When Palestinans elect Hamas to lead them, when they vote for an organisation committed to driving the Jews out of Israel, the BBC reports that Hamas has won an election. When Israel elects a right wing coalition led by Bibi Netanyahu which is committed to a two state solution, the mainstream media reports that the frigging Jews have elected a ultra-right wing coalition which threatens to set the region in flames. That was the tone of the discussion on the “impartial” Radio 4 flagship Today Programme today, centred on an interview with Jeremy Bowen. Who is he?
Listeners to my bearcasts on Shareprophets know that I am set to plague the press office of United Utilities with obscure enquiries about reservoir levels here in North Wales. Here in the Dee valley the waters are rising as they always do at this time of year and always have done with or without the global warming spoof. The apple orchard in photo one is now underwater but I plugged holes in the small levee last year and so the waters are yet to get to the base of the new elevated lawn and Ha Ha I built. And that structure is holding back the waters in the fields, now all underwater, so protecting the barns. So far so good and according to plan.
Heroic harvester T and I knew we had a deadline to meet. At 4 PM mad lefty L and villager George would be arriving to tie up our bags Albanian style and to take the harvest in George’s 4×4 down to the press. So we started early, 7 am, putting our Englishman’s sacks and the even smaller English Gentleman’s sacks through the grill, pictured below, removing more leaves and decanting into a new small sack which we poured into the most full of our sacks. We created Albanian sacks, ones containing almost 50kg, full to the brim
From King Charles downwards everyone always lines up at Christmas to praise the valiant NHS workers (greedy bastards), and other public sector workers who keep the country running at this time of year. Well up to a point.
It is now the day after Boxing Day. Between arriving back in Wales on the 16th and Christmas Eve I decanted six litres of the olive oil pressed from my olives in Kambos earlier this month. Today, as my recovery from the illness that struck me in late November, accelerates I sat down with my son Joshua and enjoyed a plate oil that oil with some crusty bread for the first time. It was delicious with a peppery after taste hitting the back of your throat. It reminds me that I have yet to complete the tale of this year’s harvest.
My old Oxford College sent me an email just before Christmas wishing me happy holidays, festive break etc. It did not mention Christmas which, adopting the vernacular of the age, I told Hertford, caused me great offence. I pointed out that they may be Godless liberals but the reason they got time off work at this time of year was because it was Christmas, the time when many of us celebrate the birth of the Lord.
One of the many things that those inside the global warming GroupThink cult are unable to explain is why we should believe 30-50 year forecasts about climate change when the ones made 20 years ago have already been proved to be utterly wrong. It is as if we based our response to covid on the work of Professor Ferguson whose forecasts of hundreds of thousands of deaths from avian bird flu, swine fever, etc had proved so completely bogus. Oh, we did because“experts” inside the GroupThink are always right… but back to global warming.
As our phones had warned the weather went downhill rapidly overnight. The wind was already howling and the rain falling as we arrived back at the Hovel. During the night I was woken up repeatedly by lightening and enormous thunder claps which arrived almost at the same time. The storm was directly overhead.
It looks increasingly grim on the Albanian front so harvester T and I soldier on. It is hard work and by the end of every day my bones ache and I long for bed.
I overslept a bit and a couple of major triumphs from my day job pulled me out of action for an hour or so. The net result was that after harvesting 20 trees on day two we manged just 15 on day three. There is another reason: we are now moving further from the house so dragging back mats laden with olives (and leaves) to be sifted on the grill takes that bit longer.
I hope that you are all wrapped up warm back in Blighty. I do not want to make you all jealous but this was my work atire all day, here in Greece. Yes, as you can see below, it was T-shirt weather.
My plane from Manchester was almost an hour late. That meant that poor olive harvester T, back for his second stint, had five hours to kick his heels at Athens airport but at least he was able to buy supplies for the day ahead. Foot to the floor and with the roads almost deserted we hit Kambos by 10.30 and thought we’d stop off for a quick drink in what was once Miranda’s. Schoolboy error number one.
Ammar Mifleh was a man with a career in terror which on the West Bank means trying to kill Jews. Last week he attacked an Israeli soldier, trying to steal his rifle. In that attack he stabbed the soldier in the neck. The soldier pulled his gun and shot Mifleh dead. The whole incident was caught on video so there is no doubt what happened. But the UN’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland offers his take below.
The British mainstream media, led by the appalling Daily Mail has, from the start of the war in Ukraine bigged up Russian Casualties, bathing in the blood of every dead Russian. Day after day there are videos straight from Kiev showing Ukrainian snipers getting kills at record distances, drones blowing up Russian tanks or some other heroic act meaning more Russian mothers will be mourning their sons this Christmas. But there is a big omission.
I am not often asked wherev I am from. If so I’d mumble someing about Warwickshire, Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire and that would be that. Nobody would ask “but where are you really from?” forcing me to discuss Kent, Dorset, Worcestershire -on two sides – and my illegitimate great grandmother who was from God only knows where. I am more often asked where my wonderful wife is from and that is because she has brown skin. I say Nottingham.
