Wednesday 9 February: The British Gas ‘home care’ service left vulnerable customers in the cold

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

692 thoughts on “Wednesday 9 February: The British Gas ‘home care’ service left vulnerable customers in the cold”

  1. The only thing that’s sexist about criticising Carrie Johnson is to call it ‘sexism’
    The PM’s wife enjoys privileged access which she is now accused of using to sway policy making – and Boris must take ultimate responsibility

    This silly, immature woman is leading the PM by the genitals to the ruination of this, our country, without ever garnering one vote to allow her so to do. The only way to stop it is to send the PM and his baggage packing and putting Lord Frost in his place.

    Sexist, like the Racist card is now well-worn out.

    Allison Pearson nails it – again.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/02/08/thing-sexist-criticising-carrie-johnson-call-sexism/

    1. Well said, Nanners, both for your target and your solution! And I do believe that Lord Frost could be a very good candidate – provided of course that he is prepared to renounce his peerage. Whatever happens, Johnson has to go, and it was gratifying to hear this morning that a donor of £3m to Tory coffers is ready to cease doing so.

  2. First! Good morning, everyone.

    PS – Correction, I posted second, Tom was first today.

    1. Oops, I was sorting out my finances on my laptop when you leap-frogged me on my iMac, Tom. Congratulations!

  5. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    They say that there is no such thing as bad publicity, but after these letters they will surely be squirming at BG HQ this morning!

    SIR – My boiler broke down in December, leaving me without heating or hot water. After several attempts to book a British Gas engineer to call to repair it (Letters, February 8), I was told that the earliest appointment was December 20 – 15 days later. This is despite being registered with British Gas as “vulnerable”, due to my age.

    Only after I phoned to cancel my contract for home care was I told that, because British Gas could not arrange for an engineer to attend within a certain time frame, I should have been offered the chance to have my boiler repaired by a local firm and send the bill to British Gas.

    I booked a local engineer, who came within hours, and British Gas has now refunded the cost.

    After British Gas confirmed that my home-care contract was cancelled the customer service person said: “Despite cancelling your contract with us, remember that we are always here for you.” Oh, the irony.

    Judy Gould
    Clatford, Hampshire

    SIR – On February 1 – a week after I was discharged from hospital following a major operation – a gas leak was detected at my home. Cadent came promptly to shut off all the gas and the engineer spent more than an hour trying to contact British Gas, which frustrated his efforts by directing him to the wrong departments before someone understood that I was vulnerable.

    A British Gas engineer did turn up later and tried fruitlessly to find me an appointment before February 23, then left me a fan heater from his van.

    A friend was appalled, as I live on my own and had no other source of heat or hot water. She contacted the complaints department for me and my appointment was brought forward to February 14. She was told that I could claim a fan heater worth up to £50.

    I shall not let this matter lie, when I am fit. The directors of British Gas are holding customers hostage by promising a home-care service that the company so clearly cannot provide.

    Colette M Quirk
    Pinner, Middlesex

    SIR – Has Les Sharp ( Letters, February 7) tried to contact British Gas recently? I ended up writing to its complaints department after trying for two weeks to speak to someone.

    I received a prompt reply with a phone number that doesn’t seem to be on any of its websites. My call was answered and the problem sorted within two minutes.

    Graeme Stevenson
    Menstrie, Clackmannanshire

    SIR – My gas boiler is serviced by a local, self-employed engineer. He is skilled, knowledgeable, reliable and treats me as both customer and friend.

    Problems are resolved within 24 hours. His charges are reasonable: I am paying for expertise and time, and there is no markup on the parts he supplies. I am not paying to support a giant, inefficient bureaucracy, nor for advertising and marketing campaigns.

    I have no intention of paying an annual fee for a service contract.

    Nick Timms
    Newark, Nottinghamshire

    1. Not sure that BG HQ will be squirming this morning. From my limited dealings with them I find they still have the mindset of a Nationalised Industry, much like many other ‘privatised’ entities.

    2. I had British gas homecare. We had it until the man arrived and said that parts were charged at market rate.

      That said, I won’t deal with one of the local firms ever again.

      1. Some years ago now we had BG Homecare. At the boiler’s 10th annual service by BG we were told, almost triumphantly, that they do not carry original spares beyond 10 years and would we like a quote for a replacement boiler? How convenient not to carry the spares beyond 10 years! No doubt a nice cosy arrangement with the manufacturers was in place then (and possibly now). Said boiler continued for another 14 years and required only one non-manufacturer’s part in all that time and that was fitted by a local chap who wasn’t out to rip us off. We have never touched BG or their cover since.

  6. Morning all.

    Welcome to surge pricing – the way of rationing electricity to smart meter users when the wind’s not blowing on a cloudy day:

    The Express has been reading the Telegraph this morning:

    Smart meters will reportedly undergo a massive change and automatically send suppliers updates every 30 minutes on customers’ power use starting from May, the Telegraph has revealed. In May, energy regulator Ofgem will be given the green light to change the way smart meters work, possibly paving the way for “time of use” tariffs.

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1563061/Smart-meter-surge-pricing-Ofgem-ont

      1. I resolutely muttered, “I am NOT having a smart meter” as I clambered onto a chair and thence onto the electric cooker to be able to press the buttons to read my meter which is situated near the ceiling!

      1. I think those who want green should be the zealots first.

        However, let’s also cut off their water and energy. After all, clean water comes from energy. No heat, no light, no fuel, no food, no water. Force the fanatics to live in the world they want for everyone else.

      1. It’s enough to make you want to blow a fuse – unless of course you out on a current trip!

      2. The state has obviously given no thought t, you know, supplying enough to meet demand.

        Without energy we will regress. With regression comes poverty. Everything that made us great is based on energy, an abundance of it. It’s why we’re not Africa.

    4. ‘Morning, AO. I have a ‘smart’ meter because it was already here when we moved in a year ago. However, as a ‘Mk1’ it (predictably) became a ‘dumb’ meter as soon as I switched away from BG. Now I have the best of both worlds – no data sent and therefore no control by my energy supplier – but I can still read the consumption data, including both meters, without having to go outside to read them every month. So far no one has shown any interest in fixing it.

      1. Who thought that coupling the meter to the company you pay for the power was a good idea? Norway coupled them to the infrastructure company, who sends the data to the supply company who then send you a bill. Makes it easy to change supplier and the systems still work.

        2. It almost goes without saying that meters were never intended to benefit the customer, only the supplier. And this hideously expensive programme is paid for by us! What a fantastic con, and for most customers they have got away with it.

    5. Our smart meter monitor cannot remember the settings when it is rebooted every evening.

      These are not intelligent devices, not well maintained. They are a rushed, bodged job carried out by a stupid government desperate to impose a veritably hallucinogenic ideology on the public for absolutely no gain whatsoever.

  7. The Tories’ puritanical attack on the poor. Spiked. 9 February 2022.

    Those living in poverty already pay more for energy, credit and insurance. The Health and Care Bill will increase their food bills by an extra £160 a year – that amounts to roughly two per cent of the poorest households’ annual income. How is that justifiable in the current circumstances? What image, precisely, do our politicians have of poorer families? They don’t buy two packets of biscuits on a ‘buy one, get one free’ deal and scoff them in one sitting. These are provisions which can last families weeks.

    It’s not puritanical or indifference, it’s deliberate. The working class, more specifically the White Working Class, are to be reduced to a state of absolute serfdom. Only thus can they be coerced into fitting into a future Multi-Cultural UK.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/02/08/the-tories-puritanical-attack-on-the-poor/

    1. 335054+ up ticks,
      Morning AS,
      May one ask, what party’s are trying to put in place this
      culture changing, serious lifestyle changing way of life ?

      Surely they would not get support for such anti English
      actions… would they ?

    2. The state does not care. It’s sole intent is to keep wasting at the same level, unhindered.

      Heck, not funding the hideous Stonewall could save £2 million.

      1. Not only what was not said, but the way Putin didn’t say it… I thought it was masterful!

    1. Javid is doing nothing to reduce waiting lists because he can’t. He’s an ineffectual moron in charge of a department that is utterly dysfunctional by design.

  13. Sir John Major set to accuse Boris Johnson of harming trust in politics over ‘partygate’. 8 February. 2022.

    Sir John Major is expected to accuse Boris Johnson of corroding trust in politics over the “partygate” saga in a bruising intervention to be delivered on Thursday.

    The former prime minister and Conservative leader will deliver a speech entitled “In democracy we trust?” at the Institute for Government think tank.

    In democracy we trust? Lol! Well at least he put a question mark at the end. In reality of course it’s finished. It is no more; only the memory of it exists, through its residue. There are still the remnants of Free Speech and Action but even these are being eroded. Soon the UK will have graduated from being a bungling Police State to a full on Totalitarian Regime where no dissension will be tolerated!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/08/sir-john-major-set-accuse-boris-johnson-harming-trust-politics/

    2. He is “expected to…” is he? More of the wretched ‘future news’ – unless the DT has a crystal ball.

    3. This the same John Major who made a fuss about Boris proroguing Parliament when he’d done the same to avoid awkward questioning??

    6. I’d be surprised if the circus refugee Major, the man who signed us up to the Maastricht Treaty without so much as a by your leave, can even spell demokracee.

    1. But at least in Trudeau’s realm people enthusiastically wave their national flag. Over here you’d be bullied out of it by being called a racist and right wing terrorist.

  17. I saved enough money cancelling my British Gas Homecare package to buy and run an electric background temperature heater.

  18. Today’s DT leader.

    Much rubbish has been provided by the media, and predictably much of it from the BBC. As much as I want to see the back of Johnson, he was at least right to highlight Sir Kneel’s woeful conduct at the CPS when he failed to ensure that the organisation he allegedly led prosecuted Savile and the Asian rape gangs. He (Johnson) is also right to resist the faux outrage by refusing to apologise for his comment:

    Keir Starmer’s record is a matter of public interest

    Leaders, including Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer, are rightly expected to take responsibility for the actions of those who work under them

    TELEGRAPH VIEW
    9 February 2022 • 6:00am

    It is axiomatic that politicians should be able to go about their business without being harassed and jostled by a baying mob. The treatment of Sir Keir Starmer at the hands of anti-vaxx protesters in Whitehall was disgraceful and has rightly been condemned by all parties.

    But the attempts to turn this episode into another stick with which to beat the Prime Minister are bogus and tendentious. They stem from Mr Johnson’s claim, made in the Commons last week, that Sir Keir, when Director of Public Prosecutions, failed to bring charges against Jimmy Savile, the former BBC presenter later exposed as a sexual predator.

    The BBC accompanies every news bulletin on the subject by asserting that the claim was made “without evidence”, even though Sir Keir later apologised for the failings of the Crown Prosecution Service which he headed. It is argued that since the Labour leader did not personally decide that there was insufficient evidence to bring a case against Savile, Mr Johnson was smearing him when he raised the matter during heated Commons exchanges.

    Yet the Opposition expects the Prime Minister to take responsibility for the decisions of the Government, even if he did not make them himself. That is how it should be. It is the definition of accountability.

    Sir Keir is doubtless happy to accept plaudits for the good things that happened during his time as DPP, even if he was not personally responsible for delivering them. Now that he is a potential prime minister, his record in the job will be a legitimate matter for scrutiny during the next election campaign.

    * * *

    If you watched Mark Steyn on GBN yesterday (8pm) you will no doubt have enjoyed his extended and passionate demolition of the criticism from the BBC and others. It was a real tour de force and well worth watching!

    1. The man that toppled the best PM in living memory just to get us to sign up to an EU treaty now talks about trust.

      2. The only trust I have is with Major is the trust that he works for himself and his interests not ours.

    1. So, Johnson and May’s Brexit agreement commits us to Net Zero by 2050 and the Treasury calculates the cost as over £1.4 trillion – some £50,000 per taxpayer? It makes you want to weep at the cowardly and dependent nation we’ve become.

        1. ‘Morning Maggie,

          The time to cancel foreign aid passed a long, long time ago. They won’t cancel it, even if we all have to starve.

        2. At this point, 0.7% of our GDP is almost penny change. It’s borrowed money. The 60 billion wanked on charidees to promote state waste is a bigger issue. The lack of energy capacity. The green agenda entirely and it’s forcing of people to buy demonstrably worse equipment they do not want and cannot afford, the tax hikes with absolutely no expectations of output or improvement. the demented Left wing agenda of the state entire.

          Every single day we are made dramatically poorer by a malignant, tedious state machine taxing and wasting our money so it can keep borrowing ever more to make up for it’s idiotic policies.

      3. Why did nobody calculate that before the agreement?
        Break the agreement now, no point in wasting time taking it further..

        1. Err, they likely did. The accepted figure was £2 trillion.

          Quite simply, the state does not care.

    2. These are the relevant sections of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement to which Ben Habib refers:

      Article 7.1: Definitions

      1. For the purposes of this Chapter, “environmental levels of protection” means the levels of protection provided overall in a Party’s law which have the purpose of protecting the environment, including the prevention of a danger to human life or health from environmental impacts, including in each of the following areas:

      (a) industrial emissions;
      (b) air emissions and air quality;
      (c) nature and biodiversity conservation;
      (d) waste management;
      (e) the protection and preservation of the aquatic environment;
      (f) the protection and preservation of the marine environment;
      (g) the prevention, reduction and elimination of risks to human health or the environment arising from the production, use, release or disposal of chemical substances; or
      (h) the management of impacts on the environment from agricultural or food production, notably through the use of antibiotics and decontaminants.

      2. For the Union, “environmental levels of protection” means environmental levels of protection that are applicable to and in, and are common to, all Member States.

      3. For the purposes of this Chapter, “climate level of protection” means the level of protection with respect to emissions and removals of greenhouse gases and the phase-out of ozone depleting substances. With regard to greenhouse gases, this means:

      (a) for the Union, the 40 % economy-wide 2030 target, including the Union’s system of carbon pricing;
      (b) for the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom’s economy-wide share of this 2030 target, including the United Kingdom’s system of carbon pricing.

      Article 7.2: Non-regression from levels of protection

      1. The Parties affirm the right of each Party to set its policies and priorities in the areas covered by this Chapter, to determine the environmental levels of protection and climate level of protection it deems appropriate and to adopt or modify its law and policies in a manner consistent with each Party’s international commitments, including those under this Chapter.

      2. A Party shall not weaken or reduce, in a manner affecting trade or investment between the Parties, its environmental levels of protection or its climate level of protection below the levels that are in place at the end of the transition period, including by failing to effectively enforce its environmental law or climate level of protection.

      3. The Parties recognise that each Party retains the right to exercise reasonable discretion and to make bona fide decisions regarding the allocation of environmental enforcement resources with respect to other environmental law and climate policies determined to have higher priorities, provided that the exercise of that discretion, and those decisions, are not inconsistent with its obligations under this Chapter.

      4. For the purposes of this Chapter, insofar as targets are provided for in a Party’s environmental law in the areas listed in Article 7.1 [Definitions], they are included in a Party’s environmental levels of protection at the end of the transition period. These targets include those whose attainment is envisaged for a date that is subsequent to the end of the transition period. This paragraph shall also apply to ozone depleting substances.

      5. The Parties shall continue to strive to increase their respective environmental levels of protection or their respective climate level of protection referred to in this Chapter.

  21. Vladimir Putin: Modern Man. 9 february 2022.

    Putin, then, is a modern man, reacting to the modern world, using modern methods in an attempt to make something new. He is conjuring up the spirits of the past in his service, dressing up his aggression in time-honored disguise. Yet we should not be fooled by the old costumes and slogans; the reality is new and real. Putin is trying to bury the old world, not re-create it. And the very fact that he feels he can suggests that we have already arrived somewhere new. The question is who will have the tools—and imagination—to shape it.

    Putin is of course the Old World. The World of the Renaissance and the European Enlightenment. Aside from a few minor players only he and Russia are left of this Time and Tradition. The rest have succumbed to the Globalist cause of Multiculturalism and Marxist Neoliberalism. The current situation in Europe is not so much an argument about security but the attempt to subdue the Nation State of Russia and destroy its Anti-Globalist leader. If Russia should fall then the whole world will come under the control of Marxist Ideologues who will enslave its populations dividing it up into fiefdoms for their personal use. North Korea made Global.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/02/russia-invade-ukraine-putin-strategy/621626/

    1. There is a term – confession by projection – it can be assumed that when a bad actor accuses others – that is what he is doing or intends.

    2. Vlad the Orthodox Christian. Our Lady said at Medjugorje that Russia was destined to hold the torch for Chistianity. She also said that all would be well if the Pope were to consecrate the Russian church to her sacred heart. Probably why Mr Global removed Benedict and installed Francis.

  22. Right, need to go to Matlock, then straight to Step-son’s, picking up Student Son on the way, to unload the fridge I bought t’other day from the van.

          1. Phizzee,

            Please accept my warmest thoughts and prayers for your NHS procedure tomorrow .

            We need you back here in good form and full of cheek. I know you have been through the mill, but you have put on a brave face during the very long suffering worrying length of time you have had .

            Best wishes Phizzee, consider yourself hugged x

  24. Whilst our politicians navel-gaze over hurty words and Green virtue-signalling yet ignore the continuing destruction of our way of life, economy and place in the world, I came across this video that shows how different we and the US have become. The section from China is as scary as it is impressive
    https://youtu.be/GZskbZKtI9k

    1. Interesting. The American one is appalling, of course, and the British one no better.

      But I think the Chinese one shows weakness. It’s just as much of a fantasy as the American one is, just a Top Gun, boy fantasy instead of a pathetic progressive dream. The Chinese ad paints a picture of being strong only because you are in the company of thousands of others, and a fantasy picture of a well equipped army where everything always works – I’d be surprised if that’s the case. It’s a paper tiger, claiming that it’s much stronger than it really is.
      The Russian ad was the best – it was closer to gritty reality, and showed the reason why men defend their country – for love of their families.

      1. “a fantasy picture of a well equipped army where everything always works – I’d be surprised if that’s the case.”
        A scary thought, but what if they make stuff that always works and keep it in China, just exporting all the crap that always fails to countries like ours.

        1. No way! They portray themselves as all-powerful, but they haven’t changed that much. It will be interesting to see what happens when Xi retires, as he must one day.

      2. “A well equipped army where everything works”

        Must be referring to the British Army’s tank corps.

    2. The Chinese seem to like a lot of close formation synchronised stuff. The British ones just look nervous and confused.

    3. Oh dear! Looks like the Russian army is the place to be – what are the US and Britain thinking?

    4. What a truly extraordinary clip.The different flavours of exploitation. At least our cannon fodder in the West will be able gaze into the mirror as its masters consign them to hell! May it profit them…..

  25. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d54ce5091ff37e169b468cb87d062f01b369cbf85640f95371564ebdd1acd62e.png I had a similar situation a few weeks’ back. A local delivery firm, called ‘Bring’, decided to leave my parcel at a post office 20km away, then refused to bring it closer to home. I contacted Amazon.se, told them to stuff their parcel where the sun don’t shine, and to reimburse me the money I’d spent on the item. They did. ‘Bring’ actually picked up the uncollected parcel a few weeks later and returned it to where it had come from, but they wouldn’t deliver it to me.

    The world has been taken over by a clique of amateurs.

    1. We get parcels delivered to random “Post in store” locations, depending seemingly on the whim of the driver and whether he needed to stop for a pee or not. None of these are the one closest to home, and they NEVER deliver actually at home. DHL, however, not being state-run, will call you and check whether you will be at home in a narrow timeslot, and actually roll up then – a nice guy called Amandeep is the usual driver. If you are out, they deliver to an agreed location, which can be the office, or wherever.
      Bring is owned by the Norwegian government.

      1. I didn’t now that Bring were owned by the Norwegian government, Paul; that probably explains why Amazon (in Sweden) are unable to sack them. Like you, I have no problem with DHL (nor UPS, nor Schencker) when it comes to home deliveries. Most times I drive to Tomelilla, 8km away, to collect Postnord parcels that are too big for my postbox; but I go there for all my shopping, in any case, so that doesn’t present me with a problem. Bring have improved, somewhat, since I took them to task but I’m still on their case and I will continue to complain if they act like twats again.

  26. The BBC: A People’s History by David Hendy review – the BBC from the bottom up. 9 February 2022.

    The Conservatives’ birthday gift to the BBC, which is 100 this year, turns out to be culture secretary Nadine Dorries’s promise to abolish the licence fee, the funding mechanism that has allowed it to flourish as an independent institution beloved, trusted and envied across the world. Reading David Hendy’s The BBC: A People’s History in light of this latest attack on the corporation is a sobering experience. The author himself clearly feels the clouds gathering, and at times cannot banish an elegiac tone from his prose.

    If it ever were such a thing; which I doubt, it is no longer. It’s a Marxist propaganda mouthpiece financed by legal extortion.

    https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/feb/09/the-bbc-a-peoples-history-by-david-hendy-review-the-bbc-from-the-bottom-up

  27. On the subject of electric cars solving all the world’s issues, a snip from LinkedIn on the subject. Must be a Nottler!

    Bjorn Lomborg – President at Copenhagen Consensus Center
    2d
    Will electric cars save the planet? Unfortunately, they won’t.

    The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that if every nation achieves their ambitious targets on increasing electric car ownership, it will reduce CO2 emissions in this decade by 235 million tons.

    That, according to the UN Climate Panel’s standard model, will reduce global temperatures by about one ten-thousandth of a degree Celsius (0.0001c) by the end of the century.

    My new op-ed:
    https://lnkd.in/eSaQHN9M

    1. What about the energy and materials – many of them toxic – used to build these cars? What about the electricity needed to power them? And the materials and energy used to make and install the chargers? None of this works by magic. I know Lefties think it does, but they’re morons.

      2. I think it’s a case of focus on the main reason for pushing electric cars – that they will save the world from co2mageddon, but actually won’t.

        1. When the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine, pushing electric cars will be the only way they’ll move! 🙂

    2. What is alway missing from the claims of the “greenies” is an end-to-end cost analysis. The cost of sourcing all the materials, bringing them together, turning them into cars, and maintenance and renewal over the expected lifetime. And, yes the CO2 released in respect of all the processes, not forgetting the generation of the electricity used by electric cars.

      1. And the human cost, from child labour through to spending 3 days on a journey that used to take 14 hours.

        1. Just so. Why is there no logic with any of the people promoting this nonsense? Many of those demonstrating for “green”will be without electricity, transport, heating, when their dream comes true.

  28. ‘My Soccer Saturday mates call me a conspiracy theorist – but I’m not’

    Matt le Tissier, reunited with former Sky colleagues for a tour, is unapologetic about his controversial online opinions

    The broad smiles tell a story. The band are back together and it is fair to say that quite a lot has happened since Sky’s definitive Soccer Saturday panel – Jeff Stelling, Matt Le Tissier, Phil Thompson, Paul Merson and Charlie Nicholas – were last assembled in a public forum.

    They call their stage show “The Pundits Tour” and, following dates already in Southampton and Manchester, they will continue their series of reunions in Bradford tomorrow. Le Tissier, 53, is revelling in being back with “my mates”, knowing that firm friendships and a distinct brand of dressing-room humour overrides heartfelt differences of opinion on subjects such as Covid-19.

    “Some of them still think I’m a lunatic,” he says, laughing. “A couple of them do think I’m a proper conspiracy theorist and they take the p— out of me for it. I take it and give a bit back. That’s how it is. We don’t fall out over it and that’s the best thing to do.”

    Le Tissier, in case you have not noticed and are not one of the 562,000 who follow him on Twitter, has become a hugely controversial social media figure. What began as an instinct that the world was overreacting to the Covid-19 threat has snowballed over the past two years into the belief that a rather higher power than the Prime Minister has been shaping how we live our lives.

    “Boris Johnson had no choice in it – Boris Johnson isn’t in charge of this country,” he declares, telling me that “as a journalist” I should read a book called Covid-19: The Great Reset which outlines how a future world order might look. And Le Tissier is as likely to tweet these days about lockdowns, face masks and vaccinations as penalties, free-kicks and wonder goals.

    After also being publicly drawn into the Black Lives Matter debate during the summer of 2020, when Le Tissier questioned whether he should be wearing a badge that could be interpreted as promoting a “far left ideology”, he lost his job at Sky Sports. Thompson and Nicholas went at the same time, but given they were both in their sixties, it felt that there might be rather more to Le Tissier’s departure.

    So what does the man himself think? “When I had the Zoom call to tell me that we were being let go, I asked the question, ‘Has this got anything to do with my social media posts?’ And the response I got was, ‘We have to be concerned about the reputation of our company’. That is what they told me.”

    Le Tissier says that they suddenly “changed their tune” to “we can’t talk about people’s situations” when he pointed out the inconsistency in that approach, but by then he was resigned to his fate. Sky maintains that it was part of wider change to the show and nothing else.

    Le Tissier says that he still gets approached constantly by fans of the show. “Probably every day I will get people come up and say, ‘I miss you on Sky, what you boys had was really good, it’s not as funny now’. Yes, we messed around, had a bit of fun, but ultimately there were four blokes who knew and loved their football.

    “We had quite a lot of years getting to know each other very well on and off screen, and that kind of relationship just doesn’t leave you. The amount of people that say, ‘I don’t watch it any more’ has been quite remarkable. You don’t know if they are telling the truth, or just being nice. I’ve watched it a few times. I didn’t find it as entertaining, even when I used to have a Saturday off and I’d sit and watch the other boys. But it has been difficult. I am sure over time it will improve.”

    That old chemistry is certainly evident in the stage shows. Stelling, the consummate host, warms things up before introducing the pundits and inviting stories about their careers. There are then audience questions during the second half. “It can go in whatever direction,” says Le Tissier, who is still laughing when we speak at Stelling’s tales of following the 2002 World Cup in Japan with Chris Kamara. They were all also reduced to fits of giggles in Manchester when Merson, desperate to avoid saying anything that could be deemed inappropriate, had been rehearsing his story of an unusually small goalkeeper by using the words “short bloke” rather than “midget”. Merson inadvertently failed at about the eighth reference.

    “We are all cracking up – because we know how hard he has tried not to say that word,” says Le Tissier, who despairs when he now hears how cricket commentators are consciously trying to check their language. “When blokes are playing cricket it’s a batsman, when women are playing cricket it’s a batswoman – it’s not really that difficult,” he says. “The world has gone mad. There’s a very small minority of people who are trying to weaponise the language we use. By kowtowing to the stupidness of that, society is going down a very dangerous path.”

    Le Tissier came off social media briefly before his Sky exit, referencing “trolls and bots out there who try to belittle me” and, for his own well-being, limits his daily social media activity. He has no regrets, however, about any of his Covid-19 postings. “I’ve always said that the response [to the pandemic] was not proportionate,” he says. “A deliberate overreaction in my opinion. If they were scared about it, they wouldn’t be having parties while the rest of us were locked in our houses, would they? We can’t be so fearful of death that we stop living.”

    Le Tissier says he has had “a couple of days where I felt a bit rough, a bit shivery” but does not test. “I don’t really care whether I’ve had it or not. If I feel ill, and I don’t feel up to going out, I don’t go out. If I’m coughing and spluttering then I definitely don’t go out because that is just bad manners and rude”.

    He is also dismissive of face masks but, on the theme of being polite, why not wear one if it might help and put another person’s mind at ease? “Mask wearing is a sign of compliance,” he says.

    Le Tissier has rejected the “antivaxx” label, saying that he is just “very sceptical” and that he has had other vaccines. “I’m not some far-Right conspiracy theorist,” he insists.

    He rightly implores others to proactively “look for themselves” and consider all the evidence but, whether it is death tolls, masks or the potential benefits as well as downsides of various measures, he seems only to highlight data or opinions which reinforce a particular narrative.

    He is courteous, though, in how he debates and baffled by the idea that taking different sides on subjects such as Brexit or Covid-19 should polarise society, impact on friendships and invite vitriol.

    “I’ve always been somebody who will stick up for what he believes in but, at the same time, if the evidence changes and it is proved that I was wrong, then I would be the first person to hold my hands up and go, ‘I’m really sorry, I read that completely wrong’,” he says. “You move forward by having debates and giving people the opportunity to hear both sides.

    “I don’t attack people for having different views to mine. I will talk to people and debate. I didn’t think things were fair and balanced. That is why I have taken the stance I have.

    “It’s my view…that the whole divide-and-conquer thing is done on purpose because, while we are all fighting among ourselves, actually nobody is really taking any notice of what is going on at the top. I am very much my own person – I have always been willing to question authority…when something doesn’t sit right with me.”

    For all that, you still have to wonder what sort of toll the past two years might have taken. Le Tissier said that he felt “a bit sad” when he came off social media in 2020, highlighting “snide remarks trying to make out I’m some uncaring individual who has no empathy”, but now seems emboldened and says that he has received a vast recent upsurge in support for his stance.

    “The attacks that have come my way have probably affected people around me more than they have affected me,” he says.

    “I find it quite easy to cope with any abuse. I guess that comes from having 50,000 people singing, ‘you fat b——’ and all that stuff for many years. You develop a thick skin. I’ve got an incredibly tough mental resilience. I’m pretty content in my life.”

    1. An interesting point about the Brexit condition, is that really the case? If true, what would/could they do if UK unilaterally disregarded it?

    2. With apologies, the real national debt is well over 16 trillion.

      If taxes go up, unemployment goes with it. High unemployment means more welfare, if energy is expensive then that means even more welfare which means economic collapse.

      We could remove the statute, it would simply mean revoking the EU nonsense.

      1. It does not surprise me that it is well over 16 trillion. Furlough, vaccines, testing, and the rest has to be paid for somehow.

  30. Nice to hear about the boos against Kurt Zouma .

    Did the teams do their BLM knee ritual before hand .

    I hope he gets hammered , as well as his brother for filming him kicking the cat , and of course a child was also seen to have thrown the cat.

    1. There may be some confusion in the meeja reports of the level of ‘booing’. Apparently the Hammers fans habitually shout ZOO every time he touches the ball.

      I do not condone his abuse of the cat, but perhaps he – or his agent – should have spent a few minutes online researching Bengal Cats and their annoying behaviour.

      If Mr Zouma is wise, he might consider putting a few voluntary shifts in at an animal shelter – minus a meeja presence, he’s not Elsie McSelfie – and atone for his rash actions.

      Whether the Leftwaffe like it or not, there is no way that West Ham United will bench one of their better players who is currently ‘worth’ 35M GBP.

      As Mr Greaves once said, ‘It’s a funny old game.’

        1. Agreed, hence I put ‘worth’. It turns out that Adidas have dropped their sponsorship deal with the player and Vitality have suspended their sponsorship deal with the club, so his ‘value’ may have dropped.
          His cats have been removed by the RSPCA and there may be court action to follow, probably ending in another fine.
          Peanuts to a man on his wages but he may kick it out of whoever filmed and downloaded the incident.

  32. Good morning. The very raison d’etre of this site is the failure of the legacy media. The Telegraph, under the hands of its present ownership, is just the husk of what once it was; it’s a little akin to seeing an old friend become demented, and as tragic. The management duck and weave with the Vicar of Bray, but they still follow the money, and you will not see anything truthful about matters that terrify Mr Global, like the present events in Canada, where popular resubscription to the truckers resources has exceeded $7m in 3 days.

    The social media barons have quietly been hedging their bets. You can now follow the new media coverage of the truckers on Youtube, as you can the Grand Jury model proceeding. The pressure of the new media success is beginning to tell.

    The Canadians, God bless them, are not the only, but certainly the first, great wake-up call to humankind in this show-down. This just in from Australia. We know that the government down under is perfectly capable of extreme violence on their people, and I think we need to be noisy in our support.

    https://cairnsnews.org/2022/02/09/common-law-assemblies-coming-to-canberra-rally/

    1. Read that as… “The social soviet media barons have quietly been hedging their bets.”
      Makes more sense that way.
      Morning, Jonathan.

    2. The Joe Rogan affair shows the power of the new media.
      That he is being demonised for interviewing Robert Malone, shows the power of Mr Global!

      1. Rumble have offered Joe Rogan the same terms he has with Spotify to join their platform. On Rumble Rogan would be uncensored. I hope he moves over.

        1. Don’t forget the Online Harms Bill, and I bet they have similar coming along in other countries. They try to win by all means.

          1. The legacy meeja must be quaking in their boots, as they tremble at the thought of being held responsible for all of the misinformation they have spread – especially over the past two years. Oh, wait…

          2. The Truckers show us the way that is dealt with. Laws are only useful if people obey them, which is the power of the law when it’s based on Natural Law. The further you move to make legitimate or otherwise the interests of a minority (or even a majority) the sooner you will hit the buffers!

    3. Regarding the MSM and their masters, 1st withdraw your votes for them, 2nd withdraw financial support, ie I don’t subscribe to the DT, 3rd never forget what the bar stewards have done and are planning to do.

      1. Good advice, I gave up; the DT in 2007, livestream broadcasts in 2018 and radio newz in 2019. There’s a plethora of news links and opinion on here and GP to fill the gap…and it doesn’t require hours online fact-checking.

    4. Surprising the complete blank in the British media about the noisy big upsets in New Zealand as well.

    5. Surprising the complete blank in the British media about the noisy big upsets in New Zealand as well.

    6. Surprising the complete blank in the British media about the noisy big upsets in New Zealand as well.

    7. Surprising the complete blank in the British media about the noisy big upsets in New Zealand as well.

  33. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b83dbbaef17144b5ec1bd6be1b74f07c6f0fbdf2c7407b0ed354533115b5ee3b.png The global corporations and big business are unremitting in their campaign to entice people to purchase their sub-standard ready-made ‘food’ items, all of which are jam-packed full of injurious and spurious ingredients. While-ever this is permitted you can expect the obesity crisis, and plummeting health of the population, to continue to worsen.

    I am able to cook, with very little effort, all of the highlighted items on that advert to a much higher standard of quality, nourishment and deliciousness, using fresh ingredients and no chemical additives.

    I’m quite sure that Philip can too.

    5. Ah, but I bet your food bears all the marks of being made by hand, as opposed to being stamped out (all sharp edges) by a machine. Also all the marks of actually tasting of something other than cardboard… and doesn’t keep as it’s not full of chemicals (and in our house, for example, SWMBOs quiche doesn’t keep because we all love it so, no matter how many she makes, they are all gone before the evening is out!)

    6. I can cook something resembling that, although for two people it would be excessive, and the limitations of the cooker would mean phasing the preparation and cooking. Probably to a lower standard of presentation.
      We do not use any thing artificial, no chemical additives as far as known. Chemicals are added to flour and salt to make them “free-running” that’s about it. We have, I think, pushed to the limit as regards the purchases of untainted raw materials, but if you buy sauces and the like … you have to accept the ingredients or make your own.
      I woke up to the interesting ingredients of things when I was selling frozen food. Sara Lee lemon Meringue Pie may have up to forty ingredients*, It is a long list. Around half can be “chemicals”. They taste absolutely wonderful.
      I make quite good lemon meringue pie (flour, pinch of salt, unsalted butter, water, egg, lemons, castor sugar, cornflour).

      * But who’s counting?
      INGREDIENTS
      WATER, SUGAR, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, ENRICHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, IRON, THIAMIN MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID), VEGETABLE OIL (PALM AND SOYBEAN OILS), SKIM MILK, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED PALM KERNEL OIL, LEMON JUICE (WATER, LEMON JUICE SOLIDS, LEMON JUICE CONCENTRATE). CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF EACH OF THE FOLLOWING: BUTTER (CREAM, SALT), MILK PROTEIN ISOLATE, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS, GUMS (CELLULOSE, XANTHAN, GUAR, CAROB BEAN, AGAR), POLYSORBATE 60, POLYGLYCEROL ESTERS OF FATTY ACIDS, SODIUM CITRATE, SODIUM PHOSPHATE, SOY LECITHIN, CORN SYRUP SOLIDS, EGG WHITES, BAKING SODA, SALT, CORN STARCH, SODIUM ALUM, CREAM OF TARTAR, MODIFIED CORN STARCH, CITRIC ACID, GELATIN, SODIUM TRIPOLYPHOSPHATE, CARRAGEENAN, COLORED WITH (TURMERIC AND ANNATTO EXTRACTS, BETA CAROTENE), TETRASODIUM PYROPHOSPHATE, SOY FLOUR

      1. Bagged grated cheese also contains cellulose in the form of wood pulp and Calcium sulphate which you would normally plaster your walls with.

        That being said these two additives are not toxic or harmful. They are added so the grated cheese doesn’t clump or go to a soggy mess.

        Besides. Cellulose in your diet is good for you.

        Better still…grate your own. It’s cheaper.

    7. I had a closer look on the Tesco site.

      I don’t know who plans their menus for them because they are very unhealthy. The one showing has quadruple carbs not taking into account the carbs in the veg and fruit. Which would make it six. No wonder there is an obesity crisis.

      A special occasion meal should be indulgent but that one is plain idiocy.

      Dump both the pastry tarts and replace with a salad and fresh fruit. Add some cream to the fruit if you like.
      Dump the heart shaped heart attack and replace with another vegetable. I would also halve the amount of meat.

  34. I see that utter waste of rations, Welby, has waded into the “debate” about removing a plaque in Jesus College – he also thinks that the “protestors” who mobbed [all 7 or so of them] Starmer have “lost God” – I suppose he should know about that?

    1. Politics and Religion are the two most deleterious concepts ever invented by mankind. The evidence is omnipresent.

      When you get a halfwitted Pinko placement, like Welby, meddling in both, then the result is going to be simply disastrous.

      1. “When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders
        believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong –
        faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles
        and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush
        until it’s too late.”

        ―

        Frank Herbert,

    4. Yo SB,

      For you to be able to lose something, there is a requirement, that you had it in the first place

      In the case of God and Welby. I do not thnk it applies

    5. Perhaps GoFundMe will be amenable to funding a longer ‘sabbatical’ for Welby. The remains of that Tongan volcano should suffice.

    2. I was aware that funding had increased in real terms but had no idea it was by such a large margin.

  38. Another good BTL comment:

    Carpe Jugulum
    1 DAY AGO
    Johnson has unfortunately proven his doubters correct.
    He is spineless. He abandoned ‘flattening the sombrero’ for the truly catastrophic lockdown at the first sign of trouble. Thatcher would have cut lockdown cheerleaders like Piers Morgan and Rory Stewart off at the knees with dry facts and withering scorn.
    He is scientifically illiterate in a technological age. Ferguson’s projections could have been dismantled by anyone asking the right questions or insisting the assumptions within them were published.
    He is arrogant. Setting rules for OTHERS to obey. Really?
    He has no moral boundaries. In what reality does a BRITISH PM wage a psy-ops war of compliance through fear against the BRITISH public?
    He is utterly inept. Too many examples and we could all list several.
    Time to go Boris. Those are not desirable or endearing qualities.

    REPLY
    9 REPLIES
    244
    FLAG

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/07/fatalistic-tory-party-sowing-seeds-destruction/

    1. Spot on , and it’s not just Boris but most MPs and civil servants. They don’t have the background in science, engineering, medicine or even law, that would have taught them how to check suppliers and assess quality.
      Journalism, PR, banking, the civil service or a career spent playing at politics do not prepare someone to be competent in the real world.

    2. The problem is that MPs in general are scientifically illiterate and thus do not know whose facts to listen to.

      1. Yo jd

        May I fiddle

        The problem is that MPs in general are scientifically illiterate and thus do not know whose facts to listen do.

      2. 335054+ up ticks,

        Afternoon JD,
        Facts ? they do not deal in facts they are working
        to a pro eu agenda.that’s a fact.

    3. Morning all
      Johnson is nothing out of the ordinary, he’s just a classic example of a modern day politician. No consideration for the people who took the trouble to elect his party. Totally self promoting. And no idea or any care in what the public think. He has a limited adgenda, due to his lack of knowledge, as they all do. Takes his orders and advice from the civil service and assumed experts. And effs up everything he comes into contact with. As they all do.
      Until the next election is on the horizon and as all his colleagues do, promise the earth again.
      The way this country is governmened and run is shambolic and shameful.
      Self opinionated people who are paid by the British taxpayers should be more accountable. Their progress and achievements should be closely monitored. And they should be fined and brought to account for their many miserable failures.

      1. He should now do his best to thwart the wishes of those who wish to get Britain back into the EU – he should get Article 16 revoked so that the Northern Ireland Protocol is scrapped and then go for WTO terms and only then, when a permanent Brexit has been achieved, should he resign.

        1. And now Richard he’s put Jacob R M in charge of that. He talks the hind leg off a several donkey’s each day, but I don’t think he’s ever made much progress, perhaps he’s our version of (Donkey) Don Quixote.

          1. I am afraid you are right.

            Many of us here saw through the fact that Johnson was more remainer than Brexiteer before the general election and we howled at the naivety of Farage in not being able to see for himself what was so clear to us.

            Grease Smogg is, I hope, committed to Brexit but we must not forget that he voted for May’s disgraceful WA as did Boris Johnson. Someone who held firm on this issue was Steve Baker – if Johnson truly wanted to get Brexit finished he would have appointed him rather than Grease Smogg to this new position.

          2. Baker turned down a position in Boris’ new government in 2019 as he wanted to stay independent. He would probably still do the same. Frost was unable to overrule the blob and eventually resigned. He’s more outspoken now.

    4. ( who ran away from his nurse and was eaten by a lion )
      by
      Hillaire Belloc

      There was a boy whose name was Jim
      His friends were very good to him
      They gave him tea and cakes and jam
      And slices of delicious ham
      And chocolate with pink inside
      And little tricycles to ride
      They read him stories through and through
      And even took him to the zoo
      But there it was the awful fate
      Befell him, which I now relate
      You know (at least you ought to know
      For I have often told you so)
      That children never are allowed
      To leave their nurses in a crowd
      Now this was Jim’s especial foible
      He ran away when he was able
      And on this inauspicious day
      He slipped his hand and ran away
      He hadn’t gone a yard when BANG
      With open jaws a lion sprang
      And hungrily began to eat
      The boy, beginning at his feet
      Now just imagine how it feels
      When first your toes and then your heels
      And then by varying degrees
      Your shins and ankles, calves and knees
      Are slowly eaten bit by bit
      No wonder Jim detested it
      No wonder that he shouted “Ai”
      The honest keeper heard his cry
      Though very fat, he almost ran
      To help the little gentleman
      “Ponto,” he ordered as he came
      For Ponto was the lion’s name
      “Ponto,” he said with angry frown
      “Down sir, let go, put it down!”
      The lion made a sudden stop
      He let the dainty morsel drop
      And slunk reluctant to his cage
      Snarling with disappointed rage
      But when he bent him over, Jim
      The honest keeper’s eyes grew dim
      The lion having reached his head
      The miserable boy was dead
      When nurse informed his parents they
      Were more concerned than I can say
      His mother as she dried her eyes
      Said “It gives me no surprise
      He would not do as he was told.”
      His father who was self-controlled
      Bade all the children round attend
      To James’s miserable end.
      And always keep ahold of nurse
      For fear of finding something worse.

      Can’t help but think this applies to Boris.

        1. Reminds me of the Paul Anka lyrics to a song which was originally a sensitive song of philosophical resignation, Comme d’Habitude, written by Claude François.
          (I have always found the Anka lyrics far too self-satisfied, smug and arrogant)

          Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew
          When I bit off more than I could chew
          But through it all, when there was doubt
          I ate it up and spit it out

          I think that it will not be long before Carrie Johnson has chewed her husband into small pieces and spat every thoroughly masticated loose chewing out of her mouth.

          1. Not unless she has a replacement ready (I think she is the type not to leave until she has the next one lined up). He won’t care – just another alimony…there still seem to be women who go for him (that blonde hussey politician I forget her name).

  39. Sir John Major set to accuse Boris Johnson of harming trust in politics over ‘partygate’
    Exclusive: Former PM also likely to criticise the behaviour that led to accusations of hypocrisy being levelled at Number 10 officials

    By Ben Riley-Smith : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/08/sir-john-major-set-accuse-boris-johnson-harming-trust-politics/

    Major’s treachery to his wife and his complete lack of sexual taste and discrimination are one thing but his lack of self-awareness is something else.

    Does this absurd pillock seriously think that he has any right to talk about hypocrisy and bringing politics into disrepute?

    1. Lambeth Council of the seventies,did much damage to UK politics..Think Livingstone,Red Ted Knight,Linda Bellos,John Major..a rotten to the core
      bunch of lefties.

    1. As long as GPs still refuse to actually see and properly examine patients, referrals will still be far lower than they should be – thereby limiting the rate of the backlog increasing.

    2. They were unable to reduce waiting times in A&E without adopting dubious measures to hide the numbers. What makes him think he can cut waiting lists for surgery?

      One man recently spent four days sitting on a chair in A&E with a particularly virulent skin infection. The hospital said the reason for this was they were unable to discharge patients safely from the wards and so there were no beds available.

    3. How about Sajid David admitting the UK has an unsustainable amount of unhealthy migrants who are a huge weight around the NHS neck.

      How much money and time is required by surgeons sewing together stab wounds and near disembowelments .

      How much money is being paid out in compensation for surgical and medical errors .

      Small cottage hospitals should be used for minor operations and procedures .

      Social care is a fiasco, there really is a care crisis.

      Morale is rock bottom .

      Gawd help all of us if any one of us requires a serious operation .

      1. And people call for the govrnment to take over electricity supply. They cannot run or control anything properly.

        1. The idiots calling for such are ignorant and do not understand that the state caused this entire problem by intentionally restricting supply.

      2. Do not omit the maternity wards crammed to the doorways, and the treatments required for congenital afflictions?

      3. I think we must have been lucky here. Can’t complain at the treatment OH has received in the past year, though he did pay for the last procedure or he’d still be waiing for the initial consultation now.

    4. The people will be removed from the waiting list. Then there will be no waiting list. And the NHS will be back to normal… Just like that.

      2. Just keep the phone calls going, so far the longest i will have to wait so far for a ‘reassuring’ and ‘faith stimulating’ meanwhile will be 5 months, but no physical examinations. It’s quite possible that if I was prepared to pay about 8 grand for the treatment it could be seen far sooner……….but silly me, I thought they were all too busy.

        1. I’m in that situation, only in my case, it’s £4k/year to have a treatment that works (because it has done in the past when the NHS did it). In the meantime I’m fobbed off with booklets about “mindfulness” and “meditation” and told not to limp! What DID I pay all that money for over the years?

          1. We have quite a lot of invitations recently via the post to seek medical support through private companies.
            This kind of confirms my suspicions that people have been employed by the government to reduce the effectiveness and the general overall cost of the NHS. Eventually it will be turned into private insurance, pay for use.

      3. I was thinking the same. Before reading this thread, I commented on Twatter that, “Eliminating the waiting list does not equate to treating the patients”.

      4. As was suggested previously – on here or GP – the reason potential patients have to join the ‘phone call lottery’ each morning in attempt to gain an appointment with a GP is because, with no appointments able to be made more than 24hrs in advance, the target to see all patients within 24hrs is met. There is no waiting list…on the books.

    5. It is impossible to shift because the first thing the NHS will do is engage ‘management consultants’ to advise them on what to do. After a 1 year consultation and efficiencies study, nothing will change – except waiting lists will be longer.

    8. Nah…….he’ll have got rid of most of the waiting patients by then – from jab side effects.

    9. Nah…….he’ll have got rid of most of the waiting patients by then – from jab side effects.

    1. One of my replies in the mid 60s to young ladies who I had asked to dance with at Watford suite or Tottenham Royal and they had refused was, okay can i have a lift home on yer broom stick then ?
      Apple-ogoies if there are any of you out there, it was only bit of fun……….

        1. Well Dale there are probably many humorous moments you might well have missed. 🤗😉
          I can tell you some more but, I don’t do requests unless there are asked for. 🤩

      2. I stayed over at a friend’s place after their party once and a guy opened the bedroom door and announced, “Do you mind if I take my clothes off”. I popped my head above the covers and said, “Do you mind if I laugh”. True story. He scarpered swfitly.

        1. We stayed at a ‘friend of a friend”s house once as the friends’ was a bit crowded with family staying (we were there for a memorial service weekend ) and not knowing the layout, when faced with identical bedroom doors on the landing – I opened the wrong one……….

    2. I’ve got them blocked on here but I see them on my phone – they do seem to be aimed at oldies.

        1. I use adblock+ but when they started to be visible here a week or so ago there was an option to hide them and it seems to have worked. All I get now is white space.

    3. Gosh yes! Yesterday I had part time work for OAPs, today they’re trying to sell me care homes. Reckon it’ll be funeral plans tomorrow, and travel agents to Switzerland.

          1. Sulks. Don’ like show-offs. We were poor. Dad was poor, Mum was poor, even the butler was poor.

  44. I’ve just had one of the biggest laughs of the month. Jacob Rees Mogg is appointed Minister for Brexit Opportunities (LMAO) and Government Efficiencies(doubled over LMAO). What a comedy shower this government is.

    1. They only need to add a portfolio for Universal Pensions and he could be the Minister for BOGE UPs.

      1. Let’s double down on that shall we….

        I forgot to get my girlfriend a Valentines day card last year but I made
        up for it on Pancake day, I even wrote her a poem. ‘Roses are red and I
        love you to bits, Here, have a pancake, now show us your tits.’

        1. That is the most romantic prose that I have seen – since I started reading todays comments.

        2. Pancake Day is on March 1 this year.

          Three friends were enjoying a pint in the pub: an Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman.
          The Englishman said: “When my son was born I wanted to name him after a memorable day, so I named him George after St George’s Day.”
          The Scotsman said: “Ach, I did the same for the very same reason, I named my wee laddie Andrew, after St Andrew’s Day.”
          The Irishman then piped up: “Bejabers, you two think the same way as I do. Have you met my son, Pancake?”

  50. That Kurt Zouma video was shocking, and I’m sure we were all thinking the same thing –

    That’s a big kitchen for someone who’s just going to order-in fried chicken.

  51. I see the petition to have that black bastard prosecuted is over 140,000.

    Let us hope that the RSPCA will take action – despite their inevitable fear at “targetting” a coon.

    1. The female lead in the series The Gilded Age is called Carrie Coon. She happens to be white.

    4. 14.15 – On Sky News – the RSPCA have just reported that they have taken the 2 cats into care.

  52. I see TPTB are now officially laying the groundwork for re-entry into the EU. MPs’ report says increased costs for businesses, longer delays at the borders for both holidaymakers and commercial goods, lack of preparation by HMG on Brexit. Blah blah blah. It won’t be long before there is a call to return to the loving arms of Germany and France. Then it will become a clamour. And then there will be a call for another referendum.

    1. 335054+up ticks.

      Afternoon VW,
      The wretch cameron triggered that with the three tier reentry missile, treacherous treasa was the second stage and johnson the semi reentry pilot.

      Many of us tried to warn of the treachery but the grip of the lab/lib/con (ino)( the originals long dead these past four decades), upon the herd was far to strong.

      The three party coalition politico’s just love the party before Country mode of voting.

      2. This extraordinary gorilla proved to the world that gorillas were intelligent and could communicate with us. She learned sign language and is famous (especially in cat circles) for one of the first things she signed to her keepers.

        She was petting her kitten when she signed……

        “Soft good cat cat.”

        Quora

  56. Snow Ploughing in Dublin, Ireland
    On a bitterly cold winter morning an Irish husband and wife in Dublin were listening to the radio during breakfast. They heard the announcer say, “We are going to have 8 to 10 inches of snow today. You must park your car on the even-numbered side of the street, so the snow ploughs can get through”
    So the good wife went out and moved her car.
    A week later while they are eating breakfast again, the radio announcer said, “We are expecting 10 to 12 inches of snow today. You must park your car on the odd-numbered side of the street, so the snow ploughs can get through.” The good wife went out and moved her car again.
    The next week they are again having breakfast, when the radio announcer says, “We are expecting 12 to 14 inches of snow today. You must park….” Then the electric power went out.
    The good wife was very upset, and with a worried look on her face she said, “I don’t know what to do. Which side of the street do I need to park on so the snow ploughs can get through?”
    Then with the love and understanding in his voice that all men who are married exhibit, the husband replied, “Why don’t you just leave the bloody car in the garage this time.”
    I didn’t see it coming either!

    1. That reminds me of a neighbour many years ago in Yorkshire, who said when turning the Christmas turkey in the oven for it to be more evenly roasted she would take it out of the oven (in the tin obviously) then wrestled with said brute to turn it in the tin, then she replaced tin and turkey in the oven. She said it was quite a few years before she realised…

      1. We have a couple of “sausage” draught excluders at doors to reduce draughts. (Still legal in Scotland though that may change.)
        The one in the sitting room has always been on the inside of the room, the direction in which the door opens. Every time the door was opened the draught excluder was knocked out of position.
        Now following a stroke of genius (not mine) the draught excluder is now on the outside and remains in place if you remember to step over it when opening the door.

        3. Mine against the back door has to be on the inside or it would get very wet! The back door opens inwards.

  57. Well, that’s a wrong sized quilt for stepson changed for the correct, double, size, then fridge and small tables I picked up t’other day in Belper dropped off at his flat and his spare flat key passed on to the person i/c bathroom refurb.

    Little bit of shopping with Student son, then home to do dinner of ham, egg & potato wedges with a couple of mushrooms for self.

    The weather has turned beautiful so am about to go & potter up the garden.

    2. And now, for your delectation and delight my lovely assistant will be sawn in half to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Covid vaccines.

    3. At this point, if “Government scientists” told me it was raining I’d look out of the window to check.

      2. When I was a boy and few people travelled overseas with their cars, having done so gave you bragging rights. For some time I thought that the GB sign on the back of our car meant: Gonna Broad.

      3. You need UK and not GB these days, mola. Part of the EU attempt to split NI off – it’s GB & NI, but just UK.

    9. Makes a change from all those EU sphincter of stars on plates dated post voting to leave. I saw a 70 plate with the damned thing on the other day.

    2. About three years ago a female MP was caught out being filmed in a similar and fake set up episode and right outside the commons entrance.
      I can’t remember her name.

  64. I see that West Ham have fined Kurt Zouma £250k for kicking his cat.

    I wonder how much of that £250k will find it’s way to the Cats Protection League…

    Answers on a postcard please.

    1. Cats Protection local branches have to fund themselves. Their head office staff are paid so any donations just go to fund them.

    2. I said in a post the other day that people who abuse children and animals should be shot. There is absolutely no excuse for either.

          1. Be fair.
            Give them a chance.
            Trial by combat.
            Put them all in a colosseum and let them fight to the death.
            Last man standing is
            allowed to choose hanging shooting or lethal injection.

          2. My method is fair although your suggestion would bring in much money to compensate the victims if it were open to paying spectators

      1. What is the petition asking for? For him to be sacked? (Not an issue for Parliament) or to be banged up? (Ditto).

  65. Golly! After 40 years hundreds of scientists finally get nuclear fusion to work long enough to boil a kettle. As regards the mechanics, it is unlikely that this will ever be viable as the process uses Deuterium and Tritium. These are expensive versions of hydrogen. Moreover scaling up to levels where useable electricity can be produced to power countries would likely be risky, involving temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius, which is really very hot.
    When one considers the simplified diagram published (see BBC link) it would be a lot simpler and safer, and cheaper and more energy efficient to burn coal.
    (But what do I know?)

    Tritium activities are commonly described in terms of tritium units (TU), where 1 TU = 1 atom of tritium per (10 to the 18th) atoms of hydrogen.
    (https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/tritium)
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60312633

    1. This idea has always been a waste of money, the Thorium reactor is the way forward taking into account its relative safety and easier waste disposal, then we can have local reactors for each town. Why don’t our idiots in government not grasp this?

      2. Let’s hope we can get rid of all the jihadis first – you wouldn’t want them blowing up a reactor.

  67. https://www.rt.com/news/548793-bill-gates-book-covid/
    Headline: “Bill Gates claims he can stop future pandemics”
    Yes, that’s right. The man whose rants about the number of bugs in his own company’s code were apparently legendary, believes that he can stop airborne, quickly changing viruses from spreading. That sounds about as ridiculous as the delusion that humans can change the weather via taxation.

    you know, I am getting the feeling that the Russians aren’t too impressed with the mighty Microsoft Man either.
    quote:
    “Gates, whose only qualification in medicine is an honorary one, has long been a proponent of eradicating disease through vaccination”

  69. “After two long years Boris Johnson finally declares that ALL Covid rules – including self-isolation after testing positive – are set to be scrapped from the end of THIS MONTH”

    Why not today, BPAPM? What a clown you are – you are hoping for the umpteenth new “variant” to arrive on 27 Feb,…..

    1. Define “all.” Will we be able to enter the United Kingdom without having to show vaccination status and buy rip-off tests?

      1. Don’t forget the government may have ended the restrictions and mandates, but they are trying to remove many of our freedoms and human rights under the cloak and dagger of draconian legislation:

        The Human Rights Act Reform
        The Police & Crime Bill
        The Online Safety Bill

        and the repeal of the Coronavirus Act 2020.

        Edit: 2019 to 2020.

        1. It was a rhetorical question! I do not think they will give up vaxx passports that easily.

    2. Well maybe. We have certainly been promised new variants. Will the government renege on these promises as well?
      Covid is not the big problem. The Big Problem is the shambles and huge delays at Customs at our borders. What happened to Free Trade. Trivial items to and from Holland take three weeks…
      TheBig Problem is going to get much worse.

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60111856

  70. Top BTL comments on Alison Pearson’s Carrieon piece

    Julie Bower
    20 HRS AGO
    I know misogyny when I see it, and this is anything but misogyny. Who on earth is she? She is more or less the same age as his eldest daughter, has the CV of a social secretary/socialite, then out of the blue hooks up with an aging overweight man-child who just happens to be on the path to PM of a G7 nation. We now have a dictatorship following the WEF ‘build back better’ strategy that is crushing the ordinary citizens of this country, with a nice little sideline in cultural Marxism. They both need to go because he either can’t or won’t reverse the path we are on.
    495

    Doctor Wu
    6 HRS AGO
    Reply to Julie Bower
    Julie, the same sinister forces were at work when Megan hooked up with Harry out of the blue and immediately began her job of undermining the monarchy
    74

      1. That is an intriguing suggestion, but I think Meghan is ambitious enough to act on her own behalf, and she doesn’t have powerful enough friends. Plus, Charles is demonstrably One of Them, so why undermine him?

    2. No point moving Boris on and leaving his treacherous Brexit treaty in place, with its commitment to Net Zero baked in.

      1. The only solution – the solution that no British politician has the testicular strength to follow – is that of invoking Article 16, abandoning Boris Johnson’s feeble surrender to the EU trade agreement and then going unequivocally for WTO terms.

        Many of us have expressed this view from outset and we are just as vehement now as we were then and the evidence in favour of our point of view is displayed every day in the way the the EU is treating us with contempt.

  71. This is a special Delingpole rant that you get if you subscribe to the Delingpod, but I think it makes an important point.

    “Shave Their Heads? Tar-and-Feather Them? Or Welcome Them to the Fold?

    It’s like France, August 1944, all over again: turns out, little did we but know it, that the entire country was fighting for the Resistance all along; even the ones who made fortunes trading with the Germans; even the ones who worked for the Vichy government’s paramilitaries the Milice; even the ones who shopped Jean Moulin to the Gestapo…

    So what are we supposed to do, those of us who really have been fighting the Covid tyranny these last two years: we few, we happy few, who risked arrest on the early marches, who refused to wear face nappies, who stuck up for Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin, who called out the dodgy PCR tests and the dangerous experimental mRNA therapy they ludicrously call ‘vaccines’, who recognised that the pandemic was a scam cooked up by Bill Gates, Anthony Fauci and the WHO to enrich Big Pharma, cull the populace and hasten the advent of Klaus ‘Anal’ Schwab’s The Great Reset?

    Do we welcome all these slippery turncoats to our bosom like the Prodigal Son? Or do we let them rot in hell?

    Oddly enough, I have some sympathy with both arguments. The positions for and against are neatly laid out by Toby Young…

    Toby Young @toadmeister

    @JamesDelingpole
    Welcome them to the fold and forgive them their foolish ways.
    2 Retweets140 Likes February 6th 2022

    …and by Bob the Cartoonist
    Bob Moran @bobscartoons
    “Hey, welcome aboard ex-lockdown supporters, all is forgiven.” No. Children are dead because of what these wankers have done. Lives ruined. Free society brought to the brink of destruction. They can have forgiveness, when they get on their knees and beg for it.
    483 Retweets2,255 Likes February 6th 2022

    Toby has a point. The more people that wake up the merrier. We’re not going to win this one without a mass popular revolt, preferably in the form of peaceful non-compliance. And we’re not going to get that mass popular revolt if we frighten off potential new allies by rejecting them on the grounds that they have previously been tainted by Wrongthink.

    But Bob has a point too. None of the dire events of the last two years – the excess suicides, the undiagnosed cancers, the crushed small businesses, the lost livelihoods, the PPE procurement corruption, the massive damage to the economy, the stolen freedoms, the loneliness and heartache – would have happened if the people had spoken up and resisted earlier. You may say that they were cruelly duped, that they had no reason to believe that the government and the media and the ‘experts’ would lie to them so relentlessly and shamelessly. But that doesn’t altogether let them off the hook: their gullibility, their naivety, their obstinate refusal to listen to ‘alternative’ voices had dire consequences. And the very least they owe those of us who called it right from the beginning (and who were mocked and reviled and marginalised for our troubles) is a proper display of heartfelt contrition.

    This isn’t because we want everyone who was wrong to crawl towards us over broken glass and kow-towingly to admit: “You were right, o mighty, enlightened one.” Well, not the main reason anyway. Rather, it’s because we understand that the war we have been fighting these last two years is far from over. And that unless the people now changing their minds properly understand the causes of their error (due contrition being part of this process) then the likelihood is that they will go on making the same fatal mistakes again.

    To appreciate why this is important, you need to understand the concept of the Limited Hangout. Here – apologies for using Wikipedia but there it is – is the Wikipedia definition:

    A limited hangout or partial hangout is, according to former special assistant to the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Victor Marchetti, “spy jargon for a favorite and frequently used gimmick of the clandestine professionals. When their veil of secrecy is shredded and they can no longer rely on a phony cover story to misinform the public, they resort to admitting—sometimes even volunteering—some of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case. The public, however, is usually so intrigued by the new information that it never thinks to pursue the matter further.”

    We can see something very similar in the way that the MSM is acting now over the ‘pandemic’. Finally – and with disturbing unanimity – it is conceding information which for the previous 18 months or so it has been busily suppressing.

    For example, the newspapers are now letting it be known that the PCR tests are flawed and may greatly have exaggerated the number of genuine Covid ‘cases’. Well, no shit! Some of us have been saying this since mid-2020 having done our homework and learned what Kary Mullis said about his own invention – that it should never be used as a diagnostic tool, especially at high cycle rates, because the likelihood of false positives rendered the process meaningless.

    And let’s be clear: this wasn’t privileged, arcane knowledge available only to a select group of seekers-after-truth with rare and special access to secret libraries containing hidden tomes. It was all over the bloody internet. Anyone could have found this information. Most especially, journalists, media commentators, politicians (who have researchers and who anyone ought to know stuff) and everyone who uses social media could have found this information. So for these people to turn round now and act like these are shocking new revelations which have completely changed their perspective on the events of the last two years just isn’t good enough. If they didn’t know originally, it’s because they didn’t want to know.

    The MSM’s drip-drip-drip of ‘new’ information contradicting its previous narrative is not an admission of guilt. It’s a damage limitation exercise. It’s the equivalent of releasing a controlled quantity of water from the dam in order to prevent the entire dam wall collapsing. It is not being done for the benefit of the MSM’s audience. Purely it is about saving the MSM’s worthless skin.

    And the same goes for so many of the media commentators now claiming to have seen the light. They haven’t really seen the light at all. They’ve just shifted their position slightly in order to accommodate themselves with the changing paradigm. There is no courage or principle here: quite the opposite. These are people whose primary concern is not doing the right thing or standing up for the truth, but merely keeping in with the herd.

    The people who have spent the last two years endorsing the official pandemic narrative have blood on their hands. They can never become part of the solution unless they fess up and admit that they were part of the problem.”

    Me: I think he is spot on, that we are no further forward if people just accept in a docile fashion that the all-knowing government made a perfectly understandable mistake.
    From the Great Barrington Declaration and the HART group onwards, it was nonsense to pretend that there was scientific or medical consensus in Britain over lockdowns, masks, PCR tests or mass jabbing.
    Unfortunately for them, we have the proof. More people have to be more suspicious, otherwise we’ve gained nothing, we might as well still have masks and lockdowns.

    1. I do think HMG has a lot to answer for regarding the psychological warfare waged against us all and Delingpole doesn’t really mention that. It has all been done deliberately with the Great Reset and CBDC in mind, neither of which is mentioned here. We are being manipulated all over again with the oh so gradual ‘dawning of realisation’ that the scamdemic is over and the MSM slowly ‘releasing’ all the info that has been available. But you have to look for it.

    2. Surely there can be no forgiveness without repentance? “Ye that do sincerely and earnestly repent of your sins” it said this morning in the BCP service.

    1. Bet he changes his mind. And that shops, offices and railway premises (legal joke) will “recommend” continued use of bags and 6 ft apart bollox.

      3. Visiting a pharmacy, your GP, a hospital, the dentist, will they turn round and say masks are no longer required, will they hell.
        Smoke and mirrors coming into play to try and save his arse.

      1. But not the infuriating and utterly pointless “Passenger Locator Form”….

        That still remains – for ever, probably.

          1. You don’t know the luck (or lack of it) that has dogged my life. I would be the one stopped, checked and documents refused.

            I was the one passenger arriving at Damascus Airport at 1 am that was arrested…and kept apart for an hour until they realised that the idiot peasant looking at passports and landing cards had muddled mine with those of another passenger. Not a pleasant feeling when a man with a gun takes your passport away…..

          2. I am not surprised you were arrested. You were/are a writer and a journalist. Serves you right !

          4. My beloved was scared witless – wondered how to get hold of the British Embassy in the middle of the night.

            The only good thing was that when a senior bastard with a gun looked into the “matter” – he realised, and fetched the stupid one a great clout to the head that knocked him down.

        2. Not to mention the masks in airports and planes. This time next week I’ll be on my way to Kenya – PCR test permitting……..

      1. She”ll prolly arrange for him to get her up the duff again – just to ensure her continued power over him.

    4. If that means that I may travel to the UK without any restrictions, or being messed about, or forking out extras, then all well and good.

      I’ll believe it when I see it.

      1. Don’t buy a ticket. The ludicrous PLF is still there. And your vaccination certificates. And when you return to Swaziland.

        1. I’ll never be able to have a vaccination certificate since I shall never be vaccinated. I’d better stay in my mud hut here in Swaziland [sorry: “Eswatini”] then.

          1. Indeed.
            Having travelled a lot this last nearly 60 years, I find I don’t miss it at all. Weird, that, isn’t it?

          2. I used to love travelling, but the last decade (and certainly the last few years of embuggerment) has taken the pleasure out of it. If I never go abroad again, I can live with that. I do miss the South of France (le Midi), though. Sunshine and blue skies in February – what’s not to like?

      2. We need to go over, to attend to the sale and emptying of Mother’s house. Waiting for less embuggeration, but since the house is in Wales and the Welsh Gauleiter does stuff to not be like the English, not holding my breath.

        1. I do wish you all the luck in the world with all of it. Ain’t easy; been there done that.

          1. So many small trip-ups: Got to prove identity for anti-moneylaundering, at estate agent, auction house, and our lawyer 🙁 There’s a charge on the deeds, can’t find out how to get it removed / how much will the house owe? Two issues to deal with just now, sure there’ll be more.

          2. Good luck with all that! I failed the bit of the identity test meant to prove I was alive, and had to ring up the solicitor to admit I was defunct. That was fun.

    5. I’m afraid to say that they’ve already achieved one element of the Great Reset.
      They’ve jabbed around 2 Billion people globally reducing their natural immunity to such a low level that they will fall ill on a more frequent basis than before for the rest of their lives. Moreover, whenever the next bad, or even average flu year happens they will be extremely susceptible to it. Mortality rates will skyrocket. So, so sad.

  73. Signing off early today. A live lecture from Rome on the Etruscans starts at 5.

    Will join you tomorrow – probably.

    Have a nice evening.

    A demain

  74. 335054+ up ticks,

    May one say,
    The NHS all the time the patients have rear exits will NEVER see the rear end of the indigenous queue awaiting medical attention.

    Whatever number received medical attention today could very well have been outnumbered by the political overseers mass controlled immigrants
    entering at DOVER, plus.

  75. Hullo there!

    Lecture dull as ditch water. Very academic and technical language aimed at other academics. Pity – because the (theoretical) subject would have been fascinating.

    Anything happen while I was away?

          1. We only cut the grass about 3-4 times a year. too cold to grow for more than 6 months a year, dry in Spring, so doesn’t grow much then, and suddenly it’s winter again.

          6. So I should hope.
            You’ve got your re-gendering operation and your birthday tomorrow. You should be saving yourself.
            Good luck with both, and may you live to tell another tale.

        3. Here in Norf Zummerzet snow is rarely seen.
          If it was cold enough for snow the grass would have been left untouched.

          1. Just poured a Chianti to go with SWMBOs cottage pie… mmm!
            Dinner calls. See all Y’all (hic) later!

    8. Catching up…….our tumble dryer has been making a slapping sound and as it’s around 18 years old Erin had almost decided that we needed a new one.
      So I lifted it off the top of the washing machine, vacuumed up the dust. Undid dozens of screws took it apart and found the drive belt had split almost in two. Went on line and ordered a new belt for 15 quid delivered.
      I suspect a new replacement machine would have set us back 250 plus.

        1. It’s all on Youtube. Search on the manufacturer and model name/number and all the videos for the problems come up.

        2. It’s all on Youtube. Search on the manufacturer and model name/number and all the videos for the problems come up.

        3. I’ve always been practical but in reality there’s not much money in it Bill.
          I had a burst head gasket in our 6 cylinder Holden in Oz and stripped it down and replaced it over a weekend.
          A couple of years later the cluster layshaft in my land rover gearbox dropped a few cogs. Stripped it all down and repaired it. We had no money to pay for it. Then we towed a 12×8 ft caravan from Adelaide to Gladstone in QLD and back. No problems at all.
          It’s just a (n un) fortunate knack. 😏

  77. ‘Night All

    The internet’s been having fun today

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/706539346e6b02b4c8e9d3818c5d2db5da8e00e81bfe554c76e37a4d30a802dc.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/864cd7a0edaf10436ba4e7f6081fe0d5e97bd3a560f604e1859b085aced1c631.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7c46e1f628a52f934f330499a86fea21a1859091c3b44af60bbd6294bc5b6dc5.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/18ea99482644a54b275f112c2d3c8982ebc924a2588ce3ad3bbacecd15c2372a.jpg
    I read the police had no intention to prosecute until the public furore against the bastard,if only public opinion worked on other matters like halal atrocities……….

    1. My take is that Matt’s wrong footed there.
      “try to persuade Keir not to accuse Boris” would have been better.

      EDIT or even, “Tell Keir to accuse Boris….”

    2. My take is that Matt’s wrong footed there.
      “try to persuade Keir not to accuse Boris” would have been better.

      EDIT or even, “Tell Keir to accuse Boris….”

  80. ‘Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…’

    ‘Great white shark’ spotted in UK:
    ‘Undisputed’ sighting of deadly beast terrifies swimmer
    WHAT experts believe could be a great white shark has been spotted off the UK’s southern coast…

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk

          1. If you think you have problems with your waistline:

            No data exist on how fast mola grow in the wild but one Mola mola individual in captivity at the Monterey Bay Aquarium gained 364 kg (800 lbs) in 14 months.

          2. I appreciate your concern but I have the reverse problem…I am losing weight.
            How much do we know about the Mola mola in captivity in Cornwall ? ;-))

          3. re weight.
            A word to the wise.
            You should look into that.

            Re Cornish Mola mola, perhaps he’s in competition over Plum_Tart and he’s eaten lacoste?

          4. It may be the result of stress – that often causes people to lose weight (not me, though; it causes me to pile on the pounds). Ann has had a lot of worry of late, I think.

        3. (It wasn’t a serious question just a passing reference to the Great White shark off the south coast….)

        2. Booger that,…. one of my BiLs use to swim in the Serpentine on Christmas morning.
          And booger that as well.

    5. I’m not saying it wasn’t a great white, but these people don’t know shit from Shinola, to use an Americanism.

        1. Do you mean a basking shark, which we do see in the warmer months? Whale sharks are basically a tropical water species.

  81. Evening, all. Busy day today as well as yesterday, but at least I managed to get here a lot earlier!

          1. Yes, thank you. It’s still a case of two steps forward, one back, but we are making progress of sorts. The other night I accidentally woke him up when I stood up to fetch something. His usual reaction to being woken unexpectedly is to start mouthing, “myam, myam, myam” louder and louder before frenzied barking and leaping to bite my toes unless I’m quick enough to stop him. This time, after the myam, myam ritual, he stopped, paused and then strolled over for a fuss! Cracked it! I thought, only for me to be stroking him a couple of nights later when he suddenly, with no warning or reason that I could see, went for my forearm! He didn’t break the skin, but he made a small bruise. He’s 90% okay, but just occasionally …. I tell him he’s a grumpy sod, but he’s MY grumpy sod and we have to get along 🙂

          2. Poor old lad obviously has some painful experiences to unlearn. But, looks like you are making progress! Good on the pair of you! It’s good to see a positive story for once.

          3. Sometimes, when I go to stroke him, he’ll flinch. He’s okay once I reassure him, but his initial, instinctive reaction is “ouch”. Tonight he leapt up when I came in the room (he was flat out, resting). He didn’t go for my feet (which he would have done when I first got him), but still he’s not relaxed enough to just let me pass by without his being on the qui vive. He’s taken on Charlie’s attribute of getting under my feet and a couple of times I’ve stepped on him accidentally. He will put his nose on my feet, but not sink his teeth in. I make a fuss of him if that happens, apologise and give him a treat. Hopefully, eventually, he’ll realise that I’m not deliberately going to hurt him.

          5. Who knows, but I think the “family” who didn’t want him did kick him when he was down – maybe just to move him out of the way. I’m much gentler in getting him to wake up and move if it’s necessary. I’d like to think he feels he’s got a good home now.

  82. The UK Health Security Agency has confirmed two cases of Lassa Fever in a family “from the East of England” and suspect a third person from the family has also contracted the illness. The family had recently returned to the UK from West Africa, which is where it is thought they contracted the illness. The UK has only seen eight cases of this disease since 1980, but the UKHSA has described the risk to the UK public as “very low” https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1563482/lassa-fever-outbreak-UK-signs-symptoms-evg

    Illegals returning back to their home for a holiday?

      1. All the laddas and lassas there, all with smiling faces … going up the Great North Road to see their gangmasters …

        1. Following Mr T’s unfortunate ‘incident’ with his Ladda I thought all mention of the word was verboten. …..

  84. Long wait for a BBC religion editor is over
    byED THORNTON16 DECEMBER 2021
    BBC
    Aleem Maqbool
    THE next religion editor for BBC News will be Aleem Maqbool, it was announced on Wednesday.

    Mr Maqbool, who has has been the corporation’s North America correspondent, based in Washington DC, since 2014, will take up the post in the spring, the BBC said.

    He will replace Martin Bashir, who left the BBC in May, after a long period spent on sick leave, and before the publication of an investigation into Mr Bashir’s conduct when securing an interview with Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997 (Press, 28 May).

    The BBC said that Mr Maqbool was appointed “following a competitive recruitment process. . . Aleem will take the lead on the BBC’s expert analysis and insight on the major themes and issues affecting different faiths in the UK and around the world.”

    Mr Maqbool has worked for the BBC for nearly 20 years. His previous postings have included Pakistan correspondent and Gaza/West Bank correspondent.

    https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2021/17-december/news/uk/long-wait-for-a-bbc-religion-editor-is-over

    They kept pretty damned quiet over that one , eh?

      1. Reading past Nottl comments one might come to the conclusion that even the ABC wouldn’t be considered one….

  86. An early version of Covid-19 that appears to have been grown in a laboratory has been discovered in samples from a Chinese biotechnology firm.

    The finding lends weight to claims that the virus may have started life as a lab experiment that accidentally leaked out.

    Bioinformatics experts from the University of Veterinary Medicine and Lorand University in Budapest, Hungary, made the discovery by accident while examining genetic data from soil samples collected from Antarctica in late 2018 and early 2019. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/09/early-lab-grown-covid-virus-found-sample-lends-weight-wuhan/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr#comment

      1. It was actually Donald Trump’s dead bat. Remember MSM take on things Orange Man bad, Biden very good.
        Get with the program please.

    3. If you think about the demographic who are eating bats from a local market as opposed to the researchers working in a high tech laboratory studying dangerous diseases, which is more likely to be travelling internationally?

  87. Whatever happened to:

    Duncan Mac
    Tartan Pimpernel
    Peddy The Viking
    Pretty Polly
    John aka Devonian in Kent
    ?

    Who have I missed off the list?

          1. I miss her. Like soup without salt.
            Ironically, she must live more or less within driving distance of your dear mother’s home, and the lassie is a whizz with paperwork and dealing with officialdom.

          3. Me too but I can understand why she hasn’t come back. She knows her subject and isn’t afraid of voicing it.

          4. Jennifer lives at the other end of Wales – not within “popping round” distance, unfortunately.

      1. Dear old Geoffrey, a sore loser who likes to poke a stick in the cage once in a while.
        70’s Girly makes really cutting comments.
        Stormy works shifts I gather.

        2. I like Geoffrey; he and I have had many skirmishes over the years about Oliver Cromwell and “Dear old Dixie.” This is supposed to be a site where opposing opinions are welcome. Just because we don’t all agree with each other does not mean someone should be insulted or ridiculed.

          1. I wasn’t insulting or ridiculing him LotL – a staunch Remainer he lost. He does seem to enjoy deliberately poking a stick in the cage when he occasionally posts on Nottl

          2. I wasn’t suggesting YOU were but it does go on. Surely we are all entitled to our opinions?

          4. Yes, he is, but he doesn’t engage in the discussion.

            For example, his affection for the EU was challenged and he didn’t explain why. I’d enjoy the discussion because he’s clearly wrong and believes the lies.

    3. Totusporcus, Bill Jackson, Tony Angel.
      Polly can stay away; Peddy I suspect has something going on, maybe a new feline friend- as to the rest- no idea.
      Hopon also.

      2. Ah yes, Jill Backson – I remember some of those gems!

        * If it passes which it should it then goes for Royal Accent
        * To better enrage with London’s devise communities
        * Lust what is wrong with the Police that they fail to enforce the law.
        * Prisoners and members of the Roma community, along with prisoners,

        Actually I miss him – my spell checker does such things on occasions and sometimes they are hard to spot!

      3. Hopon pops in occasionally. Totus and Tony stick to Twitter. Bill Jackson took the huff quite a while ago when Garlands banned him for one day for being annoying. He didn’t come back.

    4. Totusporcus, Bill Jackson, Tony Angel.
      Polly can stay away; Peddy I suspect has something going on, maybe a new feline friend- as to the rest- no idea.
      Hopon also.

    5. Tartan Pimpernel posts on other sites, I believe. Devonian in Kent pops up occasionally, usually quite late at night.

  88. Failed masks, failed vaccine, failed lock downs. and it is coming to an end. if they had just let it run its course it would have ended months ago. Yet even now people continue to wear masks.

    1. I saw my neighbours walking back from town this afternoon; both were masked to the eyeballs walking in the open air. Why?

      2. We all hugged each other at the Veterans lunch yesterday.

        The eldest is 90 years of age , the others in their late eighties , sprightly , clever and well balanced .

        1. Only one person other than the priest was wearing a mask in church this morning. We all sat round drinking coffee and eating biscuits afterwards, maskless.

        2. We had a family and friends gathering last Saturday for children’s birthdays. My elder sister probably the second eldest person at the gathering, Informed us today that tested (home lateral flow) positive for covid. But she and her hubby haven’t mixed with anyone else since new year.
          They both arrived wearing masks but took them off almost as soon as they entered the door of the small village hall.
          Both fully jabbed as well.

    3. Because of the continuing Project Fear campaign by the MSM, Johnny. On the other hand, mask wearing does seem to be less prevalent in my experience.

    1. Well, for goodness sake Oggy, where have you been? We have been waiting with baited breath for your latest post;-))
      Only kidding.

  92. Tonight I watched the Italian IL POSTINO (1994), another excellent film in my foreign language DVD collection. So it’s now good night, everyone.

    1. I heartily endorse Caroline and Richard’s best wishes – but I suspect that you may be one out on the number of candles which Korky will blow out today.

      4. Many happy returns Korky.
        There is no translation into English of the German phrase “Have a meaningful day” but I hope you get the sense of it anyway.

        1. Thanks,Phizzee I’m going to do my best. Off to zest and squeeze my lemons in a few minutes.😎

        1. Thank you, mola. I’m trying to at the moment, glass of Black Stump Durif Shiraz to hand as dinner cooks.

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