Thursday 2 February: The country’s children have been let down by ill-judged teacher strikes

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

762 thoughts on “Thursday 2 February: The country’s children have been let down by ill-judged teacher strikes”

  2. Good Morrow, Gentlefolk. Here is the syllabus for today:

    Men Teaching Classes for Women at
    THE ADULT LEARNING CENTRE

    REGISTRATION MUST BE COMPLETED
    By January 31st 2023

    NOTE: DUE TO THE COMPLEXITY AND DIFFICULTY LEVEL
    OF THEIR CONTENTS, CLASS SIZES WILL BE LIMITED TO 8 PARTICIPANTS MAXIMUM.

    Class 1
    Up in Winter, Down in Summer – How to Adjust a Thermostat
    Step by Step, with Slide Presentation.
    Meets 4 weeks, Monday and Wednesday for 2 hrs beginning at 7:00 PM.

    Class 2
    Which Takes More Energy – Putting the Toilet Seat Down, or Bitching About It for 3 Hours?
    Round Table Discussion.
    Meets 2 weeks, Saturday 12:00 for 2 hours.

    Class 3
    Is It Possible To Drive Past a Supermarket Without Stopping? –Group Debate.
    Meets 4 weeks, Saturday 10:00 PM for 2 hours.

    Class 4
    Fundamental Differences Between a Handbag and a Suitcase– Pictures and Explanatory Graphics.
    Meets Saturdays at 2:00 PM for 3 weeks.

    Class 5
    Curling Irons–Can They Levitate and Fly Into The Bathroom Cabinet?
    Examples on Video.
    Meets 4 weeks, Tuesday and Thursday for 2 hours beginning
    At 7:00 PM

    Class 6
    How to Ask Questions During Commercials and Be Quiet During the Programme
    Help Line Support and Support Groups.
    Meets 4 Weeks, Friday and Sunday 7:00 PM

    Class 7
    Can a Bath Be Taken Without 14 Different Kinds of Soaps and Shampoos?
    Open Forum …
    Monday at 8:00 PM, 2 hours.

    Class 8
    Health Watch–They Make Medicine for PMS – USE IT!
    Three nights; Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 7:00 PM for 2 hours.

    Class 9
    I Was Wrong and He Was Right! –Real Life Testimonials.
    Tuesdays at 6:00 PM Location to be determined.

    Class 10
    How to Parallel Park In Less Than 20 Minutes Without an Insurance Claim.
    Driving Simulations.
    4 weeks, Saturday’s noon, 2 hours.

    Class 11
    Learning to Live – How to Apply Brakes Without Throwing Passengers Through the Windscreen.
    Tuesdays at 7:00 PM, location to be determined

    Class 12
    How to Shop by Yourself.
    Meets 4 weeks, Tuesday and Thursday for 2 hours beginning at 7:00 PM.

    I’ll get me tin hat.

    1. I think you will need a tin hat today, Tom. Mind you, can I enrol on the Class 10 Parallel Parking course? I really struggle with this.

      1. My car has a parallel park function, operating the steering whilst telling you to drive forwards or backwards (slowly). Can fit the car into a tiny space only a coulple of feet longer than the car, every time!
        I’ll get me anorak.

  4. ‘Morning, Peeps.  Rarely has an item in the DT made me as cross as I feel this morning.  This is a total bloody disgrace.  Wigston and his wokery-obsessed goons should resign or be sacked for pursuing such a crass policy where this situation was entirely predictable.  And the same should apply to any other organisation indulging in this stupidity:

    RAF diversity drive ‘discriminated against 160 white men’

    Problems created by push for women and ethnic minorities come as crisis-hit Armed Forces also face sex harassment scandals

    ByDanielle Sheridan, DEFENCE EDITOR 1 February 2023 • 9:59pm

    The RAF has been accused of discriminating against 160 white men in its effort to meet “aspirational diversity targets”.

    Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the defence select committee, told MPs that the RAF’s former head of recruitment had identified the cases before she resigned in protest.

    After the revelation, Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston, head of the force, was asked if he had presided over a “lack of integrity at the top of the RAF”.

    It comes as the Armed Forces struggle to retain female personnel amid a sex harassment crisis engulfing the military.

    On Wednesday, defence sources suggested to The Telegraph that Sir Mike, who authored the 2019 Wigston review into inappropriate behaviour of troops, should be considering his position.

    ‘Unattainable target’

    Mr Ellwood told MPs that Group Capt Elizabeth Nicholl, who quit in August last year, was placed in charge of recruiting more women and ethnic minorities into the service.

    While working on the diversity scheme, which began in Nov 2020 and ran until March 2021, Mr Ellwood said Group Capt Nicholl had identified that “around 160 cases of positive discrimination had taken place”.

    “She ended up having to resign not wishing to go through with this policy,” he added.

    It is the first time the scale of the alleged problems caused by the RAF recruitment policy has been revealed.

    Mr Ellwood spoke in exasperation as he told MPs that prioritising ethnic minority and female pilots over better qualified white pilots, in order to improve the force’s diversity profile, could “materially impact on the RAF’s operational performance”.

    Giving evidence to MPs for the first time on the matter, Sir Mike said that while he made “no apologies for setting a challenging, aspirational goal for the Royal Air Force for diversity”, he admitted the objectives were “stretching aspirational levels of ambition”.

    He said that once the “stretching target” had “trickled down into individual recruiting officers”, it became an “unattainable target, that put intolerable stress on them”.

    However, he denied that any discrimination had taken place and insisted that standards had not slipped because of the diversity drive.

    “I can absolutely assure this committee there was no compromise of entry standards, no impact of the standard of recruits from any background, from the front line or from operational effectiveness,” he said.

    All three services have been tasked with improving their diversity, as they are predominantly made up of white men.

    In response to the recent Women in the Armed Forces report, the Government pledged to ensure women comprise 30 per cent of the intake of the Armed Forces by 2030.

    The RAF went further on this target, insisting that it wanted the number of female air force recruits to rise to 40 per cent by the end of the decade.

    However, the Red Arrows recently faced allegations of a “toxic” culture. Two pilots from the aerobatic display team were dismissed after members of the squadron were investigated over allegations of misogyny, bullying and sexual harassment.

    In October last year, the Royal Navy was forced to launch an investigation into allegations of rape threats and sexual assault on board Britain’s nuclear submarines.

    The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst has also been urged to tackle a “toxic culture” of sexual assault, as a charity said hundreds of servicewomen had reported abuse during their training. 

    Army chiefs were called on to confront predatory behaviour at Sandhurst as a result of an “epidemic” of rape culture across the military.

    Despite the demands on the military to improve diversity, the Forces have also faced claims that female recruits are not equipped with properly fitting kit.

    A report last year found that female soldiers were often subjected to “ill-fitting” kit across all three services, such as rucksacks that were too big, which can also increase the risk of injury.

    Struggle to retain women in the military

    Data show that the military has struggled to retain women amid the numerous scandals.

    The UK Armed Forces biannual diversity statistics found more women left than joined last year.

    According to the figures, 1,530 women left the Armed Forces in the year to Sept 2022, whilst 1,420 joined. That also compares with a figure of 1,940 women who joined the military in 2021.

    Sir Mike was also forced to address allegations about the Red Arrows in front of MPs at the defence select committee on Wednesday.

    He said: “I was appalled to hear reports of inappropriate behaviours on the Red Arrows and I would add a significant amount of frustration as well that this had happened on my watch.”

    He insisted that as soon as the RAF saw “all of the warning signs, we immediately went into a non-statutory inquiry”. That led “ultimately to administrative action and dismissal of two pilots and the administrative action sanctioning of three other members of the squadron”, he said.

    “For me, it sends a very important signal to the rest of the service that there is no part of the service that is on such a pedestal, which is so privileged that we won’t go and investigate allegations of this nature.”

    * * *

    The BTL posters can hardly contain themselves:

    Steven Gentle25 MIN AGO

    White men have given their lives countless times to protect this country and its people – and now they are not good enough. It’s beyond disgusting. This madness has to end.

    Jamie Hillman22 MIN AGO

    I tried 6 times to join and they F-ed about with my application so much, jumping through so many hoops, doing and redoing the tests and passing, only to find out it was because I’m white. The Navy did the same as the RAF. Never felt more angered in my life than to be told I can’t serve my country because of my skin colour, my grandfather and his brothers who fought in WW2 would turn in their grave.

    Minesa Double37 MIN AGO

    As a 20 year RAF Veteran, I am quite frankly appalled at this. The top brass and those aspiring to become so, are now politically appointed solely on their grovelling worship of the great god Woke.

    Josh Yearsley33 MIN AGO

    My kids are white and male. How on earth have we got to the point that I feel they’re discriminated against in their own country. A minority in their own country.

    R Barclay36 MIN AGO

    If you were a pilot you would want full confidence that your aircraft had been maintained by the best mechanics available not selected to tick some diversity box.

    J Troughton44 MIN AGO

    Exactly the same in the Police, even though they cannot speak and write properly. For our front line forces we should only take the very best – irrespective of race creed or colour. Standards must never drop for the sake of diversity. There is nothing wrong whatsoever with white men being predominant in any of the forces. At the end of the day we are after all a predominantly white nation.

    Perry Neeham37 MIN AGO

    Hang your head in shame and resign now Wigston, you W⚓️.

    1. In response to the recent Women in the Armed Forces report, the Government pledged to ensure women comprise 30 per cent of the intake of the Armed Forces by 2030.

      The success of female armies in history is well documented!

    2. I didn’t reply to that article but a letter in a similar vein really exercised my indignation:

      SIR – Rishi Sunak has said that it is “not practical” to send British fighter jets to Ukraine (report, January 31) because it would take months to train Ukrainian pilots to fly them.

      Surely this is the moment to start training them, so that by the time dithering Western politicians have decided to supply the Ukrainians with the weapons systems they have been crying out for since they were invaded, the pilots are ready to operate them.

      John Kennedy
      Hornchurch, Essex

      My BTL Comment:

      John Kennedy of Hornchurch needs to recognise why sending Jet fighters to Ukraine is “Not Practical.”

      It is not just the aircrew who require a high degree of training but also the ground-crew who service these aircraft both before and after flight. As back-up they also need bombers and Photo-reconnaissance aircraft to prepare the way or follow in after any attack to identify how successful any attack might have been.

      I fear that Mr Kennedy has no idea how a modern air-force operates.

      1. Similar problems with the “gift” of modern tanks, Tom. Not just the tank crew, but the support & supply as well.
        Does anybody in Uke know that the Challenger has a rifled main armament, not smoothbore, and three-piece ammunition, not one? (Projectile, bagged charge and firing pistol). Nobody else has these, so no common supply possible.

      2. “Months to train them” is surely diplomatic speak for “We don’t want to send planes, thus launching a full blown WW3”?
        Does the Sunak government have enough backbone for even a token resistance?

        1. Sunak has NO backbone, a spineless accountant happy to fill his pockets with income from Moderna.

          Corruption is a way of life among Asians, particularly those from the Indian sub-continent.

          1. It must be the same kind of token resistance aimed at voters and put up by Olaf Scholz before he sent German tanks to Ukraine.

      3. Or how long it takes to work up an already experienced pilot to ‘combat ready’ status on a new type. Cut corners and chances of survival are dramatically reduced. I would say 6-9 months. With a brand new recruit you’re looking at 3 years minimum. If you take someone who is a civil pilot and convert him to mililtary (if he has the aptitude) probably 2 years.

      4. In my opinion we shouldn’t even be thinking about sending jet fighters to Ukraine, let alone training their pilots and crew etc. This is nothing to do with us. Or, at least, it wasn’t. President Putin is right when he says the west is stoking the war, he’s spot in. And the U.K. seems eager to be in the front. Why, why, why? We’re doing the USA’s dirty work for them.

    3. This is the basis of the problem in the States, as well, isn’t it? The five cops and the motorist. Why anyone should be surprised at the result is a surprise in itself.

    4. The fact that the Air Chief Marshall calls himself Sir Mike instead of Sir Michael tells me a lot about this man.

    5. Reading this has my imagination running wild: Sir Wiggie at Bentley Priory in 1940 as C-in-C Fighter Command fretting over the ethnic and sex make-up of his Command as the Country went down in flames.
      I’ll wager that the brave Poles and Czechs were universally white.
      If you want the very best then you must select the very best and quotas and diversity shouldn’t be in the equation. If that process leads to a predominance of white men, then so be it.

    7. “A report last year found that female soldiers were often subjected to “ill-fitting” kit across all three services, such as rucksacks that were too big, which can also increase the risk of injury.”
      What ever nexr? Dinky little rucksacks for the ladies? I worked with some excellent women in the Army but a simple fact of life is that many have low levels of physical strength compared to the men. I’ve seen many gutsy girls injuring themselves trying to match the blokes.
      In my last unit, we had about 50 women. It was decided that they would undertake twice-yearly Battle Efficiency Test in which women have longer time limits than the men. (3 mile running/ fast marching with the second half of the test carried out as individual effort.) The test was to be co,pleted applying the time limits for men.
      About 30 took part on the day. Only five passed, two of whom were qualified PT instructors, one was training to be a PT instructor and one of the other two was a competitive cross-country skier.
      Incidentally, the girl who was a trainee PTI went on to become top student on a Junior NCO cadre course and rightly deserved top place.

    8. “Mr Ellwood spoke in exasperation as he told MPs that prioritising ethnic minority and female pilots over better qualified white pilots, in order to improve the force’s diversity profile, could “materially impact on the RAF’s operational performance”.“There is no question of “could” dumbing down always affects performance.

    9. “Mr Ellwood spoke in exasperation as he told MPs that prioritising ethnic minority and female pilots over better qualified white pilots, in order to improve the force’s diversity profile, could “materially impact on the RAF’s operational performance”.“There is no question of “could” dumbing down always affects performance.

    10. “Mr Ellwood spoke in exasperation as he told MPs that prioritising ethnic minority and female pilots over better qualified white pilots, in order to improve the force’s diversity profile, could “materially impact on the RAF’s operational performance”.“There is no question of “could” dumbing down always affects performance.

  5. Good morning, everyone. Sunrise is getting earlier and sunset is getting later on a daily basis, so enjoy your day.

        2. Being to the EAST of Greenwich whilst the Borders are to the West, you will get Sunrise slightly earlier. Also, you are also considerably further South of the Borders which, at this time of the year, makes your sunrise considerable earlier that Tom’s.

          1. Thanks for that BoB, grey outside and the outside lights have only just gone out.

            They are controlled by the light and the dark, I think.

            External lights have now come back on @16:37.

          2. Imagine if the idea to keep British Summer Time year round had been retained or reinstated!

          4. Exactly.
            During the experiment 50odd years ago, a mother in Scotland could get up, see her children off to school, do the dishes, then sit down to watch the sunrise.

          5. Er, BoB, I didn’t suggest that Toms sunrise were the same as mine, rather that his sunrise today (February the 2nd) would be earlier than they were in his neck of the woods on December the 21st (the shortest day – or daylight hours as Grizz would say). I hope your woodchopping went well today.

          6. Not a lot of chopping, but a lot of dragging lumps of ash & elm to the saw horse ready for sawing & splitting tomorrow.

    1. Morning Hugh

      We had 6 year old granddaughter yesterday as her teacher was on strike.
      MoH organised a ‘school project’ which was completed during the normal school timetable, which included lunch and playtime breaks at the normal school times.

      The project which covered maths, english (written and comprehension) and art was to bake a large sponge cake!
      The recipe had to read, ingredients weighed out and costed, and steps involved written out together with the cost sums. After lunch I supervised the art lesson which consisted drawing a still life of the cake with its kermit green icing!

      As I type the cake is currently on its way to school to be shared with her classmates. I’ve just realised that with all the sugar that went into the icing I expect the teacher is going to have an exciting time this morning!!!

      3. Hallowe’en and the day after were a nightmare in primary schools in US. Excitement on the day and sugar highs on the next day. It was great if it fell on a Friday and they had the weekend to get over it!

  8. Morning, all. Eastern sky lighting up and a light breeze rusting my neighbour’s palms.

    Captured these a few days ago and the subject continues to bang his drum for Zelensky and an escalation of the provision of matériel. Is the facial expression Bunter’s idea of a Churchillian look?
    It’s clear that Davos was on his to-do list for this year.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8cccafca275413e3c906b48ef309ea2aa25a71f5b4018e86b3039700ba106d2a.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/64498b6af9f672b34f9fca245ea0482622cbe83d6bc937f25fb4e1d17fc0f4ec.png

    1. Hosting the Ukrainian Breakfast at Davos?
      Is he taking the p intentionally, or does he genuinely not realise the moral depravity of what he just said?

    2. Good morning, Korky. Tell your neighbour to stay indoors or wear gloves. I keep my hands in my pockets whenever I go out; it keeps the palms of my hands rust-free! Lol.

        1. I aim to please, my friend. (Although I can’t compete with Tom’s morning gems. – PS – Spellchecker “corrected” my second two words in this post to “amigo”.

  9. Russian tank commander accidentally kills five of his own men in humiliation for Putin. 2 February 2023.

    Five Russian soldiers have accidentally been killed by one of their commanders, and the Ukrainian defence ministry has shared the footage of the shocking incident. The clip shows the Russian tank swerve past another vehicle that looks to be on fire.

    Why Vlad would be “humiliated” by the driving skills of an unnamed and unknown tank driver is something best left to the Express; particularly when you can see the soldiers get up afterwards! Sometimes when I read it (rarely) I wonder about its staff. Are they really as stupid as the content would suggest or is it managed by schoolboys during their morning break? Most of it is complete fantasy. It makes absolutely no attempt to portray reality. How on earth does it stay in business? Who buys it?

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1729495/russian-tank-commander-kills-five-of-own-men-ukraine-war

  10. https://12ft.io/proxy?ref=&q=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/01/artist-has-botox-injections-works-heartbeats-engrave-worlds/
    Prayer engraved on speck of gold valued at more than £250,000
    Graham Short took Botox injections to stop blinking and spent 11 months fitting the 273 words into a space in the eye of a needle

    A micro-artist spent 11 months and needed the help of Botox injections to engrave the world’s smallest copy of the Lord’s Prayer in the eye of a needle. Graham Short engraved the 273 words on to a speck of gold using a specialist needle. Each letter measures just 50 microns in height – half the width of a human hair. The finished work, which can only be read using a microscope, is now valued at more than £250,000.

    Mr Short, 76, takes beta blockers to lower his heartbeat to just 20bpm and works between beats to ensure his hand is as steady as possible. He also takes Botox injections around his eyelids to stop involuntary muscle movements disturbing his concentration. He works exclusively at night when traffic noise and vibrations are at a minimum outside his workshop in Birmingham’s busy Jewellery Quarter.

    “It’s got to be the world’s smallest Lord’s Prayer, I can’t go any smaller,” Mr Short said. “I’ve had to restart dozens of times because I use a fine needle so I can slip quite easily, which happens all the time. “It’s hard to say how many hours I’ve put it into this particular project, but I do roughly three nights of work at a time. “If there was just a couple of words on it, that would be easier. With 273 it’s insane. I wouldn’t try anything like that again.”

    He added that the work was his “signature piece”, and what he wants to be known for.

      1. #metoo, but I have enormous respect for his dedication and skill. Hell, I can’t type a sentence without hitting the keys wrong.
        Morning, BTW!

        1. But at least I can read the sentences in your posts and, if there is a mistake, can usually work out what you mean without resorting to Botox and a microscope. (In any case I already know the Lord’s Prayer.)

    2. 273 words? There are only 66 (still a great achievement). Does he mean letters? (I haven’t counted them).
      PS He could have saved himself the work of 11 words if he’d gone for the Catholic version, leaving out ‘For thine is the kingdom’ etc.

  11. SIR – If a parent prevents their child from attending school for any reason other than sickness, they could face a fine. The teaching profession will say that the child is being deprived of education.

    Yet this doesn’t appear to work the other way, when teachers go on strike. Why is that?

    David Hewitt
    Heacham, Norfolk

    SIR – I heard a teacher on the radio protesting that teachers work hugely long hours, often more than 60 per week, while not being paid anywhere near enough.

    I now see that, in order to earn the standard annual salary, teachers only need to work 1,265 hours a year (report, February 1). I ran my own business for many years, and the standard number of working hours per annum was more than 1,700. Most staff would also work overtime without extra pay.

    The claims of the National Education Union suggest that it takes us for fools.

    Quentin Skinner
    Warminster, Wiltshire

    All good points, Gentlemen, but these are political strikes in all but name, and therefore rational argument counts for nothing. The teaching unions are in the grip of the hard left and therefore tough legislation is required in response to those in the public sector who are happy to set about wrecking this country. This albeit pitiful government still has a majority of 70+%, so use it before it disappears.

    Mrs T had the right idea; sequestration of union funds when they step out of line.

    1. Strikers should receive no pay from the employer for the days on strike, with loss of pension contributions too. And since they then don’t work the full contracted hours, pro rata reduction in annual vacation days.

      1. I agree with your first sentence, Paul, but not the second. Are you suggesting that they have shorter summer holidays than the children? In which case, would you force them to go to school for several weeks in the summer to sit in the staff room drinking tea?

        1. I agree, Elsie, but when the (long) holidays come to an end, the return to school is further delayed by ‘inset days’. No reason at all why these are not held during the lengthy holiday periods.

        2. They moan about how much preparation they do at home. They can do it at school, on the clock.

        3. We had so-called “training days” (Baker Days) when we had to be in school while the children were still on holiday. We were forced to listen to “experts” (who’d probably never taught anything in their lives) telling us how to go about our business. I would rather have been marking exercise books and preparing materials (which, of course, I had to do in my own time as I effectively lost two days’ holiday).

    2. As a teacher in UK and a teacher and librarian in US, I never went on strike. We had long summer vacations in GA but I was up in the library at least twice a week to check equipment, arrange for overhead projectors to go for cleaning, receiving book orders etc. Checking the class schedules for the upcoming year and writing plans and so on.
      When the book fair was going on, twice a year, it would have been easier to sleep in my office.
      My hours then were theoretically 8-4 but I was always there at 7.15 and rarely left at 4.
      One time, the person I replaced came in and unplugged all the CCTV channels and broadcast equipment and I had to wait for the tech from media services to come, after school, to sort it- and this was after me trying for ages. (This action was to make me look incompetent.)
      Sure, there are lazy and ineffectual teachers and I have known some. In my experience most are keen and dedicated people who want the best for their pupils.

    3. The minimum hours are what we MUST do. Marking, preparation and all the rest took up much more than that. I doubt you could do your job properly just sticking to the minimum number of hours.

  12. 370609+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Thursday 2 February: The country’s children have been let down by ill-judged teacher strikes

    With additive,

    Thursday 2 February: The country’s children have been let down by ill-judged teacher strikes just one of the lesser evils of the trip from the womb, making running the gauntlet to the 16 th year a hazardous journey for mounting numbers.

    Lest we forget rotherham

    We are still suffering the odious fallout,mental damage etc from that one town alone, multiply that nationwide then tell me WHY these political paedophile procurement parties ( the governing overseers) are still finding support with the peoples actually financing the Dover invasion campaign, daily.

  13. SIR – The Royal National Lifeboat Institution would lose out if 5ps vanished. They cleverly provide jam jars for you to fill with those annoying little coins and then hand in when full.

    Annabel Weston
    Hastings, East Sussex

    I was once a supporter, but since the RNLI became a free taxi service for those breaking into this country I couldn’t bring myself to continue.

        1. Herr Oberst you are confusing marmalade and thrupenny bits with Christmas pudding and silver tanners. I think you need a little lie-down to avoid another spell in ‘Orspiddle. Lol.

    2. Same here. No doubt I am being unreasonable, but these Tory sheep who think it’s still the 1980s (the RNLI is a worthy cause, the Telegraph is conservative,. the Conservative party governs Britain etc) really annoy me now.

  14. Love the Matt cartoon on page 2 today, if anyone is able to post it. About not being able to use the log burner, so they are burning old car tyres instead…

    We never talk about car tyres when it comes to “net zero”, do we? But the excuse the fragrant London Borough of Richmond upon Thames gave when introducing the 20 mph speed restriction was exactly this – nothing to do with road safety or even the truth about raising money and cowing folks – no, the reason given was pollution and cited in despatches was tyre pollution, which is apparently less when cars are driven at 20 cf 30 mph.

    2. Apparently electric cars cause higher tyre pollution than petrol/diesel cars. The battery means that the car is much heavier, leading to more tyre wear.

  15. SIR – The months to train pilots to fly any fighter jets supplied to Ukraine are only the start of the process.

    The crews who will maintain these jets need training; the supply lines for spares need to be established; the special tools for repairs need to be supplied; the arming and delivery of appropriate missiles need organising.

    In short, it is easier to talk about sending modern fighters than to do so. By all means think about the eventual arming of Ukraine with modern Western equipment, but it will never be a short-term solution.

    John Ralph
    Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire

    Precisely, Mr Ralph!

    1. I think Mr Selves would agree wholeheartedly with this letter:

      Martin Selves
      19 MIN AGO
      We don’t have any aircraft to give. I left the RAF in 1986, so I am well out of date, but google says the RAF have 130 fighter aircraft. This must include a large number of Hawk trainer aircraft. We have 30 or so F35 aircraft, costing £90 million each. They are so expensive most flying is done in the Simulator, and hands on flying a real one is rare. Make no mistake modern simulators are superb, but Ukraine doesn’t have any. The Typhoon is an exceptional aircraft, but we don’t have many, and some are stored in Shawbury, around 50 are flying probably less. That’s it folks, 2 types of fighters, in tiny numbers with the Hawk as a trainer with a minimal role as a fighter
      We need everyone, and training a pilot used to old Russian fighters would not be easy or quick. After they can land it, the hard part begins. tactics and weapon delivery and how to operate the system would take time. A long time. My old Sqn flies drones, the weapon of the future, but they are training up themselves.
      We have nothing to give, We have hardly anything like the aircraft we need today in the RAF. I served at RAF Bruggen in the 1970.s, We had 3 Sqn’s of the awesome F4 fighter bombers. At Wildenrath they had Harriers and Canberra’s, and Gutersloh we had 2 Sqn’s of Lightning aircraft, and many other types over the years. Just in Germany we probably had more fighter aircraft than the RAF has in total today. In those days we were a big threat, today we are not. We need every one at home. Boris is quite wrong imho.

      * * *

      Johnson is wrong about most things!

      1. I think Martin Selves is a tad pessimistic on the numbers, but only a tad. I left the RAF in 1989 so I’m a bit out of date too, especially on the capabilities of the aircraft and the weapons. I wouldn’t trust Google or Wikipedia. I think there are about 150 Typhoons and 30-something, maybe 40 something F35s at the moment. Nevertheless, fewer than 200 manned aircraft to deliver the punch.

        When I was serving at the height of the Cold War we had about 750 and we thought that was too few.

        2. You may be right, FM, but don’t forget that a good number of those will be u/s at any one time…

          1. I know. Scheduled maintenance too. When I was serving we had about 60%-70% of the squadron strength available to fly on any given day. A bad day would be 50% and below. Come an exercise or in a real conflict we could get close to 100% including the ‘war-goers’ i.e. those with some relatively minor defects but which would still be able do the basic job.

        1. Ah yes, the F4 Phantom. A techie once pointed out to me that it would leak very readily, but if the tarmac where it was parked was dry then it was empty.

          1. Even more so with the Lightning, the drip trays put underneath were full every morning. We used to empty them and fill our oil fired CH tanks with it.

    1. Not only repeal EU laws but leave both the ECHR and the ECJ, repeal the Human Rights Act as well, and start deporting.

    2. Roger Helmer is a very good man. Met him once some years ago and helped delivering leaflets in his constituency.

      1. 370609+ up ticks,

        Morning EB,

        Same here, met him a couple of times,
        wonder if he still has his
        purple trousers ?

  17. Women can accurately recall details of rape even if they’ve drunk alcohol. 2 February 2023.

    Women are still able to accurately recall the details of sexual assault and rape even if they’ve drunk alcohol, according to a new study.

    The findings are an important step in challenging courtroom perceptions of women being unreliable as witnesses in cases where they were intoxicated at the time of assault, researchers say.

    The team discovered that women who had drunk alcohol up to the legal limit for driving were able to accurately recall details of an assault in a hypothetical scenario.

    That would be after one pint then? It’s Science Jim but not as we know it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/01/women-can-accurately-recall-details-rape-even-drunk-alcohol/

      1. I bring bad tidings of no joy, Annie – just now I accidentally clicked on your name as I was paging through on my phone, and noted that your upvotes are a big fat zero! Have you upset GCHQ or similar this morning?

    1. Be there or be square!

      Besides, you do have an excuse – the tiresome and draining upheaval of a house move…

  19. Good morning, all. Very cloudy – but – it is alleged – relatively mild. We’ll see.

  20. Good Morning Folks

    Looks bright and breezy outside.
    Even though it has turned milder it still feel a bit nippy when the wind blows.

  22. The country’s children have been let down by ill-judged teacher strikes

    All part of the coordinated great reset, I expect, they even have the unions on board.

  23. ‘Woke’ Australian diplomat tells UK to confront its colonial past. 2 February 2023.

    Ms Wong, from Australia’s Left-wing Labor government, made the remarks in a speech at King’s College London on her first visit to the UK since becoming foreign minister.

    Her own family had painful memories of the British colonial past, said the foreign minister, who moved to Australia as a child.

    She said that while her great-great-grandparents on her mother’s side were British and settled in south Australia, the other part of her family had had “a very different” experience of the British Empire in North Borneo.

    “My father is descended from Hakka and Cantonese Chinese,” Ms Wong recalled. “Many from these clans laboured for the British North Borneo Company in tin mines and plantations for tobacco and timber. Many worked as domestic servants for British colonists, as did my own grandmother.”

    Ahh! I know how it was! Your family had to move to Oz because China and Asia were full.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/02/01/woke-australian-diplomat-tells-uk-confront-colonial-past/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

      2. Rude and dishonest. Her ancestors were working for the British because they were better off in those jobs than they were back home.
        Where’s the gratitude to the British who gave her ancestors better jobs than they otherwise would have had?
        First generation immigrants usually know this. It’s the subsequent generations that romanticise life “back home.”

          1. 🙂 The context to my comment is the large part of my life that I spent as an immigrant myself in various countries.

        2. “It’s the subsequent generations that romanticise life “back home.”” – but it’s never good enough for them to move back, I notice.

      1. Morning, Bob. I’m watching the birds on my feeders. They are ignoring seeds but ganging up on peanuts and fat balls.

        1. Well that certainly is pushing the limits of recent advice to ignore Best Before Dates…..

          1. I don’t believe Mandy said that. I think it was one of his gayboy stafffers having a laugh.

      3. Morning, S.

        Trouble is, you have to realise that times were hard in the carboniferous period; a job down t’pit was probably the best he could manage.

  26. Morning all 😉 😊
    Apparently we are going to be up to our knees in snow next week. I can’t see how anyone could forecast that. We’ll see.
    A new Dopey Wokey agitator appears on the ‘global block’, Penny Wong, Australian minister of something or other. Moaning good and hard about past British colonialism. How awful it was, the usual etc’s. Get over yer self Pen, and face the facts, you probably wouldn’t exist today if history hadn’t actually and really did happen. But thanks for letting us know anyway.

    1. Just scrolled down already posted, but a good story.
      Sadly the ozzies as Mugabe did have sold out to China. Most of the minerals including coal are being shipped out to China.
      Meanwhile colonialism will increase. They are buying property like it’s going out of fashion. But as long as it’s not the Brits “she’s right mate”.

  27. Good morning all.
    A delayed start, but it’s bright outside after a small amount of overnight rain with 4°C on the yard thermometer.

    A load of logs to get cut & stacked so at least I’ll be outside in the fresh air!

    1. Morning Ogga. That’s a very lucid presentation by Dr Campbell. In her recent interview Dr Stephanie Seneff stated vitamin D produced by exposure to sunlight produced more beneficial effects than manufactured vitamin D.

      Although I have been taking Vit D at a similar daily dosage to Dr Campbell it isn’t a total panacea for preventing infections as day 9 of my chesty cough and cold will testify…..Nonetheless I will continue to take Vit D and expose myself to the Sun when it gets warmer!

    2. Morning Ogga. That’s a very lucid presentation by Dr Campbell. In her recent interview Dr Stephanie Seneff stated vitamin D produced by exposure to sunlight produced more beneficial effects than manufactured vitamin D.

      Although I have been taking Vit D at a similar daily dosage to Dr Campbell it isn’t a total panacea for preventing infections as day 9 of my chesty cough and cold will testify…..Nonetheless I will continue to take Vit D and expose myself to the Sun when it gets warmer!

      1. With interest rates rising it was announced recently that the PB Prize structure had changed. There would be fewer £25 prizes but more £50 and and more of other larger prizes. From memory an extra one or two £100,000 prizes.

  31. Good morning again in case you arrived yesterday and saw my set-up,

    Looked again this morning to see if Kona auxikiary volts were still oscillating between limis like yesterday between orange and green:

    Yesterday (1/2/2023):
    Orange:

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

    Green: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/845a07a8678fc7e4bee03c29027d3815d0d552a0b1cba310c2d6a97804d36a27.jpg

    1. 09:38 hrs Measured 12.37 volts before breakfast this morning but it’s still in the orange at 12.50 volts noe

      1. Morning Angie. I’m sorry but I have no idea what you’re talking about. Is it good news or bad?

        1. Morning vw,

          The observations I made yesterday confirmed that the Kona charged its auviliary battery from its main battery after I had kept the car in park for about half an hour just sitting in the vehicle. (which avoided taking it on the road as suggested in handbook).

          This was good insofar as I didn’t have to take the car out at any speed on the road to get the auxikiary battery charged up.

          What puzzled me was that the auxiliary battery voltage showed signs of an oscilliary pattern about a mean level of 12.50 volts. This was symptomatic of float charging but that needs a power supply which is impossible – the battery must be isolated and on its own at this stage.

          This is not bad news as the auxililary battery hss now stabilised at 12.5 volts.
          The problem now is that this battery has a limited charge (45 Ah in mine) to power all the electrical circuits in the car until it is recharged again by an EV main battery charge or putting the car into driveable mode (park, reverse or drive).

          I shall now do an in vehicle battery test and see if there is a noticeable drain of the auxiliary.

        2. Hi vw,

          I did a quick measurement of my Kona 12v battery at 12:00hrs 2/2/2023 and it says:

          Battery State:
          Healthy 86%
          Charge: 81%
          Internal R=8.86mohms
          335 CCA
          12.49 V
          Rated: 360A
          GOOD BATTERY

          I’m copying this further up.

    2. Meanwhile, MB is loading his 15 year old diesel with stuff to run round to the Dower House.
      Hell, he’s even charged up his battery screwdriver.

  33. Letter from Con MPs to DT:

    Erasing Christianity

    SIR – The recent decision by the London School of Economics to erase traditional names drawn from the Christian calendar – Michaelmas, Christmas, Lent and Easter – for each term (report, January 30) is but the latest example of a university determined to “cleanse” itself of any identifiably British heritage.

    Whether it be changing the names of buildings or removing statues, plaques and busts, chipping away at the fabric of our national heritage is a manifestation of the culture of shame that bedevils much of the liberal establishment that runs too many of our once great institutions.

    The move is indicative of either ignorance as to why such language matters, or knowing dismissiveness of its significance. It may be tokenism or something more sinister; either way it damages the reputation of the LSE and all British higher education.

    University administrators claim their motive is to “better reflect the international nature of our community and our broader global engagement”. If this justification is genuine, it is shockingly neglectful of the common culture that informs our communal sense of belonging. A more resentful anti-Christian explanation of such zealotry is surely at odds with the open-mindedness at the core of rigorous higher learning.

    We members of the Common Sense Group are concerned that, unheeded, this wayward iconoclasm will cause an irreversible erasure of the Christian language, and the heritage it embodies, which links our universities to the nation that bore them.

    Sir John Hayes MP (Con). Sir Desmond Swayne MP (Con).Sir Edward Leigh MP (Con).Pauline Latham MP (Con).David Jones MP (Con).Brendan Clarke-Smith MP (Con).Scott Benton MP (Con).Nicholas Fletcher MP (Con).Andrew Lewer MP (Con).Craig MacKinlay MP (Con).Andrew Rosindell MP (Con).Henry Smith MP (Con).David Jones MP (Con)’Caroline Ansell MP (Con).Gareth Bacon MP (Con).Bob Blackman MP (Con).
    Paul Bristow MP (Con).Jonathan Gullis MP (Con).Damien Moore MP (Con).Lia Nici MP (Con).Alexander Stafford MP (Con).Baroness Nicholson (Con)

    BTLs

    Edwin Pugh
    A multi-signature letter from what they say is ‘the common sense’ group of Conservative MPs. I wonder how many of them have the common sense to vote against things like Net Zero, banning ICEs in 2025 and the ban on fracking?

    Reply to Edwin Pugh by Tim Anderton
    We all know the answer to that Edwin, (net) zero of them.

    Reply to Edwin Pugh by Percival Wrattstrangler

    I wonder how many of them have the common sense to realise that the Conservative Party is now dead? And how many of them have the common sense to resign from the Party and stand again in the by election under different political colours.
    We must have a viable right of centre place for our votes now that the Conservative Party has shifted so drastically to the left.

    1. As a suitable replacement I give you:

      Mandawuy Djarrtjuntjun Yunupingu AC, formerly Tom Djambayang Bakamana Yunupingu; skin name Gudjuk; also known as Dr Yunupingu (17 September 1956 – 2 June 2013) was an Australian musician and educator.

      An Aboriginal Australian, in 1989 he became assistant principal of the Yirrkala Community School – which he once attended – and was principal for the following two years. He helped establish the Yolngu Action Group and introduced the Both Ways system, which recognised traditional Aboriginal teaching alongside Western methods.

      From 1986, he was the frontman of the Aboriginal rock group Yothu Yindi as a singer-songwriter and guitarist. Yothu Yindi released six albums: Homeland Movement (1989), Tribal Voice (1991), Freedom (1993), Birrkuta – Wild Honey (1996), One Blood (1999), and Garma (2000). The group’s top 20 ARIA Singles Chart appearances were “Treaty” (1991) and “Djäpana (Sunset Dreaming)” (1992). The band was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2012.

      Yunupingu was appointed Australian of the Year for 1992 by the National Australia Day Council. In 1993, he was one of six Indigenous Australians who jointly presented the Boyer Lectures “Voices of the Land” for the International Year of the World’s Indigenous People (IYWIP). In April 1998, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Queensland University of Technology. He died in 2013, aged 56.

      3. Miriam Margargoylis ?
        She’s been waving it about in Oz recently.
        Just images of native plant and animal species would work. Why boring people.

    2. Didn’t Idi Amin threaten to remove the Queens head from their coins, the UK said if he did that we would remove his head from our marmalade jars

  37. Latest, as Shell announce their profits have more than doubled over last year’s, our water companies have announced that they are raising the costs of our water.
    More butts will be required. And less flushing.

    1. Shell announce their profits have more than doubled over last year..Quelle bloody surprise !

      Gougers.

    2. It’s not really their fault though, the globalists are rigging the markets so that we can all meet our carbon zero targets and what better a way to make us use less than to make it too expensive for most people.
      In the end it becomes a back door form of taxation if government then windfall taxes them, at the end of the day our money will be indirectly ending up in the governments coffers.

      1. I don’t suppose they’ll be handing any of it back to the customers.
        My impression was the prices of everything were shoved through the roof to cover the costs of all the illegal invaders.

      2. …and those charged with a windfall tax will just jack up their prices to the consumer.

        So, what’s the point, unless it is to further impoverish us.

      1. With only two of us in the property we changed from none metered, we had a meter installed and our costs nearly halved. Now those greedy bustards are grabbing it back.
        They haven’t built a reservoir in the UK for around 40 years. But the population has increased enormously.

  38. Wales to ban the singing of Delilah at the rugby for some reason

    I saw the light on the night that I passed by her window
    I saw the flickering shadows of love on her blind
    She was my woman
    As she deceived me, I watched and went out of my mind
    My, my, my, Delilah
    Why, why, why, Delilah
    I could see, that girl was no good for me
    But I was lost like a slave that no man could free
    At break of day when that maskless man drove away, I was waiting
    I crossed the street to her house and she opened the door
    She stood there laughing
    I felt the vaxx in my hand and she laughed no more

    2. Can anyone place this:

      Samson and Delilah were a steady pair,
      Until Delilah went and cut off his hair
      For a handsome ransom and silver and jewels
      Goes to show that love is for fools.

      If that’s love,
      If that’s love,
      I’ll stay single
      Not one thing’ll
      Make me change my mind!

  39. Some weeks ago I sent these 2 emails to my MP, Kit Malthouse:

    1.

    Dear Mr Malthouse,

    First of all may I wish you and yours a happy and prosperous New Year.

    Now that you no longer have a ministerial responsibility it may be an opportune moment to take a close look at the number of deaths and injuries which have occurred following injection with one of the experimental Covid ‘vaccines’. According to MHRA data there have been over 1,700 deaths and many thousands of people injured by these products. The deaths recorded are those shortly after receiving a ‘vaccine’; they don’t include those occurring several months or over a year later due to serious harm. By the MHRA’s own admission this may be the tip of an iceberg because of under-reporting; it may be that only 10% of adverse effects are recorded. The same is true of US VAERS data.

    Among the most concerning side effects are myocarditis and pericarditis which amount to permanent heart damage, especially among the young. We see in the ONS data weekly excess of deaths over the rolling five-year average which started sometime after the ‘vaccines’ were introduced. A screen-shot of the latest ONS data for England and Wales is attached. I know correlation doesn’t prove causation but at the very least the reasons behind these excess deaths merit a serious investigation including, above all, consideration of ‘vaccine’ damage.

    I would urge you to speak to your parliamentary colleagues Sir Christopher Chope, Danny Kruger and Andrew Bridgen, himself ‘vaccine’-harmed, who are already doing work in this area.

    Yours sincerely,

    2.

    Dear Mr Malthouse,

    Further to my earlier email about vaccine damage I am now able to send you a paper produced by a friend and colleague along with a copy of the letter he has recently sent to his own MP, Richard Fuller.

    As my friend Les Evans writes in his letter please would you take the time to at least skim read his paper. This is important and you must be aware that a growing number of people are realising that something is very wrong. This needs to be taken seriously.

    Your sincerely,

    Here are his replies:

    1.

    All noted

    With best wishes

    Kit Malthouse

    Member of Parliament for North West Hampshire
    House of Commons | Westminster | London SW1A 0AA
    Tel 020 7219 4620
    http://www.kitmalthouse.com

    2.

    All noted

    with best wishes

    Kit Malthouse

    Member of Parliament for North West Hampshire
    House of Commons | Westminster | London SW1A 0AA
    Tel 020 7219 4620
    http://www.kitmalthouse.com

    What do we pay these people for?

    1. As I read your comment, MB is sitting beside me, writing War and Peace his monthly repeat prescription request.
      A chore that was unnecessary until a fortnight after his first clot shot.

    2. For nothing! All MPs can do is “note”. They are party members through and through and the majority are unwilling to deviate from the party line, with a few honourable exceptions. You would think they’d be clamouring for at least the suspension of the experimental shots, wouldn’t you, they must be aware of the adverse effects. That would be a start to actually stop giving any more.

  41. When Truss was metaphorically assassinated it was because her policies would destroy the finances of UK. The pound had to be protected because, with Truss and Kwarteng in place it had fallen to €1.14 euros to the £ having been at €1.20 to the £ last summer.

    It has been pretty shaky since then but just now as the truth is dawning and thanks to Sunak and Hunt, the pound has gone into freefall because the markets are beginning to see that even if Truss was not right she was less wrong than Sunak!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7a8e0e5ac05f2a28e0b3c62461fb730d384bd1278a8730450d0bc02ca361da1b.png

    1. So now it’s lower than when Truss was briefly in office; Sunak and Hunt the… have successfully made it worse.

      Quelle surprise.

      1. Yet you aren’t seeing Al Beeb and the rest proclaiming the end of the world and market panic, do you. I wonder why that could be. Perhaps, just perhaps the hysteria was… oh, what’s the word? Ah yes. An excuse to get rid of someone who would disrupt the remoaner agenda.

    2. Truss was removed because her policies would have reversed the intentional decline the state forced this country in to.

      Tax cuts pay for themselves.

  42. Good morning all.

    I received an email from Transport for London this morning which has really annoyed me though not because the restriction in itself makes any difference. It’s the suggestion that the travelling public are to blame for the dire state of TFL finances. People didn’t travel during the lockdowns because they were ordered not to and for those who couldn’t avoid using the buses, Khan made a decision to waive all fares. I did use the buses for leisure during that time and had to listen to a recorded message over the public address system each time which was aimed with zero subtlety at making me feel guilty for being there. It was water off a duck’s back but darned irritating. I figured of course that if I wanted to take the 94 up to Hyde Park instead of walking on Shepherds Bush Green then that was my business.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e501fb2d2b6e14edbc9d2f270b07571fda7af7ec4b6515c24ca472de498f4097.png

    1. Low ridership during the pandemic…which was forced on us. I remember walking on the road as the dog walkers did a litter pick – and absolutely no cars were about at all. Bit stupid to say ‘no one used it, now you’ve got to pay for it’. That’s the view of statism everywhere. How about ‘to encourage use we’re lowering our prices but we’re reducing services at off peak times, here’s the new list…

  44. Zelensky biting the hand that fed him?

    ‘Bond villain’ oligarch who ‘kept SHARKS in his office to intimidate his enemies’ and was credited with getting President Zelensky elected has his Ukrainian home raided in ‘£1billion embezzlement probe’
    Ihor Kolomoisky was raided at his hunting lodge residence near Dnipro
    The warlord tycoon is accused of embezzlement and corruption

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11704703/Bond-villain-oligarch-kept-SHARKS-office-links-Zelensky-home-raided.html

      1. The sick joke is that Zelensky is “cleaning” out the corrupt.
        My betting is that that is to ensure a bigger share of the pie for him and his cronies.

    3. The tycoon owned or part owned the bank (Privatbank) used to pay the Bidens. Joe Biden ordered its closure just before President Trump took office.

      I take the consensus view that Joe Biden has ordered Zelensky to purge everyone associated with his family crime syndicate and to destroy all incriminating documents.

      Much the same is occurring in the US judging by the witless DOJ/FBI handling of Biden classified documents probably implicating the Bidens in money laundering and other fraudulent foreign action in Ukraine.

      1. My view is that when the history is allowed to be written, if it ever is, is that Biden and his family will turn out to be the most corrupt US Presidential group ever, closely followed by Obama.
        The reason I put Obama second is that I have always thought he was a fraud put in place by even more powerful gangsters.

  47. ‘Morning All

    Medley Time

    Pharma you say…..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/539e406185556c89bb270af754d00e71108b6870f327ac71e799db8553cbc045.jpg

    Eggs

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2779a96c36ce97bcd571e3a28a9a7139fddd1290c853b969fdc2481eae21dd7d.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e2f26a8071a5a740da4d83748abac6f55d0e03da0cb884cf413195a43316e3cf.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/691bf1248489be845ef1d3908e3750530e51dcd6d728928665bf6529947b49ef.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/57138e6a7e7154fc35b4720221d8c63d12cea87166dcc5f7eb3cd9507cb8b03f.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/004f5ef355ef78db9d810e445b760265e44ed34c288dabbb7c1b4a1df56b3c20.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6da970558621a1cc6a79c4d18386cfeb477312ea9be28e2426ecb2a65fc754e2.jpg

    2. The top one reminds me of my landlady way back when I was in student digs. She got through the day on “slimming pills” aka amphetamine and through the night on “sleeping pills” aka barbiturate and was absolutely appalled that my roommate smoked dope.

      2. Apart from “our Susan’ who is our behind the enemy lines reporter I can’t think of any Nottlers still living inside the M25. I managed to escape two years ago and now consider myself a refugee in Bath with its strange local customs. One of which is to drive at 20mph across most of the City. In this instance I’m very happy to strictly observe the 20mph speed limit In the knowledge that it really pisses off the drivers following behind the majority of whom voted for the councillors who imposed these limits.

    3. Such undemocratically imposed restrictions are nothing to do with the net zero/save-the-planet/eco-nonsense. In every case where these controls have been imposed, journey times are longer, more fuel is used and congestion on ‘permitted’ routes increases. How many small businesses will lose trade or even go out of business because it becomes too awkward for customers to access them? More unemployment there.

      1. Also, workmen (plumbers, electricians, gas engineers) have to navigate all this, negotiating (or, more often, failing to negotiate) the different permit systems to get in and out without getting a fine (which will wipe out all profit from the job).

        1. The end customer will have to pay it.

          I arranged for an electrician to fit swan lights to the exterior of a shop in Covent Garden. I knew the parking would be horrendous so that went in as part of the quote. If the electrician had to pay it himself he would have only earned £50 for a three day job.

          1. The problem at the moment in London is they are implementing these no-go zones with relatively little warning and if you aren’t told about it up front you get caught out. You have to try and remember to ask before tou say you will go put to look at a job. All on top of ULEZ of course.

        2. The additional costs in travel time and fuel will be passed on to the unfortunate customer.

        1. Who, naturally, won’t be adversely affected as they bike around with their superiority complexes.

        1. I remember a four hour wait for my passport number to be called in the hall of Friedrichstrasse U-Bahn when going from West to East Berlin early seventies.

          Checkpoint Charlie was an easier less suffocating route.

          1. I found Checkpoint Charlie in ’76 to be pretty painless. The only hold up was the Vopos briefly debating whether or not to let my cross into E Berlin as my UK passport had been issued in Johannesburg. Quite why that bothered them, I was never quite sure.

    5. So, vote them OUT at the next elections.

      Make sure all 15,000 petitioners vote against the current tranche of “See what I can do – to you.”

      1. Are we prepared to play them at their own game and generate fake postal votes for dead people?

    6. Can barely decipher a word.
      But I’ve drunk many a dodgy glass of red wine in those rooms.

    4. I feel a little sorry for the owner.

      Only one review in six years, a four blob, where I can’t really see any proper justification for the down grade.

        1. It looks superb and I hope you have a great holiday.

          I used the link to sign in to my place and it went straight in correctly, so the apartment would appear to be genuinely on HL.
          It’s the fact there is only one review that seemed odd.

          1. Thanks Sos. There was another apartment in the old town for £700 but it didn’t have a balcony or any views. And it probably gets a bit warm in June.

          3. No, Phil probably supports the ‘murderous thug’, but he should avoid the local Ustasha.

  50. Gawd Almighty, just what do the loons think they are doing?

    Artillery regiments run out of… artillery: British Army is ‘stripped of heavy guns after defence chiefs pledged to give 30 working AS90s to Ukraine’
    The British Army reportedly has no heavy guns left after donation to Ukraine
    There are concerns the decision could leave Britain in a vulnerable position
    But the consensus is Ukraine needs the weapons more to stave off Russia

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11703401/British-army-runs-heavy-guns-pledging-30-AS90s-Ukraine-stave-Russia.html

  51. Could bird flu be on brink of jumping to HUMANS? Biggest ever avian influenza outbreak ‘spills over’ to otters and foxes – sparking warning that killer virus could jump to us
    Animal and Plant Health Agency found avian flu in nine foxes and otters in the UK
    Expert says UK still ‘long way’ from situation where bird flu could infect humans

    That’ll be the type of expert who told us Covid could kill millions, I presume, so he’s equally likely to be wrong.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11704597/Britains-biggest-avian-flu-outbreak-infects-mammals-including-otters-foxes.html
    We’re all gonna die!

    On a lighter note:

    Alan Gosling (pictured), a retired engineer in Devon, caught the virus after his ducks, some of which lived inside his home, became infected. No one else caught the virus

    1. The US has stocks of the bird flu vaccine just in case – which means it’s the next pandemic

          1. One wonders what an in-depth analysis of his finances might throw up.
            And yes, he makes me puke…

      2. Because, Sue, he believed a dysfunctional computer model.

        That belief makes him also dysfunctional.

        1. As I understand it Fergusson wrote the code for that model – which has been used on a few “pandemics”. As it apparently gave different outputs for the exact same input I suspect it wasn’t well written!

        2. As I understand it Fergusson wrote the code for that model – which has been used on a few “pandemics”. As it apparently gave different outputs for the exact same input I suspect it wasn’t well written!

        3. He didn’t believe in it that much. He still nipped across London to canoodle with his doxy.

  52. Morning all again. I’m copying a letter I sent to my MP on 05/01/2021. Quite long but as I was cleaning I came across a file of emails to our MP and had a quick look at this one.

    I start with Christmas and New Year wishes –

    “although it hasn’t begun very well, has it? I thought there was to be a vote in Parliament over any further restrictions?
    LOCKDOWN – Does it work? Yes. So why do we need to keep repeating it?
    LOCKDOWN – Does it work? No. So why do we keep trying?

    It is obvious to anywho thinks about it that there is a hidden agenda behind what’s going on. The Great Reset, The New World Order – that is well on its way to us.

    Pauperisation of the populace – well under way
    Bankrupting businesses – well under way
    Demoralisation of us all – achieved
    Disruption of education – well under way.

    The psychological warfare your government has waged on us is unbelievable. Keep us wondering what the next step may be, keep us all off balance, meanwhile many people “in the know”, and in the pay of the likes of Bill Gates and George Soros and big Pharma companies are profiting mightily from these actions. The simple aim is to make everyone dependent on the State for everything, to control us every which way.

    What next, the need to “recoup” some of the money spent on Covid19 vaccinations, by raiding pension schemes, raising taxes? This whole scamdemic has been as manna from heaven for some. Not so much for the rest of us”.

    I thought it was quite amusing especially the last paragraph!

    1. The only time I wrote to my MP I was surprised at the reply. I’d complained that it was unfair that not only was monthly insurance/home insurance not a direct debit, but a credit agreement but that it was also some 20-30% higher than just the annual amount.

      Now, I can understand that there’s more risk, but in one case annual was £500 and over the year nearly 800. Not permitting that to be a direct debit got me as well.

      His reply was considered and reasonable. He suggested that while morally wrong it wasn’t illegal and while little he could do, he had noticed that some government institutions did the same and would raise those where he could.

      Which, while nothing has changed was a decent reply. An acknowledgement he wasn’t all powerful, an awareness of limitation and looking to change what he could within his influence. It’s a shame he was a Labour candidate.

      1. I hate & despise Direct Debit.

        In effect you are giving the vendor permission to raid your bank account and take as much as they feel is necessary, in order to discharge the perceived debt.

        Particularly true of Energy companies, that is why I’ve put Scottish Power on a standing (Banker’s) order. Now I’m in control again.

  53. Rod Liddle
    ‘Truth’ is not subjective

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Rod-Liddle-%E2%80%93-caption-Isla-Bryson-Alamy.jpg

    Once upon a time, a fox with a large bushy tail and a disingenuous smile changed his name from Reynard to ‘Chicken Little’ and applied for a post in a local hen coop. During the interview for the position, which was conducted by members of the Scottish National party, he wore red plastic wattles, which he had won in a Christmas cracker, sellotaped to his chin – although he needn’t have done so. Simply to identify as a chicken was more than enough for the thick-as-mince panel members.

    Politicians have been happy to go along with the absurdities demanded by the shrieking trans activists

    However, it was pointed out that Reynard – to mis-species him for a moment – had used this ruse before and eaten almost an entire coop of chickens and given the rest as presents to close relatives. The chickens now awaiting the arrival of Reynard, and their fox-exclusionary supporters in the media, pointed this out with some alarm and the panel was forced to reconsider its decision. While Chicken Little was undoubtedly a chicken and definitely not a fox, he would not be allowed to take up new employment in a hen coop on account of his past record with regard to chickens.

    It then became clear that several other foxes, all inexpertly disguised as chickens, were applying for the same position. As the furore grew, the thick-as-mince panel decided that they too would be excluded from the shortlist. But they still insisted these creatures were chickens. ‘If they are no different to chickens, why have they been excluded? Have any chickens who have been nasty to other chickens been excluded?’ a sharpish interviewer enquired. But even from the most senior of the thick-as-mince panellists, there was no coherent response.

    Meanwhile everybody else in the country looked at this debacle and thought to themselves: ‘Nobody really believes Reynard is actually a chicken. Not Reynard, or his stupid supporters, or the panellists. They know very well that he is a fox. And that all foxes who have glued feathers to themselves and pretend to enjoy nibbling grain are also foxes and not chickens. But they can’t say so because that would destroy their ideology, an ideology which is of course insane.’

    The morons in the SNP are not the first by some distance to suffer the shock and surprise of what happens when fantasy comes up against reality, as my colleague Alex Massie once accurately put it. (Incidentally, it was reading Alex’s excellent commentaries on this business that led me to refer to the SNP as ‘thick as mince’. He knows them far better than I do and I am willing to take his word for it about them being intellectually challenged.) While the politicians – and indeed much of the media – have been happy to go along with the absurdities demanded by the shrieking trans activists and the hyperbolic far left, when reality has reared its head organisations at the sharp end have suddenly been stricken by that most jejune of things: common sense.

    Numerous sporting bodies, for example, have decided that trans women will no longer be allowed to compete against real women – because, of course, they realise that to allow them to do so will lead to the end of women’s sport in the not too distant future. But I dare say if you asked the corporate heads of these organisations if this meant that they did not consider trans women to be actual women, they would look appalled and say, ‘Heaven forefend, no we don’t think that at all.’ Well, in that case, why have you barred them from competing against women?

    In other words, it is all a lie. A transparent and obvious lie. And yet almost everyone in a position of authority or who – like Sir Keir Starmer – wishes to be in a position of authority perpetuates it. Knowing that it is a lie.

    I would go further and say that it is an evil and pernicious lie. What today we call trans women are not women at all, but men – except in a microscopically small number of cases where there genuinely is biological doubt. That doesn’t mean that they should be treated with unpleasantness and hostility, but it does mean that we should stop kidding ourselves. And by ‘we’, I mean ‘we’. Here’s a sentence from the BBC’s coverage of the Isla Bryson story: ‘A former classmate of transgender rapist Isla Bryson has said she feels “sick” after learning of her crimes.’ And here’s the Evening Standard: ‘The Scottish First Minister addressed the row over where Isla Bryson, 31, from Clydebank, should be imprisoned after being found guilty of two rapes carried out when she was a man.’

    Pretty much every newspaper followed suit. They referred to Bryson as a ‘she’ or a ‘her’ – and have continued to do so. But Bryson is not a she or a her. He is a man in a cheap wig and some lippy. Aside from being a lie, this is also doublethink. And it is only by employing doublethink that the ludicrous agenda pursued by what is, in the end, a very small proportion of the population is enabled to advance. It is the old cliché: tell a lie for long enough and people will start believing it. How the media reports such stories is important – and the journos concerned should know that their first duty is to the truth. It does not matter how much they might wish we could all be whatever we want to be and be treated as such. That does not accord with the facts. There is no such thing as ‘my truth’ as distinct from ‘the truth’.

    And one more thing. An individual does not own, or have control, over the pronouns used to describe him or her. Nor does the government, or the police, have any right to impose upon us a form of grammar which directly contradicts the truth. Address this issue and the madness might soon come to an end.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/truth-is-not-subjective/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=WEEK%20%2020230202%20%20AL+CID_9aef642b43c8232758cdc5c1d11431ca

    1. Once upon a time, a fox with a large bushy tail and a disingenuous smile changed his name from Reynard to ‘Chicken Little’ and applied for a post in a local hen coop.

      That’s a pretty accurate analogy! Thank you Rod!

    2. OK, some sanity at last, but I’ll bet you the article is removed followed ‘complaints’. I’ll bet there is absolutely no pause for rational thought in the minds of the nutters at the BBC.

      Anything – absolutely anything they can do to destabilise this country is being seized upon.

      I’d also note that this is what Orwell warned about. When the state can redefine truth – when it becomes a matter of what you are forced to accept, not what is true, you can be made to say – and do – anything. Thus we get fascism.

    3. I object to the expression “thick-as-mince”. I have known some very nice mince in my time, is it invariably delicious and most of it has been blessed with far more intelligence, both in its live state and after being minced, than the average SNP member/voter.

      Now, “thick-as-a-clootie-dumpling”? That has resonance.

  54. Nicked

    ‘Bout Right

    “Society, to me, also seems to be dividing along public sector / private
    sector lines. Taxes on the private sector support a bloated and often
    largely useless bureaucratic and parasitic class that runs our lives and
    rewards itself handsomely with large salaries and overly generous
    unfunded pensions. This sector of society will remain supportive of “the
    system” because the system is very good to them. However, the middle
    class in the private sector is indeed under enormous pressure. This,
    however, seems to be quite deliberate. As this sector collapses, the
    introduction of UBI and CBDC will be welcomed by many. The poor bloody
    plebs will have little choice and the public sector will be desperate to
    cling to whatever crumbs of privilege their status as a member of the
    parasite class provides”.

  55. Hi vw,

    I did a quick measurement of my Kona 12v battery at 12:00hrs 2/2/2023 and it says:

    Battery State:

    Healthy 86%
    Charge: 81%
    Internal R=8.86mohms
    335 CCA
    12.49 V
    Rated: 360A
    GOOD BATTERY

    I’ve copied this from earlier.

    1. Congrats it all sounds very good to me. (Not that I understand but good news is good news). After all I don’t have to understand exactly how ICE works, I just jump in the car and off I go. 😆 LOL.

      1. Hi again vw,

        I observed a peculiar effect after putting the tester on the battery and that is a fall in volts from 12.49v down to 12.18v. followed by a recovery back to 12.44v where it is now at 14:22 hrs.

        This is of some concern as owners have evidence that voltages below 12.00v do trigger certain vehicle responses and this could be a serious issue when the EV is commanded to go into driveable mode (start key depressed to get green car icon).

      2. Suspicions proved right.

        When I pressed start button with key on person the battery voltmeter alarm went off momentarily and the check electrical icon https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/de9366842dfc6d982a06ec8c517c18dc1469cae76ae939823af48e81dfde4960.jpg came on simultaneously indicating it looks as though I’ve located to cause of this warning icon – i.e. the battery has not been of capable of staying above 12.00 volts whilst going into drivable mode since the last jump start procedure listed in the manual.

        I am now recharging the auxiliary (green car icon on) from the main battery whilst in parked and the electric handbrake on for 20 minutes.
        Battery voltage 14.80 volts.

  56. Market was nice and busy this morning – as was Fakenham generally. Only THREE masked people. And – sheeple being sheeple – there were so many sheeple using the self-service checkouts in Morrisons that the cashiers were sitting waiting for custom! Which I was happy to provide!!

    Sunny, too – so will do some log work this arvo while the MR goes to an “improving lecture” on W H Auden…

    1. If they try to get me to “self service” at the check out, Iask

      To use Staff Cludgie
      Staff discount
      Staff rest area
      Invite to Staff Chrimbo Party
      Staff Parking

    3. Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone’

      Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
      Prevent the cats from mewing with a plaintive moan,
      Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
      Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

      Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
      Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
      Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
      Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

      He was my North, my South, my East and West,
      My working week and my Sunday rest,
      My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
      I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

      The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
      Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
      Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
      For nothing now can ever come to any good.

      1. Is that second line, first verse, edit all yours?’

        It should read: “Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.”

    4. First time that I used a self checkout machine was in one ofthose big box building supply places.

      After I spent a few minutes waving an eight foot length of something around as I tried to scan the code, an assistant took over and helped me.

      They steer me away from the self service lines now.

  57. Bring back Boris – to lead the Nato alliance. 2 February 2023.

    Johnson’s enthusiasm for backing Ukraine – which has clearly not diminished since leaving Downing Street – has even seen him touted as a possible contender to be Nato’s next secretary general, a position that becomes vacant later this year when Jens Stoltenberg, the incumbent, stands down.

    Having someone with Johnson’s passion for defeating despots like Putin at Nato’s helm would certainly help the organisation generate a sense of moral purpose.

    The mind boggles!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/02/bring-back-boris-lead-nato-alliance/

    1. 370609+ up ticks,

      Afternoon AS,

      I believe it was mentioned that Madam Tussauds has some benito mussolini old uniforms going begging.

    2. Yikes. Better start building a nuclear bunker, pronto!

      So that’s what the slimy greaseball has been up to recently!

      1. Con, and very aptly named! Interesting that the Telegaffe still employ him – he seems to have cost them a bit in libel cases.

    4. Never mind WWIII, Boris could probably manage to start IV, V and VI all at once. The man is a complete lunatic; he’s done enough damage to this country already – no more!

  59. 370609+ up ticks,

    This bloke has earned my trust,

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    2h
    It doesn’t matter if you are a Christian, Muslim, Atheist etc: your 4 year old child should not be indoctrinated with adults’ sexual preferences.

    The people who insist on forcing this stuff down childrens’ throats are nothing but GROOMERS! What normal adult wants to talk to children about such things?
    Translate post
    Lotus Eaters News
    @LotusEatersNews
    ·
    2h
    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’

    Mother sues son’s school for saying he had to take part in LGBT parade
    Mother sues son’s school for saying he had to take part in LGBT parade

    Izzy Montagu, 38, said she was told by the headteacher of Heavers Farm Primary School in South Norwood, that her son could not opt out of the event in June 2018.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk
    Posted on 9:51 AM · Feb 2nd, 2023

    https://gettr.com/post/p272vjdf656

    2. Interesting. Just read the Heritage Party manifesto, including the statement “there is no climate emergency” potential delight to most Nottlers I should imagine. I hope it doesn’t collapse.

  63. Hello people ,

    Cloudy afternoon, 9c and a drying wind , so lots of washed bedding on the line .. then did some gardening .. well, raked the flower beds , and put twiggy bits and pieces in garden bag ready for another trip to the tip.

    I have a huge airing cupboard, so while I was sorting out bedding , I found stuff I hadn’t seen for years. Duvet covers that have had the corners chewed by growing pups during that chewy phase .

    Why aren’t duvet covers more user friendly.. they are a nightmare to stuff the duvet in .. some have buttons and some have poppers .

    Moh gave me a hand , but to do the stuffing in bit on one’s own , is an absolute pain .

      1. That does make it easier but i have given up on the covers. I wash my quilts once a month. I also have colourful throws if i want the bed to look more cheerful.

      2. When did Hoovers become vacuum cleaners and when did Durexes become condoms?

        When I was young the term for these items of surgical rubberwear was occasionally Frenchies but usually Durexes but never condoms.

          1. I was thinking of a duvet – I thought you needed a banana to learn to put on a condom 🙂

    5. We use blankets.
      Much easier to handle and adjust to temperatures.
      Plus the weight is comforting. Same principle was used to pacify babies.

    1. That is a very unfortunate photograph, but I cannot condone mocking a woman in that way. I do not believe she is any more of a prostitute than any of her male colleagues in the House of Commons.

        2. Puerile I admit – but it is an old limerick which many of us Nottlers here probably learnt as schoolboys – and some Nottlas may even have learnt it as schoolgirls!

          There was a young fellow from Kent
          Whose tool was excessively bent
          So to save himself trouble
          He shoved it in double
          And instead of coming her went.

      2. I am a great believer in mocking any of the current political class, male, female or ‘other’. They all deserve our contempt.

      4. As much as I dislike her political personality, she’s not a bad looking lass and there is a certain chavy attractiveness about her.

        1. Maybe it does but the spear was made much earlier (thinking about it, probably by a cave man of indeterminate race).

      2. Yes.

        The pike, halberd, pilum, short spear, polearm, boar spear, lance… then there’s the change from flint/rock to bronze, then iron, then steel all progressions of technology to fit a need. Each building on the previous.

        See? Even 1500 years ago white folk were more advanced than blacks.

        Oh, forgot to add – siege engiles – the bow, crossbow, great box, composite bow, recurve bow, bolt, arbalest… when Africa was still throwing rocks white folk – the Romans – were using advanced maths to hurl massive boulders five to ten times as far.

        Hell, they won’t even lay pipes without us doing it for them.

    3. Make a list of ALL the useful inventions since the rise of mankind. Next, remove ALL of those inventions that came from England (not the UK, just England), and now see how many you have left from the rest of the world.

      The answer will be: “only a very small proportion”.

      1. A Poem for Black History Month

        In the matter of racial comparisons
        The media shouts to the moon,
        About all the historic achievements
        Of the Redskin, Spic and the Coon.

        Yet strangely, when strolling museums,
        The white man’s creations stand thick;
        But all we can find of those others
        Is a blanket, a bowl and a stick.

        No telephones, timeclocks or engines,
        No lights that go on with a flick.
        No aeroplanes, rockets or radios.
        Just a blanket, a bowl and a stick.

        Not one Sioux Indian submarine,
        No African ice cream to lick,
        Not a single Mexican x-ray machine,
        It’s a blanket, a bowl and a stick.

        So, remember when history’s the subject,
        And revisionists are up to their tricks,
        The evidence tells quite another tale,
        Of a blanket, a bowl and a stick.

        A poem by A. Wyatt Mann

    6. Invention
      something fabricated or made up.
      “you know my story is an invention”

      Black lies matter

    7. Yes, please do. You’re very welcome to leave. After all, your stabbing, welfare dependency, child abandoning inventions are not ones we want anyway.

  67. Watergate journalist Bob Woodward tears into media and Democrats for ignoring his warnings about the Steele Dossier on Trump. 2 February 2023.

    The story described Steele as having a ‘credible track record’ and claimed that the FBI was chasing down his sources.

    In fact, writes Gerth, the FBI had interviewed the former spy’s ‘primary’ source, who said Steele had exaggerated or misstated details and that his own information was based on ‘rumor and speculation,’ according to notes released later.

    None of that mattered, as the FBI at the time stayed silent.

    The Times story had triggered a frenzy, with other news outlets producing their own stories about Trump campaign officials in contact with Russians known to US intelligence.

    Nottlers of course knew the Dossier was fake and Steele a liar almost from the off!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11702915/Watergate-journalist-Bob-Woodward-tears-media-ignoring-warnings-Steele-Dossier.html

    3. Most people still believe all the propaganda that’s been churned out since 2016.
      I talked to two “normies” in the last couple of days about vaccines and covid. Both still completely believed everything they’d heard on the TV.
      As the meme says, “Imagine living through the last couple of years and not even being a tiny bit suspicious…”

    4. The look on Steele’s face when he came out of his house to be met with a load of journo’s and Paps was priceless.

    5. Yet the damage is done. The state has got what it wants. It’ll keep fighting Trump with every tax payer funded resource going; all because he proved them wrong.

      They did the same to Truss. The lot of them – every single fascist Lefty is vile scum.

  68. Watergate journalist Bob Woodward tears into media and Democrats for ignoring his warnings about the Steele Dossier on Trump. 2 February 2023.

    The story described Steele as having a ‘credible track record’ and claimed that the FBI was chasing down his sources.

    In fact, writes Gerth, the FBI had interviewed the former spy’s ‘primary’ source, who said Steele had exaggerated or misstated details and that his own information was based on ‘rumor and speculation,’ according to notes released later.

    None of that mattered, as the FBI at the time stayed silent.

    The Times story had triggered a frenzy, with other news outlets producing their own stories about Trump campaign officials in contact with Russians known to US intelligence.

    Nottlers of course knew the Dossier was fake and Steele a liar almost from the off!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11702915/Watergate-journalist-Bob-Woodward-tears-media-ignoring-warnings-Steele-Dossier.html

    2. I went into a Starbucks, once, 22 years ago. I asked for a strong milky coffee. They served me a mug of beige milk. I have never been back.

      2. Sorry Grizz, on this one I am confused. You asked for a contradiction and were surprised when you got what you asked for – a latte?

  73. Happy Groundhog Day! I see that Punxsutawney Phil has indicated 6 more weeks of Winter for the US. But he is more often wrong than right!

        2. The funniest scene in the film GROUNDHOG DAY to my mind was when an old school chum (who looked the spitting image of Leslie Crowther) of Bill Murray stopped him to engage him in conversation and (if I remember) tried to sell him life insurance. After a couple of days when Bill Murray made polite conversation and walked away, on the third way when his “friend’ approached him, Murray simply turned round and knocked him over by socking him in the face.

          Incidentally (and I may have already posted this in the past), when attending a cinema managers’ advance screening at the Columbia studios in Wardour Street the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate to the pavement outside, resulting in our own Groundhog Day.

          1. That school chum (Ned) was played by Stephen Tobolowsky, who also played the Imperial Wizard (of the Ku Klux Klan), Clayton Townley, in Mississippi Burning.

          2. Good grief, Grizzly, I had no idea. Are you a bigger film fan than me or just handy with a computer?

    2. Search far enough and one of the groundhogs will give the right result.

      Wyerton Willie predicted an early spring this year.

      1. Our resident groundhog has not been seen for quite a while. He pops out around about 5-6pm and moseys around looking for food once the weather warms up a bit.

      2. I’m not usually a betting man but I’m going to wager that spring will commence in the northern hemisphere, this year, at 2124 hrs. GMT on Monday 20 March.

      3. When I was at school, Ndovu, we Sixth Formers declared National Hedgehog Day to be November the 31st!

    4. Standard reading in the library on Feb 2nd. I got censored on the old DT page for naming the town where Phil lives- Gobbler’s Knob.

  74. Every single thing those fools infesting Westminster do is wrong and rubbish. They rig the price of energy, then they trough off the back of the force subsidy while energy becomes unaffordable for the majority.

    Then bailiffs start breaking in to homes when the owners can’t pay the bills. Sudenly they’re all upset about this, yet I quote, Ed milioaf “It’s right that we pay more for energy if it saves the planet.” – just before he slapped his bills on expenses.

    They whinge that tax cuts would drive inflation – thinking yet again, wrongly that government is the heart of the economy and ignoring that if the price of goods fall the market functions – those fools are determined to force a command economy on us – the real reason of course is to force socialism so we’re crippled and easy prey for the hated EU.

    They’re hypocrites, they’re liars, they’re thieves and I damned well hate them. Burn the place down with them inside. Solve the damned problem. Do the same for every government department. We don’t need them. They’re proving that.

    2. Was there a verdict on the cause of the fire that destroyed St Marks Church in St John’s Wood ?

        1. Must have been the same old electrical fault.
          Should’ve been more selective with the cleaners.

  76. Neanderthals hunted giant elephants and made thousands of meals from a single beast. 2 February 2023

    Neanderthals hunted enormous elephants 125,000 years ago and made thousands of meals from just one of the 13ft tall beasts, scientists have found.

    The findings may revolutionise what we know about Neanderthals, the scientists say, and hint at either larger societies than currently thought or the ability to store and preserve food.

    Elephant burgers? Pachyderm pies!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/02/neanderthals-hunted-giant-elephants-made-thousands-meals-single/

    1. Those who have Neanderthal genes progressed. African’s don’t have Neanderthal genes.
      I rest my case.

    5. Our old copy of the Larousse cookbook has a recipe for cooking Elephant’s feet. The Recipe begins dig a four feet diameter hole in the ground three feet deep…..Fortunately no avocados are required…..

    7. Well, it was the natural thing to do in those days, Minty. There weren’t any food banks at that time. Lol.

  77. That was a decent bit of work today.

    Finished cutting & stacking all the logs, two builders’ buckets worth and a couple of mushroom tray full, from the Cromford end of the “garden”, so got on to drag some down from the hillside above the village end where I’ve realised several decent sized dead elms have fallen.

    After hacking my way through the brambles, I got a 10″ diameter elm cut to manageable bits together with a 4″ diameter ash and got them dragged up to the sawhorse ready for cutting & stacking.

    Also got the tea on for when the DT & S@H get home from work.
    Thinly sliced boiled tatties and finely chopped steamed kale, leftovers from t’other day chucked into the Remoska with a generous amount of lard & seasoning and rather nice pork sausages grilled to go with them.
    Rounded off by t’other day’s onion gravy reheated on the Rayburn.
    Grief, I feel hungry reading that lot!

  78. Headline for article in the DT:

    “BBC cancels Autumnwatch
    BBC says it will invest more money into its sister programmes Springwatch and Winterwatch”

    Apart from the vitriolic comments about Packham, I had to smile at the following:

    Hereward Woke
    18 MIN AGO
    Should they still be using colonial terms like Spring and Autumn? Are these not offensive to viewers from equatorial regions who do not experience four seasons like what we do?

    1. Who GAF what people from (I’m deeply offended by this word) ‘equatorial’ regions think. 🙃😉
      We also have dusk but they don’t. 🤗

  79. Headline for article in the DT:

    “BBC cancels Autumnwatch
    BBC says it will invest more money into its sister programmes Springwatch and Winterwatch”

    Apart from the vitriolic comments about Packham, I had to smile at the following:

    Hereward Woke
    18 MIN AGO
    Should they still be using colonial terms like Spring and Autumn? Are these not offensive to viewers from equatorial regions who do not experience four seasons like what we do?

    1. There’s no truth in the rumour that the hero in this clip is our own Bill Thomas! Lol.

    3. No comments, then, about the toxic femininity displayed by the not-fit-for-purpose mother who abandoned her child to go ‘shopping’?

    5. “Midget window cleaner’s first day on the job goes badly wrong.”

      In all seriousness, that’s one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen.

        1. Pickaxe helve more like.
          The RE issue ones with the steel sleeve round the top preferably.

  82. These bastards are not giving up,the Moderna corruption must roll

    “U.K. – Why is the government currently URGENTLY recruiting for ‘The National immunisation Programme’

    “Expected to be the UK’s largest vaccination programme, which will be delivered at pace and will be a key ministerial priority”

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fn9148XXEAAKgqM?format=jpg&name=small
    “Will deliver vaccines within a 100 days”
    Fully trialed and tested then(sarc)
    What new pandemic will Gates be releasing……..

  83. ‘Night All

    I’m really looking forward to 50,000 Welsh fans roaring their hearts out to stuff the Woke Brigade

    https://twitter.com/GenghisTebbit/status/1621174031729979393?s=20&t=FVW0sUPz7XjBckgPM4geRQ

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2b16cfcb0a4a78fd8fb1704e6d75a8d1879ae3c9fdc0edfecb00068d60666296.png

    Been there

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/11af3cc416b1a8af921123ac2844b386a5ce14a711f15523821d8205cf393054.jpg

    Awkward

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a06c766554605aac63d202c01c7a5656152fd50844fdeaf2737aa027b4856998.jpg

    Double Awkward

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c354c1f88e20b67e09437ac87266358b727660d7d3165f5592f6861c452c15b0.jpg

    1. “So before, they come to break down the door…forgive me Delilah..” So he is remorseful and is going to get nicked. In what way does that glorify murder?

      1. Met a woman today who has a Kona, and she says that it is a wonderful car and there has been no sign of any battery problem.

        1. I presume you are talking about a Kona Electric in which case can you say how long she has had it?

  85. Flaming Bogey Five today.

    Wordle 593 5/6
    ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
    ⬜🟨🟩⬜🟩
    🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Par for me today.
      Wordle 593 4/6

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

  86. Bugger.
    Working through the backlog of posts and got white screened when I clicked an upvote!

      1. I’m told it’s what happens when one tries to join a Bame club, one gets white screened instead of black balled

      2. Click on upvote or reply when you’ve got a couple of hundred comments loaded and the screen goes to white with no text.

    3. Try scrolling up or down when that happens. The picture usually reappears – at least, for me.

      1. I can promise you that they are not overweight. They have very large bodies. When stretched out each is well over three feet long. They have a tremendously active outdoor life – hunting, climbing, exploring. They are, in essence, ourtoor cats who choose to come in for some tucker and a kip.

      2. It’s because they’ve got their winter coats on; furry, thick and dense. You could probably lose your hand in that pile!

    1. Just the sort of chap the joke, woke “King” will send some money to.

      The Grimes – on Tuesday:

      “The King is to give nearly £2 million to charities to help African farmers, youngsters facing inner-city deprivation, carers and the elderly.

      The grants, which are being made by the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund, will also help environmental causes.

      A spokesman for the fund said: “These charities were selected by trustees for their enormously important work in the areas of environmental sustainability and social inclusion, both subjects close to the King’s heart.””

      The jug-eared wazzock appears to be unaware of the billions that the UK has given black African countries precisely so that people should NOT face deprivation

  89. Afternoon all, still sorting out 35 plus years of accumulated odds and bobs stored in the loft. My word there is some gems discovered up there, a Charles and Di tea plate, cup and saucer, numerous commemorative coins, even a small jar filled with 6d tanners.
    I did find a hip flask, that maybe useful for Rugby matches on cold days.
    I will blame my mother and say most of it was brought here after she passed away. She loved keeping things, throw it away was not in her vocabulary.
    I am saving the hundreds of photos till last otherwise it will all just go back up the loft again and wait for my kids to clear the house out when our time comes.

    1. It’s difficult throwing stuff out if you’ve got the hoading gene…….OH has been watchingg Flog it! every afternoon and it’s sad to see family heirlooms going for sale for not very much.

      1. I have accepted that you can build a lifetime of memories in your home, when you pass away, they all go in the skip, and perhaps that is the way it should be.
        My memories are stored in the heart, not even that bar steward Gates will get to them.

        1. There used to be a BBCtv series called – I think – The Life Laundry, where they packed off a couple to a hotel for a couple days. On their return, all the house’s contents had been laid out on a tarpaulin covering the lawn and they sat the owners down to sift through the contents one by one. They had to decide whether to bin it, sell it or keep it. Meanwhile the inside of the house was re-decorated and some much-loved items (e.g. a framed family photograph) were hung on the wall. The “rubbish” went into a skip, and the “sell it” items were sold by the co-presenter of the series who would often raise considerable sums for the family who were always delighted with results.

      2. The most harrowing part of our down sizing has been selling or donating furniture and home items that have been part of our lives since we were children.
        Parents’ furniture, Uncle Willie’s sideboard, childhood books that I have owned since I could first read, items that MB and I bought from salesrooms when we were first married …. and so it goes on.
        Sons have their own established homes and grandchildren are the wrong age to settle down or own their own homes.
        The inexorable march of time. At least someone benefits from what we are doing.

          2. Yes, thanks, Bill.
            Spoke to them today, will mobilise them tomorrow. Very helpful, flexible, reasonable price.
            They look good in the reviews, too.
            I owe you for the recommendation!

        2. I know just how you feel. We have some real gems of antique furniture and silver – and paintings. None of my children/grandchildren have the REMOTEST interest in any of it. Charidees are not that keen. One refused an upholstered stoodl: “Elfin Safety Fire Regs More than My Job’s worth”….

          I expect it will all go to the tip when we both peg out..

          1. We’ve been sending “stuff” to auction for quite a time now. Some does well, most gets SFA.
            I offered something to my college for the library; they snootily turned it down so we sold it.
            It raised £6,500. Did I donate the money to them?
            NO and I’ve not sent them a penny since.

          2. I would have let them know how much it raised and that i had donated the money to another library.

          3. That is why I Freecycled the dining chairs; the furniture wasn’t wasted and the chap who collected them was delighted. His marriage had collapsed and he was living in a flat with tatty furniture.

          4. The beauty with Freecycle is that the people who collect the stuff are usually very pleased; often they have been through a rough time and are grateful for even something as basic as matching crockery or a cheap set of shelves.
            Stuff goes more quickly if you include a photo: and offer it within your area.
            https://www.freecycle.org/

          5. I looked on a free site and a man was asking for a fishing rod for his little boy. I had two little telescopic rods (for poaching) and a whole load of beach kit. When he arrived with the little one in tow i said he could have the lot. He was chuffed to bits.

            I used to love night fishing on Chesil Beach but i prefer a warm bed now.

        3. Yes – when I look round here, nearly all our stuff was inherited from my parents or his – and what will we do with it when the time comes??

          1. The worst bit was the house clearance company emptying the kitchen.
            All remaining glassware and crockery was smashed, you could hear it from a distance away.
            That hurt a lot A lifetimes memories of meals with parents, now all broken. We assumed they’d sell it, not smash it.

          2. When was this – before the economic calamity?

            I had my mother’s house cleared in 2013. There were no antiques or fine art but the two chaps who did the work picked out some very ordinary ornaments and knick-knacks and sold them at auction for a total not far short of the fee. TBF, the family had plundered most of the crockery, cutlery and usable furniture…

          5. That is why I won’t use house clearance companies.
            It’s extra hassle, but these items are all part of human history and should be passed on to the benefit of other human beings: AND I hate waste.

          6. I wasn’t complaining, Anne. The proceeds of the auction were returned to me and offset most of the cost of the clearance. They treated what was left with respect (the family thought it was worthless) and made a little money out of it for us.

            Most of the furniture left behind (old beds and self-assembly wardrobes) were broken up but a sofa was rescued and went to a charity.

          7. I would have preferred to avoid it, but what was left was the stuff nobody would buy or take as a gift. Couldn’t do anything else with it.

        4. It’s a challenge, isn’t it Annie? I still have my school books from Forms 4, 5 and 6 in Argentina and would be loathe to part with them. But at least I spent half a dozen hours today sifting through Argentina-related paperwork and was able to bin or shred a vast amount. I came to realise that should I return there at a future date then all I needed to do was use the Internet to read up on what I wanted to see and print out a few useful articles. Then I can get a few extra maps and leaflets once there at the local tourist office and bin them before flying home. I must have maps going back decades which I can easily bin too.

      3. That was the problem in clearing Mother’s house. Much-loved furniture, books, nick-nacks actually had no value. Fortunately, the Marie Curie hospice charity would take all but the furniture, thank God, because there were some beautiful, expensive books there. Also pleasing, because my Father died in a Marie Curie hospice, so we could give a little back.

          1. I believe so. Bill’s recommended Aibels have given a good price, seem organised, and have good reviews, so mobilising them tomorrow.

      4. There is a couple of charity shops nearby, some will go there I expect. At least whoever buys it will at least be wanting it, better than the skip having it.

    2. Storing things in the loft is a bad idea, as I discovered after 10 years in my first house in Thetford. It all had to come out again. I was on first name terms with the staff at the local dump.

      Exactly 20 years ago, my poor 88-year old Mum was admitted to hospital – the prognosis wasn’t good. It was obvious she wouldn’t be returning home, and – with my cousin – we started ploughing through the house contents. Every utility bill stretching back to 1957. And much, much more. She passed away on 7th Feb 2003 (40 years and one month after my Dad). By the time of the funeral on 14th Feb, the house was cleared. Anything worth keeping was stashed in the back of my Ford Mondeo estate – the rest went with a house clearance outfit. Re. photos – Cousin took all those (she’s into Ancestry and the like). Not much to show for almost nine decades, but there you go. In the interim, I did a bit of internal decoration, for the assembling rellies, and by late afternoon, had posted the keys off to the landlord.

      Fast forward to Sept 2020 – with my impending move from a 3-bed detached house to a 1-bed retirement bungalow, I enlisted the help of a local charity – Furniturelink – which is tied up with Guildford Borough Council. For around £150, they took everything I hadn’t already moved to the new place. Practically all of the furniture. My King-size bed wouldn’t have fitted the bedroom here. The guest beds were past their best-before date. Ditto the sofa. I could have spent months trying to offload it all on Ebay, but life’s too short. And the good news is that I don’t do ladders any more, so there’s nothing but insulation in the ‘new’ loft…

      1. Well done, Lil Bro’. Moving ain’t easy. You can only imagine what I left behind in NC 🙁 No other choice.

        1. That was our problem too, Ann. We only had a short time to do the clearance, we couldn’t stay for months(?) to sell on Ebay, auction houses were selling similar stuff for like £40, so not worth trucking it up to Worcester or wherever. In The first tage was an antique dealer who bought stuff, then we rolled up and took stuff to charity, then the car & mowers were collected whilst we filled the skip, finally the clearers. All done in 10 days – incidentally, over our 40th wedding anniversary, so that was buggered as well. 2022 was a Bad Year.

          1. 2022 was a bad year! God yes, it was. And our new year isn’t off to much of a better start.
            More to relate re today but am too tired and cheesed off to do so.
            Sometimes it seems that nothing goes the way you want.

          2. Take a bath and early bed. Get some sleep, Ann.
            Sending a hug… just in case you might need one!

          3. Thanks Paul. Don’t have a bath, much to husband’s chagrin but it won’t be a late night.

          4. Have to say, Ann – that my brief stay in the Station Hotel, Carlisle, last week, was the first time I’ve had access to a a proper bath in the best part of three years. My wet room is OK, but there’s much to be said for a bath…

          5. My husband has been asking for a bath tub since we moved here. We have a wet room also which is OK. I prefer a shower but I don’t like the slight slope when I go into it.
            Do the houses in Carlisle still have red rooves? Used to see them when on the Royal Scot up to Scotland.

        2. Quite…

          I still have more stuff than I can accommodate. However, most of my garage tools went to a former neighbour’s son, who is making a splendid job of rebuilding a Series 1 Land Rover. A few remaining tools are still in the Churchyard shed. And some other bits in the church boiler house. Notably a Jetmaster open fire, which I never quite got round to installing. This year, I should prolly sell the robotic mower, while there’s still some life in the battery. Plus a few surplus bits and pieces…

      2. Mother’s furniture went shortly after she passed, what was up my loft was bits and bobs. We are getting down close to the photos. Hopefully by the weekend we will be discovering a couple of gems in with the photos. I expect nearly all will go as rubbish.
        My photos I scanned and saved on my computer, and that was only the ones I considered worthwhile, it makes it easier for the kids to delete them after we pop off.

  90. That’s me gone. Another nice sunset – almost. Started to get beautifully red clouds – then in a trice all gone. Grey day but “mild” expected tomorrow. Bloody log work required. I DO wish Robert lived round the corner. He could cut it all up in five minutes….(sighs…)

    Have a jolly evening. We are looking forward to “Fortunes of War” – an excellently made series of the Olivia Manning series – back in the 1980s…..(which just seem like the other day…)

    A demain.

    2. So…. what the BBC is saying is that if there are fewer storms than usual, it’s down to climate change, and if there are more storms than usual, it’s down to climate change. On the other hand, if there are the same number of storms as usual, it’s down to climate change.

  97. I walk my dogs in places not really frequented by many people .. I sometimes take my phone with me , an often or not forget it .

    Nicola Bulley , a lovely looking girl , walked her dog one morning .. then vanished .. her dog was found distraught near to a riverside seat where she had disappeared into thin air .. and her mobile phone which was placed on the bench was still on .

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11706929/Inside-45-minutes-Nicola-Bulley-vanished-Strava-account-reveals-common-route.html#comments

    The night before her disappearance, she had been planning a spa trip with her sister Louise and discussing what treatments they’d get, according to her mother Dot.

    At the time, her parents were looking after her daughters while Ms Bulley took a business call. She was ‘upbeat’, having recently secured a new client at work.

    ( I believe she dealt with mortgages )

    What on earth has happened to her …

    1. Three possible options….she fell or was pushed into the river and drowned. Somebody got her. Or she arranged to meet someone there and has scarpered. Dog left and phone left also. Very odd indeed.

        1. I am trying to be hopeful but it is very odd. She walked the same path on a daily basis so it is likely that someone knew her routine and was waiting.

    3. If she was on a conference call on her mobile, SOMEONE was on the other end and knows the circumstances just before her disappearance: he or she should be the prime lead in the investigation . . .

        1. If there had been noise, argument or a commotion, that person would have heard it, Lotty . . .

          1. You are right. That is such a good point. And, as her phone was left, they should be able to find all contacts & etc.

          2. That would require some intelligent sleuthing; do we have any intelligent sleuths, these days, Lotty?

          3. The only ones I can think of are all fictional…..Morse, Lewis, Poirot, Marple….
            Sad innit?

          4. Yes we do lacoste.

            Usually they are very quiet, revealing very little.

            I’m sure that they know more than they are letting on. If they really didn’t know what happened they would

            be dredging the river, or have police divers down looking for discarded weapons..

    4. If they don’t find them in three days they are normally dead. Poor woman. Her poor family and friends too.

    1. Yet another full scale eff up by our useless government.
      But between them they take home around 100 million each year in ‘expenses’.

  100. https://12ft.io/proxy?ref=&q=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/02/nicola-sturgeons-political-career-even-snp-knows/
    Nicola Sturgeon’s political career is over – and even the SNP knows it
    In the words of one senior nationalist: ‘We can’t go on like this. The past fortnight has been terrible’

    It is surely no longer a matter of “if” but “when” Nicola Sturgeon’s leadership of the SNP grinds to a shuddering halt. The past two weeks have proved her to be totally incapable of running Scotland’s governing party and continuing as First Minister.

    The final straw for many nationalists, and most neutral observers, came today when she refused several times to reply to Douglas Ross, the Scottish Tory leader, over whether a double rapist who claims to have changed gender was now a woman, as her justice minister said.

    Sturgeon said she didn’t have enough information to form a precise opinion, merely saying that the rapist, who had been sent to a female-only prison initially, “claimed” to be a woman.

    I thought that an entirely mealy-mouthed response, a view shared, from the look on their faces, by most of her own MSPs sitting behind her at Holyrood. What more information does she need? She knows more about this case than anyone in the land.

    For his part, Ross said that, when someone rapes two women “they are not trans people, but dangerous and violent men, who seek to exploit loopholes in the government’s current policy”.

    Sturgeon’s obsession with the trans issue has shown that she’s the extremist here rather than the cautious politician this measure of social reform requires. She was the driving force behind her Bill to make the self-declaration of gender changes automatic. It was she who dragooned her backbenchers into voting down amendments that would have provided much-needed safeguards for women-only spaces such as toilets and changing rooms.

    But there are clear signs that her party is losing patience with her, given that she’s put independence on a back-burner. Above all now is the horror that they share with most Scots voters – that a senior politician, and a woman, too, could fail to see how wrong she has got this.

    Said one senior nationalist: “We can’t go on like this. The past fortnight has been terrible.” Another said: “The skids are definitely under her now.”

    And there was no argument, either, from one of her former close allies when I suggested that Sturgeon was “no longer proving to be an able and effective leader”. It’s pretty clear from these and other remarks that her authority is disintegrating bit by bit.

    Sturgeon has said she played no part in the decision to send the rapist to Cornton Vale but has also consistently refused to admit she’s been wrong on the trans issue, nor to see any connection with her controversial Bill. This was vetoed by the UK Government but she still insists she’ll fight their ban in the courts.

    The best that can be said about Sturgeon’s leadership is that it’s difficult to spot an alternative. Neither John Swinney, the Deputy First Minister, nor Keith Brown, the deputy SNP leader, have much support. Kate Forbes, the finance minister, is often touted as a possible leader but as she’s still to come back to work after maternity leave, it’s hard to see her relishing the top job in a party and government that’s lost its way. But the fact that there’s nobody else is a poor excuse for keeping a bad leader in post and I think that message has finally got through to the nationalists.

    The old saying goes that, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. Likewise, surely if it acts like a man, and has the wherewithal to rape a woman it must be a man? Isn’t that a fact of life?

    On today’s evidence, not in Nicola Sturgeon’s book it isn’t.

    1. I suspect she’ll hang on quite a bit longer. The article indicates a lot of wishful thinking.

      1. I think the two Green loonies/creeps, the weird Harvie person, and even weirder Canadian Lorna Slater who is the double of horse-face Ardern, have dug their toes in and insist that this dubious piece of legislation is the price of their backing Nikeliar!

        1. Crikey!! There must be something fearsome in the water up your way Sue. Time to weaponise the Antonine Wall to keep them out.

          1. I can walk to it from here! What a strange country Scotland has turned into! Such hatred and division abounds and it’s all the fault of the nutty Nasties!

        2. Crikey!! There must be something fearsome in the water up your way Sue. Time to weaponise the Antonine Wall to keep them out.

  101. Thought for the day:

    If Russia “loses” in Ukraine who will pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction if Russia refuses to?
    1 The external Russian oligarchs, ie confiscating private individuals’ wealth
    2 The so called “free” world’s taxpayers
    3 Ukraine itself, in exchange for selling ALL its resources to American multinationals

    Yep numbers 1, 2 & 3.
    And I’ll bet my pound to your rancid toenail that Zelensky & co take a huge cut from them all.

    3. It would be the British tax payer. It is always the British tax payer.

      All that money we gave to the EU. New promenades and palm trees everywhere. New roads and airports. We get as many pot holes as we want.

    1. Just filled in the ‘consultation document’ questionnaire. Long winded, and I basically said throughout that I didn’t trust the government or any of its departments to ‘share‘ peoples’ data.

      1. I’m going to fill it in tomorrow when I am less red wined…. Thank you for the clue as to what to say, I saw that (give reasons why etc) and just went blank, my mind refused to countenance it, it would not compute!

        We have only until 1 March to do this and our Government has not advertised the public consultation, only word of mouth on such sites as Twitter, which rather underlines your reasons given, in bold, italics and upper case!

          1. I think it is designed to put us off by adding the ‘give your reasons’ at the end of each section. It does make you think ‘oh, I simply can’t be bothered, life is too short’.

    2. I flicked through it. I was bemused that the two case studies are for individuals named Mikel and Bukayo. So it clearly only applies to ethnics & other immigrants, not to indigenous Brits.

      1. ….in the fulness of time…. tranche by tranche….. one step at a time….. slowlee, slowlee, catchee monkee.

  103. Well before I turn in I’ve been watching recorded programmes of Portillo’s rail journeys in Oz.
    I’m so home sick. 🤠😏
    Off to lie down and dream about past moments sitting by the Opera House having a few coldies.
    Nice chat with Brucie this morning, he’s had an excellent experience in Melbourne having been in hospital for a biopsy on one of his lungs. All noticed and carried out with a month. At least two years here if your lucky.
    And it’s not private, their equivalent of the NHS.
    Good night all.
    Pleasant dreams.

    1. Oz has a lot to commend it.
      If I was alone and qualified, which I think I do, I’d move there tomorrow.

        1. Two do.
          They changed the rules a while back, my grandfather was born there and at one point I would have qualified automatically.

          1. Our eldest was born there, but unless something terrible happens I can’t see him going back.
            We’re hoping to go back ASAP but I’m still waiting to get my AF fix otherwise insurance would be too expensive.

      1. No worries mate.
        I just yearn to return Obs.
        I loved the ferry to Manley as well.
        It’s too long a story and too complicated as to why we came back in 1980. But I’m so pissed off with this useless dump of a country.

        1. Know what you mean. That’s why we left in 1998. Still marvel at how crap the place is, how amateur, how incapable of doing anything properly. And doesn’t have an outdoors culture nor fine weather to compensate.
          Some good things, though. Thatchers cider, pies, ales spring to mind.

  104. That’s me for tonight. SWMBO home, if dented and creaky, so I’m away to bed.
    Slayders!

      2. Moderate bruising and sore muscles seems to be all, thanks. Extra-hot bath is prescribed.

  107. A little funny….whoever posted the word “testiculation”- may have been Tom.
    Was in Sainsbury’s today and got chatting to a lady by the eggs. We joshed about the paucity of eggs and yolked that the chickens must also be on strike. She had a wicked chuckle and was possibly slightly older than I…
    I asked her how wicked her sense of humour was…very wicked she replied. I asked her if she knew what testiculation was; no she said, so I told her. She laughed her head off and as we parted- me to the wine aisle and she to wherever- she said, “I’ll remember that word.”
    Fun in the egg aisle- feel quite cock-a-hoop. ;-)))

  109. Evening, all – or those hardy few who are still up! Schools have been a propaganda factory for some time. Home schooling is probably the best way to ensure a good education these days.

    2. But will parents ban valentines day cards and chocolates like an Ontario school is reputed to have done?

    4. We home-schooled our boys up to the age of 15 as we sailed around the Mediterranean returning home during the school holidays to run our residential “A” level French courses in Brittany. We then sent them to boarding schools in England for their Sixth Form studies.

      They are now aged 27 and 29 respectively. Both have good degrees and good jobs, have bought their own homes and one lives with his fiancée and the other with the wife he married last July.

  112. Goodnight and God bless, Gentlefolk. Until the morning’s light, whatever time that might be.

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