895 thoughts on “Sunday 6 October: The Tories will be finished if the PM fails to deliver Brexit on time”

  1. Another flurry of letters on HS2 today including one from a William Barter. This man has a vested interest in HS2 going ahead and his opinions on the subject should not be given exposure on the DT’s letters page.

    http://www.williambarter.co.uk

      1. He must have had a dozen pro-HS2 letters printed in the DT in the last 3 years, all saying much the same thing.

          4. Well, Harry K’s post shows both William Barter’s phone numbers. Perhaps if we all send him a text message on his mobile that might show him what we think of him. (Good morning afternoon to all NoTTLers, btw.)

    1. Morning Rik. One of the secret pleasures of looking at the Labour Front Bench is trying to figure out who is the richest of this collection of Marxist dogsbodies. Most of them are probably better off than the Tories facing them!

    2. Private education being another, Rik. I had the misfortune to hear part of R4’s Any Questions repeat yesterday, and I was hoping to hear Farage point out that despite all the Labour noise to effectively ban it, most of the shadow cabinet, and many others on that side, have chosen it for their own children. I had hoped to hear the word ‘hypocrisy’ from him, but I was disappointed. Unless I missed it, he somehow messed up an open goal.

    3. Will the BBC feature this in their news bulletins as much as they have done so with Fumblegate?

      Rhetorical question, of course.

      1. Too cold for shorts. You should be getting rain later. Tomorrow better; Tuesday warm again.

  4. Good morning all.

    Just getting light – it’s supposed to rain all day, but we won’t let that dampen our spirits.

  5. Emily Maitlis: it’s increasingly hard to get straight answers on Newsnight. Sat 5 Oct 2019.

    She was asked what her one question would be if she had Boris Johnson on Newsnight this week.

    “I’m not entirely sure it matters what question you ask Boris Johnson,” she said, to audience laughter.

    The lack of self-awareness here is remarkable and speaks tellingly of the voice of the “impartial” BBC!

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/oct/05/newsnight-interviewer-its-increasingly-hard-to-get-straight-answers

    1. Emily Maitlis: it’s increasingly hard to get straight answers on Newsnight– especially if you keep interrupting the person before they can answer, you stupid person!

    2. And this was the person put at the helm of the BBC’s Conservatives Leaders Debate?!

  7. Heyup All!
    Still in dry dock and have been moved into a 5 bed bay, so not a lot of sleep last night.
    The beds are not the most comfortable either!

    I’m online using the NHS patient access which is not exactly the most brilliant!
    The system seems to take great delight in mangling the URLs of links on here making navigating very hard!

    2. ‘Morning, Bob

      Do you have one of those new-fangled, dreadful air mattresses? I was fortunate enough to escape them, although they were being introduced nearly every tie a patient changed beds.

      1. No, it’s a plastic covered foam one which has developed ridges where the mattress folds as the head of the bed is lifted up.
        I have still been amusing myself by entertaining other patients with my singing.
        I sang to one bedridden old lady yesterday in a side room and when her family came in the evening they got me to do another song. They were delighted.

      2. …and now there’s an ‘m’ missing unless you really want to tie patients to their beds.

        ‘Morning, Peddy, it happens to us all from time to time.

        1. ‘Morning, Tom.

          I’ve been up since 05.30. It’s prolly (© Biull) time for another coffee.

    3. I must have missed your posts recently, BoB. I hope that your hospital stay is not serious and is short-lived. (Your stay at the hospital, not your time on the planet! :-)).)

    5. Best wishes Bob, I’m sure you’re in good hands but let’s hope you’re out of there sooner rather than later.

    6. They don’t want good internet connections. There is still money to be made from charging exorbitant daily rental fees for substandard TVs but that income would disappear if t’internet worked properly.
      .

  8. SIR – Gerry Doyle (Letters, September 29) wonders what the result of “free prescriptions for all” will be.

    As a retired doctor I can tell him: vast collections of unopened packages of pharmaceutical compounds occupying whole chests of drawers in people’s homes. This can be stated confidently because it is already the case for many of those who already receive “free” prescriptions by dint of being benefit recipients or over 60.

    It should also be noted that, in a medical insurance scheme in the US, a new “benefit” was introduced that reduced to zero the cost of attending the family practice element of the scheme. Attendance immediately increased by 33 per cent and this continued throughout the year. A charge of $5 (then $3, now $4) was introduced in year two, which saw attendance return to historic levels.

    If something has no cost then it is not valued. Our politicians need to recognise that medical products and services are no different to anything else in this respect.

    Dr Kevin M O’Sullivan
    Plymouth, Devon

    Of course that’s true….but it doesn’t matter if Labour think they can win a few more votes in an election from the heartless Tories.

    1. Free Prescription should be very limited. I would say to Non tax payers , and children who are in any case non tax payers

  9. SIR – All the hoo-ha about the diminishing number of ATMs has made me think about how cash was sourced years ago, before credit and debit cards.

    A trip to a bank was required to write a cheque for cash. Only your own bank, or one with which you had previously set up an arrangement, would give you money. Banks had short working hours, closing at 3pm, with a half-day on Saturdays.

    One devious way round this was to buy an item in M&S using a cheque and then straightaway return it, whereupon you were given a cash refund. Naughty but essential if you were away from home and in need of money unexpectedly.

    Alyson Persson
    Henfield, West Sussex

    Now we know… M&S invented Quantitative Easing.

    1. Cash is going to disappear. There is no doubt about that. Politicians cannot turn the clock back. The politicians just need to manage the transition to a non cash society. WE had a much earlier transition when we ent from bartering to cash

  11. Morning

    SIR – If, as reports suggest, Boris Johnson is now prepared to write to the EU requesting an extension of Article 50 in the event that a deal is not agreed, contrary to all his protestations thus far, the disappointment felt by those who believed they at last had a Brexit champion will be huge.

    The Brexit Party will be unstoppable.

    Jennie Naylor
    East Preston, West Sussex

    SIR – I admire Mr Johnson, but if he gets his deal through he will have a problem.

    He is saying that we will be out of the EU on October 31, but in fact his deal effectively keeps us in until some unspecified date in 2021.

    The public will soon realise this and punish him at an election.

    Robert Mansfield
    Bramhope, West Yorkshire

    1. Well Boris is in effect being forced to do this by the Remainers. HE has little choice Lets hope he has a way around this but clearly if he has he will not want to show his hand

    2. I think that one term of The Brexit Party would be a tonic and do this country a world of good. They have a large membership of mature men and women who have long experience of actually working for a living. Many of them are “traditional Conservatives” who see the current party as having badly lost its way. They would get us out of the European Union on the WTO terms that many of us would want, without tying us under their control for years in “transition” as Boris’s deal would do.

      I would breathe a sigh of relief if they replaced the Liberal Conservative MP’s and took all of those Labour MP’s seats that voted to Leave the EU. The Conservative party could take those 5 years of the next parliament removing all of those other Liberals who have sneaked into the party. The Brexit Party cannot possibly be worse at running the country than these EU employees that are trying to stop us being free again.

      That will, of course, depend upon whether Boris comes back from the EU waving that terrible Withdrawal Agreement in a “peace in our time” moment.

      1. I don’t think the Brexit Party has any hope ever of being in power.

        All they can do is influence the Conservative Party and so votes for the BP in a likely lowish quantity will only tend to bring about the exact opposite of what you want thanks to FPTP….

        Lab/Lib/SNP.

        Enjoy !

  12. Morning again

    SIR – It is disappointing to read that the Royal Shakespeare Company is severing ties with BP, its biggest sponsor.

    This short-sighted, self-harming measure is symptomatic of a wider malaise in British theatre, which seems intent on bringing about its own demise. It cannot sustain itself without significant sponsorship, and one wonders how high the bar will have to be set in order to secure the approval of our virtue-signalling theatre establishment.

    No doubt we will see a dramatic fall in future sponsorship as companies will not want to be hauled before the court of smug opinion. We are living through an era where plays are being reworked, and in many cases ruined, in order to be more relevant and edgy. Traditional and knowledgeable theatre audiences who don’t want to see Macbeth played by a rapper are being turned away, and this can only lead to a steady decline in one of the jewels of our national culture.

    Martyn Thomas
    London SE27

    SIR – As a patron of the RSC, I am concerned that the withdrawal of BP’s sponsorship will result in either reduced remuneration for its superb performers and staff or increases in the cost of admission to the public.

    The initiative to subsidise student attendance was admirable; that this will only continue if “another company steps in” overlooks the possibility that those who have insisted that BP’s sponsorship be rejected might themselves provide the finance. Or is this impractical?

    Keith Sheppard
    Warwick

    1. Maybe the RSC should return to using candles and limelight.
      Their insurers will be delighted.

  13. Why were the useless BBC so hard on Naga?. Mail. Peter Hitchens. 6 October 2019.

    Actually, it would make much more sense if the BBC stopped pretending its presenters did not have any opinions, when it is obvious from their tone of voice, slant of question and facial expressions that they do. They might as well try to pretend that they don’t have any heads.

    Perhaps it just doesn’t want to admit almost all of its presenters have the same opinion, a tediously fashionable set of London Left-wing prejudices. If it conceded that, it might have to hire some staff who took a different view.

    “…a tediously fashionable set of London Left-wing prejudices.” ?

    No sorry to disagree Peter. There is nothing quaint about their beliefs. They are all full blooded Cultural Marxists intent on pressing their agenda.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-7542139/PETER-HITCHENS-Met-Police-failed-Shut-start-again.html

    2. St. Naga of Munchetty caused Harvey Proctor to walk out of an interview on BBC Breakfast yesterday.

  14. Sweden: Around 90 Per Cent of 2015 Migrants with Residency Status Are Unemployed

    If that is true it is a very serious problem and is likely to be similar in the UK. WE are already having problems funding the state pension
    A Swedish Professor says the answer is to create unskilled jobs for them. That sounds daft and will damage the Swedish economy

    Just under 90 per cent of the asylum seekers who came to Sweden at the height of the migrant crisis and have gained permanent residency are unemployed.
    Of the 40,019 migrants with permanent residency status who are eligible to work, only 4,574 of them support themselves independently through working, according to Statistics Sweden’s integration database for health insurance and labour market studies (LISA).

    A further 9,970 migrants receive money to study in Sweden, while another 18,405 are on municipal welfare programmes. Eight of the ten municipalities which took in the most migrants per population in 2015 also have unemployment rates far above the national average, Aftonbladet reports.

    The municipality of Ljusnarsberg took in the most migrants per population, 230 per 1,000 people, and currently has an unemployment rate of over ten per cent.

    Professor and economist Per Lundborg said the solution to the problem is to create more jobs that do not require large amounts of training or education.

    “Sweden is one of the most high-tech countries in the world, where we streamline simpler jobs. Therefore, the knowledge gap is too large for many of the refugee immigrants who come here,” Lundborg noted.

    “Sweden is a high-cost country. It is expensive to live here. If you then have a group that does not meet their living expenses through the work they do, they must still go to the society for help with their livelihood,” he added.

    The figures come only days after the European Union statistics agency Eurostat revealed that Sweden was now 24th out of 28 member states in terms of unemployment.

    Figures released last year showed a stark contrast between the native Swedish unemployment rate and the foreign-born unemployment rate. As a result, many municipalities which took in a high number of asylum seekers in 2015 have recently announced major financial troubles, some on the verge of bankruptcy.

    Germany, which took in the most asylum seekers during the 2015 crisis, has seen similar problems getting migrants into work. A 2017 report claimed that the district of Salzlandkreis in Saxony-Anhalt had a migrant unemployment rate of 96.3 per cent.

    1. The employment figures like all those relating to migrants in the UK are almost certainly falsified.

  15. Morning Each,
    May one ask if johnson decides that his personal future lies in brussels
    as with many other treacherous political creatures what good is a
    General Election after his true colours are unfurled ?
    Not so much the ersatz tory party will be finished the whole United Kingdom will be erased.
    The support for the lab/lib/con pro eu coalition has brought us to the wire once more, maybe on the final trip.

    1. In case you haven’t noticed it’s a coalition of hard leftist anti Brèxit
      consisting of Labour / SNP and the now more leftist leaning
      very anti Brèxit Lib Dems. That old cherry of linking the Conservatives
      to the rest really doesn’t work anymore and insulting them
      never persuaded anyone to vote for UKIP.
      Boris Johnson was dealt with an exceptionally bad hand and
      he’s doing the best he can whilst everyone throws stones
      at him wanting him to fail but if he fails so does England
      so therefore some quiet reflective support might be nice.

      1. Morning A,
        To my mind it is, and has been over the eu dominant years more so since the demise of Margaret Thatcher a lab/lib/con pro eu coalition, progressively getting worse by the day, month by month, year by year.
        These same expense fiddling, house flipping, shirttail lifting, lying, cheating, conniving, treacherous bunch of politico’s &
        their pro eu parties have been protective umbrellas, for mass
        paedophilia,mass murder, mass uncontrolled immigration, etc,etc, you name a nastie they and their supporters will seemingly fight the nasties corner.
        The boris has been a major part of the lab/lib/con pro eu coalition over the years, face facts.
        If he plays it straight then he has my blessings and he will be
        hero material for many years to come.
        Tell me, was it via the ballot booth, quite reflective support to get us into the sad sorry state as a nation we find ourselves in today ?

      2. A,
        One instance of political ratwork,
        cameron ( the wretch) “we are lowering the intake numbers”, then promptly raised them.

  16. October 6 2019, 12:01am, The Sunday Times
    What’s that trampling all over our democratic rights? A stampede of GNU
    Rod Liddle

    Which of the names put forward would be your favourite to lead a specially convened emergency wildebeest government? The government of national unity (GNU) would, we are told, deliver us from our daily torment by establishing a certain calmness and consensus, both in parliament and across the nation.

    Among those touted as possible leaders of this marvellous rescue act is Old Ma Beckett, who once described herself as “a moron”. There is no constitutional objection to a moron leading the country — the precedent has been set, after all. Morons get a bad press from time to time, much as Beckett did when she nominated Jeremy Corbyn to lead the Labour Party, but what they lack in intellect they very often make up for in sheer good nature.

    John Bercow, the Speaker, has also been mentioned: everything you loathe about our current parliament — its narcissism, its contempt for the voter, its bumptiousness, its idiocy — all wrapped up in one tiny little bundle. For comedy value, that has its attractions.

    Ken Clarke? The best prime minister we never had, according to people who think Ted Heath was the best prime minister we actually had. Roused from his complacent slumber, affably arrogant and almost always wrong, Clarke would be a popular choice and, with characteristic kindness, has already given his consent.

    Or there’s Harriet Harperson, doyenne of bien pensant metro-feminism and our Speaker in waiting — and yet another one of those fiery Labour radicals who despise grammar schools and other selective schools but somehow, through some slip of memory, sent her kids to them.

    Or how about Dominic Grieve? A ray of February sunshine glinting on a coffin lid in a Hertfordshire funeral parlour. A lousy attorney-general who has reinvented himself as an unlikely Che Guevara, or possibly Gandhi, of the remainer cause. Choosing Grieve would be a cheerful middle finger raised to the majority of voters who elected to leave the EU. It would say, succinctly: “Do you not understand, you idiots? We don’t care what you voted for and we don’t care what you think. Our sovereignty trumps yours. You, actually, have none.”

    You will have noted that what all of these potential caretaker prime ministers have in common is their implacable opposition to leaving the EU. Not leaving with no deal or a bad deal, but leaving at all. Beckett perhaps excepted, they are all on the Khmer Rouge wing of the remainer movement and believe that vote we had three years ago is largely irrelevant, except for the nuisance it has caused.

    But then these past three years have seen a gradual shift in the narrative. Where once almost all MPs (except for the demented likes of Anna Soubry and David Lammy, who seem entirely unaware of what the word democracy means) felt compelled to assert that they would respect the votes of the people, all that stuff has been pretty much binned, apart from by a few decent souls such as Stephen Kinnock and Caroline Flint.

    Somehow the likes of Harman and Grieve and Clarke are able to present themselves as the moderates in this whole affair, while those who want the proper Brexit they voted for (there was no “soft Brexit” option on the ballot paper) are seen as “extremists”.

    The passage of time has allowed these contortions to take place, and with every additional day that passes without us leaving, the arch-remainers are more confident in advancing their cause: “You see how complicated it all is, you poor leavers? You didn’t bargain for this, did you? Come on, let’s have another vote and this time, be sensible.” Yet it was always the mathematics in parliament, not Brexit itself, that stopped us leaving.

    The following scenario may now unfold. Boris Johnson manages to get his “May’s pig with lipstick” deal through the Commons, but not past the appalling Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s prime minister, or Belgium’s Brexit co-ordinator Guy Verhofstadt et al. In which case the thing gets kicked down the road for three more months. Boris’s government is paralysed and we will be faced with either the wildebeest/GNU option or a general election in which the Tories will lose heavily because the Brexit Party will oppose them in every constituency. In which case, welcome to the leadership, Magic Grandpa and your democracy-averse allies in the Liberal Democrats and Scottish National Party. Yes, yikes.

    The Brexit Party leader, Nigel Farage, recently accused me of being pessimistic when I advanced that scenario. But you need a really good intake of class-A drugs to think any of this will pan out well.

    The Queen’s speech: what you will hear

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Fsundaytimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F0ecd5da6-e77f-11e9-ad63-2dc2cb80bbf7.jpg?crop=1500%2C1000%2C0%2C0&resize=600

    ● Indarjit Singh is giving up doing Radio 4’s Thought for the Day because he’s sick of the BBC’s political correctness, intolerance and prejudice. The bosses tried to block a piece by the rather charming old Sikh because it might have offended Muslims, even though it didn’t criticise Islam at all.

    This is the problem with Thought for the Day. It is three minutes of anodyne, flopsy-bunny drivel filtered through the sphincter of a spineless liberal BBC apparatchik. What we want is an evangelical railing against sodomites, a left-footer ranting about abortion and a Presbyterian raving about the Whore of Rome.

    In a stew again over old misdeeds
    Our Foreign Office seems to spend most of its time grovelling to people whom it fears we may have upset a little at some distant point in the past. So it was that the British high commissioner to New Zealand prostrated herself before a contingent of Maori folk to express a degree of regret over the killing of nine Maoris by James Cook’s crewmen 250 years ago.

    The high commissioner luckily avoided being flambéed or pot-roasted with root vegetables, the fate that befell a number of Cook’s men on a different trip to New Zealand.

    And of course she didn’t receive a reciprocal expression of regret. I think the least she could have done was ask for the recipes.

    The dirty dog of Downing Street
    Boris Johnson’s cute little terrier, Dilyn, has been barred from further contact with Sajid Javid’s cavapoo bitch, Bailey. This is because Dilyn is alleged to have barked an appreciative “Woof woof!”, mounted Bailey and gone at it hammer and tongs, having to be prised off with a crowbar, or something.

    In a statement to the press, Dilyn said: “I have no recollection of this event. It simply did not happen. And I can state categorically that at no time were any public monies given to Bailey, either before or after this incident, whether it happened or not, which it definitely didn’t.

    “Frankly, I’m sick of this muckraking being put about by people who do not wish us to leave the European Union.”

    1. I have read the FTPA and I cannot see how it can be interpreted to allow another party or coalition to form a government

      What it says is if a Vote of No Confidence is called that vote has to take place within 14 days. If the vote fails the Government remains in place if not a General Election has to be called with 14 days. Nothing about another party being able to set up a government

    2. Or how about Dominic Grieve? A ray of February sunshine glinting on a coffin lid in a Hertfordshire funeral parlour.

      Brilliant!

    3. Rodders for World Dictator.
      Or even Pope, since the current one seems to be an incense ponging SJW.

  17. Hundreds’ of Transgenders Want to Return to Biological Sex

    Politicians have just jumped onto the LGBT bandwagon without any research into the impact of this as have the NHS

    Who knows what damage this is potentially causing. How much damage is it doing to their mental health. The indications are most Transgenders have mental health issues but there is little actual reach and statistic on this. Are there long term health issues with the major surgery that many undergo ?

    WE just dont knows as it is almost treated as a human right to change sex

    “Hundreds” of people who believed they were transgender want to return to their birth sex, according to the founder of Britain’s new Detransition Advocacy Network.
    28-year-old Charlie Evans, who lived as a male for almost ten years after transitioning in her teens, told Sky News that she had been contacted by “hundreds” of trans people who, like her, came to regret their decision.

    “I’m in communication with 19 and 20-year-olds who have had full gender reassignment surgery who wish they hadn’t, and their dysphoria hasn’t been relieved, they don’t feel better for it,” she told the broadcaster.

    “They don’t know what their options are now.”

    1. “They don’t know what their options are now.”
      Well if reports are accurate suicide for about 40% of them is firmly on the cards

      1. The even greater concern is they are no targeting very young children and giving them puberty blockers to encourage them to change sex quite often with the parents pushing for it

        For the politicians and NHS to encourage this without any real research is highly unethical

      2. People who want to “change sex” clearly have something going wrong in their lives. They feel that something is missing. They have been encouraged to believe that changing sex will fill that void. This does not work for the vast majority, because happiness and fulfilment do not come from outward appearance.

        So then they are left even more empty than they were before, but now with a mutilated body to increase their despair. It is small wonder that the suicide rate is so high. Those men and women pushing this insanity on the vulnerable young are child abusers.

      3. What impact does the long term taking of hormone drugs have? No research has been done on this. What impact does it have when they are also taking illegal drugs which many of them will be

        1. Perhaps, now the Iron Curtain has been swept aside, we could ask the former DDR and other former Warsaw Pact nations how their female former shot putters and other ‘well developed’ female athletes from the 1960s/70s are these days?

    2. It is otiose to point out that these procedures should never have been carried out by the NHS but still the truth!

      2. Otiose; I like the ‘archaic’ – indolent or idle.

        Morning, Minty and I see Jill Backson thinks you’ve had a sex change already.

    3. There’s a lot of people, as far as I can gather, that are having their willies surgically removed and transplanted onto their foreheads. We need to come up with some sort of name for them, I’m stumped.

    4. “They don’t know what their options are now.”
      Since NOTTLers wish to keep down their breakfasts, we’ll quickly skip over the possible actions that could be taken.
      Let’s just say “Who’d A Thunk It”?

      1. It is mostly in my view primarily a mental health issue. There are some men who refer to themselves as Nullos who have their tackle chopped off . Why ho knows

    1. Lovely Autumn day. Flask of soup, stodgy fruit cake and a walk in the woods.
      Let loose the hound of hell (well, possibly a black lab.).

      1. Labradors are darling things. Have a nice walk,
        It’s raining cats and dogs here, dreadfully wet.
        I rather like fruit cake with coffee when on a long
        walk in the woods. Have a good morning .

        1. Thank you. I must admit this is my favourite part of the year. Especially when it starts getting frosty.

          1. It’s my favourite time of the year too,
            sparking crusty ground beneath the feet and icicles sparking
            like diamonds amongst the amber, and golden leaves of
            The trees. Very beautiful indeed .

          2. I cannot agree with either you, Ethel or Richard, I see Autumn for all its beauty, as a harbinger of cold, damp and depressing Winter.

            I much prefer “When the hounds of spring are on winter’s traces…” As the new leaves start to unfurl and all woodland takes on that misty greenery, you know the warm weather is returning.

  22. Good morning from a Saxon Queen

    Dreadful storms throughout the night ,it was atrocious.

  24. Just been hearing about those poor people in Hong Kong, just imagine being forced to be part of an undemocratic super state, where your vote doesn’t count and can be overruled by elite place men and where the judiciary are enforcing their laws against you.

    3. Afternoon B,
      The chance of that happening here is about the same as laying out a wedding breakfast on abbots @rse.

  25. Douglas Murray

    “A strange scene greeted tourists in

    Westminster on Thursday, as three green activists stood on top of a fire

    engine posing for photographers.

    The

    engine was parked in front of the Treasury, a building they had just

    attempted to spray with 440 gallons of fake blood. Standing a few paces

    off were scores of police officers, waiting in silence.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-7541965/DOUGLAS-MURRAY-listen-bunch-anarchists-work-fire-hose.html

    Who ordered these police to stand down and wait??

    Dick??

    Khan??
    Someone in authority damn well did,whoever it was should be promptly charged with Malfeasance in Public Office!!

    1. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t crime prevention part of what the Police are supposed to be doing?

  27. New definition for S.O.S.

    A C-130H (Hercules Transport Plane) was lumbering along when a cocky F-16 flashed by.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6476924190c4fb22d7f490820ad1b43330a2cb7b24aaa48ad3c0d7e809b840e9.jpg

    The jet jockey decided to show off.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dd1207ffb3eb41d8b9e805d073a271cafe5f5ed72c973847cd8ef5f69711d6d1.jpg

    The fighter jock told the 130 pilot, ‘watch this!’ and promptly went into a barrel roll followed by a steep climb.

    He then finished with a sonic boom as he broke the sound barrier.

    The F-16 pilot asked the 130 pilot what he thought of that?

    The 130 pilot said, ‘That was impressive, but watch this!’

    The C-130 droned along for about 5 minutes and then the 130 pilot came back on and said, ‘What did you think of that?’

    Puzzled, the F-16 pilot asked, ‘What the heck did you do?’

    The C-130 pilot chuckled. ‘I stood up, stretched my legs, walked to the back, took a leak, then got a cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll.’

    When you are young & foolish – speed & flash may seem a good thing!

    When you’re nearly 69, comfort & dull is not such a bad thing is it! It’s called…

    S.O.S.

    Slower, Older and Smarter

    1. Morning, NTN. Years ago when I was flying on Shackletons we had zaps which we took to U.S. bases and stuck on their shiny jets. The zap had a picture of a Shackleton and the words ‘Age and Cunning beats Youth and Speed’!

        1. I had a former Shackleton man ‘Gentleman Jim’ Corbett as one of my old bosses back around 1990. There were a few other lending their skills to Targeting Wing. A fine bunch of gentlemen, mind you they had possibly mellowed quite a bit by the time I knew them.

      2. ‘Morning, Delboy – I remember the Shackleton, 40,000 rivets flying in close formation!

  28. New definition for S.O.S.

    A C-130H (Hercules Transport Plane) was lumbering along when a cocky F-16 flashed by.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6476924190c4fb22d7f490820ad1b43330a2cb7b24aaa48ad3c0d7e809b840e9.jpg

    The jet jockey decided to show off.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dd1207ffb3eb41d8b9e805d073a271cafe5f5ed72c973847cd8ef5f69711d6d1.jpg

    The fighter jock told the 130 pilot, ‘watch this!’ and promptly went into a barrel roll followed by a steep climb.

    He then finished with a sonic boom as he broke the sound barrier.

    The F-16 pilot asked the 130 pilot what he thought of that?

    The 130 pilot said, ‘That was impressive, but watch this!’

    The C-130 droned along for about 5 minutes and then the 130 pilot came back on and said, ‘What did you think of that?’

    Puzzled, the F-16 pilot asked, ‘What the heck did you do?’

    The C-130 pilot chuckled. ‘I stood up, stretched my legs, walked to the back, took a leak, then got a cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll.’

    When you are young & foolish – speed & flash may seem a good thing!

    When you’re nearly 69, comfort & dull is not such a bad thing is it! It’s called…

    S.O.S.

    Slower, Older and Smarter

      1. Yes get in only 35 Years NI you get a full state pension get in 45 years NI you still get exactly the same state pension is spite of having paid in a lot more

    2. The one thing the government managed well was the increase in state pension age which was phased in over about 22 years

      What was daft was reducing the qualifying years from 44 to 30 years. They have now increased the 30 years to 35 years

      It seems to be so migrants can get full pensions. It seems totally wrong to me that someone with only 35 years NI contributions gets the same pension as someone with say 45 years NI contributions

  30. Question .. perhaps a daft one but..

    Do the owners of Aldi and Lidl know more than us , and how come they are spending a fortune building new stores .. Land acquired all over Dorset for new stores.. more low wage jobs of course , but who owns these stores?

    2. Around where I live the planners gave permission for lots of 1,2,3 bedroom flats to be built above the Lidl stores, so I suspect the housing developer also built the store ?for free as part of the deal so the supermarket is carrying zero capital costs which the legacy supermarkets almost certainly have to bear….

        2. They have the right to sell what they want. Their cleaning pads for specs are cheap but excellent.

          1. A drop of liquid soap, run under the tap while rubbing with your fingers. Rinse and dry your hands and then dry the specs with toilet paper (not Izal). Much cheaper again and a sparkling finish.

            See you, Peddy.

        3. Ummmm ….. Morning, Belle.
          Have you ever shopped in ALDI or Lidl?
          By ‘cheap tat’ do you mean the central aisle displays where they sell goods from the grey market (not a reference to age)?
          Their food is as good as any you’ll find in other supermarkets; the range is not as large, but, ultimately, how many choices of coffee or tomato sauce do we need?
          The established supermarkets brought this phenomenon on themselves by being greedy and arrogant.

          1. I wandered into a Lidl just to see what it was like. I found a range of meat products from Europe that were “real meat” and not 40% added water, filler and rusk that I found in some supermarkets. They actually had some flavour and are only surpassed by my local butchers, where I normally go.

          3. Lidl ginger biscuits 25p, Tescos (MacVities) £1 – same taste, same quantity….no contest

          4. Have you ever thought of becoming a vegetarian, Merry ?

            There are some delicious vegetarian products arouund, such as Quorn, all completely meat free of course so there’s no guilty feelings about killing animals.

            https://www.quorn.co.uk/

            Enjoy with a salad, an avocado and vine tomatoes…..

            Mmmmmm…. delicious.

            Try it and see !

          5. Lidl…Washing up liquid, dishwasher stuff, laundry washing and conditioner, shampoo , almonds for Moh , fluffy warm throws for beds and torches ( for when we have power outages )

          6. Apart from the almonds, none of those can be described as foodstuffs, unless you have very strange tastes.

          7. Yep have shopped in Lidl..

            Also Aldi .. I bought a set of dog agility equipment for the garden .. Hoops, jumps , tunnel, chicane .. excellent value.. Looked on line at their special offers .. Moh bought a shaver and a haircutting set .. He is sparsely clothed in head hair.. in fact not much there really! He has never EVER visited a barber in about 40 years !

          8. So how do you square that with your post of 2 hours ago?

            They should stick to being a food store and not a purveyor of chav tat!

          9. Because dog agility stuff is not chav tat.. it is for competitions and practise runs .. Moh and his shavers and haircutting stuff does the stuff he wants.. as does the nostril hair cutters and spec cleaning pads ..

          10. But none of these things would be available in a store which is restricted to food only, as you appear to wish.

          16. Their full cream sherry is excellent……and I should know. HIC!

            ….and the smoked salmon excellent too.

          20. Aldi chocolate the Moser Roth brand was a revelation,showed what real choco should taste like
            Puts Nestle/Cadburys to shame

          21. Moser Roth – be careful how you pronounce that, or you could find yourself in trouble.

      2. I doubt it was free but clearly having flats above the store will reduce cost quite a lot. Aldi probably own the freehold and the builders sell the flats off leasehold

        1. The fact that Lidl obtained planning permission for several dozen flats in both cases would be worth a free store in my opinion…..

        1. Unfortunately they don’t offer a delivery service. I thought free delivery by Panzer would appeal.

    4. The market seem to be moving to cost being impotent so the current major supermarkets are losing out to the Discounters. Until recently the high end Supermarkets such as M&S Food and Waitrose were not being affected but they are now starting to feel the impact of the discounters

      The discounters cut costs by having more basic stores and mainly selling own brands and stocking about a third of the range the likes of Tesco’s etc stock

      2. Stack ’em high and sell ’em cheap. It’s what made Tesco the biggest supermarket in the 1960s and 1970s, but then Tesco overexpanded their range and put up their prices.

        Aldi and Lidl also benefit by economies of scale – their outlets are all over Europe, and a canny buying policy, picking up job lots and bargains where they can be found. Since the pound dropped, they bought a lot from Britain, selling it everywhere. Quite a lot from Poland and Greece too. Germany, thanks to the Euro, has been underpriced for quite a while now. In the past, the Deutschmark would have revalued and corrected this.

        The Germans are quite hot on quality control too, whereas the British let their standards slip since the 1970s, when they adopted American ethics and management practices, but forgot to match American quality of service with a smile (or bared teeth as some might feel).

      3. >>The discounters cut costs by having more basic stores and mainly selling own brands
        M&S sell their own brand but charge Premium Prices –
        try Lidl “De Luxe” range – great quality at Lidl Prices. not M&S or Waitrose prices.

  31. Can any other DT subscribers see anything wrong with the picture on the front page above the headline “William and Kate enjoy day out with George and Charlotte at the football” ?

    2. Just a badly behaved, hyper-active child who is prolly spoiling the atmosphere for others.

  32. Heseltine moaning on LBC at the moment. “We’re leaving the club,” and “Breaking up this evolution of European history.”

    Evolution depends on random mutations appearing, some mutations are beneficial for the organism and the organism moves forward, other mutations are deadly and the organism is not viable and dies out taking the mutation with it. IMHO the EU is a deadly mutation and its presence is killing Europe as we know it: The mutant EU will certainly die out eventually but at what cost to the organism that is Europe?

      1. Educate the public sufficiently to understand the propaganda but not sufficiently to challenge it.

        1. I know (and hope) not. I simply distrust any poll – because all pollsters have their own agendas.

        2. Lewis – The primary goal of every public poll that is produced between now and the next election will be to pretend that if you do not vote Conservative then Corbyn will get into power. This is an utter fantasy as any look at the state of the Labour party will tell you. Add to that their Leave voting constituencies that they are waving goodbye to, then it should be obvious that these numbers are made up.

          It is the easiest and cheapest way for the pro-eu media to control the way that people will vote. They want you to keep voting for the same MP’s that won’t let us Leave the EU now. The polls have been wrong for the last 3 elections in a row as the representatives of YouGov and one of the other companies admitted. Their figures are deliberate lies.

          The only time that they give out accurate polling data is for meaningless by-elections that won’t affect the bigger drive to keep us in the EU.

        3. Lewis – The primary goal of every public poll that is produced between now and the next election will be to pretend that if you do not vote Conservative then Corbyn will get into power. This is an utter fantasy as any look at the state of the Labour party will tell you. Add to that their Leave voting constituencies that they are waving goodbye to, then it should be obvious that these numbers are made up.

          It is the easiest and cheapest way for the pro-eu media to control the way that people will vote. They want you to keep voting for the same MP’s that won’t let us Leave the EU now. The polls have been wrong for the last 3 elections in a row as the representatives of YouGov and one of the other companies admitted. Their figures are deliberate lies.

          The only time that they give out accurate polling data is for meaningless by-elections that won’t affect the bigger drive to keep us in the EU.

          1. FPTP likely means Lab or Con.. or Lab/Lib/SNP or Con/Lib.

            Unless the BP moves up a great deal, I don’t think they’ll even get one seat which is very unfair, but that’s the FPTP system.

        4. What is important is how that translated into seat as almost certainty Labour and Lib-Dem’s would join up. Probably mo a coalition but a Confidence and supply agreement

          It tends to demonstrate the need for the Conservatives to reach an agreement over which seats each parties fight

  34. OT – technical question. For years, I have obtain the EURO symbol (on the 4 key) by pressing Ctrl + Alt + 4.

    It has just stopped – this very morning. I know I can get it other ways, but I’m so used to the old way.

    Any clues about how to make the keyboard behave?

    4. Your keyboard can’t be bothered waiting until 31st October, so has decided to take matters into its own hands.

    5. You can possibly revert to a previous restore point if undercover updates have happened. Right click on ‘my computer’ or ‘this pc’, select ‘properties’ and look for System Protection/ System restore. If it’s been set up, you should be able to select a restore date. This affects the system only and does not delete or modify your data.

        1. Thanks, Jody. I shall just soldier on learning the new method. I suspect that the change is not unconnected with an “update” yesterday…one step forward, two steps back…..

          1. I still prefer Charmap.exe which gives a much wider range of alternatives that are not on any key board. Things like:
            ©¿¼½¾⁂⌚☎☘

          2. As about half my typing is in French, I have become so used to the ALT key plus various numbers from the number pad for accents, fractions etc.

      2. Alt 0128 gives the € sign (using the number pad on my PC)
        Takes me back 35 years with the first IBM PCs (made in the USA) which did not have a £ sign – they had no need for it.

    6. These things sometimes happen without any discernible reason. For months my alt codes for umlauts, etc., wouldn’t work & then all of a sudden they were restored.

  35. The next week or so should be interesting with the constant twist and turn of Brexit who knows. Will it get resolved or will the tin can be kicked another 3 months down the road. Will we get General Election. Who knows ?

    The one thing I know is our current political and electoral system is no longer fit for purpose and need radical change

    1. If we are forced to get another extension then those asking for it must be removed. Their own greed and corruption is trying to usurp the democratic instruction they received from the people.

      That cannot be allowed. If that means Benn being dragged out by his neck, so be it. This situation is intolerable.

    2. Way way back in the 1830s, the Duke of Wellington seemed to think that unrestricted universal suffrage would end up completely wrecking the nation.

      I think he was probably right.

      1. He was Irish, you know. And consequently particularly fond of his Irish troops, though he surrounded himself with aristocratic officers.

        1. I think the hereditary peerage should be restored, the life peers abolished, and the Commons converted into the latest Trump Heritage Destination International.

    3. Bercow is even being suggested as interim PM for an improbable united but pro remain government. Boris possibly challenging the Queen to sack him. Not wise, I wonder how that would end.

      1. Rumours going around that the Queen has been heard muttering in her bath ” A plague on both your houses “.

      3. It would bring the entire House of Commons into even further disrepute than it already is.

      4. well the little goblin would be entitled immediately to a Prime Ministerial pension, for life (they now label it as an allowance, it is probably about £150 – 200k per annum) and police protection.
        If he had to meet the Queen, Her Majesty would allow him to remain standing, so that she wouldn’t intimidate him.

  36. Re VAR at the RUWC.

    If the referee calls for a review, often a minute or more after the “try”/offence, why isn’t the clock wound back to the time when the incident happened? The France Tonga game might have had a different result if Tonga had had what amounted to several minutes “lost” added on at the end, like extra time in football.

      1. Indeed, but that doesn’t give back the minutes lost while the ball is in play.

        In the instance that started me wondering, the play continued for ages as various advantages played out. Eventually the plays finished and VAR was consulted. The clock was off while VAR was consulted, but the time from the infringement through to the breakdown/VAR consultation was lost.

        Over the course of a game that could amount to several minutes. I lost count of the number of VAR consultations that took place in the France Tonga game..

        1. True. Time is inevitably lost in rugby matches. Most teams are glad of it, indeed there is a lot of time spent on “injuries” and similar, although this is clearly cheating.
          All Blacks are good at it. As soon as their line comes under pressure, one of them falls down. The attacking side lose impetus. A quick spray from a water bottle or a suck at an orange, a groin massage from the medic, or for Maoris a wave of the juju stick, and Voila!!. All better.

          1. A fourth official, as in soccer, would ameliorate some of that.

            If all “injured” players were forced to leave the pitch for assessment and treatment as are head injuries I suspect one would soon see a significant drop in numbers

          2. Yes, I do agree that a second referee would very much help. The so-called assistant referees seem to be useless. At present they are ideally placed to stand in line with the rear feet of scrums and rucks and signal offside. That does not happen. Referees constantly twist around to check.
            I am rather cynical about it all. It is now an international entertainment business owned by an investment company.

  37. Stephen Dorrell joins Lib-Dem’s another of these undemocratic MP’s that flits from party to party ignoring his electorate

  39. Lib Dem humiliation: Jo Swinson’s party nosedives in new voting poll as Conservatives soar

    BORIS JOHNSON and the Conservatives were given a major boost as the latest round of polling statistics revealed they had embarked on a 15 percent point lead over nearest rivals Labour.

    Data now shows only 15 percent would vote for Jo Swinson’s group – down by five percent.
    That is only three points about the Brexit Party.
    The poll was carried out between October 3 and 4.

  40. The Met Police have failed us. Shut them down and start again. Mail. Peter Hitchens. 6 October 2019.

    The force may have had to fork out a bit of public money in compensation to the innocent men whose reputations it casually besmirched and whose private lives it publicly trampled on. But no deterrent or exemplary punishment has been exacted and, in my view, nobody will change his or her ways. As usual in her magically propelled career, Dame Cressida, Madam Teflon, is wholly unaffected despite her personal involvement at the start of the whole thing.

    Nor could her underling, Sir Stephen, stop making the same basic, wilful mistake that led to all the other miseries and stupidities that ended with his officers bursting into the home of a wholly innocent war hero in his 90s. Before he vanished back into the warmth of New Scotland Yard, he repeatedly used the word ‘victim’ to describe sex abuse complainants.

    Morning everyone. Dame Cressida was appointed because she is both Female and a Lesbian and cannot be dismissed because this makes her a figurehead and exemplar for the values of Cultural Marxism. Her record tells you this; she was certainly responsible for the death of Charles de Menezes and yet her promotion proceeded unimpeded by what would have been a terminal incident to any male officers career.

    Since becoming Commissioner she has helped transform the Metropolitan Police into a Politically Correct Gestapo. That it is also staggeringly incompetent is only to be expected since it is not concerned with enforcing the law but the principles of PC, hence in this particular incident, the pursuit of these Old Indigenous White Men who were guilty simply by virtue of being who they were. All that was necessary was to prove it!

    Her appointment has had other detrimental effects in that as a member of the PC Freemasonry and place woman for the Elites she has returned the favour by supporting and blocking embarrassing investigations. The Darroch and Williamson enquiries are both on hold not because they are beyond solution but because they might prove politically uncomfortable! That May would make her a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in her resignation honours list in appreciation of these services is just another example of the nature of this corrupt and self-serving relationship.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-7542139/PETER-HITCHENS-Met-Police-failed-Shut-start-again.html

    1. ‘Morning Minty

      Value for money policing

      “Just six internet trolls have been brought to justice by a £1.7million ‘Twitter squad’ set up by London’s Labour mayor Sadiq Khan.

      He promised a zero-tolerance stance towards abuse on social media when the police unit was launched more than two years ago.

      But

      the Online Hate Crime Hub – staffed by five Scotland Yard officers

      including a senior detective – led to just a handful of successful

      prosecutions, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. Not one of the trolls was jailed.”

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7542209/Sadiq-Khans-1-7million-Twitter-Hate-Crime-Hub-prosecuted-just-six-trolls-two-years.html
      They can’t even do Stasi surveillance effeciently

      1. One might suspect that the real purpose of this “Hub” of thought-crime police officers is to spread fear and warnings to those who might be tempted to exercise their right of free speech. The threat of further action and a knock on the door might be enough to silence those with gentle characters.

    2. …a member of the PC Freemasonry…

      Excellent phrase, Araminta, of course you could have reversed the letters PC and still have been spot on. It would appear that the CP brigade not only want to put ‘their people’ in positions of great power and influence but to ensure that ‘their people’ are completely useless and therefore able to sow as much confusion as possible. What would be point of promoting the very best if the end game of your scheme is to aid the destruction of society as we know it.

      1. Korky, it’s not so much the destruction of society, more to make sure that our society can be easily commanded by a foreign power.

        1. Good morning, janetjH.

          Having the EU, a foreign power, commanding our society is tantamount to destroying it. The EU’s insistence on the destruction of nation states, everything and everybody having to conform to their will, forcing ever more mass immigration, reducing our industrial base, controlling the narrative e.g. not being allowed to criticise the EU of deface its symbol, the list goes on and on.

    3. ‘Morning, Minty

      I know it’s still early on Sunday morning, but how can you support & block an investigation at the same time?

      1. I deleted a reference to the Skripal Saga where the Metropolitan Police have supported a massive fraud perpetrated on the British People by the Security Services but forgot to remove the lead. An error of composition akin to leaving the T off the definite article!

  41. Off to the Algarve today for a week of playing bowls. Only 27C today but expecting 32C tomorrow.
    As BT would say – play nicely.

      1. Costa Blanca – is that the situation when you double-tap one of these new-fangled credit cards? Carte blanche?

        I’ll just collect my Visa &…

  42. Oh dear it is dead simple getting good through Dover. IT is all pre-cleared all they do at Dover is scan the bar code on the paper work. Some random checks are carried out just as they are if you travel through an airport and those random checks at Dover go on now

    NI would need to be slightly different due to the sensitivity of the boarder so there the checks would take place at the destination

    1. ” sensitivity of the boarder”
      That bloody boarder is far too sensitive. Get a better lodger.

      1. Maybe just chuck the boarder out? With the boarder eliminated, any problem will not be ours.

    2. BJ,
      “Sensitivity of the boarder” is that appertaining to seeing PC / Appeasement in action regarding an illegal islamic ideology follower slipping in ? like.

  43. Back from the lake. Good turnout. Lots of people walking; jogging and VTTing – all in aid of the charity.

    The best part was seeing the two people whom the MR has known for over 35 years – who were, back then, barely out of their teens – with their children and grandchildren! How time flies.

    In fact for each of them, four generations were present. T’was lovely to see.

    Bloody Tonga just failed…..

  44. Trump told Theresa May he doubted Russia was behind Skripal poisoning. Sat 5 Oct 2019.

    According to the Washington Post, Trump “harangued” May about Britain’s contribution to Nato in a phone call with Britain’s then prime minister in the summer of last year, before disputing Russian involvement in the Skripal case.

    “Trump totally bought into the idea there was credible doubt about the poisoning,” said a figure briefed on the call. “A solid 10 minutes of the conversation is spent with May saying it’s highly likely and him saying he’s not sure.”

    “Credible doubt”? The wonder of this is that anyone believes this ridiculous story. Still this is yet another example of Trump’s ability to see through the bullsh!t of the Elites and their lackeys in the MSM!

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/05/trump-told-theresa-may-he-doubted-russia-was-behind-skripal-poisoning

  45. Prediction based on opinion polls from 03 Sep 2019 to 27 Sep 2019

    Based on Polls a few weeks out of date. The Brexit Party is an unknown as there is no historical date to make a prediction on.

    Con 331
    Lab 213
    Lib-Dem – 33
    Brexit 0
    Green 1
    SNP 51
    Plaid 3
    DUP 9
    SF 7
    Alliance 1
    NI Other 1

      1. Take these forecast with a large pinch of salt there could easily be in my view a +-5% error in them

        When there was really only two parties it was easy but now it is very difficult. With the Brexit Party we just do not know with no historical data to go on
        Certainly if the Conservatives would come to an arrangement with the Brexit Party over which seats each party fights the Brexit Party could gain a significant number of seats

        There also typically tends to be a drift away from the party in power during the election campaign

        1. If there is no arrangement then I’ll be voting for Brexit or UKIP, in my area it would be better for the Conservative to stand down so Brexit can take on the libdem, they have been in for decades.

          1. With FPTP it is very difficult for a new party to break through

            If Boris has any sense he will do a deal with the Brexit Party over which seats each party will fight. There will be no coalition or Confidence and Supply agreement though

          2. It wouldn’t harm the Conservatives in seats that they have no chance in, the problem is that they don’t want another party to break through into the their cosy little Westminster club and start asking awkward questions.

          3. I doubt the Conservatives on their own would command a majority. The polls all show it quite close and in spite of what the LIb-Dems are saying I think they would join with Labour if it gained them power

            I dont think they would go as far as a coalition but I can see them accepting a Confidence and Supply deal

          4. I think that they would rather not command a majority than let the Brexit Party have a foot in the door.

        2. If the election comes before we leave the EU or if Boris has accepted a WA mark 2 in order to Leave, the election result will be up for grabs with the Brexit Party taking a lot of votes from the Conservatives. “No deal is better than a bad deal. [Theresa May and others]

  46. For those keeping abreast of news in other parts of the world:….

    “Wework = Millennial daycare”

  47. How to annoy environmentalists….

    “On September 14, the Akademik Lomonosov floating nuclear power plant reached the port city of Pevek in Russia’s Chukotka after covering a distance of more than 4,700km from Murmansk. After connecting to power grids there, it will become a fully-fledged energy producing facility, supplying electricity to the city of Pevek and the Chukotka Autonomous Region. This will include replacing the capacity of the Bilibino Nuclear Power Plant, which will be finally stopped in early 2020.
    The Akademik Lomonosov is the lead project for a series of low-power mobile transportable power units. Floating nuclear power plants (FNPPs) in the Far North and the Far East are a new class of energy sources based on Russian nuclear shipbuilding technologies. The station is equipped with two KLT-40S icebreaker-type reactors which are capable of generating up to 70 MW of electricity and 50 Gcal/h of thermal energy in the nominal operating mode. This is enough to ensure that energy consumption demands are satisfied for a city with a population of about 100 000 people.”
    Plans are afoot to develop many more floating Nuclear Plans – possibly to export to Africa & elsewhere……

    2. Couldn’t the 50 Gcal/h of thermal energy be harnessed to supply domestic hot water/heating? The article doesn’t make that clear.

        1. When I tackled Russian (twice) many years ago, one of the first ‘cat sat on the mat’ sentences sounded like “Han robort v elektrostansi” (he works in an electric power station).

          I retained a few of these early sentences, which I trotted out to amuse Russian patients who came to West Germany after the fall of the wall.

          1. Excellent. My niece studied French and Russian at St Andrew’s and spent a year in Odessa. She now teaches French.
            A member of my choir is fluent in Mandarin. He’s just returned from China having translated a paper on Chinese Music to present a lecture on the subject in English….

          2. If I ever tackle another foreign language it might be Mandarin. There are so many Chinese in Cambridge that I would have plenty of chances to practise.

          3. I worry that these people may have an appetite for dogs and cats.. they are everywhere in Bournemouth.. at least I think they are Chinese , they might be Korean , I have no idea.. they are not terribly smiley people , neither are the Germans come to think of it!!

          4. If they went around smiling all the time, you would prolly (© Biull) accuse them of looking inane.

          6. Just asking. Odessa is the Ukraine. I assume the languages are similar, but isn’t the difference from Russian confusing ?

          8. When I was studying Russian, we learned via the antics of a businessman called Boris (Petrovich) 🙂

  48. And in yer France – a debate has started on two aspects of “knife-geek”.

    First, the Minister of the Interior said within minutes that the attack was absolutely nothing to with terrorism and that the chap had a blameless record. Now, of course, three days on – the truth comes out and it WAS a terrorist attack and the bloke has history going back 10 years.

    Secondly, how could such a radicalised terrorist work at the HQ of the very Police Organisation whose job is dealing with terrorism?

    This will run and run. Funny how virtually all politicians – wherever you are – are duplicitous.

      1. The BBC only subscribes to the Settled Science. Ergo the Religion is The Religion of Peace. Ergo adherents therefore are incapable of such an abomination. Therefore it would be wrong to broadcast fake news…QED.

      4. Because the weapon of choice was a ceramic knife; they apparently don’t show up in some metal detectors, and the EU has not yet prohibited their suplly and sale. Installing x-ray equipment might be the answer.
        Court rooms in Spain all have arches and airport style x-ray scanners.

        1. Simpler than that. It was an ordinary knife.

          BUT – people at Paris Perlice HQ simply show their ID card and do NOT have to go through the metal detectors.

          1. Well I suppose that many of the police officers entering the building have guns, so metal detectors might not help.

            It must be ten years ago now that I last worked in Paris. I worked with two clients on that occasion, both had tight security including scanners and hand checks of all bags.

    2. I wonder if there will be any checks on personnel at the Home Office or Scotland Yard?
      Nurse …. nurse …. is it time for my pills?

  50. Picking up on comment below by a Norwegian Nottler, Scotland has now put giving a child a smack on a level with rape. If Mummy or Daddy smacks a child, they may then say to the child, “It is for your own good. You know Daddy loves you. It will be our little secret. You must not tell anyone or Daddy won’t love you any more. You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you, no more presents at Xmas? So we must keep it as our little secret”.

    2. Either wee Crankie had too many smacks when she was young – or, more likely, too few.

  51. Redbridge Council leader suspended over ‘serious allegation

    The leader of Redbridge Council has been suspended from the Labour Party over “extremely serious allegations”.
    Jas Athwal is running to become Labour’s parliamentary candidate in Ilford South, and a decision was due on Saturday. Applications have since reopened.
    The move sparked accusations of a “stitch-up” to allow a Jeremy Corbyn supporter to become the candidate.
    Mr Athwal said he had provided evidence that the “allegations were untrue”.

  52. London police arrest Extinction Rebellion activists before protest

    Police have taken pre-emptive action against environmental protesters who are planning to cause disruption in Westminster.

    Dozens of officers from the Metropolitan police’s territorial support group raided a building in Kennington, south London, where Extinction Rebellion activists were storing equipment to use in a demonstration next week.

    Protesters had said they planned to block 12 sites in Westminster from Monday morning until their political demands were met.

    Earlier this week, police had promised to be more agile and assertive in dealing with the group after their demonstrations in April shut down parts of London for more than a week.
    Activists who had begun to try moving equipment from the Kennington site in vans on Saturday were arrested and their vehicles and any equipment inside were impounded.
    The Metropolitan police said 10 people – seven women and three men – had been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause public nuisance.

  55. The johnson chap is threatening to send a eusceptic commissioner to brussels to disrupt eu dealings.
    I do hope this commissioner has been warned he is in danger of returning
    as a multi millionaire.

    1. I understand the rumour is he will send Nigel Farage – who knows the score and would be a fox in the hen house.

      BTW – I take you folks are aware that the WA comples us to continue to pay the pensions of the retired EU Commissioners and Staff with any kind of tax deduction – and it forbids criminal action against any of them?

      2. So ‘tis for All those troughers. Yer Germans have just passed a law against criticising the EU flag etc. The WA is an unmitigated disaster that Theresa May and her coterie have brought upon us. God help us all.

      3. Afternoon N,
        Yes well aware, and a good few English / GB politico soul sellers also are eu wonga suckers.

        I honestly believe he would rather send may.
        He could always ask Gerard Batten a leader of proven integrity
        but common sense has never been recognised in the lab/lib/con pro eu coalition party.

      4. Just wild story with no substance first problem is Boris cannot send a Commissioner it is not in his power

  56. Hi there Folks, Just thought I would stick my head in whilst the lunch is cooking. Hope all is well with you all.

    5. Thanks for opening the hatch. We’re all fine down here thanks.

      Room for another couple of hundred round your table?

    6. Long time… We missed you!
      Nttl news is that downticks are now shown, and some bastard gave you one (oo-er missis) already!
      }:-((

      2. Life has been complicated and busy and I am sorry I have neglected you folks.

        Do I care about downticks? – Not a chance. If you are not getting flack you are not over the target.

    1. I was just watching Cream playing White Room at their reunion concert on Youtube before I dragged myself off to bed well after midnight last night.

      Some drummer, was Ginger.

    2. I can remember back to my youth when I used to leave discos at midnight & not being able to hear a thing all the way home.

      Attended the Fast Love GM concert last week which was deafening, but hearing afterwards unaffected.

    3. I’ll sleep in this place with the lonely crowd;
      Lie in the dark where the shadows run from themselves

  58. JB on The Archers…

    Woke protesters aren’t progressive – they want to take us back to the stone age

    JULIE BURCHILL

    Woke-taunters (amongst whom I proudly include myself) have largely swallowed the line which the special snowflakes themselves like to propagate; that they are rebels with many causes, each one more daring and progressive than the last. Having been of a rebellious bent all my life, this never sat well with me. The more you examine what The Woken want, the more they emerge as reactionaries rather than rebels.

    The yearning for a less enlightened world infests the woke rainbow. It takes in transgender activists who claim that lesbianism is transphobic and that sportswomen should accept second place to competitors who were born male, fauxminists who believe that a permanent underclass of prostituted women is acceptable and that wearing a hijab is subversive, American antifas and Corbynite clowns who repeat ancient anti-Semitic tropes. But it can be seen most shamelessly in those of the Green stripe.

    When Extinction Rebellion sprayed, or at least attempted to spray, thousands of litres of fake blood over the Treasury building this week – after the Treasury quite rightly stated that Britain is well to the forefront of action against climate change – this rag-bag of flora and fauna fetishists demonstrated admirably the childish sense of entitled rage that fuels their tantrums. (Unlike the privately-owned fire-engine they sprayed it from, which is fuelled by diesel.)

    “The Treasury has been frustrating efforts by other government departments to take action against climate change because it cares only about economic growth,” one of them said. As though any civilised society could exist without economic growth! But extreme Greens have no time for civilised societies. They want us to go back to the land, toiling in back-breaking jobs, suffering pain without the relief of Big Pharma, old at thirty and dead at forty.

    The latest fad in this race to barbarism is the concept of “rewilding” which has recently been crow-barred into The Archers. At first it struck me as totally unfeasible that a conservative-minded old lady would give half a million pounds to such a right-on reimagining of the Ambridge landscape. But rewilding is an attempt to literally go back in time, to when pesky people and their petty desires to have a decent standard of living caused human habitats to blight the landscape.

    It’s no coincidence that the more spirited working-class characters in the show see it as a rich woman’s whim; ostensibly a caring, sharing project, rewilding is inherently human-hating, starting out with letting a few weeds have their way and ending up with carnivorous beasts roaming our high streets. Two words – Jurassic Park.

    Hearing the over-privileged and under-productive half-wits of Extinction Rebellion talk about economic growth as if it was child abuse, you can sense real contempt towards people who believe that working at a job in order to make money and pay the taxes which keep society civil is a desirable thing to do. But perhaps this is understandable when you consider that no protest movement has ever featured so many double-barrelled names or Instagram skiing trips, while demonising air travel for the masses. They need a song – the civil rights marchers had We Shall Overcome and the Vietnam War opponents had The Fixin’ To Die Rag – so may I suggest the Noel Coward number Why Do The Wrong People Travel?

    “What explains this mass mania to leave Pennsylvania/And clack around like flocks of geese/Demanding dry martinis on the isles of Greece/In the smallest street, where the gourmets meet/They invariably fetch up/And it’s hard to make them accept a steak/That isn’t served rare and smeared with ketchup…”

    At the risk of being alarmist – it’s catching – I found it fitting that the red paint doubled back and covered the idiot protesters at one point.

    Because the blood of all those who die in the fetid swamp of a pre-industrial society will be on their hands if they ever succeed in the rewilding of society – with all the savagery that the word implies.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/06/woke-protesters-arent-progressive-want-take-us-back-stone/

  59. JB on The Archers…

    Woke protesters aren’t progressive – they want to take us back to the stone age

    JULIE BURCHILL

    Woke-taunters (amongst whom I proudly include myself) have largely swallowed the line which the special snowflakes themselves like to propagate; that they are rebels with many causes, each one more daring and progressive than the last. Having been of a rebellious bent all my life, this never sat well with me. The more you examine what The Woken want, the more they emerge as reactionaries rather than rebels.

    The yearning for a less enlightened world infests the woke rainbow. It takes in transgender activists who claim that lesbianism is transphobic and that sportswomen should accept second place to competitors who were born male, fauxminists who believe that a permanent underclass of prostituted women is acceptable and that wearing a hijab is subversive, American antifas and Corbynite clowns who repeat ancient anti-Semitic tropes. But it can be seen most shamelessly in those of the Green stripe.

    When Extinction Rebellion sprayed, or at least attempted to spray, thousands of litres of fake blood over the Treasury building this week – after the Treasury quite rightly stated that Britain is well to the forefront of action against climate change – this rag-bag of flora and fauna fetishists demonstrated admirably the childish sense of entitled rage that fuels their tantrums. (Unlike the privately-owned fire-engine they sprayed it from, which is fuelled by diesel.)

    “The Treasury has been frustrating efforts by other government departments to take action against climate change because it cares only about economic growth,” one of them said. As though any civilised society could exist without economic growth! But extreme Greens have no time for civilised societies. They want us to go back to the land, toiling in back-breaking jobs, suffering pain without the relief of Big Pharma, old at thirty and dead at forty.

    The latest fad in this race to barbarism is the concept of “rewilding” which has recently been crow-barred into The Archers. At first it struck me as totally unfeasible that a conservative-minded old lady would give half a million pounds to such a right-on reimagining of the Ambridge landscape. But rewilding is an attempt to literally go back in time, to when pesky people and their petty desires to have a decent standard of living caused human habitats to blight the landscape.

    It’s no coincidence that the more spirited working-class characters in the show see it as a rich woman’s whim; ostensibly a caring, sharing project, rewilding is inherently human-hating, starting out with letting a few weeds have their way and ending up with carnivorous beasts roaming our high streets. Two words – Jurassic Park.

    Hearing the over-privileged and under-productive half-wits of Extinction Rebellion talk about economic growth as if it was child abuse, you can sense real contempt towards people who believe that working at a job in order to make money and pay the taxes which keep society civil is a desirable thing to do. But perhaps this is understandable when you consider that no protest movement has ever featured so many double-barrelled names or Instagram skiing trips, while demonising air travel for the masses. They need a song – the civil rights marchers had We Shall Overcome and the Vietnam War opponents had The Fixin’ To Die Rag – so may I suggest the Noel Coward number Why Do The Wrong People Travel?

    “What explains this mass mania to leave Pennsylvania/And clack around like flocks of geese/Demanding dry martinis on the isles of Greece/In the smallest street, where the gourmets meet/They invariably fetch up/And it’s hard to make them accept a steak/That isn’t served rare and smeared with ketchup…”

    At the risk of being alarmist – it’s catching – I found it fitting that the red paint doubled back and covered the idiot protesters at one point.

    Because the blood of all those who die in the fetid swamp of a pre-industrial society will be on their hands if they ever succeed in the rewilding of society – with all the savagery that the word implies.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/06/woke-protesters-arent-progressive-want-take-us-back-stone/

  60. JB on The Archers…

    Woke protesters aren’t progressive – they want to take us back to the stone age

    JULIE BURCHILL

    Woke-taunters (amongst whom I proudly include myself) have largely swallowed the line which the special snowflakes themselves like to propagate; that they are rebels with many causes, each one more daring and progressive than the last. Having been of a rebellious bent all my life, this never sat well with me. The more you examine what The Woken want, the more they emerge as reactionaries rather than rebels.

    The yearning for a less enlightened world infests the woke rainbow. It takes in transgender activists who claim that lesbianism is transphobic and that sportswomen should accept second place to competitors who were born male, fauxminists who believe that a permanent underclass of prostituted women is acceptable and that wearing a hijab is subversive, American antifas and Corbynite clowns who repeat ancient anti-Semitic tropes. But it can be seen most shamelessly in those of the Green stripe.

    When Extinction Rebellion sprayed, or at least attempted to spray, thousands of litres of fake blood over the Treasury building this week – after the Treasury quite rightly stated that Britain is well to the forefront of action against climate change – this rag-bag of flora and fauna fetishists demonstrated admirably the childish sense of entitled rage that fuels their tantrums. (Unlike the privately-owned fire-engine they sprayed it from, which is fuelled by diesel.)

    “The Treasury has been frustrating efforts by other government departments to take action against climate change because it cares only about economic growth,” one of them said. As though any civilised society could exist without economic growth! But extreme Greens have no time for civilised societies. They want us to go back to the land, toiling in back-breaking jobs, suffering pain without the relief of Big Pharma, old at thirty and dead at forty.

    The latest fad in this race to barbarism is the concept of “rewilding” which has recently been crow-barred into The Archers. At first it struck me as totally unfeasible that a conservative-minded old lady would give half a million pounds to such a right-on reimagining of the Ambridge landscape. But rewilding is an attempt to literally go back in time, to when pesky people and their petty desires to have a decent standard of living caused human habitats to blight the landscape.

    It’s no coincidence that the more spirited working-class characters in the show see it as a rich woman’s whim; ostensibly a caring, sharing project, rewilding is inherently human-hating, starting out with letting a few weeds have their way and ending up with carnivorous beasts roaming our high streets. Two words – Jurassic Park.

    Hearing the over-privileged and under-productive half-wits of Extinction Rebellion talk about economic growth as if it was child abuse, you can sense real contempt towards people who believe that working at a job in order to make money and pay the taxes which keep society civil is a desirable thing to do. But perhaps this is understandable when you consider that no protest movement has ever featured so many double-barrelled names or Instagram skiing trips, while demonising air travel for the masses. They need a song – the civil rights marchers had We Shall Overcome and the Vietnam War opponents had The Fixin’ To Die Rag – so may I suggest the Noel Coward number Why Do The Wrong People Travel?

    “What explains this mass mania to leave Pennsylvania/And clack around like flocks of geese/Demanding dry martinis on the isles of Greece/In the smallest street, where the gourmets meet/They invariably fetch up/And it’s hard to make them accept a steak/That isn’t served rare and smeared with ketchup…”

    At the risk of being alarmist – it’s catching – I found it fitting that the red paint doubled back and covered the idiot protesters at one point.

    Because the blood of all those who die in the fetid swamp of a pre-industrial society will be on their hands if they ever succeed in the rewilding of society – with all the savagery that the word implies.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/06/woke-protesters-arent-progressive-want-take-us-back-stone/

  61. ”Boris Johnson ‘will dare the Queen to SACK him and refuse to leave No 10 unless police arrive with warrants’ if MPs try to oust him and delay Brexit beyond 31 October.
    Law requires PM to seek a new Brexit delay if no deal is agreed by October 19
    But he has continued to insist the UK will leave on October 31 as planned
    Source said police would have to arrive ‘with a warrant’ to get him out of No 10”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7542687/Boris-Johnson-dare-Queen-SACK-SQUATTING-Downing-Street-Brexit-done.html

    1. There is a lot of bullshit and silly speculation in the media,
      All we need to be sure of is that Boris is capable of logical thinking.

    2. Marr tried to get Stephen Barclay to say that Boris would sign a letter asking for an extension of Article 50. All that Barclay would say is that Boris would abide by the law as set out in the Benn Act.

      1. Since the Benn Surrender Act was rushed through Parliament, let’s hope there are large enough loopholes in it to drive a horse and cart through.

        1. One of the criticisms of the Supreme Court coup that makes it illegal was that its actions are incapable of being scrutinised or even reversed unless by a higher court.
          That would also make the Benn Act illegal with the insufficient time that was a!!owed for scrutiny by a ‘Sovereign Parliament’.

    2. What a load of rubbish from Lammy the Soft fruit season in ope field is finished. If any fruit is left o them unpicked the damp cold weather will rot them

      I doubt Lammy has ever been near a farm

    1. When she stands up, you can see that it was more than just an egg which came out.

      1. Doesn’t matter, Peddy the effect is hilarious and to me, it’s the humour that counts.

        Actually – I don’t know to what you are referring, I see nothing extra when she stands up.

        1. Yes, the humour is good – that’s why I gave you an upvote.

          When she stands up, 4 spots of something appear on the green baize. Should they be there?

          1. Not being a Pool player, I suggest they may be something to do with angling one’s cue for 4 particular shots.

            I’m sure someone has a better answer.

  64. ” Nadiya Hussain reveals she was sexually assaulted aged five”.

    Previously titled – ” How to sell a book “.

    1. Her molester, no doubt a co-religionist, showed unusual restraint, for a muslim, in waiting until she was five years old.

      2. He did show restraint. He didn’t strangle and butcher her afterwards. Must be her Uncle.

  65. “World on Fire” BBC1 @ 21.00 – did anybody see part 1 last week? Is it any good?

    1. Yes, Yes!!
      Fast moving, intrigue, tense, love in war, tasteful sex scenes, bicycle riding Poles vs invaders with tanks.

    2. Oh Yeah,fantastic,I’m sure you’ll love it (snigger)
      I await your report with bated breath

    4. I recorded it and watched it a few days ago. Will give the series one more episode to see if I want to carry on watching.

          1. Unlike some on here, I’m not one of those who goes around scattering spoilers, whether from dramas, sports results or anything else.

            Finding “Der Englische Patient” heavy going; not from the vocab but the style. Still, I like a good challenge.

  66. Scottish Smacking Ban

    I had to laugh when a presenter has two people with opposing views debating this. The one in favour of smacking said what would you do if your child went to touch a hot oven. He said I would grab hold of him and pull him out of the room. When pointed out to him under his definition that was violence against the child he was stumped

    In the situation above a gentle snake and telling a child it is wrong to touch a hot oven is away to get the damaged across to a young child,.
    Young children do not reason. You have to create associations

  67. The BBC’s Brexit coverage is a disgrace. Paul Dacre. 6 October 2019.

    Lord Patten, rejected by voters 27 years ago, is the embodiment of a smug un-elected elite. As former chairman of the BBC Trust, he appointed not one but two director–generals of utter mediocrity. Now he criticises the Corporation for its ‘craven judgment about what constituted balance in its news coverage’ in the run-up to the referendum. He’s partially right. For the first time in memory, the Eurosceptic–hating BBC astonishingly gave equal air-time to both sides of the argument, which may have been a small factor in the result. How pathetic that their former chairman should attack them for this, but then the Corporation (is its Europe editor Katya Adler actually employed by Brussels?) now daily pumps out hysterical anti-Brexit propaganda, determined to make up for its short-lived neutrality. Its coverage is a disgrace. As is the insane political correctness behind the censuring of ‘racist’ Trump comments by Naga Munchetty, the admirable woman presenter of colour whom political correctness was meant to protect.

    What I remember most about Patten is that after his rejection by the voters Major made him Governor of Hong Kong (a previously diplomatic career post) to negotiate its return (which consequences are with us today) to China! I’ve never had the slightest doubt that this was a piece of Old Boy nepotism. I am not noted for my support of the Chinese Communists but when they named Patten “Whore of the East” and “Serpent” they were not far amiss!

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/10/the-bbcs-brexit-coverage-is-a-disgrace/

    1. There is a reason for that. In the run up to election or referendums Broadcasters and media have a legal duty to be impartial

    2. And, worse still, it was his insistence on bringing back to the UK his two pathetic dogs WITHOUT them having the trauma of quarantine that led to the change in the law. Now any old animal can come straight in to the UK.

      2. Not actually true. The Pet Passport Scheme is very strict and all the inoculations have to be up to date if not they canot come in straight away as the injections need time to take effect

    7. I wondered. Frankly, I can’t see the Iranian Broadcasting Corporation bothering their viewer (sic) with afletix.

    3. If we left at the end of October on WTO rules, with the clean break from the EU that so many of us want, then I could happily go back to reading books for most of the day. Instead of needing to pay attention to just how badly the media and politicians lie to us, as the “ethnic diversity” of my country changes by the day.

      Whether we leave in 3 weeks (infinitely best for the UK) or in 3 years, there will be some drinking and dancing that night.

    2. Yo Rik

      In my mind, Berkow is not tall (or big) enough to sit in the PM’s Chair.

      All it should take to stop this travesty happening, is for it to be referred to the Supreme Court (or is it their suggestion)

    3. Before the next General Election, a law must be passed that ensures

      That if MP’s wish to defect to another political Party, they must apply for the Chiltern Hundreds and take their chances at the ensuing by-election

      When MPs have been elected to represent a specific political party, with clearly stated aims in its’ Manifesto, if they subsequently disagree with the terms on which they were elected, the must abstain. If they feel unable to do that, come-on the Chitern Hundreds.

      ALL MPs expenses must be published, any fraud must be prosecuted. This should be back dated

      MPs must take an Intelligence Test, covering Reedin und Sums

      If MPs vote to close ‘private schools’, they must not be allowed to send their own kids to such schools (or if they already have to vote in favour of such actions), this even includes Abbot.

      No parlimentary candidate list should be compile using only the gender or race of the applicant

      I know from hoping that my post will happen, that I have declared myself certifiably insane

      1. Let’s say you’ve got a minister who – for sake of argument – shredded all of his expenses receipts. What should happen to them?

        Fraud, perhaps? Theft of public monies?

  72. The New Marxist Anarchists

    In my view Extinction Rebellion are really Marxist anarchists and just using climate change etc to pursue their aims

    2. They are obviously in the service of someone. It requires loadsacash to set up and run such an organisation! Who? We don’t know that yet but it will eventually leak out!

  73. Google News

    Just checked Google News Hong Kong English page.

    The first 5 items are timed 1 hr, yesterday, 2 days, 5 days and 4 days.

    Sources are BBC Sky News and Guardian.
    Is this manipulation by Google or clever bots?

    1. It’s pretty obvious that the Google algorithm is seriously compromised in favour of the PTB!

    1. 90% of the new imigrants into Swedan are unemployed and probably unemployable. We are been run by idiots.

    2. Before I magnified that I thought that the headline was “Come back Theresa”.

  76. Shortly off to the Cancer Awareness Day at the lake – just to have a chat to chums and a glass or two.

    Funny people, yer French. The event is run by a charity that is always on the lookout for money. BUT, there is no system at the event for acceptiong cash donations. In England, there would be a big glass bottle or people to whom money can be given.

    Each year, when we have tried to stuff 20 euros their way – incredulous faces.

    2. I have chatted to the Dementia Awareness people a couple of times in the High St. They’re not allowed to take money either. I found them on the internet and made a donation. For your event you could always donate..https://www.macmillan.org.uk/

      They don’t receive any Gov/Taxpayer funds…which is ridiculous.

    1. Complete nutters. “Drove here in my electric car” tells you all you need to know.

    3. “They will tell the truth about the emergency that we are facing: Life on Earth is dying.”

      I cannot bring to mind any immortal living creatures that are knocking about, so it has always been dying. There are some very, very old trees at around 5,000 years. But is standing in the same spot for that amount of time really living?

      https://earthnworld.com/oldest-tree-in-the-world/

    4. Will anyone be allowed to sit on the citizen’s assembly?

      But let’s think about this: she wants a citizens assembly because of what’s happened over Brexit. Brexit is an example of a minority of the establishment deliberately hindering the public will. What it seems she’s arguing for is a democracy, but uses an example of where such has been deliberately hindered.

      As for zero carbon and waffling on about electricity – live without it, dear. Go on, both of you. Live without anything electricity provides. If you want zero carbon 9ignoring that you’re made form the stuff), just live without it. No running water, no flushing loos, no loos, in fact. No houses. No cars at all, let alone publicity to waffle on such tripe. No clothes, no food, no shelter. It’s getting cooler outside, so lead by example. Spend a winter with electricity. Show the way, grand heroes of the people!

    1. Oh Noes,many of my comments have been downvoted
      I must immediately change my views and/or run away to my safe space
      Aye Right……………

      1. Same here Rik. I don’t personally mind though I don’t see why they shouldn’t be shown! I just write on here what I feel and think about issues in the news. The rankings make no difference at all to that!

        1. Just a thought.. Possibly a new bot.

          Of course the more noise/whining you know you have hit the target.

      2. It does tend to be a certain type of “mind-set” that lives and dies by the number of votes they have that acts in this way. Adults have come to realise that life is too short to hold meaningless grudges. There was a perfectly innocent comment below from a name I had not seen before, who was obviously known by others, and that was downvoted as well.

        Still, it might make the cold emptiness of their lives feel slightly warmer to hit that downvote button, and at least it stops them going outside and doing something that might effect the real world in a bad way.

        1. Unfortunately, many young people are obsessed by the amount of “friends” they can collect, or nasty posts aimed at them. Places like farcebook etc.

          They need to get out, like we did. What happened to “stick and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me”. That can be difficult to follow in a physical situation, but this is internet, FGS!

        2. Hey Merry, how’s your day goin ? Really well I hope…..

          It’s good to know you’re onto the mystery of Downvotegate….. please keep us all informed, and have a really great evening !

        2. Of course you do Bill. It’s Vlad’s birthday tomorrow! I hope you’ve bought him something nice!

          2. If you write on the card, “A present from MI6”, He’ll know that they are safe to eat. Lol!

    1. If he is one of those police who are protecting the real child-abusers that exist in our society, then surely another promotion cannot be too far away.

      He might even join Cressida “common-purpose parking attendant” Dick with a title.

  81. My latest mail to Mr Redwood… which he never publishes !

    That all sounds very sensible, but will Uncle George allow it ?

    After all, according to the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail in early 2018, he was planning an extremely well financed campaign to keep Britain in the EU seemingly regardless of cost.

    As time moves on, it does look as though his campaign is being very successful.

    The strange thing is that despite the obvious need for follow up reporting on the original stories, the media has gone completely silent.

    It’s almost as if George has agents everywhere it matters, which couldn’t possibly be the case, could it ?

    ”Billions spent…. to undermine the nation state”………..

    https://twitter.com/nigel_farage/status/930368687638564864?lang=en

    Polly

  82. Murder arrest after three men found dead in Colchester

    Three men have been found dead after reports of a fight in Colchester.

    Essex Police said a 32-year-old man was being questioned on suspicion of murder over the deaths on Saturday night.

    Two men were discovered at a property on Wellesley Road and a third was found in a car outside.

      1. It’s about half a mile from Allan Towers.
        A dowdy block of seventies flats that have always been iffy.

        1. Sorry for the mis-spell.

          Those blocks were always a mistake which they keep doing. Take a look at the million project in Sweden.

          They eventually demolished The Red Road in Glasgow. Probably ran out of Fork Lifts and Skips from the Jumpers.

          Erm….How was the Wedding?… :o(

  83. Re my B*tch yesterday contactless cards:
    [I ask because my bank sent me a contactless card when I specifically asked for chip and pin!
    After phoning to complain they offered to send my request……..nearly 30 mins later with security questions I
    almost lost the will to live!!!
    I had to laugh at the irony….]

    Contactless card crooks are cashing in thanks to ‘double tap’ trick that allows fraudsters to break £30 card limit
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7539837/Contactless-card-crooks-cashing-thanks-double-tap-trick.html

    The comments are interesting….

    1. I’m familiar with a very special ‘double tap’ technique that might go some way to reducing the crime rate in general.

      ;¬)

    3. This is very serious, thanks for posting.

      It’s all very well retailers giving platitudinous assurances, but it doesn’t get round the problems which can arise if some miscreant gets hold of your card.

      1. I should imagine the banks will update the software to build a deal in before the card can be used for another transaction. There may be cleverer ways of doing as well if the order No/Transaction number can be checked

      2. as above,

        “one idea for senior pensioners is to cover or remove the 3 digit number
        on the back of their debit card(s). That way, unauthorised usage is
        severely restricted” ie if someone clones or copies card details or steals your wallet, all they can do is spend £30 a few times.

      3. I signed up with Monzo, simply to get their card which is a normal mastercard with contactless as well as chip ‘n pin.. And it’s the only one where I have enabled contactless payment. So I keep a small balance running in it. The phone app is nice too because as any transaction occurs, it bleeps within a minute or so to update the balance in the app.

    4. Ironically also, is the fact they’re making accessing online payments tougher with more and more security procedures. My thoughts go to what happens when we cark it and our dearly beloveds try to gain access to our accounts, whether it’s the banks, shares, Isas or whatever.

      1. I bank with the dreaded RBS; they recently introduced more security on on-line banking. “We will occasionally ask you”…to use your card reader. ( That means every time, not occasionally ) Irritating, but good I suppose. The killer is that next they waste my time by asking for my mobile number, so I have to tell them every time that I don’t have one, don’t want one and wouldn’t give it them if I did.
        It’s a collossal time waster. Is it the same with all the banks ?

        1. It is with the Co-op. The Bank of Scotland tell me that they are getting round to it.
          I’m trying to go back to cash.
          As an aside, I know people who do not have mobile phones. I do not have a smartphone. Trying to do anything away from home is becoming very difficult. Access to internet device required, as well as phone.
          Yet the banks are the biggest fraudsters in UK history.

          1. I always use cash for small payments what’s the problem?
            Once we accept a cashless society there will be no going back.

          2. Cash for big payments? Unless we can pay for everything with cash or cheque then we are doomed to be be controlled. Only the little people pay tax. Only the little people have to face daily inconvenience brought about by anti-money laundering laws, regulations and processes.
            The Government and banks seem to be incapable of controlling and eliminating theft, fraud and money laundering. However, these crimes give them an incontestable reason for controlling the small daily necessities of the little people.
            Whereas companies such as Amazon launder huge sums every day. Legally, if not ethically.

        2. Good afternoon Tony,
          It’s yer EU banking security directive, innit. Too many people have been scammed by phone fraudsters, especially the elderly. Credit cards are safer than debit cards, because funds can be recovered.

          Also, you probably know other people of your age; one idea for senior pensioners is to cover or remove the 3 digit number on the back of their debit card(s). That way, unauthorised usage is severely restricted.

        3. Yes they’re all doing the same thing, and no, I won’t give them the mobile number that I do have.

        4. Good afternoon Tony,
          It’s yer EU banking security directive, innit. Too many people have been scammed by phone fraudsters, especially the elderly. Credit cards are safer than debit cards, because funds can be recovered.

          Also, you probably know other people of your age; one idea for senior pensioners is to cover or remove the 3 digit number on the back of their debit card(s). That way, unauthorised usage is severely restricted.

          1. Us oldies have enough trouble reading the numbers as it is, especially when the cards get worn…
            Definition of ” senior pensioner ” = ” old bugger who should be dead by now ” ?

      2. Especially if they don’t even know your carefully hidden funds exist. I’ve wondered for a while. Must be a lot of assets around that wives/hesbands/”partners” don’t know about.

        2. That is cheating on your spouse. My ex- had a bank account that I didn’t even know of until he received a statement (by mistake). In 6 months he had amassed £4000, while I was paying out all of my earnings to pay for nanny, food, 1/2 of bills and mortgage.

          If you can’t be honest about what you have, then it’s tough if you can’t spend it yourself or leave it to your children.

          P.S. And he had the nerve to demand disclosure of any bank accounts I hadn’t already disclosed, in our divorce. There were none. I told him “just because you cheat doesn’t mean that I do. It just means that you think everyone is like you”. No love lost there.

          1. I don’t think it is just that. You often get a couple who handle their own affairs without any need to discuss with one another ( both fairly well-heeled people, who trust one another ); should one die suddenly the survivor could have a problem.

          3. 1. They may not be that close.
            2. They both have independent incomes and don’t feel any need to keep a list in case of unexpected demise.

          5. Not always a get-out free card !! The modern idea of ” partners ” with a variable time span, does not always apply. Wasn’t there a TV show called ” until death do us part ” ? (Or, ” until marriage does us in ” )?

    5. Contact does not have to be made. I made my first contactless payment as I was holding the card over the machine looking to see which end it went in.
      Beware of people brushing against you in crowds, shops, public transport.
      I have now converted my tinfoil hat into a tinfoil card holder. I’ve tested it on a contactless machine and the connection is not made. My Cardsafe® mini wallet works very well.

      1. My old wallet being past its best, I bought one of these RFID blocking wallets a while ago. It’s made of good leather and the special lining creates a “Faraday Cage” around your cards.

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/54398787581c52de86be780741511bf6d859b81c9c58e01e039828d1262a743c.jpg

        Here’s the specs:

        RFID Blocking Security – Mt. Eston Wallets give security and assurance with our independently tested RFID Blocking technology. RFID Blocking prevents electronic thieves from using a scanner and stealing your credit and debit card information simply by walking near you. Our military grade RFID shielding technology is tested and approved at 10 MHz to 3000 MHz, including the 13.57 MHz that RFID credit cards use

    6. My bank sent me a contactless card.
      I make a point of always – however small the amount – of inserting the card into the machine and tapping in my PIN.
      That way, I am establishing a pattern of behaviour, and as I know from when some little scrote tried to use my card number, the bank keeps tabs on unusual purchases or methods of using the card and warn the customer and reimburse any ‘wrong’ payments.

      1. Do they though? When I lost my passport during the last holiday, I used both my Visa credit card & my debit card to draw cash from a Geldautomat in quick succession in Passau. I hadn’t notified anyone that I was travelling, so I was quite relieved when both transactions went through. I usually never use an automat, but draw cash over the counter.

  84. GRRHHHHHHHHH

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/48607fac94fb1bf646cf74ff8e6d3af10b9fd0c6b7a050b0dfd19807ae72c03b.jpg

    Ian Newton, 64, a former senior social worker, who worked for Hull City
    Council through an agency, fears the problem of child sex grooming in
    Hull is more widespread.

    He said: “I have been warning since starting work in Hull three years ago that this needs to be nipped in the bud.”

    He
    added: “I know what is going on in Hull and know girls are being
    trafficked and I am letting politicians know, and like the man who is in
    debt, they do not want to open the letters, and so the problems are
    getting worse.

    “One social worker told me he was sat around a table to discuss 14 year old girls having sex with men.

    “This young social worker piped up, ‘This girl is a prostitute and it’s a lifestyle choice’.

    “And we wonder why we have a grooming epidemic.”

    But,
    he claimed that rather than prompting action, his raising of concerns
    ended up with him being suspended by Hull City Council last September.
    It came after the council lodged a fitness to practice complaint about
    him to the Health and Care Professions Council.”
    Common Purpose,still shooting the messengers

  85. The fact he is prepared to go to these lengths in order to enact the

    will of the people is a terrifying display of dictatorship. If further

    proof of this is needed, earlier this week during his speech at the Conservative Party Conference, he was flailing his arms around alarmingly in the manner of another famous dictator…

    ‘Identical

    actions’, keenly observes Dr Jennifer Cassidy. Moving his arms around

    and raising his voice during a speech could only ever be a sign of his

    impending fascistic tendencies.

    As if this were not proof enough of Boris Johnson’s despotic nature, another Dr noted something perhaps even more concerning:

    Trump says that he’s a big fan of Boris Johnson.

    As I recall, Hitler was also a big fan of Mussolini 🤔🤔🤔#StopTheCoup

    — Dr Mark D’Arcy (@markoftheD) October 2, 2019The

    circle is therefore complete. Boris makes enthusiastic speeches, which

    is an obvious parallel to the speeches Mussolini made. Donald Trump has

    said that he admires a fellow leader, in the way that Hitler also

    admired a fellow leader and in doing so, Trump has inadvertently alerted

    the finest minds on Twitter to the fact that Boris Johnson is the

    reincarnation of Benito Mussolini.

    https://spectator.us/impeach-boris-johnson/
    Good Laff

    1. How can BJ be an “illegitimate” PM? The bl..dy Parliament has refused to have a general election. I wish these blasted remoaning remainers would get lost (or run over by a bus ), they have properly screwed things up for us. It is Parliament against the people.

    2. Have we reached the nadir of our constitution when a judge can order a clerk of court to sign an international agreement against the wishes of our government? Much of this nonsense goes back to the Speaker’s decisions to allow rogue MPs to bring forward motions to be enacted in short order without due scrutiny. The result of Bercow’s hubris is the political and constitutional chaos we are now witnessing. The sooner Bercow is put out to pasture and a new and impartial Speaker is installed the better. Sadly, the same rogue MPs want a clone of Bercow installed to continue the chaotic management of the House.

  88. Just been talking to my son in Malta and the whole island has been very impressed by the way the British Government delt with the Thomas Cook problem, He said he was proud to be British. he thought he would say something about as we would hear nothing about it from the BBCk

    2. That our Government should pour millions, probably irrecoverable, into rescuing the victims of a failed commercial enterprise, sets a bad precedent.

        1. I think it cleaned out the ATOL funds; it is unlikely that that would have covered all the costs and hassle.

    3. The bbc don’t want to give out any good news about Britain, they don’t want us to start feeling proud of ourselves (or have anyone else admiring us pulling together or us seeing ourselves admired by others) and indulging in a bout of national unity.

    1. “Take post – enemy attacking!”
      “Hang on – I’m just putting on my lipstick.”

      3. “I don’t know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they frighten me.”

          6. The above painting is a picture of Pawnees (probably got their name from pawning all that jewellery….)

    1. ”

      Your search – morester aptesterer – did not match any documents.

      Suggestions:

      Make sure that all words are spelled correctly.

      Try different keywords.

      Try more general keywords.

      Try fewer keywords.”

  92. JB on The Archers…

    Woke protesters aren’t progressive – they want to take us back to the stone age

    JULIE BURCHILL

    Woke-taunters (amongst whom I proudly include myself) have largely swallowed the line which the special snowflakes themselves like to propagate; that they are rebels with many causes, each one more daring and progressive than the last. Having been of a rebellious bent all my life, this never sat well with me. The more you examine what The Woken want, the more they emerge as reactionaries rather than rebels.

    The yearning for a less enlightened world infests the woke rainbow. It takes in transgender activists who claim that lesbianism is transphobic and that sportswomen should accept second place to competitors who were born male, fauxminists who believe that a permanent underclass of prostituted women is acceptable and that wearing a hijab is subversive, American antifas and Corbynite clowns who repeat ancient anti-Semitic tropes. But it can be seen most shamelessly in those of the Green stripe.

    When Extinction Rebellion sprayed, or at least attempted to spray, thousands of litres of fake blood over the Treasury building this week – after the Treasury quite rightly stated that Britain is well to the forefront of action against climate change – this rag-bag of flora and fauna fetishists demonstrated admirably the childish sense of entitled rage that fuels their tantrums. (Unlike the privately-owned fire-engine they sprayed it from, which is fuelled by diesel.)

    “The Treasury has been frustrating efforts by other government departments to take action against climate change because it cares only about economic growth,” one of them said. As though any civilised society could exist without economic growth! But extreme Greens have no time for civilised societies. They want us to go back to the land, toiling in back-breaking jobs, suffering pain without the relief of Big Pharma, old at thirty and dead at forty.

    The latest fad in this race to barbarism is the concept of “rewilding” which has recently been crow-barred into The Archers. At first it struck me as totally unfeasible that a conservative-minded old lady would give half a million pounds to such a right-on reimagining of the Ambridge landscape. But rewilding is an attempt to literally go back in time, to when pesky people and their petty desires to have a decent standard of living caused human habitats to blight the landscape.

    It’s no coincidence that the more spirited working-class characters in the show see it as a rich woman’s whim; ostensibly a caring, sharing project, rewilding is inherently human-hating, starting out with letting a few weeds have their way and ending up with carnivorous beasts roaming our high streets. Two words – Jurassic Park.

    Hearing the over-privileged and under-productive half-wits of Extinction Rebellion talk about economic growth as if it was child abuse, you can sense real contempt towards people who believe that working at a job in order to make money and pay the taxes which keep society civil is a desirable thing to do. But perhaps this is understandable when you consider that no protest movement has ever featured so many double-barrelled names or Instagram skiing trips, while demonising air travel for the masses. They need a song – the civil rights marchers had We Shall Overcome and the Vietnam War opponents had The Fixin’ To Die Rag – so may I suggest the Noel Coward number Why Do The Wrong People Travel?

    “What explains this mass mania to leave Pennsylvania/And clack around like flocks of geese/Demanding dry martinis on the isles of Greece/In the smallest street, where the gourmets meet/They invariably fetch up/And it’s hard to make them accept a steak/That isn’t served rare and smeared with ketchup…”

    At the risk of being alarmist – it’s catching – I found it fitting that the red paint doubled back and covered the idiot protesters at one point.

    Because the blood of all those who die in the fetid swamp of a pre-industrial society will be on their hands if they ever succeed in the rewilding of society – with all the savagery that the word implies.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/06/woke-protesters-arent-progressive-want-take-us-back-stone/

  93. Wonders never cease –

    ” Unmarried foreign couples will now
    be allowed to rent hotel rooms together in Saudi Arabia as part of a new
    visa regime announced by the religiously conservative kingdom.

    Women will also be allowed to stay in hotel rooms alone.

    Couples previously had to prove they were married before getting a hotel room.

    The government move comes amid efforts by Saudi Arabia to grow its tourism industry.”

    Rumours that they will be constructing a synagogue in Mecca have so far proved unfounded.

    2. “Rumours that they will be constructing a synagogue church in Mecca have so far proved unfounded.”

    1. Dear Charles Darwin,
      If you are looking down on this world, please can you take such creatures unto your bosom?

      1. Chas Darwin has a bosom? You mean he is in transition? Gosh – I bet he didn’t know that.

    1. Who to believe now, can we really trust Boris when he is offering a re-work of May’s deal? I just want my country back in order, safe streets, no foreigners making our laws and the Union Flag in pride of place.

        1. I’m an optimist.
          If Boris doesn’t deliver he’s toast and so are the Tories………..Hello TBP….

    3. Latvian PM confirms leaving on 31st October would be a quick and easy option to exit the EU.

      1. I’ve been wondering whether net recipients of EU largesse would be given billions if they left in the way we, as a net contributor, are paying billions for the pleasure of leaving.

    4. maybe I should ask for any info they hold on me.

      it would hopefully waste time, but if they have anything about a Canadian resident, their tentacles are longer than anyone thought.

      1. I just have:-

        Dear Sir/Madam,
        I am advised that, as part of your election campaign, you hold data on every registered voter in the UK.
        Could you please advise me what data you hold on me please and what use you a putting that data too?

        I believe I am entitled to receive this information under the various data transparency laws & regulations.

        1. I believe the most recent data that they have on me was when I refused to identify myself to them as they sat at their little table outside of the polling station, recording which address’s had voted. When I witnessed them pull up outside of the house and start walking down the path later that day, I was less than impressed.

          I opened the door to their cheerfully happy “We’re just checking to see if you have voted” faces. I looked at their big badges and remembered what they were trying to do to my country. I believe I looked at them and said quietly “Ahh, Liberal Democrats… Please leave immediately.”

  98. Last post.

    Yer Frog Home Sec says (see my earlier posts) “What I said immediately was true and what I said later (the complete opposite) was true, too…”

    Calls for his head….

  99. That’s me for this grey, cloudy day. See you tomorrow prolly.

    Curry for supper – so maybe not. Got to get out the little trays of sultanas, dessicated coconut, peanuts, mango chutney, yogurt and sliced cucumber…{:¬)) Remember all that??

    A demain.

      1. It was supposed to be heavy rain all day here – we haven’t had a drop since daybreak.

    4. Curry!…………….whatever happened to Sunday roast with all the trimings?

      Lunch was the best part of boring Sundays….

    1. Call their bluff.
      Tell them that the UK will have NO border controls between Eire and NI and that if the EU want a hard border that’s up to them. They can instruct the teapot to pour.

  101. Time for the water cannon –
    ”

    Environmental activists from around Britain are set to swoop on

    Westminster on Monday morning in an attempt to “shut down” the heart of

    government with two weeks of disruptive protests.

    Extinction Rebellion

    (XR) said its members are planning to blockade “every single road” into

    the central London district and plan to maintain the protests for at

    least 14 days, or until their demands are met.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/06/extinction-rebellion-fresh-protests-shut-down-westminster

      1. Why not drop tons of dry ice pellets onto their numbers and let them breathe in that lovely CO₂ as it vaporises.

      2. I think that their use was made illegal now, based on an interview that I watched a few months ago. Gerard Batten (UKIP leader at the time) was being patronised and sneered at by the Sky news anchor. No surprise there. He was talking about a large Brexit march being held in London the next day, and that he had received a tweet from someone who was driving down to take part.

        It said that they had just passed several water-cannon tenders that were being driven down to London. The reporter said: “But using water-cannon is illegal now, so why should that matter?” Batten replied: “Do you want to see how fast they make them legal again if they think they need them?”

        To his credit the reporter did nod in agreement. So I don’t know if they can be used just off-the-cuff at the moment.

        1. The then Home Secretary banned the use of the water cannons and so they were mothballed and now scrapped.
          And guess who was the Home Secretary who knocked the legs out from under him!

    3. It shows why people wanted to come to London. Trouble is – many, instead of wanting to participate in the lifestyle, just wanted to bring their lifestyle with them.

      1. That is Coventry, after a visit from the Germans

        I grew up there.

        They have not changed

      1. which poem was that?
        The Hospital wifi is not allowing the picture to come through.

    8. Oh we can’t have that. It was posted by British Revival, the villains of last week’s ‘Countryfile’.

      It also depicts one the cultural monstrosities of the last century, the themed restaurant/pub. Other than that…

  105. Breaking
    Warnings there will be an excess supply of Vegan Sausages after the battle of Smithfield market
    Made from real Vegans

    1. There is no such thing as a vegan. That is name inverted many years ago by African tribes to enable the parents to get a good bride price for their daughters.

    2. It sounds like an interesting place, why don’t they go back?
      “Vega is only about a tenth of the age of the Sun, but since it is 2.1 times as massive, its expected lifetime is also one tenth of that of the Sun; both stars are at present approaching the midpoint of their life expectancies. Vega has an unusually low abundance of the elements with a higher atomic number than that of helium. Vega is also a variable star that varies slightly in brightness. It is rotating rapidly with a velocity of 236 km/s at the equator. This causes the equator to bulge outward due to centrifugal effects, and, as a result, there is a variation of temperature across the star’s photosphere that reaches a maximum at the poles. From Earth, Vega is observed from the direction of one of these poles.”

      1. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e34158cd30e1a71220fed9342ed5c3f8c01909bed16114940809b3e72a183cc5.jpg

        Not that there is any chance of seeing it tonight with the cloud up there above Cornwall at the moment. It is meant to be heavy rain later for most of the early morning as well. But Vega is quite bright and blueish white on a clear night.

        Edit – That pic of Vega above was from earlier in the year, and it is a fair bit higher in the sky now. There is something interesting in the Southern sky at the moment near the horizon, if you can see it through the clouds. Saturn is to the right of the Moon as it rises in the early evening. It will be in that part of the sky for a few days and is quite bright when the clouds are gone. This is the computer simulated view of the South / South-West near horizon earlier.

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/057d8b3bb3d0f8233f07edb3cb295d084204e3928fa0d413d21e89a68fadc15a.jpg

        1. I have a friend higher up the valley who has an observatory and we have some interesting conversations on the skies when walking back from fishing in the dark on clear nights. Can’t beat a bit of astronomy.

    1. If you were an enemy warlord would you choose this?

      Seriously, given the choice between this and a goat the Mohamheadans chose goats.

      Who can blame them?

  107. “It is utterly chilling that potentially thousands of people, including
    children, are on a secret government database because of what they’re
    perceived to think or believe.”
    A compaint about the Prevent database, which apparently disproportionally focuses on Muslims.
    (Guardian site ).
    (Recent statistics that 99.999999 percent of recent terrorists were Muslims, I think ?

    2. Yet… the Left are always calling for more controls ove rpeople’s lives. Are they now annoyed because it affects their blessed little chums?

    1. There’s a fairly good chance that if one of these ‘Extinction Rebellion’ protesters were to confront someone trying to gain access to the hospital that the protester would end up in the hospital’s A&E department him/her/they/ self.
      Edit: changed to clarify.

    1. Above all, the British public have a right to know why so much foreign money is being sent to XR, with the express purpose of disrupting our lives and economy in an attempt to influence public policy, not to mention overthrowing our democratic system of government.

      Supreme Court got there first!

      1. ”
        Data now shows only 15 percent would vote for Jo Swinson’s group”
        I wouldn’t data if you paid me.

    1. I don’t see happy people. But I don’t need therapy either. What am I missing?

    1. If i went and stood by the Cenotaph reading the Bible out loud
      dozens of heavily-armed perlice would have me in irons (or a
      strait-jacket) in a trice.

      Why do they not act against these violent anarchists?

      Just asking…

    3. They might regret sticking themselves to any solid structures.
      I’m sure the porters could find some offally good bits to smear on their mouths and faces.

        1. You’ve just put me off my evening meal of boiled smoked gammon, roasted King Eddies and veg.😋😋

        1. The comment from Louise Miles rings true:- “XR will still be in their beds as the lads are packing up for the day”.

        2. When I were nobbut a lad I had a job as a meat humper (stop sniggering at the back) loading the abattoir lorries for Smithfield.

          Those “boys” will be seriously strong and extremely hard. Not people one would want to tangle with.

          Some rebels might wish they were extinct if they try it on.

    4. The rebel mob could contaminate and render inedible any meat they come in contact with. The butchers should stand at the entrances and keep them out. The police must get to grips with these agitators. They should have to get permission for their demomstrations and be restricted in numbers.

  116. Evening, all. It won’t just be the Tories who are finished if we don’t leave the EU.

  117. EU to make decision on deal by end of the week

    No real surprise the big EU meeting is om the 17th/18th

  118. Night All

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c69f79ffd18b7ae185fbbf81f2ceb2d11fae94847b28b07e17db5c24c738595f.gif

    https://twitter.com/J4CKMULL/status/1180476938684653570?s=20

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c54a6235bd1efc5d07b2ef6eba25af4e4ae8a26553bc16f8daf7ee93a490959e.gif

    https://twitter.com/Rossmac212/status/1180875300953038849?s=20

    And finally

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b3f3bcb4381711a8a2e3c897e59a7686d180aa2a283aff633a3807bc9ba0daa1.gif

  119. Extinction Rebellion has been warned by the police and a Government minister that the tactics of their two-week shutdown of London risk alienating the public.

    Despite the chaos due to begin at 10am on Monday, Sadiq Khan has said that he “strongly supports” the right to protest.

    A spokesperson for the Mayor of London said he “totally agrees” with the protesters claim that the Government needs to do more and “has backed the climate strikes over recent weeks and months”.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/06/extinction-rebellion-warned-protest-could-alienate-public/

      1. I would assume…in my naifness that the Mayor of of a great city would wish for law and order. Allowing people to go about their normal business. You know…the little people that have to work for a living !

        Of course these disruptions won’t affect Khan in any way. It’s not like he has any actual work to do.

  122. Two of you still up ? Not just me ?
    Fell asleep and just woke up. October brings the central heating on.The suppliers are smiling again. Prices will go up soon because of brexit ….more hot air in parliament ..

          1. Yours or mine? Tomorrow maybe – I’m off now.
            I had to send an email to a WI group who booked us to do a talk – but want to pay us half the going rate and charge us 15% of our proceeds if we want to sell them our merchandise. Not standing for that so they can stuff that and pay us travelling expenses as well.

          4. When you go away you look at these wonderful animals. When i go away i look at these wonderful floor tiles. :o(

    2. Someone’s downvoted you for saying “Good night all”, Peddy? Good grief! Anyhow, good night to you too. I’m off to bed myself in a minute.

      2. How utterly pathetic. The little bitch must have a brain that has sunk to the size of a walnut, but then, if all you can do is snarl & bark, what can one expect?

        A very good night to you, Elsie.

          1. I can’t see her post because I blocked her when she turned spiteful earlier this year, but you have confirmed my suspicions & it’s not you.

            So I wasn’t wrong, m’dear.

          3. Accidentally my foot! She’s* been downvoting me ever since the downvotes were first revealed a week ago.

            I know you & I have had our differences, but I credit you with more self-respect than you go around scattering downvotes.

            *Don’t let the chosen pronoun misguide you.

  127. “SIR – I have two walnut trees and a plum tree, all of which produce an abundance of fruit every year.
    This year – no walnuts and no plums. What is happening?”
    David Brown

    No bees mate.

        1. I’m sure that means something given your history but i still have to squeeze Dollys glands. Sobs and sobs some more…BTW. I’m not pollinating her !

          1. We get the vet to do that particular job every so often. The girl isn’t too keen on it.

      2. There are those who pollinate their own sheep in Wales, apparently, but fruit, you must be going nutty.

    1. Evening Rik,
      And still mass uncontrolled immigration parties find
      support / votes via the ballot booth.
      Party before country.

    2. I’ve been going on about the immunity that the customers have enjoyed for years now. All we need to do is build four or five big new prisons and prosecute these animals. too bad the police don’t want to. Why not? Too bad the social services people don’t want it. Why not? Too bad the town councillors in all these places don’t want it. Why not?

    1. “Mr Hannan added Mr Johnson’s deal is “reasonable” and the EU’s hesitancy over accepting it shows how “dishonest” the bloc has been over Brexit.”

      Sometimes you just sigh and pack up for the night. Boris’s “deal” is the Withdrawal Agreement document that Jacob Rees-Mogg rightly said made the United Kingdom a vassal state of the European Union. It gives them massive controls over our laws and lets them tell us how much we pay the EU every year, and we must pay it. It ties us deeper to the EU than we are now, for what will be an unending “transition period.” Boris is fully aware of this.

      What is more, those in the EU who are “resisting it” are just doing it for the cameras and are not the ones holding the purse strings who will actually make the decision. Which is an obvious one and has already been made. The EU will accept this deal because it is very, very good for them and a crippling punishment beating for the United Kingdom. It is exceptionally annoying when someone like Daniel Hannan pretends that this sham is the Brexit that we voted for in any way.

      But that is enough dark reality for one night. Whatever they do to us we will battle on. We did not choose this fight, they did, and we are stronger.

  131. 05:15 and I’ve just had a canula put in my arm ready to go to Sheffield, then I suddenly realised, I ought to have gotten dressed first!!

    2. All the best, BoB, I hope it all goes well for you and you are back home in the real world pronto.

      1. I’ve warned the nurses that, if someone has to tell me I’m not going home tomorrow, to have security ready in case I either go ballistic or jump out of the window.

      1. Thank you Geoff.
        Currently sat here listening to Hayden’s Miracle Symphony through the headphones from Radio 3, the 2nd album I ever bought was the Boyd Neal recording on a 10″ Decca 33rpm!

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