Special steak & pancake recipe just for you

Just wanted to share my extra-special Steak & pancake recipe with you:

Take a good thick fillet steak & crust both sides with sea salt and freshly-ground black prepper. Heat a griddle on max heat for about 4 minutes so it's really hot then cook the steak for 2 minutes on one side and 1 minute on the other side. 

Leave it to stand (rest) for 4 minutes; then serve with English mustard and a side-salad.

What about the pancake? I hear you ask.

Who wants a fucking pancake when you've got fillet steak? 

Sorry. :)

Thanks for reading

Would you really throw open your doors to strangers without asking any questions about them?

Would you, seriously, open your doors and take somebody into your home without asking to know anything about them first? Given that you may have young kids, vulnerable older people, women, living there.

I think you'd want to know a bit more about the newcomers before you just let them in. I don't think you'd open your doors just on the basis that they were members of the same species as you.

But it's not even as simple as that is it? We're not talking about incomers about whom you know nothing are we? They have a track record which makes investigation even more vital.

You know that incomers, from the same place and having the same moral compass as supplied by their religious beliefs, who moved into your Western neighbour's house next door, have now made that place much worse than it was before.

Their previously happy home has now become a conflict zone, with areas of it no longer accessible to them. The incomers have taken over parts of the house and established their own laws and rules and are now unwilling to negotiate any kind of compromise or abide by any of the former house rules - rules which had, hitherto, meant for a stable, safe and prosperous environment in which everyone was very happy to live. And your neighbour is now advising the women in the household not to wear fashionable clothes or to go into areas of their former home on their own, because they're likely to be attacked, molested or raped by the people to whom your neighbour showed such generosity.

So, knowing this, I ask again, would you simply open your doors and welcome anyone in without wanting to ask some questions about their motivations and values and without making it clear that abiding by your 'house rules' was a fundamental requirement of your generosity?

I think if you would do that, you want your head examining.

What Donald Trump is advocating, is finding out the motivations and values of these potential incomers to find out how they might fit successfully (for you and them) into your home. Finding out (before it's too late and they have already settled in), whether they will play a positive part in the household and live by the rules that have made the 'house' so attractive in the first place, or whether their beliefs and values ought to preclude them from coming into your home because they would make it the same kind of hell-hole that exists next door and also exists in the lawless and terrible 'homes' from which they're fleeing. Where women in particular, are treated as third class human beings at best, where the victims of rape are prosecuted, where gay people are not just prosecuted but executed and there is a distinct lack of respect for anyone not sharing their religious beliefs (to say the very least).

I think Trump is right to want a pause in the influx so that we can ask these questions and establish the facts of the matter so that we can then take an informed decision on whether we should be welcoming these people into our homes or not.

is this what we want to happen in the UK? The US? It is happening in Germany & Sweden already

For what it's worth, I think we should be trying to help these people: We (in the guise of Blair, Bush and others) have contributed significantly to the creation of the hellish war zones from which they're fleeing. But we didn't effect the lifestyle change illustrated in the image above, they did that all by themselves. Because unscrupulous men made use of a set of archaic religious 'rules' written by an illiterate goatherd in the C7th when they thought the earth was flat, and whose medieval doctrine has always been oppressive of women and advocates an expansion of the religion through violence.

So we need to find a way in which we can welcome these oppressed people and which will allow them to be safe in, and contribute to, the West. We cannot do that without engaging and finding out what motivations and bullying doctrines need to be addressed before that can happen. Which means that just opening our doors without finding out what we're dealing with, just because we want to be seen as 'nice' people, is utter madness. It is also an approach which is leading directly to the loss of thousands of lives in the Mediterranean and the growing success of the totally evil people-traffickers. That's what our 'kindness' is actually doing.

It's time someone stood up for our Western values and our way of life and, given that the UK and European governments have so far proved to be doing anything but standing up for 'us', who better to take this much-needed stand than the President of the USA?

Those who are marching and protesting against his actions are effectively advocating that we open our doors without asking questions. But they wouldn't dream of opening their own doors if the situation arose. This makes them not just useful idiots, but dangerous idiots as well. It makes it imperative, for the very survival of our relatively free and fair lives in the West, that their stupid liberal views do not prevail.

Tell me I'm wrong.

Thanks for reading.

The EU, Germany, and the real reason why we voted to leave

We're far too polite in the UK. Thankfully, for you, I'm not.

The EU project, certainly since 1993, but the origins are much earlier, has been the continuation of Mr Hitler's project. It has been about the Germanification of Europe, pure and simple. This time it has been about banks not tanks, but the overall objective is exactly the same. A Europe with a single government, army, currency, flag, anthem etc.

A German government. A German Europe. And this time, instead of opposing it, we - and the French, Italians, Dutch, Belgians, Scandinavians etc - have been suckered in to paying for and supporting it. How brilliant is that from the Germans' point of view? And so soon after the last unpleasantness? Quite a feat for them and quite a shambles of inteligence and far too much politeness from us.

And while you might argue that this is about the Brussels-based EU, it's really Germany, isn't it? Think about it? The EU doesn't do anything without Frau Merkel's say-so. France is entirely impotent. Italy is fucked and Spain doesn't really know what day it is.

So the British referendum vote was about sovereignty. And a bit about immigration, but more about control of immigration than about us being anti-immigrant. I believe that and hope that it's true for my fellow Brexiteers. It may not be 100%, but I have the luxury of not being adversely affected by immigration while many aren't in that position. And there are some places in the UK where immigration is making life difficult for the indigenous population, even if the BBC and other media won't admit it.

In any case, that's what the polls tell us: Sovereignty - laws made by people who might actually have heard of where you live and who you can kick out at an election if they don't deliver, was the biggest issue for voters in our referendum. Or was it?

How do you plan and provide the infrastructure needed for a population the size of
Newcastle every year? Especially if you don't actually know what numbers you're dealing with?

I think there was a bigger, but perhaps more subliminal issue involved. I think it was that the Brits recognised that this EU thing is about a German take-over of Europe and that brings two issues into play: One is that we don't want the fucking Germans taking over the Europe that our predecessors fought and died to protect, and the other is that we do actually care for our fellow Europeans, French, Italians, Spanish etc, because we know them, we holiday there; we like them and what they have to offer. And, simply put, we want Italy, France, Spain et al, to continue to be Italy, France & Spain, not fucking Germany-by-the-sea.

In short, we like what Europe has to offer; its diversity, culture, food, music - well actually not so much the music - but the lifestyle and attitude of its different countries. In many ways, because they're not the serious, unfunny, austere, frankly pretty boring Germans. We actually want the Europe that we know and love to continue to be there; quirky, interesting, diverse, relaxed, friendly, warm rather than regimented, uptight, austere, domineering, cold, northern. 

Yes I have worked in Germany and have German friends - they'd laugh at this description but probably also admit its veracity in some ways. In many ways what I'm describing is the behavior of a country rather than the individuals who populate it.

And if Germany takes over, the Europe of the future simply won't be as fantastic a place as it is now.

What passes for 'Cuisine' in Germany :)

We also have an inherent dislike of bullies - and one of the founding principles of the EU was that it would protect the smaller, weaker nations from the larger, stronger ones. How's that working out? Exactly the opposite is what has actually happened. Germany has used the EU and its rules to impose German rules and standards on the place (which is why Greece and Italy are in such a mess) and has also taken advantage of a much better currency exchange rate than it could possibly hope for with the Deutschmark, to give it an unfair international trading advantage - something I've been complaining about for years but which has only, in the last week, been picked up by the USA as a major issue.

Anyway, as usual, the Germans are making a right fucking mess of their own country and of Europe. Without the UK the EU will probably fail quite quickly, but in any case, once they see that we are thriving outside their protectionist 'club' many more EU member states will want to leave too. And then we'll be back to a Europe of independent nation states, able to re-balance their economies by devaluing their currencies and able to continue to be great places in which to live, work and play. And then, for the 3rd time in 100 years, the actions of the Brits will have foiled Germany's expansionist 'habit' and will have saved Europe form itself once again.

Of course by then, the way Frau Merkel is going, Germany and Sweden might be majority Muslim countries - and Islam doesn't have the best track record for creating free, open, tolerant, mixed, modern societies. But that's another issue for another time.

Thanks for reading.