Sunday 13 February: The unintended consequences of energy suppliers’ smart meter coercion

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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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.

529 thoughts on “Sunday 13 February: The unintended consequences of energy suppliers’ smart meter coercion”

      1. Morning M&M (Michael & Minty).

        It seems to me BoJoe are doing their level insane best to Muzzle up to Vlad…..Let’s hope it’s just theatre and doesn’t turn into a theatre of war…

        1. I kno Nuffink. It seems sound to me that all UK troops are being withdrawn from Ukraine as we speak. Why were they sent there in the first place?

          3. To confirm that, just like Afghanistan, Ukraine is a basket-case and not worth the loss of a single squaddie?

          4. To confirm that, just like Afghanistan, Ukraine is a basket-case and not worth the loss of a single squaddie?

      2. Morning Citroen. Happy to oblige!

        Ukraine’s President demands US evidence Russia ‘plans to invade on Wednesday. 13 february 2022.

        Mr Zelensky was asked on Saturday whether he agreed with the purported assessment that a Russian invasion is now imminent. He said Kyiv must ‘study all the information we receive very carefully and be ready for all possible risks’.

        The Ukrainian President sought to play down the reports, saying: ‘If you have additional, 100% certain information about a Russian invasion of Ukraine, please share it with us. We are aware of all risks and we realise the risks are there.’

        This poor sap is at the Centre of the Storm and yet they haven’t bothered to tell him, which gives you some idea of its credibility. He is of course just a stooge here. They are going to pull his country down around his ears and blame him for it afterwards!

        https://metro.co.uk/2022/02/12/ukraines-president-demands-us-evidence-russia-plans-to-invade-on-wednesday-16095832/

        2. I see the Telegaffe today is suggesting that Vlad will mount a “false flag” event to justify his invasion. I have no real time for Russia but it seems to me that any such event is more likely to be set up by “our” side?

          1. Morning Bleau. Yes we have a history of it from Iraq and Libya to the Skripal Business. No Lie knowingly Ignored!

          2. Nobody trusts any of the politicians any more and none of the politicians trust each other.

  2. The Graphic posted below reminded me of Ozymandias:

    I met a traveller from an antique land (C20th)
    Who said: “Some vast and useless tomes of code
    Rot in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
    Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
    And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
    Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
    Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
    The hand that moused them, and the heart that fled:
    And on a PC these words appear:
    ‘My name is BillyGates, king of kings:
    Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
    Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
    Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
    The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

    (With Apols to PB Shelley)

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ed61c3c9427f669c683daa6f1fbe6600bcd6e8e774187b20776da07dd967f1e7.png

  3. Good morning, everyone.

    If you read my final post last night (and my reply to Stig) you will see why yesterday was such a dire day for me.

    1. Morning Elsie. No reports online about Satnav problems so yours (sorry) were probably self generated!

      1. Well, Sue, when I normally key in the destination or its postcode, the map I need appears. Not on this occasion.

      2. I find that consulting a map whilst driving on a motorway might lead to slight mishaps! :-))

        1. That’s why I make a route card, clearly printed and in large type/printing.
          example
          M1 to J28; Left onto A38 towards Derby
          2 miles Jn with A61; Right towards Alfreton
          200 yards; LEFT onto A615 MATLOCK

          etc

    3. This is an insulting suggestion, but as you keyed in the post code, did you use ‘O’ rather than ‘0″?
      MB did that once; since then, I have watched him very carefully.

      2. Not at all insulting, Annie. Every time I had to key in the destination (which was virtually again and again and again) I made sure that I wrote it in correctly. And the postcode was CB11 4PF, so no zeroes in the code. Also, from time to time I tried “Audley End” which is also devoid of zeroes and and letter Os.

    4. I hardly ever use mine because I suspect it never updates.
      We once had the splendid instruction:
      “Please consult a map”

      Around here many of the roads are so minor that they don’t even feature on the screen and we have been told to return to the highway.

      1. Google Maps, on the phone. Directions, voice and even traffic problems.
        And – it’s free with the phone. And updated.

        1. …and works in all countries – I’ve used mine in Tasmania – no problem (no worries cobber).

  4. Russia plots ‘false flag’ attack to provoke war with Ukraine. 13 February 2022.

    Vladimir Putin is planning a “false flag” event as a pretext for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine as soon as Wednesday, Britain believes, as the Defence Secretary indicated that diplomatic efforts could be no more than a “straw man”.

    A Whitehall source said the Kremlin was believed to be preparing to “create the circumstances” in which it could justify an invasion on the grounds that Russian troops were “responding to Ukrainian or Western aggression”.

    Judging by the amount of disinformation, propaganda and the principle of Get Your Accusations in First we are preparing to attack Russia.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/02/12/russia-plots-false-flag-attack-provoke-war-ukraine/

  5. ‘Morning, Peeps, from a sizzling 6°C on yer sarf coast.

    Electricity rationing via smart meters is still exercising DT letter writers:

    SIR – It was obvious that sales of electric vehicles would reduce sales of petrol and diesel, resulting in a drop in fuel duty.

    This source of income has to be replaced. Road pricing is too unpopular and the cost of the infrastructure and metering is yet another green burden on the taxpayer.

    The answer is – surprise, surprise – surge pricing via a smart meter. Plug in an EV and pay extra due to the increased load and time of day or night. How long before you cannot buy an EV unless you have a smart meter?

    Tony Foot
    Mosterton, Dorset

    It could be worse than that, Tony Foot: your shiny and hideously expensive EV could be raided for power if plugged in at a time of high demand, leaving you with a less than full ‘tank’ for that long journey. It’s okay, though; you will be paid for what they steal without even asking you. So that’s alright then. Siphoning fuel from a conventional vehicle is theft!

    1. It’s worse than that: I saw a report that they are considering forcing a tracker onto all vehicles. Road pricing and surveillance all in one!

      1. Considering? Already major cities in the UK, speed traps, and quite a few supermarket car parks have numberplate recognition facilities and a network of checkpoints. Couple that with smartphone tracking will place the driver at the same location as the vehicle. The Chinese already have face recognition software attached to CCTV, which are ubiquitous in the UK and easily upgraded.

        All done for your security of course.

        My answer is to keep my Nokia 1100 offline nearly all the time, and to have the sort of beard that cannot be recognised as a face by any current algorithm. I have already tested the latter when my passport photographs were thrown out for that reason, and had to be verified by a real person.

        Numberplate recognition has been around long enough for them to get wise over strategic lumps of mud or stray bits of gaffer tape. Besides, there are not many vehicles left with a D-prefix, and even the old X999 XXX format stands out against the newer XX99 XXX.

          1. A number of years ago I persuaded some relatives that paying the fee for keeping their plate each time they changed the car was worthwhile.
            It’s an XXX number and the “5” can easily be an “S”, so it makes a fairly common set of initials. I’m guessing it must be quite valuable now.

        2. Your phone still connects to the mast whether it is switched on or not. They are still tracking you.

        1. certainly many hire cars & vans are fitted with trackers; but are they retrofitted or is it done as part of the assembly process?
          To give you an idea as to how sensitive, a working friend moved a vehicle a few yards to gain better access outside the workshop. It was an expensive car stored on a trailer. That prompted an anxious call from the owner away in London, not sure if the Police arrived.

  6. SIR – The news that energy suppliers are to use smart meters as a means of charging higher tariffs at times of peak demand comes as no surprise.

    Presumably this is to encourage consumers to switch to times of less demand. But if a substantial number do exactly that, the result will be that these periods become periods of increased demand – and so the merry-go-round of higher charges and consumers changing their habits will begin again, never to stop.

    Alan Phizacklea
    Marlborough, Wiltshire

    And I am willing to bet that the reduced rate at times of low demand will be minimal when compared to the increase at peak times – or am I just an old cynic who, like many here, has been round the block a few times??

    2. “Rising wholesale prices” is the standard ploy for upping prices and getting rid of troublesome competition, cornering the market for the Cartel. They call this “Free Trade” and is enshrined as an Article of Faith by the transatlanticist metropolitan Right lobby. If you don’t like paying the extra, just get another loan – they’re cheap enough.

      I don’t think even our native oligarchs have the chutzpah to put them up three-fold, hoping the stupid plebs wouldn’t notice. So, it might have been a strategic ploy to dismantle the capacity of a prospective enemy to do much militarily about “hard management decisions” when sorting out a tricky problem with the neighbours. It’s amazing what siphoning the spot market towards bitcoin generation in Manchuria will do to supply & demand.

      I wonder who has such a stranglehold over energy supply and distribution to be able to achieve this?

      Our solution is to let them walk all over us, and concentrate our attention onto who’s winning Strictly, and whether they have been vetted for correct diversity.

  7. SIR – What are working people meant to do when they are not at home during the day? Even those who are don’t want to cook and eat their meals at off-peak times. And the evening is when most people want to relax in front of the television.

    Octopus has suggested that people run appliances during the day, but it could be dangerous to do so. I have had a tumble dryer start to spew out smoke, and a washing machine begin to leak. Luckily I was at home both times – but many wouldn’t have been.

    Marcia MacLeod
    London NW6

    Wise words, Marcia MacLeod. I started my ‘on the road’ career in claims investigation on domestic losses, and I can still recall several devastating house fires resulting from the malfunctioning of appliances left on with no one at home. Although I imagine that washing machines and tumble dryers are generally more reliable now, fires are still being reported. And walking into the remains of a house gutted by fire was a chilling experience, which is why I never leave such appliances unattended.

    1. I’m not sure they are more reliable. Whirlpool used to be a trusted brand.

      he
      machines can be dangerous because excess fluff can catch in the heating
      element and cause a fire. At fault Whirlpool machines – which includes
      those produced under the brands Creda, Hotpoint, Indesit, Proline, and Swan – have been blamed for at least 750 fires over the past 11 years.

      Whirlpool finally names the 627 tumble dryers models which could catch fire.

      1. Don’t forget Beko’s part in this problem, they topped the list of attributable fires, and theirs were not confined to washing machines and tumble dryers – they had the dubious distinction of producing some dodgy fridge-freezers and dishwashers too.

      2. Firstly, how are you Phil?
        Hotpoint/Whirlpool replaced my tumble drier although there was nothing wrong with it

  8. SIR – Cressida Dick has resigned as the Metropolitan Police chief, after Sadiq Khan said he has no confidence in her.

    This is the same Mayor of London whose financial mismanagement of the city’s transport has brought it to its knees. And the same mayor whose enthusiasm for locking us down has done the same for many businesses.

    I have no confidence in him – so will he please do London a favour and step down too?

    Mark Osland
    Outwood, Surrey

    Only one slight problem, matey: Outwood is not within Khan’s empire…but I understand your point.

    1. Sadiq Khan is what you get when an electorate is stupid enough to throw out Boris Johnson. Surely it couldn’t happen again?

  9. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a27c497dedfa2a3e15fe44f325c79934b2445c5d42178f5ea8e0cd9adcf7bfa8.png Where be Maggie when she be needed? Here be a traditional Dorset recipe for they knobs:

    Albert The Tall’s Dorset Knobs

    This yer recipe has bin ‘anded down fur genrations, the knobs do be ‘andy biscuits, specially fur them nurdling folk, ’tis said in days of yore ’twas traditional to serve ’em knobs ‘afore a Nurdling Tourney, swilled down with ale or mead, so as to give the lads somethin’ to run on. They be jus’ the job for a snack any time o’ day or nite. Our grandpa was wont to dunk ‘is in tea to soften ’em up a bit, on account of his havin’ so few teeth.

    In the same manner as our Cornwall cousins an’ thar pasties, these victuals were good and tough for taking to work or war, as thems would last an age. If baked three times, rather than twice – known as triscuits instead o’ biscuits – twas said he could knock a man out at ten paces if hurled with enough vigour.

    In living memory a parlour game were known whereby contestants did scoff at a large bowl of knobs, the winner being him who did eat the most ‘afore choking on them pesky crumbs.

    ‘Tis said traditional Dorsetshire bakers did make these knobs at the end of the day, by sweeping up all the spilled flour and other droppings and making a dough with a touch of sugar and butter, then leaving them in the cooling oven ’till morning time, when they would do fur breakfast.

    Moores bakers do make these commercially and you do get a very pretty tin fur yur money, but they do be all the same size and hardness, not suitable for some occassions.

    Ingredients
    {These amounts may be doubled up if a larger batch is needed}

    6 oz strong plain flour
    6 oz plain flour
    1 oz caster sugar
    1 oz butter
    Yeast
    6 fl oz water (skin hot)

    Method

    Mix together flours and sugar, rub in butter.
    If using real live yeast mix it in water and leave to bubble, then tip into bowl.
    If using new fangled dried yeast then put that in flour bowl and then be adding the water afterwards.
    Knead soft dough til tis smooth as a baby’s behind.
    Turn out and roll out into coils, as thick as yer biggest digit, or yer good mans, chop they up into about inch lumps, depending on how large they are to be eaten.
    Round up into balls and put he round on a greased and floured baking tray, let they be fur three quarters of an hour. Then put they in an hot oven (450 F, 230 C, Gas Mark 8) for quarter of an hour or less, half ways through that time swap the trays round top to bottom of oven and watch out they don’t turn too brown or even set alight {Great Uncle Alfred were famous for that}.
    Turn out and pull apart thems whats got too close and turn they bottom side up.
    Turn down heat til its hardly worth the fuel and leave for a couple of hours til baked through nice and crunchy like.
    Hide away in a tin when cold.
    Best served on special occasions with Blue Vinney Cheese.

    Albert The Tall
    Upwey, Dorsetshire.

    1. The BTL comment section wouldn’t accept the word ‘knob’. Or possibly ‘inbreeding’ triggered its sensitive side.

  10. Why not re-erect the statue of Edward Colston and topple it once a year?

    Some of the best reactions, however, came from those respondents who offered compromise solutions, novel ways of keeping both statue-dunkers and pearl-clutchers happy. One of these suggested that the statue be split in two, “with one half of it returned to the plinth and the other half thrown back in the river”. Best of all, perhaps, was the proposition that “(after updating the plinth with an accurate plaque) we put Colston back up. Then once every year on the anniversary of his toppling we have a festival where we pull him down again and ceremonially throw him in the river.” What’s not to like?

    Why don’t we put it back up permanently where it belongs? For good or ill Colston is a part of our history. Even if he were a monster (which he was not) it is not the part of a vanishingly small minority to insist on his removal.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/12/why-not-reerect-statue-edward-colston-and-topple-once-a-year

    2. Morning!

      The same people who condemn the likes of Colston and Rhodes will happily take dirty money from Gates and Soros, whose global reach and malign intent has done harm on a scale our ancestors would never have believed possible. One can only hope that future historians will judge accordingly.

    3. The monsters are those who took down the statue, those who watched and did nothing, and those who absolved the criminals of blame.

  11. Good morning all.
    A mild but damp 4°C start this morning.

    And my sympathy to Elsie for the wasted journey! Though I do have concerns about using a Tw@Nav for directions!
    I tend to use a route planning map for the general route, taking notes onto a Route card, and, if I have the relevant 50thou map in my collection, take that with me for the final approach.

    1. Morning Bob. You can of course use Google Maps and access its photograpic coverage of routes for any awkward spots!

      1. The only computerised navigation aid I use is Streetmap.co.uk which is based OS maps, including the 10 & 25 thou scales.

        I have, on occasion, loaded a couple of maps of the destination, 50 or 25 thou and one of the larger scale street plans, onto my laptop to refer to in needed.
        Usually I don’t need to!

    2. Morning Bob. You can of course use Google Maps and access its photograpic coverage of routes for any awkward spots!

  12. Morning all, rain knocking on the door in 20 mins so they tell me. A day for jobs around the house methinks.

    1. Good morning. Advice please. Should i be particularly concerned about a rather large haematoma?

      1. If you’re on blood thinners (warfarin etc) I wouldn’t worry too much.

        They appear at random on my arms and hands sometimes small and often quite large.

        Photograph it and next time you go for a blood test, ask the phlebotomist about it.

          1. Not forgotten, hence trying to alleviate worry. Even heperin, used for operations may cause bruising.

          2. There are times when worrying about something and taking action is actually the more sensible course.

          3. I looked on the BUPA site about haematoma. I’m not going to go through all the rigmarole of 111.
            If it doesn’t look like it is getting better in the next two days i will call my Consultant.

            I think it just looks worse than it is.

          3. When I had my hernias done, with the conventional op, not keyhole, a particular and important organ (Well important to me) ended up very discoloured all over! Lasted a couple of months.

          5. I’m on anti-coagulants and puncture wounds bruise out of all proportion to the size of the puncture. Clopridogrel causes it with me. Bruises like hell when I get knocked as well.

      4. Morning, Phil.
        My speciality is madness, but I would say keep an eye on it. You’ve just been bashed around rather a lot. If you are unhappy, please make that phone call – particularly as you are on your own.
        Are you on blood thinners?
        I’m sure the other nursing girlies on here can give you more informed advice.

          1. Blood thinners are so much better than having to have blood tests when taking Waffarin. And having to rebalance the medication nearly every week.

          2. Easier perhaps; better than warfarin, not so sure. Watch out for edoxaban, which can cause or exacerbate breathlessness.

          4. Do you have a specialist nurse assigned to you?
            MB has a cardiac nurse, and she is superb. We both trust her implicitly. (MB’s heart attack was a year ago yesterday, would you believe!)

          5. No, but the Staff Nurse did give me a direct line to the unit they treated me in.

            Glad he’s okay. Stents?

          6. Bit of a shopping list. Check on the NHS drug site. It is very helpful.
            Clopidogrel side effects:
            The main side effect of clopidogrel is bleeding more easily than normal. You may have nosebleeds, heavier periods, bleeding gums or bruising. You can drink alcohol with clopidogrel. But do not drink too much while taking this medicine.

      5. I get increasing numbers of unpleasant looking bruises if I hit things, even gently, I often don’t notice at the time. My relatives used to get the same sort of thing as they got older which, at the time I put down to the fact that they were on various blood thinners. But I’m not on anything so I just put it down to my thin aristocratic skin…
        (This was happening before the jabs, for the benefit of conspiracy enthusiasts.)

      6. I get increasing numbers of unpleasant looking bruises if I hit things, even gently, I often don’t notice at the time. My relatives used to get the same sort of thing as they got older which, at the time I put down to the fact that they were on various blood thinners. But I’m not on anything so I just put it down to my thin aristocratic skin…
        (This was happening before the jabs, for the benefit of conspiracy enthusiasts.)

    3. Morning all.
      Whatever you do Anne do not think of disturbing the secret world behind the plinths, aka under the cupboards. You will be infor a shock.

      1. Right Click,
        Left Click on “Save Image as..”
        Then go to where you want it saved to, rename in desired and click on SAVE

    1. Does anybody still seriously believe that Biden won the presidential elections squarely and fairly?

      1. The question is whether Biden actually thinks he did.

        I hope the puppeteers wash their hands after he speaks

      2. Almost certainly not, but it’s just a distraction.
        Valid or not, he’s President and he and his administration are busy tearing America apart and doing their damndest to tear apart Western civilisation too.

      1. YouGov I imagine,an extra ten days paid holiday if you are a Snivel Serpent/Council worker/NHS etcetc what’s not to like??
        Self employed or working on a supermarket checkout ?
        Not so much……..

          1. Mine is getting there but i can’t get past the prickly beard stage.

            Full head of auburn locks me.

            Your baldness is probably caused by the hot meat pies you kept under your helmet.

        2. Why? He’s looked like that for years, and it doesn’t seem to affect his wonderful brain!

          2. Well, you’d be right! He lives not far from here and used to lecture at Stirling University.

    3. Strong words, all justified.
      Sacrificing the children is nothing new since 2020 though. It started years ago, when children in Rotherham were deemed less important than not upsetting muslims.
      Our society sacrificed children again, to the interests of adults who want a homosexual relationship with children. Again, a giant social experiment for the benefit of adults, without the consent of the children involved.
      Our rotten society has form on this one.

        2. Why? He’s always looked like that! He did a fabulous series in 2002 called ‘Two men in a trench’ and he was brilliant then! I don’t think his hair is an issue!

    6. A powerful indictment of the incompetence and self-aggrandisement of our febrile government.

      Enough and no more.

  17. Convoy

    Here come the Veterans….

    https://twitter.com/catturd2/status/1492611180929908737?s=20&t=cRaB77rBfTYwATkmaqcpCA

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noH_tjzFKMQ&ab_channel=GlobalNews

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/01216c3ebc75180e9f52cb58b20bf24e3643919c7169c09d95c18e55e43a515b.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4ce8c6e5b85222f19e4c0679557cc7f41d62f7e53ca20afb08092092c30b745f.jpg

    Meanwhile the Australian and French tourist boards are busy……….

    https://twitter.com/RedCollie1/status/1492632094987927552?s=20&t=cRaB77rBfTYwATkmaqcpCA

    https://gab.com/QAnon211/posts/107787542546656101

        1. Peter Hamilton. Mispent Youth. Then it really takes off with Pandora’s Star. Then Judas Unchained.

          You are really going to love Ozzie Fernadez Isaacs.

          Epic space opera.

      1. I can’t find it, but I remember seeing a comic strip that went

        “Have you hidden the blueprints?”
        “Yes, they’re in a drawer”
        “In a drawer????”
        “Don’t worry, it’s the one with the ladle”

    2. Anoia – Goddess of things that get stuck in drawers.

      If you give a silent prayer to her before opening the drawer you will never be annoyed.

  20. A BTL comment under the Daniel Hannan article:

    It was Cummings who wanted to sort the Blob out. He dumped Cummings for his wife’s friends and the blob remains. He’s got himself to blame. If he’s not a completer he needs to employ them and he hasn’t.

    At a personal level Dominic Cummings seems to lack charm – but I must say he was right about the Blob and that Johnson should have thrown his wife out decision making in Downing Street and kept Cummings involved.

    This gross error of judgement has already cost us dear.

      1. The difficulties involved in installing Lord Frost as Conservative Party leader and prime minister are probably insurmountable – but what other options are there? There is certainly no current member of the cabinet who is up to the job.

        1. The crux of the matter is that even if Lord Frost overcame the difficulties to be a candidate for a leadership election he would need to be in the final two before the membership could support him.
          The Conservative Parliamentary MPs would do all they could to ensure he did not make the final two candidates. They would just pick another “one of their own”.

          1. Bill Rodgers, David Owen, Shirley Williams and Woy Jenkins said they were going to ‘break the mould of British politics when they formed the Social Democratic Party but it never got off they ground and they had eventually to pool their resources with David Steel’s Liberal Party.

            We might fantasise about a group of people such as Lord Fox, Steve Baker, John Redwood, and Mark Francois and others breaking away from the stale Conservative Party and joining up with Richard Tice’s Reform Party – but even if they did so would they be able to break the mould in the way that the SDP wanted, but failed, to do?

          2. That last, Richard, is a fantasy worth entertaining, so long as they could further entice Larry Fox’s and Anne-Marie Waters to bring their parties to the party as well.

            They might just, together, thrash out a manifesto acceptable to the disillusioned electorate, enough to elect them as a credible opposition in the first place, to be a credible government in the second place, once they’ve undergone the fire of parliamentary debate.

      1. It’s more like 7,000.
        And it’s absolutely shameful Boris and your mob of lying shysters in Westminster.

    2. According to my local rag, the cost of supermarket “essentials” (not sure how that’s defined) has risen 8%. My pension will increase in April by 3%. Then there’s the council tax, the electricity, the water rates and petrol has gone up another 1ppl I noticed this morning.

  22. San Francisco is Decaying. 13 february 2022.

    Many of the people who enjoy some of the highest levels of prosperity and freedom in human history are also the least grateful, and least loyal, to the civilisation that made it possible. The progressive obsession with changing the names of schools and tearing down statues of people allegedly guilty of genocide in the past comes at a time when our greatest global rival is actually guilty of committing one in the present. Today, America is so divided that some progressives are openly proposing that America split apart. This suggestion raises a question similar to the one the psychologist Viktor Frankl demanded of his depressed clients: Why doesn’t America commit suicide? What should America live for?

    A progressive complaining about the effects of progressive policies. It’s almost certainly too late now to save the West from its own foolishness.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/san-francisco-is-decaying

      2. Even worse than the effluent there are the Demotwatic politicians who rule that city and are the primary cause of the effluent.

        1. Just like Miami they revoked the law on vagrancy. Now they have tent cities in all the parks and beaches with mental health and drug problems running riot. New York isn’t far behind. Be a bleeding heart Liberal-vote Democrap.

          1. As ye sow, so shall ye reap.

            Bring it on.

            My Bro left California, having lived in San Francisco (A city full of Chinks and faggots – his words) because, again in his own words, “Californians hate each other.”

  24. Has Liz Truss threatened Russia with closing down their gas supply to Europe through the Black Sea in the event of an invasion? 😉

    1. So all those people that deliberately made us energy dependent on foreign imports must now be feeling a bit silly.

    2. She was too busy giving her Maggie Thatcher impersonation. The Russians were not fooled!

    3. Actually,there are two gas pipelines through the Black Sea…Turkstream and Bluestrean.Both run to Turkey and on to the Balkan States.

  25. EDF are still sending me letters about having a smart meter fitted.

    This one says,
    ‘We still need to install your smart meter as part of the government-led upgrade to the UK’s energy infrastructure’.

    1. Give them an appointment and then don’t answer the door. Keep doing that until they get bored.

      Join the Awkward Squad !

    2. Oh, so it’s gone from “Would you like a smart meter, it can save you money?” to “We need to install your smart meter because the government says so.”

    3. The other problem with these energy companies is they often want to change the position of the existing meters often to an outside wall. Meaning lot’s of alterations to pipe work and wiring.
      Where charges could be incurred.
      One advantage for us was a water meter. Firstly they insisted that we had one installed on the drive. It took two years to get the company to carry out the work. When they realised for two people it wouldn’t be cost effective. And our water bills since have been halved.

  26. Why Vladimir Putin is taking his big gamble. Coughlin. 13 February 2022.

    Irrespective of his ultimate designs towards Russia’s southern neighbour, one of the Russian leader’s less appealing characteristics is his deep-seated inferiority complex. With an excess of 130,000 battle ready Russian troops camped on the Ukrainian border, Mr Putin has certainly made himself a hard man to ignore.

    A drunkard giving us his insightful view of the most able leader of his country since Catherine the Great and World Statesman of the last twenty years.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/13/vladimir-putin-taking-big-gamble/

        1. Why does everyone insist he’s sooo good looking! He’s got a weak chin and a girly spoilt mouth!

          3. He looks different in different photos, I think. Also, a lot of the charm is probably when you meet him.
            As people age, their character becomes more evident in their face, doesn’t it? A middle aged boyish (weak, immature) persona not so appealing!

          4. I daresay he has a nice odour .

            Men similar to that dab themselves with enticing fragrance .. I have met a few ..

            It is the only thing that gives them resonance!

          6. I love men smelling nice , not too strongly, just a hint .

            Moh doesn’t indulge , and neither can he smell my choice of fragrance , which is a shame .

            How are you feeling today Phizzee now after your procedure ?

            Does your fragrance lift your mood .. My mother told me never to touch her perfumes , because no two women should ever smell alike .

            My late father had some lovely bottles of stuff 4711 Eau de Cologne, Roger Gallet and something that smelt like lime , don’t know what that was called ..

            Dad was a tall broad big strong man , and his stuff smelt very masculine

          8. It is a good one. I have it too. They can be expensive which is why i always ask for lots of samples.

          10. I remember dancing with a young lady and she said “You smell nice, what have you got on?”
            I replied “I’ve got a hard on but I didn’t know you could smell it”

          11. I was told that no two people smell the same even if they are wearing the same perfume. It’s something to do with the oils on the skin, apparently and the way the fragrance interacts with them.

          12. I have the less expensive version, “Le Male”. I can think of no reason that a man should not be clean and smell nice. I have no problem with clothes that have flowers, if in good taste. Nor do I have any difficulty in admiring “rockers”. If one takes the view that men in floral clothes are jessies then please watch “Seven Samurai” and “Ran”*. These chaps are tough, ruthless killers, as are some of the women.
            Some years ago when I showed off my new boots, my darling eldest girl said, “Dad, either you are going to be posing in gay bars or you’ve bought a motorbike.”
            I’d bought a motorbike.

            *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUSvXdutpCM

          13. If you are gonna go floral…go big.

            Like at summer barbies. The more outrageous the Hawaiian shirt the better.

          16. Not sure if the uniformed chap is saluting or trying to hide his eyes from the awful spectacle? What an utter plonker Turdeau is.

    2. I see no evidence of Putin’s supposed inferiority complex – what does Coughlin advance to justify this suggestion?

      2. Vlad reaches the dizzy height of 5′ 7″, a little bit taller than 5′ 5″ Angela Merkel who herself ranks above KIm ‘I have an enormous missile’ Jong Un. Boris was about 5′ 9″, and 5-9 is a fair estimate of the number of his offspring.

  29. Good morning all

    Wet day here , breezy, mild and we have several pairs of blackbirds enjoying the wer ground , de worming the garden , and gathering moss from the damper parts of the garden .

  30. https://twitter.com/True_Belle/status/1492819743652339712

    On board Putin’s £73million superyacht: 270ft-vessel with a helipad and a swimming pool that turns into a dancefloor sailed out of German shipyard ahead of possible sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine
    Vladimir Putin’s superyacht, Graceful, was pictured with stunning interiors created by H2 Yacht Design
    The pleasure craft boasts a spiral staircase, a swimming pool which can turn into a dancefloor and a helipad
    Earlier this week it was said to be ‘fleeing’ a German shipyard amid mounting sanction threats over Ukraine

    3. Is it his? Or is it a “Presidential” yacht that will go with the job of being President? The Russians can then make State visits to places and entertain foreign people. Like we used to do…

    4. Does Vlad know sleepy Joe has probably tasked one of his submarines to sink it if it all kicks off.
      That will teach him for bu****ng up Hunter financial portfolio in Ukraine.

      1. Vlad could bring down Sleepy Joe and Hunter at any time as needs must.

        Russia is no match for the USA militarily or economically. Russia is more of a local threat to the EU with Germany in particular heavily reliant on Russian gas.

        Russia is not stupid and realises that Biden is a rotting decrepit corpse-like puppet of Obama, the latter possibly the most useless and corrupt president in US history. Obama was born in Mombasa by the way. Russia has no interest whatsoever in modern military conflict. They would lose if push came to shove.

        I imagine that Russia is more concerned with Chinese expansionism.

  31. NEWS FROM THE EASTERN FRONT

    It’s reported that Joe Biden has spoken with Vladimir Putin by telephone on the subject of Ukraine. Although the call lasted for an hour, and despite President Biden’s legendary Irish eloquence, the White House has said that no common ground could be reached.

    It’s my guess that Putin – a man known for his roguish sense of humour – switched that senile auld fool’s line over to the Moscow equivalent of the Speaking Clock and left him to amuse himself for an hour.

  34. Jacob Rees-Mogg hails report that ‘transforms UK trade policy’
    The Brexit Opportunities minister says he backs calls to unilaterally accept foreign rules to free up trade

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/13/jacob-rees-mogg-hails-report-thattransforms-uk-trade-policy/
    I am beginning to fear that even the so-called Brexit supporting members of the Conservative Party actually want to keep Britain tied and locket into the EU.

    A BTL comment:

    Unless and until Jacob Rees Mogg invokes Article 16 to ensure that the Northern Ireland Protocol is removed then Brexit is not properly finished but he and his Conservative Party are and we shall be bounced back into the EU under even worse terms than we had before.

    1. Afternoon Richard, I said it before and I will say it again, the Conservative Party needs to die to allow a conservative minded party to form and support conservatives in the UK.

    2. “The newly-appointed minister for Brexit Opportunities has thrown his weight behind calls to automatically accept foreign rules, so long as they offer equivalent safety standards.”

      Which was effectively the situation in the EEC before the Single European Act.

      1. The EU is so full of hatred for the UK that they would never give quid pro quo – they would continue to grab what they can from UK and give nothing in return.

  35. Christine Lagarde à Matignon, un missile anti-Pécresse
    Paris Match https://www.parismatch.com/Actu/Politique/Christine-Lagarde-a-Matignon-un-missile-anti-Pecresse-1787033

    Apparently Macron wants Christine Lagarde to be his prime minister if he wins the presidential elections.

    Remember she was very much involved with Bernard Tapie, the great fraudster friend of Mitterrand before she replaced the pimp and former French finance minister, Dominique Straus-Kahn, at the IMF. She was found guilty of criminal activity with Tapie and should have been given a prison sentence but was let off and did not even lose her job at the IMF.

    Nicolas Sarkozy, the former French president, has been convicted and given a prison sentence and indeed it seems currently obligatory to have a criminal record to advance in politics. Biden and his son Hunter in the US have certainly been lucky to avoid prison and even the bumbling Boris Johnson seems to be fumbling about on the borders of political criminality. And few people deny that Blair was a criminal.

    1. She gained most of her financial, experience in Chicago, following in the foot steps of infamous others.
      As far as i’m concerned, most if not all of the political classes are treasonous.

  37. Was Sweden right all along about Covid?

    The land of common sense seems to be thriving while Britain counts the cost of harsh restrictions, says Fraser Nelson [ST 13/02/11]

    No country has had a hospital waiting list grow as big as Britain’s: it will keep getting worse and peak at 9.2 million

    To understand Sweden, you need to understand a word that’s hard to explain, let alone translate: lagom. It means, in effect, “perfectsimple”: not too much, not too little. People who are lagom don’t stand out or make a fuss: they blend right in – and this is seen as a virtue.

    Essays are written about why lagom sums up a certain Swedish mindset – that it’s bad to stand out, to consider yourself better or be an outlier. That’s why it’s so strange that, during the lockdowns, Sweden became the world’s defiant outlier.

    Swedes saw it the other way around. They were keeping calm and carrying on: lockdown was an extreme, draconian, untested experiment. Lock up everyone, keep children out of school, suspend civil liberties, send police after people walking their dogs – and call this “caution”? Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epidemiologist, never spoke about a Swedish “experiment”. He said all along he could not recommend a public health intervention that had never been proven.

    Tegnell also made another point: that he didn’t claim to be right. It would take years, he’d argue, to see who had jumped the right way. His calculation was that, on a wholesociety basis, the collateral damage of lockdowns would outweigh what good they do. But you’d only know if this was so after a few years. You’d have to look at cancer diagnosis, hospital waiting lists, educational damage and, yes, count the Covid dead. Almost two years on, we can look at the early indications.

    The problem with lockdowns is that no one looks at whole-society pictures. Professor Neil Ferguson’s team from Imperial College London admitted this, once, as a breezy aside. “We do not consider the wider social and economic costs of suppression,” they wrote in a supposed assessment of lockdown, “which will be high.” But just how high? And were they a price worth paying?

    As Sweden abolishes all domestic Covid restrictions, it emerges with one of Europe’s lower Covid death tolls: the rate is 1,614 per million people, just over half the amount of Britain (2,335). Given that our death tolls were comparable at first (both among the worst anywhere), it’s hard to argue that there’s some demographic force which meant Covid was never going to spread in Sweden.

    Nor is it possible to argue that Sweden was some hedonistic partynation: its people were incredibly cautious. But unlike Brits, they had a government that trusted them.

    There were some Swedish diktats: a “rule of eight” was set up for a while. Bars, restaurants and cafes were all socially distanced and, at one point, had to close by 8.30pm. For a few weeks, Swedes even had vaccine passports. But that was about it: the rest was guidance, and it was followed.

    What no statistic can convey is just how careful Swedes were; something that struck me whenever I’d visit.

    It was perfectly legal to meet up in bars and for a fika in a coffee shop, but most didn’t. A friend of mine had a rule that she’d only ever meet friends outside – even in the Stockholm winter (she did this so much that she got frostbite). In summer last year, studies showed Swedes working from home more than in any other European country.

    This kept Covid low, while the lack of rules allowed for people to use their judgement while minimising economic and social damage. Sweden’s GDP fell by 2.9 per cent in 2020, while Britain’s collapsed by 9.4 per cent. Both have bounded back, but Sweden’s economy is this year expected to be 5 per cent larger than before the pandemic, versus 2 per cent for Germany. The UK will be about 1 per cent, one of the lowest figures in Europe.

    The cost of the various Covid measures is best summed up by the debt mountain: an extra £8,400 per head in Britain, and £3,000 in Sweden.

    Swedish schools kept going throughout, with no face masks. Sixth-formers and undergraduates switched to home learning, but the rest of Swedish children went to school as normal. That’s not to say there weren’t absences as the virus spread: it was common to see a third, at times even half of the class absent due to sniffles or suspected Covid. But there were no full-scale closures and, aside from some suspicions about minor grade inflation (the average maths grade sneaked up to 10.1, from 9.3), there is no talk in Sweden about educational devastation.

    In Britain, there is calamity and cover-up. By doling out more A grades than ever before – and telling universities to make more space – young people could be shovelled through the system with lost ground never recognised or quite made up.

    Grade inflation was staggering: the number of A-level students marked at A or A* jumped to 45 per cent, up from 26 per cent pre-pandemic, but no one doubts that these students learned far less. By some measures, educational inequality has been set back 10 years. But some problems are too big to admit.

    Academics suggest the effect of lost education is permanent: less education inevitably means lower salaries and slower career progression. The Institute for Fiscal Studies talks about £40,000 of lost lifetime earnings per pupil in Britain, £350billion in all. Swedish studies estimate that Covid’s impact (on absenteeism and homelearning) could mean an £800million overall hit – far smaller than the impact on Britain’s lost school days.

    The impact on hospital waiting lists is also very different. Fear of a virus keeps people away – at the peak of the first wave, attendance at Swedish A&E was 31 per cent lower than normal; in Britain, it collapsed by 57 per cent. Routine operations were down by 20 per cent in Sweden and 34 per cent in England, so waiting lists grew in both countries. As they did pretty much world over.

    But no country, anywhere, has had a waiting list grow as big as Britain’s: from 4.4 million pre-pandemic, it will keep getting worse for two years and peak at about 9.2 million, according to NHS modelling – that’s equivalent to one in five adults.

    A top-down health service is more easily disrupted if it’s ordered to transform into a Covid service (and people are told to “protect the NHS” by not using it). Sweden’s waiting lists, 130,000 pre-pandemic, hit 170,000 last October. Even adjusting for population, it’s nowhere near the size of Britain’s problem.

    Sweden will not declare victory. No one was properly prepared for Covid, and the country’s failure to protect care home residents is still seen as a national scandal. Sweden also took a bigger hit than its neighbours: Denmark, which did lock down, has more to shout about when it comes to combining a lower Covid hit with minimal economic disruption.

    But, as Tegnell would say, it’s still too early to say – with any finality – who got it right and who didn’t.

    1. I understand lagom to mean “team-wise”, not “perfectsimple”, which makes no sense at all. It’s to do with a tightly-connected society or group, one-for-all-and-all-for one.
      What’s your take, Grizz?

      1. Many of those scandi words translate either to ‘bloody cold, grey and gloomy’ or ‘smug’!

    2. Hi Grizz,
      Thank you for posting the article. For those of you who don’t know, the journalist Fraser Nelson’s wife is Swedish (IIRC) and their children probably have dual nationality. He is a europhile who enthuses about the positive side of uncontrolled immigration to the UK, perhaps because he is well paid and lives in Twickenham. Sweden’s lack of lockdown was successful, but it was a gamble; the UK has an even higher proportion of foreign born people than that of Sweden, which translates into millions of Muslims. IMHO, without some form of lockdown, there was an enormous risk that Covid 19 would have spread rapidly through the Muslim population, simply because of mosque attendance.
      Something similar was observed in Spain, where there was a cluster of cases after an unlawful gathering at a gypsy’s funeral.

      1. Thanks, Tim. I wasn’t aware who Fraser Nelson is. I just posted the article since it appeared in today’s ST and the facts in it seem to correspond with other information I have discovered on the topic. I certainly did not research his personal situation nor his politics.

        1. He is one of the “Spectator Clique” – lefties, remainers, eco-freaks, global-warmers. Think Carrion in a suit (with a bad haircut). Nelson and the rest of the are all “bestest friends” with Carrion.

          2. The extraordinary thing (to me at any rate) is that The Spectator (which I have read since 1954) used to be the mouthpiece of the old, true Conservative Party. Now it is frequently to the left of the New Statesman.

          3. The reason for that is because, for so long now, the Right have remained sitting with their thumbs up their arses in a smug, dazed complacency, whilst they permitted the Left to take over … EVERYWHERE!

      2. So we suffered lockdown, cancellation of essential medical services, excess deaths from cancer, heart attacks etc, closed schools, a ban on travel, on meeting friends and relatives, on attending funerals and weddings, ruined lives, a ban on cinemas, theatres, pubs, restaurants, sports venues and going for walks in order to avoid the possibility that muslims and other illegal immigrants might catch Covid?

    1. Worry not.Russia will not invade Ukraine………….
      Unless,of course,Ukrainian forces enter Donbass.Then all bets are off.

  39. Passenger plane diverted from Ukraine over airspace closure speculation

    A passenger jet operated by Kiev’s SkyUp Airlines had to abort its flight from Portugal to the Ukrainian capital on Saturday, after the aircraft’s Irish-based owner prohibited it from entering Ukraine’s airspace. The move comes amid speculation of an imminent air ‘blockade’ of Ukraine in anticipation of an alleged Russian invasion, the latter being a claim peddled by the West and vehemently denied by Russia itself.

    According to a statement released by SkyUp, the plane originally bound for Kiev’s Borispol Airport had to land in Moldova’s capital, Kishinev, instead. “We hope to understand the uniqueness of the situation on the part of passengers and make every effort to bring everyone to Ukraine,” the company said in a statement.

    SkyUp explained that the owner of the plane, which leases it to the airline, notified the Ukrainian company when the aircraft was already in midair that it “categorically” prohibited the plane from entering Ukrainian airspace.
    Ukrainian news outlet Strana.ua released an article on Saturday claiming that major international insurance companies will stop covering planes flying over Ukraine. According to unnamed sources cited by the outlet, this could mean that not only international airlines, but also most Ukrainian airlines, would not be able to fly in Ukrainian airspace, as many domestically operated jets are either leased to Ukrainian airlines by foreign owners or at least insured overseas. Moreover, the leased aircraft may be ordered to leave Ukraine “in the near future,” Strana.ua says.

    One source told the Ukrainian outlet that British insurers are “imposing an air blockade” on the Eastern European country, with no single jet able to “fly in and out of Ukraine starting from approximately Monday afternoon.

    It seems The West are set to destroy Ukraine without President Putin lifting a finger…..how strange.

    1. You’re my Valentine
      I love you to bits
      If I give you a cake
      Will you show me yer greatest hits

  41. Daily Groaners

    1, There are three blondes who are on a road trip. As they are driving through the desert, their car breaks down.
    They have no phone to call anyone, so they decide to walk to the nearest city, several miles away.
    They each decide to take one thing to make the journey better.
    The first blonde takes the radio and says, “If we get bored, we can put the radio on and listen to music.”
    The second blonde decides to take a wheel, “In case one of us gets really tired, we can go inside the wheel and be rolled.”
    The third blonde takes the car door, “In case it gets too hot, we can roll down the window!”

    2. What did the blonde say when she found out she was pregnant?
    I wonder if it’s mine.

    3. A blonde is overweight so her doctor puts her on a diet.
    “I want you to eat regularly for two days, then skip a day and repeat for two weeks and you’ll lose at least five pounds.”
    When the blonde returns, she’s lost nearly 20 pounds.
    The doctor exclaims, “That’s amazing! Did you follow my diet?”
    The blonde nods. “I thought I was going to drop dead everythird day from all the skipping!”

    4. A husband exclaims to his wife one day, “Your butt is getting really big. It’s bigger than the BBQ grill!”
    Later that night in bed, the husband makes some advances towards his wife who completely brushes him off.
    “What’s wrong?” he asks.
    She answers, “Do you really think I’m going to fire up this big-ass grill for one little weenie?”

    1. I am pretty certain Bitcoin News Trader appears in my junk email folder. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!
      Thanks but no thanks.

        2. You tried? Braver lady than I am, even looking at the address was bad enough, let alone clicking on it.

          3. That”s OK, Paul – she’s a girl – so used to having things explained…

            (Seeks deep shelter)

          4. Oh grief! Don’t you start! My old man has been doing that for years! I’ve stopped taking any notice!

  43. The woke Left is destroying the Anglosphere. Douglas Carswell. 13 february 2022.

    .Suffice to say the idea that every culture is of equal worth is a nonsense. Yet if you believe that to be true, it is impossible to appreciate what makes the Anglosphere so exceptional. Indeed, the only thing the Left sees as exceptional about the Anglosphere is its wickedness, source of the world’s original sins – slavery, imperialism and free market capitalism.

    Too late Carswell! By about twenty years. Pity you couldn’t find it in you to tell the truth when you were in politics! We are at present instigating a war against the only state that still believes in the Nation and Christianity!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/13/woke-left-destroying-anglosphere/

    1. I now want to see them punished. Letting them off and re-employing them next time is not good enough.
      Ferguson’s behaviour with his girlfriend during the first lockdown showed that he didn’t believe his own propaganda. It beggars belief that he is still on the government payroll with his 100% record of failure.

      2. Successive governments have employed Ferguson for the reason that he can be relied upon to prostitute himself and provide the politicians with the answers they prefer to suit their narrative.

        Lockdowns and the promotion of dangerous drug therapies were always part of the plan hence we saw the Rockerfeller ‘lockstep’ enacted by Macron, Aherne, Andrews, Trudeau, Merkel, Biden, Johnson and an assortment of political place-men around the globe.

        These evil people shall be prosecuted for malfeasance in public office and crimes against humanity.

        Fauci now has his second engineered AIDS event. He must be the first to be prosecuted along with his chums in Pharma companies. I just read that the CEO of Moderna has sold his shares and scarpered. Expect others to follow suit as the prosecutions build and their share prices drop like a stone.

    1. They way I see things is we have thousands of people who suggest they know what they are doing and how the country should or will be run. But I guess there must be the occasional exceptions. Most of the people from the top down to the bottom of local authorities don’t seem to understand what their jobs entail. What we have in charge, is too many Dopey Wokey’s who are not paying attention and never suspect that this sort terrible discovery would happen on their patch. Slowly but surely they are wrecking this whole country.

  46. We don’t need China………….!

    LAST Thursday, MI5 publicly identified Christine Lee as a Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) influence agent targeting UK parliamentarians. No surprises there, surely, since the CCP has deployed similar assets throughout British institutions for several decades.
    https://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/1551450/china-chinese-communist-party-christine-lee-uk-security-trade-matthew-henderson

    FFS UK …don’t piss off China….

  47. Christian disability assessor who was sacked by the DWP for refusing to call transgender woman ‘she’ takes fight to High Court – insisting his faith means he should not be forced to address a 6ft bearded man as ‘madam’

    Dr David Mackereth from Dudley accused DWP of unlawfully sacking him in 2018
    Tribunal upheld decision and said his views as ‘incompatible with human dignity’

    Dr Mackereth’s lawyers will take case to the High Court to appeal against ruling
    They believe Maya Forstater case last year sets precedent that protects his views

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10507853/Christian-doctor-David-Mackereth-sacked-trans-views-fight-High-Court.html

  49. Here are some photos from Canada, of the Freedom Convoy and a much smaller counter demonstration yesterday. The counter demo is all masked up, loudly proclaiming their fear and their love of slavery with slogans like “I (heart) (syringe)” and “Single straight women love man-dates” (heaven forbid they should disrespect gay women!)
    https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2022/2/13/photos-protests-in-ottawa-swell-as-us-border-blockades-continue
    As has already been observed, if you didn’t know how you would have behaved in 1930s Germany…you know now.

  51. The propaganda war on the Canadian truckers. Spiked. 13 February 2022.

    In the days to come, we can expect to hear more about unruly, violent, racist protesters promoting ‘hate’ – not only in Canada, but in the US and Europe, too. But in this growing conflict between the elites and masses there’s only one side promoting ‘hate’. That’s the political class in the West, who hates it when working-class people express their own opinions. The propaganda war is just beginning.

    Even though the writer (Collins) delineates and describes the nature of this propaganda war against the people he still fails to point out that it must by its nature be organised. It cannot simply be the Political Class, an amorphous and disparate grouping at best. Somewhere someone is sitting down and commissioning articles and then feeding them to the MSM.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/02/13/the-propaganda-war-on-the-canadian-truckers/

    1. When Trudeaus mob hand out $600 million of our money to media outlets, do you think that any of them will go against the flow?

      I am sure that Trudeaus advisors are seeding much of the propaganda and feeding it to the lazy media outlets as well as other levels if government. There are too many examples of new wording being slipped into statements for it to be coincidence.

      Just to show how opposed they are to compromise, the government are now talking about introducing mandatory vaccinations for cross provincial transport drivers.

  52. Just barrowed and stacked the first four loads of logs. About 40 remain…. Gosh – I wish I had Robert’s strength and stamina….

    Fortunately, it started to rain, so I was able to justify stopping!

    1. Has he been chatting to Nikeliar and her delightful sidekick Humza Yousaf? Perhaps they didn’t tell him it went down like a bucket of cold sick in Scotland! See Named Persons bill!

    5. Yet another example of the apparently ineradicable belief of the Left that only the power of the state can improve the life of the individual.

    1. Relying on Patel is like relying on overboiled spaghetti when you need to climb out of a 10th storey window.

      1. A wonderful simile, Herr Oberst, but wouldn’t uncooked spaghetti just snap and be equally useless?

    2. Relying on Patel is like relying on overboiled spaghetti when you need to climb out of a 10th storey window.

      1. As I recall, David Cameron was keen to have Bill Bratton as a contender for Commissioner of the Met; Teresa May ruled out his candidacy …

  57. After a damp start it began raining.
    Not too hard, more a persistent moderate rain, so I thought “Sod it” and went up the garden anyway.
    Shifted the more portable 4′ logs I had stacked up the ruined stable down to a lower level and then across to beside the shed where I plan sawing them ready for chopping.
    There are still 4 x larger diameter logs that will need cutting before I shift them, but that’s for another day.

  62. Same story but a rather different tone of reporting.

    Our children’s school has BANNED meat forever and we’re furious – they even told us to make vegetarian packed lunches
    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17631295/school-bans-meat-vegetarian-packed-lunches/

    Angry parents hit out after school bans meat and tells them to pack veg lunches
    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/angry-parents-hit-out-after-26216247

    Get them while they’re young, eh?

    1. Veganism will be a prelude to Wokism, in all subjects, topics, speech, LGBTism etc

      The next Band Of Nutters is on the way

      1. Where’s the choice? By all means put on a veg option, but to make the food meat-free is unacceptable.

    3. Why are the masses of normal people in the country/world standing for this bollocks?

      Time to revolt with passion!

        1. Can’t see the rapist bombers giving up their meaty heritage festivals. But you may have a point.

  64. HAPPY HOUR – Set the video – 9pm – BBC4

    Documentary that follows Björn Andrésen, the boy catapulted to fame when Luchino Visconti chose him to play Tadzio in his screen adaptation of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014j2v

    In 1970, film-maker Luchino Visconti travelled throughout Europe looking for the perfect boy to personify absolute beauty as the character of Tadzio in his adaptation for the screen of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. In Stockholm, he discovered Björn Andrésen, a shy 15-year-old teenager whom he brought to international fame overnight and, as a consequence, changed the course of the boy’s life. The remainder of Bjorn’s youth was turbulent and intense and took him from the Lido in Venice to London, to a welter of attention at the Cannes Film Festival, and to Japan.

  65. Afternoon all. An interesting article from Liam Halligan. Any party which offered a referendum on Net Zero would be a smash at the local elections. There’s no chance of this government changing course.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/02/13/net-zero-may-become-divisive-brexit/

    Boris Johnson hosted COP26. He has staked his international reputation on Net Zero. How could he scrap the “Green Cr#p” now? He clearly places more valued on virtue-signalling on the world stage than on providing reliable and affordable energy to the people of this country. He is not our friend, he is not a conservative. For the good of the country he should go.

    The only way that this will happen is if the Tories get annihilated at the local elections, but not because a ‘protest vote’ has been registered with the equally green and Woke Lib-Dems. We need to start voting for and supporting Reform en masse, ideally with Farage back at the helm. We need to break the tribal voting patterns and give new parties a chance.

    1. Indeed, but what always seems to happen is that the vote splits leave the Trudeaus, the Macrons and the Ardern’s and worse in power.
      It might be a cliché but we deserve what we get, vote X to keep out Y, get Starmer. The slope is still down and it’s getting steeper.

  66. That’s me for this damp Sunday. I’ll look in tomorrow – though we are away from mid-morning until early afternoon Wednesday – for my brother’s funeral.
    So you’ll be spared my witterings.

    Have a jolly evening – and make sure you know where your nearest air-raid shelter is.

    A jeudi. Peut-être.

      1. Thanks, Paul.

        As I said the other day – he was 88. He was, as they say, ready to go. A man with very strong views of right and wrong. And a cracking sense of humour.

        1. I hope that the congregation will be permitted to sing a few hymns lustily, such as ‘Eternal Father’.

        2. You are aware of course that it was the Royal Navy that invented sex.

          It was the Army of course that introduced the concept to women.

          :@)

          1. Reminds me of a best man speech I once made, “Phil (not real name) discovered sex at 13, it was only after he got together with Ann (not real name) did he find out it could be more than a solo experience”.

            Not real name added to avoid embarrassing any Nottlers by accident.

    6. Hope it goes well, Bill. I was up in Yorkshire a fortnight ago for a family funeral. My cousin was 89 and had Alzheimer’s. It was poignant being in the village church where both she and my Mum grew up and where both their names appear on the old village school honours board in the vestry. As so often is the case, the funeral tea was also quite jolly.

  67. Good evening. I am sure you will be as delighted as I was to hear that Fauci is planning to treat the Immune disorders that have so mysteriously appeared – AIDS – and are now killing increasing numbers of people with another brilliant therapy – another life-saving vaccine!!

    It goes a bit beyond brass neck – phosphor-bronze neck?

    It’s got more chutzpa, though, than telling us that foorballers are dropping dead from referees’ whistles, at least…

    https://www.tarableu.com/when-you-lie-make-it-a-big-one/

  69. Are you sick of the Nanny State and MPs interfering in YOUR life NoTTlers?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/37512fa7694fbf62a96285bcf01fb8032bca1f2e4818fb7ed3a563a62e42f7e0.jpg

    BORIS JOHNSON’S Government is facing a huge reset following months of scandal and years of unprecedented Government interference in daily life thanks to Covid. After two years of Covid lockdowns, are you sick of Government interfering in YOUR life?
    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1565263/covid-rules-government-interfering-life-have-your-say-evg

    2. Sick to the bloody back teeth of it all. Not going to follow one more diktat from this stupid bunch of complete morons.

    3. So blessed that the 1960’s were a wonderful time to grow up and learn about life , even though there were rules and moral codes to follow .. and our education was thorough and untarnished by propaganda, thank gooodness those that taught us were solid types.

          5. We are now at the stage where you are not even allowed to tell them off for bad behaviour. Let alone a little smack to the back of the leg.

          7. Conspiracy theory 102.

            Condition children to not understand any type of discipline.

            Then as they age apply discipline through external forces and turn them into cattle.

            Nearly there.

          9. I only got caned once (I’m a quick learner!) and that was in primary school. A ruler across the knuckles concentrates the mind!

          10. The nuns at my school had rulers with metal edges.

            They left a lovely cut across the knuckles, which only bled for a little while.

          11. I remember in secondary school the teacher lobbing the board rubber at someone next to me. It hit me. The chosen target picked it up and threw it back at him. Detention for both of us. I also got smacked later because i was an hour late home and none of the veg had been peeled. Oh Happy memories.

          12. One of our masters was a dab hand at throwing the board rubber (it had a wooden backing). Unfortunately, the lad he threw it at ducked and it broke the window.

          13. Sounds familiar.

            My ex mil headmaster at primary school had presence. Though he did cane me he never resorted to a loss of self control.

          14. I had always been a “straight A” child, top of class.
            We moved house, I got nuns, they hated me (it was mutual) and never again enjoyed school.

          15. I still find it difficult to understand why quite a few of the ‘Brides of Christ’ were such vicious bitches.

            You probably haven’t seen it but the Nuns in ‘Good Omens’ by Pratchett and Gaiman get their comeuppance.

          22. My behaviour at primary school was dreadful but I was never caned as the Headmaster didn’t believe in caning girls. I did, however get a painful and hearty slap round my legs from a female teacher who’d reached the end of her rope.

          23. I was caned twice on the hand for untidy handwriting, despite being tops at spelling. I was six years old. It didn’t concentrate my mind as my handwriting is still spidery.

  70. Evening, all. Been dull, dismal and windy today. Only bright spot was that all the hymns were familiar for a change.

      1. This particular (stand in) vicar is okay. We have a few that aren’t too woke who fill in during the vacancy.

      1. It always makes me think of the time we angliski belted it out in the middle of the Vistavka in Moscow. The Russians all stood round and applauded afterwards. It appeared to be the only thing we all knew we could sing with certainty!

          1. They assured me (in 1968!) that they did not want war. I assured them that we didn’t either 🙂

          2. If only both sides had got rid of the politicians.

            I have always believed that the ordinary people would get on easily enough.

          3. Only politicians are our enemies, makes no difference which country they come from as evidenced Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Wales. Just a few examples.

          4. What sticks in my craw is that they purport to care about the people with no voice or power while having no worries of any kind themselves.

            Except for high levels of security to protect them from such people.

    3. For the first time in about 9 years, Firstborn’s 1966 Mini van now stands on 4 wheels. Yaay! Red-letter day. Followed by pancakes and savoury filling for dinner.

  71. Sick.

    Pakistan: Man accused of blasphemy killed by mob in Khanewal

    A mob has killed a man for allegedly burning pages of the Koran in central Pakistan, police say, in the latest case of blasphemy-related violence in the country.

    Police say more than 80 people have been arrested in connection with the killing on Saturday in the district of Khanewal in Punjab province.

    Reports said the man was in police custody before a crowd snatched him.

    His body was handed over to his family and a funeral held on Sunday.

    Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said the case would be “dealt with the full severity of the law” and asked for a report on police officers accused of failing their duty to save the man.

    His government, he said, had “zero tolerance for anyone taking the law into their own hands”.

    A lot of truth in this video:-
    https://youtu.be/FLZd42_wIS0

    1. I wonder what the punishment in Pakistan is for raping young girls , peddling drugs , driving recklessly , chasing around with knives and machetes etc etc.

      1. There are none. It is all a question of honour. Not what our culture would perceive as honour but who are we to judge?

        Sod that. They all have mental issues and are not yet fit to exist in a modern society.

  72. ‘Night All

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3289522333a6654d8fd09caf393d3a0908e09c373fee2b1c3271a9e99e7f1ea8.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/54ae9a078a72a5955fda68ad9ad544b9044fe0adfecf2aa2839ac01e79c7328f.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/71b73f5c5c0f6d57121cf6d480a5c594750b5135f642ca16d7c8fdb68ad9d857.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0243e750990335e1a8d3c57c57f01f7c2be30fb046b4da991b4b9aa48421c17a.gif

    Remember these??

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ac49165b3c37df212d01549fe431b8e1ca7b6f264bcf2335aeba6b79f0e9b1ca.jpg

    1. Not to cast aspersions but…..cabin crew are notorious for partying. He was also found in an area known for criminal activity. Where were his colleagues at the time?

  74. They have just announced that Canadian troops have been withdrawn from Ukraine.

    I guess that means that the “training” mission is finally over and our lot are not expected to fight.

      1. Trudys Defence Department made the announcement about an hour ago.

        Boy blunder doesn’t talk to soldiers except when he is accusing them of sexual aggression.

          5. To quote a comment I wrote elsewhere:

            If Trudeau and his ilk carry on treating their citizens as if they are merely scum, they should not be surprised if that scum (that’s rhetorical) rises to the top and treats Trudeau and his ilk as if they are Ceausescu’s.

          6. Funny isn’t it that the next revolution will be against communists/marxists and not an uncaring aristocracy.

  75. Just so you know…today I am identifying as a penguin. Please send fish.
    All this gender BS is round the bend.

    1. Can i ask to be the first to sit astraddle you as we ski down the glacier? There might be a fish in it at the end

  76. Right, off now to watch the imaginative 1995 version Les Miserables set during WWII with Jean-Paul Belmondo as the Jean Valjean character. So I will bid you all a Good Night.

      1. This is a most useful site, Phizzee, and I thank you. Can you tell me if I need a TV set to “stream” a film. (I don’t possess one.) Also, how does one move this site to my list of “favourite sites” on an iMac computer? Thanks.

          1. Good grief, blackbox2, I am getting lots of useful information on this site. Another one to investigate tomorrow. Thank you.

        2. You can stream to a laptop or other device than a tv.

          Sorry i’m not a techy and know even less about iMacs.

  78. Mark Dolan showed a photo of that Headteacher who has imposed the vegetarian menu in that school in Lancs. The front of her hair was neon pink! In my day, that wouldn’t have got me an interview, never mind a job or a headteacher job. Also, in my day, teaching in this country, any changes to curriculum or school routines had to go through the Board of Governors.
    It is an outrage what she has imposed with no apparent consultation with the parents. Children need proper meals and for many of them, a hot school lunch is the only meal they get. Was certainly the case also in the US.

      1. Whether she marries or not is beside the point. She has imposed a menu in that school which, I suspect, is designed to give her a more prominent profile but is to the detriment of the pupils who are supposed to be in her care.
        She is a disgrace and should be removed.

    2. The school must have had a weak selection of school governors.
      Some head teachers can be absolute bullies , and they use every trick in the book , controlling behaviour , leaving deputy heads feeling tearful and frustrated … and governors stressed .

      Education depts are also a minefield , one has to tread carefully because , well because!!!!

      Sometimes schools are not run in the best interest of the children .

      1. My children’s Primary School certianly wasn’t. It took me becoming a school parent governor to realise just how cronyist and corrupt (I susequently got the impression that ) the Head and the whole goveror set-up was. The other 2 parent governnors were useless and not interested in doing anying other than having the title of parent governor, and the LEA and teacher governors were either a) in on the charade, or b) watching their jobs. That Head did a lot of damage – I have realised just how much much talking to people working in other schools since my children left.

        And now she is sitting on a fat pension (having disappeared from the school in the last few months to oversee another school in order to up her final salary) that she does not deserve.

        1. Snap snap snap HL.

          I was a school gov for 8 years , my children were in their late twenties/ thirties ..

          I can relate the same story as you and more .. everyone of the teaching staff watched their jobs.

          Then what a palavar OFSTED inspections were.

          I daren’t say any more other than the whole system is absolute bunkum.

          Forgive my spelling but half my key board letters have faded, and I have to jab hard to write .

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