Monday 2 May: Quotas for numbers of women MPs are no way to solve the pornography scandal

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

598 thoughts on “Monday 2 May: Quotas for numbers of women MPs are no way to solve the pornography scandal”

      1. Need rain. The world is beige… and flammable in the extreme.
        Greetings, OLT.

  2. Good morning all

    I have just been browsing through yesterday’s DT Letters page and found this posted by Bry Volpelto

    Needless to say, there are a lot of replies

    Heads need to roll

    14 hrs ago

    My beautiful clever wonderful wife died yesterday evening having just been moved there to “recover” from a stay in
    hospital which treated the Pulmonary Emboli she had picked up on the 10th and declared her “medically fit to discharge” despite getting Covid
    in the hospital in her final days there. The hospice told her the morning after she arrived that her recently diagnosed cancers treatment
    would not even start and that they would just, in effect, dose her upwith morphine, leaving her semi-consious and unable to express
    herself… she died 36 hours after hearing she would get no help from the NHS despite promises to the contrary.

    The system made promises and betrayed her trust in them – she died alone, far from me, just 62.

    The NHS needs to stop lying to people, stop treating every adult patient in their care like an upstart imbecile, stop making
    patient beg for prescribed pain-killers and being more concerned about how best to cover themselves in case of any flak.

    She was let down badly – thousands (millions if the Cancer UK ad is to be believed) will also be failed… processes slowed
    just enough to delay doing anything, until it is too late.

    She was never given chemo… they were “waiting” on further results, she tried to fight it without a single weapon in her
    hand and did well until entering hospital where her decline started… managed pathways and all that…

    Sorry this is off-piste but needs to be out there I think…

    2. We’re trying to organise our 40th wedding anniversary to be here in Norway this summer, and we’re off to a rocky start.
      One set of SWMBOs relatives are awaiting new passports (and a driving licence), and there’s no sign of these documents and a different story each time they phone – always assuming there’s an answer, of course.
      Government agencies in the UK are a farce. Police, who party rather than remove extinction rebellion who block streets. A health service who doesn’t do doctoring or hospitalling (Ann got lucky, it seems – somebody has to!), border farce who doesn’t secure borders, DVLA who doesn’t issue licences, passport office who can’t issue passports… the whole edifice is crap. Just glad we don’t live there any more.
      GRR!!

      1. Our local GP service, after catching up in the last couple of months, has suddenly announced that they won’t be doing face

        to face appointments, but from now on only telephone appointments.

        Might as well deal with doctors in India or the Philippines.

      2. I was very lucky and, as I’ve said before, it seems to make a difference depending on where you live. Mind you, after being told it could be up to 6 months wait, I called the hospital and got lucky. Had I not phoned I’d still be waiting.

        2. If you don’t ask, you don’t get, in my experience. Here, if you do ask, you don’t get, though, either 🙁

    3. ‘Morning, Tryers. What a heart-rending story. Somehow I doubt that the NHS will ever get back to providing a decent service without root and branch reform. A ‘war on waste’ might be a good start.

  3. And I just read the definition of Hell: Quantas are to start London-Sydney direct in 2025, with nice new Airbus A350 planes. The hellish bit is that you will be shut in an aluminium tube for 20 hours or so… breathing all those farts, knees up under your chin, no escaping the chatterbox sat next to you… Hell, as I wrote.

    1. no escaping the chatterbox sat next to you

      Leave her behind……..

    2. no escaping the chatterbox sat next to you

      Leave her behind……..

  6. Russia is a state built on lies. So how could anyone agree a peace deal with it? 2 may 2022.

    That is what happens in a country where deception is the governing principle of communication, from top to bottom. Flattering fantasies come to be believed, and the truth is never acceptable: it would be more than someone’s job is worth to tell it.

    This sort of thing is not unknown in the West — British Prime Ministers and American Presidents are frequently told what their advisers think they want to hear. But ours are societies with a querulously independent press and a firm tradition of legal protection for the rights of the individual against the state. Russia has never had that.

    I obviously do not know what appears in the Russian Home Media but that it could even match the utter mendacity of the western MSM seems not just unlikely but impossible. The present British State is raised on an edifice of lies unmatched in its long history. Cross Channel Immigration, Covid and Ukraine just the most recent of its transgressions. Its legislature is utterly corrupt. As to the democratic and legal rights of individuals they have been erased from existence. It seems scarcely possible that after the events of the last two years that someone could write such utter twaddle in a national newspaper.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10773707/DOMINIC-LAWSON-Russia-state-built-lies-agree-peace-deal-it.html

    1. 352349+ up ticks,

      Morning AS,
      Many of the herd prefer it that way, take lab/lib/con
      member / voters they have been on a steady diet of fodder for fools these past three plus decades via coalition / newsprint/ bBc.

    2. It is astounding that the author is unaware of the parallels between their description of alleged Russian chicanery and the actual shenanigans of the British state and it’s supine media as witnessed over the scamdemic and beyond.

      It’s little wonder that eejits like Moron and Whine continue to thrive on clickbait, as their former profession circles the drain, but heartening that more readers/viewers are becoming aware of their nonsense.

      The politicians and media have yet to deal with the reality of the internet and that we have access to so much information, rather than the pap they’re attempting to spoon feed us. Hence the imminent ‘Online Hate Bill’ where they hope to censor views not approved by their ‘editors’.

    3. “But ours are societies with a querulously independent press and a firm tradition of legal protection for the rights of the individual against the state.”

      Independent press and legal protection? The press and judiciary do what they’re told, by tyrannical governments and self-serving globalists so, don’t make me laugh (or cry).

  7. Russia is a state built on lies. So how could anyone agree a peace deal with it? 2 may 2022.

    That is what happens in a country where deception is the governing principle of communication, from top to bottom. Flattering fantasies come to be believed, and the truth is never acceptable: it would be more than someone’s job is worth to tell it.

    This sort of thing is not unknown in the West — British Prime Ministers and American Presidents are frequently told what their advisers think they want to hear. But ours are societies with a querulously independent press and a firm tradition of legal protection for the rights of the individual against the state. Russia has never had that.

    I obviously do not know what appears in the Russian Home Media but that it could even match the utter mendacity of the western MSM seems not just unlikely but impossible. The present British State is raised on an edifice of lies unmatched in its long history. Cross Channel Immigration, Covid and Ukraine just the most recent of its transgressions. Its legislature is utterly corrupt. As to the democratic and legal rights of individuals they have been erased from existence. It seems scarcely possible that after the events of the last two years that someone could write such utter twaddle in a national newspaper.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10773707/DOMINIC-LAWSON-Russia-state-built-lies-agree-peace-deal-it.html

  10. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Leading letter:

    SIR – As a response to a number of unsavoury scandals (including the viewing of pornography by an MP on his phone in the chamber of the Commons), the Conservative Party has indicated that in the future half its MPs will be women.

    Surely what is needed to enhance the reputation of Parliament is not quotas for any given group, but rather all political parties ensuring that at the selection stage there is an effective weeding out of candidates with the slightest tendency towards stupidity, cupidity or perversion.

    With a little rigour and common sense, can this be so difficult?

    Christopher Minter
    Stowmarket, Suffolk

    Never mind silly, knee-jerk promises of ‘half will be women’. Just select the best candidates. How hard can it be?

    SIR – Half of MPs must be women? I do not care if my MP is male, female, black, white or sky-blue pink with a yellow border, so long as it is the right person for the job. Am I alone in this?

    Brenda Hill
    Monmouth

    Precisely!

  11. Blah blah blah

    NHS performance

    SIR –Your headline “Our feckless NHS is squandering Rishi Sunak’s tax raid” was insulting and inaccurate.

    People throughout our NHS and social care system are moving heaven

    and earth to recover ground and reduce care backlogs while dealing with

    the continuing impact of Covid-19.

    The pressure we saw pre-Covid across all NHS services has been

    massively exacerbated by the pandemic. Over the past few months, the NHS

    has faced a triple whammy of Covid-related challenges: high staff

    absences, many linked to Covid; more people in hospital with Covid than

    expected; and significant delays in discharging patients, partly due to

    Covid’s ongoing impact on social care services.

    Yet, thanks to the hard work of frontline staff, ambulance services

    are working at a level never seen before, with call-outs a third higher

    than pre-pandemic. With more than 2.1 million A&E attendances,

    hospital emergency care saw the busiest March on record.

    Activity to bear down on elective care backlogs has increased. GP

    appointments are exceeding pre-pandemic levels. More people have been

    seen for suspected cancer and more CT scans are being conducted than

    before the pandemic.

    NHS leaders are passionate about improving health outcomes. They do

    not see the NHS as a sacred cow that cannot be improved, and recognise

    that transformational change is vital.

    But they also know that their frontline staff are as committed as

    ever and are working flat out for the people they serve. Those staff

    speak of feeling burnt out and exhausted, but still strive to give

    patients the best possible quality of care.

    Chris Hopson

    Chief executive, NHS Providers

    Professor Martin Marshall

    Chair, Royal College of General Practitioners

    Matthew Taylor

    Chief executive, NHS Confederation

    London SW1

    Reality……

    SIR – I write this outside an A&E department where we have just
    been forced to abandon my 82-year-old father, who has fallen and hit his
    head, because patients may not be accompanied.

    This, in the week where Parliament heard that hospital and care home
    visiting restrictions are “cruel, inhumane and unnecessary”.

    Our caring NHS? What a joke.

    Stephen Sanderson
    London SE8

      2. Well spotted – this is he!

        Matthew Taylor CBE FAcSS (born 5 December 1960) is a British former political strategist and current Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation, having previously led the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) in the United Kingdom between 2006 and 2021. In 2005, he was appointed by incumbent Prime Minister Tony Blair as head of the Number 10 Policy Unit.

        2. Not a shred of a qualification to run Britain’s largest employer – most of whom are just as unqualified and as useless as he is.

        3. The dick appears frequently on the Moral Maze to spout his dreary ‘liberal’ tolerance.

    2. I wonder under which incomprehensible, many worded job description the propagandist who wrote that piece exists?

    3. Aren’t they embarrassed to put their names to a letter that includes the phrase ‘we are passionate about…”?

    4. When i see those signatories all I read are non-jobs we could do without. These aren’t directly related to patient care, so why are they employed?

  12. SIR – What amazes me whenever I see footage of the House of Commons in session is the number of MPs busy with their phones. If these supposedly mature and responsible people cannot get over their childish addiction to their phones, then they should be treated as children and their phones taken from them when they enter the chamber, and, to defeat the smugglers, the Wi-Fi in the chamber should be disconnected.

    Andrew Dyke
    London N21

    Yes! If they want to act like children…

    1. Why not just put the pornography on the big screen and let the MPs argue among themselves about who has the remote. It’s what we pay for, isn’t it?

    1. Yo bb2

      Perhaps, with regard to people (well Humans) Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) needs to be highlighted
      Rumour has it that Convid Vaxxes are GMO, as are Trans people

  15. SIR – I write this outside an A&E department where we have just been forced to abandon my 82-year-old father, who has fallen and hit his head, because patients may not be accompanied.

    This, in the week where Parliament heard that hospital and care home visiting restrictions are “cruel, inhumane and unnecessary”.

    Our caring NHS? What a joke.

    Stephen Sanderson
    London SE8

    1. Another classic example of something else our political class have quite deliberately effed up the NHS. Some that 82 year old man has contributed towards all his working life.
      I’m not blaming front line NHS workers, it’s the top management they work directly for our useless pathetic government.

      1. I would query that the upper echelons of the NHS “Work FOR the Government”. It seems to me that they work for themselves and often AGAINST the Government.

        1. Howsit going Bob ?
          Around three and a half years ago our current wonderful government announced the employment of around six new reginal directors of the NHS all paid around 200 + thousand PA. This might have been the reason why so many doctors have now taken on private work as many GPs seem to have and other doctors who previously worked wholly for the NHS.
          I have discovered that a number of GPs at out practice are registered as companies. And the brilliant Doctor who first sorted out my AFib is now almost entirely working for Spire and the private Wellington in London. Consequently I can’t get anything done even though it’s now been over 12 months since it started to relive me of my current and long lasting ailments until a phone call in November !!! WTF is that going to do ?? But if i could afford to pay the several thousands pounds or of course had private medical insurance, I could get it sorted out with in a few weeks. And the same applies to Mine and my wife’s knee problems. Can’t pay can’t take it away ! I just feel this has been planned and the NHS general health service is going the same way as NHS dental practice has gone.
          I have also been told by a surgeon three years ago, that i need a knee replacement of some sort. But because of my now underlying health problems even contracted to the NHS, Spire can’t a carry out the operation because their emergency back up is almost zero. Can you imagine another situation with such slack H&S back up.

  16. SIR – Telephoning the Office of the Public Guardian (number 49 in the queue, then cut off at number 27), I was greeted by a message that staff were working from home due to Covid.

    It requested that callers be patient with staff in these circumstances and explained that they may not have all the information to hand needed to deal with enquiries. And all this after instruction not to raise queries about the registration of powers of attorney for at least 20 weeks after applying.

    Direct from the horse’s mouth here is the reality of public servants working from home, rather than as portrayed in the self-serving statements issued by Abi Tierney of the Passport Office and Matthew Rycroft, the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office.

    Heather Paget-Brown
    Plaxtol, Kent

    SIR – I haven’t seen my grandson since March 2020. He is 13 and lives in South Africa. We have been trying to renew his British passport since September 2021. In November 2021 the tracking progress page of the Passport Office website declared that the application was “being processed”. Since then we have heard nothing. When ringing the Passport Advice Line our calls are terminated after five minutes “due to the high volume of calls”.

    How I can make contact and speak to someone regarding this problem?

    Jill Slater
    Nayland, Suffolk

    Our wonderful public services…do any of them provide a proper, value for money service any more?

  18. SIR – Is it not strange that in this country, even when near drought prevails as it does currently in parts of East Anglia, weather forecasters routinely fail to greet the prospect of rain as good news.

    Jonathan Lawley
    Stowmarket, Suffolk

    Ah, the good old subjective weather forecasts. I’m not interested in the slightest about the likes and dislikes of weather presenters – just tell us what it’s going to do. Fortunately I, like many others I imagine, obtain mine online, from a combination of the Met Office and the rainfall radar on Netweather, although I haven’t had much need of the latter recently. In fact I can’t recall when it last rained on yer sarf coast and we are as dry as a bone.

      1. Here, 3mm overnight on the Wirral on Saturday night, but nothing scheduled for today. Just grey…

      2. Here, 3mm overnight on the Wirral on Saturday night, but nothing scheduled for today. Just grey…

      3. Here, 3mm overnight on the Wirral on Saturday night, but nothing scheduled for today. Just grey…

    2. It rained yesterday and the night before here. I tend to look out of the window and see what the cloudscape is like 🙂

  19. All this fuss over porngate,
    I know it has all been a bit of fun on line but our country has gone mad with all this public shaming over a trivial event that should have been taken care of in house to be fair, should MP’s really be squealing to a compliant MSM every time somebody slips up?
    What happened to someone getting taken aside and receiving a warning?
    It is obviously strange behaviour for someone of his age.

    1. ‘Morning, B3. SOME of our country has gone mad…personally nothing that MPs get up to surprises me any more. ‘Tractorgate’ is just one more example of the unsuitability of many in Parliament.

  20. SIR – Christie’s is effectively cancelling Eric Gill because of his personal life.

    I presume that it will also be cancelling Picasso because of his questionable personal life. Or will commerce take precedence?

    Rob Dorrell
    Bath, Somerset

    I have always enjoyed Donald McGill’s saucy seaside postcards. I suppose this makes me a very bad person now…

    3. Eric Gill converted to Catholicism and established the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic for Catholic craftsmen. His religious beliefs did not limit his sexual activity, which included several extramarital affairs. His religious views and subject matter contrast with his deviant sexual behaviour, including, his sexual abuse of his daughters, an incestuous relationship with at least one of his sisters and sexual experiments with his dog.

      His perversions, especially paedophilia and homosexuality, made him favourable to the BBC who paid him vast sums to produce mementos of his (and their) lifestyles to adorn their principal buildings. They are still there to this day. He has been nominated for sainthood by the Beeb fraternity. Christie’s snub will probably go unremarked by most of the media – they are mostly on his side.

    4. Eric Gill converted to Catholicism and established the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic for Catholic craftsmen. His religious beliefs did not limit his sexual activity, which included several extramarital affairs. His religious views and subject matter contrast with his deviant sexual behaviour, including, his sexual abuse of his daughters, an incestuous relationship with at least one of his sisters and sexual experiments with his dog.

      His perversions, especially paedophilia and homosexuality, made him favourable to the BBC who paid him vast sums to produce mementos of his (and their) lifestyles to adorn their principal buildings. They are still there to this day. He has been nominated for sainthood by the Beeb fraternity. Christie’s snub will probably go unremarked by most of the media – they are mostly on his side.

  21. Westminster sleaze is spiralling out of control. We can no longer afford to turn a blind eye. 2 may 2022.

    And so it is in Westminster, where politicians wear a different lapel badge a day to show their virtue, propose new laws to criminalise belief and thought, and struggle in the name of progress even to define a woman in interviews, yet turn a blind eye to blatantly unethical behaviour by friends and colleagues.

    Some of that unethical behaviour is now revealing itself. Tory MPs seem intent on performing a 1990s tribute act, with news of financial and sexual sleaze routine. There was the Owen Paterson lobbying scandal, and the failed attempt to overturn his suspension from the Commons. Imran Ahmad Khan was found guilty of sexually assaulting a fifteen-year-old boy. And now Neil Parish has resigned after watching pornography in the House of Commons.

    This place is a pantomime. It is filled with Liars, Perverts and Thieves. It doesn’t even have the authority to direct its own Civil Service. Its inhabitants are despised by every right thinking person in the UK. The idea that it can be reformed is innately ridiculous. Who is going to carry out this task? The human excrement that presently runs it?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/05/01/westminster-sleaze-spiralling-control-can-no-longer-afford-turn/

    1. 352349+ up ticks,

      AS,
      Still fueled by the vote in to keep out brigade even though the toxic trio are identical in odious political nature.

    2. Morning, Araminta.

      Likewise in the US under Biden et al. Steve Bannon in full flow re the Ukraine adventure and more: his interviewee, Steve Cortes, offers a calmer perspective on economic matters. One can’t help but conclude that Biden and his controllers are working against the US’s citizens in a similar manner that Johnson & Co are doing here with the ‘Net Zero’ crazy ideas and wasted billions, the Channel invasion etc.

      Steve Bannon’s War Room

    3. As ever, the complaints become tribal. It wasn’t ‘Tory MPs’ causing growler gate – in a failed attempt to distract from partying in Durham after a prolonged attack on the fat Turk in Downing Street for the same ‘offence’ – or in court facing charges of threatening to throw acid in someone’s face. All inhabitants of the Commons are so indoctrinated in ‘the system’ that they have lost all touch with reality. A lack of reality ably supported by the supine media.

      We have effectively been under a CON/LAB coalition since March 2020 with Labour merely abstaining on a slack handful of ‘policies’ but not voting against any of them. Both major political parties were in favour of ‘lockdown’, merely quibbling about the timing or duration.

      It is only now, with local elections looming, that some commentators are trying to conjure clear water between the two parties. Too little, too late.

  23. Headline in the DT:

    Apple employees refuse office return because it will make company ‘whiter, more male-dominated’

    Staff say CEO’s request that they work in-office three days a week is treating them ‘like school kids who need to be told when to be where’

    Give me strength! He who pays the piper… If they think it’s so bad what is preventing their resignations?

    3. How is office work “white”? Surely yer poor, misunderstood bleck doesn’t have a home, but a grass hutch that’s regularly eaten by passing horses, so they can’t work there?

    4. Sooooooo ……. blacks are ….. um ….. not keen on attending their place of employment?

  24. I see that our 11,091 bird-choppers are working really well this morning: With a total demand of just over 30GW they are providing a magnificent 0.52GW, just 1.73% of what we need. (Gas is 65%, nuclear is flat out as usual and the interconnectors are doing their bit.)
    And all of this on a Bank Holiday when demand is well down on a typical weekday. We are truly the ‘Saudi Arabia of wind power’!

      1. Exceptionally well…a breathtaking 2.46%…

        ‘Morning, N. The madness continues.

  25. 352349+up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Monday 2 May: Quotas for numbers of women MPs are no way to solve the pornography scandal.

    Continuing to give support to the existing political structure within parliament is NO way to go either, the rot within is well established to supplement it is truly asking for more of the same.

    Lest we forget we could NEVER have got into such a loathsome state as a nation
    without the continuing input from the lab/lib/con supporter / voters coalition.

      1. Morning, Maggie. We were so early that I think there must still have been some deer around. The Springer was holding her twitching nose up in the air exercising her incredible sense of smell.

    3. Oscar got so far and then set his nose for home! I don’t think he’s been accustomed to long, country walks before I made him take a constitutional!

      3. Meme writers have a penchant for being thick with their spelling and grammar.

  28. Good morning, my friends:

    Andy Murray: I have no sympathy for Boris Becker – he broke the law
    Scot says he feels more for those affected by jailed German’s actions but Novak Djokovic is ‘heartbroken’ over former coach’s fate

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tennis/2022/05/01/andy-murray-have-no-sympathy-boris-becker-broke-law/

    The dour and gloomy Murray has always resented Becker for being a far better tennis player than he. Becker had the talent – he first won Wimbledon at the age of 17 – while Murray had the grit. Aesop’s fable of the Grasshopper and the Ant comes to mind.

    Two quotations spring to mind:

    “It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.”
     [P.G. Wodehouse (on the subject of Lord Emsworth’s gardener Angus McAlister)]
    and
    “Such men as he be never at heart’s ease
    When they behold a greater than themselves    ”
    [William Shakespeare (Julius Caesar on the over thin Cassius)]

    I empathise more with grasshoppers but opinions here may differ.

    1. What on earth has it to do with the wingeing Scot, anyway?

      They might as well have asked MY views…

    2. As many others probably did we withdrew our support of British tennis player Any Murray when he wore an Argentine football shirt when they were playing against England.
      He latterly described his action as a joke………… Bubble prick and burst.

    3. Becker is a thief and a licentious sexual junkie who got off light. He will probably only serve just over a year. He should have been handcuffed to the whinging Murray for most of it. He would be damned careful with other people’s money in future.

  29. Good morning

    Dull sky, 10c and we had drizzle over night .

    One small observation .. how about the tenacity and resilience of one large garden snail who had managed to navigate our ivy covered driveway wall.. and sit there on top nibbling a small dandelion leaf… and even tiny snails who manage to crawl up a glass window .. how do they find their energy and determination?

    1. They glide on slime. Oh sorry, you are talking about snails. I thought for a moment you were talking about MP’s.

    2. I know what you mean. I was cleaning the gutters recently, and found a snail 20 feet from the ground – trying to get into the roof!

      1. Arghh! I’d better check the gutters. Hedgehog is not eating enough slugs and snails, though it did manage to leave a large hedgehog poo right in front of our front door last night!!

      1. If I were any sort of psychiatrist, I would suspect that the parents had been wanting a girl and were so disappointed when a boy was born, that they spent the next 5 years searching for a doctor who would carry out the transformation and satisfy their selfish desire.

      2. This seems so outrageous I suspect it is apocryphal, Aaron Baer is the only source I can find so far and is the power behind the “Center for Christian Virtue, a heavy hitter in Ohio’s culture” . Maybe he misunderstood/heard a reference to a procedure that was medically mandated rather than a perverted whimsey, but this is the USA so who knows?

  31. SIR – I am constantly amazed at how many people want to control what others do and how they live their lives.

    Yes it would be cruel to keep cats indoors, they are free agents. As to the killing of 100 million creatures, I would guess that the majority are rats, mice and assorted pests.

    Be more worried about the tons of rubbish people throw from their cars. Their habits I would like to control.

    Will Oswald
    London W1

    Keep guessing, chump. I would guess that your guessing skills need sharpening, you clown, so keep practising. The majority of those creatures killed are birds.

    As for the twats who throw crap from their cars: I’m with you on wanting to annihilate them.

    1. Good morning Grizzly
      I wonder how they count the number birds killed. I’ve never seen anyone counting them where I live.
      Another sensational guesstimate from an interested party.

      1. Our cats bring in tiny rodents mostly. A rat or 2 now and again, and a very few birds – the last two escaped and flew outside, one defecating generously over every blasted thing!

    2. Cats only get birds when they’re on the ground – advice to birds is keep flying or get in your tree. Cats can’t fly (unless boot assisted)
      Morning Grizz

      1. They climb trees. We had a cat that was a birder, and kept it inside in the mornings in spring. Very tedious. Most of our other cats never really went after birds at all, but dispatched many mice, rats and rabbits.

        1. They usually give up hunting by the time they are 10 or so. The birds know that older cats are no threat to them. When our cats were young they did catch the occasional slow bird but very few.

          1. Chaucer went after mice and voles but, to my disappointment, he never showed any interest in moles. He was not bad with birds but he once caught a beautiful kingfisher but I managed to get to him in time and liberated the bird which flew away.

            But I have noticed that now that we no longer have a cat we have far more birds visiting our garden

          2. The birds are not stupid. When my old cat Joe was getting quite old (he died in 2001 aged 17) we sat in the garden as it was quite a warm summer – Joe would sit out as well – the blackbirds were on the ground, feasting on the fallen apples and not taking any notice of Joe. He and Pat, his brother, had long given up hunting.

            The next pair of cats – Suzie and Sam were quite keen on hunting when young – Sam was a great ratter and he did bring a couple of birds through the cat flap. Suzie preferred smaller things like slowworms but my OH was usually able to rescue them.

            Lily is elderly but we don’t know how old – she’s not shown any interest in catching anything.

    3. Yesterday whilst driving though town I noticed a flock of what looked like very excited gulls circling overhead and looking to my right was the classic dead pose of a gull with pristine plumage lying on the pavement with its pink feet pointing skyward. I guess those circling overhead thought lunch had been delivered early!

    4. Yesterday whilst driving though town I noticed a flock of what looked like very excited gulls circling overhead and looking to my right was the classic dead pose of a gull with pristine plumage lying on the pavement with its pink feet pointing skyward. I guess those circling overhead thought lunch had been delivered early!

  32. Apparently the farmer MP, Neil Parish, was googling and looking wistfully for a site showing Claas Dominator Tractors when to his confusion and chagrin a poor googling finger stroke on his mobile phone came up with a classless dominatrix.

    Imagine his disappointment and discomfort when, while looking for this:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bd05badbb0781d0d2b10d4c8cf0dd36fb66227a16da333a8f053f279c8fcf958.jpg

    he came up with this:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/39c65fdefb26a5c684db78d2b3120b9b18590596987f5a66c35f4aed0eef3880.jpg

    Of course the worst thing about this, which shows that the Conservative Party is no longer fit to govern, is the knee-jerk reaction that they will have sex based quotas in future.

    2. What I can not understand is how a minor misdemeanor in etiquette was blown up out of all proportion when the sensible and reasonable reaction would be for someone to twist his ear in private and tell him to stop being so stupid.
      It’s almost as if some people wanted to make a fuss.

      1. If he had been ogling a video of Jimmy Savile and the Reverend Richard Coles showing little boys their favourite trick in some back room at the BBC he would probably have been given a senior government position.

      2. If I had been sitting next to him, I’d have leant over and told him to show some manners and not behave like a hormonal teenager.
        I certainly wouldn’t dob him in to the prefects.

        1. Exactly.
          It has been exaggerated purely to embarrass the Tory (ino) Party.

    1. Excellent! We can now intercept all illegal immigrants arriving by jet plane.
      But seriously, Border Force and chums are meeting them halfway. It is assisting, empowering, welcoming, collaborating, conspiring, not discouraging.
      They don’t even get a share of the lucrative passage money.

    2. Intercepting is fine. Now tow them back to France. If you won’t do that, then you’re not the border force, are you? The clue is in the name – enforce the border.

      It’s really time the whole useless organisation was disbanded – from the home office down.

    1. The first three lines scanned quite well but the remaining prose didn’t.

      Here’s a poetic version:

      You cannot pick your gender.
      You cannot pick your race.
      Only women can give birth –
      Come on men, keep pace!

    2. Candace Owens would be a good candidate for the US presidency.

      Alternatively, she has a British husband and she could come to Britain and become PM.

    3. Yet the state eeps pushing this false narrative. It keeps pretending these things are possible when they’re blatantly false.

      The bit that gets me about the quota lark is that they can’t define what a woman is, so what chance have these racist fools of quotaing for women?

    1. Good Morning All!
      The Elephant Cartoon Reminded me of this Darwin Award Tragedy
      PADERBORN, GERMANY – Overzealous zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt fed his constipated elephant Stefan 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally let fly-and suffocated the keeper under 200 pounds of poop. Investigators say ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive-oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded on him like a dump truck full of mud.

      ‘The sheer force of the elephant’s unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the ground, where he struck his head on a rock and lay unconscious as the elephant continued to evacuate his bowels on top of him,” said flabbergasted Paderborn police detective Erik Dern. “With no one there to help him, he lay under all that dung for at least an hour before a watchman came along, and during that time he suffocated. It seems to be just one of those freak accidents that happen sometimes — a billion-to-one shot, at least.’

      The heartbreaking tale of constipation and tragedy began April 23 when the conscientious zookeeper noticed that his prize, 8,000-pound African elephant didn’t seem to be producing his usual poop aplenty. ‘Friedrich had actually been concerned for several days because he knew that severe constipation can kill an elephant,’ assistant zookeeper Kurt Herrman recalled. ‘He told me he was going to stay late that Thursday night to treat Stefan with laxatives and possibly give him an enema. I offered to help, but he sent me on home, saying he had everything under control.’

      Two hours later, horrified night watchman Walter Pleuger found Friedrich lying lifeless under a mound of muck, his body visible only from the knees down. ‘I had never really thought about it before,’ Det. Dern said. ‘But obviously, giving an elephant an enema can be a very dangerous activity and not something that should be attempted alone.’

        2. Genuine Darwin Award events are often too gruesome.
          One was a case of arson&attempted murder, involving petrol.
          The event severely burned the alleged arsonist, who died in hospital.

      2. At least the wicked witch in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ was only clobbered by a flying house.

          1. For the innocent.
            A life sentence of over 50 years in the case of elephants.

  40. https://twitter.com/JanetCutts2/status/1520474670247653376
    This is a whole thread on Twit about CO2 mastercards – I don’t think you can see much from Disqus. Significant point here is that the poster says she was issued one of these cards, and about four months later, the CO2 tracking was switched on without her consent. I take this with a large pinch of salt – has anyone on this forum had a similar experience or been issued with a “CO2 Mastercard”?

    2. I have been offered one. But like all offers for cards it goes into the rubbish bin.

      1. How often do you get them?
        Peak madness was in about 2004 for me – I was getting them almost every day. They had latched onto the fact that I had a decent job and no cc.

        1. No on has ever offered me a credit/debit card. Apart from Access – in 1975.

        2. I probably get one every three or four months. At first I kept them because they are great for smoothing out seed mixes and making furrows for seeds. I’m very fussy about my seed trays😊. Now, as I said, I just throw them into the garbage. Don’t bother to open them.

      1. We know this evil nonsense has been launched – but this woman claims to have had it activated without her consent. An isolated bank mistake, or policy?

      2. From the article:-
        The World Economic Forum praised Doconomy. “While many of us are aware that we need to reduce our carbon footprint, advice on doing so can seem nebulous and keeping a tab is difficult. DO monitors and cuts off spending, when we hit our carbon max,” the World Economic Forum wrote on the Doconomy CO2 monitoring website.

        I wonder how the holder of the card will feel when, late at night and trying to get home, their car has almost run out of fuel and he/she pulls into a service station to fill up, only to find that their ‘carbon max’ has been reached.

  41. Today would have been my brother’s 89th birthday. About this time of the morning, we would have been having the twice yearly the shouting match – when two deaf old men (Peter was much deafer than me!) tried to establish identity and the reason for the call!!

    I miss the old chap.

    1. Yes Bill.. will these words comfort you?

      Farewell to thee! but not farewell
      To all my fondest thoughts of thee:
      Within my heart they still shall dwell;
      And they shall cheer and comfort me.

      “Farewell” by Anne Brontë

    1. Fortunately missed that “story”. I ignore completely all the guff printed each day about The Ukraine and Russia.

      1. I read most of the reports from Norfolk although I do believe someone’s Fakenem! 😉

    2. Just one of the many fabrications of this regime! It comprises more liars than Westminster!

  44. Good morning, dear NoTTLers

    Wordle 317 4/6

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

    At least I can copy it now!

    1. I’ve just done it in 4 too. Failed yesterday. Don’t know how to copy.

      1. Go into the results page. There is a “share” option to the right. If you click on that it will say “copied to clipboard”. You can then paste it.

        1. Aha!

          Wordle 317 4/6

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

          1. Same here, thought I was going to be good for 3, but…
            Wordle 317 4/6

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

          2. Wordle 317 5/6

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

          3. Ditto: I too, thought I was going to be good for 3, but…
            Wordle 317 4/6

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

  45. Martin Lewis issues fresh warning to anybody with a cash ISA. 2 May 2022

    Savvy savers who’ve taken out a cash ISA should ‘probably ditch it’ in favour of a standard savings account, Martin Lewis has said.

    The popular ‘money saving expert’ was once a proponent of the saving scheme, but now has advised people to store their savings elsewhere, The Liverpool Echo reports.

    Writing in the blog of his MoneySavingExpert website, he said while he once told fans ‘money was nicer in an ISA’, tax changes mean it’s no longer the best way to go for most of us. The change was the introduction, in 2016, of the personal savings allowance, which allows basic and higher rate tax payers to earn up to £1,000 or £500 worth of interest on standard savings per year.

    I disposed of my ISA’s some years ago due to their miserable returns but a warning to others should not go amiss!

    Martin Lewis issues fresh warning to anybody with a cash ISA (msn.com)

    1. My cash ISA has a better rate of interest than the other savings accounts available to me.

      1. It is, but it’s an outcome that can fit with the present situation, so we do well, particularly on the US first strike aspect, to give it consideration, I think. In the world of nuclear shells the total annihilation of humanity is not as certain as once it was, but that fact in itself is a hazard given the total evil that is running the Western show.

  47. A topical isshoo. Do ladies watch porn? Just asking. (You may answer on behalf of a friend…)

      1. Is there a NOTLESS who would dare say YES!

        I should imagine that most NOTTLERs would not like to admit to watching it.

      1. We’ve stopped watching BBC ‘drama’. But we did watch the recommended docu about the restoration of Notre Dame last night – wonderful craftsmanship at work there.

        1. Not long after the ‘electrical fault’ or mental health issues occurred and it happened i noticed there had been many mature trees in our local woodlands that had been tagged with aluminium discs. I phoned a local councillor to make sure they were not being cut down and shipped to France for the repair work. It turned out it was a coincidence the trees mainly oak were being counted and catalogued.
          It looked to me that some of the timbers were laminated soft wood beams. Much stronger and will last thousands of years unless of course………..

          2. She was worse in the one we watched by mistake the other evening, about royal photographs.

          3. Preening narcissist. God, how I loathe her. I wondered what the French people made of her….

          4. It’s the probably the first time I’ve actually felt sorry for the French.
            I see the anti Micron Paris riots have been doing well, but not seen any of the footage on the British media ???

            A friend sent me a good clip of the Old Mill Hill East railway line extension, through Edgeware and north of, it’s quite interesting as it was my local station. If i can ill post it here for you or i might be able to send it to Herts Lass she’ll be interested as it mentions Bushey Heath as a proposed station.

          6. No terminating at Bushey Heath, do you remember all those stone arches just north of Edgeware Spur Road On the A41 opposite the nine hole golf.
            They were built pre war for the extension. but the government changed their mind. I’ll try later to post it,…..I have jobs to do now. ……Or else !!!

          8. It must have been when the were producing the RMs as a kid (10 or 12 ish) with some mates we used to cycle from Mill Hill and sit outside admiring the brand new polished and shiny busses as the came through the main doors.

          9. I was a great fan of the RT – so much so, they gave me a full set of chassis plans! I still have them!!

      2. Worse then that TB is channel 4 I think Naked Attraction it’s enough to put any reasonably sane person off the opposite sex. Or even the same sex.
        Giles Bandwidth seems to love it he talks about it all the time.

    4. I remember when Cosmopolitan magazine was first launched its selling point was a centre piece spread male nude. The models were always posed so that their genitals weren’t visible. Classical statuary is more raunchy and Cosmo soon switched to articles reminiscing midnight feasts in the dorm.

      1. Yes and I read Cosmopolitan decades ago .. and loved the photo of a very muscular modest Burt Reynolds .

        When I was at boarding school , pics of film stars head and shoulders , were very welcome …

          1. How times change. Now his legs would be wide open and the cigarette would be banned.

          2. Phizzee..

            Oh MG…. I am going to faint … I feel giddy .. goodness me where did you dig that up from .. I feel quite hot and sticky.. What a dish he was … That was way back on the 1970’s …

            Many thanks Phizzee, I am now back in my 20’s … aghhhhhhh

          3. I saw Dolly Parton on TV in the US being interviewed just after the movie The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas was released. She was asked what she and Burt Reynolds had in common. Well, she said, we both wear wigs!
            Bet Burt was not happy 😉

          7. His personal library? Cosmopolitan was the liberated ladies monthly of choice.

    6. I’ve watched some and found it boring. Not something I would repeat.

      1. A human body, in the artistic sense, can be very beautiful. I have never found anything beautiful in anything that is porn that I have ever seen. Porn isn’t art – it is rather more bestial; and I am not sure that animals have yet discovered art as we know it.

        1. I’m sure the women who take part are paid well but I found what little I’ve seen as degrading

          1. I’m not sure what point you are making – is porn bad because it is degrading, or is it women prostituting themselves?

            I wasn’t talking about either in that sense, I simply said that one can see beautiful sculptures, paintings and photographs of naked people, which may also be provocative. However, when that nakeness becomes intentionally overtly sexual, and simply focuses on the shag element of humanity, then it loses its artistry and becomes simply rather animalistic and crude.

          2. Both, I agree absolutely with your sentiments.
            About 30 years ago I was in charge of portrait/model nights at our local photography club and we were visited one evening by a Channel 4 crew making a program about clubs like ours and using nude models supplied by them. I upset quite a few of the members because I wouldn’t let anyone use colour film because that kind of photography is about shape, form, lighting and contrast. The latter two can be better achieved with black and white film. I didn’t see the actual program because I’d moved to Scotland by the time it went out

      2. A human body, in the artistic sense, can be very beautiful. I have never found anything beautiful in anything that is porn that I have ever seen. Porn isn’t art – it is rather more bestial; and I am not sure that animals have yet discovered art as we know it.

    7. No Bill. Although I suppose some women do? I once looked up pornhub, on my phone I think it was, because I’d heard it was a site for teenagers and the first picture on there made me think, good grief, who on earth would find that attractive? How can I describe it – I can’t. It was quite horrible. Didn’t bother again.

    8. There are women who not only enjoy watching pornography but get immensely turned on by making their own videos and posting them on line for men to watch.

  48. Labour MP says he was ‘regularly touched up’ by older male colleagues after first entering the House of Commons in 2001

    Chris Bryant told LBC Radio he was ‘shocked’ after coming out in 2001 and facing the advances of senior politicians.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10773659/Labour-MP-says-regularly-touched-older-colleagues.html

    Christ Bryant is probably the most repulsive and nasty person in the HoC. He is typical of the sort of public school boy who despises the fact that he went to public school (Cheltenham) and he used to be a CoE minister which probably explains both his sexuality, his spite and his sheer narcissistic desire to be noticed.

    The fact that he pursued Owen Paterson so vindictively shows what a veritable piece of stinking excrement he is.

    1. Come come, Richard. Where is your charity? He was a “priest”….

    2. Labour MP says he was ‘regularly touched up’ by older male colleagues after first entering the House of Commons in 2001

      It was probably wishful thinking.

      1. Perhaps he’d forgotten that some one know as AL in his student days was no longer in the house.

  50. Smile and be cheerful and do read the article … Commonsense reigns at last.

    Blackface Morris dancers who were axed from national body for refusing to give up controversial make-up continue to defy critics by entertaining May Day pub crowd
    Britannia Coconut Dancers traditionally perform for locals in Bacup, Lancashire
    But they were told to stop painting faces black in response to the BLM campaign
    The group defied instruction yesterday, however, and still performed in make-up

    But the group defied instruction and continued to take part in traditional celebrations, appearing in the same costumes and make-up, in front of the Crown Inn on Sunday.

    The Coconut Dancers typically wear red tunics, white hats, black jerseys, white stockings, shiny black clogs and paint their faces black, while performing to the public.

    While the exact origins of their costume is unclear, it is believed that their uniforms are influenced by the Moorish pirates who settled in Cornwall and soon entered the local mining industry during the 18th and 19th centuries.

    The pirates became employed in tin mines, before moving to the coal mines of the North.

    The group insist their blackened faces, a reference to the coal mining industry in the town they are based in, was part of a clog-dancing tradition dating back more than 100 years.

    Another theory is that underpaid mill workers would dance to to earn extra income and painted their face black so their employers would not know they were dancing for money.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10774185/Blackface-Morris-dancers-defy-critics-entertain-crowd-wearing-controversial-make-up.html

    1. Good for them it saved the day from being hideously white. The thousands of up votes have proven the point.

          2. Though I prefer the narcissism of this, which is probably why I get actinic keratoses now!

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHnlkJZ5G7o

            “Look in my eyes
            See the light of the universe
            I’m man, born of God
            Not a clown in disguise
            My skin is bronze
            My hair is gold
            The power within me lights the way
            To wealth and fame
            All in my name, the final goal”

  52. Thinking of the upcoming local election, my ward has four candidates – Lab/Con/Lib/Green – I am wondering whether to 1. not turn up or 2. vote – “none of the above” (Labour supporting white public-sector snowflakes dominate my ward)

    1. What a choice!
      Can you register as the candidate for “None of the Above” yourself??

      1. Will they ever count spoiled ballots with NOTA (None Of The Above) and not put anyone in office where NOTA wins a majority? If they did there would be a high number of electable posts unfilled.

        1. That should always be an option.

          With no suitable candidate then government is suspended. get rid of the useless wasters. It’s not like they do anything.

        2. Isn’t that what the Australians do? No chance of that ever being allowed over here.

    3. You’ll prolly find that the result has already been determined. Going and voting is just a charade. A cynic writes….

    4. There don’t seem to be any local elections here – apart from one parish council one.

    7. The Labour and Conservative candidates in my ward have declined to give their addresses. The idiot Lib Dem woman , clearly a thicko greenish, has claimed the lack of addresses as a negative on her election leaflet!. The more experienced candidates don’t want their windows broken by Momentum anarchists coming over from the other side of the Wirral. Remember the days when we used to advertise our allegiance in window posters?…

    8. The Labour and Conservative candidates in my ward have declined to give their addresses. The idiot Lib Dem woman , clearly a thicko, has claimed this as a negative on her election leaflet!. The more experienced candidates don’t want their windows broken by Momentum anarchists coming over from the other side of the Wirral. Remember the days when we used to advertise our allegiance in window posters?…

    9. The Labour and Conservative candidates in my ward have declined to give their addresses. The idiot Lib Dem woman , clearly a thicko, has claimed this as a negative on her election leaflet!. The more experienced candidates don’t want their windows broken by Momentum anarchists coming over from the other side of the Wirral. Remember the days when we used to advertise our allegiance in window posters?…

      1. Nor do we in Suffolk – I don’t think there are any in East Anglia.

    11. Turn up and write your views on the paper along with “None of the above”. Spoiled papers have to be scrutinised by the candidates; they might just possibly get the message.

  53. The end of the American century. Spiked. . 2 May 2022.

    The imminent demise of the dollar as world money remains unlikely, but we are moving closer to a turning point. We should recall Ernest Hemingway’s wise words about bankruptcy in his novel The Sun Also Rises. ‘How did you go bankrupt?’, one of his characters is asked. ‘Two ways’, is the reply – ‘gradually, then suddenly’. A gradual shift to a post-dollar financial world might also at some point become a sudden movement. Practically and symbolically, this would be a tremendous blow to America’s already much weakened authority around the world.

    So, as we see with the dollar as the global currency, actions taken for geopolitical reasons – namely, financial sanctions on Russia – rebound upon economics. Undermining the global role of the dollar could further undermine America’s geopolitical position.

    The West’s economic response to the war could therefore accelerate a disorderly fracturing of the world around distinct monetary, economic and geopolitical polarities. This is truly a world in flux.

    Amen to that!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/05/02/the-end-of-the-american-century/

    1. Yessiree. We can be well and truly fluxed!

      “On Sunday, Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) announced a new Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). If passed, the AUMF will allow President Joe Biden to deploy American troops to defend Ukraine if Russia uses chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons.

      The Congressman issued a press release saying the legislation would establish important red lines and echoed Biden’s plea that “Putin must be stopped.”

      Now where did we put those false flags?

      1. A fair number of years ago I called my imaginary boat, “Darkness of Kharkov”.

        1. We have apparently just lived through the 5th Battle of Kharkov since 1941…..

      2. Why? For heavens’ sake why? Whatever your views on the rights or wrongs of the Ukraine war, what reason is there for us or the Yanks to get involved?
        Democrats’ oil investments, nothing else!
        For that, they will risk nuclear war and the annihilation of large parts of the world?
        Pure insanity.

        1. That’s Democrats for you BB2, Yes, insane, as must be the majority of American voters to prefer this lot to Trump – who doesn’t believe in wars to sort problems.

        2. Some might argue that the dipstick with his finger on the red button in the US is dangerous, not because he might press it, but because he lacks the cognitive ability to prevent it being pressed.

    2. Go bankrupt? The west is there already, fiscally and morally. Has been so for decades.

    3. I’m surprised Biden hasn’t seen the problem. Gas is now the new oil. If we move away from the Dollar then America is finished. It’s debt is utterly unsustainable

      1. Frankly, wibbles, I don’t think Biden can see any problem unless it’s pointed out to him in letters a foot tall (and nobody is going to do that).

  54. This afternoon’s treat is “cleaning the greenhouse”…. So I spent the last 1½ hours emptying it out and sweeping etc. The STUFF. Unbelievable.

    Will, therefore, be away for most of the arvo – cursing a lot.

    1. When you have done there, we have a whole house that needs clearing out.

      We bought an apartment at the weekend and now need to do some serious downsizing.

          1. I’m OK, thanks. Very tired and rather nauseous and little appetite. However, my face, so far, hasn’t hurt and pain killers haven’t been needed. A fairly early night I think and I have to call the GP tomorrow to make an appointment for Friday to get dressing removed and replaced.

    1. Just as well you didn’t post that before Ann had her surgery yesterday!

        1. How are you feeling? Sorry if I’ve missed conversations with you, but one can’t be on NoTTL all the time…

          1. Very tired, a bit nauseous but, so far, my face hasn’t hurt. Haven’t needed any painkillers yet either. Thanks for asking.

          2. That sounds positive – let’s hope you continue onwards and upwards (so to speak)… :o)

      1. But think of those pickups… Greatly in demand since Brian May’s Dad built his guitar….

      2. But think of those pickups… Greatly in demand since Brian May’s Dad built his guitar….

      1. Gravity – the gravity of what would happen if her halter fell off.

    3. That torso skin is a bit wrinkly at the sides, isn’t it? And her bellybutton forgot to swallow whatever it was eating. YUK!

  58. Senior Tory Crispin Blunt announces he will stand down at the next election – just weeks after he was forced to apologise for defending sex offender MP Imran Ahmad Khan. Who made this homosexual pervert (Blunt) Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Prisons and Youth Justice all those years ago? There is much hidden filth in the Tory hierarchy. It needs a clear-out.

    1. “Phew” sez the Constituency Chairman, “that saves me an embarrassing chat.”

  59. Senior Tory Crispin Blunt announces he will stand down at the next election – just weeks after he was forced to apologise for defending sex offender MP Imran Ahmad Khan. Who made this homosexual pervert (Blunt) Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Prisons and Youth Justice all those years ago? There is much hidden filth in the Tory hierarchy. It needs a clear-out.

  61. Big article about sun and skin issues in the Telegraph today. I plucked up courage and am attempting to contact the right people at my local Spire hospital. I have problems with Actinic keratoses, known also, though I prefer not to mention the fact as ‘senile’ warts. Senile!!! I mean, I’m only 78 and got the first one in my late 40s. Last time I let the NHS loose on one, the GP’s clinic took three goes with different antibiotics to fix the infection they had induced during the removal process…

  62. This is what’s the top priority in my ‘woke’ home town…….

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10773217/Officials-accused-trying-remove-history-voting-historic-racist-statue.html

    Time runs out for town’s 250-year-old ‘racist’ clock
    statue as officials vote to take it down… sparking accusations they
    are trying to ‘remove history’

    The controversial 250-year-old clock statue stands in Stroud, Gloucestershire

    Campaigners have labelled it ‘racist’ and say it is ‘traumatic for people of colour’

    The town’s labour-led council has voted to ‘pursue’ removing it from its position

    But it may not have the power to compel the owners of the statue to take it down

      1. It’s up so high, most people probably never noticed it till the protesters made such a fuss. XR was born in Stroud. I seldom go into town unless I have to.

        1. Nibley Knoll, Ozleworth Bottom. I stil remember some of the names from my vac job in the 60s .It was a lovely area. Somewhere I still have the 1inch OS map of the area, much folded from the days I used to carry it in my jacket while exploring via motor bike.

          1. It still is – we looked at a house in Waterley Bottom before we settled for this one.

          3. That is such a lovely, tranquil read – with undertones that make one think, should one be so inclined…

    2. As Jane P [obviously a closet Nottler] of Plymouth said – “It’s none of their [the council’s] damn business” I wonder how many “campaigners” objected and if they actually live there.

    3. Though they are not completely absent, you’d be hard pushed to spot a ‘person of colour’ in Stroud.

      1. Yo Nd

        Someone should point out to the Complainers, that White is the least racial colour.
        Take all the colours of the Spectrum, VIBGYOR, in order on a circular board, spin it at speed and they will blend into white
        Black is the colour that is missing from all these complaints, as it does not exist: it ia always a Dark Other Colour.
        The complainers should also be reminded, that we Whiteys have rights

          1. The shame is that the Left will have eradicated us before they themselves are eradicated.

    4. If the political class have the money to bother about things like that then they are grossly overfunded.

      It is irrelevant. If one nasty, bitter woker dislikes it, they should be put in a box and posted somewhere else.

    5. Who are these traumatised ‘people of colour’? Have the ‘campaigners’ [sic] ever produced one?

      Why do so many people feel the need to be outraged by offence that they presume to be felt by others?

      1. I stopped sending hedgehog articles into the local paper because I was getting pushed out of my regular slot by “Stroud against racism” – I suppose there are one or two ‘people of colour ‘ here though I’ve never really noticed them. But Stroud is full of weirdos like the XR people. You can spot a Stroudie by their strange get-ups.

  63. 352349+ up ticks,

    The terrifying thing is courtesy of the lib/lab/con coalition there will only be a small
    number of indigenous male youth left still standing with ball bags intact.

    Richard Braine Retweeted
    James Melville
    @JamesMelville
    ·
    16h
    One day our grandchildren will look back in disbelief at how previous generations gave away their freedoms and rights to morally bankrupt politicians – because they were told to do so for their own safety.

    2. We weren’t offered the choice. Same as we didn’t get a choice over the moronic enforced green finance nonsense – the only way government can make people put money into windmills. We were never allowed to choose. Government forced this nonsense on us, same as it’s forcing race replacement.

      I wonder when division will hit the treasury – GDP / population rather than more people = higher GDP. Only about a third of the population work, and they’re predominantely white. More, they’re married to other white people. These people – the ones the state hates, the ones the media refuses to acknowledge are the most punished group yet are ones who make all the money and they’re [f-word] fed up.

    3. We weren’t offered the choice. Same as we didn’t get a choice over the moronic enforced green finance nonseonse – the only way governemnt can make people put money into windmills. We were never allowed to choose. Government forced this nonsense on us, same as it’s forcing race replacement.

      I wonder when division will hit the treasury – GDP / population rather than more people = higher GDP. Only about a third of the population work, and they’re predominantely white. More, they’re married to other white people. These people – the ones the state hates, the ones the media refuses to acknowledge are the most punished group yet are ones who make all the money and they’re [f-word] fed up.

  64. Good Afternoon.
    Taking a break to brood over why I put off zapping the freezers.
    Embarrassment? (Beef casserole that should be carbon dated.) Laziness? (Did I really buy shop made scones?) Boredom? (Stuck on Clue 4 down in today’s crossword?)
    Will now don wellies and tackle a sopping shed floor.

    2. I discovered a tub in the freezer labelled Tomato Soup. Told MH who loves the homemade tomato soup. It wasn’t soup. It was the remains of some sausagemeat balls I’d made. He made something or other out of it- those remains are now in the freezer labelled Emergency Soup 😉

      1. I have liberated several obscure unlabelled packages. At the time when I chucked them in, I told myself that I would know what they were.
        Now I have to be creative for a few days.

    1. Well, you know what G.K. Chesterton said – “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in everything.”

      1. And that also goes for the “priest” of the church that allowed these candles!

          1. It must be, surely? There’s nowhere else where you’d be asked to light a candle for Ukaine?

          2. Roadside shrines, public squares etc. People seem to light them everywhere these days.

          5. I’m afraid I was rather amused by those Italian churches where you can buy candles and make a donation. And then light the electric candle! Nice churches though, and worth supporting for the art, music and architecture, as are many of our own.

          6. Even the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela has electric candles. Very naff. As an acolyte at my church, I had to light and later extinguish the candles in the choir on Sunday morning. Being a short-arse, I had to climb up on the benches in the choir stalls to reach. Caused some amusement.

          7. Our verger has the same problem. She needs steps to light the Paschal candle.

          8. Ring the bell, Verger, ring the bell ring,
            Perhaps the congregation will condescend to sing
            And the bloody organist will cease to play the fool,
            Play upon the organ and not upon his tool.

          9. Well at least nowadays our churches are enlightened enough not to kill people for blasphemy. Unlike the 6th century backward belief that an increasing amount of people in this country belong to. (Whether they like or not, because or course they can be killed if they don’t…).

          10. The followers of the RoP are dead set on re-introducing the blasphemy laws in the UK which were scrapped in 2008 in England and Wales and not until 2021 in Scotland. Of course, the blasphemy will only be illegal against Islam and its ‘prophet’.

          11. You mean their illiterate, paedophile, slave-owning, warmongering former little tribal chief with grandiose ideas? The one who is their “perfect man” – strewth!

          12. The difference is that it’s in their texts that anyone who rejects their Allah must be killed, whereas Jesus makes no such stipulation about His followers.

          13. Plus another difference is that there is no room for interpretation in theirs, according to the most dangerous.

          14. It’s mystery. What has happened to Mohammedanism?
            During the era roughly aligned to our early middle ages, the Moslems were great scholars. They rescued and kept alive the works of the Greek and Roman classical era. They were navigators, doctors, scientists and developed modern numbers that were far less clunky than the old Roman numerals.
            Now, they have slipped back in time to a more primitive age.

        2. Actually your standpoint is just as much a matter of faith and just as “irrational” as it is for someone religious. Unless, that is, you have studied every single religion and its variation’s to determine non of them are the truth. So really you haven’t escaped from anything other than your false preconceptions which is easy to do. All of us do it as we age, from immaturity to maturity. But some of us become wiser and do get an inkling of:
          “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
          Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
          It is the foolish person that lives in certainty for the whole of their lives.

          1. We shall have to disagree, my life has been factually science based. I am not ‘irrational’.

          2. Factually speaking, the two are not in conflict. I am religious but I love science and I’m far from unique in that. I have know quite a few physicists in my time because I knew Glen Seaborg and his team at at Berkeley. I think you would be quite shocked at the prevalence of religious attitudes amongst them.

          3. I too have known some. The ones who have ‘got religion’ are irrational but I’m not going to get into one of those interminable quasi- religious discussions about when a scientific theory becomes a religion. You won’t be convinced and nor will I!

          4. The Physicists that work in Berkeley are far from “irrational” they are and were some of the best physicists in the world. This friend of mine Albert Ghiorso, now sadly deceased, found the following elements:
            Americium ca. 1945 (element 95)
            Curium in 1944 (element 96)
            Berkelium in 1949 (element 97)
            Californium in 1950 (element 98)
            Einsteinium in 1952 (element 99)
            Fermium in 1953 (element 100)
            Mendelevium in 1955 (element 101)
            Nobelium in 1958–59 (element 102)
            Lawrencium in 1961 (element 103)
            Rutherfordium in 1969 (element 104)
            Dubnium in 1970 (element 105)
            Seaborgium in 1974 (element 106)
            He practiced a form of Hinduism and was a vegetarian.

            You say: ” but I’m not going to get into one of those interminable quasi- religious discussions about when a scientific theory becomes a religion.” Why would you think I’m interested in such a discussion? I’m not, all I’m pointing out that religion and science are not incompatible and there are some highly intelligent scientists, including the two I mention who would agree with me. One of them was a Noble Prize Winner and became Chancellor of UC Berkeley, so hardly irrational.

          6. There you go. You obviously have a chip on your shoulder about the subject. Just to let you know. I don’t give a flying fiddlers fork about converting people or anything even vaguely of that sort. As an Orthodox Christian, my attitude to that is very different from a Western Christians. So you are projecting when you say: “..You can go to bed tonight, happy that you’ve done your bit!” My “bit” is simply to have an interesting conversation because that’s the way we all learn things. Free enquiry, it is the scientific way. I do not have a closed mind and am always amenable to ideas and the possibility of change.

      1. It betrays a complete and utter misunderstanding of Christianity. Nobody who permitted this in the church is qualified to be a priest, imo.

  66. The Ugly Germans Are Back by Mathew D. Rose

    Driven by self interest German business interests and government have propelled Europe towards a political and economic abyss.

    “To avoid any misunderstanding, I have always supported the re-integration of Russia into Europe – and still do. But Germany has not done this. Instead, it played both sides to solely further its interests. While securing its supply of fossil fuels from Russia, it was instrumental in the Maidan event of 2014 (just business – to protect German economic interests), pushed sanctions (which it blatantly violated where profit was to be had, and is part of the military alliance that has expanded to the borders of Russia.”

    “Driven by self-interest” – did the ugly Germans ever leave? Even when they were supposedly acting atoning for the holocaust by letting the world and its wife into Europe, they insisted that we “take our share”. Why? We didn’t create the holocaust – neither did we exacerbate two World Wars. The towel-throwing German mentality is alive and kicking in its politicians.

    (Edit) P.S. by “play[ing] both sides”, Germany strikes me as not being very different to certain US banks during WWII. They are all nasty and self-seeking – at whatever cost.

    P.P.S. Thank goodness this is NoTTL…

    https://www.briefingsforbritain.co.uk/mathew-d-rose-the-ugly-germans-are-back/?mc_cid=83c151388d&mc_eid=abff0cc8e3

    1. I too have always believed in the reintegration of Russia with the rest of Europe. That is what Russia wanted too. Again, it was the Americans who proved to be the fly in the ointment who refused such overtures by Russia. I think that the US resented the loss of their enemy, the USSR because without it they would have had to confront their own shadow, to use a Jungian term. Of course, as we know, they managed to avoid that by demonizing Russia. They did exactly the same thing to Cuba, Castro, initially was well disposed to the USA and it was because of their conduct that Cuba turned to the USSR.

      1. My understanding is that, geographically, Russia, up to the Ural Mountains, is part of continental Europe, further east it is Asia.

        Am I right?

        1. Sounds about right.
          As a point of knowledge, if you are standing at Alport Heights near Wirksworth, the next piece of land to the East that is further above sea level is the Ural Mountains!

        2. Yes, that’s correct. Some parts of Russia are very Asian and it would be hard put to it to pretend they are Western. But I do not see that as an obstacle for Russia being part of Europe politically. After all, traditionally they have participated in our politics and our wars for centuries.

  67. There’s lots of waffle over demanding people go back to the office. If the civil service isn’t creating value, then the solution isn’t to get it into the office, it’s to ask if what the people are doing needs to be done. In over 70% of cases that’s going to be no.

    It isn’t that the CS needs to go in the office, it’s that it does very little the public actually need or want.

    1. I think that’s a given. However I’d rather they were all sacked! We have far too many local councillors, county councillors, MPs – we “need” very few of them.

    1. Not to mention his sisters who wear clothes that make them look like letter-boxes.

    2. Actually, it would be interesting to know how many accidents in Saudi Arabia are caused by men wearing their robes will driving. I bet it is vanishingly small, just so with maxi skirts.

    3. Don’t do twitter, though if Mr Musk’s takeover is successful, I might take a look!

  69. Got my order from Thompson and Morgan for Daphne x transatlantica ‘Pink Fragrance’. I’ve had the white one for some years and have taken several cuttings. Delicious scent. Though I don’t know where I’ll find space for these!. For years I’ve wanted one I saw a long time ago, small leaved and covered in pink flowers at The Garden House garden at Buckland Monachorum. I thought I’d found it a year or 2 back, but the supplier miss-delivered more of the white. Hopefully this time…

      1. As good as, but different from Belle Etoile and not the same as some of those other Philadelphus hybrids which I find rather unpleasant..

    2. We have Daphne bholua Jacqueline Postill, has a beautiful citrus scent, really lovely and blooms January/February. purple/pink and white flowers. Gorgeous.

  70. Just found out – Mother has some slim 1960 Danish easy chairs, and a pair of the same just sold for EUR 9.000 at auction! Wow!
    Glad we found that & didn’t just give them away.

    1. That is great!

      It does make me a bit pi**ed off again, that my ridiculous old can’t-keep-it-in his-trousers father left all my mother’s (well they weren’t from his side of the family) beautiful antiques, which were worth a fair amount, to his last gold-digging wife (only 27 years younger than he was when he was 69). Plus everything else – several £ million nowadays, while D and I are waiting for my state pension to help our circumstances.

      Sorry, not meant to be a rant but I couldn’t help it, please forgive me but I am not taking it back…

      1. Rant away. It’s very frustrating when something like that happens. I am still smarting from the loss of things of mine that my mother disposed of in my absence and without my knowledge or consent. They would be worth a lot of money now if I’d been allowed to keep them. I know it’s gone and can’t be undone, but I still deeply regret it!

        1. When I left home at 16 and joined the RAF my mother threw all my immaculate Dinky toys, my top of the range Meccano set and my huge Hornby 00 train set plus a load more stuff including my Humpty Dumpy (sniff sniff) into the bin. I dread to think how much they’d be worth now as they were all in their original , as new, boxes.

          1. Aagghh!! My mother’s toll of destruction included all the dust jackets off my Biggles books first editions, which I had carefully taken off and stored to keep them pristine! More than halved the value of the books at a stroke 🙁

      2. Sounds like you have good reason to be aggrieved, HL. My sympathies.
        The bit that gets me is that I can’t tell Mother how much her stuff is worth, or she’ll get right upset. She’s never going home, we have no space for it, so best it gets moved on to someone who will treasure it.

        1. Perhaps it’s for the best that your mother doesn’t know the full value of her things. What good would it do her now? At least it means that her place in the nice home you have found for her is completely assured for her life.

  71. Eid Mubarak! Almost 30,000 Muslims gather at dawn in Birmingham park as millions in the UK mark the end of Ramadan
    Almost 30,000 Muslims gathered in Small Heath Park, Birmingham, from 6am to mark the end of Ramadan
    It is one of the largest Eid celebrations in Europe, but has been cancelled for the last two years due to covid
    Organsier Saleem Ahmed said it is a ‘relief’ to return to normality and host the ‘joyous occasion’ in the park
    Some 3.3million Muslims will celebrate Eid for three days, starting today, after Ramadan ended yesterday

    While one in 20 Brits is Muslim, a new study revealed that two in five non-Muslim Brits will join Muslim friends, colleagues and neighbours in celebrating the special festival this year.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10774623/Eid-Mubarak-Thousands-Muslims-gather-dawn-Birmingham-mark-end-Ramadan.html

    2. Well they have to be in your face about everything, just to show how influential they are. “It is one of the largest Eid celebrations in Europe” – well it would be, wouldn’t it?

    3. 40% of non-Muslim Brits will be celebrating this Muslim festival? Pull the other one.

      1. We should celebrate it by planting an effin great bomb in the middle of them – lets see how they like it

    4. Non-muslims will quickly find, once critical mass is reached, that they have no muslim friends. The koran forbids befriending the kuffar.

    4. And apparently one of several already on that particular bus model. Probably Renault electrics.

      1. When the battery ignites it produces oxygen. Which as you know feeds the flames. They are impossible to put out. I hope no one was on that bus.

      1. How many deaths from electric car explosions will it take till they realise that electric cars and buses are not only useless but dangerous?

        And the answer, my friend, is not coming from the wind
        The answer’s not coming from the wind (nor is coming from solar)

  74. Afternoon, all. I’m here early because it’s Bank Holiday with weather to match 🙁 Drove through Audlem (should have been renamed Bedlam) this afternoon; for every Union flag, there was a Ukrainian one! WTF (if you’ll pardon my language)? It made me feel like buying a Russian flag to redress the balance. Even the local cricket club is flying the Ukrainian, but not the UK, flag. Quotas are not the way to solve any deficiency, particularly in terms of redressing inefficiency!

    2. It is faux support that costs little and requires no involvement. As superficial as the MSM propaganda about what is going on over there.

      1. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just advertising that they drink the Bbc koolade.

    4. I wonder if these people that go in for all this virtue signalling malarkey just want to be liked and loved.

      1. Very tempting, if only to see the virtue-signallers’ heads erupt! Ah, Ivan Grozny, a nickname I used to tease my brother with 🙂

        1. I expect anyone flying the Russian flag would have their windows smashed or worse.

          1. Assuming the morons recognise it? Passing the Russian embassy in London, I noticed the gold double headed eagle is there but not the flag.

    6. Any more pots and pans for our wonderful NHS – same populist cr*p swallowed up by same kind of people.

      1. Dear Heart – I have mislaid your e-mail. When you have time, could you possibly send me Spikey’s e-mail address? He is quite happy for you to do so.

  75. 352349+ up ticks,

    Hundreds of Boat Migrants Reach British Shores as Rwanda Plan Flounders

    “Flounders ” It never got of the bottom it was never meant to fodder, for fools as the 5th May rapidly approaches,

    Mrs Mohammed abdul never had any silly sons.

  76. That’s the chopped log stack I began before my trip to Wild Welsh Wales finished. A couple of wheelbarrows full of the unsawn logs moved to the saw horse, sawn, chopped & stacked.
    Did a ring count on the largest of the elms I dropped last year and, allowing for it dying off a two or three years before I felled it, it appears to have began it’s growing 4 or 5y before we moved in here 31y ago.

  77. I apologise as this is a rant.

    I genuinely, honestly want to punch Boris Johnson. I want to hit him hard enough to drive the wind out of him. Then I want to do the same to every member of cabinet. After I’ve done that, I want to do it again and again.

    Our meter has just ticked over to £2. Last year this time of day would be barely £1.10. They have made energy expensive. They have made us poorer by £200 a month *each*. That’s £400 we’re robbed of, 400 Junior cannot have for his future, £400 not gone into a new home.

    And for what? So the useless fools can continue to waste money forcing companies to invest in wind? That’s the idea, of course – force pension companies to pay the subsidy for wind energy so government doesn’t have to. Make people pay the tax twice.

    Then there’s the tidal wash of gimmigrants pouring across the channel brought here by ‘border force’. The very people paid to enforce our borders acting as a ferry service for illegal, criminal welfare migrants. What is the point of them if they’re doing the exact opposite of what they’re paid to do?

    Next year they hike business rates to 25% from the already offensive 19%. All to remain chained to the EU’s demented policies and keep us from growing. We need energy. Lots of it and what do those fools demand? More windmills. Wind providing *watts* of power, not GW. Truly, the whole lot need a thumping until they get the message.

    When they get the message, as few more smacks about the face to remind them that they’re all scum, irrelevant, poisonous scum. A final kick in the ribs to finish them off and a notice that should they continue to do this country down instead of serve it, that we’ll be back to do it again, harder.

    1. Send the wankers lorry loads of porn so that they all go blind!

      1. Perhaps bury them in filth.

        Thing is, I have no problem with the adult industry. The warqueen has worked in it, I know err ‘performers’ and if folk knew, they’d realise it is the most boring and least sexy industry about.

        If truckloads of sewage were poured into the HoC none would notice as they spew that out all the time anyway.

    2. You rant prompted me to look at Gridwatch to see how our eco wind and solar farms were holding up on a dull windless day. You will probably fume even more when you find from the attached grid shot that ALL the solar and wind energy that the UK is producing is being sent to France which has a lot of its own nuclear reactors out of commission – they are all getting very old now and need overhauling!

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6340532285b2efdab216e7d0b88dd61d0ed51eebf35134772ab29dee51c04baa.jpg

    3. At the moment, wind is providing 3.36% of UK demand, along with solar 1.79%. (solar cannot be accurately measured by Gridwatch).

    3. The war provides a good excuse for TPTB to raise the price of chicken, and publicise it in the Daily Mail, thus sparking a run on chicken, shortages and panic about food shortages.

    4. That is the price of the pretentious French chicken fed on herbs. Pipers Farm came out top in a blind taste test at a fraction of that price.

        1. You couldn’t possibly be pretentious. You’re a proper little Madame. :@)

    6. The West fears that the war in Ukraine will escalate into a chicken coup!

  80. Signing off for this Bank Holiday. Got the greenhouse scrubbed out. Very wet, water!

    I do wish that I had engineering skills (well, any skills, really). I have a 50 year old lawn sprinkler. Works perfectly EXCEPT that the gasket has completely perished. Company no longer exists – so no spares available. The company name doesn’t even come up on google! I bet Spikey would fettle something in a trice… Similar with a container one attaches to a hose. You fill it with something to treat plants – plug in hose – and bingo. We used it today to Jeyes Fluid the greenhouse. Container – 40 years old – has a very slight split. Replacement no longer made….

    Likewise Jeyes Fluid – a shadow of its former self. Elfin Safety, I expect….

    Anyway – the day was completed with a 20 minute natter to fave grand-daughter. The MR smiled twice today….progress.

    Great excitement tomorrow. Three tradesmen calling. Plumber to replace a circulating pump (pump fine – just the capacitor on the blink = NEW pump – grr);
    AGA man for six month service; then sweep. The great thing is that all the men are a delight to have around. It is good to know that first rate tradesmen still exist….

    A demain

    1. I’m bloody jealous, as I really want trades people to come along and sort our various problems out. It’s incredibly frustrating to call and call and get no where.

      In fact, there has got to be someone you can speak to who can arrange all this stuff for you. If one bloke drops out, andother picks up. One person QAs the work, one person is paid and pays the rest.

    2. Can you wind some of that plumbing tape around the sprinkler?
      It’s a sort of very thin polythene cling-filmy kind of tape, and you wind it round leaky bits.

    3. Can you wind some of that plumbing tape around the sprinkler?
      It’s a sort of very thin polythene cling-filmy kind of tape, and you wind it round leaky bits.

    4. I recently employed two gardeners. I casually asked if they would consider other work like cleaning the guttering. They are happy to do any job i ask of them. £22 per hour each but they can get a lot done in a morning. I am going to ask them how they feel about painting next.

      Have a nice evening, Bill.

      1. I wish I could find folk like that. What the flip am I doing wrong? I am polite and friendly, I make them tea or offer for them to make their own if they want, I pay promptly, usually on the day.

        Where can I find such folk!

        1. It is luck. In 62 years as a householder, I have only had three duff tradesmen. And two of those were OK at their job but their personalities made ones flesh creep.

          1. We had a lovely guy to do our roof back in January/February…….and the scaffolding team was highly professional, too.

          2. Any tradesman who does a bad job round our way doesn’t get work as the jungle drums inform everyone

          3. Same here re roof and scaffolding. My painter has been painting our house more or less since we moved here (in 1982). He does a good job and is very reasonable. He’ll also turn his hand to minor repairs. My oil boiler servicer is a Brexiteer and reliable, my sweep (he’s the second generation) has been sweeping my chimneys since we opened up the fireplaces at the end of the eighties.

        2. I don’t bother with CheckaTrade as it’s fixed. I googled for gardeners near me and they came up. They are incredible. One of them is the local Primary School Governor !
          Best thing is ask friends and neighbours to recommend someone.

          2. When i last looked no one got any bad reviews. All scoring high. That doesn’t reflect reality.

      1. That’s very kind, Spikey – but materials, postage (to say nothing of your time) would far exceed the cost of a modern “not so good” replacement – at £9.99….

          3. Thanks. The MR has just said I’d be mad not to take up your offer!!!
            Tomorrow, I’ll photograph the parts and mail them to you.

    6. A gasket set, maybe not as big as this one. Or there is a tube of gasket sealant that can be used as a sealant. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/153103461760?epid=1005345872&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&hash=item23a5ad6d80:g:UykAAOSwhMFbTgCt&amdata=enc%3AAQAGAAAA4JfmegdZjeNFNDyoM28%2BVNHjs9HDEulEDD%2BxMxHDa3e3lvM4pVFkRZeWFevR1J4Q53rJ00eF4MxH79LDT0es4Xp12Jlygdo87KX72bM66BNEg3O5fB2PnQLPJCF%2B4EtCJO53%2FPk7dz%2BPtA7USfED5%2FjhTK3PTQDsud%2Bd6aS6kgq6XwRkG2AmTbpfj8bHyt3nrYcVUUAxAGa0qCX03HD0%2BSGrMDkotIQKaizCazjueTfCWAa4PzOtz7XwGogf4qe6opnsNMZGhVHJ9M5bnTou0HzyHCXw9Jcj%2BmxzMrqkjZh4%7Ctkp%3ABFBM7Ijz3JBg

        1. You can buy little kits of various sizes. Useful to keep at home.

    7. A gasket set, maybe not as big as this one. Or there is a tube of gasket sealant that can be used as a sealant. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/153103461760?epid=1005345872&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&hash=item23a5ad6d80:g:UykAAOSwhMFbTgCt&amdata=enc%3AAQAGAAAA4JfmegdZjeNFNDyoM28%2BVNHjs9HDEulEDD%2BxMxHDa3e3lvM4pVFkRZeWFevR1J4Q53rJ00eF4MxH79LDT0es4Xp12Jlygdo87KX72bM66BNEg3O5fB2PnQLPJCF%2B4EtCJO53%2FPk7dz%2BPtA7USfED5%2FjhTK3PTQDsud%2Bd6aS6kgq6XwRkG2AmTbpfj8bHyt3nrYcVUUAxAGa0qCX03HD0%2BSGrMDkotIQKaizCazjueTfCWAa4PzOtz7XwGogf4qe6opnsNMZGhVHJ9M5bnTou0HzyHCXw9Jcj%2BmxzMrqkjZh4%7Ctkp%3ABFBM7Ijz3JBg

    1. I’m not really sure what folk are getting at. If I’ required to wear a mask, as I am at the dentists, I do. Otherwise I don’t.

      I don’t wear one about the house as… it’s my house.

      If she wants to wear a mask she’s welcome to. As for not wearing shoes and socks… I don’t normally either. I live and die in my slippers!

        1. You take it off just before the dentistry – I tried that one, they didn’t find it funny.

          1. I tell them that I’m exempt. And what is the point of anti-bac when it’s supposedly a virus? I never use the stuff.

          2. Antibac is great for creating dermatitis. Takes all the fat out of the skin, leaving it irritated and prone to cracking up.

          3. “leaving it irritated and prone to cracking up” – Nottlers-R-Us!

          6. It’s horrible stuff! I did use it for a bit at first but then I thought – why bother? It’s pointless.
            You still see people at Tescos and elsewhere religiously sanitising before they pick up the basket or push the trolley. I went to the garden centre this afternoon and saw three people walking about outside with masks on. There’s no hope for some people.

          7. My dentist was annoyed with the stuff recommended to clean down surfaces and equipment. His very expensive equipment began to show signs of rust.

          8. They will be like that for the rest of their lives, I am sure of that. It is horrible stuff, I used it once or twice in the early stages of lockdown and it took my breath away. People have rubbed their skins red raw with it. I still see people wiping the trolley handles with it. There is no hope for them.

          9. When we went to the hospital for a consult for my husband, a man was beside the check in desk with sanitiser and masks in a box. He pounced as we walked past and was all set to squirt our hands and gives us masks. No thanks, I said, we are mask exempt and our hands are clean. He backed off.

          10. I wiped the trolly handles with the diluted stuff Morrisons put on the table outside, when they still had the queuing system in the summer of 2020. Once they abandoned that (and never went back to it in subsquent lockdowns) I abandoned it as well. Tesco’s still have separate in and out doors, and probably always will now.

          12. I think that using anti-bacterial spray for everything means that peoples immunity systems may not develop properly. It’s overkill. We need to come into contact with some germs to build immunity.

          13. Yo, Maggie. A large proportion of our tiny congregation has been ‘stricken’ by Omicron The Sniffles in the last month or two. It’s prolly not statistically relevant, but all are boosted at least once, and all were the ‘maskiest’ of all.

    2. What was she waffling on about? She’s blocked anyone from viewing her posts.

  82. Our dear Anne was stuck on a crossword clue which i answered. I think they should publish my letter in the DT and give me lots of money.

      1. All three, I suspect.
        I believe the answer is…either. an anagram of three and I. I could be wrong because Anne didn’t tell me how many letters. But then again i am always right…unlike Bill Thomas and Sosraboc !

  83. MORE migrants are on the way, French MP warns as 2022 total hits 7,000 already – triple last year’s number – as many say Priti Patel’s Rwanda plan won’t stop them
    Dozens of those making the journey from Calais and Dunkirk say they’re still prepared to take their chances
    A significant number arrived on Sunday and Monday morning after an 11 day lull in Channel crossings
    The drop was claimed as early victory for Government’s new scheme for sending asylum seekers to Rwanda
    It comes amid new strategy since April 14 which saw military take charge of attempts to control crossings

    A French MP has warned that Priti Patel’s Rwanda migrant plan is being used by people smugglers to urge asylum seekers to bring forward their Channel crossing.

    It is expected that the number of migrants who have made the perilous crossing during 2022 could hit 7,000 over the next few hours.

    French MP Pierre-Henri Dumont said Ms Patel’s controversial plan, which has been condemned by opposition politicians and human rights organisations, could be having the opposite effect than the hard-line measure was intended.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10775599/Channel-migrant-crisis-French-MP-warns-gangs-using-Priti-Patels-Rwanda-plan-sales-pitch.html

    The population of the village I live in is just over 5,600.

    When we moved here , the population was about 4,000 .

    What on earth is this government doing to us all.

      1. People are moving out of London and elsewhere , they cannot cope .. but , a big but .. the powers that be want to build 1,000 new homes in our lovely fields here.

        1. Where are they going to put them? In amongst the windmills and solar panels?

    2. 352349+ up ticks,

      Evening TB,
      Easy one that,setting up mind control for todays kids,kids.
      their friend the mobile phone WILL instruct on whats to be done on any given day as well as “watch out lamppost ahead”

    4. The truth is that our globalist masters wish above all else to replace us. This intention must by now be blatantly obvious even to a cretin.

      Our globalist masters have already decided that we national patriots are a mere encumbrance, to be killed off via poisonous ‘vaccinations’, starved to death, relieved of our property and possessions, or else otherwise reduced to serfdom by our political masters.

      These fuckers are in for a fight. I will oppose them every step of the way.

  84. 352348+ up ticks,
    Will someone enlighten me when asking,
    regarding the Dover reset / replacement government run campaign will the voting pattern as in support / votes for the mass illegal immigrants lab/lib/con coalition still find favour in seeking more of the same come Thursday.

    1. You can write Friday morning’s headlines already ogga, and they won’t be “Liblabcon mass voted out by disgruntled public.”

      1. I didn’t say I was off to bed, just that I was saying goodnight from Nttl.

      1. Cley Next The Sea.
        If I could afford to fund the restoration and had somewhere to work on them with facilities, I’d have been interested in the two cabless tractors as they are both out of use.

        1. I’ve spent more time at Cley, over the past 40 years, than any other seaside location. I can’t remember seeing tractors there though. They probably turned up when the council gave up on constantly repairing the sea defences.

          1. I think they are used for launching and recovering the fishing boats that still operate along that bit of coast.
            Probably lobster and crab fishing.

          2. Seen something similar on Cape Cod. Lots of fishing up there and some of the beaches are quite steep- or they used to be; not been there for a while.

  87. Please look up gridwatch.co.uk
    There are now two versions:

    ‘Renewables’ and
    ‘Carbon Neutral’

    You will be appalled …

    1. Why is solar power included in ‘demand’? Do they take more electricity to work than they generate?

    4. Yet at the end of the year, they always seem to come out with figures proving that 43% of electricity was generated by renewables. I have a strong feeling it’s a scam, but I don’t know how it’s being done.

    5. There’s something fishy here. The site gridwatch.templar.co.uk has been around for years, and was the brainchild of a regular Disqus poster known as itzman. But the site is quite clear that “Gridwatch” is a registered trademark of Templar Consultancy Limited:
      Use by other organisations is strictly prohibited without prior consent.”

      Gridwatch.co.uk appears to be an entirely separate site from the above.

  88. Pinched from GP. You need to read ALL of this, right to the end!

    We all know that Putin is a bastard warmonger, but as the conflict goes on we need to strengthen our dislike by a closer familiarity with other aspects of his awful behaviour.

    Winning the last presidential election in a landslide several years ago has emboldened Putin to oppress his political opponents, the media and even the judiciary.

    Putin shut down four TV channels before the invasion, plus a couple more this month. He has even signed a decree obliging all Russian channels to broadcast a single telethon, presenting only one pro-governmental view on the war.

    To shore up his populist support, Putin launched the unconstitutional process of extrajudicial
    sanctions against his political opponents, imposed by the National Security and Defence Council (NSDC). These sanctions involved the extrajudicial seizure of property without any evidence of illegal activities of the relevant individuals and legal entities.

    Among the first to be sanctioned by the NSDC in February last year were two opposition parliamentary deputies – one was later arrested and shown on TV with his face beaten up after interrogation, and the other managed to escape from Russia – as well as members of their families.

    The process accelerated. In June 2021 alone, Putin put into effect an NSDC decision to impose sanctions against 538 individuals and 540 companies.

    In March 2022, 11 opposition parties were banned.

    The decisions to ban opposition parties and sanction opposition leaders were taken by the NSDC but they were put into effect by presidential decrees.

    After the head of Russia’s Constitutional Court called Putin’s unconstitutional reforms a ‘coup,’ Putin simply relied on the NSDC to push forward his unpopular policies. As for the ‘dissident’
    judge, Putin signed a decree cancelling his appointment as a judge of the court – another act in violation of the Russian Constitution.

    A nationalist website was set up some years ago by an adviser to the Ministry of the Interior; it is part of the general strategy of intimidating opponents. It names ‘enemies of the people’ and helps would-be killers track them down; among the victims are a famous journalist, and an opposition deputy who was murdered in his own house. Also identified on this website, and later arrested, are a newpaper editor and the editor of a YouTube channel. Some others who have been named have managed to flee Russia. The government has not shut down this site, even after an international scandal when the website published the personal data of well-known foreign politicians.

    Right-wingers control the political process in Russia through violence against those who dare confront their nationalistic and supremacist agendas. One of the most popular bloggers in Russia living in exile is a good example to illustrate this point. Not only does he, along with his family members, permanently receive death threats, radicals constantly intimidate the
    activists of his party (banned by Putin in March 2022), beating and humiliating them. This is what Russian radicals call ‘political safari.’

    The current military conflict can hardly lead to any diplomatic resolution as Putin permanently repeats that the forces of good are attacked by the forces of evil, saying ‘you are either with us or with terrorists.’ Clearly, there can be no political solution for such an Armageddon.

    Asked by a French reporter on the tenth day of the invasion how his life had changed with the beginning of the war, Putin replied with a smile of delight: ‘Today, my life is beautiful. I believe that I am needed. I feel it is the most important meaning in life – to be needed. To feel that you are not just an emptiness that is just breathing, walking, and eating something. You live.’

    How can one adequately describe such a man?

    ______________________________________________

    CORRECTION AND APOLOGY

    Through some ghastly error, the wrong names have been used throughout the above piece. For all uses of the word ‘Russia’ please substitute ‘Ukraine’, and replace all references to ‘Putin’ with ‘Zelenskyy.’

    H/T Broad Oak

    1. There is an intense cloud of propaganda, BoB; can anyone cast a little light ?

      1. Basically, Putin is a nasty bastard, but he’s a nasty bastard who is has put a HUGE amount of effort trying to sort out the corruption in his country, corruption encouraged by the West from the fall of the USSR as well as protect ethnic Russians in the Donbas region of the Ukraine.

        Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a corrupt bastard who has received billions of American taxpayers’ Dollars via the then Vice President, now President Joe Biden in a deal that saw a large percentage of those taxpayers’ dollars being paid to Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, with 10% of the rake off for the Big Man.

        As a result one could be forgiven for believing that Joe Biden is in Zelenskyy’s pocket.

        What must not be forgotten is that when the Ukraine elected a pro-Moscow President, Viktor Yanukovych the United Sates, then under Barak Obama, organised a coup, now called the Maidan Revolution, to overthrow the democratically elected (or rather as close as you’ll ever get to “democratically elected” in that corrupt cesspit) President. A revolution largely carried out by neofascist elements within the Ukrainian military and associated militias.

        1. Putin is a bit of a thug, but I do believe he is a patriot. You don’t rule Russia by being nice.
          My impression is that Zelensky is for sale to the highest bidder, and just does what he is told. Like so many other leaders of small countries!

          1. Despite all the propaganda promulgated by the BBC, Sky, ITV and the MSM, consider the might of Russia with the teeny-weeny Ukraine.

            Who has the greater killing power?

            I would back Russia every time and that’s without using nuclear in any form.

            For that reason and that alone, I would strongly advise USA, EU, UK and NATO to butt out before they ALL get seriously hurt.

          2. It’s we who will get seriously hurt, not the evil people making the decision.

        2. I am delighted with your reply BoB!

          I share your views about Putin and the despicable Zelenskyy; unfortunately, my – ‘soshal media savvy’ – daughter and son – see things differently …

  89. In 1978, before football’s World Cup in Argentina, Scotland’s football fans sang “We’re on the march wi’ Ally’s Army” (Ally MacLeod, team manager). Here’s another football setting and another army that could sing the same song.

    Blackburn Rovers becomes first UK football club to host Eid prayers
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-61300097

    Yasir Sufi, integration manager at the club, said: “We live and breathe, one town, one club, one community. An event like this shows this better than anything else. It shows that we are all one, no matter who you are or what your identity is, the football club is somewhere where you belong.”

    LF we are…

    1. Did they host Easter prayers? Diwali celebrations? Hannukkah? No? Wonder why not.

  90. In 1978, before football’s World Cup in Argentina, Scotland’s football fans sang “We’re on the march wi’ Ally’s Army” (Ally MacLeod, team manager). Here’s another football setting and another army that could sing the same song.

    Blackburn Rovers becomes first UK football club to host Eid prayers
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-61300097

    Yasir Sufi, integration manager at the club, said: “We live and breathe, one town, one club, one community. An event like this shows this better than anything else. It shows that we are all one, no matter who you are or what your identity is, the football club is somewhere where you belong.”

    LF we are…

  96. Good night, everyone. After a month of watching all of my Judi Dench DVDs followed by all of my Stephen Sondheim DVDs, I am off with the Wrinklies tomorrow to watch Downton Abbey – A New Era. For the rest of May I shall revert to YouTube versions of 1001 Movies To Watch Before You Die. This will start with a couple of years’ worth of silent movies (late 1920s) and then continue into the 1930s with talkies. All of this has been and continues to be a real education.

    1. I saw a lot of this at the National Film Institute on the South Bank back in the seventies.

      I remember those early Humphrey Bogart films, ‘The Maltese Falcon’ and so on. ‘Under the Volcano’ was a remembered film as I was reading Malcolm Lowry at the time.

  97. Good night, everyone. After a month of watching all of my Judi Dench DVDs followed by all of my Stephen Sondheim DVDs, I am off with the Wrinklies tomorrow to watch Downton Abbey – A New Era. For the rest of May I shall revert to YouTube versions of 1001 Movies To Watch Before You Die. This will start with a couple of years’ worth of silent movies (late 1920s) and then continue into the 1930s with talkies. All of this has been and continues to be a real education.

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