Has Trump been exposed as a liar and a dyer as he gets put through the dryer?
President Trump has held his first press conference since his election fail to Joe Biden, providing the public with an update on a COVID-19 vaccine.
And he appears to have lost so much traction with the world the biggest topic of conversation in both social and traditional media, is how he appears to have gone grey almost over night.
Or is it just that he has stopped dyeing it? And if that is true, then is it actually the most honest thing he has done in years?
Has the soon to be ex President of the United States been a liar and a dyer all these years?
The quiz over his hair happened as he made his last briefing – viewers took to Twitter to say that the 74-year-old businessman’s hair had gone completely grey since he was last seen in public a while ago.
#trumphair #greyday #hairraising
The last taxi from a steam driven dream
An old British black cab stands outside a central European water park, a place once believed capable of scrubbing pollution out of our skies.
This strange building of wood, chrome and thermal pools- fed by an underground lake apparantly heated by the very core of the earth – stands in almost complete darkness.
A computer screen flickers in a window and, on a balcony near three thermal pools, somebody has put up a forlornly lit Christmas tree.
It is as if the last person to leave AquaCity-Poprad has turned out almost all the lights, leaving just a glimmer for the future.
But you can’t help feeling that the old rusting taxi cab near the sealed-up entrance to this giant water park is waiting to take the ghosts of what-used-to-be on a long dark journey …
AquaCity, with its almost utilitarian styled buildings, less than a year ago was still a prime mover in bringing prosperity to the mountain micro-city of Poprad, Slovakia.
But now it is as cold and empty as the souls of so many in this Covid-raddled world.
In 2005, when I was first invited to Slovakia to publicise this vast emporium of health, saunas and hot stones, it had credentials so green it was touted as pool of hope for the Western World.
And on its website the owners still claim to stop 27 tonnes of carbon emissions entering the atmosphere each day.
And I dubbed the man originally behind the claim as Mr Cool.
I was taking the journalistic Mickey really because more interesting to my tabloid audience, was the fact that AquaCity had its own cryochamber And that was something that people in the UK had never really heard of except in the 90s Hollywood blockbuster Things to do in Denver when you’re Dead.
A cryochamber metaphorically freezes its clients to death before restoring them to pure health.
But when Jan ‘Mr Cool’ Telensky saw I’d described his water park as the hotel of the living dead, our relationship became a bit icy.
And when Slovakia saw the headline I’d written for City Lights magazine – Things to do in Poprad when you’re Dead – even politicians from Bratislava fell out with me.
There was talk of me being banned from the country!
Well, it wasn’t really ‘least said soonest mended’. No, there was a bit more shouting than that.
But I survived and ended up having a working relationship with AquaCity that lasted fifteen years.
I never, ever once thought we would see the lights go out there.
From the day it opened, its bubbling pools were the place to go, putting Poprad on the tourist map.
Far back in to history Poprad had been a city eclipsed by the Communist dark ages. Only ten years before AquaCity was built, one travel book labelled it “a place where there is no need to linger”.
Communist architecture threw zombied shadows across the streets. Even today there are still row after row of old tenement buildings.
And in 2005, when Telensky’s monolith to water and health officially opened, gypsy boys skulked on street corners and fat men in Shell suits drove their mothers in pink furs and Trabants to the newly-opened mountainside Tescos.
But Mr Cool’s landlocked hotel had already given this once-listless city a sense of purpose. It had also given it jobs, money and the beginnings of an international reputation.
And in the last five years I have seen Poprad – population of only 50,000 – become a sophisticated, vibrant stylish and cosmopolitan city with trendy bars and sushi restaurants.
AquaCity itself, despite being due a facelift, had become popular with British football clubs because of its health giving status, training facilities and a retired English army major who had been chosen to promote it.
Gone too was the phut-phut of Trabants, replaced by the swish of BMWs and Mercedes.
Today, on the positive side there are signs that Poprad is coming back to life. Many of the restaurants are selling takeaways and, after the massive covid testing of two thirds of its 5.4 million population, others are allowing people to enjoy socially-distanced dining.
Fingers are now crossed that Slovakia will drive past the Covid nightmare rather than all the way through it.
Jan Telensky brought the old black cab from the UK to Poprad along with a couple of old red telephone boxes on a low loader. He already had an old fashioned pillar box. He felt they went well together.
Apart from that, I never really found out why he had shipped them almost 2000 miles across Europe. But when I suggested that we turned them into a little bit of England ‘forever in Europe after Brexit’, he became inspired.
***
There is no doubt that the phone will ring again at the reception desk at AquaCity and there have been rumours that it might be sold to the Chinese.
Politics and Covid almost certainly put that rumour to rest though.
The reception desk phone ringing may well call back some of the ghosts too. But it will happen. The restaurant and kitchens will buzz and clatter, the pools will bubble again.
AquaCity will be a steam-driven Phoenix.
But it is curious to note that places like AquaCity might not exist except for viruses like this one killing us off now.
In reality, in water, more than 90% of living material is microbial. And it’s those microbes which produce half of the world’s the oxygen.
And this can only happen because of viruses.
So, it is ironic that miniscule greasy blob of a bug that brought darkness to this world-renowned water park may be doing now exactly what Jan Telensky set off on a journey to do all those years ago…
It has cleaned the air by bringing a near-halt to life, economics and dreams to save the world.
A bi-product of the Covid’s killer’s family has turned the sky blue once again.
#covid19 #slovakia #poprad #aquacity #solar #thermal #health
The Yorkshire Ripper: The night I took the call saying ‘we’ve got him!’
THE Yorkshire Ripper is dead.
He was 74 and had apparently refused treatment for coronavirus. His lungs had collapsed.
Peter Sutcliffe spent almost 40 years in Broadmoor and prison for murdering 13 women and attempting to kill seven others between 1975 and 1980.
John Apter, chairman of the Police Federation, said people should remember Sutcliffe’s victims.
He tweeted: “Lot’s of breaking news about the death of convicted murderer Peter Sutcliffe. I understand why this is news worthy, but my ask of the media is lets show the faces of those he killed, not him. The 13 women he murdered and the 7 who survived his brutal attacks are in my thoughts.”
Here I remember the night I took the call ‘covertly’ telling The Sun that Yorkshire Police had caught him.
I was in my twenties, one of the youngest on the Fleet Street of the North and it was the biggest story of my life at the time. It also brought an end to cheque book journalism…
Here is my part of the story as chronicled in my memoir:
My next big story though was for the Sun. Winter, 1981 and I was manning the Northern news desk for Ken Tucker. A lonely job at the best of times back then, just you, empty desks, a phone and a list of numbers to call if anything breaks.
The phone rings and, I snap: “Hello, Sun!”
A drunken rasping voice comes back at me: “Get yourself down to f*!kin’ Leeds now! We’ve got the f*!ker!”
“Who’s calling?” I demand.
“Who’dya think? Get yourselves down to Leeds nick now!”
The phone goes dead.
First thing to do is call Leeds nick, but I can’t waste any time in case they’ve called The Star and The Mirror. I whip through the desk contacts book and find Leeds Police Station … it rings and rings until a laconic voice answers: “Police.”
“Hi can you put me through to the incident room.”
“Which one?”
“How many incidents’ve you got going on?”
Wrong thing to say. There’s a dumb silence at the other end of the line.
“Hello?” I inquire down the dead line.
“How can I help you sir?” his voice comes back in.
“It’s Leigh Banks here from The Sun – we’ve had a call from somebody at your nick …”
“Wasn’t me, Sir, I read the Daily Mail.”
“No, but is somebody being brought in we should know about?”
“Why should you know about them?”
“Who?”
“Whoever you’re talking about.”
“I’m not talking about anybody.”
“Jesus … put me on to the press office,” I say.
“Nobody in the Press Office sir.”
“Are they out on a job? Or have they gone home – give me a home number.”
“If they wanted you to have a home number, you‘d already have it sir.”
“Put me on to CID then!”
“CID aren’t authorised to talk to the press sir, you should know that.”
Some coppers are good, some coppers are bad, some like the press and some hate us. But desk sergeants to a man are power-mad jerks.
I’ve got to make a decision. Is this a wind-up? Or is something going on? I hang up, I ain’t gonna get anywhere with him.
“Turn the radio to Radio Leeds,” I tell myself. I flick through the stations but all Radio Leeds is pumping out Elton John. I phone Brian Sayles at The Star: “Hiya Brian, it’s Leigh … listen mate, have you just had a bit of a mystery call?”
“From Leeds?”
“Could be?”
“Yeh?”
“What’dya think? Oh, come on Brian – are you taking it seriously?”
“Well, that’s what we news desk people are put on this earth to decide isn’t Leigh … we have to make a decision.”
I hang up.
I’ve got to phone Ken Tucker, the Northern News Editor … but I don‘t want to, I should be able to handle this myself.
His phone is against his ear before it has chance to ring: “Where are you ringing from?”
My heart turns turtle, I know I should be on the road: “The office.”
“Why aren’t you in Leeds?” It’s less than five minutes since I got the call.
“I’m calling to say I’m on my way.”
“Take your cheque book and buy up anything that moves.”
That’s it – I’m off like a burnt orange bullet in my 2ltr S Capri with just one stop at the off-license for a crate of special brew. It’s going to be a long night.
****
The pack are listless behind a wall of cameras. They got there just after nine and I’m late. The pack mentality is showing, they are closing ranks – they don’t know me, this is the regional pack and they think they’ve got one up on me. They can sense I don’t really know the score.
First rule of the pack, know why you‘re there and what you‘re going to do. Most of these guys are a decade older than me, they should cut me a little slack for. Boozy old school bastards … this is a big story, but these ain’t my mates, Harry Pugh ain’t here, Jim Price. Then I recognise Animal leaning on his aluminium ladder – he’s from Manchester, the rest’ll be here too, soon, then we’ll trounce these locals.
“Alright mate, what’s happening?”
“Quiet as the grave.”
Mitch, another lensman I know from The People sniggers: “The lad don’t know.”
I say:“It is him though, isn’t it?”
“Supposed to be.”
Why won’t anybody give me a name. I try a flanker: “I heard they caught him at it, hammer in hand so to speak.”
“All sorts flying around.”
The station is as quiet as a mouse but a crowd of seventy, a hundred people have gathered. It’s gotta be him. We go quiet.
Then Mitch asks: “You still got that Orange Capri?”
Animal jumps in: “Flash git!”
Then I see Mike Kiddey mooching around and make a beeline for him.
“Hiya Mike.” He’s obviously drunk but he’s got his head on: “You just got here?”
“No!” I know I sound defensive but …
“You’re lucky, the paddy wagon should be here any minute.”
“Is it him?”
Mike stops in his tracks like somebody punched him in the nose: “Jesus Christ, if I’m here and you’re here … who’s going to do the headlines for the Record tonight?”
I look at him, I’m helpless to answer I’d completely forgotten, it was my night … I
“Ah,” he says, “It don’t matter, it’ll all be Ripper anyway. One of us’ll give them a call later.”
As we talked a roar went up in the crowd, it sent a shiver through me, it was the baying of hyenas, a medieval court on the street, he was guilty before he’d even been charged and we were about to make it worse with the worst outbreak of cheque book journalism ever seen before or since.
Flash lights popped anywhere and everywhere as the black Mariah pushed its way through the crowd, people hammered on the flimsy metal and the driver wound up the siren, we were all over it like a rash, pressing cameras up against black-out windows, I went with the pack soaking in the incredible violent uncontrollable atmosphere.
No matter who was in that van he was forever destined to be The Yorkshire Ripper.
#Sun #newsdesk #fleetstreet #fleetstreetofnorth #yorkshireripper #petersutcliffe #leeds #chequebookjournalism #kentucker #harrypugh #jimprice #mikekiddey
Time to fight for the world’s Letterbox Families this Christmas
The Daily Mail has called on the British government to allow people in care homes to spend time with their families over Christmas.
Good on them!
Let’s face it, people have been barred from being with their loved ones for more than eight months now because of coronavirus.
Families have been literally ripped apart by this pernicious and deadly little bug.
No hugging and no holding hands for people who might have spent decades caring about each other.
But there are millions upon millions of other families across the world who are being kept apart by those in power too .. and they are, on the whole, ignored by a world that wants to go home for Christmas.
We are the victims of Parental Alienation.
The outside world, which generally views us through a glass darkly and believes the propaganda and vitriol spat at us… says there is ‘no smoke without fire’.
They believe that we are the pariahs of society, drug addicts or drunks, people who physically abuse our partners or our children.
We are not.
We are, on the whole, victims of narcissistic exes, those bitter and twisted bullies who damage irreparably their own children to hurt us.
The truth is, the worst thing most of us did was to escape a relationship which had gone wrong.
But we never expected to lose our children, particularly to the unknowing, insensitive edict of comfortable middle-class social workers, Cafcass and those who preside over family courts.
Parental alienation is a form of family violence. And we, along with our children, are the victims.
So let’s stand up for those of us who won’t be going home for Christmas, who won’t be holding hands or hugging their loved ones, those who won’t be opening presents with their children under the Christmas tree.
Here the leighgbankspreservationsociety brings the true story of what Australian dad Paul Brown had to go through.
***
Paul, spent more than a decade trying to get contact with his son who he says was ‘spirited away’ across 4,000 miles to Japan.
The heartbreaking picture above shows Paul, who described himself as a musician, on his hands and knees talking to his lad Liam through the letterbox at a nameless tenement in Japan.
And after fighting for his son for 11 years Paul said he had done everything right.
Then he spoke of Christmas: “We had Christmas baubles with the names of all family members, and of course Liam is on there.
“I used to get a little gift for him, but not knowing what he likes or when I’ll see him again that felt a little bit redundant.
“On all significant days, Birthday, Father’s Day Christmas I take some time out to look at my old photo albums. But to be honest it’s very difficult. If I think about him or talk about him too much I get a bit overwhelmed.
“He’s always in my heart and mind but just like every other day I just have to push through as best I can. I actually had a big cry on Father’s Day this year.
“It was the biggest I’ve had for a while. I was looking at his photos then picked up my guitar and played Pink Floyd ‘Wish you were here”.
“And I burst into tears. II sometimes have moments where I get a little teary. But this was the biggest I’d had in a while. Let’s just say my band won’t be covering that song on stage.”
***
Andrew John Teague, from D.A.D.s, said: “When children are kept away from the other parent, we often hear people say it gets easier.
“These are people who have not been through it because it doesn’t.
“There are always trigger points, birthdays. Christmas, special days. And also other things, like Paul here with his son … parents going through the trauma listen to songs differently than before.
“Very sad, shear heartbreak for any parent. Equally all other members of the family are denied also.
“Cafcass has often been heard saying to the denied parents ‘Oh, don’t worry, they will look for you when they are older’.
“This shows how so out of touch and so wrong they can be. The non-accidental psychological injury that happens to the children affects them for their life. Certainly, for many there would need to be some therapy to help them deal with the child trauma, the psychological splitting
“The wholly good parent aligned parent then the wholly bad parent the targeted parent. Family courts world wide fail the children miserably.
“The forgotten children.”
#forgottenchildren #forgottenparents #forgottenchristmas #cafcass #socialworkers #familycourts #parentalalienation #liars #christmas #alone #carehomes #families
Slovakia cuts infections ‘by half’ as UK hopes for new vaccines by turn of year
As the world appears to be about to end its dithering about Coronavirus, Britain claims it will ‘almost certainly’ have three coronavirus vaccines ready for the fight by the end of the year.
And Slovak Prime Minister Igor Matovic said the country’s coronavirus testing and quarantine programme, has cut infections by more than half.
Sir John Bell, professor of medicine at Oxford University and a member of Number 10’s vaccine taskforce, said he expects three jabs – including those made by Pfizer and Oxford University – soon.
He also said there was an ’80 per cent chance’ life in the UK will be back to normal by spring.
Matt Hancock today confirmed the NHS and the military are on standby to start rolling out Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine from the start of next month, with care home staff and residents at the front of the queue.
World leaders have welcomed the new vaccine and Pfizer said it plans to ask for emergency use authorisation from the US Food and Drug Administration.
Meanwhile, Slovakia tested 3.6 million people over Halloween and repeated the tests for just over 2 million last weekend in badly affected areas.
The scheme has been watched by other countries battling with a spike in coronavirus cases with the UK’s Boris Johnson praising Slovakia’s efforts in one of his ‘state of the nation’ speeches.
Figures appear to show that Slovakia’s infection rate dropped from 1.47per cent on the first weekend to 0.62per cent of those who took the test on the second weekend.
Mr Matovic said; “We are going into a tough winter. We have an extraordinarily effective tool in antigen testing that cuts the share of infected people by 58per cent.
His government says that while it knows the tests may miss a large number of those infected, it was still doing AND repeating them to narrow the probability of falsely negative results.
Slovakia saw an growth of cases in October and testing was designed to avoid a surge like that in the Czech Republic, which suffered Europe’s worst infection and death rates recently.
In other reports the Central Crisis Management Team are said to be toughening its attitude to borders with the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Austria.
In other news Romani communities also took part in testing confirming that they are resisting the pandemic well
In a video posted to the ROMEA TV YouTube channel, Romani communities are calling on people to stay ahead of the disease by wearing face masks and by not gathering until it is safe. They are also asked not share disinformation on social media.
And pharmaceutical regulators in Slovakia have warned against taking alcohol together with cough medicine as a home-made cure.
Marian Kotleba, head of the opposition ultra-right LSNS recommended mixing vodka with two different decongestants on social media.
He said; “I have used the methods of our ancestors. I began mixing Stopkašel syrup and Bromhexin with vodka. It has saved my health.”
Slovakia’s State Institute for the Control of Pharmaceuticals immediately warned against the risk of using alcohol together with drugs of any kind. “It is not appropriate to consume either Bromhexin or any other drug with alcohol. Moreover, drinking alcohol not only does not protect one from COVID-19, but can also be dangerous. Consuming alcohol will not destroy the virus but, on the contrary, can increase the risk to one’s health should one become infected,” the Institute said.
#virus #cure #vaccine #success #slovakia #romani #homecures #infectionshalved #borisjohnson #Matovic
Here lies the truth behind the great Trumpian disaster
Trump is loved by millions. It was his promise to Make America Great Again that started it all. But now, for many, the great conglomerate affair is over.
His scatter-gun accusations about everything and everybody have left an acrid ‘cordite’ smell in the White House which staff have tried to hide with scented candles.
His tantrums do not fit such an energetic and charismatic man … but they do suit a man who who acts recklessly with facts, the media, social media and the very people who admire and love him.
Yes, he can be saccharine – but he can also act, at the push of a power button, as a boorish bar room bully.
There are rumours that he faces investigations when he leaves the Big House – and already people are saying Melania is planning to divorce him.
Meanwhile, he has been waddling around the golf course in his best over-sized baseball cap.
He now needs to accept defeat. He came to power because US voters wanted him. But now they have spoken again and they don’t want him any more .
And surely, even he can see that if his claims that back in 2016, the election was rigged just like this last one … then he was elected fraudulently in the first place.
It just didn’t end up mattering when he won.
AirTv International presenter and writer and journalist Leigh G Banks takes a sometimes wry look at The Donald, Forgetful Joe and the strangest election in the history of free world elections.
#biden #trump #election #lies #melania #whitehouse
Remember our heroes…
Last year, to mark the 100th anniversary of the Armistice, people from Penkridge, Stafford, covered their Methodist Church in poppies.
Almost 9,00 poppies cascaded from the church roof.
The project tipped its hat to the Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red in 2014 that featured which had 888,246 handmade red ceramic poppies at the Tower of London.
The church was supported by community groups, inmates at the local prison, local schools, uniformed groups and individual members of the community.
Deacon Sue Culver said at the time, “The sheer scale of community involvement, the beauty of some of the poppies submitted, as well as the number of poppies, makes this project remarkable.”
It is worth looking back on the history of the days of remembering … On the 11th of November 1920 the body of an unnamed soldier was taken from Hyde Park up the Mall, past Buckingham Palace, watched by crowds paying their respects to the unknown dead of the First World War.
At 11 o’clock there was two minutes of silence as the procession arrived at a new war memorial on Whitehall.
Has UK’s beleaguered Boris jumped on Slovakia’s Covid-19 battle-bus?
Boris Johnson appears to have grabbed Slovakia’s apron strings in his never-ending battle wagon to control Covid-19.
As he addressed the British nation ahead of mass testing in Liverpool – modelled on Slovakia’s test-the-nation programme – he intimated that there is only the UK and Slovakia doing this.
However, it is fair to say that Britain is testing a city while Slovakia is testing a whole country. Logistics obviously make a difference here … i.e. 5.4m people compared to 70-odd million.
Isn’t then the UK’s testing regime more akin to China’s where mass testing has been going on for some time now. Around 4.7m people in Kashgar were tested recently.
China has of course been largely successful in bringing infection rates down, but there continue to be outbreaks.
Anyway, despite Boris’s hubris, the view is that Liverpool has “absolutely nothing to lose” by taking part in this first trial of a whole city in England, the city’s mayor has said.
Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson said the testing pilot could save lives, stop hospitals being overwhelmed and “get the city out of tier three restrictions”.
And Liverpool’s director of public health Matthew Ashton told BBC Breakfast it could last longer, saying he wants “to make sure [the pilot is] long enough for us to be able to see the impact”.
But in support of Boris, Slovak Defence Minister Jaroslav Nad (OLaNO) said on social media “Britain has asked us to provide our precious experience and counsel from this ground-breaking project to the closest advisers of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson”.
He said: “Foreign countries, apart from looking at the preparations and course of our across-the-board testing, are gradually preparing their crisis management teams for situations that would result in decisions to take up the same course of action.
Meanwhile, Slovakia’s Prime Minister Igor Matovic has praised those involved in testing on social media. He said on Facebook; “Village and city mayors, civil servants, village or city deputies, soldiers, state, city and local police, firefighters and paramedics, health care workers, volunteers, and all of you, people of good will, who did your part and decided to fight for the health of our most vulnerable.”
And he said that masks would continue to be mandatory in all public areas in Slovakia. The country has reported 61,829 cases and 219 deaths so far.
But Mike Tildesley, a UK government scientific adviser, has warned that the initial testing programmes need to be followed up regularly; “It is important to realize that just because someone tests negative it does not mean that they will necessarily be free from infection a few days later, so any mass testing strategy needs to be carried out at regular intervals – every few days – in order to be an effective strategy and to allow some lock-down measures to be relaxed.”
However, details of follow-up testing remain obscure. The UK’s Housing and Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick said: “The offer to the people of Liverpool is clear, which is that anyone can be tested regardless of whether you have the symptoms or not, and we will make available enough testing capacity to do that on a regular basis.”
#covid-19 #virus #testing #liverpool #boris #johnson #jenrick #china #slovakia #nad
Warning after UK’s bum powder clot!
A Bonfire Night clot was filmed trying to launch a firework from his bum…
And it backfired!
The clip, shared on Twitter, showed the firework being placed between the man’s cheeks as friends watched.
But, the stunt took a potentially dangerous turn as the rocket went off without shooting in the air.
Luckily, the man wasn’t injured.
However, a spokesman for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents blasted the stunt as dangerous.
He said: “It doesn’t take a bright spark to know that fireworks are not to be toyed with.
“Historically, around 1,000 people visit A&E for treatment of a firework-related injury in the four weeks around Bonfire Night.
“We recommend families enjoy fireworks at an organised display and follow the Firework Code, which can be found on our website.”
#bonfirenight #bum #powderclot #daft #fireworks #rocket