Revisiting Nigel Farage and the Coutts bank scandal

In hindsight, Coutts probably did the right thing. In 2023, Coutts closed the bank account of Nigel Farage. He took action about this and a head rolled over this. Considering the donations that Nigel Farage and Reform UK Ltd have been given, this may have been the right thing to do.

Ben Delo, a man who was pardoned by Trump following a conviction, has donated money to Reform UK Ltd. It was reported that Ben Delo, who lives in Hong Kong, gave £4m to Reform earlier this year before the Government changed the law to put a £100,000 cap on donations from Britons living abroad. 

There also the five million pound donation to Nigel Farage for his personal security or as a reward for Brexit (depending on the time Nigel Farage is explaining it).  This one is from Christopher Harborne, a British crypto billionaire living in Thailand.  Who also has a conviction, but has not earned a pardon.

For once, this story has been given the attention it deserves, though most are ignoring the Ben Delo donation, as that appeared to have been declared and was to the party, not to Nigel Farage himself. The reason I mention this is that Richard Tice made an error with taxes (for a company), but was not hounded out of a job in the way Angela Rayner was. 

Nigel Farage has managed to avoid the consequences of this racist comments in the past. The question is if “The Establishment” in the form of Count Binface will be able to beat him. In 2024, he was elected with over 40% of the vote, which means that if all who did not vote for Farage in the last general election vote for Count Binface, then he may win! 

What a game

What a game. I went to bed early yesterday, was woken

Password failure

Well that was an interesting return to work. I love my job, but had a frustrating morning as I locked myself out of the clinical system at work by forgetting my Windows password, and that for my smart-card.  It was all fixed, but it took time. But from then, the day got better.  

Back in Blighty

We are home, and are exhausted.  We left our apartment early in the day. Last night I ended up swearing at the children as one decided to pack at ten at night while the other was trying to sleep. While the apartment is nice and has a great location, it has no air conditioning and sleeping has been an issue in the last few nights. 

The journey back was not too eventful. We arrived at the airport with time to spare, Portugal appears to have suspended the EU passport checks which have caused chaos for British travellers, which meant that we arrived too early. But having heard of planes leaving passengers behind, we did not want to risk that ourselves. 

Our issues were once we landed. The taxi we booked was not available and a slightly smaller car was sent instead. But the M25 was very busy and our journey home took about two hours longer than normal. And it was so hot! I did get to watch the England match on my phone but there was a lag which meant that I saw my daughter respond to the radio before I saw England go behind. We were exhausted by the time we got back home, the heat and being trapped in the car not being enjoyable.  I decided to get our dog who was at in-house-boarding in Ipswich. Leia loves it there and loved seeing me. She expected the rest of the family to be in the car, but they needed to rest at home.  The dog-sitter is amazing, she loves Leia and wanted to chat, which meant that I missed the equaliser and ended up watching the highlights to see the two England goals.

I knew England would have to attack as the DRC would defend, I just did not expect us to go behind so quickly. But I had faith in the team and we got the result we deserved.  Our next game will be against a team playing at home, at altitude, in a stadium they have rarely lost in. But that means they will be attacking us… 

But we are at home, and we are happy to be so.  It is back to work for me tomorrow, hopefully it will not be too much of a shock! 

Quinta da Tôr and the Strait of Hormuz

We split up today. My wife was keen on visiting Quinta da Tôr, a vineyard with pools. Our son was not too keen so stayed in Santa Luzia. It was the right thing for him to do. He would not have liked it here, and we loved it.  Good wine, friendly service and pools to both swim and cool down in. 

As for the Strait of Hormuz, I naively thought that things would be sorted after the latest peace deal was agreed. But I forgot about the greed. I had realised that the reason oil prices are manipulated by the weekends was based on computer algorithms running. I came to this conclusion when I was wondering why the market kept falling for the same lies. To me, it would be logical for the market to anticipate this and switch off the algorithms, or at least prevent them from making oil trades, over weekends.  I do hope that this is all sorted out properly and soon because, as it is, too many farmers have not been able to fertilise crops and the longer this continues, the longer Trumpflation will increase global food prices. 

Trump may berate NATO nations for not providing him with direct aid in his diversionary war from him being in The Epstein files, but I am glad that we are not helping him directly to strike Iran. 

Taberna Amaro

Today, we left Villa Stofero and its tranquil gardens, its pool and its working TV. We are now in Santa Luzia. The apartment has a bigger living space than before, two private balconies and is in a village.  Down the road from where we are is Taberna Amoro.

Over this holiday, I have had average meat courses most of the time. Today I had the best beef I have had this holiday. The service is friendly, we ate outside in the back garden which did mean we were exposed to some tobacco smoke. I would recommend all the places I have posted on this holiday, this place foremost of all. 

We had been to the nearby market earlier in the day for lunch were we had some local food. I liked the pork sandwich which I had, my son hated it. I felt the fries were from the freezer and were underdone. It may be that my enjoyment of dinner was based on how bad the chips were. The kids had been shopping and my daughter bought herself a bracelet. My son bought a present for a friend. It was an experience that is one we normally would not have on holiday and it added variety to the holiday. 

Restaurante de Querença

Today involved dinner at a distance from our villa. It is our last night here and our hosts recommended this place. It has a great view and the friendliest service we have had so far. I loved the traditional food, but sadly ate too much at lunch so could not enjoy it.  If we do return to this area of the Algarve, we will probably return here as well.