Sunday 17 July: The Tory debate was full of love for the NHS but free of any ideas for radical reform

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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700 thoughts on “Sunday 17 July: The Tory debate was full of love for the NHS but free of any ideas for radical reform”

  3. Just discovered that you can’t REPLACE a previously-posted but faulty image. See later

    1. Morning, rc.
      Can you not do it through edit and then delete the interminable string of letters and numbers identifying it?
      I hope you had a reasonable night.

  4. 354337+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Sunday 17 July: The Tory debate was full of love for the NHS but free of any ideas for radical reform

    Placement in a top position gives you a meal of fortune putting you among the very few who can afford Lurpak butter,

    The cheapest supermarket to buy butter as Lurpak climbs to £9.35 a tub
    Thanks to the lab/lib/con current
    supporter / voters obesity is no longer a problem they have reset / replaced it with rickets etc,

    Start the day a sensible way,
    tear up your lab/lic/con (license to kill ) membership card.

  7. Heatwaves and the climate of fear. Spiked 17 July 2022.

    many of us will have been enjoying the good weather over the past few weeks. But few have been enjoying it as much as Britain’s bureaucracy of fear. The UK Health Security Agency, the Met Office and assorted worrywart policymakers have been basking in the possibility of the really hot temperatures which are predicted to arrive next week.

    I watched quite a few editions of the BBC News yesterday. Mostly for entertainment purposes. It was the sort of news I would expect from schoolgirls reporting on the approaching Apocalypse. Global Warming is upon us. Death comes on Swift Wings! Water your dogs! Prepare to be fried!

    I don’t know what the next two days will actually be like. Uncomfortable I imagine. Fear now seems to be an essential part of the MSM. If there isn’t any. Invent it!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/07/16/heatwaves-and-the-climate-of-fear/

    1. The glaciers feeding the Stour and Colne rivers are melting away as we comment! Woe, woe and thrice woe!

  8. Good Morning Folks,

    Sunny cool start this morning, been a feature of the last few days.
    Not sure how one can feel uncomfortably warm all night with the windows wide open then it suddenly cools down around 5-6am when I get up.

    1. Last evening around 5 I sat out in a shaded part of my patio and when the breeze rustled the wisteria it felt very cool. Mornings recently, around 6:30 to 8, have felt comfortably cool, perfect for getting the water on the plants that need it. Predicted 29 degrees today and I will be down on the coast listening to a concert, followed by a cream tea, in support of the ‘Blood Runners’ charity. Hoping for a nice on-shore breeze to take the edge off the heat.

      Good morning, Bob3 and all Nottlers.

      1. Gave the garden a good soaking for the 3 montyh heat wave we are not about to have. Even the forecast is for 2 days only.

      2. Good morning, Korky. But, but, but… why are you going down to the coast for your cream tea. Didn’t Annie tell you yesterday that the best cream tea is at the Greyfriars Hotel in central Colchester?!?!? Lol. (PS – Enjoy your day.)

        1. The tea will be pretty much homemade, one of the ladies was a school cook and makes wonderful cakes etc. I am providing a jar of jam and my urbane presence: I am expecting a grand afternoon and helping a worthwhile charity, to boot.
          As an aside, I cannot finish my garden project: the ground resembles concrete. You must come around soon for something to eat and drink.

          1. Thanks for the reminder of your open invitation, Korky. I shall try to remember to phone you to fix a “date” for the near future.

  9. Another fit, in his prime sportsman, bites the dust. Was he a victim of over zealous gardening or too much coffee? The people proposing these reasons for early deaths are in the same callous division as those directly responsible for the deaths. They should know better and probably do know better: are the 30 pieces of silver so attractive that they lie or are they too, in fear of their livelihoods or even their lives?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0d9855084d0da43a820acdcc47657dc7cc3b22213c8685c8ca8757ab23147de0.png

  10. 354337+ up ticks,

    Dutch Farmers Netherlands a ‘Pilot Country’ for Great Reset Agenda, Eva Vlaardingerbroek Tells Breitbart

    Could this be countered by a crowd funded
    peoples charge against a government trying
    to usurp decent peoples lives in a very treacherous / dangerous manner.

    In the United Kingdom the prime movers for
    repress / replace / reset are the lab/lib/con
    coalition party.

    The electorates choice is fight, or stay in the shite.

  11. Sunday Mail. Peter Hitchens 17 July 2022.

    The visit by President Biden to Saudi Arabia utterly destroys months of Western propaganda against Russia. We have been invited to think that our hostility towards President Putin was based on our lofty moral disapproval of his regime, its murders of the Kremlin’s enemies, its repressive character and its aggression abroad.

    But the Saudi ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (MBS), was found to have approved the grisly murder and dismemberment, using bone saws, of dissident Jamal Khashoggi.

    His country is a blood-splattered despotism that recently (just before a visit by our Mr Johnson) executed 81 people. Saudi Arabia – I put this mildly – does not have independent juries, free media or an opposition. It is a political slum. And it has launched a horrible aggression in Yemen, in which Western nations have helped to arm, train and equip its forces.

    We know all about Western, particularly American hypocrisy. This is probably the main reason for Putin’s attitude. All this about Ukraine; a corrupt and nasty regime not worth the life of one decent man and yet about Iraq and Libya not one word! The MSM talk of atrocities and war crimes (most of them fake) and yet the practitioners of such walk the streets of the UK with impunity. One of them, the Chief Culprit, has just been made a Knight of the Garter, a Member of the Privy Council. Who knowing these things would support such a policy?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11020689/PETER-HITCHENS-Electric-vehicles-Theyre-dangerous-polluting-lumps-kill-maim.html

  12. ‘Morning, Peeps.  A delightful 17°C on this part of the sarf coast, about to be spoilt by a forecasted 26°…

    This popped into my mailbox yesterday afternoon, the content of which took my breath away.  Drakeford is a jumped up little t*sser who obviously hates a) conventional marriage, and b) free speech.  I feel sickened by his pathetic attempt at the arbitrary banishment of a freedom, that of free speech, so many of our parents and grandparents fought for.

    From C4M – the Coalition For Marriage

    “SUPPORTERS OF MARRIAGE NOT WELCOME IN WALES, SAYS FIRST MINISTER

    Dear marriage supporter,

    Wales’ First Minister Mark Drakeford addressed the Welsh Parliament before May’s visit to Newport by Revd Franklin Graham (son of the late preacher Revd Billy Graham). Mr Drakeford said he was “sorry to see” that Revd Graham (who supports one-man, one-woman marriage), would be allowed a platform in Wales, to express “those views”.

    Answering a question in the Senedd, Mr Drakeford spoke of his “regret” that the event was going ahead. He added that Revd Graham’s views “absolutely do not reflect anything that the Welsh Government would be prepared to endorse or sanction”.

    If the First Minister regrets that a real marriage supporter should be allowed to come to Wales, does he also regret people with similar views being allowed to live there? Shouldn’t he be the First Minister for everybody in Wales, not just those who hold his views?

    The BBC writes that the ICC Wales venue, hosting Revd Graham and 50% owned by the Welsh Government, had cancelled his 2020 planned appearance, due to his views on marriage. Presumably the change of heart followed Graham’s successful discrimination case against Blackpool Council.

    According to the BBC, Revd Graham said it is “deeply concerning that public officials who are elected to represent their entire community would describe the traditional views that Christians have held for over a thousand years in Wales as ‘hate’”.

    The courts have consistently held that belief in traditional marriage is worthy of respect in a democratic society. The UK’s own Public Order Act 1986 agrees that “discussion or criticism of sexual conduct or practices” and “any discussion or criticism of marriage which concerns the sex of the parties to marriage shall not be taken of itself to be threatening or intended to stir up hatred”.

    Maybe Mr Drakeford hasn’t heard of these laws. Or maybe his idea of ‘inclusivity’ only includes the ideas he agrees with.”

    Link here if you wish to see more of their work:

    https://www.c4m.org.uk/

    1. Since devolution has became a source of woke ‘hate-crime’, isn’t it time to desolve all these pits of hatred, preferably in baths of strong acid, and return the decision making to Westminster?

      Westminster itself requires some thoroughly deep-cleansing before it’s fit to rule.

      If Westminster won’t act on behalf of its masters (the electorate, remember) then it is time for guerilla action to make life as unpleasant as possible, until they too bend to the will of the electorate.

      Good morrow, Gentlefolk, rant over and time to stop being gentle.

      1. ‘Morning, Nanners. I’m afraid ‘gentle’ doesn’t cut the mustard any more. My solution would be to grant immediate independence to Wales. Perhaps the harsh realities of life, including bankruptcy, would then cleanse it of prats like Drakeford!

        1. I didn’t know that you support Plaid Cymru, Hugh, and, as for ‘gentle’, please re-read my last sentence, and particularly the last 5 words.

  13. ‘Morning, Peeps.  A delightful 17°C on this part of the sarf coast, about to be spoilt by a forecasted 26°…

    This popped into my mailbox yesterday afternoon, the content of which took my breath away.  Drakeford is a jumped up little t*sser who obviously hates a) conventional marriage, and b) free speech.  I feel sickened by his pathetic attempt at the arbitrary banishment of a freedom, that of free speech, so many of our parents and grandparents fought for.

    From C4M – the Coalition For Marriage

    “SUPPORTERS OF MARRIAGE NOT WELCOME IN WALES, SAYS FIRST MINISTER

    Dear marriage supporter,

    Wales’ First Minister Mark Drakeford addressed the Welsh Parliament before May’s visit to Newport by Revd Franklin Graham (son of the late preacher Revd Billy Graham). Mr Drakeford said he was “sorry to see” that Revd Graham (who supports one-man, one-woman marriage), would be allowed a platform in Wales, to express “those views”.

    Answering a question in the Senedd, Mr Drakeford spoke of his “regret” that the event was going ahead. He added that Revd Graham’s views “absolutely do not reflect anything that the Welsh Government would be prepared to endorse or sanction”.

    If the First Minister regrets that a real marriage supporter should be allowed to come to Wales, does he also regret people with similar views being allowed to live there? Shouldn’t he be the First Minister for everybody in Wales, not just those who hold his views?

    The BBC writes that the ICC Wales venue, hosting Revd Graham and 50% owned by the Welsh Government, had cancelled his 2020 planned appearance, due to his views on marriage. Presumably the change of heart followed Graham’s successful discrimination case against Blackpool Council.

    According to the BBC, Revd Graham said it is “deeply concerning that public officials who are elected to represent their entire community would describe the traditional views that Christians have held for over a thousand years in Wales as ‘hate’”.

    The courts have consistently held that belief in traditional marriage is worthy of respect in a democratic society. The UK’s own Public Order Act 1986 agrees that “discussion or criticism of sexual conduct or practices” and “any discussion or criticism of marriage which concerns the sex of the parties to marriage shall not be taken of itself to be threatening or intended to stir up hatred”.

    Maybe Mr Drakeford hasn’t heard of these laws. Or maybe his idea of ‘inclusivity’ only includes the ideas he agrees with.”

    Link here if you wish to see more of their work:

    https://www.c4m.org.uk/

  16. Today’s leading letter:

    SIR – The Channel 4 debate between the five contenders to become prime minister was disappointing. None of them stood out as the person the country needs to lead it at this difficult time.

    All the candidates are good people, but competing to tell us how trustworthy they are and how much they love the NHS simply isn’t impressive.

    What people want to know is that the successful candidate will immediately put a figurative bomb under the failing NHS; explode the Civil Service blob so that ministers are surrounded with executives determined to implement their policies rather than defeat them; reconfigure welfare benefits towards the filling of job vacancies, and bring successful business figures into the heart of government to spend less taxpayer money much more efficiently.

    Passion, imagination and steely resolve are required. The right candidate should shine out from the also-rans, but that has not happened yet.

    John Twitchen
    Leigh-on-Sea, Essex

    Ah yes, the sacred cow that is the No Hope Service…so desperately in need of top to bottom reform and yet no one has the courage to propose it. Instead the candidates are required to answer whether they think the outgoing PM is a liar!

    1. When and what are our political idiots going to do about it ?
      Or explain the purpose of all this.

  18. SIR – The only question that should be asked of the candidates is this: if China invaded Taiwan tomorrow, next week or next year, what would they do?

    Adrian Johnston
    Rugby, Warwickshire

    I disagree. It should be one of the questions, not the only one.

    SIR – The elephants in the room never mentioned were HS2 and fracking.

    James Lonsdale
    Bolton, Lancashire

    The ‘interrogators’ prefer trivia, Mr Lonsdale.

    1. Good morning Korky

      July 1808 1. Notably warm month (using the CET series since 1659). With a value of 18.4degC, it is in the ‘top-10’ of such-named months for warmth. In particular, there was a hot spell from the 12th to the 15th, with a peak around the 13th/14th, when the CET daily temperature (i.e. average of 24hr maximum & minimum) climbed to just over 24degC. Studies since that date have shown that individual day maxima were well above 25degC (possibly to 28degC) in the West of England; up to (almost certainly over) 32degC in London & possibly as high as 34degC in Kingston upon Hull (ER Yorkshire): however caution is required with all these values due to the differing instruments, exposure, accuracy of recording etc. It was undoubtedly a very hot spell though, as deaths (people & animals) from heat exhaustion were recorded, particularly from the agricultural areas in the east and north of England. One report at the time (from farm records in the eastern Fens), says that the temperature in the shade near London was 96 (degF), which converts to just over 35degC: the same reference notes that this spell is the “hottest day ever known in Eng’d … the Hot Sunday in 1790 was only 83 Deg”. [ NB: August 1808 also reasonably warm, with anomaly circa + 1degC. ]

      2. 13th: ‘Hot Wednesday’: shade temperatures 33 to 35degC in E. and SE England, 37degC (99degF) reported in Suffolk (exposure & instrument details unknown . . see 1. above).

      3. Damaging hailstorm affected counties in SW England afternoon / evening of the 15th (presumably as the hot spell above was breaking down), primarily affecting Dorset, Somerset & Gloucestershire. The storm first hit areas in the Sherborne / Templecombe area late afternoon then moved (or developed) NNW’wards to reach Bristol mid-evening. From reports at the time, the diameter of much of the hail was of the order 11 cm, with much damage being recorded – including injury & death to people in the open. If these reports are correct, then this 1808 hailstorm (according to Colin Clark / ‘Weather’ July 2004), produced the largest hail diameters for Britain known (along with that for 1697).

      https://premium.weatherweb.net/weather-in-history-1800-to-1849-ad/

        1. Our friends who live near Melbourne on the edge of the Dandenong ranges on two separate occasions have had two of their cars written off by hail storms. With Golf ball sized pieces of ice falling from the sky.
          They collect some and kept them in the freezer for evidence.

          1. How on earth did they manage to squeeze the cars into the freezer, Ready Eddy?!?!? Lol. (Good morning, btw.)

  20. Good morning to one and all!
    A bright start with light cloud and 12°C in the yard.

    Telegraph article picked up from Going Postal, it seems the BBC is going all out for the Trans bullshite:-

    “The BBC has apologised for interviewing a transgender athlete who boasted about knocking women out, in a discussion about female-only sports.

    Fallon Fox, an American former martial arts fighter, was invited onto BBC Radio 4’s Today programme last month after trans athletes were barred from women’s elite races if they have gone through male puberty.

    The new policy by Fina, the swimming world governing body, will also aim to establish an “open” category for swimmers with birth sex different from their gender identity.

    But the BBC came under fire for failing to inform listeners that Ms Fox, 46, had boasted of violence against Terfs – a slur which stands for trans exclusionary radical feminist – in a trans row on Twitter in 2020.

    She had tweeted: “For the record, I knocked two out. One woman’s skull was fractured, the other not. And just so you know, I enjoyed it. See, I love smacking up TEFS (sic) in the cage who talk transphobic nonsense. It’s bliss!”

    Ms Fox, now retired, became the first openly trans mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter in 2013 having been born male, which sparked debate at the time about whether she had an unfair advantage.

    The Radio 4 interview prompted a backlash from campaigners for protecting women’s sport categories for athletes born as female, not men who identify as women.

    The fighter appeared on the show alongside Karen Pickering, an ex-GB swimmer.
    ‘We would have conducted the interview differently’

    Fair Play For Women, a women’s sport campaign group, wrote to BBC bosses to complain that “Fox should never have been booked and an on-air apology is required”.

    This week the corporation climbed down, with the BBC Complaints Unit saying it was “unaware of previous comments made by Fallon Fox” and if it was, “we would have conducted the interview differently”.

    The BBC told the group in a letter: “We have discussed your concerns with the team responsible and we’d like to apologise for this oversight.”

    It comes after Justin Webb, the Radio 4 presenter who led the interview, responded to critics after the programme last month by insisting that he had “no idea” of Ms Fallon’s comments “and the producers didn’t either”.

    But campaigners considered the apology a rebuke to “woke” Radio 4 producers.

    Dr Nicola Williams, director of Fair Play For Women, told The Telegraph: “If you knew that Fallon Fox was a trans fighter, you’d also know what Fallon Fox had said.

    “It’s either that the woke producers didn’t do the basics with research, or they didn’t care. This apology means nothing unless they also issue an on-air clarification – they must do due diligence on this topic by bringing on true experts, not just trans people for the sake of it.”

    It comes as the Telegraph reported earlier this month how some BBC radio staff had been told there were more than 150 genders and to develop their “trans brand” by adding pronouns to email signatures, in diversity training leaked by a whistleblower.

    Shortly after the swimming ban, British Triathlon became the first sport in the UK to bar trans athletes from competing in the female category at both elite and grassroots level, and other sports could follow suit.

    Sharron Davies, the Olympic swimming medalist, told the Telegraph: “I am incredibly frustrated by science deniers who abuse on social media being given air time. The BBC must do better.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/07/16/bbc-apologises-interviewing-transgender-athlete-who-boasted/

  22. Universities are in denial over the free-speech crisis. Spiked. 17 July 2022.

    Like most rules, ‘free speech’ rules are better when shorter. The ideal would be one sentence, which says ‘You can say what you like’. The University of Oxford’s ‘statement on the importance of free speech’ does not go that far, but what it does say is pretty robust: ‘Recognising the vital importance of free expression for the life of the mind, a university may make rules concerning the conduct of debate but should never prevent speech that is lawful.’

    Robust? These are weasel words. Who is to decide what it is lawful to say? The Politburo? The Committee for Public Safety? Parliament? Twitter? Free Speech is just that and nothing else! It is the right to say what you please without fear or reference to any Authority or Power!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/07/16/universities-are-in-denial-over-the-free-speech-crisis/

    1. ‘Morning, Minty, “It is the right to say what you please without fear or reference to any Authority or Power!”

      I have to modify and clarify that statement.

      It is the right to say what you please, how you please, when and where you please and to whomsoever you please, without fear, favour or reference to any Authority or Power!

  23. SIR – Readers seem exercised by the announcement that retired public-service personnel are to receive a generous uplift in pensions (Letters, July 3).

    These people, be they refuse collectors, graduate workers, NHS doctors or state-school teachers, chose a job with fairly safe tenure in exchange for relatively low salaries. The pay-off for 30 or 40 years of service is an index-linked pension.

    Peter Shirley
    Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire

    Really? It wasn’t so long ago that pay and conditions were said to have outstripped those of the private sector. Coincidentally I wrote to my MP yesterday, pointing out the injustice in such an arrangement, when those who worked in the private sector and whose employers contracted them out would have their index-linked increase capped at 3%. The government is strangely silent about such an inequitable arrangement. (It was the article in the DT on 9th July that referred to this.) I hope that a knowledgeable Nottlr will tell me it isn’t true!

    1. A BTL poster writes:

      Kevin Bell
      7 HRS AGO
      Why do people who worked in the NHS think they are more deserving than others whose taxes pay for it? Public service jobs are not only more secure but may even be better paid than private sector jobs. Meanwhile the pension cap for their final salary, inflation linked pensions is set at the very low rate of 20 times final earnings, much lower than for private pensions.
      My pension scheme is theoretically index linked and I was very grateful for the 5% uplift we received. My son who works extremely hard in.a demanding private sector job received no pay increase. Many self employed people struggle to pay into a pension at all.
      Public sector pensions should be defined contribution. The reason they aren’t is that the Treasury does not want to fund the annual payments into the pension funds that would be required. Its unfair and if I was in receipt of a public sector pension I would probably keep quiet about its generosity.

      1. Of course the Treasury wouldn’t have to pay the increase, the taxpayer would.

  24. SIR – After working for an international manufacturing company for more than 40 years, I retired in 2000 with a final-salary pension.

    This increased annually at a rate close to inflation until 2008. Since then the company has refused to make any increase on the portion of the pension under its control.

    Maybe I have lived longer than they hoped or expected.

    Paul Wagstaff
    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    That’s your reward for working in the wealth-generating private sector, Mr Wagstaff!

  25. SIR – We are greatly exaggerating the problem of heat-related deaths (Letters, July 15). According to a recent study in The Lancet, for deaths in England and Wales between 2000 and 2019, annual excess deaths due to heat were 791, and those due to cold were 60,500. The figure of 791 represents 0.13 per cent of overall deaths in 2021, so, while evidently upsetting for families concerned, it is not a matter of national importance.

    We should be more concerned about winter and its effect, particularly on the very elderly.

    Ian Brent-Smith
    Stratton Audley, Oxfordshire

    Spot on, Ian Double-Barrelled, couldn’t agree more!

    1. Nicely put:

      Ian Lander
      5 HRS AGO
      Regarding heatwave hype, Ian is correct. Heatwaves are minimal causes of death. The next few winters however are going to be a different matter. Fuel poverty driven by the greens and vastly inflated fuel prices will do more harm than all heatwaves and the pandemic combined. Welcome the the new carbon free era.
      Take note. This is just a gentle warning of things to come.

    2. A good BTL response:
      DAVID DAVIES
      51 MIN AGO
      Ian Brent-Smith writes about the absurd panic mongering about the predicted heat wave.
      Anybody with a grain of common sense knows that in the UK cold weather kills far more people than hot weather.
      But the “climate emergency” zealots are, without evidence, predicting that the high temperatures we expect on Monday and Tuesday, could kill thousands.
      This isn’t based on science, it’s based on the desire to terrify the nation and further their climate emergency scam.
      Many millions of people around the world cope with higher temperatures than we do, every year. They adjust their lives accordingly and use common sense. That is all that is required.

      1. I will.
        I plan walking into Cromford and catching the bus at 12:44 from opposite the Greyhound and then probably the 15:40 or 16:60 coming home again.

        1. Er, have we somehow crossed our lines, BoB? I was commenting on the subtitles for the film clip of “Too Darn Hot”.

  27. SIR – Tom Bliss’s letter (July 3) about the Prince of Wales’s suggestion that the history of slavery should be taught in schools struck a chord with me.

    In 1958 I was privileged to get a place at Henry Thornton School in Clapham, one of the grammar schools that we could choose to go to if we passed the 11 plus. Our houses reflected the names of activists in the campaign to abolish the slave trade along with Henry Thornton himself.

    Every year we trooped across the road to the church on Clapham Common to remember Henry Thornton’s birthday.

    Our school song remembers them, too. Here is one of the verses: “Macaulay, Stephen, Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson too / These famous names have taught us all ideals we should pursue.”

    Geoffrey White
    Somerset, Bath

    Yes, the FULL history should be taught, not the self-flagellating version from our myopic and interfering heir to the throne, to include the remarkable and costly efforts of the RN’s West Africa Squadron in its efforts to suppress the trade.

    1. When he gets rid of all his slaves (servants) and does things for himself I might listen but until then he is just an ignorant bumbling twit.

    2. Not just the West Africa Squadron, but also the later efforts of the RN in the Indian Ocean against the Arab slave trade.

  28. SIR – I am so relieved to read that Jacob Rees-Mogg is banning all the absurd wellness and diversity courses for civil servants and others (report, July 2).

    I was once ordered to attend a day’s Civil Service diversity training at a cost of £3,000. The opening two-hour session was devoted to what sort of animal I would like to be and what sort of animal people associated me with.

    I pleaded a work crisis and left after the session and received a rebate for the taxpayer.

    Thank heavens that common sense has prevailed. Mr Rees-Mogg is saving the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds.

    Graham White
    Cambridge

    I trust that he will be around long enough to see it through, Mr White.

    1. We did one of those once but ours was over dinner in the evening. I saw myself as a penguin. Everyone else saw me as a Newfoundland dog. I looked down at dear Wiggy, saw those great big brown eyes and that daft grin and thought.. what a compliment.

  29. I would like to nominate this as letter of the week (well, last week obviously):

    SIR – I spent most of my working life in management positions in human resources (then “personnel”).

    In most organisations, public or private, personnel used to provide a useful service to line management in matters of recruitment, health, welfare, disciplinary procedures and so on. Its role was advisory, and it was there to act in the organisation’s interests (as determined by senior line management).

    In recent years, however, HR has changed out of all recognition – especially in the public sector. Very often it appears to think that its role is to lecture others, sometimes in a rather arrogant, patronising tone, on how they should behave in areas which HR itself – not the organisation’s line managers – deem to be important (for example, on gender and green issues).

    Irrespective of whether their expressed thoughts have merit or not in a social context, HR has no business in lecturing management, customers or patients on how society should change its ways. HR staff should act in the interests of those they are paid to serve, and keep their didactic virtue-signalling thoughts away from their place of work. Senior line management in turn should ensure that HR does this, but too frequently they are too afraid to put their heads above the parapet and intervene.

    Richard Stott
    Hexham, Northumberland

    1. I remember when a personnel manager spoke to the staff and cared for their welfare. Then the change to human resource and the staff became just a number. HR (human remains as they were known ) were only concerned with numbers and not people.

      2. I worked in quite a big company. Personnel were on the up, and a parallel hierarchy was being constructed. That is,HR was getting a bit big for its boots.
        I needed to fill a management vacancy, and HR supplied a number of external candidates. All were of the type that prompted you to count your fingers after shaking hands. I meanwhile found someone who was not particularly qualified, with no experience of our business, but who struck me as being honest. He was also a world champion weightlifter and this gave him a useful physical presence.
        HR advice was to take one of their candidates. Now, here is thing :
        a) If I accepted their candidate and he failed – well, “HR only give advice, it’s your decision”.
        b) If I appointed my choice and he failed – well, “you rejected HR’s professional advice”.
        c) If your choice succeeds, “we’ll fix you”, although they don’t say that out loud.
        HR motto, “Heads we win, tails you lose.”

    2. Three of our sons and one of our daughter’s inlaw work in seperate medium to large organisations. And I think they would agree totally. They say that HR is now only interested in their own manner of functionality, and wellbeing. And completely disregard any problems between the employees and the employers. Leading to poor joint performance from any supposed team within the company. They tend to be more sympathetic towards those who don’t pull their weight, fail at a task, or being of another race, just for the sake of wokeness.

  30. I may be being a bit crotchety, but should the “travel” sections of newspapers devote a dozen pages to “exciting places to visit by air” when their news pages are reporting catastrophic delays and cancellations at airports?

      1. “rammed”? You mean they keep crashing?

        The proper English word is “CRAMMED”.

        Just saying – you’ve been away too long….{:¬))

          1. And since then, everyone has jumped on the rammed wagon.

            I’ll get me coat.

          2. I agree, Bill, too many people are happy to metamorph our wonderful, concise, descriptive language into a sad apology for American, which I now treat as a foreign language.

            I cannot get acclimated to being burglarized.

          7. Heard it first while working with an American company in Singapore – I too was gob-smacked, in fact my gast was absolutely flabbered.

        2. My inner Yorkshireman rejects the use of a superfluous letter.
          Morning, Bill.
          After the last ten days, I’m in no hurry to return.

    1. I presume that that’s Hesseltine declaring his green credentials as well as his remain ones.

      Unthinking, uncaring toss-pot.

      2. Heseltine just wants the cash from euro subsidy in his pocket. The man should have been tortured and shot long ago.

    2. The problem with nuclear is that it doesn’t demand the radical re-making of society, like renewables do…

      Only up to a point. Electricity is no good for road transport.

    3. All green tyrants should be the first to go without the trappings of modern society. Get rid of everything made from energy – heat, light, power, clothes, water, food. Boot them out and about with nothing and see how long they last.

  32. Good Morning All. It was very nice yesterday. Sunny and warm, even the breeze was warm. Today it is dull and raining and cold. Yesterday I went to the supermarket in Hawick, a 40 mile round trip -the trip is enjoyable on sunny days. I went through our village of St Boswells. This year the Fair gyppo camp is very large.
    A few miles further on I came round a bend and there were two jaunting cars coming towards me one overtaking the other. I slowed down and all was well.
    Annoyingly several miles of the road had been resurfaced, gravel on tar. Happily it must have been done several days ago as there were few loose clippings that can nick the paintwork.
    I took a different route back to avoid the chippings, but there was no avoiding the Romany camp. Horses were tethered on the green and many were being ridden up and down the High Street, bareback by boys riding bareback. Jaunting cars were going back and forth. Cars were starting and stopping to have a look. It was chaotic. There was no observation of right and left sides of the road, and horses were being ridden on the pavement. All good fun.

    More fun from the BBC:
    An illegal immigrant’s sob story (why don’t they just get on a plane and fly here?)
    A plane, carrying weapons that were sold to terrorists in the Middle East by the Ukraine, crashes in Greece (my interpretation).

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-61982532
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62195005

    1. This is how the con works, the powers that be constantly make out that they care about us and then they win the trust of the gullible.

  34. Morning all! Lurking in a rather nice little ex-joinery-workshop adjacent to my ex’s house in Kent, after a lovely family barbecue last night.

    Conversation turned in the early hours to matters political. I was enjoying polite but intelligent debate on the creeping totalitarianism (my ex and his wife are vaccinated, anti-Brexit Guardian readers), when I was shocked to hear him advocate for transhumanism! Still reeling rather, buf he has agreed to read Desmet’s “The Psychology of Totalitarianism”; I’ll be interested in his reaction.

    Still, the sun is shining and there is a young and bouncy lab to walk, followed by a jaunt to Dungeness to meet a mad pianist who promises fish & chips and champagne on the beach. Have a good day, everyone!

    2. Is Derek Jarman’s garden still there?
      I’ve only ever seen photos, but it seemed to be the ideal way to create something whacky from unpromising materials.

      1. I recall a programme about it. I thought it was a dreadful apology for a garden, but each to their own I suppose…

      2. Never heard of him, Anne, but a swift Google is here:

        https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALiCzsZCDEgdoBeiR951nFp9XnoiDhSP_g:1658049118281&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=derek+jarman%27s+garden&fir=ff-ebzpZ4Y45RM%252CP093ddjVni8PwM%252C_%253B5AhYZSpJXzrIHM%252CoaBj9R9Eb8iz2M%252C_%253BD5Ozd4Nu2b_nNM%252CGqLQ54QCeR02WM%252C_%253BCOZ7UiK_NkRmTM%252CmKHE8g8TjGzeLM%252C_%253BomhmLGmEC_WnNM%252C1ZOJ6BpHqADvPM%252C_%253BIa_okcdIS-BElM%252CjTBRu0Z-B1icrM%252C_%253BjfVTLcqt43n2DM%252CP0rY3sQspqCEGM%252C_%253BE9rO8CwRNCDEGM%252CRLlgsk6sPZBWNM%252C_%253BY80swPhxEZun5M%252CRLlgsk6sPZBWNM%252C_%253BNdSLR9EHJ2ZJ8M%252CzHHslRSL_XHIHM%252C_&usg=AI4_-kQ3TTWtI_qkO-ZIrDJcQQksiU4Zvw&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi8jtylyv_4AhXTX8AKHeWIDN0Q7Al6BAgXEEU&biw=1366&bih=603&dpr=1

    3. ‘fish & chips and champagne on the beach’. What are you? a barbarian !

      Looks like you are getting closer to me !

      1. You know I’m a barbarian! 🤣

        Yes, edging closer – you will not escape a visit!

        1. Brilliant !
          🎵 Let me entertain you 🎵

          Out for lunch. You choose. Italian, Turkish or a roast dinner?

          1. Oh bloody hell; a Robbie Williams earworm! 🤣

            I shall look forward to it. We can choose which variety of locals to astound with our glamour nearer the day 😎

    1. That’s global warming for you, Paul.

      How was your Gatwick “experience”?

      1. Journey home went well, thanks. The only awkward bit was a buttock-clenching moment on the M4 when a motorway maintenance van very nearly sideswiped us at 70mph. SWMBO was driving and avoided a collision by swiftly exiting to the hard shoulder, but it was close. Too tense to shit myself… Flights, airports etc all fine, best bit was waking up in my own bed on Saturday.

  36. Good Moaning.
    Glaring sun. Lawn like concrete. Plants shrivelled and wilting.
    And even bloody St Swithin’s Day was dry.
    We’re all dooooooooooooomed.

  37. Morning all 😃
    I just thought 4:57 was twirly to get up, so a quick visit to the ‘bathroom’ and it’s now a more civilised time of day, with a cuppa.

    1. Oh I don’t know. I was woken by a beam of sunlight like an orbital laser to the face.

      It was a damned sight cooler at half 5 as well.

    2. Replaced with dances involving the wearing of loin cloths and carrying spears and shields

    3. I remember the days when ‘elite’ meant some of the best. But that’s not allowed any more, the ‘prizes for all’ syndrome.

    4. Much like yanks dropping maths and English form the curriculum because blacks were getting lower grades. The excuse is made to lower standards rather than to expect better. It’s almost as if these Left wing liberals have low expectations of da blicks.

      If the bar is out of their reach, then they’re not good enough. That used to be incentive to work harder, to expect more.

    1. Not quite going the way the Global eletists expected and their getting a bit of a bashing are they ?

  44. Good morning, everyone. Today is a day for a little early gardening, washing day, then a small BBQ next door with my neighbours ( a sudden invitation last night). When oh when will I get a chance to “crash”?!?!? (Tuesday, maybe?)

  45. Heading up the garden to take out a sycamore sapling then will get washed & tidied up for Idridgehay Garden Fete.

        1. Of course, JD.
          I’ve just had a cold bath after sorting that sycamore out.

    1. Didn’t we have a PM that once said No and three times No ?
      And look what happened to her, and the people who carried out the dirty deeds still hover in the background.

    2. Ideal scenario:

      Candace Owens runs with Trump.

      Trump wins with a landslide.

      Trump pops his clogs.

      Candace becomes president.

    3. Over here someone saying the same would be locked up. We need to deport the gimmigrants – we should do this via a giant catapult, one aimed at a concrete block.

    4. Over here someone saying the same would be locked up. We need to deport the gimmigrants – we should do this via a giant catapult, one aimed at a concrete block.

  49. Deputy CMO was on BBC TV this morning and said that one’s body temperature should be 37.5 degC.
    Well according to Medlineplus vital signs page that is classed as a fever.
    I’ve been using a KOREtrak PRO wrist monitor and have been keeping within the stated body temperature limits of 36 degC and. 37 degC.

    Could we be entering an era of global body warming?

    Blood pressure, which measures the force of your blood pushing against the walls of your arteries. Blood pressure that is too high or too low can cause problems. Your blood pressure has two numbers. The first number is the pressure when your heart beats and is pumping the blood. The second is from when your heart is at rest, between beats. A normal blood pressure reading for adults is lower than 120/80 and higher than 90/60.
    Heart rate, or pulse, which measures how fast your heart is beating. A problem with your heart rate may be an arrhythmia. Your normal heart rate depends on factors such as your age, how much you exercise, whether you are sitting or standing, which medicines you take, and your weight.
    Respiratory rate, which measures your breathing. Mild breathing changes can be from causes such as a stuffy nose or hard exercise. But slow or fast breathing can also be a sign of a serious breathing problem.
    Temperature, which measures how hot your body is. A body temperature that is higher than normal (over 98.6 °F, or 37 °C) is called a fever.

    https://medlineplus.gov/vitalsigns.html

    1. It always used to amuse me when the ‘normal’ body temp in the UK was 98.4. but in the USA , it was said to be 98.6… I suppose it is the high proportion of hot headed southern immigrant blood.

      1. My body temperature goes up if I eat sugary food. Trying to cope with the sudden onslaught of unhealthy calories, I expect.

      2. My mother was a nurse from the 1950s and as far as she and everyone else in the NHS at the time were concerned, it was always 98.4F but in Centigrade that’s 36.8 recurring. 98.6F is a nice round 37C.

        1. I still use a 1950s Boots mercury thermometer in its little steel storage tube. It’s one of those that has a triangulated glass shaft to magnify the mercury display if held correctly. And of course needs shaking back down after use.

          1. I remember them. I have a mercury thermometer bought before the 2009 EU ban, a wider and flatter Rand Rocket.

          2. We’ve never used a thermometer. Last year in consultation with the GP he got quite ratty about it and said we should get one. I did subsequently find one that had been in a drawer for many years, and had been with us over several house moves. We did not need a thermometer to check for fever, as a hand on the forehead tells all. All children survived.

        2. I still use a 1950s Boots mercury thermometer in its little steel storage tube. It’s one of those that has a triangulated glass shaft to magnify the mercury display if held correctly. And of course needs shaking back down after use.

        3. Given the constant denigration of Boomers, enough of us must have survived 1950s medical care be an aggravation in C21.
          Maybe it’s time to rethink some of the whizzier medical developments.

        1. Tom: Yanks always have to have something Bigger
          I remember a (probably apocryphal) story about the Chief Exec of Fort Knox, where 147.3 million ounces of gold (currently worth US$6.22 Billion) are stored. He boasted that Fort Knox could build a 2 foot high wall of gold around the state of Texas. An elder Texan Senator replied “You build it, Son, and we’ll buy it”.

    2. It always used to amuse me when the ‘normal’ body temp in the UK was 98.4. but in the USA , it was said to be 98.6… I suppose it is the high proportion of hot headed southern immigrant blood.

    3. It always used to amuse me when the ‘normal’ body temp in the UK was 98.4. but in the USA , it was said to be 98.6… I suppose it is the high proportion of hot headed southern immigrant blood.

    4. This is where Fahrenheit trumps Centigrade (Celsius if you must) inasmuch that Fahrenheit, being across a range of 180° compared to 100°, a more accurate temperature may be identified.

      98.4° F = 36.88889°C

    6. My body temp is a consisten 37.8. I am hot stuff. Which is why I am always too hot and why when everyone else is freezing, I’m in a t shirt happier than ever.

      I can already feel the heat – it disrupts everything, thinking, breathing, the rash is back and I’m being very careful to keep my warfarin regular.

      1. I am the opposite. Usually feeling cold – a pullover when the MR is in a T-shirt. So this weather is bliss for me.

        1. Aye, folk are different. I find it uncomfortable in the same way that being stuck in a shipping container full of radiators on full blast under hot sun wearing a sandpaper three piece suit.

  50. The BBC cannot help itself. Featured on here recently has been the Sri Lankan crisis and the contribution made to it by the absurd decision to make farming organic. It’s true that government policies over the previous decade had harmed the economy but none as much as this. Previous BBC reports had tried to downplay the effect; here’s another from the fact-checking factory:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62149554

    1. The BBC is trying to spin the truth, as usual. Yes, fertilizer did cause the riots, yes the problem has been brewing for some time – high taxes, corruption and fraud, a desperate push for climate change policies are the root.

      The BBC doesn’t like it, so it pretends the problem is something else.

  51. Apologies if this has been covered here previously, but I find it quite astonishing that the BBC finds either the time or the funds to produce this:-

    https://www.bbc.com/pidgin

    Or am I being unreasonable?

  52. Good morning my friends

    There has just been the annual Celtic Harp Festival in Dinan: last night Caroline and I went to a concert in the Théâtre des Jacobins and saw a harpist from Paraguay called Ismael Ledesma who was accompanied by his daughter, Lena, on the guitar. It was a marvellous evening. I recommend you most strongly to go and see him if you ever get the chance.

    He now is based in Paris but at the beginning of lockdown he became trapped in his native Paraguay and couldn’t get back to his family. He said that the only advantage of this was that he was able to concentrate on writing his music and some of the music he has just written is outstanding.

    One of his prettiest melodies which we heard him play several years ago is Lena s’endort which he wrote for Lena when she was a child and he was watching her fall asleep.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FQ9-xOFAbk

      1. Scots, Welsh and Irish all have Celtic ancestry. Scots traveled the world to work in mines. Not really a surprise they turned up in Paraguay.

        2. Like – at one time – a lot of people called Jones in the Argentina Rugby XV. (Pronounced “Honez”…!!)

    2. The warmup act for Ismael and Lena was an Alaskan/Scottish woman called Cheyenne Brown. She had been booked to come to Dinan in 2020 and again in 2021 but she could not come until this year because of lockdowns – she had to borrow a harp to play because her luggage had got lost on her flight from Aberdeen via Schiphol in the Netherlands. Last week one of our students from a Scottish school had her luggage lost for her too. I think it is a deliberate action by the luggage handlers.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An90PnxDtgM

      1. Poor child has that awful blemish on her left cheek. One would have thought that modern surgery could have excised it….

        1. They still use traditional mikes mounted on poles at the Théâtre des Jacobins. I always find it detracts from the visual appearance of the scene when musicians, actors or singers have bug looking devices attached in front of their faces by wires.

      2. Baggage is being piled up everywhere around airports, in storerooms, warehouses, as well as arrival halls.

      1. Some of what Meta Epstein is playing is playing is based on the chord sequence of Pachelbel’s canon in D. She ought to come to Dinan and play at the harp festival! Deborah Henson-Conant came to it in 2017 but I missed it – I do hope she will come again.

    2. Organic cricket flour? What the feck is cricket flour? What’s wrong with just plain flour?

      Apparently, according to wikipedia, insect consumption as been growing in popularity in the US…. I’d bet most don’t know about it.

    3. I might have mentioned this before, Late 60s three mates had just been visiting Victoria falls by day and that evening on our way along the Zambesi to our next stop over. We came across a local on the deserted very dark road. He had a Land-rover along side him and was holding on to a flat tyre. So we pulled over and shoved himself and the wheel into the back of the car. He directed us to his village and we dropped him off, the local people were delighted we had rescued him. And offered us some food and a cold beer each. The food was roasted crickets, they weren’t bad a bit like eating shrimps.

        1. We were only in our 20s.
          Before we reached our destination Chirindu a herd of elephants had crossed the dark unlit road. And we had to slam the brakes on the huge Bull turned and stared at the car.
          We were about 5 seconds away from being pummelled.
          So the chewy unpleasantries might have saved our lives.

      3. That’ll be like the difference between outdoor reared, properly fed chicken, and battery reared birds fed on muck….

  55. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11020185/Woman-killed-attacked-dog-42-year-old-man-suffers-life-changing-hand-injuries.html

    There are a lot of comments demanding the dog be banned. Even more comments demanding the police ‘do’ something.

    When welfare was massively expanded to give thick people money for breeding, it was inevitable that they would produce equally thick unintelligent, uneducated children. Massive government also removes any sense of personal responsibility: the endless warning, contents may be hot to avoid getting sued is precisely a response to the useless health and safety act.

    Government likes thick, uneducated irresponsible people. They keep it going. If we could get rid of them the country would be better off. Thankfully Darwinism ensures the dumb wipe themselves out.

    1. I am probably a bad person – but I have absolutely no sympathy for the people at all. Buy and keep a killer – expect to be killed.

    3. According to the UK Bullydog Kennel Club the woman would have been killed gently and compassionately.

    4. They did away with the dog licence (in about 1985). Personally I think people should be trained if they are going to have a dog!

  56. 354337+ up ticks,

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    10h
    My personal choice for our new PM – Sir Les Patterson. You know where you are with Sir Les. He ticks so many boxes
    Decades of political experience.
    * He is unashamedly corrupt – no need to
    * He knows what a woman is.
    * He’s an even bigger laugh than Boris.
    * He’s cross-dresser – as alter ego Dame Edna – so will appeal to theLGBTQWXYZs etc.
    * He’s an ethnic minority in the UK (Australian). So if anyone criticises him he can accuse them of racism.
    * He’d entertain us every day in our continued journey further up shit creek.

    https://gettr.com/post/p1iljwycd9c

      1. Very busy! It was the first local show for three years and the people turned out – spending their cash! Only one woman asked if we could accept cards – but she had wads of folding money anyway. We raised £360 towards the vet bills and food for the hoggies.

          1. We took our own drink – though there were some complaints about the price of the drinks in the bar.

  58. A BBC team spent a week trying to convince seven anti-vaxxers to get the Covid jab – amid their claims ‘it contains deadly microchips’ and is a ‘plot to depopulate the Earth’: So did ANY of them change their mind?
    Groundbreaking BBC documentary Unvaccinated is to be aired on Wednesday
    Seven anti-vax Britons spend five days living together in a house – where they are bombarded with myth-busting scientific evidence about the vaccine
    At end of week, they are taken to a vaccine clinic and offered a jab there and then
    Among them is Vicky, 43, who is convinced the jab is causing deaths and serious injuries that are underplayed by health officials

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11020717/Did-BBC-team-convince-seven-anti-vaxxers-Covid-jab.html

      1. Interesting that they’ve chosen some people who, on the face of it, seem somewhat odd.

    2. More than 18 million Britons – the best part of a third – according to the governments’ own figures, have refused the vaccine. It goes to more than half fr the booster. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but murder is a bit hard to hide…….

    1. Haven’t listened to or watched any BBC news/politics/current affairs since June 2016.

      2. I can beat that; I stopped watching the beeb after I saw the way they cheer-led for the Hunting Act!

    2. You have made me break one of my rules – to never down vote a fellow Nottler!

    3. I did listen to Farming Today yesterday on BBC R4.
      It turns out that cow emissions are the only thing left to fix nitrogen back into the soil due to the shortage of synthesised air sourced fertilizer. Electrical power however is still needed to process cowpats into low carbon emission fertilizer but special feedstocks are in development to reduce the methane levels in cow burps.
      🐄💨💥

    4. Strange feeling to downvote someone, anyone with whom one basically agrees, but I do avoid BBC (certainly the News (lies)) unless I’m forced to have to watch it because it’s something that Judy wants to watch.

      For me, I doubt I’d give the BBC houseroom. We’ll see how it goes, if and when I move to Moffat.

  60. The damned Wet Office says every sodding morning that there will be rain “in five days time”….. Worse than “Jam tomorrow”.

  61. Weather has certainly bucked up in the last hour so a big pile of washing done and hung out in the excellent drying weather

  62. Tony Blair urges western powers to stand up to China. 17 July 2022.

    Former prime minister warns era of political and economic dominance by west coming to an end

    Wow! Imagine that!

    I suppose if you had to choose someone who has done the most to bring on this situation Blair would be a pretty good candidate. His “reforms” have pretty well cut the legs off the UK and his meddling abroad in support of US Foreign Policy has finished the job. He is one of those rarities in Political History. Everything he’s touched has turned to sh*t!

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/16/tony-blair-urges-western-powers-to-stand-up-to-china

    2. In the film the Ghost Writer, It’s such a shame the destiny of the said ex PM didn’t actually happen in real life. But their was a twist at the end.

    3. Never mind all that – boost our own production capabilities

      We have enough illegals to force them to produce the same tat we currently buy from China.

      The ultimatum must be no work, no benefits and you, Mohammed, and your family are on the street.

  63. Tony Blair urges western powers to stand up to China. 17 July 2022.

    Former prime minister warns era of political and economic dominance by west coming to an end

    Wow! Imagine that!

    I suppose if you had to choose someone who has done the most to bring on this situation Blair would be a pretty good candidate. His “reforms” have pretty well cut the legs off the UK and his meddling abroad in support of US Foreign Policy has finished the job. He is one of those rarities in Political History. Everything he’s touched has turned to sh*t!

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/16/tony-blair-urges-western-powers-to-stand-up-to-china

  64. Hullo. Paul Craig Roberts’ cheery Sunday assessment:

    Paul Craig Roberts -When we are at war with Russia what will we be fighting for?

    Not for freedom of thought, of speech, of association, freedom of doctors to treat patients according to their best judgment, due process, habeas corpus, parental rights, privacy, protection against arbitrarysearch and arrest. All of these protections have already been stamped out in America and throughout the West. Americans would be much freer if the US were conquered by Russia.

    We will be fighting for US military/security power and profit.

    We will be fighting for the neoconservatives ideology of US hegemony in the interest of Israel.

    We will be fighting for narratives that are lies. We will be fighting against truth. We will be fighting for the triumph of evil.

    In the US we have reached the point that organized patriotism can be enlisted only in the defense of lies such as Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.

    And we have the pleasure of watching the parasites in Parliament enjoying Gates’s endorsement in underwriting all this,

    Lock and load for bear!!!

    1. This man is constantly anti Israel.

      If Israel vanished, the whole of the ME and NA would become even more fundamentalist Muslim, non Muslims should leave the caliphate before slaughter or Dhimmitude

        1. I did not say that, just what the consequences might be.
          Disagree as much as you wish; his very clear anti-Israel bias on every article I have read by him marks him out with an agenda too, as far as I am concerned.

          2. Hardly but please don’t confuse the issues here. I have been specific in my objection to what he writes.

          3. No, in fact you have not. You re saying that PCR has an anti Jewish agenda without actually saying what that amounts to. He takes the view that the neocons who have been manipulating US foreign policy with no other justification than their presumption of superiority, and who have a good deal of Jewish representation, are seditious in their motions – indeed a threat to world peace. I share that view. It does not make me antiJewish, but does make me anti neocon.

          4. Again you missed my point and I’m starting to believe you are doing so deliberately.

            Anti Israel not anti Jewish. It comes across very clearly that he is anti Israel.

  65. This hysteria about “extreme temperatures” is getting worse. My wife needs to get to Margate to register her mother’s death and make other arrangements for the funeral – she normally goes by train as it’s considerably more convenient and arguably much faster! She had aimed to travel down on Tuesday but with the train companies wetting themselves about heat [in summer!!] it seemed more sensible to go on Monday – our local train service have already cancelled alternate trains [possibly due to engineering work?] so she will have to leave even earlier and the longer distance trains are already forecasting speed restrictions and delays. For heaven’s sake – we used to run an entire empire, including train services in hot [and cold] places – now a few flakes of snow or a bit of a warm summer and our infrastructure crumbles. Don’t get me started on the potholes in our roads …

    1. They were painting the Railway Lines white to reflect the heat on the BBC News Yesterday! That there are hundreds of miles of track in the UK and that it would require an army passed them by!

      1. The Dopey Wokies seem to have invented more reasons not to do things than you could poke the proverbial stick at.

        1. Indeed. How racist to insist white paint might be more useful than any other colour. I can hear the “anti-racists” (sic) having a fit about it from here.

  66. Husband arrived home after spending two hours on the tennis court at their club tournament – he’s playing most mornings this week – whatever the weather! At nearly 80, he thinks if he stops playing it will be the beginning of the end…….

          2. “Let that be the case then.
            Is that your final word?”
            (Murmuring in court)

  68. Why is the BBC intent on ruining the Proms?

    The public service broadcaster behaves as though it is embarrassed by classical music

    STEPHEN POLLARD • 17 July 2022 • 7:00am

    For me, summer only begins properly with the First Night of the BBC Proms. You can keep your beaches and your BBQs. Summer nights are for sweltering in in the Royal Albert Hall, at what the BBC itself describes as “the world’s largest classical music festival”.

    It’s certainly large: 72 concerts, which started on Friday night and end on 10 September. And it’s definitely a music festival. But a classical music festival?

    This year’s programme – the first full season since Covid – takes a trend that has been developing for years for pop concerts and other forms of music to replace classical concerts, and pushes it close to breaking point.

    Late night Proms, for example, used to be a wonderful opportunity for smaller scale ensembles to perform, with a much smaller crowd giving a wonderful feeling of intimacy in the vast spaces of the Royal Albert Hall. Last night saw this season’s first: “Radio 1 Relax at the Proms…The Proms relaxes into a late-night decompression session with Radio 1 Relax – presented by Sian Eleri, host of Radio 1’s Chillest Show.” Yup, that’s the world’s self-billed “largest classical music festival” beginning with a Radio 1 programme.

    Not that tonight is any different. Prom 4 is “Legendary Voice…vocalist Cynthia Erivo” who will “salute the legendary women who have inspired her: artists like Nina Simone, Shirley Bassey, Billie Holiday and Gladys Knight.” Roll over, Beethoven, as it were.

    On and on it goes, from a Prom paying tribute to Aretha Franklin, “the undisputed Queen of Soul…featuring singer-songwriter Sheléa in powerful new arrangements of Aretha Franklin’s very greatest hits” to another featuring “The South African Jazz Songbook…A showcase for the most lively voices in contemporary South African jazz.”

    Or there’s “the first ever Gaming Prom” in which “an electronically expanded Royal Philharmonic Orchestra explores the musical universe of gaming: from the classic console titles of the 1980s to the European concert premiere of a suite from Battlefield 2042.”

    Then Prom 58 offers us the prospect of an evening with a group of “retro-futurist rockers”. No, me neither. A band called Public Service Broadcasting – which won a Progressive Music Award in 2015 – will perform “This New Noise: a joyously eclectic, album-length celebration of 100 years of BBC Radio”.

    I’m sure all of these performers are masters of their craft and fully deserve to be featured in a music festival. But in the world’s largest classical music festival? It’s like the RSC showing the new Top Gun film one evening instead of King Lear.

    It’s the cultural cringe that is so depressing – as if everyone knows that classical music is really some esoteric, elitist artform that has to be buttressed between more popular music to be able to hold its place.

    Is it any wonder that those of us who have always valued the BBC’s unique contribution to our cultural life are now beginning to think that the game is up?

    For decades the BBC understood the purpose of the licence fee and made wonderful programmes that celebrated high culture – especially classical music. Its archives are amazing. But now it behaves as if classical music has to apologise for itself or make itself relevant to earn its right to be heard.

    The BBC is its own worst enemy. If it stood up for what it was founded for, it would pull the ground from under its critics legs.

    Instead, it behaves as if it no longer knows what its purpose is. And so neither do the rest of us.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/07/17/why-bbc-intent-ruining-proms/

    2. I was at the first night. An excellent performance of the Verdi Requiem. The soprano soloist was a blek Sarf Efrikan of course but she was up to the job and that matters most. I have twelve seat tickets this year. I won’t be promming because I will not do digital ID. I won’t be attending for any dumbed down, pop stuff either.

      1. I do like the John Wilson Orchestra though; he usually does some good concerts.

      2. The Korean bass had a remarkably low register. Sounded almost Russian.

        Presumably the white contralto was a stand in for a black one that had called off…{:¬))) (Only joking – sort of…!)

    3. Is he suggesting that next weekends prom with cbeebies music is not a classic?

    5. I know what its purpose is and it has nothing to do with its founding charter to educate, inform and entertain. It’s more indoctrinate, brainwash and tell us what to think.

  69. Heatwaves and the climate of fear. Spiked 17 July 2022.

    No, a spell of hot weather is not a ‘national emergency’.

    The hot weather itself is far from unprecedented, of course, even on this notoriously rainy island. In 1911, for instance, the sun blazed for two months, with temperatures reaching nearly 37 degrees Celsius in early August. Then, of course, there was the summer of 1976, when temperatures exceeded 32 degrees Celsius for over two weeks, something that has not happened since. And more recently there was the August heatwave of 2003, during which a reading of 38.5 degree Celsius was recorded in Brogdale in Kent on 10 August – a record high which was only surpassed in 2019, when 38.7 degree Celsius was recorded at Cambridge Botanic Garden on 25 July, 2019.

    Just a little historical perspective!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/07/16/heatwaves-and-the-climate-of-fear/

  70. I wondered what Simon Heffer might have to day about The Proms. He hasn’t commented (not this year, at least) but I did find this.

    With the utmost respect, Stephen Fry, you are helping turn cricket into a totalitarian state

    Cricket’s cultural conservatives are not prehistoric monsters – all I, and plenty like me, ask is for our point of view to be accommodated

    SIMON HEFFER • 7 July 2022 • 6:00pm

    I don’t want to launch a mutual appreciation society, but just as Stephen Fry was exceptionally civil about me in his remarks about change in cricket, let me first of all be civil about him.

    He is a conspicuous talent, a clever and charming man, and clearly someone with a deep love of cricket. I don’t disagree with what appear to be some of his aims and motivations; I do take issue with the way he appears to want to advance them, and question some of his reasoning.

    I don’t shudder at diversity: not least because as I understand the term it embraces everyone, including white, middle-aged, Cambridge-educated men such as Mr Fry and me. All I, and plenty like me, ask is for our point of view to be accommodated too.

    Cricket is not a totalitarian state; but when others start to tell cricket lovers that they must talk about it in a way different from how they have always done, and aspects of the game’s culture are cast aside because they smack of elitism (when, in fact, it can be just as powerfully argued they smack of history), I start to wonder whether I might be wrong.

    Mr Fry is president of MCC, and seeks to defend the arbitrary decision taken by the clique that runs the club to end the Oxford vs Cambridge and Eton vs Harrow fixtures. It is a decision that is likely to be the subject of a special meeting in the autumn, and I hope it will be overturned.

    This is not because I am a reactionary, a fascist, or a social elitist. It is because these games have been played at Lord’s for a couple of centuries and they are a thread that runs through the history of the ground and through much of the history of MCC.

    They are part of what makes Lord’s special and gives it its worldwide appeal. I attended neither Eton nor Harrow and yet managed not to lie awake at night establishing an inferiority complex about my school not playing there; I couldn’t have cared less. It would have been highly agreeable had the Duke of Devonshire given me use of one of his grouse moors every season, but he never has and I doubt he ever will. That’s life.

    I am sorry if some people do fret about that, or about their universities not having an automatic right, as until this season Oxford and Cambridge have had, to play at Lord’s. With the slow death of first-class cricket MCC will soon be able to do outreach and accommodate all sorts of other groups who, like children from comprehensive schools and students at red-brick universities, have been excluded from Lord’s: how about an Our NHS cup played between hospitals, or an Old Lags trophy between Her Majesty’s prisons? If we are going to be diverse, let’s go the whole hog.

    Mr Fry asks why we don’t have bowlsman but are happy with bowler, yet conservative-minded cricket lovers reject ‘batter’. Bowler has been idiomatic since cricket started, as has batsman. Batter is something you fry fish in. Its adoption to describe a batsman or a batswoman is kneejerk conformism, conforming with political ideas that have no place in sport.

    Mr Fry talks mildly patronisingly about “those who are finding the evolution of language difficult”, as if those who would say ‘batsman’ (about a male cricketer – I agree with him it would be rude to use it about a woman) are like backward children who can’t quite articulate properly.

    In this sense language isn’t evolving; it is being imposed upon us, and we are dared to be nonconformists. Those who look for offence where none is intended can continue to do so; again, many of us couldn’t care less. If there are women cricketers who fret about their male counterparts being termed ‘batsmen’, then perhaps they should find something more important to worry about.

    In Mr Fry’s profession of acting it is fashionable to describe all players, whether male or female, as ‘actors’, even though it used to be an exclusively male term – except in the Oscars, where there remain, for the moment, best actress awards.

    So why is it so wrong for cricket to have batsmen? Why are they unacceptable, but third men and nightwatchmen aren’t? Mr Fry exaggerates to compare some cricketing terms with the use of a deeply offensive word to describe black people. We know why that word is so unpleasant. But Chinese cut? It’s also known as the Harrow drive, the French cut and the Surrey cut? Isn’t it silly to patronise the Chinese – who are big enough to look after themselves – in seeking to shield them against offence, or shouldn’t we worry about the sensibilities of the French, people from Surrey and Old Harrovians as well? [NB Fry also referred to the Chinaman, the left-arm wrist spinner’s ‘wrong-un’.]

    I am not so sure that those who take a more rational view of the culture of cricket are a minority, though I wouldn’t dream of saying we are important: if we were important the current cricket establishment, of which Mr Fry is now a very useful part (as far as it is concerned) wouldn’t keep riding roughshod over us. What makes cricket special is its rich culture, more than anything happening in the game today. If you dismantle this culture, you dismantle much of the appeal of the game.

    Of course, there is a romantic aspect to cricket, whether it is played at Lord’s, on a tree-lined village green in the Home Counties with a pub in the corner, or in the post-industrial landscape of a northern town. It does not always fit in easily with what Mr Fry calls ‘politeness’, but what is in fact a deliberate attempt to make the game into something many of those who follow it do not want it to be.

    Cricket’s cultural conservatives are not all prehistoric monsters. The class consciousness of the pre-1962 era is unmissed, and equally racial discrimination has no place in so universal and unifying a game, and players, officials or spectators who are proved to have engaged in it should have no place in cricket either.

    The flowering of women’s cricket is a great thing for civilisation; but again, there is nothing rude about ‘the Ashes’ (which have been so called for 140 years) and, to distinguish them, ‘the Women’s Ashes’. The women’s game can flourish on its own without having to force change on the men’s.

    In a free society thought and expression are not nationalised; if they were there would be no debate and no change. Most cricket lovers are grown up enough to know what is genuinely rude and offensive, and what is rude and offensive only to those going through contortions of hypersensitivity.

    There is nothing wrong with evolutionary change: but, whatever he thinks to the contrary, that is not what Mr Fry, in his quest for ‘politeness’, is really talking about.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2022/07/07/utmost-respect-stephen-fry-helping-turn-cricket-totalitarian/

    1. I agree 100% with Heffer, after all Cricket is a GAME, not a political shuttlecock for the likes of Fry to bat about with his rather odd friends.

      Leave it alone, Fry, you’ll only damage yourself with your idiotic ideas – it’s only a GAME.

  71. Watching the TDF as I have done for many years. Boogered if I’ll ever understand the tactics.

    Another thing I don’t understand is you see them taking drinks and snacks from team cars, side of the road etc so why do they need the domestiques?

      1. Gawd, the service here is rotten. I’ve been holding my glass out for an hour and still no champers. Sigh- time to head to the fridge…

    2. Apart from other duties, the main is to provide slip-streaming for their best riders to preserve energy on breakaways and to act as pace-makers for the stars if one of them should be separated and needs to get back to the peloton and ultimately to provide the slingshot effect for their sprinters at the mass finishes.

      1. Just so. Also the domestiques will go backwards and forwards carrying food and drink. Team cars cannot always access the peloton.

      2. But there are dozens of them half an hour behind the peleton. It’s the same names at the front, doing the windbreaker, every day.

        1. This year the heat is affecting things, but are you sure that they are not the actual peloton, rather than a breakaway group?
          One can have one, two or even three groups in pelotons; depending on the stage, who is in the front group as far as the yellow jersey is concerned, who is the likely winner.
          Most of the teams share their prize money so there is an incentive to support your, grand classification man, your sprinter, your climber etc dependent on the route.
          This year, because of the heat, they have been flexible over the elimination times.

          1. If they have domestiques to do the job, they shouldn’t then also have roadside team staff giving out refreshments nor be allowed to take from the car. If the domestique is too far behind, the GC rider should have to drop back to one of them to get a drink. It’s a team sport, after all. (It’s a feature every year, not just due to this year’s conditions)

          2. It’s a team sport where the objective is for your team’s most specialised riders to win the points, the stages, the young rider etc and of course the GC itself.

            After all, the rules apply equally to all the teams; it’s a professional sport and the domestiques are earning their money from their specific role. If they become good enough then they too will get the appropriate support for their specialisation and/or the GC. Even amongst the domestiques there will degrees of specialisation, eg hill climbers, sprinters, pace-makers etc.

    1. I am going to tackle pile of washing up that I’ve been ignoring in hopes it will disappear. Then I too am going to sit under the umbrella outside.

      1. It’s clouding over in central Herts and the humidity is increasing rapidly.

      2. I have a pile like that. Over the past few days, MB and I have been snacking, as we can’t face a full scale meal.

        1. You as well. It don’t half pile up…
          Just as I thought I’d got to the end of it, another plate etc loomed up. Swine crockery and cutlery.

          1. Despite what Grizzly might tell you – dishwashers are good and cheaper than hand washing-up.

  73. Some one sent me an email,……… and it’s been suggested that Sunak
    is the choice of the WEF, did you know he authorised the photos from the lock down party. He’s been planning the demise of Boris for some time.
    Why can’t they charge with with something?
    I wouldn’t doubt anything that politicians do out of eye and ear shot. They all come across as disgusting creatures.

      1. Well, the DT has an article that our Civil Servants messed up our aircraft carriers. Should that not be secret? One of the companies that installs the high-tech stuff is Thales, a French company. As we know, the wogs start at Calais.

    2. Is it definitely known that RS actually authorised the taking or publication of the photos?
      I have read that, by virtue of the angle, they would have been taken from a Number 11 window, but that is not the same as the actions being authorised by Sunak.

      1. I’ve come to the conclusion that none of the remaining candidates are suitable for the role. But who is ?

  74. As its so warm we decided to have a venison casserole for lunch. out of season but so good.

    1. I was offered 8 legs of venison last night for £100 but I said sorry, that’s too dear.

  75. I see that Texas is having a heatwave as well.

    In a sign of things to come, Tesla are advising that EV owners don’t charge their vehicles between 3PM and 8PM.

    1. Unlike the UK though, Texas has sufficient energy to run air conditionners and their hot weather is far less humid than ours.

      1. It was so hot one time in Georgia that the mini sub station at the end of the road blew. Everyone had their AC running on full tilt.

        Bill T- look away now!
        How on earth did those southern belles manage with pantalets, corsets and long gowns? And the men were always formally attired too.

          1. Plenty of “servants” to fan them with palmetto leaf fans.
            Seriously, on a really hot day, it is airless. Most of the eastern US is an inferno in the summer but it’s hotter down south.
            PS- Tara in GWTW is set south of Atlanta which is north GA. I lived in north metro Atlanta not all that far from the foothills of the Appalachians. Still bloody hot in summer.

        3. T’would have been interesting, navigating one’s way through the pantalets, corsets and long gowns.

          A few years ago, I’d have seen it as a challenge to rise too. Alas, not so much these days.

  76. Ukrainian airline plane carrying munitions crashes in Greece. 17 July 2022.

    A cargo plane operated by a Ukrainian airline carrying munitions from Serbia to Bangladesh has crashed in northern Greece, killing everyone on board.

    Residents reported seeing a fireball and hearing explosions for two hours after the Antonov aircraft came down on farmland near the city of Kavala.

    Debris from the Soviet-era An-12, operated by Ukrainian-based airline Meridian, was strewn across fields.

    “This is not related to Ukraine or Russia,” said Meridian’s general director, Denys Bogdanovych.

    This will be a little arms dealing on the side. Probably the latest NATO kit on its way to the Jihadists!

    https://news.sky.com/story/plane-reportedly-carrying-dangerous-cargo-and-operated-by-ukrainian-airline-crashes-in-greece-12653566

    1. At the same time as Biden is wittering on about gun control when he left 300,000 weapons to the Taliban.

    3. As I posted earlier, although earlier information said Serbia to Jordan. I wonder if it was an Amazon delivery?

    2. The worlds mainstream media has such control over the news that every country can only get to hear about world events that fits the narrative that they see fit.
      This is the key to how world government operates.

  78. For the second time in less than a week an Amazon delivery driver has dumped a parcel, clearly not addressed to us, on our door step and run off! Our house name is in 1″ high letters, cut into a stone beside the front door so there is no excuse. I suspect this is because the driver has so many deliveries that he can’t take time to get to the correct address if it isn’t obvious so they just dump it in the same street and leave it to the house owner to do their job! I complained to customer service who seemed unable to read and understand what I had written – I am unlikely to have the order number if I didn’t order it myself and have already taken the package to my neighbours!

    1. The delivery drivers have huge schedules to keep to. I ordered draw tickets last week for our hedgehog hospital summer draw. The DPD driver managed to deliver them on time and he had more than 100 deliveries to get through. Unlike the UPS driver a couple of weeks ago who said his van was too big to get down our narrow lane and delivered it to our main hospital on the other side of the valley and several days late. I had to get the suppliers to chase it up and find out where the package had got to. I’ve just checked the DPD site and given the driver five stars.

    2. Was it an actual Amazon driver? I find they’re usually on the ball. But occasionally, they subcontract the delivery to the likes of Evri (was Hermes, Evri bit as useless), then things can go badly wrong.

      I bought a roller blind motor from Amazon last month. It was clear from the quoted delivery date (as well as the manufacturer) that this would be coming from China. It took three days to get from the supplier through customs clearance at Heathrow and on to Evri, and over two weeks for them to get it to my doorstep, 18 miles away…

      1. No idea in these two cases as we never saw the van – although most of the deliveries around here are from old white vans with no name on the side!! Many drivers seem to not speak good English, which doesn’t help them and, as I’ve mentioned, they usually seem to have very challenging delivery schedules. The brighter ones occasionally do ring our bell, as we are one of the more accessible houses on the lane, and if we can help we do!

        1. They are supposed to take a photograph of your open front door to prove that they’ve delivered. Slap in a “Where is it now” claim and you’ll either end up with two items or a very sorry delivery oik.

          1. Sadly because it isn’t my delivery I can’t do that – It would need to be the person whose order it is!

    3. I usually get to talk to the delivery man. The conversation normally goes like this: “Number 8?” “No.” “What do you mean, no?” (points next door) “that’s number 6.” “That may be number 6, but this house does not have a number. You need to go two doors down in that direction” (points south) “for number 8.” “Oh, okay.”

  79. Spent the afternoon in and out of the paddling pool listening to golf and cricket on the radio, reading the newspaper and doing the crosswords.

    I cannot understand why people are so frightened of the hot weather

        1. Much the same here betwixt Guildford and Aldershot; 31°C outdoors, 28°C indoors. Tomorrow is supposed to be 38°C. I probably won’t spend the day in the garden, but I expect it will be OK indoors. It is at present.

          I have a 2.5 x 2.0 m East facing window, which can warm the place up pretty quickly, even from winter sunshine. Tomorrow, while all the opening parts will be wide open, the venetian blinds will be closed at first light.

          Hottest I’ve experienced was in Turkey a decade or so ago. 41°C. ‘Twas a little much, but at least there was a pool, and aircon in the hotel.

  80. We drove to Weymouth this morning , took about 30mts .. traffic heav beaches full , sea looked glorious.. resort was crammrdwith people . Moh and I do not do crowds .. We visited the Nothe fort .. wonderful experience and the history is fascinating … and all thanks to a wonderful Prime Minister … Lord Palmerston , who commissioned forts to protect us from the French !

    Yes some people had our defence at the top of their agenda .

    https://nothefort.org.uk/

    1. Ah, “Send a gunboat” Palmerston. Nowadays we don’t have a gunboat to send 🙁

  81. Another reason why the bbc should be pay to view. The final round of the open golf is on this afternoon. As most of you will know it’s coming from St Andrews in Scotland.
    But instead of showing it live they have women’s football live from Switzerland playing the Netherlands. Little interst to anyone in the UK.
    And before that a mens marathon run from the USA??? Less interest from people in the UK.
    After its long over the last few and usually over edited holes of the golf. Will be showing probably when most of the players might have gone to bed.
    Pay to view bbc, you haven’t got the guts, you’d be bankrupt within 6 months.

    1. None of that is of the slightest interest to me. No wonder I don’t watch the beeb.

      1. 354337+ yo ticks,

        Afternoon W,
        They walk among us, I don’t know how we survived the Mars attack, the alien one not the Slough one
        all though that ……..

    2. I wonder how many of those fools are still alive and would have decency to apologise for their inherent scare mongering.

  83. Wordle 393 4/6

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

    2. Nearly spoilt my day

      Wordle 393 6/6

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

      1. Oh, a par 4 for me.
        Wordle 393 4/6

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

      2. I found 1 vowel out of three so used the second word to check two other vowels. I knew the 2nd letter.

  84. I feel compelled to share this important discovery with ‘the community’. In this weather, you do not need to use a woollen tea cosy over the pot when you’ve made the tea. It stays adequately hot without it.

    2. At church we were reminded to follow the government guidelines because it was going to get hotter over the next couple of days! What? I didn’t need “government guidelines” to survive 1976.

  86. Muslims’ high unemployment rate ‘not due to cultural and religious practices’. 17 July 2022.

    Poor outcomes for Muslims in the British labour market cannot be explained by sociocultural attitudes, such as commitment to traditionalism, a study has found.

    The research, published in the peer-reviewed Ethnic and Racial Studies journal, confirmed the existence of a “Muslim penalty” in the employment market but rejected previous suggestions that it was due to cultural and religious practices.

    Both Muslim men and Muslim women were found to have significantly greater probability of unemployment than their respective white British Christian counterparts after adjustments were made for factors such as age, where they live, education and whether they have children. The author then adjusted for factors such as religiosity, gender attitudes, and civic participation but found that they had only a minor effect on the “Muslim penalty”

    Of course it isn’t. They are just idle bastards!

    https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jul/17/muslims-high-unemployment-rates-not-due-to-cultural-and-religious-practices

    2. And, I also suspect, the women are poorly educated and probably don’t speak very good English.

    3. But does it matter. They can be given benefits and still be far better off than if they had stayed in the ancestral homelands.

    4. Among women, Muslims generally exhibited the greatest risk of unemployment, with Pakistani women displaying the highest risk of unemployment.

      Nuff sed.

    7. Just lazy bastards content to suck on the benefits provided by the British taxpayer.

      The time to STOP is now. Which of our potential PMs will honour this pledge?

    1. Bogey FFFive … unimpressive

      Wordle 393 5/6
      ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩⬜🟨🟩
      🟨🟩⬜⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Anyone get the anagram of Rishi Sunak. It gets being deleted on the DT comments. It begins Hi risk **** somewhere the sun dont shine!

    3. #metoo Wordle 393 4/6

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

    4. Me too.
      Wordle 393 4/6

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

  89. That’s me for this sultry day. May be a bit warmer tomorrow – hope so.

    What a day. This morning, while I was watering the trombetti, Pickles sauntered by then went off to play with and kill a shrew. Twenty minutes later he came into the sitting room WITH shrew which was still alive – and dropped it. Shrew went under settee. Pickles buggered off to his basket where he has been all afternoon. Gus came to about noon and spotted shrew – which had ventured out. Then spent half an hour “guarding” the settee unless shrew reappeared,. It didn’t.

    They now just amble through the sitting room, nodding their heads towards the settee saying – “You need a cat – there’s a shrew under there….”

    I am sure you will all be rivetted to the fake “debate” ce soir. Not me.

    A demain.

    1. Our two hunt as a team: Big Cat sits completely still whilst Little Cat chases the unfortunate rodent/bat/bird around, until… BAM! A massive paw, size of a shovel, slams the poor victim and it’s game over!

    2. The strangest part of this soap opera is that none of the cast is a Tory leadership candidate.

    3. After a book deal – I am sure the Grauniad will snap her up. Especially if she can bring slavery in to it….

  91. Dear Neil

    Here’s the problem. In this country, it is much likelier that a revolution that either dislodges a government or makes it change its mind will take place when that government has said it will end the nonsense that got us into this mess in the first place.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUFh7l1Y9TU

    1. 354337+ up ticks,

      Evening WS,
      But it is the majority voter who vote the proven odious party’s in.

      1. …and of course, rather than meaningless rants, you can point us toward the alternative.

        Thought not.

        ‘Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
        Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
        To the last syllable of recorded time;
        And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
        The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
        Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
        That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
        And then is heard no more. It is a tale
        Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
        Signifying nothing.

        Macbeth, Wm Shakespeare. He was onto you some 400 years ago.

        1. 354337+ up ticks,
          Evening NtN,
          As you full well know you have searched long enough, there is no cure for stupidity.

          Our woes as a Country today are none of my making, you will say the same no
          doubt.

    2. He has a canny way of saying it like it is.

      Rise up brethren and take back control of our future.

  93. Well that was a pleasant afternoon.
    12:44 bus to Idridgehay, a couple of hours at a very pleasant garden fete including a bit of flirting with some ladies of a certain age, all in good fun of course, couple of pints in the Black Swan, then bus back to Cromford, pint in the Boat, walk back home to a cold bath and now sat with a mug of tea listening to BBC R3’s Words & Music.

    1. A bit of flirting does us all good these dehumanised days, Bob. It reminds us that we are human. xx

  94. I have just tried the Bill Thomas recommended beetroot juice treatment for low blood pressure. To lower it, that is. Mine has gone down from 138-ish/85 – never lower than 78 dia these days – to: 126/69, followed 15 minutes later by a reading of 119/72. I am very pleased and will continue. I find the beetroot flavour a little strong but it is something I can get used to even if I don’t exactly look forward to it.

          2. I love beetroot, me. Freshly boiled, pickled… unsettling colour effects after a visit to the netty, unfortunately.

          7. You can do a very subtle pickling of beets. Just slice them and leave them for a couple of mins in white vinegar, sherry or mirin. Or all three !

          8. This site is a hoot sometimes- who’d have thunk there would be a discussion going on about beetroot FFS. Sod politics- beetroot is where it’s at, man;-))

          10. Best borscht I had was in Samara (CAMAPA), where the Ladas come from. Excellent, it was.

          16. Skinned and chopped while lukewarm and turned in sour cream and a spot of seasoning.

          20. I have to be so careful on here when I take a mouthful of wine…..The purple exhaust one nearly brought on a choking fit;-)

    2. There is no charge for this advice…. Just a donation to the Gus and Pickles Retirement Fund

      1. One might ask why GP’s don’t recommend beetroot juice. Oh, i remember….they don’t get a kickback from big pharma.

    3. I bought two bottles of beetroot juice. It does work but i mistakenly bought beetroot and ginger. Yuk.

      1. See my reply to Anne Allan just now. Beetroot and ginger does sound, well, like something for those among us who are bored with life…!

          2. Drinking, where nobody else wants some.
            :-))
            You can get it as gummi sweets, too.
            Me like. Nobody else in the household does. Perhaps should have been born Finnish.

          5. Vino is all I can manage, these days, LotL. Even the simple pleasure of trying out different alcohols is fading with age, but I will hang on to my wine glass for as long as I can.

          7. If I ever come across it I might give it a whirl, but until then…. I have embedded it in my memory bank for future reference should that day arise….

    4. Where did you buy it? I’ve looked in supermarkets, but maybe I go to the wrong ones.

        1. Sod that. The kitchen would look like the torture cells of the Spanish Inquisition.
          I know my culinary limits.

      2. Waitrose. There were two brands, £3.10 and £3.55. I got the £3.10 which had 90% beetroot juice and 10% apple juice, the £3.55 one had 80% beetroot juice and 20% apple juice, I think the apple juice is added to make it more palatable, it is an acquired taste (or it will be!) it is fairly rich and earthy, but not impossibly so. You need to take 250 mls. You can buy online but you have to buy in packs of 6 and I didn’t want to do that in case I really couldn’t take it (and I am someone who was given chamomile tea as a child by my mother, and sulphur and molasses in springtime to purify the blood!! – they had odd ideas in those days oop north). However, I am so pleased with the result after one ‘application’ I will continue – ya boo sux to big pharma.

  95. For those just joining….welcome to the beetroot appreciation society ;-))

        1. That might well be the best way to stop the flood.

          Insist that ten percent of all golf courses be used for housing for the gimmegrants.

    3. They *are* doing something. They’re the ones bringing them in. It is malice and revenge.

    2. Islam is a religion not a race.
      Anyone who is fearful of an Islamic takeover is rational, not a racist.

    4. Islamophobia is a good thing – it might yet cause an uprising against the ideologists.

    5. Islamophobia is not racism, as by definition a phobia is an irrational fear. There is nothing irrational about a dislike of muslims. They tend to blow themselves up, cut the heads of innocent people, rape children and wander about with slogans such as ‘behead those who insult islam’.

      Bluntly, up yours mohammed. As for wittering on about racism – you can talk. You’re the ones perpetuating it.

    6. A phobia is an irrational fear. If I have any fears about islam and muslims, they are perfectly rational and not a phobia.

  99. .

    Still a few spots of rain and dark clouds .. Temp 25c.

    Petrichor ..
    a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather.
    “other than the petrichor emanating from the rapidly drying grass, there was not a trace of evidence that it had rained at all”

    1. Rain? That’s water from the sky? Nahh, it’s a myth.

      However, all joking aside, the water butt thing is nearly empty. I’m tempted to get another one. It holds 250 litres and is empty!

    2. Apparently, the Norwegian military have supply issues regarding issue underwear, so that those leaving their miltary service need to return used underwear… why not go Commando??
      HA! HA! HA!
      Is choke, Ja?

  103. Keir Starmer under fire for filming video at Holocaust Memorial without mentioning atrocity
    Tourists visiting Berlin are often criticised for taking photographs and posing inappropriately at the memorial

    By
    Arthur Scott-Geddes
    and
    Mason Boycott-Owen
    17 July 2022 • 8:31pm

    Keir Starmer has come under fire for filming a campaigning video in front of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin without mentioning the atrocity.

    During a two-day visit to the German capital last week, the Labour leader visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which commemorates the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust.

    He used the memorial as a backdrop to a promotional video, but made no mention of the holocaust.

    Instead, Mr Starmer and shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy can be seen walking through the memorial in a series of carefully choreographed shots, while the Labour leader discusses the war in Ukraine. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/07/17/keir-starmer-fire-filming-video-holocaust-memorial-without-mentioning/?utm_content=telegraph&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR2WCrRBNbKtjHACBEw-m-AiMGsPHfnozmElEKfrY10P7iZsfnN8dq4fvQ4#Echobox=1658086467

    1. It says it all about the worth of a Labour (Socialist) government.

      I’m sure that 99% of the current electorate is aware of the holocaust but will that 99% vote for a stable government who will push-back against the current holocaust seekers – WEF, WHO, UN etc.?

    2. Snowflake journalism. The Labour leader’s wife is Jewish and their children are being raised in that faith.

  105. The highest temp. here today was 25.5 at 4.07pm. Forecast 27C so wrong again. Tomorrows forecast is 31C. so lets see.

  106. Missed first part of Proms…caught up halfway through the new flute concerto which I thought was good and very well played. The Enigma was simply superb- and also the Coates encore. I cried when Nimrod came on… was played at MH’s dad’s funeral- he being RAF in the war.
    I wish John Wilson would do the Last Night.

    1. Likewise with nimrod. I chose that for my mother’s funeral and it brings back strong memories even now.

  107. Evening, all. Went for a drink with friends after church, which was a pleasant surprise invitation. Came back and put Oscar’s paddling pool up – I hadn’t realised quite how much my lawn sloped! I had a great time, but Oscar wouldn’t come near it 🙂

      1. It was only a couple of inches deep, partly because of the slope and partly because it took ages to fill even to that shallow depth and I was mindful of how much water it was taking.

    1. Merci, Caroline and Rastus.

      According to legend, I was born in Dublin at 08.35 – weighing in at 10 lbs 7 oz;
      I was taken home, to Monkstown, in a wartime, gas-bagged taxi !

          1. Glorious here too! The twins have spent the day in the paddling pool! Absolute joy all round! Enjoy your evening!

        1. Thank you. Maggie!

          I ‘peaked’ at 6’3′; I am presently in slowly shrinking mode …

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