Tag: russia

South Kensington Bank – KGB – Dream 08-10-2025

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Here is this morning’s dream. Where this came from I do not know.

The dream opens in a small plush bank very near South Kensington tube station. It is a private bank and the sense is it is for the well and ultra-well heeled. It has a distinctly Russian flavour and a faint whiff of oligarch. I am talking with a cash teller about some different kinds of account. She is slick and very professional. Her English is crisp-perfect and she is immaculate. I feel at home and safe. As usual the posh circumstance does not faze me. She gives me some literature to look at. As I go to leave a man in his thirties who works at the bank starts to engage me in conversation. He looks physically fit and his stance is “fighting” balanced. He continues to probe about me and my business.

I ask him , “KGB?”

He pauses to think and then says, “Yes, well not quite, something similar, more modern.” As he says this he allows a faint Russian accent to show. We smile in good spirits and I leave the bank.

I know that I will recognise him if I ever see him again.

I return some time later with a tall woman with dark hair. She is expensively dressed and partially eastern European. We go into the bank and I help arrange various financial currency instruments to be cashed, if needed, in global locations when she is on her travels. There is a sense that sanctions against Russia have made this more tricky. We leave the bank and are followed by thick set big man well over six feet. He has a very expensive lather jacket and close cropped blond hair. He has a ruddy face and I know that he is fond of a good piss up.

We head off down towards the tube station. He is behind us. As we are going down the stairs we are met by another Russian coming up the stairs. He stands in front of the woman and sort of ushers her back upstairs like a sheep. I draw a telescopic police baton and open it. The man on the stairs pauses. She looks at me and by gesture says for me to desist. These men are known to her. They work for her “father”. We all go upstairs to a large car / limousine waiting on the road. She is ushered in to the back seat. I go to join her but the leather jacket man says no. I am not to worry they and she will be in contact with me soon. All sense of tension has evaporated.

I head off to the tube station collapsing the telescopic baton as I do. As I go down the steps into the station I make a note in the dream to avoid London like the plague and to stay well away from South Kensington in particular.

The dream ends.

As I come to I am reminded of when I walked into a commercial posh bank in Kensington ~25 years ago. I was dressed as per usual in black Levis’ and a polo shirt. I said that I wanted to open an account. They were pretty sceptical. I said that we had just raised  £5 million start-up funds. They ushered me into a posh office for a coffee and metaphorical BJ. In an instant their tone had changed.

On waking I have an intuition that should anyone intervene personally with me it is most likely to be the Russians.

Is America Worth All That Hassle and Unpleasantness?

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In the series “Pine Gap” which we are currently watching the relationship between the USA and Australia is strained. In real life the AUKUS pact and the sale of US nuclear submarines by the arch deal breaker, in under review. {What is in it for us?} Time and again deals are broken and pulled out of. In the series Australia is considering a deal of neutrality with China.

In real life America continues to behave like a teenage bully in the locker-hallways of a high school, gesticulating, boasting and making threats. There are insults and defamations thrown at so-called allies.

America is very hard work as a so-called “friend”. There is so much hassle. It is such a drag and is not a mutually uplifting relationship. Do you really need friends like that, who are such a downer, a whinger, a pain in the ass? Who are so unpleasant?

USA continues to fund the obliteration of Gaza; the American ordnance has killed tens of thousands. It pretends to be a peace maker when it provides petrol for the fire which inflames, maims and destroys. It has thrown tens of billions of dollars at the defence of Ukraine.

If Ukraine has taught anything, it is that Russian conventional forces need not be feared. Yet the propaganda suggests that it is Putin who is the bogeyman, Vlad the Impaler. Iraq and Afghanistan are swept under the carpet. Butter from genetically modified cows fed on pesticide rich feed does not melt in our mouths. We are the land of the Free, the home of the Brave. Here we, armed to the teeth, kick the living shit out of anyone who dares to disagree. We are so brave with our reaper drones and F35s. A level playing field is not for us heroes.

I can understand why popularity need not concern the powerful but endless coercion does never strengthen alliances. Belittling allies does not make them strong or willing. I can understand why Western Europe is the past. I can see that technology rich South Korea and Japan are refusing to procreate enough. This is good news for China. I can see that a few bombs on TSMC in Taiwan could severely disrupt the semiconductor and AI band wagons. The new  FABS in the USA won’t come on line anytime soon. I can see Huawei competing effectively around the world. The embargo has stimulated home-grown creativity. I can see the Maoist cultural revolution against the Intellectuals and Free Press in the USA now in full swing.

If America loses its technological advantage post purge, what then? Will the hordes of the unvaccinated survive?

There are a few more years to go of the Trump presidency. What I have no sight of is what a post Trumpian USA might look like, this especially if he changes the constitution to allow himself  another term. It might be a USA unrecognisable.

Is it really worth all that hassle to deal with and partially rely on the USA. How reliable are the whim prone? Patience has to be wearing thin.

London Welsh – Rugby Dream 06-07-2025 – Russia – France

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Here is last night’s dream. We watched a recording of the Wales V Japan rugby match on the TV in which there was little inventiveness on the part of Wales.

The dream starts in a daylit room. I am sorting out some washing and come upon a red old-style rugby jersey made of thick linen and with a white button up collar. It has long sleeves and has been worn before. It is mine.  I pick it up, take off my t-shirt and try it on. It fits if a little tight. There is a strong feeling of Southern hemisphere.

I am next walking with John Williams to a clubhouse facility in the middle of several grass sports pitches some of which have rugby goal posts. I am dressed in normal clothes. We enter the clubhouse and it is the London Welsh rugby club dressing rooms / clubhouse. I am welcomed back by several of the team who recognise me. There are some new faces and everyone is getting changed into the red rugby jerseys with white old-style shorts. There are several teams from elite to social. The club physios and doctors are there. Siân and her team of young female physios are there. She is dressed in t-shirt and shorts with her blonde hair tied back in a pony tail. She has a strong Welsh accent. She is checking that people are fit to play. She comes over and has a cursory examination of my back and hips and clears me.

I am then ushered over to a table by the club “secretariat”. They want me to sign a membership form and pay my club dues. They say that a portion of the fee goes to the WRFU to help the national team. I say that I do not know which address to put in as I am between places. “Do I put in my French address for now?” “Yes”.

We do not yet know if we will be playing because there has been some snow overnight and the pitch might be too hard. We make our way out to the pitch. As I will be playing hooker from the bench I will need to know the lineout calls. One of the props says that he will whisper the actual as opposed to coded call for me so that I know where to throw in. I ask him to “scrum down” with me so that I can test how my hips hold up under pressure. We do this and I am able to hold his push and twist his body and lift him. He says that I will be fine, I cannot keep my Ventolin in my pocket. So I walk to the halfway touch flag and deposit it there, next to the pole.

The referee has declared the pitch match ready and we prepare for kick off. Even though I am old I know that in terms of cardiovascular and strength I will be able to keep up.

The dream ends.

I am reminded of my Dancing with Ganesh dream on waking.

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Around 40 years ago I played in a social rugby team at London Welsh which was filled with young professionals. The pack has several Ph.D. and lawyers.

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I wake up. It is around 5 AM. I feel no pain. Slowly the pain in my spine builds in. I drift off back to sleep.

It is ago, a few hundred years, and I am in Saint Petersburg at some kind of posh social event. I am among a delegation that is working between France and Russia, to try to find common ground. It is delicate work and the French are being difficult and uncooperative. The Russians are waiting for the French to decide and commit to something. A senior Russian court figure says to me that I need to make it clear that to the French it is they the French who are holding things up. I speak both languages. This segment pertains to “pony-tail” man. I am he again.

The dream ends

Hip Pin Removal – Jersey Incentives – Russian Passport Dream – 07-06-2025

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Here is last night’s dream.

The dream starts in a medical consultation on the island of Jersey. I am with the wife in a consultation room and a male doctor is looking at the x-rays of my left hip on an old fashioned backlit viewer. He is discussing that it is bad practice to leave a Titanium implant in long after the joint has recovered. It will make operating on my hip more difficult. He shows the extra bits of bone he will have to chip away.

The scene now changes to some kind of real estate / lawyers / Jersey corporation offices. We are consulting about moving to Jersey and the locals are offering an incentive for us so to do. They are explaining the ins and outs of buying property in Jersey, the law concerning company set ups and tax advantages. They mention local investment incentives and what kind of residency permits we might need in order to buy property. They say that it is best to be very thorough at the start.

The scene changes and I am on transport to Russia. It is not a train or a plane but somehow somewhere in between. A man in Russian army uniform with a big wide brimmed army hat is walking along the aisles checking passports. He gets to my row and ushers me to stand up in the aisle. He asks to see my passport. I give him by current blue-black one. In it is a special small visa document. He asks me the recent history of my passport applications. I say that I applied in Farnham and then in France. He looks at the passport and says that it is in order. He looks at the visa and reads it. He says, “Doctor Taylor we will be very pleased to welcome you to our motherland Russia!” He clicks his heels together, salutes and hands my passport back. I thank him and sit back down in my seat.

The dream ends.

Magical Thinking and Arrogance

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I am already bored with the endless TV footage of Trump with his droning on, bragging and put downs of anyone who is not him. His magical thinking in which his actions and words are free of real world consequences is crass. It was so nice to have had a few years without him soap boxing on a daily basis into the media. Oh well we have a few more years of this. If he imagines endorsing Tesla is going to promote sales globally, he may be mistaken. The MAGA sheep may buy but a Trump endorsement is not a good sales pitch worldwide. He may have a “Bud Lite” effect.

Maybe I should contact Dignitas soon.

Not surprisingly the conflict in Ukraine has not been solved in a day. Without the EU further sanctions are unlikely to upset Putin. Trump is the new poster boy for BRICS. He does not perhaps, get this.

Magical thinking, I the Don will get Vlad the Impaler to stop war in Ukraine, “Ta-dah!”

With friends like Trump who needs enemies?

A lot of people have some kind of magical thinking which arises out of their arrogance.

People can be so damned cock-sure without basis that they are blind, myopic and practising auto-proctology, looking with pride at their own sphincters. They are caught up in their own bubble-world. They imagine that the world loves them, that it will flock to them, kowtow, and share of the radiant brilliance of their self-diagnosed omniscience. It may not occur that they are wreaking havoc into the web of life because of their self-centred egotistical obsessions. They would not give a shit in any case.

Trump is a mirror for many, a mirror into which they fear to look with honesty. Humanity has called forth the likes of him. He is a sign of the times.

“Me first, ME, ME, ME. Everyone else is nasty and mean, only I am the hero. They, the plebs, do not understand. The world is against me, conspiring, poor me. It is not fair mummy.! They don’t appreciate me and see just how lucky they are to have me!!”

There is a problem that when some do not get their own way emotional drama results. I have never heard a US president slag off his predecessors with such glee. It is not statesman like nor edifying. It is petty.

Marcus Aurelius he is most certainly not.

This soap opera cannot be cancelled by network. It looks like running for few years yet, even if the ratings drop.

I wonder exactly how much damage can be done in four years?

That remains to be seen and perhaps endured.

The Un-statesman Like Hallway Bully

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I have never before seen an American president behave in such an un-statesman like manner. My opinion of the USA has gone downhill. It might be argued that this does not matter because they have the power. A president who has lost his own battle with power is likely to be ever more punitive to people he sees as enemies, adversaries and ever more willing to listen to sycophants. He will not hold back his vengeance. He will listen only to those whose opinion he wants to hear.

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In the course of few short weeks, he has sided with Russia against Ukraine and to an extent NATO and Europe. He is paranoid that everyone is out to screw him. He sees his own twisted image in the mirror.

This is what he does will alliances and agreements signed by the prior law abiding heads of state. I am not sure of the constitutional vagaries. A deal with him is not worth the paper it is written on.

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So, we awake to a new reality.

Article 5

In 1949, the primary aim of the North Atlantic Treaty – NATO’s founding treaty – was to create a pact of mutual assistance to counter the risk that the Soviet Union would seek to extend its control of Eastern Europe to other parts of the continent.

Every participating country agreed that this form of solidarity was at the heart of the Treaty, effectively making Article 5 on collective defence a key component of the Alliance.

Article 5 provides that if a NATO Ally is the victim of an armed attack, each and every other member of the Alliance will consider this act of violence as an armed attack against all members and will take the actions it deems necessary to assist the Ally attacked.

Article 5

“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.”

This corner stone, this foundation stone, has been called into question by the “stable genius”. I don’t know how many shares in Gazprom might result.

It is pretty clear that much of what is wrong with the world, as it currently stands, has some causal origination in the USA. Well, they now have the president they deserve and we all have to live with the knock on consequences.

This morning, I had the idea that maybe the Chinese should invade Taiwan. The US economy is way more dependent on the semiconductor chips made there than anyone else. TSMC makes most of these. USA would then be fighting a country of similar size and power rather than a small state of ~ 30 million {now} people who are getting the shit kicked out of them by a powerful aggressor. But no, the USA wants to put its boot in too!! Take that you bastard Ukrainians!!

Thanks to one man’s gargantuan but fragile ego.

Trump may have the cards but Taiwan has the chips.

Bullies rarely pick on people their own size.

I am far from optimistic as to where things go from here. Viewed from one angle if there has to be a mass dis-incarnation in order to save the planet, then maybe that is what is needed. Nuclear winter could solve anthropogenic climate heating.

Isolationist, elitist, we know best thinking, can often preclude a massive downfall. It takes a while.

With “friends” like Trump who needs enemies?

I am struggling to believe what my own eyes have seen and the question is, “is this simply the starter for ten” so to speak. How much further down the shitter will humanity be dragged in this massive psycho-drama?

I have been told that this is my very last incarnation here…