In a cloud of Guinness

Hello!
Sorry for being late!
My finger still works but I will use the right one mainly over the next few days.

I have to start with a quote from Mark Twain. «It is easier to fool the people than to get them to admit that they have been fooled.»
How often every day does this adage prove to be true?
Answer: in every news report on anything, everywhere.
Let’s check…

Who votes for the Orange Shit Gibbon?, you ask. Well, just about everyone in the US. That doesn’t make them all stupid, just unwilling to admit that they were taken in by someone who is actually stupid.
You will remember the Gulf war when the USA «coalition» moved into Irak, deposed Saddam and replaced him with worse and allowed the «Imperial Guard» of Saddam to go away and form the Daesh.
Anyway, there was one genuinely funny moment for history amongst all the bloodshed. The minister for publicity, sorry, information, under Saddam was Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf. Meanwhile, Saddam’s brother, Ali Hassan al-Majid, was the minister of defence who dropped lethal gases on the Kurds. For this he was nicknamed «Chemical Ali».
On the day that the Information minister was standing on a platform in the centre of Bagdad announcing to reporters from everywhere that the Americans had been repulsed with great success at the border, several American army vehicles drove over the cross-road directly behind him. When the reporters, laughing with incredulity, tried to point this out to him, he just got more animated and continued to shout that the imperial pigs would never enter Irak He did not look over his shoulder.
For this reason, he was known from then on as Comical Ali.
Why do I mention this?
Well, Drumpf has been busy impersonating Comical Ali.
After his latest great success/humiliation (delete as required) negociating with Kimical Un of North Korea, he was told by a reporter during a press conference that the Koreans were again building launch pads for more nuclear missiles. There were even satelite pictures. He replied that Kim would not do that. He said «I would be very, very disappointed in Chairman Kim, and I don’t think I will be, but we’ll see what happens.» More Comical Ali than idiot? You decide!
In any case, who would admit that they were wrong in voting for him?

I watched another video of him being interviewed by two reporters from the southern states at the start of his mandate as POTUS. The two men were of the episcopalian religious right. They read the Bible and take it literally.
What’s your favourite book? asked one of them.
Oh, I would have to say the Bible, of course, anounced the Shit Gibbon to loving religious applause from the loving religious audience.
Wonderful!, the two men cooed, and what is your preferred book in the Bible?
Panic on the Shit Gibbon’s face as he looked to simultaneously dissimulate his complete ignorance of the book in question, try to remember or even invent a possible plausible title and, to find some excuse for not answering.
This was already excruciatingly embarrassing, but about to get worse.
After weakly and lengthily prevaricating, they changed tack and asked for his favourite passage from the Bible.
I was already laughing out loud at this point because if he couldn’t think of a book of the Bible, what hope had he of guessing a line?
I prefer not to say, he eventually replied, it is too personal. And repeated it like the terrible actor that he is.
And the two credulous fools asking the questions believed him.
Finally, when the program time was running out and you could see the relief on the Shit Gibbon’s face that the ordeal was just about over, they suddenly added in one last question just before the credits rolled.
You could see he was having difficulty controlling his sphinctor at this stage.
«Are you an Old Testament man or a New Testament man?», the interviewer asked, with a big friendly and genuine smile on his stupid face.
Silence and panic.
Cringe-meter exploding..
Finally…
Oh, I’m 50 – 50 answered the Shit Gibbon with fake gravitas.
Roll credits!
So, tell me, is Mark Twain right?  Would you admit to having been fooled by the fool-in-chief?

In a week when the only plane stories were of the Boeing 737 Max 8 disaster, you might have missed another little tale of a woman who should only be given soft toys. Her Malaysia-bound plane had to turn back to Saudi Arabia after a she realised she had left her baby in the terminal. I am not making this up.
The pilot had to request a turn around, something only allowed in life threatening emergency.
The video of him calling air traffic control is worth a look if you can find it. However, it disappeared from the source site some days ago.
“May God be with us. Can we come back?” says the pilot. You could sense the state of astonishment of the air traffic controller, wondering if this was real or a joke. You can just about hear him conferring with others around him about what to do. He says again, loudly,
“This flight is requesting to come back. A passenger forgot her baby in the waiting area, the poor thing.”
The flight turned back.
Felix, count your kids when you are next taking the plane!
That woman didn’t count. One…. One….. One….  Count them… One. How difficult is that?

France now and expansion…
The O’Tacos phenomenon. This chain of shite «food», or just shite, is a French thing. These fast food dumps are opening everywhere selling vomit in a dough covering. The smell from the street causes me to cross the road to avoid it.
Apparently the O’Tacos chain are expanding fast and a lot. While journalists marvel at this great success, I wonder at their job titles. I usually expect journalists to investigate.
So far, all they have researched is that these shite fast foods hovels started in Grenoble after «three school friends got together with an idea».
This is where I started to get a bad feeling.
The tacos joints started among the north African community as a front for laundering drugs money. The cheapest of shite sold cheaply. There is no way that they could have the financial turnover that they claim. They don’t have 10000 customers par day.
Now, with the strong rise in drug selling all over Europe (this is taking on unheard of proportions according to a police friend of mine here) there is a need for more and more money laundering outlets.
The kebab and taco shops.
A simple glance will tell you first. Then the vile smell will inform you of the «quality» of what is being sold.
Teenagers buy this shite because it is cheap and filling.
But then, so is cement.
And the drugs keep being sold.
Journalists?
My arse!
At best, inept… at worst, complicit. 
Another example of fools who prefer to believe the nonsense rather than admit they got it wrong.

Still in France…
You think despairingly that Spain is far too interested in football?
A football-mad couple in south-west France have been barred from naming their son “Griezmann Mbappe”.
An old French student of mine from my Guildford days married a family judge, He sent this to me some weeks ago but I missed the email until last week.  They live and work in Brive-la-Gaillarde, a town so devoid of normal life that you could make science fiction films there about a hidden alien takeover of humanity by just filming in the street on any given day. His wife just got famous for legally stripping the baby boy of his two first names, nearly five months after his birth. The local authorities referred the parents to prosecutors as they deemed their choices of name were damaging for the child. Yes, it took that long.
His parents have now decided to call him Dany Noe instead.
Checking this on-line on the official government site threw up some gems. The most striking name of all to have been deemed illegal was “Jihad”.
I mean, who the fuck?

Political correctness gone mad again in the US.
Democratic presidential contender Beto O’Rourke acknowledged making mistakes as a teenager. But then, who hasn’t made mistakes in their teenage years?
During a political podcast in Iowa (which makes Almendralejos seem positively cosmopolitan) he addressed criticism of his campaign-trail joke that his wife, Amy, has raised their three kids “sometimes with my help”.Okay, fun good humour on the campaign trail.Then all of a sudden he was fiercely criticised as being insensitive to the challenges faced by single parents raising children.Outrage! Outrage!! I want, nay, demand to be outraged.
And he apologised?

Meanwhile…
Three Michael Jackson fan groups are suing his alleged victims in France for “sullying his memory” by taking part in the «Leaving Neverland» documentary.
Okay, he was a chronic paedophile but you shouldn’t say bad things about him, right?
The Michael Jackson Community – which claims to be the “official fan club forum” – and the MJ Street and On The Line groups accuse the Robson Wade and James Safechuck (the two sexually abused by Jackson when children) of “lynching” Jackson.
Their pay off money must have run out then.

Let’s move south…
Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators have protested across Algeria for a fourth consecutive Friday, as the country’s political elite began distancing themselves from the «ailing 82-year-old president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika».
He has decided to not run for the presidency, they announced as a result.
The thing is that he is, medically, a vegetable.
I mean, he has no operating physical functions beyond the machine that keeps him vaguely alive. Just like several USSR leaders in the past and Michael Schumacher now.
The coterie of money men running the country using him as a front, are now busy looking for a new popular and highly complicit candidate.
Good luck with that in Algeria, boys!

Headline of the week from the Guardian yet again…
«I met my girlfriend’s parents – and realised I once slept with her father»
with the sub headline:
«She is everything to me and I was going to propose – but now he has told me to end it with her»
I first thought that it referred to a lesbian affair but I was wrong. It was a man talking. Who is this bloke?

In the US they are asking about weak academic students with money who can get into top colleges easier than poor students who are excellent academically.
The British are asking, without a hint of self-awareness or irony if there are any mediocre students getting into Oxford or Cambridge.
Given that quite a significant number of the most idiotic ministers and ex-ministers (all supporting Brexit, not at all surprisingly) in the present UK government are graduates of both of these universities, the question is answered.
And I, along with many others, ask: how did these eejits ever get through a university cursus?
Fooled by these people? I wouldn’t admit it either.

As you no doubt know, Proxima Centauri is the closest star to our own sun, at around four light years away. It’s believed that Proxima Centauri has at least one planet in its orbit that may have conditions close to those of Earth. In four years time, the lucky inhabitants of that planet will be picking up tv and radio signals from the news/parliament channels of Brexit Britain, 2019. They are in for an unparalleled comedy treat when they start to watch the ridiculous carry-on over Brexit in the absurd UK House of Commons.
So, at that point, not only will Britain be an international laughing-stock, it’ll be an intergalactic one, too.

My seriously too great intake of Guinness last night prevents me from further concentration.Blessings and ardour be heaped upon you allf