Autumn in Britain brings the beautiful sight of the spider again. They are here all year of course, but this time of year is the best. They are busy.
The spider has to do everything itself and although that is true of all the natural world (and is true of humans too when their electricity supply fails, as it will do) the spiders are more amazing than most other species. This is because they can spin their webs from internal supplies, and over and over again. They are like little factories, taking in raw material in the form of food, keeping it in a liquid silk protein ready to push out through its spinnerets into those fine strands of flexible silk. Those flexible strands of silk are beautiful in autumn sunlight, or when frost will be in the early morning when Sol rises low in the sky as we head into the dark months of the northern hemisphere. The hemisphere is because Earth is a spinning ball of rock and the combination of gravity and speed pulls matter into a circle-ish.
This blog, because it has always been fascinated by spiders was looking at some regional information to remind itself of the astonishing miracle which is life. Some would disagree, some believe spiders should be killed because they are terrifying. Not this blog, oh no.
Pliny the Elder wrote about spiders in Book XI, Insects and zoology. In Chpt. XXVIII (28 to us modern humans) he wrote how spiders weave their webs higher when they think it will rain and the rivers rise, also that they reweave the webs in cloudy weather, therefore to see many webs means it will rain. Now this could be similar to British saying that when the cows lie down it will rain. Whether to make sure there is a dry place on the ground, who knows, but those of us out of doors a lot do see this, and often it is true. Doubtless there was some correlation for Pliny, and the desire for modern science to disparage all the superstitions and ignorance of past peoples often forgets that those who spend a lot of time out of doors do actually see things, and still, whereas those who only see the digital screen really see nothing at all of reality.
Pliny also wrote that people think it is the female that weaves and the male that hunts, and that thus the married pair do equal shares of service. Now, Pliny was writing in the first century CE, so after Emperor Augustus had consolidated the Roman State according to a moralised, patriarchal, strict family morals, for reason of restoring order after the chaotic decades of civil war, but before Vesuvius erupted, in which Pliny the Elder perished, because volcanoes are the natural world and the human does not control the forces of gravity and geology and sun flares from Helios. That Pliny the Elder was writing as he did about the marital arrangements of spiders is not surprising therefore. Feminists would be furious, but probably not many feminists read Pliny the Elder.
Pliny’s observations, even if not strictly accurate on the marital status of spiders, and certainly not by the standards of the barbarians, which the Romans hated so much because we were so untidy and uncouth, was right overall. The beautiful webs that suddenly adorn the twigs and branches and leafs and doorways at this time of year, and the large house spiders who confidently wander across the room, they are thinking of their habitation arrangements. They care about propagating the next generation of spiders, of whatever family, or tribe we could say.
The need for food before winter, the need to mate, the desire to mate for both males and females (there is no feminism amongst spiders and no male toxicity or female toxicity, or maybe the occasional spider gone rogue but they would be dealt with quickly by the community) and for that the need to find more food with the requirement for more webs to catch more insects, it is a busy time of year. Even more so when you have to do it all yourself from start to finish.
The above picture was copied from the Natural History Museum, London and shows the full beauty of the web spun by what we in Britain know simply as the garden spider.
Life on Earth in this last week in Britain is very strange for the humans. Within the parameter of normality, as defined by what goes out on national airwaves or printed in newspapers, NASA launched the Nancy Grace Roman telescope away from this spinning mass of rock, held in place by Sol in a galaxy vast itself, and which will chart the further reaches of the universe and map 2 billion stars (if all goes to plan), on the surface of Earth the politics of earthlings is very complicated in northern Europe and America, while around the mass of rock volcanoes erupt, Central Asia is already forgotten by the news in the catastrophic floods, and its supply chains from global ports are becoming shaky, and on Thursday 3rd September BBC Radio 4 had Norman Day, to celebrate the Bayeux Tapestry in London.
The question is, where is the reality? This is not a philosophical question. Nor is it a metaphysical or New Age nebulous experiential search for the higher vibrations of existence not apparent to us mere earthlings. It is a question on continuum, and that is physical, because all life on Earth is contained within the physical realm. And reality does mean continuity of a certain length of time, and to exist for a certain length of time must mean the pre-requisites for that to happen. What does that mean? Well, as this is not a metaphysical, New Age, mystical, nebulous blog but a logical, factual, scientifically proven blog, continuity means extendable on the horizontal span of life.
Now, the Norman Day on BBC Radio 4 did speak much history, and did interview some school children seeing the Bayeux Tapestry for the first time. Never however, did the present day get equated with the eleventh century CE. Was it real? Yes, logically it was, not only because the Tapestry was created, but much evidence besides does still exist to show that human society existed in northern Europe and Britain and Norse lands about 1,000 years ago. Nothing however was equated of today to then, only a modern interpretation of entente cordiale between the French President, the ‘UK’ government, and the King (that was not the intention of the weavers back then), the usual stuff about how unfair it was to not have women in the Tapestry (evidence of the Patriarchy), and the past behaviour of humans in ransacking and pillaging and crushing the peaceful natives. The clear inference is that all is fine today, more than fine in fact. And nothing is said about the reality of space travel, that the bubble of knowledge, billions of stars and extraordinary detail on far flung space dust has no physical relevance to life for the mere earthling. Nobody could live out there, no society could maintain itself, and if the batteries went flat, the spaceship with the telescope would be going nowhere.
So where is reality in 2026 in Britain? Does it form a continuum of historical reality, or has that been truncated by the mutation of post war politics? Does it await the higher vibrations of freedom from mortal life, into the range and realm of ever increasing scientific data?
Historically prisons were very small in Britain, built of stone, often tall narrowish buildings, with small windows, and of course a very big, heavy, key.
Hexham Old Gaol is the earliest recorded purpose-built prison in England. It was ordered in July 1330 by William Melton, Archbishop of York, who sent a letter to Thomas Fox, Receiver of Hexham, demanding a gaol where his prisoners could be securely guarded.
The archbishop ruled over Hexhamshire, and the construction of the Gaol was a symbol of his great wealth and power. Any fines from offences committed in the area were paid to the archbishop, so it made sense to open his own gaol as a way of making money and controlling the people who lived and worked on his land.
Prisons up until this point had normally been part of castle buildings or were in buildings that had been adapted from their original use.
The Gaol was completed in January 1333, made from the stone of Corbridge Roman Fort, located just three miles away.
It was fitted with torture and punishment devices such as manacles and fetters. Prisoners, depending on their status and the seriousness of their crimes, were held on three floors. The dungeon was a miserable place for the poorest and most hardened of criminals. It was dirty, smelly and overcrowded. In contrast, the first floor was a much more pleasant experience for wealthy prisoners.
The Gaolers lodgings were on the top floor. The first Gaoler of the prison was John de Cawood, who was employed in 1332. He was paid 2d and his job was to oversee the prisoners. When they arrived, he would search them, put them in chains and escort them to their living quarters.
Gaolers were expected to earn more money by charging the prisoners additional fees:
Admission fee – 4d
Restraints such as chains or iron – 1d
Bedding, made up of a straw mattress, pillow and cover – 1d
Shoes – 1/2d
Fuel for fire – 1d
It’s likely that wealthier prisoners bribed the Gaoler for extra privileges, such as, better food, better bedding, access to the Market Place to beg for alms, and to be able to attend church.
The Gaoler managed the prisoners’ work. Prisoners were expected to contribute to the running of the Gaol, carrying out tasks such as cleaning toilets and collecting urine for selling to the local tanning industry.
The Gaolers were expected to maintain law and order but that was a very difficult job when prisoners were allowed to gamble, often getting into arguments and attacking each other, and women and children were not segregated from men.
Prisoners were not regularly cleaning themselves or their clothes, so lice was a major problem. Typhus, also commonly known as ‘gaol-fever’, was a bacterial infection spread by fleas and lice, and was rife throughout the Gaol. It caused rashes, fevers and chills. If left untreated it was fatal. Prisoners would fall into a coma and die.
The Gaol was infected several times by the plague, a disease spread by the permanent presence of rats.
The above link is copied again, because the brief history of Hexham Old Gaol is copied straight from the website.
This blog has visited and spent a very informative morning, and remarkable it is in how much societal function is contained within the stone building. The stones from nearby Corbridge Roman Fort, active with Romans suppressing us natives around 1,000 years ago. Stone lasts a very long time, and the Earth on which we all spin is 4.5 billion years old. The Earth has orbited Sol all that time, and is likely to last a while longer.
The prisons in castles were even tougher, harsher, and had smaller or no windows and the prisoners were more likely than not never to reappear. When Kings and Queens ruled Britain it was just the King and their Army, and the castle represented the immediate situation. Berwick upon Tweed Castle in the 1200s, 1300s, 1400s was taken by English, Scottish, English, Scottish, the attacks went one way then the other, with much loss of life every time. Carlisle Castle from 1092 as the northernmost stronghold of the Norman powers coming up north over the lands of Britain were besieged 7 times to 1461, and the Scots showed no mercies. No delivery of pizzas, no showers, no water at all at times, all in a fairly wet and chilly climate during the long winter months.
Hexham Old Gaol, and the word Gaol looks far more like a prison than the modern jail, as the property of the Archbishop of York does of course carry our strange history in Britain of the parallel power of the Church, and 1330 was before it got even more complicated with the Protestant movement over Northern Europe and Henry VIII’s Church of England. But never mind, for the purposes of this blog the Archbishop of York in 1330, William Melton, represented the totality, like a miniature State all of his own. His power did come from the Church institution behind him, but up in York and his empire over Hexhamshire, he was in charge, and the parameters were clear. His prison fitted those parameters in location and numbers of people being held there. No doubt there would be busier times and emptier times, and because he was in charge, there would be ways of dealing with just too many prisoners to fit in, and no legal system to appeal to.
This blog being very interested in societal arrangements of the humans does see the tribes and natives groups as the healthiest and happiest because, like a JD Wetherspoon pub, no one wants to be chucked out. In tribes and native groupings, even if in urban modern cities, everyone has a role, a function required of them, and even if infirm or very elderly, there is enough to go around because the others are all fully occupied. However, that is not the modern ‘UK’ of 2026.
The fact of the prison crisis in the ‘UK’, with the many other crises, but the prison one is uppermost in the news at the present time, a printed newspaper jumped out from a shop shelf, of 10,487 foreign nationals in ‘UK’ prisons. The cost of ‘housing’ if it can be called that, the foreign nationals is c.£630million.
This seems an extraordinary situation. It is only a few hundred years ago compared to, say, human society after the last Ice Age, and 50 years after Porridge showed on BBC TV. This comedy, and it was very funny, was itself a part of society, and a lot of unhappiness, and some lives turned around, and some pretty brutal incidents never known to the outside would have happened, but society itself was stable enough, and balanced enough in the equation of citizens outside and citizens inside. Just like Yes Minister was very funny, but politics basically worked, and Little Britain was very, very funny, and before the characters became real life which is now not funny at all.
It occurred to this blog in seeing such figures, and that foreign nationals form about 10% of the total prison population, that a quick solution could be arranged, and one which could well gain the majority approval of the population. That there is no measurable citizen statistics now, and that politics has apparently disappeared from any functional stance, this is just one opinion amongst many, but it is a logical suggestion.
That the lefty British legal system can hold up a deportation on many grounds, and that a foreign country can refuse to take their criminal back, and that it has been so easy to commit a crime in the first place over the last few decades, what if James McEwen, the CEO of His Majesty’s Prison Service launched a kind of coup equivalent to a rival power in the complicated Roman Empire, where it was power and action, and the disaster of Athenian democracy long put aside.
If James McEwen just acted, took control of the Prisons Service as if it were a separate entity, just as the Archbishop of York could do in 1330, and sent a decree to every prison holding a foreign national. If it said you have a choice, we fly you back in one week’s time, put you on the runway, take off, and just leave you there and bye bye, or, we put you to death in one week, what would happen?
Well, what would happen is exactly that, because that’s how systems used to work when there was no expansion possible, or no extra money to keep ‘housing’ a prison population in overcrowded gaols, or jails. And it’s how many countries in the C21 CE operate today because why would scant resources be used for such an intractable situation? And that many of the 10,500 prisoners are from eastern Europe and Eire, relocating would not cost so very much.
With the swell of opinion and desperate need to get out of traumatic medical endings showing in the Assisted Dying Bill, which should have gone through Parliament and now has to be publicly manoeuvred through the constitutional crisis, and the whole issue of maternity become a medical crisis the other end of the lifespan, how many people in a referendum (as is required under a democracy) is it time to relook at the issue of capital punishment? The argument comes straight out, of what happens in cases of wrongful conviction, and that is those who give a reasoned opinion. The lefty caring people believe in rehabilitating and that a flat and a good job and endless psychological research interventions will create a well rounded citizen (with no need for any ID card though), however, if James McEwen added to his list all those prisoners who have killed a police officer were going to face capital punishment in one week, has the time come in chaotic Britain that the logical solution is now no longer to be found in political parties?
This title mixes up various phrases and facts. To quit while you are ahead means that things are going well, very well, and to continue might risk things going wrong and you lose the benefits of what you have gained. To quit while you are ahead is not used in sport, not at all. It is the opposite of sports competition because all sports competition is about winning, or coming as near as possible to winning.
The Commonwealth Games 2026 has just finished in Glasgow, on the 2nd August, and since then has been the European Athletics Championships the 10-18th August held in Birmingham.
And now today, unbelievably to us cavemen, is news of the Chinese World Humanoid Robot Games. As this is the Second Chinese World Humanoid Robot Games there would have been a First, but a year ago is so long ago in world events. It did stir the memory of something a year ago, but back then it was quirky and something teccie, and as the Chinese are very clever then it is just an extension of their work capabilities and application of political, economic and human work. This year however, it is both more prominent in the news, and comes at a time of so soon after Glasgow and Birmingham.
Glasgow (picture taken by this blog) was termed “the second city of the British Empire” during the boom years of 19th and early 20th century. It is now falling down, and burning down. The weather during the recent Games was first really, really hot and humid, the like of which has never been experienced up here before, and which suited the athletes with melanin in their skin from hot and humid countries, but not the pale northerners, and then had some more usual cool, windy and very wet days. The cool wet days were a shock for those athletes from hot counties who can become very unwell in sudden cold and wet and get cramp or worse injuries, also chills and flu.
Modern day Glasgow, (picture taken by this blog) shows the juxtaposition of recent historical fortunes. Recent because the last few 100 years of fortunes made in the British Empire (with a lot of hard work going on in logistics and production as well as the problematic issue of humans transported across the Atlantic) was also the period of substantial stone buildings, sandstone or granite, with craftsmanship, knowledge, structural solidity, all without modern tech or cranes, such as the above photo. Next to this sandstone building, in Robertson Street, is the very modern JP Morgan building, and this was constructed when modern tech and digital resources clearly make a very different kind of building, all shiny and modern and much, much taller than the previous tall buildings.
Glasgow hosted the 2026 Commonwealth Games, after stepping in to rescue the situation. Somewhere in the air has been the question hanging that a peak is reached. No one on an 1,500m elite race on the world athletics track would consider coming into the final bend, 5m ahead of the nearest behind and think, ‘Sod it, I can’t be bothered to finish this,’ and just slope off the track and lie down in boredom. Not at all, it’s just not what athletes are wired for.
However, in this moment when the next Commonwealth Games, 4 years ahead, in Gujarat 2030 is being given a big fanfare, already, and the plans being laid for a spectacular Games, is this a moment where humanoids would be advised to pause? Glasgow hosted the Commonwealth Games in 2014, New Delhi in 2010, and now here we are with Glasgow and India very close again. The links over so many millennia with Indo-Europeans are fascinating and many cultural and linguistics basis exists, playing chess for just one, and despite the chaos created by British empire dividing up ancient tribal and ethnic regions, there is a real bond of communication and practices between India and Britain. And from that, this is an ideal moment just to pause on this matter of the Commonwealth Games post 2026.
The European Athletics in Birmingham, just finished, was just down the road from Stourbridge, a mere 10 miles away, and Stourbridge has just had a major wildfire. Buildings in Glasgow with no money to restore them are burning down or falling down, burning down from dodgy insurance claims, old wiring, or thrown away vapes which cause fires. Many places in Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, England, Eire, the Isle of Mann, and the lands known as the Scottish Borders have been and are still burning. The rain that some of us are now fortunate enough to have falling from the sky is the most welcome ever, and many places are not that fortunate. 2027 is forecast to be even hotter, – even hotter – and this is a seriously bad prospect. The year 2030 is nearly here, and who knows what will happen by then, just as the plans are getting into action for a spectacular Games in India.
This is why news of the Humanoid Robot Games in China could be the solution to this conundrum of what to do with the British Empire, or Commonwealth. Or any large international sports event, or any regional sports event like the European Athletics Championships (what does Europe mean these days?). A humanoid robot does not get sunburnt, or feel the cold, 16 countries have entered this 2026 Humanoid Robot Games which makes a proper international competition, and 2,000 robots participate in so many activities, including real life activity of doing the laundry.
Is the solution to the increasing questions in international sport actually the robots? 2028 is the next Summer Olympics, due in Los Angeles, and 2030 is the Winter Olympics in the French Alps. From the real human practices of honouring the gods of our region, the appropriation of the honouring of Zeus in Olympia every 4 years has taken a very strange trajectory in its modern appearance. With the exponential heat likely melting all Alpine snow by 2030 and transport failures of trains and planes and all the logistics of mass travel, and the heat of summer events creating a very unfair conditions, is it time to hand over to the humanoid robot, and national teams instead send their avatar robot. In a complete systems failure humans would only compete within their local sports region again anyway, and the medals being won by the humanoids (presumably without any emotion) would still come to the origin nation.
Not only athletics and the Olympics, but the last year has raised so many questions on international football under FIFA that this solution of substituting humanoid robots could be very useful. To return football to regions of relevant climate, as this blog has argued previously, would be balanced by FIFA overseeing the robot football competitions, and this would likely bring much less financial questions, or the price of tickets, because not many people would be more than £5 or £10 to see such a game.
Yes, to quit while you are ahead is never done in competitive sport, but if the writing on the wall for international sport showing large over the last year is hearkened to, and there is the robot waiting for the baton, to grasp it and continue its sprint down the track, is this not the time to address these pressing issues?
At the risk of being extremely wrong to say this in the modern era, but this is a logical blog, not personal, so this must be stated at the outset.
This short blog wishes to ask a few questions, justifiably it must be said. The new Archbishop of Canterbury has just returned from an historic visit to the Province of West Africa, to visit the Church in Cameroon and Ghana. This Province is not a Roman Province of classical times, like Roman Syria, Roman Egypt, but a more modern day imperial arrangement, that of the Archbishop of Canterbury being head of the worldwide Anglican Church. And worldwide is not exactly worldwide, and certainly not all humans on Earth (this spinning mass of rock in space, held by the gravity of Helios as Light of our world), and not Catholics either, but the Anglican Protestant Church.
The visit to West Africa was clearly stated to be for reparative justice, and that of course is about the historic slave trade. Over those centuries, British slave merchants moved West African people, mostly men, from the African coast over the Atlantic to the commercial plantations on the landmass the other side (such is geography), there to work in the white man’s plantations which made fortunes large and small for those owners.
This is not about the rightness or wrongness for the slave peoples to be moved across the ocean, it was desperate sailings and dislocation as never know before. Slaving, as a practice, is as old as the hills, with the ant species Formica Sanguinea as active slave traders for about 14 million years, and showing no signs of abolishing their trade, and all known human societies all over the ancient world, us Celts and Norse up here, the Greeks (they were tough slave owners), the Romans, the islands around Indonesia, all over Africa, the Gauls, the Arabs, all over the Middle East, and the currency up here was easy. Strong Celts were willingly exchanged by warring tribes for Roman wine (the more the merrier), and nothing more was thought of the fate of the new captive going off to foreign parts.
The Trans Atlantic slavery of course, no doubt about this, was on a different scale altogether. However, in logical terms, it is fair to ask a few questions. One is, native peoples from Eire were also transported to the plantations and worked as slaves, alongside the black skinned West Africans. Because slavery is now a black/white matter, it is only fair to ask if the new Archbishop will also pay a visit to Dublin and make a big apology there too. Probably that will not happen, because it is far too close to home, home being Canterbury in this instance, and British and Irish religious and political matters are way too tricky to draw attention to that.
The second question to ask is, under the Sale of Goods Act 1750, or equivalent, because there was no Sale of Goods Act 1750, but under the practices that went on, and not just the British, because the French and Portugese were also transporting native Africans across the Atlantic and that has been well forgotten now hasn’t it, the slaves were purchased and not raided. To purchase a slave in the ancient world meant going to the market where slaves were sold, and paying whatever the price was required. Pirates also stole people without paying all around the Mediterranean and then sold them in the regular slave markets, where money would be exchanged, but the markets were a bona fide (Latin for in good faith, genuine, honest legal transaction) business exchange.
It is a fact that western merchants sailed down the African coast and visited the existing slave markets. The existing slave activities were of African slaves taken by other Africans, they were already slaves, of African peoples. The merchants purchased them in the markets by an honest transaction, and the money stayed with the previous slave owners, the slave was put onto the ship in appalling conditions, and taken over with their new owner to work on the plantations. So this question is, what happened to all the money? Should not the Archbishop of Canterbury be asking for that money back, in return for the reparative justice of saying it was not a good few centuries? It is not really a fair contractual exchange if she makes an apology, but comes back without the money, is it? Otherwise those on the African side of the Atlantic are saying it was a good thing, because they got a lot of money, but a bad thing because the subject of the contract, the slaves themselves, were taken away on slave ships. But it can’t be both if a genuine and honest historic process is being made. Every marketplace ancient and modern has its laws and conditions, and that would have been no different. So in return for the very public visit of the senior person of the Anglican Church, especially when it was not a church matter but a State matter, but if she is representing the State, then all the money which exchanged hands should have been bagged up and returned with her on the plane, or by a separate ship if it was too heavy. Or if it has been spent, then the Deeds to all the property and lifestyle that it funded over the last few centuries.
The third question is one of true Reparative Justice, and that is within the British Isles, and Norse-lands, and Eire-land, and all of northern Europe, and all of France and Spain and Portugal, but especially Britain and Ireland where so much ‘Church history’ happened, please could we worshippers of the true gods have our properties back? Of course those are often now under a church, because what better way to supress the true beliefs than to put a small or large church building on it, and a churchyard under ecclesiastical law meaning no recovering of the previous sacred site is possible, and no way of acknowledging the many killed in northern Europe for refusing to bow down to the incoming power of monotheist religion.
If the Archbishop of Canterbury would see fit to make a small reparation to the restoration of the gods to their people, a donation of a church in each county of England, Cornwall, Wales, Scotland, Manx, Eire, and in Norse lands and whoever wanted one in western Europe, can be easily arranged by the ecclesiastical lawyers. As charity does and really should begin at home, this is a request to the new Archbishop of Canterbury to begin the true reparation process and allow restoration of the real alignment of humans on the land again.
Buckingham Palace, the iconic building of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and probably of the whole of the surface of Earth, is nearing the end of its £369 million, 10 year refurbishment. This sum of money has been possible from a 65% increase in the Sovereign Grant, voted through by Parliament with minimal votes against. The 10 year refurbishment and updating work is for repair of boilers, electrics, replacing lead pipes, and some pretty good decorating afterwards to leave the historic building in a very good condition.
In 2027, next year, it is now announced that the King and Queen will not live there, but remain in Clarence House. Buckingham Palace is to remain as the headquarters of the Royal Family, for the extensive administration, State events and foreign heads of State, banquets, and the garden parties for which there is none else. There will also be an expanded public access, probably at a significant entrance fee, and that will likely mean tours and guides and a real inside view of our Royal State building.
Now, this blog was staying with friends a couple of weeks ago, and conversation turned to the State of the Nation, as it does with most people, up and down the land, whether with friend or foe. This particular evening was definitely with friends. And amongst friends there is still a lightness, a freedom, the sort of conversation that wings its way around, picks up just about everything, glasses are filled and refilled, and the summer evening dusk turned to darkness. And from that household of friends that night a genius idea came forth from father and daughter. And this was it….
Alongside Parliament in the Palace of Westminster on one side of the governance of the ‘UK’, and the Royal Family on the other, in the other Palace of Buckingham, there is a third strata in British life in the twenty-first century, and that is J D Wetherspoon, owned, managed and all round governed by Tim Martin, and whose establishments have come to underpin the culinary, alcoholic intake, and social life of the ‘UK’. And for good reason.
Now, this genius idea put out by the friends of this blog was this: that Tim Martin be approached to purchase Buckingham Palace freehold, with all fixtures and fittings, garden sheds, furniture, tapestries, glassware, paintings, curtains, carpets, existing alcohol supplies, horses, carriages, statues, china, silver, gilded mirrors, and all staff contracts to be continued.
Tim Martin is the only man in the ‘UK’ who could make a real ‘access to the people’ business of this beautiful and iconic building, right in the centre of London that it is. A smaller nearby building could be easily found to house the headquarters of the Royal Family, and the State Banquets when visiting dignitaries and Heads of State arrive to dine with King Charles and Queen Camilla would be easily accommodated in the latest J D Wetherspoon. The extensive menu with a changing array of regional British alcohol, the jacket potato and tuna for under £10, (including an alcoholic drink), or the steak and ale pie, gourmet burger, or fish and chips, are all a proper plate of food. This blog being a big fan of the Wetherspoon breakfast, up and down the land, is sure that foreign dignitaries would be overjoyed at such a heavy plate of breakfast, refill coffee and the best craic in town.
This genius suggestion, which is being put to Tim Martin, went further. Buckingham: The Palace has extensive rooms on several floors, and with the J D Wetherspoon hotels being added to the business capability of this man, our iconic Royal building is just perfect for a new Wetherspoon hotel. The existing staff, with continued contracts, would continue to serve breakfast in bed, or walk around the extensive drinking and eating rooms at ground level, smiling, serving with linen cloth over the arm, answering any historic questions a guest may have, maybe suggesting something from the menu.
Upstairs in the hotel the deluxe room would be the balcony, where guests could pay extra to have cut outs of their Royal of choice waving behind them, as they themselves wave and are cheered by crowds below. Polite foreign visitors would wave politely and smile and view the beautiful architecture and surrounds, the red jacketed guards and the lovely fountain in front. British drinkers could shout down to the outdoor tables, and the British drinkers at the outside tables would shout back up, all in good fun as long as no Newcastle United and Sunderland A.F.C happened to be in town the same weekend.
For Buckingham: The Palace to be added to Tim Martin’s portfolio of historic buildings would certainly be viewed as the best solution that could possibly be. His record of restoring old buildings, putting the historic information all round the walls in maps, pictures, portraits, information, ensures the provenance of our history is not lost, in an age where few are interested in anything before 1945. He is the man to save the heritage. He is the man to add the Hog Roast Club to his menu, or even Venison Roast Club, on the spit outside, the tankards of ale lining the bar.
Whatever legislation it required to change the ownership of the seat of the Royal Family, there would certainly be unanimous approval from the MPs, and being a short walk from the other Palace, of Westminster, it is in everyone’s interests to celebrate this glorious new era for our cherished Royal icon.
A new Imperial Dynasty begins after the fanfare of the Starmerian just two years ago, and the usual highly personalised deposition in Labour Party processes. This time the new Emperor comes not from Rome, sorry London, but Manchester, the once industrial power house of factories and rail and canals and very hard working people. And just as when Emperors came not from Rome anymore but Leptis Magna in North Africa, Syria, or the brute force of the Illyrians of our present day Balkans, Serbia, Slovenia, and still those eastern Europeans are big tough people, because the Empire was big and complicated, so the Labour Party extends its control out of London to try and answer, and solve, the complications of the ‘UK’.
And just as some Emperors who achieved the glory of that title did then make things very good for their friends with estates and gold and roles not at all related to their ability, so the Burnhamian dynasty has set off in the right direction.
Sir Kier Starmer ‘successfully’ emptied the House of Lords of its 92 remaining hereditary peers with the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act 2026 which ensured when the Parliamentary session ended on April 29th 2026, so did they. So did their combined inestimable knowledge, context, lack of ego and personal glory, understanding of what service is, understanding of history, understanding of geography, understanding of constitutional power, understanding of the importance and role of the House of Lords, oh the list could go on…Their departure left a good number of empty seats, but not for long.
Only a few months after emptying the capabilities of the remaining hereditary peers, the new arrivals appear. Prime Minister Burnham, talking much about devolution, about the economic growth which will come to each and every city, town, village and hamlet under his policies, has started off in as polar opposite as could be, and offered the chameleon leader of Labour in Scotland the chance to climb that Stairway to Heaven, there to sit with the increasing number of Labour appointees or gift arrivals. It is quickly forgotten that Anas Sarwar himself called for the HoL to be abolished. The House of Lords looks more and more like a Labour slush fund, and the question raised over this lack of respect from Labour towards the present governmental level, which is Westminster and the HoL, the court system, the police, the Armed Forces such as they still exist, and the present devolved powers, is where is governance going to exist under the Burnhamian era?
If further devolution actually becomes a race to the bottom instead of this glorious new era we are about to enter, where is the constitutional power held? The constitutional crisis caused by Tony Blair’s devolution policies just gets worse and worse, more questions which cannot be answered and more problems which require an urgent solution. Now another Imperial Prime Minister with the charismatic rhetoric and a big story, speaking directly to ‘the people’, taking them ‘with him’, with the crumbling constitutional edifice filling the backdrop behind him.
A week in the ‘UK’ can be a long time in politics. This does not mean that the week has been longer, i.e., more than 7 solar turns, or sleeps in child talk. Each week of 7 calendar days has been exactly the same length as any other, because life on Earth is dictated by the facts of the Universe, which are not a mystery cult with enlightenment at the end, but time marked by the gravity of Helios, Sol, Grian, holding Earth in orbit, with the spin of Earth creating light and dark, from which we measure our time. Fortunately each week is exactly the same length as any other and we hope this will continue for a long time to come. But it is a different matter in British politics.
That a week is a long time in politics is the British way of speaking slightly tangentially, slightly ironically, slightly understating which then creates the serious statement but someone would have to speak or understand native English to get the point rather than take it literally. It was Harold Wilson who spoke the phrase ‘a week is a long time in politics’ during the sterling crisis in 1964 and we know what it means.
That week of July 7th 2026 was one such. After the roller coaster of political extremity in the ‘UK’ of last few years and the left’s hatred of elites (especially males), and rich (Richie Sunak was seen as not understanding daily life even though people who build businesses do very much understand daily life and work 20 hours a day hard graft) and the left’s creation in the new far left of Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’ in Your Party, a very, very democratic party amidst the collapse of err democracy, a fairly horrible scene unfolded in Clacton-on-Sea. The name Clacton-on-Sea is as English as could be, and lovely for that, in the decades of the pleasant Angles, cheerful and funny, fish and chips in newspaper, the restored Victorian pier with all the traditional amusement arcades and rides from the times when such things were amusing (before the digital disaster), and the lovely sandy beach for summer sunbathing and swimming, and winter brisk walks.
Yes, this horrible scene in British politics has ended political continuity for good. A new battle line was drawn, and an entirely new contest is ahead between the earthling and the independent space warrior. For the ‘UK’ this is seen by many, ‘at home and abroad’ as the saying goes, as the final proof that politics has run its course, had its day. And who could imagine this situation happening in any other national Parliament anywhere on the Earth’s surface? It does not look good for those who wish to spread the light of liberal democracy to all mankind.
And yet, in Nigel Farage’s egotistical and thuggish rant on ‘putting two fingers up to the establishment,’ he not only short circuited any credibility he might have had, but put himself out of any social discussion on who are the people and who are the establishment? Because he is the establishment, he has a long political career, and has a lot of money. He must be thinking of himself as ‘the people’, but the problem is that ‘the people’ don’t act like this. Who is the establishment and who are the people has long since dissolved into confusion in the last decade or two, but Farage was in the EU from 1999-2000, during which time life in the ‘UK’ has collapsed. The two-finger sign, or the V, means ‘F*** Off’, and why that two-finger sign should mean F*** Off is hard to see, but it did. It did… not now. No, life has become much simpler in recent decades on one thing, and that is the versatile and multi-function of the F*** word, and really no longer is it rude. It is very, very useful, and a major component of linguistic expression up here in northern reaches of England and often 75% or more of Scottish parlance. So for Nigel to threaten the two-finger sign to the establishment just sounds dated really. And to position the people and the establishment against each other in a one liner, it just does not exist.
However Nigel has possibly unwittingly opened an altogether new avenue for British politics, given the amount of time and money and resources and research and development and ambition and futuristic talk that has been given to Life off Earth, on the Moon or possibly even Mars. And that is that in this brave saviour of democracy, Count Binface, who stepped forward to save the day and give a proper contest in Clacton-on-Sea, that it is exactly the time in history to prepare for human-extra terrestrial dialogue, and who else but Count Binface? When he is elected as the MP for Clacton-on-Sea the Westminster Parliament will be the first Parliament in the world able to land running on the Moon or Mars, for Intergalactic Summits and the signing of contracts for all the valuable minerals and metals required to prop up the digital consumption on planet Earth. The small problem of surface radiation will easily be overcome from his ability to speak with the far reaches of galactic linguistics, able to get underground works going, arrange to get water – from somewhere, food, medical systems, good cheap transport to and from Earth, maybe a high speed rail link HS3 on the Moon and HS4 planned for Mars, goods sent from Earth as gifts to keep the inter galactics on our side in case another country realises this new development arising from the ‘UK’ Parliament, and soon every civilization in the universe will see the logic of democracy.
As England and Norway play the quarter finals of the World Cup 2026 in Miami, this blog was wondering if 2026 is the year to call it a day on international sports competitions. To ‘call it a day’ means not to call it this day of 11.07.2026 but to call it the last day, or at least to start the winding up process.
Miami is included in ‘the topics’ although being just outside the Tropic of Cancer, and another reason the human definitions of Earth and the universe and the natural world and climate science and human health are all too exact in western science. Apart from the night and day created by Helios, and land and water, and life and death itself, most things are in gradiated increments and the climate in which England -v- Norway fight it out is tropical, give or take a latitude degree or two. It’s far too hot for northern Europeans to be exerting themselves in this manner, and far too hot for thousands of people to be flying around the USA between locations, and far too hot for the teams and the fans to then jet off back in all directions from the USA when the 2026 World Cup has finished.
This blog was thinking as it saw the photo of the Norwegian team restoring proper Viking life of the waterside gathering in appropriate attire of tunics, leather, shields, and a few long spears, with longboat ready behind to take the warriors over the seas. Similar scenes would have been in 793 when the Norse Vikings set off over the North Sea to raid and destroy the Christian monastery on the island of Lisdisfarne (just one Farne Island but holy to the Christians and a major medieval centre of that religion). It is complicated, because the Kingdom of Northumbria were both Anglo-Saxons (which race were under the government of Norse gods but who had turned away from the true gods) and native Celtic peoples of Britain (native for over 1,000 years anyway and who had turned away from the true gods of Celtic Britain and Ireland) and all were devout Christians.
But the photo of Norwegian Norse warriors preparing to set sail on their longboat was only a photograph, not reality. Instead they boarded a plane to join the 2026 World Cup in the USA and Mexico, in the most terrifying heatwave on planet Earth. Pretty much all of the Norwegian team are Northern blood line and much has been made of the striker Erling Haaland because of his Norse warrior appearance – which for humans is made up of height, hair colour, skin colour, physique of muscle and bone length, eye colour, etc. He is a ‘social media sensation’.
The Norwegian fans who have flown to the USA, and those who live there already, have also stated the Norse identity with their Row, and ‘the Row’ in Viking context also means warfare. Team and fans are bonded in image and intention, tonight being not to cross the North Sea to end the Christians on Lindisfarne but to end the English football team in the quarter finals of the 2026 World Cup. The English team because they are ethnically more mixed, and because England is now a very complicated concept, do not have one clear performance to fall back on. It could be a pint of beer, a folk band singing maybe, but really there is no clear national or cultural identity to bring out on such an evening.
However, the fact of two national teams from up here in northern Europe and Scandinavia battling it out in Miami heat and in this heatwave, it is a valid question to ask whether global sport has had its day. ‘Has had its day’ is more general than ‘let’s call it a day’ but still refers to time passing and maybe our present activity should not continue through many more turns of Helios. If sport were returned to where it became relevant again, which for Europe is alongside fierce nationalism, as probably it is for every region on Earth, then climate would begin to correlate with activity, less air flights would be taken, FIFA would have less ability to put prices in the £1,000s and Boston would still have some alcohol in pubs to serve its local inhabitants.
The events of heat in summer 2026 are scary, and Spain at present is battling devastating wild fires. The next World Cup, in 2030, or the one in 2034, is going to be in climatic disasters of which we are only seeing the beginning. The modern world in all its global links has no get out clause but maybe the physical necessity now of learning to live in unknown heat will bring up a list of a few activities that are not essential to survival and best left to regional battles as of olde.
It is a busy July of 2026 in the human activity of organised sports. This takes place on Earth, the spinning mass of rock held in place by the gravity from Helios, Sol, Bran, the Sun, and without this, and without the delicate zone within the atmosphere, there would be no organised sport taking place. These are facts and it is logical to state the obvious. However, so fortunate are we that gravity exists and the atmosphere permits activity, and organised sports have developed from the ‘western world.’
July 2026 is surely one of the busiest months in sporting history. Wimbledon courts are playing, so far no downpours have stopped play, here in middle Britain the Commonwealth Games are due to take place in Glasgow in a few weeks time, but really all focus has been on the World Cup 2026, which is football, and in Canada, the USA and Mexico. This is written in that order because Canada is the furthest north, then the USA stretching over a long geography, and Mexico the furthest south. Mexico is not on the equator but still, its southernmost point is only 14’N, which is pretty damn hot.
It occurred to this blog in hearing bits of news here and there on the airwaves about ‘the World Cup, that there are several strange things about global sport.
One is how it shows the strange constitutional situation of Scotland and England as different football teams, and only those two because Wales did not quality, but if they had, there would be the three as rivals over the pond (the vast Atlantic Ocean). Northern Ireland neither did qualify, and neither did Ireland as in Eire, so the media have only had Scotland and England to comment and commentate on.
Another strange thing is how the Tartan Army, travelling to coincide with its national team playing in the World Cup 2026, has no leader. No General, no Commander, no bugle call to charge. Instead the Army descends like locusts on the alcohol, drinks it dry, the media finds this funny, the Scottish media give much airtime to its Army without a leader, and the English roll their eyes, because that’s what Scots do. The English team are ‘still in’, and the Scottish team ‘out’. And the strange thing about the Army without a leader is just how much time the airwaves in Scotland gave to the criticisms of those troops on the disappointment of the manager Steve Clarke. How he ‘hadn’t delivered’ for them after they had travelled that far (and paid the extortionate costs as hostages to FIFA). What the Tartan Army expected is clear, that the Scotland team would win every match, and win the Football World Cup of 2026.This is not the way it went, and Steve Clarke made a clear public statement that he was resigning. The airwaves in Scotland were full of indignation and let down, while the airwaves in England merely noted it.
However this blog was thinking, there is an unspoken and undiscussed strangeness here, and that is ethnicity. A World Cup has humans from lots of regions of Earth all playing on the same pitch in the same city in the same climatic zone. Can it be said that the elephant on the pitch question of recent years, in football and other sports, has now become so obvious in the World Cup of 2026 that it must be stated? This blog is about facts, and it is stating here these facts.
Firstly the heat. Say the temperature in Miami, as Scotland lost to Brazil 0-3, was 33′ C, that’s 91 F, that’s hot. We here in mid latitudes of Britain have been suffering horribly in this heat wave, and certainly not running around. Only mad dogs and mad Englishmen and Scotsmen would go out in Miami heat, and certainly not play football. Further north, up from Stirling, of course it got a little cooler, but all up Britain, because of the abnormal heatwave no one was playing global football competitions. The Tartan Army (the Army with no leader) was much in the news with the effects of that alcohol, the sun, and the excitement of being at World Cup 2026. Many were ill, from the usual Scottish pastime of the drinking but in the heat (the French and Spanish sit calmly with a glass of wine and a glass of water in summer heat) but also from sunburn. We ancient Brits do not take the direct rays of Helios well in tropical latitudes, because we are designed to absorb those life giving and very beautiful rays of Light from way up north where Helios is never overhead.
Apart from the matter of different skin types, those with much melanin from Africa, middle East, and central Americas and those of pale complexions, which cause such different degrees of wellbeing in heat, there is also the simple bodily structure of different ethnicity. Now, this blog is well aware this gets into dodgy legal territory, it is very difficult to refer to ethnicity without raising some problem somewhere and wondering when the policeman’s hand on shoulder will come (in parlance of 50 years ago). However this blog deals with facts, and facts of the natural world, therefore real facts. Not social sciences facts. And when it comes to competitive sport there is a very big different between different ethnicities in bodily structure, bone length, muscle strength etc., even apart from that extremely difficult (but extremely basic fact) of skin colour and Sunlight. The match in which the Scotland team ‘failed’ its drunk Army supporters, and from which the manager simple said, ‘that’s it folks, I’m quitting’ (and quite right too because who should have to put up with such drunken opinionating?) and lost 0-3 to Brazil, has not been discussed in any real facts. The real facts are that a team of mostly black players, we’ll use the general term there just like white is a general term, were both more muscular than white football players, and – and – more bodily equipped to play in heat because of melanin in the skin and bodies way more comfortable in above 30’C heat.
Now it comes to England, awaiting the game against Mexico. This blog feels it necessary to raise this question because the England team has more mixed ethnicities with black players playing and white players playing, as shows the population of England. The heat is comfortable for black people, and the melanin in the skin protects against sunburn because it is designed to protect against Sunlight in order to balance life, health, and survival of its people. In Mexico the altitude has been the question, that those of any ethnicity not used to living and definitely not playing football, are severely disadvantaged. Unsporting tactics by Mexicans of drums, shouts, and all attempts to keep their opposite awake all night is easily solved by ear plugs. However this matter of humans from all over Earth playing extremely strenuous football in now worryingly unsafe climatic and altitude conditions, and in so many different physics playing together whether other sports clearly show the advantages like Ethiopians winning marathons, this blog is thinking that some kind of handicap needs to be in place. If the Scottish team had been awarded a handicap to Brazil of 4 goals at the beginning for Brazil to start on -4, then Scotland would have won the match, Miami would have been drunk dry, and the manager probably not resigned. For England to play at altitude, a handicap to Mexico could be also 4, so they start on -4, but with the superb strength and sporting beauty and fitness of black players in the English team, deduct 2, so Mexico start on handicap of -2. The match has not yet started, and the new variable of a big storm has so far not changed the kick off or prevented the match at all. In this year of 2026 at the Football World Cup this is a very good time to address that elephant on the pitch, and FIFA to set the precedent of the referee whistle to begin the match at England 2, Mexico 0. This is the year to address the facts of global sport.
