Thursday 25 August: Shambolic management is hastening the deterioration of the NHS

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

466 thoughts on “Thursday 25 August: Shambolic management is hastening the deterioration of the NHS”

  5. I have long been convinced that tattoos will become an NHS crisis similar to that of obesity as lifestyle choices backfire badly. Unfortunately even removal carries its own risks

    Tattoo ink can contain cancer causing chemicals that mutate in sunlight or are so small they can get into cells, experts warn
    Researchers found that nearly half of tattoo inks contain azo-compounds, which can degenerate under ultra-violet light into a chemical that could cause cancer
    Many also contained particles small enough to get into a cell’s nucleus and trigger cancerous mutations
    About three in ten Americans have tattoos, estimates suggest, but the industry is largely unmonitored by regulators
    Blue and green tattoo dyes are already banned by regulators in the EU over potential cancer concerns

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11142319/Tattoo-ink-contain-cancer-causing-chemicals-experts-warn.html

    2. My niece has warned about this. Tats done in far flung places – usually while the customer is drunk – contain some very nasty chemicals.

    1. Maybe people with these infections should be required to wear a luminous striped waistcoat to warn others? (Unclean!)

  7. ‘Morning, Peeps.  According to yesterday’s Met Office forecast for this morning, the promised rain was supposed to start at 01:00 and, by now, it should be pouring (“90%”) with a thunderstorm thrown in for good measure.  And what do we have?  Zilch.  How can they get it so wrong?

    This defensive little letter isn’t leading today’s crop, but it seems to epitomise the “Crisis? What crisis?” attitude of those who are simply falling down on the job:

     SIR – Your report (August 20) and Sherelle Jacobs’s column (Comment, August 23) suggested that the NHS is planning to “beg” people to stay away from A&E.

    That is not true. The NHS message has not changed – people should come forward for the care they need. For urgent care, NHS 111 can direct you to the service that best meets your needs. In an emergency, people should continue to call 999 and go to A&E.

    There is no doubt that staff are under pressure and demand is high. Later in the year, as always, we will launch the Help Us Help You campaign to encourage people to come forward to access the care they need. And the NHS is already preparing for the winter with a package of measures including more call handlers and more bed capacity. We are also preparing to deliver the next stage of the NHS Covid-19 vaccination programme.

    Miss Jacobs also said that “the NHS rations services and denies patients the very best drugs”. In fact, alongside bringing the Covid-19 backlogs down, the NHS is securing the best treatments – from the world’s most expensive drug for children with spinal muscular atrophy to more than 100 drugs fast-tracked for patients through the Cancer Drugs Fund.

    To be crystal clear, if you have a health concern, please come forward.

    Professor Sir Stephen Powis
    National Medical Director
    NHS England
    London SE1

    Well now, Prof. Powis, are all the reports of huge delays and people genuinely suffering, and some dying, all made up?  There’s yet another batch of critical letters this morning, and yet no one seems capable of leading the long-overdue recovery of the No Hope Service. Instead we have a stream of excuses and mind-blowing complacency.  It’s collapsing before our eyes, particularly emergency medicine, and yet the bureaucracy just continues unabated. When, for instance, patients with clear symptoms of a heart attack have no immediate ambulance available and have to be driven to A & E by friends or relatives, you just know that this is a total bloody shambles. Similarly, people who have fallen away from home have to wait so long that others have built a tent on the pavement to help prevent exposure! The list of disasters in endless.

    1. If GP services and face to face appointments were more readily available, so many people with what are non-emergency problems would not be needing to attend A&E.

    3. “…the NHS is already preparing for the winter with a package of measures including more call handlers and more bed capacity.” Of course, health care call handlers do not need any training, do they? More beds? Are there empty wards in hospitals, wards with no beds? More beds for more patients will require more nurses and doctors to look after them. You do not mention that, do you, Professor?
      But just wave a wand, send an email, and it will all be better in the blink of an eye?

        1. Why didn’t someone mention before the Nightingales were built that there were no people available to staff them?

          They have continuously looked for ways to waste money.

          Billions lost to fraud which they are not going to investigate as it was mostly cronies and wogs.
          Billions lost in PPE which couldn’t be used.
          Millions lost in storing the PPE.
          Billions wasted in foreign aid.
          Billions wasted on Ukraine.

          The list is endless.

  8. Here are the other depressing letters in today’s DT:

    SIR – It is not the medics who are bringing down the NHS – it is the management and HR. Our elder daughter (who used to be a doctor) applied for, was interviewed for, was offered and finally accepted an NHS job last December. She left five months later, never having had the job confirmed. The NHS was happy for her to work as a temp with no job security or holiday pay. She wasn’t.

    Three months ago she was interviewed for, was offered and accepted another job in the NHS, and finally started yesterday – only to be told that the job was not the one she had been interviewed for, and her manager had moved on. What a shambles.

    Tim Johnson
    Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire

    SIR – It is not only the pension problem that is causing doctors to retire early. Two senior anaesthetists I know have both suggested they will retire soon because of the tedious appraisal and revalidation process insisted on by the General Medical Council. Each year we waste time and funds going through a tick-box exercise that serves little purpose and distracts us from caring for patients. No such system operates in other Western countries, yet their health outcomes are better than ours.

    William Tice FRCS
    Southampton

    1. One of many BTL posts in response:

      Mavis Giggleswade
      5 HRS AGO
      Mr William Tice FRCS is correct. The effort and time involved in a doctor having to prove he or she is not Harold Shipman is enormous. Even Dr Shipman could have proved he was not Dr Shipman. Rampant bureaucracy is disincentivising many doctors from staying on, as are the ridiculous rules on pensions and earnings. The NHS is losing prematurely its most wise. experienced and knowledgeable doctors. Still, as long as the porter, receptionist and Mrs McGlumphy think you are OK then jog on. The general public has no idea of how idiotic and time-consuming revalidation is.

      * * *

      Like pretty well everything in the NHS, Mavis. The bureacracy monster needs constant feeding!

    2. What i wrote on Pressreader:

      “ We are as a nation awash with box-ticking “oversight” requirements, with the box-tickers doing the oversight have generally never done the job they are overseeing and have no idea what it is like to actually have to do the job in question. So they demand impossibly high standards and there is no mercy. I work in Financial Services and am undergoing a similar “oversight” review.

      What actually happens in practice is that instead of getting on my job and dealing with the problems and issues as they arise on a day-to-day basis, because i know the box-tickers could chose anything no matter how minute to have a go at me over, I concentrate on covering my backside and doing the minimum and making sure that is documented to the nth degree. Forget what i am supposed to actually do to be effective. I can’t believe it is different for doctors or teachers etc.

      Yes, there are rogues and I don’t object to oversight per se. It’s just the overseers are petrified of being proportionate and accepting things are OK – they want 100% theoretical perfection – and it just makes doing one’s actual job soul-destroying.”

      1. When I was an internal auditor working in financial services I was always dismayed by the way the accountants, none of whom had ever been anything other than auditors since qualification, were the worst box-tickers by far. They revelled in what I called “gotcha” auditing and regularly reported trivial things as serious whilst completely missing extremely important issues, because they were so focussed on the minutiae that they never noticed the bigger picture. I lost count of the “special investigations” I was asked to undertake and it turned out that the auditor had missed something important.

        What was even worse, in my view, was the way management’s first question when something did go wrong was: “what did the auditors say?” when it was abundantly clear that it was the management that had failed, often because they hadn’t followed audit recommendations.

        When I started, the inspectors, as they were then called, were generally very experienced people looking at the various business areas; they knew the processes and the pitfalls inside out and could quickly see where someone was trying to hide things. A job in Inspection Department was often a precursor to higher things.

        It often changed when the reporting line was altered from being Head of Inspection to the Chairman of the Audit committee (CEO for day to day activity) to Inspection/IA reporting to the finance director. Then the “anagrammatical” profession started being recruited as the bosses of IA and set about recruiting their own kind and the whole thing changed into one long round of box ticking.

        1. I was talking to a professional recruiter. He specialised in recruiting auditors. He said that many accounting firms received hefty fees for carrying out audits. The audit firms could be replaced by another if their clients were upset. There was therefore pressure on auditors and audit firms, not to find anything wrong.

          1. Yep. Those are external auditors.

            It would be unusual for a recruiter to be involved in the appointment of auditors as the official External Audit firm unless he was recruiting for the firm, rather than an IA department per se.

            I suspect your recruiter may have been referring to recruiting the Internal ones, which are slightly different.
            Woe betide you as an internal auditor if you report something serious in a report that the external Auditors might see.
            They get around that by writing “side letters” to management that don’t become part of the official report but hopefully do get acted upon, although in my experience they were often ignored.

            In some ways that’s how the EU etc get around bad external audits. The auditors give the report but “qualify” it, it happens all the time. They can then say they have been audited and the auditors can say so too, except for xyz, which could not be totally verified. It’s an absolute scam in my opinion.

            I strongly suspect that most internal auditors who move on or are selected for redundancy are those who persist in telling management what they don’t want to hear. Hence the importance of truly independent reporting lines.

          2. He recruited for the accountancy firms, the external auditors. Sorry, I did not make that distinction between internal and external.
            I worked as a management auditor for some years, checking that our distribution branches were being run properly, from petty cash to vehicle inspection programmes, from credit notes to stock control.

        2. At the time of the Great Storm (16 October 1987) the insurance claims department where I worked at that time was inundated with work. We had to drop all but the most essential aspects of our work just to survive. Additional staff were poached from other departments to man the phones, for the thousands of additional calls we were receiving. A couple of weeks in, with work requiring long, frantic hours, a team of three auditors walked in, as usual unannounced. My boss, uncharacteristically, mentioned something about sex and travel. When the auditors resisted his invitation to leave he immediately pointed out that every spare corner in the branch was in use, including every computer screen, so if they wanted to stay it would have to be the car park or on the pavement outside. Better still, we could do with some additional help so perhaps they would like to roll their sleeves up? Their parting shot was “There will be a formal complaint about your obstruction” to which my now-exasperated manager said “Over my dead body, now bugger off!” They did so and we heard no more about it.

          1. Good for him.
            I was totally against unannounced visits, with the exception of where there was fraud suspected.

            I finally persuaded my bosses that they were a bad idea when we flew into NY from London, unannounced, only to discover that most of the people who mattered had flown out to London that morning for the first week of our proposed review.

        3. At the time of the Great Storm (16 October 1987) the insurance claims department where I worked at that time was inundated with work. We had to drop all but the most essential aspects of our work just to survive. Additional staff were poached from other departments to man the phones, for the thousands of additional calls we were receiving. A couple of weeks in, with work requiring long, frantic hours, a team of three auditors walked in, as usual unannounced. My boss, uncharacteristically, mentioned something about sex and travel. When the auditors resisted his invitation to leave he immediately pointed out that every spare corner in the branch was in use, including every computer screen, so if they wanted to stay it would have to be the car park or on the pavement outside. Better still, we could do with some additional help so perhaps they would like to roll their sleeves up? Their parting shot was “There will be a formal complaint about your obstruction” to which my now-exasperated manager said “Over my dead body, now bugger off!” They did so and we heard no more about it.

      2. Sounds like the run up to an Ofsted review; forget teaching, make sure the paperwork is all in order!

    3. Caroline and I left our jobs teaching in an independent school in 1989 – Thank God we did.

      I had such fun as as schoolmaster over the years but the sheer burden of tedious paperwork, assessment, planning and reports, and control from the PTB would have made the job completely intolerable.

      I do wonder how many teachers who thought teaching was fun left the profession when they discovered it wasn’t?

      One of the great things about our courses is that nobody messes us about and we run things as we want to run them

  10. ‘Morning All

    Modern Life……….

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eef461f3ef8b65c3f5fa100b53c19bab3beb6e8d44c87f6497691d4460f415ad.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1a0c236d2f21bd1b96d1f95934506bbf94063f8c9a903d179b55bcb561adf53f.jpg

    https://media.greatawakening.win/post/CrD915hLIxnH.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1301fb385c57abd5a947aa7c792639e5f823d50bd3163565406f0ba92a2afaf6.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c1204b646cdd948c0544dcbd97b50a4299290dd4fbcac941eaa83e7850a42903.jpg

    https://media.greatawakening.win/post/kkYZkeipzfUO.jpeg
    Every day in every way the outlook just gets more sinister

    1. 355363+ up ticks,

      Morning Rik,

      Your post has brought on a cheering crescendo of sound

      inclusive of hooters , ships horns sirens, & trumpets etc,etc,for it’s trueful content, reminiscent of New Years Eve in normal times.s

  11. 355363+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    This “government” run invasion campaign regarding the future management of the United Kingdom has erased the ultimate world war two
    sacrifice’s made by many, NOT A SHOT IN ANGER IN ANY SHAPE OR FORM HAS BEEN FIRED.

    All that can be heard is the rhetorical bleating of the majority voting supporters of the mass uncontrolled immigration coalition party.

    https://twitter.com/UnityNewsNet/status/1561994197338570754?s=20&t=FWpgmHRAvmARV7tXCeVaog

    https://twitter.com/UnityNewsNet/status/1561994197338570754?s=20&t=FWpgmHRAvmARV7tXCeVaog

  12. Am I the only one to be amazed at the idea of magnetic removable secondary glazing? Why have i never heard if this before???

    “Sir – The argument about the demise of sash windows (report, August 21) is unnecessary, given the availability of secondary glazing, which can be easily fixed to existing windows.
    Lightweight and attached by magnetic strips, it is almost invisible and easily removed in summer. This allows the sash to do its centuries-old hot-weather job – letting warm air out at the top and replacing it with cool air drawn in at the bottom.
    Replacing the secondary glazing for winter makes a huge difference to heating bills. It also eliminates draughts and cuts down noise. “

      1. Where is you get it from, Johnny? I have stained glass windows so I don’t want to replace them with double glazing units.

    2. So it looks like we are rapidly reaching the point where the totalitarians have escaped to South America or the USSR and the USA if they have special knowledge and those that are left behind start saying that they were only obeying orders.

    3. ‘Morning, Korky. Yes, I saw this…MS was on exceptionally good form yesterday. I wish Ofcom the very best of luck, because if there is any justice their ‘investigation’ should fall flat on its face.

    4. As I have said frequently here, in our small parish Caroline plays the organ in church at funerals. The number of people who have died before their time inexplicably in the last year defies belief but no doubt they will not appear in the ‘vaccine damage’ statistics which the French authorities are just as eager to distort and suppress as the British authorities are.

  14. Good Moaning.
    Waiting for the heavens to open.
    Does any NOTTLer know why small sounds are magnified during the run up to storms? Even the click clack of people’s footsteps seem to bounce off the walls.

    1. ‘Moaning, Annie. Still waiting here, too. My sister lives about 20 miles NW from here and has reported torrential rain, with storm, from 04:00. I told her not to be so greedy!

  15. Good Morning Folks,

    Thunder Lightning & heavy rain, just the morning for a 5.45am trip to the airport and back.

    1. Same old story eh everything the political classes come into contact with they eff it up.
      Going back a bit in time. This country use to supply its own gas by processing home produced coal. And sell on the by product known as coke which was a wonderful smokeless and efficient fuel.

      1. I remember it well, Eddy. The other benefit provided by coal gas was the ability to end it all by shoving your head in the oven and dialling up at least a 10 on the regulo. Given this government’s pitiful performance I would predict sufficient demand now to result in a shortage…

        1. My father had been in the RAF and we had moved to a brand new council house in Mill Hill NW7.
          My self and a couple of mates used an old pram frame and took it to the local gas works Mill Hill East, to bring home two or three sacks of coke.
          I think it was 5 shillings per bag.

      2. Indeed. As a child, I used to walk to the coking plant with my mother to get a sack of coke. It must have been taken back in a pram or some such because it was two miles to the gas works.

        1. As my dad was a pitman, we got the ‘lowance dropped off outside the coalhouse every month.

    2. They know they’re lying now. The intent has always been to make energy unaffordable.

  18. I wonder what happened to that old doctor that used to post videos about the vaccination program and what could happen to young people that were forced to have the jab even though it made no medical sense.
    He looked like he was heading for a breakdown at the insanity of it all.

  20. Good morning all.
    Still feels muggy this morning with 12°C dull overcast start to the day.

    1. Lots of rain in the early hours. All good stuff too – not the hard hammering rain but the sort we need to soften the ground and really get into it.

      Only issue is we could do with about 5 weeks of it.

    1. Talking to a friend about this yesterday – either the green tyranny are truly demented and don’t care that people will die from a lack of heat or they just don’t have the faintest clue how most people live, insulated in their very well off, upper class bubbles.

      We know that the greeniacs in government are troughing awayon unreliables and see no reason why their cash cow should be interrupted.

      Honestly, as a seriously question – should crazed fascists, the ignorant and the greedy really be allowed to force policy that is so essential to our way of life?

      1. ”

        Boris Johnson: We’re paying higher bills – Ukraine is paying in blood”

        The man is an idiot. But then he’s never had to pay his own bills. And for him, Truss etc to go on encouraging it is beyond belief. They must be heavily in the pockets of the arms industry.

        1. Dear Mr effing Johnson gas aside, please explain why the prices of food, fuel and electricity has gone through the roof……….
          Hello…….Hello anyone there ?
          Don’t forget to double your expenses claims Bore-us.

      2. This word seems to cover the whole government but applies to Johnson in particular

        dolt

        noun

        1. A stupid person; a dunce.
        2. A dull, stupid fellow; a blockhead; a numskull.
        3. A heavy, stupid fellow; a blockhead; a numskull; an ignoramus; a dunce; a dullard.

        1. Fool, idiot, imbecile, nincompoop, ninny, nitwit, twerp, dope, twit, dimwit, wally, jerk, plonker, prat, dipstick, nerd, dork, geek, idiot, fathead, simpleton, halfwit, cretin, clown, ignoramus, oaf, moron, thickhead, airhead, ass, chump, clot, sucker, mug, birdbrain, pea-brain, berk, dum-dum, knucklehead, lame-brain, wazzock, barmpot, numpty, divvy, pillock, muppet, prick, fuckwit.
          [Other synonyms may be available]

    2. There is something charmingly old-fashioned about this cover.

      Where are the used AIDS-friendly condoms or the discarded charged-and-ready Covid masks?

          1. It is very true what Dr Starkey says and he puts it most eloquently. He only glossed over the remit of a police officer, which is:

            ●The protection of life and property.
            ●The preservation of order.
            ●The prosecution of offenders against the peace             (in this case “the peace” meaning all laws, both common and statute).

          2. No wonder Dr Starkey is so disliked by the left wokists and so liked by many of us here!

  24. Morning all 😃
    It’s been chucking it down for at least 3 hours.
    Good timing for the hose pipe bans.
    And I remember around 4 years ago the government employed at least 4 new regional directors to the NHS all receiving 250 K per year.
    That’s the reason it’s all gone pear-shaped. It’s being slowly reduced to rubble.
    While I’m on the soap box, you can all place a safe bet on our useless political classes scouping even more than the 132million pounds they stole last year from the taxpayers in their fake expenses system. We can’t have any of the elite arriving home in the middle of winter, after eight into a dark chilly second home can we ?

      1. Very dark and gloomy here in Nottland but the dry sense of humour gets us through so far….

    2. It’s raining here too, in South Cambs! It has been doing so since 5.00 am! Oh this is so exciting! The first proper rain in weeks!

    3. Morning! Heading your way later today 🙂 I like it when the sun isn’t shining on the days I move.

      1. Maggie Belle is down that way too. I’m sure she would love to see you. Her husband will be playing golf i expect.

  26. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2f6f2d7deb95a657917858a73d19b9aa275ec490b5c5207a18273d60c499981c.png The Home Office has stated that they will acquire a “better class of police officer” if they study for, and acquire, a Masters degree in criminal investigations first.

    I really don’t know who it is that is taking the piss here: the Home Office, or this useless slapper it recruited. My money is on both.

    I wonder if the country — where the disciplinary panel chairman, Ogherenuona Iguyovwe, originates from — treats public-place pissing as de rigueur?

    1. Morning Grizz. It would be interesting to know the Sexual Orientation and/or ethnicity of Pc Shearer!

      1. Morning, Araminta. Time was when she (if, indeed, she is a ‘she’) would have been titled, “Policewoman (PW) Amelia Shearer”; and then “Woman Police Constable (WPC) Amelia Shearer”.

    2. Why did all 9 fitting rooms have to be closed after the one she pissed in had been professionally cleaned? WTF did they clean it with???

    3. At 24 years old I was the mother of two small boys.
      I wasn’t a drunken, incontinent plodette.

      2. My lovely Caroline was 24 when I met her. We married 18 months later but waited another five years before starting our family as we needed to make sure our business could support us and a family. I have always had a horror of being dependent on the state.

    4. Ms Iguyovwe should not be left out of the equation. Different places, different people, different mores.

    6. If you look closely, her full surname is sort of apt: I guy, you’v weed.
      Presumably of Nigerian descent. Her middle name is Mercy and she has an OBE.

  27. Got this one from Sister-in-Law in Canada. Sorry it’s all shouting in CAPITALS.

    Proper Puzzling Questions for Proper Puzzling People

    1. TEQUILA, TWO TEQUILA, THREE TEQUILA…… FLOOR?

    2. IS ATHEISM A NON-PROPHET ORGANIZATION?

    3. IF MAN EVOLVED FROM MONKEYS AND APES, WHY DO WE STILL HAVE MONKEYS AND APES?

    4. I WENT TO A BOOKSTORE AND ASKED THE SALESWOMAN, “WHERE’S THE SELF- HELP SECTION?” SHE SAID IF SHE TOLD ME, IT WOULD DEFEAT THE PURPOSE.

    5. WHAT IF THERE WERE NO HYPOTHETICAL QUESTIONS?

    6. IS THERE ANOTHER WORD FOR SYNONYM? Did I ever tell you how much I love synonym on toast? Oh! Sorry ??

    7. WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU SEE AN ENDANGERED ANIMAL EATING AN ENDANGERED PLANT?

    8. WOULD A FLY WITHOUT WINGS BE CALLED A WALK?

    9. IF THE POLICE ARREST A MUTE, DO THEY TELL HIM HE HAS THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT?

    10. WHY DO THEY PUT BRAILLE ON THE ‘DRIVE-THROUGH’ BANK MACHINES?

    11. HOW DO THEY GET DEER TO CROSS THE ROAD ONLY AT THOSE YELLOW ROAD SIGNS?

    12. WHAT WAS THE BEST THING BEFORE SLICED BREAD?

    13. ONE NICE THING ABOUT EGOTISTS: THEY DON’T TALK ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE.

    14. DO INFANTS ENJOY INFANCY AS MUCH AS ADULTS ENJOY ADULTERY?

    15. HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO HAVE A CIVIL WAR?

    16. IF ONE SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMER DROWNS, DO THE REST DROWN TOO?

    17.. IF YOU ATE BOTH PASTA AND ANTIPASTA, WOULD YOU STILL BE HUNGRY?

    18. IF YOU TRY TO FAIL, AND SUCCEED, WHICH HAVE YOU DONE?

    19. WHOSE CRUEL IDEA WAS IT FOR THE WORD ‘LISP’ TO HAVE ‘S’ IN IT?

    20. WHY ARE HEMORRHOIDS CALLED “HEMORRHOIDS” INSTEAD OF “ASSTEROIDS”?

    21. WHY IS THERE AN EXPIRY DATE ON SOUR CREAM?

    22. IF YOU SPIN AN ORIENTAL MAN IN A CIRCLE THREE TIMES, DOES HE BECOME DISORIENTED?

    23. CAN AN ATHEIST GET INSURANCE AGAINST ACTS OF GOD?

    24. WHY DO SHOPS HAVE SIGNS, ‘GUIDE DOGS ONLY’, THE DOGS CAN’T READ AND THEIR OWNERS ARE BLIND?????

    1. Number one is true. It happened to me. Admittedly , after the Tequila i had half a dozen black russians. Went over backwards and split my scalp. Blood everywhere. Spent the first night of my holiday in hospital.

        1. Very good.
          At the time it was put down to alcohol but i have had quite a few falls and hadn’t had a drink. In conversation with my consultant he said though alcohol played a part in my mishaps it wasn’t always the case and he diagnosed me with peripheral arterial disease.

          I would suddenly loose feeling in my left leg which made me unstable on my feet. I am now ultra aware and very careful.

    2. Good morning roughcommon

      No16 makes me think of Christine Lagarde who was in the French Olympic Synchronised Team .

      IF ONE SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMER DROWNS, DO THE REST DROWN TOO?

      If you want to bring down the IMF then start drowning a few synchronised swimmers!

    3. I’ve wondered about 3. Evolutionary biologists have it that some apes lived comfortably and had no reason to get smart, cope with inclement weather, come down from the trees to defend themselves and find food that didn’t just drop off trees, therefore didn’t evolve – but, but surely apes do still have to do all those things?

      1. Not if they live somewhere so warm that contructing shelter isn’t a necessity, and where fruit is in abundance, I suppose.

        1. That’s the get smart or die explanation offered for Icelanders having a higher average IQ score than Sub-Saharan Afrcans.

    4. Thank you, Roughcommon. Nicked for my Commonplace Book after changing to lower case as required.

    1. Prince Charles ought to put in a chair and forced to listen to this 8 hours a day until the truth begins to permeate his stupid brain.

    1. When the boat is sighted, order it to turn back. If it doesn’t, tell them to turn back or be fired upon. If they keep coming, open fire.

      Get rid of them.

      1. On GB News l,Nigel Farage, ast night a solicitor? who deals with illegals,stated that to be able to deport them legally they must be kept off UK soil and if they have no documents available they can be deported without delay.. Our home secretary does not know the legal powers she can adopt or she ignores them.
        Keep them away from the UK. The Border Force and RNLI boats should not off load them onto UK shores.

        1. Tony Abbott told us this: “Under no circumstances let them land.” Once Australia started processing them on Nauru, the numbers went through the floor.

          And more money is being saved since the Aus coastguard no longer had to respond to ‘distress’ calls made from just inside territorial waters (the mercy dash inevitably revealing a boat resolutely not sinking and all the passengers waiting cheerfully at the rail for their free journey to Oz).

    3. I’ve just cut my lawns today; the back one was like mowing a meadow – I could have made silage from it!

  31. TCW posted a letter signed by lots of medics about the serious consequences of jab myocarditis. My comment there is on hold – i think TCW is under pressure to censor. This is what I have said – “controlled debate” seems to be a hot expression now!

    Always good to see the medical profession on the right side of this war. But why are we still seeing this “controlled debate”?

    The facts are in. The jabs are forseeably harmful and have been shown to be so for months. Multiple demands for the prosecution of those in
    government responsible for the continued peddling of them have been avoided by the judiciary and police, who have been heavily leant on.

    These creatures – our government ministers, our MPs, and large numbers of our public servants and the medical profession – are as guilty of serious
    crime as the guy who was imprisoned for infecting peple with AIDS. Indeed, that is exactly what they are doing, albeit with malice unaccompanied by sex! The destruction of the populace’s immunity is a catastrophic event in slow motion.

      1. If they were genuine, rather than gimmegrants, I should have expected it to be very heavily weighted towards women and children under 14.

        1. Genuine refugee men would not leave their women and children behind when they flee. So they are either cowards, in which case they are not worthy of being given asylum, or they are economic migrants, in which case they are not worthy of being given asylum. In either case, we don’t want them.

  33. Gavin Masson enjoyed his visit to The Oval to see the Hundred cricket, it must have been better than watching it on TV – the cricket was good but the inane chatter by the commentating nobodies and the crap music at halftime spoiled it

    2. Turn child inside out. Remove garment. Also lecture brat on how polyester is ethylene, which is derived from petroleum.

    3. I always obey the instructions on laundry capsules.
      “Keep away from children.”
      My pleasure.

  35. Good morning. Gray sky, with little blue bits. Damp and cold. All systems normal, Cap’n.

    1. 355363+ up ticks

      Morning TB,

      The way things are shaping ” that lived in Godalming”
      would be more apt, repress replace, reset.

  37. A trio of Macronite MEPs have complained that sewage overflows from Britain into the Channel are damaging marine life. Really? Many years ago, I worked with someone who (like Nigel) enjoyed fishing off the south coast. In those days, Brighton’s sewage was released, untreated, into the sea at high tide. According to my colleague, the fish had learned the tide-tables, and would gather round the mouth of the pipe in anticipation of a tasty treat.

    If anything is damaging marine life, it’s those factory ships, not our poo.

    1. French anger at UK sewage dumped in sea It’s nothing like the anger in Britain at what the French allow to be dumped in the sea and float towards Britain…

  38. Rishi Sunak rues Government’s Covid strategy and says scientists should never have been put in charge of the country’s response.
    Last night Rishi Sunak said scientists should have never been put in charge of the Government’s Covid response. The former chancellor said it had been a mistake to ’empower’ the Government’s scientific committee Sage, whose doom-laden forecasts drove Britain into a series of damaging lockdowns. He also revealed that discussion of the negative impacts of lockdown had been discouraged, even within Government.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11143113/Rishi-Sunak-says-scientists-never-charge-Governments-Covid-response.html

    Rather surprising that we heard nothing like this from him when he was in the second most powerful job in the government.

    1. We empower the government politicians not anybody else. Shows how weak Johnson is.

      1. 355363+ up tick,

        Morning JN,

        Does not say a lot about the electorate majority
        …….. again.

      2. I think Johnson and Co were happy to let Sage make the running – and then take the blame too.

        1. At every speech at some point Johnson would announce ‘we are following the science’ (just following orders) – I think they thought that would give them sufficient cover, a slogan behind which to hide.

        2. I totaly blame Johnson for being so weak. Should have stood up to the so called experts.

    3. Those responsible for the fiasco are trying to distance themselves from the oncoming fall-out. Fauci, Collins, Walensky et al. in the USA. Over here, Michie has gone to the WHO, Van-Tam to Nottingham University, Whitty has sunk without trace after previously being everywhere and Vallance has announced he will leave April next. As for the politicians, where are Hancock and Javid? Both appear to be maintaining low profiles at the moment: and of course Johnson has gone. Now Sunak is looking for excuses. Gutless buggers, all of them.

      2. Of course Professor Michie, a self professed Marxist, would go to the WHO, which is run by…………….wait for it……..

        a self professed Marxist.

    1. Much obliged – I can tell you the Lowestoft numbers are pure fiction. Over 20,000 gimmigrants were moved into the town after a deal with Sheffield council. The population practically doubled, all non-English speaking, usually Turks or Pakistani’s hanging around in gangs. The crime rate went from almost nothing to explosive in weeks of their arriving.

      It was horrific. An absolute abuse of a small town where there was no work anyway.

  40. Gunman who shot Olivia Pratt-Korbel warned pictures will ‘haunt you for the rest of your days’
    Victim’s family share photo of ‘tiny cheeky little girl’ as they pay tribute to nine-year-old

    DT Headline.

    But does the sort of person who slaughtered the poor child have any compassion, morality, or sense of guilt. The truth is that EVIL does exist and is callous.

    Surely the monster will not be haunted by what he has done any more than most of us are haunted by swatting a fly. The image in The Third Man of Harry Lime – played by Orson Welles – looking down from the Ferris Wheel at people and comparing them to dots which can be profitably eliminated without a moment’s reflection or shame springs to mind.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olPAsssli3E

    1. As he had been a drug dealer one assumes that he has no compunction about endangering peoples’ lives.

    2. If he felt remorse then he wouldn’t have been where he was, doing what he did. Such characters simply do not care.

      1. Remorse, shame, empathy, insight, reflection have all been omitted from the psychopathic character.

        Edit: Grammar!

  41. 355363+ up ticks,

    Being good lab/lib/com party members they try not to listen to the likes of Gerard Batten, but the TRUTH is so addictive,

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    2h
    Just how stupid do our ‘leaders’ think we are? Putin is a political gangster but he’s not directly responsible.

    We’ve got rising energy costs because of man-made climate change legislation & the incompetence of western governments in general.

    It is also a deliberate factor in bringing in the Great Reset – which people like Boris are implementing on behalf of their Globalist masters.

    Boris Johnson Warns Of Need To ‘Endure’ High Energy Bills To Defeat ‘Evils Of Putin’
    Departing prime minister pledges UK will continue to “stand with our Ukrainian friends” during visit to Kyiv.

    https://gettr.com/post/p1o55261c41

    1. Ah! Scottish Enterprise! One of the best and largest quangos for peeing money up the wall! I have many stories!

      1. We want to hear them. We really do, and I mean that most sincerely…

        (Today I am channelling my inner Hughie Green.)

          4. Oops sorry Mr Beans! Just read under! ‘Take the money’! ‘Open the box’! Saturday night entertainment!! 😂😂

    2. BBC1 6pm news on Tuesday evening featured the energy crisis at some length and mostly from the consumers point of view: supply, cost, household and business finances etc. It couldn’t leave it there. It then jumped straight into a puff piece for another ‘wind farm’ [sic] in Scottish waters, bigger and better than any other wind farm ever before and capable of ‘powering XX,000’s of homes’. A young man in his early 20s was interviewed and told us how exciting it was for him to be part of this great project to save the world. I felt sorry for him.

  46. We need better bureaucracy to deal with the problem…

    How we can begin to tackle the Channel crisis

    Slow, bureaucratic decision-making is breaking our asylum system. Accelerating that process should be the first goal

    TONY SMITH

    This week saw a record daily number of 1,295 migrants arriving by small boat from France. The arrivals rate is running at double that of last year. If this trend continues, we can expect to see between 50,000 and 60,000 small boat arrivals in this calendar year.

    Hard pressed Border Force and Immigration Enforcement Officers are struggling to keep up with these numbers. Asylum intake units are under increased pressure to move migrants through the screening system as quickly as possible. Record numbers are now being housed in hotels and temporary accommodation, with no long-term dispersal and reception plan in sight. The backlog of asylum cases in the system continues to grow, with intake far exceeding case conclusion rates with each passing day.

    Many of the nationalities arriving by small boat cannot be removed – either to France or to their country of origin – because there are no readmission agreements in place with source or transit countries. But some can. In particular, arrivals from Albania. In fact, most Albanians arriving by boat are not even claiming asylum here. Albania is one of the few countries with whom we have negotiated a readmission agreement. On the face of it, there is no reason why they should not be instantly detained at the point of arrival; and removed immediately to Albania. So why is this not happening?

    Border Force and Immigration Enforcement Officers are duty bound to follow the “National Referral Mechanism” (NRM), a framework established under the Modern Slavery Act to identify victims of trafficking. Ever increasing numbers of Albanian nationals are now being referred under the NRM, to the extent that the system has become overwhelmed. The original target of 5 days for a decision is being exceeded by weeks, or even months. Detaining people for this period of time is not plausible. They are released on temporary admission whilst the bureaucratic process unfolds, potentially never to be seen again. The message gets back quickly that this is how to evade border controls to enter the UK; and the business model for the smuggling gangs continues to thrive.

    There is no doubt that some migrants are victims of modern slavery, having been recruited by evil criminal gangs and trafficked across international borders and exploited into forced labour, domestic servitude, or other forms of abuse. It is important that we are able to identify and protect them, whilst directing law enforcement efforts into identifying and prosecuting those responsible.

    But at the same time, there are many migrants who want to be smuggled into the UK for economic reasons, in order to evade poverty at home and to seek a better life here. We are now seeing blatant examples of adverts on social media of migrants being offered “bargain” prices for passage to the UK by human smuggling gangs, who are only too keen to offer them this for financial gain. It does not follow that they are all victims of modern slavery. Many are economic migrants who are only too willing to pay for the service to get into the UK . Some may even be coming for nefarious reasons. [No?!! Really? Get away!!]

    One of the main failings of the “broken” asylum system is the speed at which decisions are made. Acceleration of the process is essential. Not only in quickly identifying those with a right to stay here and affording them proper status and the ability to integrate into society – but also identifying those with no right to stay here and returning them swiftly and safely whence they came. Introducing under-resourced lengthy referral processes into a system that is already broken only serves to delay decisions, and ultimately undermines effective border control.

    If we really want to take back control of our borders, we need two key elements. First, we must build a framework on readmission agreements – such as the one we have with the Albanian government – which enables us to return people with no right to stay here safely and swiftly whence they came, in order to deter others. Second, we must establish much faster decision-making processes for those with no right to enter, so that we can resurrect removals.

    An urgent acceleration of the NRM process would be a good place to start.

    Tony Smith CBE is a former Director General of the UK Border Force and author of “Changing Borders – A Kingdom Unlocked”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/24/how-can-begin-tackle-channel-crisis/

    He doesn’t get much support BTL. Due process is all very well in a civilised, well-ordered society but this is an emergency in which those processes will soon be overloaded to the point of collapse. We know the lengths to which ‘activists’ will use the the courts and the wretched HRA to prevent the deportation of legal migrants who have committed crimes that justify deportation. If a handful of such cases can occupy the courts for so long, what will happen when tens of thousands of illegal immigrants are pushed through the system. The idea of setting set up readmission agreements to remove them is fanciful given that these invaders are coming through the EU, which will use any opportunity to punish the UK.

    Only when something goes very badly wrong will there be any possibility that this matter will be put right.

  47. 355363+ up ticks,

    I believe the United Kingdoms remnants of patriotism will go straight for the riots / civil war, we have, courtesy of successive anti United Kingdom “governments” to many open / festering odious issues.

    Winter of Discontent: Germany to Implement Energy Rationing Amid Fears of Gas Riots

  48. Afternoon all. Wordle anyone?
    Wordle 432 3/6

    🟩🟨⬛⬛⬛
    🟩🟩🟩🟨⬛
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. Oh well done Stephen.

        Do you do quordle? I seem to have lost it somehow and can’t seem to bring it back up, just keep getting the practise one. Any suggestions?

    2. By a process of elimination…
      Wordle 432 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Birdie for me also.

      Wordle 432 3/6
      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. Par 4 here

        Wordle 432 4/6

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

  49. Good morning afternoon, everyone. Major problems with the computer are to blame. My trusty local computer whizz is on his way to see what he can do to help. Slayders.

    PS : The local computer whiz has today solved just about all of my problems. The man is a WunderKind.

      1. As o’er each continent and island
        The dawn leads on another day,
        The voice of prayer is never silent,
        Nor dies the strain of praise away.

        The sun, that bids us rest, is waking
        Our brethren ‘neath the western sky.
        And hour by hour fresh lips are making
        Thy wondrous doings heard on high.

  51. Since 2018 the small boat people who have arrived in their thousands , only 15% have been processed.

    30,000 hotel rooms a week have been requisitioned ..

    The Albanians are the cocaine smugglers .. they are the ones drug dealing , and make up a huge amount of places in jail .

    1. Added to all that TB we’ll probably find the recent rise in crime is directly connected to the invasion.

    1. 355363+ up ticks,

      Afternoon TB,
      They are on par with lab/lib/con coalition current voters
      their woes are self inflicted

      Human rights people say boat people are being demonised …

    2. These ‘Human rights’ creeps are absolute Idiots. They have no concept of the damage being done to thus country just to boost pathetic ego’s.
      This invasion is appalling, it’s costing us billions and destroying our culture economy and social structure.

      1. The people who are being demonised are those indigenous who object to their country being invaded.

      3. Leave the ECHR and repeal the Human Rights Act. That’s the deportations fixed without shyster lawyers interference.

        1. I found a piece of paper today that completely sums up the whole situation.
          I’ll try and reproduce it and post it in the morning.

    3. My reply on Twatter:

      “This fool says nothing about government action to stop the invasion. Does he really want a Caliphate administration to take over OUR beloved UK and import Sharia Law everywhere? Fool of the first water. Please, let us, the electorate, decide WHO has the power in this country.”

    4. My reply on Twatter:

      “This fool says nothing about government action to stop the invasion. Does he really want a Caliphate administration to take over OUR beloved UK and import Sharia Law everywhere? Fool of the first water. Please, let us, the electorate, decide WHO has the power in this country.”

  53. 355363+ up ticks,

    Just pondering how society has changed, eight decades ago 20 year old’s were protecting the skies over England, twenty minutes ago another invasion boat hit the beach unmolested via the “governments daily reset replace invasion campaign AGAINST IT’S IT’S OWN PEOPLES.

    1. Seems we no longer live in a Democracy (and haven’t done so for several decades) – It’s more an Apoplexocracy!

      1. 355363+ up ticks,

        Afternoon S,
        The very sad thing is tis with , via the polling booth ,people’s consent.

      2. Labour – Blair, Andrew Neather and Mandelscum set about ‘rubbing the Right’s nose in diversity’ solely to pollute the country with waves of welfare dependent gimmigrants.

        The state machine is so awash with public money, so soaked in tax payers money that it has become arrogant, spoiled and spiteful thinking itself untouchable. A starting point is to move the BBC to a subscription model – immediately undermine the socialist mouthpiece. The 100,000 circulation of the guardian will then collapse. Then cut state spending by 60%. Neuter it.

    2. 355363+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      The face that dashed millions of genuine indigenous peoples desires & needs.

    3. That’s 20 medium sized towns of criminal, dangerous criminals. Someone, anyone tell me what the hell these people are going to do?

      1. Commit crimes. Without any retribution, obviously as the police are dancing in the streets in rainbow hula skirts.

    5. Kick the bitch out – only we’ll get a worse one. All slaves to Schwab, the WEF and ‘The Great Reset’.

  55. Interesting perspective:

    “What’s worse than inflation? Depression + Inflation. And that’s where we’re heading.

    If the FEW essentials–food, energy and fresh water–are supply-constrained, monetary tightening won’t reduce inflation. Jacking up interest rates to crush demand won’t increase supplies, it only exacerbates the destabilizing inequality of who gets their fill (the rich) and who doesn’t (everyone else).

    Food shortages caused by drought and other extremes of weather don’t stop humans from getting hungry, and neither do central bank-created depressions.

    And Depression is what we’ll get if central banks continue pursuing their fatal misdiagnosis of the cause and fix of inflation. Central banks can trigger a Depression by jacking up rates and tightening financial conditions, but this won’t put an end to humanity’s needs for the essentials soaring in price due to scarcity.

    Central banks crushing demand won’t reduce wages, either, as workers need a living wage or there’s no point in even showing up”

    Charles Hugh Smith.

    1. No, workers do not need a ‘living wage’. Trying to pretend everyone is somehow deserving of monies at the same level is idiotic. What workers need is a market that operates freely, without interference so their wages are set for the work they do and, if they find them insufficient then they can get other work elsewhere.

      Yes, interest rates hurt those with no assets but who have costs – the borrowers and buyers rather than the savers and lenders.

      The state distorts interest rates, inflation – through taxation, welfare prevents work from paying and incredibly high taxes make competition harder, to say nothing of bought and paid for legislation from established players. Not everyone can buy Mandelscum or Clegg to get their policies through and cut out the little guy.

  56. Russians are torturing us so we don’t talk to UN, Ukraine nuclear plant workers say. 25 August 2022.

    Staff say occupying forces don’t want them to disclose safety risks ahead of inspection at Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest power station.

    But employees who spoke to The Telegraph on condition of anonymity described an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, including multiple arrests.

    “We all worry about the possible visit of the IAEA representatives. That they will set up some provocations and then blame them on Ukraine. It feels like that’s exactly what they plan to do,” one engineer said.

    “They grabbed our management by the balls: for the period of the visit, they plan to minimise the presence of our staff, and put a couple of their representatives in every control room, who will loudly shout how they were waiting for ‘liberation from the Kyiv regime’,” he went on.

    It has obviously been a great success! One wonders why the Russians didn’t just put them on a bus? Or was that too complicated?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/08/25/russians-torturing-us-dont-talk-un-ukraine-nuclear-plant-workers/

    1. How fortunate that the poor trapped workers had telephones, International telephone lines and the contact numbers for telegraph journalists.

      The Nottler challenge: Try to contact a Telegraph journalist by telephone. (I’ve just spent two hours trying to find someone at Scottish Power to speak to.)

  57. An outing this afternoon – first time since I had the wretched sore throat last week – to Cirencester for J’s hospital appointment. I was glad to see they’d ditched the stupid masks – just one patient wearing one, and none of the staff were. We were told they were running late and there was a computer problem but we didn’t have to wait more than a few minutes. The oncologist didn’t have much to say as there was no blood test to check the results of – they seem to have got a bit out of synch with those at our local surgery. Anyway, a sample was taken this afternoon.

    We were done and on the way home again within half an hour. No complaints from here.

        1. Dear heavens , the fourth diagnosis I have heard of this week..

          Is this a new diagnosis , or just an on going check up ..

          I expect you are relieved your throat is feeling better J, the weather has been so strange , lots of dust around , and the humidity has been quite tropical .

          1. No – not new. The initial crisis on 2nd January 2021, when we spent the night in A& E was the start of it, but of course it had been festering away for some time before that. His PSA level was sky high and we saw the urologist quite soon after that. Since then he’s had a TURP and three-monthly hormone injections to keep things in check. Last summer the oncologist noticed that he also had a double inguinal hernia, which was dealt with last November.
            My throat’s fine now, apart from a bit of a lingering cough – but energy levels have been low. Gradually getting back to normal.

          1. Well – I don’t think he has recently – not since the initial crisis on 2nd January 2021. We ladies get nasty invasive hands inspecting our privates too, you know.

      2. I liked the episode of the Addams family where Morticia is making space in the wardrobes. “Uncle Fester’s Spring wardrobe, Uncle Fester’s Summer wardrobe, Uncle Fester’s Autumn wardrobe, Uncle Fester! ”

        Not this episode…https://youtu.be/8jf3NUmvOfw

  59. Good afternoon all
    Grandson’s jury service has finally come to an end. He was the jury foreman, volunteered for it. Very proud of him. Aged just 19.

    1. The one time I was asked for jury service I found it all a bit exhausting. The people weren’t really interested in the case or the situation, but just listened to the closing arguments and went on who put the best one.

      Some members were so weak minded they just followed the crowd. Others were fervent in their own opinion. It was such a mess and reminded me of why I don’t like people.

      1. My jury service was the biggest waste of two chuffing weeks ever.
        And I’m afraid the way we were treated by the court staff was bloody awful. Patronising and demeaning.

    2. What was the accusation/charge and did the jury find the villain guilty?
      Well done to grandson.

      1. He’s being charged with 4 counts: 1. Being in possession of a blade 2. Threatening someone with said blade 3. Sending threatening communications via electronic means 4. Failing to respond to his sexual offenders officer (he’s required to do so weekly). Found guilty on 3 of them not guilty on the other one.

  60. Novak Djokovic confirms he will not play at US Open amid Covid travel row
    Djokovic’s announcement comes just hours before the draw for the final grand slam of the year was due to take place
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tennis/2022/08/25/novak-djokovic-confirms-will-not-play-us-open-amid-covid-travel/

    Can you blame him for not wanting to be vaccinated when so many young, healthy and supremely fit sportsmen and women are being killed or injured by the vaccine from unknown causes?

    What will the tennis world’s reaction be when one of the top players suffers fatal injury from the experimental jabs mystery death syndrome?

    1. Looking at the comments the tide has turned since the Australian Open.

      Then the majority of BTL comments were against Djokovic now the majority of comments are on his side.

      1. I was never a great fan of his but I admire him for sticking to his guns on this point and was very pleased when he won Wimbledon.

      2. My door pass that the company where I’m working is still deactivated because I didn’t give them proof of being jabbed. The other day, I had to ring the bell to get in, and the woman who answered it said “did you forget your pass?”
        No, I said, it’s still deactivated.
        “Oh, that’s all over now” she said dismissively.
        when I pointed out that it wasn’t over because my pass is still deactivated, she said I should go and ask the relevant person to have it activated again.

        Not one word of regret, apology, or embarrassment that people who didn’t fall in with the hysteria have been treated as second class citizens ever since. And now I’m supposed to go and beg for my pass to be activated again.
        I’m furious and disgusted.
        The vax control group to which I belong does ask questions about discrimination as well as about health records, so this behaviour is not going to pass unrecorded.

    1. My interpretation is that it is satirising Boris Johnson’s comment that high energy bills are something UK households must endure as part of the effort to resist Vladimir Putin – “if we’re paying in our energy bills for the evils of Vladimir Putin, the people of Ukraine are paying in their blood”.

    2. Who says? I’ve served this country well for decades. I reckon I deserve it more than some foreigners who’ve never been on our side!

  62. Prevening, all. The problem with the NHS is not so much its management (though that is dire), it’s its sacred cow status which prevents useful reform.

    1. Labour use the NHS as a whipping post, with the public strapped to it. Heavily unionised, entrenched, expensive, it is as close to an ideal failure as Labour could hope for. As soon as change is proposed they scream privatisation! And set about attacking the public with squeals of cost – ignoring that we pay about the same as insurance schemes.

      The Tories might want it to work but they’re too happy taking bungs and backhanders proving Labour right. All the while the NHS management gather together to ruin any attempt at improving effiency to scupper any changes.

      1. It would be much more efficient if it were privatised. Anyone who rocks up now from any foreign country receives free treatment. That would stop.

        1. When I was a Business Consultant, I itched to get my hands (around the throat of) on the NHS and The Royal Mail/Post Office.

          1. One view of consultants I’ve heard is: Someone who borrows your watch to tell you the time…..

          2. …’cos the watch owner is too dim to be able to tell the time himself.
            (or too busy, to be fair).

          3. or they are imposed by authorities on the back of ‘something must be done’. A bit like Royal Commissions a good way of doing nothing….

    3. The NHS has rotted at its core. It has lost the trust of a large sector (so far) of the population. That trust will never be regained.

    2. I feel I need one of those signs, and I’ll just hold it up whenever I come into contact with someone who buys into this carp.

    1. The great reset

      We are being dragged down to the level the country was in during the great Depression of the 1920’s.

      Boris has no right act like a blinking Emperor, he is a bleeding menace .. telling us what to do with that grin on his face .

      1. King of the World – was how he saw his future as a child. And how they were encouraged to see themselves at Eton. I am reading ‘Sad Little Men’ at the moment by Richard Beard and I can completely understand how we have got into the situation we have with these people who purport to govern us.

        1. All of them, Mum, 650 MPs and those in the Conservative party, particulary, are shysters of the first water.

          Maybe it will take a Labour government under Starmer, to rouse the apathetic electorate to realise that we, the country, require a TRUE conservative government, as we had under Churchill and Thatcher, to right what is so SERIUOUSLY wrong with government today.

          This fool says nothing about government action to stop the invasion. Does he really want a Caliphate administration to take over OUR beloved UK and import Sharia Law everywhere? Fool of the first water. Please, let us, the electorate, decide WHO has the power in this country.

          Will it happen? Not in my lifetime and I seriously look forward to death, in order to take me away from the madness that aflicts this world today.

          1. Sadly that is how I feel too. Our generation has done well for itself, generally speaking, we were born amidst turmoil and utter destruction but we made the best of it. Those that came after have seemed determined to destroy everything one way or another and not to make the best of the hand that they were given. Their jealousy over our generation has torn them apart and they are about to reap the rewards of their endeavours to destroy. They have only themselves to blame. I will be relieved when my work here is seen to be done and I can return home.

          3. It’ll pass, like everything. The only question is whether it takes several hundred years like the islamic occupation of Spain, seventy years like the Russian Commies or a short, nasty reign like the Nazis.

          4. All things come to pass, everything has a beginning and an end. Nothing lasts forever. But, as you say, how long?

  65. Hoe, hoe, hoe.

    Well my Hoe blade arrived (it’s a detachable Wolf tool) and I already have a couple of Wolf poles. Nicely engineered I was able to hoe out a couple of thousand weed seedlings in under 30 minutes. The hoe itself is guaranteed 35 years so I need to live to 104 to get my money’s worth!!!!!

          1. They might well be. However my definition of a weed is any plant that is in the wrong place!

            A number of boaters get uptight about the plants infesting the bed s of canals on the grounds that when the canals were dug and filled with water they were designed for use without the mass of plants that now inhabit large sections of the waterways. Personally I don’t mind so long as the cut is navigable.

  68. Headlines like this are why I can’t tell the difference between satire and “news” at the moment.
    I just wish they would stop lying…

        1. The occupant of the White House is certainly several million dollars short of a Central Bank…

  72. Goodnight and God bless, dear Gentlefolk. We shall meet again in the morning’s light – however late that might be.

  73. Hi. I’m mid-rant to a cruise company. Does anyone have the web address for that ‘contact the CEO’ website that lists the e-mail address of CEOs?

      1. Cheers. You’re a star, but unfortunately every way I attempt to get to the site I get this:-

        ‘403 – Forbidden
        Access to the page you requested on https://www.ceoemail.com has been forbidden.
        Previous page:
        For questions about website access please email: ceoemailDOTsecurityATconnectotelDOT’

        Maybe they’re p’d off with annoying oiks contacting them.

        1. I expect that Too many people are using the site and the CEOs have got wise. Each business must have a registered address, try googling Company info for that.

        2. I got in no problem this morning. Perhaps clear cache and cookies and switch any adblockers.

      1. We tried the CEO and our letter of complaint was highly effective, after months of dealing with obstructive peons.

  74. Time for Sunak to do a Markle and piss off to his other house in CA. A proven liar and blatant hypocrite. Not that Surgical Appliance is any better.
    Listen carefully, I shall say this only once….it doesn’t matter who becomes PM or which party is in “power”; this country is irrevocably broken down and destroyed.
    We have been lied to and betrayed; the government, the NHS and the police are not fit for purpose.
    All this bleating by the police in Liverpool about the murder of that poor little girl- “We will find you blah blah”. If they had been doing their jobs those thugs would not have been on the streets. If the government had done its job, they wouldn’t have been here to start with.
    And don’t start me about the NHS- I am so mad I am spitting nails.
    Sorry to rant but there comes a time….

  75. I’m enjoying a programme on TV on More 4 Garden of the year. Fabulous workmanship. Stunning planting. The gardens must have cost absolute fortunes and thousands of hours or dedication..
    After which I’m off to bed. Good night all 😴.
    Cooler night ahead. 🌜😉

  78. Good night fellow conspirators! Can’t stay up late anymore. Sun will be back tomorrow, so it is predicted.
    Try and be good- I know it’s tough 😉

    2. Possibly you read the recent obituary for Joe Turkel, and the old memory bank regurgitatified the fact that he was in Blade Runner?

  82. SNP, 2014 – oil and gas are good because they will fund Scottish independence.
    SNP, 2021 – oil and gas are bad because they will cause the sky to burn and the seas to boil.
    SNP, 2022 – oil and gas are good because their price has gone up and they will fund Scottish independence.

    SNP about-turns again after North Sea revenues surge amid energy crisis

    John Swinney puts oil and gas at centre of economic argument for Indyref2, despite Nicola Sturgeon’s net zero drive

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/08/25/snp-about-turns-north-sea-revenues-surge-amid-energy-crisis/

    1. They turn with the wind.
      I seem to recall they were quite fond of Hitler’s German economy plans at one time as well.

    2. Even for an SNP politician, that’s quite a feat to tell people that oil is going to fund Scotland, but they’re not allowed to use any of it to make their lives more comfortable…

  83. SNP, 2014 – oil and gas are good because they will fund Scottish independence.
    SNP, 2021 – oil and gas are bad because they will cause the sky to burn and the seas to boil.
    SNP, 2022 – oil and gas are good because their price has gone up and they will fund Scottish independence.

    SNP about-turns again after North Sea revenues surge amid energy crisis

    John Swinney puts oil and gas at centre of economic argument for Indyref2, despite Nicola Sturgeon’s net zero drive

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/08/25/snp-about-turns-north-sea-revenues-surge-amid-energy-crisis/

    1. Blair marked the start of the era of our politicians being owned by foreign billionaires and groomed for high office.

    2. Morning all.

      I also read the letterKathy Gyngell sent to Michael Gove. It was excellent and similar to what I wrote to our MP a long time ago. He has stopped replying. But this sort of letter as an article should be in all the newspapers. I still don’t think people are properly aware of the psychological warfare campaign waged against us.

    1. My Italian friend said that doctors were asking for cash payments up front a couple of years ago. She thought it might be tax avoidance. Also when there was a power cut, one hospital’s backup generators failed. But generally, it’s good, I agree. Mind you, anything in Europe is better than the NHS.

      1. It’s hard for anyone, particularly in law-abiding countries like the UK and Germany, to realise how wild-west the Italians are 🙂 Love the country deeply, but oh, how they rejoice in sticking it to the man!

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