Craig Sawyers

Happy birthday Fitzy! Hope it was superb!!

You'll get a pal for Silver in due course. I hope your ma's hip surgery goes well. I know a few people who have had this done, and say it transforms their lives.

Anyone seen a movie called "By Dawn's Early Night"? Now on You Tube. James Earl Jones, Martin Landau and Rip Torn among others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_Dawn's_Early_Light and

Jeeze. At least India immediately apologized for the "regrettable incident", and it was a relief that no one was killed. But it is technical malfunctions like this that could be absolutely disastrous.

Two Putin attacks in the UK in recent years need to be taken into account. In 2006, Alexander Litvinenko, a defecting KGB and FSB officer, was poisoned in London with Polonium added to his tea. He was so radioactive that he was buried in a lead coffin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko And then in March 2018, two identified Russians travelled to Salisbury with USSR era Novichok nerve agent (one of the most potent ever made) in a perfume bottle, and sprayed the door handle of a Russian double agent's house with the stuff. He and his daughter were hospitalized for weeks but ultimately survived. They then astonishingly dumped the perfume bottle in a waste bin, where it was found and then used with fatal consequences. There was a major cleanup with teams in full hazmat gear that went on for days. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yulia_Skripal Both of these attacks on UK soil were widely reported, their perpetrators identities known and absolutely identified as being initiated with Putin's knowledge. And what did we do? Precisely fucking nothing.

The interesting thing is that we in the UK are not as reliant as other EU states are on Russian gas and crude. Which is good. That semi-independence seems to not have effected the petrol price at the pump, and gas and electricity prices, which are still spiraling rapidly upwards. I did not realize that China was so dependent on Russian crude. It is no wonder that they are tending not to rock Russia's boat too much.

The irony is that the oligarchs emerged when the USSR was broken up, and give commercial freedoms that were unheard of before. But yes - the West has become dependent on Russian gas and oil. None more than the EU. Just as the entire West is reliant on another war mongering autocracy, China (Taiwan - potentially China's Ukraine) - for goods manufacture (including semiconductors), and massive trillion dollar financial loans to Western governments and countries. And this is the price we pay for globalization. Sell your soul to the global devils and see what happens. But we're only interested in what Russia are doing because it borders on larger Europe and they have a nuclear arsenal. Other global conflicts that have killed hundreds of thousands, in Europe and elsewhere, which were reported on but otherwise not noteworthy - because none of us relied on the combatants for goods, oil or gas. Incidentally the Chechen/Russian conflict stared in 1785 and has run for 237 years, and is not yet resolved totally - quarter of a million dead in the second Chechen war. This first and second Chechen another Putin initiative. This is what Putin did to the capital city Grozny in 1995. Expect the same in Ukraine.

They are truly a sad looking lot. What are the red armbands? A prisoner combatant thing? I think it is telling that the shots of Putin talking to his commanders is him at the head of a long table, and his commanders way down at the other end. That has to be related to keeping potential attempts on his life a long way away.

You are a lot closer to Ukraine than us. But if it, God help us, gets as far as the UK, we have nowhere to run. We are far too heavily populated. Run to Scotland? No help - the major submarine bases are up there. And in our area we have AWRE - the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, GCHQ (Government Communication HQ) and Porton Down (the chemical weapons crew), and major RAFs base at Brize Norton and Abingdon. So we're fucked. Might as well kiss our asses goodbye.

So sorry Todd - my condolences for your loss.

Damned right Steve.

Yeah - I was quite emotional. And she organized it while she was in Australia - from https://www.bluecross.org.uk/oxfordshire-burford-rehoming-centre . She couldn't have chosen a better cat. He's super affectionate and after two days is now exploring the house She has a motto in her bedroom "A home without a cat is just a house". In Australia she has three cats , and a dog. Two are indoor cats, and the outdoor one is a murder specialist. Possums are found on their decking minus heads. They have no idea where the heads go (probably best not to ask). He once tackled a goanna (these grow up to 6 feet long); the lizard won and resulted in a big vet's bill to repair the cat. That hasn't discouraged him, clearly.

New cat Oberon. Chosen by our daughter as a birthday present. Super affectionate neutered tom, a solid 5.2kg (11.5lb) of muscle. 4 years old.

Less of this WW3 shit guys - this is all happening in our back yard. Kyiv is only 1,500 miles from London by road and according to Google maps, if you were insane enough to drive, would take 27 hours. About the same distance as Houston to LA.

Happy birthday!

Thanks everyone - had a spectacular day! My daughter, Lizzie, home for three weeks from Australia not only brought me a spectacular bottle of single malt (Balvenie triple cask, 16 year), she'd also organized a cat for me! From a rehoming center that we've had several cats from before. Picked him up yesterday - a super affectionate four year old, initially called Wolfie, but now renamed Oberon. 5.2kg (11.5lb) of muscle. Our previous cat, also rehomed, we had to say farewell to a few months ago aged 19. My son bought the food, climbing tower etc for Oberon. And Carole bought us tickets to see Wagner's Lohengrin at the Royal Opera House in May. The usual 4 hour Wagner epic, And finally my son Rob, Lizzie, Carole and I went out for a meal together last night https://www.brunningandprice.co.uk/greyhound/ So one hell of a good day!!

And where was that? Oh - I'll ask her 🤡

Hope it is a great one Naaman! Happy birthday!

Have a spectacular day Dan!! Happy birthday!

What you said. And what I saw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloucester Then I thought, well that is 50 miles from the sea. Then the penny dropped - the one not far from Boston. Duh.

Looks like it was photographed yesterday. But this was around 80 years go, film and theatre star Gene Tierney. Kodachrome.

I'm just reading Mark Cavendish's book Tour de Force about his record winning Tour de France last year, when he matched Eddy Merckx's sprint record of 34 stage wins. Cav was 35. It is a must read for anyone interested in pro cycling, and really communicates the sheer brutality of the sport. He said that splits happen coming over the top of a climb. Lead riders go over the top pushing 400W, but get a bit of slipstreaming from the camera motorbike. The next group don't have that and have to push 440W. An individual doesn't get a group effect and has to push 480W - and, he says, that is why splits happen. In a sprint, riders - including Cav - can push up to 2,000W for a number of seconds. After 4 or 5 hours in the saddle. It is also perfectly clear he doesn't like Sagan one tiny bit. Looking at the web, he's still competing age 36, will be doing the Tour of Britain, and probably another Tour de France to try and beat Merckx's sprint record.

Happy birthday!

It is clearly playing