Sunday 4 December: Do striking postal workers appreciate the consequences of delayed deliveries?

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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520 thoughts on “Sunday 4 December: Do striking postal workers appreciate the consequences of delayed deliveries?”

  3. Do striking postal workers appreciate the consequences of delayed deliveries?

    Is it just me or do people now just ignore strikes and get on with there lives regardless, I just tune out now.

    After the lockdowns, the authoritarianism of the covid restrictions followed by the insanity of Net Zero and the realisation that forces far greater than anyone can counteract and resist are in play to destroy our former way of life, I just take piddling nuisance little meaningless strikes in my stride.

    1. The Post Office will cut back on everything after the strike and of course much less staff. The strikers are playing into the managements hands but cannot see it. only 3 deliveries per week in most areas,longer delivery times etc.

    2. I think it’s partly to with more alternatives.
      A postal strike during the 1970s had greater heft; nowadays, there are other methods of communication.
      We managed without teachers and lecturers for 2 years.
      Train strikes are as old as the railways themselves.
      I suspect we are also learning to manage without medical intervention.

      1. In the seventies (in Colchester at least) private companies set up to deliver local mail. I still have some letters somewhere with the private stamps on.

      3. It certainly is round here; I usually end up spending some time kicking leaves away from the drains when I’m walking the dogs.

    3. Love the Enid Blyton present suggestions. However, the reaction from my s-i-l suggests that the police are on their way…

  5. The top 100 films… and what they say about our changing society. 4 December 2022.

    Three nights ago, after a decade-long wait, the results of an influential poll of the world’s greatest films prompted shock and joy in equal measure. Both Citizen Kane and Vertigo, established as bywords for the best the big screen has to offer, were dislodged from the top of the chart. The new winner, a comparatively little-known feminist drama by the Belgian director Chantal Akerman, is also the first film by a woman to make the top 10. Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death came in well below, at number 78, nine places behind their vibrant ballet drama, The Red Shoes.

    With such a gung-ho lead and that I’m a sucker for lists and also a keen movie watcher this article drew my attention. In pretty well nearly all such ratings (since I first saw Peter Pan as an entranced eight year old) Welles’s Citizen Kane has topped the list with Sica’s The Bicycle Thieves and Vertigo to keep it company. So how, I asked myself, does a movie; that I have only not seen but have never even heard of, achieve top position? My anti-woke antennae stirring I read further looking for an explanation, and there it was in the following paragraph.

    This weekend, film lovers seem happy to salute this fresh list of 100 illustrious titles, published by Sight and Sound, the British Film Institute’s journal. It is a line-up compiled every 10 years from the votes of international directors, actors and critics, a constituency expanded this time to 1,639. Since the poll began in 1952, the results have been dominated by male directors, so the time was ripe, most concede, for a broader view.

    So it’s not a survey of Movie fans or Audiences but the industry luvvies! Ever keen to demonstrate their Wokey Credentials and Cultural Marxism they have dutifully voted for this obscure paean to feminism by Chantal Akerman; lesbian and suicide victim of the Patriarchy. It was a shoo in.

    https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/dec/03/the-top-100-films-and-what-they-say-about-our-changing-society

      2. I dislike the concept of having a ‘favourite’ anything, but this is an exception. Except I never answer with it, because it might come across as pretentious. 🤣🤣 (Cocteau’s “La Belle et la Bête”.)

      3. Me neither.
        Grew up without movies – one a year, max, and not for children in Nigeria, and none at prep school in the UK.
        The same goes, bizarrely, for biscuits.
        I find, even now, I can’t be bothered with either.

      4. Favourite novels – that is a very hard one.

        Favourite Shakespeare play? Probably King Lear.

    3. I had an email from Waterstones announcing their Book of the Year (feminist – The History of Art Without Men), Author of the Year (feminist). Children’s Book of the Year (fem……..well, you get the idea).
      If the local Waterstones is any indicator then they’ve gone full woke.

  6. 368667+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    , Of course they do, there won’t be any armistice for a
    game of football either, misplaced needs is the order of the day.

    Along with misplaced Christianity is all part & PARCEL of the breakdown appertaining to repress,replace, RESET.

    Sunday 4 December: Do striking postal workers appreciate the consequences of delayed deliveries?

    Up until four decades back we were NEVER, but are now as peoples in a great many respects, our own worst enemas.

  7. Good morning all.
    After a damp night, the temperature outside is still “not quite” down to a frosty start, but it’s a mere ½°C with a light drizzle at the moment.

  9. ‘Morning, Peeps.  Cold and clear on this part of yer sarf coast, which makes a pleasant change.  Off to Ashdown Forest today, duty calls.

    This article on the RAF’s wartime Photographic Reconnaissance Unit was in yesterday’s DT, but for those who haven’t seen it, here it is.  Good article (minus a few minor points – they weren’t spies and their targets were often in Germany but not exclusively so) about the work of outstanding pilots for whom proper recognition has been slow in coming.  They really were a special breed, flying high and fast (and usually very cold) in unarmed Spitfires, and using the greatest navigational skill to find and photograph targets that were often deep inside enemy territory.

    * * *

    ‘We were losing people at a worse rate than Bomber Command’: The forgotten heroes of WW2

    The unarmed Photographic Reconnaissance Unit risked everything to spy on Germany. Time is pressing to erect a memorial to their sacrifice

    By Francis Dearnley 3 December 2022 • 12:00pm

    On July 25, 1941 – aged three years younger than I am now – my great-uncle Hubert was killed on a bombing mission over Germany. It was the day after his 27th birthday.

    A black-and-white photograph of Hubert survives: smiling in his aviator helmet, I have his eyes and nose. Indeed, looking at the picture is surreal, like examining one’s past life – one I was thankfully spared.

    Sgt Hubert Dearnley was an air gunner aboard a Wellington, mortally wounded on an operation over Brest en route to attack the German battlecruiser Gneisenau. Despite studying the Second World War, I had never considered the planning that went into such a daring operation; the brave pilots who flew unarmed and unarmoured planes – with only their flying skills for protection – to photograph targets.

    It was this that led me to the story of a certain, long-forgotten Spitfire.

    During wartime there was nothing remarkable about the Spitfire with the military serial number AA810. When it crashed into a snow-strewn Norwegian mountainside on March 5, 1942, its loss was tragically predictable: few aircraft flown on behalf of the Photographic Reconnaissance Unit (PRU) – the clandestine band of fewer than 1,500 who gathered same-day intelligence for the Allies – lasted more than six months on active service. As for their pilots, many of them younger than my great-uncle, 48 per cent who flew were killed during the War: one of the worst death rates of any unit in the entire conflict.

    No, it was the manner of its survival that made the aircraft so exceptional. Resting amid ice-capped peaks overlooking the port city of Trondheim – where it had been shot down by the Luftwaffe over 75 years before – it was still 70 per cent intact when it was recovered in 2018, a rare survivor buried beneath a compacted layer of peat and ice.

    Fast forward four years, and Project AA810 – overseeing the restoration of the Spitfire and the Sandy Gunn Aerospace Careers Programme, an initiative to promote young people’s interest in engineering, named after the aircraft’s final pilot (who survived, only to be shot in April 1944 by the Gestapo after the “Great Escape” from Stalag Luft 3) – launched yet another project. This would spearhead a national monument to the PRU, calling on the Government to allow the unit to finally be commemorated in a central London location, which reflects its strategic intelligence contribution and its vital role in the planning of operations like the Dambusters Raid and D-Day.

    In summer 2021, a formal application was received and a Westminster Hall debate held. All the major political parties gave their support. The motion passed unopposed. Then something unexpected happened.

    Until then, there were only two PRU pilots known to still be alive, both over the age of 100. But then, amazingly, another reached out: 98-year-old George Pritchard.

    Uncovered – like the Spitfire – from relative obscurity, George’s story was, and is, extraordinary. The only one out of his intake of 21 to survive three months in the PRU, he now lives alone – independently – on a quiet residential street in Northampton, after his pre-War sweetheart and wife of many decades passed away several years ago.

    A few hours in his company is to see the 20th century not through the camouflage of celluloid or the printed word, but as lived experience. Born in Croydon in 1924, one of his early memories is seeing the Hindenburg passing over his home in 1937. “We were frightened out of our wits,” he recalls. “Our grandparents had told us about Zeppelins during the Great War. Somebody ran indoors to warn my grandmother: ‘We’re going to be bombed, Granny!’ The airship went to Crystal Palace, and from there to New York, where it caught fire.”

    Always obsessed with aeroplanes, George used to make models as a child, and his first job was at a cardboard factory next to the airport. It was there he was working when the War began. His eyes sparkle at the memories of his “pals” – all tragically killed in an air raid on the airport. George vowed to avenge them as soon as he was old enough.

    Before joining up, he assisted his father in recovering injured and dead civilians from the rubble of the Blitz. When he turned 18, he was initially selected to be an air gunner – like my great-uncle. During his training he met Clark Gable, stationed at the same airfield, then one of the world’s biggest film stars. On failing an eyesight test, George was made a ground engineer, but continued to request a transfer to pilot training until he was accepted. Selected for bombers, he converted to the Wellington – another echo of my great-uncle – and used to fly decoy radar-jamming missions over occupied territory. Proven a capable pilot, he was sent to Scotland to move to the Mosquito aircraft, dispatched to join the PRU to fly unarmed reconnaissance missions over Europe.

    Such missions, he tells me, often started with a rude awakening at 4am. “A cup of tea from a duty corporal” meant it was your turn to go, whatever the weather and however dangerous the circumstances: such early starts usually meant a previous pilot had not returned. The enemy knew you were coming. 

    George shivers remembering one instance when he learned he had to fly hundreds of miles to Germany in driving sleet. It was “bloody freezing”, he recalls, and – worse still – he had had “one too many beers” the night before. “The runway only had little glim lamps that lit blue as you were taking off or coming in to land; they were hardly recognisable when the weather was throwing all it could at you. If the engine cut out, that would be it. When I think about it now, it was suicidal!”

    If Bletchley Park was the ears of Britain, then the PRU was its eyes. Over the course of the War some 20 million photographs were taken by the unit, many of them filtered straight to Churchill and his generals in the Cabinet War Rooms. Frequently armed with little more than a compass strapped to the knee, taking accurate photographs over a target was immensely challenging. As George describes: “We had to fly at a fixed speed, 300mph, very steadily. At a precise moment the navigator would say ‘now’, and I would count the seconds that the cameras would be working, approximately 15-second bursts. Then I had to do a barrel roll, before another 15 seconds of camera burst.”

    Death was a constant companion. “Many of my mates were killed flying Mosquitos. Some didn’t get home due to running out of fuel, others were shot down.” George himself was nearly killed several times; the closest instance when a large part of the canopy was blown off by anti-aircraft fire. “This was a desperate thing to happen as the cockpit was pressurised, so suddenly, at 27,000 feet, we found ourselves without air. My oxygen mask, which had been dangling around my neck, was blown off in the blast. It only took us a couple of minutes to drop down to 7,000 feet in order to breathe again, but that frightening feeling of gasping for air seemed to last for ages before I could take a full breath. As frightening as it was, we soon got over it at the time, but this was to affect me deeply in later life, giving me nightmares for many years.” 

    He tells me of a time on the London Underground when the rush of an incoming train triggered a panic attack. “I couldn’t wait for the lift; I ran all the way up the 300 steps of a spiral staircase without a breath and collapsed on the ground outside.”

    Despite these horrors, he never lost his love of flying; his vivid storytelling resurrects remarkable sights: “I flew over D-Day +6 in the evening with another pilot. Where we were flying above the clouds, it was bright sunshine, but down below, it was dark due to the angle of the sun as it was setting. As we looked down we could see fire and gun flashes on the ground from all the fighting that was going on down there.”

    Some memories, however, are harder to recall. A talented linguist (“when you’re meeting German women, it doesn’t take long to learn the language, you know?”) he became an RAF liaison, taking him to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp only days after it was liberated. “I went there with four other guys in a Jeep. We arrived and there were still bodies in the trench. There must have been a thousand in there. All skin and bone. We couldn’t let the other inmates out because of typhus. It was a shocking experience. The whole area was dead. No birds sang. And the smell…”

    An indelible sense of duty motivated him throughout the War, so much so that leaving the RAF afterwards was a struggle – he did it for his wife. After some time carrying out aircraft inspections, he went to work for Lucas, entering the next chapter of his remarkable life. Dedicating his career to science and technology, he went on to be instrumental in the development of the first pacemaker, the Melrose heart-lung machine, and developing switch control systems for the nuclear deterrent. Setting up a large engineering company of his own, he stills works to this day, and is only now in the process of selling his business interests – his latest invention was a safety lighting system for tail-lift vehicles. In his spare time, he writes children’s books for Great Ormond Street Hospital and, most significantly, campaigns for the permanent monument to all those who flew, and in most cases gave their lives, for the PRU.

    “I still think of the guys. We were losing people at the same rate, or worse, than Bomber Command – and everywhere.”

    Whilst Spitfire AA810 will be flying again in 2024, he knows time is running out to see a memorial erected in his lifetime. But he remains optimistic; he is healthy and determined – and doesn’t look a day over 80, let alone two months off his 99th birthday. His mind remains razor sharp. I asked him for his hard-earned wisdom on current events – from Brexit (“the greatest thing ever”), modern politicians (“I met Churchill and don’t rate today’s MPs at all”), Ukraine (an invasion triggered by “bloody criminals”, not ordinary Russians), young people (“ten years younger than we were at the same age”), and the future (“hydrogen”). He remains better informed than most people half his age.

    As George served me another Eccles cake, my second, I wondered whether, had he lived, I would have shared similar memories with my great-uncle Hubert. Elements of the past, like George, like the Spitfire, hidden in plain sight, made extraordinary by their actions and their survival.

    “Now promise me you’re not going to make a hero out of me,” said George, smiling, handing me an ice-cold bottle of beer. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2a2020f785aaf8ea8ee6f87152faecd892d04bb59f45d9e65de1cf9fe3726a4f.jpg

    George was dispatched to join the PRU to fly unarmed reconnaissance missions over Europe https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/021c817acb3d2a1360598de05e3919d6ef2b101397c6558603bc9875f0a3e5e8.jpg

    George and his friends in Germany, 1946

    Roger Custance17 HRS AGO

    My father, who was a Sergeant Pilot (a rank that has since disappeared), was only on his second mission with the PRU, in a Mosquito, when he was shot down in 1942. This took place near Rheims, I believe. His navigator thought that they were over southern England (the perils of dead reckoning), but the cloud was very thick so my father descended to see where they were, only to meet fire from a German anti-aircraft battery. He made a crash landing, pulled his navigator from the burning Mosquito, and lived his next three years as a prisoner of war. As an Oxford graduate, he occupied himself in helping with the education of those other prisoners who had not been so privileged. This was a common practice, since known as ‘The University of Barbed Wire’. In the prison camps there was often very little food, and even less when in 1945 he, like many other PoWs, was forcibly marched west, (in his case from almost modern Latvia to Hanover), to avoid the oncoming Russians. When he finally returned to London, as I was told by my mother, all he wanted to do was to eat and sleep. His blue pilot’s log book, necessarily not quite complete, was waiting for him on his return. I still have it, also his ‘wings’.

    Jez Able15 HRS AGO

    The greatest generation bar none. Ordinary people performing extraordinary acts of bravery, skill and humanity that they modestly write off as ” just doing their bit”.

    As the proud son of one of that generation I am still in awe of what they achieved.

      1. My pleasure, Stephen, and good morning. Such amazing feats they considered at the time to be ‘just doing their duty’. Always humbling to read of their exploits.

    2. Here is one of the greatest PR pictures of WWII. Taken by Flight Lieutenant Tony Hill, the photo shows the German radar installation at Bruneval in northern France. A successful raid by Combined Operations enabled the British to capture parts of the radar and thence expose its secrets.

      Another group of brave and determined young men sacrificing their lives for their Country and heritage. Words cannot express…

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/21059891e87f8a3830b30669ec65aadd0ad724ca23e8f9169eb40a715baeb145.png

      Wikipedia – Operation Biting – The Bruneval Raid

      1. Wasn’t that one of the reconnaissance pictures Raymond Baxter was said to have taken in his early life, apparently not!. I recall an account of his when he was flying over a forest somewhere when suddenly a V2 rose from its platform only a few hundred feet away,

        1. 31 Sqdn (based at RAF Laarbruch) had a fantastic picture taken by one of their PR Canberras, of the crew of a ship in Hamburg Harbour, looking DOWN at them, as they flew by taking photos just above water level

    3. Check out my favourite Spitfire, PS 853, PR Mk XIX, now owned by Rolls-Royce. I call it my favourite as I worked on it (re tuned the 1984/85 VHF) when it was part of CFS (Central Flying School) at RAF West Raynham.

      I don’t know if RR still do it but it flew l every Thursday lunchtime when I was at Filton. A Glorious noise from its engine (A RR Griffon 66 – more powerful than the Merlin Engine).

        1. Yep, that’s my little beauty but she is now all grey in colour with more like Naval than RAF markings.
          I’ll put a picture of her up when I’ve finished this.

    4. Adrian Warburton disappeared on a PRU flight during the war and his body was only recovered some 60 odd years afterwards.

  11. Today’s leading letter:

    SIR – I was unlucky on Monday. I was hacked by fraudsters, which has resulted in my online banking being suspended.

    I am 81 years old and housebound, and do all my shopping online, including a food order, but now I cannot do this until I receive a new bank card, which is, held up by the postal workers’ strike.

    I just wish that strikers knew of all the consequences of strike action, and how it affects other people.

    M A Whalley
    Southport, Lancashire

    We always get the crocodile tears from strikers, but they mean absolutely nothing. I hope you have some good neighbours who will help out.

    1. SIR– It is beyond galling to see four Royal Mail workers on the picket line outside the local post office, sitting there drinking coffee, as if this is some sort of jolly.

      Normal people are suffering as a result of these selfish actions. Striking is something of a privilege, which causes misery to everyone else without this luxury.

      Hannah Hunt
      Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire

      Well said, Ms Hunt. If it’s any consolation Currys have dumped Royal Fail, and I imagine that they won’t be the last.

      1. Instead of striking, they should be marching on the Bank of England. But the banksters know they can always rely on the foolishness of the trade unions.

      3. They were standing outside our permanently closed Post Office laughing and chattering with their posters on display. Some activity goes on at the back of the closed Post office. A small group, but the Post Office is now at the back of Smiths further up the High Street. I don’t think Smiths would be keen to have them standing outside their door.

    2. SIR– It is beyond galling to see four Royal Mail workers on the picket line outside the local post office, sitting there drinking coffee, as if this is some sort of jolly.

      Normal people are suffering as a result of these selfish actions. Striking is something of a privilege, which causes misery to everyone else without this luxury.

      Hannah Hunt
      Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire

      Well said, Ms Hunt. If it’s any consolation Currys have dumped Royal Fail, and I imagine that they won’t be the last.

    3. Our local church had volunteers to fetch shopping for people during the illegal lockdowns.
      Perhaps Mr or Mrs Whalley could ask for help from the parish office?

    4. Don’t like the work, or the pay? Get a job somewhere else more to your liking.
      Think you’re worth more than you get paid now? Put yourself on the market, get a better-paid job, or work for yourself.

        1. Best PM the UK never had.
          Real-world experience. Effective politician. Honourable man – quit to look after his wife after the Brighton bomb.
          I’d like to know him personally. And I say that about almost nobody at all, let alone a politician.

  12. SIR – Do I want to get to Birmingham 30 minutes earlier via HS2 or would I rather have the £100 billion used for health care?

    Ken Turrell
    Norwich

    Quite so, Mr Tyrrell. It would certainly be the latter for me, but only after the NHS has been reformed.

    2. Or just hold one massive f***-off party for £100 million? Pay down dome debt, even? Both better uses of the money.

    3. Leave it in our pockets. It would help offset our bills for eyes, ears, teeth and elective surgery.

    4. A rail fellow I know said the final cost for HS2 will not be less than a trillion. He simply says there are too many competing demands and troughers.

      As it is, it’s an EU project. Part of TENs. The state won’t stop it as that’d upset their masters – and they’d only restart it when they force us back into the EU.

    1. Career
      Lockwood was the CEO of Harrow London Borough Council from 2007 until the end of 2013, when the position was eliminated, and again from 2015 after it was reinstituted.[2] In the interim, he was executive director of finance and policy at the Local Government Association.[3] After the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire, he led recovery work and liaised with survivors and victims’ families.[4] The Grenfell Tower Memorial Commission chose him as co-chair in early 2020.[5]

      He was appointed to head the IOPC at its inception in 2018.[2][6][7] As Director General, Lockwood also chaired the IOPC Board, the majority of which is made up of Non-Executive Directors. The Board advises the Director General and with him sets the strategy for the organisation. In October 2019 Lockwood published an op-ed in The Guardian, defending an investigation his organization had performed into the case of an alleged VIP paedophile ring.[8] He resigned as Director General on 3 December 2022 after he became the subject of a police investigation.[4]

    2. The Carl Beech business was the deep sabotaging of the paedo investigations into our high EstabLishment nonces. The best way to bury the whole thing was to go after a fantasist, discredit his allegations and so pretend the entire scandal had been debunked.

      There was plenty of evidence https://www.itv.com/news/london/update/2014-12-21/ex-officers-to-hand-hogan-howe-paedophile-allegations-dossier/

      So either those who brought it to court were completely stupid, or they were told they would be looked after when it all collapsed.

      My reason for believing this? – statistics. There are about 4% of paedophiles. The same as in the church, BTW. So where are the 4% parlaimentarians?

      Of course I might be maligning these upstanding people.

      1. It’s likely that on average, the whole population has 4% pædo tendencies. Not necessarily that all 4% do anything about it – perhaps those in power feel that they are something special, untouchable, that do actually do somehing about it?
        Slightly OT, but in Norway now there are station advertisements for sources of help for those sexually attracted to children. Maybe a copy needs sent to the HoC.

        1. Yes – I agree, that not all act on it. This would in part be due to moral scruples – I understand some of these people suffer horribly from their temptations and fight them with every fibre – but also out of fear of being caught.
          What would happen if a bunch of largely amoral people (politicians) were confident they would not be caught?

          1. Indeed.
            Or, that a large foreign population were to be imported that lack such scruples?

          2. Quite… but exploiting young pubescent girls is a different disorder from preferring prepubescent boys.
            Lock em up together and permanently.
            But we’ve caught many of the foreigners.
            Our Dolphin Square elite have got away with it.

          3. …and they should be automatically castrated upon arrival to save our children, young girls and to prevent the proliferation of the new Caliphate.

          4. Would the real threat of castration add to their fear of being caught or would it, in some perverse way, make it more exciting?

      2. All the so called ‘caring professions’ attract paedophiles and sexual predators who find easier prey amongst the vulnerable: teaching, the police, nursing, social work, the priesthood, politics etc. etc

      3. Why were the Lefty organisations so quick to believe Beech when they immediately attack anyone pointing out the obvious over vaccines, covid and the utter lie of ‘climate change’?

  14. Why a distracted Russia points to an unstable future for Syria. 4 December 2022.

    This leaves Damascus feeling exposed, according to a Syrian foreign ministry official. “The Turkish desire to start a military offensive is opportunistic and mainly because of Russia’s indifference due to Ukraine,” said the official, speaking anonymously as they were not authorised to brief the media.

    One Damascus resident told The Telegraph that Russian convoys were much less visible in the streets of the capital than previously, leaving many in government-controlled areas anxious about being abandoned.

    Yes the ordinary people of Syria know what their fate would have been if Russia hadn’t come to their aid!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/12/04/why-distracted-russia-points-unstable-future-syria/

  16. SIR – David Card (Letters, November 27) advises that Royal Air Force casualties are commemorated in St Clement Danes Church in Westminster, but that is only part of the story. All RAF personnel are commemorated there, no matter the circumstances of their demise.

    Those who lost their lives as a result of their Air Force duty, however, whether in air or on the ground, are commemorated on the Armed Forces Memorial at Alrewas in Staffordshire if death was after January 1 1948, and before that by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

    Having lost a significant number of friends in service flying accidents, I used a posting in the Directorate of Flight Safety to start recording these losses. Post-war, the RAF lost some 9,000 aircraft through accidents and occasional enemy action, and there were over 6,000 fatal casualties, not all of whom were service personnel.

    These losses formed the basis of four books I compiled as a tribute, and from which any profits filter back to service charities

    Colin Cummings
    Yelvertoft, Northamptonshire

    Having been to St Clement Danes on many occasions I can highly recommend a visit to this unique and beautiful Wren church. Its restoration in the late ’50s following wartime bombing was beautifully carried out.

  17. Bob posted a Franzl Lang song yesterday – here’s another one. They are so silly and light-hearted, they bring a smile to my face!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxHelCzB1QI&t=217s

    Franzl Lang – In München steht ein Hofbräuhaus Songtext
    Da, wo die grüne Isar fließt,
    Wo man mit Grüß Gott dich grüßt,
    Liegt meine schöne Münch’ner Stadt,
    Die ihresgleichen gar nicht hat.
    Wasser ist billig, rein und gut,
    Nur verdünnt es unser Blut,
    Schöner sind Tropfen gold’nen Wein’s,
    Aber am schönsten ist eins:

    Down there where the green Isar flows
    Where you greet people with “Grüß Gott”
    there’s a beautiful town called Munich
    which has no equal.
    Water is cheap, pure and good
    It’s just that it thins our blood
    Better stick to drops of golden wine
    But the best one is….
    (Münchener Bier aus dem Hofbräuhaus)

      2. His teeth are certainly…awesome. Nobody would dare to sing with teeth like that these days.

  18. SIR – Daniel Hannan says he was for a Swiss-type deal before, during and after the referendum (“After Brexit we should have gone Swiss. Now we have no option but to go Singaporean”, Comment, November 27).

    However, the Swiss detest their relationship with the EU, to the extent that free trade means free movement of EU citizens into Switzerland. Moreover, in many voters’ eyes the Brexit referendum was about the UK’s right to prevent EU citizens having free movement to the UK, whereby they not only had the right to work in the UK but also had free access to the NHS and social security benefits.

    Lord Hannan also says: “When I shared a platform with Nigel Farage during the referendum, he lavished praise on countries that were more embedded into EU structures than Switzerland: ‘Wouldn’t it be awful to be like Norway? Wouldn’t it be awful to be rich and free?’ Yet he was soon dismissing Efta as a ‘sell-out’.”

    Mr Farage first said this in 2013. Many Eurosceptics would’ve been happy with that then but, thanks to Mr Farage, we had an in-out referendum, the result of which thankfully means we need not suffer the ignominy of Norway or Switzerland – and never should.

    Howard Ricklow
    London W8

    Only one slight snag Mr Ricklow; we are far from being fully divorced from the Evil Empire and there is no sign that we shall be in the forseeable future.

    1. Has Ladbrokes yet opened a book on how long it will be before UK is fully back in the EU?

      1. Notable – and a bit sad – that you say when, not if.

        It was always inevitable. The state hates democracy. It must be taught who is master. A start would be collar and chaining all those mandarins.

        1. I find it very worrying that Sunak voted to leave the EU in the referendum.

          Sunak promised to cut down on woke bans on university speakers who did not share their views and yesterday he reneged and watered the bill down; today we learn that he is reneging on his plan for new grammar schools.

          So if Sunak backed Brexit it is the kiss of death for Brexit.

    2. The amount of money the EU wastes desperately trying to overturn the Swiss direct referendum model is almost laughable, but it is having an effect, as the EU erodes ever more freedoms.

      This doesn’t come about because of Swiss MPs accepting things – they can’t – it is because the EUcontinually re-writes the treaties in their favour.

  19. 368674+ up ticks,

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    Dec 2

    Savid Javid standing down. SO WHAT?

    Inside information from the Tories tells me that Javid was forced into this because of his “ So what?” tweet in response to the fact that white English are now a minority in London, Manchester & Birmingham.

    Not long ago anyone who reported these demographic projections (as I did way back in 2009) was called a ‘right-wing conspiracy theorist’. But now ONS figues show it to now be true.

    When I was UKIP Leader, & Javid was Home Secretary, he said ‘UKIP was being taken to the ‘far-right’. A dirty rotten lie!

    Anyone who bothered to read what I wrote as UKIP’s Immigration…more

    https://gettr.com/post/p20g4e46a85

    1. I suspected that those two words were the coup de grace.
      Even the meekest of constituency parties will turn eventually.

    2. I imagine it was far more that he can see electoral oblivion coming and can’t be botheredclaiming £86,000 a year + 150,000 in expenses when he could do a 2 day week for 300,000 from blatant corruption getting some company buckets of tax payers money.

    3. I’d love to see the reaction when an infidel was Minister for Health, Chancellor etc. etc. in Pakistan or wherever he’s from (oh, sorree, can’t ask that question!) and Karachi was a majority effnic population. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ROFLMAO! As if.

      1. 368674+ up ticks,

        Afternoon VW ,

        Go to Green square Tripoli and start shouting the odds you would be “disappeared”
        Go to parliament square London start quoting the Bible you will be Tommy Robinsond.

  20. Bonjour tout le monde, as they say in Germany. To the title: striking for more money in an economy built on debt is fundementally absurd.

    But I am reaching such a level of bloody-mindedness that I would welcome this system to knock itself down as quickly as possible so that we can begin to rebuild on something sane.

    So, more power to the postal staff. Let the government explain why it is too skint to pay them while sending billions to get Ukrainians killed by Russians thereby driving up the energy costs, not fracking, not reopening North Sea gas and so making everyone so broke that they go on strike for money in a system that can only print monopoly notes and refuses to help itself.

    Quel bande de cons!

    1. Get it over with as soon as possible. Minimises the pain.
      Maybe Govt could explain why nurses can’t get paid more but millions of freeloaders can get accommodated in hotels?

      1. … because Serco aren’t getting taxpayer money for running hospitals which they can then kick-back to the Tories.

      2. Maybe my left-side chest pain could be the onset of another heart attack. I shall do nowt, just wait to see if it carries me off.

        No reason for NoTTLers to get excited.

        1. Probably a huge fart would solve it, Tom
          ;-))
          Hope it goes over soon… but take care, you hear?

        2. Do you have any medical presence at Dowding House?
          Just in case any of the Army widows overdo the gin and trip on the stairs.

          1. None available but I have a red button that I wear on my wrist in case I’m in no position to reach any of the yellow emergency cords that are available in most rooms, corridors and stairwells. The red button was what I used last evening but it still took over 2 hours for medics to appear. I refused to go to gand they settled for putting me to bed.

            It still hurts this morning but I wont use the GTN spray – instant and long-lasting headache.

    2. All the financial people that I follow think it’s going to collapse and reset in 2023. Estimates vary from January to 3rd/4th quarter.
      Mostly I follow people who work in precious metals, so their views are slanted that way, but there have been a couple of hints that gold will be revalued (eg from Dutch central bank) and that BRICS will go onto an exclusively gold backed standard.

      3. It is the safest, most stable currency. All those not heavily indebted, not forced to use unback fiat money are based on a precious material – even bitcoin uses energy. Those nations where the nations are indebted, highly taxed, impoverished and crippled are forced to use meaningless ‘currency’ which has no backing whatsoever.

    3. I wonder how much of the strike is about the changes and automation. I suspect a fair bit.

      Ultimately it’s pointless.

    1. That is the greatest shame the Navy has ever faced. Betraying their own people.
      And this is the same Navy that defended Britain and stamped out slaving!

    2. and these are the people whose job it is to defend Britain – sounds like they’ve forgotten their job description

        1. Good afternoon Maggiebelle

          I seem to remember that your other half was not in the RM but in the Fleet Air Arm and flew rescue helicopters as Prince William used to do?

      2. And it is government who are responsible for properly managing public money – and refuse to.

    3. It’s moronic. We send the army to kill these scum and then the government forces them to bring in those same dross.

      Get out to the channel, tell them to turn back. If they refuse, fire on them.

      It’s not fecking complicated.

  22. Morning, al Y’all.
    Dull day. Much admin to take care of, then start hanging Christmas decorations and drinking the traditional bottle of sherry. No mince pies :-(( don’t like the shop-bought ones, far too sweet. SWMBO makes her own mincemeat, but has been overworked these last few weeks and there is none.
    Be good to get a LOT of lighting in and outside the house as we lack snow and absolutely have an excess of dark.
    Christmas card list has become very short – that should take no time at all.

    1. A Christmas card should always show
      Holy, holly, robins, snow.
      It does not need to show all four ,
      But should exhibit one or more.
      Cards with children, horses, dogs,
      Inglenooks and blazing logs,
      Sailing ships and Highland scenes,
      Silly girls in crinolines –
      Though they may be full of grace,
      Are, at Christmas, out of place.

      1. As of yesterday, not arrived yet.
        Hope that two weeks is enough for the return – postal workers and other asswipes allowing.

        1. On your ‘puter – check your e-mails, but you have to download and print/fold.

          Somehow you seem to have been missed on the long, long list of those to whom it was sent.

          I shall rectum fry that in a minuet or two.

  23. Another night lost to falling over and waiting for Scottish first aid (ha ha) but that’s another story

    …just don’t get sick in Scotland!

    Good morrow, Gentlefolk, today’s story

    How to install a Redneck Home Security System

    1. Go to the Charity Shop and buy a pair of size 14-16 men’s work boots.
    2. Place them on your front porch, along with a copy of Guns & Ammo Magazine.
    3. Put four giant dog dishes next to the boots and magazines.
    4. Leave a note on your door that reads…

    Bubba, Me and Marcel, Donnie Ray and Jimmy Earl went for more ammo and beer. Be back in an hour. Don’t mess with the pit bulls. They got the mailman this morning and messed him up bad. I don’t think Killer took part, but it was hard to tell from all the blood. Anyway, I locked all four of ’em in the house. Better wait outside. Be right back.
    Cooter.

    If you think this is a good idea – translate for English!

    2. Don’t forget – buy a wooden rocking chair & leave next to the boots. EE-HAW!
      Morning, Tom!

  24. There is no easy route to peace in Ukraine. 4 december 2022.

    One thing is certain: Ukraine should not be bounced into negotiating with Putin before it is ready. This war cannot go on forever. But as the UK Government rightly realises, hard talking and military strength have proved the best platform for peace talks in the past. They can do so again today.

    TOP COMMENT BELOW THE LINE.

    Radek Uzel

    Yeah, Ukraine will retake Crimea. Dream on. A realistic official assessment is sadly missing. Meanwhile we are fed one-sided propaganda to keep the population on the side of hawks. And more people dying. Unnecessarily.

    Amen to that Mr Uzel.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2022/12/02/no-easy-route-peace-ukraine/

    1. Morning! “Military strength”. Yeah, right. The West sends billions of dollars worth of weapons to Ukraine. The Russians blow them up. The West sends more. Rinse and repeat. The arms dealers get paid for every shipment. Nice work if you can get it.

  25. Headline in the DT:

    “BBC chiefs agree they must fight internal ‘liberal bias’ and ‘groupthink’
    BBC chairman Richard Sharp says staff will undergo anti-bias training”

    What, yet more training? It didn’t work last time so why should it this time??

    3. I thought his “smile” when he took off the mask was revealing in more ways than one. He did not look happy.

  27. Morning, all. Dull, dismal, dank; take your pick to describe N Essex this morning. Little or no air movement means… A scientific segue to…

    As good a description of the madness of ‘Net Zero’; in this instance “battery storage”. In addition there have been murmurings about the lack of Lithium and the rare earth metals required to build the batteries on a worldwide scale. This “green” obsession within governments worldwide isn’t incompetence or naivety or lack of knowledge on the part of the political leaders: the dumb unquestioning political followers, maybe, but not the leaders.

    …American lawyer and mathematician Francis Menton, who also runs the Manhattan Contrarian site.

    Menton writes that the push to Net Zero without a fully demonstrated and costed solution to the energy storage conundrum “is analogous to jumping out of an airplane without a parachute, and assuming that the parachute will be invented, delivered and strapped on in mid-air in time to save you before you hit the ground”.

    Daily Sceptic – Net Zero Promoters Have No Idea What They Are Doing re Cost of Battery Storage

    1. I wonder if any of these unfortunate youngsters had been part of the experimental injections?

    2. It is awful that some children have died, I can’t imagine what their parents are going through.

      IMO the 2 year imprisonment imposed on us has contributed to these dreadful consequences. A lot of our natural immunity that had been built up over years has been negated and illnesses perhaps are being far more troubling than would have been the case. Masks have never helped, either.

      1. Also, I wonder how much of this virulent strain has been introduced by the carriers of diphtheria currently storming our beaches.

        1. Tens of thousands of people coming from areas where these diseases are not adequately controlled? No testing on arrival? Dispersal into the local population?

          No. It must be something else.

    1. That reminds me of living in a block of flats in Germany, that was built round a central courtyard, but the ground floor flats had their own little gardens just under their own windows. In every German block of flats, there is The Dragon – that woman who stands on the landing with arms folded as you’re moving in, and tells you to keep the noise down.
      So one day it snowed, and our neighbour’s children made an enormous snowman in their garden, and the Dragon came out of its lair and yelled at them for taking communal snow out of the courtyard and putting it in their own garden….

      1. I stayed in a block just like that in Prinzlauer Berg. Huge apartments. High ceilings and connecting doors where you could open up the rooms for more space.

        And yes…there was a Dragon in the basement.

        Very reasonable price though. It meant i could afford tea at the Adlon.

  32. Britain braces for snow and ice as temperatures plummet. 4 December 2022.

    The Met Office has issued its first snow warning this winter, as Britain is expected to face icy temperatures this week.

    A yellow weather warning for snow has been issued for northern Scotland on Wednesday, with snow showers likely to bring travel disruption.

    Snow could also fall in parts of Northern Ireland and north-east England, with the coldest temperatures expected from Wednesday onwards. Much of the UK is expected to remain just above freezing during the day and fall below overnight.

    What! It cannot be! We should be basking in a subtropical nightmare courtesy of too many coal fires!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/04/uk-weather-britain-braces-for-snow-and-ice-as-temperatures-plummet

    1. Too much hyperbole. “Plummet”, my arse – do they mean “drop below zero”? Plummet would be an overnight change from +5 to -40C. That would be plummet.

      1. Morning Oberst. One of the humourous aspects of these snowy forecasts is the complete lack of comment by the Weathermen and their pals in the Climate Change lobby!

        1. That’s why they changed the marketing from ‘global warming’ to climate change. It covers every base, When it was obvious global warming was an utter con, and fools like Monbiot said ‘my children will never see snow!’ only for it to, well, snow, the Left needed a new way to lie, so they changed it to ‘climate change’.

          As weather always changes, thus the climate always changes, so their new marketing covered all bases.

          It remains marketing though – the intent is to prevent our progress as a species economically, culturally. Thus why the other lie is ‘progressive liberals’. They’re simply fascists. Lefties never change.

          1. Worth publishing again for y’all to copy and post wherever you think appropriate:

            Climate Change and You

            The climate ‘science’ is wrong. CO2 being 0.04% of the atmosphere is a cause for good, as it is essential for plant life.

            The atmosphere is 78% Nitrogen and 21% Oxygen. The remaining 1% are various trace elements of which CO2 is but a small part.

            The greatest cause of any change in the Earth’s climate, is due to the cyclical nature of the Sun’s phases, which may lead to vast differences between ice ages and continual heatwaves.

          2. Sense and logic have no plce in this argument, Tom.
            For some reason, people love to think that they are doomed, and so only the most radical action will suffice. When do we get to sacrificing the firstborns to stave off armageddon?
            Or, just be a bit rational about it. Just below my house, you can see (behind the greenery , trees and moss) where the glaciers ground the rock as the squeezed by. What happened to the glaciers? Was in global warming due to cow farts, power stations and 4x4s? But it’s also well known that Vikings grew wine as far north as Trondheim, and I wonder why Greenland was called green?
            World’s full of idiots. 8 billion so far, and counting.

          3. I’m given to understand that Greenland was so called to fool people (Danes?) to settle there.

      2. On Advent Sunday last year it was snowing. We haven’t seen any snow yet this year. Oh dear! It must be global warming.

    3. If the met office were not so obsessed with the lie of climate change there’d be nothing to worry about, as we’d have abundant energy supplies.

    5. Yep, so much for Global Warming, oops, sorry, Climate change, oops and sorry again Climate Emergency. Now I think I’ve got it right according to St Greta the Thunderbug.

      1. I was somewhat depressed on Friday evening. Our local primary school was holding a Christmas fete in order to raise funds for the school. In the main hallway was an A2 poster headed “Think and act like Greta”. ’nuff said.

        1. I hope it didn’t spoil your birthday, I can only hope you had a happy one, so rest assured you may now start enjoying those 364 Happy Unbirthdays. As for that dunderhead, Greater Thunderbug, she deserves to have her backside spanked red raw for all the silly brainwashed ideas that have been spoon fed to her from her earliest childhood.

  33. Yo and Good Morning all

    I have been making Delia Smith’s Christmas pudding(Letters, November 27) for many years and have always cooked it
    in my pressure cooker.

    As a chefette, I thought Delia would have made her own pudding(s)

    Over to you Mr Grizzle

    1. I’ve just steamed them in my slow cooker. I think Delia’s is the best recipe, it is very good tempered. As well as the rum, barley wine and stout, I added Pedro Ximenez sherry to soak the fruit for a couple of days with the juice of a lemon and orange, as well. Her Christmas cake recipe is the best, as well.

      One year I went off plan, and used the Nigella Christmas pudding recipe. It very deffo wasn’t as good.

      1. Both our Government and the USA are ignoring it all. Just the same as the Biden laptop proving corruption at the highest level.

        1. And the PTB are all ignoring who was on Ghislaine Maxwell’s client list. Probably because rather a lot of them are on it.

        2. Just as the FBI claim they have no knowledge of it. Liars, it is on record as having been confiscated by them.

        3. Sam Bankman Fried is still walking free and celebrated as some virtuous philanthropist. Follow the money, in his case the missing billions of other peoples’ money.

      2. And that is just what the bastards in charge want, for people to get bored and to allow the perpetrators to get away with what they have instigated.

        I believe heads should roll here, literally.

    2. That’s one hell of an article.
      “Officials in the Trump and Biden administrations have said the Chinese government worked to thwart investigations into the origins of the virus and hoodwinked WHO investigators when they arrived.”
      I don’t about hoodwinking them, more like just ‘winking‘ at them.

  35. I don’t mind the post office going on strike. I don’t remember when the last one was – a few years ago, perhaps?

    However, it is pointless. They were offered a rise, you take it. The problem is not pay. It’s taxation. We are all being robbed by the state. If the state took less of our money, we would all have more money.

    It really is achingly simple. The state is a greedy, wasteful, inefficient corrupt lump. It gives away borrowed money, for goodness sake. Welfare is utterly out of control, the farce of high taxation on business, making workers expensive and then pummelling them with taxes and giving them other people’s money back is stupid. It is socialism. It’s the same tired, failed model tried countless times.

    Let markets work. Shred the state, cut taxes.

    1. When the posties struck during the 1970s (?) it mattered, as fewer people had telephones and there were no other forms of communication (telegrams were already on their way out).
      Nowadays – not so much. There is distinct whiff of the NUM about the (in)action.

      1. …and with the increasing use of e-mails and the ability to send links for downloads, the Royal Mail should look very closely to its business plan. I sense a major failure within 2 years and its eventual demise.

  36. Good morning, everyone. I think I’ve turned the corner. Last night I had a hot toddy and awoke 3 hours later full of perspiration ( a good sign, I think) but with a very raspy throat. So downstairs to watch an old comedy, BLUE MURDER AT ST. TRINIANS, then back to bed, this time after taking a throat linctus. Awoke three hours later; no perspiration, but a much “smoother” throat. Thanks for all your concerns and advice (and especially to Korky the Kat for doing a bit of shopping for me). I really think that I am now on the mend. Enjoy your day, all of you.

    5. Good. Today is a good day for recuperating.
      Do the square root of Sweet F A.
      (Take a conveyancing solicitor as your role model.)

    6. Good to hear, Elsie. I had my moments last evening as well but I’m OK now, apart from the lingering chest pain. See my response to Nurse Anne,somewhere earlier.

  37. Striking UK workers playing into Putin’s hands, says Zahawi. 4 December 2022.

    Speaking on Sky New’s Ridge on Sunday, Zahawi insisted it was up to union leaders to call off the strike and suggested they were playing into the Russian president’s agenda as he uses high energy prices fuelling inflation as a “weapon” in his war against Ukraine.

    He must have been rehearsing then because I caught him saying exactly the same thing to Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC. The government are of course desperate to lay the responsibility for this Energy Crisis at Vlad’s door since it lets them off the hook. Fortunately judging by the comments on line it’s not working. These morons have precipitated this with twenty years of energy incompetence and the belief in NetZero and the False Ideology of Climate Change.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/04/striking-uk-workers-playing-into-putins-hands-says-zahawi

    1. 368674+ up ticks,

      Morning AS,
      For wind turbines read money mills for
      colleagues & friends.

      Political mindset being, any uneasiness
      shown by the herd will evaporate under the party name, it always does.

  38. Radio-controlled drones go back a long way.

    The Bye Bye Constitution Drones on TV are controlling us in a simiar way

    1. I can’t imagine that Jeeves would have been very impressed if Bertie Wooster, the young gentleman for whom he gentlemanned, had had anything to do with a club in Dover Street if it changed its raison d’être – which was to cater for wealthy and indolent young members of the Upper Class – and concentrated instead on aerial devices directed from a distance by the likes of Roderick Spode.

          1. Milk and then ‘Just as it comes, dear’
            I’m afraid the preserve’s full of stones
            Beg pardon I’m soiling the doilies
            With afternoon teacakes and scones

            [From How to Get on in Society – John Betjeman]

          2. Milk and then ‘Just as it comes, dear’
            I’m afraid the preserve’s full of stones
            Beg pardon I’m soiling the doilies
            With afternoon teacakes and scones

            [From How to Get on in Society – John Betjeman]

          3. Caroline’s maiden name is Schoon and she makes excellent scones which we eat with clotted cream whenever we can get it. She refers to these as Skons to rhyme with dons as I do. Our friend, Grizzly, would disagree – but he would wouldn’t he?

    2. Mine never look as regular as those. One or two perform as a Leaning Tower of Pisa tribute shape. Still delicious though, especially with cream and lots of fruit jam.

      2. Never mind what they look like, Korky, they taste delicious – and thanks for the free sample you brought me yesterday.

  40. Who will stand up for us?

    A rising tide of anti-Britishness is turning our national virtues into unforgivable sins

    The fact that we exported freedom to the world is now deemed to make us the baddies

    DANIEL HANNAN • 3 December 2022 • 5:00pm

    When I was an MEP, federalist colleagues would often deliver what they plainly regarded as an absolute zinger of a putdown. “So, Hannan, you also are in favour of an independent Scotland, yes?” Sometimes, they would not wait for a reply, but would wander off, giggling at their own cleverness like Mr Toad in The Wind in the Willows.

    It was a spectacularly silly question. Being a democrat, I backed both the 2014 Scottish independence referendum and the 2016 British independence referendum. And, being a democrat, I respected both results.

    More interesting, perhaps, is the converse question: why do so many people who detest Brexit favour Scottish separatism? That position – the policy of the SNP, and the default stance of the most hardline Euro-zealots – makes little sense unless your over-riding consideration is anti-Britishness.

    Anti-Britishness may be a minority creed, but it is in the ascendant. It lies behind our statue-smashing spasm and behind the “decolonisation” of school and university curriculums. It drives the reordering of museum exhibitions and the campaign to give away legally purchased artefacts. It animates the idiotic campaign for “climate reparations” to badly-governed countries.

    Sure, each of these campaigns has other notional justifications. But none of them stacks up. If you want to argue that a connection to slavery, however tenuous, wipes away everything else that a historical figure achieved, fine. But I can’t help noticing that the agitators who make this case never apply it to Chinese or Arab or African slave-owners. Nor, more damningly, do they seem to care about the places where slavery is most common today (in declining order of prevalence, North Korea, Eritrea, Burundi, the Central African Republic and Afghanistan).

    Slavery was practised across every continent and archipelago, but social justice warriors reserve their vituperation for the country that distinguished itself by pouring its blood and treasure into a decades-long campaign to extirpate the foul trade.

    “Colonialism-and-slavery” is almost a binomial phrase, like “law-and-order” or “wear-and-tear”. But colonialism was partly driven by abolitionism. Having halted the Atlantic traffic, Britain sought to eliminate the practice in the African kingdoms where it remained endemic.

    The Benin bronzes, for example, were seized in an 1897 punitive expedition against a slave kingdom that thought nothing of burying alive the people it owned. That fact is rarely mentioned because Britain must always be the villain. Thus, the British Museum, which owns most of the brass carvings, says on its website that their acquisition was a consequence of the “expansion of colonial power”, and mentions slavery only glancingly, and in a way that implies that it was somehow imposed on the region from outside: “While by the late 19th century this trade had been largely abolished, its increasing scale and barbarity in the preceding centuries had a massive impact on West African societies.”

    Most of our intellectual leaders are pulled by the same current. There may well, for example, be a case for a more heterodox school curriculum. But heterodoxy should mean intellectual and stylistic variety. Adding black anti-colonialist writers to white ones does not make a curriculum diverse. (One of the reasons that George Orwell’s place is secure is that, despite being male, white and rampantly heterosexual, he wrote devastating criticisms of the British Empire.)

    Similar thinking lies behind demands for carbon reparations. Climate change is a global concern, and wealthier countries have so far been happy to bear more than their share of the burden. But the idea that Britain should be penalised for having given the human race industrialisation, which released billions from backbreaking toil, is asinine.

    Logic, though, has little place here. Everything has to be squashed into the approved format of our age: poor-against-rich, colonised-against-coloniser. Outrage trumps inconvenient facts. Does Pakistan, which is leading the calls for climate reparations, have 100 coal mines while Britain has none? Meh. Has China emitted more CO2 over the past eight years than the UK over the past 220 years? Who cares? Britain should pony up because exploitation and something something.

    So widespread is this attitude that, on Friday, the President of the European Commission casually likened Britain’s relations with Ireland to Russia’s with Ukraine. Now British-Irish relations have at times been painful. But is the UK – a parliamentary democracy that was driven by the logic of its values to quit the parts of Ireland that voted for separation – really comparable to Putin’s dictatorship? These days, apparently so.

    We can hardly blame the SNP for exploiting the zeitgeist. Its activists were furious when the Supreme Court rejected their demand for another referendum, dismissing what it called their “absurd claim” that Scotland was an “oppressed colony”. As a matter of historical and political fact, that statement is unarguable. If anyone felt colonised when James VI united the realms in 1603, it was the English. If anyone felt oppressed when the parliaments merged in 1707, it was English MPs, grumbling at having to assume Scotland’s debts.

    There is, though, a logic to the SNP’s tactics. Unionism used to rest on a sense of satisfaction at living in the world’s greatest country. Nowadays, though, victimhood is the supreme virtue. The fact that Scots created, defended and administered the Union and later its Empire is a cause of embarrassment.

    One of the most irritating aspects of this whole debate is that I find myself being dragged into it unwillingly. As a Gladstonian, I regret most of our imperial moment. We should have contented ourselves with coaling stations and trading posts rather than assuming responsibility for vast and expensive tracts of land. This was also, incidentally, the view of the Colonial Office throughout the nineteenth century. They knew that the British paid far higher taxes than their imperial subjects (who also benefited from lower taxes than the rest of the world). If the Empire was an attempt at exploitation, it was stunningly ineffective.

    And, of course, I dislike the repression – notably in India, Cyprus, Kenya and Burma. (Ireland, which was considered a core part of Britain rather than a colonial possession, was a different story.)

    Still, as I frequently find myself reminding anti-colonialists, the British Empire had a self-dissolving quality. Its administrators spoke of “stewardship”, and brought most of their colonies to independence without a shot being fired in anger – an extraordinary and unsung achievement.

    Several countries petitioned to join. Some, like Malta, were admitted; others, like Uruguay and Ethiopia, were not. Why did they ask? Perhaps because, in many parts of the world, Britain was seen as the sort of adult that a lost child might approach. People in the Empire were, on most measures, vastly better off than the people living under German or Belgian or Japanese rule. And the authorities in London at least tried to keep colonists in some kind of check. It is hard to argue that indigenous populations were worse off under British rule than in autonomous settler states such as Argentina, the USA or the Boer republics.

    The Empire was self-dissolving because the British have a peculiar obsession with representative government. The same obsession makes the UK uniquely sanguine about its own potential dismemberment. Those separatists raging at the Supreme Court might ask whether Corsica or Bavaria or Lombardy would have been offered a 2014-style referendum.

    Our obsession with representative government, personal freedom, private property and independent courts defines us as a nation. And that obsession, albeit worn lightly, drives our enemies to distraction.

    Listen, for example, to how Vladimir Putin talks of the current war. Russia, he says, is fighting against the West’s determination to impose liberal values everywhere. What liberal values? Freedom from arbitrary arrest, uncensored broadcasters, genuine elections, that sort of thing. He correctly associates liberal values with Britain, for no country has done more to disseminate them.

    That dissemination happened partly through example and partly through imposition. Some countries saw that our liberal institutions had made us rich and free, and chose to copy them. Others had liberal institutions forced on them by colonial authorities, and were left to decide, after independence, whether to keep them.

    But does the fact of having exported these values really make us the baddies? Would people rather live in a world dominated by Erdogans and Xis? I have a nasty feeling that we might soon find out.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/12/03/rising-tide-anti-britishness-turning-national-virtues-unforgivable

    “Climate change is a global concern…”

    Yes, but rather less for the weather than the madness it has induced.

    1. “What liberal values? Freedom from arbitrary arrest, uncensored broadcasters, genuine elections, that sort of thing.” Do we still have those?

    2. Putin isn’t talking about the realliberal values of democracy, common decency and law. He’s talkinga bout the fundamentally illiberal, abusive, spiteful arrogance of statists, the obsession with climate change – nothing but a system of economic control, about wokers, about the abomination of praising the black looting mob, of globalist expansion.

      Those he – and most people – oppose. The problem is, there’s nothing liberal about the liberals. They keep changing the marketing but at heart they’re stil the jack booted thugs they’ve always been.

      1. Afternoon Wibbles. One of the main problems the PTB have with Putin is that he’s neither a Neoliberal nor a Globalist. He’s an adherent of old fashioned traditional values. Someone like that in charge of a powerful country must always be a danger; hence the campaign to be rid of him!

  41. Mornin’ all. Just woken up after two night shifts.
    It’s a bit Pearl Harbour innit?

  42. Stolen from Korky below and taken from Toby Young’s Daily Sceptic – but this succinct and clear analogy which bears repetition is spot on.

    “……. the push to Net Zero without a fully demonstrated and costed solution to the energy storage conundrum “is analogous to jumping out of an airplane without a parachute, and assuming that the parachute will be invented, delivered and strapped on in mid-air in time to save you before you hit the ground”.

    Yesterday we read that when there are power supply failures in Switzerland electric cars will be banned.

    No wind and no sun today in Dinan and neap tides at St Malo where there is the tide generation barrage over the Rance. And the reason we are having threats of power cuts is because Macron deliberately decided to not have the nuclear generators properly serviced.

    Isn’t renewable ‘green’ energy wonderful!

    1. Green has aboslutely nothing to do with the environment. Everyone knows this, even the Lefty liars promoting the thing – especially them.

      Green, the whole climate change agenda is soley about controlling – ideally destroying – Western society and forcing a demented socialist, communist fundamentally Left wing – deeply unfair, brutalist, inhuman, broken replaement on people, with crippling punishments for disobedience.

      It is what Lefties always want.

      1. But never for themselves. Do as you would be done by belongs to that old religion they so despise. What’s it called? Oh yes, Christianity, that’s the one.

        Another babe baptised in church this morning. Isla May Francesca today. She was quiet but responded with a look that said, what the hell is going on?

    2. “Isn’t renewable ‘green’ energy wonderful!” – and the adherents so far-sighted and good at planning?

    3. The only ‘green’ involved is us, for allowing this rubbish to happen

      Synonyms for Green/pliable

      docile, flexible, malleable, manageable, compliant, easily led, impressionable, manipulable, moldable

      obedient, plastic, putty, receptive, responsive, submissive, susceptible, tractable, yielding.

  43. The Mask of Zero….

    Unsurprisingly, the results confirmed that there is essentially zero difference between surgical or N95 respirators when it comes to tests results.

    In the intention-to-treat analysis, RT-PCR–confirmed COVID-19 occurred in 52 of 497 (10.46%) participants in the medical mask group versus 47 of 507 (9.27%) in the N95 respirator group (hazard ratio [HR], 1.14 [95% CI, 0.77 to 1.69]). An unplanned subgroup analysis by country found that in the medical mask group versus the N95 respirator group RT-PCR–confirmed COVID-19 occurred in 8 of 131 (6.11%) versus 3 of 135 (2.22%) in Canada (HR, 2.83 [CI, 0.75 to 10.72]), 6 of 17 (35.29%) versus 4 of 17 (23.53%) in Israel (HR, 1.54 [CI, 0.43 to 5.49]), 3 of 92 (3.26%) versus 2 of 94 (2.13%) in Pakistan (HR, 1.50 [CI, 0.25 to 8.98]), and 35 of 257 (13.62%) versus 38 of 261 (14.56%) in Egypt (HR, 0.95 [CI, 0.60 to 1.50]). There were 47 (10.8%) adverse events related to the intervention reported in the medical mask group and 59 (13.6%) in the N95 respirator group.

    52 of 497 participants who wore medical masks got COVID-19, and 47 of 507 in the N95 group got COVID-19.

    No matter how “high quality” your mask is, it’s entirely irrelevant.
    The researchers also took pains to ensure that the control and treatment groups shared as many similarities as possible.
    They excluded workers who could not pass a fit test, had laboratory-confirmed COVID, or “had received 1 or more doses of a COVID-19 vaccine with greater than 50% efficacy for the circulating strain.”

    Yet none of that mattered; there was no difference in outcomes between the medical and N95 level masks.

    The N95s in use were even specifically fit tested and approved respirators, far from the KN95s commonly used by the general public.

    “Health care workers randomly assigned to the N95 respirator group were instructed to use a fit-tested National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health–approved N95 respirator when providing routine care to patients with COVID-19 or suspected COVID-19.”

    It didn’t matter.

    Even more importantly, these disappointing results were from facilities with universal masking policies in place.
    Everyone, in each health care facility, “for all activities,” was required to wear masks.

    The intervention included universal masking, which was the policy implemented at each site. This refers to the use of a mask when in the health care facility for all activities, whether patient related or not, including in workrooms, meetings, and treating persons that were not suspected or known to be positive for COVID-19.

    It still didn’t work.

    They even tracked potential exposure points, whether at home, in the community or in hospital exposures.
    There was no difference.
    What’s even more impressive about the futility of masking is that outside of Egypt, the observed results occurred before the more contagious Omicron variant emerged.

    1. I use the stocking top, of a cut off one leg of pair of ladies Black Stockings and as it is coming up to Christmas, it is due to be washed

      The above is carefully worded (I hope) or I might give the impression that I start off wih a pair of Black Ladies Stockings and that would not be nice

      1. Stocking from a black lady, or black stockings from a lady?
        I think we should be told!

        1. Never met a lady who wore stockings who’d allow that kind of detailed investigation. TBH, they’d barely tell me their name 🙁

          2. No, they told me to eff orff before I’d even opened my mouth… to talk to them, that is. Before any naughtiness was even thought of.

          3. No, they told me to eff orff before I’d even opened my mouth… to talk to them, that is. Before any naughtiness was even thought of.

    2. What’s the source of the article? I’d like to post it on another forum (ex-Army) which has a significant number of full-on Covidians some of whom are probably still wearing them.

  44. Whew! That’s the admin done – Mother’s care home bill paid for this month, and the sadly small pile of Christmas cards written. Coloured lights hung. Xmas tree on the way from Firstborn’s Xmas tree plantation with SWMBO. Relaxing now with tacos, xtra hot salsa, and medium-sweet sherry. An excellent combo!

      1. It’s the only Spanish wine worth drinking. Comes in desert-dry through smooth to sugar-syrup. All with great flavour, and tolerates refridgeration / poured over ice on a hot day.
        On this point, I miss Plum. Hope she’s OK. She’s nice.

        1. Have you tried Pedro Ximenez? Really rich and strong.

          I think we all miss Plum. I liked her acerbic wit.

          1. Worked in Cadiz a couple of years several decades ago. Tried pretty well every version, unless it was premium and priced accordingly. I adopted (immediately) the Spanish habit of drinking sherry from a wine glass, like any other wine – no mincing schooners or such crap. As alreday mentioned, the only Spanish wine worth swallowing.
            😉

          4. I’ve no idea, we divorced in 2017 that’s why I labelled her ‘my then Swedish wife’, I assume she’s still Swedish.

        2. My friend Enrique, introduced me to several very drinkable wines from further north, Galacia I think but I cannot remember them now.

          1. I don’t have much other experience of Spanish wines – typically reds with far too much oak, which I dislike.

          2. I found Larios gin very acceptable when we used to visit Caroline’s parents in Spain

        4. It’s her birthday on December 16th – has anyone got any news of her. We all miss her.

        5. It’s her birthday on December 16th – has anyone got any news of her. We all miss her.

    3. I’ve just decorated the large outside tree and hung a wreath on the gate. I have the two trees in pots that flank the front door and the two inside trees to decorate next. It will probably take me several days as I don’t have much spare time this coming week. Apart from meetings, a Christmas social and the usual riding lesson, I have a funeral to attend. I may not be around some days!

  45. Just finished reading Capt. Sir Tom Moore’s autobiography – a fascinating read of his life and his raising of £38 million for NHS charities by walking the length of his driveway after knee replacements, they don’t make them like this any more

    1. There’s a man worth taking the knee for.
      Respect!
      Older than Methuselah, and he does that.

  46. Just finished reading Capt. Tom Moore’s autobiography – a fascinating read of his life and his raising of £38 million for NHS charities by walking the length of his driveway after knee replacements, they don’t make them like this any more

    1. I don’t often play these Classical pieces in full but that is so beautiful.

      Thank you, Paul.

      1. How cool is that?
        My Father played the organ in Durham Cathedral as a student there – I can’t even play a single bum note.

    1. It is cold. Some 16’c here although the Warqueen hasn’t noticed as we’ve only not long been back from a scouts thing for Junior.

    3. We turned ours on this week but we are also running the woodburning stoves in the sitting room and the library.

      1. We just have the woodstove, that’s all.
        Gets a bit parky in the bathroom, but that encourages the children to take short showers, so I count it as a gain.

        1. I’ve been running the Rayburn for a month at least. It runs the central heating, creates lashings of hot water and cooks the food. All for two hods a day. What’s not to like?

      1. What about them? What are they to us (apart from an excuse for our “government” to posture and bring us to the brink of WW3)?

        1. 368674+up ticks,

          Evening BB2

          Was it nor called “The beginning” before, and was it not a success ?

        1. Indeed. If Vlad had taken it the wrong way we would now be squatting in a nuclear wasteland!

          1. Vlad doesn’t care. He’s all right. Plenty gas, oil, warm…
            “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”
            and that was a mistake.

        2. Indeed. If Vlad had taken it the wrong way we would now be squatting in a nuclear wasteland!

    1. Looks like a Meteor NF12, I had a trip in an NF14 which had the clear canopy. I could pick a couple of holes in the commentary

    2. I’m not familiar with the Meatbox (as my late neighbour who used to work on them called them), but I thought they were two seaters with a pilot and navigator.

      1. I used to work on them, mainly NF 14s. The 2 seaters were T7, NF11, NF12 and NF14 – I think there was a NF13 too (no ejection seats). Pilot and Nav/radar op.
        The film mentioned that the RAF had a squadron of them at the end of the war and showed F8 in formation but the F8 didn’t come into service until 1950

  51. Nicked from elsewhere….
    A man absolutely hated his wife’s cat and decided to get rid of the animal one day by driving him 20 blocks from his home and leaving him at the park.
    As he arrived home, the cat was walking up the driveway.
    The next day he decided to drive the cat 40 blocks away.
    He put the beast out and headed home.
    Driving back up his driveway, there was the cat!
    He kept taking the cat further and further, and the cat would always beat him home.
    At last he decided to drive a few miles away,
    turn right,
    then left, past the bridge,
    then right again
    and another right until he reached what he thought was a safe distance from his home and left the cat there.
    Hours later the man calls home to his wife:
    “Jen, is the cat there?”
    “Yes”,
    the wife answers,
    “why do you ask?”
    Frustrated, the man answered,
    “Put the little bastard on the phone, I’m lost and need directions

  52. The whole of the bankster-controlled West is so toxic and corrupt….wrap your head around this short video clip. The lady speaking is the wife of Senator John McCain. I wish I could believe that Britain or Europe is any better.
    https://twitter.com/RudyHavenstein/status/1315057790163906560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1315057790163906560%7Ctwgr%5E2639ee01875ba974e178a849309039a36e08cf53%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redditmedia.com%2Fmediaembed%2Fzcbqbh%3Fresponsive%3Dtrueis_nightmode%3Dfalse

      1. Ghislaine’s paramour.

        They didn’t go after him because he had the dirt on so many of them that they had to bump him off in prison. And how they have stopped Ms Maxwell from squeaking I do not know.

  55. Nurses must drop pay demands to ‘send clear message to Putin’, cabinet minister says. 4 December 2022/

    Nadhim Zahawi switched tack in the battle to avert pre-Christmas NHS strikes by claiming they would expose a “divided” UK when a united front is needed over Russia’s “illegal war”.

    “This is a time to come together and to send a very clear message to Mr Putin that we’re not going to be divided in this way,” the Tory party chair said.

    Vlad is supporting the nurses strike to win the war in Ukraine? This is politics for the mentally retarded. What about the Postmen?

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nurses-strikes-inflation-zahawi-putin-b2238518.html

    1. HA! HA! HA!
      Is that jerk serious? Does he even think before spouting off? (Zahawi, I mean).

      1. “They laughed when I said I was going to be a comedian.
        Well, they’re not laughing now!”
        (c) Bob Monkhouse.

    4. He’s right, the Ukraine war is forcing thousands of Africans, Afghans, Syrians and Albanians to risk their lives to carry diseases into the UK so that the NHS can be overwhelmed.

      /sarc

      1. I had thought the calibre of politicians couldn’t sink much lower, but every time some idiot proves me wrong.

    6. What in the name of trousers has Putin got to do with the nurses striking?

      The problem is the level of tax. Not Putin. I know he’s just a delightful excuse for the state but even the thickest person must realise what the problem is: energy market rigging, the green agenda ruining farming (and making food expensive) and crippling taxes on fuel.

      The fault is the state. Anyone not a Labour voter or nutcase Lefty knows that – don’t they?

  56. A wee Birdie Three today.

    Wordle 533 3/6
    ⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜
    ⬜🟨🟨⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  58. Evening, all. In my experience, people who have decided on strike action don’t worry about the effects on anyone else; they think the end justifies the means.

    2. Notice the greatest oxymoron going – ‘socialist worker’.

      It’s truly staggering that this bunch of Lefty wasters have not been eradicated by now.

          1. At least they have something in common, the same husband perhaps.
            “It’s your turn with the fat smelly pig!”
            “No, it’s bloody not, Fatima, it’s yours!”

    2. Doesn’t everyone trash their hotel rooms when they stay?
      Gawd they charge enough for them, a little light trashing seems fair enough to get value for money…

      /sarc

    1. If that poster had Ginge & Minge instead of Brenda and Phil-the-Greek I would have been 100% behind it. As it stands, no.

      2. 368674+ up ticks,

        G,
        I do agree wholeheartedly the fault is mine for not studying closer, the odious role models stood out putting others in the shade.

    2. Ogga1, that meme is offensive and distasteful.
      The late Queen and Duke of Edinburgh served in WWII, and Melinda G has done her best.

  62. Waitresses at Salt Bae’s restaurant physically remove Animal Rebellion protestors
    Animal Rebellion protesters say staff physically removed demonstrators from the venue ‘tougher than police would do it’
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/12/03/watch-waitresses-salt-baes-restaurant-physically-remove-animal/

    Activists have targeted the Knightsbridge steak restaurant owned by Salt Bae.

    The Animal Rebellion group, an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion, said eight people entered the Nusr-Et steakhouse in the upmarket central London district at about 6pm and sat at tables which were already reserved.

    Salt Bae, whose real name is Nusret Gokce and who shared a picture of himself at the World Cup on Friday, became a viral internet hit for his technique of sprinkling salt on to his dishes.

    The protest group said in a press release it is calling for “a plant-based food system and mass rewilding”.

    Student Ben Thomas, 20, said: “Restaurants like these are symbolic of a broken system.

    “Whilst two million people are relying on food banks in the UK right now, influencer chefs are selling gold-plated steaks for more than £1,000.

    “Steaks, and other red meats, that we know carry the highest environmental impacts.”

    It comes weeks after a similar stunt at Gordon Ramsay’s three-star Michelin restaurant in Chelsea.

    Staff physically removed demonstrators
    Animal Rebellion protesters said staff at Salt Bae’s upmarket steak restaurant had physically removed demonstrators from the venue “tougher than police would do it”.

    Ben Thomas, 20, said: “We’re in this restaurant to show the inequality in lifestyle during this cost-of-living crisis with people out in this fine dining establishment while others can’t heat their homes.

    “We’re a group of non-violent protesters also campaigning for a plant-based food system.

    “We just sat there, wait staff were quite civil, but the members of the public – two of them got quite aggressive at one point.

    “The woman kept giving me really dirty looks just for being there. The customers clapped as we were picked up and taken outside.”

    An activist occupying a reserved table at the Knightsbridge steak restaurant owned by Salt Bae
    An activist occupying a reserved table at the Knightsbridge steak restaurant owned by Salt Bae CREDIT: David Gambin/Animal Rebellion
    Orin Cooley-Greene, 21, said: “It was tougher than police would do it.”

    The Metropolitan Police said it had been called to Nusr-Et on Saturday but later said police attendance was not required as the protesters had left.

    The force said: “At 18:08hrs on Saturday, 3 December police were made aware of a protest at a restaurant in Knightsbridge, SW1. The group subsequently left the area and police attendance was not required.”

    2. Ben Thomas, 20, said: “We’re in this restaurant to show the inequality in lifestyle during this cost-of-living crisis with people out in this fine dining establishment while others can’t heat their homes.”

      Ever was it thus, you little Marxist *****. As if your actions will make the slightest difference. Grow up.

      “We’re a group of non-violent protesters also campaigning for a plant-based food system.”

      Tell us which crops you would like to be growing right now. In December. In the UK.

      1. Yes, fine. You eat plants. You’ve no right to demand other people do as well. You see, that’s called choice. What these pathetic little Lefties are is simply fascists.

    3. Ben Thomas, 20, said: “We’re in this restaurant to show the inequality in lifestyle during this cost-of-living crisis with people out in this fine dining establishment while others can’t heat their homes.”

      Ever was it thus, you little Marxist *****. As if your actions will make the slightest difference. Grow up.

      “We’re a group of non-violent protesters also campaigning for a plant-based food system.”

      Tell us which crops you would like to be growing right now. In December. In the UK.

      2. Then run out quickly and lock the door before continuing to serve the customers until the end of the day.

      1. Many years ago, made SWMBOS pain-in-the-rear little brother a birthday cake that was actually an iced polystyrene box.
        He was most upset, the wee shit.

    3. Pretty good! I got lucky today but that’s sheer fluke.
      Wordle 533 2/6

      🟩🟩⬜🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    4. Well done. A par 4, which is what most of us get most days. Today was lucky with the word I chose to start with and got an eagle 2. Other days might just easily get a double bogey six.

  65. One has to admire the innovation of the seaweed plastic replacement, which has just won Willie Wonka’s award.

    https://www.notpla.com/

    I wonder whether the laws of unintended consequences will ensure that harvesting seaweed as a plastic replacement actually causes even more environmental damage to the world long term as all the organisms that rely on the seaweed harvested are harmed?

      1. Very. Although, they do these photo ops to promote the Leftyness of the organisation.

        I do work for one group who has nothing but white employees yet in every picture on their website is an ethnic.

    2. 5 years to remain? What will he do? He has no skills, no value, no purpose, no function.

      Just another terrorist waster soaking up funds. Let’s move him in with Sunak.

  67. Four friends, who hadn’t seen each other in 30 years, reunited at a party
    After several drinks, one of the men had to use the rest room.
    Those who remained talked about their kids.
    The first guy said, ‘My son is my pride and joy.He started working at a successful company at the bottom of the barrel.
    He studied Economics and Business Administration and soon began to climb the corporate ladder and now he’s the president of the company. He became so rich that he gave his best friend a top of the line Mercedes for his birthday.’
    The second guy said, ‘Darn, that’s terrific! My son is also my pride and joy. He started working for a big airline, then went to flight school to become a pilot. Eventually he became a partner in the company, where he owns the majority of its assets He’s so rich that he gave his best friend a brand new jet for his birthday.’
    The third man said: ‘Well, that’s terrific! My son studied in the best universities and became an engineer. Then he started his own construction company and is now a multimillionaire. He also gave away something very nice and expensive to his best friend for his birthday: A 30,000 square foot mansion.’
    The three friends congratulated each other just as the fourth returned from the restroom and asked: ‘What are all the congratulations for?’
    One of the three said: ‘We were talking about the pride we feel for the successes of our sons. What about your son?’
    The fourth man replied: ‘My son is gay and makes a living dancing as a stripper at a nightclub.’
    The three friends said: ‘What a shame… what a disappointment.’
    The fourth man replied: ‘No, I’m not ashamed. He’s my son and I love him.
    And he hasn’t done too bad either. His birthday was two weeks ago, and he received a beautiful 30,000 square foot mansion, a brand new jet and a top of the line Mercedes from his three boyfriends.

    1. Thanks, Alf, I’ll nick it for the Joke Book but I’ll make sure I don’t repeat it this or next year.

      1. Feel free to use as often as you wish. It’s a good belly laugh joke. Boy do we need cheering up these days.

    2. Disgraceful! Where are their helmets?

      Er…. I think I’ve just answered my own question…

    3. Disgraceful! Where are their helmets?

      Er…. I think I’ve just answered my own question…

    6. Just an idea – why don’t they line up like that along the south coast where the illegals land – might just deter them

  69. Watching the end of Scrooge with Albert Finney. On Channel 5+1 starting at 7pm if you’re not into wendyball. Great feel good film.

  71. Well, it’s been a restful and relaxing day for me, so I will wish you all a very good night as I head for the hills. Sleep well, everyone.

  72. Pottering about up the “garden” today, really must get stuck in to tidying up where I’ve been working and sorting out the bits of rock and tree lying about the place.

    The firewood in the 1st bit of the triple stack is not used up, so I tidied it up and got some bits of log I’d chopped a while ago into it to start the restacking.

    Also sharpened the 4 chainsaws this afternoon, then, before rain again stopped play, took the larger Efco petrol saw over the road & cut four slices off the trunk of the ash tree I dropped several months back in the summer.

    And now I’m off to bed to puzzle over yesterdays crossword.

    Goodnight all.

  73. This, if true, could well be a game changer in the Middle East:

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/iran-morality-police-disbanded-mahsa-amini-sparks-revolution-b1044727.html

    Iran’s morality police disbanded after death of Mahsa Amini sparks revolution

    Residents posting on social media and newspapers such as Shargh daily say there have been fewer sightings of the morality police on the streets in recent weeks as authorities apparently try to avoid provoking more protests.

    Al Alam state television said foreign media were depicting his comments as “a retreat on the part of the Islamic Republic from its stance on hijab and religious morality as a result of the protests”, but that all that could be understood from his comments was that the morality police were not directly related to the judiciary.

    My suspicion is that they will regroup and crack down even harder.

    1. Apparently the protests have now moved to ripping the headdress off the Mullahs. That should be interesting.

      1. I wonder what the Koranic punishment is for that!
        Perm any two from six;
        Flogging, amputation, tossing from a cliff, decapitation, crucifixion, hanging from a crane.

    1. Boom boom!! Was it Basil Brush who would say that, after a ‘bad’ pun? I laughed anyway!

  75. I have had two (large-ish) glasses of red wine i.e. half a bottle, so I am feeling brave enough to ask all nottlers to check themselves whenever they pass a 5G mast. On each occasion (3) so far I have experienced a sharpish pain, like a brief ‘stitch’, over my right eye in the temple region of my head. The first time I thought, “oh, come on,….”; the second time “it’s coincidence…!” but the third time I thought something very definitely is going on. The pain was probably 5 seconds (5…) maximum and could unwittingly be lost in the myriad of other unpleasant sensations one experiences as one gets older and with other things to think about. Just saying, though… to be body aware when passing these things. I should add I was driving, and not walking, at the time.

    1. There have been tests done, I remember reading about a study when people could not tell blind when a 5G mast was switched on.

    2. I am seriously compromised if I visit a place like PC world .

      I hate my second hand Apple mobile phone . I try not to use it .i had had ten days of messages because I could not be bothered to look at my phone . It gives me a headache.

      2. In the early days of colour television, I could not be in the same room as the telly. Showrooms were pure torture and I had to wait for MB outside the shop.
        The high pitched whine seemed to fry my brains.
        Since I can now watch colour TV, I assume adjustments have been made to the signal or internal gubbins..

        2. Yes , the same here .. We have large communication signal for the police not far from here , they kept adding to it and I felt quite ill when I used to walk the dogs there, that was over 20 years ago , now I don’t feel the same sensations , perhaps the frequencies have been altered , I don’t know .

        3. My uncle used to complain about that whine.
          But since I’ve been on my own here I haven;t bothered to turn the telly on at all. I don’t notice any whine now.

        4. That would be you hearing the high frequency squeal of the tubes as the refresh the screen, Belle. Apart from the TVs now being LED and similar, age reduces the ability to hear high frequencies… just saying…

      4. I have a CAT S62 Android phone. Excellent piece of kit. And, I don’t make calls with any phone unless forced – don’t want to kill the remaining brain cell with holding radiation to my head.

    3. Not quite the same, but MB used to have awful trouble with power lines. As we passed under them, his hearing aids would give off a high pitched squeal.
      Some years ago, he had a newer version fitted and the problem disappeared.

      1. But it obviously interfered with an electrical field, and all our bodies rely on their own personal field, esp hearts.

    4. I used to have a sore throat after eating microwaved food. It took some time to work it out what it was but when I stopped eating it the problem dissapeard.

      1. The ones in our area are at least 30 ft high, white and flute glass shaped, except the proportions are different. The ‘stem’ is proportionately longer to the flute. There is a 4′ high ‘box’ alongside, probably 5′ in length. All the ones I have passed (all three, so far) have been by the side of the road. They wanted to put one on our village green by the duck pond – a conservation area!! They are the ugliest things ever.

    6. Mostly you don’t know when you pass a phone mast, because they are ugly, and therefore the companies go to great lengths to conceal them inside towers, lamp posts, fake trees etc. There’s at least one in a fake cactus in the US!

      1. They wanted to put one on our village green by the duck pond! (We have the longest village green in the UK.) It’s a conservation area. They are very obvious here, not tucked away at all.

  77. About 38 minutes – Alasdair Macleod presents a convincing argument of why he thinks that CBDCs will never happen, apart from in China.
    Not sure that things are as optimistic as he thinks, but it could be the Achilles heel that brings the whole cabal plot for global marxism down.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIzBjmNxD-8

  80. Had to block someone who can’t debate – he replied to me and then blocked me! What a plonker!

Comments are closed.