Thursday 10 February: Smart meters can be used to impose penalty prices at peak times

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

828 thoughts on “Thursday 10 February: Smart meters can be used to impose penalty prices at peak times”

  3. Smart meters can be used to impose penalty prices at peak times

    Glad I have resisted having one fitted, get emails virtually every day to get one.
    This is another case of conspiracy theory come true.

    1. It was always clear that was the goal. Smart meters record your electricity meter reading every fifteen minutes. The electricity companies are now merely seeking people’s permission to read these values.
      It is called a “Load Profile reading” and can be made with one request, at any time.
      I haven’t seen the data myself, but I have heard that a lot of information can be gleaned from fifteen minute readings about what kind of appliances you have in your house, how many people live there etc.

      1. I cannot prove anything but I am fairly sure that our electricity “drops” at peak times taking longer to heat pans, boil kettles. We do not have a smart meter. we did recently receive a letter fro Scottish Powere more or les telling us that we would be getting a smart meter. What does not seem to be mentioned is that normal meters require a meter reader to visit the house. Smart meters will cut those costs.

        1. We have no smart meter (yet) and have not seen a meter reader in many years. O H does the reading when necessary.

          1. I’ve been here for 3½ years and seen the meter reader twice.

            Best Beloved pays by Direct Debit which, I believe, has soared in that time.

        3. I’m with SP. They don’t send a meter reader; I have to read the darned thing myself and send the readings in.

    2. I, too, have resisted having one fitted. However, we are on borrowed time as sooner or later the government will make them compulsory, either directly or through the pressure of higher charges.

      I was surprised to hear the other day that the expected average cost was £378 and that actual costs are proving to be higher. I’ve therefore paid a fortune in extra levies for others’ meters.

    3. We keep getting letters as our meter box is apparently ‘out of certification’ – no way will we have a smarmy meter.

    4. That table is a gift to cartoonists and mememeisters.
      I wonder if Vlad deliberately chose it for that reason?

    1. In my view at least 1/3rd of the incompetence of HM’s current government is attributable to the pathetic ineptitude of HM’s loyal opposition in not doing their job of opposing.

      1. I despise the idea of the party not in power’s opposing anything the government does. They should be holding the government to account, providing alternatives and supporting good policies, not indulging in knee-jerk objections and criticisms to everything. The current approach breeds divisive tribalism and contempt for others views.

  7. Sorry Justin Welby, but rewriting our history should be ‘difficult’

    That those who wish to erase our heritage cannot see why their project might be contentious is part of the problem

    ROBERT TOMBS
    9 February 2022 • 6:30pm

    The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has shared his thoughts on the ecclesiastical court case concerning the request of Jesus College, Cambridge, to remove from its chapel an artistically important memorial sculpture. The plaque in question commemorates Tobias Rustat, a 17th century benefactor of the College and a participant in the Royal African Company, a major part of whose business was trading slaves.

    That the Archbishop should comment on a controversy within his Province may seem natural, though whether it is wise when the matter is still sub judice is perhaps questionable. His view – that the memorial should go – agrees with that of the Bishop of Ely, the Dean and Chaplain of the College, and its Master. All, including the Archbishop, seem surprised that anyone could disagree.

    This has been part of the problem, as the College authorities seem throughout to have disregarded contrary views and taken little or no trouble to engage with them. The Archbishop, oddly, implies that even the Church’s own courts should have no say, asking: “Why do they have to go through hearing how it ‘doesn’t really matter’ or it is ‘not strictly accurate’ and so on?”

    The simple answer is that some people think that being strictly accurate is important in a university. When the Archbishop calls the sculpture “a memorial to slavery” he himself is not being accurate. Those opposing its removal say that it was carved before Rustat profited from the slave trade. Moreover, the likelihood that the money he donated to the College came from that tainted source, they argue, is “vanishingly small”. But the College is not interested, and some of the testimony given on its behalf was scathingly described by the opposing barrister as “not frank” and “not truthful”.

    If the case against Rustat is dubious, why the “agony” (as the Archbishop put it) gone through to remove it? Because the Master of the College, Sonita Alleyne, born in Barbados, has to “look at it every time she sits in her stall”, says the Archbishop, and this she finds painful. So, adds the College, do many of its students, one third of whom are from ethnic minorities.

    Clearly, some members of Jesus College are people of exquisite sensitivity. Fortunately, most people are pretty stoical about historic crimes, or else life would become impossible. Volkswagen cars would have to be boycotted because the company used slave labour within living memory. Archbishop Welby’s own cathedral was built on the coerced labour of Anglo-Saxon serfs following the Norman Conquest; and there are studies showing that compared with the descendants of the Normans, people of Anglo-Saxon heritage still suffer economic disadvantage today. Furthermore, Jesus College accepts money from the People’s Republic of China, which lays its Master and Fellows open to the same condemnation they apply to Rustat.

    But some historic wrongs are clearly more emotive than others. As the Bishop of Ely, Rt Rev Stephen Conway, put it in his testimony, the Reformation had destroyed a lot (including not a few Catholics, one might add) so why were we worrying about one memorial plaque? He answered his own question: at stake was “who owns our history”, what we “hold to be true”, and what in our history is for “celebration”.

    So the Rustat plaque is one more skirmish in a campaign to recast our history as centred on slavery and colonial oppression. “How Slavery Built Modern Britain” is the sub-title of a recent academic monograph being discussed in Cambridge. Critical Race Theory – in reality neither critical nor a theory – builds on this to accuse our society of being systemically racist. As with the Rustat memorial, reason and evidence are swept aside by the imperious demands of victimhood and self-described emotion.

    Who owns our history? All of us. Archbishop Welby lamented the fact that it has proved “so difficult” to remove Rustat. Yet Church law, however arcane, has in this case required all views to be listened to. I hope his comment that “we need to change our practices” will not be heeded.

    Robert Tombs is the author of The English and Their History and co-editor of the website History Reclaimed

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

    Pamela Wakeling
    12 HRS AGO
    I would have more respect for the archbishop if he tackled todays slavery often supported and facilitated by black and Asian persons. To talk about a foundation set up several hundred years ago is ridiculous the college and students have benefited by the money given . The archbishop should concentrate on why the Anglican Church is losing members by the hundred .

    Midget Gem
    12 HRS AGO
    Meddling, un-Christian, left-wing political activist Justin Welby should have resigned after his ridiculous remark that ignoring climate change compared to what the Nazis did. There is no climate change emergency. The man is an embarrassment and is best ignored.

    1. I agree with Midget Gem‘s comment and that applies to all BAME who feel upset by British History.

      There is an old adage, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

    2. Sonia Alleyne will presumably be happy to sit in a chapel and occupy a position that are both paid for with the money, just as long as she doesn’t have to be faced with where it came from. What a hypocrite!

      1. If not for slavery I very much doubt she would be where she is today. In fact, I suspect she might not even have existed.

  8. Sorry Justin Welby, but rewriting our history should be ‘difficult’

    That those who wish to erase our heritage cannot see why their project might be contentious is part of the problem

    ROBERT TOMBS
    9 February 2022 • 6:30pm

    The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has shared his thoughts on the ecclesiastical court case concerning the request of Jesus College, Cambridge, to remove from its chapel an artistically important memorial sculpture. The plaque in question commemorates Tobias Rustat, a 17th century benefactor of the College and a participant in the Royal African Company, a major part of whose business was trading slaves.

    That the Archbishop should comment on a controversy within his Province may seem natural, though whether it is wise when the matter is still sub judice is perhaps questionable. His view – that the memorial should go – agrees with that of the Bishop of Ely, the Dean and Chaplain of the College, and its Master. All, including the Archbishop, seem surprised that anyone could disagree.

    This has been part of the problem, as the College authorities seem throughout to have disregarded contrary views and taken little or no trouble to engage with them. The Archbishop, oddly, implies that even the Church’s own courts should have no say, asking: “Why do they have to go through hearing how it ‘doesn’t really matter’ or it is ‘not strictly accurate’ and so on?”

    The simple answer is that some people think that being strictly accurate is important in a university. When the Archbishop calls the sculpture “a memorial to slavery” he himself is not being accurate. Those opposing its removal say that it was carved before Rustat profited from the slave trade. Moreover, the likelihood that the money he donated to the College came from that tainted source, they argue, is “vanishingly small”. But the College is not interested, and some of the testimony given on its behalf was scathingly described by the opposing barrister as “not frank” and “not truthful”.

    If the case against Rustat is dubious, why the “agony” (as the Archbishop put it) gone through to remove it? Because the Master of the College, Sonita Alleyne, born in Barbados, has to “look at it every time she sits in her stall”, says the Archbishop, and this she finds painful. So, adds the College, do many of its students, one third of whom are from ethnic minorities.

    Clearly, some members of Jesus College are people of exquisite sensitivity. Fortunately, most people are pretty stoical about historic crimes, or else life would become impossible. Volkswagen cars would have to be boycotted because the company used slave labour within living memory. Archbishop Welby’s own cathedral was built on the coerced labour of Anglo-Saxon serfs following the Norman Conquest; and there are studies showing that compared with the descendants of the Normans, people of Anglo-Saxon heritage still suffer economic disadvantage today. Furthermore, Jesus College accepts money from the People’s Republic of China, which lays its Master and Fellows open to the same condemnation they apply to Rustat.

    But some historic wrongs are clearly more emotive than others. As the Bishop of Ely, Rt Rev Stephen Conway, put it in his testimony, the Reformation had destroyed a lot (including not a few Catholics, one might add) so why were we worrying about one memorial plaque? He answered his own question: at stake was “who owns our history”, what we “hold to be true”, and what in our history is for “celebration”.

    So the Rustat plaque is one more skirmish in a campaign to recast our history as centred on slavery and colonial oppression. “How Slavery Built Modern Britain” is the sub-title of a recent academic monograph being discussed in Cambridge. Critical Race Theory – in reality neither critical nor a theory – builds on this to accuse our society of being systemically racist. As with the Rustat memorial, reason and evidence are swept aside by the imperious demands of victimhood and self-described emotion.

    Who owns our history? All of us. Archbishop Welby lamented the fact that it has proved “so difficult” to remove Rustat. Yet Church law, however arcane, has in this case required all views to be listened to. I hope his comment that “we need to change our practices” will not be heeded.

    Robert Tombs is the author of The English and Their History and co-editor of the website History Reclaimed

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

    Pamela Wakeling
    12 HRS AGO
    I would have more respect for the archbishop if he tackled todays slavery often supported and facilitated by black and Asian persons. To talk about a foundation set up several hundred years ago is ridiculous the college and students have benefited by the money given . The archbishop should concentrate on why the Anglican Church is losing members by the hundred .

    Midget Gem
    12 HRS AGO
    Meddling, un-Christian, left-wing political activist Justin Welby should have resigned after his ridiculous remark that ignoring climate change compared to what the Nazis did. There is no climate change emergency. The man is an embarrassment and is best ignored.

  9. The Guardian view on the Met commissioner: clear it up – or clear out. 10 February 2022.

    For some, her command of the operation that led to the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005 should have barred her from the top job in the first place. After 2017, when she took over, confidence in the Met fell steeply. An explosion in the use of stop and search unnecessarily alienated communities, with little evidence it has led to sustained falls in violence.

    Then came Sarah Everard’s murder by serving officer Wayne Couzens, and the crackdown on a vigil in her memory; the sharing of pictures of murdered sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman by officers; the failure to catch serial killer Stephen Port, which a jury found “probably” contributed to the death of three of his four victims. These and a spate of other stories have devastated trust. Dame Cressida herself was criticised for hampering the inquiry into the murder of private detective Daniel Morgan, in a report warning of “institutional corruption” in the service. Last week, the emergence of vile misogynist, racist and homophobic messages exchanged between officers at Charing Cross station was added to this appalling catalogue.

    This woman only ever achieved her position by virtue of her sexuality. There was never any question of her abilities since she possesses none. That this has only just been discovered speaks volumes for the tin-eared Woke establishment. This said the demand being made of her to “reform” the Met is inherently ridiculous. All institutions are made up of disparate personalities operating within the confines of their remit so that to purge the Police it of its “Racist and Homophobic” elements would require nothing short of its dissolution and replacement. There will always be those who do not believe. The desire for something else, a Greater Ideological Purity among its personnel is the path to the Gestapo and the Inquisition.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/09/the-guardian-view-on-the-met-commissioner-clear-it-up-or-clear-out

    1. Ridiculous. It’s going to take at least one and more probably two generations to weed out the all the incompetents and to flush them and their stupid ideas down the khazi.

    2. Large organisations are the best places for those who, while holding paper qualifications and a high level of incompetency, are able to climb the greasy pole of management. In my experience the ‘Old Boy’ and ‘Club’ network threw up some disasters and now in today’s atmosphere of ‘woke’, being a member of a minority group, be it sexual orientation, race, colour etc helps. The very idea that organisations must employ and/or promote pre-set percentages of minorities is a nonsense. Proven ability and rigorously judged potential should be the criteria for advancement.

          4. Thought I’d seen your good wishes earlier but had to search to confirm. It’s been a nice day and thank you for your wishes.

      4. Yo and Happy Birthday Korky

        There is an old adage, which I will update a bit

        If you Can, Do
        If you Cannot Do, Teach
        If you cannot Teach, become a Consultant
        If you fail as a Consultant, play on your Heritage
        If using your Heritage fails, play on your ‘sexuality’
        If you fail with all the above, join the BBC, Met Police, Snivel Service, NHS

        If you stil fail, become an Advisor to Johnson

    3. Is there a difference between promoting lesbianism as as a lifestyle/choice and promoting lesbians in their jobs because they are lesbians rather than because they are good at their jobs?

      1. What someone does in their private life should have no bearing on their professional work. I believe she was installed because she’s a statist waffler. The bob can guarantee she will toe the line and put ‘the message’ before functional outcomes. She’s a nice, obedient defanged, declawed, muzzled poodle.

  10. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Another example of quite remarkable courage in the face of the enemy:

    Denis Bounsall, bandsman and stretcher-bearer who displayed extraordinary courage in Sicily and Normandy – obituary

    He survived a bomb blast that killed those around him, and armed only with medical scissors captured two German soldiers

    By
    Telegraph Obituaries
    9 February 2022 • 11:51am

    Denis Bounsall, who has died aged 100, was awarded a Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) for rescuing casualties while under heavy fire.

    In July 1943 Bounsall, serving with the 1st Battalion The Dorsetshire Regiment (1 Dorset), took part in the invasion of Sicily. He was trained as a bandsman, but in combat was an unarmed stretcher-bearer.

    On July 19 two companies were advancing towards the German positions south of the hilltop town of Agira when they were pinned down by heavy mortar and machine-gun fire. Five men were killed and several others, including A Company’s Commander, lay wounded in the road. Despite coming under relentless fire, Bandsman Bounsall ran forward. He dressed the wounded and, calling in the assistance of other stretcher-bearers, made repeated journeys to the Regimental Aid Post, or RAP, until all the casualties had been evacuated.

    Bounsall returned to Company HQ. “The enemy fire stopped,” he recalled, “and I went to retrieve my haversack. The radio operator was standing in the culvert with his head and chest exposed. Three of our men were moving to the road closer by.

    “I will never know what instinct caused me to fall flat – it was as if a heavy hand had pushed me violently to the ground – and, as I landed, a mortar bomb exploded not six feet from me, showering me with dirt. The radio operator caught most of the explosion and was dead, with much of his head and upper body blown away.

    “Two of the three men were also killed and the third had lost most of his right arm and sustained other wounds. My haversack was ripped to pieces and the contents, including the cigarettes, [were] all charred and scattered far and wide. This was the last bomb to be fired at us in this encounter.”

    Two days later, Bounsall was out with another patrol. The citation for the award of a DCM recorded that Bounsall went forward across the bullet-swept ground and brought back four casualties, but one casualty was still missing and so he went out by himself to look for him. Having found that casualty late in the evening, Bounsall stayed with him, dressed his wounds and eventually carried him back two miles, handing him over to the RAP just before dawn.

    Denis Arthur Harrison Bounsall was born at Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol, on March 2 1921. His family moved to Poole, and in 1936 he enlisted in the Dorsetshire Regiment as a boy soldier. Within two years he was serving on the North-West Frontier of India with 1 Dorset.

    In July 1939 the battalion joined the garrison on Malta and was responsible for the defence of the south coast of the island. In June 1940 Italy declared war, and for the next two and a half years, sailors, soldiers, airmen and civilians shared the dangers and deprivations of the relentless bombing, hunger and boredom of the siege. The battalion spent their time dodging bombs and bullets, repairing bomb damage and manning anti-aircraft guns.

    After the campaign in Sicily, in September 1943 1 Dorset, part of 231 (Malta) Brigade, landed on the toe of Italy and fought a fierce battle near Pizzo before returning to England to train for D-Day.

    Having joined 50th (Northumbrian) Division, 1 Dorset were among the first British infantry to land on Gold Beach on June 6 1944. Bounsall stepped off the ramp and tripped. Weighed down by a full pack and shell dressings, he went headfirst into the water: his language, he said later, was extremely salty. That evening he was engaged for several hours in rescuing a wounded German soldier from a minefield.

    A few days later he was by himself carrying nothing but a pair of medical scissors and was exploring some farm buildings. They appeared to be deserted and he hoped they might serve as a new RAP. Hearing a movement in an adjoining room, he moved quietly to the door and flung it open. Two German soldiers, with rifles at the ready, had just climbed out of a trench which they had dug in the floor.

    “Over here! Tom, Dick, Bill!” he yelled. “Come quickly!” He strode into the room and shouted: “Hande hoch!” The two men instantly dropped their rifles and raised their hands high in the air.

    Bounsall grabbed one of the rifles and ordered the two men outside. He wished he could have recorded the astounded look on their faces when they saw nobody in sight. He marched them off to the Battalion HQ and handed them over to the intelligence officer.

    After bitter fighting in Normandy and the subsequent rapid advance across France and Belgium to the Dutch border, 1 Dorset was given the dangerous task of defending the flat country south of Arnhem against fierce German counter-attacks aimed at recapturing Nijmegen.

    In October, Bounsall returned to England. He was presented with the DCM by King George VI at Buckingham Palace on March 16 1945. He was demobilised in 1948 in the rank of lance-corporal, and went on to develop his talent as a painter and designer and maker of stained glass.

    He made two stained-glass windows to commemorate his Regiment. One is in the Keep Military Museum in Dorchester and the other in the town hall at Asnelles, close to where 1 Dorset landed on D-Day.

    After emigrating to Auckland, New Zealand, in 1952, Bounsall worked in the insurance business. In his nineties, he received the Malta George Cross 50th Anniversary Commemorative Medal from the Maltese government and was appointed to the Légion d’honneur by the French government.

    In recognition of 85 years of devotion to his regiment, the Devonshire and Dorset Regimental Association gave him their President’s Award for distinguished service.

    Denis Bounsall’s wartime marriage to Doreen (Cherry) Neville did not last. In 1955, he married Sara Alice (Sadie) Turner in New Zealand. She died in 2006 and he is survived by a daughter of his first marriage.

    Denis Bounsall, born March 2 1921, died January 15 2022

  11. Hysterical Left on Peaceful Canadian Freedom Convoy: ‘Occupation,’ ‘Siege,’ ‘Terrorism’

    OTTAWA, Ontario – Canadian leftists this week began using war terms such as “occupation,” “siege,” and “terrorism” to describe the ongoing Freedom Convoy demonstration in Ottawa, alongside calls inviting authorities to consider the use of military intervention to end the protest.
    *
    *
    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2022/02/09/hysterical-left-on-peaceful-canadian-freedo

    Exclusive Video — Canadian YouTuber Viva Frei: ‘Legacy Media’ Are ‘Outright Lying’ About Freedom Convoy

    https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2022/02/09/exclusive-video-canadian-youtuber-viva-frei-legacy-media-are-outright-lying-about-freedom-convoy/

    1. It’s funny if you think about it. Here’s a bunch of workers fighting back against state oppression for a better life for themselves.

      Yet the Left, who you’ve think you pick up this baton hate it. Why? Because they’re not interested in the people actually working, the modern Left are entrenched statists. Nothing else.

  12. Hysterical Left on Peaceful Canadian Freedom Convoy: ‘Occupation,’ ‘Siege,’ ‘Terrorism’

    OTTAWA, Ontario – Canadian leftists this week began using war terms such as “occupation,” “siege,” and “terrorism” to describe the ongoing Freedom Convoy demonstration in Ottawa, alongside calls inviting authorities to consider the use of military intervention to end the protest.
    *
    *
    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2022/02/09/hysterical-left-on-peaceful-canadian-freedo

    Exclusive Video — Canadian YouTuber Viva Frei: ‘Legacy Media’ Are ‘Outright Lying’ About Freedom Convoy

    https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2022/02/09/exclusive-video-canadian-youtuber-viva-frei-legacy-media-are-outright-lying-about-freedom-convoy/

  13. PM tells Russia that NATO will ‘draw lines in the snow’ over Ukraine crisis. 10 february 2022.

    Ahead of Thursday’s trip to Brussels and Warsaw, Mr Johnson said: “When NATO was founded, allies made an historic undertaking to safeguard the freedom of every member state.

    “The UK remains unwavering in our commitment to European security. What we need to see is real diplomacy, not coercive diplomacy.

    “As an alliance we must draw lines in the snow and be clear there are principles upon which we will not compromise.

    This doesn’t extend to guarding the Channel of course. More Mussolini than Muscle. “Lines in the snow!” Pah! Bragadoccio without resources. The scattering of UK forces like confetti with the same effects. It serves only to disguise Britain’s staggering weakness. A fully equipped Expeditionary Force that would truly impress Putin and Russia is now beyond our capabilities. The forces we are sending will not be under our control;, they will simply make up numbers and can be sacrificed without the approval of the UK Government.

    https://news.sky.com/story/boris-johnson-tells-russia-that-nato-will-draw-lines-in-the-snow-over-ukraine-crisis-12537713

    1. I wonder if it’s occurred to the Bumbling Buffoon that lines in the snow, like lines in the sand are subject to the vagaries of the weather or, in Johnson’s case, his propensity to say one thing and do another, i.e., to lie.

    2. Clear on the principles on which we will not compromise… but we’ll change our principles to suit our compromises.

      Drawing liens inn the snow – that way, when it snows, we want ignore the old lines and draw new ones.

    3. NATO is useless except as a stick to poke the Bear and others. Realistically, If the UK were to be attacked by some non-NATO country would Albania, Belgium, Iceland, Latvia and Montenegro (for example) mobilise in our defence.? Would they declare war on the enemies of the UK, come what may? Nope.
      Would the USA leap into action, or would the USA consider the extent to which they could happily accept damage to the UK? When did the USA or any member of NATO offer us armed, boots on the ground, help? Ever?
      We should leave.

  14. Morning all

    Barts’ loss of identity

    SIR – Until the final decades of the 20th century, London boasted 12 ancient teaching hospitals, each with its own colourful ethos, strong institutional memory and medical school.

    The dead hand of NHS reform then forced reluctant marriages of hospitals and their medical schools. Queen Mary University has now chosen to omit the name of Barts from its medical school and to ignore nine centuries of history (Letters, February 8).

    A discouraging spectrum of shades of NHS grey now colours the medical scenery of London. Morale, so critical to the delivery of great care in the face of all challenges, declines in sympathy.

    Adrian Crisp

    Weston Colville, Cambridgeshire

  15. Too many No 10 cooks

    SIR – As a member of Lady Thatcher’s Policy Unit in 1982 and 1983, I was amazed to read that there are now 400 staff in Downing Street (Comment, February 4).

    We in the Policy Unit were seven. There was also Alan Walters (economics) and Alan Parsons (foreign affairs). Then there was the principal private secretary and four other private secretaries; about four in the press office under Bernard Ingham; two in the political office; about four in the honours section; about 10 Garden Girls (the secretaries); and four or five members of security and police.

    There was no chief of staff or director of communications. The principal private secretary was in charge, and small flexible groups, sometimes with the prime minister, were the most efficient way to discuss issues and crises, and come to immediate conclusions. We in the Policy Unit had direct links to ministers. Two of us were seconded from industry and we had one civil servant – David Willetts. Thus the influence of the special advisers was not that great.

    Having a prime minister’s department has been much discussed and written about over the years but always dismissed as unworkable.

    David Pascall

    London N6

  16. Hospitals in lockdown

    SIR – Locking down hospitals over a positive Covid test is out of step with the rest of life.

    My 88-year-old father has not seen a familiar face in more than a week. A new positive test now starts the lockdown count again. We fear that the lack of a familiar face or mental stimulation speeds his decline, and that our father will never be returned to us.

    My mother-in-law was locked down in her residential home for six weeks, missing Christmas and her birthday. This is no way to treat our elderly.

    Gillian Courage

    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    SIR – Sir Paul Beresford is correct in believing that “everybody who uses private health insurance is a load off the National Health Service” (report, February 9).

    However, there is an elephant in the room. I have used my own medical insurance to pay for two operations on my knee, each performed very soon after diagnosis. In each case, the operating surgeon was an NHS consultant with enough time on his hands to supplement his income by working in the private sector.

    Good luck to him, but isn’t this one of the causes of long NHS waiting lists?

    Don Haines

    Telford, Shropshire

    1. No, not really. Surgeons don’t do private work in NHS time. They work W/E’s nights and holidays if they want to. Covid madness and mad managers create waiting lists. Criminal neglect of effective treatments filled the beds.

      1. Surgeons working privately do use NHS operating theatres and other facilities, as do dentists for X-rays etc.

        1. If, and it’s a big if, surgeons use NHS equipment/theatres for private work the NHS receives payment. When I worked for a private hospital and we referred patients for CT and MRI scans, which were carried out at NHS hospitals, we were told that “our” patients offset the costs for NHS patients.
          ETA: Told by the NHS staff by the way

          1. Yes, they do pay for private use. However, there is an opportunity cost as ordinary NHS patients cannot use the facilities at the same time, so wait longer.

          2. One would assume that the NHS dictated when private hospitals could use their equipment, don’t you think?

          4. One may forget that those who run hospitals are the same kind of money-grubbers who run Universities.

        2. If, and it’s a big if, surgeons use NHS equipment/theatres for private work the NHS receives payment. When I worked for a private hospital and we referred patients for CT and MRI scans, which were carried out at NHS hospitals, we were told that “our” patients offset the costs for NHS patients.
          ETA: Told by the NHS staff by the way

        3. But this is normal in other countries. Patients are treated, regardless of whether they have social health insurance or private health insurance, and the hospital issues the appropriate bill.
          What is wrong in the UK is the idea that healthcare is a precious resource that must be rationed, and that people who pay their own operations (AS WELL AS national insurance contributions!) are somehow stealing from people who have paid nothing.

    2. Don old boy, you jumped the queue. Had you not done so the length of the list would be the same because the total number of patients is unchanged.

  19. The madness of ‘smart’ meters is beginning to dawn on DT letter writers:

    SIR – The enormous amount spent on the rollout of “smart” metering is one of the additional costs that customers pick up through their energy bill.

    It is no surprise that the energy regulator Ofgem is now proposing that details of customers’ half-hourly usage be sent to suppliers, introducing the prospect of complicated “time of use” tariffs (report, February 9); the system was always designed to allow this.

    Smart meters constrain customer choice. A number of them don’t work if the customer changes supplier, and are unsuitable in properties where signals cannot be picked up.

    It is far more likely that firms will use the new capability to charge “penalty prices” at peak times than to give genuine off-peak reductions.

    Roger Gentry
    Weavering, Kent

    SIR – The current gov.uk smart meter guide for households states: “Consumers can opt for electric vehicles, heating systems and smart appliances, such as washing machines and dishwashers, that can connect to the smart metering system to access pricing data.

    “Activity can be programmed to automatically take advantage of cheaper rates, reduce the impact on our energy grid and save consumers’ money.”

    Would someone in government be so kind as to identify the supplier tariff, smart meter configuration, washing machine model and controller software compatibility so that this consumer can programme their activity to save money automatically?

    Justin Longley
    Lewes, East Sussex

    SIR – The National Grid is looking for ways to manage demand – such as encouraging customers to use home appliances while they are at work.

    In the last four years our reasonably new washing machine, dishwasher and freezer have all malfunctioned. One appliance caught fire – but as we only use them when we are at home, no serious damage was done. I for one will not be turning on any appliances when we are out.

    Patrick Fuller
    Upper Farringdon, Hampshire

    SIR – Octopus Energy, our supplier, offers us bungs to cut consumption at certain times of day. The condition is our having a smart meter. We do, but it is as much use as a chocolate kettle, as the distance between the gas meter and electricity meter (where the communication hub lives) is apparently too great in our far-from-large house for consistent readings.

    Charles Foster
    Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire

    SIR – Smart meters were never capable of saving energy for consumers; they were meant to give energy suppliers information to enable them to charge different prices at different times.

    Are consumers now expected to change their whole way of life in order to try to obtain some relief?

    John Dutton
    Holmes Chapel, Cheshire

      1. Standing charge. What’s that for? I suggest that Greenies have their energy priced at £4.50 /kwh. However, to soften the blow, they’ll only get 4 hours of energy per day.

        1. Every energy company I know off has a standing charge for both gas and electric.
          It completes the rip-off tariffs, although I know nobody who knows why it is there.

    3. Another BTL Comment:-

      Robert Spowart
      JUST NOW
      Message Actions
      When Smart Meters were first proposed some, including myself, saw them evolving into a means of controlling the energy usage of The Plebs by direct restriction on the use of that energy coupled with the costs escalating in periods of high demand.
      For this, we were called “Conspiracy Theorists”.

      REPLY
      0

      1. In France there are schemes where one can have cheaper electricity but part of the deal is that the supplier can charge a premium rate, up to ten times normal, and do so for days not merely hours.

      2. Bob, everyone in the industry knows that they are for one purpose, and that is micro-management of people’s electricity supply. The idiots shouting “conspiracy theory” are just showing their ignorance, that’s all.

    5. Brannvesent (The Fire Authority) here strongly recommend that you do not allow appliances to run unsupervised, either whilst you are out or while you sleep, in case they catch fire. So, how does that square with the “programme to run when cheapest” borrox?
      We had a tumbledryer overheat a few years ago, so that brought it home that they speak not with forked tongue.
      Mobile phones regularly catch fire when charging…

  20. Royal continuity

    SIR – The Commonwealth was numbed by the news of the sudden (but not, it must be said, wholly unexpected) death at Sandringham of King George VI, aged only 56 (Letters, February 8).

    Five days later, the people of London lined the route when the King’s coffin was drawn on a gun carriage in sombre, silent procession from King’s Cross station to Westminster Hall to lie in state.

    No words can do justice to the poignancy of the occasion. Behind the coffin of assuredly one of our most selfless monarchs, there walked, in the sole company of the Duke of Gloucester, the young Prince Philip, who would become the longest-serving and most supportive royal consort in recorded history.

    Sir Peter Marshall

    London W8

  21. Jesus College benefactor and sins of the past

    SIR – Calls to have the memorial to Tobias Rustat removed from the chapel of Jesus College, Cambridge, as it might upset people (report, February 9) sidestep the fact that a chapel is not a safe place where people should feel comfortable, but one where sins are confessed and forgiveness offered.

    Such confession and forgiveness encompass the whole of humankind, past and present, including slave traders and members of the Church.

    Rev Harry Beverley Tasker

    Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire

    SIR – The Archbishop of Canterbury asserts that the Rustat monument at Jesus College is a “memorial to slavery”. It is not. It is a commemoration of outstanding philanthropy on the part of a man who died more than 300 years ago, a small fraction of whose wealth came from his involvement in the, then accepted, now rightly reviled, slave trade.

    It is a Christian belief that the capacity for good and evil runs through every human heart. Where better to contemplate that truth, and the possibility of redemption, than a place of worship? If the Archbishop does not think that, is he in the right job?

    Charles Wide

    Peterborough, Cambridgeshire

    1. BTL Comment:-

      Robert Spowart
      JUST NOW
      Message Actions
      Regarding Charles Wide’s question, it depends what we consider the job of the current Archbishop of Canterbury is.
      From my perspective, he is a Common Purpose trained Marxist put in place by the globalist Clique to destroy not only the Church of England, but to seriously damage the world wide Anglican Communion and, sadly to say, he appears to be fulfilling his brief.

    2. Why is the “slave trade” as it involved the British described as “rightly reviled”? From the point of view of any sensible slave sold by his captors in battle or his relatives for money it was a rescue. Such slaves were rescued from execution or castration. Such rescue did not come free. Yet the whining descendants of these slaves, who obviously survived to procreate despite their “losers” DNA, continually complain despite the opportunities and luxuries to which they now have free access?

      1. All African Americans ought to visit the homelands of their ancestors and see the horrible lives the ordinary people are still compelled to live – often tyrannically government by ruthless black rulers.

        They might then return to the States thanking God and thanking their great-great grandparents whose lives as slaves saved them from the same fate.

    4. Great letter from Reverend Tasker, and a timely reminder that Christianity is not liberalism.

    5. The Archbishop of Canterbury is almost as evil as Mrs May.

      Is there anybody on this site who has a good word for him? I certainly have not heard a single word in his support – he attracts contempt, revulsion and disgust from Christians and atheists alike. He is certainly one of Creation’s horrible mistakes.

  22. Good morning from a bright, dry but slightly chillier Derbyshire. Little wind and ½°C outside with scattered cloud on an otherwise blue sky.

    5. Happy Birthday, Korky.
      I didn’t realise you’re the same day as MB (but with a few years difference, I suspect.)

      2. Do wish him a Happy Birthday from Caroline and me and, we are sure, several other Nottlers.

        I can’t recall seeing him post here though there are several husband and wife couples who do.

    6. Happy Birthday, Korky! Sunshine here and fully recovered from the lurgy, so singing loud and clear for you.

  24. China buying its way into Argentina, now there’s a surprise. And since Argentina has never renounced its claim to the Falklands following the war in 1982 we would be daft not to ‘militarise’ them! From the DT:

    Brazil defends Falkland Islands stopovers for Royal Air Force after Argentina criticism

    Argentina’s ambassador to Brazil last week complained about an increase in British military flights landing in the country

    By
    Nick Allen,
    US EDITOR
    10 February 2022 • 6:00am

    Brazil has defended allowing British military planes to stop at its airports on the way to and from the Falkland Islands after Argentina complained.

    While Brazil said it backed Argentina’s claims to sovereignty over the islands, it said that did not affect its “important partnership” with the UK.

    Daniel Scioli, Argentina’s ambassador to Brazil, last week complained about an increase in British military flights stopping in Brazil.

    He said there had been seven RAF flights in January that had landed at Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Porto Alegre, causing “surprise and concern” in Argentina.

    But the Brazilian foreign ministry responded that it was not doing anything to enhance the UK’s military capability by letting the planes land.

    A spokesman said: “The Brazilian position of authorising the overflight and landing of British military aircraft on the Falklands route is guided by the principle of not contributing to the modernisation and expansion of the United Kingdom’s military resources and war potential in that archipelago.”

    It said the British planes were being allowed to land in cases when there were emergency situations, search and rescue missions, or health and humanitarian reasons.Brazil said the number of overflight and landing authorisations granted to British military aircraft varied from year to year, ranging from 150 some years to just one in others.

    The UK has dismissed Argentine concerns saying they were routine flights and any claims of militarisation were false.

    Mr Scioli sent a formal complaint about the flights to Brazil on Jan 31.

    He claimed they were “another sign of the United Kingdom’s illegitimate military presence in the South Atlantic” and called on Brazil to “restrict authorisation for British military aircraft to strictly humanitarian cases.”

    The row came after Britain rejected a statement from China affirming Beijing’s support for Argentina’s claim to the Falkland Islands.

    Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Argentine counterpart Alberto Fernandez issued a joint statement on Sunday.

    Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, said the UK “completely” rejected “any questions over sovereignty of the Falklands.”

    She said: “The Falklands are part of the British family and we will defend their right to self determination. China must respect the Falklands’ sovereignty.”

    China’s UK embassy responded by saying it “firmly supported” Argentina’s claims.

    It said: “We hope that the UK will respond positively to Argentina’s request, start dialogue and negotiation as soon as possible, and find a peaceful, just and lasting solution in accordance with relevant UN resolutions.”

    Mr Xi has agreed to help prop up Argentina’s economy with $23.7 billion in financing for projects.

    1. The Chinese will want the Falklands going to Argentina to be a precedent for their own claims in the South China seas.

      1. Do the Chinese want Gibraltar to be given to the Spanish, the Isle of Wight to Kuwait and Northern Ireland to North Korea?

        If that is what they want then how long before that is what they will get?

  26. I occasionally post comments on here from Colonel Patrick Lang’s Blog. Lang had a distinguished career in the US Army and Intelligence Services and was frequently at odds with both. He is a Nottler fellow traveller. His blog has vanished this morning!

      1. I wonder if some clever clog nerd could write us a back up with a link to ‘how to get here’ in this forum now.

        There is another old adage, “Fail to plan, plan to fail.”

          1. Yep, that’s what those incapable of planning would respond to me – an inveterate planner.

          2. I was once a member of a forum where some members decided to have their own private group of popular girls, and I think all they did was register a domain that they made non-searchable. I don’t know what chatroom software they used though.
            I guess free disqus could be used in a non-searchable domain just as it is here.
            And of course, from then onwards it was invitation only.

          3. I was once a member of a forum where some members decided to have their own private group of popular girls, and I think all they did was register a domain that they made non-searchable. I don’t know what chatroom software they used though.
            I guess free disqus could be used in a non-searchable domain just as it is here.
            And of course, from then onwards it was invitation only.

          6. My job was all about planning and I soon discovered that KISS, Keep it simple stupid was a sensible approach.
            Over planners regularly spent more time doing unnecessary planning than actually doing because they lost focus on what they wanted to achieve.

          7. As a Business Consultant, specialising in implementing Enterprise Resource System(s) (ERP) I never lost focus and the plans included ‘As Is’ and ‘To Be’ together with prospective timelines for teaching the Project Team and Users how to use the system by means of written procedures that the users were to sign off on.

            I must have used this process in about 20 companies from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, France, Scotland, Wales and England – oh and Singapore. One cannot afford ‘unnecessary planning’ which to me is an oxymoron.

          8. In my experience every consultant always believes that their way is the best way.
            They can’t all be correct.

      2. Morning Sos. Colonel Lang did once consider shutting down his Blog but I emailed him asking him not to so since I considered that only the United States had the resources to resist Cultural Marxism and its removal would be a powerful signal to the UK that the battle for the control of the country had commenced!

  28. May I just say that – on behalf of most NoTTLers – I wish young Phil all the best with his operation tomorrow. He puts on a brave face but he must be worried as hell.

    We look forward to his return in very rude health once the anaesthetic has worn off.

    1. I have just sent our Phizzee a message .

      He has waited too long for this procedure , I hope there will be a huge improvement in his mobility .

          1. I’ll be thinking of you, dearest Phizzee. If you hear distant strains of “Happy Birthday” when coming round after the op, you know who’s to blame.

          5. This could be why you’re not a pro opera singer.

            Single malt all the way for me, and no wasteful spitting it out, either.

    2. I am a bit nervous though not about the procedure. I get the same feeling when taking an early morning flight. Butterflies in the stomach.

      The worst part will be afterwards. They are going to nail me to the bed with G clamps so i don’t move for four hours.

      Thank you Bill.

      3. I will wish you all the best now, in case I don’t get up early enough tomorrow morning. But I will be praying for you anyway.
        I’m sure it will be fine – give it a couple of months and you’ll be skipping round like a spring lamb!

      5. Just think 50 Shades… lie back & enjoy!
        Look forward to hearing all about it ( well, not the gory bits, of course). Take care.

      6. Helpful hint: don’t let the hospital laundry get hold of your posh jacket.
        It’ll bu88er the sequins.

    2. Nahh. That’s not close to the state of affairs.

      In reality, other people tell TUB what he will do and he blusters and waffles before sending them away.

  31. Good Moaning.
    I have the answer to the Ukrainian farrago.
    Since Vlad is understandably a bit miffed at NATO being parked on his doorstep, invite him to join the organisation.
    NATO gets troops who aren’t in touch with their inner trans/black/replumbing urges of any stripe, and Vlad feels appreciated. Our enemy is China, so divide and rule.
    Mr. P is no saint, but he does have a vague understanding of western civilisation; certainly more than the posturing puppets who purport to lead ‘free’ western style countries. (Yes, Mick Jagger’s Canadian by-blow, I’m looking at you. And New Zealand’s reincarnation of Shergar.)

    2. Morning Anne

      Strangely so, but I wondered the same .

      Putin is similar to the Great Wall of China .. Historically… and is part of the heart of joined up European culture , art and literature and music .

      I doubt very much whether Putin would approve of the distortion of our own history which is being replaced with twerking , ghastly sweet potato , rice and halal meat and pyjama’d communities in the North, South , West and East of Britain !

      Correct me if I my history is wrong .

      1. Really? Maybe – and it wouldn’t be difficult – if I heap praise on St. Petersburg, Vlad will take me on as a Spad.

  32. By appeasing Russia the West is conspiring in its own destruction. 10 February 2022.

    Coming after the West’s capitulation to Moscow over recent acts of Russian aggression in Georgia and Crimea, the abandonment of Ukraine would only lend further encouragement to autocratic regimes to continue to subvert the established Western order by expanding their sphere of influence.

    TOP COMMENTS BELOW THE LINE.

    None Ofyourbusiness..The West has been being hollowed out from within for the last 30-40 years by the Radical Left’s Long March through our Institutions. In the UK the velvet glove was taken off on 1st May 1997, and we have been under their mailed fist, and stamping boot, ever since.

    If I were single I would seriously consider applying for political asylum at the Russian Embassy in London.

    Putin may be a kleptocrat, but at least he does not sell out his own race to those that hate them and wish to see them replaced by thousands upon thousands of “cultural enrichers”.

    Robert Brown.
    Right on. Russia is not my enemy. In fact it is the last bastion of real Western values in a world of woke.

    Two stray Nottler’s here. If the PTB are expecting universal admiration for their Ukraine Policy they are going to be greatly disappointed . Even with all the effort from 77 Brigade the majority opinion on the threads is a definite No!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/10/appeasing-russia-west-conspiring-destruction/

    1. Using this tack, I’m sure that the Telegraph will laud China taking Taiwan back into the fold.

      1. By the time the BBC gets through with it China will be resisting the authoritarian abuses of Taiwan, with Taiwan a far Right dictatorship lead by an Asian version of Trump.

        1. Beat me to it! Con Coughlin – a man who could not turn up sober to have his headline photo taken, it would seem.

          2. The Head of Modern Languages at a very academic public school used to have this surname – he must have got a certain amount of ribbing from his pupils. Actually he was a very decent chap whose daughter came on a course with us.

    3. During the worst of this I brushed up my Russian and learned all the phrases surrounding applying for asylum: a surreal moment. However, looking at the actual process, you only really have a hope if you’re young and single. Damn.

    4. “…Russian aggression in Georgia and Crimea, the abandonment of Ukraine would only lend further encouragement to autocratic regimes to continue to subvert the established Western order by expanding their sphere of influence….”

      Russia responded to EU encroachment. The autocratic regimes are the UK government. The Johnson woman, being an example.

  33. Some will be aware of the antics of the self-important ‘Colston Four’ in calling for a boycott of Thatcher’s Ciders because of tenuous link to slave trade several hundred years ago. Evidently, should they be successful, a charity assisting old people – supported by the company – will be affected.

    Decided to wave two fingers at the Colston mob by buying some of the cider for the first time – handily available from Tesco. However, wondered if there was some sort of double-bluff involved here? Perhaps the Colston-tinies have bought shares in the company knowing that sales would boom as a result of backlash against their campaign!

    3. I thought we had achieved peak bonkers with the “here’s Boris standing 6 feet away from an open bottle photo” but this just takes the biscuit.

        1. It’s spring (or nearly); my favourite dish at this time of year is slow-cooked lamb with asparagus and a touch of cream. Damn; now I don’t fancy what I’ve made for dinner tonight!

          1. We were informed by Jennifer-SP Who seems to be in the know that the best lamb isn’t Spring. It’s Autumn.
            Because of the lush pasture available to them. Whereas in Spring they don’t get the benefit of all the meadow flowers just the grass.

          2. I shall bow to her superior knowledge. The best lamb I ever tasted was from the salt marshes of northern France. Spring lamb is delicate enough to meld well with the sparrowgrass, though.

  36. Car-minded people (I know there are a few of you on here): I am thinking to get a 90s Volvo 940 estate to pull my caravan around. Attracted by the reliability and the lack of electronics and computers to go wrong, and by the possibility of sleeping in the back if pootling around independently of my snail shell.

    I had been thinking diesel and manual, but all those I can find are petrol and automatic. Suspect fuel costs will be high, but offset by relatively cheaper repair costs (Deo volente).

    Am I mad in this respect?

      1. Not bothered about aesthetics for the moment, and I managed to park a big Jag in London perfectly well for years.

    3. No you are not mad.
      There is no doubt that diesels with plenty of torque are the only thing you can really tow a caravan with.
      Even electric Land Rovers have diesels in them for that reason.
      You do have to watch out for older diesels with less than a Euro 6 classification because of the penalties placed in an increasing number of locations on these dirtier diesels.

    5. I’ve aways understood that Volvo spares are relatively expensive. Maybe look at Mercedes? Also Parker’s website for general info and user reviews?

        2. There is a significant after market for spares as well as swap and refurbish people. I’ve not found M-B too expensive, so far.

        1. Many years ago a friend of mine once labelled his fiancée as his fiasco and I have used the expression ever since. Indeed, 34 years ago Caroline was my fiasco just as I was hers!

    1. 6.4C at present here. I ought to go out for a walk, ’cause it’s sunny, But I won’t, it’s not more than 10 yet. Cold air messes up my sinuses…

  38. Milosovec was white and nasty and could not strike back
    So I bombed the fascist bastard and bomb Sadam in Iraq,
    Forget about Afghanistan, forget about Tibet
    Barring cock ups at the embassy, I daren’t bomb China yet!

    (Ironically attributed to Tony Blair in 1999 song I’m A Populist Prime Minister from a Minor Public School)

  42. The French have just banned the convoys (a la Canadien) heading for Paris tomorrow. They are threatening 2 years in prison, big fines, seizure of vehicles, and disqualification from driving. We’ll see. I’m not sure that all of this could be enforced on the people who deliver food and fuel around the country.
    Anyway, it is sure to buggwr up UK deliveries to the French market at Rungis on the outskirts of Paris.

    https://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/les-convois-de-la-liberte-interdits-a-paris-20220210?utm_source=CRM&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=%5B20220210_NL_ALERTESINFOS%5D&een=24114703173b957b2409c240fd1cc65d&seen=2&m_i=Mf2hXO4bghyRIdU8S%2BdOrEpsMZDU4v4PcFjTw3Y6BOBN42QMOarX126fROyT9PPqqJStddS9P5bT0V9u%2B5EWmv5MqLFee57EMB

  44. Dear Leader, Mark Dreadful, of the mask, jabs and cv passports, has…wait for it…. covid….. It couldn’t have found a more worthwhile host.

  45. Groaners

    1. A man is at the bar, blind drunk.

    Some of the customers decide to be good Samaritans and get him home.

    They pick him up off the floor and drag him out of the door.

    On the way to the car, he falls down three times.

    When they get to his house, they help him out of the car, and he falls down four more times.

    They ring the doorbell and a woman answers.
    “Here’s your husband!”

    “Thanks,” says the man’s wife. “What did you do with his wheelchair?”

    1. When Celtic won the European Cup in Lisbon back in some long time ago, there was chaos afterwards as the jubilant Celtic supporters headed home via the airport and the charter flights to Glasgow. (My chum lost one of his shoes in the tunnel exiting the ground and returned to Scotland with only one shoe. But I digress.)
      One poor chap had over celebrated during the match and became happily inebriated and incoherent. He was helped onto the plane by fellow semi-delirious supporters who were otherwise strangers.
      After a couple of hours slumped and snoring, the man came out of his daze, a bit. “Where am I?* “, he asked. “Don’t worry,” he was told, “you’re safely on the plane to Glasgow.”
      “Oh bother,” the chap mumbled excitedly,” my car is parked in Lisbon”.

      *Conversation has been translated into English, for the benefit of non-Glaswegians.

      1. The Lisbon Lions, never to be forgotten: Simpson, Craig, Gemmell, Murdoch, McNeill, Clark, Johnstone, Wallace, Chalmers, Auld, Lennox.

        As Bill Shankly said to his pal, Jock Stein, on the occasion, “John, ye’re immortal!”

  46. Beware!!!

    Just received a Bank Scam Phone call from 07812 029528, re money transfer

    Banks never call FROM a mobile

    1. Banks never ask you to do silly things by phone or email. They’d ask you to come into a branch or a police station.

      If only people would ignore everything and contact organisations on a different device from contacts they’ve researched.

      1. I know, but a reminder, to folks who maybe under Stress does not, in my feeble mind, go amiss

        1. Yo, Mr Effort.

          Funny you should mention this: I had an email from my bank, only yesterday, warning me to be on my guard against the upsurge in fraudster activity. I have a number of personal banker contacts at my branch, along with their private email addresses and mobile numbers. I can call any time (during business hours) and get direct contact with my contact. If, for any reason they are not available, a colleague (also known to me) will take the call.

          2. Indeed I would. I have been furnished with the mobile numbers of all senior bank staff. I’ve also chatted with most of them on a number of occasions so I know them quite well. I also visited the branch on a return to England a few years back. It is not a walk-in bank, just an office in a large modern block, but they permitted me to walk in and I was entertained to tea and cakes with some of the management for a good hour. I never got that with Barclays, Halifax or Nat West.

  47. ‘Morning All

    Convoy!!

    Turdy runs away AGAIN

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13hHz_s4P3I&ab_channel=JohnBarlowMP

    The good guys

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYMDi3HrrDg&ab_channel=MarcelIrnie

    https://www.theburningplatform.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Screen-Shot-2022-02-08-at-8.42.41-PM.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/41c8721d2c501fc6adcdb64d04ed47c0bb9cf2ec44c9d3a22002600d9ddd1996.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ae1c9a15e1abd22f98beed79d4ddef096a678614a758572ec0a45fca6c221262.jpg

    2. I wonder what ‘All the tools and all the resources that the police need to end this convoy’ are. Tear gas? Rubber bullets? Permission to use ‘aggressive’ restraining holds as they did to the tiny elderly man who honked his horn?

    3. Smart man that John Barlow. So refreshing to hear a real opposition speaking up for what is right.
      As for the lunacy (repeated far and wide in every country with such restrictions) of taking off the muzzle while speaking and thereby, according to the fear and doom-mongers, that means spitting out bio-hazard aerosol breath …… which the next speaker will breathe in when he/she takes off their muzzle. :)))

    4. That lady expressing her views, wow, strong woman. Unbelievable that anyone is threatening on bringing in the ss to remove their children. Those children with the truckers and other protesters are not in any danger – unless the ss take them. At least the media bods didn’t openly dismiss her concerns – maybe some of them will go away and think about what they heard.

  48. #CovidClownWorld

    https://twitter.com/beverleyturner/status/1491516087028092933?s=20&t=5Qm60q_bzF2wStos68J4EQ

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3af2b40bc5165ea0dd45db0f1d4ed1b69b4a4a1c12973bce170352e6bae5330e.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e94d65fcfa569898d89424c577bf47ee72e44353ab02e404c3f35fc20be1aaf4.jpg

    Time to visit Grizz!!

    https://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet/status/1491500491980873731?s=20&t=Fg6OKKwCXVcD9D_-NBaeFQ

    https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1491470777522266123?s=20&t=MMvq7NslVzhlFl_i0K5oGg

    1. I thought that I had a few worries and ethical dichotomies. Not sure how she can live a normal day with those ideas.

    5. Her whiteness is the problem with her existence since all she spouts is gobble-de-gook.

      She needs ‘cancelling’.

  50. Yo and Happy Birthday Korky

    There is an old adage, which I will update a bit

    If you Can, Do
    If you Cannot Do, Teach
    If you cannot
    Teach, become a Consultant
    If you fail as a Consultant, play on your Heritage (BLM etc)
    If using your Heritage fails, play on your ‘sexuality’ (LGBTRDWASDetc)
    If you fail with all the above and cannot even get in the BBC, Met Police, Snivel Service, NHS,
    become an Advisor to Johnson

    PS This does not include the teachers, consultants advisors etc who Nottle

    1. As with politicians and policemen it is probably a good idea for teachers to do other jobs as well as being teachers.

      1. I used to tell that to my former police colleagues who had left school and then enrolled as cadets. I would ask them how much experience they had of the other side of life, e.g. working in industry or spending copious time among the public. All I ever got back was a open-mouthed puzzled stare.

        1. I started my first job as a teacher at the age of 28 having done a wide range of other jobs first.

      2. I have often found that priests are much better for having done other jobs before becoming ordained.
        Unfortunately there are also many to whom that does not apply.

  51. Laffs

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/35da07661f90421c19931b21aa7e628d06df91762156e177ae98366bf0bfc21e.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/53cdacbfc16596bbcce0232224f5703fb57a1fa5031914ca9dd8ed635fb348d4.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/780651c0fa71c1f564360e3a526fc58a2980f5e3ab5a932d77cb2f2cbfb5ec29.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f49c774553dca999d1cb640d39d7a080ad2f663dfc419bc249cd38b24a67dac5.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/44c5021a5f6a61f83dff7556304fcdce69a9cfe2bdf2393c8fbdfe1d822a24ba.png

    Finally one your grandchildren will never get…….

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f5184ac1c97caaf9ac6cd55a984474cfbffa12ee34cc52b12d0b3ab2fe52f545.jpg

  52. Good morning to Nottlers. I hardly like to ask you to have any truck with this government at all, but they are doing a consultation (yeah, right) about removing jab certification for health workers. It’s an opportunity to, ever so politely, send a message. The Public Consultation on mandating vaccinations is very short and

    it’s important I think that we all fill it out and submit responses please.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/revoking-vaccination-as-a-condition-of-deployment-across-all-health-and-social-career

    4. Think I have found it – not that they make it easy. they don’t really want to know OUR views but will make it directly available to the ‘right people.’
      https://consultations.dhsc.gov.uk/61fd3b71f0d963706f2a7193
      It is working. Asks for email address – when you decline, it asks again. A case of keep asking until the answer is correct?
      Asks for efnic group. Options include ‘asian British and black British. NO, those are not ethnic groups. British is a nationality and has nothing to do with ethnics.

      1. and “Is your gender the same as the sex you were registered at birth?” Of course it is, there ARE only 2 genders. the rest probably need psychiatric help.

        1. You only have to look at the Covid statistics…….only men or women died!!!!!!
          None of the other genders get a mention.

          1. Only because they haven’t thought of doing it that way yet. Surprised they don’t split the figures down between normal people and the alphabet brigade.

  53. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a5c75981408f5466b9e5ca6d514a31c2baa45bdbf76dba4fb70b478aee8a4147.png OH, DIDDUMS!
    Only Yanks.

    In the past few days at the winter Olympic games in Peking, the women’s slalom and giant slalom races have been taking place. One of the favourites was an American woman called Mikaela Shiffrin. Apparently she is the defending women’s champion in both disciplines. Her winking picture has been ubiquitous and posted everywhere with all and sundry (mostly other Americans) talking her up and fawning over her like only they can. As the events progressed (in both the man’s and women’s races) the occasional competitor would fall, crash or miss a gate, meaning instant disqualification Without exception those sportsmen and women simply shrugged and skied off the slopes to leave the piste clear for other competitors.

    Except, that is, for the precious Shiffrin. She fell twice, and early, in both events (despite the course having been designed by her own coach). On the first occasion she remained at the side of the piste, bawling and stamping as only spoilt Yanks can. Yesterday, falling again, she remained sitting at the side of the piste for a full 20 minutes whilst a friend sat next to her consoling her.

    This type of petulant behaviour was championed by another self-possessed American woman back in 1984. Mary Decker was the overwhelming favourite to win the women’s 3,000 metres but fell during the race after a clash of feet with Zola Budd. The sight of Decker being escorted away from the track, blubbering her eyes out, was one of the most emetic scenes in international sport, ever. Most emetic, that is, until the full-of-herself Shiffrin yesterday.

    1. I remember that scene. She was lifted and carried from the track by her weightlifter husband. Zola Budd ran barefoot but was inexperienced and accidentally tripped the Decker woman.

  54. Just squeezed in Morning all. I’ve just spent three hours tying to get in touch with three different companies customer services. One I gave up on, one i managed to speak to someone and sort it out, the third was an online conversation at the bottom right corner of the screen. Now i understand how and why our Medical profession has adopted this nonsense recently, but it’s very stressful trying got get problems sorted out. I think i ring the surgery…………..oh hang on …..

    1. I use E-Consult for the surgery. They normally get back to me in a day or two. Not weekends obviously as no one ever falls ill on the weekend.

      1. I think we are seemingly lumbered with the worse GP practice on the planet. I sent a request in for someone to sort out the ongoing problem I have and it has not even been acknowledged in well over a week. I’ll be diving in again in the morning, chasing it up ……again.
        And why so many companies who take our money and are in our faces all the time have no Customer service contacts is beyond imagination.

      1. Thanks Alf appreciated.
        I tried that with Virgin media previously i think they put up the shutters after a few people had found the direct contact details.

    3. If you think that’s bad, wait until you try to contact a government department. I’ve made countless calls to DVLA only to get a ‘no agents available’ message and being cut off. I gave up and wrote in. Hours of my time wasted.

        1. Hi Phizzee. Good luck for tomorrow. Oh, and Happy Birthday too🎂. What a birthday present! Soon have you running around after Dolly again 😅😅😅

        2. I rather hope he does – in a stroke the world is rid of two first-class whinging spongers – her by his hand and him by the final needle for murder.

        3. I rather hope he does – in a stroke the world is rid of two first-class whinging spongers – her by his hand and him by the final needle for murder.

        4. He is, but my sympathy is a little tempered by his arrogance, which appears to be equal to that of his father. If he would just quietly settle down to some job that is suited to his IQ and temperament and stop thinking he’s qualified to talk big, save the world and tell the proles what to do, he might be a bit happier.

        5. Good luck with your medical procedure and Happy Birthday.

          Medical telephone triage can be trying. I just received the results of a chest X-ray and bloods where the doctor has written ‘no further action’ and ‘borderline no further action’ respectively. Unfortunately I am still coughing up quantities of mucus phlegm so no closer to a proper diagnosis.

          Prescription Flexonase and Carbocisteine plus Amoxicillin still going for a few days. Fingers crossed.

          1. Thank you.

            It won’t cure but may ease…I have found Covonia Oromucosal works well for the throat.

            Get well.

    2. I doubt very much he’s going to give any of his money to help AIDS charities or get his hands dirty helping people. He just wants to pose around with photographers and camera crews until he’s bored then fly off in a private jet.

      Edited for typos.

    3. He is a complete nonentity as far as I’m concerned. Which is a shame because I think that until Meagain sparkle got her hooks into him he was very popular with the public. And he has been disrespectful in the extreme towards HMQ on her Platinum Anniversary. He deserves notHing.

    4. I do have a some sympathy with him as a human being.
      I have always wondered when possibly, he had his DNA results back and he found who his father is, he went off the beaten track a bit as in not remaining faithful to the the royal family. After all it was the behaviour of a certain some who kind of left him in the lurch.

      1. It was the shiftiness of Harold Wilson’s eyes that the satirists and impersonators homed in on.

  56. Back from Morrisons. Everyone bagged – apart from me. And most of the staff. Ditto at the vets – but some people NOT bagged at the GPs.

    1. Very interesting, thank you. This would tend to back up things like the Zelenko protocol, which in effect, improves the “terrain” of one’s body.

  58. An old man I knew has died. He was suffering from dementia, double incontinence, bowel cancer, had had strokes, heart problems and other nasties. He was in his 90’s.
    He recently went into hospital after a fall and while there he caught Covid.
    You can guess what he died from.

      1. Ho ho

        A friend of his went to the same hospital A&E because no doctor was available and was kept in overnight. Next day discovered the car had been clamped and was fined.

        They really are bastards

  59. John Major launches scathing attack on Boris Johnson: ‘The PM broke lockdown rules and it made the Government look shifty. 10 february 2022.

    He said: “At No 10, the Prime Minister and officials broke lockdown laws. Brazen excuses were dreamed up. Day after day the public was asked to believe the unbelievable. Ministers were sent out to defend the indefensible – making themselves look gullible or foolish.

    “Collectively, this has made the Government look distinctly shifty, which has consequences that go far beyond political unpopularity.

    “No Government can function properly if its every word is treated with suspicion.”

    Going by personal observation we have finally reached the latter stage.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/10/john-major-launches-scathing-attack-boris-johnson-pm-broke-lockdown/

    1. TBF, if anyone has the inside knowledge of a Government looking shifty, Major is that man. The sentence you have highlighted reads like a title for Major’s autobiography.

      I knew Major was moral-free but hadn’t realised that he’d had an irony bypass.

        1. Well there is that. As someone else put it, he’s the only clown to run away from the circus.

      1. He did not deserve the loyalty of Norma. She should have dropped him like a stone and taken him to the cleaners for every penny he had. He really is a truly repulsive piece of muck.

    4. Nobody should allow John Major to express any judgement upon anybody else without him having to acknowledge his own appalling hypocrisy with the adulterous betrayal of his wife, Norma, with a work colleague, Edwina.

    5. After Boris’s announcement today, the world holds its breath for ten days whilst our PM attempts to truthfully answer the Commissioner of Police’s emailed questionnaire. But Major does believe that there should be no Russian to conclusions pending the ramifications of this Gray area.

  60. John Major launches scathing attack on Boris Johnson: ‘The PM broke lockdown rules and it made the Government look shifty. 10 february 2022.

    He said: “At No 10, the Prime Minister and officials broke lockdown laws. Brazen excuses were dreamed up. Day after day the public was asked to believe the unbelievable. Ministers were sent out to defend the indefensible – making themselves look gullible or foolish.

    “Collectively, this has made the Government look distinctly shifty, which has consequences that go far beyond political unpopularity.

    “No Government can function properly if its every word is treated with suspicion.”

    Going by personal observation we have finally reached the latter stage.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/10/john-major-launches-scathing-attack-boris-johnson-pm-broke-lockdown/

    1. And none of the slammer-loving lefties, pretend-Christian church leaders or dim-witted do-gooders of this country will stand up and openly object either.

      1. Oh, come on now. The Archbishop of Canterbury has his hands full trying to re-write history by removing a statue from Jesus College.

          1. I think they’re doing a pretty good hatchet job on him. Particularly the ABC/Marxist whose grip on Christianity seems a bit..er…wobbly?

          2. Not only that, He did not condemn slavery and call for its abolition. They have already tried that one.

        1. Probably not until he gets carted off in his eco-friendly, carbon neutral, recycled, politically correct kneeling coffin. He’ll get a big shock when he finds the pearly gates firmly bolted shut.

    3. How delightful – could he not have just walked around her three times saying, ” I divorce thee.”?

      Or is that old burka’s tale?

        1. I believe the word is ‘lush’? What was the dafty doing getting tested? What a loony!

    2. Only a matter of time. It’s fashionable amongst ‘leaders’ to get convid, especially when the voters are getting wise to the scam of pointless ‘restrictions.’

      2. If he should have had both jabs and all available boosters then he will only get it a little bit, you know like getting a little bit pregnant.
        🐒

    5. Prince Charles goes down with Covid again!

      Why is it that all these people who have been vaccinated time and time again have gone down with Covid time and time again while people such as myself and Caroline who have dosed up with Vitamin D, Vitamin C and Zinc have only had Covid once and that very mildly? Anyone might conclude that the vaccinated are more at risk than the unvaccinated but to suggest such a thing would be counted and trying to spread criminal misinformation.

      1. Terrain theory…Ndovu posted a very interesting article by Dr Malcolm Kendrick below.

        Which of course begs the question, in what ways does the jab alter the terrain? only via the antibodies, or also in other ways?

      1. It looks genuine Sos but I am very wary of accessing Virgin info since it is usually impenetrable!

  64. Fuckwits,fuckwits everywhere,what a tone deaf decision!!

    “The UK’s only two shale wells are to be abandoned, ending more than a decade of controversy over fracking in this country.

    Energy company Cuadrilla said the UK Government’s Oil and Gas Authority(OGA)

    had ordered the two horizontal shale wells drilled at the Preston New

    Road site in Lancashire to be plugged and abandoned.

    The firm said it would permanently seal the shale gas wells, even as chief

    executive Francis Egan hit out at the move, claiming domestic shale gas

    could combat the cost-of-living crisis, create jobs, level up Red Wall

    areas and make the UK more energy secure.”

    https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/uk-news/2022/02/10/uks-only-shale-wells-to-be-abandoned-in-end-to-fracking-controversy/
    The Greeniacs are still firmly in control

    1. The Greeniacs may see the error of their ways when they are freezing to death in the dark. I hope.

  65. Afternoon all, I have just experienced the wonderful customer service WFH and Covid has brought to us.
    I needed to change some small details on my car insurance. To do this entailed setting up an online account, verifying said account, altering details, told unable to process altered details, partaking in online help chat facility, being told this needs manual intervention, phone call to number that was given to me on the chat facility, spoke to a nice lady but had to be transferred onto a different section, spoke to a nice man who told me details accepted, no wait he has a problem, he needs to speak to his supervisor, can he ring me back. Yes said I and gave him my number. 20 mins later the phone rang, all now OK, new documents in the post.
    It is a bloody good job I am all sweetness and calm in my demeanour otherwise I may feel a bit sharp and testy.
    Oh to cap the morning off, a visit to the dentist for myself and Mrs VVOF, £500 bill heading our way next month.
    😢

    1. What a day !

      Have you considered Denplan? Covers most things except Lab work for in my case £30 a month. I believe their is a discount if both you and your lady are on the same policy.

      1. Thank you for your suggestion, we do have a dental plan at the moment but I need to reconsider if it is suitable for us.

      1. Yes, the documents has got to beat the Royal Mail and get here before the matter is finished.

    4. I tried the SP “contact us” option on their website because they will insist on sending me an email demanding payment the day I’ve just paid the bill (normally the day after I’ve received it). The “bot” couldn’t cope with my request to change their software to take into account the “3-5 working days” they inform me it takes to receive payment and said did I want another option! No, I want you to stop hounding me for a bill I’ve already paid!

  66. Good afternoon. It worries me a lot that Biden has still got his Jan 6th prisoners in solitary without trial or contact. Wickedness is becoming normalized it seems.

    For anyone who has not seen the Mauritanian – a truthful account of the treatment of a Guantanamo prisoner who was released eventually I recommend it if you aren’t already maxxed out with disgust at official conduct.

    https://www.tarableu.com/normalization-of-torture-and-the-oubliette/,

  67. OT. A good example of how council tax is completely wasted. We live in a lane (what the council, for some reason – pals with signmakers, I expect – now call a “byway.”)

    There are many such lanes hereabouts. Alongside the road there are hedges. Behind the hedges are ditches. From the road to the ditches are gulleys. The idea is that the gulley carries surface water to the ditch – and thence to the famed River Stiffkey.

    Recently, the council has employed a contractor to “clear” the gulleys. Bloke with digger dug out three feet of earth – making a hole. Hundreds of them.

    Trouble is – the gulley needs to be dug out ALL THE WAY back to the ditch. Matey stopped half way.

    Result of this mega thousand £ contract = hundreds of holes – which fill with water – and, in heavy rain, flood back on to the road surface. The holey water seeps into the adjoining earth causing mud which, in turn, causes the holes to fill up. So after three months back to square one – and flooded roads.

    Ain’t progress wunnerful?

    3. I won’t sign it, because the HRA does not exist to protect us. It needs to be scrapped and Common Law restored, along with Habeas Corpus and the Bill of Rights.

  69. Despite 281,000 signatures on the petition to prosecute the black foopballer – Essex perlice are taking no action.

    Mustn’t appear to be harassing a black, can they?

    Just imagine if a white person had treated an animal that way. Six months in chokey minimum.

    1. Whilst I agree he should be prosecuted, I am very wary of prosecutions being determined by signatures on a petition.

      Looking at many of the posts on Nottle I am fairly sure 300,000 wokers could be found to sign a petition to prosecute many of us.

      2. There aren’t 300,000 wokers though. They think there’s masses of them. The vast majority of the population don’t care or when confronted, think it silly. What forces compliance is the thuggery and bullying Lefties use.

        1. Don’t you believe it.
          There are thousands upon thousands who would very happily report what is written on here as hate crimes.

          1. Yes, but there aren’t anywhere nearly as many as they think there are. Besides, those who are there need a punch in the face.

          3. The problem “normal” people have is that there are now so many aggrieved minorities, and all of them are pursuing their own agenda, but are more than happy to combine and attack the majority.

            The majority won’t do as you suggest, much as they may deserve it.

            I get great pleasure when they sometimes attack each other. Woke women vs tranny men being a particularly entertaining side show.

          4. Reminds me of that untranslatable German word, backpfeifengesicht – A face badly in need of a fist

    3. Or, taught an animal to give the german salute and put it on video. Charged, court and prison (although suspended I believe).

    4. Someone has calculated the loss of revenue to HMRC if he goes inside for six months – it probably amounts to £squillions….

  70. A quick groaner

    A man with a broken hand says to doctor, “Will I be able to play guitar after the operation on my hand?”

    The doctor says, “Yes of course.”
    “That’s great! I never could before.”

    Replace “Broken hand” with “New Hip” and

    “Play Guitar” with “Dance”

    and that is what I said to my Surgeon

    1. Oh dearrrrrr no stings attached eh !
      And he might be able to play snooker with acoustic………..

    2. Oh dearrrrrr no stings attached eh !
      And he might be able to play snooker with acoustic………..

    3. Reminds me….Many years ago, the surgeon who removed my son’s spleen in CT was mad about Scotland and anything Scots. He taught himself to play the pipes and owned a kilt. He told me this; he’d been on a trip to Scotland and was out near a loch, wearing his kilt and playing the pipes, when a car pulled up full of American tourists. They were thrilled to see a “genuine” Scotsman playing his pipes in native dress. He just kept playing as he didn’t have the heart to open his mouth and reveal himself as a fellow American.
      Such a nice man he was, wonderful with my son and had a great sense of humour. I gave him a copy of A Child’s Christmas in Wales as a small thank you.

  71. UK unwilling to provide information on Skripals even to allies, Russian envoy says. 10 February 2022.

    London has no plans to provide information – even to its allies – on the poisoning of former GRU Colonel Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia, which, according to the British authorities, took place in Salisbury in March 2018, Russian Ambassador to the UK Andrey Kelin told TASS on the eve of Diplomats’ Day marked on February 10.

    “Formally, we continue to do it (send requests to the British Foreign Office – TASS) though it’s perfectly clear that the British government has no plans to provide any information even to its allies, let alone us. This leads us to the simple conclusion that there is no such information at all,” the envoy pointed out.

    The UK’s reluctance to talk about the Skripals is only natural since they’ve had them murdered!

    https://tass.com/politics/1400073

    1. 1. Find town centre litter bin – preferably 4 months later.
      2. Rootle out unopened scent bottle.
      3. DON’T OPE …….. too late.

  72. Just been checking where we can use Tesco vouchers

    Get 20% off kids’ coding subscription

    Inspire the kids with Erase All Kittens,

    a new multi-award winning coding adventure game (produced by an out of work Wendyballer?)

  73. Hooray.
    The first cranes of the year have just flown over. Only 40 or 50 but they are the real harbingers of Spring here.

      1. It’s usually around Valentine’s day, but many were late leaving last year. I wonder whether the seasons are lengthening wherever it is they are heading and shortening at wherever it is they are coming from.

        I’ve been seeing butterflies all year round for a few years now and this year they have been even more prolific. I hope it is a side effect of my keeping the garden fairly wild, although it may well be climate change.

        1. I saw a lovely butterfly last week outside the front window. Lots of daffs in flower also and the birds are more visible. Still no sign of Head Squirrel Nutkin but, if it stays as mild, guess he’ll return from his hols in the Seychelles.

        1. I watched the barge cranes erect the towers on the QE II Bridge over the Thames at Dartford (Height (architectural 137.00 m)
          The bridge opened three weeks after I finished my daily commute through the tunnel.

          My photo shows a Liebherr Crane capable of a 200 ton lift.(I have a couple of Liebherr fridges!)

          4. Libel. “Slander said – libel written”

            I thought I was paying two compliments; one – for prudent recycling; two – for skilled sewing skills!

  75. I would like to thank you all for your kind words.

    I feel though that it has somewhat overshadowed Korky’s Birthday… so stop it !

    I should be home tomorrow evening. I might even take my laptop in with me to give you all a blow by blow account. Just need to ask the surgeon if he doesn’t mind multi-zooming….

    1. All the best, Phizzee. Your health is more important than an added year to some old chap’s age.

      2. Wait until tomorrow, then you’ll hear him crowing about another year added to some old chap’s age.

    2. Hope it all goes well. Will there be someone at home to look after you, if the hospital discharge you same day?
      Living alone is all very well but I miss the days of being cared for by nurse mum. She was a St John Ambulance volunteer with reserve nursing experience at the local hospital, bless her.

  76. It’s just been announced that HRH Charles has gone down with covid now. Oh well i’m sure he’ll manage.

    1. Or, put it another way, Charlie Boy has a cold.

      Or, put it another way, why on earth did the tosser “test” himself?

    2. Bill Gates and Claus Shwab have told him to ditch the useless vaccines and treat himself with Vitamin C, Vitamin D and Zinc instead.

    4. Send Charles into the HofC and tell him to breathe all over them. We’ll get on better if they all go into isolation.

  79. I’ve said it before, but I’m really glad I’m out of it. From the RN web page…

    From Wednesday 9th Feb there will be a new Network to act as a
    central point of contact for – and champion of – all issues relating to
    race and racial diversity across the Navy.

    The Royal Navy Race Diversity Network will be able to support its
    diverse membership and promote an inclusive culture across the Service.

    The network brings together the entire Royal Navy family – sailors,
    Royal Marines, civil servants, RFA – and pushes this agenda with a
    single united voice.

    Existing groups such as the Commonwealth Network will continue dealing
    with issues which affect RN personnel from overseas, such as visas,
    immigration and family matters while the Race Diversity Network will
    concentrate on race issues which affect people from the UK and
    elsewhere. Because the uncomfortable truth is that discrimination exists in our society we can’t,
    and we shouldn’t, shy away from that.

    So, the network aims to encourage and reinforce commanders’ confidence in taking action and engender a culture of anti-racism

    2. Discrimination exists for as long as we define people by labels. It will exist as long as diversity nonsense exists.

    3. The RAF may not have set up a network (or it may have by now; I’ve been a bit out of touch with current service life “due to Covid”), but diversity etc posters have been all over No 1 Radio School for at least four years.

    5. If they’ve so much spare time and spare personnel to compose this type of thing, you’d expect them to be able to make their destroyers seaworthy.

  80. I’ve said it before, but I’m really glad I’m out of it. From the RN web page…

    From Wednesday 9th Feb there will be a new Network to act as a
    central point of contact for – and champion of – all issues relating to
    race and racial diversity across the Navy.

    The Royal Navy Race Diversity Network will be able to support its
    diverse membership and promote an inclusive culture across the Service.

    The network brings together the entire Royal Navy family – sailors,
    Royal Marines, civil servants, RFA – and pushes this agenda with a
    single united voice.

    Existing groups such as the Commonwealth Network will continue dealing
    with issues which affect RN personnel from overseas, such as visas,
    immigration and family matters while the Race Diversity Network will
    concentrate on race issues which affect people from the UK and
    elsewhere. Because the uncomfortable truth is that discrimination exists in our society we can’t,
    and we shouldn’t, shy away from that.

    So, the network aims to encourage and reinforce commanders’ confidence in taking action and engender a culture of anti-racism

  82. I see that the Physios have cancelled their conference due to covid disruptions and pressures on front line staff.
    So much for it’s all over.

  83. “Wales’ First Minister Mark Drakeford has tested positive for coronavirus and is self-isolating, the Welsh government has said.
    The news comes a day before Mr Drakeford was due to announce his latest review of coronavirus legislation.”

    I mustn’t laugh. No – seriously I mustn’t laugh. Look ….. I m trying really, really, really trying not to laugh.
    Bwah hah hah hah haaaahhhhhhhhhhhh …. (gasp) ….. bwaaaahhhhhhhhh …….. (wipes eyes, dabs mascara) …… Bwhaaahhhhhh …..

    (Blame the birthday lunch for the lack of control.)

      1. could be. All the articles seem to avoid saying the actual word. Mimsy, mealie mouthed nancies..

  85. Should Sergei Lavrov taken the piss like that?
    He managed to make a fool of her, asking whether she recognised Russian sovereignty over the Voronezh and Rostov regions (where the Russian forces are currently deployed). She probably thought he was talking about the areas of eastern Ukraine that are held by separatists, and said Great Britain would never recognise Russian sovereignty over those regions.

    1. Gotta get up early to be ahead of Putin and his crowd. Not be some half-arsed, mostly unbriefed eejit.

    2. He read that report last week where she didn’t know the difference between the Black and Baltic Seas so he set a trap just to see how smart she was. She’s a dummy. Imagine wanting to talk about really serious matters like Geopolitics and War and Peace and finding out that you are talking to a moron!

    3. My siblings are well aware that our paternal grandparents were born, raised, married in and left Odessa without having heard of a place called Ukraine but take the rise out of me for being pedantic about the use of the name.
      Vladimir Putin has told these idiot politicos the history of the region but they have an agenda and are untroubled by facts.

  86. A very pleasant, if rather cold and very windy, walk around Carsington reservoir today. I was however very annoyed to see that, from January 2022, Severn Trent have decided to impose parking charges on Blue Badge holders – money grubbing gits!

  87. Re today’s headline:

    ‘Smart Meters’ would better be called Remote Controlled Rationing Devices …

    And ‘Smart Motorways’ would better be called Motorways With Inbuilt Suicide Lane …

    1. There’s a series of children’s books called Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey. Always made me think of Major. Personally, I wouldn’t have bought them for my library, I inherited them.

      1. “I eat my peas with honey;
        I’ve done it all my life.
        It makes the peas taste funny
        But it keeps them on my knife.”

      1. In this case does Major have the ridiculous hope that if Johnson goes it may be possible to reverse Brexit?

        1. That was why traitors such as Hilary Benn, Dominic Grieve, Mrs Yvette Balls and others were so determined to ensure that No deal was not an option.

          With an 80 seat majority the very first thing Johnson should have done was to put NO DEAL very clearly and firmly back on the table. Had he done so there would be no N Ireland Protocol and No distressed British fisherfolk.

          JRM must get us out of the N Ireland Protocol soonest and, if necessary, go for WTO terms. There must not be even the slightest crack under the door for remainers to try and sneak back in by.

    3. Wasn’t it IDS who was the quiet man and Major who was and still is the w*nker?

      I cannot imagine there was much fun to be had for Ms Currie from fornicating with this miserable piece of muck.

    4. Oh do go away Sir John. You are irrelevant and weeks behind the outraged protests.

      Why aren’t you protesting about our loss of freedoms, lack of consultation with dissenting scientists, grooming gangs, continuation of Covid restrictions without even bothering to vote on them … and so much more. Just go away.

    5. Major and Currie – two, plain, unattractive, unappealing people – who served each other right; and who betrayed their spouses.

      Just the sort of tosser to be giving lectures on ethical standards.

  89. France are going ahead with building new nuclear power plants. Six new ones, and possibly a further eight. Over the coming years electricity production will increase by 60% including renewables and nuclear.
    What are electricity prices in France like there days? Lower than in the UK? So the French government (EDF) may charge UK citizens the market rate in the UK – extortionate and crippling – while prices in France are likely to fall? Why has Macron not died laughing?

    2. Just like over here. Ontario charges us a fortune for electricity and sells excess power to new york at low prices.

      The political minds couldn’t think it through and see that this would encourage our industry to move down to new york to receive the cheaper power.

    3. Apparently, the French Civil Service – unlike ours – incudes a significant number of engineers and scientists; this may explain in part the more rational French policy on nuclear power generation.

          1. I do recall my best French mate (a prof in a Lycée) – who died far too young – being astonished that the MR was expected to work to 65!!

    4. French electricity rates are crippling, too. The kWh rate is variable (depending on the time of day and the time of year) and ranges from 8.62€ cents (night-time, summer) and 54.86€ cents (day peak time, horrible winter’s day).

      On top of that is the monthly subscription fee which depends on the size of the installation.

      And then you add VAT.

      And then you double it: and that’s your bill.

      EDF employees have free electricity in their main residence. They also have their own holiday centres (similar to the Club Med where they can go with their families at highly subsidised (by us!) prices.

      1. 54.86€ cents? Wow, that is really exorbitant. At the moment we are receiving a reduced (because of covid, blah, blah) rate of 8 cents (Canadian dollars at that).

        Of course they add in distribution costs, debt repayment costs and sales taxes on top of the advertised bargain.

      3. IIRC, senior French govt functionaries have, or used to have, the use of grace&favour apartments at Versailles.

  91. This is disgusting, some of the copied tweeted comments below.

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/police-probe-after-two-white-tailed-eagles-reintroduced-to-england-found-dead/ar-AATHfiN?ocid=msedgntp

    Steve Jones
    @SteveCJjones
    ·
    6h
    Replying to
    @dorsetpolice
    and
    @SeaEagleEngland
    This is so sad. I’m on the Isle of Wight and here we love our eagles. If this is shown to be illegal killings by anyone in the shooting community I hope the perpetrators are dealt with severely. How could anyone do this?
    Steve Randall 💙
    @TheSteveRandall
    ·
    2h
    Both found on game bird shooting estates………
    Graham Claxton
    @claxton_graham
    ·
    6h
    Replying to
    @dorsetpolice
    and
    @SeaEagleEngland
    I can’t believe this, if illegally killed I hope everything is done to find the culprits and bring them to justice

    2. If? These bastards need stringing up! And please don’t tell me that nobody knows who did it. These cretins will be out there boasting about it!

      1. Around ten years ago on a dog walk our lab sniffed out the body of a sparrow hawk. I know someone who worked in the h
        Hawk and o
        Owl Trust.
        I told him about it and went back later to collect the body. He got in touch with the police, my photo of the dead bird made our local paper and the police sorted out the perpetrators. As is suggested in this incident, it was close to a breeding area for grouse.
        Some one else I know was told by a farmer in the same area to keep his dog on a lead or he would shoot it, if it disturbed the birds. I know what I would have done.

        1. If your dog is worrying livestock (or disturbing ground nesting birds) the landowner is within his rights to shoot it.

          1. Surely not on a public footpath or a green way Conners
            Anyway the famer is a bit of an AH, he has tried several times to block access to the footpaths and the Green way, but it Okay to use it for his mates 4×4 fun and games. I would say it was one of his helpers or him who shot the bird it was on a foot path next to the farmland.

          2. You should still have your dog under control on a public footpath. Strictly speaking, you only have the right to walk on the designated right of way and not stray from it.

          3. For much of the year, we have a requirement for the dog to be on a leash, so it doesn’t hunt the wildlife.

          4. I understand what you mean but our dog would harm a fly and most other peoples dogs are the same. Perhaps there are dogs let loose that cause problems, but i feel more in harms way of cyclists on our local footpaths.

    3. Press report says that one carcass was found at the tail-end of last month.
      It must have been a wind turbine or bird flu, because the carcase was intact.
      In the Bodmin area, roadkill is a delicacy,

      1. If the bodies are left to decompose in a controlled environment, the shot gun pellets will fall out.

  92. This is disgusting, some of the copied tweeted comments below.

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/police-probe-after-two-white-tailed-eagles-reintroduced-to-england-found-dead/ar-AATHfiN?ocid=msedgntp

    Steve Jones
    @SteveCJjones
    ·
    6h
    Replying to
    @dorsetpolice
    and
    @SeaEagleEngland
    This is so sad. I’m on the Isle of Wight and here we love our eagles. If this is shown to be illegal killings by anyone in the shooting community I hope the perpetrators are dealt with severely. How could anyone do this?
    Steve Randall 💙
    @TheSteveRandall
    ·
    2h
    Both found on game bird shooting estates………
    Graham Claxton
    @claxton_graham
    ·
    6h
    Replying to
    @dorsetpolice
    and
    @SeaEagleEngland
    I can’t believe this, if illegally killed I hope everything is done to find the culprits and bring them to justice

    1. This is the US? I don’t think it is legal in the UK for a child to get that sort of surgery. I can’t imagine any NHS doctor signing it off. That is why the Mermaids founder took her child to Thailand(?) to get castrated when the child in question was 16.

    2. Whom so ever allowed this to happen MUST be prosecuted
      The Wokists will just say it was all of ‘its own’ choosing and that is at it should be

    4. The photo has a ‘Stateside’ look about it, BoB; if this happened in the UK, all those involved in advice and ‘treatment’ should be locked up …

  94. A blonde goes into a nearby store and asks a clerk if she can buy the TV in the corner.
    The clerk looks at her and says that he doesn’t serve blondes, so she goes back home and dyes her hair black.
    The next day she returns to the store and asks the same thing, and again, the clerk said he doesn’t serve blondes.
    Frustrated, the blonde goes home and dyes her hair yet again, to a shade of red.
    Sure that a clerk would sell her the TV this time, she returns and asks a different clerk this time.
    To her astonishment, this clerk also says that she doesn’t serve blondes.
    The blonde asks the clerk, “How in the world do you know I am a blonde?”
    The clerk looks at her disgustedly and says,
    “That’s not a TV, it’s a microwave!”

  95. That’s me for today. Lovely sunshine – making a very nice, warm house; but a very cold wind when venturing out to dispose of the empties.

    A new jigsaw. Looks fun. We watched on playback last evening part one of a play about a hospital doctor in 2006. To my surprise – it wasn’t half bad. “This Is Going to Hurt.” – BBC1 – Tuesdays.

    Bits of it were a touch improbable – but some of it was pretty close to reality, judging from my experience in the NNUH in Aug 2019 (was it really THAT long ago???.

    I’d be glad to hear what our beloved nurses (the Pushy One and the Gorgeous One) thought about it. I understand the reluctance professionals may have about watching something supposed to be about their way of life. I have always avoided any plays etc about solicitors. Only Rumpole gets my vote!

    Anyway…Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

          7. What Molamola said…

            When I moved here, the place was full of compact fluorescent lamps, some of which made the room darker when switched on.

            I don’t have many rooms, so I bought smart wifi bulbs from Amazon. I can control them with Alexa, and they’re variable from warm to cool white. Or whatever colour you desire.

          8. As a matter of idle curiosity I had a quick wander around the lower floor of chateau sosraboc, counting light bulbs in fittings and side lamps.

            I stopped at 100, no wonder our electricity bill is so high. HG turns them on, I turn them off.

          9. I still go around turning lights off – although now there are fewer left on than when MOH was alive! My electricity bill was actually £5 cheaper this month (i e January’s consumption) than before Christmas. Perhaps that reflects the lighter evenings, because apart from the computer, the main use is lighting.

          10. Invariably my mother would have four lamps on, the 6 rose ceiling light and the alcove light things.

            She would then complain she cannot see the TV. Stupid woman.

          11. Always look for the description “warm white” for the lamp as opposed to “cool white”, that would probably suit you better.

        2. And trip the whole consumer unit – so one has to pad around in the dark trying to remember where the torch is…

          1. Yup. Been there. It’s totally random; one of those ‘safety measures’ that make life more hazardous.

  99. Masterly BTL comment from the DM; guess the subject under discussion!
    “John Major, Britain’s answer to Marshal Petain, the man who brought you the cones hotline, government by brown-envelope, and who sold the country down the river by signing the Maastricht Treaty behind everyone’s back, without even a pretence of democracy, deciding for himself what was good for the British people, and calling those in his own cabinet who disagreed with him a bunch of b*’#~$s. Then there was the ERM disaster, 3.3 billion because he knew better than anyone else. Never was a prime minister so inept, going from one stupid decision to another. So just pi$$ off out of it, you despicable, traitorous Euro-quisling. And if I had done it with Edwina Currie and anyone found out about it, I would be so embarrassed, I would not want to be seen in public without a bag over my head, never mind drawing attention to myself with ridiculous pontifications. The man obviously has no shame.”

  101. A big THANK YOU to all Nottlers for the good wishes on my birthday.It’s been an enjoyable day.

    I’ve looked and I’ve looked, as a certain politico would say, and I haven’t found a comment I’ve failed to answer. If, by chance, I have missed someone, please accept this as my grateful response.

    ‘See’ you all tomorrow.

    1. He made billions for Soros who has likely bunged him a few million to pipe up at this juncture.

      Major is hardly a beacon of integrity in public office. He stabbed Thatcher in the front, gave us 17% interest rates by shadowing the Deutschmark and allowing the German banks to pull the rug on us, shagged Currie over a desk in the office and undermined his own government by calling half of his cabinet ‘bastards’.

    2. “WHEN the curtain falls, it is time to get off the stage.”

      With those words, Mr John Major resigned the Tory leadership after taking his party to its worst poll defeat for 165 years.

      Twenty-five years later, he hasn’t got off the stage.

      He’s an embarrassing hypocrite …

      3. About bloody time! Now will they appoint someone who can actually do the job or just another twit who upticks boxes.

          1. I think it will be either a black, asian or some other ethnic or female poser. Conners, I am a woman and have never had any doubts of that.
            My belief in life is that the BEST person for the job should get the job. That doesn’t seem to count nowadays.

          2. I am with you all the way. I’ve always felt that someone promoted because of fitting some profile should feel demeaned at not having won on merit.

          4. The previous but one employer here in Norway put in place a policy to favour women in the promotion stakes. Many of the female engineers were outraged – one said to me that she wanted to get on because she was good, not because she sat down to pee.

    3. If Khan got rid of her then he thinks who comes next will be better for him. God help us if he’s right.

    3. Let us hope that she is replaced by a tough bull buggering copper of the old school, not some limp wristed coward more interested in promoting political correctness and diversity.

      2. Let us send a team of Nottlers, to Sweden, to kidnap Mr Grizzle and bring him back to UK and make him HoM

        Head of Meat (excuse the typo)

          1. Grizz, you are like the policeman, who caught me scrumping apples , in the 1950’s

            He said ‘Apples taste better when scrumped, but you will not be doing it here again, will you?’

            I said “No”

            Then bastard pinched one of my apples

            I loved that sort of life, it prepared “Notler like folk” for the future

          2. The only time that went scrumping, along with a group of contemporary urchins, I was the one urged to climb the tree and chuck the apples down to the others. They didn’t alert me as they scarpered when the owner caught us, and I was left alone up his tree! He got me the throw down the apples in my pockets before letting me go with a ticking off ringing in my ears. When I got back to my cowardly “mates” I found they had eaten all the apples and left me none. That was my one and only scrumping episode.

          4. Grizz, you are like the policeman, who caught me scrumping apples , in the 1950’s

            He said ‘Apples taste better when scrumped, but you will not be doing it here again, will you?’

            I said “No”

            Then bastard pinched one of my apples

            I loved that sort of life, it prepared “Notler like folk” for the future

  106. To all those celebrating the detumescence of the Dick, what’s cumming will be Bamer, queerer and worse.

    1. Yes, people should be careful what they wish for. They’ve got it but may find what comes next to be even worse.

  107. Well while no big fan of Dick of the Yard, has she been dedicked because she wouldn’t prosecute Boris?

    1. I don’t like her, but IMO she’s done what a sensible person would in her position: do a proper investigation and limit the damage that leaked information could do to potential prosecutions. Furthermore, the DPP is responsible for prosecution decisions, not her.

    2. I don’t think so. I would hope it’s because she is a complete waste of space and useless at her job.
      Nah! Just a guess!

  108. So a Mayor that is only there because of his religion boots out a police commissioner that is only there because of her sexual preferences while both are totally unfit for purpose.

  110. Evening, all. I have to say that if the headline letter writer has only just realised that, he or she (or it,ze or they) is very slow on the uptake!

    1. Earlier, I wrote:

      Re today’s headline:

      ‘Smart Meters’ would better be called Remote Controlled Rationing Devices …

      And ‘Smart Motorways’ would better be called Motorways With Inbuilt Suicide Lane …

    1. One word was left out of that statement…Islamaphobia. I read that elsewhere. Sod these people.

    3. I think Khan needs to shut his racist, sexist, homophobic bullying mouth.

      The rat faced verminous only got elected because of demographic effluent is sewage.

    5. Being a Muslim which, by its nature is, racist, sexist, homophobic and bullying, doesn’t he feel a teeny-weeny bit hypocritical?

  113. Without putting too much of a dampener on Dick’s departure, isn’t there an even more senior position in the offing that Whoregan Hyphen is after.?

  114. Dick has resigned?

    Could the scum Khan go next – ideally dragged behind the landrover he forces us to pay for, and slapped with the congestion charge he hiked.

    1. That’s our Capital City down the sink , well and truly . Who on earth would have thaought an Asian bus driver’s son could be one of the most influential . non Christian Labour party wallahs with so much self vanity, have so much sayso in the biggest cityy in Britain ..
      We have been sold out .. London resembles an AUGEAN STABLE.

      2. It’s one of those programmes – and they are many – which the media and the likes of Richard Osman reference at the drop of a hat (invariably as ‘Brilliant’) yet which has no interest from the GBP.

        Luvvie circle jerk-dom at its finest, in other words.

  121. Today I watched my final foreign language film: LA VIE EN ROSE, which is a fabulous film on the life of Edith Piaf starring Marion Cottilard as the great Piaf. I have found three more foreign language films on YouTube to watch on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. From Monday I might end the month with films starring Judi Dench or perhaps some directed by David Lean. In the meantime Good Night, everyone.

      1. No, corinmobile, LA VIE EN ROSE is a 2007 film. The film you saw in 1974 was called PIAF, also known as PIAF: The Early Years. The earlier film was not universally considered to be that good; the later film is regarded as a real classic. If you can get a copy to watch you will not regret it.

    1. From across the pond, Phizzee! Hope all goes well today and you can celebrate your birthday in style as you would, as soon as you are able. Best wishes, take care and behave!!

  123. Cressida Dick’s father, Marcus Dick, was a distinguished philosopher at Oxford before moving to UEA where he became Professor of Philosophy and Dean of Students. One of my best friends at UEA, Richard Sandbrook, was president of the Students’ Union in 1967/68 and he spoke very highly of Marcus Dick.

    Cressida was born in 1960 so she would have been a little girl when I went to UEA as a student in 1966.

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