Tuesday 20 April: The European Super League clubs cannot buy tradition, their lifeblood

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/04/19/letters-european-super-league-clubs-cannot-buy-tradition-lifeblood/

466 thoughts on “Tuesday 20 April: The European Super League clubs cannot buy tradition, their lifeblood”

  6. This is what happens if you don’t appease your taniwha…

    New Zealand pushes aside Five Eyes to focus on China

    South Pacific nation puts itself at odds with UK and others in intelligence-sharing network by pursuing closer ties to the Communist state

    By Robert Mendick, CHIEF REPORTER
    19 April 2021 • 10:56pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2021/04/19/TELEMMGLPICT000243502279_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqyEjiwRxpttO7rhhf-__5WoPbOSS0RPTLU4yL8gL68Po.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Nanaia Mahuta, New Zealand’s foreign minister, left, with Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister

    New Zealand has broken with its “Five Eyes” intelligence partners, including the UK, as it pursues a closer alliance with China, its largest trading partner.

    New Zealand’s foreign minister said she would not allow the intelligence alliance to dictate the country’s dealings with China, putting it at odds with the other members of the ‘Five Eyes’ alliance: the UK, US, Canada and Australia.

    Tensions between Beijing and Washington have been rising in recent years, while in March Britain and China imposed tit-for-tat sanctions stemming from human rights abuses committed against Uyghur Muslims. Australia’s robust criticism of China’s human rights record in recent months has resulted in punitive levies on more than a dozen Australian exports, including wine.

    Intelligence sources in the UK insisted they were not concerned by comments made by Nanaia Mahuta, who was appointed New Zealand’s foreign minister following Jacinda Ardern’s re-election last year. Sources suggested there was a difference of opinion on a specific issue over the issuing of joint statements on China but stressed this was not “a fracturing of the relationship” of the Five Eyes alliance.

    The Five Eyes network, which was established during the Cold War as a means for the five countries to collect and share intelligence, expanded its role last year to include the promotion of “shared values” on democracy and human rights. That included issuing a statement criticising China’s suppression of protests in Hong Kong.

    New Zealand’s attempts to now distance itself from the Five Eyes alliance will inevitably open up Ms Ardern to allegations that her administration is ignoring abuses in Hong Kong and against Uyghur Muslims in order to preserve and grow its trading relationship with China. Recent figures show 29 per cent of New Zealand’s exports are sold to China.

    In her speech to the New Zealand China Council, Ms Mahuta said Five Eyes should not stray from its scope of intelligence-sharing between member nations.

    “We are uncomfortable with expanding the remit of the Five Eyes relationship,” she said.

    “We would much rather prefer to look for multilateral opportunities to express our interests on a number of issues.”

    New Zealand had previously been reluctant to sign joint statements from Five Eyes partners criticising China, including on the crackdown on Hong Kong’s democracy movement and the recent arrests of activists in the city.

    Officials in New Zealand have not previously addressed the issue but Ms Mahuta said Wellington wanted to chart its own course in dealings with China.

    She said: “New Zealand has been very clear … not to invoke the Five Eyes as the first point of contact on messaging out on a range of issues. We’ve not favoured that type of approach and have expressed that to Five Eyes partners.”

    Ms Mahuta, 50, described the China-New Zealand relationship as one between a “dragon and taniwha”, in reference to a serpent-like creature from Maori myth.

    She said: “I see the taniwha and the dragon as symbols of the strength of our particular customs, traditions and values, that aren’t always the same, but need to be maintained and respected. And on that virtue we have together developed the mature relationship we have today.”

    The comments come just months after New Zealand’s trade minister urged Australia to show more “respect” to Beijing.

    1. She said: “I see the taniwha and the dragon as symbols of the strength of our particular customs, traditions and values, that aren’t always the same, but need to be maintained and respected. And on that virtue we have together developed the mature relationship we have today.”

      More commonly known as Political Fellatio!

    2. Hmm. Bad choice.
      Norway is becoming anxious about Chinese here – there was a piece in Aftenposten about a Chinese-made ferry in the fjords being tracked by Defence, as it seemed to be transmitting information that it shouldn’t have been…

    3. That’s really bad news. With a Blair-trained leader, New Zealand has been a busted flush for some time now though. Where will all the billionnaires re-locate their nuclear bunkers to now?

    5. The majority of the population of New Zealand appears to have gone completely mad. They keep electing this toothy lunatic. What has happened to the grit and determination of Kiwis?

  7. The European Super League clubs cannot buy tradition, their lifeblood

    The EUSSR is still intent on ripping the social fabric of the UK apart

    1. Morning OLT. In a Globalised World the monetisation of every single activity is inevitable!

  8. Are fitting rooms not to be used anywhere, and should we have known, or is it at the discretion of the shop?

    Dr M C Moore Woodbridge, Suffolk

    More to to the point, what on earth is a ‘daughter’, who is old enough to be looking for work clothes, doing so with her parents.

    I suppose Mummy or Daddy will have to drive her to work, then wait outside at knocking off time to take her home

    3. Probably one of those ghostly females whose mother is ‘their best friend’. Or a mother who won’t let go.

  9. Anti-Semitism
    Two Arab gentlemen are sitting on either side of a Jewish rabbi on a crowded aeroplane. The Arabs say they want a cola.

    The rabbi, who has slipped off his shoes, says “I will get it for you.”

    The Arabs protest but the rabbi insists and jumps up to get the colas. While he is gone, each Arab picks up one of his shoes and spits into it.

    The rabbi returns with the colas and takes his seat. When the plane is ready to land, the rabbi slips on his shoes and knows immediately what has happened.

    He launches into this big speech about a thousand years of conflict and says, “All of this has to end… this spitting in each other’s shoes, this pissing in each other’s colas…“

  10. the late Sir Donald Gosling had left £50 million in his will towards a new Royal yacht.
    What has become of this significant bequest?

    Simon Bathurst Brown Camberley, Surrey

    Being looked after by Nigerian Princes and Mr Rashid

  11. The new Royal Yacht

    The new surveillance ship could also take on the function of a Royal Yacht and trade ambassador.

    I am sure, that countries would be pleased to open the ports to a friendly Spy ship.which
    listens hard whilst some third rate Royal Royal chats about trade

    1. Call me naïve but I had assumed he had meant a new survey ship, as in hydrographic surveys.

      1. Hi naïve

        The RN has (or had) a trade,
        Communications Technicians, secret squirrels, who listen in other
        transmissions, where ever the ship goes

        The Survey
        Ships Hecla , Hecate Endurance etc boats did secret stuff, like finding
        deep holes to hide subs in, but they were notSurveillance Ships

  12. Good morning all.
    Another bright and clear morning with a slightly less cold 0°C in the yard.

    So, is today the day when we have confirmed how corrupt the American legal system is?

    1. I suspect you may have to wait. IMO Whatever their verdict, the jury will want to show that they have spent some time considering the evidence in order to avoid seeming prejudiced.

      Whilst they’re only dramas, the Law & Order series in all their forms frequently shows politics interfering with court cases. Even where politics and appearances don’t come into play, Money buys a much better response from Justice.

      It beats me how the jurors can come to a fair verdict when it is clear that they will be in fear of their and their families’ lives if they give the ‘wrong’ verdict.

      Whatever the verdict, it will further divide the US and will be used as an excuse for violence and mayhem by those who have envy and hatred in their hearts for people they see as better than them.

    2. I suspect you may have to wait. IMO Whatever their verdict, the jury will want to show that they have spent some time considering the evidence in order to avoid seeming prejudiced.

      Whilst they’re only dramas, the Law & Order series in all their forms frequently shows politics interfering with court cases. Even where politics and appearances don’t come into play, Money buys a much better response from Justice.

      It beats me how the jurors can come to a fair verdict when it is clear that they will be in fear of their and their families’ lives if they give the ‘wrong’ verdict.

      Whatever the verdict, it will further divide the US and will be used as an excuse for violence and mayhem by those who have envy and hatred in their hearts for people they see as better than them.

  13. Boris Johnson to host meeting with football bosses and fans over European Super League. 20 April 2021.

    Boris Johnson said he was “going to do everything I can to give this ludicrous plan a straight red”

    Boris Johnson will today host a round table with representatives from football governing bodies including the FA and the Premier League as well as fans’ representatives to discuss the proposed European Super League.

    This is an object lesson in Modern Government. The Party sees all; hears all, knows all. There is nothing that is beneath its notice or that it can’t fix. What you eat, what you drink, what you watch. They have the answer! They will Protect you, Mother you. Just relax and do as they say and all will be well!

    Above these an immense tutelary power is elevated, which alone takes charge of assuring their enjoyments and watching over their fate. It is absolute, detailed, regular, far-seeing, and mild. It would resemble paternal power if, like that, it had for its object to prepare men for manhood; but on the contrary, it seeks only to keep them fixed irrevocably in childhood …

    Thus, after taking each individual by turns in its powerful hands and kneading him as it likes, the sovereign extends its arms over society as a whole; it covers its surface with a network of small, complicated, painstaking, uniform rules through which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot clear a way to surpass the crowd; it does not break wills, but it softens them, bends them, and directs them; it rarely forces one to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one’s acting; it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, compromises, enervates, extinguishes, dazes, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepherd.

    Alexis de Tocqueville. Democracy in America.

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/european-super-league-premier-league-boris-johnson-straight-red-b930580.html

    1. But think of the votes to be gained from seeming to take a stand for the little man against the rich and powerful.

      Of course, this issue should be nothing if the government’s business, a stance a previous Conservative government took when the Premier League was founded in 1992.

      1. But think of the votes to be gained from seeming to take a stand for the little man against the rich and powerful.

        I don’t doubt their motives but they are as always self-interested and ignoble ones!

      2. But think of the votes to be gained from seeming to take a stand for the little man against the rich and powerful.

        I don’t doubt their motives but they are as always self-interested and ignoble ones!

      3. Alternatively, support for the immensely fat cats at FIFA and others. Mr Sepp Blatter will fill you in with the details.

  14. I laughed at the Premier League organisation decrying the possible breakaway of the top clubs and their setting up a new league to monopolise TV money. It would be Karma for their doing just that to everyone else in 1992

  15. SWMBO has had a great thought,

    in the spirit of charity, ASDA is forcing food onto Muslims, during Ramadan, their period of fasting

    Next, they will be

    giving free beer to the AA (not the Car Breakdown lot)

    St James’ Bibles to Celtic supporters

    Union Flags to Wee Jimmy Krankie

  16. Morning all

    SIR – The quaestuary 12 football clubs creating the European Super League have forgotten in their avariciousness the vital element of successful sporting competition: tradition.

    The European Cup and Fairs/Uefa Cup have thrived since the 1950s, outlasting every other European trans-national competition, including the Cup of the Alps and the Texaco Cup, which involved sides from England, Scotland and Ireland.

    All the money in the world cannot buy history. Winning a corporately branded closed shop while the Champions and Europa Leagues go on will show the folly of this vanity project, no matter the initial prize pots.

    The 12 may be missed, but they will be easily replaced. Many gods of club football have met their twilight. Just ask Nottingham Forest.

    Mark Boyle

    Johnstone, Renfrewshire

    1. It was an abhorrent thing to say, and not because it might have handed the defence a lifeline. Her comment drives a coach and four through any concept of justice in the US.

      1. For me, the truly frightening thing is that she is very far from alone amongst people in power.
        The Democrats attempted to impeach Trump for far less inflammatory language and that arch-hypocrite Pelosi doesn’t even regard it as worthy of adverse comment.

  18. Morning again

    SIR – While I have a smartphone, an iPhone 6, I am, like David Walters (Letters, April 14), unable to use the app that allows me to place an order in a pub. According to the internet, “Older models of Apple phones that do not support iOS 13.5 will not be able to use the app”. It appears that this is also true of older Android phones; Windows phones cannot use the app at all.

    How much has the taxpayer paid for software that does not work on a large number of smartphones in Britain?

    Advertisem

    Liz Kwantes

    Cookham, Berkshire

    SIR – I am sorry that David Walters was not able to get a drink at his local without a smartphone. My experience so far is that pubs are happy simply to ask for my name and contact details and record it themselves, and just as happy to accept payment by card.

    However, I am not calling this freedom. When I can walk into the pub without booking, without checking in or passing a sanitiser station; when I can see a neighbour there and shake his hand; when I can meet old friends and embrace them; when I can jostle through the crowd to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers at the bar to get my drinks; when I can drink sitting or standing until late, and do all this without sight of a single face mask; only then will pubs truly be open.

    John Bailey

    Fleet, Hampshire

    SIR – We set out to find my daughter some suitable new clothes for work.

    After searching around the shop twice she found something that seemed to be what she had been advised by her boss to buy, but she was unsure of the correct size and needed to try it on. As we neared the area marked “Fitting rooms” we found that they were unavailable. There were no notices to this effect anywhere in the shop. We came home empty-handed.

    Are fitting rooms not to be used anywhere, and should we have known, or is it at the discretion of the shop?

    Dr M C Moore

    Woodbridge, Suffolk

    SIR – I do not follow the logic of the Prime Minister’s assertion that the lockdown, rather than the vaccination programme, has been the primary cause of Britain’s low infection and death rates, when continental Europe, also with widespread lockdown, but a much slower vaccination programme, suffers a distressingly high death rate.

    David Hadden

    Ardingly, West Sussex

    1. Good letter from John Bailey, but he misses out the most important freedom of all, which is the freedom to do all that without sharing the information that you did it with any database of information about you. I refer of course, to the freedom to pay with cash.

      We are sleepwalking into a nightmare where our every purchase is traceable – all because it’s more “convenient” to pay with a card!

      1. I had a drink on Sunday with a friend at the Mountbatten pub, after disembarking from our fishing trip. He had the app on his phone and I had to give my name and landline number. He paid by card and I paid in cash. The service outside was better than last year when you were allowed in but under strict rules. Oh, had to wear a mask to use the inside loos.

    2. I am furious at Apple’s stopping older devices from updating to later OSs. It happened to my iPad mini where, one by one, my apps stopped working because their data providers no longer used the old formats. It is now happening to my iPhone 5s, which I found out because I couldn’t load the new Amazon music app. I like the size of my phone and I have set up several bespoke cradles for it, for example in my car, and I resent being neglected after spending a lot of money for it.

      1. Sorry to say, Dale, but all Apple wants is for you to continually spend money on upgrading all your devices (and cradles – soon to be graves).

        Even though the evil Bill Gates continues to try and con money out of Microsoft users, because there are many more than Apple users, others find and publish ways around his machinations.

        I had to buy a new laptop and none are available except with WIN 10 as the awful operating system. For very few pennies I was able to buy a ‘shell’ that now operates my laptop as WIN 7 and so it will remain whilst I refuse to install WIN 10 upgrades.

      2. This is why I don’t want to get into the Apple spider’s web at all. That and the cost. I have worked on an iPhone version of an app, and it was a nightmare managing the development machines; quite put me off owning one!

  19. Stoics of all classes

    SIR – Simon Heffer (Comment, April 18), in an otherwise admirable article, writes that what Prince Charles “learnt above all from the Duke of Edinburgh was what it means to be officer class: a term whose meaning the Duke’s generation understood instinctively, but which has less currency today”.

    My late father and his two brothers shared many of the Duke’s stoic attitudes. All fought in the last war and gave much to their country. They were not officers. The term “officer class” rightly has less currency today because it implies the qualities we so much admired in the Duke – his stoicism, pragmatism and sense of duty – pertain particularly to a social class. They do not. These are human qualities. To suggest his qualities derived from social class is to malign the Duke and to belittle other ranks who shared his values and commitment.

    As Robert Burns would have it: “The rank is but the guinea’s stamp,/The Man’s the gowd for a’ that.”

    John Woolman

    London NW11

    SIR – I watched with sadness the beautifully choreographed funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh.

    To me, the most moving part came as the Scottish piper played and slowly walked away. I thought, will this moving ceremony make some Scots stop, pause and think: do I really want to leave this family of countries called the United Kingdom?

    Brian Hunter

    Devizes, Wiltshire

  20. SIR – In the light of the correspondence supporting a new Royal Yacht (Letters, April 18) and how it should be funded, The Telegraph reported in September 2019 that the late Sir Donald Gosling had left £50 million in his will towards a new Royal yacht.

    What has become of this significant bequest?

    Simon Bathurst Brown

    Camberley, Surrey

    SIR – I am delighted that Admiral Lord West, a former First Sea Lord (Letters, April 16) has lent his support to naming a RN ship after the Duke of Edinburgh, but I am unsure whether a Type 26 would be more appropriate than the multi-role ocean surveillance ship.

    While the Duke was a fighting sailor, in his subsequent years he was prominent in his support for science, technology and environment, so the latter ship seems more appropriate.

    The new surveillance ship could also take on the function of a Royal Yacht and trade ambassador. This could be a built-in permanent feature or an occasional option in its own separate container.

    Lieutenant Colonel J R A Ward (retd)

    London SW1

  21. SIR – In the light of the correspondence supporting a new Royal Yacht (Letters, April 18) and how it should be funded, The Telegraph reported in September 2019 that the late Sir Donald Gosling had left £50 million in his will towards a new Royal yacht.

    What has become of this significant bequest?

    Simon Bathurst Brown

    Camberley, Surrey

    SIR – I am delighted that Admiral Lord West, a former First Sea Lord (Letters, April 16) has lent his support to naming a RN ship after the Duke of Edinburgh, but I am unsure whether a Type 26 would be more appropriate than the multi-role ocean surveillance ship.

    While the Duke was a fighting sailor, in his subsequent years he was prominent in his support for science, technology and environment, so the latter ship seems more appropriate.

    The new surveillance ship could also take on the function of a Royal Yacht and trade ambassador. This could be a built-in permanent feature or an occasional option in its own separate container.

    Lieutenant Colonel J R A Ward (retd)

    London SW1

  22. Electoral lingo

    SIR – I have just received the brochure for the London mayoral and Assembly elections, and probably its most troubling sentence is that “Guidance notes will be available at polling stations in 20 additional languages”. These include French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, in addition to both Chinese Traditional and Chinese Simplified.

    May I conclude in English Simplified: why is election guidance in anything but English?

    Timothy Bidwell

    London SW6

      1. People who can’t be bothered to learn English or talk to someone about the process cannot understand the background and arguments so shouldn’t vote or allow someone to harvest their vote, which is the norm in so many of the communities enriching us culturally. Furthermore, they don’t deserve a vote.

        1. My view too.
          Try getting official documents in France in anything other than French.
          You might strike lucky and find a website translated into English, but they are as rare as hens’ teeth

          2. We have found that as long as we attempt to speak the language, and ask for advice where necessary, that the French can be extraordinarily helpful. Time and again they have listened patiently and if they have some English themselves they will try to use it, but if one just jumps straight into English they can be very obstructive and difficult.

          3. That doesn’t surprise me. I’ve travelled widely, and my trying to speak the local language always gets a far more favourable reaction. It is, after all, disrespectful to do otherwise.

          4. Your comments that “not trying to learn the language” is certainly disrespectful to thge many immigrants to this country who are unwilling

            to learn English..

            Caution- you could very well be accused of being a racist.

          6. Good for you Bill, I look forward to hearing on the BBC about Dale’s front door being broken down.

          7. My tactic when in Germany was to start by apologising for the dreadful state of my German, in excellent German. They invariably praised my command of the language and couldn’t have been more helpful thereafter.

          8. We do similarly in our not very good French, but only after we’ve attempted to explain what we want to do/need or thanking them for their assistance. We always find that they say something polite and that we can be understood. That’s over half the battle.

            The lock down has been a nuisance, because less interaction with people has certainly not helped our language skills. We particularly miss the communal functions where quite often we are the only English attending.
            Listening to TV and radio isn’t the same.

          9. We were lucky with the potager. With a dozen French there most days, we just learned so much. The patch was on the road leading to the school, so passers-by often leaned over the wall to give “advice” or ask for info (trombetti were always intriguing for them!). Also the road was part of the ring round the village so people often stopped and asked for directions. 15 years before the potager, we played pétanque with the locals – that, too, speeded up our fluency.

            I sympathise with you not being able to see many people during the confinement. We had France Musique on and always watched the local French news on Fr3 – as well as the Occitan programmes on Sunday mornings. That may sound daft, but they had to go slowly with both Occitan and French – so one was better able to cotton on.

            When I did the Leeds University Civil Service French Immersion course, we were given tapes of radio programmes to play over and over again – very good with a walkman when cutting the grass.

          10. One unfortunate problem with getting old is that learning a language becomes progressively more difficult.

            Even the French acknowledge this and I am informed that the language aspects for citizenship are much less stringent for the over 60’s. With the Carte de Sejour we are OK for at least the next 10 years and I doubt we will still be here, assuming we are even still alive.

          11. Leaving: my advice is to do it at least two years before you thought you would. Aside from the plague, we would both find it all a much greater struggle today than 18 months ago (when we started).

          12. Thanks for that. We have two critical points: deaths of very elderly relatives or the year we hit 75. The first to arrive and the house is on the market.
            We’re already putting “stuff” through the encheres and are regular contributors to the Red Cross.

          14. So I believe.
            But postage packing etc is a real hassle, we used e-bay in the UK and I vowed never again, if I could avoid it.
            The advantage of the auctioneer is that there is a better chance one might get a truer value.
            I prevented HG from giving away a couple of fairly hideous pieces to the Red Cross.

            They fetched 160Eur, double the auctioneer’s top estimate.

          15. LBC = just say “buyer collects”.

            People came 75 kms to buy and pay for some of our items.

          17. When did you get your carte de sejour done? Apparently there may be problems if you applied for it before the end of 2019 as I did. Caroline is an EU citizen so this does not affect her c de s. We hope we shall be able to sort it out easily but you never know Do you have our e-mail address – if not you can find it on our website?

          18. We received it this year, although it runs from Nov 2020.

            I can’t remember whether we started the process in 2020 or 2019, but I’m fairly sure it was 2020. We were waiting to see what the withdrawal agreement (spit) would produce.

            The earlier processes were stupidly complex, which was why we waited to see what the WA produced. The French suddenly changed the rules and I did it all over the ‘net using scanned documents, and it was done and dusted very quickly, no interviews and the only delay was waiting for the Covid internal travel restrictions to be lifted so we could be finger-printed.

          19. The sailing community in the Mediterranean is very anglophone. For example you can often hear a Swede, say, talking to an Italian in English as it is their lingua franca.

            The French are almost as bad as the English at speaking foreign languages and so we made many French friends as we sailed from port to port and from island to island because the French enjoyed being able to speak French.

            Here we were in Symi rafted alongside friends of various different nationalities in their boats: (Mianda 4th white boat from rhs)

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4d272913fd8f1b9e8f8f32b3c0b83d384a93849d18d809eeb67e94e80c8664c0.jpg

          20. I was in a restaurant in Athens and there was a large gathering of academics from all over the world (I assumed) and it sounded like the aftermath of the tower of Babel.

            After a little discussion they decided that the only way they could all communicate was to use English.

            Small wonder English speakers find they can get by almost anywhere.

          21. And they are right to do so.

            Why should the British taxpayer pay for their documents to be translated and why should they pay for immigrants to have English lessons?

            When we moved to France in 1989 we knew that we would have to communicate in French. Caroline was already completely fluent but I had to brush up my 1962 “O” level and so, with Caroline’s help, I worked on it every day so that when we arrived I was not quite bilingual but I was fluent and beyond “A” level standard. During our final year at Allhallows we had our lunches in the pupils’ dining hall, had a French only conversation rule at our table and encouraged the “A” level French pupils to eat their lunches with us.

            And now that we run our French courses we take advantage of the fact that my French, though good, is not perfect and so if I make an error Caroline can correct it in front of the students so as not to demotivate the students by only correcting their mistakes. Sometimes if I hear a student making a mistake I deliberately make that same mistake myself so that Caroline can explain the error.

          22. Neither of us had used other than menu/directions French since O-levels.

            We rented here to see how we would cope with day to day living and it went from there.

            We moved here permanently in our late 50’s and have no regrets, but Covid has been a disaster as far as seeing children and grandchildren is concerned, but even that would have been similar in the UK.
            The language is still difficult, but we cope and we have enough French friends that we can call upon in extremis.

            A French partner is almost certainly the best way forward.

          23. When we moved to Le Grand Osier in 1989 Caroline was in her mid-20’s and I was in my early 40’s so we had to find a way of supporting ourselves so we set up our French courses business which, until the arrival of the plague, has been very successful.

            Caroline and I had spent our honeymoon in 1988 on a chartered sailing boat in the Greek Islands and she had loved it. When we had children we decided that we wanted to try and give them an exceptional childhood sailing around the Mediterranean. But before we did so we decided to ‘suck it and see’ so we took the boys for a sailing trip in the waters where we had honeymooned. The boys had sailed in France in Optimists before but they had never lived aboard a boat. We found Mianda in the Baltic and so we had quite a lot of sailing, home-schooling and living to do before we actually reached the Med.

          24. When we moved to Le Grand Osier in 1989 Caroline was in her mid-20’s and I was in my early 40’s so we had to find a way of supporting ourselves so we set up our French courses business which, until the arrival of the plague, has been very successful.

            Caroline and I had spent our honeymoon in 1988 on a chartered sailing boat in the Greek Islands and she had loved it. When we had children we decided that we wanted to try and give them an exceptional childhood sailing around the Mediterranean. But before we did so we decided to ‘suck it and see’ so we took the boys for a sailing trip in the waters where we had honeymooned. The boys had sailed in France in Optimists before but they had never lived aboard a boat. We found Mianda in the Baltic and so we had quite a lot of sailing, home-schooling and living to do before we actually reached the Med.

      2. People who can’t be bothered to learn English or talk to someone about the process cannot understand the background and arguments so shouldn’t vote or allow someone to harvest their vote, which is the norm in so many of the communities enriching us culturally. Furthermore, they don’t deserve a vote.

      3. Norway has 3 languages – Bokmål & Nynorsk (effectively, dialects) and Samisk, truly different language of the nomadic Sami.

  23. 331807+up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    This johnson chap has two options as I see it he has to get shot of the pillow whisperer or turn poof.
    What a collection of party leaders, starmer getting the hard word from
    a lifelong lab supporter pub landlord,johnson surely taking instructions from his squeez, the irony is the only one true to form very sad to say is davy.

    I do predict that to carry on supporting these guaranteed failures is going to end in tears, the way they are heading they will start importing cheap labour, felons of ALL descriptions, and even potential troops, you mark my words, who would want that via the polling booth.

    https://twitter.com/RogerHelmerMEP/status/1384397409506238466

    1. I’m trying hard not to despair at each new suicide note by the pampered Western people and their governments. The Chinese, Indians et al are playing us, laughing at us and looking forward to the Karma of their colonising and dominating us.

      After realising I’m not in a dream where the madness of our actions on Covid, ‘Climate Change’, race relations, feminism, trans-gendering and all the rest will disappear when I wake up, I often think I’m living in some parallel universe where reality has been perverted by lack of perspective, proportionality, common sense and empathy. I blame the decline in Christianity, the traditional occupation of those sublimating their needs and inadequacies in enforcing their pious values on others (albeit often not on themselves).

      Edit: to be clear, I’m not saying all Christians are like that, just that Christianity gave a structure in which some could behave that way.

      1. 331807+ up ticks,
        Morning D,
        I blame it on rank stupidity via the continuing voting pattern with a good mix of treachery on the electorates knowing the parties past history, that has a 99% future failure forthcoming guaranteed.

      2. The Political Elites in the UK (all of them) are members of a cult and provide mutual reassurance and support to each other. There is no essential difference between Boris Johnson’s and Keir Starmer’s world view! Both are allied in their belief in Cultural Marxism and like all believers cannot conceive that they might be wrong!

        1. Sometimes I wonder, between Islam and Cultural Marxism, which is actually the greater evil? The degenerate mugs would get one helluva shock if they had to actually live under Sharia law cum Leviticus writ large?

      3. Well expressed sentiments.

        But what is the solution or has the time for a solution now passed beyond recall?

        1. I have no solution. At one time I’d have said that once a crowd gets madness sometimes you can do nothing other than let them come to their senses in their own time or when they suffer the inevitable consequences of their actions, just as a wave crashes on the reality of hitting a shore. Now, I think there is a second strand dominating, with those profiting leading the way and normal people being cowed into silence, just as, say, the terrorists in NI hide behind political beliefs to run their rackets and dominate their communities by fear and the inhabitants keep quiet in fear of a real or social knee-capping.

          I try to do my bit by standing up for what I think is right and hope that today’s young will grow out of all this.

    2. Now, we all know, after a year of disastrous turmoil, that Johnson is a prat of the first order. His Green plans are completely unattainable, especially for a country the likes of the UK. The infrastructure is creaking, especially the supply of power, and that bad situation will be exacerbated by his desire to dispense with gas, the ICE, ban log burning and open fires etc. and go full on electric mainly from unreliable renewable sources. His plans might work, up to a point, for a deindustrialised country with a much smaller popu…

      1. His environmental nonsense seems to be a plan to accelerate Britain’s complete decline and to lead rapidly to the end of virtually all freedom of movement as travel for anyone other than the extremely rich will no longer be possible.

        VOTE BORIS – VOTE TO BE ENSLAVED

      2. Millions dead from Covid – millions more from new, lethal “Indian” Covid…

        There, Korky – sorted. Just the slammers and illegals left.

        2. Good morning, ogga

          As you know many of us agree with many your points but until there is an acceptable alternative voting option to Lib/La/Con or until NOTA (None of the Above) is a meaningful choice on the ballot paper then what option can you suggest other than abstention?

          1. 331807+ up ticks,
            Morning R,
            I will repeat myself in so far as we HAD a success in the rebuild of UKIP under the Gerard Batten leadership only to have it castigated and put down by the party nEc / farage’
            YOU help build a successful party and it cannot be denied Batten was doing just that.

            You build parties of success, the peoples seen what unity
            achieved on a UKIP designed & triggered referendum.

            Options get behind Anne Marie Waters, Laurence FOX, R Tilbrook, if no candidate then become a paper candidate.

            Waiting for NOTA to be inclusive on the polling paper is nota option that’s for sure.
            Surely the peoples cannot continue to support & vote for failure they are at this moment in time laying out their kids future.

            One thing you do NOT do is continue to support & vote for political graded sh!te ie the best of the worst.

    1. The last i saw there were 3 London clubs,2 Manchester clubs and 1 Liverpool club.
      Have i got it right?

      2. Now, if we get the incomers to marry their cousin, we have some formof population control

        Or is ‘cousin’ the name of just one person

      3. Don’t panic. Covid isn’t effective until all the kissing cousins have their NI number and a council house.

      4. Travel ban? Do you mean the complete, comprehensive, total ban on all passenger flights into this country that was imposed in January 2020? That one?
        What’s that? What are you saying? You mean people from anywhere have been able to fly into this country without let or hindrance throughout this entire pandemic? Really? While I have been constrained to remain confined in my home for the whole of last year? Anyone from anywhere could just blow in as they pleased?
        Oh, they could? And the government who imposed such murderous restriction on its citizens across the country has been relaxed about this?
        Well, well.

    3. I used to work with a woman who told me that she’d refused to marry a cousin and instead remained single but when her father died and she went to Pakistan to claim the land left to her in his will, she discovered that the cousin in question had taken possession and was occupying it anyway. She tried for years to have him evicted but of course the courts in Pakistan are not on her side.

  28. Good morning, my friends

    The IRA says ‘sorry’ but where is the apology?
    Sinn Fein’s leader was fundamentally unwilling to accept that the party supports the organisation who murdered Lord Mountbatten

    Charles Moore DT: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/20/ira-says-sorry-apology/

    Here is a BTL comment from Cornelius Anstrutter with which I agree:

    You have to have a ‘forgiver’ and a ‘forgivee.’

    A person who does not feel any genuine remorse and makes no effort to make good the damage he or she has done does not and cannot be forgiven because that forgiveness would be one sided and hollow.

    It is the same with Prince Harry as with the IRA. All this talk about reconciliation and ‘forgive and forget’ is absurd. Unless Harry can sincerely repent (to use an appropriately archaic sounding word!) and express his remorse and guilt for what he has done and try to make amends for the deep hurt he has caused he cannot and must not be given an anodyne, meaningless apology.

    1. Agreed, Rastus.
      And being sorry and repenting are different. Sorry is for something insignificant, repenting is for something actually, or close to, a sin.
      I’m sorry if I dropped your breakfast toast on the floor, but I repent if I say something that destroys a friendship.

    2. The look on Harry’s face is like a toddler made to ‘Say Sorry’.
      The DM is reporting that Charles and William met Harry together rather than singly, as they were afraid he would misreport their conversation to the Tart who would then distort it further. True, it’s the DM, but even if that is not the reason, I think it is the advice we would all give the two heirs to the throne.

      1. Harry is now embalmed in toxicity , people will have to watch their backs .

        The so and so could have at least had a decent haircut when he attended HRH’s funeral.

  29. All the excitement over the new breakaway footie league reminds me very much of the BREXIT buggeration.
    The established league and it’s supporters are spitting tacks over that some don’t want to be part of it – governments telling the clubs what to do, sanctions threatened, great excitement and table-thumping… Puh!
    If the clubs taht join make a success of it (and that’s part of the noise, I guess), then good. If they fail, and wither & die – then good. Either way, not worth getting airegated over to the extent of having a stroke, as many seem to be doing. Personally, I’d be happier without superclubs, offering squillions of pounds to players, and lower-key and more local teams. If this breakaway league results in the destruction of the top teams, then OK by me.

    1. A good riposte would be to tell them that if it fails and they wish to return then they can do so, but have to start in the lowest league.

    2. Rugby union went professional. Supporters were not asked. Financiers and investment companies now own the professional clubs, the players, and the tournaments (World Cup, Six Nations).
      In Scotland the great clubs, from which came our internationalists, Hawick, Gala, Heriots,et al, were kicked into touch in favour of artificial clubs from nowhere.
      This is what happens. Football is no different, having been professional for longer.

        2. I did a survey on traffic for the local council.

          After the first five questions and repeating ‘No, I work 20 miles away, I don’t want to cycle or walk’ it became obvious their sole intent was to gather information to allow them to say ‘If we shut roads and build cycle lanes, people will use them instead of driving.’

          Which is rather pointless, as if that’s the answer you want, stop lying to yourself and just do it and cause chaos – like you normally do. It’s not as if we can stop you, nor will your demented idiocy be reversed by the next bunch of onanists who get in.

        1. Sands did 66 days on hunger strike. Navalny has not yet managed twenty and is supposedly dying!

  32. I just had a conversation with someone, and it turned to the subject of lockdowns and vaccine. My friend, who is a lot older than I am, has had the vaccine. When I said I felt it wasn’t necessary for younger people and I intended to postpone having it, she immediately changed the subject as though I had said something blasphemous or illegal
    Someone else I know, similar age to me but high risk due to special circumstances, said in all seriousness that he is very relieved to have had the first shot, as he feels he can stop jumping out of the way to avoid people who don’t respect the two metre distance.
    I am still reeling from the “you don’t have a tv so you don’t realise how bad it is” comment that was made to me last week.

    In the light of all that we now know about this virus and the risks of it, I feel that many people are not seeing it in a rational light at all. An enormous and irrational panic has been stoked by the government, and society is poised to point a devastating finger of blame at anyone who doesn’t go along with the panic.
    I have the impression that it’s just hanging in the balance now, and can be tweaked by more propaganda to stir up public anger against the unvaccinated at any time.
    The balance could also tilt in the opposite direction if anti-lockdown marches gain traction, and if young people don’t flock to have the vaxx.

    People decided for or against the flu vaccine in the past without this controversy.
    It is all rather upsetting.

    1. My interest was ignited by Mackay’s book “Extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds” where he starts with the South Seas Bubble and on through Tulipmania. Corruption went right up to the top as I suspect it does now. What with the terrible coming catastrophe of claim change mitigation attempts we have wrecked so much and will continue to do so.

    2. Covid is a cult with it’s own tenets of faith that can’t be questioned. The Great Reset is, after all, just Mein Kampf with technological knobs on.

    3. Covid is the C21 Jew.
      Authoritarians always need an enemy to unite people against the threat.

  33. The best pub in England.

    https://www.theravenofbath.co.uk/?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=1977e384640c249ef8c959bb355d9ed0a0575994-1618909115-0-AVNOreLTbhYSZG6mHveWwEmHVDSKfp7WjRVP3bsd_oNAy3-zm-9mV2tHZ_ZrpTzFD22xoM3hP6jUpuM5nsOsMjJDenxjkHhYo3HR7QynyyyyLwXlhBLY_HEzmLMEPoxg9SSbcz6icWeA3L2tI2OtZaGftDT69GJt3_odBy87luJZBvUMqkP9bo3f5O_IS940Bvo1LPqMqYIoKAzp9qqjuXiNt9N-5o6rwcLjAXVttKeYt45KjPY_xRZyPRCW40GZbzMTlWtR_6sNTgb0Qk1ZFY2taJgqKuLtqwMRgwkRI9vEifnkP0uHOa5FmA3IsoRGWJbLE1UP7FehhvbScqOoAvy9h1l03Z7A2r5gqqxa5iurJbws_CxyY49aWZLzjaoFCg

    1. The most telling thing for me was the petulance of Cur Ikea Slammer when confronted with one of his OWN voters!

      1. Oi, Bill

        Leave MFI (MkII) out of this, they are useful

        I have another delivery of MALM units tommow

      2. Interestingly we could see the Starmer was accompanied by a large gentleman in a dark suit. That person, whom I presume to be a bodyguard, held back the pub landlord in his own pub. On a good day that would b considered assault. As we no longer have police force, well, who cares?

        1. He also manhandled him. In ordinary times that would be a lifetime ban. Forget the Police. They are far too busy pushing old ladies over.

          I hope he sues for assault.

      3. In his defence, he handled it quite well, including engaging with the bloke.

        He’s not a man of the people, not really credible opposition. That’s a good thing as it increases the violence of the rabid Left. Starmer is simply the establishment in miniature. He never meets real people with real problems so just thinks everyone is like him – on 120,000 a year living off expenses and goes to meetings all the time but never achieves or creates anything.

  34. ‘Bomber’ Harris wasn’t a villainous psychopath. He won us the war
    Those who served deserve to have their sacrifice honoured – not ‘recontextualised’ by people seeking to sully Britain’s past

    Jeremy Black: DT – https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/19/bomber-harris-wasnt-villainous-psychopath-won-us-war/

    Bomber Harris was at school at Allhallows where Caroline and I used to teach before we moved to France. As you can imagine he was considered a hero at his old school.

    A BTL comment:

    If you are about to be attacked and eaten by a tiger or a lion – or even a crocodile – and you have a gun handy it might be a good idea to use it unless, of course, you feel so worried that the poor beast might be hungry that you are happy to let it eat you.

    1. I couldn’t read more then a couple of paragraphs but…..
      I just can’t imagine the satisfaction and absolute relief of the British people when the V 1 and 2 flying bombs were stopped from being launched. Anything B.H. did was okay with me, how many of our generation might not have existed if he hadn’t been so good at his job.

      And an other further back in time global hero is attacked, It appears that the fires in Capetown were a deliberate act the police have arrested at least one person. Not only the library but also according to news 24 the Rhodes memorial has been set afire, i went there once but i can’t image there is anything there that is easily combustible.
      Cecil Rhodes did more for Africa as an individual than most African leaders collectively have done for their own people since.

  35. When discussing the events of today, the most common response is…

    “I’m only one person so there’s nothing I can do other than accept whatever happens”.

    If that was typical of a poll then there are millions of people who think the same, but won’t join together and make a massive statement.

    The elite have won all bar the shouting.

    1. 331807+ up ticks,
      Morning H,
      Unity is strength, the real UKIP proved that,winning the eu elections then designing & triggering the referendum.

      The losing / treachery trend started when the peoples
      on hearing the result on the 24/6/2016 returned to
      supporting / voting once again for the pro eu L L C
      close shop coalition party, there’s nout as daft as folk.

      Seen in a common sense manner a united front on the 6th May could be a telling shot across the political bows, but for many of the electorate, united means something appertaining to Manchester United, Sheffield United, Wigan United and a pigs bladder.

  36. Good Moaning.
    I know nowt about Wendyball, but three thoughts have crossed my mind (that’s it for the rest of the decade).
    Why all this angst about a business owned by foreigners, that employs foreigners and that is run for the benefit of foreigners?
    Is this whole malarkey a ‘Look, a squirrel’ moment to conceal other more serious matters from our attention?
    And what the Eff does it have to do with the government?

    1. Displacement activity, pet. Who wants to be a minister running the country properly when there are pointless distractions available?

      2. 331807+ up ticks,

        Morning LiM,
        What is more amazing is, it seems to be top of the sh!te list that is beleaguering the Nation.

        If other issues received the same attention,
        say, foreign paedophile activist, the Dover
        incoming replacement units, future planned
        lockdowns, etc,etc.I believe the whole Country would benefit.

    4. Morning, the buffoon thinks they may well be a few votes for him if he makes all the necessary noises, eg “I’m one of you” pronouncements to the fans.
      The photo taken earlier this week of him having a beer outside is another example, designed to garner votes next month. With a bit of luck he will decide to visit Bath and happen to meet a local pub landlord.

      1. From the little I saw of that publican I think he’d kick the bloated Boris out too, and a a good job too.

        1. Indeed so, the arguments he presented to Sir Cur and his condemnation of his actions apply even more so to the buffoon.

  37. US ambassador to leave Moscow as tensions rise. 20 April 2021

    Washington’s ambassador to Moscow has announced that he will return to the US for consultations, days after the Russian government recommended he leave the country during what it said was an “extremely tense situation”.

    John Sullivan’s departure will leave both countries’ embassies without their top diplomats at a crucial moment, with Washington and Moscow recently announcing new sanctions, a Russian military buildup near Ukraine, and concerns about the opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s health while in detention.

    Not quite the Breaking off of Diplomatic Relations I was looking for last week but close enough. They are getting ready to fight!

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/20/us-ambassador-john-sullivan-to-leave-moscow-as-tensions-rise

    3. warning: contents may be hot notices are not for the benefit of the idiot, but to protect the company producing the product from lawsuits.

      Common sense took a back seat to greed and malice.

    3. Phew, that’s a relief! I must admit I was getting a wee bit concerned that these ‘Atomwaffen Division’ people were about to mount a coup d’état and end life as we know it but it’s OK now. I shall sleep easier in my bed, knowing the Government has our backs and the Home Office will protect us from extremists.

      Thank you, Priti…

    4. Never heard of them.

      How about nobbling Muslim terrorism rather than continuing to not only invite them in, but feeding, clothing and housing them at their victim’s expense?

    5. More than stupid to draw attention to a group no-one has ever heard of. Besides, when both members get out of school their carers will have full control of them.

    6. Sounds like another bunch of teenagers who found the Anarchists’ Cookbook on the internet.

  42. The Brexit exodus will fundamentally reshape our economy

    The dearth of European workers will mean higher wages, bigger investment in automation – and a squeeze on corporate profitability

    MATTHEW LYNN

    Recovering from the Covid-19 catastrophe. Bringing all the extra debt taken on to pay for it under control. And, of course, adapting to our departure from the European Union while coping with rapidly accelerating technology.

    It is not hard to list all the challenges the economy will have to cope with over the coming decade. But there is a far bigger one that doesn’t get so many headlines that is probably more significant: falling immigration.

    Figures out last week show there was a net exodus of more than 50,000 people in the latest quarter for the first quarter of last year. It looks as if 2020 was the first year in which the immigrant workforce fell since way back in 1993.

    That is a huge change, and one that will have a big impact on the economy. Wages will rise, especially at the bottom end of the market. Automation will accelerate, and productivity will finally improve. And whole industries will be wiped out, while profits will fall.

    It will be better in some ways, worse in others – but there can be no question it will be very different.

    Of course, there is no great mystery about this is happening. Free movement within the European Union has now ended, and that makes the UK a far less attractive destination.

    People can still move here, of course, but they no longer have the automatic rights they used to. And the Covid crisis has closed borders everywhere, not just in Britain. Few want to try their luck in a new country in the middle of an epidemic, especially one as badly hit by the virus as this one.

    And yet if that continues – and it probably will – it will have a huge impact on the economy. Here are three big trends to watch.

    First, wages will start to accelerate significantly. If there are fewer workers, then you hardly need to be Adam Smith to work out they will cost more. That is how supply and demand works.

    We may well be starting to see the early signs of that. In the latest quarter average real pay rose by 4.8pc according to the ONS, and that was despite lockdown, and a catastrophic drop in output that you might usually expect to push wages down.

    In reality, the wages statistics are more up-to-date, and more accurate, than the immigration numbers, so the outflow of people may well have accelerated already. If inflation does start to take off, as many economists are now worried that it might, it will not necessarily be the vast amounts of money the Government is printing to finance its spending that will be the trigger: it will be the rise in real wage sparked by a squeezed labour market.

    Next, we will see huge investment in automation. As workers become scarcer, and as they cost more, there will be a huge incentive to invest more in machines to do the work instead. When you could always hire another Romanian at minimum wage (or even below it if you didn’t care about taking your chances with a law that is only lightly enforced) there wasn’t much need to spend a lot of money on a costly machine.

    When that worker has vanished, suddenly the maths looks very different. Again, we are already seeing signs of that, and inevitably the tech companies are leading the way. Amazon has launched its checkout-free stores, and Ocado has just invested £10m in Oxbotica, a start-up developing autonomous driving systems. It will not be long before something that looks a little like R2D2 is bringing the groceries to your door.

    Finally, expect a squeeze in profitability, especially in labour intensive industries. An endless supply of cheap labour has flattered the balance sheet of many British companies for the last couple of decades. Whole industries have been built on the back of that (the number of coffee shops, for example, doubled last decade). Many of those will now have to scale back. If you thought retailing was tough already, then get ready for it to turn a lot worse; many shops are already barely profitable, and won’t be able to afford a rise in wages.

    The same may be true of many nail salons, car washes and entertainment venues. Businesses that need cheap people to stay afloat will be in trouble, and the profit margins of every business will suffer. Expect to hear a lot of complaining from lobbyists about that.

    Overall, we should expect less dynamism and innovation. New immigrants are more likely to be entrepreneurs than any other single group, and it is far easier to launch a new business when there is plenty of cheap labour around, and demand is buoyant.

    There will be some winners – mainly lower paid workers – and some losers – mainly company owners and shareholders – from the sudden shortage of people. It will play out in ways that are often unpredictable.

    But on one point there can be no debate. Falling rates of immigration will be the biggest force in the UK economy over the next decade – and we are only just starting to feel the impact.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/04/19/brexit-exodus-will-fundamentally-reshape-economy/

    Sunday’s ‘Countryfile’ covered the staff shortages in agriculture because of the pandemic:

    Presenter: “Between 50,000 and 80,00 workers are needed each year in the UK to harvest our food and traditionally more than 99% of them have come from the EU.”

    There followed some brief interviews with British people who answered last year’s public appeal. “Bloody hard work”, they said. About 4% of the applicants who took up a job up stuck it out. That appeal was adjudged (correctly, it has to be said) to have been a bit of a failure.

    As for traditionally – how old does something have to be to qualify for that description? Matthew Lynn refers to the ‘endless supply of cheap labour’ in the last 20 years in respect of profitability. He should make the point that many of these only exist because of the post-2003 EU. There has been a big expansion in soft fruit and vegetable production in this country because of the supply of cheap labour.

    Very simply, agricultural wages have always been poor and have fallen even further behind the rocketing cost of living in the last 25 years. Only a foreigner from a poor country would find such wages attractive and even then he often has to rough it to make it pay. The wage differential has been falling for a while, a combination of Brexit (with its exchange rate adjustment), rising wages in those poorer countries and, now, the pandemic.

    ‘Countryfile’ couldn’t help itself, with its loaded references to foreigners ‘bringing in the harvest’. Just to hammer home the point, it interviewed a Bulgarian who had been here for 10 years and was now a manager. The message was clear: if a non-English speaking Bulgarian can make it, so can the lazy British. So? How many managers are needed?

    The real problem is one we discussed many times in the last ten years, even before the referendum was announced: the relationship between earnings, cost of living, taxes and benefits. Not everyone who didn’t want to bend his back for four months in a year was lazy: he just couldn’t afford it.

    By allowing mass immigration (and not just from the EU) Blair and Brown depressed the wages of the lowest-paid workers but to point out this obvious fact was xenophobic.

    1. “… New immigrants are more likely to be entrepreneurs than any other single
      group, and it is far easier to launch a new business when there is
      plenty of cheap labour around, and demand is buoyant….”

      Err… cheap labour meant crushed wages which meant unemployment and a higher welfare bill. This country needs a small, well trained workforce, not a massive unskilled one. However, Labour wanted a massive unskilled workforce that would sit on welfare – paid for by Conservative voters. When we pointed this out and how unfair it was on the working poor, we were called racists.

      It’s fricken’ tedious.

      As for entrepreneurs – no. The majority turned up and plonked down. It’s why they come here.

      1. You’d think that if the illegals were such GOOD entrepreneurs, they’d have their OWN rubber boats….

      2. It also appears that many modern “slave owners”, and owners of unfit-to-live-in properties, rented out at extortionate rents to other immigrants, are immigrants themselves.

    2. Traditionally, and I am referring to the time when I was young, the harvest was brought in by locals. Schools closed for a week around October to allow schoolboys to work on potatoes. Summer fruits were picked by schoolchildren, students, and university workers and teachers and their families.
      Of course there have been changes and there will be more. Lynn blathers as if workers from the EU represented a golden age. He says 50,000 workers have left. Well that still leaves a million Poles as well as others.
      We can adapt. Farmers can adapt. Food prices could go up.

      1. A lot of my schoolfriends used to go strawberry picking in the summer holidays, mostly at Long Marston/Marston Moor nr York. They’d return with hands and writsts dyed red!

        2. My niece and nephew (on my ex-husband’s side) did some strawberry picking for a day. They were sick throughout that night. I have no contact with them now, so don’t know if they ever ate strawberries again.

        4. My first paid work while I was still at school was picking blackcurrants. 4/6 a bucket was the rate and it took quite a lot to fill a bucket. I earned about a fiver in the week and it was hard work.

      2. I remember my time, Horace, living in Banff and working in Turriff, when the children had that week of ‘Tatty picking’ in October and that was in the 1980s.

        1. Tatty picking is done by machinery now on the big farms. McCains have a crisp factory in the Scarborough area and many local farmers supply them with the potatoes. Fruit and vegetable harvesting is hard skilful work and a poor employee can do a lot of harm to the harvested crop. The adult employees deserve the minimum wage at least.

  43. 331807+ up ticks,
    That could very well be the UK, which would free up a great deal of readymade accommodation for incoming potential troops, ie the Dover intakes.

    breitbart,
    Lockdown Impact: 70k Italian Stores May Never Open Again, But Online Retailers Surge

    Continuing the lab/lib/con support / vote, could bring this to reality your vote is needed.

  47. Here’s an odd story.

    Brussels surrenders! EU says it will accept British shellfish after ‘Brexit revenge’

    THE EU will accept shellfish exports from much of Britain after UK fishing waters were upgraded to ‘Class A’ in quality.

    Brussels sparked fury post-Brexit when it blocked shellfish caught in ‘Class B’ waters post-Brexit, which made up the vast majority of the sea surrounding Britain. The British Government was privately furious with one minister accusing the EU of trying to “punish” the UK for Brexit.

    However, shellfish exports will now be allowed after waters off Cornwall, Devon, Essex, Kent and Northumberland were updated to ‘Class A’ status. The move was made by the UK’s independent Food Standards Agency. A government source rejected the suggestion UK waters were upgraded by the Food Standards Agency as a means to circumvent the ban.

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1424610/Brexit-news-EU-British-fishermen-shellfish-UK-waters-Brussels-shellfish-European

    1. One suspects that some of the French politicos went to their favourite eating places in Paris and were disappointed to discover that there were no langoustines, lobsters, or scallops on offer. They then went back to the office and made a few phone calls.

    2. One wonders what the EU are going to demand “in return” for their magnanimous gesture. They invariably do demand a return, just for being reasonable…unfortunately the UK starts from a place of reason.

        1. As any opposing Irish or Ulster respective nationalist actions will be carried out on UK soil, the EU are going to have a hard job there.

      2. The ‘gesture’ is that the EU has accepted the UK’s ‘upgrading’ of coastal waters. Given the EU’s apparent love of rules, I’d have expected them to objected to that.

        1. Their objection will be reflected in their demands. EU rules only apply to the UK, and other countries which the EU want to pull into line.

          1. I’m not sure I am making myself clear. The UK has given nothing here. The EU has accepted a stroke of the pen by the UK to favour the UK. That’s what’s odd. Perhaps someone in the UK negotiating team leant on the EU (about something yet to be announced) rather than the other way around. Of course, someone might have told the EU that it was absurd to consider that the UK fishing waters suddenly became dirty at midnight on Dec 31.

          2. That’s what I mean – the UK doesn’t need to give anything for the EU to turn something round and say that they, on the contrary, were being magnanimous.

      3. The ‘gesture’ is that the EU has accepted the UK’s ‘upgrading’ of coastal waters. Given the EU’s apparent love of rules, I’d have expected them to objected to that.

      4. The ‘gesture’ is that the EU has accepted the UK’s ‘upgrading’ of coastal waters. Given the EU’s apparent love of rules, I’d have expected them to objected to that.

      5. Probably a further extension to the time they say they need to debate and come to a trade agreement which the EU 27 can accept. They already have had nearly 4 months to vote again on this issue. Will Johnson cave in again and give them another 2 months or more?

    2. Why are the government getting involved, its nothing to do with them. They really are big brother.

  50. Mystic Meg writes:

    If Chauvin is acquitted, huge riots.

    If he’s found guilty, appeals for a mistrial, possibly right up to the Supreme Court.

    If it starts to get that far the Democrats will forget their “study re increasing the size of the Court” and get down to packing the Court to give the result they want, irrespective of the legal merits of any appeal.
    Secession of Red States.

    Race wars soon to follow.

      1. The bright side is that it is happening now, when the BAMES are not in a huge majority in the “West”.

        Give it 30 years and resistance will be futile. The worst case scenario is it will be worldwide.

          1. My understanding is that the vaccine doesn’t actually do what it is supposed to do vs Covid.
            And which group is refusing it?
            Perhaps the intention is to reduce the non-BAME population ready for a “democratic” takeover.

          4. In the long term, prolly. In the short term, however, the Conservatives are surging in the pre-local election polls. For some totally bizarre reason.

          5. Do you think people are fibbing? The Cons deserve annihilation. But who to vote for other than NOTA.

          8. The answer is that fewer indigenous can be allowed to breed, to make up for that.

          9. The man is an absolute intellectual pygmy! Follow the real science this time you prat – this pie in the sky “green” idiocy won’t work!!

  51. The violent virtue-signalling of Western intervention, Spiked 20 april 2021

    In a democracy, we hold our political rulers to account. We need to ensure that this includes holding them to account for what they wreak elsewhere. As the Afghan chapter closes, for now, we should force a reckoning with the lethal narcissism of a Western political class that has destabilised the lives of millions of people in the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa, and which then has the audacity to accuse us of being fickle, ‘post-truth’ and a threat to liberal norms. Barbarian, heal thyself.

    It’s unusual for Spiked or Brendan O’Neill to talk about geopolitics and although he’s not wrong here about the reasons for the West’s catastrophic interventions of the last forty years, he has still missed the obvious. We are no longer true democracies which is why our leaders could get away with it but very probably the last intervention is now looming on the horizon. Russia will not collapse meekly in the face of Western Lies. This time the blood price will be on our heads!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/04/20/the-violent-virtue-signalling-of-western-intervention/

    1. You live in a two-party Dictatorship.
      When you accept this fact things “might” change.

    2. As Washington threatens to impose more sanctions on Russia, analysts expect Moscow’s response to be the same as usual – speeding up the drive to make the nation’s economy more self-sufficient.
      “The Americans are saying: be careful or we could do more, but Russia is just going to continue down the path toward economic autarky,” the deputy chief economist at the Institute of International Finance in Washington, Elina Ribakova, told Bloomberg.

      The administration of US President Joe Biden on Sunday warned of “consequences” if opposition activist Alexey Navalny were to die in prison. The warning followed the introduction by Washington of new economic penalties over claims of Russian hacking and election interference. The measures include a ban on purchases of bonds on Russia’s primary market.
      However, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on Friday that the fundamentals of the Russian economy were unaffected by the move. “Macroeconomic stability is fully ensured,” Peskov said, “and the efficiency of our economic bloc is recognized internationally. We have no reason to doubt this state of affairs.”

      International rating agencies confirm that Russia is well positioned for a near-term market disruption because it has a high cash buffer and demand from local banks is robust, according to Fitch. Moody’s said on Monday that Russia’s financial reserves will allow the country to cope with the negative effects of the sanctions. Ratings agency S&P also noted that the sanctions will not have a significant impact on the replenishment of the Russian budget and will not undermine the stability of the country’s financial markets.
      Experts point out that during the seven years of Western sanctions on Russia over Ukraine, the Russian government and central bank reduced the country’s exposure to dollars, shifted assets out of the US, and sold a smaller share of its debt to foreigners.

      Russia has been reshaping its international holdings, cutting the share of the US dollar in favor of other currencies and gold. The country’s foreign reserve holdings have been steadily growing in recent years, and amounted to $580.5 billion as of April 9. Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the reserves surged by over $40 billion last year.

      The share of gold in Russia’s forex reserves jumped above dollars for the first time on record in 2020. The precious metal made up 24% of the central bank’s stockpile as of the end of September. The share of dollar assets was 22%, down from more than 40% in 2018.
      Experts point out that during the seven years of Western sanctions on Russia over Ukraine, the Russian government and central bank reduced the country’s exposure to dollars, shifted assets out of the US, and sold a smaller share of its debt to foreigners.

      Russia has been reshaping its international holdings, cutting the share of the US dollar in favor of other currencies and gold. The country’s foreign reserve holdings have been steadily growing in recent years, and amounted to $580.5 billion as of April 9. Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the reserves surged by over $40 billion last year.

      The share of gold in Russia’s forex reserves jumped above dollars for the first time on record in 2020. The precious metal made up 24% of the central bank’s stockpile as of the end of September. The share of dollar assets was 22%, down from more than 40% in 2018.

      The share of Russia’s international reserves held in the United States plummeted to just under 7% by the end of September, down from about 30% in 2014.

      As part of President Putin’s plan to de-dollarize trade, Russia has also been cutting back on the use of the greenback in its exports with the EU, China, and India. The euro has almost overtaken the dollar in Russia’s trade with the EU, and has already surpassed it in exports to China. About two-thirds of Russia’s exports to India are currently paid for in rubles.

      President Putin has little to worry about over sanctions.

      1. Navalny is just an excuse. A pawn. Nobody actually cares, but it’s a conventient peg to start a fight over.

      2. Years ago, Simon Reeves was journeying through Russia.
        A Russian farmer he interviewed had taken advantage of the EU sanctions to build up his business making European type cheeses such as Brie. Russia has vast areas and variations in climate to duplicate anything that the EU can produce.

        1. I’ve already related the story of Valio,the biggest dairy products company in Finland.They now employ Russians,pay their tax to Moscow and use Russian milk.The EU lost all of it.

  52. Just had a reply from my agent with family contacts in the Cape of Good Hope

    Yes, cape fires bad, they have all these ‘Bergies’ living rough in and around the mountain,….aka displaced coloured folk who get pissed, smoke weed and cause absolute mayhem!!

    Oh dear………

      1. I loved the beach at Muizenberg. The person who sent me the info has a sister living in Simons Town, where the naval base use to be. One of my Nieces lives in Somerset West.

    1. There’s a way round that, BoB.

      When I can’t find something I need, I go away and wait until I no longer need it, safe in the knowledge that then it will turn up immediately.

      1. Quicker is to buy a new one, upon which event the old one immediately reveals itself.
        Works every time.
        :-((

    3. Hay is about books and literature. Floyd was about violent crime. Are the many booksellers of Hay going to drop all except crime books? Thought not.

      Nice place – rotten decision by whoever.

    2. Gesegneter Kampf to all you people in Atomwaffen Division, well both of you, Ms Patel might have said to be fair and equitable.
      Interesting that our security services can grab and imprison for many years right wing terrorists before they have actually terrorised anyone. (The right wing terrorists seem to be more interested in dressing up than violent action.)
      Whereas we have thousands and thousands of muslims who are suspected of being terrorists. Yet they are free to plan and carry out terrorist attacks, blowing up buses, stations, theatres and attacking people in the street. Interesting. Just saying.

    3. Gesegneter Kampf to all you people in Atomwaffen Division, well both of you, Ms Patel might have said to be fair and equitable.
      Interesting that our security services can grab and imprison for many years right wing terrorists before they have actually terrorised anyone. (The right wing terrorists seem to be more interested in dressing up than violent action.)
      Whereas we have thousands and thousands of muslims who are suspected of being terrorists. Yet they are free to plan and carry out terrorist attacks, blowing up buses, stations, theatres and attacking people in the street. Interesting. Just saying.

    1. Why has that illegal been covered by a blanket? Is he frightened someone recognises him?

  60. Further proof, if any were needed, that Biden is a fool.

    President prays for Chauvin verdict: George Floyd’s brother reveals Joe Biden called him as jury retired to tell him that he’s ‘praying everything comes out ok’

    I may be wrong, but I take that to mean that Biden wants a guilty verdict.

    It’s only OK if the jury comes to an honest conclusion based purely on the evidence they have seen and heard.
    Like it or not everyone should accept the jury’s decision.

    If it should be appealed it should only be appealed on points of law, not political expediency or threats.

    1. Very bad, but I guess when you stole an election, no standards in public life matter any more.

    3. Don’t forget that the City of Minneapolis was so assured of Chauvin’s guilt, more than one month ago, that they (i.e. the taxpayers) awarded $27 million, yes, $27 million, to Floyd’s family in ‘compensation’. (Why didn’t they compensate the victims of Floyd’s numerous crimes for which he was sentenced to prison 8 times, once for 5 years? Oh, silly me!)

      And CNN’s legal analyst thinks that Chauvin has to prove his innocence to be convicted.

      This is how ‘justice’ works, woke style.

      1. I do not believe that Chauvin could get a “fair” trial anywhere in the world, given all the press coverage and actions taken by the authorities and statements from politicians.

      2. PS
        How they could come to $27 mn is beyond my ken.
        Is that what they thought he could earn as a criminal, because I can’t imagine he could earn much above minimum wages.

    4. If that happened over here the judge would have him arrested for Contempt of Court. Likewise the Democrat Congresswoman who demanded Chauvin be convicted of murder, and if he isn’t then the BLM crowd should take to the streets. BTW, isn’t that the sort of thing they accused Trump of?

          1. I’ve been considering of TR over this for a while.
            I am starting to think TR got a better deal than Chavin, if only because the State didn’t bother to pretend, so people know it was fixed.

    1. Just arrived here with second cup of coffee….then watched this…big mistake, now have to go and clean up!!!

  62. Trudeau the incapable came up with a “budget” yesterday showing us the Liberal path to bankruptcy. Child care, that’s the answer to the covid employment problem – subsidized childcare for all potential liberal voters.

    Did you know that the correct term for lgbtq is now 2SLGBTQQIA+ – its in the budget document as are frequent references to the she-cession!

    This used to be a good place to live but the black faced clown has taken us down a path that even Corbyn would question. I pity any poor white boy looking for a job, the dice are now firmly stacked against them by this racist, sexist apology for a government.

    Rant over for now, blood pressure still up a notch or two.

    1. Our WV Governor has decreed that participants in school sports are conditional on the sex named on their birth certificate.

      1. We still have transgenders being sent to the prison of their choice.

        Is I81 fixed yet, can we move down there?

      1. By God, I believe you’re right, A.

        2SLGBTQQIA+

        As we celebrate Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual (2SLGBTQQIA) people, and all other sexual orientations and genders, it is also a time of reflection. There have been many accomplishments, but there is still much work needed to overcome deep seated prejudices and exclusion but remember, there are still plenty of undesignated keys left on the QWERTY keyboard and we are holding the Cyrillic alphabet in reserve.

        — Deviants’ Gazette

        1. Z is taken, but they keep quiet about it.
          Apart from those who are barking.

          Zoophiliacs

  64. That’s me for this very agreeable afternoon. Sunny and NOT chilly, for a change. Won’t last, of course… Pruned half a dozen more hydrangeas. Only 40 left….

    Time to weigh out the ingredients for tomorrow’s loaf then pour a drink for Cook and me.

    A demain.

          1. Thanks, Michael. Were it not for the hat, I would never have spotted her….

            (That’s the second big girl in two days – I’ll be needing a lie-down).

        3. I pruned mine in January, now in full leaf and awaiting the next colourful display in June/July

          Oh well …you will live in a bluddy cold place like Norfolk…

  65. Mass Covid testing is a ‘waste of time and money’, MPs warned
    10,000 people would need to be tested in some areas to find one positive case due to low prevalence of virus, parliamentary group told
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/20/mass-covid-testing-waste-time-money-mps-warned/

    As I’ve said before, the government are desperate to keep on finding cases to justify existing and further measures to ‘control’ the virus. The more IQ tests are carried out, the more idiots are found.

  66. Vaccines refused due to fasting during Ramadam.

    The start of Ramadan means millions of Muslims will begin fasting during daylight hours for a month.But there have been concerns among health bosses that some may delay getting their vaccines as a result.
    During Ramadan, many Muslims abstain from allowing anything to enter their body, such as food and drink, between sunrise and sunset.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-56715038

    1. “During Ramadan, many Muslims abstain from allowing anything to enter their body”.

      Does this include breathing in air?

    2. They don’t seem to have a problem injecting their penises into young girls in their unholy month.

    1. Good luck.
      Start to worry when they send oysters, they’ll be trying to get a rise out of you, as it were.

    4. I am pleased that you have a date with Angie O’ Plasty; treat her gently and she may reciprocate …

      Good luck!

    5. Yo Phizee! Sending love and best wishes for the surgery! Take care and don’t forget to chat up the nurses!
      Keep us informed. 💕👍

          1. My son sang under his direction a few times.
            I’m told that he exuded enthusiasm when directing. A pleasure to work with/for.

  71. Every day there are new outrages coming from the Biden ‘administration’. Some of them are extremely dangerous on the international stage, where America’s enemies are getting bolder and bolder.

    But today’s prize goes to Vice-President Harris.

    She said that “Americans are sleeping better now that she and President Biden are in power”!

    She would also have won the prize a couple of days ago in respect of the open border to the south. She is supposed to be in charge of the crisis but hasn’t even visited the border area. But she blamed the huge influx of illegal migrants on, yes, climate change! (Biden accidentally called the problem a crisis but his press secretary said that he made a slip of the tongue and said “The President Doesn’t Feel Children Coming to Our Border is a Crisis”)

    And this is supposed to be an elected government! Leaders of banana republics must be thinking that they have some serious competition all of a sudden!

    1. Leaders of banana republics must be thinking that they have lessons to be learned and that by comparison they are mere amateurs.

    2. The children coming to the US border are being deliberately trafficked. This is the policy of the paedophilic Biden syndicated crime family.

      The trafficking is ‘sold’ to the parents of the children in terms such as ‘pay us $10,000 we will deliver your children safely and once they cross the border you will be able to follow’. In reality the children are more likely to be distributed to the paedophile network which is huge in America. Some of the children have simply been dumped to wander in the desert.

      1. Yes. The US is always complaining about Human Rights violations in other countries – it’s about time the Dems got their comeuppance.

  73. Phizzee
    Assuming you can see posts but not reply:
    The very best of luck with the upcoming doctor/specialist/vampire and ‘ographer appointments.

    1. Just strolled along the seafront
      Had Haddock chips and mushy peas for £4.95
      Wandered back home and put feet up

      1. Yo Ol

        Two rooms decorated,
        Shower still in skip
        First set of lodgers guests arrived today
        More from Mr Ikea tomorrow
        Two rooms being carpeted Thursday
        Nine bedroom drawer unirs and round table picked up by local charity
        Garden centred, (or OAP village as I call it)
        walked,
        entertained

        Where’s me drill

        1. Wow, the energy of the man. :-))
          Most impressive – I have barely summoned up a fart this week.
          Now you’re up to speed, you fancy some more – we have a load needs done…

    1. One of the great pleasures of Spring is watching several hares boxing in the garden.

  76. Ave atque vale, amici. I shall not be staying tonight; I have just had to have my dog put to sleep on veterinary advice. It wasn’t packing away his bed, his toys, his bowls that has cracked me up, it was when I opened the dining room door carefully so as not to bash him in the face because he liked to lie with his nose pressed against it and he wasn’t there and never will be again.

    4. Oh, dear, Con. I’m so sorry that you will be without Charlie. My thoughts are with you.

      1. A belated happy birthday, I hope you had a good day.

        It’s the first post from you that I’ve seen since R.C.T. posted the reminder.

    5. Yo Conners

      So sorry to hear your news
      You will meet up again, at the Rainbow bridge

    6. Oh Conway. I’m so sorry for your loss. Making that final decision is the hardest thing, but also the kindest. Thinking of you at a very sad time.

    8. Oh, so sad and so much a sorrow and a loss you really didn’t need. Stating the bleedin obvious, I know, but what to say…

    11. So sorry Conway…I know how you feel.
      I buried Maud my little Dachshund and best friend recently.
      Entering the kitchen to let Maud out for wee wees early morning
      and making a cup of tea was the beginning of a new day. No point
      now…
      I am bereft…

      1. Every time one of these threads starts, I can picture your delightful Maud, with the loving eyes, and I am saddened by the loss.

    14. Oh heck. I am so sorry. It is all the little things that you miss; the warp and weft of your daily life.
      What a shitty month this has been for NOTTL dog lovers.

    15. Conway, I am so sorry to hear this. It is those little familiar things that get us in the heart, and the realisation. He had a good life with you and that is all a dog asks of us – your leadership, friendship, affection, somewhere safe to snooze. And a good meal. My condolences.

  78. The jury in the Chauvin case has not reached a decision yet. The foreman of the jury has advised the judge that it is looking as if it will take the jury between 35 and 36 years to reach their decision.

  79. Completely and utterly off topic.
    Bad news, good news.

    A horrid insect chewed the stem of one of my rarer garden orchids; I placed the flower head in a small vase with some water and orchid specific feed and it is blooming on the window sill as if nothing had happened.

    On the downside it can’t be fertilised so there is no chance of it spreading in the garden. Notwithstanding that, it is a pleasure to be able to watch as all the flowers slowly open.

  80. Biden says the evidence is ‘overwhelming’ in Derek Chauvin’s trial
    and is ‘praying for the right verdict’ after he called George Floyd’s
    family.

    President Joe Biden on Tuesday said he is
    praying for the ‘right verdict’ in George Floyd trial and called the
    evidence ‘overwhelming’ in series of extraordinary comments that come as
    the jury begins its second day of deliberations in the Derek Chauvin
    case.

    ‘I’m praying the verdict is the
    right verdict. Which is – I think it’s overwhelming in my view,’ Biden
    told reporters in the Oval office. ‘I wouldn’t say that unless the jury
    was sequestered now.’

    Well Joe, all that’s missing from cnt, is “u”

    1. Can’t wait for the Supreme Court to comment on the inappropriate remarks of the “President”.

      1. Maybe derail the whole trial!
        That would be wonderful – payback in spades!

      1. Does the jury realise that?

        There’s a Hell of a lot of supposition.

        Good interview.

    4. And Biden only listens to his woke minders – he certainly wasn’t in court to hear the case for the defense.

      This is nothing short of judicial interference – from the President himself, no less.

      As an American friend said in an email to a couple of days ago “Joe Biden is a real travesty. It is generally accepted that he is only a figure head and takes orders from the far left. The open southern border that Biden has facilitated is letting ln hundreds of thousands of illegals, all destined to increase Democrat votes! If we cannot win back congress in 2022, we may be sunk for good.”

      Hopefully his interference, and especially that of Maxine Waters (Mad Max), will be grounds for an appeal, at least.

      God Help America (and the UK)!

      1. But you will have noticed how that ball of schpitt even commented that he was speaking after the jury had been sequestered

        1. Dare we imagine that the ‘ball of schpitt’, as you so succinctly describe him, is a tiny bit less stupid than we thought?

          1. He’s been in dirty politics for years.

            He has great ventriloquists with hands up his arse, he’ll perform as directed.

    5. Biden and Harris must be impeached/ sacked for violating the US Constitution.

      This needs to be done quickly – before they compromise the Supreme Court.

      1. He, and his controllers know what they are doing.

        The jury has been sequestered, so they are in a bubble, and he can say what he likes.

        If you believe that the jury really is isolated from the outside world, would you like to buy my bridge?

          1. In theory they are sealed from the outside world.
            If you believe that you’ll believe anything.
            Restaurant staff, hotel staff, etc. what do you think?

          2. I was wondering whether jurists accept being parted from their phones, especially the younger ones.

    6. One thing is certain. George Floyd’s family have won riches beyond their dreams by his death. I wonder what premiums they would have had to pay for a life insurance policy which gave such a good return?

  82. In the very unlikely event that Chauvin is acquitted, what will Joe do to row back on his statements since the jury was sequestered?
    Have them all arrested for lack of wokery?

    1. I’d like to know why he believes the evidence is ‘overwhelming’ when the medical experts couldn’t agree on the cause of death.

    2. Biden is safe

      But that hasn’t stopped Biden from “praying that the verdict is the ‘right’ verdict”

  83. Breaking news USA:

    The Democrats are passing the 34th Amendment to the constitution;

    All white men are assumed to be guilty as charged and are to be sentenced without benefit of that waste of time known as a fair trial..

  84. In the latest farce over the Chauvin trial, the judge has “told government officials to shut up about the case.”

    But that hasn’t stopped Biden from “praying that the verdict is the ‘right’ verdict”

    It hasn’t stopped the Somali woman: Ilhan Omar, from saying, “The Case Feels Like a Closed Case… It Shouldn’t Even be Questioned Whether There Will be an Acquittal”

    Nor has it stopped the far-left Mayor of Minneapolis from saying “Regardless of the decision made by the jury, there is one true reality, which is that George Floyd was killed at the hands of police.”

    Will anyone ever respect ‘US justice’ again if the Dems are in power?

  85. Last in, first out.

    Manchester City and Chelsea, the last two to join (and reluctantly) have withdrawn from the ESL.

  86. Apparently a verdict has been reached in that case but they will hold off announcing the verdict until 5PM.

    Time to sell shares in insurance companies, there will be a lot of claims coming in tomorrow.

  87. Wedding anniversary today. So much for celebrating with a nice meal at a local restaurant, the best we could do would be to buy a take out MacDonalds and sit in the car while eating the burger.

    1. Mine yesterday………….of the first one! 52 years – but I had a lucky escape 31 years ago.

        1. We celebrated 33 years together on April 2nd with a lovely meal which Caroline cooked.

          We eat so well at home that I am reminded of what Paul Newman said about his wife, Joanne Woodward:

          Why go out for a hamburger when you can have best steak at home?

      2. Gosh, do you still remember the blasted date after 31 years? I do my best to forget it; it pops into my head occasionally, but I’d like to think I’d missed a few years out.

        1. I’m blessed or cursed with the kind of mind that remembers dates and other minutiae.

          Second time around , the date is the same as my birthday……… so woe betide him who forgets!

    2. Weddings. I remember those. As it happens, I’m playing for the first wedding in eighteen months, tomorrow. Limited to fifteen guests. Singing verboten. I’ve downloaded a couple of hymns from Mr Bezos’ site. Congrats, regardless…

  88. Radio 4 this evening, 9pm, ‘The Jump – HIV’, part 3 of a series about how viruses move from the wild into humans. Here’s the blurb:

    Chris van Tulleken on the human behaviours that are causing pandemics, paying the price for getting too close to animals by degrading their territory and allowing viruses to jump.

    Professor Greg Towers explains that HIV has jumped more than once and it’s not fully understood why one virus caused a pandemic while others did not. Chris hears new evidence that traces the origins of AIDS to a starving Congolese first world war soldier forced to kill primates in Cameroon for food in order to survive. Previously ‘patient zero’ had been thought to be an indigenous ‘cut hunter’ infected when butchering a chimpanzee.

    But Jacques Pepin, author of The Origins of Aids, describes how indigenous peoples rarely hunted chimps as it was too dangerous with basic tools such as nets or bow and arrows. When Allied forces invaded Cameroon, then a German colony, 17 local hunters suddenly turned into 1700 forcibly recruited World War 1 soldiers. Armed with rifles, chimps were easy prey. Once again this is a story of change in practice upsetting the ecosystem and humans invading – quite literally in this case – terrain where they have no business to be.

    Plus Dr Peter Daszak, Dr William Karesh of EcoHealth Alliance and Dr Kanitha Krishnasamy of Traffic (https://www.traffic.org/) explain the links between climate change, deforestation and viruses like HIV jumping.

    And Chris speaks to Professor Beatrice Hahn, virologist and virus hunter, who identified where HIV jumped by analysing thousands of faecal samples from wild chimps.

    I listened to this. What started as a genuinely interesting detective story quickly turned into a rant against European colonialism and capitalism. It followed that up with warnings about climate change. There is a proper discussion to be had about consumerism and environmental degradation but this was not it. The crunching gear change half-way through was alarming.

    Oh, and homosexuals were given some exoneration for their spreading of the disease in the early 80s.

    A few weeks ago I wrote in praise of Radio 4 for an edition of ‘Analysis’. Little praise for this; it started with four stars and ended with none.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000tcbm

    1. More BBC BS. Humans have been “degrading” the territory of animals ever since they started hunting them for food, and handling the meat. The possibility for viruses to spring over has existed ever since then.

  90. Something for bedtime !

    “Sixty is the worst age to be,” said the 60-year-old man. “You always feel like you have to pee and most of the time you stand there and nothing comes out.”
    “Ah, that’s nothing,” said the 70-year-old. “When you’re seventy, you don’t have a bowel movement any more. You take laxatives, eat bran, sit on the toilet all day and nothing comes out!”
    “Actually,” said the 80-year-old, “Eighty is the worst age of all.” “Do you have trouble peeing, too?” asked the 60-year-old. “No, I pee every morning at 6:00. I pee like a racehorse on a flat rock; no problem at all.” “So, do you have a problem with your bowel movement?” asked the 70-year-old man. “No, I have one every morning at 6:30.” Exasperated, they both ask: “You pee every morning at 6:00 and crap every morning at 6:30. So what’s so bad about being 80?”
    “I don’t wake up until 7:00.”

  91. BREAKING NEWS

    Chauvin found guilty on all counts. Sentencing in eight weeks time.

    2. Why are the BBC getting so excited … what the hell has it to do with us … oh except that a BLACK newsreader is slobbering with excitement with all the talking about white supremacy .

      Jo Biden … and that blinking John Sopel stirring stuff up ..

      1. Good evening Maggiebelle

        I have only recently noticed – because of his constant appearance on BBC News – just what a repulsive man John Sopel is.

        I am beginning to think that black people despise white people so much that apartheid might suit them very well.

    3. Additionally:

      A motion of congressional censure, brought by Republican lawmakers against a Democratic lawmaker over her rhetoric about the trial, has failed. Democrats, who narrowly control the US House of Representatives, said Maxine Waters had no reason to apologise. The measure was defeated on Tuesday afternoon by 216-210.

      At issue was what the 15-term representative for south Los Angeles said on Saturday when she spoke to protesters in Brooklyn Center, a Minneapolis suburb not far from where Chauvin is on trial. Waters told protesters to “stay on the streets”, “fight for justice” and “get more confrontational” if Chauvin is acquitted.

      The trial judge, Peter Cahill, condemned the Democrat’s comments as “abhorrent” and suggested they could even result in any conviction being overturned on appeal.

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-56721011

    4. That’s a shameful verdict. Manslaughter perhaps, though even that is in doubt, but premeditated murder? Ridiculous.

  93. I am obviously mistaken but I thought that the concept of trial by jury was that an accused was tried by his peers. Chauvin is a white man but there were only two white men on the jury.

    What with Dems, even the President himself, calling for a guilty verdict and compensation of $27 million being paid by the City of Minneapolis to Floyd’s family long before the case was heard, and what with BLM, Antifa and assorted leftist mobs ready to destroy Minneapolis, the guy didn’t stand a chance.

    A travesty of justice if ever there was one. And Floyd was a criminal convicted multiple times, now morphed into a hero of the left!

    1. The guilty verdict was inevitable just as the not guilty verdict was inevitable in the O.J. Simpson case.

      Can anyone detect a common factor?

  94. The Union will remain in peril until an English parliament is on the table
    There is only so long the PM can hold off the forces of separatism without constitutional reform

    DT Article by Philip Johnston: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/20/union-will-remain-peril-english-parliament-table/

    West Lothian Question.

    Here’s the answer:

    Only have one set of MPs who sit in Westminster 3 days a week and then return to their own countries to sit in their own national assemblies for the rest of the week – English MPs stay in Westminster to attend to exclusively English matters.

    This will save a considerable amount of money in MPs’ salaries and expenses and since English MPs will stay in Westminster more taxpayers’ money need not be squandered – as it was in Scotland – on building new premises.

    1. An English Parliament would only make the whole mess worse. More cost, more hot air, more empty posturing. The fact that we reject this absurdity, but somehow believe that it makes things better in Wales or Scotland was a master stroke of public relations.

  95. A quick well done to our very own Grizzly for this letter, with which I completely agree. To lazily believe otherwise is foolish in the extreme.

    “To boldly split

    SIR – Suzanne Kirk (Letters, April 20) says that it is poor practice to split an infinitive.

    H W Fowler, in his standard work Modern English Usage (1926), spends two and a half pages discussing the “tyranny” of the principle and concludes that, for clarity, it is far better to split an infinitive than to reduce a sentence to absurd clumsiness in the headlong clamour to avoid its use at all costs.

    Alan G Barstow
    Onslunda, Skåne County, Sweden”

    1. Agreed. I find the over-affected avoidances of split infinitives stilted and often ambiguous. One example from after the 1997 election in a question to Gordon Brown: “Chancellor, are you going significantly to increase public spending?” Going significantly or increasing significantly ? Hmmm.

    2. Good morning John

      I have lived for nearly 75 years without knowning what a split infinitive is and I’m not certain whether or not I have suffered.
      Is there one in my opening sentence?

      1. It’s inserting another word, usually an adverb, between “to” and the verb e.g “To boldly go…” Split Infinitive(SI) obsessives would insist on “To go boldly” or more usually: “Boldly to go…” the latter being over-affected and awkward while sending an audible signal that the speaker is an SI avoider – an aural form of a Masonic handshake to signify that one is a member of an elite.

        It’s an artificial rule – pure linguistic snobbery.

        1. It has long been said that there are three groups of people with regard to SIs:

          1. Those who know and care.
          2. Those who know yet don’t care.
          3. Those who don’t know and don’t care.

          I added my own fourth category to this list:

          4. Those who pretend to know and not to care but still go out of their way to avoid it.

          1. That is a sort of paraphrase of Fowler’s quotation:

            “Split Infinitive The English-speaking world may be divided into (1) those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know, but care very much; (3) those who know and condemn; (4) those who know and approve; and (5) those who know and distinguish. . . . Those who neither know nor care are the vast majority, and are a happy folk, to be envied by the minority classes.[5]”

    3. Good morning John

      I have lived for nearly 75 years without knowning what a split infinitive is and I’m not certain whether or not I have suffered.
      Is there one in my opening sentence?

  97. Seems the verdict is “guilty”.
    Rioting postponed until another opportunity is found.

  98. Mng to those already up and online. The proverbial power cuts here plus post power back Google and MO servers specfically tweaked for this region overnight Sunday / Monday. So in usual “catch up” mode as Lawrence Oates said “I may be some time

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