London's "Little Pyongyang"

North Korean defectors make a home in a London suburb. Do take a look at some of their stories, such as that of the former North Korean army officer who now runs the Free NK newspaper.

US-UK Special Relationship Back On?

Churchill's bust is back in the Oval Office, and Theresa May will be the first foreign leader to meet Trump after inauguration.  This should prove interesting indeed in the light of Brexit.

The Fur Flies In UK Politics

Quote of the day: "There are tensions in Parliament. Stand-offs, bristling, screeching and hissing. And no, we aren't talking about the Labour Party."

If you thought people fighting in UK politics is bad, you have another think coming.

After the UK Election: 3 Quotations

Well, politics-watching is fun again ... when it isn't my own!  I am already sick of the run-up to 2016, but it's been fun to watch the UK election for the sheer unvarnished Schadenfreude of seeing Ed Miliband's Labour get completely smashed.  Frankly, any party that engraves its campaign promises on a huge slab of stone and thinks cozying up to Russell Brand is a winning tactic deserves to lose.   At least Miliband can now use the other side of that stupid stone to write the epitaph of his political career.  Anyway, here are 3 quotations now that we've had a few days to think about the results:

Quote the First: Amid the usual howls of the defeated Left, one Labour voice actually talks some sense (and is quoted in the Guardian no less):

There’s absolutely no point in blaming the electorate. Any suggestion that they didn’t ‘get it’ is wrong. They didn’t want what was being offered.

YOU DON'T SAY.

Quote the Second: From Daniel Hannan, MEP, on how Labour overestimated its support:

If you want an explanation of the 2015 election in a single sentence, it’s hard to improve on the words of that great Whig, and founder of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke: "Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field."

Quote the Third:  David Cameron in victory might need a swift kick in the pants.

We must end the idea that as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone.

WHAT? 

Addendum and Bonus Quotation:  Now that the election's over, I'm even more tickled by Boris Johnson's verbal assault on Miliband's epigraphical excess with its 6 promises:

It is no joke, my friends. This thing exists, and Ed fully intends that this tasteless, verbless, truthless stele should loom over No 10 like some kitsch version of the laws of Hammurabi, or some new Decalogue – except that he couldn’t think of 10 things to say.
...
Let us therefore consign Milibandias and his tombstone to the bafflement of future archaeologists. Let it go down as the last act of a desperate candidate, and the heaviest suicide note in history.

And You Thought the *American* Press Was Nakedly Partisan

As the Washington Post reports:

"With just one day to go until Britain votes in its general election, it looks like the British press has lost what little restraint it once had and launched into open political warfare."

I suppose this at least eliminates the hypocrisy of claiming to be objective and impartial.

Monday Therapy: For All of You/Us No Hopers, Jokers, and Rogues

From a little fishing village on the coast of Cornwall, England, comes this group of Cornishmen who made their mark singing sea shanties:

LOL: P.J. O'Rourke and Iowahawk vs. Scottish Independence Vote

The vote on Scottish independence is today, and P.J. O'Rourke casts a characteristically sardonic and hilarious look at the prospect. This is how it starts:

We Irish don’t hate the Scots per se. They’re too much like us Irish, who all hate each other. So we’re just looking for a fine entertainment from across the Irish Sea as Highland Scots have a donnybrook with Lowland Scots, Glaswegians dust up with Edinburghians, and Clan Dewers unsheathes its claymores for battle with Clan Johnny Walker.

Iowahawk, on the hand, doesn't need to bother with writing an actual piece when he can just tweet stuff like this:

I'm worried that Scotland independence could disrupt global supplies of haggis and bagpipes.
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) September 15, 2014

Nerd News: A Brit-Bashing Portuguese Professor

Dude's got a position at Imperial College, London, so I personally think it's just a little rich that he's turned right round and published a Brit-bashing book back in Portugal.  For extra entertainment, check out this take by a Frenchwoman:

Brit-bashing is a French pursuit, thank you very much – a national sport that we enjoy safe in the knowledge that whatever we throw at Les Rosbifs, they are more than capable of lobbing back at us Frogs. From Joan of Arc to Waterloo and Mers-el-Kébir, we have long known where our most beloved enemy stands: 20 miles and a world away from Calais (never to be surrendered again), in lockstep with us in a love-hate dance . Not for nothing is Wellington’s bust at the British Embassy in Paris displayed next to that of Napoleon . Not for nothing is the inscription on your coat of arms in French; or the fact that we celebrate 1066 (and all that) at Bayeux with the finest and oldest of all tapestries.

So who’s this upstart, insinuating himself right at the heart of our family quarrels?

Not Quite the Queen's English

Hastings to Afghanistan: 1000 Years of British Battle Kits

From battle axes to iPads.

Headline of the Day: UK Law Enforcement Imitates Monty Python

"Village pub raided by police in hunt for Holy Grail."

A Matter of Perspective

Landmarks from different angles!

Public Service Announcement: When In The UK, Don't Order An "Irish Car Bomb."

Seriously, you might not want to, no matter how much you might like the drink here.

Nerd News: UK University Admissions Service Sells Access To Student Data

Selling out to the tune of 12 million pounds sterling.

Headline of the Day: The UK Education Secretary

"I always defended Michael Gove. Then I met him."  Ouch.

Nerd News: UK Universities Slipping In Rankings?

I personally don't put much stock in rankings, but some Brits are concerned about these new ones.

Quote of the Day: Green Purges Are Still Purges

It's the desire to purge that should worry us immediately, no?  This news piece just reinforces my conviction that a lot of these Greenie/lefty folks are crypto-tyrants constrained only by the puniness of their actual power:

Imagine if there were a campaign to sack every senior government adviser who didn’t believe in God. There’d be outrage, and rightly so. Purging politicos from power on the basis of their private beliefs, on the grounds of what lurks in their conscience, would be seen as an intolerable assault on freedom of thought. 

Well, the Green Party is proposing just such an assault on senior government advisers – not on the basis of whether they believe in God but on the basis of whether they accept the climate-change consensus.

Forgotten History: London's Frost Fair of 1814

Imagine a festival on top of the frozen Thames!

Britain's Saucy MPs

Sorry, not that kind of saucy.  A slapfest over regional liquid condiments has broken out in Parliament.

The British Parliament's Syrian "Omnishambles"

Oh dear.  What a mess, not just for David Cameron but also for Ed Miliband. It's not looking too good when one analyst entitles his piece "Labour's line on Syria can now be summed up in six words: 'Oh God. What have we done?'"