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I always thought of myself as slightly centre right – but in the space of 5 weeks the labels changed to the point where the Left consider me a racist, extremist, far right terrorist. Let’s start – I think immigration is a good thing. Immigrants contribute to society – I love to see people from other countries coming here and becoming part of the community. I, personally, have helped a friend from India get his residence and work permits, totally legally. Another friend from India came over to work on a genuine programme and I helped him when he was here. Our visitors book at home reads like the United Nations – friends from India, Africa, South America, Hong Kong, Western Europe, Eastern Europe. I have good friends who are Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Hindu – but as far as the Left is concerned I am a racist, far-right extremist. This country has a proud record of giving safe haven to refugees – I’m thinking of the Jews in the 30s, the Ugandan Asians, the Vietnamese Boat People and, recently, Ukrainians. I can remember Vietnamese Boat People being housed in a centre in the small town where I grew up. They were overwhelmed by the welcome and support they got from the local community – so much so that some of them settled there. More recently I have worked with Ukrainian refugees and I have a friend who is an Afghan refugee – but as far as the Left is concerned, I am a racist, far-right extremist. The problem is that what is happening now is ‘taking the proverbial’. The Labour government under Blair and Brown threw open the borders to uncontrolled mass immigration and we are now reaping that whirlwind. The mass of people coming in now are not refugees or genuine asylum seekers. There are illegal immigrants. The problem is – the Left sees them ALL as refugees. Refugees flee war zones. Let's just focus on the people coming into the country illegally on boats. and let's have a look where they come from in order of number: Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Vietnam, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Turkey. For a start, as far as I know not many, if any, of those are war zones which is what refugees flee from. Now let's have a look at typical refugee behaviour - most of them tend to be women, children and families and they get out into the first safe country. Ukraine is a case in point - they fled across the border and then there was an organised programme to disperse them to different countries who put procedures in place to host them. The majority of those entering the country illegally are young men - the percentage ranges from 76% to 91%. Not only have they not stopped in the first safe country - look how many safe countries they have had to pass through to get here! and if they were refugees why is there not a dispersal programme as there was with the Ukrainians? When the Ukrainians fled it was women, children and families. The ones coming on the boat are predominantly young, single men – and, as an aside, all bar one of the countries in the list are Muslim countries and they bring with them values that are incompatible with ours. OK, so let's assume they are NOT refugees as I said, let's look at ‘asylum seekers’. Where do they come from? The top two countries are Afghanistan and Pakistan. OK, I can understand why some people would want to flee Afghanistan and seek asylum. In fact one of my friends is an Afghan asylum seeker - however not all of them are. I can also understand why people would have claimed asylum from Syria - Assad was a bastard. Now I can see why others would claim asylum from Syria as the new regime is ISIS backed (have you seen the footage of them throwing Druze Christians off roofs?) Coming in on the boats many of them are coached what to say and they jettison their documents. There are also documented cases of some of them having their asylum claims accepted and then immediately going on holiday to the place they allegedly fled from. Now, then - Pakistan - the only people who could legitimately claim asylum from Pakistan are gays and apostates. I can see why they would want to claim asylum – the ‘religion of peace’ sets out to kill them. So how come there are so many from Pakistan? The only logical conclusion is that many of them are fake asylum seekers. 40%-70% of these claims are approved. This doesn't necessarily mean the claims are genuine, more likely the system is overwhelmed. You probably know what I think about bureaucrats - most of them aren't fit for purpose. The joy for the bureaucrat is not in the outcome but in the process and they take the path of least resistance. I read recently a first hand account of someone who worked in an asylum team. She reckoned a mere 5% were genuine, but the Government gives amnesties just to cut the numbers. Once they are in, they can then bring their families (but if they feared for their lives why are the families still there?). I naively thought family meant immediate family – but no I have seen cases of ‘great aunt’ being brought over, too. When the families come over – they don’t work. The females often aren’t allowed to work. And the cost of all this - just in terms of hotels alone the cost is £5.7m per day! On top of that there is the cost to the welfare state in terms of these fake asylum seekers (bear in mind that the woman with first hand experience said 5% were genuine). And the question still has to be asked - why come through so many safe countries where you could seek asylum, but keep on going to make a dangerous crossing. Why here? Why not one of the myriad other countries they have passed through that could provide safe haven? People coming here legitimately tend to integrate and contribute. The ones coming in illegally (either on boats or suspicious student visas) tend to do neither but want things handed to them on a plate and make demands that Britain changes to suit THEM. They demand that their laws and culture take precedence. Let’s have a look at some real world examples: Recently I watched an interview with a guy from Morocco (why would anyone be a refugee or asylum seeker from Morocco). He had 4 wives (but bigamy is illegal over here). That is 3 wives in 3 houses in the UK and a wife back in Morocco – again, that begs the question, if Morocco is so bad that he had to get out why does he have a wife there. Between them they have 12 children. Not one person in the family works – and yet benefits are paid to all 3 households here AND the one in Morocco. The interview with this guy was because he was complaining that he wanted a bigger house. I also saw an interview with Abdul from Afghanistan – he had come over illegally and was now wanting to bring his wife and six children. I read an email from a surgeon who was about to perform a life-saving Caesarean when the (Afghan) husband burst in with an iron bar to stop the operation, because male staff were treating his wife. He had been concerned so he had contact elders back in Afghanistan and the Taliban had instructed him to stop the operation. If he has to refer to the Taliban in Afghanistan what is he doing here? One of my friends is a police officer. She attended a domestic incident in West Yorkshire. All they could get out of the female was ‘House! You give me house. I want house’ I spoke to a gentleman from Tamworth who told me about a hotel there housing migrants. He told me about the free laundry twice a week, the free on-site medical and dental provision. One paramedic was called and was met with so many demands and so much abuse from the migrant he had come to attend that he contacted his controller and said he refused to deal with the individual. They were well fed and they were granted free access to human rights lawyers to fight their case. From this same hotel the migrants hang round the local park and film the young girls. One of the girls filmed the migrants filming the girls and posted the video online. I’ll give you one guess as to who the police approached. Yes – they made her take it down. Sadly one of the girls WAS raped, just 2 weeks later. There are plenty more examples, but we'll leave it at that for now. How are the authorities dealing with this? They take the easy way out. They fined a couple who found they had a stowaway on the back of their campervan and reported the stowaway to the authorities. They fined them £1500 for bringing in an illegal immigrant – yet the RNLI brings in 50 at a time! They approve up to 70% of asylum applications, when a professional in one of the asylum teams stated that in her experience only 5% were genuine. They give amnesties and block approve applications so they can show they are getting the backlog down. They deny visas to genuine applicants so they can show they are ‘doing something.’ I have personal experience of this. I am an administrator for a sport and we have had immense problems with people being refused visas when wanting to come here for education or competition. Africa is a real growth area for our sport and recently we had the Head of the African Development for the sport planning to come for ten days – we were due to have meetings, provide him with training, were taking him to schools and clubs. We committed to hosting him, providing all internal travel and subsistence, would collect him from the airport and guaranteed to return him to the airport – visa refused. Illegal immigrants used to be housed in camps whilst their applications were processed but human rights lawyers (like Keir Starmer) took the UK to the ECHR who ruled that we could not ‘detain’ illegal immigrants. Labour fought the Tories tooth and nail on every single thing they tried. For example the Tories set up the Rwanda programme and it WAS a deterrent. The Premier of Ireland said the threat of it was working. The immigrants in Calais said it was a deterrent and that they were just waiting for a Labour government – and that is exactly what happened. As soon as the Rwanda programme was stopped (at a cost of how much money?) the number of boats increased. Britain is a very tolerant country – but we can only be pushed so far and we are rapidly reaching that point (if we haven’t got there already). I hate the fact that some migrant families are getting abuse in the streets. I hate racism. I repeat we have to keep providing safe haven for refugees and genuine asylum seekers - that is a human responsibility. However this uncontrolled mass immigration has to be addressed and stopped. We need a factory reset for the asylum system. Merely for wanting to have the discussion the Left consider me an extremist far-right terrorist. *sigh*

OK, so Yorkshire Water has declared a drought and today start enforcing a hosepipe ban for households in Yorkshire. Yesterday I was in Spa Gardens in Ripon. I had a bit of time to fill so I sat on a bench in the shade. A Council worker was already in the process of watering a small flower bed with a hosepipe. I don’t know how long he had been at it but it was a full ten minutes from me sitting down to him moving on to the next bed, which was much larger. I was there for about another five minutes and he had barely moved along this bed. After that there was another small bed and then a massive bed the full length of the bowling green. This begs the questions – how many times a week is this done and across how many parks in North Yorkshire? I know the ban only applies to households and I know it wasn’t in place yesterday. I know some businesses rely on water for their business – commercial car washes, laundries, agriculture, horticulture, care homes, hospitals etc but when we are all being urged to save water as a matter of urgency for a Council to be using so much water to water flower beds in parks is totally irresponsible. In fact it’s disgraceful. When Yorkshire Water tell a hot tub owner who needs to full the hot tub after a service that there is no problem filling the hot tub, but they must use buckets – let’s assume the hot tub holds 1000 gallons. It will take 1000 gallons whether from a hose or buckets. I remember in a previous hosepipe ban someone tried to be responsible and syphoned their bathwater onto the garden – they were fined for using a hosepipe to do so. When households are being faced with such restrictions I find the attitude of North Yorkshire Council in this matter to be incomprehensible. Councils used to be Public Servants. Now they consider themselves to be our lords and masters and this incident is a perfect example of their arrogance

Rant alert! Not long ago I had a day's work in a school on the outskirts of Bradford. A couple of days ago I got an envelope from Bradford – I figured it was a remittance advice for the work I did. It wasn’t – it was a bloody penalty charge notice. Apparently I had ventured into the Bradford Low Emission Zone. I knew they had one – there are notices on the motorway and I had read about it a while ago so I knew it was there. As the school is in Allerton which is not in the city at all. I decided to go via Harrogate and up round the top so that I avoided the city. I'm very boring - I try to stick to the speed limit, I avoid bus lanes and I've never even had a parking ticket never mind a speeding ticket. I try to be courteous and observant but I never saw a single bloody sign. Add in that it was a totally unfamiliar area and you are following directions, observing speed limits, bus lanes, junctions, pedestrians and other traffic. Surely if you are entering a charging zone there should be CLEAR signage, not zero of minimal signage. If I had known, then I would simply have added the charge to the invoice and charged it to the client, the same as I charged them travel expenses. The first time I knew I had entered the charging zone was when the fine arrived. It looks like I'm not alone, either: (a) I saw this online when I searched for what the signs might look like < >>> have just received a £120 fine (reduced to £60) for non payment of driving in the Bradford area clean air zone. I drive a T5 campervan and had absolutely no idea that Bradford had a clean air zone, or saw any sign advertising the fact. I visited Haworth in my van for the first time on 28/4 and today (15/5) received a fine in the post for non payment of fine. The £9 a day charge is steep enough without having to pay £60 when there was no obvious signage to inform me to pay. First and last trip to the area from Lincolnshire. If you appeal the fine then you risk having to pay £180 if you lose the appeal. I understand now that I had to pay £9 but feel there should be at least some warning, and a one off chance of explaining that I had no idea there was a clean air zone!>> b) a friend commented: << Me and my brother got caught out by this last year when we drove into Saltaire from Harrogate, neither of us knew about, oblivious we were, neither of us could remember seeing any signs. >> c) another friend commented: < > d) and someone else: < > And then I find out that this doesn't apply to private vehicles, only commercial vehicles. I could drive a diesel vehicle the same age through with no charge. Of course, charging private vehicles would have cost them votes, so it clearly is NOT about emissions but about revenue from a council that can't balance its books (they are one of the councils given the go ahead by Angela Rainer to increase their council tax way above what is normally allowed. My business is still struggling to rebuild after the ravages of Covid and yet councils like this just see businesses as an easy target for revenue generation. All the same, if there had been clear signage to make it crystal clear that you are entering a chargeable zone I wouldn't have felt so aggrieved. As I say, I'd have been able to add it to the invoice (or I could have just paid the damn thing). The thing that really pisses me off is that it really isn't clear and the first you know about it is when the fine arrives, and then it is difficult to contest. So you set up something that you are going to charge people for, but don't make it clear when it applies and then fine them for not paying because they didn't know. Surely that 's deception. Tell me that isn't a scam!

In all my 65 years I have never known a government make such an appalling start to their term of office. I’ve been around long enough to know it’s cyclical. I’ve seen it time and again. Labour tax and spend and bring the country to its knees financially. The Tories come in and have to make hard decisions but do get the country back on track financially. Then they get complacent and instead of fighting the opposition fight amongst themselves and hand it on a plate to Labour who go through the same old routine. Even after this last disastrous Tory administration when we should have been in a better place than we were they handed over the fastest growing economy in the G7. Now look where the pound is against the dollar? As I said – I have never known such an appalling and abject start to a government. For a start I hate the lies and hypocrisy. If this had been a Conservative government they would have been pilloried by the Left. Boris Johnson was absolutely hammered for a donor contributing to the refurb of No 10 – ‘wallpapergate.’ But this is a public building and it DID save the taxpayers’ money. Contrast it with Blair and Brown who spent hundreds of thousands of public money on their refurbs. Now look at Starmer - clothes, glasses, clothes for his wife. More and more about financial gifts from Lord Ali came out. I read a figure of £125K worth of freebies overall plus £30K worth of accommodation for his son to study – but it lasted 4 weeks after the exams ended. Then we hear about a box at Highbury – but he claims this saves the taxpayer money because he can’t sit in the stands, security, you know. Well, Rishi Sunak the leader of an unpopular government managed to do that. Then there is Lammy, Reaves and Raynor – all on the take from Lord Ali – but hidden, eg as office supplies. Wasn’t Starmer broadcasting from Lord Ali’s place in lockdown but had his own Christmas cards in the background to make it look like he was at home? A deliberate attempt to mislead. Yes, the Tories got complacent and needed teaching a lesson but all the time Labour have been as bad if not worse. The hypocrisy is mind-blowing. On top of all that, let’s not forget that Sue Gray was the bureaucrat that led the attacks on Boris Johnson – then we find out she is suddenly Starmer’s Chief of Staff. There is a terrible stench around all this. They lied to get into government. You can see videos of them before the election – we won’t increase NI. We will look after pensioners. Council tax will be frozen. Starmer said £400 off energy bills In reality it was a 10% increase. In their manifesto they promised to abolish student fees from £9K pa but will be putting them up instead. The £22billion black hole – I simply don’t believe it. It is just trotted out there and repeated until it becomes accepted fact to prepare us to be rinsed. We are going to be absolutely screwed. Now for inconsistency – yes the riots were terrible. It isn’t the right way to go about things – but why didn’t Starmer say the same things when there were the BLM riots? On that occasion he took the knee!! And in order to make room for people who took part in the riots – he releases convicts even earlier than normal! Among them a kidnapper and a violent wife-beater. Then we have 2-tier policing – a school governor who was in the riots was jailed for shouting and gesticulating at the police (note – not for rioting, looting, violence, but for shouting and gesticulating. Yet the union activist who actually threw things at Nigel Farage gets a suspended sentence. We are seeing paedophiles getting suspended sentences but people making social media posts getting custodial sentences. We see a white guy who swears at a ProPals protester warned to leave the area and threatened with arrest. A few minutes later that same ProPals protester uses the same language to someone else and is politely asked to tone down her language – by the same copper. We see individuals filming ProPals demonstrations told to leave and threatened with arrest because they are ‘causing offence, harm and distress’ to the protestors. Yvette Cooper is set to expand ‘non-crime hate incidents.’ These are where no crime has been committed but the police will be knocking on your door for something you have said or posted. They are investigating children as young as 6 – one example was of a child saying another child ‘smelled like fish.’ In another example several officers turned up to arrest a 15 year old autistic girl who had said an officer ‘looked like her lesbian Nan.’ As if this wasn’t sinister enough, even though no crime has been committed it is recorded – so good luck with getting a job with a state entity! There was immediate capitulation to the unions – making sure that every public sector union will now be threating strikes as they know they will get exactly what they want. We knew when they said they wouldn’t increase income tax it was just another way of saying they’ll find other ways to tax us (plus ça change). Rachel Reeves’ budget was an ideological budget not a fiscal budget. As an example – the VAT on Private Schools was brought in without enough notice for families to make adjustments. The so called ‘independent’ IFS was done by a Labour MP’s best mate (who hates private schools) and funded by the Nuffield Foundation (and I hear they hate private schools, too). Ironically this has made private education even more elitist. Even the Bank of England has warned the budget is bad for business. UK growth has slowed and inflation has risen. As we are talking about Rachel Reeves, how is she even still in post – it has come out that she lied on her CV. She isn’t what she claimed to be. If this were a Conservative politician they would have been hounded out of office. How come she is still there? Ed Milliband with his net zero fanaticism. How is he still in office? He got an ‘independent report’ from an organisation that backed up what he was doing and he presented it as credible evidence. Now it comes out that that organisation has one person with significant control – Ed Milliband. He was advising himself. How is he still in office? Oh – and he has sneakily introduced a boiler tax to try and force us to buy heat pumps – but they don’t give enough heat and cost a fortune. I was talking to a plumber recently and a lot of his work is taking them out! We kept hearing about a Starmer secret that was going to force his resignation. Then it all went away. If this had been a Conservative politician you can imaging the furore. How do non-stick-Starmer and his cronies keep getting away with it? The freebies? The cronyism? The lies? Immigration - even the illegal immigrants in interviews said the Rwanda project was a deterrent and they were just waiting for a Labour government, and guess what – the numbers have soared. 13,180 in Labour’s first 100 days! When they arrive they are put up in 3* and 4* hotels, given pocket money, given a mobile phone, private health and dental care onsite, given English lessons and free access to immigration lawyers. I’ve read in more than one place that it is costing us £41K annually for each of them. We are now taxed at a higher level than ever since 1948 when we were having to rebuild after the war. There are immediate savings we could make • Why are we making foreign aid payments to a country that has a space programme? • Why are we making payments to farmers in Brazil and Rwanda? • Why is Ed Milliband given such a massive budget? £22 billion for carbon capture. (£22 billion – where have we heard that before?) • Why are we paying £100m pa for interpreters in the NHS? • GB Energy - £8 Billion (but it won’t generate any energy) • £11.6 Billion to Africa for climate change • Why aren’t they getting a grip on illegal immigration which is costing us billions? • Hasn’t Starmer committed £117m to protect mosques? (am sure I read that somewhere) • We have a commitment to the WHO but Labour have just made an extra donation of £350m • The public sector pay rises alone cost £9 Billion It looks like we are just picking up where Blair and Brown left off and making it even worse. • Blair and Brown were responsible for more new laws and regulations than any previous government. • It was Blair and Brown who threw open the borders to uncontrolled immigration • It was Blair and Brown who saddled the NHS with the crippling Public Finance Initiatives and placed extra layers of bureaucrats. • Blair and Brown found more and more new ways of taxing us – they are why you pay tax on your insurance. They are why you pay tax on your holiday • Blair and Brown practically bankrupted the country – the incoming finance minister found a letter from his predecessor ‘there’s no money left. We’ve spent it all’ OK, I can think of three good things Blair and Brown did – the School Sports Partnerships were great; they brought in the smoking ban and they brought in the fox-hunting ban (but even that was a fudge and has so many loopholes as to be almost unworkable) I am seeing more and more state control – the actions of the police who knock on the door at 4am because a guy has posted on X that he doesn’t want to see Palestinian flags flying across the country. The police trawling through social media posts. The two-tier policing outlined above. 1984 and Animal Farm were supposed to be warnings. This lot seem to regard them as policy documents. In the early 1990s I was warning of the Sovietisation of the UK. It’s almost here – if not here already. Two years ago I was warning of riots, revolution and civil war. We’ve had riots within the first few weeks of this administration. I fear for the future. We are screwed. Britain is a tolerant country but we can only be pushed so far. However, I’ll finish on a positive note for non-stick Starmer – I am delighted that he is standing firm on Ukraine. We are where we were in the 30s only this time the megalomaniac dictator is Putin. We have to be resolute in our support of Ukraine who are in the front line of defence.

You might remember from an earlier blog post that I had come across a local artisan gin distillery with lovely gin but that I stopped being a customer because they could or would not condemn blood sports. Well, for Christmas Tom and Abi bought us and Abi's parents a 'gin experience' at Spirit of Masham. Here's what happened. The four of us arrived at the distillery at the appointed time and found another pair of guests already there. The owner prepared us each a gin and tonic and we all chatted. I related my experience with the other gin distillery and the owner was very quick to jump in and say they do not support any blood sports - on the contrary they are concerned for animal welfare and are very active in the Masham Save Our Swifts programme - a great start. Whilst we enjoyed our G&Ts the owner gave us a fascinating history of both gin and of his company, delivered in a knowledgeable, humorous and entertaining style. After this we were given a tour of the distillery - interesting and very, very impressive. Then came the highlight, the chance to make our own gin. We were each allocated a small still that would make enough gin for a 70cl bottle and a bit. The spirit and water had already been measured out and we added them to the still. Then a binding agent - for me I chose Liquorice powder. Next came the dried juniper berries which had also been measured out for us. After that it was up to us to choose our own botanicals from the wide range on the shelf. We had to record what we added as we went along. My choice was Cardamom (I LOVE Cardamom), Vanilla, Ginger, Star Anise and Mango. During this period the owner/tutor made each of us a cocktail (we could choose from a list) using their own gin. Once the distilling was finished the owner/tutor measured the strength of the alcohol and brought it down to the required level. It was bottled and with the bit left over he made us a Gin and Tonic using our own gins. Good job, Tom had said he would act as taxi for us. The best bit of all - they keep your 'recipe' card on file and if you want another bottle they'll make you one using one of the small stills. Guess what - everyone on the 'experience' also bought some of the company's own gins, too. There is their 'original' which is their signature gin (and it is seriously awesome), the classic (which is a standard gin) and others. They also do a pretty special rum. This was a simply wonderful afternoon. We all thoroughly enjoyed it - and this is the gin we are going to be buying from now on. Seriously - this was a great experience - give it a go. You can find them on FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/spiritofmasham and on the Web: https://spiritofmasham.co.uk/ Thank you, Tom and Abi, for an amazing Christmas present!

Some time ago I was approached by a couple of young ladies in America, Emily Rinkema and Deb Emerson, who had developed a concept called Hodie (pronounce Ho-dee-ay). Hodie is Latin and means 'this day.' Emily and Deb explain that this is what (ho-dee-ay) is all about: enjoying the time we have together at this moment. Emily and Deb had both gone through the pain of seeing loved ones descend into the long goodbye of dementia. The two friends tried to engage actively with their family members despite the cognitive challenges - they struggled to find simple, fun activities. Together they came up with the concept of a card game with no rules, just various activities that the cards can be used for. This innovative idea allows people to make connections with loved ones who are going through dementia. Their first card pack featured 20 or so photos of birds by Vermont photographer Peter Riley. As Emily and Deb explain << While there are no rules to (ho-dee-ay), each set comes with an insert that has suggested activities: cards can be matched, stacked, organized, clumped, sequenced, and sorted; stories can be told, memories can be shared, and knowledge can be passed along. Most importantly, those playing can make up their own rules!>> Following the success of their birds cards they planned that the second set would feature classic cars. They found me on my Instagram (@pmhimages.co.uk) and got in touch. It goes without saying that I was honoured and delighted to be invited to be part of this exciting and worthwhile project. Emily and Deb tell me that they have taken advance orders for 33% of the first production run of the classic car packs and today - mine arrived in the post. They have turned out brilliantly and I love the insert with the suggested activities. Quite simply, these two ladies should be extremely proud of themselves for what they have created. I, myself, am very proud that they asked me to be part of it. Now - surely there must be a distributor in the UK that would like to have these as part of their portfolio to bring the benefits to dementia patients over here! You can find Ho-dee-ay on www.hodeeay.com and the link to the classic car pack is https://hodeeay.com/product/car-show/ I hope this is a great success for them. It deserves to be.

OK, let's get this out of the way first - this is an excellent product. I was delighted when I discovered Whittaker's gin. I bought some for my wife - it's wonderfully smooth. I took my wife up in the Triumph Herald and we took some photos and bought some more. When you take a bottle back for a refill you get a £5 discount - I've done this, too. I was getting excited about their whisky plans. In Spring we were going up as a family in my son's '66 Mustang and doing a distillery tour. We were enthusiastic customers. BUT as I am sure you know, I hate all forms of animal abuse and am active in this field. In one of the forums of which I was a part I noticed a post naming Whittaker's gin as people who proactively support fox hunting and who used to go hunting. An extract from the post read < > and supported this by claiming << ‘it’s the country way, it’s tradition’ >> to excuse it. I wrote to them to ask about it - I made it clear who I was and referred back to our visit with the Herald so they could put a face to the message. I didn't even get the courtesy of a reply. A quick check on the owners' FaceBook pages, however, revealed photos of them hunting and a photo of a fox with a lamb that had been debunked as staged ages ago, so there appears to be no doubt as to where the sympathies lie. I'm not going to do a fake review and say the product is rubbish. I don't do that. I don't need to lie and do fake reviews. The product itself really is excellent and supremely smooth. If you are comfortable with animal abuse then you will of course be happy to buy from here but I personally simply cannot recommend or patronise a business or organisation when I know that they are part of the kill for fun community, and for that reason they can now count me as an ex-customer, a former customer. The empty bottle has gone in the re-cycling and we will not be going there again. May 11th 2023 UPDATE If you remember, when I found out about the hunting links I contacted Whittaker's Gin to get their side of things and didn't get a reply. I waited three weeks before I posted my blog. Within 90 minutes of the blog being advertised on FaceBook I got a response: << Whittaker’s Distillery does not support Fox Hunting or any other illegal activity. >> That was it - a sort of stock response. I responded immediately: < > As you can see, I tried to enter into a dialogue to ascertain the position. This was the reply: < > I think it was quite clear from my messages that I had not 'made up my mind' and was giving them the opportunity to clarify and give their position. I responded: << Tbh - I contacted you first. I didn’t just accept it. When I didn’t hear back I went to look to check. If I am wrong and you are actually opposed to these activities now and can state that I would be delighted and perfectly happy to post an update. >> Again, I gave them the opportunity to respond and offered to post an update. That was on March 14th. I have waited since then to give them ample opportunity but the silence has been deafening. I leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Let me tell you about when I was at University. It was in the late 70s and Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, was striking terror round West Yorkshire. Every evening after lectures I would accompany my female friends back out to their flats a couple of miles away from campus and then walk back to my accommodation on campus. Every evening they would complain and say I was over-reacting – that was until the horrible night when poor Jackie Hill, a student, was murdered and her body left on the very patch of ground we walked past every night. They never complained after that. I don’t tell this story to big myself up or anything – just to set the scene because nothing has really changed. Women, men, children are still vulnerable when out and about. The name Suzy Lamplugh, the estate agent, is well-known to all. Poor Claudia Lawrence has still not been found and her name resonates with us all here in York. More recently the name Sarah Everard has been burned into our minds. Wouldn’t it have been useful for all the victims if they had been able to call for help, or have someone looking out for them on their way home? Well now they can. I’ve been having a look at Guardian Angel. This is a personal safety app created by my good friend, software developer Stuart Stead. He’s a father himself and the sad cases of lives lost to attackers made him want to do something. He’s been working on this for a long time and now he feels that technology has reached the point where he has been able to realise his vision. The app has two main functions – HelpMe and TrackMe. A family or business will set up a ‘group’ of users. With HelpMe, if someone is feeling vulnerable or threatened, they can trigger an alert either by voice command or button press. This immediately starts a recording and sends a notification to the group. A member of the group takes ownership of the call and this sends an audible confirmation to the user that the alert has been received. The supervisor can then listen to the recording and take appropriate action eg initiating a video call from within the app or calling the emergency services. The system continues to record and also displays an ongoing location on a map. The audible confirmation of receipt of the call for help could well deter any attacker. Even if it doesn’t it will mean the emergency services will be on their way very quickly and will know the location. Importantly the system uses data so it requires less signal than a phone call. The TrackMe function is started before the user sets off on a journey – for example walking home, or travelling by car from a distant location. Again, a member of the group will take ownership and monitor the travel on a map. This app clearly has many, many uses Estate agents – they often have to meet prospects alone in houses Care workers who visit homes alone Council workers University students Taxi Drivers Social Services Ambulance crews A young woman walking alone to or from work, or after an evening out can be monitored on her journey using TrackMe and if there is an incident can trigger an alert for assistance with HelpMe. Families can use it to monitor their children coming home from school It can be used where someone (be it adult or child) is being subjected to bullying, intimidation or harassment at work or school. It is an ideal tool for the HR department to look after an organisation’s employees It can provide evidence for the police in harassment cases via the recordings If someone is walking home and has TrackMe activated and they are abducted the phone can provide tracking as long as they still have it on their person. I’ve scratched the surface here – there are endless possibilities for this app. The first version of the app to be launched is the Business Guardian Angel which is designed for businesses to take care of their employees. The Family Guardian Angel will follow soon and this is intended to be a free version, funded by adverts. Stuart told me he feels that times are hard enough for families and he doesn’t want any family to feel they have to compromise their safety and security because they can’t afford it. Yes, I know there are a couple of other apps out there and I have looked at them – you know what? Guardian Angel blows them right out of the water. It’s quite simply in a different league. I really hope that businesses jump on board with this – organisations have a duty of care to their employees and this is an affordable way in which they can do exactly that and when Family Guardian Angel is available then EVERY FAMILY SHOULD USE IT. This is a game-changer! Go and get it! www.theguardianangelservice.com

New Year's Resolutions - what are they? Total fail on every single one of them. I'm not even going to bother re-making them this year, just have them as vague sort of targets or aims. Having got the fails out of the way, let's have a look at what did happen. In the world of VX Tom and I went with Dan Shuker to Graz in Austria where VX was to be a demonstration sport. Obviously VX was a real hit, as it always is, and it was nice to have a few days away with Tom. I also went to Bavaria. Sadly Maggie couldn't go because of passport hold ups. I love Bavaria - it's my spiritual second home. We have lots of friends down, there. Some are more friends than family and it was their Golden Wedding so I was keen to be there. Sadly my friend died suddenly and unexpectedly two weeks beforehand so instead of going for the celebrations, I went to just be with them. It was very strange without him. Maggie and I did get away for an overnight - some friends won dinner, bed and breakfast at Stapleford Park Hotel, but couldn't go so they gave it to us. What a treat. We could never afford something like that. Absolutely stunning place, great photo opportunities and wonderful food. I've managed to get much more time out with the Herald and Falcon this year. We've had much better weather and I've been able to use them for everyday use, plus we've been to three classic car rallies in them. As well as that the Herald made her filming debut. A local film company was doing a promotional video for a client and needed a pre-70s car. You can see the film here on YouTube . It's only about one and a half minutes long and the car sets the scene at the beginning. Obviously that's the best bit! I have to say - they did a good job. Continuing the theme of cars - I found my photographic niche. I'd been messing around with different genres, not settling on anything but finally settled on automotive photography. I've set up a new Instagram account specifically for this (@pmhimages_cars) and hopefully in the New Year I'll have a website up. I've already got a gallery site up where people can buy downloads, prints, photoart, mugs etc but I need a website to feed into this. I also need to get more galleries up on the gallery site. I'm delighted with the response that my automotive photography has been getting. Now I need to develop this further by looking at light painting and incorporating the drone. What else this year? I continue to be active in Animal Rights, and we continue the fight, spreading the word about the evils of fox-hunting. We've had outreaches and have done plenty of leafletting and have been working towards the annual propaganda events they call their Boxing Day meets. Their days are numbered - there has been so much incredible negative publicity for the hunts over the year, along with convictions. More and more people are realising that they are flouting the law with impunity and that this is an incredibly cruel and barbaric activity. And yes, I'm still vegan and still wishing I had done it many years earlier! You might remember that we lost our darling cat Izzy December last year. We still have Chloe - she's a real Daddy's girl, but she is getting slower and older before our eyes. She is sleeping her days away, but is warm, comfortable and very loved. Here's wishing all friends and family a very happy Christmas and a healthy and successful 2023.