Ukraine Dispatch 41 | Reality Check on Vladimir Putin

Ukraine Dispatch 41 | Reality Check on Vladimir Putin

Ukraine Dispatches

Reality Check

THE OTHER DAY Botox appeared in his lounge suit, clambering onto an armoured tank, commenting inaudibly, gesticulating as if he had designed and built the hulk himself, then wandering over to the troops.

How odd, I thought. There’s something not quite kosher with ‘the troops’.

They don’t appear as if the uniform they wear is their natural attire.

Botox made a beeline for blondie. There was something about the body language that suggested they already knew each other. Something else, too. A hint of pre-arranged scripted lines.

Then I thought, stop it. Give Pooty Booty at least some credit. After all, they’re in awe of him. It’s not every day you come face to face with a president who just happens to also be a tyrant.

The wonders of technology. Our Intelligence Services and our free Media did not take long to make use of digital facial recognition.

Botox does indeed know blondie. They’ve been on various sets together over several years.

Blondie’s forte is acting.

Let’s run the kit over all the other faces.

Oh, dear! Pooty Booty!!

This BBC article spills the beans and alerts the world, yet again, to what Ukraine is really having to contend with, and doing so on our collective behalf, too.

To any Russian sympathisers in the West reading this and deciding I’m being very disrespectful to Vladimir Putin, note well. In 1943 Ken Webb senior, my uncle, had the same sense of humour. Home on a 24-hour leave pass before resuming bombing missions over Germany, Ken Webb stood on a pillar box in the town centre and gave a wonderful rendition of Adolf Hitler in one of that man’s crazier moments on Pathe newsreels - you know, you’ve seen them on the newsreels, fanatical, dripping with sweat, looking like he’s pre-orgasmic. Ken Webb senior didn’t have to buy beers that night. He was the toast of the town. That’s what we in the West do when we are up against tyrants.

But let there be no doubt. Even though I mock Mr Putin, I’m very aware that he is as evil and murderous as Adolf Hitler. His end may not be yet, but it is inevitable. It is an end he’d happily visit upon Ukraine, even his own people, but NOT upon himself.

And that pillar box?

Yep, it’s still there. And back in the 1970s, as a very young police constable, I often used to stand on point duty close to it. No one knew the words I always whispered as I then moved on to walk the beat (to patrol the town on foot). Thanks, Uncle. You didn’t come back but that’s why I’m now here, safe and free. And having your name is one hell of a thing, but you’ve got huge shoes to fill. But as you taught us all, and Dad especially in 1941 ~ “Life is Good!”


Reality Check Putin


This link is the superb article by the BBC’s Jake Horton, Adam Robinson and Paul Myers.

Life is Good! Kenneth Ernest Webb … Craig Field, USAAC, Alabama, USA 1941

I still have the RAF Wings and the USAAF Wings ~ priceless. The words written by his Mum. I’m very, very mindful of the thousands of young Ukranians and young Russians who have, because of one man, already lost their lives.


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8 January 2023
All Rights Reserved


© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2023

Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.

He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.

Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.

In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.