Today’s video is here (11:09).

Over a period of more than two years we’re posting links to one video daily from the J4MB YouTube channel. The channel includes our media appearances since 2012, 300+ videos of talks and other materials from the International Conferences on Men’s Issues (2014 – ) and other men’s issues conferences we’ve been involved with, and so much more. The individual conference playlists are here.

Our website Campaign for Merit in Business was created in the light of the considerable evidence of a causal link between increasing gender diversity on boards and corporate financial decline. Mike Buchanan, Steve Moxon and Dr Catherine Hakim (the originator of Preference Theory) presented evidence to House of Commons and House of Lords inquiries in 2012, the video of their House of Commons evidence session is here (56:50).

Finally, we run the award-winning website Laughing at Feminists. The related comedy channel (170+ videos) is here. Remember, it’s more than important to laugh at feminists, it’s a civic duty.  

—————————-

If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

We shall shortly be posting this piece on our X channel.

Our thanks to Eli for this (video, 19:41).

—————————-

If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

We shall shortly be posting this piece on our X channel.

Our YouTube channel is here.

Our thanks to Gerry for this (video, 10:02).

—————————-

If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

We shall shortly be posting this piece on our X channel.

Our YouTube channel is here.

Our thanks to Jeff for this on the BBC website. Extracts:

“A man duped out of £14,000 has said those responsible are “scum”, as the shocking scale of a £28m timeshare fraud involving more than 3,500 victims is revealed.

Fourteen people, including managing director Mark Rowe and his wife Nicola, have been convicted over the scheme which operated under the Sell My Timeshare brand.

The couple, both 54 and from Hampshire, bankrolled a lavish lifestyle by exploiting vulnerable victims – many in their 70s and 80s – who were desperate to sell their holiday homes…

The “elaborate” and “complex” fraud, which began in 2013, is thought to be one of the biggest conspiracies of its kind in the UK….

In total, 3,583 people across the UK were defrauded out of £28.1m, with the highest individual loss being £80,000.

Nearly 500 victims lost more than £10,000. Most were aged between 60 and 80, with some in their 90s…

But Mark and Nicola Rowe had £8m from the fraud paid into their personal bank accounts.

Their spending included almost £1m on home, garden and stable improvements, £185,000 on art, including a pencil sketch by the artist LS Lowry, and £26,000 on private jet hire.

Mark Rowe was jailed for seven-and-a-half years [J4MB emphasis] in August after being found guilty of conspiracy to defraud…

Nicola Rowe [J4MB: Mark Rowe’s wife.] received a two-year suspended jail sentence [J4MB emphasis] at Southwark Crown Court after pleading guilty to money laundering.”

Other than this couple, who were the other 12 people involved, and what sentences did they receive? First, the six men, emphases mine:

• Paul Harrison, 55, of Weymouth, four-and-a-half years’ imprisonment after being found guilty of conspiracy to defraud
• Nihat Salih, 57, of Poole, Dorset, three years’ imprisonment after being found guilty of conspiracy to defraud
• Simon Walker, 58, of Costa Adeje in Tenerife, was sentenced to four-and-a-half years’ imprisonment after being found guilty of conspiracy to defraud
• David Taylor, 65, of East Yorkshire, three years’ imprisonment after being found guilty of conspiracy to defraud
• Lee Evans, 51, of Preston, two years’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, after pleading guilty to fraud by false representation
• Barrie Fox, 69, of Worcester, 21 months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, after pleading guilty to fraud by false representation
• The women:
• Jodi Beard, 43, of El Roque, Tenerife, two years’ imprisonment suspended for two years after being found guilty of conspiracy to defraud
• Lisa Salih, 56, of Poole, two years’ imprisonment suspended for two years after being found guilty of conspiracy to defraud
• Samantha Macaulay, 52, of San Miguel De Abona, Tenerife, 18 months’ imprisonment suspended for 18 months after being found guilty of fraud by false representation. Macaulay was found not guilty of conspiracy to defraud
• Joanne Physick, 46, of Los Christianos Arona, Tenerife, two-and-a-half years’ imprisonment after being found guilty of conspiracy to defraud
• Joanne Taylor, 53, of East Yorkshire,12 months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, after pleading guilty to fraud by false representation
• Josephine Cuthill-Fox, 60, of Worcester, 24 months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, after pleading guilty to fraud by false representation

The seven men collectively received prison sentences almost 10x that of the women. All the women (bar one) received suspended sentences.

Some time ago I gave up alcohol for good (in both senses of the word). On a few occasions since then, I’ve been asked why I no longer drink it. It’s surely the only drug where you’re asked why you don’t consume it, or no longer consume it. Does anyone ever ask another person why they don’t smoke cigarettes or inject heroin? Yet deaths caused by alcohol greatly exceed those caused by all illegal drugs combined. The WHO estimates:

• 400+ million people have Alcohol Use Disorder (Wikipedia automatically redirects those keying in the search words “Alcohol Use Disorder” to their page on alcoholism), 7% of the world’s population
• 209+ million live with alcohol dependence.

In 2024 WHO published a 334-page report, Global status report on alcohol and health and treatment of substance use disorders.

When pressed on why I no longer drink alcohol, I have a range of possible responses, depending on the circumstances, and sometimes the person I’m speaking to. My current favourite short response is:

“Because I wanted to be happier, healthier and wealthier. It’s working wonderfully!”

My current favourite lengthy response is:

“I recently had my annual medical check-up. It was very thorough and the female doctor asked me if I smoked and/or drank alcohol. and if so, how much. I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life. I used to smoke a pipe daily but no longer do. For many years I’ve only smoked cigars, seeking – as with the pipe – not to inhale any of the smoke. She suggested I give up cigars, I smiled and I said I wouldn’t.

(I was inspired by the words of Paul Elam who wrote in his international bestseller Men. Women. Relationships. (2019):

“Men are only as mentally and emotionally healthy as their ability to say no to a woman.”)

I then gave her a sense of my alcohol consumption over the past 50+ years. She frowned and informed me I had long ago passed the maximum recommended alcohol limit for life. I stopped drinking that day.”

It’s worth relating this lengthy response to see the confused expression on the person I’m addressing. Two people have told me they weren’t aware that there exists a maximum recommended alcohol limit for life. Priceless.

Giving up alcohol has prompted me to consider my future, at 67. I remain as committed as ever to campaigning for the human rights of men and boys and challenging feminism and individual feminists, in part by maintaining this blog to the extent I do, which takes up much of my time. Beyond that, I plan to focus more of my time and energy on my creative passion, writing non-fiction books.

My first international bestseller Profitable Buying Strategies was published in 2008 by the major publisher Kogan Page. The paperback edition retails on Amazon currently for a bargain £39.99. Earlier this year Kogan Page returned the copyright to me. I am currently in the process of editing it before publishing a new edition (with a new title) later this year.

I wrote and self-published ten international bestsellers after Profitable Buying Strategies. The list of my books published on Amazon and elsewhere is here. I now plan to write and publish three books a year. In the coming year two of them will be on gender issues. I have so much more to write on the matter.

—————————-

If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

We shall shortly be posting this piece on our X channel.

Our YouTube channel is here.

Today’s file is here (16:29). It was recorded not long before the 2015 general election in which Ray Barry and I stood as candidates for J4MB. After graduating, Emma Pearce landed a job with the BBC. What were the chances?

Over a period of more than two years we’re posting links to one video daily from the J4MB YouTube channel. The channel includes our media appearances since 2012, 300+ videos of talks and other materials from the International Conferences on Men’s Issues (2014 – ) and other men’s issues conferences we’ve been involved with, and so much more. The individual conference playlists are here.

Our website Campaign for Merit in Business was created in the light of the considerable evidence of a causal link between increasing gender diversity on boards and corporate financial decline. Mike Buchanan, Steve Moxon and Dr Catherine Hakim (the originator of Preference Theory) presented evidence to House of Commons and House of Lords inquiries in 2012, the video of their House of Commons evidence session is here (56:50).

Finally, we run the award-winning website Laughing at Feminists. The related comedy channel (170+ videos) is here. Remember, it’s more than important to laugh at feminists, it’s a civic duty.  

—————————-

If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

We shall shortly be posting this piece on our X channel.

Our thanks to cp for this.

—————————-

If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

We shall shortly be posting this piece on our X channel.

Our YouTube channel is here.

Our thanks to Nigel for this. The start of the piece:

“Able Seaman Louise Dorsett, 30, who starred in a “Made in the Royal Navy” TV advert, did not tell the Navy she was renting out her home some 400 miles away to a tenant and claimed travel allowance dishonestly.

Because she was a landlord for her mortgaged home in Scotland, Dorsett was not eligible for the ‘Get You Home’ allowance that is intended to cover travel costs for service personnel.

It was found that she had also breached Navy rules by not asking for permission to rent out the property in Fife, in her home country of Scotland.

She has been ordered to pay back the full amount of £2,034 after she admitted fraud by false representation and failing to perform a duty.

She told the court in an emotional address that her childhood in foster care had been difficult.” [J4MB emphasis. Leaving aside the “emotional address”, the relevance to her childhood would be…?]

—————————-

If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

We shall shortly be posting this piece on our X channel.

Our YouTube channel is here.

Our thanks to Nigel for this. An extract:

“It comes as the RAF experiences a pilot shortfall following a disastrous diversity recruitment drive forced the head of the force to apologise.

The recruitment directive saw an email sent to senior leaders telling them to stop choosing “useless white male pilots” [J4MB emphasis.] in an attempt to improve diversity and was found to be unlawful in 2023.

In the wake of the scandal, the then Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton was forced to apologise following an inquiry into bias.

According to a leaked document, it left the service in need of a “higher number of pilots in training”, with applicant previously rejected set to be targeted.”

—————————-

If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

We shall shortly be posting this piece on our X channel.

Our YouTube channel is here.

An interesting new interview of Nigel Farage in Chronicles A Magazine of American Culture. My comment (the first on the piece) has been moderated and published. It should refer to 2029, not 2019, senior moment!

—————————-

If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

We shall shortly be posting this piece on our X channel.

Our YouTube channel is here.