Sunday 15 August: Lifelong Conservatives who no longer recognise their own party

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/08/14/letters-lifelong-conservatives-no-longer-recognise-party/

728 thoughts on “Sunday 15 August: Lifelong Conservatives who no longer recognise their own party”

  1. We have not betrayed Afghanistan. Ben Wallace. 15 August 2021.

    Some former service personnel have championed the cause of Afghan interpreters and some are calling for a unilateral fighting return. But nothing we do can change the fact that the deal struck by president Trump with the Taliban paved the way for our exit. As they say, “the die was cast”.

    Al-Qaeda failed for 20 years to mount further attacks on our streets, and in the end their leader Osama bin Laden was killed in hiding. We also went in to curtail heroin shipments and that too bore small but successful results. Less terror and less drugs was a thing worth fighting for.

    What comes next should not overshadow what we did during those 20 years. And let’s look at other failed states where we did not intervene, such as Syria. The scale of suffering and terror in that country tragically surpasses anything Afghanistan has experienced.

    Morning everyone. If you want to read a Litany of Lies before breakfast I can thoroughly recommend this piece by the UK’s Secretary of State for Defence. From Afghanistan’s present difficulties being the fault of Trump to the Western sponsored destruction of Syria he misses no opportunity to deceive or peddle complete fantasies that seek to avoid the responsibility for a Foreign Policy that was not only wrong but criminal from the very beginning.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/14/have-not-betrayed-afghanistan/

  2. We have not betrayed Afghanistan. Ben Wallace. 15 August 2021.

    Some former service personnel have championed the cause of Afghan interpreters and some are calling for a unilateral fighting return. But nothing we do can change the fact that the deal struck by president Trump with the Taliban paved the way for our exit. As they say, “the die was cast”.

    Al-Qaeda failed for 20 years to mount further attacks on our streets, and in the end their leader Osama bin Laden was killed in hiding. We also went in to curtail heroin shipments and that too bore small but successful results. Less terror and less drugs was a thing worth fighting for.

    What comes next should not overshadow what we did during those 20 years. And let’s look at other failed states where we did not intervene, such as Syria. The scale of suffering and terror in that country tragically surpasses anything Afghanistan has experienced.

    Morning everyone. If you want to read a Litany of Lies before breakfast I can thoroughly recommend this piece by the UK’s Secretary of State for Defence. From Afghanistan’s present difficulties being the fault of Trump to the Western sponsored destruction of Syria he misses no opportunity to deceive or peddle complete fantasies that seek to avoid the responsibility for a Foreign Policy that was not only wrong but criminal from the very beginning.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/14/have-not-betrayed-afghanistan/

  6. I thought I would brighten up your day by telling you the good news that Joe Biden has achieved an amazing victory in Afghanistan ! Alright its not true, he has achieved very swiftly a not so amazing defeat & endangered the security of Western Europe & the defeat in Afghanistan will unleash a flood of Jihadis on Europe & the UK soon enough disguised as refugees !

    Taliban gains control of Jalalabad, one of two last cities in Afghan control
    “There are no clashes taking place right now in Jalalabad because the governor has surrendered to the Taliban,” a Jalalabad-based Afghan official said.
    By REUTERS AUGUST 15, 2021 07:24 https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/taliban-gains-control-of-jalalabad-one-of-two-last-cities-in-afghan-control-676733

      1. Believe the latest wheeze is to show a video before each match showing how virtuous they who kneel are.

    5. Search the MSM for an answer, if there is no mention then it is safe to assume booing took place.

  8. Sarah Rainsford on Russia: ‘I’ve been told I can’t come back – ever’. 15 August 2021.

    The BBC’s Moscow correspondent Sarah Rainsford is being forced to leave Russia at the end of August when her visa expires. Russian state media say the move is in retaliation for the refusal of the UK to grant visas to Russian journalists. Sarah spoke to the BBC Today programme about her sorrow at leaving a country she loves.

    “I am being expelled – it’s not a failure to renew my visa, although technically that’s what it is. I’m being expelled and I’ve been told that I can’t come back, ever.

    Purveyors of Lies and Propaganda I’m only surprised they haven’t expelled you all. If it were left to me you wouldn’t be allowed back in the UK!

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58213845

    1. expect a live scoop from the House of Saville when Rainsford returns to UK on a dinghy with her illegal economic gimmegrants as bodyguards

  9. mng all, Sunday’s offering:

    SIR – Dr Tony Parker’s letter (August 8) is representative of the way many of us feel. I have said on many occasions that I no longer recognise the Conservative Party.

    There are notable exception. Some backbench MPs, for example, are concerned about the stance the Government is taking. However, their efforts to resist it have been thwarted because of the remote nature of parliamentary business, and the Government’s ability to force its plans through with little or no scrutiny. This is not democracy. We can only hope that things will improve following the summer recess.

    If there were to be another general election I would not feel able to vote Conservative unless things change dramatically. Yet all the alternatives are unappealing. This is a very sad reflection of the state of British 
politics.

    My father came from a poor background but worked hard, without bitterness, to provide for his family. He was a lifelong Conservative voter, and I can only imagine how disappointed he would be with the party now.

    Clare Grange
    Romsey, Hampshire

    SIR – The pandemic has highlighted how lightweight this Government is.

    If Boris Johnson wants to govern by delegation, he needs to have competent ministers. We are being treated as idiots and it will backfire. True-blue Tories may not vote Labour at the next election but many will abstain, which will be a problem.

    Michael Glover
    Salisbury, Wiltshire

    SIR – Perhaps Dr Tony Parker should reflect that a majority of his fellow members of the Conservative Party, for perceived short-term gain, voted for Boris Johnson as their leader, resulting in the dysfunctional Government that they now criticise.

    John Hudson
    Elstead, Surrey

    SIR – With the enormous costs of the Prime Minister’s plan to achieve net zero, it is not only the newly won, Red Wall Tory seats that the Conservative Party needs to be concerned about, but the traditional ones as well. The Labour Party must be delighted.

    I find it hard to believe that a Conservative government could make such massive spending commitments, while implementing unwelcome lifestyle changes, without considering the consequences.

    Andrew Johnstone
    Hitchin, Hertfordshire

    SIR – Boris Johnson’s panicked commitment to outrageous green targets has no legitimacy and is financially unfeasible.

    Forcing such unnecessary policies on voters will probably ensure that the Conservatives are ousted come the next general election. The Prime Minister may well even lose his own parliamentary seat.

    John Pritchard
    Ingatestone, Essex

    Unreliable grades

    SIR – Unfortunately, a price will be paid for teachers’ largesse in grading this year’s exams.

    Some of the beneficiaries will find themselves struggling to keep up when they begin unsuitable degree courses. And employers looking at CVs will struggle to distinguish between candidates, meaning that some of the best ones end up missing out.

    John Dickinson
    Chipperfield, Hertfordshire

    SIR – It may be that careful and repeated assessment by a teacher gives a better idea of a student’s abilities than a one-off exam.

    However, both systems have value and could run concurrently. Students could be graded by their teachers, giving a subjective score. Then, following an external examination, they could be graded again, and not just in a relative way (A*, A, B, etc) but absolutely (say, number 45 in Britain in the subject).

    Some college tutors or employers might be more interested in the absolute score, but many would be influenced by performance over time.

    N V Todd FRCS
    Whitburn, Co Durham

    NHS failures

    SIR – Adam Brimelow, Director of Communications at NHS Providers (Letters, August 8), says of the health service: “Describing its last 18 months as ‘a woeful crisis’, with ‘myriad mistakes’, is misleading.”

    How else to describe more than 40,000 people catching coronavirus in hospitals in England, when there for other reasons, and approaching 9,000 of them dying as a result?

    Mr Brimelow needs to take off the rose-tinted spectacles and start dealing in facts, not spin.

    Alexander Cox
    Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland

    SIR – Adam Brimelow should visit a few NHS facilities with his eyes open.

    My 95-year-old in-law collapsed last week. We spent 40 minutes waiting for the GP receptionist to answer the phone. No one was available so we were advised to visit A&E.

    We arrived at the hospital at 5pm. My in-law then slowly received various tests and treatments while waiting in his wheelchair in an area that could only be described as chaotic.

    The hospital then chose to discharge him at 3am.

    Sorry, Mr Brimelow, but the appointment of an insider as Chief Executive of NHS England was not the change that the service needs.

    Alan France
    Marlow, Buckinghamshire

    Soldier and sportsman

    SIR – In your report (August 8) on Joe Choong, who won gold in the modern pentathlon, you describe him as the first British man to have done so.

    This overlooks the achievements of Jim Fox, a soldier in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, who won the British title 10 times and competed in four Olympics (1964, 1968, 1972 and 1976).

    He won a team gold for Britain at the Montreal Olympics and was subsequently awarded the OBE for services to that sport.

    David Riddick
    Cranbrook, Kent

    Burglar’s bribe

    SIR – A professional burglar once told me that he had no fear of dogs (Letters, August 8). He always took with him a cooked takeaway chicken.

    His Honour Jonathan van der Werff
    London SW1

    Deserting Afghanistan

    SIR – The decision of the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and entities such as Nato to withdraw their military presence and wider support from Afghanistan is one that, unfortunately, they will live to regret.

    It is nothing short of an act of desertion, and leaves the country and its people at the mercy of a resurgent Taliban, along with other Islamist extremist groups that will now feel emboldened to set up cells in a country on the brink of collapse.

    All those in the British Armed Forces who have fought so hard, shedding blood, sweat and tears in the attempt to bring about a freer and more democratic Afghanistan, must now feel that their efforts were utterly futile.

    Dale Gatehouse
    Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire

    Covid in New Zealand

    SIR – I disagree with Catherine Shearman (Letters, August 8), who admires Jacinda Ardern’s handling of Covid in New Zealand.

    Although we have arrived where we are via a very rocky road, I believe that Britain is now in a much better position looking to the future than New Zealand.

    Some 90 per cent of our population has some protection, either through vaccination or infection; in New Zealand that figure is just 16 per cent, achieved by an extremely tardy vaccination programme.

    Even when that number rises to a level at which reopening can be contemplated, Ms Ardern will have the difficult job of convincing a terrified public to allow in what will be a modified Covid first wave, with inevitable morbidity and mortality.

    Dr David Shoesmith
    York

    Watch out

    SIR – I was interested to read your report about the “Rolex Rippers”.

    I was in Emsworth, Hampshire, three weeks ago when my Rolex Oyster was snatched by these people. It was 3.30pm when they tapped on the window of the car I was sitting in. They used the clipboard ploy and made off in a car before I could get my hands on them.

    I feel the police are not doing enough. They did not seem that interested.

    Derek Freestone
    Birchington, Kent

    Margaret Thatcher’s blind spot on coal mines

    SIR – Ross Clark is correct that, under Harold Wilson’s Labour governments, 253 coal mines were closed – whereas, under Margaret Thatcher’s, 115 closures took place.

    The difference is that, during the Wilson period, closures were mostly due to exhaustion of reserves – when it becomes uneconomical to extract a dwindling supply – or geological faults such as flooding, which prohibits viable mining.

    Many of the pits closed during the Thatcher era, on the other hand, had vast, unexploited reserves of coal, but were sacrificed for reasons other than economic ones.

    The fact that Britain still needs and uses coal is underlined by the current imports from Australia, Poland, Russia and the Americas, which create further considerable carbon footprints.

    Michael Denholm
    Dunbar, East Lothian

    The myth that pensioners always had it good

    SIR – I was astounded by Phil Stewart’s blinkered letter (August 8) about pensioners and the triple lock.

    Let’s look at his points objectively. First, healthcare is not “free”: it is funded through National Insurance, which pensioners have paid over a long period.

    As for free university education, until Tony Blair’s fatuous policy only the top 5 per cent or so went to university, which was affordable for the country.

    The full employment that Mr Stewart cites was a result of rebuilding the country and economy following the Second World War – a necessary process to provide for following generations.

    Finally, home-ownership was no easier between the 1970s and the 1990s, when the average mortgage rate was 11 per cent rather than today’s much lower rate. And the “massive wealth gains from home ownership” will trickle down to younger generations, unless it’s decimated by social care charges and death duties.

    George Kelly
    Maids Moreton, Buckinghamshire

    SIR – While I would love an 8 per cent rise in my state pension (which wouldn’t be a lot in cash terms), I agree that the skewed earning figures for the past two years must be reflected in the next pension settlement.

    We pensioners were protected from the negative impact on pay last year and must accept that to obtain a false gain on the readjustment would be, in the Chancellor’s words, “unfair”.

    I am concerned, however, at the use of the term “suspended”, and would prefer it if this year it were simply capped at 2.5 per cent. To try to calculate a two-year average would involve unnecessary cost.

    The cap should then be removed for the next round.

    Arthur Threlfall
    Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire

    3. Burglar’s bribe.

      I suppose it’s Werff a cooked chicken if it means you get away with burglary.

  11. The jihadis vs the post-Westphalia world system. Posted on August 14, 2021 by Pat Lang

    The Enlightenment did not occur in the Islamic World. Nothing like the Treaty of Westphalia existed. Colonialism existed. Colonial influences existed. In the Ottoman Empire, the “tanziimat” introduced Westphalian values. In British India, in Dutch Indonesia, in the Spanish Phillippines, well, you get the idea.

    But … medieval Islam persists. Every hundred years or so the Sunnis throw off a revivalist salafi jihadi movement. They do this when the memory of the pain of defeat at the hands of the Westphalian states dies out with the passing of time. The dervishes in Sudan, Salah al-din al-ayyoubi, the mamluks, Erdogan and the neo-Ottomans. And now we have the jihadi movements of the 21st Century; the Taliban, ISIS, Il-Qa’ida, etc. BTW, their calendar is Lunar. We do not even have that in common.

    The jihadis DO NOT accept the Westphalian framework for our world. They defy it and cling to their various versions of sharia according to the consensus (ijma’) of their groups. They aim to demonstrate that God is not mocked by the impious nature of Westphalian empire. For them the ‘umma (world Islamic community) is all, and those who are contaminated by the West are murtad (apostate) and their goods, and women are available as ghanima’ (booty) to be divided up among the brothers.

    Sadly, they will have to be destroyed once again, and driven into the darkness for another hundred years. In the process, another Bataan may be the outcome.

    Colonel Lang demonstrating his scholarly knowledge of Islam though I think his conclusion mistaken! This time Islam will prevail since it has penetrated the European Heartland whose leaders are cringing and corrupt decadents devoid of belief in anything whatsoever!

    https://turcopolier.com/the-jihadis-vs-the-post-westphalia-world-system/

    1. Evil cannot be appeased, it must be destroyed, unfortunately the West has forgotten how to achieve victory & that it can only be done by the wholesale spilling of the enemies blood, his physical elimination and the reluctance to do so by the progressive governments of the West endangers us all to the point where the defeat of the Wests Judeo-Christian based society by the savage hordes of Islam is a distinct possibility.

      1. It helps if we can go through our own institutions and eliminate corruption, incompetence and distraction from them.

        Chucking a rotten apple at the islamists may make us feel something is being done, but it is bloody useless and they know it.

        1. Good morning & happy Sunday JM. The physical extermination of the progressives in the west is the only thing that can save it, it wont happen as the west is now tottering on the brink just like the Roman Empire collapsed over a period of decades.

          1. I don’t have much confidence in final solutions. History often shows that those who do the exterminating are often even worse than those they are exterminating.

            I would like to see a rehabilitation of the word ‘discrimination’, based not on prejudice, but on an evaluation of the quality of someone’s character and attitude and capacity to deal benignly with events, rather than founded on compliance with whatever identity group is favoured right now.

            I am myself a progressive in as much as I hope things can be done better than before. If something is worse than before, what’s the point of doing it? It’s like one of those horrid makeovers, where they turn a beautiful girl, cut off her lovely hair, smother her in makeup and tattoos, and give her a sour expression and a strutting walk. I invariably prefer the “before”.

            The word became debased in my childhood when my “betters” when justifying the destruction of a much-loved landmark or the discontinuation of something I rely on in daily life. They called it “progress” as if this made it all right.

          3. I cannot disagree with the former, but the latter doesn’t work.

            The evil people hide in bunkers and it’s their innocent captives that get the shit bombed out of them because those in the planes far above cannot tell them apart.

          5. Or held them captive.

            When the allied bombers firebombed Dresden in 1945, a lot of the Nazis had fled, and most of the victims jumping into the boiling river were either residents caught up in the carnage because they live there, or genuine refugees fleeing the concentration camps.

          7. Sorry but the comparison doesn’t work & I have no sympathy for the Germans who voted Hitler into power & were behind him 100% till they lost the war & then amazingly they all became anti-Nazis & never knew a thing about the concentration camps!

          10. It’s far, far harder to get rid of tyranny after it’s established. The Germans don’t seem to be very good at getting rid of dictatorial governments though. Their instinctive desire for rule by consensus lets them down.
            I’m afraid they will fall into the same trap with the vaxx passport authoritarian takeover.

          11. The German people are aquiescent and law abiding by nature so kept their heads down just trying to survive.

          14. Did you ever see Edgar Reitz’s trilogy ‘Heimat’ set in a small German village between 1919 and 2000?

            It was a sort of soap opera that ambled through the decades at a glacial pace, but was a fascinating commentary on the Third Reich as seen from the inside – the lives of ordinary folk who, by and large were no more interested in high level politics than they are today.

            One character was the fearless blacksmith’s wife, who went for the Gestapo and the Nazis since she had nothing to lose. She lived her life and was old, and being sent away would have made little difference to her. Yet she was spared because she was powerless and no threat to them. Her son, who was pushed into becoming Mayor of Rhaunen by his ambitious Berlin wife, really had no interest in politics. When the Americans arrived at the end of one episode to commandeer his mansion, and he would have to move out to a tiny hovel, said “Gott sei Dank est ist vorbei” (Thank God it is over). His ambitious wife, true to form, took up American styles and curried favour with the GIs.

            The series was criticised for not dwelling adequately on the Holocaust, but I felt it was truer to the actual experience. Mostly they would not have known about it, and even if they did, there was nothing they could do about it. One of the characters (actually the blacksmith’s son-in-law) was a Jewish watchmaker who vanished soon after his shop was smashed up at Krystallnacht, and a girl, whose parents were communists and vanished one day, became the ward of the family.

          15. I have not seen Heimat but read the reports that it is nothing but a white washing of what the ordinary German people actually knew was happening to the Jews and didn’t really care.

          16. Edgar Reitz and the film critics had a mutual loathing of one another.

            One early critic was named Wilfried Wiegand.

            There is a very unpleasant character in Heimat. At the start, he is a spoiled brat of a child. During the Third Reich, he becomes a Gestapo officer, responsible for keeping order in the village (as the blacksmith’s wife said “bullying old ladies”) rather than going to the front and doing anything risky. In the 1950s, he becomes an executive with an agrochemical company, developing farmland poisons, who loves his work watching small creatures die. He is killed off before he is sixty. Reitz named him Wilfried Wiegand.

            I don’t think the Germans were any more or less caring than the average Brit today, who much prefers Strictly or Love Island or following Premier League football than worrying about politics or the suffering of others. It is a big mistake to think the same thing could not happen here, so we always need to be vigilant and take nothing for granted about human nature.

      2. …endangers us all to the point where the defeat of the Wests Judeo-Christian based society by the savage hordes of Islam is a distinct possibility certainty.

        1. I stand corrected, even though I am sitting down. The Barbarians are no longer at the gate, they are inside & rapidly obtaining political power .

  12. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR – Boris Johnson’s panicked commitment to outrageous green targets has no legitimacy and is financially unfeasible.

    Forcing such unnecessary policies on voters will probably ensure that the Conservatives are ousted come the next general election. The Prime Minister may well even lose his own parliamentary seat.

    John Pritchard
    Ingatestone, Essex

    Of several government-critical letters today this one, for me, sums it up nicely. ‘Fat Blair’ has lost his mind and apparently pseudo-green is the new black. The sooner he’s removed, the better. The party has yet to realise that the game will be up at the next GE if they allow this lunatic to continue.

    1. Morning, Hugh. What I want to know is – what are the 1922 Committee doing sitting on their hands? Brady mouthed off a lot – but has done bugger all.

      1. I wish I knew, Bill. And good morning to you.

        No one in the party seems to understand that a large majority is a dangerous thing. Currently it is being abused and I’m sure history will record that it was squandered.

          1. I only have to look at my contemporaries who are in the HoC. They are the most disgraceful set of craven, dishonest, snivelling cowards imaginable.
            There was one of my contemporaries who would have been an independent voice in the Conservative party. In 2010, he was selected as the candidate for Finchley (Mrs Thatcher’s old seat). Shortly before the election, central office allegedly told them to deselect him, and have a gay candidate instead, who needless to say, is a party man. As a Councillor in the area, my contemporary at univesity had criticised the litter (discarded condoms) left on Hampstead Heath by gay “doggers.”
            This was during the days of Cameron and Gove’s A List of preferred candidates.

            I believe that the House of Conmen and Lackeys that we have now, is the direct result of this grooming of obedient yes-men and women at the expense of the talented individualists.

      2. A veteran Tory MP, now in his mid-60s, who was once my father’s drinking companion and fellow adventurer in the 1970s, once explained to my mother that it does not pay to be seen to be too intelligent in the Commons, lest it rock the boat and creates trouble for oneself with the Whips. Better to lie low. That way, there is a good chance of being paid for decades to come.

  13. The Conservative & Unionist Party of Disraeli, Churchill & Thatcher has passed into legend, what exists today is a parody of its former self that is more akin to New Bolshevik Labour meets the BLM & the Muslim Brotherhood. Lenin & Stalin must be having a good laugh from deep down in the bowels of Hell.

  14. 336825+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    At long last some recognition of fact is creeping through a very English
    political coup has / is taking place, IMO, its in your face, blatant.

    To my mind there is a very strong force working as a “not very covert
    brussels asset”, triggered by the wretch cameron via the 24/6/2016 result.

    Treacherous treasas first move, a 9 month delay was so bloody a brussels damage limitations action as to be of fiction, johnsons “deal” WAS a sign to brussels that the vichy tory party was still supporting them.

    The main ingredient in keeping these tory (ino) politico’s in power was / is
    misplaced hope especially since the major era.

    Sunday 15 August: Lifelong Conservatives who no longer recognise their own party

      1. 336825+ up ticks,
        Morning E&S,
        I could not possibly comment as it would be seen as bias.

        Just another truth denier, old hat..

  15. A little hidden phrase which should be challenged.

    “Put HS2 ‘out of its misery’, senior Tories to urge ministers. Debate on scrapping high-sped rail link scheduled after public petition calling for its axing drew more than 100,000 signatures.”

    In the body of the article “Senior Tories are preparing to urge ministers to put the project “out of its misery” as they point to spiralling costs and a shift to working from home as evidence that it should be cancelled and the £98 billion budget distributed elsewhere.”
    .
    No, the budget should not be distributed elsewhere, it should not be drawn down from the taxpayer in the first place.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/08/14/put-hs2-misery-senior-tories-urge-ministers/

    1. Mustafa & Achmed the ballot paper printers in Bethnal Green have had their staff working flat out for weeks to make sure that all of Zambia’s dead get their vote in on time!

      1. Mustafa and Achmed were attempting to send voters to wrong polling stations. It appears voters were not too eager of the trip to Tanzania or South Africa merely to give a thumb print

  17. ‘Morning again.

    Good article from Daniel Hannan. What is even more interesting are the comments, most of which are highly critical of Johnson and his spineless government. In my view he’s not only shaking the magic money tree to death, he’s in the process of felling every tree in the wood.

    DANIEL HANNAN
    15 August 2021 • 6:00am

    Grade inflation is happening for the same reason as monetary inflation – because those in authority are terrified of short-term unpopularity.

    Handing out A grades to everyone is, at least at first, a crowd-pleaser. Lots of people come away satisfied. The students themselves are naturally delighted. So are their parents. So are their schools, many of which have been sending out boastful emails this week.

    There are losers, too, of course, but they tend to be less vocal. For example, the students who would have done well anyway will now hold a devalued qualification. Those who sat their exams in 2019 might justly feel miffed. So, even more, might those who take their A-levels in 2022, and who will be competing for university places with the beneficiaries of this year’s lax grading. Universities have been left with a godawful mess: some have been driven to pay students to defer, or to move to a different university. And that is before we come to employers.

    Fear of disapprobation overrode all these concerns. At every turn, ministers followed the path of least resistance. They did not need to cancel the exams in 2020. Schools closed a few days before the end of the Easter term, a time when most students were just weeks away from moving on to their revision schedules. With the tiniest flexibility, the exams could have gone ahead – possibly with a short delay and suitable social distancing – as happened in other countries. But, unwilling to take on the teachers’ unions, ministers backed down.

    And so it went on. The school day could have been lengthened to compensate for lost time. The summer term in 2020 could have started earlier (there was no lockdown at the time). Schools could have worked through the 2021 Easter holiday. This year’s exams could have gone ahead in a modified form, with outside invigilation. Some controls could have been put in place to anchor teacher assessments to real-world evidence. But no, no, all must have prizes.

    There was nothing inevitable about this cowardice. It was the Conservatives who had put a stop to grade inflation in the first place. When Michael Gove took over as education secretary in 2010, he knew he was inheriting a degraded system. It was hard to prove that the questions were less demanding (though the discovery, in the 1990s, that A-level papers were recycling 1970s O-level questions was suggestive); but it was easy to prove that the number of A and A* grades was rising at an implausible rate – from 18 per cent in 2000 to 25 per cent in 2010. Gove succeeded in freezing that figure. In every year from 2010 to 2019, the proportion of A-level students getting A or A* was 24 or 25 per cent. This year, it was 45 per cent.

    Just as with currency inflation, the problem is not technical but political. Currency inflation can be halted by turning off the printing presses. The question is whether a country’s leaders are prepared to see a spike in unemployment and a short-term fall in living standards.

    That question, too, now needs to be asked of the British state. In monetary policy, as in education policy, long-term prudence has given way to instant gratification.

    When, indeed, did ministers last say no to any organised lobby? More benefits payments? A pay rise for the NHS? A furlough extension? Free school meals out of school? A rise in the minimum wage? More time working from home? By all means: here you go.

    Obviously the epidemic required some exceptional policy responses: we all understand that. But those exceptional responses are in danger of becoming permanent. Even as the threat subsides, and as the combination of acquired immunity and vaccination kicks in, we seem unable to wean ourselves off the spending, the money-printing or the debasement of exams.

    A campaign is underway to make teacher assessment an intrinsic feature of grading – a nonsense that ministers seem willing to indulge. What next? Self-assessed driving tests? Promotion for every soldier? The sending of cheques to all citizens?

    Indulging every demand can make you popular for a while. You might even succeed in putting off the reckoning. Harold Macmillan spent big, rose in the electorate’s estimation, retired in good order and poured a stinking mess of problems into his successors’ laps. But, in the end, the economic crisis caught up with Britain. You can avoid tough decisions. But you can’t avoid the consequences of avoiding tough decisions.

  18. Taliban’s foreign allies have pushed it to the brink of total control. 15 August 2021.

    The breath-taking speed with which the Taliban have seized control of key territory throughout Afghanistan is not just down to the determination and resourcefulness of its fighters. It also owes a great deal to the support, both military and political, that the hardline Islamist militants are receiving from key allies in the region and beyond.

    For example, the Taliban’s capture earlier this week of the key western city of Herat, a major trading post located close to the border with Iran, owes much to the tacit support they have received from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has facilitated – at the very least – the transfer of key equipment and supplies across the Iranian border to help the Taliban cause.

    This is just Coughlin bloviating. There is no evidence whatsoever that the Taliban are receiving any significant support from anyone let alone Iran. They are still a rag tag army of seasonal fighters, though now running amok due to the exposed weakness of an opposition that were always just traitors and collaborators dependent on American largesse!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/08/14/talibans-foreign-allies-have-pushed-brink-total-control/

  19. Without trying to ruin Sunday too much, but merely fyi and to note Charles Lynton’s latest ego trip on SM: “Our teams are now embedded in governments around the world, helping them to keep their people safe during this pandemic – not just in respect of Covid-19 itself but also the political and economic collateral damage” https://twitter.com/i/status/1259075645595725824 ignoring he’s on majority of people’s “collateral damage” hit list

          1. Politicians are only allowed near the levers of power if the puppeteers have dirt on them. ‘Morning all, as the surprise news comes through that Kabul is falling.

        2. This must be a joke – but I am ready to believe it is really true.

          Didn’t Blair’s gorgon-like wife claim that his sexual appetite is voracious just as was Major’s, and is Johnson’s. Mrs May broke the libidinous mould of PMs by remaining resolutely virgo intacta.

          1. Originally there was a ‘Court round up’ article which has since vanished from the Internet.

          3. I don’t think it’s a joke. This story has been circulating for years and has never been denied.

          4. There were also many stories on the Internet saying that Gordon Brown was a paedophile as was Theresa May’s father. These have been taken down.

          5. I haven’t seen those, but I would regard them with extreme scepticism as I am sure you do.

        3. This picture of the young Blair is vomit inducing. Why on earth was Rupert Murdoch’s Chinese wife attracted to him?

    3. Our teams are now embedded in governments around the world…

      If that doesn’t send a chill up your spine nothing will!

      1. I wonder how much of the UK foreign Aid budget the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change sweeps up.
        I doubt the money comes out of Blair’s own pocket.

  20. 336825+ up ticks,

    Dt,
    UK rush to evacuate envoy from Kabul before Taliban arrive
    Foreign Office previously intended for Sir Laurie Bristow to remain in
    Kabul airport along with a small team of officials

    Another reason is that the british contingent could turn up and that would prove highly embarrassing having a genuine Brit soldier shooting an, at home neighbour.

  21. Good morning, my friends

    More than half of Russell Group universities make face masks mandatory
    Of the country’s leading 24 institutions, 13 – including Oxford and Cambridge – say that face coverings must be worn
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/14/half-russell-group-universities-make-face-masks-mandatory/

    BTL

    How about airtight plastic masks which are hermetically sealed onto the face. That way you will neither get Covid particles getting in nor out and you will die of suffocation rather than Covid.

  22. British embassy ‘spy’ posed in Ukrainian football strip, described himself as ‘anti-Nato’ on social media and was tasked with ‘flushing out UK spies sent to Berlin when Russian dissident Alexei Navalny fled to city. 15 August 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cc90f6fa0c6733a082b7af1ece642fe66dffda1f4f18a6fc9ff20cf9b51ae1c0.png

    The British Embassy worker accused of selling secrets to the Kremlin was tasked with flushing out UK spies sent to Berlin when Russian dissident Alexei Navalny fled to the city, security sources have told The Mail on Sunday.

    David Smith, 57, was ‘activated’ by his Moscow handlers in November – three months after Mr Navalny was evacuated to a hospital in the German capital to be treated for poisoning with a nerve agent.

    This is even more ridiculous than the Salisbury Scam which is no mean feat!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9894117/Images-British-embassy-worker-accused-spy-reveal-clues-Kremlin-connection.html

      2. Aren’t these fighters disgustingly white, and why aren’t they wearing face masks and calling one another “bro”? Will nobody please think of the children?

    1. “Motley crowd” – that is the usual reference – if any.

      Yer Franch MSM is as biased as our own.

  26. Good morning from a Saxon Queen with longbow and axe.

    I’ve just sadly heard that an American blogging friend on mine has passed away,
    he fought in Vietnam. He was wise, eloquent and a gentleman. I’ve a few books on Churchill that I have on his recommendation, of which I’ll cherish more now. He valued the correct usage of the English language and was very knowledgeable. He thought it was a terrible shame that our Western way of life and values are being abused .
    He always said that the world would be a better place if England and the US and the commonwealth were in charge
    but he didn’t use the word I charge. A wise and kind man, although I didn’t know him in actual life, his death doesn’t mean less because of that. I will miss him. God bless .

    1. Good morning daughter
      We have an American friend, met on our cruise back from New York 3 years ago, who has the same sentiments.
      He sees England as the mother country although his grandparents emigrated from Russia. He see England (not GB or UK) as one of the last rational places in the world. If that is the case then America really is in deep sh1t.

    2. Sorry for your loss, Æthefled. The loss of a virtual friend hurts as much as that of one in “real” life.

    3. I’ve been in that situation a few years ago; a “penpal” I regularly corresponded with by email passed away from pancreatic cancer. I missed the erudite exchange of views.

  27. Life Goes On

    A 60-year-old man went to the doctor for a check-up. The doctor told him, “You’re in terrific shape. There’s nothing wrong with you. Why, you might live forever. You have the body of a 35 year old. By the way, how old was your father when he died?”

    The 60 year old responded, “Did I say he was dead?”
    The doctor was surprised and asked, “How old is he and is he very active?”

    The 60 year old responded, “Well, he is 82 years old and he still goes skiing three times a season and surfing three times a week during the summer.”
    The doctor couldn’t believe it. “Well, how old was your grandfather when he died?”

    The 60 year old responded again, “Did I say he was dead?”
    The doctor was astonished. He said, “You mean to tell me you are 60 years old and both your father and your grandfather are alive? Is your grandfather very active?”

    The 60 year old said, “He goes skiing at least once a season and surfing once a week during the summer. Not only that,” said the patient, “my grandfather is 106 years old, and next week he is getting married again.”
    The doctor said, “At 106 years, why on earth would your grandfather want to get married?”

    His patient looked up at the doctor and said, “Did I say he wanted to?“

  28. Johnson’s insane carbon zero policies are coming under fire from many sources now. Our PM must reconsider these policies before he commits the people of this country to a life of misery and unnecessary, irreversible disruption. I expect very few countries at the Glasgow Cop26 in November will sign up to his plans for the future.

    3. I am becoming more and more convinced that the restrictions on our liberty are a trial run by the government to soften us up for losing our ability to travel about freely.

      The end of petrol and diesel cars will mean the end of car ownership for most people and car ownership was one of the most liberating things which happened for masses of peope in the 20th century.

      I do not pretend to be an environmental expert but I am aware that many people who are more knowledgeable than I am believe that electric cars will do more net damage to the environment than diesel cars do and that modern diesel in one of the cleanest sources of energy.

      2. The problem with these damned conformists wanting to impose a tidy one-size-fits-all compromise, because that’s easier to administer, is that one size doesn’t fit all.

        I remember the debate about public transport versus the private motor car. In towns, it makes sense to leave the car at home and go by bus, train or tram. There are enough people travelling that way to make it viable. If I were Transport Secretary, I would make everywhere within three miles of a school to be safely navigable by a child on a bicycle. Instead, we have had a policy of ferrying schoolchildren from suburb to school individually by Chelsea tractor, which are getting ever bigger and ever thirstier, because status symbols are what people most want from the world.

        Out in the countryside however, it is very different. Buses, when they do emerge from the depot, rarely have anyone in them other than the driver. How can anyone make that pay, and what is the point of it? The Greenest and most efficient way to get about the villages is actually the private motor car. Even better if country folk get most of what they need within walking distance, since there is the space to have a productive garden, and country folk tend to know one another and pool their talents within the village.

        Because of distances and the stress on local grids out in the wilds, a locally-powered vehicle is better than an electric one. For as long as diesel is the everyday fuel used on farms, then it may well be the best thing to power a car. In the future, they might even go back to wood (or anything else lying about that will burn)-burning steam engines controlled by 21st century technology.

        Such things are, however, ridiculous in towns.

    5. Insane also to deprive people of their telephone landlines by 2025.

      There are areas here surrounded by hills and valleys where mobile phone reception is absolutely useless.

      Those with vision problems also like the landline phones with large numbers .

      Johnson is terrifying the living daylights out of everyone with his mad hatter ideas.

      1. Hello Belle. I think you have misunderstood the article about landlines. The intention is to upgrade to digital systems. Without getting too technical the landline will still remain, but the service will upgrade in technology. Here is my rather brusque comment I made yesterday about a Daily Fail article:

        “Complete bollocks written by an imbecilic technically iliterate journalist. The reality is that what is called circuit switched telephony will be phased out and voice over IP telephony will be used to replace it, in other words the landline that provides your broadband will be migrated from the present “dial up landline” to an all digital line. Nothing whatsoever to do with making people rely on mobile telephony.”

        There are a number of issues that need to be addressed about 999 services but these are not unsurmountable.

      2. I believe it’s to switch from copper wires to fibre optic.
        Since the roll-out of fibre is glacial, good luch with completing that on the next 3 years.

          1. Indeed, we have it, and the fibre is at the top of the road. Connection due in a month, apparently.

    8. Another boondoggle for the global ‘elite’.
      Masked peasantry will stand by to pander to every whim while Carrie Antoinette and Co. frivol the days away.
      Zil lanes in Glasgow for those who don’t have a private jet or helicopter.

    9. Another boondoggle for the global ‘elite’.
      Masked peasantry will stand by to pander to every whim while Carrie Antoinette and Co. frivol the days away.
      Zil lanes in Glasgow for those who don’t have a private jet or helicopter.

  29. Morning all,
    On Topic – there is a danger that the Right slides awayfrom conservatism and towards Right Wing Socialism (aka fascism). I see
    very worrying patterns emerging at the moment.

    Off topic (but related) – I have been quite clear about my vaxxed status until now. But I am more and more of the opinion that I should really just refuse to answer any questions about it. My medical history is no-one’s business but mine.
    If in consequence people want to treat me as a leper that is their business.

    The French seem to be reaching a kind of consensus – https://youtu.be/cfvXg_SRtfs – a total bloody-minded refusal to cooperate.

    Now, there are enough vaccinated people in Paris to at least half fill these cafés. It is just that even those who could comply with the “Papier bitte!” that a few elderly remember, those that could are also refusing to be subject to it.

    1. It’s become clear that the vax doesn’t stop infection or transmission but may mitigate the symptoms. So vax passports are pointless for health reasons but are being used as a means of control.

          1. I hope that yer French will resist. They usually do.

            Maybe they are cowed – especially as Toy Boy has EXEMPTED the police and CRS from any need to test etc…

    2. ” … there is a danger that the Right slides away from conservatism and towards Right Wing Socialism (aka fascism).”

      The only problem with that statement — as has been frequently and lucidly pointed out by others on this forum — is that there is no such thing as “Right-wing socialism”. ALL socialism, communism, and fascism emanate from different factions of the Left.

      They are all characterised by the mob-mentality and collectivism. It is convenient for certain factions of the Left to label rivals as “Right-wing” when they are far from it. The Right-wing of politics is characterised by individualism, not massed ranks. Right-wingers are self-sufficient, enterprising, innovative, hard-working, free-thinking, tax-paying, law-abiding individuals who do not mob together. This fact alone accounts for why they have become defenceless against the massed ranks of the Left who now control the planet.

      The terms “far-Right” and “Right-wing fascists” are non-existent but very convenient fantasies of the Left, purely designed to allocate blame away from their own excesses and atrocities and pass them onto other (equally Left-wing) factions that clash with their own ideals.

      1. How would you label self identified fascists?
        Do you think they are left wing?
        Are they not socialists?

        1. That is what I am trying to explain, socialist, communists, Trotskyists, Left-wing, fascists, collectivists (and a few others) are all synonyms fo the same concept.

          The Nazis [National Socialists] were imbued with Left-wing dogma: state ownership and central control of all matters; individualism was discouraged (by force!). Yet, the Nazis were deemed to be ‘fascists’. Au contraire. Fascism was created as a form of extreme socialism. This fact is is well documented in litt. However, in order for one faction of extreme socialism to throw away blame fo their own excesses and apportion that blame to other, very similar, factions of the Left, they invented this utterly ridiculous and non-existent concept which they labelled “far-Right”.

          If there were such a thing as the “far-Right” it would be inhabited by an extreme number of very self-sufficient, enterprising, hard-working, tax-paying, law-abiding individuals; i.e. a million miles from the gangs of brain-dead, collectivist, socialist morons who need the nanny state to tell them what to do and give them the hand-outs necessary for their survival.

          1. OK. I see what you mean.
            I take ‘socialist’ at the root of the word – ‘social’ – i.e. structuralist, addressing the needs of a society by moulding it’s social structures – and for that there can be left-wing socialists, which tend towards constructing variations on communism and right-wing socialists who tend (or intend) towards nationalism. Both are quasi-religious, statist and collectivist. They do have a lot in common with each other. But is there evidence that Franco, Pétain, Mussolini and Adolf were ever on the left?

            Both are a failure. On the Left because they turn against each other and then themselves as we see with absurd cross-sectionality and identitarianism and on the Right because they promote themselvest at the expense of rival nations which eventually get fed up and attack them (WW2) or collapse from within because the statism does not allow for enterprise. Franco seems to have been an exception.
            What you call Right Wing, I call conservatism. This now has very little to do with Toryism.

          2. Mussolini certainly began as a socialist. He joined the Italian Socialist Party before WW1 but was thrown out because of his support for military intervention.

          3. OK. Goes towards supporting Grizzly’s understanding. But I am sure that Pétain never was. Patrician as the French can be. But he did see France as part of a Right Wing collective trans-Europe.
            I suspect Franco would have been of the similar cloth.

          4. He may well have seen it as part of a collective trans-Europe, but the erroneous “Right-wing” bit came from ill-educated (mainly Left-wing) scholars who wanted to divert attention from their own similar malevolent agendae.

            The widespread but erratic definition “Right-wing” (and “far-Right”) have deeply penetrated the psyche of countless people (some, clearly, on this forum) that they cannot accept the proper facts even when spelt out to them.

            There is not — nor has there ever been — any “Right-wing collective”, anywhere, or at any time! It is a false concept invented by those with malicious intent to deflect attention from their own atrocities. Only the brainwashed and the gullible still believe that preposterous poppycock.

          5. I agree with your last paragraph and therein lies the shame of how proper conservatism has deteriorated at the hands of charlatans.

            With regard to Franco, Pétain, Mussolini and Hitler; these people were only ever considered to be “Right-wing” (by the gullible) because their form of socialism was at odds with the rival communists. The truth is, though, as I have previously explained, the policies of those dictators were influenced by their determination to invoke nationalism (a pure socialist concept) on thei countries with central control over everyone’s lives. This is simply as far away from conservativism that it is possible to get. The Nazi’s name was a contraction of National Socialist.

            All socialist states, no matter who leads them, are after the same aim: to control everyone centrally. There is no room for individual thought or enterprise: you must fit in with the prevalent dogma. Ignore all the history books that tell you that Franco, Pétain, Mussolini and Hitler were “Right-wing”, they were anything but. Perpetuating that Right-wing myth plays into the hands of those who wish to control.

            There are no (nor ever have been) any Right-wing, state controlled, countries or organisations. The Right, as previously and exhaustively stated, is utterly opposed to state control. Ergo, anything promoting state control must be, by definition, Left-wing.

          6. How ‘The Left’ stole political language:
            • Tax cuts are ‘right-wing’.
            • Racism is ‘right-wing’.
            • Tories like tax cuts therefore…

          7. The facts of life are conseervative. As for evidence – they sought to conquer and control not only other nations but their own.

            They all used language such as ‘for the greater good’, for our society, for freedom’ and just added more chains. All demonised a specific group.

            All were dishonest and corrupt to the core. All were Lefties.

      2. Good morning, Grizzly

        Destroy the meaning of words and corrupt the language if you want to stop people thinking coherently.

        This of course was one of the key objectives of Newspeak in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four

        1. Good morning, Rastus.

          The real scary fact is that Orwells’ prescience in Nineteen Eighty-Four is now becoming a terrifying reality.

        2. As was re-writing history and denying facts – such as the destruction of statues and that trans people are just mentally ill, and are not born the wrong sex.

      3. The left have done very well with their propaganda and brainwashing. The left wnng teachers have poisoned the minds of the childen.

      4. They even label the left wing hated ones as right-wing, as in “right wing Nazis”. Strange taht a party wit national and socialist in it’s name gets called right wing, but hey, what’s in a name and a fact?

        1. Good morning, Paul.

          And if you repeat a lie often enough you start to believe that it is the truth.

        2. The Left love to think of the Nazi party as Right wing because the Nazi’s were clearly thoroughly bonkers. If they were to accept that their attitudes are the same as their own then their entire Left wing view as the grand heroes of the world, who everyone wants their ideas, that they’re righteous and glorious shatters, and the Left cannot cope with reality.

      5. Yep, spot on. Fascism is a Left wing construct. It simply doe snot exist in the Right wing mind to seek to control other people. Those using it desperately want to label – because they’re Lefties – and they think that applying such a label allows them to control those people away from the attitude they recognise as the enemy – the freedom loving, low tax, small state anti authoritarian individualist.

    3. Our only chance of defeating this tyranny is if the vaxxed stand by the unvaxxed and boycott businesses where passes are required.

      I also don’t talk about my vaxx status openly any more – it has suddenly become political information.

    1. Good morning to you

      My geography is slightly skewed , but am I led to believe that the Taliban are flowig across from Pakistan, and why doesn’t Pakistan help the Afghans ?

      That article is very interesting.

      1. All these wogs either hate or love each other – but the trick is no one knows which.

      2. All these wogs either hate or love each other – but the trick is no one knows which.

      3. mng TB. It’s clans / tribal. Pakistan hosted many for years via madarassas funded by Saudi, so they’d return to tribal homelands and Pakistan also doesn’t want another repeat of issues in Amritsar with fighters from madarassas crossing border then moving to Amritsar

        1. If this country of ours continues to accept hordes of Muslims, and our birthrate keeps doubling re non white births , and government meddling imposes more restrictions on us because we cannot protest and speak out .. When taking the knee becomes law , and the sleuth police monitor every letter and everyword we utter and write when we defend our realm ..

          I wonder how many years in the not too distant future, will our sceptered isle eventually become a failed state .. when we cannot afford the hiked electricity prices , fares, cost of keeping a car, travelling anywhere .

          There will be a time when tax payers reduce and virtually become extinct , because millions of a different coloured hue squabble and knife each other and raise their bums to their almighty Allah!

          2. all part of the Great Reset agenda. Muslims merely being used as a tool, not much different to US supporting mujhadeen to take on Russians in Afghanstan out of which became AQ. US opened the Pandoras box and like everywhere they go and cause problems, they’re unable [and unwilling] to solve it; Blair went along for the ego ride [Iraq, Afghanistan] and none of those who followed have any incliniation to stop what’s left of their gravy train. China, Russia, Iran are already doing good business in Afghanistan, when the realigning the Middle East ends, the result of May signing the Migration Compact [which is not legally binding] will come home to roost.

          4. When the tax base properly collapses the state won’t care. It’s not even interested in the carnage it is creating. It’s an agenda to force a perspective. The economic reality is irrelevant.

    2. What a fiasco. It’s even worse than Vietnam! It looks like the “Rescue Force” will be trapped in the city as well!

    3. What a fiasco. It’s even worse than Vietnam! It looks like the “Rescue Force” will be trapped in the city as well!

  31. A BTL comment by Mike D’Urbeville under a Telegraph article:

    “The party should follow in the footsteps of Mr. Blair and re-name itself ‘New Conservative’. This would then leave room for a true Conservative party to emerge.”

    Just as Blair’s New Labour has alienated Old Labour’s traditional supporters so Boris and Carrie Johnson’s Nouveau Woke Conservative Misnomer Party alienated and disgusted traditional Conservative supporters.

    BTW I always thought that teeth became rotten because of caries. Is the new Mrs Johnson so named because she is not up to scratch in the dental hygiene stakes?

  32. Michael Gove roars back into favour: Boris gives ‘frenemy’ a lift on dirt bike at Chequers bash – fuelling speculation that’s he’s on track for a Cabinet promotion

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9894261/Boris-gives-frenemy-Gove-lift-dirt-bike-Chequers-bash-fuelling-promotion-speculation.html

    This is deeply sinister and we can only assume that Gove has some very damaging pieces of blackmail with which he can keep Johnson under his thumb.

    Remember it was Gove who mysteriously arrived in Brussels when it looked as if Britain would stand firm on Northern Ireland and British fishing waters. If he is now made home secretary even the pretence of defending British borders will be swept away.

      1. Gove will be running a faction inside the Conservative party that ensures he can not be ignored. It’s in his blood, he can’t help it.

        1. Very bad blood. His origins are obscure so that could be literally as well as metaphorically true.

          1. I think taking a swipe at his unknown genetic heritage is a bit below the belt, but I have loathed him cordially for more than thirty years, so I’d say he is responsible for his own bad blood!

          1. He always was a Marmite character, even as a student. Plenty of us couldn’t stand him at any cost, but he had a crowd of devoted fans even in those days.
            Bleugh!

          5. I cannot tell anything on a subject of which I neither have nor want to have any knowledge.

  33. As furious pensioners denied a free TV licence vow they’ll NEVER pay – BBC enforcers send an alarming warning… if you’re out, WE’LL BE BACK!
    We have been overwhelmed with emails and letters from over-75s who refuse to pay the new £159 annual levy – even if it means being sent to prison.
    An army of TV Licensing enforcers will knock on the doors of more than a quarter of a million pensioners who have yet to purchase a licence from next month
    This attack on the purse strings of the elderly and most vulnerable follows the scrapping of the free TV licence for over-75s by the BBC last August

    Demands from ‘BBC bullies’ ordering pensioners to pay for their TV licences have led to hundreds of readers proclaiming that they will never surrender and pay up.

    The Mail on Sunday has been overwhelmed with emails and letters from over-75s who refuse to pay the new £159 annual levy – even if it means being sent to prison.

    An army of TV Licensing enforcers will knock on the doors of more than a quarter of a million pensioners who have yet to purchase a licence from next month.

    This follows letters demanding they pay up. Some are already being threatened with visits.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/bills/article-9893381/Pensioners-denied-free-TV-licence-warned-BBC-enforcers.html

    2. Gotta raise the money for that 1.5 million pound apology to the Royals for the Diana skullduggery somehow! Can’t have any BBC person being punished for it, can we.

        4. Dinghys, it’s a Monkey/Donkey word that those of us who speak, and write, English, were taught at school.

    2. For goodness sake. What a waste of money.

      These are simply illegal gimmigrants. Don’t bring them here. Tow them back to France, destroy the engines with a shot gun.

  35. HaHaHa…. and it’s not even HAPPY HOUR ….!

    NATIONAL RELAXATION DAY
    National Relaxation Day on August 15th encourages us to slow down and unwind. It’s a day to focus on taking care of ourselves and take a moment to relax.
    https://nationaldaycalendar.com/national-relaxation-day-august-15/

    National Relaxation Day is an important day as we all need a break from the fast-paced and often hectic lifestyles we live. Taking time to recuperate and rejuvenate our tired minds and bodies may help prevent many health risks, too. Like the founder of this day suggested, too much work can make us sick, run-down, tired and that’s just wrong.

  36. Headline in the Wail:

    “Police feared invading incel gunman’s PRIVACY: Officers ‘did not check his social media history’ before handing back shotgun ahead of Plymouth rampage that left six dead”

    What a reflection of modern and life and what we laughingly call “the Police”. They dare not look at the soshul meeja of a man known to be mental and give him his lethal weapon back- but they’ll be down on you and me like a ton of bricks – and search every byte of our records – if we post a hurty word

    1. Guy Gibson’s Dog.

      Good moaning, Hofficer. Please replace the front door on your way out.

    2. It’s odd that plod missed this fellow. Perhaps he didn’t talk about Muslims, blacks or the weirdo attack helicopter brigade.

  37. And in gardening news. We planted three varieties of potato this spring. In the last week, one has been very badly attacked by blight. (First time we have ha it in yonks)

    For your delectation and enjoyment – the BLIGHTED variety is called, wait for it, wait for it, DUKE OF YORK.

    I’ll get me spade.

  38. It would be interesting if French dwelling NoTTLers could tell us to what extent (if any) they have noticed bars, cafés and restaurants being avoided by the public.

    There appeared to have been an order to the Police NOT to demand the “pass sanitaire” for a week or so – to lull the public into compliance. The buggerment ought to kick off (more) from tomorrow.

    So – info s’il vous plait messieurs…(an Caroline!)

    1. My brother is in and out of Carcassonne at the moment. So far, no impediment to normal shopping.

    2. Unsure if there is a connection to passes themselves, but there is no doubt that bars and restaurants are seeing less trade and that many have closed, probably permanently.

  39. Good Moaning.
    You’ll be glad to know that I have packed my contributions to today’s picnic with chums; most items are examples of cultural appropriation.
    1. Slices of homemade Spanakopita.
    2. Tomato and Cucumber salad garnished with basil and balsamic glaze.
    3. Thai Sweet Chilli flavoured lentil curls.
    4. Homemade Shortbread with crystallised ginger.
    5. A bottle of French Rose wine.
    6. Grapes from Spain.
    7. At least the sausage rolls are British – and homemade.

      1. Spinach and feta cheese pies made with filo pastry, normally triangular and utterly gorgeous!
        Morning Belle!

        1. Good afternoon, Mrs Macfarlane.

          I find that adding disgustingly foetid (“feta”) cheese to anything immediately renders it inedible! YUK!

          However, one man’s meat …

          1. You can substitute Wensleydale or even cheddar – it’s not the same, but MOH likes it without feta, which he can’t stand!

          5. See you and your foodie hates, Mr Grizzly? You don’t like bay leaves, don’t like feta blah blah…well, I HATE mushy peas…! Wad’ya think of that?

          7. But your pease pudding recipe (it was yours, wasn’t it?) was fabulous! Just needed nutmeg…

    5. Sausage rolls are originally French. Imperialist swine misappropriating other cultures food! Hope you enjoy your picnic, which is also a French invention.

  40. Incel, the next great bogeyman.

    I’m curious to know if there are Bame incels or female or tranny incels out there or whether this is just another stick with which to beat male whitey.

    I also suspect that certain groups just take what they want whether the victim agrees to it or not.

    1. In order to be an “incel” you have to be heterosexual. But their are plenty of feminist misandrists out there, just as destructive, if not more so than incels. Incels are a fringe group, misandrists are mainstream and regarded as quite acceptable. You can read plenty of feminist books on their ideology that make statements that are about men which are motivated by nothing more than hatred. The famous Andrea Dworkins opinions of men were totally unhinged but regarded as totally rational. Then there was the charming Marilyn French: “All men are rapists, and that’s all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, their codes.” An opinion thatr has become mainstream although obviously false.

      2. That’s what I don’t see.

        Presumably there must be homosexuals (M&F) who are involuntarily celibate or even trans and other variants who are keen to participate but getting no action. Why is incel apparently only male?

        1. Don’t know the answer to your question. But then my interest in Incil’s hovers around zero.

    2. whatever spare letters from their failed attempt to play Scrabble will ensure another woke word and perceived meaning, will be created, which MSM will attempt to promote

    3. A false flag to garner support for the abolition of the remaining guns in the UK? (Cynical is my middle name.)

      1. I very much doubt it’s a false flag, it was horribly real.

        What concerns me is the new (ish) term Incel to describe him. Hate-filled lunatic perhaps, but Incel is being created predominantly to demonise white men, yet again.

        1. White men who struggle with social skills.
          It’s like demonising autism or aspergers.
          Remind me, in recent time who was it sent the “insane” to the gas chambers?

        2. I didn’t mean it wasn’t real, but there was an intention there by TPTB for manipulative purpose. And political psychopaths really love it when there actions get results in several arenas at the same time.

          1. I note that there is a reported outbreak of Ebola in Ivory Coast, another opportunity to scare people out of all proportion to the actual threat.

    4. A mass murderer in Toronto was a member of the fabled incel. He just drove a van to crowds of bystanders.

      Who knows how big this “organisation” is, we will never hear the truth from the powers.

  41. Boris Johnson is set to recall Parliament over worsening Afghanistan crisis after Taliban forces storm Kabul and demand surrender
    The PM is facing calls for a last-ditch intervention to prevent collapse of country
    Elements of UK force sent to evacuate remaining nationals from in capital today
    Arrangements were made to fly the British ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow home
    It had previously been intended he should remain in a secure location at airport
    By JAMES GANT FOR MAILONLINE

    PUBLISHED: 11:14, 15 August 2021 | UPDATED: 11:26, 15 August 2021 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9895259/Boris-Johnson-set-recall-Parliament-worsening-Afghanistan-crisis.html?ito=push-notification&ci=TlZtzZQFPg&si=26738248&ai=9895259

    2. did they re-deploy the 600 paras as stated by Def Min Ben Wallace VC [Victimhood Crime and bar] to the Kent Coast? Let’s ignore Taliban have said all routes open for those who want to leave

    3. What on earth, Maggie, does the buffoon think that he and Parliament can do?

      We have no armed forces to speak of so what other ‘intervention’ is available.

      I suppose he could declare, in a loud voice that, “The Taliban are VERY NAUGHTY boys.”

      That’ll do it, I’m sure.

      1. all part of Parliamentary “furlough scheme”. Rock up for a non event, bump gums, claim additional sitting money plus travel allowances. Retire to bar. Here’s one they raised before [and will probably be used again] : Joan Ruddock, 2002:

        ‘Will the Prime Minister guarantee [sic] that at least 50% of the new Afghan Parliament will consist of women?’

        Blair: ‘Yes.’

        1. Nope.
          Not unless nuclear-tipped. And even Boris isn’t daft enough to order that.

        2. I remember it was said that as the Taliban were in the hills living in the caves the missiles would be targetted to destroy all the cave entrances – burying them in there, Thr claim was that detailed maps of all the cave entrances were supposedly from satelliite images. Seems they escaped and bred like rabbits.

      4. Johnson attempting to pose as a statesman as opposed to his actual position of a man in a state.

        1. The appalling handling of the pandemic, the millions on the NHS waiting list, the thousands arriving illegally and many thousands waiting their turn to come to the land of the free (free housing, free phones, free food etc) does not warrant a recall of Parliament but Afghanistan does? 1922 committee put us out of our misery and get rid of him.

      5. But, but, but we’ve got a very big aircraft carrier and stuff, and planes, and helicopters and things.

        That’ll do it, won’t it?

    4. It’s too late now todo anything other than run away with tail between legs.
      First, the US was humiliated, then the Soviet, now NATO.
      Lots of good people killed.

    5. GBNEWS reporting that an airport near Kubal has been surrendered to the Taliban. Kabul is surrounded by the Taliban. Tom Tugendhat MP implied that the fate of Kabul was over [bar the shouting]
      UK nationals will probably be allowed to leave after their passports etc. are closely examined.
      The non UK people who have papers to leave may get a different treatment from the Taliban.
      I wonder what will happen to our 600 troops sent over to assist the departure.

      1. Any of those 600 who return severely injured will be assessed by the authorities as “fit for work” then denied what all the illegals getting here are automatically handed, despite them probably supporting the govt approved taxpayer funded Islamic invasion of the UK.

      2. was following intermittent stream from RT News broadcasting live has a British security consultant who has spent a lot of time in Afghanistan as a soldier and as a civ consultant and left in May. When the consultant pointed out that the Afghan “Gov” has stolen hundreds of millions, if not billions and salted the money away in British and British territory banks and bought mansions in California Dubai and London the news anchor tries to shut him up–but he wouldn’t stay quiet, especially when clipf taliban are amazed about Warlord General #Dostum’s Palace in Masar-i Sharif after he fled to #Uzbekistan paid for by CIA / FCDO https://twitter.com/i/status/1426630365104455692 the latest from RT https://www.rt.com/news/532084-afghanistan-dostum-home-taliban-videos/ and Tali gum bumping with “Gov” https://www.rt.com/news/532086-taliban-attacks-kabul/ Gordon Brown News way off mark re people leaving as Tali have said anyne who wants to leave, can freely do so. I’d expect but no guarantee anyone will ask Wallace over the 600 para supposed to have been sent – let him show the factual proof / evidence.

      3. was following intermittent stream from RT News broadcasting live has a British security consultant who has spent a lot of time in Afghanistan as a soldier and as a civ consultant and left in May. When the consultant pointed out that the Afghan “Gov” has stolen hundreds of millions, if not billions and salted the money away in British and British territory banks and bought mansions in California Dubai and London the news anchor tries to shut him up–but he wouldn’t stay quiet, especially when clipf taliban are amazed about Warlord General #Dostum’s Palace in Masar-i Sharif after he fled to #Uzbekistan paid for by CIA / FCDO https://twitter.com/i/status/1426630365104455692 the latest from RT https://www.rt.com/news/532084-afghanistan-dostum-home-taliban-videos/ and Tali gum bumping with “Gov” https://www.rt.com/news/532086-taliban-attacks-kabul/ Gordon Brown News way off mark re people leaving as Tali have said anyne who wants to leave, can freely do so. I’d expect but no guarantee anyone will ask Wallace over the 600 para supposed to have been sent – let him show the factual proof / evidence.

      2. The Met are investigating and have said that they will issue a statement quite soon.

      1. ” won’t be wearing masks or be people of colour ” – MoH is white but she had 2 mixed race, very dark skinned children when I met her. They said many years ago that immigration had to be stopped – they could see what was going to happen Both are decent adults, worked all their lives, never been in trouble – but hate that they get labelled the same as the ones arriving.

        1. fully understood, am married to a Kenyan and daughter’s known as “point 5 re colour” but no issues to level of UK. Given it’s Croydon, anyone’s who’s white will be in the minority

        2. fully understood, am married to a Kenyan and daughter’s known as “point 5 re colour” but no issues to level of UK. Given it’s Croydon, anyone’s who’s white will be in the minority

      2. They don’t care. All that will be noticed is if the state were to find it’s funding stopped. As soon as there was absolutely no tax income the state will be forced to listen and obey.

        Disgustingly, the ability to wihthold our money is prevented by PAYE.

  44. Fake news – – – West Yorks town to get Afghani migrants – – and to be renamed to Talifax.

  45. Now is the time to send Tony Blair in chains to Kabul to face trial & execution for the illegal invasion & war crimes against the people of Afghanistan !

    1. “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f… things up.”
      Barak Obama 2020

        2. Since he can’t go a day without mangling a sentence I think the answer is, yes daily.

    2. The man with his finger of the nucular button.

      Makes you sleep easier, n’est-ce pas?

  47. Septics heli shuttle runs Embassy to airport 1 hour ago https://twitter.com/i/status/1426820147373920257 Kabul city centre 1 hour ago https://twitter.com/i/status/1426853413241954307 Taliban captured warlord Nizamuddin Qaisari 52 mins ago https://twitter.com/i/status/1426857817609314310 – Taliban spokesman 29 mins ago : We will allow the media to criticize as long as it does not turn into a “moral assassination” — As Sharq – 30 mins ago “We will allow women to leave the house alone” and of course Sly News classic 38 mins ago ” We seek an inclusive government that includes all Afghan parties — Sky News”

    1. I think in the traffic photo I can see John Redwood’s car – he does say today about problem’s with parking.

      1. Wasn’t that the one which the Yanks forced Wilson to destroy the prototype and the designs of?

        1. Happy Sunday Hertslass, the Yanks forced the ending of the TSR2 project in favor of the UK buying 50 of the swing wing F111K attack aircraft but the UK ended up cancelling the order in 1967 . I believe one or 2 of the TSR2 prototypes flew & are in a museum

          4. America can be relied for two things : It enters wars only when it knows who is going to win as it did in WW1 & WW2 or when it takes the initiative and starts a war, it loses wars.

  50. The armed forces of the Taliban do not appear to have entered Kabul though there is a delegation at the Presidential Palace and the Minister of Defence says they are looking at a peaceful outcome which may be translated as surrender!

    2. Excellent idea. The healthier prisoners can work in the crematoria – until their own turn comes.

      The ” Auschwitz” Principle.

  52. Remarks by President Biden on the drawdown of U.S.forces in Afghanistan – July 6, 2021.

    Q Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable?

    THE PRESIDENT: No, it is not.

    Q Why?

    THE PRESIDENT: Because you — the Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped — as well-equipped as any army in the world — and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable.
    …
    Q Mr. President, will you amplify that question, please? Will you amplify your answer, please — why you don’t trust the Taliban?

    THE PRESIDENT: It’s a — it’s a silly question. Do I trust the Taliban? No. But I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped, and more re- — more competent in terms of conducting war.
    …
    Q Mr. President, some Vietnamese veterans see echoes of their experience in this withdrawal in Afghanistan. Do you see any parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam, with some people feeling —

    THE PRESIDENT: None whatsoever. Zero. What you had is — you had entire brigades breaking through the gates of our embassy — six, if I’m not mistaken.

    The Taliban is not the south — the North Vietnamese army. They’re not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.

    Sigh!

    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/08/afghanistan-taliban-enter-kabul-will-announce-interim-government.html

    1. Q Mr. President, will you amplify that question, please? Will you amplify your answer, please — why you don’t trust the Taliban?

      THE PRESIDENT: It’s a — it’s a silly question. Do I trust the Taliban? No. But I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped, and more re- — more competent in terms of conducting war.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4b6e1c7f53ee9734092d81eb696d84e6d536394358f89f64bff6a799d1f6d133.jpg

      But Donald Trump signed a peace agreement (see attached) with the Taliban (who are not recognised by the United States of America as a state) so by now we should be seeing the fruits of the positive relationship between thre USA and the new post-settlement Islamic Afghan Government – not the use of a ‘state’s’ ..military force to prevent the fall of the Afghan capital.

  53. The husband and I have just had a couple of nice Exmoor lamb chops with roasted new potatoes and veggies for lunch. Saving room for a cream tea at 5pm ( homemade scones
    Devonshire clotted cream and wild strawberry jam. Served with Twinings loose leaf tea, its a unusually warm and sunny afternoon and I want to at least get one cream tea before Autumn arrives. Shall have the cream tea in the garden.. unless it rains. I just hope the neighbours reign in the screaming children and stop mowing the lawn noisily.. as is summer.

    1. Petrol lawn mowers and hedge trimmers should be banned on Sundays. They used to be in Germany, but I don’t know if they still are.

    2. ‘allo.Ethel.
      I’m planning on having the second instalment of fried John Dory, new potatoes (from the fridge) and asparagus with a bottle of Pouilly Fumé for supper, followed by a mango.

        1. Yes. I shall pan-fry the fish in minimum oil, plate up, then make a butter/lemon/parsley sauce with a hint of dill in the same pan.

          JD is so delicious, it’s one of the few fish which can stand alone without a sauce.

          Die Deutschen behaupten, “Fisch muß schwimmen”.

      2. Hello Mr Viking you fish supper sounds very delicious.
        We had some nice large ripe mangoes the Friday before last from the farm shop which lasted a week in the fridge ( after being chopped ) but sadly the mangoes purchased the Friday just gone were overly ripe and mainly turned to mush, but never mind. Do enjoy your mangoes, they are my favourite fruit.

        1. Don’t peel or chop your mangoes until you are ready to eat them. I’ve taken to buying my mangoes in pairs in a stiff plastic pack (W/rose), because I’m sick of idiots squeezing them to see if they’re ripe & thereby bruising the flesh against the stone. Same applies to avocados.

          1. Don’t understand why people feel the need to crush the life out of them. A tiny touch is all you need to judge.

          2. Indeed, at the end, not in the middle. Same goes for melons, most of which are scented when they are ripe.

        2. Local supermarket deli does a mango salad – diced mango, finely chopped onions, finely chopped parsley, a little finely chopped fresh chilli, some coriander, all yellow, red and green. Suspect a dash of lime juice as well, with the juice of the mangoes. Lovely!

          3. Interesting…
            My #1 favourite breakfast: ripe pawpaw with a squeeze of lime. Strong coffee.
            #2 favourite breakfast: Fresh dates & French coffee.
            #3: Full English, no toast, but fried bread/eggy bread.

          4. The Côte Full English takes some beating; you can have the eggs any way you want, but I think they would draw the line at eggy-bread.

            My favourite breakfast is smoked salmon and scrambled eggs with a hint of dill, a flute of Champagne, apple juice, strong coffee. (not Côte)

            My most memorable breakfast was ackee and salt-fish when staying with friends in Jamaica. We went snorkeling afterwards, as we did most days, and the salt-fish kept repeating on me.

  54. Local paper in Nice crows that: “There were half as many demonstrators yesterday as on the previous Saturday.”

    1. Why is it that every paper must scatter their own opinion in all their articles? Why cannot they just report as factual information as possible, without qualifying it with words that subtly express their opinion?

        1. Indeed.
          And, of course, the news is selected to reinforce the politics of the paper – almost inevitably, left-wing.

          1. Is there a correlation between the bad spelling & grammar in newspapers & their swing to the left?

      3. ‘Afternoon, Paul, “Why is it that every paper must scatter their own opinion in all their articles?”

        Because they can, old bean, because they can.

  55. Beeb radio reporting large queues outside passport office in Kabul – why? =-they don;t need one to get in here.

    1. Telegraph headline that the Taleban had moved in to secure a peaceful transfer of power – to them, at gunpoint.

    2. It’s funny – these huge monolithic incompetents believe they’ll still exist when there’s no food, fuel or clean water, let alone an economy.

      But of course, they believe that, fervently. Of course, it’ll become a fascist dictatorship where the state holds all the power over said fuel and energy while the rest of us suffer.

      1. The little people who are “useful” to them (select farmers, waste disposal workers, plumbers etc.) will be allowed a pittance of a wage. The rest of us will starve.

        1. When there’s no money, that won’t happen. It’s just idiotic. We’re heading toward a Judge Dredd dystopia combined with the hellscape of 1984.

      2. ‘Afternoon, Wibbles, if I have one fervent prayer, it’s along the lines of

        “Dear God, if you, and it, both exist, please do not re-incarnate me when I shortly die, because what is coming will be hell on earth.”

      3. 336825+ up ticks,
        Afternoon W,
        It looks to me like we have come full circle near on, past time for a peoples reset, Great Charter Mk 2.

        First off high pressure steam hose down ALL polling booths AKA paedophile sympathy / mass uncontrolled
        immigration ongoing centres, any monkeys in groups of three KILL out of hand.

        Many of us as in tinker,tailor,plumber,brickee, spotted long ago the real plague that blighted these Isles for decades was the lab/lib/con pro eu coalition and we supported & voted accordingly, many didn’t, don’t and wont, content with more suffering, ongoing.

    3. All of course, without reference to hoi polloi

      “Don’t be silly,” says the G20, “we are important, you are as nothing.”

  57. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QY0OWim_fg

    The Young British
    Soldier
    WHEN the ‘arf-made recruity goes out to the East
    ‘E acts like a babe an’ ‘e drinks like a beast,
    An’ ‘e wonders because ‘e is frequent deceased
    Ere ‘e’s fit for to serve as a soldier.
    Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
    Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
    Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
    So-oldier of the Queen!

    Now all you recruities what’s drafted to-day,
    You shut up your rag-box an’ ‘ark to my lay,
    An’ I’ll sing you a soldier as far as I may:
    A soldier what’s fit for a soldier.
    Fit, fit, fit for a soldier . . .

    First mind you steer clear o’ the grog-sellers’ huts,
    For they sell you Fixed Bay’nets that rots out your guts –
    Ay, drink that ‘ud eat the live steel from your butts –
    An’ it’s bad for the young British soldier.
    Bad, bad, bad for the soldier . . .

    When the cholera comes – as it will past a doubt –
    Keep out of the wet and don’t go on the shout,
    For the sickness gets in as the liquor dies out,
    An’ it crumples the young British soldier.
    Crum-, crum-, crumples the soldier . . .

    But the worst o’ your foes is the sun over’ead:
    You must wear your ‘elmet for all that is said:
    If ‘e finds you uncovered ‘e’ll knock you down dead,
    An’ you’ll die like a fool of a soldier.
    Fool, fool, fool of a soldier . . .

    If you’re cast for fatigue by a sergeant unkind,
    Don’t grouse like a woman nor crack on nor blind;
    Be handy and civil, and then you will find
    That it’s beer for the young British soldier.
    Beer, beer, beer for the soldier . . .

    Now, if you must marry, take care she is old –
    A troop-sergeant’s widow’s the nicest I’m told,
    For beauty won’t help if your rations is cold,
    Nor love ain’t enough for a soldier.
    ‘Nough, ‘nough, ‘nough for a soldier . . .

    If the wife should go wrong with a comrade, be loath
    To shoot when you catch ’em – you’ll swing, on my oath! –
    Make ‘im take ‘er and keep ‘er: that’s Hell for them both,
    An’ you’re shut o’ the curse of a soldier.
    Curse, curse, curse of a soldier . . .

    When first under fire an’ you’re wishful to duck,
    Don’t look nor take ‘eed at the man that is struck,
    Be thankful you’re livin’, and trust to your luck
    And march to your front like a soldier.
    Front, front, front like a soldier . . .

    When ‘arf of your bullets fly wide in the ditch,
    Don’t call your Martini a cross-eyed old bitch;
    She’s human as you are – you treat her as sich,
    An’ she’ll fight for the young British soldier.
    Fight, fight, fight for the soldier . . .

    When shakin’ their bustles like ladies so fine,
    The guns o’ the enemy wheel into line,
    Shoot low at the limbers an’ don’t mind the shine,
    For noise never startles the soldier.
    Start-, start-, startles the soldier . . .

    If your officer’s dead and the sergeants look white,
    Remember it’s ruin to run from a fight:
    So take open order, lie down, and sit tight,
    And wait for supports like a soldier.
    Wait, wait, wait like a soldier . . .

    When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
    And the women come out to cut up what remains,
    Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
    An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
    Go, go, go like a soldier,
    Go, go, go like a soldier,
    Go, go, go like a soldier,
    So-oldier of the Queen!

    1. Would that be the Afghanistani women that we are being told we are disgraceful for abandoning now?

      1. We cannot take in the world, nor cure it of all its problems – but our govt thinks we can.

    2. Fave Kipling poem – IF

      If you can keep your head when all about you
      Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
      If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
      But make allowance for their doubting too;
      If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
      Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
      Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
      And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

      If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
      If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
      If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
      And treat those two impostors just the same;
      If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
      Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
      Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
      And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

      If you can make one heap of all your winnings
      And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
      And lose, and start again at your beginnings
      And never breathe a word about your loss;
      If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
      To serve your turn long after they are gone,
      And so hold on when there is nothing in you
      Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

      If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
      Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
      If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
      If all men count with you, but none too much;
      If you can fill the unforgiving minute
      With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
      Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
      And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

      n/a
      Source: A Choice of Kipling’s Verse (1943)

      1. Kipling got it woefully wrong with these lines:

        If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
        And treat those two impostors just the same.

        The true twin impostors are Religion and Politics; the most potent forms of mind-control ever devised.

        2. You’re not wrong there, G, but I think Kipling was right on the individual level. Personally, it took me a lot longer to become indifferent to triumph than it did to disaster!

          1. I agree. Likewise History is Geography,

            Every event in history took place somewhere. Every location on the planet has existed through time.

      3. If you can keep your head when all about you
        Are losing theirs – – -you ‘re a member of the Taliban

    1. He wants a DEBATE? – involving having endless meetings to make endless MORE meetings etc etc – – all the while money pouring down the drain to provide the invaders with everything they demand. The longer they are here the more time they have tio disappear – and the more time to commit crime to ensure they can’t be deported.

  59. Home at last after a very enjoyable 5 days meandering round this still wonderful country of ours.
    Apologies to those I came near to but did not visit, I’m afraid I was just not in the mood!

    I don’t know if anyone else has mentioned this article, but it’s about time this was said:-

    The hypocrisy of ‘progressive’ middle-class drug users is ruining lives
    Appalling gang violence on our streets is driven by a cocaine trade built on middle-class customers

    HARRIET SERGEANT
    15 August 2021 • 10:00am

    Progressive millennials protest vehemently about racism, pronouns and the environment but have a blind spot when it comes to the odd line of coke. Kit Malthouse, the policing minister, wants to change all that. A new Government strategy aims to confront middle-class recreational drug users “with the violence of the drug trade” and “illustrate the impact” of their demand for Class A drugs.

    One illustration of that impact took place in court this week. Four teenage gang members stabbed David Gomoh, an NHS worker and left him bleeding to death in front of his family. His only crime? Being black, male and living in a rival gang’s area. They had randomly picked on an innocent passerby to warn off rivals who were threatening to poach business. A series of drawings by one of the defendants showed a terrified David pleading, “I’m not involved plz don’t stab me.”

    The explosion of gang violence is directly related to the drug trade. Teenage boys joining gangs and fighting each other is as old as time itself. But drugs have transformed what should be a passing phase of adolescence into a murderous system that sucks in young boys, fuels violence and ruins lives – as I saw first hand when I befriended a teenage gang from south London 14 years ago.

    Gang violence is down to one thing – competition to control the sale and supply of drugs in an area. As one gang member explained to me, “Money’s behind it. There’s not enough food for everyone to eat.” Money from socially conscious middle-class customers is corrupting boys who would never have joined a gang in the past and making criminals out of potentially law abiding citizens. A third of boys on free school meals drop out of school at the age of fourteen because of poor literacy. Drug dealing puts paid to any hope of them returning to education.

    From fourteen to eighteen – vital years for their future – their lives are, as one put it, “peak” and their phone “mad ringing” with customers. They are making crazy amounts of money. One boy reckoned it up for me, “At the age of thirteen with a good contact, you can clear £1,000 plus a week profit. That’s £40,000 to £50,000 a year from selling drugs. Your mum, teacher, social worker, the police – you are out earning all of them. They can’t tell you nothing when you are doing that.” Many move on to selling cocaine from other drugs because of its popularity with better-off users. As one young dealer put it, “From Wednesday to Sunday every one of my shots (customers) are white.”

    At eighteen they normally have their first jail sentence. But, as I saw, that is hardly viewed as a setback. The enormous amounts of money generated upends the purpose of our criminal justice system. “If you are ambitious, jail can be a good, fun place,” remarked one young man. “It puts an extra stripe on your arm.” In jail they meet men from different areas and make valuable connections.

    The prison sentences grow longer as the dealing gets more dangerous and the weapons move up from knives to guns – all paid for by middle-class drug money. As one chillingly remarked, “It allows you to buy what you need to deal with your enemies.”

    The teenage drug dealers I knew brimming with energy and success are by their late twenties washed up, dead or on long sentences. One recently emerged from jail, the fabulous sums he first made a distant memory. Now he is trying to go straight and find a job, “but it’s really hard”.

    Another in HMP Belmarsh, one of the toughest prisons in the country, sees the tragic downside. Young murderers who have stabbed a rival over selling drugs arrive with sentences the same length as their age. “Eighteen-year-olds with eighteen year sentences, twenty-two-year-olds with twenty-two year sentences.” He watches them fall apart, “They don’t see no hope.”

    Many become addicted to spice, reduced to “screaming like an animal” for a page of A4 dipped in the drug. But the middle-class user remains largely unaware of their fate or even that of their victim.

    Kit Malthouse’s determination to make them aware does not come a moment too soon. Levels of violence are set to surge. Twenty thousand children have dropped off the school rolls during the pandemic according to local council research. Naively the authorities assume they are being home educated rather than joining gangs. The upswing in numbers of potential drugs dealers will increase competition, violent confrontations and knife and gun crime. Meanwhile middle-class drug users attend protests, call themselves activists and vibrate with rage on social media. If they really want to transform lives, they could do worse than turn down that line of coke on a Saturday night.

    Harriet Sergeant is author of ‘Among the Hoods: My Years With a Teenage Gang’

    Robert Spowart
    15 Aug 2021 4:24PM
    YES!! About time someone put their head above the parapet and told the truth.

    For a long time now I’ve recognised that the so-called “War on Drugs” is nothing of the sort.

    The Police do JUST sufficient at the lower ends of Society to claim they are “Doing Something”, whilst ignoring the dealers and abusers higher up the social ladder such as Mhairi Black, Nigella Lawson and the ilk.

    I retired from the Railway Industry 3 years ago after 12 years on the Network rail test trains. During that time I was subject to a fairly stringent Drug & Alcohol procedure where I was liable to be D&A tested in set circumstances.

    First, I was tested at every medical.

    Second, I was liable for compulsory testing “for cause”, i.e. if I were to be involved in an incident where my actions could have been contributory or my behaviour indicated possible intoxication.

    Third, I was liable to being selected on a random basis for a spot check.

    Positive results or a refusal to be tested would have meant instant dismissal.

    Given the abuse of drugs by the middle class, and, from the reports some years ago of the amount of drug residue found on banknotes and on toilet cisterns in the Houses of Parliament, our political leaders, I often wonder if implementing the same regime on our Politicians and Civil Servants in Westminster may not have benefits for the country?

    1. Nobody is going to tell me that if their 14yr old has that much money coming in, the parent doesn’t know. So if caught and convicted – house took off them, even if they own it – everything confiscated – -but THAT wouldn’t be allowed – because MILLIONS are made by so-called charities etc “looking after” the dealers – only to come out and carry on doing the same.Endless roundabout.

    2. I sincerely believe that the only way to deal with the drugs ‘industry’ is to legalise it and control and tax it, as we do already with alcohol and tobacco.

      That will remove the profit from illegal sales and allow those stupid enough to use it to addle their brains, to go away and quietly die.

      2. The one argument against legalisation is one of control.
        After all, look how well the age controls for alcohol and tobacco work.

      3. Drugs are so dangerous though that they would have to be controlled or you’d have drug fueled car accidents. Also, the government would suddenly discover how much damage drugs do, and would tax them to pay for that damage. So the illegal selling would continue.

        While the cannabis lobby wants to get this drug legalised, the whole establishment and media are turning a blind eye to the damage all drugs are doing. For example, in the US, an estimated 44% of fatal car accidents involve drivers high on drugs.

        2. BB2, we already have drug-fueled car accidents, hence the reason the Stasi now carry drug-testing kits.

          If legalised, taxed and controlled, only those with no regard for their own, or others, health will continue until they kill themselves – Darwinism in action.

          1. I’m not convinced that anything has improved in the places where drugs have been legalised.

    3. George Osborne was photographed at a party with a line of coke on the coffee table in front of him. Not saying he snorted any but he was at a party where it was freely available.

      I also think they should bring in the random drug tests for all politicians, civil servants and the BBC. Also anyone who has responsibility for the public like bus drivers and pilots.

  60. At what point does someone in authority (The Queen perhaps?) say, ‘Ok, enough is enough. Boris Johnson was a courageous experiment but it’s time to stop laughing and get the country back on to the straight and narrow’?

      1. Afternoon Minty. Methinks the pendulum has swung as far to the left as it can. It’s about to start swinging back to the right….

        1. When it swings back it always goes further than the point of equilibrium. It is there that the real danger lies!

          2. Don’t you think we’re in enough danger now that G20 agreed to impose a social credit system on the whole world, while distracting us with photos of Carrie Johnson and Jill Biden’s frocks?

    4. I think the Queen is too old to care, and the Royal family and government are just an uninspiring example of pure cavalierism and their divine right to do exactly what they want , and when they want. Covid proved that during lockdown!

    6. She won’t. I used to think that she cared about the indigenous people of this country. All she seems to care about is the continuation of the Royal family.

      1. She’s getting on a bit. Same age as my Mother, who doesn’t care about much these days.

    7. Well, we rather hoped he *would* be the straight and narrow.

      The grand hope was the Left getting a drubbing and being put firmly in their box.

      Brexit, with all the advantages that brings – lower taxes, smaller state, control over gimmigration, no green drivel.

      Instead we’ve got a massive state, higher taxes, criminal gimmigrants arriving by the busload, and the sort of green nonsense that beggars belief.

      It’s as if big government is actively punishing the public by enacting precisely the opposite policies to those we voted for.

    1. How much more evidence do people need to finally realise that humanity is a spent force? Every other life form has known that for millennia.

      1. Yet… there’s us lot, and the vast majority who look at this as abnormal.

        On the other, there’s a clearly demented group who’d think this acceptable, someone expressing themselves. It is that group which needs to be looked at severely by the normals and told no.

        Sadly, that is the weirdo group full of the trans gay lobby.

  63. I suppose that I am a glass half full man, the Afghans will no longer have to worry about climate change, the pandemic or the vaccine ID passport, in many ways they will have more freedoms than us, or certainly no worse than what we have coming our way.

    3. Bet they won’t get jabbed either! Oh joy! in the post jab wasteland, 90% of the world’s population will be Afghans….!

  64. Three months ago, these Fuchsia Thalia looked dead. We put them out after they had wintered in the porch – and a week later, there was that hard frost that did for most of the fruit trees – and the Thalias. They recovered. The Detura is an experiment this year.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/11ca54a7697194fb14fa6ac38443baf85c179668b514f37c9d4883231b3fc28d.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3ac94ddeea71acebdce398912073adb780656e086de8e6a90d1a67b574829c39.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c9344c6d3d2776f6a6f65c89a1726e9e8bb92012f145d75ad9fbf4209bc42ed6.jpg

  66. The farce in Afghanistan is just another to add to a long list of failures by our politicians to realise that people in other cultures and countries don’t think like us, don’t behave like us and reject us, our values and our attitudes.

    Meanwhile those self same politicians try to force on us policies that they have no intention of suffering from. I am repeatedly angry at their selfishness, arrogance and hypocrisy. Johnson leads the way: the biggest issue facing the world and probably England itself is over population (world population now 5 times what it was 100 years ago) yet he has his 8th child on its way; family breakdown and the absence of fathers is a massive social issue and burden yet he has abandoned several of his children’s mothers; he wants heat pumps and electric cars but hasn’t got them despite ample opportunity; he wants us to interfere militarily but won’t go himself and won’t send his children; his Green tsar jets around the world in private jets and ignores the a Covid rules forced on us; and so the list goes on.

    Every MP should be forced to live with heat pumps and electric cars, paying with their own money not taxpayers’, before voting on or promoting them. Any wanting us to interfere militarily elsewhere should send themselves or their children first.

    1. ” don’t think like us, don’t behave like us and reject us, our values and our attitudes. ”
      True – but they want this country, our infrastructure and what we have built and paid for.
      Our govt is giving it to them. Thankfully I won’t be here.

    2. The Merkins worship democracy – often in theory rather than practice.
      They cannot conceive that other nations may prefer other methods of governance.

  67. Completely ON topic:

    I am reading a very interesting account of events in Rome in August 410 – leading up to the day Alaric and the Goths took the city and the Roman empire fell.

    Lot of parallels with today. Hugely increased bureaucracy; large reduction in the armed forces; inability to control borders; widespread corruption and fraud; vote rigging; lotsa “barbarians” (Roman citizens who were born abroad, migrated into the Empire) who got themselves appointed to high office in government and the army…..

    It is rather a chilling book, when, each morning I open the paper to find much evidence of the same sort of things….

    And on that cheerful note, I shall leave you. Flat iron steak awaits – washed down with (a phrase deliberately chosen to annoy NoTTLers in Sweden) one of the very few bottles of Chateau Léoville Barton 1986.

    A demain.

    1. What did the Romans do for us ?
      “All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us

      1. And the Hypocaust system* of central heating …

        *Hot air circulated under the floors …

      4. The Romans did a darn sight more for us than the Windrush gimme-grants and their successors.

        However I hold that everyone is an individual and we should not fall into the trap of categorising every immigrant as some worthless chancer. Most it seems are not seeking sanctuary as such but the opportunity to make something of their lives in a stable country and thus are quite simply economic migrants.

        Immigrants, with a few obvious exceptions, have traditionally added much to our economy. If we could wake up to this reality we would be better placed to properly manage and sift through the many thousands of applications for asylum.

        Regrettably our government and Home Office are incompetent and unable to manage the importation of foreigners into the country.

    2. What did the Romans do for us ?
      “All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us

    3. There’s no doubt that the whole social order of the West is disintegrating in a welter of Decadence, Corruption and Perversion but it seems to resemble Babylon rather than Rome.

    6. I do love a flat iron steak. Enjoy. Currently imbibing a Chilean Carmenéré from Virgin Wines. I’ve had better, but it’ll do. Supper will be Spag Bol if I can be arsed bovvered…

      1. When you make bolognese make double and freeze half the mince. Not the pasta. Then when you can’t be bovvered you just need to heat it up.

    7. I have had the same but an earlier vintage. It was very expensive and the most exquisite Grand Cru.

      The other memorable wines I have tasted and recall immediately are Chateau Talbot, Cantenac Brown, Mouton Rothschild and Chateau Fonroque (St Emilion). With the Fonroque I pulled the cork and the room filled with the most exquisite aroma.

      I mostly drink French wines. I just wish that I had the wealth to be a raconteur. Nowadays the best stuff is purchased only for special occasions.

        1. After 40 years of working “continental shifts” – bank hols xmas etc etc – I still don’t know what day it is most of the time.

          1. I only know it’s Sunday because I had to interrupt my usual indolence by going to church. They pay me for pretending to be “Director of Music”

        2. I’ve about 20 years before I can properly retire. Hopefully be able to stop a bit earlier, but ‘the plan’ has the war queen quit her job by end of 2025 for a career change and I want to keep buying books by the shelf so…

          1. Me, I have another 10 years to go. Retirement age in Norway is 70 – we all have to work longer to pay for the gimmegrants.

  69. Stolen from another group

    Hello.
    Hi, table for two, please.
    Sure, and your name.
    Yates
    Great. And do you and your guest have your vaccination cards?
    We do. Can you tell us who our server will be?
    Um, looks like Brad will be your server tonight.
    Great. Can you show us Brad’s vaccination card?
    Um…
    And also, can you provide me with proof that Brad is not a carrier of HIV, Hepatitis A or B, or any other communicable diseases?
    Um…
    Also, we would prefer not to be served by someone who is on or uses recreational drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, meth, fentanyl, etc, so if you could provide us with Brad’s most recent tox screen, that would be great.
    Um… Let me get the manager for you.
    That would be great, thanks.

    1. I went out for a pub lunch today. Not a mask in sight. All the staff were maskless too. But then i live in a sensible area.

        1. I like red cabbage too but not the fermented variety. Salt and brown sugar in a heavy pan with a splash of wine/cider vinegar and then steam the cabbage in it.

    2. That’s a new one on me, Paul. Thanks for the recipe: I’ll have a go one day.

      Tomorrow I shall have some lamb’s liver, crispy home-cured bacon, onions, mashed spuds, mushy peas and a thick, rich gravy (the left-over gravy from when I made my steak & kidney pies last week).

      1. Now you’ve gone and done it. I have to get the calf liver out of the freezer !

        Not too keen on lamb liver. A bit rich and pate like for me.

        1. And I’m the opposite, Philip. I’ve tried calves liver and I find it a bit tough. I cut my lamb’s liver thin and just immerse it in the hot gravy in the pan for a few minutes until it’s warmed through. That’s it, perfectly cooked for me and meltingly tender.

          2. I disagree; German cuisine is often wonderful, albeit less pretentious than others.

          3. I do like it, but I’m used to eating more vegetables. There’s never enough green on the plate!

          4. Not something I’ve experienced. Surely, it’s up to you how much veg/salad you cook or order?

          5. Well I cook a lot. But when I’m following German recipes, veg is never a part of it. And eating out in Germany, the only veg they are liberal with is Sauerkraut. The vegetarian options are always terrible as well – frozen Kohlrabi Schnitzel, anyone?? – a sure sign that vegetables aren’t part of the culture.
            My daughter worked in the kitchen of an Alm once, and the cook despised people who ordered salad!

    1. Who wears the blue plasters? Smurfs?
      If it makes people happy, why care about the colour of an elastoplast?

      2. It’s just so completely pointless. To laud and praise it as some sort of progressive product that combats racism is idiotic.

        2. If you want to dress smartly and look professional at work, it makes sense to have Elastoplasts that don’t stick out like a sore thumb…

      1. You’d probably be dead or about to expire if you were the same colour as most Elastoplast!

    7. The plaster has to match the skin, but the finger-nails can stand out like hideous, varied beacons.

  72. Afternoon all! (Well it is for me) Just arrived home from celebrating my birthday with our daughter and family, discretion dictated that we spend the night and head for home today. My favourite Maryland crab cakes, were on the menu along with steak and shrimp. Dessert was Pavlova and creme brulee, no wonder I feel stuffed!!! Which brings me to say many thanks to all you Nottlers who sent good wishes for my 77th!!

  73. Earlier in the day, the US Embassy in Afghanistan sent out a security alert, warning of Kabul Airport coming under fire.

    Two powerful explosions were reported late on Sunday near the US Embassy and Afghan presidential palace in Kabul.

    The US Embassy has been evacuated, with the diplomatic staff relocated to Kabul Airport. Meanwhile, the Taliban earlier claimed control of the presidential palace after facing zero resistance from security officers there.

    1. Its interesting that Russian Embassy staff in Kabul are still working and have no plans to close.

    1. I assume the last post? The one ‘outside’ the box is sarcasm?

      After all, what, precisely; do they expect Raab to do?

        1. We have a very expensive carrier group bristling with weapons not doing anything useful. Just one small problem….

      2. You can all yawn with boredom. but who is in charge and watching what is going on?

        We all know that August is a wicked month, when the cat is away the mice will play , and Gawd knows how many more are coming ashore/ smuggled in to Britain in August … Everyone is half asleep.

        Westminster has had one huge holiday over the past 18 months , lazy bunch.

        1. 600 today. Not only is the British taxpayer picking up the Bill but because all the occupancy rates in hotels have shot up the prices have rocketed too.

  76. Right you ‘orrible people. I have a flash electric mop thingy. I’ve given the floors a wipe over – I got to shuffle the mess makers out of the way and went over all the floors.

    Now I’m after a buffer of sorts. Any suggestions?

      1. Yep, Junior is 6. The dog is 3. Oooh.

        If I could get him to lie on his side and just get pushed along….Or! I could attach dusters to his feet.

        1. Now you’re thinking along the right lines! Wouldn’t the 6 year old enjoy having dusters attached to his feet too, to play with the dog?

        2. When I was living in France it was standard practice, going into the sitting room, to put one’s feet into noodle-like slippers and polish the wooden floor as you walked on it.

          1. I’ll get the beast to greet you. He drools. Beside, I’m going to bed and I’ve just clicked all the blinds down. It’s like bally magic!

      3. https://www.google.co.uk/search?source=univ&tbm=isch&q=train+buffers+pictures&hl=en-gb&client=safari&fir=M07iPl2-sak8ZM%252Cqg6ZC4K0lscmdM%252C_%253BmxZNSTrebQyAjM%252CsHBIzROGp-5N1M%252C_%253Bm0oVdmicCrDtEM%252Cqg6ZC4K0lscmdM%252C_%253BMvt3Sf8aWOLjSM%252Cl7DKpqq_NWfDzM%252C_%253B2Tqr-g1ofGgCwM%252C5SiNt9IuaFbT5M%252C_%253BpaF_-HmZ0Y5zTM%252CCuAIbkfX-Ky89M%252C_%253BmL0rHVgAQ3Gp0M%252CsHBIzROGp-5N1M%252C_%253BsKWMYUmt8e2FhM%252CpkjhJHGxfjNJ7M%252C_%253BSdhoujpD9VjveM%252CzS4kuf39Llw7NM%252C_%253BLa3I9rPsyDKfhM%252CVIme5aYaWu43mM%252C_%253BEZlJDyM5B7x9EM%252CaZ8wpTPsHVh2jM%252C_%253BVY0U8yHZga3gCM%252C85HsB4HUWrTF9M%252C_%253BWwlV6NWDSIiS6M%252C8DUizFdfZuniTM%252C_%253BvZkE6QhsTFT8SM%252CYV5gLP8Mgld9KM%252C_%253BZAQaWek3qdw_tM%252C5SiNt9IuaFbT5M%252C_%253B9yqDuAbgw-qwmM%252C86ir-3ikWtd7IM%252C_%253BQ_U2bKGsi5ZeoM%252C5SiNt9IuaFbT5M%252C_%253BRNMoyJiWrDJZvM%252CjAhVu2loslYDjM%252C_%253BZ2GxIJnfEGBe_M%252CjAhVu2loslYDjM%252C_%253Bkk6t550MfSnejM%252CpCUBdkDbKk3OxM%252C_%253BpzPG15hN-50DNM%252CjAhVu2loslYDjM%252C_&usg=AI4_-kSRnxedQNrEHerAMoptZVfjQBiWHw&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjmpKCL37PyAhUpNOwKHdUbAsIQ7Al6BAgEEEU&biw=1024&bih=728#imgrc=kk6t550MfSnejM

          1. Mind you, I can no longer count in hex and my hand-punching (of cards) skills are a bit rusty.

          2. We all just open the calculator in Windows and switch to the software developer version where there is a handy little instant converter!

      2. That doesn’t make sense as the month and day of month calculations are inconsistent: Dec to Oct is octal to decimal (12 to 10) and 25 to 31 is decimal to octal. 25 of 12 is 31 of 14, or 31 of 10 is 25 of 8, but 31 of 10 isn’t 25 of 12 regardless of how you calculate it.

        Politicians can face both ways consistently, but what self-respecting software engineer would become a politician?

        2. Are you by any chance the same Dale who worked at the Hirst Research Centre in the mid 80s?

  79. Ordered a tee-shirt for Firstborn with “I support the right to bare arms” on it.

      1. I like that one, but I admit that I have a very childish sense of humour.
        My sense of humour never recovered after having children.

      2. A better joke, lost on Norwegians who can’t tell the difference between bare and bear… tee-shirt… bare arms… geddit??

        1. Bot only the Norwegians – seen outside a pick-your-own farm near Düsseldorf in bold red lettering 2m high…

          Erdbären.

    1. ‘cos the lethal ones die out through killing their host, and the non-lethal transmissable ones, well, contage more people ‘cos they are contagious.
      Got it now?

    2. How do lethal viruses appear then? Virgin birth?
      Surely the real point is that lethal viruses don’t spread that fast because they kill their hosts too quickly?*

      *Unless of course some genius has injected people with a concoction that lessens their symptoms, thus allowing them to spread the more lethal virus far and wide while not being killed by it.

      1. Yes.
        Maybe.

        Of course a virus can be altered via ‘gain of function’ when financed by the U.S.A in a Chinese Lab.

    4. Spanish ‘Flu killed more in the second wave than the first. Whether this was due to a more deadly variant is still hotly debated.

      1. I read somewhere that many of the deaths were attributable to respiratory problems brought on by wearing masks. Don’t know how true that might be.

  83. The Afghan army surrendered that quick do they all now qualify for French citizenship ?…..um.

  86. On the local radio they are on about celebrating Pakistan and India Independance days this weekend – As they all seem prefer to be here – i’ll assume being independant didn’t work out too well.

  89. 336825+ up ticks,
    For the past three decades courtesy of the lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled immigration/ paedophile umbrella coalition children run the guantlet from womb to age of consent.

    These pair are probably both PIE members.

    breitbart,
    A paedophile who sexually assaulted a pre-teen girl in Manchester has been spared prison by a judge who praised his “strong academic capabilities” and “prospect of a bright and successful future”.

    1. WTF? What about the victim’s future?
      Surely this paedophile cannot be a white male…

  91. Evening, all. When I was campaigning and people said, “oh, no! I’m a Conservative,” I used to reply, “so was I, once, but the party left me”.

    1. Nice of you to pop in Conway.- we know you’re still here. Another day of doing the necessities I presume.

      1. Being Sunday, it’s been a day of rest, thankfully. I managed an extra ride because I missed out on Wednesday. Then I went for a meal with a friend and Oscar came too. He passed the cat test with flying colours (my friend has a mature cat and a new kitten) and settled down well while we ate and nattered 🙂

  95. It’s baking Sunday. The two sourdough loaves won’t be finished until 00:30. I love ’em but it’s hard work.

    1. mng PP, with his total lack of competence, he’s more likely to take advice from Taliban or whoever pays him. Presumably only UK National still in Kabul is UK Amb Sir Laurie Bristow busy personally processing asylum visas for Afghans. Bunter’s viable alternative as Afghan rep must be Rory Stewart

  99. mng to those up and about. Off Grauniad “week in new normal” is decent enough https://off-guardian.org/2021/08/15/this-week-in-the-new-normal-2/ some decent embedded stuff BTL re Afghanistan https://off-guardian.org/2019/12/15/the-afghanistan-papers-deep-state-narrative-management/ and woke Washington Post not realising they published too much truth https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/

Comments are closed.