Shake me up Judy

RIP Dickie Betts. A beautiful guitar player.

Thommo will be along just now to tell us that we didn't need to know then and we don't need to know now. It's like a Manx statute of limitations on news over here. We have to protect the brand... The reality will be that the employee has 'left the Island' and moved on. They will have been 'incentivised' to keep schtum and no charges will be brought. If however...

Onchan Commissioners are a basket case. That's local 'democracy' for you.

Guess who...

Israeli settlements will be the best thing for Gaza. The only thing in fact. The Arabs have pissed away their future with the gun and the rocket and look where it's got them. Palestinians will be made welcome and will have homes, schools and hospitals. More than Hamas ever gave them.

Isn't this a police matter ?

One of many sorry examples of our corrupt planning system and architectural vandalism. I wonder who the developer was at Woodbourne Road ?

Why should Israel show restraint ? Why only Israel ? What about the states who are lobbing the rockets and constantly attacking Israel ? Shouldn't they show restraint ? The Arabs didn't 'own' the area of Palestine. The clue's in their name. They're Arabs and not native to the region like the Jews who lived there thousands of years ago. The Arab empire colonised it during the Moslem conquests of the Middle-East around CE600. If you're going to quote it then get the history right. It's no use raising the Irish question either. There's hardly a country on earth that 's not been settled and resettled many times over thousands of years, including the IOM. Look at Europe over just the last century or so. Ireland's not unique by any stretch.

Another Israeli fiction then, like the October 07th attacks ?

It's a measure of how low British politics has sunk that Humza Yousaf is leading Scotland over the cliff, while 'Red Ange' the Ginger Growler is a whisker away from being U.K. Deputy Prime Minister. How did things get this bad ?

That's the bigger story here for some of you now isn't it. The fact that it wasn't an Islamist (For a change) and the 'racists' assumptions were wrong. It's your proof of ultimate cause and the guy that did it is off the moral hook.

Let's get this right. Without Israel's defences and the co-ordinated international response, including Jordan, that drone and Cruise missile attack would've obliterated much of Israel with deaths in the hundreds of thousands. It was no mere firework display. That was an all-out act of war on the comparable scale of a WW2 thousand bomber raid. Any retaliation would be entirely justified.

Who'll replace the mullahs though ? Peace isn't an option while Israel exists. It's holy war to the last Jew.

'Start the day with something different' they always say. Just listened to Beyonce; Ellan Vannin on autoharp; and Kavus Torabi, who I've never heard of. Liked them all.

Can't believe you posted that Helix...

Knock it off Teapot. You're just as bad with your man in pub 'I'll fight anyone' attitude. Your common sense solutions fail to appreciate the true history and politics of the region. Don't be taken in by the lies and the ideology and think you're a clear-sighted moralist and realist.

Gerry on drums here:

Played on the Island on at least one occasion. I listened to that Fotheringay album remastered a year or two ago. A beautiful record sounded better than ever.

Nothing 'unbelievable' about it. They're winning the long war and the more martyrs the quicker that victory will come. There's approx ten million Jews in Israel (Plus nearly two million Arabs) but there are over one billion Muslim Arabs in the wider region. Plenty to throw on the pyre with bodies to spare. Plus they've moved into all the western democracies in vast numbers and have succeeded in brainwashing their student populations, their cultural institutions, and most of the liberal left. Israel will win the short war but ultimately they're losing it.

We don't generally. There's plenty that goes on here that's unreported and unpublished.

Perhaps I missed it but I'm still waiting for the proper reporting of the incident at last July's Southern Hundred where two spectators lost their lives. Or is it none of my business ?

Who's going to be the first dummy to register their doorbell ? They're having a laugh surely.

I tried it years ago and gave up after a few chapters. There was a film with Albert Finney if you can find it. I can't stand those modernist novels that are more like cryptic crossword puzzles. Joyce and Woolf infected literature for the next fifty plus years with their stream of consciousness style that shuts out the reader. I've given up on Ulysses half a dozen times once I get to that inner monologue section with Stephen on the beach. It just turns me off and I always lose patience. I prefer the audio versions where the author doesn't get in the way and you can enjoy the language, the sounds and the characters. Under the Volcano is another tiresome slog through pure language with little story, plot, or character. I don't want to read about any more middle-class failed alcoholics either, squandering away their inheritance and private education in fashionable remote locations, slumming it with the poor of nations not their own.

But that was the beauty of comprehensive education and inclusivity. We put all the kids who didn't want to learn in the same classes as those that did. We were promised that it would level up education. The reality was somewhat different but nobody listened. That's how we've ended up where we are with the kids effectively in charge, because the teachers have little real power or authority. It's mostly nominal authority.