Alright, democracy isn’t perfect, but it is a great deal better than what Putin is offering the world. Putin is not just at war in Ukraine, he is also doing his utmost to destabilise pretty much every western democracy.   Russia’s attempts to spread misinformation during elections is pretty well documented.   We have all heard about it during British and the United States elections, and you can be certain that it happens in European and other countries too.   It has got to the point where a number of organisations that I know of, make particular efforts to screen internet traffic for anything that can be traced as coming through Russia.   Monitoring Russian (and I’m including other countries here too that are supported by Russia) internet traffic is not an attempt at censorship, rather Russia’s unseen information and economic war is everywhere, and in my opinion is just a small part of deliberate attempts to undermine the fabric of modern society.   We s...

 I mentioned a while back that we were getting an extension built.  Surprisingly even building an extension onto a house in good old Northern Ireland can make you a victim of Putin the Plonker's war in the Ukraine.  Let's be clear about the extent of this up front.  This makes me a victim of war in only the most miniscule of senses.  It's not like I've lost a limb, or my home or anything else important.  It's like this:- All the existing doors in our house are varnished pine, so we wanted something similar for the two new doors in the extension.  There are loads of pine doors online, and all the builders merchants and other door suppliers have catalogues that show them.  There appear to be only two manufacturers across the whole of the UK, XL Joinery, and LPD Doors.  So we tried to buy them, firstly from local sources, only to repeatedly get that great sucking of air through the front teeth that lets you know that you have asked a sales rep f...