From the Man Cave XXIV

It’s been a while since I have gazed out at the world from the man cave, mid-December in fact. It has not stopped me writing, but a couple of ‘Silly Season’ columns were the best I could do. Now that we have cut steps across the frozen waste that is our garden to the man cave however, we’re back in business.

Let’s all go to London

Great news, London is now safer according to (night)Mayor Sadiq Khan. Safer than what, one wonders? Possibly London is safer than Kiev or the Donbas; possibly. But it’s still pretty unsafe according to plenty of people.

I suppose, if you drive through in an armoured car and carry an AK-47 with you, then you might be safe. A decade ago, there were half the number of sexual offences (presumably against women) as there were last year; 27,649 of them. The number of rapes has increased annually by around 10%.

That doesn’t sound too safe for women, but as people of a darkish hue who know the Koran inside out are overrepresented among those committing sexual offences, let’s turn a blind eye to that and mount education campaigns for women on how to stay safe. London’s Women’s Night Safety Charter opens with the lie, ‘London is a safe city, but too many women feel unsafe when travelling’.

If London is safe, then why do we need a charter? If women ‘feel unsafe’ then why do they feel unsafe? Could it be the increasing number of young men (of a darkish hue…etc) who are wandering the streets and their behaviour? Posters on public transport about ‘Intrusive staring’ will have little effect. The people at whom they are aimed – not the young white men usually depicted – will not be able to read the bloody posters.

Phone theft is falling, according to Police Commissioner Rowley – yeah! It’s such a relief that the level fell to 117,211 in 2024. Unbelievable. It’s like telling the population of Kiev it’s great news that fewer drones dropped bombs on them last year than the previous year. What they want is no drones.

What Londoners actually want is to be able to make a phone call, send a text (possibly to say they are being sexually assaulted) without having the phone whipped out of their hands. Perhaps the figures have fallen because everyone has had their phone nicked. It certainly has happened to me once in London.

HS2 Still Not Finished – Government Announces Sequel

There is nothing ‘high speed’ about the completion of the HS2 rail line which is now a decade behind schedule and estimated to cost £9 billion. Promises of a better link between London and Birmingham are all very well if the service does not yet exist. But seeing as it does exist, we’re looking at HS2 cutting the journey time by around 10 minutes: a ten year wait for a ten-minute improvement.

Next up in the comedy rail show is the proposal for a new line between Manchester and Birmingham. This is due to the shoddy state of existing lines and the fact that the as yet non-existent HS2 will not even go to (or from) where it was promised (TNC passim). But shoddy lines will still be a better option than a non-existent line, for that is what will undoubtedly happen. The line will take years longer than planned to complete and will land the taxpayer with a vastly inflated bill. One thing is for sure, at 70 years old I am certain that I need never worry about the new line between Manchester and Birmingham. I’ll have caught the last train to the coast long before a train ever runs on it.

What’s going on at Reform?

I had high hopes when Nigel Farage was elected and the first Reform MPs joined him on the green benches. The numbers have been swelled significantly by defecting MPs from the Conservative Party, the latest of which is Nadhim Zahawi.

At which point, any hopes I had of seeing Reform in power or changing anything for the better if they achieve power have dissolved. Apart from his tax irregularities (better take care how we refer to that), he was Vaccines Minister under Boris Johnson. That means he was part of the authoritarian regime that pushed an untested and unnecessary medical intervention on the population of the UK which has had demonstrably harmful effects. I’ve not heard him apologising.

He claims to have come from a liberal Muslim background, where women were not required to cover and restrictions on alcohol were ignored. So, not really a Muslim at all.

Still, every cloud. His appointment, along with the Muslim chair of Reform led John Ellwood to pen a brilliant article in TCW Defending Freedom on Farage’s Cabinet Choices – which I urge you to read. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as Home Secretary and Shamima Begum as Minister for Travel and Tourism should give you a flavour.

Songs we won’t hear anymore

Scanning YouTube over the Festive Season I came across a best of The Old Grey Whistle Test. Does anyone recall this late Friday night show, originally hosted by Whispering Bob Harris? It was a kind of alternative to Top of The Pops as it played alternative music, and many stars who ‘mainstreamed’ long before they were stars.

I was impressed by how awful some of the music was. I see many clips from the show on YouTube, and I could have chosen a much better best of. But I was also impressed by how hot Debbie Harry – who fronted Blondie – was, and I thought that any band with her at the front was likely to make it, whether they could play or not.

One of the acts was an early Bangles singing Walk like an Egyptian. Another terrible song by an all female (almost) line-up that badly needed Debbie Harry up-front. But Walk like an Egyptian? Can you imagine the outcry if a song with that title came on the market today?

It’s up there with Turning Japanese by The Vapors and China Girl by David Bowie. I’m sure there are other songs specifying countries that would cause a social media storm these days. When I was very young a band called Union Gap sang Young Girl which, it only really became apparent years after Jimmy Savile had done so much to popularise the practice, was about paedophilia. Of course, it also laid the blame firmly on the girl which would have made it doubly unpopular.

I am sure that readers of TNC can think up song titles to offend the usual suspects these days. So far, all I have is Bomb like an Islamist, Turning Jihadi and Are you looking at my cousin? Suggestions welcome.

Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.

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