Wednesday 1 February: The whole country is suffering – and strikes only make things worse

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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667 thoughts on “Wednesday 1 February: The whole country is suffering – and strikes only make things worse”

  1. Good Morrow, Gentlefolk. Here is today’s story:

    The Cow, the Ant and the Old Fart

    A cow, an ant and an old fart are debating as to who is the greatest of the three of them…

    The cow said, “I give 20 quarts of milk every day and that’s why I am the greatest!”

    The ant said, “I work day and night, summer and winter, I can carry 52 times my own weight and that’s why I am the greatest!”
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    Why are you scrolling down? It’s your turn to say something.

    1. You caught me there, Tom. First of all I scrolled all the way down. And secondly, you lulled me into a sense of false security last night when you said I might end up being first again this morning. I do hope you have had a long and restful sleep, my friend.

  3. Good morning, everyone. First Third. And a pinch and a punch (and white rabbits) to you all.

        1. …and I think I’m going to get back to bed. I still feel weary but have now developed a sore throat to go with it. Hopefully I can sleep it off.

          1. Plenty vit C, and ginger. Lemon & ginger tea is quite good that way.
            Hope it goes over quickly, Tom.

    3. 1st Feb is the traditional day when prices go up here, and it’s like 40% for food, apparently. Plus buses, trains, road tolls.
      Looks like we’ll be eating the cats.

  5. Morning, all Y’all.
    Dark. Snowed onto the ice, and SWMBO skidded and fell on her butt on the way to work. Not sure if she’s done anything more than bruise. It’s the cold snow lubricating the icy path as talcum powder would… Poor girl.

  6. Always knew that Grizzly and Oberst’s First-Born were unreformed pyromaniacs

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2023/01/31/TELEMMGLPICT000323867534_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqRo0U4xU-30oDveS4pXV-Vv4Xpit_DMGvdp2n7FDd82k.jpeg?imwidth=680

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2023/01/31/TELEMMGLPICT000323853412_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqRo0U4xU-30oDveS4pXV-Vv4Xpit_DMGvdp2n7FDd82k.jpeg?imwidth=1280

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2023/01/31/TELEMMGLPICT000323853428_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqRo0U4xU-30oDveS4pXV-Vv4Xpit_DMGvdp2n7FDd82k.jpeg?imwidth=1280

  7. It’s not (yet) too late for Hunt to save our grandchildren from destitution.1 February 2023

    Our near neighbour Norway has amassed around £1 trillion in assets, funded by oil and gas revenues. Its fund is so large that yesterday it reported a loss of £133 billion brought about by rising interest rates and inflation. That’s almost as big as our NHS budget.

    The fund holds stakes in around 9,300 companies globally, owning 1.3 per cent of all listed stocks. It also invests in bonds, unlisted real estate and renewable energy projects. It is worth about £200,000 per citizen and bolsters a generous welfare state. Is it too late for us to do the same? We have squandered our North Sea legacy, while the opportunity to use the revenues from shale gas to seed a wealth fund has been sacrificed on the altar of environmental activism.

    Alas it is too late! The UK’s future is as an impoverished Third World Islamic enclave of the EU.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/31/not-yet-late-hunt-save-grandchildren-destitution/

        1. The habitable areas are filling rapidly. Most of the country is at 65 degrees to the horizontal.

        2. No, the country has the right population for it’s size.

          Imagine the UK with a population of about 40 million – where it would be if Labour hadn’t forced 20 million dross on us? No stabbings, far fewer drugs, lower welfare demands, no terrorism, an older, more mature population so no woke crap getting a toehold, the trans illness simply wouldn’t exist, house prices would be cheaper – the benefits are endless.

    1. My toaster does though. That detector over the stairs warns me when the toast is perfectly done.

  9. US police shoot dead double amputee as he tries to hobble away. 1 February 2023.

    Los Angeles police shot dead a black wheelchair-bound double amputee as he tried to hobble away from them on his stumps.

    Two officers from Huntington Park Police Department were temporarily stood down from duty on Monday after they fired at least eight shots at Anthony Lowe Jr., a 36-year-old father-of-two.

    Things looking a little ominous for Geoff when they finally come for us all!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/01/31/us-police-shoot-dead-double-amputee-tries-hobble-away/

    2. Counsel for the defence will plead there was no point in trying to shoot him in the legs to stop him from running away….

    3. They had an American expert, speaking in a flat rapper or Tennis player monotone, on the Today programme just now. The consensus is that the problem is institutional racism by whites, and that even when killings by U.S. cops are black-on-black, it was because they were brainwashed into it by white institutional racists.

      Nobody suggested that there may be something amiss with U.S. culture that has nothing to do with the British Empire.

  10. Good moaning all,

    Nice start to the day at McPhee Towers – partly cloudy, gentle breeze, 5℃. The car jet-washes have finally re-opened after the cold snap last week so I can go and get the salt off the Merc this morning.

    A quick perusal of the Daily Gatesograph readers’ letters reveals this one from Paul Gaynor of Windermere:

    SIR – I have no idea who this Government is working for.

    I’m a businessman and it certainly isn’t me – I’ve never paid as much tax.

    It isn’t the young – they can’t afford houses, cars or the energy for either.

    It isn’t the poor, since inflation has made them poorer still.

    It isn’t the old, who are at the mercy of a failing NHS.

    And it isn’t the law-abiding, since both the legal system and the police force are broken.

    So who is it?

    Paul Gaynor
    Windermere, Cumbria

    I think we could tell him.

    1. Donald Trump had the right idea.

      There’s a strong case for our reinforcing both Hadrian’s Wall and the Antonine Wall to keep these poisonous flaming lunatics from slipping across the border and wreaking further havoc throughout the realm.

      1. Yo Citroen
        Can you help with this?

        jeremy Morfey 36 minutes ago

        Attempting to improvise a solution in post-competence Britain.My 2CV failed its MoT over several things

        1. I’ve failed a lot more than my MoT test. Parts go missing whilst I’m parked overnight. I could have told the perps that they are wasting their time because the things they nicked haven’t worked in decades.

    2. What dressing would you like on your word salad, Ms Hartley-Brewer?
      Sorry, straight answer is off.

      1. ‘Ang on Korky, Mrs HB is not the one arguing that “Trans women are women”, she is arguing against it.

        1. ‘Ang on, BoB. I wrote that as Ms J H-B being the recipient of the word salad from the other ‘person’.

  13. The whole country is suffering – and strikes only make things worse

    The public sector are striking because they have to work and work is hard, nobody else realises that.
    So that’s why they strike.

  15. 370590+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    What does one expect when one jams a stick into the anus of a beehive and starts twirling , a reaction, bearing in mind that 48%
    of the peoples voted against our independence.

    They will, without doubt work against this Country in regards to
    Brexit, succeeding.

    As you do not execute a person suffering a heavy cold you wait until they are fit, so it is with a nation.

    Ironically due to the continuing voting pattern of many of these strikers these Isles are very far from being in a state of fitness.

    Wednesday 1 February: The whole country is suffering – and strikes only make things worse

    1. How much did Chelsea Football Club pay to transfer in that player? Loadsamoney! Never had it so good. The nation should stop whingeing because the economic indicators here point to big success.

    2. Yet the entire state machine has fought, deliberately to cripple this country socially and economically. The invasion of criminal welfare migrants is evidence of the sheer spite of big government, the economic catastrophe of tax hikes just as the nation sits on the brink of recession, possible depression.

      They are malicious, then there’s the talk of a 12p tax hike, a massive lump on corporation tax – that’s a good 10% on inflation. All to please the globalist controllers. It’s abject stupidity or deliberate spite.

      1. 370589+ up ticks,

        Morning W,
        Tis without doubt the latter, in their eyes the nerve of 52% of the herd stepping out of line on the 24/6/2016 was unforgivable, they MUST be harshly chastised hence lock downs, serious ongoing injuries & deaths, and the unleashing of mass foreign illegals daily via Dover.

        1. The covid restrictions were simply big government getting out of hand and a population desperate to obey because it’s easier than thinking.

          The malice of massive uncontrolled criminal invasion though, that’s plain spite.

          1. 370589+ up ticks.

            Afternoon W,
            I do believe it to be a massive controlled
            illegal invasion with an agenda appertaining to the RESET proposed
            program.
            The political controlling creatures have already instilled fear into much of the herd

            Keep in mind there were only 32000 gestapo officers in 1944.

  16. Russian threat growing, front line troops fear. 1 February 2023.

    Ukrainian troops on the front lines in the Donbas have told the BBC that Russian forces are “learning every day and changing their strategy” as they continue to gain ground around the heavily contested town of Bakhmut. But the soldiers also insisted that morale remains high, despite growing exhaustion after almost a year of war.

    Ach! The Russians are retreating into Ukraine again!

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64455123

    1. Are the bBC reporting from the front or propping up a bar in Kiev with their shouty former colleague Sweeney? As I read yesterday, reporting from Kiev is akin to reporting on the troubles in Belfast from an Irish bar in Dundee.

    1. Apart from flogging off American materiel, the Afgaff’s now have another source of income. But will the Canadian tax rake-off increase or decrease revenue?

      1. I’ve thought for a very long time that as soon as Class A drugs are legalised, those who currently make a very good living from dealing will have to find other brutish means to make money (because work is a four letter word). The good news is that our friends the criminal lawyers are unlikely to be worried about their incomes….

      2. You have to ask, what sort of government legalises heroin, yet sets about freezing the bank accounts, barring children from school and using brutalist force against mask protestors?

        They’re completely bonkers.

    4. I suppose that you could argue that legalising heroin is the best way of resolving the problem as the addicts will be killed off more quickly.

      1. That’s been my premise for many years, Richard.

        The surest way to kill the drug trade but the WEF, WHO and the UN to name but a few, will argue that drugs are good ‘cos they sap the brain and make the victims more willing to accept their diktats.

      2. Yes, it does not matter which poison they choose to use, I think as long as the end result is the same. The originators of the plan of population reduction will be satisfied.

  19. Russian couple fined for expressing anti-war opinions during private conversation in café

    A couple were detained and fined for sharing pro-Ukraine personal opinions during a private conversation at a Russian café, in a first-of-its-kind case.

    Alexei and Olesya Ovchinnikov were dining with a friend in Krasnodar, southern Russia, when another customer overheard their conversation about Ukraine.

    The customer approached the table and expressed indignation over unspecified pro-Ukrainian remarks, the couple’s lawyer Alexei Avanesyan told Russian media.

    The owner of the café then called the police, leading to the arrest and fine.

    Never miss an opportunity to get the propaganda out there. Actually as the camera footage in the Mail shows the woman is a foul mouthed drunk. The fine was very probably for the Russian equivalent of being Drunk and Disorderly.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11695831/Shocking-moment-couple-arrested-Russian-restaurant-criticising-Putins-war.html

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/01/31/russian-couple-fined-expressing-anti-war-opinions-private-conversation/

    1. “Russian equivalent of being Drunk and Disorderly.” Isn’t that condition mandatory in wodka saturated Russia?

      Just asking!!

        1. Did you notice the ad hominem attack on me in the Spectator when I dared to suggest that the Ukrainians were not quite as white as white as the West appears to think?

          3. Congratulations Bill. We’ve just recommended you for a medal with a Red Medicinal Bar. It’s better than a Purple Heart and it’s awarded for surviving an ad hominem attack by the forces of crass stupidity.

          7. I’ve never seen him before Bill. The best one is probably Orsoncart who doesn’t bother with anything so mundane as facts but sticks strictly to simple abuse. They are all of course employees of His Majesty’s Government!.

          9. Good morning Mr T and everyone.

            “Judge not lest ye be judged. ”
            At a community event there are now a few young Ukrainian mums and children. I mentioned to someone that it might be possible to recommend the mothers for some part time employment; immediately I was warned off because that someone had spotted a negative ‘flag’. Something so minor that most people wouldn’t notice, and it would be ‘ad hominem’ if I were to explain.
            But I recounted the story to an acquaintance, and he said, ‘hmm, interesting’; then he told me about an Ukrainian family who had been evicted by their British host after inappropriate behaviour. Of that family, only one was ‘respectable’ and studying hard to learn english.
            Obviously, one should not criticise a population of 43 million because of a few less-than-spotless apples.

          10. I didn’t see it, but I can imagine it. There’s a degree of terror people have of being shown that their views are wrong. A little bit of thought would demonstrate that this is a long standing historical problem and needs a lengthy discussion from all sides and a neutral mediator.

    2. I do believe that expressing opinions privately in Scotland that are not ‘correct’ will see you hauled in front of the bench.

  20. 370589+ up ticks,

    That’s rich, his brass neck must be worth a fortune, been a covert tory coxswain throughout.

    Brexiteers Have Every Right to Feel Betrayed by Conservatives Three Years On: Farage

    1. Farage’s greatest betrayal was not allowing his Brexit Party candidates to stand against sitting remainer Conservative MPs in the 2019 general election. He lost his nerve just when he needed to hold it.

      Now that the House of Commons, the House of Lords, The Civil Service, the BBC and most of the MSM are avid remainers I think that we shall have to accept that the Brexit dream has become a nightmare. Democracy is dead.

      1. 370589+ up ticks,

        Morning R,

        He lost his nerve ? yet he had enough “nerve” to help the ukip nec when they demolished the Genuine UKIP allowing farage to head up the brexit party.

        Treachery planned & successfully executed.

        You live in france I live in England where, regarding this odious treacherous issue
        quitting is not an option.

  22. Good moaning: busy day.
    I’m just off to engrave “Look Down His Pants” on the Krankie’s headstone: whether political or a solid lump of granite, I leave to your imagination.

  23. Attempting to improvise a solution in post-competence Britain.

    My 2CV failed its MoT over several things. The king pins, pumped with grease, scraped through with another advisory, as did the shock absorbers which look as if they have sprung a leak, but is actually me being a bit liberal with the oil when squirting it around the suspension cans and knife edges (anyone who’s driven a 2CV will know what these are). The brakes failed because oil got on the discs, but the old fellow out in the sticks who the car is with, who used to work at Austin when we had a car industry and now specialises in 2CVs from his shed, can fix the rear drums. Also he can do a spot of welding around the rear seat belt mount.

    The thing that caught me by surprise were the rear tyres failing for wear. I checked them before I set out, and they were ok. I changed the front ones that were worn. But MoT inspectors are god, and I am in no position to argue.

    Now, the tyres are out of stock with the supplier, but they are expecting a fresh consignment of Toyos from Japan in March, or I could go for Michelins at £125 each. Luckily though I have two new Toyos left over in my shed from when I last stocked up, but I need to get them to the old fellow in Tibberton, about 11 milles away.

    My mother’s 30-year-old Peugeot decided to die on me, and just clicks when I work the starter. I’ve charged the battery. I have to remove the radiator to get at the starter motor. The oil pressure and water temperature warning is going, along with the STOP disabler. I suspect the usual trouble with damp in the loom that bedevils old Peugeots, but have reached the limits of my competence.

    The local taxi company quoted me £55 for the trip. I thought of a courier collection, but had serious cold feet when reading the reviews. It seems perfectly normal for them to take the parcel and the money, but not try too hard to deliver it. All full of sales patter to recover the value of lost parcels for an extra premium, and precious little assurance that they can do the job. Besides, I do not have a new cardboard box big enough to take the tyres, and they will not accept home-made packing that might get caught up in the sorting machines.

    Therefore, after fixing the Brompton’s puncture, that is my main mode of transport, and I need to work out how to strap two car tyres to a folding bike without wobbling too much.

    As luck would have it, a local bus passes within 250 yards of my home, and operates about six times a day to the city. Then another bus will get me to a business park on the edge of the city. That leaves 2 1/2 miles wobbling down the canal tow path to get to the old fellow.

    So now my first job is to get the bungees out and work out a way of strapping the tyres to the bike reasonably safely.

    In the old days, life would have been easier, I suspect.

    1. Why not just strap the two tyres to the bike and walk the last two and a half miles Jeremy?

    2. Modern stored tyres won’t necessarily pass the MoT since the mixes they now use deteriorate in storage.

    3. Why not pay the old fellow in Tibberton to come and collect you and the tyres? Then drive home after the re-test.

  25. Ignore the inevitable Glenda Slagg dross that the ex Mrs Gove has to churn out for the Wail: in the first section of her article, she is right – bar the deserved wage rise section. The money is not there; however worthy nursing etc… might be, they are public sector jobs that have to be supported by those not reliant on the taxpayer.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11698419/SARAH-VINE-Britain-nation-split-silent-strivers-noisy-strikers.html

    1. Yet the state thinks it can keep destroying the earnings of the private sector to fund the public. Is it economic illiteracy? Plain stupidity? Ego?

      What is wrong with these fools?

      1. It’s middle class savings they’re after. Savings are dead money, say conventional economists.

      2. It’s middle class savings they’re after. Savings are dead money, say conventional economists.

    2. Get people to contribute in cash for the services provided, and keep the taxpayer funding for A&E.

  28. Here’s how to cut crime: lock up violent offenders. 1 February 2023.

    There’s no point hiring more police if we release the dangerous people they work hard to arrest.

    You might recently have read about the trial of Sean Robinson, who two years ago attacked a couple in Sunderland who were out on a first date. Unprovoked, Robinson punched and kicked the man, beating him until he lay unconscious. Robinson told the woman he would refrain from killing the man only if she’d have sex with him. He raped her.

    In court last week Robinson was jailed for five years, of which he must serve only two-thirds in custody, with an extended licence period of a further three years. The Attorney General is considering sending the case to the Court of Appeal for review under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme, but less than one in six such appeals lead to an increase in sentence. As things stand, Robinson, who was 17 at the time of the attack, will be released from prison still in his early 20s.

    For a crime so despicable, for a criminal prepared to do such evil, for a monster who has changed the lives of his victims forever, this sort of sentence is patently unacceptable. But it is a testament to the times in which we live. Violence is treated as a fact of life, especially in urban areas. Crimes that would have prompted national introspection and debate 10 years ago now pass with little comment. Believing that criminals should be punished and removed from society where they might otherwise do further harm is treated as an old-fashioned, low-status opinion. We are told that prison is barbaric, and instead of punishing criminals, we must try to understand and rehabilitate them.

    I wouldn’t dispute the principle of this with Mr Timothy; though of course hanging would be my preference. What I do take exception too is his inability to see where his views lead. The police, indeed the whole Criminal Justice system like the NHS has collapsed. This could be because he hasn’t seen it or much more likely doesn’t dare admit it to himself let alone his readers. What we see, when we read about it, are the ruins of what was the first and probably the most humane and greatest of Criminal prevention and apprehension systems ever devised. It, like the England of my youth, is now gone and cannot be resuscitated.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/29/best-way-stop-violent-crime-put-criminals-prison-longer/

    1. If the UK allowed the carrying of firearms for personal protection, the use of which is permitted when one is directly in fear of one’s (or someone else’s) life or of great personal injury, not only could she have shot the bastard, but others in future might be more wary of just pouncing on folk, in case they are carrying a concealed firearm and can fight back. A firearm also makes the tiny girl vs the huge bloke conflict a lot more equal.

    3. This country should have a three strikes policy. After the third offence, we throw away the key – literally. 24 hour lock up. You come out in a box.

      One thing I don’t understand – why don’t prisons use mobile telephone scatterers?

  29. Disappointing stuff in the Telegaffe today – the moron Johnson is apparently in Washington urging the US to provide more aircraft to Ukraine [although quite why he is involved as a failed PM is beyond me – MYOFB Boris] and meanwhile Hamish de Feckwit has been given yet more space for his drivel – urging us to supply aircraft! These cretins must really want to start WWIII.

    2. From ZH:

      “on the same day that the White House said that it would not be sending jets, Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said it would not be practical.

      “The UK’s … fighter jets are extremely sophisticated and take months to learn how to fly. Given that, we believe it is not practical to send those jets into Ukraine,” a spokesperson for the British prime minister told reporters. “We will continue to discuss with our allies about what we think what is the right approach.”

      Watch this space……

        1. Could be they are lost – normally they are driving us mad flying around and around this part of Narfurk.

          2. Be fair, someone has to coordinate the tractors that block traffic flow. Just one AWAC aircraft can cover from Bury St Edmunds to Lincoln.

  30. Anyone who deliberately wants to take away the competitive advantage UK has against the EU by raising Corporation tax from 19% to 25% is either economically totally illiterate or wants to destroy the UK and drive it back into the EU.

    Added to which the Corporation Tax rate in the Republic of Ireland is 12.5% https://accountantonline.ie/guides/how-to-qualify-for-corporation-tax-in-ireland/

    If the EU can allow Ireland – which is a part of the EU – to have a Corporation tax rate of 12.5% – half the normal EU rate – then why cannot the UK allow Northern Ireland – which is part of the UK – to have a corporation tax rate of half the rate in the rest of the UK?

  31. Morning all 😉 😊
    According to some of the press more than half a million people are on strike in the UK today. Well I think I’ll join them, its rather unique, I’ve never been on strike before during my whole life. Ah that’s better, no sugar thanks, just milk. 😉
    Also according to the press our teachers per hour worked, are the highest paid in Europe. That’s something to be proud of.
    I’ll get me mortar board.
    Oh and something else, 250 pound fines for using log burners.

    1. Re Log Burner Fines: I suppose I shall just have to burn all the logs in a bonfire in the back garden! (It’s akin to throwing fish back into the sea because they are the wrong size…)

      BoB will be really pizzed after his recent efforts

      1. We are surrounded by neighbours with log burners. I love the smell in the air as I step out side with the dog at night.
        I think a cubic metre bag of logs costs are 150 quid now possibly more.

        1. Looking on-line at price of logs yesterday £300 for a bulk bag of Ash logs & £310 for Oak…..

          Kiln dried that is….

        4. My brother had a log burner in his front room. Fortunately, his son -in-law is a fork lift driver for a pallet firm so he gets lots of scrap wood from there.

          1. The most obviously ridiculous part of this new woke nonsense is. We import thousands of tonnes of wood pellets from the US to use in our production of nation grid electricity.

        1. Lol sadly my employer prohibits my engagement in any political activities.

          Imagine if that happened in the public sector!!!

    5. All these folk forget their pensions and holidays. I don’t dispute the hours teachers put in. They do work hard but there’s more involved in their remuneration than just monthly salary.

    6. The contract for teachers that was brought in not too long before I retired had NO MAXIMUM time that should be worked, just a MINIMUM number of hours. Needless to say, if you were conscientious, the minimum number was always exceeded.

  32. From the Beeb. Was anyone aware of this ‘arrangement’?

    The way electricity prices are set has pushed UK household bills up by £7.2bn over two years, analysis suggests.
    Under existing rules, energy suppliers pay the highest price for wholesale electricity no matter how it is made.
    Gas-fired power stations are the most expensive way to generate electricity, but only make about 40% of all electricity used by UK homes.
    That means homes pay over the odds for power generated any other way, said the Carbon Tracker Initiative    .
    The think tank said if an average price was used instead the UK’s electricity bill could be much lower, the not-for-profit climate think tank Carbon Tracker Initiative said.
    The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy said it had “already launched a major review” of the electricity market “to radically cut costs” for consumers in the long term.
    It said it was consulting on changes that “would stop volatile gas prices setting the price of electricity produced by much cheaper renewables”.
    And it has imposed a temporary 45% windfall tax on renewables generators which it said would “help fund energy bill support for households and businesses”.

    1. The contract you have should be the price you pay, with no averages or cross-subsidy.
      So, those who want to be green can buy windmill (!) generated power, and those who don’t give a flying one can buy coal generated power. Then the customer gets a choice on how much they’ll pay for virtue signalling.

    2. Renewable generators have always been paid a premium to get them to build the facilities as the gas price generation is normally much cheaper and would make renewables uneconomic. The catch is that renewables are allowed to sell at the highest rate on the market even though their costs have not risen. This is only now being mentioned. If ever there was a need for a windmill windfall tax, it is now.

      1. Why not just stop the extra tax on top of our bills that those renewables companies receive.

      3. They’ll only pass it on to consumers, like all taxes. folk don’t seem to understand this.

        One lass on nextdoor complained ‘they were supposed to pay the tax for making so much money!’ Oh, the ignorance.

        As VW says, the right thing to do is scrap contracts for difference: generators sell at the market price and remove all subsidy. That ensures wind is forced to try to sell at £5 or so per MW/h and nucclear can sell for 8p. It allows folk who want to be virtuous to pay through the nose for unreliable energy, while the rest of us get cheap energy.

        All the regulator should do is ensure sufficient capacity to ensure energy supply is provided. That will mean no one builds wind ever again.

    3. What is the point of “a major review of the electricity market to radically cut costs for consumers in the long term” when our own ‘ing government is causing said increased costs in the first place. They make me so angry – sounding as if they’re helping the poor public when it’s their bloody fault.

      1. That major review is designed to make energy expensive but ensure the farce is kept so obscure the majority of proles are ignorant.

  33. I resuscitated my 2022 Hyunda Kona Ultimate yesterday by following the procrdure in the handbook for a flat battery.
    After switching on the Start button, the main battery energised and I was able to record the charge status of.the auxiliary.battery.

    I recorded these values over a perod of three hours on 31/1/2023:

    Time / SOC /Voltage

    16:59 98% 12.54
    18:09 98$ 12.6
    18:15. 71% 12.43
    20:30. 98% 12.63

    This morning (1/2/2023) i remeasured the voltage with just the voltmeter in case the battery tester presented too great a load on the 12 volt auxiliary battery and the reading was 12.47 volts.

    I’ll take another reading and piccy now with the. cross calibrated charge indicating voltmeter for a second opinion.

    Back in a mo….

    1. Flog it – people are queuing up for these fatuous cars. And buy a decent one that runs on liquid fuel and GOES!!

    2. Having played with three sets of four 120 Ah lead acid batteries over the past nine years I’ve learned that if a lead acid battery’s charge drops below 75% (circa 12.5volts) there is a tendency for said battery to Sulphate (whatever that is) and for its ability to retain its charge degrades rapidly over time. The application of a trickle charge from solar panels appears to have maintained the latest battery bank’s charge over time at 13.74volts.

      I don’t know whether this is a possibility but you might consider buying a trickle charger:

      https://www.parkers.co.uk/car-advice/best-car-trickle-chargers/

        1. I remember seeing rank upon rank of batteries/accumulators in a German WWII submarine in Bremerhaven.
          Made up nearly half Das Boot.

          1. Handily also doing duty as keel ballast – until seawater gets in and they generate chlorine gas. Then, not so comfortable.
            They also tended to be in glass battery cases, so depthcharging could crack these allowing the acid to seep out into the bilges – where there was seawater…

    3. Well, attached calibrated voltmeter and it showed 12.35 volts but beforr I could set up the camera for a 0.5 second timed shot it went up to 12.40 volts – I’ll takd another reading in a few minutes….

      1. P.S.I did open the driver’s door to.retrieve the SOC voltmeter and this seems to have caused the slight drop in battery vollts which now looks as though the main battery is tricle charging the auxiliary battery

  34. SIR – I have no idea who this Government is working for.

    So who is it? Paul Gaynor Windermere, Cumbria’

    The proponents of

    Net Zero

    Unlimited immigration

    Big Pharma

    With Effect From WEF

    etc

  36. Morning Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a849206edec0fa95660d586f646931ac0ccd0152958b9e944bf7b5cbbf0d8c6d.jpg

    If Bloody Only

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b35010f8af24db0ce9a0b26fe825f2f6596fa077807c79d3784f5416ebc7da14.gif

    https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0psbinQpm_UMmoolY5MLB6BNGUOt5IepCEgdA4P6UBUioPHFehDVopybo7EnLIXUKItuC6uwEqOUeiWRGuWnIvko-jNx7oRuehtD8fimj4yf3PZmJBcXr60noZQBUSAVwdYfQX6BMMA3rBVFM_VLifkDSLdcqjr9VF2GWCALVK0EXdgdEqLZYpCZ0/s1024/FnqUTzpWYAAlymQ.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/223116bbe9c464d82b9dc2c4fba6929cf213ef1ab60985e8034f3cbdbca0a9f0.jpg

    One for Grizz

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3a7a3a1c0faaca4e1280b6320faf0031c42ff23ab2b89bde0202fd6e001ac5b1.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ffb0bff0b34d23202367af02336909b4edf480b7e7eb6e59e7ab3617182806ae.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/13c0584b68594feb9946fd0f5ca197b1cefa9bcebd605506a0ed0d72840903ac.png

    2. The better question is why he’s even allowed to refuse it, and why he could pass the law without public consent in the first place.

      Why are they allowed to pass any law without public agreement?

      1. Passing laws under what enabling legislation?
        Aren’t the areas he’s trying to OLEZ outwith the Mayor’s jurisdiction, being Outer London/Surrey?

          1. Some of the boroughs are looking to make a legal challenge so I guess the legal position will become clearer then.

        2. I’m sure I read that some of the outer boroughs wouldn’t comply as it would only penalise local businesses and local tradesmen. As for Lammy suggesting that tradesmen could use the tube; Sosraboc hit the nail on the head with his definition. Lammynation, the process of sticking several short planks together to form a really thick one.

  38. I appreciate Dr Peterson may not be everyone’s cup of tea. However, having watched this yesterday in three parts, as it is nearly two hours long, I thought one or two others might be interested in the Dark Side of Psychology, especially in the light of recent world events and those that strut the International political stage. The segment on Internet Trolls is interesting too:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2og1DJvQ94

    1. Headline news is that Peterson gave a speech in Ottawa and was not cancelled, blocked or interrupted by lefty protesters.

      What a sad world when that is news.

  39. Good morning Nottlers, late on parade as I’ve been at Irvine Tesco for the weekly safari. Much like the weather, clear and calm. The joy of midweek shopping.

    Not having read any of the comments yet, I’ll dive straight in with an observation. The public sector workers now taking strike action are the same people who were able to ‘work’ from home on full pay and conditions whilst the level of service plunged of a cliff. Indeed, many are still taking advantage of the scamdemic.

    Meanwhile, many businesses are going under – reducing the tax ‘income’ – and all consumers are suffering; the reckless energy plans of the past 40 years, the rise in price of all consumables and a mass invasion of more consumers who will never provide financial support to the system that grants them accommodation, energy support and pocket money.

    All this whilst the political class – who have delivered us to this point – rearrange the deckchairs of their promises and pledges to an increasingly disinterested electorate.

    The 1970s will seem like paradise as the pigeons of puerility come home to roost.

      1. That’s what I keep telling myself.
        She was an indifferent Education Secretary but real power gave her wings.

        1. Mrs T stopped free school milk.
          You know, those 1/3 pint bottles which were left out in the sun most of the morning and which then were forced upon children who were lactose intolerant.

          2. We had open fires at my primary school, no radiators. The open fires were later replaced with coke stoves.

          3. Only stopped to Primary Schools. Free School Milk to Secondary Schools had been stopped a few years earlier by the Wilson/Callaghan Regime.

      2. The circumstances of a change of government may be similar, but this time it’s going from Con to Lab.

        Most times Labour have been elected they have arrived on the back of reasonable prosperity, which they have promptly undone.
        This hand over will be with a wrecked economy and massive debt and commitments, the damage that they will wreak will make Callaghan and Healey’s IMF look like a teddy bear’s picnic.

    2. Morning all.

      If the electorate is disinterested it is because the policies they would like are nowhere to be seen or even discussed by our MPs. Look at the Brexit vote – a big turnout. I think that it’s easy to think it’s not worth voting because “they’re all the same” and policies just now seem to me to be the totally wrong ones. Writing to one,s MP makes not one iota of difference, how can it really except to let him know what I think of HMG, so it seems fairly pointless. And younger people are so taken up with family life that writing or demonstrating in support of something is the last thing in their minds. People may even think what’s the point in voting, as in Liz Truss and not Hi Risk Anus, when the vote is overturned anyway.

      It’s hard to see what can be done at all by Joe Public when WEF, WHO et al have a bigger say in what goes on than we do.

      1. Street violence seems to be the only way forward, unfortunately. They don’t listen, we burn their offices, cars, houses…

    3. Who would have thought that a post-war childhood in dingy, drab, grubby and bombed out London would be preparation for life in the 2020s?

      2. Rationing, make do and mend, waste not want not, genuine austerity – we will survive when Gen X (or is it Y?) will fall by the wayside!

    3. The crime statistics are interesting reading. While most crime is commited by white folk, predominantly men, the next group is about 20% and is blacks, and the serious stuff, like rape, murder (knife crime). The last blob are asians – pakistani muslims, with their victims being white women and girls.

      40% of crime – violent, abusive crime – committed by about 15% of the population. Diversity strength… yay… not.

  41. The gender zealotry of Lloyd Russell-Moyle. Spiked 1 February 2023.

    In March 2019, for instance, Russell-Moyle tweeted that parents who see their children as boys or girls according to their biological sex are guilty of ‘abuse’. He described this as ‘forcing a sex on a child’. He also levelled the ‘abuse’ accusation at a mother who, on religious grounds, didn’t want her child to be given relationship and sex education in school. In 2020, he attacked author JK Rowling, accusing her of using her experience of domestic abuse and sexual assault to justify discrimination against transgender people.

    This guy will probably be a Minister in two years time! Think about that if you have trouble staying awake!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/02/01/the-gender-zealotry-of-lloyd-russell-moyle/

    1. I can think of more than 8 billion reasons why Mr L Russell-Moyle is totally wrong about his views on gender.

    2. The doublethink these people tie themselves in is hilarious, if it were not so dangerous.

      You are either male or female. If you think you’re something you’re not, you are, by definition, mentally ill. It is a form of schizophrenia.

      1. Agree, with the exception of (exceedingly rare) hermaphrodites. They are, of course, the exception that proves the rule, but this is a concept that appears not to be understood today.

    3. I looked him up on wiki. Apparently he was diagnosed with AIDS five years ago. However he says that this has not affected him badly and his sexual partners are safe.

      Wiki entry:

      “In November 2018, during a House of Commons debate to mark the 30th World AIDS Day,[58] Russell-Moyle revealed he had been diagnosed as HIV positive a decade earlier,[58][59] saying he wanted to tackle the stigma still associated with the condition and stating: “I have not only survived, I’ve prospered, and any partner I have is safe and protected”,[60] making reference later in his speech to having an undetectable viral load, as well as discussing pre-exposure prophylaxis and public health policy.[59] In disclosing his HIV status in a Parliamentary speech, he became the first MP to do so in the chamber of the House of Commons and only the second person (after Chris Smith) to live openly with HIV as an MP.”

      2. So this person was having unprotected homo sex 10 years ago and caught HIV/Aids. When AIDS has been around for decades. I hardly think he is worth listening to.

  42. The comment by Jonn Franklin, is an MRD (Mandy Rice Davies one)

    He is a Civil Engineer

          1. That is the land of lost content,

            I see it shining plain,

            The happy highways where I went

            And cannot come again.

    2. I would suggest that he right, it would need Nato US ground forces to fight back against Russian forces when they get their act together and overwhelm the Ukranians,

      Did anyone say that it is a good thing?

    3. I wondered who he was talking about….”They’re a brutal regime they lie through their teeth”. NATO, NWO, Eu Mafia, Biden’s mob, our own government, the innocent Ukrainians ? So hard to differentiate.

    5. If “lying through their teeth”, and “invading a sovereign nation” is so awful, why isn’t Blair in prison for war crimes? Obviously, according to that absolute buffoon, killing 14,000 of your own citizens is fine? The man is yet another dangerous moron.

    7. Bloody fool needs to read this:

      Why Putin Invaded Ukraine Pt I

      Too many people obviously have no idea as to why Putin invaded Ukraine.

      Here is the first reason:
      It was Zelensky’s Azov Brigade, ruthlessly slaughtering over 14,000 Russian speakers in Donbass and other Eastern Ukrainian provinces, that made him feel that someone should endeavour to put a stop to this slaughter of his near neighbours by a despotic tyrant.
      The sad thing is that the US, the EU and NATO all joined in on Zelensky’s side.
      I take it they all agreed that the slaughter was a good thing!

      Why Putin Invaded Ukraine Pt II
      Russia invaded Ukraine (a part of its country) in order to expose and eliminate U.S. funded bio labs. We are referring to US funded ‘gain of function’ research into bio-weapons research.
      This exposure was the objective of the Russian ‘special operations’.
      The US ‘gain of function’ research laboratories were placed in Ukraine for the reason that Ukraine, neither a country nor an independent state, is not subject to international weapons conventions and control of weapons.
      The ‘vaccines’ are proven to be gene therapies produced by companies specialising in the introduction of specific known pathogens into the world populations. These ‘vaccines’ aim to infect every recipient with synthetic mRNA nano technology. This renders human recipients as trans human in much the same way that mice, rats and ferrets are rendered transgenic in our research laboratories.
      My own research evidenced that Malaysia has already convicted George W Bush and our own Tony Blair as war criminals. Regrettably Malaysia has no international clout and these two criminals are above our decrepit international law, a law, if properly instituted, would condemn these war criminals to a life of servitude in gaol.
      The Truth will always out. Just give it a few more months and these idiots will be exposed.

  45. This makes your boat invader costs seem quite reasonable in comparison.:

    Apparently the Canadian government have paid for hotels to be reserved as quarantine accommodation for travellers arriving from overseas. Just one hotel, the Westin in Calgary cost the taxpayer $26 million over three years.

    In 2022 there were only fifteen travellers quarantined in Calgary, the accommodation cost was $450,000 per person (just room and food).

    When questioned in parliament yesterday, the health Minister defended the spending.

  46. Nicked,worth spreading

    Paul Weston nails it:

    “In order to defeat a virus, a short-term totalitarian state was built. It
    is quite possible many well-intentioned politicians went along with this
    because they thought the lethality of the virus neccessitated such a
    recourse.

    Ditto pushing the vaccines. “We don’t have long term
    safety data, but the virus is so lethal the vaccines HAVE to be better
    than nothing.”

    Two years later it turns out the vaccines are
    killing and maiming people. It also transpires they were completely
    uneccessary because the Infection Fatality Rate for Covid-19 is no worse
    than that of common-or-garden flu.

    How serious is the fall-out from this? Extremely serious. Culpable homicide serious. Mass murder serious. Genocide serious.

    The entire Western political and media class are complicit in this genuine
    crime against humanity. Quite naturally, they don’t wish to spend the
    rest of their lives in prison, or indeed facing a firing squad.

    How do they avoid such a fate? Easy, they simply have to build an eternal
    totalitarian state which guarantees their lives. And thus a short term
    medical health emergency morphs into a New World Order dictatorship.

    Which begs the question: “Was this always the plan, and if so, who planned it?

    2. “Was this always the plan, and if so, who planned it?”

      Easy question and the answer; Schwab and his WEF, ably aided by Gates and Schwab’s ‘Young World Leaders’

    4. It is interesting how the United Nations, which was conceived after the failure of the League of Nations as a vehicle to stop wars, has failed to stop wars yet has grown into a body with tentacles which interfere with almost every aspect of daily life.

    5. It is interesting how the United Nations, which was conceived after the failure of the League of Nations as a vehicle to stop wars, has failed to stop wars yet has grown into a body with tentacles which interfere with almost every aspect of daily life.

    6. Klaus Barbie Schwaab said they would use the (hoax) pandemic to speed up the New World Order.

    7. The incredible thing is that people bought it. They trotted out a list of generic symptoms that obviously pertain to colds and flu. There isn’t any such thing as a uniquely lethal illness with no unique symptoms and no unique combination of symptoms. People were not coughing up blood and falling down in the street. It was the most obvious scam yet people looked at pictures of armless plastic mannequins on a hospital bed wrapped in cellophane and hooked up to a ventilator and they were terrified. Why?

    8. From Wikipædia: “Paul Martin Laurence Weston (born 1965) is a British far-Right politician.”

      “far-Right” eh? Hmmm! I wonder who was responsible for that arbitrary, idiotic, asinine labelling of someone who clearly and evidently cares more for the public than the average pocket-lining politico does?

      1. Is Owen Jones described as far Left? What about Sarkar? Is she detailed as a ‘communist’ (although she is nothing of the sort, just a badly educated child.).

    9. Who indeed ?
      Looking back, how long did it actually for all the idiots to discover what hitler and his pals were upto ?

    10. As the great Ronald Reagan apparently once said: “Don’t just do something. Stand there.”

  47. Katherine, Princess of Wales is pushing out her view on bringing up children from one to five .

    Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.. Aristotle

    How will the message be driven home to the thousands of mothers who are glued to their phones, nails and eyebrow makeovers .. and the mini me brigade

    The visit coincides with the launch of a cinema and billboard campaign called Shaping Us, which aims to influence attitudes about the unique importance of a child’s first five years and the impact they have on adulthood.

    On arriving at the market, the Princess viewed a 90-second claymation video, charting the development of a young girl from birth until her fifth birthday. This was commissioned to illustrate how the brain is stimulated by social interactions, support and affection.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2023/01/31/kate-princess-wales-leeds-early-years-campaign-shaping-us/

    1. Did Katherine, Princess of Wales have anything to say about 5 year olds being taught how to masturbate? No? Thought not.

        1. Worryingly, some children don’t know why it’s wrong. Hell, there’re kids at Junior’s school who at 6 eat with their fingers and don’t know how to use the loo.

          We’ve made endless mistakes with the young fellow but he’s at least toilet trained.

    3. Lord protect us from members of the Royal Family who are consumed by the urge to “do something.”

    4. Modern ‘mothers’ withschool age kids need at least Four Arms/Hands

      Important Ones
      One to hold the ciggy, when fag e-nd not mouth
      One to hold ‘mobile phone’

      Under sufferance
      One to push Pram/Pushchair containing youngest
      One to hold hand of below schoolage Toddler(s)
      One to hold hand(s)of one on way to school

        1. How many hands are needed for the second group depends on whether she has kept her knees together

        2. How many hands are needed for the second group depends on whether she has kept her knees together

    5. Modern ‘mothers’ withschool age kids need at least Four Arms/Hands

      Important Ones
      One to hold the ciggy, when fag e-nd not mouth
      One to hold ‘mobile phone’

      Under sufferance
      One to push Pram/Pushchair containing youngest
      One to hold hand of below schoolage Toddler(s)
      One to hold hand(s)of one on way to school

  49. Today’s funny story. Really!!

    Two weeks ago, the MR sent off £70 worth old “old stamps” for replacement by the new ones with barcodes.

    As always, I admired her patience and zeal. I’d have written it off – as I believed the “swap” scheme to be a scam.

    Having heard absolutely nothing, she spent an hour listening to a phone message telling her that her call was important – to ask the GPO what was going on.

    Eventually she spoke to a bloke who said that there was no trace of the stamps but if she didn’t hear within 2 weeks she was to phone another number…..

    Two hours after her call today, our trusty postman delivered the replacement stamps!!!

      2. Works every time!

        ” Where are you, I thought you said you would be home by now?”

        “I’m at the front door”…...

  51. This will upset the balance of your minds, folks. Maajid Nawaz and Whitney Webb talking about the absolute evil behind the the plan to establish a global technocratic dictatorship. It’s being done through health policy initiatives and the perpetrators are the security services of our own governments which are under the control of the globalist oligarchs. Our very own Sir Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust who is just about to become Chief Scientist at the World Health Organisation is the High Priest. I’d open a bottle of whiskey before you sit down to listen. It really is evil. There is no other word that fits.

    https://odysee.com/@MaajidNawaz:d/Ep40:98

    2. “Efforts are afoot to use our global institutions — such as UNESCO, the United Nations, and the World Economic Forum — to erect a truly global technocratic tyranny that has at its head a eugenics and transhumanist agenda for the purposes of moving the human race toward the direction of absolute and total control, both inside us and outside of us.”

      Scary stuff indeed if it is true. I can say, though, that in this Brave New World, I am much happier to be approaching 72 than I would if I were approaching 27.

    3. Have got the whisky open….am sitting down….feeling a bit bolshie today so am not going to listen

  52. Just back from treating Stepson to lunch.
    After a beautiful, if somewhat gusty start, it’s turned overcast with light showers. Still blooming windy though.

    2. 57,000 Lebanese pounds to the $1. ?

      At that rate the Lebanese would be better off using confetti as a medium of exchange…

      1. It doesn’t effect any of them in politics. That’s why they chose to follow that profitable and crooked path.

    1. Too clinical. I like velvet banquettes and table cloths.
      Just think of the noise in that room when it’s busy.

      Style over substance.

      1. It’s supposed to look like a drawing apparently, so that you feel as though you’re in the middle of a pencil sketch.

        1. Yes, I got that. But it’s just a bit tricksy. Places like that go out of fashion very quickly.

      2. I agree, certainly not somewhere I would like eat, table cloths and proper napkins for me!!

  56. Our old TV has been giving us problems .

    Went to PC world last week, Moh wanted a large TV.. Aha . bought a 55″ Sony.. brought it home in the back of the car, but didn’t have a bench large enough to rest it on , so Moh ordered one on line , DIY thing , arrived yesterday, R assembled it , and this morning we shifted stuff around in the living room to accommodate the new gadget.

    We watched PMQs on the old one then did the switch .

    We couldn’t turn it on .. rang PC World to speak to the Sony people .. We were given a number .. male voice answered.. and went through a few finer points .. I asked where we were calling … CAIRO…. He talked him through some of the manual . I even changed the batteries in the new controller .

    He was actually very thoughtful and patient … turns out Moh hadn’t pushed the connection in deep enough in the rear of the TV , despite him saying he had .

    PC world are like every organisation .. quite a rigmarole trying to get through to the shop floor .. It was easier to talk to some one from Sony in Cairo than in Poole .

    1. Having worked in support, I can tell you that NOBODY wants to get involved in trying to fix problems that they think their systems are not responsible for!
      We used to get people wanting Windows support calling us – we were only supposed to be supporting one app, not their blinking Windows operating system!

    2. Had to get daughter’s husband to get the TV operational and connected (It would have taken me ages to do what he did in 10 mins….)

    3. OH bought a new one last year – but it came with a young man to set it up and show us how to work it.

        1. No – but he did come back for another visit when the internet connection went wrong. He managed to sell us a booster thingy to amplify the signal.

  57. Head of Kyiv tax authority accused of multimillion-dollar fraud. 1 February 2023.

    Allegations follow raid on one of unnamed woman’s four homes as part of Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s anti-corruption campaign.

    The woman leading the Kyiv tax authority has been accused of a multimillion-dollar fraud after a raid on one of her four homes as Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s campaign against state corruption in Ukraine continues.

    The development came as Ukraine’s president prepares for a Friday summit in the country’s capital with senior EU officials to discuss potential accession to the bloc of 27 member states.

    Ukraine’s state bureau of investigation (SBI) said in a statement that the acting head of the inspectorate, who has not been named, had abused her “power and official position” along with other members of the authority.

    This and what appears to be an internal war between the Ukies and Ethnic Russians does not augur well for the future.. Corrupt governments and military success are mutually exclusive conditions.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/01/ukraine-head-of-kyiv-tax-authority-accused-of-multi-million-dollar

    1. Could it possibly be she has information on all those alleged to have received Uncle Sam’s largesse on the QT?

        1. Check out Dan Bongino on Rumble today’s episode.

          Joe Biden and Son received payments from Privatbank, a bank owned by Burisma’s owner. Zelensky worked for the TV media company owned by the same oligarch.

          Dan plays a tape of Joe Biden threatening the previous (deposed) President of Ukraine and demanding the closure of Privatbank as he knows Trump will work out the misdeeds. Biden is on record as threatening to withhold a billion dollar US loan guarantee unless the Ukrainian state prosecutor investigating Privatbank was sacked.

          Dan also suggests that Biden’s reference to an IMF loan that Lagarde and others were feeding the Ukrainian Piggy Bank and also able to withhold funds should Privatbank not be closed down.

    2. Zelensky’s campaign against corruption!
      Oh my. The nerve.
      That ranks right up there alongside Neil Ferguson’s campaign for accuracy in science, Klaus Schwab’s volunteer work in the soup kitchen, and Bill Gates’ promotion of cheap, generic drugs that make people better.

  58. UK poised to rejoin £80bn EU scheme as Sunak keen to end damaged relations with bloc D Express

    We’re back in the EU.S.S.R
    You don’t know how lucky we are, boy
    Back in the EU.
    Back in the EU.
    Back in the EU.S.S.R!

  59. I am still up and down with my chesty cough, and still feeling warm .. I have a rattle at night , and felt as if I were choking in the early hours .

    I cannot taste anything again , If it is Covid again , so what , jabbed or not , I didn’t accept my winter Covid jab , Moh did and he has been feeling rough as well..

    I have a large pan of chicken thigh stew, bits of ham carrots , celery, parsnip, potato, leeks , simmering away , will add some dumplings later

  61. What pops up in my in-box with respect to the EU and its attempt to colonise Northern Ireland? This:

    “From 1 May 2023, businesses will no longer be able to use a margin scheme when buying second-hand vehicles in Great Britain and selling them in Northern Ireland.”

    Notwithstanding the complexities of VAT, this is clear: the UK exists in name only.

    1. I am becoming more and more convinced that Gove and Johnson were terrified that if Lord Frost stuck firm on Northern Ireland and the UK’s fishing waters that Brexit might actually work. This is why they both arrived in Brussels at the eleventh hour to undermine Frost and make him capitulate to the EU.

      The very last thing that Johnson wanted was to get a proper Brexit done,

  62. As you may know I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to find out why I have an electric warning light showing on my Hyundai Kona Ultimate. EV As its only four months old it would be easy for me to call for home assistance as this could mean calling an electrical expert/tow truck but I’m not confident to let the authorised dealer sort it (it changed hands just after I got delivery of the vehicle)

    However if this should occur again I would need to know what to do in order to get me out of non-start situation if passenders and I were away from home anf in a dangerous situation.

    After today’s observations I conclude that the complexity of EVs is such that messing around with it electrically is not recommended except perhaps for measuring the auxiliary 12 volt battery voltage and here is what you need to establish what’s going on with this State Of Charge voltmeter::

    Auxiliary 12 volt battery being trickle charged by main (traction) battery (lower limit – orange led lit)

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/44da6acb51a46cf59077e4d9711f1739cb98b3f69c96eb69e5a2aad71f0db72d.jpg

    Auxiliary 12 volt battery being trickle charged by main traction battery (higher limit – green led lit)

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/37231747656e4851a123031927da27bbc46eb3c6132c7ed3813c356d26c13705.jpg

    The State of Charge voltmeter will oscillate over a period of time between these two states (red-green-red- green…) whilst the vehicle is turned off but the trickle charging will be interupted if the vehicle is disturbed in any way (including walking near it with the fob) whilst not in drivable mode (green car display in driver’s cluster).

    This explains a lot problematic behaviour observed on EVs but it is nice to know that the Hyundai Kona Electric is in fact a very advanced self-charging auxiliary battery EV (a SCABEV?).

    Auxiliary battery states outside this range are symptomatic of a more serious non-start situation that will end up with a permant 3 amp drain on the auxiliary battery and completely discharge it.

    1. I know you post lots of comments about your (apparently useless) car – but none of what you say means anything to me….

      3. I waa interested in how an EV works.
        Son has a Leaf which turns up several times a month and he’s just got rid of his diesel and got a larger EV for his family.

        I have been advising him on electrical issues of charging circuitry as a Chartered Electrical Enginner so I know more about solving electrical vehicle system principles than most vehicle technicians.

        The Kona Electric has shocked Elon Musk for a vehicle that reaches the Tesla quality at half the price but suffers from the same flaws that make it problematic when used other than when charged at home.

        This problem is evidenced by the fact second hand vehicles are now being traded more than BEVs but hybrids bring together the worst of EVs and ICE technology together.

        I’m stickimg to a single drive train solution that should work for me and I need to keep ahead with my professional knowledge.

          1. I don’t mind.
            It gives me an incentive to understand why a lot of people can’t see why pure battery EVs aren’t going to replace ICE cars.
            But if I am to justify my own use of one I need to understand how it works because whilst many people are using them they don’t realise why BEVs have limitations and what they are best used for.

      4. A lot of my content in comments is to record what I did to try and sort out Hyundai’s deficiencies in this vehicle. It’s a very complex bit of kit but it’s controlling parameters are too readliy reconfigured through software downloads. There no need for you understand it – the vehicle manufacturer may be able to work out where they went wrong and fix it under warranty or give my money back.

    2. Your posts are among the best arguments that I have read for not buying one of these things…!

      1. I just bought it for a bit of fun when I’ve figured out how it works and why people don’t read the instructions to avoid a break down.

    3. It’s interesting stuff – why is the (can we call it car battery) being drained in an EV when in a petrol it isn’t?

      Well, it obviously is, but not to the same extent.

      1. The reason is that in a petrol car the battery only powers the electronis control module (ECM) and the alarm system which is very low current when locked.

        In a BEV a central computer unit (CPU) is powered all the time and is in standby mode when the car is locked.with all its electronics ready to responsd to a proximity fob which enables the CPU to activate all lights and moving parts (e.g. Electric motor). This arrangement takes more power which comes the auxiliary 12v battery and this in turn must be trickle charged from the main traction battery.

  63. British engineering giant Rolls-Royce is set to make the UK a major energy exporter with plans to deploy its revolutionary nuclear power stations in the Czech Republic by the 2030s.

    So, we can give nuclear power secrets to Czech Republic in the guise of providing clean electricity but not install and use the same in the UK. Someone (or many someones) need their b*lls cutting of and sent to jail in St Kilda – forever.

        2. Remember the aim of the state is to make energy unaffordable. That means supply must be restricted.

        3. But the EU declared that nuclear energy was clean. And we always abide by what the EU says or does.

  64. An unknown Cornish singer has just topped wold record charts beating Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus in iTunes chart with a song called Astronaut. I listened to about two minutes of it and didn’t understand a word.

    See if you know what it’s about: https://youtu.be/Qzorrbl-t54

    2. Of course you can’t understand it. ‘She’ is Bill Thomas in drag, lost in Grand Central station.

    4. Towards the end I think I heard: “I’m an astronaut floating in your space’ – but don’t quote me on that….

    6. I hear layers and layers of music and a song I can’t make out the words to I’m afraid.

    7. I think she feels like a stranger in New York, i.e. she might as well be exploring another planet.
      The sound quality seems to be very bad.

  65. I hope the Olympic committee tells Ukraine and Latvia to take a running jump.
    They won’t of course, because other nations will join in the threats.

    I wonder how many individual athletes would boycott the games if the choice was left entirely to them? Not many I suggest.

    https://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/64488607

  66. Par Four again, today.

    Wordle 592 4/6
    ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
    ⬜🟨🟩⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. Yes, Ndovu; I spoke to her last night.
        I conveyed best wishes from many NoTTLers. There is little prospect of her rejoining us in the near future.

        4. In some ways, I don’t blame her. I am not here as often and it seems to me, at times, that some people look for the most depressing news items to post.
          If Plum is getting over a tough time, the last thing she needs is a ton of doom and gloom. We all know it’s out there but we don’t need to read and hear about it all the time.

          1. I tend to skim through the reports of (general, rather than particular Nottlers’) doom and gloom. Life’s too short to be looking on the dark side all the time.

        6. I do hope she’s doing well anyway – even if doing well means rejoining the real world rather than hanging out on the internet.

          1. Lacoste said a while ago she has stopped using her computer. I guess she’s just got used to a different lifestyle.

          4. She has “not turned her back on us,” VW.

            Plum had a serious Covid 18 episode and a scary experience in hospital. She kept saying: “i don’t want to be here.” – which may have been misinterpreted.

            On returning home, she acquired an aversion to computer interaction.

            Because of injury, she cannot play tennis.
            And she has lost her beloved dog, Maud.

            Perhaps Spring – and her garden – and a new dog will improve her lifestyle?

          6. I do feel sad for Plum, she was always such an integral part of the pages here that I do hope she is able to come back whenever she is ready.

          7. I’m so sorry to hear that Lacoste I know she loved her tennis and struggled with her injury for some time. Didn’t know she’d lost her dog, very sad. Spring will hopefully give her a big boost as she was very proud of her garden I remember – the photos she posted were quite spectacular. Please pass on Alf’s and my very best wishes.

          1. She is not actively searching just now, Conners; perhaps she will make more effort in the Spring …

    3. Bogey 5 here.

      Wordle 592 5/6

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

    4. A decent birdie here.
      Wordle 592 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
      🟩⬜🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  67. I heard Boris Johnson (Bunter) is in the US begging for more materiel to be sent to his chum Zelensky in Ukraine.

    Bunter must be really thick. Biden is about to be deposed as a Foreign Agent over his dealings in Ukraine, Albania, Russia and China. Biden and his wicked crime family are destined for Guantanamo and the chiefs at the DOJ and FBI are likely to follow.

    Bunter himself is exposed as a criminal responsible for harming millions of innocent people with his threats and promotion of the Covid ‘vaccines’. He brought a combination of malfeasance and chaos to our UK government unparalleled in my lifetime.

    1. Gitmo would be a touch pointless for Biden senior. A home for the terminally bewildered (© Tom Lehrer) perhaps?

    2. In the league of the World’s most Barstewardly Bar-stewards I wonder where they would come?

    3. In the league of the World’s most Barstewardly Bar-stewards I wonder where they would come?

    5. I don’t understand why Boris is still so active. He’s a lazy begger, not like narcissist Blair who couldn’t believe that his time in the spotlight was over. Surely Boris isn’t driven by the same Messiah complex? What’s he up to?
      Could it be as mundane as trying to escape his domestic life (and go on the prowl)?

      3. Its easy to be generous with other people’s money and maybe he is after a favour. Those Uke ladeeies are very pretty and often looking for safe haven from the storm.

  69. Now as opposed to doom and gloom….. The physio turned up today, a very nice and competent bloke. We now have a walking frame for downstairs and one for up. We have a loo seat with handles on it and an exercise sheet and the guy took MH through the exercises. The guy was here ages.
    Today, my husband has been up and downstairs only using the stair rails and, using the walker, has been to the loo, unaided.
    He can move about much better and, although tired, is much more confident.
    Nurse coming tomorrow to draw blood and remove staples- was supposed to be today but there was too much going on. Honestly, it’s been like Piccadilly Circus here. Plus we had a delivery.
    The district care , so far, has been far superior to anything he received in that hospital!
    Guess the trip to Sainsbury’s will be happening tomorrow.
    Am tired but much happier.
    And I am going to drink to that!

    1. Have two drinks, LotL – go mad!

      What wonderful news for you and your husband.

      I can tell you that the HARD bit is making yourself do the sodding exercises on your own.

    3. That’s good – my OH & I went for a walk this morning while the sun was out – not very far – but up the hill – and it is quite steep. We went as far as the cattle grid and back – he used the walking poles but didn’t really need them. He didn’t get breathless, either, so things are looking up.

      2. Good news to you two, too, Jules.

        More NoTTLer hugs.

        Hey, I got all three (to, too, twos) in one sentence.

    5. Good for you, Lottie and your husband! Wonderful to have a routine to follow and you’ll be able to see the difference! Bless you both and keep waving that stick!

      2. They have taken to using maggots to remove necrotising flesh from wounds; plus ca change …

    10. Just back from a very agreeable lunch, so I have enjoyed reading your good news, makes a nice change from all the doom and gloom ! Have another glass on me…cheers.

        1. Of course, but ready for what, I don’t know!! Our weather has been so topsy turvy this winter and we have yet to see measurable snow and no prolonged spell of really cold stuff at all.

          2. Always!! I enjoy looking at footprints in the snow and the route the deer are currently using in front of my house. Also watching the birds, their colours show up so well against the snow.

          3. Simple pleasures.

            The snow lasted 8 days but to be fair; snow here is what you would call a voluminous sneeze!

            What was a real surprise was how many trees got knocked over and branches were taken down by the weight of the snow on them. The snowflakes were enormous and settled very quickly, hence the breakages.

          4. Yes, the large snowflakes, although lovely to watch, tend to be very heavy and wet, and will bring down trees with their weight, we usually find some casualties after a heavy storm.

          5. I was very pleased to see that a large pine, 100 foot plus, had fallen away from my fencing.

            French succession laws mean that properties can be split into very silly pieces and trying to get several neighbours to decide whose responsibility/insurance it is can be a nightmare.
            An annoying aspect is that none of them seem to be willing to let me deal with the problem in exchange for me keeping the wood.

      1. Thanks Anne- it has been mad here but a good mad. Husband’s Americano coffee maker arrived and he was able to stand in the kitchen and get it going. Holding onto the counter and with walker to hand but, oh, it was good to see!

  70. Thought for the day:
    If all those on strike were told the choice is: stop net zero and use fossil fuels, stop supplying Ukraine and stop ALL wokery, lgbtqz etc. and you can have your pay rises or carry on, what would they do?

  74. That’s me for this chilly day. Still finished stacking the logs so far produced by Colin’s felling – he has the rest of a maple to take down in a week or so. About 8 cubic yards – and his labour and that of the handyman for chopping come to £150. So my tree planting all those many years ago WAS a good investment…for once!

    Have a jolly evening – market tomorrow.

    A demain.

    1. I am always surprised by how little wood one gets for ten euros here.

      If you sold it, instead of burning it yourself, you could probably afford the follow the sun on luxury holidays.

        1. How many days wood, ho ho, that last?

          We burn a wheelbarrow full a day, but I have the poêle on 24/7, because it’s all garden logs/gash wood

          2. Even so, if you sold all your Norfolk wood at similar levels you could afford to live in a hotel in Monaco!

        2. We used to buy 1 cubic metre in Spain, of mainly olive wood for €70.

          Delivered and stacked in the garage.

          It would last for about 6 weeks on an open fire.

  75. Ha ha ha ha ha,
    Deep breaths
    Ha ha etc.

    Devout born-again Christian mother sues her four-year-old son’s school in first case of its kind in UK for making him take part in LGBT parade despite her belief that Pride is the ‘most serious of the deadly sins’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11702239/Christian-mother-sues-four-year-old-sons-school-saying-LGBT-parade.html

    Will she cry racism if she’s attacked for her beliefs?
    This could be interesting!

    It is the first time that a UK court will scrutinise the legality of imposing LGBT ideology in primary schools.
    The hearing continues.

          1. Yes, she has every advantage – a single parent, metropole, black and a woman.

            If she were white, married and lived in the Cotswold’s I’m pretty sure Al Beeb would set about trying to destroy her.

  76. Well, after getting home from treating Stepson to lunch, Croots Farmshop Cafe at Duffield is rather nice, I got changed and tried out a saw chain I’ve recently unearthed.
    And I mean Saw chain, i.e. a length of chain with saw teeth attached, but NOT for a chain saw.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/03468efff29e89e01da77e0c0efe9566af3612b997be0df092b4499ee1d3e4f4.jpg

    With a length of rope thrown over a 2″ branch on one of the small Elms and the ends of the rope tied to the ends of the chain to allow it to be pulled backwards & forwards against the branch, it worked. Not quickly admittedly and with a couple of snags because I was trying to use it single handedly, but it did cut through the branch.
    And important thing as I need it to be able to cut through the top of the larger elm I still have to fell.

    But, it seems I have more elm to cut up!
    Whilst working I noticed what appeared to be a couple of tree trunks lying through the bushes along the hill side. Investigating I found the best part of a years worth of wood that had come down recently. 4 or so elm trunks and a couple of ash that the falling elm had taken with them!!

    1. I had one of those; they are superb for cutting under fallen trees to release the trunk from the roots.

      I found it worked much much better cutting from the bottom to the top, but only if the bit to be cut was tensioned off the cut;

  77. Before I go to bed – a SHOCKING concert on beeboid radio3.

    Brass band music (well, “brass” is sinful enough). By the (hush my mouth) BLACK DYKE band.

    How did THAT get through the net….??

    I have had to return my TV licence fee. I am that shocked.

    1. Who knows these days. Biden’s clearly ill. If his home were searched and the FBI said ‘Psst, matey, we’ll look the other way…’ Biden would likely ask ‘who’re you, and are you staying for dinner?’

  79. Imagine a world where if a politician told a deliberate lie they were promptly incinerated.

    The only sound you would hear would be laughter…

    2. “…operational security and integrity”

      God, how I laughed, when you consider it is the corrupt FBI handling the ‘search’.

  80. Evening, all. It’s like reliving the seventies, only this time it isn’t a Labour government (from which you would expect fiscal incompetence and socialist policies). Update on Oscar; he seems much more comfortable today and has had all his tablets (although the last paracetamol took several attempts at deception before it was swallowed). I have one more application of ointment to his eyes to complete tonight (and so far I still have my fingers!). The vet rang me this morning to ask how I was coping! I said, “so far, so good” 🙂

      1. Very deffo. And our vet kisses his patients on the top of their heads, calls them sweetie…. we pay the patient’s bill. The kisses, surprisingly, seem to be free, no charge.

        1. The eye specialist called Oscar “sweetie” as he was trying, despite his muzzle, to take her fingers off! It took three of us to hold him so she could look in his eyes.

  81. Surgeons at the cutting edge on BBC2 – Kidney transplant and a bowel operation for those with the stomach, no pun intended, to watch.

      1. Not next week, Tom, as it’s brain tumours close to the spinal cord. Incredible surgery.

        1. First I’ve got to have a GP who is NOT afraid to recommend me to an orthopaedic Surgeon who is not afraid to alleviate lower back pain. Ha!

    4. If medical staff, involved in an operation on me, start telling me what is going to happen when I am sleeping, I ask them

      ‘If you get on a bus, do you want the driver to tell you how it was designed, built, came into service etc’

      They say “No, the firm that makes them know that’

      I asy “Snap. wake me when you have finished.

      1. When I had my major op in September 1998 my surgeon said I had a 98% chance of a successful recovery. He then went on to tell me what could go wrong and I might die. The 98% far outweighed the downsides. He didn’t tell me my stomach wouldn’t restart quickly and I didn’t eat for 15 days, lost about 3 stones and looked like a skeleton. But hey ho I’m still alive and kicking. Life is a joy.

        1. My view, is if they do not do it, I may die

          If they do it, they are skilled. I do not want to know the procedure

          On 9 Feb, I will be making arrangements for Cataract operations.

          I just need the date and assurance thet I will not know what is going on

          1. You’ll only have local anaesthetic and will, therefore, know what’s going on. Good luck with the cataract surgery and enjoy the bright light.

          3. Mother had those done when she was compos mentis. Worked a treat, in & out in a day. I flew over to drive her to & from the (BUPA) horsepiddle & stay with her afterwards for a few days.

          2. Do you realise it’s 5 years ago we were talking to you and Jack about our impending trip to Washington and New York for our 50th. Doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself.

  82. Right, that’s me off to bed!
    Weather permitting, I’m planning to continue sawing my way through the logs I’ve got up the garden for the woodstack.

    1. Yo B o B

      I shall go North and paint the Forth Road Bridge.

      I first went across the Forth Rail Bridge in 1962, on the way Norf, for the Second Part of my apprenticeship.

      Please slow down, so that I can have a rest Hehehehe

  84. I just realised that I’d signed off without wishing you stragglers, Goodnight and God bless. We’ll all meet again in the morning’s gloom.

  85. Goodnight Y’all. A tiring but positive day.
    Sleep well and thanks again for all the supportive and kind comments.
    XX

  87. You can tell by the number of comments that most of us feel as if we’re in WWI trenches, eager to take on the foe but no directions from the General Staff who have all funked it and want nothing more than to hide in their funk-holes until it’s all over.

    Maybe it’s time to turn on the General Staff and, if they won’t comply, to take the fight to them.

    Once again if we, who are so old, crook and unable, though willing, to fight, armed with just a rifle and bayonet, stormed their funk-holes and forced them into the open to account for their sins of cowardice.

    There are many lamp-posts and I’m sure an abundance of piano-wire to take account of these traitors and, if it needs, the old and infirm to bring them to book – so be it.

    Who will follow me?

    God, give me a rifle, ammunition and a bayonet and I will lead the charge – remember to scream as we winkle them out.

    Where do we get the rifles, ammunition and bayonets to carry this out?

    Any answers?

      1. You may always learn and I’m sure there are many into whom you just love to stick a bayonet.

    2. No need my friend. The effing idiots are busily shooting themselves and each other in the foot or more correctly both feet.

      The Ukraine depository and repository for slush funding of corrupt politicians is unravelling by the day.

      In the UK Lord Frost has moreorless admitted that we can do very well out of the EU despite being shackled to the monstrous entity by Bunter and Gove, two of the most despicable pieces of excrement to ever serve in government.

      Biden is a goner, slurring his words and unable to speak coherently as though God has visited the evil bastard and tied his tongue.

      We are living in very interesting times. The way to go is becoming more obvious by the day.

      1. I suppose that, old as most of us, unlike the young ‘woke’ sprogs, we have age and experience on our side, which would be invaluable in any head-to-head with the wokists in Westminster. But there again, alas and alack, I may only dream, but I’d love to give them all Cpl Jones’ sage advice, “They don’t like it up ’em!”

        3. We are the resistance movement, although not a great deal of movement from some of us. :-)). Quite a lot of resistance but not much movement.

    4. I think the key to this situation is that we have to be as independent as possible. Very few of us can achieve complete independence (I certainly can’t), but most of us can do something.
      I’ve just signed up to be part of a group buying food directly from farmers in my town.
      Let them make their nightmare – we will quietly resist with our feet. If enough of us do it, then their dystopia dies.

    5. I think the key to this situation is that we have to be as independent as possible. Very few of us can achieve complete independence (I certainly can’t), but most of us can do something.
      I’ve just signed up to be part of a group buying food directly from farmers in my town.
      Let them make their nightmare – we will quietly resist with our feet. If enough of us do it, then their dystopia dies.

  88. Ah well, I can only wish you all, again, a goodnight and God bless.

    May we fight again tomorrow.

  89. Croissant, homemade apricot jam, and cappucino for breakfast, whilst the dark outside tidies itself away.
    Could be a worse start to the day!

  91. Morning all at the end of another Nottler day,

    Thanks to all the Nottlers who sent critical comments about my decision to dump my hardly used diesel ICE car and put a big lump of savings for my old age into the latest (2022 at the time) Hyundai Kona Ultimate BEV.

    The last thing I needed was for a yellow warning icon to appear on the driver’s cluster https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/de9366842dfc6d982a06ec8c517c18dc1469cae76ae939823af48e81dfde4960.jpg as this was the precise reason that MOH wanted me to get rid of the diesel after it threw a DPF warning light that the.dealer couldn’t sort.

    I grounded the Kona whilst it would still start and set about finding what out what was happening.

    Here’s the setup to record the shots of the engine compartment:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9cde098ece03f7a37f760df4446a53622def940ed410c8f3f2d547200bab086f.jpg

    a here’s the series of shots that made me realise what the Kona was doing after I restored the battery to tha state it should have been in when I took delivery:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8a8665a76aab076fbd93342885816219c6a40ee20b96d1e9a6d3b122543400ad.jpg

    I had to spend all evening today (yesterday) when i reaised I had to look more closely for a longer period of time to see what was going on.

    1. Despite my comment, I am sympathetic – and applaud your courage in getting to grips with an electric car.

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