Author: James R.

The idiot who owns and runs this site. He does not actually look like Jon Pertwee.

Oh no! Anyway…

Yeah, Britain’s least sweaty man is finally being dealt with by The Law, who I can only assume timed this bust to fuck up his birthday royally (if you’ll pardon the expression). By the look of it, though, they don’t seem to be going after him for the putative sex stuff but some rather more prosaic stuff involving government business, when Randy Andy was working as a trade envoy and supposedly passing on confidential info to Epstein… And it should be said that his Dukedom’s association with Epstein was considered problematic even 15 years ago, along with a few other dubious friendships he’d been cultivating, and he wound up being forced to step down in 2011. I wonder if there were suspicions then that Andrew might be doing things he shouldn’t be doing in that capacity. I don’t know. At any rate, the story’s still only just breaking so we have very few details as such, but I have a feeling this could turn into something quite interesting; after all, you don’t often get stories about royalty (lapsed or not) getting arrested like this…

RIP Boo Radley

Robert Duvall has left us, at the fairly grand age of 95 and after 70 years on stage and screen. Quite a body of work, maybe not so many big roles in his later films (though he did get an Oscar nomination in 2015), but he kept pretty solidly working until just a few years ago… but until I saw this posted on Bluesky, I never knew about one of his more amusing parts:

Not only was Duvall the Corleone family consigliere Tom Hagen in The Godfather, he was Marlon Brando’s cue card wrangler as well. Brando was already infamous for his use of cue cards, cos he claimed that only knowing the broad outline of a scene actually made his performances more realistic rather than just being the sign of gross laziness most of his colleagues thought it was. And, as you can see above, it appears that even being a major part of the cast didn’t mean you wouldn’t get drafted to hold Marlon’s cards for him at some point. RIP Bob.

So much for love?

Italy’s famous Lovers’ Arch collapses into the sea on Valentine’s Day

The famous arch of the sea stacks at Sant’Andrea in Melendugno, Puglia, Italy, popularly known as Lovers’ Arch, collapsed on Valentine’s Day after strong storm surges and heavy rain swept across southern Italy.
The rocky arch, one of the best-known natural landmarks on the Adriatic coast, got its name as it served as a backdrop for wedding proposals, selfies and postcards, and was one of the most recognisable symbols of the Salento, one of Italy’s most heavily visited tourist areas. […]
According to local authorities, strong winds, rough seas and intense rainfall in recent days progressively weakened the rock structure until its final collapse on Saturday. It is the most significant damage inflicted by coastal erosion on the landscape of the Salento. […]
Mediterranean cyclones, known as medicanes, include Cyclone Harry which struck in January, have been devastating ports, homes and roads, reshaping the structure of coastlines. Medicanes are warm-core systems that are becoming increasingly frequent in the Mediterranean, driven by rising sea temperatures linked to the climate emergency.
“With the Mediterranean [experiencing] among its hottest years on record in 2025, warmer seas are supercharging the atmosphere and fuelling extreme events,” said Christian Mulder, a professor of ecology and climate emergency at the University of Catania in Sicily.

Is it just me or is the symbolism in this story ever so slightly on the nose? Obviously not a funny situation on the whole, of course, cos obviously climate change is having bad effects, but something about the timing of this particular bad effect was kind of marvellous…

Second Best

This would be a kind of desolate photo anyway, but it’s even more so when you know that’s Jimmy Nicol, temporary Beatle… that’s him at Melbourne airport after completing his task of filling in for Ringo on the Fabs’ mid-1964 tour when the latter was ill; once he was good to go again, Nicol was good to go back to the UK and obscurity. I found this on Threads via the Flashbak account there, and some of the commenters on that post were kind of swooning about what a great experience that must’ve been and how he’d always be able to say he’d been a Beatle. And I was interested to discover George Harrison actually threatened to pull out of the tour if Ringo couldn’t play; once they’d calmed him down and all agreed that getting someone to take Ringo’s place was better than just cancelling those shows, Jimmy was brought on board as the ringer for Ringo (sorry).

But what good did it do him? Piss all, apparently; he went from being a relative nobody to the fame of being Ringo’s stunt double and being huge for ten days and then pretty much back to relative nobodyness. Nine months after his Beatles stint, he was bankrupt. Apparently when Paul McCartney read this news, he was moved enough to get him a gig with Peter and Gordon on their 1965 tour, and that seems to have been all he otherwise got from the Beatles. By and large it seems he’d rather forget having been a Beatle, and apparently when he was approached to be part of the Anthology he refused. Per Wiki, he’s apparently still alive but hasn’t been seen in public since the early 2010s. And that photo just became so much grimmer after I’d done that bit of reading on him.

A thousand lights look at you

I’ve always been a bit iffy about the Stooges, in that I think they never made a fully successful album (never heard The Weirdness nor Ready to Die, admittedly), though you’d have a great best-of made from the highlights of the first three albums. On re-listening to Fun House this evening, I may have to revise that somewhat. I have it on CD but I listened to it a ripped-from-vinyl form tonight, a rip of the new Rhino High Fidelity repress obtained from my usual hush-hush sources… and while I’m still not perhaps 100% convinced, it worked a lot better for me in this form than it ever has before. There’s a coherence and consistency and direction to it I don’t think I’ve entirely appreciated before. I also played it at somewhat higher volume than I normally do, which possibly made a difference. Maybe that’s what I should’ve done all along.

Whatever, it is awfully pleasant to revisit something you’ve known for years and find you like it more than you did before, though I do still think “TV Eye” should’ve been the opening track. The band wanted “Loose” to be the opener, and I understand that, but the record label preferred “Down on the Street”. And with all due respect, both parties were wrong; Iggy shouting “LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORD!” the way he does would’ve been a hell of a way to kick off proceedings, kind of like if the Beatles had ended Abbey Road with “I Want You”…

Bye?

Tommy Robinson flees UK claiming he’s ‘a priority target for ISIS’

FAR-RIGHT agitator Tommy Robinson has claimed that he has fled the country because he is a priority target for terror group Daesh.
Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, posted a video on X/Twitter, sharing what he alleges are conversations between himself and Bedfordshire Police.
The video purports that police informed Robinson that a Daesh publication is “encouraging others to commit violence” against him.
The three-minute long video has been viewed over 280,000 times, with Robinson posting a link to donate underneath the post. […]
In the footage, Robinson appears to be having a conversation with someone from Bedfordshire Police on speaker phone.
The publication is reportedly called Yalgaar, a propaganda magazine linked to Daesh that is proscribed material.
Robinson asks for a copy of the magazine but is told that he could be charged with a terrorism offence if he accesses it.
The person on the phone then tells Robinson that this does not mean that he can legally carry a weapon for self-defence, or take any pre-emptive action.

Like that would stop this silly cunt anyway? I don’t know, something about this feels off, and not just the idea that ISIS thinks he’s that important or even knows he exists… I mean, why was this putative conversation being recorded in the first place. Does Stevo just record every incoming phone call as a matter of course? Have Bedfordshire police confirmed the authenticity of call? Has he even left the UK at all? Cos some airline must have a record of taking him somewhere… And this call for donations? Yeah, the bullshit is strong with this one, all right:

The video then cuts to a black and white slow-motion video of Robinson walking in front of a Wizz Air plane on a runway, with the caption: “Tommy has now left the country.”
It adds: “Tommy is looking into relocating his family for their safety. Please can you help with this, and any ongoing security costs.”
A web address to donate then appears across the bottom of the screen.
The link leads to a “secure donation” website, which reads: “Help support Tommy and his work for a better future for the UK.
“Tommy has invested time and risks everything daily to speak and act on behalf of the people. Help him to help you more!
“Together we will Make England Great Again and Unite The Kingdom.”

Stevo cares for his family so much he made sure he was somewhere safe before they were. And Uniting the Kingdom by making England great again? Do the other countries in the UK just go and fuck themselves? Does whoever wrote this shit thinks the Scots will just let the English “be great” by themselves? There’s only so much bullshit even we’ll put up with from those southerners…