Tuesday 10 January: Prince Harry’s counter-intuitive approach to royal reconciliation

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

574 thoughts on “Tuesday 10 January: Prince Harry’s counter-intuitive approach to royal reconciliation”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolk, a list for today.
    Attracting Women

    There are a number of mechanical devises which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women.
    Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL convertible. PJ O’Rourke
    *********************************************************************************

    Love matches are formed by people who pay for a month of honey with a lifetime of vinegar. Countess of Blessington
    *********************************************************************************

    What are a woman’s four favourite animals?
    A jaguar in the garage, a mink in the closet, a tiger in the bed, and a jackass to pay for it all.
    *********************************************************************************

    My wife went to the beauty parlour.
    She got a mud pack. She looked nice for a couple of days.
    Then the mud fell off.
    *********************************************************************************

    Teacher: ‘If you had one euro and you asked your father for another, how many euros would you have?’
    Boy: ‘One euro.’
    Teacher: ‘You don’t know your arithmetic.’
    Boy: ‘You don’t know my father.
    *********************************************************************************

    With my first child I can recall screaming, ‘Get this thing out of me! Get this thing out of me! And that was just the conception’. Joan Rivers
    *********************************************************************************

    Steer well clear of the knight in shining armour. He’ll only want you to polish it. Anon.

  4. Saw this on another group at silly o’clock this morning.
    Some old extracts from letters written by council housing tenants:
    1. It’s the dogs mess that I find hard to swallow.
    2. I want some repairs done to my cooker as it has backfired and burnt my knob off.
    3. I wish to complain that my father twisted his ankle very badly when he put his foot in the hole in his back passage.
    4. Their 18 year old son is continually banging his balls against my fence.
    5. I wish to report that tiles are missing from the outside toilet roof. I think it was bad wind the other day that blew them off.
    6. My lavatory seat is cracked, where do I stand?
    7. I am writing on behalf of my sink, which is coming away from the wall.
    8. Will you please send someone to mend the garden path. My wife tripped and fell on it yesterday and now she is pregnant.
    9. I request permission to remove my drawers in the kitchen.
    10. 50% of the walls are damp, 50% have crumbling plaster, and 50% are just plain filthy.
    11. The next door neighbour has got this huge tool that vibrates the whole house and I just can’t take it anymore.
    12. The toilet is blocked and we cannot bath the children until it is cleared.
    13. Will you please send a man to look at my water, it is a funny colour and not fit to drink.
    14. Our lavatory seat is broken in half and now is in three pieces.
    15. I want to complain about the farmer across the road. Every morning at 6am his cock wakes me up and it’s now getting too much for me.
    16. The man next door has a large erection in the back garden, which is unsightly and dangerous.
    17. Our kitchen floor is damp. We have two children and would like a third, so please send someone round to do something about it.
    18. I am a single woman living in a downstairs flat and would you please do something about the noise made by the man on top of me every night.
    19. Please send a man with the right tool to finish the job and satisfy my wife..
    20. I have had the clerk of works down on the floor six times but I still have no satisfaction.
    21. This is to let you know that our lavatory seat is broke and we can’t get BBC2.
    22. My bush is really overgrown round the front and my back passage has fungus growing in it.

    1. A very old joke:

      A line from a letter to the electricity board from the headmistress of Roedean:

      ‘Please send along some men with their tools; my girls are fed up with using candles.”

    2. MB’s first job was working in the CBC housing dept. (complaints section).
      He has similar stories.
      One tenant wanted his back passage concreted.
      Another’s husband had broken off his cock in the airing cupboard.

  5. Prince Harry’s counter-intuitive approach to royal reconciliation

    Meghan is the only winner in all of this, she is coining it in while Harry implodes, totally destroys his future and reputation.

    What the betting she will leave him when the time is right.

    1. From below:

      “Love matches are formed by people who pay for a month of honey with a lifetime of vinegar.”: Duchess of Sarsons….

      Morning Bob3 and all.

    2. I don’t know, I think her earning power has peaked. They’ve had their Netflix deal, surely there won’t be much more to squeeze out of this.
      After this debacle, their only source of income will be Harry’s long-suffering father – and while I don’t like him, I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.

      1. I imagine she’s hoping he’ll have his title removed so they can begin the net round of grievance.

      1. Maybe she truly loves him and will stand by him for the rest of their lives?

        Many of us thought that the Beckhams’ marriage would not survive but they have now been together for over 20 years.

  8. The only thing I know about Harry is that he must be an emotional and psychological train-wreck. I used to teach damaged kids and their lives were seedy Jeremy Kyle affairs that made me shudder.

    The difference here is money and exposure, but it is fundementally similar.

    I never watched Jeremy Kyle. I’ve got enough of my own problems.

    Apart from that preeVYET, as they (will soon) say in Germany.

  9. Morning all. Today’s rant (and I am not even going to comment on the use of the most over-used word in the Terriblegraph’s vocabulary but there it is right at the beginning of the piece. Of course.). £15, 000 is a lot of money for a small club, especially when it has been there since forever and the houses not so long. We can all understand why the householder is keen on the cricket ball threat, but on the other hand, whoever gave permission for the house to be built, whoever built the house and whoever bought the house are surely more culpable than the cricket club, which has remained static for 100 years.

    “A CRICKET club more than 100 years old could be forced to fold following complaints from a neighbour about flying cricket balls.

    Colehill Cricket Club in Dorset was told in December by the ground’s owners that it will not be holding adult cricket matches in 2023 owing to pressure from a small group of neighbours who have recently moved into the area.

    CC was formed in the 1920s when the village ground was gifted to the club by a local landowner. In the 1970s, a sports and social club was formed to run the facility due to other sports being played on the land as well as cricket.

    In 2014, a neighbour moved to a house bordering the ground and in 2018 began raising issues about balls hitting her fence and landing in the garden.

    Plans to erect netting worth £15,000 were abandoned on cost grounds with tree protection orders complicating the process….”

    1. As it’s their home and they want it protected, why don’t those complaining put up their own netting during the cricket season? Surely easy enough to rig up some poles, have the nets on a winch and rig them when the balls are flying?

    2. I know that cricket ground, son has played there in his cricket playing days.

      The people who moved in are typical of all newcomers who complain about church bells , cockerels crowing , muck spreading, flocks of pigeons , roosting crows and everything else .

    3. The obvious tactic would be to sell the land for social housing and use the money to buy a larger field on the outskirts of the village. Check with Mr Bill Thomas, but if housing is impossible, sui generis the land could be returned to agriculture, eg free range poultry or pigs.
      Edit: I was under the impression that the principle of ‘sui generis’ would allow the property to be returned to its former use without specific planning permission, but I am uncertain.

    4. As several commenters have pointed out, there is a precedent – Miller v Jackson [1977]. Lord Denning ruled in favour of the cricket club, therefore there is no need for Colehill CC to curtail their activities.

      1. …and I hope they do just carry on. Bugger the numpties who bought within range – their fault entirely.

        Denning was always firm but fair, pity there aren’t any like him these days.

    5. Submit an outline planning application for a ‘regional mosque’ and see which option they prefer.

    6. Why buy a house next to the cricket club and complain about cricket being played there? It’s like idiots who move to the country and complain about crowing cockerels and church bells or those who buy a house under the flight path of an airport and moan about aircraft noise.

  10. The brave aid worker risking danger in Ukraine to help ‘good against evil’. 10 January 2023.

    “OK,” he says, steeling himself for a moment, before sprinting through a deserted village to the sound of intense artillery fire.

    Alone, and using just his mobile phone as a guide, Christopher Parry races through Bakhmut, in Ukraine, to save a civilian, Oksana, who is desperate to be rescued.

    Really? I’m used to human eccentricity but this seems to be in a class of its own. We have a Kiwi who doesn’t speak the language in a country he does not know rescuing locals who do not speak English from their long expected fate.

    What is really going on here? What is this sudden urgency? Why are not the local police carrying out this task? In fact any able bodied Ukrainian could carry out this undertaking with less peril to themselves and their charges. Even his translator; yes he has a translator, could carry it out with less exposure to danger. Why do the Ukrainians permit this? If he’s captured by the Russians (oh wait he has been) he would be a high value asset to exchange.

    With all these things in mind does anyone really believe that he’s just there rescuing people out of the goodness of his heart?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/01/09/christopher-parry-brave-aid-worker-risking-danger-ukraine-help/

    1. His sort show a comfortably naivete about the reality of the situation in Ukraine. As it is, who is tracking who goes where? Why are these people not getting themselves out? Where are their families and friends to support them?

    2. ‘Alone, and using his mobile phone to put a targeting reticule on his head…’ At best, a useful idiot; at worst, a useful martyr to Zelensky’s cause.

    3. Good morning Minty.
      As ever, I welcome your efforts to challenge the narrative. At a guess, they need the aid-workers to provide cover for foreign personnel on military training missions.

  11. 369639+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    This harry kari issue will be played out to the full by the political overseers chaff / deflection department tis full to the brim with
    chaff material on hand to cover the echoing hollowness of the vows, promises, & pledges slithering off the politico’s tongues.

    Fodder feeding for fools time is with us once again, they lap it up
    seemingly can’t get enough, ” lab (ino) will walk it, serves the
    tories (ino) right” is the mindset of many and was, without doubt, the vehicle that got us to where we are now standing as a nation
    currently, IN DEEP SELF INFLICTED SHITE.

    Tuesday 10 January: Prince Harry’s approach to royal reconciliation

    1. Just a drop of seven o’clock shadow. Remember those old Gillette ads. And then it gradually dawned (!) on them that their customers weren’t up at 7am any more…

        1. #MeToo, Wibbles.

          Electric shave every two or three but it isn’t as close as a wet shave, that happens every two or three weeks.

        2. Same here. In fact, the first Arrmy habit I dropped after I left was shaving in the morning.

  13. Former Tory minister quits party and backs Sir Keir Starmer to lead Britain. 10 January 2023.

    A former Conservative minister has quit the party and backed Sir Keir Starmer to lead Britain in a “sober, competent” fashion.

    Claire Perry O’Neill, who was in Theresa May’s Cabinet, said she had lost faith in the “cavalier” and “self-obsessed” Tories, revealing that she tore up her membership card this month despite insisting she “likes and admires” Rishi Sunak.

    If it tells us nothing else this move shows that the difference between the two parties is infinitesimal!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/01/09/former-tory-minister-quits-party-backs-sir-keir-starmer-lead/

    1. If so-called Conservatives bail out of the Party and go to Labour does this mean that they don’t find the Conservative Party is socialist enough for them?

      Any voters who are right of centre no longer have a mainstream party to represent them.

      Are there enough Conservative MPs to bring down the system by resigning their seats and joining Reform? If 100 did so then the system would be properly shaken up.

      1. 369639+ up ticks,

        Morning R,

        I do believe many will see reform as a reshuffled tory (ino) party, that many an old tory will accept.

    2. Her picture made it clear that she was never a Conservative. Merely one Cameron’s acolytes trying to claw her way to the top in whichever party was most convenient.

      1. She praised ‘green’, she’s a remoaner and hails working for business, yet has gone off to a wholly tax payer subsidised wind company. Also remember, this is someone who was working for the department for energy handing out subsidy for windmills.

        Corruption? No, we don’t have that in Britain!

    4. 369639+ up ticks,

      Morning AS,

      That is the way of a coalition, ALL interchangeable, the electorate make it competitive via family tree voting, following on and doing as granddad, great granddad did.

      Using an old voting stance on current issues
      is keeping the political reptiles afloat.

    5. The differences became much smaller during the 1920s and 1930s, according to AJP Taylor. However, this woman was a firebrand at University, and never ever could have been perceived as a traditional conservative. The clues are that she worked for G Osborne, is a Remainer and is employed in the salaried not-for-profit sector.

      1. Although I am a somewhat (to put it mildly) Conservative, she was always distinctly iffy.

    6. The differences became much smaller during the 1920s and 1930s, according to AJP Taylor. However, this woman was a firebrand at University, and never ever could have been perceived as a traditional conservative. The clues are that she worked for G Osborne, is a Remainer and is employed in the salaried not-for-profit sector.

    8. Mrs O’Neil, Managing director for climate and energy at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, ex Minister of State for Energy and Clean Growth (renamed from Minister of State for Climate Change and Industry) One of her contemporaries at Brasenose College, Oxford, George Monbiot, described her in his column for The Guardian as “a firebrand who wanted to nationalise the banks and overthrow capitalism”. Rabidly anti-Brexit too.

      A true blue, modern-day Tory, oh yes! Good riddance.

  14. Reposted from last night

    Tuesday 10th January, 2023

    Hopon

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5d9e6bf6474a442e9398ac24f3b67fa27776a2296f1eacc6844ee2d0c730f3bb.jpg

    Don’t worry in Nottlerland you’re still a youngster

    We hope you have a good day and many more good birthdays to come.

    With best wishes,,

    Caroline and Rastus

    https://www.google.com/search?q=Danny+%26+the+Juniors+Let%27s+Go+To+The+Hop+(Rerecorded)&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAOOQUeLVT9c3NEwzMss2MbFMMZJOSczLq1RIzEtRKMlIVcgqzcvMLypWKM7PSy-OEkosAYtm5BcoVOaXlpQmpZ5i5AEZUGiaZWpoXm6B4CYbG-RVnmKEG29aYl5cCOMnWSSb5ZWXGCLJg61HaE_JykszRHCNLM2Ks38xSruguM4L2XUNLIyLWE0gCtRQpH1SS9SLFdzzFUKACCjuAXS-RlBqUWpyflFKaormLTZJhiYBKYmPXIpe3pqOBQd-8pzV1-Psnr_4oh8AJTceqCIBAAA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjNrsj6wrz8AhVXRKQEHUb7C-sQs9oBKAR6BAgeEAY&biw=1280&bih=646&dpr=1.5

    4. Yo Mr T

      Reposted from 7 minutes ago, now that I am awake

      Not far off being THE The Youngster

      Happy BD Hopon and of course 364 Happy Unbirthdays, ’til you next one

      1. Our youngest is 35 today, he’s in Venice now with his lady.
        And it’s sunny.
        I remember coming home from the hospital and sitting on our lower rear garden wall with a large single malt and ice.
        Happy birthday Chris.

      1. Sadly yes, it is more likely the state machine went for him. Are we cynical, or are they corrupt, spoiled and mendacious?

    2. Yup.
      Do you remember those simple days when every October we looked at the line-up on Lenin’s tomb to see who was in and who was out?
      Those funny Communists, we tittered. That could never happen here.

    3. They will throw all the mud they can at him to try and make him look untrustworthy, whereas in fact he’s one of the few decent men in the House of Conmen.

    1. This isn’t true. As I tried to hammer home to my Amazon hating chum, Britons won’t work.

      There’s a reason every Amazon driver is foreign. They can’t claim welfare. As soon as they can, they will. Britons can, from birth. And they do. In incredible numbers. Thus when ‘we need immigrants’ what they really mean is ‘welfare is too generous but we can’t say that’.

      In addition, hiking the minimum wage is also just a tax scam. Higher min wages don’t ever translate to real terms increases for workers as tax erodes the value of the money. It simply transfer more tax from business to the state, while further pricing the welfare dependent out of a possible job – because, frankly, some are simply not worth £10 an hour. This is why Cameron invented zero hours contracts.

      The Left argue about those, yet also want a higher min wage. It’s almost as if they don’t understand the first thing about economics.

      1. “It’s almost as if they don’t understand the first the first thing about economics”. This. Again.

        Incidentally i did have a giggle thinking a out what would happen if e.g. NHS pay demands were met, when those getting the pay rises worked out they were now worse off as a result of any reductions in benefits that interact with our ludicrous system.

        Vote for me and I will abolish it all for a straight low tax (rate tbd) across the board (individuals and companies) with no reliefs or exemptions. If you have more money than you need at the end of the month, like a Victorian philanthropist you can donate it to worthy good causes.

        What do you think? Will i win an election? And even if i did win, would vested interests scupper me?

        1. You would from people working, but from far too many people who want to take what others have earned, no.

          Folk are nasty. No, they really, really are. They are greedy, malignant and jealous. They think that someone earning a high salary shouldn’t have it because they’re plain jealous. That these people cannot do the job, haven’t the skill, ability or competence, training or qualification is irrelevant. They just want someone else to be pulled down.

          You can see this in miniature when some pretty girl gets into the paper and is immediately assaulted by a bunch of bitter women doing her down.

  17. Russia and Wagner likely in control of most of Soledar, says UK defence ministry. 10 January 2023.

    In its daily updated posted a short while ago, the UK Ministry of Defence says that Russia and Wagner are “likely in control of most of” Soledar amid fierce fighting for the Donbas town.

    Russia and Wagner have made tactical advances in the last four days, the ministry says, in what it described as “highly likely an effort to envelop Bakhmut from the north, and to disrupt lines of communication”.

    It adds that Russia is, however, “unlikely to envelop the town imminently because Ukrainian forces maintain stable defensive lines in depth and control over supply routes”.

    On the one hand we are told that the Russians are worn out and on the brink of defeat and on the other that they are fighting fiercely and gaining ground. I don’t pretend to know which of these are true but considerable caution should be exercised in believing anything in the MSM!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/jan/10/russia-ukraine-blog-live-almost-no-walls-left-in-soledar-says-zelenskiy-as-fierce-fighting-continues

    1. It’s the Grauniad again, Minty. Yesterday, to the great amusement of Nigel Farage, they printed an item about the docu-drama Stonehouse, and how it was a fine example of Tory sleaze. It was later removed.

      Oh dear, see me after school, idiot reporter!

    2. Furthermore, Minty, The Guardian needs to be told that Richard Wagner dies some years ago. Lol.

  18. The ‘itch’ to force compliance and exercise control remains strong with the likes of Sturgeon. Siren voices within the NHS hierarchy are calling for masking and it won’t be long before a politician or two will come out and demand we save the NHS, again by complying with a mask mandate.

    From the Daily Sceptic:

    “Nicola Sturgeon is slammed for ‘making excuses’ about NHS chaos in Scotland as she urges people to wear face masks on public transport and if they have a cold – and claims the situation is even worse in England” – Facing questions at a pandemic-style press briefing, Nicola Sturgeon admitted hospitals were nearly full and urged people to wear masks and stay at home if unwell, the Mail reports.

    However, the evidence remains unchanged – at least outside the realm of the fact checkers.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/19c1b4126a63592d5d2498a2e68e17bbcddd32aab0d2a9f6ec464a47028f0d8c.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8913d5e1b0b78224676a044a429431d7b31c80eb911cb3d9eac39b9b2b72147e.png

    1. It was during the second lockdown when Boris said ‘you can meet family over Christmas’ that the whole country should have said ‘haaaannnnggggg on….’

        1. Neither did mine, my parents were being cautious. I understand and respect that.

          1. My parents are long dead. One son was imprisoned in Wales, the other unable to fly from Switzerland.

  19. ‘Morning, Peeps.  After yesterday’s spring-like sunshine today’s weather is reverting to normal – in other words lashing rain.

    Esther Rancid must have some kind of hold over the Letters Editor in order to get drivel like this printed:

    SIR – I would like to express gratitude for what Harry and Meghan achieved during their brief career as members of the Royal family.

    Their wedding was fun, moving and ground-breaking. The Invictus Games, created by Harry, have proved to be a morale-boosting showcase for disabled veterans to demonstrate courage and resilience.

    The presence of a mixed-race duchess exposed racist attitudes in the media, the establishment and the general population that have at last begun to be addressed.

    The support for vulnerable groups such as the Grenfell Tower fire victims has resulted in increased awareness and fundraising. And absurd allegations, such as the claim that Harry “harmed” the health of the late Queen Elizabeth (who herself pointed out the impact of the Covid she suffered) before she died aged 96, have exposed the ruthlessness of so-called “sources” – who, as Harry revealed, targeted him and his wife.

    Well done, Harry and Meghan, for showing us who we are. Our best hope is that we learn lessons from the sad loss of your talents and potential.

    Dame Esther Rantzen
    Lyndhurst, Hampshire

    The BTL posters are far from impressed; here’s the leading comment:

    Steve Jones5 HRS AGO

    As a foreigner I try to avoid commenting on high profile Brits – it’s not my business – I also have avoided any comment about the two idiots [no further explanation required I shouldn’t think] they are simply a waste of effort and life is far too short to be bothered with rubbish like those two.

    But in this one instance I will make an exception – Esther Rantzen is a complete and utter moron and why the DT letters editor feels obsessed in publishing her tripe near endlessly is beyond me – well unless the “takes one to know one” tag applies.

    Either that or Rantzen has the movie, the pictures and all the negatives of whatever it is that she has hanging over some peoples heads.

    2. Perhaps she wishes to do a ‘sympathetic’ interview with this down-trodden couple? I feel sure there must be a TV boss out there willing to pay handsomely for such a coup…..

    3. ‘Either that or Rantzen has the movie, the pictures and all the negatives
      of whatever it is that she has hanging over some peoples heads’.

      Jimmy Savile.

    4. Vulnerable groups? A bunch of welfare dependent foreigners sub sub sub letting? Give over. As it is, the cladding was likely pushed on for ‘climate change’ and was unnecessary. It skipped proper scrutiny in the desperation to meet a target – the only time the state does anything is when it can profit from it.

    8. Did tax payers pay for the £30 million wedding for the whingers?

      Can we demand our money back.

      £30 million , besides a mansion and land , what else would that amount buy?

    9. Whoever coined the phrase “over promoted typist” to describe Rancid had it spot on! “Moron” is too kind!

      1. Over-promoted typist with loose knicker elastic.
        She would empathise with an over-promoted ‘actor’ with loose knicker elastic.
        The Sisterhood sticking together.

    10. Whoever coined the phrase “over promoted typist” to describe Rancid had it spot on! “Moron” is too kind!

    11. Until her mixed race status (she, after all, regards her mixed heritage as a selling point ….. now it suits her agenda) was pointed out, I thought she looked to have Mediterranean roots. Not the African side of the med either.
      Maybe Megan will soon adopt an African-sounding name to further her claims to be an oppressed, discriminated-against black person.

    1. It’s almost as if Matt is unaware that Canute was proving to his brown-nosed followers that he couldn’t stop the tide.

  21. Good morning all. An absolutely foul start to the day, very dark with 2°C outside and it’s chucking it down.

    Not very comfortable at the moment, the knuckles on my middle & ring fingers on my right had have seized up and are more than a bit painful. Will have to see how they fare through the day.

    1. Have you a hot water bottle or heat pad you can put over the joints? If so,, that might help warm the fluid in them to aim movement and mobility?

      I find my knee aches more during cold weather and heat helps it a bit.

  25. Politics live with Andrew Sparrow. 10 January 2023.

    James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, summoned Iran’s most senior British-based diplomat after Tehran executed two more protesters over the weekend, PA Media reports. PA says Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini were executed by the Iranian authorities over the weekend, prompting widespread international condemnation, including from Pope Francis.

    Cleverly said:

    Today I have summoned the Iranian charge d’affaires to condemn in the strongest possible terms the abhorrent executions we witnessed over the weekend.

    The Iranian regime must end its campaign of brutal repression and start listening to the concerns of its people.

    The hypocrisy of it all!

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2023/jan/09/strikes-junior-doctors-bma-rishi-sunak-rail-unions-live-news

    1. The Saudi diplomat must have his own FCO pass, to cut down on the admin for his weekly visits.

  26. A BTL

    “I think, that rhe content in the letter from Dame Esther Rantzen is diametrically opposite to the view of the
    general population, when it comes to the behaviiour of Harry and his spouse”

    I wonder how long it will last….

    2. Westminster should be closed down and investigated for all sorts of crimes.
      It’s a stinking dungheap.

    3. The latest vegan craze is to outbid livestock farmers for land. They drive the price up to uneconomic levels and crowd fund to get the dosh to do it. The world’s gone mad.

      1. Probably will turn them in to sites for homeless gypsies next. Any landowner who sells to vegans must hate their neighbours.

    1. Now look here, Phizzee, haven’t we had enough of The Spare’s bulls!t today without more evacuation from him & his Missus?

    3. Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
      Thou art not so unkind
      As man’s ingratitude;
      Thy tooth is not so keen,
      Because thou art not seen,
      Although thy breath be rude.

  29. With the title of his book, I cannot get it out of my head, that he in part descibing himself”

    A SPARE p Rick at a wedding

  31. Morning all 😉 😊
    Another failure by the Brits, Newton four upper stage rocket failure.
    All that wasted money could have saved the NHS.

    1. Bit like the HS2, money to burn .

      Why hasn’t HS2 been cancelled , how much is it costing a day , and how much precious countryside is being desecrated .

      The project seems to be out of the limelight , why?

      The cost off the railway strike must be costing £millions .

      1. It’s just another one of our political ‘mistakes’.
        I think the rolling stock is supposed to be coming from Italy.

        1. How much has HS2 cost so far 2022?
          currently has a budget of £40.3bn, with a built-in contingency taking the total cost to £44.6bn.17 Oct 2022

      2. It’s an EU project, part of the TEN-T network. There is zero chance of anybody coming to his senses and cancelling it.

  32. Good morning all

    Oh dear , the wind and rain is endless , Moh believes the weather will go through quickly according to his weather alarm on his phone.

    After our coal delivery over a week ago , we also understand that will be our last delivery of the shiny stuff . It seems the DT letter writer has had the same information as us .

    SIR – I have just ordered my last delivery of household coal. Apparently, from May 1, coal will be unavailable in England and burning it will be banned.

    However, my coal merchant tells me that it is still available and can be used on domestic fires in Scotland and Wales. Smokeless fuel is just not the same. The majority of my fuel use is dried hardwood with less than 12 per cent moisture content. Coal is required for a fast start and heat buildup, as well as the creation of flame in an open fire.

    Jon Pearson
    Hope Valley, Derbyshire

    1. Morning Belle. I’m sure the Chinese with their 1,110 coal fired power stations appreciate your and Mr Pearson’s sacrifice!

    3. Will we be able to afford the petrol/diesel to travel to Scotland/Wales to load up the boot with coal and smuggle it back to England? Our leaders, if burning coal in England is really banned, are just totally living in dementia land.

      1. You are forgetting – this is the ban-everything government merely living up to its name. Last spring I bought a boot-full of sacks, and am about to do the same thing again next week. That lot, and what is left from the last purchsse, should be good for at least 2-3 winters. Unless where I live becomes the subject of a smoke order I shall continue to use it as an aid to getting the fire going. It will only be illegal to sell it, not use it, so fill yer boots!

        1. We have a shed load of coal in reserve. We use it at the end of the evening. 5 or 6 pieces go on the hot embers of the wood fire, and if damped down, they’re still slowly smouldering until lunch time the next day.

    4. After watching Portillo’s
      great railway journeys last night. And seeing the huge amount of traffic in Indian cities it makes me and probably many others feel we are becoming martyrs to the invention of ‘climate change’.
      No body else on the planet seems to give one.

    5. We burn wood when it’s cold.
      Depending on how you lay the fire, you can have huge radiant heat or jolly flames.
      Lay the logs flat, and you get a lot of hot.
      Have them standing propped up mostly vertical in the corner, and you get flames and less heat. Once you have embers, then you get both.

    6. I’m still using coal delivered 15 years ago, a small amount is used when I light the woodburner then it’s logs, peat and compressed sawdust bricks. The coal is cheap Columbian and is certainly not smokeless. There’s no such thing as a smokeless zone in the North of Scotland

      1. Good morning Spikey

        Compressed sawdust logs seem to be inordinately expensive but I hope that we have enough wood on site to last us for ever.

        Do you make your own compressed sawdust logs and if so, how do you do it? .

        1. Morning Richard ,I bought them from a local wood yard who make them, cost me £200 for 1/2 ton about 10 years ago, got approx half of them still. I have enough logs and trees in reserve to last me 20 years

        2. Morning Richard ,I bought them from a local wood yard who make them, cost me £200 for 1/2 ton about 10 years ago, got approx half of them still. I have enough logs and trees in reserve to last me 20 years

    7. I need kindling to get my Rayburn going (I use anthracite). Good job I stocked up with house coal then.

          2. No. But judging by the photo I’m pretty sure a Ginkgo Biloba was at the centre of things!

    2. This chap who resented the fact that other people were ahead of him in the line of succession set to work in a very much more stylish way than the Duke of Sussex is doing.

      The formidable suffragette in this clip fell to earth in the elegant London Square renowned for its singing nightingale!

      https://www.google.com/search?q=I+shot+an+arrow+in+the+air+Kind+Hearts+and+Coronets+clip&oq=I+shot+an+arrow+in+the+air+Kind+Hearts+and+Coronets+clip&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i160l2.189965j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:d6b91ab9,vid:NnD5kkhH5g4

        1. Remember the final words:

          “My memoirs, ah, my memoirs!”

          Mazzini (played by Dennis Price) suddenly realises that he has left his memoirs, in which he confesses to killing all his relatives, in the condemned cell after being released to a rapturous crowd of his supporters and admirers.

          Kind Hearts and Coronets must be one of the best English films of all time!

  34. Pasport Renewal Update:

    Friday 6th January 2023 pm used the local Post Office service to renew my Passport.

    Tuesday 10th January 2023 just before 10:00 my new passport was delivered….!

    Is this a record?

          1. 🙂 Aneurin Bevan. Not a particularly pleasant man, but at least he actually believed in something other than his bank balance.

  35. UK and EU hail Northern Ireland protocol breakthrough
    Brexit talks could be unlocked after mini-deal struck over EU access to UK databases on trade flows of goods and animals
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/01/09/uk-eu-hail-northern-ireland-protocol-breakthrough/

    Another sell out and complete capitulation to the EU which makes many people ashamed to be British

    Still after the rodents!

    BTL from Percival Wrattstrangler

    The only relevant question is this:

    Is Northern Ireland a part of the United Kingdom or is it an EU governed satellite?

    Boris Johnson and Michael Gove were traitors when they arrived in Brussels just as the ‘deal’ was about to be struck and forced Lord Frost to capitulate on both Northern Ireland and UK fishing rights – the two points upon which – until the arrival of these quislings – he had been firm.

      1. It is privte to one side and they should keep it that way. They should just shun him.

        2. Since they have been so mean to H&M, the two will clearly not want to attend the Coronation.

        1. …and judging from BTL and letters, even here in Norway, H&M are coming under increased fire.
          Let them continue and it’ll get worse.
          Don’t respond.

        1. Harry is goading and the RF must not rise to the bait.

          Do you remember that Paul Newman film Cool Hand Luke

          “Sometimes nothing is a real cool hand to play.”

          .

  37. Good Moaning.
    Persisting down again.
    Could someone please reverse the windmills; they’re working too well.

  39. My word are people really crowding into books shops pushing and shoving to take photographs of a book ?

  40. Now off to the funeral of a member of the bowls club. My age group go to far more funerals than weddings. My grandson’s wedding is next month.

    1. Caroline is our local parish organist. She plays at far more funerals than weddings – especially now that so many previously healthy fully Covid-jabbed parishioners are suddenly dying far too young.

      1. I do rather like organ music and recently have developed a love for medieval music,
        both of them spiritually uplifting as one would expect.

        1. It has taken me some time to enjoy medieval music but I love it now.

          Last year, I was lucky enough to be able to go to Masterclass organised by the conductor of a small French group specialising in medieval music: Ensemble Correspondances. It was the first, and only, time that I played a real harpsichord, which the group brought with them – absolutely wonderful. The only thing that’s stopping me getting one is the fact that it takes as long to tune it as you’re going to play it… and every day!

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtldDGTw6fA

          1. How wonderful, sounds amazing . Thank you for the link, I’ll look forward to playing it .

          4. Thanks Caroline, yes it will have a Celtic influence as a few of my compositions have. I can give you links to them if you like

  41. Good late morning from an Anglo Saxon Queen and daughter of Aifred of Wessex, with blooded axe and longbow in handbag, along with marmalade sandwiches.

    My axe would dearly like to find Harry the half- bloods treacherous neck.

    Its a grey, wet cold and messy day today .

  42. Chainsaw battery put on charge, it was too warm to charge last night, firewood sorted out for today and fires laid ready for lighting.
    I don’t think I’ll be doing much more outside today!

    1. Just sit by an open fire and read a book ( not that one ) drink tea and eat crumpets too

  43. ‘Morning All

    Totally off topic as an an insomniac I am often awake when the fascinating programme “How do they do that” is on,last night featured a major UK mining operation producing fertiliser run by ICL grand to see we can still run a world beating operation.

    I wanted to know more and here it is

    “ICL Boulby is the largest employer in the East Cleveland and the North

    York Moors National Park and will continue to be part of the region’s

    economic and social landscape for decades to come. In 2017, we reached a

    landmark of 1 million tonnes of polyhalite mined at ICL Boulby and we

    have got big plans for the future. We are the only ones mining it

    globally and with our expertise, we plan to mine 1 million tonnes per

    year by 2020. Learn more about polyhalite.”

    https://www.icl-uk.uk/about/
    We still need nitrogen based fertilisers as well but this is good news

    3. My interest in nuclear physics was sparked by the confirmation of the neutrino particle in a laboratory deep underground in the potash mine at Boulby. I was still at school and didn’t take it up as a regular study. I ended up as the chef of a large hotel in Scotland when I was sixteen and in an army command post before I was eighteen. The neutrino is a fascination particle, there are trillions passing through each person every second but they are almost impossible to identify because of their almost massless weight and incredible speed.

    4. I use horse manure on my roses (and rhubarb). Organic and biodegradable. I’m saving the planet, me 🙂

  44. Even More rain on the way from the south west.
    Perhaps they should have left the trees in the Amazon jungle alone.

  45. The parentage – and indeed the very existence of Archie and Lilibet – is now being called into doubt. Was surrogacy used to produce them or are they a couple of children whom the Sussexes rent for the occasional photo shoot?

    Harry gives sordid accounts of his sexual history and a few weeks ago Migraine was complaining that what is good for the goose should be good for the gander – i.e. if it is acceptable for a man to boast of his sexual exploits why should a woman be considered a slut if she does it. Indeed I raised this point when Nick Clegg boasted that he had slept with at least 30 women and that I was waiting to hear that his wife, Miriam González Durántez, had bedded at least 35 men!

    Just as the Norwegian Blue Parrot pines for the fjords I suspect that Harry will realise he has become middle-aged and he will pine once more for that field behind the Rattlebone Inn with a domineering woman who can beat his naked buttocks with her rolled copy of the Horse and Hounds magazine.

    Or will it be Migraine who pines for Knee-Trembler Alley in Downtown Canoga Park, LA. and is all agog to tell us all about it?

    1. Nick Clegg boasted that he had slept with at least 30 women

      if ever there was case for refusing women the vote this surely must be it!

      1. What a complete oaf. Clegg, you’re a crook. You’re a corrupt, bent, back hander taking slimeball.

          3. None of that was available in the 60s when we had a squadron ‘do’ in Amsterdam especially goggling at the girls in the windows.

            I suppose, like Bugis Street in Singapore, all that has been swept away.

          5. I went to Stuttgarterplatz in Berlin and Hamburg’s Reeperbahn in 1976. Thoroughly seedy and underwhelming. Nursing over-priced dumpies and trying to watch skin-flicks shown with a cine projector. Some even had sound!!!
            Never again.

          6. We’ve been to Singapore twice, stopping over on the way to Oz.
            Loved it, we were told the area opposite Clarke Key across the harbour use to be rather easy going.

          7. When I was in Germany I went out with a Dutch girl whose uncle owned one of those ‘houses’, we visited him once

          9. You couldn’t have been there in the 60s, John – or that’s not the street that ran by the canal.

          10. It’s called Kanalstraat – the name is superimposed on the picture. The correct names for the canals in the RLD are Oudezijds Vorburgwal and Oudezijds Achterburgwal. The streets have the same name as the canals. Neither is a “straat”.
            They have had those names since at least the fifteenth century. There has never been a Kanalstraat in the RLD.

          11. Slang term used by the armed forces to identify these streets, inhabited by prostitutes sitting half naked in a window to advertise their wares.

            So called because it runs by a canal.

          12. I know that – I’ve heard it myself from other squaddies. But it’s still incorrect.

    2. There’s photos of Migraine on the web showing she has a large bump in the morning and nothing in the afternoon on numerous occasions, also the bump keeps changing shape and position – all indicating it’s a prosthetic.
      Nick Clegg forgot to mention they were all blind

    3. Much as I despise Harry and Meghan, bringing the children into the battle in such a way is unnecessary.
      The rewards for getting a DNA that proved such allegations were true are such that it would already have been done by a disloyal servant.

      1. As we said to our children when they were little – if you keep on telling lies people will not believe you even when you tell the truth.

        1. “Recollections may differ”

          To be a successful liar one needs a fantastically good memory.

  46. Russia’s Flagship Oil Is Trading at Half Global Prices With Tiny Pool of Buyers. 10 January 2023.

    Russia’s flagship oil is selling at less than half international prices — and way below a Group of Seven imposed cap — following sanctions targeting the Kremlin’s revenue from petroleum sales.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-09/russia-s-flagship-oil-is-trading-at-half-global-prices-with-tiny-pool-of-buyers?leadSource=uverify%20wall

    Or you could read.

    Predicting Russia’s Next Move Against The Oil Price Cap. 10 January 2023.

    Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on countermeasures against the G7 oil price cap at the end of 2022.
    Even at $55 per barrel, Russia continues to make a healthy profit on the crude it sells.

    Russia could secure in very quick time at least three quarters of the shipping needed to move its oil as usual to established buyers.

    https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Predicting-Russias-Next-Move-Against-The-Oil-Price-Cap.html

    I prefer the latter, it is informed and free of the taint of partisanship!

  47. Breaking News – Satellite rocket failed on it’s mission because people weren’t wearing face masks

    2. The rocket motor had been detuned, to bring the noise down to an “acceptable level”…. oops

    3. Now don’t be silly Bob. It was clearly Brexit. Or Climate change. Or climate change caused by brexit.

    4. Get out on the streets, rob banks, smash shops and council offices – BLM – Booster Lives Matter!

  48. Morning Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4eae6d747109c26434178f4a335c82fc78a5fabdb824d5d65aa3d0c1029b689c.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0092623041eace07e47d89e00d6a0a398f965561c296c45c9582ae611118a0c8.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b0d6cf29fecc5f8826f807a6d3f8d7314b0ba54026ecd060a875685ac2d14c0c.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/89f9c50dab1dbbd948a3b054a22753c6afeedf8405661e36dbd797ae690acb9c.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/753b7f3902591c2fac599201855279cd8571abb512da4301e9152b3a54582fbb.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fed7e7f1dbcc1f42390eaecb3e2ef52280af3050e58945d38391ec4efd67db03.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c129552854f0afbd822117306a7d5fd818f5330b99bda64a821a6201558057fd.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/16804b5155d08680cfa98ba3e9c3a047ffa920576cb295e0c938666e021676f6.jpg

      1. But you have to admit those Chinese are damned ingenious… Hiding subs in the sea, who’d ever have thought of that…

          1. Only if the subs were yellow, surely – like elephants painting the soles of their feet yellow so they could hide upside down in custard 🙂

      1. Even if it’s as few as 1% of the total arriving legally from the ME and illegally on the dinghies I would put the numbers at at least 2,500.
        If only one in ten of those actually goes on to commit rapes or killings that suggests that there at least 250 very dangerous individuals about who we know next to nothing.

        1. There’s half a million illegal criminal immigrants in the country now. If we base the same criminal proclivity on the current ethnic population that’s 27% Of those, the majority crime is rape, child rape, theft and murder.

          1. I suspect your number overall might be nearer the truth, but I used “official” statistics and I tend to think that although over-staying student visas and the like makes them illegal, I don’t think the numbers of genuinely harmful individuals in that cohort is likely to be as high.

    2. I have a severely disabled cousin. Wheelchair bound, with hydrocephalus and a mental age of about two and a half though he’s a grown man in his fifties. He’s outlived both his parents and his two siblings. He’s a happy soul and seems oblivious to his tragic circumstances. His father died of a fragile heart, his mother of altzheimer’s, his brother of leukemia and his sister committed suicide.

      1. Terrible for the family and in many ways it’s good he’s oblivious.
        I don’t think Cole is suggesting that such lives should be extinguished, merely that the families cling onto a hope that won’t be fulfilled.
        I suspect most people have such relatives, perhaps not as bad, and they sympathise with the family but at the same time can see how much difficulty it causes for parents and siblings, particularly those who won’t get everything they would have wished for themselves because family life revolves around caring for the disabled child.

        1. Oh that’s exactly what happened. The mother in this case devoted her life to his care and to her involvement in charities connected to his ailments. She was 89 when the Alzheimer’s finally took her.

          1. I know of all too many cases where marriages have collapsed, children left to fulfil themselves and bitter resentments lasting lifetimes have remained.

            On a more positive note, the wonder is that so many do stay together as families.

    3. Sounds like the film ‘Minority Report’. Found guilty before you have committed the crime based on metrics. Of course it wouldn’t be long before such a system was abused.

      1. It’s a depressing analysis, but does the evidence suggest that the rosy image will prevail? I’m pessimistic

    4. Does every American convince themselves that their offspring is bound to be a mental retard?

        1. The Brazilian author Machado de Assis wrote his ‘Posthumous Memoire of Bras Cubas’ published in the UK as ‘Epitaph of a Small Winner’.

          Its conclusion was that he was a ‘small winner’ for having lived an expedient life and by not having children had spared them from the miseries of the world: “I had no progeny, I transmitted to no one the legacy of our misery”.

          1. Parents like the idea of grandchildren, but more of their offspring seem to be deciding they don’t want children, I guess partially because they feel the world is going down the drain.

            My own racism reflects my views, but the way the world is moving, having a white baby is doing the child no favours whatsoever.

    5. It made me think back to a cricket article I read yesterday about South Africa’s new T20 franchise which starts today.

      It bemoaned the lack of black (SA) players in the 6 teams. And the writer wonders why SA have reached a nadir in its cricket success/

      “There is also the question over the lack of Black African players in the tournament. There are just four included across the six teams.

      This is a pittance in a country where more than 80% of its 60 million inhabitants are Black.

      Unlike CSA competitions and South African national squads, there were no mandated selection targets along racial lines for the SA20 auction in September.

      The Proteas white-ball captain, Temba Bavuma, remained unsold, as did all-rounder Andile Phehlukwayo.”
      https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/64179960

      My bold.

    6. Interesting point about the relatively quick and easy victory over the Indians oops, Native Americans.
      The clash between modern and stone age man was only ever going to end way.
      But, yes, it could have given the Americans the idea that every race on earth would give in as quickly to literally superior fire power.
      Hence the miscalculations since WWII.

      1. That is why if alien space ships turned up we would have no choice but to try and destroy them.

        1. Poor old Gomorrah gets sidelined in the sleazy stakes – some words I penned some years ago:

          Gomorrah, twinned with Sodom, in ancient texts I read it,
          Symbolic of past decadence yet Sodom gets the credit,
          So come on all ye Gomarrites, restore your reputation,
          Gomarrise whene’er you can, in every single nation,
          Gomarrise by day and night, hastily, don’t tarry,
          Re-assert your Goma-rights, insist on full Gomarry.

  57. A pause in the weather has allowed me to get another couple of elms down from the clump I’m currently clearing.
    The ones I’m doing now was still green and I would normally have left them for a couple more years, but there is another clump that does need to come down adjacent to the road and this 1st lot are in the way of me getting it cleared.
    However, the saw battery is cooling down before it can be put on charge, so I’m off to do a mug of tea!

      1. We get elms that self seed up here, but when they get to 6″ to 12″ diameter, the Dutch elm fungus gets to them and kills them off.
        Sad, but at least it’s a source of ready seasoned firewood.

          1. Most of what I’ve cut today are suckers, but the dead trunk I felled yesterday would have been self seeded.
            The one clump planning to drop over the next week or so is similar.

      1. I’m pleased when I get out of bed in the morning, let alone the incredible work of building Fort Bob.

    1. That *is* Labour’s policy. They’re going to ignore it completely and encourage the flow of dangerous criminal immigrants.

  59. Oh dear, health experts have warned that ‘simplistic explanations’ are not acceptable in reference to the 9 percent rises in deaths. Noticeably the media have seemingly avoided reference to strokes and cardiology problems.
    These don’t seem to count.

    1. Funny how inconvenient statistics are ‘simplistic explanations’ yet their presentations must be obeyed without question.

    2. But simplistic solutions, such as masks, social distancing and shutting down the economy were acceptable and advised by those self-same experts.

    3. The Bastion of Truth aka BBC reports:

      ‘The rise in cardiac problems has been pointed to by some online as evidence that Covid vaccines are driving the rise in deaths, but this conclusion is not supported by the data.
      One type of Covid vaccine has been linked to a small rise in cases of heart inflammation and scarring (pericarditis and myocarditis). But this particular vaccine side-effect was mainly seen in boys and young men, while the excess deaths are highest in older men – aged 50 or more.
      And these cases are too rare – and mostly not fatal – to account for the excess in deaths’.

      1. The problem is…..if as I had, previous cardiology problems, atrial fibrillation, that had been under control due to catheter ablation for nearly 6 years. Less than 4 weeks after the first covid jab it briefly came back. For around four weeks. Then after the second jab it started again. Briefly subsided then flu jab was administered, the atrial fibrillation came back with vengeance and lasted nearly 18 months.
        At the moment it’s almost impossible to see a cardiologist they all seem to be far too busy.
        Although with great expectations
        I had a cardioversion in August it only lasted three months.
        And feeling very sad and disappointed I have to wait weeks just to see someone when if they don’t already understand what needs to be done to rectify
        the problem, I’d go so far as to
        suggest they might even be in the
        wrong profession.
        The dissatisfaction and disappointment of patients is very worrying and something very obvious and very urgent needs to be done about this.

        Possibly in private practice.

        2. My OH had never had any inkling of heart trouble……… until mid-October when he collapsed while playing table tennis. He was dizzy and breathless, but recovered quite quickly. It happened again, and eventually I persuaded him to see the GP. We got an appointment the same morning. You know what happened later.

          Was it the three jabs he had? I guess we’ll never know.

          1. Well, Jules, the medical PTB are NEVER going to tell you the truth – nor even look for it…..

          2. And they won’t admit it even if they know.
            Everyone I’ve spoken to in the NHS about the association with covid jabs and heart Problems has indicated I’m in the ball park.

      2. What I do say is that Caroline and I are both very pleased that we followed the advice of our doctor who told us not to have the jabs. We both had Covid very mildly last February when quite a lot of our fully jabbed friends and family had it quite nastily.

        And Caroline, who plays the organ at local funerals, can see that the rate of sudden unexplained deaths amongst the fully Covid jabbed in the parish are twice as high as they were 2 years ago. Paul Simon’s song about The Boxer comes to mind:


        I have squandered my resistance
        For a pocketful of mumbles
        Such are promises
        All lies and jest
        Still a man hears what he wants to hear
        And disregards the rest

        One could interpret this as meaning that those who have received the Covid gene therapy have squandered their natural immunity.

  60. Could’ve sworn this is mispelt.
    Wordle 570 5/6

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

      1. 4/6 for me and only just managed to solve quordle today.

        I hate it when you have four letters and need to guess the fifth letter from a number of viable options.

    3. Five for me to.

      Wordle 570 5/6

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

    4. I’ve bounced back from yesterday’s shocker.
      Wordle 570 2/6

      ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    5. Birdie Three for me.

      Wordle 570 3/6
      ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  61. I see that a bookshop offering Brash’s memoir had to put up with a queue as many as ONE deep –

      1. I think Madam has already dropped him.
        He seems to be turning up for interviews on his own, whereas before she clung to him like a leech.

        1. I still think she is livid about the publicity he has generated – and, of course, is too dim to see that it is terrible.

          1. That is my feeling.
            Humour is a most effective weapon.
            Public anger is fine – it’s just more attention. Mockery is devastating.

  63. No let up with this weather , the sound of the wind has given me a headache . Garden is a quagmire .

    Moh and I tidied out a bureau drawer.. the trouble is I now feel quite tearful especially after reading old letters and cards from long gone relatives , their voices come through their words , also found some photos .

    Time has runaway so quickly from the celebration of my 60th b/day, Moh’s b’day and the boys special 30’s and 40’s ..

    One drawer and the inside of the bureau too nearly 2 hours , we have a five bedroom house to de clutter , it is going to take forever .

    Things to do on a very wet day eh?

    2. I have stacks and stacks of old letters and photos – they are good for whiling away some time when the weather’s bad. I’m not good at decluttering though.

    3. It must be catching; I spent a bit of time going through the drawers of my desk today. In my defence, I was looking for something, not decluttering (I’m a terrible hoarder). I didn’t find it.

    1. Andrew Doyle’s Sunday evening GB News programme had a very sensible Indian guy (Tommy someone) on this subject.

      Along the lines of, when his parents came over from the Punjab in the 60s a) they were escaping the countryside and weren’t inclined to go visiting it in England and b) were too busy working to build themselves and their families a better life. However their children and grandchildren are quite happy to visit.

      He also asked how many of us had visited a Sikh Gudwanah? (not me and i grew up in Wolverhampton). The point being, Sikhs welcome everyone in their Temples as long as you dress and behave appropriately- you (indigenous Brits) don’t visit because it’s a bit alien to us. But it needn’t be. We just need to get off our backsides and visit, if we want to.

      1. My husband’s nephew married a Sikh girl whose parents were expelled from Uganda. She’s quite happy to go on country walks with the rest of the family.

    2. Andrew Doyle’s Sunday evening GB News programme had a very sensible Indian guy (Tommy someone) on this subject.

      Along the lines of, when his parents came over from the Punjab in the 60s a) they were escaping the countryside and weren’t inclined to go visiting it in England and b) were too busy working to build themselves and their families a better life. However their children and grandchildren are quite happy to visit.

      He also asked how many of us had visited a Sikh Gudwanah? (not me and i grew up in Wolverhampton). The point being, Sikhs welcome everyone in their Temples as long as you dress and behave appropriately- you (indigenous Brits) don’t visit because it’s a bit alien to us. But it needn’t be. We just need to get off our backsides and visit, if we want to.

    3. If they don’t like the countryside which has white people in it why do they come to a country where the indigenous population is white in the first place?

    4. Well, it is awful Belle….but I am going to be controversial; who here still funds the BBC?
      There is only one language they understand.

      1. I’m afraid we do – I wouldn’t but OH likes to watch quite a lot now he’s home.

        I didn’t bother turning it on while he was away for five weeks.

        1. While MB was in hospital I had a week where, apart from the occasional GBNews in the evening, Allan Towers was a telly free zone.
          It was bliss.

    3. his fibs are not proof of any mischief by his good wife. Difficult to explain adequately here, but I recall a young lady who was able to give birth in the late afternoon, admittedly in London, and was home within about two hours. A bit like a seal, though she was much more glamorous.

      1. Given that on a good journey it takes nearly an hour and a half to drive, let alone between 5:30 and 7:30 am, unless they were “blue lighted or an equivalent” I doubt he’s being accurate with his recollections.

      2. My eldest surviving cousin, a farmer’s daughter and a farmer’s wife, was doing the laundry in an outhouse on the farm, felt “pangs” – went indoors and delivered her son herself, “tidied him up” and herself – and went back to finish seeing to the washing machine….

        1. My father had stories of seeing women in West Africa give birth in the fields, have the baby bound to their backs and continue working.

    4. Our daughter was home within 2 hours, but it was her second baby and during Convid!
      There is a rumour that megain already has a daughter!

      2. The terrible thing about the photos during her ‘pregnancy’ was that the bump kept on moving, and changed size! No wonder she had to keep holding onto it!

    7. And Migraine was well up her thirties when Archie was born so she would have been considered an old mother Caroline was 31 when Christo was born and she stayed in hospital for several days so that she could rest as they thought that she was old to be having her first baby. She was 33 when Henry was born but my mother had me, her third baby, when she was 42.

    8. “Elderly primigravida”. Even I was surprised when I saw that applied to 3rd. granddaughter’s mother.

          1. She was a bit shocked to see that in her notes. Her first was born a week after my second, she was three years older than me. Sadly she died aged 60.

    1. Biden is in Mexico. You cannot expect the weather to behave while the great messiah is out of the country.

  67. I was just looking for my father, he was here a moment ago, say hello if you see him
    .

        2. My dad was especially fond of that picture. I do recall the last time I saw him. He was born in 1907 so of course no longer with us.

          2. I was with my mother and my two sisters when my father died in Southampton General Hospital in 1984 – he was almost 86 and I was 37. I did not meet Caroline until I was 40 in 1986 so she never met him – she would have loved him and he would have found her the very best of wives for his wayward son.

    3. Was busy this morning and resting this afternoon watching North and South on DVD.
      Hope you are well daughter.

      1. Hello father, excellent choice of DVD, glad you are well, I am too, .
        not too many Vikings around here these days .

  69. Well, my cough became laryngitis today. I was supposed to be giving a talk in Bristol tomorrow but have had to pull out. My intended audience are deaf but that actually makes it more important to be there in person and be able to speak clearly.

      1. Yes. The problem is getting the whole team together and they were all available tomorrow apart from their regular interpreters but someone had been found to fill in in that capacity.

      1. Just about everyone we know has had cough/cold/something chesty over the past fortnight or so.

        1. We’ve been ok here, apart from OH’s troubles. No infections or bugs, but we haven’t been out much.

    3. What an absolute bummer. If you were paranoid, you’d think the lurgy had deliberately picked its moment.
      You could follow a friend’s (accidental) treatment: drink a bottle of Baileys, pass out for 24 hours and wake up bouncing with health.

      1. It’s like the hat cure for a cold – go to bed with a hat and a bottle of whisky; put the hat on the foot of the bed and drink the whisky until it starts dancing. The next day you’ll feel so awful that you won’t notice the cold!

    5. Oh no, poor you Sue.

      It is such a nasty virus .

      Anway , the weather is vicious and there is a weather warning for even worse weather for the next three days .

    6. If they are deaf, it shouldn’t matter that you can’t make a sound; they should be able to lip read 🙂

    1. Simple failure to understand local rules. The phones were there for the taking – so they took them. Simple! Teenage prank, anyway….

    4. Astonishing really, but I suppose the state gives them everything, so they assume they can take what they like.

      The solution is to get rid of them. To remove them from civilised society and depositing them in their own – somewhere else.

  71. That’s me gone for this wet day. Hope tomorrow is better. Fat chance!

    Have a smooth evening writing your memoirs.

    A demain

  72. 369639+ up ticks,

    Are queues of one commonplace ?

    Lone reader queues for Prince Harry’s release of Spare

    1. I got the impression that several prominent bookshops had several times more photographers queueing up to take photos of people buying the book than there were customers!

      1. Photos required by lying journos, who wish to get another photo to spin another “AWFUL” story about the spare (prick).

    2. In my local rag, the poll entitled “Would you buy a copy of Spare?” has “No, I’m not interested” at 91%.

    3. Our local Tesco had a pile of discounted “SPARE” books.

      None appeared to have been taken from the pile.

    2. Did they make this up?

      “Finally, figures up to June 2022 looking at deaths from all causes show unvaccinated people were more likely to die than vaccinated people.”

      3. Is that the fourteen day dodge? As in, not vaccinated till fourteen days after the jab but actually already dead by then?

          1. Anecdotal evidence suggests yes but there won’t be any official tally of how many drop dead within two weeks of taking the injection?

    3. Must be a spoof, all of the photos are of white people and that would never be allowed on the BBC.

  75. Good news, folks!
    Paul Burrell is now on the front page of the Mail giving his opinion of Spare. This means it’ll be over soon!

    1. With a pity of luck he’ll qualify not just for Military Service but a Military Death – screaming like a banshee.

  78. People in California are being advised to leave certain areas because of severe flooding.
    A recent famous author and his family included. When asked if he’s planning to move out said, “It can’t be rushed, I’ve got a book up my passage”.

  80. Out of touch?

    After dumb and dumber met during the joint conference in Mexico with Obrador, the White House announced.

    “President Biden recognized Prime Minister Trudeau for taking decisive steps to promote global energy security.”

    Hell, what planet are they on? Trudeau has steadfastly refused to allow any oil or gas pipelines or development. He refused to consider LNG exports to Germany, making the claim that there is no business case to support the program, his ever increasing carbon tax is killing the resource industry but Biden calls that promoting global energy security!

    He really is past his best by date!.

    1. With all the legal protections in employment law etc. We should ban the right to strike for key services. If you are not happpy find another job.

  82. Biden’s residency is unravelling. He evidently retained top secret highly classified federal documents in a room in Pennsylvania State University for six years from his time as Vice President to Obama. Penn State is a recipient of millions of dollars from the CCP.

    This makes a mockery of the FBI raid on President Trump’s home and the appointment of a special prosecutor to go after Trump. Interestingly the documents were discovered just prior to the mid-term elections and details were deliberately withheld.

    The SCI graded classified documents relate to Ukraine, Iran and UK. The Obamas were of course spying on us as they had done on Merkel in Germany. We can guess at Biden’s interest in concealing classified documents on Ukraine and Iran.

    As each day passes we see more revelations about the corruption of the political class in many countries.

    A clown Zelensky attends the Golden Globes in US as his countrymen are defeated in Donbass dying in the tens of thousands. The situation there is akin to the slaughter of WWI.

  83. Evening, all. I finally managed to get the electrician to install a new light fitting in the bathroom (I’ve had no light in there for at least a week). It was dark by the time he’d finished, so he’s coming back on Monday in the daylight to fit new switches in the dining room and hall. That’s one thing ticked off my list!
    My quarrel with the headline is that “approach” implies that he’s thought about it. He seems to be totally incapable of rational thought or he’d never go about things the way he does.

  85. While it may amount to a paltry sum for a man accused of misappropriating billions of dollars, we’re at least starting to get a clue as to where some of the money that was being “handled” by FTX was going – other than, of course, the Democratic Party.

    A new report out this week details that FTX spent “nearly $40 million” on “expenses” that included things like hotel, entertainment and flights. The information came to light during FTX’s bankruptcy proceedings and was reported on by Insider.

    The culprit was the entities Bahamian entity, called FTX Digital Markets. Though it didn’t report any customer revenue, it had no problem spending. For example, Insider found that from January 2022 to September 2022 alone, the company spent $15.4 million on luxury hotels and accommodations.

    $5.8 million alone was spent at the Albany Hotel, described as an “oceanside resort with its own yacht marina and golf course”. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried lived at a $30 million penthouse in Albany, where high end rooms can sometimes cost as much as $60,000 per night.

    FTX also spent $3.6 million at the 4 star Grand Hyatt, the report says. The hotel was recently featured for hosting the reception for Prince William and Kate, Princess of Wales.

    And it turns out that customers aren’t the only people that Alameda Research is indebted to: bankruptcy filings found that the sister entity of FTX also owes $55,000 to the Margaritaville beach resort. Staff reported that FTX employees stayed in about 20 suites for “several months”.

    Finally, what good is a hotel if you can’t eat? FTX also spent $6.9 million on meals and entertainment, including catering services. $3.9 million was additionally spent on flights, the report concludes.”

  86. Halfway through watching The Capture season 2 on iPlayer. What a cracker it is. Another 3 episodes to go.
    Holliday Grainger stars. David Yip, the Chinese Detective from the 80s, has a small part as the Chinese Ambassador.
    Worth watching.

  87. Evening all. A bit late in the day but a quote below about furthe capitulation by the U.K. to the EU. I had put some of this on nottl the other day and someone, maybe wibbling?, said what about in the other direction. Well here it says it is a one way deal. It’s about EU access to U.K. IT systems.

    “There is no reciprocity in the deal agreed. We will not have access to EU IT systems, even though the EU will be sending goods into Northern Ireland.” From the Daily Express. Link below.

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1719199/brexit-news-northern-ireland-protocol-cleverly-sefcovic-ben-habib

  88. Goodnight and God bless, Gentlefolk. Dressing change tomorrow and a visit from someone who might get me cheaper accommodation in Annan.

  90. “Cry, cry as the wild light passes along-
    The Dong, the Dong!
    The wandering Dong through the forest goes!
    The Dong, the Dong!
    The Dong with the luminous nose!”

    I mention this because I had a piece of rough skin on my nose yesterday, which I scratched. It bled and bled. And now I have a red scab on the end of my nose and thought of the Lear rhyme. As you can imagine I won’t be entering Ms World anytime soon.

    Am heartily sick of this ghastly weather- will it ever end. I want sun and warmth.

    2. Good night Oh Muse of Sir Walter Scott

      Rather vulgar, I’m afraid – but keep it behind the spoiler if you don’t like vulgarity

      All the lady apes ran from King Kong
      For his dong was excessively long,
      But a friendly giraffe
      Quaffed his yard and a half
      And ecstatically burst into song.

      I do hope that Plum is in good spirits and that we’ll see her here again soon. As well as being an enthusiast for the Travelling Willburys and George Harrison she enjoys off-colour limericks

    3. Take a tour to Dubai, Ann.
      Warm there, country isn*t dry, and only 7 hours flight away. Oh, yes, and they have an indoors ski slope.

  91. Today I went to the cinema to watch Tom Hanks in A MAN CALLED OTTO and Olivia Colman in EMPIRE OF LIGHT, directed by Sam Mendes. Both are excellent films which I highly recommend. Good night to everyone, and sleep well.

  92. Justin Welby defends £100m fund to ‘address past wrongs of slavery’ as churches struggle
    Pledge comes despite ‘stretched’ finances of parishes facing economic crisis
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/10/justin-welby-defends-100m-fund-address-past-wrongs-slavery-churches/

    BTL

    The Archbishop of Canterbury is worried that Prince Harry is beginning to challenge his position as the most stupid English man in public life.

    But this latest nonsense is likely to push his SQ* up considerably and put him fully back into contention.

    *(SQ = Stupidity Quotient)

    1. Welby is an oaf, put in position by Cameron (from memory) to replace an even worse charlatan now ensconced as a Master of some formerly great but now crap Cambridge College.

      Cambridge has since gone to the dogs. Beholden to CCP money I suspect and see with my own eyes.

      Churches are and throughout history have been local enterprises. They depend upon the efforts and goodwill of parishioners, not on the benefices of the Church Commissioners, a body more akin to the worst property developers in our country.

      Parishes mostly object to the stifling conformity of the commands of the goons put in position by the gift of politicians.

    2. Also posted BTL:

      Another cleric who knows not of what he speaks.
      When are you going lambast the Arab and Africans who even today perpetuate the slave trade?
      No mention of Wilberforce and the Royal Navy who put a stop to the Atlantic slave-ships

      1. One does wonder how many high churchmen in the churches’ past have had more than a little dabble in slavery for profit.

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