Friday 13 January: Hard-up parishes despair as the Church jumps on another bandwagon

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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611 thoughts on “Friday 13 January: Hard-up parishes despair as the Church jumps on another bandwagon”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolk, a story for today.

    The Building Permit
    Some have asked what I’ve been doing in retirement.
    Well, I applied for a building permit for a new house.

    It was going to be 100 ft. tall and 400 ft. wide, with 12-gun turrets at various heights, and windows all over the place and a loud outside entertainment sound system.

    It would have parking for 200 cars and I was going to paint it green with pink trim.

    Then I was gonna hire some idiot to stand on top of it and SCREAM as loud as he could three or four times a day.

    The City Council told me: Forget it…AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN!
    So, I sent in the application again, but this time I called it a “Mosque”.

    Work starts on Monday. And here is the best part, it’s going to be tax exempt!
    I love this country. It’s the government that scares me.

    1. Another first class joke, although bitter-sweet comment on the way things are going.

  2. Good morning,. everyone. First! PS – Oops, I was second by a few microseconds. Now to read Tom’s joke.

      1. What baffles me is that i can touch-type at great speed, and my morning message is brief, but somehow you manage to post a several paragraph joke instantly when Geoff open the new day’s page. How do you do it? (No, I’m not pretending to be Gerry and the Pacemakers.)

          1. I’m not a paedophile, but I think I must seek out a 12-year of the opposite sex to marry me or move in and show me how to do all of this stuff. I didn’t understand a single thing of your latest post except the 6Ps, i.e. Perfect Preparation, etc.)

          2. … anyhow, I’m off for the rest of the day in order to attempt to connect my Microsoft laptop and Apple iMac to a new Epson Eco-tank printer. I may be some time!!!

          3. Things panned out differently today, but I hope to tackle the Eco-tank printer tomorrow.

          4. WORD is a word processing program Elsie and used by those of us with literary pretensions. Write and then Copy & Paste!.

          6. All the funnies are in one huge document entitled A Bumper Joke Book, so it’s the next on the list (in the contents) that is already prepared.

            I’ve been collecting funnies since 1998.

      1. It’s not nice to laugh out loud at others’ misfortunes, Minty. Oh… you meant “Lots of Love” (© Bill Thomas).

  5. ‘My hands were boiled and my fingernails were pulled out by the Russians. I was a living corpse’. 13 January 2023.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/07b7521476d9e15ae55feddf94fbb5fad8dc2c1890237f203702202eb4955629.png

    Oksana Minenko, 44, an accountant, who lived in Kherson, was repeatedly detained and tortured by Russian troops.

    She lost her husband, a Ukrainian soldier, on the first day of Moscow’s full-scale invasion, when he was killed defending the city’s Antonovsky bridge.

    Even though her partner had died, Ms Minenko was subjected to brutal interrogations as Russians attempted to extract details of Ukraine’s military.

    “One pain grew into another,” she said, detailing how the Russians sunk her hands in boiling water, pulled out her fingernails and beat her with rifle butts.

    Since the hands in the photograph show no signs of injuries (rather the opposite) what is its purpose?

    It is of course impossible at this remove in space and time for my to disprove these allegations, but they are in my view deeply suspicious. Though it’s not entirely analogous; due to an accident in my youth, I lost both of my large toe nails and it took forever for them to grow back and this was due to impact, not removal, and does severe scalding really heal in nine months? Did she seek medical help for these injuries and where is the Doctors testimony? Where and who are the people who must have cared for her while she was incapacitated?

    The rest is no clearer. One would like to know for example why the Russians would think that an accountant in occupied territory would know about the Ukrainian military? Why after her first experience did she not, in vulgar parlance, just leg it? Why in fact did the Russians allow her this opportunity?

    I admit to some prior scepticism. I have seen enough Ukie propaganda; Mass Graves that turn out to be cemeteries, Genocide with no victims, Air Strikes where casualties never occupy hospital beds etc. so that their credibility with myself is essentially exhausted. My default position with them as with the wider war is to believe none of it!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/01/12/hands-boiled-fingernails-pulled-russians-living-corpse/

    1. “Since the hands in the photograph show no signs of injuries (rather the opposite) what is its purpose?” – Alamy stock photo, used to illustrate the story in case we thick plebians do not know what hands are – like most other stories in the press, needing a picture to show the bleedin’ obvious. Radio report on traffic? Whooshing vehicle sounds behind the voiceover, often so loud you cannot hear the words. TC story on traffic? Filmed on a motorway bridge. Paper story on torture of hands – photo of hands. I guess Alamy don’t have a photo of boiled hands lacking fingernails.
      Bah!

    2. Artillery attacks with no shrapnel or shell holes, and conveniently placed burning vehicles. Huh.
      Bomb attacks on hospitals where there were no bedclothes or other equipment, and conveniently neatly removed all the windowframes. Huh.

    3. We’ve been through all this before, and I would have thought those reporting atrocities would know the ropes by now.

      The Nuremburg Trials after WW2 were specifically set up to sift between fact and propaganda. Considering that both sides were extensively using disinformation as a military tool, then the ratio of fact to fiction was almost certainly tiny. From this, the court had to find out what really happened, which they did.

      Even today, some say that the extermination camps of the Third Reich were built by the Jews and the Poles to discredit the honourable and liberating forces of the Fatherland. I have been to Auschwitz myself recently and can testify that it was indeed Poles and Jews that built a lot of it, but I don’t think they particularly wanted to. Yes, a lot of it was found in ruins when the Allied troops arrived, and the evidence disappeared.

      Nevertheless, the Court had to piece together what really happened and who was really responsible, and I think they did this adequately.

      For me, I would be more convinced this were a Ukrainian propaganda exercise if the Russians could show intact cities and civilians going about their daily business under Russian “liberation”. Despite there being a major war between Russia and Ukraine, I have yet to see from Russian sources evidence of destruction and atrocities carried out by Ukrainian forces within sovereign Russia.

    4. Her nails are in better condition than mine. In fact mine never grow to that length.
      And her boiled skin appears to have recovered pretty well.

    1. Tory MP Chris Skidmore – who wrote the report – was commissioned by former prime minister Liz Truss to review the government’s delivery of net zero, to ensure it was “pro-growth and pro-business”.

      Labour’s shadow climate secretary, Ed Miliband, said ministers’ lack of “urgency and consistency” was “depriving our country of the economic opportunities climate action offers”.

      And Green MP Caroline Lucas said the review itself shied away from calling for “truly transformative measures to end our dependence on dirty, dangerous fossil fuels”.

      The delusions of the Ruling Class!

      1. Economic opportunities through climate action, eh? What might those be? Ruination?
        All windmills come from Denmark, and increasingly, China.
        Nobody is going to make good, sustainable business on building dams for hydropower – the EU won’t let them.
        It’s like the Greens said here a seven-eightyears ago – we’ll all run bicycle repair shops.

      2. In a modern society the need for cheap, reliable and plentiful energy is ubiquitous. Whether it’s producing goods, food, heating and cooking, or even disposing of sewage, energy is required.
        I am unable to understand the ideological position of the likes of Miliband, Lucas or any greeniac who claim to defy the laws of physics when it comes to energy production. Producing energy from the weather i.e. solar and wind is inherently unreliable, and as for battery storage, a Finnish government report has concluded that the rare earth elements do not exist in sufficient quantity for the manufacture of the batteries required.

        …”truly transformative measures to end our dependence on dirty, dangerous fossil fuels”.

        What, exactly, does this word salad mean in terms of a reliable energy source? It’s vacuous tripe!

        1. Don’t forget the huge amount of energy consumed by the Cloud server centres – a significant proportion of the world CO2 loading (if you care about these things) – pretty well all to do with cooling the servers and drives.

          1. But the jobsworth of my local gas supply company, citing Safety Regs say that self-combusting batteries next to a propane bulk tank is deemed by the Industry Code to be perfectly safe, since it is mobile.

        3. Truly transformative in that the plebs will have to do without the basics necessary for life.

      3. ‘Morning Minty and Peeps.

        Setting aside for the moment that Skidmark has no qualifications whatsoever to carry out such a vitally important review and which may well impoverish this country for generations to come and who, furthermore, has been captured by the eco-loons because of this major drawback, he would do well to read the fire and venom of the BTL posters this morning, virtually all of whom are seething…all 2090 of them, which is unheard of bearing in mind that the DT’s item on this subject only went up late yesterday evening! Here are just a few:

        Andy Rushton8 HRS AGO

        Sadly most people haven’t a clue about the expense and the futility of net zero. I tried to have a sensible discussion with a colleague with a physics degree who just closed it down with a “well I think we’re going to have to disagree about this”. They’ve been told by David Attenborough that it’s vital or the polar bears will drown, they’ve no idea how little CO2 the UK produces on a world scale (if that even matters) and the BBC’s never going to tell them that, and they’ve seen a graph with a picture of a hockey stick on it. That’s all the evidence they need isn’t it?

        Gary Halstead11 HRS AGO

        This is what happens when fanatical greens take over the reins of power. Absolutely no interest in reality, only their obsession with the demonstrably false (many peer reviewed papers rebutting the assertions of the green blob but ignored by green virtue signalling ministers) AGW climate change.

        The ecoloon cabal will have us all back hunter gathering (except there’ll be no hunting as we’re all to be vegan by diktat) and living in our single storey wattle and daubs in no time.

        Not that the WEF greenscammer clan will be or their rich elitist chums who’ll all be living happily in their gated communities laughing at us, the commonality, for being such idiots as to let them get away with the biggest fraud in the history of the world that allowed them to inflict a new age vassalage and many of us even helped them!

        The greenscammers and the Ecoloons that are forcing it upon us must be stopped or it really will be 14th Century living conditions for us.

        I long thought that the ecoloons controlling Johnson when he was PM were Zac Goldsmith & Carrie but I’m coming to see just how many more deluded greens the LibLabConUniparty has & particularly the Civil Service who will use every means to block initiatives they don’t agree with, no matter how damaging to the UK it is.

        When dealing with these people, the phrase ” The truth doesn’t mind being questioned , a lie doesn’t like being challenged ” must be kept in mind because they have completely stifled any debate by all means at their disposal being unable to rebut the challenges that destroy their green nonsense and show it for what it is, a hoax built on lies to scam the public.

        Michael Staples11 HRS AGO

        Net Zero must be the most damaging and self-destructive policy ever adopted in the UK. Are these politicians completely blind to the counter arguments, which are:

        (1) There is no Climate Emergency that needs urgent decarbonisation, as evidenced by countless scientific studies of CO2 and the world temperature.

        (2) Even if there were anthropogenic global warming, sacrificing our industry and ruining our western lifestyle is completely pointless unless other countries do so as well, which they will not.

        David Moran11 HRS AGO

        (Lynda Moran)

        Mr Skidmore, you are galactically stupid. What on earth is this ‘race’ we are taking part in and who the hell cares if we lose? Why do we always have to blindly follow the nonsense spouted by other countries? The only race we are in is a race to the bottom – who can take us back to the Dark Ages first? We implemented ruinous and unnecessary lockdowns just because China and Italy did it, with no critical thought or cost/benefit analysis – as my mother used to say; if they put their hands in the fire, would we do it, too? When are we going to say ‘enough is enough’? We are sick and tired of being hectored, harangued, harassed and preached to, whether about the covid hysteria or the ‘climate crisis’. You and your fellow cultists, Mr Skidmore, need to leave us alone and go do something useful for a change, like addressing the fact that the country is burning while this so-called ‘government’ fiddles.

        Simon Pearson11 HRS AGO

        I’m sick to death of this net zero lunacy scam.

        All those vested interests whose careers are linked to fudged data and unscientific hokum, billionaires who think they walk in water because they have a few quid and want some worthy cause to make themselves feel good, and fundament kissing politicians aided by virtue signalling gullibles who have swallowed the propaganda narrative hook line and sinker.

        Andrew Ross11 HRS AGO

        Seriously, I cannot even be civil or polite any more.

        Will these people please just £€$¢ off and leave us alone.

        2. Even in the 14th century the peasant could still gather wood (as opposed to timber) to feed his fire.

    2. I wonder why the media is continually hiding the facts. Everytime any footage is shown from South American or Asian countries the streets are rammed front to back with vehicles of all kinds.
      But it’s always our media that is involved when it’s suggested that it is we who are directly responsible for what they love to keep calling climate change.
      We have been chosen by the Dopey Wokies to become absolute martyrs to their invented cause.

    1. But only one today, Bill. Some years have two, and occasionally one has three Friday the 13ths.

  8. 369903+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Dt,

    Sadiq Khan has damaged London far more than Brexit has done
    The Mayor of London’s refusal to move on from Brexit masks his own failures

    Face facts more than Brexit & hitler combined had ever done, many a pearly King / Queen would be right in asking WHY it was handed over to foreign overseeing elements to start with.

    London, a DIY Trojan horse.

    1. To answer your question ogga1:

      It was handed over to foreign elements because the voters of London wanted that.

      Why they wanted that is another question entirely.

        1. It was. Due to what was called an administration error the vast majority of Jewish people in thier London communities didn’t receive their ballot papers.
          How did that useless little shiite get away with that.

          1. a) That was the intended outcome all along, or
            b) The Slammers would riot and show themselves for what they are – and the PTB cannot have that.

          2. And that Obs is why that nasty POS should not have been allowed to continue in this position.

      2. 369903+ up ticks,

        Morning J jh,

        “Why they wanted that is another question entirely”

        The same can be asked in regards to the Country.

  9. Morning all. This is actually quite interesting. We know Scotland offers “free” (sic) university places to “Scottish students” (not sure if EU students still get these “free” places) but the numbers are limited. How many “Scottish” students put their hands in their pockets and leave to study in England, Wales or Northern Ireland? If they leave, will they go back to Scotland? A fascinating long-term study awaits. Also, David Frost was interesting on the subject of calling Sturgeon’s bluff on the Scottish “Gender Recognition Act”, saying that “ Devolution has gone too far and the SNP is able to exploit, for its own purposes, powers on many issues normally exercised at national level.” Also that there can be no appeasement – no appeasing is possible. Anyway that was a digression from the article in question, about social engineering in Scottish universities.

    “TEENAGERS from average backgrounds have “no chance” of winning places on the most in-demand courses at one of Scotland’s top universities because of Nicola Sturgeon’s social engineering policies, it has emerged.

    Data from the University of Edinburgh show that for its law course, no Scottish student won a place this year who was not classed as disadvantaged, for example because they attended an under-performing state school or came from a deprived area.

    The situation is a consequence of targets set by Ms Sturgeon to improve social diversity on campuses, alongside a strict cap on places which is required to deliver her free tuition fees policy.

    In courses at Edinburgh including law, business, Japanese and joint philosophy and psychology, no student was accepted who had not been given a “flag” by the university to suggest they had encountered a disadvantage.

    Ms Sturgeon insisted the figures were “really good news”, saying that when she studied law at the University of Glasgow, from a working-class but not deprived background, she was “very much in the minority”.

    But Michael Marra, the Labour MSP who uncovered the figures, said Ms Sturgeon would be “exactly the sort of person” shut out of law courses under her current policy. He added: “For Scottish pupils from ordinary families and an average school the doors are closed, no matter their mind or endeavour.”

    SNP government targets state 20 per cent of students entering university should come from the poorest fifth of Scotland by 2030, but the tight cap on free places for Scottish students has lead to competition among those not classed as deprived. Edinburgh’s figures show that of the 555 students applying for law who were not classed as disadvantaged, none were offered a place.

    Two out of 272 students with a basic “flag” won a space, but 169 of 387 “plus flag” students won a place. A basic flag can be assigned to those from the second-poorest fifth of Scotland, or those attending an underperforming school. A “plus flag” may be granted to those who live in the poorest fifth of Scotland, those from the second-poorest fifth of postcodes who attend an underperforming school, those who have been in care and refugees and asylum seekers.

    A Edinburgh University spokesman said: “More than 80 per cent of our entrants from Scotland consistently come from a state school and the proportion of students from Scotland’s most disadvantaged areas has almost doubled since 2015. The number of students we can accept from Scotland is capped by the Scottish Government.””

    1. Basic Marxism, exile of the bourgeoisie.
      However, Ms Sturgeon’s policy, I mean SNP policy, may have been influenced by the story of her mother who married at 17, thus curtailing her aspirations and educational opportunities. It’s water under the bridge, but either Nicola was born prematurely or her Mum was 8 weeks pregnant when she married Robin Sturgeon in late December 1969.
      Important to state that the First Minister’s parents have been happily married for 53 years.

  10. Environmentalism will be the ruin of Germany. Spiked. 13 January 2023.

    In the short term, the only way the government’s proposals make any sense is if Germany is planning to go back to using Russian gas. That might explain the German government’s reluctance to more effectively support Ukraine. Clearly, Berlin wants to see the conflict come to an end as soon as possible. Perhaps this will happen. And perhaps, by March, the remaining Nord Stream pipeline, plus LNG, will rescue the German economy. But, just like relying on the weather for Germany’s future, this is another risky and dangerous bet.

    This is a sobering look at the German economy and by extension the rest of Europe. The writer does not explicitly cite the Sanctions Regime but whatever effect they are having on the Russian’s; if any, there can be no doubt that allied with Net Zero etc. they are strangling Europe’s productivity.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/01/13/environmentalism-will-be-the-ruin-of-germany/

    1. Morgenthau Plan revisited.
      The American, Chinese and Indian Governments will be suppressing their smiles.

  11. Good news for the ozone layer – bad news for heat pumps.

    Radio 4 this morning reported that thanks to internatiinal cooperation refrigerant CFCs have been complemetly banned and the ozone layer has been closed up saving thousands of lives from skin cancer.
    The bad news is that HFCs, the CFC’s replacement, is used in heat pumps that the Government insists on using to replace gas boilers within ten years!

    The most common fluids used in heat pumps are HFCs which have a global warming potential (GWP) over 1,000 times that of CO2 (R410A has a GWP which is 2,088 times that of CO2).28 Mar 2018

    https://www.wsp.com/en-gb/insights/the-importance-of-refrigerants-in-heat-pump-selection#:~:text=The%20most%20common%20fluids%20used,2%2C088%20times%20that%20of%20CO2).

    1. Gets harder and harder to be a greenie these days. They will have to accept the logical conclusion and jump off a cliff when no forms of heating or food are deemed acceptable – but STILL they cant see that its about saving the life of luxury for the few, not saving the planet!

      Morning Angie!

      1. Morning bb2,

        I get the feeling that we have reached thr point where everything one does to improve matters only makes things worse.

        1. Perfectly safe, so long as you don’t overcharge anything containing a large Lithium-based battery nearby.

      2. That’s all very well if you’ve got the bottle!

        There’s currently a hold on new cylinder issues so if you’re looking to buy a new bottle, I’m afraid we won’t be able to help just yet. Gas bottles are also unavailable on our online shop at present.

        https://www.calor.co.uk/cv-statement

        1. Propane as a refrigerant has been used for years.
          Not as good as HFCs, but less expensive and damaging if they escape.

        2. I received a follow-up letter from Head Office of the small family energy company Callow Fuels, when I challenged their Gas Sales Manager’s assertion that a tree was a “fixed source of ignition”. All trees within three metres of an LPG bulk tank should be cut down.

          “Dear Mr Morfey

          Thank you for your email regarding the supply of LPG to your property. While we never like turning business down unfortunately if our Representative Ian Flanner, as the Professional on site does not believe that the current installation meets the criteria required by the Industry Code of Practice then we are unable to consider signing you as a customer of Callow Gas. I appreciate this news may be disappointing however as I am sure you appreciate Health and Safety is paramount and far outweighs any commercial considerations.

          As stated Ian Flanner is the professional in the Field and I am afraid our decision is final.

          Best regards
          Helen Needham
          Callow Oils Ltd”

          It seems therefore that the only choice I have is either to accept their recommendation that I abandon the tank I have had since 1994 and go onto bottles, put up with the commercial exploitation of the big companies until they too cut me off, or find alternative ways to power the boiler.

          Is this evidence of the post-Brexit recovery we were promised after we could shed the nonsense directivising of the EU?

          1. Can you find the source of the requirement? Google the Code of Practice and see what it says. Challenge them on the interpretation, if you can.

          2. I’ve done that.

            The only mandatory requirement is compliance with Section J of the Building Regs. Everything else is at the discretion of the supplier. Most, if not all, have adopted the Industry Code (Volume 1) that does bring up proximity to sources of ignition. It is moot what these are, since the Code does not specifically mention trees. This rep insists that any vegetation taller than the tank is a source of ignition and must be a minimum of three metres away. He will not budge on this, and Head Office is backing him up. My feeling is they cherrypick the easy customers, such as industry, farmers and big houses on main roads, and use any pretext to shut out tricky deliveries down narrow lanes for cottages that only fill up once a year.

            The only other independent competitor, Carvers Gas, has its depot 50 miles away and have confirmed they are too far away.

            That leaves Avanti, which has dreadful reviews and Calor Gas, which has a BT approach to value and customer service. Flogas’s pricing and contract policy is all over the place, and seems to require constant haggling whenever they change things about, with the ubiquitous punitive attitude towards existing customers. Some people enjoy this, but I don’t.

            I thought the whole point of leaving the EU was to get away from sharp practice from the corporate sector who lobby away their competitors, but it seems the problem was with the UK all along, and Brexit achieves nothing.

          3. Unfortunately, we haven’t had Brexit. They are still keeping all the EU regs so we can easily be slid back into serfdom.

        3. Not only are they available at Homebase they are £10 cheaper than Calor. You do have to collect it though.

  12. 369903+ up ticks,

    Dt,

    Vladimir Putin should beware of constantly changing generals – it might come back to haunt him
    Rather than an energising shake-up, the Russian president may have revealed the Kremlin’s internal dysfunction

    By the same token in the warning department Putin could very well be seen apologising for a missile coordinator getting the coordinates wrong and invading Swiss air space on the 18 Jan.

    An erring missile could have unintended consequences in regards to “internal dysfunctions” big time.

      1. 369903+ up ticks,

        Morning NtN,

        Why the need for two that would be highly suss when one would suffice. ?

        1. I’m talking about ANOTHER erring missile that might just reach its target. No talk of two at once.

  13. Dalrymple
    The opening salvoes are a little too long for my taste, but the later meat is interesting.

    Man might be defined not as the rational animal, but as the meaning-seeking animal. We invest events with meaning because we prefer to think that there is some purpose behind them rather than that there is none. This is the reason why conspiracy theories are so popular. A malign purpose is better than no purpose at all, for it not only encourages a belief in the possibility of human control over events, and that if only the malign conspirators could be eliminated (the contemplation of the destruction of fellow beings being always delightful to a certain kind of person), the world could be much improved, but it also flatters and inflates the importance and powers of mankind in general.

    https://www.takimag.com/article/on-purpose/

    1. But since Dr Kelly’s death in 2003, time has done nothing to dispel the cloud of suspicion that hangs over the episode. The troubling questions surrounding it have only increased as the years have passed.

      He was almost certainly murdered. Very probably by the same people who tried to do Skripal in!

      1. Why steal his dental records ?
        And there was also Robin Cook’s strange death after he fell out with the bolshy quater master.

      1. 369903+ up ticks,

        Morning AS,

        The give away sign of a twat when watching odious actions take place.

    2. Holy Smoke. And if that poor dog had retaliated, it would have signed its death sentence.

  17. Good morning all. Up a bit late after the stupid o’clock mug of tea!
    Still rather windy outside with 3½°C on the thermometer, but at least the rain has paused!

  18. Morning all 😉 😊
    Not a good start for Friday 13th.
    By the time I had woken up my tea was was cold. I’ll have to have a word with the management.
    Perhaps Dopey Wokey Welby needs a poke from upstairs right now. Perhaps this fool is displaying that there really is no one up there. As he’s still walking amongst us.
    At least its not raining……yet.

  19. This week’s newsletter from the Free Speech Union:

    Regional Speakeasies – book your tickets today!
    The FSU is kicking off 2023 with a brand-new series of Regional Speakeasies around the UK! We start in Cardiff next week (19th January), before hosting events in the following cities: Manchester (25th January); Edinburgh (26th January); Oxford (7th February); Cambridge (8th February); Birmingham (15th February); and Brighton (20th February). Full details of how to book tickets are available here.

    Each event will be addressed by a senior member of FSU staff – in Cardiff, for instance, our Education and Events team will be joined by the FSU’s Chief Legal Counsel, Dr Bryn Harris, who will be exploring questions like: Why is free speech worth fighting for? What are the biggest threats to free speech today? Why has free speech become so mistrusted? And what can be done to defend it?

    The Regional Speakeasies are a great chance to find out why the individuals involved in the FSU are so passionate about defending freedom of speech and expression, and how our work is developing across many different fronts, from case work with members who’ve fallen prey to cancel culture to campaigning for stronger legislative protections of free speech, and from Parliamentary lobbying to briefing papers designed to influence public policy. There will, of course, be plenty of time for discussion, as well as socialising with fellow free speech supporters.

    This year, our Regional Speakeasies are open to anyone who wants to attend – so if you aren’t yet a member but would like to know more about what we do, then please click here to visit our Events page and book your tickets today. FSU members go free, while non-members can purchase tickets for just £2!

    Debating Free Speech and the Right to Protest – book your tickets here!
    The debate about abortion clinic ‘buffer zones’ (or ‘censorship zones’ as their opponents term them) was brought into sharp focus recently, when the anti-abortion campaigner Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was arrested for standing silently in a street near an abortion clinic in Birmingham. (FSU Advisory Council member Prof Andrew Tettenborn wrote about the incident’s wider implications for Spiked.) She has now been charged with four breaches of the ‘Public Space Protection Order’ (PSPO) imposed by Birmingham Council which prohibits certain activities in the area around the clinic.

    It’s a fascinatingly complex case – and highly charged because the Government is about to impose ‘buffer zones’ around every abortion clinic in England and Wales. Isabel’s defenders argue that her case represents a worrying suppression of silent prayer and is a free speech issue; supporters of Birmingham Council – and women’s sex-based rights – counter that Isabel’s arrest wasn’t quite as egregious as it might at first glance appear, and that the ‘buffer zone’ within which Isabel chose to stand has been imposed to protect women from harassment while accessing legal medical treatment.

    Clearly this is a debate that raises many important questions about freedom of speech, thought and expression. What constitutes protest? The anti-abortion side say they are not protesting but praying or offering ‘counselling’ to the women about to go into the clinic. What constitutes speech? Does it include images, silent prayer or singing? How does the location of speech affect society’s willingness to tolerate it? Even from a purely legal perspective, the issue is nuanced. On the one hand, Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects the rights to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; but, on the other, Article 8 – which local authorities like Birmingham Council are required to consider – protects the right to privacy.

    That’s why we’re delighted that two of the main protagonists in this debate have agreed to join us at a live event in London on Monday 23rd January: Ryan Christopher, director of pro-life group ADF International, and Ann Furedi, author of The Moral Case for Abortion and former chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS). They will be joined on stage by the FSU’s Chief Legal Counsel, Bryn Harris, and FSU Case Officer Tim Cruddas, who was a serving police officer for 26 years and has, on numerous occasions, been responsible for the policing of protests and other public order incidents.

    FSU members who are able to get to central London on Monday 23rd January can book tickets here. The event is open to the public, so please feel free to spread the word and encourage others to come along. Members can also join the live event free of charge via Zoom. Please register here if you’d like to watch the debate.

    Art history lecturer fired for showing painting of the Prophet Muhammed
    From the barbaric stabbing of Salman Rushdie, to the beheading of Samuel Paty, the Charlie Hebdo shootings and the case of the Batley Grammar School teacher forced into hiding, elite deference to mob fury over depictions of Islam has for some time now been feeding the slow creep of de facto blasphemy laws in the West. Minnesota’s Hamline University is the latest institution to facilitate the informal codification of these nascent speech codes, having sacked an adjunct art history professor for the ‘crime’ of showing a 14th century painting of the Prophet Muhammad during class (Guardian, Independent, Mail, New York Times).

    As reported in the New York Times, Dr López Prater knew the risks involved, and took sensible precautions. She warned students both verbally and in the syllabus that they would be shown sensitive images of holy figures such as the Buddha and Prophet Mohammed. No-one complained. She asked students to contact her with any concerns. No-one did. During the lecture she even prepped students, telling them that in a few minutes the painting would be displayed, in case anyone wanted to leave without penalty. No-one left. In other words she acted, as the historian David Perry puts it, “with integrity and care” (CNN).

    Yet when a member of the Muslim Student Association subsequently complained that the use of the painting disrespected her religion and made her feel like she “didn’t belong” and would “never belong” at Hamline, senior administrators took the extraordinary decision to publicly impugn Dr Prater’s academic reputation before releasing her early from spring teaching. “It was,” they quavered, “best that this faculty member was no longer part of the Hamline community” (Mail, New Lines).

    In a university-wide email, Hamline’s Vice President for ‘inclusive excellence’ sought to justify Dr Prater’s termination on the basis that her pedagogy was “undeniably inconsiderate, disrespectful and Islamophobic”. The University’s President then co-signed an email to students stating that “respect for the observant Muslim students in that classroom should have superseded academic freedom”. And when a letter written in defence of Dr Prater’s actions by the Chair of the Department of Religion, Dr Mark Berkson, was published in the University’s student newspaper, the editors were eventually pressured into taking it down because it “caused harm”.

    How could they? But they did. And the situation faced by Dr Prater – that now allegedly “inconsiderate, disrespectful and Islamophobic” academic – is all the more precarious given that, as an adjunct professor, she is one of the US higher education system’s underclass of sweated knowledge workers, labouring for little pay, receiving few of the workplace protections enjoyed by tenured faculty members and reliant on the award of temporary contracts.

    As to the wider implications of the University’s actions, Audrey Truschke, associate professor of South Asian History at Rutgers University, said that Hamline’s action “endangers… professors who show things in class, from premodern Islamic art to Hundi images with swastikas to Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ”.

    Over in the Guardian, Kenan Malik felt that “the most damaging aspect” of Hamline’s actions, “is the use of the language of diversity to eviscerate the very meaning of diversity”. A term that was supposed to embrace phenomena like dissent, disagreement and tolerance for things one might find offensive, he said, is increasingly being used to describe “a space in which dissent and disagreement have to be expunged in the name of ‘respect’ and where tolerance requires one to refrain from saying or doing things that might be deemed offensive”.

    Thankfully, a free speech fightback is underway. The US campaign group PEN America has involved itself in the case, and described what happened as “one of the most egregious violations of academic freedom in recent memory”.

    An Islamic art historian who wrote an essay defending Dr Prater has also started a petition demanding the University’s board investigate the matter and agree to an independent investigation of the processes by which a faculty member could be dismissed without due process. (The petition currently has over 13,000 signatures – you can sign it here).

    As it happens, the institution’s senior leadership may have no choice but to break out the props from the drama department and do a passable performance of contrition. The US-based Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has now filed a formal complaint with the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) – Hamline’s accreditor, which requires all accredited institutions to protect academic freedom (Mail). In a letter to the accreditor, FIRE’s director, Alex Morey, suggests that Dr Prater’s nonrenewal “violates both HLC and Hamline policies clearly committing the University to free expression and its corollary, academic freedom for all faculty”.

    Policing with for Pride
    Over the past three years, police forces in England and Wales have spent £66,689 on rainbow-themed merchandise, including flags, selfie frames, pens, whistles, key rings, shoelaces, and lip balm, according to figures released in response to freedom of information requests. Research undertaken by the Taxpayers’ Alliance found hundreds of pounds was also spent on decorating police cars in rainbow livery (Express, GB News, LBC, NewsLetter, Mail, Telegraph).

    The news follows in the wake of the latest ONS figures (June 2022), which show that while recorded crime in England and Wales has hit a 20-year high, the proportion of all offences resulting in a charge has fallen from 7.5% cent to 5.8% since 2014/15.

    The highest spender on LGBTQ+ merchandise was South Wales Police, which racked up a scarcely believable £24,000 on rainbow flags, face paints, T-shirts, badges, pens, whistles, wristbands, sporks, trolley keyrings, water bottles and keyrings.

    In second place was Kent Police, which forked out £8,000 on rainbow whistles, key rings, wristbands, grip pens, erasers, paper stickers, curvy pens, pencils, coasters, lanyards, ID holders and trolley-coins. Chief Superintendent Amanda Tillotson, of Kent Police, was unrepentant. Her force spent the money on what she terms “LGBT+ crime-prevention merchandise”, she told the Express, because it reminds the public of the importance of communities “working together to support and protect each other”.

    Lancashire Police purchased £1,500 worth of rainbow lip balm, flags, keyrings, lanyards and stickers, while Wiltshire Police forked out a very precise £538 on LGBTQ+ lanyards and “rainbow fuzzy bugs”. And so on and so forth.

    Is this a free speech issue? Yes – but a nuanced one. As the FSU’s Research Officer Carrie Clark points out for Spiked (here and here), many individual officers no doubt regard the rainbow symbol as an innocuous means of showing support for LGBTQ+ rights. But to gender-critical feminists it represents an ideology that undermines women’s rights, child safeguarding and the concept of biological sex. In other words, it’s a clear statement of political affiliation.

    This matters. The public sector is meant to serve all British citizens equally, including those who disagree with the ideology symbolised by the Pride flag – indeed, the College of Policing’s Code of Ethics states that “police officers must not take any active part in politics”. So as Carrie says, “when police fly the Pride flag, gender-critical Brits may well fear that they will not be treated fairly”.

    And they have good reason to fear this, given the willingness of the police to don their LGBTQ+ themed lanyards, tie up their rainbow laces, and get after critics of transgender ideology like Jennifer Swayne (arrested for putting up stickers reading “no men in women’s prisons”), Darren Brady (arrested for sharing a meme mocking the Progress Pride flag), and Kellie-Jay Keen (accused of a hate-crime offence for expressing gender-critical views).

    The ubiquity of the rainbow Pride symbol on police uniforms, buildings, squad cars and now in stockrooms apparently stuffed to the rafters with rainbow-themed merchandise may well be a ‘culture war’ issue. But it’s also having “a profound effect on freedom of expression”. Whether or not access to just treatment by law enforcement does in fact depend on holding the ‘correct’ views, the fact is that when it starts to appear that way to lawful critics of transgender ideology it cannot fail to have a chilling effect.

    An update on the Financial Services and Markets Bill
    If there was any good to come out of PayPal’s attempted demonetisation of the FSU last summer, it was that it exposed a gap in the UK’s free speech protection.

    The recent digitalisation of financial transactions has placed a vast amount of power in the hands of financial services companies like payment processors, banks, online platforms and credit companies like Visa and Mastercard (Critic, Telegraph). Yet UK legislation has failed to keep pace with these rapid technological changes, leaving British citizens exposed to the risk of being deplatformed by California-based Big Tech corporations simply for expressing legal, but dissenting, contrarian or sceptical views (Spectator, Spiked).

    Earlier this week, however, the Financial Services and Markets Bill reached second reading stage in the House of Lords, and Baroness Claire Fox’s typically incisive intervention will surely encourage those who view this legislation as an opportunity to check the creeping trend towards Big Tech platforms financially censoring customers who express dissenting views before it becomes institutionally normalised.

    During the speech (which you can watch here), Baroness Fox signalled her intention to table an amendment to the Bill “to say that while I understand that private companies have a right to choose who they do business with and should be vigilant about fraud and illegal transactions, they should never discriminate on the basis of an organisation’s political, philosophical or religious beliefs”.

    Baroness Fox’s amendment is similar to the amendment tabled in the House of Commons by Sally-Ann Hart and Andrew Lewer last year. Their amendment addressed “refusal to provide services for reasons connected with freedom of expression” and stated that: “No payment service provider providing a relevant service may refuse to supply that service to any other person in the United Kingdom if the reason for the refusal is significantly related to the customer exercising his or her right to freedom of expression.”

    At the time, Andrew Griffith, the Economic Secretary of the Treasury and the Minister responsible for the Bill, said he “empathise[d] strongly with colleagues’ concerns on the principled issue and potential risks – of protecting customers’ freedom of expression – and whether or not it is possible for service providers with significant market positions to terminate customer relationships at will and at speed”.

    The amendment was subsequently withdrawn in the Commons after Mr Griffith promised that the issues it sought to address would be included in the terms of reference of a forthcoming statutory review of the Payment Services Regulations.

    Baroness Fox’s intervention is therefore all the more timely given that the statutory review alluded to by Mr Griffith will begin later this month. As per the agreement with Ms Hart and Mr Lewer, the review will include the issue of politically motivated financial censorship in its terms of reference – and Mr Griffiths has confirmed that it will be a public consultation.

    In order to provide the Government with as many examples of this kind of censorship as we can, we’re asking our members and supporters to send us any examples they have come across, particularly if it involves them. To be clear, we’re after examples of financial services companies (such as a high street bank), payment processors (like PayPal) and crowdfunding platforms (IndieGoGo) either withholding or withdrawing services from customers because they don’t like their perfectly lawful views.

    The FSU has certainly got a few examples of its own to put forward. After all, PayPal didn’t just shut down our accounts without prior warning, meaningful explanation, or recourse to a proper appeals process last summer – it did the exact same thing to the Daily Sceptic, Law or Fiction and UsforThemUK (Telegraph).

    And what about PayPal and Etsy deplatforming the evolutionary biologist and gender critical writer Colin Wright earlier in the year simply for expressing his belief in biological reality? (Quillette). Not forgetting, of course, that around the same time PayPal was also busily deplatforming left-wing alternative media sites Mint Publishing and Consortium News for publishing stories that questioned the rationale for the West’s support of Ukraine following Russia’s invasion (TK Media).

    True, PayPal has been on its best behaviour since last year’s high-profile media coverage put a spotlight on its appalling behaviour and threatened its stock market capitalisation (Pavlovic Today). But the question remains – for how long will this digital behemoth be content to skulk in its Californian lair, licking its wounds and thinking hard thoughts about our General Secretary, before some passing morsel of ‘wrongthink’ tempts it to start throwing its ideological weight about once again?

    More to the point, PayPal isn’t the only online payment services provider that’s shown a propensity for restricting the lawful speech rights of its customers.

    Back in February 2022, online donations platform GoFundMe took the decision to withhold donations specifically to Canadian truckers protesting vaccine mandates in what came to be known as the ‘Freedom Convoy’ (Spiked).

    More recently, Ko-Fi, an online platform that allows users to sell their work and raise donations, removed a number of accounts belonging to UK-based feminists and feminist organisations due to their gender critical views (Reclaim the Net).

    Last month, ticketing website Eventbrite was accused of conducting a “campaign of cancellation” against gender critical events after pulling tickets for a book launch organised by Woman’s Place UK, and a screening of Adult Human Female, a documentary critiquing gender ideology (Telegraph, Reclaim the Net). In both cases, ticket holders were suddenly refunded their tickets, all trace of the event was removed from the Eventbrite website, and organisers were informed by the company’s Orwellian sounding “trust and safety team” that the event violated policies on “hateful, dangerous, or violent content”.

    Then, in November, an event organised by Sarah Phillimore, a barrister, and Graham Linehan, the comedy writer famous for Father Ted, to promote their book Transpositions – a collection of testimonies from people concerned about gender identity ideology – had its listing and tickets purged in an apparently identical fashion (Epoch Times, Scottish Daily Express, Telegraph).

    And just this week it emerged that crowdfunding site IndieGoGo had summarily cancelled a funding campaign by cartoonist, comic creator and gender critical feminist Nina Paley after her project to self-publish a comic book had reached its target (Post Millennial). Having refunded all donors and denied Paley an appeals process, the company informed her that her perfectly lawful work – the wonderfully titled Agents of H.A.G. – did not comply with their ‘Terms of Use’ and refunded all donors.

    If you’ve got any of your own examples of politically motivated financial censorship, then please do get in touch – help us make it clear to the Government that we need to stop the emergence of a Chinese-style social credit system in the UK dead in its tracks.

    Change.org Removes Gender Critical Petition
    A group of gender critical feminists, including some members of the FSU, posted a petition on Change.org last week asking the Tate Modern to shelve plans to host a Drag Queen Story Hour event for children in February half-term. Change.org removed that petition and the organisers have now reposted it on ipetitions.com. You can find it here.

    An Academic Survival Guide
    One of our members has asked us to mention his book, The Academic’s Survival Guide: Success in a Selfish World. It’s about how to navigate the crocodile-filled waters of the woke swamp that is Britain’s higher education sector. And, as the author explains, he hasn’t dared publish it under his real name:

    At the time and place of writing (England, September 2022), much of Western academia is controlled by ‘woke’ neo-Marxist riff raff who are setting the agenda for our future graduates. These academics are intent on decolonizing the curricula to remove historical facts that may upset the audience. In doing so, they are distorting history and do their supposed customers (the students) a considerable disservice. Furthermore, University departments are increasingly run by Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity Committees that advocate and insist on selected gender, political and racial theories, including nonsense such as critical race theory and “white privilege”. These committees are encouraged by Senior Management and Human Resources (HR), who believe that these views are representative of what society and the students want and need, and which give them the locus standi to perpetually interfere.

    If you’re a newly-minted academic and you haven’t yet signed up to the social justice cult, you can buy the book the book here. It’s free for members of Amazon Prime.

    Best wishes,

    Freddie Attenborough

          1. Correct, Sue, where do you think I got it from?

            I’d lived in Wales for several years but only picked up a few words and pronunciations as it was mostly South Wales and they don’t much speak Welsh there. Go west and north and get your ear bent.

          2. I am two miles over the border from North Wales. We get documents sent in Welsh and also Welsh road signs. Oh, joy! As I said when I was asked if I spoke Welsh, “only road signs”.

          3. We are a bit like Russian speaking Ukrainians. A smattering of Welsh. Not that it’s spoken Wales-wide, just inflicted upon them.

    2. I woke up to pump bilges at 00:40 then lay awake for an hour listening to the gusts of wind howling past the house before deciding to get up for a while. As I was getting up the DT also woke up needing the toilet, so I made mugs of tea for us both and we were sat up for an hour drinking them.

      1. Morning Bob , a bit like this?

        When you’re lying awake with a dismal headache, and repose is taboo’d by anxiety,
        I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in, without impropriety;
        For your brain is on fire and the bedclothes conspire of your usual slumber to plunder you:
        First your counterpane goes, and uncovers your toes, and your sheet slips demurely from under you;
        Then the blanketing tickles, you feel like mixed pickles so terribly sharp is the pricking,
        And you’re hot, and you’re cross, and you tumble and toss till there’s nothing ‘twixt you and the ticking.
        Then the bedclothes all creep to the ground in a heap, and you pick ’em all up in a tangle;
        Next your pillow resigns and politely declines to remain at its usual angle!
        Well, you get some repose in the form of a doze, with hot eyeballs and head ever aching.
        But your slumbering teems with such horrible dreams that you’d very much better be waking;

        1. That’s a Gilbert and Sullivan ditty, is it not, Maggie?

          The rhythm and cadence sound like theirs.

        1. Well, at least I’m making use of the dry weather to clear out the stand of dead elms that need to come down. I’ve dropped the 1st one, a 2″ stem and am about to get the 2nd, about 3″ to 3½” dia. rigged to pull uphill away from the road.
          ‘Twill come in useful for the fire!

      3. Oscar (and thus I) had a disturbed night. He wanted to go out at about 02.00 and then again about 06.00.

    3. Really…..get in the queue.

      And don’t you just love the voice, “I’m a victim” growly vowels.

      1. I wonder whether Clowee will be as keen when a couple of them have raped her at knifepoint.

    5. Lots of money in fostering. Typically £400 per week per child.

      Therefore local authorities are under pressure to organise forced adoptions, partly in order to save money.

      The children then lose contact with their real parents.

    2. Raining here, snowing heavily at Firstborn’s place – we’re headed out there this afternoon.

    1. I’m in a quandary over this. There ain’t many illegals being ferried across the North Sea by the RNLI. Just the SE of England where this is occurring. Can we tar all the volunteers with the same brush? I know the RNLI has become politicised, but there’s still a lot of good people who go out to sea and save lives.

      1. When our uninvited guests receive their orders can you assume they will confine their mayhem to just the SE?
        It occurs to me that when they walk out of hotels in the dead of night, they hunker down in other parts of the country.
        As someone who used to go coastal sailing I held the RNLI in high regard and donated every year, but no longer. Actions has consequences and perhaps the RNLI needs to be reminded of this.

          1. That I believe is a personal choice for them. The type of person who man’s lifeboats and risks life and limb for others would balk at such action. I do not expect to see those sort of people take such action.
            My beef is with those that decide that their lifeboats should be used as taxi’s for illegal immigrants, they can expect no support from me, financial or otherwise. The cancer is at the head of the organisation, true for many others as well!

          2. I would love to know what the thoughts are of the crews who are not involved with the Channel crossings.

          4. What mystifies me is that the volunteers obviously work part-time – on demand.
            Given the numbers being ferried ashore, does this mean there are full time RNLI workers?

      2. 369902+ up ticks,

        Afternoon M,

        Granted, but would it be in order to ask
        if the monies collected north of Watford
        in the name of RNLI could go to subsidise, if needed, the South East

        I do believe the RNLI unit in question has on occasions entered french waters ?

        Also I would say that distance travelled
        would count with Dover being the closest.

        1. Sounds like a good local scheme. Looks like a Seabear, jet propulsion, and they were great to drive.

          Edit; The photo I was looking at on their site was an RNLI boat.

      4. Yes, without question, there are and they do an amazing job. But when they bring in criminal scum they make this country unsafe.

        As vessels can be identified from a register, if one such unknown squawks in distress, it the boatman sounds foreign, don’t go. Why should they risk their lives for criminal rapists, murderers and wasters?

    2. Add in Muggate, whereby some vacuous female from HQ berated a volunteer for owning a joke birthday mug.

  24. ‘Morning All

    An epic rant from an American teacher,I wonder how far down this rabbit hole we are……..

    “I’m not qualified to deliver

    counseling services to the legions of broken, fatherless, emotionally

    stunted students who walk through our classroom doors every day. I’m

    not qualified to engage in behavior modification with dysregulated,

    angry kids who exhibit no impulse control, zero empathy for others.

    Students have talked about killing me, threatened to hit me in the

    face. Upon writing up these incidents, I have been blamed, told I need

    to work on “building relationships” with students, or offered more

    training on working with students dealing with trauma and abuse.

    Administrators pass off these students’ comments with, “Oh, he didn’t

    mean it… “ “I talked to him… “ or “Think about what may have

    occurred in your class that provoked this behavior.” There are minimal

    consequences for students who verbally and physically assault teachers.

    It’s open season on public school staff. I am not alone.I’m

    not qualified to instruct near-adults in the basics of third-grade

    reading, grammar, and spelling skills. It’s become increasingly

    impossible to teach high-school level literature, let alone the

    classics.”

    https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/01/im_not_qualified.html

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a7fdc4c4038cf5d5bab5b77512ecf94927eb49aedb1bc455497094395f42f131.jpg

    1. The one on the right looks like my grandson’s teacher except his has more piercings and tats.

      1. We’ve come a long way (backwards or forwards?) from my arithmetic teacher with her hankie stored in a pocket of her capacious harvest festivals.

      2. Junior’s teacher looks like the lass on the left. She’s fairly normal, although does mention his ‘unorthodox’ views.

    2. It’s been getting worse for some time. I was sworn at by a pupil when I was trying to get him to work. I wanted him disciplined, but the Head of Discipline made me apologise to him! This was in the ’80s. By the time I gave up it was far worse, because the Children Act gave them all the rights without any responsibilites.

  25. Morning Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b67ad1d150ca26bd4b1c3e2d566128c0026fd093ec9904a865cf64e840eab7cc.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/79dcb6b9dc1534bff4dc87321fbf6d9ace98b775348df94b785eccd67d086c64.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7ee2d5258dfd7b362b2a69a9b5a8c32e6e252e8460eede2be4e66246b50d36e4.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/869ba6e3db1f4be800e6ba93a1410fa92904aa8e9134314b77b08e836a8fae32.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1cdec7ee110ac5a5df7f854eb84aeeec0d960fc7340aa78ca6f33a5a3d9ac82e.jpg

    1. That mastiff is going to get very expensive, very quickly. Ozzie had his teeth cleaned today and he did NOT like it. However, he is now a healthy 55 kilos rather than 38 when we go him.

      The vet said ‘Even for giant breeds, ours are big.’

      1. The vet chickened out of inspecting Oscar’s teeth. I could report that they seemed okay to me when he was objecting to something he didn’t like 🙂

      1. Morning T-B -The cartoon I had prepared was with Russian interviewing group selecting prospective Generals, dancing onto the stage with the seated Generals shouting “Next”

  29. Just in from 45 minutes gathering winter fuel. Though the temperature is reasonable – the very strong s-w wind makes it feel really bitter. Am waiting for fingers to regain feeling….

  30. Lisa Presley aged 54 has died. [ Independent report] One other report, which I cannot retrieve, said the cause was Cardiac arrest but Wikipedia reports that nothing has been confirmed.

  31. Brussels carving of MP Chris Skidmore commemorating his devotion to the EU, his opposition to fracking and his drive to bankrupt the UK and turn it into a ‘Green’ swamp. A regular guest on BBC political programmes who said of the peasant scum “Once they enter the workplace, the British are among the worst idlers in the world”. A True Blue modern Tory.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d636b50a9bd9b177ede21003a7bbe7a1d045bab2f60bd2e2ef5a61b16a89569b.png

    1. I don’t know the guy personally but my in-laws know his parents. They don’t rate him at all.

        1. Yes, Skidmore. He’s written a few history books (Tudor period) and is godfather to one of George Osbourne’s children. Jumping on the “renewables” bandwagon, I understand, and a big Gove fan (hates Boris).

  32. I am tired of hearing that more people need to wake up to what this deliberately awful government is up to. The present shower do not have the people’s best interests at heart, despite Redwood, one of the few Conservatives in the House, banging on about the bleeding obvious.
    All the lockstep over CV-19 was the wake-up call but many didn’t hear the alarm. The imposition of Sunak and Hunt should have overridden the snooze button but it appears that that hasn’t been too successful on the wake-up situation, either.

    This woman is correct about the latest patch to the hull of the NHS i.e. using hotels and care homes as refuges for patients, will not save the ship from sinking. Short-termism based on lack of ideas and more importantly lack of will to re-structure the NHS will ensure its demise.

    https://twitter.com/GBNEWS/status/1613594621065711616

    2. I have a good friend who sincerely believes that lockstep was a fine example of global co-operation. She also works in admin for the NHS at Guy’s but isn’t happy.

        1. Valiantly fight the lethal pandemic threatening all mankind! The lack of evidence doesn’t detract from the simplistic message. Geobbels was right.

          1. It’s like the climate emergency people. They are wedded to the idea and cannot be persuaded of the irrationality of their belief that carbon is the cause of it all (rather than natural cycles of climate and over-population).

    3. “…CV-19 was the wake-up call but many didn’t hear the alarm.”

      …and still wilfully, will neither listen for it or heed it, more’s the pity.

      They neither want to think for themselves nor be involved, even though their lives may well be in danger – as are all of ours.

  33. 369903+ up ticks,

    Sounds like a touch of the old dicotators to me, could it be so ?
    not bloody many benny.

    breitbart,

    Zelensky Strips Orthodox Clergy, Politicians, and Other Accused Russia Sympathisers of Citizenship

    We are suffering along the similar lines in the United Kingdom
    for truthsaying.

  34. I look forward to Fridays because its the day the Irreverend podcast lands in my inbox. Rev Jamie and his pals were on their way to restoring my partial faith in the CoE until this week and Welby’s views on slavery. Still, today’s episode is cracking and as disdainful as it should be on Welby’s recent pronouncements.

    Copying the link for you all:
    https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/irreverend-faith-and-current-affairs/id1528967755?i=1000594205007

  35. Hello folks:

    What is one to make of this?

    A group of 43 national security experts published an open letter on Jan. 11 criticizing news organizations and scientific publications that dismissed the possibility that the COVID-19 pandemic might have been the result of a lab leak.
    Security personnel stand guard outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan as members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 coronavirus make a visit to the institute in Wuhan in China’s central Hubei province on Feb. 3, 2021.
    The letter is addressed “To the editors, authors, and contributors to major scientific, medical, and journalistic publications worldwide.” The addressees include The Lancet, Nature Medicine, The New York Times, and TIME magazine.

    https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/VandenbergCovidLetter%5B21%5D.pdf

        1. Is this the extent of it Stephen? Is there not some kind of conclusion or request. As it is it is merely a statement. Or do they call for proper discussion between whoever?

  36. My failed missive to the DT, yesterday, following the MP Andrew Bridgen’s illogical suspension:

    ‘Vegetable’ cooking oils are killing more people than Covid vaccines.

    SIR — Andrew Bridgen MP is wide of the mark if he considers that Covid vaccines are currently the “biggest crime against humanity” (report, January 12).

    The most blatant ongoing crime against the species has, for decades, progressed unhindered with active complicity from governments, health authorities,
    universities and the global corporations.

    The undisguised lie that animal fats such as butter, cheese, lard and dripping are unhealthy has now been disproved. Frankenstein foods such as margarine and most seed-based so-called ‘vegetable’ oils, all of which have been heavily promoted as ‘healthy’, are now known to be the root cause of most modern diseases and ailments.

    When humans thrived on the consumption of healthy, delicious and nutritious animal fats; few people died of cancer, heart disease, strokes, obesity and respiratory problems. Ever since many big corporations decided to exponentially increase their profit margins by marketing modified industrial lubricants as “cooking oils”, deaths from those diseases have accelerated rampantly.

    A Grizzly B.

    1. I use ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter’ a) because I like it and b) my bowels can’t take too much butter or fat of any kind

      1. Each to their own, Spikey, if it works for you and your medical requirements, then OK.

        Personally (and I’ve read the list of ingredients for “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter”) I wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole.

    3. I do agree with you Grizz hence, as my work canteen does cooked English breakast so well, I eat scrambled eggs and cumberland sausage five mornings out of seven.

      A couple of points though. The rise in deaths is partly due to population growth. Also, our parents’ generation hit peak longevity despite living through two world wars but though our ancestors excelled in many ways, the majority had much shorter life expectancy.

      When I hear the lovely music of Hildegard of Bingen I always remember that she lived from 1098 to 1179. Quite an achievement. But she was an aristocratic nun. Even without 21st century amenities, hers was a charmed life.

        1. She is generation 23 in my Family Tree (1122 – 1204) wife of Henry II.

          I am generation 50 – just for comparison. (1944 – ).

        2. I think quite a few people back in the days of yore lived to quite old age. The average lifespan for the era is low because so many died as children or when young through disease or battle wounds. Those who were healthy lived quite a long time.

          1. No pollution, no sugar, no junk food, no chemicals on their vegetables.

            If you were up high enough to get regular meals and good quality shelter you could expect a long life.

          2. I think that mediaeval conditions weeded out anyone who was weak.
            Eleanor had 10 children; I would imagine her upbringing with plenty of good food and warmth would have contributed to her long life.

      3. You are spot-on with regards to population growth, Sue. Those modern deaths I mentioned are happening despite the increases in modern medicine; that is, I think, a story in itself.

        As for the music of Hildegard Bingen, I have no knowledge of her but I intend to research her now.

        1. I’ve looked up her music on YouTube and I would suggest (I may be wrong) that she was probably a devotee of Pope Gregory I and his (Gregorian) chant music.

          Very atmospheric.

    5. If you were a Conservative MP Grizzly, they’d take the whip away from you for that letter too!

    6. Yes, but in that era we had vastly more active lives and we died far earlier. My grand father was a railway engineer. My dad an accountant. I’m a network engineer. A lot of what I do is software based. Dad at least would travel about to see clients. As each generation grows old, our jobs become more sedentary and more knowledge based.

      I’ve barely got up today because I’ve spent it writing a filter to find a specific keyphrase across a database (don’t ask, it’s boring). Part of why I’m fat is precisely because I can do everything from my chair.

    7. Spain in the late spring of 1981.
      Cases of an atypical pneumonia, which was discovered to have been caused by consumption of contaminated denatured rape seed oil. 330 people died, and hundreds of others suffered neurological problems.

      The cause has never been satisfactorily determined; it could have been the attempt to remove the denaturing product, or there is an alternative hypothesis that the cooking oil (aceite de colza) was transported in barrels that had previously been used for an insecticide manufactured by Hoechst.

    8. Spain in the late spring of 1981.
      Cases of an atypical pneumonia, which was discovered to have been caused by consumption of contaminated denatured rape seed oil. 330 people died, and hundreds of others suffered neurological problems.

      The cause has never been satisfactorily determined; it could have been the attempt to remove the denaturing product, or there is an alternative hypothesis that the cooking oil (aceite de colza) was transported in barrels that had previously been used for an insecticide manufactured by Hoechst.

  38. Reading a South African newspaper, the following was a contribution. Do you think similar is happening in Britain?

    Years ago I saw a comparison of the South Korean cabinet with ours – theirs were largely engineers and academics in relevant fields, whilst ours were largely lawyers (towards the end of Madiba’s term or beginning of Mbeki’s, can’t remember), so I decided to go and have another look. Didn’t have time to do all the Ministers there, but of the 15 that I did look up, every one of them had a degree from a top university in South Korea and most had additional degrees – Masters and Doctorates mainly – from the likes of Harvard, UCLA and other blue chip US universities. Most of them have also worked at the highest global levels in companies, think tanks and institutions, giving them exceptional global exposure and knowledge to be able to shape South Korea’s destiny. Oh, and if you have a look, the bulk are independent, not affiliated to a political party. That would not happen here!

    1. Theresa May sucked up to James Dyson when she took him round the EU to prmote British design inventiveness but then his designs did deliver a powerful level of vacuum.

      1. Pity she didn’t get ‘sucked up’ by one his most powerful machines and transferred to his far eastern factory as “dust, surplus to requirements.”

  39. Yet again have I ignored the government’s advice.
    I have not only walked a small dog round suburban fields, I have visited the tip and risked my life by hurling black bags into a skip. Not content with that, I went into town, shopped and WALKED back. If I had tripped over a loose flagstone, I would have seriously discommoded the NHS by expecting treatment; an ambulance, mayhap.

      1. When I was at grammar school I went on the train up to London Bridge every day. One day we all had to get off at Brockley as the train was on fire. I would probably have forgotten all about it except that it was Friday 13th.
        And I am not superstitious.

        1. As we consulted our diaries when I booked my Hip Op, the surgeon smiled and asked if I was bothered about Friday, 13th.
          I replied that as I was born on a 13th, the number seemed to have done me all right so far (though I was born on a Sunday, not a Friday).

          4. My older sister and her husband have lived in a house in Teddington numbered 13 for the last 50 years and they have been very happily married for 67 years.

          5. …And the child born on the Sabbath day
            Is bonny and blithe, good and gay.

            Old translation of ‘gay’ of course, Anne.

          7. Monday’s child is fair of face
            Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
            Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
            Thursday’s child has far to go
            Friday’s child is loving and giving
            Saturday’s child works hard for his living
            And the child born on the Sabbath day is bonny and blithe, good and gay.

            I have forgotten how to do it but my Maths teacher at Blundell’s gave us a formula which would give you the day of the week of any day in history and it took about 30 seconds with a pencil and paper to make the necessary calculations.

            But even better was the boy on a TV programme about autism in the 1960s who could do the same thing in his head immediately without ever making a mistake and nobody, including himself, had any idea how he did it. On the same programme was a boy who could reproduce a complicated piece of music on the piano which he had never heard before and another boy who took a look at the Houses of Parliament and then went home and did an accurate drawing of it in mirror image.

            Any fellow Nottlers remember seeing that TV programme?

            Incidentally both Caroline and I are Monday’s children. (At least the rhyme is right about Caroline!)

          8. I remember that programme; it was amazing.
            The questioner would give him a date and he would reply “It was a Thursday” (or one of the other 6 days) and he was always right.
            A very flat voice, so I suspect he might be autistic.

          13. Ahha Anne .

            Moh is of the same mindset as you.. He was also born on the 13th.. not a Friday either .

            Any further movement on energising your solicitors?

          14. Apparently, this afternoon, the useless solicitor further back in the chain (not ours, thank goodness) is being graced with a visit from an enraged client who is spitting nails.
            She has gone through his delayed and defective paperwork and she wants blood.
            Watch this space.

          15. I passed my driving test on Friday 13th. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen 🙂

        2. My son fell down several steps at London Bridge station in a crowd surge on December 9th , broke a bone in his leg and broke bones in his ankle. He was operated on 10 days ago .. is in great pain and will be out of work for a few months ..

          Yesterday could have been Friday the 13th for us here back home when I was irritated by my husbands lack of thought re his bad cough , especially when I asked him to ring the surgery last Monday.. I rang yesterday morning at 8.30, very insistent to the receptionist .

          He was seen by the the doctor just after 9am .. arrived home after 9.30… all systems are springing into action , re tests , xrays , echocardiogram, ECG, blood tests .. He has a systolic murmur in his heart .. Healthy active golfer , cyclist , etc 10k runner , 77yrs old this year.. Cannot be because he is that age , he always passed his aircrew medicals every 6mths .. has always been fit and energetic , not overweight .. probably a build similar to the pics Bill puts up of himself .

          We hardly slept a wink last night due to the stormy weather and anxiety .

          Yes we are both healthy to a point , he and I B/P tabs and statins , and he Type 2 diabetes which developed in his fifties .

          Everyone we know seems to be secumbing to something , what the hell is going on , is it the JAB?

    2. Sharp intake of breath! You daredevil you!
      PS- I too have disobeyed….have hoovered the LR and if you met our vacuum, “Fang”, you would appreciate the risk I took. It’s called Fang for a reason.

    4. I drove my neighbour to an opthalmologist’s appointment in Shrewsbury at lunch time. Not only did I risk my life on the roads, I walked up and down stairs and I refused to wear a mask in the medical centre.

    5. You racist, you! You used the ‘f’ word, suburban or otherwise. Leave the front door on the latch, to save the powers that be from breaking it down.

    1. I have a primrose flowering near my front door. Noticed it a couple of days ago. Only two flowers so far but two bright yellow smiles heralding the spring. PS It has rained every day here since 17 Dec.

    2. I have a primrose flowering near my front door. Noticed it a couple of days ago. Only two flowers so far but two bright yellow smiles heralding the spring. PS It has rained every day here since 18 Dec.

      1. Our snowflakes are always on display, one of the biggest bunches can be found in Parliament.

    1. Yes, party loyalty, but not state authority. He’s forgotten that his party isn’t running the country. An unelected cabal of lunatic nutters is simply giving instruction.

    3. He doesn’t look suicidal, let’s hope nothing happens to him after questioning the integrity go our glorious leaders.

  42. Dear Harry,
    When can I expect the cheque for £10,000 you said you would send me once your book had been published?
    What? You don’t remember saying that?
    Well I remember it so it must be true. Cough up.

    1. Dear Harry ,

      Think before you ink..

      “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” ~ Confucius
      “Nothing is more costly, nothing is more sterile than vengeance.” ~ Winston Churchill

      “Nowadays we are assailed by a chorus of horrid threats. The Nazi Government exudes through every neutral State inside information of the frightful vengeance they are going to wreak upon us, and they also bawl it around the world by their leather-lunged propaganda machine. If words could kill, we should be dead already.” ~ Winston Churchill

  44. That’s the diseased 2nd elm down.
    It’s fairly simple to do except that I have to keep shuttling between the “garden” to sort out the ratchet straps for pulling it over away from the road and the base of the trees to get it roped up to the straps and do the actual cutting.

    I now have a crapload of brash to sort out from the ones I’ve dropped so far.

    The ivy covered thing in the foreground of this Google street view, dating from last October, is the one I’m dropping at the moment. If you tilt the view up you can see that the ivy is the only greenery on the thing.

    https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.1133456,-1.5762194,3a,90y,20.18h,120.34t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s3QLIdEBm_Z6o3XPrVkEtrg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

    1. Listen Robert, just load up a 3-tonner with several tons of 40 cm long logs and bring them over….{:¬)) There’d be a mug of tea in it for you!!

      2. Bill – I’m reminded of a meeting with the various consultants etc, just before building Sainsburys at Pound Lane, Norwich. There we were in Ber Street, while our Contracts Manager emphasised that all the trees would be dealt with in an environmentally responsible manner. From where I was sitting, the pall of smoke was clearly visible. Apart from one substantial oak tree, the rest were ripped out and burnt.

          6. My dear chap, in my grounds, flower beds (I think you meant herbaceous borders) are a very long way from anywhere one might need to place a ladder…{:¬))

          9. Hi Sue. I’m heading for the Great Border City for a funeral later in the month. I’m a bit confused. The hotel to the right of Collier Lane is now the Station Hotel. I’m confused – I thought the hotel on the south side of Court Square was the County Hotel, incorporating Platform One Bar (with which I seem to recall you are familiar). The County Hotel now seems to be on the other side of Botchergate…

          13. The County Hotel was always on the Botchergate bridge! The Cumbrian Hotel and Platform One Bar and Diamond Lil’s on the other side of Collier Lane, is now, apparently the hotel is now the Heritage!
            Edit sorry Geoff I was thinking of the Crown and Mitre on the bridge! The Cumbrian has morphed into the Station Hotel!

          14. I’m confused – Botchergate doesn’t have a bridge. Are you thinking of the Central Hotel, which is derelict and close to collapse? What was the Hallmark Hotel is now the Station Hotel, which is Best Western. As was the Crown and Mitre when it was the premier hotel in the city. I stayed there when I went up for the funeral of the newly-deceased”s husband. It was OK, but there were hardly any guests.

          15. Ah Geoff ! Old age doesn’t come itself, but accompanied by memory-related gaps! Yes, it was the Crown and Mitre on the viaduct and it was ‘the’ hotel! I remember my mum and dad going to the Hunt Ball with our farming friends and having very wild nights!

          16. Actually Sue, the Crown & Mitre is opposite the Old Town Hall. By ‘on the bridge’, I think you mean the Central Plaza Hotel on Victoria Viaduct, which is surrounded by scaffolding and in danger of falling down…

          18. I used to stay in the Lakes, later the Hallmark, with work then we began using the Crown & Mitre.
            When I was doing the radio trials job before I got back onto the railway, we stopped in the Cumbria Park for nearly a month whilst drive testing Cumbria.

          19. Hi Bob. What was the Hallmark is now the Station Hotel, and I’m about to book a few nights there. Back in the day, the Crown & Mitre was the principal hotel in the city. Not any more. The Cumbria Park is a series of terrace houses in Stanwix, which is fair enough. Since I’m arriving by train, I’m going to book the Station Hotel.

            I note that there are far fewer bus services these days, so I guess I’ll be taking a taxi to the Crem.

          21. She was 103. Hardly snuffed out in the prime of life. And remained at home till the end, fully in possession of her marbles. Admittedly, she had a bit of help from her two youngest daughters towards the end.

    6. These things affect me strangely. On the one hand I like to watch them; they are after all our forebears and one of the most able and ingenious races that has ever existed. On the other hand, they and what they stood for, and what they believed in is now gone and the world is a poorer place for it.

    4. Definitely not in the book:

      “As we approached the crossing I asked Granny if I could pull the trigger. She said “yes” but then Grandpa ran ahead and fired, taking the zebra in the shoulder it fell over backwards into a dust bowl. I felt completely betrayed.”

      1. I read somewhere (sorry, can’t remember where) that she will bring her own book out after SPARE sales die down. Heaven help us all!

  48. Par Four for me.

    Wordle 573 4/6
    ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
    ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
    ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Me too today.

      Wordle 573 4/6

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

    3. Bogey for me.

      Wordle 573 5/6

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

  49. I am beside myself. MH went to pick up the letter re my arthritis and was then going to the shop. He called so say he’d had a fall and some guys who were keeping an eye on him had called an ambulance. Can’t make a decision about what to do until I hear from him again. I should have gone but I had a rotten night last night so he went and now this. Haven’t heard anything for a while and it’s getting to me. He wants them to bring him home but I am all set if I have to go to the hospital.
    Please, oh please, let him be OK.

    2. Ann, get the bag packed (just in case!) and stay by that phone. Try and stay calm and know that we’re here for you both. Sending good wishes and keep in touch.💕

    4. Oh goodness. Does he have a mobile phone? Hope you will hear very shortly Lottie and try to keep calm. Is it too far away for you to get to him seeing as 999 service may be a bit tardy. At least you’d be on the spot.

      Do hope you hear soon with good news. Thinking of you.

    5. God, you’ve had some bad luck recently, I hope it sorts itself out and he’s not badly hurt.

    6. Lottie
      Will your nice neighbours rally to your call , and if he is stuck somewhere between the hospitsl and A+E, maybe there is no phone signal.

      1. The mobile signal round here is pretty good- he’s called from the ambulance- see reply to David.

    8. Lottie, sending positive thoughts for you both, nothing worse than being the one waiting for news at times like this. Just keep calm;-))

      1. No. Am alone except for Teddy and Berlioz. I have topped up my phone and if I don’t hear anything by 8.30 I shall call.

    11. Oh for God’s sake. With what you’ve been through recently you could do without this.
      I hope he’s ok.

    12. Oh dear, Ann. What an awful thing to have happen. Fingers crossed they’ll just give him the once over and send him home.

    13. Oh, goodness, Ann! Fingers are crossed for him – and try not to worry too much (Huh. If that were possible!)
      Be sure to give him a massive hug when he’s home. We’ll worry for you.
      Ambulance! Must be fake… 😉

    2. “PVDP said the solar farm would be able to power up to 330,000 homes”. For five minutes in August. I exagerate but…


      1. This is what always infuriates me, whether it’s solar panels, wind turbines or something else ‘green’. It is the most utterly false and pointless claim imaginable.

        1. They get away with it because the current generation hasn’t had a decent education, particularly in the sciences. Well, done, Blair.

          1. Problem is, with science & mathematics, you actually have to know stuff, and there’s a sea of wrong answers and a right one.Puts the little buggers off, so it does.

          2. It’s hard (like languages). They’d rather have multiple choice questions and course work.

    4. It’s a very poor use of farmland. These things should be on the roofs of industrial buildings, not on farmland.

      1. It was sunny cold and windy here and I managed to put 4 large washed bath towels on the garden clothes line at 10am.. by 3pm they were dry..

        (Talking about lines not Tory lines )

          4. Quite. John. I’ve just taken a load from the washer/dryer. Towels dried outside end up as stiff as a board. And I don’t use conditioner (sorry, Sue), which seems to make them worse.

          5. Try white vinegar in the fabric softener compartment. Apparently softener is no good for towels; I’ve been using vinegar for years and have no complaints. Although it’s smelly when you put it in, there’s no smell in the towels afterwards. If you want your towels to be scented, you can always add some “Unstoppables”.

    3. The more the BBC squawks and the more The Conservative Party bullies those who have doubts about the Covid gene therapy the more clear it becomes that their goose is cooked.

      How long will they be able to keep up the pretence that there are no potentially fatal side effects to Big Pharma’s disastrous experiment?

      1. As I have posted previously the vaccines are not gene therapies but counter measures to a bio weapon. Everything has been calculated and the virus and counter measures constructed in laboratories. Those laboratories were located in two universities in the US, plus several laboratories in Ukraine and the Wuhan Institute in China.

        Never forget that Ukraine is the most corrupt country in the world. It has been the hub for money laundering by US Agencies (+Biden family) the US government and those investors determined to plunder the country of its wealth; by which I mean aquisitions of its vast agricultural resources and everything else under the ground.

        The sick thing is that the Bidens, Obamas and Clintons of this world care nothing for the Ukrainian people. They are happy to see the elimination and carnage resulting from their proxy war. Joe Biden is a mere puppet in all of this and is an evil and sick person reciting Obama’s instructions.

        Obama, his boyfriend Michael, Bill Clinton and his even more evil wife Hillary and the Biden crime family should be taken down at the soonest. These are evil scum.

      3. I’ll be joining you, Geoff. I believe that damage caused by the vaccines is being covered up, too. Nor do I believe the claims are baseless.

      4. I agree with you. I am aware that Andrew Bridgen was rubbished by a judge in some family court but that judge might also have been a dud. Many such are.

        Either way Bridgen has shown a certain bravery in the face of a particularly fraudulent cabal of useless politicians, placemen in the form of Sunak and Hunt, pawns of the WEF, and the corrupt medical establishment and their governmental advisors, a freak show I shall never forgive.

  53. That’s me gone. A very unpleasant day – “berlustery” (as the Wet Office totties used to say when doing the beeboid forecast) and chilly. Preparing for the Great Frost next week. It is supposed to last for four days….

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

    1. It was rather windy – but sunny and dry for a change. None too warm when I went out to the shops.

      1. It was decent enough for me to get out into the garden this afternoon. I did some weeding and planted the last net of daffs – only a fortnight late! Sitting with my feet up and a lovely warm coal fire in the grate now. Doing my bit for global warming catastrophic climate change 🙂

  54. Off to watch a 1954 film called SALT OF THE EARTH now, after which I shall be straight up to bed. Good night, every, and sleep well (especially Ann [Lottie]).

      2. But certain types of criminal damage are acceptable – even legal – e.g. tearing down a statue and throwing it in a river.

      3. 369903+ up ticks,

        Evening T5,

        Justified criminal damage.

        Instead of splitting hairs face it, truth be told any justified damaged property came out of the peoples purse via Council tax, for starters.

  56. Gas boilers and the sale of homes that are not improved to energy efficiency band C should be banned in a decade’s time to ensure Britain meets its climate change goals, the government’s net zero tsar has urged.

    In a leaked copy of a review being published next Monday on whether the country’s 2050 net zero goal is a burden on businesses, Chris Skidmore, a Conservative MP, said the target was the “economic opportunity of the 21st century”.

    Skidmore, whose three-month review was announced by Liz Truss when she was prime minister, found that the average household could save between £400 and £6,000 a year through the move to net zero. Most of the savings would come from switching petrol and diesel for electric cars, with some from people also swapping boilers for heat pumps.

    “The challenge for us now is ‘not zero’. Not zero will be more of a burden than net zero. This is an economic opportunity, but it is also a huge economic risk to the UK if we can’t keep up with other countries,” Skidmore, a former science minister, said.

    Skidmore said decarbonising homes was key, and called on ministers to legislate to create “gas-free homes” this parliament by banning the sale of new or replacement gas boilers by 2033, two years earlier than present plans. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/gas-boilers-should-be-banned-in-a-decade-says-net-zero-tsar-dmxrt6kn5

    1. The man is a complete feckin’ idiot – he’s the one who should have the whip taken away! I wonder if the cretin has noticed that it’s not a case of keeping up – no other countries are keeping up with us??

    3. “This is an economic opportunity, but it is also a huge economic risk to the UK if we can’t keep up with other countries,”

      Yes, let’s keep up with other countries – China in particular, which is opening, not closing, coal mines.

      1. I see the UK economy “unexpectedly grew” last year. That would be DESPITE their best efforts to wreck it, then. Quite how they are going to blame Brexit for this result, I can’t imagine.

    4. and, the those barstewards, sitting in the House of Slime, will get their own properties updated using their ‘expeness’.

    6. They are stirring up negative feelings gas heating and gas stoves (sorry, cookers) which will need to be banned to meet those infamous climate change goals. It won’t be many years until we rip up the floors and burn them as a way of keeping warm.

      Here’s the latest from out village idiot . In a meeting with the Japanese PM he came out with Canada takes seriously its responsibility to supply energy to allies, but the world is also looking to decarbonize. In other words pass off, we are not going to sell you LNG.

    8. Mr Skidmore announced his decision to step down as an MP. He has been doing the job for about 12 years, which is (IIRC) about the minimum time needed to qualify for a Parliamentary pension. No doubt he has a few directorships lined up, or an academic post in the USA.

    9. Ask Mr Skidmarks from where the electricity is to be produced?

      When he replies, “Renewable” ask him to look at the record to date and what happens when there is neither wind nor sun (i.e., depths of winter)?

      As I advised Connors, you might like to send him this, Maggie:

      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.

      Please feel free to copy and paste this anywhere appropriate.

      1. Ah but he was speaking to his BBF the moron known as Bryony Gordon! I expect she believed his ‘truth’!

  58. Has anyone heard from poppiesmum?
    She and I had a spat over Harry Hewitt, I hope I have not put her off Nottle.

          1. No, and that was the point.
            It was regarding another individual who had been associated with Princess Diana before she married Charles.

          3. That was my point at the time.
            My present concern is that I may have put off a poster I like.

    2. How could anyone have a spat with Poppiesmum? She must be in the medals for the nicest person in the world…

      1. I criticised a post she put up, copied from another source, regarding a potential father of Prince Harry, which I thought was unlikely and potentially libellous.

    3. Poppiesmum is OK. We’ve just exchanged direct messages on Twitter. Yes, she was upset by your spat and is taking a break but otherwise she’s fine.

  59. Evening, all. Just got a really depressing blurb from some (no doubt overpaid) nonentity in Shire Hall about climate change. They are going to reduce carbon emissions and the use of fossil fuels. Ironically, this will bring about “affordable warmth”. The man’s a brain-washed lunatic. According to him, housing produces 20% of the UK’s carbon emissions. I don’t suppose for a minute that he has compared the UK’s carbon emissions with those of other countries and realised that we only produce a minute amount comparatively speaking (not that carbon dioxide “drives climate change” as the pillock wrote). As for understanding photosynthesis … Give me strength! I am glad I’m old. Hopefully, I shall still be able to keep warm despite their attempts to freeze me to death.

    1. If that’s the case.
      Ask him why too many councils are allowing too many new homes to be built on green belt wild life habitat and agricultural land.
      And how much does he estimate the rise in carbon emissions/footprint since the clowns allowed thousands of illegal immigrants into the country.

      1. Immigrants? Canada imported about 350,000 last year, the boys are going for 500,000 this year and now some nincompoop of a minister is suggesting that we need more immigrants. In totally unrelated news (well they cannot see a relationship), the health care system is worse than yours and the housing market is in total disarray.

        2. Our government has set a target of 300,000 houses a year! Where are they going to put them all? Strange that we are importing about that number of gimmegrants a year, isn’t it?

    2. I expect the greatest amount of carbon comes from producing the building materials rather than living in the house. So are they planning on stopping all building?

      1. Oh, no! They have amended the NPPF to make it easier to build as far as I can see, particularly when it comes to over-riding local opposition. They appear to be unaware of “urban hotspots” created by building houses, too, when killing us off because of the “climate emergency”.

    3. Send him this, Connors:

      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.

      Please feel free to copy and paste this anywhere appropriate.

  60. Interesting 4 hour drive to Firstborn’s place (normally 2 hrs). LOTS of snow… heavy, wettish & slippery. Will post photo tomorrow, when it’s not dark.

  62. It occurs to me that until a lot more young ‘personalities’ suffer these sorts of potential ‘medical coincidences’, the MSM and folk in power are not going to seriously review possible adverse effects of the mrRNA medications:

    “The BBC sports broadcaster Jennie Gow has said she is recovering from a serious stroke.
    The 45-year-old, who covers Formula 1 for Radio 5 Live, wrote on social media that she had been treated at hospitals in London and Surrey, and her recovery “might take some time”.

    Heard today that a 73 year old acquaintance was perfectly fit and healthy up to the end of November when he suddenly became ill and was diagnosed with extensive and very aggressive cancer. His wife has announced he only has days to live….

      1. I wonder what it is about the MRNA vaccine that the powers that be are so eager that we all have it.
        I think they are giving it to animals now.

        2. I suppose if you were a part of a Government that was secretly trying to develop lethal biological weapons that escaped into the general population, you would be very keen to demonstrate to the populace at large that you acted decisively to procure and administer an antidote to exculpate yourself from any very angry mob if they ever found out you were party to the disaster. Given the probability that many governments were involved in ‘gain of function’ research it might explain the ubiquitous response.

          1. It seems a bit strange that not one MP succumbed to covid or has suffered an untoward reaction from the jab

        3. It’s quite easy – money. How many doses did they buy, how many more are committed to and what at what price?

          How else do you think trudeaus money has gone from 50 milion to 550 million since he became PM in 2015?.

          1. Does Canada have an impeachment equivalent, because that man certainly needs investigating.

          2. Well the rcmp could investigate, but they are totally under trudeaus influence.

            We don’t have any means of getting rid of that lot unless they lose a vote of confidence in the house.

            We don even have rebelious backbenchers who are prepared to speak out against little potato.

    2. My 40-year-old statuesque Polish friend had myocarditis soon after the vaxx.
      Coincidence??
      SWMBOs brother died of a massive heart attack shortly after the vaxx.
      Coincidence?
      Who knows?

  63. Cracked femur. He’s still in A & E but everyone is being good and nice. He’s going to have some sort of op tomorrow and maybe home tomorrow or the next day. It’s too much, it really is. Sod this getting old lark- I want a refund! He doesn’t know what ward he’ll be in but will call later to say.
    Thank you for your support and please bear with me.

    1. Heavens to Betsy, you deserve a bit of normality.

      I suppose that you should be thankful that he got to hospital.

      2. Indeed – an ambulance, admission, investigation, planned surgery (all in one evening, too!) – now that’s value!

    3. On the plus side a crack is usually easier to deal with.

      Next time don’t kick him when he’s on his way out!

    4. OW!
      Poor man!
      Take care, Ann. Sounds like he’ll be fine – after a while.
      See if you can relax a bit… No visiting tonight.

      1. No, I will stay home and do some essential shopping tomorrow- milk, bread etc and then be home for his return. Unless he asks me to go to the hospital, I mean.

    5. Just caught up with this. Blimey it’s been a dodgy new year so far. Touch wood, it can only get better. Friday 13th, a long time at sea tells me stay and drink at home and avoid stairs. Hope he’s home tomorrow, Ann.

        1. The things people do to get into hospital!

          Seriously Lottie so delighted that your husband is being properly looked after and at least you know what’s going on. Hope you have a decent sleep tonight. xxx

      1. Happened to my Dad, Christmas Day.
        Stood up to greet in-laws, caught his feet in the carpet – toppled over & broken femur.

    8. Good that it’s only cracked, rather than broken and displaced. That can be really life-threatening and take a long time to get right. Hope he’s back home soon. It’s very hard on you, I know, but we are here for you (inasmuch as we can be, being so far away).

      1. Thanks Conners. Am listening to Bach Cantatas and heading to bed soon. People here are very supportive and kind. I really appreciate it.
        Goodnight to you and your doggies.

        1. Goodnight, Ann. The fire is dying down now, so I shan’t be long before I’m off, too. Just one last glass of Cabernet Sauvignon before bed, I think 🙂

  64. I’m so sorry to hear about the hardships and other problems that have or might have occurred. I wish everyone well.
    I know it’s early and I’m glad Friday 13th is over. I was awake at 3am so I’m off to bed now.
    Best wishes and Goodnight all.
    Tomorrow is another day.
    Ask 007.

    1. Well, irrespective of the date, I still dropped a pair of dead elms out of a stand of four and plan getting the 3rd rigged up for pulling away from the road and getting it down tomorrow.

      The 4th will need a double pull to get it safely down so I’ll probably get that rigged tomorrow, but then leave cutting it until I have some assistance.

      1. I hope you are going to make good use of the timber Bob. You need to buy a lathe. Dry the timber out and start making bowls and other traditional artifacts. 😉

        1. If you know anyone who wants elm for wood turning, let them know! They can get in touch with me via this site. I’m quite certain I can find a few suitable pieces!

          T’Lad has come up with a good idea for the big ash log I’ve got, see if Crich want it for using to make replacement bits of framework for the various trams they are restoring.

          1. I’ll check with our local ‘Men’s’ shed Bob. Have you got any ‘Men’s’ sheds near you.
            Good idea with the Ash they use to use it on Morris and Mini countrymen cars.

          2. This is the ash tree I’m on about, 15″ tapering to 12″ and about 15′ long:-
            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/299b95c9be264a83fc068c5c07f4fb65a43be55cbf792f2e5fe71a4f65ab4cfe.jpg

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/842aaf53e4fc57c9535605cfbaf067ea34f7c6c1e568e7259003ad8db9b2d767.jpg

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a4e73c87a3dac21798b7a684886e2ce959864a1aeae3cd0dc2d0c8aff591452b.jpg

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1f250e80ce2550e3f2a23d0435bf11ea0eaa19930ae381c9d59dfdea275047e0.jpg

            It’s going to take a bit of extracting from that old building, but I’ll get there eventually.

  65. Right, I’m off to bed. I hope I get a few for Zeds than I got last night!
    G’night all.

  66. Right, I’m off to bed. I hope I get a few for Zeds than I got last night!
    G’night all.

      1. Evening Johnny – I think the statin decision by the Government is an attempt to cover up the problem of the thoroughly untested mRNA Covid vaccine on a significant number of people vaccinated with it. I never took statins as they didn’t agree with me.

      2. 369903+ up ticks,

        Evening JN,
        Partially, also about statins & processed food lifestyles, also how to protect the heart.

    2. They’ve been promoting Statins for a while now. I’m on a big 80mg one a day, but my cholesterol levels are genetically high, so I need ’em as I’ve a heart problem. Similarly, the Aspirin for everyone is not a good idea. A typical ‘big pharma’ and ‘follow the money’ scheme that people without heart problems should avoid and just eat proper food and exercise a bit.

      1. 369903+ up ticks,

        Evening M,
        I quit statins some time back coles .reading under 4, blood sugar level 6.8.

      2. Me too but only since last hospitalisation when I was eventually diagnosed with late onset asthma.

        I think my history of blood clotting from DVT to Bi-lateral pulmonary embolism probably instigated the statins prescription.

        I questioned this at the time with the hospital registrar dealing with my case and she admitted that statins had a bad reputation recently but that this remained their recommendation. My GP subsequently confirmed the prescription so I am on Lipator for the duration. No bad effects so far.

        Interestingly I admitted that I had not taken the vaccines and that I believed they were untested. The hospital registrar simply stated that she was unable to discuss the matter.

        That as they say, says it all.

      3. I’m currently on 40mg of Atorvastatin, having started on 20mg following my hospitalisation in 2019. The doubling of the dose followed my AF episode in September. No ill effects thus far, as far as I can tell.

  68. Goodnight Y’all. Going to try and get some sleep.
    Bless you all for your kind comments.

  70. Goodnight, everyone. The fire is dying down and there’s no point in making it up as I shall be off to bed once I’ve had one last glass of Cabernet Sauvignon and topped up the Rayburn. I’m doing my bit for plant life to counter the climate emergency fanatics.

  72. Are all you early risers, sitting there, with itchy fingers, ready to pounce, when Lord Geoff OPEN’s todays page?

    1. Well I am, OLT, but I doubt if I will be first, so I’m off to do other things in the meantime.

      1. At least I beat you by a fraction on commenting to OLT’s post above, Tom. (Good morning, btw.)

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