Sunday 20 February: How one town prevented rainfall from overwhelming its sewage system

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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624 thoughts on “Sunday 20 February: How one town prevented rainfall from overwhelming its sewage system”

        1. Sue her then, Herr Oberst. You might get £12 million like some “under-age” person recently did.

      2. It’s a Disqus-wide attack. Just went & had a look at Punch of Nigeria news, who also use Disqus for comments, and found they have the kissykissy bot upvotes too.

  3. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR – It was interesting to read Janet Daley’s article on fear culture. I know many individuals who have put their lives on hold for two years now, and at the slightest sign of a loosening of restrictions immediately take to social media, decrying the terrible risk to their lives. This is not only fuelled by likeminded individuals who add their support, but also the many shops that are still asking people, via signs and tannoy announcements, to continue wearing a mask to keep other shoppers and their staff safe.

    This needs to stop now and we should be encouraged to return to normal life, albeit with the unavoidable risk of Covid infection.

    Adrian Waller
    Woodsetts, South Yorkshire

    Unfortunately Project Fear has terrified some folk and for them there is little chance of returning to normality.

    1. Some people just love all the drama its been the most important thing ever in their lives.

    2. Morning Hugh. Fear has now become the predominant means of Political Control in the UK so the Elites can hardly abandon it!.

  7. SIR – I would like to counter some of Sophia Money-Coutts’s claims (“Dogs in the office could turn out to be about as much fun as snakes on a plane”, Sunday, February 13) by saying that, in my experience, the benefits of bringing dogs into the office and other workplaces outweigh the disadvantages. For the last few years I have been working on a photographic story project, “Dogs in the Workplace”, interviewing hundreds of owners from all walks of life – butchers, bakers (but sadly no candlestick makers), a station master and a vicar, to name but a few.

    They all concur that bringing their dogs to work is hugely beneficial. I do try to balance my questions and ask, “What is the worst thing your dog has done?” But I think the worst was shredding documents – and some might call that a plus.

    Jackie Richards
    London SW13

    Quite right, Jackie Richards. Some years ago now I made a work-related visit to the Kennel Club offices in London. As a dog-lover I was heartened to see plenty of dogs there, and noted that there was a dog’s bed under most desks. This was in the days when dogs were generally shunned, and it was therefore refreshing to see such an enlightened attitude. Fortunately they are now much more welcome in many places. There are no badly-behaved dogs, just irresponsible owners.

    1. Now who would be the biggest objecters to “Dogs in the office”
      Begins with M
      We dont need wordle for that one!!
      ‘Morning Hugh

  8. We’re taking action to keep Britain safe from Russia’s malicious activities. 20 February 2022.

    While we seek to get British nationals to safety, the Russian Government is waging a disinformation campaign. This should come as no surprise and we should be prepared for more disinformation; we have seen it before, but we must look beyond it. From fabricating stories about the shooting down of the Malaysian airliner, MH17, in 2014, to the absurd excuses of the Russian agents who claimed they were visiting Salisbury Cathedral when they were actually deploying a military-grade nerve agent which killed a British person on British soil, we know the Russian regime follows a pattern of disinformation and deception to attempt to hide its outrageous actions..

    TOP COMMENT BELOW THE LINE.

    Graham Leighton7 HRS AGO

    Can you smell that yep it’s complete BS.
    This clown can’t stop the criminal illegal immigrants from crossing the channel.
    She can’t stop the Muslim rape gangs raping white female children as young as 12 years old which are now endemic though out the UK under conservative governments.
    We have 13,000 plus stabbings a year in London mainly by young black men.
    We have county lines drug gangs in every city.
    You can’t deport murders and rapists.
    But you can join in the Russia Russia Russia nonsense to cover up for the complete balls up
    All talk and no action .

    Patel’s comments about disinformation are of course about those like Mr Leighton. They could hardly be about Russia itself since even if they had the intention they have no medium to express them. The MSM is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Globalists. Everything you read or watch about Russia; the talk about Invasions, False Flags, Chemical Weapons etc. comes from there.

    During WW2 the UK’s propaganda efforts against the Third Reich were quite modest. This was because after the first war the UK Population still being predominantly White, Christian and largely independent of Government control were enraged to find that most of what they has been told while they were engaged in hostilities were blatant lies. There’s no doubt that we have reverted to this former mode! We are being gaslighted to a degree that only the former Soviet Union could equal.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/19/taking-action-keep-britain-safe-russias-malicious-activities/

    1. Cannot improve on Graham Leighton’s comment. Our government is embarrassing. Can’t get basics like securing our own borders or managing the country’s sewage systems right, but jabber on about attacking Russia.

    2. Patel’s, Truss’s et al. attempts at deflection from the worsening concerns at home are as subtle as a slap in the face with a wet haddock.😎

      If the predictions being forwarded from concerned doctors/scientists are realised then much more very bad news at home is inevitable. Keeping the lid on will be a feat beyond the capabilities of the shower in government.

      1. They are desperate for this war in Ukraine Korky. It is the only thing remotely capable of distracting attention from the oncoming domestic catastrophe!

        1. I thought they would have gone with one of, a financial crash, food shortages or selective losses of the grid to allow them to bring in more restrictive measures. Perhaps they feel that those measures are too near to home and that an external primer is required as an excuse to enable another tightening on our freedoms. Sabre rattling with Putin’s Russia doesn’t appear as a very sound option but the people involved do not appear to be either rational or on top of their brief.

          1. When we consider that the US and allies commenced bombing Iraq – Operation Desert Fox in 1998 – and then in 1999 bombed Serbia in support of the Albanain mohamadens claims to some of the Serbs most Holy sites, all just to distract from the Clinton’s latest domestic melodramas, it’s always easier to distract by spotting a squirrel ‘over the fence’.

      1. Babylon Bee is a satirical site.
        Companies are working on trans cossies but the ‘drag coefficient’ is proving to be problematic.😀

        2. Exacto (© Bill Thomas – or was it Peddy?), Korky. The give-away that it is a joke is the statement “after carefully listening to feedback from a growing chorus of three of their customers”.

          1. Good morning, ‘The Babylon Bee’ is so good at satire that CNN accused it of spreading ‘misinformation’. Of course, that is CNN’s job.

  11. Ottawa: police use pepper spray and stun grenades to clear trucker protest. 20 February 2022.

    Canadian police deployed pepper spray and stun grenades on Saturday in a continuing effort to break up a blockade of trucks and demonstrators that has occupied downtown Ottawa for more than three weeks in a protest against pandemic protocols.

    Reports indicated that authorities escalated crowd control efforts. Police with rifles reportedly approached protesters and smashed truck windows.

    Police dispersed part of the blockade and made more than 100 arrests on Friday. They made more arrests on Saturday morning to clear the main area of the blockade, in front of the prime minister’s office and parliament.

    This is of course why they call them Police States! It’s worth noticing that no Government in the now Globalist West has voiced any criticism of Trudeau or his Regime.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/19/ottawa-police-pepper-spray-stun-grenades-trucker-protest

    1. The governments are doubling down on the official line that everything they did was right, that the freedom convoy was organised by far right wingers, and that it only has support because of misinformation on the internet.

      Yesterday, Russia Today reported that Bill Gates had said that “sadly” the omicron variant is immunising people better than the vaccines – I told my daughter this, so she looked up Gates’ speeches at the security conference. He was on a panel that was fed friendly questions from a moderator, and it was like being in a parallel universe. Vaccines are unquestionably good and the only opposition comes from misinformation etc. etc.

      We should not underestimate their determination to win simply by sticking to the lie and repeating it often enough.

      https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/topstocks/bill-gates-there-e2-80-99s-no-doubt-that-misinformation-enhanced-vaccine-hesitancy/vi-AAU2waX
      One of the most outrageous statements comes near the end of this short clip.

      Here’s an article with two short clips in which Gates makes a casual reference to the cost of mass surveillance, and also says that the next pandemic could be prevented if everyone did as Australia did with this one.
      https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/bill-gates-says-covid-risks-have-dramatically-reduced-but-another-pandemic-is-coming/ar-AAU2wVm

    2. Minty, there is no criticism of Trudeau from other Governments because they are all too busy criticising Russia for (not) invading Ukraine.

      2. Morning Elsie. This is an example of what Barbara Tuchman in her book the March of Folly described as “Cognitive Dissonance” that is the refusal to face reality when it conflicts with your own interests.

  12. Good morning to one and all.
    And what a miserable one it is too! Dull & grey with 4½°C outside and it’s chucking it down, expected to last all day according to the forecast.
    I’ll not be doing a lot outside!

      1. It was fairly calm earlier, but a bit breezy outside now.
        Being the bottom of a valley most strong winds tend to pass over the top so we’re no where near the 20kt winds that Windy.com shows us having.

      1. It’s been foul all morning here, only varying in the amount of rain falling and the strength of the wind.

  13. Dalrymple hitting a nail on the head.

    There are a couple of important points to be made. First, this is an instance of how, in modern democracies, the tail comes to wag the dog. This is happening with increasing frequency. A tiny pressure group exerts a huge influence on the legislature and legislation, like a panzer division slicing through the countryside with practically no serious opposition. Preemptive appeasement seems to be the main stance of the political class faced by such pressure groups: Not believing in anything much itself, except in its own survival, it is prepared to defend nothing, resist nothing, and fight for nothing. Tiny pressure groups, being monomaniacs, are therefore always fighting asymmetric wars: The subject of their monomania is all-important to them, but of marginal importance to everyone else. The pressure groups are like tiny insects making the life of a large beast intolerable. The easiest way to get rid of them is to give in to them and give them what they want.

    https://www.takimag.com/article/the-loud-minority/

      1. Nevertheless, we aren’t really advancing when the strongest opposition to the madness of trans politics comes from feminists. It’s just pitting one victim group against another.
        We need to stop making decisions based on the concept of competing victim groups, and start making decisions based on common sense and Christian principles again.

    2. How stupid can the Dopey Wokies get? If he was born male that’s what he is.
      Wether he likes it or not tough.
      End of.

    3. I intend to beat Usain Bolt in a 500 metres race without self-identifying as a man. All I have to do is nail his feet to the floor before the starting pistol goes off. Lol.

    4. It could be halted almost overnight.
      Get a large group of reasonably good male athletes, who would not necessarily “make it” in professional male sports to identify as women and take over all the very well paid women’s sports, tennis for example. When the likes of the Williams sisters suddenly find they are not even qualifying for the Slam tournaments the sports bodies would put a stop to it.
      Unfortunately, if you’ll excuse the expression, they don’t have the balls.

      1. It’s already happening, Sos, but a bit slower than expected. The take-over, that is, not the response.

        1. Whilst I acknowledge that the likes of Liar are probably depriving real girls and women of scholarships, it isn’t hurting professional sports people.
          Get men into individual women’s sports tennis, golf, and then move into team sports, football, ice hockey, basketball, softball etc and it would soon be brought to a halt.

      1. I wish he were in the government. Men of his integrity and intelligence are sorely needed.

        1. I see that I have received an uptick from ‘Wanda’. Perhaps she thinks that “reciprocate” has something to do with sexual activity.

    1. He has certainly made it clear that governments plan to use people’s money to control their behaviour, something that will become far easier once they launch CBDCs.

  18. Whitehall’s ‘woke’ rules now extend to the pub

    Civil servants have been warned that discussing work over a social drink could lead to discrimination

    Pub socials could amount to discrimination or harassment, and panels of white men should not interview black women for jobs,
    civil servants are being told in “race awareness” guidance.

    AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH

    Is all I can say

    We are a white European democracy, when are the wokists gong to get onto Saudi Arabia etc

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/19/whitehalls-woke-rules-now-extend-pub/

    1. The story says this was in 2018 – a bit difficult for it to be COVID, as it hadn’t been invented then.
      Morning, OLT.

  20. Morning all 😊 two year old grand daughter on the way to see us for a couple of hours. A Very highly active little treasure. Moscow.

    1. Lovely! Enjoy! Two-year olds become twenty-year olds in a twinkling, so make the most of it!
      Upticked. No kiss.

    2. Lovely! Enjoy! Two-year olds become twenty-year olds in a twinkling, so make the most of it!
      Upticked. No kiss.

    3. Grand daughter you say….make sure there is lots of cake, sweets, choccy and fizzy pop available. :@)

  21. Oh dear, I sense the onset of yet another ban, from the government that thinks that banning things demonstrates action:

    Not in your front yard: Ban looms for paved drives
    House builders face new rules in effort to tackle river sewage pollution as minister vows to ‘look at the really big picture’

    By
    Emma Gatten,
    ENVIRONMENT EDITOR
    18 February 2022 • 9:00pm

    Rebecca Pow, who spoke to The Telegraph about its Clean Rivers campaign in her Somerset constituency of Taunton Deane, said new developments could have to prove they had sustainable drainage systems before they were allowed to connect to local sewage networks in order to avoid them becoming overwhelmed and pumping sewage into rivers.

    That is likely to include restrictions on solid paved driveways, as well as the possible introduction of ponds to allow water to soak into the ground rather than run off into drains where it can cause sewage systems to overflow.

    The Government is reviewing builders’ “right to connect” to the sewage network, with a view to making it conditional on having sustainable drainage, which could mean an end to extensive paving and more green spaces in new developments.

    There is also some suggestion that major housing developments should have to invest in new sewage infrastructure to avoid overloading the existing network. But Ms Pow’s aims are likely to clash with those of the housing ministry, which has ambitious targets to build 300,000 new homes a year.

    “Everything we’re doing on water, we’re going to have to look at the really big picture on all of it and have sustainable housing, sustainable links to separate the sewage and the drainage water,” she said.

    “It’s quite possible to have the housing we need, but we have to make it sustainable. And the point is that by making it more sustainable, these are lovely places to live. So it’s a win-win.”

    Ms Pow said she was sympathetic to water industry arguments that households need to do more to stop drains becoming overwhelmed, which can be a trigger for a sewage overflow.

    “There’s a lot of water getting down into our drains and getting muddled up with the sewage that doesn’t need to be there,” she added. “So we need to have water butts in our gardens. We need to have semipermeable membranes on our driveways rather than Tarmac so that water doesn’t rush in, it soaks in and holds the water.”

    She said she hoped the ministry’s new secretary of state, Michael Gove, might be sympathetic to the aim of creating greener housing developments. “He’s been in Defra, of course,” she added. “So actually I think it’s going to be very helpful.”

    The problem of pollution from raw sewage pumped into England’s rivers has risen up the political agenda.

    Analysis by The Telegraph recently found that water companies are releasing sewage into rivers from overflow systems more than 1,000 times a day on average.

    Ms Pow said the Government was acting “as fast as we possibly can” on what she said had been a hidden problem before water companies began monitoring their storm overflows in the last five years.

    “Whilst you could say the situation is not where we’d like it to be, I’m really pleased and proud that I’m there as the water minister driving this on,” she said. “We’ve literally prioritised this more than it’s ever been prioritised.”

    She pushed back against suggestions that the Government, the Environment Agency, or the regulator Ofwat could have known or acted earlier to stop years of pollution affecting every river in England.

    The water companies “should have known that they were not complying” with regulations on releasing sewage into rivers, she said. “Yes, it’s been going on, on a huge scale. Thank goodness it’s come to light now,” she added. “The Government is now seeing the alarm bells.”

    She told water companies arguing that bills must rise if they are to tackle pollution: “They need to look at how much they’re paying themselves, and their dividends, and they need to take a serious raincheck about whether they are actually delivering what they are being regulated to deliver.”

    In Ms Pow’s constituency, the River Tone has been found to have unacceptable levels of chemical pollution, while the nearby Somerset Levels have been plagued by phosphate pollution as a result of agricultural runoff.

    She rejected the suggestion from the Environment Agency and the water industry that people should not expect to swim in their local river, saying: “It’s something we should absolutely anticipate we should be able to do.

    “I grew up on a farm in Somerset, and we spent hours of our time spuddling about in the brook, building rafts, catching Bullhead frogs and releasing them. It’s an idyllic part of childhood, isn’t it? And so, yeah, as water minister I think people should be able to swim in their rivers. We only want the cleanest water we could possibly have, don’t we?”

    But it is unclear how much power Ms Pow has as a junior minister to make a serious dent in the problem. The existing provisions in the Environment Bill, secured only after a U-turn prompted by a rebellion by 22 Tory MPs, have been dismissed as inadequate by river pollution groups.

    Ms Pow rejected suggestions that the Environment Agency, a pollution monitoring body which sits with the ministry, should have been doing more, or its arguments that it has been underfunded to a point at which it cannot carry out its role.

    The pollution shouldn’t be going in there in the first place. It’s not the Environment Agency’s fault,” she said. “They can crack down on it, and they are – we’ve just given them a billion pounds in the last spending review to really crack down on this.”

    * * *

    As I may have mentioned before, rainwater flushing is the way to go: 300,000 new homes could be at least 200,000 new underground rainwater tanks, thus reducing rainfall run-off and also reducing the demand for mains water by around 25% The cost of such an installation at the time of construction would surely make the scheme attractive. However, I am not optimistic that this minister is able to rise above her pre-prepared soundbites and who uses the word “sustainable” no fewer than five times in a two short paragraphs – assuming that she has been quoted correctly of course.

    1. Local people have known for many years about the pollution and sewage in our rivers and on our beaches. It is disingenuous of the Minister to say they have only really known about it in the last 5 years.

      Even before the shit farms started monitoring sewage in storm overflows they damn well knew it was happening.

      Expect your water bills to quadruple.

      1. I went for an interview at the Water Research Establishment (or something like that) when I first graduated. The problem was known then, because they joked about how they would use mussels to filter the water and so monitor the outflow – “don’t eat the bigger mussels!” was the message.
        That was 40 years or so ago.
        Nothing has changed except the ministers have become even more stupid.

        1. Do not forget the problems as well, by not clearing streams etc, cuz, cross-eyed, one-legged, French speaking, vegatarians frogs live there ie the Zummerzet (low) Level lakes

    2. We have problem further down the road from us with rainwater and sewage coming up in the road.
      There are 100s of flats being built in Woking, 24-34 stories, no doubt connecting to old sewers. What could possibly go wrong?

  22. The knob-throwing contest, usually held in Dorchester, did not take place this year

    That was a let-off for Johnson

  23. Good morning all! A gloomy Sunday in West Sussex. So starting the day off right, no tricks with the sun today.

    “How one town prevented rainfall from overwhelming its sewage system”
    Am I the only one that gets ticked off with these sort of letters? The answer is quite simple. Stop people coming here for gods sake. We are, excluding Malta, the most crowded country in Europe, stuffed to the gunnels with people, many of them thoroughly unfriendly to our way of life. Our whole infrastructure is grinding to a halt as we speak and all we have in government is a bunch of inadequates that do nothing but produce more platitudes, pretence that they are doing something, and grandiose pledges of hot air to round off their incompetence and lies.

    1. Good morning JR

      Rainfall does overwhelm the sewage system … and in particular where new housing estates are built housing young families.

      When an extension of a few hundred homes was added to this expanding village nearly 15 years ago, sanitary stuff for women and baby wipes created havoc .. blockages and overspill was very unpleasant for those living in the area .

      The public need educating what and what not to put down the loo and drains .

      1. It isn’t just that Belle. A great deal of it has to do with paving every inch of soil over. People don’t seem to realize that when it rains the water needs somewhere to go and it isn’t in man made channels. The earth is a sponge and if you remove the sponge then the obvious result is flooding. I think that it should be illegal to pave gardens, if you have one, apart from a driveway. And the other issue in relation to housing, is the moronic custom of building on flood plains. Duh!

        1. It is universal.

          The huge and terrifying flooding and damage in the Alpes-Maritimes 16 months ago was mainly due to a great deal of modern construction on or close to “empty” rivers which become torrential torrents when a yard of rain falls in a day.

        2. JR

          Modern estates have no front gardens , and some homes have a couple of parking spaces… thats it and no grass verges either .

          Planning officers are idiots ..

        3. A housing estate was built on a fluvial plain, the fields across the road from them are on a gradient , you can guess what happened when when we had a severe weather event a few years ago …

        4. Correct, Jonathan. It’s not just a matter of the problems of sewage overflow. Some drainage systems that are separate i.e. surface only that doesn’t accept foul, can be overwhelmed during heavy rain in streets where every front garden has been paved and every grass verge tarmacced.

          The 1990s-built development in which I live has separate surface drainage i.e. roof downpipes which are directed into road storm drains. Nearby is a balancing pond into which the water runs.

      2. and still the main cause of all our problems , housing, food, energy is ignored – OVERPOPULATION

  24. Have we been infected? As soon as I posted my below remark there was an instantaneous uptick from “Summer”, who strikes me as dubious.

    2. The kissy profiles have links to sex sites.
      It’s spreading all over Disqus – I found it on Punch of Nigeria news site too.

          1. I did it too and have a daughter and a son as a result. But, thank God, I don’t have to do it anymore 😁

  26. Idiots, idiots, idiots.
    Has the West learned nothing about arming insurgents, Syria, Iran, Libya, Afghanistan, Vietnam?

    Ukrainistan here we come. 20+ years of civil wars, mass migrations, international terrorism.
    China must be laughing all the way to Taiwan.

    Putin is plotting ‘biggest war in Europe since 1945’: Boris warns Kremlin has already moved on invasion and vows sanctions to stop Russia trading in pounds and dollars – as West readies to arm insurgency after occupation

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10532327/Putin-plotting-biggest-war-Europe-1945-PM-warns.html

    Hitchen’s take:
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10530885/PETER-HITCHENS-Granny-gets-gun-bunch-shameless-neo-Nazis.html

    1. This is Biden and the warmongers, always bloody Democrats, pushing for violence. They are going to push and push until Putin is forced to retaliate. Then they will get on the body’s piled high and say: “I told you so, Putin is a killer and a gangster.” The whole thing is revolting because, of course, it will effect the F-ing Americans minimally on their island unaffected by the mess it will cause in Europe. Biden and his cohorts are deeply evil people in my opinion. Provoking war in Europe and destroying their own country with their socialist policies at the same time. It is time for a revolution in the USA.

  27. With 80,000 types of Starbucks coffee I yearn for a time when life was just black and white
    Rod Liddle
    Sunday February 20 2022, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

    Imagine, for a moment, that you quite fancy a cup of coffee. Being lazy, you head off to Starbucks and ask the nice young lady for … for … for what? You remember, balefully, that you have to be specific. There are so many variations on offer. You feel like saying, “I don’t care what size, or what strength — just give me a bloody coffee, Svetlana.”

    But you don’t say that. You haver and worry, and doubt begins to gnaw at you. You have chosen a large decaf gluten-free almond milk latte with a shot of acai syrup, and when you drink it you think: well, this is OK. But it could be better, couldn’t it? You wonder what variation you could have had instead: there are 80,000 combinations of type, size and flavour in Starbucks, and it would take you 218 years to try each one if you drank one cup of coffee a day. Therefore you will never know if you have chosen the perfect coffee, the ultima Thule of coffee. You will be as stiff as a stoat long before you have the chance to find out.

    You berate yourself for not having chosen better. You are left dissatisfied and irritable and lacking in confidence, and Svetlana is glaring at you from behind the counter and maybe about to call security, a largish and unstable man called Igor. Psychologists call this the paradox of choice: limited choice is a good thing, but lots of choice makes people very unhappy indeed.

    I thought about this when I read a survey carried out by King’s College London suggesting that 60 per cent of people wished modern life could be more “simple”. This got picked up by some of the press, which took it to mean that lots of people preferred living in the 1980s. Some respondents did say that, but it wasn’t the point. For me the 1980s was a grotesque decade, politically and culturally: shoulder pads, cocaine, poodle hair, Spandau Ballet and untrammelled greed. Although in fact the 1980s are of some importance in this study, because by coincidence it happens to be the decade when the choice stuff began, when it was born in the cradle of unrestrained free-market capitalism. When suddenly we all became customers — individuals empowered by choice. Choice that, as time went on, we realised we didn’t really want.

    Coffee is the least of it. When people yearn for simplicity they really mean that life imposes too many decisions upon them these days — and they are right. To what degree do you feel empowered by being able to choose your energy provider, for example? Do you switch every few months, hoping to pocket 20 quid by the end of the year? Does that 20 quid cover the amount of time you spent on the internet comparing the charges, and the hours spent on hold to the energy companies listening to T’Pau’s China in Your Hand?

    If you have a serious illness, such as cancer, are you grateful that you are now encouraged to shop around for your treatment, from hospital to hospital, using your limited time to adjudicate which one is best at dealing with your particular brand of tumour? Or does this add to your weight of worry and leave you with the suspicion that you might not be the best equipped to make such decisions? Do you have even the remotest understanding of the fare structures employed by our multiplicity of rail companies? Or are you left kicking yourself when a fellow passenger tells you that he got his ticket for 20 quid less because he bought the leg of the journey between Doncaster and Wakefield separately and booked the rest six months ago? When your kid turns 11 do you think back wistfully to a time when children went to their local comp and that was that — and here you are wondering if you should put him or her forward for the Ofsted-praised Milton Obote Academy of Stabbing or the bog standard, but geographically closer, Toussaint Louverture comp?

    Only the genuinely mentally disturbed could believe that they were capable of dealing with such superfluity of choice about stuff that far exceeds their realm of expertise. Yet because we live in the (dying, I suspect) era of the individual, we are enjoined to believe that this is all good for us. It isn’t. It makes us tear our hair out and yearn for a simpler life. More than that, it chews away at the notion of “society” and our reliance upon other members of that society. It is, in short, corrupting and bewildering.

    Back in that hideous decade, the 1980s, I went on a trip to the Soviet Union and at one point became thirsty and longed for a soft drink. I fancied a Coca-Cola, but of course there was none. Nor Lilt, Tango, Fanta or Dr Pepper. Just a choice between kvass and a sickly orange syrupy thing from a state vending machine. I think we are happiest somewhere between those two poles of choice. Although the kvass was great.

    Why Putin wants Ukraine

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Fsundaytimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F5a40e92a-91a4-11ec-8038-2fedb801d1cc.jpg?crop=1500%2C1000%2C0%2C0&resize=1010

    Woke Wordle woes

    One by one the little pleasures in life are taken away from us. Wordle, for example. This harmless little game, in which you try to figure out, each day, a five-letter word, has been snapped up by the world’s worst newspaper, The New York Times. And so now the words are all stupid, or don’t exist in the UK, or are known only to people who study critical race theory or gender politics.

    Someone needs to start up a right-wing Wordle, with the answers each day being five-letter synonyms for stuff like decency, obedience, fortitude and empire.

    My friend PJ had a sinister secret

    “At the core of liberalism is the spoilt child — miserable, as all spoilt children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of snivelling brats.” Thus wrote the brilliant PJ O’Rourke, who died last week.

    It is a funny and accurate quote but also misleading. The Guardian once referred to him as “the conservative it’s OK to like” — and that’s because he wasn’t a conservative at all. He was a libertarian, not terribly distant from his friend Hunter S Thompson. We had dinner a few years ago, and PJ spent the evening delivering a eulogy for immigration and, when he’d finished that, an exposition on his detestation of Donald Trump.

    For me, his politics didn’t matter: he was simply acerbic, acute and hilarious, and I’ll miss him.

    The selfish south fawns over Eunice

    Farewell, then, Storm Eunice — or Storm Omicron, as those of us who live in the north have come to call it, given that it delivered a mildly pleasant zephyr and about 0.5 centimetres of snow. I understand that Sage has called for the Met Office red warning to remain in place until mid-September as a precaution.

    Forgive the cynicism, please. It’s just that we remember Storm Arwen, in which thousands of people were left without power for as long as 12 days — yet the interest of the BBC and morning newspapers was scarcely piqued. But that’s because it was northerners affected, and Arwen didn’t threaten an exciting “sting jet”, like Eunice.

    1. Only a wnaker has trouble choosing coffee. God give me strength!
      Long, or short, Cappuccino or espresso. EDIT: And cappuccino only before 10:00 am
      Basta!
      So how is that difficult? All other forms of coffee are wrong.
      Oh, yes, starting in Starbucks isn’t so smart, either. Better to go somewhere that serves good coffee without all the false chumminess.

    2. It’s been a while since I’ve darkened the door of Starbucks – or any ‘coffee shop’ – but my order was normally, ‘A large black coffee please.’
      On a rare seasonal occasion, I would stoop to a pumpkin spice latte. Don’t judge me. ;D

  28. OT – the MR wants to visit Malta to see the ancient temples. She noticed that there was a prog on TV last night (More4) about historic Malta. We watched it.

    It was “presented” by a woman who was once a reasonably qualified historian.

    Now she has
    (a) become hugely overweight – cleavage frequently pointed to camera)
    (b) adopted cutely coy – flutters eyelashes (ugh)
    (c) long and annoying hair that she keeps flicking out of her face
    (d) adopted a different, estuary plus gravelly (think teenage Essex girl) voice.

    To call the prog superficial would be over-praising it…

    I hate telly tarts.

    The MR still wants to go to Malta!

    1. If you haven’t been, I think you would enjoy Malta.
      Lots of history that might appeal to you.

      1. My father was there in 1944 with the Royal Air Force and my late brother in 1956 when he was in the Royal Navy. I have always been put off by their descriptions!

        Still, we’ll prolly go.

          5. I am. I have previously given the MR via Bill a list of the historic sites and other places of interest. I also told him to stay at the Phoenicia if he wanted a touch of class but he said it was too expensive. :@)

        3. We went there in the late 90s and had a great time. There used to be very colourful buses probably from the 50s held together with string an sellotape. The EU, I understand, made them buy modern buses.
          We went into St Julian a couple of evenings and the main square was full of children from 4 or 5 up to teenagers very well behaved. We also hired a car, I asked the lady clerk if she wanted an imprint of my CC. No thank you she said, your English and will always return the car, we charge the Italians because they don’t. As we were walking out of the door she called out and said Mr Alf mind how you go as the Maltese like to drive in the shade. She wasn’t wrong.

        4. It still looks like it is being rebuilt but there has been a lot of work done. Especially in Valletta. Many more cafes and bistros to while away the hot hours.

          The Navy boys were primarily interested in partying in The Gut. It had a bad rep but it is all changed now and is respectable. Not sure if they let Solicitors in though. :@)

        5. Besides tiny shrines dotted all over the place there are also the remains of the Roman occupation. A quite fantastic viaduct is worth a visit. I would take a picnic though. You can get a bus tour. I was the only one on it and he didn’t bother charging me.

          The tour also stopped by a Mosque which is fabled as being where the Prophets Aunt fell off her donkey and broke her neck. Oh how i laughed.

          Then there are the flamingos. Flocks galore ! But you have to time your visit right to see them.

          A trip around the Grand Harbour on a sunny day is cheap and cheerful and a nice way to spend an afternoon.

          You can even see where True Belle worked at the Royal Naval Hospital at Bighi.

    2. Tell the MR to take Phizzee if she wants a non-grumpy companion. He knows all the shady night spots….and more.

    3. I know that it is a gross prejudice but I really can’t stand watching programmes about history or science that are hosted by women. You know that most of them are third rate and have been put there to side line some real historian or scientist who is a pale white man who really is an expert. That awareness simply ruins one’s desire to watch. It is one of the reasons I no longer watch TV. Instead of David Starkey you get the execrable Lucy Worsley playing dress up. And the feminists with their drivel infecting everything, my god the feminists, Emily Maitlis, Victoria Derbyshire, Cathy Newman etc. Where is the firing squad and Stalin when you need him!

        2. When they are allowed to. At the mo Plum, those that do get browbeaten, denigrated, criticised, abused, fired, and hobbled etc. etc. etc.

          3. The point was that suddenly, when dying horribly is required, men will be found useful again.

      2. Some years ago, there was a very good woman – Helen Castor. They tried to turn her into a telly tart – scarf, walking in and out of shot to say something. She packed it in.

        Most male presenters have gone the same way. Started well and then got trapped into telly tartery. Silly clothes; silly “additions” to the art or main subject.

        The only one I admire – still – after many years – is Waldemar Januszczak. Quirky, yes – but a mine of information. His progs are always interesting and very instructive. His secret, I think, is that he writes, directs and produces his own films.

        1. I would guess that Helen Castor was on TV when I lived in the USA because I have never heard of her. I will look her up.
          I missed out the contemptible Mary Beard in my hit list above. Another Socialist with nothing between her ears and she gets away with it. A perfect example of what rises to the top!

          2. Apart from cream rising to the top, it’s a well known fact, Jonathan, that scum also rises.

            Just look at any political party, you’d need a very sharp-edged fish-slice to cleanse the stable.

          3. I was actually thinking of what sometimes rises to the top in as toilet bowl.
            Your second sentence is quite right also. Thanks to the internet we are better informed and, as a result, the gulf between the liars in government and the people is growing. In the end it will result in some sort of revolution and I don’t mean that as revolution being inevitably violent. But the system is breaking down and into the gap something will inevitably replace it.

        2. Rob Bell on British industrial history is very good.
          And the Fred Dibnah programmes are being repeated. He really – literally – understood the nuts and bolts of his subject.

          1. Can’t stand Bell. Like so many male “presenters” he has stupid hair, and walks in and out of shot and frequently gives the impression that he read the script for the first time as it unrolled in front of him.

            Remember what I told sos yesterday. Nothing you see on recorded telly is true.

    4. Gozo is nice! Malta not so much! The ancient sites are impressive and the people were lovely (1987) but the food and the water were dreadful! Just my opinion!

      1. Of course John Milton’s Samson was described as being: “Eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves.” (Lawrence Durrell used this for the title of his novel)

        When we were in Malta we heard of a group of English yobbos who went to the island to the North of Malta, drank too much and became Legless in Gozo.

    7. We had recently read Arthur Ransome’s PeterDuck aloud in the evening and those who know the story will remember how the pirates aboard the Viper met their end so it was interesting to see this waterspout as we sailed towards Malta!

      We sailed to there from Sicily on our way to Greece in 2005 and spent a week there. Christo, who is now an aerospace design engineer, was thrilled to discover that the Malta Air show was going on and in addition to the many displays we saw the Red Arrows.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c0909b11a382b2bdd5c58352f8ca3eeeb1a9faf90f4758f910f8523fd0bb26ac.jpg
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5a3f66fe8d43c8676dc3136064f773424c80796ffe237036a10ed47a88ea72f2.jpg

    9. When she presents programmes on Ancient Egypt, I’m amazed that embonpoint doesn’t get fried to a crisp.
      She’ll end up as crepey as Brigitte Bardot.

      1. Among many things to dislike – her face is so fleshy that her eyes are small and piglike.

  29. The economic case for Scottish independence has collapsed completely
    The Tories should more aggressively point out the growing flaws in the SNP’s arguments

    SIMON HEFFER : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/20/economic-case-scottish-independence-has-collapsed-completely/

    BLT Comment by a John Bankhead

    While the NIP remains and NI has been annexed by the EU the union is in peril. How can the Conservatives brand themselves as ‘the party of the union’ when they allow such an arrangement. If NI leaves it will begin an exit domino effect. You can bet the dirty hands of the EU will assist Scottish and Welsh separatists.

    1. Simon Heffer talks about the folly of the SNP: “The Tories should more aggressively point out the growing flaws in the SNP’s arguments” but surely it is far more important for the Tories to understand the sheer economic folly of Net Zero and the asininity of not exploiting the potential benefits of Brexit.

    2. They won’t do that, because they belong to the same part of the political spectrum as Justin Trudeau and the rest of the shabby gang, whose main motivation consists of appeasing minorities and blaming Anglo-Saxons.

  31. Granny gets her gun – from a bunch of shameless neo-Nazis… not that the BBC would ever tell you. Peter Hitchens. 20 February 2022.

    The stories of innocent postmasters and postmistresses, ruined, humiliated and, in many cases, led off to prison when they had done nothing wrong, makes me want to hit something every time I hear it.

    I am filled with admiration for those who worked for years to expose this dreadful scandal, and relieved for our society that the victims are at least being vindicated. But the pain and unjust shame endured by those caught in this horror is too appalling to think about.

    I do not know what punishment, or penance would be right for the executives responsible. I know that they have not experienced it.

    But I think it is one of many horrible things that probably could not have happened so easily in an older Britain. I think we have become too gullible, too ready to accept the official version of everything. And a key reason for that is that nobody reads the Sherlock Holmes stories any more. I ask around friends and colleagues, and they just haven’t and don’t..

    The majority of people nowadays inhabit a second hand internal fantasy world created by various media for both entertainment and information purposes. This fills almost all their brain space. In this world women defeat men in battle and heroes lick six opponents without effort. Our ancestors lived in the Real World and drew their views from it. They had a firm grasp of what was real and what was not but also what was likely and what was not. Fooling them was extremely difficult! We Nottlers’ and our ilk are the last vestiges of that world. And just in case you want to know I still read Sherlock Holmes and sundry others from that age.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10530885/PETER-HITCHENS-Granny-gets-gun-bunch-shameless-neo-Nazis.html

    2. “Reverend Paula Vennells CBE : Under her leadership, the Post Office prosecuted hundreds of subpostmasters for fraud, despite knowing that the relevant financial discrepancies actually arose from computer errors for which the Post Office was responsible.”

      And she has not been punished. She received an honour – the CBE – and an enormous pension. One can only hope that her ‘reverence’ will receive retribution in the next world if not in this.

      3. The bitch received the CBE for services to the post office and charity. She didn’t show any mercy or charity to her employees.

        From 2002 to 2005, Vennells trained for Holy Orders on the St Albans and Oxford Ministry Course.[5] She was ordained in the Church of England as a deacon in 2005 and as a priest in 2006.[5] She has served as a non-stipendiary minister at Church of St Owen, Bromham in the Diocese of St Albans.[5][13] She was reported to have ‘stepped back’ from duties in 2021.[14] She also resigned from the Church of England Ethical Investment Advisory Group.[15]

      4. There is no punishment. Those who work for public bodies are never punished. For example, police who are suspected of something horrible and face a tribunal or public enquiry are allowed to resign before the enquiry or investigation takes place. They thereby escape scrutiny. It is an unwritten rule for those and such as those. The same will be true of the Post Office. My view is that those who are culpable, and that will include a raft of Post Office executives as well as the entire board, should lose their jobs. Those who have dodged the enquiry by retiring or moving elsewhere should lose their Post Office pensions.
        The possibility of criminal proceedings should be looked at carefully.

    3. Sorry Araminta. Didn’t see your post before I posted the above from Peter Hitchens. I will leave it up because it is a copy and paste, for those who don’t like links.

      1. I noticed that you took the lead part Johnathan so it makes no difference. Hitchens of course has not bought into the Goverment Narrative about Putin and Russia.

        1. That’s because, as you no doubt know, he lived there. I think all of us that have some sort of real connection to Russia are not fooled. Unfortunately there are few of us in the West. But, I understand, you have no connection to Russia, you actually thought for yourself, is that correct? A rare habit now a days and difficult with all the incessant propaganda in the Western MSM.

  32. Granny gets her gun – from a bunch of shameless neo-Nazis… not that the BBC would ever tell you. Peter Hitchens. 20 February 2022.

    The stories of innocent postmasters and postmistresses, ruined, humiliated and, in many cases, led off to prison when they had done nothing wrong, makes me want to hit something every time I hear it.

    I am filled with admiration for those who worked for years to expose this dreadful scandal, and relieved for our society that the victims are at least being vindicated. But the pain and unjust shame endured by those caught in this horror is too appalling to think about.

    I do not know what punishment, or penance would be right for the executives responsible. I know that they have not experienced it.

    But I think it is one of many horrible things that probably could not have happened so easily in an older Britain. I think we have become too gullible, too ready to accept the official version of everything. And a key reason for that is that nobody reads the Sherlock Holmes stories any more. I ask around friends and colleagues, and they just haven’t and don’t..

    The majority of people nowadays inhabit a second hand internal fantasy world created by various media for both entertainment and information purposes. This fills almost all their brain space. In this world women defeat men in battle and heroes lick six opponents without effort. Our ancestors lived in the Real World and drew their views from it. They had a firm grasp of what was real and what was not but also what was likely and what was not. Fooling them was extremely difficult! We Nottlers’ and our ilk are the last vestiges of that world. And just in case you want to know I still read Sherlock Holmes and sundry others from that age.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10530885/PETER-HITCHENS-Granny-gets-gun-bunch-shameless-neo-Nazis.html

  33. PETER HITCHENS: Granny gets her gun – from a bunch of shameless neo-Nazis… not that the BBC would ever tell you

    If the BBC found a group of neo-Nazis among some student Tories, or among Trump supporters in the USA, they would surely tell us about it, hot and strong.

    Quite right too. In fact, the Corporation’s horror and disgust at such people is one of the few things I absolutely share with them.

    So why did they last week repeatedly broadcast an entire news item, featuring a group of undoubted, shameless neo-Nazis, actually wearing SS insignia on their clothes – and not even notice?

    The film starred a sweet old great-grandma, Valentina Konstaninovska, in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol.
    She was getting lessons from soldiers in how to fight off the Russians with an AK-47 burp gun. Pictures of the doughty 78-year-old also featured in several newspapers last Monday.

    But it was only in the film that you could see the shoulder-flashes worn by the soldiers. These display a sinister, jagged symbol called the ‘Wolfsangel’. This is an explicitly Nazi emblem, originally used by Hitler’s ‘Das Reich’ Waffen SS division.

    This unit is still famous for murdering 200 people in Serbia, for a massacre of 920 Jews in Minsk, now in Belarus, for hanging 99 people in retaliation for French Resistance operations in Tulle.

    But above all it is notorious for the mass murder in the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane, in which the SS men machine-gunned or burned to death 642 civilians, including women and children. The Wolfsangel can be seen in archive pictures of the Das Reich division’s tanks.

    The patches worn by their Ukrainian fans also carry the word ‘Azov’ and so proclaim that they are members of the ‘Azov Battalion’. Who? An FBI investigator said in 2018 that the Azov Battalion was a ‘paramilitary unit… known for its association with neo-Nazi ideology and the use of Nazi symbolism’.
    Its defenders now bleat that it has been absorbed into the Ukrainian National Guard. This was the pathetic excuse offered by the BBC when I asked them how they had come to fail to report the truth. Bilge.

    If these men are permitted to wear this repulsive, shameful badge it is easy to work out who is the boss in this relationship. If they were even slightly under the control of civilised people, they would certainly not be allowed to do so, even if their shaven heads were still full of poison and filth.

    No proper army would have them at all, even in the direst need. Is it really possible that, in the BBC’s vast and costly apparatus of reporters, editors, producers, fact-checkers and bureaucrats, not one person spotted the problem? If so, we are dealing with Olympic-level incompetence. But it is my suspicion that something else is going on. The generation that kept the BBC relatively impartial is fast dying off. Those who remain have accepted a large number of contentious opinions as facts.

    One of these opinions is the ridiculous cartoon idea that Russia is like Mordor in Lord Of The Rings, an utterly evil country ruled by a Dark Monster. And that Ukraine, its current enemy, is by contrast a shining Utopia, pluckily defending itself against the orc-like hordes of Moscow. This explains why the BBC were so keen to use this film, in which a Brave Granny Gets Her Gun. ‘Brave Granny Gets Her Gun From Some Neo-Nazis’ is not quite the same, is it?

    One of the roots of the Russia-Ukraine problem is, alas, the existence of some very crude and nasty factions of Ukrainian nationalism, many of them unblushing neo-Nazis. Of course there are plenty of perfectly civilised Ukrainian patriots, but bigoted racialist thugs have an influence way beyond their numbers in that country.

    That is why so many Russians living in Ukraine have often felt excluded and have yearned to be ruled instead from Russia.

    And that explains a lot of other things now going on.

    Ukraine is, in fact, much like Russia in its corruption, political sleaze, oligarchs, dirty money and dodgy politics. It is not especially free and the rule of law is absent. And, as you now know in detail, there are quite a few Nazis. If we are going to interfere in this very complex problem, then we are going to need to tell each other the truth about it.

    1. “ Ukraine is, in fact, much like Russia in its corruption, political sleaze, oligarchs, dirty money and dodgy politics. It is not especially free and the rule of law is absent.”

      To my mind, Johnathan, the U.K. sis not that different any more.

      1. Afraid not vw. But at least, I suppose, we don’t have armed police threatening the public, unlike the newest dictatorship in the world, Canada.

    1. Morning Bill. I don’t think so. We have to wait for Disqus to cure it, this assuming that they are not responsible or wish to do so. My guess is that it’s a GCHQ project to spread Fear and Anxiety.

    2. Good morning all.
      Who says that they are a pest? Votes are are a fundamental part of a democratic system.

      (please no memes of fundaments)

  35. As soon as I post a post a pair of bright red lips with a girl’s name appended gives me an upvote. Who are these hot-lipped girls and why have they taken a fancy to my posts?

  36. ‘Morning All

    BoB beat me to it with the Neil Oliver so Convoy!! it is

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/22eb9027698683d2dbcc15e60533fba8d892ca9ef830b6ca707f68b6eccb66d2.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/162e660ecde25ffc59cb6b2d0aff9f38f9aa54cce99a681eb3141f8f65311822.jpg

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIwawZwzxYg&ab_channel=mistersunshinebaby

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2532a3da90cf18e3dd6fec4272d28f54ea7a6b803797a5a81ed7fb4dd400188f.jpg

    https://twitter.com/ElectionWiz/status/1495025543858774024?s=20&t=OqUi3UURAF1QreNIQeW9yA

    Special Stupidity Award for the Ontario Supreme Court

    https://twitter.com/GamifyMyWorld/status/1495042260735561730?t=55RcgUMdhbgajDtDhHu2aw&s=19

    And their Parliament…..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7b42d39207980d9402c6af832a34355f8e8a9569fa5828d4aa31cd84d82815b8.png

    1. Is the policeman in the first photo the brother of Victoria Coren’s husband, David Mitchell?

    1. An idiot teacher who didn’t even understand the question asked.
      It’s a great pity that they can’t be named and shamed.

      1. One of Firstborn’s teachers was similarly gifted, confusing a transformer with a transistor…. Another gave the homework question about the reading book: “Did you like this book?” (answer on 2 sides of A4). The word “No” does not take 2 sides unless written with a paintbrush…

      1. You’d be surprised how much the standard of education varies from state to state. If we’d lived in GA first, my son would have gone to private school or been home schooled. The standards are much higher in CT; I believe SC is the lowest ranked state- or it was.

    1. Of course Nottlers are the exception to this rule!

      Headline of the article:

      Men over 60 become ‘unbonkable’
      At the start of this year, and after two divorces, I found my third wife – but it’s not an easy task

  47. There are a lot of photos on twitt of large demonstrations in Ottawa yesterday, so the authorities’ claim to have ended the protests would appear to be premature.

    1. The Telegaffe’s report today is awful – it claims that “no protesters were injured”??

      1. On a day when Trudeau has pushed through powers uncannily similar to Hitler’s Enabling Act, and Trudeau even went one better and banned Parliament from debating said powers…and the legacy media notices nothing…

        Their only hope is that the people don’t notice what’s going on, but as “BlackfaceHitler” is currently trending on Twit, that’s starting to look a bit desperate.

        Yesterday I was out on a main road demonstration, holding signs up for car drivers to read.
        I was near a traffic light, and the front of my sign read “Side effect: Myocarditis….harmless?”
        If drivers looked at all interested, either in a negative or positive way, I turned the sign round where it read “Turn the TV off! Think for yourself!”
        I was quite surprised how many laughs that got, even from people who hadn’t looked particularly positive to the other sign.
        People may not know what’s going on, but I think there is widespread subconscious understanding that we are being lied to on a massive scale.

      2. I really feel for her- a rotten time of late and, of course, her age is a concern. I know she’ll get the best of care but this country needs stability right now and HM provides that.

    4. A friend of mine in CT had been an emergency room nurse and she told me of an occasion when a man came in on a stretcher covered with a blanket. Another stretcher, also blanket covered, was beside him. He was taken to a cubicle and the blankets were removed revealing that the man had been attempting a little fun with the vacuum and it had got stuck. She said all the staff had the toughest time not laughing.

      1. It’s time Dyson invented the voice controlled vacuum that will turn off when you use the predetermined safe word.
        That will save up to 10 minutes of suck time on full power before getting to the ER!

        1. Our vacuum is so powerful we call it “Fang”. If it got anywhere near the curtains it would pull down the whole rail and everything. It’s vicious. As to anything else- I wouldn’t want to speculate!

    6. I remember my sister, who was a nurse in London, telling me it was a regular occurrence on Sat nights to get at least one person in with a vacuum hose on his willie.

    1. Amazing that she thinks the “protisters” are constantly talking given the non stop drivel she was spouting – what a truly appalling woman

    2. She is one of the best advocates for living a celibate life that I have ever come across. Indeed, Peter Tatchell ought to consider using her as the poster girl to convert people to his particular sexual orientation.

  58. I thought I’d found a way round the bots last night but it seems not. Ignore them is best- don’t even mention them.

  60. Ukraine: Russia plans biggest war in Europe since 1945 – Boris Johnson. 20 February 2022.

    The prime minister raising the prospect of a conflict as devastating as World War II is designed to focus minds.
    The ongoing tensions in eastern Europe have given Mr Johnson, who’s faced a myriad of problems at home, a chance to show leadership on the world stage.

    And on the sidelines of the Munich security conference, he seems to have made some progress on the question of sanctions.

    Stopping Russian companies’ ability to trade in pounds and dollars is a new proposal designed to do serious damage to the country’s finances.

    How does he know this? How can one possibly “plan” the biggest war in Europe since 1945? What does it even mean?

    Even assuming that Russia intended to attack Ukraine at all, these threats are counterproductive. Facing the prospect of Economic Ruin why would Vlad back down at all? The Americans instituted sanctions against Japan in 1941 for its activities in China. Instead of bringing them to heel it brought on the attack on Pearl Harbour and the War in the Pacific!

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60448162

    2. Given the state of “leadership” in the West, I’m reaching the point where I wish Vlad would just get on with it.
      It might just provide the spur to us getting rid of the scum at the top.

  61. Afternoon, all. Concerning spam upvotes, it appears to be an issue across most of Disqus, who – in their inimitable fashion – are doing sweet FA about it. There’s nothing the site mods can do about it. The best advice I can give is to ignore them. Don’t click on them – they’re doing no harm, but the fake profiles may have dangerous links. There’s more about the issue here: https://disqus.com/home/discussion/channel-discussdisqus/bug_reports_feedback_annoying_spam_upvotes_on_every_comment/

      1. It is still having an affect on some of the chumps men on here. Making them think of sex more often than usual.

      2. “…They’re distracting, but less so when you bear in mind that it’s just software porn.

    5. You haven’t attracted one of them with this post. Do you have a secret online e-vaccination, geoff?

  62. The Queen tests positive for Covid. 20 February 2022.

    Buckingham Palace said the monarch, 95, was experiencing “mild cold-like symptoms” but expected to continue carrying out light duties this week.

    It was confirmed she had been in direct contact with her eldest son and heir, the Prince of Wales, the week he had the virus, while a number of cases have also been reported among those at her Windsor Castle home.

    I’m worried about Her Maj. This would be a very bad time for her to Cock her Clogs. She is the last link we have with the Old World of Common Sense and Responsibility. Charles is a PC moron who would spout whatever he was told by Westminster.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/feb/20/queen-tests-positive-for-covid

    3. In my opinion she will have a better chance of surviving Covid if she has not received the gene therapy.

      But I accept that this is just my opinion and is not based on ‘the science’ but is based on my own experience and the experience we have had in our village where many people in the Old People’s Nursing Home died shortly after being jabbed and Caroline had a hectic schedule of playing the organ several times in church each week for the funerals.

      A boy of 17 who came on a course with us in October who is at a leading public school (the one where the most famous prime minister in the 20th Century went) contracted myocarditis after being jabbed and, two of the other boys at his school also got myocarditis after the jab. They all had to go to hospital and recovered – but for some strange reason the MSM was not interested in the story.

      2. We used to play them at various sports, they had a tendency to be very competitive and violent, their arch-enemy was worse.
        Some bastard from there tried to scratch my eye out, it stopped me being comfortable in contact lenses

        1. Can’t remember. Was it Haberdashers or Merchant Taylors where you were at school?

          On our circuit Blundell’s, Taunton and Clifton were considered a bit too rough but Sherborne and Cheltenham were more refined. Canford and Bryanston were rather dull and the left footers at Downside were a bit unpredictable.

  63. The ever fragrant, and completely useless Untrussworthy opines:

    “If we don’t stop Vladimir Putin now he’ll wage war on more countries like the Baltic states, warns Foreign Secretary Liz Truss”

    By which she means Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates

  64. Covid has damaged and virtually written off our business.

    Covid has destroyed our finances and reduced our income by 80%

    Covid has ruined our social life as we have not been able to visit our sons and see their new homes that they have bought.

    Covid has messed up our cultural lives

    Covid has robbed us of our last few years of sailing.

    Covid restrictions and rules have had our excellent doctor sacked.

    THE ONE THING COVID HAS NOT SUCCEEDED IN DOING IS MAKING US ILL WHEN WE HAD IT!

      1. Yes – in the last couple of days our lovely Françoise has been sacked after a dedicated life of service to us all. We are devastated and the local medical services will be very gravely affected as she is not going to be replaced in the near future. And the other doctors in her practice are pro-vaxers.

          2. Initially in the Covid idiocy I would have agreed, I’m not so sure now.
            I know this isn’t a representative area because all the parties have people elected around and about, but there is absolutely no enthusiasm for him here. Everyone else has people leafleting.

          3. There is no enthusiasm for him anywhere – except from his mother.

            The trouble is that all the opposing candidates are hopeless and/or falling out.

        2. It was a bit risky to have mentioned your Doctor online; these forums are watched.
          Nevertheless any statistician could have detected that Françoise was not jabbing enough victims.

    3. I’m sorry about your business, Rastus. What we saw earlier, I was tempted to book myself in for a refresher… and for these things to happen through no fault of your own makes it twice as hard to bear!

  66. Stuff is going down so fast, and so much mud is being thrown in all directions that some of it must stick.
    https://twitter.com/wilko_wedyn/status/1495361788333989897

    I was just watching the snippet from InfoWars about Wall Street’s reaction to insurance companies’ early results (someone posted it earlier, thank you).
    He also made the suggestion, which I have heard before from Ernst Wolf and others, that the social contract is broken because the fiat currencies are coming to the end of the road, and the whole pandemic was just cooked up as fluff to distract us from the fact that we won’t be getting pensions and free healthcare in the future.
    I’m sure Gates is keen on his jab-and-control agenda, but at the end of the day, the bankers are more powerful than he is. It would not at all surprise me to see Gates, Fauci and Schwab swept away in the tide, along with small operators like that fool Trudeau.
    Then we could have a reset back to the level where we would be if they hadn’t been printing money since the early 70s, the super-rich would stay super rich, and life would go on, a lot poorer.
    At this point, that might be the least bad result!

      1. I thought the scenario I outlined was not too bad!

        One thing is annoying me greatly, and that is that when I went to Germany, years ago, I got a private healthcare, which I have always hung onto, mainly because it leaves my options for living where I want in retirement open.
        If masses of people are making claims for vaccine induced chronic illnesses, the premiums will go up.

        The insurance company is a very reputable German one, and usually they run a very tight ship – they have even reduced premiums in the past! But they will not have calculated for a large rise in chronic illnesses.

    2. I wonder who has the biggest “short” in the derivatives markets if Putin actually does invade.
      Of even vice versa if he doesn’t. Timing might be interesting.

    2. No need to speak English, the goons are from across the river where French is the only official language.

      Not that it excuses name tags being covered up.

      1. That was a comment made in the replies – but I thought all Canadians in that region are bilingual anyway aren’t they?
        Why do the police uniforms look so different from the Ottawa ones?

          1. I speak good French French. When I was in Québec, they could understand me, but I hadn’t got a clue what they were talking about!

          2. I was allocated an interpreter when I was working in Paris.
            She said that the Quebecoise spoke the finest French anywhere.

          3. They are certainly more French than the French! In France, it says “Stop”, in Québec it says, “Arrêt” and un ferry in Québec is un traversier.

    3. I came across this livestream from Ottawa today. ALL the trucks gone, and the gestapo police chief warning that even when the protesters have gone home, they will identify them, hunt them down and punish them. Beyond sinister.
      https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=notif&v=3066452753602746&notif_id=1645301964516881&notif_t=live_video
      Eerily quiet there.
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4363b0643eeb1e30ca2c9e10535e38a90445434b59bc25eee94feddcafd78f70.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c6f8dd06ac87852163fa1d106d05dac4d78d14a7246fb411a6245c9e54fd0322.png

  70. One for Plum…

    Britain’s women win gold at curling.

    How ironic that our only gold comes in a sport that involves 4 women and a sweeping brush.

      2. I see the woman’s curlers won gold in the Winter Olympics.

        I didn’t realise hairdressing was a discipline, but fair play to them.

    7. The priest said we’d won a medal at the Olympics – the other good news he gave was that Crewe Alexandra didn’t play yesterday, which prevented them from losing the game 🙂

  71. The new gale blowing here is so westerley and strong , that the smoke is blowing back down the chimney .

    The gusts are wild and it isn’t raining properly, just drizzle .

    Cross fingers no power cuts.

    1. Wind has picked up here too but no rain so far. Am fed up with it- would like some warm sunshine.

      1. Had moose stew with mash & LOTS of brussels last night. Lovely, it was!
        Bit windy here too, though! 🙁

        2. We had steak last night and I have half of mine left so will munch that later. MH made himself a breakfast of leftover mash, beans, smoked sausage and eggs on top. He seemed very happy with it. Expect he’ll just have a bowl of homemade soup tonight.
          So it could get windy here also 🙁

          1. Good grief! My breakfast is a bowl of porridge, a third of a banana, a teaspoon of yogurt and – for a treat – a few raspberries (from the freezer).

            When I read the menus posted by NoTTLers variés, I simply do not know how they can put away so much food!!

            Each to their own, of course – but where, once upon a time, I could eat a full English breakfast, three course lunch AND a three/four course dinner – there is absolutely NO WAY I can do that nowadays Hence my svelte shape, of course….{:¬))

          2. Breakfast: Coffee
            Lunch: More coffee
            Supper: Hopefully something interesting, or nothing, ‘cos I can’t be bothered and only want to stop being hungry, anyway.

          4. I was similar and only put on weight if I took a lot of exercise specifically to build up muscle bulk.

            Now I eat a fraction of what I used to but don’t lose or gain much over the year.

          5. I only have a small brekker….two blueberry mini muffins and two tangerines today. Some mornings it’s a bowl of Special K. I am not a big eater.

          6. We diet three days a week trying to keep to < 600 calories a day:

            Breakfast: Coffee and Orange Juice
            Lunch: Soup or salad and an apple
            Supper: omelette or tuna or prawn salad and grapefruit

            On four days a week we eat rather more because I'm a bit of a porker.

          9. I avoid dining out in the evenings. A light lunch for me. Provided there is plenty of alcohol of course.

      1. I’ve had the distant roaring of the wind through the trees on the top of the valley all day, with only the occasional gust down here.
        Lots of rain though.

    2. We watched a middle aged couple in the brasserie yesterday.
      They arrived, sat down and stared at their mobiles and didn’t exchange a word the whole time.
      Bizarre

          1. I have seen marrieds or couples behave like that in the pub but we actually talk to each other and to other people. Mind you, haven’t been there for ages- too cold and too much horrible weather.

          2. We still talk to each other.
            That must make HG the most tolerant person on the planet.
            Your better half and BT’s MR excluded, naturally.

      2. The last time I was in a restaurant in France – Le Beauvoir, at Bourges (qui mérite le détour), a couple at the next table sat down, took out their phones and laid them – switched on – next to their placement. And, though they spoke to each other once or twice, their main attention was on the glowing phones.

        Don’t get it, me…

        1. Nor me. Ours is emergency use and SMS for bank confirmations etc only.
          And we only have the one between us.

      1. I use mine to make one call a month to keep the SIM alive. Otherwise, simply for emergency use.

    4. I don’t have a mobile phone and the reception where we live is very bad so we use the landline. However Caroline has one but she only uses it for photos and things other than talking to people. It has a ‘touch screen’ and I have absolutely no idea how to use it.

    5. I rely on my mobile because unlimited calls for £5 a month tops the high prices charged by BT. My land line is used for internet and incoming calls only

    6. I rarely leave the house without my mobile phone; I never know when I might need to call for help!

    1. I hope for Trudeau’s sake that he’s taking down lamp posts and stopping the sale of piano wire.

      On second thoughts….

      1. The aggressive tactics being employed in Ottawa this weekend are pure evil. No freedom, no questions, just force and threats. ‘Security’ thugs everywhere, no badges of identity. Threats (or promises?) to hunt down and PUNISH the protesters even when they leave. A regular cop even refers to ‘Republic WAR units. it is beyond sinister.
        A few minutes ago, I posted a couple of frames from a live stream I came across.
        https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=notif&v=3066452753602746&notif_id=1645301964516881&notif_t=live_video
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4363b0643eeb1e30ca2c9e10535e38a90445434b59bc25eee94feddcafd78f70.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c6f8dd06ac87852163fa1d106d05dac4d78d14a7246fb411a6245c9e54fd0322.png

    4. There are a lot of pictures of large marches in other Canadian cities. The Breitbart report is very much aimed at telling people that the freedom movement has lost and it’s all over. Not so sure that’s true. The government is deeply wounded by their behaviour.

  76. I’m very surprised that the MSM haven’t stated that the z z on the tanks isn’t Nazi insignia.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

    Putin ‘orders Ukraine invasion’: Intelligence sources claim Russian troops ‘are making final battle plans’ as armoured tanks painted with a letter ‘Z’ head to border and eastern region is rocked by shelling

      1. Good point. Although if he then moves across and captures Paris I hope he doesn’t despoil it, much as Macron deserves such a comeuppance

        1. Just as long as he takes out all the Saudi funded Mosques. And Polices the suburbs properly.

          I might even invite him to lunch. I have a long table.

          1. I’ve looked at the pictures and the perspectives and I’m convinced it’s a round, rather than an oval, table.

          4. Don’t be silly. They are fully dissected, aged and cooked before they get any where near a table, Snowy !

  77. I am signing off. Raining hard and quite gusty. The lights flicker occasionally – so, to avoid disappointment, I’ll push off.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain – if I am lucky.

    2. I am not going to access that link but the bots are either C&A, MFI or outsourced to Moss Bross. When they want to do the dirty stuff. Ask Hillary.

    1. Has he resigned, handed back his pay, sacrificed his fat pension?
      No?
      Now why am I not surprised?
      Of course, he was only obeying orders.
      Now where have I read that before?

  80. Bloody Hell.
    The Russian invasion of Ukraine has knocked the Queen’s Covid off the front pages.
    It must be serious.

  81. Evening, all. While the wind wasn’t too bad in the earlier part of the day it is now blowing a hooley. Whoever chose the hymns this morning must have been thinking of Eunice; we had lots of references to strong winds and rough seas (probably due to the Gospel reading being about the calming of the lake and the stilling of the wind). Good, familiar tunes and hymns, though, which is always a relief (although the choir is some 22 strong).

        1. Sorry. The rumour is six. Built for the colder waters to fight off the Ruskies in the Atlantic when what was needed was to fight off the blackies in warmer waters. Is that racist or is the MOD as stupid as they have always been.?

          2. The icing on the cake will be for the BBC to announce in the interests of fairness and diversity where all our troops are. Just like they did at Goose Green. Don’t ya just love ’em?

          4. They are landing daily in the Canary Islands and forwarded to mainland Europe.Then they move on from there….

          5. ‘They’ are are also being flown in to airports across the UK no passports required. Let alone covid tests.

          7. Just consider the noises we have heard from government about reducing the numbers of illegal immigrants and then reclassifying them as refugees over the last 15 plus years. At the same time as we signed international agreements to take more. Afgaff has given us another 50 thousand and soon to be more. There is something we are not being told.

          13. Holesare being drilled into the side bulkheads

            Oars will be fitted
            Doveristas will be pressganged
            The ships will go to sea

    1. Well. There are so many of them. Perhaps they could use Sadick Khant to introduce pay per mile. I’m sure that would go down well.

  83. The Grand Old Duke of York,
    He had 10 million quid,
    He gave it to someone he’d never met,
    For something he never did.

  85. How bad is it in Canada? Well, Dr Paul Alexander who testified at Senator Ron Johnson’s Senate Committee is basically on the run from Trudeau’s goons. He went to Canada to speak to people re the mandates and there have been attempts o arrest him. Steve Bannon has spoken to Dr Alexander, who at the time was in a safe house. Trudeau has gone full on Nazi.

    I’ll try and put the interviews up in the morning.

  87. Goodnight, everyone. I’m calling it a night. I didn’t get much sleep last night for some reason (that cartoon of Homer Simpson was spot on!).

      1. MH seems to have become addicted to GB News. Now, I don’t mind some of it- Neil Oliver especially and Andrew Doyle- a little. But enough is enough; I won’t be bombarded with covid info ad infinitum.
        So ear plugs in and listening to Bach.
        Sod this government and others which have inflicted so much wicked and unusual punishments upon their countries.

          1. Yes thanks. Though i did have to take a pill to get back to sleep.

            What is it like where you are? Been giraffe racing yet?

  92. Greetings from Kenya!
    First time we’ve had any WiFi- in transit at the moment waiting for the flight to Meru.
    All been great so far – seen lots but time’s going too fast

        1. Latest Intel suggests Justin T has escaped to Africa wearing a black face disguise and maybe acting as a safari porter. The man is a danger to humanity. If you come across him your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to clap him in irons! Good Luck Ndovu…. Out.

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