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A friend is taking part in a social experiment... He is wearing a "I'm Backing Boris" T-shirt for 2 weeks to see how people react. So far he’s been spat on, punched and had a bottle thrown at him. I’m curious to see what happens when he goes outside.

Whenever my wife is upset, I let her colour in my tattoos. She just needs a shoulder to crayon.

I lost all the fingers on my right hand in an accident and asked the doctor If I would still be able to write with it. He replied "Probably, but I wouldn't count on it"

I popped into the library today and asked if they had any books on turtles. The librarian said "hard backs?" I said "yes, and little heads".

Why did Billy the kid smell of coconut? He had a bounty on his head.

I need someone to help me sort out the terrible condensation problem in my kitchen... Pop round anytime. The kettle's always on.

If anybody wants a list of every famous Bugs Bunny quote, I can send it to you as a WhatsApp doc.

We all know where the Big Apple is, but does anyone know where the Minneapolis?

A bloke was telling Paddy how nature sometimes compensates for a person's deficiences. "For example", he told him, "if someone is deaf, they may have keener sight, or if a person is blind, they may have a very keen sense of smell". "I think I see what you mean", said Paddy, "I've often noticed that if a fella has one short leg, then the other one is always a bit longer".

Bono and the Edge walk into a pub. The barman looks up and says: “For goodness sake’s, not U2 again!”

Russia has never tried selling oil / gas for Roubles - it's prefered "currencies" being gold and Euros, but also taking US dollars - with which it buys gold. It has also been ditching US treasuries for a number of years now, while building up said gold reserves: As Russia Dumped Its Treasuries, Here's What It Was Buying | GoldBroker.com And, looking more recently: Russian rainy day fund to get out of all U.S. dollar assets | Reuters China hasn't dumped its US treasuries - yet. Doing so would cause a huge shock wave in the global market, and lead to the dollar plummeting. So far, it's in China's interests not to do so, but it has slowed down its rate of acquiring them. The fact is, the US government is now by far the biggest buyer of its own debt, and the gap between US owned and non-US owned debt has been accelerating since the 2008 GFC, and even more so since the beginning of the covid pandemic. It is becoming an increasingly untenable situation for the US, as defaulting on its debt means, more and more, it will be defaulting on itself, and will itself be the single biggest casualty. Things are so dire for the US that servicing its debt takes up over 100% of its tax revenue. It needs to be very careful about what punishment it applies to Russia, as anything which causes a loss in tax revenue - including crashing the price of oil and gold / strengthening the dollar by a large rates hike - would in effect be strangling itself. It already needs to print money just to pay off its non-debt bills (defense, infrastructure, education, law enforcement etc etc etc). Needing to print even more to make up the shortfall in debt interest payments would be quickening its fall. (The chart comes from a US macro-econimic consultancy, FFTT LLC) Meanwhile, Russia and China, (and now India is getting in on the act as well) are negotiating major contracts, including oil and gas imports / exports in a combination of gold and their own currencies, thus bypassing the whole Petrodollar agreement. Russia is already selling much of its gas to the EU in Euros, and exporting to many other countries in return for gold. When it is paid in US dollars, it is immediately converting those to gold: Grandmaster Putin's Golden Trap | Gold Eagle (gold-eagle.com) China too has made a deal with Saudi Arabia to pay for oil in Yuan credits, with the excess paid in gold. (And the Saudis have effectively snubbed the US in favour of China when they refused to heed calls to increase production recently). It is therefore in the US interest to try and collapse the gold price, but, as in the previous point, this could be highly detrimental to the US, and the world has effectively voted for who they are backing: The US is in a dilemma of its own making, and is facing the same situation the UK was in during the Suez crisis, when, ironically, the US forced it to make an embarrassing withdrawal by threatening to cause a run on the Pound, something that it really never recovered from, much to the US's advantage. The US is becoming increasingly cornered, with many nations unable or simply unwilling to follow its financial lead. As President Obama said, referring to US declared sanctions on Iran back in 2015: "We cannot dictate the foreign, economic and energy policies of every major power in the world. In order to even try to do that, we would have to sanction, for example, some of the world's largest banks. We'd have to cut off countries like China from the American financial system. And since they happen to be major purchasers of our debt, such actions could trigger severe disruptions in our own economy, and, by the way, raise questions internationally about the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency. That's part of the reason why many of the previous unilateral sanctions were waived." He was echoing a statement made by Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, the former Chief of Staff to US Secretary of State Colin Powell, on the aims of certain "non-friendly" countries in 2014: "What they want to do is use Putin and others’ oil power, Petrodollars if you will, and I say that PetroYuan, PetroRenminbi, PetroEuro, whatever, to force the United States to lose its incredibly powerful role of owning the world’s transactional reserve currency". The West has so far been united in appying certain sanctions to Russia, but some big players - mainly China, Saudi Arabia and India, are refusing to follow. Given that Russia is the largest energy exporter in the world, it will be interesting to see how long it takes for other countries to join them. Afterall, a recent US geological survey concluded that "The world will not be able to survive if oil and gas from Russia is subtracted from the global balance of energy supply". So far, energy exports have not been covered by any sanctions, highlighting both their importance to the world, and the toothlessness of any political measures. About 75% of the world's population, and the majority of its wealth, are located in Eurasia. A pact by China, Russia, India and Saudi Arabia would control much of that population and wealth, along with its, and the world's energy supply. They have already made clear their aim is to make a new global reserve currency, not beholden to any one nation, but rather, gold based. Should Putin install a puppet regime in Ukraine and rapidly withdraw, the need for Russian gas imports may be too big a drawcard for many European nations, and they might just join them. There are already sour feelings about the US trying to dictate European policy on the Nordstream pipelines, and President Trump's position on many of his European allies, which could just tip the cart. Of course, any prolonged occupation of Ukraine, and / or a continued push into Eastern Europe would mean all bets are off. But then the world would have far greater things to worry itself about.

Vladimir Putin, wanting to get on the good side of voters, goes to visit a school in Moscow to have a chat with the kids. He talks to them about how Russia is a powerful nation and how he wants the best for the people. At the end of the talk, there is some time for questions. Little Sasha puts her hand up and says "I have two questions: Why did the Russians take Crimea? And why are we invading Ukraine?" Putin says "Good questions..." But just as he is about to answer, the bell goes, and the kids go for lunch. When they come back, they sit back down and there is room for some more questions so another girl, Misha, puts her hand up and says, "I have four questions. My Questions are: Why did the Russians invade Crimea? Why are we invading Ukraine? Why did the bell go 20 minutes early for lunch? And where is Sasha?"

Global warming is now thought to be the leading cause of documentaries.

90% of the worlds photograph paper comes from Zambia. Its a developing country.

Has anyone ever got halfway through eating a horse and thought "I'm not as hungry as I thought I was."

I just found out the real reason penguins can't fly.. They're not tall enough to be pilots.