Tuesday 14 March: Gary Lineker’s unapologetic partiality is an insult to licence-fee payers

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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584 thoughts on “Tuesday 14 March: Gary Lineker’s unapologetic partiality is an insult to licence-fee payers”

  3. ‘Morning All

    Bits and pieces

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    Wishing Paul all the best today………

    2. #2 most appropriate – just been tapped for half a bucket of blood! And thanks, Rik 👍

        1. Howdy, Sue. About 10:00 Weegie time. Pills to take now… All the breakfast that’s allowed 😠

  4. One by one, the pillars upholding liberal Britain are disintegrating. 14 March 2023.

    Liberal Britain is beginning to collapse. It’s not just the sacredly “neutral” institutions that are in peril, although many of them will struggle to survive the coming decades. Liberal centrists have long sought to tell a highly particular story about our island nation – of the benevolence of a Blairite, technocratic Third Way, of unity in diversity, and of the desirability of a cautious and gradual approach to change. That story is now disintegrating under the weight of its own contradictions.

    Just look at the BBC. There are many dimensions to the mess the broadcaster has found itself in since Gary Lineker’s Twitter outburst over the Government’s migration policies. Make no mistake, however: in the eyes of millions, the pundit has once and for all exposed the lie at the heart of the corporation. It is far from being the strictly impartial body it purports to be, dedicated to representing fairly the views of the whole population. Many of its employees evidently think that its rightful role is as a mouthpiece for a particular political creed – one that thinks Britain somehow has a semi-mystical power to absorb and heal the diverse peoples of the world.

    It may seem facetious to point out that a similar sort of ideology was once upheld by the gentlemen of Union and empire. But there is surely a historical continuity between the early BBC and football royalty’s disgusted invectives against insular Little England. They are part of a civilising tradition – one that is not so much politically neutral but seeks to transcend politics in pursuit of a higher moral cause. Indeed, when John Reith embedded the principle of the BBC as an impartial body, he envisaged an institution answerable to neither government nor necessarily to listeners, but to a loftier calling: cultural uplift and civic nationalism.

    True, many of the Beeb’s journalists are genuinely dedicated to presenting current affairs through a neutral lense. Credit must also be given to its director-general, Tim Davie, who attempted to do the right thing by disciplining Lineker. But his firm line could not hold. However it might be dressed up, after the Match of the Day boycott, Lineker’s return to the screens is a BBC climbdown. Conservatives anxious that the Beeb is in hock to a liberal-Left establishment will find their suspicions confirmed. And liberalism’s first mythological pillar – that of its benign leadership by a moderate elite – has been further eroded. Witness also the fury at the increasingly politicised behaviour of the Civil Service.

    The liberal story’s second pillar – unity in diversity – is in equally serious trouble. For years, liberal Britain has thrived on the country’s perceived capacity to integrate disparate communities, from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to more recent arrivals. Today, however, the notion that the country can indefinitely absorb and assimilate all – or even a satisfactory proportion – of the people that might have a legitimate claim to settle here is unsalvageable.
    In the case of legal immigration, public fury is mounting at the extraordinary numbers allowed into the country, in direct contradiction to the promises made by politicians over decades. The social contract is fraying. Particularly offensive is the idea that it is somehow moral to import foreign labour while allowing millions of British people to languish on benefits.

    In the case of asylum, it is a question of numbers, too. No amount of hand-wringing about the system’s administrative inertia can distract from the problem at the heart of the crisis: the principles that underpin the UN refugee convention are no longer workable. It was enshrined in 1951 on the implicit calculation that most of the world’s displaced people would not – or could not – take up the offer of help. Today, global instability, postcolonial state-building failures, and heightened awareness of opportunities abroad have seen migrant flows relentlessly rise. As Suella Braverman correctly points out, there are now 100 million people around the world entitled to British asylum under international law.

    It is ultimately this dilemma that has compelled the Tories to abandon the liberal immigration narrative, as they attempt to pass legislation that will see anyone who enters the country illegally sent back to their country of origin or a third country. On one level, the new law is deeply cynical – No 10 aims to expose the softness of Labour’s immigration stance while pursuing a policy it knows full well it may never implement if it gets tied up in the courts. Still the move, reflected in similar policy shifts across Europe, is a huge break in sentiment from the status quo.

    The final thread of the liberal story to unravel is that of cautious modernisation – of the desirability of the relative stability of the social market economy and of the inevitability that, if it is “managed” well, living standards will surely rise.

    Put simply, a tradition of gradualist progress has made way for one of gradualist decline. Yes, there will be silver linings in the Budget, as the UK economy enjoys a modest rebound. But this cannot distract from the overarching narrative of stagnation. Having endured one lost decade of growth, we are staring down the barrel of another. Neither real wages nor productivity have improved meaningfully since the financial crash.

    Hope endures that agile tech startups might rescue the country from its sclerosis. But the fact that a bailout for the sector was even considered amid the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank suggests that they are just as likely to entrench the country in its corporate capitalist rut. Perhaps most disturbing of all is the overwhelming defeatism that permeates the ruling class. With Brexit and the Liz Truss experiment having both spectacularly failed to rejuvenate Britain through Schumpeterian shock therapy, the Blob is now committed to overseeing our country’s gentle decline.

    In my own view, the implosion of the liberal story is not particularly something to celebrate. It had its hypocrisies, intolerances and downright falsehoods. Perhaps it could never hope to survive in a volatile and divided world. But its demise creates a vacuum, which threatens to tip Britain into a three-way war between Left and Right and alt-centrists over the content of a new national story. We are back in the days of Roundheads and Cavaliers, puritans and heretics, the woke and the heathens, the toffs and the tough. And it threatens to get very ugly.

    It’s not just “Liberal Britain” though is it? The actual State is falling apart!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/13/one-one-pillars-upholding-liberal-britain-disintegrating/

  5. Good morning all.
    After the wind and rain through the night, it’s now bright and sunny but with a chilly -1°C outside.

    1. Morning Bob, overnight snow now overcast and cold – woodburner will be lit shortly

  6. Theresa May to write ‘searing expose’ about abuses of power in politics. 14 March 2023.

    Theresa May is to publish a book about “corruption and self-enrichment” at the heart of government, just in time for Rishi Sunak’s first Tory conference as prime minister.

    The former premier said the volume would investigate how public institutions “abuse their power rather than seek the truth”.

    Publishers Headline said she would “pull no punches” as she lifts the lid on her six years as home secretary and three as prime minister.

    The book, The Abuse of Power, will reveal how “the powerful repeatedly choose to use their power not in the interests of the powerless but to serve themselves or to protect the organisation to which they belonged”.

    Irony is pretty well dead and buried!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/03/13/theresa-may-write-searing-expose-abuses-power-politics/

    1. Treasonous May and the truth?

      She is mentioned in the video I’ve posted above. She wouldn’t know the truth if it hit her full in the face.

    3. ‘Morning, Minty. Mrs May-Not couldn’t even choose a title that hasn’t been used before. A quick search reveals at least three other books of the same name, and I know of another by a former Labour minister in the early 70s because I called on him on business and he gave me a signed copy…which soon ended up in a jumble sale or similar. (I wish I could recall his name.)

      I wonder if hers will refer to the betrayal that she and Oily Robbins tried to perpetrate?

    4. The absolute abject cheek of the woman, does she actually and genuinely believe we don’t already know what a collection of vile detritus dwells at public expense in Westminster.
      Just Another expensive door stop.

    5. Irony indeed; ‘the powerful repeatedly choose to use their power not in the interests of the powerless…’. I wonder if there will be a chapter on how Saggy May used her power to select a string of unsuitable chairmen/women for the inquest into child abuse. Thereby kicking the can well down the road to protect her father, who’s ‘management’ of the buildings allegedly used could prove uncomfortable for a serving politician.

  7. Good morning, all. Overcast with light showers here.

    Anyone remember the European Defence Union, EDU? It hasn’t gone away, in fact its grip may be tightening.
    Here’s evidence of another great betrayal of Brexit, the Country and our military, intelligence and defence manufacturing industry by both main parties with the LimpDums as hangers-on.

    Ferguson’s microphone is a bit scratchy for 20 minutes or so but his guest is doing most of the talking.

    The EU wants control of British Nukes. They want command of MI5 and MI6 and all procurement in one single entity under their control. Brexit means nothing to them. The Northern Ireland protocol is a smoke screen and members of our own Government are complicit. German/French Generals will be able to send British forces to the front line in any theatre of war including Ukraine to face off against Russian forces unless we call them out and insist on this being halted. NATO will be finished and US allies may no longer allow us in Intelligence network of the 5 eyes alliance. Subscribe and share. Our National freedom is at stake.

    https://twitter.com/JimFergusonUK/status/1635385862975520768

    Jim Ferguson – The EDU and the UK Governments’ Betrayal

  9. ICC to seek arrests in war crimes cases against Russia. 13 March 2023.

    The first case, according to an official briefed on the talks, will focus on the abduction of thousands of Ukrainian children by Russia.

    The Kremlin-sponsored programme has seen the forcible removal of children and offered for adoption in Russia.

    A recent US-backed study by researchers at Yale University found that Russia has held at least 6,000 Ukrainian children at sites in occupied Crimea.

    The children have been evacuated to safety. One contrasts this with the Ukraine Governments conscious refusal to evacuate their own people from combat zones. This was a Stalinist policy in WWII to encourage the troops to fight harder.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/03/13/russia-ukraine-war-putin-news-latest-bakhmut-attack-wagner/

  10. “I have no respect for the passion of equality,” Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., one of America’s great jurists, once declared, “which seems to me merely idealizing envy.”
    But envy, and its sister vice, greed, are very much back in fashion today when it comes to the progressive Left. Just listen to President Joe Biden, who wants $2 trillion of new taxes, mostly paid by millionaires, so that the rich will “pay their fair share.” In seven blue states, including California, Illinois and New York, new wealth taxes and higher income tax rates on people such as Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Taylor Swift have been proposed by liberal lawmakers.
    Biden said billionaires aren’t “paying their fair share” and shouldn’t be paying a lower tax rate than a firefighter. That’s a ridiculous claim. The richest 1% of Americans pay 42% of the income taxes in America. That’s near an all-time record high.

    Hear hear.
    Inheritance taxes are simply theft.
    https://www.takimag.com/article/death-taxes-are-immoral-even-worse-they-dont-work/

    1. Our useless Politicians are the absolute scum of the undergrowth.
      Every single one of the smug bastards.

    2. OLT, the cynic in me suggests this is just false news so that tomorrow he can announce that the increase will “only” be 40p per bottle.

  14. Look ahead a couple of years and the hotels in holiday resorts that have served the Great British Worker for 100’s of years
    will be filled with these arrivals.

    1. The first thing that happens, is that a lot of the staff will be ‘surplus to requirements

    2. The new jobless residents will impose themselves on the local population, causing problems, al la Costa del Skeg

    3. Because of the perception of possible trouble with the immigrants, holiday makers will not go to the resort,, ergo all
    other accommodation will remain empty.

    4. No visitors, no jobs for locals, no money to survive and these places will just die. Shops, pubs, cinemas (if there still
    aare any) theatres, amusement arcades, caravan sites etc will just fade and die.

    5. The enforced visitors will be the only ones with money, ours

    I despair for UK

    2. Worse, it’s not new money, it’s borrowed, making the tax burden higher in the future.

      All out of statist spite. It’s disgusting. While you’re right, Oberst, why do the political classes refuse to do what needs to be done? They won’t leave the ECJ or ECHR, they won’t leave the migration pact, nor repeal the pointless modern slavery act. They’re so desperately wedded to having another country rule us, to the next job gravy train that they’ll happily let the nation rot on their hateful crusade.

      1. “In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security.
        They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all — security, comfort, and freedom.
        When … the freedom they wished for was freedom from responsibility,
        then Athens ceased to be free.”

        — Sir Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)

    3. We visited Eastbourne recently.

      Whilst MOH parked the car I walked along the sea front.

      Outside one of the hotels various “asylum seekers” were loafing, and making inappropriate comments and hand gestures

      at passing females.

      We don’t thin k that this will encourage tourists to visit Eastbourne this summer.

        1. They’re probably exchanging opinions in Arabic Afghan, or Somalian, along the lines: “You can get away with effing murder here”.

    4. Well said OLT
      It reminds me so much of that wonderful old song……Where have all the Flowers Gone.
      Something else that our political idiots and home office have now completely effed up.
      This time the whole country, it’s social structure and culture.
      When will they ever learn ?

        1. I don’t think it will be long.
          I watched a video clip last week where the police were beating up crowd members for no particular reason. And the crowd was far larger than the violent police.
          It seemed a good opportunity to turn the tables.
          I don’t think it will be long.

          How are things going today ?

      2. They won’t. They think they’re doing the right thing. That’s how bonkers they are.

      1. Morning. I have mentioned it briefly before. Each spring my bowls club puts on a murder/mystery play. Not being actors we don’t necessarily get laughs in the right paces but as long as we get laughs we are happy.

  16. G’day all,

    Light cloud at McPhee Towers, wind back in the North so a chilly 3℃ to start and staying in single figures today.

    I’m sick to the back teeth of reading about the overpaid, under-talented Gary Lineker which seems to be the main topic in the Gatesograph letters.

    Further down, Henry Smith MP (Con) asks the Chancellor to come to the aid of pubs. Doesn’t he realise that the WEF goons are very happy to see pubs closing down? They’re where people meet, talk and may foment rebellion. That’s why.

    1. And the more pubs that close the happier the on board active termites will be.
      A Slam dunk.

  17. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Charles Moore is on the right track:

    The BBC should have called Gary Lineker’s bluff

    The football pundit may, in Jane Austen’s immortal phrase, have ‘delighted us long enough’

    CHARLES MOORE
    14 March 2023 • 6:00am

    Yesterday, it was the director-general of the BBC, Tim Davie, and not Gary Lineker, who had to use the words “apologise” and “sorry”. True, Mr Davie mutters that Lineker will not break editorial guidelines in future, but he has visibly lost his battle on the subject which he had previously made his own – impartiality.

    Seen managerially, his decision makes some sense. He had not bargained for a strike by BBC staff. Viewers naturally want their football back fast, and now they will get it. But strategically, his decision is disastrous.

    To the question, “Do BBC impartiality rules on using social media apply to famous, rich BBC presenters?”, Mr Davie’s implied answer is “No”. This fracas has raised another question, “Can you control your staff?” The answer is also “No”.

    Outsiders will wonder whether it really had to be this way. Surely the Lineker supporters’ strike was a perfect opportunity for Mr Davie to assert his authority. Like Rupert Murdoch during the famous Wapping dispute over his newspapers in the mid-1980s, he could have let the protesters flounce out and employed high-quality “scab” labour to do their work instead.

    The almost year-long Wapping battle ended in the utter defeat of the protesters and the return of newspapers to the economic success my trade had not enjoyed for the previous, strike-ridden quarter of a century. Mr Davie perhaps caught a glimpse of such sunlit uplands for the BBC but has not been brave enough to climb out of the dark valley.

    Although Lineker is undoubtedly an effective broadcaster, he has done the job a very long time. He may, in Jane Austen’s immortal phrase, have “delighted us long enough”. The main thing about football is the football itself, and it can be happily watched without Lineker. It may even be that people would prefer the sport to be less intermediated. Match of the Day viewing figures actually rose for last Saturday’s Lineker-free broadcast.

    And if new commentary is needed, this country is full of outstanding football experts who would step up and do the job very competently while asking for a tiny fraction of the £1.35 million a year that Lineker receives. If you add to the Lineker pay packet the large, though lesser ones of his supporting colleagues, you reach a saving of well over £3  million a year if they all stayed out. Mr Davie had the perfect chance to call the bluff of the self-inflated “talent”. He has thrown it away.

    His talk of impartiality over the past two years now looks more like a public relations exercise to get politicians off the BBC’s back than a serious restoration of the BBC’s raison d’etre.

    * * *

    As I said elsewhere yesterday, this shambles should serve as a fine case study for future management trainees on how not to manage a problem.

    I’m looking on the bright side – the chaotic handling of Lineker’s stupid comments, followed by the obvious betrayal by the BBC management, must surely hasten the demise of this wretched broadcaster, along with the much-despised licence fee. Bring it on!

    1. The BBC should have called Gary Lineker’s bluff.

      They should have sacked him and anyone who walked out in support!

      1. Quite right! In a nation of 67m the BBC should have been able to find three or four people who are prepared to sit around and pontificate about football at much lower cost.

        1. They could have saved a lot more by just televising the match without commentary….

      2. That would have taken testicular strength which nobody in positions of authority has in Britain any more.

      3. No, transform the BBC into a subscription service and provide a minimal subsidy for programmes with educational content.

    3. The solution was to sack those BBC employees. They cannot be allowed to stand against their customer.

      But isn’t that the problem? The entire state edifice just thinks ‘we want our own way’ because it doesn’t compete in a market. That must change to bring them to heel.

    4. Many years ago I, and a number of bright young things, was asked how one should manage an individual employee who was highly valuable to the organisation but very demanding/ disruptive and not a team player. Bright young things in the group were all for mollycoddling the individual. I asserted he should be sacked. I’ve no idea how many of the bright young things were offered a place as I decided not to accept the offer of a place on the LBS MBA programme.

      1. IIRC the Ford motor company had annual reviews where the top 10% were promoted and the bottom 10% were sacked.

        1. Forced Ranking.
          An abuse of employees where the lowest performing 10% of an outstanding department will be sacked despite actually performing better than the top 10% of a poor to mediocre department.

      2. In my limited experience you sit the person down, listen to their greivances and complaints then explain why the system works that way and, if you can, changing it. Then you verbally warn them of dismissal should they continue to mouth off.

        Every business is open to new ideas and there should be an open forum to present those but whining for the sake of it is stupid and counterproductive.

        Our apprentice fellow suggested a different way of arranging our stocks. As he’d just inventoried it, he had some good thinking. So he came ot me with his idea, presented it well and it was a really good one – but he didn’t know it’s done that bad way because of tax auditors, not our inefficiency. He did the right thing the right way and learned that government is stocked with morons who make life difficult for no good reason.

      3. On a frivolous note, this is what happened with Michael Flatly of Riverdance fame.
        He was good but difficult. A new lead dancer was employed; good enough but without the hassle.

    5. Another example of the outstanding management that has made Britain so great these last decades. Sigh

    7. On the subject of apologies the King’s younger son and his graceful wife are convinced that they are owed apologies from all their relatives on both sides of their families.

      1. The problem with narcissists is that they think they’re right, and everyone else is wrong.

        The best thing to do is to ignore them.

  18. OT. For any NoTTLer who enjoys programmes about classical music – I highly commend two – which are available on beeboid catch-up:

    Listening Through the Lens:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00109wm/listening-through-the-lens-the-christopher-nupen-films

    We Want the Light
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00109wp/we-want-the-light-jews-and-german-music

    For the second, make sure you have a box of tissues handy…

    No one makes films like this any more.

    1. Good morning. The Trombetti seeds arrived this morning, Many thanks. I also notice you wrote S.W.A.L.K. On the back of the envelope. Cheeky boy !

      1. Trombetti seeds! Lucky you! Trombetti are delicious and fun to grow, you have to go chasing after them…!

  19. Trans surgery ban for children is ‘close to sinful’, says Joe Biden. 14 March 2023.

    Joe Biden has described efforts to block children from transgender medical treatments as “close to sinful”.

    The US president said that federal laws should be passed to protect transgender rights as he hit out at Ron DeSantis’s restrictions in Florida.

    The Florida governor is set to enact a measure banning transgender medical interventions in the state for under-18s, which Mr Biden called “cruel”, in a rare interview set to be broadcast on Monday night.

    Well DeSantis for President certainly. This one is obviously demented!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/03/13/joe-biden-usa-transgender-rights-children-ban-surgery-florida/

    2. “Mr Biden, if a mentally ill individual is determined to self harm, would you protect them from themselves or issue them with a scalpel?”

    4. The attacks on children, paedophilia, transgenderism and the unnecessary, and as far as disease is concerned, useless and dangerous jab, continue unabated. The people pushing these agendas are suitable patients for treatment.

    5. Never mind: as long as there are still enough young girls with hair he can sniff.

  21. Morning all 😉 😊
    Another shade of grey out side and sleet.
    Gary Lineker’s unapologetic partiality is an insult to licence fee payer’s. Along with many other displayed aspects of bbc broadcasting.
    It’s time to sort this out ‘auntie’ or be gone.

    1. I’m waiting for the first journalists to state on the BBC:
      That the vast majority of Trannies are attention seekers who’ve seen a way to get preferential treatment.
      That the vast majority of asylum seekers arriving on our shores are looking for the best deal welfare state.
      That vast majority of critical race theory promulgators are merely divisive hucksters seeking something for nothing.

      I would give it 24 hours maximum before they were sacked and cancelled.

      3. Isn’t strange that in bounds of reality the public always seems to be miles ahead of the events.
        We the public even knew that presenter was a see you next Tuesday a long time ago. And there are plenty more where he came from.

  22. Food for thought from Cole

    https://www.takimag.com/article/little-miss-information/

    The problem with the “battle against misinformation” is that it always ends up partisan, and therefore, always ends as a stalemate. Both political parties and both ends of the ideological spectrum finesse the truth, embrace unfounded claims, and dismiss uncomfortable facts. If a “debunker” or “misinformation fighter” is beholden to a party apparatus, a philanthropist with an agenda, or an editorial board wary of offending a readership base, then that “debunker” will invariably highlight the other side’s misinfo while downplaying or ignoring the misinfo that’s dear to the debunker’s political party, benefactor, editors, or readership base.

    1. The soutions are simple!

      For energy – bin contracts for difference, abandon net zero, repeal the climate change act and force a market for energy. Build coal and gas, get fracking.

      HS2 – scrap it.

      For the budget, cut taxes. Simple as that.

      For small boats, leave the ECHR, ECJ and repeal the modern slavery act.

      If people have more money they tend ot save it. With energy coming back to normal people have more money. With lower taxes, people have more money. That fuels huge job createion reducing unemployment. By leaving the unnecessary restrictions we can remove the criminal gimmigrants.

      As taxation, energy and fuel mostly drive inflation by cutting all three we stall inflation. With less state spending there is far less for big government to do and life gets better all round.

      The solutions are ‘simple’. The problem is the state has no interest whatsoever in resolving them.

  25. ‘Everybody hates England’, says Ireland wing Mack Hansen
    Hansen and Ireland can win a first Grand Slam since 2018 if they dispatch England in Dublin
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2023/03/13/everybody-hates-england-says-ireland-wing-mack-hansen/

    BTL:

    Percival Wrattstrangler

    Everybody used to hate the English because the English were best and knew they were best. Now the English are held in contempt because they are pathetic and have no belief in themselves any more.

    This doesn’t just apply to rugby – it applies to everything where the English just surrender: they surrender to the EU in Northern Ireland; to France over paying endless monies for nothing in return; and to the Church of England and the BBC both of whom have capitulated and been taken over by the wokists.

    1. We will never be forgiven for winning a world cup.

      The problem with England is when the do have a good world beating side people the pundits are still not satisfied, they want to change their style of play for some reason.

      I’m sure this is done on purpose as a form of sabotage.

    3. Actually that bit about surrendering to France in recent years involves a few non-English pollies if one is going to be strict in one’s definition of what constitues an English person..

    4. Actually that bit about surrendering to France in recent years involves a few non-English pollies if one is going to be strict in one’s definition of what constitues an English person..

    5. If today’s Cheltenham results are anything to go by, we just don’t have the quality any more 🙁 Constitution Hill was the one bright spark, apart from a Scottish winner.

  27. From GBN:

    “Gary Lineker row sparks BBC revolt as furious staff blast management’s capitulation in hostile meeting”

    Good-oh! Davie’s position looking a bit shaky to say the least…

    1. Good. Delighted that his position is shaky.

      He was appointed to improve the BBC.

      He hasn’t bothered. He’s just grovelled to the lefties at the top of the BBC.

      Why should taxpayers continue to pay his generous salary?

  28. Going out now. Garden centre. Then gardening. Chilly out – as predicted. Back much later. Play nicely.

  29. This might be the start of an interesting series. So far it looks very promising.

    Today, in the first of a regular column, I’m going to explain what’s really going on behind the latest health news stories — starting with ‘potentially falsified’ data that lies at the heart of dementia research — unravelling the science to help you make informed choices about your health and medical care. Because the days of accepting blindly what you are told should be banished to history.
    The fact is, doctors don’t always have the right answers, and while you’d expect them always to practise evidence-based medicine, it’s not so simple.
    Often, there isn’t the evidence available. Or even if there is, it is not always adopted by the medical community.
    The most disastrous example was the pioneering work of Ignaz Semmelweis, a doctor working on midwifery wards in Austria more than 150 years ago.
    In 1847, death rates at his hospital among women looked after by midwives were far lower compared to a ward where the women were treated by male doctors and students, who would deliver babies after dissecting cadavers.
    Dr Semmelweis proposed that doctors should wash their hands with a chlorine solution. This led to a decline in deaths to the point that doctors and midwives had the same patient mortality rates.
    What a hero! Except the other doctors didn’t like hearing that they were (inadvertently) responsible for their patients’ deaths, so they banished hand washing, and Dr Semmelweis was forced out of his job. And the death rate went back to where it was before.
    Twenty years later, Dr Semmelweis died in a mental asylum, an outcast from the medical community. It took another 40 years for the medical profession to accept his evidence and approach. But in the meantime, thousands of lives were lost.
    Scientists and doctors are also motivated by the need to burnish their reputations, driven to publish positive trials to continue to get funding from pharmaceutical companies. Plus we have to factor in unconscious ‘bias’, where researchers subconsciously only look for evidence of what would support their beliefs, discounting other evidence.
    And then there’s the evidence that’s simply made up. This happens a lot: plenty of journals have had to retract papers because the authors misrepresented the evidence, or simply cheated it. Few readers will have forgotten the story of Andrew Wakefield, who concocted data to show the MMR vaccine caused autism.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11855113/Have-doctored-images-led-20-years-wasted-Alzheimers-research.html

  31. The Migration Bill is a denial of our national duty – and our humanity. 14 March 2023.

    Now, you can call all this virtue-signalling and argue about a tweet and the idiocy of the BBC management, or you can ask if this Bill is fair or even workable. The answer in both cases is, clearly not.

    The horrible escalation of language is inescapable, with the hapless Suella Braverman talking about an “invasion on the South Coast” when the reality is traumatised people in leaky dinghies, risking all. She goes on to breakfast television and raises the possibility of 100 million displaced people coming here – that is not going to happen, as the great majority of them are still trapped in their own countries. When asked at a committee by another Tory MP, Tim Loughton, what the safe and legal way for a 16-year-old orphan from a war-torn African country would be to claim asylum, Braverman could not answer the question. Her stance may be red meat to the head bangers but is it not embarrassing to have a Home Secretary who is so clueless?

    To read this article is to enter the Woke Mindset and its denial of reality.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/03/14/migration-bill-denial-national-duty-humanity/

    1. Suzanne Moore – humanity and duty must be both practical and affordable.

      Where would you put them?

      Who would pay for them – given that the UK is now already more heavily taxed than at any time since the Second World War?

      Maybe the BBC licence fee should be scrapped and just those who want to use its services should pay for it. By the same token why not have a voluntary fund to finance illegal immigrants whereby only those who want to have them in Britain pay for their accommodation and food?

    2. Ahem

      Well Fraser Nelson I just don’t care any more our kindness generousity and hospitality has been brutally abused for so long I am sick of it

      https://twitter.com/sallyanna25/status/1635574297853935620?s=20
      You and your ilk will never struggle for housing education and medical treatment you selfish twonk why should we suffer so you can virtue signal*
      *Any Speccie subscibers feel free to post this on his article

      1. Quite frankly: I no longer bloody well care.
        The ordinary people of this country have been used and abused by their rulers and the ungrateful shiites who are invading this land for over 20 years.
        A pox – and preferably something worse – on all of them.

      2. Simple – she finds somewhere else to live. Why must we support them? Why should there be a route to get here, when she has a culture and religion utterly incompatible with ours?

        The criminal invasion by the gimmigrant horde is just that – invasion. The solution is immediate deportation.

      3. On 4 April 2014, Nelson wrote a piece for the Daily Telegraph entitled “The British Muslim is truly one among us – and proud to be so”, which praised integration of mainstream Islam in the UK and described it as one “of our great success stories”. He returned to the theme in May 2015, with an article entitled “The unsayable truth about immigration: it’s been a stunning success for Britain”.

        Married with two sons and a daughter, he and his family live in Twickenham. He is married to Linda, a Swede, and said in 2014, “I am a soppy Europhile who speaks a second language at home. The idea of a united Europe was one that really excited me when I was younger, and which I love now.”

        PS. Linda’s origins, far from being Swedish, are shrouded in mystery!

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraser_Nelson

        1. Interesting comment on “being one of a handful of catholics in a Protestant school”.

          When I was at junior school I was one of a handful of Protestants in a Catholic school but literally until now I have never given it pause for thought (though I can still recite the Hail Mary).

          1. I used to attend the Catholic assembly in my largely Protestant grammar school – until the Irish PE teacher was keen for me to convert.

        2. Interesting comment on “being one of a handful of catholics in a Protestant school”.

          When I was at junior school I was one of a handful of Protestants in a Catholic school but literally until now I have never given it pause for thought (though I can still recite the Hail Mary).

        3. He’s sopping wet. I’ve been reading the Speccie since the early 90s and it is not what it was. If the likes of Rod Liddle, Lionel Shriver and Melissa Kite join the Delingpoles beyond the Speccie pale I’ll cancel my subscriotion. The Critic is better these days. I’d miss reading Douglas Murray but there’s only so much drift to the centre left one can take.

        4. He should take a couple of “child” immigrants into his home (male and muslim, of course) then see how his wife and daughter cope. Speaking a second language at home says it all; if they don’t speak English, they have NO connection to this country.

      4. On 4 April 2014, Nelson wrote a piece for the Daily Telegraph entitled “The British Muslim is truly one among us – and proud to be so”, which praised integration of mainstream Islam in the UK and described it as one “of our great success stories”. He returned to the theme in May 2015, with an article entitled “The unsayable truth about immigration: it’s been a stunning success for Britain”.

        Married with two sons and a daughter, he and his family live in Twickenham. He is married to Linda, a Swede, and said in 2014, “I am a soppy Europhile who speaks a second language at home. The idea of a united Europe was one that really excited me when I was younger, and which I love now.”

        PS. Linda’s origins, far from being Swedish, are shrouded in mystery!

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraser_Nelson

      5. The abusers aren’t just the illegal scrounging hordes, the list includes the governments, of both colours, that have actively encouraged the mass importation of people from around the World. Many of the imports holding views, political, cultural and religious, that are inimical to the British population.
        Deliberate just about covers the governments’ rationale in this matter.

    3. What else can you expect from a wayward Guardianista. The sooner she finds her way back there the better.

    4. War torn African countries?

      When the white man was in charge most of Africa was peaceful, trading and progressing towards a prosperous future.

      Then the uneducated and unskilled locals took over, encouraged by certain powers who should have known better.

      Now most of the continent is in turmoil, but fortunately still able to sell raw materials in exchange for weaponry.

      If they’ve got the resources to pay for weapons, they can use them to pay for their orphans and dispossessed.
      .

      PS: This comment is not approved by the arms dealers consortium.

      1. Every time Africa squeals for aid and we leap to help them all we do is retard their progress.

        If there is never an incentive to improve their own lot they never will.

        It’s harsh, it will involve many deaths, but the alternative is long term suffering. Hasn’t the third world suffered enough?

      3. All those adverts on TV urging us to send £X month to Africa for water/sight operations/plastic surgery to correct the results of first cousin marriages/give muslim girls an education (never mind Boko Haram) … My response is always, “we’ve poured £billions into Africa for decades – what have you done with it?”

    5. Those poor people risking all their money to leave war-torn France and the roving gangs of Muslim murderers.

      1. To arrive at Treasure Island and be showered with goodies at the natives’ expense.

  32. Good Moaning – if you’re a masochistic duck.
    My back has celebrated being able to see Dower House floor space by going into a spasm. It is spazzing like billy-o.
    I hope you all hold shares in paracetamol manufacturers.
    Ho hum; will the chiropractor still have my twenty year old records?

    1. Try yoga. Takes out the clickety clicks and makes you more supple.

      Did you know you can still oversdose on paracetamol if you take them every day?

    2. If you can, lay on your back on a hard surface. Bring your feet to your bottom and push you back down. That’ll support it, with no weight on it.

  33. Even when I had a TV licence at home, I was not a fan of stadium sports; can anyone tell me if Match of the Day is broadcast with footage of those advertising billboards which line the boundaries of the pitch?

  34. Silicon Valley Bank: global banking shares slide as fallout spreads. 14 March 2023.

    Global financial markets have come under severe pressure after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, despite governments on both sides of the Atlantic taking extraordinary measures to maintain confidence in the banking system.

    On a day conjuring up memories of the 2008 financial crisis, the US president, Joe Biden, sought to restore calm by insisting the US banking system remained safe, while HSBC stepped in to buy the UK arm of the failed technology lender after a deal brokered by the British government and the Bank of England.

    So we are toast then!

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/mar/13/silicon-valley-bank-global-banking-shares-slide-as-fallout-spreads

    1. As the stock markets plunge the ultra cash rich will be rubbing their hands with glee.

    2. Quote:

      “SVB Financial Group and two top executives have been sued by shareholders over the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, as global stocks continued to suffer on Tuesday despite assurances from US president Joe Biden.

      The bank’s shareholders accuse SVB Financial Group chief executive Greg Becker and chief financial officer Daniel Beck of concealing how rising interest rates would leave its Silicon Valley Bank unit “particularly susceptible” to a bank run.

      The proposed class action was filed on Monday in the federal court in San Jose, California.

      It appeared to be the first of many likely lawsuits over the demise of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which US regulators seized on 10 March after a surge of deposit withdrawals.”
      .

      As it was confirmed some time ago, Mr Greg Becker is one of the top men in the WEF.

      We have every confidence that the PTB will promptly step in and use taxpayers’ funds to bail out SVB.

        1. I don’t think that fighting a top WEF employee is going to get them anywhere, but they have

          my very best wishes for success.

  35. My employment pension increase has just arrived. Three elements to it. One has maximum of 5%, the smallest element, another is non-increasing and the final element has a statutory increase of 3%.
    A grand increase of £123.36. I imagine, after the tax increase, it will all have disappeared.

    2. My net company pension has hardly risen over the last 10 years, good to see my state pension has risen by £33 a week from April a lot of which will go in tax

      1. I’ve got an Annuity, I have already taken a lot of it out. But every time I have looked at it recently it’s shrunk a bit more than last time.
        The money now missing is going somewhere.

          1. Well I’ve just been on the website and it’s not quite as bad as I expected.
            But what I did discover to my absolute amazement was, if I happen to die with the money still in the annuity the effing government will steal 45% of it.

          2. Having now seen a few posts you’ve made on this subject, I have to say it’s a strange annuity.
            Normally they provide an income for a fixed period or for life. There isn’t generally capital retained for your estate.
            The company providing the annuity does an actuarial calculation that provides a figure to be paid. If they underestimate your actual longevity they lose out, because they pay longer and if you die earlier than expected they gain.

          3. MOH says that further investigation is needed urgently.

            The annuity company’s computer could be making a mistake, or it could be something more dubious.

          5. It started with Equitable life they made such a cockup of everything it was then split into two. I gradually removed one completely. And just allowed the second one to slowly increase without adding any more to it.
            Now is the time to drawn it out.
            I’m just going to spend it.
            It’s about time we went back to Oz.

          6. I lost my best pensionable years of employment via EL, I got out the day I hit 50.
            That explains your situation.
            Oddly enough, had the lawyers (mainly barristers) not been so damned selfish over their guaranteed returns, the company might just about have survived and everyone involved would have been better off.

          7. I did some sort of compensation Sos.
            I can’t remember how much.
            I’ve got a mate who’s pension was stolen by Maxwell. He was convinced that the death was staged.

          8. I got a little too.

            Using the entire lump sum, I bought a joint life fixed annuity which raised the princely income of just under £1,600 pa.
            When I joined I was hoping for 10 times that given the amount that was being invested.

          9. At the time I was increasingly my contributions annually until they stuffed it all up. Brakes on and stood back.

        1. I suppose it does but it’s all worked out in the letter they sent me and it does include the 25p for being over 80 :o) – that’s never gone up since it was introduced yonks ago

    3. The state pension is an absolute joke.
      An illegal boatee gets more benefit in a week than the basic annual state pension.

  36. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, I’ve been catching up on badly needed sleep

    Here is today’s story

    Ancient Wisdom

    Keep this in mind the next time you are about to repeat a rumour or spread gossip.

    In ancient Greece (469 – 399 BC), Socrates was widely lauded for his wisdom. One day an acquaintance ran up to him excitedly and said, “Socrates, do you know what I just heard about Diogenes?”

    “Wait a moment,” Socrates replied, “Before you tell me I’d like you to pass a little test. It’s called the Triple Filter Test.”

    “Triple filter?” asked the acquaintance.

    “That’s right,” Socrates continued, “Before you talk to me about Diogenes let’s take a moment to filter what you’re going to say. The first filter is Truth. Have you made
    absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”

    “No,” the man said, “Actually I just heard about it.”

    “All right,” said Socrates, “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now let’s try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about Diogenes something good?”

    “No, on the contrary…”

    “So,” Socrates continued, “You want to tell me something about Diogenes that may be bad, even though you’re not certain it’s true?”

    The man shrugged, a little embarrassed. Socrates continued, “You may still pass the test though, because there is a third filter, the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about Diogenes going to be useful to me?”

    “No, not really.”

    “Well,” concluded Socrates, “If what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even Useful, why tell it to me or anyone at all?”

    The man was bewildered and ashamed. This is an example of why Socrates was a great philosopher and held in such high esteem.

    It also explains why Socrates never found out that Diogenes was banging his wife.

  37. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, I’ve been catching up on badly needed sleep

    Here is today’s story

    Ancient Wisdom

    Keep this in mind the next time you are about to repeat a rumour or spread gossip.

    In ancient Greece (469 – 399 BC), Socrates was widely lauded for his wisdom. One day an acquaintance ran up to him excitedly and said, “Socrates, do you know what I just heard about Diogenes?”

    “Wait a moment,” Socrates replied, “Before you tell me I’d like you to pass a little test. It’s called the Triple Filter Test.”

    “Triple filter?” asked the acquaintance.

    “That’s right,” Socrates continued, “Before you talk to me about Diogenes let’s take a moment to filter what you’re going to say. The first filter is Truth. Have you made
    absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”

    “No,” the man said, “Actually I just heard about it.”

    “All right,” said Socrates, “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now let’s try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about Diogenes something good?”

    “No, on the contrary…”

    “So,” Socrates continued, “You want to tell me something about Diogenes that may be bad, even though you’re not certain it’s true?”

    The man shrugged, a little embarrassed. Socrates continued, “You may still pass the test though, because there is a third filter, the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about Diogenes going to be useful to me?”

    “No, not really.”

    “Well,” concluded Socrates, “If what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even Useful, why tell it to me or anyone at all?”

    The man was bewildered and ashamed. This is an example of why Socrates was a great philosopher and held in such high esteem.

    It also explains why Socrates never found out that Diogenes was banging his wife.

  38. That’s me fixed. 😁 Was nowhere near as bad as expected. Slept most of it.

    1. What? No pictures?

      Hope all is now sweetness and light. Don’t forget that batteries are not included!!

      Take it EASY for the next week or three.

    3. Good. Follow the Docs advice and don’t over do things. I know you are not an invalid but you have had your warning !

        1. My late and former mother in law told me this….when in nursing training, two nurses were assigned to give patients bed baths. When it was a man they would say, ” You wash down as far as possible; I’ll wash up as far as possible and we’ll leave possible alone.”

    7. Good news. Will they observe today and then send you home? Stroking the felines is supposed to be appropriate heart exercise?

    9. Oh, hooray!! That was what I popped on here to find out. Made my day. 🙂🙂

    10. Delighted to hear that, Paul! Take care and as I’ve said before, do as you’re told! 💕

      1. Horse face is getting her global award for being a dictator.

        My adblock allows it plus i get no adverts. Perhaps yours needs updating.

          1. Which adblocker are you using, Bill? There’s an adlist that is something like ‘nagging annyances’.
            ublock filters – unbreak?

      2. You could whitelist *.dailymail.co.uk and still block every other domain (50+ trackers, ad loggers, dozens of advertisers, video tripe and pop ups) it dumps at you.

        1. Whitelist? Lost me already! It matters not. I used to waste far too much time looking at the rubbish it publishes.

    2. Our relatives in NZ said that she is loathed by the middle and upper classes in NZ, and

      they think that she will have to leave the country.

        1. OK Bill, then I will reword their comment-

          The only people who don’t hate her are the stupid, the ignorant and the extreme left.

          2. The natives should deal with her in traditional south sea island fashion. Diced. She wouldn’t want to admit they were given to such behaviour of course.

      2. Why has the Daily Mail illustrated this item with photos of a penguin wearing lipstick? Lol.

    4. Just commented:-

      I have immense difficulty, when comparing current photographs of this appalling woman to ones taken when she was younger, in not wondering what happened to her. It’s like looking at before and after meth addiction mugshots the American Police produce.

  40. Elderly holidaymaker killed after mistaking stranger’s home for hotel, court hears. 14 March 2023.

    A 71-year-old holidaymaker was killed after mistaking a stranger’s home for a hotel and falling asleep in his bed, a murder trial was told on Monday.

    Grandmother Margaret Barnes travelled to the seaside resort of Barmouth, North Wales, from her home in Birmingham to visit friends in July last year, and went out for some drinks after she arrived.

    But returning “intoxicated”, she mistook David Redfern’s large seafront house for her hotel on the same road, and fell asleep in one of the bedrooms, Caernarfon Crown Court heard.

    She was discovered by Mr Redfern, 46, who dragged her downstairs by her feet before attacking her in a fury and throwing her suitcase into the road, the court heard.

    Could’ve been a NoTTLer!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/13/elderly-holidaymaker-killed-mistaking-strangers-home-hotel/

    1. Rather an extreme reaction! But how come she had her suitcase with her if she’d already checked into the hotel?

    2. Why was his front door open and what was her suitcase doing in the house? She’d shirley checked in at her hotel on arival and left it there?

    3. I think we’d all be a lot more forgiving – and sensible enough to lock our bally doors!

      1. I think Minty is alluding to us old gits having a skinfull and making the same mistake as the elderly lady. I’ve woken up on the wrong ship twice after time ashore.

    4. A 71 year old woman groggy from booze was hardly a threat.

      Redfern sounds unhinged.

    5. What a terrible thing to do, what a nasty horrible man, despite his pointless anger management excuses.

    6. Surely it wouldn’t have been her suitcase if she’d slept in someone elses hotel room

      1. Pass? I just found the bonkers wordplay to avoid the simple statement of fact comical.

  42. Russia says it does not recognise Hague court amid reports of arrest warrants. 14 March 2023.

    Moscow has said it does not recognise the jurisdiction of the international criminal court in The Hague, after reports that the court is expected to seek its first arrest warrants against Russian individuals over the war in Ukraine.

    “We do not recognise this court; we do not recognise its jurisdiction,” Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told journalists in Moscow on Tuesday morning.

    The New York Times and Reuters news agency reported on Monday that the prosecutor at the international criminal court (ICC) would formally open two war crimes cases and issue arrest warrants for several Russians deemed responsible for the mass abduction of Ukrainian children and the targeting of Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.

    Ironically the US does not recognise the ICC (it doesn’t say that here of course) either and for exactly the same reasons as the Russians. It will not allow its soldiers and citizens to be judged by Foreign powers with their own agendas!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/14/russia-says-it-does-not-recognise-hague-court-amid-reports-of-arrest-warrants

    1. And yet the UK is happy to allow British Law to be subordinate to the ECJ in Northern Ireland and to follow what the ECHR says even though it has no obligation to do so.

      Incidentally why are we hearing absolutely nothing in the MSM about what the DUP is going to do about Sunak’s humiliating capitulation to Ursula Fonda Lyin?

        1. Over an hour long but well worth listening to.

          The Windsor Wankfest has fast-tracked us back towards being completely subordinate to the EU.

          How long before everybody sees that Sunak has surrendered completely to the EU and has betrayed the British people entirely. Or are the majority of people so stupid that they cannot see the betrayal for what it is?

          Sunak really should be driven out of Downing Street and imprisoned for high treason.

    2. And the ongoing persecution of our Servicepeople, with the Beatification of IRA murderers, since Bliar the Liar gave Northern Ireland away away 25 years ago.

      I see Paddy O’Biden is putting his nose as well

      Joe Biden to mark 25th anniversary of Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland

      Rishi Sunak invited the US president to make the trip, saying ‘we’d love to have you over’

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/03/13/joe-biden-set-visit-northern-ireland-25th-anniversary-good-friday/

  44. BREAKING NEWS

    Davie resigns.

    The new Director General of the BBC, Sir Garfield Lineker, has announced that all staff may say what they like on social media. “The only constraint is that comments must not be favourable to the centre- and far-right. Staff who make such comments will be dismissed immediately”

    Sir Garfield has generously agreed to retain his “salary” of £1.35 million. “It sets a target for all left-wing staff members,” he added.

    1. From his actual statement. Put that mug of tea or coffee down before reading. G&P won’t appreciate being spat at.

      “Overall, over the last two years, we have seen strong audience research showing that we are delivering fair and balanced output. We are one of the most trusted brands globally and in this polarised world we are needed more than ever. Thanks to everyone for continuing to support that work”.

      1. Wow.
        If I worked there, I’d ne quitting. Who would want to be associated with such a shambles? Fcuk the BBC.

      2. That’s a great letter – both barrels and then some! I wonder if the singers cost more than that oaf Lineker?

      3. I made a response:-

        Bob of Bonsall
        March 14, 2023
        A pity the BBC Management caved in to Lineker and his mates.
        The money they’d have saved by sacking them would have paid for the BBC Singers several times over.

        Vote: 2 0

  49. Its amazing to me just how many Americans continue to support the Democrat Party.Can they not see they are driving their country into destruction.

    1. The people who vote Democrat want exactly that, a country dominated by Blacks and Hispanics, where Whites are subjugated for the sake of an atonement for past transgressions.

  51. And it’s not quite sleeting it down, but it is very much freezing rain. A moderately heavy shower after, despite being 3°C warmer than 1st thing, the air seemed to get a lot colder!

      1. Sunny and blue skies here but a very chill wind, as I found out when I went to hurl the empties in the bin. My friend in GA has had to turn off her AC and put the heat back on; it’s not just the UK;-)
        Stock made and all set to make a chicken curry soon.

        1. I have quite a lot of cheese in the fridge so i’m making the sauce for a rarebit for lunch tomorrow.

          Tonight is Charlie Bigham’s chiken tika masala. It was on sale at Ocado. 60% off. Down from £9.50 to £3.80.

        2. How do you stop chicken from shredding in curry?

          I won’t use it and would rather use turkey breast or chicken thighs with the bone in.

          1. It’s been snowing here and 2°C here but, though the temperature hasn’t risen, the sunshine has melted most of the snow.

          2. I chop it quite small and add lots of onions, green pepper if possible. Couldn’t get one yesterday.

          5. Thank you, Ann, I was talking about breast that seems so delicate it shreds.

            Maybe a long slow cook might toughen them up. Never tried that.

            I try to avoid using the oven and prefer a multi-cooker or the micro-wave.

            Trying to be parsimonious with the electricity, doncha know.

    3. We had sunshine, but then heavy rain. Telford had snow. Newcastle had to abandon its racing because of snow.

  52. My Dentist has put his prices up. My monthly Denplan has gone up. He isn’t taking the mickey like some businesses.

    Amount Covering On or around the 10th of March 2023 £33.08 March 2023 10th of April 2023 and each month until further notice £34.73 April 2023 and Relevant month ahead.

      1. Mine is around 5% increase. That comes to £416 a year. I have four 30 minute hygienist appointments a year at £40 a time and i only pay for lab work. Makes having a crown affordable. If my Dentist was to move away i would travel to remain his patient. He’s very good. Never any pain.

          1. That’s one of the many things against hospital. You can’t choose your cell-mate….. When I was in the NNUH, on one of the wards my neighbours were a wall – the other a Pole – who spoke no English. On another, the chap in the next bed had to communicate by writing on a pad….

            Just focus on getting home and taking things easily.

          2. Better a wall and a Pole than a couple of garrulous English speakers with whom you have nothing in common.

          3. In another ward, the bloke died…..and the wunnerful NHS staff LEFT him there for six hours before the night shift arrived and had to deal with it.

    3. I’m paying £31 per month now. Hygenist and dentist check. New dentist (again) did some xrays last time I went in February.

      1. My Denplan includes any fillings and veneers. Also when a crown pops out he puts it back in no charge.

        1. I think mine includes fillings but I haven’t had any new ones for many years. I have no crowns or implants. All my teeth are my own.

  54. I wonder if there will be the same levels of outrage as when Musk took the helm of Twitter?

    Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has announced that it will cut 10,000 jobs.
    It will be the second series of mass redundancies from the tech giant, which laid off 11,000 employees in November 2022.
    Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the cuts would be “tough”, and formed part of a “year of efficiency”.
    In addition to the 10,000 jobs being lost, 5,000 open roles at the company will be left unfilled.

    1. Those three companies employ fewer people than the department for education. They can afford to lose 20,000 jobs.

      The dept for ed does nothing apart from fill in forms. Why can’t it lose 100,000 non-jobs? Why can’t every department lose that many and be forced into efficiency?

      1. I wasn’t referring to the numbers, just the howls of anguish when Mr Musk reduced his workforce and so far the lack of any re Twitter et al.

    1. Yet this sort of thing isn’t just the regulator. Wokers are destroying every public service going. They get in, force their agenda, ignore their duty and when their incompetence causes misery they bugger off.

  56. Should be home tomorrow, just in time to help Second Son move into his new apartment. The cats will miss him, as will we.

    1. “The cats will miss him”… Yeah, right. For about 5 minutes!! I know cats….

      Don’t for heaven’s sake do anything strenuous tomorrow. Just because the machine is new doesn’t mean that you can forget about t and revert to your former way of life. The falls etc were A SIGN, Paul….

      1. Not rushing around lifting small cars, just will criticise from the corner (so no change there!)

    2. A bittersweet moment.

      Don’t carry anything heavier than an envelope ! It’s too soon.

  57. Alright. Which one of you is robert Robert?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/03/14/spring-budget-2023-when-date-predictions-jeremy-hunt-statement/

    Here’s his comment below the lin – ordered by ‘best’

    Five things Hunt should do:

    1) Reverse the increase in corporation tax

    2) Restore investment incentives for business

    3) Scrap the Left wing infiltrated, Labour supporting OBR and their economic and fiscal handcuffs

    4) Dismantle Gordon Brown’s benefit system and its inbuilt work disincentives

    5) Resign

    1. A frog goes into a bank and approaches the teller. He can see from her nameplate that the teller’s name is Patricia Whack. So he says, “Ms. Whack, I’d like to get a loan to buy a boat and go on a long vacation.”
      Patti looks at the frog in disbelief and asks how much he wants to borrow.
      The frog says $30,000.
      The teller asks his name and the frog says that his name is Kermit Jagger, his dad is Mick Jagger, and that it’s OK, he knows the bank manager.
      Patti explains that $30,000 is a substantial amount of money and that he will need to secure some collateral against the loan. She asks if he has anything he can use as collateral.
      The frog says, “Sure. I have this,” and produces a tiny pink porcelain elephant, about half an inch tall, bright pink and perfectly formed.
      Very confused, Patti explains that she’ll have to consult with the manager and disappears into a back office.
      She finds the manager and says “There’s a frog called Kermit Jagger out there who claims to know you and wants to borrow $30,000. He wants to use this as collateral.” She holds up the tiny pink elephant. “I mean, what the heck is this?”

      The bank manager looks back at her and says: “It’s a knick knack, Patti Whack. Give the frog a loan. His old man’s a Rolling Stone”

        1. Good one, Tom.
          I’m afraid that, due to accumulated events and ungratefulnesses, wog has returned to my vocabulary.

    1. Those were laid by co-operatives, putting up their own money. They had an incentive to build quickly and well, to reduce long term costs. Big government has no interest in the long term. It’s sole thought is for tomorrow and what it can waste in the meanwhile.

      As for 2041 – I’ll take that bet and raise you a decade.

      1. I must read slower- thought you had put Red Baron and had a vision of Snoopy on his kennel!

          1. Those were the days. Smoke and smuts; lavatories with a hole to the track; BR sandwiches. But a treat (unless, of course, it was returning one to hated boarding school.

          2. I loved their humour.
            And loved going on a family holiday, all on the train to Devon and back.

          3. We went on the train to Devon and back, too – to visit relatives, as one did in those days. Steam, smuts and long waits at Crewe for a connection.

          4. We use to walk to the end of our road in Mill Hill catch the single decker RF to Mill Hill East Station.
            Into London and the main line Station to the south west.
            Such an adventure for three young children and their parents.

          5. We used to have to catch the bus to the Town station to get to the Junction station, where we would change to take the train to Crewe. Eventually, we caught a train down to Devon.

          9. It is said you tell the Character of a Country by the contents of its Museums. It is also said in France there are exhibits of food behind glass in Museums. The same was true of British Rail only you were expected to pay for and eat the exhibits!

    1. I wondered whether the pronunciation of AUKUS was a pun on Orcas – the Killer Whales?

      1. Hmm! A lot of the comments mentioned the fact that these medicines have been around for years and tested, but some ‘new’ mRNA stuff hasn’t!

  62. Bunkered and Out!

    Wordle 633 X/6
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
    ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
    ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
    🟨🟩⬜⬜🟩
    ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩

    2. A little birdie for me today

      Wordle 633 3/6

      ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
      🟩⬜🟩🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Oh dear, par for me.
      Wordle 633 4/6

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

      1. And me.

        Wordle 633 4/6

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

  63. That’s me gone. A good day. A ton of horse muck spread over 45 square yards of rose beds. I am VERY glad that I don’t have to do that job very often.

    I repeat my recommendation of the two films on music. They are stunning. Though made by the ever independent Christopher Nupen, the beeboids set great store by them. They were made and shown in an era when the beeb was not run by ignorant, white-hating, black people. I hope (but secretly doubt) that the row about BBC Singers will run and run, though I can’t see Sir “Garfield” Davie “taking a stand”. Knee, yes.

    Anyway, enjoy the evening your own way.

    A demain.

      1. You’d be amazed how many blacks there are, Paul. I bet Weegie State Broadcasting doesn’t have a huge black proportion.

  65. And it escalates further.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11859443/Russian-fighter-jet-CRASHES-Reaper-drone-Black-Sea.html

    Russian fighter jet intercepts, dumps fuel on and then collides with $32M American Reaper drone operating within international airspace – sending it crashing into Black Sea
    US military said a Russian fighter jet clipped the propeller of the MQ-9 drone
    Crash forced the US drone down over the Black Sea in a total loss of the aircraft
    US slams Russian fighter pilots as incompetent, unsafe and unprofessional

    1. Does anyone want to bet that the Yank drone controller didn’t try to take out the Russian aircraft
    2. If the Ruskie did take it out as reported I should have thought that that was flying skill of the highest order
    3 Just what was a “Reaper Drone” doing there, if not threatening Russia?
    4. US European Command said the MQ-9 surveillance drone was downed early on Tuesday following an ‘unsafe and unprofessional intercept’ in international airspace by two Russian Su-27 fighter jets.
    Surveillance drone? Like Hell!
    US MQ-9 Reaper
    Type: Drone
    Remote crew: Two
    Top speed: 300mph
    Length: 36ft
    Wing span: 66ft
    Range: 1,150 miles
    Cost: $32million
    Weapons: AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, GBU-12 Paveway II, GBU-38 Joint Direct Attack Munitions, GBU-49 Enhanced Paveway II, and GBU-54 Laser Joint Direct Attack Munitions

      1. “the Su-27s dumped fuel on and flew in front of the MQ-9 in a reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional manner.”

        Environmentally unsound???

        Woke wazzocks

  66. Yesterday was a fiddle faddle day, my new specs were ready so we hauled ourselves into Poole .

    We were once again saddened by the decline of the shopping venue .. closed shops , and empty customer traffic.. and those we saw we wondered why they were not at school, college etc.

    We arrived ar the Spec shop( well known brand ) and the assistant produced my new specs and I tried them on .. I thought I was going to be sick, I felt quite wobbly.. and couldn’t read the bottom 2 lines easily.. varifocals .. the manager arrived and looked at my prescription , which turned out to be incorrect , so the company are putting things right for me.

        1. Pacemaker fitted with much heaving, like stuffing a duvet into a pillowcase. Due for release tomorrow. Feeling better, and can tell as irascibility has returned – the buggers insist I have intravenous water, rather than remove the drip so I can cross the corridor and get cold water / juice for myself.

          3. That is good news ..

            Did they tell you about this?

            Avoid devices that interfere with pacemakers
            Cell phones. …
            Electronic cigarettes.
            Headphones. …
            Household appliances, such as microwave ovens, major appliances, electric blankets, and heating pads are usually safe if they are working properly.
            Metal detectors, such as those used for airport security.

          4. Most focus on not being part of the return circuit of a welding machine… And not shooting rifles from left shoulder.

          7. No, the wires are fed to the heart & screwed in, like a corkscrew. Then connected to the control unit that’s squeezed under shoulder muscle. Took some heaving, that. I didn’t know I am so tightly wrapped!

          9. Under my left front shoulder muscle. Battery, too. Its the size of a key fob.

          15. It measures delay in the heart beating. If too long, it gives a mini shock to stimulate a beat.
            Clever stuff, eh?

          16. The cardiac rehab nurse won’t let OH start the programme till his heart rate has slowed down. She’s lent him a heart rate monitor and a blood pressure machine. His blood pressure’s always on the low side but his heart rate is over 120. I checked mine and it’s between 60 & 70.

          19. It measures delay in the heart beating. If too long, it gives a mini shock to stimulate a beat.
            Clever stuff, eh?

    2. Mrs VVOF suffered similar with a well known brand saver of spectacles. She moved over to another brand known for legs coverings from ankles to knees.
      She never looked back from then onwards. 😊

    3. I have warned people on this forum about dealing with that well-known cartel of charlatans (who misdiagnosed my cataracts as well as giving me an incorrect prescription). I wrote to their head office informing them that unless I was recompensed forthwith I would see them in court (and publish my letter in the press).

      They bent over backwards (to prevent themselves shitting their pants) and I was repaid in full. I then told them where to go (in no uncertain language) and nowadays only go to proper and professional opticians.

      1. Us the same, Grizz. Costs a bit, but really worth it. History of retina pictures, for example.

        2. If the glasses company have the initials SS, they are in a partnership with Newmedica, who have just double decataracted me.

          I no longer need glasses so good for me

          Should get ‘signed off’ off tomorrow

        3. Are they referring you to the eye clinic at your hospital. They will give you a definitive diagnosis.

        4. Perhaps you have the beginnings of cataracts and will be referred when they worsen.
          Why were you shocked?

      3. It was an optician from that well known Spec shop who diagnosed my detached retina after I had spent 6 hours in A&E and was not examined and sent home and told I would be contacted about an appointment. The optician referred me for immediate examination to another hospital in the same Trust as the one from the night before.
        I would not condemn a whole company for the shortcomings of one employee. I’m sure there are good and bad in all organisations.

          1. Exactly. I was told by Specsavers a few years ago that I had the beginnings of cataracts but it was only last year that my vision had deteriorated they referred me, through my GP, to the eye specialist. I had the cataract operation last March and was told the other one was not ‘ripe’ but would be rectified when it was.

    4. I have warned people on this forum about dealing with that well-known cartel of charlatans (who misdiagnosed my cataracts as well as giving me an incorrect prescription). I wrote to their head office informing them that unless I was recompensed forthwith I would see them in court (and publish my letter in the press).

      They bent over backwards (to prevent themselves shitting their pants) and I was repaid in full. I then told them where to go (in no uncertain language) and nowadays only go to proper and professional opticians.

    1. Unfortunately they are not an Endangered Species. There are more and more of their ilk every day and they show no signs of dying out. Sir David wouldn’t be interested in explaining why their habitat isn’t likely to be under threat and they will continue to multiply like topsy.

  69. ‘They don’t seem to want to question anything’: Crimewatch star Sue Cook blasts BBC over ‘shameful’ box-ticking

    Former Crimewatch presenter Sue Cook has accused the BBC of being ‘woke’

    She told Nigel Farage on GB News that the BBC used to be ‘a national treasure’

    Now she claimed it was more concerned with ticking ‘woke boxes’ with their cast

    She said the BBC’s Covid coverage was ‘shameful’ unwilling to ask questions

    Former Crimewatch presenter Sue Cook has criticised the BBC’s ‘shameful’ reporting, claiming the broadcaster is concerned with ticking ‘woke boxes’.

    Miss Cook, 73, recognised that the BBC still produces ‘some good dramas’ and also praised its foreign correspondents.

    But she accused the corporation of not wanting to ‘question anything’, particularly during the pandemic, as she claimed the BBC is no longer the ‘absolute national institution’ that it used to be.

    ‘Sadly it’s not looking very good,’ she told Nigel Farage on his GB News show Talking Pints. ‘It was an absolute national institution and a huge treasure, and I think they still do some good dramas although not quite as good as they used to be.

    ‘You see all the woke boxes being ticked, as the cast comes on.’

    Miss Cook added: ‘The foreign correspondents are still second to none – people like Frank Gardner and Jeremy Bowen and Orla Guerin are wonderful. But the news-gathering is really quite shameful. And they don’t seem to want to question anything.’

    Miss Cook co-presented Crimewatch with Nick Ross from 1984 until 1996. She also presented Radio 4’s You And Yours and Making History.

    She lambasted the BBC for its Covid coverage.

    ‘It is shameful,’ she said. ‘Throughout lockdown did anybody ever ask, “Why?” How are children going to be affected if you’re closing schools? How are university students affected if you’re shutting universities? Knife crime went up. Was there any journalism about that?’

    ‘In my day we’d have found out the truth.

    4. Yo Mr G

      he BBC still produces ‘some good dramas’ spoilt by very LOUD MUsic and incidental speech

    5. The Bbc hasn’t been a “national treasure” for decades – it was rotting even in 1997.

    6. We sometimes watched Crimewatch but we called it Wogwatch. Okay there were a few Pikeys and Albanians on occasion but most criminals featured were blacks.

  71. Quote of the day

    ‘Twenty-five years? It seems like yesterday’

    Joe Biden on the Good Friday Agreement after he confirmed he would visit Northern Ireland in April.

    1. Re vicars…
      There was an old man called Noah
      Who on Fridays was a bit of a go-er,
      He’d chop up some lines
      Dress up to the nines
      Pucker up and sink even lower.

      And….The jolly old Vicar of Bray
      His roses allowed to decay,
      His wife, more alert,
      Bought a powerful squirt
      And said to her spouse, “Let us spray.”

      1. There are three types of limerick: those you can recite in mixed company; those you can recite in front of clergymen; and limericks.

        This is in the third category so it has to hide behind a spoiler.

        There was a loose lady from Looe
        Who said as the bishop withdrew
        The vicar is quicker
        And slicker and thicker
        And two inches longer than you.

    2. Don’t forget your joke book wen (sic) they release you back into the unsuspecting public.

  77. Trivial? Yes.
    But there’s an underlying point.
    It’s the constant drip, drip, drip of the little things that show the laws don’t apply to them.
    It might eventually make the public wake up to the fact there are rules for us but they don’t affect the elites.

    Is Rishi in the dog house? Police ‘remind Sunak’s family of the rules’ about walking dogs on leads after their pet Labrador was filmed roaming free in Hyde Park
    Rishi Sunak has been spotted walking with his dog off the lead in a London Park
    The Met said his family was ‘reminded of the rules’ about keeping dogs on a lead

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11857831/Rishi-Sunaks-dog-spotted-roaming-free-Hyde-Park-PM-walks-dogs-kept-lead.html

    2. To be fair, most people take their dogs off the leash in Hyde Park. I see them and often.

    3. Automatic fine for anyone else. They probably felt they needed to remind him of the rules because he’s a wog.

  78. Hosepipe ban brewing amid ‘acute risk of water shortages’, warn climate, farming and infrastructure chiefs
    With recent dry weather due to persist until at least May, two different government advisory bodies have warned water shortages may be in the pipeline. Carrot and lettuce harvests are at risk, say farmers, while the national infrastructure chief says some areas may face a hosepipe ban.

    https://news.sky.com/story/hosepipe-ban-brewing-amid-acute-risk-of-water-shortages-warn-climate-farming-and-infrastructure-chiefs-12833497

    1. Yo T_B

      May I fiddle

      …..two different government advisory bodies have warned that because of shortages, water may not be in the pipeline.

  79. Forgive me, and I know I retired nearly 20 years ago, but Hell’s teeth our combined income never approached anywhere near that amount and apart from child allowance we received SFA..

    The welfare state is insane, no wonder the gimmegrants are pouring in.

    Thousands of Brits earning over £125,000 are STILL eligible for Universal Credit due to high rents and childcare – as new report slams tax and benefits system for heaping burden on middle-earners

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11858047/Thousands-earning-125-000-eligible-Universal-Credit-high-rents-childcare.html

    1. I don’t often watch TV but the Government is currently running an ad which apparently says there are over 40 benefits available (obviously certain criteria apply) but who knew?

      2. I can pretty much guarantee that I don’t qualify for any of it (hard-working indigenous who didn’t piss my wages up the wall – no chance). I can’t even get the £200 alternative fuels payment because I buy my oil in the summer (when prices are cheaper) and they require a receipt dated after September 2022.

          4. Check the website, there is a time limit for claiming if it doesn’t happen automatically but from memory you are still well within it.

    2. I went into town for a cup of coffee today (after I’d been to the bank). The Gruaniad’s first page had it that the UN was complaining that the “Tories” were making it impossible to claim asylum in the UK. My first thought was, “great!” rapidly followed by, “it’ll never happen”.

    3. I received notice that my canadian pensionis being reduced because I earn to much but no I don’t receive anything near $225k.

      The only people doing well on benefits are those that never made any effort to save for the future.

        1. They call it a clawback. Earn above about $75,000 a year, the state pension is reduced.

          That’s not the worst of it. Alcohol taxes go up on April first as does the hated carbon tax. That’s Trudeau – helping us fight inflation by making everything more expensive.

          2. We bought six bottles last week. Twenty percent off for the six pack and five percent off because we are seniors.

            I guess that is the difference between free enterprise and a government run monopoly dedicated to controlling alcohol.

  80. ‘Eulogy’ for SVB:

    “SVB was not FTX. SVB was a well-established and respected institution. Everyone can look in the rear-view mirror and understand why SVB collapsed, but it doesn’t seem obvious until it happens. And wow! It happened really fast! The stock was trading at $270 on March 8th and on March 10th it was worth exactly $0. Holy smokes! Powell just said everything looks fine on March 7th and 4 days later he is in emergency meetings trying to save the entire US Financial System. That’s not such a good look”.

    1. Apparently KPMG gave SVB a clean bill of health about a week ago.

      Shows how much they know.

  82. Evening, all. The Bbc is an insult to those forced to pay the TV tax to watch other stations.

  83. Why all this panic and rush to withdraw cough mixtures that have been in use for years? They were happy to coerce and mandate experimental and useless and dangerous jabs.

    1. Aren’t they pretending that the established meds are suddenly the cause of strokes and heart problems? Problem is, they’ll withdraw those meds and the stokes and heart attacks will continue to rack up because as we all know, they’re caused by something else. It would be farce if it weren’t deadly.

      1. A possible anaphylactic shock if you have an anaesthetic for surgery within 12 months of taking a cough linctus!

      2. Sue, I think that you’re correct on this action by the TPTB. Using the complicit media they have been raising the most absurd reasons for the massive increase in health problems. Turning the blame on to proprietary medicines has to be getting close to the last throw of the dice for them, anything following will have to be taken from the absurd cupboard again e.g. a staple food.
        If Dr Sherrie Tenpenny is correct, and she has been on top of the “vaccine” etc. problem from early on, the health problems will continue to rise.

    2. Probably found an issue with reactions from covid mixtures.
      And a cover up being arranged.

  84. Well the world isn’t completely screwed up over here.

    We went to the local theatre this week and their covid rules were quite clear We do not enforce social distancing or require masks. After the Canadian scaredy cats, this was quite a pleasant change.

    There again, we are in republican country.

      1. Warmer and less snow.

        The north is having quite a hard time of it with apparently 31 inches of snow in lake placid today. All we get is lots of pollen, enough to coat our car in a nice even yellow film.

        Achoo!

  85. Oh well, sorry to be boring. I’m actually in bed now and about to turn out the light…….night all.

  87. Off to bed now. Hope y’all sleep well and good luck to Paul tomorrow when he escapes and goes home.

  90. It’s 03:11 and sleep escapes me, mostly due to one occupant here spending much of the night shouting in his sleep. That’s after I removed a saline drip whose bag meant I had the hell of a problem getting to the toilet and I kept getting wound up in the pipe. Nurses wouldn’t shift it, so I did.

          3. Usually, breakfast is a handful of pills washed down with coffee.
            I prefer the coffee.

    2. It’s 03:11 and sleep escapes me, mostly due to one occupant here spending much of the night shouting in his sleep.

      You’re not in the Loony Bin by any chance?

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