The 'Triple Lock'

 

OAP's in the UK are about to be clobbered yet again. 

Previously they were protected by the 'Triple Lock'; a system that compared three lots of figures. 1: Inflation. 2: Average wage growth. And 3: a flat rate of 2.5%. The Old Age Pension payments always kept pace with the highest of these three figures. This will soon be abolished by the Socialists, and those who have PAID INTO the system all their lives will no doubt find themselves poorer, with the saved money going to pay BENEFITS to those who've mostly never paid a penny towards their hand-outs. 

The State Pension in the UK is £240 per week; £12,500 per annum.

To keep just one illegal immigrant in the UK costs an average of £53,000 per annum.

Only the Wokiest of left-wing Wokies would suggest that that was fair. And they will now take even more from the OAP's to pay for those who are in the country illegally, and have never paid a single penny into the system.

Of course not all Benefits Payments are made to Illegal Immigrants, there are only around 1.2 Million of them, and I doubt very much if all 1.2 Million of them cost the country £53.000 pa. 

It does seem very unfair to take away from those who have contributed, but no longer have a powerful voice. Labour has always been a 'Tax, and Spend' party, but they're now a 'Tax, Plunder, and Spend' party.

It'll only get worse. Next month we have The Budget. Hide your daughters!!!

More Rubber Boat trouble

 

Whilst we pay France £Hundreds of Millions to stop the illegal-immigrant-filled rubber boats leaving France, and we pay a fortune for the UK's own Border Force to bring them over to England's shores, there was just one man who did what others are being paid to do, when he tried to puncture one of the immigrant gang's boats.

And, OF COURSE, he was arrested. We actually pay the French to do what Tommo did, yet he was taken to court and refused bail.

I am no supporter of Danny Tommo (Thomas), or his chum Tommy Robinson (Yaxley-Lennon), but it has to be said that they are amongst the few who are actually prepared to do something positive against this dreadful influx of foreign criminals into the UK. Neither the French nor the English forces do anything to halt the flow; but we arrest the one man who does! It might have been better to arrest our Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, for NOT doing anything!!!

This picture below actually shows the French authorities handing the boat people 'life jackets' for their journey to the UK.

I believe that the French Gendarmes have indeed punctured one or two boats, but, as opposed to Tommo, they weren't arrested. In the UK you're arrested for tying to prevent crime.

Mr Tommo now faces a possible jail sentence. And his black-clad, and masked, supporters will be in trouble if they're seen wearing face coverings (this doesn't apply to those E-Bike hooligans who cause so much trouble, or the hijab masked women, etc).

People in the UK talk of 'Two Tier Policing', which the government says doesn't exist. Well you couldn't get clearer examples of it than we've seen recently. Certain 'minority' sections of society are allowed to cover themselves, but white native citizens AREN'T.

I have no idea if it's a CRIME to attempt to prevent illegal immigrants from entering the UK, but if it is, then Tommo must be punished. However, it does seem to most people that he was helping to deter them; and that should be lauded. Our 'Border Force' people are actually aiding and abetting illegal immigration; shouldn't they be the ones to be arrested?

I hate to bring 'racism' into ANY argument, but in this case it's at its core. And this time it's our own government who are guilty, not their hated UK citizens.

N.B. Tommo hasn't been mentioned in the press for a while, so I don't know if he's still behind bars. Maybe like the FIVE young men who tried to BLOW-UP some US Airbase recently, he's been allowed out on bail.

Yet more on Sausages.

In my never-ending search for a decent English Sausage, I recently bought these from Sainsbury's. They promised to be 'Toulouse Inspired'.

I think the French Code de la Consommation folk may dispute their description under their Pratique Commerciale Trompeuse rules and regs, but I wasn't too bothered.

In fact they were very pleasant. Lots of herbs with a slight hint of Garlic, they were meaty and very tasty. The only thing that let them down was the description as 'Toulouse Inspired' which they certainly WERE NOT.

Frankly I don't think I'm going to find better, unless I search-out a pukka butcher who was trained in either France or Italy. But for the moment they'll do!

Verdict: 7/10, I shall certainly keep some in the freezer for 'emergencies'. 

 

Scaffolding.

 

Firstly I must say that I HATE scaffolding, and ours will be taken down as soon as possible. Scaffolding makes the whole area look scruffy.

We finally decided to paint the front and back of our bijou residence. We are the last to do so in our row of four houses, and we were beginning to look a tad scruffy. The painted surfaces are quite small, so we decided to do the job ourselves; with the help of grandson Suave Harve. In doing so we have saved a considerable amount of dosh; and Harve's Beer Fund has benefitted.

There was a small amount of preparatory filling to be done, which I undertook myself, otherwise it was a simple paint job.

All tradesmen charge a fortune these days. A professional painter would probably have charged anything up to £5,000. We ordered the scaffolding ourselves (£900), and bought all the paint etc (£70), so it made sense to clamber up the scaffolding with brush and a pot of paint, and to do it ourselves. The saving was enough for a Caribbean Cruise, a crate of Bollinger, and a month's stay at The Savoy.

This past Summer I fell off ladders TWICE, and I still have a sore head as a souvenir. So I wasn't really looking forward to going up to do too much, but I'm a foolhardy soul and I couldn't resist. In fact I could hardly wait to do some climbing and view the house from a totally new viewpoint.

The filling of tiny cracks was child's-play, and was almost a pleasure to do. The weather was perfect, and the filler I'd bought was very user-friendly. The two walls, front and back, were ready to paint in less than a couple of hours. At the same time I squirted some clear silicone into the joins between some parapet tiles. As I was busy atop the scaffold, my neighbour 'The Bishop' went past and we had a few words. I felt blessed and much safer.

Many years ago when I owned a big classic Brighton Victorian terraced house, it was painted white back and front. We employed a business called 'University Painters' to do the painting job. They were a couple of female students, who earned themselves a pretty penny painting houses at weekends, by just using ladders. No scaffolding for these intrepid erstwhile wall-artists. They had no qualms about climbing-up three stories of ladders, and did a great job.

No doubt with Elf-n-Safety rules these days, such enterprise would be BANNED.

Our present work took just one relaxed day, and the finished job looks great. We used 'Sandtex' Paint, which is slightly textured, and is very forgiving. The finish is very smooth.

Well done Harve; job done! 

p.s. I am now wondering what my left-wing trolls will find to insult me about. I'm sure they'll find something. 

Full-ish Engl-ish

Friday mornings mean just one thing; breakfast with Kimbo at 7 am (on the dot).

Kimbo (like me) is a very good time-keeper. I can prepare everything in advance so that when he walks through the door, he makes us both a coffee (his job), and we immediately sit down to eat.

Yesterday's breakfast was a tad meagre; sadly there was no Haggis or Black Pudding on offer.

I do try to make changes. We recently enjoyed a Cheese and Ham Omelette together, and just occasionally we have a French breakfast of Croissants with Apricot Jam.

However, yesterday we had Baked Beans on Luxury Toast (the crusts were cut off), fried Egg, Bacon, and a single sausage. Not my usual gut-buster; but very nice even so.

Over the coming week I will experiment with different methods of Poaching Eggs, so that next Friday we will hopefully enjoy our Eggs not fried, but perfectly poached.

 

Stray Cats

In France we not only have a lot of stray Dogs, but over the years we've also welcomed several stray Cats.

Korky (below) was just a kitten when I adopted her. In May of 1990 I was visiting nearby friends and she suddenly appeared from under their car, and they didn't want her. She was quite a nice Cat, but something had happened to the end of her tail; it was raw and red. She (I presume that all cats are female) stayed with me for quite a while, then one night she disappeared. I looked everywhere, but I have no idea what happened to her.

I had several others turn-up over the years. Some just came to be fed and watered, others stayed for a bit longer. One, that I called 'Crocket', was a HORRIBLE Cat, but I looked after her anyway. She was named Crocket because I (unkindly) thought she might make quite a good hat (!!!!!).

My good friend Jock also had a string of strays who ended-up living with him. The most notable amongst them he called Gustave, who would drape himself around Jock's shoulders like a scarf. They were inseparable.

All these Cats were roughly drawn, and appeared in my scrapbook of 'silly sketches' that I kept for many years.

This below was Crocket. She really was awful. I think it shows!!!

Poached Eggs

I do like Poached Eggs, but I hardly ever prepare them. I have a dedicated 4 Egg stainless steel Poaching pan in France, which doesn't get much use; I don't know why.

A while back I heard of a poaching method that sounded quick and easy. You half-filled a mug with boiling water, dropped the Egg into it, and microwaved for a minute. It worked but was slightly over-cooked. 40 seconds would probably have been enough. There was also a slight explosion.

Someone later gave me these two silicone poachers (below), that float on boiling water whilst the Eggs are cooking; I put some butter in the bottom. They work well, but take much longer; about 5 minutes.

Recently another method kept cropping-up on my Facebook page. I was very taken by its simplicity, and guaranteed success, so I ordered TWO. They arrived almost at once.

Yesterday morning I was very eager to try my new purchase (below). One puts a small amount of water in each section, pops in the Eggs, and microwaves for one minute; having first pricked the Eggs all over with a toothpick.

At about 45 seconds there was an almighty explosion, and the interior of the microwave was completely pebble-dashed with half-cooked Egg. It then took me about half an hour to clean the interior of the bloody oven.

The two brand new Egg poachers went directly to the dustbin.

My advice is, if they appear on your Facebook page, and you are tempted; DON'T BUY THEM.

They are lethal.