564 days ago
My late uncle had a facebook page, thanks to his eldest son and, though he died more than three years ago, I wake up to a reminder to wish him Happy Birthday. He would have been 85 today and would, no doubt, have thought the world had become an even sillier place since his death. For starters there have been massive advances in the numbers of women with penises ands facial hair over the past three years. And our Universities have made great strides in purging Shakespeare and other dead white authors from the curriculum and eradicating folks with any link, however obscure to the evils of colonialism from the history books. All hail progress!
1093 days ago
Gosh I miss my late uncle Chris and our hour long, weekly, chats that would just go on and on skipping from topic to topic almost seamlessly. He may have founded Private Eye but we both did the jokes. We both have a history of falling out with folks and made sure that we had no such bust ups so if we disagreed as we did just now and again there was always a workaround. So we disagreed on Brexit as he regarded me as a “no deal” hard line fruitcake and I wore that badge with honour. But rather than debate it we just agreed that Theresa May was the worst Prime Minister in history, laughed and moved on. Back in the nineties those chats would see us spending some time on Tory sleaze. You remember that MP who shared a bed with another chap and said he was doing it to save money? The jokes wrote themselves back then.
1159 days ago
Nobody knows how they will react to death or to the possibility that a loved one is slipping away – I did not cry at the funeral of my father or as I sat by his bed as he died. I had shed a few tears a few days earlier as I sat in his room with him, lying there in a sleep which could only end one way. I cried buckets at the funeral of my grandmother and also when my cat Kitosh died suddenly. At the funeral of Uncle Chris Booker I think I had a moist eye, nothing more. Does that mean I loved my cat more than my father? Of course not. Grief and knowing you may be close to losing someone hits us in different ways and it is, or should be, a private matter. That brings us to, arguably, the most poisonous woman in Britain today.
1203 days ago
I wrote before Christmas of the joy when a cheddar cheese arrived from the wife and son of my late Uncle Chris Booker. Something that has happened for all my life continues. In return, I sent a Yarg as I always do. That Cheddar was about eight inches high and, as you can see below, is now almost all gone. About a week ago, four things I know Chris despised, combined to make me think of him and that Christmas present.
1218 days ago
I have not read the full 1500 pages of the Trade treaty between the UK and the Evil Empire. I am sure that buried in the detail are a few dastardly measures from inserted by stormtroopers from the Death Star. I don’t need to fall asleep reading it; I just look at the reactions of those who have.
1243 days ago
You may remember that at Manchester Airport we met up with our friends from the Mani, the Guardian-reading, lunatic, mask jihadists L&G. They assured us that when arriving in Greece, they would be isolating in order not to spread any British germs to the Mani and so it was a while before we saw them, in a socially distanced manner, in the Kambos restaurant formerly known as Mirandas. They are a thirsty couple and, even from a distance, conversation flows freely.
1321 days ago
I bring you the tweet below from Ms Ramsha Khan, which fills me with utter despair for the vocation of journalism.
1495 days ago
As the author of two seminal works which are ideal reading while we self-isolate, Scared to Death (available here) and GroupThink (available here) Chris would have been a perfect commentator. Some of his friends like Peter Hitchens and James Delingpole seem to suggest that the cure may be worse than the disease or at least ask the question. I, though self isolating for reasons I explain, tend to agree with them. Oddly the executors of my uncle’s literary estate my cousin Nick and Booker’s long time collaborator Richard North think Covid-19 is the real deal. I start my discussion in a small Somerset village chatting to my Aunt.
1572 days ago
My late uncle Chris would have loved this. It is one of those moments when I really want to chat to him as we would both have been laughing within seconds. It is not the fact that the UK is getting cooler but the way that in utterly Orwellian fashion the BBC and the high priests of the global warming cult, the Met Office, spin cooling as warming.
1749 days ago
Whenever someone like myself or my late Uncle Chris Booker challenged the bogus religion that is man made global warming, a constant retort of the cultists is “But you are not a scientist and 97% of scientists believe in global warming making it settled science.” That is why the BBC, Channel 4 Fake News and the rest of the liberal media do not even debate the issue now, they just state man made global warming as fact. Or climate change when the weather in question is cold. That is why man made climate change is taught as FACT in our schools. But the 97% figure is wholly bogus.
1750 days ago
I start with a few notes on tomorrow, logistics and the funeral of Uncle Chris Booker. Then it is onto Yourgene (YGEN), Thomas Cook (TCG), Advanced Oncotherapy (AVO), Amur Minerals (AMC), and the dog St James House (SJH) formerly known as the Boxhill hound.
1760 days ago
A true giant of post war journalism died the night before last with his two sons at his bed side. Much will written elsewhere about his achievements: Co-founder of Private Eye, scriptwriter at TW3, Campaigning Journalist of the Year (opposing awful inner City redevelopment), Telegraph columnist for 60 years, the Godfather of Euroscepticism. The Guardian, if true to form, will have nasty words about that and about his exposing the global warming hoax.
1854 days ago
Having shown the Mrs, and a rather disinterested Joshua, the family gravestones I wandered around the Churchyard looking at other stones and saying hello/goodbye to a few other folks: Marjorie Portman, Mr & Mrs Fudge, etc - the great and the good and the ordinary folks from a small village. The reason my family came to Durweston (pronounced Durreston) was that in 1950 my grandparents bought a big old house, Knighton, and turned it into a girl's prep school. It still runs today and we sneaked in as you can see below.
1854 days ago
For years and years my Uncle Chris Booker and I have talked about the graves of his sisters (my mother and Aunt) and that of my grandparents (his parents) in Durweston in Dorset. We have done nothing about it and now, as readers of the Sunday Telegraph discovered today, time is running out.
1937 days ago
I refer to a quite amazing scoop buried away deep in today's Sunday Telegraph. Well done Uncle Chris Booker. I then look at how everyone is still in complete denial about the mess that is the AIM Casino and also about the future direction of corporate earnings growth an d what that means for equity caluations.
1963 days ago
Yesterday was the day the cheeses arrived all over the country as part of family traditions. First up was a Cheddar, from Cheddar itself supplied by Uncle Chris Booker. This has been part of my life for all of my fifty years.
2080 days ago
As you can see below, the little room in the Bat Room, the eco-loo room is almost ready. Fear not, there is a sliding door which locks in any odours as well as an extractor fan. As you can see there is plenty of reading material. Euro loon Jonathan Price will no doubt approve of the positioning of "Castle of Lies" the definitive history of the EU, by Uncle Chris Booker, next to the loo roll. But we are not quite there yet.
2094 days ago
Rather surprisingly my aged Uncle Chris Booker had been dragged by his offspring to see Mamma Mia, Here We Go Again, the sequel to Mamma Mia. He considered that it was possibly the worst film he had ever seen.
2111 days ago
When I visit my dad, he urges me to take away one or two of the zillions of books in his house. Naturally I want to please him and do as requested but I am equally conscious that the Mrs reckons that our house in Bristol has too many books and that my suggestion that she bin her sociology books to make way for more of mine is not a runner. And now Joshua is collecting book after book as well...
2231 days ago
What do the following have in common: right wing Sunday Times polemicist Rod Liddle, Conservative Sunday Telegraph columnist Chris Booker, right wing blogger Tom Winnifrith and his (closet) reactionary father of the same name and Right wing polemicist Peter Hitchens of the Mail on Sunday? When it comes to Jeremy Corbyn quite a lot...
2307 days ago
A friend who is the epitome of the remoaning metropolitan elitist emails me today to claim that "you really are becoming a fascist in your old age what with your support of Donald Trump and your climate change denial." The elitists always forget that labelling anyone with whom you disagree as a fascist demeans the true horror of what fascism is. But I suppose it is easier than actually debating facts. I shall deal with my admiration of the leader of the free world another day but let's look at some hard facts about climate change or , as it used to be known, global warming. I bring you three quotes:
2351 days ago
I see that Guardian journalist Carole Cadwalladr is complaining that she has received death threats after writing what she, without any justification, claimed to be an expose of Russian meddling in the Brexit vote. Let us be clear: Carole is talking shite on the Russians, as she does on almost everything, as I noted here, but death threats against journalists are always utterly wrong. I speak as a journalist who has received death threats.
2443 days ago
In most ways I am, as you might have gathered, the black sheep of my family. Am I allowed to use that phrase anymore? The rest of them work for the State, read the Guardian and believe in money trees while worrying about the poor polar bears drowning on melting ice caps thanks to wicked folk like Donald Trump and Margaret Thatcher. But in one respect I followed a family tradition in that I managed to get into the UK's leading seat of learning, that is to say Oxford.
2586 days ago
In 1975 it was my paternal grandfather Sir John Winnifrith who went into battle against the EU, or the Common Market as it then was. His view of those who wanted a European superstate had not really changed from his time spent thirty years earlier in Churchill's war rooms although his main objection, as a Bennite, was that the EEC would screw the working classes. It did.
2587 days ago
The BBC's flagship News programme Newsnight is staffed by the grossly overpaid liberal elite who care about the sort of issues we in the 99% don't give a stuff about and who show an open hostility to Brexit. Impartiality is not the name of the game here. Last night's main feature was on that silly woman who claimed to be a black rights campaigner before - after many years on the liberal civil rights gravy train - she was outed as being er...`100% white.
All that time banging on about how being black had left her victimised and oppressed started to ring a bit hollow. At that point, she claimed that she "identified" as being black. Anyhow she has now got a big wonga book deal so maybe that will go some way to make up for all the hurt she was caused by slavery.
Then it was onto the thrice weekly Brexit bash with a report on farming.
2589 days ago
Dad and I got back from the hospital and were sitting down to lunch. water for me, wine for him. After a morning with a range of Shipmans he deserved it. Who should bound in but the vicar from our old village of Byfield. I told him that I had recently written an article about wringing his neck HERE. He then gushed out a stream of left wing views on Trump, Brexit and other matters that were so barking mad that even my Guardian reading father was a bit taken aback. A bitter attack on Uncle Chris Booker was the final straw. No wonder the CofE is going to the dogs. On the podcast that followed I cover Orogen (ORE) where we are in and backing Adam Reynolds again, Nyota (NYO), Audioboom (BOOM), Andalas Energy (ADL) and Advanced Oncotherapy (AVO).
2600 days ago
Those who read Sherlock Holmes will understand the title. In this podcast I mention Islington in EU and a chat with Chris Booker - more on that HERE. I look at Blancco Technology (BLTG), Sabien (SNT), Quadrise (QFI), Prairie Minerals (PDZ) and Lionsgold (LION).
2634 days ago
Whenever I say to folks that I am off to Greece they always say "lucky you the weather will be so much nicer than in the UK". Au contraire. True, when I got to Athens airport at 4 AM (2 AM GMT) it was a balmy 9 degrees. I was so hot that i removed oone of my four layers of clothing. But as I headed North things started to change.
2634 days ago
As a father, I know how useful the goggle box can be as an assistant parent and thus after my mother's death my father understandably relented and bought us an old black and white TV. Who can blame a newly single parent from seeking assistance in this way. But for the first eight years of my life we lived without a TV and I think that I watched just three, or maybe four, programmes in that time.
2649 days ago
2017 starts off, following the theme of the second half of 2016. It is another related party obituary from the rapidly thinning ranks of my father's generation. They are now the front line. I stand in the second. There is still one Great Aunt who stands in front of my father's peers but she stands alone, her line has all gone.
2679 days ago
On Christmas Day I chatted to Uncle Chris Booker. A wide ranging chat but we cannot help but conclude that at a geo-political level the world is going ever more badly wrong. Price Charles this populism is a real danger and must be fought. Quite right you unelected hereditary multi millionaire, lets pursue policies that favour the 1% and screw the masses. Let's stick with policies that, for a reason that a patrician fool might not grasp, are not popular in any way. As a life long republican I really do hope that the Queen lives forever.
2689 days ago
While I was away, the Christmas present from Uncle Chris Booker arrived. For all of my life he has sent out the same presents every year. Whereas I send out Yarg cheeses, Uncle Chris sends out Cheddar's, made just down the road from where he lives. As we have the gannet like friends of the Mrs round for Christmas drinks and nibbles tomorrow it will come in jolly useful.
2726 days ago
I am a bad winner. I wanted Donald Trump to win and I wanted crooked Hillary Clinton to lose even more and my eight reasons why that would happen, published two months ago, proved 100% correct. I was punching the air all night as I stayed up watching the results. Georgia Yeeeees! North Carolina Yeeeeees! "Racist" Trump's share of the black & hispanic vote is up on 2012 - Yeeessss!!! Take that Matt Frei you ignorant bastard. Dippy Millennials in tears at Clinton HQ YEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!! Oh what fun I had and so in the cold light of day, I list the eight moments that brought me most joy from the past 24 hours.
2734 days ago
This was the strap on an article posted on LinkedIn. aka facebook for really boring adults. It is a great headline which arouses interest but I really doubt that "I'm an emergency surgeon" was quite the answer you were thinking of as you hit the link. I am sure you could do better. For instance, when with the mad public sector working bunch of lefties who are the friends of my Mrs, I could come up with:
2738 days ago
Some folks have commented about yesterday's bearcast. Hmmmm if you think that you are well placed to tell me what i can or cannot say after 24 years as a journalist you can just fuck off and see if I care. Thereafter I talk about 88 Energy (88E) and about Strat Aero (AERO) - placing at 0.2p or is it 0.25p ahoy? Then the analysis which I think is my best of 2016 and which I served up at 2 AM today - HERE - now it is off to lunch with Uncle Chris (Booker) and the younger generation.
2836 days ago
My lefty sister N is the one who gave her husband, the kraut, membership of the Labour Party as a Christmas present. Jesting with her about the current woes of the People's Party is therefore not something that boosts family unity. But there is a new tease from my father.
2864 days ago
last night I met an amazing woman here in Kambos. More on that later but I am in awe. Then it was watching the Brexit results on the BBC on the internet as the smug biased lefties had to come to terms with how the great unwashed had given them and the rest of the elite a total kicking. I tried to get two hours sleep but a drunk comrade from the Eurosceptic trenches, Lucian Miers, woke me up. So I worked a bit and then slept. By 2.30 PM it was ouzo o'clock. So I headed to Miranda's as you can see below and raised a class to Boris, Priti, Nigel, Michael et al but also to my late grandfather Sir John Winnifrith and my Uncle, Chris Booker, who was in a fine mood today. Cheers to you all.
2873 days ago
Apparently this website which is four years old this week, TomWinnifrith.com is plastered with adverts for the Remain Camp in the Brexit debate. It seems that on this website you cannot avoid the tax exile Sir Richard Branson and his ghastly lies. A reader asks if I have changed sides? Oh no, major Tom, don't say its true...
Euroscepticism is in my DNA. Chris Booker is my maternal uncle, my paternal grandfather Sir John Winnifrith was a "leave" spokesman in 1975 but as I explain HERE I have already voted for Brexit with my head as well as my heart.
2884 days ago
I have somehow lost the only torch that actually works. And that means that the eight yard walk from where I park my car to the front door of the Greek Hovel must be made in complete darkness. Well almost. I always leave the light on at the hovel to guide me. Except that last night I also forgot to do that.
And so, after a long phone call from a fellow member of the Banstead Athletic supporters club, taken in Kambos last night I made it back to the hovel just after midnight and the skies were black. I shone my car headlights at the bat room and had the music blaring from the car radio. I hoped that the wildlife diversity was listening and fleeing.
In theory the path to the house should be safe from you know whats as
3050 days ago
For most of my early December stay in Greece I was wearing a T-shirt all day although at night I needed a sweat shirt and coat as the temperatures plunged towards zero. But on the penultimate day it started to rain heavily both in Kalamata, where I was staying, and up in the village of Kambos in the foothills of the Taegessus Mountains. The photos below show what happened next.
Photo one is of an orange tree just off the main street in Kambos. As we worked in the fields picking olives in quite warm weather oranges were handed out by my friend George. They are just ripening for picking now.
The next two photos are from the Greek Hovel another 50 metres or so higher up into the Teagessus and three miles away from Kambos. Those who have seen the hovel in the summer will associate it with grass burned brown by hot sun. But, as you can see, it is now a lush green - this is the view looking back along the drive. The rains of October and November have left the place looking very much alive. The second photo
3104 days ago
A busy day with my daughter beckons. In the evening it is the new James Bond film. But first a lunchtime bootcamp with Uncle Chris (Booker) to put her straight on the Evil Empire, the EU. In the podcast I ask if InternetQ (INTQ) is the new Globo (GBO)? Then I look at Chemring (CHG), Dialight (DIA) - another win for the bears - Afren (AFR) gets a mention as does LGO Energy (LGO), BP (BP.), Union Jack Oil & Gas (UJO) and - just to niggle Wildes - Premaitha (NIPT) whose shares are moving ahead nicely - more to go there!
3219 days ago
I had a long chat last night with my Eurosceptic Uncle and godfather Christopher Booker and who like me is hoping that Greece votes Oxi. But he knows that we have some strange bedfellows in the Oxi camp.
British Eurosceptics are usually on the right. We want the Euro to fail. As I noted on Friday the Oxi camp here want to have their cake and eat it: they want no austerity, debt write-offs and to stay in the Euro. They are lefties. Hearing the message of support to the Oxi rally from the old murderer Gerry Adams makes both Chris and I wonder about our bedfellows. Oh…as an added bonus the Nazis of Golden Dawn are also strong supporters of Oxi! Truly we travel in strange company.
But there is a third way: Kappa Kappa, the hard-line commies. They are today urging folks to vote Oxi but then to spoil their ballot paper. Kappa Kappa got 5% in the General Election and if half its supporters toe the party line that could well be enough to deliver victory to the Nai camp.
My NBF the KKE precinct captain
3475 days ago
The nature of my mother’s death has been raised by certain “admirers” of mine on Bulletin Boards, the circumstances of my Aunt’s death I have mentioned en passant here before. There are no secrets in the era of the interweb. Both deaths were mentioned in an article by their brother, my Uncle Chris (Booker) in the Daily Mail last week. Slowly I read it early on Saturday morning as it brought a number of thoughts to the surface. Matters not suppressed just forgotten or not reflected upon for a long while. My mother killed herself. My aunt was murdered. There you have it. A shocking couple of sentences.
My mother died when I was eight and my sisters seven and five. She had become terribly depressed in that amazing sun drenched year of 1976 and – as I discovered only later – first tried to end her life at the height of summer while the rest of us were out walking. My father found her, revived her but thereafter she was confined to various hospitals in Northamptonshire, Banbury and finally in Oxford, the City where she had studied, met my father and where I was born. I saw her once that autumn at the Trout at Godstow and she seemed happy. She clearly was not and within weeks she had hanged herself. I remember being taken out of class by a lovely teacher who was almost in tears as she told me that my mother was dead. I cannot remember how I felt or what happened next. I did not find out how she died until I was fourteen.
Not having a mother was a little unusual in those days
3695 days ago
I told God that I did not mind West Ham losing as long as Ireland won in Paris yesterday and so won the Six Nations Championship. And God played ball. West Ham were stuffed at Stoke and Ireland scraped home. My stomach was in knots for the whole game, it was agony but in the end Brian O’Driscoll went out as he deserved with a win.
My thoughts as the match dragged on were of a game in Rome a few years ago. Ireland thumped Italy but knowing that the Championship would be decided on points tried for that extra score and Italy got a freak try. We then sat down to watch France vs. Scotland and with last gasp points France did enough to deprive Ireland of the Championship. It was agony. No doubt as the England team and supporters watched events unfold yesterday they felt the same agony.
3758 days ago
An early birthday present from Carlton Cole and Mark Noble sees West Ham out of the relegation zone but that will not change the fact that I am today 46, closer to 50 than 40.
I did not expect to be spending this Birthday living in Bristol, married to a Guardian reading Sociology Senior Lecturer or less than 18 months into running a new business. Life is full of surprises.
I have now been working for 25 years and in the old days would now be just 19 years from retirement. For the Mrs – who did a Post Grad - the figures are 16 and 26. So Maybe I shall call it a day at 58 and live off the State (via the Mrs). I suspect not, work is too much fun.
My father’s generation expected to retire at 65. My generation? It might be 58 it might be never. The one thing we do know is that it is not an automatic gold watch at 65.
For me a picnic at Chew lake looms followed by a walk with the Mrs and Uncle Chris Booker.. and then back to subbing Zak Mir’s new book. Happy Birthday indeed.
4202 days ago
Hell’s teeth. By accident I find myself listening to the BBC for 30 minutes and I already deeply regret it. It was a mistake that I shall not repeat. My encounter is with the Today programme and first up was the Reverend John Bell from the Iona community who is just absolutely ghastly. He makes me dream once again of Scottish independence in the hope that this dreadful man would not then pollute the airwaves of a free Britain. Scottish independence or shutting down the BBC. Bell needs to come off air.
4213 days ago
My uncle Chris (Booker) is in India where my cousin Nick lives and so has missed the story of the year – the death of the global warming scam. As one of the bravest and fiercest critics of this costly farce he will be mortified. I am sure that when he arrives back in the UK on Wednesday he will be straight into battle. But data which has emerged from the Met Office ends this debate. Al Gore, Call Me Dave, Chris Huhne, the BBC, the Guardian etc – GOTCHA. It is all over for you now. How about you personally start paying back the gazillions taxpayers have pissed away on your fantasies at once.
4248 days ago
Man has been tracking solar activity for a long time – the ancient Chinese were bang on the case. And so we have 5,000 years of fairly accurate records of solar sunspots.
Using samples drawn from ice cores we can assemble 5,000 years of records for C02 levels in the atmosphere. And trees etc allow us to do the same for temperature.
Now look at this chart below. It tracks solar sunspots versus global temperature. As you can see there is a fairly good correlation.
4250 days ago
This is not a political piece. As a libertarian I despise all politicians and parties almost equally – Ron Paul being a standout exception. This is a piece explaining the profound implications for your portfolio of an inevitable shift in the attitudes of the governing classes towards global warming.
I do not believe in man made climate change. I shall explain why and why I expect the argument to increasingly go the way of folks like me and against Al Gore and the current consensus. More critically I shall discuss recent events which show why government policies involving writing blank checks to tackle the perceived threat are starting to change and will change rapidly not only across the West but even in China.
4281 days ago
The origin of the phrase Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics is usually attributed to Disraeli although it appears in none of his works and was first reported several years after his death. But it could be made for those who have convinced our leaders to spend gazillions tackling the threat of global warming. When I was a boy, the scientific consensus was that we were heading for a new ice age. Heretics who objected to spending vast sums tackling that “slam dunk cert” were pilloried. You cannot really win. But back to the graph below.
If you look at this it appears alarming. Frankly I can only conclude that we will all fry up by some time in April 2013. Okay, I exaggerate but there appears a clear trend. But of course this is a special from the global warming brigade so all is not as it seems. At this stage I bring in the assistance of Christopher Booker (Uncle Chris) who understands how these things are manipulated.
4325 days ago
Christopher Booker (Uncle Chris) and I would agree that climate change is fantasy, a total con. The facts increasingly bear us out. But the gits (sorry Honourable Members of Parliament) who claim to represent us at Westminster have put into force legislation forcing the UK to cut carbon emissions by 80% to tackle this “threat.”
4331 days ago
No, no ,no not one for the taxman and one for us! Just a day on two sets of books at the restaurant. First up is my library. The most valuable books are stored safely elsewhere but I still have well over a thousand books picked up over the years which are now being housed downstairs at the Real Man Pizza Company on Clerkenwell Road. If you have a spare afternoon and fancy a read over a coffee or just a book to digest as you digest a chocolate pizza – you now know where to go.
4339 days ago
At the top of this blog are the men and women who have, I think, had a great influence on making me what I am today. Folks I admire more than any others outside my immediate family. My father would undoubtedly be top of the list were immediate family to be included. The only cricketer there is Sarfraz Nawaz of Pakistan and, critically for me, Northants. Chatting to another key influencer today (my uncle, Christopher Booker) we discussed among other matters our memories of Sarfraz.
The first cricket match I listened to on the radio (we had no TV) was the Gillette Cup Final of 1976 between Northants and Lancashire. At the time we lived in a small village (Byfield) two miles from Warwickshire and three from Oxfordshire so just inside Northamptonshire. And so my father and Uncle Chris ( who was staying with us) insisted that we all listen to the game.
4342 days ago
Lucian Miers wins the Master Investor DVD for answering the competition
correctly: North Devon 1979, Auberon Waugh and Rinka. I am not sure that Waugh was a terribly nice man but generally you do not stick the boot in just after someone dies. Rather famously, the loathsome Polly Toynbee did just that with a vile obit in 2001
