Saturday 30 July: Pensioners and the low-paid won’t survive winter if bills rob them of half their income

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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508 thoughts on “Saturday 30 July: Pensioners and the low-paid won’t survive winter if bills rob them of half their income”

  2. Pensioners and the low-paid won’t survive winter if bills rob them of half their income

    And here we have the great reset

    1. Morning, Bob3 and all Nottlers.

      The start of the ‘Great Impoverishment’ leading to appropriation of any/all assets of value? Owning nothing will NOT make people happy: and that is the point, the whole point and nothing but the point of the machinations of stupid governments and those working their strings.

  4. ‘Morning All

    For those that haven’t seen it here is the meme that so upset Hants Police

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FY2A5gWXoAMtDhf?format=jpg&name=small

    (right click to open in new tab)

    Happily all charges have been dropped and the thought police put back in their box

    https://twitter.com/LozzaFox/status/1553025538251423744

    Even their PCC ain’t happy with them

    https://www.hampshire-pcc.gov.uk/police-and-crime-commissioner-donna-jones-responds-to-video-published-on-twitter-involving-hampshire-police-officers-regarding-alleged-hate-crime

    1. The irony of a Gestapo-like reaction involving the publication of a swastika-inspired meme may have escaped them, but full marks to the Hants PCC for her intervention. I would also like to think that whoever made the decision to arrest will be undergoing some serious retraining – in another job!

      ‘Morning, Rik.

    2. Unfortunately, the police have made it plain that anyone going against the woke line had better think again or a bunch of heavies might come knocking on your door. Charges may well have been dropped but the threat hangs over us all. Drip, drip…

  5. 354730+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Saturday 30 July: Pensioners and the low-paid won’t survive winter if bills rob them of half their income

    So the lab/lib/con coalition , current supporters / voters have got one thing right putting in the footings of the replace / reset campaign.

    1. 354730+ + up ticks,

      O2O,

      They really are doing well in supporting the
      replace / reset campaign don’t you think so Og,
      extremely well me old cocker.

    3. Governments controlled by outside influences are sowing the wind of discontent and it is those governments that will surely reap the whirlwind, not the controllers. The latter will be well hidden and protected, where will the elected representatives hide? Useful idiots doesn’t come close to describing many governments.

      2. Morning all

        The discontent May eventually lead to discontent – at which point the riot police will be sent in. It’s just what they’re waiting for. Then we can really be put under martial control.

      3. Morning all

        The discontent May eventually lead to discontent – at which point the riot police will be sent in. It’s just what they’re waiting for. Then we can really be put under martial control.

  8. Good Moaning.
    What do YOU do during the ‘commercial breaks’?
    (And no, I don’t want to know what happens to the parts that other beers cannot reach.)

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/shake-n-vac-song-milk-tray-man-where-did-tvs-great-ads-go/

    “From the Shake n’ Vac song to the Milk Tray Man, where did TV’s great ads go?

    This week, Victoria has been watching adverts

    30 July 2022 • 6:00am

    Victoria Coren Mitchell

    When was the last time you watched an advert? Start to finish, I mean. I watched a few ads recently for the first time in literally years.

    TV commercials had slipped out of my life without me quite noticing, and I’m not sure how I’ve managed without them. How have I known what to buy? No wonder I’ve been wearing size 18 shoes, sprinkling ant powder on salad and washing my hair in cat food.

    Where did the adverts go? I suppose I must have stopped watching “live” TV. Most of what I watch is either on the BBC or Netflix-type subscription services that pay for themselves with monthly fees, or online with advertising that can be “skipped” and fast-forwarded. Sometimes you can’t skip the ads (I have a feeling More4 doesn’t let you do that) but my tolerance for commercial breaks has sunk so low that I’ve wandered out to get a sandwich at those moments, or done the Wordle.

    And yet, I used to love adverts. As a child of the 1980s, I lived through the golden age of beer ads: “Follow the bear” and “Probably the best lager in the world” and “I bet he drinks Carling Black Label”. It didn’t get me drinking any of the beers, mind you. But beer is disgusting and to this day I’d rather eat grass out of the garden than have a mouthful of any of it; that’s not the advertisers’ fault. They crafted wonderful mini-films that I loved watching.

    Beer wasn’t the only muse. I loved the Secret Lemonade Drinker and the Milk Tray Man, the Kia-Ora crows, the “cola wars” and the chap who took his jeans off in the laundrette. And all those irresistible songs! “We want to be Smiths Crisps” and “We hope it’s chips, it’s chips”; “Do the Shake n’ Vac, and put the freshness back” and “Give ’em a lift oooh-oooh with Cookeen!” (What the hell was Cookeen? Some kind of weird, non-butter substance? Perhaps it helped take away the taste of Hofmeister.)

    My brother and I used to play “Guess the ads”. We loved that game. It was the inverse of what I do now; we would rush into the room for a commercial break, ready to enjoy the mini-films and score points for predicting what they’d be trying to sell. At Christmas, adverts would start featuring snow and toys, they were exciting harbingers of the twinkly season.

    I realise, with an odd jolt, that my seven-year-old daughter has never seen an advert at all. She doesn’t watch much TV, and when she does it’s a film or a programme downloaded without breaks or watched online with a skip function and… I am only just realising, the adverts disappeared!

    It’s only occurring to me now because of the news that Ofcom is considering a relaxation of traditional advertising restrictions, potentially allowing more than the current maximum of three minutes and 50 seconds per commercial break or seven minutes per hour of broadcast TV. One naturally thinks “Disaster! More bloody ads!”, before stopping to think that I never really see them these days anyway. Maybe I’m missing something good?

    I have no reason to believe that adverts have got worse since the days when I actively looked forward to them as treats. More likely I have just become grumpier and more negative, and certainly my attention span has got worse. Now a paid-up member of the digital generation, my brain is constantly shouting, “Next!”

    Maybe the disappearance of the mandatory commercial break has contributed to the general disintegration of our collective patience. First we started watching TV series by box set (then download), gorging successively until we could no longer retain interest over a week between episodes; then we stopped being able to tolerate a three-minute break between parts. Curiosity is no longer a pleasure in itself, it’s something that must be satisfied immediately. Invited to fast-forward and skip, we lost the ability to wait.

    Watching Only Murders in the Building, a series I recommended recently in this space, I was even offered the option to “skip” the opening credits. That’s part of the actual show! Why not just skip the whole plot, and go straight from “There’s been a murder!” to “Here’s who did it”?

    Do you know what freaks me out? Boiling-water taps. You must have seen them in people’s houses. You flick a button to make the tap water come out cold, fizzy or boiling. Perhaps you’ve got one? I can’t bear them. It’s not the danger of scalding one’s hand in a careless moment (though that worries me as well), it’s the idea of not even being able to wait for the kettle to heat up. It takes two minutes! Two minutes of quiet contemplation! A little punctuation mark in a busy day: the small, civilised ceremony of making tea. For crying out loud, if you’re that keen to save time why not pop the tea bag in your mouth and run the boiling tap straight in there?

    So, while I hope Ofcom doesn’t relax restrictions – because seven minutes per broadcast hour is plenty – I am determined to start watching adverts again. To keep my brain and patience and curiosity in shape. On the first day of my new policy, I saw a brilliant commercial that moved me to tears. A mini masterpiece, like a Hemingway short story. (Haven’s advert, Beach Boy; see if it works for you.)

    Besides, they have to fund programmes somehow. If nobody watches adverts, we’ll be drowned in product placement instead. God spare us that.”

    1. If Victoria’s idea of ‘beer’ is Carling Black Label, Carlsberg and Hofmeister then it’s clear why she would rather eat grass.

    2. When was the last time you watched an advert?

      I don’t usually watch them. I record any programme that i want to see and then skip the ads! It’s not possible to avoid them totally of course but there’s no doubt that they are now used for the dissemination of Woke propaganda!

      1. Playing ‘spot the white person’ is a useful distraction from the content of adverts.

        1. Morning Korky. I’ve started Oriental Watching on the appearance of Chinese actors. There also seems to be some sort of race (forgive me) on the part of the Nudge Unit to see how many ethnically diverse members it can get into one family!

      2. If I inadvertently pay any attention to a TV advertisement I usually find I have no idea what they are trying to sell me!

        1. Most TV adverts nowadays appear to be aimed at BAMES, so not being BAMES we don’t need to purchase what is being offered.

      3. I gave up the pleasures of ‘livestream broadcasts’ over four years ago. Losing access to the ever more woke adverts was a happy byproduct of that decision.

    3. I thought we had stopped watching them because they’ve got so irritatingly politically correct. Perhaps the writer isn’t allowed to say that.

      2. Exactly what I thought.
        Plus often you are at a loss to know what on earth they are trying to sell.

        1. If you really can’t tell what the advert is trying to sell, the chances are that it’s IKEA! And how about the ads that claim to be for something new, when the product isn’t new – coffee bags were around in the 80’s so “why didn’t they think of this before” is nonsense – they did!!

          1. That’s what I always shout when that advert comes on! I used to use coffee bags in the late seventies.

    4. ‘Moaning, Annie. How odd that, in an article about TV ads, the elephant in the room has gone walkabout. I mean, of course, the attempt to ban whitey from appearing. In the old days a few ads were clever and/or amusing, but since the massed ranks of over-worked BAMES took over and humour went out the window I either have a flick-around or go and find something else to do. And thank goodness for DVD recorders where it is possible to jump each ad break and actually enjoy the programme!

    5. “But beer is disgusting…”

      The advertised beers were…

      “…potentially allowing more than the current maximum of 3m 50s per commercial break or seven minutes per hour of broadcast TV…”

      It’s more than that now. A programme scheduled for a one-hour slot on ITV has barely 45 minutes of content (less if you take out the intro and credits).

      1. Yes, the time was increased years ago. Used to be that e.g. ITV dramas had two commercial breaks per hour but as of 20 years ago there seemed to be more advert than programme. This was even more obvious towards the end of a film when there seemed to be a commercial break between every scene. Hence I began watching films on dvd and avoiding the other programmes.

        1. “Yes, the time was increased years ago.”

          As you say, more than 20 years ago, almost certainly at the same time as sponsored advert breaks.

          Typical changes in content: one hour slot – 52 mins to 46; 90 min – 75 to 67; 2 hour – 100 to 90 (early Inspector Morse, 102).

  10. Tom Tugendhat backs Liz Truss in race for No 10. 30 july 2022.

    Liz Truss has won the backing of former Tory leadership rival Tom Tugendhat.

    In a major boost for the foreign secretary’s campaign, Tugendhat wrote in the Times that her plans for vast tax cuts are “founded on true Conservative principles”.

    Tugendhat like Wallace wanted to be sure that he was backing the winner!

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/29/rishi-sunak-admits-it-was-silly-to-say-he-had-no-working-class-friends

    1. But, natch, should the oily one win – they’ll suddenly “back” him – and say that he was their choice all along….

    3. I would not back either of them if I were a Conservative Party MP. I would be trying to build up a schism within the party leading to a breakaway party with David Frost as its leader!

    4. I doubt that Dogendtwit would recognise “true Conservative principles”, but that probably applies to most of the currrent government?

      1. He was always a frantic Remainer, so despite Liz Truss now stating that she has converted from Remainer to Leaver, it would

        appear that Mr Tugendhat doesn’t believe her assertion..

        1. IIRC Dogend was also a firm believer in longer and harder lockdowns and compulsory jabs?

  12. Good morning all. A dull 12°C this morning. At least it’s dry so far, though a spot of rain forecast for midday.

    A Letter and a response:-

    SIR – In 2021 it was reported there was a shortage of 2,000 midwives. In April 2022, there was a further net loss of 700 midwives.

    This means, on average, each maternity department in the United Kingdom is short of 20 midwives. It is my belief most people preparing to give birth would far rather see the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists prioritise a campaign for greater midwife numbers than preparing guidelines for trans parents to receive support for “chest feeding”.

    Malcolm John Dickson FRCOG
    Morley Green, Cheshire

    Perigo Minas
    39 MIN AGO
    . It is my belief most people preparing to give birth would far rather see the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists prioritise a campaign for greater midwife numbers than preparing guidelines for trans parents to receive support for “chest feeding”.
    Malcolm John Dickson FRCOG
    Dear me, that’s not very PC, is it?

    1. Good Lord. Imagine expecting a professional who knows their job; how very C20.
      What’s wrong with a one-legged drag queen sitting by the bed reading you a woke version of The Famous Five (George Undergoes a Mastectomy) while your undercarriage lands on the draw sheet?

    2. Good Lord. Imagine expecting a professional who knows their job; how very C20.
      What’s wrong with a one-legged drag queen sitting by the bed reading you a woke version of The Famous Five (George Undergoes a Mastectomy) while your undercarriage lands on the draw sheet?

  13. ‘Our theme is relentless love’: England to open first secure school for young offenders. 30 July 2022.

    Children convicted of the most serious crimes will be shown “relentless love” at England’s first secure school, where they will live in bedrooms instead of cells, according to its evangelical Christian founder.

    The Rev Steve Chalke, of Oasis academies, which won the contract to run the school on behalf of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), said relentless love was not a “hippy” concept but a way of building trust with children who “no one has cared about very often” before.

    The home will have gardens landscaped by a Chelsea flower show award winner and is modelled on similar therapeutic institutions in Scandinavia. It is being fashioned from the Medway secure training centre, a youth detention centre that was shut down in March 2020 after a series of abuse scandals.

    The secure school was originally due to open in autumn 2020 but now hopes to accept its first students in early 2024 after costs spiralled from £4.9m to £36.5m. The National Audit Office said the estimate jumped “due mainly to significant design revisions after due diligence”.

    When disaster beckons who are we to refuse our hard earned cash?!

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jul/30/relentless-love-england-to-open-first-secure-school-for-young-offenders

    1. Another poorly planned, unrealistically costed, government backed, project that is already going to be very late and cost millions more.

      In other words, a typical government cock-up, called a project for “Relentless Love”. When in truth, the little oiks need a thorough birching.

      1. Morning Nan. I suppose we could run a raffle as to when the first killing will take place!

        1. Sweepstake, I would have thought – unless the murderer is the first prize 🙂

    2. I thought the “relentless love” theory that was floating around after the war had been disproved. Bet the bullying will be horrendous.
      And 36.5 million, what a grave mistake. Our (alternative) school was built for a fraction of that, and operates on a shoestring.
      What about discipline, boundaries, consequences? Gardens landscaped by a Chelsea flower show winner indeed! You’d do better if you made the kids build the garden.
      I thought the era of trying to cure offenders with oodles of taxpayer money was past.

          1. The nature vs nurture debate will go on for ever.

            It was certainly a question which interested Shakespeare in his great plays. Siblings’ natures such as those of Edgar and Edmond in King Lear and Don John and Don Pedro in Much Ado – raise the questions about differences in nature which go back to the Old Testament with Cain and Abel and Jacob and Esau.

        2. Morning, Maggie.
          In my working days, a chat during a coffee break would turn to ‘evil’ patients. They were not necessarily the most troublesome or florid in their disturbed behaviour, but there was a good degree of unanimity amongst staff as to who they were. Out of a cast of hundreds, a handful of names would crop up time and again.
          By and large, there was nothing we could pin down, just a feeling.

        3. No, that’s mainly adults.
          A child might have possible mental health issues due to a difficult gestation, but all babies are born innocent and need to be loved 24/7. So there.

    3. Rev Steve Chalk, sounds like a Christian. I wonder what percentage of the prison school will be slammers and how that will go down. Looks like £36m of ill conceived wokery to me. WTF is “relentless love” anyway?

    4. “Design revisions”? A couple of sheets of A4 consigned to the WPB?
      Forgot to water a sixpack of bargain lavender plants?

    5. Judging by recent court cases there have been decades of ‘relentless love’ in institutional care…..

      Morning folks.

      Off to continue preparing the soil for a lawn. Ground had been compacted by builders diggers, followed by very little rain. Had to take a pick axe to break through the surface and remove shoe box sized boulders. Followed by electric tiller and removal by hand of fist sizes rocks, followed by raking and removal by hand of large stones – so far I’ve half-filled 50 rubble sacks of rocks and stones. Hoping to get this section finished before the end of tomorrow and before it rains!

      PS Later in the year I’ll need to repeat the process for the land to the side of the house 🙁

      1. Morning Stephen. Just concrete it over and paint it green! It will look just the same to a satellite!

        1. Have you seen the price of concrete lately! ?
          Turfing it would cost in the region of £500.
          Grass seed on the other had £20…..

    6. Wrong direction as usual – Borstal type school and the birch is the way to go

  18. Adrenaline-seeking firefighter started French wildfires, say prosecutors. 30 July 2022.

    A firefighter from the south of France is responsible for a series of wildfires in the region which he started in a quest for adrenaline, French authorities have said.
    The man, a volunteer firefighter from the Herault region, was arrested on Wednesday, regional prosecutors said.

    The case of the man called the “pyromaniac fireman” by French media has sparked a keen interest in France, which was shocked by a swathe of wildfires during last week’s heatwave that forced the evacuation of thousands of people.

    Apropos a post earlier this week. This seems to be a not uncommon phenomenon; at least in France!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/29/firefighter-chasing-adrenaline-hit-started-french-wildfires-say-prosecutors

      2. Good Morning Trubie,
        Just to repeat my observation some days ago that a Telegraph article alleged that the timber roofstructure of Notre-Dame had been coated with a flammable/combustible substance whose formula was designed to kill existing and future wood boring larvae. It was successful, although a pyric victory.

    4. Happens in Australia as well, if a volunteer fireman gets hard up, strike a match and get paid to put it out.

    1. Sudden, unexplained death syndrome.

      Happens all the time, move along, nothing to see here…

    2. Like the five young Canadian doctors all dead within a few days. Three from the same hospital. Could they have had one of Pfizer’s ‘bad batches’?

    3. Mark Steyn is one of the greatest exposers of fraud and criminality which is why he is so despised and feared by the MSM, social media, politicians and the establishment.

      He has homed in on the the three greatest evils of our time: the disastrous consequences of Covid jabs; the false science behind man-made climate change and the rape of white children by gangs of men of Pakistani origin.

      How long before he is silenced?

      1. They managed to have him silenced along with others after the Conrad Black ownership of the Telegraph Group was terminated until now, long may he continue..

      2. Hear, hear! And good to see that good, old-fashioned investigative journalism is still alive, despite the efforts of those who should know better.

  20. Boris Johnson’s draft resignation honours list includes wife of former Putin minister. 30 July 2022.

    Lubov Chernukhin has donated nearly £2 million to the Conservative Party as well as bidding thousands to play tennis with the Prime Minister.

    The wife of a former minister in Vladimir Putin’s government is on a list of businesspeople and donors who are to be honoured in Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list.

    A draft list being circulated by civil servants in Whitehall includes Lubov Chernukhin, who has bid tens of thousands of pounds to play tennis with the Prime Minister, and David Ross, one of the founders of Carphone Warehouse.

    I think that we all know that the Honours System is as corrupt as the rest of Government, though I have to admit that the elevation of Blair a few weeks ago was something of a seminal moment for me. It finally finished off any residual attachment I have to it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/07/29/boris-johnsons-draft-resignation-honours-list-includes-wife/

    1. Kerchinnngggggg ……….
      Maybe their next abode is lacking tasteless wall paper.

    2. Sir Blair was rewarded for 20 years (almost) of not starting any inappropriate wars.
      Joking aside, not all Russians are bad.

    3. If Phil the Greek had still been around Blair would still be plain old Warmonger, rather than Sir Warmonger. Of course, Blair being of Jockenese extract, they could have lobbed him a Knight of the Thistle years ago, but he and his slot-gobbed maven know the price of everything…if not the value. Parasites both.

      1. I remember the hoohah about the length of time when Caryl Chessman was finally turned off in 1960; and that was after only 11 years on Death Row.

    9. Thank you all for the birthday good wishes.
      Seeing grandson later and will take him for a bite to eat. Daughter having BBQ tomorrow for us as grandson is 19 on Monday and youngest granddaughter 18 on Friday. Eldest granddaughter won’t be there as she’s one of the volunteers at the Commonwealth Games.

      3. Hoping to see you, Alf in order to wish you the happiest of Birthdays and many more to come.

        I’m sure vw is looking out for you.

  23. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR ­– The dramatic increase in the cost of electricity will inevitably hit the poorest homes hardest. Unfortunately, Ofgem has made it harder for these households to control their bills by allowing the power companies greatly to increase the standing charge.

    The obvious effect is that the householder is already faced with a large bill before he turns the lights on for the first time, and so has little incentive to modify his usage.

    The reverse situation – a low standing charge and a slightly higher unit charge – would encourage lower consumption.

    Peter Munro
    Stoke Trister, Somerset

    Peter Munro is spot on. The standing charge is for delivering gas and electricity to your home, rather like a telephone landline. So why has the cost of maintaining cables and pipes recently increased in leaps and bounds? Could it be that OFGEN is yet another useless regulator that is incapable of carrying out its duties? It costs around £120m p.a. and although I have tried to establish how many people it employs I don’t have the time to wade through 116 pages of annual report (which includes a lot of diversity guff) but I’m guessing it is probably around 1,500. What do they do all day?

    1. They sit on remuneration committees working out how to apportion the latest batch of money coming from customers care of the legally-lobbied regulators.

      Ofgem is doing its job splendidly – average income in the professional and executive classes is being upheld, and never mind the plebs – they should be ashamed of their historic privilege and be made to pay for it.

    2. Saw that Mother’s standing charge went up by about 60% earlier this year, and I assume it’s to maintain revenues whilst people cut back on usage.

      2. I understood that it was to compensate the energy suppliers that were obliged to accept customers from bankrupt power companies.

      3. When you see the amount of new homes being built Obs these charges are increased because the people who move in and live in them, don’t work, never have worked and never will work in the UK.
        Someone else has to support them.

  24. SIR – We read that consideration has been given to banning new residential developments in west London because the electricity grid is no longer capable of supplying more power (report, July 29).

    If this is indeed the case, then how on earth are they going to cope with the requirement for residential heating to be powered by heat pumps, which use vast amounts of electricity ?

    Charles Pugh
    London SW10

    The simple answer is – they won’t.

    2. Gosh! Reality, in the guise of the laws of physics, is coming to the PTB. What is the standing of the supplies of gas and water and the removal of sewage, I wonder?

  25. SIR – You report (July 27) that in draft guidance, “the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said trans men who chose to chest feed should be offered ‘chest-feeding support in the same manner as for cis-women’.” Some readers will know me as the doctor who is currently fighting a protracted battle with the Department for Work and Pensions, over the use of forced language and transgender pronouns.

    I remember learning a good deal about the differences between men and women at medical school. I understand that for gynaecologists an even greater depth of study is needed. How is it that they can talk about men giving birth, and call them chest feeders?

    Women, and mothers, are the backbone of a thriving society. Breastfeeding is natural.

    It is time that all of my colleagues in the medical profession stood up and said what is patently obvious, and that is, that it is impossible either to change sex, or to be a member of the opposite sex. Can women trust themselves to doctors and midwives who seem to have lost the most basic grasp of biological reality, while carrying their lives and those of their children in their hands?

    What, if asked what a woman is, would the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists answer?

    Dr David C Mackereth
    Hull, East Yorkshire

    Dr Mackereth, stand by to be black-balled by the rest of your profession!

    1. SIR – In 2021 it was reported there was a shortage of 2,000 midwives. In April 2022, there was a further net loss of 700 midwives.

      This means, on average, each maternity department in the United Kingdom is short of 20 midwives. It is my belief most people preparing to give birth would far rather see the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists prioritise a campaign for greater midwife numbers than preparing guidelines for trans parents to receive support for “chest feeding”.

      Malcolm John Dickson FRCOG
      Morley Green, Cheshire

      …and you too, Mr Dickson!

  26. SIR – We’ve been sleep walking into a water supply crisis for decades under governments of all hues.

    Several years ago I fitted a rainwater harvesting system to our property. Our water use immediately reduced by 70 per cent, illustrating clearly the folly of using scarce, expensive treated water for loo flushing.

    If all new-builds were obliged to fit such a system, the cost per unit would be nominal and the problem much alleviated.

    David Hutchinson
    Nutley, East Sussex

    Good for you, David Hutchinson. The insanity of flushing good quality water down the loo is beyond my understanding. Most third world countries would give anything for such a supply, even via a solitary standpipe. My rainwater harvesting consists of 4 (currently) large water butts, which ran dry weeks ago. A nice 5,000-10,000 litre underground tank would be useful, but only practical at the construction stage, and of course the necessary plumbing too.

    1. Not too far back the Brussels mafia banned the UK from building new reservoirs. Then they passed on a million illegal migrants across the Channel.
      I have 5 water butt’s linked, but only use the content to water plants and top up the bird bath. All linked together nearly empty. My wildlife pond is bone dry also.
      Flushing the loo every time it’s used is dreadfully wasteful. Also combi boilers use a lot of extra water because water is run until it becomes hot for use.
      All this is what we are use to and grown up with. It’s pretty obvious, though not to our government. There are far too many people living on this small group of islands now.

    2. The problem is retro-fitting such a system to an older property. But yes, such systems do need to be fitted to new-builds as standard.

    3. My immediate neighbour asked to borrow my wheelbarrow, to which I agreed. When her son took it, he pulled the hosepipe out of its socket on my water butt and let all the water out. I was not best pleased.

  29. Morning all 😃
    More violence over night in the Manchester area now. I think we’ll move to Tasmania.
    This once lovely country is sadly finished.

    2. You mentioned Tasmania. Have you been there? We went there in 2007. Nice territory. A bit like a mixture of Cornwall and Scotland around the edges. Weather is much more like UK, as Hobart is only 1700 miles from Antarctica. A neighbour my age (81) sold up in UK and moved there to live out the rest of her life with her daughter in Taz after the elderly lady’s son died in UK from throat cancer. Being family she was able to apply for Residency, but it still took a year and a half.

      Not so sure about the way Politics in Australia are going, especially now that the new Premier is getting his feet under the table.

  31. Would you Adam and Eve it? After 2½ months of drought – we have a church fête today. And RAIN is forecast in about an hour…. You’d think God would plan these things better….

    Anyway, I’ll paddle off and join you this afternoon.

      1. Hampshire water have already introduced a hosepipe ban. I’m Portsmouth water so i’m alright Jack. Don’t have a lawn anyway.

    5. Moh, a friend , son and my sister are going to Southampton this afternoon to watch Saints play against a Spanish team .. looks as if it might rain!

      Tomorrow could be dodgy as well, a tractor and trailer ride along farmed hillside and cliffs , followed by a cream tea.. hope the weather improves .

    6. Offer God a pot of MR’s Apricot Curd. That’ll placate him.
      p.s. also beg him to divert the rain to Colchester.

      1. Calling in at south cambs on the way down….. the green and our garden is frazzled.

    7. You’ve given me a good old laugh after reading Propagandainfocus that kifaru out on just above. Thank you. Don’t forget your wellies!

  33. Yo All,

    Lilia Valutyte: Nine-year-old stabbed to death while playing in street with little sister

    By Patrick Sawer, Senior News Reporter and Phoebe Southworth

    Two people have been arrested as part of a murder investigation into attack in Boston, Lincs

    Read the article

    It is understood that one lead being pursued by police is a report of a man seen running away from the scene of the attack, with officers examining CCTV.

    The ‘reporters just forgot to mention the arrest of two people: Daily Telelaff 2022

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/07/29/boston-stabbing-victim-named-nine-year-old-lilia-valutyte/

    1. 354730+ up ticks,

      Morning ALT,

      I did say in a post yesterday, the alledged murder
      being one of the common denominators in judging the odious state of this Nation,courtesy of the political
      overseers / governance party’s, there are lots more.

      So sad, never to see ten, and with many more mentally scarred for life.

      This shows abomination, NOT a caring Nation.

  34. HENRY DEEDES: Call it desperate, call it one last roll of the dice, but Rishi Sunak last night agreed to be interviewed by Channel 4’s Andrew Neil. Is he mad? Neil is the crotchety Scottish terrier whose techniques are just about on the right side of the Geneva Convention and probably still give the boys and girls guarding Gitmo a few ideas. Why any politician would submit themselves to one of his cross-examinations is one of life’s mysteries.

    It’s not a mystery at all, he’s a nasty scheming two faced bastard and he is hoping against hope that his appearance will force Truss to undergo the same, knowing full well that she would be eviscerated.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11063475/HENRY-DEEDES-ex-chancellor-sat-awkwardly-like-man-undergo-enema.html

    1. Since Brillo left the BBC he seems to me to have lost his edge. He interrupts far too often now and his questioning seems to be less forensic. Anyway, I hope he gives Richly Suntanned a good going over!

  35. “Greggs has lost a battle with police over plans to sell sausage rolls 24 hours a day amid fears it would be a “hotspot” for crime and disorder.”

    Not too many brethren will be hanging around for a pork sausage roll

  36. Good Morning All.

    A couple of weeks back I mentioned we were about to set out on our annual caravan trundle, this time to Chester and the Lake District. On the first day when we pitched up in Chester ( on the hottest day of the year) I managed to slip a disc putting the awning up and after a bit of a kerfuffle and a lot of help from my family and some industrial strength pain killers managed to get home two days later. I have just surfaced from a 2 week fog of pain and discomfort and can at least sit up now. The upside of the whole event is that I’ve managed to lose 10lbs , so not all bad.
    One of the things that kept me amused during my enforced horizontalization was exercising conscious pareidolia on the textured bedroom ceiling , no religious icons or artefacts observed but there was a hint of a circuit diagram for a class C amplifier and the number 1664 , this probably says a lot more about me than I am comfortable with.

    1. That was extremely bad luck and must have been disappointing too, as well as very painful.

      I’m sure you will have been so advised, but exercises to restore core stability are essential as you will almost have experienced muscle wastage whilst incapacitated.

      Good luck with any ongoing rehab.

      1. My eldest daughter in an occupational therapist and her husband a pharmacist and they live about 500 yards away, I’m soooooooooo lucky

    2. Having suffered from two burst disc’s in 2004 you have my deepest sympathy. It’s sheer hell. It was suggested that I had an operation. Which I didn’t really want. There was/is a brilliant chap working at the Wellington in London. Mr Ben Taylor. Second opinion. He saved me from a slappy foot which happens quite often after a spinal op.
      Take it easy Datz 😊

      1. Well on the way to recovery thank you but I will avoid reading of your exploits as they make my back ache just thinking about them. 😁

    4. Yo have my sympathies. I slipped a disc about thirty years ago – most painful as no position will ease the pain. I endend up in hospital for about three weeks and had a discectomy

  37. 10 … 9 … 8 … (deep breath) … 7 …
    Phone call from widowed chum this morning who is waiting for progress on her urinary tract problems.
    She phoned the consultant’s office on Thursday. Letter arrived on Friday; it was dated (wait for it) 23rd. JUNE – don’t be so cynical, at least it was 2022. It had sat on a pen pusher’s desk for a month.
    When she phoned the office, she was told that they were fully booked and could not see her until October.
    She is now digging into her savings and will see the consultant this coming Wednesday.
    Come on folks: plaster your windows with hand crayoned rainbows and bang those pots and pans together like there’s no tomorrow. ‘Our NHS’ sooo needs our support.

    1. We have just had a similar experience.
      My good lady was directed to have a scan and an x-ray on her arthritic knee.
      Over a month later she went to our GP practice to enquire about the possible results. But was met with a problem.
      They hadn’t had any results. But suggested she rang the department where she went for the examination. Which indecently is ten minutes away by car.
      She was then hit with a simmering anger because the gp practice are the only people who can give you
      the results ! But as she explained they haven’t got the results !
      Due to admin errors, further waiting time is expected for the results.

      1. Write to the CEO ceoemail.com. All NHS trusts are listed and their CEO’s email.

        1. I found PALS very helpful as well, thanks Alf.
          I have even written to my MP about all this nonsense from the NHS, not that is did me much good.

      2. Re my reply below.
        Don’t play it by their rules play it by your rules. It generally works well and I have had good results by doing so.

        1. For the second time earlier this year i had an appointment canceled by letter. Another told me i had cancelled an appointment.
          The cardio department which cancelled the appointment is about 20 minutes away. Having received the letter on a Saturday, I took the letter first thing Monday morning showed the letter to the reception and asked the lady to please explain. She read it and went across the room to a key board and printer and came back with a letter. She said this is the letter you should have been sent. It verified the appointment and confirmed the date which was in two weeks.

    2. Not “Our” NHS, THEIR NHS. We’re just the poor bloody taxpayer plebs who have to pay for it.

  38. From the USA -screenshot of original post included.
    Banks dictate what you can spend your money on….
    This is the second time in a few days that a similar incident was reported. First time was a very large bullion purchase, it took four days and the woman had to threaten to sue the bank.
    https://www.reddit.com/r/Wallstreetsilver/comments/wbmlji/banks_blocking_purchase/
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f12129ce9aae88641d771e32971bfc333ce7c30b12aed8d0d8fd9d73dc462c9f.jpg

    1. There must be a typo somewhere.
      That’s only about 4oz, I’m very surprised there was a problem.

  39. Dear all
    Thank you kindly for birthday wishes.
    You’re a great lot of people on here.
    All of you have a very good day.

    3. Happy Birthday Father 🙂

      I hope you have a lovely birthday and lots of cake
      have a wonderful day .

      🎂🎈

      1. Thank you Belle, just back from lunch with our grandson.
        Italian deli/cafe in the village, mixed seafood pasta,

    9. Just finished breakfast, so I’m late, but hope it was a good day for you with lots of pressies!!

      1. Thank you Jill. Had lunch with grandson, 19 on Monday, and family get together tomorrow afternoon.
        Watching bowls at the Commonwealth Games.
        Hope you and Jack are keeping well.

    10. Woops, I’ve only just caught up (and I read from newest post first). Many happy returns, Alf – hope you and vw have had a lovely day, and many more to come.

      1. Yes quiet day, grandson came to see us and we took him to the Italian Deli in the village and had seafood pasta.
        Tomorrow we’re all going to dinner with daughter, 8 of us altogether.
        Hope you are well.

  41. Our visitors have arrived………….the great-nephews (and their parents)……….

    1. Have a great day. A joke for the great-nephews…..Why do elephants paint their toe nails red?

      So they can hide in cherry trees.

      1. What’s blue and white and would kill you if it fell on you?A fridge in a denim jacket up a tree

      3. Have you ever seen an elephant in a cherry tree?

        No! Shows you how good the camouflage is!

  42. On the BBC page, a photo of a man police want to question about the murder of the 9 year old girl…..guess what?
    Edit- and in the Mail.

          3. It’s just another thing our politicians have effed up. There doesn’t seem to be much left in the UK, principally England, for them to destroy.
            MP is a boy from Enfield
            https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=130fcc44ad8b83e2JmltdHM9MTY1OTEzOTIwMCZpZ3VpZD0xOTQ4ZTM3My03MDU5LTY1NzItMGU0ZC1mMmM3NzE5MjY0NzcmaW5zaWQ9NTY0Mw&ptn=3&hsh=3&fclid=1948e373-7059-6572-0e4d-f2c771926477&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly9lbi53aWtpcGVkaWEub3JnL3dpa2kvTWF0dF9XYXJtYW4&ntb=1

      1. When a country that has a long-standing convention of law and order, starts to take on masses of people from places that do not respect the law, then what will happen as a direct consequence is quite obvious to anyone with working grey matter.

        1. Are you referring to our sh*t-for brains ‘politicians’, perchance, Mr Grizz?

          1. Well, Mrs Macfarlane, it’s certainly the shit-for-brains politicians who first invited the hordes of lawless into the country.

  44. 354730+ up ticks,

    If these rear exits put as much effort in protecting the kids of the nation
    from paedophilia,, bollock snipping, gene manipulation as they are at
    pushing the tens of thousands a year to die from death rays.

    I think,hearing the rhetoric of these @rseholes it could be months , weeks even days, one good thing is for anyone left alive HS will operate on non distortive rails.

    This same shite rhetoric is repeated mantra fashion, I believe it will soon be on your phone instead of some atrocious , music ” please select one of one options , for your call to continue, I feel it in my fingers I feel it in toes, YES the earth is getting hotter, option received your call is ringing.

  45. Time to test the great Canadian health system. Our GP is retiring in three months and there are no GPs taking new patients. Ah well, go to the local hospital Emergency room they say. Good idea if they were not closed because of lack of staff.

    Government response to the ailing Healthcare system is less than helpful, they have reinforced the ban on private Healthcare (no BUPA here, it is illegal) and there is a pissin match between federal and provincial governments about who is at fault.

    In the meantime, between photo op appearances with kiddies in daycare centres, the blackface emperor is focused on important things – banning plastic forks, shutting down the oil industry and restricting fertilizer use on farms!

    And you think that your country is in trouble?

      1. Medical Practitioners are literally not allowed to charge for services outside of the provincial Healthcare system. The provinces might allow some services to be offloaded to outside suppliers but you still cannot buy your way to the front of the queue (you have to be an MP for priority).

        .

    2. Socialist paradise. Equal shares of shit for all – except those who are more equal.

        2. An old one but here goes:

          What’s the difference between a Morris Dancer and a Jew.

          The Morris Dancer’s a complete prick!

        1. I was instructed against my better judgement to clean our car. Which I did, took our eldest to a hospital appointment. Had to wait in the car for 3 hours. And it ‘king rained. 😖

  47. Today’s DM.

    “White people will be the first target’: South

    Africa’s Julius Malema warns of impending ‘violence’ because ‘the poor

    are getting poorer’.

    Julius Malema said there would be an ‘Arab Spring’ with white people targeted”.

    Took control of the most prosperous country in Africa and it’s only taken them 40 years to turn it into a third world shithole.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ae64a62117d7c6329f68ee62847bd77bd5add52c7a895afd9f82fcb25e433e0f.jpg

    2. One thing is for sure the blics have never taken the responsibilities of their culture or lives on their own shoulders everything that goes wrong is every one else’s fault.

  49. I’m afraid, I’m likely to be offline for a while. BT promised to send me a ‘Hybrid’ router before I left but, of course I it hasn’t happened so I shall be quiet for the next few days.

    Looking forward to re-connecting.

      1. You got the keg ordered then?
        Hey, maybe we could have a virtual, on line Nottle party for Tom. When he’s able to join in!

          1. We can all post videos and pics and jokes. Lottie can film herself doing the dance of the seven veils.

            Dons tin hat…..

          2. Ahem, as a fan of Hamish and Dougal, Mrs. Naughtie did the Dance of the Seven Voles. It was hilarious.
            However, I am a good girl, I am…..

          5. Just you wait ‘enry ‘iggins, just you wait….
            I can sing all the songs from that musical.

    2. Please take care of yourself and take plenty of breaks- that’s a long drive. I am sure we will all keep you in our thoughts for the next few days.

    4. Safe jouney, all the best. We will be thinking of you and God speed you safely! See you at the housewarming!

      1. Thank you, Mum, Since it’s now South-West Scotland DG10 9AW – Look it up and plan your journey. Sue, Horace and Spikey might make it.

    5. Take care and best wishes for a safe and comfortable drive!! Hope the weather co-operates!

      1. Thanks, Jill, Drive to Wetherby for an overnight ok, but squally showers en route.

      1. Thank you. J. will do, as and when – this is free wi-fi at Daysinn, Wetherby.

    7. Looking forward to hearing from you once you’ve settled in! Good luck with it all.

    8. Have a safe journey.
      Please let us know when you have arrived and are settled in.

    9. Bon voyage. Hope everything goes well for you and you make friends among the retired ex-RAF veterans.

  50. Worth reading …

    In affluent areas across the UK, unknown assassins are striking. Their weapons? Herbicides and hatchets. Their victims? Once mighty trees. We join the plant detectives on their trail

    Sam Wollaston
    Sam Wollaston
    @samwollaston
    Sat 30 Jul 2022 10.00 BST
    163
    As crime scenes go, Whitecliff Harbourside Park in Poole must be one of the lovelier ones. At 9am on a Monday in springtime, it’s already buzzing with activity. Well-groomed pedigree dogs tow their well-groomed pedigree owners around on long leads; joggers and power walkers are out in force; wading birds busily forage on the foreshore. On a clear day you can see all the way to Corfe Castle across the world’s second-largest natural harbour (after Sydney, Australia). It’s a bit hazy today, but still the view, which is central to this case, is pretty good.

    And yet Whitecliff Park is the scene of two shocking double murders. Most recently, during the night of 15 February, an attack left two dead on Turks Lane, along the southeastern edge of the park. Six months earlier, two much-loved elderly residents – fine, upstanding pillars of the community – were poisoned to death on Whitecliff Road, at the top of the park. In a statement Dorset Police said: “Officers carried out inquiries into these incidents; however, no arrests have been made.”

    It could have been worse: the victims could have been people. They are – were – trees: two sycamores and a pair of English oaks. John Challinor, who chairs the local Parkstone Bay Residents Association, still considers it murder, though. “If you deliberately kill, that’s murder, isn’t it?” he says.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/30/poisoned-oaks-slain-sycamores-whos-behind-britains-tree-murders

    I think it is wrong though to give a detailed account on how to murder trees .

  51. I was with Thornberry until her final sentence. If she truly believes what she wrote in that sentence then she is a fool and not fit for office. Yes, I know she’s a politician and all the downsides of being a member of that band of untrustworthy ne’ er-do-wells but to claim her party is above political shenanigans is a bit rich, even for her.

    Being cavalier with the law is a step on the road to tyranny.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1540748f2bc1c3f035942ec107d4247356c1be45766a72ff36a894b0e43154fe.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/be07fa3f26a32007455e8f8e88adf8c19bd38a943a6149e92bf29f43c2fdc50e.png

    2. Braverman appears to have been misrepresented. She hasn’t said to the lawyers “Don’t tell us what we’re doing is illegal” but “Don’t attempt to discourage us from pursuing a new policy idea because it might clash with existing laws”. It’s rare that we have to turn to the Guardian for clarity:
      https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/braverman-orders-government-lawyers-to-offer-solutions-to-legal-challenges

      If the ‘law’ being broken is the ECHR through the HRA (this is primarily about the Rwanda business), then that simply demonstrates (as we already know) that top-down, generalist, catch-all human rights legislation is bad law and can be used to stop a government solving any serious problem.

    3. On the contrary, Laydee Nugee – if Parliament passes an Act containing something which YOU (or Govt lawyers) believe to be “unlawful” – it ain’t. It is the law of the land.

      Just saying.

    4. Hmm, I would give Braverman the benefit of the doubt. I wouldn’t mind betting that the government lawyers’ advice was uniformly WEF-compliant.

    5. Is the demented cow drunk? Labour? Obey the law? Good grief. The harpy is demented.

  53. “Some girls can’t identify with Lionesses”, says the BBC. This is because all the members of England Ladies football team are white, and non-whites cannot identify with that.
    Think about that. Some black people cannot consider themselves English unless there are black players in a football team. So the football team has to change.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-62346385

      2. There are at least three in the senior squad.
        Let us hope that if it comes to a penalty shoot out that the manager doesn’t “do a Southgate”.

      3. I think there must be at least one. There is an anti-sexism advert that features a dindu woman footballer (helpfully labelled that she’s a footballer).

    2. When black girls play at the national team level, I’m sure they will be selected.

    3. Then perhaps they should identify with the sportsmanship, training, discipline and hard work – you know, the character rather than the desperately racist skin colour. Dear life, I hate the Left.

    4. I don’t identify with a lioness because I’m not a feline and I don’t identify with football players because I loathe football. I don’t give a flying f*ck what colour they are, I just hate football.

        1. You could say that, Bill. My mum once phoned me to pass on a blinding bit of news. She’d just watched a football match that wasn’t boring. Only happened once and I’ve never had the pleasure.

    5. I don’t identify with the people they are trying to sell their products to in the adverts. I’m not black.

      1. Well, I was really attempting to underline the hypocrisy of the BBC. On the one hand praising the team to the sky, and on the other, calling them out for lack of “diversity”.

  54. Well, the rain lasted the duration of the fête. Stopped as they wee packing up. It was useless rain – no good for gardens and crops; just enough to deter people from leaving the house to go to the fête…

    Still our new (starts Sept) vicarette attended. Common; ill-educated; cheerful; chatty (the main problem for those who attend her church will be getting her to STOP talking). Lesbian, natch…along with “their” wife…..

    Also, as I was washing up the few cups used – only about 50 this time – an enormous flock of crows/rooks flew over. There must have been 400 at the very least. Extraordinary sight.

    Everyone who wanted to upset me said that they think Untrussworthy is the bee’s knees…. Grrr.

    1. But Swaffham is only 16 miles from Fakenham. I thought the locals of Swaffham were pretty pissed of when Cameron parachuted Adultera iTruss to contest the seat ousting the local candidate.

  55. China has Britain by the throat. The new PM must loosen its grip

    For too long we have turned a blind eye to China’s stranglehold over our economy. Only a reset in relations can extricate us

    SIMON HEFFER

    The Conservative Party’s recent record in dealing with China has been undistinguished. David Cameron and George Osborne spoke toadyingly of a new ‘golden era’ of relations between our two countries. Mr Cameron shunned the Dalai Lama, and soft pedalled on Taiwan, to placate the authoritarians of Beijing. However, the naked aggression in suppressing Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests exposed the true nasty face of the Chinese state. The Tories had to slam on the brakes.

    Theresa May, to her credit, ended meetings of the annual UK-China Joint Economic and Trade Committee. Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, acting in rare unison, restarted them: apparently Mr Johnson favoured trading with the Chinese, ruling out the controversial telecommunications deal with Huawei only under American pressure. Now Mr Sunak has had a revelatory moment. In scorching remarks last week, he accused China of being ‘the biggest long-term threat to Britain and the world’s economic and national security’. Addressing China’s attempt to spread soft power, he promised to close down 30 Confucius Institutes in Britain, which teach Mandarin and Chinese culture.

    He accused China of stealing technology, infiltrating universities, propping up Putin and bullying neighbours, notably Taiwan. He accused his rival, Liz Truss, of going soft on the Chinese while Foreign Secretary, despite their both having backed the new policy of dialogue as members of the Johnson cabinet.

    Sadly, successive governments have been seduced by China’s money and influence. Rhetoric about British ‘values’ not being ‘compromised’ by dealing with this unpleasant regime has remained just that. Mr Sunak has executed a remarkable U-turn, but Ms Truss seemed to hint at the Commonwealth summit in Rwanda last month that we might start arming the Taiwanese. Unquestionably, China’s economic and moral influence over Britain has reached a critical level.

    Total trade in goods and services between the UK and China reached £93bn by the end of 2021. China is our third largest trading partner, accounting for 7.3 per cent of our total trade: it is our second biggest importer, and sixth biggest export market. Yet Britain invests much more in China (£12.9bn) than China does in us (£3.4bn, a figure decreasing 21.5 per cent yearly). It recalls the situation in Berlin on the eve of the Great War, when German businessmen pleaded with the Kaiser’s advisers not to start a war that might involve Britain, because the City of London was mainly responsible for financing the economic miracle of the Second Reich.

    We are increasingly reliant on China for office machinery, telecoms, clothes and consumer goods. Business services account for 45 per cent of imports in the services sector. Around 865 UK-based companies are Chinese owned, including UK Power Networks, which provides electricity to 8.3m homes. Chinese investors have a UK business and property portfolio worth £135bn. Their sovereign wealth fund has just bought an 8.68 per cent stake in Thames Water, our largest water and sewerage company. A Hong Kong based company owns Felixstowe, our busiest port. We are not yet at the stage Germany finds itself in after Angela Merkel’s insane decision to rely on Russian gas, but parts of our economy and infrastructure are dangerously dependent on the indulgence of Chinese businesses with close links to the autocrats who run China. They even own 64 of our care homes.

    A salutary lesson is provided by Cambridge University, whose insatiable desire for money exposed it to an easy seduction by the Chinese that began over 15 years ago. Cambridge has 1,900 Chinese students, more than from any other overseas country, and I was alerted in 2010 to the fact that some students reported back home about anti-regime remarks made in seminars, and that China sought to influence Sinological studies in the University.

    The outgoing vice-chancellor, Stephen Toope, whose tenure was shortened not least thanks to his philosophical struggle with freedom of speech and academic freedom, has been a long-term supplicant to Beijing. He oversaw a partnership with Nanjing Centre of Technology, and another with Tsinghua University ‘to tackle the urgent challenges faced by humanity’, challenges that exclude shutting down democracy and persecution. Lei Zhang, owner of Shanghai-based Envision, who has made a major investment in Cambridge sits in the Chinese National People’s Congress. One professor, during the Hong Kong protests, warned students not to criticise Beijing. Cambridge and particularly Jesus College, which housed two Chinese study centres, have been wounded by criticisms of this ingratiation, and lately their language, like the Government’s, is markedly less friendly.

    The prospect of an invasion of Taiwan may well have declined since Russia’s debacle in Ukraine, because of the crippling effect of sanctions. China values the growth of wealth not, like Putin, for the benefit of individual kleptocrats, but for the greater glory of the Chinese nation. A Yale School of Management study last week argued that Putin’s strategy was leading Russia to economic oblivion. Russian foreign exchange reserves have fallen by $75bn, or more than 10 per cent, since February. Imports, notably of inputs for Russia’s manufacturers, have collapsed, and domestic production ‘has come to a complete standstill’. These are the last things China wants.

    One priority for the new prime minister will be to appoint a Foreign Secretary and an International Trade Secretary who will not kowtow to the Chinese. A policy of urging British businesses to consider, for strategic reasons, other suppliers for goods and services would be entirely prudent. There needs to be more strategic thinking about allowing the Chinese to buy up infrastructure and essential services; we would never have encouraged the Russians to do such a thing during the Cold War. Unfortunately, our attitude to China has not been intelligent, nor has it matched our boasting about a foreign policy that matches our values. We must wise up, and make a fresh start.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/07/30/china-has-britain-throat-new-pm-must-loosen-grip/

    Foreign companies owning any infrastructure, utilities, social care facilities or residential property should be taxed out of existence so that their assets are effectively seized by and for the nation and its taxpayers.

    1. “Now Mr Sunak has had a revelatory moment. In scorching remarks last
      week, he accused China of being ‘the biggest long-term threat to Britain
      and the world’s economic and national security’.”

      What utter utter bolleux,Sunak is balls deep in a China backed digital identity and CBDC firm

      https://www.bitchute.com/video/srbFJbWJX9c/
      They really do think we are idjits,mind you won’t be reading this in the WEF controlled MSM

  57. As soon as I saw this headline, I knew that there would be a response along the lines of ‘distraction, diversion, hypocrisy’. Water companies are correct to go after customers who block sewers but you just know that the problems of sewage discharge during storms would, er, rise to the surface. Some water companies most certainly should increase their capacity to handle sewage but they are not responsible for the years of planning failure that allowed large residential developments with combined sewer overflows.

    And we know which business sector is responsible for the biggest of the fatbergs…

    Households could face fines or prison time for clogging up sewers

    Thames Water reveals plans to extend prosecutions for ‘sewer abuse’ to general public to target families who dump wipes and oil down drains

    By Olivia Rudgard, ENVIRONMENT CORRESPONDENT • 30 July 2022 • 2:27pm

    Households could face fines and jail time for clogging up sewers, in a water company crackdown on customers pouring oil down the sink. Thames Water has announced plans to extend prosecutions for “sewer abuse” to the general public, in a move which could lead to fines of thousands of pounds for householders found to be blocking drains, the Telegraph can reveal.

    Britain’s biggest water company, which has 15 million customers, is trying to reduce the number of “fatbergs”, caused by people illegally putting oil, grease, fabric and wet wipes down drains. Until now its enforcement of the law has focused on businesses, but it is expanding its work to cover homes too, in plans laid out in its annual report. Putting non-flushable wet-wipes, fat, oil and grease down drains is illegal “regardless if you are a company or a domestic customer”, the company told the Telegraph.

    “We’ve been engaging non-household customers through this process for several years and are now looking to implement this for anyone who abuses our sewer network,” a spokesman for the company said, adding that it would look to “educate” customers before prosecuting.

    The company can make unannounced visits to places where it suspects people are causing blockages, to investigate what is going on. Customers who are “unwilling to engage” and “continue to cause damage to our sewer” will then be subject to repeat visits, the company said.

    “We collect evidence, check for improvements, and where sewer abuse is continuing we may seek to recover the associated costs we have incurred and/or we may prosecute,” a spokesman said. “If we’re refused entry to the premises, i.e. to carry out an inspection, we may request a warrant to gain access.”

    Offenders can be made to pay thousands of pounds in fines and even sent to prison for up to two years.

    Mark Lloyd, the chief executive of the Rivers Trust, said: “Pollution incidents are often caused by individuals and businesses putting chemicals and materials into the sewerage system which should be disposed of properly elsewhere. Public awareness of correct behaviour is poor and some prosecutions may help make people more aware that the only things that should be flushed down drains and toilets are the three Ps: poo, pee and paper.”

    Last year, the company prosecuted a pub landlord in Henley-on-Thames, in the first case of its kind. He was fined more than £16,000 for allowing “significant amounts of fat, oil and grease” to flow into the sewer network between 2017 and 2019, the first time a food business had been prosecuted for this. Across the UK, household customers have very rarely been targeted before now.

    It came as Telegraph analysis showed that chief executives of the nine major English water companies had received pay rises of almost £1 million in total and over £100,000 on average, with the largest increase an £829,000 boost for Liv Garfield, the chief executive of Severn Trent, who is now paid almost £4 million.

    Earlier this month, the Environment Agency said water company environmental performance had “hit a new low” with the number of serious pollution incidents the highest since 2013. Some companies such as Anglian Water and United Utilities paid their chief executives less last year than in the previous year.

    Analysis also shows that combined water and wastewater bills are set to rise by an average of £10 this year, with the biggest increase expected by customers of Severn Trent, who will see bills rise by a quarter on average from £363 to £389. The average bill is now £424.

    A spokesman for industry group Water UK said: “The results of this year’s Environmental Performance Assessment results show that, overall, industry must do better. Although there were companies that demonstrated excellent performance, the total number of serious pollution incidents was too high, bucking the recent trend of year-on-year improvements. Tackling this is our single biggest priority and every company has a comprehensive plan in place to make that happen.”
    _________________________________________________________________

    ‘England’s water monopolies must get a grip on their performance’

    By Emma Howard-Boyd, Chair of the Environment Agency

    The water sector’s performance on pollution has hit a new low. During Cop26, while the UK Government led the world in climate commitments, sewage in England’s rivers dominated headlines and Parliamentary time.

    Since then, the Environment Agency’s environmental performance assessment of England’s water and sewerage companies showed serious pollution incidents increased to 62 in 2021, the highest total since 2013. Most companies were responsible for an increase in serious incidents compared to 2020.

    A damning evidence base is now publicly available. The Environment Agency mandated that monitors be installed on all storm overflows, both on the network and at sewage treatment works. This showed in some cases up to 200 discharges a year are occurring.

    People see water companies flourishing financially while the natural environment pays the price.

    We want to make it too painful for this to continue. Last year, the Environment Agency began a major criminal investigation into whether all of England’s water companies have broken the law in relation to the treatment and discharge of sewage. More than 2,200 sewage treatment works are part of this criminal investigation.

    Since 2015, the Environment Agency’s prosecutions against water companies secured fines of over £138 million. Last year’s £90 million fine against Southern Water for deliberate pollution set a record penalty for corporate environmental crime. However, despite headline prosecutions like this, fines currently handed down by the courts often amount to less than a chief executive’s salary.

    The criminal courts should apply penalties consistently and proportionately, with the most serious breaches by very large companies attracting sanctions based on a percentage of turnover. I would like to see prison sentences, not pay rises, for chief executives and board members whose companies are responsible for the most serious incidents. Company directors should be struck off so they cannot simply delete illegal environmental damage from their CV and move on.

    Following last week’s record-breaking heatwave, water is again in the spotlight. If England continues to operate as it is, by 2050 some rivers could have between 50 and 80 per cent less water during the summer.

    We are working with water companies to protect water resources but hotter and drier weather will significantly increase the pressure on the natural world. No one should underestimate how much people care about this, now or in the future. England’s water monopolies must get a grip on their operational performance. Investors should no longer see them as a one-way bet.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/07/30/households-could-face-fines-prison-time-clogging-sewers/

    1. Any pollution caused or permitted by the water companies should lead to massive fines against the directors personally after all they’re the ones that RUN the company and decide on the spending priorities
      Perhaps a dividend freeze for the shareholders until this nonsense in cleaned up might focus their attention on the failures of the board the subsequent shareholders meeting would be “interesting”
      Hit the bastards in their pockets,their minds would soon follow
      Edit
      The fines currently being issued are “just a cost of business as usual” and are a fraction of the spend needed for the infrastructure upgrades

      1. The private water companies inherited much of the CSO problem. The solution is not just to increase capacity at sewage works but in the sewage network. That means digging up hundreds of miles of roads to add new sewers alongside existing ones. Are you ready for the chaos?

          1. They spent the first few years of their privatised existence on following EU directives on water quality rather than dealing with infrastructure problems.

    2. Right Chaps, just do not block the Exit from the House of Commons, or Anglia Water will fine you £100,000

    3. Thing is, water’s a monopoly. distrubition isn’t an issue, repairs are non-existent, the state forbids new reservoir building. Why is someone being paid £4m quid for something that hasn’t changed in centuries?

    4. Inspectors of cafes and restaurants aren’t doing their job properly, if at all. Their should be records of the waste fats and where they were disposed of. The brewery industry manage it with beer.

      You can guess who the biggest culprits are though which is why it goes unchallenged.

  58. Weekly update from the Free Speech Union:

    Welcome to the FSU’s weekly newsletter, our round-up of the free speech news of the week. As with all our work, this newsletter depends on the support of our members and donors, so if you’re not already a paying member please sign up today or encourage a friend to join, and help us turn the tide against cancel culture.

    Lady of Heaven cancellations – a request for information
    As reported in a previous newsletter, the FSU has written to four chief constables about their failure to uphold people’s right to see The Lady of Heaven, as well as the right of cinemas to show it. We’ve published one of them on our website – to the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police, John Robins QPM, concerning the Muslim protests outside cinemas in Bradford and Leeds (which were among the most intimidating in the country). The others we’ve written to are the chief constables of South Yorkshire Police, West Midlands Police and Greater Manchester Police.

    We believe these police forces failed to meet their lawful obligations to police the protests proportionately, and thereby secure the right of local people to see the film, as well as the right of the film’s producers to show their film, and the right of Cineworld and Showcase to screen the film. Specifically, we believe that the de facto censorship imposed by the mobs outside the cinemas breached the Article 10 rights of the cinema chains, who wished to show the film, and of the cinemagoers, who wished to see the film. We further believe it would be open to those parties to bring proceedings against these police forces under section 7 of the Human Rights Act.

    However, if we are to have any chance of a viable legal challenge, we need to be able to show there were affected parties. With that in mind, we would like to hear from anyone who: a) would like to screen the film going forward; b) had to cancel a screening; c) went to a cinema but couldn’t watch the film due to the protests outside; or d) wanted to attend but couldn’t because of the protests/because the film was pulled.

    You can reach our case team at help@freespeechunion.org, or drop us a direct message via Twitter (@SpeechUnion), Facebook (@SpeechUnion), LinkedIn (Free Speech Union) or Instagram (@FreeSpeechUnion).

    Allison Bailey’s employment tribunal victory for free speech in the workplace
    Barrister Allison Bailey has won (important parts of) her employment tribunal case, successfully arguing that she was discriminated against on the grounds of her ‘gender critical’ beliefs at the Garden Court Chambers (GCC) set (Times, BBC, CapX).

    The remote, six-week tribunal brought us the spectacle of rowdy hearings, an “ill-disciplined” member of the remote audience being disconnected for insulting counsel (as reported by Legal Cheek), and esteemed barristers stumbling over pronouns while asking questions about ‘girldick’ and bearded ladies. Don’t be fooled by the trivialities, though, warned Jo Bartosch for Spiked: the implications of this case for free speech in and outside the workplace “are deadly serious”.

    The “emotional heart of the case”, as the ruling put it, was the fact that Ms Bailey holds ‘gender critical’ beliefs, namely, that someone’s sex is biological, immutable and cannot be conflated with their gender identity. If gender critical beliefs are at all controversial, it’s because the object of their ‘criticism’ is a particular theory of gender held by organisations like Stonewall, namely, that sex is fluid – a social construct, just like gender. (On these debates, see the Critic).

    On one side of the philosophical argument that played out during the tribunal, then, were Ms Bailey and the LGB Alliance, the organisation she helped found in opposition to Stonewall. On the other, were Allison’s chambers, GCC, and Stonewall, the charity behind the Diversity Champions Programme that GCC joined back in 2018.

    Neither Stonewall nor GCC disputed that gender critical views were a protected characteristic – that point had already been established in the landmark employment tribunal case brought by Maya Forstater. (Unherd). Rather, GCC’s claim had specifically to do with the language used by Allison in relation to Stonewall’s gender ideology – or “gender extremism” as she described it in the Tweet that led GCC to launch an investigation. Its argument was that the words Allison had chosen to use while expressing her views weren’t protected by the Equality Act 2010. As Andrew Hochhauser QC, acting for GCC, said in a written submission, the law distinguishes “between a protected belief and the manner in which it is expressed. There is no licence to abuse.” (Guardian).

    The language in question appeared in two tweets that Bailey was asked by GCC to remove from her personal Twitter account, one thanking the Times for reporting on the “coercion” driving Stonewall’s agenda, the other suggesting that a Stonewall employee ran workshops that had as their sole aim the coaching of heterosexual men who identified as lesbians on how to coerce young lesbians into having sex with them. (Both tweets appear in full in Julie Bindel’s piece for Unherd).

    In the end, the panel found that all of Bailey’s pleaded beliefs, not just the already protected belief that “woman is sex not gender” but the additional beliefs she expressed in those tweets – that Stonewall wanted to replace sex with gender identity, that the absolutist tone of its advocacy of gender self-identity made it complicit in threats against women, and that it eroded women’s rights and lesbian same-sex orientation – also constituted protected philosophical beliefs under the Equality Act 2010. (Express). In one remarkable passage, the judgment states that these beliefs “were genuine”, that they “amounted to beliefs, not just opinions which might then change with further evidence” and that “the claimant does not have to be correct, or have evidence to show this…”

    The significance of this ruling for free speech in the workplace is clear. Following the judgement, Allison warned that from now on, “organisations who put ‘Stonewall Law’ before Equality law or seek to silence others from lawfully voicing their criticism of Stonewall may be acting unlawfully and will suffer the consequences”. Kate Barker, Head of the LGB Alliance, concurred, telling GB News that “employers must now review their relationships not only with Stonewall but with any of the large number of lookalike groups”.

    Dr Tony Sewell finally receives an honorary degree… from Buckingham University
    Former government ‘race tsar’ Dr Tony Sewell received an honorary degree from Buckingham University in recognition of his work with Generating Genius, the charity he founded to help disadvantaged black children get into higher education. (Times). The honour comes months after Dr Sewell was embroiled in what the Mail describe as a “cancel culture row” when a similar offer was withdrawn by Nottingham University. Explaining the decision, a university spokesperson said at the time that because Sewell had become “the subject of political controversy”, his presence on campus would “overshadow” graduation ceremonies and upset students.

    Sewell, who was then the chair of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, had received widespread criticism and abuse after the Commission published a report that concluded that Britain, while far from perfect, was not “institutionally racist”. Recalling the treatment meted out to Sewell on the day of the report’s release, Tom Slater argued that Nottingham had “joined the pile-on”. (Spectator). Dr Sewell wasn’t impressed either, telling the Mail how he had previously believed that “the work of a university was to deal with complex issues, [but that] universities in England are like the Soviet Union. There is no free speech.”

    The FSU wrote to the Equality and Human Rights Commission about Nottingham’s U-turn, asking it to investigate whether the University discriminated against Sewell for voicing “views which, in the minds of some, black people ought not to hold”. A group of 50 Conservative MPs also wrote to the University, highlighting the “absurdity” of granting honorary degrees to disgraced former Malaysian PM Najib Razak and Uighur re-education camp denying ex-Chinese ambassador Liu Xiaoming while refusing to give one to Sewell, “simply because he earned the ire of a few frustrated ideologues for his widely welcomed work” on the Government’s race report. (Mail).

    Announcing Buckingham’s decision, Vice-Chancellor James Tooley said he had been impressed by Dr Sewell’s charitable work, as well as the government review. Professor Tooley was quick to make clear that “the University of Buckingham is conferring the honorary degree on Dr Tony Sewell on the basis of merit alone”, although he appears not to have been able to resist the opportunity to make oblique reference to the wider context in which that conferral was taking place. “It is worth noting,” he added, “that the University is proud of its commitment to free speech and academic freedom.” Ouch.

    Free speech and the Conservative Party leadership – have your say
    Last week, the FSU launched a campaign to get supporters who are also members of the Conservative Party to use our new campaigning tool to email the candidates in the Conservative leadership election and urge them to do more to protect free speech. After all, one of them will be our next Prime Minister and this is our best shot at extracting a commitment from them that they’ll do everything in their power to defend free speech when they reach 10 Downing Street.

    Over the next six weeks, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss face a series of hustings and debates before the next Prime Minister is announced on 5th September. According to the Telegraph, the candidates will use these events “to convince members that they have the answers to the critical issues of the day, including the cost-of-living crisis, the war in Ukraine and rampant inflation”.

    Important issues, to be sure. But so too are the respective candidates’ views on the future direction of travel for the Online Safety Bill, a piece of legislation now at committee stage and that FSU General Secretary Toby Young recently described as a “censor’s charter”. (Critic).

    And what of the candidates’ respective views on the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, the Bill of Rights, and the many other issues we address in our five-point free speech manifesto: legal protections for workers’ speech rights, non-crime hate incidents, how to guard against political indoctrination in schools, and amending the Equality Act 2010 to ensure it cannot be used by universities to no-platform those who challenge fashionable woke orthodoxies? On those points and more, we know very little.

    That’s why we’re going to use the next six weeks to extract as many substantive commitments to protect free speech from both the remaining leadership candidates as possible. If you’re a Conservative Party member and you haven’t already done so, please use our new campaigning tool to send them an email. If you’re a Conservative Party member and have already used the tool, remember that the template can be tweaked to accommodate whatever free speech issues you’d now like to raise with Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss.

    Conservative Party leadership contest – this week’s free speech news
    “Certainly, under Liz Truss, the Online Safety Bill will continue.” So said Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries during an appearance on the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, seemingly determined to put as many listeners as possible off their breakfasts. Not that it necessarily follows from Ms Dorries’s statement that the Bill will continue ‘as is’ – indeed, Ms Truss has already spoken of her desire to “tweak” the Online Safety Bill (Times), and during last week’s Spectator magazine hustings, she made clear that she wanted to ensure the Bill “protected freedom of speech and freedom of the press”. Even so, David Davis MP – a staunch critic of the Bill – felt strongly enough to tweet that Ms Dorries’s comments were “worrying”.

    Rishi Sunak, meanwhile, promised “as a matter of urgency” to honour a Tory manifesto pledge from 2017 to repeal Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 – a legacy of the Leveson inquiry into press standards, which, although on the statute books has yet to be activated. (Mail, Telegraph). Mr Sunak made the commitment in a letter to Owen Meredith of the News Media Association. He said the Act, which would force newspapers to pay legal costs in defamation and privacy cases for both sides no matter the outcome – unless they sign-up to a Press regulator approved by the state – will be taken off the statute books before the next election. “It is vital,” Mr Sunak wrote, “that we remove this measure which seeks to coerce the press and stifle free speech ahead of the next general election.”

    Elsewhere, Rishi Sunak accused Liz Truss of helping to enable Beijing’s infiltration of British universities. “For too long,” Mr Sunak declared, we have “turned a blind eye to China’s nefarious activity and ambitions.” (inews). Mr Sunak then pledged to close all 30 Confucius Institutes in the UK, including five in Scotland – a course of action that would require the new Prime Minister to overrule the SNP, as unlike the other UK administrations, the Scottish government jointly funds the cultural programmes. (Times). The China Research Group of Conservative backbenchers say the institutes are merely propaganda arms of the Chinese Communist Party and a malign influence on the UK education system. (Times). Inevitably, Sunak’s team went on to point out that nine of the 31 Confucius centres in Britain were established when Ms Truss was an education minister between 2012 and 2014. (Telegraph).

    The FSU receives a response from the Secretary of State for Education
    Back in June, FSU General Secretary Toby Young wrote to the Secretary of State for Education, Nadhim Zahawi, and the Minister for Universities, Michelle Donelan, to thank them for introducing two essential amendments to the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill that we campaigned for – removing the caveat “within their field of expertise” from Clause 1, so the new free speech protections apply to academics regardless of whether their speaking or writing about something within their field of expertise or not, and making it harder for “security costs” to be cited by universities or student unions to justify no-platforming a controversial speaker. We’ve now received a reply from the new Education Secretary, the Rt Hon. James Cleverly MP, thanking us for the support we have given the Bill. You can read our original letter and the Secretary of State’s reply here. Over the next few weeks, we’re looking forward to engaging with the FSU’s allies in both chambers of Parliament to ensure that the final version of the Bill makes its new protections for freedom of speech and academic freedom even more robust.

    Maureen Martin and the case for amendments to the Employment Rights Act 1996
    The FSU is campaigning for an amendment to the Employment Rights Act 1996 to make it impossible for companies to discipline staff for saying non-woke things outside of the workplace. The case of Maureen Martin demonstrates exactly why that change is needed.

    As Toby explained on GB News (and also for the Mail), Maureen was fired from her job at housing association L&Q because she said things about marriage that some people judged politically incorrect. Ms Martin was campaigning to become mayor of Lewisham in South-East London when she published a ‘six-point plan’ of action that was posted to the borough’s 205,000 registered voters. One of those six points expressed the orthodox Christian belief that “natural marriage between a man and a woman is the fundamental building block for a successful society, and the safest environment for raising children”. Sensing an opportunity, local LGBT activists eagerly moved in for the cancel, reproducing an image of her leaflet on Twitter, accusing her of ‘hate speech’ and then demanding she be dismissed. Despite an unblemished 13-year-record of employment, her employer duly obliged, sacking Maureen for breaching the company’s social-media policy and bringing L&Q into disrepute. Needless to say, L&Q is a member of Stonewall’s Diversity Champions programme.

    As FSU Deputy Director Ben Jones pointed out – also on GB News – the details may differ, but the overall scenario remains the same: “This week alone, we have more than 80 live cases where we are helping people in situations like Maureen’s, where they’ve lost their job for expressing often very mild views.” Last year, for instance, we helped Jeremy Sleath, who’d been fired by West Midlands Trains for celebrating the reopening of the pubs on ‘Freedom Day’ by saying on Facebook that he didn’t want to live in a ‘Muslim alcohol-free caliphate’ for the rest of his life. It didn’t matter that he’d said it outside the workplace on a personal account. Like Maureen, he was dismissed for breaching social-media policy and bringing the company into disrepute. With our help, Jeremy fought back in court and got a judgement of ‘unfair dismissal’.

    The organisation Christian Concern is currently helping Maureen take legal action against L&Q, and Toby suspects that they’ll be equally successful, not least because under the Equality Act 2010 expressions of religion or belief are protected, meaning you cannot be fired for expressing an orthodox religious view, however distasteful some might find it. That said, however, taking your employer to an Employment Tribunal is a lengthy and often ruinously costly process. (Allison Bailey had to raise more than £500,000 to fund her recent legal case, for example.) That’s why we believe the Employment Rights Act needs amending to make it impossible for employers to sack employees who say something lawful outside the workplace. Something else we’d like to see is a statute of limitations on what people can be investigated for. In recent years, we’ve seen the rise of what the author Freddie deBoer has called “offence archaeology”, with people going back many years to try and find things people have said that are supposedly offensive in order to get them disciplined, sacked or cancelled. (Telegraph, Spiked, Spectator). Like libel and slander, we’d like to see a 12-month statute of limitations on what you can be investigated for.

    Sharing the newsletter
    As with all our work, this newsletter depends on the support of our members and donors, so if you’re not already a paying member, please sign up today or encourage a friend to join, and help us turn the tide against cancel culture. You can share our newsletters on social media with the buttons below to help us spread the word. If someone has shared this newsletter with you and you’d like to join the FSU, you can find our website here.

    Best wishes,

    Freddie Attenborough

    Communications Officer

    1. The Left and gays can keep squealing about this:

      “…natural marriage between a man and a woman is the fundamental building block for a successful society, and the safest environment for raising children…”

      I really don’t see what the gays are shouting about. Every fact proves this a statement of fact.It should go to court and the facts be presented and these squelers forced to acknowledge their lies and pay compensation. It’s gong to take them being properly punished, publicly and humiliatingly for the Left to stop spreading lies – about gays, about trans (it’s a mental illness, nothing else), about green – the whole lot need their noses rubbing in facts.

      Frankly it’s offensive that gays seek to have children. They give up that choice with their sexual choices. A child in that relationship – becuse it’s not marriage – is not about the child, but the demands of the adults.

  59. Without Plum, the Wordle thread seems to’ve gone missing. Hope she’s OK.
    Wordle 406 3/6

    ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. I wondered that. Does anyone have contact details?
      Plum from Penzance won’t get us very far.

      1. I just hope she’s not on her own- hope her daughter or someone is there with her if she is really sick. Poor Plum.
        Peddy also, been awol for ages. I last emailed on 7th of this month- nothing and nothing all year. I really do fear the worst.

        1. Yes, I do hope Plum is okay, I think we all miss her ‘Happy hour’ it would be good to know that someone has heard from her. The same can be said for Peddy, didn’t someone from Nottlers pay him a visit quite a while ago?

          1. Me, I went after Christmas, around 29 Dec. He seemed ok, not ill. I feel he has been affected by the lockdowns, he was always going off to his German classes and then on to his favourite restaurant in Cambridge and suddenly all this stopped. Then the restaurant closed down. It has been so difficult for people living by themselves, and especially for them to pick up the threads and make new links. I don’t really feel I can go back again to see him, I felt that I was intruding on his privacy. I live about 45 minutes away, nearer than anyone else which is why I volunteered, and we had exchanged a couple of emails in the past so I was not a completely unknown quantity. He has my email address and phone number, I said if he needed assistance in any way to contact me.

          1. I phoned her last week and left a messge and Plum phoned back but sounded very garbled and then hung up again. The only thing that was a comfort is that she did come to the phone and could phone for help if she needed it.

          2. I hope she knows, even if she hasn’t responded.
            Thank you for trying to keep in touch.

      1. #MeToo – Par Four

        Wordle 406 4/6
        ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
        ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
        ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟨
        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
        Not much jazz from my first two shots!

        1. Wordle 406 4/6

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

  60. Oh dear. Titter ye not.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/07/30/new-symbol-macrons-france-mangy-rat/

    “The new symbol of Macron’s France? A mangy rat

    As Paris prepares for the 2024 Olympics, rodents have become a metaphor for a city weighed down by bad government and far-Left lunacy

    30 July 2022 • 3:00pm

    It may be City Hall’s unwitting reworking of Fawlty Towers’ “Basil The Rat” episode — and the “official” mascot emblem designed by Parisian wags, featuring a mangy black rodent above the Five Rings — that finally caused Emmanuel Macron to call a grand 2024 Paris Olympics Council earlier this week. The hard-hatted president summoned every minister involved (PM, Finance, Home office, Sports, Culture, Transportation, Education, even Defence) but not Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo. The success, or failure, of the Games two years from now will “durably impact France’s image”, word from the Élysée ominously went, implying a serious amount of doubt.

    So far, not much makes sense apart from a lot of dusty construction sites, and some city hall concept art that looks like a property developers’ prospectus. Nobody seems to have produced a comprehensive progress report. Instead of looking forward to a sports celebration, most Parisians, exhausted by dirt and chaos in the heavily-indebted capital (close to €10bn if you include PPPs) dread the games.

    Crystallising their fears is the omnipresence of rats. There are over two for every Parisian, and their numbers are multiplying. Paris vies with Marseilles for the distinction of being the most rat-infested city in the world (in proportion to human population). Stomach-turning videos regularly appear on social media, showing swarms of rats on the banks of the Seine, on the Champs-Elysées, near the Café de Flore or nesting under the Boulevard Périphérique underpasses — anywhere where residents leave food and rubbish that’s not collected fast enough.

    More worrisome are the plagues of rats in Parisian buildings , currently reaching Hamelin-like proportions where management fails to conduct proper rodent control. These, more often than not, are the council estates co-managed by City Hall, and the problem isn’t just one of cost. This week, Conservative City Councillor Paul Hatte saw his motion to reduce rodent numbers in public housing denied by the Green faction of the coalition ruling Paris under embattled Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo.

    For Douchka Markovic, the Green Councillor in charge of pest control and animal welfare in North Paris, all creatures great and small come under the heading of her second attribution. Her colleague, she protested, should not use the word “rats”, because it carries “pejorative connotations”. The proper term should be “surmulots”, which in French like in English refers to oversized field mice – Paris rats have been known to weigh up to 17kgs, or almost 3 stone. Attempts at directing them away from human dwellings should be non-lethal, as they are “partners” who “help clear out blocked passages in the sewers’” and “dispose” of “hundreds of tonnes” of waste.

    “We should study them and learn to live with them”, Ms Markovic concluded, zapping the Hatte motion before advocating the cementing of holes in sewers’ ceilings and the use of contraceptive pellets and dry ice to gently push back the invading hordes.

    Hence the mascot, which has taken French social media by storm. (After all, the self-deprecating mascot of the 1984 New Orleans World Fair was Alton, the cockroach). But less than two years away, the prospect of the Olympics is no cause for smiles in Paris. Despite Macron’s grand vow that Notre Dame Cathedral would re-open before the Games, the likelihood is small. The city’s traffic is gridlocked wilfully by a Mayor who intends to push out cars far more effectively than surmulots. Most of the new sports infrastructure, including a swimming pool and an arena, is being built in the same part of north Paris that regularly sees aggressions by local gangs against sports spectators, most recently at the Cup Final at the Stade de France. Perhaps the rat will simply figure the crowds trying to cope with all this.”

    2. Warms the cockles so it does.

      Hidalgo and the Greens are the problem. Rats are verminous. Exterminate them and while your at it their insane left wing politicos too.

    4. ….as they are “partners” who “help clear out blocked passages in the sewers’” and “dispose” of “hundreds of tonnes” of waste.

      That would be a fair point if it were not for the risks of disease caused by the rats themselves. After all, the rats are only a problem because of disgusting habits of the people in the city,

    5. I sincerely hope someone humanely catches several dozen rats, labels them “surmolots” and dumps them in Douchka’s apartment. I think she may suddenly realise that they aren’t such great partners after all.

  61. 354730+ up ticks,

    This Englishman is really a fair way down the road called hatred, of everything appertaining to mass uncontrolled immigration and ALL it’s political overseers & supporters via the polling booth.

    check out comments,

    https://youtu.be/02Ugx907_0g

  62. That’s me for this tedious day. Useless rain. It is claimed that there will be some better rain during the night – time (and the morning) will tell.

    Gus has been in a fight – and is sporting two wounds. He is “under observation”. Hasn’t stopped him eating, hunting and sleeping…
    Bulletins will be issued from time to time – pinned to the Palace railings… Pickles cares neither a jot nor a tittle.

    Off to soldier neighbour for drinks. She thinks General Tugendhat is a great chap……. But she is a Limp Dumb – like all the cabinet.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

    2. Oh, noes. Being called out for promoting alarm and despondency. Arseholes.

    3. Oh, noes. Being called out for prmoting alarm and despondency. Arseholes.

  65. Gas Levy Could Triple Household Heating Bills In Germany
    By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com

    Germany plans to introduce a levy for all its gas consumers beginning in October as the government looks to avoid a wave of collapsing gas-importing and gas-trading companies amid record-high natural gas prices, a new bill seen by Reuters showed on Thursday.
    nder the plans of the government, all consumers of gas, including households, will have to pay an additional levy, which will go to support Germany’s gas importing companies, which struggle with a lack of Russian gas and sky-high prices of non-Russian alternatives. The details of the bill are set to be announced next month.

    Households and industrial consumers are expected to pay the levy through September 2024, according to the draft Reuters has seen.

    “One doesn’t know exactly how much (gas) will cost in November, but the bitter news is that it’s definitely a few hundred euros per household,” German Economy Minister Robert Habeck was quoted by Reuters as saying on Thursday.

    Marcel Fratzscher, president of DIW, the German Institute for Economic Research, told Düsseldorf’s Rheinischen Post newspaper that German households should prepare for at least tripled costs of heating on gas. The levy should be accompanied by a relief package for lower-income households, otherwise the new charge could lead to a “social catastrophe,” Fratzscher added.

      1. 90% of them aren’t joining the dots – they’re walking into it as blindly as they did last time round, whilst pointing the finger at the other 10% and calling them narstis.

    1. We had a few spots of rain this afternoon when we went for a short walk with the great-nephews and parents – it didn’t come to anything.

      2. Over the last week or two, Accuweather has forecasted brief periods of rain. It’s usually quite accurate, but I think the, er, “heatwave” conditions recently mean that any forecast rain evaporates into the atmosphere before it reaches the ground.

    3. Heyup Maggie!
      Very dark & threatening here earlier on and we’re forecast a drenching overnight too.

      1. Good evening, BoB. Here, we are forecast 12 hours of rain from 3 am to 3 pm Sunday. Accordingly, my car is parked outside to loosen any dirt and dust. If the forecast is correct I hope to give the car a clean at around 4 pm. Earlier today I picked up all the fallen leaves lying on the lawn to ensure that any rain which does fall will hit the lawn and not just the leaves.

  70. Whoo Hoo!

    Tonight on Radio 3:

    at c. 8.25pm Puccini: Il Tabarro (Concert performance; sung in Italian)
    Lucio Gallo – Michele, a barge-owner (baritone

    1. I woz there! Just home. The costumes were a bit iffy but the singing was well up to scratch :-))

  71. Evening, all. Never mind my energy bills, it looks as though I am going to have to buy a new washing machine. When Oscar got me up at 07.30 this morning, I was greeted with a display of flashing lights that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Piccadilly Circus (I run it on Economy 7 to lessen my electricity bill) when I entered the kitchen. I did eventually get the door open, but the clothes hadn’t been spun (and, naturally, it was tipping it down outside, so I had to drip – literally – them dry). Then I had to bale out the dirty water. I could have done without it first thing.

    1. Blimey Conners, there is always something. The lightbulb, although not as major as that, has gone off over my desk, as has one upstairs. Means ordering some online which is a pain.
      How is your pain doing? Hope you are feeling better.
      I am going to blame any spelling errors on the dim light- and I don’t mean me- before Sos gets going.

      1. Sacroiliac joint is same as ever (although I have had an MRI scan on it now). Tooth extraction is healing and, while it aches a bit occasionally, it’s nothing like as bad as before when it needed dealing with, so much better, thank you. How are you?

        1. Legs still not too good but face is healing well. And is not painful.
          Coolio is a sweetie and I am not a fan of horses…only from a distance;-)

      1. Well, I’ve turned it off (I needed to do that to get it to release the door mechanism). I am delaying turning it on again because I just don’t feel like dealing with it at the moment if it is terminal.

        1. Google it Conners you’ll be surprised what you can discover from forums and other advice.

      1. Why would a blocked filter make all the lights (eco, timer delay, extra rinse, start/pause, green light on the progress board, red light for the door lock) flash at the same time? When I switched it off with the on/off button it just started to run and then all the lights flashed again. In order to release the door, I had to unplug it and wait.

        1. Presumably water has to egress at almost all points if the cycle, a blockage at the early stages would trigger the lights.

          Take a look at the filter/s it can’t do any harm and it might do a lot of good.

          1. The green progress light was at the bottom of the run cycle. Normally it gets to there, goes out and then the red door lock light goes out and the whole thing is finished. To be honest, I have no idea where the filter is on this machine (which is relatively new). My old one was at the bottom right-hand side; one pulled down a flap and unscrewed the filter. There is no sign of a flap anywhere on this machine.

    4. Could be the memory chip. Does it not give a fault code in the flash. You could switch it off at the socket and on again to re booot and try again.

      1. I have no idea if the flashing indicates a fault code, Johnny. I did W/T not Aldis signalling 🙂 I will try switching it on again later and see what happens.

    5. Look it up, by make & model on youtube or Google. I found Google gave me a diagnosis of the fault, and YT the step by step guide to fixing it.
      Cheaper than a new machine…

  74. Biden, 79, tests positive for COVID AGAIN and goes back into White House isolation after ‘rebound’ case common in elderly patients who take ‘Paxlovid’
    President Joe Biden has tested positive for COVID-19, sending him back into isolation just three days after he was cleared to resume his duties.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11065075/Biden-tests-positive-COVID-goes-White-House-isolation.html,

    Bur seriously does anyone seriously believe the jabs are any good for anything at all? Indeed they are positively malign.

    1. Biden is already a hollowed out corpse of a man. I suspect his handlers are keeping him out of the public eye as much as possible. Everything appears to be stage managed. It is beyond a sick joke.

  76. 354766+ up ticks,

    Afternoon Each,,

    Sunday 31 July: The next Tory leader must restore the party’s confidence in conservative ideas,

    I read that as the next (tory ino) sorry bleeder must restore the party’s confidence in conservative ideas,

    What, and destroy all they have been putting in place these last near four decades, you are surely jesting.

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