Trump is waging a personal war on our world and us

In real-time with continued unquenchable thirst to manipulation freedoms and thoughts by working to silencing the press that disagree with him or shut down comedians that make fun of him.

Corporation America, the once big belly of the beast of free speech and freedom, now live in fear of Trump and that’s exactly how he wants it and that’s the game he continues to play and he is winning said game. Corporations bend the knee to Trump and these are profound changes to organisations being driven by what makes Donald Trump happy and what makes him laugh and smile. They now look to do what they have to do to make him leave them alone or so to entertain him like a Roman Emperor but instead of sitting at the coliseum standing up and encouraging the massed crowds to be baying for the blood of his enemies he instead takes to social media platforms where he does the same their instead.

Facts and freedom of speech and even a sense of humour are now obstacles to pleasing him. Trump is a fighter and he takes no prisoners and is never happier than when in conflict with others. No good will come from such a war hungry spirit.

But while this war hungry spirit also just so happens to be the President of the USA, manipulating all the powers of the oval office to his will and ensuring his role as commander in chief of America is done purely to suit him, so that he is at war with anyone that might disagree with him or find what he does funny at his expense and call him out or show signs of not lapping up his distortions of truth and reality or all out lies and frankly his bullshit, well right now if your not pro Trump it seems that anything goes in taking you down or denying you oxygen in main stream media channels. The support of the Donald Trump administration really is the only ticket in town that Trump wants to be shown and he’s flexing his political muscles to make this happen right now.

Comedians in western democracies have often entertained us and enlightened us on the dark side of power and media manipulation. Comedians have long used humour to hold political and media figures accountable, exposing hypocrisy and misuse of power through satire, parody, and blunt commentary. By questioning authority and deconstructing official narratives, they offer a powerful counter-narrative to the political status quo.

Deconstructing the illusion of power

Holding leaders accountable: Political comedy makes even the most untouchable or authoritarian leaders appear fallible and human, bringing their power back down to earth. By mocking perceived weaknesses or moral failings, comedians can diminish the aura of infallibility that some leaders try to cultivate.
Forcing uncomfortable truths: In oppressive regimes, satire can serve as a release valve and a form of resistance, allowing citizens to share grievances about inefficiency or injustice. Comedians may frame their jabs as a joke, giving them cover while still managing to “sting our consciousness” and highlight moral failures.
Targeting hypocrisy: Many comedians specialize in revealing the gap between a politician’s public image and their private actions. By zeroing in on inconsistencies and absurdities, they expose the performance of politics and the self-serving nature of some political agendas.

Exposing media manipulation

Calling out media bias: Comedians like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have long parodied the format of news and punditry shows, drawing attention to how bias shapes the media landscape. This form of parody allows them to critique biased reporting and manipulative framing from within the media’s own structure.
Dissecting algorithmic influence: More recently, comedians have turned their attention to the digital landscape. Jon Stewart, for example, has dissected how social media algorithms are designed to incentivize extreme engagement, manipulate users, and promote polarized and misleading content for profit.
Focusing on underreported stories: Programs like Last Week Tonight with John Oliver dedicate long segments to covering complex issues that mainstream outlets often ignore or simplify. By using a mix of thorough research and comedy, they shed light on the systemic failures and manipulative practices behind issues like predatory lending, data mining, and problematic local media coverage.

Famous comedians and their methods

The Daily Show (Jon Stewart, Trevor Noah): Famously used a fake news format to deliver hard-hitting political commentary. The show’s “moment of Zen” provided a memorable critique of media absurdity, while field reports and interviews challenged political figures and conventional wisdom.
The Colbert Report (Stephen Colbert): Featured Colbert in a satirical persona of a right-wing pundit, mimicking figures like Bill O’Reilly. By using hyperbole to argue from this fabricated, self-important position, Colbert exposed the flaws and hypocrisy of personality-driven political commentary.
Last Week Tonight (John Oliver): Combines in-depth investigative reporting with comedic segments. The show often takes on complex policy issues, holding corporations and political systems accountable with deep dives that go far beyond typical news coverage.

ABC suspends talk show host Jimmy Kimmel indefinitely over remarks about right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk’s killing, suddenly the denial of a comedian to express his sense of humour in a joke and have freedom of speech is not making anyone laugh, except perhaps Trump and his supporters who have been calling for the cancelation of his critics for quite some time now.

I expect in Trumps eyes if you silence all mainstream criticism of him he can do no wrong and be seen to tell no lies.

Huw Edwards – The Singing Series!

I don’t know if you have seen these action figure designs yet anywhere on the internet or more specifically Facebook but people have been using AI to design there own action figures I had a go with Chat GPT. I used a template to fill out a description of what I wanted and then after a few minutes the design was created, very clever and lots of fun. The face does not look like me but I think my character definitely comes across in the image.

Snow Patrol – Chasing Cars – a favourite song to sing

Taking stock of my share of shares

Holly sh*t what the feck just happened in my bank account it is leaking cash faster than a Trumpian Bull breaks ceramics in a China shop!

Along time ago in a bank account far, far away I started to dabble in buying a type of UK bank account called an ISA (Individual Savings Account). ISAs are seen as a tax-efficient way to save and invest your money. That means you’ll pay no tax on any interest, gains or returns you make. What a great idea I thought. I also thought I could turn a little pot of money into a little bit bigger pot of money with me chipping some in monthly and also with the interest earned on the ISA. The only problem was that at the time I had decided to do this some 15 years or more ago interest rates were so low that in relation to inflation the interest earned was not keeping up with the low inflation rate so it felt like for every year you kept money in a regular ISA it was still in fact degrading over time in real terms.

So like everyone I was looking for a way out of this slightly silly system and so about 5 years ago or longer (I forget how long ago I decided to invest in a type of stocks and shares account with a online stocks and shares company. Again kept my little ISA ticking over to not earn interest on but also started saving into a type of stocks and shares account, again it was small potatoes and did not really have any major success but also did earn a little bit more than when putting money into an ISA so no big wins but no losses either still quite dull I thought really.

But then after a recommendation from a family member I consolidated my many minor pension schemes and cash ISA all into one company in the UK that had a steady higher rate of return for my money than any think I had tried in the past and low and behold I soon started to take interest in the interest and start finally seeing the benefits of my savings whilst at the same time as the stocks market would be stable and go up so would my stocks and shares ISA.

It was all going so well, I would pay a small amount in every week into my account and each week the money as well as the interest would grow. I thought I had finally become an adult without responsibilities that could and was planning for my rainy days and saving for my future. But then comes along President Trump like a bull in a China shop, who after many years of nonsensical speeches and stupid opinions was finally able to put those two things into practice with no less than a trade war with the rest of the world – a literal economic DO NOT DO under no circumstances economic policy. Oh my the bigger they are the harder they fall kind of economic suicide that he has chosen to inflict on the globe and the US – its quite literally the top number one dumbest thing he could think to do and not only did he think about it he went ahead and did it and now will not back down and spend the next four years saying how it will be other countries and politicians and policies fault for the very dump policy that he implemented all on his own. You wonder how a person can even bankrupt a casino in their lifetime and we now know and start to see just how his logic did that and start to say ahh thats how, that’s why.

Finance and the direction of flow of money, shall always have a flow, an economic flow, it is not personal, it is not prejudicial, it simply flows from what it is able to make from money to who it then able to buy with money, simple economic rule really on a micro and macro scale.

The barriers Trump is attempting to put up might well speed up or damage even more severely the things that Trump was in fact trying to protect and solve. China has a wall of businesses, bureaucrats, financial clout and desire to beat the US and where as Trump is dismantling the US government machine, China is only getting started with facing its machine up against the US in the trade war of all trade wars that Trump is initiating. Trump put quite simply this is a trade war you cannot and could never win. Just as Brexit saw a painful divorce for Britain from Europe, in a most likely irreversible circumstance so to is Trump trying to divorce himself right now from the economic flows of international finance and trade and oh boy have his shenanigans kicked my savings down right into my stocks and shares! No one can predict where this will end for global stocks or shares or for the US, China or rest of the world just yet. But my money is on the fact that this will not bode well for Trumps Tariffs’ philosophy at all.

Pink Floyd – Money

Keywords across site

Technological decluttering!

Or as hypno cat would put it “recycle your electricals”

Recycle Your Electricals: Hypnocat

Oh god don’t make me go back into that place, where the Amazon parcel cardboard lives along with the wrapping paper, old TV, computer screen, countless useless cables, plugs, installation CD’s (for things no longer even installed) and laptops dating back over 20 years – don’t make me go back there again. No, hypno cat, no!

Ha Ha, it does not feel that bad though maybe it should! I am hopefully having a clear out towards the end of this month of some items all of which really do live in my flat rent free and everything. I’ve always tried to plan to recycle many of these items but I figure most are too old or broken to do anything useful with.

You can pay for the council to remove them or if valuable enough donate to a charity shop or if clapped out enough take to the nearest recycling centre. But you need a car to take them to the recycling centre which I don’t have! But I have asked a friend if he can hopefully assist me when I have some time off work and we should be able to sort most (hopefully as much as possible of it out then.

Prior to that day I need to try and do a bit of prep like seeing if the computers still switch on and if they do wipe their hard drives and google what else I might need to do to them, I also have a collection of mobile phone’s which a programme on BBC 1 called Antique Roadshow would be proud of not so much for how much they might be worth but for how old they are. I could free up quite a bit of cupboard and draw space if I can sort this lot all out this month.

I also have a bedroom with lots of no longer worn clothes and bedding that have not seen the light of day for a good few years, which I must also try and get sorted. Just thinking and typing how much stuff there is, is a little daunting, but I am counting on this being part of the process of sorting this stuff out.

I presently have a little Huawei P30 mobile phone, which has a matching tablet with it, for my day to day needs it works really well but the battery is not as good as it once was and sometimes I can’t get Wi-Fi for it, when other people are not having the same issues with their phone as me. One of the places where I can’t get mobile data or decent Wi-Fi is the office where I work, which is not great, I was all set to purchase a new Motorola phone this evening but resisted. I figure I have had my other phone for 4 years and it still works, so perhaps wait until I have had my recycling sort out of stuff at the end of the month and then perhaps treat myself to a new phone.

What’s that old phrase ‘if it’s not broken, nor stolen, still charges and takes updates don’t throw it away, well something like that!!!

Alas though some of this stuff has long passed its use by date and it’s just now a case of disposing of it responsibly and safely with Hypnocat!

Facebook Outage!

I survived the great Facebook outage of March 2024 and you know what, so did you my friend!

I tried to login to Facebook today when it turns out it had already been down for about 3 hours and it was asking me to enter password, at this time I realised I had about 3 passwords in my phone for it and was unsure which was the right one and the fact that none of them were working was even more confusing. I then had a message come saying they would send me a message through whatsapp with a code that I had to enter and access facebook, that did not work either, so they also offered me the option of sending a text to my phone which of course did not work either.

While all this was going on I was also logging onto google to check out if there was any news on Facebook having crashed and reassuringly all over the internet there were many articles about it being down and also a comment I could relate to saying “Anyone else freak out and think they was being hacked?” well yes for a second yes I did.

Funny how when I was a teenager I had no mobile phone or concept of wifi and yet now in a time such as this, in a county such as mine, a mobile phone with wifi and a pair of glasses on to read what is or ia not working on the screen, are all taken for granted as essential parts of everyday life. So when it stops working we try to work out what has gone wrong or what the heck s going on.

I also wanted to send a message to friends and joke around with them but on messenger or Facebook saying that the computer is now fighting back and the revolution has began, so see you on the other side! But luckily for them I could not as facebook and messenger where still down!

The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1

At age 47 and ¼ I bought my first bookcase last week

Yep it’s true on the plus side I am one more step closer to being an adult and on the downside it’s err true I am one more step closer to being an adult.

I must admit my collection of books is and has always been very eclectic mix for example I have a book of poems from a great local Exeter Poet called Steve Carnell – who a while back used to do the open mic circuit and read out his awesome poems on great drunken lad’s nights out he is an awesome guy and once close friend –but as times move on so did he.

Book of Poems called the 23^rd Mojo by Steve Carnell

The next wonderful human that I know or knew who wrote another awesome book is the lovely Barbara Haddrill – She wrote an eco travel book called Babs to Brisbane about her eco travel to of all places Brisbane in order to be a bridesmaid at her friend’s wedding. Babs is such a wonderful talented and inspirational person.

My next book is not by someone I know but I think the front cover title changed and influenced my entire life from the day that I read it to this. It’s called ‘The only planet of choice’ – it’s at the very least a mind opening spiritual and philosophical fantasy concerning the evolution of earth, you, me and the universe – the choices that we make and how they impact on everyone and everything and ripple through time and space and at most it is something so much more than that!

My next book was a gift from my mum to make my book collection look a little more sensible and again adult like. It’s called RSPB Handbook of British Birds. I found it very handy when trying to identify the birds along my street and on my bird table during lockdown back in the old days of covid lockdown times.

My fiaal book that I am showing is a dream dictionary and I have a few of these but this is by far my favourite one which is by Russell Grant and is his Illustrated Dream Dictionary. I’m on my second copy of this book now as the first fell apart from me waking up too many times in the middle of the night and grabbing it and quickly trying to see what it thought about my dreams and then chucking it back on the floor when I had finished and went back to sleep. To this day I swear I am not sure if one of those darn dreams or nightmares has come true yet! But it was always interesting to read the interpretation and Russell Grant always put a positive spin on dreams and nightmares’ which from an early age I have found comforting.

Oh well onwards and upwards. Well speaking of onwards and upwards or flashing outwards with less brightness I think my TV might be on the blink and the back light might be about to give out – looks like another adult purchase might be on the cards – oh bugger, TV Don’t go dark on me just yet.

Distance, Light & Sky – Don’t Go Dark On Me

China and back again a Jacket sale!

Not quite an epic Lord of the Rings tale to tell more of a searcher of the shops internet sale. I ordered a coat back in January 2023, and somehow it turned up on my door step today for the second time! I had been searching for a good, waterproof winter style coat in my size. How hard could it be to find something like that you might think and say. Well I’m a big feller and so my size for a coat is a UK XXXL that not a Chinese size or American or European size but UK. I have been this size for over 8 years now and though I would love to shift some weight I am also struggling to try and make sure I don’t put any more on.

So I had been using the digital ecommerce unholy trinity of Amazon, Google and Microsoft to try and search and purchase a new coat, again waterproof, warm and the right size and my efforts resulted in me purchasing what I thought was a US made and sized coat that looked nice on the advert and also allegedly on sale for what I thought was £70 so not cheap but not too expensive either.

When the coat arrived I knew straight away it was sadly too small and also not great quality. So was either going to donate it to a charity shop or return to sender? After discussing the issue with my ma we both though I should send back to supplier. So I emailed them and found out how much it would cost to send back to them and the address I needed to send it too.

I posting it back to China for £26 and including the £19 I was charged for postage and insurance originally this venture has cost me about £120 so it was not a not unusable coat to purchase for me. But I would be prepared to pay that amount if I could actually wear the darn coat in my size and not have to post it back to get my £70 back.

I posted it back to China with a very exact and detailed postal address and also a small letter inside stating my name and address and order number so as not to avoid any confusion to ensure I got my refund. The item was posted international royal mail and arrived in china within a week or so but then sat in the depo awaiting collection buy the business that I had purchased it from. I contacted them sending evidence of where the coat was in China and by April this year I got my £75 refund for the coat. Job done I thought and that was that.

Well that is until this morning when I get a knock at the door from the postman and he has a parcel in his hand for me from China, it’s the exact same parcel I posted to them back in February this year with a little Chinese label on it saying it had been refused to be accepted by the people that I had purchased it off. So it looks like it is still going to the charity shop as a donation after all.

It just so happens I have a charity collection here this Friday to pick up some clothes and a chair so they will be able to have the coat at the same time, its unused and should make someone a nice gift (so long as it fits them!) Even thought this coat has yet to find an owner it has already done more travelling around the globe than me, travelling from China to me and then back to China and back to me, in its short little lifetime its done quite a few miles. I’m a little jealous of its ventures but also quite impressed.

K T Tunstall – Other Side Of The World

It’s a trap!

I’m generally quite good at detecting phone scams and normally don’t fall for them or even give them a chance to speak before I hang up on them. But this evening I really felt like I got scammed.

I was on the phone to my mum just chatting about how the day has gone and checking what Christmas parcels that I had ordered to her house had arrived today when suddenly my mobile phone started ringing.

I instantly though oh I had better get that call and it was showing up as a UK landline number , real number, real human being and you would hope real place that they are phoning from.

So I answered the phone and they that they were phoning from Ofwat (who are the water company regulator for the UK) to do a customer survey about South West Water (my water supplier). My first and only sensible question that I asked them was, ‘do you know my address and who you are calling today?’ I figured that if this really was not a hoax call that they should potentially know my name and address. Right away the woman speaking told me that she did not have that information.

I would have and perhaps should have hung up there and then but I did not. The thing is this the second time that South West Water survey people have tried to call me and the last time a couple of weeks ago was in the day and I said that I would answer a survey from them but could only do so after 5pm and this call was just after 5pm. So I thought they were either a very dedicated or lucky scammer.

Sadly I also was interested in the questions that they were asking and also wished to express my views on those questions such as, what were my views on the pollution on the coastal areas and what South west water were doing about it and that kind of thing so if this was a real questionnaire I did want to provide my views.

There were 3 questions that I thought were dodgy but 3 questions is more than enough, firstly they asked me what my job was a just said officer for council (nice and vague), secondly they asked me for my annual household income, I said I was not prepared to provide them with these details it just seems the perfect kind of info a hoax caller would want to put me in a how much money we can extract form this idiot category on their hit list. Finally and the very last question they asked was my name, which I went ahead and told them to which after 20 minutes of survey I thought oh well I hope this is genuine!!!

So back to trusty Google, I searched about scam calls and South West Water and they had a 24 hour emergency phone line open for reporting water leaks on but you could also call them about scam calls and so phoned that number got put in a queue as you do waiting to ask a human being whether or not I had been scammed and who do I call about it?

So finally got through to a human and asked them if they knew of any surveys I was due to take and they confirmed that Ofwat were due to phone me and there was nothing to worry about. ARR FOR FECK SAKE!

On a plus note I found out I am in credit in my water account when I logged on trying to contact them so am going to cash in on that, well at least I should get some cash back in time for Crimbo, so long as that’s not a trap!

It’s cold outside

Sleep is my drug of choice!

Having survived my teenage years of drug experimentation in the 90’s with an eye on the cool hippies of the 60’s I am very grateful to be alive today, without too many side effects emanating from my past. With that in mind now sleep is probably the main mind altering substance I seek to use these days.

An ode to Sleep

When my head is weary and my eyes tired too,

There is gentleness in the dark,

I can close my eyes and can no longer see a view.

Though I do not seek to live in darkness all my life,

I do enjoy the rest bite for a while,

I can find peace when I fall asleep at night.

Recharge my batteries for another day.

Without such darkness I might not appreciate what I see tomorrow,

or appreciated the new point of view.

So when the next problem comes my way,

I’ll sleep on it and see what I can do.

Birdy – Keeping Your Head Up

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Or as hypno cat would put it “recycle your electricals”

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An ode to Sleep

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