Oestrogen is the answer, Testosterone is for cavemen !

The longer this pandemic goes on, the more I've become convinced that the countries that are governed by women are the only ones likely to come out without a decimated population;

Add to the above group our own First Minister Nicola Sturgeon because while she is not in complete control of Scotland until such time as the Westminster link is totally severed , she does carry out the role she has, with dignity, compassion and genuine feeling for all the population !

Compare these ladies with the following apes;

There is a surfeit of dopey Presidents/Prime Ministers across the globe, and I'll turn my attention to them shortly. However, it is so patently obvious that these two completely immoral Turkeys are world leaders insofar that they've managed to set the bar so high for tragically deadly records for Coronavirus. 

"Stay Alert" is another way of saying; It's your own fault if you catch Covid19

The buffoon purporting to be a Prime Minister is without a shadow of doubt, the least effective Tory in the history of that party;

The Tories were never this crass or incompetent but I venture to suggest that the whirlpool of Brexit that swept this lot into power on top of a pandemic has reduced this once proud political party into a morass of stupidity.

Their latest diabolical change of tack was to move from the fundamentally correct message of "stay home" to the now suitably vague "stay alert" can only mean one thing;

When the inevitable spike in cases does happen in England, this complete charlatan will be able to say

"I did tell you (the public) to stay alert, so it is your fault that the number of cases has spiked because you haven't stayed alert"

Of course the other over-riding dilemma for Boris and his financiers is the incontrovertible fact that the necessity for Treasury Intervention with Billions of pounds on such stuff as furlough schemes, that must choke any party to whom "Austerity" (though only for the plebeians) is de rigeur !

Thank God for our leader NS and long may Doris Johnson keep up his assistance in Independence !

Hyper-Globalisation - Is the end in sight?

At this precise moment in time, the only thing that is "Globalising" is the virus. The economics of the globe in general are suffering with those of nations with allegedly "Free Economies" taking the biggest hits.

We should have had "Globalisation" based on the physical health of populations rather than trade!

Countries consider wealth to the extent that the policy known in economical terms as "Beggar thy Neighbour" means that countries deliberately undercut their fiscal value to effectively make their economy more attractive than that of their neighbour in order to grab a bigger percentage of the available trade. It's almost a race to the bottom and frankly countries in the West can never hope to win that particular contest since the general cost of living and expectations are so much higher.

With an almost guaranteed recession rising like a Phoenix from the ashes of the economies, what hope for the plebeians in the British Isles?  Not for them the luxury of an "Offshore Account" where tax on it is something that the extremely rich don't actually pay !

 Of all the Billionaires in the United Kingdom, this is the biggest arse of them all. His company actually sued the N.H.S. in pursuit of his failure to win an £82 million pound contract in Surrey and then knob-head actually looked for a bail-out for Virgin Atlantic from the Government.

He couldn't spend the interest on his wealth much less the actual money he has and then has the temerity to expect the British tax payer to help him?  Feck off Dick !!!

VE Day why was it necessary ?

The UK, France and all the Allies rightly celebrate the ending of the Second World War in Europe 75 years ago.

It is wholly appropriate to celebrate the end (in Europe) of a conflict that undoubtedly cost between 70-85 Million human beings their lives, the loss of lives though continued with the conflict in the Far East and only finally came to an end with VJ Day on the 15th of August 1945 with the surrender of the Japanese Forces after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I'm probably out of step with my disregard for the "Jingoism" that is prevalent today and the idea of street parties leaves me cold.

However;

Bear with me though, I've been totally emotionally drained watching the BBC 2 programme "Britain's Greatest Generation" and I freely admit to shedding a tear while listening and watching those real heroes and their experiences during the war.

For them I celebrate the 75th Anniversary of VE day, but can't find it in me to celebrate why we had to go to war in the first instance.

I'm not for a nano-second an apologist for Nazism and Hitler and both it and he, had to be defeated for the whole of society in general. What does rankle me is that had the Allies not insisted on such stringent reparations against the Weimar Republic of Germany in 1919. The size and terms of the reparations to be paid from the Versaille Treaty/Conference allied to the world economic collapse with the "Great Crash" of 1929; causing hyperinflation to the extent that the ordinary German citizen could have papered their living rooms with Million Deutschmark notes ! 

If that isn't a precursor for Fascism then what is. The countries who suffered most from this rampant inflation all ended up with Fascist Leaders, Mussolini and Franco in Italy and Spain respectively !

So for our "Greatest Britons", I truly salute you, the few that are still hale and hearty!

Was the war needed? It's not so clear cut to my mind !

Covid-19 Chapter 7 No flippancy just real concern for the NHS

Being a septuagenarian and with a susceptible lung condition (C.O.P.D.) to boot, I've probably had too much time on my hands with this pandemic !

This has led me to mulling over the ramifications of this Covid-19 in terms of our society as a whole and the one area which really does give me cause for concern is the long term effect on the well-being on the personnel (in my opinion truly "Angels" ) of the NHS.

Nurses and Doctors see illness and death in their medical work and presumably take it as part and parcel of their job.

However, this virus has made the work that they perform for us, ensure they are not only seeing it much more than normal but in the case of the Doctors, having to give instructions for "Palliative Care" to patients instead of what they'd normally be doing and the Nurses having to administer that care.

This must have a longer term effect on their mental well-being !

Likewise, those carers whose residents are dying in large numbers in the "Care Homes" across the country.

May they all have some peace of mind when this eventually does end !

Covid-19 Chapter 6 Scottish Tories & Labour and their very own Tit(anic)

Politically the Tories are second in terms of seats in Holyrood. If nothing else, that really shows you the depth to which the Labour Party in Scotland have sunk. This is traditionally a socialist country with very definite left wing leanings.

Jackson "Carcrash" Carlaw

Richard or "Dick" Leonard

However, Scottish Labour having only a single M.P. in Westminster and a mere 23 in Holyrood which does have "List MSP's" in addition to first past the post elected, means that in real terms it is almost worthless in its proverbial "heartland".

The two principal parties in Westminster are frankly an irrelevance in Scotland and merely branch offices up here.

 The desire of Scotland for "Independence" is almost assuming a tsunami in proportion!

The next elections for Holyrood are in 2021 and since it is as obvious as the incompetence of the two turkeys above, that Doris Johnson will not under any circumstances grant another referendum, then it behoves us as a nation to sink the two parties with our own tsunami and sweep them out of parliament in their entirety.

Saor Alba mo charaid !!

Not so heavy Heavyweights !!

A conversation with a friend involved in boxing brought back some memories from my teenage years about my earliest memories of boxing.  The conversation online started about Cassius Clay and my all time favourite Sonny Liston !

To this day I still maintain that Sonny was paid to take a dive in 1962 in Miami Beach against the then "Cassius Clay" by messrs Blinky Palermo and Frankie Carbo both of whom had Mafia gambling links. Clay being 7-1 against in  odds and very much the underdog! The rematch in Maine had a similar outcome despite massive odds in favour of Liston.

Both boxers weighed round about 15 stone with Liston being about half a stone heavier than Clay, but nothing like the weights of the modern era. As an example, Tyson Fury weighed in at 20 stone for his bout against Deontay Wilder this year.

By 1959, Blinky Palermo and his partner, known Mafioso Frankie Carbo owned a majority interest in the contract of heavyweight boxer Sonny Liston who went on to win the Heavyweight title in 1962. At the time Palermo and Carbo acquired their interest in Liston, the notorious Carbo was imprisoned on Rikers Island between Queens and the Bronx in New York, having been convicted of the undercover management of prize-fighters and unlicensed matchmaking. Liston fought 12 fights under the control of Carbo and Palermo.

Cassius Clay as he was then known, had won the Light-heavyweight Olympic title in Rome in 1960.

The title though of Heavyweight champion is and always has been, the supreme Professional boxing title.

This led me onto thinking about other heavyweight boxers of the time, Rocky Marciano, Floyd Patterson, Ingemar Johannsen, Brian London, Henry Cooper, Joe Baksi and even Freddy Mills who had boxed at heavyweight. 

In truth they were all marginally heavier than Light-heavyweight.

Floyd Patterson's amateur boxing career started in 1950. He was training with Cus D’Amato in Manhattan, New York at Gramercy Gym. He was a two-time New York Golden Glove winner in 1951 and 1952. He qualified for the 1952 Olympics and won the gold medal in the middleweight division.

After his success at the Olympics, Patterson went professional. He moved up to the light heavyweight division and won all but one fight throughout four years. In 1956, he fought for the heavyweight championship and was the youngest winner in history at the age of 21. He held on to that title until 1959 when he was defeated by Ingemar Johansson, but was able to regain the title in 1960.

I remember the second fight from jumpy black and white T.V. but not the first as we didn't have a television then. 

Floyd Patterson always seemed too nice to be a fighter. A boxer he certainly was, with his peek a boo style !  His defeats to Sonny Liston both in the first round really finished him, and while he did get some bouts later in life, they (the Liston bouts) had almost destroyed him!