What a start to the year 2026! Firstly we heard of the most appalling and frightening fire disaster in a night club in Switzerland, followed closely by Delta Force – American special forces – invading Venezuela, entering the president’s home, getting him and his wife out of bed, “arresting’ them and sending them to America to stand trial.
Many of the young victims of the New Year’s Eve fire suffered horrific burns, shattering their lives, but the fire highlights how important it is to ensure that each and every premises have adequate means of escape and it is essential that fireworks and the like are never lit in such premises.
Sadly we hear that the premises did not have an adequate fire escape and the authorities had not visited and inspected it in the past five years.
Preliminary investigations suggested that a highly flammable material was on the ceiling, and sparklers in the corks of champagne bottles probably ignited the material. Combined that with just one narrow staircase leading from the basement club demonstrates a disaster waiting to happen.
Such premises across the world should be properly inspected and dangers highlighted and immediately rectified, or the clubs, restaurants, etc. closed down. And council officials not doing their jobs properly resulting in deaths should suffer severe consequences.
And on the subject of the “arrest” of the Venezuelan president – incredibly a former bus driver – I am perhaps reluctantly on the side of Trump. In Venezuela was a man who managed to seize power, taking it away from an opposition candidate who had won by a large majority.
Since then the country suffered massive inflation, imprisonment and even death for opposing the regime and many were forced to live in poverty. He held onto power by force and conditions were so bad thousands fled.
Perhaps the time has come when other countries acted against despots and collectively do what Trump has done.
So how about Delta Force getting into Russia to arrest Putin and his henchmen and women, and also Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, both of whom have warrants against them for alleged war crimes?
And Starmer better be ultra careful or he might be got out of bed and marched to a US plane if he doesn’t bow the knee to Trump – and judging from his approval rating it seems the majority of Brits would be more than happy if it happened!
And as for Trump seizing Greenland, by force if necessary, doesn’t this make him has as bad as Putin?
Violence Shadows the Start of 2026
Still on the subject of a bad start to 2026 two news stories coming from where we have a home in the UK saddened me. The first was that of a teenage girl stupid enough while walking home just before midnight on New year’s day getting into the car of a stranger.
Instead of taking her home he drove her to a lay-by and indecently assaulted her. Luckily she managed to escape from the car. The attacker was described as being of south Asian appearance – now that’s a surprise.
Despite all the warnings why are women stupid enough to accept lifts from strangers in such circumstances?
The second was hearing of a totally unprovoked attack carried out by a stranger on a man who was left with a serious knife wound of his arm. Happy 2026!
Migrants Move In, while Young Brits Moved Down Queue
The story which has provoked considerable anger over New Year is that the UK government is planning to put asylum seekers in newly-built council houses in a bid to end the use of migrant hotels.
You can imagine the stories doing the rounds in the migrant camps around Calais – come to Britain, not only will you be given money, you get your own house as well! An armada of boats will be full to overflowing once the weather improves.
Brits are angry because 1.33million people are on a waiting list for social housing in England – the highest number since 2014.
The government’s pilot scheme means that £100million of taxpayers’ money will go to fund the building of new council homes or the refurbishment of old derelict buildings and asylum seekers will be put in them.
Councils, not surprisingly, are lining up to get hold of the cash because once the government has got rid of the asylum seeker backlog, currently standing at around 100,000, and, hopefully many will be sent packing, the houses will become part of the councils’ housing stock.
Great in the long term maybe, but it does nothing to help young people waiting to be housed and, obviously, pushes them further down the queue.
Another example of how Britain has got itself in a terrible financial mess by trying to solve the world’s problems rather than doing what Trump would do and put Britain first.
Speeding? Straight to Jail
France has just introduced an increased punishment for motorists caught driving more than 50km/h over the speed limit – they risk jail time and a €3,750 fine.
Good for them, I hope many other countries follow suit because so many accidents, injuries and deaths are caused by speeding.
But I would amend the punishment to get rid of the word risk and make it compulsory for any judge or magistrate to impose a jail sentence.
Oh, and the UK government, in a bid to reduce the backlog in dealing with cases, wants to recruit 2,000 more magistrates – what an opportunity, shame I’m not a bit younger! There wouldn’t be any molly coddling of criminals with me on the Bench.
WHEN DOING NOTHING BECOMES A NATIONAL PASTIME
Finally, today I am asking are we becoming increasingly lazy?
What has prompted this question is what I saw on the Saturday after Christmas. It was refuse collection day, a day late because of the holidays. Dustmen collected recycling bins and tipped them into the dustcart but some of the rubbish dropped out onto the road.
Did dustmen pick it up? No. They left it to blow about so I picked it up and put it into my emptied wheely bin. One of the things I picked up was a half full plastic milk container. What possesses anyone to throw a milk container into a recycling bin without emptying it and better still, washing it out first? Laziness.
Before Christmas we went to the supermarket to do some shopping. There were shopping trolleys abandoned all over the car park. There are several bays where people can put their trolleys but these were full, but only because people had just pushed them in the bays instead of putting one inside another which would have enabled many more trolleys to be left. More laziness.
We have noticed more and more drivers leaving their cars on residential roads rather than using their driveways. The result is that drivers have to stop to allow other cars to pass when the obstruction is on their side. Even more laziness.
We all are well aware of the growing amount of rubbish just discarded on roads, pavements, car parks and beaches because people are too lazy to take their rubbish home. Do you see people’s growing laziness, is it getting worse where you live? Let us know what you think.
