Partying like it's 1984

Welcome

Welcome

You've found Russell & Carol.  We're lucky enough to live in a beautiful part of Cornwall which we shared with Astra the rescue dog and her predecessor Melys, and a lot of computers.  We sometimes get around to blogging about things which interest/enrage us when we're not practising relaxing.

If you've registered with the site you should be able to see a selection of pictures.

 

 

June 2026

Still recovering from building - too busy enjoying being dry!! though thinking some sun might be nice.  Trying to reviber the squashed (and unsquashed) garden.  Working on clearing and planning... TMC meetings still convening every few weeks.  Expecting farly flung visitors! 

 

May 2026

Well, building has happened... pretty much every room changed... more decisions needed.... 

Sunny start to the month - then rain and gloom, ending on a heatwave! Decided to honour the ancient holidays... and extend... so much reading done.

 

April 2026

Some of our pictures

Daytime View from the Living RoomSennenAnything HayleEvening View from the Living RoomSt Michaels Mount Picture by local artist Kevin Platt | @PRScredda1646 | Cornvbia sive Cornwallia | Joan BlaeuNorth Cornwall coast, gorgeous sunsetCornish autumn sunset - Helston
 

Angarrack Weather

Weather at Angarrack

Angarrack is a small village outside Hayle, in Cornwall

Weather at Hayle - Foundry End - about a mile west of Angarrack as the crow flies

IHAYLE2

Carol

Title Type Datesort icon
Failures in oversight of privatised water companies | Who broke Britain? i Paper’s opinion series; debate about modern Britain Blog entry 17 min 28 sec
Kraft's hostile takeover of Cadbury | Who broke Britain? i Paper’s opinion series ; debate issues about modern Britain Blog entry 32 min 48 sec
Who broke Britain? i Paper’s opinion series in which experts and writers debate issues that concern them about modern Britain Blog entry 51 min 57 sec
Quotes-Keir Starmer resign office of Prime Minister, his legacy of total complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza will follow him Blog entry 3 days 1 hour
Quotes-We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders, follow us disquietly.. Blog entry 1 week 5 days
‘Absolutely Cynical’:Russia FM Spox Zakharova SLAMS Western Media for Attending SPIEF Forum but Ignoring Terror Attack in Russia Blog entry 3 weeks 23 hours
Quotes-Xi only mentioned one war - the conflict in the Middle East; told Putin complete end to war in Iran of "utmost urgency" Blog entry 4 weeks 5 days
Remembering in 2026 - Chernyobl 26th April 1986 On This Day 8 weeks 5 days
The Flitch of Bacon | Essex Standard | Royal Cornwall Gazette - Saturday 06 October 1832 Blog entry 9 weeks 2 days
Bees | Shrewsbury Chronicle | Royal Cornwall Gazette - Saturday 06 October 1832 Blog entry 9 weeks 2 days
The Dog | Sheffield Mercury | Royal Cornwall Gazette - Saturday 06 October 1832 Blog entry 9 weeks 2 days
Quotes-Sauce for the Goose: A primer on legal clichés; by Alexander Chandler KC; June 24, 2 Blog entry 9 weeks 5 days
more

Recent posts for Russell

Russell's picture

Neo-Liberalism at its finest...?

Sun, 27/11/2011 - 10:56pm — Russell

So, the top man at Thomas Cook trousers £15m in 'hard earned and decent' (my sarcasm) bonuses over the last couple of years and now Thomas Cook is in dire trouble and planning to lay off thousands.  Well thank goodness for Free markets.  Nurses, teachers and other public servants must have their pensions cut, but goold old chief executives must have huge payouts even in times of trouble.  We're all in it together of course....

 

Russell's picture

Gaza Flotilla II Underway

Tue, 28/06/2011 - 11:55pm — Russell

Many brave people are going with the Gaza Flotilla II assembling in the Med right now.  The Zionist Entity has made its usual revolting attempts to stop the ships before they sail and smear the people but the ships are going.  Shame on Greece, Cyprus, The USA, Canada, France and Australia for telling their citizens not to participate.  Interestingly The Zionist Entity is claiming that people on the flotilla entering Gazan waters 'will be treated as individuals having attempted to enter Israel illegally' (Jerusalem Post) thus demonstrating that they consider Gaza to be under the authority of the Zionist Entity...

Russell's picture

Oh FFS religionists again...

Fri, 12/02/2010 - 1:50am — Russell

I nearly choked on my old man's sherry recently when I read about a 'science' teacher in the USA (where else?) who liked to add christian commentary to his science lessons basically saying the science he was teaching was wrong and that his religious view was correct.  He had been sacked it seemed and there was a 'reinstate him' movement from the concerned kids who were praying for him because they now believed science was unreliable.

 

Russell's picture

Cyrus the Great of Persia - the first Christ of the Judaeans

Thu, 08/11/2007 - 5:13pm — Russell

"And when no elite existed, one could always be imported from elsewhere. Cyrus [the Great, founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire], even as he flattered the Babylonians with the attentions he paid to Marduk [Babylonian God], had not ignored the yearnings of the city's deportees, exiles such as the Judaeans, brought to Babylon decades previously - for the Persians had recognised in these wretched captives, and in their homesickness, a resource of great potential.

Russell's picture

The UK Surveillance Society

Sat, 10/05/2008 - 10:47pm — Russell

"If you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear" is the mantra of the proponents of the surveillance society. It's rubbish of course as we all have things to hide such as our bank account or credit card details! Privacy International's 2007 survey gave the UK the lowest privacy ranking in the EU putting it in the 'endemic surveillance' category alongside Russia and Singapore. So do we good citizens actually need to worry?

 

Recent posts for Carol

Failures in oversight of privatised water companies | Who broke Britain? i Paper’s opinion series; debate about modern Britain

Fri, 26/06/2026 - 12:41pm — Carol

...while the ills of our privatised water industry have many authors – from
Margaret Thatcher, who put it into private hands in 1989, to the
rapacious venture capitalists, who have stripped its assets and loaded
it with debt, to the company chiefs, who have been responsible for the despoilation of our rivers,
and to successive governments, who have been complicit in weakening
regulation – Sir James Bevan, one-time head of the Environment Agency,
is, in many eyes, seen as emblematic of the failures in oversight of
privatised water companies, the personification of a system that has
failed us all.

 

But it’s best to begin this shocking tale here.

There are 195 countries
in the world. Some are big, some small. Some are highly developed,
others not so much. Some are rich. Some poor.

Now for the extraordinary
fact.

Guess how many of those countries have put its water industry
fully into private hands.

Kraft's hostile takeover of Cadbury | Who broke Britain? i Paper’s opinion series ; debate issues about modern Britain

Fri, 26/06/2026 - 12:25pm — Carol

Cadbury was an icon of British industry and philanthropy; the fact it
made damn tasty chocolate was just a bonus. The Cadbury family built
the brand on socialist principles in the 19th century, using the vast
wealth their product generated to build hospitals, establish saving
banks for the working classes, and provide vital resources for the
blind. This was a time when the mega rich used their wealth to build
libraries and public parks, ....

John Cadbury was a Quaker, a teetotaller, and an early
environmentalist. He campaigned for better child labour laws, for animal
rights, and against the slum conditions the poor of Victorian Britain
suffered under. He believed in improving the lives of his workforce and
when his two sons took over the family business in 1861, they set about
achieving their father’s dream of building a model town for their
factory workers: Bournville, now a major suburb of Birmingham.

...

Who broke Britain? i Paper’s opinion series in which experts and writers debate issues that concern them about modern Britain

Thu, 25/06/2026 - 12:00am — Carol

 

 

Who broke Britain? Welcome to The i Paper’s opinion series in which experts and writers debate the issues that concern them about modern Britain.

Quotes-Keir Starmer resign office of Prime Minister, his legacy of total complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza will follow him

Tue, 23/06/2026 - 11:19am — Carol

“Keir Starmer may be resigning the office
of Prime Minister but his legacy of total
complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza
will follow him forever.

From political cover for war crimes and
the authoritarian suppression of peaceful
protest in Britain, to the countless
surveillance operations and arms exports
to Israel, despite clear evidence of the
mass murder of Palestinians, he has
aided and abetted one of the greatest
crimes in history."

 

"― Ned Boulting via King Lear; June 28, 2026 "

 

Quotes-We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders, follow us disquietly..

Sun, 14/06/2026 - 11:53am — Carol

“We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders, follow us disquietly to our graves." Anyway. Stage 19 of the Giro tomorrow, so there's always that.

 

"― Ned Boulting via King Lear; June 28, 2026 "

 

‘Absolutely Cynical’:Russia FM Spox Zakharova SLAMS Western Media for Attending SPIEF Forum but Ignoring Terror Attack in Russia

Thu, 04/06/2026 - 1:55pm — Carol

The BBC and CNN have rejected an invitation to visit the site of the deadly Ukrainian drone attack on a Russian college dorm

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has urged the participants of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) to begin every conversation with Western journalists with the word "Starobelsk."

Starobelsk is a town in Russia's Lugansk People's Republic where 21 people, mostly teenage girls, were killed and dozens more injured in a multi-wave Ukrainian drone attack on a college dorm on May 22.

Western politicians turned a blind eye to the atrocity, while the BBC and CNN rejected an invitation by the Russian authorities to visit the site of the attack.

Quotes-Xi only mentioned one war - the conflict in the Middle East; told Putin complete end to war in Iran of "utmost urgency"

Sat, 23/05/2026 - 3:11pm — Carol

Xi only mentioned one war - and that was the conflict in the Middle East.

He told Putin that a complete end to the war in Iran was of "utmost urgency"

Xi and Putin both called out 

  • treacherous military strikes against other
    countries, 
  • the hypocritical use of negotiations as cover for preparing
    such strikes, 
  • the assassination of leaders of sovereign states, 
  • the
    destabilisation of the domestic political situation in these states and
    the provocation of regime change, 
  • and the brazen kidnapping of national
    leaders for trial.

 

Remembering in 2026 - Chernyobl 26th April 1986

Sun, 26/04/2026 - 12:05pm — Carol

Today marks 40 years since the tragedy in .
On this day we commemorate all those - emergency rescuers, military
& civilian personnel - who gave lives to quell the aftermath.
"Chernobyl liquidators" were instrumental in limiting damage from the
disaster

 

Picture(s): 
Date: 
Sat, 26/04/1986

The Flitch of Bacon | Essex Standard | Royal Cornwall Gazette - Saturday 06 October 1832

Wed, 22/04/2026 - 11:59am — Carol

 

 

The Flitch of Bacon.—The jocular custom
of claiming a flitch of bacon at Dunmow Priory
is shortly to be revived.   Notice was given in
due form, on Tuesday last, that the happy couple
—who will be prepared to swear that, for twelve
months and a day, they had never made nuptial
transgression—offended each other in word or
deed—never wished themselves unmarried again,
but have continued true in thought and desire
will, as soon as qualified by time, which will
occur next month, attend, and demand the re-
ward.—Essex Standard.

 

 

 

Bees | Shrewsbury Chronicle | Royal Cornwall Gazette - Saturday 06 October 1832

Wed, 22/04/2026 - 11:44am — Carol

 

 

Bees.—Repeated swarms of bees have for
the last twenty years been known to occupy a
disused chimney, attached to the premises held
by Messrs. Hughes, grocers and drapers, Cross-
Street, Oswestry.   Mr. Samuel Vaughan, brick-
layer, for the first time, entered the treasure-
house on Wednesday, by taking upwards of six
feet in height of brickwork out, and nearly one
foot in breadth, the whole of which was in pos-
session of these industrious workmen, whose
dwelling (the honeycomb) was about 14 inches
thick inside the chimney.   This filled, we are
informed, four pails and two buckets, and will
weigh about 2cwt.   The brickwork is made up
again, and an aperture left for the bees to recom-
mence their work.—Shrewsbury Chronicle.

 

Quotes-Sauce for the Goose: A primer on legal clichés; by Alexander Chandler KC; June 24, 2

Sat, 18/04/2026 - 1:34pm — Carol

Sauce for the Goose: A primer on legal clichés
By Alexander Chandler KC
June 24, 2020

Headings:

  • Stacking shelves at Tesco
  • Sauce for goose is sauce for gander 
  • Cutting one’s coat according to one’s cloth
  • Meal ticket for life
  • Copper bottomed assets and the plum duff
  • Marital acquest

 

 

 

“Conclusion


No advocate, however eloquent, can avoid using clichés altogether. However, we would all do well by resisting the temptation to resort to such easy, hackneyed phrases as “sauce for the goose”, “cutting one’s coat/ cloth” or “meal ticket”.

In Politics and the English Language Orwell proposed six rules which, if anything, apply more forcefully now than they did 70 years ago: