From Peter Hitchens, brother of the late Christopher:
“Officials and politicians dare not relax the measures they took in a panic, in case they are blamed if anything ever goes wrong afterwards. And millions genuinely believe they are safer as a result.”
What that means is that a series of panics will inevitably cause our freedoms to be ratcheted into oppression via the “concern for security”. And the ratcheting goes one way, irreversibly.
Why I prefer flying in four-engined airliners to twin-engined ones.
Now imagine that happening to your Boeing 757 or Airbus A320 at 35,000ft over the mid-Atlantic, rather than at 5,000ft only a few miles from the airport.
Please excuse the theme for today’s post.
…which means:
My feelings about it:
Others feel about the same:
And the last word:
So to warm us all up, a little look at more salubrious climes:
Now climb down off that roof and get to work.
From our apartment complex management:
Needless to say, my building is neither 4, 10 nor 13. And forget water.
On a related note: we had movers come and shift all our possessions into the (one-car) garage on Saturday. It took a depressingly short time, and there’s still plenty of space. Now building management can dry the place out and replace carpets etc. , which they assured me [eyecross] would take place soon.
But as I paid the movers with some of the money y’all sent to me, I said a quiet thank-you. (And yes, I will eventually get it back from the insurance, but I needed it right then, and you guys made it possible.)
Best news of all: my books were in perfect shape, untouched by the water and the resulting humidity.
And in other news: normal blogging service should resume tomorrow with the usual mixture of guns, rants, booze, invective and boobs. Try to contain your excitement.
One of the things that drives historians (well, this historian anyway) crazy is that people just refuse to learn from history — no matter how much precedent there is for a situation where doing X results in Unpleasant Consequence Y, we just go ahead and do X anyway, expecting that the outcome won’t be total shit and that anyway, Times Are Different.
Example: when Coca-Cola tried to change Coke into New Coke back in the mid-1980s — because The Market Has Changed, And We Need To Move With The Times — a storm of furious resistance from their loyal consumers forced them to recant and relaunch Coke as Classic Coke, going back to the same old formulation of super-sweet battery acid that the world had come to know and love. (New Coke, eventually, went the way of its erstwhile spokesman Bill Cosby.)
The Coca-Cola fiasco should be taught in business schools everywhere, and should be an integral part of any company’s training in marketing. It’s not the first time it happened, of course; but it was one of the more illuminating examples of leaving your established brand alone, and all the more notable because it involved a mere carbonated soft drink, surely one of the most irrelevant and disposable products ever invented.
Clearly, the Coke fiasco has either been forgotten or willfully ignored, because:
Stella Artois owners Budweiser Brewing Group UK&I say they’ve lowered the alcohol content in its canned, draft and gluten-free versions to capitalise on the popularity of “wellness trends”.
It last cut ABV from 5% to 4.8% in 2012 citing “evolving” drinking trends in the UK.
Let’s not forget the role of the bean-counters:
But the move is said to have saved previous brewers AB inBev up to £8.6million a year in duty, according to alcoholpolicy.net.
And the result?
The latest reduction has left beer lovers fuming and sparked a surge in one star reviews across supermarket websites from customers.
…
In a scathing review on Tesco’s website, the person wrote: “Today I cracked open a can of Stella 4.6% and thought I had Covid, since I could not taste anything.”
I have no dog in this fight: Stella Artois has always been my supporting argument when I state that contrary to popular belief, the Belgians know fuck-all about making a decent beer*.
It appears that they know fuck-all about marketing the foul stuff, either.
*As I recall, the Belgies were the first to start adding fruit flavors to their beer, which just proves my point.
The extended-stay hotel has restored its wifi connection, at least temporarily, so I’m more or less back in business.
However, there are over 1,700(!) emails sitting in my Inbox waiting for my attention, and today New Wife and I have to go back to the apartment to pack and move stuff into the garage so that the complex can start the laborious process of drying the place out, replacing carpets and fixing drywall.
It’s gonna take a little while before blogging resumes its customary volume, in other words.
Most alarming to me has been the realization that all my precious books may have been ruined by the humidity. I’ll find out the truth when I get back there later this morning.
Aaaaargh.
And one more time, with feeling: words cannot express our gratitude for your wonderful generosity. I hope nobody minds that when all the dust has settled, bills paid and my life is restored, that some tiny part of your contributions (if any remain) might go towards buying a few books.