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  • Grammer, AI style

    From your ‘umble scribe’s social media timeline.

    Social media post by @prettybbuckley reading well no over an image featuring the text but truly wasn’t sure how., which Grammarly AI has suggested should be corrected to was trulyn't [sic]

    We all occasionally need help with English grammar, even we pensioners who have spent decades working at linguists, but the above ‘suggestion‘ from Grammarly could be diplomatically described as unhelpful.

    According to Wikipedia, “Grammarly is an American English language writing assistant software tool. It reviews the spelling, grammar, and tone of a piece of writing“, as well as being a tool for detecting plagiarism.

    On its own website, Grammarly is described as ‘Grammarly, the trusted AI assistant for everyday communication‘.

    On the basis of the above howler, your correspondent would not trust it to write out the alphabet in the correct sequence.

  • The Felon’s body double visits France

    From my social media timeline today.

    While the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump has been busy getting the United States military to invade Los Angeles, California, as part of his mission to “Make America Grate Again” (or something like that. Ed.), his body double has been spotted paying a visit to the French capital, Paris.

    Parisian dustbin topped with a cardboard box sporting the distinctive Trump haircut
    Quel horreur !

    It is not known whether the French state has had any official contact with the Dustbin Donny/Président Poubelle or if this visit is a purely private affair.

  • Golden Arches anthropophagism?

    The photograph below popped up in your ‘umble scribe’s social media feed this morning.

    Sign reads Restroom is for eating customers only!!!

    Judging by the use of the term restroom, the sign was apparently affixed to the door to the toilets of a fast food outlet somewhere in the USA, allegedly in a branch of junk food giant McDonalds, according to the original social media post.

    Note the three exclamation marks at the end of the phrase. One is usually sufficient.

    It is not known how long the chain itself – or indeed the United States as a nation – has permitted cannibalism either within or outwith toilet facilities, let alone endorsed the practice.

    One pertinent question springs to mind: “Do you want fries with that?

    Bon appétit !

    Just ignore the smell and the sound of running water…

  • For UK, see England

    Ever since Æthelstan became King of the English in 927 CE, some in England – starting with Æthelstan himself – have had difficulty recognising where England ended and the rest of the world began. Indeed Æthelstan meddled so much in the land of the Scots that they allegedly nicknamed him “The Bastard“.

    Given the dominance of England within the Untied Kingdom, this has persisted down through the centuries that separate the present from the days of Ælfred of Wessex‘s grandson.

    The latest manifestation of this Englandshire = the entire UK occurs in yesterday’s online edition of Bristol ‘Live’, the city’s unfortunate newspaper of warped record, which managed to defy both demographics and geography in one awful little puff piece masquerading as “news“.

    A screenshot of the headline of the offending article is offered below.

    Headline - UK's smallest city an hour from Bristol is as charming as York and Canterbury - but has far fewer tourists. Byline - The smallest city in England has plenty to offer visitors and yet it remains off the beaten track.

    Although Wells is described in the piece as “England’s smallest city“, there is no empirical evidence provided of its lack of size. Your ‘umble scribe used a little-known research technique called using a search engine to provide an answer; in this case 5 seconds’ work gave a census population figure of 12,000 for Wells.

    However, Wells is not the Untied Kingdom’s smallest cathedral city. Cymru has two cathedral cities that together have a combined population of well under Wells’ 12,000 souls. First of all there’s Llanelwy/St Asaph (pop. 3,485) and Tyddewi/St Davids (pop. 1,751), which is actually the UK’s smallest cathedral city in terms of number of residents.

    Your correspondent is surprised that today’s ‘journalists’ are not familiar with this research technique he often uses, which is recommended they use as a matter of course. 😀

  • For UK read England (and English)

    On Monday the country’s best known toolmaker’s son ‘Sir’ Keir Rodney Starmer, in a vain effort to stem the flow of support for the Farage fascist fan club otherwise known as the Reform Party UK Ltd., made a major announcement on immigration racism and xenophobia, namely to the effect that he was in favour of both, despite a side serving of the usual ‘I’m not racist, but…

    His speech met generally with condemnation from the left and varying degrees of praise from those on the right, such as ‘Honest’ Bob Jenrick, some of whom also believed he hadn’t gone far enough to be beastly to those pesky forrins to whom they would have been even nastier.

    Anyway, this was a speech in which Starmer embraced his inner Enoch Powell, echoing phrases from the latter’s notorious and deeply offensive ‘Rivers of blood‘ speech from 2nd April 1968. Where Powell remarked that the country’s white population ‘found themselves made strangers in their own country‘, Starmer stated that the UK risked becoming an ‘island of strangers‘.

    Another ill-conceived utterance in his speech was that immigration and immigrants had done ‘incalculable harm‘ to the country. In particular, this drew justifiable ire from many whose grandparents or great-grandparents had migrated to Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries along the lines of ‘how dare he…‘. This reaction from tax campaigner Richard Murphy is a prime example of this sentiment.

    Quite right, Richard. They come over here and do irreparable harm by (say) keeping the National Health Service running, paying their taxes and so on.

    Another facet of the toolmaker’s son’s speech centred on his remarks about the use of the English language. Starmer is on record as saying:

    Britain is an inclusive and tolerant country, but the public expect that people who come here should be expected to learn the language and integrate.

    A remark of a similar nature and of the same import was also made on Starmer’s social media account.

    Which language? Starmer is conflating English, the language of England with the whole of the Untied* Kingdom, parts of which have their own indigenous languages, like Cymraeg or Gaelic. He seems completely ignorant of the fact that modern English is the product of three waves of historical incomers, i.e. immigrants, the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, etc. who arrived after the Romans left in the 5th century CE, Norse Vikings who settled here and the French-speaking Vikings from Normandy who invaded in 1066. There are very few words from Britain’s indigenous languages in modern English.

    The fact that modern English is a mongrel language brought by immigrants also seems lost on Starmer.

    However, this imperative to speak English has not gone down well in either Scotland or Cymru (where Cymraeg has equal legal status with the language of invasion. Ed.), as The National reports.

    In Cymru, the radio personality, TV presenter and influencer Jessica Davies took to X/Twitter to make her feelings known.

    Starmer's original post reads If you want to live in the UK, you should speak English. That’s common sense. So we're raising English language requirements across every main immigration route. Jessica Davies responds with If you live in Wales you should speak Welsh. Or are we not doing that?

    Well done, Keir. By your racism you have shown that you are well and truly a product of your father’s profession.

    * = Misspelling is deliberate.

  • Reform VE Day cock-up

    Politicians and thus by implication the parties to which they owe their allegiance have a relationship with the truth that can be described diplomatically as problematic and at worst non-existent.

    Yesterday’s VE Day 80th anniversary provided ample proof of both.

    Perhaps the most egregious example of being less than truthful was posted on the X/Twitter account of Reform UK Ltd., a limited company masquerading as a political party, the latest incarnation of the cult dedicated to the promotion and adoration of a perennial charlatan commonly known as Nigel Paul Farage, who also just happens to be a great pal of the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump, who is on a one-man mission to Make America Grate Again (or something similar. Ed.). Whether Farage’s adoration is reciprocated in equal measure is not known. given The Felon‘s disposable relationships with the rest of the human race.

    What the Farage Fan Club posted on X/Twitter is shown below.

    Image from Reform UK VE Day post with Spitfire on right and HMS Vanguard on the left.
    There’ll be bullshit over the white cliffs of Dover…

    So far, so patriotic at a first casual glance – the white cliffs, a union flag, Churchill at Buckingham Palace, a Royal Navy ship is glorious monochrome and any reference to the Brits in WW2 would be incomplete without a Spitfire.

    However, this impression is debunked the closer one looks at the image. We’ll come back to the Spitfire, but first let’s look at that naval vessel used by Reform’s graphics whizz-kids. A special research technique otherwise known as using a search engine for five minutes reveals it is in fact HMS Vanguard, the last battleship ever to be built. Although her construction started during the war, she did not enter into naval service until 1946, i.e. after VE Day and even VJ Day, which marked the final official end of hostilities.

    The vessel’s identity can be easily confirmed by looking at one of the photographs used by Wikipedia; the motor launch can be seen in both the image on Wikipedia and in the much edited image used by Reform.

    "HMS
    HMS Vanguard. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

    Now let’s return to that Spitfire. Doing an image search for a Spitfire with the roundel identification AI yields not a single result; and your ‘umble scribe can find no reference anywhere to an actual squadron with that identification. Besides that, a search for AI or A1 Spitfire squadron identifications yielded zero results. Furthermore, the aircraft itself has a very glossy appearance, a feature that was shared by all the Spitfire images produced by generative AI that came up in your correspondent’s search. The conclusion I’ve reached is that the Spitfire exists solely in digital format and has never actually flown, let alone seen active service. This seems very reminiscent of the dishonesty shown by the equally right-wing British National Party, who attracted much derision in 2009 when in a supposedly patriotic poster where they used a Spitfire flown by a Polish squadron.

    A final reminder to Farage and his fellow travellers; your side surrendered unconditionally on 8th August 1945.

  • Larry writes German

    Earlier this week, one Marco Antonio Rubio, inexplicably elevated to the senior government position of US secretary state by the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump, had to be given lessons in both history and governance by the German Foreign Ministry.

    The reason? Take a look at what Rubio – allegedly the States’ top diplomat (the title comes with the job. Ed.) – posted social media. Note the casual racism in the middle sentence.

    Post reads Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy - it’s tyranny in disguise. What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD - which took second in the recent election - but rather the establishment's deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes. Germany should reverse course.

    Rubio is not the only member of the current Trump regime to have shown support for Germany’s fascist AfD: a couple of months ago. just nine days before the German federal elections, the charm void known to the world as James David Vance, a man who does very poor vice-presidential impressions, was criticised for meeting the AfD’s Alice Weidel in Munich (how appropriate for right wingers! Ed.) in what could be regarded by some as electoral interference.

    Anyway, back to Rubio. His social media post was prompted by the news that the AfD had been classified as extreme-right by German intelligence and placed under surveillance.

    Rubio’s take on events did not go down well in the corridors of power in Berlin, earning him the following rebuke and and history lesson courtesy of the German Foreign Ministry’s social media account on X/Twitter.

    Post reads This is democracy. This decision is the result of a thorough and independent investigation to protect our Constitutionand the rule of law. It is independent courts that will have the final say. We have learnt from our history that rightwing extremism needs to be stopped.

    That’s quite some rebuke.

    Indeed it even prompted Larry the Downing Street Cat to post a response in German to the Foreign Ministry.

    Post reads gut gesagt - well said - in German

    Whilst the Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office has made his thoughts known, the ultimately man in charge of the Downing Street cat food supply, toolmaker’s son Keir Rodney Starmer, has yet to comment at all on this matter.

  • Another Bristol Live exclusive

    Another day, other news.

    Your ‘umble scribe awoke this morning to hear that Pope Francis, head of the Roman Catholic church, had died aged 88 years.

    In a situation eerily reminiscent of the demise of Mrs Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Mountbatten-Windsor in September 2022, when she had been visited just two days beforehand by a certain Mary Elizabeth Truss, the pontiff’s death comes very shortly after an audience with a certain James David Vance, who has been appointed to preside over vice by the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump.

    Social media has been awash this morning with posts about the similarities between the two deaths

    However, all this speculation is pointless, as is any explanation that the pope was a very ill man.

    For the real reason for the passing of the pontiff, one has to consult Bristol ‘Live’, the West Country’s newspaper of (warped) record.

    Under the Bristol News header, this Reach plc title seems to have an exclusive scoop at to what or who was actually liable for Francis’ demise – West Country folk reacting.

    Screenshot from Bristol Live website showing article filed under Bristol News with the headline Pope Francis dies as South West reacts.

    Now look what you’ve done, Bristolians and neighbours!

    Unless, of course, it’s yet another example of bad English usage and even worse journalism of the putting the cart before the horse variety.

  • God? No!

    My social media feed on the federated Mastodon network is a source of news, conversation, merriment and occasional consternation. In particular, consternation nowadays concerns mostly information emanating from the authoritarian regime of the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump, who is on a mission to Make America Grate Again (or something like that. Ed.).

    The latest barminess to cross over from the eastern shores of the Atlantic and land in my timeline is shown below.

    A group of four people all wearing t-shirts bearing the wording Trump is God

    On seeing the image, your ‘umble scribe’s immediate reaction was along the lines of Brian’s mum in Monty Python’s Life of Brian.


    I was then reminded how the god of the Semitic religions has allegedly never liked to share the limelight with any other deities and/or beings, as exemplified in the words of Exodus 20:7.

    Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

    There are going to be some awkward questions asked of the MAGA louts above when they turn up at the pearly gates… 😉

    Tip of the hat: SufferForMe.

  • Katy Perry’s space tourism – the backlash

    Last week six women – singer Katy Perry, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, US TV personality Gayle King, aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe, film producer Kerianne Flynn and Jeff Bezos’ fiancée Lauren Sánchez – boarded Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket for a frivolous 11 minute flight. The crew were weightless for just four minutes after passing the Kármán line, a 100 km-high boundary that is internationally recognised as the boundary of space.

    The stunt has attracted plenty of criticism, not least because Blue Origin is owned by Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, a man not renowned for paying much income tax.

    Part of the backlash consisted of the bus shelter poster below which was seen this week somewhere near Amazon’s UK headquarters in London.

    Poster showing Jeff Bezos and Katy Perry with the caption If you can afford to send Katy Perry into space you can afford to pay more taxes

    The criticism wasn’t just confined to Perry and Bezos, but his low tax, anti-union sweatshop Amazon too.

    Poster with Amazon logo at head and reading Our tax avoidance is out of this world. Just ask Katy Perry.

    No further comment is necessary.