Sunday 19 September: Why is the Government still resorting to Covid scaremongering?

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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754 thoughts on “Sunday 19 September: Why is the Government still resorting to Covid scaremongering?”

    1. Good morning, Peter. Had a decent night’s sleep? Feeling a little less sore after your fall?

  4. Russia and Belarus Are Using Migrants as a Weapon Against the EU. 19 September 2021.

    All this commotion is due to a group of migrants that got stuck at the border. They were not allowed into Poland from Belarus. Suddenly the tiny village found itself at the center of Global Politics.

    Sad! You would think that they would welcome this influx of Brain Surgeons and Rocket Engineers.

    https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/18/russia-belarus-poland-lithuiania-migrants-eu-weapon/

  6. Why is the government still resorting to Covid scaremongering?

    Because they aren’t finished imposing the globalist reset diktat yet

  7. Good morning from a dull and grey Derbyshire with a slightly less autumnal 10°C on the thermometer.

  8. Dudley couple shocked to find python on vanity mirror. 19 September 2021.

    A couple from Dudley were left shocked after discovering a 5ft python in their bedroom.

    The yellow snake was removed by West Midlands police after it was found wrapped around a vanity mirror at the couple’s home in Quarry Bank, Dudley.

    They were expecting a Cobra!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/sep/18/snake-on-a-pane-dudley-couple-shocked-to-find-python-on-vanity-mirror

  9. Good Morning all, setting off today on possibly the last outing in the ©TinTent this season, just across the water to Freshwater East, great site but limited wifi so I guess I might have to talk to SWMBO rather than you lot.. There was a letter today referring to headlines from 13 years ago but didn’t reference them, here they are and very interesting they are.
    The letter and the link
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/42a2f9c01ca2b68290d80b16afc97aeac015b0422ae66dc5005730ce824a178b.png
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jul/21/pandemic.warning

        1. Covid also failed to live up to dire predictions, but they were prepared and fiddled the figures this time. Also, it does help to drive up that number of deaths when you don’t give cheap, easily available remedies and create a huge hype around ventilators instead.

          1. The sheer number of diverse stats is bewildering , with covid , positive 28 days after, pre existing morbidities , physical and ethnicity related and finally of covid, all manipulated to what end I’m not sure, is it malign or have we an hierarchy of politicians/NHS managers who would test full on positive for maximum Dunning-Kruger. Again I’m minded of Hanlon’s Razor.

          2. Normally I would go for stupidity as the explanation every time, but here there does seem to be a guiding plan (how else can parallel identical plans and slogans in many countries be explained?), and I think it’s best explained by three talks that I’ve listened to recently – Catherine Austin Fitts on the Delingpod, Dan Tubb on the Delingpod and a financial journalist called Ernst Wolff https://odysee.com/@LongXXvids:c/Ernst-Wolf-speech—summary:3
            “Follow the money” would appear to be the relevant principle.
            I think the nudge unit is deliberately trying to confuse us too. I can’t even believe that I’m saying that – it belongs to a world that we thought was fiction until about 25 years ago. But we have to face up to the fact that it exists, and has an agenda of propaganda.

    2. ‘Morning, Datz. Freshwater East is a lovely site and one we have enjoyed several times. The coastal walking is superb, provided the weather holds up of course. It is not one we shall be visiting again because we have called it a day after 30 years touring just about every corner of GB. Bad backs and sciatica are no longer tolerant of our fascinating hobby! The tin snail is about to be sold as we have initially been offered a sum that is not far short of its price new nearly six years ago, and another buyer inspecting it tomorrow. Hello Airbnb/last minute hotel deals etc.

      1. That stretch of coastline must be one of the best kept secrets yet, just beautiful. We’ve used the Freshwater site several times and have been so lucky with the weather. I’m not looking forward to the day when I can’t handle the physical requirements of caravanning – the motor mover has been a great boon and will help stave off that day, my sympathies to you but I’m glad the financials have worked out so well, does that say you’ve enjoyed 6 years of practically free accommodation?

        1. Yes, just about. Ours has a mover too, so no stresses and strains moving it about – it’s the poor seating that leaves us struggling. The beds, on the other hand, are superb and have provided some welcome relief.

      2. When I was in my 20s, we often sailed into Yarmouth & used that as a base for walking around the area. Very enjoyable.

  10. How does a global energy crisis and a worldwide carbon dioxide shortage affect availability of meat products?

    https://metro.co.uk/2021/09/18/global-gas-crisis-energy-price-rises-and-meat-shortages-expected-15278874/

    The answer lies in these two quotes from the above:

    Britain looks set to feel the impact of a global energy crisis which could hit household bills and reduce the amount of meat products on supermarket shelves.

    At the same time, a worldwide carbon dioxide shortage has triggered warnings from the meat industry that it could ‘grind to a halt’ within a fortnight.

    Ironically the global CO2 shortage is starting to impact on the sustainability of life on this planet because this gas is essential for:

    a) sustaining the mammalian breathing process
    b) euthanasing pigs
    c) keeping packaged meat products from deteriorating
    d) providing the bubbles in champagne.

    Not a very good start for COP26!

    Good morning all and here’s to sustaining our inherited lifestyle.
    🍾🥂

    1. We are beginning to see stage two of the great reset being implemented, when they can no longer control us with the pandemic they will use artificially created shortages in food and energy to keep us all in check.
      I know the vast majority of people are very slow to wake up to what is happening, but our globalist powers to be are evil and they are not about to give up.

      1. That was my first thought too. It is nonsense, why should there suddenly be these disruptions to the meat industry?
        It’s almost as though they want us to eat less meat!
        We’re constantly being told that there’s some great crisis happening.

        1. You only have to listen to what the climate change experts have been saying for years, they believe that cattle farming is bad for the planet , meat is a waste of resources, it’s not as if we weren’t warned about what was coming.

    1. Splendid! Macron really is in a paddy isn’t he? Still, with the presidential elections in April next year he’s not going to miss out on such an opportunity and will be milking it for every last drop of faux outrage. What a prat.

      Oops…’Morning Annie.

    2. Splendid! Macron really is in a paddy isn’t he? Still, with the presidential elections in April next year he’s not going to miss out on such an opportunity and will be milking it for every last drop of faux outrage. What a prat.

      Oops…’Morning Annie.

  12. Morning all

    SIR – Earlier this week, Boris Johnson resurrected Covid project fear, in the form of “Plan B”, just when we thought freedom was within our grasp.

    Despite the success of the vaccine programme, it appears that living with this virus is not considered acceptable. We continue to be governed by the crystal-ball modelling of Sage – which, it seems, is still able to restrict our freedom without solid data to back this up. When will we return to normality?

    Diana Dixon

    Tonbridge, Kent

    SIR – The Government’s plans A and B are to some extent understandable, but most people I know just want to get on with their lives and deal with Covid as they do with flu.

    We cannot go on like this; soon enough there will be no life left to live.

    Jack Marriott

    Churt, Surrey

    SIR – It is only three months since Boris Johnson promised that the ending of lockdown – and other restrictions, such as wearing masks – would be “cautious but irreversible”. He was emphatic. Yet he is now going back on that. I will not vote for him again.

    Stephen Connor

    Warrington,

    SIR – It has been announced that, from late October, double-jabbed travellers will no longer have to take a PCR test on their return to Britain. A lateral flow test will suffice.

    However, the rules could get tighter for the unvaccinated, who may have to quarantine for 10 days, whichever country they return from.

    Could anyone from the Government explain why? This appears to be just another attempt to coerce people into having the vaccine.

    Alan Billingsley

    Whitworth, Lancashire

    SIR – Should we take it that the free lateral flow test kits supplied by the Government aren’t worth using, given that only the results produced by a purchased kit will be deemed acceptable for those returning from an overseas trip?

    Paul Caruana

    Truro, Cornwall

    SIR – My 13-year-old grandson, who lives and attends school in the Irish Republic, came home the other day needing help.

    Everyone in his class had been told to bring into school an item of historical interest relevant to themselves, to be used as a prop for further work assignments.

    My daughter located the newspaper specially bought on the day of his birth – July 21 2008 – for him to take in. Its headline related to a British government report predicting an imminent pandemic costing 50,000 British lives and millions worldwide. The article went on to say that the country was not prepared to deal with such an event.

    That was 11 years before we had heard of Covid.

    W F Shipman

    Limavady, Co Londonderry

    1. We cannot go on like this; soon enough there will be no life left to live.

      Such prescience from Jack Marriott. Many of us have been warning of this situation from as long ago as last year. We noted the lies and BS of the government, especially from Johnson and Hancock, as the U-turns, lockdowns, tiers, mask mandates came and went and then the light at the end of the tunnel i.e. the “vaccine” roll-out was rapidly extinguished. We were given the pejorative name conspiracy theorists and mostly dismissed by friends and families alike as at best a bit batty or at worst, completely stupid. I’ve received both reactions.

      Mr Marriott, no life left to live is the plan. You will own nothing and you will be very unhappy. Welcome to globalist Johnsonland.

  13. Morning again

    Pushover police

    SIR – The M25 has been blocked by climate protesters, and once again the police response has been laughable.

    During lockdown, officers had no problem harassing two women meeting up for a walk in the open air, and people were threatened with hefty fines for having too many people in their homes. Yet a handful of misguided fools have been allowed to create mayhem on the roads.

    Meanwhile, Cressida Dick, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, has just had her contract extended. Amazing.

    Ian Goddard

    Wickham, Hampshire

    SIR – The Highways Act 1980 clearly states that anyone wilfully obstructing a highway and preventing free passage is guilty of an offence.

    Advertisement

    There is no excuse for police to stand by while protesters obstruct motorways.

    John Roberts

    Wokingham, Berkshire

    SIR – If the authorities get more heavy-handed with protesters, things will become more difficult.

    The Government should work with these scared members of the public, frightened about the future of the planet, and explain what it is doing to cut emissions. Otherwise the demonstrations will just multiply, causing more animosity, destruction and public frustration.

    Joann Emerson

    Truro, Cornwall

    1. Yet a handful of misguided fools have been allowed to create mayhem on the roads.

      One wonders is this a genuine protest, or something from the Globalist playbook?

    2. Yet a handful of misguided fools have been allowed to create mayhem on the roads.

      One wonders if this is a genuine protest or something from the Globalist playbook?

    3. Ms Emerson, if more of you pointless criminals crawl out of the woodwork, you’ll find yourselves outnumbered a hundred to one. Do NOT threaten us.

      What the state is doing to waste public money is easily accessible. You’re just lazy.

  14. Truro appears to have a village idiot and some BTL Responses:-

    SIR – If the authorities get more heavy-handed with protesters, things will become more difficult.
    The Government should work with these scared members of the public, frightened about the future of the planet, and explain what it is doing to cut emissions. Otherwise the demonstrations will just multiply, causing more animosity, destruction and public frustration.

    Joann Emerson
    Truro, Cornwall

    Bryn Riley
    19 Sep 2021 12:26AM
    Joann Emerson must be on Dr Buss’s Christmas card list. Now we also know who is the village idi0t in Truro.

    Robert Spowart
    19 Sep 2021 7:42AM
    @Bryn Riley I wonder what Dr. Buss thinks of this:- Mum unable to get to A&E because of M25 protests ‘paralysed from stroke’

    Held up for 6 hours on M25 because of the XR Whisky Anchors.

    https://metro.co.uk/2021/09/18/mum-unable-to-get-to-ae-due-of-m25-protests-paralysed-from-stroke-15279163/

  15. Russia’s Markets Are Booming Despite Putin’s Political Crackdown. 19 September 2021.

    The stock market is at a record, the ruble is on a tear, foreign ownership of local bonds has surged to a five-month high and measures of credit risk have eased back to pre-pandemic levels. Money is flowing into markets even as many opposition leaders have been forced to choose between jail and exile.
    After being battered by political risks for almost a decade, Russian markets are enjoying a period of resilience thanks to the central bank’s drive to curb inflation, a conservative fiscal policy, rebounding commodity prices and the easing threat of U.S. sanctions. With so many reasons to be bullish, investors are looking past the political situation, even risking a blind spot in their environmental, social and governance considerations.

    It’s always interesting to read the differences between the Financial Media and the propaganda in the MSM. Witness that the former does not blame Russia for the present energy crisis. Similarly the stories about the country that doesn’t make anything and the reality of an almost totally independent and vibrant economy.

    When looking at Modern Russia I am reminded of England in its dispute with Napoleon. He tried to isolate this island under the Continental System and instead made it impervious to threat and even richer if that were possible. So it is here; Europe is crumbling on almost every front under the gross mismanagement of a gang of Neo-Marxist ideologues, militarily, financially and demographically it is in serious decline.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-19/russia-s-markets-are-booming-despite-putin-s-political-crackdown

    1. During twelve years of sanctions, Smithie’s Rhodesia made twenty years of economic progress.

  16. Russia’s Markets Are Booming Despite Putin’s Political Crackdown. 19 September 2021.

    The stock market is at a record, the ruble is on a tear, foreign ownership of local bonds has surged to a five-month high and measures of credit risk have eased back to pre-pandemic levels. Money is flowing into markets even as many opposition leaders have been forced to choose between jail and exile.
    After being battered by political risks for almost a decade, Russian markets are enjoying a period of resilience thanks to the central bank’s drive to curb inflation, a conservative fiscal policy, rebounding commodity prices and the easing threat of U.S. sanctions. With so many reasons to be bullish, investors are looking past the political situation, even risking a blind spot in their environmental, social and governance considerations.

    It’s always interesting to read the differences between the Financial Media and the propaganda in the MSM. Witness that the former does not blame Russia for the present energy crisis. Similarly the stories about the country that doesn’t make anything and the reality of an almost totally independent and vibrant economy.

    When looking at Modern Russia I am reminded of England in its dispute with Napoleon. He tried to isolate this island under the Continental System and instead made it impervious to threat and even richer if that were possible. So it is here; Europe is crumbling on almost every front under the gross mismanagement of a gang of Neo-Marxist ideologues, militarily, financially and demographically it is in serious decline.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-19/russia-s-markets-are-booming-despite-putin-s-political-crackdown

  18. 339038+up ticks,
    Morning Each,

    Sunday 19 September: Why is the Government still resorting to Covid scaremongering?

    The answer to that is quite simple, they are very aware of the majority of the herd suffers very short term memory loss.

    Being master manipulators they count on the memory loss a great deal
    when seeking power proven by the polling booth, who, with a fully operational memory would continue to support them ?

    Many already are forgetting, reset has been triggered now the ground rules are to be learnt by rote as in 2×2 are four.

    It is coming across quite clear now that a lib / lab / con /green vote is a
    reset, repress,replace vote, it needs to continue, the same electoral input
    that it has received in its construct over the last three decades to succeed.

    Lest we forget, 19000 this year Dover potential troop / party members
    campaign, orchestrated by the priti / tubby turk who was calling for
    illegals / amnesties to take place some time ago.

    Currently these Isles are, via the polling booth and the lab/lib/con vote building their own crypt with a dome & scimitar being applauded at the topping out ceremony.

  19. Morning all, it looks like the rain has passed through, hopefully it will be OK to continue to work on the garden later today.

  20. A-level integrity
    SIR – The A-level grade inflation of the past two summers raises the question of how integrity can be restored to the qualification.

    Nadhim Zahawi, the new Education Secretary, should move swiftly to reinstate exam-based assessment next summer. This would see the proportion of candidates awarded top grades (A* and A) return to a percentage in the mid-20s – the level at which it had been running consistently over the previous decade – from the aberrations of the high-30s and mid-40s under the teacher-based assessments of 2020 and 2021.

    Any adjustments needed to take account of students’ disrupted learning could be made by restricting the number of topics to be examined or giving advance indication of some topics likely to come up – but nothing further than this. We need an Education Secretary who will stand up and defend the gold standard that A-levels are supposed to represent.

    Dr John Law
    London W2

    I wish him well, although he first has to overcome the massed ranks of the teaching unions. Good luck with that! If negativity were to be made an exam subject…

    1. I may be misjudging him, but I don’t see Zahawi as being someone who is capable of tackling the Blob. He strikes me as being in it for himself.

      2. I agree with you, bb2. Gove is about the only person capable of sorting out education and its cripplingly negative practitioners…oh, hang on a minute…

        1. I do not believe that Gove ever wanted to tackle the Blob, and I think he engineered his own move, while publicly pretending that he was regretting not being able to reform education. Gove is a left winger at heart, and he’s not someone to lay his career on the line out of principle.

  22. I think Mr Morgan may be labouring under the quaint idea that banks are there to provide a service…perhaps they are just too busy dreaming up the next mis-selling scandal:

    Waiting on the bank
    SIR – I recently went into my local branch of Barclays bank to make an appointment to open an executor’s bank account.

    The first appointment I was offered was in late November. What a dreadful state of affairs.

    David Morgan
    Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire

    3. Earlier this year I had to open a trustee’s bank account. My bank, the Nationwide. no longer offers this service and I had to look around for a bank/Building Society that did. I found that the Coventry BS, with which I had invested some years before, offered this service. A phone call with a very helpful person resulted in the application forms and information arriving within a couple of days and setting up the account was completed quickly. The only problem with transferring the money was the Nationwide, they do not offer electronic transfer and I had to have a cheque that I then had to forward to the Coventry. The money was credited to the account and I received the updated pass book by return of post. Excellent service.

      1. Morning!

        I opened a new savings account with the Halifax last year and that was done face to face during lockdown, albeit with a perspex screen dividing the table. At least I was there in the branch and it was done straight away.

        1. A face to face with the Coventry would have entailed a whole day out as their nearest branch was somewhere around Milton Keynes. Their approach, as far as my contact with them was, here’s a potential investor so let’s treat him well and meet his requirements. Couldn’t fault their service even though it was in the era of Covid: a condition exploited by many businesses and especially government agencies e.g. Registrars and GPs.
          Apologies, good morning, Sue.

    4. Having acted as executor three times and administrator once (no will), I have never opened an executor’s account – I have always used my own bank account.

      1. MOH had to act as executor, and the Nationwide refused to release the deceased’s savings to an executor’s account, but insisted that it

        be transferred to the executor’s private account. We thought that very strange.

        1. Never had a problem with any bank, building society, savings account, shares, insurance companies, Premium Bonds etc. One of them was Nationwide in 2010 – no problem transferring the balance to my personal account.

    1. They are, whisper it, fleeing overpopulation, and there’s nothing we can do about that, apart from not subsidising they fecklessness.

      1. 339038+ up ticks,
        Morning JBF,
        A mass tearing up / posting to party headquarters
        on a given day of membership cards / funds would go a long way to instilling change.

        As for funding the illegals, medicating ( emergency only) schooling,incarcerating, accommodating they
        should / would gladly suffer withdrawal symptoms, TODAY.

      2. The more aid (benefits) they are given the more hungry poor people they produce.
        It applies as much in the developed nations as in Africa, Asia and South America.

    2. Good morning Ogga

      NO one has mentioned how much this gigantic influx of refugees will cost the NHS .

      These people will be bringing their diseases with them ..

      Huge communities in Africa are being laid low by TB, Aids , STDs , sickle cell anaemia and many other transmissable conditions , and of course, severe mental illness such as schizophrenia which is quite common amongst black people ,which runs in families.

    3. Only last year I read that the southern Sahara is ‘greening’. A quick search and this synopsis from NASA confirms that ‘greening’ is happening across the World. However, it retains much of the usual dire warnings but then closes with the following:

      “While the detection of greening is based on data, the attribution to various drivers is based on models,” said co-author Josep Canadell of the Oceans and Atmosphere Division in the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Canberra, Australia. Canadell added that while the models represent the best possible simulation of Earth system components, they are continually being improved.

      If the Sahara is ‘greening’ why would sub-Saharan African men want to run away to Europe rather than remain in their homelands and exploit the improving situation. That exploitation would take dedication and hard work…

      NASA – Greening Earth

      1. I don’t know if my O Level chemistry is up to it, but isn’t sand primarily comprised of silicon? There’s a lot of sand in the Sahara. There’s also a lot of sunlight.

        We have the technology now to turn silicon into something that can generate electricity. I have some of it on my roof. Wouldn’t it be an idea to channel aid into electricity generation in the Sahara and a cable running across the Mediterranean to feed Europe? The Saharan nations, after paying off their debts to build the thing, could then create oases to grow crops and eventually live very nicely on it. Why even think there was a better life in Europe?

        Oh, I forgot the Muslims. Silly me!

        1. Morning Jeremy. I belive that there is such a system beween France and Morocco or some such!

  25. ‘Morning again.

    A pity that neither Boris nor Mrs Boris are listening, besotted as they are with their pitifully empty and hugely damaging green claptrap:

    Environmental hubris has left Britain vulnerable to Putin’s gas blackmail

    Of course Russia will take advantage of Britain’s shocking failure to safeguard its energy security

    SIMON HEFFER
    18 September 2021 • 8:00pm

    The Government’s utopian approach to environmentalism – including the end of coal power, shunning fracking, and demanding we drive electric vehicles powered by renewable energy – has always come at a cost. But seldom has that cost been so painful as that exacted by Russia’s apparent rigging of the price of gas through its supply company Gazprom.

    Preening ourselves about our green credentials, and thus choosing not to exploit huge gas resources under our land and in our own waters, we have made Britain enormously vulnerable. We foolishly talk up our ability to be powered by renewables – a form of electricity generation that has yet to meet the rhetorical claims politicians make for it. Instead, we are at the mercy of Russia’s decisions about the price of gas: and our vulnerability increases as other factors harm our power supplies.

    This danger is already apparent. Last Monday a crunch in the gas supply chain, and the failure of turbines to generate power because of a lack of wind, drove electricity prices to 11 times their normal level. Two days later, another source of electricity on which we have become reliant was itself depleted because of a fire in one of the interconnectors bringing in power from France – another country with whom, suddenly, we are on bad terms. Our vulnerability is about more than being able to turn the lights on. Two British fertiliser plants of global significance have closed, disrupting the supply of carbon dioxide, a by-product essential for carbonated drinks and the processing of meat.

    We and the EU are struggling because of the pandemic. Europe’s economies, already limping from over-regulation and in many member states an overvalued currency, are the perfect target for a Russia that wishes to place its boot on Europe’s throat. Putin follows the maxim that there is no better time to kick a man than when he is down.

    This price shock is a harbinger of our future if we continue to martyr ourselves in the cause of environmentalism, and if we continue to respond with pusillanimity to the Russians. As the West saw after the oil price boom in 1973, a massive rise in energy prices is as good a way as any to kneecap an economy. If the lights fail across Europe and the food chain implodes, Putin will portray it as a measure of his, and Russia’s power, as tyrants do. Energy supply has, indeed, become a weapon for him.

    Britain has only itself to blame. It has created unrealistic levels of dependence on foreign energy through its unquestioning repudiation of other power sources, done to curry favour with an aggressive, emotive and sometimes hysterical green lobby. No-one doubts that preventing global warming is desirable. But to achieve this through insufficiently analysed and precipitate action that torpedoes Western economies and confers a massive competitive advantage upon nations such as China and, indeed, Russia that mock our scruples is political and economic suicide. If that means extending the life of coal-powered energy, or building more nuclear power stations, so be it.

    Putin believes he can do as he pleases because the West cowers to him. Gazprom holds the whip hand not least because of German dependence on Russian energy. The almost-departed Angela Merkel has ingratiated herself with Putin for years. However, the economic dependence of Putin and his cronies on the West means two can play at that game.

    Unless Putin reins in Gazprom, a complete freezing of Russian assets in this country, the refusal of visas and the denial of the Western champagne lifestyle to these gangsters would be salutary, and, given Russia’s appalling behaviour in so many other regards, is in any case long overdue. The EU should do likewise. Our new Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, can take a lead on this. But, above all, relying on a tyranny for our power supplies is madness and it must stop.

    1. Oh dear…those spot prices are set by the market.In this case the Amsterdam market.
      The high prices are being caused by Asian consumers willingness to pay more.
      The question never answered is “if Germany/EU stopped buying Russian gas,where could they get gas in similar quantities”?
      I blame The Russians for the cold weather!

      1. Retail prices would also be significantly lower if the Green taxes were removed, and solar etc power left to fund itself.

        1. Its an article to whip up anti-Russian feelings.
          Most countries who deal with Gazprom have long-term contracts so the spot-market doesn’t affect the price.

    2. I am environmentalist, and therefore of the opposite tribe, but I agree with you about our failure to address energy security in our zeal to “go Green”.

      We could not blow our North Sea reserves fast enough, so desperate was the Thatcher Government to claim the “economic miracle” for herself and her cronies and not for anyone in the future. Blair simply compounded this, leaving precious little for us now. It was electorally popular, but stupid.

      There is more to the environment though that energy and global warming. Another horror looming, perhaps even more serious than energy imbalances, is over fresh water. People go to war over water. Remember the film ‘Jean de Florette’ and its sequel ‘Manon des Sources’? which examined a young girl’s revenge against villagers who cut off her father’s water source, driving him to ruin and death. A lot of the spat between Palestinians and Israelis is over water. The Palestinians are claiming the Israelis are requisitioning their boreholes and then selling back desalinated seawater at vastly inflated prices. There has been a major diplomatic incident between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in central Asia with its roots in Soviet times, because the Uzbeks drained the Aral Sea in order to grow cotton in their desert.

      So we come to fracking. They still will not tell us what these “chemicals” are, that they are proposing to pump into the fractured water table as part of the extraction process, nor the quantity of fresh water required, which would then be contaminated and no longer available to the public. The UK may take its water supplies for granted, having a maritime climate, but even we cannot avoid hosepipe bans if we render our drinking water unfit to drink, or even wash with.

      Back to energy security, the answer is to use less. This can be through grants for insulation and better efficiency of what we consume, so we can maintain our lifestyles using less fuel. The market approach is to put up the price and force poor people out of the market, which is what they are doing right now. The authoritarian approach is to invent a disease that will force us all into our homes, and therefore make an immediate saving in the fuel used to move people around. This actually worked quite well last year, and the birds started to sing, but it made the rest of us pretty miserable.

      1. “We could not blow our North Sea reserves fast enough, so desperate was the Thatcher Government…”

        Thatcher was ousted before we blew our gas supplies up the power station chimneys. The returning Heseltine was the guilty man.

      2. I disagree on energy security. The solution is in the short term, frakking and nuclear and research into fusion and thorium and helium3.

        In addition, we remove the unproductive and stop the dross getting in.

        This country needs cheap energy. Without it we will fall behind in every sense. The green nonsense is just that.

        If Palestine is complaining, why doesn’t it spend some of the aid money poured in to it to build it’s own desalination plants away from Israel and purify water there.

    3. Well, good summation. Idiotic suggestions for action. Take on the Bear! Liz Truss*, HaHaHa!

      *More to come on that, next week.

    4. “No-one doubts that preventing global warming is desirable. But to achieve this…”

      I’m surprised that Heffer has fallen for it.

    5. Moving the pollution created by energy generation is just deceit. it’s a pretence. Why our useless officials are so eager to lie cheat and steal in this nonsense is comical if it were not so serious.

  26. NHS bosses fund 163-page diversity report that tells white managers to accept psychological ‘fragility’ on race as non-white staff are discriminated against due to British imperial history. 19 September. 2021.

    NHS bosses funded a 163-page report on workforce diversity that tells white managers to accept their psychological ‘fragility’ on race.

    No More Tick Boxes informs readers that non-white NHS staff are routinely discriminated against because of Britain’s ‘history as an Imperial power.

    And NHS East of England recommends managers read another guide that tells white public sector administrators they only got their jobs ‘because of the colour of your skin’.

    This is where your National Insurance increase will go!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10005179/NHS-bosses-tells-managers-accept-white-fragility-race.html

      1. If they want to get rid if the tick boxes- fine – people should get their jobs on merit, not their skin colour.

        1. They have to have tick boxes in order to measure the non-white ratios, of applications, and recruitment, and thereby prove that they are recruiting more non-whites than is the national average. Thus demonstrating their non-racist approach. (Discarding qualified whites strengthens their case, of course it does.

      2. As with all things from the left, just stating their belief makes it true in this crazy world. Right wing advocates will be cancelled, deplatformed, defunded, sacked and will disappear from sight. Sadly, the rot is now built into our educational and political structures and will be almost impossible to eradicate.

      1. Now imagine… that there’s one of these in every single hospital around the country.

        Imagine over 20-50 people, on six figure salaries who return absolutely nothing of value except attend meetings.

        Now add in councils of all types.

        Add in over a million civil servants – not even front line ones, just those in the ministries.

        Get rid of them, we raise the tax allowance to 25,000, we scrap the upper and higher rates, we scrap corporation tax, VAT, green taxes, stamp duty, council tax the lot and we’re still – STILL running a budget surplus.

    3. Strange isn’t it – we never used to worry about discrimination or colonialism until we were told we had ‘white privilege ‘. Maybe it’s the other lot suffering from ‘fragility ‘.

    4. Indeed. I am told I must get used to my front teeth no longer being any good to eat with and no longer receiving the medication I rely on to sleep properly, because sacrifices must be made to save the NHS for the benefit of their “diversity tsarinas”.

      For that, they can put up their prices, but hey, that’s inflation and out of our control.

      I think we are all terminally grumpy here, but at least I only have another twenty or so years of it, at most. I pity the young.

      1. Yes, I wonder what my son’s Saudi Arabian oncologist thinks of that?
        As he’s lived and worked here for 20 years, his opinion might be worth considering.

    7. And that is where the tax hike goes. White people built the NHS. Frankly, all this nonsense is making me deeply disgusted with these racist pigs. It’s far and away time that the rest of the world bowed down at our feet. We’re better than them. Look at what *we* have built. nasty old Whitey.

      Now look at what the others have produced.

  27. Good article by Daniel Hannan. I particularly like the last sentence!

    France is not a reliable partner to the English-speaking defenders of freedom

    Macron only has himself to blame for what his foreign minister described as a ‘stab in the back’

    DANIEL HANNAN
    18 September 2021 • 1:02pm

    Right on cue, Emmanuel Macron has demonstrated why the Anglosphere democracies do not see him as a reliable partner. In an act of almost comical sulkiness, he has withdrawn his ambassadors from Canberra and Washington, peeved at being frozen out of the AUKUS defence deal. By way of perspective, consider that he is happy to leave his ambassadors in place in Moscow and Beijing.

    This is not the first time that Macron has ordered French envoys home in a fit of pique. He withdrew his ambassador from Rome after an Italian politician supported the gilets jaunes, and withdrew his ambassador from Ankara when President Erdogan suggested he might be a bit bonkers.

    Macron is incandescent about the formalisation of a naval pact among the three foremost English-speaking powers. The AUKUS alliance is as deep as any that exists among independent states. It provides for the exchange of scientific and military know-how, even of nuclear technology. Its first project is to furnish Australia with a nuclear-powered submarine fleet, an initiative that will create jobs in Barrow and Glasgow, although the final assembly of the vessels will happen in Adelaide.

    AUKUS is, on every level, a positive development, a sign that there are still some grown-ups patrolling the playground. Australia will become only the seventh state with a nuclear-powered fleet – quite a statement in the disputed waters of the Pacific. The problem, from Paris’s perspective, is that that deal supplants a previous agreement whereby Australia was supposed to buy diesel-powered subs from France.

    News of the pact had France’s leaders (to employ the joke Franglais that Boris sometimes uses) soufflant leurs hauts. Jean-Yves Le Drian, the foreign minister, called it a “stab in the back.” France’s former ambassador to the US, the reliably pompous Gérard Araud, said it was “a low moment”. Bruno Tertrais, from the Fondation pour le Recherche Stratégique, described it as “a Trafalgar-like blow.”

    One senses that the French are almost enjoying their anger. It is only human to feel a certain righteous glow when your intuitions seem vindicated, and here is an apparent confirmation of every French prejudice about perfidious Anglo-Saxons. Never mind that, as Australian politicians patiently point out, the contractors had fallen behind schedule. This wasn’t primarily about submarines. It was about a series of more abstract concepts that matter very much to our neighbours: le rang, la gloire, l’amour-propre.

    Still, it is worth considering why the Anglosphere leaders acted as they did. France, after all, is one of the few countries in the world capable of projecting global naval force, and has significant territories in the Pacific. Why was it not considered a core ally?

    Much of the answer has to do with Macron’s bellicosity towards Britain over the past four years. Again and again, he strained the patience of other EU leaders by picking fights even when there was no European interest at stake. From military satellites to the Irish border, he took up needlessly hardline positions for their own sake.

    His objection to equivalence in financial services has arguably hurt EU firms more than it has London banks. His petulant questioning of AstraZeneca’s efficacy fuelled vaccine hesitancy in Africa, and almost certainly caused needless deaths.

    On two occasions, first during the Brexit talks and then during the fisheries clash with Jersey, he threatened to cut off cross-channel electricity supplies – the kind of aggression we associate with Vladimir Putin. None of these things, to phrase this as gently as I can, is the act of a reliable ally.

    Indeed, at the very moment when the three Anglosphere leaders were sitting down to seal the deal at June’s G7 summit in Cornwall, the French president was ranting about keeping English sausages out of Northern Ireland. The contrast could hardly have been clearer.

    But it would be wrong to put all this down to the personality of one president. France’s diplomatic and political elites have generally taken Macron’s line, as have most Eurocrats – although, significantly, not most European national governments. Josep Borrell, the hapless old boob who serves as the EU’s foreign minister, declared himself miffed that he had not been consulted in advance, a sentiment widely echoed in Brussels.

    Perhaps we are seeing the re-emergence of an older division, a division that was concealed by the exigencies of the Cold War, but that never went away. Britain and its Anglosphere allies have traditionally thought in maritime terms, whereas France’s outlook has tended to be continental. It was precisely this difference in world-view that Charles de Gaulle cited when explaining his decision to veto Britain’s first two applications for EEC membership.

    Britain and France have a necessarily complicated relationship. We have not exchanged hostile fire since 1815 – unless you count the sinking of the French fleet at Oran in 1940 after it refused to scuttle, an episode about which the less said the better. Indeed, we have been allies (more or less) since 1904. Yet, for much of that time, we were frenemies, jostling for commercial and diplomatic advantage even as we recognised that, when the chips were down, we shared an interest in each other’s success.

    One of the occasions when we deployed military force together was the joint invasion of Suez in 1956, which ended in failure for want of American support – a decision Eisenhower regretted to his dying day. The UK and France drew radically differing conclusions from that débâcle.

    The British believed that the breakdown in communications between London and Washington had been disastrous, and that the triumph of freedom in the world depended on a closer Anglo-American alliance. The French, by contrast, concluded that the United States could not be relied on, and that their security depended upon building and leading a European bloc. The Treaty of Rome was signed the following year.

    As long as Soviet tanks were massed beyond the Elbe, these differences were, if not completely forgotten, at least deferred. France withdrew from Nato’s integrated command, but still carried herself as a member of the Western alliance – a difficult and independent-minded member, to be sure, but, in the last analysis, a member prepared to do her bit. Britain, for her part, saw the defence of Western Europe as her primary strategic goal, withdrawing from her Asian and African bases so as to be able to afford her Nato commitments.

    Diplomatic assumptions can last for decades after their original rationale has passed, but the overshoot does not go on forever. The end of the Cold War allowed France to think once again in continental terms, and Britain once again to raise her eyes to the open main. We have moved, very suddenly, back into a multi-polar world, a world of shifting alliances and interests. The collapse of the USSR removed Nato’s primary purpose and released its members to pursue different paths. As geographical proximity loses its importance, Britain has joined the United States in a Pacific pivot.

    To a certain kind of Frenchman, that strategy is further proof that the British have contracted out their foreign policy to Washington. Indeed, some Elysée officials were spinning the decision to leave their London legation unchanged as a subtle snub, a sign that they regarded Britain as an American colony, not worth quarrelling with in her own right. On Friday evening, France’s minister for European affairs, Clément Beaune, described British policy as a form of “accepted vassal status” under the US.

    What never seems to occur to these clever énarques is that Britain, the United States and Australia, because they have a shared political heritage, tend to approach problems in the same way. They value, because their institutions have taught them to value, personal freedom. They acknowledge a responsibility to uphold, as far as they can, a law-based and liberal international order. They are prepared to stand up to bullies – especially when one of their own is being targeted.

    Australia has been subjected to diplomatic and economic sanctions from Beijing since it called for an international investigation into the origins of Covid-19. Britain could not, in conscience, leave its ally unsupported. If that meant helping her acquire the most effective submarines, so be it.

    Australia is in a dangerous neighbourhood. China’s vast territorial ambitions leave it with hostile claims, not only against contiguous countries, but against the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. The Anglosphere allies are not the aggressors here.

    Still, someone has to step up and preserve international law. Someone has to uphold the rights of small countries threatened by overweening neighbours. Someone has to protect the principles of national sovereignty and territorial jurisdiction. Not for the first time, it seems that the responsibility for defending liberty has fallen to the English-speaking democracies.

    1. Good morning ,

      I don’t get it , why are we worried about the Chinese when we have sold out to them lock stock and barrel .. They are here already !

        1. It’s called the kow-tow. There’s a certain protocol about the ritual of bowing and scraping to the Chinese Emperor.

      2. But we haven’t sold out to them on champagne – they are not known for producing much of it because it’s acidic and they don’t like the bubbles!

        🥂🥂
        Chink! Chinkl

    2. “The French, by contrast, concluded that the United States could not be relied on,…”
      I’m with the French on that one. The US can be relied on to look after US interests first.

      1. We only need to contrast how the American courts dealt with compensation claims following BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil disaster brought on by corner-cutting on safety by a U.S. subcontractor, with how they dealt with compensation for blinded villagers in Bhopal, following a bit of sloppy work by an American pharmaceutical corporation.

        2. Driven as far as he possibly could by Britain hating Obama.
          You can guarantee that if Britain hating Biden got a similar opportunity he would do even more harm if he possibly could.

          1. I’m not suggesting that Biden wouldn’t do his worst if the opportunity arose but he and his cabal have enough on their hands at the moment in trying to cut the beating heart out of the USA.

      2. To be a bit of a Devil’s Advocate: would that we had British governments doing the same thing.
        Though I draw the line at voting in senile presidents.

          1. Looking at our lax postal voting system it would be all too easy – apart from the president bit – for the same thing to happen here.

    3. That the French should claim that we are damaging NATO shows how unscrupulous they are and how deluded Remainers are.

      The French are laughably nationalistic, previously doing untold damage to NATO by leaving at a moments notice, reneging on all their commitments including their budget contributions.

      The people in power in France, the EU and the other EU countries are not our friends, they are our competitors and often behave like enemies. Love Europe, hate the way the EU treats us.

      1. Fortunately the ordinary people are considerably more pleasant and more civilised than the politicians who are every bit as repulsive as ours are..

    4. That the French should claim that we are damaging NATO shows how unscrupulous they are and how deluded Remainers are.

      The French are laughably nationalistic, previously doing untold damage to NATO by leaving at a moments notice, reneging on all their commitments including their budget contributions.

      The people in power in France, the EU and the other EU countries are not our friends, they are our competitors and often behave like enemies. Love Europe, hate the way the EU treats us.

    5. Macron is becoming more and more loathed in Brittany.

      Our son Christo was victimised for being English when he was in primary school but his younger brother, Henry, was not. Christo has always had a more abrasive personality than Henry. But by and large we have been warmly welcomed here by the French.

    6. Not to mention the Chinese base in New Guinea. About as close to Australia as Cuba is to the USA. Look how that played out.

  28. Don’t Be Kidding Me

    There was this eagle flying above a field one day, when he sees a mouse down below. So he swoops down picks up the mouse and swallows him whole. The mouse is alive inside the eagle, and he says to himself, “I gotta get out of here!”
    So the mouse starts working his way through the eagle’s intestinal tract until he sees a light up ahead. He pushes his way through and pokes out his head. To his terror, he sees that he is flying far above the field.
    “Holy shit! he yells up to the eagle, “how far up are we?!”
    “Oh, about 2000 feet” says the eagle.
    “Wow!” the mouse replies. “You wouldn’t be shitting me would ya?“

  29. Another anti vaccine passport march locally, good turn out even in the pouring rain.
    The crowds are very much against vaccinating children. That factor is starting to become an even greater issue than the job pressures for the unvaccinated.

    Macron might yet get his comeuppance from his own people.

      2. I am at the point where I ask was it ‘covid’ from which he died, or did he die with it, or perhaps it was neither and he died from something completely different but it was just handy for propaganda that he happened to be a so-called ‘antivaxxer’. The truth in all matters is woefully lacking these days, and it is always the first casualty in a time of war, especially a war with the government.

          1. The media is attempting to mitigate that by drawing attention to the unvaxxed; persuade any waverers who haven’t yet fallen for the needle and to pave the way for putting the blame for the winter bonanza upon the unvaxxed.

            You are regarded as unvaccinated until 14 days have elapsed since your second jab (detestable word), also if you have had one jab only, or three months or more have passed since your double jab.

            Deaths are not counted as being due to the vaccine if that event occurs within 14 days because, guess what, you are regarded as being….. unvaccinated. And most deaths occur within that time frame and especially the first three days. Towards the end of 14 days the number of death tails off quite significantly, but it is still high enough within the 14-28 days limit.

            It is thought that the death rate may be five time higher because of this tricksy meddling with the stats to suit their agenda.

      3. I was one of those who lost out.

        What one doesn’t know is whether he would still have died even if he had been vaccinated. As we know, the vaccination does not stop one from getting Covid, nor does it guarantee survival even though it appears to increase the likelihood of getting better.

        1. And that simple, uncomplicated fact is being deliberately ignored.

          I read somewhere that the vaccine was no longer experimental since the government mandated it.

          You do rather have to read that a few times – something is what the state says it is. People are frightened, ignorant and desperate. They use any excuse, any twist for confirmation bias.

      4. Why is there such joy in people who disagree with an experiemental injection dying?

        What about those thousands who have died despite having the vaccine? Should their deaths be celebrated? Of course not.

  30. Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks!
    Gets set up to get started on the 2nd lot of shelves I’m doing for the container I’me got arriving on Tuesday, thinking that I’d be able to get an hours work done befor the forecast rain arrives, and it arrived early!
    Bloody chucking it down now.

    Looking at Rain Radar it should be over in an hour or so.

  31. The sacking of white members of the English Touring Opera shows how woke will destroy the arts
    I for one would never go to watch an orchestra just because it had been lauded for diversity

    Zoe Strimpel : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2021/09/19/sacking-white-members-english-touring-opera-shows-woke-will/

    BTL

    White musicians have been sacked for being white! The quality of their musicianship is irrelevant!

    Surely the fact that white people are the only people capable of racism must be challenged in court? It is an attack on the whole concept of equality before the law and flies entirely in the face of Martin Luther King’s philosophy that a person should not be judged by the colour of his or her or its skin.

      1. We are all equal in the eyes of God. However, the white races, mostly Christian, have shown themselves to be the lords of creation in every respect (except conservation and good management), being proficient in art, literature, technology, mathematics, medicine and science beyond anything previouslyy seen in the history of the planet. As for non-whites, well, there’s the boomerang.

        1. A Poem for Black History

          In the matter of racial comparisons
          The media shouts to the moon,
          About all the historic achievements
          Of the Redskin, Spic and the Coon.

          Yet strangely, when strolling museums,
          The white man’s creations stand thick;
          But all we can find of those others
          Is a blanket, a bowl and a stick.

          No telephones, timeclocks or engines,
          No lights that go on with a flick.
          No aeroplanes, rockets or radios.
          Just a blanket, a bowl and a stick.

          Not one Sioux Indian submarine,
          No African ice cream to lick,
          Not a single Mexican x-ray machine,
          It’s a blanket, a bowl and a stick.

          So, remember when history’s the subject,
          And revisionists are up to their tricks,
          The evidence tells quite another tale,
          Of a blanket, a bowl and a stick.

          A poem by A. Wyatt Mann

    2. I read about that Richard .

      I cannot believe that people are accepting all that BLM baloney . Who is going to tell these unwanted black invaders their opinions are unwanted and unecessary , and they can stick their diversity nonsense up their rectums .

      The patois speakers have huge chips on their shoulders , they will end up with the same problems they have in Jamaica and Somalia and any other place their grandmothers originated from .

      Some one should tell them all to shove off, and us whiteys must stop being scaredy cats of black and brown faces .

  32. The sacking of white members of the English Touring Opera shows how woke will destroy the arts
    I for one would never go to watch an orchestra just because it had been lauded for diversity

    Zoe Strimpel : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2021/09/19/sacking-white-members-english-touring-opera-shows-woke-will/

    BTL

    White musicians have been sacked for being white! The quality of their musicianship is irrelevant!

    Surely the fact that white people are the only people capable of racism must be challenged in court? It is an attack on the whole concept of equality before the law and flies entirely in the face of Martin Luther King’s philosophy that a person should not be judged by the colour of his or her or its skin.

  35. 339038+up ticks,

    Nigel Farage Declares He ‘Won’t Obey’ Any New Lockdowns From Boris

    Health warning,

    Do NOT allow either of these two chaps to take up a position at the rear of you as you go into action.

    Lest we forget ” He marched them up to the top of the hill, then he marched them down again.

  36. What matters the welfare of the Scots, when the SNP have a chance to spit in the face of the English?
    Personally, I think the concept of Freeports is a tacit admission that excessive taxes and bureaucratic overload are impeding commerce, but that is not my point in posting this article.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/17/scotland-misses-freeport-snp-walks-talks/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    “Scotland misses out on freeport after SNP walks out of talks

    The new trade hubs have special status and are designed to create jobs but the nationalists were unhappy with the Government’s proposals

    17 September 2021 • 7:07pm

    Scotland is to miss out on a freeport after SNP ministers walked out on talks with UK officials about a joint agreement to establish new trade hubs.

    The UK Government is now set to push ahead with plans to sideline the nationalist administration and invite bids for a single Scottish freeport, which it will establish unilaterally, after negotiations collapsed.

    Officials had been discussing a deal that would have seen two ports in Scotland receive the special status, with the scheme a key part of Boris Johnson’s vision for boosting trade in post-Brexit Britain.

    Freeports receive significant tax breaks and exemptions from some customs rules, and advocates claim that would create thousands of jobs and boost local economies.

    However, the SNP ministers demanded that the hubs were rebranded “greenports” north of the border and that operators must agree to meet certain environmental and employment standards, claiming the internationally renowned freeports brand was “tarnished” by links to smuggling, crime and tax evasion.

    The UK Government saw the proposed changes as cosmetic and as part of an SNP attempt to claim credit for the scheme while unfairly presenting Scottish ports as superior to the eight sites that have already been chosen for England, including Teesside, Plymouth and Liverpool.

    The failure to reach a deal means that a single Scottish freeport will now be at a disadvantage to counterparts in England, as while most of the tax breaks on offer are controlled by the Treasury, some, such as a reduction in Scotland’s equivalent to stamp duty, would need to be agreed by the SNP.

    On Friday, Ivan McKee, the SNP trade minister, blamed the UK Government for the collapse in talks and claimed the Scottish Government would now “take forward plans to further develop our greenport model”.

    ‘This is a missed opportunity’

    A UK Government source said: “We remain 100 per cent committed to freeports which have the potential to boost the Scottish economy and create highly paid jobs.

    “We are deeply disappointed that the Scottish Government has chosen not to work with us on the scheme.

    “A Scottish freeport will be a huge success but this is a missed opportunity. It is for the Scottish Government to explain why they have chosen not to work with us.”

    Dundee, Port of Cromarty Firth and Aberdeen are among the Scottish ports that are desperate to obtain the special status.

    UK ministers expect Scottish ports to embrace the opportunity to apply to become Scotland’s only freeport, which they believe will neuter inevitable SNP claims that they are being “imposed” by Tory ministers who are trampling over the devolution settlement.

    In a letter to Ivan McKee, the SNP trade minister, sent earlier this month, Alister Jack, the Scottish Secretary, claimed a deal between the governments was close with £120m in tax reliefs on offer over five years.

    He confirmed two freeports would have been set up in Scotland under the deal, with the Scottish Government to have had a joint role in deciding winning bids, and “fair work practices” among the factors to be considered.

    However, he made clear that he would not give into Mr McKee’s demand to change their name to “greenports” or insist on payment of the real living wage. He also said the SNP must make “a comparable tax offer in devolved policy areas as is in place for the English freeports”.

    Mr McKee said he was unwilling to compromise on his conditions around “fair work and net zero”.

    He added: “It is difficult to comprehend why UK Ministers would seek to dilute a strong commitment to fair work, including payment of the real living wage, when seeking to implement their freeport policy in Scotland.

    “The Scottish Government, therefore, has no option but to take forward plans to further develop our greenport model to meet the specific needs of Scotland’s economy.”

    A spokesman for the UK Government said its freeport model already “embraces the highest employment and environmental standards”.”

        2. I would have jumped at the chance to create Freeports (call them pirate hide-outs for all I care) in Scotland. The UK is in an ideal entrepôt position vis-vis Europe.
          Moreover we have a big empty international airport that could be developed as a Freeport. It is called Prestwick. It is owned by the Scottish government.

    2. The SNP are morons who think government money is infinite and unending.

      They don’t understand how it’s earned because not one of them has ever worked outside of big fat state so when they throw away billions on free bus tickets they don’t understand it has taken someone months to build a business, create a sales model, earn those contracts, working 18 hour days to get the work done (half spent filling in forms for that pointless government).

      They just waste it, with abandon. I think an MP should only be allowed to serve if they’ve run a business and made at least £1m profit doing so. That would make them very, very aware of the toxicity of the state.

    3. That says a lot for dismantling the Wee Pretendy Parliament on the basis that it is anti democratic and anti our United Kingdom.

      To be followed quickly by the closing down of the NI and Welsh Assemblies.

      A lot of money to be saved and a lot of Responsibility and Accountability to return to Westminster.

  37. Knife gangs are breaking into hospital wards to finish off their stab victims: A chilling dispatch by a London junior doctor on a barely believable horror hidden from the world until now
    By JANE SMITH FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10005275/Knife-gangs-breaking-hospital-wards-finish-stab-victims.html

    A few weeks ago, a boy came in with knife wounds and was taken to have a CT scan to assess the damage. But his attackers were not satisfied with wounding him – they wanted him dead. After turning up at the hospital, the whole gang rushed to the CT scanners.

    The nurse and radiographer tried to stand in their way – my colleagues tend to be extremely brave – but they were attacked and knocked to the ground. At this point, security arrived: the gang fled, successfully escaping.

    You can’t get into other wards without buzzing and being let in, but anyone can get into A&E.

    The injured boy came in on a Saturday morning, when the hospital was quite empty. Later that day, someone walking around on the first floor suddenly heard loud shouting and yelling. One of my friends was working in a ward adjacent to A&E, and saw a man run up and start banging on the door, closely followed by a group of young men.

    The gang had returned, found a target, and were chasing him down the corridor, knives out. All the wards were locked, and the man was trying his best to get away, hammering on all the doors – but no one was opening up.

    None of the staff wanted men with knives running around their wards – and, frankly, probably didn’t want to be in harm’s way themselves. We’re not paid danger money. My friend felt guilty for not opening the door, but what was she supposed to do: put herself and all the patients in her ward at risk?

    Usually when there is a gang-related incident, there are stabbings on both sides. Hospitals go to great lengths to ensure members of rival gangs are taken to separate trauma centres. But sometimes a mistake is made – or both victims are too unwell to reach another hospital – and they end up in the same place. Either way, if gangs are determined to take their feuds into hospitals, there is not much we can do.

    Gangs come up with all sorts of ways to try and access victims who have survived. Sometimes, they pretend to be family members. The hospital has started to set code words that genuine relatives can use to identify themselves when they come and visit. But on one occasion, a hostile gang created fake ID badges.

    They managed to get hold of their target’s location and just called on the intercom. They were buzzed in, and at least a couple got onto the ward. Occasionally, gang members who’ve been stabbed are personally guarded by the police during their admissions. I know of at least one who was discharged straight into witness protection.

    There was blood all over the floors of the corridor when the gang left that Saturday. Their victim, the man who’d been banging on doors, was rushed to the Intensive Care Unit. He was at – in terms of treatment quality – one of the best hospitals he could hope for.

    The major trauma team often includes ex-military doctors. There will be up to five different surgeons working to save one victim simultaneously. This, of course, places a great strain on the health service, but the upside is that London surgeons have become experts – the best in the world – at treating stab wounds. People survive horrendous attacks that would have proved fatal a few years ago.

    Some are not meant to kill, though; gangs sometimes go in for ‘bagging’, which is when they stab the victim in the rectum, so that they need a colostomy bag for the rest of their life. This is meant to be the most humiliating punishment.

    At another hospital I worked at, a couple of stab victims came in almost at the same time, one a 16-year-old boy with a deep wound to the leg. How did this happen, I asked, and he said he was just messing around with a knife in his kitchen and had thrown it in the air, after which it had landed in his leg.

    Naively, I was inclined to believe him – especially because his mum was there. But I then went to discuss the case with my consultant, who said: ‘You don’t believe him, surely? Ask the mum what kind of knife it was.’ Neither could describe it, of course. I did find it slightly ironic that the boy turned out to be terrified of needles, grabbing at my arm as I tried to inject some local anaesthetic with something less than half a millimetre in diameter.

    He then asked me: what would be the most dangerous place to be stabbed in the leg? Is there any spot which would kill someone? Somehow, I doubted his wound had awakened a yearning to undertake an anatomy degree, so I feigned ignorance and responded vaguely.

    Later, his mum kicked up a massive fuss about her son not being seen straight away by doctors. He had a six-hour wait; it was a deep cut, but the risk of infection from kitchen knives is small. Of course, if it hadn’t been a kitchen knife, but rather a knife used in street fights, then there was a much higher risk of infection. In the boy’s defence, he was quite understanding when I told him I would have to report the incident to the police, and said he ‘could see how it looked’. Still, he rigidly stuck to his knife throwing story.

    Etc etc .. read on , it is appalling .

    2. If they insist on behaving like savages, then they should be treated like such.

      Collar and chain them until they learn to walk at heel.

      1. This is exactly what happened in Johannesburg duing Mandela times , 1990s.
        The city was lost .. the financial heart , the commercial aorta…was trashed .

        When my dear late father was dying in a rather exclusive private hospital in JB during the time of The 1995 Rugby World Cup in SA, all we could hear were gun battles and fights , AK47’s and stabbings .

        Daddy said Africa today, Europe tomorrow , all that we know will be trashed .

        Who would have thought that nearly thirty years later , our way of life would be threatened by this black invasion.

        1. What a surprise that was, trouble and rioting, murders and rapes when the head of government was a terrorist murderer.

    3. I read that and just wondered why I saw no description of the gang members or the victims. It would be useful to know if there was a common denominator about them to help us be on the lookout for them.

      2. Black trash fighting over drug territory.

        There. I said it. Erm..hold on a moment. There’s someone at the door……..

        1. Sad, isn’t it? There’s a problem in that commnity. It comes from a lack of morals, discipline and is the result of massive uncontrolled immigration.

          The solution is to encourage the nuclear family, scrap child benefit and halt illegal, uncontrolled gimmigration. The state will do the exact opposite, and it will pander to these violent thugs.

    4. Arm the security and porters with Tazers.

      The sight of one of their gang members kicking and twitching on the floor, before being arrested will scare the bejasus out of the rest.

      Almost as good as a public flogging.

    5. Sit yourself down and relax Bill, that’s an order.
      I’ll look after the raspberries…………they’re my favourite.

    1. Got there in the end. Table above shows the latest data from Public Health England.

      Data shows that those testing positive with the Delta variant are more than twice as likely to die with the Delta variant if vaccinated than those who are unvaccinated.

      In addition, if you are “fully vaccinated” (more than 14 days after your second dose) you are almost 4 times more likely to die after a “positive Delta test” than if you remained unvaccinated.

      Link to the PHE data – Table 5:
      https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1018547/Technical_Briefing_23_21_09_16.pdf

      Can someone with a better head for figures tell me whether the first picture is an accurate summary of the table on p.19.
      Apart from the fact that the Delta variant kills hardly anyone it seems that the vaccinated are more likely to die. Is that possible?

        1. Do you mean the vaccinated are more likely to be old and frail and hence die?

          But does the point about the vaccine offering poor protection not stand?

          1. My point is that the vaccine was first offered to the old and frail and most of those took it up. Anti vaxxers and others who don’t want it are likely to be younger and in better health.

            It seems from the summary on Page 3 (which is as far as I’ve got) that the vaccines protect against severe illness rather than prevention of infection or transmission.

          2. So they are dying of age rather than Delta or vaccine. They just happen to be more vaccinated and have tested positive. Ok. Makes sense.
            Thanks.

          3. It seems to be a disease that carries off the old and frail, just like flu does. Then they make a huge fuss when some much younger person dies and then you see the photo of a morbidly obese person.

          4. So they are dying of age rather than Delta or vaccine. They just happen to be more vaccinated and have tested positive. Ok. Makes sense.
            Thanks.

      2. Another point is that the unvaccinated younger people are likely to
        have natural immunity because they have already had the disease and
        recovered so they don’t need the vaccine.

    2. What that table doesn’t tell you is how many of those people were already old and frail (most of those have been jabbed) and how many had other serious morbidities.

      1. The PHE table in the link to the second post (below) shows the age range.
        I am trying to make sense of it.

        1. 61 pages takes a bit of digesting. My first thought is that in a population 90% jabbed, the deaths are more likely to come from the jabbed than the unjabbed and likely to be younger 10%.

          1. Yes but this talks about rates of death among the jabbed and unjabbed, does it not? So the proportions are what counts rather than the actual numbers.
            Hence the RH column being in %

          3. And 61 pages of boring waffle is a good way to hide what actually counts.
            I got the summary from the Mike Yeadon Telegram site.

          4. Oh – where is that? I do miss his tweets and explanations, but I can’t be bothered with videos – much rather read print.

      2. I’m old and frail (77 years-old, heart disease, COPD and a recurring PID) but I both refuse vaccine and to die. Sorry to f*ck-up the figures.

    3. The simple answer, ignoring health factors but taking age into consideration, is that there are far far more people vaccinated than unvaccinated. Younger people are more likely to survive with or without vaccine and the unvaccinated are predominantly in the younger age groups. Older people are closer to their allotted span and thus more likely to be about to die anyway. My take is that the table doesn’t really say very much.

      2. The reason why I’m writing the addendum to my autobiography Not a Bad Life that I stopped at 70.

        The Addendum is called Passing Three Score Years and Ten – which reminds me, go and write catch-up, exposing al this fear-mongering and the advance to WEF.

    4. This shows there is no point in having the Vaccine, it does not work. I rember reading last year that this new type of vaccine could maike you far worse if you had covid, as this shows. What a mess and total overeaction.

      1. Sos and Jules and David have attenuated that conclusion somewhat. The table seems to show what you conclude and my own scepticism about the offal we are being fed tends towards your idea, but we still don’t know.

        1. In the US more whistleblowers from the medical profession, especially nurses, are coming forward to expose what is going on there. Most agree that “vaccinated” people, about 52% of the eligible population, make up a larger proportion of those with what is known as the Delta variant. What Delta is hasn’t, as far as I’ve found out, been clearly described. Many nurses in the US are leaving the profession rather than have to take the mandated “vaccine”, citing that they’ve seen the problems with the potion and do not want to risk taking it.

          In Nebraska one medical care company is so short of nursing staff that they have taken to making offers of a bonus and no “vaccine” mandate to encourage recruitment.

      1. Strange that the undertaker called Looney seems completely sane and the epidemiologist called Whittey is not remotely clever with words.

        1. Perhaps we should have a new set of ironic Happy Family cards. Goodbye Mr Bun the Baker and hello Miss Prim the Prostitute; goodbye Dr Dose the Doctor and hello Mr Veal the Vegan?

    7. The figures are useless without further information and taking conclusions from them is immoral.

      That the death rate is higher for vaccinated people isn’t unexpected given that vulnerable people are far more likely to be vaccinated and the least affected such as the young are least likely to be vaccinated.

      Death rates need a like-for-like comparison, for example split by age and degrees of co-morbidity.

    2. Yeah very sad, I expect Alan Gilzean will be nodding one down for him to bash into the back of the net.

      It must have been nearly 20 odd years ago when one of his son’s knocked on our front door, his in-laws had moved into the house opposite, on their behalf he asked about some the the unusual irregularities in our un-adopted road. I think he was in City Banking. I said to him you really look like your dad and told him I was a Spurs fan. A few years later the father in-law died. And after the funeral Jimmy parked his Merc on the grass verge opposite ours. I had to restrain myself from going to talk to him, it was not the right occasion.

      1. I’m not a Spurs fan, Eddy, but I have some good friends who are. I do, though, have a memory for certain teams and here is one that sticks in the mind:

        Brown; Baker, Henry; Blanchflower, Norman, Mackay; Jones, White, Smith, Allen, Dyson.

        Which of those could be dropped to accommodate Greaves?

        1. I think dropping Dyson would create a bit of a vacuum…(I know it’s a cyclone, but that doesn’t work!)

          1. Whilst on jokes that suck, Sue😎 Hurri Kane isn’t doing too bad a job at putting the ball in the net at Spurs. Ta. da!

        2. And Tony Marche as sub. John White was struck by lightening on Enfield golf course and died. Bobby smith was getting on a bit and i think Les Allen suffered some injuries.
          My wife and i were in Spain a couple of years back and were talking to a couple from Canada the guy had a spurs s tee shirt on. He was impressed when i recited the above team.
          One occasion sticks out in my mind as a 12 ish year old at WHL Spurs had drawn 1-1 with Górnik Zabrze away. The evening replay at WHL it was snowing. Spurs won 8 -1 But the goal of the season was from a corner and the Górnik forward seemed to lay in the air and side kick the ball into the top of the Spurs net. The old boys near us were ecstatic and one of them shouted cor blimey did you see that old Brownie didn’t know if he wanted a shit or an ‘air cut.

        3. And Tony Marche as sub. John White was struck by lightening on Enfield golf course and died. Bobby smith was getting on a bit and i think Les Allen suffered some injuries.
          My wife and i were in Spain a couple of years back and were talking to a couple from Canada the guy had a spurs s tee shirt on. He was impressed when i recited the above team.
          One occasion sticks out in my mind as a 12 ish year old at WHL Spurs had drawn 1-1 with Górnik Zabrze away. The evening replay at WHL it was snowing. Spurs won 8 -1 But the goal of the season was from a corner and the Górnik forward seemed to lay in the air and side kick the ball into the top of the Spurs net. The old boys near us were ecstatic and one of them shouted cor blimey did you see that old Brownie didn’t know if he wanted a shit or an ‘air cut.

        4. I can remember Terry Dyson turning up at Colchester United where he spent nearly two years. To have an idol from the Spurs Double team was special, especially down in Division 4.

          1. My own team, Sheffield Wednesday, were runners up to the Spurs double team in 1961. They were entered into the Inter Cities’ Fairs Cup the following year. In this day-and-age they would have been in the Champions’ League.

      2. I disagree; the ‘match’ was over, and as a house owner you are probably one of the joint owners of the road, so he was parked on (or had driven over) your land. A simple greeting would have been in order. Too late now.

    3. Sorry guys, but I cannot do with all this Wendyball adoration – the modern ‘game’ is just a business and the eye-watering payments by fanatics make me realise that there are so many gullible people who make it possible.

      Just my opinion…

      2. “…the modern ‘game’ is just a business…”

        That’s the point – today’s game, not the one in which Greaves, Moore & Co played (though George Best could be accused of starting the charge towards the madly monied superstar era).

  43. Jimmy Greaves, former England striker and World Cup winner, dies aged 81. 19 September .

    Jimmy Greaves, feted as one of England’s greatest strikers and a member of the squad that won the 1966 World Cup, has died at the age of 81.

    Even I am acquainted with the name of Jimmy Greaves, though it is more from his drinking and womanising activities than football.

    https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/sep/19/jimmy-greaves-former-england-striker-1966-world-cup-winner-dies-aged-81

    1. Was he a better footballer than George Best?

      George had the reputation for being the more prolific drinker and scorer off the pitch with the ladies.

      Those who have studied any political or moral philosophy will remember the naturalistic fallacy – that it is not possible to acquire truth from subjective value judgements and words such as good and bad!

      1. IMHO, when in his pomp Best was one of the very best I can recall watching. Sadly, his pomp was short-lived and he fizzled out: such a waste of talent. JG was an out and out goalscorer and one of the best at putting the ball in the net but Best just had that natural something extra when he had the ball at his feet.

    2. Amazon have a decent film on Greaves; his playing days were not without drama off the pitch, loss of a child, moving to Italy on the very day the wage cap was removed, being dropped through injury before the 1966 World Cup semi-final as without substitutions his fitness could not be guaranteed to harm the team. Yet he continued scoring a prolific number of goals throughout these travails.
      His subsequent drinking problems were, as in so many other examples, rooted in boredom once the limelight had moved on.
      His football pundit double act with Ian St John was a literal lifeline to him.
      RIP.

      1. “His subsequent drinking problems were, as in so many other examples, rooted in boredom once the limelight had moved on.”

        The infamous Blackpool binge was the first obvious sign of that.

        1. According to the film, as far as the players were aware the match had been called off, the evening before, due to the wintery conditions and they had ‘eased springs’ for the evening.
          Imagine their surprise the next morning, when they found out the game was on and the thrashing they received was well reported by a gleeful meeja.

    3. JG was a goal machine. Watching the clip below and realising that football pitches were in that state for months each season it’s amazing that he scored the number of goals he did. How would he have fared on the pristine grass carpets that today’s players have at their disposal is a question often asked of great players from the past. The question cannot, of course, be answered but it does no harm to speculate.

      1. The other question is, of course, Korky, “How many of today’s over-fêted and over-hyped footballers would have coped with playing on such mudpatch pitches; with dubbined-and-laced leather caseballs; and with no compromise defenders such as Tommy Smith, Norman Hunter and Norbert Stiles?” My bet is very few, if any.

        2. Please, don’t remind me of dubbined boots with hard shiny toe-caps, leather nail in studs and footballs with a bloody great lace in them.

          My first pair of what then, around 1961, would pass for a modern pair of football boots were St Crispin’s Wings, the Co-op’s own brand IIRC. I earned the money for them by picking peas and blackcurrants earlier that Summer. Heady days!

      2. “…it’s amazing that he scored the number of goals he did…”

        He was one of the few great players who had two good feet…

        1. Many, many years ago someone, I can’t recall who, explained JG’s great strength (not denying the two good feet or his ability to see a chance) was his acceleration over the first 5 yards or so. This gave him space and therefore time to make what followed look easy.

    1. And me many times. I could never understand why Alf Ramsey left him out of the England team, I think it was in Mexico.

      1. He was injured in the 1966 quarter final and, as there were no substitutions permitted at the time, Alf Ramsey made the call to pick an uninjured player for the semi-final and final.

    1. Blimey that pitch is a bit worse for wear. I sometimes played at Hackney Marshes and it was better than that.

  47. My children have ruined themselves with tattoos
    In our new ‘Parenting Confessions’ column, anonymous mothers and fathers share the family secrets they would never talk about in public

    https://www.bitchute.com/video/XAUk5a0120Mg/

    BTL Comment:

    There should be a tattoo tax. £100 per annum per square centimetre of skin covered in body graffiti.

      1. Like the elderly lady who lives locally , in her eighties ,still wears shorts , hair puffed up and she still drives her topless Merc .. a car to die for !

    2. Just tell them ‘You know it doesn’t wash off, don’t you?’

      I found it comical when a tattooed twit turned up to one of our networking jobs. He was vaguely capable, but didn’t inspire. I didn’t mention the tattoos at all, but afterward I thought… if we were to walk through the offices of one of our rather well to do businesses we may very well lose that contract.

      People have a right to their prejudices. Some bloke with a skull on his face gives a bad impression, regardless of what the scarred thinks.

      1. Tattooes are like constantly screaming your opinion at people. Not always appropriate. They pale next to face piercings though, which actually make me want to vomit. I can’t look at face piercings.

        2. Read an article about a woman who had the world record for piercings. She caught an infection, as her skin was rather perforated, and died nastily.

    3. Why a tax? Is that Jill Backson? If somebody wants to look repulsive, that’s their problem that they will regret later in life.

      1. Point taken – especially as many of those with tattoos are on benefits which they squander on getting their body graffiti etched into their skin.

        But how would you deter them? I believe that there is an age below which you are not allowed to get a tattoo which is older than that at which you can get a vaccine without parents’ consent.

        1. Maybe there should be some advice about being tattooed, and how it looks when you are old and saggy, but that doesn’t work with smoking and lung cancer.
          If people want to be tattooed, let them. Daft buggers, let them live with the consequences of their poor decision-making. In any case, if all I thought was ugly was removed, there wouldn’t be much left.

    4. Is it more than a coincidence that the occurrence of tattoos and body piercings, amongst the young, is inversely proportional to their paucity of general knowledge and their complete lack of good manners, grace, etiquette, and politeness?

    5. It’s a fashion. Today’s young people with tattoos will become tomorrow’s parents, whose children will regard tattoos as old-fashioned.

      1. I thought they would soon go out of fashion over twenty years ago. I have never been so wrong in my predictions.

        1. Like you, I didn’t see them lasting as long as they have. But it is a fashion, and like any fashion, will eventually become outdated. Unlike changing one’s hairstyle or throwing out flared trousers or brothel creepers, it won’t be so easy to remove old-fashioned tattoos.

          1. I thought that finding a way of removing tattoos in a way that left no trace and no scars would be a brilliant financial scheme for a far-sighted entrepreneur. I suppose this is why I have not become a billionaire entrepreneur.

          3. My niece uses the laser equivalent.
            Her stories would make your hair curl.
            Most people have one tattoo removed in order to have a replacement inked into the same area.
            And talking about the inks …… just don’t go there.

          6. 🙂 Visitors arrived and distracted me. Spartie was ecstatic as it was two of his favourite people; our son and his son.

      2. I remember reading a comment on mumsnet about fifteen years ago where someone wrote “In fifty years’ time they’ll all be in care homes, and the staff will see those tattooes while they’re giving them a blanket bath and they’ll say ‘I bet she was a right goer in her youth!’ ”

        Ghastly things. Tramp stamps.

    6. I believe that youngsters who acquire body art , piercings etc are probably attention seekers , people lost in the mire of mankind with no particular talent to offer.

      I reckon they haven’t cottoned on that the skin is the largest organ covering our body.. abuse it and you lose it .

      Detecting skin cancer must then become an absolute nightmare .

  48. These codeine aren’t affecting me at all – he says, having just put the towels in without washing gel.

  49. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1bd45f3e04d3451b4a2260b60c11084f02f14586826537cf64af739666a43fed.jpg Where’s Philip?

    I ended up with six pints of cow jelly after straining the stock. I reduced some to a syrup, last night, with a splash of Marsala (I didn’t have any Madeira) to make a glaze for my rib-eye steaks: it was delicious, beefy and intense.

    Today I’m enjoying a cup of consommé. The rest is frozen as cubes to be taken out as and when I need some more.

  50. On Friday, John of Kent (who apparently originates in Devonshire) passed his opinion on one of my threads to which I no longer have a right of reply. He stated:

    “Nonsense! A pork pie requires English mustard.”

    Well, that subjective opinion told me straight, didn’t it? Each to their own, John, I say, and my own is salad cream. 😉👍🏻

          1. That’s because they’re too good to do so. As Steve Jobs once said — to Billy Goats’ acute embarrassment— “Microsoft is just a cheap copy of Apple.” Goats agreed, sheepishly.

          3. Of course they don’t appear, Tom. They remain on their lofty pedestal whilst looking down their noses at Micro-soft-as-shite!

    2. I’m not keen as mustard on English mustard.

      I also went to respond to John on the issue of retaining fat from dishes but comments were locked.

          2. Pity we cannot apply it to Westminster, Philip, the rubbish bowl would quickly fill as, even skimmed, they’re not fit for purpose.

      2. Pages close after a day to thwart the spammers – it means they can only attack the current page or yesterday’s.

          3. I think they’re more likely to come from bored Disqus IT bods. It takes them a few weeks to regroup and harvest another crop of unused old accounts.

    3. Good afternoon, Grizzly

      You are at heart a Northcountryman who lives is Sweden just as I am a Westcountryman who lives in Brittany.

      2. Good afternoon, Rastus.

        And we both soak up the culture and cuisine of two nations; even though we never forget our roots.

          6. I’m sure there are lots of things we can agree on, John. We each have our likes and dislikes, particularly when it comes to food.

          4. It’s OK, mixed with Mayonnaise on a potato salad – mine include, as well as potatoes, onion, pepper, gherkin and capers. Yummy, learned while serving in Germany and the vinegar in the (awful) salad cream adds a bite.

          7. Each to their own. My famous potato salad (with Charlotte potatoes and chopped onion) – mixed with Heinz Salad Cream and freshly ground black pepper is a treat. It was also greatly admired and devoured by my French neighbours in Laure at our regular communal meals

          9. I’d prefer salad cream to mustard – I can’t stand the taste of any mustard. Mind you, it’s academic because I don’t like pork pies either 🙂

        1. I have guests coming on the 8th of next month.

          Crab canapes.
          Beef Wellington. Courtesy of Gordon Ramsey recipe

          Bread and butter pudding.

          I have been soaking the golden sultanas in rum. I will be using a gluten free brioche. It will be served with a Baileys vanilla custard.

          So there !

          2. They are ex RN. They expect everything to come with booze.

            I might leave it out. Let the rum speak for itself as it were.

  51. Britain’s broadcast media is too valuable to be the toy of politicians and moguls. 19 September 2021.

    Britain’s stubborn attachment to non-Tory values infuriates and worries Conservative politicians to equal degree. Yes, there is a suspicion of immigration or welfare cheats and an attachment to law and order they can exploit, but belief in fairness, in standing together and public spiritedness and, increasingly, in matters green seem impervious to attack.

    Right-of-centre British newspapers have done an unparalleled job in attempting to move public opinion to the right, but as their circulation declines so their influence wanes. Without a politician of the campaigning zest of Boris Johnson, Tories concede, their chance of winning elections will fade. The imperative is to use the current conjuncture to follow the US and build a broadcast media as effective as the fading print media in cheerleading the Conservative cause. Public service broadcasting and, above all, broadcast regulators’ attachment to impartiality are in their crosshairs.

    A message from The Twilight Zone. Lol!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/19/britains-broadcast-media-is-too-valuable-to-be-the-toy-of-politicians-and-moguls

    1. Right-of-centre British newspapers Beano, Dandy, Eagle, Victor – nary a mention of global warming, BLGT, Rainbow Warriors, Women’s Rights, Coconut equality, preferential placement, integrational enhancement etc in these FAR RIGHT fascist rags. Close them all down! Only the Guardian and BBC affiliated news media to be allowed. All Tory MPs and their voters to be disenfranchised (Boris and his leader, Carrie, excepted. of course). Long live the meatless revolution!

  54. 339038+up ticks,
    Do we need MORE wind turbines, should we close DOWN ALL other forms of energy creation, should we MAKE it compulsory to support & vote for the lab/lib/con/ green coalition ONLY, then everybody & nobody is to blame.

    These lab/lib/con hard core supporter / member / voters are cautions

  55. Will the worm ever turn?

    We were told that the vaccine would stop you getting Covid: It now turns out that it doesn’t and we accept it.

    We were told that the vaccine would stop you spreading Covid to others: It now turns out that it does not and we accept it.

    We were told that the vaccine would be like the Scottish Independence Referendum – a once in a generation affair. We now need regular top ups and we accept it.

    We were told that even if the vaccine does not stop you getting Covid it stops you getting it so badly – but some people suffer terrible side effects and die and we accept it.

    Is there anything about the vaccine which we should not and must not accept? And if not what should we not accept? After all Boris Johnson assures us that just like his EU WA was stonking good and oven ready so is the vaccine.

    .

    1. Rastus, as you well know, Johnson is a liar and bullshitter of the first order. Nothing that creature says should be taken at face value, ever!

    2. 339078+ up ticks,

      Afternoon R,

      The electorate have for the last 30 plus years as to the way of things and what one party had done wrong the other would put right, the electorate accepted it.
      The electorate made decisions via vows, promises & pledges made, the electorate accepted them.

      Vows,promises, & pledges broken the electorate via the three monkeys & the good name of the “party”
      accepted it.

      in point of fact we could never,ever achieved sinking to such a depth in the sh!te bog without the continuing input
      of the COALITION supporters.

  56. I’ve just written to my MP about my teeth”

    “Dear Harriett Baldwin

    In 1988, I had two front teeth knocked out in a morris dancing accident at the Bromyard Folk Festival. My NHS dentist there was called out, and did the emergency repairs straight away. One tooth had a fractured root and had to be taken out. He then fitted a temporary denture pending a full restoration once things had settled down.

    In 1995, I attended the County Hospital in Hereford and had a permanent bridge fitted. They put in a stump crown over the surviving broken tooth and ground down the intact natural tooth on the other side, so that the bridge over the missing front tooth would be supported on both sides. While it functioned perfectly well, it was always slightly wonky, making the side over the good tooth stump somewhat proud of the others, but I lived with it over the years.

    A few weeks ago, the bridge, now 25 years old, came loose. I had to struggle to find an NHS dentist I could trust, since my old practice in Malvern had numerous staff changes and the dentist appointed to me botched a back filling (which was crowned in the past), which came out twice after a couple of months before giving up on filling it. My new dentist was the only one in Malvern taking on new patients. At the first checkup, they were unwilling to take on the filling on the back tooth, but took out a shard on a broken back tooth on the other side, which was a dental emergency. We decided to let sleeping dogs lie, and agreed not to have any further treatment at this stage.

    Then the bridge over the front teeth came loose, so I booked in an emergency appointment with the new dentist. It seems that the tooth that was originally intact had snapped off at the gum, but the root was otherwise fine. A single pin into the originally broken tooth supporting the stump crown holding the other side of the bridge came out with the bridge, leaving the stump crown embedded in the bridge along with the broken off natural tooth on the other side.

    My dentist’s solution was to re-use the old bridge, but saw off the part holding the natural tooth and to recement the pin into the other tooth as a cantilever, with the pin being the only support. The original natural tooth would then have its own crown. I was not offered a temporary bridge, but rather the existing bridge had to do until the crown was made. I had to improvise using denture fixative to stop it rattling around. The movement probably loosened the area around the pin.

    I have booked up with my dentist for it to be adjusted, since while the new crown looks very good from the front, and corrected the wonkiness of the old bridge, there is a lump on the back which is banging against my lower teeth so I cannot close my mouth properly. Hopefully he should be able to drill into the porcelain until the bite is true without causing damage to the crown. I put this down partly to them cutting costs doing upper and lower impressions separately, whereas in the past, they were done simultaneously, so that the lab could better align the bite.

    More seriously, the old bridge, now a cantilever, is only supported by one round pin. Within hours, it came loose since there is nothing stopping my tongue pushing against the pontic and spinning the re-used bridge forward, breaking the bond. It has now come out. I am not sure that gluing it back in will solve the problem. My dentist advised me that I must accept that I cannot do things I used to, such as eating an apple, but I do feel that any dentistry should be able to withstand any pushing with my tongue.

    I think back to the original prognosis back in 1995, when the dental surgeon then felt it was necessary to sacrifice a good tooth to give the bridge sufficient support, suggesting that the stump crown and pin was not sufficient on their own. Yet today, my dentist takes a different view.

    Considering the difficulty I have finding any NHS dentist prepared to do the work today, and that I really cannot afford to go private and do not see why I must, when this falls well within the remit of the NHS (Band 3 should cover bridges, and presumably my dentist would be paid properly if I needed a new one), I felt I needed to rely on the expertise and knowledge of the professional and let him do his job. I now feel I might need a second opinion, if I can get one.

    If I am not satisfied, then there are normal procedures, which I appreciate.

    However, I do need to know whether my dentist was instructed by the Department of Health to use a cheaper option than that given me in the 1990s, even if this violates clinical effectiveness. For example, he might have been told that he would not be reimbursed for a proper procedure, only for a botched one. Cost is therefore a higher priority than proper medical treatment. If this is so, then this is no longer a matter for the dental professional regulators, but must be taken up with the Department of Health, and therefore falls within your province.

    This is not the first time I have brought your attention to the Department of Health violating medical and ethical standards in order to save money. You may remember my own GP in Knightwick taking early retirement after being instructed by the Department of Health to lie to his patients about the clinical safety of the antidepressant Trimipramine, when the issue was actually over the makers, who were in a cartel cornering the UK market, exploiting it becoming generic by pushing up the price a hundred times over its cost in order to profiteer. You scapegoated the local clinical commissioners in Bromsgrove, but they were innocent of this scam, which had been stitched up in Whitehall and imposed locally. Mine is not the only drug to be exploited in this way by the corporates. Was it really necessary to spend so much on Test & Trace?

    If there is a racket involved in the Department of Health, which might even be sanctioned at very senior level, including even the Secretary of State (although I appreciate that Savid Javid has not been in post long), then who can I go to to correct this, especially if it is deliberate? I can hardly afford to compete with the sort of bribery that the corporates tapping into PFI, HS2 or Covid contracts can. All I have left to rely on is the good name of Parliament.

    Should I write to the Speaker?

    With best wishes
    Jeremy Morfey”

    1. Never forget that Barak Hussein Obama is a Muslim through and through and he is currently operating the puppet Biden.

  58. A full church this morning and I could only see two maskies in the congregation.

    One was a lady whose mode of dress is always over-the-top and I think masks to match her outfits has just become part of her style. As much carnival as pandemic.

    The other was Our Lord Bishop of London. It’s Founders Day at Barts, when we mark the founding of the Priory and its hospital by Prior Rahere and King Henry I, so it was nice of Bishop Sarah to come but she clearly can’t resist a spot of virtue signalling.

      1. The correct title is Lord Bishop irrespective of the sex of the holder! She has to live with that. Our forebears didn’t anticipate the problem.

        1. Just as a female licensee of a public house is properly called the “Landlord”. A “Landlady” is what you find running a seaside guest house.

        1. Oh yes. Gavin Ashenden always refers to her as The Midwife because as he rightly points out, that is the profession for which she was trained. As Chief Nursing Officer she also did her share of damage to the NHS.

          1. Delightful people, Sue. Certainly worth elevaton within the current ‘Christian’ culture.

            Small wonder that I’m agnostic.

    2. Dame Sarah Elisabeth Mullally, DBE (née Bowser; born 26 March 1962) is a British Anglican bishop, Lord Spiritual and former nurse. She has been Bishop of London since 8 March 2018. From 1999 to 2004, she was England’s Chief Nursing Officer and the National Health Service’s director of patient experience for England; from July 2015 until 2018.
      https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/Official_portrait_of_The_Lord_Bishop_of_London_crop_2.jpg/220px-Official_portrait_of_The_Lord_Bishop_of_London_crop_2.jpg

          6. Bishop Treweek believes that God should be considered to be neither male nor female and tries to avoid using gender-specific pronouns when referring to God, “she said she personally prefers to say neither “he” nor “she”, but “God”. “Sometimes I lapse, but I try not to. The Diocese of Gloucester announced that, in January 2017, Treweek would preside at an LGBTI Eucharist with Inclusive Church.

          8. Please would someone post a picture of an attractive Anglican woman priest – or is it not possible to find one?

      4. Her appointment epitomises all that is wrong with modern career progressions.
        Just choose any random individual who has done fairly well in one field and hire them for a completely different role at a more senior level, normally just because they tick the appropriate woke-boxes.
        Then wonder why your core following disappears.

    3. I was impressed by Bishop Richard (Chartres) who had the physical presence to have been a medieval warrior bishop.

    4. We held our Battle of Britain service this Sunday (a week late!). Complete with RAFAC [ATC in old money] colour party (very well done, I have to say, although they were only youngsters).

  59. 339038+ up ticks,
    The political dominant overseers are really going into overdrive now
    regarding laying down the footings of reset / NWO in running the Country
    down into the dark depths of despair.

    Mounting fears of a 1970s-style three-day week as Britain’s energy crunch deepens

  60. The woke Left have destroyed California. 19 September 2021.

    California once epitomised all that was good about the United States. Those living in the Golden State enjoyed a standard of living and quality of life that was the envy of America, if not the world. It was a state of opportunity in a land of opportunity.

    Once full of freewheeling entrepreneurs, California is now the most regulated state in the country, according to the Mercatus Center. Permits and licensing are required for almost everything. It is not just big name entrepreneurs, like Elon Musk, who have had enough. Hundreds of thousands of ordinary people and businesses are fleeing, moving to Texas, Utah, Arizona and elsewhere. Last year, California’s population fell for the first time in recorded history.

    Last week, Californians were given the opportunity to sack their current governor, Gavin Newsom, in a recall election. The motion to eject Newsom was not only defeated. Faced with a Trumpish Republican challenger to the incumbent, Californians elected to keep him by an overwhelming margin of two to one.

    A Left-wing incumbent with a disastrous record was, it seems, preferred to a Trump-type alternative. If California shows us how Left-wing politicians can destroy a state, it also shows us how a certain type of conservatism can unwittingly let them get away with it.

    This of course is the fate that awaits the UK only much worse. The influx of Hispanics, many of whom retain a cultural affiliation to California from when it was a part of Mexico are not intrinsically hostile to the United States whereas Islam sees us as an enemy to be subjugated. This will eventually result in the utter destruction of the UK, first will be its fragmentation into its constituent states and then their individual capitulation and impoverishment.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/19/woke-left-have-destroyed-california/

    1. Bring on the next major tectonic plate push and a major split along the San Andreas fault, resulting in most of the ever-preening California, sliding into the Pacific.

      All wets together.

      1. Afternoon VOM. There does seem to be some doubts but I don’t think it was sufficient to change the result!

    4. IMHO most foreigners are left wing, socialistic, especially those of the Catholic, Jewish and Islamic faiths, along with traditional African cults. Many of them like to breed their way to power, and large families require largesse. It’s the old tale of the rich man at a restaurant. Jewish people of course bring some brainpower & science to the party.

    5. IMHO most foreigners are left wing, socialistic, especially those of the Catholic, Jewish and Islamic faiths, along with traditional African cults. Many of them like to breed their way to power, and large families require largesse. It’s the old tale of the rich man at a restaurant. Jewish people of course bring some brainpower & science to the party.

  61. THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

    A married man should forget his mistakes.

    There”s no use in two people remembering the same thing!

          5. Oscar goes mad for cheese. Very handy when I need to give him a tablet; I put it in a cheese slice and it never touches the sides.

          8. Are you that obnoxious little creature’s ‘brief’ or are you just a Stage-Door Johnny at his unwatchable telly shows?

            We must be told.

          9. I would very much like to know what you have against the bloke. I do find his young cheeky-chappy persona tedious – especially now that he is pushing 50. But he causes no harm. He is not a chef – but doesn’t claim to be one. He is a reasonably good cook. So none of his recipes are his own. Well, practically every meal you eat has been cooked by zillions in the past.

            We must be told…..{:¬))

      2. Yonks ago my mother asked me to hang the washing out. I did so.

        When she got home, she proceded to tae it all down, and put it all up again. Apparently I had done it wrong deliberately.

        Another time she motored around hoovering and dusting. I asked if I could help. She said no, just sit there. A few moments later, I had the same response. Later in the evening she complained I hadn’t lifted a finger all day. I said ‘I asked you twice. You said ‘no, just sit there’.

        When I married our first argument with the wife was similar. She didn’t like the response but couldn’t deny the facts. I told her to just tell me what she wanted rather than hinting at it and expecting me to interpret it.

        She doesn’t amble or waffle. She tells me. I do it, or tell her when I will do it.

  62. POEM BY AN AFRICAN MAN

    DEAR WHITE FELLA,

    COUPLA THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

    WHEN I BORN, I BLACK
    WHEN I GROW UP, I BLACK
    WHEN I GO IN SUN, I BLACK
    WHEN I COLD, I BLACK
    WHEN I SCARED, I BLACK
    WHEN I SICK, I BLACK
    AND WHEN I DIE, I STILL BLACK

    AND YOU WHITE FELLA,

    WHEN YOU BORN, YOU PINK
    WHEN YOU GROW UP, YOU WHITE
    WHEN YOU GO IN SUN, YOU RED
    WHEN YOU COLD, YOU BLUE
    WHEN YOU SCARED, YOU YELLOW
    WHEN YOU SICK, YOU GREEN
    WHEN YOU DIE, YOU GREY

    …………. AND YOU CALLING ME COLOURED ?

    2. Yes, I remember a conversation about that when an elderly and respectable eastern European lady exclaimed at the tea table and pointed out that we Brits were most certainly not ‘white’, but a sort of dirty shade compared to her fellow countrymen.

    1. Much of the pollution and packaging we’re now using is to meet EU regulation. But ssh! Don’t tell them that!

          1. Very true. However, without excusing them, many public bins are not emptied by councils – so wazzocks go on adding to the overspill.

          2. Some years ago, we were on holiday in York. At the station, ice creams all round, but where to dispose of the wrappers? No bins! Asked at the information desk, the guy there told us that all bins had been removed to stop bombs being put in them, and to throw he sticky wrappers into the flowerbeds!
            We found an old carrier bag, and took them home.

    3. Being driven to school isn’t the fault of the youngsters; increased traffic on the roads, greater distances between home & primary school and above all the fact that any criminal faces neither the prospect of incarceration for life nor capital punishment.

  64. Meat set to run out in just TWO weeks and Christmas dinner is under threat in gas crisis. 19 September 2021.

    Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng will tomorrow hold an emergency summit with energy bosses to thrash out a plan to fix the fuel crisis, which has sparked fears of major food shortages.

    There is growing alarm that the food and drink industry could be badly hit by the closure of two fertiliser plants – in Teesside and Cheshire – due to gas price rises.

    Time to get some cans of Stewed Steak and Gammon Ham in!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10005291/Meat-supplies-run-two-weeks-Christmas-dinner-threat-gas-suppliers-warn.html

        1. Bowring Butchers
          submitted a truly scrumptious pie, and it was agreed across the board
          that their classic Meat and Potato masterpiece was the Supreme Champion
          of 2021. Congrats Bowring Butchers!”

          They won against multiple vegan entrants too.

          3. There is disgusting over-processed muck masquerading as meat in the meat section of my local supermarket.

          4. Speaking of pies, now that M&S Simply Food has re-opened post-plague at Guildford station, they are now officially my nearest convenience store (i.e. seven minutes away by train). If I time it correctly, I can do the whole thing in 45 minutes**. It would be difficult to beat this by car. Anyway, I’ve noticed M&S always seem to have short-coded Beef & Old Peculier pies, and enjoyed one yesterday. Buy shares in South Western Railway.*

            *First Group and MTR Corporation, really…
            **Tesco Metro is also an option, but requires a slightly longer walk

          5. If the judging is honest, there is no way on God’s earth that a vegan pie could ever win against one with meat in. But I suppose it’s an ethnic minority, so it will have to win once in a while.

    3. My tinny cupboard is already full.
      Duck confit

      Porc confit
      Quail & Foie Gras

      Spam
      Ham
      Corned beef
      stewed steak
      Salmon
      Herrings
      Anchovies
      Pilchards in tomato.

      Dry larder fully stocked too.

          2. No panic here. I buy when on special and use them throughout Winter in other dishes.

            I also have 3 freezers. 2 wine fridges and an emergency store of dried egg, milk, dog food, water and flour. Sealed against time in irradiated vac pacs.

          8. Spam or bacon ‘grills’ coated in batter and deep fried are for special occasions. Don’t you know anything !

        1. Just a bit of prepping. Not because i believe that we will run out of food but people in a panic emptying the shelves. Have i mentioned how many toilet rolls i have… :@)

      4. Mine’s always full of the same stuff Phil – plus rice pud from Lidl (38 tins at the last count)

        1. Ah ha !…I didn’t even mention Semolina, Rice Pudding and Devon custard…and all the tinned fruit. :@)

          1. Yep, loads of tinned fruit and evap milk, not to mention tinned and homemade soup plus all the other homemade stuff in the freezer AND 25Kg of Gluten free flour for my bread

      5. I have a similar stock, plus tinned soups and baked beans (I is dead sofistikated, I is). Rice puds and custard as well.

    5. I have turkey left over from last year (it’s in the freezer) and I don’t rely on gas. Christmas will NOT be cancelled at Chàteau Conway.

    5. Following the increasing seismic activity and the previously suspected beginning of tremor, the volcano erupted short time ago – probably much earlier than most expected.

      There are not many details yet, but from initial pictures it seems that a fissure opened on the western flank of La Cumbre Vieja, feeding lava fountains and flows, burning forests and farmland.

      In the meantime, seismic activity continues to increase by the minute, dominated by volcanic tremor, reflecting the flow of magma to the surface.

      https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/la-palma/news/141846/La-Palma-Canary-Islands-new-eruption-La-Cumbre-Vieja-volcano-erupts-for-first-time-since-1971.html

    6. This is the Island volcano that is predicted to flood the US East coast if it causes a huge land slip and tsunami.

    7. There go all the government’s Left wing, economy destroying climate change restrictions in 5 minutes.

      What a waste of time, money and jobs.

  67. After everything that has gone on and everything that continues to go on by dint of this authoritarian government this “consent” form for 12 – 15 yo children really scrapes the bottom of the barrel. If this is what the consent form asks then the people responsible are truly beyond the pale: they are monsters preying on our children’s niavety.

    https://twitter.com/AllisonPearson/status/1439571560826904576

    2. I loathe the use of the word “poorly”. Especially in Scotland where it is hardly used at all. As a medical term it is very misleading. I feel “poorly” when I wake up after having one glass too many. Something trivial. I received a call from the hospice where my mother was being looked after. A nurse told me that she was “poorly”. Well, I knew that she was very ill, that was the reason for her being in the hospice. Later I went in to visit her, to be told that she was dead. I had not understood that “poorly” meant on the point of death. In general, it seems to me that the medicos understate things.

      1. I guess they don’t want to upset or worry you, but they need to calibrate towards “normal folk” when saying these things. I think I had understood what they meant. Had a similar call from hospital where SWMBO was suffering severe pre-eclampsia.
        Jumped in the car, have never driven so fast, lights on full beam, 0ver 120mph on the bypass (GTi Golf), into the hospital grounds, jumped out of the car (door left open, engine running) and ran to the ward – to find all under control. Walked back to the car, parked it properly, back to the ward and got into bed with her and we both went to sleep.
        Ultra-high blood pressure seemed to be a Saturday thing, so by the next Friday (08:00), Firstborn was ushered into the world by Cæsarean.

      2. Sorry to hear that, Horace. You missed out on seeing your mother unnecessarily, in my view. People should tell it straight and not use euphemisms.

    3. It beggars belief that the criminals in government are doing this, presumably in the belief that they will get away with it.
      Paracetamol my ……foot! Just take some paracetamol for your myocarditis or Guillame-Barre syndome, eh?

          2. I have no experience of these things – but the one to which you refer (a third of the way down on the (far-)right) is, I think, a lady. But I’ll leave that for you to decide; you have seen so many more…

          3. Ah so…

            But your bottom right isn’t the right bottom at the bottom of the right.
            As usual, you tend to the extreme right.

    9. Why is it that those who should keep their clothes on are the first to throw them off?
      This lot need ironing!

  70. That’s me for this day of two halves. Despite feeling a bit off* – picked raspberries; did some ladder work to trim a hedge (under close supervision); had lunch in the garden in the sun. And – about 15 mins after that the rain started – ad is still going on.

    Bonfire tomorrow.

    A demain

    *less so now – pulse dropped back to normal.

    2. If you had a racing heartbeat, you should not be picking raspberries; nor doing some ladder work to trim a hedge …

    1. Inelegant, sweetie!

      I never eat sandwiches – nor burgers.

      I prefer proper food eaten with a knife and fork; bu**er the Earl of That Ilk …

        1. Betty Botter bought some butter;
          ‘But’, she said, ‘the butter’s bitter’.
          ‘If I put it in my batter,
          It will make my batter bitter’.
          So she bought some better butter,
          Now her batter is not bitter.

      3. I made homemade burgers last night. I used to make homemade baps/buns, but now have found my burgers are much tastier without any bread. Lovely with homemade oven chips and salad, mainly tomatoes, olives and rocket with my gorgeous secret dressing.

          4. OK, this is totally mine as I make ’em and the ingredients have changed over the last few years.
            For 2 large burgers.
            200g lean minced beef.
            30g finely chopped red pepper.
            30g finely chopped onion (spring if possible)
            2 finely chopped garlic cloves.
            20/30g grated cheddar.
            1 tsp of ground cumin (use crushed seeds if you can be arsed, it does make a difference).
            1 tsp paprika.
            1 tsp dried oregano and mixed herbs (or fresh basil and sage if you’ve got them)
            Salt and pepper to taste.

            Lightly fry the red pepper, and onion in olive oil for a few minutes and add the garlic for the last minute (I used to add a finely chopped red chilli pepper at this point but my tummy won’t let me anymore). Adding the herbs and spices at the same time as the garlic.
            Spoon the mixture into a bowl and let it cool for a few minutes before adding the grated cheese and lean mince and salt and pepper.
            Mix thoroughly and form into 2 burgers.
            I heat a little olive oil in the frying pan until quite hot as I like the burgers a bit seared. Then just cook ’em for as long as you like your burgers done. They really don’t need buns to be enjoyed. xx

          6. That’s the thing, I always mix and match recipes and use the bits I fancy, leave out the bits I don’t. Nothing ever strict about recipes.
            Here’s a good site http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipes/ I look at 4 or 5 versions of the same recipe and then go my own route.

    2. 1. Roast Pork with Crackling, Sage & Onion Stuffing, Apple Sauce and Colman’s English on a Large White Cob*.

      2. Bacon & Beetroot on Crusty White.

      3. Reuben [Salted Beef thinly sliced, Emmenthal Cheese, Sauerkraut, Russian Dressing] on Rye.

      4. Roasted (or Fried) Pork Sausage and Fried Sliced Tomato on a White Cob.

      5. Egg & Cress on Wholemeal.

      6. Canned Salmon and Cucumber on White.

      7. Fried Egg on a Buttered Brown Cob* [*Roll, Bun, Bap, Batch, Teacake, Breadcake, Moggie call it what you will].

      8. Rare Roast Beef with Crispy Onions, Remoulade Sauce, Grated Horseradish, Lettuce, Tomato and Pickled Gherkin on Black Bread.

      9. Crab and Prawns with Lettuce and Mary Rose Sauce on Granary.

      10. Pork Dripping & Salt on a White Doorstep.

        1. Indeed, John. I can’t get it here so have to grow my own. I’ve also tried growing my own watercress, but it’s difficult to get a decent result without a chalk stream!

          1. As do we, since it’s not available to buy. Good in a granary cheese sandwich with just a smidgen of salad cream.
            I love watercress too. Rare roast beef, watercress and dijonnaise works well as a combo.

      2. None of those for me, Grizz.

        I’ll stick to smoked salmon on Irish soda bread, a squeeze of fresh lemon juice & a sprinkle of cayenne pepper –

        Never a sandwich …

        1. I’ve injured my back in some fashoin. Which means the wife went to do the shop.

          As one small example, we have ‘herb dressed salmon fillets’. Not simple ‘a whole dead fish’. I can’t eat the stuff, but Mongo usually has about a kilo of practically raw meat for dinner. Half that is fish. Now this great brute looks at it and thinks ‘where’s the rest of it?’

          1. Is that what they call one of those open sandwiches? A bit like a pie that doesn’t have a bottom? :@)

          2. An open sandwich is a rip off. It’s a way of making it go further. Over here they call them macka. It’s entertaining to watch them handle them without all the topping fall off.

        1. Apparently northerners can be rendered silent by the kettle. To them, it’s magical. I’m not surprised, their not having electricity.

          2. Is that because of the cobbled streets?

            Isn’t that hard on the horse and carts? Oh! Sorry! You might not know aobut the wheel, what with being up north.

            Thank you for taking this in good humour Grizz (and other northerners!)!

    3. Toss-up between BL(t) and marmite & cucumber.
      Now that sandwich spread has disappeared… 🙁

        1. Any other kind is just wet and floppy, Plum. just sprays water and whatever else you add (some like mayonnaise…) down your shirt front.

          2. Err… customs is very, very slow these days. It would be growing fur before it arrived – but thanks for the offer! Now Grizz has mentioned BritSuperstore, I can order from them – together with 44kg of Birds custard powder!

      1. That’s a fix. Too much salad garnish. The bread looks suspicious too. Where’s the crispy burnt bits ?

        1. It takes me back too …. happy times.I have to choose the right moment to
          listen to the whole LP.

          Sunday dinner wasn’t sarnies was it..just asking.

  72. Evening, all. Alas, the weather forecast was accurate; torrential rain when I was walking Oscar this afternoon. Fortunately, the sun came out later to dry us off. As to why the government is still scare-mongering, it’s a case of they can’t let go.

    1. If they stopped all the daily reporting it would be a good start. But of course people would soon realise that it has been all about the fear. They painted themselves into a corner and suddenly realised they’d used anti-climb security paint that never dries.

    2. Scaremongering distracts people from vaccine side-effects, and from encroaching digital ids (proof of vaccine status).

          1. Given that he is extremely averse to being washed, I am keeping his roll over exercises to clean places indoors!

  74. Well, that’s two sets of shelving ready for assembling into the 10′ container I’ve (hopefully) got arriving on Tuesday. Did one lot yesterday and, after rain stopped play, the other done this lunchtime.
    A bit of a busy week, I dropped a 6″ ash on Wednesday, got it logged & the brash ready for feeding into the mulcher Thursday. 30′ of logs from the main trunk and a fair amount of thinner sticks ready for cutting & stacking in mushroom trays.
    Managed to scrounge a dozen & a half mushroom trays during my run into Derby on Friday which have all been filled, together with the ash brash being mulched.

    Trying to ignore the news as it’s getting so bloody depressing.

      2. Heyup Lass!
        I’ve realised that being retired simply means that I’m working harder than ever to sort out things I’d let slide because I never had time to do them when working!

    1. If the pigs knew what was coming to them they’d be stunned.
      I’ll get me goat as the Taliban say.

  76. Hard times make hard men. Hard men make soft times. Soft time makes weak men, weak men make hard times.

    We’re governed by fools who shouldn’t be offering to subsidise manure, but instead frakking natural gas that we have to make up the shortfall. It should be looking at the vulnerability it is forcing on the country and reversing it’s pathetic obsession with green to one better suited to this country.

    1. I heartily agree, wibbs; the Greenies – led by Mrs Boris Johnson – are attempting to reverse the Industrial Revolution; they should grow up …

      1. It’s the naivëty. They simply don’t know where this will end. They seem to think there are no consequences to their actions, that all their attitudes contain no negative effects.

      1. Yep. One erruption releases more co2 than we do in a year. Ho hum. Let’s avoid the debate in case the narrative is questioned.

  78. I watched the gnus on BBC at 17:30 hrs this evening.
    Luckily none of them got caught by the crocodile.

    1. It’s recorded for later viewing but I doubt if we’ll get past the first episode.

      Tonight we had the whole of Tosca while we had dinner. No matter how many times we’ve heard it it always hits the spot.

  85. Mont Saint Michel to be ‘rebranded’ in move away from overpriced omelettes and tourist tat

    The head of one report to the French prime minister said the site had turned into a shameless ‘cash cow’ fleecing ‘captive customers’

    Thomas Veltier, 37, is the director of a new public body to run the landmark, took on the job with a €5million budget mid-Covid lockdown
    when the site briefly regained the magical silence of old.

    Even its famed Mère Poulard restaurant, whose legendary omelettes have been tasted by everyone from Queen Victoria to Brigitte Macron, has been
    accused of charging extortionate prices for mediocre dishes: been there– it was

    Since Mr ( I love the Mr bit) Veltier’s arrival, vendors have been ordered to stop cluttering the narrow streets and keep most of their largely Chinese-made trinkets inside.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/09/19/mont-saint-michel-re-branded-move-away-overpriced-omelettes/

  91. Good morning fellow insomniacs.
    Woke up to pump bilges and realised what a beautiful full moon it is outside.

  92. Oh for fuck’s sake:-

    ‘Cut motorway speed limit so we can block road’, demand M25 protesters

    Insulate Britain embarks on a second week of protests after bringing chaos to the M25 last week
    By Victoria Ward 19 September 2021 • 9:00pm

    Protesters have asked for the motorway speed limit to be cut to accommodate their demonstrations ahead of further action on the M25 on Monday.

    Members of Insulate Britain brought chaos to the motorway last week, blocking it on three separate occasions.

    They have vowed to return to the M25 from 7am on Monday, amid fears that the campaign will last for weeks or even months.

    The group said they had written to National Highways, formerly the Highways Agency, to request that the traffic is slowed down on the parts of the M25 where they were protesting.

    Frustrated that a similar request was ignored last week, they wrote: “Insulate Britain are asking the Highways Agency to review their previous decision not to reduce speed limits, even though they had been made aware that major disruption will be taking place.

    “Given that this is a standard safety procedure when hazards occur on the motorway, Insulate Britain is surprised it has not formed part of the response to the campaign.”

    They added: “People’s safety during this campaign has always been our primary objective.”

    National Highways regional director Nicola Bell said: “Our road network is integral for our customers’ journeys and is the backbone of the country’s economy; connecting people, building communities and helping people go about their daily lives.

    “Our primary concern is always safety, but changing speed limits in advance of any incident creates a far greater risk to the wider travelling public.”

    Police chiefs came under fire last week after videos emerged appearing to show officers facilitating the protests rather than arresting the activists.

    Activists who were arrested simply returned to block the road again as soon as they were released from custody.

    The police are understood to be reluctant to prosecute the activists for relatively minor offences, such as blocking the highway, because the sentences available are unlikely to act as a deterrent.

    Instead senior officers from Hertfordshire, Surrey, Kent, Essex and the Met have been exploring whether they can bring more serious charges, including conspiracy to cause public nuisance.

    Roger Hallam, the mastermind of the Insulate Britain group, is hoping that scores of activists are jailed in the run up to the COP26 summit in Glasgow in November, in order to humiliate Boris Johnson, it has been claimed.

    The co-founder of Extinction Rebellion is said to have told supporters earlier this year: “The whole world’s going to be looking at Johnson and saying ‘You’re Mr Green and you’ve got 200 people in prison because they want you to insulate some houses?’ It’s not going to look good.”

    Insulate Britain is demanding that the government “immediately promise to fully fund and take responsibility for the insulation of all social housing in Britain by 2025”.

    A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: “We consider their actions to be unreasonable and unsafe highway obstruction and we will respond as quickly as possible and robustly to any incidents of this nature.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/19/cut-motorway-speed-limit-can-block-road-demand-m25-protesters/

    1. If Insulate Britain protesters stuck to the the hard shoulder of a smart motorway would the police give them the elbow?

  93. An excellent letter and a BTL Response:-

    SIR – You accuse Russia of rigging gas prices. Rig: “to manipulate in a fraudulent manner.”
    As far as I can see, there is nothing fraudulent in what Russia is doing. If we choose to rely for our energy on a combination of uncertain providers (wind) and coercive regimes (Russia), it can come as no surprise when calm days allow such regimes to hike their prices. It’s called pricing according to demand, and it’s what hotels, airlines and many others do every day.
    Until we encourage the development of cheap, assured and sustainable national energy supplies, we can expect this to happen again and again.

    Christopher Wilton
    Petersfield, Hampshire

    Robert Spowart
    20 Sep 2021 2:49AM
    Well said Christopher Wilton.

    The hysteria being whipped up against Russia is beginning to sound like a diversionary tactic to take attention away from our own Governments screw-ups.

  94. Right.
    Had a 15 minute walk up the road & back to take in the early morning quiet, so I’m off back to bed again.
    Good morning all.

    1. They say that if a tree falls in the wood when there’s nobody there to hear it then it doesn’t make a sound.
      Is that true?

      Morning BoB.

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