UK Nuclear Flet 2 stations shut indefinitely.

Drax (DRX) are trading at £1.00 above when we mentioned them on October 24th when British Energy announced further problems with their nuclear power stations.

British Energy have announced subsequently ..."We are in the process of developing the methodology to secure the return to service of the units." All 4 reactors at Hartlepool and Hetsham have been shut down indefinitely.

What this means is, that they haven't a clue how to deal with the highly stressed multi core cables that act to control blast and as previously exlained at the time of the first announcement by BE took enormous effort to install.

So far all the company will says is .."“This is a complex issue and a timetable for the return to service of these units can only be formed when inspections and a full assessment of the situation have been completed,” and more information will be given when they announce their latest financial results next week.

Don't hold your breath and watch imported gas prices rise... and pray for a warm winter.

On Tuesday night, November 13th, (at 11 p.m. EST/PST - 10 p.m. CST), the History Channel will present Megadisasters: Oil Apocalypse, a documentary that Los Angeles-based filmmaker Martin Kent is calling "a wake up call," about the world's energy crisis. "We can no longer count on getting all the gasoline we need -- and there's no plan B."

Edward VIIth's illegitimate sone who broke Enigma and was "C" and Kim Philby's boss.

On May 6, 1910 King Edward VII died and a few weeks later there was a scheduled race meeting at Ascot. A correspondent in the Daily Telegraph remembers how his ex - mistresses Mrs Jenny Churchill nee Jerome (Winston's mother), Mrs Alice Keppel (who was present at his deathbed) and Lily Langtrey attended with their fabulous anf fashinable Black hats in their usual pace - apparently named by some wag as "the Loose Box". (pic Lord Londonderry , Countess of Derby and her daughter Victoria Stanley at Black Ascot)

This reminds Lord Patel of Lieutenant - Colonel (later Major General) Sir Stewart Menzies (Mingis as in the leader ex leader of the Liberal Democrats) who became the third fabled "C" of the Secret Intelligence Services in 1939 and in 1941 became the boss of Kim Philby - the "Third Man".It ws due to him that he was abale on a trip to Warsaw just prior to his becoming "C" an "Enigma" coding machine was obtained in Warsaw from Polish military sources and provided to Bletchley...as a result he was hugely responsible for controlling MKULTRA decoded signals from Bletchley throughout the war.(The Hut Six Story Breaking the Enigma Codes 1982by Gordon Welshman unequivocally states that the British Ultra "would never have gotten off the ground if we had not learned from the Poles, in the nick of time, the details both of the German military Enigma machine, and of the operating procedures that were in use."

He was, as Mrs Morell Smith frequently used to remind her dinner party companions the illegitmiate son of King Edward VIIth - a fact he used to enjoy - and his noble presence at Ascot in ceremonial dress uniform was always remarked upon. (pic right)

(There is also an absurd rumour that the "4th Man", Anthony Blunt, a fellow spy of Philby , was an illegitimate son of George V, half-brother and remarkably look-alike (see pic) to Edward VIII, the Duke of Windsor.)





Hitler is man on the right.

Lord and Lady Docker - Where are they Now ? No 457

Celebrities, those famous for being famous were few and far between in the glum post war years and the Dockers added some some welcome glamour to a world without TV shows, pop stars and rock star status royalty.

Sir Bernard D0cker, Old Harrovian and Chairman of the Daimler Company (which was actually the Birmingham Small Arms Co., and did rather well out of the war- and also Director of Anglo-Argentine Tramways, Midland Bank and Thomas Cook and Sons ) married Norah Collins, a one-time dancer at the Café de Paris -- and throughout the 50's, the gracelessly gaudy pair entertained the nation with a succession of fancy cars, mink coats, champagne receptions and the magnificent Southampton built SHEMARA, an 860-ton yacht with a crew of 35. Launched in 1038 she was used in the war as a trainign vessel for anti submarine warfare.

It was conspicuous consumption on a massive scale. While people on the Clapham omnibus shook their heads in disbelief, they were somehow grateful for the chance to wonder at a glamour and unabashed extravagance they had long been denied. Lady Docker was the real showstopper; Sir Bernard was the complaisant supplier of her far from petty cash.

In 1954 a few eyebrows were raised when 45 Yorkshire miners were invited to Southampton for a cocktail party on Shemara. "We had a riotous day,'' said Lady Docker at the time.

Lady Docker's best-known asset were her glitzy cars : in 1951, Prattley, her chauffeur, drove an initialled gold Daimler with gold-plated fittings.

This was later upgraded to a metallic-blue version with lizard-skin upholstery; by 1953, her car was a Daimler Silver Flash with red crocodile-leather seats.

There were also two gold-plated Daimlers—one of them upholstered in six zebra skins and costing £42,000. Owned by Daimler, they were built to Lady Docker's specifications and for her use.

When £15,000-worth of her jewels were stolen, Billy Hill, the former 'King of the Underworld' vowed to get them back - "I admire Lady Docker," he said. "She's not afraid to mix with people like me." The empty briefcase that had contained the jewels and was stolen from the massive Stocksbridge hampshire home was recovered from the River Itchen. Billy HIll it seems didn't manage to recover them.

But the Dockers could not get away with it forever. After defending his extravagant life-style at a press conference at the Savoy Hotel, Sir Bernard lost his chairmanship of Daimler at the end of 1956.

They sacked Sir Bernard not only as chairman and managing director, but even as a director.

Next day the Dockers called in the press, poured out pink champagne and their hearts.

Sir Bernard's father had helped build the B.S.A. empire; Sir Bernard had been chairman since 1938; and his fortune was founded around the company. Said Sir Bernard, cigar in hand, tears in eyes: "I've been sacked, sacked, sacked. When father left the board, they gave him a gold watch. For me they called a special meeting, and the only subject they discussed was my departure. Damnable." Cried Lady Docker even more tearfully: "It's not the loss of the gold cars that makes me feel like this. And weren't they fun? They were like my children. No, it's that lovely party I was planning for 25,000 B.S.A. workers for my 50th birthday on June 23. A tiptop affair —and now it's all off. How could they do this to him after 17 years? Why, he's such a hard worker that he had a through line to the firm from our yacht.''

It was said Sir Bernard concealed important figures from the directors (Sir Bernard: "They could always look at the books").

By 1958 they were reduced to selling Lady Docker's jewellery and, finally, in 1968, the famous yacht.

In 1965 Shemara was put up for sale for £600,000, ( say £3Mn. today), 3 years later later, after a great deal of legal wrangling, the vessel finally passed to the ownership of reclusive property tycoon Harry Hyams of Oldham Estates for £290,000.

By then living a low life as tax-exiles in a tiny bungalow on Jersey, Lady Docker ( a forbear no doubt of Macca's ex) had not lost her punch. Obviously, the island and its people held few charms for her,"They're the most frightfully boring, dreadful people that have ever been born," she tartly observed.

Sir Bernard died in 1978, aged 81, while Lady Docker survived him until 1983 when she was found dead in a London hotel at the age of 78.

Lady Docker, photographed at the first day of Royal Ascot 1955, was always at the forefront of fashion, seen here in a wide-brimmed hat, an opulent mink stole and a lace dress.

PS : Evidently with an eye for show stopping show girls Berbard Docker was marreid briefly to Miss Ivy Sweet, the pretty daughter of a copper-beater better known as Jeanne Stuart who appeared in London in After All and It's A Girl, and was described at the time as "tall and of a figure that enables her to wear to advantage extremely modern-cut clothes", which, in both productions, "caused gasps of surprise on the first nights". She later performed alongside Jack Hulbert, Cicely Courtneidge, Jack Buchanan and many others.

Jeanne and Docker (against his father's wishes) married in London in April 1933 at a register office ceremony in Prince's Row, attended by the Duke and Duchess of Atholl, and they honeymooned in South America. Jeanne was given the later famous 860- ton yacht Shemara as a wedding present.

On the basis of meeting in "circumstances which left no doubt of their adultery" jeanne who had become raomtically entangled with West End star David Hutcheson. The Docker marriage lasted five months, and was finally dissolved in January 1933.

Northern Rock - full figures revealed - Ugandan babe exposed as busy body and unwanted by Darling

Northern Rock Timeline

1. 25th July 2007 Interim results published for 6 months ending 30th June 2007.

Interim dividend announced per share of 14.2p (2006 interim - 10.9p) - an increase of 30.3%

(Statutory profit before tax of £296.1 million up by 0.7% compared with H1 2006.)

2. We now know that on Friday August 3rd there were discussions involving at least the Bank of England the Financial Services Authority, Directors of Northern Rock and Lloyds Bank about the BOE approving funds up to £30Bn to Lloyds Bank PLC for 2 years for them to take over Northern Rock.

It is further apparent that Baroness Shriti Vadera and her ex employer UBS Warburg were involved in these discussions.

We also know now that the Chancellor of the Exchequer (who MUST have discussed this with the PM) dismissed this - and rumour has it that he effectively told the Ugandan princess to keep her fucking nose out of Treasury affairs and stick to her Ministerial brief.

(NB : Talking of briefs and the fragrant and unlovely Shriti, the Sunday Telegraph repeat the rumour on November 4th that the noisy Ugandan babe at Somerville purchased wholesale quantities of silken underthings when at Somerville (so , as she told colleagues she didn't need to wash them). The truth is that great sport was had with the lady - as the ultimate trophy for the Lothario's of those quarters was a pair of the vast knickers which they had to remove from the willing, (but alas unsatisfied limbs) of the loudly complaining lady. A correspondent adds (for those with a long memory) that she used to sew in "Janet Reger" product labels to impress he deceitful de-flowerers - which rather gave the game away as JR never made undergarments in such a capacious size).

3. Mervyn King in an interview on BBC "File on 4" ..

"I think most people expect that we have several more months to get through before the banks have revealed all the losses that have occurred, and have taken measures to finance their obligations that result from that, but we're going in the right direction."

"O" Level EConoics Paper Q 1.

How can Directors on the basis of interim profits up by 1% increase dividend by 33% and then less than 2 weeks later be involved in discussions for their take over involving a GUARANTEED Bank of England loab facility of £30Bn. for 2 years ?

Now after this ... (from their website)

Your money is safe with us. All new and existing savings are guaranteed.
Our new guarantee arrangements agreed with the Bank of England and H.M Treasury protects all retail savings in all accounts - regardless of the amount deposited. It applies to all existing accounts, all re-opened accounts and to all new accounts.

BBC Online report in the last hour ..."Northern Rock shares fell as much as 12% in early London trade after a report that savers had withdrawn £10.5bn from the stricken bank."

This whole episode displays criminal incompetence and the grossest misuse ever of public funds ... BOE exposure is now at least £25 Bn and looks like hitting £30Bn. ... not too far distant from the whole annual budget for the MOD. See General Charles Ronald Llewelyn Guthrie, Baron Guthrie of Craigiebank, GCB, LVO, OBE, DL.

How the US came to make and love the Bomb

Churchill described the Battle of El Alamein in July 1942 as the "Hinge of Fate" ,because thereafter the allies never lost another battle.

The true Hinge of Fate was the allied landings in North Africa later that year when the US entered the war in Europe as a a combatant nation.

This started the eclipse of British global power, and the acceleartion of the decline of the British Empire and the rise of US global hegemony.

Known only to a few at the same time was the effort being made to produce the Atomic bomb by the US with help from German refugees. The result of an agrreement between Churchill and Roosevelt at the Presd.ient's Hyde Park Home on the banks of the Hudson River.

In June 1942 Klaus Fuchs a refugee ( and committed Marxist) from Hitler signed the OfficialSecrets Act and began work on the Manhattan project.

Alan Nunn May was born in 1911 in Kings Norton, Birmingham, the son of a brass founder. He was a clever child and scholarships took him first to King Edward’s School, Birmingham, and then to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he was tutored in physics by the inspirational P. M. S. Blackett and met some of the notorious group of spies with who he shared thier Marxist views.

When he went on to work in Canada on Project Manhattan he spied forthe Russians and provided a detailed account of the detonation of the first atomic bomb at Alamagordo, New Mexico, on June 16th 1945.

Donald Duart Maclean one of the Cambridge spies worked in the British Emabassy in Washington from 1944 to 1948 he ws the British representative on the American-British-Canadian council on the sharing of atomic secrets, he was able to provide the Soviet Union with minutes of Cabinet meetings. This knowledge alone gave the Soviet scientists the ability to predict the number of bombs that could be built by the Americans.

When the levels of broken secrets became apparent the US very sensibly passed The Atomic Energy Act of 1946, which determined how the United States government would control and manage the nuclear technology it had developed. Significantly it determined 2 vital points ;

1.Nuclear weapon development and nuclear power management would be under civilian, rather than military, control, and established the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission for this purpose.
2. A strict ban on the release of atomic technology to other powers, even to allies. This served to galvanize countries such as the United Kingdom, which had supplied personnel and information to the Manhattan Project team into constructing their own nuclear weapons.

The Bill was sponsored by Senator Brien McMahon, a Democrat from Connecticut, the chair of the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Atomic Energy whose hearings led to the fine-tuning and passing of the Act.

It defined a new legal term “restricted data” as “all data concerning the manufacture or utilization of atomic weapons, the production of fissionable material, or the use of fissionable material in the production of power,” unless the information has been declassified. The phrase “all data” included every suggestion, speculation, scenario, or rumor—past, present, or future, regardless of its source, or even of its accuracy—unless it was specifically declassified.

This restriction on free speech, covering an entire subject matter, is unique in American law. It is still in force.[1]

The Act passed through both houses of Congress and was signed by President Harry Truman on August 1, 1946 and it went into effect on January 1, 1947.

When the UK secretly attempted to develop their own nuclear weapons, they were forced after the failre of the Christmas island BOmb tests to discontinue research and buy their weapons from the US.

The UK is effectively now a launch pad for US Nuclear weapons - which the UK pay for... another legacy of the treachery of the war time Cambridge spies.

A commemorative stamp honoring Brien McMahon and his role in opening the way to peaceful uses of atomic energy was issued by the United States on July 28, 1962 at Norwalk, CT. The stamp features a portrait of McMahon facing a rendition of an atomic symbol.

McMahon also proposed proposed an "army" of young Americans to act as "missionaries of democracy", which sowed the seeds for what would later become the Peace Corps.

He died in Washington in 1952 aged 48. A wise and far sighted man.

It is against this that once must necessarily measure the US manic desire to repress ownership of atmic weapons technology.

CYprus remembers theft by Turks of Christian relics from ocupied churches in Christmas Stamps.

Whilst Prime Minister Brown cosies up to the Turkish Government, and the Turks get upset that the US Senate passes unpleasant bills remembering the slaughter of the Armenians. The despoilation of Christian relics goes on a pace in Northern Cyprus.

This Year the Cyprus post office issues memorial stamps ina Commemorative issue which willl go on sale on November 14th. These depict Murals From The Chapel Of St. Themonianus In The Turkish occupied village of Lysi. This chapel is a single aisled vaulted building with a dome. In all probability it was a private chapel as an inscription refers to the dedication of the chapel by the holy monk Lavrentios to the local St. Themonianus.

The little chapel was plundered completely by the Turks, probably between 1974 and 1983, under the strict surveillance of the occupying Turkish army and with the criminal intention of removing without exception everything including the wall paintings.

In 1983, a representative of the well known Menil Foundation Inc. of Texas found the stolen wall paintings in the flat of a Turkish art dealer in Munich. He is thought to be the same Turkish dealer who in 1988 sold the mosaics which had been removed from the church of Panagia Kanakaria in the occupied part of Cyprus, (see pic) and who came up with a variety of lies and justifications as to the origins of the stolen wall paintings. The Republic of Cyprus proved by irrefutable evidence that the stolen murals came from the chapel of St. Themonianus in occupied Lysi and successfully claimed their return to the island.

(See full horrifying history of Turkish desecration and commercial theft and sale of of holy relics here )

As the Orthodox Church of Cyprus was finally recognized as the legal owner of the stolen murals an agreement was reached whereby the murals were to be held on loan by the Menil Foundation Inc. of Houston, Texas, for a period of 15 years from the 1st January 1986 while also undertaking their restoration and safe keeping in an appropriate environment until their return to Cyprus. The restoration work was undertaken over a period exceeding 3 years in the specialist art atelier of Laurence Morocco in London. The restored murals were then transported to Houston and installed in a chapel built specifically for this purpose and which has the exact dimensions as the plundered chapel of St. Themonianus at Lysi.

The murals of St. Themonianus which depict Christ Pantocrator and the Panagia Orans attended by Archangels are considered among the most significant Cypriot religious works of art of the 13th-14th centuries.

Two of the stamps depict details from the mural in the apse of the chapel, the one portraying part of the Panagia Theotokos Orans and the other the Archangel Gabriel as shown now in Houston, Texas. The third stamp depicts Christ Pantocrator, the Supplication, the Preparation of Ihe Throne and the angels as installed in the dome of the chapel of SI. Themonianus in Houston, Texas.

The Menil Collection, which is operated by the Menil Foundation, Inc., opened to the public in June 1987 as the primary repository of John and Dominique de Menil’s private collection. One of the most significant of the twentieth century, the collection consists of nearly 15,000 works dating from the Paleolithic era to the present day. John Menil was CEO of the Schlumberger Coproration founded by his wife Demique's father and uncle.

More details and you can order sets (which please do - Cyprus £1.42 - e mail philatelic@dps.mcw.gov.cy) from www.mcw.gov.cy - full reproductions will be posted when available, the one above is inadequate but all that is available.

Shrinking Balance Sheets, Falling Bankers as lies exposed

If you happen to run a large bank heavily exposed to SIV's and a big book on mortgages for double wides in Georgia swamplands keep away from the office on Sundays.

1.Warren J. Spector CEO of Bear Stearns resigned on a Sunday afternoon ,August 4th after the shares took a bath.

2. Chairman and chief executive Stan O'Neal having told the shareholders of Merrill Lynch he was writing off US$8.4 Bn of their funds didn't make it to this weekend - but shed no tears - 5 years with the bank he walks away with a modest US$161 Mn.

3. Meanwhile at Citigroup with over US$55 billion exposure to CDO's and having written off some US$6.4 Bn previously the Board sacked accepted the resignation of lawyer and Chief Executive Charles Prince over the weekend and wrote off another huge chunk on the Balance sheet ... so big they haven't added it all up yet .. it's between US$8BN and ..er... US$11Bn....ish.

It's evident now that Citigroup will post a loss in Q4 and the dividend is threatened.

On August 5th when we borough Citigroup's woes to you attention they were trading at US$46 - today ahead of opening they are making US$37.00 and will dive on the bell.

4. Over the weekend Sunday Times reports (without claiming source that £14 BN (US$29 Bn) has been withdrawn from Northern Rock Plc by savers (60% of deposits) since the Bank of England unwisely sarted lending them unlimited funds - now totalling an eye watering £29 Bn.

Gormless Chairman Matt Ridley fell on his sword two weekends ago - can CEO Applegarth be far behind ?

On BBC's "Today" program this am the bone headed Chancellor of the Exchequer said ..." The banking system is basically strong and in addition to that we have a very strong economy.''

He also told us that Northern Rock was "solvent".

"To be absolutely clear, if we believed that Northern Rock was not solvent, we would not have allowed it to remain open for business. " said Callum McCarthy, chairman of the FSA another one who should bne spending more time improving his golf.