Gas - buy now while stocks last

Brexit has been replaced by another divisive issue here right now - the question of whether or not Putin was aware of the Salisbury poisoning, or if it is just a case of the Russian Mafia getting hold of military-grade nerve agent to bump-off adversaries.

The latter theory has been dismissed as virtually impossible by some, on the grounds that the Russians could never be so lax as to be unaware of stuff disappearing from their stocks, but I well remember what happened immediately after the collapse of the USSR, when you could actually buy tanks and missiles on the black market which had somehow been smuggled out of military compounds to make a few quid for private individuals. I bought a sub-mariner's watch.

Then again, Putin has murdered many adversaries in other countries by using bizarre and complex poisons which have the all the hall-marks of state-sponsorship. You would think that ordinary hit-men would use tried and tested methods to kill people which do not involve serious logistical and safety problems in handling, as they did by strangling the Russian anti-Putin oligarch the other day, making a half-hearted attempt for it to look like suicide. In any event, the Russian Mafia and Putin are inextricably entangled.

As Boris Johnson pointed out last night, Russian State media is proudly gloating over how anyone who behaves treacherously will be dealt with, no matter how far away from their mother country, at the same time as the Kremlin denies all knowledge. He actually used the phrase 'having their cake and eating it'. It must have been nice to use the insult that Europe has been directing towards him every day for a year.

The British media have been keen to stress that this particular nerve-agent was 'developed' in Russia, not 'manufactured'. Some people are saying that - unlike the radio-active stuff - the nerve agent could be made in someone's kitchen using fairly easy-to-obtain ingredients, but are wisely not publishing the recipe. Anyway, I would not want that stuff in my kitchen. It was bad enough cleaning-up after my Crystal-Meth cookery lessons last year.

The beans in the above photo were from a site called, '8 poisonous foods which we eat every day'. They are what Ricin is made from. They are the beans from a Castor Oil plant. You may have one in your garden.

The reason why they kill people using such exotic methods is pretty obvious. They want to send a message. Like the Canadian Mounties, they always get their man.. and his daughter... and any innocent bystanders.

Given the amount of CCTV cameras we have in this country, I am surprised that we have not seen any images of the murderer or murderers between the pub, restaurant and street in Salisbury. Having said that, I know that the police in Bath often ask to view the security camera footage of shops close to the scenes of crimes, because the quality of the Council camera footage is usually too poor to get a conviction in most cases.

Someone came up with a good quote yesterday: If you allow ruthless and nasty foreign criminals to take over your city for the sake of their money, you must expect this sort of thing'.

I had better buy some more gas before the tap is turned off in Russia.