Tuesday 2 February: The British vaccination campaign is like wartime Spitfire production

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/02/02/letters-british-vaccination-campaign-like-wartime-spitfire-production/

745 thoughts on “Tuesday 2 February: The British vaccination campaign is like wartime Spitfire production”

  1. Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemns Putin’s crackdown on protests and jailing of Alexei Navalny. 2 February 2021.

    ‘The arrests, the violence used by police is deeply disturbing. And of course, the arrest of Mr. Navalny itself which apparently triggered this is also profoundly disturbing to us,’ he continued.

    ‘But I think the Russian government makes a big mistake if it believes that this is about us. It’s not. It’s about them. It’s about the government. It’s about the frustration that the Russian people have with corruption, with autocracy, and I think they need to look inward, not outward and hopefully take into account what they’re hearing from their own people. Mr. Navalny is giving expression to the voices of millions and millions of Russians. And that’s what this is about,’ he said.

    Morning everyone. This from a government that regards half of its voters as “Violent Domestic Terrorists” and has put its own President on trial and silenced him by means of their allies in the media!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9210293/Blinken-criticizes-Russia-weighs-possible-sanctions-North-Korea-NBC-News.html

    1. I was thinking the same thing this morning over Biden putting sanctions on Burma because the military seized power while blaming it on election fraud.
      The irony meter went off the scale.
      If only the USA military had been brave enough.

    5. CoughPiersCorbynTSGTrafalgarSquarecough
      I don’t think the Mail’s irony meter has been calibrated recently…………………
      ‘Morning Minty

  5. Morning all. The vaccine letters…..

    SIR – Charles Moore rightly praises Kate Bingham’s brilliant achievement in securing vaccine supplies. We should not forget either the role of Professor Sarah Gilbert in designing the Oxford vaccine, along with her colleagues.

    There is a comparison here with two vital roles in the Second World War: the genius of R  J Mitchell in designing the Spitfire in the late Thirties, and of Lord Beaverbrook, brought in by Churchill from private business in the 1940 crisis to cut through bureaucracy and speed up aircraft production.

    Vincent Phillips

    Naburn, North Yorkshire

    SIR – Government orders for far more doses than needed for 66 million people show that it believes periodic revaccination may be required.

    Since we cannot lock down forever, it is time for at least a public health campaign to reduce hospitalisation by encouraging citizens to take vitamin D, consume less sugary food and drinks, exercise more and, if obese, to try to lose weight. The Government has, after all, been ready to forbid people by law from leaving their homes.

    Tim Beechey-Newman

    Oxford

    Advertisement

    SIR – There are calls on us to share our vaccines with the EU and developing world. We will when we can, but the UK did let the highly contagious Kent strain get out of control, necessitating a third lockdown, in which children will miss school perhaps for months. Schools are not closed in France.

    If the rollout can be tweaked it must be to vaccinate school staff, as Tony Blair suggests (report, February 1). It may look like a U-turn but it would be supported if schools could reopen on March 8. We are used to U-turns. No one cares as long as it works.

    Jane O’Nions

    Sevenoaks, Kent

    SIR – I am sure prime ministers would give their eye teeth to prevent former PMs announcing their opinions, presumably armed with only a few of the facts. Tony Blair’s latest idea that “teachers would only take a couple of days to vaccinate and should be prioritised”, while superficially attractive, gives no consideration to those at risk who might die as a result of this populism. Of course, as far as votes go, those who missed out will not be around to show their disapproval.

    C W Twiston Davies FRCS

    St Lawrence, Jersey

    SIR – If Boris Johnson is minded to redirect some of our vaccine, surely, after Ireland, the first place to look is among our Commonwealth friends. South Africa appears in much greater need than any European country.

    Jerry Rendell

    Windsor, Berkshire

    SIR – It is sobering to consider that those responsible for the EU vaccine debacle are the same people who would have ultimate control over an EU army at a time of war.

    David Watt

    Oakley, Buckinghamshire

    1. …are the same people who would have ultimate control over an EU army at a time of war.

      How long would it take the Russians to defeat the EU?

      Eh?

      Half an hour. Twenty minutes laughing and ten minutes fighting!

      1. Surely the army is for persuading citizens to do as they are told, companies to give up stocks of essential but unordered goods, and countries to toe the line? The Russians would be far down the priorities.

      2. ‘Morning, Minty, even when we and the Americans were the controlling Armed Forces in a divided Germany in the 60s, it was reckoned by the Chiefs of Staff that if they really tried, the Russians could be in Calais within 48 hours of any concerted action starting.

        What price the Paper-Bag EU today?

    2. Much as I like the Irish, the suggestion of prioritising them is ludicrous. They are not the friend of the UK, stabbing the UK in the back over Brexit, and otehrwise being a royal pain. South Africa, meanwhile, sent it’s soldiers, sailors and airmen to fight with Britain in the last world wars, a true mark of friendship, as did India/Pakistan, Aus, NZ.
      Remind me, how many Irish regiments were in the fighting?

      1. WW1: numerous as Eire didn’t exist.
        WW2: Eire itself remained Neutral, but many S Irishmen fought for us as volunteers.

        3. Indeed they did fight with the British, and respect to them for that.
          Many were prosecuted when they went back to Ireland for fighting with the British. Apparently it was made illegal.

      2. Oops. More nonunderreadery. My excuse is a sudden burst of rage.
        As I have commented previously the advisor to the SA government on Covid-19 stated on”Hard Talk” that SA could not afford the multimillion up front non-returnable deposit that the vaccine developers required. We in the UK did pay (we printed more money, I suppose.)

        1. I’m in & out all day, in gaps between getting more coffee, video meetings, calls and doing some actual work, so don’t have time to read the whole lot of comments again and again – and I’m sure that affects others, too. So, a point made twice is an effect doubled!

    3. Never Ireland!!! They are the enemy of the UK – where have you been for the last 4 years?

    4. M. Macron was on TV this morning demanding that Britain cease its vaccination programme and pass the spare vaccines to France.

      He said “Britain must decide who their friends are”

      He doesn’t do irony, does he?

  6. The Twitter illusion

    SIR – The storm in a teacup over skiers attempting to travel from St Pancras (Letters, January 30) highlights the exaggeration by politicians of Twitter’s significance.

    There are around 15 million Twitter accounts in Britain. How many belong to actual people? In 2018 Twitter lost 20 per cent of its stock value after it deleted over 70 million accounts for being fake – run by bots – or offensive. How many are duplicates? A user may have two accounts and a single business may have several.

    A study in 2019 by the Pew Research Centre found that 80 per cent of tweets came from just 10 per cent of users. A minority of the country uses Twitter, a minority of users reads it often, and a smaller minority uses it politically.

    The reporting of “Twitter storms” is merely an inflation of the Westminster bubble. Twitter emphatically does not have its finger on the national pulse.

    Robert Frazer

    Salford, Lancashire

  7. Express delivery

    SIR – In the Indian Census of 1891, a man gave his place of birth (Letters, February 1) as “A first-class carriage on the London and North Western Railway, somewhere between Bletchley and Euston; the precise spot being unnoticed either by myself or the other person principally concerned”.

    Christopher Horne

    Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire

  8. Ofcom has been infected by the BBC’s twisted idea of ‘free speech’. 2 February 2021.

    An interesting example of this is the Channel 4 show Naked Attraction, now in its seventh series. It’s a dating show in which young people strip naked, examine each other’s genitals and then make a choice about whether or not to date. When first shown in 2016, there were scores of complaints from people who objected to this cheap and nasty televisual voyeurism. It would take an essay to point out all that is wrong with this programme but, suffice to say, it surely represents a low point in contemporary British culture.

    Even so, the objectors might have saved their breath: Ofcom decided that Naked Attraction was just fine. It broke none of their rules, there was no sexual activity as such, and in the watchdog’s view it was therefore merely a new twist on the dating format. Besides, it went out after the so-called “watershed” – no matter that time-shift services have rendered this concept entirely obsolete. Nothing to see here; move along, please!

    The conclusion I draw is that Ofcom is itself highly partisan. It stands four-square behind a Left-liberal social project that has progressively dismantled an old set of rules and understandings that respected old-fashioned moral standards. Instead, the watchdog – born in 2003, a creation of Tony Blair’s second administration – stands ever-vigilant to make sure that “populist” opinions are kept beyond the pale,. In effect, it now acts as the enforcer for liberal opinion.

    Tony Blair! Everything this man ever touches is twisted and corrupted. It’s circumstantial but there is good reason to think that he really is the Anti-Christ!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/ofcom-has-infected-bbcs-twisted-idea-free-speech/

    1. Channel 4 was doing these cheap and nasty TV programmes many years ago. In about 2005 I saw a programme whereby a group of men had to stand behind screens which had strategically placed holes in them into which the men had to insert a certain part of their anatomy. Their wives had to guess which one belonged to their husbands. Soon after, I accidentally tuned into this malevolent channel to see a woman dressed like a ‘lady of the night’ who was walking up the aisle in a theatre. She sat next to a teenage girl and asked her what she would say to the thought of watching her parents have sex. The girl said that she would be disgusted, but the woman told her that she better get used to it because they are going to perform on stage right now. I switched to another channel and have never watched anything on Channel 4 since.

      With this standard of TV around 15 years ago, no wonder the country has been on a downward slope ever since. And your mention of the twisted, corrupt Tony Blair is very pertinent!

      1. They crop up on Gogglebox, otherwise I’ve never heard of them.
        They remind me of the more over-wrought 1950’s epic films about the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire that usually featured Peter Ustinov as some ageing degenerate.

    2. Tony Blair! Everything this man ever touches is twisted and corrupted.

      Especially Cherie Blair …. although rumour has it he doesn’t touch her very much these days.

  9. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    What a remarkable life…

    Captain Michael Wenner, wartime paratrooper, commando and later diplomat – obituary

    He broke his leg having been dropped from a Dakota at much too low an altitude

    By
    Telegraph Obituaries
    1 February 2021 • 3:39pm

    Captain Michael Wenner, who has died aged 99, was the last veteran of the wartime 151/156 Parachute Battalion; a man of many parts, he was a scholar, paratrooper, commando and a British ambassador.

    Michael Alfred Wenner was born at Macclesfield on March 17 1921. His father, Alfred, was descended from Swiss textile merchants who came to England in the 19th century. He fought in the First World War and was badly wounded at the Battle of Passchendaele. Young Michael’s mother, Simone (née) Roussel, a notable violinist, came from a French military family.

    During the summer holidays from Stonyhurst College, Wenner stayed with cousins in Switzerland and became fluent in Swiss German. He had won a scholarship to Oxford but the outbreak of war forced him to defer his place.

    In 1941, he was serving in India with the Lancashire Fusiliers when he volunteered for the newly formed 151 Parachute Battalion based in New Delhi and using pre-war twin-engine Vickers Valencia aircraft adapted for parachute-jumping. Over an eight-week period in summer 1942 they lost six men whose parachutes failed to open.

    Wenner broke his leg during training and broke it again after the battalion, re-badged as 156 Parachute Battalion, moved to Palestine. He had been dropped from a Dakota at much too low an altitude.

    He was given a desk job but, determined to see active service, he transferred to No 9 (Scottish) Commando and, in February 1945, was made Intelligence Officer. In April, he took part in the fiercely contested Battle of the Argenta Gap in north-east Italy.

    Wenner saw further action in Greece and, after the war, he took up his scholarship at Oriel College, Oxford. He studied Modern Languages and won a full blue at boxing.

    In 1947 he entered the Diplomatic Service and served in Stockholm, Washington, Tel Aviv, La Paz, Bolivia and Vienna. His last appointment was as Ambassador to El Salvador from 1967 to 1970. There he founded the British School, Academia Británica Cuscatleca, raising the funds, identifying the site and appointing local and British teaching staff.

    Taking early retirement from the Diplomatic Service, he went to live in Houston, where he held managerial positions at Thomas De La Rue, Rio Tinto Zinc and Micron Corporation, and was commercial adviser to the Consulate General of Switzerland from 1984 to 1990.
    ,,,,,,,,, ,
    For the last 10 years of his life in Houston, he and his wife Raven ran a proof-reading, copy-editing and ghost-writing business. They returned to England in 2008, and for the last 12 years of his life they lived at the family farm in Lancashire; he attended every 151/156 Parachute Battalion re-union at its former wartime base at Melton Mowbray.

    An accomplished pianist, his other interests included fly fishing, old maps, choral singing, amateur archaeology and volunteer teaching. He wrote a memoir, So It Was (1993), translated a true story of one of his ancestors, Kidnapped by Brigands (1998) from German, and published Telephone Tales (2004), a book of childrens’ stories.

    Michael Wenner married first, in 1950, Gunilla Cecilia Ståhle, whom he met during his first posting, in Stockholm. She predeceased him and, in 1990, he married Holly (Raven) Johnson, whom he met in Texas and who survives him with four sons of his first marriage.

    Michael Wenner, born March 17 1921, died November 21 2020

    Edit: A BTL comment that caught my eye:

    An amazing life. A selection of these Obits should be required reading in schools today. The sacrifice, the devotion to duty, the courage, endurance and achievement of the war generation should be made known to kids growing up today. There should be a subject all of its own – citizenship – duties, not just rights.

    1. Most of them don’t even know there was a war, and those that do think it was Hollywood heroes who stormed the British beaches (wherever they are) and freed Europe from the Nazis led by Stalin and Gorbachov, who refused to let MacDonald’s open their hot dog stalls in Paris and Amsterdam.

      I am beginning to think they are right.

      2. South Korea have, fairly successfully, contained SARS-CoV-2 by mass testing, isolating and social distancing… without locking down. Their population density in the cities is high (at 527 per km² across the whole country it is considerably above England’s 432* per km²). So far they have fewer than 1,500 deaths.

        *UK population density is a mere 275 per km² but as that includes all the bits with no people or only a handful of people I thought that the figure for England is probably more relevant.

      3. South Korea have, fairly successfully, contained SARS-CoV-2 by mass testing, isolating and social distancing… without locking down. Their population density in the cities is high (at 527 per km² across the whole country it is considerably above England’s 432* per km²). So far they have fewer than 1,500 deaths.

        *UK population density is a mere 275 per km² but as that includes all the bits with no people or only a handful of people I thought that the figure for England is probably more relevant.

    2. Seems a bit pointless to me, if it is in those areas it could be all over the country by now, if it exists at all that is,

    3. More vaccinations,more reason to abandon lockdown
      More tests,more “cases” tighten the screw
      Simple really………..

  13. There is an informative website that comments on world events, giving a detailed list of the sources of information. http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ww2010.weblog.htm#e210202

    On the subject of the coup in Myanmar, its detailed analysis includes this: “The Burmese hatred of the Rohingyas is not rare. That kind of ethnic hatred is common in several countries today and recently. It’s the rule. It’s the Chinese hatred of Uighurs. It’s the Zimbabwe Shona hatred of the Nbdele. It’s the Syrian Alawite hatred of Arab Sunnis. It’s the Rwandan Hutu hatred of Tutsis. It’s the Nazi hatred of Jews. In America today, it’s the Democrats’ hatred of the 74 million Tea Partiers and Trump supporters, as I described at length in “12-Jan-21 World View — America and the standard Genocide Playbook”.”

    1. I fear that America is sitting on a knife edge and that Biden’s administration is pushing down.

    2. Interesting how they stress the “genocide” against the Rohingya Muslims, who incidentally, originate from what is now Bangladesh, without once mentioning the terrorist activities of the Rohingya activists who were murdering & raping the Buddhists in an effort to force them out of the area so they could create their own state.

  14. ‘Morning again.

    From the DT:

    A runny nose should be counted as a Covid symptom, GPs have said.

    A group of more than 140 doctors, writing in the British Medical Journal, are urging the chief medical officer to include symptoms like a running or blocked nose, muscle pain, and headaches as criteria for a test.

    They say at the moment they are having to encourage patients who turn out to have coronavirus to lie about their symptoms in order to access a test, which means that far too many cases are being missed.

    Dr Alex Sohal, an East London GP and lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, said she is regularly reviewing patients with mild symptoms – for example, a runny or blocked nose, sore throat, hoarseness, muscle pain, fatigue, and headache – who subsequently turn out to be Covid positive.

    She writes: “These patients have frequently not even considered that they may have Covid-19 and have not self-isolated in the crucial early days when they were most infectious.”

    Some patients are now being encouraged to be dishonest in order to access Covid-19 tests, she said, in the letter backed by 140 GPs.

    “The national publicity campaign focuses on cough, high temperature, and loss of smell or taste as symptoms to be aware of – only patients with these symptoms are able to access a Covid-19 test online through the NHS test booking site. GPs have to advise patients to be dishonest to get a Covid-19 test.”

    The World Health Organisation’s case definition of Covid includes other symptoms such as coryza [runny nose], sore throat, vomiting, and diarrhoea, while NHS guidance states that patients should keep self-isolating for more than 10 days if they have a runny nose or are sneezing.

    But in the UK people are normally only eligible for standard Covid tests if they are suffering from one of the three key symptoms.

    Instead, the public should be told that anyone with a range of mild symptoms should be told to stay home, prioritising the first five days of self-isolation when they are more likely to be infectious, GPs said, in the letter in the BMJ.

    Last week, the Office for National Statistics found those infected with the “Kent” variant of Covid are less likely to lose their sense of taste and smell, compared with those who had the original type.

    They are more likely to report other symptoms, including fever, sore throat, fatigue and coughs.

    A Department of Health and Social Care Spokesperson said: “An expert and independent scientific group keeps the list of symptoms of Covid-19 under constant review as our understanding of the virus continues to evolve.”

    “Anyone experiencing the main symptoms of coronavirus – a high temperature, a new continuous cough, or a loss or change to sense of smell or taste – should self-isolate and get a test as soon as possible.”

    * * * *

    When I had my dose of the Chinese Virus back in February last year, it included a blinding headache lasting about 3 days, along with the most of the other symptoms now recognised. As someone who very, very rarely suffers from headaches this further convinces me that it was Covid.

    1. I had all the Covid symptoms before I was admitted to the ICU at the hospital.

      I was tested at the outset and almost every day the whole time I was there.
      All tests were negative.

    2. My nose runs and I start to sneeze after a few minutes in a mask. I suppose self-isolating for ever would be possible, but it would leave a lot of people short of shopping and prescriptions.

    4. Symptoms like that mean I check on our stocks of paper hankies and throat pastilles.
      As I have done for xxxxxxxxxx years.

      1. Fortunately I have few colds, and when they do come along they have never involved a total loss of taste and smell.

  15. The “You couldn’t make it up files” is coming up fast on the rails…………..

    A virus that can’t even kill you if you are lying helpless in a coma. And it had two tries.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9212103/Teenager-11-month-coma-wakes-no-knowledge-Covid-pandemic.html

    It is so virulent that you can get it while extreme social distancing on
    an intensive care ward in a coma , not once but twice !
    Great infection control RNHS one Brazilian nurse and one South African??
    For gawds sake keep the Kentish one away or he’ll have a trifecta up!!

  16. Moscow under tight security as Navalny appears in court after mass protests. 2 February 2021.

    The anti-corruption crusader is charged with violating a 2014 suspended sentence for embezzlement by skipping out on check-ins with Russia’s prison service while in Germany.

    The case saw Navalny spend one year under house arrest as part of a 3.5-year suspended sentence and his brother Oleg serve the entire time in jail.

    Navalny and his allies believe the embezzlement case was retribution by the authorities for his political activities. They say the Kremlin is now repurposing it to muzzle him.

    When Tommy Robinson and his “allies” rightly claimed the same for a lesser offence all that resulted was vilification!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/02/moscow-tight-security-navalny-appears-court-mass-protests/

    1. This woman appears to have her own TV Channel; whenever I surf the news section she is always on!

    2. This woman appears to have her own TV Channel; whenever I surf the news section she is always on!

    4. Nah – she’ll survive. I am pinning what little hope I have left on Salmond’s “revelations”.

      1. The information in the public domain is enough for a police investigation. However as she appoints the Chief Prosecutor (Lord Advocate), Chief Constable, and Justice Minister…

  18. Next stage: blame the German people for letting her down.
    (Blimey, this week has been a good one for Godwin’s Law)

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/01/ursula-von-der-leyen-attempts-pin-blame-deputy-embarrassing/

    “Ursula von der Leyen attempts to pin blame on deputy for embarrassing U-turn in vaccine export row

    The European Commission’s chief spokesman said ‘only the Pope is infallible’

    Ursula von der Leyen on Monday pinned the blame for the vaccine fiasco that led Brussels to threaten a hard border on the island of Ireland on her trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis.

    The European Commission president threw her deputy, who leads DG Trade, under the bus amid rising anger from EU capitals at her “go it alone” tactics during last week’s battle with AstraZeneca.

    Jean-Claude Juncker, Mrs von der Leyen’s predecessor, said he was “very much opposed” to her export restriction measures.

    In a speech in Stuttgart on Sunday, Mr Juncker also said of the EU’s vaccine procurement: “It all went too slow, it all should have been done more transparently, even though that would have been difficult.”

    “This regulation falls under the responsibility of Mr Dombrovskis,” said Eric Marmer, the European Commission’s chief spokesman, referring to the former prime minister of Latvia, a Brussels veteran with a reputation for caution.

    “In my country we have a saying, ‘Only the Pope is infallible’. Mistakes can happen along the way the important thing is that you recognise them early on,” Mr Mamer said.

    Alexander Stubb, the former prime minister of Finland who campaigned to be appointed European Commission, president was scathing about Mrs Von der Leyen.

    He said “Number one rule of any leader: if your organisation screws up; never, ever blame your team publicly”

    Mrs von der Leyen was forced into a humiliating climbdown on Friday after announcing Brussels would trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol, to prevent AstraZeneca vaccines being smuggled into Britain from Northern Ireland.

    The move, which was announced without notifying Ireland or Britain, would have created a “vaccine border” after years of Brexit talks to avoid a hard border on the island.

    After the Irish prime minister called Mrs von der Leyen, the regulation, which could have facilitated a vaccine export ban to non-EU countries including Britain, was amended.

    Mr Mamer said that the regulation to create an “export transparency mechanism”, which including the Article 16 measure, was passed provisionally and at speed by the entire College of Commissioners on Friday.

    Asked by the Telegraph if this was Ms Van der Leyen’s worst week, he said: “We believe that we are on the right track since the beginning of this pandemic in ensuring there is as cohesive and as effective a European response as possible.

    Mrs von der Leyen’s attempts to pass the buck cut no ice with EU diplomats, who suggested she had gone rogue, or German MPs in Berlin, who plan to summon Ursula von der Leyen for questioning.

    In a further blow to Mrs von der Leyen, the move was led by MPs from her own party, Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU).

    Mrs von der Leyen has refused calls for a public debate on the debacle in the European Parliament. Instead she will on Tuesday hold closed door meetings with MEPs with parties who approved her appointment.

    It is understood that Mrs von der Leyen took personal charge of the vaccine row and that DG Trade’s senior official is Sabine Weyand, whose objections to triggering Article 16 were reported to have been overruled.

    Ms Weyand is keenly aware of the political sensitivities around the Brexit divorce treaty’s Northern Ireland Protocol. She was Michel Barnier’s deputy Brexit negotiator and a key figure in the creation of the Irish border backstop.

    Mr Barnier was also kept out of the loop, despite being appointed Ursula von der Leyen’s special adviser on the implementation of the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement from which Article 16 springs and on the finalisation of the bilateral trade and cooperation agreement.

    An EU diplomat told the Telegraph that ambassadors had asked the commission to change its tone in the fight with AstraZeneca last week but were ignored.

    One EU diplomat told Le Figaro, “It is a wonderful reflection of working methods we have known about for a long time, namely of hyper-centralisation of Ursula von der Leyen’s cabinet with decisions made without consultation with the services concerned.”

    “With this blunder, Brussels has given a whole bushel of ammunition to die-hard Brexiters,” wrote the conservative daily.

    “Alarm bells that should have been ringing did not ring,” a European source told Le Monde.

    The EU continues to lag behind Britain in vaccinations. The commission last week suggested AstraZeneca may have given reserved EU vaccine stock to the UK, which was behind the threat of the vaccine export ban.

    In an interview on German TV, Mrs von der Leyen denied that the EU was losing the vaccine race to Britain and that the only race the EU was in was against the virus and time.

    She swapped assurances that neither the UK or EU would block each other’s supplies with Boris Johnson, as she attempted to repair the reputational damage.

    She announced a 75 million jab increase in deliveries of the Pfizer vaccine in the second quarter of the year, which she had already announced on January 8.

    On Sunday, she confirmed that AstraZeneca would deliver 40 million doses in total in the first quarter — nine million doses or 30 per cent more than it had previously said it could and a week earlier.”

    1. ‘Morning, Anne, “Mistakes can happen along the way the important thing is that you recognise them early on,” Mr Mamer said.

      Pity the EU didn’t recognise its mistake when it morphed from the Common Market into the wannabe United States of Europe.

    1. I’ve read the BBC report. It does not seem to be clear whether Customs are checking stuff going into NI or coming out. If going into NI for Eire the checks would logically be carried out inside the Eire border (aka hard border), rather than in the middle of the North Sea. Of course the treaty re the border has now been broken by the EU, so we should claim back NI to the UK, temporarily until unification.
      It seems like the UK trade “negotiators” were so worried about appeasing the EU, soothing the USA, and conceding to the IRA that they forgot about that other group of murderous terrorists, the Loyalists.

  22. 328979+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,

    “The British vaccination campaign is like wartime Spitfire production”

    Why this link, is it to try and justify much of what has
    been / is going, wrong ?

    If we acted then as we are acting now on many issues we would now be talking fluent kraut with a splattering of english and with knee high black boots a must item, with plenty of the indigenous politico’s & supporters willing to fill them.

    The wartime era had a strong thread of peoples unity running through it and that extended to trust in the Government, two much needed items that are most definitely missing now.

    My belief is these governance groups will continue with the same soul destroying agenda until the only option left open to the herd is a re-set campaign, with the lead steers being the very same politico’s.

    We are really in dire need of a re-set right enough, only one
    of a people powered status eliminating ALL current MPs as being “not in good standing” regarding the Country / peoples welfare.

  23. Huge snowstorm hits US east coast as New York declares state of emergency. 2 February 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3521aa5fdc2574a80434c7377b7b521c68a89698b867a4db76565b8a28686258.jpg

    A huge snowstorm brought chaos to the United States east coast on Monday, cancelling thousands of flights, closing schools and forcing the postponement of coronavirus vaccinations as New York steeled itself for almost two feet of snow.

    The National Weather Service (NWS) issued storm warnings from Virginia to Maine – home to tens of millions of people – as heavy snowfall mixed with wind gusts up to 50 miles per hour spurred blizzard-like conditions along the eastern seaboard.

    Don’t worry Yanks. Biden and Kerry have Global Warming well in hand!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/01/huge-snowstorm-hits-us-east-coast-new-york-declares-state-emergency/

    2. I for one would welcome the death sentence for these scum , considering the long line of multiple murders, violence , intimidation and misery etc created across worldwide by this industry I would come down hard on the users as well, or should we just decriminalise and destroy the market overnight?

      1. ‘Morning Datz
        On the money!!
        Either execute every dealer and 10 year no-parole sentences for users*
        Or legalise and tax the bloody lot and ringfence the income for drug education and rehabilitation
        Either would be far better than the nonsense we see here with the multi-billion trade controlled by the most vicious feral criminals
        *
        You can hear the wailing if some leftard mummy now “He’s only a child”

        1. Never mind , as many of them are of a certain ethnic persuasion , they will probably fall prey to the VIRUS, much quicker than most .

          Karma works in the most mysterious of ways .

    3. Morning Rik

      Drug dealers are murderers.. They are the modern day Shipmans .

      They aid and abet death for money , high returns for causing misery to weak minded individuals .

      How do other countries deal with drug dealers .. some are executed , aren’t they .

      1. Which reminds me; what happened to that little white-haired old English grandmother who was last seen knitting a scarf on Thailand’s death row?

        2. She hasn’t finished the scarf yet – it’s 3 miles long and she’s forgotten how to cast off

      2. Execute ? If only.
        If they are found with thousands of pounds worth on them, put them in a cell, tell them once they have injected or smoked the lot – NO medical facilites to save them – they will be released. Lot cheaper than keeping them in jail to be released and repeat when out.

    4. That’s a good proportion of the Colchester underclass taken off the streets for a few weeks.

    5. That’s a good proportion of the Colchester underclass taken off the streets for a few weeks.

    6. A program late last night showed the investigation of a murder here in the UK. An innocent Lithuanian woman was stamped and kicked to death. At the end the narrator said that the judge handed out “a TOUGH sentence ” – 16 years – no parole. He’ll still have half his life left on release – The victim didn’t. He should have his hands cuffed behind his back then thrown to the victim’s family.

      1. Why discriminate? Deport the lot, no matter where they were born. North Pole would do. Polar Bears get hungry.

    8. Yep, I saw that. I suspect that judges have been asked to give minimum sentences for everything. The police only arrest people where the tariff is a fine, not prison. The prosecution service downgrades all prosecutions where possible. Otherwise the prisons would be full

  25. Good morning, all. Very late on parade – that last five minute doze lasted 90 minutes!

    Pouring with rain – so will be reading covidcult chum’s manuscript – hope to finish it today.

      1. Hullo, Maggie. Nah – the cats were in their quarters. They are not allowed in the rest of the house at night.

    2. Morning bill.
      We were sat up with mugs of tea in bed for an hour and a half in the small hours so were not out of bed until half 8.

  26. Survival of the fittest during population cull…

    The same people who set the global warming scam in motion also declared that the ideal world population would be a mere 500 million souls…a reduction of 95% of humans.

    When Merkel invited millions of illegals into Europe more than 6,000 perished in the Med. It was reported that many were Christians thrown overboard by those of another religion. Only the fittest made it to Europe. Those coming via the Balkans had to walk thousands of miles where the weakest fell by the wayside. Fast forward to today and notice how covid is eliminating the weakest. The elderly and infirm are dropping like flies while others are either dying through lack of treatment for other serious ailments or committing suicide due to mental health issues brought on by job losses and reduction of freedom etc.

    Part of the NWO agenda is to create civil unrest leading to total chaos which is why we are bombarded with gender issues along with Nazi style rewriting of history…the woke program…burning history books and the tearing down of statues. BLM has been mobilised to cause racial tension and to rub it in…the terrorist group has now been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

    If all that’s happening today is making your blood boil then it must be clear that only the very fittest in mind as well of physical strength will stand any chance of making the proposed 500 million left when the dust finally settles.

    1. If it should happen, of that 500 million most will be slaves to their new masters in ways that will make the American deep South look like a holiday camp.

      1. The best looking children…the sexiest looking females and the strongest males to form the chain gangs.

    5. We have been sailing in the Med for some years and when immigrants were drowning in great numbers we dreaded seeing corpses as we sailed along. Thank God we never did so – but where did all the bodies go?

      We were sailing to Simi when we saw on Nimos, an uninhabited island to the north of Simi, a group of dusky people waving their arms and displaying a board with HELP written upon it. Clearly it would not have been wise to pick them up ourselves but we tried to call the Simi coast guard on the VHF radio but got no reply so, when we landed on the island of Simi, we telephoned to report what we had seen. “Don’t worry,” said the coast guard, “we’ll go along and pick them up this afternoon.”

      We learnt that Simi was delighted when immigrants turned up. The regulations dictated that all of them should be sent to Athens to be sorted out so the island authorities negotiated a deal with the ferry company that they would charge 20 € rather than the usual 100 € fare for the voyage. They then submitted a bill to the EU for their expenses and the full 100 € fare so they made a clear profit of 80 € on each immigrant for the ferry ticket alone.

      A nice little earner, as Arthur Daley would have said.

  27. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2c2e105ad913eb6e47acf1825dbd561916406595a8d833892ccf5a8da7c376af.png

    Please, DT Letters Editor …… don’t use this kind of metaphor …… just don’t!

    Before you know it, that blonde buffoon, Johnson, will be appearing on our television screens, standing at the lectern flanked by his two ‘wingmen’, wearing a leather flying-helmet and goggles, shouting out “Tally-ho, tallyho! This is Blue Leader … viruses ahead at Angels One-Five … Am attacking now! Out!”

    2. With the occasional flash of Angela Merkle in goggles and flying boots (and nothing else) standing by her ME109
      Control yourselves guys

      1. ‘Morning, Paul. I mentally did my Swedish homework during the small hours, now I have to get it down on paper.

  29. Good morning from a Derbyshire shivering under a blanket of wet, slushy snow with a very wet -2°C in the yard.
    I will not be doing much outside today and, after being up for several hours earlier this morning, am very tempted to hibernate for the day!

  30. Conversations on Conversions

    A Catholic Priest, a Baptist Preacher and a Rabbi all served as Chaplains to the students of Northern Michigan University at Marquette in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. They would get together two or three times a week for coffee and to talk shop.

    One day, someone made the comment that preaching to people isn’t really all that hard, a real challenge would be to preach to a bear. One thing led to another, and they decided to do an experiment. They would all go out into the woods, find a bear, preach to it, and attempt to convert it to their religion.

    Seven days later, they all came together to discuss their experiences.

    Father Flannery, who had his arm in a sling, was on crutches, and had various bandages on his body and limbs, went first. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I went into the woods to find me a bear. And when I found him, I began to read to him from the Catechism. Well, that bear wanted nothing to do with me and began to slap me around. I quickly grabbed my holy water, sprinkled him and, Holy Mary, Mother of God, he became as gentle as a lamb. The Bishop is coming out next week to give him first communion and confirmation.’

    Reverend Billy Bob spoke next. He was in a wheelchair, had one arm and both legs in casts, and had an IV drip. In his best fire-and-brimstone oratory, he exclaimed, ‘WELL, brothers, you KNOW that we Baptists don’t sprinkle! I went out and I FOUND me a bear. And then I began to read to my bear from God’s HOLY WORD! But that bear wanted nothing to do with me. So, I took HOLD of him and we began to wrestle. We wrestled down one hill, UP another and DOWN another until we came to a creek. So, I quickly DUNKED him and BAPTIZED his hairy soul. And just like you said, he became as gentle as a lamb. We spent the rest of the day praising Jesus… Hallelujah!

    The Priest and the Reverend both looked down at the Rabbi, who was lying in a hospital bed.

    He was in a body cast and traction with IVs and monitors running in and out of him. He was in really bad shape.

    The Rabbi looked up and said: “Looking back on it, …circumcision may not have been the best way to start.”

    1. There are always many truisms in cartoons.

      The cowboy one was the brother of ‘the paper bag kid’………wanted for rustling.

  33. With reference to Minty’s earlier post:

    Many Russian cities are like militarised fortresses today, as authorities try to thwart a second protest wave.

    Graphic designer Vladislav Ivanov captures the zeitgeist with this dystopian depiction of St. Petersburg.

    https://twitter.com/mjluxmoore/status/1355773611940999169?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1355773611940999169%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fvodkapundit%2F2021%2F02%2F01%2Finsanity-wrap-136-intriguing-palm-beach-to-decide-whether-trump-can-live-in-the-building-he-owns-n1421707

      1. Wasn’t she on the borough council committee that ruined terminated the lives of 72 tower block tenants?

          2. She was not on the committee which dealt with the cladding, though she was on the previous one.

        3. No. She was on an earlier committed, not the one which dealt with the cladding. The accusation was made, but can clearly be seen to be an error.

    2. I guess the interval between shots that’s the case of the Pfizer vaccine has nothing to do with it? You know, the tested licence conditions?

      1. She’s probably a lot younger then my wife and i are, i just wonder how did she managed to be vaccinated before we have. Still waiting despite all the paperwork we have received, but light at the end of the tunnel. Next Saturday at vastly different times of the day but at the same place.
        I tried to book previously, but they had run out over a week ago and the whole process was put on ice…… but not the newer vaccine.

        1. I must admit that when Tattoos started appearing on so many people I was convinced that the craze for body graffiti would soon die out and the business to be in was tattoo removal.

          Few of my predictions have proved so spectacularly wrong – Tattoos are now everywhere. A great friend of ours burst into tears when her son returned home with a tattoo: “My beautiful child has vandalised his own body!” she wailed.

          If Christo or Henry came home with tattoos we would certainly not be best pleased.

  35. Awkward……………

    TalkRadio = Julia asks Universities Minister Michelle Donelan five times
    how France is able to keep schools open during the pandemic when
    schools in the UK remain closed: “Are French children cleaner?”

      1. Blimey! I thought I’d taken out a super injunction on that one! You should see the one when I turn to camera…

  37. 328979+ up ticks,
    Internment camps for the indigenous I think NOT, a brief stay in a 5 star ALL found would find many a taker methinks.

    2. I think “Radar” was beside BJ when he signed his part of the unfinished Brexit agreement. It is unravelling now.

    1. The Australians announced this last year, and were hysterically abused by the Whitty/Vallance combo.

      I think that the real problem was the word “low-cost”

  41. The BBC reporting of covid deaths…

    They are at pains to say “with covid on the death certificates”.

    Either the entire population is carrying the virus or they are detecting historic coronavirus in the body from colds and flu from bygone times. No matter what people are actually dying of…most are reported as covid deaths.

    How long can they keep this charade going before people wake up?

        1. 328979+ up ticks,
          Morning J,
          Now you are talking Mrs if it is in regards to a people powered re-set NOT a politically driven one.
          Exclude ALL current MPs,
          Give them ALL a porg chinaman,
          A wee kin lou, along with a DCM for treachery rendered,
          DCM= Don’t come Monday.

    2. Infinitely. The people are clay in the hands of the ghastly politicians and their medical “experts”.

      1. Clay eh? No wonder Shakespeare depicted Cassius thus: “From the very beginning, Cassius is pleased with himself for his ability to manipulate others….”

    3. Not long ago when the bbc were reckoning up their daily tallies, they didn’t appear to differentiate between actual coivd (Hospital admissions) infections and positive testing that had no further developments and their daily deaths announcements.
      And I find it very strange that BBC reporters are allowed to visit hospital wards and then with in a day or so, sit opposite the News reader in the studio. And of course fly across the Atlantic and stand or sit out side of the White House and report on the situation as it happened. But most of us are advised on a daily basis not to go anywhere.

    4. 328979+ up ticks,
      Morning H,
      Right up to the next General Election & beyond sad to say, if the usual voting pattern that got us to where we are today, is in play.

      The real sheep (bovidae) exclusive of blair
      disclaim having any input in today’s odious standing of the United Kingdom as a Nation.

  44. Ragged Robin
    2 Feb 2021 9:34AM
    Tim Beechey-Newman thinks there are only 66,000,000 Britons, or, more acurately, people in the UK. Tesco says there are probably 80,000,000, so perhaps that is the real reason for over ordering the vaccine.
    Since the government does not know the population of the UK to the nearest 5,000,000, it may be wise to over order, but will those here illegally, and not recorded anywhere, ever come forward for vaccination?
    For fear of being caught up in the state system, and so having to pay tax and conform to other normalities, or even deportation, I think not, so potentially, since we don’t know the true efficacy of the various vaccines, there will always be a sink of infection reinfecting the general law abiding, legitimate population, even if it has been vaccinated.
    That may be another reason the government has over ordered as the need to re-vaccinate arises.

    Re the post codes that are being given for Covid tests .. These places are near airports .. or rather the aircraft circuit .. Sorry to sound ignorant but as this visrus is spread by aerosol means .. spray etc.. Aircraft loos .. sewage etc is this how the virus has spread so quickly ?

    1. “Tesco says there are probably 80,000,000”, do you have a link for this claim Belle? I’ve Googled this several times over the years and as far as I can tell it links back to a single article from over 10 years ago, in the Independent, which referenced an unnamed supermarket and which didn’t provide any links to support the claim.

      1. Repeated so often it must be true. It is certainly possible. At the end of the last century the government had no clue about the real numbers, not even to the nearest million.
        In a panel discussion Geoff Hoon, a Cabinet Minister, stated clearly that there were over 3m more National Insurance numbers in circulation than the number in the population. While this suggests massive fraud, it also suggests that the population figure might be lower than some estimates. The Census figures may not be accurate?
        We can be sure that the supermarkets do their sums very accurately, as getting it right means profit. However, do not expect them to make their figures public as they are in a competitive business.
        So, how long is a piece of string?

          1. Afternoon, Tom.

            There will certainly be a national census held; however, there is no guarantee of the authenticity of the published results.

      2. Here’s the source:
        https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/city-eye-facts-plate-our-population-least-77-million-5328454.html
        There are two sources cited, and reasons given why they didn’t want to go public.

        The third reason why this assertion is probably true, is the extreme unlikelihood that everyone in Britain fills in the census form. Many people come from countries where you don’t give any information to the government that you don’t have to, especially a foreign government, and especially when the form is printed in a language that you don’t understand very well.

        When you are an immigrant, and a form you don’t understand comes through the letter box, you ask your trusted connections whether anything bad will happen if you don’t fill it in, and when they say “Nah!” you stick it carefully on a shelf so that if the police come round you can claim you just forgot it, and then get on with your life.

        1. And that article is 10 years old.
          There have also been similar claims based on the amount of sewage being processed.

          1. Another myth. The sewerage estimate was based on a small number of boroughs e.g. Slough where there’s a known issue of illegals.

          3. What about Dover and Maidstone?

            Please explain why they don’t have a problem with illegals as least as bad as Slough.

        2. I’m sure there are plenty who don’t fill in census forms, but my understanding is that the census returns are adjusted for an assumed level of non-completion and are checked against other sources. That obviously means there’s a degree of guesstimation involved, however I’ve never bee persuaded that the error is in the order of +20% as the 80m claim would suggest.

          1. Ha! I can very well believe that it is. If a few people got fined ten thousand pounds, or got 6 months in jail for not filling it in, I bet the population of the UK would magically grow by at least fifteen million overnight!

      3. No names and really no evidence. Food bought doesn’t equate to population numbers very closely – especially since some organisations believe that almost 40% of food bought is wasted. Since wastage figures are so unclear it follows that population calculations on that basis are little (or no) better than guesswork.

        1. Exactly. Also worth noting that of the two unnamed sources in the 14 year old single article, one had a vested interested in arguing the case for the food market being larger than it really is.

          1. But not so crowded…. Japan’s not very big though so they must be crammed in even more than we are.

          4. Japan has 347 people per km², England has 432 and South Korea has 527. London has 5700 per km², Tokyo 6,100, Seoul has 15,900.

            The figure for the UK is just 275 per km², but that includes some very empty areas, mostly in Scotland.

            I think I’m rather glad not to be a South Korea – I prefer a little more space.

          7. I don’t care how tiny they are; 15,900 per km² is just far too many in far too small a space. I’d go stir crazy.

          9. The firm my brother in law worked for put gear into quite a number of drilling ships which were built in S. Korea. He found it a fascinating country to visit (he was there supervising installations on several occasions) – and one of the engineers he met there came to work in Aberdeen for six months and fell in love with Scotland – he was offered a “permanent” job and brought his wife and children over. He couldn’t believe how un-crowded live was, even the city seemed spacious.

          11. And that includes places like the Highlands. What about just England? The SE must be more densely populated that most places.

          13. We’re at 428 per km². Japan 333 per km²
            If you look at countries of more than 50,000 km², we are 3rd most densely populated country.

          14. And that includes places like the Highlands. What about just England? The SE must be more densely populated that most places.

  45. Earlier this morning I posted a comment: “Been here before. I’m quite sure of it.”

    This was followed up by: “Has Punxsutawney Phil turned up yet.”

    Hardcastle Craggs then posted a clip of Sonny & Cher’s I Got You, Babe.

    To which I responded, “With a guest appearence by Bill Murray.”

    And still it all went WHOOOSH!!! over the heads of all on here!

    2. Gosh, you are so much cleverer than anyone else on the planet.

      I know this because, like Bill Murray, every day is the same with you telling us so..

      1. Every day is certainly exactly the same on this daily column.

        Few regular contributors have the wit to post anything different, stimulating or challenging.

          1. That is sadly true, Sue. I have a list, somewhere, of dozens of former (and very knowledgeable and witty) superior contributors to both this and the erstwhile DT forum.

            They are much-missed.

          2. ♫ “He’s got ’em on the list — he’s got ’em on the list;
            And they’re all of ’em much missed — they’re all of ’em much missed” ♫
            ;¬)

          4. That is sadly true, Sue. I have a list, somewhere, of dozens of former (and very knowledgeable and witty) superior contributors to both this and the erstwhile DT forum.

            They are much-missed.

    5. Why is coronavirus like Groundhog Day? (The actual day, not the film)
      If you stick your head outside and encounter another person, you get 6 more weeks of quarantine.

  46. Earlier this morning I posted a comment: “Been here before. I’m quite sure of it.”

    This was followed up by: “Has Punxsutawney Phil turned up yet.”

    Hardcastle Craggs then posted a clip of Sonny & Cher’s I Got You, Babe.

    To which I responded, “With a guest appearence by Bill Murray.”

    And still it all went WHOOOSH!!! over the heads of all on here!

    2. That cretin is redolent of the generation that has been bred by gormless parents and Left-wing teachers.

      That cretin’s generation will soon hold sway.

        1. She is being absolutely slated on Talk radio, at the moment! Mike Graham has just called her an absolute plank, which I thought was quite mild given what I would have called her!

  48. Jabba a Jabba do or don’t…

    Before the roll out of the vaccine there were many on threads like these who claimed they would flatly refuse the jab. Now I notice that many are celebrating having been jabbed.

    Now going to use one of the very few things my father told me about of his WW2 experiences. The British used a French chateau as HQ until they were forced to retreat whereby the German command would billet themselves in the same chateau. The British troops dug a large hole under the building and filled it with high explosives with the trigger rigged to a toilet chain. Knowing the Germans would send in an advance team to check for booby traps the trigger was timed to work after many pulls of the chain thus fooling the advance team who may have only pulled it a few times.

    Being the first in the world to receive the jab it would be highly unlikely to contain anything untoward in case it alerted the millions still in the queue. More than likely they would need mutant strains in order to have multiple jabs before releasing any mind altering drugs or tracking chips etc.

    Unbelievable…Ain’t everything happening today?

          1. Neither will poppiesdad nor myself be having the jab. We are adamant. Heels are dug in firmly for the duration, the long haul if necessary.

    2. I had the offer of a jab from the NHS yesterday, the recycling bin is not collected untill friday.

    4. Thank you for that, Honda, it is one of the reasons why, despite receiving 3 letters and a text message exhorting me to have a Covid vaccine jab, I refuse. Who knows what , like the toilet chain pull, may be the long term effects. If they must, let others be the guinea pigs and, much as I tried to dissuade her, Best Beloved went ahead and had her jab. So far no ill-effects.

    5. 328979+ up ticks,
      H,
      The sh!te will hit the fan among the guinea pigs when the second head starts squealing & grunting about compo.

    6. “Being the first in the world to receive the jab it would be highly unlikely to contain anything untoward in case it alerted the millions still in the queue.”

      A perfect example of why conspiracy theorists keep getting away with peddling their nonsense despite their claims being proven false. You sound just like Polly of this Parish, constantly telling us something is “about to be exposed”.

      2. Which is why I agree with Honda. You are confident with the long-term effects of an otherwise untested vaccine?

        Good luck with that when you become more of a gibbering idiot as a result.

    7. “Being the first in the world to receive the jab it would be highly unlikely to contain anything untoward in case it alerted the millions still in the queue.”

      A perfect example of why conspiracy theorists keep getting away with peddling their nonsense despite their claims being proven false. You sound just like Polly of this Parish, constantly telling us something is “about to be exposed”.

    8. Or, as soon as the last person over 60 is jabbed, they just stop vaccinating and give a wicked smile to all the jabbed.

  49. Retired teacher and conspiracy theorist, 67, avoids jail after he planted bottles containing tomato sauce that he labelled ‘Novichok, instant death’ at Welsh castle months after Salisbury nerve agent poisonings. 2 february 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f3949ca2005628e2e45d3e880702db28f0fc5ce4c6bb84da8910f9c93e2761b3.jpg

    A retired teacher who planted bottles labelled ‘Novichok’ at a Welsh castle only months after the Salisbury poisonings has avoided jail.

    ‘Conspiracy theorist’ John Ap Evans, 67, put bottles of a fake noxious substance, made from tomato sauce and brown sauce mixed with water, in Wogan’s Cavern at Pembroke Castle on five separate occasions in July 2018.

    Two of the bottles were labelled ‘Novichok’, which was the lethal nerve agent used to try to assassinate Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia the year before.

    You can see from the photograph how convincing this ridiculous spoof was; it’s also indicative of how sensitive the PTB are to any exposure of this False Flag operation. A further guide are the comments which are “Moderated in Advance” inexplicable if otherwise!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9211195/Retired-teacher-avoids-jail-planting-tomato-sauce-bottles-labelled-Novichok-instant-death.html

    2. Why was he even charged? What a waste of court time. As for the police, they could just have told him to “stop it”. Still, it beats going up against armed Albanian gangsters.

  50. I thought that snow was a thing of the past but a headline today from the US says: “113-year-old record broken as heavy snow hammers Northeast”

    What does St. Greta have to say?

    1. “Such unusual extreme events are as a direct result of climate change. Why do you think we stopped using the expression global warming a while ago? If it changes again, we’ll call it something else that can make an easy catchphrase. We mutate and change with the wind”

      Planetary meltdown perhaps.

  51. Just got to chapter 24 of covidcult chum’s MS. The start of the Second World War.

    “Squire was stirred to respond with a scathing attack on the BBC for its war coverage. As theatres and cinemas shut, he feared that the BBC’s obsession with the war and its “mournful and moaning tones” would depress everyone in the war of nerves. News bulletins should be restricted to six and nine o’clock.”

    Plus ça change….

    1. Are you completely recovered from the short term jab effects?
      Presumably waiting for the next one with trepidation…

      1. I think so – though the puncture is still a touch sore.

        April 17 is the next one….assuming I live that long.

    2. Well said, Bill, It’s the reason why I, and I’m sure more than a few, avoid the BBC (and other’s) News Bulletins.

      They are just full of what I call, pissing and moaning, about Covid and why, today, we should be a little more fearful than yesterday.

      I cry, “Bullshit!”

    3. 328979+ up ticks,
      Afternoon AS,
      It’s them there frenchies sending over covid capsules daily via a cross channel armada.

      1. But, but, Macron pleads for vaccine saying, “You know who your friends are…”

        Yes we do, Toy-boy and that’s why you get nowt.

  54. Today (aside from being Groundhog and Candlemass) is also the 78th anniversary of the victory at Stalingrad which was the turning point of WWII!

      1. I have Sos though I prefer Alan Clarke’s Barbarossa.

        By 16th November total exhaustion and shortage of ammunition imposed a lull. During the night the crackle of small arms and the thud of mortars died down and each side began to take in its wounded. Then as dawn came to lighten the smoke clouds, a new and terrible sound overlaid the dying embers of the battle in Stalingrad – the thunderous barrage of Voronov’s two thousand guns to the north. Every German who heard this knew that it presaged something quite outside his experience.

  55. 328979+ up ticks,

    Polish Government to Breitbart: Big Tech’s ‘Cancel Culture’ Is Bolshevik, Not Democratic.

    Just heard Jeremy whine on radio two say “maybe we should be more like china”.

  56. The BBC is priceless…

    Reporting on the Russian riots they point out the propaganda by the Russian press labelling peaceful protesters as thugs.

    Not that long ago the BBC was doing exactly the same against those protecting our war memorials from the “peaceful” BLM thugs.

    2. Ah, but with us, the peaceful protesters may, quite legitimately, describe the bully-boy Keystone Kops as thugs

  58. We were discussing tattoos and piercings and the subject of make up came up. My wife is lucky in that she has a clear enough complexion not to need to use it but I was reminded of this song which was recorded the year before she was born.. Anyone else remember it?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z773qEziDJk

        1. What’s the best thing a woman can put behind her ears to make her more attractive to men? Her knees!

    2. It’s on my play list. From the days of bright colours, tulip skirts and beehive hairdos. The girls wore much the same.

    3. It’s on my play list. From the days of bright colours, tulip skirts and beehive hairdos. The girls wore much the same.

  59. The Russian vaccine is named Sputnik, which translates as ‘fellow traveller’. The name was made famous by the Soviet satellite launched on 4 October 1957.

    The electrifying impact of the launch on the West can be gauged by the number of new formations in -nik around this time; Laika, the stray dog launched aboard Sputnik 2 (Nov.1957), which was dubbed Muttnik in the Detroit Free Press, etc. The rival U.S. satellite which failed to reach orbit in 1957 (because the Vanguard rocket blew up on the launch pad) derided as a Kaputnik (in the Daytona Beach Morning Journal), a Dudnik (Christian Science Monitor), a Flopnik (Youngstown Vindicator, New York Times), a Pffftnik (National Review), and a Stayputnik (Vancouver Sun).

    I am sure some of you can come up with a suitable -nik to describe Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. and his left-wing fellow travellers.

    2. “the mob of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol after being instructed by him to stop Congress from officially certifying Biden’s victory.” That is an out and out lie so I didn’t read any more.

        1. Opinion not evidence. this has happened so many times and it come to nothing. Its made up.

          1. It does doesn’t it? All those claims that the election was stolen and no evidence presented.

          2. The courts refused to hear the evidence. big difference. Give me a link to an actual court case as I cannot find one.

      1. Trump has committed fraud before e.g. his ‘university’, so do I believe he’s a fraud? Yes.

        https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-loses-25-million-dollar-settlement-in-fake-university_b_582f8d25e4b08c963e343f2d?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmluZy5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAH9R1CKpx7y8pFg_vW72WpIHsoBrLHTSI1EVGryok4q4DQKkQp7thXyLTvDyOxRYVMmqOBIiBrvIQfJ__8wYRt0ttcMaRNmotVrjuYV6Zvf4ShOT4C7L-bYJTPkSI70t6Ub1kaNdqMLvMEZgLg5Ad419jIm0BkYMnbgzcabFaCtp

          1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_affairs_of_Donald_Trump

            “An analysis by USA Today published in June 2016 found that over the previous three decades, Donald Trump and his businesses have been involved in 3,500 legal cases in U.S. federal courts and state court, an unprecedented number for a U.S. presidential candidate.[1] Of the 3,500 suits, Trump or one of his companies were plaintiffs in 1,900; defendants in 1,450; and bankruptcy, third party, or other in 150.[1] Trump was named in at least 169 suits in federal court.[2] Over 150 other cases were in the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida (covering Broward County, Florida) since 1983.[3] In the 1,300 cases where the record establishes the outcome, Trump settled 175 times, lost 38, won 450, and had another 137 cases end with some other outcome. In the other 500 cases, judges dismissed plaintiffs’ claims against Trump.”

          3. In the USA cases go to court as a matter of course and there will always be “fishing” expeditions.
            Of course Trump will have set records, he was the only Presidential candidate ever to have come from a very large scale business, rather than a political or other background.

            There were roughly 500 different business entities in the Trump Organisation. Given that large number and the period analysed is the last three decades, I am surprised that the number of cases is as low as it is.

            The USA Today piece looks like a typical Orange Man Bad hatchet job.

            Do you understand the difference between a plaintiff and a defendant?

          4. “Do you understand the difference between a plaintiff and a defendant?” Yes. can you spot a con man or do you hunker down on your mistakes?

          7. ♫ “And when amid the plaintiff’s shrieks,
            The ruffianly defendant speaks—
            Upon the other side;
            What he may say you needn’t mind—
            From bias free of every kind.
            This trial must be tried!” ♫
            — Nancy Pelosi

          14. Have you not realised by now that it always sounds convincing at first, until you discover the whole story?

  61. Corvid…. get yourself a course of Ivermectin at first signs start the coures and you will recover. It should be avaiable all over Britain but its not.

  62. Good afternoon, Chums.

    This morning I went for a walk … just
    around the Village; all was quiet, no
    traffic, all the driveways full of cars,
    all the narrow village roads full of cars,
    i.e. No one was working at ‘Work.’
    Children appearing at 10.30 to play outside,
    the Co-op doing its usual busy breakfast
    trade in sandwiches and take-away Costas;
    yet something was missing….. Yes,… there
    was no interaction between people, the
    very thread which holds a Community together,
    in other words…. a good old gossip,……
    previously much frowned upon but these days
    a vital component of Village and its Community,
    life!!

    1. Yes Garlands , agree with you .

      Here is like dancing the Tarantela .. and peoples voices are muffled by their masks !

      I always have a natter with the older butcher in the local shop, he is a good village notice board.

      Of course in the past year, some people have put on weight , and no such thig as hairdos , every one looks very raggle taggled and weary.

      1. Dear Belle,

        What has amazed me, during this and the previous lockdowns, has been how many girlies had/have coloured their hair; I had always assumed their
        glossy, natural coloured hair was a God given gift…. alas not!! :-))
        I shall have to find out the name of their Hairdresser!! :-))

      2. If people speak up & enunciate properly, there’s no problem. Too many people these days mumble, with or without masks.

        1. It is more problematic for those who are truly hard of hearing and are accustomed to lip read. The mask removes the visual aids.

          2. I suggest that “speak up and enunciate properly” is insufficient for those who also need to see – so whilst not arguing with your second point, I do argue with your first.

    2. Oh! Heck……

      I have just missed my silver cross and chain,
      ….some walk that turned out to be!

    3. Oh! Heck……

      I have just missed my silver cross and chain,
      ….some walk that turned out to be!

    4. Hi G. I know what you mean. Here at my new home, there’s no sense of ‘village’ or ‘community’, but I have been made welcome by various neighbours. Two Sundays ago, there was no chance of getting to Church, due to snow, so I took the Orders of Service and a CD of the hymns round the corner to one of the churchwardens, and a member of the choir. They greeted me as though I was barking mad. Apparently, they’re vulnerable. On a previous occasion, I asked whether I could have a lift home from Church, and the response would have been appropriate if I’d asked them to assassinate the Rector.

      I can get to either Church via Uber, but not for the return journey. Worryingly, I’ve had a few Uber trips on Sunday mornings where the driver is ten minutes away, but remains stationary for half an hour or more. Attempts to phone the driver are curtailed. It may, obviously, be a coincidence. But it only happens on Sunday mornings, when I’m trying to get to a Church. And the driver is always Mohammed, or some other Islamic name.

      Still – it no longer matters, since the PCC is largely made up of bedwetters, and there will be no more services for the foreseeable future.

      I think I’m prolly an ex-organist…

      1. Hi G.

        The village people were always so friendly,
        a ‘good morning’ in passing, would often develop
        into a long discussion about everything and nothing!
        Yet now the whole village has become terrified of
        either catching or giving Covid…. this from a village
        who overwhelmingly told D.C, to ‘poke it.’
        I fear I am fighting a losing battle, I have been informed
        that my vaccination, part one, will take place on Thursday;
        despite my reluctance to receive it I have received nothing
        but encouragement [ threats?] to have it.

        1. If you are reluctant, don’t do it. It cannot be undone. Follow your instincts, not the flock.

        2. Can I suggest that you put a card in the Co-op you mentioned earlier regarding your missing cross. A few years ago I found a locket when walking the dog; the village shop took it in and found the owner – although I had picked it up about a mile outside the village and it proved to have been missing for several weeks.

          It might be hopeless, but it might just be worth a try.

  63. Why is it that when women go to the toilet in pairs, no one minds, but when I did it I was thrown out of the greengrocers.

  64. There’s little so inspiring as the curiosity of the self-taught man

    It’s good to see a film celebrating men and women driven by a desire simply to know

    LAURA FREEMAN

    One scene has stayed with me since watching The Dig, Netflix’s new film about the finding of the Sutton Hoo treasure, between sleet and snowstorms on Saturday afternoon. Not the uncovering of the wooden hull of the Anglo-Saxon burial ship. Not even the first glint of gold. The scene that struck me was that of the excavator Basil Brown, played by Ralph Fiennes, coming in to find his wife perched on the edge of a single bed spread with books. What pathos in those leather-bound volumes, what volumes they spoke about a man determined to better himself, to rise above his station by digging deep below.

    Basil Brown, flat-capped hero of the film, was an autodidact. Born in Suffolk in 1888, he attended the village school at Rickinghall. As a boy, his twin passions were the sky and the earth, astronomy and archaeology. Aged five, he inherited his great-grandfather’s astronomy books and celestial charts. A local woodcrafter, Stanley Mole, remembered seeing the young Brown in the fields and assuming he was after rabbits. “Only later did I learn that [he] was looking for flint tools and fragments of pottery.” At 12, he left education to help his father on the land. He had a little tuition from two retired clergymen, but otherwise, he taught himself.

    His tools were limited, his interest boundless. “A good spade and patience worked wonders,” he used to say. The only telescope he ever owned was a modest two-inch model. As a young man, he attended evening classes in drawing and earned diplomas for astronomy, geography and geology through correspondence courses. He taught himself Latin, French and Greek from books and German and Spanish from wireless broadcasts. If you were looking for a role model for these strange, home-schooling times, you could do no better than the ever-questing Mr Brown.

    In the film we see the museum men, the pompous professionals, descend on the site. They shoo Brown off and stage a genteel coup. There’s a bit of a Sutton Hoo hoo-ha brewing about all this and who – Brown or the British Museum – should get the glory. Critics warn about “over-romanticising” Brown and neglecting the work of the credentialed archaeologists. Still, they admired his handiwork at the time. Brown recorded in his diary the words of Charles Philips, a Cambridge scholar, who told him: “my excavation has been perfect, and could not have been better done.” A photo on the Suffolk Archives website shows Brown standing beside his bookshelves. Hardly a portrait of a horny-handed son of toil.

    What is it that makes the autodidact – from Batman to Virginia Woolf – so fascinating? (“Gracious child, how you gobble!” Woolf’s father remarked as she devoured his library.) Perhaps in an age that aims at an “all-round education” and a sensible spread of arts and sciences at GCSE, we are drawn to the man or woman who has acquired a more eclectic education. In A Study in Scarlet, Dr Watson sums up Sherlock Holmes’s pot-holed knowledge. Literature, philosophy, astronomy: nil. Politics: feeble. Botany: mostly poisons. Holmes does, however, have a “profound” knowledge of chemistry and is an expert boxer, swordsman and violinist.

    Is there not also a sense of triumph in the beating of odds, the overcoming of all educational obstacles? We root for the man – or woman – who is driven by the sheer desire to know. Basil Brown was an amateur in the truest sense: a man who loved what he learnt.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/01/little-inspiring-curiosity-self-taught-man/

    Today we have the internet. It has produced a generation of self-taught know-it-alls who know nothing.

          6. You started the day by claiming that Ursula VdL was Belgian, since she was born there (their?) – to German parents, I would add. According to your logic, Christ, having been born in a stable, must be a horse.

          7. 1. That is irrelevant to the subject under discussion.

            2. Who, in their right mind, would imagine that a human would give birth to a horse?

          11. He has gone in for it a lot recently, even gave me a downvote yes’day, but he’s not best at it. In fact he’s not very good at it at all.

        1. By the time they get to Delhi, they’ll be flat on the belly.

          As to Madras ….. doesn’t bear thinking about…

    4. It’ll be tough, India have been playing well. 4am starts though, so only the last session for me.

    5. That’s a bit of a coup for Channel 4. Sky – and, to a lesser extent, BT – have dominated live cricket on television for quite some time. It’s not an exclusive deal, but I rather doubt Sky or BT will be keen to share when a free-to-air terrestrial channel already has broadcasting rights. Sky’s live cricket schedule for the remainder of winter is beginning to look a bit thin. It’s providing live coverage of the Abu Dhabi T10 tournament, finishing this Saturday, and it’s listing the Pakistan v South Africa series up to mid-February, but nothing beyond that. Unless it can come up with something else soon, it will have nothing new to show until the English domestic season resumes in April.

  68. WHICH of the following is the more reasonable approach a society might take in the outbreak of an epidemic?

    · To quarantine the sick and take reasonable precautions to

    stop those who are identified as vulnerable from contracting the

    illness.

    · To attempt to ‘control the virus’ by preventing millions of

    healthy people from having contact with other healthy people.

    To any society before 2020, it would have been obvious that the first

    approach is not only logical and proportionate, but the one least

    likely to have other unintended and highly destructive consequences.

    However, to my continued astonishment, many in our society not only

    believe that the answer is the second, but they somehow believe it to be

    based on established science.

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-largest-experiment-ever-seen-and-were-all-guinea-pigs/

    It blatantly isn’t all about a virus

    1. Our ancestors had experience of epidemics far worse than this. They closed everything up right at the start, locking the city gates.
      We not only left the gates wide open, we made no checks on arrivals and departures for several months.

  69. BBC today = Dovid 21 the new Kent variant has been found in several locations of England…

    Anyone able to cross reference where the hotels the boat people were sent to are?

  71. From the BMJ

    12 October 2020
    Janet Menage
    GP retired
    None
    Wales, UK

    Rapid Response:

    Re: Covid-19: Where is the virus?

    Dear Editor

    We are told that the virus is everywhere – in the air, in our breath, on fomites, trapped in masks – yet public health authorities seem not to be in possession of any cultivable clinical samples of the offending pathogen.

    In March 2020, the World Health Organisation instructed authorities not to look for a virus but to rely instead on a genome test, the RT-PCR, which is not specific for SARS-CoV-2 (1) (2).

    A Freedom of Information request to Public Health England about cultivable clinical samples or direct evidence of viral isolation has no information and refers to the proxy RT-PCR test, quoting Eurosurveillance (3).

    Eurosurveillance states: “Virus detection by reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) from respiratory samples is widely used to diagnose and monitor SARS-CoV-2 infection and, increasingly, to infer infectivity of an individual. However, RT-PCR does not distinguish between infectious and non-infectious virus. Propagating virus from clinical samples confirms the presence of infectious virus but is not widely available (and) requires biosafety level 3 facilities” (4).

    The CDC admits that, “no quantified virus isolates of the 2019-nCoV are currently available”, and used a genetically modified human lung alveolar adenocarcinoma cell culture to, “mimic clinical specimen”(5).

    It appears, therefore, that we have public health bodies without clinical samples, a test which is non-specific and does not distinguish between infectivity and non-infectivity, a requirement for biosafety level 3 facilities to even look for a virus, yet we are led to believe that it is up all our noses.

    So, where is the virus?

    (1) https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/10665-331501
    (2) https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2420/rr-5
    (3) https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/679566/response/1625332/attach/ht…
    (4) https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.32…
    (5) https://www.fda.gov/media/134922/download

    Competing interests: No competing interest.

  72. Re: Covid-19: Where is the virus?
    Dear Editor

    We are told that the virus is everywhere – in the air, in our breath, on fomites, trapped in masks – yet public health authorities seem not to be in possession of any cultivable clinical samples of the offending pathogen.

    In March 2020, the World Health Organisation instructed authorities not to look for a virus but to rely instead on a genome test, the RT-PCR, which is not specific for SARS-CoV-2 (1) (2).

    A Freedom of Information request to Public Health England about cultivable clinical samples or direct evidence of viral isolation has no information and refers to the proxy RT-PCR test, quoting Eurosurveillance (3).

    Eurosurveillance states: “Virus detection by reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) from respiratory samples is widely used to diagnose and monitor SARS-CoV-2 infection and, increasingly, to infer infectivity of an individual. However, RT-PCR does not distinguish between infectious and non-infectious virus. Propagating virus from clinical samples confirms the presence of infectious virus but is not widely available (and) requires biosafety level 3 facilities” (4).

    The CDC admits that, “no quantified virus isolates of the 2019-nCoV are currently available”, and used a genetically modified human lung alveolar adenocarcinoma cell culture to, “mimic clinical specimen”(5).

    It appears, therefore, that we have public health bodies without clinical samples, a test which is non-specific and does not distinguish between infectivity and non-infectivity, a requirement for biosafety level 3 facilities to even look for a virus, yet we are led to believe that it is up all our noses.

    So, where is the virus?

    (1) https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/10665-331501
    (2) https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2420/rr-5
    (3) https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/679566/response/1625332/attach/ht…
    (4) https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.32…
    (5) https://www.fda.gov/media/134922/download

    Competing interests: No competing interests

    12 October 2020
    Janet Menage
    GP retired
    None
    Wales, UK

    Afternoon all. Have a read if this from the BMJ. I think Alf put the link on this morning but it’s well worth reading the cut and paste above.

    There is no covid 19 virus. There is illness but what they are telling us does not justify all we have been through and are going through. Only the Great Reset and the green agenda.

    1. See my reply to Alf_the_Great below, re the same article.
      There may have been a change in approach

          2. No he doesn’t. He might have done at an earlier date, but he’s nearly 88 and wouldn’t want the hassle nowadays. Writing about things is much less hard work.

          3. So what does his age have to do with it? As all politicians, he knows best and is an arrogant piece of shit with it.

          4. He’s an ex-politician… a long time ex and he may be arrogant but he isn’t angling for a job.

          1. My mistake, it seems that there has been more in the media about her since then than whilst she was working.

          2. Probably because nobody expected her to have done such a good job. She took a great deal of stick when she was appointed and “cronyism” abuse.

          3. Since quite a few of the other appointments/contracts were clearly cronyism (as well as being hopeless) that was hardly surprising. On the other hand she does have quite a lot of experience in the pharmacology industry so she did, at least, have some proper credentials – unlike most of the others.

    4. We do not need any more special “ministers” appointed for one specific job, there are far too many already. Plus enhanced pay and perks no doubt. We don’t need another one. And Michael Heseltine should take himself off somewhere, never to be heard of again.

      1. Good he was knighted personally. I hope he felt some satisfaction about his achievents.
        Respect.

      1. In a statement, Capt Sir Tom’s daughters Mrs Ingram-Moore and Lucy Teixeira said: “It is with great sadness that we announce the death of our dear father, Captain Sir Tom Moore.
        “We are so grateful that we were with him during the last hours of his life; Hannah, Benjie and Georgia by his bedside and Lucy on FaceTime.
        “We spent hours chatting to him, reminiscing about our childhood and our wonderful mother. We shared laughter and tears together.

        Colour me curmudgeonly, but how do those thousands excluded from the bedsides of their dying loved ones feel about this? He was special, your loved ones are not. We’ll break the rules for him but we’ll call the police to keep you out.

        https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-55881753

        1. A dear friend of mine died in December – not of covid – he’d been on dialysis three days a week for a couple of years and his body just gave up. His family were all allowed to be with him when he died. He was 85.

          1. It has been, all along, something that hospitals have tried to do at the very end of life. It hasn’t always been possible, but they’ve made great efforts in a lot of cases.

          3. I don’t know – nobody else who I knew has died recently.

            Another very good friend went in to hospital for unrelated surgery and he can’t have any visitors at all.

      2. At least … as you say.

        The daughter of a good friend of ours was diagnosed with terminal kidney cancer shortly before Christmas. She was taken from hospital to a hospice for the end of life and her husband was told “only 2 named visitors are allowed. There were five children. None of them saw her before she died as the two named visitors were the grandmother and the woman’s husband. How unbelievably cruel was that. Unspeakable.

        1. I didn’t get to the hospital in time when my mother died. She went in for tests, and came out dead a week later.

          1. Oh goodness me, how very very sad ☹️ I’m so sorry for you. I wasn’t there when either of my parents died, they lived on the Isle of Wight and we lived in Guildford. I saw my Mum in hospital on the Sunday and she died the following Wednesday. My Dad had a heart attack and went suddenly.

          2. There was less obvious emotion then. We were about to leave home for the hospital when we got the phone call to say she’d died suddenly.

            It’s like nowadays, if a father is not by his wife’s side when a baby is born he’ll never develop any rapport with the child and it’s a disaster. My ex was not with me for either of my sons’ births – husbands were shut out of the delivery room. Though, for the second one, he was waiting just outside.

          3. Alf was there when our daughter was born and I think it’s a good idea if the husband is up to it for them to see what bl..dy hard work it is pushing a baby out. I had the luxury of 10 days in hospital afterwards as I had a hole in the heart (congenital) and I’m pretty sure I was well out of it for a while. He was there when our son was born too but had just popped outside the room as he was hot so missed the actual birth. Our son likes to tell people he “just popped out”. I tell you, if men had to deliver babies, they would only ever have one! That time I was sent home that afternoon.

            How women manage these days being sent home so quickly amazes me.

            Edit: I meant to say the day my Mum died our son took the phone call from the hospital and he was told the news. It was the day he was about to take his French GCSE in 1988.

          4. That’s awful for your son to have to cope with at his age then.

            I had 10 days in Tidworth Military Hospital with my first one – not because of any complications, but I think it was standard. I couldn’t wait to get home. Second time was from Friday to Tuesday – so not as quick as they are these days.

    5. Or pneumonia. I believe he caught Covid in hospital.
      EDIT some reports suggest he had pneumonia before catching Covid and then going into hospital
      A good man who deserved better, but he was over 100, so has had an excellent innings.

      1. I’m reminded of the outpouring of grief when the Queen Mother died, at the tender age of 101. Snatched away, in her prime, according to most of the media. The fact that Captain Sir Tom already had pneumonia is largely being swept under the carpet. RIP, Tom. You did good, but maybe all that walking didn’t help your overall health?

        1. I suspect that he was walking daily anyway and that that was keeping him fit.
          Use it or lose it!

        2. No point in staying in bed or sitting in a chair doing nothing all day. I’ve tried that and that doesn’t work either.

    6. Or pneumonia. I believe he caught Covid in hospital.
      EDIT some reports suggest he had pneumonia before catching Covid and then going into hospital
      A good man who deserved better, but he was over 100, so has had an excellent innings.

    7. He was a native of Keighley in Yorkshire and probably knew my mother’s family, my many half-uncles and aunts, and possibly my step father and his brother who came from the Dales but were, like him, avid motorcyclists who raced on Southport sands and elsewhere. RIP old Tom, wherever you are. Give my family a nod from me.

    8. He was a native of Keighley in Yorkshire and probably knew my mother’s family, my many half-uncles and aunts, and possibly my step father and his brother who came from the Dales but were, like him, avid motorcyclists who raced on Southport sands and elsewhere. RIP old Tom, wherever you are. Give my family a nod from me.

      1. Pneumonia was known as “the old man’s friend”.
        Captain Sir Tom had a very good and long life, and was able to have a family holiday in Barbados a few weeks ago.

          1. Pneumonia is not a specific disease. It is a collection of symptoms which can be caused by quite a number of infective agents. One of the commonest symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 infection (after the early stages) is pneumonia.

            He was tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 before he was taken to hospital, not afterwards. He may well have had pneumonia as a result – or there may have been a previous bacterial cause, but he certainly didn’t (according to his family) become infected in hospital.

      1. Sitting six feet apart in a park may NOT be enough in a breeze
        Since the coronavirus pandemic began, we’ve all been told to socially distance by standing or sitting six feet (or two meters) apart from strangers.

        But a new study suggests that distance might not be far enough to prevent virus transmission, even in light winds.

        Researchers found that even in winds of two miles per hour (mph) – the speed needed for smoke to drift through the air – saliva can travel 18 feet in just five seconds.

        The team, from the University of Nicosia in Cyprus, says the findings show that the safety distance guidelines may not be doing all that much to prevent us from catching COVID-19, the deadly disease caused by the virus.

        For the study, published in the journal Physics of Fluid, the team examined how saliva travels through the air.

        (Look how far gob travels from a footballers mouth, and under many cultures , gobbing spit is an everyday habit.)

        Now , I am being quite serious , but if we have communities who chew and gob spit everywhere, that is how a virus spreads.. Remember how Tuberculosis spreads .. in previous decades there used to be Public Health notices on telegraph poles .. you could be fined for spitting .. it was a campaign to eradicate TB.

          1. Taking into account the area of this island – and the population they are trying to cram onto it – there is no chance of us all getting that far apart from each other.

        2. ” a campaign to eradicate TB.” – -Why is there a campaign to eradicate you? What have you done?

        3. Ursula von der Lederhosen bears some responsibility for spreading the virus in Brussels. When they picked the President of the EU Kommission, wasn’t she the “Spitzenkandidat”?

          Ach, ptooeee!
          ;¬)

          1. Either Ursula von der Lederhose (dative singular) or Ursula von den Lederhosen (dative plural). In German die Hose (trousers) is singular.

          2. Vielen Dank, Peddy but it’s just a joke, mixing-up her real name with the name of those strange Bavarian shorts that folk associate with Krauts in general, it’s not supposed to be an exercise in German grammar.

          3. Yes, I know it was a joke. While we’re on German sartorial matters, Spitze is the German for lace.

          4. PS As the Lederhosen cover the arse among other parts, having her as a Spitzenkandidat suggests that it was a case of arsenic & old lace :-0

    3. There is a strong suggestion that during solar minima less Ultra violet radiation reaches the earth allowing viruses to survive longer . Perhaps a reduction in UV during the winter months also explains the prevalence of viruses?

        2. Journal of Virology:

          https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1280232/

          Sunlight or, more specifically, solar UV radiation (UV) acts as the principal natural virucide in the environment. UV radiation kills viruses by chemically modifying their genetic material, DNA and RNA. The most effective wavelength for inactivation, 260 nm (55), falls in the UVC range, so-named to differentiate it from near-UV found in ground-level sunlight, i.e., the UVB and UVA portions of the spectrum, 290 to 320 nm and 320 to 380 nm, respectively (51). Nucleic acids are damaged also by UVB and UVA but with lower efficiency than by UVC radiation (64).

          Two issues must be considered to determine solar inactivation of biothreat viruses: estimating the UV sensitivity of viruses for which there is little or no experimental data and estimating the solar UV at specific geographic locations.

          The overwhelming majority of published information on UV inactivation of viruses has been based upon exposure to UVC (UV254) radiation from a low-pressure mercury vapor (germicidal) lamp, with the primary emission at 254 nm. However, UV254 is not found in the sunlight that reaches the earth’s surface; the ground-level virucidal solar UV wavelengths fall above 290 nm (16). Fortunately, the primary photochemical processes that damage the viral DNA or RNA occur at all the solar UV wavelengths, varying only in the efficiency of the different wavelengths (55). Since there are few published data that describe the survival of viruses, and none for threat viruses, following exposure to solar UV radiation, extrapolation from UV254 data will be required for most viruses. This extrapolation can be made using wavelength dependence (action spectrum) data.

          2. You are most welcome. Its a pity the study I posted yesterday is no longer available on line. It is a lengthy dissertation and although a PDF is not easily reproduced on this forum. But the parallels of what happened during the Wolf Solar Minimum circa 1320 and what has been happening since 2019 with the massive outbreak of African Swine flu and subsequent SARS-Covid2 are remarkable.

          3. Stephen – send the pdf to me, and I’ll host it on WordPress. My full Christian name followed by my surname, without dots or spaces, dot co dot uk…

          7. It’s a fascinating read. One might even speculate that the pestilence the people experienced was a SARS-corona virus…..

          8. There is much work to be done in the field of medieval and early modern livestock health, of which this study of the early fourteenth-century panzootic is but a start.

            Think yourself lucky.

          10. But over the past 12 months the Sun has been very quiet (in terms of the number of spotless days). As I understand it lower levels of solar activity result in a reduction of UV reaching the earth (including South Africa)

        3. Journal of Virology:

          https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1280232/

          Sunlight or, more specifically, solar UV radiation (UV) acts as the principal natural virucide in the environment. UV radiation kills viruses by chemically modifying their genetic material, DNA and RNA. The most effective wavelength for inactivation, 260 nm (55), falls in the UVC range, so-named to differentiate it from near-UV found in ground-level sunlight, i.e., the UVB and UVA portions of the spectrum, 290 to 320 nm and 320 to 380 nm, respectively (51). Nucleic acids are damaged also by UVB and UVA but with lower efficiency than by UVC radiation (64).

          Two issues must be considered to determine solar inactivation of biothreat viruses: estimating the UV sensitivity of viruses for which there is little or no experimental data and estimating the solar UV at specific geographic locations.

          The overwhelming majority of published information on UV inactivation of viruses has been based upon exposure to UVC (UV254) radiation from a low-pressure mercury vapor (germicidal) lamp, with the primary emission at 254 nm. However, UV254 is not found in the sunlight that reaches the earth’s surface; the ground-level virucidal solar UV wavelengths fall above 290 nm (16). Fortunately, the primary photochemical processes that damage the viral DNA or RNA occur at all the solar UV wavelengths, varying only in the efficiency of the different wavelengths (55). Since there are few published data that describe the survival of viruses, and none for threat viruses, following exposure to solar UV radiation, extrapolation from UV254 data will be required for most viruses. This extrapolation can be made using wavelength dependence (action spectrum) data.

      1. A young buzzard we think, Belle! Not your typical garden bird, but we were very excited! It was there for about 10 minutes and the cats were mesmerised! Tails going like whips!

        1. It’s the type of garden bird we get here.

          I suspect Harry K will confirm my observations

          1. Indeed, looks like a buzzard. One of the few things my cat is wary of. BTW, I had a letter published in today’s DT and nobody here noticed!

      2. A young buzzard we think, Belle! Not your typical garden bird, but we were very excited! It was there for about 10 minutes and the cats were mesmerised! Tails going like whips!

        2. Made of soft medical silicone, reusable, washable, one size fits most.

          No-odor, no-toxic, soft texture and realistic touch, very natural.

          With self adhesive backing, easy to use, just peel and stick on.

          These look great under any lingerie and work perfectly on breast forms too!

          Suitable for the crossdresser, shemale, female impersonator, drag
          queen, transgender, transvestite, and theatrical groups.

  81. In the Daily Telegraph’s opinion columns today we have articles by Willy Hague, Philip Hamilton and Michael Heseltine – all ardent Conservative Party remainers. I would be more convinced of the newspaper’s objectivity if it had also published on the same day articles by Mark Francois, Steve Baker and John Redwood.

    1. “The Redwood Sage”

      Oh! The Redwood Sage is a-rollin’ on over the page
      With the Heseletine flappin’ and Hamilton shouting in rage
      Ah beautiful Sky? A wonderful day!
      Whips back away! Whips back away! Whips back away!

      Oh! The Redwood Sage is a-headin’ on over the hills
      Where the EU arrows are thicker than porcupine quills
      Dangerous land! No time to delay!
      So, whips back away! Whips back away! Whips back away!

    2. “The Redwood Sage”

      Oh! The Redwood Sage is a-rollin’ on over the page
      With the Heseletine flappin’ and Hamilton shouting in rage
      Ah beautiful Sky? A wonderful day!
      Whips back away! Whips back away! Whips back away!

      Oh! The Redwood Sage is a-headin’ on over the hills
      Where the EU arrows are thicker than porcupine quills
      Dangerous land! No time to delay!
      So, whips back away! Whips back away! Whips back away!

  82. Ahem

    “I am sure that Sir Tom’s death won’t be abused for political reasons.”
    Aye right……………..

    1. Half the computers in Broadcasting House have started to melt. The others are only connected to personal bankers, claims lawyers and important agents and are not influenced by the searing hypocrisy emanating from the news rooms and disinformation studios.

    2. Half the computers in Broadcasting House have started to melt. The others are only connected to personal bankers, claims lawyers and important agents and are not influenced by the searing hypocrisy emanating from the news rooms and disinformation studios.

      1. Of course we will.

        People have nothing else upon which
        to portray their grief at what this Country
        has become ……. it will be ‘an out-pouring
        of specified grief’ only because there is
        no-one who is prepared to lead us!

      2. He did a grand job, Stephen as his swansong but the grim reaper caught up with him as tends to happen to centenarian and above. We can only laud him as one who tried. RIP Tom.

    1. Willkommen in Butlitz.

      Our well-trained and friendly Greycoats are here to attend to your every need….
      :¬(

  84. Did anyone spot an interesting article in yesterday’s Telegraph about a man who had lived in three European countries with different lockdown conditions? It basically demonstrated that lockdowns make no difference on death rates, from the strictest to the most relaxed. I only had time to skim and wanted to re-read it, but strangely it has disappeared…

  85. “The EU has told British fishermen they are indefinitely banned from
    selling live mussels, oysters, clams, cockles and scallops to its member
    states.”
    In breaking news all EU car imports will be held for a six month period to complete rigourous emmission testing at a cost of £5000 per car paid by the producer
    They want to play silly buggers??
    We play silly buggers
    Sadly that would require a government with testicles

    2. We could start by checking every EU fishing boat in UK waters for breaking quotas and if they even have an excess sprat on board impound them and confiscate the whole catch.

    3. 328979+ up ticks,
      Evening Rik,
      Why has the UK electorate been so averse to getting behind
      a proven loyal to the UK party working to benefit the nation, instead of as for the last three decades returning political sh!te to power.

      Courtesy of the electorate everyone in the UK must have by now at least two hair shirts in the wardrobe.

    4. So the EU’s feeling cockley, eh? Shellfish bastards! Well, it’s no good clamming-up, Johnson should flex his mussels and say scallops to them all. The whole world is now our oyster.

  87. Breaking News – A new covid strain has just arrived here from the jungle

    They are calling it the Mutant and Dec

    1. Pray tell what is coming.

      He will of course not be found guilty by the senate, they will vote on party lines.

      2. Donald Trump is the President of the United States and was secretly certified by virtue of a P.E.A.D……..

        Presidential Emergency Action Document.

        Watch how this unfolds, it’s going to be fascinating………

    2. Pray tell what is coming.

      He will of course not be found guilty by the senate, they will vote on party lines.

  90. That’s me for the day. Grey and damp weather – most unappealing. Same tomorrow – but without the rain. Thursday looks good.

    Have a jolly evening spotting the next mutant.

    A demain.

  91. Wayne Pivac flies to Baghdad to watch a young Iraqi boy play Rugby. He is
    suitably impressed and arranges for him to come over and sign for
    Scarlets, with an eye on Welsh Selection in time for The RWC.
    Two weeks later Scarlets are 16-0 down to Ospreys with only 20 minutes left,
    the young Iraqi gets the nod and on he goes.

    The lad is a sensation, scores 2 tries, sets up another 2 and kicks 4 goals
    in 20 minutes and wins the game for Scarlets. The fans are delighted,
    the players and coaches are delighted and the media love the new star.

    When the lad comes off the pitch he phones his mum to tell her about his first day
    in Welsh Rugby.

    ‘Hello mum, guess what?’ he says ‘I played for 20 minutes today, we were 16-0
    down but I scored 2 tries, set up 2 tries and kicked 4 goals and we won.
    Everybody loves me, the fans, the media, they all love me.’

    ‘Wonderful,’ says his mum, ‘Let me tell you about my day. Your father got shot in
    the street and robbed, your sister and I were ambushed, beaten up then
    raped, now your brother has joined a gang of drug dealers, and all while
    you were having such great time.’

    The young lad is very upset. ‘What can I say mum, but I’m really sorry..’

    ‘Sorry?!!! Sorry?!!!’ screams his mum, ‘it’s your fault we came to Llanelli in the first place!’

    1. How the “Here We Go” chant was born:

      There was a football match between the Ants and the Earwigs.

      At half-time the Earwigs were behind. So they brought on their substitute. He was known as O (because no one knew his real name, except that it began with that letter).

      In the second half O scored goal, after goal, after goal and the Earwig fans chanted:

      “Earwig O, Earwig O, Earwig O”.

  92. Watched ‘The Dig’ this afternoon.
    Ralph Fiennes is brilliant. He has the stoic Suffolk countryman down to a T.
    We have a Suffolk born and bred friend who we’ve know since he was fifteen; it was like watching him. Not just the speech, but even down to the stance, the gait, eye and head movements. It was actually quite touching as I kept imagining him being treated as a servant and an ignoramus and it upset me.

    1. Metoo, but they didn’t make a great deal of what was actually found. I thought that as it was based on fact they might have shown what was given to the British Museum.

      2. I think the film was concentrating on the excavation and the personalities involved. Maybe the book on which it’s based takes the approach.

    2. You live in Colchester, so you wouldn’t notice that his ‘Suffolk’ accent is half Colchester. He should have watched Akenfield to hear a lot blokes speaking with a real Suffolk accent

      1. Most of Colchester sounds more estuary.
        You really do have to go right up to and over the border to hear proper Suffolk.

        2. It didn’t used to 20 years ago. That is my memory of the ‘Colchester’ accent, that’s what I hear from Fiennes character, the hard vowels, the “I will not be stopped” phrasing.

          1. There has been a heckuva lot of building in 20 years and most incomers are not local.
            In my youth I could tell the subtle differences between accents from Colchester, Braintree, Halstead etc…. Nowadays the dreaded estuary and the ozzie uptick have all but wiped them out.

          2. Moi haart aloive, gal, yew wanna go to Norfolk to hear a good ol’ East Anglia accent.

            I was born to a family who spoke with a ‘received pronunciation’ accent but, when I went to primary school in Ditchingham, Norfolk, I was mocked for my accent, “Blaast, bor, yew dunt half talk posh.” so one quickly lapsed into the local dialect (as 5 and 6-year-olds will). However when I went home and asked, “is moi dinner reddy/” I’d get a clip round the ear with the exhortation, “In this house, you will speak the King’s English.”

    3. That’s what we were told when we tried to bring some cactus plants in from the US. They are endangered so we need to confiscate them and destroy them.

      The customs man understood how stupid it was to say that cactus are endangered in Arizona and he eventually let us bring the plants in!.

      1. ‘Evening, Richard, from my experience of Cacti in Arizona (what’s the name of the big ‘un with arms) the locals seemed to take delight in shooting bullet holes through them – but they also did that to the road signs. Peculiar people, no wonder they seem to have voted for Biden.

    1. No case to answer! She didn’t bother to read the script. The theatre director is not a mind reader.

      2. That’s the sensible reponse, but remember that she is challenging the core concepts of todays idiocy.
        oh and she is coloured!

        1. She surely doesn’t have a case against the theatre, she might have something against the agent… depending on her contract.

      3. There is no telling how such a case would pan out unless there is a recent precedent from high up the food chain. With any case that has competing and disparate arguments, as opposed to a simple matter of fact, it’s a lottery. Before you go to Court you can never be quite sure which argument, which evidence the judge will choose to focus on in reaching their decision.

        Edit: I had two cases confused, she is suing them and she is in very weak position.

    2. ‘…our lord and savior’

      Don’t you mean:

      Our Lord and Saviour?

      Good night, Rik, sleep well.

  97. Brussels – beaten by a British bog-snorkeller.

    Brexiteers can now show Remainers the tangible benefit of leaving the EU – a life saving vaccine

    The EU tried to derail the UK’s vaccination programme and, in doing so, showed everyone why we’re better off out of it

    ALLISON PEARSON

    Damn that Macron! I was driving home when the news on the radio said the French president had taken a swipe at the UK’s vaccination programme. The Oxford/AstraZeneca jab was “quasi-ineffective” for people over 65 years of age, he claimed.

    I thought of the legions of older people, my mother included, who had already had that particular vaccine. A latchkey of liberty, it bestowed a bit more confidence to get out the house and brave the supermarket. All those fearful people, many in isolation since March, would be listening to the radio and their hearts would sink thanks to le vieux grincheux. Apparently, that’s the polite way of saying old sourpuss.

    I reckon Macron merits the impolite version: pisse-froid.How unspeakably cruel to casually (and wrongly) dash the hopes of three million British octogenarians, just because your nose has been put out of joint by your neighbour’s success.

    Besides, if our vaccine is so rubbish, why is France complaining it can’t get hold of any?

    President Pisse-Froid’s attitude to the AstraZeneca vaccine reminds me of that Woody Allen joke about two ladies who are having dinner at a Catskill resort when the first says: “Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.” The other one nods: “Yeah, I know – and such small portions.”

    Looked at another way, Macron’s fit of pique is quite gratifying. We must be doing something right for such a cool customer to lash out in a heated, undignified way. The recent behaviour of EU leaders in general has been a resounding vindication of our vote to leave.

    In the referendum campaign, Leavers like me were often put on the spot by Remainers. “Give us one tangible benefit of leaving the EU!” they cried. It wasn’t easy to sum up the gut instinct that made us feel we should wrest our country back from the clutches of Brussels, whatever the difficulties. Clearly, Remain had convenience and continuity on their side. I might have voted that way myself, only I couldn’t stand our democratically elected Parliament, our laws and control of our borders, being chained to an unelected European oligarchy whose bureaucratic torpor was matched only by its arrogant self-aggrandisement.

    Recently, when I interviewed Mark Higgie, Australia’s former ambassador to the EU, for my Planet Normal podcast (which you can listen to above), I asked him to describe the calibre of people such as Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, and the team with which she was anointed (not elected – elections are for little people) in 2019.

    “Shonky retreads,” said Higgie, introducing me to my new favourite phrase.

    What he meant was that EU officials like Von der Leyen have often failed in their own countries before being sent, out of harm’s way,to Brussels, where they could b—-r things up to their heart’s content without any repercussions at the ballot box.

    Well, Higgie’s shonky retreads have certainly lived up to their name this week as the EU, having bungled its own vaccination programme, tried to cover its embarrassment by derailing ours, even stooping so low as to trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol to block the movement of coronavirus jabs (something it promised just a few months ago that it would never do). It has been, in every sense, a needle match.

    While Kate Bingham and the UK’s Vaccine Taskforce were placing their bets early on vaccines which were most likely to come to fruition, Brussels was forbidding member states to source their own Covid jabs. (Even Germany, whose BioNTech,the triumphant creation of second-generation Turkish immigrants, played a pivotal role in developing one of the most effective vaccines.) After all, allowing countries to protect their citizens’ lives is a minor consideration when you have to preserve the illusion of a benign superstate which is stronger and more effective than any individual nation.

    Bingham, I was overjoyed to learn, came 19th in the World Bog Snorkelling Championship, a certifiable pursuit in which contestants aim to complete two lengths of a peat-murky, 60-yard trench wearing snorkel and diving mask, relying on flipper power alone. Sir John Bell, Oxford’s Regius professor of Medicine, describes her as “really ruthless and really tough”. And a borderline barking, bog-tastic competitor to boot. It may explain why, after assembling a committee of scientific and business experts, within a fortnight Bingham had a shortlist of 23 vaccines from four different vaccine technologies.

    The UK swiftly placed orders for 367 million doses from AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna, Valneva and Novavax at an estimated cost of £2.9billion. Bingham took part in the Novavax trial herself and broke Dry January by toasting the news that its doses were 89 per cent effective.

    Compare and contrast that rugged, race-against-the-clock approach with the European Medicines Agency. One reason it took so long to approve the AstraZeneca vaccine for use is because the EMA was closed from Dec 23 to Jan 4. Lucky there wasn’t a crisis that required a life-saving pharmaceutical intervention to be pushed through quickly, eh?

    The EMA debacle was altogether typical of the EU’s sloth-like decision- making. As was the favouritism shown in backing certain vaccines because it would soothe the egos of the bloc’s most powerful members. Too much faith was placed in Sanofi, France’s last remaining pharma giant. A front-runner in the race, Sanofi’s attempt to tweak a flu vaccine to fight Covid-19 came unstuck and its candidate for inoculation will not now be ready until the end of 2021.

    For France, the land of Louis Pasteur, it was a national humiliation. Because EU countries agreed to purchase their vaccines collectively, the same supply issues are hurting all 27. Poor Portugal, which has suffered so badly during the pandemic, says the first phase of its vaccination plan will be extended by around two months into April; delivery delays mean it will only receive half the expected doses by March. Germany faces a shortage well into April, which will horrify its famously efficient populace. “We will still have at least 10 tough weeks with a shortage of vaccine,” admitted health minister Jens Spahn.

    Brussels and Von der Leyen owe a huge apology to the 446 million inhabitants of the EU. I wouldn’t hold your breath. Von der Leyen refused to apologise or resign, claiming that failing to roll out vaccines as fast as Britain was “safer”.

    Grotesque incompetence, complacency, broken promises and inertia have endangered the lives of its most vulnerable people, but the EU’s solidarity has been preserved, which is all that matters to the shonky retreads.

    The European project has survived this long, but will 27 states really feel grateful for “coordinated action” when they can count the cost of unity in deceased citizens?

    And what of all those Remainers who castigated the Government for not joining the European Vaccine Scheme back in June? They said opting out was nationalistic, childish and irresponsible.

    Well, they look pretty damn stupid now. If we’d listened to them, nine million of our beloved countrymen and women would not today have the protection of a first dose. The events of the past week have been like a Medieval morality play in which every vice Brexiteers knew the EU to be guilty of have been paraded on the world stage.

    How happy and relieved we can be that we ditched the shonky retreads. Give me a British bog-snorkeller any day.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/brexiteers-can-now-show-remainers-tangible-benefit-leaving-eu/

    1. Good article, and I am all in favour of showing up the EU bureaucracy. But the British government did take a risk on a new untried vaccine technology. It is slightly heartening that the Israelis, who are nobody’s fools, took the same risk, having access to the same information presumably. I hope it all works out.

      1. I have had to bite my tongue all evening , and then I witnessed an unpleasant reaction.

        I said if you knew the team was weakened by stand ins, why bother to watch it , he continued to watch it on his laptop, with grunts and sighs ..

        The tension has been appalling . Even the dogs were hiding.

          1. The team has been blighted with injury and illness , so their best players aren’t playing . They were slaughtered by Man Un.. 9 goals! ( I think, … I wasn’t watching it .)

  99. Australia have pulled out of their tour of South Africa. Apparently South Africa refused to grant a special dispensation that cheating is OK if you’re Australia. Australia said that was contrary to all previous experience and cancelled the tour.

  102. I see that Captain Tom has died. Still and all, a good innings and he’ll be remembered. RIP.

  103. Well, despite expectations due to the weather, the van and a half load of wood I cut & chopped yesterday & Sunday chucked all over & stacked.
    Tomorrow, weather permitting, I should get the last half van load sawn & chopped tomorrow which, when I get it stacked should three quarters fill the stack i’m busy with.

    And that is off to bed!

  104. Tsk, tsk, Olivia. It’s almost as though you’re enjoying it…

    Hardcore Remainers are now going through the five stages of grief

    Most Remainers are now appalled by the EU’s behaviour. But a vocal minority simply can’t accept what’s happening

    OLIVIA UTLEY

    For most people, even Remainers, the EU vaccine tantrum has shaken their faith in the bloc to the core.

    Twitter over the weekend was littered with gratifying memos from former europhiles who have seen the light and now understand that bigger is not always better, that the EU isn’t quite as competent as it makes out, that an organisation which came into being 27 years ago is not the apex of civilisation – and that the bureaucrats who lead it aren’t all selfless saints whose only goal is world peace.

    From the Archbishop of Canterbury downwards, the country is almost entirely united in disgust.

    Perhaps more astonishingly, even a few EU players have realised the scale of the calamity. Carl Bildt, Co Chair of the European Council on Foreign Affairs tweeted last week “I had hoped not to see the EU leading the world down the destructive path of vaccine nationalism. Our continent’s entire history of success has been one of open, global value supply chains”. Meanwhile, erstwhile bogeyman Michel Barnier told a newspaper last week that he wants the EU to “step back” from the vaccine row with Britain.

    But there’s a fly in the ointment. Because incredibly, there is still a group of hardcore British Remainers who, having taken Brexit as a personal bereavement, simply can’t bring themselves to come to terms with what is going.

    Over the last few months, as the tweets below illustrate, they have been slowly – painstakingly – been going through the five stages of grief.

    First, when the Prime Minister decided that Britain would not join up to the EU’s vaccine scheme, there was denial that we were capable of going it alone.

    The Observer: “Brexit means Covid vaccine will be slower to reach the UK.”

    Ed Davey: [The Government has] “put its brexit ideology above people’s lives”

    Young Liberals UK: “The Tories don’t care if you’re dead, so long as they get Brexit.”

    Munira Wilson (Lib Dem health spokesperson): “The UK’s stubborn unwillingness to work with the EU is unforgivable”

    Then, when it emerged that Kate Bingham was a venture capitalist married to a Tory MP, we had anger:

    Carole Cadwalldr: “Pick your scandal. Is it the £570k, Bingham has spent on PR? The fact that she looks to profit from taxpayer-backed stake in her private equity firm? Or that ‘a venture capitalist married to a Treasury minister’ got the top vaccine job in the first place?”

    Jolyon Maugham: “Covid-19 contracts smell of cronyism – so I’m taking the government to court” (in The Guardian)

    James O’Brien: “I think Kate Bingham is about to be given her sandwiches wrapped in a roadmap. If she is, she becomes the first Johnson loyalist to be binned. Feels important”

    Next, they started bargaining – trashing the Brexiteer Government in the vain hope of finding some common ground with some old friends in the Remain camp and striking a deal:

    Alastair Cambell: “The liars and charlatans are so desperate to rescue anything from the Brexit wreckage that they have fabricated a gigantic Trumpian lie about the vaccine being a post Brexit regulatory success story. When they should be thanking worldwide science and European manufacturers”

    AC Grayling: “The vaccine success is down to the NHS not the ‘government’, which has been too busy killing people & trashing the economy to do anything constructive.”

    Now, we are reaching the depression stage. With no other card left to play, they downplay the EU’s catalogue of errors. The FT, which last month published an editorial urging its Remainer readers “not to gloat over Brexit’s failures” is now despondently referring to the events of last week as the “EU’s vaccine hiccough”.

    It is my fervent hope that one day soon, they will reach the acceptance stage. But we sure aren’t there quite yet…

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/02/hardcore-remainers-now-going-five-stages-grief/

    1. “Vaccine success down to the NHS”
      It’s blind, narrow-minded fools like him who kill people.

  105. The death of Capt. Tom has overshadowed the death of the first openly lesbian MP, Maureen Colquhoun.

    Every cloud has a silver lining.

    If you have never heard of her, here is a Wiki resumé: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maureen_Colquhoun

    Maureen Morfydd Colquhoun – No details of her parents. The name appears to be a mix of Irish, Welsh and Scots.

    That translates as ‘Bitter Maiden Nook’ (or narrow wood) – Intriguing.

      1. It reminds me of a Birmingham MP in the 1970s, whose only entry in Hansard was to ask for the windows in the Commons to be opened due to the oppressive heat. Oh, apart from their maiden speech.

  106. Good night all.

    Spicy beef meatballs in the red wine sauce left over from last week’s ox cheek with rice left over from yesterday’s green Thai curry. Delicious.

  107. Good night all.

    Spicy beef meatballs in the red wine sauce left over from last week’s ox cheek, with rice left over from last night’s Thai green curry. Delicious.

        1. When my client’s ducks are laying – I am quite often given duck eggs. But ducks don’t lay all the year round. Last spring I had some turkey eggs (as she was trying to prevent her other half from putting too many in the incubator). They were very like the hen eggs in terms of flavour, but a different shape and they had very hard shells.

          1. Where we lived on the Hants/Dorset border the local farm occasionally had goose eggs on sale. They were great.

          2. Goose eggs are huge. A neighbour back home when I was small used to give my father one occasionally – usually if he’d been lending a hand – we had our own hens so we didn’t need ordinary eggs. She kept all sorts of poultry and hatched everything out under bantams. Only one goose egg under a bantam, she wasn’t big enough to sit on any more. My gamekeeper friend in Yorkshire would put 15 partridge eggs under a bird of the same size. Once you’ve disturbed a partridge she will often abandon her eggs so he would scoop them up and hatch them under a bantam. We once found a nest in a hay-field when we were cutting the grass. Our neighbour’s nephew – who was mowing – popped the eggs into his cap to keep them safe, but we had to shout for the ‘keeper in a hurry when they started to hatch out in the sunny tractor cab.

            Turkey eggs, despite the much larger size of the bird, are no bigger than a small hen egg.

      2. Shrimp with asparagus, mushrooms white wine sauce, over angel hair pasta for us, very tasty.

        1. Yummy. I will have to wait a few months for asparagus – I don’t buy imported as I never think it travels (it’s usually from Peru) very well over such long distances.

          Last year my local farm shop (which sells fresh-picked, really local asparagus) was closed for most of the asparagus season so I’m hoping to be able to get my paws on some this year.

          2. Ditto.

            The local farm shop sells the standard bundles of asparagus and also what would be labelled as “Class 2”. It’s shorter than the standard length and the stalks are of very mixed diameter – and only a little over half the price of the Class 1 so it doesn’t even break the bank.

  108. I am watching a lovely tranquil film on BBC4 called the Great mountain sheep gather .. shepherd gathering his sheep down from Scafell Pike .. goodness me that is hard unforgiving countryside . The dog work is wonderful, and the path is perilous … narrow tracks 8 inches wide throught the crags.

    2. I watched a documentary on French television about the Lakes in the early hours this morning, mainly Windermere and Ullswater, and it was superb. I was head waiter of Storrs Hall as part of my hotel management apprenticeship and the memories came flooding back. I hope to visit again when this pestilence is defeated. There was also a sequence of shepherding, which is a speciality of Welsh and Northern shepherds unmatched by any others. A joy to behold.

  109. Shame, it’s now approaching 03:00 and I’ve been up for a couple of hours awaiting the pain relief kicking in so that I may get some sleep. Tomorrow’s funny is liable to be late.

    Good night (or Good morning) to all my fellow NoTTLers.

Comments are closed.