Monday 19 March 2018

Support your local chemical weapons factory


A handful of people are making the most of the snow before it eventually disappears. Ken Loach lives in one of those houses. I have put off installing the bronze woodland creatures until tomorrow for obvious reasons. Tomorrow is the Spring Equinox, so it had better be gone by then. Today, I am washing my smalls.

H.I. scuttled off to teach this morning, but nagging away at her is the fear that there will be a flood right over her bed in this compact but adorable city apartment. It is my fault - in part - because I put a seed of doubt in her head by referring to the last time this happened and paying someone to climb on to the roof to clear the drifts from the front end of the Beast from the East, but this weekend we are feeling the effects of the arse-end of The Beast which was nowhere near as severe. It must be a bloody big beast.

Talking of Beasts from the East, I see Putin won the election by a landslide. What a surprise. I think that he does actually have a lot of support from ordinary Russians, but Hitler had a lot of support from ordinary Germans. Before you start complaining that I am comparing Putin to Hitler, let me say that I am not. Well, not much anyway, and it is not as ridiculous as comparing Trump (or even Corbyn) to Hitler.

Today, international chemical weapons experts are going to Porton Down to try to establish once and for all where the Salisbury Novichok (a Russian word meaning 'newcomer'...) emanated from. This is probably because Putin has suggested that it was made by Porton Down itself and used by British agents to poison Sergei Skripal and his hapless daughter. It a twisted sort of way it would make sense. Porton Down is eight miles from Salisbury city centre. Why pay more for inferior Russian imports?

It seems that the chemical was put into the air intake of his car's heating system, which would explain why there is no CCTV footage of the perpetrators and why his daughter was given the same dose without anyone witnessing someone running up and shoving it in their faces as they did when Kim Jong Un killed his brother.

Porton Down is so shrouded in secrecy and mystery that is has been the subject of many fictional stories and films, the last one being an episode of 'Sherlock'. Considering the awfulness of what it actually does on a daily basis, it is viewed with an almost romantic patriotism by many Brits.

I know of one experiment there to test the effects of water-cannon on unruly crowds. They wanted to know how much damage water-cannon could inflict on human beings, so they anaesthetised some sheep and blasted them with high-pressure water (wool = clothing, etc.). It turned out that it can be lethal at close range.

They have messed around with Anthrax is the past too, so if ever Porton Down was sold as a brown-field site for housing development, the clean-up bill would put Brian Aldridge's in the shade.

Anyway, non of this has put me off our new Russian water-heater. It works very well and was amazingly inexpensive. I hope this testimonial doesn't brand me as a traitor in the months to come. Oh heck - what am I going to do for spare parts if it needs them in the future?

27 comments:

  1. I remember that episode of Sherlock. Porton Down was very scary but I thought it was made up. I googled it and learned that it really is scary in real life. Once again, I learned something worthwhile from your blog.

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    1. All part of the service - the secret service...

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  2. Can you even imagine the things we don't know about? Vice President Al Gore was once asked how much we really know about that is going on in governmental agencies and he answered, "about five percent."

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    1. Al Gore was probably lying like everyone else. Maybe he knew about 5%, but there are plenty of others who know about 90.

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  3. If we all knew the truth about what the government was up to we would probably commit suicide. I know one thing, they must have skins like a hippo and elephant combined to live with what they know.
    Briony
    x

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  4. Now that is something to worry about.

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    1. Have you been worrying about it since 1950? if not, don't start now.

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  5. I rather believe that this Skirpal business is smoke screen to detract the gullible away from Brexit negotiations.

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    1. It is related to Brexit inasmuch that Putin is testing the resolve of Britain in the same way that a predator will focus on a small member of the group which has taken a wrong turn, peeled away from the herd and become vulnerable.

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  6. I'm getting a new computer tomorrow, so what the hell, I clicked on your spammer. A newbie, an Asian gambler. On a Porton Down post. What the hell?

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    1. Those gambling spammers rely on one chance encounter with an addict out of around 1000.

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  7. Deep down of course everybody agrees with Corbyn, nobody really cares about the Russians mucky spies except it happened here, and would like to get back to normal, and shut up about it. Nobody likes to say it out loud though.

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    1. Corbyn has been misquoted, or at least misinterpreted. If I was about to launch a new set of sanctions on Russia, I would like it to be from a sound legal footing.

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  8. Ken Loach, is he the bloke who has been in Coronation Street for ever? Brian Aldridge wasn’t/isn’t he the one in another soap? Putin/Trump? Never heard of them?

    LX

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  9. Enough of this speculation and dilly-dallying = get somebody up there on your roof!

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    1. I'm not proud. I already have. I am physically incapable of going up there myself these days, so it would be silly of me not to admit it.

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  10. Replies
    1. Your readers will be shocked John

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    2. I know what you mean. A British official was on the radio yesterday saying that he was pretty sure that the U.K. has bumped off people in other countries in the past. I don't know whether or not Gibraltar counts as another country, but I well remember the three un-armed IRA (one woman) who were shot in the street in broad daylight a few years ago.

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    3. They were going to blow up the Royal Anglians Regiment I seem to recall.

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  11. I once worked at Porton Down in what is now called Public Health England. They have an anthrax unit and on my last day I was given a tour. I had to leave my shoes on one side of a bench and slide over it to the dressing area and put on special rubber boots. I can't remember if I had to put on hazmat coverall though I can picture them hanging there. It was quite boring to see but apparently part of the important research (!)into antidotes for military on active service. I also had to visit a small installation in the much larger Dstl section which is very high security and was shown some stuff growing in glass cabinets. Also very boring. Then I had some disgusting coffee with some of the technicians in a very run down staff room. I know that much more is/was going on elsewhere. My daughter has a scientist pal who used to work there and whose team won an award for some important breakthrough but at the official ceremony was thanked for " That stuff you did" as top secret so no details. It became a family joke. Just like living in Salisbury - do visit our lovely cathedral city there is free parking until further notice to help local businesses who are suffering from fallen trade due to the Russian poisoning incident. No doubt residents will be repaying the council's generosity in our 2019 Council Tax bills. No subsidy coming from Central Government just empty words of praise. Sorry for another rant, Tom.

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