Some of the strangest news seems to come at this time of the year. The Olympics have at least provided something to focus on this year.
To matters of moment: Obviously shocking to hear the Labour Party is skint and needs to sack a load of people and re-hire them at lower wages, worse terms etc. etc. I thought this was exactly the sort of thing that Labour were supposed to excoriate the heartless Tories for? Still maybe they could get Kinocchio back for a turn: “I’ll tell you what happens with impossible promises. You start with far-fetched resolutions. They are then pickled into a rigid dogma, a code, and you go through the years sticking to that, outdated, misplaced, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end in the grotesque chaos of a Labour council – a Labour council the Labour Party – the Labour Party – hiring taxis to scuttle round a city handing out redundancy dismissal notices to its own staff…I’m telling you, no matter how entertaining, how fulfilling to short term egos…I’ll tell you and you’ll listen…I’m telling you, you can’t play politics with people’s jobs and with people’s services.” Still a barnstormer after all these years.
It seems we have all been misjudging Sir Lewis Hamilton. He didn’t ram Verstappen off the road because he was being a cheating <expletive of choice> no, we are being unfair because he’s got long Covid (so he says and why wouldn’t we believe him? Answers on no more than 5 sheets of foolscap please) so that obviously explains why he’s not running away with the championship as in previous years. It’s obviously nothing to do with the relative strengths of the car versus it’s competitors. So, thoughts and prayers chaps and chapesses (I’m all about the fairness here) and I can only hope that they are as effective in this instance as they have been at stopping mass shootings across the pond.
Returning to the Olympics. Covid is escalating wildly in Japan but it still goes ahead. Wow. Interesting that Laurel Hubbard failed to medal. Don’t get me wrong – I think that you should be able to be who you feel you are but I also don’t think that necessarily trumps biology. I mean, multisex toilets? Fine by me why not? Isn’t it about time we grew up a little? Show me a house that has single sex toilets so why not? In virtually any mass setting the guys walk straight in and the girls are queuing so if we can level that up why wouldn’t we want to? But this is a whole world away from a male to female transgender athlete competing against natal females (or genetic girls – not sure of the approved wording here) The science seems to be clear that if you move through puberty as a male you do put on more muscle mass so it’s not an equal competition. Still not that science or, god forbid, freedom of expression stops the Twitterati from eviscerating JK Rowling. That said, these are the same types that accuse Priti Patel of racism – obviously she’s the wrong type of Ugandan Asian. Or, whisper it, is it because she’s a Conservative and therefore wrong by definition?
Finally, after seventeen months! I’ve been able to get to Spain. A fair amount of cleaning and sorting is needed but otherwise not as grim as I feared. It’s about 50% as busy as a normal out of high season trip but for August it’s very slow. I am forcibly reminded why I don’t like coming to Spain in August as it is definitely too hot. Still glad to be here though!
So, Afghanistan. The Taliban are romping ahead and are currently threatening Lashkar Gar. Colour me surprised. Consider the history here: every time the (Raj) Indian army went in they got savaged and, call it as you will, my contention is that the late Raj Indian Army was as near to state of the art as anyone actually got. Not convinced? Well, how about the Red Army circa 1980? After a bad start they went full in – Spetznaz and all – basically the Western European elite troops and they got beat. Why would the Septics do any better? I’ve actually been to Kabul and done the drive from Peshawar to Kabul. The last time was – I think – 1979 but it was proper scary even leaving Peshawar and the Khyber Pass – all the warnings about not travelling at night but everybody you saw had a rifle and looked at you as prey. Face facts the Afghans are the best guerilla fighters ever so nothing changes. That said, Chicken Street in 1979 was fun as long as you were clearly not a Russian – I still remember the drive to Kabul!