One feedback I had to my last digest was that it was too short. I was told that it was 550 words to be exact. I had not checked the number of words myself, so I was deeply touched by the concern. Everyone’s a critic. One way of making someone read to the end is to keep it short and sweet. We live in a world where being to the point doesn’t quite do it.

Writing my last digest or article of any type took me over 300 days, but just as with London buses, where there is one, there is another right behind. I am taking this metaphor or simile or whatever you call it at face value. I haven’t been on a bus in many years. My dad used to be a bus driver. I remember his mates letting me on the bus for free. Life is simple when you are a kid; things like a free bus ride make you feel like a king.

Now, with winter around the corner, the government handout of £100 household for those not living in a mansion seems a little light, seeing as the money-grabbing utility companies are hiking up their prices to take the hundred quid away before it reaches your bank account. Talking of utility companies, United Utilities contacted me this week. I had to call them to discuss my bill, a bill I had paid, albeit a little late.

I spoke to a professionally pleasant person and she got what is commonly known as “both barrels”. She agreed she was not qualified to either give financial advice nor help with mental health crisis both of which someone genuinely unable to pay their bills require.

She suggested I set up a direct debit, so they could take the money every month to soften the blow. I refused on the basis I was being charged for a natural resource that falls out of the sky. Before I get berated for being a burden on society, United Utilities made an operating profit of nearly £1 billion in the last year, so they are not running a charity. As I told her, United Utilities will get my money when I am ready to pay them, not when they are ready to take it from my bank account.

Whilst on the subject of water, we are now being told to stockpile it. That ‘s if there is any left after the data centres take it all, another reason not to write AI slop, soon we will have to make the choice, drink water or write a self centred , self engradising LinkedIn post. Looking around at the state of the world today, I’d say we all dying of thirst whilst reading how some twenty something side hustled his way to a multi million pound business.

I was asked what I thought about the government’s advice to people to stockpile bare essentials, in case of war, climate change, zombie attack or Manchester City being relegated. To be honest, I hadn’t realised how globally widespread this advice had been. I can’t really put my finger on the reason as to why. The worrying thing is, does Andy Burnham know something we don’t? With recent British Prime Ministers, the answer would be they know less than a five-year-old, so we are all safe. But with dodgy Andy you never know. Maybe he going to war with the Russian’s.

Hackers have been targeting freezers across Europe to increase the temperature. No more going to the back of the fridge to get the coldest drink; so we will we not only have no water but if we do it won’t even be cold, this just gets better and better.

There were pictures of supermarkets throwing food out. I mean, they could have tried to give it away or reduce the stockpiling burden. If only the hackers could target the robot tills that gleefully overcharge you for everyday goods. At least when it was a person doing it, they were making a living out of it. If prices keep going up like this, there might be queues of people waiting for AI to end the human race just to put us all out of our misery.

I will be finishing off with the US midterms. The votes are still being cast, so we don’t have an idea about who will have won. The Democrats won apparently. I just realised I have no idea who the leader of the Democrats is, or even what the point of a midterm election is, don’t pretend you did.

According to the BBC, the Democrats now control Congress and the House of Representatives . Donny T is going to be reaching for the late night Whopper burgers to get over this one. His initial reaction has been to say

“I wasn’t on the ballot if I was it would have been a landslide”

Yes Donlad, if you were on the ballot the Democrats would have had a landslide. All fair and well, I guess, if it makes him sleep better at night.

There is a more profound point here: if the lunatics have taken over the asylum, does it really matter what colour the walls are?

After electing a paedophile, sex-offending fraudster to office, is there a need for democracy to give the illusion of choice? I make this point often: if Trump was the CEO of a company in the Valley, he would not have survived the scandals. Yet he was deemed fair and fit to stand for office.

The American political system has about as much due diligence as the Premier League and their fit and proper checks on club owners. Yes Manchester City I am talking about you.

Speaking of due diligence we should take a closer look at the foundations upon which America was built. America is a nation built on slavery, land of the brave , home of the slave.

Slavery has been in the news recently with King Charles, still feels strange him being King, he was destined to be the man who never quite became King. He has been saying that Slavery was a ‘shameless chapter’, well Charlie we all really touched by your shame. After Andrew one would have thought that word didn’t exist in the lexicon of your family.

The institution of the Commonwealth is another oddity, from the name it suggests that the wealth of the ex-British colonies would be common, alas the reality in 2026 is something different.

Britain’s GDP per person is 21 times higher than India’s and 47 times higher than Nigeria’s. All three are members of the Commonwealth. (World Bank, 2025)

The median British adult held 40 times more wealth than the median Indian adult and 101 times more than the median Nigerian adult. (UBS/Credit Suisse, 2022)

Not very common is it really? for shame Charlie boy for shame.

A little longer than 550 words, but not quite war and peace though.

Although under Capitalism there is only ever war and war.

In Trump’s own words, it’s time to “drain the swamp”.

It’s been 341 days since I wrote a digest. The fact in that time no one has asked why I haven’t written one means that either they were not very good or people have simply moved on. It’s fine I take no personal offence.

I did think about automating some AI generated slop farm to churn out articles one every few days. Now with the thought that you could be reading something written by a machine whilst it destroys the earth firmly embedded in your mind, I (or it could be AI ) can get to the point.

After nearly a year of not writing a digest this edition should be more like a Encyclopedia. However the world has been such for the last century and more that it doesn’t take much to summarise the events of the last few months.

It’s like those Takeaways, with zero star hygiene rating with “Under New Management” scrawled across its shop front. In all honestly everyone knows, it’s the same bloke running the place and he still hasn’t cleaned up properly for months.

The game of smokes and mirrors the takeaway owner will play to just get around Food Standards is a microcosm of the greater game. The game that plays with people’s lives to churn out more policy and politics, which just like the food at some place called “The Golden Tiger” is not fit for human consumption.

Yet after a few pints on a Friday night (for the record I don’t drink) the donner kebab which has been sat out for the past few days seems like it’s

“Delicately shaved ribbons of vertically roasted, spice-marinated lamb, nestled within a hand-warmed artisanal flatbread, accompanied by a vibrant medley of finely shredded seasonal vegetables, finished with a velvety garlic emulsion and a drizzle of house-crafted chilli reduction”

In all reality it’s just some unidentifiable meat put into the cheapest naan they could find with some lettuce, thrown together with the same love we afford the tax man.

Thousands of articles and news stories are written each week discussing the intricate details of the global situation and what it all means.

Yet underneath it all there is a common thread.

Even after 341 days more of murder in Gaza and then in Iran, a war that Trump said would last a few weeks but has lasted months.

The closing of Hormuz and the deepening economic woes that has caused across the world. The escalation between the Saudi’s and the Houthis.

The breakdown of civil order across Europe and the rise of the far right.

The great takeover of AI and the warnings that it will destroy us all , whist being sold to us in the same breath.

The thread is a system where the rich exploit the poor, the strong exploit the weak, the most corrupt of men hold the highest of positions. Where stock markets are tanked and revived at the words of a President who is skimming off the top, of rulers sat on billions of barrels of oil and do nothing to save starving children but are willing to fight for their masters in the West.

This may not be the deepest of analysis of geopolitical events you will ever read but in all reality it doesn’t need to be.

I could have not written for another 341 days and the conclusion would have been the same, Capitalism, Democracy and the current system are simply not fit for human consumption.

Muslim girls in hijab turned away at the school gate. Teachers told to remove their headscarves or stay home.

This isn't France or Belgium. It's Azerbaijan, a country where around 96% of the population is Muslim.

So how does a Muslim-majority country end up pushing the hijab out of its schools? And why are students and parents taking to the streets?

To answer that, we go back through Azerbaijan's Soviet past, a KGB general who became the father of the nation, two wars with Armenia, a secret meeting in the middle of the night, a tense rivalry with Iran, and a small piece of land called Nakhchivan.

Every thread leads back to that school gate.

Then Iran responded. And it wasn’t the reaction anyone expected.

In this video we break down what this pact actually is. Is it a real move towards Muslim independence and unity? Is it a rejection of the American security umbrella? Or is there something else going on underneath it?

We look at the deepening ties between these three countries and Washington over the last few months, what America’s own strategy documents say about pacts exactly like this one, and why we have seen this film before with the Baghdad Pact and the United Arab Republic.

And then we come back to Iran, and what its response really tells us.

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The US and Iran signed a ceasefire in June 2026, so why is Trump bombing Iran again, why are oil tankers burning across the Strait of Hormuz, and who really controls the world’s most important energy chokepoint?

This video breaks down Trump’s secret passage: the new US and Oman backed shipping lane built to bypass Iran and quietly usurp control of the Strait of Hormuz. We trace what actually happened after the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding was signed, why Iran keeps attacking tankers despite winning such favourable terms, and why whoever controls this narrow strip of water holds leverage over the entire global economy.

We cover the collapse of the ceasefire, the renewed US strikes on Iran, the strikes around Khamenei’s funeral, Clause 5 of the MoU, Trump’s proposed 20 percent Hormuz fee and his sudden reversal, the Saudi and Houthi escalation, and what all of it means for oil prices, inflation, and US Treasury yields.

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