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Monday 23 September 2019

Intermission ..

With great sympathy for the staff and customers of Thomas Cook this morning, I fear this is as much a casualty of the High Street squeeze and the decline of the Catalogue Culture as of the obvious overcapacity in the budget flight and travel markets. The firm's competitors will now fight like jackals over landing slots, but I wouldn't put much interest in those High Street travel shops.

Whilst we await the main news event of the day (if it comes) I leave you with a photo of a charming young girl no doubt forced by peer and parental pressure into a cult youth group, the BDM or League of German Girls back in the 1930s.

Update 14.40
==========
The Supreme Court ruling is due at 10.30 tomorrow. I'll post following.


34 comments:

Stephen J said...

Thomas Cook was one of those sad companies that used to be run as a civil service department.

I suspect that like BT, BA and a number of other similarly compromised companies that we suffer from here, they have never fully recovered They still believe that the taxpayer is there to wait while they get around to doing stuff, and bail them out when they periodically mess up.

Of course, like those other entitled organisations, Thomas Cook would run much better if it wasn't for all the customers.

DeeDee99 said...

Is that young girl Saint Greta's grandmother?

I wonder if the lefties and brainwashed kiddies who support Saint Greta and are now bleating about lost jobs and people stranded overseas will admit that if people reduce the number of flights they take, companies like Thomas Cook, airlines etc are going to collapse and thousands of jobs will be lost.

Sobers said...

"I wonder if the lefties and brainwashed kiddies who support Saint Greta and are now bleating about lost jobs and people stranded overseas will admit that if people reduce the number of flights they take, companies like Thomas Cook, airlines etc are going to collapse and thousands of jobs will be lost."

Let me predict: the very same people who support St Greta and her campaign to reduce the West to a peasant society will be excoriating the Government for not pumping taxpayers money into Thomas Cook to keep it afloat. Thus providing even more evidence (to be added to the mountain already available) that their only interest is not 'climate change' or indeed the welfare of the employees and customers of Thomas Cook, but that they will use whatever lever they have to hand to get themselves ever closer to what they want - power, over everyone else.
There is only one universal principle to Leftist argument - they want power, and any person or thing that stands in their way will be opposed by whatever arguments they have to hand, regardless of any logical inconsistency. Their principle is not the welfare of the working class, or women, or homosexuals, nor are they really worried about climate change, or acid rain, or nuclear weapons, those people and concepts are all just tools used to defeat those standing in the way of the Left's ascent to power. And will be discarded the moment they are no longer of use to the Left.
Any group in society that gets the support of the Left needs to realise they're on very thin ice - once their usefulness is gone they'll be disposed of, indeed they may go from heroes to villains in the blink of an eye. Ask the white working class how the support of the Left is working out......or indeed gays.

rapscallion said...

@Sobers

"or indeed gays.

Soon, women's "issues" will be discarded, in fact they are already in the process of that. Notice the segregation at Liebour events where the ROP is over-represented. We know the plight of working class girls, but where were the sista's when Iran started cracking down of Iranian ladies who decided not to resemble letter boxes? or FGM. Mmmmm, strangely they're rather silent aren't they

Divide and rule - it has always been the aim of the Left. Once they have that power, if you dissent, you disappear.

Dave_G said...


I'm always surprised (if not simply disappointed) that so many people are fooled into giving their support to overtly left-wing causes.

But I also believe that the support - in terms of media-propagandised advertising - isn't as large as the same media like to make out. Those anti-climate campaigns might look well supported but the comments sections under every climate LIE tell another story and, much like every issue of fairly major concern these days, the actual support is waaaay lower than the media like to portray it as.

The old issue of divide and conquer is well established but if the greater majority of the people that actually see through these parades, campaigns and protests actually 'got their shit together' and put up a united opposition (difficult with the MSM on the 'wrong side' of things) then we might see a decent fight back against establishment leanings.

The Brexit vote was a good example of facts overcoming propaganda and I suspect that if similar type of referendum was held to determine public opinion on the other issues-of-the-day the Government/leftist would (again) have their faces smacked by public backlash.

Rossa said...

A lot of photos on the ‘net showing St Greta with her ‘handler’ called Luisa-Marie Neubauer, who works for the ONE foundation run by Bono, Bill Gates and George Soros. She went with Greta on the boat to America.

Also photos of Greta in an Antifa T shirt. Despite claiming she borrowed it from a friend, there are photos of both parents also wearing the same T shirts.

Andy in Taiwan said...

I occasionally used TC for buying foreign currency, their branches always had 3 or 4 middle-aged women sitting around and hardly any customers.

Am surprised they lasted this long into the era of internet booking, I have never booked anything through them, but have found STA and Flightcenter can sometimes get better deals on flights than the web (STA are also handy in that they sell flexi-passes to change return dates)

Rossa said...

@rapscallion

“Soon, women's "issues" will be discarded, in fact they are already in the process of that....”

In one American state (can’t remember which one) there has been uproar from the feminists about flyers and posters that have appeared anonymously with the words “Islam is right about women”.

JPM said...

Yes, polls in Galileo's time would have resoundlngly declared that the world is flat.

Stephen J said...

Yes must be quite a shock for JPM, to realise that he is witnessing the period after that.

The one where everyone now agrees that Galileo was right!

There are always a few thick stragglers.

JPM said...

R-w. I understand the Planck radiation equation. Would you care to explain to me, briefly, in your own words what it describes?

Bill Quango MP said...

Thomas Cook is out because it far too many shops and far too many staff, for the modern age.
Travel was the first big casualty of the internet.
If you recall. last minute. com was predicted to be the biggest travel company in the world. Before the .com boom went bust, and did a mini 1929 on the realities of investors.

Those internet travel companies then flourished as technology evolved to allow them to make use of our mobile access to everything.

I strongly believe there is a market still for the high street agaents. But it is not a market of the size that Thomas Cook was catering too.

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure Galileo proposed the heliocentric model, not the concept of a globe. Polls at the time would likely not have stated that the world was flat.

On a related note, opposition to Columbus was not founded on a belief in a flat earth, but the entirely correct argument that the distance from Iberia to India was too far to sail. That the Americas happened to be in the middle was extremely fortunate for the expedition.

Mark said...

You hit a nerve there R-w.

Not that that is particularly difficult.

Stephen J said...

Sorry Jack, I never did physics at school, I was into mamby pamby biology and the emerging thread that took over, genetics.

Don't mind admitting that I don't know about something.

Unlike some people, who just keep advertising their ignorance.

DiscoveredJoys said...

@ Sobers

"There is only one universal principle to Leftist argument - they want power, and any person or thing that stands in their way will be opposed by whatever arguments they have to hand, regardless of any logical inconsistency."

...andf when they get it they don't know what to do with it.

Mark said...

Well I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical!

JPM said...

OK, what does it describe then, Mark?

If you don't really get it, then don't comment on matters to which it is central, that is, the thermal equilibrium of our planet.

Mark said...

Actually Cheerful I worked in the aerospace industry for 30 odd years starting on infra red sensors systems. I did physics and have been a chartered engineer since 1995.

The thermal equilibrium of the atmosphere is quite easy to understand (even for you). The atmosphere has two "windows" approximately 3-5 and 8-13 microns (that is radiation in these "windows" can get out).

The absorption of CO2 is around 10 microns (a CO2 laser emits around this frequency BTW). For a black body (a theoretically ideal thermal radiator which is pretty well reliasable in practice) the plank equation relates the temperature to the peak wavelength.

It can be applied to all objects taking into account their emmisivity (I.e how well they approximate a black body)

10 microns is a black body at roughly body temperature (we probably evolved our body temperature to match the atmosphere, bit like the peak sensitivity of the eye corresponding to the colour of the sun).

The global average temperature is what it is because, as above, the atmosphere reaches equilibrium where thermal radiation can "get out"

The basic theory of "global warming" was that excess CO2 would start to "close" the 8-12 "window". Simples and easy to derive a model which shows this to scare the peasantry.

However, the real atmosphere (with many other "greenhouse gases" - water vapour is a doozie. Things like the amount of cloud cover, a few % either way can greatly change the amount of sunlight that reaches the ground) was very naughty (I.e. the model was clearly inadequate) in that the atmosphere wasn't doing what the politics - sorry, model - said it should.

This is why it became "climate change", the model that can't predict the average temperature can now predict the frequency of tornadoes, storms, political scandals and Cliff knows what else.

But the whole point of the scam has been to ignore actual science and if they are reduced to using a mong, well, they must be just about done.

Of course, I know nothing and found all this on wikipedia in 10 minutes.

Anonymous said...

"...and when they get it they don't know what to do with it."

They do. They build big luxurious palaces, send their children to prestigious universities abroad, accumulate vast sums of money in overseas bank accounts, and kill or at least imprison the people they don't like.

Don Cox

Raedwald said...

Cheerful - I think Mark just 'owned' you as I think the youngsters say

Ravenscar. said...


"I strongly believe there is a market still for the high street agaents. But it is not a market of the size that Thomas Cook was catering too."

I'd agree with that, if it wasn't for councils and central government ripping retail outlets a new one.

We pay too much tax, certainly businesses do..........well except for the big boys and Thos Cook could never compete with internet bookings but as you saym some people feel the need for the package hol - still.

Mark said...

You've done it yourself more than once Radders!

Anonymous said...

They were very clever using this Swedish girl as a figure-head for the climate change fakery. She's got a disability so it makes her very difficult to criticise without appearing very mean. She is very spooky though, like a little chuckie-doll.
Jaded

Mark The Skint Sailor said...

I have an autistic kid myself, though he's almost 30 now, he's still my kid.

I'd never think to exploit him, or allow him to be exploited by anyone else. Being autistic, I can't see how all this publicity and attention is having on the sainted Greta's mental health.

At 16 shouldn't she be at school rather than larking about all over the world?

I really do hate pushy parents that exploit their kids or allow them to be exploited. You might as well slap a load of makeup on her and stick her in one of tacky American kid's pageants or stick a gun in her hand and send her to the front line as a child soldier.

But hey, she's autistic and therefore untouchable in some eyes, but then if you treat her differently (i.e. with kid gloves) isn't that a form of disability discrimination?

rapscallion said...

@Rossa,

I believe they were posted in Winchester. It's just like the NPC Meme. It goads them on both Islam and Women and they are gibbering incoherently because what passes for brains is being fried as they try to work it out.

JPM said...

Oh, yes, you've mentioned that before, Mark, now I come to think of it.

Tsk.

Anonymous said...

"I believe they were posted in Winchester. It's just like the NPC Meme. It goads them on both Islam and Women and they are gibbering incoherently because what passes for brains is being fried as they try to work it out."

Its the latest 4chan troll. The wibble you witness from the NPC's is the cognitive dissonance exploding their wee limited minds.

Dave_G said...


Difficult to know who to be most disgusted with:

the parents for their manipulation of a child for (no doubt) personal gain;

the media for allowing such emotional toss so much coverage;

the politicians for even allowing a CHILD to lecture them;

the education system for corrupting minds at young age.

Both she and her parents need to be placed in front of an audience and questioned on their actual knowledge on the subject and, no doubt, have their many fabrications dismantled - it would do everyone a favour.

Anonymous said...

Children today, women in Yorkshire (1602). Heavens!

https://newsletters.artips.fr/Economitips/Dawson_Enclosures/

JPM said...

If lookalikes are the theme then here's one"

https://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/lookalikes/big/farage_rygel.jpg

Span Ows said...

Now I know why the meme of St. Greta in SS uniform looks so sinister! I saw it a couple of times on Guido, can't find it though, the posters have probably been hunted down and sentenced to life imprisonment by now.

There's another with the view of St. Greta as seen through a door security lens (as per hotel bedroom) with the phrase "The knock on the door 5 minutes after you forget to separate your recycling throughly enough", it is hilarious but obviously mean, ahem.

Dave_G said...


St Greta doesn't go down well with Zerohedge commenters....

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/youve-stolen-my-childhood-16-year-old-girl-throws-tearful-climate-tantrum-un

LOL

Anonymous said...

JPM you're so boring.