Thursday 28 April: Justin Welby’s political salvoes set him at odds with public opinion

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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600 thoughts on “Thursday 28 April: Justin Welby’s political salvoes set him at odds with public opinion”

      1. Morning Sue. Actually I am feeling a little Glum this morning though this is due to the State of the World and not personal. On that front I’m doing well. I didn’t want to start crowing too soon and tempting fate but my Diabetes 2 seems to be improving. I’ve become steadier on my feet and my Brain Fog has dissipated plus I slept for four and a half hours last night before having to get up. Swings and Roundabouts hey?

        1. Good to hear re the diabetes! To be able to manage it yourself is a huge achievement! The state of the world – not much us little people can do! It’s having the wisdom to see what we can change, and not worrying about what we can’t.
          How profound is that, at 6.37?!

  3. Russia doubles fossil fuel revenues since invasion of Ukraine began. 28 April 2022.

    Russia has nearly doubled its revenues from selling fossil fuels to the EU during the two months of war in Ukraine, benefiting from soaring prices even as volumes have been reduced.

    Russia has received about €62bn from exports of oil, gas and coal in the two months since the invasion began, according to an analysis of shipping movements and cargos by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

    This doubling is not due to the sale of more gas but the price; the cost of gas has increased six fold since April last year, and is still rising. It takes no great brainpower to realise that this means the cost of living climbing here in the UK and even more so in Europe later this year. It’s wise to bear this mind when they are talking about sanctions. So far they appear to be hitting the Western Coalition harder than the Russian Federation. There are no shortages in Russia and since they are primary producers of almost everything you care to name very little prospect of them either. This to my mind suggests the Russians are getting the better part of the economic argument. The West may eventually win this due to its vastly greater wealth but it will come at a cost that far exceeds its benefits. There is also the war itself. You would never guess from the MSM coverage but they are advancing and gaining ground in the Donbass area. All this is by way of saying that continued hostilities suggest increasing escalation by the west and that a negotiated settlement would be better for everyone.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/27/russia-doubles-fossil-fuel-revenues-since-invasion-of-ukraine-began

    1. Greater wealth? We’re monumentally indebted. Brown ran up 12 trillion, the other conusocialists since just kept adding to it.

      Who pays for these idiots to follow shipping patterns? If it’s us, could we please stop doing so?

    2. Good morning all.

      Your last sentence has always been the case IMO. The West is hurting only itself. Encouraging Ukraine by sending ammunitions etc. and provoking Russia right from the start has been a crazy thing to do. I don’t know what MSM in other European countries is saying. U.K. our MSM seems to do nothing but stir up trouble. (Ar the behest of HMG?).
      Edited: but (instead of to) stir ….

    3. And the response? The evil Sunak and his government restate the possibility of putting a windfall tax on the last few oil and gas companies we have, the ones that provide much of the income for pensions and insurance companies. We are led by incompetents both here and in Europe whose sole aim seems to be to create a war with Russia to hide their own faults, even though the USSR collapsed many years ago.

  4. Good morning all.
    Another beautiful morning here in Wild Welsh Wales.
    Whilst eldest & youngest lads went off exploring quarries and looking for old mining locomotives yesterday, Dr. Daughter, Student Son the DT & self went to Harlech and I opted for a bus ride to Barmouth & back that was very enjoyable.

    A run on the Ffestiniog is planned for this afternoon, unfortunately the camera had dropped dead on me with a flat battery and I left the charger in the van!

    Here’s some pictures from earlier.
    The is the old farm house we’re staying in:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9992405c0705325a18873673d4aa5057d89dd6ea62a3dbc45ab5042c56aa5fd8.jpg

    This is one of the oldest battery powered locomotives in the world that t’Lad was rather interested in as he owns a similar machine:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5ef5bbfa32b10b07b574671dfa9ac6e6f490f6dfee591b62fd1ffb5a6a4c59c7.jpg

    Does anyone know what this is?
    Photographed en-route to the Ship Aground pub on Monday evening:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/284429b1f2d5f68c7fa16ad35438f057da3f33dc5e9889241bfc315378812b42.jpg

    And a rather fine looking mill building, Apparently once driven by a tidal lagoon:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/90c54ae2768ea4128af1b935682f41e95b278683a2b15b50b3f9bc67014ceaa6.jpg

    1. Oooh BoB! I know what the plant is! It’s called American skunk cabbage and is an invasive species which seems to be doing well in Scotland! Saw a lot of it when we were up North a week ago! Clogs up streams and waterways! The flowers look like balloons!
      Edit: apparently smells like rotting flesh!

        1. When I first saw it I thought it must be related to Lords and Ladies! I was quite chuffed with myself when I googled!

    2. Oooh BoB! I know what the plant is! It’s called American skunk cabbage and is an invasive species which seems to be doing well in Scotland! Saw a lot of it when we were up North a week ago! Clogs up streams and waterways! The flowers look like balloons!
      Edit: apparently smells like rotting flesh!

        1. I have the one with the pretty leaves, Arum Italicum though it seems to revert in our gloomy grey, non-Italian sun…

        2. Yes, same family – Araceae. Symplocarpus foetidus translates as ‘stinking connected fruits’.

    1. Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to. Theodore Dalrymple.

      1. POlitical correctness is intended solely to control who can say what. In that it is nothing but social control.

        The Left have always sought to control language to control thought. Hitler did it, Stalin did it, Mao did it, Orwell warned of it. They never change. They cannot convince because convincing someone down is up is impossible – logic and fact get in the way. Instead you make them say that up is down so they cannot then tell you the truth. When they reject this, you punish them until they obey you. Mao shot people. So did Stalin. The Left use mobs. Eventually they’ll use force.

      2. 352224+ up ticks,

        Morning AS,
        Take current lab/lib/con
        member / voters as an example.

    2. I imagine we’ll soon be reading about his arrest and charge with a hate crime. The state cannot permit itself to be questioned.

      That’s truly sad.

    3. I imagine we’ll soon be reading about his arrest and charge with a hate crime. The state cannot permit itself to be questioned.

      That’s truly sad.

    4. While he is right that there are only two sexes, in his assertion that there are only two genders – a grammatical construct – he forgets the neuter gender.

      2. When I learnt Latin we learnt the sequence of cases as:

        Nominative
        Vocative
        Accusative,
        Genitive
        Dative
        Ablative

        When reminding myself how to decline respublica and I consulted the Internet I noticed that they seem to have omitted Vocative altogether and placed Genitive above Accusative in the sequence.

  6. I’m getting tired of explaining to people why businesses don’t pay tax. It’s really boring now. It’s almost as boring as explaining why public sector workers are not net tax payers.

  7. Good Moaning.
    At least it’s sunny.
    I know they are a pest, but MB and I have been cooing over the fox happily snuggled down in our neighbour’s composter. Very cosy on top of the rotting daffodils.

      2. I think it’s a pigeon that’s nested in the privet to the north of our house. It’s sitting on it (although most of the bird is hanging over the edge!).

    2. Good morning Anne. We have foxes in our garden regularly and, boy, are they well fed. Beautiful they are. Blasted animals. Three weeks running they have tipped over our food waste bins and strewn everything over the road, pavement and garden. We now put that bin on top of the general waste bin. And, of course, they leave their horrible faeces behind. Disgusting animals. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t hurt them, but they are absolute pests.

      1. Yes, our local foxes have sussed out the ‘fox proof’ caddies.
        We have put ours inside one of those ‘spring up’ garden waste bags. To date, that seems to have solved the problem.
        When we had the two ageing Jack Russells, I used to take them for a short walk up the road at about 10.00 pm to try to avoid the old boy puddles that greeted us in the morning. There was a young fox that would bounce around in the road, trying to play with them.
        We all know that foxes are killers (that’s why we gave up on keeping chickens) but they are so intelligent and dog like, you can understand why people treat them as pets.
        And real hunters respect them as a worthy opponent.

  8. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Leading letter, and deservedly so:

    SIR – The hand-wringing, Left-leaning establishment criticises Conservative governments as a matter of course, but offers no workable solutions.

    The article by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby (“Put humanity at the heart of our asylum system”, Comment, April 27), is typical in this respect. He makes no distinction between genuine asylum seekers and economic migrants. Additionally, he does not acknowledge that the people crossing the English Channel in dinghies have already passed through two or more “safe” countries before attempting to enter this country illegally.

    Archbishop Welby and his fellow critics should spend some time with ordinary people. Then they might understand why the majority of the British public supports the Government’s attempts to stem the flow of illegal immigration.

    Dr Chris Topping
    Pilling, Lancashire

    1. …and a couple more:

      SIR – Since Archbishop Welby provides no practical solution to the migrant situation, while criticising the Government over its recent proposals, he might be better suited to a career in politics.

      In any case, he is not suited to the cloth: his inaction during the Covid pandemic has resulted in parishes losing their vicars, without any replacements in sight.

      The past two years would have been the perfect time for the Church to step up and offer pastoral care to those who needed it – yet it was nowhere to be seen.

      Jim Bell
      Hereford

      SIR – Considering the number of 
church closures in recent years, and the dwindling congregations in those that remain open, I can’t help wondering on whose behalf Archbishop Welby thinks he is speaking out.

      Vincent Hearne
      Chinon, Indre-et-Loire, France

      1. Not in my name, that’s for sure. There were only three of us (plus one warden and the verger on Wednesday morning (usually there are at least four more plus the officials, but one is in hospital and I don’t know what happened to the other three).

    2. I don’t like to say it, Mr Welby, but the kindest thing we can do is return all the immigrants. You see, they have a legal choice to apply, or stop in any one of the countries they pass through.

      He also forgets the people who suffer because of the immigrants he so avidly welcomes. His argument is entirely one sided and egotistical. He should stick to speaking to a great sky voice rather than pontificating on economic matters.

      1. The Church of England supports people traffickers.
        Still, the Bishop of Winchester used to garner rents from Southwark brothels.
        Plus ca change.

    3. I bet all those “open door”, “let everybody in” advocates are also greeniacs. Excess population is a greater threat to the planet than CO2.

  9. From Twitter.

    Its OK to be a man!
    Its OK to be a white man!
    Its OK to be a straight white man!
    Its OK to be a polite straight white man and hold doors open for others.
    Its OK to have an opinion on what is good or bad in society even though we are white straight polite men.
    Have a nice day!

    3. 0/5 – Report to your local re-education centre. If you repeat these far-right lies you will be forcibly restrained and re-gendered. You have been warned! (Senior Re-education Facilitator East Britain Region).

  10. SIR – I have worked and paid taxes since 1960, apart from a few years spent bringing up children, and have never drawn benefits other than family allowance. This month, after tax, my state pension increased by 75p a day – the price of about half a bottle of wine a week. A contributory factor was the Conservatives’ decision to renege on their 2019 manifesto pledge to retain the triple-lock. Meanwhile, MPs, of course, received a substantial salary increase.

    Why should I, a 78-year-old Tory, ever vote for the party again?

    Diana Spencer
    Herne Bay, Kent

    Because the alternative, believe it or not, is even worse? It seems the electoral choice is now reduced to the party that will do the least damage…

  11. SIR – I have worked and paid taxes since 1960, apart from a few years spent bringing up children, and have never drawn benefits other than family allowance. This month, after tax, my state pension increased by 75p a day – the price of about half a bottle of wine a week. A contributory factor was the Conservatives’ decision to renege on their 2019 manifesto pledge to retain the triple-lock. Meanwhile, MPs, of course, received a substantial salary increase.

    Why should I, a 78-year-old Tory, ever vote for the party again?

    Diana Spencer
    Herne Bay, Kent

    Because the alternative, believe it or not, is even worse? It seems the electoral choice is now reduced to the party that will do the least damage…

  12. A few more pictures:-
    A Wokka-wokka bird flew past on Monday as I was heading to the pub:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9c1279f358e6c567acb2491b0995722b73e393454c7f6d2b69c4170a3eca0b76.jpg

    Then on Tuesday a trip up the Welsh Highland Railway to Beddgelert and back behind one of their South African Garrats.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ea44698331c2975e870015722524784633b6b19543632ecad247fb9b2e2dee33.jpg

    With a walk into the village for a quick pint:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b3e69a8f7c055448e2874b38de3170ad48b9f147b35b49c887d7c8aafa921684.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4b270220111e940ca80f6e56885acd6aeb1bf878fb9eaaf9f035061ea335d9ce.jpg

    1. That’s the sort of life the Warqueen and I had hoped for. Instead.. no.

      The engine is amazing. While I might work in ‘IT’ I have beome desperately jaded with the appalling quality of software and hardware, rushed out on a budget to meet a pointless deadline, only to need endless fixes – most of which make other things worse. With a steam engine you had to get it right, and pay attention to what you were doing.

    3. Moel Hebog (Hill of the Falcon/Hawk) is located only a short walk northwest of the village of Beddgelert. Its steep rocky summit dominates the view from the villag. On a clear day, Moel Hebog offers superb views of the Snowdon range, and an excellent position to grab a quality photograph of Wales’ highest mountain, Snowden.
      Although the mountain appears steep and rocky from the west, its eastern flank has a much shallower gradient, rising slowly from the Dwyfor Valley, and offers a much easier ascent.

  14. SIR – The film Operation Mincemeat (Letters, April 21) – like the book The Man Who Never Was (1953) by Ewen Montagu, who devised the deception – asserts that it “was swallowed whole”, saved thousands of lives and changed the course of the war.

    In fact, the Germans had decided long before that the defence of Sicily would not be on the beaches, but by mobile units inland. Operation Mincemeat simply reinforced their belief that our strength was twice what it actually was, the result of a much bigger deception operation over many years – Operation Barclay by Dudley Clarke’s “A” Force in Cairo.

    It was this deception, which remained classified until the 1970s, that saved the thousands of lives and changed the course of the war.

    Roger J Morgan
    London W10

    Another factor that saved our bacon a few times was Hitler’s hopeless belief that he was a masterful tactician!

  15. SIR – Barry Winkleman (Letters, April 26) says that most of the “ex-military officers who adorn your Letters page want [Vladimir] Putin to be defeated and to be seen to be defeated in his brutal attack on Ukraine”; also that, in the event of a nuclear attack by Russia, Britain cannot retaliate.

    What must be defeated – and be seen to be defeated – is Mr Putin’s efforts to subjugate Ukraine. To suggest that such a defeat would trigger a nuclear attack on Britain is questioning the whole principle of the nuclear deterrent. Mutually assured destruction has kept Nato countries safe since 1945, and I see no reason why it should not continue to do so.

    Mr Putin and his generals will know that we keep one nuclear submarine under the sea. It can carry 16 missiles: each of these carries four British-designed warheads, and each warhead is the equivalent of 100,000 kilotons of explosives (six times the size of the Hiroshima bomb). So, in theory, one Royal Navy submarine has the ability to destroy 64 Russian targets.

    Indeed, the more Russia and the world understand the terrible consequences of a nuclear exchange, the less likely we are to have one.

    Colonel Dion Beard (retd)
    Sunningdale, Berkshire

    Quite right, Col Beard. The only slight problem is that the swaggering Russian thug may well be deranged, in which case any application of logic is likely to end badly.

    1. Could Putin be persuaded to marry his mistress? I believe if it lasts 24 hours, the marriage is considered a success.

    2. I can’t believe, Hugh that you haven’t researched the reasons why the ‘Russian Thug’ as you call him, entered Ukraine, as run by the Ukrainian thug, Zelensky.

      1. They may be as bad as each other, but only one has recently invaded a neighbour.

  16. The Passport Office is lazy, entitled and broken. 28 April 2022.

    And so it was that I found myself forking out £75 for a train ticket and trekking off on a five-hour round trip to meet an official who spent 30 seconds casting a distracted eye over my documentation, before rubber-stamping my application and dismissing me.

    This sorry tale bears repeating because it encapsulates all that is wrong not just with the Passport Office – which Boris Johnson is now promising to “privatise the a— off” – but dysfunctional public services in general. Too many civil servants have allowed themselves to forget that they are paid to serve the public (and preferably with civility), and instead think it is our job to serve them.

    At least this woman has discovered a part of the truth, the full account being that the Bureaucracies of the State are no longer viable. They answer to neither their Political Masters nor the Public they are supposed to serve. It’s a Third World system with all its problems but on European wages.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/28/passport-office-lazy-entitled-broken/

    1. But we don’t want a bunch of min wage bullies in the private sector thinking it’s our job to serve them either.
      The whole system is broken. What we need is less bureaucracy altogether, fewer rules, more pride in the job well done, and a reversal of the attitude that crept in under Blair and Brown whereby every passport issuer and paper stamper is our master instead of our servant.

      1. “…don’t want a bunch of min wage bullies in the private sector thinking it’s our job to serve them either…”

        He who pays the piper calls the tune. No one wants the other side to bow and scrape, but simple civility, such as answering the phone within a set number of rings, saying please and thankyou, hello, good bye.

        My experience with calling the council to report a broken parking meter and saying ‘I don’t expect a ticket’ was ‘well, you will and you’ll have to pay it’. I was eager to go to a work picnic, and I found the whole attitude absurd. If they won’t provide the service they can’t get shirty when people are angry at them.

        As much as I’m sure it annoys, public servants are employees of the public.

        1. I paid twice in the car park one day last month because the first machine was out of paper tickets.

    1. Good morning. Out to supper this evening. The night before they close…forever. Not sure how much fun it will be. It’s the best restaurant in town in my opinion. Retirement beckons. :@(

  18. SIR – Sheila Williams (Letters, April 20) suggests that tripe would send children running for shelter.

    As a wartime child I recall my mother standing over the sink cleaning tripe with great care. I loved it. When I was married my wife made it abundantly clear that preparing tripe was not in her repertoire.

    However, she worked just yards away from Jenners, Edinburgh’s poshest shop in that era, and discovered packs of ready-cooked tripe in its food hall – so, as long as she was not required to touch it, I could relive my childhood treat.

    It was not a memorable reunion. Food rationing had long gone and being married to an excellent cook had changed my perspective on meals. Tripe rapidly became a distant memory.

    George Wilkie
    Hemingford Grey, Huntingdonshire

    SIR – When I was 21, I had a kidney removed and spent time recuperating in hospital. Part of the treatment “to build you back up” was the provision of a daily Guinness and, once a week, a meal of (cow) tripe and chips. I don’t recall any being returned to the kitchens (and I don’t just mean the chips), at least not from our male surgical ward.

    Almost 60 years later I can still be tempted by a nice plate of honeycomb tripe, tomatoes, pepper, and fresh bread and butter.

    J Eric Nolan
    Blackburn, Lancashire

    When I was 25 I had to undergo a major op on my left lung. I, too, was given a bottle of stout every day to “build me up” from my 8.5st, which was, to say the least, a bit skinny for a 6-footer. Whether or not it worked I can’t say, but I survived so perhaps it did.
    (After 3.5 weeks I was the only one still alive and able to go home, the other eight who were there when I arrived having succumbed during my stay. I remain eternally grateful to my surgeon.)

    As for tripe, we used to feed it to our dog as a treat – he adored it – but even now, some 60 years on, the smell of it makes me heave.

    2. Our next door neighbour used to cook tripe and onions- I thought it smelt quite good. My mother called it stewed knitting and said she wasn’t cooking that so it’s something I’ve never tried.

  19. SIR – My documents were posted to the Office of the Public Guardian on 
 March 8, and the Office’s recorded announcement suggests that they will not even be acknowledged as received until August.

    According to a corporate report entitled “Office of the Public Guardian business plan: 2021 to 2022”, the name of the Public Guardian is Nick Goodwin. According to an internet search, Mr Goodwin was appointed chief executive of HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) in March 2022. Nowhere can I find the name of his replacement.

    In that same business plan Alex Chalk, the former Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, says: “I’d like to take this opportunity to say how proud I am of the efforts of all OPG staff for their work through the coronavirus pandemic.” He should try being one of its customers.

    John Blagrove
    Bath

    1. These people are public servants at the top of their profession (I know, I know….).
      Why do they have this urge to use the diminutive of their names?
      What is wrong with Nicholas and Alexander?
      This is an example of the infantilisation of Blighty.

      1. They think they will sound friendly and that we will love them for it. Little do they realisr that we think they are self-obsessed and incompetent creeps…

        ‘Moaning, Annie.

      2. I would rather read ‘Alex’ than the dreadful ‘Xander’ but I take your point. ‘Morning Anne.

        2. Good morning, Harry.

          A young information desk girl at the airport I worked at had been given the name Victoria by her parents. She refused to acknowledge being called Victoria, Vic or Vicky. Her preference was the teeth-grating “Tori”.

          For the same reason I usually greet any Andrew insisting on calling himself “Drew” by cheerily saying, “Morning, Andy!”

          One Andrew at the same airport was so universally unpopular he was given the nickname “Andrex” with all the attached connotations.

          1. I have mentioned this before but I remember a friend of mine from school with whom I went to stay for a weekend: “Hello, Richard. This is my 16 year old sister, Ginny or Virginia – she’s Virgin for short but probably not for long.

  20. Some BTL comments on Welby, with which I completely agree:

    Simon Bell
    7 HRS AGO
    Finally we are allowed to comment on Welby and his misguided musings. This was the man who took the government’s already daft draconian restrictions at the start of the pandemic and ADDED to them. Instead of merely banning churchgoers from his churches, he decided to ban priests as well. As a result, at a time when people might have sought guidance and comfort from the CofE, it was basically locked down and absent. He has slipped up and failed in so many areas that, as a churchgoer myself, it is hard to see who or what he represents or why he feels the need to continue to do so

    Warrior
    7 HRS AGO
    Welby is utterly out of touch with public opinion. The problem is that he already knows this. His opinion is that he is right and the public are thick and racist.

    Robert Bray
    5 HRS AGO
    Gosh is the DT going to let the readers have a free reign on telling the good Archbishop that he has very little idea what actually are the opinions of his rapidly diminishing flock . The rest of us really couldn’t care less what his views are.

    1. Many years ago I watched the State opening of Parliament on the TV and was stunned by the elaborate and , in my eyes , ludicrous vestments of the assembled representatives of the CoE. WTF ,I thought to myself, how do these prancing dandies have any connection with Christianity as I understood it at the time. Seeing ABC gurning from under his ludicrous and no doubt hideously expensive headpiece just re-enforces my feelings.

  21. Feeling grumpy this morning, so I was not most charitable when a Customer Service Sod Off email arrived from Quora:

    On 28 Apr 2022, at 01:07, Quora wrote:

    ##- Please type your reply above this line -##
    Your request (1376658) has been updated. To add additional comments, reply to this email.

    Athena (Quora)
    Apr 27, 2022, 5:07 PM PDT

    Hello Jeremy,

    Thank you for your response.

    It may help to know that this is most likely due to your Operating Systems being out-of-date. Both Mac Snow Leopard and Windows 7 are no longer receiving security updates.

    Please note that you will need to upgrade your OS to a more current version that has up-to-date security certificates, then the error shouldn’t occur.

    Regards,
    Athena
    User Support
    Quora

    —————

    Dear Athena

    In which case, I will no longer be contributing to Quora, and shall no longer be recommending your forum to anyone I know. I shall now program my email to direct your mailing list into a sin bin, where it can languish unread. What is essentially an online text database should work on any system dating back at least to DOS, which handled text on the internet just fine in the 1990s. You are not alone – I abandoned Yahoo! long ago, and no longer use Google as a search engine. Facebook too is on borrowed time; I have given up on it as a social platform and only use it now to contact a fan club I belong to.

    I do not feel I should be bounced into buying a new laptop that can support operating systems that are considerably inferior to the ones I am currently using, despite tricks by developers to force me to ditch them, using the catch-all bogey of “security” to excuse this. “Exciting new features” invariably mean more ways for corporations to download analytics, targeted advertising, screen hoggers, unknown javascripts, trackers and subscription and cookie permit nagscreens and similar malware that threaten me and my system far more than rogue hackers from Russia.

    I still have Windows XP loaded up, and use it when I can, and of course take backups often.

    Regards
    Jeremy

    1. Why they reference your operating system rather than your browser is beyond me. Quara is one of the sites that demands you log in to read content, isn’t it? The frenzy these idiots have to create a walled wasteland is beyond me.

      1. The white screen I have encountered often on pre-53 versions of Firefox. Snow Leopard only supports up to v.48, but ironically XP can support 53 and I can get a page to load up there. I sometimes find that Arctic Fox, based on an older version of Firefox is better behaved. Best of all right now, seems to be Brave on Windows 7, which is a stripped-down version of Chromium with the Google malware removed. Brave is not supported though on the older operating systems, which is disappointing.

        It doesn’t explain the difficulty I had with Windows 7, whose browsers are maintained bang up-to-date right now. Even security patches for W7 are being maintained by Microsoft until next year for some people, even though support for ordinary folk was stopped in 2020 to push them into “upgrading” to Windows 10. I did actually manage to get Quora to load up on W7, but it was very slow. I think W7 as Guest OS on my ageing Macbook Pro is pushing its resources somewhat, and the processor is not happy. The latest versions of both Mac and Microsoft operating systems are way beyond what my laptop can handle. I might have another dabble with Linux as a Guest OS, but it also takes an age to load up, and I have to hack into Parallels to get it to run.

  23. 352224+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Dt,
    World War Three is far more likely than anyone is prepared to admit
    New weapons and our failure to understand our enemies are raising the chances of a horrific conflict.

    “Failure to understand our political enemas
    in the United Kingdom parliament as in alternately returning them to power time & again has proved to be a successful Country killer”
    The elderly seemingly being culled via old peoples sanctuaries, children running the
    gauntlet as in playthings of paedophile actions etc,etc,etc.

    Today they are checking out the MP entering parliament with porno on the phone
    maybe it will take a third world war to change the voting pattern.

    May one ask will appreciation for the mass uncontrolled immigration coalition be shown in the coming May elections.

      1. Congrats are not deserved, Wibbling.

        I only posted that spoof to show just how easy it is, in these days of ubiquitous technology, to manipulate data and convince others of one’s message (however good or bad that might be).

        Whilst it is not impossible to guess the correct word at the first attempt, the odds are stacked highly against it. I shall attempt today’s Wordle puzzle later and this time not cheat or present false data.

        1. Good Morning Grizzly

          X X X X X

          F L U K E

          or

          Some people will believe anything!

      2. Congrats are not deserved, Wibbling.

        I only posted that spoof to show just how easy it is, in these days of ubiquitous technology, to manipulate data and convince others of one’s message (however good or bad that might be).

        Whilst it is not impossible to guess the correct word at the first attempt, the odds are stacked highly against it. It shall do today’s Wordle puzzle later and this time not cheat or present false data.

      1. A (proper) five for me.
        Wordle 313 5/6

        ⬜⬜🟨🟨🟨
        🟨🟨⬜⬜🟨
        🟨🟩⬜⬜🟨
        ⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜
        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  25. Good morning.

    SIR – I have worked and paid taxes since 1960, apart from a few years
    spent bringing up children, and have never drawn benefits other than
    family allowance. This month, after tax, my state pension increased by
    75p a day – the price of about half a bottle of wine a week. A
    contributory factor was the Conservatives’ decision to renege on their
    2019 manifesto pledge to retain the triple-lock. Meanwhile, MPs, of
    course, received a substantial salary increase.

    Why should I, a 78-year-old Tory, ever vote for the party again?

    Diana Spencer
    Herne Bay, Kent

    Are we awake yet?

    1. I can relate to that.
      I worked and paid my dues for 53 years and now i can’t even get a GP appointment.
      I was receiving benefits when i was self employed and could not work because of my hip replacement and because one box that was ticked by the highly paid imported government operative, said i could pick up a pound coin from a side table and make a cup of tea and also prune a rose. The benefit of 60.00 per month immediately ceased. Even though i couldn’t drive or walk with out my walking sticks

      Meanwhile, MPs, of course, received a substantial salary increase.
      Voted in by the MPs themselves. And just a reminder peeps last year between them, they took home almost 132 million pounds in expenses payments.

      1. Morning, Araminta.

        Apparently a legal team is being sent from Hartlepool to help prosecute the goat. They will be using vital historical expertise gained from the monkey-hanging episode of the Napoleonic wars.

        1. Monkey Hartlepool, England (1805) Crime: Espionage

          Having never seen either a monkey or a Frenchman, the townspeople mistook the animal for a Frenchman. They convicted him of espionage and hanged the animal on the beach.

  28. Can Elon Musk take on the tech censors? Fraser Nelson 28 april 2022.

    Of course, it’s quite possible that Musk won’t care about the UK and tell Twitter executives here to toe the line. He might soon think twice about his love of free speech if real racists, thugs and terrorists start using Twitter as a platform. It’s one thing to talk about free expression, another to defend Tommy Robinson. The line between what is acceptable to publish and what is not must always be drawn somewhere – and drawing it anywhere means taking fire. Will Musk be prepared to stand his ground?

    Well we can see how far Mr Nelsons’s devotion to Free Speech extends here!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/can-elon-musk-take-on-the-tech-censors

    1. Musk has said ‘anything that is not illegal’. Much there depends on twitter’s interpretation of illegality.

  29. Taxpayers are all in this together:

    <Sometimes it is just too easy to poke fun at this Government. Take the bounce back loans scheme for instance where MPs expect a whopping £17bn of the £47bn dolled out to never bounce back at all. That’s more than a third of the total loaned to struggling firms as the Covid shock unfolded.

    Perhaps the “bounce” was a reference to the cheques that fraudsters have been writing with taxpayer money – £4.9bn altogether, or more than 10pc of the amount handed around.

    There are those that will say it is a small price to pay for propping up the hundreds of thousands of small businesses that are the bedrock of the UK economy. Without that emergency support, Britain’s worst recession in a century may well have been a depression.

    Similar arguments have been made about the bailout of Royal Bank of Scotland during the financial crisis. With the majority of the £45bn of state support the bank received unofficially written off, should it be viewed as squandered taxpayer money or a relatively cheap insurance policy against a much more catastrophic economic shock?

    It’s a debate that historians will still be having long after Natwest, as it is now called, is finally extricated from Treasury hands.

    On the other hand, £47bn is hardly pocket change. It is more than the annual defence budget or what was spent on transport and the home office last year combined. As a damning new report from the Public Accounts Committee points out “business survival has come” at a “staggering” cost to the taxpayer: money that “could have been spent on improving existing public services, reducing taxes or to reduce government borrowing”.

    The Westminster spending watchdog calls the fraud figures alone “eyewatering”, but it’s the charges of “complacency” that really resonate, reinforcing once again the impression of a Cabinet infected by an inherent profligacy when it comes to taxpayer money.

    The committee’s investigation into the track-and-trace system was similarly scathing after it found an “unimaginable” £23bn was blown on Dido Harding’s doomed scheme with no evidence of any measurable difference on the progress of the pandemic, a quite remarkable finding when one stops to digest it even for a few seconds.

    Then there’s the nearly £9bn that was blown on ineffective personal protective equipment, together with the £850m lavished on the Chancellor’s “eat out to help out” ill-conceived programme, which did more to boost Covid cases than the hospitality sector.

    That’s before you get to the astronomical sums expected to be shelled out on monumental vanity projects like HS2 or the billions that continue to be frittered on desperately flawed initiatives like the smart meter rollout.

    If this Government was to collect the waste that it has generated and put it somewhere, it would need to drain the Mariana Trench.

    Sure, the pandemic represented uncharted waters, as ministers are fond of reminding everyone, but as the PAC chair Meg Hillier has previously put it, taxpayers have been treated “like an ATM machine”. It’s a far cry from when the Chancellor was winning widespread plaudits for his lightening quick response to a national emergency just 30 days into the job. His pledge to do “whatever it takes” reassured an entire nation.

    That now feels like a lifetime ago.

    Sunak has gone from favourite to be the next Prime Minister to reports suggesting he could quit the Cabinet and leave politics altogether, in an effort to spare his family further scrutiny over their financial affairs.

    Still, that storm will pass, if it hasn’t already. What the Treasury will struggle to shake is the perception that it has been willing to spray other people’s money around, while simultaneously squeezing them for even more in the form of wildly unpopular National Insurance tax rises.

    Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves has described it as “delving into people’s pockets for their hard-earned cash with one hand”, while “throwing it away with the other”. But what should infuriate voters more is the cavalier attitude that this Government has repeatedly adopted to public spending.

    The PAC acknowledges that the bounce back loans scheme was launched at light-speed, taking effect just 11 days after it was unveiled and “delivering most of the £47bn of loans to businesses” in its first two months of existence. It also credits the initiative with business survival, at least in the short term.

    But Lord Agnew was so incensed at the failures of a scheme whose recipients included 1,000 companies that were “not even trading when Covid struck”, that he resigned, and Hillier surely speaks for millions when she says: “With weary inevitability we see a government department using the speed and scale of its response to the pandemic as an excuse for complacent disregard for the cost to the taxpayer.”

    An irate Chancellor has hit out at criticism insisting that he is “not ignoring it and I’m definitely not ‘writing it off’.” Yet Hillier claims the government has “no long-term plans to chase overdue debt and is not focussed on lower-level fraudsters who may well just walk away with billions of taxpayers’ money.”

    In the meantime, the Prime Minister has asked the Cabinet to come up with “innovative” ways to help people save money by non-fiscal means. Item one on the agenda should be fairly straightforward: stop hosing taxpayer money up the wall.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/04/27/covid-fraud-highlights-boris-johnsons-problem-spending/

    1. The transferance of wealth. How much has already been spent on HS2. What does it cost to actually build a railway. Yet there is no railway.

      1. Some months ago the Sunday Times pointed out that if every penny of predicted revenue from HS2 was paid straight into Government

        coffers, it would be 2064 before the cost was paid back, and that is assuming that there are no increases in the budget.

    2. “Fire up the printing presses…”

      “What’s that, they have been running for years…it’s called QE”.

    3. If government were to collate the money it wastes it wouldn’t use the Mariana trench – it would just waste it somewhere else.

      Waste is endemic in the state. It robs us of so much of our money that it simply doesn’t care how it is spent. Vanity projects, di-worse-ity, pointless boon-doggles – the list is endless.

    1. She looks AND sounds like a slapper. How did we sink to having such people in parliament. Rhetorical question of course.

      Good morning!

      1. There was a discussion on TV this morning about politicians looking at porn on their Mobiles in the H o C and also the fact that many of them seem to be using their phones during supposed house discussions and further business. We must also remember they will be claiming back the cost of such things on the expenses.

          1. Or betting on the colour of Angie’s drawers that particular day.
            I’ll get my Elaborate robe…………..

    3. That tweet photo is the reason why the DT banned me forever on their comments columns , because I re posted four identical Tweets on different stories on the DT a few days ago … the DT are turncoats and they stink of Labour infiltration.

      1. The story centred upon the concept that men should not be so weak as to be distracted by a woman waving her legs around at work. Oh, like the beliefs of a billion slammers who have to have their women covered incase it should raise the sap of their menfolk.

    4. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/311da31f08e234dea6dbdcbaadc4e86600fd82db2530e023e97c72c3fcb935f0.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/438fd678e70288f5f6b07eb44651932c6d70c5e66a626c873f46da224b10fdf7.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1e6f9fabc0e1f97759d69231a9c6b0b3c2fd7319e1c8842fef4715510b293ad3.jpg It only seems two minutes since (first) Jacqui Smith then (secondly) Theresa May were flashing their tits in the Commons. This was before Tracy Brabin decided that to attempt to flash just her right one would be a good hoot.

      2. The constant misjudgments shown by May in her wardrobe choices should always have ruled her out as Prime Minister in my opinion. Why should we trust someone’s judgment in power who apparently doesn’t even own a mirror?

        Subsequent events proved my thesis correct!

        1. My view was that she had a personal shopper/advisor who loathed her – but persuaded her that hideous stuff suited her down to the ground!!

    5. It’s the kind of outfit that most women grow out of wearing before they reach a job with any prestige or authority.
      Having said that, I accompanied someone to hospital last year, and a young doctor was wearing what I would mentally call a “sexy secretary dress.” Most unsuitable. The silly girl has wafted through the academic system getting top marks in dumbed down exams without gaining much education.

      1. Which one? The doctor or Angie? My understanding was that Ange left school at 16, pregnant and with no qualifications at all. I guess the girl’s done good to get where she is now.

          1. Not for nothing is she known elsewhere as ‘Crayons’, although I don’t know who came up with that one. In her case I suspect It’s water off a ducks back.

    6. Yes, “slapper” has been uttered several times in Janus Towers since this silly story surfaced.

      1. The better English word for that type of female and her wily machinations is ‘slut’.

  31. Silicon Valley start-up ‘facing staff mutiny’ over Prince Harry’s role
    The startup is facing criticism from angry coaches who claim the company’s proposed payment restructure has led to a pay-cut
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/04/27/silicon-valley-start-up-facing-staff-mutiny-prince-harrys-role/

    It is hardly surprising that people resent this useless plonker who is adversely affecting their lives.

    BTL

    Prince Harry is not employed because he is good at doing anything, he is not employed because he has achieved anything, he is not employed because of his potential to do anything useful – he is merely employed because his grandmother is the Queen of England.

      1. Written by Samuel Langhorne Clemens! A true visionary!
        Edit : oops! Chickened out!

    2. Even Beatrice and Eugenie, despite their fancy job titles are just employed to do the family profession of smooching to possible valuable contacts as far as I can see.

      3. Elon Musk is well aware of that. It is why a major part of his research is in developing alternative types of battery. Because not only is he aware of it on the social level he also understands that these types of battery are not realistic if you are going to switch to all electric cars. And, by the way, he only sources from certified mines, not the sort of mining this video is talking about.

    3. A great improvement would be to fit Charlie and his fellow ‘econuts’ with masks – soundproof ones of course.

    4. But, But ………..cows are vegans don’t tell us they fart and belch as well.
      Does Charlie know ?

      1. Quite and if being vegan was beneficial to humans we’d have evolved with the same digestive system as a cow. And the same cognitive abilities. Oh, wait…

        1. What you must remember is, it is pancake day every day.
          But also………. because grazing animals keep the grass short it saves on time and diesel.

  35. Funnily enough I was just thinking about the Reverend Wokebee as I walked the dog. Then I forgot him.
    He needs to be set aside by the C of E. I am quite equivocal about my own prelate (Francis) but he does at least say things like a priest, sometimes.

    1. Only because there is more resistance in the RCs! Women priests have sapped the spirit of the Church of England.

    1. The film tells the story of a schizophrenic young woman vacationing with her family on a remote island, during which time she experiences delusions about meeting God, who ultimately appears to her in the form of a monstrous spider. Meanwhile, her author father attempts to use her illness in his work, and her brother struggles with sexual frustration – a bit like BBC news reports but more realistic.

  39. A spot of Spekkie reading: Rod Liddle on form.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-quiet-dignity-of-angela-rayner

    “The quiet dignity of Angela Rayner

    In those gentle days before internet pornography there was a book you could buy which listed the precise moment in each Hollywood film when the sex scene began, or when the leading lady – very often Greta Scacchi – got her kit off, thus enabling one to buy the video, or rent it from Blockbuster, and fast-forward to the, uh, important bit.

    Apparently the most requested fast-forward was of Sharon Stone in Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct: a film as dumb as pretty much everything else the Dutchman has committed to celluloid, even if his reputation has lately been rehabilitated (for reasons I do not understand). Stone played a bisexual novelist suspected of murder and the scene in question comes during her interrogation by the police, when she uncrosses her legs, thus revealing to the detective – played by Michael Douglas – the briefest glimpse of her vulva, the shot lasting one-sixth of a second. In other words, the merest snatch.

    Verhoeven, a man with form in this area, had apparently told the relatively unknown Stone – about the 25th choice for the part, although she is probably the only good thing about the film – that she should not wear knickers for this particular shot as they were giving the most terrible glare off the camera. Don’t worry, he added, you won’t be able to see anything. He wasn’t wholly wrong. I saw the film first in the cinema and, either because of my already declining eyesight or the grainy texture of the film, saw nothing at all. Nor did I when I watched it on video on an admittedly small TV much later, nor later still when I got a bigger set. Luckily Basic Instinct has recently been remastered, imbuing this one-sixth of a second with much greater visual clarity, to Stone’s chagrin.

    I haven’t seen the new version and doubt I will as the film has ropey dialogue, a typically sweaty performance from Douglas and a stupid denouement. The interesting thing is that Basic Instinct has been reclaimed by feminists as an example of the portrayal of a ‘strong female’ figure, despite the fact that it exemplified the exploitation endured by many actresses at the time (1992).

    Stone, incidentally, is a terrific actress, especially in blue-collar roles – her father was a factory worker in Pennsylvania – and more than deserved the stardom this film bestowed upon her as a consequence of that one-sixth-of-a-second shot.

    I mention all this in the cause of context. The deputy leader of the Labour party, Angela Rayner, has been accused by some unnamed Conservative MP of wearing a short skirt to Prime Minister’s Questions in order to capture Boris Johnson’s attention and somehow discombobulate him. The Basic Instinct precedent has been mentioned. And so now all hell has broken loose and this was, for a couple of days, the most important story in the world for the BBC (and indeed Times Radio). Not the third world war, but Angela Rayner’s legs. They never made the same allegations about Bessie Braddock, did they? Anyway, the reaction has been the usual stuff of exponentially accelerating outrage, with every politician and journo commentator trying to outdo each other when reaching for the adjectives.

    So, one Labour frontbencher described the comments as ‘horrific’. They are not really ‘horrific’, are they? The Holocaust was horrific, the murder of a child is horrific. But not the facile observations of some mentally challenged Tory member. They are stupid comments and – yes – sexist and yet more evidence that the Conservative party still has a sizeable contingent of sexually repressed former public schoolboys who should really be doing something else for a living, such as grouting the tiles in my bathroom. But I think Angela and the rest of us will be able, in time, to rebuild and carry on, no? The Prime Minister has apologised. And now we hear that Rayner herself had made exactly the same joke on the House of Commons terrace – and is busy being aghast that such a thing could possibly be said. Surely, you might think, we can now get on with the important issues of the day, such as whether or not the Prime Minister ate some cake with some other people when he wasn’t supposed to be eating cake with some other people?

    No, not a bit of it. Wreathed in a newly discovered cloak of immense pomposity, the hitherto rather likeable Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, has ‘summoned’ the editor of the Mail on Sunday, David Dillon, to appear before him and provide some sort of explanation for having run the story in the first place. It is a matter of grave disappointment to me that Mr Dillon didn’t immediately tell Sir Lindsay to piss off and mind his own business, although he has done so now. I do not fully understand Hoyle’s annoyance with the newspaper. Is he really saying that the Mail on Sunday shouldn’t have run the story? That we should have been denied the opportunity to learn about the latest gobbet of idiocy to come from within the ruling party?

    This was for a couple of days the most important story in the world for the BBC

    Hoyle is overreaching. How the newspapers report politics is up to the editors of those newspapers – and we should never be in the position where readers might fear that a newspaper has muzzled itself because it doesn’t want to get on the wrong side of Sir Lindsay. It is true that parliament takes itself very seriously indeed, rather more seriously than does the average man in the street. That is why the actualité of parliamentary debates and speeches must not be used for satirical or comedic purposes, despite the wealth of excellent material they provide. But is Sir Lindsay going to clamp down on the sketch-writers too? He has gone too far and someone should tell him, in case it all goes to his head and he does it again.

    Best Sharon Stone performance? Arguably in Martin Scorsese’s Casino, but her youthful nastiness in Verhoeven’s idiotic Total Recall is also worth seeing for more than a sixth of a second.”

    2. Sharron who? Never seen her. I believe Shakespeare wrote about this 423 years ago – Much ado about nothing.

    3. I enjoyed Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers. It had a political message. Manufactured war. A compliant media. In order to control the masses. Sounds familiar.

      2. I loathed it with an abiding passion a complete distortion of RAH’s message of personal and civic responsibility

  40. Yesterday arvo In the middle of baking our monthly supply of bread the door bell rang. I thought it might be another delivery but it was a local conservative politician canvasing for the coming local election. A decent well mannered chap, but i told him i wont be voting, he asked why i said i no longer trust politicians of any grade they never full fill their promises. The old adage came to mind Put that in yer Pipe and smoke it and back to the baking.
    You see one of the councillors on their expensive and rather colourful card, lives close by and we have known her for years. But what gets my goat is she has a massive leylandii hedge 9It cuts out the light from the peoples garden that backs on to her’s, it is now over 60 feet high but because officially a hedge is counted as a hedge if there are, i think 4 in a row she had one cut down but it looks no different. So basically she has been able to get away with it. And that in my opinion sums up the political classes very well. But i’m sure she still thinks she is cleverer than the people she/they are asking to vote for them.

    1. 352224+ up ticks,

      Morning SE,

      Your NON voting stance will be seen as being satisfied with the status quo.

      1. If i feel fit enough i’ll walked down to the polling station and spoil the paper. IMHO Ogga none of them are worth a rotten carrot.

        1. 352224+ up ticks,

          Afternoon RE,
          We are sampling what a lab/ lib / con
          vote continually as in these last near four decades gets the herd, murder most foul, mass paedophile rape & abuse, ALL services stretched to breaking with
          the indigenous at the back of the queue if in the queue at all.

          On the health front stay positive as in the bastards are not continuing to operate in my name, all the best,Og.

  41. 352224+ up ticks,

    I was not far off in saying children running the gauntlet through their childhood until late teens.

    Lockdowns Drove Tens of Thousands of Kids into ‘Clinical Depression’ – Study

    It is as if a well organised campaign as to maim and seriously injure peoples has been successfully run these past two years.

    1. Well organised campaign? By the respective governments/authorities of England, Scotland, Wales, France, Germany, Canada, USA/CDC/Fauci , Dem States in USA, Australian States ….. More like variations of failed piss ups in respective breweries, I’d say …

      2. 352224+ up ticks,

        Afternoon LD,
        If we the righteous, had the same patriotic success in benefitting these Isles as the political overseers have in
        destroying these Isles we would be country miles ahead, as they are currently.

    1. I stopped supporting Oxfam and Save the Children not only because of the scandals but because they’d saved too many children……if they encourage people to breed so many that the land cannot sustain them then they are making things worse.

    2. I think it just needs a sensible woman like Mrs Truss to go there and tell the men to STOP having sexual intercourse.

      That’ll solve the whole isshoo. At a stroke.

    3. One charity I do still support with a fiver a month and have done for many years is Farm Africa – which aims to support small farmers by teaching them techniques to increase their yields with better seeds and equipment etc.
      They also encourage small livestock farmers with an initial allocation of goats or cattle and some of the progeny go to others in the village.
      They help people set up cooperatives to sell their produce as well so they can be more than just subsistence farmers and can afford to send their children to school.

      1. One of the (many) vile things that the West does is to provide natives with Hybrid seeds. They have for generations saved seed fr the following year. F1 Hybrids produce useless seed. So the natives are shafted….again.

        1. That is usually Monsento which is one of the most evil organizations on earth. It also breeds hybrids of essential crops that are dependent on oil products for their survival. In other words they are not benefactors but gangsters who hold their victims hostage with their products. I regard them as no different than serial murderers.

          1. Indeed. My former wife did the PR for that gang of charlatans – and gave up because she couldn’t face the hypocrisy … and blatant lies.

    4. As I will carry on stating. The international charities and international aid are the problem and not the solution.

  44. Market OK. Shopping OK. MR working on Zoom. Just made some date chutney. I shan’t bother again!!

    Anything happening in the world today?

    1. Though I wouldn’t know how to tweet, let alone what to tweet – I remain sceptical about Mr Musk’s philanthropic approach to this whole isshoo.

        1. If you say so. The whole sochul meeja thingy is a complete mystery to me. Apart from NoTTL, of course.

          1. I first started using In/sta/gram last spring, purely for art and I must admit, I have learned a lot from it, especially about the twentieth century history of British figurative art, which did not feature at all on my yooniversity art history course.
            I felt that it was very addictive at the start.
            I expanded my Twit-watching this year from only monitoring one account to reading James Delingpole, Paul Joseph Watson and some American investment accounts. Currently feel that it is too addictive.

          2. I don’t stay there long but was pleasantly surprised by the response from Railcards on Twitter to my complaint.

          3. I don’t know how you young people find the time. For me, NoTTL makes me waste too much time already! I couldn’t imagine having to find the time to tweet or use even more outlets.

          5. My art history tutor at York Art School in the 70s left out the Renaissance – because it was just re-hashing classicism!! We were taught the Bauhaus way.

        1. Because someone approves of some things hardly makes them a “fanatic”. I’m sure there are thing you approve of our like but would resent being characterised as a fanatic because of them. Besides that, a lot of the above is taken out of context or deliberately misconstrued to satisfy someone who is obviously an opponent of Elon Musk. And a couple of things in the blurbs are inevitable developments whether we like them or not. So the point is more about how do we approach them? Not automatically oppose because one has a partial understanding, or what not, about things.

          Elon Musk agrees with Noah Harari who is a historian and is interested in the future development of mankind. It doesn’t make Harari a villain, it makes him a recorder of contemporary history. And, whether people like what he has to say, or not, he is most likely, considering the pace of technological development, right. So what is the point in trying to couple Elon Musk with Noah Harari and portray them as baddies? It is dishonest.

          There are several other things in the blurbs you have posted which, I suppose, we are to throw our hands up in horror. Precisely why? I think it has far more to do with a lack of understanding rather than the idea that these things are dehumanizing or about controlling people. I have, especially in Berkeley, known quite a few people who are seriously into these sort of things. I have yet to meet one that thought of what they were doing as having anything to do with dominating their fellow man. If anything they have see the future and advancements in technology as ways of freeing mankind for better things and especially for the freeing of individuals to fulfil themselves. Something, that now a days, due to the constraints of society, technology, education etc are impossible for the majority of people, even in advanced societies. What these sort of blurbs do is concentrate on a very narrow spectrum whilst ignoring the whole. When opponents do that, it is very easy for them to vilify people they disagree with.

      3. If all the woke flee, it will devalue the company. He will also have EU and UK legislation to contend with, which bans telling lefties what you really think of them. Its a bear pit and I’m out of it after getting banned by pointing out some facts to a slammer a while ago.

      3. That’s funny! If the guy was a Christian, he would have caught it from black Christians too.

      4. He didn’t get the opportunity to turn the other cheek, ‘cos he was already on the floor.

      5. I have watched this at least 8 times today. Keep coming back to it. A few more reactions of this sort and it would curb the encroachment of Muslims. They are essentially cowards who will only go after those who they think weak. And I would be willing to bet £100.00 that black was a Muslim.

      1. That’s so that they can use them as village halls – the next thing will be an outcry against the “selfish” church if there is any protest against the church being used by “the community.”

    8. That is why I was so opposed to Richard III being buried in Leicester Cathedral- it will be a mosque in 10 years time.
      And memo to others….no car park jokes !

      2. Richard III could have been landed with a big parking fine, as the car park space he was buried in was for badge holders only. Fortunately, Richard did have a bad shoulder.

        1. Some say scoliosis others suggest an injury from knightly training. Either way, he was not a hunchback- that was a Tudor invention.

          He should have been buried in York.

          2. I think it was defined as scoliosis but it could have been worsened by training.

          3. I saw a re-enactment a few years ago where they had a chap with scoliosis and put him in armour to see if he could cope to find out what it might have been like for Richard. He could, but he said it was exhausting.

          4. I think Richard was made of stern stuff. He was a battle commander at a young age and did very well indeed.

      3. He should have been buried in a park. Oh he was, a car park. Why move him then.?

    1. Thank God my mortgage is of a sane size! Still enough to do for me if I can’t get work though.

    4. In France the amount of money you can borrow is strictly controlled and when you take a mortgage the rate of interest is fixed throughout the term of the mortgage. This has meant that property price inflation, which has happened a bit, has not been as catastrophic as in the UK. This has been the case for some time.

      I wonder if the indigenous British population would have been happier if the following factors surrounding house purchase had always applied?

      * 10% minimum deposit obligatory
      * Maximum mortgage loan – 3 x an individual’s income or 2 times a married couple’s joint income
      * 5% interest throughout the term of the mortgage with no penalty for early repayment of the principal
      * and, of course less inflationary pressure on the housing market caused by mass immigration.

      1. Mortgage rates reached 15% during the 70s.

        The deposit we paid in 1976 was more than 10%.

        1. That’s why I think fixed rates are a good idea as people know what they are letting themselves in for.

      2. It would certainly have limited the coming storm. Its likely to be a riotous summer imho.

      3. We have far too many state rules and regulations and France has far more. We need less in fact far less and leave people alone to learn from their mistakes. let people grow up.

    1. Confiscate everything they’re wearing that took oil to produce it or ship.
      Then set them free naked to shown them the consequences of their stupidity.

      1. And then beat them about the face a few dozen times, douse them in oil and give them a good kicking.

    2. Obviously they should be arrested for criminal damage,that they are not clearly shows they are government sponsored
      BTW how exactly did you get to the petrol station you smug little git
      Walk??
      Oh how we laffed

    3. “If we don’t do something, in 20 years we’ll starve to death!”

      How does anyone discuss a subject properly with people given to such absurd exaggeration?

      1. If they don’t need to listen, why are they there? If they don’t want to listen, they shouldn’t have gone. If they have to be there, they should pay attention. If the message on their telephone is more important, then they should excuse themselves.

    3. “A glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking, so heaven knows….anything goes….”

      1. It’s very good, if it was intentional! Belated birthday wishes to you, Mr. Beans! Hope you had a great day!

          2. How is hubbies gammy foot. Can he get a leg over yet? Erm…that didn’t come out right. :@(

          3. I say! Steady on old chap! We did have a sneaky night away but….it was just a break!

          3. I don’t have parliamentary privilege. But he has been in the news recently for other naughtiness.

  56. The Queen ‘will NOT strip’ Prince Andrew of his Duke of York honour: Monarch ‘will protect’ son’s last major royal title despite mounting public pressure
    Councillors in the city of York have voted to strip Prince Andrew of the Freedom of the City in light of case
    There was unanimous agreement as they stripped him of the honorary award after discussing for half an hour
    Councillors and members of the public have now called on the Queen to remove Andrew’s Duke of York title
    Dozens of bodies have distanced themselves from Andrew since sex abuse case against Virginia Roberts
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10763271/The-Queen-NOT-strip-Prince-Andrew-Duke-York-honour.html

    BTL

    Habeas Corpus is the fundamental cornerstone of British justice. This means that a person is innocent until proven guilty and Andrew has not been proved to have been guilty in any court. He may or he may not be guilty of the accusations levelled at him and he is guilty of being stupid – as many of us are – but that is not a criminal offence and our prisons certainly could not cope if it were! The Queen is to be commended for standing by her son. Prince Charles and Prince William are happy to throw Andrew to the dogs and I have nothing but contempt for them both for their disloyalty to a member of their family for their own opportunistic expediency.

      1. Absolutely, Phizzee! And absolutely no proof of anything other than sleeping with a prostitute. How I wish these self appointed guardians of probity would turn their attention to Rotherham, Rochdale, Blackburn and the rest!

        1. Roger’em in Rotherham is the Islamic mantra.

          But isn’t Rotherham is Yorkshire – shouldn’t Yorkshire be taking action for sexual misdemeanours there rather than attacking Prince Andrew?

    2. Nowadays everything seems to be trial and conviction by media. Andrew was daft to pay up as it indicates guilt; plus why he did that stupid TV interview is another error of judgement on his behalf. I know he’s not the sharpest blade in the drawer but his advisers should have warned him off. Of course, he may not listen to anyone else.
      It is HM that I feel for; in the twilight years of her life and reign she should have loving, supportive family around her. Instead she has had the Andrew debacle and the vipers in CA trying to ruin and destroy everything HM has striven for over the decades.
      Makes me want to spit blood. Grrr.

    3. Habeas Corpus was destroyed when May voluntarily signed up to the European Arrest Warrant. It only guaranteed you couldn’t be imprisoned without being charged, incidentally. We have lost the right to silence and the presumption of innocence as enshrined in Common Law because Corpus Juris (the EU Code Napoleon) doesn’t have either of those things.

  57. 352224+up ticks,

    @gjb20
    ·Gerard Batten,
    The old racist at it again.

    4h
    We can guess what this means: more restrictions on free speech.

    Defund the Globalists’ propaganda channels (BBC & C4) & let everyone else get in with it, subject to the criminal law, & market forces.

    But some Quango, like Ofcom, stuffed full of politically correct cultural Marxists, will decide what is permissable or not.

    And this will be set up by a Tory government. Do you think Tory voters will ever wake up? No, me neither.

    https://gettr.com/post/p17ffof2b00

  58. Britain to sell Channel 4 to ‘unleash’ broadcaster’s potential
    The broadcaster’s management, lawmakers across parliament and television grandees oppose a sale, saying it would jeopardise Channel 4’s distinctive programming.
    The BBC are in meltdown again. Its left-wing cousin is going to lose its funding by the taxpayer. One can only hope that the Marxist Beeb is marked down for the same treatment.

    1. “They didn’t need a ‘Disinformation Governance Board’ until Elon Musk

      threatened their control over the narrative,” Texas Republican Congressman Troy Nehls tweeted.

      How true…

    2. Are you sure that bottom one is the UAE? Looks a bit like some of our housing estates.

  62. I don’t know what the weather is like with other Nottlers but this Global Warming isn’t having much effect here, it’s bloody cold!

    1. Good for you, sweetie; I only got a Five … x
      Wordle 313 5/6

      🟨🟨🟨⬜⬜
      🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
      ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟨
      ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. If Shapps thinks it’s a good idea, it must be seriously flawed! It’s bad enough with cyclists all over the place.

      1. Just more of the same attacks on motorists. You will be responsible if you hit and kill one of these idiots as they shoot out of a side road.

    2. Roads, kids, not pavements. And not three of you. And when you’re behind someone, you can’t just ram them.

    5. They are – or were – banned in Sussex from use on roads and pavements. Thought it was too good to be true. Trust Shapps to go after the yoof vote without thinking it through. All part of trying to drive the car-user off the road I suppose…

      1. They are currently illegal on most roads and all pavements throughout the country.

        The only exception is a government trial in some locations. That trial has strict limitations.

        (1) The e-scooters must be rented from government approved companies.
        (2) They can only be used on roads (not pavements) within the trial areas.

        So if you see little Johnny zipping down the pavement on that new e-scooter his mum bought him for Christmas then he is breaking the law.

      2. Three of them went past my house only a few minutes after posting above, one on each pavement, a third down the middle of the road with two ****s on it. Sadly, no cars were passing at the time.

        Earlier today, I walked into town through the park and heard the most peculiar whirring sound coming up from behind. An electric (battery) cycle whizzed past at easily 30mph.

    6. I should think so to. Any alternative transport in this country of any use is automatically banned. I would love a Segway, then I could be mobile and independent around the village. As it is I’m dependent on others for simple things like groceries from the store. It is very wearing always being dependent on others for even the most trivial thing. Especially when you don’t like to impose on people.

    1. Does Mr Little realise he’s a fascist?

      I suggest this be turned on him. He be told something is perfectly safe and protects him from a virus.

    2. Another protest scheduled for Ottawa this weekend and the boys are doing their best to shut it down. About a thousand rcmp have been drafted in and they are declaring a large part of downtown off limits to protesters, obviously right to protest has been suspended. We are wondering where the emporer will hide.

      One of the truckers protest leaders is still in prison, every week another excuse to deny bail. The mandated review of the emergency act has been handed to a judge who it just so happens donates to the liberal party.

    3. Don’t worry Doug, when the Canadians do realise how bad the scam has been, I’m sure they’ll remember your part in it!

      1. It wasn’t just him, the whole establishment wax signaling their desire to make life tough for the unvaccinated.

        You still cannot travel by train or plans if you are not vaccinated.

        1. Nobody should have any of this sh*t injected into them. I regret having the 2 jabs. 2nd and last one was May 1 last year. Last night, overnight 3 large red spots appeared on my left arm.
          After my op on Sunday, I am going to ask the dermatologist doctor about these spots. It is not normal.
          Children of any age should not have this crap poisoning them.

  67. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10760605/Reclusive-pensioner-house-engulfed-greenery-spends-TWO-DAYS-cutting-shrubs.html

    ‘Reclusive’ pensioner whose house was engulfed by greenery spends
    TWO DAYS cutting back the overgrown shrubs despite having bad back – as
    neighbours tell how they ‘feel sorry’ for him because he’s been ignored
    by the community

    A vine-covered house in Ramsgate, Kent has been trimmed back, revealing an arsenal of vehicles

    Pensioner Christopher Tull injured his back when he tackled the overgrown shrubs and trees on his property

    The bushy house is once again accessible from the front door, before Mr Tull had to use the back door

    Over 12 years, the house was overrun with vines, bushes and trees which have grown increasingly wild

    One neighbour said they felt ‘so sorry’ for the man in his seventies, who is hurt and struggling to finish the job

      2. That’s what I thought – they could have joined in with a working party once his relatives had started. Perhaps they didn’t want to interfere before that but they said what a nice man he was.

        2. I had a little horse, his name was Dapple Grey;
          His legs were made of cornstalks, his body made of hay.
          I saddled him and bridled him and rode him off to town,
          Up came a puff of wind and blew him up and down-
          The saddle flew off and I let go-
          Now didn’t my horse make a pretty little show?

          Traditional rhyme.

    2. Personally I think the Beano was far superior to any of today’s mainstream newspapers. Less fake news for a start off.

        1. They were about the same. I used to read both myself. The Bash Street Kids were in the Beano though.

          2. The Beano had Biffo the Bear, Dennis the Menace with Gnasher and the Bash Street Kids.

            The Dandy had Korky the Kat and Desperate Dan.

          3. Beano for me. We had two gangs at primary school- the Beano lot and the Dandy lot.

  72. 352224+ up ticks,

    This should be a vote puller if ever,

    ‘Disgusting!’ Convicted Paedophile MP Imran Khan Served on Government Grooming Gang Panel

    3. 352224+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      Win double with the other bloke;s phone material, I believe it will be covered by “All in it together”

    1. I gather they are rather smelly, though amusing. Do pet shops still exist, or does one have to buy sight and smell unseen and unsmelled.,I wonder. Is this new stock arriving?

  75. That’s me gone for this cheerless day. Cold and unwelcoming – and the weather was similar. Thank God for the woodburner. Another cold, sunless day forecast tomorrow. I suppose it is better than this week 36 years ago, when we had three inches of snow.

    The trombetti seedlings were infested with aphids – hence their demise. More sown.

    Have a bright and cheerful evening planning your Bank Holiday misery.

    A demain.

    PS Had excellent service today. Ordered two hose repair connectors. Arrived today – exactly as I ordered – but I had the bloody size wrong. Phoned the firm. Happy to exchange. The right ones will be sent out as soon as the “wrong” ones reach them. Can’t say fairer – as it was my own damned fool error.

    1. If you make a foam from Fairy Liquid and put it over the plant/seedlings it kills all the aphids.

    2. Have put bubble film all over my tender parts. Down to a claimed 1C tonight. It’s the lack of wind that is the problem. Cold air just sits…

        1. Really? I suppose you get it straight across the North sea from Siberia, unleavened by the Peak District.

    3. Bill. This is what I use and it works perfectly every time
      Neem Oil Insecticide
      Mix
      To make one litre of general-purpose neem oil spray, mix 5 mL neem oil, 2 mL of liquid soap and 1 L of water.
      Add the soap to the water first and then slowly stir in the neem oil.

      It helps if the water is warm because of the need to distribute the oil evenly. Otherwise it “clumps”.
      It’s non toxic too. It disrupts the feeding mechanism in insects and they starve.

        1. You can buy it on eBay or, I assume, any organic shop that’s in your vicinity. Easier to buy from eBay though. It is about the only insecticide/ fungicide I use because it works so well and is not poisonous to the environment. I would suggest you look it up and learn a little about it because I have found that you need to adjust the dosage sometimes according to what the problem is. The formula I gave is good for aphids and that sort of thing. However, I have found that for spider mite it is better to increase the neem oil by a little more, to get rid of them. But type ‘Neem oil as an insecticide or as a fungicide’ into a search engine and you will find plenty of information.

          1. Thanks Johnathan – my main problem with them is with the plants that live in my conservatory or over-winter in there, especially the oleander, which has now gone back outside and the bourgainvillea which is looking quite poorly. It needs repotting and putting outside for the summer. We’ve had it 25 years and it is past its best but hopefully repotting will help.
            The aphids are a real nuisance.

            Fuschias and geraniums are now all outside but they get whitefly.

          2. I would suggest that before you start bringing in things to the conservatory, you start spraying the plants. I would also suggest that once they are in the conservatory you spray them approx. every 4 to 6 weeks a couple of times. That should kill any that are hiding out.
            As for the bougainvillea, one of my favourite plants, take semi hardwood cuttings and then prune it back after you repot. Get as much soil off the roots as you can. If the plant is old, the soil is exhausted. Sandy soil and alkaline, so no peat moss. This is a pretty decent guide.
            How to Propagate Bougainvillea
            https://www.wikihow.com/Propagate-Bougainvillea

      2. I have been using Neem Oil for 20 years. This time it failed completely.

        But thank you

        1. I have never had it fail and I have been using it for much more than 20 years as an insecticide and as a fungicide. So it’s odd that it failed because the way it works makes it impossible to fail.

          “Neem enters the system and blocks the insects hormones from working properly. Insects “forget” to eat, to mate, or they stop laying eggs. Some forget that they can fly. If eggs are produced they don’t hatch, or the larvae don’t moult. Obviously insects that are too confused to eat or breed will not survive. The population eventually plummets, and they disappear. The cycle is broken.”

          My question would be, how old is your neem oil, are you making your own solution or buying a spray with it in it? Because as the explanation indicates, it is impossible for it not to work.

      1. It concerned the mercenaries who have been killed and simply pointed out it was a risk they took . I don’t know whether I have been banned since I haven’t attempted further posts.

          1. Being polite is marginal, but being factual is definitely a banning offence these days!

    4. DT took a dislike to me when I made a typo using the word butt instead of but.

      Then I also used another word , cannot remember what, but it was deemed rude .. and then of course the Tweets of Angela legs apart which had me banned . I still hurt like mad with indignation !

      2. If you haven’t been banned from one of these silly fora, you’re doing something wrong! Wear your badge with pride!

    5. My quip about bashing the Bishop didn’t get off the starting blocks. That’s the ABC, obviously..

  78. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10762699/Midwives-taught-university-help-biological-men-penises-birth.html

    Any trainee midwives here?

    Student midwives are being taught at university how to
    help biological MEN give birth in trans ‘inclusive’ manual – even though
    it’s scientifically impossible

    Students on £9k-a-year undergrad course at Edinburgh Napier shocked

    Coursebook claimed biological men can get pregnant and give birth

    Included detailed instructions on caring for males who are in labour

          5. In the Snug, with Minnie Caldwell and Martha Longhurst (I’ve surprised myself by remembering that – it’s been decades since I last watched Coronation Street).

        1. Because while men have nipples, they’re useless and have no function. They cannot produce milk for a baby. Therefore, a man – which is what a man pretending to be a woman is – cannot breast feed. Put a baby there is as pointless as putting it against the wall.

          1. In a toast I proposed at some wedding, I used the old chestnut of the 3 most useless things in the world, men’s tits, the pope’s balls and a vote of thanks for the staff.

          2. When I had my bypass surgery, they used a vein / artery from the chest to patch the heart arteries.

            When the surgeon was telling me what he had done, his line was “Well you will not be breast feeding any more”. Comedians the lot of them.

          3. Last time around when MH was poorly, the doc asked if he had any confusion. I answered and said only when it was his turn to do the washing up.
            Oh no, said the doc, that’s not confusion, that’s selective memory.
            They must all have the same “joke” book.

    5. Well , I never knew this .. never ever .

      Are there any human hermaphrodites?
      True hermaphroditic humans do not exist, but pseudohermaphrodism does, where an individual has both male and female external genital organs, sometimes at the same time. Female embryos exposed to high levels of androgens (the male hormones) develop female internal reproductive organs but male external genitalia.

      Can hermaphrodite have babies?
      Abstract. Background: There are 11 reported cases of pregnancy in true hermaphrodites, but none with advanced genetic testing. All known fetuses have been male. Case: A true hermaphrodite with a spontaneous pregnancy prenatally known to have a remaining portion of a right ovotestis, delivered a male neonate.

      1. It is quite well known and the “Trans” lobby have latched on to it as their justification. Of course their attitude is rubbish because the number of truly hermaphrodite people is vanishingly small.

        1. True hermaphroditism is a medical condition, a man pretending to be a woman is NOT a hermaphrodite. It’s a man pretending to be a woman.

    6. This is going too far. That’s a complete waste of time and utterly useless. If you want to help men pretend to be women, become a psychotherapist.

      This nonsense must end. A man in a dress is NOT a woman.

    7. Here is a suggestion for trainee midwives who wish to help biological MEN give birth. Using a strong pair of secateurs, chop off the MAN’s “Mr Bobbit”, wrap it in swaddling clothes and present it to the MAN as his child. (Sarc.)

  79. Good evening from a Mercian Queen
    Its still so very cold.. please turn up Spring
    Shall soon be eating some nice French soft cheeses with crackers, wine and grapes .

    As for the heading : Justin Welby is not just at odds with the public .. he’s at odds with Christanity ( as is the Pope )

    1. I saw that spuds were up a bit in today’s shopping. What I’ve really noticed though, I have a weakness for a quality crisp, is the increase in price of a large pack of decent crisps up to £2.00 or even £2.50. Taking the pee, that was at Morrisons.

      1. I’m chomping my way through a bag of bacon rasher crisps…..accompanied by a large glass of sherry…HIC!
        ….. waiting for the security tag potatoes to cook….!

        1. Security tag spuds? Are you worried they’ll make an escape attempt?
          I am on my fourth large Pinot- and why not?

        2. I had a glass of sherry tonight, too. I thought I might as well indulge – whether I abstain or not, I’ll be dead eventually and I won’t live any longer by going without; it’ll just seem like it.

      3. I like kettle crisps. Used to get a brand in US called Cape Cod and the best was a cracked black pepper flavour. Crunchy and scrumptious. Gone right off crisps now.

  82. My WWI poetry is going very well .
    Poems from Wilfred Owen, Sassoon, Rupert Brooke. Including Charles Hamilton – Brooke and Julian Grenfell etc .

    But there was one poem I found in a book ( not mentioned during the course)
    Written by a young man to his baby daughter before he died.. It crushed my heart.

    To My Daughter Betty

    ” In wiser days my darling rosebud ,
    To beauty as was your mothers smile ,
    In that desired , delayed and incredible time,
    later, you’ll ask why I abandoned you , my own
    and dear heart, that was your baby throne .

    To dice with death. And oh! They’ll give you rhyme
    And reason : some will call the thing sublime,
    And some decry it in a knowing tone .
    So here whilst mad guns curse overhead ,
    And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor ,
    Known that we fools ,now with the foolish dead .
    Died not for flag, nor King or Emperor ,
    But for a dream, born in a herdsman shed
    And the secret scripture of the poor .

    TM Kettle
    ( written 4 days before his death in action , 1916 )

    1. Very prescient and unbearably sad.

      Rastus posted a poem yesterday that he wrote when his father died.

    1. Cheer up Plum it will soon be Wimbledon’t (even think about it if you are a Ruskie!)

    3. I’m still surprised at the anger the Left have over free speech. Perhaps they’ve become so comfortable spreading their own drivel without question that they’ve actually come to think that because they say it, it’s true.

        1. They are all on drugs, just like the Nazis.

          Obama made millions from Marijuana and Pot, that and grifting using his “influence” as had Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, all of whom banked millions of dollars via their obvious graft.

          At Obama’s sixtieth birthday celebrations Marijuana was freely available and its use by his guests ‘celebrated’. Of course, a few wog servants retained their masks whilst grovelling to their masters, but the world saw it as it was, a perpetuation of the ruling class despising the working class. And it goes on, unless we put a stop to it.

  85. Evening, all. All politicians, whether they campaign openly as such or abuse their position to make political statements, seem to be completely out of touch with the thoughts, beliefs and aspirations of the rest of us. It’s been cold and miserable here; I let the Rayburn go out last night and regretted it, so I had to relight it this morning.

    1. Been sort of OK here- bit cloudy but fairly mild.
      Politicians, all of them, are scum.

        1. My first dog, Toby, was like that- almost in the grate. He’s a cute little guy.

          1. Both Jazz and Charlie used to like to creep into the hearth. My setter just lay as close as he could until he was singeing.

        1. Hazy but mild. The heat has not kicked on. Next week looks nice if the forecast can be believed.

  87. 352224+ up ticks,

    The queen would be well within her rights to tell “them ” to go forth and multiply.

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    4h
    Who is going to apologise for the 1+ million Europeans abducted & sold into slavery in Islamic countries by North African corsairs from the 16th to 19th centuries?

    Has anyone thanked the Royal Navy for ending the transatlantic slave trade in the 19th century? Has anyone thanked the British public & its government for ending slavery in the British Empire by means of a public anti slavery campaign in the 18th-19th centuries?

    Are these people outraged that slavery was still legal in Saudi Arabia until the 1960s & only ended because of pressure from their Western oil customers? Are they outraged tha slavery still exists in some parts of the World? Or that slavery is permitted under Islamic doctrine?

    https://gettr.com/post/p17gsg9d2bd

    1. Presumably Kirsty is the small one on the left?
      Quite a few friends shuffled off in their thirties. Hate to say it, Phil, but all were smokers. Almost as bad as diabetics. Er…. Cough…

      1. Kirsty is the one on the right. A new mother. She was a baby herself when i met her parents. Jean was a teacher and died in her 30’s from undiagnosed cancer. Never smoked or drank. On the parish council and fulfilled a role very similar to Jill. Dougal was a bit of a wild card but very funny. I miss them more than i can say.

        I don’t know much about diabetes but as far as smoking goes…that’s the way i choose.

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