Thursday 13 October: The anxiety of waiting hours in an ambulance for emergency care

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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504 thoughts on “Thursday 13 October: The anxiety of waiting hours in an ambulance for emergency care”

  3. ‘Morning All

    As they gear up Convid for this winter,never forget never forgive the sheer nastiness,lies and bile directed at us……..

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fe1yswJVUAA0Rw9?format=jpg&name=large

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e266cfa20136aa646478ac45c411e5e14ed0de5a21002c21807ecfc327160c9a.jpg

    https://twitter.com/respect65/status/1580242527365365760?s=20&t=AdxSADOAS6ZfyzvfaI_wbw

    https://twitter.com/ThinkingSlow1/status/1580129886991441921?t=VoJnpQIGKN0GHDOp53JlTw&s=19

    https://twitter.com/MattHoyOfficial/status/1579905538414243840?t=zUmGUT6N_JdLIAboQpL4vg&s=19

    https://twitter.com/DickDelingpole/status/1580121792860938245?s=20&t=AD3r4XtXP06ginp3_Ewq3Q

    https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=700,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/117/814/771/original/da7404179a97fab0.png

    You don’t get off that easy

    https://twitter.com/TurnOffYourTvN1/status/1580211691341520896?s=20&t=UXGX-0IS3YTwjLl8ngP5Rw

  4. Transgender commentary

    The so-far triumphant transgender movement is a political coalition that includes two polar opposite sets of allies who are so radically different in their thought styles that they can’t even begin to understand each other: naive nice moms and smart but not-at-all nice nerdy ex-men. The incoherence of transgenderist ideology is inevitable because its proponents aren’t at all on the same wavelength.

    Few of the nice white ladies who make up much of the political support for the fad of surgically altering moody teens have even noticed that a high percentage of the best-known male-to-female trans celebrities are toxically masculine jerks. The ladies presume instead that they must be bullied victims in need of maternal nurturing and protection from the cruel world because that’s who they want them to be. (I suspect, but can’t prove, that mothers were prepped to fall for World War T in the 2010s by the anti-bullying campaign of the 2000s.)

    https://www.takimag.com/article/invasion-of-the-nasty-nerds/

  7. Our zombie economy is crumbling and the real culprits are getting off scot-free. 13 October 2022.

    Truss is being blamed for the collapse of the debt-fuelled Jenga society that she was trying to replace.

    It’s not just the economy though is it? The whole system is collapsing from incompetence and adherence to a False Doctrine that the elites have followed for the last twenty years!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/12/zombie-economy-crumbling-real-culprits-getting-scot-free/

    1. 365952+ up ticks,

      Morning AS,
      Aided & abetted all the way,
      these past 40 years under the banner “party first” keep
      OUT our other identical twin
      coalition parties before ALL else.

  8. Morning all,

    I’ve just heard ( BBC R4) Kier Starmer’s recording yesterday in Parliament telling Liz Truss you can’t pay for tax cuts on the never never.
    Actuslly, you can when the opposition forms a government and you leave a note from the Treasury.

  10. 365952+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Here is a glaring fact, the electorate believe the party in power to be so good they repeatedly keep them there so any moans,groans, & grievances are really self inflicted.

    Thursday 13 October: The anxiety of waiting hours in an ambulance for emergency care, OK.

    Thursday 13 October: The anxiety of waiting hours in an ambulance for emergency care
    will NEVER find a cure in the places of medication, as with other issue education,
    incarceration, accommodation all the time
    mass UNCONTROLLED immigration parties have support & the majority vote.

    Ask “your MP” why there is a warm glow surrounding your local hotel whilst
    ice has formed on the inside of your bedroom windows.

    Ask also of him,her or it is there any chance of a visitation from the doctor on call attending
    the morally illegal invaders or is the ambulance wait now mandatory.

    Sad to say a great many of the voting public
    should really be in Broadmore & not in a general hospital.

    1. 365952+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      May one say benefits via the invasion forces are seemingly paying of and a vote of thanks is surely due the government and government party followers.
      The vote of thanks from PIE & all paedophilia followers for the fresh sea food on the menu.
      Children gone missing from hotels housing government controlled
      morally illegal English Channel invaders.

  11. ‘Morning, Peeps.  Plenty of rain overnight but it is supposed to dry up later this morning.

    Today’s leading letter:

    SIR – On Monday, mid-morning, I suffered sudden, crippling chest pains. My husband called the GP emergency service: it was closed until 2pm. He then dialled 999 and an ambulance arrived within 10 minutes. I was lucky.

    I was transferred to our local hospital and my ambulance joined 17 others in the car park. After some hours waiting with the two crew members, my blood was taken in the ambulance for testing. An hour later a doctor turned up to tell me I’d had a “heart event”. More blood was taken.

    At 5pm, I was moved to another ambulance, this time with three crew. By now there were, apparently, 30 ambulances parked up, all with crew members standing around. A further ECG was undertaken.

    At midnight, I was taken for a chest X-ray, and a short while later a doctor told me I could go home. I was too tired to ask any pertinent questions about what had happened – but the doctor advised me that, if it occurred again, I would be better off travelling by car. I am making an appointment at the local private hospital. The NHS is broken beyond repair.

    Eve Wilson
    Hill Head, Hampshire

    Thank goodness we have all those qualified doctors and nurses invading our southern shores day after day…

  12. SIR – In the discussion about “bed-blocking”, more thought needs to be given to those who, although well enough to return home, remain trapped in hospital.

    They are not to blame, and they are experiencing great frustration and loneliness because there are too few professional carers to look after them at home.

    Michael Weeden
    Ascot, Berkshire

    Perhaps things would be better if we hadn’t sacked the 40,000 care workers for refusing  their Covid vaccinations?

    1. And consequently the millions care home owners have stashed away makes not a jot of difference to anyone.

  15. SIR – Hilary McGrady, the director-general of the National Trust, claims that her 5.7 million member are “outraged and worried” by the Government’s fracking proposals (Letters, October 11) – a statement that cannot be substantiated as members have not been asked for their views.

    Similar hyperbole is being used by another environmental organisation, the Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE), which has sent out an email claiming that fracking will “plunge the country into the dark ages” and “plaster the countryside with wells”. The email says CPRE has linked up with 38 Degrees, which calls itself a “progressive political-activism organisation”.

    This is the latest example of CPRE getting into bed with eco-pressure groups and taking policy positions for which it does not have a democratic mandate. This strikes me as unwise for a registered charity.

    Roger White
    Sherborne, Dorset

    “Unwise” Mr White? It’s totally unnacceptable, and if the lazy Charity Commission got off its ever-spreading backside and enforced the rules we might be rid of most of this tidal wave of greenwash.

    1. If we don’t frack we will most certainly be plunged into the dark ages as the lights will go out.

    1. Good Morning. My cold which greeted me on awakening on Friday morning, is much better this morning. I have other aches and things to complain about such as going to Marlborough.

    3. I was up most of the night coughing. This morning i threw up and at the same time time messed myself. I thought something bad might happen so i was already wearing Tena. Feel a bit better for it now.

    4. Yesterday’s thread is locked, so in reply to your question about Lille – Lille appeads to be just a regular stop, as for Brussels, Rotterdam etc. So it appears all passport formalities are conducted at the point of embarkation.

        1. They open the check-in at precisely 90 mins before departure. Not a moment earlier, so queues form on the platform. I sat on one of the few benches and timed my moment to join the queue. I queued for about 15-20 minutes. Passports were checked and stamped by Dutch officials and checked again by UK officials. Nothing too onerous. Then into the departure lounge for comfy seats and a coffee machine!

          Much I have liked Schiphol compared to other airports, the Eurostar was a much better option for my poor old knees.

  17. Democrats issue fresh ultimatum to Saudi Arabia over oil production. 13 October 2022.

    Democrats in the US Congress have issued a fresh ultimatum to Saudi Arabia, giving the kingdom weeks to reverse an Opec+ decision to roll back oil production or face a potential one-year freeze on all arms sales.

    The threat came as Joe Biden reiterated his pledge to take action over Riyadh’s decision last week to cut oil output by 2m barrels a day, which Democrats have said would help “fuel Vladimir Putin’s war machine” and hurt American consumers at the petrol pump.

    These sanctions must be really hurting! Themselves!

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/12/us-democrats-threaten-saudi-arabia-with-arms-freeze-over-oil-output

    1. Biden is doing his level best to curtail the USA’s own production of oil and natural gas at the same time selling off/releasing the Strategic Reserve. Now he’s threatening the Saudis? The shady characters pulling his strings seem hell-bent on causing and supporting mayhem around the World.

        2. I’m convinced that he was put in place because of his failing cognitive functions. His signature is on all of the executive orders etc but who knows whose fingerprints are all over the direction of travel of the USA’s government? He is the perfect ‘fall-guy’.

  18. SIR – R J Hart (Letters, October 12) objects to dogs in restaurants.

    I once shared a restaurant with parents who allowed their two children to run riot, throwing food at each other and racing up and down screeching. When I got up to leave, I retrieved my two corgis, who had been lying quietly under the table while I ate, and suggested the parents enrol their children in dog training classes.

    June Green
    Bagshot, Surrey

    I bet that went down well. We rarely eat out these days, and this is why. And it’s not only badly behaved children, either!

  20. What a suprise the vaccine does not stop you having Covid and does not stop you passing it on. So vaccine lovers tell me why you should take it.

    1. My daughter had to have a booster in order to travel abroad for her work.

      I’m wondering if I’ll ever have grandchildren now.

      1. We are thinking of taking a trip to Oz next year and are wondering if we might have to have the latest edition of the jab. I hope not, the first two nearly finished me off.

        2. Had a phone call from a friend yesterday; she had the booster a few days back and has been ill. One particular reaction she described as being identical to the one she gets if she goes anywhere near nut based products – which produce anaphylactic shocks bad enough to land her in hospital. (She always carries a EpiPen, but even that can fail to cope with the emergency.)
          So what IS in the vaccine?

          2. She just went to bed. Fortunately, the reaction just made her ‘normally’ ill – the lip and tongue tingling remained at that level – normally it is the first sign of a more serious development.
            I even have to leave out things like nutmeg if I’m cooking for her and keep any nutty stuff off the worktop.

          6. Suddenly We have more experts now than the proverbial stick can be poked at. But no real information.
            My GP agreed with me that I should have the booster or another jab. That’s good enough for me.

        3. I have two sisters in New Zealand, both in their 80’s, so they may not live for another decade. However, if I take a jab in an attempt to see them one last time then it may be me who pre-deceases them. So I shall restrict myself to phone calls and emails to their children (they are not silver surfers and refuse to use a computer).

      2. I have the opportunity to go to France next year. I wonder if I would be allowed in, not having had the jab.

      1. But how would anyone know how bad you’d have been had you not taken it – I don’t think that is provable

    3. What a con this has turned out to be.
      It’s not a vaccine at all.
      I suppose one day in the future we may actually find out what all this was about and why.

    4. Looking at MB – still on a battery of pills and definitely not as physically strong as he was … I think back ….

  21. The anxiety of waiting hours in an ambulance for emergency care

    Can it really be called emergency care if it take hours?

  22. SIR – Panicking Conservatives, newly hopeful Remainers and gloating Labour members should all take a lesson from history.

    Fifty years ago, the Conservative government led by Ted Heath was in disarray. The manifesto on which the election was fought had been abandoned, leaving only Heath’s obsession with Europe and an ill-conceived, divisive Industrial Relations Act.

    Heath himself was hard to like: stiff, dogmatic and with little power of persuasion. Labour was led by the experienced and likeable Harold Wilson, who had a united party, a comprehensive set of policies and the supreme political gift of being able to communicate with any audience.

    Between 1972 and the 1974 election, the government’s position worsened. Attempting to control inflation by a prices and incomes policy (not a Conservative-sounding measure) reduced the country to a three-day week, darkened by random power cuts, during which we had to eat cold food by candlelight.

    Despite all Labour’s advantages – none of which is held by the present Opposition – when the election came Wilson only just overturned a smaller majority than the one enjoyed by the present Government, and failed to secure a majority in the Commons.

    Liz Truss has had an extremely difficult introduction to her new office. Under such pressure mistakes are made. None is irremediable, except through lack of resolution – and the Tories’ defeat at the polls is not inevitable.

    Michael Hely
    Banham, Norfolk

    I know that she has had probably the worst in-tray in living memory to deal with, but even so there appears to be no indication of any improvement on the horizon.  The mini-budget was ill-judged in so many ways, and in particular the failure to rein in public spending when we are sitting on a national debt of eye-watering proportions was surely guaranteed to upset traditional Conservative supporters.  A plan for the restoration of sensible and sound finances should surely have been at the top of the list?

    1. Morning, all. Dull, calm and wet in N Essex this morning.

      With an overflowing in-tray of home front issues perhaps she should concentrate on setting priorities and getting her Cabinet to work rather than spend time, and billions(?) of pounds, on the Russia – Ukraine conflict. Following in Biden’s ill-judged steps is not a good look.

      1. Yes Korky, the Government claims that Putin sabotaged his own gas pipelines.

        If he is capable of doing this(?) then he can also sabotage the Norway-Britain gas pipeline.

        Think about it !!

        1. But, would he sabotage his own assets in the Baltic, a NATO lake, where all sub-sea activity was halted just before the explosions? Yep, USA to force Germany to buy US gas. Think about it.

      2. Yes Korky, the Government claims that Putin sabotaged his own gas pipelines.

        If he is capable of doing this(?) then he can sabotage the Norway-Britain gas pipeline.

        Think about it !!

      1. …which, it is said, is costing us many millions. However, the ‘party of sound finances’ and the ‘party of law and order’ seems to have lost its way.

    3. No, it bally wasn’t! We need tax cuts. We needed an end to this concept that every penny earned is the state’s to waste as it chooses. This socialist democracy nonsense has failed. The country is a mess and needs radical surgery.

      The tax and waste model does not work.

      People don’t want to work because welfare is too generous. Spending is utterly out of control. The government meddles endlessly in markets – it has rigged the price of workers through the minimum wage, heavily taxes companies, has rigged energy and these thigns have caused carnage as the lazy avoid work, the capable can’t find work and jobs don’t pay enough – why should they when big fat dumpy state robs the higher paid and gives it to the lower?

      After a certain point the capable are forced to work less. They can’t move money into a pension, they can’t pour it into savings, so the state just takes 60% of their money. Why is that fair? It is not the government’s money. At the other end stealth taxes are so damned high that the low paid are punished just as much indirectly as the higher end, wiping out the supplementary monies provided by the state. Everyone is taxed seven or 8 times over on the same income.

      Worse, we have universal ignorance on taxation – especially on businesses, with spiteful, stupid greedy people demanding companies pay more. That’s been tried. It just ensures money is moved away from the state. All this tightening of the state fist just cripples the economy and pushes money out.

      I do not understand how the moral right of leaving people the flip alone is wrong. The squealing that people are not paid enough is false. They are taxed too heavily. Once taxes are flat, low and not on the fundamentals and *then* they are not earning enough, that’s a different matter. At the moment the state has decided what people will earn and then set about destroying £6 in 10 in tax, wiping out the difference while pretending to be virtuous.

      Maybe I am odd, but I do not want to depend on a monolithic, fractious, arrogant, uninterested, fundamentally incompetent state machine for my life.

      https://staresattheworld.com/2021/10/the-man-who-wanted-to-be-left-alone/

      1. In Mrs Thatcher´s time someone stated that “taxation should be low, simple and compulsory”.

        1. Yes, low, single, flat taxes are easy to administer, raise more money and usually aren’t avoided because they’re low enough that it’s just not worth it.

    4. One help towards sensible and sound finances would be to keep our noses out of other peoples’ business.

      Especially countries where we have no interests, be it financial, moral or legal.

  24. SIR – Have the wielders of infernal leaf blowers never thought of using a rake? They are cheap, quiet, provide an upper-body and cardiovascular workout, and result in no carbon emissions.

    David Pynn
    Hankerton, Wiltshire

    Using a rake on a tarmac driveway isn’t much fun, Mr Pynn. However, the broom is used most days, but the rate at which the acorns and leaves are falling from our very large oak tree is impossible to keep up with without some occasional mechanical assistance. Thankfully the tree is due a comprehensive haircut next month.

    SIR – Leaf blowers are for drying your car thoroughly after washing it.

    Joe Greaves
    Fleckney, Leicestershire

    Ha ha, I hadn’t thought of that! Standby for a significant increase in their use, Mr Greaves! (Only joking.)

    1. I used to do a lot of leaf raking when I first left school.
      I think I would use a blower if I was doing that now.

      They still have to be picked up though, I suppose.
      But not unless you blow them over the fence.

    2. I remember when I first saw someone using a leaf blower. I thought “Well there’s a job for life”.

    3. Why not just leave the leaves for a while? Why do they have to be removed as soon as they fall?

      2. Why do they have to be removed at all? They break down and feed the soil. My grandfather used to wheelbarrow load after load of leaf mould from the nearby wood. His soil was the best conditioned in the village and he grew the most wonderful (and award-winning) vegetables I’ve ever tasted.

        1. Leaf mould, without a doubt the best soil conditioner you can lay your hands on. For a few years I collected the leaves, mainly sycamore but with some oak, from the grassy area and the road of the estate opposite. The whole estate is now deemed a private area and I can no longer clear some of their leaves for free!

      4. Our driveway is quite steep and I don’t want our postie – or other lawful visitors – to take a tumble. It’s the acorns that are even worse, it’s like walking on ball-bearings, and the massive crop this year has made things much worse.

        Additionally we share a driveway with our neighbour who is registered blind.

        As an aside a local pedestrian slipped on an acorn a few doors away and managed to break several bones. Fortunately the ambulance arrived rather more quickly than the now-infamous 62 hours recently featured in the media. That was 2 weeks ago, and yesterday she was discharged from hospital.

        2. Acorns? You need a pig!

          Jamón ibérico, the most wonderful tasting ham in the world, is produced from pigs fed on acorns.

      5. Our driveway is quite steep and I don’t want our postie – or other lawful visitors – to take a tumble. It’s the acorns that are even worse, it’s like walking on ball-bearings, and the massive crop this year has made things much worse.

        Additionally we share a driveway with our neighbour who is registered blind.

        As an aside a local pedestrian slipped on an acorn a few doors away and managed to break several bones. Fortunately the ambulance arrived rather more quickly than the now-infamous 62 hours recently featured in the media. That was 2 weeks ago, and yesterday she was discharged from hospital.

      7. I’ve been making sure the dead leaves on my sycamore and magnolia have been deposited on the floor. When I do tidy up, I only want to do it once.

  25. Vladimir Putin warns that all world infrastructure at risk of ‘terror attacks’

    Vladimir Putin on Wednesday warned that all world energy infrastructure was at risk of attack in a thinly veiled threat to the West.

    The Nord Stream gas pipeline explosions, which were widely blamed on Russian sabotage, were an act of terror that set “the most dangerous precedent”, he said.

    “It shows that any critically important object of transport, energy or utilities infrastructure is under threat” no matter where it is located or by whom it is managed, the Russian president told an energy forum in Moscow.

    We can ignore the ridiculous assertion that Russia sabotaged its own pipeline but is Vlad thinking of striking back? He would certainly be justified; what’s sauce for the Goose is sauce for the Gander! The Druzhba system that supplies Russian oil to Central Europe mysteriously sprang a leak on Tuesday. Reading between the lines the West is already suffering from a shortage of oil; witness American rage against the Saudi’s for cutting back on production and the American Strategic Oil Reserve is at its lowest level for thirty years. A couple of pipelines (one thinks of the Norway-UK line) put out of commission when winter starts and one can see panic overtaking a system that is already under enormous stress from other factors. It is in such times that stupid decisions are taken!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/10/12/vladimir-putin-warns-world-infrastructure-risk-terror-attacks/

    1. ‘Morning Minty. Vlad has already demonstrated the ability to destroy satellites, and has also threatened to cut undersea cables. I fear that ‘we ain’t seen anything yet’.

  26. Vladimir Putin warns that all world infrastructure at risk of ‘terror attacks’

    Vladimir Putin on Wednesday warned that all world energy infrastructure was at risk of attack in a thinly veiled threat to the West.

    The Nord Stream gas pipeline explosions, which were widely blamed on Russian sabotage, were an act of terror that set “the most dangerous precedent”, he said.

    “It shows that any critically important object of transport, energy or utilities infrastructure is under threat” no matter where it is located or by whom it is managed, the Russian president told an energy forum in Moscow.

    We can ignore the ridiculous assertion that Russia sabotaged its own pipeline but is Vlad thinking of striking back? He would certainly be justified; what’s sauce for the Goose is sauce for the Gander! The Druzhba system that supplies Russian oil to Central Europe mysteriously sprang a leak on Tuesday. Reading between the lines the West is already suffering from a shortage of oil; witness American rage against the Saudi’s for cutting back on production and the American Strategic Oil Reserve is at its lowest level for thirty years. A couple of pipelines (one thinks of the Norway-UK line) put out of commission when winter starts and one can see panic overtaking a system that is already under enormous stress from other factors. It is in such times that stupid decisions are taken!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/10/12/vladimir-putin-warns-world-infrastructure-risk-terror-attacks/

  27. SIR – Can somebody please tell me whether our police are social workers or law enforcement officers, and who is providing them with advice on how to carry out their duties?

    Yet again, environmental protesters have been illegally blocking roads in central London (“Angry drivers step in as police fail to tackle activists”, report, October 12), preventing ambulances, fire engines, commercial and public service vehicles, and the general public from going about their important, law-abiding work.

    I saw sufficient numbers of police to arrest, remove and charge these offenders. Instead, the officers seem to stand around, conducting a repetitive and protracted dialogue with them that achieves nothing. Which side are the police on? Apparently not that of people who adhere to the law.

    This must change. What is required is swift, direct action to remove these protesters after a 10-minute warning. It is not that complicated. Our police are currently the laughing stock of the emergency services.

    Chris Hunt
    Swanley, Kent

    Ten minutes, Mr Hunt?? The police should be removing these nutjobs immediately on arrival. Meanwhile I trust that white van man will ensure that the road is cleared quickly and efficiently!

    1. Here’s a timely post from a BTLer:

      Paul Isherwood
      20 MIN AGO
      Just a reminder plod……
      1980 Highways Act:
      137 Penalty for wilful obstruction.
      (1)If a person, without lawful authority or excuse, in any way wilfully obstructs the free passage along a highway he is guilty of an offence and liable to [F1imprisonment for a term not exceeding 51 weeks or] a fine [F2or both].
      [F3(1A)In relation to an offence committed before the coming into force of section 281(5) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (alteration of penalties for certain summary offences: England and Wales), the reference in subsection (1) to 51 weeks is to be read as a reference to 6 months.
      (1B)For the purposes of this section it does not matter whether free passage along the highway in question has already been temporarily restricted or temporarily prohibited (whether by a constable, a traffic authority or otherwise).
      (1C)In subsection (1B), “traffic authority” has the same meaning as in the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 (see section 121A of that Act).]

    2. Five minute warning to remove themselves. If they don’t, rev up the chainsaws and get out the batons.

    1. ‘Morning, Hugh.

      Precisely. What is the point of a political cartoon if it is not incisive. It’s a shame we don’t have a modern-day equivalent of That Was The Week That Was on television to lampoon everything political. The only problem is that the ultra-Woke Lefty BBC of today would never sanction it.

    2. Did the same critique apply to this man as prompted the observation about his historical forebear? As Queer as Dick’s hatband!

    3. A period in history from Charles the 1st to Charles the 2nd, look out now we have another one. 🤗

        1. If a gang of doughty lads at Swarkestone Bridge in Derbyshire had not sent Charles Edward Louis John Sylvester Maria Casimir Stuart, and his beskirted ragged army, packing off back up to Jockland in 1745, the current incumbent of the British throne just might have been styled ‘Charles IV’.

    4. Good morning Grizzly and everyone.

      Miss Lansbury married a bachelor aged about 35 when she was 19. He was an actor, but also quite artistic and had decorated a house which was used by Cole Porter. My guess is that her immigration status needed some urgent consolidation.

  32. Good morning all.
    A bright dry morning with scattered cloud and 5½°C on the yard thermometer.

    1. It’s 14.5 here. Bit of an adventure in the heating last night. None of the ‘smart’ devices were working properly and I was getting into a sound and fury as the Warqueen bundled on ever more layers.

      Eventually looked at the boiler itself and wondered if it was on a timer (it has these plastic switches – I know, they’re daft) and lo! I was in the ‘0’ position. We’ve still got hot water so didn’t notice it. Switched it to 1 and set the schedule to come on at 18:00 and go off at 9 if it’s less than 20’c.

      Happy family again!

        1. Was going to find a picture of Parker doing his thing but because Windows is an abomination that spews files everywhere, I can’t.

          1. That’s a shame , Parker was very impressive, never mind, i shall just imagine it . Windows is a huge pain.

          3. We’ve got WIN 10 . Keep getting messages on the laptop about updating to WIN 11 but haven’t done so. I recall WIN 7 being one of the good ones.

          4. It is the best available today. You can download an application that makes WIN10 look and feel like WIN 7.

          8. My own desktop is a Macbook, all my boxes doing work are Linux based. I’m given a work laptop by a customer to connect to their network and it’s hideous.

          10. I hate 3D cartoons! The old simple 2D cartoons (and marionettes in the case of Thunderbirds) cannot be improved upon.

        1. Indeed , the crustless marmalade sandwiches are also in the handbag – just a little thing as all Queens do .

      2. Good morning Hugh.
        Nah ! I’ve managed to get Chinese bat flu, so have placed the blooded axe and longbow in the handbag for now- they could do with a rest anyway 🙂

        1. I trust that your bout of bat ‘flu will soon be sent on its way. Meanwhile, I trust that other members of your family will be sorting out those pesky Vikings in your absence?

  35. Our little runabout has been struggling to turn over so bought a battery charger for it. Tried to give it a run on the way home but because we live near Southampton the idea of traffic actually moving is 3mph. Some gormless oik also entered a roundabout as I was exiting it, so I gave her a piece of my mind, especially when she launched into a ‘you have to give way to the right’ nonsense. I said yes, but what comes before that (of course, being a sotonite she wouldn’t know) ‘you don’t enter unless you can exit!’

    1. Our eldest son had to give up his motorbike he has two young children.
      Twice he’d been unseated while traversing roundabouts, side swiped by idiot car drivers. Fortunately he wasn’t badly injured but his motorbike was badly damaged.
      Same thing happened to his father years ago in Adelaide. Not a roundabout but joining a dual carriage way, I was rammed. The guy just kept going. But the guy behind stopped to help.

    4. Kettleing was the modus operandi.
      They controled thousands of demonstraters by pushing them around and carried shields, sticks, wearing battle dress. There are very few people demonstrating in these current situations. So easy to deal with.
      The police are now in comparison to the past situations, pathetic, do they offer a choice of biscuits with the cups of tea they offer?

  37. 365952+ up ticks,

    To many a persons great self harming regret
    they never listened to peoples of G Battens ilk.

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    11h
    The only good purpose of being a Member of the European Parliament is to use it as a platform to speak the truth.

    That isn’t often done since UKIP left but Mr Kolakusic is putting his position to good use here – denouncing the covid vaccines & the corruption behind them.
    Disclose.tv
    @disclosetv
    ·
    21h
    JUST IN – Mislav Kolakusic of the European Parliament says “the purchase of 4.5 billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine for 450 million EU residents is the biggest corruption scandal in the history of mankind.”

    https://gettr.com/post/p1u1ye7fca0

  38. On GB News last night Nigel Farage was questioning our PM’s action at the EU meeting she attended recently. She possibly signed a military agreement, PESCO?] 2 experts were unsure. One thought she might not have signed the agreement. The other thought she had but didn’t know what was in the agreement
    Parliament apparently has not been informed and as far as I know no questions were asked about the meeting at PMQs. The delay on the Northern Ireland Protocol delay was questioned at PMQs and the PM said she was still on the case but did not say how quickly she would finish the job. . She still thinks she can get a deal with the EU.
    I have serious doubts about our PM.

    1. I read something about Britain committing to join a joint European army – just in time to march into Russia, presumably…
      Not surprising the government is keeping that even quieter than Theresa May signing the UN Invasion Pact.

      1. A good time of year to march in to Russia. Alexander Nevsky is waiting, while Napoleon and Hitler look on with amusement.

        1. Is the current US regime stupid enough….yes, they are, especially if they are sacrificing European soldiers.
          I sincerely hope that our “leaders” develop enough of a spine not to go along with this insane Russia hatred!

    3. The EU has not given a inch on the NI Protocol since the introduction of this monstrous arrangement – it is completely naive to think they ever will.

      And let us not forget that the EU themselves once invoked Article 16 and then un-invoked it!

      There is no solution other than scrapping both the NI Protocol and then leaving the ECHR.

      If Truss had any testicular ovarian strength she would deal with these matters without any further delay.

  41. Right, that’s the washing up finally done after yesterday’s chutney making, 6 log crates filled for the woodburner and stacked beside it.
    Off to get washed and changed for a trip to see Stepson in Derby.
    TTFN

    1. I made apple crumble yesterday ………….it was absolutely delicious. The just tart apples mixed with the taste of cinnamon crumble.

    1. One of my favourites in my youth at dance venues like Tottenham Royal, Watford Suite,The California Dunstable, was if a young lady refused my request for a dance,……..okay but can I have a lift home on your broomstick? A joke of course.

      1. You should have asked her if she chose her broomstick from the recommended selection in Witch? magazine.😉

    2. One evening when the old university gang got back together I came home slightly wonky and got a look so withering the alcohol evaporated in my bloodstream.

  43. Boris Johnson paid over double his annual prime ministerial salary for 30-minute speech. 14 October 2022.

    Boris Johnson was paid more than double his prime ministerial salary for a $350,000 (approximately £316,041) speech and “fireside chat” in the United States earlier this week.

    Mr Johnson took part in the sit-down interview at the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers conference in Colorado on Tuesday.

    Those present said he covered his continued belief in Brexit, British support for Ukraine and his previous climate scepticism. However, he avoided both the circumstances of his departure from No 10 and the difficulties facing Liz Truss, his successor.

    Just a part of his payoff like his predecessors to avoid taxes!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/10/12/boris-johnson-gets-standing-ovation-150000-corporate-speaking/

    2. Spot on. Saggy May was paid a small fortune for a series of speeches, even though she was unable to give any of the speeches due to the convid lockdown.

  44. Can anyone help please I’ve tried to install the ad block twice but it doesn’t work. I have an android phone but it doesn’t seem to accept the installation.
    It’s driving me nuts…….

    1. Hullo Eddy, are you installing this on to an Android telephone?

      When it doesn’t accept it, what do you mean? Does the app not install? One thing that might be easier for you is to install Brave from the app store. It’s a browser that includes an adblocker by default.

      1. Thanks for that, I’ll try and sort that out. I don’t understand why and suddenly my screen has become inundated with advertising. I hate it.

  45. Happy Endings are not Written in the Language of Coercive Control.
    An extract from ‘A State of Fear’

    Laura Dodsworth
    Oct 13

    I would like to share an extract from A State of Fear: How the UK government weaponised fear during the Covid-19 pandemic.

    The Covid-19 vaccine is in the not-mainstream-news this week, since a Pfizer executive admitted in a European Parliament hearing that their vaccine was not trialled to stop transmission. This was known at the time, you will find it in black and white in official documents. And yet people were told that the vaccine did stop transmission. And that they were selfish if they were not vaccinated. They were refuseniks who should be punished. As Rob Roos MEP, who posed the question to Pfizer has pointed out, getting vaccinated to save lives was a lie. At best, it was an unevidenced hope.

    This chapter is a little more generous to the vaccine than I would have liked, and a little less critical about the transmission issue. The book passed through two fact-checkers as well as an editor and publisher and compromises were made. Considering it was written at the end of 2020 and early 2021 I am satisfied it holds up well, although very sad that my foreboding about scapegoating the unvaccinated was accurate.

    Chapter 18 — Happy Endings are not Written in the Language of Coercive Control.

    The vaccine programme appears to be the Happy Ending to the Horrible Story of the Covid-19 pandemic. But I am cautious. Not because I am ‘anti-vax’, but because I have observed that this stage of the story is also being written in the language of emotional manipulation and coercive control.

    Some of the vaccine messaging is optimistic, proud and forward-looking. Some is straight from the behavioural science handbook. The message ‘Impfen = Freiheit’ which translates as ‘Vaccination = Freedom’ was projected on a TV tower in Düsseldorf, Germany. Proud optimism or blatant propaganda?

    The term ‘vaccine hesitancy’ is now used to describe the attitude of people who have decided not to get vaccinated. It implies a slight pathologisation, that those reluctant to have a vaccine may have some sort of mental condition, rather than be making an individual choice based on risk analysis and rational preferences. It is designed to denigrate the vaccine sceptic, to make them look a bit silly. It also implies the ‘hesitation’ is just a step towards the inevitable, part of the process – come on dear, we’ll get you over that hump and you’ll have your vaccination in the end. Surely an ad hominem attack is less ethical and robustly persuasive than evidence would be?

    Some of the language around Covid vaccines ticks the boxes of Biderman’s ‘Chart of Coercion’ (p142–3). In December 2020, the NHS published a document for health professionals called Optimising Vaccination Roll Out – Dos and Don’ts for all messaging, documents and “communications” in the widest sense.

    Although I talked about the possible propaganda aimed at encouraging vaccine take up in BAME communities in Chapter 8, ‘Controlled spontaneity and propaganda’, this messaging is a broader departure from the public health language for the wider population. Certain recommended phrases are emotionally manipulative in a way that would affect informed consent. For instance, ‘normality can only return for you and others, with your vaccination’ and ‘if you want to be able to do what you want, then having the vaccine is the fastest and safest way to achieving this’. Why can normality only return after vaccination? If you do not get vaccinated is the message that you prevent everyone else getting back to normality?

    I discussed it with psychologist Gary Sidley, who said this ‘fits the definition of blackmail’ although ‘the blatant nature of it is a little surprising’. Public health expert and doctor Jackie Cassell agreed that the document contains ‘pretty extreme language’ and that ‘the whole approach is very much from the SPI-B playbook’.

    Cassell was deeply uncomfortable about this extreme language. ‘I can’t imagine how a doctor could use these arguments,’ she said. ‘Using peer norms as a direct form of persuasion is not something that comes readily to doctors and we don’t speak that language. It goes against our professional training. A vaccine is a medical intervention and people have to consent to it. I wouldn’t use the arguments in this document in these ways.’I wondered why the language was so at odds with how doctors are trained to work, and she responded that ‘it brings up some interesting disciplinary perspectives, if not fault lines. The behavioural scientists and nudgers occupy a very different space. They are thinking like psychology- trained advertisers, like they are trying to get us to buy fashion or whatever. Asking health professionals to use this kind of language could be profoundly damaging to the trust in government and health services.’

    The coercive language in this NHS document shows how integral the behavioural psychology approach now is. This is also apparent in the recruitment of new behavioural science roles in the NHS, Public Health England and various government departments in recent months and years. And not everyone in public health agrees with it. If behavioural psychology is here to stay then it’s clear that, at the very least, the different disciplines need greater synergy to ensure that reflective thought about ethics and informed consent is not a thing of the past.

    On the world stage, politicians as well as representatives of the WHO, United Nations, Gavi (the Vaccine Alliance) and the World Economic Forum have all parroted the same phrase: ‘No one is safe until everyone is safe’. Language is being coordinated – but by whom? The phrase is literally not true: if you have the vaccine, you have the protection it confers.

    Boris Johnson announced on 25 March 2021 that ‘there is going to be a role for vaccine certification’. He justified the imposition of Covid certificates that might allow businesses to bar unvaccinated customers by saying that the public ‘want me as prime minister to take all the action I can to protect them’. The Sun duly ran the headline ‘No Jab, No Pint’.

    There’s a feeling after a year of restrictions that people will do anything to ‘get back to normal’. But declaring your health status to use businesses and services has never been normal. The introduction of a health status ID to access products and services will cross a rubicon.

    Some people are now overly anxious about other people’s immune status. In fact, the constant requirement for reassurance, through certificates and checkpoints, could actually ‘end up promoting fear and anxiety that are not proportionate to the perils involved’, according to Robert Dingwall, sociologist and government advisor.

    Once the over-50s and vulnerable categories have been vaccinated, 98% of the risk of death and 80 to 85% of the risk of serious illness will have been eliminated. On that basis, the vaccine programme is a success for at-risk individuals and for society as a whole. So, what would the point of Covid certificates be? After all, the only thing that matters is your own immune status. If you are vaccinated, you are protected. If someone is not vaccinated next to you at the bar, it will not matter because you are vaccinated.

    The push for certification is reminiscent of yet another behavioural science strategy. The kinds of people who populate the advisory panels close to government are very risk-averse. They are focused on the importance of vaccination, and ‘forcing’ their view of good health on to us, and perhaps dismissive of ethical and social considerations. Allowing private businesses to discriminate against the unvaccinated allows the government to avoid mandating vaccinations, but at the same time makes it impossible for people to go about their normal lives without vaccination. It is a form of coercion.

    I asked Dingwall if he thought this push for vaccine certificates is a behavioural psychology ‘nudge’. ‘It’s a nudge for low-risk groups, once the high-risk groups have been vaccinated’, he said. ‘Perhaps the worry is about vaccination uptake among younger people. But why not cross that bridge if we come to it? Public health should not be about bullying people, it should be about advising them.’ Jackie Cassell also had reservations about certification: ‘Vaccines tap into our relationships with personhood and state. I hate the idea of biosecurity. We don’t have a passport for measles because, by and large, we have a fantastic vaccination scheme and uptake. Biosecurity won’t make people get vaccinated, feel safe, or have confidence in government and the NHS.’

    Is this a case of the government capitalising on disaster? Matt Hancock said in September 2019 that the government was ‘looking very seriously’ at making vaccinations mandatory for school pupils. Is Covid-19 being used as the excuse to usher in a change that the government already wanted? He said at the time that ‘when the state provides services to people then it’s a two-way street – you’ve got to take your responsibilities, too’. But this is autocratic thinking in disguise, where ‘responsibility’ means doing what you are told. He said he thought that ‘the public would back us’. I think that would have been unlikely at the time, as it would have been a huge change for the British socially, ethically and legally. But there’s nothing like a pandemic for shifting the dial on mandatory vaccines. Indeed, in March 2021, Hancock announced that the government was looking at making Covid-19 vaccines mandatory for care workers, to the consternation of unions who attacked the plans as ‘heavy-handed’ and ‘authoritarian’.

    During the epidemic, public opinion polls functioned like crystal balls, allowing us to gaze at the plans of politicians. While polls are ostensibly supposed to tell the government what we think, they are quite useful for telling us what the government wants us to think and what it wants to do next. And when the results are revealed to us they guide us, through social conformity and the herding instinct, into a preference we never knew we held. As Peter Hitchens said, ‘Opinion polls are a device for influencing public opinion, not a device for measuring it. Crack that, and it all makes sense.’ In an IPSOS MORI report, David Halpern made a similar comment: ‘In a world of behavioural economics, public opinion surveys are themselves a “nudge” – a signal to both policymakers and our fellow citizens about what’s acceptable and what’s not.’

    On 30 September 2020 YouGov asked, ‘Once a vaccine has been found, would you support or oppose the government making it compulsory for everyone to receive a vaccination against the coronavirus?’The options allowed you to support, oppose or select ‘don’t know’. That question was a fairly clear indication of the government’s direction of travel at a time when emergency authorisation of a vaccine had not even been granted in the UK. The next question hinted harder at the desired destination: ‘And once a vaccine has been found, would you support or oppose the government prosecuting and fining people who do not get a vaccination against the coronavirus?’ Before the vaccine had been authorised, long before we would know whether the vaccine interrupted transmission of the virus (that is still not certain at the time of writing) the government was checking to see whether the public would support fines for not having the vaccine.

    Just as Hancock’s pre-epidemic enthusiasm for mandating vaccines mirrors his post-epidemic interest, might the government’s flip-flopping on vaccine passports also align with a previous inclination for such schemes? The European Union published a Roadmap For The Implementation Of Actions By The European Commission Based On TheCommission Communication And The Council Recommendation On Strengthening Cooperation Against Vaccine Preventable Diseases which proposed countering vaccine hesitancy, and the development of a common EU vaccination card between 2019 and 2021, to be followed by a ‘vaccination card/ passport for EU citizens’ that is ‘compatible with electronic immunisation information systems and recognised for use across borders’ by 2022. Well, that seems to be remarkably on schedule.

    Fear has created a morality play where heavy-handed discussions about society-wide vaccine mandates and Covid certificates, or vaccine passports, are privileged over personal responsibility and risk. Does your Happy Ending involve personal responsibility or state mandates? In the desperate desire to end the Horrible Story of the Covid-19 pandemic we are rushing towards a conclusion without being certain enough of our values.

    The minister entrusted with reviewing the use of Covid certificates is Michael Gove. As he once said, ‘Once powers are yielded to the state at moments of crisis or emergency, it’s very rarely the case that the state hands them back.’ It will be interesting to see whether the spirit of those words influences the review.

          1. Refresh Disqus and an article headed, “Happy Endings are not Written in the Language of Coercive Control.
            An extract from ‘A State of Fear'” appears in place of the mail link.

      1. I have to admit I now feel exactly the same.
        They are absolute dross and should not be here.

  47. The Forgotten Slave Trade: The White European Slaves of Islam

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Forgotten-Slave-Trade-European-Slaves/dp/1526769263

    Everybody knows about the transatlantic slave trade, which saw black Africans snatched from their homes, taken across the Atlantic Ocean and then sold into slavery. However, a century before Britain became involved in this terrible business, whole villages and towns in England, Ireland, Italy, Spain and other European countries were being depopulated by slavers, who transported the men, women and children to Africa where they were sold to the highest bidder. This is the forgotten slave trade; one which saw over a million Christians forced into captivity in the Muslim world. Starting with the practice of slavery in the ancient world, Simon Webb traces the history of slavery in Europe, showing that the numbers involved were vast and that the victims were often treated far more cruelly than black slaves in America and the Caribbean. Castration, used very occasionally against black slaves taken across the Atlantic, was routinely carried out on an industrial scale on European boys who were exported to Africa and the Middle East. Most people are aware that the English city of Bristol was a major centre for the transatlantic slave trade in the eighteenth century, but hardly anyone knows that 1,000 years earlier it had been an important staging-post for the transfer of English slaves to Africa. Reading this book will forever change how you view the slave trade and show that many commonly held beliefs about this controversial subject are almost wholly inaccurate and mistaken

    1. The islamics had thousands of white children they stole from the shores of Britain and Ireland, kept the poor little things in caves near the Alhambra Palace.
      When they had used and abused them, they fed them to the captured prides of lions.
      And still, it goes on today but there are no handy prides of lions.
      BBC TV Blood and Gold, Simon Sebag Montefiore. Unless they have pulled it, in case people might be offended.

  49. 365952+ up ticks,

    Liz Truss faces Tory rebel plot to replace her with Sunak-Mordaunt alliance, claims former MP
    ConservativeHome editor Paul Goodman has said some Tory backbenchers are considering pushing for a new Prime Minster

    The next step is “Taking to the mattresses”

    1. For goodness sake. We get some sensible, common sense economic policies and the Left set about trying to destroy them.

      I’m convinced half the country needs to be shot.

    2. Why are plod preventing people recording illegal immigration and yet supporting the criminals blocking the roads?

      Someone tell me why police are aiding and abetting crime?

      1. There are no ‘plod’ in that film! They are all Border Force officers. Where can you see any ‘plod’ in that film?

        1. I know and understand your support for the police.

          However, as a former schoolmaster, I have neither sympathy nor empathy for many of today’s school teachers and the NUT.

          1. I have neither sympathy nor empathy for anyone, in any position of influence … in the world … today!

        2. The police are in it up to their eyeballs too. As soon as there was a demonstration against the invasion in Dover, they were out arresting the demonstrators for blocking the road.

          2. I understood your question as a rhetorical device to support your point that the film doesn’t show the police, and my reply is that the police are fully supporting the invasion as they have demonstrated on other occasions.

          3. Permit me to put you at ease. My question was not a ‘rhetorical device’. It was a simple, straight-forward, bog-standard question?

          4. Why? You had already made your point. Requiring people to repeat “no, there are no police in the film” is just the ritual humiliation method of arguing.

    3. 365952+ up ticks.

      Morning TB,
      The indigenous innocents, that does NOT include lab/lib/con current supporter / voters, have therefore taken 856 paces back in regards to accommodation, medication, education, incarceration and from the shite bakery paedophile PIE emerges a clear winner.

    1. They had better not look to closely at the average black chap either or listen to their rap lyrics.

    3. Will they start using ‘behavioural data’ to predict which men will commit violence against:
      The MSM?
      Politicians?
      The Woke?
      The Left?
      Insurgents and invaders?
      Billy Goats?
      The WEF?
      Davros? …

  52. Novak Djokovic not permitted to play 2023 Australian Open – but Russians are free to compete
    Serb waits for government to lift three-year visa suspension, while Russia and Belarusian players allowed to compete as neutrals    .
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tennis/2022/10/13/will-novak-djokovic-play-australian-open-2023-when-what/

    BTL

    And even Pfizer has admitted this week that having had the ‘vaccine’ does not prevent you from passing on the virus and this was known at the very beginning as they had not run any relevant tests.

    In effect we have been manipulated and lied to by Big Pharma, the politicians and the MSM.

    My wife and I, my wife’s sister, our son and his girlfriend all got Covid last February. My wife and I are not Covid jabbed and had the disease very mildly indeed. Our son, his girlfriend and my wife’s sister all had a very nasty dose of the malady.

    I have never been a conspiracy theorist – but it is strange how every bit of fake news about Covid proves after a few months to have actually been the truth.

    1. Presumably the Russians and Belarusians are only allowed in if they’re jabbed up to the eyeballs?

  53. I’ve just had virgin media ring me they drive me nuts for a start it’s extremely difficult to understand the strong Asian accents and I was told to open a web site on my PC which I couldn’t do because it kept closing down, so I told the guy I have to go, someone is at the front door. I became very suspicious it didn’t seem to make any sense at all. Surely, they don’t have to involve a customer to increase the download speed.

    2. Happens to me on a frequent basis. I say to them as they clearly know all about the system, can they tell me who I am? They can’t of course, so end of call.

      1. Are you with virgin Very ?
        I told them surely you don’t need me to help you increase my internet speed. I guess it would have been long before they asked for my bank details and Pin number.

        1. Yes, I’m with Virgin. Not sure if scammers somehow know this or simply take a chance on a certain percentage of those they call being Virgin customers. Think what they usually want is to get control of computer.

    3. These computer scams only seem to be tried on with windows users. If you tell them you only have an Apple puter and the phone goes dead, you know who it was.

      1. No I believe they were responding to my comments on messenger regarding having no internet connection first thing, but every time I complain it sems to do the trick.

  55. The listening bird by Nick Kanakis, US | Winner, behaviour: birds

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/16f0637ad3902a84cab960c760cd0d7f4f820a10/0_0_5748_3832/master/5748.jpg?width=720&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=ff81d2348f4fe469e375fa36bdea46ca

    Kanakis spotted the young grey-breasted wood wren foraging. Knowing it would disappear into the forest if approached, he found a clear patch of leaf litter and waited. Sure enough, the little bird hopped into the frame, pressing its ear to the ground to listen for small insects. This prey-detecting technique is used by other birds, including the Eurasian blackbird. Grey-breasted wood wrens are ground-dwelling birds, often heard but not seen. Tatamá national park, Risaralda, Colombia
    Photograph: Nick Kanakis/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

      2. How successful are they at catching moles? We are completely overrun with moles and we cannot get rid of them Chaucer was completely useless as a mole catcher and dogs create as much mess as the moles..

          1. Depends on the terrier; Charlie famously snuffled about near a mole hill, while a mole emerged next to him, ran round him and dashed (they can move surprisingly quickly) off to safety.

      1. The members’ pocket possibly being lined twice – once by the government/taxpayers, and again by foreign NWO interests.

  57. Driver who pulled into a bus lane to let an ambulance pass is FINED £130 sparking backlash from Britons who say he was punished for act which ‘could have helped save a life’
    Driver slapped with a £130 fine after pulling into a bus lane to let ambulance by
    The ambulance had been travelling through Walthamstow in east London
    But Waltham Forest Council rejected the driver’s appeal against the penalty
    After a backlash from Londoners, it decided to make a U-turn on the decision
    By EIRIAN JANE PROSSER FOR MAILONLINE

    PUBLISHED: 11:07, 13 October 2022 | UPDATED: 12:25, 13 October 2022 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11310931/Driver-pulled-bus-lane-let-ambulance-pass-fined-130-causing-backlash-Brits.html?ito=social-twitter_mailonline

      1. Aren’t ambulances allowed to use whatever lane is available – even the opposite side of the road?

        2. They should be if it was deemed safe. Why didn’t the ambulance driver get into the bus lane instead of the car driver ?

        3. Yes they are – technically they are in the wrong, but the public interest defence is usually their get-out.

  58. Robbie F
    @dudleylad1066
    ·
    Oct 11
    British Pakistani/Bangladesh levels of economic inactivity (40%) is twice that of White British (20%).
    Explain again to me how mass immigration benefits White British people and who is not pulling their weight?

  59. The full Allister Heath piece headlined earlier.

    Britain’s zombie economy is crumbling and the real culprits are getting off scot-free

    Truss is being blamed for the collapse of the debt-fuelled Jenga society that she was trying to replace

    ALLISTER HEATH • 12 October 2022 • 7:56pm

    For years now, the world economy has resembled a ludicrously high-stakes game of Jenga. Politicians and central bankers kept taking it in turns to remove blocks from the tower, adding them back to the top of the stack and congratulating themselves on their brilliance, wilfully blind to the fact that the structure was becoming ever more unstable. Some genuinely believed that the tower, like the economy, was getting taller; others secretly knew it was an optical illusion, but enjoyed fooling the voters.

    Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng have been doubly unlucky. While almost everybody else in Britain remained in denial, they correctly identified this absurd game for the con-trick that it truly was, warned that it was about to implode and pledged to replace it with a more honest system. Instead of a zombie economy based on rising asset prices and fake, debt-fuelled growth, their mission was to encourage Britain to produce more real goods and services, to work harder and invest more by reforming taxes and regulation.

    What happened next is dispiriting in the extreme. Kwarteng’s mini-Budget contained a wonderful collection of pro-growth policies, but it landed disastrously. In an understandable rush, Truss and her Chancellor moved too quickly and, paradoxically, given their warnings about the rottenness of the system, ended up pulling out the last block from the Jenga tower, sending all of the pieces tumbling down.

    Contrary to the Left’s propaganda, they didn’t crash the economy – it was about to come tumbling down anyway – but they had the misfortune of precipitating and accelerating the day of reckoning. They were outmanoeuvred by better, more ruthless players, and are now incorrectly blamed for all that is wrong with the economy while the real culprits attempt to get off scot-free.

    Kwarteng’s mistake was one of presentation and context. He underestimated the (unfair) Brexit penalty imposed on Britain by the financial markets, he didn’t adjust for the Bank of England’s failure to raise rates fast enough (including the day before), and he did not pay enough attention to the traders’ febrile state, their hunt for the first victims of an inevitable great global readjustment.

    Life isn’t fair, and politicians need to deal with the facts as they are. For now, markets are willing to tolerate massive deficits in Germany (its energy package is larger than ours and its economy is growing less quickly) or France, but not in Britain. They are turning against Italy, but nobody cares, and the yen is collapsing, but Japan hasn’t Brexited so there is no global panic about that either. There is a reason why Budgets come as a package, including revenue as well as expenditure, economic forecasts as well as tax changes. Sometimes, governments can get away with anything, as during Covid; but, in our case, not today.

    Yet the cant and double-standards of the Prime Minister’s opponents is astonishing. The greatest scandal, the worst instance of hypocrisy, is how a financial and Civil Service establishment supposedly so angry at her budget deficit is trying to pass the buck for a crisis in our pension funds that it created. It beggars belief that a small rise in gilt yields of 1.25 per cent in three days was enough to tip that whole industry into turmoil, effectively freeze what was meant to be a liquid market, and create a vicious doom loop that might precipitate further intervention.

    Everybody is to blame: the financial institutions that created and sold the so-called “liability-driven investments” (LDIs) – and whose economists have the chutzpah to criticise Truss – the pension funds, the Treasury and its staggeringly overrated mandarins, the regulators, the Bank of England, Kwarteng’s predecessors as chancellor. Why did so few people see this coming? Will the taxpayer have to pick up the bill? What is the point of stress-tests if they can’t cope with a classic deflation of a gigantic, unsustainable bubble?

    Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England (and former boss of the FCA, the main city regulator), has been deeply unimpressive in all of this, helping to keep interest rates too low and rattling markets with unfortunate communications. The main reason why pension funds felt obliged to use LDIs was because interest rates were so meagre, and they needed to find returns somewhere. The idea, now accepted so widely, that the price of money must be kept extremely low and quantitative easing deployed at every opportunity has undermined every aspect of the economy and society. It has been a catastrophe, as Truss and Kwarteng have long understood, but the scale of the zombification of the economy that it has spawned caught even them by surprise.

    There are now too many zombies, with too much to lose: over-indebted companies, too many homeowners and buy-to-let investors whose lifestyles, tragically, are only sustainable on 1 to 2 per cent interest rates, too many car buyers who thought that the cheap credit would be available forever. There was even more of a sense of entitlement to cheap debt, especially among the middle classes, than Truss realised, and they all blame her for their pain, even though mortgages are now nearing 7 per cent in the United States.

    Truss needed to prepare the ground, use clear, vivid language, establish a strong anti-inflation narrative, explain that she wants our children to be richer than us, point out that the cost of borrowing would need to rise in every country, rewarding savers. Too few people realise how terribly the easy money, high tax, high regulation orthodoxy has failed, and how it is condemning the young to declining living standards and a warped form of capital-less capitalism that will one day lead to an almighty conflagration.

    With very little to lose, Truss and Kwarteng should roll the dice again. We are in a crisis, so they should launch regular Covid-style televised briefings, but this time on the economy, with a dose of geopolitics. The first one should be held immediately, with slides and graphs, and include Andrew Bailey, focusing on pensions funds. They need to explain to the public what is wrong with the economy, and how they are trying to fix it.

    If Truss is destroyed, the alternative won’t even be social democracy: it will be Labour, the hard Left, the full gamut of punitive taxation, including of wealth and housing, and even more spending, culminating rapidly in economic oblivion. Those Tories plotting to depose Truss need to work out on whose side they really are.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/12/zombie-economy-crumbling-real-culprits-getting-scot-free

    1. Very clearly written and easy to understand. I wonder what the hundreds of No 10 SPADS think.

      1. Right now, the BBC would have us believe that the No 10 SPADS are arranging more U-turns.

    2. I saw it coming. I cannot imagine anyone else here didn’t also see the smoke and mirrors the economy was built on, nor what would eventually happen.

      Brown was told by Mervyn King repeatedly to stop buggering about with the currency and to leave markets alone. That his fiddling with the banking code would cause problems. Brown carried on.

      Cameron and Osborne, too pathetic to do anything useful just blundered along using economic tools to keep the spending taps fully open. May made it worse by doing nothing about it.

      The longer the water’s flooding, the more damage it will do. You cannot force the plumber to pay for the repair. It’s got to fall on those who caused the problem.

      1. 365952+ up ticks,

        G,
        I am of a more shy timid nature as you have probably gathered, even so I do make you correct.

    1. Please tell me (my irony meter is awry): is Fat Ferrari being ironic (i.e. having a laugh) or is he being serious? I need to know.

      1. 365952+ up ticks,

        Afternoon G,
        I do believe serious, I also see him as a fatty with a jolly countenance & dangerous, as was Goring .

  64. I caught a bit of Paramedics on Scene BBC1 this morning and two paramedics with the patient in the back of the ambulance were trying to persaude the casualty that they needed to take them to hospital. The casualty was refusing to go and they told the patient that they would have to call the police but not because of any criminal reason.

    I didn’t see the outcome of that incident but what would a police officer do when faced with this situaiion?

    Could the idea have been for a Section 37 order to be served on the casualty in which case I would guess a police officer alone wouldn’t have the authority. I didn’t see the outcome but what do you think should happen in such circumstances when you refuse to go to hospital?

    1. Paramedics threatening to call the police on a patient are simply not up to their job. Patients, for whatever reason, have thrown similar wobblies since time began. Any paramedic (what a stupid job title!) who doesn’t possess the charisma or interpersonal skills to deal with a truculent patient deserves sacking.

        1. …..and find it very difficult to leave even if they chose to. I have experienced this. I threatened to remove the canula myself if they were not prepared to do it. The nurse said ‘but you will bleed everywhere’. I told her that was her problem. It was still several hours before a Doctor came who tried to convince me to stay.

          I had been in overnight on a potassium drip. What was the point in me taking up that bed !

      3. Not seeing this episode…or any of them for that matter the subject could have had drugs in their system that would cause them many more problems. Work, family…mistress.

    2. As I understand it the patient cannot be forced to go to the hospital. They can only be persuaded that it is in their interests

        1. If they can’t get home under their own steam the paramedics could take them. Shorter queue at their house i expect.

      2. I wonder sometimes where the boundaty is between medical professionals deciding to preserve life and a patient’s desire for treatment to be withheld.

        During one course of treatment I became very uneasy about the way my treatment appeared to be oriented to a medical study than preservation of my health.

  65. After reading Grizz’s posts this morning (and watching Law and Order) curiosity prompted me to inquire into the Terms of Service in the New York Police Department (NYPD)

    Salary and Benefits.

    A career with the NYPD means receiving a reliable benefits package that includes paid vacation, paid sick leave, and retirement funds. In addition to a salary, compensation includes longevity pay, holiday pay, and uniform allowance, along with opportunities for overtime.
    Salary
    Starting salary: $42,500
    Salary after 5 ½ years: $85,292.
    Including holiday pay, longevity pay, uniform allowance, night differential and overtime, police officers may potentially earn over $100,000 per year.

    Additional Benefits.

    27 Paid vacation days after 5 years of service
    Unlimited sick leave with full pay
    Selection of medical benefit packages
    Prescription, dental, and vision coverage
    Annuity fund
    Deferred Compensation Plan, 401K and I.R.A.
    Optional retirement at one half salary after 22 years of service
    Annual $12,000 Variable Supplement Fund (upon retirement)
    Excellent promotional opportunities.

    I don’t know what they are in the UK but these look more than reasonable.

    https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/careers/police-officers/po-benefits.page

    1. It is reasonable if you don’t count being used as a political football by people who want to promote crime.

    3. The charming consultant who diagnosed my asthma in Aug 2020 is called:

      Dr Sivakamasundari Ampikaipakan – simply known throughout the NNUH as “Dr Ampi”

    4. It’s pronounced, Swaddi wudi pong, the ‘h’ in wudhi indicates that it is an aspirated consonant. It’s Thai.

    1. I wonder who pays for all the banners and hi-viz jackets that the “protesters” seem to have available?

    2. 365952+ up ticks,

      Evening P,
      Tarmac over them & employ them as sleeping policemen
      speed controllers.

    1. Despite two bankers whining on Sky News today about Brexit, the fact is that every major stock market in the world has fallen today.

      After more than six years, I wish that the Remainers would just give up whining.

      1. But but but
        It really inconveniences them when they travel to their Gite/villa in Tuscany/appartment in Portugal etc

        1. Do you remember the TV movie “Threads”, which imagined a post-nuclear apocalyptic landscape? I know a remainer who was genuinely convinced that that’s how it would be if Britain left the EU.

    2. Ahh that is just down the road from Inkpen gibbet. I would really like to see a few strung up there.

        1. Takes me back to when I used to sit up there in my car with my CB at 3am in the morning.

    1. Yeah, right. Sounds like Priti Awful Mark 2. On her first day she promised to stop the flow immediately.

      200,000 illegals later……Miss Braveheart makes a similar promise….

    2. Yes of course the French and the British “agree” – the French agree to demand more money to do nothing, and the British agree to pay. Again.

    3. 365952+ up ticks,

      Evening LD,

      LOOK OUT truss the criminal gangs are behind you …………

      In parliament.

    1. These are the bonds that the government sells to get the money to redeem the bonds that the government sold last time around, to get money to redeem the bonds… sold the previous time around?

      1. By now, they’re selling them to pay the interest on the ones they sold last year, aren’t they?
        Now what was the name for that kind of scheme……it’s on the tip of my tongue…

  73. I need help. I won’t go into details on numbers as I am looking at an overview. Unemployment figures are as low as they have ever been. Hospitality workers are in short supply, care workers are in short supply. The population of the UK is at the highest level ever. We have large numbers of immigrants not working.
    So who is doing what? How can these separate figures be reconciled? (Considering that no one in the UK works in a factory any more.)

    1. I can only guess, Horace, that all the benefits-seeking, idling, gimmegrunts are considered unemployable and don’t count, otherwise the unemployed would be well over 2,000,000 and rising daily

    2. A farm chum is desperate to recruit workers. She’s got half a dozen vacancies. Folk turn up, ‘interview’ and then go away. They continue to claim welfare.

      They are not counted as unemployed because they have looked for a job. With so many on welfare we either don’t have the jobs – there are over 100 in the last 3 days my area alone, so it’s not that – or people do not want to do them.

      1. Perhaps if you go for an “interview”, but don’t get the job (for any reason) you are exempt for having to apply for another one for three months. But the benefits continue to flow…..

        Just guessing……

        1. Tut, tut, tut. That’s the sort of scam that might be dreamed up by an unscrupulous lawyer. (I believe it is the law – how did you know?)

          2. That is the exact reason i decided to sell my body. I don’t qualify for any benefits at all. Nothing! I can’t work. I can’t walk. I don’t have a dinghy. And i’m English. :@(

            Fancy a date ?

        2. No – but there are ways round the rules. The last job I had before I retired was chasing up the people who failed to apply for jobs and getting their money stopped. I know they do still do this.

    3. No respectable muslim man would allow any of his womenfolk of childbearing age any time off to work in a pub or restaurant serving christian folk.

      1. Hmm.
        The have no problem with their wives serving, in full face veil, behind the counter in their alcoholic’s shops.

    4. The real reason for the problem is, we have 650 politicians and god only knows how many ‘Lords’ who are absolutely effing useless.

    5. Care workers were sacked for refusing the jabs – some will have retired, others working in supermarkets. A lot of the hospitality workers were EU people, and many will have returned home. Others have decided they are too sick or disabled to work. Immigrants with poor English will be working on the black market.

      1. Yes. However, we have lost the jobs that provided mass employment; car factories, shipyards, cotton mills, garment production, farming. In 1966 we had all these jobs. The population was 54m. In 1966 it was easy to get a job. Now we don’t have those jobs, and we have 12m more people. Our population is 66m, officially. I simply don’t see how that stacks up, unless we have 20m being treated as being in employment when they are not.

  75. Man charged in London “have-a-go” heroes case:

    “Aarya Mishra, prosecuting, said: ‘The defendant and another man were together cycling through London on a pedal cycle.

    ‘They were together, trying to snatch phones from various victims’ hands. This led to what has been described as an incredibly violent series of events.

    ‘The defendant tried to snatch a phone from a member of the public who cries out to other members of the public to try and detain the defendant and his associate.

    ‘His associate produced a knife and slashed various members of the public. He then handed that to the defendant who slashed a member of the public’s face so gravely that he required 52 stitches.’

    Parkinson’s lawyer Kishoree Kotecha-Pau made no bail application and spoke only to remind the court he was arrested at his home rather than at the scene.”

    Look at the lawyers’ names….. England today, eh?

    1. Are the thugs in the UK legally?

      If not, then why the FOXTROT are they getting legal aid?

  76. That’s me for today. Started feeling brighter – then went downhill s the day progressed. Just hope that the Lemsip etc start to work tomorrow. Cheesed off at feeling below par. I am a bad patient; so is the MR – who is much worser – and hopeless at looking after anyone.

    Grrr.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

    1. Chicken soup can be very comforting .. or even a Knorr stock cube dissolved in hot water as a drink .

      Sorry to hear to you are feeling rough , Bill.

  77. Battle stations by Ekaterina Bee, Italy | Winner, 10 years and under

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/838ad9d8ad5433296da876b0b9a7187fe2044a1d/0_0_5025_3289/master/5025.jpg?width=720&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=df376f7876705180fdd56cdbe5ec0d6f

    Ekaterina watches as two Alpine ibex spar for supremacy. It was near the end of a spring day trip with her family that she spotted the fight. The two ibex clashed horns and continued to trade blows while standing on their hind legs like boxers in a ring. In the early 1800s, after centuries of hunting, fewer than 100 Alpine ibex survived in the mountains on the Italy–France border. Successful conservation measures mean that, today, there are more than 50,000. Pian della Mussa, Piedmont, Italy
    Photograph: Ekaterina Bee/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

  78. 365952+ up ticks,

    The rot is so entrenched in the tory in name only party they are seemingly devouring themselves, maybe one down,two to go.

    The lab in name only party may be a tougher nut to crack being the muslim / paedophiles
    party of choice.
    By the by any news on the missing children spirited away from hotels or are they on the
    PIE menu already sitting in a darkend room somewhere awaiting to start building a damaged mental health future.

    Kids from anywhere are innocent, we are witnessing & suffering via the actions of adults in the name of counterfeit political parties.

    1. 365952+ up ticks,

      020,
      breitbart

      Westminster Rumour Mill: Tories Lining up to Replace New Prime Minister Truss Already

  79. Good evening all.
    A quite enjoyable afternoon with step son today. After discussing future housing possibilities for him with the manager of the place he is in, a rather pleasant Indian lady I’d guess in her 40s, we had a drive to Uttoxeter stopping off en route at Sudbury with a spot of lunch at Sudbury Courtyard, NOT, I hasten to add, a part of the National Trust’s Sudbury Hall setup.

    Had an hour looking round Uttoxeter, mentally noting the number of pubs for a future visit by public transport and then back to Derby to drop him off and home to get Pie & Chips on for the DT & S@H getting in from work.

    Now trying to catch up with comments!

  80. Damian Hurst is burning half of his unique artworks which are linked to digital non-fungible tokens held by investors.

    https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/10/11/non-fireproof-tokens-damien-hirst-burns-his-own-paintings

    But are these any good as an investment when there aren’t even any buyers for Gilts at elevated return rates and is your token worth anything if the unique original artwork doesn’t now exist?

    Here’s a guide to NFTs for investors:

    https://www.fool.com/investing/stock-market/market-sectors/financials/non-fungible-tokens/how-to-buy-nft/

    2. Perhaps, Damien Hirst should pickle himself with formaldehyde, in a plastic bottle, forever on display at the bottom of a mineshaft …

  82. I see the BBC’s “elephant in the ballroom” is going to be on the [hopefully reinforced] dance floor again this weekend!

    1. We can’t be bothered to watch it at all this year. OH used to be quite keen on it, myself not so much, but did watch most of it in previous years.

      1. I have seldom watched it, I find the noise, the colours and movements too much – too much sensory overload.

        1. I’m usually cooking a meal while it’s on, so only see the odd bits. But he used to follow it much more closely.

  83. Migration Watch
    @MigrationWatch
    🚨 3,462 people have crossed in 75 boats so far in October 2022.

    📈 36,564 have been reported arriving in 897 boats during 2022 so far.

    📈 75,698 people have been reported coming by boat since the start of 2018.

    2. In north Norfolk this week the people we have seen have been predominantly white. Not predominantly, actually, but 99.9% white. Long may it remain so. One black guy sitting outside Tesco’s in Fakenham today, and three pale Asian teenagers in Cromer. I should add we haven’t been to Norwich. South Devon three weeks ago was also very white, despite immigrants being lodged in Brixham and Paignton. The problem is we are too law-abiding and sensible, we do not have fire in our bellies.

      1. Are you going to Suffolk? My maiden name is Orford and there is a lovely town there of that name. Doubt I shall get there now. If you do go, you and your husband have a glass or two for us in the pub. My late brother said the pub was great.

  84. Evening, all. Busy day as usual; met a friend for coffee (and lent him a book), did some gardening, then drove to Gobowen for a CT scan at 18.10. I’ve had more investigations in the last three months than in the preceding 18. Pity they couldn’t have got their act together when I originally damaged my SIJ.

  85. Beam me up. What a day.
    Yesterday the handyman came to fix the shower head and to grout round the new fan in the bathroom. He has raised the shower head much higher so tall husband can fit underneath it .
    So today, I went for my shower and the bathroom floor flooded. Bath mats all sopping. Put them in the washer and after the cycle they were still sopping. Washer threw a wobbler.
    Plus we had a lady coming to talk about services available to us as my mobility is getting poorer. Doesn’t look promising.
    Spun the mats again and better but not as good as they could and should be.
    It’s all ballcocks and I am in a pretty foul mood.
    Nothing I hear or read in the news helps my mood at all.

      1. It’s second hand but fairly new. The guy did come and look at it last week and made recommendations which I followed. Could just have been the weight of the mats but if it happens again, said guy will be summoned.

    3. Buy yourself a stool and stand on it when having your shower, thar way the water won’t go over your head and soak the floor.

      Worthy of several more Pinot?

      1. I am halfway through a glass 😉 There is a seat in the shower but the whole room is a pain in the arse.

    2. All those doctors, rocket scientists and engineers ‘roaming in groups’? They must be exchanging notes on which Universities they attended.

    3. 365952+ up ticks,

      Evening LD,
      The MP in question is, in reality, a RESET kapo in waiting, in my book ALL
      ” my MPs ” are Kapo’s in waiting.

  87. Comment from the DT letters page .

    Alan Lawrence
    3 HRS AGO
    Tory MPs who are apparently considering removing Liz Truss and crowning a successor must have completely taken leave of their senses if they think that this will be acceptable to the electorate. Far from improving the Conservative position in the polls it will tank and deservedly so. Truss should put her mini budget to the Commons pdq. She should make it clear to her MPs that if elements of it are voted down she will regard it as a vote of no confidence in the government and call an election.

    1. Who are the Tory MPs that are apparently determined to remove Liz Truss and crown a successor?

      Are they the last remnants of the Remainers?

      If they insist on dumping the Truss/ Kwarteng mini budget – a formula for reform and growth – the likely outcome will be catastrophic defeat for the Conservatives – putting them out of business for decades.

      1. Deselect the lot of them – they’re a useless, traitorous rump – yep, full of a-holes.

    2. If I were Truss I’d deselect them one at a time, starting with those who have the smallest majorities.

    2. 365952+ up ticks,

      Evening TB,

      Working on a cement mill contract in Hima Uganda they made us via Jinja barracks field officers in the Ugandan parachute regiment and able to travel through road blocks in the Torro district when BIG dada
      had a war with Tanzania.

      Such was life as a hairy bummed, long distance,
      industrial pipework tramp.

    4. I thought parachute teams had brand names like ‘Swooping Eagles’. Was this team called ‘The Oohmigooley Birds’?

    5. I bet the first guy’s thoughts milliseconds become he rammed the portaloo were: “Oh Shit!”

  89. Pakistani businessman, 42, who sexually assaulted woman after walking into her hotel room on visit to UK told police after his arrest ‘I didn’t know what was allowed in Britain’
    Umair Farooq, 42, let himself into a hotel room where a woman was asleep
    He ‘quite cynically’ took advantage of her before victim was able to escape
    The incident took place in Llangollen, Denbighshire, on May 27 earlier this year
    Court today heard Farooq claimed afterwards: ‘I’m a Muslim, I wouldn’t do that’
    By JAMIE PHILLIPS FOR MAILONLINE

    PUBLISHED: 16:47, 13 October 2022 | UPDATED: 16:47, 13 October 2022

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11311531/Pakistani-businessman-42-sexually-assaulted-woman-walking-hotel-room-visit-UK.html

    2. Isn’t Justice supposed to be blind – i.e. no notice is taken of anyone’s sex, race, colour or creed? The law is the same for everyone, and ignorance of the law (or pretended ignorance) is no defence.

  93. Grr- re earlier post about the sodding bathroom. Just went in for a visit and the light went off 3 times while I was,ahem, tinkling. Could the room be haunted?
    We are the newest residents of this particular home…. welcome to the Twilight Zone.

    1. Ladies, if you sprinkle,
      While you tinkle,
      Please be neat
      And wipe the seat.

      Sorry about that, Ann, but your delicate remark about tinkling reminded me

      1. Oh, I am neat, it was the lights going out after the other events in there today that freaked me out.

    2. Ladies, if you sprinkle,
      While you tinkle,
      Please be neat
      And wipe the seat.

      Sorry about that, Ann, but your delicate remark about tinkling reminded me

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