Saturday 22 April: Dominic Raab’s clash with civil servants resistant to reforming politicians

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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449 thoughts on “Saturday 22 April: Dominic Raab’s clash with civil servants resistant to reforming politicians”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story

    Anti-Semitism
    Two Arab gentlemen are sitting on either side of a Jewish rabbi on a crowded aeroplane. The Arabs say they want a cola.

    The rabbi, who has slipped off his shoes, says “I will get it for you.”

    The Arabs protest but the rabbi insists and jumps up to get the colas. While he is gone, each Arab picks up one of his shoes and spits into it.

    The rabbi returns with the colas and takes his seat. When the plane is ready to land, the rabbi slips on his shoes and knows immediately what has happened.

    He launches into this big speech about a thousand years of conflict and says, “All of this has to end… this spitting in each other’s shoes, this pissing in each other’s colas…”

    1. Morning.

      Not really related but when I lived in digs in JHB a friend visited from the UK. He brought a bottle of duty free scotch with him, we shared half of it and I put it into my wardrobe. I noticed that the content was still going down. And I knew that the two old afrikaaner guys sharing another room in the house were alcohol addicted. I top up the bottle by peeing in it. The content still went down. One of the bastards stole money from my wallet as well.

  4. Dominic Raab’s clash with civil servants resistant to reforming politicians

    I have never known so many politicians including Boris that have been forced to stand down for not doing very much wrong.

    All this stuff will be forgotten about when Labour get back in, including throwing mobile phones at staff and insulting members of the public, they will tell us to toughen up.

    2. Just another disappointment from our Government who rolls over at the mearest hint of criticism.

      Once, just once I would like to see them show some backbone and take a stand on an issue that reflects what the great majority of the people feel is right. Just once I would like to feel some pride in them for standing up and doing something that is right, not kowtowing down to the “woke, right on, bleeding heart liberals”.

      Dream on VVOF, I fear that day will never come with this present lot. They are just not worthy of my support, no matter what the alternative is.

      1. You’d think they’d learn from the delicious events north of the border.
        The power of the simple word “No”.

      1. Yo RE

        The real problem facing UK now:

        “How do know that the personufactured Female Train Wreck dummy, wants to stay Female and not ‘trans’ into a male”
        and vice versa.

        All the Tailor’s, Tailoress’ and Tailortrans dummies in all the clothes shops in UK will be out on the streets blocking roads, until the matter is fixed, to theit satisfactio, Wokestyle UK 2023!

    2. Wot about transgender crash test dummies?
      After all, it would be discrimination to deny them their chance to be maimed in crumpled metal.

    3. Actually Korky, that is one area where it is vitally important. Seats and seat belts often don’t cater for the (generally) smaller female frame. Only relatively recently have adjustable sliders been in installed on the chassis where the belt is anchored, and even then not in all models. The seat belt in my car cuts across my throat which is very uncomfortable and would possibly be ineffective in a crash.

      The across the body design is also more suitable to a flat chest than one with breasts.

      1. “Invisible Women” by Caroline Criado Perez (?) is a real eye opener should you be interested.

        Imagine a world where your phone is too big for your hand, where your doctor prescribes a drug that is wrong for your body, where in a car accident you are 47% more likely to be seriously injured, where every week the countless hours of work you do are not recognised or valued.

        If any of this sounds familiar, chances are that you’re a woman.

        Invisible Women shows us how, in a world largely built for and by men, we are systematically ignoring half the population. It exposes the gender data gap – a gap in our knowledge that is at the root of perpetual, systemic discrimination against women, and that has created a pervasive but invisible bias with a profound effect on women’s lives.

        Award-winning campaigner and writer Caroline Criado-Perez brings together for the first time an impressive range of case studies, stories and new research from across the world that illustrate the hidden ways in which women are forgotten, and the impact this has on their health and well-being.

        From government policy and medical research, to technology, workplaces, urban planning and the media, Invisible Women reveals the biased data that excludes women. In making the case for change, this powerful and provocative book will make you see the world anew.

      2. I have been teaching my daughter to drive. She was spending a lot of time pulling at the seat belt when she should have had both hands on the wheel. I purchased some seat belt shoulder pads for less than a fiver. Problem solved.

  7. Morning all 🙂😉
    A bit brighter today, not warm but fingers crossed eh.
    If a lesson is not learned from this forced and ridiculous resignation of Raab, then I fear for the future of our grandchildren. The Civil service are what they are called. I know Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister were comedy series but what has just happened is beyond laughing matter. These people are employed in public service. Nobody has ever voted for them, I believe as has been strongly suggested they were out of order in their behaviour and lack of respect for the Minister. The prime minister has let the public down by allowing this to happen. These people should be named and shamed.

      1. He might have signed a document ensuring financial gains if he keeps the lid on it.

    2. Someone interviewed on R4 kept blathering on about power imbalances in workplaces. The presenter, to his credit, did point out that that was inevitable in workplaces but he should have gone further and explained that what is perceived as power, is actually the weight of responsibility and accountability.

  8. The public is failed by a broken Civil Service. 22 April 2023.

    If so, then Mr Raab is right that a dangerous precedent has been set. The inquiry “will encourage spurious complaints against ministers, and have a chilling effect on those driving change on behalf of your government – and ultimately the British people”, he wrote in his resignation letter to Rishi Sunak.

    Some will fear that biased civil servants who oppose particular policies will have a new tool in their arsenal for obstructing or subverting the will of the Government. In practice, however, it may be that ambitious ministers who wish to shake up their departments or deliver their agendas will simply think twice before pushing their officials too hard.

    Of course. The elected Government was only nominally in charge before the Raab incident. Now it’s pretty well irrelevant.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2023/04/21/the-public-is-failed-by-a-broken-civil-service/

    1. Gus O’Donnell will be on ‘Today’ in the next hour to tell us what a rotter Raab was and how the civil service is full of fine upstanding men and women who are doing their best for the country.

  9. Good morning all. A brighter, dry start with broken cloud and 4½°C in the yard.

    Planning to take the bus to Ambergate with daughter to meet up with stepson and have a walk along the Cromford Canal back to Whatstandwell for lunch in what used to be the Derwent Hotel which in now de-pubbed and calls its self “The Family Tree”.

  10. Richard Tice.

    “If you think Net Zero is making us richer and warmer then you are delusional!”

  11. Right my friends. I’m off down town. All quiet at the moment! See you later!

  14. 373737+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    When the era of electoral fools enlightenment commences and the peoples long,long awaited RESET is triggered THEY
    ( the serpents) must be first to go.

    The peoples are totally isolated when one shite party is at war with the opposing shite party, overlooked and undermined by the
    very uncivil service in adjusting / culling mode

    The mystifying thing is that the peoples united hold the top POWER card yet are very reluctant to use it, and that comes in many cases with holding allegiance ( Stockholm syndrome) in regards to false political gods.

    Saturday 22 April: Dominic Raab’s clash with civil servants resistant to reforming politicians

    1. More than 20 ‘new build’ schemes are underway or proposed. Some are being built from scratch and some using rescued components, one a spare boiler that had been used by a timber firm for many years.

      2. Don’t tell anyone WS you’ll have the no oil idiots ranting on about coal next.

      1. BR built 10 of these locos but originally proposed 25. The 10 went to Scotland and were named after clans; the next five were to be sent to the Southern Region and were to be named Hengist, Horsa, Canute, Wildfire and Firebrand but the order was cancelled.

      2. Hengist and Horsa; an unbeatable husband and wife team.
        Up there with the MacBeths and the Murrells.

        1. I thought Horsa was supposed to be Hengist’s brother? Unless they were incestual homosexuals way ahead of their time.

          1. Read “1066 And All That”.
            It claims to be all the history that people actually remember; and, of course, most people are unsure whether Horsa is Hengist’s wife.

    5. Sorry, Obers. I daresay I’ll be shouted down by the train enthusiasts on here, but WTF point?
      Surely the skills and money can be better employed and spent on something more useful.

      1. Gotta learn on something. And it gives pleasure to many, me included.
        Anyhow, you could say the same about any form of art – what’s the point?

      2. Are you saying that everything anyone does must be productive, that it must have, in your eyes, a ‘useful’ purpose? Is there no merit at all in doing things for the sake of it, for the satisfaction it brings?

        Mind you, some people do have the most peculiar hobbies…

      1. Two different classes. One is a BR Standard Class 6 4-6-2 and the other in an LNER B17 4-6-0.

    1. One of my then young nephews was damaged by the MMR vaccines. He’s just over 50 now and never really recovered. He’s not led a normal life.
      No form of compensation I don’t even think an apology.

    2. As one of the comments rightly suggested. Time to bring back mental asylums. There’s plenty of them around these day’s. Perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to close them down in the first place.

      1. 373737+ up ticks,

        Morning RE,
        The political overseers via the polling booth and the continuing misguided peoples ( mentally retarded) input, are churning out more patients with every supporting vote cast.

        We are in point of fact Eddy living currently in one big asylum with fast disappearing areas of sanity.

        1. Certainly much of what we’re served up as entertainment is the television equivalent of visiting Bedlam.

          1. Edgar, Gloucester’s son, disguised himself as Poor Tom, the Bedlam Beggar, in King Lear

      2. Sadly, the asylums and their beautiful grounds have been sold to developers and are now covered in overpriced rabbit hutches.
        Where the money has gone is anyone’s guess.

        1. There were several near St Albans and Radlett. All bowled over as you say, for new housing developments.

          1. As has been commented many times, care in the community failed because the community doesn’t care.

            Rather ignoring that they’ve neither the skills, resources, time or expertise.

        2. There must be a good number of mental defectives in the Palace of Westminster in possession of large country estates that would be ideal as places of asylum for them and their pet lunatics?

      3. Mr Loveday’s Little Outing is a short story by Evelyn Waugh which all Nottlers should read.

        Mr Loveday, the eponymous hero of the story, is an inmate of an institution which is called succinctly on the board displayed on its front gate as: County Asylum for Mental Defectives.

        1. I rather enjoyed this adaptation of the story starring Andrew Sachs, David Warner and Prunella Scales and some of the actors playing the roles of narrators and lesser lunatics are quite convincing. (Of course it was made well before the BBC went woke)

          https://www.google.com/search?q=mr+loveday%27s+little+outing&oq=Mr+Loveday%27s+Little+Outing&aqs=chrome.0.0i355i512j46i340i512l2j0i512l3j0i22i30l4.11102j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:0cffedc7,vid:fjukuOGikx4

      4. That’s what I’ve been saying for years. When I was young they’d all have been in the local loonie-bin. It’s still the best place for them.

    3. There’s a big demographic of very strong, powerful men being more likely to visit a dominatrix because not being ‘in control’ is vastly more satisfying than just sex.

      1. Indeed. A promising start but radar shows some nasty stuff over Plymouth heading North East.

  21. Good morning all,

    Sunny again at Casa McPhee, wind in the south but a chilly 5℃. It’ll struggle to get into double figures according to the Met Office. Have they realised there’s a Grand Solar Minimum getting going? No? Of course not, it’ll upset their ‘climate narrative’.

    Neither does Sarah Ferguson. This bat-shit crazy woman is jumping on the band-wagon.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2023/04/21/sarah-ferguson-fergie-climate-change-terrified/

    1. I know very little about climate science and neither does Sarah Ferguson. However I have a good instinct and can usually – but not always – tell when I am being conned. We are all being conned about the dangers of CO2, net zero and climate change just as the PTB are still doing their best to keep the con about the benefits of Covid 19 gene therapy going for as long as they can.

      Chinks are turning into chasms in the case for Covid jabs – it cannot be long before the crack in global warming deception becomes a ravine which spreads out into a wide plain.

      1. I had that instinct about 20 years ago simply because I knew a bit about it and worked with weather data every day. I looked into it and I’ve garnered an awful lot of information from the writings and lectures of REAL scientists over the years and I’ve managed to understand the political origins of the scam. Our political establishment is either stupid or complicit.

  23. Ryanair have sent me a petition to sign.

    So far in 2023, French ATC had 39 days of strikes which have forced Ryanair to cancel 3,500 flights, mainly overflying France.
    We have launched a petition calling on Ursula von der Leyen and the EU Commission to protect passengers especially on overflights during Air Traffic Control strikes, which you can support.
    By clicking the button below your email address and name will be submitted to our petition and will send an urgent message to Ursula von der Leyen to protect passengers during Air Traffic Control strikes.

    Well Mr O’Leary, explain how the UK being in the EU would have made any difference and also how French ATC staff can be forced not to ignore EU diktats.

    1. Don’t worry, Mr. O’Leary; soon all those crabby old Brexiteers will be dead and you can return Blighty to your EU Nirvana.

      2. He won’t be able to as it’s highly likely that the EU will cease to exist. German industry, the economic driver of it, is in dire straits due to lack of cheap Russian gas. Italexit seems to be on the cards. Who’s next? Hungary? Poland? Maybe the Netherlands. Ireland even?

        1. A bold and sensible move would be for Ireland to leave the EU and make a good trade deal with the UK.

          But are those i/c in Ireland intelligent enough to see this or are they, as Biden says he is, so full of hatred for England that they cannot understand the own best self-interest?

          1. ‘Twould make more sense for Eire to re-join the UK. We are, after all, close neighbours.

      3. He won’t be able to as it’s highly likely that the EU will cease to exist. German industry, the economic driver of it, is in dire straits due to lack of cheap Russian gas. Italexit seems to be on the cards. Who’s next? Hungary? Poland? Maybe the Netherlands. Ireland even?

      4. He won’t be able to as it’s highly likely that the EU will cease to exist. German industry, the economic driver of it, is in dire straits due to lack of cheap Russian gas. Italexit seems to be on the cards. Who’s next? Hungary? Poland? Maybe the Netherlands. Ireland even?

    1. I take it that’s the USA, it would be much more difficult to fire them here unless it was during a probationary period.

      1. That was tried with young offenders. They cried even more. Just having to get up early each morning had them whinging.

        1. In that case give them something to whinge about. It worked when we had National Service, there is no reason on earth why it couldn’t work again.

  26. Brendan O’Neill
    Is Dominic Raab really a ‘bully’?
    21 April 2023, 12:49pm

    Who is the real victim in the Dominic Raab bullying saga? I know the story is that he was a monster in his various departments, allegedly barking instructions and wagging a finger at his stressed-out minions. But the anti-Raab revolt smacks far more of bullying to me. Civil servants clubbing together to drum an exacting minister out of his job? It definitely has a whiff of Mean Girls to it.

    Raab has resigned as deputy prime minister following the findings of an investigation into his alleged bullying. In his resignation letter he says the investigation dismissed all but two of the accusations against him. The findings are ‘flawed’, he says. They potentially set a ‘dangerous precedent’. If ministers are not able to give ‘direct critical feedback’ – a euphemism for stern criticism, perhaps – they won’t be able to do their jobs properly, he said.

    He has a point. None of us knows for sure what went on under Raab’s rule first in the Foreign Office and later in the justice department. It is entirely possible he sometimes crossed the line from ‘direct critical feedback’ into Malcom Tucker territory. And yet as he points out in his resignation letter, Adam Tolley, the barrister who carried out the bullying investigation, did not find any instances of him shouting or swearing or physically intimidating staff.

    What is he accused of, then? One former civil servant said he could be ‘rude and aggressive’. He would ‘raise his voice’. And sometimes he engaged in ‘hard staring’ – he’d look at people with ‘cold fury’. He always expected people to turn up to meetings ‘very, very quickly’. And he expected them to ‘have the answers to all his questions’. Tolley’s investigation found Raab would sometimes bang loudly on the table and use hand gestures to indicate that ‘a person should hold off from speaking’.

    Is this serious? I can see how this might make for a tense workplace, but bullying? Expecting staff to be punctual and to have the information you need to do your job is not bullying – it’s work. Raab is surely right that ‘setting the threshold for bullying so low’ – so that even looking at people ‘coldly’ or waving your hand at them is redefined as tyrannical behaviour – will make it harder for ministers to enact change and get things done.

    The Guardian spoke to officials who said civil servants in Raab’s departments often felt ‘physically sick’ before meetings. That’s bad, of course. No one should feel like that at work. But what is the real problem here: Raab’s behaviour, or a new generation of mandarins who seem too fragile for the rough and tumble of political life? There have always been ministers who are severe and demanding. What’s changed, it seems to me, is the level of resilience among civil servants. It seems to have plummeted.

    Surely the problem in Whitehall is less a culture of bullying than a culture of fragility. Government departments are necessarily high-pressure workplaces. They’re responsible for very serious matters indeed. Matters of life and death in the case of the Foreign Office. If ministers cannot enforce high standards and a rigorous pace for fear that some civil servants will feel wounded and offended, then we have a serious problem on our hands.

    I’m worried that accusations of bullying are being used to push out ministers that the civil-servant blob disapproves of. Remember when Priti Patel was likewise accused of bullying during her time in the Home Office? Apparently she had a habit of storming out of her office and asking: ‘Why is everyone so fucking useless’. That’s not bullying. It’s a good question. Many Brits will be wondering the same about our often sclerotic civil service.

    Boris Johnson stood by Patel. Raab had no such luck – he appears to have caught wind of Rishi Sunak’s plan to sack him and decided to beat him to the pass by resigning instead. He has been demonised as a tyrant, his name has been sullied, and he’s been forced out of his job for daring to have high expectations of his workforce. Sounds like bullying to me.

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

    neptic
    20 hours ago
    The civil service has achieved exactly what it hoped for. No Conservative minister will ever again be able to deliver on their party’s policies or have any hope of running an effective department. The accusations will now fly thick and fast, and the long march continues. Tragic.

      1. Yo T_B

        You must know from hubby, Jack never talks of returning to England, only to UK

    2. Surely the problem in Whitehall is less a culture of bullying than a culture of fragility.
      Surely the problem is that these embedded ticks cannot be bothered with accuntability to elected ministers.
      Who elected them anyway? Just a bunch of losers (us) who know nothing about getting us back into the EU which is what is best for them.

    3. He didn’t resign to avoid being sacked. Before the report came out he said if one complaint was upheld, he would resign.

      1. Yet we don’t know if a complaint was upheld or if Sunak, being weak and pathetic pushed him for his own security.

    4. The more I hear about Sunak the more I realise that he is not only weak but he is a nasty, vindictive little man who loathes the UK and wants to destroy it.

      Small, spiteful and of descent from Western Asia, he and Sadiq Khan are respectively the right wing cheek and the left wing cheek of a very odiferous anal orifice.

      1. Yes, he spent so long and devoted so much effort to knifing Boris that he cared not for Treasury waste over covid, nor the utterly moronic damage Hunt’s stupid high tax, big state policies are doing to the economy.

        He has an agenda, to get into the untouchable ranks where the 7 figure salary comes without a flicker of democratic accountability. Power without responsibility – the cry of the whore throughout history.

  27. Good morning all,

    Reporting back on the success of my little wildlife camera . It has been positioned near the bird feeder and switched on at night .

    The hedgehog has been busy running around the hedge row , making gorgeous funny little sounds . When I saw the video , I thought of Johnnie Morris and his memorable commentaries and grunty sounds .

    The sweetest surprise was a little head appearing out of the hole near the bird feeder , it was a Vole .. he popped his head out , had a look around and emerged from his hole , had a nibble of food and went bac down again.

    I cannot think of a way of posting my nocturnal visitors on here .. , I might reposition the camera to other parts of the garden later .

  28. 373737+ up ticks,

    Keep him away from the bacon isle, his idea of animal husbandry when approaching a pig, on a platters head, is a sight to behold.

    Dt,
    Samantha Cameron: ‘I have to remind David to steer clear of the Aldi middle aisle’
    The wife of the former prime minister on paranoia in Downing Street, her life as a fashion designer and David’s passion for food shopping

  29. ‘Morning All

    Saturday Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fc26a52003413f34aa4628a486a46be892d5557a6aff5cb6be77ed826d5b5fff.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/787b0325c9a9ec5d97b37aa77ec64b706b5cfbb867c6ab1bd2567e629926e0e0.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/71e6e97a1e12b4b515669d9bfee6c1e1db5001195351fdf906575c17819dc195.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8d27fe01d701ca2fc5698a5728de69d4ffae43f60f0723d119fde2bf5a9cdb46.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f15c6cc52f466555533d6acd4a245846735619ea498b9feecc3903e7ba2b8a28.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bf2da087fb91a0b23a8e45ca59192da6ee5248663f6e783956d7dab87b55707e.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/115bc2de13eb8f07f9385dc3ae2ac121475dbe71011f9665656e32b2b615e836.jpg

    2. The one featuring Leonardo di Caprio is a bit inapt since he is a fully-paid-up member of the Davos clique.

    3. I wasn’t given a choice in whether my country was over run with welfare dependent foreigners.

      The Left force them on us. When theft, rape, murder spiral out of control they blame us for not wanting ever more of them here. Pressure on housing, transport, services – all through the roof because of crippling levels of massive, uncontrolled gimmigration.

  30. I thought that they must be inventing someone called Indigo Rumbelow – can’t be true….but it is.

    https://youtu.be/jTR6xBeC2xA

    Ross Clark
    Newsnight stoops to a new low in its climate protest coverage
    21 April 2023, 3:46pm

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Screenshot-2023-04-21-at-15.23.27.png

    Has the BBC been invaded by a cabal of Extinction Rebellion protesters who have tied up the Director General in his swivel chair? I ask because of a remarkable interview on Newsnight which marks a new low in the objectivity of the BBC’s climate coverage.

    The flagship BBC Two news programme last night covered the threatened disruption of the London Marathon by Just Stop Oil protesters. Given that activists from another organisation did indeed carry out leaked plans to disrupt the Grand National – which delayed the start of the race – it is a threat to be taken very seriously. It was entirely proper that the subject be covered, and that the programme highlight an apparent split between climate protest groups; Extinction Rebellion has pledged not to disrupt the event, while Just Stop Oil has so far refused to make any such assurances.

    However, what followed was an extraordinary one-sided item. Newsnight’s presenter, Victoria Derbyshire, proceeded to hold a three-way discussion between herself, a Just Stop Oil activist, Indigo Rumbelow, and, er, Rupert Read, formerly of Extinction Rebellion. Read now leads an embryonic organisation called the Climate Majority Project, whose web page suggests it has a strikingly similar outlook to Extinction Rebellion.

    Newsnight has often been caught out for biased coverage

    There were obvious questions to ask Rumbelow: namely, who do you think you are, thinking you have the right to ruin a sporting event that is enjoyed by millions, either as participants or spectators? And why target a running event, which is surely all about doing something of which you ought to approve: getting about on foot?

    There were questions to be asked of Extinction Rebellion, too – given that it has offered to ‘police’ the event. Are climate pressure groups now operating as a kind of protection racket, to which we are also supposed to go and negotiate before we are allowed to go about our day-to-day business?

    None of these questions got asked. Rather, Newsnight first ran a short video in which it asserted that ‘violence’ was being shown towards climate protesters; it illustrated this partly with a police officer doing his job and arresting a member of a mob vandalising a building with red paint.

    Rumbelow was then introduced. She asserted that ‘we need to move into civil resistance against our criminal government which is pushing for new oil and gas’. Derbyshire failed to challenge this remark and ask the obvious: what criminal law is the government supposed to have broken?

    Rumbelow also went on to assert that juries were refusing to convict climate protesters. This may have happened in a few cases, but there are plenty of climate activists who have been found guilty.

    Derbyshire did read out a government statement explaining why it was issuing new oil and gas licences. She also challenged the views of Rumbelow and Read in places. But there was no-one there to represent the opinions of many, many people in Britain, who think Just Stop Oil and its like are a bunch of entitled, spoilt kids who are making totally impractical demands – and who are making exaggerated claims about the climate in the process.

    Instead, the interview cut to Read, who claimed that it is ‘absolutely clear now that…we must stop having new oil, new coal etc if we are going to have any chance of…any kind of liveable future’. Could he justify that claim with a few facts? He wasn’t even asked.

    Newsnight, as so many BBC programmes are apt to do, simply presented the hysterical claims of climate protesters as if they were scientific truth and the views of Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil as if they represented the full breadth of public opinion in Britain.

    Newsnight has often been caught out for biased coverage, such as the monologue by Emily Maitlis (who no longer works for the programme) in 2020 declaring Dominic Cummings guilty of breaking lockdown rules. But Thursday’s item on climate protesters was so brazenly one-sided that you wonder whether the programme is any longer even trying to fulfil its duty to provide balance.

    Not Zero: How an Irrational Target Will Impoverish You, Help China (and Won’t Even Help the Planet) by Ross Clark is published by Forum Press

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

    Moira Girvan
    17 hours ago
    So, let’s start with the facts. There is no ‘climate emergency’. This nonsense is repeated ad nauseum by all the same people. That the BBC encourage it and probably quite happily promote it should come as absolutely no surprise. I haven’t watched ‘Newsnight’ in years. No wonder.

    1. Got to feel a bit for Indigo Rumbelow having to go through life carrying that moniker.

        2. Bint is Arab for daughter of
          The male version is “Bin”. Both followed by the fathers name. Hence Mohammed bin Salman. Or Fadhilah bint Rahman.

          3. IKT, it’s just a particularly horrible term to use for a woman you don’t like. I wonder what the equivalently demeaning word for a male would be.

          1. Hitler springs to mind. As does Caesar – Julius, as Caesar is a title…

            I think all men are ‘psuhy’ not because we mean to be rude but because men usually aim to solve problems rather than solve them through discussion.

            (and yes, that is a HUGE generalisation but from my own experience: my brother in law doesn’t understand why my sister talks about what’s bothering her as there is nothing he can do about it. On the other hand, he doesn’t talk about his problems but internalises them to process and resolve. My sister doesn’t understand why he does that. )

            This is somewhere the Warqueen is also atypical as she doesn’t really ‘talk’, she does. Which is odd to find her dashing off to ‘get something’.

            Again, I stress: it’s a huge generalisation.

          2. Good morning Stormy

            I must admit that I do not watch the BBC very much these days but isn’t their recruitment plan to get wimpish men who will highlight the comparative strength of their women presenters?

          4. Talking about the BBC —-

            On St Patrick’s Day they had comprehensive coverage of the celebrations of the patron saint of a foreign power.

            As tomorrow is St George’s Day, the patron saint of the people who pay for the BBC, can we expect even

            better coverage of the celebrations?

    3. The media impartiality laws mandate both sides must be presented equally except on one topic – the lie of climate change.

      As I see it, the BBC, being heavily invested in the Green scam for it’s pensions is not going to present the facts and because those watching it either don’t understand OR worse, support it’s ideological position are simply reinforcing their own prejudices.

  31. What is Britain coming to when a farmer is sent to prison for dredging a river?
    Mr Price clearly went too far – but it says something about the state of the Environment agency that it came to this

    CAMILLA TOMINEY https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/22/what-is-britain-coming-to-when-a-farmer-is-sent-to-prison/

    I once played Mr Bumble in a school production of Oliver.

    One of the lines I had to deliver was: “The law is an ass!”

    In today’s woke world Mr Bumble would not be considered to be a suitable person to be put in charge of waifs, strays and orphans but he was spot on about the legal system.

    1. He went much too far, Agreed, the EA should have stepped in sooner but if he was going to take it upon himself to do the dredging, he should have arranged for the spoil to be taken away.

    2. “The law is a ass…!” Dickens, C.

      [‘If the law supposes that,’ said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, ‘the law is a ass — a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience — by experience.’]

      1. In Mr Bumble’s case it was that fact that the law assumed that he had any sort of effective control over his new wife, the former Widow Corney.

        Last year we discovered that one of the students who came on a French course with us had recently played the same role as I had played 45 years ago in his school’s recent production of Oliver.

        We had a bit of fun re-enacting the role and singing “I shall scream” – a comic song of Bumble’s wooing of Mrs Corney which was in the original stage play but sadly not in the film with Ron Moody, Harry Secombe., Oliver Reed, Leonard Rossiter and Mark Lester.

  32. Some musings from a very Cynical Rik

    First instincts are to cheer the 2/3 year sentences for the Dartford 2 and the 5 weeks for the dotty Vicar,these gadflys have pissed people off so much there is no pushback about draconian laws being drafted about protests

    It’s almost as if these people are government sponsored agents to cripple future protest.

    What happens in a few years when the WHO mandates jibbyjabbys for the whole population??

    What happens when the 15 minute cities noose really begins to bite??

    What happens when they try and impose CBDC on us??

    I suspect a lot of “us” will end up doing time……….

    https://twitter.com/bmay/status/1649508305688043520?s=20

    1. Despite all your worries, Rik, I’m confident that when all your forecasts become reality, I’m just hoping to be dead and beyond it all.

  33. Nato ‘confident’ Ukraine prepared to retake territory in fresh offensive. 22 April 2023.

    I’m confident that they will now be in a position to be able to liberate even more land.

    One of the main issues here today has been to go through all the different capabilities, systems, supplies that the Ukrainians need to be able to retake more land.

    It was for prouncements like this that the Greeks invented the word Hubris!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/apr/21/russia-ukraine-war-live-moscows-accidental-strike-on-belgorod-injures-two-china-says-it-is-not-inflaming-conflict?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-6442a2938f086890899d744e#block-6442a2938f086890899d744e

    1. It would be nice to think that the NATO bods will at some point admit defeat but I think Peter Lavelle at RT is probably right in saying that when Ukraine has been reduced back to just the small province around Kiev, the yanks will claim victory anyway on the basis that Russian troops didn’t reach the English Channel.

    2. Sounds rather like a certain Austrian former corporal when ordering the counter-attack at Mortain in Normandy and later in 1944 the Ardennes offensive.

    1. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9db4a05888323ef9a8d5b0d9f0997b3a97520dde850d91899429dcae29d18235.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d3d5d6f5af691eaf39e50c976ff168ba8d844a53a54c834278dbfb1a81bb758a.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9507364ff6335604467199375adc9fcd0984b42cf5b18e955ec99911c89f850a.jpg We don’t have bluebell woods, here in Sweden, but that is made up for by the fact that all our deciduous woods are now covered, horizon-to-horizon by a magnificent carpet of white wood anemone. Among them are patches of the much rarer blue and yellow varieties of the same plant.

      1. The first picture would make a wonderful jigsaw, Grizz! Or a picture on the wall.

          1. I don’t need to. I have proper woods where you can walk among them and breathe in their wonderful scent.

      2. The first picture would make a wonderful jigsaw, Grizz! Or a picture on the wall.

  35. MoD gives civil servants day off for ‘Vegan Network’ event. 21 April 2023.

    Civil servants at the Ministry of Defence are planning to take a day off next month to attend a “Vegetarian and Vegan Network” conference.

    A two-day event held by the staff social group of the same name is scheduled for Friday, May 19 and Saturday, May 20, and will take place at an RAF air base.

    The Ministry of Defence Vegan and Vegetarian Network, which consists of almost 200 members, is one of hundreds of staff networks across Whitehall.

    Who would ever have thought it?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/21/mod-civil-servants-day-off-vegan-network-event/

    1. “The Ministry of Defence Vegan and Vegetarian Network”. So these Civil servants are perfectly happy working for the MOD and the fact that our armed forces kill people, but they object to killing animals?

      1. They are going to practise hurling turnips at any invaders threatening our shores!

    4. Just like the old classic Spitting Image sketch. And what about the vegetables?….Oh they’ll have the same…..

  36. Good morning, all. Late on parade. Gut rot again. I knew I should have avoided the mussels…

    Cloudy. But less breeze, thank goodness.

    3. Poppie had the same during the night (gut rot, not the mussels) and we were up in the mid-early hours of the morning with her. Fortunately she did tell us that she needed to go out. She alerted us a second time an hour or so later but this time she just fancied a jaunt around the garden and an opportunity to bark at the dawn chorus! I hope you’re feeling better soon, it’s debilitating.

      2. Loving the mental picture, pm! Hector launched himself at a wood pigeon this morning. It had the temerity to be about 2ft from the front door at 5.37 am!

        1. Bless! Poppie is having an off-day today probably as a result of her earlier indisposition, and she is also somewhat miffed because I am withholding chews for the present. I am hoping that this is not the beginning of the end.

  37. 373737+ up ticks,

    There you have it,

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    1h
    This is looking like the real reason Raab was gotten rid of. He stood up to an ambassador who wanted Spanish armed forces in Gibralter.

    Can you imagine how Churchill would have ‘bullied’ such an ambassador – his arse would have been kicked straight out of the door.

    Anyone minister who tries to defend the British national interest will face the wrath of the anti-British civil service & Establishment..

    Britain has held Gibralter since 1704. Its possession was vital in controlling access to the Mediterranean Sea, & therefore in Britain’s ability to win the Napoieonic & the First & Second World Wars.

    Out nation is ultimately controlled by people who despise it & want to destroy it.

    Dominic Raab sunk by row over Spanish forces in Gibraltar – The Telegraph,

    Deputy PM resigns after inquiry into bullying upholds two complaints
    https://gettr.com/post/p2f2bkk5f3f

    1. I don’t don’t know to what or to whom Rishi Sunak is in thrall but whatever it is it has no wish other than to harm the UK.

      1. 373737+ up ticks,

        Morning R,

        I do believe that WEF / NWO the RESET way is the order of the day.

      3. What does he care? His “ancestors” have been in this country 50 years tops.

    1. This govt has had many harebrained ideas but this is nuts. Many older people don’t have mobile phones, drivers are warned to ignore until they can find somewhere to stop & etc.
      It is yet another govt intrusion into our lives and, I have no doubt, at some point will be used as another method of monitoring and controlling us.

    2. I wonder how difficult it would be for a hacker to change the message to:

      “Climate Emergency, THIS IS NOT A DRILL”

    1. Exciting isn’t it, Belle! Loch Arkaig laid one yesterday! The male Louis is very keen on incubating, and last year Dorcha had to drop a stick on him to get him to move!

  42. There’s a public sector job recruitment jamboree going on in the exhibition space at Westfield shopping centre. Ambulance, fire brigade, RAF etc attracting a lot of interested young folks as I walked past.
    There was a time when I’d naturally assume it to be “a good thing” but the powers that be have eroded my trust to the point that now my auto response is to suspect political skulduggery!
    https://www.westfield.com/united-kingdom/london/events-detail/the-london-job-show

  43. How rolling power cuts have brought Cape Town – and South Africa – to its knees. 22 April 2022.

    With its iconic Table Mountain, meandering promenades, and high-end restaurants, Cape Town is internationally renowned for its beauty and pleasure. It regularly features on lists of the best cities in the world, drawing in tourists from far and wide to sample its rich sights, cuisines and culture.

    But what is less well known is that, for up to 10 hours each day, this city of 4.6 million people goes without any electricity.

    Each evening this week, at 8pm, the lights in my neighbourhood at the foot of Table Mountain have gone out, extinguishing everything from televisions to street lights and traffic lights.

    When I made my first and only visit to Cape Town fifty years ago I thought it was probably the most beautiful city I had ever seen. I’m sorry to see it thus. Its problems and future were all foreseen, not by politicians of course, but by ordinary people with Common Sense. Its demise, like its cousin Rhodesia was inevitable. In the end it all comes down to Culture. Native Africans do not possess those qualities that allow them to maintain let alone build modern technical states. They were gifted two here and both are in the process of dissolution. This would not be a matter of concern if this culture had not been imported via mass immigration into the West and which is drawing it into the same decline.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/terror-and-security/south-africa-power-cuts-blackouts/

    1. In the 1980s on television we saw Bob Geldof standing on the quays in Port Sudan tearing his hair out because the food for the starving which had not been looted was rotting in the containers because they could not be moved, my mother said:

      “But your father helped see to it that The Sudan had one of the best railways systems in Africa.”

      But the British had left the Sudan 30 years previously and nothing, including the railways worked any more.

      And when I sailed around the Windward and Leeward Islands I went ashore and made a guess as to whether or not an island had already acquired its independence. A very good rule of thumb was that the longer it had been independent, the more decayed was its infrastructure.

      I wonder why.

      1. There’s been many examples of bureaucratic incompetence causing supplies and aid to not get to where it was intended than the expected theft and looting by those African fellows buying Ferraris.

  45. Industry minister (responsible for controlling phone companies) resigns and after a year joins a phone company as VP responsible for government affairs.

    Move along folks nothing to see here, it’s just another day in the life of an unethical liberal government.. in Canada.

    1. “On very short notice an alert to a big city would probably do more harm than good,” Swenson said. “A couple of hours and people can be dispersed and moved. But with a couple of minutes warning all you would do is produce an enormous amount of panic, crowding of the streets, a frantic searching of parents for children, and the rest. Statistically, more people are in protected spots just before the alarm than they are right after it.” Stark started to say something and Swenson looked at him and shook his head silently.

      He knew what Stark was going to say: if four 20-megaton bombs are dropped on Manhattan no one is going to survive even if they are in the strongest bomb shelter made for civilian use. Of course, there would be a few exceptions—some technician at a hospital who happened to be in a room supplied with oxygen and surrounded by stout walls, some janitor in a deeply buried basement in which by some quirk he could suck in the sewer air and subsist on that for a few hours. But it would not be more than twenty or thirty people, Swenson felt sure.

      Burdick, Eugene; Wheeler, Harvey. Fail-Safe . RosettaBooks. Kindle Edition.

      Afternoon Sue. One suspects that these alerts are another Fear and Control mechanism. As time passes they will become simple warning and information directives.

      1. Didn’t Big Brother have loudspeakers everywhere, to spread the love to the population?

        1. Afternoon Oberst. Yes but this is better. They can feed you propaganda directly and tailored to your interests and personality!

          1. I’ve had Turkish holidays, where speakers were broadcasting messages to the proles. Separately, was the Adhan. Given that the CofE expects clergy to dress appropriately, it came as a surprise to note that a nondescript bloke in very casual clothing was standing outside the mosque in Kaş, with a microphone, but in utterly Western dress…

      2. Another addition to the warning colours and names that the met office assign to winter storms to ramp up fear. I’m sure we will see repeats of that sad chap who took his own life because of the rubbish he had been fed and believed.

      4. I’m glad I still have (somewhere) my Royal Observer Corps booklet ‘Protect and Survive’ and my iodine tablets issues when nuclear subs used to visit the loch

      5. I turned mine off. But I’ve turned it back on, purely out of curiosity.

        I have sneaked a warning into tomorrow’s Parish newsletter, though…

        1. It’s Android and it shows Extreme Alerts, severe alerts, amber alerts and test broadcasts under CMAS settings not notifications. All switched off where they’ll remain

    3. In truth, I don’t care. I’ve left the alerts turned on on my phone, out of curiosity. But the Android tablets in three of our four village churches are likely to be put out of action.. Happily, we don’t have any 3.00 pm services, but I’m prolly going to have to get to three rural churches with no public transport, just to reset the card payment facility.

      Progress… 🙄

    1. The jobs lost, the hassles, the insurance prices, the drivers who now won’t be going there.

      Yes, the products are stupid but it’s an option, not dictated. Markets for difference should be encouraged.

      1. John Peter Rhys believed in being proactive. He would break some bones in his rôle as a full back; later he would cast those fractures in his rôle as an orthopædic surgeon.

  50. Definition of a senior moment: when you sprinkle some turmeric in a mug of coffee, instead of the sauce ingredients right next to it.

    Flavour? The colour changed, and all I can say is that it tasted delicious, at least compared to instant coffee made with Bisto gravy granules.

  51. Definition of a senior moment: when you sprinkle some turmeric in a mug of coffee, instead of the sauce ingredients right next to it.

    Flavour? The colour changed, and all I can say is that it tasted delicious, at least compared to instant coffee made with Bisto gravy granules.

  52. BBC Radio 4 now: Twelfth Night – Shakespeare play about East Europeans shipwrecked off coast of Illyria. Grieving woman falls in love with woman dressed as a man but is pursued by Duke who in turn is loved by someone else. Strong Irish accent from one of characters (probably IRA recruiter).
    Viola’s persistence in transvestism through her betrothal in the final scene of the play often engenders a discussion of the possibly homoerotic relationship between Viola and Orsino.
    Who’d a thought it from the BBC?

    1. From Hamster Jam?

      My garden daffodils have gone over.

      I’m worried about the chap in the background. Free him from his plaster encasement… 🙂

          1. Tut tut – you need to have a word with the translady from Bud Lite…!! Xi explains the bulge very clearly..

    1. Sounds as though you and your husband are having a nice time- I’m pleased for you.

    2. Not on a route I’m familiar with I’m afraid, my route to Sheffield is via Owler Bar.
      Glad you enjoyed it though!

  56. Par Four today.

    Wordle 672 4/6
    ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
    ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
    ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Five for me.

      Wordle 672 5/6

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

    2. Par 4 here

      Wordle 672 4/6

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

    4. A lucky birdie. A lot of possible words.

      Wordle 672 3/6

      ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
      ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  57. Supper tonight. Breast of Guinea fowl. On a bed of Savoy and bacon with Madeira sauce. Lava cake and a scoop of Mackies ice cream. Takes no time at all in my airfryer oven.

    1. If he wanted to that would be an ideal time. Hitler invaded Austria on a Sunday; if there had been any resistance he wouldn’t have carried on with it.

  59. So it looks like being a cold wet day tomorrow for the London Marathon protests.

    I make that Green Zealotry 0 – God 1

    1. I have heard, that IR idiots are going to superglue cars to the Marathon Route, working on the principle that glueing themselves to the road. stops cars. the same should happen in reverse.

      As most ost of the runners will be fit, having spent months training for the event: I can see any protesters getting a ‘good kicking, from them

  60. I couldn’t believe my eyes. One of the contestants on Masterchef did a deep fried bread Pakora. He must have been Scottish in a previous life. Definitely going to give that a try.

  62. That’s me for today. A quiet night, I hope.

    Enjoy your evening.

    A demain – DV.

  63. What a great idea, I hope it catches on elsewhere
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12002059/Bill-Maher-unveils-Cojones-Awards-fought-against-cancel-culture-mobs.html

    Bill Maher unveils his ‘Cojones Awards’ for those who fought against cancel culture mobs – and hands out prizes to Netflix for not canning Dave Chappelle over trans controversy and Ben Stiller for standing by Tropic Thunder
    Liberal comedian Bill Maher unveiled his new Cojones Awards on Friday’s edition of his HBO talk show
    The trophies honored ‘outstanding achievement in growing a pair’ in standing up to cancel culture
    Recipients included Netflix, Ben Stiller, Trader Joe’s and Cornell University

    1. It is more disconcerting that the Left have so much influence. The battlegrounds for their fascism are social media. Those companies are inhabited by Lefties in the main who side with the nutters. Heck, some morons equate Twitter under Musk with the MAGA movement, so deluded are they.

      The best defence is to play their own game against them – expose them, find them and drag them into the sun where they’ll burn away.

      1. Non violent humiliation is the way forward, as you note:

        “The best defence is to play their own game against them – expose them, find them and drag them into the sun where they’ll burn away.”

      1. I agree to a point but I also firmly believe that Nottle should stay well under the radar.

  64. No. Don’t laugh. Poor woman, she can’t help it, you know. Titter ye not.

    “A Bud Light marketing executive has reportedly taken a leave of absence in the wake of a backlash against a partnership with a transgender social media influencer.
    Alissa Heinerscheid, vice president of marketing for the popular American beer brand, was being replaced by another senior executive, Todd Allen, AdAge reported…….

    …….. Speaking on a podcast days earlier, Ms Heinerscheid had called Bud Light a “brand in decline” and said there was a need to “evolve and elevate this incredibly iconic brand”.
    She said: “What does evolve and elevate mean? It means inclusivity. It means shifting the tone.
    “We had this hangover, I mean, Bud Light had been kind of fratty, kind of out-of-touch humour, and it was really important we had another approach.” ”

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ecfacb6a27abf7bd2d7869b352b9f6a958d7d7d9e8e96e76559190e80231d62a.jpg

    3. Her job was selling crap beer to stupid people. She chose to use ‘transgenderism’ to do so – and failed.

          1. Not bad today Sue. It’s not predictable.
            I had a cuppa tea and nice chat with one of our neighbours this arvo. Her father has a similar problem and has had very similar issues with the same cardiology department.
            Similar conclusion king useless.

        2. Does it look like piss? I remember some thirty years ago my American niece took me to a nightclub in Pittsburgh where we met some of her friends and they ordered a large jug that looked for all the world as if they’d peed in it. That was beer apparently and it was customary to put a large jug in the middle of the table and all fill their glasses from it. I discovered that I could get a sweet martini with lemonade by asking the barman for sweet vermouth with 7UP. He thought I was quite mad of course. We both spoke English but…

          1. It doesn’t matter where you go in the world a gin and tonic can always be relied on. 🍹🤗

          4. Nope- not a drinker of spirits except for a wee dram at Hogmanay. White wine is my go to drink.

          9. Four of us, all ex-BT, have a regular Thursday beer night. We have a small number of pubs to visit and all sell real ales, some from local micro-breweries The ales range from dark to ruby to amber to gold and recently one that fits your first sentence, it was almost, but not quite, clear. On another occasion I had a brew from Manningtree, a small town in Essex on the river Stour, that was brewed deliberately cloudy. However, whilst the appearance can affect choice it’s the taste that really matters. ‘Tasting like piss’, has very likely been said by untold numbers of drinkers but I doubt many have the experience of tasting piss, I know I haven’t.🤣

      2. The Bud beer sold over here is far stronger than the horse pee sold in the US. Bud knew that the weak muck that some Americans are happy to drink would not cut the mustard in the UK.

          1. Used to be an advert on TV in US that said. “It’s Miller time.” Never heard that nickname.

      3. True. Re-vamp a brand by appealing to a very tiny majority: way to go. And it appears she has.

  66. Oh well……as Peter Green the guitarist mentioned when he was a bit pissed off with many things.
    As I am.
    The world’s a poorer place with out Barry Humphries.
    Nice day with the grandchildren. Chicken pox all cleared up. I think we got away with it.
    Spot the difference.
    It’s very different and challenging time trying to explain to a three year old what tadpoles are and how they got were they are and what they will eventually turn into.
    It’s just another day. As Paul McCartney might have mentioned earlier.
    Slayders.

    1. Catch a few, care for them, photograph them and share the experience with your grandchildren. They will remember it long after you’re gone.

      1. I netted some and showed them Sos. Then put them back in the pond.
        When I was a child we use to be taken to the village pond and bring back tadpoles and Stickle backs to keep in jars in the classroom. Can you imagine that now.

        1. I hope they still do, because it is a miracle of nature and it demonstrates to children how what you see isn’t necessarily what you get!

      1. I was looking in the bull’s eye and glanced down toward the wizzle and up it popped

          1. I’m the same.
            It surprises me because in most circumstances my eyesight is poor, I have poor colour recognition and I can’t draw or paint for the life of me.

      1. It is.
        I suspect most people will have done as I did initially and concentrate on the whole, where such things are usually placed for eye-tests.
        Once one looks down it leaps off the picture!

    1. I’m sure it’s correct. I felt ill wearing one within a couple of minutes and as soon as I realised one could self declare as not able to wear one, I did so.

      2. Me, too. I couldn’t bear to be in the shops with even a bandana on. The minute I realised I had a get out clause I used it.

  70. Well that’s enough for today. Tomorrow is another day. Good night all. 😴
    As Sir Les Patterson would have said Copyalayder peeps.
    Sad times.

    1. RIP, Chairman of the Australian Cheese Board. Lol. (A wonderful creation, much better in my view than Dame Edna.)

  73. Evening, all. We can say goodbye to any pretence of democracy if the civil servants and not the elected representatives are in charge.

  74. Our offer on a house has been accepted. We’re finally moving. I will admit, I’ve been very nervous and have had many bowel movements from the stress of recent weeks.

      1. For the moment, yes. We do have a small flat which we bought in February – only a couple of rooms, but it’s an anchor should we choose to shift.

        What we have done is, err… work less. She’s on a four day week with 32 weeks of holiday, I’ve worked four days for yonks now. We both didn’t have the time to do the maintenance and upkeep on this listed property (technically ‘restricted covenant’, I am reminded) and while having the out buildings was very nice when you almost have to watch them fall apart or spend about the mortgage to haul the stone from Wales by hand it’s simply not tenable.

        1. Well good luck with it all. Any move is stressful but you seem like a good team. How do you think Mongo and Ocsar will cope? Actually, in my experience, dogs can be very adaptable.

          1. Mongo will go whereever junior does. Oscar might struggle because he’s still very frightened. Training and socialising with other dogs is helping there.

            Mongo will miss the field where he goes if his hospice visits are too much for him but he’ll find somewhere else. It’s not too far away – about a mile or so outside Colby in ‘Aaampsheeer.

        2. We moved last into smaller digs. We did have four acres of land and I felt that I was spreading all of my time cutting grass and not so minor maintenance. It has been quite a transition to a world where someone else has the hassle.

          Are you stuck with the UK system where nothing is final until contracts are exchanged at closing? I much prefer the system over here in Canada where the accepted offer is legally binding.

    1. My Dad never understood his dressing up but I remember when he was interviewed as Mr Humphries, not Dame Edna and he was quiet, erudite, focussed on his marriages and children.

  76. I’ve found another bump on my mother’s car. It looks like it has been in a banger race.
    She (91) won’t hang up her keys voluntarily and any time my sister or I bring it up, a tense argument ensues.
    Any suggestions, anyone?

    1. Given that it comes from fear, the loss of autonomy, the worry of being dependent maybe a way to start it isn’t from that view but perhaps asking how the bump occurred and if she would liek a smaller or bigger car?

      If she can talk about the issue without the worry of her freedoms and independence being removed she may open up. After all, she might find her car unweildy/hard to drive. If she has no parking sensors perhaps fit those?

        1. Yep, might need a garage and they’re never as ‘pretty’ but they’ll work. You might want to ask about a camera and screen as well for parking. You can do these things, but you do need an expert.

          https://www.halfords.com/technology/reversing-cameras/

          As said, don’t know – it’s a starting point for the discussion that enters the ‘you’re not safe, woman!’ to a ‘here’s some ideas, what can we do?’

          1. I fitted a cheap and cheerful Chinese head unit to my old Disco 2. It came with a reversing camera, and front and rear sensors. Sadly, the air suspension gave up the ghost, but I still sold the thing to webuyanycar.com for more than the initial outlay…

    2. Difficult. I enabled my Mum to drive an automatic Talbot Solara for a few years.

      But her eyesight caught up with her. Her last journey was by ambulance from the Cumberland Infirnary to Newcastle General.

      She shuffled off at age 89.

      1. I’m not sure she’d adjust to an auto, also, she’s reluctant to spend much money, wanting to leave as much as possible to my sister and me, although secretly, I think its because she wants to have a large sum printed next to her obit. We’re trying to persuade her to refurb her bathroom but she won’t because it costs to much, even though we’ve pointed out that after she’s gone, that’s the first thing we’ll do to her house, whether we decide to sell it or rent it out.

          1. Thanks Geoff. I’m going to see if I can set up a taxi account for her to use- she only makes local journeys so it migh, over a year be cheaper than running a car.

          2. We can both drive but do not want the expense or worry of a car. Our local cab company are simply wonderful and we couldn’t be happier with them. Several of them don’t even turn on the meter when we get in and just say to give them what we want. We do not take advantage of this.
            They have helped us with hospital visits and always give tremendous support.
            It might work well with your mother Stormy.

          4. I tried that with Mother when she was still at home, but no joy. I even mentioned that she could be dropped outside her shop, and have a glass of wine before being collected and taken home, with the driver carrying the bags, but no. It was the loss of independence that she couldn’t tolerate.
            Finally, the car broke down at home, and she stopped going out at all.

    3. At the ripe old age of 66, I’ve given up driving. The eyesight was borderline for a while, but no longer. My licence renewal application disappeared into ‘WFH’ space.

      But I now live within four minutes’ walk of a rail station. Guildford is seven minutes away; Aldershot around 10 mins and Farnham 15 mins.

        1. Then I’m 30 mins walk from the A323 Guildford – Aldershot road, and the Kite bus, which runs between those towns every 20 minutes.

          Though I have a problem tomorrow, in that the first service at 9.00 am is three miles away, and no public transport exists on Sundays.

          I may have a long walk in the morning.

        2. Further to the last response, there’s always Amazon Fresh. It’s not everywhere, but it does run from a depot in Frimley.

          Supermarket delivery slots tend to be a few days ahead. Amazon Fresh uses couriers, and usually has same day delivery slots.

          I’m not a fan of Jeff Bezos’ empire, but I have to concede that it works. An Amazon Prime van turns up on this small estate, more or less daily.

          1. That’s good to know because I have a feeling that, within a few weeks, I am not going to be going anywhere- so if my husband can order on line- it will help us both.

    4. One of my friends is having this problem with her father. I suggested getting a doctor to give him a check and tell him he was no longer fit to drive. Then she is to take his car keys off him. I’m waiting to hear if she’s done that and if she has, how it went.

      1. Exacto. I don’t care about the car – it’s good only for the scrap heap anyway.

    7. We convinced my MiL to give up her car by showing it would be cheaper to get a taxi into town to go shopping, rather than all the expenses of a car.
      Edit – sorry, just read down further and see you are already looking into that.

    8. We convinced my MiL to give up her car by showing it would be cheaper to get a taxi into town to go shopping, rather than all the expenses of a car.
      Edit – sorry, just read down further and see you are already looking into that.

    9. Have a quiet word with her insurers?

      I used to know of a lady who had to give up driving after she killed someone.

      Could you find your mother an electric buggy? They turn up secondhand all the time.

      Your mama may be an excellent driver, but when someone turns 40, reaction times start to fall off a cliff; that also happens gradually with the eye muscles & focusing time.

  77. Good night, chums, and sleep. I just watched Non Ichikawa’s TOKYO OLIMPYIAD, 58 years after its UK release in 1965. Just as good as when I watched it 58 years ago.

  79. Goodnight Y’all. All of a sudden I am very sleepy. Hope it continues because I need sleep.
    Remember the jolly alert tomorrow- such fun- NOT.
    Happy St. George’s Day too. Much more important.

  80. A little plug for me. 56 today (or yesterday, depending). Youngest picked me, hubby and daughter up from hockey dinner dance. We did some good. My two children (19 & 18) are delightful. Up to Wolverhampton tomorrow for dad’s 84th on Monday. Good night all. Xx

    2. Happy Day and of course 365 Happy Unbirthdays to the next calendar celebration of the eveny

  81. Goodnight and God bless, Gentlefolk,

    Hoping I can sleep properly after nodding off in front of the pooter.

    Hope to see you all in the morning’s light.

    1. Rain. Plus degrees.
      Bought a demolition hammer yesterday, and used it to level the concrete in a room in Firstborns barn that we’re preparing for honey treatment. 2 hours work, all done, but the machine is heavy, and today I can barely move my arms, I’m so stiff.
      Glad to have that job done, though. Progress, and relatively quick n easy with the right tool.

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