Well, it’s been too long since I’ve done one of these and while I know that my regular readers (Danish bots advertising Scandinavian hoover suppliers) aren’t going to be missing my witty insights, given what’s been going on over the past week, now’s as good a time as any. Where to begin though?
I suppose it’s got to be that old favourite, Donny Boy! Yes the Ginger Whinger has achieved the impossible and said something even more outrageous than labelling all Mexican immigrants rapists and drug dealers, more sinister than advocating the bombing of terrorist’s family members and more fatuous than assuring the world of the enormity of his penis; the Trumpet has now insinuated that Ted Lyin’ Cruz’s father. Rafael Cruz, was involved in the assassination of JFK. I suppose we should be thankful that The Don at least has some documentary evidence this time to back up his assertions though unfortunately that document is the National Enquirer which has endorsed Donald and which I wouldn’t even use to wipe my arse because it’s already full of shit.
The “article” in question consists of photos purportedly showing Rafael Cruz pro-Castro leaflets with Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963 and these have supposedly been verified by the Enquirer’s own photographic experts. Now, I’ll be honest and say that Ted Cruz makes my skin crawl and his father’s messianic statements about his son being the saviour of America are completely ridiculous however even if the photos are real, it’s a bit of a stretch to then accuse him of being involved in the assassination or as Salacious D put it:
“And (Ted Cruz’s) father, you know, was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald’s, you know, being shot. I mean the whole thing is ridiculous….I mean what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald, shortly before the death? Before the shooting? It’s horrible.”
You know what, Donald? For once I agree with you. The whole sorry scenario is truly horrible.
Anyway, from one loony billionaire to another, this week also saw the potential demise of BHS in the UK as the chain following its sale by Sir Philip Green to Retail Acquisitions for £1. Yes, that’s right, a solitary pound netted Dominic Chappell, leader of the Retail Acquisition consortium, the entirety of BHS; 86 years of trading, 164 stores and most importantly 11,000 jobs. How did he manage to get all of this for £1 you ask? Well, it turns out that under the leadership of Sir Philip Green (who received his knighthood from Tony Blair’s government in 2006 for, irony of ironies, services to British Business) there was a bit of a hole in the pension fund at BHS. Actually. ‘hole’ doesn’t really do it justice; it’s more bottomless chasm of doom. Actually, ‘bottomless’ isn’t quite right either; it does have a bottom although it’s about £571m below ground level and any buyer would have to cover that since Sir Phil wasn’t about to. The real kick in the teeth though is that since May 2000, the Green family (his wife is the actual owner as Phil transferred the business to her….nothing at all to do with her being a resident in Monaco, I’m sure) has taken £586m out of BHS as dividends, rent and interests on loans; I think I might know where the pension pit of darkness might have originated.
If you think that’s bad however, at least Phil has some business acumen behind him. The bell-end he sold BHS to, Dominic Chappell, is an utter prat. He’s gone bankrupt twice, one of which could have been straight out of the Donald playbook, he arsed up a property development on the picturesque Isle of Wight. He had borrowed £24m from Anglo Irish Bank (don’t get me started) in 2009 and wisely invested it in boats, cars and a helicopter. He then came into contact with Paul Sutton, a convicted fraudster and became his bitch. Sir Phil had at one point been on the verge of selling BHS to Sutton in 2014 however when Green was informed of Sutton’s fraudulent past, he killed the sale. At this point, Chappell spotted his opportunity, formed Retail Acquisitions and started courting Sir Phil instead. Any hope senior management at BHS might have had of a competent owner was dashed when Chappell took an £8.4m loan from BHS a month after buying it, awarded himself a £540,000 salary and in July 2015, took out a £25m loan for BHS from Allied Commercial Exporters at the extortionate rate of 20% (the loan was referred to internally as the Wonga Loan). Days before the administrators were called in, Chappell also tried to move £1.5m from BHS to Sweden for some reason (to the company of a friend who was also on the board of Retail Acquisitions) but kindly returned it when asked to….minus the £50k transfer fee.
The sad thing is that these two gobshites are currently living lives of luxury while the ordinary workers fret about what’s going to happen to their jobs and income. It’s almost funny in that as an Irish taxpayer, I’ve partly paid for Chappell’s previous excesses (Ireland eventually bailed out Anglo Irish Bank who were an utter shower of….*deep breath* never mind) while as a UK taxpayer, I’m going to end up partially funding the pension pit in BHS because I very much fucking doubt that the £80m that Sir Phil has offered is going to cover it.
I’d like to end on a happy note however and wish Mr. C a happy birthday today. Hopefully many more to come!