Our grandparents kept a Victory Garden through the war. Many kept it going for sixty years after. And what they told when asked is the reason I'm writing this right now. why did they continue to grow so much food when the grocery store was right down the street? Grandparents commonly said — because once you've seen the shelves go empty, you don't ever quite trust them to be full again. As a child we didn't understand. The store was always full. That was like telling us the sky might turn green. But they knew something we didn't. And something that is always a potential in an uncertain global market. Here's what they knew. The food system in this country has broken three times in the last hundred years. And every single time — without exception — the families who survived were the ones who had seeds in the ground before the shelves went empty. Not after. Before. The first time was 1917. World War One. Europe was starving. Farmland bombed into trenches. The US government looked at the math and realized they couldn't feed the military and the civilian population at the same time. The UK victory gardens were the main source of food for communities, with our land girls working the fields. Children had to help. It was a community effort. The American government told American families to grow their own food too. Three million of them did. By 1918, five million. Kids as young as eight were organized into groups the government called Soldiers of the Soil. The second time was 1943. World War Two. Rationing hit hard. Meat, butter, sugar, canned goods — all controlled, all rationed. Twenty million families planted Victory Gardens. They grew ten billion pounds of food. Nearly half of every vegetable people ate came out of someone's garden. Both times, the US government showed up. Printed planting guides. Distributed seeds. Built the whole system and handed it to you. Then came the third time. 2020. And this is where it starts to affect you directly. Grocery shelves went empty. Not in a history book. In your store. The one you drive to every week. Produce section — bare. Meat case — gaps you'd never seen before. In the USA Canned goods were limited to two per customer. Lines wrapped around the building. People looking at each other with that look — the one that says something is wrong and nobody's saying it out loud. In the UK we had similar restrictions on how much we could buy per shop across a variety of products.

Did you know In 1974 Henry Kissinger flew to Saudi Arabia and struck a secret deal that would quietly run the world for the next 50 years... Saudi Arabia would price its oil in dollars... park its surpluses in US Treasury bonds... other Gulf states followed... in exchange America provided security guarantees and a stable global order... Every country on earth now had to buy dollars just to buy oil... Those dollars flowed back into American debt... Which allowed America to borrow more... spend more... and owe more than any nation in human history... While the rest of the world funded it... That deal became the petrodollar system... And it is the only thing standing between America's $36 trillion debt and complete collapse... Now here is where it gets interesting... The dollar's share of global reserves hit a multi decade low in 2025... the directional trend is downward and the pace is accelerating... Saudi Arabia quietly joined a Chinese digital currency initiative designed to bypass the dollar entirely... Iran was collecting tolls at the Strait of Hormuz in yuan and crypto... Russia selling oil outside the dollar system... The entire architecture that funds American debt... being quietly dismantled... Bloomberg published this week that the petrodollar loop supporting the US Treasury market is now broken... Every country doing the dismantling sits around the Strait of Hormuz... Now the Strait is closed... Those countries are economically devastated... 20% of global oil supply cut off in a single move... simultaneously hitting Kuwait... Iraq... Saudi Arabia and the UAE... Fertilizer exports through the strait collapsed 98% in March alone... 45 million more people facing food insecurity by the end of 2026... Oil at its highest since the 1970s... And the world's largest oil producer... The country with the most to lose if the petrodollar system dies... Just started this war... Now add the final layer... This morning a president got on social media before 8am...

This is an interesting point from Adrian Edmondson, and one that probably resonates with a lot of people. He’s essentially questioning the modern obsession with “working hard” and constantly praising “hard-working families,” suggesting that it’s an outdated mindset. Edmondson argues that we now live in a world where technology and machines can take on much of the heavy lifting, so life shouldn’t just be about grinding away until retirement. Instead, he’s saying people should be aiming for more balanced, diverse and fulfilling lives — spending more time enjoying life, being creative, and doing things that actually make them happy, rather than defining success purely through hard work. What are your thoughts on this?

"This whole plan (if you can call such impulsive behaviour a plan) was predicated on the swift collapse of the Iranian system after decapitation. But just as the American regime spent a trillion dollars and untold lives replacing the Taliban with the Taliban so they have replaced Khameni with Khameni. Sheer stable genius. It was predicated upon an uprising of Iranian liberals taking over the country opening its riches to the Americans and embracing Israel. An uprising visible now only amongst the exiled comprador of the deposed Shah in Los Angeles. Trump has no power to end this. The advantage is now with Iranians. They have leverage. They will only stop firing on those who attacked them when their legitimate demands are met. The more Trump boasts vaingloriously of his military successes the more missiles thud into the towns and cities of Israel and his allies in the Gulf, into his aircraft and shipping, military and commercial, into his embassies and bases and alas into his soldiers and agents who are losing their lives and limbs, their whole futures, in this desperately ill-judged war of choice. Of course Iranian lives and limbs are being severed recklessly too but their political pain threshold is exponentially higher. And they’re not hosting the World Cup in a few weeks neither do they have mid-term elections in a few months. Those demands will now likely include the denuclearisation of Israel OR their own nuclear weapons as a deterrent against Israeli nuclear weapons. The immediate establishment of a Palestinian state and the end of Israeli occupation and impunity. The complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon guaranteed by the UN Security Council Permanent 5. The closure of all American bases in the Persian Gulf. An end to all sanctions against Iran and full compensation for all Iranian deaths and destruction of Iranian property- likely paid by their neighbours. All of the above guaranteed by the security council and ratified in treaty form by the United States Congress.

The reality is we actually have about 7.5 days of gas in storage based on current demand. And our supplies haven’t yet stopped. So tomorrow we’ll still have around 7.5 days, because gas is still flowing into the system through pipelines and LNG deliveries. In fact, if imports and LNG deliveries continue, storage could actually increase over time. People keep talking as if the system suddenly shuts off overnight. It doesn’t. The UK gas network is constantly being replenished through pipelines and LNG terminals. The real issue isn’t “we only have a week of gas.” The real issue is that the UK now relies heavily on continuous supply rather than holding large strategic reserves like we used to. So yes — about a week in storage, but with ongoing inflows keeping the system balanced. The aim is to keep those pipelines / supplies flowing whilst creating enough scare mongering to justify increasing the price further. If supplies do stop then yes we may be in trouble but at this point in time they haven't What are your thoughts?