875 thoughts on “Friday 11 October: Britain must not be bullied into accepting a Brexit deal at any cost”

    1. Good morning Bill, Peddy, Annie, Grizzly, Korky and all other NoTTLers. Just a reminder that there are just 20 days to Brexit – hopefully! – and to let you know that I will now be off for a short break. See you all in a week’s time – play nicely! Love from Elsie xxx (The Master [Mr Lime] also sends his best wishes).

  3. Good Morning, all

    SIR – Iain Gordon (Letters, October 9) is right to highlight the political interference in policing accelerated by Theresa May.

    While many victims of crime are honest, it is also true that some complaints are vexatious. Not all allegations are what they appear to be, and as policing is not an exact science, officers should be allowed to exercise professional judgment as to how they proceed with an investigation.

    Sir Thomas Winsor was appointed Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary by Theresa May. He was the first person to be given this role who was not a former police officer. With typical naivety, he asserted that “the presumption that a victim should always be believed should be institutionalised”. It was the belief that Carl Beech was a credible victim that resulted in the woeful Operation Midland investigation.

    Mr Gordon is also correct that detectives are in roles well beyond their capabilities; given the lack of leadership in this case, the same could be said of commissioners Bernard Hogan-Howe and Cressida Dick.

    Clifford Baxter
    Wareham, Dorset

    “could be said of commissioners…..” Nay lad; has been said….frequently.

    1. SIR – In the continuing debacle of Operation Midland, how refreshing it was to see the dignified portrait of Lady Brittan on yesterday’s front page.

      The mental trauma to which she must have been subjected is barely imaginable. As those responsible for this wholly unjustifiable disaster scurry around to protect their jobs 
and pensions, what is being done for these grossly wronged individuals? Recompense for the former Conservative MP Harvey Proctor’s loss of home and job? Compensation for those forever tarnished by the sheer incompetence of a public body? This might then be an acceptable step towards justice being reinstated.

      Charles Holden
      Micheldever, Hampshire

    2. Woeful? Woeful?! I cannot think of a milder word for such amazing displays of total and utter incompetence and mendacity.

  4. Morning all

    SIR – The contrast between Liam Halligan’s views on a no-deal Brexit (Comment, October 10) and those of Philip Hammond (Interview, October 10) could not be more stark – not only in the conclusions they reach, but also in their assumptions.

    Mr Halligan writes with an awareness that Britain is one of the half-dozen richest economies on the planet, and also bears in mind that there are scores of nations that somehow manage to survive without being members of the EU.

    Mr Hammond, on the other hand, takes it as a given that leaving the EU with no deal would be catastrophic. His views, as a result, are shot through with pessimism, not to mention a total lack of imagination and spirit. He also appears not to understand that a significant majority of people voted, not for this or that exit, but simply to leave – in other words, voted to regain the sovereign status enjoyed by the 170 or more countries not required to take their orders from Brussels.

    But then, Mr Hammond never wanted Brexit in any form. It is disingenuous of him to pose as one seeking to provide a “solution” to the current state of affairs that he and others have brought about by refusing to acknowledge either the referendum result or the pledge to honour it.

    Philip J Ashe
    Leeds, West Yorkshire

    1. SIR – Unless by some miracle an agreed deal emerges in the next few days, there is a “third way” of exiting the EU on October 31 which is legal, in conformity with the requirements of the Benn Act and leaves us at liberty straight away to pursue free trade agreements round the world.

      This is for Britain to announce that it is leaving the EU but remaining – strictly temporarily – inside the European Economic Area Agreement (EEAA), of which we are still members by contract and under international law (since 1994). Foreign Office and EU Commission lawyers dispute this but there is a serious body of legal opinion that takes the opposite view.

      This would mean the opening up of a transition period in which all final arrangements for leaving could be thrashed out, hopefully amicably. There would be no need for immediate resolution of the Irish border problem, since within the EU-EEA system all relationships would remain as they are until eventual and final withdrawal arrangements are completed by Britain, say in 24 months’ time. (We would need to give 12 months’ notice of precisely when we want to leave.) So the backstop issue, with its threat to the Good Friday Agreement, and the pressures and dilemmas facing the Dublin government, both recede.

      Our decision to remain pro tem in the EEAA might well be contested by existing EEA non-EU members, and by the EU itself. But under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969), Britain would be fully entitled to meet this challenge in the courts, and there is a view that we would probably win.

      Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
      London SW1

      1. What do these idiots not understand? The vote ws to leave. Basta! Not one foot in, one foot out. Leave. How difficult can that concept be?

      2. ‘morning Epi, the last thing needed is more prevarication and lawyers/courts getting even more involved than they already are. The simplest solution is to just blóódy leave on the 31st. The Benn Suicide Act is the only thing that needs contesting in court before then. It completely subjugates the PM and Government to the whims of the EU and needs challenging before it is too late and we are once more trapped in the tentacles of the evil EU.

      4. “There is a view that we would probably win.” In other words, some people think that we might win. Clearly some people have never heard of Gina Miller and the Supreme Court.

      5. Stop thinking the EU would act in an amicable manner. They are desperate to keep our money and punish us for our temerity in wanting to break free.

      1. In the end countries want to trade regardless of the politicians. I do not know any country that wants to reduce its trade. The ideas that the EU would put up a wall and refuse to trade with us is daft as is the claim that Calais will delay its own countries exports

  5. SIR – Jemima Lewis (Comment, October 4) talks of “the fawning capitulation of the grown-ups” to the call of the world’s youth.

    This is not “idealism” on the part of either generation: this is a fight for future generations by those who know that the Government upped its subsidies to big oil to £2 billion this year while reducing subsidies to sustainable energy to £700,000; that BP devotes only 1 per cent of its budget to developing sustainables, an obvious greenwash; and that, far from ignoring the subcontinents, Extinction Rebellion champions the plight of those suffering in the global south because of our profligacy.

    They know that there is no point in an increased life expectancy and halved child mortality when all the science suggests that our children’s lives will be severely shortened with the perfect storm of climate and ecological emergencies converging. If only people would read the science rather than relying on herd instinct.

    Tom Hardy
    London N5

    https://c8.alamy.com/comp/EYC1FR/communist-flag-of-russia-red-flag-hammer-and-sickle-EYC1FR.jpg

    1. SIR – My daughter, who works in central London, picks her way daily through the plastic tents, disposable coffee cups and general detritus of the Extinction Rebellion protesters.

      How is it that those who also care for the environment and are trying to keep the economy going are being penalised by these “eco-warriors”?

      Carolyn Gawith
      Arundel, West Sussex

      1. Plus most of those protesters are costing the UK taxpayers a fortune as few of them work

        1. Protestors are not available for work. Remove the bennies unless they are available.

    2. Problem is Tom, you have read the science but it must have seemed like a foreign language to you for you have somehow convinced yourself that an extra molecule of an already trace gas amongst the hundreds of thousands of more important ones has the capacity to end the world in a catastrophe of fire.

    3. There has been no increase in oil subsidies that’s totally false. Some renewable subsidies have been reduced simply because the technology is now mature and should be able to trade without subsidy. The costs are two fold with renewables. They are directly massively subsidised and they also lead to a huge drop in tax revenues as petrol and oil is phased out so it is a simple fact that as that happens the tax burden will have to go onto renewables

      Has Tom a petrol or diesel car. I bet he has.

  6. New second referendum plot: Tory and Labour Remainers plan to unite to ambush Boris Johnson and force a ‘public vote’ through Parliament when Commons meets for special Saturday sitting
    *Labour’s Hilary Benn is looking at ways to get MPs to support a ‘people’s vote’
    *The plotters want a lengthy Brexit extension and a new referendum by March
    *Allies of Jeremy Corbyn are urging him to support the plan instead of an election
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7560479/Rebel-MPs-plan-ambush-Boris-Johnson-force-second-Brexit-referendum.html

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F3fe3b4a2-eb90-11e9-b931-c019e957f02a.jpg?crop=2711%2C1807%2C605%2C170&resize=685

    1. Has Rory Stewart defected to the Labour Party and decided to (partly) “black up”?

    2. Before I clicked on ‘see more’ it looked as though some unspeakable threesome was being perpetrated.

  7. RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Forget the Brexit doomsters… toilet roll shortage or not, we will be OK

    Just when you thought Project Fear couldn’t get any dafter, along come some of the most bizarre scare stories yet.

    The first was a warning that toilet paper will be in short supply if Britain leaves the EU without a deal.

    According to one manufacturer: ‘Stocks are not unlimited and will not withstand long-term border delays or panic buying.’

    Are they seriously suggesting we could soon be seeing people panic buying bog rolls, fighting in the aisles over the last multi-pack of Charmin quilted?

    Even if there is a shortage, we’ll manage. Soft toilet paper is a relatively recent luxury. In living memory many homes made do with cut-up newspapers and could again in an emergency.

    The Guardian would be eminently suitable for such a purpose.

    I’m sure it won’t come to that, though. Frankly, I don’t believe any of these hysterical doomsday scenarios with which we have been bombarbed ever since we voted Leave.

    Toilet tissue is simply the latest commodity we are told will disappear from the shelves if we ‘crash out’ of the EU, along with everything from vital medicines to fancy sparkling water.

    The society magazine Tatler has published a cut-out-and-keep guide to those essentials its readers should stockpile.

    I’d like to think it was tongue in cheek, but these days, with no end in sight to Brexit Derangement Syndrome, you never can tell.

    Anyway, top priority should be given to buying up all available supplies of Evian mineral water, which can also be used for washing and flushing toilets when the mains water and sewage system collapses due to Brexit.

    Tatler readers are also advised to stock up on Le Creuset saucepans, L’Occitane en Provence almond shower gel, Veuve Clicquot champagne, Leoube Premium olive oil and Ladurée Macarons — a favourite, apparently, of the Duchess of Sussex.

    Heaven forfend that Meghan might run out of pistachio-flavoured pastries.

    My favourite horror story came from an unnamed Cabinet minister, who is predicting a rise in dogging in the event of a No Deal Brexit.

    There’s another one of those sentences I never expected to read, let alone write.

    To be honest, I didn’t even realise that dogging was a thing any more. It was fashionable a few years ago, but I assumed its day had passed, along with iPods and Rubik’s Cubes.

    For a while, the hilarious antics of dedicated doggers provided plenty of fun for this column and gave Gary a wonderful range of material for his cartoons.

    Many of those gathering in car parks and local beauty spots to have casual sex, while others watched, decided to spice things up by wearing fancy dress.

    I can remember reporting on a number of dogging-related incidents featuring people dressed as everything from Tinkerbell to Elvis Presley.

    Inevitably, Oompa Loompas were also involved.

    Could we soon see a return to these golden days of roadside debauchery?

    The Government is said to be worried about a mass outbreak of dogging among lorry drivers caught up in tailbacks at the Channel ports.

    According to the anonymous minister: ‘One of the things we talk about in our No Deal meetings concerns hauliers and their activities. There are dogging hotspots all over the place.’

    Planners are concerned that drivers facing delays of up to two-and-a-half days because they haven’t got the right paperwork after October 31 will resort to having sex with strangers to pass the time.

    Where did that idea come from? While one arm of the Government is fretting about serious shortages of drugs like insulin, another is drawing up contingency plans to cope with an increase in dogging.

    You couldn’t make it up.

    Why do the planners assume that bored lorry drivers will choose to whittle away the long hours going at it like rabbits in lay-bys?

    Perhaps they will use the time productively to play Sudoku or learn a foreign language.

    Funnily enough, it’s only British lorry drivers that ministers are exercised about. They appear to believe that foreign hauliers have no appetite for dogging.

    Even so, what is the Government proposing to do about it? There aren’t enough coppers to go round, as it is.

    And those we do have all seem to have been drafted into London to deal with the climate change maniacs.

    Will the fire brigade be called in to turn the hoses on them?

    Or, more likely, will teams of sexual health workers be employed to hand out free condoms, on the basis that if lorry drivers must indulge in dogging at least we can encourage them to practise safe dogging.

    I’m afraid if you were expecting a learned treatise on Brexit from me today, you’ll be disappointed.

    No one has got the faintest idea what’s going to happen.

    And anyone who says they have is a liar.

    Maybe Boris and Lenny Verruca will cobble together some shoddy compromise on the Irish bus-stop.

    Perhaps the Eurocrats will drop their overt hostility to Brexit and cease insulting our intelligence.

    If even half the Project Fear scare stories were true, you might have thought that people would by now be deserting Britain.

    Yet only yesterday, it was revealed that record numbers of EU nationals have successfully applied to stay permanently in this country.

    More than 1.5 million have already been granted settled status and the same number again are expected to apply before Christmas.

    Dismal defeatists like Spread Fear Phil — making himself busy all across the airwaves yesterday — continue to paint a picture of a No Deal Britain turning into a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

    Clearly, it’s not a vision shared by EU immigrants who have made their homes here. Otherwise they’d be heading back home in droves on the first available Eurostar.

    No, like the 17.4 million of us who voted Leave, our new fellow countrymen and women believe a post-Brexit, properly independent Britain has a shining future.

    And, if all else fails, at least there’s the great dogging revival to look forward to.

    Somehow, despite the doomsters, I think we’ll be fine — toilet roll shortage or not.

    *****************************************************************************************
    By inclination, I’m not in favour of banning anything. Provided, of course, it doesn’t make other people’s lives a misery.

    I’ve never understood, for instance, why you can’t have smoking pubs and non-smoking pubs. It’s called freedom of choice.

    Yet I find myself, against my better instincts, drawn towards the suggestion that people should be banned from eating on public transport.

    Not that I’m in favour of the nanny state. And people shouldn’t be stopped from munching a Mars bar on a bus.

    There’s a time and place for everything, however.

    One of the joys of our civilisation was always sitting in a proper restaurant carriage, eating a British Rail Full English Breakfast, complete with silver cutlery and a large Bloody Mary.

    By comparison, nothing is worse than being crammed on a crowded train or bus next to someone tucking into a greasy three-course Happy Meal out of a cardboard box.

    So I’d definitely ban the consumption of all hot food, especially on the London Underground.

    Until, that is, they get round to putting buffet cars on the Piccadilly Line.

    Swamped by Swampy
    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/10/11/01/19565918-7561047-image-m-232_1570754151042.jpg

    Swampy’s back! The eco-protester who made a name for himself 20-odd years ago is in the news again as a result of the latest climate change demonstrations.

    Daniel Hooper, now 46, is still at it.

    He was recently in court after handcuffing himself to a concrete block on the road to an oil refinery in Wales.

    I only ever came across him the once.

    I was waiting for the lift at London Weekend Television, when the doors opened and out walked Swampy, who was recording Have I Got News For You in another studio.

    As he emerged, I stepped in with my producer. Big mistake. Trust me, you’ve never smelt anything like it.

    Here was a man who lived up to his nickname.

    We had to evacuate immediately and take the stairs. LWT was forced to cordon off the lift and fumigate it.

    How Merton and Hislop managed to sit alongside him for however long it took to record the show, I’ll never know.

    Is it too much to hope that in the intervening two decades he’s had a bath?

    Given that he lives in a teepee, I doubt it. Allegedly.

    2. Thankyou for posting that and starting the day off with a good laugh. Makes a change to all the doom and gloom.

    3. I’ve just rung up my vet for a repeat prescription for my dog’s medication. They initially told me they hadn’t got any and were experiencing difficulties in sourcing it; I might have to have an alternative. About a quarter of an hour later they rang me to say it would be in on Monday afternoon. I suspect the project fear stories will turn out to be similar.

  8. Iranian oil tanker on fire after blast near Saudi port city – report. Fri 11 Oct 2019 06.50 BST.

    The blast set the vessel, which belongs to National Iranian Oil Company, on fire 60 miles (95km) from the Saudi port city of Jeddah, it reported.

    The explosion has caused heavy damages and oil is spilling in the Red Sea, unnamed sources told the agency, adding that experts believe it to be a terrorist attack.

    Morning everyone. A little early yet to draw any serious conclusions but a dearth of real news leads me to speculate that this is probably Saudi (in the form of its nutter of a leader) payback for that attack on the oil terminals. Don’t just write it off. This is the sort of thing that sets things going. All the Middle East needs is just a spark and it will go off like an Atom Bomb!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/11/iranian-oil-tanker-on-fire-after-blast-near-saudi-port-city-report

  9. Why I won’t miss Britain’s ‘chief nanny’ when she’s gone
    Matt Kilcoyne – Coffee House – 10 October 2019 – 5:46 PM
    https://spectatorblogs.imgix.net/files/2019/10/GettyImages-107904191.jpg?auto=compress,enhance,format&crop=faces,entropy,edges&fit=crop&w=820&h=550

    It’s time to say goodbye to Britain’s so-called Chief Nanny, Dame Sally Davies. In her final report as Chief Medical Officer, Davies shows why she won’t be missed. She proposes a ban on eating or drinking anything other than water on trains and buses. Davies also suggests that nothing fatty or sugary should be available to buy at certain sports stadiums. Goodbye matchday pies or a pint at the rugby.

    Dame Sally’s job is to focus on a narrow idea of health. But this remit is blind to a simple reality: most of us want to live a life that we think is worthwhile. Sometimes that means throwing caution and kale to the wind, downing that pint in the pub or sharing sugary popcorn with your kids.

    While Davies might scream ‘won’t somebody please think of the children?!’ we should wonder when someone will think of treating adults like adults. You can have all the medical qualifications you like but if you can’t see that having a Pimms at the cricket is a pleasure for fans then you aren’t capable of judging the costs and benefits of a life well lived.

    Eating a granola bar on the way to the office might be the only time you get to wolf down some breakfast after dropping off the kids at school; a ready-made can of gin and tonic for the train down to Cornwall is one of the few pleasures available to those travelling on public transport down to the West Country.

    For years now, taxpayers have put up with being told what we can eat and drink. We’ve been reassured that each new wheeze by the public health lobby isn’t the start of a slippery slope and that we should be paying the salaries and pensions of the people that push this puritanism upon us.

    This elitism has infected civil society for far too long. This patronising attitude amounts to a simple message: you’re too stupid to have a say in your life – and the state knows best. This is wrong. Public policy should be built around the free choices of free citizens in our free country. It should work with the world as it is, and people as they are. It should not be there to try and control or coerce.

    But while Davies’ gaze is turned on the Curly Wurly in your hand, those who would seek to dictate what we eat and where have taken their eyes off the ball. For all the obsessing over junk food, why doesn’t Davies instead focus on the return of measles?

    In 2018, there were 991 cases of the disease in Britain. We look set to beat that sorry record with 532 cases in the first half of 2019. In Merton in southwest London, just 67 per cent of children are vaccinated with their first and second dose by their fifth birthday — the target is 95 per cent. Across England it stands at 87 per cent. This means we’re not getting the herd immunity needed to eliminate this highly-infectious, potentially life-threatening disease.

    So what a legacy Dame Sally Davies leaves. Personal responsibility reduced and choice diminished — and an apparent failure to tackle the return of measles. It’s time for the Health Secretary to make a stand and choose a doctor that talks about wanting to treat the ill and infirm, not test the patience of the rest of us.

    *********************************************************************************

    BTL:

    Norman • 13 hours ago
    There was no need for the article. The picture says it all.

      2. There’s nothing worse than a Doctor’s Receptionist who insists you tell her what is wrong with you, in a room full of other patients. I know many of us have experienced this, and I love the way this man handled it.

        A 75-year-old man walked into a crowded waiting room and approached the desk. The Receptionist said, ‘Yes sir, what are you seeing the Doctor for today?’

        ‘There’s something wrong with my ****’, he replied.

        The receptionist became irritated and said, ‘You shouldn’t come into a crowded waiting room and say things like that.’

        ‘Why not, you asked me what was wrong and I told you,’ he said.

        The Receptionist replied; ‘Now you have caused some needless embarrassment in this room full of people. You should have said there is something wrong with your ear or something and discussed the problem further with the Doctor in private.’

        The man replied, ‘You should not ask people questions in a roomful of strangers if the answer could embarrass anyone.’ The man then decided to walk out, waited several minutes and then re-entered.

        The Receptionist smiled smugly and asked, ‘Yes??’

        ‘There’s something wrong with my ear,’ he stated loudly.

        The Receptionist nodded approvingly and smiled, knowing he had taken her advice. ‘What is wrong with your ear, Sir?’

        ‘I can’t **** out of it,’ he replied.

        The waiting room erupted in laughter.

    2. Please, please, MEN, can you take over running the world again?
      Life was so much simpler and pleasanter.

    3. Well you now face 3 challenges in trying to get to see a GP

      1) Getting the phone to Answer
      2) Fighting you way through the automated call system
      3) Convincing the receptionist you are ill. THe default assumption is you are not

      1. 4) Pretending that you are local, even though you never went to school with the receptionist.

    4. This is the same daft bat who stood in front of the TV cameras in Salisbury in March last year to praise the wonderful NHS for its handling of the Russian Act Of War.

  10. Don’t blame oil and coal companies for climate change
    Ross Clark – Coffee House – 10 October 2019 – 4:54 PM

    This year’s Nobel Prize for the silliest piece of scientific research must go to something called the Climate Accountability Institute, for revealing to the world that 35 per cent of all global carbon and methane emissions since 1965 can be traced to just 20 global companies. This week they were named and shamed in the Guardian and revealed to be, er, 17 oil companies and three coal mining companies. Scandalously, they have been pumping all this carbon into the air for their own self-enrichment while the rest of us suffer. As Professor Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University – the fellow behind the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph – puts it: ‘The great tragedy of the climate crisis is that seven and a half billion people must pay the price – in the form of a degraded planet – so that a couple of dozen polluting interests can continue to make record profits.’

    Who would have though it, eh, that oil companies and coal-mining companies are responsible for producing fossil fuels? But is Mann really sure that it is these two dozen companies and their shareholders who have enjoyed all the benefits, while the rest of the seven and a half billion of the world’s population did nothing but suffer from their activities?

    Sorry to be a pedant, but I would guess that actually those 20 companies have themselves burned rather little of the stuff they have extracted from the ground. The vast majority of it was burned by the rest of us, keeping our homes warm, getting us to work (including flying climate scientists to conferences), powering agricultural machinery which has helped feed us, powering hospitals and almost everything else which supports modern lifestyles. Oil even powers the buses which bring Extinction Rebellion protesters to London, as well as the fire engine with which the group attempted to spray the Treasury last week.

    While an increasingly extreme climate lobby seeks to deny it, fossil fuels have been the fundamental ingredient of the industrialisation which has changed life for nearly all of us vastly for the better over the past two centuries. Without fossil fuels there wouldn’t be seven and a half billion people on the Earth. We would still be living in a state of pre-industrial poverty, with one in five children failing to reach their first birthday and the vast majority of the world’s population only a poor harvest away from starvation. Oil and coal companies are the unsung heroes of the greatest period in the improvement of global living standards the world has ever known.

    The industrial revolution deniers blind themselves to all of this. To them, oil gas and coal were products forced upon us by evil capitalists like nicotine addiction was forced on unsuspecting smokers. Now, those corporations must be made to pay – although not, I note, the mining unions who not so long ago were championed on the left for their commitment to maintaining carbon emissions.

    Sorry, but if climate change is a crisis, or even just a challenge, it is one in which we are all implicated. To borrow a phrase beloved of left-wing sociologists, society as a whole is to blame. Trying to palm off responsibility onto a few corporations does nothing to help us switch to cleaner forms of energy. It is merely an attempt by the left to seize the issue of climate change in order to promote its anti-capitalist agenda.

    ****************************************************************************

    Wait until their iPhones can’t be charged

    1. Our local council-run beauty spots ban the collection of wood.
      How will we cook and keep warm?
      We’ll all die ….. ah …..

  13. Will Greta win the Nobel Peace Prize tomorrow? I really hope not

    Why do we keep pretending that children are wiser than adults?
    Mary Wakefield – 12 October 2019 – 9:00 AM

    https://spectator.imgix.net/content/uploads/2019/10/Mary-Wakefield.jpg?auto=compress,enhance,format&crop=faces,entropy,edges&fit=crop&w=820&h=550

    We’ve begun to behave as if young people are special; more virtuous and wiser than adults. It’s wrong and it’s creepy and we’ve got to stop it — not for our sake so much as for theirs. It looks as if, come Friday, 16-year-old Greta Thunberg will win the Nobel peace prize, and if she does the whole Nobel show will double up as a sort of topping-out ceremony for the cult of youth. It’ll be the final proof that even the most sophisticated adults in the world have signed up to the bonkers idea that children can somehow intuit the answers to humanity’s existential problems, though Lord knows what the grown-ups expect the kids to do — build a better world on Minecraft?

    The foundation for this great elevation of the young was laid in the years after the 2008 financial crisis. Millennials looked at their parents — the lucky recipients of free education, affordable houses and decent pensions — and they felt quite understandably gypped. Where were their pension pots? Where were their lovely homes? The kids circled miserably around in the gig economy and felt themselves to be martyrs.

    It’s a small step from martyr to saint — and the referendum in 2016 was the perfect leg up. Suddenly there were our youngsters, bravely taking on the miserable, backwards-looking, old. And amid the Brexit fallout, up rose Greta like that hologram of Princess Leia: ‘How dare you? You’ve stolen my childhood.’

    This was the moment at which sensible adult voices should have provided perspective. Settle down, kids, they should have said, and thank the Lord this isn’t the 14th century. The Black Death — now that really was a childhood stealer. Put down your placards and go back to school so you might learn to be of some actual use to the planet. Instead, the grown-ups flocked to Greta’s gang. ‘Yeah, bunk off school,’ they told their offspring. ‘You’ll probably have drowned before you get to A-levels anyway.’

    It’s occurred to me to blame the strange adult appetite for teenage fiction for their adulation of the young. If grown-ups spend their spare time in a magical world full of prepubescent wizards, it probably makes sense to them to imagine some resourceful 12-year-old might solve the climate crisis. For any adult fan of Philip Pullman, it’ll seem only natural to see the world in a Manichaean light: the forces of evil — Trump, BP — lined up against the mystical innocence of children.

    Or perhaps it’s just a temporary alliance. Because of Brexit and because of our anxieties about plastic, left-leaning middle-class parents find themselves suddenly at one with their young. It suits us to talk disdainfully of ‘old gammons’; to park the Discovery Sport SUV at Swindon station and join the teens for a spot of Extinction Rebellion in Trafalgar Square. It makes us feel better about jetting off to the Maldives for a touch of winter sun. And it makes us feel young.

    No wonder our children are anxious. It’s not just that the icecaps are melting, but they also must see quite clearly that the adults aren’t making sense. Last week the UK’s own Greta, 19-year-old Ella Mann, wrote a letter to the Royal Shakespeare Company asking it to end its sponsorship deal with BP and organised it so that her letter was signed by schoolchildren across the country. A friendly reply from the director would have kept Ella happy, but after just a few days the RSC simply caved in. The kids are right, it said, and just jettisoned a long philanthropic association with BP without further debate.

    There were so many other, better and more adult responses. BP is heavily investing in renewable energy. It owns wind farms. Why not remind Ella of that? Why remind her that you can’t just turn the gas off without freezing millions of pensioners to death? Why not ask her and her friends to consider what exactly is wrong with companies with a bad rep doing community service, or if it’s even possible to find any corporate partner with a clean record? Greta thinks that capitalism is bad. Perhaps Ella does too. In kowtowing to the kids, the RSC has set itself a very tricky precedent. Is it going to refuse sponsorship from anyone who’s ever made a profit?

    Ella wrote: ‘We wish that the RSC would act on the ideas that they present in Matilda [a play for children about children] and not give in to the powerful oppressor.’

    Well done, RSC. Truly you are the Mat-ilda of theatre companies. You’ve socked it to Miss Trunchbull, and now the BP–subsidised £5 ticket scheme for 16- to 25-year-olds is no more. If there’s a better example of how and why bending over to please kids is not in their interests, I’d like to hear it.

    This is not the fault of the children. Of course they bang drums, sit on roofs and declare the world to be doomed. It’s what they’re supposed to do. What’s strange is that so many grown-ups seem content to imagine that this is, in itself, an answer. Got a problem? Simply make like a teen and shout about it. Job done. When Greta turned to the Davos crowd and said ‘I want you to panic’, they should have asked her: why? Surely the graver the crisis the more important it is not to panic. If this is a battle to save the planet, the last thing you want is for the decision-makers to be in a state. Picture Churchill in his bunker in the spring of 1944. Picture an adviser popping his head round the door, then reporting back: good news guys, Winston’s hysterical with fear.

    Rising numbers of kids are being treated for eco-anxiety. I’ll bet it’s not really global warming that’s unsettling them so much as the complete absence of faith in their elders. With the fashion for presenting the young as gurus has come the idea that the elderly are intolerant and uninteresting — nothing but a drain on resources. We middle-class mid-lifers have put this about as revenge for Brexit. The old are just Leave-voting bed-blockers who’ve ruined the planet. But imagine hearing that, as a child, and believing it, and coming to think that your grandparents didn’t have their children and their grandchildren’s interests at heart when they voted in 2016. It’s an inversion of the truth.

    Anyone who’s lost their parents — even grandparents — understands the weird agoraphobia of growing older. When your parents fade out it leaves you with no covering; no buffer between you and the grave. That’s all very well in middle age, but imagine feeling that same disorientating aloneness when you’re 20 and believing that your elders aren’t your betters in any way. It’s an article of faith in the cult of youth, that because older voters have less life in front of them, they should have been less entitled to a say in what happens to our country. Look where that thinking gets you. Longevity is heritable. Should oldsters with lucky DNA get more votes? Should the terminally ill have their ballot papers removed?

    We’re all on the airport travelator of life, heading for the chute. Teaching kids that the old are worthless is an obvious own goal, for us and in the end for them too.

    ****************************************************************************8

    BTL:

    If you draw a Venn diagram with one circle marked “citizens who are absolutely appalled by the prospect of Brexit reducing the economy by 5%” and a second circle marked “citizens who support the aims of Extinction Rebellion (thereby reducing the economy by 95%)”, I wonder how much those circles would overlap.
    By quite a lot, I would guess.

    1. Might as well give it to her, we all know the award is a joke nowadays, this will just confirm it.

      1. It certainly is a joke – just look at some of the previous winners – Obama, the IPCC, the EU for heaven’s sake!!

        2. Why not give it to Erdogan? If you want to make the peace prize a real joke, there are a few stars that would insult the idea of a peace prize more than the muppet..

          Not forgetting Trump , Kim Wrong un , Ayatollah whatever.

          1. Posthumously to Jihadi John?
            Then his parents could shamble up to the mic and emote.
            Better still, no doubt there is a plethora of siblings and cousins to do the same thing.

      2. It is a bit like the so called Honours system where they are given out like confetti particularly to luvvies insignificant so called soap stars get given them. What for who knows then there are the onses handed out to ex MP’s and their mates

    6. The thinng those millenials fail to realise is that they keep voting for the thhing which is keeping them away from property ownership, decent jobs and pensions.

      As long as they expand the labour pool through ‘diversity’, as long as they keep wanting business to give them a free ride, as long as they demand government do everything for them and vote for high tax spendaholic parties we will remain a high tax, big state low growth economy so their pension pots will be small, they won’t have a lot of free money and they will remain state dependent – and the future they bequeath their children will be more of the same.

  14. Requirement for EU Nationals living in the UK to Register

    It seems a lot of EU nationals are trying to make a big fuss over having to register. The process is simple and quick and they are processed normally withing a couple of weeks. Those that are delayed are normally because the form have not been filled in correctly or the required information has not been supplied
    In ny case any delay is not that relevant . If the form has been sent in before the deadline they will not be deported.

    Most countries require you to register. Germany for example required you to register in fact it i pretty standard the UK was pretty unique in requiring no registration at all

    I suspect a lot of the fuss is that it will help with identifying illegals and will help to prevent tax dodging

  16. Should the Government Call troops into London for Monday ?

    The Met police are very stretched and have been working extended hours and other forces have also had to deploy police to London leaving them in a difficult position as well
    On Monday we have the formal State opening of parliament which will further stretch the police and will have many of the police deployed on the route for the state opening of parliament meaning other areas vulnerable to the protesters. In my view bringing in troops that would be under the control of the police would be s a sensible measure

      1. Whether there is any legal requirement for the Queen to be there I dont know. . I think technically she has to sign it off but that could be done at the palace and they can get Bercow to read it out in the commons. I bet he would not like that s it is pretty sure to have things in it which will be unacceptable to him

  17. Sir James Dyson has announced a project to build electric cars has been scrapped.

    The inventor, best known for his vacuum cleaners, said engineers had developed a “fantastic electric car” but it was not commercially viable.

    Not very fantastic if it i not commercially viable. When you develop a new product one of the factors you take into account is the cost. ie what price will the market pay. That will as well depend on the sector of the market you are targeting. Clearly A Luxury car will command a much higher price than the standard family car

    1. We all know in our heart of hearts that electric cars will be a failure, far too expensive, we don’t have the generating capacity, the batteries are not up to the task, they are too heavy and they don’t do anything to save the planet.

      1. Which is why in spite of the current massive subsidise they are not selling. They are far to expensive. They dont have the range and the charging times are far to long and the National grid could not cope. The average household supply is not even really up to the job. You can slow charge a battery powered car at home. Slow charge meaning several hours but potentially you could trip out power supply if you are using a lot of high power appliances. If you have more than one car you are stuffed although no doubt some people may try to it could though potentially cause a fire. In theory it should not but depends on how good your houses wiring etc is. A lot have been messed around with and are not properly protected and may even be using incorrectly rated cable

        1. What they dont tell people is that the number of charging cycles has a significant impact on battery capacity. Fast Charging batteries which seems to be the in thing at present also has a big impact on battery life.,. Combine hose two things and you have a problem. Many will get a huge shock when they come to need to change the batteries it can cost several thousand pounds

          At present most electric car have been bought by the rich as a second or third car particularly in London so they do not rack up much millage

          Cycle time is frequently quoted on the battery specifications. I dont think there is anything fo fast charging on them but there must be some data around

      3. Exactly. And what happens in ten years’ or so when it needs a new battery at £15K odd? You wouldn’t want to spend that much on a car that age, whereas there are lots of cars that are well past that age on the roads now. So cars will get scrapped sooner, meaning we have to build many more than we do now (not very green!) and second hand values for anything more than just a very few years old will fall off a cliff.

      5. Tut,tut Bob,will no-one think of all the children finally given gainful employment in the Cobalt mines……….
        They could lose their jobs

    1. To describe Gerard Batten, history author, talented pianist, honest politician as ” thick as two short ones” by one multi name,
      self confessed down voter,most likely with a cross dressing
      habit ( assumed) should if anything elevate Gerard Battens standing.
      PS, correct date, correct facts.

      1. If the Eco loons have their way the state pension will not cover their electricity bill

    2. Pensioners are not meant to live – they are meant to die and the sooner the better.

    3. I resent the living wage.

      What it does is fix the price of labour. Some jobs simply don’t warrant a wage of that level. Thus we get zero hours contracts which help no one simply to deflect that cost.

      The high cost of the fixied wage costs businesses more, meaning less employment, espceially amongst the poorest, least skilled.

      It raises more tax for the government but DOES NOT help the worker. The wage rises, but taxes rise faster, so the worker is no better off – especially with those things that cost the lower paid the most, like fuel.

      The employer loses out, the employee loses out and the increase is offset by the rise in taxes.

      It is purely a political instrument. A headline to all those till girls thinking ‘wow! That’s more in my pocket!’ when it means higher taxes for their employer, disguised tax hikes and lower growth. If government really wanted to do something to help the lower paid it would cut taxes. However, as we’ve seen before, Labour hate that as it runs the risk of helping those they want to punish – again, we’re back at hurting the rich rather than helping the poor which is the absolutely wrong thing to do.

    2. EU counter-disinformation unit – has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it. I am sure we can rely on it to publish lots of impartial facts and figures, just like the BBC does for the UK.

        1. Hi Minty, a £million here, a £million there, the EU’s largesse to itself is never ending. They will keep grabbing for more and more tax raising powers year by year. Being a Socialist organisation they will tax and tax until the whole of Europe is in penury.

    3. Lammy being a moron as usual. Why do we have such an oaf in parliament?

      This is EU pravda. It wants it’s own press unit spamming, trolling and spreading FUD. The BP voted against it – pointlessly, but it did. Does Lammy want the EU to have a propaganda department?

      This isn’t about Russian disinformation – there isn’t any. It’s about an egotistical halfwit waffling on about things he doesn’t understand to get a uninformative, utterly biased, inaccurate twitter post out for his own mendacious stupidity.

      1. “Why do we have such an oaf in parliament?”

        Same as with Abbott – look at their constituents.

    2. I am baffled as to why having everyone going in different directions is strength. It is a problem in my view

          4. ♫ “And I said to him, dickie-bird, why do you sit,
            Singing willow-tit-willow …….. tits? WAHOOOOO!!!!”            ♫

  24. Battery Powered Cars and Battery Life

    The reality at present is no one really knows ho long they will last. There are a lot of variables

    a) No of charging cycles, typically 500 charges will reduce the battery capacity by 20%
    b) Fast Charging that has a big impact on battery life have not found a figure for that yet
    c) Overcharging
    d) Running the battery flat. Anything below 20% capacity has an impact on battery life

    https://cleantechnica.com/2016/05/31/battery-lifetime-long-can-electric-vehicle-batteries-last/

      1. That’s what I like about this site – positive thinking when dealing with the negative….

  25. Looking back now I can quite see how the planning for all this climate madness goes back to the 1990’s with John Majors care in the community, an army of people with no smarts that can be easily manipulated to support any cause the establishment wants to inflict on us with just a bit of project fear and supply of recreational drugs

  26. If battery cars were viable they would have become widespread years ago without any tax breaks

      1. Purchasers of his other products have not realised that they are suckers, have they?

        1. His breakthrough was with his vacuum cleaner it was high priced though but is still high priced and the R&D costs must have been recovered by now. Other players in the market as well have caught up and are a lot cheaper

          He is good at getting people to part with their money though. He appears to able to get people to pay almost £300 for a fan. A fancy fan but it i still just a fan and a £25 one will do the same job

  27. Phew. Oil man been and – eventually – gone. Talk about a palaver. I know our streets are narrow – and some reversing is needed. Last year’s chap drove up, back in and was gone in ten minutes.

    This chap – 40 minutes later is still trying to back out. Fortunately, the oil has been supplied….

  28. Is the US Housing market going to crash?

    There are a lot of people in trouble . Detroit is one of the worst with 34.4% of Mortgages underwater (Negative Equity in our terms)

    1. Dear life. I’m fat because of racism. Heard it all now.

      Yes, black bodies have very, very slightly different responses to some very specific medication but that’s well known.

      The chaps are having far too much fun but! would they be allowed to say it if they were white or would they be arrested?

    2. I presume that as she is blaming “living in the Trump era” that she only weighed 10 stone in 2016?

  32. MSM/BBC/ITV/Sky/WAPO/NYT – “There is absolutely no evidence” (They’re taking their audience for complete near-somnabulent fools):

    The furor over Trump’s call for Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden’s business has brought the spotlight back to the former second family’s international dealings.
    While his Ukrainian business is currently receiving most of the attention, Hunter’s dealings in China deserve at least as much scrutiny.

    Trained as a lawyer at Yale, Hunter had primarily worked as a lobbyist and consultant. His previous foray into financial services, Paradigm Global Advisors, was linked to Stanford Financial, a multibillion dollar Ponzi scheme.

    In 2009, Hunter co-founded a new venture, Rosemont Seneca Partners. Rosemont and Hunter were given extraordinary opportunities in China while his father was vice president. Here are some key facts:

    1. Joe Biden met with Hunter’s Chinese partners days before they established a new investment firm.
    In December 2013, Hunter landed in Beijing aboard Air Force Two, accompanying his father on an official visit to China. Less than two weeks later, Hunter’s company, Rosemont Seneca, became a partner in a new investment company backed by the state-owned Bank of China.
    Christening the new firm Bohai Harvest RST (BHR), the partners set out to raise $1 billion for the new fund.
    Representatives of the Biden family have denied any connection between the vice president’s visit and Hunter’s business. However, a BHR representative told The New Yorker earlier this year that Hunter used the opportunity to introduce his father to Chinese private equity executive Jonathan Li, who became CEO of BHR after the deal’s conclusion.

    2. BHR is a multibillion-dollar enterprise.
    Exceeding their initial fundraising goal, the partners at BHR raised their target to $1.5 billion for the new fund. The company’s website now brags that it manages “over RMB 15 billion” in assets — the equivalent of about $2.1 billion in today’s dollars.
    Under the terms of the deal, BHR, in which Hunter’s firm held an equity stake, would be a lead investor in the fund. Other investors include China Development Bank and China’s social security fund.

    3. Hunter and his partners had prominent roles within the company.
    Despite his relative lack of private equity experience, Hunter landed a prominent role with the new company. Under the terms of the original deal, Rosemont Seneca, Hunter’s firm, shared a 30% stake in BHR with the Thornton Group, which was run by James Bulger, the son of longtime Massachusetts state Senate President Billy Bulger. Hunter and Bulger joined the board, along with Devon Archer, Hunter’s longtime business partner. Archer would also serve as vice chairman of the fund’s investment committee.
    The value of these partnerships to BHR is clear. Its own website boasts: “BHR, with its unique mixed ownership, combines the resources and platforms of China’s largest financial institutions … and the networks and know-how of our U.S.-based investment fund and advisory firm shareholders.”
    Hunter Biden claimed to the New Yorker that he and his partners have not seen any money from the BHR deal. But even if true, the potential payouts are significant.

    4. BHR represented a unique investment opportunity.
    BHR’s relationships weren’t the only unique thing about the company. Rosemont Seneca was getting a piece of something that no other Western firm had: a private equity fund inside the recently established Shanghai Free-Trade Zone, with a focus on international acquisitions. With the backing of the state-owned Bank of China, one of the country’s “big four” financial institutions, BHR had access to the types of deals that most Western firms only dreamed of, including IPOs of state-owned companies.

    5. BHR invested in strategically sensitive assets in both China and the United States.
    In December 2014, BHR became an “anchor investor” in the IPO of China General Nuclear Power Company (CGN), a state-owned nuclear company involved in the development of nuclear reactors. Not only is CGN a strategically important company in China, it was also facing legal scrutiny in the United States. In 2016, CGN was charged with espionage by the Justice Department for stealing US nuclear secrets.
    As a “cross-border” investment fund, Bohai Harvest was interested in making deals outside of China. In 2015, BHR acquired Henniges Automotive, a Michigan-based producer of vibration-dampening equipment, alongside Chinese military contractor Aviation Industry Corp. of China (AVIC). Given the military applications of Henniges’ technology, the deal required federal approval. Like CGN, AVIC was suspected of stealing US technology for its purposes.
    Not long after the Henniges deal closed, AVIC debuted its new J-20 fighter — incorporating designs allegedly stolen from the US’ F-35 program.

    6. It wasn’t an isolated incident.
    In 2015, a state-backed real estate conglomerate acquired a controlling stake in Rosemont Realty, a sister company of Rosemont Seneca where Hunter served as an advisor. As part of the deal, the Chinese promised $3 billion for commercial office property acquisitions in the US — a major windfall for the company.
    It wouldn’t be Hunter’s last episode with Chinese capital. In May 2017, he met with Ye Jianming, chairman of Chinese energy company CEFC, to discuss investment opportunities in the US. After the meeting, Ye sent a 2.8-carat diamond to Hunter along with a “thank you” card. When, six months later, a CEFC executive was arrested in New York on unrelated bribery charges, his first phone call was to Hunter’s uncle, James Biden. James told the New York Times that “he believed it [the call] had been meant for Hunter” and that “he had passed on his nephew’s contact information.”
    Ye, now accused of bribing a Communist Party official, has since been detained in his native China.
    All of this adds up to an extremely troubling pattern. Much of the media, as they so often do, have chosen to air the spin, rather than the facts, on this issue. Did the Chinese give favorable treatment to Hunter Biden to curry favor with his vice-president father? The American public deserves to understand what exactly Hunter Biden was doing overseas and the extent of then-Vice President Biden’s involvement.

    https://thecoconutwhisperer.blogspot.com/2019/10/us-politics-6-facts-about-hunter-bidens.html

    1. Odd, how so much research goes into thi yet absolutely none into who is funding Gina Miller, or why Major is fighting to remain, or Mandelson’s blatant corruption over Greece entering the Euro, or Blair’s shady multiple shell companies.

      It’s almost as if it’s a complete stitch up.

      1. Could there have been any greater mismatches between MP and constituency than what Labour achieved in the 1990s with its helicoptering in of: –

        David Milliband into South Shields

        and

        Peter Mandelson into Hartlepool

    1. My nominees would be Bashar-Al Assad and Vlad Putin.

      (Tom Lehrer said that he was giving up satire when Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize as he could not compete with reality)

      1. Didn’t Obomination get awarded the Peace Prize on his first day in office – Libya anyone?

  36. Greta the Hypocrite

    I think she likes being off school for a year and getting endless freebie holidays

    Surely if she was serious about climate change she would not be travelling but would be using modern technology such as the Internet and video conferencing

  39. Good morrow, Gentlefolk, all on this dreary 14° soggy Suffolk day. Let’s cheer ourselves up a trifle:

    Sitting at a Red Light…

    I was sitting at a long stoplight yesterday, minding my own business, patiently waiting for it to turn green even though there was no on-coming traffic.

    A carload of bearded, young, loud Muslims, shouting Anti-American slogans, with a half-burned American Flag duct-taped on the trunk of their car and a
    “Remember 9-11” slogan spray painted on the side, was stopped next to me.

    Suddenly they yelled, “Aqbar Allah! Praise Allah!” and took off before the light changed.

    Out of nowhere an 18-wheeler came speeding through the intersection and ran directly over their car, crushing it completely and killing everyone in it.

    For several minutes I sat in my car thinking to myself, “Man…that could have been me!”

    So today, bright and early, I went out and got a job as a truck driver.

  40. The Mystery of Africa

    They all felt oppressed under the Commonwealth and wanted Independence so they could run Africa to suit them now they have Independence they in effect want to come back under the commonwealth by moving to the UK

  41. If I self declare myself as two persons because I genuinely believe I am two people can I claim two lots of tax allowances ?

      1. I had though of that but it would not apply as a TV licence is per household and not per person

    2. The Inland Revenue would need medical proof of your dual-persona. This would mean making two appointments with your doctor, one for each of you, and after that, you’d need a second opinion ……… twice.

      1. No one can self declare ones gender with no need for medical checks etc. It would be discrimination to require people who think they re two people to be subject to medical checks. One would have Gina Miller taking the government to court

  42. Eco Loons

    Some of these Eco Loons think that if they use a Green Energy supply all their energy is Green

  43. Mark Solon asks why people wear dark sunglasses indoors? – probably the same people who wear them on top of their head in bright sunlight

    1. It is a side affect from wearing them indoors. When they go outside they can hardly see but they are so dazzled they think their eyes are on their head

    2. “It has been many a moon since I have seen so many white people in one place.”

      As for wild years, I cannot find the pictures I had stored of me from those days, but in the 18-21 year old bracket, this is close:

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/45e220bdd4da8394764cca776a6c7522cf195bd5d723f82ebc9c9baac370051b.jpg

      Which was a Goth, not an Emo. Many emo’s today would say “But you are smoking! That is so unhealthy! Try vaping!” To which we would just look at them in silence and walk away without answering. Then I went to work for a few decades and was far more presentable. 🙂

      Many of the ladies did like us boys in black. Unfortunately a fair few of the gentlemen did as well, but a firm refusal avoids too much aggression.

      2. “It has been many a moon since I have seen so many white people in one place.”

        It was a Bleach Boys’ concert.

  46. Good morning all

    ‘Stormzy effect’: record number of black Britons studying at Cambridge
    Rise follows rapper’s high-profile backing of scholarships for black students at university

    https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/oct/11/stormzy-effect-record-number-black-britons-studying-cambridge-university?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium=&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1570773750

    I guess this mitigates the stab stab hate whitey culture a chap like him has unwittingly promoted!

  47. The pound has collapsed upwards again, to $1,25.
    Not noticeable in the media, but does this mean that the international markets
    think we are getting May’s deal after all ?

  48. The Dyson fan that is not actually blade less to be fair Dyson do not say it is but they dont actually mention it has a blade. The blades are actually in the base

    It is a nice design and it works probably not as well as a normal fan though

    Advantages of it no exposed blades although on normal fancy the blades normally have a guard and the blades are plastic and most will top the blades if obstructed. The Dyson fan is a bit easier to clean and a bit quieter and it can direct the air vertically. Why you would want to do that I dont know

    It really comes down to do you think the minor advantages are worth an extra £150 ?

    1. Hi Bill, I have a hot/cold fan by Dyson that is absolutely brilliant. Extremely efficient, safe for when my granddaughter visits (no visible blades to access), timer or temperature controlled, oscillating and the number one reason that I bought it – it is very quiet compared to other fans.This is important for when I get migraines in the summer as I can use it to keep cool without the noise that you normally get with a standard oscillating fan.

      Dyson products may be ‘expensive’ but the quality and design are very good.

      1. I’ve been thinking about buying a Dyson fan, but I can’t make up my mind. I keep blowing hot and cold.

        1. Same with me and then I think of my wallet and that makes my mind up
          I can buy a fan with bells and whistles and a remote control for well under £50

      2. I suffered from migraine and still do sometimes. If you don’t have the special migraine pills, my approach is to drink weak tea and take painkillers like Ibuprofen. This is best done as soon as the Fortean lights/pixellated vision occurs. I lie down in a darkened , quiet room, and put a hot water bottle on my forehead/temples.
        The perceived wisdom is for cold compress but that never worked for me. My theory is that migraine involves the blood vessels tightening up, restricting the flow of blood. Heat relaxes the blood vessels and softens them allowing them to expand and the blood flow becomes easier. This reduces pain. (Weak tea helps to prevent vomiting.)

        1. What you dont want is a big change in temperature so a cool compress rather than a cold one might work better

          1. Not for me. I think that there are varieties of migraine and the causes and even symptoms will vary. So there is probably not a single treatment that will work well for all.

        3. I get the pixellated aura, but rarely get a headache.
          I just sit back quietly until it passes.

          1. I get the ‘zigzag’ effect – but without the pain – when I am particularly tired.
            I’ve had it since I was in my teens, but only learnt a couple of years ago that it is a form of migraine.

        4. Hi HP, the weak tea helps me also, to keep hydrated, but unlike you I find ice compress on my forehead/temples works better than heat.

      3. The Dyson vacuum cleaners we had on the inspection train fell apart after a few months of use whilst the Henrys that replaced them were still going strong when I retired.

        1. We had a Dyson which was useless – we now have Henrys. But the trouble with Henrys is that they are so bulky and heavy to cart about so we have two – one for upstairs and the other for downstairs.

    1. I think that if Greta had won it, then they would have realised that their sham had moved into the Twilight Zone. You can see people across the world, who might have been wondering what was going on, saying “you’re just taking the pish now.”

  52. Peter Mandelson used to say Labour had to not mind or get on with the filthy rich. Luckily, like alll EU Commissioners, Mandelson himself became filthy rich. I would also include as filthy rich, Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson with his £600k salary for “Charity” work (it should be remembered that people in such posts also have expenses power, staying at the 5***** hotels wherever they go.

    1. Is this same Mandelson who used public bail-out money to finance the hostile American takeover of Cadbury? What did he make on the deal?

    2. The BBC never talks about how he sat on the board of the bank that brought Greece into the EU (when it obviously couldn’t) and the next day bought an £8m town house in London.

      He’s utterly corrupt. As bent as folded tin. A liar, thug, traitor and trougher. Mandelson should be drawn and quarted, deafened, blinded and his tongue ripped out and left to beg on the street.

      1. And EU officials are exempt from prosecution of any crimes whilst in office. That continues if May’s WA is accepted.

  53. Brexit “DEal” effects?

    Staying on a money theme, it should be noted that the UK stock market has had a remarkable morning … Athough, the FTSE100 is up only 0.3%, within the index many domestic-facing stocks have had remarkable jumps: Barratt Devel. + 8%; Persimmon +7.7%; Taylor-Wimpey +7%; Lloyds Bank +8%; RBS +8%; Kingfisher +8.6%. Even Sky News might struggle to be gloomy – dunno about the BBC.

    1. The BBC’s approach i bad news is headline. Good news is burried away in the fine print and several web pages down

      1. Morning M,
        Guaranteed, the mogg seems very quiet, his
        attack / defence of may was seen by me to have been highly suspect.
        IMHO a party first man & this battle is for a country not the keys to a front door.

      1. Unclear as to why Construction should go up. re they expecting mass migration levels to increase ?

          1. There is really no such thing as affordable housing what hey mean is taxpayer heavily subsidised housing

          2. There never was affordable housing. I was in my mid-30s before I could even think about buying the house that I’m still living in.

            What I hear on the radio these days is how hard it is for first time buyers when the average price of a house is such-and-such. When did first time buyers ever go after the average price? They went in at the bottom.

    4. Boris’s claimed giveaway effect. Personally, I hope it’s just a ploy because he has to keep up with Sheamus O’Milne’s Labour giveaway bribes. It is not something a Conservative government should be contemplating at present.

        2. 2020 is a significant year for the Lisbon Treaty but the facts need to be clear and true. The downside for the UK , if it remains in the EU need to be set out by the politicians. The internet search has provided some harsh predictions and some replies rebuffing these predictions. We need to know quickly what the real facts are or make our decisions on the dire consequences of staying in the EU. When do the 2020 changes come into effect?

    2. What a waste of 3 years ..

      What a blinking tangle

      They all obviously wanted to live under Nazi rule , and they never wanted to be liberated in the first place.

      1. Good Day Truthful and Honest Beauty

        Didn’t they use to say that it was a girl’s privilege to change her mind!

        The terms are so frightful that it is little wonder that both the Leavers and the Remainers are most reluctant to give any clear account of the May monstrosity shortly to become the Boris Balls Up.

        I cannot understand how or why the Remainer voted against it – May’s capitulation gave them far more than they wanted.

  55. Donald Tusk receives ‘promising signals’ from Irish PM

    In my view it is what the EU think they can get away with. At present they think the UK position is one of being serious about leaving but that could be undermined by position MPs

    The clock is fat running down now so they are having to seriously consider their position and they do not want a no deal

    European Council President Donald Tusk has said he received “promising signals” from Irish PM Leo Varadkar that a Brexit deal is still possible.
    His comments came as Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay and EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier resumed talks in Brussels, after a meeting between Mr Varadkar and Boris Johnson on Thursday.
    Both sides called the Johnson-Varadkar discussion “very positive”.

    1. We don’t want a deal. We want a divorce.
      There should have been a pre-nupt before we signed up in the first place.

      1. There is a lot of confusion and misuse of terms which clouds this. I would tend to use the Term Treat Deal & Trade Deal. The two things being very different

        We would want for example a deal over EHIC and the European Medicines agency agency as well as Europol as well as the European Aviation Safety Agency

        Medicines and Aviation are very much international although there may be some regulation over and above international requirements

      2. Article 50 is the only method we can use to chang eour relationship with the EU.

        We have used that, the EU has actively refused to negotiate fairly. It started out saying ‘we want 100bn and you get nothing. May said, sounds fair, yep, and walked away.

        When that was discussed, the EU wrote a 600 page document detailing how we would be obliterated as a nation and tried to force it through parliament 3 times. Thrice it was rejected. The EU, because it is full of arrogant, gormless devious prats decided it would then wait for the hard Left wing eurotroughers to destroy the UK and ay change of leaving the EU forever. Then we elected Boris who, with any luck with simply put us on WTO terms and give the EU a few quid and walk away.

        We can then watch the EU die and all those useless scum find their decades of troughing at our expense sudden;y digging into their own pockets rather than robbing us and their pensions evaporating as nation after nation leaves the pathetic nonsense.

    1. Some people, however good, are incapable of expressing themselves without using a f**r letter w**d.

          1. The four letter words I hear most are ‘f*ck’ and ‘like’ – travelling frequently with Birmingham Uni students, I hear ‘like’ a lot …

          2. The most iniquitous 4-letter word of them all though is ‘deal’. To think it’s close proximity to the far more benign 8-letter word ‘sandwich’.

  57. Barnier warns ‘mountain still to climb’ in Brexit talks after crunch meeting with Barclay ( Express )

    The Alps or the Pyrenees ?

    2. The result of yesterday’s meeting between Johnson and the Irish git resulted in one of:

      1. Johnson has caved

      or

      2. The talk, as usual, is bullshit and Barnier & Co will rubbish the outcome

      We’ve received nothing to our advantage since May set up shop and immediately capitulated on every point and alleged red line. Why would the EU now surrender their advantage gifted them by our treacherous political class?

  58. Royal Mail have started rolling out Parcel Postboxes

    They dont look as if they will hold a lot. I think as well Parcels id the wrong word they are probably intended for what the Royal Mail calls packages

    Note you have to meet specific requirements you canot just stick stamps on and post it

    https://www.royalmailgroup.com/en/press-centre/press-releases/royal-mail-group/parcel-postboxes/

    Skyliner Way, Bury St Edmnunds IP32
    St Andrews Street North, Bury St Edmunds IP33
    Orwell House, Ferry Lane, Felixstowe IP11
    Route Master, Walton Avenue, Felixstowe IP11
    Farthing Road Business Box, Ipswich IP1
    Goddard Road East, Ipswich IP1
    Lloyds Avenue Business Box, Ipswich IP1
    Hadleigh Road Industrial Estate, Ipswich IP2
    Lion Barn Industrial Estate, Needham Mkt IP6
    Royal Mail, Thetford IP24
    Meter Post, Woodbridge IP12

    1. All handy for Mr Bill Thomas, *Esquire, to post his Jiffy bags full of money to his offshore accounts, via Mr Rashid of course

      *awaiting a pedaunt

          1. I’m afraid that I do not have an hour and a half to watch that now. I barely have enough free time to get through the 20 minute clips that friends send me. Especially if I get three in one morning. 🙂

            Is she saying that we are responsible for the global warming that is happening, or that the climate moves in cycles? If it is the latter then she is quite correct, as this is what the serious scientists have been saying since the alarmists claimed we were about to have a new Ice Age 30 years ago.

          2. She has analysed the four magnetic poles that are present in the sun and plotted their movements over time. The last time they approached the coming configuration Earth experienced a mini ice age. She is not claiming to make a prediction only that the next year or two will prove whether her analysis is correct. If she is correct Greta will no doubt sulk and the entire effing planet will be burning fossil fuels like billy O….

          4. Good idea – Eating them I seem to remember is not a good idea (especially if they are still raw!)

          9. Aha – it does sound as if this lady knows her stuff then. The vast majority of those scientists who are able to speak freely, and not be cowed into silence, have referenced the Sun’s cycles and our own planets tilt and orbit as being major factors in climate change. This is far more plausible than the hysterical, funding-chasing drivel that the media loves so much.

        2. Umm, that bloke in the jumper. Is he awaer he’s not wearing any trousers?

          If I dressed like that it’d be roomin’ drafty.

    2. I haven’t seen a decent sunspot cluster in months, just the odd sporadic and they’re uncommon enough.

  61. Billions face food, water shortages over next 30 years as nature fails

    The conclusion seems to be the issue is more over population than anything else. Most African countries due to their climate can only support a limit population yet their populations have rocked. They have been very lucky to date in that they have had exceptionally few serious droughts

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/billions-face-food-water-shortages-over-next-30-years-as-nature-fails/ar-AAIApPM?ocid=spartandhp

    1. Over-population is far more of an issue than climate change. XR should think about reducing their ranks.

      1. Animal populations self regulate. We cheat nature with our brains but are we approaching a breaking point in our numbers?

        1. The population charts posted here a few days ago – I think by Stig, showed that Europeans have self-regulated and now barely cover replacement level but African and some Asian countries still have four or five+ children per woman. This is unsustainable and NGOs such as Save the Children should focus more efforts on contraception and education, as clearly they have saved far too many children.

          Most Africans are under 30 and you rarely see an old person.

          1. That said, my local rag carried a story about some sad soul who was living in a tent. Turned out that he had been in and out of jug all his life. Also turned out that he had squired 13 children. Cheez!

          3. Probably not all with the same woman.

            Conversely, in Victorian times my ancestors commonly produced 10 or more children, and in some cases 13. All from the same mother.

          4. My maternal grandmother had eight children, starting with her first in 1916. Seven survived past childhood and all lived into their late seventies and eighties.

          7. “Europeans have self-regulated and now barely cover replacement level”
            Yes, it’s the ‘non-Europeans’ that are swelling the world’s population, in their native lands and here.

          8. Ndovu, we have got it all wrong about over population. I know this because a woman was asked about this very subject on the radio this morning. While not addressing the question with any relish she managed to witter on until she struck upon prosperity. Her final stab at an answer was that prosperous nations had controlled population growth and the remaining countries in the World will, as they become equally prosperous, curb their growth rates. Honestly, she was serious. This was on Al-Beeb, of course.

          9. Why is there a housing shortage in Britain when the white indigenous population has not reproduced itself at the rate needed to sustain itself for the last 50 years.

      2. Yo Nd

        Contraception is the answer and ideally it should have with the parents of the Eco-idiots

      2. They don’t risk showing their faces if someone might tell them the truth.

        They are too busy spending our money in the restaurants and bars that surround them.

      3. The MEPs arrive at the airport on a cheap flight, take a taxi to the airport which they keep running while they pop in to sign the register to get a full day’s pay and allowances, they return to the airport in the taxi and take another cheap flight home. They the claim the taxi fare and the full price Air fare on expenses.

        It is common knowledge that that’s what the Kinnocks often did.

        And this is why the chamber is so empty – but don’t worry – they are getting very well paid

  64. UK Electric Car Sales

    The figures below are for plug in cars so that will include Hybrids. Most I suspect are Hybrids

    Total UK car sales 2.4M

    2015 – 50,000
    2016 – 75.000
    2017 – 130,000
    2018 – 180,000

    1. We currently have a Toyota hybrid. It is self charging. As far as I am aware, all Toyota hybrids are self charging. Wouldn’t have a plug in even if it was free!

      1. The data above is for plugins. If your is described as self charging it is not really a hybrid it must be using the diesel engine to charge the batteries

      3. I took delivery of my second Lexus hybrid last Thursday. The Toyota system is extremely well proven. My previous non hybrid GS300 used to average 24-25mpg. My first hybrid, able to develop the same amount of power, averaged 40mpg, most of that on similar shopping trips. It’s a brilliantly efficient concept that has been well honed. I am expecting similar things from the new one.

        1. The Auris hybrid we had was shockingly underpowered with fuel economy that bore no resemblance to the claimed figures. With our new Toyota hybrid, we seem to be getting around 54 mpg Far superior in every way.

  65. EU 27 have given Barnier ‘the green light’ to recommence negotiations. What has the ‘Hulk’ and the man moaning about a surrender document surrendered to the EU? He must have given up something and something important to get this reaction in Brussels. I do hope I’m wrong.

      1. Tusk says we must take the shlightesht chance for a deal whilst Barnier says it is like climbing a mountain (I suppose he can see the pique despite the surrounding mist) and the BBC reports that we haven’t even reached the tunnel yet let alone seen any light at the end of it.

    2. Maybe that German industry is beginning to sweat is having an effect? My organisation calling for voluntary redundancies just now…

    3. Across the world the Car Industry is having a tough time. Confusing messages from governments over cars is probably behind it as well as the fact that alternatives to diesel and petrol cars are not really viable. Most are hanging on to their existing car or buying a second hand one

      1. Cars last for ever now. Not long since people changed their cars every three years.
        The loss of custom there has not been counter-balanced by inreased population.
        The only way to increase sales again is to allow in more immigrants from outside the EU.

    4. Looking at media everyone is being quoted except on the UK side and the word treaty instead of deal has crept into the quotes.

    6. I don’t for one second believe that the EU would have ‘allowed’ any one of the 27 to show a red light.

  66. A comment under a DT article:

    Many English people would be more than happy if both Northern Ireland and Scotland became completely independent of the UK and that England became completely independent of the EU.

    What do my fellow Nottlers think?

    1. I’ve found this opinion to be widespread. Until recently, it was not something that could be discussed in polite society.

    3. Suits me. It would also mean we’d be shot of the SNP in Parliament, making it much harder for a leftie majority.

      1. I’ve met lots of fine folk in Scotland and my view is despite points of contention on both sides there are mutual advantages in being one United Kingdom. I’ve thought for a long time that each of the four constituent parts of the UK should have their own Parliaments with the members coming together periodically to form the UK’s Parliament. Such a move would streamline the governance of the UK and the constituent countries. It would also result in the need to reform the House of Lords which many folk think is long overdue.

      2. We have had several students from Scotland on our courses recently. Without exception they have been delightful and charming young people.

        My experience tells me that it is wise not to talk politics with Irish people. I have several good Irish friends who, I am sure, are fond of me but not far under the surface they all detest the English as a matter of principle and their memories go back for centuries.

      3. I am all for a democratic choice.

        Who knows what the Scots want? The MSM certainly doesn’t.

        Why not ask them?

    5. I voted for Scottish independence in the Referendum. I did not vote for an “independent” Scotland in the EU. If you cut me like a stick of rock it would not say “Blackpool”, it would be a Union Jack. I looked around at how the Scottish economy had been treated as a branch and used as a safety valve. In tough times the subsidiary businesses in Scotland were closed. Businesses have received subsidies all over the place – wind farms -but strategic industries like aluminium smelting, coal and steel and shipbuilding were allowed to perish, at the same time as our chums in the EU illegally subsidised their strategic industries and started to build liners for Cunard.
      I was by no means enamoured of the vile, baseless, derogatory insults that were daily poured out in the comments columns of the DT. As MM points out, we fought and died alongside the English for centuries. We are rewarded with a trashed economy, a dysfunctional infrastructure. and a Scottish Government that is neither fish nor fowl. All Scottish Governments since 1999 have shown themselves to be stupid, incompetent and corrupt. Rule from the Scottish Office was not any better, but it was less expensive.
      As for the continual griping about the Barnett formula, it is just a way of dividing up UK money in proportion to the money spent in England. There seems to be no griping that money is spent in England, is there?
      Any balanced view of our joint history would inevitably, ineluctably, come to the view that we could not have done it alone, but we did it together. Maybe that is why the English seem to dislike us?
      Would I now vote for an “independent” Scotland in the EU with the SNP running the country? I have not yet lost all my marbles.

      1. Maybe that is why the English seem to dislike us?

        I’m pretty certain that that is not true, at least on a personal level. Scots seem to get byes where others would be judged harshly. Does Westminster hate you? Almost certainly but that would apply to anyone outside the M25!

        1. I’ve only been to “real Scotland” once for 2 weeks, the 2nd being in a place called Kinloch Hourn. I found all of the people there to be as good and “English friendly” as any of the people that I grew up with. The only time I have talked to English people who have a problem with the Scottish has been online. Principally because they think that the Scots hate us.

          There has been a lot of division sowed by those political people who want to tear us apart for their own sinister reasons. The Scottish were allowed to vote to see if they wanted to leave us behind and they voted to stay with us as a Union. It was meant to be a “once in a lifetime, never to be repeated vote” but we know how the globalists react when they do not get the answer that they want in a referendum.

          1. My Scots neighbours (here in England) are delightful people. I didn’t exactly have a pleasant time when I visited Edinburgh and Glasgow.

      2. “we could not have done it alone, but we did it together” – great line HP.

        The Scottish Parliament needs shutting down, all it has achieved is money wasting and overseeing a degradation in education, health and local services.

      3. Horace – How has Scotland been used as a safety valve?

        The industry in Scotland became too expensive thanks to legislation and regulation. The inability to cut taxes or support those industries is the fault of the EU.

        The Scottish economy has been wrecked because Scotland keeps electing socialist governments who are feckless, reckless fools. This is because they follow the same model: tax and waste, waste waste and waste some more then when something cannot be paid for, blame Westminster/England. The politics of envy and spite never fails with a poor nation.

        Why poor? Because the SNP refuse to allow business to flourish. This is the failure of Scots for voting for a decently Right wing government.

        The Barnett formula is unfair because of it’s very nature. Why not split it per capita? Why have it at all? Why not just raise money from taxation and spend it locally? After all, the SNP has those powers, it chooses not to use them. There’s many things wrong with the union, the biggest being the unfairness of England supporting Scotland and Scottish governments refusing to allow Scotland to flourish – for their own election profiteering.

        1. What you say is reasonable. However it is only relevant to the last few years and not to the time when the Scottish Office were in charge. The Barnett formula can be changed, of course it can.
          It is more expensive to provide some services in Scotland as much of it is big empty space and that is a factor. Unless we don’t have any services North of Dundee?
          We are not intrinsically a poor nation by the way.
          Tax rising powers are limited.

    6. If Scotland became indie and lost the Barnet formula money their new currency (the Haggis) would crash so fast their heads would spin
      We would need a Trumpian wall to keep the refugees out
      Edit
      ‘Morning Richard

    7. WE should at least move to a proper Federal UK. That way Scotland Wales & NI have to pay their own way., They raise their own taxes and spend their own taxes

      They would be required to pay a levy for Central Government that would cover things like defence and International affairs and probably inland security etc

      1. With what? I don’t disagree, but they exist thanks to our money.

        AS kindly as possible, the reality is that Scotland spends more than it raises in revenue and is propped up by England. Wales simply can’t exist on it’s own – poverty is rife there. I don’t know about Northern Ireland, but the sad truth is England pays the bills.

    8. What would Varadkar and Sturgeon do if Boris promised them total independence for both Northern Ireland and Scotland but on the condition that England gave them no more financial aid or subsidies?

      Would they rejoice or go into a complete panic of funk?

    9. The United Kingdom has ties going back a long way. We have fought and died together on battlefields across the world. We have spanked those who wanted to rule the world on many occasions, and did a much better job of it when we were at the reins.

      It would please those in the EU and the other globalists no end if we were split up as a nation. It has been a long-term goal of theirs. Tony Blair and his ilk engineered these “devolved parliaments” precisely to achieve that end. Anything that he wants should be rejected on principle as being very bad for our country.

      I read a comment around 15 years ago from an old soldier during a discussion others were having about wars. He said that one of the most important things that goes through your mind when the bullets start flying is who is on your flanks. He said (no offence is meant by the terms, they were his words:)

      “If its a Jock, a Paddy or a Taff then you can concentrate on the enemy in front of you, because you know that they won’t run.”

      War might have changed since his day, but our Union is a lot to throw away just because the globalists are stoking tensions between us. I have spoken to several Scottish people over the last few years who are appalled by the SNP and have no desire to split our country apart. It is the likes of Sturgeon that are poisoning our ideas of each other. She should not be rewarded either.

      1. In my view moving to a proper Federal UK is the way to go we already have a strange partial hybrid Federal UK

  67. Does anyone have an underground map for Burmingham?
    There must be one, an ER protester has just said I can always use the tube instead of my car.

        1. Having only ever driven through Birmingham once, by accident on a much longer journey North, I have no idea of their infrastructure. From looking at the Legend it appears there are several modes of transport on that map from their Metro to bus links to longer distance lines.

          I didn’t spend too much time looking for a map of only the Underground as I don’t know if one exists in that blighted city.

          2. There are a few nice areas of Birmingham but just not many. Mind you London is fast going the same way.. In general i London the Outer London boroughs were quite nice but thats fast changing. Just look at the crime stats and slum housing in places like Barnet and Enfield now

          3. Only two places in the UK to my knowledge have an Underground system and that’s London & Glasgow. Many rail lines though will run partially underground

            I am not sure even if there is a real definition of an underground system. It is probably a network or liner that runs mainly underground. Even much of the London Underground actually runs in the open and a lot is only partially underground as the oldest underground lines were built using cut and cover so is only just below the surface

  68. It seems the Remain campaign are organising a massive demo in London on the 19th. Why aren’t the Leave campaign doing the same?

    2. Have you heard about the guy who went to what he thought was a Remain demo, but he had to walk home because they were XR-ers and they threw his car away ?

      1. Agreed – What we need is a 16 yr old kid to go on TV and say “They are attempting to steal my future….”

          2. I get afflicted by Tourette’s every time I see a post 66 number plate with the sphincter of stars on it – “what bit of we voted to
            !!@# leave don’t you !!$@# understand?”

    1. Extinction Rebellion say everyone should be restricted to 10 sheets of toilet paper a day in order to save the planet

      1. Extinction Rebellion can go f*** themselves.
        After all, no one else will, and they’ll be doing their bit to save the planet by not reproducing….

  70. I received an e-mail this morning stating, “Due to protesters trying to gain access to the entrance of New Broadcasting House this morning, all buildings on the W1 campus are currently on lockdown as a precaution”. Extinction Rebellion of course though the internal comms carefully avoid acknowledging that. Apparently the BBC doesn’t do enough to promote the eco-loon message. These people really are very dim, aren’t they?

        1. To show they really really care BBC presenters should be outside licking the XR demonstrators all over….

        2. To show they really really care BBC presenters should be outside licking the XR demonstrators all over….

        3. To show they really really care BBC presenters should be outside licking the XR demonstrators all over….

    2. They let a high level ER agent in last night.

      Frail-looking type who sprouted a load of alarmist bollocks on Question Time.

  71. Flylolo has cancelled a significant number of flights from Glasgow at the last minute

    The operator apologised for the cancellations and said it was unable to provide the aircraft.

    Sound a bit suspect. It could indicate they are in trouble

  72. Gosh, the property (upstairs terrace flat/maisonette) I used to live in from 1948 to 1952 (age 4 to 8) is on the market. It has been considerably upgraded – there was no bathroom and the loo was outdoors at the back of the small yard, next to the coalhouse. And the roof leaked sometimes. But there was a large field/undeveloped area close by with quite a few trees. I think it’s all been developed. BTW the brickwork of the street used to be dark gray – black with the coal dust. lots of coal wagons used to go down on nearby railtracks to the river.

    https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-63866421.html

    1. “there was no bathroom and the loo was outdoors at the back of the small yard”
      You looky looky bastards.

        1. I like doddery neighbours. All their children have grown up so it’s nice and peaceful.

          I have a couple of Geordie friends. They’re a scream…especially when telling a joke. :o)

  73. Extinction Rebellion protests latest: Arrests as activists scale BBC HQ and glue themselves to building

    3. Bill – What penalties have the previously arrested ER troublemakers been receiving and have any been imprisoned?

        1. Thanks Ims2 The police are not being supported by the justice system if they arrest them and then they are released without penalty. They cause criminal damage, they block traffic and disrupt peoples working lives and businesses. They leave litter and cost the taxpayers large amounts of money. Any group confronting them would have the book thrown at them. Who is the mastermind of all this nonsense?

  74. I had a letter – much truncated – published in the DT a couple of weeks ago. I do not expect them to publish this one:

    Sir,

    When Mr Blair was interviewed by Andrew Neil on television recently he said that he wanted another referendum on the EU before a general election.

    The reason for his wanting this sequence is that a referendun question could be rigged against a proper Brexit and if, even then, the result ‘went the wrong way’ the current composition of Parliament will be able to continue to obfuscate, delay and thwart Brexit as it has been doing for the last three years.

    A general election before another referendum with the Conservatives forming an electoral pact with The Brexit Party would be likely to produce a Parliament capable of delivering a proper Brexit which is the very last thing Mr Blair wants to see.

    Richard Tracey

  75. ‘Betrayal leaves a bitter taste’: spurned Kurds flee Turkish onslaught. Fri 11 Oct 2019 08.12 BST.

    Waiting at a roadside depot, Hussein Rammo, a stooped elderly Kurd, his eyes wet with tears, had the look of a broken man. “Betrayal leaves the bitterest taste,” he said, his voice at a whisper as he discussed Donald Trump’s decision to abandon Syria’s Kurds.

    This decision to abandon the Kurds has done enormous damage both to the United States and Trump personally. This is not because pulling out of the Middle East is a bad idea but because of the way it was done. He should have followed his election manifesto and got out immediately, now he’s done it on the back of a phone call which looks both fickle and reckless. Who is going to place any worth in American promises after this? The real winner from this move will prove to be Putin who has demonstrated his commitment and reliability with his aid to Syria. All this and the business has not yet run its course!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/10/betrayal-leaves-a-bitter-taste-spurned-kurds-flee-turkish-onslaught

    1. Oh do fluck off Guardian and Al-Beeb
      Yesterday(and the last few years)
      “Trump is a vile imperialist interfering in the ME”
      Today
      “Trump betrays ME allies”
      He promised to end the squandering of American blood and treasure,and what the hell were Americans doing there in the first place??
      President Trump could cure all cancers tomorrow and their headlines would be
      “Trump puts doctors out of work,Orange Man evil”

    2. Yes, betrayal is horrid. It’s how we normals felt when you treacherous scum decided you want your own way.

      Plank/eye or some such.

    1. As nice as that sounds, the EU isn’t interested in trade. It’ a political weapon.

      What about dredging rivers? What about control over fisheries? All very well being forceful but the EU has no reference to the nations of Europe. It’s a communist dictatorship.

      I appreciate people think the individual countries get a say but they don’t. That’s the point of the EU.

  78. We are on the verge of the Big Bonking Boris Betrayal.

    Will the full details of the Johnson/May WA be published so we can see the full extent of his capitulation?

    1. The experts on BBC Radio are saying that even if a deal is agreed, there will be need for an extension to Article 50 to allow time for the EU to study it. Boris would be foolish to allow this extension as the EU is not to be trusted in a negotiation.

      1. What, after the Backstop has been exposed for what it really is, a trap with no way out, ever? If true then the Tories are done.

        2. They would have to dress it up Korky and even then keep most of it out of the public sphere until it was passed.

    1. Having a quick loo on their all I can is discussions on the issue but the LGBT brigade seem to think only their definitions and views are permissible for instance the LGBT type seem to have difficulty with the word Heterosexual and have invented the word cisgender

      As part of the new policy Mumsnet moderators are now likely to delete potentially “hurtful” comments that use trans people’s former names, posts which use pronouns they have consciously rejected, or mention the term “Trans-Identified Male”.
      In return, the Mumsnet moderators are likely to delete terms such as “cis” or “Terf” (Trans-exclusionary radical feminist) which will “make civil debate less likely” on the basis that they are are “affront” to many feminists.

    2. Flora care about nothing but profits.

      Transgender people are mentally ill. One day we will wake up and shout ‘the emperor has no clothes on!’ and that wil l end the madness. The transgender bunch will be treated for their incapacity and offered therapy to recover and live normal lives with their biological reality.

    3. I am going to target the LGBT margarine market I will produce a multi coloured tub of margarine for the LGBT market a snip a £10 a tub

      I will also produce a Tub of Transbutter for the Trans market. It is a tub of margarine that thinks it is butter. This will cot £15 a tub

  80. The multi named, self confessed down voter seems to be having problems with his nasal passage.

  81. OT – ref my Ctrl + C not working. All the online tips suggest uninstalling the keyboard and then re-starting the PC.

    Only ONE says – remember to attach a plug-in keyboard so that you can type your PASSWORD…….

    Thank God I decided to do nothing in the hope that the error corrects itself (as it did the other day). Grrr.

    1. Can you not use the mouse to do it?
      Highlight what you want and then press right mouse button for options to cut or copy?

          3. You could try highlighting what you want to copy with the left mouse button, drop down “edit” from the top bar, copy and then place the cursor where you want it put, drop down edit again and then paste

          4. Thanks. I don’t know where one finds “Edit”

            I know in Word etc there is the bar with File, Edit, View etc – but not when I simply open a Chrome tab or look at a newspaper.

          7. Don’t you have a bar at the very top of your screen, above the open tabs, showing “File Edit View History BookmarksTools and Help”?

          8. Found the three dots top right.

            Highlighted – clicked on “copy” the went to comment box and clicked on “paste” – Bingo!

            Thanks. A chore but better than nowt.

            Thus: Don’t you have a bar at the very top of your screen, above the open tabs, showing “File Edit View History BoomarksTools and Help”

          10. Yo BT. There are keyboard shortcuts for copying and pasting in Windoze:

            Ctrl + C = Copy
            Ctrl + X = Cut.
            Ctrl + V = Paste

            I use them all the time…

          11. Dear Geoff. I know that. I have been doing it for years.

            The problem is that those shortcuts DO NOT WORK any more!

          13. Done all that! Still doesn’t work. I suspect it is something to do with an update.

            Anyway, have now discovered a way round! But thank you.

  82. I see Amber Crudd and her cronies – are planning a NEW political grouping. Well the last two worked well… Good luck with your plans, Crudd.

      1. I wonder how soon Chuckus Yermunny and other Liebour defectors to the Illib Undems will rush to join…

        Edit: And the mad doctor from Totnes.

        1. When the Libdems won’t withdraw their current candidates from standing against them in the selection process.

  83. As I don’t listen to beeboid news etc – are they getting a tad disgruntled that their shiny building is being defaced and their progs disrupted by the Extremist Anarchists?

  85. The “new deal” sounds very like Treason’s Deal (the WA) with new lipstick.

    Sell out time.

  87. Sorry to sound mean and miserable , but please take a look at this article … and the date!

    Revealed: How 500,000 immigrants have been given social housing in last decade as number of families on waiting list hits record high
    1.8million families are now on the waiting list on social housing
    Nearly 470,000 of the 4million migrants who arrived in the last ten years were given council homes
    David Cameron launched plans to give local people priority on waiting lists
    Clampdown will see migrants only become eligible for social housing after two years in the UK
    By STEVE DOUGHTY, SOCIAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT

    PUBLISHED: 22:06, 26 July 2013 | UPDATED: 22:48, 26 July 2013 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2379478/Revealed-How-500-000-immigrants-given-social-housing-decade-number-families-waiting-list-hits-record-high.html

    The question is … if we had an influx of 4 million immigrants from 2003 to 2013, how many have arrived here in the past 6 years since then .. and how do we find out?

    1. The question is … if we had an influx of 4 million immigrants from 2003 to 2013, how many have arrived here in the past 6 years since then .. and how do we find out?

      We don’t! It’s quite obvious that these are not even kept for the very good reason that no Government could withstand their exposure!

      1. I was talking to a family from Bristol in the Summer who were complaining that the Government wasn’t building enough new houses. When I politely pointed out that net migration had resulted in a population growth 0f +500,000 a year for the past 10 years had it occurred to them that demand for housing was far outstripping the Uk’s ability to supply new accommodation and perhaps a better solution would be to put a brake on net immigration? No that had never occurred to them. The government should build more houses – doh…..

        1. We must eventually reach a point where the consequences of all these things become apparent. I just don’t want to be here when they do!

          2. Probably the UK’s maximum population would be in he region of 50 to 55M. but we are already well over 70M and climbing fast

          3. A visitor agrees that the population is way past what the country can manage.

            We were in Peterborough today, to our country yokel eyes it was so crowded on the streets and in coffee shops, the only quiet place was the cathedral.

            As for the train (no not the nice looking trans penile express, the single carriage thing was more like a bus than a real train). Luckily they allowed standing, it was packed.

        2. Well Labour and the Lib-Dem’s and Greens work on the approach that we have infinite capacity to build new homes and services and there is an infinite budget to do so and infinite land to do so

          Our current land utilisation is over 90% and we have a big imbalance in land usage in that we do not have enough farmland or woodlands or open spaces

      2. Officially in the region of 300.000 but that does not include asylum seekers and illegals. The reported numbers are believed to pretty inaccurate as well
        Total including asylum seekers and illegals is probably in the region of 500,000 to 700,000 a year

  88. Archeologists find fresco of battling, bloodied gladiators in 2,000-year-old tavern in Pompeii. 11 OCTOBER 2019.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3e53e13ba15d3ef82836fb5d45baa74e8474f4228757d10b6e662a5207ef1fe3.jpg

    In an image that evokes Spartacus and Ridley Scott’s Gladiator film, the colourful fresco shows one of the gladiators begging for mercy in what could have been the final moments of his life.

    His right hand is raised with a finger outstretched, the traditional way in which fighters in the arena appealed for clemency from the emperor or whichever Roman consul was officiating the gladiatorial contest.

    The battle, for him, is clearly over – his shield has clattered to the ground and he cringes in fear from his muscular opponent, who clutches a stabbing sword ready to deliver the coup-de-grace. Blood pours from gashes in his chest and arm.

    Nowadays of course we watch and participate in simulated combat. This has, in my opinion, led not to an improvement in the human condition but a decline because like the Roman Mob we are mere observers who do not suffer the consequences of events. This must inevitably lead to indifference and a lack of empathy with other human beings. The Gladiators for all the failings of their calling experienced life in its totality. The fear and the courage; the comradeship that must have existed even between opponents; the exultation of victory and of course an end which must have been both expected and accepted for its inevitability.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/11/archeologists-find-fresco-battling-bloodied-gladiators-2000/

    1. The style of the art is very ‘modern’, proper perspective, shadows, corner of the dropped shield masked by the gladiator’s leg, naturalistic poses rather than the flat imagery so often seen in ancient figures.

      2. Roman portraiture is very like our own. There seems to have been a thousand year gap where it vanished and then reappeared and rediscovered in the Renaissance!

          2. Wonderful, isn’t she? I bought a little book about them from the British Museum some years ago. The quality varies a bit, but they are very evocative.

    1. It’s no wonder that the Dems have been making Smoke like all the battleships combined during WWII…..

      1. Let’s hope that they get so disorientated that they all crash into each other and that they sink like the Spanish Armada

    2. It seems 50% of US Citizens really are lacking in the ability to think that Mr Beck has to use a Janet & John presentation to lead them to water….

    3. Glenn Beck is one of the right’s more creative conspiracy theorists. Only taken seriously by like minded “believers”. He has been proved wrong so many times, the rest of us just ignore him. Even Fox News dumped him.

      Meanwhile, there was a Trump interview in which was asked what he thought would happen to all the ISIS fighters who will end up being freed by the Turkish attacks on the Kurds. Read his comments:

      https://www.politico.eu/article/trump-shrugs-off-isis-fighters-fleeing-syria-theyll-be-escaping-to-europe/

      1. Remind us, how many troops has he withdrawn? The UN could replace them this afternoon, if they were so inclined.

        Yet another wishy-washy Trump hating Democrat blaming Trump for Erdogan’s actions.

      2. I’m genuinely curious JTL do you think Mr Biden is completely innocent of all charges?

        2. Personally, I think they (all politicians) are guilty of something or other. However, as no respectable investigative journalist has written an award winning article, I have my doubts. And I am not a supporter of Biden, being somewhat independent!

        3. I see this as a Kinnock/Blair/Straw episode; facilitating favours for family while appearing “clean” but actually deep in it. Typical of most politicians

  90. That wonderfully liberal political group known as the Lib Dums may be acting in breach of the GDPR laws. Sky news have found that they are keeping scores on everyone in order to see how they will vote.

    https://news.sky.com/story/the-lib-dems-are-using-data-to-profile-every-voter-in-uk-and-give-you-a-score-11828202

    Imagine the outcry if it had been the Brexit Party!

    EDIT: Maybe we should all request a copy of the data they hold on us, that will keep them busy for a while 😉

    1. As a Leaver who has voted for the party and its predecessor more times than for any other (although not since they went all authoritarian, right-wing and centralist), how would that categorise me?

      Is there a box on their canvass sheets marked “Trouble – avoid at all costs”?

        1. No, I meant the neothatcherite Orange Book, with their special relationship with Goldman Sachs.

  91. Breaking News!

    Norwegian Methodist goes nuts in Arndale Centre.

    Iran says Tanker was hit by missiles!

  92. Several injured in multiple stabbings at Manchester Arndale centre. Fri 11 Oct 2019 12.25 BST.

    Several people have been injured after police were called to a series of stabbings at the Manchester Arndale shopping centre.

    Greater Manchester police confirmed “multiple people” had been injured in the attacks on Friday morning.

    Passers by hurled themselves onto itinerant cutler exhibiting his wares!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/oct/11/multiple-stabbings-reported-near-arndale-centre-in-manchester

        1. “Et dabo pueros principes eorum et effeminati dominabuntur eis
          Et inruet populus vir ad virum unusquisque ad proximum suum tumultuabitur puer contra senem et ignobilis contra nobilem”
          — Isa. 3:4-5
          :¬(

          1. Or, for those of us who speak the preferred language of God:

            “I will make mere youths their officials; children will rule over them.” 5. People will oppress each other- man against man, neighbour against neighbour. The young will rise up against the old, the nobody against the honoured.”
            Isaiah 3:4-5

            That does sound familiar.

      2. There’s an anecdote in Bob Monkhouse’s autobiography, where tells of a conversation he had with a black South African, who worked for a white couple. The SA was treated very well by the couple and liked them. He and Monkhouse spent some time together, drinking and talking. He explained that one day in the future (this was back in the eighties, I think), the blacks would all rise up and kill all the white South Africans. Monkhouse was taken aback, and questioned whether his black friend could possibly do such a thing to the couple he worked for.
        Oh, no, was the reply. I couldn’t do that, I love those people. I have an arrangement with someone on another farm so that I will kill his employees and he will kill mine.
        Monkhouse waited for a punchline, but it never came.

    2. Yo Minty

      No ethnicity description of attacker………………………… no Nottlers responsible then

      2. No ethnicity mentioned always means it is more socially cohesive for the general public (which after all was stupid enough to vote for Brexit) not to know such trivial and irrelevant information.

        1. Multiple stabbings ? Does that mean multiple stabbers ? I hope they didn’t forget to include a token white.

    3. I think there is a clue in the fact that the Counter Terrorist Unit have taken command of the incident

      3. She is saying I am angry and going to burst out of my bra any minute and it will not be a pretty sight

  95. Beeboid Radio 3’s “In Tune” is coming live from Paris in a co-production with France Musique.

    Different. Sadly, the beeboid presenter is the self-obsessed Derham woman (think Rachel Johnson…)

  97. Apropos the cock-up in the Rugby World Cup. Those who are keen will know that there has been a lot of aggro about the two (so far) cancelled matches.

    Yesterday, the Ities were complaining that IF the All Blacks had needed points to get to the Quarters, the organisers would have found a way to play the match.

    I now read that when it was mooted that Italy-AB could be played – the All Blacks – that self-obsessed, endlessly entitled team – REFUSED.

  98. Question for expert NoTTLers who post on the Telegraph.

    Is there any way of seeing a record of ones own posts? There is on The Grimes. And here, of course.

    Just asking.

    1. Yes there is. Put the pointer over your beagle avatar. Right click. At the top of the drop-down menu, left click on ‘Open link in new tab’. A new tab will open called ‘Bill Thomas’. Click on that tab and all will be revealed. I’ve just done it on yours and it’s a pretty horrible sight (not recommended for those of sensitive disposition.{:^))

  99. John McDonnell suggests Labour could be open to referendum before election
    Katy Balls – Coffee House – 11 October 2019 – 4:09 PM

    The Labour party is abuzz with talk that the party could back a second referendum before a general election. It’s not that Jeremy Corbyn has suggested such a move is on the cards – in fact, this week he’s been saying the exact opposite while setting out his stall for a general election. However, John McDonnell has used an interview with Alastair Campbell for GQ to open the door to the possibility of holding a second referendum first. Asked which ought to come first, McDonnell says while his preference remains a general election ‘let’s see what actually parliament will wear in the end’:

    AC: Do you agree with me that there shouldn’t be an election?

    JM: I’m more of the view that we’ve said up until now that we want a general election. That, of course, is what our objective is, but let’s see what actually parliament will wear in the end. Within parliament itself there is a large number of people who are saying we’d rather have a referendum attached to any deal.

    McDonnell has gone further than Corbyn on the issue – with the Labour leader this week pouring cold water on the idea. It’s not the only unhelpful comment he made in the interview – the shadow chancellor also suggested that Corbyn would stand down if Labour lost the election.

    McDonnell’s comments come as a cross-party group of MPs plot to try and force a second referendum in the coming weeks. There’s talk of using the session of parliament planned for next Saturday to bring about a vote on support for a second referendum. This is a prospect that has been voted on many times before – and to little avail.

    However, as I reported earlier this week there are concerns on the Tory benches that this could be changing with more MPs now coming around to the idea. Given that the Conservatives are ahead in the polls, there are a growing number of Labour MPs (and new independents) who would rather put off an election in which they could lose their seat. There may not yet be the numbers for a second referendum but if it’s put to a vote expect the numbers to be closer than before.

    *******************************************************************************

    Blair, Hammond, and every other Remainer of consequence are busily scheming to ambush Boris on Saturday 19th. None of them want a General Election which they fear Boris might win. All want another Referendum, variously called ‘People’s Vote’, Confirmatory Referendum, etc. etc. Their aim is full-blooded Remain, not the stitch-up that Boris might emerge with and certainly not WTO.

    Thus there is the delicious prospect of the Remain campaign promoting their cause by trumpeting the awfulness of the Boris/May deal by highlighting
    a) Geoffrey Cox’s full opinion on the Chequers deal (which remains substantially intact)….apart from his opinion on the backstop, HMG is still in contempt of Parliament by not publishing it.
    b) Martin Howe, QC’s various analyses of the awfulness of the WA & PD
    c) Sir Richard Dearlove et alia analyses of the disastrous defence and intelligence consequences.
    d) The true cost of Hammond’s gifting of the UK’s EIB ownership to the EU and long term contingent liabilities.
    and so on and so forth

    In Blair’s tiny mind, when Remain win the loaded and fixed new Referendum, the nation would then see the full extent to which it has been comprehensively b*ggered by the May/Hammond/Robbins regime and fall at the feet of the sainted Tony Blair pleading with him to become The One True Light to act as a special envoy to guide them back into the arms of the EU.

    2. “sainted Tony Blair pleading with him to become The One True Light” – Even Lucifer would have to wear welder’s Goggles in this man’s presence….

    3. I just hope Boris see’s sense and comes to an arrangement with the Brexit Party over which seat each party will fight. At present the polls show it very close and polls have an error margin and things can and do change during the campaign. The other thing is the polls are not reflecting that the Opposition parties may come to a deal. Labour may not be interested but the SNP , Lib-Dems & Plaid and Greens probably will

    4. “Confirmatory Referendum”
      Would it be worth asking what will happen if the voters confirm the 2016 Referendum result?

      2. The narrative to dismiss the 2016 Leave vote is already well under way. The ‘Reality’ of Leaving is represented by the Boris abomination of negotiated exit. WTO exit is wholly unacceptable to the wise men and women of the HoC and HoL (and Supreme Court, who are, of course, entirely apolitical) who speak for the nation at large on that topic. The choice will be Remain or Boris’ version of bondage to the EU.

    1. I think we may finally have the UK by the throat, go in for the kill.

      Jah Mine Reichmeister

  103. Could you live on Herm Island? It is one of the smallest o the Channel Islands

    I dont mind a bit of peace and quite but I think that wold be to much for me even though the other channel islands are not far away. Its total population is 60

    THe place appear to pretty much shut up shop out of th tourist season

      1. There are no Cars o the Island it is only about 2 Square Km. No shops neither. I wonder if Tescos deliver ?

  105. Yer gotta larf – while beeboid radio 3 is doing the “news” – France Musique is playing the two verse version of God Save The Queen!

    1. On one occasion when we were in France, the local band serenaded us with our National Anthem. Their music was headed, “God Save The King”, so Lord knows how long they’d had it!

  106. Evening, everyone. Been to another military funeral this arvo (it’s a) that time of the year and b) my age group). A good time was had by all who attended, I think. The place was packed for a send off for a chap who always had a twinkle in his eye and a finger in many pies (no, he wasn’t a butcher).

  107. That’s me for today. Gauches sur for supper.

    Tomorrow – wooding – gathering gash bits of dry wood from the garrigue to keep us going in the winter.

    Have a jolly evening planning how to get rid of Northern Ireland.

    1. I have tried to access that link only 3 minutes after you posted it and it has already been taken down. Twitter can move VERY fast when the subject is political. Not quite so fast when children are being abused or our flag is being burnt.

      1. Yes, indeed, if it had suggested the guy was Brexiter or Far Right, Twitter would be very relaxed about it.

  109. Confirmed the Manchester attack was terrorist related. One man has been arrested so far for terrorist offences

  110. Middle-aged adults who walk slowly ‘likely to have aged prematurely’

    Middle-aged adults who walk slowly are likely to have brains and bodies that have aged prematurely, researchers revealed today.
    They found that the walking speed of 45-year-olds was associated with physical and biological indicators of “accelerated aging”.

    Walking speed was already a well-known indicator of functional decline and mortality in the elderly but this is the first study to link it with midlife health.

      2. Reminds me of that old joke – I want to live my next life backwards.

        You start out dead and get that out of the way. Then you wake up in an old age home feeling better every day.

        You get kicked out for being too healthy; go collect your pension, and then when you start work, you get a gold watch on your first day.

        You work 40 years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement.

        You drink alcohol, you party, you’re generally promiscuous, and you get ready for High School.

        You go to primary school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a baby, and then…

        You spend your last 9 months floating peacefully in luxury, in spa-like conditions; central heating, room service on tap, larger quarters every
        day, and then, you finish off as an orgasm.

        I rest my case!!

    2. A young bull and an old bull are at the top of a hill.
      There are hundreds of cows grazing below. The young bull says, “Let’s run down there and scewr a cow!”
      The old bull says, “No, let’s walk down and screw them all.”

  111. Extinction Rebellion look unlikely to get tough treatment in Paris…..

    Why ?

    Same sponsor as Toy.

    2. I hope those meals are not going to be served hot – after all, we can’t use any sort of fuel for cooking. Got to save the planet.

  113. Police have explained the process of removing “lock on” protesters.

    The process has been refined using heat works quicker than acetone

        1. I would hazzard a guess that WD40 will touch superglue.
          What happens after that is anybody’s guess.

    4. As I said in a prior post acetylene / oxygen 7/20 mix is best and it has a more lasting affect.

  114. David Frost is now the chief negotiator for Brexit, replacing Ollie Robbins. A short time ago Mr Frost was head of the Scotch Whisky Association. During his brief time with the SWA he sold off their magnificent building in Atholl Crescent and moved the organisation into very expensive rented premises in Quartermile (Lauriston Place) Edinburgh.
    So good luck in getting any positive result.

        1. It’s a random, very angry, man taken from google images.
          I’ve no idea what it comes from but it appealed to me, given what “sosraboc” is an acronym for.

  115. Well Monday should be interesting as that’s when we get the Queens Speech and find out what is in Boris plans for the next parliamentary session, WE will also find out how the opposition parties vote on it. If the Queens speech is voted down that means a General Election, I dont think there is anyway around but we seem the in uncharted territory now so who knows for sure

    I guess there is a small chance the Opposition parties will vote for it. Labour in spite of what they say dont seem to be keen on an election. I suspect wording i the Queens speech though may make it very difficult for them to vote for it

  116. Are Bill Jackson and Bill Thomas the same ?
    Are Sue Edison and Sue McFarlane the same ?
    I get confused ….

  117. Guardian Writer of the Year Award –

    ” On a table behind, another body lay zipped into a large blue bag – a
    young woman this time, also dressed in green and wearing the patches of
    Kurdish forces. The medical worker straightened her head and gently
    swept the dead woman’s hair from her face. “We have five martyrs now,”
    she said, pointing across the makeshift morgue. “Three military and two
    civilians. The fighters were trying to rescue the others.” “

  118. Putin turns on Erdogan as Russian leader doubts Turkey’s ability to control ISIS prisoners. 12:00, Fri, Oct 11, 2019.

    The Russian President doubted whether Erdogan’s forces could keep a lid on the situation that has up until now been the responsibility of Washington. He said while on a state visit to Turkmenistan: “I’m not sure if the Turkish army can rapidly get this under control. There are zones located in the north of Syria where Daesh (ISIS) militants are concentrated. They were guarded until now by Kurdish armed forces. Now the Turkish army is going in, the Kurds are abandoning these camps. They could just escape.” ISIS have been almost completely forced out of Syria thanks to efforts on the ground by US-backed Kurdish forces, as well as Russian intervention in the form of devastating airstrikes which have killed around 5000 ISIS fighters as well as 14,000 other casualties including civilians.

    I think this is probably a done deal. The ISIS people will escape and reconstitute themselves so the last four years will have been totally wasted!

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1189426/putin-erdogan-russia-doubts-Turkey-control-isis-prisoners-world-war-3-spt

      2. I agree,I remember fine dining like Tante Claire with Koffman before chefs became arrogant and vanished up their own ‘arris

        1. I remember eating at “Greenhouse” in Mayfair, courtesy of a broker, before Gary Rhodes got the Michelin star and I must admit it was a superb meal.

          I took HG there, I would guess in 1992, and it right royally annoyed my F-i-L when he treated us to a very special meal, only to discover we had already eaten there and the waiters even recalled us! (no, not as miserable bstrds)

    1. There’s been a bit of excitement at Newbiggin today Bob. A sperm whale turned up this morning distantly off Cambois at about 08.00 and it swam around close in at the Church Point all morning after that from half past nine. Drew some crowds. The wheels came off this afternoon. It headed south past the Needle’s Eye about half past one and ended up at Sandy Bay. I say ‘ended up’, because after swimming about just offshore for a while it became beached on the falling tide some time after 4 this afternoon.

      It’s said to be in an emaciated condition, which is hardly surprising, because it’s a deep water species that dives to over a kilometre for giant squid and the North Sea is very shallow apart from a trench near Norway. Not many giant squid in the North Sea, so it’s been starving.

      Looks like a knacker job.

        1. It died at 5.30. You’ll have to be quick to get a slice or they’ll have it away. Next high tide not long after 3am.

    4. I tried to vote, but you need a twitter account. I’ll be lying dead, atop a mound of those who do not wish us well, before I sign up with them.

      Do give us an update on how the voting is going though. 🙂

      Unless the left wing people on twitter “do their usual thing” and organise a mass voting session to swing the numbers in their favour.

      2. I’ve been on twitter since 2010 and nothing awful’s happened. I just ignore the fruitcakes.

        1. That was lucky, I was just leaving. 🙂

          I have ethical problems with twitter and what they are trying to do to. Their data-harvesting of all humans on the planet is also a no-no for me. Have a good night. This vodka won’t leap out of the bottle by itself. 🙂

  121. Nicked

    The Arndale stabber is actually a militant trade unionist.

    He wouldn’t be seen dead with a blackleg.

  122. My copy and paste Ctrl + C has stopped working – as has the shortcut for the € sign.

    According to the Mail – he shouted the usual words and was detained under the Mental Health Act.

    Nothing to see – NTDWI. Move along.

    2. My Keyboard has stopped displaying the letter B. I think it is trying to stop me typing BREXIT

    3. Who TF is Amber Rose?
      On the other hand, do I need to know and should I be happy in my ignorance?

  127. Do we take it then that the politico’s have taken to the mattresses in the tunnel ?
    To protect themselves from the peoples when they reveal the deal that was signed long,long ago.

          3. I was going to say, “Where’s the baby?”, but I heard a bit of a wail right at the very end.

          5. You know why the right whale was so named? I’m sure you do, but just for those that don’t:
            “They often swam close to shore where they could be spotted by beach lookouts, and hunted from beach-based whaleboats.
            They are relatively slow swimmers, allowing whalers to catch up to them in their whaleboats.
            Once killed by harpoons, they were more likely to float, and thus could be retrieved.”
            Hence, they were right whales.

      1. Whichever it was, I hope that it was stuffed, or at least frozen. It would have been a bit unpleasant and squishy for the little fellow otherwise.

      2. Whichever it was, I hope that it was stuffed, or at least frozen. It would have been a bit unpleasant and squishy for the little fellow otherwise.

  130. Early Night All

    All we have seen is MSM froth and speculation,I will wait and see,if our vote is betrayed the rule of law and democracy is over and I will feel free to act without the law

    Meanwhile,enjoy

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e84ec4fd41d1228217755ae3f78b433dadb80fd3cb8b31c806594398d6771837.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2f50cc76a134b63b1cbf506e88d19d329f3a20a1cefc9c7050d30c75720acd58.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fb27a7b4642946614840f2da7f2cc06c5463f61d7815d7951c814b14e51710fa.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d914f6257c8223ae8f307330603d341e05c6fb53614e1387c7ef248b23ffb5ba.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/748573687a8b01b028eaa2616e8bc887b3cfb6e852bd9e29c38d1480e53cd0af.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bc5070a9f34fd4b8f583d9cba95496ffcd51b2bc17848c9e5f0d8b767382ba86.gif

    And finally

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/43f1d1cf81c3be94fd1a2ece8f435ba32165b5caacd6a59992311feebc959d6f.jpg

    1. It comes to something when a dog has to bark some sense into two fighting cats. I am off as well.

      In case anyone is interested, I noticed that BBC 2 are showing the first part of an 8 part series called “The Name of the Rose” at 09:00PM tonight (50 minute episodes.) I do not know if it is any good, and being made by the BBC does not bode well, but I liked the film with Sean Connery from a few years ago.

      Ron Perlman put in an extraordinary performance as the hunchback “Salvatore” and has gone on to make more films and series than you can shake a stick at. He has more than double the number of listings that Connery himself has over at the IMDB website. Have a good night.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/01f24124c341c1bcfb438cc760dd65cdae38c95524218995508c1767e7dfc810.jpg

        2. Unless there were two books about monks with the same name – yes. 🙂

          (Edit – D’oh. I ought to have provided a link. That is an excellent website to look around when you have time to kill. You can end up following actors throughout their careers to links to films that you did not realise that they were in.)

          https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091605/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_248

        2. Ahh it is one of “those” productions made by teenage technicians on work experience that cannot get the sound levels right. I have not seen it yet as I tend to wait until I have 4 or 5 episodes of a series saved, so that if it is good then I can watch 2 or 3 at once.

          I will put the headphones on standby so that I can turn the volume right up without disturbing anyone around me.

  131. I note that there is speculation that we may remain in the Customs Union for a two year transition period after Brexit. I cannot imagine why. We already have had a three year transition period. The two years mentioned in Article 50 was the transition period. We have already extended by a year or so.
    Basta!

    1. But May and Cameron effectively did nothing to prepare for leaving did they and Hammond certainly didn’t help leave preparations.

      So maybe starting a transition period when countries are actually working to prepare for the future.

      1. We will, and at the individual level every country in Europe could, it’s only the swine in Brussels that are stopping mutual prosperity.

        1. The fault lies with the politicians who betrayed their election pledge to support Britain’s exit from the EU. It was magnified by May who was quite determined to surrender.

          If Britain were still a country with self-respect and integrity then several MPs would be in prison on charges of treason and Britain would be about to be completely free of the EU.

  132. I am sure after this last flurry of pointless rants that the old clog has something up both nasal tracks and a large wasp has set up home in his @nus.

      1. One of my gripes about natural history scare stories is the manipulation. Headline; “Two-thirds of bird species in North America could vanish in climate crisis”
        Read on and; “Continent could lose 389 of 604 species studied to threats from rising temperatures, higher seas, heavy rains and urbanization.”
        Note; “The United States is home to 1107 different species of birds”
        https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2018/06/01/top-25-birds-of-america/

  137. Looks like Trump has his trade deal with China. pity May did not take any notice of his advice. We are run by wets.

    1. Thanks for the link. Trump is impressive. Most of the comments below are from idiots, unfortunately.

    2. Watching Trump here was a reminder that he is very, very, good. Alas, poor Boris does not have a tenth of Donald’s ability and charisma.

  140. THE EU army

    The EU is rapidly moving towards an EU controlled arm. At present is is EU countries co-operating on defence but they are moving towards more and more central control/ It is the way the EU works little by little by stealth and before you know it the EU has full control of the EU countries armed forces

  142. What do you think Boris deal is ?

    I would distinguish between a Treaty Deal and a Trade type Deal . WE do want an agreement on remaining in a number of EU organisations etc

      1. I certainly dont know. My gut feeling is it will be based around Mays deal but I hope he may be working on a proper trade deal

    4. Doing a deal is such a spiv expression.. Isn’t agreement preferable.. or would hustling be better?

      Where is Grizz , has he cleared off again, his pedantic mind would sort this out?

    5. The only deal that can be passed is the Withdrawal Agreement, which has been rejected 3 times, but now many traitorous MP’s say that they will vote for. It is the only deal that Boris can offer as any “new deal” would need to go back to be agreed upon by the 27 countries. That cannot happen in one week.

      So it will be the W/A with a fudge on the backstop. This will be passed by grateful MP’s who want to stop us leaving the EU for years, and the W/A traps us in a “transition period” where our country is under the control of the EU. Subject to their laws and automatically paying what they tell us to pay.

      When the EU progresses into the “debt-sharing” phase and deeper centralisation of finances to try to stave off bankruptcy, we will still be tied to them and liable. So that is a bill of £290 billion right there. So this is not leaving the EU.

      1. The only group looking likely to get a “deal” is the EU. The UK negotiators – they hardly deserve that description as they appear to do what the EU decides. Martin Howe QC was scathing in his opinion of Robbins’ negotiating skills or rather the lack of them and it’s doubtful if the replacements have any more steel in their backbones – will take back to Johnson what the EU tells them is on the table. It appears that Johnson has already caved in after the tough talk at the start of the week: why should we expect anything stronger from his team?
        Or is Johnson attempting to pull a fast one on both the EU and the Remainer faction in the HoC? Using his chasing a “deal” scenario to run down the clock and keep the Remain faction unbalanced. I’m not convinced that he could off a stunt like that but with Cummings pulling the strings…
        Vain hopes and all that.

        1. Olly Robbins was a slimy, disgusting piece of effluence, that was clearly working flat-out WITH the EU to trap our country under their control. He undermined real people who wanted us to be free and tried to hand the United Kingdom to the globalists bound and gagged on a plate. If he was still in his place as a civil servant then he should be instantly sacked.

          Luckily for him that after failing in his task to betray us, he has left for a job with bankers Goldman Sachs. Funny that.

          Theresa May also granted him a Knighthood on her way out. That woman has no shame or sense of honour.

          “Olly Robbins, the civil servant who led Theresa May’s efforts to strike a Brexit deal with the EU, and became a bogeyman to Eurosceptics, is to join Goldman Sachs, in the latest example of a high-profile public service appointment to the Wall Street giant.”

          https://www.ft.com/content/fc159b54-d33a-11e9-a0bd-ab8ec6435630

          1. MM, you forgot to mention that his mistress rewarded his dubious talents with a knighthood. He couldn’t have got away with his EU supporting stance without May protecting his back. Robbins wasn’t the only mass of effluent in that partnership.

          2. Aha – that must have been you that was typing as I added that bit about the knighthood that I had missed out. Updated to include that tidbit now.

    8. Theresa May has already signed up to some of these. I don’t know at what cost and whether they are outwith her Withdrawal Agreement.

  143. To be frank, I would pay the EU bastards a full and final payment of £50 billion just to see the back of them.

    Those bastards are crippling our economy and have been fleecing us for years now. The EU has been careful in concealing its payments to those British politicians prepared to sell their soul to this devilish organisation. In addition George Soros has been fuelling their globalist ambitions to an extent few of us peasants could contemplate.

    We now have the spectacle of the hideous Jo Swinson advocating Remain, flying in the face of a referendum vote of more than 17 million voters.

    Are we mad? My own personal view is that we should exit the EU at the soonest. The EU Empire is dead on its legs and matters will become worse for them. Without the billions from the UK plus their predatory requisition of our fish stocks and imposition of their mad and stupid regulations on our agriculture, the buggers will be sunk.

    We need desperately to revive our dying coastal communities by re-establishing our fishing fleets (the fish are ours afterall) and to see proper and effective immigration controls.

    We need to refute the Climate Change bollocks and look to our own energy policies, no longer directed by those who would continue to reduce us to a vassal state in penury.

          1. It would be a relief to know that we had finally left this corrupt EU.

            We can probably deal eventually with our own corrupt politicians’ bias but the ignorant dolt Hillary Benn has failed to observe his own father’s maxim, viz. as matters stand we cannot vote the EU bastards out of office.

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