Monday 16 November: Boris Johnson now has a chance to get his Government back on track

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/11/16/letters-boris-johnson-now-has-chance-get-government-back-track/

787 thoughts on “Monday 16 November: Boris Johnson now has a chance to get his Government back on track”

  3. Boris is going into self isolation for ten days, will anyone even notice?
    Surely everyone in Number Ten should be self isolating as well, even better for the country.

    1. I was going to add “and so should parliament self-isolate”, but then, to all intents and purposes, they have been. Utterly useless, so they are.

  4. Boris Johnson’s self-isolation order overshadows agenda ‘reset’ . 16 November 2020.

    Boris Johnson has entered 14 days of self-isolation after coming into contact with an MP who had coronavirus, throwing his plans for a “reset” of his Downing Street operation into disarray.

    BELOW THE LINE.

    Justin Cockett16 Nov 2020.

    Please can somebody explain to me how, given Boris has [allegedly] already contracted the SARS-CoV-2 virus he possibly have it again?

    If indeed he has contracted a new strain, how on earth can an artificial introduction via a [£££] vaccine be effective if catching the real thing does not give you immunity?

    Now that, as Rik would say, is awkward. My view for what it is worth, is that he’s simply gone into hiding!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/11/15/prime-minister-self-isolating-coming-contact-covid-case/

    2. I think it’s just spin. He came into contact with the infected person; the sensible thing would have been to say “ok, he has had the virus, he doesn’t need to quarantine”.
      But you can just imagine the meeting at which the scientists said “No! If Boris doesn’t quarantine, everyone in the country will say they’ve had the virus and not quarantine. They will lose the fear! Boris must set an example of cowering from the terrible plague!”
      That is what I think is happening. He’s supposed to be showing us stupid plebs how we should behave.

      1. Although he has had the disease already, if he comes into contact with someone who tests +ve, he could still theoretically become a carrier without getting the disease again himself.

          3. Theoretically there are carriers of covid in the same way as there are carriers of many other diseases. What happens to them? They either succumb to the virus if they’ve not had the disease before, or they go on unwittingly spreading it, which is why vigilance in matters of face masks & hand hygiene is important.

            Which brings me on to another observation: it is amazing how many members of the public are clueless when it comes to hand-sanitising. Many supermarkets provide hand-sanitisers at their entrances & shopping trolleys are wiped down with h-s after each use. Correct procedure is to use the h-s from the dispenser, then collect the sanitised trolley. But no, in most cases Joe Public comes along with “clinically dirty” hands, collects his trolley, thus contaminating it before he uses the hand dispenser (if at all), then moves on into the store, where he handles goods with hands re-contaminated from the handle of his trolley. I’ve seen this time & time again.

          4. Good morning Peddy

            I have noticed the same as you, and I have on several occasions yelled out to people who don’t cleanse their hands at the shop entrance ” Oye, sanitize your hands”.

          5. Ayup!

            Na then; I think tha’ll find that t’word is spelt “oi”. An’ any bugger “oi-ing” me will soon get some back, tha’ knows! :•Þ

          7. We have hand sanitiser in the car and, in my case, my pocket when I do the weekly shop. I’m sure many other people do. So you won’t see me pressing the hand sanitiser knob that everybody else uses.

          8. If you press that knob & subsequently sanitise your hands, it doesn’t matter who has pressed it before you. You may have h-s in your car, I really doubt if many people do.

          9. The hand sanitiser is inside, the trolleys are outside usually. Who wants to queue up twice to get into the same shop.

          10. At Waitrose, which is the only supermarket I visit, the h-s dispensers are outside near the trolleys.

          11. At most stores you pick up a trolley outside (not sanitised, just parked) then go in, wipe down the trolley at the cleaning station, sanitise your hands – or don gloves, and proceed to shop. I sometimes use gloves as I’m one of those unfortunates whose skin doesn’t cope well with repeated applications of sanitiser. Gloves are binned on leaving the store.

          13. As the nearest Waitrose with trolleys is 50 miles away in Wolverhampton I use a rather more plebeian supermarket.

            They do have a small shop in the middle of Shrewsbury, but it only has baskets…

    3. There is no evidence that he has the illness again. He is merely self-isolating because he was in contact at a meeting with someone who tested positive.

      Sometimes the ability to comprehend simple English is severely lacking on these threads.

      1. And does not Boris Johnson’s new self-isolation imply that he believes that he has no immunity to Covid 19 just s few months after having had the disease? If he is correct then what chance has a vaccine got of protecting people?

        1. It doesn’t imply anything of the sort, Rastus. Having had recent contact with a person who tested +ve, he could pass it on to others without contracting the disease for a second time.

    4. …is that he’s simply gone into hiding!

      Self-isolating after contact with a ‘positive’ is the rule but it is nevertheless very convenient when he is under both personal and political attack to escape public exposure for 14 days. Will this hiatus be a prelude to his retirement on grounds of illness?

    6. Our electricity has been off for a
      short time … but my lap-top is now telling me
      to reset … is this the latest buzz word?

      You heard it here second!!

      1. But you can have all the credit! (That has happened to me a lot. One of the downsides of being perceptive, if not actually prescient, although I am actually prescient. Second sight from my grannie’s side.)

    7. How did the MP who tested positive for Covid – 19 get “infected”. Has he been disobeying the rules or is there Covid-19 going around in the HoC as a result of that lady SNP MP Ferrier who flagrantly broke the rules in her train journeys down South and back to Glasgow whilst being a positive case.
      If a survivor like Boris has to self isolate on demand, then those vaccinated will not be allowed the freedom they are expecting.

    8. There are many reports of people recovering then catching it again.

      We don’t know how long the antibodies will last, it seems just a few months, nor do we know how much immunity they will confer.

      Boris hasn’t caught it again, he’s had contact with an infected person.

      1. There are some reports, very widely distributed and frequently re-hashed, of a very small number of people becoming re-infected. This is a natural anomaly. Antibodies never last for long, it’s very wasteful to keep producing antibodies for a disease you haven’t got, but that has nothing to do with a loss of immunity. Once your body has created antibodies, it remembers how to do it again if it reencounters the bug. More recent studies suggest that immunity will be for much longer than a few months.

  5. I don’t think they should be calling what is coming, a ‘Reset’.

    When one presses a reset button one wants to return back to the original factory settings, back to normal before all the silly adjustments that have caused the device not to work.

    What they are proposing is not a reset, it is releasing an evil based on dodgy science that will destroy our lives as we knew them, for no benefit whatsoever to the environment, a form of eugenics, has Boris got the bottle to do it?

    2. Morning, Bob3.

      He looks haggard and careworn and I have wondered if he now regrets getting involved with the ‘Reset’. It’s a hell of a step to sell-out your Country and its people to the extent that the megalomaniacs are demanding. Replacing us via immigration is a relatively slow process and several names are in the frame of infamy for that treachery, including his. However, the ‘Reset’ is happening on his watch and he is seen as the driver, he will be forever associated with its attempted implementation. Johnson used his buffoon, popular with the people image to his political advantage; that image has dissipated, never to return. He’s done for and more importantly for him, he knows it.

      1. “Replacing us via immigration is a relatively slow process…” I’m not sure that is so. In the great scheme of things it is moving at lightning speed.
        The Anglo-Saxons moved in over a period of 200 years from 450AD. The later Viking Age lasted a couple of hundred years ending just before the Norman conquest.
        The islamic invasion will complete its conquest in around 30 years, making about 70 years in total.

        1. I was commenting on the ‘Reset’ which is being pushed with some speed. My use of the word relative was in reference to the ‘Reset’. Perhaps I didn’t make myself crystal clear. I do cede your point re the islamics: their incursion is a clear and present danger to the indigenous people of these islands.

          Insurrection to stop Johnson and his ‘Build Back Better’ and a religious/cultural/political war to stop the islamic takeover. Our children and grandchildren do not have much to look forward to, do they?

          1. No, they don’t. The “reset” will be takeover of the planet by a cabal of very bad people. It is happening very quickly. We’ll be totally enslaved within 2 years. Then immigration will speed up and”reset” includes removal of national borders.

          2. The Reset:

            “The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, re-imagine, and reset our world” – Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum.

            … and you all thought that the World Economic Forum is a quasi- governmental organisation!

    3. I think you’re right, not a reset, it’s the forced installation of a new operating system, OS Cov19.1. Installed overnight while we sleep.

    1. Hasn’t it already?
      What happened to the BREXIT and butt-kicking that Boris Johnson mk1 promised? Someone else took over his skin. Same with that Patel person, who promised to stop cross-channel illegal migration, someone else inhabits her skin, too.
      Morning, Bill.

      3. Do you remember Boris Johnson telling us that he had fallen for the green scams at the time of the election? No, neither do I.

  7. Syrian refugees help put centuries-old glassware on show in Paisley. 16 November 2020.

    An unusual collection of 2,000-year-old glassware is providing Syrian refugees in the Renfrewshire town of Paisley with a connection to their homeland, five years after they settled in Scotland.

    The 30-piece collection, dating back to Roman times, was bequeathed to Paisley Museum in 1948 by Elizabeth Spiers Paterson, the daughter of thread manufacturers, and is believed to have been acquired from antiquities dealers in Syria, known as the birthplace of glass-making.

    Now the refugees are working with museum curators to prepare these “masterpiece” objects for display for the first time.
    This is a thinly disguised pro-refugee propaganda piece. The glassware has nothing to do with them other than that it came from the same place albeit 2000 years ago.

    This is a thinly disguised pro-refugee propaganda piece. The glassware has nothing to do with them other than that it came from the same place albeit 2000 years ago.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/nov/16/syrian-refugees-help-put-centuries-old-glassware-on-show-in-paisley

    1. “The glassware has nothing to do with them other than that it came from the same place albeit 2000 years ago.” I agree, of course the same logic applies to Stonehenge.

      1. I sang at the funeral of the last glovemaker in Worcester. At around the same time Royal Worcester Porcelain, est.1754, closed down after a number of corporate takeovers and outsourcing abroad, and the old factory has now been torn down and turned into Brownfield Redevelopment. Much of the medieval city that survived the blitz unscathed was bulldozed in 1965 to create a shopping centre, an inner relief road, a high end hotel and a multistorey car park. Lost then were the former premises of Elgar Brothers Music Shop, a little violin factory nearby, a Victorian church, a number of half-timbered pubs dating back to the civil war, and the last medieval lychgate in Europe. The officials who allowed this to happen retired to Bermuda on the proceeds, no doubt pleased with establishing bonus culture here.

        How do we best honour what’s left of Syria?

        1. On the positive side, Fownes Hotel in Worcester is a carefully preserved glove factory which retains much of its Victorian charm.

  8. Morning all

    SIR – As an active member of the Conservative Party, I am sure I was not alone in my concerns about Dominic Cummings’s overbearing influence on Boris Johnson and others in Downing Street.

    The most caustic element in the Government, he created a culture of fear, sacking individuals on the spot. In my view, and indeed that of many others I have spoken to, the damage he inflicted on the credibility of Downing Street’s operations was obvious. He should have been sacked long ago.

    However, I am confident that, with a like-minded team behind him, Mr Johnson can now focus on the key issues: Covid-19, the revitalisation of the economy and Brexit.

    Simon Lever

    Winchester, Hampshire

    SIR – Mr Cummings should be remembered for taking us out of the EU, or helping the Tories win an 80‑seat majority.

    Sadly, the lasting memory will be of his trip to Durham, and his pitiful defence of his actions, during the first lockdown. For someone who professes to be so bright, he treated people with so much disdain and arrogance.

    Tony Howarth

    London SW3

    Advertisement

    SIR – Now that Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain have left, Boris Johnson needs to appoint as deputy prime minister a seasoned adviser – someone who is respected by Conservative MPs, is accountable to both Parliament and the electorate, and can take some of the pressure off the PM. The individual probably needs to be strongly pro-Brexit, but under no circumstances should it be Michael Gove.

    Kim Potter

    Lambourn, Berkshire

    SIR – Mr Cummings’s exit is but a symptom of wider problems. Clearly Boris Johnson is not up to the job, as his strategies for both Brexit and Covid-19 appear not to be working.

    Rather than searching around for a chief of staff to prop Mr Johnson up, it would be better if he followed Mr Cummings out of the door of No 10.

    Geoff Bantock

    Christchurch, Dorset

    SIR – Had I voted Labour a year ago, I’d have expected dithering, confusion, ineptitude and heroic economic mismanagement. But also free broadband.

    Bob Vass

    Bollington, Cheshire

    SIR – The photograph of Mr Cummings leaving No 10 is too perfect. As a former film editor of 45 years, I detect a set-up.

    The frame looks directly into the house – very rare at No 10. No uniformed policemen – even rarer.

    Mr Cummings, immaculately dressed and perfectly framed in the hallway, is beautifully backlit by unrealistic lighting. And he is carrying a brand-new box with such apparent ease that it must be empty.

    Bryan Oates

    London SW18

    1. “Mr Cummings should be remembered……..”
      No, Cummings should not be remembered……full stop.

    4. Regarding Mr Oates observation; Dominic Cummings has played the media like a fish from day one, why stop now?

  9. Morning again

    SIR – Congratulations to Ian Botham on his article.

    Only a few high-profile people seem prepared to combat the arguments from well-known, sanctimonious Left-wingers. Not enough people know that those involved in country sports are frequently the people who do most for nature conservation.

    I, too, have seen crows pecking out the eyes of sheep and carrying away newly hatched ducklings. Nature is like that – but man should also be allowed to intervene to protect his own interests, as farmers and gamekeepers do. Lord Botham speaks much common sense on country matters, and we are fortunate to have him in the House of Lords.

    Max Leins

    Wellington, Somerset

    SIR – How refreshing to read Lord Botham’s attack on the “eco-woke”.

    As a rambler, I appreciate the delights that our countryside has to offer and the good work our farmers do in feeding us while maintaining our green and pleasant land.

    I am appalled by the antics of Chris Packham and his fellow eco-warriors, who advocate reintroducing wolves into Britain, for example – despite the trouble this would cause for farmers and their stock. Farmers have enough problems to deal with as it is.

    Mike Bridgman

    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    1. Introducing wolves to the countryside doesn’t go anywhere near far enough. I would introduce lions and tigers into the cities, where they can do some good.

    1. Played it a couple of times when I was much younger. Didn’t like it all, and it went on for ever. Boring.

      1. I remember a game of it in my teens when we stuck to the rules but broke the bank. Endgame.

        1. I always bought the Utilities first.

          The game taught me a sharp life lesson;
          some people will always cheat, they are
          amoral and that trait is real in most of their
          dealings.

      1. Golly, as a Russian cybermole, it looks like they are on to me. Funny thing though, I’d have thought that GCHQ would have kept this all secret rather than announcing it in the MSM. Still, I suppose that they have strong links in back channels to the USSR and so on. Secrets cannot be kept forever, well, unless the UK government wants to protect the wrongdoing of it’s favoured chums.

        1. Horace [and others]: re the link, I’m getting info Matthew Halfcock stated earlier today more or less the same thing viz attempting more censorship against anything anti vax etc. If you, or anyone else can validate that, appreciated

        2. While everyone else undergoes compulsory C-19 / Novichok vaccines in Porton Down. Administered by friendly Dr Sergei Skripal and his assistant Yulia. Am sure 77 Bde are all over “us” [aka non favoured chums] like a cheap suit

    4. A game invented by a Georgist to highlight the consequences of ignoring Georgism. It always ends up with 1 person richer than the bank and everyone else broke. Just like our economy really.

  14. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR – Yesterday’s Television & Radio pages included a photo from The Crown of Olivia Colman portraying 
the Queen in the uniform of the Grenadier Guards.

    Two things caused concern. First, the Queen never, ever delivered a cocked-wrist salute. Secondly, why on earth is her headdress adorned with what appears to be the Welsh Guards’ plume?

    Ken Orme
    Liverpool

    You are too late, Ken Orme: this has been dealt with in the Times over a couple of days – unless of course you saw the letters in the Times??

  15. ‘Morning All

    Lunacy accelerating at Warp Factor 12

    Fauci is saying once you’ve had the vaccine you still need to follow
    the distancing and masking, ‘cos there’s a 10% chance the vaccine didn’t
    work for you. And 5% of people will grow a second head, and then that
    mouth might be breathing out teh virus.

    *I made up the last bit
    ** But only the last bit.

  16. 326460+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    The black comedy ongoing,
    The main problem is there is a multitude that refuse to recognise the graringly obvious signs, the wretch cameron
    sending everyone a missive ( and charging them) regarding the delights of the eu, then may the treacherous and the nine month delay, now the turkish delight, amnesties R me
    ( back on track ) johnson, he is firmly on a track & tear apart
    campaign with HS2.

    When the unwanted “deal” is revealed shortly maybe then the governance party’s supporters will admit that the overseers & overseers employees don’t give a sh!te about
    YOUR wants & needs, they have their own agenda.

    Seems like the whole odious shebang is running true to form the quare fella has taken to the bunker.

    1. I most definitely won’t be having it, Peddy. They can say and write what they like. Why would I trust a vaccine that is heralded by a government that empties its nhs wards of covid infected into care homes, to infect similarly frail elderly when it was perfectly obvious what the result would be? Why would I trust it when the government-funded nhs so callously abandoned its chronically sick and those in the early throes of illness and overnight left them to their fate? We have no knowledge of what they really put in these things and he who pays the piper calls the tune. Government and its agencies has lost my trust forever. We will never submit to this vaccine.

      1. Good morning, poppiesmum

        Just as at the time of the general election when the voters said “Yes” to Boris they had no idea that his “brilliant”, “oven-ready” EU withdrawal agreement was a surrender to the EU and a betrayal of the voters who had misguidedly trusted in him.

        1. Good morning, Rastus. At that time of the General Election I had a feeling Johnson’s WA was going to be the same as May’s. It was obvious that his heart was never in his ‘Leave’ argument back in 2016, he had always been a Remainer. I have never trusted him, how can anyone when his private life is such a mess and so publically, too, which may be just the tip of the iceberg. The problem is that his chaotic lifestyle reflects that of vast swathes of the country which sees nothing amiss and presumably neither does the Westminster bubble. He is a creature representative of the age in which we live.

          I can no longer refer to him as ‘Boris’. He has become Johnson, the Betrayer, who should be made accountable for his actions.

      2. Not able to read the article………
        I wonder, as most of the people whom as we are told have died from the virus, had or were suffering from underlying health issues, how will this vaccine effect those who are older and now living, but sufficiently isolated to be safe. With possibly many but quite minor underlying health issues. But are also taking quite a lot of prescribed medication at the present. Surely the virus vaccine will undermine the effects of their medication if not kill them because of the content of the vaccine.
        As far as i can make out It’s already been mentioned that the vaccine will become compulsory.

    2. “Flu vaccines are only 50% effective”. It does not say that in the letter you get every year when they offer it to you.
      I won’t be taking it.

      1. Because he is an athlete and considering the disgusting things the celebs have to participate in , I would have thought he was too delicate and culturally naive to take part in white humour and mockery.

        1. Actually someone said to the busy producer “Who shall we have on the show?” The producer replied “Just a Mo”

      1. Yep , We didn’t watch all of it .. Moh was watching golf highlights on his laptop, and I was clattering around on mine, so it was just empty noise!

      1. Good morning, Peddy

        I came across a rather good quotation about public speaking attributed to Winston Churchill which you might enjoy: “When you come to a sentence with a grammatically correct ending you should then shut up and sit down.”

  23. “The curve is flattening so we can start lifting restrictions now” is like saying “The parachute has slowed our rate of descent, so we can take it off now.”

    1. When I read “The curve is flattening so we can start lifting restrictions now”, my initial thought was Johnson was talking to his “alter ego OH” showing her the latest graph of measurements about his waist line

    2. When I read “The curve is flattening so we can start lifting restrictions now”, my initial thought was Johnson was talking to his “alter ego OH” showing her the latest graph of measurements about his waist line

    3. More like saying ‘no more society until zero COVID deaths’. Forgetting that without a functioning society/economy, we’d all die of other diseases, mental health issues and enforced poverty/starvation. Lockdown = barely existing.

      Anyone know the current (weekly) figures for COVID+flu deaths compared to flu deaths last year and in previous ‘bad flu season’ years over the past 20 years? No, funny how the authorities are making it nigh on impossible to find this information out, similarly with hospitalisations. Not forgetting that the ‘higher infection rate’ is mostly because of mass testing generally, and, more importantly, the trialling of regular mass testing in the Liverpool area.

      Has anyone in the MSM bothered to ask these questions or the implications on the actual number of ‘cases’ through the PCR false positive rate? Has ANY truly indpendent facility (e.g. the sceptic scientists) verified all the testing accuracy?

      Or why a peer-review high quality study of the effectiveness of face mask wearing was dropped from scientific journals because it is ‘controvercial’ – likely meaning it doesn’t support the myth that people wearing masks (especially cloth ones) outside of the highly controlled environment of infectious diseases wards, operating theatres and the like is effective.

      1. Exactly. More cases mean more lockdown. More testing = more cases.
        Number of “cases” is not identical to numbers infected, far from it. Cases include those who have had it and are now better (as well as false positives, bad processing etc etc.).
        So the more people who have had it and got better the more cases there will be and therefore the stricter the lockdown will become.
        When everyone has had it and there is herd immunity, lockdown will move to Tier 5 all round.
        There can hardly have been a more widespread, socially injurious reductio ad absurdum in the history of this country, if not the world.

        1. It is most of the world, HP, not just this country – they’re all working to the “Great Reset” agenda, designed to trash all economies and make us all poorer, apart from the already very rich.

      3. The October mortality figures from ONS are due to be releaed later this week.

        The latest weekly figures are due tomorrow.

    2. Morning all.
      Perhaps he can consider taxing (now weaponised) cycling and individual cyclists and making them by law use and display public liability insurance.
      I wonder how much all the cycle lanes have cost this country.
      Taxing driving per mile will place another burden on the self employed.
      And of course government employees will be exempt. Because they can claim on their gold plated expenses.

    3. What about a “breathing tax”.

      Pay per gasp. Pay to breathe out. Everyone does it – so it looks like a winner, Hindoo Chancellor.

          1. It was a mad idea. The movement of people would have been enough to scupper it. The previous system, rates, was not perfect but most houses don’t move about much.

          7. They managed to keep St Peter’s, Melverley in place, but only by jacking it up and reinforcing the bank of the Vyrnwy. It stands just a few hundred yards upstream from the Severn Vyrnwy confluence – and has done since the 10th century. But the river gradually washed away the church yard and at the end of last century they had to raise funds to save it or see the whole thing go down river. It’s tiny but still in regular (until this year) use and still has the bible chained to the lectern. They have created a new burial ground on the landward side of the church.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4ecf5e98afbebd4de938a40a9f1fe8e9eb794945ab160325643b75047b9e0720.jpg

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/91bb15eb1aac7969fbf381155574e32b3830bdb19b9f2bb45ea9ab074f62e5a6.png

    4. In 2030/2040 only the rich with access to electric vehicles will be allowed to travel on roads and if your “social credit” isn’t high enough you will be denied access
      They fully intent that the age of freedom,of mass vehicle ownership is to end
      Know your place serfs

          2. Thanks. It doesn’t say much about ‘tax as you drive’ but waffles on about banning he sale of new petrol & diesel powered cars.

          3. There was an article in the Shropshire Star about taxing people for every mile they drove. Don’t have the link any more, but I’m sure you could find it with that info.

      3. We heard that on the car radio, and which made us very angry . We are a overcrowded little Island .. I wish to goodness they would stop importing people first.

        1. The mentioned car implications are already being ‘tested’. Some golf course have satellite monitored buggies that stop if the occupants drive too far off the width of the fairways, or try to take alternative routes to the next tee.
          As most of us have already seen and from the implications of the bald seated speaker another attempt at nazi dominations is taking place.

    3. I know it’s a twatshot – but he looks ill. (I’d look ill if I had that harridan Carrion stalking me).

          1. Won’t argue that point. It’s not just his look, poppiesmum, his behaviour, politically and personally, is that of a degenerate. It’s considered immoral to cuckold your wife but Johnson’s encores in that department puts him into the amoral class. Our problem is that his amoral behaviour has spilt over to his political life and will end up doing us great harm.

      3. The man is extraordinarily physically unattractive. Any woman who finds him sexually attractive must have a strange and perverted self-loathing and be irresistibly drawn towards what is repulsive.

          1. Kaypea, I met Ecclestone as a young kid. From memory he’d come to visit Colin Seeley’s production line, but something back then said “steer clear of him”, didn;t know why, just a gut instinct. I found out a few years after, that visit occured 3 days after he torched his 2nd hand car dealership to claim on the insurance, which he did. Thereafter his tentacles went solely into F1 via his Brabham connections

          2. G’day Sir, glad to see that there are some of us types still living in Africa. My family left Uganda in 74 when Idi made the place too dangerous to hang around. At least one of Bernie’s tentacles must have made its way to his young wife recently judging by the sprog!

          3. aftn / early evening here. Understood re Idi, now his replacement M7 as he’s known “locally” screwing it up as well. Haven’t checked what Bernie’s up to after he sold out F1

          5. I think he said that there wasn’t enough money on the train! He did know the getaway driver! Dodgy bloke!

    4. But it can live on your clothes, in your hair, on your skin for happily ever after, well at least a fortnight, dont’cha kno? Everything he touches or breathes on or excretes will become contaminated and it too will be unsafe for two weeks and then of course anyone who comes into contact with those surfaces will also become a superspreader for two weeks and so it will go on until there will be millions dead by Christmas.

      1. That was posted yesterday and a number of sensible contributors pointed out that this clip is taken completely out of context, since everything leading up to his arrest is not shewn.

      2. Apparently he broke a ‘dispersal order’ but he was walking away and so was his arrested wife. If he’d been black or asian they wouldn’t have dared to touched him, they still don’t stop and search suspects in the areas were most drugs and stabbing take place.
        But having said that you can quite clearly see someone walking past the oncoming and brutal posse who attracted no attention what so ever.
        More than 30 of them !!!

        1. We do not know why the police picked on this chap – but it certainly is not very good for the Police’s public relations.

          Advice for white protesters:

          Before going out to demonstrate apply good theatrical make up to your face and any visible flesh so that you look like a BAME – in that way the police would not, as you say, dare to touch you.

          1. A friend of mine told me she contacted a serving officer friend, who told her that the police had issued a ‘dispersal order’ and the guy appeared to be leaving the area but they seemed to single him out, as they seem to do.

          3. it was a terrible thing to witness Bob, they are being trained to be abusive towards the public for no apparent or logical reason.

      3. Standard police arrest process these days. They grabbed and assaulted before arresting. Then sit on him so he cannot breathe. Stop people filming, as they have every right to do, and move them away so they cannot be witnesses. We heard WPC, “they are not moving quickly enough”.
        What happened to simply inviting the bloke to attend a police station?

    2. Well that would give our police problems. A crowd with metal frying pans. What to do? Arrest them all? Run away?

  29. Morning everyone. I had to go to hospital yesterday as my dehydration and sugar intake clashed with ominous indications. It turned out that my blood sugar levels had spiked at 25 which seems to warrant some technical name which I cannot now recall. They pumped a litre of saline solution into my veins (why are they not bulging like garden hose pipes?) and an insulin injection. I am now returned home with much moderated symptoms. While I was there I took the occasion to look around and ask questions. The ER personnel are heavily protected but once you are passed to the treatment section everything looks normal. No one administered or even suggested that I should take a Coronavirus test! The Paramedic who responded to my call told me they only had around seven people in with CV and this is a large district hospital. As always the offer to fund your own taxi ride home is treated with muted approval and speeds your exit!

    1. Good morning, Minty.

      Thank goodness you are here to tell the tale.
      I hope your health continues to improve.
      I think you live in an area at risk … good luck
      with that!!
      Seriously … my best wishes to you.

    2. Hypoglaecemia?
      Glad you are recovering, Minty.
      For my education, what were the symptoms?

      1. Dehydrated Syndrome. Drinking and then urinating out. Two hours sleep maximum. Shakes. Groggy, Cramp in the extremities.

        1. Sorry to hear that Minty , are you on insulin or are you on Metformin.

          Moh has type 2 . and takes Metformin

          What further treatment did the quacks suggest .

          Hope you feel better today.

          1. They’ve given me a dozen metformin tablets Belle while I try to get to see the diabetes nurse. Fat chance!

          2. What strength did they give you, Moh takes x two tabs 500 in the morning and xtwo tabs 500s in the evening .. 2,000 a day .

            Cut out sugars , but eat nuts and pulses , don’t know how fit you are but keep exercising .. walking , most imprtant lose weight .

        2. I get the first part when down the pub… maybe something to do with copious amounts of beer.
          Otherwise, and trying not to make light of it, glad you got put back together again. No fun.

      1. correct, it emanated from Fort Detrick, deployed by US mil during World Mil Games in Wuhan and parts of EU, UK around this time last year. Chinese raised the flag above parapet via usual W.H.O. channels. Followed by Event 201, then Davos, day after conclusion of Davos, mysteriously C-19 is triggered globally at same time, date [allowing for time zone differences]. This as am sure you know, is in areas of public domain but avoided by MSM et al

    3. Exactly, I have just come back from a dog walk, had to deliver husband to local hospital for a diabetic eye test, so walked my dogs whilst the weather was fine .

      A dog walker with a nice friendly dog had a chat with me , and we talked about the virus. She said both her sisters developed a strange flu like “thing ” before Christmas , in Sussex , and their symptons were fever , aches , lethargy and a metallic taste in the mouth that lasted for 2 weeks , food tasted odd.

      Oldest son and I had a strange thing in January , just after Christmas , same symptons and a chesty cough , helped by doses of Covonia.. Remember how wet post Christmas was , it didn’t stop raining , s no need for any of us to go out , apart from dog walks in muddy fields!

      1. I’m pretty sure I had it in January – the cough lasted 3 or 4 weeks, though I wasn’t particularly ill. It certainly wasn’t like a normal cold. It was a dry cough, worst at night, but not chesty.

          3. Kinoo. From town [CBD – Westlands, Kangemi, Uthiru – loc 87 then Kinoo] but all along same highway up to Naivasha. Have a place in Mtwapa [past Nyali at Msa end] but getting down there’s the usual current problem. But then you know well enough what passes for Govt here. The good side, Tusker’s about Ksh180 and bars open until curfew [23.00 – 04.00]. Another problem since C-19’s non existent here at all. The gig’s all about creating numbers for Kenya MoH to justify pay increase. And am obviously English, but pertient to use this moniker

          8. Kinoo. From town [CBD – Westlands, Kangemi, Uthiru – loc 87 then Kinoo] but all along same highway up to Naivasha. Have a place in Mtwapa [past Nyali at Msa end] but getting down there’s the usual current problem. But then you know well enough what passes for Govt here. The good side, Tusker’s about Ksh180 and bars open until curfew [23.00 – 04.00]. Another problem since C-19’s non existent here at all. The gig’s all about creating numbers for Kenya MoH to justify pay increase. And am obviously English, but pertient to use this moniker

        2. I had the full works in February – ticked all the boxes, bed ridden for five days. Still have a residual cough and the occasional wheeze (exacerbated by mask wearing, which is why I’ve stopped).

        3. Exactly like MB; he slept in the spare bed in his playroom. Even from there, I could hear him coughing.

    2. Since I do believe that she (Sydney Powell) has the evidence, I watch the news every day awaiting the day that they have to announce that the Presidential Vote was rigged.

      Please, I beg you, get Sydney to release the Kraken.

    2. Give its rolex a good twisting left and right. It won’t give you any more trouble I can assure you.

      1. Not stale at all. I just received a notification telling me they have just restocked. Pretty bottle will make a nice gift to a friend. Not you obvs.

          1. Yes i know. They sold out immediately. Now they have more. Which makes it new news. Turn ya hearing aid up.

    2. I only saw the Queen Mother close up on two occasions (military horse racing events) and she was always chatting, smiling and holding a large glass of gin. I believe Liz likes a drop too. Perhaps she has had a problem sneaking down to the local off-licence because of the current shambles and has decided to make some home brew. Best Queen and consort we ever had.

          1. Apart from which, anything Gollum recommends has to be suspect. After all, he is a chain-smoker, so has no sense of taste.

  37. Morning all, a promise of a fine day. I am going to self isolate away and start decorating a spare bedroom ready for the granddaughters to visit when the buffoon gets his act together!

      1. Somebody offered to sell me a bridge recently, after I told him Boris was a straight up guy, perhaps it was the Forth bridge, the never ending paint job.

  38. Afternoon everyone. As I said this morning I had to go to the hospital yesterday and receive treatment for high blood sugar. I have no complaints about the treatment apart from the end where the Doctor told me I should go to see my Diabetes Nurse at the local surgery. My reservations were based on experience. Though I am now slightly deaf, which makes conversations on the telephone difficult I rang 5 times this morning and was once fourth in the queue. Some people may like musak, I don’t, particularly when I have no idea how long it is going to be playing and I’m paying for it. Anyway having made no progress I decided to call by on my trip to the supermarket.

    There was a woman standing guard at the entrance and I explained my difficulties and enquired if I could make an appointment as I was there on the spot, so to speak. I said all this knowing that it was futile and even able to see the woman on the telephone over her left shoulder. She insisted that I must ring. I was right of course, she had been told to refuse all pleas regardless of circumstance and it had set in her brain like concrete, a response I have seen many times in the UK. That she could have spoken to the telephonist herself and arranged an appointment for me with very little effort, if it ever crossed her mind, was dismissed out of hand. If I had dropped dead at that moment she would have registered only disapproval. Since returning home I’ve tried again. They are now closed down until tomorrow!

    2. That’s awful Araminta, but it sums up the lack of thought and common sense that has been prevalent all through this virus. Just a don’t care, can’t do attitude. It makes me spit.

      1. Ring the vet – someone answers quickly and politely and deals with your request. Funny that.

        1. It is amazing what miracles can be wrought with the thoughts of potential currency transfer rattling through their brains.

        2. My wife rang the specialist vets Dick White Referrals for advice on our small dog. The receptionist said she would contact the vet (Max) who had treated the dog and within ten minutes Max phoned us.

          Had we tried to make an appointment with the surgery there would be Muzak interrupted by a dreary voice “you are in a queue, there are currently four calls ahead of you”. Half an hour later you might get to speak to a receptionist.

        3. I got treated at the vet in Lamerton some years ago. She gave me some physio on my back, which she apparently does on the side.
          (I know I’m setting it up for someone)

          6. Given a choice I would always plump for treatment from the vet! And the “back lady” who does the horses.

          2. True – we have been lucky that the two occasions we visited, it was dry! But at least they see you roughly at the time of the appointment.

          3. Consultations at our vet in a gazebo in the car park and then the patient is quickly transferred within the surgery.

    4. It’s happening all over the country Minty. Alf had to pick up a prescription this morning and an elderly lady, wearing a mask, was in front of him as well as 3 other people. When the elderly lady, probably in her 80s and with a walking stick, came out she went in immediately next door to the surgery and tried to make an appointment. The receptionist (at least she got inside) told her she must make her appointment online. How bl..dy nuts it is.

      1. The only way to deal with these idiots (and have a laugh):

        Ear Infection

        This is so true!

        They always ask at the surgery why you are there, and you have to tell them (in front of others) what’s wrong and sometimes it is embarrassing.

        There’s nothing worse than a Doctor’s Receptionist who insists you tell her what is wrong with you in a room full of other patients.
        I know most of us have experienced this, and I love the way this old guy handled it.

        The 65-year-old man walked into a crowded waiting room and approached the desk.
        The Receptionist said, ‘Yes sir, what are you seeing the Doctor for today?’
        ‘There’s something wrong with my dick’, he replied.

        The receptionist became irritated and said, ‘You shouldn’t come into a crowded waiting room and say things like that.’

        ‘Why not, you asked me what was wrong and I told you,’ he said.

        The Receptionist replied; ‘Now you’ve caused some embarrassment in this room full of people. You should have said there is something wrong with your ear or something and discussed the problem further with the Doctor in private.’

        The man replied, ‘You shouldn’t ask people questions in a roomful of strangers, if the answer could embarrass anyone?’

        The man walked out, waited several minutes, and then re-entered.

        The Receptionist smiled smugly and asked, ‘Yes?’

        ‘There’s something wrong with my ear,’ he stated.

        The Receptionist nodded approvingly and smiled, knowing he had taken her advice. ‘And what is wrong with your ear, Sir?’

        ‘I can’t piss out of it,’ he replied.

        The waiting room erupted in laughter…

        Mess with seniors and you’re going to Lose

    5. This morning we took our ‘flu jab prescriptions to the pharmacy. Here pharacists can do the injections..

      We were asked if we had an appointment and when we said no we were asked if we could wait while the old man who had just gone in had been treated.

      He came out about a minute later and we went in one after the other and were out of the shop within 5 minutes!

      2. I’ve got a flu jab at the GP surgery next Saturday and they want to give me a pneumonia jab at the same time. I think I’ll stick to the flu jab only.

        1. I was advised to have pneumonia jabs after my episode earlier in the year, but the doctor advised me to wait a month between the second pneumonia and the ‘flu one.

        2. It is as well not to ask too much of your immune system by having everything done at once. And if you do have a reaction you won’t know which one is the culprit.

          1. I had both flu & pneumonia jabs at the same time a few years back & had no ill effects whatsoever.

          2. We are not all the same, though. A friend of mine had the pneumonia jab and ended up in A&E the next day as a result, she was firing on a spluttering one cylinder.

        5. Don’t worry about the pneumonia one. It’s been around for a while and will protect you against a bacterium, the pneumococcus.

    6. I had my diabetic clinic appointment at my surgery last week. I suspect the only reason I got the appointment was that we had booked our flu jabs two months previously and when we finally received them the nurse noticed I was six months overdue for my diabetic check because of COVID. It seems the only way to get seen is to use the previous appointment as a stepping stone into another. To reinforce this theory, I telephoned today to get a telephone consultation with a GP, only to be told I had to ring tomorrow morning as ‘all slots had gone’. When I pointed out that the surgery had written to me to ask me to make the appointment, the receptionist miraculously managed to find me a free slot this afternoon.

      1. It’s like when the surgery sends you a letter asking you to make an appointment for your review or whatever and you do so, only to be asked by the doctor when you turn up, “what can I do for you?” Well, doc, you asked me to come!

    7. Next time, if there is one, look her long and hard in the eye and say ‘thank you for your help’ and continue to stare at her for a further 10 seconds.

    8. If Herr Schikelgruber had been born in Blighty, his path to glory would have been less rocky.

    9. In France civil servants are called fonctionnaires.

      We were trying to sort out a relatively trivial matter at our local mairie (town hall) and we suggested that we had thought of a simple solution. However the lady fonctionnaire was quite determined to be obstructive: “I am not paid to think,” she said, “I am here to function!”

      1. I once had a meeting with a fonctionaire He suddenly got up and left the room. After five minutes he had not returned. “He has gone for his lunch,” his colleague explained….

    10. You are lucky to be told which number you are in the queue. Doesn’t happen at my place, but they have a message: “If you have been waiting longer than 5 minutes, we recommend (!!!) that you hang up & dial again”. I wonder how many people fall for that one.

    11. Sorry to hear of your troubles. Those receptionists get special training in how to be bloody minded.

      1. I was talking to one the other day, wife of a friend, and she’s almost ready to quit. The abuse she gets is shocking she says. I’ve no reason to disbelieve her. She does also say that most of the GPs are very much part time. I don’t think everyone likes to Skype or Zoom with doctors they don’t know.

        1. I am sure they are under a lot of pressure and it unfortunate not just for them but also patients not being able to see their GP.

          The last time i attended was pre-covid and the gentleman in front of me was very upset that his wife had been unable to make an appointment. He had taken time off work to go to the surgery to make an appointment for her.

          The reason his wife couldn’t get through was because all the phones had been switched to mute.

          That was then. This is now.

          Best bet for your friends wife would be to get a job at a Dentist or Vets where they do give a shit about their patients.

      2. Certainly the one I spoke to (I was actually in the surgery, having taken MOH for a ‘flu jab) was obstructive and wanted to fob me off. I stood my ground and she had to sort it, as she couldn’t let the next patient in from the airlock unless we left.

        1. Good for you. I had one experience where i said ‘excuse me’ and she retorted with ‘I’m busy !’

          I have numerous sarcastic responses i could have used but decided not to.

  40. ‘Morning again.

    Daniel Hannan’s latest offering. It was published on the 14th (I’m a slow reader) so apologies if already posted. All I can say is “fat chance” although we live in hope…

    The end of the pandemic may be in sight, but our troubles are only just starting. When the virus hit, governments around the world responded by firehosing money about, cheered on by frightened electorates. The UK sprayed the cash harder than most: our furlough scheme was unusually generous, our lockdown unusually heavy, our quantitative easing unusually aggressive. Britain’s deficit in the first six months of the year was three times as high as in any comparable period since we started using the current recording method. Yet the media – and, it must be said, the voters – demand more intervention.

    A dangerous consensus has formed to the effect that the only way to get our finances back into some semblance of order is through massive tax rises. Consider three ideas put forward this week. The Office of Tax simplification wants to jack up the rate of capital gains tax (CGT). Deutsche Bank wants to tax people for working from home. The Resolution Foundation wants an extra £40 billion in tax rises, including a higher rate of corporation tax and a windfall levy on firms that managed to stay profitable through the lockdown.

    All these proposals beg the question, taking it as read that government spending must remain high. More immediately, though, all would fail in their own terms, reducing the Treasury’s income over the medium term and making it harder for Britain to grow its way back to prosperity.

    Consider them briefly in turn. There is ample evidence that raising the rate of capital gains tax reduces the revenue it generates. CGT is more Lafferish than most taxes, because people have more choice about whether to pay it. Most of us need to work for a living, so can’t avoid income tax; but we can often decide whether or not to sell assets. If the tax is too high, we don’t. The same applies to investing. Why take a risk when we stand to realise only a portion of any profits, but would suffer any losses in full?

    Every saver who puts cash into a fund or a pension is making money available to people who need capital. God knows Britain is going to need investment as the lockdown eases. As Adam Smith pointed out two-and-a-half centuries ago, the excessive taxation of investments drives money to friendlier jurisdictions: “By removing his stock, the proprietor would put an end to all the industry which it had maintained in the country which he left.”

    Professor Paul Evans of Ohio University looked at CGT rates in the United States since 1955 and found an inverse correlation with revenue. He calculated that the ideal point on the Laffer Curve was a rate of just below 10 per cent. That is the level we should aim for if we want to boost our wealth-generating sector.

    As for the idea of taxing home workers, it is sheer stir-crazy lockdown nuttiness. Deutsche Bank demands a five per cent levy on remote workers because they “are contributing less to the infrastructure of the economy whilst still receiving its benefits”. Seriously? People should be taxed for not spending enough at Starbucks? If workers can be equally productive without commuting, they will find more congenial ways to spend their extra disposable income – and good luck to them. If, on the other hand, they are staying at home only because of the lockdown, then there is a much more obvious solution: end the sodding lockdown.

    What of the notion of a windfall tax on supermarkets and online retailers? Quite apart from being a shockingly ungrateful response to the companies that kept us going through our house arrest, it is hard to justify in its own terms. Even if we accept the tendentious notion of “excessive” profits, there is scant evidence of it here. Companies like Amazon and Tesco had to spend more on social distancing, cleaning, larger facilities and, in many cases, wage increases to draw people into work seen as risky, yet managed to hold their prices remarkably steady. Taxing profitable firms in order to subsidise unprofitable ones is a sure way to end up with fewer of the former and more of the latter.

    Why does everyone assume that the spending hikes can’t be reversed? The better option for a country in the financial mess we are in is to go for growth. Instead of weighing ourselves down with additional taxes, we should aim to shrug off some excess weight. A major study by the European Central Bank in 2018 looked at data from 13 European countries over 35 years and concluded that spending cuts were a far better way to balance the books than tax rises (or, in the careful language that economists favour, that “revenue-based consolidations are more harmful for output dynamics than expenditure-based consolidations”).

    It so happens that the arrival of a vaccine coincides with a restructuring at Number 10. Here is an opportunity for a fresh start. There should be no more talk of tax rises: you don’t threaten more trauma just as you bring the patient out of an induced coma. Instead, we should encourage investment by cutting corporation tax, national insurance and, yes, CGT.

    If that makes us think more urgently about spending cuts, so much the better. Leave aside Covid-specific measures such as the furlough scheme. We cannot, while dealing with these additional costs, also be pushing up pensions, benefits, public sector wages, police budgets and defence spending while committing squillions to HS2, tunnels to Ireland and the like. In a perfect world, we might be able to afford all these things. Maybe even in an imperfect but pre-coronavirus world. Not now, though.

    The past ten months have seen a series of dire failings from the administrative state: poor procurement decisions in the NHS, inept and proprietorial testing by Public Health England, the exams fiasco from Ofqual. Yet it has also seen some heroic achievements from the private sector. Tesco kept its shelves full, Amazon stepped up its capacity, Pfizer found a vaccine. Other firms, closed by law, stand like greyhounds in the slip, straining upon the start.

    Only private enterprise can pull the country back to growth. It may be unpopular to say so now, but it won’t be after it happens. Every privatisation was unpopular before the event. Every mooted tax rise is liked in theory, but hated in practice. Every loosening of the restrictins has been carried out in the teeth of public opposition. Still, nothing succeeds like success. It is time for Britain to haul itself from the pupa of lockdown, spread its wings and leave the unwanted weight behind.

    1. The state isn’t interested in cutting back. It sees it’s sole intent is to continue to spend as much as it can. It will never, ever consider spending less. That will be the destruction of this country. The treasury just doesn’t seem to understand the basics of economics.

  42. Third coronavirus vaccine is more effective than Pfizer or Russian jab. 16 November 2020,

    A third coronavirus vaccine is even more effective than either the Pfizer/BioNTech or Russian jab, interim trial results suggest.

    Just a week after pharma giant Pfizer announced it had succeeded in creating a vaccine which protects 90 per cent of people, the US biotech company Moderna said its version was successful in 94.5 per cent of trial participants.

    Of course it is! Does anyone believe any of this? My credulity is exhausted!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/11/16/third-coronavirus-vaccine-effective-pfizer-russian-jab/

    1. And if the 5% it doesn’t cure it kills, it will be deadlier than the virus itself for most people.

      Yes I know that vaccines don’t cure they immunise. But they can kill.

      1. This one is a preventive that imitates the little sticky out knobs on the virus. This fools our immune system into taking action by winding up thr immune system and the T2 cells, or something. Unlike previous vaccines that have involved being jabbed with a dead version of the disease or a mild relative.

        3. I’ve read that it’s a unique approach, though that may be fake news.

          If it really is the first time it’s been done in humans I would have thought that it should be getting more testing not less?

        4. It’s messenger RNA and the message is:make these virus bits, the little sticky out bits and we should get a goodly reaction from our host with antibodies and hopefully some T cells with long term memory of the assault.

          1. Small point. It’s B cells that ‘retain memory’ and produce antibodies. T cells are killer cells.

    2. I do not believe it is vaccine. “Pfizer’s history of being fined billions for illegal marketing and for bribing government officials to help them cover up an illegal drug trial that killed eleven children (among other crimes) has gone unmentioned by most mass media outlets, which instead have celebrated the apparently imminent approval of the company’s Covid-19 vaccine without questioning the company’s history or that the mRNA technology used in the vaccine has sped through normal safety trial protocols and has never been approved for human use. Also unmentioned is that the head of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Patrizia Cavazzoni, is the former Pfizer vice president for product safety who covered up the connection of one of its products to birth defects.”

      https://unlimitedhangout.com/2020/11/reports/us-uk-intel-agencies-declare-cyber-war-on-independent-media/

      1. The only good thing that Pfizer made is called ‘Caverject’.

        Go look it up for 4 hours of fun.

    3. This virus kills people aged 82.4 on average. The average life expectancy is 81.2. So, best catch Covid19 then!

      On the other hand more than 99% of those who catch this virus recover! So why do we need a vaccine?

      1. Exactly. What and where is the logic? But if one has ‘other plans’ then the natural logic which people instinctively feel gets lost in the dash to complete those plans.

        1. Gibbet-ready and brilliant like Boris’s WA?

          (Scaffold were the group that recorded Lily the Pink)

  43. 326460+ up ticks,
    Since the 24 / 6 / 2016 these so called brexiteers have, via a joint effort made intentionally, a complete dogs bollocks of the hard worked for, hard won Brexitexit referendum.

    One to get his life back whilst initially running a protect johnson successful campaign, then johnson acting out his treacherous continuation as the nose cone of the semi re-entry missile after the first two stages the wretch
    cameron / may the treacherous burnt out.

    No honour among politico’s,
    It is the “beginning of the end” for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Brexit leader Nigel Farage said on Sunday, following the British leader’s ousting of Vote Leave director Dominic Cummings from Downing Street.

    Ogga’s personal view.

    1. Totally agree Ogga. As soon as Dominic Cummings was ousted that was it. Over the weekend there was a piece about David Frost, our Brexit negotiator, sayingThe UK’s chief negotiator has warned “we may not succeed” in securing a Brexit trade deal as he made a surprise arrival in Brussels for renewed talks.

      Lord Frost signalled that he would not be deviating from Boris Johnson’s “red lines” amid speculation that the departure of Dominic Cummings from No 10 could herald concessions.

        1. Sorry sos. Apologies. But is it evening already?

          Good afternoon everyone. On a good note only 15 more days and the next day we are released from prison. 😅😅😅

          1. It was David Frost’s catch phrase, when he introduced his TV shows in the 1960’s..

            You left your first post “hanging in the air” ending with the word “saying”.

            I posted before you then replied to yourself.

          3. Until they extend it, vw, because of details from the latest science, via Imperial College (of the lunatics).

      2. I don’t want concessions to be made. I want WTO rules. However like many others I don’t altogether feel confident about the real end game. And that’s putting it mildly!

        1. Not on this occasion. Most of it is included in my post above. Perhaps you caught what I posted before I’d finished it. Was having trouble with finding the piece and had to add afterwards.

          2. Ah, no problem – i have refreshed the page and there it was.

            Of course the media organised this witch-hunt against Cummings because he was the only person who gave Johnson a spine, unfortunately his trip to Barnard Castle (I think there was more involved there than they want us to know) played straight into their hands – after that it was only a matter of time. I noticed that the no 1 transgressor, Ferguson, did not get the same media treatment even though he was the one who pushed for lockdown (and thus broke his own rules) whereas Cummings was advising for herd immunity and got the book and everything else thrown at him. My heart sank when I saw he had resigned on Friday. And even if we do get a No Deal now we will be straight into the hands of the globalists. I wonder if Cummings will spill the beans? Didn’t one of them say (I can’t remember which one now, but it wasn’t Cummings) that if he was sacked he would tell the public everything?

          3. I would dearly love your last sentence to be true. Wouldn’t that be fun. Apparently Boris has said that “we will still be friends” about Lee Cain. Whoever it was would have to have a much stronger hold over Boris than Carrie. Although she’s really got a stranglehold on him hasn’t she.

          4. What’s that old saying – “when you have them by the ba££s, their hearts and minds follow”??

    2. Totally agree Ogga. As soon as Dominic Cummings was ousted that was it. Over the weekend there was a piece about David Frost, our Brexit negotiator, sayingThe UK’s chief negotiator has warned “we may not succeed” in securing a Brexit trade deal as he made a surprise arrival in Brussels for renewed talks.

      Lord Frost signalled that he would not be deviating from Boris Johnson’s “red lines” amid speculation that the departure of Dominic Cummings from No 10 could herald concessions.

  44. Good morning, my friends

    We must ask ourselves if Carrie Symonds has blown it for Boris Johnson in the same way as Monica Lewinski blew it for Bill Clinton.

        1. George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Jeff Bezos prefer their US Presidents when they’re utterly corrupt.

          1. and inert. We’ll await the clip of Demented Joe break dancing with BLM, presumably on the graves of those who voted for him [or more accurately] them contained within the list you posted

    1. Plod missed a trick there. When walking up the aisle they should have drawn their weapons. Can’t have people sticking two fingers up to authority now can we…

          1. Prey Wadda I know about religious figures ? 🤡 clowns to the left of me 😎 jokers to the right 👀 here i am……….

    2. Police were acting on information received according to the article. There seems to be no shortage of clipes. Good for the pastor for pushing against this dreadful demand to keep churches shut. Church services are social events, births, marriages and deaths. To inhibit them is to do great damage to society. All in line with the Frankfurt School approach.

      1. …and against the Imams in the Mosques – of course, they’re all closed – except in Mr Rashid’s front room @ £10 a time.

  46. A sample of just 2,000 people becomes “80% of Brits back criminalizing anti-vax posts”. Oh, really? I don’t think so. Just goes to show that if the pollster selects the people very carefully and words the questions to produce the ‘right’ answers…

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/11/16/covid-censorship-80-per-cent-of-brits-back-criminalising-anti-vax-posts-online/

    A leading BTL comment:

    I have seen some fake polls in my time but this must be one of the worst of the lot. To claim based on a survey of 2,000 people, that 80% of British people support “prosecution of those who share supposed misinformation online about vaccines” is ridiculous.

    A poll of 2,000 people is far too small to even be statistically signficiant based on a nation with a population of 70 million plus.

    Also calling people who question an untested, rushed to market vaccine for a virus with a 99.9% survival rate as dangerous and anti-vax; is major misinformation.

    2. 2,000 is the accepted minimum sample size for national polls. The problem is how they are selected to avoid biases.

    3. I hate to be the one to break this to them, but a correctly chosen sample of 2,000 even within such a large cohort with a question/series of questions that eliminated biases would actually give pretty good results.

      The reason such polls should never be trusted is because in most instances the questioners have an answer that they want to create. That is done by judicious use of a biased sample population aided by a careful posing of the questions to give the result required.

      3. As practised by those setting up game shows. You do not fix the contest itself, you fix who enters the contest. Masterchef, Bake-off, Take Your Pick.

        1. Was anyone surprised when Nadiya won Bake-off? She was set up from the start – not that I watched it or ever have. She may well be a good baker, and personable as a presenter, but she was predestined to win.

          1. Yes, that’s my point. TV contests of all sorts are entertainment, first and foremost. If contestants are given the answers, is that cheating? If the race has 12 horses and eleven of them have only three legs the fixers can be fairly sure of the result*. We may feel that it is cheating because we have all ploughed through endless exams. Exams are set to make a fair assessment among candidates. We have been trained mentally and physically to think that way. We get nervous in exam conditions and we abhor “cheats”.
            Entertainment programmes are about entertaining viewers, garnering high ratings and raking in advertising revenue.

            * Just do not let the public vote. We don’t want another John Sergeant scenario do we?

          2. Especially when Hollywood quite openly and deliberately snapped off the handle of a superbly made and engineered working chocolate well a guy had made. Whilst all Nadir had offered a replica of a Dodo (supposed to be a peacock) using shop bought blue icing and what looked like smarties slapped on the tail.

          4. Yes, Anne, I thought the same, indeed I posted
            my thoughts on the DT letters comments; I was
            derided as usual, by the usual derider.

          5. I did watch it in those days but the Nadiya-fest finished me off. I knew as soon as I saw the line-up who was going to win the contest and I stopped watching the programme and all episodes thereafter from that moment. She is a creation of al beeb.

          6. There is a similar situation on Sky Arts’ Portrait Artist of the Year. Three very pretentious “judges” from the world of art frequently select someone whose artistic talent and ability is somewhat lower than that of Congo the chimp on Zoo Time back in the 1950s.

            There have been some seriously talented artists but they invariably get looked over for someone who is “less traditional” and “more contemporary” (i.e. crap). In the early years, the best artists won, but that is no longer the case.

          7. I did watch it in those days but the Nadiya-fest finished me off.
            Same here PPM, we have a good friend who has at least one excellent cookery/cake baking books in circulation, she applied to be on the programme but was turned down with out good reason, probably because she lives in an upper middle class area, is white and has proven she can bake.
            Another of our friends taught Nadir at school. The teacher one told us she wasn’t impressed.

          16. I saw the reports of the line-up at the beginning and knew then she would be the winner. I didn’t need to spend several hours of my life watching something I knew I wasn’t interested in.

    4. Yep. I have the book. “Questionnaire Design and Attitude Measurement” by A.N. Oppenheim. 1966.
      Preface” “The world is full of well-meaning people who believe that anyone who can write plain English and has a modicum of common sense can produce a good questionnaire. This book is not for them.”

    5. I doubt if they asked anyone here. I suppose they had to find a few dissenters to make it sound authentic.

  47. Gardening for you. I lifted the half dozen remaining box hedge plants. Half an hour. Then I thought I’d snip off four long shoots of Kifsgate rose. And then go for a bike ride.

    Discovered that the whole caboodle had come away from the wires. (It covers one end of the house). So – two ladders, extension lead, drill etc etc – discovering that the masonry drill I needed is in the garage of my neighbour in Laure-Minervois – (he cleared everything for me….)….and an hour and a half later, as darkness fell – just managed to insert two new cleats and tie it back. Another one is needed tomorrow. I’ll start earlier…{:¬))

      1. It goes quite mad. The height of the house – will get on to the roof if one isn’t careful. Same sort of rate of expansion as the yellow Banksia.

          1. The former Rector of our parish has one; it reaches the length of his (not inconsiderable) garden.

          3. I have another RR which covers the north wall of the house, reaches above the upstairs window & right along the south wall of the garage.

      2. Comments please, Peddy on a rose – Queen of Sweden – we have a neighbour, she is Hibernian- Swedish and has been a tower of strength while Best Beloved and I have been laid low with food-poisoning (Salmonella – my fault) and has walked Dotty for the last three days.

        In recognition of this, Best Beloved has bought her a rose for her garden (Pernilla is a keen gardener) called Queen of Sweden; is any particular care needed?

        1. New one on me, but I found this on Google…

          Caring for Queen of Sweden Roses:
          If you live in a hot or dry region, then you should check your roses every 4 to 5 days to be safe. You also should consider giving your Queen of Sweden roses a dose of a granular all-purpose fertilizer in the very early spring when the leaves begin to open.

          Queen of Sweden Roses – 1001 Landscaping Ideas

    1. That’s what they call building back better and greener.

      If that really is oil then it should surely be possible to prosecute the bastards.

      3. If oil it is a hazardous substance and the Fire Brigade should be called to undertake its removal.

        These XR people have a similar mindset to the animal rights protesters. Nothing matters to them but the promulgation of their mad views to the exclusion of common sense debate. They are also exhibitionists as seen in the clip.

          1. When they poured “blood” all over things a few months ago it was just coloured water. I suspect this is the same. As it isn’t an offence to pour water on a pavement they can get away with making a bloody nuisance of themselves without, technically, breaking the law. Vegetable dyes of the sort they use don’t even cause any sort of pollution.

          2. If it’s a dye, presumably it has some level of retention.

            It should not be beyond the authorities to find something to charge them with that might result in their lives being disrupted as much as they try to disrupt the lives of the general population.

          3. Behaviour whereby a Breach of the Peace might be occasioned
            according to Moriarty’s Police Law. Lurking somewhere in my bookcases.

          5. They generally break down very quickly. Back in the days of potato quotas stock feed spuds had to be sprayed with dye to prevent them being sold for human consumption. The earlier dye was purple and lasted for ages. The later dye was bright blue and if the heap wasn’t covered and the rain was heavy the colour had often gone by the time the farmer who had bought them for his cows came to collect.

            If they are using that sort of stuff (and they almost certainly are, because they seem to be quite clued up regarding many of their antics), then the retention is minimal and you certainly couldn’t get them for any sort of pollution. It’s a lot less harmful than a lot of the stuff that goes down storm drains, quite legitimately, any day of the week.

            My own feeling is that rather more could be made of the laws regarding breach of the peace and perhaps the owners / managers / occupiers of some of these premises could bring action for interference with lawful trade. Their tactics are abominable and are making their causes less reputable, but they don’t seem to have worked that out.

          6. Any plod with any ingenuity could almost certainly find something in the statutes that would really hurt them, senior plod can’t be bothered.

          7. They have, on occasions, arrested them by the dozen; but they do seem to have backed off. I would agree that there should be a viable route to stopping such disruption. An occasionally good tempered march is one thing, but this endless wrecking is a different matter.

      4. If oil it is a hazardous substance and the Fire Brigade should be called to undertake its removal.

        These XR people have a similar mindset to the animal rights protesters. Nothing matters to them but the promulgation of their mad views to the exclusion of common sense debate. They are also exhibitionists as seen in the clip.

      6. It’ll be special “green” oil that causes no problems. The plod won’t want to get it on their rainbow uniforms, though.

    4. Not for long after looking at that! Utterly disgusting. Why aren’t they arrested? For litter if need be.

    2. Bert “It reminds me of when we were courting Ada.”
      Ada “What, when Papa locked me into that chastity belt?”

    4. In the torturers chair in an hour of radio I heard that godawful face space toilet paper advert three times. It’s brain washing.

    6. Ada: “Where shall we not go tonight?”
      Bert: “Anywhere you like, as long as we stay here”.

    7. Bert – what’s the difference between being locked down and being locked up?

      Ada – Don’t know Bert, what is the difference between being locked down and being locked up?

      Bert – Don’t know Ada, that is why I was asking you.

  50. Nicked from The Grimes – made me smile – (rare, these days, unless kittens are involved)

    “Tweet of the month from @craiguito:

    “I’m going to open a restaurant and then start awarding prizes to tyre companies for the best tyres. See how Michelin f***ing likes it.””

    1. Our small cottage has just been awarded a “Travellers’ Choice” award by Trip Advisor.

      Just in time for yet another ruined letting season. We’re in two minds whether to even bother to open it up for next year having had 100% cancellations of the early bookings, thanks to the restrictions.

      {:-((

      1. The family with whom we B&B’d in Martel were able to open for part of the summer. She e-mailed me today to ask how things were – ad was quite pleased with her season – albeit truncated.

        Perhaps there is a difference between B&B and renting a gite….

        We are about to write off my 80th birthday trip to Cap d’Ail. We reckon the “third wave” will be announced as soon as Christmas/New Year is out of the way – and be blamed on the public “selfishly” celebrating the year end festival.

          1. True. Sylvie must be about 40. She loves it – and is an amazing cook, though she only does breakfasts.

            She said that Martel (which is always pretty quiet after September) is dead. All cafés, bars, restos shut.

          2. We’ve just had an e-mail from one of our favourite restaurants, hanging on by their fingernails.

            Just about surviving with takeaways but they will probably be forced out of business as they can only cater for the immediate locals.

  51. The only way Boris Johnson can possibly redeem himself with any integrity left intact would be to secure a ‘no deal Brexit’ and then resign – not only from being prime minister and Conservative Party leader but also as an MP,

    He should then leave the country permanently and settle overseas – possibly in Turkey the land of his origins.

        1. Maybe he should become a Muslim? Muslim men know how to keep women in their proper place.

          (Runs for cover. Caroline is looking for the rolling pin!)

          4. So what you’re saying (© Cathy Newman) is that Caroline doesn’t wholeheartedly reciprocate your worship of everything she says & does.

  52. Finished decorating for today, bad light stopped play.

    What’s been going on in the world, has Boris sold us out yet? Has sleepy Joe finished printing out the necessary number of ballot papers in his basement?

    Cynical, moi?

  55. Anyone else been logged out of disqus and spent half an hour trying several different ways to get back in?

    3. It happens occasionally. Until a few minutes ago I thought that it has been a pleasant few days where my downvoter is absent. Whoever it is has returned.

      2. For what it’s worth, I tend to view downvotes as the equivalent of two upvotes. The flak is greatest when you’re over the target. Oh – and “Whoever it is” is JSP…

          1. He got you right in the bullseye.

            Think happy thoughts Jenny and we will all sing along with you. 🙂

        4. Geoff, please check, if you can, why disqus doesn’t shew updates and new comments. Are we being ‘got at’ by GCHQ. I’m not a great believer in conspiracy theories but, am I wrong so to do?

          2. Tom, I’m prolly (©BT) a conspiracy theorist, but I believe the multitude of Disqus “issues” are down to the fact that Disqus is crap software with negligible support.

          3. I’ll bet the ‘THEY’ have been latched on to Nottlers for a long time. The have even sent in ‘special agents’ to instigate hate crime.

          5. She was so rude to me in a previous life. Keep calling her Jenny she hates it.
            And the-artic or what ever his name is. Pain in the arse all of them.

          6. I doubt it, I think Geoff is right, it’s just bad (free) software. Nobody’s really motivated to fix the problems.

  56. If the vaccines that have been produced are effective and safe, does this mean that we can see faster trials in future, thus reducing the costs of drugs across the board? Or will Big Pharma continue to milk their fat salaries and fees?

    2. The Pfizer MRNA vaccine has never before been allowed in human trials. It should be avoided at all costs.

      As with Thalidomide it takes years for the effects of some drugs to be realised. In that case a drug devised to relieve tension in pregnant women gave rise to multiple birth defects.

      Not so long ago another drug tested on indigent students caused one lad’s head to swell up and others to fall very seriously ill requiring intensive hospital care. Some subjects have never fully recovered.

      There is good reason to test potions made in laboratories on animals such as mice and rats. You can mess with DNA with transgenic mice and so on but to do so on humans should be prevented by law.

      1. Anything that has the slightest chance of messing with one’s genetic code should be avoided as corimmobile states above.

        RNA:

        The central dogma of molecular biology suggests that the primary role of RNA is to convert the information stored in DNA into proteins. In reality, there is much more to the RNA story.

        mRNA:

        Messenger RNA (mRNA) is a single-stranded RNA molecule that is complementary to one of the DNA strands of a gene. The mRNA is an RNA version of the gene that leaves the cell nucleus and moves to the cytoplasm where proteins are made.

        Start buggering about with genetic proteins and…

      2. I thought it was prescribed for morning sickness – although I could be wrong; it was a long time ago (but people are still living with the effects). How’s Sinbad? Still KBOing, I hope.

        1. Yup. It was prescribed for pregnant women. I read somewhere that it has been renamed and repurposed for some other condition or conditions.

          Sinbad is wobbling around the house. He has just been sick, probably we fed him too much. We discussed his condition with Dick White Referrals who are treating him and will try a different but possibly less effective seizure control drug and see how it goes.

          1. Poor Sinbad. Dolly is supposed to be on diet biscuits which she doesn’t like so i always keep some meat juices available to soften the experience.

            Perhaps a blander diet would help if Sinbad is being sick.

        2. This is all off the top of my head.
          I think it was prescribed for morning sickness; apparently it only had such appalling results for two weeks out of the forty weeks. But it was during the fortnight that arms and legs are developed.
          I read somewhere that is has proved to be effective for treating leprosy, but obviously they have to be very careful with young, female lepers.

          1. It was certainly prescribed for morning sickness, it was offered to my mother when she was expecting me, but she decided that she wasn’t bad enough to need pills.

            Teratogen generally do their harm between weeks 5 and 11 – or part thereof. So two weeks sounds pretty much right.

            It is now used to treat leprosy and certain myelomas, and is very effective. Pregnancy tests are de rigueur for quite a number of treatments – including almost all cancer drugs.

          2. I wonder what makes you think you should (and have) downvoted Corimmobile’s post identifying the problem with thalidomide. Are you short of a limb or two, or is it just a brain-fart?

          3. I wonder what makes you think you should (and have) downvoted Corimmobile’s post identifying the problem with thalidomide. Are you short of a limb or two, or is it just a brain-fart?

    1. That is one of the most depressing videos I’ve seen in a long time.

      At least it ends on a slightly more upbeat note.

        1. I’ve seen lots of his posts now, and so far there is very, very little that I’ve seen that I can quarrel with.

      1. Good evening Ndovu – I don’t think Duncan would be upset by a spat. He’s a tough old Scotsman . I suspect he lives up in the North of Scotland –
        I hope he is OK.

        1. Me too! I was thinking about him yesterday as I’m reading Para Handy again and he knows the language!

        2. I hope so too – but he told Richard to f……off and I wasn’t able to see what was said prior to that.

    4. Perhaps the Pudsey-mobile save the children chariot was due to go past his door and he headed for the hills?

        1. I have been trying to work out why I love it and why it resonates so much with me and others. I think it is because what comes across is the passion for the soil and land from which the lyricist is sprung, and the singer particularly in that example translates this for our ears and minds so well. ‘ Ilkley Moor’ (bhat ‘at) does it for me as also, it is somewhere on that spectrum, but not nearly so romantic!

          1. Schools don’t encourage beautiful singing or the introduction of countrysongs/ sea shanties or anything to do with our long lost culture , do they .

            Another one I remember is Rolling down to Rio, which was very jolly and colourful.

            I had to learn by heart , Clementina in LATIN.. which of course I can still remember and sing .. even though I haven’t drunk a drop for years.

            12/13 years old age I was like a piece of blotting paper .. I suddenly realised I enjoyed everything there was to learn , and more.

          2. All our lovely old songs seemed to disappear from schools about the same time as the maypole and maypole dancing in schools disappeared – the first deliberate attack I remember on our traditions and customs. I used to love the appearance of the maypole – the herald of spring and lovely weaving dances. I think the last time I danced around it was when I was seven, back in 1954. After that there was no sign of a maypole in schools – the edict had gone out.

    1. My little 5 year old grand son thought he was being very cleaver by telling as discretely as he could a little rhyme about wind.
      Beans beans are good the the heart the more you eat the more you f*rt.
      But i taught him the second verse which he thought was hilarious.
      The more you F*rt the better you feel, so eat bake beans for every meal.

  65. Still no ‘new’ comments. Checked my browser (Google Chrome) and can find no discrepancies.

  66. The EU has apparently agreed to set up a €2 Trillion fund to support recovery, between now and 2027 after Covid-19.
    Is this the same EU that is so completely against State aid they are determined that the UK should not give out State aid to UK businesses without their agreement? The same EU that has seen huge sums given in the past in State aid to shipyards across the EU from France to Finland? Has the notion of “level playing field” which was the EU war-cry not now become rather tilted?

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54964858

    2. Are the UK out of the EU as far as giving to the fund goes? Obviously you will not be receiving

      1. I doubt it and we have never received more than we put in except for 1975 – when we had the first referendum; strange, that.

      2. Maybe. In theory yes, but we have heard nothing recently. We may well be asked for a large contribution in return for a trade deal.

    3. The very same EU that gives funds to Turkey and Ukraine to persuade the population that there are orchards of money trees to be harvested, if they just join in.

  67. Something to cheer:

    Definition Of The Word “Coincidence”.

    A chicken farmer went to the local bar. He sat next to a woman and ordered champagne.

    The woman said, “How strange, I also just ordered a glass of champagne”.

    “What a coincidence” said the farmer, who added, “It is a special day for me – I’m celebrating”

    “It is a special day for me too, I am also celebrating!” said the woman.

    “What a coincidence” said the farmer.

    While they toasted, the man asked: “What are you celebrating?”

    “My husband and I are trying to have a child for years, and today, my gynaecologist told me that I was pregnant”.

    “What a coincidence!” said the man. ” I’m a chicken farmer and for years all my hens were infertile, but now they are all set to lay fertilized eggs.”

    “This is awesome” said the woman. “What did you do for your chickens to become fertile?”

    “I used a different rooster.” the farmer said.

    The woman smiled and said: “What a coincidence”

  69. Just read this comment over at Conservative Woman:

    Chris Q46 • 8 hours ago
    She is Minister for the Prime Minister’s Trousers and is MP for Willy-on-the-Wold.

    Just about sums it up, I think!

    1. Where one leads, everyone else follows. I guess that we should be expecting the same.

      Our police did break up a few Diwali parties at the weekend, just proving that they are equal I suppose.

    2. That finger wagging prat needs to be put down. The man is an idiot, has no clinical knowledge or understanding and seems to wish to be the next Goebbels.

      1. I guess that someone disagrees a little but not enough to get into a bun fight.

        Ant idiot, no clinical knowledge or understanding – prime ministerial qualities if ever.

  72. Wisconsin have accounced that if Trump wants a recount, his campaign must cough up the money needed to pay for it, a mere $7.9 million.

    My these US politicians really play dirty.

      1. I doesn’t appear to be so. If the vote difference is less than .25%, it is paid for by the state but they are saying the difference is .69%, therefore the party appealing the result pays the cost.

        The recount in 2016 only cost $2 million, obviously they think that he can afford to pay more.

        I can see they want to stop unwarranted appeals but that is one hell of a price to contest a close result.

        1. I’d contribute to that if I thought it would find the fraud. I do think there probably were dirty doings on a huge scale, judging by the very different results in the counties that traditionally elect the winner.
          It’s not about Trump, it’s about people getting away with blatantly cheating. Democracy is dead when the election can be controlled.

  73. A BTL comment under an article in today’s DT by a chap called Mark Hammond which I have borrowed:

    “I’m looking forward to the Cummings biography on Boris :

    “PRINCESS NUT NUT AND THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF THE MISSING TESTICLES”

    It should be on the shelves for Christmas. “

      1. You don’t hear much of him these days – thank God. Too busy with all the migrants living in his many homes, I suppose.

        1. Rather cryptic and so had to think about that. Is it Ed or his harridan of a wife? Can’t be bothered to recall her name.

          5. Of the barrel making fraternity. Always looks as if she’s just finished sucking a sack of the sourest lemons known to man.

            Thanks for reminder, Ndovu.

    1. Comments up and below line working ok here but I was logged out for some reason and had trouble getting back in. I never log out so I don’t know what happened there.

        2. Probably being monitored by GCHQ. Oddly, one of the ways i tried to get in was via Twitter and it came up with an account I’d never used on Twitter, or anywhere else for that matter.

          1. I noticed recently that my LinkedIn profile was viewed by Norfolk Constabulary. Perhaps they need an architect.

            I did work on Norwich Cathedral and on the original Norwich Union Fire Assurance Offices in Surrey Street about 25 years ago. Neither have fallen down yet as a result of my interventions.

          2. I noticed recently that my LinkedIn profile was viewed by Norfolk Constabulary. Perhaps they need an architect.

            I did work on Norwich Cathedral and on the original Norwich Union Fire Assurance Offices in Surrey Street about 25 years ago. Neither have fallen down yet as a result of my interventions.

          3. Norfolk Constabulary probably don’t even realise they have left ‘footprints in the snow’.

          5. I’ve lost my password, so there’s no way I’m going to be able to log in to Linkedin – especially since the email address I signed up with is now defunct.

          6. Ah, Memories of Norwich when stationed at RAF West Raynham on 85 Squadron:

            I’ve mentioned before, certain forays into the girl-chasing arena but every so often a bunch of us would go out together just to go on a pub-crawl, visit a jazz club or even involve ourselves in a bit of joie-de-vivre with the girls at the Samson & Hercules Ballroom. One such event sticks in my mind because of a somewhat humorous outcome. Having amused ourselves among the Norwich nightlife, bought beer to take back, we parked Dave Bocking’s Bedford Dormobile – forerunner of the MPV – and looked for blotting-paper in the form of fish and chips just on the outskirts of Norwich en route to camp at about 11 o’clock. One guy, I think it was Jim Nightingale, climbed back into the van, looking for a little tincture, only to utter in a loud voice “Where’s me fucking beer?” at which point the local arm of the law poked his head round the back door, shining his torch into the van and asking, “What’s all this sexual beer then?” We were then given a stern lecture on the misuse of foul language in public and sent on our way, thoroughly chastened. I suppose today (2020) we would all have been set upon by the Special Patrol Group in full riot gear with batons and shields, bundled into the cells somewhere and left until Monday morning to appear before the local magistrate charged with various breaches of the peace. Thank heavens for good old-fashioned coppering.

          9. Cat burglars…

            They are trying to cat….ch that Thomas chap and are reviewing his known acco plo mices.

          10. Did you ever avail yourself of the hospitality of any of Norwich’s many splendid hostelries? I’ve sampled most of them (and I quite miss them too).

          11. Probably in the seventies when I shared a flat in London with a friend whose parents lived in Attleborough (Quidenham to be precise) and we would go into Norwich when visiting them. When I returned to work on Norwich Cathedral the pubs we had frequented had gone apart from the Adam & Eve which may itself have now gone.

            I was obliged to commute from North Essex to Offices in Ferry Road, a round trip of around 180 miles by car every day so had little time for rediscovering old watering holes.

            I was working on the scaffolding to the tower from around 9.00am to 16.00pm, timing my descent to coincide with Evensong and waiting in the Tower on a stone ledge for it to finish before leaving by a heavy oak door which creaked and had an even noisier deadlock. I spent about 9 months measuring the masonry, iron belfry louvres and sundry other elements and formulating repairs, then overseeing the Masons charged with carrying out the repair works.

            We sometimes took a meal at the Baron of Beef on Gentleman’s Walk.

            In the seventies we were told that Norwich had 365 pubs and 52 churches, the significance of which was never lost. I doubt that Norwich has half that number of pubs today. Parts were unrecognisable to me the last time I passed through.

          16. I used that one for a while on Facebook and also on a blog I used to do for HHH. Never on Twitter.

          19. I’m not sure whether it’s Google or Windows 10, but when I allow a website to access my location, it’s in Wishaw. Which is a long way from Guildford…

          20. Facebook keeps telling me I’m in Wrecsam – well, boyo, in that case I would no longer be locked down, then, would I? Miles out!

          21. FB thinks I’m in Lambeth, so SE1 instead of W6 but hey, it’s all London. Where is FB headquarters – California somewhere?

          24. Strange place. I did a Laura Ashley there quite a few years ago in a large warehouse type development. Nothing much going on in the town but loads of men drinking and smoking outside pubs during the morning was my principal recollection. Presumably all were on benefits.

            It was in stark contrast to Chester where we did another Laura Ashley in a similar shed like development.

            A scheme for a Laura Ashley in Wirral (Telegraph Road Heston) fell through and I was asked to forfeit my fee for the survey by some Malaysian incompetent. The same happened on a proposed development at Sheffield Meadowhall where I wasted a great deal of time and effort.

            Malaysians had bought the company. I refused to do further work for them and joined a very long list of other architects in the UK who had given up on them. A flat fee of £6000.00 and a requirement to pay £600.00 to some factor in Liverpool for the CDM from the fee was the final straw.

            I have no idea as of this moment how Laura Ashley are faring except to say that the originally successful premises in Bury St Edmunds, quite near to us, is closed down.

            I mention all of this because this country of ours is being systematically sold out to foreign companies who have little regard for our laws and values. Many have no integrity whatsoever and view us as prize fools.

  77. Evening, all. I thought Bojo’s government was on track; keep the populace subdued, terrified out of their minds, malleable and cowed so they could do what they like. My local rag had an article about plans to make vaccination mandatory – you heard it here first, folks! Finally, a heads up; November 19th is Men’s Day.

    2. Hmm, when I was signing in, I notice that Google are celebrating a non-event, “National Transgender Week”.

      Since changing one’s sex is impossible and they don’t recognise that ‘Gender’ is only a grammatical construct, how do they celebrate changing le penis to la penis?

      1. That will probably be how it will turn out, Bill, but the news I got (from a mental health association I subscribe to) was that it didn’t differentiate by colour. Surprising, I know. Suicide is one of the greatest killers of young men.

  78. Chief Constable faces backlash after describing anti-lockdown protesters as ‘idiots’ and ‘stupid’
    Andy Marsh issued an angrily worded statement after around 400 people gathered for a demonstration and march in Bristol on Saturday
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/11/16/chief-constable-faces-backlash-describing-anti-lockdown-protesters/

    This is the same man who presided over the pulling down of the Colston statue in Bristol in June this year during the first lockdown, and allowed his officers to stand by and do nothing –
    “To arrest suspects would likely to lead to injuries to suspects, injuries to officers, and people who were not involved in damaging property being thrown into a very violent confrontation with the police that could have had serious ramifications for the city of Bristol and beyond” Mr Marsh said. .

    And he is calling the lockdown protesters ‘idiots’.

  81. On the subject of Duncan…I had a vague memory that a while ago he was hinting at a modest retreat from the fray for health reasons. My memory was wrong. Here’s the message from the last week of September. Perhaps Mrs Mac isn’t so well.

    ‘Afternoon, all.

    I’ve spent the morning on the ‘phone with my family discussing the long-standing arrangements we had made for Christmas this year and we’ve reached the unanimous decision that we will not allow the Covid scamdemic to alter them, should restrictions still be in place, as seems likely. I have a large family – three sons and a daughter who have between them eleven children – and we will ALL be celebrating this Christmas at my house. Luckily, I have a big house, well isolated and secure from prying eyes, and plenty of room to accommodate everybody.

    Realistically, we may never get another chance to gather together in this way. Mrs. Mac and I have reached an age at which we must consider how many years we have left. Although I’ve no health problems – my doctor always pronounces me disgustingly fit at my annual medicals – Mrs. Mac is not so fortunate. Some five+ years ago, she suffered a DVT, underwent an operation to remove a blood clot in her leg, and subsequent scans revealed that she’d had a previous heart attack, which went undiagnosed at the time. The result is that she’s on daily medication to control her condition and she has been fitted with a cardioverter defibrillator which monitors her heart and, if necessary, acts to restore it to a natural rhythm by administering a small electric shock. If that happens, I’m under orders to call an ambulance ASAP.

    So we will NOT obey the bumbling zombie that is our Prime Minister, nor the screeching harridan at Holyrood, both of whom have issued – and continue to issue – unconstitutional diktats curtailing our cherished freedoms, freedoms for which previous generations made so great a sacrifice.

    I spent my entire working life as a soldier, serving my country and – due to my career – Mrs. Mac made her own sacrifices, as do all military wives. I believe that my service has earned us the right to enjoy a normal family life, not to spend our old age cowering behind masks, forbidden to see our grandchildren.

    And there it is, we will not submit to this Stalinist tyranny. As far as we’re concerned, Waffling Boris and Wee Krankie can stick their edicts and their “New Normal” where the sun never shines.

    And a remarkable 51 upvotes.

    1. I do remember his ‘last post’, and hope he and his clan have plenty of ammunition for Christmas.

    2. only a politician on a power trip would argue with that logic.

      Leave with a bang, don’t hide in a corner.

    3. I remember that post – defiant to the last – and I hope Mrs Mac is ok and that they will indeed have a good family Christmas. Is anybody in touch with him by email to find out?

    4. I think i remember reading that. And i totally agree with him, hopefully he and his family will have a good Christmas and the rest of us with our families as we all deserve to have.
      I don’t have a pocket click counter, but i wish i had a fiver for every time since April i have said this country is finished, well totally effed up actually. It’s what our politicos do best. I’d have a few extra hundred quid in the bank.
      I saw the news this evening and what i think it was Hastings council, in the ‘infinite wisdom’ had started to remove public benches in the town because people were sitting on them and had the audacity to be drinking alcohol. Others apparently felt intimidated, when they mentioned others i suspect it might have been at least one person who decide to make a complaint. That seems to be the way of thing these days. But it brings to light that there seems to be no way whatsoever to ‘Fix Stoopid’.

        1. Funny you might say that Conners,
          I wonder how they have been coping using all this hand sanitiser.

          1. I expect they haven’t been using it; their hygiene habits leave a lot to be desired, unfortunately.

    6. I sympathise completely with Duncan and his wife who has suffered horribly.

      I had DVT about ten years ago and collapsed unconscious for a few minutes until my wife revived me. My wife called a paramedic who gave me oxygen whilst trying to arrange car insurance on her mobile phone for her husband’s BMW.

      It was close to Christmas and she (the paramedic) suggested I drink lots of water and that I was probably showing symptoms of that year’s tummy bug.

      Eventually my right leg caused me such pain that I could barely hobble around the house. After two weeks of agony my wife took me to the surgery in Clare. At first the doctor thought I had what the paramedic had prescribed but then tore up his prescription and asked me to roll up my trouser legs. One leg was considerably enlarged compared with the other below the knee.

      The doctor phoned West Suffolk Hospital in Buy St Edmunds who presumably confirmed his diagnosis. The doctor told my wife to drive to the hospital immediately and sent a note to emergency admissions.

      Sure enough I had DVT and was detained on a ward for a few days for treatment and then put on Warfarin with the added delight of compression hose which I then had to pay for. Now I get both on the NHS for ‘free’ given the fact that I still pay taxes.

      I mention this because it displays the faults in our healthcare systems. An incompetent paramedic failing to carry out rigorous assessment of my condition and the resulting delay in my treatment which might have killed me.

    1. Tommy Cooper………..i walked into a bar last night……..it didn’t half hurt, it was an iron bar. Just like that.

  84. I bought a new Dominion dishwasher yesterday… It’s unbelievable… So far, it says it’s washed… 5,572,497 forks… 4,758,002 spoons… 3,927,226 glasses and 6,877,983 pots and pans… and then there’s what it says it did for china……….

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