Today my daughter starts her foreign adventure as part of her year off. Volunteering in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia for 3 months, before going to Australia. She says she feels “nervous and excited”. Her father isn’t; he’s completely terrified.

The Donbas isn’t Putin’s end game. If he gets it, he will demand more. We know this from history and we should learn from history. Extract of my doorstep ahead of today’s Foreign Affairs Council ↓

Where I want to live. Vamos. Crete.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaOK... This is where I was living the last 6 months. And it’s perfectly normal there.

Three weeks without a Reform representative on Laura Kuenssberg! Anyone would think we were avoiding questions about election fraud, MEPs taking Russian bribes, me being a racist bully at school, Reform officials calling LBGT people nonces or my dodgy house purchase.

Fuck me. This is astonishing.

Sure the US would be safer if the Second Amendment read “the right of the people to keep and arm bears, shall not be infringed”.

This ludicrous Telegraph piece calls the bonus Labour’s bit.ly/4j2gEwg it was introduced in 1972 by Edward Heath (Conservative) and was worth far more than a week’s pension which was £6.75. It has never been cancelled by any govt (Conservative or Labour) or uprated.

This is the paper that now wants us to elect Reform.

youtu.be/gQAtTqP4iWU Time for some proper Sunday music.

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t... Scary.

The UK has entered the chat. They tend to express themselves much more colorfully than we do.

There’s a gruesome reckoning coming: the damage being done to the US economy won’t be hidden forever. Higher prices + lower employment = reduced demand, lower investment,, reduced productivity and on in an accelerating doom loop. The World economy will be infected. Recovery will be slow.

Someone sent me this: a demonstration outside an asylum hotel in Cheltenham. Surprising that there’s an asylum hotel in Cheltenham but not so surprised that counter protesters outnumbered them 5:1. N They are right about the sign on the flag.

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t... There’s a wonderful anecdote at the start of this episode about US politician of the 30s, Huey Long. I won’t repeat it, but do listen.

So, El Fasher looks like one of the worst single event atrocities to happen this century so far, but the evidence has come in such a trickle it seems to only now be getting verified

Americans are watching the prices of groceries, utilities, medical care and housing skyrocket—but Trump says it’s not happening.

"many of them between 10 and 17 years old — and 12 teachers abducted from the school on Nov. 21 in one of the country’s biggest mass school abductions. The attack came days after 25 students were abducted in similar circumstances in the neighboring Kebbi state." apnews.com/article/nige...

Whenever I wake up in the middle of the night (more frequently as I’ve passed 60), I have the sound of Andrea Jenkins singing “I’m an insomniac” at the Reform conference and any hope of returning to sleep quickly disappears. m.youtube.com/watch?v=2sS9...

They just don't want anyone traveling to the US for any reason at all

The West needs to wake up.

Rutte: Allied defense spending and production must rise rapidly. Our armed forces must have what they need to keep us safe. And Ukraine must have what it needs to defend itself. We must all accept that we must act to defend our way of life now, because this year Russia has become even more brazen

Not sure the impact of the implosion of the Tories and the shambles that is the party formerly known as Labour has been factored in fully to people’s thinking. It’s not just the odious Russian asset Farage who benefits.

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/w... An excellent take from @saschaosullivan.bsky.social on the Westminster habit of lies, spin and half-truths as illustrated by Rachel Reeves in the run up to the budget.

Almyrida. Heaving with tourists in the summer; totally deserted in the winter.

An abandoned taverna in Crete, the place of many wonderful meals 25 years ago. You ordered, and the chef went out in his boat, caught the fish, came back and grilled it. That’s fresh.

Sound advice

There’s a nasty flu going around the U.K. Wear a mask - or better still, do what I’ve done and move to Crete where it’s been sunny and 18 degree today. 😊

youtu.be/BDIHdrMpevc I got sent a Christmas message from my school. Weird. I left in 1980. Weirder still, they are opening an international school - in Rwanda. WTAF.

circus marketing

Are We Losing Our Democracy ? - by The Editorial Board www.nytimes.com/video/opinio...

Farage just said “I didn’t wear a mask last time and I won’t wear them this time. This is nonsense.” Here he is, not only wearing a mask, but also getting vaccinated…

A chapel in the sea, Crete.

Full on racism has returned to the USA.

Winter sunshine at dusk, Aptera , Crete.

By the seaside two weeks ago, overheard a conversation about Banksy. Of course I had to show the endless pictures / videos of Banksy on my phone. Today, in a cafe up in the mountains, a man said “you’re the Banksy guy!” Turns out, when the house sale goes through he’s my next door neighbour. 😊

The cafe 50 yards from my new home.

This is a really good, impassioned and well-argued take down of some of the horrors being inflicted on forgotten parts of America.

Football, eh? A late penalty by Liverpool’s best player this season, Szoboszlai, for an away win, in the week before Salah goes to the Africa Cup of Nations. There’s no permanence and the caravan moves on. #Liverpool

For the first time in nearly two decades of our surveys of U.S. Latinos, most say they think the situation of Hispanics in this country has worsened in the last year. And about a third of Latinos say they have considered leaving the country in the last six months. www.pewresearch.org/...

Why anyone is thinking of going to the US for the World Cup when: - tickets cost $$$ - the plane might crash on landing or on an internal flight - they might be refused entry - they might be snatched off the street, bundled into a car by masked men and “disappeared” is completely beyond me.

In #winter 2018, Icelandic photographer Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir wanted to show her partner, who was away in the capital, how much it had snowed overnight at their home and posted a photo of herself on FB #womensart

On the one hand, I’ve seen Zarah Sultana with my own eyes. On the other, everything else increasingly suggests she can’t possibly be a real person.

That's because you're in Dubai.

You don’t have a society if people can’t afford to have children.

FAFO