Thursday 3 December: Vaccination certificates could prevent arguments over access to venues

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be banned.

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/12/03/lettersvaccination-certificates-could-prevent-arguments-access/

909 thoughts on “Thursday 3 December: Vaccination certificates could prevent arguments over access to venues”

  1. Good morning all from a wet and dark Derbyshire.
    A large number of letters praising the vaccine this morning I see.

    SIR – I hope this Government is going to issue certificates of vaccination in some form, which can be shown when required (at care homes, at places of entertainment, for flights). If they do not, lots of local arguments will ensue.

    Peter Leon
    London N6

    SIR – Professor Ian Jones (report, December 1) says that a vaccine passport “is tantamount to making the vaccine compulsory, which no other vaccine is”.

    But yellow fever vaccination is compulsory for entry to 20, mainly African, countries. This is both to “protect the traveller”, says the World Health Organisation, and “to prevent the international spread of the disease”.
    Nicola Lawson
    Long Melford, Suffolk

    SIR – It was good to hear that the Pfizer vaccine had received UK regulatory approval.

    I was wondering how long it would take for the European Medicines Agency to complete its investigations. From what I can tell, it could be by December 29.

    I suppose we have to allow time for the paperwork to be translated and for the bureaucrats in Brussels to have their Christmas holiday, but it seems to me that there will be a considerable number of additional deaths in Europe solely because the EU takes forever to deal with important issues.

    Bob Daunton
    London W7

    SIR – Since not everyone can receive vaccination immediately it makes sense that healthcare workers should receive first priority. However, I do worry that the police, fire service and Armed Forces are not included in the first round.

    These are the people on whom we depend just as much as NHS staff.

    I am over 80 and have a son who is a police officer. I would rather he received protection before me.

    Ian Smart
    Aston Clinton, Buckinghamshire

    SIR – I live in rural north Dorset with a low rate of Covid infections. Lockdown has ended but still I cannot go to our village pub for a drink with my husband, and I cannot invite friends in for a socially distanced cup of coffee or a G&T.

    This is lockdown in all but name. Bring on the vaccine.

    Celia Wright
    Hinton St Mary, Dorset

    SIR – The imminent deployment of vaccines demonstrates that the Prime Minister was absolutely correct in trying to keep everyone safe until this moment arrived.

    His detractors should now hang their heads in shame.

    Mike Aston
    Stourbridge, Worcestershire

    But there is one voice of caution:-

    SIR – We should remember that the complex roll-out of this vaccine will be controlled by a government that still cannot agree what a Scotch egg is.

    David Sherman
    Liverpool

    1. Morning Bob. The articles are the same, even Pritchard has been dragooned into this propaganda fest!

      1. I just hope the vaccine is benign. Yesterdays Berliner Zeitung was questioning the speed of approval (is it really smart to do it that fast?), and it also seems that POTUS is peeved taht the UK approved before the US.
        Looks like they hopped over elements of the testing regime – in return for no liability. And people really want injected with that stuff?? It might actually turn out to be a cure for stupid, after all – if they start dropping like flies.

    2. Morning Bob. The articles are the same, even Pritchard has been dragooned into this propaganda fest!

    4. There is a difference between compulsory vaccine for yellow fever (which has been around for years and is tried and tested) to travel and compulsory vaccine of some concoction that has been brought out in a rush, just to go about your everyday business.

  2. Good morning, all.

    All Hail Great Vaccine – Saviour of the World.

    Be odd if the plague gets worse rather than better….

    2. The Government and the Medics are taking a huge risk with a novel vaccine which the EU will not authorise for immediate use in the 27 EU countries.
      For our sakes I hope the Pfizer vaccine is safe. Pfizer has a history and for this vaccine it is not liable for compensation if the side effects are serious. I expect any compensation will be at tax payers expense.

  4. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR – As a second-home owner in France (report, November 28), I was encouraged to see this matter being brought to public attention, as the Government has chosen to ignore the issue completely, despite a parliamentary committee holding a hearing on the subject.

    All we second-home owners are asking for is reciprocity. Europeans can spend six months visa-free in Britain, while we are only allowed 90 days in a rolling 180.

    David J Dodd
    Gramont, Tarn-et-Garonne, France

    A bit like the fishing rules in the Channel, then? It doesn’t seem to matter if the regulations are not equal, so long as they favour the French.

    1. Get a carte de sejour. End of problem. It’s a different place now, Europe & UK. And that was the point.

        1. See above. No problem for us – just a trip to the prefecture at St Brieuc where we filled in a form and were interviewed.

          1. Then easy – now difficult. And there is a difference between foreigners living full time in France and second home owners whose main residence is probably in the UK.

      2. I believe that to get a carte de sejour he has to have been a permanent tax-resident in France for 5 years

      3. Caroline and I each had a carte de séjour when we first came to France but in 1992 it was no longer required. However we managed to get new ones without any trouble in 2018 before Britain formally left the EU.

        1. We had residency in Norway through the EFTA membership, but because a) it needed renewed annually, and b) I could see the EU referendum coming, we changed to a scheme whereby I had residency as a specialist. After 5 years, that became permanent residency for me & family, so unless that scheme is undone by the politicians, here we are.

    2. Don’t ever expect fairness or justice from a politician.

      When I had been resident in France for 15 years Blair decided to strip me of my voting rights in Britain. I would not have objected to this had I been allowed to vote in France but, because I was not French but British, I was not able to do so and was disenfranchised.

      Blair, a proclaimed enthusiast for the EU, should have organised reciprocal voting arrangements for British citizens working in EU countries but he never gave a toss for ordinary people and democracy.

  5. SIR – I recently experienced the marked difference between government agencies and commercial companies during the Covid crisis.

    I needed proof of income in connection with a property rental, so telephoned the two companies that administer my private pensions and the required information was sent to me electronically within minutes.

    When I rang the Freephone number listed on gov.uk, a recorded message said that, due to Covid, it was unable to deal with inquiries and one must view the information on its website. There currently appears to be no way of getting information from the state pension service other than by post.

    Robert Taylor
    Ruddington, Nottinghamshire

    Yes, Mr Taylor, currently the difference in the level of service provided by the private and public sectors is stark. And let’s not forget that it is the private sector that takes the risks and creates the wealth.

    2. ……and the public sector is on full pay while the private sector jobs are disappearing at a rate of knots.

  6. Yes, this ‘cuddly bunny’ approach to road and estate naming is indeed irritating:

    SIR – After a drive out to what used to be a village, it was infuriating to see yet another tacked- on estate named in “country” terms.

    Perhaps there was an orchard in Orchard Gardens before it was concreted over. In my own village, we have the Birch Meadow development, which was once a meadow.

    If we are going to annihilate the countryside, can we stop this nonsense? “Country” estate names are ridiculous and deceitful.

    Elena Mannion
    Barkway, Hertfordshire

    1. It’s the only way anyone will remember taht there was a countryside, to have country-sounding names.

      1. BTL Comment:-

        Robert Spowart
        3 Dec 2020 7:29AM
        The very valid issues raised by Ms Elena Mannion have been going on for decades.
        I remember one of my teachers during a lesson on agricultural history telling us how and why a then recently built housing estate in Alnwick had been named “Oaky Balks,” a name that went back to the old Three Field Rotation system.

    3. Precisely the reason why the Solar Power Stations, that are due to surround our rural villages, are referred to as ‘Solar Farms’, in order to give the impression of sheep grazing around the much depleted soil that is depleted due to it being in constant shade and, as you say, cuddly bunnies hopping through the small mammal holes left in the bottom of 10′ high fencing on either side of the current ancient footpaths.

      As someone commented to walk through those fenced off footpaths will be like visiting an Open Prison.

  7. Good Moaning.
    Sorry to upset everyone (not really) …. having a hair cut this morning.
    Ooooh ….. get me.

    1. I’m really enjoying all these goings on every evening, much better than watching tv and witnessing what is really occurring at the same time.

  10. Today’s DT Leader…and if we can show the EU a clean pair of heels as we race off into the distance, so much the better – so long as the “light at the end of the tunnel” isn’t an oncoming train in the form of a dodgy vaccine:

    The approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for use in the UK is an extraordinary achievement for the scientists and a turning point in the fight against Covid-19. For the first time since March, there is hope that the country can escape the interminable cycle of lockdowns, and that normality can return in full, not just a Covid-proofed semblance of it.

    The sheer speed at which this vaccine has been developed and approved is remarkable. In a year in which the power and size of the state has only seemed to grow, it is a triumph for human ingenuity, free enterprise, and the capacity of the private sector to innovate. Pfizer/BioNTech have created a jab, in a process the Prime Minister described last night as “biological jiu jitsu”, that has been shown to be up to 95 per cent effective, and in record time. That the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency was the first regulator in the world to approve the vaccine also points to the advantages of Brexit, and the nimbler governance that should flow from leaving the EU’s agencies. The EU’s own medical regulator is not expected to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech jab until the end of the year.

    The obvious question now is whether the British state is capable of deploying the vaccine at speed and at scale. Its performance over the pandemic has been mixed, to say the least, with its purchase of an impressive portfolio of jabs, including enough of Pfizer’s to inoculate 20 million people, among the rare exceptions. The logistical challenge will be immense, given the need to store the vaccine at low temperatures and the sheer numbers of people who need to be inoculated. Sir Simon Stevens, head of NHS England, provided the outlines of the plan to distribute it, initially via hospitals. But the onus is on the health service to accelerate the vaccine’s deployment and not to allow pettifogging objections from public sector vested interests to get in the way. It would be farcical if, after months of compelling the country to stay at home to protect the NHS, the health service were to fail to rise to the occasion now.

    The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has also determined that frontline NHS and care workers will be prioritised for vaccination, along with care home residents and those aged over 80. That may well be sensible in the case of the elderly and infirm, given that they are most likely to succumb to the disease. But if NHS employees are to be given preference over other higher-risk private sector workers, such as shop staff, the public will need assurances that the health service will reopen in full for non-Covid treatments as soon as that has been accomplished.

    The priority must be to use the vaccine to unlock the economy and society as rapidly as possible. The Prime Minister was at pains last night to caution against over-optimism, and Jonathan Van Tam, the deputy chief medical officer, revived a favourite train metaphor to emphasise that these are still early days. But once those who are vulnerable to Covid-19 are protected from the virus, the case for locking down the rest of society collapses, since for the vast majority of the population this is a mild illness that poses little to no long-term risk to health. Each extra day the country remains under restrictions only compounds the severity of the economic and social damage, not least the wave of business failures accelerating in recent weeks.

    Needless to say, optimism about the vaccine should not detract from the scale of the challenges the country will face once this is over. Some economists forecast a repeat of the Roaring Twenties as we enter a period of prosperity made possible by the build-up of savings over lockdown and the economy emerging leaner from the pandemic. Others predict another lost decade of slow growth made worse by ruinous debt, a prospect that the Government must throw every effort at avoiding once its immunisation campaign is underway.

    Yet for a brief moment it is necessary only to rejoice. In defiance of expectations, science has delivered a potential exit route from Covid. There is finally light at the end of the tunnel.

    2. Isn’t it wonderful that of all the countries in the world, Britain approved it first? Shame we had nothing to do with actually creating the vaccine, but Britons get to do the world a favour by being the first guinea pigs – woo hoo!

      When exactly did “three weeks to stop the NHS being overwhelmed” become “we can’t return to normal life without a vaccine?” Why is a virus which mostly carries off the elderly and infirm deemed to be so deadly that we all have to have a rushed vaccine, with no idea of long-term side effects?

      I will be very interested to see if taking the vaccine is genuinely voluntary (no ‘Freedom Pass’ required in respect of the normal ‘flu jab) or if life is made so intolerable for “anti-vaxxers” that we have no choice but to give up our bodies and take whatever medicine the State decides we should have.

      1. JK mng, Britain approved it in Jan 2019 [Gates / Halfcock etc.] Gates couldn’t get public funding in US, despite having “Democrat Senators” signing up to approach [Mar 2019]. Yr point about guinea pigs is correct, we’re the lab rats for others. Yr 2nd / 3rd points are geared around the WEF agenda [Great Reset] aka Johnson “Build Back Better – Green Initiative https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/world-economic-forum-encourages-plebs-eat-weeds-drink-sewage

        The use of MSM to adhere to the threat of forced vaccinations, contact tracing, and genetically encoded vaccines is part of Operation Warp Speed designed by DARPA https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/24078/darpas-virus-carrying-bugs-arent-officially-weapons-but-it-sure-sounds-like-they-could-be is all part of a surveillance matrix. Which is where fb, https://boingboing.net/2014/07/03/facebook-manipulation-experime.html twitter et al now sit. The bottom line agenda is population control https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/11/the-ultimate-goal-of-the-nsa-is-total-population-control

        Take it as a given, UK Government know they can’t force vaccines on population but they can make it difficult not to the other way round, by eroding what passes for normal life, restricting / reducing freedom and eroding what’s left of “political power”. For now it’s a threat, but no sign of abating

    3. Isn’t it wonderful that of all the countries in the world, Britain approved it first? Shame we had nothing to do with actually creating the vaccine, but Britons get to do the world a favour by being the first guinea pigs – woo hoo!

      When exactly did “three weeks to stop the NHS being overwhelmed” become “we can’t return to normal life without a vaccine?” Why is a virus which mostly carries off the elderly and infirm deemed to be so deadly that we all have to have a rushed vaccine, with no idea of long-term side effects?

      I will be very interested to see if taking the vaccine is genuinely voluntary (no ‘Freedom Pass’ required in respect of the normal ‘flu jab) or if life is made so intolerable for “anti-vaxxers” that we have no choice but to give up our bodies and take whatever medicine the State decides we should have.

    4. ‘Morning, Hugh, when I first started reading that, I was convinced that my irony meter had just broken. Having made my weary way down all the hubris to the last sentence, I knew that the Leader writer wasn’t aware that the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of a fast approaching train on the single track to which he had tied himself.

      For the more prurient, for he and himself, please read ‘it’ and ‘itself’ if that makes you less offended.

      1. Hugely offended, Nanners! Someone only has to look at me in the wrong tone of voice to create an immediate punch-up (no, not really).

      2. I had an email from a female social worker who, after her signature, wrote “she/her”. What?

  11. Another inspiring obituary for an outstanding airman:

    Squadron Leader Tom ‘Tam’ Syme, fighter-bomber pilot who led strikes during Suez – obituary

    He attacked Egyptian airfields and transport depots under heavy fire and later flew rocket and cannon strikes against Yemeni insurgents

    By
    Telegraph Obituaries
    2 December 2020 • 6:18pm

    Squadron Leader Tom ‘Tam’ Syme who has died aged 92, flew during the Suez Campaign, and against dissident tribesmen in Aden and Oman, and was awarded the DFC.

    Taking off from the RAF base at Akrotiri in Cyprus, on the morning of November 1 1956, Syme led a section of Venom fighter-bombers to attack the Egyptian airfield at Fayid. A hangar and parked aircraft were hit by rockets before the Venoms strafed buildings at a second airfield, at Kasfareet.

    In the afternoon Syme led another strike against airfields and damaged a Meteor, a MiG fighter and a Fury fighter. His section encountered heavy ground fire, but the Venoms returned safely.

    The following morning, Syme led an attack against the Egyptian army’s main tank and transport depot near Almaza. During this attack his aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire, causing a hydraulic failure, but he managed to make it back to Akrotiri.

    Syme was in action again on the 3rd, rocketing and strafing a tank-transporter and lorries. The next day he returned to the same area to strafe more military vehicles.

    On the 5th, he flew an armed reconnaissance mission in support of French paratroopers. The following day, 32 Venoms took off from Akrotiri at dawn and headed for Egypt. Syme recorded: “Abortive strike against mole at Port Said. Recced the road to Ismailia. Rocketed trucks in army camp. Flak and tracer.”

    A ceasefire was declared on November 6 and a few days later Syme was posted to another Venom squadron, No 8, based at Khormaksar in Aden.

    He was soon in action again, flying rocket and cannon strikes against Yemeni insurgents in the Beihan and Jebel Dhamat area, while giving support to the SAS and the Aden Protectorate Levies.

    In July 1957 a rebellion broke out in Central Oman and a force of 8 Squadron Venoms was ordered to RAF Sharjah in the Persian Gulf to provide support to land forces.

    Syme led the first operations on July 22, and over the next 10 days he flew 16 strike operations against rebel strongholds in the Jebel Akhdar region. During a 12-day period in August he led other strikes against rebel forts. After a period of relative quiet, trouble broke out in November and Syme was again in action.

    In June 1958 it was announced that Syme had been awarded the DFC: “In recognition of gallantry and devotion to duty on air operations in Oman”.

    The son of a First World War Scottish infantryman, Thomas Simpson Syme, always known as “Tam”, was born in Midlothian on May 28 1928. He was educated at George Watson’s College, Edinburgh and went on to gain a Diploma in Physical Education.

    He commenced his National Service in October 1949 and six months later was commissioned into the physical fitness branch of the RAF. In August 1951 he transferred to the general duties branch and trained as a pilot.

    On completion of his training on jets, he was selected to be a flying instructor, and after completing the course at the Central Flying Training School in December 1952, he served at an advanced flying training school teaching students to fly the Meteor jet.

    In June 1955 he converted to the Venom fight-bomber before joining 249 Squadron, which was based at Amman in Jordan. Soon after relocating to Akrotiri, the squadron was in action during the Suez campaign.

    Early in 1958, Syme joined 65 Squadron as a flight commander. The squadron operated the Hunter from Duxford. Flying in the day-fighter role, he was selected for an elite team to participate in an annual Nato air gunnery competition.

    The team came second to one from the Royal Canadian Air Force. After two and a half years on No 65 he was awarded a Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air.

    For two years he was a member of an operational studies team at the RAF Flying College. In April 1963 he returned to Aden, this time as the commanding officer of 8 Squadron flying Hunters from Khormaksar.

    For the next two years he led his squadron of young pilots with great dash. The Aden Protectorate was familiar to him and once again he found himself leading patrols along the Yemen border.

    In January 1964, Operation Nutcracker was launched against dissident tribesman in the Radfan. The Hunters based at Khormaksar were used in support of the ground forces when they were frequently called on to mount rocket firing and cannon attacks against rebel forces.

    Syme’s great experience of these operations, and his aggressive flying, made him an ideal commanding officer during these testing times. One of his flight commanders commented: “Tam always led from the front, be it at work or at play, and was a source of inspiration to all of his squadron.”

    Syme returned to England and a ground appointment in 1965, but this did not suit his restless and adventurous nature and he chose to leave the RAF in 1968.

    In 1969 he began a long period in the crop-spraying industry. For many years he worked in Panama flying for Atopan and Chiquita Banana. In 1988 he joined the Sultan of Oman’s Air Force for three years as a flying instructor.

    Having visited more than 60 countries, he decided that Florida was the best place to live and he finished his long flying career as an instructor for Flying Flagman, who specialised in highly accurate navigation systems for crop sprayers, in countries such as Guatemala, Costa Rica, Columbia and the Philippines.

    He amassed more than 17,000 hours of flight time, and survived at least three forced landings due to total engine failure while crop spraying.

    Family and friends loved Syme for his confidence, his trust in all things good, and his love of celebration. His last words to his son were; “I think I would like a large Scotch.”

    ‘Tam’ Syme married Audrey “Frankie” Frankland in 1957. She survives him with their son, who served in the USAF, and their daughter.

    Tam Syme, born May 28 1928, died October 24 2020

  12. Football pitches, not to mention Olympic swimming pools. Yer average journo probably doesn’t know how many square yards there are in an acre or hectares in a square kilometre. As for litres in a cubic metre…

  13. Tony Blair films video praising former Kazakhstan president for leadership. 3 December 2020.

    Mr Blair was a paid adviser to Mr Nazarbayev, 80, for several years from at least 2011. He helped Mr Nazarbayev manage the political fallout in December 2011 when police in Western Kazakhstan shot dead or beat to death at least 14 striking oil workers.

    Yep that sounds like Blair!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/02/tony-blair-films-video-praising-formerkazakhstan-president-leadership/

    1. He’d have had Hitler, Stalin & Pol Pot as clients, if he hadn’t been too young. Not a scruple to be seen.

  15. SIR — I worked for Debenhams for 25 years until 2002, ending up as a regional director. During those years, the focus was on sales skills, customer service and engagement, and operations excellence. By the time I left, it had shifted to softer skills.

    After the arrival of Amazon, lip service was paid to online shopping and only feeble resources were allocated. Sadly, that has taken its toll.

    Two years ago, I visited some of my old stores. They looked the same as they did in 2002: nothing innovative or engaging had happened to them since.

    It is very sad, but I’m not surprised Debenhams is where it is today.

    Adrian Pinnock
    Ventnor, Isle of Wight

    Debenham’s has become the 21st century’s Woolworth’s. Both fine shops in their heyday, but latterly suffering from execrable management leading directly to their downfall. In the 1960s and 1970s Debenham’s was as fine a department store as you could find: well run with excellent lines of products at a reasonable price.

    Woolworth’ s though not being the same genre of shop, was a reliable source of countless household necessities, all well made and very reasonably priced. The change in Woolworth’s came in the 1980s and into the 1990s when it started to sell fewer lines and replaced them with masses of cheap, tacky and shoddily-made products. This came purely as a result of a change in management strategy and the consequence was there for all to see.

    Debenham’s evidently didn’t learn from this appalling business model has now followed that same road to oblivion.

    1. agree Debenham’s didn’t learn. Mr Pinnock’s not surprised where it is today, despite being a former regional director living in a tax haven

        1. Morning Paul.

          It is the dullest place on earth. Overrated and filled to the brim with cockney wide-boy scum.

          1. I was there once only, in early October. Work at a shipyard. The job lasted several days, so in the evening, we went out from the guest house (no supper supplied) to get a bite to eat. The whole place was closed! Eventually found a hotel open, full of blue-rinse types, and persuaded them to feed us. They agreed, on the proviso that, if asked by the police (!), we ere to say we weer staying in romm whatever.
            I was astonished! Never heard of a residents-only-by-law restaurant!
            Bloody awful place. Like a trip to the 1950s, so it was.
            BTW, they have a postcard museum. Not a lot of people know that (or give a flying one, for that matter)

          2. A friend’s elder brother, with a group of other young men, was sent to one of the smaller Hebridean islands to build a new jetty. Work hours were dawn to dusk Monday to Saturday as the summer “window” for completing the job was short. They were warned beforehand that the island was “dry” and that if they took beer with them they would have to drink indoors only and bring the empties home again or create trouble for the company. They were not warned that they would be publicly abused as “Sabbath breakers” for the heinous crime of doing their laundry and hanging it out to dry on the only day in the week when they were not at work.

            The IoW is not a tax haven… and it isn’t the dullest place on earth either!

          3. On that last point, I’d have to say that it was less stressing than a bottle of valium. But then, I only went once, and am in no hurry to go back. In fact, I’d rather push pineapples up my bottom, spiky end first!

          6. c. 1980, our sons used to go on ‘Action Boy’ holidays there.
            They learnt to sail and do all sorts of bracing stuff; they still speak fondly of those holidays.

          7. We went there in 2006 to see the rare Glanville Fritillary. Certainly an old-fashioned place.

        2. Travelling by hydrofoil on a warm sunny day has a feel of the Med about it.

          The train from Ryde into the interior is fun. Old London Underground carriages. They bounce all over the place. Then there is a working Steam Train and annual steam fair with beer tent attached. Then there is the Vintage bus fair where all travel is free. The only stops are at pubs. 🙂

          Then there is the Yarbridge Inn which was written up in the Times as the best Sunday lunch in the country. It was very good. They allow dogs too.

          Then there is the sandy beach at Sandown which does feel like you are in the Med. Cocktails too.

          I like dull.

          1. By the start of the New Year, IoW Railways will be onto the third generation of hand-me-down LU rolling stock.

    2. Last time i went to Debenham’s was for a formal evening suit and patent leather shoes. They didn’t stock anything like that. I came away with a pair of black socks.

      Mornin’.

      1. ‘Morning.

        For Tuxs (and morning dress)I was always a Moss Bros man. Hire rather than buy.

      2. ‘Morning.

        For Tuxs (and morning dress)I was always a Moss Bros man. Hire rather than buy.

        1. I bought my morning coat for my own wedding for £75, if I recall correctly, and it paid for itself several times over vs hire charges. I could still get into it into my late 50’s, but it was starting to look somewhat worn out. I decided not to replace it because we very seldom get invitations where one is asked for.

          I bought my first dinner jacket when I left school, for £25 and replaced it when it started to fall apart, it had had a lot of very hard use as it fitted several of my friends too and I used to lend it out in exchange for a few beers. Possibly the best value set of clothes I ever purchased.

          My latest one is probably 25 years old and still going strong, and If I recall correctly cost well under £200.

          I would guess that the three items saved a few thousand pounds in hire charges for me and my friends.

          1. I have a Harris tweed bought in 1990, and served a hard life as my Surveypr’s jacket – visiting construction sites and workshops all over the UK, Europe and a few in Africa & Middle East. The only part that wore out was the lining (replaced). Still going strong, although as an office rat, it gets an easier life!

          2. BT’s yer man, he has clothes his father wore.

            My father was about 5 inches taller and 4+ stone heavier than I, so no chance in my case, but I still have and regularly my blazer that must date from the late 1970’s and a tweed sports jacket again from a similar era, but that is only worn very rarely.

          3. I have a morning suit and an evening suit (plus a penguin suit for white tie functions), but alas they have shrunk quite badly over the years!

          5. I remember from my catering days one portly gentleman saying to another “My father had this suit built for him in 1930”.

          6. Because I wasn’t a stock size I had to have all my suits MtM, it wasn’t until shops started to sell the jackets and trousers separately that I could buy much cheaper outfits.

            I am generally very “heavy” on clothes and shoes and anything worn daily soon looks very jaded, so being able to buy at a fraction of MtM prices was a welcome innovation..

        2. I’m surprised, George, that you of all people would descend to the abbreviated American for a dinner jacket ensemble.

          The etymology is here and it’s pure American:

          tuxedo (n.) man’s evening dress for semiformal occasions, 1889, named for Tuxedo Park, N.Y., a rural resort development for wealthy New Yorkers and site of a country club where it first was worn, supposedly in 1886. The name is an attractive subject for elaborate speculation, and connections with Algonquian words for “bear” or “wolf” were proposed.
          tuxedo | Origin and meaning of tuxedo by Online Etymology …
          http://www.etymonline.com/word/tuxedo
          http://www.etymonline.com/word/tuxedo

          3. Only yesterday I replied to another’s comment on a YouTube video about ‘The Crown’:

            “Why not keep ‘THE CROWN’ close to history?” Why? because it’s written by Yanks, for Yanks and—as in all Netflix videos—all the idiotic subtitles are in Yank and not proper English!

        3. The last suit i hired from Moss Bros 20 odd years ago looked like it had been cut with a knife and fork.

          2. I still have the morning suit I bought in 1958.
            Bought from Brown & Muff’s in Bradford, price £59,50 shillings for 3 piece suit. Jacket is 100% wool, 19ozs worsted. It could stop a bullet and never wear out.
            I had to have some trousers made when I last wore it to a wedding in 1990 – original pair too small

        4. I still am feeding the moths with my morning suit which not only is filled with holes but also seems to have shrunk.

          Here is a photo of my crew on Raua. Within three years of completing our Atlantic crossings to the Caribbean and back all three of us were married,

          From l to r:
          Nick – who became a GP – and Robie, his wife;
          Jeremy (at his wedding and ready to go on honeymoon) – who became a senior partner in one of the largest law firms in the City of London and his bride, Kay;
          and
          Rastus in his morning coat with his wife, Caroline

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f8c2a0970f565a4848a6e17d30f964df5803255766b1021fc25a9f8a2e5e3216.jpg

    3. Last time I went to Debenhams , I was clothes shopping , probably a couple of years ago, what a dowdy choice of clothing, why are chain stores selling such dull miserable ladies clothing, as well as tarty stuff for younger women .

      I found my way to the mens’ section and took a risk by buying Moh some really colourful shirts for golf and a pair of suitable shorts, he has remained virtually the same slender size for over fifty years, lucky man .

      What is nice about Debenhams are the rows of perfumes to squirt and test at leisure!

      Shops like that do not have enough mirrors and the floor space is crowded out with samey clothes .

      Shame that Laura Ashley and Monsoon have hit the skids.

      1. I haven’t actually bought anything from Debenhams for years.
        I have used the shop as a warm, dry path to the Hight Street.

  16. SIR — John Hamilton (Letters, December 1), writing about electric-car production, highlights the appalling use of children in the cobalt mines of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

    This is one of the reasons why I have just acquired a Tesla electric car. Tesla has said it will be replacing cobalt as it moves to in-house battery production. Agreed, this is primarily a commercial decision, but it is also ethical.

    However, lithium-ion batteries, which require cobalt, are much more widely utilised in the production of portable electronics such as mobile phones, laptops and tablets.

    James Synge
    Kineton, Warwickshire

    Does this mean I should stop using the Cobalt Blue oil paint pigment (my least favourite hue of blue)?

    1. Did Mr Synge purportedly pen this with his toes in the plug socket? Acquiring a Tesla electric car was a commercial and ethical decision. Yet able to pen his note from either a mobile, laptop, tablet which uses cobalt in responding to John Hamilton’s letter of 1st Dec about “appalling use of children in cobalt mines in DRC” where google, fb et al are all over the mines like a cheap suit [not Debenhams!].

      So what was the real reason for buying the Tesla car other than online commission? 77 Bde on low form today.

      Re cobalt blue oil paint pigment, sell it to Mr Synge to paint his electric toy

      1. He’s already got the car, so he already has high-cobalt batteries in it! So, he supports the use of child labour in Congo.

    2. WTF does ‘in-house battery production’ mean? Are Teslas to be built in China using child labour and locally mined nickel, which requires vast quantities of electricity to extract?

      1. It matters not o Mr Swynge (sic). He is so rich he can buy a car that has a range of 200 miles. Good luck to him on his next trip to Monaco by road.

  17. 327142+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    More restrictive pens for the ovis being erected in readiness for the great re-set.
    Another threat in the political overseers toolkit, no more 3 months in chokey, far worse, 3 months cert.withdrawal, ALL
    amenities / shops etc with entry / exit bar codes.

    The eu lingering behind in the jabbing frenzy, to bloody true they are for when things go tits up the UKs treacherous political trio will be saying ” we knew all along that Brexitexit was a mistake”

    Meanwhile I have a strong feeling shortly it will be cheaper to go to Calais for a fish supper than to your local chippie, the johnson is seemingly going into submissive / appeasement mode.

    What will rapidly shape up is a parallel society, the under the counter brigade, with bent certs. a certainty, where there’s a neg. there’s a pos.

    All the pieces have been voted into place as seen over the last 3 decades, so let the great re-set begin sadly to say prior to the great uprising.

  18. 327142+ up ticks,
    breitbart,

    Boris Might Volunteer to Have Vaccination Live on TV.

    He will be the front runner to the other 649 plus family members then ?

    If not just how many WILL be joining johnson then ?

    1. Ogga mng, I put up a few hrs bk, injecting air bubbles into Mps on live tv before PMQs would be good reality TV. Who else, preferably his alternative OH, one of Billy boy’s infamous tetanus jabs and she can be infertile and join the thousands of Indians and Africans and know what it feels like

      1. 327142+ up ticks,
        Morning AWK,
        I would consider that the easy way out and would prefer long hard real time, to deny them access to the polling booth & the
        lifestyle would be bad enough, to make it a daily punishment via incarceration would be poetic justice.

        1. true but their problem goes to the root of the issue. The vast majority of MP’s are loyal ‘apparchniks’ chosen by Central Office to
          stand for parliament.

          Once elected they do as they are programmed and instructed to do after which they hope their loyalty will recognised and they will be promoted to a post way beyond their intelligence and ability. Halfcock for example.

          So not only MPs, but the structure and people within Central Office[s]

          1. 327142+ up ticks,
            AWK,
            That rolls out as being the same as council / police lack of actions in rotherham.
            Knowing & covering up for 16 plus years is IMO complicity.
            Local MPs are still government agents and in this case continuing to follow the party line, with a number of rhetorical threats, never no action.

    2. Cue a fetchingly masked PM with sleeve rolled up and surrounded by a bevy of smiling nurses.
      And all for a jab of sterile saline given to someone who – allegedly – has had the lurgy already.

      1. I think I would rather wait for the Oxford vaccine. Rna injections are a form of genetic engineering in which cells are instructed to make bits of Covid to which antibodies should be made and hopefully T cell memory. It’s a taste of the future when we will be genetically modified.

      2. 327142+ up ticks,
        Morning NtN
        I would like to know how many of the 649 & family members are willing to follow his lead ?

    4. Good morning Ogga. How would we know it is the genuine article with which he – and possibly they – is being vaccinated? All this is based on trust, all of it, the whole vaccination caboodle and as I don’t have an iota of trust in government (never about the poor old public and certainly not the indigenous, the very idea!) it will be a big fat NO! from me.

      1. 327142+ up ticks,
        Morning PM,
        I was going to add in my post in regards to independent witnesses, in my case it would be the Pope.
        IN regards to giving permission I
        will be for joining you in a definite NO.

    5. Would Johnson be prepared to order his whole cabinet to have their vaccinations in public and for them to be verified as genuine by a trustworthy person (If a trustworthy and incorruptible person can be found?)

      2. 327142+ up ticks,
        Morning R,
        ogga1 poppiesmum 2 hours ago
        327142+ up ticks,
        Morning PM,
        I was going to add in my post in regards to independent witnesses, in my case it would be the Pope.
        IN regards to giving permission I
        will be for joining you in a definite NO.
        ps whole cabinet & families.

    7. Boris has already had Covid so being vaccinated is absolutely pointless, and could also prove dangerous. He would, of course, just get a saline solution, not the real thing.

    1. ‘Morning, Mags, is there no limit to these troughing opportunists to feather-bed their existence?

  20. In the 2nd instalment of The Dam Busters last night Jon Snow failed to mention Guy Gibsons dogs name – why not? you can’t change history. Absolutely pathetic

        1. Don’t give them ideas.
          A whole C18 art form will be banned and destroyed wherever possible.

        1. Thank you. Added to my picture file in preparation for when the photo is removed from the interwebby.

      3. This is ridiculous wokeism running riot. Talk about giving a dog a bad name!

        Have you been watching the programme presented by Dan Snow on Channel 5?

      1. Morning Tom, I expected to report that from tonights episode – the actual attack. I wonder how they are going to get round that?

  22. Gosh it was cold in Fakenham market this morning. 4ºC with drizzle and a hopeless sky. Glad I was having to fillet fish…

    Strange thing. Morrisons were completely out of all types of cream. Must be due either to Brexit or the Plague. Lidl had some.

    1. Morrisons does that from time to time. Couldn’t find any yesterday except buried at the back of the lowest shelf.

      1. 327142+ up ticks,
        G,
        As major, the wretch cameron,
        leg over clegg, mayday, johnson,
        did, do you mean ?

        I have no reason to mistrust Gerard Batten I found him to be steadfast in his beliefs over the years and his leadership qualities for 12 plus months could not be faulted.

        Could this be said of the lab/lib/con leadership material over the last 3 decades ?

  25. Okay …..
    Your starter for 10.
    What is ‘Barbicide’?
    1. A gruesome fate for an over-sexualised doll.
    2. A cream for clearing headlice?
    3. A toiletry that obviates the need for a razor.
    4. A sterilising solution that ticks the right bureaucratic boxes.

      1. I am so impressed with NOTTLers; no cheating combined with fertile imaginations.
        Makes yer prahd ter be British.
        Answer: No. 4.
        My hairdresser has festooned the entrance to her premises with notices about Barbicide. Apparently it’s some form of equipment steriliser that keeps desk pilots happy.
        Apparently it leaves an unpleasant film on the combs etc… so they have to wash that off in water and then the damp equipment is put the through the steriliser that they already had. But a box has been ticked.

      1. Adds a little je ne said quoi to the pies.
        “Mmmm….Is this basil, Mrs. Lovett?”
        “No, he said his name was Sidney.”

  27. NEWS FROM BRUSSELS

    The President of the European Kommission, Ursula von der Lederhosen, has announced that a mass vaccination programme against the Covid-19 virus will be rolled out across the member states of the EU as soon as possible. All citizens will be required to carry a Pass (Impfstoffpass) when in any public space, proving they have had the vaccination. A special department of Public Health Europe, known as Geschupo (Gesundheitsschutzpolizei), will oversee the implementation of the scheme. All citizens must have their papers in order at all times and under all circumstances, and must produce them to officials on demand.

    Sites for the administration of the vaccine have been identified throughout Eastern Germany, Poland and the Baltic States and the construction phase is nearing completion. These facilities will not only serve as vaccination centres: they will be used for quarantine purposes and to hold in protective custody all those who refuse the vaccine, who, because of their antisocial attitude, will be subject to Special Treatment (Spezialbehandlung). Railway rolling-stock has been requisitioned for their evacuation to the East.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/29a36fab87a87fbc17785016379a62a736e43dd49c0c7cbe1c6f851df5dee9c5.jpg

    4. Getting on the bus.
      “Impfstoffpass bitte.”
      “Danke, have a good trip.”

      “Thank you, doh.”

        1. Roger Bushel and Mac (who, ironically, had warned another escapee about being caught out that way before the break out).

  30. Take down anti-vaccine conspiracy posts or face consequences, ministers tell social media giants. 3 December 2020.

    A conspiracy theory promoted widely on Facebook on Wednesday claimed Mr Gates was hatching a secret plan to use mass vaccination to inject microchips into the world’s population. There is no evidence that the Microsoft founder, or anyone else, is trying to implant microchips in anyone through vaccines.

    Morning everyone. What is he using then! Lol!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/02/take-anti-vaccine-conspiracy-posts-face-consequences-ministers/

    1. Araminta mng. Beyond the reality Zuckerberg / fb are being sued in 4 States in US, fb continue to [promote] / air their preferred view after using their own version of AI to correlate fact checking according to their beliefs protecting Billy boy’s Eugenics programme. Given it’s well known re Billy boy [and others] agenda, fb expose they’re own fragility trying to neuter the rejection of the agenda, when everyone else outside that cadre can see it. Ministers again trying to play deception, not knowing how that’s played

      1. Morning, AWK.
        If Arsebook and the like are promoting their own views, through censorship and the like, then surely they should come under the same rules as newspapers and publishers – that is, they must bear responsibility for what they publish? That’ll bugger up their business models for them.

        1. Morning Ob and all. I believe that’s what President Trump had in mind to do. IIRC he was planning to tax them.

        2. agree, but fb et al still claim not to be news outlets, rather social media, when the opposite’s true. Zuckerberg’s not bright enough to even think about let alone prepare a busines model. Hence the cases being brought against fb and Zuckerberg directly Stateside on the point you raised.

  31. The cynic in me wonders if the people in the letters who are praising and begging for the experimental vaccine have any crossover with people who are terrified of a bit of chlorinated chicken………..

    2. They’re terrified of the ‘rona, which is far less likely to harm most of them than the vaccine.

      1. I received my second Christmas card today. Inside was a message (from the daughter of a late friend and whom I always considered as a few pence short of a shilling) hoping that we were being “protected” from “the deadly virus”. I’ve written my card back and told her that I had “the deadly virus” in February and recovered, while MOH didn’t get it at all.

      1. Our road is an absolute abundance of out door Christmas lighting, fortunately no ‘music’. The problem is our neighbours opposite leave their on all night. They are amongst the brightest in the street and we live directly opposite them on the narrow road. And the bloody lights illuminate our hall way through the glass panels in our front door. We have no street lighting from midnight until 5:30 am and that’s only one lamp 25 yards away. And the brightness of their pure white very bright lights seeps in to our main bedroom around the curtains and blinds. Everybody else turns their lights off around midnight but with out being classed as a grumpy what can one do ???

        1. Step one I think you can reasonably complain to the neighbours, explain the problem politely.
          Step two Complain to the council if they refuse to do something about it
          Step three Hire a search light and shine it at their house.

          2. Love it,………. I’ve got an old spot light some where in the garage I think it’s 500 watts.
            Some friends in North London had a similar problem a few years ago with new neighbours and security lights, they fix a large mirror to reflect the annoying beams back, it did the trick.
            I’ll give till the weekend I might see them outside and mention it.
            We have quite a few recent newcomer families as residents, all in their 40s with young children, they all have the brightest Christmas lights I have ever seen and some of their rear gardens brightly lit at night. It seems to me they have a slight issue with their own insecurity. I suspect it it could be why we never seem to hear Tawnies in the surrounding trees at night and I didn’t see any pipistrelle bats out and about these last summer evenings.

          3. And they’ll be Remainers; Vaccine fanatics; Limp Dumbs; Woke…vegetarian – and “love their children (who are their best friends) to bits”..

          4. And they’ll be Remainers; Vaccine fanatics; Limp Dumbs; Woke…vegetarian – and “love their children (who are their best friends) to bits”..

          5. If you get the chance, talk about the owls and the bats when their children are within earshot, we have bats and owls in abundance here and the cottage guest’s children are fascinated by them, particularly when the bats start flying out from the stone walls of the main house at dusk.

          6. Bats are okay if they are not on your own property.
            I know a man who use to be the director of the Hawk and Owl Trust. I helped him fix a few owl boxes in Cambridgeshire a few years ago.

          7. Our house and outbuildings have loads of bats in roofs and walls, the crap can be a bit of a pain but they are delightful to watch. Damned difficult to chase out if they get into the rooms.
            We get several varieties of owls and have even had an eagle owl perched on a window opening. That is one very impressive bird.

        2. Write them a note and explain your predicament asking them nicely to switch them off at midnight. Wish them a merry christmas and sign it from your neighbour three doors down. Wrap around a half brick and lob through their biggest window.

          1. I have my Christmas lights (and my candle bridge) on a timer. Not that anybody but me can see them.

    1. It was written on here a few days ago that the Guardian had asked various MPs whether they would have the vaccination, and every MP said no.

      Anyone got the excerpt please?

  34. SIR – Eton’s Head Master, Simon Henderson, has been in the news concerning the decision to suspend a master, Will Knowland (Letters, December 2). Those in defence of Mr Knowland have framed this as a dispute over freedom of speech.

    What has been missing in coverage is that there are bound to be restraints on freedom of speech when that right is exercised in a workplace, especially so when that workplace is a classroom.

    For instance, your right to express your views or those of others on race is tempered in the workplace by my right not to have to work in an environment which, as a consequence, I reasonably find to be offensive. That is nothing to do with political correctness or being “woke”, as Eton is accused of being, but reflects the Equality Act 2010.

    That law is relevant when you express views to pupils, and must sit beside professional and contractual obligations and finally – dare one say it – a measure of common sense.

    Simon Cheetham QC
    London WC1

    Simon Cheetham is a former teacher, so you would think that the difference between putting up a matter for debate in the classroom and YouTube would be fairly obvious? And if any common sense is lacking in the Eton mess, look no further than the Headmaster. Besides, wasn’t Knowland talking about gender and not race?

    1. I wonder what Simon Cheetham QC has to say about what pupils are taught in Muslim schools. Nothing probably.

    2. …and here are the other letters on this subject:

      SIR – Though the pretext is wokery, the substance of the Eton mess seems to boil down to a clash of wills, both masculine and childish: a story as old as the Iliad. (Agamemnon: “I’m the boss: give up your private booty.” Head Master: “I’m the boss: give up your private video.”)

      Dr D K Money
      Wolfson College, Cambridge

      SIR – As a mature woman of 73, I’m awfully fed up with men such as Michael Bond (Letters, November 30) telling me what I find offensive, although I realise he’s only trying to protect me.

      I understand Mr Knowland’s lecture was designed to open up a discussion on this topic. Full marks to him, as he’s certainly achieved that.

      Sue Pollard
      Hailsham, East Sussex

      SIR – Why is it that whenever an authority figure claims that “it is not an issue of free speech”, it is invariably in the context of punishing someone for expressing an opinion?

      Peter Steadman
      Penn, Buckinghamshire

      1. If there was objectionable material that was truly offensive in the teacher’s presentation then that’s a different issue. Where is this video? Does anyone have a link?

      1. I wonder if Bill’s MR, a former English teacher at Gresham’s, used to ‘pump iron’ in order to keep in training? As a former public school English teacher myself I can assure my fellow Nottlers that I never did anything of the sort.

        1. I knew I’d seen taht somewhere before. There’s that Navy officer looking all smouldering and camp on the quayside!

    4. Ahh, the equality act. That treacherous, destructive bit of legislation.

      Gone went common sense and rationality, in came forced conversion and obedience.

  35. I was speaking to a good old mate this morning a gas/heating engineer/plumber, we have a problem with our elderly gas boiler.
    But he told me a very sad story about one of his friends, the husband fell over and fractured his hip, he was taken to hospital tested for the virus before he was admitted, they performed the necessary operation. He left the hospital after a week, but had unknowingly contracted the virus. He passed it on to his wife and they were both died within a week of each other, terrible thing to happen and both entirely innocent of any breaches of the government restrictions.

      1. It’s extremely disconcerting if one is taken ill. And they have more PPE and sanitiser than the proverbial stick can be poked at.

    2. Going to hospital can SERIOUSLY damage your health. The NHS should carry a Government Health Warning.

      1. Joking aside, this week I had a possibly infected ear; I weighed the sheer hassle of seeing a GP or going to the Walk-in Centre with just toughing it out.
        What with collapsing washing machine pumps and bloody minded printers, I decided to just tough it out; I really couldn’t be @rsed with any more aggro.
        Ear seems to be clearing. And – hoorah – the printer is now enjoying its new cartridges and a man is coming to replace the w.m. pump tomorrow.

  36. Yet another Orange Man Bad, pro-Biden crony establishment piece (not news reporting – outright lies IMHO) in the DT today:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/03/donald-trump-escalates-election-fraud-claims-46-minute-video

    The best reader comments, as they currently stand (assuming they aren’t all removed), are brilliant. Well, 95% are, except for the regular pro-Dem shills/trolls like ‘Charles Hinton’, ‘Shane Vendrell’, and ‘EV McFinnity’, who could well be working for GCHQ or their Russian or Chinese equivalents, or even for the DT itself.

    God how this paper has fallen.

  37. Yet another Orange Man Bad, pro-Biden crony establishment piece (not news reporting – outright lies IMHO) in the DT today:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/03/donald-trump-escalates-election-fraud-claims-46-minute-video

    The best reader comments, as they currently stand (assuming they aren’t all removed), are brilliant. Well, 95% are, except for the regular pro-Dem shills/trolls like ‘Charles Hinton’, ‘Shane Vendrell’, and ‘EV McFinnity’, who could well be working for GCHQ or their Russian or Chinese equivalents, or even for the DT itself.

    God how this paper has fallen.

  38. A DT ‘exclusive’ on the Eton row. Let us hope that Trendy Hendy is feeling the heat:

    An Eton College Master has resigned his position in protest and broken ranks to attack the school’s “indoctrination” of students, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.

    Dr Luke Martin, who teaches Divinity at the 580-year-old institution, recently stood down from his role as the Master in Charge of Perspectives and said he is beginning to “lose faith” in Eton’s ability to promote independent thinking among its pupils.

    His intervention came as the row over free speech deepened with parents as well as pupils and Old Etonians said to be increasingly troubled by the school’s handling of events.

    The Telegraph revealed last week that Will Knowland was dismissed for gross misconduct after recording a lecture which questioned “current radical feminist orthodoxy”.

    The lecture was part of the Perspectives course taken by older students to encourage them to think critically about subjects of public debate.

    Mr Knowland alleged that he was banned from delivering the lecture to pupils and then dismissed after he refused to remove a video of the lecture from his personal YouTube channel. Eton College has said that the dismissal was “not a matter of free speech” and instead one of “internal discipline”.

    But in a letter to the school’s vice provost, Dr Andrew Gailey, seen by The Telegraph, Dr Martin insists that “free speech and independence of thought” are at the heart of the matter.

    He said he has become aware of a “worrying trend” over the past few years at Eton College, which he has previously raised with both the Head Master and Lower Master.

    “There is a growing promotion of a so-called ‘progressive’ ideology, that claims to be inclusive, tolerant, and kind. This ideology is, of course, present in other institutions,” he explained.

    “But what has dawned on me over the last few years is that it is remarkably similar, in a particular respect, to the forms of religious fundamentalism that I’m familiar with: if you disagree with it, you’re excluded; if you think differently, you’re not tolerated; and if you raise objections, you’re mocked or face formal discipline.”

    Dr Martin said he believes Eton is “moving towards a point where it will be accurate to say that they are trying to indoctrinate their students into this worldview”.

    He added that since Mr Knowland’s dismissal his concerns about “the prospect of indoctrination” have returned.

    Dr Martin went on to tell the vice-provost that the dismissal has had a “disheartening” effect on the rest of Eton’s Masters.

    “The question for some of us is: if [Will Knowland] was disciplined for expressing unorthodox views, might I be next?” the letter said.

    “I am beginning to lose faith in the college’s commitment to one of its core aims: that of promoting the best habits of independent thinking in the boys.”

    Last week Eton pupils published a petition which accused the school of “institutional bullying” claiming that it was a “gross abuse of the duty of the school to protect the freedoms of the individual”.

    The petition, which has been widely circulated among current and former pupils, has so far amassed over 2,300 signatures but Dr Martin’s letter is the first time that a current Master at Eton College has spoken out.

    His letter has been shared widely among parents, with one source saying: “They are getting more vocal about this now. But there would need to be a critical mass of support [for Mr Knowland] for them to speak to the school.”

    Mr Knowland’s internal appeal against the Head Master’s decision to sack him is due to be heard next week and a crowdfunding page has so far raised more than £50,000 to cover his legal costs for a potential employment tribunal if the appeal panel does not rule in his favour.

    The vice-provost will chair Mr Knowland’s appeal panel after the provost recused himself on the basis that he publicly backed the Head Master.

    A spokesman for Eton College said: “Once again, there are attempts to conduct or influence the College’s disciplinary process in public rather than via the proper procedures.

    “This letter has been received by the Vice-Provost. As he will chair the appeal hearing it is not therefore appropriate for us to comment further.”

    1. Let’s hope there are still enough parents for who an annual outlay of £42,000 is serious money.
      I’m assuming not all the pupils are the offspring of Russian oligarchs and African dictators.

          1. Speaking of Chinese so-called businessmen…I heard on the World Service during the night that America’s purge of chinky espionage agents has resulted in a thousand packing their bags and heading home to Virus Central – presumably to be incarcerated on arrival for breaking Rule 1 – they got caught. I hope that we and others in the West are doing the same, although if our success with illegal immigrants is any guide we continue to welcome them with open arms.

  39. Johnson, Sturgeon, Whitty, Gates, Pfizer Corporation, which of them would you trust with your life?

      1. There aren’t any clues. Vilnissimo cartoons apparently mostly appear in Private Eye though the text below looks more likely to’ve come from a newspaper?

    2. My elder son liked this (he is planning a family Christmas – thankfully without us) but added:

      “But based on their travelling together they’re now a support bubble so are welcome!”

  41. Why everyone should now vote Tyson Fury for BBC Sports Personality of the Year. 3 december 2020.

    How have we reached the point where Marcus Rashford has been told he is not allowed on the Sports Personality shortlist and Tyson Fury has been informed that he has to remain on the Sports Personality shortlist?

    BBC arrogance, that is how.

    It is wrapped up in the corporation’s desire to control everything about its big, glitzy night and exposes all that is wrong in its attitude to covering sport.

    It’s pretty obvious that it is being rigged for Lewis “Kneeler” Hamilton to win!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/boxing/2020/12/03/everyone-should-now-vote-tyson-fury-bbc-sports-personality-year/

    1. Vote for Hollie Doyle. She is exceptionally talented and is breaking the “glass ceiling”. Plus she’s modest and indigenous.

  42. I’ve just received a begging a-mail from from the Conservative Party:

    [We have] launched our Blue Wall Fund to ensure our new marginal MPs have the support necessary to defend their seats. Last year our new MPs won constituencies we haven’t held in generations, if ever, meaning we now need to build up vital campaign infrastructure on the ground and online.

    And with dozens of these marginal seats to protect in order to win the next election, we must go further than ever before to support our new MPs. Which is why to support this critical fund, I hope you’ll join Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak next Saturday for our very first grassroots fundraiser, marking the anniversary of our election victory.

    And so on…

    Policies and promises, anyone?

    1. They keep sending those – I’ve never been a member of any political party. So much for secret ballots.

      2. I bet you it’s based on old canvassing records.
        c.1985 you were polite to a Conservative canvasser and they put you down as ‘C’ or ‘P’.
        Cynical old sweats like me dread the pollyannaish canvassers.

        1. We don’t get many canvassers here. Our local Green district counsellor came in 2002 in the middle of a thunderstorm – I invited him in and we ended up chatting about Namibia. He’a quite a nice guy.

          1. Our green parliamentary candidate is a local 6th. college lecturer. Pleasant chap.
            When the G.E. hustings were held at the theatre last year, just one candidate failed to thank the organisers and that was the LibDem. All the others, Labour, Conservative and Green started their address by thanking the theatre staff.

    2. If the party in power cannot divert enough into party coffers from the kickbacks paid by loyal party supporters for high priced contracts to provide PPE (other rip offs also available), then they are not very good.

      Unless they are like my glorious leader who has a personal trust fund to support.

    4. Zapped. As with the vaccine, I’m sitting back and watching.
      Purse remains tightly shut.

    5. Make clear that any contribution is conditional on Boris delivering Brexit and not Brino. Oh, and all cheques to be postdated to 1/1/2021.

      1. If you don’t want to pay them until 2021, don’t send them anything until then. A postdated cheque is meaningless. It can be presented and will be honoured. Not that many people are still using cheques…

    7. Why doesn’t Rishi hand a few million over to the fund? – or is it just a case of want want want more more more? Don’t they realise what they have done to people, their lives, their families, businesses etc, while ferrying in thousands of people who hate us and want this country – but NOT us – -for us to keep?

  43. Honestly . . . I have just had a large message pop-up on my laptop screen

    Your virus protection is running out !!!!!!!

    Somehow I doubt McAfee can help with the “vaccine”.

    2. I wouldn’t laugh too much on that – the WEF and their big tech crony allies are more than hinting that Phase 2 of their world takeover will be because ‘computer viruses’ will suddenly (just as the pandemic is lifting or at least when people getting fed up with the restrictions to protest publicly) affect all utility suppliers (with the bogeyman being set as either NK, Russia, China or Iran), ‘forcing the hand’ of governments worldwide to invoke far worse control measures such as marshal law.

    1. it is only the beginning of December, there may still be something unpleasant at the bottom of the slide.

      1. Trawler loads of rotting fish because we couldn’t land them under the new quota system that Boris is going to agree to.

    1. And presumably date spaces on the rear as well.
      It rather suggests this will be a permanent annual requirement.
      What a farse. (sic)

  51. Just back from a long visit to my dentist.

    The weather was shocking , flooded roads , but now we are back home , the sun has come out , and the bad weather has cleared

    2 days ago I cracked a chunk of rear molar which was capped after root canal treatment last year.

    Looks like I will have to pay my bill in two chunks when I have it repaired after Christmas , despite the fact I have contributed to Denplan eversince its inception, and now paying a large fee every month. It is a bit like dog insurance , once the dog reaches a certain age the premium increases hugely.

    So looks like Christmas will be on hold, because I have had my new tyre , my tooth bill will probably be my present!

    My dentist is a decent nice clever chap , and has a very exotic background, his father used to farm apricots , pomegranates and spices and other fruit , a long useless still ongoing war ruined everything .

    Despite all my supposedly bigoted thoughts, I really do admire achievers , and I love listening to their narratives . I feel warm hearted and delighted that people like that can get on and DO!

    Of course I am also very grateful that my teeth are being attended to!

    Sun is out and the temperature is really falling , must replenish the bird feeders now that the rain has stopped .

    1. Tyres one year and teeth another year. Your husband is sooo romantic. 🙁

      What do you pay Denplan every month, Belle.

      1. Hi Phizzee

        £50 per month!
        Have been with Denplan forever and my 2 root canal fillings cost over a £1k for each tooth.

        Oh well , life is just a bowl of cherries!

        1. Good evening, Belle.

          I know Denplan is based on what grade your dentist says your teeth condition is but that sounds a lot. My root canals and crowns cost me £550. I pay £30 a month excepting Lab work at about £200.

          Consider the advice of another Dentist.

          Life is just a bowl of cherries but sometimes it’s the pits. 🙁

    2. As Rik would say, Belle, ain’t that the tooth. All I’ve done in the garden today is let the ducks out and feed them. They’re in a pond in the middle of the lawn. Unfortunately, there normally isn’t a pond there. Hope the tooth turns out well.

        1. The little moos don’t lay in the winter anyway. It’s not exactly a profit making scheme.

        2. They’ve got a small (actual) pond next to their hay lined coop. They really only use it for preening. they’re Indian Runners and don’t swim very much.

      2. As well as the rain, the builders created a lake by my coal shed by leaving the outdoor tap running. It’s the third day they’ve done that, but the first day when they didn’t tuck the hosepipe into the drain. I was forced to have words. Thank goodness I”m not on a meter!

    3. Thank goodness you are having work done. This tooth business seems to have plagued you for 2 (?) years.
      I gave up on Denplan and then Simply Health because we were not getting our money’s worth. It is just like pet insurance; I put a sum aside for vet’s bills, so that it is earning (!) rather than being taken and then whatever the problem ‘it’s not covered’.

      1. The Pet insurance thing , putting money aside is a good idea.

        When Happy parrot was poorly for that terrible 24 hours , the specialist vet was going to charge £90 for a blood test ! and then more for what ever treatment he required . He went down hill so very quickly , a procedure like a blood test for the poor little thing would have been pointless.

        1. Yes, it’s never an easy decision.
          I decided on a blood test for Spartie to get to the bottom of his allergy problem. Once I knew the outline of cause I didn’t feel that throwing more money to get further details would give me any useful information.

    4. Good afternoon, Belle. I am in the middle of ongoing treatment for a cracked upper canine tooth – the first appt was £90 to assess the damage and x-rays. The second appt a week or so later was £220, this was to check that the tooth was good, remove the crown – it was very firmly fixed – and check that it was not in need of root canal treatment before fitting the temporary crown, which was applied at that appt. I have to say it is a very good match even though it is temporary. My next appt is tomorrow, the temporary crown will be removed, more impressions will be taken, temporary crown will be replaced once again. I suspect this appointment will cost in the region of £220. The last appt on the 22 December will be for the fitting of the new crown, I think the bill for this appt will be in the region of £800, so there won’t be a lot of change out of £1,500. The cost for private treatment at our surgery is £360 per hour.

      1. I’ve been paying my monthly fee all year – hygenist appointment in June was cancelled. Next one with hygenist and dentist is sometime this month, so we’ll see.

      2. Hi PM

        You are going through the pain as well , it is all so fiddly and for sorting out tiny gaps in our mouths , it is a really expensive procedure .

        Can you remember the school dentist, every child was examined and then it was quite a frightening experience .

        Did you have your tonsils and adenoids removed at a tender age , I did and the smell of ether or what ever it was to knock the little patients out was horrible , I can remember something over my mouth and nose, and I then out for the count.

        My whole procedure will be about £500 .. just another white replacement crown , he tried to sell me the idea of a gold one or a titanium one … Nooo I don’t think so!

        1. A gold tooth would make you look like a drug dealer.
          You’d get strangers knocking on your door after dark.

          2. SWMBO has a couple of discreet gold teeth. Not easy to see, so she doesn’t look like a Russian.

          3. My first French teacher had a gold tooth. It was somehow very exotic and fascinating to see it flash and glint as she taught us a foreign language.

          5. I’ve got a gold crown. My dentist suggested it and it’s been in place for 25 years without any problems so he wasn’t wrong – the average life for a white one is 10 years.

            It’s a back molar though, so it’s never visible.

          6. 🙂
            Yonks ago they used gold fillings for front teeth; I never understood why the white glue for gold fillings was, presumably, tougher than just using white filling.
            A friend had a small gold filling and used to adjust her smile to hide it. Now she has a white one, she has no problem.
            She did live in the East End, so possibly she was afraid of being mistaken for one of the Krays’ groupies.

          8. I was given the option of a white NHS one, but gold was recommended. I’m fortunate enough to have an NHS dentist (for the last 30 years) so it’s the only bit of private work I’ve ever had done.

            Sadly the other tooth which was damaged in the same incident is now in rather bad shape… I don’t think I’ll get another crown for the £200 I paid back in the 1990s.

        2. Hi Belle, no, I didn’t have the T&A op but I did have dental treatment for teeth which involved the use of the mask, it was terrifying and I think that has been involved in my decision not to validate the government’s charade with face coverings (that’s my excuse, anyway!). I still remember the smell of the stuff, and the noise involved. And the horrible dark thick rubbery mask that seemed to swallow one up. From memory it seemed to cover all of my face.

          £500 sounds a good price for a crown, I don’t know why mine is so expensive, perhaps some of your treatment comes under the Denplan. We were with Denplan for years but we changed dentists (our lovely dentist retired and the practice was on the other side of Cambridge) and then went nhs for a while. I have transferred to the private side of this practice but p’dad, who never has much wrong with his teeth, has decided to remain an nhs patient.

          At the moment we are also ponying up for regular blood tests and veterinary treatment for our 11 year old dog – life is all about feast or famine (feast for the professionals and famine for us…..!).

          1. I hope Poppy benefits from the blood tests and treatment. Vet’s bills aren’t cheap (but worth every penny in my view).

          2. Yep, there is more dosh going out than coming in .

            I really don’t know how bods are coping right now , those who have lost their jobs etc.

            The facade of material minded Christmas gets on my nerves.

            It seems alot more these days than a Christmas annual and a few bits and pieces in a stocking .

            I must say I am a glutton for pantomimes , and I do enjoy them , they are corny , glittery noisy and just a lovely reminder of childhood .
            We don’t have any grandchildren , but I enjoy the oohs and ohs and shrieks from the little ones in the audience.

            I can remember my Grandpa and various great aunts taking me to see David Nixon the magician who was appearing in Cinderella in the 1950s.

        3. My mother wouldn’t let the school dentist anywhere near me! We had a good dentist and I’ve been fortunate not to have had much trouble with my teeth.

          I did have my tonsils and presumably the adenoids as well out when I was six. Not a happy experience. Several kids sat on a trolley together for the premed and I was the only one who didn”t cry – so I went to theatre first. I woke up very sore and coughing up large bloodclots. Hospital food was disgusting but I was too sore to eat it.

          2. I was back in hospital aged 10 for an emergency appendectomy – I remember waking up from that thinking “so that’s what it’s like to be dead”.

    5. You’re very lucky – my NHS dentist has not returned to work. Not sure whether they had COVID, but I suspect other things at work, as I’ve heard similar things from other people who use other NHS practices. I’ve just emailed them to see if and when they will be open again.

  52. Yesterday’s BBC News was full of hubristic nonsense with boasts about the fact that Britain is the first country officially to authorise and adopt the Covid virus vaccine.

    Am I alone in thinking that this is rather like bragging about being the first to book a ticket on the Titanic!

      1. One of the most upsetting items on display at Auschwitz is a crumb brush in the cabinet displaying all the brushes taken from the ‘workers’.
        That brush would have been packed by a Jewish mother, expecting to hold her usual shabbats in the new flats that were offered to them in exchange for working for the Fatherland. They expected a relatively normal life, albeit not in the ghetto.

        1. Those small, personal posessions were the hardest to look at, Anne. Cases with people’s names on; small posessions (like the brush), and the poor, broken shoes. The case of hair was just repulsive.

          1. Most of the orthopaedic appliances looked like instruments of torture.
            Wearing one of those would be an automatic trip to the gas chamber.

    4. It struck me as odd that we beat China. If they need thousands of volunteers, they always find willing participants in places like, jail. I’m sure that not too much paperwork or indemnity needed for state enterprises. The more our leaders have to say that the concoction is safe, the more I question it. I’ll stick with the virus at the moment but everyone has to judge their own risk.

    5. According to some wazzock in the government it was because we are “better than France”! More gullible, more like.

    2. Ask me in ten years time if I want to be vaccinated. I’ll decide then.

      ETA: The loons on the Left call me an “anti-vaxxer”

          1. Yep! Too old to change now! Mind you, the lockdowns and restrictions have made me more fed up than usual.

          2. Seems much of the UK it’s a case of “Wot lockdowns?” 🙂
            Restrictions we work around when necessary.

            As I posted before, MSM seem to avoid reporting from regions.

          3. Well – I’m lucky in that I have a husband and cat to share it.

            But it’s tedious, having no social life – no events, no sport or concerts, nothing but the weekly shop and going to the post office.

    3. My prediction – within a year, the DT will, assuming he’s still leader, change their alliegence to Kier Starmer’s Labour and will go anti-Brexit. Most of those supporting a ‘conservative viewpoint’ and Brexit are mainly the ‘old guard’ and will soon be forced out by the trendy lefties who have been slowly but surely taking over the paper.

      1. The “slow but sure” is the procedure the left always adopts.
        Even before the French and Russian revolutions they had been putting people in place. They are much better at it now.

  55. Daily Mail quick on the uptake again!

    Revealed: Up to a QUARTER of official Covid-19 ‘admissions’ may be patients who caught the virus IN HOSPITAL, data shows

    Government data shows there were 1,230 coronavirus patients needing NHS treatment every day in England

    But only 938 of these were from ‘the community’, meaning they definitely caught the virus in day-to-day life

    It leaves question marks over how other 292 patients who were admitted each day, on average, got infected

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9014395/Up-QUARTER-Covid-19-admissions-caught-virus-hospital.html

    1. …and the 938 could well include many who caught it from NHS staff who interract with those in or coming out of hospital, e.g. district nurses, GP surgery staff, or anyone working in hospital when not at work.

      I’d bet good money that, rather than mainly via pubs, clubs and restaurants, most of the cases that result in hospitalisations eminate from the medical sector, one way or the other – I’ve seen first hand how slack hospitals can be at cleanliness, including many lazy and arrogant staff who believe such standards only apply to other people or when other people are looking.

      1. A couple of weeks ago, the father in law of a friend of mine was admitted for a UTI and tested negative. He was there a week and came out having tested positive. Of course it could be a false positive, but at 89, it’s not good news for him. Last I heard he was doing ok.

    2. Dare I suggest the ethnicity of the staff.. if they are living in multi households , not changing their kit before they go home , who they mix with etc may be a contributory factor .

  56. Ex-French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing dies from Covid: Leader who was once linked to affair with Princess Diana passes away aged 94 amid investigation over claims he sexually assaulted a female journalist
    Former French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing has died with coronavirus aged 94, his family say
    Ex-head of state ruled in 1974-81 and was best known in the UK for his alleged affair with Princess Diana
    Giscard granted divorce by mutual consent, legalised abortion and lowered the voting age to 18 years from 21
    He died six months after a female journalist from Germany accused him of sexual assaulting her

    By JACK WRIGHT and PETER ALLEN IN PARIS FOR MAILONLINE

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9011929/Valery-Giscard-dEstaing-dies-aged-94-amid-investigation-sexually-assaulted-journalist.html

    I had not heard before that he had had an affair with the Princess of Wails but he was most renowned for the affair of the diamonds he wanted to pocket for himself. ‘In 1973, the then Minister of Finance, president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing was offered two diamonds from the Emperor of the Central African Empire, the notorious dictator Bokassa I. The affair was unveiled by the satiric newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné on October 10, 1979, towards the end of Giscard’s presidency. It contributed to Giscard losing his 1981 reelection bid.’ [wiki]

    Nottlers may also remember that d’Estang was also largely responsible for drafting the EU Constitution, which was rejected by referendum in both France and Holland and had to be reborn as ‘The Lisbon Treaty.’

    While he was doing this he put himself up in a suite at the most expensive hotel in Paris and dined almost exclusively on caviar, lobster and champagne. When he was tackled about this by a journalist his response – which aptly demonstrated his arrogance – was: “On doit être confortable” – One must be comfortable!

    2. I remember his dramatic televised staged exit when he lost the election to Mitterrand. He thought himself a man of destiny walking away from the cameras.

          1. The reason they all keep using the PCR test, is purely to massage the figures and inflate the death totals. Scaremongering propaganda.

    5. Valéry is the only Froggie president I’ve ever seen in real life. He landed in a helicopter outside the Hôtel des Invalides when I was a tourist there in 1977.

    6. If he died six months after being accused of sexually assaulting a woman, surely he died of sexual excess (after all, it’s as good as dying of Covid after having had a sniffle).

    1. Mary to Connie – “that dog has no mouth”
      Connie to Marie – “how does it smell?”
      Mary to Connie – “Stop channeling Diane Abbot”

  58. Which was David Bowie’s most memorable Christmas? The one where he got to play with Bing Crosby’s ‘Rubber bum pump’. 😀 😁

    https://scontent-cdt1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/129452410_3894721823892249_8634373788284185580_o.jpg?_nc_cat=101&ccb=2&_nc_sid=825194&_nc_ohc=MiwWNKiZJusAX-cRSKx&_nc_ht=scontent-cdt1-1.xx&oh=10cc7979f08ead5af6d5faa3c40004a2&oe=5FEFABE4

    https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=bing+crosby+little+drummer+boy&view=detail&mid=0A094F5FE55EF9FE39C80A094F5FE55EF9FE39C8&FORM=VIRE0&ru=%2fsearch%3fq%3dbing%2bcrosby%2blittle%2bdrummer%2bboy%26cvid%3dcc611004843d4401bbfea3612b427bce%26pglt%3d171%26FORM%3dANNTA1%26PC%3dHCTS

  59. To whoever was getting delivery messages from DPD ( yesterdays )

    I have just asked a DPD delivery driver who was next door, about the messages you were getting. He told me straight out it was a scam – they leave a missed delivery card – AND there is NO charge for re-delivery.

    1. I’ve had a few. The give away is often that the time of the supposed failed delivery attempt is several hours in the future.

  60. I somehow got past the paywall to Allison Pearson’s article today – as usual it’s good stuff.

    “These are, of course, uncomfortable truths… yet [the tiers] are grimly, inevitably, necessary,” wrote Gove [Times]. No, Minister. Measures that shut all the pubs in Kent because of a viral splutter in the Medway area are far from inevitable or necessary. Try ruinous and totally over the top. Nor, with 85 per cent bed occupancy (much lower than the 94 per cent this time last year) are
    hospitals about to be overwhelmed.

    And the only uncomfortable truth is the outrageous lengths members of the Government will go to to distort that truth. It was even reported that any Conservative MP who dared to vote against the tiers yesterday, to protect their constituents’ livelihoods (and sanity), could say goodbye to their career. Those are the tactics of a Mafia don, not the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

    Before you swallow Gove’s claim that “every bed, every ward” could be occupied by the tsunami of Covid cases, let me introduce you to George* (not his real name). Every week, George sends the Planet Normal podcast the latest figures for hospital bed occupancy. Embedded deep in the secretive NHS, George is very good for one’s blood pressure. If I’ve just watched another shroud-waving BBC report from some ICU, I ask George to fill me in on the real situation at that particular hospital. Within minutes, he is able to banish the apocalyptic picture with these tremendously unfashionable things called facts.

    Here’s an example. Last week, Sir Patrick Vallance and Professor Chris Whitty presented another of their Graphs of Doom; this one cherry-picked a number of hospitals on course to run out of beds. “Actually”, said George, “the national picture continues to look promising. Covid occupancy has peaked or is falling in most regions.” Funny they didn’t mention that at the press briefing, eh? December 2 was supposed to be Freedom Day, the end of a second lockdown, which has cost this country £900 million every day for a month and caused a billion invisible harms to its people.

    Full article at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/stop-telling-us-protectthe-nhs-nhsis-failing-protect-us/?ICID=onwardjourney_tgt-124-morestories-mvt_variation1

  61. Evening everyone. Haven’t been around today as I have been unwell through last night and today. (Not the virus!) A long time since I spent a whole day in bed. I have a telephone appointment with a doctor tomorrow morning. I’m sure it will be OK as my general health is excellent. Hopefully see you all sometime tomorrow.

    1. Please get well soon.

      I am not alone in finding it more pleasant when you are around on the site.

    6. Not nice for you, Del. Hope you have a decent nights sleep and wake feeling much better tomorrow! 😄

  62. ‘What a result!’: The human rights ‘leftie lawyers’ celebrating after Priti Patel raged at them for grounding Jamaica-bound deportation flight – meaning two rapists and a murderer among 23 criminals remain in UK
    One planned flight descended into chaos after 23 serious criminals appealed.
    Michael Antonio White, convicted of murder, was taken off yesterday’s plane
    He was sentenced to life in prison after shooting his victim 6 times in a drug deal
    In all, 23 criminals submitted appeals which led to them avoiding deportation
    MPs, celebrities and lawyers believe some may be Windrush descendants
    They also claim others have been trafficked into the UK and forced into crime

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9014869/The-human-rights-lawyers-celebrating-Priti-Patel-raged-Jamaican-deportation-plane.html

    1. They shouldn’t announce when the flights will take place – just get them out and tell the lawyers afterwards. They can appeal from Jamaica.

      2. They should have a watertight case, or adjust the law so this doesn’t happen. They are pathetic, utterly pathetic.

    2. “…trafficked into the UK and forced into crime”

      JHC, I’ve heard every excuse to avoid deportation now.

      1. If they’ve been trafficked into UK then surely the kindest thing is to traffic them back home?

    3. Being a human rights’ lefty lawyer should be a hanging offence. At the very least it should qualify for incarceration in a straitjacket.

    4. I don’t see the issue. Just have these lefties be forced to feed and house the criminals.

    5. I suggest we use an RAF base that is under lockdown and fly them out in a RAF plane. I was called to attend a telecommunications fault when I was just a lad and found the base was under a security imposed lockdown. Get in to sort out the fault not a hope in hell, I was told by a big burly guard to depart forthwith, and that was the polite way of saying it. I would like to see any lawyer manage to get on the base, even phones never used to be answer when those exercises were undertaken.

      1. No no, just have the criminals be made to live with the raists and murderers. Should they get out then the lawyer goes to prison for the crime and is locked up with the criminal.

        What is disgusting is that all this was done with tax payer money.

    7. Anyone involved in the stopping of such a flight should be given exactly the same sentence that the deportee gets after their next crime in the UK.

    8. ‘Evening, Maggie,

      So what if any of them are Windrush descendants? What has that got to do with anything? They are what they are, and they should not be here. Full stop.

    9. We have a grave shortage of violent criminals in Britain so we do need to keep those we do have in the country and encourage others to come.

  65. This morning Ms Freeman the Scottish Health minister seemed to reverse what she said yesterday. Those receiving the Covid-19 vaccination will have to go to the 23 centres equipped with new freezers where the batches are stored. The vaccine will not be moved out to care homes etc. The bulk batches, of 957 doses, have to be thawed out and mixed. They then have to be dispensed to 957 subjects within the remaining shelf life which may only be a few days. So expect bursts of activity as the centres attempt to line up people in groups of 957 to receive the vaccination. Then three weeks later when the second dose is required the exercise has be repeated.
    (Incidentally, no one knows how how long any immunity conferred by the vaccination will last, one year, one month, one week?)
    In England 720,000 doses will require to be administered in much the same way, brought up to usable temperature from -70degrees, mixed up in batches of 957 doses and then administered from a suitably equipped and manned health centre.
    My word of the week for next week? “Debacle”.

    2. There seems to be no answer as to whether the vaccine stops you becoming contagious in addition to protecting you from the ravages of the virus. If it doesn’t, then vaccination will not contribute to herd immunity.

        1. Virtually “forced” vaccination WILL be the testing. Hotels are filling up – and the govt needs the housing empty for the replacements families arriving.

    4. Is it really a few days from thawing to use by date?

      So what is the problem with distribution to care homes? Prepare a batch early in the morning, give the prepared vaccine to a dozen or so health care workers who could then drive out to the homes and infect everyone.

      It seems no harder than a milkman going out on their rounds each day..

          1. Jodie Comer in Killing Eve. I would. If she’d let me. Which she wouldn’t. Story of my life.

  68. That’s me for the day. Good stuff in The Critic. Makes the Spectator (that was) look very left-wing. I think I might suggest that they do a hatchet job on the Spectator gang that has infiltrated No 10.

  69. Ahem

    “‘We put all our politicians in prison as soon as they’re elected. Don’t you?’

    ‘Why?’

    ‘It saves time.’”

    Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent.

    2. Please can we have the standard 5 year mission (and not a three-month one) to determine whether the vaccine is actually safe over the longer term.

      1. 327142+ up ticks,
        js,
        You surely must mean the handling of the latest scam by the pretendee tory party.

        You have certainly done a 180.

      1. 327142+ upticks,
        Evening C,
        I was going to bring that up after my bath,
        The African tragedy, I did post on
        thalidomide tother day, also
        un-dealt with claims of swine fever.
        According to the politico’s & stats. flu has been annihilated then ?

      2. 327142+ up ticks,
        C,
        Was any of these experts, supposedly medical & politico
        giving advise in past ventures of Pfizer Co. if so, noting their track record should peoples feel assured for the future.

  72. As Thursday’s seem to be a quiet day on the forums…

    “Jack S Angry Citizen • an hour ago
    No shortage of brave talkers here on the forums.
    Putting down their keyboards and taking to their feet, as the Left do, is a different matter.

    1 EditReply”

    Discuss?

    1. The Left either have jobs which enable them to get out on the streets (ie media, PR or education) or no jobs so they have plenty of time.

        1. Do you know what? That MIGHT just possibly be true. Or, indeed, they could have a frail OH who can’t be left.

          2. Having said that, what’s your excuse?
            Are you out protesting every time you can?

            Of course not. Your job as a leftie infiltrator/troll is to upset right of centre forums.

            Well done, take a star of Lenin.

          4. Like “the silent majority” employment & mortgage have priority.
            Things the old-timers on their keyboards don’t need to bother about.

          5. You’ve answered your own questions.
            By and large the “left” are supported on the teat of the state (taxpayers) so they can protest to their heart’s content.

            If they were arrested and lost their jobs and/or had their benefits stopped they might be quite so keen.

          6. He doesn’t understand the basics though. Look at how his language derides and insults.

            Maybe Jack is young and immature. Maybe he’s a fervent firebrand who genuinely believes that transformation comes about through noise, confrontation and coercion. Eventually you realise it comes down to compromise.

          10. If you can afford it, and you get the right surgeon, it’s worth every penny of your children’s inheritance!

            {;-O

          11. Brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.
            The ever increasing equity in their home should more than cover the cost.

        2. A petty and abusive attitude rather typical of the Left wing mind.

          You do not understand. I assume this is because you are young and stupid.

        3. I’ve been on quite a few demos since I retired – but I don’t want to be arrested for it now.

    2. Completely true.
      Part of the reason is that the ideologies of the left appeal to younger fighting age men and women whereas those of the right appeal to the more mature and intelligent who are not keen on throwing firebombs nor being hit with truncheons.

      1. “”This House will under no circumstances fight for its King and country,” passed at 275 votes for the motion and 153 against it. The motion would later be named “the Oxford Oath” or “the Oxford Pledge”.

        It became one of the most controversial topics held within the Union, driving debate between the older and younger generations about patriotism and pacifism, and whether this motion would actually help or hurt war prevention efforts. While Winston Churchill wrote that the Oxford Oath affected certain decisions made by Adolf Hitler during the World War II, there is not sufficient evidence confirming that this was the case. American pacifists would take their own version of the pledge, and several anti-war strikes would take place with the pledge as the main drive.”

        1933. Most of them fought for the Crown six years later.

        1. Indeed.
          And far too many died.
          As to Americans and useless wars, I commend Hastings’ “Vietnam” . (I know you’re not a fan of the man.)

          1. “As to Americans and useless wars,…”

            Sean Parnell’s “Outlaw Platoon” is high on my to read again list.

          2. Different war but similar problems.

            Asymmetric warfare has changed “the rules”.

            Reading of soldiers being killed/maimed by IEDs, I can sympathise with soldiers who kill suspected fighters after the event. If the enemy dresses as a civilian, as they do, they are essentially saying they are happy for civilians to be shot.

            I will watch the second hand book sales.

      2. Which is why the Left are winning.
        Right prefer posting Churchill’s “We’ll fight them on the beaches!” to each other, as the illegals flood past their front doors.

        1. Have you ever been caught up in a riot where Molotov’s are being thrown? Trust me, it isn’t for the elderly.

          As to streaming past front doors; what do you think would happen to someone who shot them?

          3. Did I heck, too busy dodging the rubble, and making for the Sydenham bypass as fast as possible 🙂

          4. There’s a big difference between driving through a district after the event and being caught up in it.

            I’ve been caught up in one, bad luck and happenstance, but that’s life, and it’s a lot worse than walking through the area as I did to get to work after the Bishopsgate bombing

          6. I didn’t get involved, just wrong place, wrong time.

            I was in Athens, yer Greeks can certainly protest.

            The photographs on many of the front pages around the world the following day were taken from further away from the Molotov than I was standing. I could smell human hair on fire.

          7. From his online videos, Tommy Robinson seems to make a habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. His fans still seem to think he should be running the country. Takes all sorts I suppose.

          9. I was also in Athens with my two daughters! The smell and the tear gas was very disturbing, but the girls were goggle-eyed at getting caught up in it!

          10. Oddly enough, I used to enjoy wandering around Syntagma Square and down to Monastiraki during elections.

            I don’t speak any Greek, other than please and thank you level, but listening to the debates, the soap box orators the hecklers and the supporters and feeling the atmosphere was a wonderful experience.

          11. They take their politics very seriously! My sister and Greek brother-in-law actually used to vote KKE (communist) on the grounds that the then party leaders were local to them in Zografou and the party HQ was across the road! I have seen a couple of elections in Athens and the experience is amazing, particularly, as you say, Syntagma and surrounding roads with thousands of car horns and flags waving! We were on Crete once and a plane did a drop of tens of thousands of election leaflets over the countryside!

          12. I commuted between London and Athens for quite a while and really fell in love with the place and the people.

            When I say quite a while….
            eventually the stewardesses on the BA flight home on a Friday night said:
            “The usual, Tanqueray and tonic?”,

            and on the Sunday morning back to Athens:
            “champagne with your breakfast?”

          13. I commuted from Cambridge into Liverpool Street daily at that time. The Bishopsgate bombing blew out the glass roof of Liverpool Street Station. It remained leaking vast quantities of rainfall for over a year before being repaired.

            When a mortar landed in the garden behind Downing Street the roof over Numbers 10 and 11 was actually lifted off the brick walls intact and switched through several degrees before dropping back onto the walls. Thankfully a level headed minister, Tom King, calmly led the cabinet out of the building to relative safety.

          14. A bastard of a commute. You were welcome to it!

            I did it for about six months. More than sufficient.
            In fact far more than sufficient.

            My journey from Tonbridge or Tunbridge Wells to the office, depending on taking the car to Tonbridge or the bus to TW was similar in total time but because there were far, far more trains to choose from it was nowhere near as bad.

          15. Back then the service was diesel. I lived in Victoria Street in the centre and would either drive in winter or cycle in Summer to Cambridge Station. I took the 6.15am service to Liverpool Street then the Tube to Westminster, walk along Embankment to the site in Whitehall, report to the Clerk of Works and receive the Management Contractor’s queries, have a cup of tea and be in the office in South Kensington before anyone else had arrived.

            I doubt many of today’s youngsters would have the stomach to do as I did. Even then I had braved snow and ice in Cambridge only to get to the office and put the coffee on when the phone rang and a young assistant claimed to be ‘snow bound’ in Wimbledon.

          16. Been there, done that.
            For some reason the Hastings line was very prone to any of BR’s wonderful list of reasons not to run trains.

          17. I restored Somerhill near Tonbridge for Yardley Court School. It is a five bay Jacobean house with earlier buildings around a courtyard and a phenomenal Victorian wing extension.

            The property has a lake, nine hole golf course, tennis courts and we levelled a slope in tiers to provide cricket and rugby pitches.

            The contractor was Durtnell and a finer builder would be difficult to find.

          18. I restored Somerhill near Tonbridge for Yardley Court School. It is a five bay Jacobean house with earlier buildings around a courtyard and a phenomenal Victorian wing extension.

            The property has a lake, nine hole golf course, tennis courts and we levelled a slope in tiers to provide cricket and rugby pitches.

            The contractor was Durtnell and a finer builder would be difficult to find.

        2. No, they’re not. They cannot win and never have because the facts of life are conservative.

          Lefties *think* they’re winning because they’re loud, obnoxious, ego centric navel gazers. Noise is not signal.

          3. Whoosh! White noise is the term given to an absence of modulation on a signal. It’s basically a hiss.

          6. Judging by last years General Election results you regard >98% of we voters as “Lefties.”

    3. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of philosophy.

      The Left want something – usually to make someone else do something TO someone else.

      The rest of us, the normal people realise we have no right to demand other people have things done to them. The fundamental is one of liberty vs authoritarians. The Left are authoritarian, the normals – the majority are not.

      We realise a better society is created by the individual using his own agency for his own good. We support communities of individuals. We grow people. We want to be left alone. The Left don’t want to leave any one alone. They know best, they are right, therefore everyone must be like them.

      Whatever the Lefty believes they don’t understand that their rights end where someone else’s begin. They’ve no right – none – to demand that people pay more to – to pick on a topic – combat climate change. No right to demand we stop eating meat or wear wool, or on a Tuesday salute the flag, or to feel guilty for past history or to not drive or any other nutcase ideology.

      That’s the fundamental difference between the Left wing and the normal mind. The Lefty thinks ‘something must be done because *I* want it so’. You seek groups who all think the same to reinforce your wishes. You look for agreement amongst like minded characters and then you band together to force your demands on others – it’s childish egotism. Look at what you’ve said here!

      You see? You think that ‘doing something’ is a good thing. It IS NOT. It’s demanding other people accept your views. Change your life, evangelise your approach to others. Promote your lifestyle. By all means, go to a friend’s house and make them a vegetarian dinner. Offer to car share. Turn your lights off. Live your life. But never, ever demand others change to suit you. You do not have that right.

      This is why Lefties are always the bad guys. You start off merely strident, then when you face resistance – because it challenges your view and, after all, you, the Lefty are right in everything, everyone tells you so! You become aggressive then abusive and then you deride your enemies – because you need to validate yourself – and before you know it you’re invading Poland.

      Think about it, would you?

      1. “It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of philosophy….”

        The difference between talkers and walkers.

      2. That is a most erudite and thoughtful response and chimes with my own thoughts on the subject. The left are hate-filled. The right just want to get on with their lives unencumbered by barking mad ideologies and stupid strictures.

      3. That is a most erudite and thoughtful response and chimes with my own thoughts on the subject. The left are hate-filled. The right just want to get on with their lives unencumbered by barking mad ideologies and stupid strictures.

      4. That is a most erudite and thoughtful response and chimes with my own thoughts on the subject. The left are hate-filled. The right just want to get on with their lives unencumbered by barking mad ideologies and stupid strictures.

  73. Lord Ken Maginnis 18-month suspension from Lords for bullying and homophobia Irish News

    Complaints against Lord Maginnis were made by Parliamentary security officer Christian Bombolo, SNP MP Hannah Bardell and Labour MPs Luke Pollard and Toby Perkins. He actually called one a ‘queer’.

    Ms Bardell, SNP Shadow Secretary of State for Digital Sport(sic), who was sacked from her job at an oil and gas company for bullying, came out just before she was elected MP for Livingston. She also got a ‘slapped wrist’ for playing football in the debating chamber in Parliament.

    Luke Pollard, Labour MP for Plymouth, is married to his husband and dance partner, Sydney. He voted for Keir Starkers and against restrictions on immigrants to the UK. Voted in favour of same sex marriages. He campaigned for a £50,000 statue of his “democratic socialist” hero, Michael Foot, to be erected in Plymouth.

    Toby Perkins, Labour MP for Chesterfield, rabid remainer, wants the National Anthem banned from football matches, Friend of Palestinian Freedom Fighters. Was screwing a married woman, appointed her secretary and paid £30,000 of taxpayer’s money to previous secretary to keep schtum.

    I know nothing about security officer Christian Bombolo. He is probably just a ‘Fun Guy’ so I’ll say nothing.

    I don’t know about you but I believe Macginnis is being hammered to appease the 50+ gay MPs (yes, there really are that many) and the hundreds of anti-British, anti-Brexiteers that infest the Parliamentary benches.

    It’s enough to make one swear!… oops!

    1. “He actually called one a ‘queer’ ”

      But Queer Studies is a degree level subject – yes, I know – so is the use of the term the same as the N word, available to some but not all?

    2. The security guard’s name was reported incorrectly. It should read “Christian Bumboyo”.

    4. 327142+ up ticks,
      Afternoon P,
      You would have made a good role model
      for shaky Will, in his day.

    5. But … but …. I thought ‘queer’ was the word they used nowadays. Or is that sooooo 2019?

  74. Good to see that the French are putting the proverbial two fingers up to the European Commission who want to cancel Christmas.

    Here are the Commission’s recommendations: https://ec.europa.eu/health/sites/health/files/preparedness_response/docs/covid-19_stayingsafe_communication_en.pdf – particularly page 5 of this document. Interestingly, in the whole document the word “Christmas” is not used even once.

    Various French Euro MPs are saying that this is shameful – that even in the trenches of the Somme they celebrated Christmas, so what’s going on here?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ca09ea72efab03d7fc9f0e074b138914c17467a9ecae166a8d61a17d194ccd96.png

    1. They don’t mention Christmas because they want the restrictions to apply to everyone. And not to cause offence to the raghead murderous muzzies.

    2. One phrase in that report stands out:

      Every 17 seconds, a person dies in the EU due to COVID-19

      Is that really ‘due to’ or ‘with’?

      1. At the risk of being pedantic (don’t tell Peddy): it should, of course, be “owing to”.

        “Due to” takes an adjectival complement – which means, basically, that you can only use “due to” after the verb “to be”.

        Your “with” – or do you mean “of”? – implies that the people dying actually have Covid. But that is not necessarily the case: our “dearly beloved” Giscard died having recovered from Covid, but he died from the after-effects of Covid. So he died “owing to” Covid. Using “owing to” (or the erroneous “due to”) allows them to inflate the figures.

        1. I know you are a whizz at grammar. (Rastus extols your virtues endlessly) 🙂 But isn’t ‘basically’ in your second line superfluous?

        2. Thank you, Caroline. I was still channelling the ghost of the late Mrs. Lock before I said anything.

        3. Lord.
          No wonder I’m no good at yer eengleesh – never occurred that it could be so complicated.

        4. I know you are a whizz at grammar. (Rastus extols your virtues endlessly) 🙂 But isn’t ‘basically’ in your second line superfluous?

        5. At least the Bbc now qualifies COVID deaths statistics with ‘who died within 28 days of a positive COVID test’. Of course, that implies the positive result was really positive…

          1. If you had just calculated how many seniors over the age of 85 died in any given 28 day period, I imagine that the number would be significant.

    3. 327142+ up ticks,
      Afternoon CT,
      What are good pointers in the eu / UK political fan club still within the eu is the oath taking instruction manual lying between the dispatch boxes & the parliamentary canteen halal inclusive menu.

    5. Our “Midnight Mass” isn’t prohibited, it will just take place at 10.30pm and we have to book a place! Sorry, I’ll be at home watching something happen on YouTube and drinking my wine.

  76. Its becoming reminiscent of the Nevil Shute book “On the Beach” round here.

    Our masters are imposing covid restrictions on a localized basis, no province or country wide lock downs (yet).

    First the put Toronto into lockdown, then some of the suburbs followed. Since then, cases have been popping up in communities closer and closer to us. Last Friday the nearest case was 30 miles away, today a new suspected case only 15 miles away.

    Time to turn off the TV and ignore the news.

  77. Columbo – Just one more thing, something i can’t get my head around Joe, by the way my wife is a big fan of yours, do you have a signed picture for her? oh yes, how comes those Dominion voting machines are counting the votes in decimal fractions, were people giving a third of a vote to one candidate and two thirds to another?

    2. Sorry to pour cold water.

      What if the Democrats claimed that those were Trump votes being used to bump up his totals? It’s one person’s word against another.

      It’s a dirty war and I’m on Trump’s side but I really don’t think the deep state will allow a Trump victory.

      1. The deep state, the establishment likes to operate out of sight, out of media coverage out of public awareness, now they are fully exposed, Trump has won

        2. I agree. Trump is a smart President. He has endured four years of investigations including the Russian collusion hoax and the fake Impeachment. He knows the way of the Democrats who have been fixing elections for decades.

          Meanwhile the sordid dealings of Hunter Biden and Joe Biden in Ukraine whilst taking kickbacks from the Chinese Communist Party was buried by the MSM.

          It must be hard to capture all of the evidence of voter fraud but there is sufficient stench regarding irregular voting that I suspect he will retain the White House in the long run.

          Probably the mounting evidence of the pincer movement provided by Sidney Powell exposing Dominion and other counting machine fraud should finish off the Democrat elites and hopefully see them prosecuted.

    3. According to the driver, a maximum of 288,000 were driven to a processing centre for counting.
      By the time it reached Twitter, that 288,000 had become 4 million ballot papers. Go figure.

  79. Sky News reporting that Ryanair have purchased 75 of the infamous Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in anticipation of the Covid-19 restrictions being lifted. The aircraft are now airworthy.

    2. Ryanair has agreed to buy a further 75 new Boeing 737 MAX-8200 aircraft, bringing the total number of the jets that it has ordered to 210. The total value of the deal, including the 135 that it had previously ordered, is $22 billion.

      1. Evening Lacoste – Boeing must have put a lot of work and money into making the aircraft safe.

        1. Have you had hundreds of bad experiences flying with Ryanair, sos ?

          I have flown frequently and extensively for business and pleasure – over Europe and North America for some sixty years – with very few unpleasant experiences.

          I have flown with Ryanair a score of times; I never had a bad experience – one is not obliged to buy the onboard goodies!

          2. Spot on. The low cost airlines are generally pretty good in my experience and they have good punctuality records.

          3. My worst experience with Ryanair was when I wanted to fly home to Sweden for my birthday weekend. After waiting & waiting for several hours on the Friday evening in the Stanstead departure lounge, the flight was finally canxed, which effectively canxed the weekend.
            But, on the way through I had picked up a litre of Bowmore in Duty Frees, so when the announcement was made, instead of following the sheep through to the way out, I doubled back the way I had come & collected another, different litre of Bowmore in Duty Frees.
            When Life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

          5. The incident took place 14 years ago. I’ve only just rediscovered my taste for whisky.

          6. I’ve always found them to be OK if one obeys their rules. It’s the constant chopping and changing and the added/subtracted extras and costs that get me down.
            We use them for the UK from here, when not driving and I would guess we must have flown similar numbers of times to you.

  81. ADULT: A person who has stopped growing at both ends and is now growing in the middle.

    BEAUTY PARLOUR: A place where women curl up and dye.

    CHICKENS: The only animals you eat before they are born and after they are dead.

    COMMITTEE: A body that keeps minutes and wastes hours.

    DUST: Mud with the juice squeezed out.

    HANDKERCHIEF: Cold Storage.

    INFLATION: Cutting money in half without damaging the paper.

    MOSQUITO: An insect that makes you like flies better.

    RAISIN: A grape with a sunburn.

    SECRET: Something you tell to one person at a time.

    SKELETON: A bunch of bones with the person scraped off.

    TOOTHACHE: The pain that drives you to extraction.

    TOMORROW: One of the greatest labor saving devices of today.

    YAWN: An honest opinion openly expressed.

    WRINKLES: Something other people have, similar to my character lines.

    1. Hate to have to tell that whilst many women never go near a beauty parlour, they are also frequented by men 😉

      The chances of a shop-bought egg having a chick in it are very small indeed. I don’t know anyone who would knowing eat a gorbeled egg (and if it isn’t then there isn’t a chick).

      No, mosquitos do not alter my opinion of flies.

      I do like the idea of “a grape with sunburn”

      Most of the skeletons I’ve encountered over the years didn’t start out as people… ;-))

      1. When I go to my Turkish barber & have a “VIP”, the whole experience is like being in a beauty parlour. The only thing missing is a manicure.

    1. Only one is exhausted; the other one is watching your every move and plotting something 🙂

    1. Like he’s winning all those US court cases? Maybe pass on that.
      We have enough losers of our own.

        2. DT’s lawyers are withdrawing from the cases. Worried the lack of evidence may damage their careers.
          Four years and 231 days, not that I’m counting.

          4. That’s the sort of reply politicians give in the Commons when they want to avoid answering an awkward question

    3. Interesting because Fauci is the official who commissions all drug research and drug purchases in the USA with a budget of over 6 billion dollars. He has been in post as Chief Medical Advisor for forty years or more. He is up to his neck in the Pfizer scandals and other massive fraudulent and damaging drug scandals.

      I surmise that if the idiot Brits rush the Pfizer vaccine and thousands develop the widely expected side effects, their immune system compromised forever for a dependency on Gates’ vaccines, that he will lose a share of the US market. I doubt given his ugly history that Fauci ever had the health of Americans or anyone else at the centre of his thoughts.

      Trump understood this and will dismiss Fauci when he regains the White House.

      1. “Trump understood this and will dismiss Fauci when he regains the White House.”

        The day after we put Nigel in No.10.

        1. Nigel who? Surely you don’t mean the bloke who has tried to be elected to the HoC something like 8 times and failed every time!

          2. yeah, the chap who just helped to save the lives of two men stuck in a kayak in the English Channel.

      2. Sorry replying so late – I am only just catching up – i9f the surmised side-effects happen, we will be the last to be told….

    4. From the article:

      It comes amid mounting confusion over No. 10’s priority list after advisers insisted care home residents would be at the front of the queue but the need to deep-freeze the jabs, which clinical trials suggest are up to 95 per cent effective, means they can’t be taken out to homes and the at-risk residents are not currently allowed to leave.

      So those “at-risk” are not allowed to travel to receive a jab that allegedly obviates the risk of catching the very illness from which they are assessed as “at-risk” in the first place?

      Suppose that makes sense to Handjob, Halfwitty and Unbalanced…
      :¬(

      1. I thought surgeries could use portable hampers cooled by dry ice to transport the vaccine to care homes? Perhaps they are baulking at the cost – £5k a pop.

          2. They should use something similar to our mobile blood donation service. Fitted out with the correct equipment they could travel from carehome to carehome.

      2. The whole Covid episode has been a scam from start to finish. The aim is to make the world population dependent on Gates’ vaccines. It is the most insidious scheme cooked up by Soros, Gates, the Bankers such as Rothschild, UBS and the tentacles of the Chinese Communist Party which have reached and infected most of the West.

        The testing regime is utterly inappropriate and gives 100% false positives. The vaccines are not required because the virus, whilst highly infectious in those with co-morbidities, is no more threat than the annual flu strains we take in our stride. Old folk die in Winter if unfortunate enough to catch the flu bug. It was ever thus and remains so.

        Most Covid infections are amongst the old and vulnerable and those who have the ultimate misfortune viz. to be admitted to an NHS hospital where the standards of hygiene are abysmal.

      3. ‘Evening, Duncan, the sensibility of the lunatic, who, when asked why he keeps banging his head against a wall replies, “Because it’s so nice when I stop doing it.”

  85. That’s weird – just looked at my profile and it has 11 Jan 2020 as the latest posting? Plus which someone I’m sure I blocked is shown as not blocked – most odd; mind you, it’s Disqus!

    2. That’s because you started a new profile (as did I and others) and you’ve been using the new one since then.

      2. You’re back, Peddy! that really is good news. Don’t let the illegitimates carborundum you.

  89. Afternoon, all. Wet, dull and miserable here – and the weather is much the same 🙂 Vaccination certificates (Ausweiss anyone?) to allow you to go places. They’ll be making us wear a yellow star next. Had a call from a chap at the Memory Team today to ask how I was coping now “lockdown has ended”. I said that, to all intents and purposes, lockdown was still on. I couldn’t visit my friends (not in their “bubble”), I didn’t normally go out for meals or to the pub, so what has changed? He had to concede the point.

    Meanwhile, the damage from the Covid panic continues:

    https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/uk-news/2020/12/03/probe-finds-evidence-do-not-resuscitate-orders-were-used-without-consent/

    And of course, education will be further dumbed down:

    https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/uk-news/2020/12/03/students-to-receive-more-generous-grades-and-advance-notice-of-topics-in-exams/

    One wonders why they go to the trouble of having exams at all; just award them a mark and save yourselves the bother!

      1. Thank you, peddy. We’ve missed your input. I didn’t bother to check because I thought you were on holiday 🙂 German is my fifth language after all (and I never lived there).

        1. Gerne geschehen. Ich war sechszehn Jahre in Deutschland wohnhaft und dann arbeitete drei Jahre eng mit Deutschen zusammen in Schweden.

    1. The Deer Hunter

      Saw this on release in Leicester Sq Odeon and recently remastered in 4k.
      A really immersive and compelling film on the big screen finishing with the memorable recording of John Williams’s Cavatina:

      https://youtu.be/M_8d0DJpbBIof

      With the film painting a sobering portrait of a small Pennsylvania steel town rocked by loss when three of its sons go off to fight in Vietnam, Cimino’s ambitious and daring vision is showcased in this bold and brilliant war classic – that, 40 years on, is even more striking than ever before.

      https://www.seenit.co.uk/the-deer-hunter-is-getting-a-remastered-blu-ray-and-4k-ultra-hd-blu-ray-release-to-mark-its-40th-anniversary/

      https://youtu.be/Em59Fd7oDRg

      2. Originally written by Stanley Myers as a piano piece for the Eric Till film, “The Walking Stick” in 1970, but soon adapted by Myers at the request of and recorded by John Williams, replacing the original piano version.
        https://youtu.be/1ZZcV3U-sUk

        Its use in the Deer Hunter came several more years later in 1978.

      1. I must remember to take my rifle with me, should circumstances force me into residential care.

        Try that nonsense with me, I’d shoot ’em, hang them by the heels from their damn’ Christmas tree, and gralloch ’em before you could say knife.

        1. If I have to go into a home, I would certainly choose that one over the ones HG had to review and in some cases get closed.

  92. Leave with this thought…

    “Jack S ChrisLongski • an hour ago
    The British Empire – “won at the point of a bayonet, lost on the playing fields of Eton.”

    1 EditReply”

  93. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3fcdb8a5f7cf4558d3e08bbbf74506fbdd4fec7786602c71dd0f891bdc022097.jpg Nothing shows up more the muddled thinking of those in Europe than their idiotic plug and socket “system”. Every bloody electrical appliance you buy has a differently-shaped plug attached. Most of them block up the adjacent socket in the wall or on a trailing socket (as pictured here) so they can’t be used! This leads to all manner of frustration and expletives. No wonder they left all the best inventions in the world to the English.

      1. We’ve got blocks of all shapes and sizes, Billy, but it’s the plugs which are the problem: no standardisation.

          1. There is not a ‘Mrs Grizz’ per se, Billy. I do, though, share accommodation with a female Swedish MR (to coin a phrase).

            The “we” I was referring to is the collective population of this northern sub-peninsular.

          3. You have to be courageous to eat (and enjoy) lutfisk! I certainly don’t possess that level of courage!

          7. Would that apply to a lodger as well as to a partner (or bidie-in as they used to say at home)?

          8. It might. A group of students sharing might be regarded as sambos, although the term usually refers to partners.

          11. I was first told that I was a sambo by a black Ethiopian bloke at Swedish language class. It was the most surreal moment of my life!

    2. Fire hazard. I thought making everything standard was their goal ! I’ll be okay, everything is plugged into the light socket

    3. Not surprising. Their electrical colour coding scheme is rubbish, as it means colour-blind people (10% of men) and anyone who doesn’t have sufficient light available can’t tell the difference between the blue and brown wires.

      1. We switched from Red to Brown for Live on the grounds that it confused the colour blind. The green earth became yellow and green (which made more sense). Neutral was black; now it’s blue as I recall. I haven’t wired a plug for a decade or more – everything comes with a plug attached these days.

        1. It’s one area where the Yanks (nearly) have it nailed.

          Black for ‘hot’ (live) and white for ‘cold’ (neutral). Add a striped green and yellow for earth (‘ground’ for Yanks) and you would have a sensible universal system.

      2. Not being able to distinguish red from black is the most common form of colour blindness… closely followed by the inability to distinguish red from green.

        Blue is the least likely colour to be missing from an individual’s visual spectrum.

    4. Quirky Pivot…

      “28 Oct 2020 — A handy space saver, this versatile extension lead will slot into your house perfectly and bends to fit even the chunkiest of adaptors and …”

      Cheap, and probably another English product.

    1. I do often think that the speeches have got confused.

      You know, for the borrowing should be 0, but it’s trillions, this green nonsense is really cuts to fuel duty. Maybe they are the civil service is playing a dreadful practical joke?

  95. This corrupted US election investigation is like watching an episode of Columbo, we get to see the crime committed in plain sight, everyone knows who is guilty, then we watch them squirm while their alibi’s are slowly pulled to pieces.

    2. Comments were closed after one – but there are some interesting historical photos lower down the article.

    1. What happens if I say I’m expecting to close such a deal, but then it doesn’t secure 50 jobs or such a good investment? Who checks? Another army of jobsworths??

    2. What if… it’s only 85,000 ? What if it’s 8p? This is typical statism, this idea that you go somewhere to do something. It’s big state thinking because they can’t imagine a different way of operating because no one in that organisation has ever worked in private enterprise.

    3. So if you are just selling something for maybe £500,000 but the sale in itself does not secure any jobs, does that mean that you have to stay with quarantine rules of the day?

    4. What if it’s later found that 49 people can fulfil the order?
      Or that the orders are altered by the customer towards the end of completion?
      This just gets madder by the minute.

    7. Or kills 500 oldies who are a drain on the state, with their health care, pensions and under-occupied properties

          1. Back in the ’80s, they called that “Thatcherism.”

            “She knew the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

          6. Shows you know nothing about Thatcherism.

            Look, seriously, why are you here? You’re obviously antagonistic and certainly Left wing. If you cannot understand the horror that Lady T resuced the country from you’re uneducated.

          7. You could do what the Lefties do, de-platform me (FLAG &BLOCK)
            Then get back to telling to telling each other how you’re the defenders of free speech. Your choice.

          1. True C, but I’ll avoid the doomsayers along the way. Make the most of the time I have left 🙂

          2. That’s exactly my philosophy, too, but you seem to denigrate those of us over 60 who think like that.

          3. Here on the outer reaches of the Right you regulars heap abuse on we Centre-Right day after day.
            “Brainwashed masses”, “sheeple”, “Cultural Marxists” etc.
            You can hardly complain if we give a bit back now and again 🙂

          4. That should be “us” Centre-Right (accusative case after the preposition ‘on’). Cultural Marxists are hardly Centre Right or anywhere near the Centre. This “abuse” appears to exist largely in your mind, to be honest.

          5. “That should be “us”…” Are you peddy’s alter ego 🙂

            Like we “brainwashed masses” etc exist in your minds only.

          9. Few of us use those terms – apart from Ogga. We are hardly “Far-right”, just conservative with a small c.

  100. OK, good people, I see that so much space is being taken up by the troll and it’s feeds that I’m off to bed and continue reading R F Delderfeld. Good night.

      1. “Billy the Kid” was an irreverent nickname suggested for Prince William (after he’d been born) by some newspaper hack.

        2. He is the better of the two and he has a strong wife who will keep him on the straight and narrow – with the odd deviation for ecoloonacy – he has inherited it from his soft-brained father.

          1. When at Cambridge, Prince Charles was given special tutelage by Glyn Daniel. I remain dumbfounded that with such a wise head informing him Charles has turned out to be a complete and utter dunderhead.

    2. A copy of that postcard came in a vinyl boxed set of four LPs of all his ‘B’ sides (along with a scrap of black cloth they claimed was cut from something in his wardrobe).

    3. I’ve returned to the picture and must ask:
      Am I correct in thinking she appears to have an exceptionally long left arm???

  103. Either Disqus is playing up again or it’s another quiet day on the forums.
    One for the DT fans…

    “Jack S joey • 2 hours ago
    Illegals still pouring across the Rio Grande every day.
    More since DT was elected POTUS it seems.
    So much for you keyboard warriors and your guns.
    1 EditReply”

    If DT and 400 million guns can’t change anything what chance do we Brits have?

      1. …and for me, J, that means collapsing the troll and all the subsequent feeds. I need the space.

  104. I’m just popping in to see if anyone is up. It’s the first chance I’ve had today.
    Have I missed anything?

    1. Well the vaccine has arrived at our local hospital, but I am not supposed to tell anyone. Fortunately, us yokels consider that “a secret kept is a secret wasted”.

      1. Still think you need to develop a thicker skin corri…

        ETA: You wouldn’t last 5 minutes outside of your NTTL safe space. Just saying.’

        1. I don’t think he’d want to, Jack. Why don’t you contribute a bit more here, rather than just trolling to annoy?

    3. I think most have gone Stormy, but I’ll wish you good evening and hope it hasn’t been too hard a day.

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