Life & Freedom. Life is freedom. Or it ought to be. But mostly it’s not because life is also full of pretentious autocrats with a God or Guru complex that are forever telling us what is what, and what we should do, and think, and believe, and worship, and respect, and how we should speak, and dress, and behave, and have sex, and use the cutlery. And, if said pompous prats are Guardian sinecurists, they’ll instruct us (or try to, anyway) in the correct way to eat beans on toast. May they all get shingles!
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/nov/24/how-to-eat-beans-on-toast

Fierce Fish. aka The Fish, the Plodder and the PR Chappie. Nothing much I can add that you can’t see for yourselves. The Fish’s name is Bellona, the Plodder’s is Diletta and her new baby is called Tarquin. The little PR gent’s name changes from client to client, according to necessity and his own very elastic ethics gradient. (This is, of course, for darling dead Iain Banks and his funky Minds. We still miss you, baby.)

Fluke. This is as it says on the tin. It’s a fluke. A fortuitous event, perhaps even a small singularity, who knows. Press the wrong button, click on the wrong tab, a slip of the clumsy fingertip and Bingo!, the unplanned and the unforeseen manifest. This particular materialization I liked so much that I’ve hardly done any work on it, just pretty much left it as it came out of that black hole that is lady Luck’s capacious and ever-wise belly. Serendipity be thy name!:-) Have a spiffing week.

Red Spring.
Spring is here, oh, Spring is here.
Life is skittles and life is beer.
Tom Lehrer
Or it should be. And if it isn’t is our own fault for being so/such …………………. (enter offensive terms of choice here).
And so far it’s being the typical English Spring: cold, wet, dull and Tory-ridden.
But let us try & make it the best we can, be only only to annoy The Powers That Be. Dig out your Tom Leher, your authentic bootleg Russian vodka, your Tolstoy, your Bakunin and your Rachmaninov. Defy, resist, bite and dance (The Rite of Spring, what else?) naked in the garden (weather permitting). And, above all, stay sane. Grooviness, love and borscht to you all.

Exorcism BoogieWoogie. Aghast and incandescent, the Radiant Twins and their familiars, the Lofty Worms, have boarded the Avenging TeddyCloud and taken to the high heavens via the Vortex, in quest of The Voices of Uncomplicated Reason, there to dance the banishing Jive of Puncturing the Bubble, for to exorcise the craven, demented, all-pervading bunk that is currently strangling private* and public life. We shall join them shortly.
And here’s the straw that broke the Twin’s otherwise resilient back:
https://shadowrunners.substack.com/p/sweden-cancels-russian-yoghurt?s=r
And: *
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/22/russian-friend-putin-propaganda-facebook-ukraine-invasion
We are doomed, you know. Really and truly doomed. I can’t see a way to come back from this kind of fascistic balderdash. It’s here to stay. The Pantomic administered the first cut and this will complete the general lobotomy. The next generation will grow up without a fully-connecting brain, I dare say. And soon it’ll be either comply, fully and unconditionally, or is the wall for you, matey. Oh, well. Stick to Mehitabel. Now more than ever.
Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra
trafitto da un raggio di sole:
ed è subito sera.
Salvatore Quasimodo

Demons Du Jour. aka The Bug’s Lament Part II, aka The Shape of Things to Come.
And it will get worse, I daresay. Even good old Mozilla and Duck Duck Go have joined in the hysterical scramble to establish their Russophobe credentials. Oh, well…
Black sable one day, next day it goes into hock,
but I’m here.
Top billing Monday, Tuesday you’re touring in stock,
but I’m here.
Stephen Sondheim. I’m Still Here

The Spider & The Fly. ‘ere. In case you never knew or had just conveniently forgotten:
The United States engaged in forty-six military interventions from 1948–1991, from 1992–2017 that number increased fourfold to 188.
The United States has been involved in many military and clandestine interventions throughout its history. These interventions are done through well-coordinated military operations in response to developing situations or through clandestine operations; intelligence or military actions carried out in such a way that the operations go unnoticed by the general population or specific enemy forces. 
The 19th century formed the roots of United States interventionism, which was largely driven by economic opportunities in the Pacific and Spanish-held Latin America. The early decades of the 20th century saw a number of interventions in Latin America by the U.S. government. And since then the United States has continued to intervene in foreign countries through bomb attacks, sabotage and attempted regime change. (Victor Mochere)
https://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/US_Interventions_WBlumZ.html
A very good listing, sadly not up to date owing to the delicious William “Billy the Kid” Blum being dead.
https://findatwiki.com/List_of_United_States_foreign_interventions_since_1945
A rather charitably biased version of it. And misses the meddling with the Uranian “Revolution” of 2014 and the famous Victoria “Fuck the EU!” Nuland/Geoffrey Pyatt’s little inspirational exchange:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/feb/07/eu-us-diplomat-victoria-nuland-phonecall-leaked-video
(Which has to be true, since even the Holy Guardian reported it, innit?)
Voila! The rest/more of the same you can look it up for yourselves…si le coeur vous en dit.