Thursday 30 March: Landlords will simply sell up rather than meet new net zero targets

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

633 thoughts on “Thursday 30 March: Landlords will simply sell up rather than meet new net zero targets

  1. Early today and that is because I’m dog sitting and she needed to go out!

  2. Net zero is a Trojan horse for the total destruction of Western society. 29 March 2023.

    Prepare for a people’s revolution against policies that will abolish choice and impoverish millions

    The second kind of environmentalist are control freaks who have hijacked and warped a great cause. They don’t want to save the planet so much as to control its inhabitants. They love net zero – an extreme vision incapable of nuance, trade-offs or cost-benefit analysis – because it is a form of central planning. They are eternally disappointed by real-life human beings and their individualism.

    Poor Allister Heath! He’s turned into a Nottler! Lol!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/29/net-zero-trojan-horse-total-destruction-western-society/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    1. Bit late!
      Re-branding themselves as Greens was the cleverest trick played by the communists after the war.

      1. International communism hit the ground running after the war, they saw their chance and were ready.

      2. “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”

        Same with the watermelon party.

  3. Net zero is a Trojan horse for the total destruction of Western society. 29 March 2023.

    Prepare for a people’s revolution against policies that will abolish choice and impoverish millions

    The second kind of environmentalist are control freaks who have hijacked and warped a great cause. They don’t want to save the planet so much as to control its inhabitants. They love net zero – an extreme vision incapable of nuance, trade-offs or cost-benefit analysis – because it is a form of central planning. They are eternally disappointed by real-life human beings and their individualism.

    Poor Allister Heath! He’s turned into a Nottler! Lol!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/29/net-zero-trojan-horse-total-destruction-western-society/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

      1. How did Boris Johnson marry in a Catholic ceremony? Independant Monday 31 May 2021

        Boris Johnson married Carrie Symonds in a low-key Catholic ceremony in Westminster Cathedral on Saturday, (29 May 21) with the pair exchanging vows in front of a small group of close friends and family.

        As news of the wedding spread, so did questions about how the prime minister, who is now on his third marriage, managed to wed in a Catholic church.

        Ms Symonds is Catholic and has previously spoken about her faith on social media.

        An expert has said Mr Johnson may never have previously married in the eyes of the Catholic Church.

        Neither his six-year first marriage to Allegra Mostyn-Owen, nor his second 27-year marriage to Marina Wheeler were Catholic ceremonies, and in the eyes of the Church they may be invalid.

        Matt Chinery, an ecclesiastical and canon lawyer, told Times Radio on Sunday: “There is a requirement if you are a Roman Catholic that you must have your wedding overseen by a Roman Catholic priest or deacon.”

        He explained that any other form of marriage “is not valid unless you had previous permission from your bishop to marry outside of the Catholic church”.

        Boris Johnson was baptised as a Catholic, but was confirmed as an Anglican as a teenager.

        Mr Chinery explained: “What I think has happened here is that the Catholic Church has looked at Boris Johnson’s first two marriages [and] seen that he’s a Roman Catholic by baptism.

        “They’ve looked at that, said ‘you are a Catholic because you were baptised Catholic, your first two weddings weren’t in a Catholic church overseen by a Catholic minister, therefore the Roman Catholic church does not recognise those two marriages as valid’.”

        He added: “So in the eyes of the Catholic Church Boris Johnson woke up last week as somebody who wasn’t married and had never been married and so was free to marry in the cathedral this weekend.”

        Catholic writer Catherine Pepinster was of the same view.

        She told The Mail on Sunday that as Mr Johnson’s previous marriages were “in non-Catholic settings”, the church did not recognise them.

        “As far as the church is concerned, this is his first marriage,” she said, adding: “The others don’t need to be annulled.”

        Initially, Downing Street would not comment on reports of the wedding but on Sunday morning a spokesperson said: “The prime minister and Ms Symonds were married yesterday afternoon in a small ceremony at Westminster Cathedral.

        “The couple will celebrate their wedding with family and friends next summer.”

        They are said to have sent save-the-date cards to family and friends for the celebration on 30 July 2022.

        The wedding ceremony at the Catholic cathedral was carried out by Father Daniel Humphreys.

        The couple announced their engagement – together with the news that they were expecting their first child – in February last year.

        He and Ms Symonds have a son, Wilfred, who was born in April 2020.

        Mr Johnson finalised his divorce from his second wife Marina Wheeler in 2020.

        1. I am nominally an Anglican but Caroline is a Roman Catholic and we married nearly 35 years ago in the Roman Catholic Church of Lyme Regis which was conveniently situated opposite a pub.

          I had to make a dash for it to get out of the pub and into the church before my bride as the Daimler carrying her and her father was arriving as you can see in the photo!

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0d8afe910234db702d138a778378c715e045f7c4e1c433c8d6785e45419d54c3.jpg

          1. I was brought up a Catholic, I was an altar boy and recited the mass in Latin. Later in life I became agnostic then one day, when I was dying on the operating table, God appeared to me and offered me a place in heaven . . . I declined – I hadn’t the heart to tell him I didn’t believe in him. (The reason I was near death is because they under dosed me on the first operation to repair my broken back and overdosed me on the second. Still, If I change my mind I know there is a place waiting for me in Paradise.)

        2. I recall reading a novel years ago where that was part of the plot. A bloke wanted a divorce and his wife (who didn’t) claimed he couldn’t get a divorce because he was a catholic. It backfired because they hadn’t been married in a catholic ceremony and therefore the RC church considered their marriage was not valid and he could marry the mistress.

  4. Europe doesn’t give a fig for the Good Friday Agreement

    All the evidence points to the EU being responsible for the political crisis in Northern Ireland, which has seen the collapse of all the GFA

    SAMMY WILSON
    29 March 2023 • 5:33pm

    When it comes to pure unabashed brazenness, the shameless leaders of the EU have no equal. In a debate about the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) in the European Parliament today, they not only spoke of the agreement as if they played a part in bringing it about, but have now taken on the role of being its guardian. What nonsense! This is simply being used to justify the unwanted and unwarranted intrusion of the EU into the affairs of Northern Ireland, one of the component countries of the UK.

    First of all, the EU played no part in the negotiations or the finalisation of the Belfast/GFA 25 years ago. Those who claim otherwise are either politically deluded or suffering from political amnesia driven by the belief that nothing of significance can happen without the EU playing an important role. The problem for those who make these claims is that even a cursory examination of the events and the documentation from 25 years ago show that the EU didn’t even have the role of a bit player.

    The only parties mentioned in the final paper were the UK government and the government of the Republic of Ireland. Finally, the only signatures on the final agreement were those of the British prime minister and the Irish taoiseach. The only reference to the EU was two short paragraphs indicating the role of Assembly and UK ministers in discussing policy issues relating to our EU membership and the role of one of the cross-border bodies in dealing with EU aid programmes.

    The claim that the EU will act in future as the guardian of the GFA would be laughable were it not so serious. All the evidence points to the EU being responsible for the political crisis in NI, which has seen the collapse of all the GFA institutions, supposedly to protect the EU single market. By demanding that NI be subject to EU laws, the EU effectively changed NI’s constitutional, legal and economic standing within the UK. Astonishingly, this demand was agreed to by the UK government. In the words of David Trimble, one of the authors of the GFA, the demands by the EU and the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP), which implemented those demands, resulted in the GFA being ripped up.

    The NIP resulted in a clear change in the status of NI. The GFA guaranteed that this could only happen if a majority in NI agreed to such an outcome in a referendum. This guarantee was tossed aside, causing a political crisis in NI as Unionist ministers refused to implement an undemocratic arrangement, which required them to administer foreign laws that increasingly will distance NI from the rest of the UK. The EU consistently refuse to even countenance Unionist concerns about arrangements that tear them out of the country they belong to. The recent Windsor Framework (WF) shows that they don’t even understand Unionist opposition, let alone have a willingness to address it.

    The truth is NI and its land boundary with the RoI and the minute level of EU trade that crosses that boundary (0.4 per cent of all EU trade) present no threat to the EU single market. It is, however, a useful tool in forcing UK governments to keep their laws aligned to those in the EU. As a result, the UK government has two choices. If it exercises its freedoms under Brexit and changes its laws to give the UK a competitive advantage, it does so at the expense of diluting the legal and constitutional links with NI, which remains under EU laws. The alternative is to keep UK law in line with the EU in order to protect the unity of the UK, which, of course, is the EU objective.

    The EU doesn’t give a fig for the societal consequences that this will have in NI. Our country is simply a tool to be cynically manipulated in the game of blunting Brexit. The key player in this irresponsible game can never claim to be the guarantor of peace in NI.

    Sammy Wilson is an MP for the Democratic Unionist Party

    *********************************************************

    Marianne Lindsey
    13 HRS AGO
    Would Spain ever concede control over Catalonia? Would France ever concede control over Corsica? Would Belgium ever concede control over Flanders? Of course not. It is only gutless imbeciles like May and Sunak that would ever do such a thing. The EU will never, ever concede a single thing of value, GFA or not, risk of sectarian violence or not.
    NI is now effectively annexed by the EU, with the consent of the lying traitors in Westminster.
    You talk truth and common sense, Sammy Wilson, but the EU and Westminster are not listening and now never will.

    John Hill
    11 HRS AGO
    Back in 92 (Maastricht Treaty ) I realised what a monster the EU was and the danger it posed to the sovereignty of its member states including the UK. From that point on I have hated the EU and its commitment to ever closer union. Today we hear that the UK is soon to join the Trans Pacific partnership. A partnership of sovereign states happy to trade with each with no threat to the sovereignty of its members. This is how it should be, begone Brussels, begone EU.

    1. And Sunak has capitulated completely and allowed the EU to remain the prime controller of trade in Northern Ireland and effectively allowed our sovereignty to be raped..

      The vast majority think that Sunak’s craven surrender was a great act of statesmanship so Britain has become a third rate country with a fourth rate population –

      Does the UK deserve to continue to exist?

    2. The EU has over 40 external borders with non-EU countries, including Brazil and Suriname through French Guyana.. Does the EU apply similar control measures to any of these countries? Answers on a very small postcard.

  5. Why Germans love the Royal family so much. 30 march 2023.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0e0b209ae2b544cf5ce0df0f2947a085d3c5d369ebfb92ad12d4cca1887962f8.png

    King Charles and the Queen were greeted with enthusiastic crowds holding German and British flags on their state visit to Germany.

    Newspapers such as the Berliner Zeitung and Süddeutsche Zeitung had even published helpful guides on royal protocol in case their readers met the King and Queen.

    The tips included how to curtsey properly and how to correctly pronounce the word “Ma’am”, which the papers said should rhyme with “jam” and “lamb”.

    I went to the trouble of watching the six o’clock BBC news to see if this was true. There was no footage of enthusiastic crowds and plenty of empty spaces behind the barriers. The still photographs as here are all narrowly focussed. Go figure!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2023/03/29/why-do-germans-love-british-royal-family-king-charles/

  6. Good morning, all. A mix of blue sky and overcast here. Dry, thank goodness.

    Last week I wrote to my MP, Will Quince, re the treatment of Andrew Bridgen MP, more in hope than expectation of receiving a sensible reply. After picking up on the substack linked below, even hope has evaporated. After earlier letters to my MP hadn’t elicited much of note I had given up on him and not followed his career moves.
    My earlier decision to give up on my MP was the correct one, I shall not be wasting my time again!

    Emphasis is mine.

    Unfortunately, there was almost nobody in the chamber to listen to his speech and it seems the Conservative party or the government ensured that not only the vast majority of Conservative but also Labour, Liberal, SNP and other MPs deserted the chamber as soon as he took the floor. Following protocol, the government minister responsible for drug regulation, Will Quince MP, was present to respond; in this he stated (without challenging any of Bridgen’s detailed claims) the standard mantra that the vaccine was efficient and safe and had saved ‘tens of thousands of lives’ in the UK.

    Where Are the Numbers – Misplaced Attack on Bridgen’s Speech to Parliament

    1. Conservative Parliamentary Party = Limp Dums wearing blue rosettes. The sooner voters realise this and start voting for a true conservative minded party the better. Then perhaps we can start to destroy the cancer that is the rest of them in Westminster.

    2. Will Quince MP, was present to respond; in this he stated (without challenging any of Bridgen’s detailed claims) the standard mantra that the vaccine was efficient and safe and had saved ‘tens of thousands of lives’ in the UK.

      Quince of course cannot possibly know this. I haven’t had any of these vaccines and I’m still here. There are probably a couple of million people in the UK like me.

      1. The awful irony. I had 2 doses of the vaccine – not for my benefit – but because MB’s health is not brilliant.
        I only agreed to the ‘vaccine’ to put his mind at rest.
        Guess who was felled by the clot shot!

      2. He’s talking complete b******s as directed. Government claims for lives saved can only be fiction as there cannot be data to confirm or deny the unknowable. Perhaps he based his claim on model data.🤡

        I’ve had all the necessary tetanus jabs (and none of the CV-19) and I have never been ill with tetanus, thank goodness: did the jabs save me from infection or have I been lucky enough not to encounter the bug?

        1. I had a monitored house alarm fitted here on the day I moved in in 1998. I have never been burgled therefore the alarm is effective. Or is it? I’ll can’t possobly know as the alarm-free status never occured.

      3. Indeed. It is impossible to quantify or measure a course of action which never occured.

  7. With regard to the lead letter, some have argued that that is the whole point of net zero requirements – to squeeze smaller landlords out of the market. The EU is actively planning to extend this to home-owners, by forcing people to “improve” their homes in such an expensive way that many won’t manage it.
    Like everything, this authoritarian power grab by the ultra-rich will only succeed if we don’t oppose it.

    1. Morning BB. These people are our enemies and the enemies of Freedom and Democracy. The EU is simply another iteration of the Third Reich!

    2. A short while ago I commented on a proposal being looked at by the “government” whereby if a house/home does not meet the C rating then it will not be able to be sold. Appears that our shower are in accord with the ghastly EU. Quelle surprise!

      1. If anybody thinks that Britain has left the EU he or she is seriously deluded.

          1. Only in name. Not only has the EU not left Britain, I bet we are still sending VAT tribute money to Brussels. I’d love to know if that were still the case.

    3. And that is how they will take our properties from us. UN Agenda 21 for 2030 – “The abolition of private property ownership”.

      1. If necessary, I will sell my house and buy a property that can be divided together with one of my children, so that we can afford the “improvements”. Or I will abandon the house and put up a ready-built micro-house in the garden until sanity returns.
        I won’t easily give up property ownership.

        The weakness of these attacks by the ultra rich on the masses are that they always have to leave a loophole for themselves to escape through. The trick is to foresee it, or to identify it quickly, so that you too can slip through it.
        For example, in the US when they made ownership of gold illegal, gold stored abroad was exempt, as were antique coins (as collected by wealthy hobbyists).
        In Zimbabwe during hyperinflation, they couldn’t resist giving a window of opportunity for people to pay off their mortgages – anyone buying a house profited along with the predatory class.
        etc.

  8. Robots can work alongside spies to detect enemy threats to UK, Tom Tugendhat says. 30 March 2023.

    Plans for new MoD department that will use AI to sift through vast amounts of data

    The minister said the new unit will also target disinformation from Russia and elsewhere, fact-checking and calling out lies aimed at targeting British society.

    “We’re seeing our security undermined by the attempt to tear us apart, to spread disinformation, to spread lies in our communities,” Mr Tugendhat said.

    “We see it through social media channels and we’re aware that some social media channels give control to foreign states, who could in theory use it to promote divisive or problematic campaigns that would tear us apart.”

    It’s telling that Tugendhat sees all disinformation. i.e. anything that contradicts the government narrative; as foreign, in this case Russian. This is just Big Brother, a super 77 Brigade designed to counter dissent.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/29/robots-ai-spies-mod-ukraine-russia-tom-tugendhat/

    1. …the attempt to tear us apart,…
      …problematic campaigns that would tear us apart.”

      How very thoughtful, using the inclusive ‘us’ twice in that short segment.
      He’s the Minister of State for Security in the shambles of control freaks that has the temerity to claim it’s a government of the people.

    2. Er, who exactly is the enemy that Tom Tugendhat is talking about?
      I suspect it may be you and me!

    3. Robots can work alongside spies to detect enemy threats to UK, Tom Tugendhat says.

      Give robots seats in Westminster, then they can be sat right alongside the real threats to the UK.

  9. Good morning everyone,

    Bright start at McPhee Manor but rain again later, wind in SW, 9℃. Standard British weather in other words.

    Headline in Gatesograph about households to face net zero penalty for not ditching gas boilers has got my dander up. I feel an email to my useless MP coming on, not that it will do any good.

    The latest Richard Vobes video introduced me to The Light, a website and newspaper I hadn’t come across before. If you don’t want the New World Order and their plans for us livestock, this is the website/paper for you:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7UTgnIIYdI&t=528s

    Here’s the paper. Hard copies of the paper can be bought cheaply for distribution and the whole archive is available:

    https://thelightpaper.co.uk

  10. Good morning everyone,

    Bright start at McPhee Manor but rain again later, wind in SW, 9℃. Standard British weather in other words.

    Headline in Gatesograph about households to face net zero penalty for not ditching gas boilers has got my dander up. I feel an email to my useless MP coming on, not that it will do any good.

    The latest Richard Vobes video introduced me to The Light, a websots and newspaper I hadn’t come across before. If you don’t want the New World Order and their plans for us livestock, this is the website/paper for you:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7UTgnIIYdI&t=528s

    Here’s the paper:

    https://thelightpaper.co.uk

  11. ‘Morning, Peeps. Another 13°C heading our way, so more gardening beckons.

    Sorry about the following headline from today’s DT – this government’s 5-star, gold-plated stupidity is depressing, isn’t it? Their search for electoral oblivion is going really well. Today I am abandoning the ban-everything party after supporting it for 50+ years and joining Reform.

    “Households face net zero penalty for sticking with gas

    Levies will be applied to bills as part of incentive to go green”

    1. I wish I could support Reform but Tice is not up to the job and his readiness to condemn Andrew Bridgen for daring to air in Parliament the facts about the dangers of the Covid gene therapy and his support for Net Zero make him just as unelectable as both Sunak and Starmer..

      I can only conclude that Britain has been betrayed beyond all resurrection and we shall never escape.

    2. I wouldn’t join Reform. Tice talks Net Zero too.

      I’d get up to speed on the Common Law Constitution and vote only for independents but if you must have a party I’d take a look at the SDP and the Heritage Party.

      1. I to have doubts about Rice at times but believe at the next GE I will not have much of a choice for an alternative candidate to the LibLabCon AKA the UniParty to support.

        1. If there’s no independent I’ll add a line for the ‘None of The Above Party’ and place a cross against that.

      2. Richard Tice does not support Net-Zero. [The Leaders View on Net Zero.]
        His ambitions and solutions for the Reform Party are extensive, time tabled and costed. Changes won’t happen immediately. Read his ambitions. I will be voting for Reform Party if they have a candidate in my constituency.

    3. Tice is controlled opposition, he is thick with Matt Hancock and he refuses to work together with other anti-Blob parties.

          1. The tiny parties will get lots of votes and NO MPs. Thus helping the Lib/Lab/Con bastards to stuff the Commons.

          2. That is what I, too, understand. UKIP is prepared to work with all of them. Only Reform has refused to enter talks.

  12. Good morning all.
    A bright and sunny morning after the overnight rain. An almost warm 5°C in the yard outside.

      1. It positively hissed down as I was leaving the vets. As it had been fine and sunny when I set out, I didn’t have a coat. Getting one groggy doggy onto the back seat and one recalcitrant traveller into his “dog cot” on the front seat was a wet business!

    1. I can only think that Shapps holds a cache of damning photos and WhatsApp messages.
      There is no other reason why this shyster should be given any sort of ministerial post.

      1. It’s probably hard for them to find people who are so lacking in morals and integrity that they will push the net zero agenda through.

        1. I would have thought the government had an abundance of such shysters. Easier to count the genuine MPs.

      2. During and not long after his post as housing minister. The amount of new properties built in and around his constituency was quite noticeable and I believe that he has move to up market Brookmans Park.
        I might be wrong……..of course.

  13. Be warned:

    Woman, 50, faces criminal trial in France after being arrested for ‘publicly insulting’ President Macron by referring to him as ‘garbage’ on Facebook following his controversial pension reforms
    Valerie, 50, placed in police custody for ‘publicly insulting’ President Macron
    She accused the president of forcing striking binmen to leave garbage on roads
    Valerie posted a picture of graffiti saying ‘Macron Garbage’ on her Facebook

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11917739/Woman-faces-criminal-trial-France-referring-President-Macron-garbage.html

      1. I hope Macron is questioned over whether he approves.

        I’m sure he does, but I would like to hear it from his own arse mouth.

          1. Does that actually cover the case in point though?
            If it does, there are a lot of people who could be on the hook.

          2. No – I meant that that the Parquet is selective in whom they prosecute. They would not, for example, have proceeded against Melenchon…

  14. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story

    Late Night Phone Call To The Vet

    A dog lover, whose dog was a female and “in heat’, agreed to look after her neighbour’s male dog while the neighbours were on vacation.

    She had a large house and believed that she could keep the two dogs apart. However, as she was drifting off to sleep, she heard awful howling and moaning sounds, rushed downstairs and found the dogs locked together, in obvious pain and unable to disengage, as so frequently happens when dogs mate.

    Unable to separate them, and perplexed as to what to do next, although it was late, she called the vet, who answered in a very grumpy voice.

    Having explained the problem to him, the vet said,

    “Hang up the phone and place it down alongside the dogs. I will then call you back and the noise of the ringing will make the male lose his erection and he will be able to withdraw.”

    “Do you think that will work?” she asked.

    “Just worked on me,” he replied.

  15. Good Moaning.
    Pet Pooter Nerd is dropping by this morning to sort out glitches.
    I have (successfully) baked a tray of shortbread to bribe persuade him that I need a new arty farty program.

  16. SIR – Regarding destructive squirrels, I tried all the usual defences to no effect, and then bought a humane squirrel trap. It works a treat. So far I have relocated seven very grumpy squirrels (at least seven to 10 miles away), and peace has reigned for several months.

    Robert Heath
    Weston-super-Mare, Somerset

    Someone had better inform Mr Heath that once a grey squirrel (or tree rat) has been trapped it has to be destroyed. It must not be released or transported to another area. It is illegal to do so under Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

    Nothing like admitting an offence in a national daily paper!

      1. Hardly anywhere in England is free from the vermin. And grey squirrels get everywhere, too.

    1. Squirrel tails are sought after by members of the angling fraternity/sorority. The fibres are used in the fashioning of trout and salmon flies.

    1. Our governments should have built at least two nuclear power stations.
      They all fail at every thing.
      And this proposal will fail.

      1. Pretty well all my working life, Hinkley Point C has been on the menu – I even did safety case work back in the 1990s.
        Hasn’t generated a single volt yet, and we’re 2023.25. That’s actually about the planned lifetime of a power plant gone – 30 years, and it still doesn’t operate.
        Pretty effing spectacular. Government is useless.

        1. I remember reading that back in the mid 50s Britain used more nuclear power than the rest of the world put together.
          Oh dear, How all our joint stupid polutical idiots have let so many obvious advantages go to pot.

  17. No place for Olaf Scholz at banquet honouring King Charles’s visit. 30 March 2023.

    Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, did not attend a white tie banquet held in honour of the King’s first state visit in Berlin on Wednesday night.

    The decision is said to have been made to keep the peace within his fractious ruling coalition, with its members divided between various royal engagements of the tour.

    I’m curious about this. Scholz is the head of the German Government and should be there. It’s obligatory. It is why you see all those official welcomes (something else Scholz missed) at the airports. The excuse itself is pathetic. It’s a calculated diplomatic insult.

    Scholz of course knows that the US blew up the Baltic Pipeline. Does he also know that the UK played a part in it? He couldn’t offend the Americans but the British? Just wondering you understand?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2023/03/29/no-place-olaf-scholz-banquet-honouring-king-charles/

    1. Very odd.
      I have to say, I am not a fan of Camilla’s frock. Close up, it is beautiful, but from a distance it just doesn’t work – it looks like a scaly snake.

      1. She would have been better in all black and let the tiara do the talking. Even though I think black does not suit her, the black and white ensemble is awful, it drains the colour completely from her face and with the tiara it is too fussy.. I can see though that a match with Charles outfit was required.

        1. Yes, I think it’s the black and white that was a mistake. The dress would have been better if the silver was a little less bright, and the background colour a little less dark.
          If you look at the group photo, almost all the women are in black, and those that aren’t are in purple!
          But there are some very elegant dresses there.

    2. Very weird.
      Needs closer investigation – pretty well unprecedented, I’d say.

  18. Back from market. Sunny but a real gale blowing which made walking about most unpleasant.

  19. OT I would like to commend a programme on SkyArts. About Swift and Pope. I am not a fan of poetry, especially that of the 18th century. But the three part prog has roused my interest.

    It is presented by – of all people – Frank Skinner (assisted by a ditsy, oddly dressed Scottish woman – with an irritating laugh). Skinner was amazing. A genuine revelation – no scripts no autocues – just sheer intellect, and deep, genuine interest.

    Skinner & Mina’s Literary Road Trip: Pope & Swift If you have SKY – you can see this on catchup.

      1. It was, Ann. It really was. I was rivetted – and the MR (whose field it is) was astonished at the erudition of F Skinner. The Scots bint was an irritant but did have some interesting ideas about Swift – but not in the same way as Skinner and Pope.

        The best thing – in these days of ghastly, pre-prepared, staged telly was the absence of visual aids, cues etc…

  20. Morning all 🙂😉
    A bit brighter some broken cloud.
    If the landlords will sell up because they won’t meet the strict requirements the people who set the targets would have known this. And have once again set out to cause absolute havoc in the property rental market. It probably needed a good shake up, but not complete strangulation. Once again the powers that be, never get anything right.

      1. Brian Gerrish at UK Column puts it rather well: We are an occupied country.

        We are at war but the enemy is not Russia or China. It’s our own government.

      2. Brian Gerrish at UK Column puts it rather well: We are an occupied country.

        We are at war but the enemy is not Russia or China. It’s our own government.

  21. Saudi Arabia set to join anti-West bloc with China and Russia. 29 march 2023.

    Saudi Arabia is joining an anti-Western influence bloc formed by Russia and China, in a sign of Riyadh’s deepening ties with Beijing as the US pivots away from the Middle East.

    The kingdom’s cabinet approved a plan to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation as a “dialogue partner”, a precursor to being granted full membership, state news agency SPA announced on Wednesday.

    Formed in 2001 by Russia, China and former Soviet states in Central Asia, the SCO is a political and security bloc of countries spanning much of Eurasia and has expanded to include India and Pakistan, with a view to challenging Western influence in the region.

    For “Western” read American. These countries have had enough of the US Hegemony and they are voting with their feet to leave.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/03/29/saudi-arabia-joins-china-russia-anti-west-bloc/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    1. I suppose the United Kingdom might pass from being a vassal of the United States to being a vassal of India. Or China if we’re really unlucky.

          1. Yet she pops up in China as head of their new international bank? Looks as though the new order is going to be the same as the old order…

        1. Yes. Woken by the bladder, but it’s sometimes impossible to get back to sleep. Untill it starts to get light.

    1. We *didn’t* buy the cameras. The state did, with our money. Against our wishes, permission or consent. In fact, it waste sour money hand over fist on things we do not want. Then it complains it hasn’t got enough.

      The problem, at every level, is that the state has too much of our money.

      1. As it was, as you so rightly point out, OUR money that paid for the surveillance, it can reasonably be argued that in fact, we DID buy the cameras. Then there are the mobile phones and tracking apps, Siri and Alexa, Google …

        1. I wouldn’t have Alexa or Siri in the house……… though they do catch out some domestic murderers.
          Mobile phones and google are bad enough for surveillance.

  22. That’s a bit of a bugger.
    Went out to split and stack the wood I’d sawn yesterday and just as I was finishing off the splitting the light drizzle turned to a heavy shower.

    So much for this morning’s bright sunny start!

    1. Morning Bob.
      Our next-door neighbour and my mate Bruce on the edge of the Victoria Dandenongs both have log splitters. They are effort less, I’m sure you could hire one.
      It takes longer to stack the results than the splitter takes to separate the logs into four or six.

  23. It seems Charlie’s speech was avoided by the majority of the usual occupants of the seats in the German capital building last evening.
    More today it seems.
    I wonder what all his medals were presented for ?

    1. The King is one of the very worst public speakers I have ever heard. He is slow, ponderous and spouts wit-free nonsense.

          1. I was four months old when he was born! I have a lot more common sense than he has now!

          2. Quite. He did it when his late father was still making public speeches. He sounded stupid then – and still does.

    2. For being born. They all came out of Christmas (sorry, Winterval) crackers.

      “He also wore full-size medals including the Queen’s Service Order (New Zealand), Coronation Medal, Silver Jubilee Medal, Golden Jubilee Medal, Diamond Jubilee Medal, Platinum Jubilee Medal and a Naval Long Service Good Conduct (LSGC) (three x Additional Service Bars).

      Other medals included Canadian Forces Decoration (three x Additional Service Bars), The New Zealand Commemorative Medal, and The New Zealand Armed Forces Award. “

      1. Good morning Bill

        We are gritting our teeth and grinding our jaws listening to the King pronouncing his ponderous outpourings ..

        What on earth is he doing .. and why is he meddling with politics .

        1. Although the king may have gained some sympathy and support after Ginge and Whinge’s malicious shenanigans, these nonsense speeches will remind people what a deluded, interfering fool he is.

          1. He should have stuck with his first inclination – George. The Georges were stolid in the main and let others get on with the politics (although one of them did lose us a valuable colony in the 18th century). Charles I lost his head, Charles II tried to sell us out to France. Charles III is at risk of emulating the first by emulating the second.

          1. He seems to think that climate change isn’t politics – presumably because no opposition to it is allowed.
            The implications of that are horrific.

          2. Many years ago he was expounding the benefits of ‘natural’ remedies like naturopathy and homeopathy. He influenced a young athlete called Lilian Board. She died of cancer.

    3. I’m beginning to get the impression that no one there is really keen on seeing him!

      1. Silver swimming certificate, gold swimming certificate, 5 years long service, 10 years…. big hat wearing level 1…

    4. The royal family give each other awards and baubles for acts of favouritism and to stop them blubbering – “He’s got a shiny thing and I haven’t”, but Charlie also wears medals and insignia he is not entitled to. He did one assisted parachute descent and wears para wings and sometimes sports a red beret. He is a wet poser.

  24. So the woke, joke “king” – witters on about how sad it was that the UK left the EUSSR; about “sustainability”, net-zero (wunderbar) and effing climate change.

    And this is the wanqueur being “non-political”…..

    Was there is big turnout in the Reichstag? Good to see that the Wehrmacht has managed to replace the broomsticks.

    1. He wouldn’t have been so blatant while his mother was alive. Did she teach him nothing about keeping one’s mouth shut?

      1. A lot has been noted about how Andrew grew up with a monstrous ego and great expectations of what is due to him; however, just think how much more Charles was led to expect, given that he was the heir!
        Charles also seems to be emboldened by being part of the international ultra-rich club – he seems to think he can get away with anything, because what are the peasants going to do? They believe what they read in the media, and Charles is a member of the club that controls the media.

        1. One has only to read the adulatory comments BTL in the DT and The Grimes to know that there are lots of people who drool with reverence whenever the JWK opens his stupid mouth.

          1. Gah! I cannot stand the courtier mentality! It is quite different from loyalty to genuinely good leader, which is an attractive quality.

          2. The crown is the fount of all honour(s). If you want to get on, you need to suck up to the monarch. As always, follow the money.

          3. Put not thy trust in Princes…..is still a valid rule. I used to work for someone who was madly sucking up for an honour – he ended up with less than he was hoping for.

      2. I believe it started when, with the encouragement of his uncle, ‘Dickie’ Mountbatten, he was sent to Gordonstoun School and he was bullied and abused. I suspect he was something-elsed beginning with ‘B’ but it was hushed up. His present wife was the first person to show him what the dangly thing was really for and he never forgot it.

        1. Gordonstoun private school in Moray has uncovered 11 alleged incidents of abuse as well as 82 claims of bullying between pupils, the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has heard. March 2021.

          Just the tip of a gigantic iceberg going back 60 or more years. Just like the BBC and Jimmy Savile, the great and the good(sic) are a law unto themselves.

          1. Setting aside what may or may not have happened during his schooldays, Charles has been surrounded by too many paedophiles during his life.

    2. The strange thing is that if there was a referendum on whether to abolish or retain the Monarchy I suspect the Brixiteers are far more likely to vote to keep it than the Remainers.

      1. I certainly would have done while the Queen was alive, but I’m not so sure now. Charles is fully on board with woke nonsense.

  25. Orthodox monks in Kyiv refuse eviction. 30 March 2023.

    Orthodox monks who’ve been ordered out of a monastery in Kyiv refused to leave on Wednesday, as a deadline to vacate the complex expired.

    The dispute over the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery, Ukraine’s most revered Orthodox site, is part of a wider religious conflict playing out in parallel with the war.

    The monks using the property belong to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which has been accused of links to Russia.

    But the site is owned by the Ukrainian government, and the agency overseeing the property notified the UOC earlier this month that, as of March 29, it was terminating the lease.

    Metropolitan Pavel, an abbot of the monastic complex, told worshippers that the UOC would not leave the site pending the outcome of a lawsuit it filed in a Kyiv court last week to stop the eviction.

    No attempts to evict the monks were made on Wednesday but Pavel said the UOC had been notified that the handover of the property would begin on Thursday.

    The Ukrainian government has been cracking down on the UOC over its historic ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, whose leader, Patriarch Kirill, has supported Russian President Vladimir Putin in the invasion of Ukraine.

    This is just a part of the religious and social oppression of ethnic Russians within Ukraine, which like this, is kept out of the MSM!.

    https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-updates-orthodox-monks-in-kyiv-refuse-eviction/a-65175465

    1. I have a colleague who is a walking reference book of everything the government wants you to believe. For example, he admits that masks don’t stop viruses, but thinks that they were the best alternative measure until we got the vaxx. He believes that accounts of vaxx injuries are made up by “Qanon” etc. You get the picture.
      He told me perfectly seriously on Tuesday that the Russian orthodox church insists on giving mass in the Russian language, and the head of the church in Moscow is an oligarch and former member of the secret services.
      I don’t know how much truth there is in that, but he clearly believed that it gave Zelensky justification to persecute the Russian orthodox church in Ukraine. How convenient!

      1. Your colleague is a complete twit.

        Ask him what he thinks of Western Ukraine shelling the Dombass region. (It’s actually Donbass – he should correct you if he knows anything about it). Such people are dangerous.

        1. He thinks it’s propaganda made up by QAnon. He’s a highly intelligent software developer who knows more about C++ than I ever will. How can people like him be so stupid, is beyond me. Actually, now I come to think of it, all the really good C++ developers that I’ve known are as naive as that.

  26. Article and petition here on TCW. I’ve signed and tweeted it. whether it will do any good is doubtful but more than 50,000 people have signed so far.

    When I was a young teenager I disliked what was happening to my body, and I’m a normal woman. This trans rubbish is evil propaganda for children. What is happening to the human race? I’ve enjoyed life for nearly 75 years, but sometimes I’m glad I won’t be here for many more.

    Edit: I forgot to paste the link. https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/lauded-by-waterstones-a-childs-graphic-guide-to-changing-gender/

    1. What is happening to the human race?

      This is very interesting Ndovu. One wonders if there were similar occurrences at the end of previous civilisations? They of course didn’t have any Nottlers to document them. The sources we have are from the Elites of their day.

      1. The end of the Roman empire was pretty bloody, but the human race always fails to learn from history.

        “History teaches us that history teaches us nothing”.

        1. I think it’d be more appropriate to say that the people who want to re-write history of the ones who refuse to learn from it.

    2. That such a book exists in the first place is bad enough, but to find it in the children’s section is disgustingly inappropriate.

    3. In reality all those books should be taken out on the street and burnt. Ooooh…..I sound like something from history.

      https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=e93579e0ef9aaf57JmltdHM9MTY4MDEzNDQwMCZpZ3VpZD0xM2ZmODRhMC01MTQzLTY2NWYtMThjZi05Njc4NTA2NDY3ODImaW5zaWQ9NTQ2OQ&ptn=3&hsh=3&fclid=13ff84a0-5143-665f-18cf-967850646782&psq=famous+book+burnings+in+history&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudGNrcHVibGlzaGluZy5jb20vYm9vay1idXJuaW5nLyM6fjp0ZXh0PUElMjBCcmllZiUyMEhpc3RvcnklMjBvZiUyMEJvb2slMjBCdXJuaW5nJTIwMSUyMENoaW5hLCUyODE5MzBzJTI5JTIwNyUyMEJvb2slMjBCdXJuaW5nJTIwaW4lMjB0aGUlMjBVbml0ZWQlMjBTdGF0ZXM&ntb=1

    4. I’ve signed the petition, but I fear Citizen GO will have the same rapacious instincts as Change.org.

      1. Yes. Born male, had several operations to look like Barbie’s Ken, then decided to transition to a woman, with all the surgery.

        Nutter.

      2. I suspected as much but I didn’t know, but ‘it’ is definitely over the top of the ugly scale.

      3. It was once a man. He had surgery after surgery. Then he had the surgery to remove his genitalia. Now he is a freak.

    1. From Wikipedia.

      OnlyFans is an internet content subscription service based in London, United Kingdom. The service is used primarily by sex workers who produce pornography, but it also hosts the work of other content creators, such as physical fitness experts and musicians.

      Content creators can earn money from users who subscribe to their content—the “fans”. It allows content creators to receive funding directly from their fans on a monthly basis as well as one-time tips and the pay-per-view (PPV) feature. The website was reported to have 2 million content creators and 130 million users as of August 2021.

      Basically the fans pay to watch people do weird and terrible things to themselves and others. This one appears to get paid for cutting a bit off here and adding a bit on there. What a world we live in.

      1. It’s a degenerate world. See my earlier comment about the pushing of trans ideology to children via cartoon books.

    2. I don’t know about temperatures soaring, I had a cold shiver down my spine seeing this. I imagine she (it is a she, isn’t it?) has her very own ugly tree.

    1. Lily is curled up next to me as I type……… she’s finshed cleaning out my breakfast bowl.

    1. Sheesh. I used to talk with mothers like that – particularly about 10.0 on a Monday morning.
      The absence was never her boy’s fault; cue excuses about nerves, partners, bad backs etc….
      I had to bite back the retort “So Ryan/Wayne/Deonte has the mother of all withdrawal symptoms, then”.

  27. Bloody raining again!
    At least I managed to get the chainsaw out and cut some logs up ready for splitting during the pause in the rain.

  28. I wonder how many elite sportswomen are genuinely in favour of transexuals competing in their sports knowing that there’s a good chance that these men will deprive them of Olympic or world championship medals, or caps for representing their country or scholarships to pay for their education, or professional careers because their place has gone to a man?

    If they are being honest, damned few would be my guess.

        1. Yes – he took a bundle of broomsticks made by Robert from his spare trees for the Bundeswehr!!

          Hence the regimental connection!!

    1. Is it appropriate he wears that tie at that occasion? Speech to the Bundestag? Or is there something about the date, perhaps.

        1. When we all shit ourselves continually at the thought of the Soviets coming over the Inner German Border, not stopping until they reached the Atlantic.
          Seems from current experience with the Ukes that was completely unfounded fear.

          1. My late brother, who was a Sapper from 1951 until 1985 – and then continued to work for the Army until 1995 – always said that if they put themselves about, the Red Army could be at Calais in 48 hours.

            Nothing has changed – except that Vlad’s Lads have a bit further to go. Make it 96 hours….

            Just to brighten your arvo…

          2. Which is why I was trained to drive and use a Magirus-Deutz truck in order to uplift the married families and take them to a channel port.

            Beast of a vehicle with six dipsticks to check and having to double-declutch both up and down the gearbox.

          3. I was and stationed at RAF Laarbruch (now Weeze airport).

            We had to be versatile.

          4. Not feasible as we had MFs on site and at a place just outside Goch (Pfalsdorf).

            Makes sense to pick up locally with people who know the area.

  29. Snowing here…with a touch of sunshine. How seasonal. Must be that hole in the sun.

          1. Well, the girls wanted equality.

            How does the Weegie state pension compare with that in the UK?

          2. It’s quite reasonable.
            The minimum is around £17,000 a year, nearly double if there are two of you. Work pensions obligatory, to top that up.

          3. Not at all bad. My UK one is a shade under £8,000 (subject to tax, of course). The MR’s is less because she worked abroad for several years. She’ll get about £6,000. But she does get quite a nice bit extra from The Netherlands where she worked for nine years.

            Nothing like the Norwegians, though.

          4. The girls will just love their equality when they are conscripted to fight in Ukraine, or wherever the WEF wants them to go.

      1. But isn’t the rate of pension higher than here? Plus I thought that there was a leeway to retire earlier on a smaller amount – at least that was the position in Denmark.

        Edit: in which case if that is correct, huh the Weegies still have a lot better state pension than we do!

          1. Which earlier pension is still higher than the pension we have to wait for. I rest my case!

  30. Afternoon all.

    We need somebody sensible to start and front a SAVE OUR gas BOILERS – SOB campaign. HMG is determined to make all gas users switch to using far more expensive heat pumps. Bloody expensive to instal, bloody expensive to run and nowhere near as efficient as our gas boilers.

    Any offers? Any suggestions?

    TPTB must know they are demanding the impossible, it is utterly ludicrous that nobody of importance is putting across arguments against.

    1. I don’t want a new cmapaign, I want government shut down, all this idiocy repealed and if they continue to pursue it they be fined an infinite amount and jailed indefinitely.

      1. Fully understand your feelings. But realistically that’s not going to happen. We need the beginning of a revolution.

    2. There ain’t enough ‘leccy* in the UK to switch over to heat pumps, especially when you consider charging of electric cars.

      * = generating capacity and transmission to the house wall capacity.

      1. I know that, TPTB know that, everybody must know that. That’s why I can’t understand the total agreement that net zero is the way to go.

        1. I think they are expecting most of us to be dead from the vaccine by the time it is all operational. Hopefully this aspect is not going to plan.

    3. There ain’t enough ‘leccy* in the UK to switch over to heat pumps, especially when you consider charging of electric cars.

      * = generating capacity and transmission to the house wall capacity.

    4. The Government is behind the proposed introduction of hydrogen into the gas network but residents in Redcar are treating this trial to reach Net Zero as an ultimatum:

      “We got a small booklet in the post saying ‘we are proposing to bring hydrogen to your property, if you don’t want to take part we will no longer be able to supply your gas’.

      https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/hydrogen-gas-no-gas-ultimatum-26167271

      Could this be the way we are all heading to meet this now accepted unreachable carbon reduction target. Redcar residents are in a position to lead such a SOB campaign as it is clear that if they refuse to take part they will forced to use electrical energy that can be between four and seven times the cost of natural gas for heating, cooking and hot water.

      This is the position we shall all be in should this SOB story be uncuccessful.

          1. I had similar when I lived in France (in the sticks) St Hilarion outside Rambouillet.

          2. We cooked with bottled gas on Mianda and had two rings and an oven on our stainless steel cooker.

            We also use bottled gas for saucepans and frying pans at home but we have an electric oven for baking and roasting as mains gas doesn’t come anywhere near our house.

          3. That’s why, both in Mid-Suffolk and Yvelines, we’ve had to use bottled gas.

            We’re such rural racists.

          4. I have three rings, a grill and an oven all fuelled by bottled gas (Propane) in my motorhome.

      1. I just hope then that the residents get together and create an almighty furore about it. If they can kick start a rebellion it would help tremendously.

    5. There’s no gas here – only one of our neighbours has a heat pump ( she has to supplement it with a log burner) and we and all our other neighbours have oil-fired boilers. Most of us also have wood burners. This house is an old stone cottage, grade 2 listed. Definitely not a suitable case for a heat pump.

          1. When I used to travel up your way I used to say to vw that the roads ran out at Newmarket. Mostly single carriageway. 30 years ago, has it changed much?

          2. When I moved here in 1984, there were no dual-carriageways in Norfolk – or north of the Mildenhall roundabout.

            Now the A 11 is dual carriageway all the way to Narridge; and the by-pass is dualled, too. Not much else – apart from the odd mile here and there.

          3. Isn’t there a meeting tonight somewhere your way about the 15minute cities/towns, Thetford I think? Or is it tomorrow? Will you be there?

  31. It occurred to me as I was doing the washing up that the JWK must be the first divorced English monarch since Henry VIII.

    Funny thought. I suppose JWK has changed to the religion of climate change.

    1. Apparently the artist went for a “good-humoured” look.
      Charles would be quite tricky to paint a flattering portrait of – if you go for gravity you risk ending up making him look pompous. Intelligence, there’s not really a lot of material to work with. Neither is he particularly interested in other people.

      1. Can any artist accurately portray the sheer and total brain-numbing dullness of the man? He is still banging on about global warming and he would continue to do so in the middle of an ice age.

        1. The ice age, and colder temperatures, would be caused by global warming, y’see. The polar icecaps would melt, pushing back and disrupting the gulf stream/north Atlantic/drift/whatever-it’s-called-now and we would lose the ameliorating effect on our UK climate (temperate). I have actually heard this mentioned as a possibility. The climatists have an answer to every possibility. Always the fault of global warming, despite the fact that humanity has always thrived during Earth’s warming periods.

    2. Broadsword is too heavy. You want a longsword.

      Although I do approve of the principle, I think we should start on the local morons first.

    3. Ah, that’s where the French Madame Tussaud’s got their picture for their ghastly waxwork of KC (I saw it recently in some connection or other). He looks a gormless twit. It figures but I thought portraits of monarchs were supposed to be flattering?

          1. I wrote a thesis on Art and the Horse for my Fine Art degree. I argued that horses historically were symbols of power and monarchs were depicted on horseback to show their control over subjects. What happened to the portrayal of horses thereafter meant the equines lost a lot of their status.

    1. Dollars are legal tender in Kenya but most people and businesses prefer Kenyan shillings. I didn’t use dollars anywhere on my recent trip. I changed most of them to shillings.

    2. As I was on my own this time in Kenya I had plenty of opportunity to chat with people – some think Ruto is doing a good job, others say he’s totally corrupt. We’ll see.

    1. Zuby did this a few years ago and broke a British women’s weightlifting record.

  32. State pension age rise to 68 will not be brought forward yet. 30 March 2023.

    A rise in the state pension age to 68 will not be brought forward yet, the government has announced.

    Those born on or after 5 April 1977 will be the first cohort to work to 68, under current plans. A 2017 government review suggested expanding this to include those born in the late 1960s.

    The work and pensions secretary said the pension age would not be changed until a further review was carried.

    After the General Election!

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65120317

      1. Not a chance.

        Let’s face it. Anyone born in 1977 will not be entitled to a pension until 2045. I doubt that ANYONE in that cohort (dreadful word) or younger gives a toss about what happens 22 years on.

        That is where yer French went wrong – by introducing the new, higher age virtually overnight. So that millions are almost immediately affected.

          1. Maybe – I still think if it was not to take effect for 22+ years, yer French would be far less aerated.

          2. People would always prefer to kick an unwelcome change into the long grass, in the hope that it would die there.

          3. It is a valid point that if it only affects people under 40, they’ve got lots of time to prepare. Bit unfair changing the goal posts for people who are already counting down the months til retirement!

          4. That was the argument put up by the WASPI women – but it had been signalled many years earlier. Perhaps not loudly enough.

        1. The young don’t consider their future and the powers that be are hoping the poor sods don’t live long enough to collect their pension.

    1. My sister was born on the 5th April She was one day outside the date for retirement at 65.

  33. This is the guide for landlords and property investors:

    https://www.propertyinvestmentsuk.co.uk/net-zero-carbon-housing/#:~:text=Net%2Dzero%20carbon%20housing%20is%20housing%20that%20contributes%20no%20additional,greenhouse%20gases%20to%20the%20atmosphere.

    it is likely that only houses meeting a certain energy efficiency standard will be able to be rented out as buy-to-lets in the near future.

    This is going to restrict the choices that Homes under the hammer auction attendees have when buying a property – rent or flip? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006v5kb

    1. Most of the homes under the hammer buyers are of South Asian origin? They need to squeal, “Waycist”!! It wouldn’t be of course but I’d still cheer if they insisted it was.

      1. Yes they seem to make enough money here, so we can’t be as waycist as that pra*t Harry and TW are always saying.

  34. Me. ” I want to divorce my wife.”
    Lawyer. “On what grounds?”
    Me. “She’s out all night, every night, going from bar to bar.”
    Lawyer. “Is she an alcoholic or do you think she might be cheating?”
    Me. “No, she’s looking for me.”

  35. Just thought I would give you all an opportunity, below is what I have received today via e-mail,
    Unfortunately my company has all the funds it needs from Nigeria and I just cannot accommodate another One Hundred and Twenty Million Dollars. (US of course)
    If there are any amongst you who can help Mr Charles O William out please let me know. I also have a famous London Bridge for sell as well. 😂😂😂

    Attention:
    I am Mr.Charles O William from Nigeria, I need your assistance. I have US$120.000.000.00 ( One Hundred And Twenty Million Dollars ) deposited by my father Mr.Willie Obiano the
    former governor of Lagos State Nigeria at the security company at city of Green Bay inUnited State of America. I want you to receive the funds for me today in United
    States.Once you receive the funds I will fly from here in Nigeria to your country to meet you and invest the funds in your company immediately when I’m out from the hospital.
    All you need to do is to send your BITCOIN WALLET ADDRESS to me right now so that thedirector of the security company will send the funds to your BTC wallet .I hope you can do good by informing me once you receive the funds in your BTC.

    God Bless you,
    Yours Faithfully
    Mr.Charles William

    1. H’mmmm ….. I was looking at some bits and bobs for the garden.
      Oh, and I need a new microwave.
      Keep talking, Charlie.

    1. They’ll blame the solar flares on Friday, which will take the system down for three days.

      1. I did wonder about that. Convenient that the solar flares are arriving on a Friday, isn’t it.

        Lynette Zang is still talking about the change from LIBOR to SOFRA – she says it will mean a lot of loan contracts suddenly having higher interest rates, which will crash the system. Apparently the deadline for the change is the end of June.
        I can’t help feeling that if it will be as catastrophic as she thinks, then they will simply postpone it.

      1. Shades of that wonderful Johnners and Aggers clip…never fails to have me in tears. It’s the cracking up behind that is as funny as the commentary.

        ed spelling.

    1. “That is why I created a brand new department for energy security, today we are announcing more investment in renewables… as we deliver on that we are going to create jobs across the country, we are going to increase our energy security, reduce people’s bills and reduce our carbon emissions.”

      And we are all going to live happily ever after!

      1. Increase energy security? With renewables! Doesn’t this ignoramus understand that doubling, trebling or even quadrupling the the number of renewable generators won’t mean a damn thing if the wind doesn’t blow and the Sun doesn’t shine? How is that secure?

        1. The payoffs he’s probably getting from those benefiting from the scam would be secure, I imagine.

  36. Thomas Cashman found guilty of murdering nine-year-old. 30 March 2023

    Thomas Cashman has been found guilty of murdering the Liverpool schoolgirl Olivia Pratt-Korbel in a shooting that “shook the nation”.

    The 34-year-old cannabis dealer gunned down the nine-year-old inside her own home as he chased a rival during a gangland hit gone wrong.

    Cashman, a father of two, claimed he was being “stitched up” during his trial and pleaded with jurors: “I’m not a killer, I’m a dad”.

    I obviously don’t know whether this man is guilty or not but I have my doubts about it. The murder only occurred last year and no murder weapon has yet been found while the trial itself has proceeded with what can only be described as exemplary speed. Experience tells me to be suspicious of such results.

    No Comments allowed.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/30/thomas-cashman-found-guilty-murder-olivia-pratt-korbel-liverpool/

    1. He was a drug dealer who waited to kill a rival and because that was his goal, he didn’t care about anything else.

      These people are scum, and the sooner we start executing them, the better.

      1. I wonder if Caroline should be trying to track down people who run residential French courses in France for British “A” level students in competition with the excellent courses she runs with her preposterous husband?

        1. Caroline should be videorecording her classes and preparing for a combination of Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality to assist and then eventually take over.

    2. But would you believe a word he said?

      Either way, it takes him off the streets, which can only be a good thing.

      1. The problem is that I remember Carl Bridgewater and Jill Dando and PC Blakelock and Derek Bentley. All these cases helped to degrade the Criminal Justice system.

    3. My guess is that more than one person grassed him up.

      Then he imagined that he would escape with a manslaughter conviction.

      Did he have an alibi?

    1. They should not worry – nothing like a ban for making something popular and more readily available.

  37. The ‘oddity’ in Prince Harry’s privacy claim against Daily Mail publisher
    High Court judge says it is unusual the key witness in the case did not reveal he gave contradictory statements to both sides

    Will Bolton : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2023/03/30/prince-harry-legal-case-associated-newspapers-ltd-oddity/

    BTL Percival Wrattstrangler

    Harry has talked about his fist sexual experience, his former lovers and his brother’s private parts. I can’t wait for Migraine to give a detailed and lurid account of how she lost her virginity followed with the names and Out of 10 scores for all the lovers she has had both before and after meeting Harry.

  38. I’ve just learned that my local shopping centre may have a mosque. As I was going in, two young men in moslem dress strode ahead of me and one of them dropped a ten pound note. I called to them and pointed and they came back to pick it up. As one of them thanked me, the other asked some people standing nearby, “Do you know where is the mosque”? [sic]. The answer was, “In the basement”. I can’t verify that and I’m sure as hell not going down there to find out. It could just be a “multi faith prayer room” of course.

    1. Google tells me that there is a ‘prayer room’ inside Westfield Shopping Centre. Very convenient for you {:^))

          1. Then let’s not say anything to them, just pack them into a shipping container and dump them somewhere else.

          1. I want to go into a mosk, keep my shoes on, rub mud into the carpet, eat a bacon sandwich and sing – badly – the lords prayer.

            However, as I am not religious that will be very ill mannered against Christians. So I’ll settle for peeing in it.

        1. Muslims deny the divinity of Christ. It is unconscionable that they be allowed to say their prayers to a false god in a consecrated Christian church.

          1. Try telling that to KC or Justin Welby. Fat cats who simply either don’t care or are to stupid to realise what they are condoning.

  39. A Lil’ Birdie Three today.

    Wordle 649 3/6
    ⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜
    🟩🟩🟨⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Well done. 4 again for me.

      Wordle 649 4/6

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

    1. So, Missy, who resettled your ancestors in Sierra Leone? Wouldn’t be the Brits would it?

    2. Send every one of them back to Africa to the land they came from, with a generous sum, say £100,000 and never allow any of them or their descendants back into the UK.
      The savings on welfare, prison, health, housing etc etc would make it a bargain..

      1. Only if we subject that 100000 to their welfare claims. Almost all would end up owing the country money.

    3. The people living there now exist on welfare. They’re spoiled beyond measure. They have also never, ever been slaves and live parasitically in one of the richest countries in the world.

      A city that blacks have made the murder capital of the world. That uncontrolled immigration made the rape capital – outside of Malm.

      Grow up, go away.

  40. That’s me for today. Sunshine and showers. Mild – so long as one stayed out of the gale! Good progress in greenhouse.

    Have a spiffing evening

    A demain.

        1. Angela Constance – formerly Minister for Drugs Policy where she was a huge success overseeing Scotland’s relentless rise up the European League table of drug addiction and deaths.

        1. If Scotland still insists on electing the same shower of shite then my original comment stands.

          1. That’s possible/probable, BoB but I think scales have fallen from many eyes over the last months.

    1. I didn’t realise, Maggie, that you follow Moffat Community.

      Do you have local ties here?

      1. No I don’t follow the community Tom, but your request came up on my time line because you follow me .

        Did you have any positive help with your laptop?

        1. Ah, I see.

          Not yet. The guy who was recommended seems to have shut down his company messenger.

    2. England’s the same. You get who you vote for, Maggie, which is why I haven’t voted since the 2015 GE (Ukip).

          1. I have a good memory- so far anyway. Which is why I can recall endless limericks and historical dates. Just don’t ask me what I had for brekker;-)

          2. Eh eh you gottit. 😏🤓
            I get You would larff if you eversaw the list of our old and still used passwords.

    3. Scotland has more non-job ministers than economics advisors. They’re in a mess, and deserve to be.

    1. Just as we might have thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse…… But does this not prove that our authorities with out question, really all are completely and utterly stupid.

      1. 372755+ up ticks,

        Evening RE,
        One MUST ask oneself how do they get into power again,again & again, on 80K & exes.

  41. When politicians are elected, do they have to go for a class on how to speak bollocks or does it come naturally? I can’t remember when I last heard a word of sense from anyone in any government.

      1. Ah, I see. I only did Eng. Lit. so what do I know? Mind you, a couple of professors frequently spoke BS.

        1. I studied the Sociology of State Socialist Societies. The only thing that wasn’t BS was the Russian language component!

    1. Agreed.
      What worries me is snappsch has been seen accompanying sunak on his travels.
      Sniffing around for next place in the top job ?

    2. Margaret Thatcher: “ Let us never forget this fundamental truth: the State has no source of money other than money which people earn themselves. If the State wishes to spend more it can do so only by borrowing your savings or by taxing you more.”

      1. “The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money”.

    3. They do seem to struggle hugely with doublethink. The idea that hiking bills to pay for masive subsidy for unreliables makes wind somehow cheaper and more consistent than gas.

      Then there’s the classic ‘if we hike taxes we’ll pay off the debt or the ever comical and bewildering – we have to hike taxes to control inflation.

      The endless lies are exhausting.

    4. I think it is one of the essentials for selection, before election. As we used to say about Army Staff College, it is where you learn to speak crap, but to do it with confidence.

  42. 372755+ up ticks,

    Well ,well,well,
    ·
    Mar 29
    About four years ago I sat in the MEP bar in Strasbourgwith the trade minister for Singapore. I asked him ‘am I correct in my view that your existing EU trade agreement can simply be transfered (Novated) to the UK when we leave the EU?’ He replied, ‘Yes, no problem’.

    The same was true of every other EU trade agreement we were party to. The other nations concerned would have been happy to continue as normal. Instead we’ve had eight years since the Referendum of delay & impediments because successive British govnts didn’t want to implement the Leave decision.

    Britain poised to score major Brexit trade deal victory – latest

    updates – The Telegraph,

    https://gettr.com/post/p2cvyao5764

    Britain poised to score major Brexit trade deal victory – latest updates — The Telegraph
    Britain poised to score major Brexit trade deal victory – latest updates — The Telegraph

    Britain is expected to be welcomed into what will become a 12-nation trading group this week in a major post-Brexit win.

    1. I used to read John Redwood’s website after Brexit where he expressed the view that many treaties would simply novate. I can only assume that this is civil service obstruction.

    1. 1) Open a bottle of vintage champagne.
      2) Now try to put the cork back in.
      3) If a robot can do your job, it soon will.

      4) Countries still need skilled manual workers, but the totally unskilled are in the process of becoming ‘useless eaters’.

      1. 2) Now try to put the cork back in.

        Let’s not be silly, who would want to?

          1. We opened a bottle of red this evening. OH is pretty miserable with his health conditions – heart rate still much too fast – Doc says cut out coffee. Pre – diabetic – cut out sugar and sweet things….. he’s beginning to get depressed as everything he enjoys is bad for him.

          2. Mine also is very down. No sign of the nurse but the physio did call today. He wanted to come on Tuesday but MH won’t be here- will be in hospital having a procedure. So another postponement. As I said to the nurse who briefly turned up on Tuesday….”There seems to be a singular lack of communication between the services.”

          3. I feel for him, N.
            Poor lad – when all the fun is taken away. I’m not allowed to drive, and the health service nazis here are trying hard to make that permanent. That takes some of the shine off life.
            I pay less attention to the ban on sweet stuff now, and so far, no probs.

          4. They tried to take MH’s license away and mine….backfired when I told them we didn’t own a car and my license was from NC. End of…

          5. He was banned from driving for six weeks but that wasn’t too much of a hardship. We don’t go far these days anyway – the furthest was to Oxford for the check-up – when they didn’t highlight any of these problems.

            I keep getting texts now from the surgery, calling me in for blood pressure tests. i’m not going – I don’t want to be caught up in this roundabout of tests and problems as well. We have a borrowed BP machine from the cardiac nurse – so I know mine is higher than his.

          6. I made the mistake a few years ago of going for a sleep test – a breath measuring machine. Result: I needde a machine to blow air into me during the night – the worst thing ever, you had to strap an octopus on your face and plug in a hose, and get no sleep whatever. I nearly pitched the bastard out of the window.
            This was the thing: If you didn’t submit to the bastards, then you were banned from driving, as you might fall asleep at the wheel (nowt to do with the terible sleep you get in the octopus’ embrace) – this is an EU regulation, apparently. I just gave it back, didn’t listen to their threats, and left. Nobody ever called me about it, so assume they never followed through.
            Never willingly go near them. I was caught this time by needing an ambulance, then you’re fcuked.

          7. That sounds ghastly – I don’t have too much trouble sleeping, except sometimes when my brain churns things over too much. I keep away from the doc’s surgery though – for myself, anyway. I’ve been to too many appointments with OH in the last couple of years. Last time I went to see a doctor for myself was for shingles in 2019.

          8. Beetroot juice for lowering blood pressure, daily. 250 mls a pop.
            Edit: BT will confirm.

          9. I changed from toast to having my oats for breakfast. Cooked with water a tiny pinch of salt cooled with milk added walnuts a few almonds and raisins. And a squirt of honey. Keeps me going ’till about 2pm.
            But I still have a bacon and sandwich for breakfast on Saturday mornings.
            I must make some more bread in the morning.
            I know you don’t like brown sauce but……..

          10. Sauce on bacon sarnies is an insult to the soul of the pig… but is magic on things eggy or spuddy! Or sausages, for that matter.

          11. When I went to collect my prescribed painkillers, the woman in the pharmacy asked if I took statins – no. Did I want my BP checked because they now did free checks? No thanks. The last time I had my BP checked I worried the doctor because it was such as would be presented by a 17-year-old.

          12. OH used the machine on me this morning – his heart rate is still over 120; mine’s about 60. His BP is low; mine’s a bit high. But I don’t want to get on the merry-go -round of medication for this that and the other.

    2. 1) Open a bottle of vintage champagne.
      2) Now try to put the cork back in.
      3) If a robot can do your job, it soon will.

      4) Countries still need skilled manual workers, but the totally unskilled are in the process of becoming ‘useless eaters’.

  43. We went to a meeting early on this evening – in a meeting room at the town hall of our little, local town. On the wall was a series of presentation hand-outs, obviously from some seminar they’d had there. One of them ( along with climate change rubbish and transport solutions) was “The Twenty Minute Town”. Well, as it’s just a small place, most things are there within 20 minutes walk, but it does have a hinterland of small villages, such as the hamlet we live in. It just made me despair.

    1. If we tolerate this, it will just get worse and worse as they think up new ways of control. This is ghettoisation in the making. Society has been here before. It didn’t end well. People lost their lives for leaving the jewish ghettoes in Poland. “Papers, please.”

      1. You will find once you leave your 15 minute city your E vehicle will stop working and your payment cards no longer function.

  44. Remainers are convinced that Britain is irrelevant. They’re about to be humiliated
    Not everything is right. We lack the strong economy that will sustain Britain’s foreign policy influence
    David Frost: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/30/remainers-convinced-that-britain-irrelevant-humiliated/

    BTL Percival Wrattstrangler
    How are we going to get the odious EU with its ECJ taking priority over British Law in Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom?
    Until we have done that Brexit has not be completed?

    BTL : Roger de Coverly replly to Percival Wrattstrangler
    I can’t believe my ears; everyone knows Brexiteers are Little Englanders who just want to turn their back on the world community. Obviously David Frost has misunderstood.

    BTL to Roger de Coverly by Percival Wrattstrangler
    Do you think the French would welcome Spanish Law taking precedence over French Law in Corsica or that the Spanish would welcome French law taking precedence over Spanish Law in the Balearic Islands, or the Italians welcoming French and Spanish Law taking precedence over Italian Law in Sicily?
    Thank God the generation of British people that stopped Hitler taking over Europe in 1939 – 45 did not contain too many weak capitulators like you!

  45. Well, the weather improved this afternoon so I’ve got all the ash sawn & split ready for stacking, then went down the road and picked up another vanload of logs, but they will have to stay in the van until Saturday as the DT & self are having a trip to Nottingham to give her a bit of a change of scenery.

  46. Carmakers to ration petrol and diesel car sales until 2030 ban
    New targets set for companies in Government’s Zero Emissions Vehicle mandate in bid to drive up electric car use and hit net zero goal

    Jack Simpson : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/30/ban-petrol-diesel-cars-uk-companies-told-ration/

    Brilliant

    The Germans have got the EU to relent on the timetable on banning the sale of petrol fuelled cars until 2035. People can get round the absurd British attack on ICE vehicles by using The Sunak Great Windsor Surrender!

    BTL by Christine Ross:

    If anyone wants to make some money, come to Northern Ireland and set up an online car sales business with a courier delivery service to several of the ferry terminals on the British west coast. Do a test drive on the UK mainland and if delivery not available order it from Northern Ireland.

    No such restrictions can be applied in Northern Ireland since Rishi Sunak arranged to reinforce the border in the Irish Sea and in doing so ensured that EU rather than UK trading rules apply.

    I’m not joking by the way

    Brilliant. Let’s find as many ways as we can to Sink the Sunak and Humiliate the Hunt!

    1. Might as well exploit the loophole to our advantage – it would be rude not to!

    2. This electric vehicle push is a shit show. We are now living ourselves in a proxy US war in Ukraine, which the Russians have already won, have allied with a bunch of radical losers in Washington DC, a stance made utterly preposterous by the idiocy and complete lack of awareness of imbeciles like Joe Biden and the Obama retreads forming the bulk of his horrifying government.

      Our own government is as bad as O’Bidens. They are bereft of ideas and cling to the belief that we retain great influence in the world. We do not. Our influence was lost with the demise of our currency and the utterly stupid actions of our governing parties over decades.

      China is now the world superpower, based on its productive capacity which exceeds that of the U.S. and E.U. combined. The threat was never Russia nor China but the blithering idiots within our own government and that of the US.

      We should be seeking peaceful relations with the whole world and accepting that free trade is the solution to most political disagreements. As the late Denis Thatcher remarked, there are more of them than there are of us.

      We have only to look at the demise of Macron, not an outsider (came from nowhere) as promoted, but one of the globalist inner circle all along. Other globalist puppets were found out and have left the stage including the ghastly Ardern in NZ and Sturgeon in Scotland. Rutte in the Netherlands is next and hopefully Sunak and Hunt in the UK will fall given the vaccine scandal and their interest in promoting the fraud.

      God only knows what the Germans will come up with given that their industrial economy has been destroyed by Biden and their banking system hobbled by their own nationalistic hubris and subsidised superiority since the end of WWII.

      It is now a matter of urgency that Biden be deposed. The man is a cretin and no leader. He is the most corrupt example of a world leader among many and though suffering from dementia, thoroughly evil with it.

    3. This electric vehicle push is a shit show. We are now living ourselves in a proxy US war in Ukraine, which the Russians have already won, have allied with a bunch of radical losers in Washington DC, a stance made utterly preposterous by the idiocy and complete lack of awareness of imbeciles like Joe Biden and the Obama retreads forming the bulk of his horrifying government.

      Our own government is as bad as O’Bidens. They are bereft of ideas and cling to the belief that we retain great influence in the world. We do not. Our influence was lost with the demise of our currency and the utterly stupid actions of our governing parties over decades.

      China is now the world superpower, based on its productive capacity which exceeds that of the U.S. and E.U. combined. The threat was never Russia nor China but the blithering idiots within our own government and that of the US.

      We should be seeking peaceful relations with the whole world and accepting that free trade is the solution to most political disagreements. As the late Denis Thatcher remarked, there are more of them than there are of us.

      We have only to look at the demise of Macron, not an outsider (came from nowhere) as promoted, but one of the globalist inner circle all along. Other globalist puppets were found out and have left the stage including the ghastly Ardern in NZ and Sturgeon in Scotland. Rutte in the Netherlands is next and hopefully Sunak and Hunt in the UK will fall given the vaccine scandal and their interest in promoting the fraud.

      God only knows what the Germans will come up with given that their industrial economy has been destroyed by Biden and their banking system hobbled by their own nationalistic hubris and subsidised superiority since the end of WWII.

      It is now a matter of urgency that Biden be deposed. The man is a cretin and no leader. He is the most corrupt example of a world leader among many and though suffering from dementia, thoroughly evil with it.

    4. That’s all by the by. These plans are designed to choke the life out of our country’s personal mobility and freedom. So Germany deferred it for a while. Madness, madness, madness!

      1. Id that kind of discrimination allowe… Ah. Slammers. Of course it is, how stupid of me.

        1. We’ve made a rod for our own back and now the Dopey Wokies are enjoying using it.

    1. Lovely dog. Just hope he didn’t eat any of those Walker’s cheese and onion crisps in the photo.

  47. I’m pushing off now as well. Had what use to be known as ‘a funny turn’ this afternoon. Rapid heart rate chest pain, an shortness of breath.
    I made my way up the garden came inside sat down fell asleep for about 90 minutes.
    When I woke up, all had passed. I was rather hoping for a phone call today to find out when my cardiology appointment had been arranged.
    Good night all.

      1. Thanks for your concern, 🙂 its not the first time it’s happened. It’s just one of the problems with atrial fibrillation.

  48. Evening, folks. This is my second visit as I was here briefly before I took Oscar to the vets and I apologise for my remissness; I forgot the greetings. Sorry! I had other things on my mind at the time, so please forgive the discourtesy. Oscar has been discharged (the vet actually said, “I don’t want to see him again!” and I wasn’t surprised considering how he behaved even with the Gabapentin and Trazadone in his system!). I only need to bring him back if his eyes start giving a bother with a discharge. My wallet can take a breath, hopefully, now. The stuff he is on (long-term) is not on prescription so I can get it from the internet. The Gab-Traz is finally working; he’s lying splayed out because his legs no longer behave as though they belong to him.

    1. Thanks for the update on Oscar, Conners. I hope you and Oscar and Kadi have a restful sleep tonight.

      1. I muzzle him just to be sure. He was a very groggy doggy last night – I had to help him up the stairs. He’s back to what passes for normal today.

  49. Well, chums, that’s me for today. Good night to you all, and I hope you all sleep well.

  50. Am also closing down….but here is a little bedtime rhyme.

    Bring me all of your dreams
    You dreamer,
    Bring me all your heart melodies
    That I may wrap them in blue cloud cloth
    Away from the too rough fingers of the world.

    Langston Hughes if I recall.

    Sweet dreams Y’all and I simply hope I can sleep.

    1. I’ve tried the sleeping, Ann, but it doesn’t seem to work.

      I shall return and try reading myself to sleep.

  51. Goodnight, all. I’m not going to bed yet (too early for my body clock), but I am signing off.

  52. Chaplain awarded £10k after NHS Trust said diversity ‘takes precedence’ over religious belief
    Rev. Dr Patrick Pullicino claimed he was ousted for answering a hospital patient’s questions about the Church’s teaching on marriage

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/31/catholic-chaplain-award-nhs-trust-equality-religious-belief/

    This was an obvious set-up, akin to the Northern Ireland bakers who refused to bake a pro-gay marriage cake. I’m glad the NHS Trust has admitted that they were in error and have settled before the case went to the Employment Tribunal. The Trust obviously knew they would lose.

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