Monday 4 January: Medics need greater logistical support for mass vaccination to succeed

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/01/04/letters-medics-need-greater-logistical-support-mass-vaccination/

1,061 thoughts on “Monday 4 January: Medics need greater logistical support for mass vaccination to succeed”

    1. I still find it disgusting that ‘tier 1’ is medium. The entire system of scale is biased toward hysteria.

      1. Fully agree, it’s madness justifying the politicians power grab of our freedoms. During the initial lockdowns – for that is what they are – in Scotland, Nipoleon, in a bid to be seen doing something ‘different’ and justifying her wage, took the initial Tier 1 from England and split it into Tier 0 and Tier 1. So by her reckoning even Tier 0 (which us mere mortals may take as ‘normal’) had restrictions!

      1. That has always been so. What wasn’t known was:

        How incredibly stupid so many people are.
        How desperate to give up their basic rights they are
        How eager and unquestioning they are of officialdom

        It’s moments like this when you truly despair of the population. Without critical thinking, without judgement, without cynical analysis you end up burning books and chanting. The Left love doing this as it gives them an identity – more, it gives their enemies a label and that gives *them* an identity but for the rest of us, it just shows we’re surrounded by morons who’d sell us out.

        1. ‘Morning, Wibbles, if it gets to book-burning, we need to remember the words of German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, who wrote in his 1820–1821 play Almansor the famous admonition, “Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen“: “Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people.”

          Prescient or what?

        2. “The Left love doing this as it gives them an identity – more, it gives their enemies a label and that gives *them* an identity but for the rest of us,”

          Irony much?

  3. SIR – You report (January 1) that Ofcom’s expanded definition of hate speech will include inciting hatred towards someone due to their political views.

    Does this mean that, at the next Conservative Party conference, the media will not be able to film and broadcast the Lefties demonstrating outside the entrance and shouting “Tory scum”?

    Unlike their gender or skin colour, a person chooses their political views, and I have always regarded being called “Tory scum” as a badge of honour.

    Tim Janman
    London W6

    1. If that is what OfCom are doing it is horrendously dangerous and it will be used to stifle political discourse because the law does not consider intent or context – a hate crime is defined as being such as any witness or third party might be considered hateful irrespective of other factors.
      If we are not allowed to offend each other, we should stop talking altogether and smile benignly – until that offends someone.

      2. ‘Might consider’. No reference to fact, evidence or reality, just conception. I consider this law to be hate speech as it prevents freedoms of expression. Go tie yourselves in knots, Scots.

        Just another example of why Scotland cannot run itself. They elect fools.

      3. A story has it that after the defeat of the Argentine’s in 1982, British troops doing stints garrisoning the islands found the local men somewhat slow and named them ‘Bennies’ after a character in the then allegedly popular U.K. television series ‘Crossroads’. The soldiers C.O.discovered this and, anticipating possible difficulties, forbade the use of this term. A little while afterwards an officer asked his senior N.C.O. what were ‘Stillars’, an expression the men were using one to another. ‘Still are a Bennie, Sir.’ Makes you proud to be British.

    2. Screaming abuse at someone because of their political views is silly, especially if it’s Lefties doing it. After all, they’re the ones responsible for every mess going.

      Insulting a Labour voter – my highest insult – is entirely rational and acceptable: Labour consistently bankrupt the country and land us indebted, impoverished and a weaker society than the Conservatives do. Insulting people for supporting a lack of intelligence, historical knowledge and common sense is sensible.

  4. The Confessional

    An elderly man walks into a confessional. The following conversation ensues:

    Man: ‘I am 92 years old, have a wonderful wife of 70 years, many children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Yesterday, I picked up two college girls, hitch-hiking. We went to a motel, where I had sex with each of them three times.’

    Priest: ‘Are you sorry for your sins?’

    Man: ‘What sins?’

    Priest: ‘What kind of a Catholic are you?’

    Man: ‘I’m Jewish.’

    Priest: ‘Why are you telling me all this?’

    Man: ‘I’m 92 years old … I’m telling everybody!’

  5. Democrats propose ban on ‘he’ and ‘she’ and all gender-specific words in new rules for Congress. 4 january 2021.

    Republicans have condemned a Democrat plan to eliminate gender-specific pronouns such as “he” and “she” from the rules of the US House of Representatives.

    Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat Speaker of the House, announced the proposal as a “bold and future-focused” move, and said it would make the lower chamber of Congress the “most inclusive in history” for transgender and nonbinary people.

    The move would do away with any gender-specific references, such as “man”, “woman”, “husband” or “wife” in the 45-page text of the rules that will govern the House during the 117th Congress, which convenes on Sunday.

    Morning everyone. Whom the God’s would destroy they first make mad!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/03/democrats-propose-ban-gender-specific-words-new-rules-congress/

      1. I have a sneaking suspicion that that little clip has been taken totally out of context and isn’t the end of a prayer.

        It sounded to me as if it was a statement that God may be known by many different names and as a “A man” and “A woman”.
        Although, having said that, nothing would surprise me coming from “A woke”

        1. Rep. Cleaver ends opening prayer for new Congress: ‘Amen and a woman’. 4 January 2021.

          Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., said the opening prayer for the 117th Congress on Sunday and altered the traditional ending of “amen” by saying, “Amen and awoman.”

          Cleaver is an ordained United Methodist pastor and was tapped to lead the opening prayer to start the new session. Congress swore in new lawmakers on Sunday and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was re-elected as House speaker.

          https://www.foxnews.com/politics/rep-cleaver-ends-opening-prayer-for-new-congress-amen-and-awoman

          1. I would like to hear his explanation of what he said and why.

            Listening to the full clip I am even less convinced that he was concluding as is claimed. He clearly says “A man” as two very separate words, not “amen”.

            He used male terms throughout the rest of his prayer, or whatever it was, so if he did use the ending as it is being interpreted then he is an idiot.

          2. The masculine term is used in the neuter during all law making. It’s simpler, straightforward and easily understood.

            It encompasses all people, not men and women. stupid, useless dolts.

          3. But, Wibbles, Bumbling, Dim Joe Biden and his equally useless administration, will change that, in law, after taking lessons from the fish-wife.

      3. That’s easy to solve in the Newspeak it will simply end: “erm … and…..er….?”

        1. That got me thinking – what’s she going to do with aMENdMENts? I thought I’d just MENtion it. She might not MANage it.

          I’ll let you guys (and gals) do the rest.

          2. Although, of course, the Latin root is “mensis” = months. Nothing whatsoever to do with men. The word “man” doesn’t come from Latin but from German.

            It’s really not surprising that so many people find English such an illogical language.

          3. The conversion of the word ‘manhole’ might create a little difficulty…

            ‘Morning, Nanners.

          7. One of my colleagues in the MCR (Masters’ Common Room) at Allhallows insisted on calling a jock strap a testicle brace.

        1. Sorry Bob, but it ain’t Latin. The Romans simply pinched it. It’s Hebrew or Aramaic and its use in the Jewish faith dates from the 4th or 5th century BC. It is used by all the Abrahamic faiths, Christians, Jews and Muslims.

          1. And they changed the job titles of some of the people working for Plymouth Council to personager because they thought that manager was gender specific.

          2. And they changed the job titles of some of the people working for Plymouth Council to personager because they thought that manager was gender specific.

          3. And they changed the job titles of some of the people working for Plymouth Council to personager because they thought that manager was gender specific.

      7. It is not “Latin” it is Hebrew or Aramaic (the Romans simply adopted it along with Christianity).

        It is an Abrahamic declaration used by all the Abrahamic faiths, Christians, Jews and Muslims; it dates, in Jewish use, from well before the birth of Christ.

    2. Yeah why not. It’s not as if they’ve anything better to do, is it? The utter lack of common sense and barest shred of intelligence amongst these people is mind boggling. It’s almost like – during a national emergency the government announcing it was going to hike taxes, destroy energy creation and ban all travel outside of 50 miles of your home! What idiot government would do that!

    1. Morning, Bob.
      Too dark for weather information just now. Maybe someone painted over the windows in the night, for a prank?

  7. Leave military out of it, former defence secretaries tell Trump. 4 January 2021.

    All 10 former US defence secretaries still living, including two who worked for Donald Trump, have called for the president and his supporters to accept he lost the election and warned against attempts to involve the military in his increasingly desperate efforts to overturn the result.

    In an unprecedented joint letter published in the Washington Post, the defence secretaries addressed the worst fears of what could happen in 17 days of Trump’s administration remaining before Joe Biden’s inauguration: an attempt by Trump to foment a crises with the aim of triggering a military intervention in his last-ditch struggle to hold on power.

    Although this letter purports to be about warning Trump against carrying out a coup, this is simply misdirection as there is not the remotest possibility of the Chiefs of Staff agreeing to such an action.. The real fear is that he will attack Iran (he doesn’t need the Chiefs for this) under some spurious excuse and leave the Biden administration with a Legacy of War that will poison its agenda for the next four years.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/04/leave-military-out-of-it-former-defence-secretaries-tell-trump

    1. I could be wrong, but I thought the Biden Administration Agenda was Poison…..we shall see….

      Morning Minty et al

      1. ‘Morning, Stephen, it seems that General Electric has been told for $5.4 billion – to China.

        So, which President is going to stop that?

        1. Which one is going to pull the plug you mean?

          Morning Tom. Isn’t GE more of a finance company these days?

  8. Britain needs nuclear energy to meet demand

    SIR – Peak energy provision in the UK is now at around 80 gigawatts, but the switch to electric cars and electric home and office heating systems will each require another 80 gigawatts.

    Renewables can only reach half this demand, and are intermittent. So we will have cold, unlit houses and gridlock on the roads when the sun isn’t shining and the wind not blowing.

    The lack of a consistent energy-supply policy by successive governments since 2008 has meant that we are already unable to provide for our existing peak-energy demand when the weather is unfavourable.

    We need not just three new nuclear stations at Hinkley Point, Sizewell, and Bradwell, giving us maybe 10 gigawatts, but another 10 to ensure a stable energy supply in time for the great environmental transition in 2030. This is against the background of our current advanced gas-cooled reactors all being phased out by 2030 – so we are running just to stand still with regard to nuclear energy.

    After 2030, the government should realise that there is little choice but to burn natural gas to fill the stable base-supply power gap of 90 gigawatts. But it cannot do this and remain green.

    Carbon sequestration could provide a large part of the solution, but we still need an additional 30-40 gigawatts from nuclear. Fifty Rolls-Royce 660 megawatt units, which are virtually available “off the shelf”, seem an attractive option.

    Professor R G Faulkner

    Loughborough, Leicestershire

    2. I’m not sure about carbon sequestration such as storing CO2 underground but I think gas supply to Power Stations and homes should be continued.
      In fact, I think Boris is barking up the wrong tree with his green policies.

      1. ‘Morning, Clyde, just a minor change, ” I think Boris is barking up the wrong tree with his Carrie’s green policies.”

    3. It is much cheaper to build gas powered power stations. Natural gas from frakking solves our immediate power needs.

    4. If we had insufficient energy to power all the toy cars in 2030, I would have thought that we would have the opposite of gridlock on the roads: the roads would be deserted.

        1. ‘Morning, Korky.

          I remember how pleasant it was to drive during the 1st lockdown.

      2. That would depend on the drivers. Those with a sufficiency of gumption would not drive without sufficient charge. Those with insufficient gumption would suffer battery failure here, there, everywhere, and usually in the most inconvenient places for others.

        What would you bet on the number of drivers who would say “it’ll be alright”?

        Note – if anyone ever says “it’ll be alright” when planning a job I can guarantee that it won’t be!

    5. 328126+ up ticks,
      Morning E,
      Trouble is prof. the computers are in the hands of the lab/lib/con close shop coalition party and the computers say NO.

    6. It is much cheaper to build gas powered power stations. Natural gas from frakking solves our immediate power needs.

      1. Fracking is currently suspended and has been since 2019 because the government were told that predicting the size and frequency of tremors caused by fracking was impossible.

        1. The frackers don’t want to frack at sea because it costs more to bring the gas ashore than just pipe out from underneath Manchester.
          Fracking in the North Sea is preferable to fracking below residential communities. It is perfectly feasible.

    7. So we need double our capacity just for the population as of now. What happens when the UN?/whoever wants this country’s population to go up to 180+ million? How much capacity needed then? Won’t even be room for wind turbines.

      1. Uxorious Harry and Graspa Meegraine self-righteously tell us to have fewer children.

        Perhaps their Archewell Institution should lobby governments to punish those who have larger families?

        I wonder if their popularity would rise if they campaigned that no child benefits would be given after the second child and that after the third child the child was confiscated and sent in exile to another continent where the population is less dense than in Europe. Added to which any man found to have fathered more than four children should be forced to have a vasectomy and any woman to have had more than four children a hysterectomy.

        A nightmare vision – but could this become the normal practice after the Great Reset?

          2. No. Her foot is firmly in one camp; the one that allows her to be a very rich victim.
            Like Hamilton and O’Bummer.

        2. Yes – A nightmare vision is 100% correct. The argument could be endless. What about a woman expecting quins or more? Woman’s right to have children? Different fathers – so 4 by each? Migrant families arriving – some tv programs have shown European travellers with 11 children coming here. The lawyers would be rubbing their hands with glee.Tony Blairs HRA – wonderful ( sarc ) – has allowed thousands to come here and do nothing, being only a burden and a danger to us.

  9. 328126+ up ticks,
    Morning each,
    May one ask
    Medics need greater logistical support for mass vaccination to succeed, ok granted but, when did mass trust in these governance party’s come into being ?

    Where is the “beyond reasonable doubt” element in this rush
    to introduce this NON time tested vaccine into ones arm ?

    I personally am NOT going to let a doctor of proven English
    stock dating back “to our enery the bloody eighth” stick a needle in me let alone take notice of politico’s of proven very dubious nature.

  10. Knowing how much Anne & others treasure multi-signature letters, I bring you this one…

    Dental emergency

    SIR – For several years we have been warning of dentistry’s woes in England. Covid-19 has put further pressures and restrictions on dental care in this country.

    Tooth decay in children was already the chief cause of child hospitalisation before the pandemic. Since the start of the Covid outbreak, some 19 million dental appointments have been missed. Pain, suffering and tooth loss will only increase without serious additional dental investment and a proper national dental disease prevention strategy.

    However, instead of extra investment, punitive unit of dental activity (UDA) targets have been forced upon NHS dental teams from this month, which threaten fines and funding clawbacks in March, and put future NHS provision at risk.

    Private dentistry has stepped up valiantly during the pandemic to help with the increase in dental problems, but has had almost no central help, funding or resources, and thus dentists are taking out additional loans just to survive.

    The NHS and the private sector provide essential dental services in synergy, so we urge the public and professionals to contact their MPs – lobby them to take part in the parliamentary debate on the effect of Covid-19 on dental services on January 14, and write to Jo Churchill, the minister for prevention, public health and primary care, expressing these serious concerns about our worsening dental tragedy.

    Tony Kilcoyne
    Specialist in prosthodontics

    Nisha Patel
    Family dentist

    Tony Jacobs
    Founder, GDPUK

    Bashir Kassam

    Neil Douglas

    Vishal Kumar

    Jane Webb

    Anthony Lubran

    Ashley Lupin

    Anjani Dave

    Chris Borne

    David Flattery

    Samir Shah

    Chris Lee

    Sandeep Khanna

    Kim Pickering

    Tim Jones

    William Jovanovic

    Phillip Gale

    Jeremy Rowe

    Ian Marker

    Barry Rosenbloom

    Alastair Fee

    Stephanie Twidale

    Carl Rumble

    Timothy Martin

    Steve Van Russelt

    Anne Fitton

    Paul Fitton

    Michael Goodchild

    Jonathan Westall

    Andy Bates

    Barbara Jones

    Jane Lelean

    Mike Powell

    Dominic Kiernander

    John Bates

    Mike Day

    Roshan Hackeem

    Martin Perry

    Tim Coates

    Mike Hails

    Chris Tavares

    Jim Page

    Keith Hayes

    Arthur McGroarty

    Ivan Simmonds

    Nigel Thorpe-Beeston

    Chee Chen

    James Martin

    Mamak Moghaddam

    Rehana Khanom Mostafa

    Rakhi Patel

    Balkar Kalirai

    Rand Hussein

    Joanna Bonnick

    Martin Mayhew

    Paul Lowe

    Adrian Bell

    Alison Brokenshire

    Violeta Kostova

    Felicity Murray

    Abid Malik

    Simon Gallier

    Mark Roberts

    Geoff Worrall

    Serena Patel

    Michael Pearson

    Dermot O’Connor

    Olawunmi Macaulay

    Robert Silverwood

    Peter Gould

    Kerry Perks

    Chris Branfield

    Sundas Ismail

    Lisa Britton

    Pavi Sagoo

    Rita Bagga

    Paul Isaacs

    Marek Dingley

    Sarah Aliakbar

    Adam Steventon

    Tomasz Rzeczycki

    Robert Moxom

    William Seager

    Bjorn Kragnes

    Shiv Pabary

    Zara Nortley

    Samir Shah

    Scott Aaron

    Chirag Shah

    Claudiu Patrugan

    Saffia Mubeen

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    Karandeep Digva

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    Rumeet Patel

    Sally Higgins

    Harvey Cohen

    Paul Mandon-Gassman

    Alexander Howell

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    Adam Walker

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    Upen Vithlani

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    Rikin Patel

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    Rajni Jain

    Sanjeev Bedi

    Julian Keen

    Amit Gupta

    Nichola Stevens

    Vanesha Nosib

    Alix Furness

    Harminder Dhaliwal

    Margarita Lane

    Rob Endicott

    Sandra West

    Rebekah Perry

    Rachael Harlow

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    Ayesha Ejaz

    Amie Patel

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    Mizan Miah

    Mehool Mistry

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    Mohammed Afzal

    Susan Dornan

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    Pritesh Raval

    Simon Oldfield

    Arjun Kachhala

    Roma McNeil

    Renuka Arun

    Donna Mills

    John Davies

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    Rakesh Sharma

    Charmaine Fernando

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    Mary Crossling

    Catrin Jones

    Saira Safdar

    Lyudmyla Allibone

    Edd Burton

    Judith Roberts

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    Jacquetta Dring

    Tim Rodgers

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    Daniela Varela

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    Louisa Kellett

    Stephanie Buck

    Sonia Manikam

    Brian Duffy

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    Omnia Elsafy

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    Nicola Edwards

    Amal Amin

    Deepika Kudawla

    Hummaid Jabbar

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    Amit Patel

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    Mike Blackwell

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    Akeel Sharafali

    Reshma Parambil

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    Poonam Ranpuria

    Michael Alexander

    Manisha Patel

    Hawar Alhaddad

    Jana Majevadia

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    Tom Rickard

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    Brett Fitzcharles

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    Gary Dyer

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    Rachel Gibson

    Sara Misra

    Marcus Hooper

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    Khalid Anis

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    Paulomi Patel

    Hetal Patel

    Alison Chastell

    Jessica Maguire

    Amritpal Padda

    Richard Nichols

    Alexandra Callaghan

    Rachel Kirk

    Chris Branfield

    Zelda Wiese

    David Miller

    Ali Al Hassan

    Lau Berraondo

    Stephen Robinson

    Joanna Bankes

    Priyanka Kulkarni

    Harpal Basra

    Snehali Patel

    Pranay Patel

    Pamela Carpenter

    John Carney

    Samiah Naz

    Jonathan Bankes

    Lucy Stratton

    Gareth Spiers

    Pete McDonald

    Leanna Clark

    Claire Ashton

    Casey David

    Rachel Pennington

    Nilesh Parmar

    Eleanor Hewitt

    Mikhil Amin

    Stacey Fenwick

    Lindsay Kirk

    Nisha Handa

    Jenny Haigh

    Gurminder Gill

    Gary O’Hare

    Kruti Desai

    Kiran Rai

    Naresh Pal

    Nafiza Jamil

    Lauren Cross

    Florentina Vulpe

    Leena Hamed

    Natasha Mungrah

    Jaspreet Lall

    Nick Fleming

    Emily Burden

    Anju Jairath

    Dorothy Quigley

    Mehul Vithlani

    Hind Abduldaiem

    Ami Sutarwala

    Julie Anderton

    Agnieszka Lagosz

    Pooja Desai

    Aisha Ahsan

    Amy Packer

    Yoganandda Kempegowda

    Lisa Smith

    Moussa Sadek

    Ffion Hall

    Mohammed Aslam

    Leslie Padayachee

    Bharti Shah

    Shiamiela Hussain

    Gary Cohen

    Janki Bodiwala

    Archna Patel

    Iain Shaw

    Harmeet Gill

    Virginia Paniza

    Diana Ahmed

    Paul Hughes

    Emma Davison

    Amanda Dorlin

    Elizabeth Tyler

    Manu Cherian

    Farah Rajabali

    Kajal Bathia

    Paul Ellul

    Monica Cartwright

    Imran Ali

    Grace Marks

    Manu Singal

    Ann-Marie Bard

    Ali Mubarak

    Kate Oakden

    Radhika Mistry

    Vipul Patel

    Cheryl Calver

    Darsha Buxani

    Randip Bhamra

    Louise Fearon

    Jaafar Jassm

    Bhawika Nana

    Vijay Vithani

    Anika Vig

    Julie Deverick

    Jaime Hobman

    Rabia Sayed

    Lynda Raybould

    Elspeth Sewell

    Elspeth Greening

    Hira Arshad

    Philippa McNee

    Rachael Hall

    Miranda Steeples

    Fawzia Walji

    Chris Chatham

    Gaiva Kazuliene

    Yanika Amin

    Osama Al-Okati

    Ameena Khurshid

    Joey Gray

    David Tsang

    Vikash Patel

    Sonam Patel

    Kathryn Anderson

    Varun Kaura

    Farah Ahmed

    Shail Patel

    Viraj Patel

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    Rebecca Shawcross

    Eva King

    Alysha Velji

    Tom Charnock

    Amit Sharma

    Pinakin Shah

    Mohammad Hindawi

    Rebecca Lee

    Joe McGurk

    Amy Hayes

    Sukh Lyall

    Samar Morgan

    Louisa Clarke

    Eleanor Swinnerton

    Amreeta Sanghera

    Rupee Hayes

    Ramesh Parmar

    JJ Khamis

    Will Aspinall

    Suzanne Ellis

    Monique Taylor

    Hassan Adnan

    Imran Aziz

    Pardip Atthi

    Clare Jones

    Rachel Armstrong

    Suraj Patel

    Bhavdeep Cheema

    Christiaan Miles

    Wilhelmina Harlow

    Reneeka Patel

    Rebecca Cray

    Ruani Silva

    Purvi Patel

    Aarti Shah

    Thomas Edwards

    Sapna Chauhan

    Jacob Jones

    Neelu Mehan

    Jay Doshi

    Suvani Vasudevan

    John Gamon

    Mohammed Zeiton

    Shraddha Jagani

    Sharon Jacob

    Jaspreet Singh

    Faizan Ali

    Hannah Thompson

    Alana Kilkenny

    Dhrupti Patel

    Mihaela Dobre

    Susie Gardiner

    John Barry

    Joseph Hargraves

    Laura Webster

    Petyo Georgiev

    Vivian Chan

    Katie Holdgate

    Areej Saleh

    Zafar Ahmed

    Patricia Machuca

    Jon Everard

    Melbourne Carew

    Zareen Ahmed

    Martin Georgeson

    Sarah Johnston

    Helen Spratt

    Nicola Davey

    Victoria Fowler

    Rachel Williams

    Samantha Haque

    Gayathirie Sooriyacumar

    Dmitriy Mihaylov

    Laura Jones

    Nadia Jubbawy

    Radha Sisodia

    James Elliot Cooper

    Siddharth Patel

    Dilan Amin

    Claire Handley

    Lisa Allen

    Dhivya Mathew

    Neel Patel

    Janet Ibbott

    Avina Gandecha

    Asma Hussain

    Arun Khosla

    Vibha Narendraji

    Chandan Sharma

    Flavia Gagliardi

    Sheetul Bhagwan

    Hema Dhingra

    Bansri Patel

    Kathryn Smith

    Michael Lavelle

    Colin Tovey

    Nerina Tackie

    Ani Kalustian

    Peter Orme

    Kam Patel

    Carla Pierce

    Muzgan Sadra

    Paula Bernad

    Anjli Desai

    Abi France

    Rajeev Prashar

    Georgina Malkan

    Ella Carter

    Huda Khalil

    Ahmed Al-Ashaw

    Prianka Hansrani

    Natalie Lendhra

    Charlotte Gentry

    Carol Leadbetter

    Kevin McCarthy

    Jennifer Archer

    Humaira Khaja

    Dennis Tang

    Abuzer Sadikot

    Dave Bridges

    Sundeep Bains

    Vanisha Patel

    Beth Millington

    Haroon Khan

    Rashmika Patel

    Dev Patel

    Taijas Patel

    Heidi Cheung

    Kabir Bhogal

    Phillip Mullen

    Nadine Wiltshire

    Dwindar Nar

    Bhavin Parmar

    Steven Lai

    Yasmin Tamimi

    Josephine Suett

    Neha Devalia

    Denise Tulip

    Sarita Ramchandani

    Ali Al-Bakri

    Aaliya Somani

    Kelley Robinson

    Ravi Ganatra

    Natasha Crossley

    Ruairidh Bothwell

    Hamid Hosseini

    Premal Mehta

    Jayman Patel

    Morad Shafy

    Ivan Ruggles

    Ameer Kapra

    Miriam Docrat

    Sadia Kanji

    Rekha Handa

    Amit Parmar

    Richard Cantillon

    Lee Wright

    James Martin

    Devki Patel

    Joanne Finn

      1. ‘Morning, Belle.

        I’m wondering why I didn’t make the list & I’ve been retired for over 7 years.

    2. Sorry, Peddy, I’ve had to ‘collapse’ that as, with 559 signatures it is, as already said, just a waste of space.

    3. “Private dentistry has stepped up valiantly during the pandemic to help with the increase in dental problems”

      Bow locks! Virtually every dental practice was shut. My wife had toothache for 8 months and couldn’t find a dentist that stayed open. Maybe that’s why millions of dental appointments have been lost.

      It’s also not easy to find a dentist that agrees to do NHS work.

      1. I had substantial dental work done by a dentist in Marmaris, Turkey in 2005. It consisted of one extraction, one deep filling, six crowns and three bridges. He also replaced most of my existing metal filling with white ones.

        The total cost was €1,200. All the work is still in place and has never given me any trouble at all and it looks as if I have a full head of teeth.

        Even though my dentist is nominally a Muslim he enjoys a beer and a glass or two of wine – he is a very pleasant companion.

        1. Yeah she’s still as mental as a fruitcake because of it. We’re almost certainly splitting up next week when Amy goes back to uni. I haven’t had so much as a kiss or nice word from her in over six months. We make that wars of the roses film look like a great day at a home. That will make me homeless again and without even a car to live in this time.

          1. Oh, man… I’m sorry, Thayers, that’s rough.
            Which part of the country are you in?

          3. Domestic misery is misery indeed.

            My wife and I sympathise with you. We have no problems with each other but one of our sons gave us an extremely rough time when he was adolescent. Unfortunately he entered adolescence at the age of 12 and at the age of 27 he does not seem to have come through it thoroughly yet. But at least he is self-sufficient, cheerful, has a good job, a fiancée and, best of all, he does not live with us.

      1. If you study the list, there are a few famous names there, e.g. Jennifer Archer.

    7. Yo Peddy

      Are you held a little in ;contempt’ by your peers, for having English as your first language

      Just askin;

      1. I don’t know about that, but I remember making one important speech at an admin meeting in Sweden, in which I switched from Swedish to German & then to English to cater for the entire audience & that caused mutterings.

    9. Reading that litany of saints using modern website design takes an age to scroll down to the bottom. When folk could do things, they could fit fifty on a page, with no stylish white space hogging the rest of the screen.

      As for dentistry, all I have now is my trusty pack of Milliput Superfine White to fill the holes. Unfortunately, while the LR6 seems to have taken ok, the UL7 is annoyingly out of reach of the mirror, and I have to guess when I push the stuff in the hole. I also have to plug it with rolled-up loo paper until it goes off, otherwise, it dissolves with saliva and inflames the gums and makes me feel queasy at night, The last couple of attempts failed – it all fell out when I took out the loo paper, but when the swelling goes down with a good swig of TCP, I’ll have to try again. I have a little file I use to sharpen my chainsaw to grind down the rough edges.

      Do you think we’ll ever again be able to rely on our professional classes?

      1. Considering that calling an insurer now takes an hour of sitting on hold apparently not.

        Really, if they can’t fix their incompetent systems by now after 9 months they need sacking.

      1. No, they haven’t Rastus, which is a bit of a surprise, since they must have started it when I was still working over 7 years ago.

  11. So lets all play a nice game of science says

    Science says wear a mask,
    Science says keep 2m apart,
    Science says get a vaccination,
    Go to the pub for a pint
    Doh you’re arrested science didn’t say.

  12. So lets all play a nice game of science says

    Science says wear a mask,
    Science says keep 2m apart,
    Science says get a vaccination,
    Go to the pub for a pint
    Doh you’re arrested science didn’t say.

    1. ‘Morning, BoB, makes complete sense to me, particularly the balanced budget of 1989 under…

      …wait for it – Margaret Lady Thatcher, the frugal housewife PM and the last decent PM we had.

    2. 328126+ up ticks,
      Morning Bob,
      Rodders ex far right racist, confirmed assaulter of innocent journalist my @rse, reality, real UKIP
      I thought on becoming ex UKIP after the treachery shown by the party
      Nec / farage towards Batten / Braine
      was I right in supporting real UKIP long term, and returned to the same answer every time, to bloody true.
      Bloody good letter Bob, if only we had a party with such peoples in it.

      1. Please edit, Ogga, otherwise we’ll be thinking that you’re talking about Delboy’s sidekick.

        1. After trying to decipher one of Ogga’s posts, I’m usually left not thinking at all.

    3. G’day Bob.
      More than emphasising my favourite saying, everything our political classes, including the civil service, come into contact with, they eff up.

    4. While a good letter, Mr Bloom is confused about the problem. In his argument he states that Sunak knows nothing about making money or financial matters. He does, very clearly as he is a wealthy man. The organisation that doesn’t – because it simply doesn’t care about a balanced budget – is the treasury. It’s all very well pointing at having a lowly clerk find the data – that clerk has no interest in presenting it. The treasury mandarins don’t care about it. They simply consume cash and hand it to other departments. The more control – and the more money they have, the more powerful they are.

      It isn’t simply quangos that need to go. There are whole swathes of the public sector that are just unnecessary: a group exists within the council that determines which schools get what money. If this is necessary, what’s the role of the department for education – or the fiddled titled ‘children, schools and families’?

      Sadly big state is awash with waste and inefficiency because it has become used to having lots and lots and LOTS of tax payers cash. As Mr Bloom states, inflation has allowed this to be avoided so the state can continue to borrow but with the private sector so heavily dependent – because of it’s size – on the public, we now have a circular movement of money: the private provides a product or service, the public buys it, the public taxes the private and so on.

      This works until the private cannot exist without the public, making the economy monstrously fragile. Public cannot cut back as that reduces demand on private which creates unemployment. Public then cannot cut taxes to reduce the burden on private enterprise. Private enterprise, with a small customer cannot then create jobs and expand away from big state. Public has to throw hundreds of billions into the engine of the economy just to inch forward, all the while doing so adds more carriages to the already overloaded train.

      1. I tried to put the case this evening for not having a swingeing rise in our council tax, given the financial problems people were having and the fact that the county precept would go up at least 4%, if not 5%. As usual I was a lone voice and I was over-ruled.

    6. Cracking post?

      It’s a crock of shite frankly.

      “It seems since your inauguration as chancellor you have no in depth understanding of money, banking or the implications of an out of control national debt.”

      Rishi knows a great deal more than Bloom about all of those things, nor is our debt ‘out of control’.

      “Coronavirus policies have simply accelerated the demise of generations of Keyensian government behaviour.”

      We haven’t had Keynesian (yes that’s the correct spelling) policies since the mid 70’s. We’ve been neoliberal since 1977 when we called in the IMF.

      ” In short it suits democratic governments pursuing welfarist agendas, with a limited goal of short term re-election to encourage belief in the electorate, mainstream media & academia that somehow the State is immune from the financial disciplines that govern the individual, family or corporations. ”

      Our state is immune from the financial disciplines that govern individuals, families and corporations. Those entities are currency users not currency issuers.

      “Governments can only spend money they have acquired by utilising three methods. It can borrow, tax the wealth creating sector or print fiat currency.”

      If that were true government cheques would bounce. They never do. Government spends simply by the creation of money, pretending any different is stupid. Governments first spend before they tax or borrow, and government borrowing is a bit of a misnomer. The government isn’t borrowing, it’s creating a savings vehicle and a market that employs thousands of people.

      “It seems you are considering raising taxes to cover decades of lax fiscal control. UK tax overall in 2020 stood at its highest in fifty years. Increasing the tax burden will not raise more revenue. It suppresses wealth creation & leads to capital flight, it is therefore not an option.”

      Wow. Something completely correct except he places emphasis on revenues which are really quite unimportant.

      “You can borrow, it is an option. However this option is not an infinite resource. The debt needs to be sold & serviced. A nation offering its bonds with debt already at an historic high, with no conceivable hope of repayment & at interest rates of one third of real rate of inflation is unsustainable.”

      Yeah? How many failed debt auctions have we had? We even sold debt at negative yields.

      “Your third & politically much favoured option is to print currency. The reason it is politically favoured is because it kicks the can down the road & the currency degradation is slow enough to fool the gullible electorate that they have enjoyed something for nothing, the political snake oil of the charlatan down the ages. But then you are ex Goldman Sachs, you need no guidance from me on this unsavoury behaviour.”

      Dear oh dear Bloom. All government spending is printed! It is entirely sensible to run deficits. The government is not a household and is free from the financial disciplines that affect currency users.

      “However the QE (counterfeiting if you prefer) solution is beginning to unwind. Leading global fiat currencies have fallen against gold by 80% this century alone.”

      QE isn’t counterfeiting. Who cares if currency falls against gold unless you run a jewellers. Gold is one of the most useless elements in nature. It might look pretty but that’s about it, it has few uses in the real world apart from making jewellery.

      ” Asset price inflation will inevitably move from Wall St. to Main St. ”

      Seen the price of a home over the past 25 years?

      ” This is when the gullible punters on the High St. realise they have been conned. When the shopping basket costs twice as much, filling the fuel tank breaks the bank, a pint goes to £7, the spectre of the 70s return with a tin of beans carrying five or six price tags as they inflate daily.”

      That’s not asset inflation.

      “Currency printing degrades the pound in the punter’s pocket & re-election becomes an unattainable dream. The Yankee dollar is dying now, gold & bitcoin continue to become the wealth preservation play.”

      Absolute poppycock of the highest order. The government and banks print money every single day. Hundreds of millions of pounds to several billion. The US dollar is far from dying, it’s the world’s most desirable currency and the number 1 reserve currency. Gold as discussed is largely useless and bitcoin is for speculators. Try spending bitcoin for shopping, it’s difficult to impossible.

      “It is deeply disappointing a conservative government needs reminding of lessons learned way back in the eighteenth century.”

      How is the eighteenth century in any way comparable to the 21st century?

      “As you sit in Downing St. surrounded by journeymen Treasury advisers devoid of original ideas, intimidated by your cabinet & back bench neo socialist new conservatives I suggest you cast them out of your temple & lead the economy out of the quagmire of your own making before the knives sharpen for you.”

      Neo-socialist? Honestly this guy is not only clueless he’s mad, he sees reds under beds.

      “None of this is possible without the first serious attack on government spending in living memory. The last balanced budget was in 1989. This is as outrageous as it is unnecessary. It is a result of a loss of vision as to the role of the State. The family, which is the most effective economic institution in history, is managed by the application of common sense. Embodied usually by a matriarchal figure who knew how to balance a budget often through times of appalling hardship. It seems today in our wondrous modern economy that almost any Yorkshire housewife could run the British economy more sensibly than recent chancellors. You simply start with a template of a hierarchy of needs.”

      Again the false household analogy. Bloom is an utter idiot. The last balanced budget was 2001-2. He’s too stupid to even get his facts right.

      “You must therefore cut government spending to rescue the economy.”

      Got any idea how many millions of jobs rely on that spending? You’d cause massive unemployment and the welfare automatic stabilisers will throw you into strong deficit to fix the issue. Meanwhile businesses will be lost, economic activity lost, and for what? Again the government is not a household and is not subject to the same financial discipline.

      “The biggest saving of all would be the disestablishment of half the quangos in operation.”

      You tried that once then realised that virtually none could be got rid of. The most often outcome was to roll 2 or 3 quangos into 1. Numbers of quangos were cut but the cost of them wasn’t all that much.

      “The public sector is far too big. Moreover index linked pensions are an astonishing luxury for a country with over £2.5 trillion debt. The moral issue is terrifying as this commitment is met by tax payer’s in the wealth creating sector who can only dream of such largesse in retirement. ”

      One of those pensions is your Bloom! And taxes don’t fund pensions so it’s bugger all to do with taxpayers in the wealth producing sector. Pensions like the rest of government spending are funded by creation of money.

      “Overseas aid costs circa £12 billion pa, borrowed money from future generations, most of it unaudited. Immoral on an epic scale.”

      Again printed not borrowed from future generations at all. It’s largely a bribery budget and something for our politicians to look good on the international stage. It’s not how I’d like to see things done but overall it’s a small drop in a huge ocean.

      “HSR2. Now is costed at £100 billion. For a railway nobody wants except those sucking at the teat of the public spending cash cow, an abomination.”

      Yes but contracts have been signed, much of the money already spent.

      ” You have closed their pubs, closing their factories will cost you dear at election time.”

      Factories? He’s living in the seventies!

      “You will have to face up to NHS reform sooner or later, later is neither a political or economic option.”

      The NHS is in near constant reform and had a full Tory designed top down reorganisation only 7 years ago.

      ” The administration is hopelessly over manned, procurement procedure verges on the criminal & the mantra ‘protect the NHS’ considering the huge budget it enjoys is obscene.”

      Why? Because of the Tory designed internal market structure. The budget is not obscene. In international comparisons we are quite low spenders on healthcare. Andy could probably give up to date figures.

      What a dismal article from someone with the cheek to call himself an economist even though he never studied it.

        1. There’s no way any sane economist or anyone who has the ability to think about these subjects would come up with that complete pile of dross. He gets so much simple stuff completely wrong.

          You have had a tame taste of running the country like a household and it just caused a lost decade of growth. Bloom thinks we didn’t go far enough, austerity should have been much more severe which would have firmly pushed us into deflation ( if you remember the inflation rate hit 0% then Osborne shat himself and spent more) making the ‘debt problem’ worse. We’ve had ten years of growth averaging about 1.2% rather than 3.2%. Imagine the cumulative losses of economic activity. If Bloom had his way that growth would have averaged 0.2% per year and the cumulative losses would have been heinous.

  14. BBC slaps ‘discriminatory language’ warning on film version of classic sitcom that refers to the French as ‘frogs’. 4 January 2021.

    The BBC has slapped a ‘discriminatory language’ warning on the 1971 Dad’s Army film.

    The BBC aired the film with the warning that some viewers may find it ‘offensive’ prompting outraged fans to call for the corporation to ‘stop making issues when there aren’t any’.

    The 1971 movie depicts the much-loved Home Guard platoon on a training exercise, and features references to the Nazis along with a line calling French people ‘frogs’

    No comment!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9109683/BBC-slaps-discriminatory-language-warning-Dads-Army-film.html

    1. And yet swearing, which I know a lot of folk find offensive, is rife on the Beeb & TV….FFS!

      2. Shrill-voiced presenters with annoying accents and presenters who have obviously been shunted in because of political correctness are also offensive!

        1. The BBC has always had annoying accents. Malcolm Muggeridge and Brian Sewell are two cases in point.

          1. Brian Sewell’s voice was, how shall I say, a little bit fey? However, he could be very waspish in his commentaries!

          2. It would be interesting to get a group of Nottlers to record their own speaking voices and then see how successfully we could match the voice to the Nottler!

          3. When I first arrived in Norfolk I started work at Norwich Airport and was advised to go and discuss some procedure with one of the other employees, a local.

            We spent half an hour chatting to each other. I didn’t have a foggiest clue what he was saying and he had the same problem with me. Much later, after I’d spent considerable time amongst Norfolk (and Norwich) people—different entities completely they all tell me—was I able to enjoy a two-way conversation that was mutually understandable.

          4. Caroline did her secondary education in Spain but she learnt English as a child as she went to international schools because her father worked for Philips, a multi-national company, which sent him to India, Iran, and Spain as well as a year or two in his native Holland. However, at the age of 17 she had never visited Britain and she flew to Glasgow for an interview at the university. When she got into the taxi the driver asked her to which of the universities she wanted to go but she could not understand a single word of what he said and so had to show him the letter of invitation that she had been sent.

            As she wanted a practical rather than a very academic languages course she decided to go to Bath University rather than Oxford and she was very happy there and could readily understand and be understood. She then did her Master’s degree in Linguistics in France at the University of Rouen.

            I speak fairly good French but I cannot change my accent – I only have to say ‘Bonjour‘ and everyone immediately knows I am English. Caroline is remarkable because everyone here thinks she is French, everyone in Spain thinks she is Spanish, everyone in Britain thinks she must have gone to Roedean or Cheltenham Ladies’ College and in Holland everyone thinks she is Dutch.

  16. Good morning from a still dark Derbyshire, though it is starting to get light.
    A mild but cloudy morning at a tad above -1°C.

    Glancing through yesterday’s later posts I noticed DW’s posting of the Telegraph article on the tragedy in Norway and thought it deserves repeating.

    I wonder if anyone else remembers the Desmond Bagley novel, “Landslide” that has Quick Clay and it’s thixotropic properties as a major theme?

    in Norway mudslide with five still missing
    Search and rescue teams have been using sniffer dogs, helicopters and drones in a bid to find survivors.

    By Agence France-Presse
    3 January 2021 • 9:18am

    Rescue workers have uncovered a fifth body four days after a landslide buried homes near Norway’s capital, police said on Sunday, as the search goes on for five people still missing.

    The tragedy occurred in the early hours of Wednesday when houses were destroyed and shifted hundreds of metres under a torrent of mud at the village of Ask, 25 kilometres (15 miles) northeast of Oslo.

    “Just before six am a deceased person was found,” a police statement said.

    The discovery of a fourth body had been made Saturday after three were recovered the day before at the bleak, snow-covered scene at Ask, in Gjerdrum municipality.

    Police on Saturday identified the body of the first person found on Friday as 31-year-old Eirik Grønolen.

    The identities of the four other dead have not been released.

    But police on Friday published a list of the names of all the eight adults, a two-year-old and a 13-year-old child who went missing on Wednesday.

    Ten people were also injured in the landslide, including one seriously who was transferred to Oslo for treatment.

    About a thousand people have been evacuated out of a local population of 5,000, because of fears for the safety of their homes as the land continues to move.

    Search and rescue teams have been using sniffer dogs, helicopters and drones in a bid to find survivors.

    The search teams were also digging channels in the ground to evacuate casualties.

    Experts say the disaster was a “quick clay slide” of approximately 300 by 800 metres (yards).

    Quick clay is found in Norway and Sweden and notorious for collapsing after turning to fluid when overstressed.

    Prime Minister Erna Solberg described it as one of the biggest landslides the country had ever experienced.

    The royal court said in a statement that King Harald, his wife Sonja and Crown Prince Haakon were to visit the disaster area later Sunday morning.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/03/fifth-body-found-norway-mudslide-five-still-missing/

    1. I don’t recall reading “Landslide” , odd as I’m a Bagley fan, but I do remember “The Snow Tiger” which sounds distinctly similar but involving an avalanche.

      1. When skiing in Vail, Colorado, I learnt 2 new expressions relating to snow: ‘snow bunnies’ are patches of soft snow on pistes, which can slow you down, while ‘ice snakes’ are jagged ice formations on pistes, which can seize your skis & send you off in another direction.
        I might add that i learnt a few other expressions on that trip, but they had nothing to do with skiing.

      1. It is heartbreaking to see their lovely faces shining out of the photograph knowing what came later. Condolences.

    3. Morning, BoB.
      It sounds the stuff of nightmares.
      Oh, and congrats on using a word I had to look up.
      I will have to drop ‘thixotropic’ into a conversation.

      2. Thixotropic is one of my favourite words. It describes a gel that can turn liquid when heat (or agitation) is applied then back into a gel when cooled.

    4. A newspaper report in today’s Ystads Allehanda, a local newspaper here in southern Sweden, states that the local council in Gjerdrum had “advised” the company responsible for building on that site against doing so, since—it is claimed—they were told that it wasn’t a suitable location yet they failed to heed the advice and went ahead with the building in any case.

      I foresee multiple massive claims for compensation coming in the not-too-distant future, against both the builders and the local municipality.

      1. If the local council had the powers to stop the development, then the councillors who voted in favour of the development, as well as the developers, deserve to have the arse sued off them.

  17. Where do you find a dentist when you need them?

    Well, 559 of them are busy signing letters because they’re not getting enough money. I have had two teeth just drop out but I cannot get an appointment without paying over £50 pounds and that’s just for the surgery clean-up afterwards.

    Good luck with your whinge, fellers. At 76, I’m almost past caring if they all drop out.

    1. ‘Morning, Tom.

      Make sure that the straws you buy (to enable you to suck up your dinner) are recyclable or compostable.

    2. As far as dentistry is concerned, I reached the conclusion some years ago that one simply has to cough up (ho, ho). I now have American teeth, and have spent the price of a new car on them in the last fifteen years.
      Hope you get yours fixed.

      3. As a retired dentist who has worked in 3 European countries, I’m agog to know what American teeth are.

        2. Very white and relentlessly advance on you?
          I imagine something like Elizabeth Taylor in her later years.
          Though I’m sure BB2 had the good taste to choose more sympathetic colour matching.

        3. Straight and white. Perhaps I should start referring to them as terribly politically incorrect teeth, or teeth that jolly well ought to pay reparations for slavery.
          Also I have the kind of fillings that enable one to eat müsli without them falling out. The last lot I had on the lousy NHS started falling out within a few months. I got them from the most highly qualified dentist in Berkshire, ha ha.
          In other words peddy, I now have dentistry to your standards! This is something I appreciate very much, as I work to the same standard in my job.

      4. Myself similarly, bb2. It was worth every penny. I no longer have British teeth. I have Teeth. It was a long ‘journey’ but I would do it again. I mentioned this to a colleague in the maths department. “Pah!” she said. “I have Russian teeth and that’s even worse than British teeth – we all have Russian teeth in Russia, you don’t want to see a dentist there!” She was from Moscow.

    1. ‘Silence of the lambs’ is the film. People just don’t flock to the cinema like they used to.

        1. I remember when the Odeon in Richmond had a bar where you could relax with a fag and a beer at half time.

  20. The Daily Telegraph’s Letters’ Editor told my good friend, in a personal reply to a letter, that he selects the ‘best’ letters each day from a postbag of thousands, giving no favouritism.

    If that is true then why did Mick Ferrie, of Mawnan Smith, Cornwall, have four letters printed in the past fortnight (plus many others on a regular basis throughout the year)?

    Why is there a coterie of such favourites, many with titles, who have their letters printed as a priority?

    Just a casual glance at today’s Letters’ page shows that the majority of missives printed come from those with some for of title. A Baroness, a Professor, a Sir, three Doctors, 559 Dentists and a Reverend tells their own story.

          1. Brown-nose anyone who will listen, make a donation to party funds of at least six figures and hire a good PR firm?

            PS Any good works will be incidental in this exercise.

            ‘Morning, Grizz.

      2. Morning, Nursey.

        You actually know this good friend of mine. You met him once at a BBQ party. The same one where we chatted over the phone.

    2. Mick Ferrie is a very common name in Cornwall. About half the male population are called Mick Ferrie. So it’s not always the same one. ;@)

      1. A bit like Mumford is on the Isles of Scilly. Half the population of those isles is a Mumford. They are very close, you know!

    3. That’s nothing, Grizz. A friend of mine had two letters published in the DTel on the same day.

  21. Keir Starmer calls for immediate lockdown in England as Covid cases soar. 4 january 2021.

    The Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, has urged Boris Johnson to impose a new national lockdown in England within the next 24 hours to tackle the “out of control” coronavirus.

    Speaking after the prime minister acknowledged that Covid-19 restrictions were “probably about to get tougher”, Starmer said immediate action must be taken. “The virus is clearly out of control,” he said on Sunday. “There’s no good [in] the prime minister hinting that further restrictions are coming into place in a week, or two or three.

    When the leader of the “opposition” supports the government of the day you are living in a de Facto One Party state and Democracy is a goner!

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/03/keir-starmer-calls-for-immediate-lockdown-in-england-as-covid-cases-soar

    1. I think Starmer is only keeping quiet so that people don’t notice he’s towing the same globalist line as Boris. He has the teaching unions to do his dirty work for him.

    2. …and, Minty, that’s quite apart from the idiot Starmer believing the figures as published – the result of a known, faulty test medium.

      Gullible fool, he should be shouting about false tests from the roof-tops.

    3. 328126+ up ticks,
      Morning AS,
      As I and many others have been trying to point out for years the lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled immigration coalition party is a truer title BUT, the party before Country ovis always win the day.
      Consequences of which we suffer daily.

    4. Starmer is leaping on the bandwagon of paranoia because he doesn’t know what else to say. He isn’t brave enough to criticise the response lest it bite him on the bottom. He hasn’t the guts to challenge the statistics because he can’t present them well enough – and, bluntly, because they’re created by the state machine and he is a product of that machine.

      He may as well not exist.

      1. He only has to do nothing, put not a foot wrong, to look good. Boris & co are the ones who have everything to lose – damned if they do, damned if they don’t, and too far down the road to change course radically.

  23. Morning all

    SIR – Local GPs are organising Covid-19 vaccinations in our town football stadium. I had my jab an hour later than my appointment after a wait outside in the cold with about 50 other over-80s, with no social-distancing controls. Processing of patients was confused and the valuable medical professionals were often left waiting for patients to be directed to them.

    Administering the injections is the only part of the operation requiring trained medical practitioners. There must be many managers from nearby Stansted Airport, experts in complex logistical problems, who would surely be willing to help. Community medical teams could then focus on their regular duties, already compromised by Covid-19.

    If the inoculation programme is to be our salvation, surely we should be using the best people to streamline and optimise it.

    Peter Latham

    Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire

    Advertisement

    SIR – As an NHS consultant nearing retirement and a former clinical director, what surprises me about the bureaucracy surrounding retired medics who want to help in the crisis is that anyone is surprised by it at all.

    Over my lifetime I have seen an exponential growth in the amount of nonsense that my colleagues and I have to endure in order to be allowed to (try to) do our jobs. It is all done in the name of “accountability” and “governance”, but most of it is drivel.

    If the coronavirus outbreak has finally let the public see the extent of resource-wasting box-ticking by management that permeates the NHS, then it will have done some good. Whether as a result the Government will be prepared to take its foot off our necks is another matter. Governments, in general, like to keep NHS doctors’ spending under tight control and, to date, their appetite has always been for increasing regulation.

    Dr Nicholas Mark Hacking

    Preston, Lancashire

    SIR – There is a pressing problem concerning the farce of retired doctors being barred from helping out the NHS by carrying out Covid vaccinations, and that is indemnity.

    Advertisement

    As a retired senior medical partner who taught young doctors how to carry out injections, I contacted the Medical Defence Union and asked if I was covered against claims should a patient I vaccinated against Covid suffer, for example, an anaphylactic reaction. The answer is that, now I am no longer on the medical register, I am not covered by the MDU. So, should such a disaster occur, I would be on my own. This problem needs to be sorted out with some degree of urgency.

    Keith Barnard-Jones

    Dorchester

    SIR – If I fail to vaccinate my dogs by the manufacturer’s schedule, no kennels will allow them to stay. Will other countries allow entry to Britons vaccinated against manufacturers’ recommendations?

    Dr Jim Finlayson

    Beauly, Inverness-shire

    1. Nationalising healthcare was the worst possible decision. All that was needed was the imposition of mandatory health insurance, and rules from the government about pricing to prevent profiteering by insurers or healthcare providers.

      1. I guess it seemed a good idea at the time.
        IIRC, the doctors were dead against it – now they seem to be the opposite. Maybe because one can get paid regardless – wouldn’t that be comfortable?

      2. I can only repeat my post of yesterday, concerning the founder of what is now a rotten farrago:

        Nye Bevan, who was so delighted that, in recognition of his part in founding the National Health Service, they named a medical condition after him (Aneurism). Aneurin hurried to the Medical Dictionary to look it up. It read, “A bloody clot that ought to be removed immediately.“

        1. What a crap medical dictionary then, as an aneurism is not a clot at all but a loss of vessel wall structure resulting in a bulging and weakened area.
          Sounds good but not funny unless you’re absolutely clueless to the point where you believe an aneurism is a clot 🙂

      3. I couldn’t disagree more. Healthcare should be nationalised. The NHS was fine when it was regional. it was the imposition of the internal market that ruined it. Good health is its own motive you don’t need a profit motive there.

        1. Every nationalised industry turns into a self-serving bureaucracy and fails. The NHS was never fine, this weakness was always built in. Like most people who defend the NHS, you’ve just never experienced living in a country with a properly organised healthcare system.
          But we’ve had this argument before, so we’d better just agree to disagree!

      4. Arguably it’s simpler than that. Just pay the NHS after it does the work rather than through a big lump sum.

    3. Dr Hacking – if government stops setting unnecessary targets and controlling what you do, how will it take the credit for it’s policies?

    4. Dr Findlay son, latest advice on vaccinations is that they can be extended to fifteen months.

  24. Schools in disarray

    SIR – As a former headmaster, I am aghast at the ongoing confusion and rancour caused by Covid – extending into the very week that children are due to be going back to school.

    Unions, local authorities, the Government and other leading voices are completely at odds. They all have their points, but the losers from their squabbling are schoolchildren and their parents, many of whom are desperate and beyond breaking point. The great majority of teachers want, like their colleagues in the health service, to be at work doing their essential jobs.

    Advertisement

    We have had nine months of confusion since Covid broke out in March 2020. The only way to bring this to an end is to set up a new body, the education equivalent of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, which brings together top scientists, epidemiologists and medics with key stakeholders in education, to meet weekly to thrash out a way forward.

    I suggested this to the Department for Education back in March 2020. It needs to be established now, before further damage and enduring educational disadvantage occur.

    Sir Anthony Seldon

    Windsor, Berkshire

    1. It’s a bit unfair to accuse the government of squabbling when they are only trying to keep the schools open.

    2. ‘Morning, Epi. I like this BTL comment:

      Kevin Bell
      4 Jan 2021 1:32AM

      Sir Anthony Seldon actually wants another public body, similar to SAGE focusing on education. Funny I could have sworn that we had Minister of Education whose job that is.

      Given the failure of every other public body during Covid I suggest a body comprising medical experts, epidemiologists and educationalists is the last thing we need. What we really need is a government with the backbone to take on the Unions.

      1. Priti Patel was supposed to be responsible for controlling the immigration flood. All she did was appoint Dan Mahoney. . . and what has Dan Dan the immigration Man done ? – – answers on the back of a stamp please.

  26. Morning again

    SIR – Mike Adams, the Royal College of Nursing’s England director, is reported (January 2) as saying that a shortage of nurses will prevent the operation of Nightingale hospitals to cope with surging Covid cases.

    It is more than a little strange that the Royal College of Nursing and the Nursing and Midwifery Council have stopped the 20,108 student nurses volunteering to be seconded into the front-line salaried NHS workforce, and also blocked any deployment of the 90,000 nursing students into NHS employment.

    Perhaps the Department of Health and Social Care might care to intervene and overrule this blockage.

    Dr Tim Bradshaw

    Uxbridge, Middlesex

        1. As I dealt with lunatics, bedpans didn’t figure largely in the training. By and large, it was too late.
          I could probably do a 10,000 word dissertation on tracking down clean underwear for patients over a bank holiday weekend or 101 uses for a floor mop.

      3. Some of my contemporaries left school after “O” levels and then did five years as articled clerks while doing correspondence courses in the evening to study for their exams. At the end of this five year term they were fully qualified solicitors or chartered accountants. With “A” levels your term of articles was 4 years and with a degree it was 3.

        Blair’s determination to get 50% of school leavers into further education and degree courses was a shameful confidence trick.

        1. “Blair’s determination to get 50% of school leavers into further education and degree courses was a shameful confidence trick.”

          It sounded good, made for good soundbites, but ultimately was a great way to hide youth unemployment and deny them benefits at the same time while lending them money at extortionate interest rates so they could support themselves.

      4. After practising on lots of oranges , student nurses got the knack of how to give nice painfree jab.

        We were administering jabs on our first wards as first year nursing students, under supervision of course .

        1. Morning, Belle.
          The first patient I gave an injection to was a senile congenital syphilitic.
          Oranges probably feel more pain.

        2. We were administering dental jabs to patients during the first week of our first clinical year. The supervisor was a Kenyan Indian whom I quickly nicknamed ‘Guru Jab’.

    3. A repeat but they’ve been at it for a while. It’s remarkable to discover that there were so many people of African and Asian ancestry in rural Gloucestershire in the early 1950s.

      1. The first ones I recall were nurses in the hospital when I was there in 1959. One asked me what I was reading – it was Alice in Wonderland, that someone had given me to pass the time. She said ” Oh -that’s a children’s book!” and I thought…….”but I am a child”.

      2. well if it is like rural Essex, there would been no one that was not local.

        My wife was repeatedly reminded of an episode back in those days. On a bus in Glasgow she apparently looked some poor man in the eye and came out with ” I have never seen anyone as black as you, why are you black”. Apparently the diversity memo had not reached those parts.

  28. First person to get the new vaccine was on dialysis. I hope he will have no adverse side effects [BBC Radio 4 News]

      1. An interesting point. If the less refers to the unquantifiable number of times we see each other then less is my preferred option. But if it refers to one’s social circle which is quantifiable it should be fewer. However fewer is usually followed by a plural – e.g. there were fewer boys in the class today – and not there were fewer boy in the class today.

        Perhaps peddy would like to give his opinion?

        2. Since you’re twisting my arm, less is the correct form in the given context, IMHO. However, if it refers to the people in one’s social circle (note: not to the circle itself), fewer would be appropriate, i.e. some people would be ‘dropped’.

    2. 328126+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      Proof of the pudding is he is, along with the con / lib dems doing a half decent job for the TC Og.

  33. Another piece of woke idiocy

    In software, when there are choices to be made, there often exist lists with items to generally allow or disallow. Like many developers, we used the once common terms whitelist and blacklist without even giving their meaning a thought. While the origin of the term blacklist seems to range back centuries and be unrelated to race, the black means bad, white means good metaphor is inappropriate and we apologise for having used it.
    So last week, we went ahead and finally got rid of those racially connoted and non-self-explanatory terms and replaced them with more speaking terms like trust list and block list.
    Changes will be available in the next release.

    1. Then expect follow up complaints about black equating to block and just white to be trusted

        1. … “and for those of you who are watching in black and white, the pink is next to the green”.

          Ted Lowe

          1. Always made fun of; but if the green was on its spot it was actually a good description.

        2. The black and the white ball should alternate at the start with a coin toss to decide which acts as cue ball.

          I’m joking, but I bet if I complained to the Crucible they’d act upon the suggestion. There’s a lot of wokery in Sheffield.

    2. here comes the next software bug, somewhere in code depths unfathomable a coder will have used the text string white list.

    3. ‘Evening, Sos, who was the tw@t who said that? We need to know in order to avoid giving them any oxygen of publicity.

      1. It came from my free Spybot software.
        They are usually very good and as it’s free and works well for me, I’m loath to change to something else

    4. This is sweeping through the whole tech industry. Other terms like master and slave are also considered too sensitive for the young idiots coming out of the left wing indoctrination centres formerly known as universities.
      To a man, woman and undecided, they hedge themselves around with rules. Now, rules like having automatic test cases are all well and good, but I have heard a young, inexperienced development team saying “We can’t do that, because it doesn’t fit in with our test system”. In other words, the rules are dictating what they do!

        1. +100. I will do my best to educate them. But in truth, I can see a future where I increasingly avoid working in the kind of companies with large teams made up of these young drones. Such companies tend to actively avoid recruiting older people, by setting up the interview so that older people will fail anyway.
          I only considered myself competent at my job after about 18 years experience – I remember working on young teams when I was younger, knowing that nobody on the team was steering because nobody had the expertise.

          1. Blame Blair (why not? He’s responsible for pretty much all the ills we’re experiencing!) for the “cult of youth” and “Cool Britannia) – not to mention education x 3. It doesn’t help, either that you can employ a “yoof” on a fraction of the salary of an experienced person and people go for short-termism, not realising the investment they will need to put in to get a worthwhile employee.

          2. Well I benefited from that in my time! I wasn’t made redundant in the tech bubble of 2000 because they were paying me so little! But at least I (and other people coming into the workplace) behaved like adults, instead of expecting the workplace to change to meet childish expectations.
            I am expecting to work until I’m seventy, but this changing workplace culture means I might have to learn new skills like COBOL (which is too old for me to have learned it!) so that I can carry on in a niche role.

    1. When I was 18 for a bet I managed to run UP the DOWN escalator at Leicester Square Station which was the longest in the underground at the time.

      I now I take the stairs at home at a steady pace.

        1. Does this mean you were 18 in 1959 making your year of birth 1941 (?) on 18th July? If so may I add it to the birthday list?

          1. Yup, Sherlock; the forensic navigator makes a landfall !
            If I survive ’til July, I’ll be drinking bubbly cocktails ! …

          2. Yes indeed, Richard – and yes for the birthday list.

            Should I survive ’till July, I will be drinking Fizz Cocktails !

    2. Tube steps often feel slippery in wet weather; even those well below ground get damp from passengers’ shoes. Maybe that’s another reason why people avoid them.

    3. My brother filmed himself and his family using a similar staircase in Vienna a few years back.

    4. Good morning everyone.
      The Fun Theory. As opposed to the Thunberg theory. Same country, different outlook.
      When using escalators I prefer to walk up, and walk down Use legs, have legs.

      2. Before lockdown, I often used to use the stairs, even to go up when carrying luggage, because the escalators were jam packed. Now, I’d have a job to make it to the top, even without a suitcase 🙁 If I’m not careful I’ll become another Covid statistic simply through lack of exercise.

  35. Boris Johnson to address the Nation at 8pm tonight. Sky News. I shall find something else to do. I’ve had enough.

    1. It’s Ok, I wouldn’t rave about it as much as you are.

      Di Caprio is a good actor for sure but he’s never bettered his breakthrough role of Arnie Grape in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. Hardy seems good in everything I’ve seen him in. I did love Venom.

      1. Taboo was excellent. I had hoped there would be a second series, and one was suggested but nothing seems to be happening 🙁

          1. It was on Beeb 1 about two or three years ago. Set in C19th and about a mystery bloke who returns from Africa after his father’s death and battles with the East India Company about a piece of land in America; all set along some underlying occult vibe.
            TH is mesmerising – he just grunts his way through the part. He wrote it too, I believe.

    2. The problem with camping is you have to out teepee.
      Great film I’ve still got it stored recorded.

  38. Anyone even thinking about telling me that I may no longer speak standard English as I was taught to speak and write it …

    … had better bring along a battalion of tanks to support them if they wish to even attempt to enforce their cretinous views on me.

    Even then they will fail.

      2. Apropos all the politically “correct” bollocks that’s being spouted by the twats on the Left who want to destroy the fabric of normality.

  40. 328126+ up ticks,
    May one ask, what news from the Dover beach-head established some time ago after successfully landing 9000
    potential troops, ongoing, growing, what ?

    3. I’ve had my invitation from work to agree to be added to the jab list. Anyone’s guess when I’ll get it.

    1. If they are giving the vaccine to the oldest people first, then it is only logical that a small number will be pushing up daisies within a few weeks.
      Context is all here.

      1. Statistically true, but he’s not alone, there are others dropping dead elsewhere.

        Probably within a normal statistical range, but if the vaccine actually is a killer, better we find out sooner rather than later.

        1. We need to see proper data though, of how many people drop dead in what pattern, compared to those who haven’t had it.
          My default position is that I won’t want an untested vaccine, and this is untested as far as I’m concerned because its medium-long term outcome is not known.

      2. He died the day later. They would not have given him ther jab if he had been that bad. Wake up to reality

        1. Still statistically not unlikely. I’d like to see the pattern of deaths among those who have had the vaccine versus those who haven’t, two years from now.
          This gives people time to come into contact with the next coronavirus mutations.
          Without this data, I don’t see how the vaccine can be said to be properly tested.

      1. If it was an intramuscular injection, as they usually are, that shouldn’t have been a problem, although it would have caused pain & some considerable soreness afterwards.

      2. Bit of a myth. When we were training, our tutor told us that we’d have to release a whole IV tube (roughly 3 ft) of air into a vein to produce the fabled result.
        And the operative letters are IV.

  43. Yo plum

    Please will you and Maud get this sorted out? Ta ever so.

    Fury as Labour mayor of seaside town REMOVES 18 Union Flags raised by ‘proud Cornishman’ to celebrate Brexit – as irate locals demand their return amid calls for her to be sacked

    Around 18 Union Flags appeared on Penzance Promenade on New Year’s Day
    Since been removed from the flagpoles because they were not authorised
    Mayor of Penzance said they were ‘not offensive’ but didn’t have permission
    Angry locals demand flags be reinstated and even call for mayor to step down

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/01/04/13/37579250-9110793-Hundreds_have_now_signed_a_petition_calling_for_Ms_Broadhurst_wh-a-33_1609766987230.jpg

    Mayor Nicole Broadhurst

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9110793/Penzance-REMOVES-18-Union-Flags-raised-mystery-proud-Cornishman-celebrate-Brexit.html

        2. I avoided any sort of reference to that.

          After all, I wouldn’t wish to be labelled a racist, now would I?

    2. This is the bit I don’t get. ‘Calls for the mayor to step down’. Why is she given the option? She’s a servant. Aside from being pointless, the employer doesn’t ask any underperforming employee to go, they sack them.

    3. So British people now need permission from the left-wing woke brigade to fly their own flag!

      I hardly need to say that the traitorous Broadhurst is a member of the Labour Party!

  44. Tanya Roberts has passed away at only 65.

    I was 12 years old the first time I saw Beastmaster and for a boy that age Tanya Roberts was unforgettable in that film.

    1. Good morning Thayaric

      Gosh, you must be a youngster. Would you like me to add you to the birthday list so that all your friends here can give you their best wishes on the day? If so please let me know.

      There are 8 Nottler birthdays to celebrate in January, only one in May and none at all in November. I don’t know what a statistician would make of this or whether it tells us anything about the love lives of people whose offspring grow up to be Nottlers!

      2. Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be Nottlers
        Don’t let ’em be pedants or churn out old fish puns
        Let ’em be doctors and lawyers and such
        Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be Nottlers
        ‘Cause they’ll always stay home and they’re always alone
        Even with someone they love

      3. When I was researching my MPhil (or as it should more correctly be known, ‘my failed PhD’, because I was forced by circumstances to pull the plug on it ), I did a graph of the birthdays of the classes I was comparing. One class had a huge spike in birthdays in August, while the other was more of an even spread. As it is well established that children born in August are disadvantaged educationally (they are younger than their year group peers born earlier in the year), I had to acknowledge that as a possible greater influence on the results than the methods of teaching I was comparing.

  45. Looks like we are heading for another totally false manufactured lockdown Wednesday for what reason nobody knows

    1. And just what will these halfwits do when the internet collapses and nobody can go out to fix anything?

      1. Since moving I’ve had a god-awful internet connection. Vodafone, who supply my broadband, have at least knocked 15% off my bill. Except the bills suggest it’s nearer 25%. I need a visit from Openreach, but they are avoiding home visits, due to Covid…

        1. Good news re visits between tiers on the Vet front here. After some negotiation (we advise putting off boosters for 15 months, so call in in mid-February), they have agreed to see my aged pooch and give him his annual MoT. For heaven’s sake! He’s 17 – he may not be around in mid-February.

    2. AS will Sir Knees-a-lot who will say Boris is only ‘following his lead’ when we all go back into lockdown, and if we don’t (unlikely), he’ll blam Boris for every death that follows. The man knows no shame. No wonder he was a fave of Blair – cut from the same cloth, and both slippery lawyers.

      I’m surprised that they don’t just say anyone leaving their homes VILL BE SHOTTT!

    1. A very recent program on “Utterly outrageous comedy” includes . . .Victoria Wood, Father Ted and Miranda. ???

        2. Ms Hart was at school with Clare Balding at Downe House.

          A friend of mine who had been a colleague and my house tutor when I was a housemaster at Allhallows went on to be the Head of Modern Languages at DH so he is quite likely to have taught them French and/or Spanish. We have had scores of girls from the school on our courses and they are generally attractive, well behaved and intelligent. Their brothers tend to go to Eton or Radley.

        4. She only keeps her job at the BBC only because she keeps spouting left wing twaddle.

          See Jo Brand and Nish Kumar….

        1. One of my French friends (who speaks excellent English) has ‘frog’ as part of her email address.

    3. Perhaps they should broadcast warnings before they show woke programmes, as they also offend some people.

      1. No chance. The beeb used to put warnings indicating “some viewers may find this distressing” before they showed a huntsman taking a pack of hounds down a road in the run up to the Hunting Act, but strangely enough, there was no such warning before wild life programmes showing packs of wild dogs bringing down a gazelle.

        2. It’s only guilt-ridden white “liberals” who give a toss about this sort of thing.

      2. Not to mention the Hokkien “ang mo” (red-heads) or the Cantonese “gweilo” (ghost man) – both derogatory terms for Europeans. Ex-Forces personnel who served in Singapore or Hong Kong may recall being called one of those terms. Racially-derogative terms can be found throughout the World but only white people ever seem to be criticised for using them.

  48. Good morning, my friends

    January is a big month for Nottler birthdays. Some people have pointed out the errors and omissions in this list. Please let me know if there are any errors or omissions below so I can try to correct them:

    02 January – 1947: Poppiesmum
    07 January – **** : Lady of the Lake
    08 January – 1941: Rough Common
    09 January – **** : thayaric
    10 January – 1960 : hopon
    16 January – 1941 : Legal Beagle
    18 January – **** : Stormy
    23 January – 1951 : Damask Rose
    27 January – 1948 : Citroen 1
    11 February- 1964 : Phizzee
    22 February- 1951 : Grizzly
    24 February- 1941 : Sguest
    28 February- 1956 :Jeremy Morfey
    29 February- **** : Ped
    05 March—– 1957 : Sue MacFarlane
    08 March—– **** : Geoff Graham
    26 March—– 1962 : Caroline Tracey
    27 March—– 1947 : Maggiebelle
    27 March—– 1941 : Fallick Alec
    19 April——- **** : Devonian in Kent
    26 April——- **** : Harry Kobeans
    24 May——– 1944 : NoToNanny
    08 June——– **** : Still Bleau
    09 June——- 1947 : Johnny Norfolk
    09 June——– 1947 : Horace Pendleton
    23 June——– **** : Oberstleutnant
    25 June——– 1952 : corimmobile
    01 July——— 1946 : Rastus C Tastey
    12 July——— **** : David Wainwright
    18 July——— 1941: lacoste
    19 July——— **** : Ndovu
    26 July——— 1936 : Delboy
    29 July———- 1944 : Lewis Duckworth
    30 July———- 1946 : Alf the Great
    01 August—— 1950 : Datz
    03 August—— 1954 : molamola
    10 August—— 1967 : ourmaninmunich
    18 August—— **** : ashesthandust
    19 August——-1951 : Hugh Janus
    04 September- 1948 : Joseph B Fox
    07 September- **** : Araminta Smade
    11 September- 1947 : peddytheviking
    12 September- **** : Ready Eddy
    13 September- **** : Anne Allan
    15 September- **** : veryveryveryoldfella
    26 September- **** : Feargal the Cat
    30 September 1944 : One Last Try
    07 October—– 1960 : Bob 3
    11 October—– 1944 : Hardcastle Craggs
    25 October—– 1955 : Sue Edison
    01 December– 1956 : Sean Stanley-Adams
    06 December– 1943 : Duncan Mac
    10 December– **** : Aethelfled
    16 December– **** : Plum
    21 December– 1945 : Elsie Bloodaxe

    (E&OE)

    2. Speaking of birthdays, a couple of weeks ago, I took delivery of a razor I’d ordered – an old-fashioned SAFETY razor. It seems that nowadays, in our risk-averse society, one is required to prove that one is over eighteen years of age to take delivery of such a dangerous piece of kit.

      Now I should have thought that my grey hair and equally grey moustache would have been sufficient proof, but no, the delivery driver insisted on recording my exact date of birth, which I thought a wee bit cheeky. I only give out such personal information on a need-to-know basis and I didn’t consider he needed to know, so I thought I’d wind him up. I gave him my paternal grandfather’s birthday, the 19th March 1874.

      He entered the date into the electronic device he carried and went happily on his way!
      :¬)

      1. We had a delivery of wine before Christmas. Husband opened the door – he looks well over 18 – but the driver wanted his date of birth before he’d make the delivery.

        1. Our second son, Henry, looks absurdly young for his age. He is now 25 but he has to carry around ID or he won’t be served a drink in a bar. By contrast his brother, Christo, could happily buy a drink at 16 and no questions asked.

          Caroline, to borrow from G&S, could ‘very well pass for 35 in the dusk with the light behind her’ while on a good day I could pass as 73 even though I am now 74.

          1. I am intrigued as to why Christopher was shortened to ‘Christo’ and not ‘Chris’. Was that your choice and do his friends call him Christo or just Chris?

            I know a number of Christophers and they are, invariably, known as Chris.

          2. We have several Christophers in the family. My father was called Christopher, my sister Belinda is married to a Christopher (who is called Chris), one of the sons of my late sister Mary is called Christopher and our son Henry’s godfather, one of my best friends, is another Christopher called Chris..

            I have always preferred Christo as the shortened form of his name and with so many Christophers amongst our friends and family he is more readily identifiable. Everybody calls him Christo which he likes and has been called all his life. Nobody calls him Chris and indeed he corrects anyone who tries to do so

            I am not at all enthusiastic about the shortened forms of Richard such as Dick, Dicken, Dicky, Rich, Ritchie, Rick, Ricky etc. and mercifully I have never been called by any of these names apart from when I was a young schoolmaster with regularly changing girlfriends and I was nicknamed Dirty Dick for some inexplicable reason. .

          4. I once worked with a bloke whose name was Walter Johnson but everyone knew him as “Mac”. I asked him why this was since there didn’t seem to be any Scottish component about him.

            Mac told me that he was the youngest of four Walters in the family. One visiting relative stated that he was confused about this, so henceforth he would be calling them by different names. He lined them up, in age order, and told them that from then on they would be know as, respectively: Walter, Walt, Mick and Mac.

            This relative didn’t have an explanation for the names he’d chosen for the younger two so just quoted the first things that came into his head. All the names stuck.

          5. Pedant writing:
            “She could easily pass for 43, in the dusk with the light behind her.”
            Though I’m sure Caroline looks more like 23.

          6. Funnily enough we looked it up the other day so we knew it was 43 but we have always said35.

            I was in a school production of Trial By Jury put on for the boys by the masters just for fun. I was in the Chorus and did not have a very important role

  49. I hear the Times has at last broken the story of the scandalous failure of doctors to treat corona early and save thousands of lives. I tried to persuade the DT to be the first but with no success.

  50. The PM. is to make an announcement at
    20.00 this evening….. do we all need to
    make a quick dash to the shops, or carry
    on as usual?

          5. Red wine at night, shepherd’s delight
            Braised steak’s a warning, aches in the morning?

      1. Yesterday the daily mail was suggesting that people should not drink alcohol before or after their appointed vaccination times.

        Just thought that I’d mention it.

          1. You should move to Ontario then, they are not even trying to recruit retired doctors to vaccinate people so at the present rate they will complete vaccinations in something like ten years..

            Oh we still have Trudeau to lord over us so all is not good.

  51. Breaking News – Education is no clearly longer viable under the new normal, we are all going to be re-wilded.

    1. The Victorians would be turning in their graves at the careless throwing away of their achievements.

    1. Good evening, sos, I’ve mentioned on a number of occasions that the key players had gotten themselves so deeply involved that they could not back-track – “Sorry, we got it wrong,” couldn’t absolve them of their actions – and so they have to keep following the script. The news of more restrictions arriving this evening is the action of a tyranny that is running out of ideas and is throwing a tantrum. Creating more disharmony hopefully will cause more people to question the motives of this government.
      As an aside, I passed the local ambulance station this morning and it was chock-a-block with……….ambulances. Who would have thought that with an epidemic running wild?

      1. I completely agree.
        But are you sure that the station wasn’t full of ambulances stacking up covid patients?

        I would be very interested to hear the statistics on cremations and burials.

        2. The area I referred to is the site where ambulances are parked awaiting call-out as well as being serviced. The site i s about 3-4 miles from the hospital, so not stacking up bodies and obviously not collecting same.

      1. And it’s a made up list (it was here a few weeks ago too, posted by someone else) using correct ONS figures for previous years and a fake one for 2020. The actual deaths for England and Wales at week 45 was 517,674. At week 48 it was 554,919 and almost 65,000 above the five year average of 490,182.

        The real figures can be found on the ONS website – which is just a tad more trustworthy than Twitter.

    2. And if you add on 7 weeks at the average for this year it will be 560,000 give or take.

      1. 328126 up ticks,
        Afternoon Atg,
        OK, so then there is a difference of
        59000 say on the 2014 figures out of a combined population of
        appro. 60 million put that against
        the premature deaths via lack of medical att,/ diagnosis.
        Then take into account those died from / with, which deceives in a
        totally immoral way does the outcome warrant the rising national
        dept, the rising unemployment figures, ruined businesses, and a trashed economy.
        Total is ALL deaths = 1126 the two years difference per week.

        1. ogga.
          I was not having a go just averaging up (bit of an oxymoron) to show what the full year might look like. Say 30,000 above the average how many of those were cancer/cardiac let’s say about 30,000. Oh dear excess deaths resulting no deaths from COVID/flu.
          What a surprise.

          1. 328126+ up ticks,
            Evening Atg,
            Please rest assured I didn’t think you were, I was looking at it from in the long run causalities / fall out from this, what I consider to be a political manipulated in many respects campaign.
            I see that as being more long running than the virus.
            A virus there is, there is no doubt of that.

            Then the benefit of the doubt option is that the
            governance party’s initial approach was in panic mode, to me though they are carrying to much odious baggage via past actions for me to believe that.
            Ps
            Reminiscent of Nigeria 3am outside the bedroom window the jennerator kicked in.

  55. 328126+up ticks,
    The b liar confirming that the lab/lib/con are a coalition as Og has been saying for years,

    Bad Deal Confirmed? Tony Blair Backs BoJo’s Brexit

    1. That argument lacks sophistication. If St. Tone thought it was actually pretty good, he would express his support for it because,
      1. That would render all Guardian readers implacably opposed and make trouble for Sir Kneel, and
      2. It would convince Brexit supporters that there must be something terribly wrong with it that they haven’t spotted.
      Would St. Tone wouldn’t do that? It is exactly the sort of thing he would do.

    1. Reminds me of that joke with youngsters playing the three kings; the first one says, “I bring you GOLD!”, the second shouts (you know what children are like!), “I BRING YOU MYRRH” and the third one holds out his gift saying, “I bring you … er FRANK SENT THESE!” 🙂

    1. What is and what is not fake news is entirely subjective.

      And some opinions are fact whereas other opinions are lies:

      e.g. Farage and Benn The Elder said we shall be better off outside the EU: THAT IS A BAREFACED LIE
      and Clarke, Heseltine, Grieve, Soubry and Benn The Younger say we shall be better off staying in it: THAT IS THE SIMPLE TRUTH

    2. I prefer a gal in calico.

      Wadda about the Woke mayor of Penzance, apparently she’s removing all the union flags in ‘her town’. 🇬🇧 how the hell did that happen Plum ? Shirley UFM…..union flags matter.

          3. Who suggested U woz an XxxEssex girl?

            Let me guess.

            It was that terribly ungallant Thomas chap.

  61. As physicist and former headmaster, Mark Ellse, tells us in his outstanding analysis of the C-19 ”pandemic” in relation to England and Wales…………

    ”Basically, the government is deliberately concealing that the so-called ‘pandemic’ is of no significant magnitude. In the ‘best years’ from 2010 to 2019, the chance of an over-65 surviving the year was 95.7 per cent. In 2020 it dropped almost imperceptibly to 95.5 per cent. For reference, in 2006-2009 it was 95.2 per cent. Did we panic from 2006-9? I don’t think so”.

    ”Mark Ellse is a physicist and author. He is a former headmaster, independent school inspector and A level chief examiner”.

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-not-so-exceptional-year-of-covid/

    http://ellse.org/uncategorized/covid-19-and-its-overall-effect-on-england-and-wales-death-rate/

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-real-risk-from-covid/

    So what is the Johnson administration ulterior motive for lockdowns and the destruction of the UK economy for no valid reason…. and is it connected to Mr Gates and/or Mr Hancock’s visits to Davos… and Agenda 21 ?

    1. what is it now – 350,000 deaths in the US from / with covid? If you cut the bs excuses about possibly deliberately misdiagnosed cases, that’s still a few more than no significant magnitude.

      Over 100,000 hospitalized in the US where there are somewhere around 1,000,000 hospital beds – is that a minor inconvenience as well?

      All governments are in absolute panic mode just repeating the same actions as before but hoping for different results, but that is no justification to deny the existence of this little bug and the effect that it is having. Not that shutting down our lives for so long is justified.

      You still think Bill Gates is behind it all? You should be worried when you touch a keyboard, those conspiracies could well be infectious.

      1. Try not to get over emotional………….

        Concentrate your attention on Mr Ellse’s analysis, and point out where he is wrong if you think it so.

        1. So how is your other great conspiracy going? Any more great reveals of evidence of fraud coming in the next few days?

          It must be two weeks since Giuliani made his last promise of imminent evidence being released.

          1. See……..

            You just can’t do anything except emotion.

            Where’s your demolition of Mr Ellse’s analysis ?

          2. Emotion ? No I am questioning your continuing attempts to make everything into a left wing conspiracy.

          3. You replied to my post about Mr Ellse’s analysis.

            If you don’t agree with him, then please take it to bits.

      2. Over 70,000 excess deaths in the UK in comparison to the 5 year average.

        It is farcical to suggest that all, or even most, are due to suicide or delayed treatment; though some certainly will be, most of the delayed treatments are not for terminal conditions.

        I’m not convinced by the methods either, but again the little bug is really not so very “little” in terms of outcome.

      3. Any death is awful, there’s no question there. What I dispute is the conflation of deaths with covid and deaths from covid. If hundreds of thousands are dying form covid, that’s a significant issue.

        However people simply aren’t – or, if they are the statistics are so incredibly fudged, bodged and fiddled that the two cannot be decoupled. With such deliberate skewing the numbers cannot be trusted.

    2. New strain, followed by new strain, followed by new strain.

      Who could possibly think that there’s mischief afoot?

      1. but don worry, it will only take six weeks to develop a new vaccine.

        And you think that the current vaccines were untested?

        1. They don’t have to develop a new vaccine. Because the vaccines don’t contain virus they continue to work through the tens of thousands of strains which have already been isolated. Unless the virus changes into something completely and unrecognisably different the vaccines currently authorised will continue to work.

          1. That is what they are saying about the UK variation but there seems to be doubt about the South African one and that is where one of those that knows suggested six weeks is all that it would take to deal with a significantly new strain.

            In other words they don’t know about the latest strain.

          2. Because it wouldn’t be a new vaccine, just a very tiny tweak to an existing vaccine.

            No, they don’t know yet about the South African one, but that doesn’t mean it won’t work. Some of the vaccines were trialled (and effective) in South Africa. Doubt was raised about the UK variation and the same (6 weeks to tweak it) comment arose, but it turned out not to be needed.

            I’m simply not prepared to get all het up about every bit of media speculation… let’s wait for the facts.

        1. I err towards your explanation.

          But, the Chinks initially hid the virus, and reportedly stopped internal flights while allowing international flights, until it became so widespread it could no longer be covered up.
          The new strains are “conveniently” popping up across the planet in areas where Chinks have significant presence.
          Whose economy is now supposedly booming?

          1. Flu mutates something shocking, I believe. Why wouldn’t covid? It shows the hubris of those who think their actions will “defeat the virus” – yeah, right, like we don’t have colds & flu any more.

          2. Has the ‘covid virus’ – if it exists as it seems not yet to have been isolated – mutated because of the lockdowns? Finding its supply of low hanging fruit is no longer available, has it mutated and evolved to be carried along by children (who are always getting their heads together) and at the same time made itself more infectious to ensure its survival? Nature will always win, and exact a terrible revenge whilst doing so.

          3. It was isolated over a year ago, tens of thousands of minor mutations have been isolated since. Vaccine is working against the vast majority so far.

          4. 10/10.
            If this thing is as described, the best possible route is to let it rip.

            Kill the most vulnerable, create a pool of less susceptible and get on with life.

          5. Or even try to protect the vulnerable, but let people sort it out for themselves.
            Seems like it’s falring up all over, there’s 2 new mutations (the SA version apparently not addressed by the vaccine – surprise), so treat it like flu.

          6. There are 10s of thousands of minor mutations and so far the vaccines are coping. The SA version is all “if, but and maybe” at the moment so best to wait and see.

            Treating it like flu isn’t really an a very good option. It kills more people, but perhaps more importantly it makes many more very ill and in need of not just “a bit of nursing” when admitted to hospital.

            I don’t know the answers, though those countries (like Taiwan and South Korea) which instituted rapid testing systems seem to have fared best.

          7. Why not just let the vulnerable carry on shielding themselves as they wish to? For the rest of us, let us get on with our lives.

            I see us being locked up well into 2022 and likely well beyond.

          8. Generally, those in Government won’t admit to it, but there most certainly is a monetary price attached to individual human lives, be it RTA’s, be it diseases, Government has a trade off.

            It’s about time that they admitted that for Covid it’s a high trade off, but at some point we are all going to have to pay it.

          9. Very different virus from the flu one. Flu vaccines contain flu virus so the vaccine has to keep changing. The SARS-CoV-2 vaccines don’t contain virus so they don’t have to keep changing unless the virus becomes something completely different.

            The biochemistry is a bit complex but that’s the gist of it.

    2. “New US dietary guidelines include babies and toddlers for the first time.”

      What a load of pap. Any tit could have told you that!

    3. I take very great notice of all the detergent advertisements, “Keep away from Children.”

      I do my very best but occasionally I have to kick them out of my path.

      1. Many times I have seen adults in the supermarket, shoving a trolley with a child inside. I have never seen what aisle they get them from.

  63. I wonder how many children have been or will be seriously hurt or even killed by their parents as a result of the parents “losing it” because of lockdowns.
    My suspicion is that the numbers will be considerably higher than those killed or seriously harmed by Covid.

    1. Unsurprisingly (anyone with even an iota of common sense could have predicted it), animal shelters (forgive the Americanism, but you know what I mean – Dogs Trust, RSPCA et al) are experiencing a huge influx of young dogs (under 1 year old). More worryingly, such dogs are appearing on websites like “Preloved”, where the asking price is in thousands (the idiots who paid over the odds without thinking about the long term requirement are trying to recoup their money).

      2. Very interesting. Blair prepared well in advance when he set up the Supreme Court though.

    3. I’d like to see the official (and proven) numbers for the number of suicides over 2020 compared to previous years/the 5/10 year average and particularly those under 60 – to that of from (not with) COVID deaths of the otherwise healthy adults of that grouping.

        1. Indeed, and that’s been the Civil Service’s plan all along – enough data to scare people, but not enough that could be checked up on and/or compared to previous years or the decade.

          Nuffin’ to see here, move along, move along…

      2. Unfortunately there will be some who have done it over xmas, with their bodies not being found for weeks or even months. No relatives, no friends, no callers. I feel sorry for them – and also the people who have to deal with the bodies, when eventually found.

  64. Am I the only NoTTLer whose ‘Notifications’ tab has failed? I keep getting 2 notifications but whenever I click on them I get redirected to the last two from yesterday! Over and over again.

    4. Me too, Grizz. Bloody Disqus is coming apart at the seams. I blame Global Warming.
      :¬(

    1. Yep, Natives should have power over their homeland – and fuck off back and make it better.

    2. Some remoaner has written a letter to my local rag; the headline reads “reasons why we should not have left”. I didn’t even bother to look at it. We voted, we’ve finally taken one step towards freedom, so deal with it.

    3. Yesterday I mistakenly clicked on Sky News. They had a left-wing busy-body journalist, whose name I missed, who was in Egypt basically inferring that they should not have power or control over their own homeland.

      She was ‘investigating’ waste management (in a country of 100 million people), and remarked that the government, which she called a ‘military dictatorship’, was not making her welcome.

      Obviously she would prefer a government of that terrorist organisation, the Muslim Brotherhood, which would encourage other terrorists such as ISIS in northern Sinai to do their worst. Presumably she thinks that President Sisi should hand out sweets to all those trying to undermine his country and halt all the incredible new developments taking place there. She would be happy to see the rise of Islamic fundamentalism which Sisi is trying to stop. No doubt she would ignore the fact that Sisi is helping Christians by, for example, legalising 62 new churches last week, bringing the total to 1,800. He recently built a new cathedral in which he attended the first service.

      I wondered what she would say if an Egyptian investigative TV journalist made a programme in Britain, criticising the system of government and investigating the many shortcomings in the UK.

    4. Too true.

      Many of us have been pointing out this hypocritical inconsistency for years.

      If is on a par with attacking Britain for the slave trade that Britain led the way to abolishing over 2 hundred years ago and yet ignoring modern day slavery of black children in cobalt mines run by black people in Central Africal.

      Why aren’t those of a woke or BLM persuasion ever taken to task in the MSM?

  68. Worth a look!
    Long read , but have extracted some shorter bits!

    https://time.com/5831740/polio-coronavirus-parallels/

    What the History of Polio Can Teach Us About COVID-19

    As COVID-19 seems to be, polio was—and remains—a seasonal disease, though the poliovirus prefers the hot months and SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, is at least thought to prefer the cool ones. That makes the push for a vaccine a cyclical one—a race against a viral time bomb set to go off year after year in selected season after selected season.

    While the clamor for a vaccine was loud after the polio epidemic of 1916, the wait was a long one, measured in generations. It was not until the summer of 1935 that there was hope, in the form of two great field trials: one by Dr. Maurice Brodie and Dr. William Park of the New York Department of Health; and one by Dr. John Kolmer of Temple University in Philadelphia.

    In Kolmer’s case, the preventive involved mixing the poliovirus with a mildly toxic solution of sodium ricinoleate, which would not kill the virus, but would weaken it enough so that it wouldn’t actually cause symptoms, while still provoking an immune response in the body, so that the immune system would stand ready for any future exposure. In the case of Park and Brodie, the technique involved infecting monkeys with polio, killing the animals after they got sick, extracting tissue from their virus-ravaged spinal cords, mashing it to a pulp, and exposing it to formalin—a 31% dilution of formaldehyde. That would kill the virus, but preserve its molecular shape, similarly causing the body to recognize the poliovirus and thus confer immunity.

    Nine thousand children were injected with the Park-Brodie vaccine that summer, and 10,000 with Kolmer’s version. Both were disasters—in some cases causing the very polio they were intended to prevent; in others leading to body-wide infections and inflammations. Of the 12 children who developed polio as a result of the trials, six died. In November, Kolmer and Brodie were summoned to the annual meeting of the Southern branch of the American Public Health Association in St. Louis for a public shaming delivered in twin reports on both failed vaccines. One of the reports ended with the damning conclusion that Kolmer might as well be guilty of murder.

    “Gentlemen,” Kolmer said when he rose in response, “this is one time I wish the floor would open up and swallow me.”

    It would be another 20 years, until 1955, before Dr. Jonas Salk would successfully develop an injectable, killed-virus vaccine. That meant 39 years between the great polio epidemic of 1916 and the moment when science would at last have its way with the poliovirus.

    Americans in lockdown now might seem almost spoiled to be chafing at being told to wait a year to 18 months before a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 becomes available (though some, more optimistic projections suggest that the breakthrough could come as early as January). But as science changes, expectations, in fairness, do too. We can now make vaccines from mere fragments of viruses, whose genomes have been sequenced in ways the Salks and Kolmers and Brodies could not even have imagined. And that means we can make—and expect and, for better or worse, demand—them faster, too.

    Still, some things remain the same even over the generations. Americans separated by epidemics more than a century apart share the same fear, the same worry, the same loneliness in lockdown and the same grief at loved ones lost. Diseases don’t change their character and human beings don’t much either. But science—science presses ahead, and in our impatient 21st century, that’s something for which we should be deeply grateful.

    Portions of this essay were adapted from the author’s book, Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio

    1. I remember going for the Salk vaccine at the local District Nurse’s house in 1956 or 7 – queuing up with lots of other kids and having the jab. My kids had drops on a sugar lump.

      1. The Sabin vaccine, using sugar cubes was introduced in 1962. I remember having a booster injection (can’t remember what for) and a sugar lump polio booster (strategically timed after the injection) at school in 1964.

        1. These days it seems to be combined with Diptheria & Tetanus (DTP) which I’ve had several times for travel.

          1. Yes I’ve seen that, though I haven’t had one. Don’t do much travelling so it’s not been needed.

            Over the years I’ve had a great many tetanus boosters after a variety of minor accidents with nails, barbed wire, farm machinery and livestock (all good sources of soil borne bacteria like tetanus). The last time I had to take a bad gash (slip up with a pruning saw) to the practice nurse she looked at my notes and said “I don’t think I’ll bother with another tetanus jab, if you’re not immune by now you never will be”. I had no ill effects, so she was probably right.

        1. Definitely a jab when I had it. Perhaps it was different in other areas, as we are roughly the same age.

    2. Given another year of lock downs after more variations on a virus are found, people will be ready to take any vaccine as long as it allows them to get on with life.

      So much for a four week lock down, nobody warned us that every week was going to have three bleeding Mondays.

      1. We’re now wetting ourselves over the English variant and the South-African variant (that might be resistant to the vaccine!)
        OMG! Nothing left but to drink ones-self to death.

      2. Our govt dragged Brexit out for 4 1/2 years. This will get dragged out as long as possible too. Project fear and control must carry on.

    3. That melanistic fox is rather adorable. Melanistic means it has a surfeit of melanin, the dark pigment which makes certain races darker, and which causes paler skins to tan easily.

    1. I’ve had to close that picture down. Being forced to gawp at that gruesomely emetic little Pinko pygmy turns my stomach!

      1. Excuse me Grizz! I think you’ll find it’s SIR gruesomely emetic little Pinko pygmy!

  75. Getting impossible to follow threads and see if any comments are addressed to me since Disqus will not advise of notifications, so forgive me if I’ve not responded to you – it’s not personal.
    ;¬)

    Anyway, I’ll bid you all adieu for now. I may check in later to see if things have improved, in the meantime, I’m away to Parler.

    1. It seems to do better if you go to your own Disqus home page, but is far from perfect.

    2. Um, if you’re bidding people ‘adieu’, that’s for keeps. If you’re intending to return, use ‘au revoir’ 🙂

      1. ‘Evening, Con! In these uncertain times it’s best to hedge your bets and I wouldn’t want to make the wrong call.

        Who knows when an au revoir may turn into an adieu?
        ;¬)

    3. Have now resorted to using my old mans laptop to look at notifications! Apologies from me too if
      I haven’t responded!

        1. It won’t take that long when listening to the PM.

          [I used to enjoy Only Connect when I was allowed
          access to Iplayer.

          1. It would be better with any compere other than Victoria Coren who really isn’t as funny as she thinks she is.

          2. I agree with you, perhaps she thinks
            that because she is married to a
            comedian she automatically qualifies;
            I find her brother equally boorish,
            neither of them are a patch on their
            Father.

    3. I was in a meeting, but the “good news” was conveyed to us by someone using an i-pad.

  77. I see that the previously very supportive (given most of their review scores) shill TV and film reviewers are now turning on the BBC/Chris Chibnall and, to a lesser extent, Jodie Whittaker, after the latest ‘Doctor WHO’ episode, the ‘holiday special’ (it was so bad it was dropped from Christmas two years running):

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/bbc-has-failed-doctor-jodie-whittaker-no-wonder-quitting

    A bit rich from Michael Hogan, who IMHO was fully on board with the (again, my opinion, but it looks like many other long term fans agree) cr@p, woke writing and Whittaker’s terrible performances (amongst many other cast members), shilling and virtue-signalling at every turn (don’t take my word for it – read his previous reviews and of his DT colleagues). I presume Friday’s episode was so bad that even the shills couldn’t make it or her look good any more, but they are, in my view, still blaming the Patriarchy and giving Jodie a free pass, which she doesn’t deserve.

    She’s only now leveaing because the show/role has put her career on life support. Well, given the previous episode debacle, I can’t see this show staying around for long, especially if the management try and pull another woke stunt at her replacement, as well as the scorched Earth policy that is being touted of the Doctor having a same-sex relationship with the plank of wood ‘fam’ member that is Yaz.

    The BBC must also be desperate (given no volunteers other than him) if all they can get for a replacement for Bradley Walsh (who can actually act) in comedian John Bishop. You’d think with the Coof and all that hard-up, out-of-work actors would be queuing up for a prime time role, but maybe they watched an episode or two and gave the franchise a wide berth.

    1. I’ve just been asked by the BBC to give an opinion, via a survey, of their efficacy. Suffice to say they achieved a crop of 0s or 1s with explanations as to their untruthfulness.

    2. I only ever watched the proper Doctor Who … William Hartnell. As soon as he ‘morphed’ into Patrick Troughton I switched off.

      I did the same with Star Trek after Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley departed. I don’t do pastiche!

  80. VERY LAST POST (EVER?)

    The statement by the BPAPM put me in mind of the “Hunting of the Snark”.

    “What I tell you three times is true”.

    He said the same thing in June, September and late November. “Put up with misery all will soon be better and we will have defeated the virus”.

    Bollocks, matey.

    2. Once more it doesn’t seem to make any particular sense. I’m wondering where the virus is going to hide after all the over 70s have been vaccinated. Does that mean it’s going to seek out people between 60 and 70 years old. Then the 40s to 60. And so on.

      1. Very little this collection of Numpties has done has made sense – if a policy patently doesn’t work, why keep trying again, and again??

        1. Because they really are trying to destroy the capitalist infrastructure? I chatted with two sceptical BBC colleagues today. That couldn’t have happened even a month ago.

          1. It’s all starting to wear a bit thin now. Its really difficult to work out exactly what the ‘THEY’ are attempting to achieve.

          2. That’s why those in important positions in the Civil Service, the big corporates, media, etc are likely to go to the next phase of Project Fear II, which is touted to be something along the lines of computer hacking of infrstructure such as power grids/utilities and other key services to force people to stay at home and, more importantly, to stop citizen journalists (because the MSM ones haven’t been doing any of this) from investigating what is REALLY going on (like the otherwise unused NHS).

            They’ve already lined up their bogeys to blame for this – likely NOT China, but North Korea, and more likely Iran and Russia. How it transpires, who knows. Sounds like a recent Mission: Impossible film, but I really wouldn’t put it past Klaus, thw WEF billionaires, left wing political elites and their media lackies.

          3. Maybe it’s already started, I had a recent problem with my pc, it suddenly wouldn’t allow me to send any emails.

          4. They are just reacting (slowly) to events. There’s no real plan, no overall strategy, we’re flying by wire.

          5. Good grief! If Bbc employees are starting to become sceptical, there really is a breach in the dam! 🙂

      2. I’m sure they’ll think of some excuse for more socialism and draconian lockdowns. In some quaters, they’re already angling for ‘climate lockdowns’.

        Don’t forget that they’ve already ‘admitted’ that the ‘vaccines’ are ‘only’ going to be about 90% effective, which means they have a nice 10% of vulnerable people with which to use as the excuse, rather than to bother to come up with (after all, they’ve had a year to) actual workable plans to shield the vulnerable and for staff to work in a safe, competent manner.

        Because the virus doesn’t come into nursing homes via open windows. The civil service and local authorities will have a LOT to answer for when everything comes out in the wash, assuming we’re still able to talk about it and not under dictatorial control from God-knows-who or China.

          1. I know – I was implying (hence the quote marks around ‘only’ before referring to the 90%) that the NHS etc then had an excuse by which to still justify keeping the authoritarian lockdown measures going ad-infinitum. As regards the vaccines themselves, I remain unconvenced as to their effectiveness or safety over the longer term, given a) they haven’t been tested over that period, and b) the organisations telling us the current ‘data’ are themselves up to their necks in the agenda, incompetency and corruption behind the pandemic response and what will likely come after.

            Bear in mind the very same organisations said that the Swine flu vaccination (developed in the same time but never needed in the general population) was ‘safe’ and yet many of the NHS staff who took it now suffer from significant long term side effects such as narcalepsy. Don’t forget that Bill Gates is funding (not out of the goodness of his heart either – he’s going to make a fortune on them and gain more power) them, as well:

            https://www.bitchute.com/video/ZUZ1zkxC4GP1/

            He and his ilk have form, in my opinion. It’s just that most people and the MSM have forgotten, the latter on purpose it seems.

    4. “‘But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,. If your Snark be a Bojo! For then. You will softly and suddenly vanish away,. And never be met with again!’

      Edited to be topical!

  81. According to the DT in France “The vaccine consent form is 45 pages long”….. By the time anyone has read it the Germans will be in Paris……

  82. Ho Hum here we go again, will my 6 black stumps, 3 Waxed Bats, 4 assorted Kiwi Sauv Blancs, 3 Riojas, 3 botts of Swedish Birch fizz and 2 bottles of single malt keep me going for the duration ? time will tell.

    3. You’re worried, wtf are people going to look like in another 8 weeks with out a haircut. 🤔
      At least I baked 9 medium size loaves of bread today (4 white, 4 wholemealgrain and one rye and grain) and also achieve a major triumph making 20 crumpets.
      My wife and middle son gave me 10 out of 10 just for the crumpets.

        1. I have taken up Tourette’s instead. Every time somebody mentions Covid it sets me off 🙂

          2. That’s why I don’t watch the news. I think it would become terminal. It’s bad enough hearing about it second or third hand.

          4. I’m on day 4 with 27 to go. We shall see how long my resolution holds. Depends, I suppose, on how subversive I manage to be to keep as normal a life as possible. I do have a fair stock of booze left, but in any case I shall probably have to ration it. 1940 springs to mind. Still, mustn’t grumble 🙂

    5. Not a chance.

      I’ve polished off a large bottle of baileys and two bottles of rum since Xmas day and i’m virtually teetotal.

  83. I have an appointment at 2:00pm tomorrow to see my MiL who is in a local Nursing Home. Today she told me on the phone how much she is looking forward to my (30 minute) visit tomorrow. She hasn’t been able to have a normal visiting regime since March. I won’t know until tomorrow whether I will be allowed to visit even with Prison Visiting rules in place i.e separate rooms and a perspex screen and intercom. I have no more expletives left….

      1. Solitary confinement in prison is strictly controlled and overseen by monitors, as it’s “cruel & unusual punishment”.

        1. She’s not in Solitary confinement as the staff are kind but she has not been allowed close contact with her family, grandchildren and great grandchildren

          1. I’m sure prison warders are kind, too, but it comes close to the same thing.
            I was surprised how upset Mother-in-Law was on her Zoom call recently that she’d not been able to see & hug her children & grandchildren since almost a year.
            Remember the Bob cartoon of Granny and grandchild – it’s not far from the truth as far as Ma-in-law is concerned.

          2. My MiL was recently given an iPad. One of her carers from Lithuania started to teach her how to Facetime. However, the carer went home for Christmas and understandably has not returned. I’m told staffing levels are a bit low at the moment.

          1. Just has sauerkraut for supper – just saying – one of my favourite vegetables, but it often has unfortunate backside effects…

    3. Top cartoon that. What’ll remain of our country for the next generation, woke or normal?

  87. Pelosi declared war on AOC and the squad when she stopped AOC from being nominated to the Energy and Commerce Committee. AOC and the Squad waited until the vote had been called before walking in and voting for Pelosi, making it absolutely clear that it was their votes, their gift, that got her the Speaker job. AOC drew blood.

    Pelosi was badly damaged by the heavy loss of seats in the elections, and the war has just started. She will have to spend a lot of her energy fighting AOC, and AOC is a very capable politician. Pelosi is old and energy is a problem.

    The Democrats in the Congress do not like AOC, she represents a changing of the guard, more importantly she will bring about an overdue shift of power to the Latino lobby from the ludicrously over represented Irish lobby and to some extent the African American lobby. The Republicans constantly help her cause by sneering at her time as a barmaid, most Americans have done crappy jobs at sometime in their lives, they strengthen her position. The sexual innuendos help her even more. Demographics dictate that the Latinos will dominate US politics in the decades to come – that cannot be changed.

    AOC and Pelosi are allies in the very limited sense that they are members of the same party, but within 10 years AOC (or possibly another Latino) will run the DNC. She is a far cleverer politician than Harris, who the Irish put in as their person to control the Latinos and hang on to power. You can expect the war to intensify, and the Irish can’t win.

      1. Pelosi was a daft choice. She brings in a shed load of money, but she has become more and more divisive.

          4. Damn: just checked. My packet has the expiry date of 31.12.06.
            Or is that just its half-life?

        3. My view is that the pandering to identity politics, principally by the Democrats, will create further and deeper divisions than even Pelosi has achieved.

          1. It will bring about a re-alignment in US politics. The thing is, most Latinos are not natural Democrats, their attitude to life cleaves more to the Republicans. That is something the Republicans will have to adapt to and accommodate. A Trump GOP would have done that, I’m sure his opponents within the party are similarly capable.

          2. I think that most people look to their own and their family’s position and they will vote for the highest bidder.

            If the highest bidder is the one who protects them best from other groups, that’s where they will go; be that protection financial or legal. When small businesses are looted the owners attitudes change, when people see their jobs undercut by other immigrants, particularly illegal ones they will change, when people see criminals breaking the law with impunity, they will change.

            In my view the worst thing that can happen will be people feeling they have to take the law into their own hands to get those protections.

          3. It still surprises me how they give a break down by race, colour and sex when they give the results of polls in the US.

            I just cannot see many UK politicians openly saying that they need to appeal to the Asian vote to win a seat. That kind of talk is done in private.

          5. Just as the main aim of BLM, as far as I can see, is to destroy race relations and encourage people to hate each other.

    2. In my lexicon, AOC was the abbreviation for Air Officer Commanding – what does yours mean? Please have the manners to explain your abbreviations – don’t assume we will all know.

      1. I am sorry to have offended you. It is the well known moniker of a well known politician that people who read the DT or similar could be expected to recognize. A simple search “AOC politics” would have given you that answer. It is of course Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

      1. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. A rabid Left Wing Marxist Latino, middle class of course, in the guise of a Democrat Senator.

          2. Plus she is pretty much in the centre of the Democrats these days. They have moved left to neutralize her. They don’t mean it, neither I suspect does she.

          3. Plus she is pretty much in the centre of the Democrats these days. They have moved left to neutralize her. They don’t mean it, neither I suspect does she.

      1. Pelosi never had to swim with the sharks. AOC has been doing that successfully for 10 years.

        1. Pelosi’s father was a great friend of Al Capone.

          That’s why she uses her married name in politics, unlike most women in American politics who use their maiden name.

          She is one of the sharks!

          1. Clinton didn’t use her maiden name, and that was one reason I was opposed to her. That and Arkancide.

          2. My wife became Mrs Richard Tracey the day she married me and was very happy to do so. On the other hand her two sisters stuck to their maiden name which was probably a good thing as they have traded in their husbands for better models from time to time.

          3. Few married women in Sweden take on their husbands name. Also, their children are usually given their mother’s surname.

          4. Not Mrs Caroline Tracey? It’s very old fashioned to lose one’s Christian name as well as one’s maiden surname. An elderly cousin of my mother always addressed envelopes to her as Mrs Peter W…. even though my mum was widowed in her early 40s.

          5. The old rule was that the materfamilias was, say, Mrs Tracey which is what my grandmother was called. Her sons’ wives were Mrs Leonard Tracey, Mrs Christopher Tracey, Mrs Basil Tracey, Mrs Hugh Tracey and Mrs John Tracey.

            If we forget Mr Clegg’s meddling, since the death of one of my cousins – who only produced daughters – I have become the head of our branch of the family and so Caroline has, if one wants to follow the rule, been promoted from being Mrs Richard Tracey to being Mrs Tracey.

            Of course nobody is remotely interested in such quaint rules and my wife seldom calls herself Mrs Richard Tracey except on official documents and never calls herself Mrs Caroline Tracey or even Mrs Tracey – she just calls herself Caroline Tracey.

          3. When I posted that I was making a joke about the 328126, as in “Why not 3281260 up ticks”. I hadn’t noticed that you hadn’t ticked the post, and Disqus wasn’t bewing helpful today.

  88. You will of course remember that Mystic Rik predicted the full New Year lockdown as soon as the “New Strain” was announced…………….
    Now about those share tips going cheap………..

        1. Ha. Just checked – mine are still somewhat squashy, but they’re impervious to predictions. Happy New Year, Woking Resident. At least you have trains. mine are suspended, due to subsidence…

  91. BBC health editor Hugh Pym on the News at Ten talking about the pressure on hospitals:
    “…lockdowns will take a little time to take effect…so hopefully, as in March and April last year, lockdowns will bring down case numbers but with this new variant we don’t know how long that will take…”

    Thank you, Hugh, very helpful…

    1. I personally know a 91 year old lady who is recovering from cancer, and whose daughter does her personal care, cleaning and shopping every day, was reported by her neighbour!! No check was made and the the Buckie polis turned up at her door! What sort of people are we turning into? Thank you Nikeliar for b****r all!

  94. Another one with an ego larger than the proud history of our Union Flag.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9110793/Penzance-REMOVES-18-Union-Flags-raised-mystery-proud-Cornishman-celebrate-Brexit.html
    A petition to sign below – we can show her what we think of her treachery.
    https://www.change.org/p/prime-minister-remove-penzance-mayor-from-office?cs_tk=AiLVzAGZ9WsaBHRE918AAXicyyvNyQEABF8BvOdJ0zmps-Bebe5yKXPvDsY%3D&utm_campaign=46ce52b0c22b46fda32ff8f170b5bd24&utm_content=initial_v0_1_1&utm_medium=email&utm_source=petition_signer_receipt&utm_term=cs

    1. Don forget those at home who have never worked and paid taxes, they may not be so strongly in favour of more lockdown but they don’t deserve a vote either.

      Time to buy shares in Gordons, the sales of gin will go up with all of that home schooling.

      1. No taxation without representation… no representation without taxation, you mean?

          1. You can see all that when you watch the news Connors, or just tv progs and advertising in general.
            Selected diversity.

          2. I don’t watch the news, it’s bad for my blood pressure. I record the racing (the only thing I watch) and whizz through the adverts. Even at 4 x normal speed it’s impossible to miss the blackness.

          3. Very, very selective.
            The moment YouGov knows you are a conservative (upper or lower case C) you only get sent questionnaires about orange juice and toiletries.

  97. If only the Romans had thought of the old covid ruse, it would have saved all that trouble of building that wall

      1. Ah, the British Standard handful (I’m so glad we are out of the EU can resort to familiar imperial measures).

      2. Ah, the British Standard handful (I’m so glad we are out of the EU can resort to familiar imperial measures).

        1. As anyone who has bought lingerie in the last 48 years could tell you, we never left them.

          1. It’s a bad move to buy lingerie. Shape all wrong, wired/not wired, too much/not enough thongy, it’s a minefield one rapidly learns to avoid.
            Pay when she shops, a different matter, if one can stand all the endless waiting in shops whilst she tries it on.

          2. Screw that!

            Here’s some money, shops are that way, I’ll be in the pub, take as long as you like darling.

  100. Scottish MP Margaret Ferrier arrested over alleged Covid rule breach
    The Scottish MP Margaret Ferrier, 60, has been arrested and charged in connection with alleged culpable and reckless conduct over an alleged breach of coronavirus regulations between 26 and 29 September 2020.

    She travelled 400 miles each way by rail – after testing positive for Covid-19.

    She had been a loud critic of Dominic Cummins when he travelled non-stop with his Covid-19 infected (?) wife and daughter to his family’s adjoining property in Durham.

      2. Back to using the back roads to get to the stable then (and parking round the back of the indoor school).

    2. Yes. And everything, absolutely everything else that we enjoy. I still will not succumb to the vaccine.

  105. So, schools going back on 18th January has now become mid-February – maybe? What do I tell my children when they ask when they will be allowed to see their friends again?

    Where is the evidence that children are at risk from the virus? Where is the evidence that they transmit it to adults? Or do we not need a little thing like evidence any more, we just inflict enormous harm on our children on the say-so of Johnson, the puppet of SAGE?

      1. All that happens now is that the powers-that-be tell us that it is so. NOT ONCE have I actually seen or read ACTUAL evidence of their justifications throughout the pandemic. Lots of ‘amalgamated stats’ (many of which since were ‘incorrect’ or ‘altered’), but nothing, especially at local level to prove anything. We’re being asked to take this all on faith, rather than actual hard facts, which we were always promised.

        We’re in a post-truth world that is following China, not standing up to them.

        1. They tell us so, and if we disagree (case not proven), threaten us with the agents of the State.

          1. Soon we’ll have to contend with overseers on the Interweb, especially forums like this and other social media platforms. If Biden gets in on the 6th, watch what the social media giants will do to stop debate and questioning of the pandemic response and agendas behind it all – mass account/channel deletions, severe moderation of discussions, no comeback, etc, etc.

            As predicted, we’ve already had the planned ‘significan mutation’ of the virus to justify the latest draconian lockdowns, now onto the next phase of The Great Reset/Agenda 21/30 Plan.

            Resistance is futile. Your life, as it has been, is over…

  107. Airport workers are reporting the total shutdown of inbound flights to stop incoming ‘Rona
    Oh Wait…………….
    Bullshit,utter bullshit,all of it

    2. Not so funny when the children of the nomenklatura will once again be allowed to attend school, but the children of private sector people will be excluded.

  109. ****Breaking news****
    It has been established that wanking spreads the virus.
    All politicians are to be shot on sight.

  110. Well whoopee-doo, Disqus notifications have been reinstated!

    Here’s something – for your delight and edification – I found while I was away on Parler. It’s a video clip that the renowned philanthropist/genocidal maniac, Bill Gates, tried to get deleted.

    https://www.bitchute.com/video/ZUZ1zkxC4GP1/

    Enjoy it – it’s later than you think.
    :¬(

    1. Pardon the pun, but this needs to go viral. Well done for posting it. Probably a good idea to download the video, just in case…

    2. I watched to nine minutes in, HJ.

      I will watch the rest tomorrow, I found it
      too harrowing to watch any more tonight.

  111. Given what happened with that lady who was arrested for the ‘crime’ of filming empty corridors and wards/departments in her local hospital, may we assume that we’ll now see the return of more tiktok videos by staff? That could be the way in for citizen journalists to start filming again as to the realities of hospitals etc.

    1. That type of video will just be used as proof that the lockdown is working, and the NHS isn’t being ‘overwhelmed’.

      1. I wouldn’t be suprised that the existing ‘protection’ measures by Plod will now be extended to form a security ring around entire hospital sites and not just certain access points to deny access to ANY member of the public who doesn’t have the right credentials as a patient (one of the few and who will be hearded in via specific entrances/routes only to avoid them ‘seeing anything untoward’), contractor (engineer [some days I wish I had my old career back]) or staff member.

        No ‘walk ins’ from now onwards. Meanwhile, local criminals are noting the absense of Plod and readying their new strategies, especially as regards businesses and educational establishments.

        1. Thank goodness I managed to get replacement batteries for MOH’s hearing aids from the hospital today. A weekend without has been bad; six weeks without would have made me homicidal (yet another death from Covid).

  112. It was always about mass vaccination.

    That’s why Boros didn’t want to hear from consultants and doctors at the beginning, but only Gates linked civil servants.

    SAGE is Gates. Virtually all of them receive his funding or are linked in some way. Incl Ferguson through Imperial who is back as an adviser.

    Then there’s Hancock who has been tweeting soft kind words about Gates, Soros and Schwab.

    Agenda 21. Reset. Sustainable development. Net Zero. Mass vaccination irrespective of clinical need. Control. Not a virus.

    1. I imagine that Hancock is now a very wealthy chimp. The same applies to Johnson.

      Needless to say the vaccination scam has already created a hundred billionaires, from the Italian making glass phials for the serum, the Chinese marketing the supposed code for the virus, the Pharma companies producing untested and unlicensed vaccines with a given indemnity should it all go tits up, the countless pseudo scientific advisory bodies with interests in the Pharma share prices (which have rocketed) to the slavish government accomplices in almost every country who will profit from this scam.

  115. It has just occurred to me,
    [I was going to write:
    hang on a cotton pickin’ minute,]
    If this lock-down is to be for a
    minimum of six weeks then yet again,
    because of time restraints, there will
    be no elections in May 2021.

    Edited.

    2. 328126+up ticks,
      Rik,
      You come across as seemingly surprised
      he is also considered to be an all round good egg by tory peers for services rendered.

      ALL positioned in front of me in the trench.

    3. Hi Rik,
      I can’t risk an uptick in case it looks like I agree with Mr Crazy-as-a-Frog Farage. Mr Bliar was brilliant at organising the debacle known as Foot & Mouth, so talented that he eventually had to call in the Army. Incidentally, I can tell you that Tony has a sense of humour.

        2. It was govt policy failures that got them involved. What would have been your preferred solution?

          1. Following the recommendations of the Northumberland Report would have been a good start.

          2. Where best to start.

            The contiguous cull was completely unnecessary – and that would have reduced the numbers by about 80%, making a far smaller task altogether so that, in the main, the army would not have been required. So I’m with you on the government policy failure. Include the refusal to engage with the hunts (kennel huntsmen are all experienced and licenced slaughter-men) for political reasons and you get a massive government fail.

            On the other hand the army refused to listen to anyone, were convinced that they knew how to slaughter animals (they didn’t) and perpetrated a lot of unnecessary cruelty by doing it badly. Had they been prepared to take advice from the many licenced slaughter-men who were also around they could have saved a lot of suffering of both animals and farmers. They also refused point blank to adhere to disinfection policies so that their feet and their vehicles became potential carriers.

            The ones who were deployed locally were abusive to the farmers and their families and appallingly rude to the local population. They blocked narrow country roads with their vehicles and refused to move them – even for an ambulance on one occasion. They marched into the local chippie or Chinese and expected to go to the front of the queue (and cursed everyone when the proprietors didn’t allow it). I would like to hope that we were just unlucky, but the attitude seemed to be fairly deeply ingrained.

            As far as the logistics of moving enormous numbers of carcases in Cumbria was concerned they did a brilliant job but they should never have been allowed to make contact with live animals.

            Despite the fictitious comments of some here I’m not anti-army. I’ve had family members in the army, the air-force and the navy and I dated a soldier for a while when I was young. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t criticise something which was done very badly because the scars of 2001 are still raw in all too many places.

  117. Oh dear I have to go now, I’ve got to bag it up and get all bread into the freezer.
    Slayders.

  118. Wowsers. Forget teenage grandchildren and their strops; we had the most humungous strop from Spartie last night.
    He didn’t want to go to bed – or, be more precise he didn’t want to go to HIS bed. He was perfectly comfortable in an armchair in the sittingroom and let us know it. To say a battle of wills occurred at approx 10.0 pm at Allan Towers would be an understatement.
    Anyone who has faced down a recalcitrant chihuahua will be able to picture the scene.
    On the plus side, the furore failed to wake the local vixens, so everyone had a decent night’s sleep – eventually.

    1. Lily’s taken up residence on my photo albums. She only budges when J sits down and then she’s on his lap.
      I’m spurned now because I objected to her sitting on my keyboard.

      1. There is a lot of money to be made by someone from cobbling together a piece of perspex on a small stand and mass producing them.

        1. I think cats prefer to find their own favourite place – and they change it frequently, too.

        2. When I learned to touch type (on a manual typewriter) we had black trays on stands which went over the keys so that we learned to do it properly.

          There are probably still some hiding in the cupboards of the old commercial colleges.

          1. No good for me unforts; I’ve never learned to touch type 🙁 – I’d need a clear platform so that I could see the keys

          2. I did the HNC secretarial course because I needed to rebuild my life and I pretty much hated every minute of it. But though I never truly mastered the shorthand and haven’t used it since, I’ve frequently been grateful during the last 30 years for the ability to type with reasonable speed and accuracy. (Which is a comment guaranteed to ensure that I make a typo in the next thing I post.)

    3. Afternoon Anne ..

      No messing with a chihuahua.. they are mini dogs with the courage of a lion.

      Our horrible uncomfortable very hard kingsize bed ( Moh loves it, he is a natural born where ever I lay my head , that’s my home type)
      hosted two extra lumps under the duvet last night .. The kerfuffle at 3am this morning when loo visits happened , and repositioning took place was rather wearing and wearying!

      Spaniels are there, where we are.. including snuffling under the bathroom door .. The space we enjoy is when they are in their safe cosy dog crate in the back of the car !

      1. If we’d had, they would have been used.
        Cushions, raised voices, armchairs tipped at an acute angle and firmly closed doors were involved.
        A somewhat chastened little face peered out from his basket as we went to bed.
        But it took two well organised adults to achieve the result.

        1. Dolly has a day bed in the living room and two beds in my bedroom. One with a heated mat so she can ‘hot’ bed between them.

          1. Mine has a bed in my room, one in the shack (where I am now), one in the studio, one in the campervan and a fleecy mat downstairs. He’s in my bedroom at the moment.

          2. For Heaven’s sake don’t let her tell Spartie.
            In his eyes. we’re already the parents from hell.
            At moments like that Kevin the Teenager could pick up a few tips.

        2. As I’ve said earlier, Anne, the use of the word “BAD” in a deep and growly voice reduces Dotty to a slinking little blot on the carpet – she knows she’s done wrong.

          1. Our two moggies know when they have been bad, even before the “Bad Cat!” – they look so hang-cat.

        3. Well done. Too many people give in and that’s a recipe for disaster with strong-willed dogs.

        4. Well done. I’ve never had any bother getting my spaniels to go to bed… and stay there. Except when I decided to move the current one from a crate to a basket. She wanted nothing to do with the basket and insisted on sleeping on the quarry tiles… so the crate was re-instated, minus its door. She seems to like to sleep in an enclosed bed.

    5. Glad to hear that things remained tranquil last night in Colchester’s deep romantic chasms and cedarn covers!

      (I almost made a typo and wrote coven instead of cover. Are witches rampant in Essex?)

      1. More likely Disqus bods are still on their New Year break. It happened last year, too, or was it the year before?

  121. I’m just raeding about Jodie Whittaker’s leaving Dr Who (I think there were some comments on here the other night).

    One of the BTLs says “…he claims that it’s only “the purists, anti-PC brigade and BBC bashers to explode with outrage all over again” if and when the BBC again puts gender, skin colour or sexual orientation” and asks “since when has that mattered in the Whoniverse for goodness sake?? ”

    Well by the looks of it gender mattered very much between 1963 and 2017

    1. A lady doctor, who cared. They should try focusing on the crap lefty storyline that they used. Not that they will change, it is what they believe people want.

    2. I have not watched since the first episodes when village idiots in the junior school playground walked around exclaiming “exterminate, exterminate!” while the rest of us were normal folk where boys played football or cricket and the girls made daisy chains or searched for four leaf clovers.

      I imagine that the Daleks’ are now transgender and more forgiving.

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