It’s not just Gregorian calender

rateful for the long vacation (staycation this year), it has only a few hours left to it, then we wait until Xmas Eve. There will also be some football later tonight, tomorrow it’s back to normal, formally.

So we’ve managed to visit a lot of places, do a lot of exercise, prepare a lot of food, and tidy up everything, not just digital stuff.

2027 is looking like another year of conflict of Ukraine and maybe beyond it [1-3]. I keep watching the news about that war (every day since it began!) because I fear sooner or later it’ll expand to NATO territories.

Putin would rather destroy his country’s people and diminish the economy than admit that he was wrong and foolish.

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1. China will stop Russia from going nuclear, Finland’s Stubb says

2. Don’t write off Russia’s defence industry yet

   Despite Ukraine’s recent battlefield successes, it is far too early to write off Russia, which is rebuilding its military in ways that many in the west have underestimated. Instead of simply replacing battlefield losses, it is creating a defence industry that combines Soviet-era industrial capacity with the demands of 21st-century warfare. The goal is not just to produce more tanks, but to reshape its military around the “asymmetric” advantages revealed by the war in Ukraine: drones, compact electronic warfare systems and other low-cost technologies that can be fielded at scale.

3. Kyiv suffers hours of daytime air raids as Russia deploys new jet-powered drones

   Kyiv is enduring hours of daytime air raids and air raid warnings as Russia has fired 800 jet-powered drones into Ukraine in four days, using the faster weapons to sustain prolonged waves of attacks

   The new-model Shahed drones have a cruising speed of 200mph to 250mph, about double the 115mph achieved by the piston-engine version and beyond the speed of Ukraine’s cheap interceptors, making them harder to stop.

Our vacation comes to an end

his morning we published this latest part in a long series, explaining why – as our Jewish solicitor at the time might put it – Garrett ended up in a broch. His online behaviour for many years made this inevitable – he was mingling with the wrong people to cause trouble to people more far qualified than himself.

There’s a lesson somewhere in all this.

Life goes on

EPTEMBER is around the corner and before too long it’ll be the end of 2026, another year of drought and Ukraine war.

Life goes on and on. We’ve always had some sort of conflict somewhere (Cold War is not kinetic, but it impacts psychology). People need to find a way to keep healthy and happy, then move on from one task to the next.

Today it is “market day” and definitely too rainy to visit the birds at the park (in the afternoon as we hoped). Manchester United has a match it must win at 4:30PM.

Tidying up things ahead of another productive year

reat times come to an end and our vacation is nearly over. Tuesday it’s back to normal.

Yesterday I tidied up around the home and this weekend I’ll prepare stories for September. I still have some physical notebooks with potential future stories. For now they’re in the cabinet.

Test two for Enzo

T 8PM tonight (BST) the match will kick off down south. I plan to watch that, it’s only 4 hours away; maybe I’ll keep an eye on the score instead, as it’s a late Friday match.

Today we took a look at a large construction project across the road from the stadium. 3 months ago that construction project was still in its diapers, as can be seen in this video of “Pep” inside the taxi (where he picks up the grown up “kid”).

That project replaces a truly awful and high-crime area that was an eyesore and a problem for the stadium’s image… and problem for the pub across the road (where we watched the England-Argentina semi-final), even the Tesco Express down the road. It’ll not look like this when done:

Pubs around that area are dying. They become relics. We run past them sometimes. That makes way for more “modern” things:

Hoping Enzo does “justice” to these investments.

It probably goes without saying, it’s actually an understatement

he other day I made it very clear that Roy and Rianne speak for Roy and Rianne. Sending messages to us and also to my mother would be inappropriate.

Why can’t Brett Wilson LLP get the very basics right? Did these people actually graduate from law school?

HIS year I heard the term “emotional vulture” many times and wrongly assumed it might be similar to “crocodile tears” (a fake emotion(al) crocodile that cries for the people or animals it devours). As it turns out, emotional vulture is one who preys on the emotionally vulnerable – i.e. it is something different altogether. It’s said to refer to a manipulative dating trend that targets people going through a breakup (or similar ordeal). I remember a Norwegian girl showing interest in me when her Danish boyfriend was not treating her well; I wasn’t preying on her, it felt like she was using me to try to get him (the boyfriend) jealous or not to take her for granted.

Anyway, today I saw a Crocodile or Rhino shedding off tears. It was some angry lawyer who operates under the false impression that while labouring as a hired gun with death threats, threats to decapitate sites, and threats to put a family in prison he is somehow a poor victim. Are these people as drunk as their clients?

Seriously, how can such pathetic and aggressive people seriously portray themselves as the victims? Someone who explains their behaviour is doing a public service, nothing else.