broadside

There is a project at the Museum about the sugar trade, based on our local maritime connection. It involves plantations and the slave trade, which did feature in the west of England economy.

I'd also recently read Wake, a graphic novel by Rebecca Hall, an American academic, who skillfully weaves her direct experience of investigation with the narrative of the triangular Atlantic slave trade, comprising sugar, tobacco and cotton to Europe, textiles, manufactured goods and rum to Africa and slaves to America.

It all came together in a short talk by David Olusoga at Budleigh Salterton, when he succinctly presented some of the issues. They are also available in a much longer and more detailed form in his book about Black and British. 

 

Someone in the audience asked him one of those oppositional questions, and I was surprised that he launched into an attack. It was clear that he'd heard this line of questioning before, like those strange agent provocateuers on Twiter.

Rachel Parris live at the Northcott

An excellent evening yesterday, as we resumed old habits and zipped along to the theatre to see Rachel Parris performing her stand-up show. 

The advantages of living in a smaller city were all too apparent to us, taking only ten minutes to get to the Uni where the the gig was booked, easy parking and an uncrowded bar.

Then to the show, which opened with Parris singing a song about those in the audience who had been brought along, only knew her from the Mash Report and so on. It took me a moment to adjust to the fact that she sings, and plays piano rather well. "Classically trained" as she put it, with a virtuoso run along the keys.

The show was densely packed with anecdotes and home truths, which invariably included references to Covid and the government, but stopped short of anything involving the most recent events. 

It was all well-observed and funny, and Parris worked the audience for the extra laughs. 

She described how she had become well-known, not directly from the television Mash Report, but from the repeated posting of funny clips on social media. She described the day when the retweets and watches were pinging her phone every second. 

The Northcott was packed and with a good mix of audience types. Parris described her last gig in Lichfield where she said a couple of people walked out, but there were no such scenes for this show, which still taunted the same rogues.

There was also a section where she dealt with mental heath revealing that she had suffered badly after a year of what should have been pleasant turmoil. 

From not knowing much about her, by the end of the show, I felt that she had revealed a considerable amount, and entertained in the process.

aromatic

I'm enjoying the aroma of my latest novel, "ignoble". 

Instead of being printed on classic white paper, I've gone for a wood pulp finish. 

Most people won't notice the difference, but with ignoble, it is possible to smell the wood on which the ink has been laid. 

For artefact lovers everywhere, it is out of the regular sequence of my novels, and strictly it is a compendium of 'Corrupt' and 'Sleaze', but it does really evoke that 'hug a tree' sensation. 

This is truly a book to bury one's nose in.

ignoble : a corrupt and sleazy compendium

This time, I thought I'd try an experiment with a different format cover. 

 Already, several unsolicited remarks have reached me along the line "it's different!" 

I wanted to try something where the artifact of the novel is printed on woodpulp, has a scuffed faux-leather cover and looks as if it has been partly written in ink. 

 I'm still waiting to see what the final product will look like, and after all it is more an exercise in marketing,  particularly given the £1.99 Kindle eBook price for all 898 pages of the two novels of Corrupt and Sleaze. 

The full book weighs in heavily and I'm afraid the physical copy will reflect that in its price.

The novels are set in modern times, around Parliament, which has its own set of unsavoury pacts. 

Some of the characters from earlier novels are still operating. Anyone familiar with The Triangle, The Square, The Circle, Raven or Raven's Card won't have too much difficulty diving into these.

Maybe it is time to step away from the keyboard?

Sleaze: Beep-beep, Beep-beep, Yeah

 

Well, here we go with Sleaze, the follow up book to Corrupt. In Corrupt, we saw an orchestrated plan to manipulate MPs through the lobbying system. Some were more susceptible than others to what was a clandestine scheme. This new novel speculates about politics, the car industry, global business, money laundering and the effects of big business upon Members of Parliament. It can get very messy. Click on the cover for more information.

Raven's Card

I remember some of this from researching one of my novels, linked to the Saint Petersburg moves of the then young Putin.Bank Rossiya now has UK sanctions. It was one of the hundreds of enterprises that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) financiers used to funnel the party gold away during the great sell-off of the Russian state. Dmitri Lebedev is chairman of the Board of the bank and a good buddy of Putin.

It is no secret that Sergei Pugachev, The 'Frenchman' who lived in Chelsea and is often referred to as Putin's Banker knows how to move money around. Just check the list of clients he advised, to get a clue about the scale of his operation. 

I'm guessing that the money moves are far ahead of the available sanctions.

An example is Sberbank, the largest financial institution in Russia, Central and Eastern Europe, which Putin decided to make a government asset in 2020. He bought, for the state, 50% + 1 share of it to control the entire mechanism. Useful if push comes to shove.

I recollect that Putin offered a group of his buddies land near Krasnodar Krai, close to his own dacha. Of course, Putin's own dacha is no shack, set in Gelendzhik, Krasnodar Krai. Some of the Russian Press deny that this even exists, citing a US-based propaganda smear. 

But looking at drone coverage, the main residence is more than 190,000 square feet, and it sits on some 27 square miles of land—larger than the island of Manhattan. The associated compound hosts a variety of other amenities: an arboretum with rare trees plus a greenhouse, said to be tended by some 40 gardeners; twin helicopter pads; a subterranean ice hockey rink; extensive vineyards that produce an exclusive wine served at Kremlin events; a 27,000-square-foot tea house for guests; and an outdoor amphitheater for concerts. 

A tunnel that accesses the beach doubles as a bunker. It also features a special chamber cut into the cliffside that serves as a “tasting room” with a view of the sea.

How to tell it's an illicit party

money to burn?

I see London stocks rose in early trade, underpinned by solid results from oil giant BP according to Sharecast. BP are making around £350 per second from the oil price hikes. Shell similarly so. 

I thought ETRM (Energy Trading Risk Management) software and dealing was supposed to smooth the effect of energy price fluctuations, but instead we see corporate effects (good for shareholders) and domestic effects (bad for consumers). 

I thought I'd run a quick test of what would happen if I switched provider now (ie by-passed the so-called Energy Price cap)

My old energy bill was about £1200, and my new price could be one of the following:

That's around £3,820-3,850 per year or significantly more than I pay at the moment.

Of course, I'd be bonkers to 'switch' at the end of my current contract 31-March-2022, so, along with 22 million other consumers, I'll go onto the Price Cap instead. 

That way it will 'only' be around £1,971 per annum. A Price Cap rise of £693, although I was on a fixed tariff which used to give me cheaper fuel. 

 I wonder how they have the nerve to call it a price cap, when it is planned to go up again in October? 

Another example of not taking back control.

UPDATE:

I looked at the New York Mercantile Exchange NYMEX predictions for short term oil prices. The spread is so greats doesn't look as if they have a clue. Note the spread of the pricing (in red) on my two main charts.

Zwifting up Mont Ventoux

Not the fastest time ever - which appears to be under one hour, but I'll still call it respectable fun to do the whole 4,844 feet/ 1476 metres climb in 95m42s. 13 miles in 95 minutes= 7.4mph, back at average of 43mph. 

 Phew, but at least going back down was somewhat faster. I broke 55mph a couple of times.

I've cut it down to the length of Grace Cathedral Hill below:

scarlet beast with seven heads and ten horns

I'm torn between two songs for the fact-ignoring jester to play at the medieval court of Johnson. 

A) All along the watch towers: Dylan and Hendrix - with some lines like:

No reason to get excited

The thief he kindly spoke

There are many here among us

Who feel that life is but a joke

But, uh, but you and I, we've been through that thing

And this is not our fate

So let us stop talkin' falsely now

The hour's getting late, hey

B) Or Britney Spears with:

Oops, I did it again

I played with your heart, got lost in the game

Oh baby, baby

Oops, you think I'm in love

That I'm sent from above

I'm not that innocent

But I think I'll go with Dylan:

Outside in the cold distance

A wildcat did growl

Two riders were approaching

And the wind began to howl

Spoiler Alert

Plot twist reveals King as dangerous Jester.

Flan B and expect a circus

I used to work in Turkey, but I don't remember the 'when a clown moves into a palace he doesn't become a king, instead the palace becomes a circus' proverb, however convenient in the current circumstances. I do remember 'Elect a clown, expect a circus,' however. 

But we are not interested in convenience. Now that Ms Gray and the Met have both said the report can be released, why not leave it a few more hours? Perhaps get some legal advice about what could be redacted, and maybe some other advice about who to shake down. 

Leave it until mid-evening and it could even miss the newspapers for a whole news cycle. Perhaps a big story will out Flan it? Then splash some news about Ministerial casualties and the need for a great reform. 

And let's not forget the 'holier than thous' emanating from the slouches on the front bench. 

Meanwhile, I'm still a-thinkin'

With cakegate and similar distractions, the main news in many media sources gets shoved below the fold or its equivalent. 

UKRAINE

No great surprise that I can fly from Luton to Sikorsky airport in Kiev in 3h15 minutes by WizzAir, for £25 return.

Or maybe not. Here we are on the edge of something similar to the Sudetenland situation, with Russia up to the borders of the Ukraine and many NATO forces poised in opposition. The UK has even become a lead nation for one of the battlegroups. 

Above are illustrated the comprehensive red Russian positions, best summarised as planes and missiles all along the border, along with 100,000 ground forces. North east of the map there is the bat symbol of the Spetznaz GRU, the Special Forces unit. They are skilled as infiltrators behind enemy lines and in the use of unconventional warfare, including hybrid use of signals, which could be interpreted as a variant of cyber warfare. There are also stationed the 45th Detached Brigade, a super-fit elite of airborne troops, grounded with GRU training and also in some cases with U.S. training from Fort Carson, Colorado. 

The majority of Ukraine’s forces are located in Western Ukraine, as the positioning of the forces is left over from the Soviet period, when they were placed to maximise Soviet defensive potential against NATO forces. 

We can see five mechanised infantry brigades, two artillery brigades, a tank brigade, a rocket brigade, four tactical aviation brigades, two army aviation regiments, and an air mobile brigade. Also worth highlighting the forces located in the south, near the Crimea: one mechanised infantry brigade, a tactical aviation brigade, an air mobile brigade and an army aviation regiment.

and

DOMESTIC NEWS EXTRACT

UK domestically has several other news-worthy stories:

• Housing subsidy failure
• Brexit supply chain delays
• Inflation at more than 5% and rising
• The National Insurance taxation increases
• Fat cats making money from the margins of NHS 
• Chumocratic awards of money and peerages

I could go on, but I see someone has just published the cake recipe.