Once again, the man cave is in Italy. I wanted to title this one in Italian, to show how cultured and cosmopolitan I am, but apparently, there is no direct equivalent of ‘man cave’ in Italian. The nearest I could get was Dall’uomo delle caverne, meaning ‘from the caveman’, which I take as a compliment.
This week, it’s Florence with Mrs Watson, where we are prolonging the celebration of my first 70 years on earth. As reported in previous and recent columns, Italy has a migrant problem, and Florence has its fair share. Our hotel is near the main station, always a magnet for the great unwashed and the unwelcome. The place is crawling with what I take to be North African migrants.
The rain was torrential when we arrived, and we got caught in a downpour. Retreating to a large bookshop adjacent to the station, we had to run the gauntlet of umbrella sellers—dozens of them. In their usual pestering fashion, they stand next to you saying ‘umbrella’, repeating it more insistently, trying to get your attention. The more you ignore, the more they insist. If, finally, you say ‘no’, they say ‘what?’ and try to engage you that way.
They are just impossible to shake off; and while Florence is a lovely and fascinating place, these pests are a blight on the landscape. I have not yet unleashed Mrs Watson on them, although she is straining at the leash. I imagine, when the sun comes out, they sell sunglasses.
Hitler’s Shortcomings
As if being blamed for the Holocaust and labelled the most evil man in history (a title for which there are many contenders) were not bad enough, it seems that poor Adolf Hitler just cannot get a break. It now transpires, based on absolutely nothing but a shred of DNA which may not even be his, that he may have had a very small winkie.
According to some spurious genetic sequencing, he may have been short of a testicle and had a ‘micro-penis’. Defined as a penis shorter in length than two and a half centimetres, I have been trying to divert Mrs Watson’s attention from the news in case she rumbles that I may have been ‘economical with the truth’, with what I had always assured her was ‘a whopper’. It would be a terrible disappointment to her after 43 years of marriage.
Getting Cross about The Cross
Just as I was departing from the UK at the weekend, an article on BBC News was drawn to my attention titled ‘Why Tommy Robinson supporters are turning to Christianity’. Predictably, as the story involved Mr Robinson, the slant was negative. That Tommy’s supporters are embracing the faith was upsetting some folk. Were these Satanists, atheists, humanists, or Muslimists? No, they were Christians. Specifically, Church of England clergy.
You might think that the Church of England, with nearly 1000 churches closing in the past 30 years and around 400 of those in the past decade—mainly due to declining congregations and ensuing financial problems—would welcome a few converts. They seem to welcome unquestioningly plenty of migrants who claim to have seen the light and get baptised, despite their Muslim heritage. But the new wave of converts, inspired by the very successful Unite the Kingdom rally, seem to be too hot to handle. Toxic, even.
They are not being dismissed out of hand, and at least one vicar was prepared to engage with them to find out what was motivating them. He concluded, however: ‘I question whether some of these movements fully understand the gospel that they are seeming to walk behind’, which is funny as many would ask the same question about the Church of England. I suppose this is what you get if you send the Religion Editor of the BBC, Aleem Maqbool—a Muslim—to investigate.
Hudson’s Razor
If you have never watched the wonderful Dr John Campbell on YouTube, you should. John is a fellow nursing academic who saw the light during the Covid-19 scam. Initially, he was putting out videos which toed the UK government line and mainly repeated uncritically everything the UK Department of Health spouted. Nevertheless, he was always measured and never dogmatic.
Then he started to examine the figures around Covid and began to question them, and once it was clear that the Covid vaccines did not work and were causing genuine harm, he flipped (literally on one occasion). Since then, his videos have been unflinchingly critical of the Covid response. He recently explained his change of perspective in The John Campbell Story in conversation with arch-dissidents Neil Oliver and Dr Tim Kelly, a physician who saw through the Covid insanity very early.
In the process of a fascinating and entertaining chat, Neil Oliver refers to Hudson’s Razor, which was new to me but sums up the Covid-19 response. It goes as follows: Hudson’s Razor is apparent for any problem that is:
(1) presented as a global crisis,
(2) permits only global solutions,
(3) suppression of dissent.
If all of these apply, we are witnessing a scam. I, for one, will be vigilant as a result.
But back to Florence. I have a plan to improve the city:
- Banish all the migrants (see above),
- Clean up the dog shit (a regular hazard in many Italian cities),
- Consider pedestrianising some of the busiest tourist areas (even the narrowest of back streets and the most crowded of piazzas have a constant stream of traffic),
- Make tickets for attractions easier to purchase (this is at least a three-step process, and even once you have your QR code on the appropriate app, you still have to visit a ticket office to be issued with your hard copy ticket, which is scanned on entry. Why not just scan the QR code?).
The man cave relocates soon to the Far East, from whence I shall report.
Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and 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.
If you enjoy The New Conservative and would like to support our work, please consider buying us a coffee or sharing this piece with your friends – it would really help to keep us going. Thank you!
The sole named man interviewed about ‘Tommy Robinson supporters flocking to the CofE’ ought to be canonised for admitting he didn’t necessarily believe in God, but instead thought Christian Church attendance (even CofE) sent a message to those intent on Islamification. Pity more CofE, RC and Nonconformist clergy don’t make a similar confession (as their Covid response clearly demonstrated this).
It’s “from which” or “whence”, Perfesser, never “from whence”.
Have you ever travelled to anywhere and actually liked it?