Tag: Putin
-
15 Minutes
The artist Andy Warhol once commented that everybody gets their 15 minutes of fame. In the last few weeks, isolated pockets of Ukrainians dotted around the world will have ticked this off their bucket lists. In one local backwater in the UK, the town council organised a vigil (what else?) for the Ukraine, which drew…
-
All Aboard!
Ever wondered what happened to the Black Lives Matter/trans rights/pride/me too/disability advocate/COVID extremist/Remainiac tools? Yep – they’re all ‘standing with Ukraine’. If they truly were, they’d be on a plane to Poland or Moldova, crossing the border, snatching up a rifle, and getting busy. Even Kerry Katona has issued a warning to Putin. Let’s hope…
-
Casino
With Mr Putin recognising the republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, every limp foghorn in the crass commentariat has been quick to point to the ‘Kremlin playbook’, as if they’re diplomatic svengalis. Yet, in truth this kind of land-grab is a favoured standby for every regime with a penchant for expansionism. Hitler did it in the…
-
Pump Goes the Weasel
Thanks to the Sun, we’ve finally discovered the reason for Matt Hancock’s permasmirk. Anybody who had touted the view that door Matt was losing his grip had clearly not clocked the telefoto snap of the slippery toad up to the hilt in some covert sidechickery or, as it’s now known, Hands – Face – Back…
-
Long Shot
In 1978, an episode of The Professionals concluded with an aeroplane carrying an international terrorist being diverted to a hostile Arab nation after one of the passengers had faked a coronary. We can hardly now take the moral high ground with Belarus, because this ruse was conceived by one of our own, George Cowley. It…
-
Bye, Den
It’s customary for the US Presidential Election to be followed by a transition period, but in this context, you have to wonder whether there would be any point in it. Hard to imagine that Joe Biden will have too much interest in slicing tee-offs, spaffing investor cash, and grabbing pussy. ‘Stop the count!’ was the…
-
I Spy…
Picture the scene of abject despondency in the Kremlin. The UK Government is strongly considering regulation for the espionage industry, with spies compelled to sign a register. There’s Mr Putin jumping on that crisis telekit with Mr Xi not knowing which card to lay down next. Talk about pulling the rug out from under the…
-
Meddle Ceremony
I am a fan of etymology and the origins of words, but I have always known that they might sometimes be susceptible to the incorporation of urban legends. This false etymology, as linguists term it, sometimes takes the form of outwardly reasonable explanations that are essentially flawed or backronyms (acronyms that are contrived to provide…
-
On a Bicycle Made for Two
So, in Russia, Mr Putin has pulled a surprise rabbit out of his Ushanka and hailed the end of the so-called Tandemocracy. That’s a weird term for the arrangement, but I am certainly not one for smears whether they relate to character, a cervix, or a doorknob. We had a similar high-profile arrangement in the…
-
The Real Hypocrisy
In a week (or was that a decade?) when the UK Electorate asked themselves whether Boris Johnson could be trusted, UK politicians are under the most intense scrutiny. It is a General Election campaign after all. But hang on a minute. Surely the supreme hypocrisy in politics is for a politician to profess to be…
maxfrances.com 