Sometimes, when there is so much shizzola going on in the world, it is difficult to know where to begin one’s rant. This indecision can take many forms, but generally speaking it refers to some form of sitting in front of one’s computer doing f**k all, head hurting like a good ‘un, eyes rolling around in one’s head like some sort of defective slot machine, drinking herbal tea (because one is not allowed caffeine), and reciting the opening soliloquy from Shakespeare’s Richard III.

Indecision is the result of two principal factors: first, not knowing which side of the fence one’s readership sits on any given issue, and second, which side of the fence one’s own head sits on any given issue.

Putin on the Blitz

Since it is now some ten and a half months since my previous rant, which, if I remember correctly, was something about the coronation of King Charles III, there are one or two political issues I had hoped would be solved by now, but aren’t. The first is that bloody war in Ukraine, started by Vladimir Putin, and kept going by the incredible fortitude of Ukrainian leader Vlodomyr Zelenskyy and his stoic people.

It seems to me that Putin is an old-school Communist. In other words, he wants the old Soviet Union back just the way it was, thank you very much, before that evil tyrant Mikhail Gorbachev got his hands on it and turned it into some sort of Western pussy state. Where better place to start than the Baltics, where many of history’s worst and most destructive wars have started. And where, if we’re not too careful, the next most destructive war will start.

Well, technically, yes, it’s already started, but simply by handing over our best weaponry to Zelenskyy and otherwise staying out of the conflict, the West (USA, the UK and their followers) can keep the war in Ukraine to nothing more than a localized skirmish in which only tens of thousands of people die needlessly before their time to the everlasting grief of their families, friends and compatriots.

You see, the impression one gets from the news media anywhere in the Western world is that Putin is not only an old-school Communist but also dangerously unhinged, meaning that the slightest perceived insult could send him flying into some sort of demagogic rage, calling in Russian for “that f**king red button” and blowing whatever part of the world he chooses into smithereens (what is a “smithereen”?) and creating what could only be described as “a long-term climate change issue.”

Now, if he did that, he would therefore go down in history as one of the worst mass-murderers of all time, someone that could potentially make Hitler look like a cat burglar.* That’s quite a heavy burden to bear, something that even Putin might struggle with, insomuch as it reflects on his legacy as a great leader of Russia and/or the Soviet Union.

(*Yes, I just proved Godwin’s Law.)

So, impression one created by the mass media is that Putin could kill you for no other reason than he wants Ukraine back. Certain elements of the media want to maintain that impression, so that you trust our government to protect you, meaning that you fall in line with government policy, don’t protest about it, and so on.

Impression two is that Putin is doing all these things (allegedly) because he’s been told he is dying. Reading news reports over the last two years or so, you might be forgiven for thinking that Vlad is suffering from anything and everything between terminal cancer and housemaid’s knee. Yet, in all that time, nothing has really changed in respect of the war in Ukraine; it’s still ongoing, I don’t imagine Vlad ever thought it would take two years to break down Zelenskyy and his people – or longer if you are reading this some time in the future. I think he imagined it to be an overnight job. Invade, take over, throw Zelenskyy in jail or have him bumped off, and Vlad’s your uncle. Job done.

But the Ukrainian people had other ideas, and while Zelenskyy has had to periodically pop up here and there (including the United Nations) to ask for money and weaponry, he’s basically been able to keep the Russian army at bay and stop him from annexing his country once again as a Russian puppet state. Probably Putin wants to keep control of the oil lines in Ukraine. It’s always about the oil, isn’t it?

Impression three is that the media wants to create is that Putin is only talking tough because he knows that as long as the threat of nuclear annihilation hangs over our heads, we as a nation (and the other Western nations, in particular the US) will stop sending Zelenskyy money, weapons, armor, Christmas cards and God knows what else. In other words, he’s never going to actually need to press that red button, he’s calling our bluff, or rather he thinks he is. It’s what’s known as a power play.

But, at the same time, all of this was happening at the time of King Charles III’s coronation last May, when I wrote my last rant, and it’s still going on now. Therefore, has Putin disproven his own view of himself as a scary dictator by threatening much but delivering nothing? Is he, as my dear departed Mother used to say, all mouth and no trousers?

Well, that’s of course not easy to say. I lent my crystal ball to a friend some time ago and never got it back. It wasn’t working properly anyway. The problem with the war in Ukraine is: the longer it goes on, the more likely it is that Putin is going to have to put his money where his mouth is and Do Something Bad to prove that he’s as much of a nasty little shit as we all think he is. And once he aims one or more of his precious nuclear weapons at us and fires, that’s it; game over. You’re talking retaliation, more retaliation, and retaliating the retaliation retaliation. In other words: it’s going to get messy.

No Country for Old Men

Before all that happens, though, we’ve got to look across the pond the other way to discover that America has problems of its own. 2024 is Election Year and, unless Putin proves my above theory and the election of a new president of the USA becomes unnecessary, or some other happy accident befalls either of the two main candidates, you’re now looking at a repeat of the 2020 election: Joe Biden vs. Donald J. Trump.

There’s one important context I need you to hold on to before I continue ranting: the USA is home to something in the region of about three hundred and fifty million people, give or take. That’s a lot of people. Yet, in amongst that vast population, neither the Democratic nor the Republican parties are able to find better candidates than a doddery 82-year-old who has to be pointed in the direction of his podium before speaking, and a 78-year-old businessman who isn’t even a proper politician but is definitely a proper psychopath.

Yes, we thought that Ronald Reagan, former Warner Bros. contract actor who couldn’t get leading roles in anything more than B-movies because of his vacant personality which proved to be just perfect for running the country, was old when he ran for his second term in 1984 at the age of 73. Mr. Biden has now smashed that record by 8 years, and even his opponent, “Mr.” Trump is five years older than that – both think that they can live another four years to complete a second term.

Now, we know that for Mr. Trump, his two terms will be non-consecutive because the election was stolen from him lost when Americans became sick of him cozying up to the likes of, well, Putin and Kim Jong-un, and threating his fellow NATO members with all sorts because he just felt like it. There was that, and COVID which, despite catching the contagion himself, didn’t believe existed until it was too late.

Thus, the ages of the two candidates adds up to an eye-watering 160 years old, an age understood only by giant turtles, and they are not likely to vote. This is not good democracy; after all, who are you going to vote for? An octogenarian former pervert who may not live to see out his term, or an octogenarian former TV game show host who may not live to see out his second term and, even if he does, will at the very least provide non-stop entertainment from the first day of his presidency to the last.

That must be the only reason why there is a very real chance that America is going to vote him in as the next POTUS. Have they forgotten? Trump is breaking the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, because – and don’t believe a word of those right-wing Christians who tell you that there is no evidence of this, because there is, loads of it – he is guilty of the crime of Insurrection. Yet the Republican Party, the GOP as they are colloquially known, cannot find another candidate within their vast membership capable of running the country than Trump. They’re still afraid of him for some reason.

When are bullied populations going to clock on to it? There are millions of you versus a couple of hundred of them! They might threaten their army on you, but if the army turns as well they’ve got nobody! Trump can shout and scream all he wants to, but at the end of the day he needs you in order to fight you!

Trump is not only guilty of insurrection, but he’s also being tried in Florida for violating their Official Secrets Act, or whatever their version of it is called. Three states tried to ban him from their ballots for the November election, but were ultimately stopped from doing so by the Supreme Court, whose nine judges, or the majority of them, decided that that was illegal, and they used the 14th Amendment to prove it! He’s being tried for a crime, and he can still stand for election. This is, as I wrote in my Facebook post, parallel-universe stuff.

I could go on about that all day and all night, and most of tomorrow as well, but for the sake of brevity I shall move on, to closer waters…that’s right, the dear old Blighty, the United Kingdom. I shall concentrate mostly on stuff that’s been happening since last May:

When Harry Met Silly…

Prince Harry is continuing to act in a totally bizarre manner, further distancing himself from his family, the British press, and the man or woman on the street reading about his exploits in the biased media. This is or is not influenced by his publicity – seeking wife, Meghan Markle, aka The Duchess of Sussex, aka Meghan Mountbatten-Windsor. How can you disassociate yourself from your family yet still want to retain the titles they reluctantly gave you, and your children who are still, by the way, entitled to a place in the line of succession to the British throne.

Too Much Too Sunak

“Dishi” Rishi Sunak, British Prime Minister, is still trying any and ever obvious trick in the book to win his own second term in office, an end game that now looks so unlikely that these ploys now just seem laughable. This includes the recent Spring Budget by his right-hand man, his chancellor Jeremy Hunt. Yes, we all know what that rhymes with. He thinks he’s going to win your vote by giving you back two percent of the money they’ve taken away anyway, invested in dodgy banking schemes, and lost for you so that when you retire, your pension will be much less than you expected and there’s nothing you can do about it.

On a Kier Day, You Can Sir Forever…

There is one small shaft of light in an otherwise bleak outlook for Mr. Sunak and his cronies; that the opposition, Sir Kier Starmer and the Labour Party, are no better than the Conservatives. They, like the Tories, do things just for political effect, and it’s obvious. They were once criticised for having no discernable policy, so they invented some. What they didn’t think anyone would realise (and most people did on the first day) was that most of these policies were nicked off the Conservatives and changed to red paint in PhotoShop®.

Sir Kier is an uncharismatic, soulless, lifeless cardboard cut-out of a so-called leader. While neither of the leaders of the two main parties are anything like the ages of the two main candidates in the USA, we are still, like our beloved cousins in America, stuck between a rock and a hard place. If we turn left, we might as well have turned right, and vice versa.

Cheer Up, it Could Be Worse…

Therefore, because of our political elite, the situation remains the same for much of the sixty-five-plus-million people who are forced to call the UK their home: they are taxed to high heaven to pay for things that they never actually see, like more police, better standard of NHS care, more doctors and nurses, a better transport network, schools that are not falling to pieces and not staffed by teachers who are one hysterical episode away from complete nervous breakdown; I could go on.

The basic message is this: for most of us around the world, nothing has changed. Instead, we’ve been bedazzled by AI; our minds have been well and truly f**ked. I even saw a YouTube® video about an AI vacuum cleaner that managed to hump the leg of a chair. True story. It then went back to its charger and cleaned itself.

Nothing has changed, everything remains the same, slowly getting worse for all of us except the über-rich. And even they have been propagandised to be likeable eccentrics, willing to give up their fortunes to help AI technology develop into a world-conquering maniac itself, or to sue the f**k out of other corporations who are trying to do the same thing (yes, I’m talking to you, Elon Musk).

Nothing has changed, it all remains the same, God* help us all. x

(*For “God,” substitute the all-powerful deity of your choice; failing that, just thank yourself. I don’t want any arguments.)