Last day of the festivities. 

The weather isn't playing ball today, rain on and off all day, the day of the many street parties planned across the country. 

Harry Haft born Hertzko Haft in Poland, was a survivor of Auschwitz. He boxed fellow prisoners for entertainment of the Nazis with the losers being executed. He immigrated to the U.S. after the war & had a brief boxing career which included a bout with Rocky Marciano. Haft lasted 3 rounds before being knocked out. 

I have to admit that throughout the Jubilee I have been struck by a great feeling of (I want to say love but I won't) affection for the Queen, tinged with sadness that she can't go on much longer and her appearances will reduce. 

The Pageant just finished was the kind of gloriously dotty Britishness that made it so special.

I have to admit that throughout the Jubilee I have been struck by a great feeling of (I want to say love but I won't) affection for the Queen, tinged with sadness that she can't go on much longer and her appearances will reduce. 

The Pageant just finished was the kind of gloriously dotty Britishness that made it so special.

No, you like and admire her Mark, as I do but the word love is not a word the Brits bandy around lightly.

Gloriously, marvellously dotty and very British. 

Yesterday, in a recall election in San Francisco, CA, Chesa Boudin was removed from his position as a district attorney.  As we can see from the excerpt below, the apple did not fall far from the adoptive tree:

Boudin was born in New York City to Jewish parents.^[9] His parents, Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, were Weather Underground members. When Boudin was 14 months old, both were arrested and convicted of murder for their role as getaway car drivers in the 1981 Brink's robbery in Rockland County, New York.^[10] His mother was sentenced to 20 years to life and his father to 75 years to life for the felony murders of two police officers and a security guard.^[11][12]

After his parents were incarcerated, Boudin was raised in Hyde Park, Chicago by adoptive parents Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who, like his parents, had been members of the Weather Underground.^[13] Boudin reports that he did not learn to read until age nine.^[14] Kathy Boudin was released under parole supervision in 2003.^[15][16] Gilbert was released in 2021.^[17]

There was also a film made about an earlier Brink's robbery, The Brink's Job in 1978 about the 1950 robbery in which $2.7 million was stolen. The film starred Peter Falk. 

There was also a film made about an earlier Brink's robbery, The Brink's Job in 1978 about the 1950 robbery in which $2.7 million was stolen. The film starred Peter Falk. 

If memory serves me, there was a famous one in the UK as well. 

Just another brisk fall morning in 1981:

Robbery

 

The robbery began with Boudin dropping off her infant son, Chesa Boudin, at a babysitter's before taking the wheel of the getaway vehicle, a U-Haul truck. She waited in a nearby parking lot as her heavily armed accomplices drove a red van to the Nanuet Mall, where a Brink's truck was making a pick-up.

At 3:55 p.m., Brink's guards Peter Paige and Joseph Trombino emerged from the mall carrying bags of money. As they loaded the money into the truck, the robbers stormed out of their van and attacked. One fired two shotgun blasts into the truck's bulletproof windshield, while another opened fire with an M16 rifle. Paige was hit multiple times in the chest and killed instantly. Trombino was able to fire a single shot from his handgun, but was struck in the shoulder and arm by several rounds, nearly severing his arm from his body. The truck's driver, James Kelly, noticing the shooting behind him, fired several rounds at the robbers through a gun port on the door of his truck, but came under heavy gunfire, and took cover underneath the dashboard, but he was hit in the head by glass and bullet shrapnel. The assailants grabbed $1.6 million in cash (equivalent to $4.8 million in 2021), got back in their van, and fled the scene.

Trombino survived his injuries, and continued to work for the Brink's company for the next 20 years; he was almost killed in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and was killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks while making a delivery in the World Trade Center North Tower.^[4]

Yes, the Brink's-Mat robbery at Heathrow Airport in 1983 in which £26 million was stolen. 

You'll have heard the news that Britney was married yesterday to Sam Ashgari, that Persian-American beefcake. I wish them well, it has the makings of a more successful union than her first two. Anyway it gives me the opportunity to post a picture of the happy couple.

Did you get to Tintagel or St Michael's Mount?

Did you get to Tintagel or St Michael's Mount?

No, not this time. I finally got down to the Lizard Point, having been stopped in previous years by the fog. Although I never ventured to the southern ports this time, I do think south Cornwall is far better than the north. This is definitely my last trip down there now, my first having been in 1964, when it was a far different world, trapped in time. Cornwall has been bought up by huge holiday corporations, second home buyers and property giants. There is still a Cornwall independence group you know, they meet in a phone box. Fact is, it's overly commercialised to an unhealthy level for me now. One of the places I visited on the way home was Combe Martin, in North Devon, the ancestral home. I haven't seen the place in 50 years and again, so different, with its ice cream, surfing and cafe culture now. Another reason for not going again was the traffic. It took us over 9 hours of almost constant driving to make the 350 mile journey home, as the roads were depressingly packed and there was a bevy of accidents adding to the chaos. It's either South Wales or Suffolk next year.

A nice relaxing vacation with blood-pressure pills required, Art?

This clip gives you an idea off what I was talking about. There are hundreds of miles of these lanes.

Wait until the fuel crisis really hits, then you'll have the roads to yourself. 

You've got more space than us, we have to have narrow roads to fit them all in.