bind off the last 4 stitches. Key - K = knit, yo = yarn over, k2Tog = knit 2 together.

POLITICS AND EVENTS

Mid February 2021

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ROSSED NEEDLES DEVELOPED INTO A TANGLE ABOUT TRUMP

BE AS YOU IMAGINE Spy Knitters

Nudinits

During both World Wars, knitting was used to great effect by those gathering intelligence. Sometimes messages where encoded into the knitting itself and more commonly, was used as a cover by female spies. Because of it’s ease to encode, at some point, both the UK and the US banned knitting patterns from being posted abroad. One such spy who worked for the Special Operations Executive, was Francis Latour Doyle who in 2014, age 93, was awarded France’s highest honour, the Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.

Awash with double entendre, Nudinits is a series of short animated films on YouTube that will appeal to knitters and all who enjoy ‘Carry On’ films or saucy seaside postcards. The whole eccentricity of it is as British as it comes. And as a little insight to what knitters get up to, so many wanted to create their own Nudinits that pattern books have been published.

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Mid February 2021

POLITICS AND EVENTS

Vegan recipes

Cooking with Chris Williamson

VEGAN-KUGELS

Ingredients l 12 oz. wide noodles,

such as farfalle l 15 oz. silken tofu l 3/4 cup agave nectar l 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract l 1 tsp. cinnamon, plus

extra for dusting

l 1 tsp. cardamom powder l 1 tsp. ginger powder l 1 1/2 cups raisins l 4 apples, cubed l 1/4 cup applesauce

Instructions Preheat the oven to 425ºF. Cook the noodles according to package directions and drain. sing an electric mixer U or a blender, cream the

tofu with the agave nectar, vanilla, cinnamon, cardamom, and ginger until smooth. lace in a large bowl and P add the noodles, raisins, apples, and applesauce.

Mix well. our into a large baking P pan with high sides and bake for 25 minutes, or until nicely browned.

commemorated in the UK?November. 10. Which cricketing county plays its home matches at Trent Bridge?Nottinghamshire. 11. What temperature represents the boiling point of water in the Celsius scale?100 degrees. 12. On which day of the week does the Queen distribute Maundy Money?Thursday.

commemorated in the UK? 10. Which cricketing county plays its home matches at Trent Bridge? 11. What temperature represents the boiling point of water in the Celsius scale? 12. On which day of the week does the Queen distribute Maundy Money? 13. Who was the lead guitar-

ist in The Beatles? 14. What currency is used in South Africa? 15. On a standard computer keyboard what letter is furthest to the right? 16. What was the name of the winged horse in Greek mythology? 17. What is the capital of Vietnam?

18. In the 1995 movie “Batman Forever”, which villain was played by Jim Carrey? 19. Which author was responsible for the Inspector Wexford series of books? 20. In chemistry, what is the opposite of an acid?

Shakespeare Company. 6. What was the sword of King Arthur named?Excalibur. 7. In which country is the airline KLM based?Netherlands. 8. In TV’s “Keeping Up Appearances”, what was Mrs Bucket’s first name?Hyacinth. 9. In which month of the year is Remembrance Day

13. Who was the lead guitarist in The Beatles?George Harrison. 14. What currency is used in South Africa?The Rand. 15. On a standard computer keyboard what letter is furthest to the right?P. 16. What was the name of the winged horse in Greek mythology?Pegasus. 17. What is the capital of Vietnam?Hanoi.

5. In the world of theatre,what is the RSC? 6. What was the sword of King Arthur named? 7. In which country is the airline KLM based? 8. In TV’s “Keeping Up Appearances”, what was Mrs Bucket’s first name? 9. In which month of the year is Remembrance Day

Answers: 1. In which European country would you find the Dolomites?Italy. 2. Which zodiac sign is represented by a fish?Pisces. 3. On TV who played the title role in “Inspector Morse”?John Thaw. 4. In which sport is the Ryder Cup played for?Golf. 5. In the world of theatre,what is the RSC?Royal

18. In the 1995 movie “Batman Forever”, which villain was played by Jim Carrey?The Riddler. 19. Which author was responsible for the Inspector Wexford series of books?Ruth Rendell. 20. In chemistry, what is the opposite of an acid?An alkali.

1. In which European country would you find the Dolomites? 2. Which zodiac sign is represented by a fish? 3. On TV who played the title role in “Inspector Morse”? 4. In which sport is the Ryder Cup played for? Quiz

THE WORD POLITICS AND EVENTS

Mid February 2021

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Mid February 2021

POLITICS AND EVENTS

PIECE SACRIFICE LED TO WINNING DOUBLE ATTACK

Russian teen crushes World Champion AFTER THE GAME ESIPENKO SA : “IT WAS ONID E OF THE BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE”

125 games without defeat, but disaster struck in round eight.

lite chess, tournaments played by grandmasters with an Elo grade of at least 2700, is the exclusive preserve of a select few.

Having conceded six He’d spotted Carlsen’s draws in the first seven h8 rook was undefended rounds Carlsen obviously and on a long diagonal decided that his 18-yearand sacrificed a pawn to ELO old Russian opponent, win back the piece with a RATING Andrei Esipenko, was double attack. BEATEN vulnerable and decided to forsake the patient manoeuvring Carlsen lost and finished Spanish and mix it with a Sicilian. the tournament in fourth place behind a young Dutchman, The youngster didn’t blink. Jorden van Foreest, and a teenage Sacrificing a piece in a Keres tyro from Iran, Alireza Firouja. Attack, on move 17 he hit Carlsen Giant killer Esipenko came third, gained 30 Elo points and moved into the elite 2700 category. He said: “It was one of the best days of my life”

At the moment only a few Britons, all members of the England team, can claim to be members. The central figure, for the last 10 years has of course, been Magnus Carlsen, 30, now the world champion who has an international rating of 2862. When he competed in the round robin over-the board 13-round classical Tata Steel Masters held in the Netherlands last month he was expected to win. He had, after all, won it a record seven times. At one point in the recent past he had played

Challenger spotted champ’s undefended rook was on a long diagonal

2862

with a Tyson Fury uppercut, a Ben Stokes yorker.

Click to watch the animated play 1.e4c5 2Nf3d6 3.d4cxd4 4.Nxd4Nf6 5.Nc3a6 6.Be2e6 7.Be3Be7 8.g4b5 9.g5Nfd7 10.a3Bxg5 11.Qd2Bxe3 12.Qxe3Qh4 13.Rg1g6 14.O-O-O Qe7 15.f4Bb7 16.Kb1Nc6 17.Ncxb5axb5 18.Nxc6Bxc6 19.Qc3 O-O 20.Qxc6d5 21.exd5Rfc8 22.d6Qd8 23.Qxb5Rcb8 24.Qc4Rxa3 25.Qc7Qe8 26.Rg5Ra4 27.Ra5Rab4 28.b3R4b7 29.Qc3Qd8 30.Bf3Rb4 31.Qc7Qf6 32.Ra8Rxa8 33.Bxa8Qf5 34.Kb2Rb5 35.Qxd7Rc5 36.Rc1Qxf4 37.Qe8+Kg7 38.d7 1-0

Have the tectonic plates moved? It’s too early to say but Esipenko played the whole Carlsen game with a sureness of touch that was a joy to watch. Grandmaster Daniel King has provided an analysis of the game for ChessBase that is well worth listening to.

POLITICS AND EVENTS

SUDOKU

THE

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Book 11 Sudoku #1

3 4 2

1 5

WORD

Sudoku #2

7 8

THE

Intermediate Sudoku Puzzles by KrazyDad

4 7

3 4

3 8

Mid February 2021

5 8

6 7 7 4 3 1

1 3 6

3 8

2 4 6

5 4 9 3 2 1 1 7 5

"Washington is no place for a good actor. The competition from bad actors is too great." -- Fred Allen

Sudoku #3

8 7

3 2

2 9

5 1

8 9 7

4 2

4 3 5

4 8 9

Sudoku #4

4 1 7 1

9 5 3 8 6 6 7 4 8 1 7 3 9 5 2 4

5 6

Book 57

Sudoku #5

8 9 7 1

9 2 5

Intermediate Sudoku Puzzles by KrazyDad

6 4

3 8

2 1

3 6

7 8 9

Sudoku #6

5 3 4 9 1 1

2 1 5 7

3 1

6 8

You or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were you. I should have no hesitation in sacrificing my own life to spare

2 4 3

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Mid February 2021

POLITICS AND EVENTS

PREMIER LEAGUE P

Team

Pts

Form

Drew with Everton Lost to Leeds Won against Fulham Drew with Wolves Won against Liverpool

Won against Spurs Won against West Ham Lost to Brighton Lost to Man City Lost to Leicester

Lost to Leicester Drew with Wolves Won against Burnley Won against Spurs Won against Sheff Utd

Drew with Leicester Lost to Newcastle Won against Leeds Drew with Man Utd Lost to Fulham

Lost to Burnley Won against Southampton Lost to West Ham Won against Arsenal Drew with Brighton

Lost to Liverpool Lost to Brighton Lost to Chelsea Won against West Brom Lost to Man City

-2

-7

-9

Lost to Arsenal Lost to Aston Villa Lost to Man Utd Lost to Newcastle Lost to Wolves

-15

Lost to West Ham Won against Wolves Won against Newcastle Lost to Leeds Lost to Burnley

-5

Drew with Fulham Won against Spurs Won against Liverpool Drew with Burnley Drew with Aston Villa

-12

Won against Aston Villa Lost to Chelsea Lost to Man City Drew with Brighton Won against C Palace

-13

Lost to Aston Villa Lost to Leeds Won against Everton Lost to C Palace Won against Southampton

-12

-36

Lost to Man City Drew with Fulham Lost to Sheff Utd Lost to Spurs Drew with Man Utd

-22

Lost to Spurs Won against Man Utd Lost to Man City Won against West Brom Lost to Chelsea

Won against West Brom Won against Sheff Utd Won against Burnley Won against Liverpool Won against Spurs Lost to Sheff Utd Drew with Arsenal Won against Southampton Drew with Everton Drew with West Brom

Won against West Brom Won against C Palace Lost to Liverpool Won against Aston Villa Drew with Fulham

11 12

18 19

Won against Southampton Drew with Man Utd Lost to Wolves Lost to Aston Villa Won against Leeds Won against Newcastle Won against Leicester Lost to Everton Won against C Palace Lost to Arsenal Drew with Chelsea Lost to C Palace Won against Arsenal Drew with Leicester Won against Southampton

Drew with Brighton Drew with West Brom Lost to Leicester Drew with West Ham Won against Everton

POLITICS AND EVENTS

Mid February 2021

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Defending Champion DJOKOVIC THROUGH TO Q’FINALS N

ovak Djokovic came through a stiff test of his fitness as he moved into the Australian Open quarter-finals, but third seed Dominic Thiem was stunned by Grigor Dimitrov. Bulgarian Dimitrov, a semi-finalist in 2017, dismantled the US Open champion

of Austria 6-4 6-4 6-0. World number one Djokovic, struggling with an abdominal injury picked up on Friday, beat Milos Raonic in four sets. The Serbian eight-time Australian Open champion won 7-6 (7-4) 4-6 6-1 6-4.

“In any other tournament than a Grand Slam I would have retired from the event, but because it’s a Grand Slam I wanted to give my best,” Djokovic, 33, said. “I didn’t know if I was going to play or not. During the match it [the injury] was on and off, it’s still not ideal but I can’t complain and won

against a great player. Hopefully it will be even better in two days. “There was no preparation for this match, I used every single hour I had to recover and put myself in a position where I could compete. My physio has done a great job and I want to thank my team and the ATP physios for being

here for me. “I’ve definitely been fitter but I’m taking each day at a time and for me training is just recovery.” He will play sixth seed Alexander Zverev after the German beat Djokovic’s compatriot Dusan Lajovic 6-4 7-6 (7-5) 6-3.

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POLITICS AND EVENTS

Fulham beat awful Everton

ulham manager Scott “Today it (goals) has been Parker said: “It has been the difference, I constantly say coming, for sure. The to this team, you cannot keep difference is that we win the creating the chances and that game by putting the is a good marker to keep ball in the net. belief. People may be seeing that it We have been PARKER: WE turns but for on the wrong WERE BRILLIA the large side of fine N SUPERB IN T, part in margins but the last 15 in and around EVERYTHING W E games we the six yard DID, IN DEFE have been box we have NCE AND ATTACK consistent. sniffed out We were chances and got a brilliant, big win. superb in everything we did in “Hopefully (great defence and attack. I don’t escape). That is how we go think we deserved anything about our work, we have been less to be honest. drawing too many games and we need to be winning them.

Wolves rob Southampton Ralph Hasenhuttl questioned why Southampton were not awarded a penalty in their 2-1 home defeat to Wolves but the visitors were for a similar incident. Ruben Neves converted the contested spot-kick that transformed the south coast clash, after Ryan Bertrand was controversially punished for handball. Nelson Semedo’s rasping effort struck Bertrand’s hand as his back was turned attempting a block at pointblank range, but still the penalty was awarded.

Arsenal Thrash Leeds Aubameyang opened the scoring in the 14th minute before doubling his side’s advantage from the spot towards the end of the first half. Right-back Hector Bellerin grabbed a third on the stroke of half-time, with Aubameyang completing his first Premier League hat-trick with a header moments after the restart. But from 4-0 down Leeds grabbed two second-half goals through Pascal Struijk and substitute Helder Costa to give Arsenal a late scare.

We now go into two massive games and onto the rest of the season. I have got full belief in this team, I honestly have. People judge performances on wins and losses, I have a different view because I see it everyday and have to be more rational looking at my team. It gives me constant belief.

Manchester United slip up Bruno Fernandes’ stunning volley salvaged a point for Manchester United at struggling West Brom, but Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side lost further ground in the Premier League title race. United moved back above Leicester in second place, but are now seven points behind leaders Manchester City, who also have a game in hand. No Allardyce team has yet been relegated from the Premier league but let us hope the Tory voting money grabber is relegated this time.

POLITICS AND EVENTS

Mid February 2021

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Women’s football MATCH REPORTS

omen’s Super League leaders Chelsea went five points clear with a dominant win at bottom side Bristol City. Fran Kirby’s deft header from Sam Kerr’s corner put the Blues ahead before Pernille Harder smashed in. Kirby followed up with a neat finish after one of many fine saves from Sophie Baggaley before Jonna Andersson’s dinked shot hit the bar. After the break, Bethany England delivered a pinpoint cross for Kerr to head in and then scrambled in a fifth.

Bristol City forward Ebony Salmon picked for England squad Bristol City forward Ebony Salmon has been handed her first England call-up by interim manager Hege Riise for the friendly against Northern Ireland.

fixture in almost a year, added Salmon had caught the eye by netting nine goals in all competitions for Bristol City this season.

Salmon, 20, captained the Young Lionesses squad to fourth place at the Women’s Under-17 Championship in 2018.

“She has been performing consistently at club level, showing great speed and scoring goals so we are excited to welcome her on camp next week,” added Riise.

“Ebony is a young, talented player who we think will benefit from exposure to the senior environment,” said Riise. Riise, who will lead the Lionesses against Northern Ireland for their first official

Salmon will join the rest of the 21-player squad when they meet at the national team’s training base, St George’s Park, on 18 February.

Reading and Everton draw Everton left it late as they came from behind to seal a point in the second half against Reading in the Women’s Super League. The hosts took the lead in the first half as Rachel Rowe volleyed home from Emma Mitchell’s ball to the far post. Everton fought back and levelled with 13 minutes left when substitute Nicoline Sorensen guided a header home. Deanna Cooper almost won it for Reading in stoppage time but steered her half-volley wide of the near post.

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Mid February 2021

POLITICS AND EVENTS

THE TITLE IS DECIDED AND IT GOES TO MANCHESTER’S CITY

Manchester City roar ahead in the title race

s Liverpool falter once again city set a record winning their 11th straight league game against Tottenham on Saturday night to extend their lead. Pep Guardiola’s side are powering towards another league title with the German playing a key role. He scored City’s second and third after winning the penalty that allowed Rodri to step up and put the hosts ahead. The Spaniard was less than convincing from the spot with Hugo Lloris no doubt frustrated at seeing it go past him.

Liverpool lose Meanwhile Title holders Liverpool again fall apart. This time they cave in to Leicester after being a goal up. Klopp was quoted as saying “I don’t think we can close that gap this year,” “We have to win football games.” Well, Jurgen, they should call you the Sherlock Holmes of Anfield after that bold statement. In truth Liverpool’s injury list of just about all their centre halves is their real problem.