Philip Cross Madness Part IV 510


Mike Barson, keyboard player of the great ska group Madness, had his Wikipedia entry amended by “Philip Cross” to delete his membership of Momentum and interview with The Canary.

This apparently trivial incident raises an important question. How does the “Philip Cross” Wikipedia monitoring operation work? “Cross”‘s systematic attack on Momentum and The Canary is a matter of record, and his twitter feed proves it is motivated by a visceral hatred of the anti-war movement. But how would “Cross” discover that a reference to Momentum had turned up somewhere as improbable as the page of a member of Madness?

To get this by Google just would not work – try it yourself if you don’t know it relates to Barson, to Madness, or anything about them. To do a daily Wikipedia site specific Google search for the word Momentum might get you there after hours of effort. Are there tools within Wikipedia itself that could alert “Cross” to this sort of reference being added anywhere on Wikipedia, and if so are they available to the general public?

A number of people have opined in reply to my posts that the time spent to make all of Cross’s daily edits, as per the number of keystrokes, is not great. That ignores the colossal effort that goes into research and above all monitoring of Wikipedia by the “Philip Cross” operation.

Finally, this is an excellent example of the bias of Wikipedia. The information about Barson is totally true. He is a proud member of Momentum. It is also quite interesting and an important bit of his life. But according to Wikipedia’s pro-MSM rules, “Philip Cross” can indeed delete it because the information is not from an MSM source. In the unlikely event of the Times or Telegraph ever writing about Barson’s Momentum membership, it would of course be in a hostile attack to which “Philip Cross” could then link.

I hope you are understanding the Jimmy Wales methodology by now.

So, to add to the mysteries of how “Philip Cross” works every waking hour, never takes a single day off and is followed on Twitter by few people but including half of Fleet Street, we can add the mystery of how he has omniscience of left wing references appearing in unlikely places on Wikipedia. Go figure.


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510 thoughts on “Philip Cross Madness Part IV

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  • Sharp Ears

    These images are shocking. Poor creatures. What horrible deaths for these beautiful animals. What has happened to the human race?

    Stags on Rum found tangled in lost fishing gear
    2 hours ago
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-44223255

    https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/129C5/production/_101692267_stagone.jpg
    A stag was photographed with rope and buoy tangled in its antlers

    https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/CD8B/production/_101691625_rumstagsone.jpg
    Two of the deer died after becoming snarled up in rope

    • Trowbridge H. Ford

      Sorry about that, Sharp Ears, but the world has always been an omnivore jungle every day and will always be so until it ends.

    • Charles Bostock

      To be noted that the guilty parties were evidently SCOTTISH fishermen. The Scots are no kinder to animals than the English, more’s the pity.

      • Rob Royston

        If there were still fishermen on the island it would be a lot tidier. Unfortunately, they were all cleared out by the new London lairds who took over all the Clan lands. It was normal pactice for the people to be replaced first by sheep, and then, at the end of the Crimean war, by wild dear.

        • Kempe

          Yes of course it’s all the fault of the English. Who are you going to use as a scapegoat post independence?

          A French trawler was wrecked on Rum in 2011, it’s possible the gear may have floated from her or been lost be some other foreign ship fishing in the area. Rum’s population is only 22 and I’m guessing they’ve probably more pressing things to do than beach coming.

          • Rob Royston

            Wiki has the history of the clearances in 1826 and 1828. People lived there for 10,000 years. The rot set in for Scotland’s communities when the King went to London and the clan Chiefs had to travel there to pay their dues.

            https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rùm

          • Canexpat

            @Rob R

            Given the nature of this article, are you really quoting Wikipedia as a reliable source 🙂

          • Phil Espin

            On a nice night I would imagine beach coming on Rhum is a very inviting prospect!

    • Strangerthings

      Film piece is on BBC news now, if you watch online you should be able to rewind.

    • Charles Bostock

      Do you mean the Yulia Skripal who was ‘disappeared’ by MI5 / murdered (“we shall never see or hear from her again” was the cry) / shipped off to the US / never existed / was really a British agent? Faces – egg – on 🙂

      • Republicofscotland

        Now Yulia who made probably the most miraculous recovery in history wants to return to Russia.

        What a farce, May, BoJo et al, part in this charade stinks to high heaven. Who now will believe a word from the mouths of this British government, except you Habby boy.

      • bj

        Do you mean the Yulia Skripal who was ‘disappeared’ by MI5 / murdered (“we shall never see or hear from her again” was the cry) / shipped off to the US / never existed / was really a British agent? Faces – egg – on ?>

        Yeah, almost as outrageous as the “deadly novichok, 10 times more powerful than VX story.

    • Trowbridge H. Ford

      The interview is interesting, showing that Yulia is in no position to say who poisoned her and her father, as they don’t know. But it also shows that her father was no great Western spy as he was exchanged for ten of the Manhattan ii, the leader of the CIA sleepers to catch real Russian spies, escaped capture. Anyone who volunteers to work for MI6/CIA should think twice before doing so, as when Garth Williams discovered they had been betrayed, he was brutally murdered which SIS has apparently been trying to do with them.

      • Trowbridge H. Ford

        The person in the video I have seen certainly doesn’t look like the Yulia Skripal. Does everyone in the Anglo-American world just take whatever shit their governments hand out without question or any curiosity.

        What better evidence that we live, as Spike Jones and His City Slickers used to play about the original ones, in Nazi lands that we unfortunately cannot escape from.

      • Republicofscotland

        She says her father is changing his name to Lazarus, even Christ couldn’t have pulled this one off. It’s prosterous to believe the British government at the best of times.

    • Sharp Ears

      Never believed one word of it. It was a Tory scam to demonize Putin and Russia. The scam failed!

  • Dave G

    Yulia Skripal could still be being coerced into saying what the UK tell her to say – they have her father as well, who she would presumably not want to be harmed.
    Does she really think that they were attacked by a military grade nerve agent which is far more deadly than the VX which took a matter of minutes to kill Kim Yong-Un’s brother? Or is she just parroting from a script?

    • GoAwayAndShutUp

      Fishy. Still isolated. If the UK Gov had no shame in trying to sell us the most absurd stories, what kind of info do you think she has been fed all this time?

    • Republicofscotland

      The whole Salsibury fiasco is more comical than Trump’s comb over hair do. This Tory government are dependent on your gullibleness, or they hope you’re like some in here a useful idiot, who’ll regurgitate the offical bollocks narrative.

      • Sloop John B

        Yeah Trumps comb over is comical as is Sturgeons Lego hair. What is it with these politicians?

  • Scottish Intelligence Service

    Off topic, but needs to be highlighted. Yet more gibberish and nonsense from the government, about the Skripal Psyop.

    According to the Independent today:
    “Ms Skripal, 33, was in a coma for 20 days following the attack and has been living under police protection at a secret location since her release from hospital last month.” 1

    So Yulia was supposedly in a coma for 20 days, yet she describes invasive treatment in her supposed own statement:
    ““Our recovery has been slow and extremely painful. I don’t want to describe the details but the clinical treatment was invasive, painful and depressing.” 2

    1,2 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/salisbury-spy-poisoning-latest-russia-sergei-skripal-yulia-uk-embassy-a8366021.html

    If she was in a coma, she would not have known what was going on. It’s just another example that highlights the idiotic Skripal Psyop scam by the stinking May government.

    If they are brazen enough to have a memorial service yesterday for the fabricated Manchester “terrror”Psyop, they are capable of anything. Watch out for Sergei Skripal being wheeled out to make some more nonsense statements or do a Panorama interview in the run up to, or during the World Cup, or whenever it suits the propaganda narrative.

    More public money being wasted on government lies.

    • Kempe

      She was in hospital for over a month so not in a coma the whole time.

      I know two people who were injured in the Manchester bombing, fortunately not seriously. I’d be interesting in what evidence you have that they’ve been faking it.

      • Republicofscotland

        “She was in hospital for over a month so not in a coma the whole time.”

        I bet your face is red as a beetroot, as you desperately attempt to peddle this shit. Just as well we can’t see it.

        You offical narrative folk must be raging at May and BoJo for making such an arse of it all, leaving you guys to defend the undefendable.

        Is it any wonder your comments on the Skripal comedy of Errors read as dejected, go have a wee lie down laddie.

        • Kempe

          Do you feel better for that?

          Yulia was in hospital from the 4th March to the 10th April which is 35 days so she was out of the coma for about a fortnight. What problem do you have?

    • SA

      If you have been poisoned or drugged into a coma you would not have any recollection of that period until you come out of the coma. You will certainly not know that you have been poisoned by a nerve agent and also who has poisoned you except from what others tell you.
      She does have what looks like a tracheostomy scar which means that she was probably sedated and intubated.

      • bj

        She does have what looks like a tracheostomy scar

        Yes, I think so too. It looks to be fairly recent, and I wonder how she managed to talk to Viktoria after having been in a coma for three weeks, and with a cannula.

  • Kempe

    So the truthers run their predictable course: it’s not her, she was coerced etc. Are you sure it’s not CGI?

    • Dave G

      I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a novichok, or Yulia and her dad would have been dead in minutes, rather than ambling around various restaurants and pubs in Salisbury for hours before falling ill.

    • SA

      Good to hear from you again. The problem here is that the story has many inconsistencies from day 1. One has to keep an open mind about all this as there have been many assertion made very early on by HMG which turned out not to be good explanations of what may have happened. There is no obvious motive for the Kremlin to do this and even if there is a motive then why was it carried out in such an incompetent way? The major conspiracy here has been peddled by HMG.

    • Republicofscotland

      Not CGI, but a loose version of the movie MI2, where the deadly chemical weapon Chimera, is given to a women, but she miraculously recovers on being given the antidote Bellerophon.

      This comment will self-destruct in 5 seconds.

    • King of Welsh Noir

      And the official-narrative-huggers dutifully throw their bodies into the breach. Can you explain, Kempe, why she would express the wish to return to Russia if she seriously believed they had just tried to kill her?

  • laguerre

    I’m sure Yulia Skripal was not free to say what she wants – that was clear from the famous telephone call to cousin Viktoria. Why should it be better than a confession in a Soviet treason trial?

    But the background did look like southern England, New Forest or similar.

    • Kempe

      I’m sure somebody will be along shortly to explain that it isn’t her and that it was all filmed in a studio with the background added in to the picture using chroma key.

      • Republicofscotland

        The Skirpal affair is to be made into a movie, called Carry On Up the Caucasus. It’ll be a laugh a minute.

      • laguerre

        “I’m sure somebody will be along shortly to explain that it isn’t her and that it was all filmed in a studio with the background added in”

        Sounds like you’re getting desperate, Kempe.

  • quasi_verbatim

    It warms the cockles of the heart to see Yulia’s limited hangout. Anyone who needs ‘to contact Reuters through the British police’ in order to make a statement needs our intense sympathy. Floreat.

  • Mujj

    Why not take Wikipedia to Court, rather than ‘Philip Cross’ if he actually exists?

  • Clive P

    The ‘personal statement’ put out a few weeks ago on Skripal’s behalf was clearly a police job given the stilted, unnatural language. This one was obviously written in English and then translated into Russian for her to say. Then for her to write out – if it is her handwriting. They’ve done a bit better this time but does anyone, especially someone in their second language, use phrases like “I wish to address a couple of issues directly”, “at the moment I do not wish to avail myself of their services”. (This is almost exactly what was in the first statement.) and “I want to reiterate”. This thing rings false. Who took the film? The fact that the Guardian story is run by Harding is also suspicious as to its origins.

    • reg

      Yes fishy does not cover it. The only way it makes sense to me is if the Skripals handlers expected to be able to wheel them out on cue to denounce the Russians such as with Litvinenko, but they were not playing ball. After keeping them incommunicado hoping to get a better story, maybe they realised this was the best they were going to get as it was getting progressively less credible to keep them away from the press and this incredibly staged event was the best they could do? This statement was probably the result of a long negotiation between the Skripals and government representatives, the statement containing the wish to return to Russia is a bit of a giveaway, as Mr Skripal cannot return to Russia I doubt that Yulia would want to put Mr Skripal.in danger by going off message as his welfare is dependent on the UK state, rather like in a hostage situation..

      • bj

        This statement was probably the result of a long negotiation between the Skripals and government representatives,

        I believe you are right:

  • laguerre

    They’ve had several weeks to convince Yulia Skripal to say what they want. Why did it not come out earlier? If she was ready to come out of hospital several weeks ago, she should have been ready to say something to the press. But no, there’s been a long time lag, with a long silence. Stinks of unwillingness, and threats.

  • Tom Smythe

    May the press interview DS Nick Bailey yet, is he back on the job? He will be much farther along on the path to recovery and remember a whole lot more about how he got exposed.

    Bizarre stage-managed appearance of Yulia. Is she free to go, if not when? Can she use a phone, would it be monitored? Allowed internet with onion/vpn/skype for privacy?

    It looks like she had a low-budget tracheotomy. Intubation would make sense on intake to the hospital. She would have been put on drip and catheterized, maybe dialysis and whole blood transfusions. Those are intrusive but not painful or depressing (hospitals have oh so many drugs for that and use them). They had no idea on the toxin initially and would have just mitigated symptoms the first 3-4 days.

    Yulia would not be aware of the first three weeks nor remember anything that afternoon. She looked stressed/drained but where was the perhaps 15 lbs of weight loss expected?

    “The Russian Embassy in London…believed the text had been written by a native English speaker before being translated into Russian.” For sure, not phraseology that a non-native speaker would use: “I don’t want to describe the details but the clinical treatment was invasive, painful and depressing.”

    She would not know chart details; technically patients have the right of access to their medical records (in the US at least ), they seldom avail themselves and could only rarely make sense of them. Here she apparently does not have a physician of her own, nor relatives with access, nor a legal nor consular representative.

    The UK is going to pay dearly for this if the shoe is ever on the other foot; the same argument is made against US torture. What’s to complain about when it’s turned around?

    That sentence above, along with earlier carefully chosen evasive words of the hospital head, is a political insert from her minders. If you don’t hear the dog whistle, they are treading very very carefully around the antidote issue, probably because treatment wasn’t consistent with, or specific to, the claimed toxin (despite a press invention that PD CW experts just happened to be in the hospital that day).

    This is very peculiar to me because antidote/treatment is of extraordinary interest in an age where experimenting on soldiers is discouraged (lab animals of limited value) — actual case histories in humans are incredibly useful to medical professionals.

    Whatever the chemical here, it or something very similar might very well be used again. Novichok-like compounds have been made and are stored in dozens of countries at small scale with risk to staff. Further, CW is still very much with us, countries like Israel never signing off on the treaty and countries like the US only slowly disposing of their tonnage.

    The hospital head did speak earlier of acetylcholinesterase in a context-free way and more recently of waiting around for it to be replaced by newly synthesized enzyme (as with insecticide poisoning). That is to be contrasted with the Dr. Stephan Davies letter to the Times.

    None of this would be covered by a D-Notice just over Pablo Miller (Sergei’s handler). None of this would be covered by ‘patient privacy’ (no one is asking to see charts).

    • King of Welsh Noir

      With respect to the elusive DS Nick Bailey, in the initial aftermath I read about a caller to an LBC phone-in who claimed to personally know DS Nick Bailey. The DJ (I forget which one) said, ‘Get him to call us, we’d like to interview him’. To which the caller replied that he couldn’t because DS Nick Bailey had ‘gone on holiday’.

  • Dave G

    If a Brit and her dad were detained by the Russians, who then denied her the right to consular support and released a video through RT where she said that she didn’t want consular support, would the UK government be complaining about the possibility that the woman and her dad might have been coerced into saying that and demanding that the Russians give the UK consular access to the UK citizen, or would they say that it all looked above board?
    If she has free will, let her update her social media and ease herself back into the big wide world.

  • Charles

    The trauma made her pimple / cyst move from left side of her chin to the right.

  • Trowbridge H. Ford

    For just how corrupt Britain can be, just check the images on google for Yulia Skripal, and scroll down passed all the fake ones who have been on the video of that the young Russian speaker to where there is a photo of the real one and her cousin Victoria. The real one is 33-years old and wears glasses.

    Reuters, the BBC and other media outlets just work for the spooks, and important truths be damned.

      • Trowbridge H. Ford

        Cannot link a photo gallery as far as I know. Just go on google, type in Yulia Skripa’s name, check her images, and scroll down to the photo from The Times of Victoria and Yulia Skripal.

    • laguerre

      She looked like the original Yulia Skripal to me, face a bit thinner, as you’d expect after the trauma she’s been through, and without glasses, because, foolishly, she still thinks that glasses are negative for women. In the sense of “Boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses”.

      • laguerre

        What’s the desperation? I said what I thought. There’s no need for this to be a fake video, just not free to say what she thought.

    • Paul Barbara

      @ Trowbridge H. Ford May 23, 2018 at 21:43
      But her cousin accepts the picture is genuine.

  • Tom Smythe

    The Guardian’s account: “Skripal spoke in Russian to the news agency Reuters. She supplied a statement that she said she had written herself in Russian and English. The Russian version had several crossings out and corrections. After reading her statement in front of camera, she signed both documents. She declined to answer questions.”

    You can see one of the cross-outs at 0:48-0:50 of the Reuters video well enough to read it. Do we have someone here who can translate it?

    Did she actually decline to answer questions or was only a cameraman there? Why was Reuters chosen of all the possible news agencies?
    It seems some of this theatre was in response to the previous ludicrous handouts from the Metropolitan Police purporting, in stilted formal anglophone, to be actual statements from Russians.

    Guardian says secret location in London. Has it been warm enough for thin garden dress?

    I don’t see a sebaceous cyst on her chin, just a dimple. Lenses commonly flip the orientation and it may get lost along the way unless there is text or similar in the background (as at the Maltings). Hair is parted on her right as it has been for years.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-russia-skripal-yulia-exclusiv/exclusive-yulia-skripal-attempted-assassination-turned-my-world-upside-down-idUSKCN1IO2LT

    • Trowbridge H. Ford

      The fake news from The Guardian provides fake pictures of Yulia Skripal, and a real one of her missing father but no real ones of her before the alleged incident, making it look like they staged it for the Anglo-American spooks.

      • Paul Barbara

        @ Trowbridge H. Ford May 23, 2018 at 22:03
        As I commented above, her cousin accepts the video is genuine.

        • Trowbridge H. Ford

          Link? And she could have been shown a real one before the fake video was released.

          And people under stress can say what powerful murderers want, like Mrs. David Kelly agreeing that her husband had committed suicide when he been ambushed by a Mossad kidon along side the Thames, fought over until he submitted, was smothered to death while refusing drugs, and his body was moved to Harrowdown Hill.

          Now you can get back to your claims that Hillary was a drug addict who loved having oral sex with underage, drugged females – claims Trump used to steal the election./

    • kbbucks

      That video stinks to the high heavens, two things straight away that jump out are the scar on her neck & the fact it’s a sit-down interview outside with a load of trees around.

      The fact that the scar is so obviously visible and in no way covered up in this image-conscious world we live in would make one think that some-one thought it was really important for it to be seen – ie subtly re-enforcing the seriousness of her condition in hospital.

      There are sit-down interviews/statements read-out by people on the tv/in the media all the time – how many have you seen where they are outside in a semi-wooded area?? – the subtle message here being she is free to do as she wishes, this being further re-enforced by her walking along the path towards the camera at the start of the interview. I didn’t bother watching to the end of the video (my brain couldn’t hack it!) so don’t know if she walked off after, my guess is she did.

      • bj

        Of course free people (no matter who) might decide to make statements outside, if the weather allows.

        Surely you’re not trying to see they (free people) would always choose to make such statements indoors?

        • kbbucks

          Not at all. My point being how many pre-arranged sit-down interviews have you seen recently (or in any time period) taking place outdoors in such a fashion – especially in England? One could be led to believe there’s a subtle reason for it 🙂

          • bj

            Let me ask you — what set of circumstances for the statement would have NOT had your being suspicious of them?

          • kbbucks

            A live press-conference in which questions were asked and answered.

            Let me ask you to engage your brain for a minute – lets looks at probabilities: what percentage of this type of pre-arranged sit-down interview take place in the same type of out-door environment in England as this one? I can’t think of any but I’m sure there have been some. Anyway to answer we can imagine the percentage is very low so as such the probability of it occurring just by chance is also low. Logically then the balance of probability would indicate that this scene was chosen for a reason.
            The Russian embassy is claiming she is being held against her will – the scene with her strolling through the trees towards the camera subtly contradicts this claim giving the illusion of freedom and all that – now there’s a good reason.

            On the other hand the low probably ‘by chance’ outcome could have come and there really is nothing to see here 🙂
            (Producer: “Oh, why don’t we conduct the interview with Yulia in the woods today, it is such a lovely day. Do you think the authorities would mind”)

          • bj

            It’s a cop out answer to a subject we did not discuss. I’ll explicate:

            You made a point about the decor: “outside with a load of trees around.”, the “semi-wooded area” and about her “walking along the path”, which were, according to you, “the subtle message here being she is free to do as she wishes”.

            I asked “Surely you’re not trying to see they (free people) would always choose to make such statements indoors?”

            Your response then was “how many pre-arranged sit-down interviews have you seen recently (or in any time period) taking place outdoors in such a fashion – especially in England?”

            As we can both establish, clearly we were talking about confined or open spaces, indoors or outdoors, the weather even.

            Your response now, to my question “what set of circumstances for the statement would have NOT had your being suspicious of them?”, as we both established just now clearly referring to your description of the outdoors decor, that response is:

            “A live press-conference in which questions were asked and answered.”
            It’s a response to something that wasn’t discussed. QED,

            Since I have your attention, allow me to ask you this then:
            So that live press conference, it might have been outdoors, as far as you are concerned?

          • kbbucks

            “It’s a cop out answer to a subject we did not discuss” – you have a bit of a point but are being misleading at the same time. It was late here when I read your post so I overlooked the direct nature of the question and answered it (“what set of circumstances for the statement would have NOT had your being suspicious of them?”) in the broader sense of the overall situation – ie Yulia being re-introduced to the world via the media. On review the way your question is framed limits potential responses (whether intentionally or not) given the statements released so far and the confusion surrounding the incident to date.

            What I get from your trail of quotes is that you are of the opinion that the whole situation is black or white, 1 or 0 – it’s not, nothing in life is – that’s where the laws of probability come in to play, they are not exact but that is the whole point, nothing is. You chose to ignore this part of my response above.

            On your last question: “So that live press conference, it might have been outdoors, as far as you are concerned?” – you are clearly missing the point.

            Statement = static, controlled
            Live Q & A = evolving, potential to lose control

            The location of a live press conference (to save you picking up on it that would include a live Q & A) would not be as important as a pre-planned and recorded staged event – It’s live and the questions can flow from random journalists or whoever. Many planned subtleties in a staged event can tip the balance subconsciously to believing (watch your tv, adverts are full of these subtleties) – these would have limited effect were there to be an extraordinary response to a question in a live press conference setting.

            I would ask you not to get hung up on my “live press-conference” response, deal with the reasoning behind the observation I made – and it was only one of many observations made on this thread. And I did make it clear that the probability of there being “nothing to see here” did exist however small it might be.

  • Charles

    Pimple R chin + one on chin R, pock marl forehead

    http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/05/23/19/4C90494500000578-5763233-image-a-44_1527098466457.jpg

    Pimple L Chin (corner mouth) + one on chin L, no pock mark

    mole between eyebrows airbrushed out on large image but there in smaller DM page image you can actually see the pixels in large image where mole was

    http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/05/23/19/4C90494500000578-5763233-image-a-44_1527098466457.jpg

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5763233/Yulia-Skripal-Attempted-assassination-turned-world-upside-down.html

    Save to file these images will be redoctored

  • Trowbridge H. Ford

    Bet the real Skripal have made their way to the States,and been welcomed by looney Trump with open arms for these long sought detainees in Briton. Washington has longed for a conclusion to the Gareth Williams murders.

  • N_

    @Republicofscotland – Dig the “Lazarus” Dostoyevsky reference!

    A number of points arise regarding Yulia Skripal’s statement but I won’t list them here because I post here less now owing to the annoying change in browser requirement.

    Concentrate on the spoken Russian first, then on the two written texts, the eye blinking, and other factors. Don’t start off with too many assumptions.There are quite a few interesting things here.

  • bj

    @Tatyana
    At the end of the video there are two sheets of handwritten text by (supposedly, but I have little reason to doubt it) Yulia.
    If you would pause the video at that fragment.

    I believe the one on the bottom is in Russian. Can you make out any of the words or text?

  • laguerre

    No need to go into theories about fake videos. She was “persuaded” into making the video, as the long delay indicates. If she’d been a willing partner, we would have had that long ago.

  • Paul Barbara

    If Yulia and her father were ‘poisoned’ by BZ, they would probably accept the Brit explanation it was A-234. There is no evidence they have been allowed access to newspapers, TV or the internet.
    And they could also believe it was an ‘assassination plot’, even though it may well have been a Brit hoax.

  • Patrick Mahony

    IF it is the real Yulia why is it in Russian? She worked as a hotel receptionist, so must speak English reasonably well.
    So either she forgot English. Or she was told it was only for Russia. Or it was an actress and the Russian was to lend credibility. Or it is Yulia and she thinks she is in Russia.
    She says “return home to my country” why not “return to Russia/Moscow” or just “return home”? And by Russian embassy did she mean the Russian embassy in London or the British Embassy in Moscow?

  • N_

    Oh all right, I will say something.

    She says she has difficulty coming to terms with the THOUGHT (“мысль”) that they were attacked. The typed translation given by BBC and Torygraph etc. wrongly gives that word as “fact”. The handwritten Russian gives “мысль” too, and the handwritten English just gives “come to terms that”. “Fact” here is a mistranslation. (Elsewhere she does refer to the attack without questioning that that’s what it was, but that doesn’t make the translation of “мысль” as “fact” anything other than wrong. I believe some are fond of the phrase “over-egging the pudding”.)

    Regarding the Russian embassy’s offer of help, she says “I am not ready” (“я не готова”) before she says she does not wish to receive their help at the moment. Those words also appear in the handwritten Russian but not in the handwritten English. They imply that she intends, or at least that she may wish, to accept their help in the future.

    Physical delivery: look at the rapid eye-blinking. Blinking is a known sign of stress, such as may be caused by lying. Any properly trained interrogator (or trainer of liars) knows that.

    • Jiusito

      The Reuters report quotes her as saying “I woke to the news that we had both been poisoned,” but the subtitle in the video says “I woke to the news that we may have been poisoned”. That is a remarkable discrepancy, surely. What is the correct translation of what she said?

    • Paul Barbara

      @ bj May 23, 2018 at 23:48
      Perhaps he’ll broaden it out to include Wikipedia ‘editors’, as apparently they often use dodgy MSM to back up their edits.

    • IT Bod

      The fundamental problem with anything like that is who is going to be the arbiter of truth?
      Musk suggests the public, but we have seen in recent days how easily that can be subverted.

  • Clark

    I think the most significant fact is that Yulia Skripal made no description of events leading up to the Skripals being found on the park bench.

    Sorry, I’m not going to start inspecting pimples etc. As so often with “news”, the most significant stuff is notable by its absence.

    • bj

      To me it’s looks strange that she recited the entire statement. Why not just read from a piece of paper, who would have a problem with that?

      She flutters her eyelashes a lot.
      I’m not reading much into that [sic], other than noting that POW’s that were forced into being filmed making dismissive statements of their government –for reasons of propaganda– have been known to morse-code short messages by inconspicuous eye-blinking.

  • N_

    Do I have to teach you guys to look at the evidence? 🙂 Here are three things to pay attention to.

    1) Look at the lateral eye movement immediately after she says the words “nerve agent”. That’s at 0:23 here. She looks to the right and slightly downwards. (If you know zero about lateral eye movements, you might start with considering what has been said about it by neurolinguistic programming types.)

    2) Then look at the rapid eye blinking when she refers to the offer of help from the Russian embassy (0:51 to 0:53).

    3) She also sucks to deal with a dry throat at a few points, including at 0:28 after she says the word “murder” (“убийство”). That may of course be because of her medical treatment. It is also a sign of mental stress, so take a look at what she says shortly before and afer she does it. Stress is to be expected when someone is talking about a horrible experience they have had, such as an attempt to murder them or their father. One of the reasons can also be that they are lying.

    She is certainly under stress at points during that delivery – and these include when she refers to a “nerve agent” and the “Russian embassy“.

    All of this is taught in all proper intelligence services, as part of How to Spot a Person is Lying 101.

    My opinion is that she is pretty good at talking under stress and hiding signs, better than most people, but not good enough to fool those who know a bit about this area.

  • Tom Smythe

    I dunno about this daily mail claim of paramedics performing a tracheostomy at the park bench. A real doctor was on the scene and got the airways open with a posture adjustment. PMs would do manoevers first, breathing tube second, a cricothyroidotomy third; they didn’t, the incision is too low. The duo were within minutes of the hospital, bogus air transport or not. So a tracheostomy at the hospital, it’s far too risky on the ground with vomit and lost bowel control, when was bench area last cleaned / months of homeless and drug addicts.

    The whole point of the open neck on the dress being to show a pretty girl in a pretty dress with a horrific unhealed wound on her throat –> Putin is a barbaric animal (honorary member of MS-13?) which you knew already as a regular DM reader.

    Beyond that, March 4 is day 063, yesterday 142. Why is that tracheostomy scar looking so raw after 80 days when two week is the healing time course? Because she continued to have breathing problems so it was left in for suctioning, mechanical ventilation or not. “Paralysis, neurological problems or other conditions that make it difficult to cough up secretions from your throat and require direct suctioning of the windpipe (trachea) to clear your airway”. Like a coma. Or ongoing paralysis of diaphragm muscles, the proximal cause of death from failure of acetylcholine neurotransmitter.

    So the raw scar is consistent with the Narrative (among others). The idea that it was make-up or rubbed raw for the filming are tinfoil hat in my estimation. The tube was in there for several weeks which also fits with the discomfort reported. Whatever the instigating chemical proves to be, this was a very serious medical incident, attempted murder. Nobody would volunteer for this.

    https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/tracheostomy/about/pac-20384673
    https://fauquierent.blogspot.com/2014/12/how-tracheostomy-hole-heals-closed-time.html

    • bj

      But with a cannule, or with a fresh scar, she surely wouldn’t have been able to talk to Viktora, a week after she came out of a 3-week coma, would she?

      Disclaimer: I believe this is the real Yulia. About the conditions of this seemingly well-rehearsed and memorized statement I make no claims.

      • Tom Smythe

        she surely wouldn’t have been able to talk to Viktora, a week after she came out of a 3-week coma, would she?

        No problem talking:

        “This booklet will teach you ways to safely care for yourself [at home] with a tracheostomy tube [that needs periodic cleaning or replacement].”
        http://www.upmc.com/patients-visitors/education/Documents/TracheostomyCare.pdf

        Question is, what was going on between day 21 (no longer in coma), secret hand-off from hospital to MI5 at day 27 (Apr 10th, filming at day 80 which is 53 days post-discharge, and release on day ???

        Have the pants been sued off that judge yet? You know, the one who couldn’t be bothered with a 30″ check online for nearest family, signing off on blood sampling from a person in a coma without obtaining consent, an unnecessary procedure that wasn’t in her interest. The document shows he was extremely nervous about being a fall guy on a flagrant consent violation, all for the door handle cock-up with OPCW. May also relate to the nonsense about denying Viktoria a routine visa.

        I expect Sergei will also have had a tracheostomy although tracheal suction can be done endo. (I’ve had that procedure myself after a spontaneous pneumothorax, disagreeable to be sure but again not painful.

        DS Nick Bailey, not. They aren’t disclosing what symptoms he had or treatment he got, if any. He was at best collateral damage from the attack in the mallway or at the bench. He did not eat risote with them or drink from their wine glass. The door handle remains preposterous, given simultaneity of onset so many hours after unequal exposure to people with such different physiologies.

    • Paul Barbara

      @ Tom Smythe May 24, 2018 at 00:08
      ‘…Whatever the instigating chemical proves to be, this was a very serious medical incident, attempted murder. Nobody would volunteer for this…’
      It would not necessarily be attempted murder, if BZ or a temporary incapacitating agent were used. The tracheostomy could have been done as the medical staff may not have been privy to the real agent and it’s limited danger, so played safe.
      Their being ‘in on the hoax’ was just a scenario which should be considered. They may have been misled about the effects, or that it might entail a tracheotomy.
      But granted it does seem probable they did not ‘volunteer’ for the hoax. I wonder if Sergei had a tracheostomy? He was supposedly the worst affected, and took the longest to recover.

  • N_

    What’s the noise in the background? At first I thought it was aircraft. Maybe it’s a busy road. Nice logs on the right. And are there any lip readers in the house? What is she saying when the sound is off, 1.02 to 1.11 here?

    They say she is in London, so that is one place where she almost certainly is not.

    • Clive P

      She may have been in London for the filming but I can’t imagine the security services doing the filming in the ‘safe house’ they are using for her.

  • N_

    @Jiusito

    The Reuters report quotes her as saying “I woke to the news that we had both been poisoned,” but the subtitle in the video says “I woke to the news that we may have been poisoned”. That is a remarkable discrepancy, surely. What is the correct translation of what she said?

    The correct translation of what she both said and (allegedly) wrote is “Waking up (or coming round) after 20 days in a coma I learnt we had both been poisoned”.

  • Node

    Kempe says “I’m sure somebody will be along shortly to explain that it isn’t [Yulia Skripal] and that it was all filmed in a studio with the background added in to the picture using chroma key.”

    I’ve no idea if it was her or not, but I do know that the time is long past when we can believe the evidence of our own eyes. For years it has been possible to convincingly forge video footage. All you need is some clear video or photos of someone and you can map their features onto another person and simulate their voice saying anything you choose. Here are 2 real time demonstrations of the art by students a few years ago. Plainly it is no longer possible to trust even live video. Imagine what the spooks could do with state resources and a month to prepare.

    Is that Yulia in the video? I’ve no idea. Is it ridiculous to question whether it is Julia in the video? Absolutely not.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohmajJTcpNk
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H153u186OGE

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