Music, fiddling the numbers, and burning Rome

Writing a Slogpost creates debate, argument, defensive denialism, lockstep insistence on all things "settled" and thinly disguised hatred.

But if you see a pretty Gambian girl dancing to good Afro-Salsa music on her Smartphone, she'll be smiling.

And if I pick up a guitar and play live music to which she can dance, everyone in the vicinity smiles.

The girl was sexy - and she gave me a free dancing performance: so it seemed like only good manners to play her a performance of the Mavericks' classic, Dance the Night Away.

Within five minutes, a united group of cleaners, gardeners, apartment owners and tourists turned up to video the impromptu concert.

Everyone was smiling from ear to ear.

The above reaffirms my belief that music is an under-exploited weapon in the war to stop Global New World Order dictatorship from achieving its goal of infinite control over what's left of our species - once bioweapons in disguise have culled 90+ per cent of us.

Some Slog loyalists were disturbed by my last-but-one post at Ghost ten days ago when I offered the following conclusions:

'I'm 77 now, and my time has passed. I don't have the energy for any more call-to-action crap, so I'm turning to music and fiction as potential approaches to the problem....radical-chic smuggies are so dumb, they fail to see the elephant on the end of their noses....The majority of my acquaintances online and elsewhere - and it is a clear majority - insist that [Volodomor Zelenskyy] is a plucky hero. I'm afraid I've now run out of patience with them...democracy is not safe in their hands'

Perhaps that was too black and white. So today, I want to offer contemporary zero BS evidence: evidence showing that the dystopian nightmare - if you will, The Great Heist - is already under way. And the source for this capture of reality as an alternative to mendacious ideology is, um...me.

Yesterday in The Gambia, I tried to exact access to my money from the banking system via debit cards and AI-driven ATM machines. I failed at a level of one hundred per cent. These were the risible densities offered as "explanations" from Above-the-Law banker onanists:

*Your debit card is invalid at this access point

*You have insufficient funds to fulfil this withdrawal

*This machine is temporarily deactivated

All three of these excuses were utterly counterfeit. The were jargonised and perfidious from A to Z.

I walked a total of two miles to get these results.....good exercise and all that - but service? Don't make me laugh.

And yet more - just in case you needed it.....

I have been trying now for ten weeks to get Nationwide Bank in the UK to live up to the promises they offer about online banking services in general and dispatch of replacement debit cards to an overseas domicility.

Nationwide is the biggest mutual bank in Europe by any and all definitions. I have tried escalated complaints, messaging - "response within seven days" - and latterly registered-mail Head Office Complaints Team evidence giving highly detailed and irrefutable facts about their fiduciary failures as a UK-regulated banking institution.

The response? Zilch.

Now I could go to the next level and bring a class action against Nationwide via the UK regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority [FCA]....a institution founded on 1st April 2013....ie, April Fool's Day. Oh, how we laughed

This is what the FCA has to say for itself on the internet:

'We enable a fair and thriving financial services market, for the good of consumers and the economy'. This is the standard 'inclusive' liberal BS you get when going to its website:

Brainless tokenism, or what???

Here are my bottom lines vis-a-vis what's coming to a community near you at accelerating speed:

*Impenetrable excuses as to why your money is theirs, not yours

*72 ways to complain, all of which are futile

*Embezzlement of your money to pay for neocon hegemony diplomacy.

Now tell me please, people....why is my detection of conspiracy theoretical?

All one's experience of the last fifteen years suggests that John and Jane Doe will do absolutely nothing. Which means that those of us who are awake will have be considerably more nasty in the policies and tactics we adopt. And no, I'm not emitting one single word of apology for that "inflammatory" statement: we didn't start the fire, but now the 4% have thrown petrol on it, those he didn't get off their arses and stop the arsonists are equally to blame for the conflagration.

In closing today, I wish to express my sincere thanks to all who texted, emailed or rang to offer condolences for the death of my elder brother last Wednesday at the age of eighty-one. I was moved beyond words.