Krachtig Leven

24/12/2025

Nearly sold out of Cellotape and Batteries 😃

26/11/2025

It's a strange November when you're selling more line props than Rock salt.

30/08/2025

Eight months ago, she was giving birth. Today she’s smashing people on live TV.

Sat watching the women’s rugby. Not really my thing – not because they’re women, but because it’s Union. I’m a League lad. Faster game, less kicking, and your dad doesn’t have to be called Tarquin to get a chance at the top level.

But one thing floored me – one of the Samoan players has an eight-month-old baby at home. Since giving birth she’s got herself back to peak fitness, trained like a lunatic, AND somehow fitted that around night feeds, teething, washing bottles and the full-time job of being a mam.

Imagine it: you’ve just done 80 minutes of getting smashed by professional athletes, then you go home and get smashed by a sleepless baby. No recovery day, no ice bath – just nappies, Calpol, and a 3am scream session.

That is resolve carved out of granite.

Anyone else been converted?

29/08/2025

Three months of lies. And now — finally — movement.

Council officials have been out to the site. But not out of duty.
Out of their hand being forced.

Forced by MPs.
Forced by public pressure.
Forced because over 100,000 people read these posts, and because dozens of you messaged to say you’d fired off emails of your own.

Is this what it takes now?
A small army of angry residents and the weight of Parliament — just to make our council act on a public safety hazard sitting there for three months?

And why? Because the councillor lied. Over and over.

📄 Exhibit A:
The councillor’s public line?
“We don’t know who owns the scaffolding. Nothing we can do.”

But her own email says:

> “I asked the owners for an update… the owners have removed the danger.”

So which is it?
Don’t know the owners — or emailing them directly?
That’s not confusion. That’s contempt.

📄 Exhibit B:
The councillor’s public line?
“Ownership is unclear, the land is unregistered.”

But in writing to my wife, she admits:

> Boots PLC have lodged a caution.
Merritts Solicitors of Yarm have filed for first registration.
The council’s own Senior Legal Officer suggested we approach the owner via solicitors.

So which is it?
No owner? Known owner? Multinational owner?
Pick a lie and stick with it.

📄 Exhibit C:
The councillor’s public line?
“The scaffolding isn’t our responsibility. It’s private land.”

But her own words say:

> “The council’s Building Control officer came to look at the works, i.e. to remove the roof and erect the scaffolding when it was first done.”

So which is it?
Hands off, nothing to do with you — or your own officers overseeing the job?

That’s not just a contradiction. That’s a false narrative collapsing under its own weight.

And here’s the point: they only acted when the pressure became too much to ignore. Not out of duty, but out of embarrassment.

The line between us and fascism is a jury of peers.
We are the jury. We are their peers.

So what’s your verdict?

Do you accept their contempt?
Do you let them act with impunity?
Or do you say enough?

Because this is how it starts.
Not with tanks. With deceit.
Not with a bang. With a shrug.

Now trigger the algorithm.
Like. Comment. Share. Tag.
Let this spread. Let other towns see the contempt we’re forced to endure. Let the press see it.

Six degrees of separation between us and power. Use it.
Be seen. Be heard. Hold the line.

19/08/2025

18/08/2025

Supplying TS7 with quality Hardware, Cleaning products, Garden Products & everyday essentials. Simply Essentials – Clean • Care • Repair.
Local shop, Traditional values

14/08/2025

The Side of Running a Business You Don’t See

You think running a business is about tills. It’s about bullies, cliques, and councillors with cameras in the dark.

Every pound you spend might pay back or have you awake at 3am wondering why you didn’t just get a job on the tools.

I wanted this place to be part of the town’s fabric — more than a till, more than a logo. A laugh, some honesty, something worth reading even if you never buy. The ones who support me? Legends. Salt of the earth. The rest? They pop up for raffle prizes and favours but never spend a penny. Saying no gets easier.

The toll is what people don’t see.
Not the graft — I can handle graft. It’s the politics. The petty cliques. The whispering, the digs, the little power games from people who can’t stand you standing your ground.

My crime? Refusing to be told I couldn’t put a sign on my own pavement. From that day I was fair game: whispers, smirks, people being told to boycott my business. A quiet blacklist.

Then it got ugly. I’d made it public I was in no fit state to work. I'd shredded my ankle in an accident. Pain had kept me awake for three days straight. The shutters were down. Opportunity seized. And there she was — a councillor from the clique, outside my shuttered shop, camera in hand. Caught in 4K. Snooping. Keeping a private dossier.

And what was she photographing?
Not fly-tipping. Not some health hazard.
A single bin bag, left out the night before and due for collection the very next morning.
A broken table, smashed up by vandals — the same vandals who go unchecked in her own ward while she plays detective outside mine.

She lied under FOI. And because councillors are their own data handlers, they can withhold, delete, bury. So it’s FOIs, SARs, ICO complaints. Soon the Ombudsman. Then a human rights lawyer. Because I don’t play.

And here’s the sickness: Redcar & Cleveland Council admit they have no rule against councillors running secret dossiers on residents. None.
Let that sink in.

A reporter’s sniffing. Lawyers are circling. There’s money in this if I want it. But do I? I don’t want courtrooms. I want to sell stock, go home, have tea with my wife. Yet here I am, mentally wrung out because a little clique of fishwives decided I wouldn’t bend the knee.

People tell me: drop it. Save your health. But I can’t. Because if I don’t fight, the next poor sod will suffer it. That’s how freedom is lost — inch by inch, by people who don’t resist.

That’s how you end up with authoritarianism in a cheap trousers suit.

I’ve fought all my life. Against bullies. Against takers. Against those who think they’re above rules.

And I’ll fight this too.

Advice I was given at five years old still rings true.

WIN.

14/08/2025

Irn Bru float. Freezing cold pop and ice cream, what’s not to love? Treat yourself before the sun’s gone."