Wednesday 16 March: Supporting the brave Russians who speak out against Putin’s barbarism

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

800 thoughts on “Wednesday 16 March: Supporting the brave Russians who speak out against Putin’s barbarism”

      2. Me too, Phizzee. But I ended up third. Is there a Booby Prize as a consolation?

      3. Me too, Phizzee. But I ended up third. Is there a Booby Prize as a consolation?

  3. A team will attempt to identify any assets owned by Putin in the UK, including through known associates and oligarchs.

    The source said: “There are people working on it now. That is what the ‘kleptocracy’ team will be spending its time on. The unit will be tracking down Putin’s money and that of his acolytes.”

    Putin is accused of accruing vast wealth, having allegedly received kickbacks on deals approved by the Kremlin involving tycoons friendly to the regime.

    No one, so far as I am aware, and despite the most strenuous efforts by the world’s Intelligence Agencies, has found so much as a rouble of Putin’s fabled wealth. It is as ephemeral as Eldorado. Now suddenly it is all to be unearthed!

    What is really going on here of course is looting on a vast scale. The assets of those individuals who are being demonised in the MSM and thus no longer worthy of being protected by the Rule of Law are to be seized. If a few innocents get caught up in this act of Grand Larceny well that’s just too bad! Ironically this more resembles the establishment of the Soviet Union under the Bolsheviks than anything in our own history. I have no doubts that anything found will all eventually end up in the pockets of the Oligarch’s Western Counterparts. If this does anything it illustrates the profound Criminal Nature of the Regime and People under which we now live.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/15/vladimir-putin-stashes-millions-pounds-personal-wealth-london/

          1. From the satirical song I wrote not long after Blair had come to power (I’m a Populist Prime Minister from a minor public school) :

            “Glib and Oily Mandy’s lies and mortgage I could not excuse
            Twice I sacked the sleazy bugger – though his spittle shone my shoes.”

    2. I am shocked and disgusted by our government’s lack of respect for private property too. They will certainly have no more respect for our private property either. Just give them an excuse and they’ll collar it.
      Centuries of trust in Britain as a stable haven for wealth, destroyed overnight.
      If they wanted the dodgy Russians out, which would be fair enough, they could just have changed the tax laws and they would have gone of their own accord.

      1. Just give them an excuse and they’ll collar it.

        Morning BB. Of course. We can see that in Canada with the seizure of the Bank Accounts of the Truckers. We no longer actually own anything! Even our own money. It can all be seized on the whim of the moment!

        2. They want to make us all happy and Klaus Schwab has convinced them that taking away everything we have is the best way of doing it.

          Shwab (Call me Santa Claus) is a closet Christian who has been secretly studying Matthew’s gospel.

          For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.

      2. Morality of any sort has disappeared in the British political, judicial and administrative systems. The fish rots from the head – could anybody coherently argue that Boris Johnson has any sense of morality at all?

  4. I see that the police turned up in force and quickly removed anarchist protestors from a Russian oligarch’s Belgravia house. Yet they stand by and do next to nothing when anarchist protestors stop traffic on our motorways and inconvenience the general UK population. And here’s me thinking it was Russians we were sanctioning and not the English/Brits/UKers.

  6. Dear God!
    A Polish minister is apparently calling for an armed NATO “peacekeeping force” in Ukraine….
    One has to assume that he feels safe that the Americans will refuse to get involved. This baying for all out war is simply wicked. And history tells us that Poland will be the first to be flattened!

  7. Want to feel happy.? Easy don’t read the papers and do not watch the main tv chanels news..

  8. Morning all

    Supporting the brave Russians who speak out against Putin’s barbarism

    A Kyiv resident surveys the damage done to her home by shelling on Monday

    A Kyiv resident surveys the damage done to her home by shelling on Monday

    SIR – There are signs of resistance to Vladimir Putin in Russia itself – from the journalist Marina Ovsyannikova, who protested on primetime news (report, March 15), as well as from those who have demonstrated in the streets, despite Mr Putin’s clampdown.

    We must support and pray for the Russian people, and let them know what is happening in Ukraine – by all means available – in order to counter the Kremlin’s propaganda.

    The dissemination of truth is an important weapon, and the West must find ways to communicate directly to the Russian people.

    Malcolm Naylor

    Ilkley, West Yorkshire

    SIR – In 1867 John Stuart Mill said: “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.”

    On Russian state television, Marina Ovsyannikova did something she did not have to do. With women and men like her, evil will not triumph.

    Anna Maria Welch

    Canterbury, Kent

    SIR – We in the West appear to be sleepwalking into a crisis beyond imagination.

    Today we have more than two million refugees from Ukraine, and if we don’t act there could be 20 million. What if Mr Putin then attacks Moldova, which is not a member of Nato, and the population of which is part Russian? How can we allow him to concentrate his firepower not only on military but also on civilian populations – an actual war crime?

    We must stand up to this mad bully. He is at his weakest right now. If we do nothing, the consequences will be terrible.

    David Hathaway

    Dewsbury, West Yorkshire

    SIR – Jeremy Hunt’s plea for more spending on defence (Comment, March 12) is timely. The Government’s 2021 defence review reduced the conventional capabilities of our Armed Forces even further.

    Although an extra £4 billion a year was announced by the Prime Minister for defence in November 2020, I was disturbed to see that defence was the only department to face a cut (of 1.4 per cent) in the Budget last October. Investment in emerging technologies should not mean cuts in existing equipment – especially now.

    Would it not be wise to keep all 227 Challenger tanks and rethink the retirement of Warrior armoured vehicles, frigates and helicopters? Surely it would be ridiculous to reduce the Army to 72,500, its smallest size since 1714. We may well need more conventional forces on the borders in Eastern Europe.

    Richard Fitzwilliams

    London NW11

    SIR – What a shame that the Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra’s Tchaikovsky concert was cancelled.

    Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus gave a performance on Saturday night of Rachmaninov’s All-Night Vigil to a full church. It was innocently rehearsed during lockdown but proved to be a very poignant choice. After a moving performance there was a collection for Ukraine, and the audience of around 220 gave nearly £1,800.

    This is something positive that could also have been achieved in Cardiff. A missed opportunity.

    Ann Garbett

    Sheffield, South Yorkshire

  9. The law on dying

    SIR – As psychiatrists, we are writing to express our concern about Lord Forsyth’s amendment to the Health and Care Bill – currently before the House of Lords – which seeks to legalise assisted suicide.

    We have extensive experience of assessing those who express the wish to die. People with even severe mental illness can disguise symptoms for the duration of an hour’s psychiatric assessment. Depression is common in terminally and chronically ill patients, as is feeling unworthy of care and that their family will be better off without them. In Oregon, which passed the Death with Dignity Act for the terminally ill in 2020, the proportion of patients requesting euthanasia who admitted to “feeling a burden” was 53 per cent in 2021.

    Such legislation cuts a policy hole in suicide prevention, by measuring who should be helped to end their lives against an arbitrary set of criteria.

    A terminal diagnosis invariably causes enormous distress, yet most people go on to find meaning and pleasure in life and relationships.

    Jurisdictions where “assisted dying” is legal have seen a slow widening of the criteria brought by successive legal challenges. Canada included people who are not terminally ill last year; those with serious mental illness will be included from 2023.

    The argument for physician-assisted suicide is being championed by people who are educated and articulate: the dangers affect those least able to speak up for themselves. To protect these vulnerable and voiceless people, we need to maintain the law as it stands.

    Dr Jennifer Bryden

    Dr Lucy Ault

    Dr Jonathan Buckley

    Professor Glyn Harrison

    and 31 others; see telegraph.co.uk

    1. …and they’ve only just noticed that the law (and justice) is in terminal decline?

      We see daily, the pussy-footing around Muslim and Pikey wrong-doing and ludicrous sentences handed down for everything, from fraud to murder. And these clowns are worried about people topping themselves with medical help. Given the state of today’s world it’s small wonder, as Stormy asks, “Stop the world. I want to get off.“

  10. Tony Blair: West has fortnight to help end war in Ukraine. 16 March 2022.

    Tony Blair believes that the next fortnight could be the last chance for the west to agree a peace deal with Russia to end the Ukraine invasion before the conflict escalates.

    The former prime minister said that Nato should not rule out intervening in the war but has also called on the west to not give up on the prospect of negotiating a peace deal with Vladimir Putin.

    When I was young I used to believe that there was a limit to the depths to which people would sink without suffering a moral collapse and confessing their sins. A “Play up. Play up and Play the game” sort of thing. It didn’t survive young adulthood of course but I still have fond memories of it. It was a State of Innocence that ensured I could sleep in my bed without undue worrying. Now here I am in my Old Age listening to Lies and Hypocrisy on a scale hitherto undreamed of and this Blood Drenched Monster bloviating about Peace and Harmony.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/15/tony-blair-west-has-fortnight-to-help-end-war-in-ukraine

    1. When I hear something like that from Blair, my reaction is “What have they got planned now?”

        2. They all set these ridiculous time limits- like ‘three weeks to flatten the curve’.

    4. Blair needs to lie low and STFU – bringing himself to our attention as he seems to enjoy doing just reminds us that he is a war criminal who hasn’t been prosecuted [yet, although I’m not holding my breath].

    5. We can’t afford not to have a peace deal with Russia. We need their oil, wheat and gas. Though ‘shortages’ that the currrent sanctions may create are a useful distraction for the great unwashed from the débacle known as ‘net zero’.

    6. ‘Morning, Minty. “…and this Blood Drenched Monster bloviating about Peace and Harmony.”

      And the Graudian giving him the platform, so to do. Hypocrites all.

      Congrats on the use of bloviate.

  11. Good morning all.
    A damp, drizzly and misty start up here with 4°C outside.

  13. It appears to me that there are an awful lot of people in positions of power that need a way to cover up or obliterate all their wrongdoings over the past few years and there are also an awful lot of the great and the good that see the fall out of war as a way of enacting their great reset ideology.
    Dangerous times ahead.

  14. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Brief-ish visit this morning but let’s start with some slightly encouraging news – although I’ll believe it when it actually happens. From today’s DT:

    Net zero rules on the chopping block to boost North Sea oil production

    Proposals would allow drilling projects to go ahead if needed for national security

    By
    Helen Cahill
    and
    Tony Diver,
    WHITEHALL CORRESPONDENT
    15 March 2022 • 8:53pm

    Net zero rules for the North Sea are to be watered down under proposals aimed at freeing the West from its reliance on Russian fossil fuel in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.

    Officials are examining a plan that would allow new oil and gas drilling to go ahead on national security grounds, even if it violates a ban on schemes that could damage Britain’s bid to go carbon neutral by 2050.

    The move – which would be a major policy reversal just months after Boris Johnson pledged to lead the fight against climate change at the Cop-26 conference – comes as the Prime Minister pushes for more energy imports from Saudi Arabia and weighs up ending a ban on fracking.

    Ministers are currently consulting on proposals for so-called climate compatibility checkpoints, which companies must pass to win drilling licences in North Sea oil and gas fields.

    These are designed to ensure projects only go ahead if they meet stringent criteria that take into account UK oil demand, the availability of clean energy and the industry’s progress against emission reduction targets.

    However, the Government is now considering ways that these rules can be avoided in order to protect the country’s domestic energy supply.

    Proposals being considered are said to include a relaxation of the checkpoints so drilling is allowed for geopolitical and national security reasons.

    Ministers could alternatively be granted the power to override a decision on national security grounds, a source told Bloomberg.

    European nations are racing to wean themselves off Russian oil and gas in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

    Although Britain directly imports very little from Russia, the likes of Germany are heavily dependent on the Kremlin for their energy needs.

    Any attempt to cut Russia out will drive up costs for British households because the UK market is closely linked to that of the Continent, so expanding alternative sources of oil and gas is seen as essential to protect consumers.

    The UK has pledged to phase out oil imports from Russia by the end of this year and has said it is exploring its options in the gas market.

    Mr Johnson is visiting Saudi Arabia on a three-day trip intended to encourage the country to boost production, and is also revisiting a fracking moratorium at home.

    The controversial practice – in which high pressure water is injected into rock to fracture it and free up trapped gas – was put on hold in 2019 following complaints about earthquakes.

    But Greg Hands, a business minister, told the House of Commons on Tuesday that the Oil and Gas Authority is “ready to consider” an application to extend the use of the two fracking sites in Lancashire.

    Owned by the energy firm Cuadrilla, the wells were the first to frack onshore in the UK but the company has been ordered to seal them with concrete.

    Mr Hands said: “I can tell my honourable friend that my right honourable friend the Secretary for State and I met with the Oil and Gas Authority on Tuesday and they are ready to consider Cuadrilla’s letter and potential application and the Government hopes the regulator would consider it favourably,”

    Mr Hands added that he was told Cuadrilla had not yet made an application to keep the wells open for another year.

    It is understood that the regulator will be able to make a decision on any application in a “matter of hours”.

    Cuadrilla has described the decision to press ahead with the deadline as “ridiculous”.

    Francis Egan, its chief executive, said: “At a time when the UK is spending billions of pounds annually importing gas from all corners of the globe, and gas prices for hard-pressed UK households are rocketing, the UK government has chosen this moment to ask us to plug and abandon the only two viable shale gas wells in Britain.”

    A government spokesman said: “There will continue to be ongoing demand for oil and gas while we transition to low carbon energy, but we will continue to back North Sea oil and gas production for security of supply during this transition.”

    * * *

    These are possibly weasel words, and they may well decide that when things die down the wretched net zero bilge will slowly but surely make a reappearance. One thing is certain – the atmosphere in No 10 is not all sweetness and light, and Mrs Eco-Nutjob will not be taking this lying down (so to speak).

    1. When is reasonably priced and available energy NOT necessary for national security?

    3. Thankfully, due to revised nomenclature, drilling for hydrocarbons is now completely consistent with limiting carbon emissions! 🤔

    4. Cue Extinction Rebellion, Insulate Britain et al to attempt to bring the UK to a halt.

      1. I thought they were going to start up with their protests on Monday. What happened? Douglas Murray wrote an article about them in the Telegraph on Saturday, I think it was. I posted it here.

      2. We have a friend who is project manager on a big building in London. They have been on the alert for that nonsense for several weeks. So far, the cold weather has allowed them to work on unhindered.

    5. They shouldn’t feel so bad about opening up North Sea production – after all, by so doing they are encouraging Russia to go Net Zero.

      1. I see Martin Bashir is conveniently “too ill’ for them to really have a good look at his “interview” with St Diana and, of course, there’s Saville!

          1. What? Spend some of the money that Netflix gave him for the square root of bu88er-all?

      2. She was just given a £125.00 fine and, I assume, fired. The BBC would hound her into oblivion. And we think we are better!!!

          3. To show the west that plucky Vlad doesn’t mind a bit of a protest. So long as he is organising it, of course.

          4. Don’t buy that. People demonstrate all the time in the cities, are fined, and let go. Putin does not want to alienate those people by real repression because they are the middle class from which, if any resistance arises it will be from them. A light hand is more efficacious and the gulags no longer exist. They are also, in the context of the shear number of people in Russia, a tiny minority who do not threaten his rule at all. The population of Russia is somewhere around 143 million. A few thousand people demonstrating actually borders on eccentricity especially since Putin’s popularity is above 70%. It’s virtue signalling Russian style.

          6. Yes, sorry, but having Russian relatives, even though they be in exile…..

  16. Why do Russian tennis stars need to condemn Putin? 15 March 2022

    He [Huddleston] added: ‘We are looking at this issue of what we do with individuals and we are thinking about the implications of it, because I don’t think people would accept individuals very clearly flying the Russian flag, in particular if there is any support for Putin and his regime.’

    That might include the now world number one player Daniil Medvedev, who has removed the Russian flag from his Instagram feed and is competing as a non-nation affiliated athlete in the BNP Paribas in Indian Wells in California this week.

    Nige would like him to be more explicit: ‘Absolutely nobody flying the flag for Russia should be allowed or enabled,’ he said. ‘But I think it needs to go beyond that, I think we need to have some assurance that they are not supporters of Vladimir Putin and we are considering what requirements we may need to get assurances along those lines.’

    Mr Medvedev bears no more responsibility for the activities of the Russian Government than I do for those of Westminster. A place I might point out inhabited by the most cowardly and corrupt inhabitants in our history. Which of these has uttered so much as a word of criticism of the mass Rape of English Girls by Muslims, or Islam as it has carried out acts of terror on British soil or supported Batley Man?

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-do-russian-tennis-stars-need-to-condemn-putin-to-compete-

    2. If dead Russians can be sanctioned then live ones certainly can. However, tell me the difference between banning anyone because they are Russian and banning them because they are Black or Chinese or any other group.

      1. It is OK to be a certain kind of racist, that is, it is a sign of virtue if you are good racist. The decision is made by the dominant lynch mob.

        1. The black looting mob, for example. All racists as they wanted preferential treatment for da blicks – you know, to carry knives, stab people, sell drugs and so on.

          1. Don’t forget…..impregnate as many women as possible and take no responsibility.

    3. The cyclist Aleksandr Vaslov was allowed to take part in the Paris -Nice cycle race, but not allowed to wear his national champion (of Russia ) jersey.

    4. Isn’t it just signalling that, “I’m a professional sportsman and wearing the Russian Flag inhibits my business potential“..

    5. We have become as barbaric as the people we accuse of being barbaric.

      Civilised countries to not make war against ordinary people they make war against the forces of countries with tyrannic leaders. We most condemn Putin for his attacks on Ukrainian citizens – by attacking citizens because of their race or national identity we are intellectually and morally Putinists.

      The Russian tennis player Daniil Medvedev has family in Russia – what would Putin do to them if he spoke out against the Russian state? How would those running Wimbledon feel if he did speak out against Putin and his family were then brutally murdered? Would they not feel they were responsible because they could have foreseen it?

      1. Putin would not have them brutally murdered. You have been watching to much propaganda. Note the TV protester was fined £125.00 and let go. Russia is not the USSR and Putin is not a latter day Stalin. But still, I find it morally reprehensible to demand that people denounce their country in order to play a game. To me it is just not British and shows how low we have sunk over the years when we would prefer to take the low road because of petty spite and a contempt for Christian values.

        1. I agree with you that the propaganda from all sides is unreliable and should not be too readily believed.

          My point was more that Putin might well take it out on the family of somebody who spoke out against him. It might or might not be as extreme as murder but I am sure his family would be made to pay for it in some way or other.

    6. This is awful.

      Never forget that if Russians are the globalists’ enemy outside our borders, then we are their enemy inside them.

  18. 351408+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Wednesday 16 March: Supporting the brave Russians who speak out against Putin’s barbarism,

    We in the United Kingdom have a similar situation building only not so brutal at this moment in time.

    Many in these Isles in the name of lab/lib/con coalition have tagged credible fringe party’s as far right racist, and voted tactically to protect the close shop, protecting the very politico’s / party’s that are, as now clearly, seen destroying a decent Nation.

    What is the deal with the saudies going to throw up for oil, seeing as the fat turk “deals” leave the UK the losers every time, probably the price will be a mosque on every corner.

  19. Good Morning !
    Has Bill Thomas been cancelled? His comments are limited to “content unavailable”.

    4. I think that’s a post by someone you may have blocked – I see it where there have been responses to Ogga1 – blocked by me, for sheer boring repetativeness.

      1. Thank for that. I’ve not blocked Bill. Would the same thing happen if I have been blocked by him, do you know?

  20. 351408+ up ticks,
    Any explanation for “Content unavailable” or is it a political overseers thing as in ” their eyes only”

  21. Good morning, everyone. Walked the dog for an hour this morning. Rain due at 10.00.

    2. Good morning DB
      Very damp warm drizzle here , and the sky is a funny colour .

      Moh was up early for golf match .. if it is going to rain properly by 10am , his glasses will mist up and he will have a terrible game .

      1. What colour is it? Yellowish means Sahara dust, but I thought that all got shed on the Continent yesterday.

  22. Yo All

    With respect to having Home Produced Oil, Johnson is a ” Fracking Idiot”

  23. SIR – How can the Prime Minister write an article about ending Britain’s dependence on Russian energy without once mentioning fracking, whether it be the advantages or disadvantages (“Beat Putin by ending our addiction to gas and oil”, Commentary, March 15)?

    Peter Holt
    Telford, Shropshire

    You may well ask, Peter Holt. I’m hoping that it’s a sop to the fifth columnists and the soap dodgers, but I think the more likely explanation is that fracking will be right at the bottom of his list of energy sources – where he intends it to stay.

    1. In the Sunday Times last week they stated that the three functioning gas fracking wells in Lancashire would be concreted over on 15th March.

      Anyone got photos?

  25. Ukrainian mother and daughter, seven, are among first to find home in Britain after fleeing Russian bombing as 100,000 big-hearted Britons open their homes to refugees. 16 March 2022.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/74bcadd23a27e0b36954d4848fe9b70a0851094876cc42a8a7adcb6498659c02.png

    More than 100,000 big-hearted Britons have now registered to open their homes to refugees desperately escaping their war-torn country, as Vladimir Putin’s troops continue to indiscriminately attack cities.

    Ahhhh! Isn’t that nice?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10617563/Ukrainian-mother-daughter-seven-home-Britain.html

    1. I wonder how they will get on living with a camp, gay couple and their two children.

    2. I’m sorry but, have these generous people really thought it through? The way bureaucracy functions is not exactly impressive. What do they really imagine will happen about their visitors’ clothes, medications, access to facilities, transport to and from facilities, the language barrier, to name but a few? They are obviously very well meaning but really … (posted as vw).

      1. Morning Alf. A workmate of mine once occupied the Hall and Front Room of a semi-detached while his wife had the Scullery and Upstairs Bedroom. All without exchanging a word in thirty years!

      1. Hmm, wonder what happens at the end of 6 months and child is settled in school? Will there be pleading for another 6 months and another …

    4. There does not seem to be any hint of
      fear
      worry
      concern
      care
      discomfort
      etc
      on their face(s?) about goings on a ‘home’

    6. More than 99,000 racists. Let’s see if any of them would like to open their homes to people fleeing wartorn Somalia, Albania, Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, etc.

  26. ‘Let’s send Putin to JUPITER’: Ukrainian government department raises more than £1.5m to fire Russian despot to Space thanks to $2.99 donations from across the world ‘for a rocket’
    Ukrainian government-backed fundraiser to ‘send Putin to Jupiter’ hits £1.5m
    Putina.net promises donations will help to send ‘the bloody dictator far, far away’
    In reality, the tongue-in-cheek bid’s funds will go towards rebuilding Ukraine

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10618373/Ukrainian-government-department-aims-send-Putin-JUPITER-raises-1-5million.html?ito=push-notification&ci=tRUQv8GU5Q&cri=H1HUTx2GAD&si=26738248&ai=10618373

    2. I would have thought the better option would be to say to Putin ‘Stick it up Uranus’.

    3. The Planet of Good Luck……

      Jupiter. Also known as “the Great Benefit,” it showers us with opportunities for growth, expansion and happiness. Depending on where it is in our birth charts, we can learn a lot about how we attract our own luck.

    4. It turns out that Elon Musk’s challenge to fight Putin was also a joke sandwiched between a twitter post that said “Netflix is waiting for the war to end to make a movie about a black Ukrainian guy falls in love with a transgender Russian soldier” And a button for your lapel that says: “I support the current thing”.
      https://cdn.vnexplorer.net/node01/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/15052512/image-elon-musk-challenges-vladimir-putin-to-single-combat-after-mocking-support-for-ukraine-as-the-current-thing-164727151275084.jpg

      Elon Musk is just not woke.

  27. Morning All

    Just some Laffs because I can’t bear to look at the news

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7919cc437bbe830ab82074f4a8c287e1cc28b83a9f0f57fbcb45e2fea0761757.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8b3ef31c05a040b4f07c24170f6796b6935727933545951707ee2f55fe75218a.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/881a494154b66043e55d6866ebbdddb7001bacd39c77717ef04dd4032e0615ee.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/05df0e5e813cc98653de2e2834f50391891e2f1916971c9d9de55b63a138d49f.gif

        1. My favourite and I can’t find it on the net is a family of spitting cobras. Two of them are a boy and a girl. For a meal they each have a dead rat on a plate. The girl complains to the mother cobra: “Mom, Johnny just spit on my rat.”

  28. Good Morning to all! Very weird light outside, it is pinkish. Overcast, 50f and about to rain, I think. Letters today were the usual claptrap of how can we start WWIII with out brilliant ideas of being belligerent to Russia. Tony Blair, tedium incarnate, thinks we should not rule out force. The utter bellend.

    So anyway, I thought this was much more interesting. Lovely cat, sadly untameable.

    If a Pallas’s cat puts its paws on a tail it’s freezing outside (landscape version)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuYLz1CjRf0

        1. No enthusiasm for net zero then? Light is still strange it’s actually getting pinker. needed to put light on to see.

      2. 10.2 and it might be the day, which comes once a year, when the air suddenly smells of spring! I Tesco-ed maskless again. All the women still seemed to be wearing theirs: we brave males, maskless.

        1. Sonny Boy made a rare foray into Sainsbury’s today; apparently the place is mask central.
          Luckily, I’m too poor to shop there.

      3. With a yellowish tinge ?
        Our local farmers have been rather generous with the pig swill wash they have given the surrounding fields. Its stinks around here.
        I hope it doesn’t offend any one ……… 😉

        1. It wasn’t yellowish until just before dark. The dust must have taken a bit longer to get here.

      1. Is there really? In Libya that would change the sky to canary yellow, amazing colour. I wonder why it turns pink over Europe?

          6. I remember a film in the 1960s called Cactus Flower in which Ingrid Bergman stars and one of the minor characters is played by Jack Weston who is not exactly a matinée idol. The Jack Weston character tries to get fresh and pushes his unwanted attentions upon the Ingrid Bergman character. She repulses him and he morosely says: “But I’m only human!” to which her one word reply is: “Barely”.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/945cce06b17e44093579b7cd5f5e8963aa8a22a650819c78b0e277206442db29.jpg

          8. He played Mr Botibol in the dramatised TV version of Roald Dahl’s ‘A Dip in The Pool and one of the poker players in Jack Lemmon’s and Walter Matthau’s film of The Odd Couple.

          9. He played Mr Botibol in the dramatised TV version of Roald Dahl’s ‘A Dip in The Pool and one of the poker players in Jack Lemmon’s and Walter Matthau’s film of The Odd Couple.

        2. Maybe, Johnathan, it’s yellow over Arabic countries and pink over Western European to identify the morals of those below.

          Cowardice and liberal, woke pinkos.

        3. Could it be that in Libya the Sun is higher in the sky than in the UK and therefore in the UK’s case the light has to travel further through the atmosphere and pass through more dust, reddening then occurs as the shorter wavelengths are scattered? Much as the red sky at sunrise and sunset.

          Here’s another solar phenomenon:

          The green flash is an optical phenomenon that you can see shortly after sunset or before sunrise. It happens when the sun is almost entirely below the horizon, with the barest edge of the sun – the upper edge – still visible. For a second or two, that upper rim of the sun will appear green in color.

          Source: Google.

      3. Would that have created the very large, and I mean very large, halo effect around the Moon last night at around 9:45? I cannot remember seeing anything like that before.

  29. Little known fact

    Religious leader Brigham Young, at the age of 71 wed his 55th wife Hannah Tapfield in Salt Lake City, Utah, on December 8 1872

    A glutton for punishment

    1. He of the mythical golden tablets! Still they did do a good job collating BMDs…

          2. Which reminds me:

            There was a knock on the door this morning.

            I opened it to find a young man standing there who said: “Hello sir, I’m a Jehovah’s Witness.”

            I said: “Come in and sit down.”

            I offered him coffee and asked: “What do you want to talk about?”

            He said: “Buggered if I know – I’ve never got this far before.”

          4. Actually, having lived in the USA for some time I ended up, inevitably, knowing rather a lot about the Mormons. A more gullible lot it’s hard to imagine. Really demonstrates the extent of human folly.

  30. Oh Gawd,just seen our very own “Maximum Imbecile” is in Saudi begging for more oil and gas production……
    This is classic greenmentalism just as the oceans of CO2 and pollution in China and India are just fine but our tiny production MUST be ended or the world burns so more oil and gas from Saudi is just fine but producing our own would be a disaster
    Fuckwits,fuckwits everywhere

    3. My comments in the DT breached their community guidelines.
      I think the phrase “sucking up to” may have upset the bots’ sensibilities.

          1. I got my comment removed for using the ‘stupid’ word to describe another poster! Fortunately I was quick enough to edit and ‘moronic’ got through!

          2. I still can’t find the clip of a Blackadder scene where Baldrick obviously wants to use the word “oxymoron” but can’t remember it – he says “Ox, oxi, oxy …” a few times and Blackadder says “moron”; Baldrick replies – “No, I would have got it soon” or something on those lines?

      1. “Internal matter – none of our business – never comment on other legal systems”…blah, blah, blah.

    5. When Brown did that (went begging for an increase in production to the Saudis) he was told in no uncertain terms to lower the tax levy upon sales instead. Why should it be any different this time?

    1. School Fees

      Reminds me of an old tale (probably apocryphal) of the man whose son was at an expensive private school.

      He had received a letter from the Bursar saying that “from next September the Fees will go up to £10,000 per anum”

      He wrote back: “Dear Bursar, I thought we always paid through the nose”.
      Yours, etc.

    1. Very.
      And it’s raining here now which puts my ideas of dropping another couple of dead or dying elms on hold!

  35. More “Fence Sitting”

    I have no doubt the Leftard tossers responsible for this are making a fat living decrying everything British,as I can’t have them all taken out and shot can we at least have them removed………

    “A replica of the first steam-powered locomotive in Wales could be

    relabeled by the National Museum Wales (NMW) to highlight the slave

    trade’s links to “the development of the steam and railway

    infrastructure in Wales”.

    Richard Trevithick’s locomotive was used

    in the first steam-powered rail journey, which took place at the

    Penydarren Ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil, in Wales in 1804.

    The Cornish inventor, Mr Trevithick, had no personal links to slavery.

    But the NMW determined links between steam train technology and the slave

    trade, claiming the use of the invention is “rooted in colonialism and

    racism”.

    The NMW statement said: “Although there might not be

    direct links between the Trevithick locomotive and the slave trade, we

    acknowledge the reality that links to slavery are woven into the warp

    and weft of Welsh society.”

    Who the hell are these people!!

    https://www.gbnews.uk/news/steam-trains-cancelled-national-museum-of-wales-says-invention-rooted-in-colonialism-and-racism/248661

    Oh the Irony,who calls them out??

    A historian of British colonialism, Dr Zareer Masani, criticised the
    museum’s attempt to relabel Trevithick’s locomotive due to links to
    slavery and called it “absurd”

      1. Apparently not. They appear to get vicarious pleasure out of self flagellation.

        They don’t need to trouble themselves though. I would happily whip them.

      2. They are busy tearing down our civilization. So no, they have nothing better to do because they are fulfilling their purpose. The problem is that the rest of us sit back and let them do it. I honestly think the time has come for violence against these people. If not, then you can look forward to civil war and the eradication of us, the natives of these islands. Give an inch and they take a mile and they know they can because of our casual disregard for what they are doing. They have nothing to fear, have they?

        1. They need to be called out and ridiculed. Because their interpretation of our history is clearly absurd.

          “Although there might not be direct links between the Trevithick locomotive and the slave trade, we acknowledge the reality that links to slavery are woven into the warp and weft of Welsh society.”

          This is utter bullshit.

          1. Calling them out doesn’t do it. Does it? That’s my point. As long as we keep rolling over and allowing this sort of thing they will continue to do it.

      3. Leeching off the taxpayer; spending their gold plated pensions; working from home……
        Busy, busy, busy.

    2. I honestly don’t understand why they so desperately want to fall back on the slavery issue. Should we point out that without the trains India would still be a barbaric wasteland?

      How about we keep going back to the Roman’s forcing us to build their roads? Do they see how absurd that is?

      2. Come now. India was never a “barbaric wasteland” civilizations have existed there since 6000 BC. And Democracies existed there 600 BC. In fact the oldest democracy in the world is that of the Buddhist monks who’s rules and procedures are based on the rules of the Republic that the Buddha himself came from and which he wished to preserve once the Republics were overrun by a conquering monarchy.

    3. My late father was a slave to lumbago – who’s going to pay compensation to his descendants?

        3. You can’t beat a good old steam train, wonderful creatures.
          We did the Fort William To Mallaig a few years ago we loved it, windows open and smoke abounding.
          We also love watching the Portillo train journey TV progs. We had been meaning to to the Null-arbor from Adelaide to Perth. Shame we never got round to it. We are due another visit to Oz for catch ups.

    4. A web-search shows Dr. Masani as one of the few sparks of common sense in today’s academia.

  36. 351408+ up ticks,

    May one ask, has anyone seen robert stapleford it seems to be missing ?

    1. Haven’t noticed. But lets give a thought to Lady of The Lake who was going to hospital today and was rather frightened about it.

      1. I missed the opportunity to wish her all the best, I was busy then totally worn out following that.

      2. 351408+ up ticks,

        Morning JR,
        Viewed on that light puts my question in the shade
        LOTL, carry’s my feelings of good will for her visitation.

    2. What you really mean Ogga is he’s not voted you down v for a few days 🤔😃 That’s good though. ^

      1. 351408+ up ticks,

        Morning RE,
        I do say what I really mean and the object in question
        was very active yesterday.

          1. 351408+ up ticks,

            Morning BB2,
            I have never in all the time it has been active , replied in any shape or form.

  37. Group of 16 British Airways pilots sue the airline for more than £250,000 claiming they ‘strained their necks by turning round to check cockpit security cameras for terrorists’

    The pilots claim craning their neck to check security cameras has caused injury
    CCTV systems were fitted to cockpits in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks
    They claim the screens were placed in the rear of the cockpits of certain jets
    The 16 pilots all flew for British Airways on either their Boeing 757 or 767 jets

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10618657/BA-pilots-sue-airline-claiming-turning-seats-view-CCTV-damaged-necks.html

    1. And they’ve never turned around to check any of the female staff as the arrive to the ‘Cock Pit’ and leave ?

    2. Norman Tebbitt sensibly reminds us that they should have just got on their bikes. Or words to that effect…

    4. You may jest, but a poorly located handle (ie a design fault) contributed to the air accident in which John Denver died.

          1. French TV is worse than British TV. I know, I know, it’s hard to believe, but the number of ‘persons’ with ‘bronzage’ on programmes and adverts is only outnumbered by the percentage of ‘Ficans in their football teams.

    5. All the cars in the Dinan area are covered in dust and Caroline had to wash the windscreen before going to play the organ at yet another funeral this morning,

      We are used to dust bearing rain falling on Mianda in the Med and there was a sand storm over the Sahara when I was in Tenerife on Raua and there was a covering of several millimetres of sand over the cabin coach-roof, cockpit and decks.

      Here is a picture of Raua : https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9300c85802f1e7ae650bdc75bc7f9f2d93908201892b7ce4155789a8a6e16bf5.jpg

    6. ‘Twas quite common during the 5 years I spent in and around Estepona, which isn’t after all, that far from the Sahara.

    1. There is nothing worse than that.
      True story……….
      I remember a Sunday morning round, the weekly competition was and still is known as the Sunday Swindle. Partners and opponents drawn from the ‘hat’. I had left my umbrella at home and about three quarters round it started to rain and I noticed that one of the opponents a retired senior banker had two umbrellas on his trolley and I asked if I could borrow it. I had no deposited, but he reluctantly lent it to me. My partner and I thrashed the other pair and just after we teed off on the 18th he almost demanded the umbrella back. So he made sure I suffered as we played the final Hole. Typical old time banker. Did I spell that properly ?

        1. When I first joined the club around 35 years ago some one said to me it’s all right here but, there is always some on who will want ‘to have a word’. He was not wrong either. ‘The words’ were more than usually express by the less talented members.

      1. Indeed – I wonder how many of the little SJWs have actually been lobbying IPSA to make that decision!

    3. Another stupidity from Halfcock – if someone [or somethree?] joins
      the household there will be extra costs for food, lighting, heating etc –
      the only way there would be no extra costs to the taxpayer would be if
      Halfcock & Co actually paid the extra bills out of their own
      pockets, because £350 a month almost certainly won’t cover it! Fat
      chance of that happening!

    1. Is he a prince and, if so, how much money does he need on a temporary basis from our bank accounts in order to secure the deal?

      1. Wrong wrong wrong

        He shouldn’t be allowed to do that.

        We give aid to Africa .. Has he no sense of philanthropy .. fresh water , medicine education health facilities jobs for Africans .. Why the hell are they making their way to the UK .. yep following the money .

        They are all b####y rogues

        1. There are loads of very rich Africans, and he probably does already give a lot to the poor. I think it’s wrong to criticise rich Africans for making investments outside their countries.
          Surely by now we have learned that busybodying in Africa and telling them how things ought to be done never leads to anything?

    2. Supposedly a fit and responsible person. I wonder if they have taken into account all the people including children killed down his mines.

  42. NATO/EU must have had a word in Zelensky’s ear.
    “Ukraine REJECTS
    Russian peace talks proposal to become ‘neutral’ like Sweden – and
    demands guarantees that international forces will ‘prevent attacks’ in
    future”

    Ahem,what could possibly go wrong,armour rolling East into Poland is never a good look…

    https://t.me/LauraAbolichannel/14129

    1. The west doesn’t want this war to stop until they’ve got another covid variant to scare people with.

  43. One quick run to Derby later….

    A quick web-search and it appears that Dr Zareer Masani appears to be an all too rare breath of common sense in today’s academia.

    Steam trains cancelled: National Museum of Wales says invention ‘rooted in colonialism and racism’

    A historian of British colonialism, Dr Zareer Masani, criticised the museum’s attempt to relabel Trevithick’s locomotive due to links to slavery and called it “absurd”

    https://www.gbnews.uk/news/steam-trains-cancelled-national-museum-of-wales-says-invention-rooted-in-colonialism-and-racism/248661

    1. Urgh, how can you?!
      Do they have a trans character yet? Are there any other bandwagons for them to jump on?

    2. I use to love the old Billy Cotton band show, Family Favourites, The Glums, Forces Requests and the other comedy shows on Sundays.
      And the American Detective Drama Dick Tracy.

      1. “I use to love the old Billy Cotton band show….”

        Glad I’m not the only one!

  45. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe on way home to UK. 16 March 2022.

    Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian woman detained in Iran nearly six years ago, is on her way to the UK, her MP has said.

    Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was at the airport in Tehran, Tulip Siddiq told BBC News.

    We must have returned that money that we stole!. We will probably have to go through a similar perfomance with Russia eventually!

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60756870

          1. They all do it, you should have seen the port of Marseille in summer during the late 90s when loads of Algerians had got political asylum claiming that their government was torturing them. They were all on the way home for their summer holidays, and as their stories were all a pack of lies, they were naturally perfectly OK!!

          2. As my friend in Perth often mentions and the poor homeless Somalians who were so broke but they managed to buy a boat and sail all the way from their coast opposite safe gulf countries, via islamic Indonesia, refuel restock and continue to WA. Now they demand the right to air travel back to the country they must have hated, to visit relatives.
            And this islamic particular invasion was probably sponsored by the plunder of Somali pirates. (Not so much by gulf oil reserves).
            Which indecently the Russians stopped. By killing a lot of them off.

          3. I’m sure it’s universal! What reelly gets to me is the bluddy cost to us jolly old taxpayers!

      2. Indeed. It’s worth remembering that this is another of Johnson’s blunders!

      3. Indeed. It’s worth remembering that this is another of Johnson’s blunders!

      1. Afternoon BB. Yes. There’s some desperate sucking up going on at the moment to replace Russian Oil!

    1. Bob every time I try to look at twitter the screen locks and notice appears saying I either have to log in or sign up. It’s so B annoying.

    2. Thank you BoB, prose and picture nicked for Ar5ebook but it vanished within two minutes of posting.

    3. How do we know this was a Ukrainian missile?
      Truth the first casualty, and all that.

    2. They will be greatly appreciated by your family of Ukrainians – that you are generously providing with a home…{:¬))

    3. More fruit !

      They do look good though.

      I’m making fish pie with a twist. The usual trio of fish in a parsley sauce then a layer of spinach. Then a layer of scallops in a Mornay sauce then topped with buttery mash.

      1. I’ll be down in Fareham before you can say, “Tie your whippet to the tree, Northerner!”

        1. If you lightly poach the fish first it releases liquid into the milk. If you do this first it doesn’t loosen the sauce.

          Only half poach the fish though as you don’t want it overcooked when you cook the pie in the oven.

          2. Oh no i didn’t !

            Besides…what sort of idiot needs a recipe for fish pie?

            Jack Off Oliver would probably put garlic in his. Twerp.

      4. Dammit. We’re spending our evening exploring the Suffolk boondocks to find our chums’ new abode in order to be fed.
        Note to XXXXX – hope you’re doing something better than above or I will go into a sulk.

    1. 351408+ up ticks,

      Afternoon C,
      A majority of the electorate has been there for best part of four decades.

      They have been supporting / voting for a party in name only the original party long,long.deceased.

  50. Listening to Putin. He is insisting that he has no intention to occupy Ukraine. He is also talking of the Wests stupidity in putting sanctions on Russia and thus causing problems for millions of people in the West. Sanctions that he is saying that the West is trying, dishonestly, to blame Russia. Also that he had to take action because of the Ukrainian genocide of the people of Donbas and the threat to Russia of NATO.

  51. A VERY disturbing read:-

    Transhausen by Proxy
    Why are Oxford University working with Mermaids?

    I have done two series on research into the experiences of parents of “trans” kids. The latest one was funded by Oxford University, amongst others, and endorsed by trans-activist Katie Montgomerie (GL: Why Montgomerie claims to be an expert on “trans kids”, when he transitioned as adult, is anyone’s guess)

    Continue at https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/transhausen-by-proxy

    1. Sick, sick, sick. Why hasn’t the child been taken from her and given to the father?

    2. Bloody warped ideologist – she has no idea of the future difficulties she is building up for her child, as puberty and maturity are passed.

      The father needs to step in and get an injunction to stop this dead in its tracks, until the child is old enough and mature enough to make its own decisions.

    1. The bloke on the left seems a bit shocked – I do hope he’s the numptie who volunteered to house them!

        1. Which wicked person allowed a young blonde girl to be living without protection in a refugee home?

      1. But, if they ARE Ukrainian (which I seriously doubt) why was the man allowed to leave?

        One read that, while women and children were encouraged to leave, all men were required to stay and fight.

        1. I think that when a load of mugs offered to put up refugees at cut prices, the authorities latched onto it with enthusiasm to solve an existing problem. I bet somewhere in the small print it says that they can come from any country – and none of the host families will have the courage to refuse non-Ukrainians.
          Ireland has a huge homeless problem of indigenous people too!

  53. One for Rastus: The locals use the expression ç’est caille for ‘It’s freezing’ but I can’t find it in translations. Perhaps I am spelling it wrong. Help!

      1. Thanks, I’ll bookmark that. Found it – ça caille expr familier (il fait bien froid) it’s freezing.

        1. There you go. I have always tried to find words in a French dictionary – only resorting to a bilingual one in desperation

          1. Caroline disapproves but I enjoy translating English expressions and idioms into French to mystify my French friends. For example, on a cold morning I might say: Il fait assez froid pour geler les testicules d’un singe en laiton.

          4. A friend of mine came up with this Squaddie German – Drei stück Bonbon – three piece sweet??

  54. One for Rastus: The locals use the expression ç’est caille for ‘It’s freezing’ but I can’t find it in translations. Perhaps I am spelling it wrong. Help!

      1. What is going to happen to the Democrats when this criminal cabal finally does loosen their death grip on the party? Is there anyone else, or will their children take over?

        1. I think it is in the process of disintegration, captured by the extreme left no sane person wants to vote for them. We will see at the midterm elections. I think it will be a bloodbath for them.

          2. Unfortunately yes. But I don’t think they could get away with it this time. It would stretch the incredulity of the voters to far.

    2. Who on earth is that? If 3rd in line, is the loss of place, stuttering, brain-fart, a necessary prerequisite for office?

      1. After the President and Vice President Nancy Pelosi is next until elections take place. We think the Biden & Harris are bad. They don’t have anything like the lunacy of Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Whacko incarnate!

      1. What I don’t understand is why the press doesn’t say something to the effect of. The upper echelons of our government are a risk to the integrity of the United States and thus a risk to the entire free world and something has to be done about it. Onn the contrary, what is disturbing is that they are content to sit there pretending the Empress has new clothes.

      2. Pelosi was born in 1940. Biden was born in 1942.

        She is there to make Biden look youthful.

  56. The billionaire set to take over the National Lottery: Czech oil magnate Karel Komarek made his money in the Soviet Union, was accused of a ‘James Bond plot’ and probed over Kremlin links (and has a VERY glamorous wife)
    Camelot Group has operated the National Lottery since its launch in 1994
    But a ‘highly competitive’ bidding process saw firm lose the licence to Allwyn
    Ahead of decision, Allwyn had promised to donate £38billion to good causes
    But owner Karel Komarek has faced scrutiny over links to energy giant Gazprom

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10618573/Who-Karel-Komarek-6bn-National-Lottery-owner-money-Soviet-Union.html

    1. Just the chap. Finger on the pulse. Lots of ideas. Plenty of yachts and planes to escape on….

        1. It is the Daily Mail. He might have had his gas from Gazprom once when he was a student.

    1. While he was busy dissecting the woman, maybe he cut his own tackle off as well, in order to identify as a gurl (old woman).

      1. When police searched her apartment on 4 March, they found a human head and saw blades. Days later,
        a leg was discovered a few blocks north of the torso.

        Puts a whole new perspective on the game Treasure Hunt

    1. Pretty obvious isn’t it? One’s a bloodthirsty psychopath and the other is the President of Russia.

      1. And the other is a bloviating numpty who can’t spell the name of his dog’s biscuits.

    2. Pretty obvious isn’t it? One’s a bloodthirsty psychopath and the other is the President of Russia.

    3. Pretty obvious isn’t it? One’s a bloodthirsty psychopath and the other is the President of Russia.

    5. If you moved slightly to your right – you could get them both with a single shot….

        1. Oh – I didn’t know who that was.

          Never understood how pop singers (if he was a singer) got anywhere near the WEF. They never asked me to join – and I sang skiffle in the late 1950s.

          1. It’s because they are considered influential.

            Skiffle? Were you any good? Did you get many ‘Strikes’?

          7. Didn’t realize the third one was Bono either, Bill. No loss to the world if he met with an accident, that one.

      2. Leave Putin out of this. He’s busy destroying US/UKraine biolabs and sorting out the mess that is the Donbass.

      1. Set one on Mrs Thatcher’s former chancellor’s daughter and then the cook will be goosed!

  64. 351408+ up ticks,

    What’s fatty turk up to now, most likely the “deal” with the
    a rabs will see in the UK a mosque next door to a mosque, next door to a mosque awash with heating oil .

    The only places in town to get warm all you do is bring a mat along, getting the picture ?

    2. Here is our place designed and built by ignorant peasants in the 16th and 17th centuries and the extension on the right hand side of the right hand house (in between the chimneys) was designed and built by another ignorant peasant (me) and an English Chap, called Chalky – who was a good worker with stone and could turn his hand to any building job, in 1992! Our first project was the garage between the houses. We decided that if we could do that we could tackle the extension. The smaller house, on the left, was done by a professional French builder in 1989/90 because we couldn’t start running our residential courses – which we started in 1990 – until we had a place in which our students could reside.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4aff7689c77ce65c890ea10115e1738b6917180776ede00928fa1d40de14259a.jpg

      1. That’s a lovely mellow stone colour, Rastus, and I love a slate roof.
        Beautiful!

        1. Thank you. The roofing that Chalky and I did was on the extension and the garage. We used the French system of battens with galvanised clips (see picture) on which you hang the slates. This means you do not make holes in your slates with nails. The battens were nailed onto vertical rafters attached to horizontal purlins.

          Thirty years on and not a slate that we fitted on the garage or the extension has needed replacing though we had to get in a French roofer for the original roof over the original part of the house as I do not think I would still be safe on the roof..

          We were lucky with the stone as we managed to buy the field adjacent to our property which had tumbledown stone ruins which we used to build both the garage and the extension. The walls in cross section are 50 cm thick: 25cm of stone tied into 10cm hollow cement brick, 5cm void, 10cm solid cement brick

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9c6ea5af62351d1cb54cac3f2ead9a1c72fbb7465bdcbdb2eaf26908228e4c1a.png

      2. Got a spare room for me and my little dog? Permanently ! I can cook nice food and she can poo and pee everywhere…….?

        2. Mistake – I have done it to posts in error and then undone it as soon as I saw what I had done. The downvoter is an excellent chap who bears no malice and mis-hit the keyboard.

        1. Although the 300 year old log cabin construction is hidden behind a 1970s cladding.
          The building half seen on the left is now the wood store, but was the original house, from early 1600s.

          1. Ackshally – it was a genuine question.

            When I made regular trips t Slovakia and Roumania in the early 1990s, this sort of house was universal in the countryside. The “mushrooms” were to deter rats.

          2. It’s one of the finest stabbur (“Cage on stilts”) in Numedal. Beginning to need some fixing – we’ll be attending to the tiles this summer, and some stripping and repainting.

        1. Food store and temporary accommodation for summer workers. The wee pillars make it more difficult for the mice to get in.

      1. Identikit of the secondary modern that was built in the ’50s at the top of my road. I escaped it by passing the 11+ in 1960. Demolished a few years ago after falling in to disrepair and replaced with a new shiny academy named after the diesel engine manufacturer that once graced the town, Paxman. The latter now all but gone after being bought out by MAN: another casualty of our foray into the evil clutches of the EU.

    1. Bryant is a thoroughly, disgusting, sadistic and mendacious, only partially human being. Indeed he was behind the disgraceful way that Owen Paterson was treated and I must admit that I am disappointed that Paterson did not fight for himself more strongly but I fear his wife’s suicide knocked the stuffing out of him.

      Bryant certainly deserves to get his come-uppance but I fear he is like Blair in that he deserves to suffer extreme torture but will probably never do so!

    2. Fact check: did Farage get £548,000 from Russia?

      Steerpike – Wednesday 16 March 2022, 11:05am

      Chris Bryant has been keen to make the most of the Ukraine crisis, demanding greater sanctions on Putin’s cronies at every turn. The Labour MP scored an early hit when he used parliamentary privilege to reveal that Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich was identified by the Home Office in 2019 as having links to the Russian state as well as to ‘corrupt activity and practices.’

      But his latest effort to repeat the stunt seems to have backfired somewhat, after the Standards Committee chair turned his guns on a new target: Nigel Farage. Bryant read out a list of names to MPs yesterday, demanding that further sanctions be imposed on them too. He told the Commons:

      “I am mystified at why some people are still missing from the list, including some of the broadcasters… I simply point out that Nigel Farage received £548,573 from Russia Today in 2018 alone–this is from the Russian state.

      The basis for this claim seems to be Farage’s declaration of outside earnings when he was an MEP in the the European Parliament figure. Company accounts for his media vehicle, Thorn In the Side Ltd, show that its assets exceeded £548,000 for the year to May 2018, compared with about £157,000 the previous year. But this figure was his total sum for all media appearances, at a time when Farage had never been more in demand.

      It included a very lucrative contract with LBC – for whom he was then hosting a radio programme five days a week – and Fox News, where he appeared as a regular talking head and with whom he had signed up as an analyst shortly after the EU referendum. Any fees from Russia Today would have been a small part of the overall total sum, with Farage appearing infrequently on the broadcaster in the months after the Brexit vote in June 2016.

      A quick search by Mr S suggests that Farage’s last appearance on RT was 3 March 2017, the infamous show where a child dressed as a queen pretended to knight him. After that he does not seem to have appeared on the channel at all. Farage himself says that in 2016 and 2017 ‘I had two small appearance fees back then, well under £5,000. Not appeared since.’

      Indeed guest appearances on broadcast media tend to command fees of less than £500, meaning that the sum total Farage received from Russia Today was much more likely to be four figures than six. It certainly does not seem to be anywhere near the half-a-million figure being touted by Bryant. Nigel may be box office gold but he wasn’t getting box office fees.

      Bryant incidentally has also appeared on Russia Today, though without receiving a fee: clearly he was happy to do it for free. Will the Labour MP now be offering any further evidence about his claims under privilege? Or failing that, an apology?

      https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/fact-check-did-farage-get-548-000-from-russia-

        1. Bryant is presumably one of the camp that thinks Russian influence gave the ‘wrong’ results in the EU referendum, the USA 2016 election and our 2019 GE. Some even think that the Scottish referendum was affected, their reasoning being that Putin wanted to discourage breakaways from Russia. I don’t think he would bother with referendums, would he?

      2. We await with bated breath Chris Bryant holding the government accountable for covid vaccine injuries that actually harm the lives of thousands of UK citizens.

      3. “The Labour MP scored an early hit when he used parliamentary privilege to reveal that Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich was identified by the Home Office in 2019 as having links to the Russian state as well as to ‘corrupt activity and practices.'”
        This is the same MP who was funded by Chinese spies, yes?

  70. First of all, thank you very much for all your messages of support and concern.
    I am home and, sod the time, have poured a large Pinot. It is skin cancer but not of a life threatening variety. Several photos were taken and a biopsy was done under local. (The local is now wearing off- hence the Pinot.)
    I had the option of having the thing cut out there and then but want to see biopsy results first and discuss things with my husband. Am exhausted.
    MH has just called from his bed of pain and says he may be set free soon. Good- this place feels funny without him.
    He has another appointment tomorrow and then, if we feel able, we may go to the pub for the first time in months.
    Forgive any typos- I have corrected a lot already from what looked like comments in Klingon;-)
    I truly am appreciative of your kindness so thanks again, Y’all.

    1. That is VERY good news. Just one thing – don’t finish the bottle on your own…!

    2. Very good news.

      We’ve been down a similar path and it remains a worry. Removal was eventually the preferred option and regular reviews.
      Good luck.

      Don’t fall over on the way back from the pub!
      };-))

      1. It’s too far to walk now we’ve moved and we won’t stay out late anyway. Will be bus or cab.

    3. Really good news Ann. You must be relieved especially when the biopsy comes back confirming what you’ve been told. Any idea how long that will take? Very soon with fingers crossed.

      Hope YOH is back home soon.

    5. That sounds like a pretty good result and outlook for both of you. Well done, have another Pinot.

    8. Very pleased for you, LotL! I know you were worried about the day, so I’m delighted you got through it all, and haven’t lost your SOH! Enjoy the Pinot and best wishes to MH!

      1. Worried is the understatement of the year, Sue;-) I was shaking like a leaf. I said to the doctor that I would rather face down a class of 30 teenagers than go through that- she laughed.

        1. It’s that awful fear and dread of the unknown. Plus, we aren’t in control of the situation. Bless you, pet.

    9. Good, good, good. So pleased that it isn’t Melanoma. You must be very relieved. Why didn’t you let them cut it out there and then? Your next appointment may be in a month of Sundays!

      1. I wanted to know what was going on with my husband first. I don’t think it will be that long before I get another appointment.

        1. By the way, is your name Anne or do you prefer Lottie? If so may I use one of them and which one?

          3. My typing this afternoon is somewhat like an ape trying to thread needles. Bear with me…

          5. I hope someone takes the bears inside if it rains – I would hate to think they might get wet, or worse still get stolen!

    12. So pleased you are home and dryish , Ann.

      You are both in a not very nice health space at the moment , but with time and the expertise of medics , you will both see some light and relief at the end of the tunnel .

      Now you are home safe and sound , try to wind down .. the brain chatters away when it should be resting . x

    14. Not a nice diagnosis, but at least it’s not catastrophic. Thank God for that! 🙂
      Smart move to wait a bit, and not rush into surgery that might need to be done tidily rather than a slash-and-burn procedure.
      The pub will be good – go by taxi, then the two of youse can tank up a bit and relieve some stress!
      Enjoy the Pinot, Ann!

    17. “It is skin cancer but not of a life threatening variety.”

      That is relatively good news, Lotty; all the Best!

    18. So pleased to hear, must have missed something earlier, had not realised YOH was not with you, so hope he is with you soon, and both of you recover soon. Take care.

    19. Glad to hear it isn’t life-threatening. Take a little wine for your health’s sake (St Paul).

  71. Raining – from a curiously coloured sky. More African immigrants disguised as sand, I expect.

    It’s raining cats and wogs.

          1. Well, we went out to lunch and it’s been raining most of the day. The weather was my saviour, Sue.

      3. People in the UK volunteering to house Ukrainian refugees might get a bit of a shock when they turn up on the doorstep…

        1. I certainly hope so, and I would be delighted if the ‘uman roits lawyers ensure that they have to take whatever arrives from anywhere.

          The more these bleeding heart, bring ’em ALL in liberals are hurt, the better.

    2. It was so yellow with us that the photos I took look as though there’s a yellow filter on the lens. We switched on the light, and the light outside was yellower than inside. Very dark, too.
      The car is now covered with pinkish sludge – and I had just washed it too!

      2. I haven’t noticed the colour here but it’s been raining hard all day. It’s just grey and wet.

      1. More trickery, lies and deceit. Deep 😔 sigh. What do we expect ? You can bet none of this will be spelled out to the unsuspecting public. Why don’t we just do away with “Border Farce” altogether?

    1. Good Lord. Why? Good musician; very well off. What on earth would he contribute to the House of Peers? Just asking. They didn’t offer me one….

    2. Bloody hell – I thought they were proposing that members of the Lords should retire earlier than 80 – now they want an aged Beatle to join?

  73. https://youtu.be/LxmYli4MbMM

    1:05; “It’s why, by the way, Russia pumped millions into the Anti-Fracking Lobby.”

    Did they really? I must have blinked when firm evidence of that was released, rather then the conjecture we keep hearing.
    After the “Russia pumped billions into the Trump Campaign in 2016” hysteria was shewn to be total and utter bullshite, I can not be the only one to smell a rat.

    2. The Russians/fracking scenario is far likelier than the Russians/Trump one.
      But it could also have been the Arabs, or the WEF destructors. Still, blaming Putin for everything seems to be the order of the day…

    4. This really is so dishonest. The bad faith actors in this mess was the West which made promises to Russia and broke every one. If we had kept them, Russia would be a good neighbour to Europe, and the Ukraine and Russia would be at peace and our energy supplies would be secure. I find it angers me that these people are making no attempt at all to be honest, no effort at self-reflection or asking in any way how we could mitigate the situation. Instead we continue on a campaign of demonization compounded with lies and a constant stereotyping of Putin and the Russians. A stereotype that has no semblance to reality. So appalling to blame bad decisions on the ‘other’, when they are entirely the result of our own incompetence, our weak, useless, politicians.

    5. A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest! [Paul Simon]

      It is certainly more agreeable to believe things one wants to believe than things one doesn’t.

    6. Even if they had. It was not a reason for our politicians to cravenly back down from the Green Lobby. This is the very sort of thing I’m referring to below when I say: “So appalling to blame bad decisions on the ‘other’, when they are entirely the result of our own incompetence, our weak, useless, politicians.”
      If you think about it it’s actually an admission that they are not competent to run the internal affairs of this country but let outside influences make decisions for them. In other words, they aren’t fit for office.

          1. Risky but I’ll leave this here and go to hide…

            THE OFFSIDE RULE, FOR GIRLS.

            You’re in a shoe shop, 2nd in line before the till.

            Behind the till is a pair of shoes you absolutely don’t need, so are naturally desperate for.

            However, the girl in front of you also doesn’t need them, therefore is equally desperate to buy them.

            You’ve both left your purses at home, but your friend is out shopping, senses your desperation and throws you her purse, ahead of the other girl.

            As soon as the purse has left her hands. you are able to slip round the girl in front to catch it.

            Remember, until the purse has left your friend’s hands, it would be wrong to jump in front of the other shopper.

            That would be offside.

        2. No thanks! People have been try for 70 years….. I understand the offside law in rugby – well, I used to, but it is more honoured in the breach by some nations, these days.

        2. Mr Müller is rumoured to have um, authoritarian beliefs, so we don’t buy his products.
          Nevertheless he is an amazingly successful businessman whose firm has grown from having 4 employees in 1971 to about 27,500 today.

      3. I think it’s about driving. It says he goes round corners exceptionally well.

      4. Football appears to attract some er…rightish wingish extremists. Obviously we have Milwall but guess who the most right wing extremists are who do all the monkey chants………………OOh OOh OOh Ukraine.

          5. I attended a match of Moscow Dynamo in 1968 – in Moscow. Apart from once seeing Ipswich play (in Ipswich) it’s the only football match I’ve ever been to.

  75. Is Rishi Sunak brave enough to tell us the bad news? 16 March 2022.

    That, unfortunately, is where we now appear to be heading. Ahead of next week’s Spring Statement, Rushi Sunak has been having economic history lessons, trying to get to grips with the 1973 oil price shock. It’s a sensible move. The UK’s reaction to the quadrupling of oil prices that year was one of the worst among the world’s industrial nations. Both inflation and unemployment surged, leading to a far more extreme version of “stagflation” than elsewhere. Britain became known as the “sick man of Europe”.

    Why did things go so wrong? Partly, it was a refusal to admit that higher oil prices had made people in the UK worse off. Policymakers rightly realised that rising energy prices would leave people with less to spend on everything else. They wrongly concluded that this “loss” could be offset with a bit of monetary and fiscal stimulus. Remarkably enough, interest rates were regularly cut through 1974 even as inflation continued to build, peaking at a staggering 26.9 per cent in August 1975. Sterling collapsed. Unemployment headed far above 1 million.

    What is coming will make 1973 look like a walk in the park. It will be worse than the 1930’s and none of it is the fault of Vladimir Putin! It is all home-grown by the Numpties in Westminster!

    https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/rishi-sunak-brave-bad-news-economy-spring-statement-oil-prices-b988515.html

    1. Can’t even be bothered to click on the article. Energy price increase was nowt but a straw on the camel’s back. Years of socialist Labour government, unions with too much power, lack of investment in manufacturing industry, confiscatory levels of taxation etc etc.

    2. BTL Comment:-

      BobofBonsal
      1 hr agoMessage Actions
      The Oil Price Shock caused by the Yom Kippur War ought to have been a wake up call for us to ensure as close to total energy autonomy as possible.
      That is did not wake up our leaders is a damning criticism on EVERY UK Government over the past 50 years.

      1. Was he awarded the Nobel peace prize before that slaughter or before the other one?

          1. ‘Twas an evening in November,
            As I very well remember,
            I was strolling down the street in drunken pride,
            But my knees were all a-flutter,
            So I landed in the gutter,
            And a pig came up and lay down by my side.

            Yes, I lay there in the gutter,
            Thinking thoughts I could not utter,
            When a colleen passing by did softly say:
            “Ye can tell a man that boozes
            By the company he chooses.’
            At that the pig got up and walked away!

    1. He never did !…Ooh you haven’t heard the best bit yet. Anyway, i can’t spend all day here when i have pots to scour and clinkers to riddle………………….

      3. You didn’t grow up in sarf London, did you? “Clinkers” has a rather unpleasant alternative meaning.

          1. Will you define winnats? Clinkers are the bits that stick to a dog’s bum after…you know what.

          2. Similar thing.
            Lumps shit that clag to the wool round a sheep’s arse and “winnat” come off.

          6. Clinkers were from the fireplace. The quote is from Ena Sharples to Minnie in Coronation Street…Victoria Wood does a great parody.

  85. That’s me gone. Still raining – G & P very displeased. In vain do I explain that it will stop in two hours and be fine tomorrow. They are sulking in the porch – as they have been indoors for eight hours and must be dying for a wazz! There is a cat flat (or, rather, hole – as Pickles refused to learn how to use the flap) so they can dash out…

    Market tomorrow – assuming there is any food for sale left .

    Have a jolly evening – especially those, such as Alf and LotL who are recovering/relieved. NoTTLand can be a very nice place when things are rough.

    A demain.

        2. I don’t think a bike with bigger wheels could manage that course. Certainly not at the speed he is going.

  87. Good God, Met police in action again. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-60766891
    A 15-year-old black schoolgirl strip-searched by police was pulled out of an exam so the “traumatic incident” could take place, a safeguarding report says.

    Teachers at her Hackney school called the Met Police after wrongly suspecting her of carrying cannabis in 2020.

    The report found the search, without another adult present, was unjustified and racism “likely” a factor. Local MP Diane Abbott also said it was racist.

    Scotland Yard said the search “should never have happened”.

    The victim – referred to as Child Q – told the Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review: “On top of preparing for the most important exams of my life, I can’t go a single day without wanting to scream, shout, cry or just give up.”

    The victim’s mother told the report that after the strip-search in 2020, her daughter had been “asked to go back into the exam” she had been sitting “without any teacher asking her about how she felt knowing what she had just gone through”.

    The review said the impact on Child Q had been “profound” and the repercussions “obvious and ongoing”, with family members describing her as changing from a “happy-go-lucky girl to a timid recluse that hardly speaks”.

    The girl’s maternal aunt was quoted as saying the pupil had changed from “top of the class” to “a shell of her former bubbly self”, adding she was “now self-harming and requires therapy”.

    She added: “From the time she was pulled out of her exam to the time she returned home, she was isolated, not given food or offered water, where is the care.”

    Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP Diane Abbot told BBC Radio London’s Eddie Nestor the strip-search had made her “feel sick as a mother” and that “racism absolutely played a part”.

    “The Met Police is not going into private schools and asking white girls to spread their buttock cheeks,” she said.

    The report states that in 2020-2021, there were 25 searches of under-18s in the same borough.

    Intimate body parts exposed
    Ms Abbott said: “Only two of those 25 under-18 searches were white, the figures tell you this is about race.”

    During the incident, the girl was taken to the school’s medical room and strip-searched by two female Met police officers, while teachers remained outside. Her parents were not contacted.

    Her intimate body parts were exposed and she was made to take off her sanitary towel, according to the review. No drugs were found.

    In a written statement to the review, the girl said: “I need to know that the people who have done this to me can’t do it to anyone else ever again, in fact so no-one else can do this to any other child in their care.”

    Aside from the inevitable cries of racism, WTF did the Met think they were doing, with a naked child and no adult? Are these goons under any form of control? More unpleasantness towards women. And with a bull dyke in charge, one might have hoped things would be reasonable, but clearly not.

    1. That is dreadful on so many levels.
      I can’t believe that even the Met could be so crass.
      If it is true, sack the whole chain of command, from those who did it right up to those who must have approved the policy.

      1. “I can’t believe that even the Met could be so crass.” – even after they beat up a demonstration of women protesting the murder of Sarah Everard? I’d believe anything of those barstewards.

        1. Like farting in an elevator? Wrong on so many levels. I’ll leave the stage.

  89. Husband home at 5.30 and feeling somewhat better. we are not out of the woods yet but at least something is happening.
    Thanks again for all your wonderful comments and support. It really does help.
    X to all of you.

    1. Nice to be together again!
      Have a cuddle on the sofa, and enjoy the wine together!

    5. Glad he’s home and feeling somewhat improved. Hope it continues. It’s a relief when finally you can get some help.

  90. BBC News at Six

    Boris being quizzed by Laura Kuenssberg tonight still managed to drop in a reference to going green with the help of energy supplies ( most likely to be hydrocarbons) from a friendly dictator with whom the UK has had a long standing relationship.

    🤔

  91. Question for the technically minded, please.
    If the electricity supplier cuts the supply from 240volts to 230 volts will the electricity bill be reduced?

    1. Yes, as long as they don’t reprice the kilowatt hours – measure of energy, or change the current supplied.
      Watts = volts x amps.

      1. Cynical answer – they probably measure amps drawn and assume 240 volts when working out kilowatt hours.

      3. Thank you. Maybe they are reducing the amps? I’ve made a wrong assumption about voltage. Time required to get pans up to the right temperature seems to be increased around tea time/early evening.

    2. UK supply has been 230 volts for quite some time. Ohm’s law for AC circuits is too complicated for my pore brane, but my gut feeling is that it costs more than 240V.

  92. Polite question for Bill Thomas. Have you blocked me? If so, please tell me why?

        2. She’s the only one I ever blocked.

          I wonder why she was so determined to piss people off? Was it just her idea of fun or was she mentally ill?

          1. I do not know. She repeatedly and routinely disagreed with me, but without providing reason or counter argument.

    3. I’ll just leave this here. It may or may not be relevant…

      Hello Disqus moderators,

      We’re excited to announce a very exciting update that should lead to safer communities and quality conversations. Starting today, we’re rolling out bi-directional blocking across the Disqus network of publishers.

      What is “bi-directional blocking?”

      The new blocking experience not only removes a blocked user’s comments and profile page from your view, but also removes your comments and profile page from their view as well—i.e., users who choose to use the block option can do so to effectively end interaction between them and users they block. Our intention is to provide users with greater control over their safety experience.

      What blocked users will see in-thread:

      What blocked users will see on user profile pages:

      How is this different than before?

      Previously, if User A blocked User B, User A couldn’t see User B’s comments, but User B could still see and interact with User A’s comments. With the new update, User A and User B both won’t be able to view or interact with each other’s comments or profile pages.

      We’ve listened to users’ feedback to design a safety experience more in-line with other platforms and applications around the web, ensuring quality and civil social experiences for everyone.

      Important note

      This new update means that moderators who have been blocked by users will not be able to view comments made by those users in the actual comment embed. Moderators will still be able to view and take any necessary action on ALL comments, including those made by users who have blocked them, via the moderation panel.

      Ultimately, we hope that this update helps users mitigate safety issues themselves, resulting in a safer conversation that requires less of a moderation effort.

      What’s next

      We know this is just the first step in offering a robust suite of user safety controls. As we roll out these initial changes, please rest assured that we’ll be continuing to refine our product in a way that enhances user safety and eases the burden of moderation.

      We want to hear your questions, concerns, and feedback—please reply directly to this email and we’ll be sure to follow up with you as soon as possible.

      Thank you for your time and patience in reading this through!

      Best,
      The Disqus Team

      1. Sorry, folks, as far as my comprehension of the above is concerned, I will offer this in reply

        “In the Nuts (unground), (other than ground nuts) Order, the expression nuts shall have reference to such nuts,
        other than ground nuts, as would but for this amending Order not qualify as nuts (unground)
        (other than ground nuts) by reason of their being nuts (unground)”.

        see more at

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_Nuts_Order

      2. Sorry, folks, as far as my comprehension of the above is concerned, I will offer this in reply

        “In the Nuts (unground), (other than ground nuts) Order, the expression nuts shall have reference to such nuts,
        other than ground nuts, as would but for this amending Order not qualify as nuts (unground)
        (other than ground nuts) by reason of their being nuts (unground)”.

        see more at

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_Nuts_Order

  93. In the five or six weeks I’ve been painting the entire house I’ve discovered that without the distraction of the internet it gives one time to think. I understand Herr Hitler was a house painter before he went into politics. After just six weeks of painting I can appreciate why he went completely round the bloody bend!!!

    1. Good that Boris gave us the heads up, I wouldn’t have noticed that things had changed otherwise.

    2. There once was a Nottler who questioned below
      The symbolisms (blue) and sickly (yellow)
      And all the day long she’d wonder anew
      The sickly symbolisms of (yellow) and (blue)

      (With apols to AA Milne)

    3. There once was a Nottler who questioned below
      The symbolisms (blue) and sickly (yellow)
      And all the day long she’d wonder anew
      The sickly symbolisms of (yellow) and (blue)

      (With apols to AA Milne)

    5. I think we are being conditioned into accepting the blue and yellow as a symbol to respect and worship – it is everywhere, schools have even painted their entrances with it. I think Zelensky has been chosen as the NWO puppet-leader, with Ukraine as the headquarters – totally corrupt, amoral and remote. Digital identity coming soon when the economy collapses and food rationing commences.

      1. There were yellow and blue streamers in the reception area at the doctors, along with similarly coloured decorations – the sort you used to put up at Christmas, made out of paper and capable of being folded up.

  97. Popped into M&S for some provisions a couple of hours ago. The cashier was a little bit flummoxed as management had removed the perspex screens so she could interact with the customers au naturel so to speak…..

      1. No, let people keep wearing them if they want to – freedom of choice and all that, just never make it compulsary that others do.

    2. Thank flipping goodness.

      While I’m incredibly grateful for those shop folk who worked very hard throughout the pandemic, the screens were always divisive. For some weeks the only otherhuman being I’d see is a cashier. That short, simple interaction was amazing.

    3. I don’t think that will happen at the surgery any time soon. I finally got fed up of trying to get through on the telephone and called in person. The receptionist was masked up to the eyeballs behind a screen and when I approached she grabbed a mask to give to me. I showed her my exemption badge (fortunately, I had it with me). She didn’t look happy and berated me for not making an appointment this morning. When I pointed out I had tried to ring several times and the phone hadn’t been answered, she said, “you should have come in”. Okay, now I know. Forget phoning, go and batter the door down.

    1. They are men escaping into a fantasy. ladies loo, changing room, sports competition etc

  100. If this shadow has offended…
    As many of you know, I do not always agree with some of your political opinions etc
    But I cannot fault any of you for your kindness and consideration.
    Bless you all and good night.

    1. Goodnight, Ann. As I’ve said umpteen times before, this ain’t an echo chamber. It may take courage to go against the grain, but that’s OK. Unless you’re GW, but that’s rather different, and he keeps blocking himself.

      Besides, in the last six years, you’ve almost come across to the dark side. More joy in Heaven, etc., etc…

    2. Goodnight Lotl.

      You are an alert amusing gal , with a great sense of humour .

      Settle down now and get some rest ..

      Nottlers will be back here tomorrow , so bye for now and now zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

    1. Trainee snowblower operators.
      We will probably find that Trudeau is offering immigration to any Sandrat that can move snow.

  103. It seems, that Spanish Truckers are gathering in Madrid

    I have not seen it on UK MSM, but we have lotsa mates who are Tintenting in Spain

    One Hombre has been shot

  104. The PM and other green activists are turning the Ukraine war into an environmental crusade

    Boris Johnson has seized the opportunity of the Russian invasion to double down on his ecological commitments

    PHILIP CUNLIFFE • 16 March 2022 • 11:00am

    Never let a good crisis go to waste. This seems to be the instinct of green campaigners and governments alike, as they get swept up in war fever against Russia.

    A number of radical green activists and campaigners have seen an opportunity in the Ukraine war to bend the crisis to their purposes – a crash programme of eco-austerity achieved by reducing fossil-fuel consumption. Canadian activist Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, urges us on social media to accept that we are already effectively in a world war with Russia, and that we should therefore by extension accept rationing as part of such a war effort.

    Writing in The Guardian, George Monbiot sees the Ukraine war as an opportunity to prevent “the collapse of life on Earth” by having Europeans wean ourselves off of our “addiction” to Russian gas. The Guardian also handily carried tips about how to reduce energy consumption as part of the “war effort”.

    Writing for this newspaper, the Prime Minister, while outlining his new energy security strategy, seized the opportunity of the Ukraine war to double down on his ecological commitments. He tells us that there will be “tough times ahead” but that it’s possible to rid ourselves of our “addiction” to Russian hydrocarbons, reminding us of the Russian bombing of Syria as well as the Novichok poisoning in Salisbury for good measure.

    That radical green activists are casually spurring on the end times is perhaps unsurprising. That a democratically-elected prime minister ultimately dependent on votes feels confident enough to castigate masses of ordinary citizens as degenerate addicts merely for expecting to consume affordable and plentiful energy is more striking.

    The suggestion that our entirely ordinary, everyday energy consumption makes us complicit in Russian war crimes is a slander on the nation itself. While the war in Ukraine certainly underscores our need for energy security, the rush to embrace privation as part of a war effort against a country with which we are not at war, suggests that there is more going on than merely a surge of sympathy for Ukraine’s plight.

    As if the Ukraine war were not bad enough, inflating the stakes of the crisis to make war on Russia a planetary war in which all life on Earth is at stake is a posture that is not serious about ending the conflict. On the contrary, turning the Ukraine war into a green crusade is only likely to further block off diplomatic routes to peace and needlessly complicate any international settlement.

    In terms of Britain’s energy needs, it is clear that for middle-class green activists, the embrace of suffering on behalf of the planet is a virtue in itself. That a Tory prime minister is cribbing from such activists in trailing his energy security strategy suggests that there are dark times ahead – quite literally.

    Having stumbled out of the political crisis over Brexit into a lethally mismanaged pandemic, then into a diplomatic crisis that the Government is doing its best to turn into a domestic energy crisis, onlookers are entitled to conclude the British state and its political class are addicted to emergency rule far more than us ordinary citizens are addicted to Russian hydrocarbons.

    It is also worth recalling that the UK produced very fine documents outlining its pandemic preparedness strategies in the years before 2020. An effective test and trace system proved more difficult. The simple truth is that a state that is incapable of maintaining a stock of PPE is not capable of expanding nuclear power at the scale needed.

    Advancing a new British Energy Security Strategy under the cover of a geopolitical crisis is offering a pre-emptive justification for certain failure. The Prime Minister is ensuring that soaring energy and fuel bills and future brown-outs will be attributed to Putin’s perfidy and the harsh exigencies of a difficult transition; dissenters will be castigated as stooges of the Kremlin, and enemies of the planet indifferent to Ukraine’s struggle for freedom.

    What will it take to end our politicians’ addiction to emergency rule? Resolving this question seems to be the most difficult challenge of all.

    Philip Cunliffe is Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent. His most recent books include ‘The New Twenty Years’ Crisis 1999-2019′ (2020)

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/16/pm-green-activists-turning-ukraine-war-environmental-crusade/

  105. Evening, all. A dreich day here. Good news – HMRC has informed me I’ve overpaid my tax and am due a refund, my bank has informed me that my interest rate on savings has gone up from 0.01% to a massive 0.10% and I have managed to get a doctor’s appointment for Friday (although the last was extremely difficult).

          2. Many years ago I attended an exhibition and viewing of Winston Churchill memorabilia at Somerset House.

            Of particular interest were the begging letters addressed to his mother when he was at Eton. They were positively Bunteresque in their heartfelt and emotionally charged pleas for a few florins to ‘tide him over’.

  108. The shit is about to hit the fan big time over the experimental gene therapies. No amount of Ukraine disinformation or Green New Deal distraction will save Johnson and his cronies from prosecution and trial for crimes against humanity.

    Likewise Pfizer and Moderna might as well shut up shop as their supposed liability protection is void (gene therapies are not vaccines, whatever Fauci says in attempting to redefine the meaning of ‘vaccine’). Experimental gene therapies granted under emergency use authorisation are invalid and do not afford the makers, and those administering the jabs, immunity from prosecution.

    On the Ukrainian front we are being fed lies and disinformation. The Russian aims are clearly stated and understandable.

    I find it absurd that Russian oligarchs are targeted in the UK whereas some of the most corrupt oligarchs are Ukrainian whilst Zelensky is as bent as a five bob note. None of this shit adds up.

      1. The jabs never worked and claims to the contrary are bogus. The more jabs you receive the more imminent your demise.

        There is pure evil and then some viz. Boris Johnson and his cronies in cabinet and in the public health and SAGE charlatanry.

    2. None of the vaccines are gene therapy. In gene therapy your DNA is modified. This is not what the vaccines are doing. Gene therapy uses DNA not RNA.

      Pfizer and Moderna will never be prosecuted over the vaccines.

      1. There is a video clip of the CEO of Pfizer saying that if you had asked people to take gene therapy injections two years ago, they would have refused, but now they have all taken them. It’s been posted on this site, but I didn’t copy it.

        It has been shown that the mRNA vaccines actually do modify your DNA.
        https://welovetrump.com/2022/02/25/mrna-from-pfizer-covid-19-jab-can-be-reverse-transcribed-into-dna-according-to-study/
        This was predicted right from the start by people who know about these things. If I remember rightly, it gets copied into a section of your DNA that is essentially inactive.

        It beggars belief that this stuff was mass rolled out, even made mandatory, without any consideration of the legal implications of people’s bodies producing and storing by one mechanism or another, a patented structure.
        Oh, but we weren’t supposed to know that it was patented….

        There is already legal action against Pfizer and Moderna in the United States.

        1. All mRNA does is encode proteins. It’s consumed in the mitochondria and doesn’t go anywhere near the DNA inside chromosomes in the nucleus of the cell. There is no mechanism that can cause altering of the DNA in the nucleus from consumption of mRNA in the mitochondria.
          mRNA is usually made in the nucleus and transported to the mitochrondria by binding to certain proteins. This is a one-way street.
          Gene therapy uses DNA and the subject is still very much in its infancy.

          1. I’m afraid you are wrong in this. It was said right from the start that the mRNA injections could alter DNA by people who have spent their entire careers in this field, and it has now been proven in the paper that is linked from that article.

  110. Morning all, gone fishin’, proper fishin’, proper fish. The sea shall not have them.

  111. Good morning all
    Blue sky, dry , 6c.

    Birds are busy on the feeders and a pair of blackbirds are pulling worms from the garden , so they must have a nest of babies somewhere in the hedge .

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