Sunday 26 September: Voters are paying the price for politicians’ myopic energy planning

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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641 thoughts on “Sunday 26 September: Voters are paying the price for politicians’ myopic energy planning”

    1. Morning Minty. Morning Geoff.
      I’m only awake this time on a Sunday because I’ve just finished a night shift 🙂

    2. Good morning to Minty, Geoff and all NoTTLers. And a very happy birthday to Feargal the Cat.

      1. From an American publication:

        They say that the Chinese are producing small nuclear power stations. The Chinese just remove the coal burning furnace from a coal fired

        power station, and replace it with the small nuclear one. Amazingly quick and cheap, and produces very little “off grid” time.

        In the meantime Britain spends money demolishing its coal fired power stations, then spends a lot more taking ten years to build

        replacement nuclear power stations.

        This Green posturing has to stop before we’re all bankrupt.

  5. Good morning all.
    A dull & damp start to the day at 11½°C, but the overnight rain has ceased.

  6. Former Tesco boss Sir Dave Lewis to head firm that plans to lay thousands of miles of undersea cable to supply UK with renewable energy from Africa. 26 September 2021.

    Former Tesco boss Sir Dave Lewis is the new chairman of a firm that plans to lay thousands of miles of undersea cable to supply the UK with renewable energy from Africa.

    Lewis said the audacious plan will link to newly built solar and wind power generators in Morocco and help drive Britain towards its ambitions of ‘a reliable, net zero electricity system by 2035’.

    There is of course absolutely nothing wrong with the idea of sourcing your electricity from an unstable Islamic country in the Third World through a long and vulnerable pipline!

    https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-10028423/Former-Tesco-boss-Sir-Dave-Lewis-run-undersea-power-line-firm.html

    1. Why must we head toward net zero if all we do is move the pollution elsewhere?

      As for net zero, that’s the energy and fuel Boris will force us to have in his green utopia.

      1. Investing in ‘holding facilities’ for illegal refugees could be a nice little earner. There is plenty of space in Effrika and plenty of well practiced psychopaths to run such establishments.

      2. …and would the shortest route be via Spain and France? That would work well – never mind the transmission losses, what about the power being syphoned off en route?

    4. This surely is going quite some way to providing confirmation, if any was needed, that a small densely populated island nation situated at and beyond 50 degrees North latitude is not capable of providing all its energy needs from renewable sources based both within and around its borders. Johnson’s crass and hyperbolic assertion that the UK would become the Saudi Arabia of wind/renewable power was always ‘pie in the sky political rhetoric’ and this idea also resembles that same pie. HS2 Mk 2 for massive government investment (waste). anyone?

    5. Good morning all

      Warm clammy early morning here .

      I guess by the time the pipeline becomes the real thing , we wll probably be a Muslim country anyway.

      1. Which would of course heat the seawater, reducing the amount of dissolved oxygen thereby causing damage to marine creatures and speeding up ‘climate change’.

      1. I was offered three pensions over the course of my working life but with the memory of the fate of the Graduated Pension in mind and by that time an understanding of the UK’s political Elites I refused them all! They have of course all gone bust! If you have any excess cash you are far better off buying Property or Gold, maybe even Art!

      2. I was offered three pensions over the course of my working life but with the memory of the fate of the Graduated Pension in mind and by that time an understanding of the UK’s political Elites I refused them all! They have of course all gone bust! If you have any excess cash you are far better off buying Property or Gold, maybe even Art!

    2. What this doesn’t say is whether the civil servants will put their own pension funds into this, or just use the peasantry’s pension funds.

  8. 339264+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,
    Sunday 26 September: Voters are paying the price for politicians’ myopic energy planning

    I do believe the main reason to be, that in the main, the voters are well proven idiots, the likes of the wretch cameron’s father in law and many of the same ilk know precisely what they are doing, most likely ALL backed up with silent running generators in their counting houses.

    The voters are paying MANY a well deserved price, not only for their repeat actions concerning NOW, but for their offspring’s, leaving a certain legacy of dismal despondency & doom.

    2. If literally everyone (elites excepted) is “protected” by a “vaccine” that isn’t protecting them, would they not be back to the point before “protection” was initiated i.e. relying on their vastly superior innate immune system for protection? The problem is that independent doctors, scientists etc have concluded that the “protection”, by its function, compromises the innate immune system and therefore the “protected” people would be in a worse condition than if the “protection” had never been invented. Add in the unknown effects that could appear over time and the “protection” doesn’t appear to be a worthwhile investment, neither financially nor health wise, well, not for the inoculated. Reads like an idea?

    1. I think we can safely say that any trust in politicians is very dead in Blighty.
      The moment politicians announce there is no shortage ……..

    2. What, the media exaggerating the threat of a problem and thereby stoking mass panic? That doesn’t sound like something they would do AT ALL!

      On another note, I fail to understand how we can have a shortage of workers in any industry when we have had mass immigration for many years and the dinghy invasion as well. Weren’t they all supposed to be engineers and brain surgeons?

      1. Don’t forget the million plus coming off furlough. Back into their pre-Covid jobs, natch.
        (Did I tell you that the Tooth Fairy is my bestest friend?)

  11. 339264+ up ticks,

    What a carrie on,

    May one ask why are the herd supporting an army that would have been annihilated at Rorkes Drift kneeling in appeasement, as for the navy we
    could have had Horatio hand the fleet over to villeneuve, saved a great deal of trouble in the future.

    Army have HGV drivers ALL within the United Kingdom borders,
    The Navy have patrol Channel protection vessels to PROTECT those borders why are foreign elements being deployed ?

    Maybe a current lab/lib/con member has the answer if the politico’s are shy.

      1. 339264+ up ticks,
        Morning AS,
        I do believe we are the front runners in that department
        the continuing voting pattern WILL make it reality.

        A great many of the herd have been spooked by the overseers to such an extent that even push bikers & non vehicle owners are queuing for petrol.

        1. Acksherley, she looks like that ghastly, bowel obsessed Margolyes creature, who took out Oz nationality a few years back.
          I wonder she has regrets?

  16. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Here is the latest daily crop of letters attacking Johnson’s policy of wrecking what is left of our prosperity and, at the same time, exporting jobs to the likes of China and other disgusting regimes. Unfortunately his eco-insanity appears to be unstoppable – at least until we can get rid of him – and there’s no sign that this is imminent:

    SIR – Simon Heffer’s article was an excellent indictment of how our politicians have pursued green policies to the detriment of our future prosperity.

    The burgeoning gas and electricity crises have exposed Britain’s reliance on overseas power supplies, and its failure to exploit its own natural resources. Any reasonable person might have foreseen how Vladimir Putin would take advantage of the current circumstances, just as the drawbacks of wind and solar power were obvious to everyone – except, it appears, those responsible for energy policy.

    To close down existing means of power generation in Britain before securing an effective replacement was an act of gross irresponsibility. It is also an acknowledged fact that, however much we reduce our own emissions, it will have no effect on global warming unless the whole world follows suit. The Cop26 summit in Glasgow is unlikely to change this situation. The Government’s determination to prove its green credentials has become obsessive, and the tax-paying public is only just becoming aware of the cost.

    Mick Richards
    Worcester

    SIR – It is hard to overstate the naivety of our Government, or the inadequacy of the advice it must have received from the “experts” in the Civil Service. From the closure of gas storage facilities to the incoherent nuclear plan and the bizarre policy of burning imported wood in a converted coal power station, our politicians appear to be simply incompetent.

    Britain has plentiful gas supplies under the ground, but woke pressure over fracking has prevailed. It is equally ridiculous that we are importing coal for our steel industry, ignoring our own ample resources.

    Keith Elkington
    Wimborne, Dorset

    SIR – Even those with the greenest of green beliefs must recognise that our society is utterly dependent on reliable energy supplies. It defies all logic that Britain has invested so much time and money in the erratic resources of wind and solar power.

    We are an island nation with one of the largest tidal ranges in the world. This potential source of completely predictable, clean energy remains largely untapped, and there’s little evidence that the Government plans to make better use of it. Why?

    Thomas Le Cocq
    Batcombe, Somerset

    * * *

    Just to depress everyone even further I posted yesterday a recommendation to listen to the latest edition of Money Box, a contributor to which has had a go at calculating the extent of the green taxes now imposed on all gas and electricity bill-payers for this stupidity. For instance, bill-payers are contributing £75bn p.a. in green taxes and VAT. Listen and weep (if you haven’t already done so)!

    1. Thomas Le Cocq must be a Shakespeare fan.
      ‘There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.‘

      The Orbital O2 tidal generator in Scotland is meant to be up and running, can anyone tell me where I can find its current online input to the National Grid?

      1. Have a look at the capital cost, subsidy, energy production and cost of its product per kWh over say 20 years and there is a tiny hint as to why its figures are hard to find. Lots of claims and carping on the internet but little information with hard facts.

      2. The thingy that you mention is the latest gadget intended to produce tidal power. The Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh is a centre of engineering excellence. They have been working on tidal power for the last forty years or more. Every piece of generating machinery that they have made has been reduced to rusting scrap in short order. The obvious place for tide power is the Pentland Firth where the Atlantic roars, and foams and boils and storms into the North Sea. None of the academics and their collaborators have looked at the problem from a simple viewpoint. With hindsight, as every device was broken to pieces in the sea, spending money on another device just confirms Einstein’s definition of insanity, even though they have opted for a relatively more sheltered spot (snigger).

        https://orbitalmarine.com/o2-power-generation/
        https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-Fall-of-Warness-is-a-high-tidal-energy-environment-in-Orkney-UK-situated-between_fig8_298211616

        2. Hmm, Horace, good on paper but what is the reality say 5, 10 years downstream?

          Silt, rust, seaweed?

          1. Usually these things are destroyed within two years, sometimes less. I’ve given thought to this over some time. These contraptions are destroyed by the huge erratic forces and the corrosion of sea water and air.

  18. Morning again.

    In today’s DT…Parliament has been misled over the ‘net zero’ policy. No shit Sherlock, do bears…is the Pope …etc! All I can say is that most of them must be a bit simple not to have realised some time ago what is going on. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that this country is being shafted by the eco-zealots:

    Parliament ‘misled’ over cost of net zero target, say Conservative MPs

    Having scrutinised data used by the government’s advisory body, a group of Tory backbenchers believe their financial calculations are flawed

    By
    Edward Malnick,
    SUNDAY POLITICAL EDITOR
    25 September 2021 • 4:43pm

    Parliament was “misled” over the cost of reaching the net zero target, Conservative MPs have said, as internal documents reveal that most small electric cars cost thousands of pounds more than officials claimed they would by 2021.

    Data obtained from the Climate Change Committee (CCC), the official advisory body, following a legal battle shows that ministers based their estimates of the overall cost of the policy on assumptions that included a claim that the cost of small electric cars would plummet to £13,000 by 2021. In fact, most cost at least £20,000.

    The disclosure comes amid serious concerns in the Treasury and among Tory backbenchers about the financial burden of the net zero target.

    A mass switch to electric cars is seen as “essential” if the UK is to meet its target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, and the CCC claims that it will eventually save some £275 billion.

    But the Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF), the climate sceptic think tank that uncovered the figures, said that the true cost of electric cars throws the Committee’s modelling into doubt.

    Craig Mackinlay, who leads the new Net Zero Scrutiny Group of Conservative backbenchers and is also a chartered accountant, described the revelation as “scandalous”. He said: “We have been misled as a Parliament making potentially multi-trillion pound decisions based on flawed data.

    “The Treasury needs to do some very high level and independent work to see what these costs truly are, because the CCC can obviously no longer be trusted to create these costs for government and Parliament to consider.”

    A new briefing document circulated among members of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group states: “Across government there is an unhealthy over-reliance on numbers provided by the CCC, which has been reluctant to share its workings.”

    Today, Ed Miliband, the shadow business secretary, is expected to announce Labour plans to adopt a CCC proposal to reach “near zero” emissions in the production of steel by 2035.

    ‘The CCC’s net zero costings were incomplete, biased, and grossly misleading’
    In a report published in 2019, shortly before MPs passed legislation requiring the UK to achieve a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050, the CCC claimed that the goal could be achieved at a cost of between 1 and 2 per cent of GDP – an estimate repeated by ministers in Parliament. Later that month, MPs voted to approve the net zero target.

    In its 2019 report, the CCC cited the expected drop in the cost of electric vehicles as a key factor behind its claim that the overall cost of the policy would be “manageable”.

    Following a legal battle, the GWPF, founded by Lord Lawson, the former chancellor, obtained the spreadsheet containing the assumptions on which the body’s calculations were based.

    When The Sunday Telegraph questioned the Committee about the disparity, it initially claimed that the 2019 figures related to cars with small batteries, rather than small cars, despite the fact that the spreadsheet containing the modelling refers to “small cars”.

    The CCC claimed that the vehicles “class[ed] as small by battery size” are no longer sold and therefore cannot be compared to small cars currently on the market. The claim was echoed by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), which also said that some smaller electric vehicles cost as little as £16,000.

    But after being questioned further over a series of emails, the CCC performed an about-turn, admitting: “Our analysis is based on the size of the car, not on the size of the battery.”

    It then claimed that the £13,000 figure was a “social cost” which excluded any additional tax, subsidies or “increased profit taken by manufacturers” compared to costs attached to conventional cars – but admitted that manufacturers are only now “beginning to see profits” on electric vehicles.

    With a VAT bill of approximately £2,600 and the Government’s Plug in Vehicle Grant providing a £2,500 saving for drivers, the impact of VAT and the subsidy would simply add £100 to the £13,000 figure.

    Dr Benny Peiser, the GWPF’s director said: “It is clear that the CCC’s net zero costings were incomplete, biased, and grossly misleading. Parliament was, in essence, misled and net zero was mis-sold.”

    Andrew Montford, the GWPF deputy director, added: “The CCC model suggests that the public should reap huge benefits from buying an electric vehicle, but the reality on the forecourt is that they are much more expensive, even after the subsidy.”

    A CCC spokesman said: “Battery costs are actually falling faster than we thought which means overall costs of the transition in this sector are likely to be falling.”

    A BEIS spokesman said: “Production and running costs for electric vehicles have collapsed in recent years, with some now costing as little as 1p a mile to run. Electric vehicles owners don’t pay excise duty and also benefit from lower maintenance costs. We expect to see even more affordable electric vehicles on the market for customers to choose from.”

    1. 1p per mile to run?? Poppycock. As soon as the revenue from petrol diesel and road tax goes down they will be taxing electric vehicles. And the price of power will increase as net zero kicks in.

      1. …not to mention the crippling depreciation in the value of an electric car requiring battery replacement!

        ‘Morning, N.

    2. Morning all,

      Having scrutinised data used by the government’s advisory body, a group of Tory backbenchers believe their financial calculations are flawed

      It appears the “Cons” have formed another token rebel group which IMHO will prove to be as toothless as all the others formed over recent years. Let’s start with the much vaunted Brexiteers who done so little to bring Treasonous to account over her BINO and then try to think of any positive results for the UK they or any subsequent rebel groups have achieved.
      It is pure theatre, stage managed to keep the plebs onside.
      I have said it before and will say it again, only the real possibility of losing their place with their snouts in the trough in Westminster brings about any form of change, however short lived.

  19. Assad the outcast being sold to the west as key to peace in Middle East. 26 September 2021.

    For almost a decade he was a pariah who struggled to get a meeting abroad or even to assert himself on his visitors. Largely alone in his palace, save for trusted aides, Bashar al-Assad presided over a broken state whose few friends demanded a humiliating price for their protection, and weren’t afraid to show it.

    But with the din of war and insurrection receding and a tired region recalibrating from an exhausting 10 years, an unlikely dynamic is emerging: Assad the outcast is in demand. Foes who opposed him as Syria unravelled increasingly view Damascus as a key to reassembling a ruptured region. The savagery that saw half a million people killed when officials stopped counting in 2015 appears no longer the obstacle it was. Nor is Assad’s central role in a catastrophe that uprooted half the country’s population and infected the body politic of Europe and beyond.

    It is only thanks to Assad and Putin that Syria did not become a Jihadist State and overwhelm Europe with refugees.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/26/assad-the-outcast-being-sold-to-the-west-as-key-to-peace-in-middle-east

      1. There’s none so blind as those who will not see.

        The problem is that our politicians actively want the Judeo-Christian western society to collapse and be replaced by Islam.

        I do not understand why this should be but the eagerness of the PTB to take despotic, undemocratic powers with the excuse that it has something to do with public health could give some indication that it is part of oafs like Johnson’s insatiable lust for power.

  20. 339264+ up ticks,
    Dt,
    Royal Navy could expand into the Canadian Arctic to support allies

    No chance of them expanding into the English Channel to support the indigenous English I suppose ?

  21. 339264+ up ticks,
    breitbart,
    Boris to Bring in Foreign Truck Drivers by the Thousands, Tory MP Suggests Using Afghans

    No doubt to relieve pressure on the channel crosser’s, bring in lorry loads.

    1. This is the Opposition NOT holding back. Trump is no longer elected but he pulls in huge crowds and what does our “leader” of the Opposition do, other than being absent, he writes a 14,000(?) word pamphlet. There was a time when Labour politicians had fire in their bellies, no longer, they’ve become a metropolitan elite that cares not for their electorate.

      https://twitter.com/PapiTrumpo/status/1441896851930861568

      1. 338264+ up ticks,
        Morning KtK,
        To my mind they are a coalition through & through both
        cartels are INO, NOT genuine, certainly NOT a patch on the originals, a political close shop serviced by a electorate suffering an addiction / Stockholm syndrome
        regarding, the political close shop.

    3. Interesting to note that Starmer is stressing Labour’s ‘politics of envy’ by promising to tax private schools.

      At the moment the parents of children in private schools have paid for the education of their children, to which they are entitled, with their taxes but they do not use it. This means that state schools receive an enormous subsidy from the parents of children in private schools. This subsidy is very much greater than the ‘subsidy’ the state would receive from charging VAT. Indeed, every private school that went out of business would just produce more children for the state to educate and no VAT. If every pupil in a private school had to move to a state school the state system would not be able to cope.

      It is worth noting that when President Mitterand of France set about abolishing private schools all the teachers teaching in them said that they would not transfer to state schools. Mitterand had to retract as he could see that the state system would collapse. I wonder if Starmer has the perception or intelligence to learn from this?

      2. ‘Morning, Richard, “I wonder if Starmer has the perception or intelligence to learn from this?”

        Precisely the reason why he would go full speed ahead – as they say in Glasgae, “Thick as shïte in a bottle.”

      3. My thought when I read that idiotic notion was that it would do nothing to improve state schools, but it would completely wreck the functioning parts of the current education system.

    1. Good morning Maggiebelle

      It’s just about game over for us. We must be well past the point of no return.

      When will Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral, not to mention Canterbury and Salisbury Cathedrals, be deconsecrated as places of Christian worship and turned into mosques?

        1. He’s out, and currently perambulating around the Diocese of Guildford. Many of my ‘colleagues’ have been queuing up to hear his pearls of wisdom re. The New Normal. I would rather stick pins in my eyes.

        1. I think Norwich installed a heater skelter.
          On the plus side, it diverted Look East from its obsession with ‘mental health’ for at least a day.

          2. You have “Look East” – we have “Points West”. Why the discrimination? The content is much the same.

        2. Good morning Jeremy. A few days ago you mentioned that you were sceptical about fracking for shale oil and gas because of the potential for pollution to groundwater. An article somewhere on the interwebby says that the shale is at such a great depth that 1) it is far below groundwater supplies and 2) the shale is already extremely mucky and therefore ‘polluted’.
          If you are really worried about damaging the planet, the obvious solution would be to remove all human beings, even the Greens.

          1. Fracking is perfectly safe. Because you are right tim. There has not been one instance of water population in any well in the USA out of over 2 million in the USA. Those allegations, on closer inspection have all been proven to be false. There is, somewhere a famous video of someone setting alight water from a tap in New England and alleging that this is the result of fracking. It turned out to be a blatant lie. Something to do with a natural phenomenon of the area that even Benjamin Franklin had remarked upon as a novelty peculiar to the area.
            I suggest people watch this.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B03IYdHpvAM. I have the whole video, “Fracknation” but, unfortunately, I can’t find it on you tube. Although it may be elsewhere for free.

          2. I invited ideas for culling 5 billion human beings, bringing it down to about the same level it was when I was born. It is far more ambitious than anything achieved by 20th century tyrants, who used industrial expertise in attempting genocide, but even then they only managed a few tens of millions.

            I didn’t get many suggestions, or to be pedantic, I didn’t get any at all. Even the Lethal Injection Committee only pick them off a few at a time. Hopeless!

            You may be right that fracking is safer in the UK than it is in the States or Australia, where this technology has been badly discredited by dodgy operating. Some reliable science and some honest brokers in the inspectorate, rather than the constant threat of conflicts of interest, professional lobbying and corruption, would be welcome now.

            Much the same thing happened with genetic engineering. It was fine with European scientists developing tastier tomatoes and drought-resistant crops. Then Monsanto (now merged by Bayer) spoilt it all by Roundup Ready, Terminator and PR lying about the effects of alien systemic insecticide genes on crops that interbreed readily with wild plants, spoilt it all. They put commercial interest above public safety. I’m not surprised that the public lost confidence in the whole technology.

          3. I can supply ideas for culling world population:

            1. a few nukes on China
            2. Ditto on India, Pakistan, Afghanistan (in fact anywhere ending in …stan)
            3. Concentration Camps for Muslims in the Western World – we could put Himmler to shame with a little effort.
            4. Very harsh re-education camps for all lefties, particularly those with Common Purpose (degrees?).

            Apart from that I would wish to continue as a peace-loving Englishman with a penchant for solving dilemmas.

      3. One of the churchwardens was complaining to me about Welby this morning; she didn’t have a good word to say for him.

    2. Many of the Afghan women arriving in U.S camps are heavily pregnant. All a coincidence of course.

      Good morning, Belle.

    1. Brings to mind this in the paper today: “Fury from the Tories as Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner brands them ‘bunch of scum, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, absolute pile’ – before insisting she ‘held back a little’ in rant.”
      To which my reaction was. Keep it up thicko. Doing your best to make Labour unelectable. Idiot just insulted all those Labour voters oop North that voted Tory last time round. They wont vote for Angie Ryanair at the next election nor the thuggish trash she represents.

  28. Burbage Wharf – now a desirable residence complete with mooring and crane:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fe2ff2e77a00212ab24f00ca2bdc6a3a6a706cfc6c2255216e6c1bca6dc707ca.jpg

    It’s not always plain sailing. Late in the day two hire boats with all male and well ‘refreshed’ crews passed at speed causing the stern mooring pin of the two moored boats to come adrift. The current then did its bit to swing the two boats through 90 degrees. I cruised slowly up to the boats blocking the canal and one of my crew managed to get on board and throw a couple of lines to others on the towpath who did a reasonable impression of the Volga boatmen…

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/260190cc3e73076f98a6c7c24956fe96046ce5913ceee635600d9ccee5d11fff.jpg

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfsWoNpHg2s

      1. Don’t know, But there are quite a few XR boaters who burn wood readily to heat their boats,,,,,

    1. If I recall correctly, he commented the other day that this was his 75 and he would be away golfing.
      I hope he beats his birthday on every round.

          1. Indeed I did, born in 1959. I’m just back from a three-day golfing weekend in Newton Stewart and Wigtownshire County GC. It didn’t rain once and I only lost 7 balls over 54 holes. A good time was had.

      1. Eight
        I’m sure it was seven
        Nope. definitely eight
        But you were run over by a rampaging elephant last week
        Barely grazed me
        Eight it is then.

      1. A three-day golfing weekend in Newton Stewart with seven of the other regulars from my local in Troon. We were all a little tired setting out this morning having had a very good evening. The golf was a mixed bag but at least we were spared the forecast rain.

  30. The other day, I got heavy criticism on ‘The Spectator’ when I posted my dental history, which I sent on to my MP with a polemic about the state of the NHS. I eventually deleted the post there, but left it on here, since nottlers are a far more tolerant form of life, at least with fellow nottlers who are usually as grumpy as I am about the state of the world, and understand me.

    My MP is not the delicate flower they think she is. Knowing her, she’s probably having a good chuckle and will respond with the usual platitudes.

    The first time my cheapskate NHS dentist stuck back my old failed bridge, it lasted about six hours before working loose. With a bit more determination not to see me again, it’s lasted five days this time. If was a doner kebab and a telephone conversation with my 96-year-old mother than did for the cheap bodge this time. Both ought to carry a health warning.

    I did my morning constitutional around the block, and analysed the situation.

    First off the NHS clinical criterion for dentists is to use the cheapest possible treatment that will hold for two months, after which the charging cycle starts up again.

    The private clinical criterion is to maximise profit without sending the patient off to a competitor.

    One will cost me about £280; the other could run into thousands if I don’t do my homework about who is out there, and who can be trusted with my capacity to eat.

    I see four options for my failed bridge:

    1. Stick the old one back and hope for the best (the NHS preferred option, but the five days is woefully short of the two months required).

    2. New crown over UL2 and a denture for the missing UL1 (the next best NHS option, leaving me with the hassle of handling a denture)

    3. New stub crown over UL2, new cantilever bridge over UL1, which should be more secure than re-using the old sawn-off failed bridge.

    4. New stub crown over UL2, grind down or take out if possible the new crown over UR1, and a new traditional 3-tooth bridge. This would be the preferred private option, although they might well advise implants as well if the competition don’t offer the cheaper option. My NHS dentist advises heavily against this, saying the reason my UR1 snapped at gum level was because of the traditonal bridge, despite it having lasted 25 years.

    Option 4. was of course that decided for me under the NHS back in 1995, when medical, rather than cost was the main criterion for treatment.

    1. I’ve just spent six months and £6000 having exactly the same sorted out – implants – should last thirty years. Other options offered to me cost £2,000 but had a predicted two to three year life, so depending how old you are, the implant may be the best option

      1. Gee, that’s money, Stormy.
        I was offered an implant at £2.000, but said no – not the money, I just can’t abide dentistry – even though my dentist is the cutest blonde German lass you ever saw…

        2. I was able to pay a little at a time – a out four or five hundred at each appointment.
          My teeth are now worth more than my car.

          1. Same here! But I see it as an investment to look professional in the workplace. I spend money on teeth, shoes and a good haircut/colour.

    2. It is a horrible problem, and brings one down terribly. I had to have an implant in one of my front teeth and I felt about 100 years old while the tooth was missing.
      The dentist explained to me that the implant was the Rolls Royce solution, and a denture would be the Mini solution. The implant cost around five thousand euros, about ten years ago, but it has never given me a moment’s problem since (touch wood).

      I would mortgage my house to avoid dentures personally. I know people who were being fobbed off with them on the NHS in the 90s already.

      1. €5000 10 years ago? Sucks teeth. For that the dentist could have thrown in a temporary plastic mini-denture to fill the gap so could smile & still would have made a handsome profit..

      2. I have an upper plate with 3 teeth on it put in by NHS dentist 20 years ago. I only wear them in public and take them out to eat (no I’m not Irish – they just don’t feel right for eating). I’m not in favour of private dentistry (or any other private medicine) These professionals were trained by the NHS/public funds so why should they be able to use NHS equipment yet charge exorbitant amounts for the same treatment – ah yes – money!
        My grandson had a problem with his ears when very small, he needed an operation. The surgeon said there was a 6 month waiting list but if he was paid £4000 the same surgeon would do it the next day. Greedy bastard – if he was free to do it the next day he could have done it for nothing through the NHS – the equipment was obviously available.
        Our local dentist (not the NHS one that I use) have stopped NHS work – they said it was in the interest of the patients – what bollocks! – if they were going to lose money by changing to a private practice they wouldn’t have done it.

  32. SIR – Alan Billingsley (Letters, September 19) asks why, unlike people who have been double-jabbed, unvaccinated travellers will have to quarantine for 10 days upon their return to Britain when the rules change in late October.

    The answer is simple. People who refuse to be vaccinated stand a much higher chance of catching Covid-19 while abroad, and we don’t want them spreading it to the rest of us.

    If this policy induces just a few of these selfish individuals to accept vaccinations, that will be a bonus.

    Dr Dee Dawson
    London N20

    Isn’t there a glaring fallacy in Dr Des Lawson’s comment?

    Being vaccinated does NOT reduce the chance of catching covid. The likelihood is the same whether or not one is vaccinated.

    Being vaccinated, however, may reduce the effect of the illness.

    I hope that the rest of his diagnoses are less inaccurate. Unless, of course, he is NOT a medical doctor but has a PhD in meeja studdies (sic)

    1. He is, undoubtedly, not a medical doctor.
      He’s probably a Phd. Personal Hypochondriac Devotee.

    2. Possibly ‘she’ aka person with a vagina – or at least identifying as such. Dee tends to be a female diminutive.

  33. Last week I had my annual cardiology appointment with my hospital consultant.
    My ecg was fine but he wrote a letter to my GP saying that (after six years of hospital monitoring) he had diagnosed me with WCH.

    WCH can be problematic because if not identified, it may lead to overtreatment in patients that may not actually require medication therapy

    https://www.pharmacytimes.com/view/white-coat-hypertension-a-closer-look

    I need to bring myself up to date on this subject to see what the implications are for treatment by my GP given the perception by medical professionals that I have excessive hypertension.

    1. Do you feel anxious about hospital appointments and tests? Or is he just trying to get you off his books?

      1. I feel happier about hospital appointments in cardiology because it was my consultant’s team that got me out of supraventricular ventricular tachycardia that I was presenting in A&E.

        However after six years of outpatient monitoring I have had my blood pressure taken in a variety of fashions by registrars and have concluded that the significance of a high brachial artery bp in different contexts iis not yet completely understood.

        I do think that my cardiologist has referred me back to my GP to wash his hands of how to treat WCH but has neverthelss conceded to keep me on his books to see how my GP gets on.

    2. When I go for my 6-monthly meds check, the first thing is my blood pressure. If it is ‘high’, I get the nurse to check it again at the end of the appt, when it is often acceptably lower.
      Last week, after my fall, the paramedics were surprised that my BP is perfect for my age (130/80).

      1. You suffer from ‘White Coat Syndrome’

        I suffer from the ‘People With Needles’ one, unless of course they are phlebotomists,
        who to me are the true heroines of the Medical Profession

        1. Yo OLT
          I wouldn’t say it’s WCS (through my training, I can hold my own with most medics), but I share your fear of needles & I’ve had very mixed experiences with phlebs. The person who takes my blood these days is a middle aged Swedish nurse, who is absolutely painless. I don’t know how she does it. The other advantage is that we can have a catch-up in Swedish. I have an appt with her this coming Friday & I’m looking forward to it.

      2. You suffer from ‘White Coat Syndrome’

        I suffer from the ‘People With Needles’ one, unless of course they are phlebotomists,
        who to me are the true heroines of the Medical Profession

    3. The very reason why I don’t bother with GPs checking my blood pressure.
      A combination of deliberately moving the goalposts – downwards to benefit ‘Big Pharma sales – plus the feeling that I’ve been sent to the headmaster’s study, sends my BP skyrocketing.

    4. So many definitions of WCH – Angie, are you really suffering from West Cornwall Hospital?

      Please explain your use of abbreviations which we lay people are ignorant of.

      1. Health care professionals are likely familiar with the phenomenon known as white coat hypertension (WCH).

        https://www.pharmacytimes.com/view/white-coat-hypertension-a-closer-look

        I deliberately left off the medical abbreviation {WCH) to see the reaction of Nottlers.
        Many of us are aware of this condition and also suffer from it but it seems that the medical profession haven’t necessarily heard of it.

        This worrying because WCH can be confused as the Resting Heart Rate (RHR) at which WHO standards of blood pressure are deemed to be measured .
        The consequence being the overmedication of patients whose WCH bp measure is deemed to be the RHR bp measure.

    1. The shocking figures, revealed in answer to a parliamentary question
      from Labour MP Anna McMorrin, show that areas with higher levels of
      deprivation have the most acute problems with child sex abuse.

      The shocking figures, revealed in answer to a parliamentary question from Labour MP Anna McMorrin, show that areas with higher levels of deprivation Muslim immigration have the most acute problems with child sex abuse.

      1. Hardly surprising news. Entirely predictable in my opinion. Predators will always take advantage of the disempowered.

    2. No surprise that the police want to convict the victims. They have the victims sitting in thr police station. Catching, arresting, and prosecuting the criminals is something like hard work.

  35. Good morning all.

    “Boris Johnson demands pay rise for lorry drivers”. Can you think of another asinine ridiculous stupid thing to say? What an absolute idiot BoJo is. This Government/Con party must be the worst in our history. They have no idea what they are doing: Rushing us all into penury via net zero carbon blah blah blah, power cuts at the same time as hiking up the price of energy, tax rises, so called food shortages, fuel shortages, they are complete and utter tossers (excuse my language).

    There are so many things wrong in this country and they are making everything worse.

    1. I demand compensation from Boris Johnson and Emanuel Macron for the financial damage they have inflicted upon our business. However I am not naive enough to believe they will give me a penny or even a centime.

    3. Nobody allowed to have cold any more…….. I’ve had some shockers in the summer months in years gone by. 2013 was a really nasty one – a throat infection which lasted a good six weeks.

      3. The common cold never existed. There has only ever been covid. Because you get covid and then die from it, the state has mandated that you get vaccinated. The vaccine will make it all go away. Do not ask questions. Obey.

    4. Government calls that successful marketing.

      Important to note that people can only be brainwashed if they stop asking questions. Keep them afraid, spew the lies about and you get the result you want.

  38. Still queuing for petrol at Morrisons! Lots of traffic on the roads, mostly cars. No commercials

    2. Ironically, it was ‘Rockin’ All Over World’, released in 1977, that started Lancaster’s disillusionment with the band. Although he was credited with the writing of only a minority of Quo’s songs over the years, his influence gave Quo its harder edge; he wrote six of the eight tracks on 1974’s ‘Quo’, some of which was the nearest thing to heavy metal they ever recorded. RAOTW was too ‘pop’ for Lancaster but he stuck with the band through the early 80s when they were producing material that John Peel, once a great fan, described as ‘Darby and Joan Club music’.

      He finally fell out with the group in the mid-80s over the recording of a new album, taking out a legal injunction to stop the band using the name for music he no longer wanted to be associated with.

    1. To think my husband’s ancestors in Batley and surrounding towns were good, Yorkshire people………

      1. I have a friend who was born and brought up in Bradford.
        Visits to her home town just depress her.
        Since her mother died, she’s felt no urge to return.

    2. 339264+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      You expect different when the tell “lies to the NON believers” instruction manual rests between the dispatch boxes & there is halal choice on the parliamentary canteen menu.

  41. OT – Cat news. We have a catflap into the porch. Months ago, Gus worked it out and can use it – though he prefers us to get up and walk yards and open a door, of course.

    Pickles – who can kill anything that moves, climb 30 feet up trees – CAN’T work out the catflap. Sits outside it mewing (well, squeaking – neither can miaow) piteously.

    Tried to tempt him with his fave treats – cheese, “deamies” (don’t ask) – NBG.

    1. They expect servants to be on hand to open doors etc. at all hours. Now just you snap to it and stop complaining.

    3. Create a short tunnel to the flap and push him through. Keep doing it, he’ll soon work it out.
      Wear gloves!

    4. There are hours of utube vids of owners trying to coax felines through flaps. Maybe winter will provide the needed impetus.

      1. Sounds like a bunch of dyslexit Yorkshire cats who think you’re all trying to get them to wear flat caps.

        1. Excellent piece of headgear, the cat flap.
          But – does one get one wit an elasticated rim at the same age as one gets trousers with elasticated waistbands? (asking for a friend…)

    5. Our catflap is not one, but two.

      When we removed the kitchen door and made it into a window, we didn’t want to upset our cat – Chaucer, whom you’ve met, Bill – by moving his catflap to the other side of the house. So we built the catflap into the wall which is a good 80cm wide. So there is a catflap on the outside, then a little tunnel, and then a second catflap into the kitchen. Chaucer got used to it easily enough.

      I suspect your Pickles is teasing you. As Kaypea says, when it becomes uncomfortable enough outside, and you’re not there to open the door, he’ll find his way in easily enough.

      1. Missy goes around the house opening every single door & cupboard door which isn’t locked or at least firmly shut.

      2. When Rumpole was a Baby Boxer he could get through both the flaps and the tunnel until one day he got stuck and we had to help him escape.

        Chaucer thought it was a great joke to creep up on Rumpole and give him a biff on the head knowing full well that when Rumpole chased him to the house he would not be able to follow through the cat flaps. Once safely in Chaucer then jumped up onto the window ledge and looked out through the window at Rumpole mocking him.

    6. I trained my two PCs by propping the cat flap open and putting a bit of tuna outside so they got used to coming through the tunnel (it’s built into the kitchen wall). They can resist anything but tuna.
      They caught on pretty well but I have never been able to train them with anything else. They’re not the sharpest kitties in the basket, my two. Whenever I go out, I have to wedge something into every door in thenhouse to make sure they can’t close – learned the hard way by a couple of occasions when they were stuck in a room when I was out all day and so had they pood everywhere.

  42. Food myths busted: dairy, salt and steak may be good for you after all. 26 September 2021.

    Over the past 70 years the public health establishment in Anglophone countries has issued a number of diet rules, their common thread being that the natural ingredients populations all around the world have eaten for millennia – meat, dairy, eggs and more – and certain components of these foods, notably saturated fat, are dangerous for human health.

    As witnessed by myself who has followed no dietary advice from the government and managed to make it to 75!”

    https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/sep/26/food-myths-busted-dairy-salt-steak-swedish-study-science-health-advice

      1. If you wait long enough, government advice always turns 180 degrees and they start advising the complete opposite.

    2. #MeToo, Minty, smoked from 12 t0 73 – now 77 and apart from chronic heart disease, COPD and a recurring PID, I just keep soldiering on, on a red meat, goose fat, whisky and beer diet, would I worry if I keeled over tomorrow?

      Not a bit, my body, going to medical science might raise a few questions but would also generate a lot of humour.

  43. 339264+ up ticks,

    breitbart,
    A 49-year-old Islamic State woman has been arrested in Sweden on suspicion of taking part in serious war crimes in Syria, including forcing her own son to become a child soldier.

    Gettaway, who’d have believed it, we have thousands in the United Kingdom are the politico’s / supporters aware of these types ?

    1. Yes, but here they go on the BBC or get appointed to councils or quangos and their actions encouraged in the name of wretched ‘diversity’.

  44. I note that Tories are whinging and moaning because the Liebour gobby ignoramus Rayner has called them hurty words.

    They are but nothing compared to the words which true Conservatives would use to describe BPAPM and his gang of wanqueurs.

  45. The PM’s posing as a global saviour will cost him dear with suffering voters at home. 26 September 2021.

    As today’s Telegraph report on Parliament being misled about the true costs of the rush to net zero carbon emissions shows, this ambition, more than any other of modern times, has the capacity to play havoc with basic living standards.

    The Government’s estimates of the overall cost of the policy is revealed to have been based on duff and over-optimistic data, at least in regard to the cost of purchasing small electric cars, which are a third more expensive than anticipated. And if ministers got that wrong, can we be confident they will not also in time be shown to have underestimated other key costs, such as those entailed in any mass switch from gas boilers to heat pumps?

    That’s a little modest if anything. The search for net zero is more like the search for the Holy Grail or Eldorado. It is a quest without credibility, a semi-religious fantasy. Those who embark on it will find only failure and disillusion at the end.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/26/pms-posing-global-saviour-will-cost-dear-suffering-voters-home/

  46. 339264+ up ticks,
    First it was the HGV drivers, now it is the poultry workers, tomorrow the butchers, the bakers the…… how to lose a Nation via the ballot booth,
    easy ent it.

      1. 339264+ up ticks,
        Afternoon B3
        ALL because the electorate refuse to see the true light
        due to political party addiction & Stockholm syndrome.

      2. We’d have to do what we did during the war to survive i.e. Dig for Victory!
        Except there’d be a shortage of fork handles!

  47. Under the guise of democracy promotion, the West is attempting to maintain its influence, as it once did by means of spiritual and economic colonization. If a nation wants democracy, then its people must walk that path on their own, without external coercion or violence.
    Remarks from September 3, 2021.

    Vladimir Putin.

  50. Why does the UK government not offer assisted passages from Australia to the UK for suitably qualified lorry drivers?

      1. Only to be expected from a pro-independence, left-wing rag. It’s ungrammatical as well – note the paragraph that starts (insultingly): “Someone so far up a neighbouring country’s Khyber Pass…”

    2. No mate, it doesn’t. They’re winning. They are getting what they want. The state is forcing up the cost of fuel, food and energy all to meet a pointless target that makes it look good on paper.

      We are suffering. We are getting poorer every day. They waffle on about growth but the reality is that high taxes, inflation, public sector debt, waste and sheer incompetence are making our lives miserable.

      The stupidity of the public, ego, internal fifth columnists and the seeming malice of big government is making us worse off and they think this is a good thing.

  52. Kremlin releases photos of Putin’s Siberian fishing trip. 26 September 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/110535d78e11ebf640de194e5edd9c9768cd5a08ac29b4cdf33be2c77d2884a5.jpg

    Russian President Vladimir Putin spent several days hiking and fishing in Siberia in early September, the Kremlin said on Sunday as it published pictures of the president on the holiday.

    Vlad landing yet another fish out of water!

    https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-ends-self-isolation-with-siberian-fishing-trip-2021-09-26/

    1. The fish was already dead and on the hook before it went into the water for Vlad to “catch”.

      1. You might jest. When Carter was President he used to go “fishing” in the Poconos north of Philadephia. The local fishing shop was contracted to set up Carter’s “fishing” so he would have a successful day. They dammed 200 yds of stream, filled it with over 200 trout for him.

      2. You might jest. When Carter was President he used to go “fishing” in the Poconos north of Philadephia. The local fishing shop was contracted to set up Carter’s “fishing” so he would have a successful day. They dammed 200 yds of stream, filled it with over 200 trout for him.

    1. What an education? At Labour conference? In bile, spite, stupidity, and nonsense word salad?

      Much easier to jam your head near someone’s backside and have them fart on you.

        1. Good afternoon, Stormy

          One would think they would be relieved to have reached somewhere they are safe.

          You can’t tell me there was no one in that hotel who could not have directed him to A & E. They are not prisoners.

          The sick child is always a good gambit. I had it tried on me in Morocco. The medicine always cost £50 for some reason.

    3. Another gimmigrant.

      Our political class are morons.

      There’s a clear fifth column of insane remoaners

      The press is biased and hysterical

      More than 75% of the population is thick as excrement – from demanding companies pay more tax to the covid nonsense.

      Frankly, sod this country. It used to be something special. A true jewel in the crown of nations. Now it’s just a welfare ridden doss house for the terminally thick. A few capable, mindful folk keep it going. The rest need to leave.

    1. Let’s pontificate a few more lies about how caring toward women, Victoria Police are.

      Rise up, Victoria and and smash you Stasi.

    1. I had a long chat yesterday with my good old Mate Brucie and he was emphasising how bad the situation has become in his home state of Victoria and how it has all become very controlling and mainly political. It seems that their political classes are worse than ours, if that is at all possible. Mind you with state and federal parliaments that is more than possible.
      He also told me about the blind terror they all had when his living room floor was shaking around during the recent earth quake. The centre of which was only about 30 miles away. Theirs and neighbours houses were swaying around two foot in across the horizontal. Built on stumps they were so happy it ended up in the same position where it started before the 2 minute shake up.
      Perhaps it was caused by the distressed lady in the last videoclip above. Which I have sent to both he and another mate in WA, i’ll post their reactions asap.

    2. A very queer situation.

      Do you, and the rainbow Police Farce, think you are going to endear yourselves to the community at large?

      Do you think you have the Muslim vote?

    4. I only caught a glimpse of the laboured leader with Marr in Brighton this morning. It seemed he was trying to deny that some one he knows in politics has been lying.

    6. I’m trying to remember my ‘O’ level Bilge. Do xx chromosomed horses, cats etc….. have cervixes.
      In which case, Sir Kneeler is right.

  61. 339264+ up ticks,

    The rhetorical fighting of these political rodents in a sack is black comedy,

    The whole collection are pure sh!te and in reality should be put down, OK, if you must , humanly.

    As for their supporters especially those with children I will leave that to their, in the future, voting conscience.

    The anthony charlie lynton ( Bow Street) the politico cum bog man done away with any decency lab ever possessed via latch lifting & flooding these Isles with troubles clearly shown at rotherham.
    The tory’s (ino) continued where lab left off, as in a coalition.

    Her remarks would not be out of place on a sh!te grading table.

    Angela Rayner declines to apologise after describing Tories as ‘bunch of scum’
    Deputy Labour leader also reportedly described Conservatives as ‘homophobic, racist and misogynistic’

        1. 339264+ up ticks,

          Evening GG,
          It’s been active a while, one thing for certain it’s a PIE supporter prob. activist, no problem, rather sad.

  66. Grant Shapps hits out at ‘manufactured’ crisis as drivers panic-buy fuel. 26 September 2021.

    Drivers refuelling their vehicles unnecessarily are causing shortages and queues outside forecourts across the country, the UK transport secretary, Grant Shapps, has said, as he hit out at what he called a “manufactured” crisis.

    “It’s not like we don’t have fuel in the country. We do need to just ensure people are filling up when they need to fill up, rather than thinking I’d better go and fill up now just in case I need it next week or the week after.”

    There’s no shortage of gas either but your bill will be double this Winter! These people have utterly lost it! They have no idea what to do!

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/26/grant-shapps-hits-out-at-manufactured-crisis-as-drivers-panic-buy

    2. Araminta, have you not considered that all these “problems” arising in short order are a deliberate act to maintain a level of trepidation about life in general? The cabal have been “incompetent” since the calling of the pandemic and Johnson certainly has been from the start of his tenure with his ‘oven ready’ Brexit deal.

      The CV-19 fear factor cannot be maintained forever and is likely to be waning from the levels of the last 18 months: I have seen far fewer masked people about in the last month. Therefore the grinding down of the people’s collective will must continue. Threats of lockdown if the ‘booster’ take up isn’t up to expectation is a move away, albeit slight, from the NHS being overwhelmed again. Have the behavioural scientists sensed a level of ennui with regards to the NHS’s travails and decided to change their focus? Rumours of shortages of food and energy, and price rises for both coupled with the long cold dark nights approaching is meat and drink for those evil purveyors of doom.

  70. Corbyn event descends into chaos. 26 September 2021.

    https://youtu.be/nGgBYu8rMt8

    During the Q&A section, the 74-year-old Piers Corbyn stood standing resolutely waiting to ask his brother a question – even when the host specified that he wanted ‘young people’ and ‘people of colour.’ The discussion then turned ugly when a fellow attendee turned up at the front of the platform and began shouting and ranting, eventually being bundled out by stewards amid ‘cries of assault.’ The elder Corbyn began shouting and was involved in a fracas amid accusations of shoving from another attendee, all the while the four MPs watched on stage in horror.

    Lol! I have a new theory. I think someone has been baking ergot into the pies in Westminster! They are all going Batshit crazy!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/watch-corbyn-event-descends-into-chaos

      1. Couldn’t make it out myself Phizzee! Neither could the BBC apparently. It’s not on their bulletin!

    2. This twerp, seeks to be the Prime Minister of an indigenous white country where the majority of the population know the difference between male and female.

      Starmer is in the minority in that he doesn’t understand this basic tenet of humanity.

      Go play with a spider, you twat.

    2. But Verstappen came second(from the back of the grid) and now has a fresh engine for the remaining races.

  73. I have come arrived at the conclusion that the BBC and MSN in general are

    Heterophobic
    Whiteyophobic
    Pro EUSSR
    Anti British

    and a waste of Time , Space, Oxygen and Victuals

    2. Now we see why the grooming and rape of teenaged girls has been allowed in the UK for the last 50years. 30,000 up to 2010 and as many since as their numbers have increased.

      Social Services, the Police and Feminists have nothing to say on the matter because either they or their superiors are Socialists who despise our cultural traditions but will turn a blind eye to this obscenity if it will usher in a New world Order.

      I spit on them all.

  76. HAPPY HOUR…..for cabbage pickers.

    A BRITISH FARM has offered salaries of up to £62,000 for cabbage pickers amid staff shortages.
    xpress.co.uk/news/uk/1496674/farm-salary-staff-shortage-pandemic-brexit-latest-news-ont

    4. Why can’t the wretched asylum seekers be forced to work for their bed and board at minimum wage, they would still be better off than a lot of British people on that basis.

          1. They already do with imported Medjool Dates. People have become ill and the source was tracked to human waste products.

        3. Then make an example of those who do – flog them.

          Hell, they don’t belong here, they’ve no right to be here, if they won’t work, then they should be soundly beaten.

    8. As a gang-leader, I can offer you 20 well brought up cabbage picking immigrants, all of whom I control (and take 90% of their wages).

      What’s not to like?

    9. Funnily enough, the German for cabbage is (der) Kohl. – Rosenkohl, Blumenkohl, Grünkohl, usw.
      A slang word for money is (die) Kohle.

    2. Oddly enough there are times when that can be a good idea. A few years ago, we saw a long queue at a comparatively expensive petrol station and as we were running low anyway joined the back of it, because it was so unusual to see.
      A very lucky decision, a day later there was no fuel to be had anywhere around here for quite a long time. Strikes if I remember correctly.

          1. Man walks into a shop and asks for a lb of beef.
            The shopkeeper says this is a fish shop.
            The man says ok i’ll have a lb of fish.
            The shopkeeper says we don’t have any fish. The shop that doesn’t have any meat is the other side of the road.

    5. It used to be commonplace during the war – one saw a queue and joined it because one never knew what might be available at the other end – even if it was only whale meat!

      1. Good evening, Conwy. Reminds me of my days in Czechoslovakia, Roumania and Hungary in the early 1990s. Everyone always carried a shopping bag – on the off chance there was something to buy…

        1. When I was in the USSR in the late sixties, queuing appeared to be a way of life; one queued to choose the item (assuming it was in stock), then one left it with the assistant while one queued to pay for it, then one queued again with the receipt to present it to the assistant in order, finally, to get the item one purchased some time ago!

          4. Blimey, I don’t remember. A department store; I was only there a few days in 1995 or 6, working. I remember it, because I’d only read about that applying to Soviet, and was surprised to find it in Germany. I think it was because each retailer was separate, but the till system was collective, so you queued, chose, went to a till in the middle of the floor and paid, then took the receipt back, and collected.
            Might have been due to use of credit card, but thinking back to a purchase 25+ years ago is difficult.

          5. The point about credit cards sounds about right – German were notorious for preferring cash to plastic. It was vey difficult to find retailers who took them, even when I finally left Germany in 1997.

          6. Spot on. Exactly the same in the three countries I mentioned. When I questioned this with my delightful hosts, they were staggered – and perplexed – that we didn’t have the same system in England!

      2. Hi Conners, we have never had whale meat in Norf Zummerzet, I guess our rivers are just too small for them.

  79. How does one panic buy electricity for an electric vehicle?
    The queues would stretch for miles, they’ll need extension leads!

    2. I thought installing Ohm chargers was all the rage (Two have been installed already in my close of 10 houses!)

      3. I hate those smug gits who can’t help telling you how much they’ve spent on installing a special electric connection in their garage “because petrol will be banned soon”.

        Hope the whole electric car scam falls apart and they end up making a loss!

        1. Me I’m happy for them it means there will be more diesel left for me!
          (Not that my car drinks that much In the 6 months since April I’ve only spent £194 on diesel on the forecourt)

    3. Dunno, but one of our churchwardens used her last remaining quarter tank of petrol, touring Surrey in search of the allegedly plentiful nectar this morning. At every filling station from Farnham to Camberley to Woking, there’s neither petrol nor diesel. She finally got lucky at a local Sainsburys. Thanks, MSM for telling us not to panic. That worked well. The entire county is out on manoeuvres.

      BTW, I have slightly less than a litre of stupidly expensive Aspen Alkylate petrol here for small garden implements. You can leave it in indefinitely without gumming up the carb, so it’s worth it for infrequently-used gizmos. Was an “absolute bargain” at £15. I’m thinking of putting it on eBay for £100k…

      1. I use old fashioned 98, having been put wise by my handyman/gardener. Mowers, chainsaw and strimmers were all functioning poorly until I reverted to the most polluting version.

        1. Totally agree. Modern fuel and small engines don’t mix. I only bought the alkylate stuff since I’m without transport, and can’t easily get to filling stations. I had bought a pick tine attachment for my elderly Stihl Kombi engine, but five minutes’ worth of my clay soil buggered the clutch. In the end, I spent £50 on a Chinese electric tiller from Screwfix, which did the job, and cost a helluva lot less than hiring a petrol rotavator.

          1. I left my rotavator on the patch all summer, having given up on vegetables this year. I eventually dragged it back to the garage on Friday and tried to start it.
            It fired first time and purred contentedly. Good old Briggs and Stratton, and 98.

      2. Report this afternoon of a drive from Epsom to Bromley passing 5 garages with No Fuel signs…..

        1. When I came back from church this morning, our local garage was normal (fairly full, but not overflowing), but I did notice the fuel had gone up 1ppl.

          3. Thanks, Conners. I’m aware that friend Dianne is currently in Brecon, then onwards to daughter in Brum, then Ludlow for grandson’s birthday. She may be well advised to top up in Salop.

          4. I don’t know what it’s like down the south end (Shropshire is, after all, the largest inland non-metropolitan county and Ludlow is some 50 miles from where I live). Market Drayton has been experiencing queues (they’ve been blocking the fire station next door!), but I don’t think they have run out.

  80. Evening, all. Been a lovely day again (last one of the year, probably). Managed to get my front lawn cut (after a fashion – the toy mower I mistakenly bought doesn’t like thick grass or long grass; it particularly doesn’t like thick long grass!).

    3. Been a lovely few days here. Trees marvellous colours, warm & sunny weather, and covid restrictions lifted nationwide. Good tidy-out with 6 removals boxes to go out to the Scouts to sell at their flea market soon, piles of rubbish in the bin, and SWMBO cooking lasagna… Rediscovered the joy of Bunnahabhain whisky yesterday… it’s been a good weekend!
      The only thing I couldn’t find in the tidyout was my social life. I must have left it somewhere, and it’s been tidied away… :-(( must keep looking.

    5. I had my back garden turfed about six weeks ago. I tried mowing it for the second time today – I think I need a new mower – it was ripping rather than cutting the grass.

        1. Opinions were divided about the first song from this episode at the other end of the decade. This marked VOM’s one and only appearance on the show – miming in the chorus!

          Discovered link put in earlier doesn’t work. However, a Google search for:

          ‘BBC Tops of the Pops 1979-12-13’ – will show the awful truth!

          5. Yes, ‘Daytrip to Bangor’. Permed hair, dark tee-shirt with cross-eyed frog on front, ridiculous shoulder movements!

          1. Just after he joined, John, they played in our Assembly Hall at Exeter School, just a few weeks before recording Antiques and Curios at the QE Hall. I was 16 and, subsequently, a life-long fan. My B-i-L still sees (and sometimes sings with) Dave Cousens. Here is Rick’s (self-indulgent, but also brilliant) Temperament of Mind from that time.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmYZzhYPqCY

    2. Nah, those are the engineers, the doctors are still being collected and photographed for their yearbook.

  84. So the lifelong, old-fashioned, un-reconstructed Soviet Mole Merkel has buggered off.

    Her Soviet training worked well. She leaves a Europe in ruins, overrun by those determined to destroy the centuries old Judeo-Christian structure and a political system in ruins

    Молодец Мутти

  85. We’ve just returned from the first live music concert in 18 months – Gloucester Music Society.
    The first concert was supposed to be a piano trio, but the pianist has gone down with flu. The violinist and cellist came with an alternative programme –

    mainly Bach or inspired by him – including Cello suite no 1 and the fabulous Chaconne from Partita no 2.

    I’ve really missed live music – and these two young guys were real virtuosos. Such a good afternoon.

      1. Thanks Plum – we’d missed it but recorded in time for the second half which we watched after dinner.

  86. I am off for the day. Lots of useful things done – including (just about to) pouring a glass of medicine.

    Last night, the MR and I watched a docu on Channel 4 called “Three Identical Strangers”. It was an extraordinary tale of just how awful people can be when dealing with children put up for adoption. The “three” were triplets split up after birth and placed – as an EXPERIMENT (for God’s sake) – with three different class families.

    It is well worth trying to see on catch up. I suspect you will share our horror at it all.

    A demain

      1. Actually it was an eye-opener. The events – which sounded like something from the age of Frankenstein – took place in the 1960s….

        1. Not so long ago – and babies were still being taken from their mothers because they’d omitted to marry the feckless fathers.

          1. A lot of those unwanted (unwanted by families and authorities) kids went on the boats to Oz, as toddlers.

          4. Marriage is a state of mind, not contract.
            Norway has many unmarried mothers, it’s no stigma, but there’s a lot of social pressure for the man to stick around, be a good father, and support her.
            My young (unmarried) colleague is due to be a father in a few months. I’ve been persuading him that children are fun, and not the end of life.

          5. ‘children are fun, and not the end of life.’
            ‘No, just the end of life as we know it, Jim.’

          6. Friends of ours were determined to have a bad time with their children, when the children were small. We took a positive view, took them everywhere when they were tiny and mostly asleep, and had a lot more fun. Depends on your frame of mind.

          8. Yes, but if the right state of mind exists, most people will make the contract. Something like 92% of couples who don’t marry will split before their child is 16.
            From the woman’s point of view – If he wants to marry you, he will. If he’s not interested in marriage, it’s because he doesn’t plan on staying around, whatever he says – is a good rule of thumb. Yes, yada yada there will always be exceptions, but at over 90%, I wouldn’t advise my daughter to take the risk.

          9. Never having been a woman, it’s difficult to comment, but I was dead against marriage when I was young, despite wanting to be with SWMBO permanently.
            Next year, we have our 40th wedding anniversary…

          10. I had an early marriage which was a mistake, we all make them. Not being a religious person probably skews my views. My present OH (and mother of the 2 bastards) and I have been together 42 years.

          11. My two children from my present relationship are both bastards. I’m hoping it will be fashionable one day.

          15. The elder of my two older sisters had a shot gut marriage and married in September and her first child was born the following March. She had four children all of whom have married very happily and made successful lives.

            She and her husband have just celebrated 65 years. My brother-in-law reminds me that apart from my first niece who was there en culo (he is a solicitor) I am the only person still alive who was at the ceremony. I was a ten year old prep-schoolboy at the time.

          18. Since approval of abortion in the UK in 1967 to 2014, 8,745,508 abortions have been performed. In 2018, the total abortions in England and Wales was 205,295. In this year, the abortion rate was highest for those of the age of 21, and 81% were for those who were single.

            So sad for all concerned.

          2. True. Some things never change, I suppose.
            I always wondered how they could carry out those experiments on children in the fifties and sixties so shortly after Mengele’s horrific experiments had come to light. Didn’t they learn anything? Of course, there was a huge difference in what was done, but at least one child committed suicide (the man who was brought up as a girl, I forget his name, but he had a sex change operation inflicted on him as a baby, and scientists who believed that gender was nurture not nature said that he would be absolutely fine being brought up as a girl. He wasn’t.).

  87. ‘Night All

    Will the new Al-Beeb Saville drama doc cast a black actor as the predatory paedo??

    If not why not,they do for everything else……….

    End with a few memes

    https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/085/771/590/original/b9cd0c5fb4040b63.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/67ca2de1e534a802cb1765918e683d47dc96838b42b06dffb758554323bd2266.jpg

    https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/086/047/504/original/637f257ebc6134fd.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8cc3ad87fb5cf5fcaed76b3f664b3332e7c8dec9b69850c5a2a40ba4eada9bba.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0cc9d8a7dbafbbe099f4db869e5107286bea8810dce9063418bdd395e8acb843.png

    3. I find the kitchen gas torch for creme caramels tends to work quite well. Obviously you have to pick the legs out before serving them to your guests. That’s what i did last time… :@(

  89. Goodnight, everyone. For some reason, I could not switch off and go to sleep last night until just after 0600 this morning. I’m going to catch up on zzzs.

    2. Sometimes, having one’s furry companion sleeping on the bed/sofa next to you can be very comforting, and promotes sleep. I find sleep almost impossible to avoid when one of the cats lies next to me and sleeps… all warm and fuzzy, with small whiffly snores.

      1. He decided he was going to continue sleeping in his bed in the shack last night – maybe that was why I couldn’t get to sleep! Actually, it was more to do with the fact that my mind wouldn’t stop thinking of all the things I needed to do in the garden. Try as I might (and I’d mentally sorted out what I was going to do in what order), I couldn’t relax and let go. It was like being on a treadmill.

    1. How depressing. I suppose mine has been sold on a dozen times. I am rather relying on it to help fund my retirement, as well as paying off the mortgage for my children should anything happen to me in the meantime.
      One of the small print clauses was that if I die, the company has to be notified within 48 hours, otherwise the contract to pay out is invalid.
      I have warned all my children about that, and put the details in a clearly labelled box.

      1. The other catch is the policy where to preserve the value of the death payout sum via a vis inflation premiums are increased at periodic intervals. The policyholder has little or no say by how much the premiums increase and if the policy is linked to investments with the low interest rates over the past decade, returns have been minimal so premiums have gone through the roof making such policies unaffordable. 🙁

        1. I have two, one increases with inflation and the other one doesn’t. It will probably be worth tuppence by the time it matures! Ah well.

      2. That sounds like an unfair, and illegal, contract.
        Write to the company and complain. If you get no joy contact the Ombudsman.

  93. Eleven past twenty two. Best get me to bed before I turn into a pumpkin … Nighty night, folks.

    1. In the run up to the next election, the old “But Labour Would Be Worse” mantra will kick in, and the Tory sheep will turn out and obediently put their crosses in the boxes, and Labour will collect their blocks of postal votes from the people who don’t speak English, and the whole fraud will carry on.

      1. What’s the alternative? Untried parties with “It’s my party, I’ll cry if I want to” politicians who all want to be in charge and bugger getting elected, like UKIP, Brexit, Reform (if that’s what they are called today) and more. Devil & the deep blue sea choice…

      2. What’s the alternative? Untried parties with “It’s my party, I’ll cry if I want to” politicians who all want to be in charge and bugger getting elected, like UKIP, Brexit, Reform (if that’s what they are called today) and more. Devil & the deep blue sea choice…

    1. They will be arriving when they have a 4 bed house and all benefits in place. Its an established right, and the British taxpayer will pay. See details of the UN migration pact.

      1. Immigrants:

        They’ve come to join us to enjoy what we’ve gained over decades of having an empire.
        The women are left behind slaving in the kitchen.

        See later quote after CJ.

  97. Immigrants:

    They’ve come to join us to enjoy what we’ve gained over decades of having an empire.

    “We didn’t get where we are today without having an empire and plundering the fruits of the earth using slave labour”
    A quote after CJ.

    https://youtu.be/R5Os_SrLJ0w

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