Wednesday 25 May: An untrustworthy PM and supine MPs are embarrassing Tory members

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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637 thoughts on “Wednesday 25 May: An untrustworthy PM and supine MPs are embarrassing Tory members”

  1. Is this the first time I have been first?

    (I must admit I could be accused of cheating by being in Turkey which is two hours ahead of BST)

    Good morning my friends!

      1. As well as those of general ill will, but nothing directed personally towards anyone here.

  2. Modern and heritage designs battle it out to build HMY Britannia’s £250m replacement
    Race to construct national flagship whittles down to two firms reflecting Britain’s maritime past and future, The Telegraph can reveal
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2022/05/24/modern-heritage-designs-battle-build-hmy-britannias-250m-replacement/
    BTL

    The two things that best sum up the sheer mean, spiteful nastiness of Mr Blair were his robbing the Queen of her yacht Britannia and depriving poor intelligent children of the opportunity to go to independent schools by scrapping the assisted places scheme.
    Many of the woes of modern Britain can be traced back to this abominable, war criminal prime minister.

    I can feel the Queen’s pain that the repulsive Blair inflicted on her more sharply now that Covid regulations crippled us financially – linked with the fact that I am getting older – has led to us having to sell Mianda

    2. That must be such a blow to an old sea-dog, Richard. I feel for both you and Caroline.

      …and thank you for yesterday’s Birthday notification despite Internet problems.

    3. Blair’s New Labour project, now perpetuated by Starmer and especially Khan in London, is to siphon off national resources towards go-getting self-servers and spinning it as doing the public a great favour. They are just carrying on with what Thatcher’s business chums started when they redeveloped the Isle of Dogs. Only rich people are entitled to civilised living, so Labour’s reforms insist, and the media tell us this is “progressive”.

      As for Britannia, when someone is declared bankrupt and the creditors take all the assets, the bankrupt is at least left with the tools of the trade, in order to have a sporting chance of working to pay back the debts. This concession was not even given to Her Majesty when Blair scrapped HMY Britannia. This ship was primarily used by the Queen to carry out diplomatic and trading work all around the world, and almost certainly gave back to the national purse more than it cost. It was the tool of her trade, which is being the world’s longest serving Head of State.

      The main criticism of Britannia, was that like the Queen, it was old and past its prime, and built in an age when energy efficiency was not an issue. I can appreciate that, having myself a 35-year-old car as a daily runner. Renovation or replacement should have been considered more seriously than just scrapping it and leaving the Queen having to drum up trade from Windsor.

      1. Good point. I’m sure some Ollie Gark would have been delighted to buy the yacht as a status symbol.

    4. TBF – Major started the process.
      Another chippy git creeping to the EU.
      Moaning, Mr. T.

  4. An untrustworthy PM and supine MPs are embarrassing Tory members

    Since when has it ever been any different since Thatcher

  5. Since I started to have my teeth sorted out in Poland (since there is no longer a working dental health system in the UK thanks to “reforms” and think tanks setting policy), my nightmares have returned. Two nights, it was the end of the world as the whole of the Earth’s crust boiled over in a sea of magma, and I was left wondering if it was going to hurt, or whether it would be over so quickly, it wouldn’t bother me too much. Just now, I had to deal once again with an old wound over a girl I was in love with 25 years ago, whose parents took a dislike to me, after which I could never love anyone again or have any positive feelings about people.

    I found a question about one of my geocache sites – a puzzle created from a set of photographs I took around Great Malvern, which then gave up the co-ordinates for the location of the box. I was feeling grumpy, so I added this to my reply. I post it here, because we all love our grumpies here:

    “There are a couple of photoclues I need to change – the cat was on a large screen of tiles supporters of the little theatre individual supporters painted and contributed to fund the project. One day part of the screen was vandalised and the founder, Dennis Neale, who has been very ill, managed to rescue some of the tiles, then the whole screen disappeared. The more I live, the less respect I have for humanity! Therefore, place the cat as if you are at the now-derelict Theatre of Small Convenience in Edith Walk, next to the site for redevelopment just above Waitrose. The theatre itself is in the middle of a tangle where a big corporation took over Malvern Hills College with a view to redeveloping the site and already centralised the courses to Evesham. Dennis Neale donated his little theatre to the Arts Department of the college when he knew he couldn’t carry on with his puppet shows. It’s split up the Independent Group controlling the district council, which wanted to buy the college and run it as a community resource, after they ran up huge bills fighting corporate lawyers. The County, which takes the lion’s share of the Council Tax, has no interest in adult education. They argue that it should be run privately, and the Council Tax just spent on paying their executives and consultants, honouring preferred contracts (they have a good thing going with Highways putting in unnecessary traffic lights and spinning out roadworks for years) and legal compliance, leaving little left for public services.

    Another, the ‘Smile’ image is now off-route, since the Council added a new extension to the Council offices. For ‘Smile’ you need to go into Avenue Road and look for a centre for disadvantaged people across that road, opposite the Council’s debating room. The rainbow symbol must carry its old meaning – a splash of colour to cheer everyone up on a rainy day, rather than the one imported from America meaning being attracted to your own sort, or the Covid alternative – clapping for institution that shuts its patients out of its surgeries and denies them emergency treatment in hospital.”

    [edited because old age and word substitution never go away these days]

  8. Andrew Bailey is floundering in the face of soaring inflation. 25 May 2022.

    This week, speaking at a conference in Vienna, Bailey denied that the Bank’s decision to print billions of newly minted pounds, and to slash interest rates all the way down to close to zero at the height of the pandemic had anything to do with either him or indeed the Monetary Policy Committee. ‘What I reject is the argument that in our response to Covid, the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee let demand get out of hand and thus stoked inflation,’ he argued. ‘The facts simply do not support this.’

    The Denial of Reality has now spread to the Technocrat Classes!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/andrew-bailey-is-floundering-in-the-face-of-soaring-inflation

  9. Good morrow Gentle NoTTLefolk, a big thank you, to all who posted Birthday greetings for me yesterday.

  10. SIR – At least there was a part-used bottle of hand sanitiser on the table. William T Nuttall

    I can only think that it had been consumed with the gin.

  11. Ukraine invasion may be start of ‘third world war’, says George Soros. 25 May 2022.

    “The invasion of Ukraine didn’t come out of the blue. The world has been increasingly engaged in a struggle between two systems of governance that are diametrically opposed to each other: open society and closed society.”

    The 91-year-old former hedge fund owner said the tide had started to turn against open societies in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US in 2001. “Repressive regimes are now in the ascendant and open societies are under siege. Today China and Russia present the greatest threat to open society.”

    This is unutterable twaddle. The unwritten assertion here is that the West is “open” and Russia and China are “closed. This comforting view was true thirty years ago during the height of the Cold War but is now, largely thanks to Soros and his cronies, a travesty of the truth. The “West” is no longer even vaguely democratic. It is in fact, if anything, closer to China than anyone. It has its own version of Marxist Ideology and all the other appurtenances of Police States. Control of the Media. Massive Surveillance and Propaganda Programs. Its own Internal Enemy; the White Working Class; and a self-created enemy in Russia to distract them as they are erased from the pages of history itself! If any State may be said to be under siege it would be the Russian Federation that stands alone against the Globalist Menace.

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/may/24/ukraine-invasion-may-be-start-of-third-world-war-says-george-soros

    1. I think we just take the exact opposite of whatever that old swindler says.

    2. Whether a Third World war is going to kick off soon, will of course be decided at Davos

      Obviously, of course, the senile old Twit meant WWIII.

      The third World is already at war with us, lead by the Wokists, LGBT, XR etc

    4. Russia was so “closed” forty years ago that I went there to study as part of my degree.

  14. Nineteen students and two adults killed in Texas elementary school shooting. 25 May 2022.

    A teenage gunman has killed at least 19 children and two adults after storming into an elementary school in Texas, officials have said, the latest bout of gun-fueled mass killings in the United States and the nation’s worst school shooting since Sandy Hook a decade ago.

    A subject much easier to avoid than comment on. I of course do not approve of the banning of firearms which I think is the first step on the road to tyranny. On the other hand I don’t approve of their indiscriminate distribution to people who clearly should not be in possession of them. We could all I think agree on their control if we did not suspect that it would be the thin edge of the wedge. Perhaps we need something like the solution provided by A. E. van Vogt in the Weapon Shops of Isher!

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/24/texas-school-shooting-uvalde-robb-elementary

    1. Good morning Minty .

      The Dunblane massacre took place at Dunblane Primary School near Stirling, Scotland, United Kingdom, on 13 March 1996, when Thomas Hamilton shot dead sixteen pupils and one teacher, and injured fifteen others, before killing himself. It remains the deadliest mass shooting in British history

      Now we have a different culture comprising of knife/machete slashers.

      1. Morning Belle. Yes I know. They have succeeded in slowing, not stopping, the death rate!

      2. Apparently information on that event is locked away for 100 years. Nobody seems to know why.

        1. Morning Anne.

          I found this https://www.britannica.com/event/Dunblane-school-massacre.

          Dunblane school massacre, event on March 13, 1996, in which a gunman invaded a primary school in the small Scottish town of Dunblane and shot to death 16 young children and their teacher before turning a gun on himself.

          The gunman, Thomas Hamilton, lived in the town. On the day of the massacre, he drove into the school parking lot at about 9:30 in the morning. He cut the cables on a telephone pole and then entered the school, carrying four handguns and 743 rounds of ammunition and wearing shooting earmuffs. He fired a couple of shots as he made his way to the school gym, where teacher Gwen Mayor had just taken her 29 Primary 1 (equivalent to American kindergarten) students for their physical education class. Hamilton entered the gym and immediately opened fire, wounding physical education teacher Eileen Harrild and teaching assistant Mary Blake and injuring and killing several children. Harrild and Blake took shelter inside a cupboard in the gym, bringing as many children with them as they could, as Hamilton continued his fusillade. When an adult and an older student tried to look inside the gym to find out what was going on, Hamilton fired toward them and then left the gym, firing toward the library cloakroom and into a mobile classroom, where the students lay on the floor at their teachers’ instruction. Hamilton then returned to the gym, dropped the gun he had been using and chose another one, which he used to kill himself. The entire attack took place over a period of less than five minutes. Mayor and 15 children were killed outright, and another child died in the hospital. A further 15 people, the vast majority of them children, were wounded.

          A motive for the massacre was never established. Hamilton had become an assistant Boy Scout leader at the age of 20 but soon came under suspicion because of his behaviour toward boys. After further complaints, he was required to leave the Boy Scouts, which angered him. He repeatedly asked to be allowed to return, to no avail, and he wrote letters of protest to various government authorities, claiming persecution. In the meantime, he became a gun collector, and he organized several boys’ clubs, in which he taught shooting, gymnastics, and sports. Though his clubs were initially popular and well-attended, his reportedly strange behaviour as well as his apparently pedophilic activities eventually alienated club members and their parents, and the clubs shut down. Some reports also indicate that he had been turned down as a volunteer at Dunblane Primary School. Tennis star Andy Murray was a student at Dunblane when the slaughter took place, and he later said that he had attended Hamilton’s boys’ clubs as a child.

          In the aftermath of the massacre, residents of Dunblane initiated the Snowdrop Campaign (named for the spring flower that was in bloom at the time of the mass shooting) to seek changes in British gun laws. The campaign’s petition gathered some 750,000 signatures, and a letter written by the mother of one of the slain children was printed in two national newspapers. In February 1997 Parliament responded by passing a law banning private ownership of handguns above .22 calibre, and in November 1997 the ban was extended to all handguns. In addition, security requirements for gun clubs were expanded. Following the passage of those laws, the incidence of gun killings in the U.K. dropped significantly.

          1. Tell that to Jill Dando and others shot randomly by illegally-held weapons.

        3. Try Gordon Brown and Lord Robertson. D notices slapped on all over the place. Very disturbing.

        1. He was guilty, but it is well past time for those sealed documents to be opened up. The survivors of the tragedy and the memory of those who died deserve no less.

      4. I find it interesting how people corelate the banning of handguns with the lack of similar attacks after Dunblane.
        But how many school attacks were there BEFORE Dunblane?

        Given the comparative ease at which illegal firearms can be obtained in the UK….

      5. Which has been normalised with ‘all part of living in a big city’ nonsense. That’s the travesty. as if it’s become culturally acceptable for black kids to kill one another.

          1. How about a cover up of the guilty parties (who will all be dead in 100 years’ time) among the PTB?

    2. The law abiding Britons have been deliberately disarmed to the point of utter helplessness.
      I’m not sure if firearm control in the US is a national or state competence. There certainly needs to be a ban on the sale and possession of army type weapons. I doubt the Founding Fathers were picturing machine guns when they passed the second amendment.

        1. The state of Illinois has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the US, yet there are literally dozens of shootings every week in Chicago.

      2. 352820+ up ticks,
        Anne,
        I seem to recollect that the long bow served us well in the past.

    4. It isn’t guns.
      https://twitter.com/wmiddelkoop/status/1529303724958556161

      In many of the above countries, guns are readily available, yet they don’t have school shootings on the scale of the US.
      So it’s not guns.
      https://attackersmokedcannabis.com is convinced that most of these attackers are on psycho drugs of some kind – prescribed, or illegal.
      Could also be that the social pressures on young white men are greater in the US, though that doesn’t really explain the long history of such crimes either.

      1. Morning BB. So far as I am concerned it is a cultural phenomenon. That said the US is the way it is and some method needs to be found to limit the slaughter!

          1. Yes. A disarmed American People are a threat to the entire world. It is only they that prevent the American Hegemony becoming total and darkness engulfing everything!

        1. “Slan” by A E van Vogt. A race of special people hidden among the ordinary race of humans, and whom the ordinary people persecute and kill when they can detect and catch them.

          1. Thank You, Horace, though I confess I’ve never read it or even heard of it.

    7. Funny we never see the hand-wringing liberals moaning about “gun culture” when the perpetrators of mass killings are members of the Religion Of Peace.

      1. Good morning

        Grey and windy here as well.
        Last night we were wrapped up warm , it was so cold, I covered myself with a blanket , Moh wore his heavy fleece and warm trousers , then we thought blow this , and put the c/h on at 9pm .

  16. 352820+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Wednesday 25 May: An untrustworthy PM and supine MPs are embarrassing Tory members,

    Supine,
    failing to act or protest as a result of moral weakness or indolence.
    “they remained supine in the face of terrible wrongdoing”

    No change from the last treacherous political cretins dating back near four decades.then, as for the tory (ino)members
    returning the same political shite again & again knowingly putting party before Country and accepting the consequences
    that really should be seen by decent peoples as criminal acts.

    Health & safety really should include a warning regarding supporting / voting lab/lib/con, decades of evidence shows it as being a killer / mass paedophile abuser of children etc,etc.

    The herds misguided voting pattern continues to keep these political arseh….
    in place ALL in the name of a party that has been DEAD for many a decade.

    1. I think supine replaces apathy for malice. The fanatical intent on green, the highest taxes, the most oppressive, deliberately destructive political class, the most corrupt and self serving administration – no,, this is intentional.

      Note that any windfall tax won’t fall on wind farms. They’re making absolutely record profits due to the incompetence of the civil service. A fixed floor and no ceiling for price per MwH and those are sky high at the moment. Some £236 per MWh compared to about 46 for gas. However, of course, the state won’t tax them. That’d be akin to giving them money, then asking for it back. Wind is inefficient and expensive. The green twaddle is just a complete pack of lies. There is nothing green about green energy.

      https://www.netzerowatch.com/windfall-profits-for-offshore-wind/

      I hate this useless government

      1. Boris falls into a particular age group that can be obsessive , obstructive and narcissistic.

        Tony Blair was also in that category.

        They give a little with one hand and punish us by taking troughs of liberties with the other .

        Praise then punish .. and the untruths keep flowing.

        1. I’m not much younger than Boris and my attitudes aren’t these. I’d be a dreadful PM as I’d start off by burning our tax code and replacing it with the Singaporean model.

          Then I’d go on a slash and burn approach to the state. Far too much is spent and far too little returned. People don’t like being told the truth but the fundamental basic truth must be told: you’ve got to provide for yourself. The reason you can’t is because Labour made you all dependent on the state. That changes now.

          1. I think you and I, Wibbles, would make good government leaders – I have a further few items in my knapsack – including a Field-Marshall’s baton!

  17. Good morning all. Another dry 8°C start with a bright overcast but, despite the clear & starry sky when I went to bed, the ground is wet from rain sometime earlier this morning.

  21. OT – last night we watched (on Sky Arts) a prog by Waldemar Januszczak about the art galleries in Lviv. The film was only made a few weeks ago.

    Leaving aside the “tributes” to plucky little Ukraine and the omission of recent history about the same plucky people killing 14,000 in the Donbas – it was a fascinating documentary. The more so because Waldemar conducted it in Polish – with some English commentary – and subtitles.

    Worth looking at on catch up.

  22. Long before Windrush and cross-channel dinghies:

    THEY came, they saw, they conquered. But while the Romans, Vikings and Normans ruled Britain for many years, none left their genetic calling cards behind in the DNA of today’s mainland Caucasian population. That’s the message from the most comprehensive analysis yet of the genetic make-up of the white British population.

    The only invaders that left a lasting legacy are the Anglo-Saxons. As well as giving us the English language, the Anglo-Saxons, whose influx began around AD 450, account for 10 to 40 per cent of the DNA in half of modern-day Britons.

    The analysis also springs some surprises. There was no single Celtic population outside the Anglo-Saxon dominated areas, but instead a large number of genetically distinct populations (see map below). The DNA signatures of people in the neighbouring counties of Devon and Cornwall are more different than between northern England and Scotland. And there are also unexpectedly stark differences between inhabitants in the north and south of the Welsh county of Pembrokeshire.

    ……

    Given the cultural significance of the Roman, Viking and Norman invasions, it’s surprising they didn’t leave greater genetic legacy. For the Romans and Normans, that may be because they were ruling elites who didn’t intermarry with the natives.

    The overall message is that despite their large cultural impact, Britain’s main invaders left no genetic stamp of note. “When you study the past through history, linguistics or archaeology, you learn about successful people,” says Donnelly. “History is written by the winners, so much of current historical information is from a relatively small subset of people. Genetics, by contrast, is the history of the masses.”

    Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530134-300-ancient-invaders-transformed-britain-but-not-its-dna/#ixzz7UHh9wjZ4

        1. It was such a drag, having to waste all that kindling just to heat the water for them. Easier just to cover yourselves in woad.

          2. They had to drop that, too many chariots so they used the safety track to provide extra capacity. It was Boadicea’s fault, she would insist on driving her chariot with the knifes extended so she took up 2 lanes.

          4. 🎼🎵
            “Climb up Snowdon, with your woad on,
            Never mind if you get rained or snowed ‘on!”
            🎶🎶

        2. It was such a drag, having to waste all that kindling just to heat the water for them. Easier just to cover yourselves in woad.

  23. Long before Windrush and cross-channel dinghies:

    THEY came, they saw, they conquered. But while the Romans, Vikings and Normans ruled Britain for many years, none left their genetic calling cards behind in the DNA of today’s mainland Caucasian population. That’s the message from the most comprehensive analysis yet of the genetic make-up of the white British population.

    The only invaders that left a lasting legacy are the Anglo-Saxons. As well as giving us the English language, the Anglo-Saxons, whose influx began around AD 450, account for 10 to 40 per cent of the DNA in half of modern-day Britons.

    The analysis also springs some surprises. There was no single Celtic population outside the Anglo-Saxon dominated areas, but instead a large number of genetically distinct populations (see map below). The DNA signatures of people in the neighbouring counties of Devon and Cornwall are more different than between northern England and Scotland. And there are also unexpectedly stark differences between inhabitants in the north and south of the Welsh county of Pembrokeshire.

    ……

    Given the cultural significance of the Roman, Viking and Norman invasions, it’s surprising they didn’t leave greater genetic legacy. For the Romans and Normans, that may be because they were ruling elites who didn’t intermarry with the natives.

    The overall message is that despite their large cultural impact, Britain’s main invaders left no genetic stamp of note. “When you study the past through history, linguistics or archaeology, you learn about successful people,” says Donnelly. “History is written by the winners, so much of current historical information is from a relatively small subset of people. Genetics, by contrast, is the history of the masses.”

    Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530134-300-ancient-invaders-transformed-britain-but-not-its-dna/#ixzz7UHh9wjZ4

  24. Ukraine good, Russia bad? Delingpole’s Swiss intelligence officer tells a different tale. 25 May 2022.

    That was exactly the same with terrorism, for instance. With terrorism, we thought that the more we strike people in the Middle East, the more we weaken terrorism. But in fact, it’s the opposite. You just stimulate a resistance: The willingness to resist, the willingness to come in Europe to perform terrorist attacks and things like this.

    And we have something very similar that’s happening in Russia today. The more we apply sanctions, the more we reinforce, in fact, the sense that Putin was right, because the narrative that Putin developed in the last ten years was that the West doesn’t like Russians. And today, each additional sanction we apply tends to reinforce and to confirm what Putin said.

    In addition to that, when we do, for instance, (as) the French minister of economy, Bruno Le Maire, said – that was very controversial, by the way, about one month and a half ago –‘We want to destroy the Russian economy. We want the Russian people to suffer,’ that’s when you make the Russian population responsible for the decision of Putin. That means, in other words, that you consider Russia as a big democracy.

    Some sobering facts about the War in Ukraine. The whole is worth a read for some of the insights that needless to say, do not appear in the MSM!

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/ukraine-good-russia-bad-no-heres-the-truth-about-that-official-narrative/

  25. ‘Morning All

    “UK Backs Plan to Escort Grain Ships Past Russia’s Naval Blockade of Ukraine

    The Royal Navy could be one force that contributes to challenging Russia in
    the Black Sea, according to reports. UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is
    reported to have already said that UK ships could theoretically take
    part”
    Nothing to do with the fact the plucky Ukes have heavily mined the port approaches??
    Good old Liz,always ready to promote WW3…Just Like Soros,just a coincidence I’m sure

    1. Morning Rik. I don’t think that I would pick a fight with someone in their private lake that has only one very narrow exit!

      1. She’s getting a WW2 2 man chariot sub out of mothballs to carry out the mission herself.

      1. Not only thick JD,. but badly advised.

        Once the Royal Navy have warships near the coast there will undoubtedly be missiles fired at them.

        Then Ms. Truss has to decide whether the missiles came from Russia, the Ukraine, Iran or ISIS….and act.

        I’m not sure that she is that sharp to get it correct, but heyhoe, it’s only taxpayers’ money and plebs lives.

    3. As long as you’re on the first ship, Liz. Do us a favour, and crew it with people like you.

  26. Why Sky News’ climate show flopped. Spiked 25 May 2022.

    The Daily Climate Show, Sky News’ much-hyped ‘first daily prime-time news show dedicated to climate change’, is to be axed from its prime-time slot and will be cut down from 30 minutes to just 10. Despite the insistence from the Great and Good that climate change is the single most pressing issue of our time, the show prompted tens of thousands of viewers to switch off at the sight of the opening titles.

    Perhaps I’m too pessimistic? There seems to be hope out there. If only they thought the same about Monkey Pox and Ukraine I could relax more often!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/05/24/why-sky-news-climate-show-flopped/

      1. Your coat’s on that hook over there, should you feel the need for it…

  29. To those wondering about the latest chilly weather – I’d just say – remember 5 June 1944…..the day that ought to have been D-Day but wasn’t because the weather was so bad!!

    1. We had some rough weather on the 6th of June a couple of years ago which had people complaining. I reminded several of what the anniversary was and what the weather was like then.

    2. And June 2nd 1953 wasn’t too good! The Queen developed her reputation for always bringing bad weather to events after that!

      1. Quite – I am expecting shite weather to spoil the diverse events planned for next week.

  30. “The dire diesel supply situation predates the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

    While global oil demand hasn’t yet reached its pre-pandemic level,

    global diesel consumption surged to a fresh all-time high in the fourth

    quarter of 2021. The boom reflects the lopsided Covid-19 economic

    recovery, with transportation demand spiking to ease supply-chain messes.

    European refineries have struggled to match this revival in demand. One key reason is pricey natural gas.

    Refineries use gas to produce hydrogen, which they use to remove

    sulphur from diesel. The spike in gas prices in late 2021 made that

    process prohibitively expensive, cutting diesel output.”

    https://doomberg.substack.com/p/grim-diesel?utm_source=email&s=r
    Cut Green taxes?? Oh how we Laffed

      1. Oh, I don’t know. These days, some kids are the product of a turkey baster!

  32. I see from the Tellegaff today that Fataturk is apparently finalising details of a windfall tax [how very Conservative, not!] – not because he thinks it’s a good idea [like cutting 40% of fuel tax, which the idiot MPs rejected] but because it might shift attention from Partygate! The man is an absolute feckin disaster.

    2. The Treasury has just gained a 100% windfall on the 5% VAT charged on domestic fuel which has doubled in price. I’m not aware of any politician pointing this out and suggesting VAT on domestic fuel is reduced to 2.5%.

      1. Good heavens! The very idea! They need all the money they can rake in from the peasants – gimmegrants, foreign aid, pi$$ing it up the wall on green idiocy …

    3. The Treasury has just gained a 100% windfall on the 5% VAT charged on domestic fuel which has doubled in price. I’m not aware of any politician pointing this out and suggesting VAT on domestic fuel is reduced to 2.5%.

    1. It used to be neck stretchingly ‘orrible sitting in class trying to copy stuff from the classroom blackboard , especially if you were sitting a fair distance from the board with lots of heads in the way.

      We did that for how many hours a day.. Maffs especially.

      1. Owing to being short-sighted, I used to sit at the front. No heads in the way 🙂 We did do a lot of dictation, though (in English and French), so when it came to shorthand, I was nearly as good writing in longhand as I was in Pitman’s (until we got up into the 70s and above)!

  34. Russian aggression
    SIR – For a 98-year-old, Henry Kissinger speaks and writes with remarkable clarity.

    Unfortunately, the content of his speeches suggests that he is either pro Vladimir Putin or senile.

    Under no circumstances can we ask Ukraine to cede its territories to Russia. To do so would be to send out the wrong message to would-be aggressors all over the world.

    Clive Pilley
    Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex

    Remembering the invasion of Cyprus by Turkey in 1974

    Upon Britain’s granting of independence to the island of Cyprus in 1955, the Cypriots were a mixed crowd of Turks and Greeks who had lived side by side with each other for centuries. Over the course of British rule, however, the seeds of division were reportedly sewn in the fabric of Cypriot society.

    The colonial administration, for example, formed a native police force made up of Cypriot Turks who were ordered to quash the calls for independence propagated by some of the island’s Greek population, and who fought against the Greek militant group the National Organisation of Cypriot Struggle (EOKA).

    As the island ruled itself following Britain’s habitual rapid evacuation from its former colonies, sporadic intercommunal violence continued to break out between its Turkish and Greek populations, whose division had only been further entrenched. Firstly, there were nationalist ideologies springing up amongst both populations, such as the Greek concept of ‘Enosis’ (unification with Greece) and the Turkish concept of ‘Taksim’ (partition of the island)

    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210720-remembering-turkeys-invasion-of-cyprus/

      1. I don’t know if Clive Pilley is senile but under his argument Serbia will be looking forward to regaining Kosovo.

  35. So shall ye reap
    SIR – On holiday in Romania a few years ago, a farmer with a scythe (Letters, May 23) was mowing the orchard next to our cottage.

    When I expressed an interest, he showed me how to peen the blade on a little anvil, to thin and work-harden it. He then gave me his scythe to try out, but was not very impressed with my efforts. He was much amused when we showed him a clip on my phone of the scything scene from Poldark.

    I bought a blade in an ironmonger there and fashioned the straight handle, or snath, when I got home. It has been a very useful tool, though my technique still requires improvement.

    Simon Coates
    Taunton, Somerset

    Izzat the Coates cums up from Zummerzet , where the Zider apples grow?

    2. Ah, memories. The photo is the album cover. It was a gatefold sleeve with the lyrics printed on the inside.

    1. In general terms ‘One’ might have expected Vlad to have fired a useful rocket into the building at Davos where the wreckers of mankind’s destiny have stationed themselves for another conference.
      Come on Vlad press the button it’s what m,any of us have been hoping for.

    2. And which were the generations that created the world that will be an eternal nightmare for their grandchildren?

  38. New record highs as petrol hits £1.70 a litre and diesel reaches £1.81. 25 May 2022.

    The average price for diesel was 181.4p a litre on Tuesday, according to data firm Experian Catalist.

    A year ago today, petrol was 129.0p a litre, with diesel at 131.3p a litre.

    UK ‘heading into unprecedented territory’ as energy price cap to rise to £2,800 in October – follow live updates.

    The price of petrol in Moscow is £0.71 Pence per Litre! Rock on those sanctions!

    https://news.sky.com/story/petrol-price-reaches-new-record-high-at-170p-a-litre-and-diesel-at-181p-data-shows-12620983

    1. That will give the person on the basic state pension of a little over 7,000 pounds around 50 pounds a week to live on, assuming the don’t own a car.

      2. I rather hoped they’d all arrive at Davos in combustible electric cars and leave them charging in an underground car park beneath the conference centre. That way they’d self destruct and spare Vlad the need to confess to the Patriarch.

          4. Bit impractical when you’re popping out for a pint of milk, I would have thought.

        2. Did you see the huge fire at Potters Bar a few busses were destroyed because their batteries had caught fire.
          That didn’t happen when we had electric Trolley buses did it.

        3. There was a report yesterday over on ZH of a Tesla catching fire with the driver inside. The Car’s electronics failed immediately so he was unable to open the doors or roll down a window. In the end he kicked out the drivers window. I have say that if I’m ever required to be a passenger in one if these I think I shall take a small hammer with me!

          1. Spring-loaded centre punch. Much smaller, just as good. Use it near the corner of the glass, not a laminated sheet, either.

        1. ?? it’s expected that the cost of energy will double up to around 2,800 take that off 7,000 and you’ll have 4,200 take off council taxes rent and other household expenses around 30 quid a week and you’ll arrive at around 50 quid a week. Simps.
          On the other hand it’s pretty clear we are being ripped off ragged by our useless government. Who are now spending more than 13 billion each year to accommodate thousands of illegal migrants, another 13 billion on Foreign aid and both, for what gain ? Self satisfaction British pomposity ?? Meanwhile last year between them, our politicos took home 132 million pounds in expenses. And apart from their known ‘side lines’ they all already live entirely off the British tax payers.

          1. If you had posted that people would be left with a net figure of £50 per week after various living expenses I would not have been confused, Eddy.

          2. With the upmost respect……Perhaps you need more of life’s ‘amazing’ experiences Elsie. How the civil services etc and any one who can rip off the public. 🤗

    2. It’ll stay high until the peasants have been bullied into giving up their cars.

      1. Sounds about right!
        Even before the current hike, it was often better to come off the motorway, find the nearest supermarket, tank up there and then carry on back to the motorway.

    5. Went to the garage this morning to check tyre pressures. Tank was a quarter full so I topped up with diesel for over £70. Ouch!

    6. I did manage to fill the tank for about $25 yesterday.

      That Trudeau and friends are loving high prices, they increased the carbon tax last month and are shooting down any efforts to bring prices down.

      Oh, that $25 was for the mower, filling the car would be around $100!

  39. Morning all.
    Well I might have cracked it, after a note was delivered to our surgery reception yesterday my GP rang me in the after noon and was very apologetic about the lack of treatment and seeming lack of interest I have been or not given over the past 15 months. Due to this most obvious shunt forward in attitude, I am fairly sure i’m not the only person who has been complaining to the management, the people who run the surgery as his enthusiastic attitude was almost over whelming. He also agreed that in general the NHS had lost it’s focus.

    How strange it is the when the corona virus pandemic started it was alleged that Dead monkeys that had been used in experiments at Wuhan had been sold as meat on the local market. And now we have a ‘monkey pox’ outbreak ??? Oh but it gives the ‘Experts’ plenty of TV air time (and of course fees) to answer questions supposedly sent in by members of the public. And ramps up the scare mongering.

    1. Good morning, Ready.

      I had an appointment with one of the nurses at the surgery this morning, for 09.10;
      at 09.50 i asked the surly receptionist if there was a problem, within a couple of
      minutes I was seen by the nurse, after my treatment she asked me to fill in a
      questionnaire . . . about satisfaction levels with my treatment by the admin/
      medical staff at the surgery !!

      1. We don’t see much of you Garlands I hope you are well. I’ve not bee post as much recently I’ve been ‘boxed in mentally’ by the government red tape etc. It’s been driving me nuts. Thank goodness for this outlet.
        Perhaps the staff are threatening rebellion against the over bearing management as well. I have mentioned this a few times but before the ‘pandemic’ the government employed around 6 new region directors, management, all being paid around 250 k per year. I suspect topically over officious supercilious DHs who have spent most of their lives ticking boxes for satisfaction. Civil servants (Savants). This is quite clearly another example of an overbearing Great British eff up. The biggest problem being, is our out of touch Political classes.

  40. Well, I have had it! Husband went in at 7.30- he called about 8 to say his surgery was going to be at 9. The hospital is supposed to let me know- nothing yet.
    Meanwhile, I have had a call. A biopsy, curettage and cauterisation and two wrong diagnoses. It is NOT Bowenoid Keratosis but is skin cancer. So I will have to go for yet another facial hacking.
    Sod this bloody government and sod the NHS….I realise they are trying to catch up but this is ridiculous.
    I will look like bloody Frankenstein by the time they’re done with me.

    1. Take a little heart. I know someone who had a similar diagnosis and treatments with liquid nitrogen. The scarring was temporary and healed better than the skin looked prior to the op. It gets reviewed annually and if the physician deems it necessary another short spraying is performed. It looks dreadful at the time but again heals very well.
      It has prevented the spread, so very good luck.

    2. Oh -no! so sorry to hear that. Has your face healed from the op? Is this the result form the biopsy you had weeks ago?

      1. First biopsy said Bowen’s Disease- then I had the removal of said thing and the cauterisation. Today’s news was the result of a second biopsy from that procedure. It does explain why it’s still dark in appearance and very tender.
        KBO….

    5. How horrible to have that conversation when your husband is in hospital having an op. Hope you get good news about him soon.

    6. I bet you’re spitting feathers.
      And I don’t blame you one little bit.

    7. Sorry to hear about your continued issues. You have prompted me to pluck up courage to make an appointment over my multiple actinic keratoses…

    8. This too shall pass, Ann. Prayers for you both. I have an appointment at the colorectal clinic in July. There’s fun.

    9. Oh, for heaven’s sake.
      What a bloody time you are having.
      All I can do is wish both of you the best and please keep us posted.

  42. 352820+ up ticks,

    I wonder if they would go for a win double
    as in Texas + United Kingdom, strength in Unity, it can work for the benefit of ALL.

    We currently are suffering strength in unity via the anti United Kingdom lab/lib/con coalition &, as witnessed, it works amazing well.

    https://gettr.com/post/p1b7byi47e9

      1. I’m surprised White’s hasn’t been renamed (after the chocolate company, Green & Blacks).

  44. Gosh – just been to have a shufti at the garden. It ain’t half cold, Mum. Lit the stove and put on warmer pullover.

    1. And windy Bill it’s been blowing all my lovely heart shaped Dog rose petals onto the grass.
      I have delayed planting my out side Tommies as well.

  45. Well.
    I had planned getting a mortar mix done and doing a bit more to the wall, but it was drizzling when I went out a couple of hours ago and threatening to get worse.
    So instead I’ve just chop-sawn three plastic mushroom trays full of sticks before the rain started.

    And as Bill said, below, it’s a tad chilly for the time of year!

    1. Ah. Well, that’s awkward isn’t it.
      Meanwhile on Twit, a trans person I know has posted
      “Wake up, look at the news. What is it that’s sick at the heart of the Anglosphere?”
      and one of their buddies replied “The Patriarchy.”

      1. No, it’s the increasing publicity given to very minor minority groups, being allowed to override good sense.

  49. ‘Morning Peeps. Brief visit today…

    This from the Letters BTLs:
    Martin Selves
    8 HRS AGO
    The hard times for Boris is about to start. The photographs we will see tomorrow will be explosive, and bring it all back. The HoC Committee might find Boris guilty of misleading the House. If they do he will fall. I think the whole thing is a Kindergarten joke. To sack a Prime Minister for having a few illegal drinks is crazy. I can think of a lot of serious reasons why Boris should go, but this is not one of them.

    * * *
    Parties/drinking sessions/farewell drinkies are said to have been commonplace in No10 and other government offices, including during the lockdowns. The point is surely this – when the lawmakers become law breakers we are on a very slippery slope. Presumably Martin Selves is happy with this?

    1. Selves and the entire MSM are deliberately missing the whole point!!
      Nobody gives a shite about cake,wine or curry we care that our political masters clearly KNEW there was no real risks involved yet they locked us down tried to forcibly jab us denied access to relatives and destroyed the economy
      On whose orders I wonder………….
      I would cheerfully see them all hanged

  50. Wordle 340 1/6
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Yep Wordle has been destroyed by some fœtid little Taffy/Chinky nerd (Owen Yin), sitting in his dank attic whilst his devoted mum leaves his pot noodles outside the door for him. How I want to strangle his cretinous scrawny neck!

    1. Good afternoon, Grizzly. Yes, there are some idiots out there. I had an evening out at the cinema spoilt for me when I was told in advance that the liner hit an iceberg and sank. (I’m not telling you the name of the film so as not to spoil your enjoyment if you ever get to watch it.) Lol.

      1. Good afternoon, Auntie Elsie. “Liner hit an iceberg”?

        Top Hat? Jungle Book? Gone With The Wind? Ben Hur? Am I close? 😉

        1. I think you find it was a One-liner; just like this one that’s now sinking……

          1. A longliner? Must be “Captains Courageous”. Should have gone to Spec-savers.

        2. Very close, Grizzly. The title is contained in the italics in your post (plus a final letter c). You just have to drop 29 letters and 4 question marks, then re-arrange the remaining 6 letters and add a final “c”.

        1. Not really, Grizzly, that film – as memory serves – was in black and white (i.e. BAME and PINK) – but the one I meant was filmed in colour! Lol.

    2. I feel the same when competing against obvious “bots” when doing the daily solitaire challenges. Coming in 8th out of a group of 50 to which one has been randomly allocated and on the same day in the top 10,000 out of 650,000 overall shows how relatively few cheats there are, infuriating though it is to find several in ones group.
      I do the challenges for the fun more than the position, although it is nice to get the occasional podium finishes.

      You could just carry on as before for the pleasure of the game and ignore the boor’s site.

    4. Wordle 340 6/6

      ⬛⬛🟨⬛⬛
      ⬛🟩⬛⬛⬛
      ⬛🟩🟩⬛🟩
      ⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
      ⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  51. What would George Floyd’s life have looked like without the crushing weight of racism? 25 may 2022.

    As we researched Floyd’s life, conducting more than 400 interviews to craft a portrait of his unique American experience, it was easy to envision a much different outcome for him, had his journey not so often run headlong into the brutal force of institutional racism.

    Instead of being born impoverished, Floyd could have come into the world as a wealthy scion of an industrious great-great-grandfather, if racism had not stripped his hardworking ancestors of their landholdings in North Carolina at the turn of the 20th century. He could have been able to pursue his second-grade dream of ascending to the supreme court, if underfunded public schools and dilapidated public housing had not defined his adolescence in a segregated slum. His lyricism and poetic nature could have elevated him to prominence in the world of arts, if his struggles with addiction and mental illness had been met with treatment rather than the unforgiving cruelty of the US’s mass incarceration complex. His less ambitious goals later in life – to become a truck driver or to open a small restaurant and provide jobs for the downtrodden – could have been achievable if Derek Chauvin had not ignored his pleas for mercy on that fateful day two years ago.

    Instead he died as what he was; a violent drug addicted thug who met his end after he was arrested for yet another criminal act.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/25/george-floyd-racism-two-years-on-from-murder-black-lives-matter

    1. Successful black people ghosted again, I notice.
      The people who sob over that bilge are the same ones that perpetuate the black underclass by endlessly excusing their failings and giving them low expectations.

      1. And are typical of the types who also try to undermine gifted and dedicated teachers like Katharine Birbalsingh, who is working wonders with disadvantaged black schoolchildren.

    2. Good grief! What a whitewash of his life! ‘Lyricism and poetic nature’!! The gurudian gets worse by the day!

    3. That’s it,I’m done,I’ve obviously been transported to some parallel prison universe there is just no point in resistance any more……
      Get me out of here!!

        1. Ridicule is the only way to defeat not only the ‘Great Reset’ but all of the lefty woke nonsense including any ‘climate emegency’, ‘diversity’ and its ilk.

    6. That could be my excuse as well. If only I had been born to some rich bastards that gave me everything I could have been king!

    9. The uptick is for your rebuttal sentence, Minty.

      Racism (that tired old card) doesn’t remotely apply – Stupid fcuking Graudian – still misprints everything.

    11. How about… if he hadn’t been a drug addict trying to pass off counterfeit notes then he wouldn’t have been arrested and wouldn’t be dead.

      Lots of people are born into poverty. They don’t become criminals. As usual, the guardian is trying to make scum a saint. It is a pointless rag that panders to a shrinking audience.

    12. How about …. the millions of black Americans who also had poor start to life and just got on with it – legally.

  52. From: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/05/25/sue-gray-report-release-partygate-boris-johnson-downing-street/

    Comment by Stephen Luscombe: “I want Boris to resign not because of parties but because he is a high tax and spend politician! ”

    I agree entirely. The messages they were sending are simply insulting. “Bad for comms” “Drinks that are not drinks what time do we turn up for drinks” These people take us for fools and are scum . They need to go, all of them. If spads, politicians, junior or senior civil servants, the lot need to be flushed away like the effluent they are.

    I’m bloody angry, and we shouldn’t have to take this any more.

    1. Those unelected special advisors just need to go. Why bother electing MPs to parliament if they are just sidelined and replaced by the hangers on and special interests that come with those spads.

    2. We’re still having the wrong argument. It isn’t the parties that were wrong. It’s the rules that were wrong. Both sides of the house voted for the rules and broke the rules because they knew the rules were wrong.

      1. Johnson, Corbynclone and the rest are innocent of all crimes.of which they have been accused

        Rule No One for all of that ilk is
        Do As I Say; Not As I Do
        They have obeyed that Rule

        1. They were sticking to their own bubbles ..

          We all know about parties , boozy parties . and all the way down the ladder of authority.. as always it Do As I Say; Not As I Do..

          1. Not in my house. My mother worked on that principle – never again. You lead by example with demonstrations of how to behave and what you expect from others.

          2. You lead by example with demonstrations of how to behave – Just as Her Majesty did, at the service for Prince Phillip.

      3. I don’t follow that. If the rules were wrong, why did they enact them? How many of their other rules/laws are wrong?

        We all know it’s practically all of them, which begs the question of why do we let them force these absurdities on us?

        1. They knew the rules – ie not meeting people, antisocial distancing, masks etc were poppycock but voted for them anyway. That’s why they didn’t bother with them themselves. Hypocrites.

          1. And that’s why I would visit the wrath of Odin upon them.
            Bastards, every single one.

    3. A friend bought a ticket to one of the annual Tory party conferences years ago during John Major’s tenure

      He took photos of the boxes of empty champagne bottle , bods lying around with sore heads and the hubris created in local hotels .

      However , I also remember a Labour party conference held in B’mouth when they were in power during all the terrible times of Iraq etc.. and the rowdy conference rabble was a sight to behold and believe.. War , foot and mouth , fuel shortages , strikes and no money left at the end of their reign.

  59. The BBC have apologised for ‘Man United are shit’ appearing on the screen during a broadcast,

    Typical BBC, they finally report a true fact and then have to apologise for it.

    1. The are based at Salford, next door, and are acutely aware that Manc rhymes with Wank.

  60. Is Disqus playing up for other Nottlanders? Images and videos etc are not being displayed, only the links.

    1. Apparently, according to a poster on another Disqus website, it’s a known problem at present. It’s also a damned nuisance.

    6. Discus does that to me the first time I log in after clearing history and cookies.
      After that first time, all goes back to normal.

    7. That’s normal for me. If I click on a link that opens on the same page, then go back, all the links disappear and the images appear instead!

  63. Canal boat stag party ends in disaster. 25 may 2022.

    A stag party on a canal ended in disaster after the group managed to sink one of their 30ft boats in a lock.

    The group had rented three barges for their drink-fuelled weekend but by the end of the first day, one lay partially submerged and another had been abandoned.

    The chaotic celebration took place on the Droitwich Canal in Worcestershire, which was forced to shut while emergency services retrieved the sunken vessel.

    Where’s Stephen?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/05/24/canal-boat-stag-party-ends-disaster/?li_source=LI&li_medium=li-recommendation-widget

    1. The Norfolk Broads banned stag and hen parties years ago on their boats. Always trouble.

          2. This is Pompey we are discussing ! They didn’t need to brush them. They just took them out when doing the ‘business’.

    3. I taunted our resident bargee yesterday – suggesting that he had been out on the tiles.

      1. Thanks for the reminder. I’m provisioning the vessel on Friday with a view to taking her up the Upper Thames via Reading & Oxford to see If I can reach Lechlade. It will take a couple of weeks to get there and back….

          8. She and her partner were travelling in the opposite direction to me.

            However, my mentioning of the word gentlewoman reminds me of a very risque joke:

            “If you were a gentleman you would make me do this….”
            If you were a gentlewoman you wouldn’t talk with your mouth full….”

    4. Yo Minty

      I midsead

      which was forced to shut while emergency services retrieved the sdrunken vessel.

    5. I’ve just been questioning a suspicious looking character driving a grey transit van who decided to ‘explore’ a locked property currently undergoing renovation builders not around. He took offence at my interest. When I got home I typed in the registration of his vehicle on the Government’s Is this vehicle taxed website. The Reg doesn’t exist. Thinking I may have misremembered the last three letters I typed in all 6 combinations of the three letters. (Wordle fans will know what I mean) and drew the conclusion that the vehicle had false number plates as it doesn’t appear to exist…..

        1. No he definitely wasn’t wearing a rainbow hat and if he had been his friends would have probably shown him the ground from a tall building…..

      2. You can send reg number and vehicle description to Plod by email.

        MOH did it some years ago and we were pleased to discover that it was someone “the Police are interested in”

    6. I’ve just been questioning a suspicious looking character driving a grey transit van who decided to ‘explore’ a locked property currently undergoing renovation builders not around. He took offence at my interest. When I got home I typed in the registration of his vehicle on the Government’s Is this vehicle taxed website. The Reg doesn’t exist. Thinking I may have misremembered the last three letters I typed in all 6 combinations of the three letters. (Wordle fans will know what I mean) and drew the conclusion that the vehicle had false number plates as it doesn’t appear to exist…..

  64. Back in. It warmed up. At 1.45 it was decidedly cold – just now it is quite agreeable. Funny thing, weather…(ponders)

    3. I only went in the garden to harvest my crimson asparagus. Watered the Pride of Madeira and ran back to the house. Not going out again !

      1. Something (slugs, probably) has taken all the leaves off my tomato seedlings and left only the stalks!

  65. Yo all.

    A little bit of Naval History for you all

    Daily Telegraph

    No 32,005 LONDON, MONDAY, MARCH 10, 1958

    Navy to scrap 14 Warships

    Carrier Strength is Cut to NINE

    Five Cruisers and Four Destroyers to go

    This will leave the Navy with nine carriers and a cruiser strength of only 14.

    Now, the Isle of Wight Ferry company has more sea going ships than we do.

    I despair

      1. I used to work at an RAF establishment that had 17 Air Commodores but no aeroplanes.

          1. Lots of medals and braid and stuff but, no, I don’t recall any intelligence on display…

    2. Floundered in a bunker;
      Home in Double Bogie Six …
      Wordle 340 6/6

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

    4. Par 4.
      Wordle 340 4/6

      ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
      ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
      ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  67. Support for Little Ukraine?

    After the EU diktats made it almost impossible for years to buy traditional incandescent light bulbs, we were pretty well forced to replace them with LED bulbs at much higher prices. One of my bedrooms had a 100 watt incandescent bulb that blew, so I replaced it with an allegedly ‘dimmable’ new LED bulb. But all the time this bulb was illuminated, at whatever brightness, it emitted a high-pitched whistle that was driving me nuts, especially since my wife (afflicted with dementia) insists on having a dim light on all night.

    I looked on Amazon and Eureka! – they are selling packs of 10 traditional incandescent bulbs for £9 for a box of 10, postage free.

    They arrived yesterday and I looked at the box, where I could see tiny Cyrillic script. I thought “Oh dear, I’ve just bought Russian light bulbs”. The print was tiny so I ran it through the photocopier with 200% magnification and to my delight, the words on the label were in Cyrillic and English. They said: Made in Ukraine, with an address in Lviv. So all is well again. And I can top up those weedy bulbs in the loft and increase my safety while up there.

    2. I use halogen bulbs for my bedside lamp, which I too use as a night light. The warning is that they can get very hot but they don’t when kept dimmed to the lowest brightness.

    4. You got the bulbs you required, so why worry where they were made?
      As it happens, Russian incandescent bulbs are far superior to any other make these days.

        1. The “security and cleaning staff” were prolly “of colour” so easy targets for a good verbal kicking.

          1. So then the rude ones have to compensate for their guilt by supporting positive discrimination?

        2. Little people who can’t answer back. Angela Rayner was right.
          I treat my cleaner with respect. I also give her little presents for her grandchildren because i value her can do attitude. You treat cleaners like shit and they will find ways to get back at you. Drinking Tea out of your mug Minister? They probably wiped their dick around the inside.

        1. That’s because some on this forum comb Twit selflessly every day, in order to bring you the best of it!

    3. My Dad had a philosophy: “treat the cleaner like they own the company. You can’t do your job if the floor isn’t hoovered, if the loo isn’t clean. They’re *the* most important person you’ll ever work for.”

      He was right. Frankly, the behaviour of this government is juvenile, immature, petulant, disrespectful, arrogant and spoiled. It’s a bunch of kids. The lot of them need a solid, thorough beating to learn some manners.

      2. I don’t think my cleaner has any cause for complaint. I keep telling her how much I value what she does.

    4. Unfortunately the MSM encourage worship of slebs and the like. Why can’t people just treat others kindly.

    5. t is not at all clear that your message contains a quotation. A colon, followed by the quotation – within quotation marks – would make sense of it all, BB2!

      1. Sorry! Usually tweets are visible in disqus if you post a link – you get a “View” button automatically. It seems not to be working today.

      1. They really were not that important in the scheme of things. Just a group of rich friends, that’s all. Nobody was aware that they were going to end up running the country in those days – the Conservative party seemed to have given up on its posh boy roots and embraced the middle class.

    7. That – if true – is the one point that really got up my nose.
      You do not treat people like dirt – especially when they are unable to answer back.

  69. Once again, thank you all for your kind comments.
    Husband is home- he requested the stent unblocking with a local and not sedation. They couldn’t unblock it. He is covered on the neck with pink dye which makes him look as though someone has tried to slaughter him!
    So, we are both back to square one…
    Next for him is a consult with the doc and the surgeon to see what can be done.
    Next for me is more facial surgery and hope they get it bloody right this time.
    Oh, and this is interesting….my husband asked the guy today if his stent being blocked could be a result of the AZ jabs. The doc waffled a bit but then said he couldn’t rule it out.
    To be fair, I know the NHS is trying to catch up but this is beyond a joke; I am damn sure Eddy will agree with that!!

    1. How rotten for you both. You will be in my prayers. Not quite back at square one, just not at the end of the ordeal yet.

    2. So sorry to hear that Lottie. Is your OH on blood thinners?

      I must have missed something. Did your facial surgery not go very well?

    3. Stay strong Lottie. You know you can rely on Nottlers for support or if you feel like a rant we will understand.

      1. Thank you- I don’t really deserve your support but it is appreciated.
        I wondered why my face wasn’t feeling better and MH said it looked very dark. Because it’s cancer and they didn’t get it out.

    4. The trials and tribulations of life can make one feel quite down trodden, at least you have each other.
      My sincerest best wishes for you both.

    5. I have sent sent you a message , but it has vanished .

      Best thoughts in the world to you both .. time to relax this evening .

      So sorry you are both being put through the hoop .

      1. “Put through the hoop”, the poor so-and-so’s are being put through the grinder.

    7. Put in another word for you and YOH this morning in church when they came to the bit about those in sickness. I forgot to pick up my service booklet and only realised when the service began, so most of it until after the Eucharist (when I nipped up to the back to retrieve a leaflet) was from memory. Fortunately, it seems I’m not yet suffering from Alzheimer’s .. 🙂

        1. He’s asleep at the moment, but when he wakes up (as opposed to my waking him up, which is a dodgy operation still, to say the least!) I’ll pass it on.

          1. Should say that he woke up briefly not long ago and said hug was passed on. He was not, unfortunately, impressed 🙂

    8. Oh heck. You two are ‘starring’ in a never ending saga.
      Do you have any definite dates?

      1. Nope. Am sick of it all. Feel like getting pissed but that won’t help….or will it?

    9. Good that he’s home, Ann. A bugger that he’s not sorted out & fail-free.
      Sigh
      One more into the breach… KBO, the both of you. Nil illegitimi carborundum…

    10. Oh dear, have you contacted the Patients support group for misfeasance on the part of the medics – I think they are called PALS, I can look into it if you are interested – sorry I just only manage to skip in and out here so much nowadays I miss a lot of what’s going on.

      What you two have been through and are going through sounds so dire – all credit to you both for coping the way you are.

      Hugs (for what it’s worth, but well-meant).

    11. I have just been quietly following along, nothing that I can do to help out. If AZ jabs can result in stent blockages, there are big problems ahead for many people.
      Keep us up to date on your travails,

    2. We don’t need and cannot afford yet another bl..dy “Minister”. We have far too many of them already. Perhaps the Education Minister could set up some help via local schools.

      Stand back and wait for the teachers u ions to explode!

      1. And they will come with their quota of spads to be sick during the parties.

    3. For goodness sake. The state should not do everything. This is entirely, precisely n example of what it should not be doing. There are acres of experts and folk about who will happily help people struggling.

      I spent an afternoon helping an elderly lady get fibre installed, changing her tablet thingy around and generally being a nuisance. She saved money, I got a nice cup of tea, Mongo got a lot of fuss and most of the work was done by Junior, who does the human bit better than me.

      3. Precisely. I’ve been helping two on my many sisters (80 and 77) with laptops, printers and now smartphones for a few years. They now both live in a retirement home and I go across when they need something sorting out. My nephew does regular shopping for them as well. Yes, I’m from a large family (one of 12 siblings) and I realise that not everyone has this advantage, but when quangocrats and charidees call on The State as the first solution, I despair.
        Families should always be the first solution where possible.

        Italics for caveats.

      1. So they can add insult to injury by taxing the pennies on their eyes!
        A line from a Beatles song, if I recall correctly.

      1. I want to visit my bank and talk to the staff.

        I still want have a presence , I have things to ask .

        B####r this online banking stuff.. Moh deals with that anyway

          2. For centuries older generations have had to accommodate the advances taking place around them. Nonetheless, the speed of change in our digital world is unprecedented.

          5. You do “on the go”, though. I can do online banking (it’s a real pain!) on my PC, but I can’t take that with me and I’m not sure that the laptop would be sufficiently secure.

          6. I do online banking without a phone app. I only make transactions at home, and use cash for everything outside the house. I have to plan how much money’s in each account in advance. Still, it stops impulse buys!

          8. Not yet, but more and more websites inc. e.g. The DT are pushing to move exclusively to app rather than being Web based.

        3. Good grief, King Stephen, I had no idea about that NoTTL rule. Does this mean that I have to change my avatar? Lol.

          2. Those with long memories will recall that my original avatar was a photo of Her Majesty wearing a headscarf and looking rather cross. I changed it to my current one some years ago when I realised that when HM’s sad demise occurred it would make my avatar totally inappropriate.

      2. The above photo was posted in response to a request fro Phizz for pictures of wild life (see below) It definitely ain’t me but I can tell you the Gentlewoman in the photo happened to be very pleasant.

      1. Well if you ever spot her you can always offer to show her the ropes….

        1. How many fishes did you catch on your trip a week or so ago? I haven’t been here much.

          2. Going to show my ignorance now, Max- what kind of fish was that? It’s huge.

          3. An amberjack of about 14lb (they get a lot larger), we don’t get them here, Ann. It ate like a tuna with the same colour/texture but it’s a different beast entirely.

        2. Oi’l climb to the tow path, then drag her aboard and below for cocktails …

  73. The Police are to be given compulsory black history lessons
    presumably so they can discover why their young men keep murdering each other on the streets on a regular basis.

    2. Lesson 1
      Historically in the UK Blacks are more violent, less law abiding and more likely to end up with criminal records, pro rata to their numbers.

    4. The Met does have a Black Museum, so they should be up to scratch on the subject.

  74. Neil Oliver’s podcast with Andrew Doyle from GBN is on You Tube… it’s good.

  75. That’s me for the day. Some useful grass sowing managed, despite the cold.

    Just attended (by Zoom) a brilliant lecture in Rome about interpretation of scenes on Trajan’s Column. For anyone who is interested, these lectures are available in about two weeks on the British School at Rome’s YouTube channel. Free.

      1. Try London! Isn’t that what Duckface wants to make legal? Increase the crime why don’t you.

        2. Most happiest of anniversary to you both for tomorrow. Make sure you treat the lady in the fashion she would wish to be treated !

    2. Trajan, the inscriptions on Trajan’s Column, is still held as the perfect example of Roman script. It inspired the modern scripts and typefaces such as Futura, Gill Sans and Perpetua and countless other typefaces.

  76. I have just been watching Ricky Gervais stand up Supernature and it the funniest thing i have ever seen. He destroys all stereotypes and shits on Wokeness.

    2. I don’t know why but some poor souls seem to be (or are pretending to be) really offended….

      1. She is apparently Irish and an ‘assistant comedy editor’?? I don’t find Ricky Gervais in the slightest bit amusing but her crit was pretty awful!

  77. Thoughts?
    Just picked from Info Wars that a similar “accident” happened in Iowa on the 16th of this month:cargo was fertiliser and asphalt. Nearer to home, a chicken processing plant in east London caught fire the other day. Odd how these food plants in the USA (> 20) and now here along with other items associated with food growing and processing seem to be happening at a time when the word, ‘famine’ is being bandied about.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/271cab051c49320cacfd8a31781d80919c4725ccb7664c709bc0a061228887f7.png

  78. Evening, all. Am completely shattered tonight; the Connemara managed to cut his leg, so I had to ride (and school) a younger horse who is, despite his years, very green. He needs a lot of pushing (leg, leg, leg!) and holding together (holding him in an outline with pressure on the reins with constant half-halts). By the end he was moving nicely, but I was worn out! He wasn’t taking me forward like Coolio and he didn’t bend very easily.

      1. Ah, dressage is fun, but this definitely was NOT dressage! If Coolio is not put together for dressage, this one is even worse! He’s a cob type and very thick in the body with short legs, a heavy head and a short neck! Consequently, the idea of “self carriage” is totally alien to him. He needs to be held together (and then he doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to be doing), he is not in the least “uphill” and nor does he lift his abdomen. Still, by the end we had a good, swinging four-time walk and a rhythmical two-time trot (his canter is his worst pace, so we stuck to improving what we could), so that counts as an excellent success! He’s genuine, but really a bit of a lazy boat. Fair dos to Coolio, he does his best and is getting the idea of self carriage now. His half pass is getting quite good. Hopefully he’ll be back on song next week.

  79. At the end of the day it is not really Boris’s fault if the plebs in the MSM do not know the difference between a party and a soirée

    3. I thought the broken down shed and a few twigs was a well deserved winner. Must have been the Ukraine entry bollocks.

        1. That was my installation for my foundation art course – a grotty, part ruined shed turned into a Museum of English Life. It didn’t go down well with the philistines in college admin – they wrapped it up in a grey drugget! I put a notice on it “work by Christo”. I was ahead of my time. If I’d kept it, it could have been worth a fortune! 🙂

    5. My post grad cooking was executed entirely from her Hamlyn All Colour Cook book .I still remember my prize dinner party recipe, pork fillet and mushrooms in red wine. I will hear nothing against her, you rotter !

  81. And another horrific school shooting in the US. 19 little guys killed by a nutter with more guns than sense. Cue the howls- it isn’t guns, these people are psychos
    or druggies….so what? If they couldn’t get their hands on guns it would be slightly different. It is ridiculous how accessible guns are in the US. I have poor eyesight and very bad hand to eye co-ordination yet, I could walk into any Walmart in the US and buy a gun. That would require a background check which, as I have no criminal past, (yet) I would be allowed to buy the gun. Now- gun and knife fairs which occur all over the US- no checks are required.
    The Republicans will do nothing because they get a shitload of $$ from the NRA.
    When are people going to stand up for the little ones?

    1. Much talk and hand wringing……and no real action….until the next time.

      1. Which next time?
        Anyhow, the density of privately held firearms is noticeably greater in other countries not known for mass shootings: Switzerland, for example. So, it’s not the guns, they just make it easier.

        1. Agreed, but the Wild West culture that exists here in the US, adds to the problem.

      1. It is my understanding that permanent residency (Green card) is all that’s required, Oberst.

        1. You could be right. I wanted to holiday in the US and spend a week attending a training course some years ago, and didn’t wanr to ship my giuns over, so asked about buying one locally – and was told that you needed citizenship.
          Didn’t ttend the couse, unfortunately. Nor holiday.

      2. No, in the south all you needed to show was a driving licence and I was a permanent resident- green card. So no worries, if I’d wanted a gun. No chance.

    3. The problem is that the school is a no gun area so no one has a gun to defend such action. In fact all the mass shootings are carried out in no gun areas. That is the regulation that needs to change.

      1. Seriously? You want armed people in primary schools? How many other little kids would be wiped out in a battle between an armed gunman and armed staff.? I cannot countenance that at all. I love kids and have been in education almost all my life and your suggestion is not the answer.
        Get some gun legislation going but the Repubs are too scared to do it.
        The Right to Bear Arms dates back to the Revolutionary War – 2nd Amendment- and is totally pointless nowadays.

        1. America will always be a gun country. If you ban guns then only the criminals will still be armed. think about that.

          1. Arguably, those that jump through all the hoops put up by government to be allowed to purchase a firearm are the most law-abiding setion of society – they have to be, to get the permit.
            So, take away the guns from the law abiding, and the criminals will be unaffected, as they don’t comply anyway. How has that helped?

        2. I really hate to disagree with you. I have long understood that the Right to Bear Arms was a fundamental right under the US Constitution.

          I would that we had the same right in the UK but that was removed by the War Criminal Tony Blair after the Dunblane massacre (details of which are under lock and key for decades by which time we will be long dead). Why do you suppose this law was enacted?

          I respectfully suggest it was to disarm the UK population who might otherwise have taken up arms to assert their rights, rights which have since been severely diminished. Covid lockdowns anyone?

      2. All schools should employ caretakers who carry. There are many thousands of capable retirees from the Services and Police who would be glad to take up such positions. Guns do not kill but the person pulling the trigger.

        In the most recent tragedy the gunman was known to have been a misfit, bullied st school, deprived of a father and an obvious candidate for misadventure. Why was nothing done to nurture this individual and keep an eye on his development. Instead, the US government spent trillions on misinformation campaigns targeted at President Trump, trillions on useless and damaging “vaccines” and billions on funding a fake war in Ukraine.

        There are priorities and these should always be based on the wellbeing of the indigenous population, not frittered away on foreign adventures and interferences.

  84. Catching up on BTL posts in the Tellygraff; I like this one.

    “Razor Eddie

    9 HRS AGO

    Sebastian Monblat seems sure that the No 10 leaving do would spread Covid. I don’t recall the headline, “Police unable to fine staff as they have all died of Covid”, so perhaps the rules forced on us by SAGE were unnecessary.”

        1. Jennifer Arcuri has said that it was Boris Johnson who ‘went into hospital’ but it deffo wasn’t the Boris she knew who came out… (and she didn’t mean he had changed because of his illness). I suppose she should know, being his mistress for several years.

      1. That is one of my fave movies- Arsenic and Old Lace- brilliant! Another old fave is Harvey with James Stewart.

          2. I don’t recall watching to the end of the film – maybe I only saw a trailer (or I have a short attention span).

          3. It’s a wonderful film- Jimmy Stewart at his goofy best and of course, Harvey. Try and find it and watch it – it’s wunderbar.

        2. My favourite male movie stars, Lotty, are James Stewart and Gregory Peck …

          3. Pals we had in CT did catering as a side venture. One time they catered a BBQ in NY State and one of the guests was Gregory Peck.. I asked Mary what he was like- a real gentleman she said, totally charming. If I’d known he was going to be there, I would have waitressed;-))

          4. When he played Atticus Finch in the film of TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD, his film daughter Scout Finch was played by the child actress Mary Badham, whose parents lived on the other side of the USA. During the week, all actors were accommodated in a hotel close to the production site, which happened to be near where the Gregory Pecks lived. Instead of flying young Mary all the way across America to spend a brief shortened weekend with her family, the studio paid for her to stay in the hotel. So Gregory Peck – with Mary’s parents’ permission – took her out of the impersonal hotel room and looked after her at their own house. To the end of his life Mary Badham became a very close friend of both Gregory Peck and his wife. A wonderfully caring gesture.

        3. I may have posted this on here already, but I saw James Stewart on stage at the Prince of Wales theatre in London in the 1980s. At the end of the play he stood centre stage, bowed and was applauded by the audience. Moving to one side her gestured to his female lead who took centre stage, curtsied and also received applause. Then she moved to the opposite side of the stage, leaving the centre spot to (the invisible) Harvey to take his bow whilst the two leads “held his hand”. The applause which Harvey received was thunderously loud – a wonderful end to a wonderful show.

  86. Goodnight, all. Off to read the racing results (and take more pills and drink more wine thanks to the lack of dental service).

  87. Picked this off Twit.
    Counterintuitively (1) the wealth of the top 1% started taking off after we rolled over from an inflationary cycle to a deflationary one in about 1980 and (2) Recessions tend to reduce the wealth of the top 1% proportionally – I suppose because a lot of their wealth is in the stock market.
    In other words, a lot of their wealth doesn’t really exist, it’s just fake stock market bubble wealth.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a176a3e91d6f88f3d70b4c1d3dc19b1c1d3459544af8a3ce79eb2aa02bef4720.jpg

    1. Happens to me occasionally.
      I find that scrolling up or down solves it – the text comes back…

  89. https://youtu.be/y7kvGqiJC4g
    This on the hifi and a rather large glass of Shiraz 🍷
    I wish everyone a good night and my hopes that all who are not having the most joyful of times, will see better days very soon.

    2. Then to the Lip of this poor earthen urn
      I lean’d the Secret of my Life to learn
      And Lip to Lip it murmur’d – “While you live,
      “Drink! – for once dead you never shall return.

      Cheers!

      1. Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
        Before we too into the Dust descend; Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and – sans End!

    3. One of my favourite composers, Andrew. Thanks so much for posting these six Gnossiennes..

      1. There is something about them that instantly cheers me up when I hear them.

  90. Institutionally racist? The Church of England has fallen victim to institutional cowardice

    The Gospel according to Woke means white, middle-class people can tell a black man what racism is and crucify him when he doesn’t agree

    ALLISON PEARSON

    With one of the spectacular own goals which are becoming something of a habit, the Church of England has blocked the appointment of a gifted young curate who ticks every box favoured by the right-on bishops. Every box, that is, except one. “I’m the wrong kind of black,” Calvin Robinson told me. “I refuse to say I’m oppressed. The minute I say I’m not a victim, I’m no longer black in their eyes. I lose my skin colour, I lose my culture, I lose all of it because I’ve got the wrong politics.”

    A theory is gaining ground that the hierarchy of the CofE has given up on Christianity, finding it embarrassing and judgmental. Instead, it has replaced the old commandments with secular, progressive ones. Calvin Robinson’s traditional Christian values (pro marriage, anti the ordination of women) make him a heretic. When he announced publicly that he didn’t agree with Black Lives Matter, and the Critical Race Theory which says that the UK is inherently racist, he claims the Bishop of London, Dame Sarah Mullally, reproved him.

    “Calvin, as a white woman I can tell you that the Church is institutionally racist.”

    I wonder, how does it feel as a man of colour to be told by a white woman that the institution you love and feel called to serve is racist?

    Calvin sighed heavily. “It’s so patronising and hypocritical. The bishops say: ‘We need to take on board the lived experience of ethnic minority people.’ And I’m like: ‘Hi, I’m an ethnic minority person! I’ve got a lived experience I’d like to share.’ And then it’s: ‘No, no, not that type of experience’.”

    What the Church wants, he says, is biddable black people they can help; who can relieve their white liberal guilt. “They want to pat us on the head and say: ‘Yes, you’re a good black person, you are, because you’re reaffirming my values and making me feel virtuous.'”

    Funny, it sounds remarkably like the condescending, colonialist attitude from which the Church is busy trying to decolonise itself.

    After his shocking treatment, Calvin Robinson is challenging Archbishops Justin Welby and Stephen Cottrell to stand down.

    “If they really believe the Church is institutionally racist, shouldn’t they cancel themselves? These people have been in office for years. Either they are the racists and it’s their fault or they’re incompetent and they cannot fix the problem. By their own logic, if it’s an entirely white hierarchy, surely, they should make way for someone of colour. But they don’t. If the institution is racist (and I don’t think it is), by sacking me their actions are causing the very thing they’re trying to prevent. The bishops are stoking racism.”

    When we speak, Calvin is still quietly devastated. I hear it in his voice. He was due to be ordained as a deacon, working as assistant curate at St Alban’s Church in Holborn, and combining that role with his work as a presenter on GB News. and media commentator on education. Parishioners had paid for him to do a two-year course as an ordinand at Oxford and both vicar and congregation were looking forward to welcoming this eloquent, peaceable man.

    Then, in February, he was told that his ordination was likely to be “problematic”. (A leftist coinage, ‘problematic’ roughly translates as: ‘We have a problem with you not thinking like us.’) The time was “not right”, the bishop said, and there had been complaints against him. To find out what they were, Robinson made a Subject Access Request.

    There were only a handful with just one from a member of the public. What shocked him was discovering that the Bishop of Edmonton, the Right Rev Rob Wickham, had been reporting him to church leaders. In September 2020, when Robinson told Good Morning Britain that he was against BLM because the group was increasing racial tensions, that same day Wickham wrote to the Bishop of London: “Calvin Robinson is not only a political commentator, but he’s an ordinand and former teacher in this area… Calvin’s comments concern me about denying institutional racism in this country.”

    In December last year, Wickham again told tales on Robinson (this time also copying in the Right Rev Emma Ineson, Bishop to the Archbishop of Canterbury), sending them them some of his tweets saying: “These are clear examples as to why his ordination should be looked at very closely.”

    This un-Christian betrayal was made worse by the fact that Calvin considered the Wickhams to be family friends. As a computer science teacher at a school in north-west London, he had helped the bishop’s children with their GCSEs. “It’s heart-wrenching [sic]. All smiles to my face† and behind my back he was emailing the Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury saying: ‘We should keep a close eye – nudge nudge, wink wink! – on his ordination.'”

    [† Upon reading that, this suddenly popped into my mind: “We smile in their faces and curse them in our hearts…”]

    Robinson has no doubt the decision to ban him was based on his conservative beliefs along with a hostility to the right-leaning GB News. “It’s not my theology they object to,” he says. “It’s my politics and that’s not right in a broad church that’s supposed to be for everyone.”

    The Church certainly took a lenient attitude after the Bishop of St David’s, the Reverend Joanna Penberthy, tweeted: “Never trust a Tory.” Appallingly, Penberthy still seems to be a bishop ministering to her flock, at least some of whom she considers untrustworthy. “You can be political in the Church as long as it’s the right kind of politics,” says Robinson grimly.

    A better comparison, perhaps, is with Jarel Robinson-Brown. Soon after the death of Captain Sir Tom Moore, the young, black, gay ordinand posted on Twitter: “The cult of Captain Tom is a cult of White British Nationalism.” Church seemed far more concerned by the “racist and homophobic abuse” Robinson-Brown received on social media, than by the grievous insult to Captain Sir Tom and the millions who cheered on his efforts. It has recently been announced that Robinson-Brown will join St Botolph without Aldgate in London as assistant curate. Unlike another Robinson (Calvin), who would never have said such a hateful thing, Jarel is clearly considered the right kind of black person to be a vicar in a Church of England.

    This madness is not confined to the Church. It has infected every institution in this country which is run by self-flagellating members of the liberal elite. “They want to bring us all down in some sort of shared guilt about our heritage,” says Calvin Robinson.

    Ironically, Robinson left teaching because he was appalled by the “massive echo chamber” in staff rooms, the leftist “Britain is a bad place with a bad history” groupthink which teachers communicated to students. A period at a Church of England school made him see that a religious framework was beneficial for children. “People from other faith backgrounds appreciated sending their kids to a C of E school because they believed they knew what the values were.”

    His faith deepened and he decided to strengthen his commitment. Little did Calvin Robinson know that the Church he felt called to dedicate his life to would become as rabidly anti-Conservative and “Britain is a bad place” as that staffroom.

    Robinson’s Jamaican grandparents, part of the Windrush generation, were the first black people in Mansfield, a former Nottinghamshire mining community. His grandfather faced really awful racism there. By the time it was Calvin’s turn to go to primary school, he was treated “just like any other kid”. Transferring to a middle school, he did attract nasty abuse. “The kids called me P—, which really was the wrong insult!” he laughs. By the end, when his grandfather died, there were hundreds and hundreds of people at the funeral, the whole town was there. “Because they integrated, they became a part of that society. I’ve never said racism doesn’t exist. Of course it does. But we’ve come a long way and we should admit that progress is possible and the system is not racist.”

    How sad. I could have seen this hugely impressive, genuinely good and holy man becoming Archbishop of Canterbury one day. But the self-righteous liberals who now run the Church, “looking down their noses at us from their pulpits, reading their Guardians and sneering at the Daily Mail or Telegraph types in the congregation, the hated Conservatives who are keeping the show on the road” would not allow it. You see, the Gospel according to Woke permits white, middle-class people to tell a black man what racism is, and crucify him when he doesn’t agree.

    There may yet be a happy ending. I’m delighted to report that Calvin John Robinson will be ordained Deacon at Christ Church, Harlesden, into an evangelical Catholic church that isn’t embarrassed by Christianity. Hallelujah!

    They are so lucky to have him.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/05/24/institutionally-racist-church-england-has-fallen-victim-institutional/

    BTL:
    Alan Brown
    A famous quote by Thomas Sowell is doing the rounds again: “The ideas of the Left do not work, so it is no surprise that they are concentrated in institutions where they do not have to work to survive.”

    1. TLDR, but I got the gist and agree that things are rotten in the state of Denmark.

    2. From my own professional experience I can say that, with few exceptions, the higher echelons of the Church of England remain utterly corrupt. The one decent man was Robert Runcie. The rest a load of irreligious chancers on the make.

    3. Calvin Robinson would be a far better Archbishop of Canterbury than th vacuous Justin Welby. For a start Calvin Robinson believes in Christ.

    4. I have been absolutely horrified by this story. A good man, a Christian man lectured at by people who wouldn’t know the meaning of the word Christian. No wonder the CofE is disintegrating – full of self-satisfied do-gooders who closed the doors of their churches when people needed them.

  91. Watching BBC4… Cathy Come home … 1966 film..

    Oh my ..

    I have never seen it before .. a story of luck going down hill and homeless ness.. amongst white families .

  92. Allister Heath in even gloomier mood than usual:

    Tory Britain faces extinction at the hands of a radical hard-Left alliance
    If the Government fails to change course, it will lose the next election to parties that will devastate the UK

    The great danger isn’t an outright Labour victory, but an even worse calamity: a Labour-led, but SNP, Lib Dem and Green-backed hard-Left alliance determined to inflict a disastrous cultural and economic revolution upon Britain. Taxes would be jacked up, including on homes, income and capital; the drive towards socialism would accelerate, with greater spending, regulation and trade union rights; full-on woke cultural warfare would be declared, including a drive to erase women; the family and individual responsibility would be undermined further; the green agenda would be imposed entirely via restrictions and rationing; there would be attacks on private schools and a destruction of standards in state education; a rapprochement with the EU; and a referendum on proportional representation.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/05/25/tory-britain-faces-extinction-hands-radical-hard-left-alliance/

    He’s missed out other possibilities: monitoring of consumption of alcohol, meat, petrol and diesel with limits imposed thereof; confiscation of second homes along with the abolition of the right to let private property; nationalisation of utilities without compensation.

    The ‘drive to erase women’ would surely be problematic for the Left: don’t they want quotas in employment?

    1. It’s vw posting here as Alf hasn’t got charge of the pooter yet!

      The Cons are not much different as far as I can see.

  94. Goodnight, Gentlefolk and God bless.

    Up early in the morning for a dental appointment at the horse piddle and they need an INR before hand as, being on warfarin, I’m a bit of a bleeder.

      1. Thank you, Maggie. at 78 a Birthday is a day and there was /is no toothache to bother it. The dental apointment is routine, as there are very few dentists practising on the NHS and the rest have priced themselves out of the market, like the rest of the current ‘grab’ economy.

  95. Well now , I have just watched ‘Kathy come home’ BBC4. 1966 film about how bad luck can destroy genuine family life … resulting in homeless ness.

    Shocked and angry …and what on earth have governments been doing … importing millions of migrant workers yet ignoring our indigenous homeless families
    The welfare state has imptoved beyond all measure , but it appears to me that pregant girls have now gobbled up the slack by being accommodated as single mothers … and absent fathers getting away with their responsibilities .

    What on earth is going on … millions are floating across the English Channel expecting to be housed , yet the other day in Wimborne , wealthy Wimborne , which I visited on Monday for a hairdressing appointment , cold wet Monday … I saw 2 homeless white males , probably in their forties / fifties , sitting under a shop canopy, rugs , blankets , red faces , dishevelled .. so I bought them each a coffee and sandwich.

    I don’t give a damn whether they were alkies or druggies , it was a very cold wet afternoon .. how did they fall from grace and end up like that ?

    1. That nature which condemns its origin
      Cannot be bordered certain in itself.

      [King Lear]

      And a society that does not honour its own culture and history and ignores its own people is a society which has gone mad and rotten.

      1. Good morning Richard

        Thank you for your comment .

        I hope you don’t mind but I have copied and pasted that onto Twitter re the film I watched last night x

    2. I was shown that at primary school. Ken Loach is not the stuff to watch if feeling blue. Watch something like Wisteria and Sunshine or Shirley Valentine.

    3. Tbh Belle, I was just reflecting that we’ve lived in insanity all our lives, or most of them. So many of the ideas that have been promoted since the War are crazy ones designed to advance the agenda of the very rich by dividing the poor into groups and pitting them against each other.
      Madly demonising one dictator while brushing the crimes of another under the carpet. Recklessly starting wars to prevent countries from leaving the fiat money system.
      We’ve lived all our lives in craziness pushed down on us from above – it’s only people’s desire to retain the traditions and live peacefully that has enabled shreds of normality to last so long.
      Rockefeller apparently admitted that they only funded feminism at the start of the twentieth century in order to promote economic growth by getting women into the workplace, and push up property prices of course, to benefit themselves.

      1. Good morning BB,

        ‘We’ve lived all our lives in craziness pushed down on us from above – it’s only people’s desire to retain the traditions and live peacefully that has enabled shreds of normality to last so long.’

        Feminism has destroyed many aspects of so called civilised society.

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