Saturday 10 April: The country wants to pay respects to the Duke who lived by ideals of duty and patriotism

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/2021/04/09/lettersthe-country-wants-pay-respects-duke-lived-ideals-duty/

402 thoughts on “Saturday 10 April: The country wants to pay respects to the Duke who lived by ideals of duty and patriotism”

  1. Well that was a horrible day. Greatly admired Queen’s Consort has died, truly awful comments by black activists on social media, dancing on his grave as these radicalised morons do.

    By contrast we see black cabs lining The Mall in honour of one of our own.

    Then that bumbling buffoon Biris Johnson with his designer deliberate dishevelled hair and ill fitting suit (you would think that with the Gates and Soros’s money in the kitty the fat bastard would take a visit to Savile Row) spouting what he had read in the press that morning.

    Later we hear finally from Greta Thunberg who seems torn between the twin sagas of Imminent Climate Change Catastrophe and Imminent Covid Catastrophe. Which is it you silly little shit?

    Meanwhile Biden shows himself to be the precise opposite to what the farmer Geoffrey Woollard promised us viz. a return to normalcy. The Biden character and his repulsive son are surely beyond redemption.

  2. ‘Morning, Geoff. Thank you as always.
    Friday’s been a strange day: started badly (and late) and then fell off a cliff with today’s sad news.
    The certainties that held my life together seem to be all but gone.

    1. It’s certainly the end of an era. Royal policy seems to be increasingly steered by Charles, and both he and William are fully signed up to the WEF programme.

      My 24 year old daughter phoned me in shock from a central European country yesterday when she heard the news, thus proving that in spite of her wandering upbringing, she is a true Briton at heart.

    2. I can just about remember the excitement over the wedding, but I really didn’t know what it was about.
      My brother, who is well past retirement age, hadn’t even been conceived.

        1. Ah, youthful eyesight. You could see a milky postage stamp from across the room.
          On second thoughts, wasn’t the Coronation the first televised royal event?
          Unsurprisingly, we were on a camping weekend around 02/06/53 – somewhere near Guildford for reasons that totally escape me. It was as bloody cold and wet as London.

          1. I watched it on a 9″ screen which was surrounded by a ‘sideboard’ at my uncles

          2. Nope – the departure of HMS Vanguard for the Royal Tour of South Africa. Then Princess Elizabeth’s wedding. You are far too young, pet.

          3. We woz poor; my parents were too busy raiding disused factories for firewood and light bulbs.
            And heating up bath water on Primus stoves in a dingy London flat (I’m not exaggerating).

          4. We were in Tripoli (Libya) at the time and I remember my mother telling me that King George was dead on 6th February 1952 when I was 5½. I remember that I burst into floods of tears and was inconsolable.

          5. By and large, children are heartless little b*ggers. We all thought it was rather exciting.
            We were going round at school asking “Heard the news” to which the rote answer was “The King’s dead”.
            However, at that time, mentioning the possible death of Churchill was the equivalent of picturing God on the loo.

          6. I was 7 years old and at school in Ditchingham, on the border of Norfolk with Suffolk, when the School janitor stuck his head around the door and shouted, “The King has passed!”

            I just wondered what the King was doing in Ditchingham by the school.

  3. First broadcast 50 years ago today.

    A long read but worth it. Barker’s later years were rather sad.

    The Two Ronnies at 50: why comedy’s happiest, funniest marriage was too good to last

    The rare double act who actually liked each other, Ronnies Barker and Corbett turned wordplay and innuendo into high art. Why did they stop?

    By Martin Chilton

    Ronnie Corbett said “there was never a cross word” with Ronnie Barker, during four decades of what he called a close and “very British friendship”. Barker described their partnership as “even more amicable than a marriage – wedlock without the bad patches”. During the heyday of The Two Ronnies, which was first transmitted on April 10 1971, more than 20 million viewers regularly tuned in every Saturday night; it was more national institution than television show.

    The two men, both christened Ronald, met in London in 1963, when Corbett was a part-time barman at the Buckstone Club in Suffolk Street, near the Haymarket Theatre, a basement drinking hole where stars such as Sean Connery and John Gielgud would hang out. Corbett, who had previously worked with Barker’s stage manager wife Joy Tubb, was in the process of seeking new acting roles at the time he served Barker, then playing a roly-poly French gangster in the musical Irma La Douce, a lunchtime drink.

    The pair first worked together in 1966, as part of the BBC ensemble cast of The Frost Report. Edinburgh-born Corbett was 5′ 1″and used to joke that if he wore too much tartan he “tended to look like a Thermos flask”. Their satirical ‘Class Sketch’, co-written by Marty Feldman, cast the diminutive Corbett as the cloth-capped worker who looks up to middle class Barker and upper-class John Cleese.

    It quickly became a comedy classic. Corbett and Bedford-born Barker, two grammar school boys who had not been to university, were brought closer by being surrounded by writers and actors who were mostly Oxbridge graduates.

    Corbett, the son of a baker, was always regarded within the showbusiness industry as a decent, kind and amiable man, and Frost producer Bill Cotton Jr could recall only one occasion when he saw him lose his cool. Corbett was upset that he and Barker were booked on Swiss Air economy seats when the television executives on the same promotional trip were all enjoying first class travel.

    When Corbett was later informed that he and Barker needed to chip in and help pay for a meal with the travelling BBC producers and members of the press, the little Scot blew a fuse and created an “embarrassing” scene. “I had this whip round and that did Ronnie Corbett in absolutely, and he said ‘what is going on here?'”, Cotton told the British Entertainment History Project. “He really got very indignant and he cleared the room.”

    In 1968, Corbett and Barker followed David Frost to London Weekend Television and continued to perform sketches together for his current affairs shows. The duo’s big break came at the 1970 Bafta Awards ceremony, when a technical hitch at the London Palladium meant they were forced to fill in with 11 minutes of unscripted comedy, part of which included Barker playing Henry VIII and Corbett ad-libbing as Cardinal Wolsey.

    Cotton, then Head of BBC Light Entertainment, was so impressed with their impromptu act that he turned to Paul Fox, Controller of BBC1, and asked, “How would you like those two on your network?”. It was the start of a collaboration between the BBC and the two performers that lasted for 93 episodes, over 12 series.

    Barker was a tremendously talented stage performer. He was highly praised by Alec Guinness and hailed by Peter Hall – who wanted him to play Falstaff at the National Theatre – as “the great actor we lost”. Barker also had a passion for writing his own material. Right from the start of their BBC series, he contributed scripts for The Two Ronnies, submitted through his agent under the pseudonym Gerald Wiley. He used the pen names Jonathan Cobbold, Jack Goetz, Bob Ferris and David Huggett for his other writing projects.

    The story goes that he used the Wiley nom de plume because he wanted his writing for The Two Ronnies to be accepted on its own merits. Corbett added to this myth by claiming that no one at the BBC knew that the scripts came from Barker, telling Desert Island Discs that “Tom Stoppard’s name was even mentioned as being the real Wiley.”

    In April 2016, shortly after Corbett’s death, Ian Davidson, a former script editor for Frost on Saturday, set the record straight with a letter to the Guardian, in which he dismissed the idea that Wiley’s identity was a mystery by the time of The Two Ronnies. “Not so. Gerald Wiley’s identity was revealed to all when this new and successful but strangely uncontactable writer invited David Frost, Corbett and the madly intrigued production staff of Frost on Saturday to a Chinese meal. Ronnie Barker stepped forward to fill the empty chair. That was in 1968. The Two Ronnies began in 1971,” Davidson wrote.

    The Two Ronnies employed a large team of script and joke writers, and not all of them were happy with Barker’s dominance (it was estimated that three-quarters of the screened material was his). “Ronnie Barker, the actor, was great and we thought how wonderful he was, but Ronnie Barker, the writer, did slightly step on our toes,” recalled David Nobbs in 2015. Nobbs, who went on to write the brilliant The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, said Barker “took advantage” of his status and sometimes “pinched” other people’s ideas.

    It was Nobbs, for example, who originally wrote a monologue sketch called “Pispronunciation” about a man who could not pronounce his “worms” correctly – an idea Barker later appropriated for himself. Writer Dick Vosburgh claimed that Barker did the same with his Dr Spooner sketch, ignoring copyright claims. Vosburgh’s widow, Beryl, revealed that when Barker starting using his own Dr Spooner sketches, her husband sent him a postcard saying, “Ronnie Parker, you’re a brick.”

    Viewers loved the comedy writing on The Two Ronnies – the handwritten script for the famous 1976 ‘Four Candles’ skit sold for £28,000 at an auction in 2007 – and the show’s distinguished writers over 16 years included Barry Cryer, Andy Hamilton, Spike Milligan, David Renwick, John Sullivan and the Monty Python legends Cleese, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin and Eric Idle. “If you had a sketch, and the Pythons laughed, you knew it was funny,” Idle told Time Out in 2014. “That’s always been the whistle test for us: read it, does it make us laugh? If it does it’s in; if it doesn’t, we sell it to the Two Ronnies.”

    Barker and Corbett, who had a genuine chemistry, used their prodigious skill as actors to make their brand of humour tick. “I can’t think of anyone who knew how to play comedy better than Ronnie Barker,” said Palin. “The Two Ronnies could both be the straight man one minute, and not the next. They weren’t in the same mould as Morecambe and Wise,” said Cryer.

    Their gift for delivering puns and double-entendres, which were full of endearing silliness, made the news-desk sketches that opened and closed each episode extremely popular:

    A cement mixer collided with a prison van on the Kingston Bypass. Motorists are asked to be on the look-out for 16 hardened criminals.

    We’ll be talking to an out-of-work contortionist who says he can no longer make ends meet.

    We’ll be talking to a car designer who has crossed a Toyota with Quasimodo and came up with the Hatchback of Notre Dame.

    We’ll be discussing the bread shortage with a woman who has been throwing IOUs to the ducks.

    The toilets at a local police station have been stolen. Police say they have nothing to go on.

    Renwick, who went on to create One Foot in the Grave, was responsible for some of the show’s best moments, including the Mastermind sketch, in which Corbett specialises in answering the question before last. Renwick said that Barker’s desire for word games was relentless. “Ronnie B in conversation could barely let a sentence go by without turning it into a joke. His instinct for wordplay was a tap that he couldn’t turn off,” the writer recalled in 2017.

    It is no surprise that Barker was an avid collector of the “saucy seaside” Edwardian and Victorian picture postcards, especially by artist Donald McGill. He owned more than 70,000 at one point and published the books Ronnie Barker’s Book of Bathing Beauties (1974), Ronnie Barker’s Book of Boudoir Beauties (1975) and Sauce (1977).

    Comedian Ben Elton was such a fan that he bounded up to Barker at a BBC staff party and told him how much he liked him. “Don’t like you much, I’m afraid,” Barker replied, deadpan.

    Not everyone matched Elton’s enthusiasm, however, especially Liverpool-born comedian Alexei Sayle, who described The Two Ronnies as an “appalling” show. “Ben Elton was on one of those hagiographic things about The Two Ronnies and Ben was saying, ‘There’s a myth that our generation hated people like The Two Ronnies. That’s not true.’ Well, it was f—— true for me. I hated them,” he told Scottish newspaper The Herald in 2016.

    Barker was renowned for his dogged, studious approach to crafting each episode. In 1976, when The Two Ronnies introduced a weekly serial called The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town – an idea from Spike Milligan – it featured a Jack the Ripper-style criminal who attacks his victims by blowing them a raspberry. The villain was pursued by the bumbling detectives Charley Farley and Piggy Malone.

    David Jason, who provided the raspberries for the soundtrack, said that when Barker hired him for the task, he earnestly showed him the exact sound he wanted by delivering an entirely blown-raspberry version of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. “Ronnie was never grand or starry, unlike Terry Scott, who was a fairly sizeable pain in the —-,” Jason later commented.

    Renwick described the comedy of The Two Ronnies as “often shamelessly broad and saucy”, admitting that it “might now be considered politically dubious”. The offensive 1974 sketch ‘The Short and Fat Minstrel Show Reprise’, in which both Corbett and Barker appear in blackface makeup, was recognised as a bizarre anachronism by Corbett himself, who commented in 2001 on “how out of date that seems now”. In one particularly crass episode of The Phantom Raspberry Blower, Barker played a blacked-up society lady who screams for a witch-doctor.

    Among their most embarrassingly racist sketches was ‘The Sheikh in the Grocery Store’, in which Corbett, wearing dark make-up and an Arabic keffiyeh, mispronounces the names of items on his shopping list. As he enters the store, Barker’s shopkeeper says: “Old Ali Baba’s a bit off course. Morning Abdul.” In 2018, the headteacher of a secondary school in Stroud, Gloucestershire, had to apologise after the sketch was played at a parents evening presentation about communication.

    The legacy of Britain’s beloved comedy double-act is hardly strengthened by the execrable sketch ‘The Pink Rupee Rap’, in which both men are wearing brown makeup and talking in fake Indian accents as they play staff in a curry house. Equally appalling is Barker’s skit ‘Quick Indian Cooking’, in which he wears a turban while playing chef Ringo Chutney. In addition, there were anti-Semitic tropes in the sketch in which Barker plays an Anglo-Orthodox Jew trying to get a good insurance deal. Barker even put on a fake large nose for his offensive depiction of Jewish prime minister Benjamin Disraeli during a Phantom Raspberry Blower episode.

    At their best, the Two Ronnies delivered masterful performances of sharp, witty scripts – one of their cleverest was the London Underground sketch from 1982, written by Kit Galer, in which the pair talk almost entirely in the names of tube stations – but the less said about the tedious Corbett armchair shaggy-dog stories the better. Their unfunny, sexist mini-series The Worm That Turned imagined a futuristic 2012 that was “guaranteed to strike fear into the hearts of all men”; a time when England was run by women (the military commander was played by a hot pants-wearing Diana Dors) who had “turned The Union Jack into The Union Jill”, forcing all men to dress as women.

    Corbett and Barker’s characters (Janet and Betty) were dressed as women, although putting on dresses seemed to be a regular part of the show for them. Corbett later admitted that “Ronnie B hated drag and said it made his wife Joy sick to watch him”, and Barker’s late wife eventually persuaded him to put away the frocks and skirts. In 2011, Corbett reflected on how their comedy was the product of different times. “There’s a Two Ronnies sketch about an optician and his patient, both virtually blind, with the patient ‘reading’ the furniture. Would that be regarded as insulting to the visually impaired? I don’t know,” he told The Radio Times.

    In 1979, at the height of their success, Barker and Corbett moved their families to Australia for a year to exploit a loophole that allowed them to avoid paying the year’s income tax. Their families lived near each other in Sydney and their children attended school together, cementing their friendship. “Our wives got on, and our work never took us over, never drove us mad, never turned us to drink or drugs. We were very calm, very measured. We loved and enjoyed our families. Ron and I were both the same,” Corbett said. He spent a lot of time in Australia playing golf, enjoying living in an apartment that looked out over Sydney Harbour.

    When they returned to Britain in 1980, they resumed making The Two Ronnies for the BBC (putting together five more seasons of the show and a Christmas Special) under the direction of new producer Michael Hurll. He later admitted that he granted Barker complete creative control at the time, saying the perfectionist “taught me everything”. By this time, both stars were also focussed on their own solo television careers: Barker had won widespread acclaim for his roles in Porridge and Open All Hours, while Corbett achieved his own success story with Sorry!.

    While they’d been abroad, the BBC launched a new comedy series called Not the Nine O’clock News, featuring Rowan Atkinson, Pamela Stephenson, Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones. Barker let it be known that he considered some of their material to be “smut”, prompting retaliation in the form of a cutting sketch called ‘The Two Ninnies’. Smith (as Barker) and Jones (as Corbett) aped the ‘predictable’ format of The Two Ronnies, mocking their reliance on innuendo.

    Smith began the skit by saying, “In a packed programme tonight you will be reassured to know that we will be using exactly the same sort of material as we’ve used for the past 20 years. I shall be talking incredibly quickly and making spousands of thoonerisms and dressing up in women’s clothing,” before Jones added, “and I shan’t be getting any laughs, because he writes most of the scripts and makes sure I get all the crappy bits”.

    In his 2007 memoir And it’s Goodnight from Him: The Autobiography of the Two Ronnies – the title of which tipped a nod to their famous show-ending joint catchphrase, “so it’s ‘goodnight’ from me. And it’s ‘goodnight’ from him” – Corbett said that what particularly upset them about the Not the Nine O’clock News parody was “that it was on the BBC, and they were our employers, and… that they were fellow comedians, not critics”.

    In December 1987, when he was 58, Barker decided to retire from television, explaining cryptically that “I refuse to be one of the still-with-us brigade” and saying he had no ambition left. He was more forthcoming to the Oxford Mail a few years later, admitting that, “I’d run out of ideas, and to be honest, I’d done everything I wanted to do. And I’m sorry to say the material coming through wasn’t such good quality.”

    Corbett said that after recording their final show together just before Christmas, they stuck to their usual habit of taking their wives for a meal at an Indian restaurant in Westbourne Grove in London.

    Life after The Two Ronnies could not have been more different for the two friends. Corbett continued to appear regularly on television – including hosting his own game show called Small Talk – while Barker settled in the small Oxfordshire village of Dean and opened an antiques shop in Chipping Norton High Street, naming it The Emporium. Barker, who started his working life as a bank clerk, loved trading in Victorian memorabilia and, for a time, enjoyed running the shop with Joy.

    Problems began to mount, however. In the biography Remembering Ronnie Barker, Richard Webber recalled the painful time that Barker made the front page of a tabloid newspaper. “On December 15th 1988, The Sun newspaper ran a story, written by journalists Sue Evison and Mark Chadbourn, informing its readers that Evison, posing as a member of the public, had taken a silver salver – which a leading auction house had valued at around £1,000 – into Ronnie’s shop enquiring if he wanted to buy it. When he offered £20, they ran a story highlighting the difference between its value and Barker’s low offer.”

    In 1999, Barker sold the shop, which was now losing £500 a week. Martin Lambert, the agent handling the sale, said: “Mr Barker was annoyed about car parking arrangements in the town which he felt were doing nothing for his business.”

    During the final period as owner of The Emporium, Barker picked up his pen again to write a play called Mum as a showcase for his actress daughter Charlotte. The production, about a lonely office-cleaner who talked constantly to her dead mother, had a short run at the King’s Head pub theatre in Islington. Barker also wrote his memoir, Dancing in the Moonlight: My Early Years on Stage.

    Barker’s final years were tough. He’d suffered from high blood pressure since 1976 and his stress levels went through the roof when his son Adam went on the run after being arrested in 2003. His son was still a fugitive when Barker died on October 3 2005, at the age of 76, after a long period of heart problems. His final entertainment job was on The Two Ronnies Sketchbook, a retrospective of the show with new introductions by the two stars, the last episode of which was shown on Christmas Day that year, 11 weeks after Barker’s death. It attracted nearly eight million viewers.

    Barker never spoke publicly about his son’s disappearance, but in a 2006 interview with the Evening Standard, Corbett revealed: “Ron did say to me: ‘It’s just so awful. It is like a bereavement. I’ve lost him, really. I don’t know what he’s done. What can he possibly have done? How do you hide yourself?'” Adam Barker remained on the run for eight years and was finally jailed for 12 months in 2012, convicted of making indecent images of children.

    Corbett, who was 85 when he died on March 31 2016, lamented towards the end that modern comedy was “grosser” than the type he and Barker had perfected. He showed he was willing to send himself up with a 2006 appearance in Extras, alongside Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, which included a scene in which he was caught snorting cocaine in a toilet, prompting the head of security to say, “Corbett! It’s always bloody Corbett.”

    The Scot was universally lauded as “a national treasure” and he remained intensely proud of The Two Ronnies. “Our comedy was light-hearted amusement that seemingly tripped naturally off the tongue,” he told The Telegraph a couple of years before his death. “That’s why I don’t think it will date.” When his memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey it was supremely appropriate that fork ‘andles – sorry, four candles – were lit for his service.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/two-ronnies-50why-comedys-happiest-funniest-marriage-good-last

    1. I enjoyed many a laugh over decades with Ronnie Barker & Ronnie Corbett.
      Around 2014/15 RC was doing a farewell tour around the UK. My eldest son bought tickets.
      The RC magic must have been lost somewhere on the way up to Glasgow – his material and delivery was awful.
      The only good thing about the night was the meal and my son’s company.

      1. Ronnie Barker was the real comic – and also a good actor.
        You only have to remember ‘Sorry’ or the monologues to realise that Corbett’s success depended on the larger Ronnie.

      2. After a career in cinema management and the unsocial hours which accompanied that, I was unfamiliar with most of The Two Ronnie’s shows. But reading the article posted above I fell about laughing at the many “politically incorrect” jokes, such as Ronnie Barker in a turban playing Indian chef Ringo Chutney. I must be a racist or something, either that or the people they lampooned have no sense of humour.
        By contrast, I was always irritated when I did occasionally see a sketch of Ronnie Corbett sitting in an armchair meandering on and on from subject to subject without (to my mind) a scintilla of humour.

    1. That is so like Dolly. She always makes a bee line for the big dogs in the park. She can turn on a sixpence at they go crashing into the undergrowth.

      While walking on the beach at Sandbanks she saw her first horse and began to follow it until i called her back. Luckily she came back !

      1. Reminds me of the the border terrier, Tim, I had as a child. He used to play with a Great Dane on the beach at St Mawes and like your Dolly he could turn on a sixpence and change direction in a moment doubling back under the legs of the Great Dane who lumbered on clumsily.

      1. Morning Nan.

        On behalf of all the people of the United States, we send our deepest condolences to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the entire Royal Family, and all the people of the United Kingdom on the death of His Royal Highness Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. Over the course of his 99-year life, he saw our world change dramatically and repeatedly. From his service during World War II, to his 73 years alongside the Queen, and his entire life in the public eye — Prince Philip gladly dedicated himself to the people of the UK, the Commonwealth, and to his family. The impact of his decades of devoted public service is evident in the worthy causes he lifted up as patron, in the environmental efforts he championed, in the members of the Armed Forces that he supported, in the young people he inspired, and so much more. His legacy will live on not only through his family, but in all the charitable endeavors he shaped.

        Jill and I are keeping the Queen and to Prince Philip’s children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren in our hearts during this time.

        1. Thanks, Minty but I wanted to see how well he stumbled over big words like ‘Edinburgh’.

          1. I don’t think he’s even made an on screen comment Nan. The text is obviously a press release!

          4. It’s Bidenesque, of course it’s correct. That it doesn’t make sense in English is neither here nor there.🤦‍♂️

          5. I don’t think he’s even made an on screen comment Nan. The text is obviously a press release!

      2. That trashy Oprah interview summed up the real feelings of the Democrats towards the UK, our constitution and our royal family.

      3. He’ll think it’s Prince Albert.
        I hope the print on the autocue is very, very big.

    2. I opened this tweet from Trump to read the whole text and I was appalled by many of the responses from people. A fine man, who although not born British served his adopted country with bravery and honour against awful tyranny, being attacked by small minds. A man, a husband, a father has died, his family deserve time and space to grieve no matter what their position. Respect for people has run dry for many in this so-called modern era.

      In addition the very fact that the tweet was from Trump caused the deranged also to appear and vent their spleens. Very sad times indeed.

    3. I think that it will not be too long before the vast majority of people in US realise that it was a terrible mistake to replace Trump with Biden. But by the time they do will it be too late and too irreversible?

      1. Already too late. The democrats are buying their voting base – Labour did the same thing.

  8. China Joe Biden is the enemy of the constitution. 10 April 2021.

    It is now clear that Joe Biden is an enemy of the federal system of government in the United States. He seeks dictatorial power and intends, if allowed, to make subjects of us all rather than citizens of a country of limited government and divided sovereignty, a sovereignty divided among; the federal government, the states and the citizenry.

    He is, IMO, deliberately flooding the country with illegal immigrants in the belief that when given the vote they will be so ignorant as to to cede power to a one party dictatorship reminiscent of all the worst features of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. The Soviet Union was a tyranny of the “woke” and Nazi Germany was an unholy alliance between adventurist militarism and big capital. How significant is his senility in this determination to form such a tyranny? None can tell at this point, but as Bill Bennett stated yesterday on the TeeVee China Joe’s open hostility to Georgia, Florida and Texas demonstrates his long history of hatred for the American Southland. As a preliminary to his desired consolidation of power he seeks to disarm the citizenry. Chairman Mao would have been proud of him. Pat Lang.

    Morning Everyone. Of course we here in the UK are much further along this road than the United States.

    https://turcopolier.com/china-joe-biden-is-the-enemy-of-the-constitution/

    2. Of course disarming the citizenry will be priority.
      A likely outcome will be a divided US at war with itself, while weaponless Europe surrenders without a whisper.
      Either outcome will suit the CCP fine.

  9. Hi-Ho Silver

    The Lone Ranger was ambushed and captured by an Indian war party. The Chief proclaims, ‘So, you are the great Lone Ranger! In honour of the Harvest Festival, you will be executed in three days! But, before I kill you, I will grant you three requests. What is your first request?

    The Lone Ranger responds, ‘I’d like to speak to my horse.’
    The Chief nods and Silver is brought before the Lone Ranger who whispers in Silver’s ear. The great horse gallops away.

    Later that evening, Silver returns with a beautiful blonde woman on his back. As the Chief watches, the blonde enters the Lone Ranger’s tent and spends the night.

    The next morning the Indian Chief admits he’s impressed. ‘You have very fine and loyal horse, but I will still kill you in two days. What is your second request?’

    The Lone Ranger again asks to speak to his horse. Silver is brought to him, and he again
    whispers in the horse’s ear. As before, Silver takes off across the plains and disappears over the horizon.

    Later that evening, to the Chief’s surprise, Silver again returns, this time with a brunette, even more attractive than the blonde. She enters the Lone Ranger’s tent and spends the night.

    The following morning the Chief is again impressed. ‘You are indeed a man of many talents, but I still kill you tomorrow. ‘What is your last request?’
    The Lone Ranger responds, ‘I’d like to speak to my horse – ALONE.’

    The Chief is curious, but he agrees, and Silver is brought to the Lone Ranger’s tent.
    Once they’re alone, the Lone Ranger grabs Silver by both ears, looks him square in the eye and says, ‘Listen very carefully, you deaf and dumb heap of s**t, for the last time – BRING POSSE!

    1. I can’t help wondering whether he was too frail to receive a powerful jab. The Norwegians did stop giving it to the very elderly because it was too much for them. Anyway, he had a good innings.

  13. Interesting woke outpouring from the DT online stenographers, all hoping to be considered in the New Years Honours :

    SIR – “Bury the Great Duke / With an empire’s lamentation.” Tennyson’s famous ode on the death of another great personage (the Duke of Wellington) will no doubt be much quoted in coming days.

    The Duke of Edinburgh could be controversial but, like the Queen, he has been a fixture of many people’s lives from cradle to grave.

    Royalty today no longer attracts universal deference. However, the Duke was clearly someone who lived his life according to deep underlying principles of duty and patriotism.

    Any kind of public grieving is difficult at the moment, but the great majority of the nation will want, in one way or another, to pay respects to the Great Duke.

    Rev Andrew McLuskey
    Ashford, Middlesex

    SIR – Please, Messrs Johnson, Gove and Hancock, allow the data to rule the day, and permit a proper funeral.

    Prince Philip wanted a royal ceremonial rather than state funeral. The whole nation wants to mourn, it would be appalling if only 30 people could attend.

    Charles Utley
    London SW18

    SIR – One of the greatest presents this country could give our much-loved Queen is to allow Her Majesty and her family to say their farewells in private.

    We could then have a thanksgiving service at a later date, which the whole world could attend.

    Rosemary Corbin
    Zeals, Wiltshire

    SIR – The loss of a real human in a plastic world will be very great indeed. May he rest in peace.

    M A Owen
    Hockwold, Norfolk

    SIR – The death of Prince Philip, a model royal consort, brings to mind the words attributed to C H Spurgeon: “It takes more grace than I can tell to play the second fiddle well.”

    Barrie Taylor
    Highcliffe, Dorset

    SIR – The Duke’s sense of fun perfectly balanced the Queen’s gravitas. When they visited Moscow in 1994, I was working there. A monarchist, I resolved to see them at close quarters.

    It was warm, but I donned my fur hat to catch their attention in Red Square. It was full of spectators, yet I was the only one in Russian headgear. As they emerged from the Kremlin, the Queen saw me, looked into my eyes, recognised I was a trifle too conspicuous, and prudently walked in the opposite direction.

    But not the Duke. He, too, singled me out, made a beeline for me, and asked if I spoke English. “I think so,” I replied. “I’m from Manchester.” He rolled around in laughter, then chatted with charm.

    What a splendid couple.

    Andrew M Rosemarine
    Manchester

    SIR – What a wonderfully human person the Duke of Edinburgh was.

    In the 1960s, when I was a resident in the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, the doctor’s mess was ill decorated. A doctor suggested that the only way to get it redecorated was to invite royalty to visit.

    We sent a letter inviting the Duke to dine in the doctor’s mess. To our astonishment we received a reply saying that he would be delighted to accept the invitation on the next occasion that he was in Edinburgh.

    We kept the date secret but word got out during the week of the visit. A host of workmen descended and very rapidly redecorated and transformed the mess.

    When the Duke arrived his nostrils twitched at the smell of new paint. “Ah,” he said. “I now see why I have been invited to dinner.”

    Dr Michael Baxendine
    Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire

    SIR – The Duke has not been given enough credit for the design of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme.

    Launched in 1956, it was from the outset arranged to incorporate those with disabilities, up to and including the Gold Award. Given the attitude to the disabled at that point – and subsequently – this confirmed him as a man ahead of his time.

    Roy Isworth FRCS
    Tenterden, Kent

    SIR – Years ago my son and some of his schoolfriends were standing by the River Dee, disconsolately consulting a map, when an elderly man strode up and told them they were trespassing. They apologised and explained they were on a Duke of Edinburgh’s Award expedition and had got lost.

    The elderly man then announced that he was the Duke of Edinburgh, and stayed talking about what they were doing. He made it clear, though, that he had no intention of giving them directions and they would have to find their own way home.

    I do hope the scheme will continue, as it has given so many young people such rewarding experiences.

    In another life, the Duke of Sussex might have been the ideal person to take it on…

    Elizabeth Robertson
    Cranbrook, Kent

    SIR – During the 1960s, while serving as a platoon commander with a Junior Leaders Regiment in Taunton, I witnessed the very positive impact that the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and associated Outward Bound training activities achieved in the development of character and youth leadership.

    More than 50 years later, while taking part in the Gurkha Trailwalker Challenge in 2017, I was delighted to meet many young people walking the South Downs as part of their Duke of Edinburgh’s Award challenge.

    I was always impressed with the cheerfulness and sense of purpose of the groups I met. The highly prized scheme is a lasting legacy, of which the United Kingdom should be very proud.

    Lt Col Paul French (retd)
    Andover, Hampshire

    SIR – I will always remember the Duke of Edinburgh for his support for our Queen and for his selfless service to the nation.

    His dedication to the young is embodied in his award scheme. I have the privilege to be one of the earliest holders in Cambridgeshire of the Gold Award, and my certificate has pride of place on my study wall, alongside my Queen’s Scout certificate and my Army commission warrant.

    At the 25th anniversary of the scheme, my twin brother and I met the Duke. Having shaken my hand he looked to my brother alongside me and remarked: “I have met you before!”

    My eldest granddaughter is now working towards her own Gold Award.

    John Hinton
    East Bergholt, Suffolk

    SIR – When our daughter received her Gold Award from the Duke, he asked her what she had done to achieve it and she replied: “I did old ladies.” This made him laugh out loud.

    He then moved on to the next group and said: “Now what did you all do for your award? The girl over there did old ladies!” There was laughter all round and an extremely memorable occasion for our daughter.

    Anne Stern
    Henfield, West Sussex

    SIR – As a schoolboy I was an early beneficiary of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. Many years later I assisted the scheme locally and was entitled to wear a supporter’s tie.

    At a crowded garden party at the Palace, I wore both my gold badge and the tie. The Duke spotted me from yards away and called out: “Ah, I see you’ve been recycled.”

    His wit complemented his ability to make everyone he met feel special.

    Alan Frost
    Bournemouth, Dorset

    SIR – Parliament did not always treat the Duke of Edinburgh with the courtesy he was entitled to expect.

    On February 26 1952, shortly after the Queen’s accession, he listened to a Budget debate from the Peers’ Gallery of the Commons in order to help him “understand how our parliamentary affairs work”, as Churchill explained.

    Enoch Powell, then a comparatively new backbencher, objected. “A new and unconstitutional means is created of acquainting the Sovereign with what passes in the lower chamber,” he claimed. Churchill put him firmly in his place, but the Duke never visited the Commons again.

    Unsurprisingly, he did not always refer to it in glowing terms . On a visit to Ghana in 1959, he learnt that its parliament had 200 MPs. “That’s about right”, he said. “We have 650 and most of them are a complete waste of time.”

    The House of Lords did not behave impeccably either. In 1952 its authorities ruled that only a queen consort was entitled to occupy the throne by the side of the Sovereign at the State Opening of Parliament. The Duke was relegated to a mere chair until 1967, when the ruling was found to be incorrect.

    A warmer welcome might have encouraged him to contribute to proceedings from the cross benches during his 50-year membership of the House (ended by the Blair reforms of 1998), as royal dukes had in the past.

    The House would have benefited from the wisdom he showed in his 1979 Rede Lecture at Cambridge on politics, philosophy and administration. A visitor to his apartment in Buckingham Palace found it “entirely covered by bookcases”.

    Speech-writing gave him great enjoyment. Martin Charteris, a private secretary to the Queen, said: “I produce a draft which both the Queen and I think excellent. But Prince Philip will insist on rewriting it.”

    Lord Lexden (Con)
    London SW1

    SIR – In your online obituary of the Duke of Edinburgh, you were right to pick out an observation from one of his books: “Religious conviction is the strongest and probably the only factor in sustaining the dignity and integrity of the individual.”

    It is impossible not to wonder about the influence of the Duke’s mother, Princess Alice, who in Greece bravely sheltered Jews from the Nazis during the Second World War.

    After her death, the Duke was quoted as saying: “I suspect that it never occurred to her that her action was in any way special. She was a person with a deep religious faith, and she would have considered it to be a perfectly natural human reaction to fellow beings in distress.”

    Frances Johnson
    London SW5

    SIR – About 65 years ago I was at a garden party at Buckingham Palace and saw the Duke of Edinburgh slip away from his equerry and speak to three nuns at the back of the crowd.

    They were dumbstruck and just gawped, so he lightened the mood by saying: “You look like the three wise monkeys,” which made them laugh.

    He got them to tell him about their school, and as his equerry tried to get him away to meet some dignitary, he waved to them and said: “Give my love to the girls.”

    Helen Bones
    Farnham Common, Buckinghamshire

    SIR – The Air League, of which the Duke of Edinburgh was president, gave a gold medal to Brian Jones for the first non-stop balloon flight round the world. My presentation that evening, for the first microlight flight around the world, was to be “saluted”.

    Afterwards, the Duke walked over, said: “You’re mad,” then walked off. I took it, of course, as a compliment.

    Brian Milton
    London E2

    SIR – The BBC, criticised so many times for a lack of patriotism and Britishness, just can’t get it right. Closing down BBC One and BBC Two to broadcast exactly the same programmes about the Duke of Edinburgh at exactly the same time totally lacks a sense of balance.

    Steve Cattell
    Hougham, Lincolnshire

    SIR – As the honorary Twelfth Man for the Lord’s Taverners, it is such a pity that the Duke of Edinburgh didn’t get his ton.

    Dave Alsop
    Churchdown, Gloucestershire

    SIR – A fitting tribute to the Duke of Edinburgh would be a donation to the Woodland Trust or similar organisations.

    For less than the price of cut flowers one can buy a tree. If a million or so did that we would have a forest in his memory, which he would thoroughly approve of.

    Joyce Twiston Davies
    Bisley, Surrey

    1. Ms Davies, if we wanted to plant a million trees in honour of a grand figure such as Prince Philip the state would certainly refuse it, bulldoze an EU train set through it and ensure that such could never be done again.

      The state is the opposite of Prince Philip. Deceitful, treacherous, devoted to itself, arrogant and desperate for power.

  14. Putin Sends Queen Elizabeth II Condolences Following Prince Philip’s Death. 10 April 2021.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed condolences to Queen Elizabeth II following the death of her husband, Prince Philip, the Kremlin said Friday.

    “The name of His Royal Highness is associated with many important events in your country’s recent history,” Putin said in a telegram to Queen Elizabeth.

    “He rightfully enjoyed respect among the British and internationally,” Putin said.

    Putin’s telegram of condolence arrived before that of Joe Biden mostly because paradoxically the President of Russia is personally less hostile to the UK than the President of the United States. As is common, Vlad’s message is in reported speech since this allows it to be selected, edited and commented on.

    https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/04/09/putin-sends-queen-elizabeth-ii-condolences-following-prince-philips-death-a73543

      1. Morning AW. See below. I’ve posted the text which is more than I could do for Putin!

  15. the Article title’s more correct than the article itself https://africanarguments.org/2021/03/the-us-has-placed-sanctions-on-isis-drc-but-does-this-group-even-exist/ odd that the baseline point that ADF was set up by Musaveni [M7 to us here] and Kagame with US support to control DR C minerals and place their “Lead From Behind / Right to Protect” placeman in charge. As usual M7, Kagame, US ignored the French, who ensured their placement Tshisekedi became President replacing Kabila [who still pulls the strings behind the scenes for the French]. No surprise anyone in DR C has heard of ISIS

  18. Jeremy Clarkson in the Sun:

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/14601502/jeremy-clarkson-you-never-saw-prince-philip-slouch/

    You never saw Prince Philip slouch… he was the human spirit level

    Jeremy Clarkson Apr 2021,

    PHILIPPOS Andreou of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg – or Prince Philip for short – could so easily have become a drug-addled Eurotrash wastrel.

    We see it all the time in magazines like Hello! — stupid people with stupid names and stupid titles sitting on their stupid boats ­surrounded by a bunch of stupid girls and some rolled-up bank notes.

    T’was ever thus. There was some Eurotrash guy in the Sixties who remembered, at two in the morning, during a coke-fuelled poker game in Paris that he was due to play in a tennis tournament in Monaco the next day.

    So he ran out, leaped into his Ferrari and got 200 yards before he crashed into a tree and died.

    That’s the world Prince Philip is from.

    He was born in Corfu but lived in France before going to a British public school where it must have taken 20 minutes to read out his name in assembly.

    His dad was the king of both Greece and Denmark but ended up in Monte Carlo with his mistress.

    His sisters all married Germans and supported Hitler. He was related to royalty in Britain, Russia, even Iceland.

    After school he became an accomplished horseman, a pilot, a sailor, and when he got a job, it was in the Royal Navy, where he spent his time whizzing round the world and living on a ship.

    He could so easily have married some air-headed actress and ended up in California, wasting his life on whims and wheezes. But he didn’t.

    Instead, this rootless man remained married to the Queen for 70 years and never, not until he retired at the age of 96, swerved from his responsibilities as her consort.

    Prince Philip was a decorated military officer and a king in his own right

    Britain was not his home, and we were not his people, and yet he served us too.

    Spending endless days in the background while his wife opened a disabled ramp, in the rain, in Carlisle before travelling to Hartlepool to watch her plant a tree.

    I met him once at some stupid television awards thing. It really wasn’t his scene. I know this because he thought I was Ainsley Harriott.

    But there he was, patiently shaking hands with countless orange-faced fools and jesters.

    Imagine that. A proud man. A Royal Navy Commander. A king in his own right. Destined to spend 70 years in the shadow of his wife.

    He once explained that a monarchy does not exist for the benefit of the kings and queens and princes but for the benefit of the people. And I think he’s right.

    He was like Concorde. For the 100 people on board it was cramped and noisy, but from the ground, it was a sight of pure majesty. It lifted our spirits when it flew by.

    That was what Philip did.

    He was the patron of 800 organisations and over the years performed 22,219 solo engagements, all designed to make us — not him — feel better.

    In 1956 he launched the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme for kids who didn’t want to be scouts or burglars or guides and today, more than eight million people around the world have taken part.

    One of the most extraordinary things about him is that we never saw him slouching.

    Even though he had an absentee father and a sick mother, so there was no one to tell him to “sit up straight”, he was like a human spirit level.

    Even on his last ever public engagement, he stood there in front of those soldiers, more at attention than they were.

    Most people in their seventies can’t even climb a flight of aeroplane steps without falling over, whereas Philip was charging around on a horse and carriage like Boadicea.

    He was still driving a car into his nineties. Though not very well.

    Occasionally, of course, we were allowed to see through the mask of servitude and we caught a glimpse of a short-tempered eccentric who had no time for photographers, damn fool interviewers or idiots.

    I cannot imagine he was very good at talking about the weather.

    Sometimes he would shut down a question he considered impertinent with a curt invitation to eff off, but usually he’d give the annoying reporter a Thanos-style laser blast from those piercing blue eyes.

    He was a very good looking man. Even I’d have turned for him back in the day.

    Gloria Hunniford reckoned he was still hot only a couple of months ago.

    We also know he had no time for political correctness, occasionally saying things that these days we mostly can’t even report.

    There’s one we can. When he met Stephen Menary, an Army cadet blinded by an IRA bomb, the Queen enquired how much sight he retained, and Philip said: “Not a lot, judging by the tie he’s wearing.”

    I think we loved him though. Truly I do.

    I think we saw him as the nation’s gruff but fiercely loyal uncle.

    And that’s why I’m so sad that his funeral is likely to be a small and muted affair.

    I know it’s what he wanted — “no fuss” — but even he couldn’t have imagined that, thanks to Covid, that would mean 15 people and no singing.

    I’ll be mourning though. At the passing not just of a great man but of a time when you stood ramrod straight and you did your duty, no matter what the cost.

    It’ll be a different world without him.

    It’ll be a different world probably because we’re without him.”

    3. I always thought Clarkson was a bit of a prat. He has shown he can write from the heart.

      Good morning.

      1. Well, I’m sorry, but my own impression of the Clarkson piece is that he was damning the Duke of Edinburgh with faint praise. Mocking his full surname, suggesting that he was stupid (claiming he mistook Clarkson for Ainsley Harriot), even taking a side-swipe at Joe Biden with his reference to climbing a flight of aeroplane steps. No, this to me is Clarkson writing “Aren’t I a clever clogs?” rather than a heartfelt tribute to the Duke’s sad passing.

        1. I thought it was a classic case of the English affectionately mocking those they really love and respect.

    4. 331352+ up ticks,
      Morning Anne,
      Good honest quill work, portraying the feelings of many, thanks for the link.

    5. My Dad was also born in 1921- and like Prince Phillip, he always said the wrong thing- it was predictable, in fact they shared quite a few things in common in terms of early difficulties etc.. Of course, today, everyone genuflects and tries to say the right thing- but still gets shot down in flames, because the “right thing” travels at the speed of light, and you will always have someone from the Council for the Permanently Offended, coming down on you. I think we should remember HRH Prince Phillip by standing up for the right to say the wrong thing, and do something about the Wokeswept landscape of our nation, as it is, today.

        1. Can you imagine how he felt? His grandson goes off and marries someone who is the polar opposite of everything he manifested in his life. Meanwhile, anybody who questions “Her Truth” is deemed beyond the pale and subjected to all manner of attack via social media. The dime store duchess is the epitome of how everything that was once meritorious has been cast aside and vilified.

          1. The race to the bottom.
            The monarchy may suffer when HMQ finally goes to join her beloved husband.

          4. I’m not sure if Harry will be able to live with himself. He was lead by the brain cells residing below his belt.
            When he is no longer of use, mutual boredom and loathing will set in.
            Madam is an adventuress; a C21Becky Sharp with no excuse for her behaviour as this country is not Regency England.

          5. The Duke and Duchess of Daffy Street can find some new projects that are all really about themselves, I am sure.

          6. I’m not sure if Harry will be able to live with himself. He was lead by the brain cells residing below his belt.
            When he is no longer of use, mutual boredom and loathing will set in.
            Madam is an adventuress; a C21Becky Sharp with no excuse for her behaviour as this country is not Regency England.

      2. What is the wrong thing though? We’ve all become silenced fools, afraid to say what we think for fear of offending someone. The bitterness and resentment grows into addictions and anger and angst.

        We end up being dishonest – untrue – to ourselves. The hard Left nutters want everyone to think as they do. They don’t realise that would make everyone petty, meanspirited, spiteful and abusive.

        Here’s to saying what you think.

  19. Good morning, all. A grey dreary morning.

    I thought the Royal children spoke quite well – though I did find it bizarre that the beeboids had got them to agree to get togged up in black and to record a programme and speak as though the Prince was dead – when, obviously, he wasn’t.

    1. The same as newspapers having their obituaries ready years beforehand.
      That has been the practice for yonks.
      Let’s face it, not so much because of his age but more because of that distressing photo, the end was well and truly nigh.

      1. Quite – I always assumed that he was sent home to die in his bed.

        My late father died in his own bed in our spare room with my then wife and me by his side.

        There is something very natural about that sort of end.

    2. The same as newspapers having their obituaries ready years beforehand.
      That has been the practice for yonks.
      Let’s face it, not so much because of his age but more because of that distressing photo, the end was well and truly nigh.

  20. Yo all

    Yesterday afternoonish, I was driving through the wilds of Lincolnshire and all the Caravan sites that I passed had their Union Flags at half-mast
    A sign of respect, from,,and for, the masses of the population

    1. The same could have been said about Edward VIII; every family throws up a disgrace every so often.
      Just be very thankful that William appears to be saner and has married a sensible lass.
      And that Charles now has the unflappable Camilla.

      1. Also that Charles and Will are onboard with Davos and the UN on everything which is marvelous and lucky..

        Isn’t it ?

          2. Charles is centre front on the WEF website for his advocacy of their green agenda. Perhaps he will prove to be a useful idiot cast aside in due course, but I don’t think so.
            There is no pretense about the proletariat ruling; it is all about an oligarchy, and a large population of effectively slaves, and Charles and William are busy positioning their family in the former group.

      2. Charles and William are both Great Resetters. I have been disgusted this year at how William and Kate have been wheeled out at every opportunity to parrot government policy. And as for the whiny mental health charidees, I don’t want to hear anything else about them.
        Ever.
        It has been amply demonstrated that the more you burble about mental health in public, the more you encourage selfish behaviour.

        William and Kate will go along with any marxist nonsense as long as it’s making the right anti-racist, woke noises. I used to like them, but I’ve really gone off them recently

        1. wait til the Queen’s “Promoted to Glory” then the real game starts – Royalty tag merely a bauble trinket, purely about ego and money, And you may see more airtime for Mr and Mrs Wallis Simpson Jnr

        2. “off”?

          Couldn’t agree more. Especially when Prince William of Woke weeps for causes….

    2. Philip married a stalble, perhaps inconfident but now supremely capable woman.

      Harry has married a narsisstic plank.

  22. Mere words – or at least ones that wouldn’t get me banned – fail me.
    Why the Hell should the country, and especially the Royal Family have to kowtow to this trio of shiites to give a noble man the funeral he deserves?
    They are three dog t*rds under his chariot wheels.

    “SIR – Please, Messrs Johnson, Gove and Hancock, allow the data to rule the day, and permit a proper funeral.

    Prince Philip wanted a royal ceremonial rather than state funeral. The whole nation wants to mourn, it would be appalling if only 30 people could attend.

    Charles Utley

    London SW18”

  23. Whilst driving, I had Radio 2 on (sorry)

    Around Whinetime, just after noontime, the beebs had assembled talking heads.

    The introduction was of the the topic, D of E’s death, was left to a normal Beeboid woman, whose surname was not Smith, Jones etc
    but something more exotic

    She just could not get out a proper introduction of the titular description of the D of E

    The auto cue fmust have failed

    Disgusting

  25. George Galloway claims he’s ‘never been interfered with’ by Russia as he refuses to criticise Putin regime. 10 April 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c19fcf578746ee1ce7430566ffb122d8cb5c55874fd1729a524c08b9e4cece58.png

    Asked for his view on whether Russians were behind the poisoning of the Skripals, he replied: “If you’ll give me a platform on the BBC but promise not to politically interfere with my output I’d even work for your British state backed broadcaster.

    Not much chance of that George! It’s pretty obvious that neither Salmond nor Galloway believe the Official Version of the Skripal Saga but refuse to say so out loud because of the political consequences. One could point out that they are subject to these anyway so they might as well just speak their minds. It could be no worse!

    https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/politics/scottish-politics/2118898/george-galloway-claims-hes-never-been-interfered-with-by-russia-as-he-refuses-to-criticise-putin-regime/

  26. I haven’t been one for watching much of the rolling news of the passing away of the DoE, I can’t bear hearing the hypocrisy coming from politicians and the great and the good who most probably detested Philip and he detested them in life, but seeing old film of him back in the day and being interviewed I’d quite forgotten what a decent, honourable, intelligent, wise, educated, uncorrupted, straight talking man he really was, someone that didn’t moan and whinge about his hard life and want fake sympathy and empathetic support from people without a brain cell between them.
    It is just a shame there is nobody around in public life like that nowadays.

    1. A few

      These would put themselves on your list

      Soros, Boros, Bliar, Gove, Biden, Cameron, Broon, ^hitty

    4. And one who overcame the awful childhood he had – whereas these days people have to have “mental health support”, counselling, and whatever else for the terrible times they had as children and teenagers.

  27. At Australian customs the Duke of Edinburgh was told he’d be asked the same questions as anyone else. Asked if he had a criminal record, he replied, “I had no idea it was still a requirement.”

  28. 331352+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,

    Saturday 10 April: The country wants to pay respects to the Duke who lived by ideals of duty and patriotism

    Then with ALL due respect the Country ( peoples) should do it and on the way to doing it should tell the politico’s to get back downstairs and START serving the people’s.

    The best tribute the peoples can give to Prince Philip is start
    un-employing these pinstripe clad rear exits who, if they have any feelings on ideals / duty/ & patriotism are certainly NOT putting them into practice, far from it.

  30. These last couple of weeks, since things have been opening back up, I’ve been tentatively getting back into the old tennis and golf routine that I’ve been doing for decades, the old body is complaining a bit, I’m not moving so well, getting out of breath,
    I was wondering if it was all down to Long Covid.
    Then thought nah, it’s down to long lazy bastard and doing nothing for 4 months.

    2. #Me Too….although somewhat restricted by ankle. I don’t think I have the energy
      to lift a tennis raquet…..
      All the symptons of Long Covid….

  31. Passengers film chaotic scenes in Islamabad Airport as hundreds race to reach UK before today’s 4am ‘red list’ deadline – as British Pakistani MP demands PM charters ’emergency flights’ for stranded people

    All arrivals landing in UK from Pakistan after 4am today will have to pay £1,750 for 11 nights of quarantine in Government-approved hotel
    With Pakistan likely to remain on red list for some time, travellers scrambled for tickets on one of ten or so services from the country yesterday
    Arriving before 4am meant they will only have to self-isolate at home for ten days and take Covid tests on days two and eight at a cost of £210

    Imran Khan from Aylesbury was at Lahore Airport for a British Airways flight with nine children, including three babies and one disabled lady in a wheelchair.

    They were told that it was closed even though they said they arrived at 11pm for their flight which took off at 1.45am on Thursday.

    There were 15 family members from Kotli Kalan, SalehKhana, District Nowshera and also Aylesbury who spent £15,000 to get back to the UK.

    More than 20 flights are understood to have been chartered to return to the UK from Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore in the past 24 hours.

    But with thousands more still in the country, Labour MP for Bolton South East, Yasmin Qureshi, urged Boris Johnson to lay on chartered flights for stranded citizens in Pakistan.

    Her intervention came following reports of large groups of British Pakistanis, many of them from the Greater Manchester area, were flying to the south Asian country for family weddings.

    The British Pakistani population numbers more than one million and people travelling for the celebrations have been blamed for spreading infection there.

    More than 5,300 new Covid cases were recorded in Pakistan on Wednesday and a third spike is being driven by the variant first detected in Kent.

    Polish-registered carrier Enter Air was among the airlines cashing in on the surge in demand, laying on three Boeing 737s which flew from Islamabad via Moscow to Birmingham yesterday.

    British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) have also laid on extra direct flights in recent days.

    According to data from the website FlightRadar24, five flights were scheduled to land in England direct from the Pakistani capital Islamabad yesterday.

    Two BA flights were due at Heathrow along with a Virgin Atlantic flight, while two PIA services were scheduled to land in Manchester. A BA service also flew direct from Lahore.

    Bulgarian airline GullivAir laid on an Airbus A330 from Islamabad, via Bulgarian capital Sofia, to Birmingham.

    A Boeing 767 was flown by Icelandair from the Pakistani capital to Heathrow and Spanish carrier Wamos Air was scheduled to charter a flight from Islamabad to London Stansted.

    Some of the last-minute seats were going for more than £1,400.

    Analysis shows at least 30 extra flights from Pakistan have been laid on over the last week, with up to 7,000 arrivals on top of the normal numbers.

    According to a recent BBC North West Tonight report, around 32,000 travellers flew from the UK to Pakistan in January alone.

    Of these, nearly 15,000 are said to have flown from Manchester, almost half the number that flew last January before the pandemic began.

    Many are thought to have travelled for weddings, including a woman from Manchester featured in the BBC programme who posted a video of herself online apparently attending a wedding in Lahore.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9452909/Passengers-film-chaotic-scenes-Islamabad-Airport-hundreds-race-reach-UK.html?login#comments

        1. Yes, free pass as Ramadan starts on Monday 12th April.

          Boris knew this, and wisely allowed them liberty from that day.

          You see, appeasement really, really works!

      2. Bob, If you had friends “oop north” you would know that both BA and Virgin Atlantic have been operating full flights to/from Pakistan all winter.

        1. Morning Janet

          Ah, so we now know why there are huge infection spikes in the North .

          Why weren’t the borders closed and why have Pakistan and India been given special treatment .

          I believe there is a big wheeze going on .. Perhaps those South Asians are avoiding paying tax .. that is why they are out of the country?

          1. Avoiding pay tax. Have they ever paid tax?

            Our tax pays for the trips, probably.

    2. “The British Pakistani population numbers more than one million and people travelling for the celebrations have been blamed for spreading infection there.
      More than 5,300 new Covid cases were recorded in Pakistan on Wednesday and a third spike is being driven by the variant first detected in Kent.”
      Obviously they should be quarantined in Pakistan (for about 20 years).

    3. Aha: we will be inflicted by the Islamabad Covid Variant. We can guarantee that no inoculation known to man will be able to halt its inexorable path.
      Stock up on bog rolls and baked beans for the next decade of lock downs.

      1. Yo anne

        Islamabad Covid Variant.aka Caliphatism

        PS I did not think they used Bog Rolls, which is why it is an insult to be offered a Left hand to shake

        2. They carry a little can called a ‘Dubri’ to the toilet and wash their bums using only their left hands.

          So I’ve been told by those who were stationed in the Middle and Far East.

    4. Passengers film chaotic scenes in Islamabad Airport as hundreds race to reach UK before today’s 4am ‘red list’ deadline – as British Pakistani MP demands PM charters ’emergency flights’ for stranded people.
      They keep doing this – announcing that they are about to isolate countries thereby producing a surge of people from the country thereby guaranteeing infections into the country that wants to be protected.
      Nuts.
      Instead of this, test people coming in – before leaving and on arrival. Anyone positive gets quarantined. Massive fines/prison for infected people breaking their quarantine conditions. – and let the rest of us get on with our lives.

    5. It is evident tha benefit payments are too high.
      They claim benefits to live here.
      They save enough to take the whole family to Pakistan every year for 6 weeks.
      The have enough benefits to pay for living out there when on holiday.
      80% of them probably don’t work.
      Time to cut benefit payments.
      Why doesn’t lockdown apply to them. We all know they’re exempt from complying with U.K. law.
      Aaaaaaarrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhh.

      1. I would imagine the dowries from teenage daughters’ chosen cousins would cover the families’ flight costs.

      2. Obviously many, many Britons of Pakistani heritage are law abiding citizens who work hard and are relatively affluent and successful. What concerns me is that some of those with dual citizenship may be able to keep excess savings in Pakistan whilst receiving various benefits within the UK.

    6. 331352+ up ticks,
      Morning TB,
      Keep those incoming planes circling in a holding pattern until after 4 pm, not that they will ever have to
      fork out £1750 that will be seen as racial discrimination, more likely to receive compo for any inconvenience suffered.
      Keep in mind along with the indigenous vote the pakistani one is very important on the 6th May for lab/lib/con to continue the more of the same campaign.
      Bear in mind yasmin qureshi mp for bolton is having a word in the turkish delights earhole.

    7. TB, it’s very kind of them to ensure such a large number wish to travel in order to be present for Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral

    8. We’re simply being outbred. Why? Because they live on welfare. On our money. We’re paying them, housing them to replace us.

      It’s time to end welfare.

  32. Good morning all. a dry and bright but overcast morning with a chilly 2°C and, as yet, little wind.

    I see the BBC is still on restricted output in respect of HRH. A pleasant change on radio 3 to the usual prattle from the presenters, though a pity Building a Library is cancelled, it’s usually worth a listen.

    1. Good morning Bob

      The media output will be lost on those who celebrate BLM.

      We have lost a brilliant man who probably had his own opinions on the wokery that has infected Great Britain.

      On another topic , I am unable to reconnect to Twitter .. is there a knack?

      1. You may be stuffed if you don’t have a mobile for them to send a text to. Though I think in my recent 12 hour suspension for nothing they did release me at the end of that time. Last year when I was suspended for several months I just bombarded them with emails (to no avail) because I had no phone from March til the end of May. I didn’t get reinstated till September.

        2. J, and Mags, does it really matter if twatter kicks you out? I’ve been happily ignoring it for at least two, maybe three years and I haven’t died of ignorance – yet.

          1. I don’t bother with it much these days. Got used to not being able to last year, but it annoyed me that I was deemed unworthy. Their censorship is ridiculous now.

      1. You would hope so Johnny! We mainly watched ITV for the coverage yesterday as the presenters and interviewees were so much more pleasant than the Beebs efforts. ITV seemed to actually like Prince Phillip, and their royal correspondent, Chris Ship, was excellent.

        1. Nicholas Witchell is a pretty miserable looking sod. From what I gather he was not at all liked by the royal family, especially Charlie Boy.

  33. Good morning all. a dry and bright but overcast morning with a chilly 2°C and, as yet, little wind.

    I see the BBC is still on restricted output in respect of HRH. A pleasant change on radio 3 to the usual prattle from the presenters, though a pity Building a Library is cancelled, it’s usually worth a listen.

    1. Shirley the one on the right is that Belgium EUSSR tosser – with the bad hair and terrible teeth.

          3. Don’t hold back, Aeneas. Use your strongest language just as I do: “LibDems are very silly sausages”!

          4. He is very refined and well-spoken and would never talk about chasing the chorizo, mauling the merguez, submerging the salami and burying the banger.

        2. Possibly the worst and least attractive slogan in political history. You’ve lost the vote, so insult the result – it speaks volumes about how out of touch they are that anyone thought that was a good idea.

          1. Yo mo

            It can be taken as an obtuse ‘mirror image’
            It says far more about those two slaobs, than it does about Brexit

            The one on the left of tha picture look like that Irish Mrs twit

      3. Good morning Bill

        Just what I was going to post before seeing that you beat me to it!

    1. Ms Otis, you were not abused. You were a prostitute. You sold your body for modelling work. Now, long after you have to bother about working, the shame makes you want revenge.

      Well, too late luv. You made your choices. Live with them.

    2. They seem only to mention the pain after achieving stardom and an overflowing bank account.

    3. As we used to say in the forces, Richard, “If you can’t take a joke, you shouldn’t sign on.”

    1. Huh; that’s quick. Wait until Spartie decides where he wants to pee; every leaf, every blade of grass, every brick in the wall has to be checked out.

      1. Indoors?

        Our two have discovered how to use the catflap (it is in the porch) incoming. They go out through the back door – run round, come in through the flap, bang on the front door to be let in – run to the back door..go out …..repeat ad infinitum (and, indeed, ad nauseam!)

        1. Even we don’t have clumps of grass indoors – let alone ones fertilised by every neighbouring dog.

    2. My mother used to say that Tibby was “always on the wrong side of the door”.

      We didn’t have a cat-flap then – and now we have Lily, who is of indeteminate age, but obviously never had a cat-flap in her earlier life, who refuses to use it and will only use the kitchen door.

  40. Just remember, as you don your mask, get out your app, book a space, and go to the pub* garden in the rain – that NO ONE has died of ‘flu since March 2020….(sarc)

    * and pay by card, of course. Coinage is lethally infected with the plague.

  44. Taliban attack on US secret base raises fear of pullout deadline violence. 10 April 2021.

    A series of attacks on American bases in Afghanistan, including a secret spy base, have raised fears that the Taliban will step up assaults on US forces ahead of the May 1 deadline to pull out.

    Rockets twice struck a base used by military personnel working for the CIA in eastern Afghanistan last month, CNN reported, in apparent breach of the US-Taliban withdrawal deal signed last year.

    The attacks came as Joe Biden is reviewing whether to stick with the Doha deal signed by Donald Trump, under which all US troops should leave the country by the end of this month. The Taliban have stopped attacking US forces since the Doha deal and are believed to have privately agreed not to attack the departing troops.

    Clearly it wasn’t a secret from the Taliban, more the American Taxpayer one suspects. Joe’s having some trouble weaselling out of Trumps eminently sensible agreement to get out of this hellhole. One wonders, not how they might get out, but what could possibly be the reason for entering this Graveyard of Empires?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/09/taliban-attack-us-secret-base-raises-fear-pullout-deadline-violence/

    1. aftn Araminta, this’ll be the Mil Ind Complex giving Demented Joe the cattle prod shock treatment reminder re oil & gas interests [UNOCAL etc.]

    2. We’ve given Afghanistan enough time, blood and treasure to move beyond the conglomeration of tribal, warlord fiefdoms that it has been for centuries but it has gone nowhere except become more corrupt. Time for us to leave the Afghanis to stew in their own juices.

    3. We’ve given Afghanistan enough time, blood and treasure to move beyond the conglomeration of tribal, warlord fiefdoms that it has been for centuries but it has gone nowhere except become more corrupt. Time for us to leave the Afghanis to stew in their own juices.

    1. Two jobsworths telling us what to do that we’re forced to pay for.

      Oh, sorry. Let me correct that: Two MORE jobsworths telling us what to do that we’re forced to pay for.

      The state is grostesquely over funded if it has money for this pointless nonsense.

    2. Those guys are paid to pose. I see them often. They stroll around H&F ignoring the people and we ignore them.

      One black council worker, one of the guys who looks after Shepherds Bush Green, always shouts good morning and have a good day to me as I walk across the green on my way to work. That’s my only interaction.

      1. Pardon my higgerence, Sue, but what is H & F when it’s aimlessly wandering the streets?

  46. Prince Philip was a rootless outsider who became Britain’s most loyal servant

    An unorthodox background helped shape a prince who was tough, unsentimental, and surprisingly kind

    CHARLES MOORE

    Most people can be ‘placed’ – X is ‘really a Norfolk gentleman’; Y is ‘a working-class Glaswegian’, and so on. Prince Philip evaded such categories.

    Was he Greek, German, Danish, British? A plausible case could be made for each of these. He was born in Corfu, brought up partly in Paris, educated in Germany and Morayshire. To this day, no one in line to the throne may marry a Roman Catholic. It is usually forgotten that the future consort of the Queen was, more exotically, baptised in the Greek Orthodox Church.

    Nor was it easy to place Prince Philip in the conventional terms of the British class structure. He was not an aristocrat, or from the county set. Still less was he a plutocrat – when a very young man, he could not afford an overcoat. Since he had only one pair of everyday trousers, he would carefully fold them at night and lay them under his mattress so they were pressed for the morning. His father died penniless; his mother died a nun.

    Philip Mountbatten was, by birth as well as marriage, royal. Exasperated by condescending courtiers during his early days at Windsor Castle who said, “You will come to love this place, sir”, he replied, “My mother was born here, you know.” It was true: she was the grand-daughter of Queen Victoria. Fittingly, he died there. Yet because of the traumas of continental Europe in the 20th century, and because his separated parents failed to look after him, the young Philip wandered, almost homeless. Like millions at that time, he was a refugee, if a gilded one.

    This unusual background isolated Prince Philip in some ways. It taught him to conceal his sensitivity (he once confided that he did not like going to a concert because ‘I don’t want to be too moved by it’). But it gave him strength when he married into the House of Windsor. The court, for the most part, did not welcome him. Like, at first, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, it was uneasy about his German connections; but it could not squash him – he was handsome (“We girls were all swooning” one of them, who is still alive, tells me), intelligent, a prince already, and had been a brave sailor who had seen action in the war, emphasising his loyalty to Britain by choosing the Royal Navy over the readily available Greek one. He was also accomplished: he could fish, shoot, play polo, fly and paint. He could make things with his hands. His inquiring mind made him a keen reader. To use an old-fashioned word, he was always manly. And although his uncle Lord Mountbatten tried, Philip refused to be enlisted in the court’s ancient quarrels and petty intrigues. He looked at it all with the fresh eyes of an outsider.

    As one senior royal counsellor puts it, Prince Philip brought ‘red corpuscules’ to the institution of monarchy. Hereditary systems tend to grow weak and inward-looking. Prince Philip was neither: he was mentally and physically tough. If he had not married Princess Elizabeth, he would surely have become an admiral. He wanted things to be shipshape, unfussy, practical, prepared for storms. His office worked like clock-work. He answered every letter at once. He was decisive, direct, unbedazzled by grandeur, unpompous. He knew that the modern world was a hard place for monarchy, but it held no fears for him, and he tried unsentimentally to adapt the institution to the age. He was probably more aware of this need than the Queen herself, who knew no other milieu.

    Indeed, he was fascinated by the modern world, and more adventurous than his wife in studying it. Like Victoria’s Albert, but with a sense of humour, Prince Philip was keenly interested in what was new. He followed developments in science and technology. He had a feeling for business and was ahead of his time in his interest in the free-market theories of the Institute of Economic Affairs as early as the 1960s.

    Before the word ‘environment’ was invented in its modern sense, the Duke of Edinburgh was its advocate, partly through his long presidency of the World Wildlife Fund. Behind the gruff, practical exterior, there was a reflective man. Prince Philip was interested in religion, and analytical in his approach. In 1966, he founded St George’s House, Windsor – the centre for meetings between different faiths and denominations, believers and atheists, clergy and scientists. Such dialogue is taken for granted now, but when it began, it was bold. He published a thoughtful short book of letters exchanged with the Dean of Windsor, in which he sought to reconcile evolution with Christianity.

    Without any priggishness, he had a strong moral sense. As a teenager in the mid-1930s, on a school exchange in Germany, he defended a Jewish boy there who was being insulted. Some of his German princely relations were pro-Nazi, but he always made his own views clear.

    The young Philip had learnt from Kurt Hahn, his Jewish headmaster at Gordonstoun, the self-reliance which, with his strange and solitary upbringing, he particularly needed. He was made “Guardian” (head boy) of the school and absorbed the idea of leadership as a form of service. This, with its relation to the great outdoors, inspired him to create the vastly successful Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme. The phrase “a breath of fresh air” could have been made for Prince Philip, and it sums up his beliefs. He always loved a good practical project. In the 1990s, for instance, he took charge of the enormous task of restoring Windsor Castle after the fire. He loved finding the best craftsmen for the work.

    When he married Princess Elizabeth in 1947, Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten did not expect that his wife would soon be on the throne: King George VI was still in his early fifties. With the shockingly early death of the King in 1952, he had to adopt an inevitably subsidiary role much earlier than he had expected. This was not easy for such a man of action and independence, and there were tensions at first. But he had the strength of character not to go on strike.

    Sometimes, certainly, he became irritated, but he recognised that his wife’s role was of national, Commonwealth, and indeed global importance. He admired the way she carried it out, and did his best to help her. He took a long view, privately remarking 50 years ago, that the Queen was idolised in her youth, was then regarded with less interest in her middle age, but would end up deeply loved when old. So it has proved. He was also encouraging. With a surprising gallantry which belied his reputation for abruptness, he would often tell the Queen on the way to an official engagement how beautiful she was looking. Theirs was an astonishing partnership – founded on love at first sight in her case, and sustained by deep mutual respect over three quarters of a century.

    Although Prince Philip had such a strong personality, and never hesitated to express his views bluntly, he also knew his place. Throughout her nearly 70 years on the throne, the Queen has seen state papers almost every day. Her husband never saw them. He never asked to see them, never tried to guess what was in them, never plotted. Although keenly interested in politics and public affairs, he never betrayed the slightest ghost of a party preference, never tried to implicate the Queen in any particular opinion, never betrayed her thoughts to the world. He simply gave her his honest view.

    In a constitutional monarchy, the mistakes not made are almost as important as the positive things done. It is true that Prince Philip had a reputation for ‘gaffes’. These were politically incorrect, off-the-cuff remarks, often jokes, often misinterpreted by bores or exaggerated by journalists. They arose from his dislike of small talk and his idiosyncratic humour. But serious mistakes – overstepping his role, seeking to wield power, corruption, failure in duty – of these there were none.

    Some criticise him as a father. His daughter, Princess Anne, responded happily to her father’s robust and challenging style. For the more sensitive Prince Charles, however, it was harder. With the young Queen so busy with official duties, the main parental decisions were made by Prince Philip. It was he who insisted on sending Charles to Gordonstoun, not Eton. The regimen did not suit his eldest son. Charles felt that the Gordonstoun idea of a Training Plan against which one daily measured one’s fitness – physical, mental and moral – for life, was a permanent exam which he permanently failed. Sensing this, and frustrated by it, Prince Philip could be impatient: he didn’t like people being “wet”. Some even accused him of belittling the young Charles.

    Fundamentally, however, this was unfair. The Duke of Edinburgh loved his eldest son, and gave him the preparation for kingship which Edward VIII had disastrously lacked. He tried hard to be helpful in Prince Charles’s marital difficulties. It was not the fault of father or of son that they differed so much in temperament.

    Once, I was sitting next to Prince Philip at dinner when he was in his late seventies. The talk turned to retirement. I said I could not imagine him enjoying it, living quietly in the country. His eyes flashed, “I bloody long for it!”, he exclaimed. I suddenly saw how much he had given up for the life of what is called “privilege”. As a very old man, he led a rural life at Wood Farm, a small, plain, secluded house on the Sandringham estate, driving his coach and four until he was 97. He liked things simple: “The walls should be white and the ceiling the same colour as the carpet” was his formula.

    In their famous prayer, sailors remember ‘the fleet in which we serve’. Such service is arduous, but it comes to an end. Prince Philip’s unique service to his adopted country, and to the woman he married, lasted almost until his death. It was service given – though he would have been embarrassed by the word – lovingly, and for more than twice as long as any other consort of a British monarch. In April 1941, Princess Elizabeth, aged 14, asked a girlfriend, Alathea Fitzalan Howard, “Can you keep a secret?”: “Then she said,” Alathea recorded in her diary, “that P was her ‘boy’…she cuts photos out of the paper!” Eighty years on, she has lost her boy at last, and she, like Victoria, is the widow of Windsor.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2021/04/09/prince-philip-rootless-outsider-became-britains-loyal-servant/

  47. Just back from the church where one of our number tolled the bell 41 times to coincide with the London gunfire. A nice gesture, I thought.

    2. He doesn’t seem to be quite tall enough to give the TV set a good thump on the top when it starts to play up.

    3. That reminds me of a goof in Mrs Doubtfire, where Mrs D turned off the TV with the knob on the set, only for one of the children to turn it back on with a remote control.

  49. I recall reading here on NoTTL, and in the press, complaints from British people living abroad that they were unable to attend the funeral of parents and other close relatives – because of the (ludicrous) covid regulation. It caused them considerable sadness (to say nothing of anger).

    I wonder how it is that Brash will be enabled to fly across the Atlantic and rock up at the funeral? Will he be fined? Quarantined? Made to stay at the Heathrow Esso Motor Crest Hotel for ten days?

    Please don’t tell me there is one law for everyone – and another law for Brash…..

    2. I will check with the boss, see what she thinks of this apparent us and them differentiation.

    4. Good point. Currently, to enter the UK you need to quarantine for several days – not sure if there is early release from the ten day quarantine if you cross their palms with silver pay for an extra useless test.

  50. And while on the theme of daft regulations – 30 max at a funeral…..why don’t they arrange Prince Philip’s in Tesco – where several hundred people could attend – AND there would be plenty of parking?

      2. More appropriately there is a branch of Waitrose in Windsor.
        What’s more they are Royal Warrant holders.

      3. Stuff safely. If people want to go, they go. We’re thinking, capable adults, not gormless children the state wants to control.

    2. The nearest symptoms I can find relating to capillary leakage are the appearance of petechiae which are a notifiable side effect during drug trials. I had these whilst undergoing polypharmaceutical treatment for blood pressure from which I withdrew due to intolerable side effects before I realised the significance of such symptoms.

      https://www.healthline.com/health/petechiae-when-to-worry

  52. French winemakers count cost of ‘worst frost in decades’. 10 April 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/31941108a669a633f6a94ceb1795bd1f2359534175d34455918f8da6f4ef3489.jpg

    Government prepares rescue package as rare freezing temperatures damage crops and vines.

    Winemakers across France are counting the cost of several nights of frost this week that threaten to decimate grape harvests in some of the country’s best-known and prestigious wine-producing regions.

    The government is readying an emergency rescue package after rare freezing temperatures that could cause some of the worst damage in decades to crops and vines.

    From Bordeaux to Burgundy and the Rhône Valley to Champagne, winemakers were out in their fields on Friday inspecting the destruction.

    Hmmm? Plonko shortages? One would think that so much wine is now produced world-wide that supplies would hardly be affected; unless you had a thing for French Wine that is. I don’t! Chile is good enough for me!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/09/french-winemakers-frost-government-freezing-temperatures-crops-vines

    3. Years back, there was a sudden, very heavy, over-night frost in Laure – in MAY. Did for the local apple-growing industry tha year.

      1. Used to get that sometimes in the centre of England when I was growing up, and no apples.

    4. On the bright side, if the harvest is ‘decimated’, at least 90% of the harvest will survive.

    5. As they are our friends perhaps we could send them a few tankers of English grape juice concentrate to tide them over……***whistles nonchalantly…

      1. You are too kind, English grape juice is good.

        Send them some juice from the obnoxious concord grapes that grow naturally over here. That will test their mettle, making anything drinkable out of that stuff.

    6. Chile is very good. As are some of the wines from Argentina, Australia and New Zealand.
      I suggested that the French grow the vines in tunnels as we do with raspberries. That would have allowed them to deal with frost. It would also prevent damage by hail, which is generally more serious. Frost cuts volumes produced, but hail taints the wine.

    7. Am I bovvered? Since we voted for Brexit which is when the EU became so vindictive, I always avoid buying any EU produce and that includes French wine.

    1. That’s on the OAZ? What about the other vaccines? This is important as 1 in 5 of people in hospital with Covid have blood clots, so it may be the active ingredient doing the damage, if it is indeed doing so not coincidence.

      Either way, the odds of being killed or damaged by the vaccine are far less than from not having it.

      3. We will not know the answer for some time. Adverse reactions may take months or several years to become apparent. That is not to say that every vaccinated person will die from having taken the vaccine.

        It is obvious that clinical trials of all ‘vaccines’ being touted are minimal and that the mRNA ‘vaccines’ have proven problematic when given to animals. (The ferrets died after subsequent exposure to wild virus in one trial).

        Many eminent immunologists and virologists have pointed to various potential dangers of these ‘novel’ injections.

        No proper risk assessments have been forthcoming and deaths have been reported from within hours and days of injection.

        The combination of fear mongering and wild predictions of doom by Imperial College modellers, in cahoots with Vallance and Van Tam (?) has been tried before and resulted in half a billion pounds being misappropriated for Tamiflu vaccine which was never taken up. There were many severe adverse reactions in those obliged to take the vaccine yet nobody was prosecuted and Glaxo Smith Kline made millions.

  54. Afternoon all.

    Words fail me. The BBC has set up a website for those complaining they want “less coverage” of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh’s death.

    1. They cause so much trouble making people fel so unhappy in the way they repoprt things. I would close the BBC asap.

      1. I could never forgive the BBC for its incompetent coverage of The Thames Pageant celebration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. It’s coverage of more or less every event has been downhill ever since.

    3. “Too much programming about Prince Philip”, apparently.
      Where’s the complaints website about too much George fucking Floyd programming?

    4. I always enjoy watching the final two rounds of the Masters’ Golf Tournament on BBC 2 on Saturday and Sunday evening.

      I should imagine many old buffers like me used to look forward to it so, in order to spite us, the pieces of faecal matter at the BBC have decided not to show it any more.

    5. The issue isn’t having less coverage, it is playing a saturation coverage on all channels simultaneously, thus denying people the choice of other programmes. I’m a royalist with huge respect for the DofE but I think the BBC forcing their coverage on all was wrong, something that IMO he’d object to too.

    8. That reminds me of the Great Storm of 1987, during which an elderly woman kept phoning 999, complaining that her TV aerial had broken free and was banging against her bedroom window, keeping her awake.

  55. In the late 1960s the late Duke of Edinburgh flew in by helicopter (allegedly piloted by himself) to open a new extension to our food research laboratories in Carshalton, Surrey. I had already held a pilot’s licence for 10 years and had done a lot of hanging around airfields.

    The managers in the welcoming party hadn’t appreciated how powerful was the downdraught from a Westland Wessex (max. 6 tonnes loaded) and the big (and empty) red-painted oil drums marking the landing site were blown about everywhere (so was the bosses’ hair). A big laugh for us technicians watching from upstairs windows.

    We knew he enjoyed wine and I had been asked to show him a highly magnified image of some tiny asbestos fibres which we had centrifuged out of wine that had been filtered through asbestos mats (now banned I believe).

    Years before I had been on an Outward Bound mountaineering course and so was deliberately wearing an OB tie (gold ropes on a navy background) and as he was Patron of Outward Bound his sharp eyes spotted the tie and he commented. A charming man when speaking to youngsters. Sad that he didn’t quite achieve his Century.

    1. He would almost certainly have been flying, having got his wings in the mid-fifties and flying until the late 90s. By all accounts he was a competent pilot, unlike Andrew who was a joke amongst the military pilots I worked with (2 tours in RAF Germany with the Harrier and Support Helicopter Forces) and whom I saw make several landings, all cr@p.

      1. He couldn’t march in step either. He joined a parade going down the Mall some years ago. Went to the front left hand side and joined in. Wrong footing everyone.

      2. Dale, the late Prince Philip passed his Private Pilots Licence in 1959, a year after me, although he got his RAF wings in 1953 and his helicopter wings in 1956.

        In connection with my earlier post today, when I learned to fly in 1958 aged 17 (with a National Flying Scholarship – I could never have afforded it otherwise) a bunch of us schoolkids were taught at the Wiltshire School of Flying in De Havilland Tiger Moths and also Thruxton Jackaroos, some of the rarest aircraft in existence. Here is a link:
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thruxton_Jackaroo

        The latter were built at Thruxton airfield from 1957 by buying up old Tiger Moths, cutting them in half and widening the fuselage to take 4 seats then sticking a canopy on top. They added a steel propellor and created an amazingly cheap and well-behaved four-seater with a shirtsleeve-environment instead of the windy, 70-knot gale that always blew into the open-cockpit Tiger Moth. Only 19 were ever built (or rather converted).

        Most of us went solo after as little as 12 hours (8 hours 55 minutes in my case) and we had no radios and no parachutes – an encouragement to bring the plane back!

        After passing my Private Pilot’s Licence tests I was allowed to fly solo to Bristol in Jackaroo G-AOEX and flew over my parents’ house while they waved a sheet in the back garden. On the way back to Wiltshire the cloud base got lower and lower, down to 800 feet. With no radio or other navigation aids I spied a river next to a railway, both near a White Horse carved in a hillside. “That looks a unique grouping” I thought, looking down at the map on my lap (no GPS then).

        Alas, there are eight visible White Horses in that area of Wiltshire alone, so I descended to 250 feet above ground to read the name (Westbury Railway Station) and located myself. At that height I could see in the distance the 404 foot spire of Salisbury Cathedral, so it was a relative doddle to navigate home, flying illegally (as it proved later) right across the atomic bombing range on Salisbury Plain.

        My elder son also has a Pilot’s Licence and we frequently used to criss-cross the South of England in his 4 man syndicate Piper Arrow. But the experience is far more heavily controlled these days – you spend a good deal of time calling up the controlled air spaces and military airfields that you may have to cross en route. But at least you now have GPS which shows your current position within 10 feet and you can always call a nearby airfield and ask for a “Check Steer” to give you direction and distance to land in emergency.

        I ceased sport flying locally when Manston Airfield closed in May 2014.

        By the way, I still have the Pilots Handling Notes book for the DH82A Tiger Moth. It comprises just 15 small pages, 4.75 x 7 inches (182 x 120mm). My latest dishwasher has a 96-page User Guide. There’s progress!

        1. Somewhere I have a set of Pilot’s Notes for a Tiger Moth. A nice machine to fly, I thought.

      3. When I was serving in the Royal Air Force I marshalled him in at RAF West Raynham. He was flying a Beverly and I knew I had to have his nose-wheel on the mark, as he checks and I’d have had a bollocking before he walked of to his waiting Alvis – presumably en route to Sandringham.

        Apropos the Beverly, if I signalled him to go back he could have.

        Happy days in 1962, Cuba notwithstanding.

      1. Bob3: He visited BIBRA (the British Industrial Biological Research Association – what a mouthful!) in Woodmansterne Road, Carshalton, opposite The Oaks Park and on the same site as a Medical Research Council’s research lab. It was funded 50% by the Food, Additives and Colourings industries whose funds were matched pound for pound by the Govt. and later from EU funds like FEOGA* (i.e. our money coming back less a slice).
        I worked there from 1966 to 1978, with a break in the USA from 1969-1970. Do you know the area?

        * Fonds Europeen d’Orientation et de Garantie Agricole

        1. Yes I only live a few miles away from there, I think is is gone now.
          Nice houses on there now.

  56. In the late 1960s the late Duke of Edinburgh flew in by helicopter (allegedly piloted by himself) to open a new extension to our food research laboratories in Carshalton, Surrey. I had already held a pilot’s licence for 10 years and had done a lot of hanging around airfields.

    The managers in the welcoming party hadn’t appreciated how powerful was the downdraught from a Westland Wessex (max. 6 tonnes loaded) and the big (and empty) red-painted oil drums marking the landing site were blown about everywhere (so was the bosses’ hair). A big laugh for us technicians watching from upstairs windows.

    We knew he enjoyed wine and I had been asked to show him a highly magnified image of some tiny asbestos fibres which we had centrifuged out of wine that had been filtered through asbestos mats (now banned I believe).

    Years before I had been on an Outward Bound mountaineering course and so was deliberately wearing an OB tie (gold ropes on a navy background) and as he was Patron of Outward Bound his sharp eyes spotted the tie and he commented. A charming man when speaking to youngsters. Sad that he didn’t quite achieve his Century.

  57. I saw a bit of the BBC this morning. Covid-19 has vanished. Disappeared, unmentioned. No reports, no statistics, no 5 minutes of fame for unwashed virologists and academics. No sob stories from sob sisters about their canceled holidays. It must be all over. Free At Last!

    1. ‘We apologise for the interruption in fearmongering. Abnormal service will resume shortly’.

      1. Yo Fizz

        We apologise for the interruption in fearmongering. Abnormal service will resume shortly’.after ramadamadingdong

  58. Maybe there are NOTTLers who can help me on this question. I have been reading the DM article about the ancient township? city? discovered in Egypt. It appears to be beside an established road near a busy tourist spot. Although I have never been to Egypt I know it is big, but is it really possible that over the past century or so of discoveries in the Luxor area that nobody had stumbled across these remains before?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9456807/First-look-inside-Egypts-lost-golden-city.html

    2. Afternoon Anne. Yes quite possible. It has been estimated that only10% of the archaeological history of Egypt has been uncovered.

    3. Afternoon Anne. Yes quite possible. It has been estimated that only10% of the archaeological history of Egypt has been uncovered.

  60. Off topic
    I note that Biden, or rather his controllers, is taking yet another step towards the ruination of America, by investigating how he can alter the make-up of the Supreme Court. Even one of the three Democrat appointees is saying it’s a bad idea and that’s after Ginsberg made similar comments before her death.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9456255/Liberals-call-Supreme-Court-Justice-Stephen-Breyer-retire-criticized-court-packing.html

      1. They deserve everything they will get; the pity is that it could well take down Western Civilisation, such as it is, with it.

        1. Its pretty much had it already Sos. We are simply waiting for the Barbarians to take over!

          1. Sadly i feel that too. We have been in decline at least since the Boer War. Now we have invited in our enemies to speed the process.

            I wonder what the globalists plans are for handling the Caliphate.

          2. Afternoon Phizzee. They will have nice comfortable eclaves protected by mercenaries!

          3. Good afternoon, Minty.

            I think they may have misjudged. An enclave is another word for a prison giving the freedom to roam to the enemy.

          4. Yes the question of whether the walls keep them out or you in is a matter of viewpoint!

          5. We should follow the lead from the Monster Raving Loony Party, who wanted the Channel Tunnel diverted to thr US

            We should redirect the Dover RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) convoy to the US, too.

            More immygrunts will keep Biden Happy

          7. 331352+ up ticks,
            AS,
            Instead of waiting would it not be an idea to try, for once, via the polling booth, a defence of the realm campaign ?

            I know it is against the usual voting grain and will make many of the electorate unhappy, but just for once
            prior to the Nation being totally annihilated .

        1. 331352+ up ticks,
          Afternoon AS,
          “Putting up with it” we are giving it consent via the polling booth again & again.

      3. The scale of the fraud was breathtaking, but Trump might be observing the principle of “Never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake”.

        Quietly biding his time for next year’s mid-term election, when the entire House is up for grabs and one third of the Senate too.

        I could imagine Trump running and becoming Speaker of the Senate. What fun!

    2. I read somewhere that one or more Trump appointees to the Supreme Court had agreed to resile from voting on election matters as a condition of their appointments.

      This might explain the otherwise inexplicable vote of the Supreme Court not to take the various appeals such as from the Texas governor and other states.

      1. To maintain independence from political issues I can well understand why.

        The problem is, that by not adjudicating, they may well ensure their own demise.

          1. They thought that by appeasing China Joe there comfy sinecures for life would be spared interference. They seem not to have noticed that Joe is a crooked congenital liar. Lies and deceit are his modus operandi.

    3. If their Supreme Court nedes to be changed, it should be by removing political control over selection of new justices.

      It is a court to rule on constitutional matters,why do the appointed need to be republican or democrat?

      1. The whole thing is determined by their Constitution.

        It’s worked reasonably well.
        Many times the Court has decided matters in a way that has seriously annoyed the politicians.

        Long may it continue; if Biden and Co. get their way it will just become an arm of whatever party is in power. It will expand and expand like the UK H-o-L as appointees are added to get the “balance” that the politicians need.

        Leave well alone.

  61. Prince Philip’s funeral to take place next Saturday in Windsor. The Duke has made the hearse in a Land Rover which the mourners will walk behind. He will be laid to rest in a vault at Windsor.

      1. It’s going to be a simple ceremony but it will be televised. The Duke altered the Land Rover to be the hearse.

    2. I didn’t believe the ‘Land Rover hearse’ thing initially; its now confirmed by SKY News!

  62. A curious historical note. The message from King Felipe of Spain was addressed to his “Aunt Lilibet”. A bit odd, I thought – from a Spick. Then I delved a little.

    Through his mother, the Dowager Queen Sophia – he is descended from Queen Victoria. As is the Queen (and the late Duke of Edinburgh).

    The amazing legacy that Queen Victoria left.

    1. Her legacy is extraordinary through her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

      I wonder if Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s offspring will be equally widespread.
      Perhaps one will become POTUS, that would be a real full circle.

      2. It will have to be the next brat. Preses have to be born in the US.

        Surely the woke couple will be democrats. The kid might be hard pushed explaining how daddy is a royal.

        2. I suspect that you’ve taken my comment too literally.

          I also suspect that you underestimate my knowledge of US governance.

      3. If they can vote for China Joe there is more chance of the Democrat fraudsters voting for Meghan Markle.

        Then again, Boris was born in New York and evidently holds dual citizenship but I would not wish that bastard on anyone.

        1. Undoubtedly, but the US has a tendency to vote dynasties, so if Meghan got it, then so might a child or grandchild and thus HMEIIR’s descendants might yet get there.

  63. That’s me for the day. Managed to get out in the wind-swept, chilly garden for a couple of hours. Let us hope that there is some sunshine tomorrow.

    Apparently there IS one law for us and a special one for Brash. He will be accorded a “diplomatic exception” to the rules that apply to everyone else in the United Kingdom. Handy, eh? Hope he has cleared his absence as Chief Impactless Officer with his weird company boss. Oh, and his other boss, too.

    A demain.

    1. My revenge is to refer to vaxx passports!
      If they’re going to label me “anti vaxx” (which is not true), then let’s be clear about what I’m opposing!

  69. Evening, all. I doubt we shall see the like of the Duke of Edinburgh again. His sons don’t seem to be cut from the same cloth. I would have put the flagpole up to fly the union flag at half mast, but the weather has been so foul; sleet, snow, biting wind and near zero temperatures. Spring? What’s that?

      1. Looks like I’d better re-light the Rayburn (the oil doesn’t cope with low external temperatures) and dress up like Nanook of the North tomorrow.

          1. The new place, despite dating from the seventies, is rather better insulated than the old place. For a start, it doesn’t have 19 Crittall windows. I brought my Nest thermostat here. It’s set to 16 degrees at 8 am, and 12 degrees at 11 pm. If it feels chilly, I ask Alexa to set the heat to n degrees. The app logs the actual use of the heating. At the moment, I’m heating the place for around two hours a day. In the last week, there have been two days when the heating didn’t fire up at all.

        2. We thought we’d have been done with the woodburning until the autumn by now.
          Fat chance of that at the moment.

    3. I read somewhere, on this page perhaps, that a cold spell at this time of year is referred to as a “Blackthorn Winter”.

  70. Never met the D of E, but I did attend a garden party at Buck House for the 50th anniversary of his award scheme. I was merely “plus one” – my then partner was somewhat involved in the scheme. Nor did I meet ‘Brenda’, but I must admit, she makes lovely sandwiches. An earlier former GF’s father, Ernest, was Captain of a Corvette in the Arctic Convoys. He was uncannily like Phil the Greek in appearance, temperament and bearing. He was of the same generation, and sadly died a few years ago, but his widow is still going strong, having reached her centenary last Summer in the midst of lockdown restrictions. I visited her two or three years back, and found that she had been to a reunion of convoy types, and met my old Headmaster, Joe Rawlings, whose wartime history was the same as Ernest’s. Us mere pupils never knew his impressive backstory. He lived beyond 100, too. We don’t make people like this anymore.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c17459fb24768e36e76371d00e4fe9298ae48a423cf36c91c0bd9e4f8c938946.jpg Having inherited my Dad’s dry sense of humour, I have always had a soft spot for Prince Philip. His so-called ‘gaffes’ were anything but, rather they helped him get through the mundane engagements, and put the ‘plebs’ he met at ease. RIP, your Highness.

      1. Brill… Ex partner’s eldest joined the RAF, was ultimately a Typhoon pilot, was promoted to Sqn Ldr and immediately became redundant. He now trains Saudis to do the same, for BAe. He married a colleague at Cranwell. I had the honour of playing one of the RAF’s two organs there. Followed by a flypast by the BBME, then a bloody good piss up…

          1. Sadly not. On the night of Ben and Kirsty’s wedding, the Officers Mess fire alarm went off at least twice. His leased Hyundai mysteriously appeared at the top of the steps, wrapped in cling film and various other stuff.

            Ben was the Typhoon display pilot for the Battle of Britain 50th anniversary Typhoon / Spitfire display. Saw it at Fairford. Brilliant.

    2. The Queen and Prince Philip opened the building for which I was project architect at Rampayne Street, built above Pimlico Underground Station, for the Crown Estate Commissioners. My boss, William Whitfield was totally at ease and gave the Queen a tour of my building and the Duke of Edinburgh was obliged to accompany the architect John Taylor of the rebarbative neighbour, designed by Chapman Taylor Partners, both buildings pre-let to administration departments of the Metropolitan Police.

      We were entertained by the Metropolitan Police Band in the building courtyard during the inspections. There was a scaffold dais on which sat ‘E.T.’ Sir Kenneth Newman the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, the then Home Secretary Leon Brittain and other assorted lackeys of the British state.

      The Queen was introduced to Eduardo Paolozzi, the sculptor we engaged to design part of the visible air conditioning system cooling towers and reportedly remarked to Eduardo: “We have met before”.

      1. I worked on “The Lanes” development in Carlisle. The Duke of Gloucester opened it. Most of the site staff assembled on the First Floor, and peered out of a window to watch the proceedings. This was unacceptable – we were summarily dispersed by SPG thugs. Despite being somewhat (by 300 miles) outside the sphere of influence of the Met.

        1. I did meet the Duke of Gloucester when the Westminster Society, of which he was Patron, awarded my building, Richmond House Whitehall, a special award. From memory the meeting of the Society was held in Westminster School.

          When I lived in Cambridge 1983-1993 it was well known that the Duke of Gloucester had occupied a house in the same street presumably when a student (presumably of Architecture). His house was at one end of Victoria Street and, curiously, the premises of the Spitting Image cartoon programmes were at the opposite end of the street.

          It has always been a small world of contrasts.

        2. I did meet the Duke of Gloucester when the Westminster Society, of which he was Patron, awarded my building, Richmond House Whitehall, a special award. From memory the meeting of the Society was held in Westminster School.

          When I lived in Cambridge 1983-1993 it was well known that the Duke of Gloucester had occupied a house in the same street presumably when a student (presumably of Architecture). His house was at one end of Victoria Street and, curiously, the premises of the Spitting Image cartoon programmes were at the opposite end of the street.

          It has always been a small world of contrasts.

  71. Our PM will not attend the funeral. He has given up his place to a family member, The Duke of Sussex is on the list to attend.

    2. How presumptuous that he thinks he would have been invited. Disgusting oaf that he is.

  73. DM Story

    Philip’s funeral could be Harry’s chance to repair ‘deep damage’ caused by Oprah interview, royal experts say – as the Prince ‘speaks to Charles, Beatrice and Eugenie and plans return while pregnant Meghan Markle will stay in the US’

    The trouble is that Harry will have to admit that he has married a slut who has done her best to exploit him and his family to gain the maximum advantage for herself.

    Can he do this? And will the rest of the family ever forgive him unless he is capable of some sincere contrition?

    2. You must recall the parable of the prodigal son. Whatever Brash does he will be embraced by the Royal Family and forgiven his errors of judgement. It is what Christian families have been taught by scripture to do.

      I just wish the Queen will agree to pay for the extravagances of these two and pack him off as Governor of Bermuda or some such honorific posting where he and his wife can feel important, entertain Hollywood cretins and indulge themselves and do less damage to the Monarchy.

      When Sophie of Wessex embarrassed the Queen whilst being deceived by the ‘Fake Sheikh’, a sick journalist, the Queen took control. She paid the Wessex bills and evidently developed a warm personal relationship with Sophie.

      1. Don’t think that would suit Me again Markle, I think she’s where she wants and feels she ought to be and thatHarry will have to go along with things for a while at least. Soon there will be two children and maybe in five years or so he will eventually return to the U.K.

      2. Sophie Wessex wamted to continue to earn her living – but I don’t think the Queen should pay for Harry’s extravangance and nor should he be rewarded with a royal sinecure.

    4. He should be there to pay his respects and show support for the family. Good job she won’t be coming – she would not be welcome.

  74. You never can know who will make successful marriages.

    In the royal family only Edward – the most under-appreciated of the Queen and her husband’s children – made an outstandingly good choice and in the next generation down William has made a very successful choice unlike his brother. It is too soon to tell if Andrew’s children’s choices have been good but Princess Anne’s daughter, Zara, and Mike Tyndall are clearly very happy together.

    It is often very similar in our own families. My parent’s and Caroline’s parents were happily married for over 50 years but one of my two sisters made an unhappy marriage as did Caroline’s two sisters. Is it just good luck or is it good judgement that my elder sister and myself made the best choices of our lives when we married?

    1. Luck generally imho. I reflect on my first marriage which lasted for 27 years and ask myself whether I would have made a different choice. No, we were content for many years, there was nothing there at the beginning that would have indicated what was to happen. However, the strains of life in general and the loss of two children over the years put a heavy strain on the relationship, and it ended. I have been married to the new Mrs Pea for some 12 years and we get on very well but I know that the future is unpredictable. One thing, I have become more tolerant in my dotage and try and ignore what I don’t like. Perhaps that’s why old gits become hard of hearing.

      1. Nasty sp mistake corrected for those who spotted it. The ipad is not the best keyboard for typing.

        1. Spotted, but ignored given the heart-rending context. Such an awful thing to live with/through.

      2. My parents marriage lasted 46 years until my father’s early death at 69.
        But only the first 15 years were happy. They both changed irrevocably after my youngest brother’s long illness and death 30 years into their marriage.
        My mother became a different person. The younger children have no idea of the of the more gentle, happy mother I and my elder sister experienced.
        My dear father simply suffered in silence. I believe he died of a broken heart.

        Would it have been better if they had divorced? Who knows. I doubt it.
        Life’s tragedy.

    2. In my family my parents, two sisters and vw and me all married in excess of 50 years. My eldest brother was married for 48 years before his untimely death and would have remained so otherwise. The younger of my two brother liked marriage so much that he did it three times.

      Our daughter has been married for 30 years and our son for 20 years.

      I don’t know if it’s luck or kindness that has kept us together but we have never tried to change each other. We all have differences but we married knowing those differences and continue to accept them although I can’t remember what they were.

      We still love each other and are never afraid to say so.

  75. Former US president Donald Trump said Friday that the death of Britain’s Prince Philip was an “irreplaceable” loss to his country and expressed his and wife Melania’s “heartfelt sympathies” to Queen Elizabeth II and her family.

    “The world mourns the passing of Prince Philip, a man who embodied the noble soul and proud spirit of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth,” Trump said in a statement.

    “This is an irreplaceable loss for Great Britain, and for all who hold dear our civilization,” he said.

    “Prince Philip defined British dignity and grace. He personified the quiet reserve, stern fortitude, and unbending integrity of the United Kingdom,” he said.

    Trump is the most classy of the Americans, leaving the banalities of the Obamas and China Joe Biden in his wake.

    1. morning, all good I trust. May or may not be of interest, stepping away from Duke of Ed thread for a mo, this is in the wings scheduled for 9th July : Cyber Pandemic and response to staging of supply chain attack simulation. A live Cyber Polygon exercise simulating the take down of the digital grid. These rehearsals target small, mediu businesses. the usual “expets – Schwab, Blair, Gates etc. etc. The next step beyond the ovid simulation https://cyberpolygon.com/news/bezopasnoe-razvitie-tsifrovykh-ekosistem-stanet-glavnoy-temoy-mezhdunarodnogo-cyber-polygon/ and gaining traction on non MSM.

    1. morning and thank you Geoff. Usual Sunday am here in Nairobi, opening closed bars at 11am, well sitting in what passes for a beer garden while pub stays closed, and usual “service via the hatch”. And timed to coincide when people go to church

Comments are closed.