The Mexile

I have a joke for you. George Santayana and Mike Godwin walk into a bar. Santayana takes a seat, rubs his head and looks at the bartender. " I'll have whatever it was that I had last night ". He chuckles. " After all, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it ". The bartender nods and pours a double whisky. Godwin sits down next to him, sighs, and orders a glass of water. " I'd have a beer, but I've been here less that two minutes and I can already tell this conversation is going to end with someone being compared to Hitler ". Godwin and Santayana are the creators of two of the most beloved philosophical 'laws' on the internet. They are both pretty sound, as far as vague one or two line laws go. And yet, they cannot both be right. If we take George at his word, then eventually the wheel will turn full circle, comparisons gain validity and Mike will be stood at the bar supping his pint of water in a scene reminiscen...

I went to the little Eurochange currency shop in Bournemouth this week. I needed some Thai bahts. Alas, like most of the shops on that stretch of the town centre, it’s shut down. Although it turned out that Eurochange is closed because there was a fire in the flats above the shop. Some, probably most, of the several thousand gallons of water lobbed into the building by the fire brigade made its way to ground level. Unfortunate, but it’s another nail in the coffin of Bournemouth as a retail centre.  I could write a long piece about the decline of Bournemouth, but a chap called Peter Viney has already produced an exceedingly thorough account of the towns travails, so I won’t bother. I’ll just add that’s it got worse since his last update. Fat Face is also now gone. Starbucks in the Triangle too. Starbucks!! When coffee shops up-sticks and off-bugger….well, that is the retail equivalent of a fat lady singing, isn’t it? And Specsavers closed its doors for the last time on Christmas Ev...

Politics 2026 in the United Kingdom. Where are we at? To summarise: we have a far-right populist who is telling his fanbase, the rich and the racist, exactly what they want to hear. He’s not afraid of upsetting people, although his recent success means he is at least trying to pretend that he didn’t spend his youth advocating for Jews to be gassed. We have a far-left populist who’s is doing much the same but whose message is aimed fair and square at the poor, and folk who still think Jews should be gassed. Above Hadrians Wall is a bunch of folk with nationalist dreams, but I’ve no idea what they’re saying anymore, and I’m not sure they do either. The Welshists are all probably very nationalist too, but it’s spoken with that delightful, soothing sing-song Welsh twang from the valleys, so it sounds lovely. But in the big scheme of things, it doesn’t much matter. There is the natural party of government, currently on the opposition benches, and they say whatever the far-right populist say...

The US is lost. Not just for four years. For the foreseeable. Even if sanity is restored, a return of trust will take a generation or more. The fifth column within now has total power, taking orders from the fascist paymaster in the East. The fight for Europe will soon begin. The first battles that must be won are against the fifth columns within the UK and the EU. Personalities like Farage and Le Pen, with their overt Russian links. And leaders like Orban. Folk talk about the danger to democracy in the US. Too many dismiss it as idle talk. But I think it will likely come to pass that Trump will need to retain power, whether himself or through an obedient puppet regime, for the same reason Putin does. The scale and seriousness of his crimes – those committed and those to be committed – will dictate that he must. The US has gone from being ally to rival to enemy in less than a fortnight. There will be consequences to that. Who will be the first in Trump’s circle to be sanctioned by the ...

I thought it was   obvious in 2018   that we were in a state of war with Russia. Undeclared, unofficial yet undeniable. But we – like the rest of Europe – did very little about it. We failed even to really acknowledge it. For as long as tanks weren’t crossing borders, fingers in ears and ‘la la la la’ seemed to be official policy. The truth of the matter, I suspect, is that these were governments scared of inflicting upon their electorates the hardships required to confront this reality. Alas, Putin has no such fear. Here we are in 2025 with nearly a million Russians maimed or dead, their economy shattered and isolated, hundreds of thousands of their brightest have fled, and yet Vlad will happily continue to inflict untold further suffering and sacrifice on the people he supposedly represents, all in the name of his legacy. Even as tanks did start crossing borders when Russia invaded Ukraine, most of Europe did the bare minimum. And now there is surprise and alarm that the USA...

  Only four days to go till take off, and just 2 days left at Texaco. Can’t wait, really can’t. And as usual I’m leaving half the planning to the last minute….all adds to the fun. So long as I remember passport, swimming trunks and cashcard it’ll all be fine! I have even managed to get this little website a domain name and a little place on the ‘net. For what purpose I’m not entirely sure, but I can use this bit as a record of my travels anyway, to remind myself of it all when I end up sitting in a hospice going slowly senile. It may yet turn out to be an easy way to get out of emailing each and every person separately ……..Of course, this is all reliant on me being able to update the site from Mexico, so this may well end up being both the first and last post!