Wednesday 31 May: Local authorities must answer for the dangerous state of Britain’s roads

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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509 thoughts on “Wednesday 31 May: Local authorities must answer for the dangerous state of Britain’s roads”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story. As usual here we are again at some ungodly hour, Wondering just why?

    Birdie, Birdie

    A farmer is in need of a new rooster, so he goes to the local tack shop and buys a new one by the name of Kenny.

    The farmer takes Kenny home, and as soon as he puts him in the yard, Kenny starts chasing after the chickens. Within a few hours, Kenny had violated every single hen, and was working his way through the ducks!

    On seeing this, the farmer said, “you’d better slow down! You’re gonna fuck yourself to death!”

    The next morning, the farmer steps out the back way and finds Kenny screwing the sheep! Once again, the farmer says, “you’d better slow down! You’re gonna fuck yourself to death!”

    The next day, the farmer wakes up and sees buzzards circling over his yard, and he knows that his prediction has come true. He rushes out to the yard and finds Kenny sprawled out, tits up in the dirt.

    “See Kenny,” says the farmer, “I told you! You done gone and fucked yourself to death!”

    All of a sudden, one of Kenny’s eyes opens! Kenny points to the buzzards circling in the sky, looks at the farmer and whispers, “Shhh… Pussy!”

    As promised, yesterday, I need to put the record straight and stop giving fellow NoTTLers such conniptions.

    If I’ve mentioned suicide it’s more an expression of how I feel and certainly not an intention.

    In fact, even though I’m agnostic, I do believe in reincarnation, and to commit suicide just means that the full lesson has not been learnt, so you have to come back and do it all again, rather than moving on to the next lesson.

    Yes, I’ve suffered some very deep depression, but I’ve started to reach out to the Moffat Community and have met a very nice lady whose husband died a couple of months ago and she too has reached out and we’ve found a certain level of companionship that helps us both.

    Let’s hope it continues.

    This may help:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCaem_gqbTM
    I‘ve found it quite inspirational.

        1. Although it brings me to tears at certain points. I find it very peaceful..

    2. A lack of sleep – certainly at the right times – will properly bugger up your hormone levels making you feel rubbish.

      One idea that worked for me is to set a timer that I had to press or an alarm went off. It was set at something like 2 hours, and it prevented me from sleeping continually.

    1. 372787+ up ticks,

      No typo, have elevated GG to a more deserving
      title, for a day.

  4. Good Morning Folks,

    Cloudy damp start here

    The weather people on telly are desperately trying to convince us we are having a heatwave, yesterday was apparently the warmest day this year

    1. My Central Heating has been kicking in for the last few mornings. Overnight, it hasn’t been warm, especially as we have the summer duvets on the bed.

    2. ‘Twas sunny first thing but now, quite still, a bit overcast and 9° c here i The Borders.

    3. Don’t think many people will take them seriously after the cold, wet spring we had!

    4. Not here it wasn’t. A cold wind blowing all day. This morning grey and overcast with the sun just beginning to break through.

    5. It is getting warmer. My body clock is all over the place and I’m fatigued and grumpy (ier). Always happens during Summer.

    6. Cripes.
      It would have been the warmest day if you fancied a dip in the Weddell Sea.

  5. Local authorities must answer for the dangerous state of Britain’s roads

    That depends on whose orders they are obeying, I suppose

  7. Ukrainian woman trying to reach godson detained in Russia and deported to Belarus. 30 May 2023.

    A Ukrainian woman who travelled to Russia hoping to arrange the repatriation of her godson and his brother from Russian-occupied Kherson province was arrested, interrogated for two days and threatened with being sent to a penal colony before being deported to Belarus.

    The detention of Olga Guruli was initially reported by Russian media outlets who wrongly suggested she was an employee of Save Ukraine, an NGO that has been helping relatives recover children illegally deported by Russia.

    The Guardian understands that Guruli was part of a group of mothers who had travelled through Russia trying to reach Russian-occupied Kherson province in the hope of being reunited with their children.

    She almost certainly was an employee of Save Ukraine which is a front for Ukie Intelligence. This organisation has often taken credit for those mothers who have gone to the trouble of reclaiming their children and frequently made propaganda capital out of it. This was an attempt at the same. A coup to brag about. How we fooled the Russians! That it would have reduced the chances of real parents regaining their children would not register. What is really interesting about this article is that the author clearly knows all this and has written around it to mislead the General Public. That is what the MSM has become. Purveyors of Lies and Propaganda!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/30/ukrainian-woman-trying-to-reach-godson-detained-in-russia-and-deported-to-belarus

    1. Problem is, it’s a guardian article and thus can only present ‘goodies’ – Ukraine and baddies – ‘Russia’. What’s even more ironic is that the guardian is slightly to the Left of Lenin.

  8. Now I suppose I must spend another wasted day sleeping because of last night’s lack of sleep.

    I wish I could get out of this nasty cycle. I shall take Poppiesmum suggestion, stumble down to the pharmacy and see if I can get some Nytol. A bit leery as I’ve seen a sister-in -law addicted to it. Heigh-ho, we shall see.

    1. I think it helps if you do it gradually, shift your sleeping pattern by two or three hours a day? Hope you get some sunshine today.

    2. You need to stay awake and keep doing something. You may fall asleep in the afternoon, but that’s ok.

      Have you spoken to a doctor about this insomnia? They might be able to get you into a sleep clinic.

      1. Been to the pharmacy and following Poppies mum’s advice I’ve bought Nytol. Le’ts see how we get on (or off ) with that. No way to talk to a GP these days, They’re as rare as rocking horse shit.

    3. No, it wasn’t Nytol I suggested, it was Bach’s ‘Rescue Night’ – “combines five original flower essences plus White Chestnut to help you enjoy a natural night’s sleep”. For some reason it works for me, and I am someone who has been on the prowl through the house during the night hours, only going to sleep when dawn is breaking. It says it can be used as often as required but overuse can cause a laxative effect. You might find Bach ‘Rescue’ – different from Rescue Night – helpful during the day to settle you, it does not have an immediate dramatic effect but you suddenly realise that yes, you do feel more optimistic and settled in yourself than you did an hour or so ago. For use under any circumstances when emotions are giving you a hard time.

      https://www.bachfloweradvice.co.uk/ It is always a good idea to have some background knowledge. A free advice box bottom left pops up on the web site, can they help you with your problem?

      Nytol made me feel groggy and hungover when I woke up.

      1. Hah, Rescue Night, worse than useless. Sorry, Mum, I’ll go with your original suggestion – Nytol.

        1. Oh, I’m so sorry it didn’t work for you, Tom – I seldom have sleepless nights since taking it although I do have a tendency to wake early and worry – about Poppie, the state of the world (this morning I was worrying about Irish farmers being ordered to murder 1,000,000 head of their sheep and cattle because, y’know, ‘climate change’), about being left by myself. I would cope less well than poppiesdad. I don’t think I would bother to get up….

    4. Every night I go to sleep listening to music from an MP3 player through earphones and I’m away before the end of the 5th track – they are the in-ear type so are not intrusive

  10. Morning, all. Currently overcast with a fair breeze after rainfall during the night. No watering required outside of the greenhouses, thank goodness.

  11. 372787+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Dt,
    The Covid inquiry is descending into farce
    Ministers have only themselves to blame for giving it such a broad remit

    The political wagons are well and truly circled

    Cover-up row over ministers’ WhatsApps
    Government is withholding messages to the Covid inquiry to protect Rishi Sunak and MPs, says Boris Johnson ally

    Former Johnson aide at centre of Covid inquiry battle over private messages
    Henry Cook, a close friend of Carrie Johnson, has become a test case for whether the correspondence of senior figures can be kept private

    What place has elite political figures privacy within a free and open society government

    A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside an Enigma is taking shape already, the political overseers are relying, not so much on smoke as the mists of time on this vastly important issue to delay and drag out as long as possible.

    Decent peoples surely must demand answers as to WHY the dead are dead and WHY the ongoing seriously injured are suffering, consequences of trust in the current political
    elites / pharmaceuticals.

    Underneath that, as yet unlifted rock, could very well be a partnership forged in HELL.

  12. OK, guys and gals, I’m going to sleep for a while. Love and hugs to all who cared.

    2. May the sleep be restorative but not so long that it stops sleep tonight. Do you set an alarm when you go for a sleep during the day?

  13. ‘Morning All

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/048004a5454cd81573f998a5aef35af153d038023df3fda00618043aca7bdcb8.jpg

    https://twitter.com/HeckinGoodDogs/status/1663590694269616131

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EHgJkLwUUAENqdE.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c4f702a8e37c1dfbec783889fa9f304bbf509dc65138a193062bf8bf262b56f0.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fcbb2109de024377d197df85df8af4dc1a2dd0ff0196ff477d89fb83cb74cc7e.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0017ddbd9a45187721ace689ba3b946a501edb9b7a7b33ac763b420d786f9bac.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/30e51cc2fe95b80c70b514e6265cf9265441fab8183bc96b74be1027f31e37b8.gif

    1. What is a resilience strategy for paedophiles? How they stop themselves from raping children?

      Dress it up in fancy language all you want. It’s still the rape of kids.

    1. I look at the labels on fruit juice. Odd, I know. This is why when it says ‘oranges’ I tend ot buy it. When it’s alist of enumbers, I don’t. As it is, I’ve been cheating recently and buying frozen fruit, blending it with milk and honey and having Junior drink a good litre of the stuff a day.

      1. Every morning MOH makes a smoothie with frozen fruits (or whatever is getting a bit mushy), orange juice, a banana and yoghurt. At least I know what’s in it and it is a great start to the day.

  16. Good morning.
    I’m just watching the Delingpod with Miriam Elia, and it is blowing my mind.
    She is Jewish, and knows a lot about Jewish history. During lockdown, she started researching on the middle eastern religion that Judaism replaced – and its emphasis on nature worship, a small elite treating the population like cattle and the worship of sex/sexuality. Rings any bells?
    Most disturbing was their child sacrifice practices.
    The first 40 minutes is talking about Miriam Elia’s illustration work, and opposition to lockdown. The religious /history part starts at about 40 minutes.
    Did anyone know that Boris Johnson unveiled an arch of Baal in Trafalgar Square in 2019? (a major artefact of the old religion that was destroyed by ISIS)
    https://rumble.com/v2phanw-miriam-elia.html

    She is the illustrator behind dungbeetle books, a Ladybird spoof. I didn’t like those books, but apparently the story is that when Ladybird realised that she was bringing her first one out, they took her to court, and the case lasted a long time, during which they pinched her ideas and produced their own spoof series, which are the books that I didn’t like, because they are just left wing nastiness using original illustrations which they mock.
    Her books (which she was able to bring out later) are much more gentle and witty and she did her own illustrations.

    1. I wasn’t sure about that podcast at first but it turned out to be a very good one, punctuated as it was by Miriam’s infectious laughter. It has sent me back to the Old Testament.

      1. Me too!

        What was odd for me is that Miriam Elia looks a bit like me, only prettier, so it was like looking at a prettier version of me speaking!

    2. When priests of various types pootled about seekign converts they often suborned the local religions and gods to suit the Christian/Muslim one. After all, all religions have the same root – an oral tradition of tribal survival lore stemming form the oldest man in the village, then sequestered by the laziest who realised by pretending to look after the old man could keep those secrets for himself and not risk his life on the hunt, becoming both valuable and fed.

      This subversion did horrific damage to cultures and retarded human progress for centuries through illiteracy, fear and wealth hoarding.

      2. I read that Christ was reckoned to have been born in September (apparently star gazing nerds had worked it out) but the Winter Solstice was chosen because all religions recognise it in some form or other.
        Many Christian holidays chime with events in the natural calendar.

        1. We tend to see it this way because the Christian church successfully took over the pre-Christian Celtic religion across the Celtic parts of Europe from the Alps to Ireland.
          But there is a LOT more to changing religions than that. A new way of thinking can and does blow old, inferior ways out of the water, especially when the old religion cements a desired hierarchy on society, and the new religion teaches people that they are spiritually equal.
          Trying to reduce religions to laziness and conceit and all the “same root” as wibbling does is utterly inadequate, especially in our age, where a very bad religion represented by a degenerate, nature-worshiping elite is trying to oust the wonderful philosophy of Christianity – which by the way, has its roots in Roman and Greek learning, not the “laziest in the village.”
          The travelling preacher who goes from village to village teaching is not because he is “lazy” but because this is an ancient and valuable part of Mediterranean culture and learning. This tradition was certainly still going in the 1950s around the Mediterranean, not sure if it is still alive today.
          Reply to wibbling as well, obviously.

          1. In some areas of the Highlands the Free Church minister goes from church to church on a Sunday and the congregation follows him

    3. One of my sons gave me Five Go to Brexit Island. I must admit I haven’t read it but some of the titles and the illustrations are amusing.

    4. Am confused. Was taught that Judaism cribbed its ideas from the Pharoahs during the years of enslavement.

      1. I think they did, but they may have spread them further? At one point, she mentioned Judaism being a proselytising religion in those days.
        I think Sikhism made inroads into the lower Hindu castes didn’t it, by promising them that they all had the same status under Sikhism? A monotheistic religion that promises spiritual equality before God has a clear advantage over one that is run by a small elite for their own benefit – which she also mentioned as a characteristic of Baal etc.

  17. Good morning all,

    A cloudy start to the day back at McPhee Towers. Some overnight drizzle but it should clear up to be a nice afternoon. Wind locked in the Nor’-East, 9℃ but the mercury should hit 19-20℃ later.

    From the Gatesograph Letters:

    A new Challenge

    SIR – I have been a fan of University Challenge for decades; I wish Jeremy Paxman well (Arts, May 30). I had just got used to him after 29 years, although he was never going to be as lovable as Bamber Gascoigne. May I express the hope that Amol Rajan, the new host, will speak more clearly than he does on Today, in the interest of both viewers and competitors?

    Dorothy Woolliscroft
    Attleborough, Norfolk

    Unlikely, Dorothy. You’re going to have to get used to it along with the new name, Dieversity Challenge.

    1. If it’s any consolation, the content will get less and less worth listening to. Can’t have difficult questions showing the diversity picks up, can we.

      1. Like so many TV shows – originality seems to be non existent among programme producers!

  18. Good morning all,

    A cloudy start to the day back at McPhee Towers. Some overnight drizzle but it should clear up to be a nice afternoon. Wind locked in the Nor’-East, 9℃ but the mercury should hit 19-20℃ later.

    From the Gatesograph Letters:

    A new Challenge

    SIR – I have been a fan of University Challenge for decades; I wish Jeremy Paxman well (Arts, May 30). I had just got used to him after 29 years, although he was never going to be as lovable as Bamber Gascoigne. May I express the hope that Amol Rajan, the new host, will speak more clearly than he does on Today, in the interest of both viewers and competitors?

    Dorothy Woolliscroft
    Attleborough, Norfolk

    Unlikely, Dorothy. You’re goung to have to get used to it along with the new name, Dieversity Challenge.

  19. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/373cbdc4e4283a86904cd2d55104895799c4115453f17adf39f3b9e5e8844385.png

    Police called in as activists invade Stock debate

    POLICE were forced to remove protesters from a talk at the Oxford Union by leading feminist Kathleen Stock, who told students that some universities were becoming “propaganda machines for a particular point of view”.

    Student activists infiltrated the debating chamber last night and burst out of the audience about 10 minutes in to the event, chanting “no more dead trans kids”.
    Five police officers removed Riz Possnett, a transgender activist, who disrupted the interview with Prof Stock about her gender-critical views. One of Possnett’s hands were found to be glued to the floor when officers stepped in.

    Two other protesters handed out flyers stating “Kathleen Stock is not welcome here” and “We will not let the trans youth of the future suffer as we have”, before they were booed out of the venue by audience members calling for “free speech”.

    Hundreds of protesters screamed and chanted outside the Union during the event as weeks of tension between trans activists and free speech defenders at the university came to a head.

    Prof Stock, 50, is a former philosophy professor who resigned from her post at Sussex University in 2021 after a campaign of intimidation by trans rights activists. She told the Union yesterday that some universities were “becoming propaganda machines for a particular point of view”.

    Prof Stock said she did not find it “traumatic” to have protesters outside the event and said that students in her generation staged similar protests.

    She added: “Generally what I find more worrying is when institutions listen to protesters and take that voice through into the institution and basically become propaganda machines for a particular point of view. Then everyone else in that institution feels that they can’t say what they want to say.”

    She said that had happened in some universities, and told the Union that it would “take courage” for people to realise that “the world does not end” when you have disagreements.

    The row over Prof Stock is the biggest cultural debate to have engulfed Oxford University since protesters demanded the removal of a statue of the Victorian imperialist Cecil Rhodes.

    Enough’s enough. It is time for the sensible Right to muster, regroup, and get mediæval on this Leftist trash. After incarcerating them and thrashing them with a birch rod, it’s time for lessons in common sense (not ‘Common Purpose’), decency, etiquette and good manners. Thereafter they can go to the Army for advanced disciplinary training.

    1. There’s a fundamental misunderstanding that an equilibirum, a mutual respect can be reached. The Left don’t want understanding or tolerance. They want you silenced. They don’t want to hear a different perspective, they just want to erase you.

      You see, while you have a voice, while you can say no, they have to force you into silence. If they hear dissent they are challenged and their minds cannot cope with that. Heck, they’re so full of cognitive dissonance it’s hard enough for them to think rationally – most don’t bother.

      Thus their fascist mission, their desperate, feverish end goal is your silence, then your erasure – ideologically, socially, physically they DO NOT CARE. While you speak, while you exist, you are a threat.

      1. Your first paragraph explains…….
        That’s why they should be locked up.

    2. I was utterly disgusted by the scenes of police removing the fool who had glued itself to the floor in the debating chamber. In all my time there in the 80s, there was never anything like that. I never saw the police in the debating chamber.
      People used the chamber to try and persuade others using words, not to try and stop them speaking using brute force.

    3. Where is the outcry about women who want to be men? Why is this debate always focused on men?
      Just answering that question would settle the debate. If they really were women, they wouldn’t demand, or get, so much attention.

      1. Transmen have very, very good reasons for keeping quiet when they invade men-only places.
        I agree though, from what I have observed, bullying and the desire to control those around them is a strong element of it.

      2. I assume because they are the quiet ones and there are far fewer of them. Whereas mentally ill men who think they’re a woman are loud, brash, arrogant and thuggish – because they are poorly socialised, mentally unstable and, frankly, damaged.

        1. If the builders weren’t so busy with housing estates for all the scroungers, they might have had time to build some new asylums.
          These people need to be taken out of society and locked away.

      3. Perhaps because women who want to be men aren’t as strident? They take the hormones and get on with it (I only know of two and this is what they do).

    4. The result of weak government – at all levels.
      The result of tolerance becoming cowardice.
      The call for a “Man of Destiny” will become overwhelming. The human inability to learn from history is a theme that runs …. throughout history.

    5. “One of Possnett’s hands were found to be glued to the floor…”

      Perhaps set fire to a waste paper basket and sound the fire alarm. That hand would stage a miraculous escape.

  20. Morning all 🙂😉
    Grey today. If it has been raining where you are,
    blame me, I cleaned our car yesterday afternoon. It looked very smart when I’d finished.
    And yes local or distrct councils are to blame for all the potholes, some now very dangerous. And no reply if you email or write a letter. Forget tyring to phone anyone. They are still using covid as their excuses for being totally useless and inefficient.

      1. My family call me rain man.
        I have a 100% record. Holidays and special occasions.
        On our way back south with our caravan to Victoria. We stopped over in a town by the name of Coonabarrabran in NSW, it hadn’t rained for 3 years……….yep, it rained. I’m still waiting for the cheque. 🤗

    2. Our council has skimmed the Highways budget to pay ithe interest on its borrowing and “increased costs of social care”. Bearing in mind they added a fair bit to what the community centre charged per day one wonders how they managed to eff it up as spectacularly as the have.

      1. Was only the mid 70’s. How far we have fallen in only 50 years. All because of Labour’s malice and Tory spite.

        1. If my dear old Dad, gone for 40 years, were to come back, he wouldn’t mince his words about the state of this once great and relatively stable country.

    2. If you can accept your limits, you can ignore them! Oh, what an easy thing to say.

    3. We and our toddler (now in his 40s) son lived in a caravan for around 8 months in Gladstone QLD. Towed it with our 2.25 ltr petrol Long wheel base Land Rover all the way along the coast from Adelaide.
      We had a detachable awning that was the same size as the caravan.
      Quite enjoyed it, but it had its awkward moments.

    4. We didn’t have a car, my father was far too fond of fags, beer and breeding! That didn’t stop us, however, from having caravan holidays. My uncle had a static caravan on the North Denes Caravan Park at Great Yarmouth. We enjoyed holidays there in 1957, 1959 and 1961, either in my uncle’s trailer or in a larger hired static. In 1962 he moved his caravan to Cleethorpes since the five-hour drive down to Great Yarmouth on the old, narrow, A616/A17/A47 route from Barlborough became too much of an ordeal.

    1. I was just reading that article too. It is unbelievable how such a vile criminal is getting away with its despicable nastiness towards decent, vulnerable people.
      Does it have parents? I wonder what they think of their precious offspring.

        1. Parents (whether both present in the home or not) unemployable and breeding on our taxes.

      2. One of the commenters in TCW thinks that Mizzy is state actor.
        I am a bit cynical, but I’d say it was more likely that he is just a criminal with a state-backed PR campaign.

    2. Yet another one who would clearly benefit from my birch-rod/common-sense and good-manners/Army-discipline programme.

      Who may I approach to get this programme initiated?

  25. Good morning lads and lasses.

    Double dose today:

    1) Would it be preferable for a family of adults+children to accept sudden death or to slowly die of hunger without any possibility of help arriving?

    2) Here is a headline and subtext from the Telegraph a few minutes ago:

    “This city was built on diamonds but its citizens are starving

    Mbuji-Mayi, in the Democratic of Republic, made its wealth out of

    diamonds. Now, the city is overcome by poverty and malnutrition

      1. I’ve given up on pointing out the deplorable editorial standards of the New DT.

      2. Yes; of course it’s the Congo, but dare I say that it could be a mineral-rich developing country anywhere in the world.

  26. For all of us who can not get enough diversity, there is an exhibition in at the V&A in London to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the arrival of Windrush next month. As the 22nd approaches, Auntie will be ramping up the fawning and we will all wonder how the country would have survived without such cultural enrichment. I expect to see a gleaming selection of knives, Class A ‘erbal substances and practical demonstrations of street fighting for the young. Tickets are free but I shall be keeping a hand on my purse. If you miss this momentous event, mark October in your diary as must, its Blick history month again. https://londonist.com/london/art-and-photography/windrush-a-voyage-through-the-generations

    2. 570 years ago this week, Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks. That was a momentous event that changed the course of history. Sod the Windrush.

      1. No beating about the Bush there, our Susan. Looks like there will be no jerked chicken on your menu..

    3. Well in July I’ll be celebrating the 75th anniversary of my arrival so sod the Windrush.

    1. Would you eat 6 oranges one after the other.?. or cosume the whole contents of a fruit bowl.?.

        1. Do you remember when pure orange juice was only served in a very small glass. Them along came Little Chef and served it in very large glasses. Far too much for anyone.

          1. Indeed I do. I also remember when orange juice was always freshly-squeezed and not from a container containing God-knows-what!

      1. It’s certainly bad for me, Eddy.

        I got rat-arsed on it a few times in my teenage years and it put me off the stuff for good.🤣

        1. Naughty boy. 😉
          You should have mixed it half and half with Guinness. One of my own favourites.
          I had a run in with rum blackcurrant.
          I’ve never been near it since a company Christmas Dinner in 1965. 😏

          1. I had a similar experience with a cheap ruby ‘port’.
            I refused to drink port for decades, until I came across the sublime Graham’s Vintage port.👍🏻

          4. It looks like something you would find in a specimen phial if you were suffering from something. Yellow, with white bits floating around in it…

      1. We do lots of things despite the NHS, Alf, as well as despite the government, the BBC, the WEF, the UN …

    1. Signed – for all the difference it will make. Have we ever felt so powerless? The government, such as it is is incompetent, lying bastards.

      1. As you say, it won’t make any difference but at least ‘they’ can’t claim that everyone supported their traitorous refusal to deal with the scourge of excessive and unnecessary numbers allowed to settle here.

        1. They take no notice even of the official government petition site. If it reaches 100 thousand they have a little debate, attended by half a dozen MPs and the issue is buried.

          1. I sometimes wonder if names of those who don’t support the agenda (invasion, fake climate scam, Convid refusers etc) are stored for the future. We might be the first in line for forced re-education.

          5. I sometimes wonder if names of those who don’t support the agenda (invasion, fake climate scam, Convid refusers etc) are stored for the future. We might be the first in line for forced re-education.

  29. Is it safe to open the Mail online, or are they still rabbiting on about that TV presenter and that feral TikToker?

  30. A letter today from Philip Dunn says: “Surely small estates such as that of my friend, which are professionally and independently administered, should be fast-tracked, allowing the probate department to concentrate its resources on the more complicated estates that may need careful investigation.” I’m afraid that this is wishful thinking.

    My sister died of cancer (multiple myeloma). As if this wasn’t distressing enough, the hurdles I had to go through to report the death and deal with various authorities were almost as though such authorities revel in the stress of the bereaved.

    My sister’s estate was below the tax threshold and, as with Mr. Dunn, it was professionally and independently administered. But that didn’t stop HMRC.

    My sister, an ex-magistrate, was accused of sending money abroad to me, a Chartered Accountant, to evade inheritance tax. It took over one year and cost about £20,000 to fight the bar stewards. Of course I was ultimately able to prove that HMRC was not only wrong but vindictive. Did they apologise, or even admit that they were wrong? How stupid of me to even think such a thing!

    1. What a horrible experience. The state does what it wants and steamrollers over people.

      1. Like you my experience has been mainly positive – I have managed to complete the probate process twice; the first time online as it was simple enough and the second time by using various forms as the estate, while well under the IHT threshold, was a little more complicated. In both cases the probate team were helpful and quick!

        Edit: Tell us Once is excellent; I used it for both my parents and in both cases the registrar actually did all the [little] work for us. For my mother-in-law in Margate they were less helpful and just gave us the web address and a reference! Luckily it’s easy to do and very effective.

      3. Yes KP it’s certainly a good service – I’ve used them twice in the last 2 years and probate has been quick

  31. I see that feckless MPs – who have no time to look at vaccine damage, or net-zero, or cross-Channel invasions – are going to “investigate” that rubbish morning TV show…..

  32. Cigarette breaks at work give smokers an extra week of holiday

    SMOKERS gain an extra week of holiday every year from cigarette breaks, according to research.

    More than half (52 per cent) of smokers surveyed said they leave their desks for a cigarette or vape break multiple times a day, according to research from the Office for National Statistics. A third of those surveyed said they spend 20 minutes of a working day smoking outside, while the average is between five and 10 minutes.

    This means the average smoker spends about 39 hours on cigarette breaks during the working year, which amounts to an extra six days’ worth of time spent away from their desks.

    Around 6.6 million people in the UK smoke, which equates to 15 per cent of men and 12 per cent of women. The cohort who spent the longest amount of time on cigarette breaks was Generation Z, those born since the mid-nineties, closely followed by Baby Boomers, who were born between 1946 and 1964.

    Generation X, born between 1965 and 1980, spent slightly less time smoking than boomers, while millennials, those born in the Eighties and early Nineties, took the fewest smoke breaks.

    The survey, which was carried out by tobacco-free nicotine pouch and vape company Haypp UK, found that Belfast and Southampton were the cities where workers are most likely to take time out of their duties to smoke.

    Markus Lindblad, from Haypp, said: “Smoking laws in the UK have changed a lot over time and different companies have different rules when it comes to leaving work to smoke, with some being stricter than others. It’s interesting to see that a large proportion of UK smokers are still gaining some extra time away from work to enjoy a cigarette, with some wasting 20 minutes or more every day. A switch to the less harmful nocotine pouches could give a smoker many more years of life,” he added.

    When I was the Screening manager at Norwich Airport, I would permit smokers to have a ‘smoke break’ whenever it fitted in between schedules. In addition, I permitted the rest of the staff (i.e. the fresh-air breathers) to have a ‘non-smoke break’, again at opportune moments, whilst keeping the smokers on watch. This popular stratagem worked to the advantage of all.

    1. People who sit at a desk all day need to get up and about every hour. The fact that some people use this time to smoke is immaterial. No time is actually wasted and to call it an extra week of holiday is just another attack on smokers.

      1. The people I supervised didn’t sit at a desk all day, they were on their feet and physically active for all of their shift. Neither I nor any of my staff “attacked smokers”; I simply initiated a system where everyone, regardless of their personal habits, got a break away from the rigours of the job. It is a concept known as “fairness”.

          1. I’m not being ‘touchy’, Little Chef, just explaining what my stratagem was and how it was received by all.

          2. I’m not being ‘touchy’, Little Chef, just explaining what my stratagem was and how it was received by all.

      2. Before smokers became pariahs they used to sit at their desks smoking all day and still getting on with the work.
        I hold no brief for smokers – I have never smoked and never will.

        1. I thought the Pub smoking ban was a bit much. Smokers like a smoke with their drink. Saying that, the enviroment in restaurants and pubs is much improved. I still think it should have been voluntary though. Market forces would have decided if a smoking establishment was viable or not.

          1. I prefer the clean air inside pubs and restaurants now. I hated the stench of smoke that clung to one’s clothes every time, from being on the bus, or going into a pub. I grew up with a smoker and that put me off for life.

          2. The compulsory aspect was due to belated recognition of the dangers of ‘passive smoking’.

          3. There are such things as air curtains and better ventilation.

            If smoking caused lung cancer everyone from the 40’s and 50’s would have died of it. They didn’t.

          4. And I had a dear friend, PE teacher, who never smoked in her life- died from lung cancer.

          5. Very sad. Today they would argue that is was caused by passive smoking. There is no proven link.

          6. Before pub smoking bans came in, The Fat Cat at Sheffield, one of the country’s premier cask-conditioned ale establishments, had a policy of having separate smoking and non-smoking rooms. This was way back in 1981 and it worked very well to everyone’s satisfaction.

    1. I am listening to it now – am 15 minutes in to it ATW (At Time of Writing). Well worth visiting.

      1. I know Bill doesn’t like him, but he seems ok to me, and a victim of vilification. Why is free speech being censored? ‘They’ obviously don’t like the message. I wonder how long it will be before Substack is censored.

        1. When a lawyer hints that something ain’t 100% correct, I endeavour to listen.

          1. Bridgen is quite a combative person who has fallen out with family members regarding his business – but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong about everything. There is no way he exhibited anti-semitism by repeating a tweet – which was the excuse for expelling him from the Conservative party. He has also gone to a lot of trouble to back up his assertions about the jabs by quoting government figures.

          2. This faux government doesn’t believe in the truth even if they publish it.
            I, most definitely, don’t believe anything it says or does.

          3. I suppose we have to admit that Ms Raynor had a point when she used the word ‘scum’!

        2. I agree with you but Bill doesn’t like him because a judge said that he lied in court in a domestic case about property.

          (Of course we know that lawyers – and especially judges – do not always hold the same view on the topic of mendacity or perjury as Matilda’s aunt did.)

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1a17769e8576861f7300b4b915621250767e8310aed088b848d2a2df0493c0da.jpg

          Her aunt who from her earliest youth
          Had kept a strict regard for truth
          Attempted to believe Matilda
          The effort very nearly killed her
          And would have done so had not she
          Discovered this infirmity
          For once towards the close of day
          Matilda growing tired of play
          And finding she was all alone
          Went tiptoe to the telephone
          And summoned the immediate aid
          Of London’s noble fire brigade.

        3. I agree with you but Bill doesn’t like him because a judge said that he lied in court in a domestic case about property.

          (Of course we know that lawyers – and especially judges – do not always hold the same view on the topic of mendacity or perjury as Matilda’s aunt did.)

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1a17769e8576861f7300b4b915621250767e8310aed088b848d2a2df0493c0da.jpg

          Her aunt who from her earliest youth
          Had kept a strict regard for truth
          Attempted to believe Matilda
          The effort very nearly killed her
          And would have done so had not she
          Discovered this infirmity
          For once towards the close of day
          Matilda growing tired of play
          And finding she was all alone
          Went tiptoe to the telephone
          And summoned the immediate aid
          Of London’s noble fire brigade.

  35. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/30/i-collapsed-on-the-tube-nobody-bothered-to-help/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    In need and ignored
    SIR – I share Iain Dale’s amazement at our “walk on by” society (Comment, May 30). I was similarly ignored by fellow passengers when tripped inadvertently by another’s errant walking stick at London’s Euston station. Not a single soul took any notice as I lay on the concourse floor in shocked discomfort, with some even stepping over my prone figure.

    I was unhurt but did not perform well at my scheduled meeting, and have been puzzling ever since over whether I had offended the busy commuters by getting in their way.

    Chris McLaughlin
    London W4

    Last week , when I visited a very nice local garden centre .. privately owned , a place I have been visiting for years. They have a nice selection of perennials and a huge selection of flowers for tubs .

    I was trying to access a pot containing a large blue flowered perennial geranium .. the pots were sitting on wooden rack things , (forgotten the name, Pallets ).. I leant over , put my foot on the rack and the rotten wood cracked , I tumbled over , trapping my foot and ankle .. I lay there stunned for a few minutes .. thankfully didn’t fall through the glass of the greenhouse , but fell over onto grass.. and there was no one else around …

    My hip and leg/ foot were twisted at a strange angle .. thoughts like bye bye to everything ran through my mind , and panic st in .

    I yelled help help, several times , no one could hear me , yelled louder , and a woman with a young baby on her back appeared , she then yelled “accident , some one help” , then 2 other ladies , customers, appeared and tried to disentangle me ..

    I had to twist around on my bum , very difficult , whilst they ripped the rotten wood away from my foot .. I wriggled free .. and just sat there … so grateful , and thanked everyone warmly.

    The lady with the baby asked me whether that was my husband sitting in a blue car in the carpark .. I said yes .. she went to retrieve him , and Moh appeared , quiet shocked to see me sitting on the grass .. The other 2 ladies were in their seventies , the same as me , so couldn’t help me stand up ..

    Moh did his toe to toe hauling up technique .. arms stretched out leaning back, gripping my hands .. and up I sprang .. no breakages , just shocked and sore .. Still okayish , though hip is painful .

    1. Not much fun this getting old business, is it, Maggie? Be careful, could have been so much worse.

      1. Yep , MM, it is a terrible thought , but we must all take care, despite the fact the 26 year old me lingers and resurfaces sometimes 😉😊

        1. You’re as old as you feel…….so long as the bits that hurt are quiet.
          Inside I’m still a young girl………

        2. 18 months ago I was getting a lift in the back of a pickup vehicle. As it stopped to let me off (I’d had 2 or 3 pints), I thought I’d leap off by vaulting over the side and down to the road. On the way down I noticed the road had quite a steep camber. Knees buckled and slammed onto the road. They haven’t been very good since. It is hard to grow into one’s age.

          1. Well I don know about you but I have never been this age before so it is very hard to know how to act my age.

      3. You’re bloody right. The only good thing about old age is that, “it doesn’t last that long.” I await the arrival of the grim reaper.

        1. I’d rather postpone being reaped for as long as possible, but I do think our generation has lived through the best of times and things will only get worse. The way children are being indoctrinated in schools now with trans fantasies and greenery can only ensure their lives are nasty and brutish, even if they are not short.

          1. I fear for them, Jules and my Grandchildren and great grandchildren and beyond. I’ve charted my family from the the year 530 and we’ve never had to face such destruction at the hands of those we’ve elected to govern us and act as OUR servants. They have no idea and its time to overthrow them and get on as best we may.

          2. Strangely enough, I had a similar conversation with a neighbour this morning; she was walking her dog into town with her husband (he joked that he identified as Mary on a Wednesday, which is why he was doing the shopping) as I was bringing the boys back from a visit to a dog-friendly cafe.

    2. Garden centres seem fond of displaying enticing pots and plants on inaccessible displays.
      Thankfully you weren’t hurt more badly.
      As for ‘Chris’ (Christopher, Christine or undecided – you can’t be sure nowadays), I wonder if those who passed by thought he/she could be a drunk or a druggie, in which case most people would steer clear.

    3. On a lighter note; I attend walking football on a Monday and Thursday morning. There’s no running or tackling though (old)boyish enthusiasm sometimes rears it’s head, and the players are only permitted three touches. Some of the non-tackles and contortions have players tumbling over by installments. It’s an outdoor, modern plastic pitch. So tumbles are cushioned as much as falling on grass.

      It’s the tweaked muscles that cause more problems, the ‘warm ups’ are quite extensive.

        1. Generally so, with the occasional collision. Fortunately, most of us pack our sense of humour in our kit bags.

      2. Sounds like something I could manage – at least until my inbuilt competitiveness kicks in and I’m sent off

        1. My inner struggle is real. 😂 There are occasional bumps but it’s generally good natured.

          I’ve been sent off for running; much to the bemusement of my former football or rugby mates, who didn’t even realise I could run.

    4. Good job he was there to take you home, as well. I hope the hip is just bruised and not more damaged than that.

    5. Government will introduce health checks at the gates of garden centres and you’ll have to book your visit 18 months ahead.

      Hope you don’t ache to much Belle.

      1. It was one of the older garden places , where they sell cider and stuff like that , where grass snakes glide amongst the pots , and toads linger under the damp potting on benches .. and dragonflys dart through the old green houses .. and the smell of lavender and jasmine reminds you of other places.

        My hip aches a little .

    6. It’s London, why is he surprised? If it happened in a rural area people would be only too willing to help because a) they are indigenous and b) they still retain community cohesion and a sense of caring for their neighbours.

  36. Indeed
    https://www.takimag.com/article/stop-scaring-our-kids-to-death/

    I’m not here to argue about “the science” of global warming. What I do know is it’s only “settled science” because anyone who dares question the “experts” is written off as crazy or a quack. Meanwhile, the people who warned us about “the population bomb,” nuclear winter, mass starvation, running out of energy, global cooling and a future so polluted that everyone would have to wear gas masks in cities, are telling us to just trust them as they are busy at work erecting a multitrillion-dollar climate change industrial complex that revolves around our planetary savior — the windmill.

    2. This may be enlightening:

      Climate Change and You

      The climate ‘science’ is wrong. CO2 being 0.04% of the atmosphere is a cause for good, as it is essential for plant life.

      The atmosphere is 78% Nitrogen and 21% Oxygen. The remaining 1% are various trace elements of which CO2 is but a small part.

      The greatest cause of any change in the Earth’s climate, is due to the cyclical nature of the Sun’s phases, which may lead to vast differences between ice ages and continual heatwaves

      Check https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/03/04/challenging-net-zero-with-science/

      Please feel free to copy and paste this anywhere appropriate.

          1. Apparently there are now parts of the world where deserts are being “re-greened” by nature. One doesn’t read too much about that because it doesn’t suit the agenda

        3. The amount and acceleration of deforestation worldwide should be close to the top of the list that the Greeniacs clamour for. Instead, we’re seeing UK councils allowing, or even encouraging new housing estates on greenbelt sites in a slash-and-burn policy.

          1. I grind my teeth when people say, “obviously we need to build new houses”. No, we don’t! If we got rid of the illegals and prevented more coming we would have enough housing.

  37. The BBC version:
    Labour defends donations from Just Stop Oil backer Dale Vince
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65764041

    The Telegraph version:
    Just Stop Oil backer who donated to Labour during Covid urged to repay taxpayers’ furlough cash
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/05/31/just-stop-oil-labour-covid-donation-dale-vince-repay/

    The BBC report doesn’t mention the £300K of furlough money that Vince’s company received. The DT report includes this:

    “The point of furlough was to help keep people in work, not allow companies to make donations to Labour,” a Treasury source told the Telegraph.

    “It is obvious Dale Vince’s company didn’t need the support, so he should voluntarily repay the money. Sir Keir Starmer should also ask himself whether this was an appropriate use of furlough funds, and hand the donation back.”

    Vince was on the Today programme this morning. He got on very well with Nick Robinson. They had a little laugh at ‘right-wingers’, including JRM, whom Dale advised to keep out of it because he makes money from offshore accounts and that makes him a bit of a hypocrite.

    I felt my fists clenching as I listened to the arrogant creep.

    2. Somehow he has moved from being a penniless traveller in a caravan to a multi – millionaire with a business that has fleeced its customers by pretending to be “Eco”, to living in a hilltop mansion folly a stone’s throw from here.

      1. AFAIK, work has yet to start on his wooden football stadium with its organic pitch.

      1. I think that what he’s saying within the article is that there will be outliers and that for every one like Sowell there will also be white people who are thicker than the average black.

        1. And how! You just have to look at the green benches to know that. Pretty much all pf them.

    3. The penultimate paragraph is apposite:

      “Much of the madness of the 2020s, such as the post–George Floyd murder
      and car crash sprees and California’s reparations plans, is likely
      attributable to blacks figuring out that they weren’t going to catch up
      but that they could guilt-trip whites into paying reparations because
      whites have been disarmed of mentioning the IQ and crime gaps.”

  39. I can’t post the article sadly, as I have no access to the Telegaffe online, but Allison Pearson is really on form today – a long article about some poor chap who is dying from cancer because the NHS became a COVID only service in lockdown, and shorter pieces on Labour’s insane idea to stop drilling for oil and gas, Greek taverna prices and the expansion of LGBTQWERTY to include more letters!

    2. Morning Bleau. You only have to read Nottl to discover the reality of the NHS. It’s dying!

    3. I HOPE THIS HELPS..

      Labour’s plan to stop drilling in the North Sea is national suicide
      From the likely rise in energy costs to premature unemployment, here are six drawbacks to Sir Keir’s bright idea
      ALLISON PEARSON
      31 May 2023 • 8:00am
      Allison Pearson
      Sir Keir Starmer
      Sir Keir Starmer has announced that Labour plans, when it is in power, to grant no new licences for oil and gas production in the North Sea
      There are precious few grains of comfort for Conservatives as the Government finds ever more ingenious ways to repel its own voters. What does a cap on food prices do except create food shortages and bad memories of the 1970s? They’ll be bringing back the unlamented Austin Maxi next in that never-to-be-forgotten shade of nappy brown.

      Our only hope lies in the leader of the Opposition’s truly remarkable stupidity, I think. Sir Keir Starmer has announced that Labour plans, when it is in power, to grant no new licences for oil and gas production in the North Sea. Apparently, this will turn us into “a clean energy superpower”.

      I’m sure that will be a thought to cheer everyone up as we sit in the freezing cold and dark because we’ve had a week of the wrong kind of wind and our last coal-fired power station was destroyed in a fit of net zero zealotry so there’s no back-up to create electricity.

      Here are six drawbacks to Sir Keir’s bright idea, feel free to send in your own:

      Energy Security
      Since Russia invaded Ukraine, we’ve kind of noticed that energy security is really rather important, haven’t we? We will still be using huge quantities of oil and gas to generate electricity under any foreseeable scenario for decades to come, whatever the Just Stop Oil brats may say. Relying on electricity from abroad is a bad idea. Norway could easily decide she wants to keep her own electricity, especially if it’s a bad winter. Having our own sources protects us from the vagaries of geopolitical instability and hopefully means we can keep the lights on if the chappies at OPEC get in a bad mood with us.

      Cost
      In the US, at times they’ve been paying only one fifth of the price for natural gas that British consumers have been paying. As Europe becomes too virtuous to exploit its own supplies, the cost of living crisis will only get worse. Energy prices are likely to rise across the board, which will be fun because we can’t even afford them at the moment. Everyone will be skint; recession, here we come! Also, importing liquefied natural gas from the States, transporting it 3,000 miles across the Atlantic, and pretending it doesn’t create a massive carbon footprint so we can make ourselves look greener is, er, lying.

      Thousands of Very Angry Scotsmen
      Tons of highly-skilled, well-paid jobs will be lost. Starmer reckons the unemployed can immediately find green jobs, but the energy transition won’t work that smoothly. If those jobs are lost prematurely, we could erode the skills base we need for the hi-tech jobs of the future. Also, how is Labour showing solidarity with workers by wrecking an entire industry? Don’t they leave that sort of thing to the Tories?

      Killing the golden goose
      The Tories’ windfall tax means oil and gas companies already pay a massive 75 per cent on their profits. It’s completely nuts to alienate major firms that contribute billions to the British economy. Plus, there is no prospect of any further private investment in any part of the energy industry, especially badly-needed nuclear, when a future government is threatening to wrench society off fossil fuels without a viable alternative.

      You Can’t (Just) Stop Oil
      You don’t have to be a climate change denier to see that oil will form part of our energy mix until, say, someone finds a way of making plastic from sunlight. Just wait until the idealistic young realise what electricity outages mean. You can’t charge your phone from a tree, Barnaby.

      Economic Suicide
      No biggie. Of course, the Conservatives could admit that there’s no way we’re going to hit the 2050 net zero target, at the same time encouraging oil and gas companies to get drilling so fuel bills would be much cheaper. Don’t be ridiculous, Allison. That might prove popular with voters!

        1. No, But I’ll try and stay awake until tonight and take Poppiesmum’s remedy – Nytol.

          2. So do i. I’m getting desperate , My little sis, Hertslass, keeps me going.

    2. For the last couple of mornings I’ve been watching a blackbird and its chick – although the chick is larger than its mother it insists on being fed by her. Lazy little git

  42. 372787+ up ticks,

    Have I heard right, seeing as the United Kingdoms political elite overseers have declared war on Russia and as far as anybody I know, and anybody they know,we have never been asked.

    Now someone in Russia has recognised this fact and said that the United Kingdom could become a legitimate target.

    So if IVAN will recognise the fact that the decent peoples of these Isles are, in the main blameless, will he (IVAN) strick strictly to political / politico’s meeting centres.

    I for one, OGGA1, and I’m sure many more would be immensely grateful.

    1. The more stupid a species becomes the more dangerous it becomes.

      Mankind is no longer fit-for-purpose.

    2. Ivan might reasonably expect a bit of vocal opposition to our evil leaders bombing Russia.

      1. 372787+ up ticks,

        Afternoon BB2,
        Nothing alters the fact that the political overseers of these Isles are making the bullet for others to fire,
        innocents die.
        There’s mega bucks in armerments, the longer the conflict the bigger the rake off,
        innocents die.

    1. I think they have the same problems as in Britain, namely that the civil service has been taken over by unelected pushers of the WEF agenda. The Greeniacs are embedded!

        1. Hardly representative of the ratio of different ethnic groups as a whole of the country, is it?

    3. Poor bloke on the right side near the bannister. He can see why he’ll never see promotion.

  47. Just had a call from the hospital- an appointment was suggested for 20 June at the far away hospital. I said that we live 10 mins from nearest one.
    I asked was this for the thing to be cut out- no, it’s a 20 min consult. I said so you expect me to travel 3 hours total on a bus both ways for a 20 min consult.
    Going to call tomorrow and see if it can be a phone consult.
    I have been in tears and am livid. The NHS is truly taking the piss out of us. Still no call re the MRI.
    God rot this government and what they have reduced us to.

    2. To the NHS, you are an annoyance. You cost them time to deal with. They’ve no interest in how put out you are by their demands, only by what they have to do to help you.

    4. To the NHS you are number , a number within a specific age group.. once you get to 65yrs or more , they don’t mind that you don’t matter .

      We need a person in authority in government who cares about the quality of NHS care for the older generation .

      Covid 19 was a prime example .. The government didn’t close the borders , there are so many issues to discuss, but most of all they left elderly people struggling to cope, and frail poorly people without any medical care .

  48. ‘Stop hiring useless white male pilots’, RAF told

    It comes after claims the service had been put under ‘intolerable
    pressure’ to pause recruitment of white men to hit diversity targets

    By

    Danielle Sheridan,

    Defence Editor

    31 May 2023 • 1:16pm

    The RAF instructed staff to stop hiring “useless white male pilots” in a leaked email seen by The Telegraph.

    In
    an email dated Jan 19, 2021, Squadron Leader Andrew Harwin, who worked
    in the Officer and Aircrew Selection Centre, sent an email to his
    colleagues, where he wrote: “I noted that the boards have recently been
    predominantly white male heavy.

    “If we don’t have enough BAME and
    female to board then we need to make the decision to pause boarding and
    seek more BAME and female from the RAF.

    “I don’t really need to
    see loads of useless white male pilots, let’s get as focused as
    possible, I am more than happy to reduce boarding if needed to have a
    balanced BAME/female/male board.”

    An RAF source told The Telegraph
    that the “email clearly demonstrates the endemic culture that was
    created by the senior leadership to chase ridiculous diversity statistics that were patently unachievable”.

    “This culture extended to issuing orders that were illegal,” they said.

    It
    comes after Group Captain Lizzy Nicholl, who took over the recruitment
    department at RAF Cranwell in 2021, quit over claims the service had
    paused the recruitment of white men to hit diversity targets.

    Earlier this year it was revealed in a Defence Select Committee that Group Captain Nicholl had been accused of discriminating against 160 white men in its effort to meet the targets.

    ‘Slap in the face’

    In a recent interview with The Telegraph, Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston, the outgoing head of the RAF, called Group Captain Nicholl’s resignation a “regrettable” outcome.

    “One
    of the mistakes we made was that those aspirational goals filtered down
    into people’s personal objectives in-year which they found almost
    impossible to meet,” he said.

    “That put intolerable pressure on them and I’ve apologised to the recruiting and selection organisation.”

    He added: “We were doing all we could to tackle this intractable problem, which is the lack of diversity in our service.”

    However,
    RAF sources said Sir Mike’s response was a “slap in the face” for the
    former Group Captain, who had seemingly lost her job after blowing the
    whistle on unlawful practices.

    They said: “Everything we are told
    in the RAF is about doing the right thing, but nobody in the
    organisation has been held accountable.”

    While in charge of the
    RAF, Sir Mike committed to having 40 per cent women and 20 per cent of
    personnel from ethnic minorities by 2030.

    However, of the 1,500 pilots in the RAF at the end of last year, only 30 were women and around 10 were from ethnic minorities.

    Less
    than two per cent of the 8,500 engineers were from ethnic minorities
    and six per cent were women, while only three per cent of the RAF as a
    whole came from an ethnic minority.

    1. ‘Stop hiring useless white male pilots’ and hire even more useless brown ones instead. Give them military hardware you’re prepared to lose and let the problem resolve itself. Or send them to Kiev.

    2. “useless white male pilots”
      Battle of Britain.
      Every time you think we have plumbed the depths, they manage to sink lower.

        1. The Yanks had a special squadron in WW2 comprising of black pilots – they had a lot to prove and did so

          3. I had vaguely heard of them. The US army (and presumably army air force) were big on apartheid (only it wasn’t called that then).

    4. Whatever happened to a selection board that chose on the basis of the best person for the job?

  49. The EU AI Act

    The following article sets out the current attempts to define what AI is:

    As the AI Act is intended to prevent harm from AI, the definition of what AI is proves fundamental.

    The idea that AI has the ability to end human life on earth has led legislative drafters to adopt the notion of avoidance of harm as used in the hippocratic oath in the field of medicine.

    This means identifying what a significant risk is as discussed here:

    https://www.biometricupdate.com/202303/eu-ai-act-definition-of-ai-aligns-with-oecd-definition-biometric-risk-updated#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20OECD%20defines%20an%20Artificial,influencing%20real%20or%20virtual%20environments.%E2%80%9D

    2. It is still possible to be subjected to a significant risk whilst being treated by a doctor. Neverthless that risk is accepted by a patient by simply seeking treatment from a qualified doctor.

      One of the issues I have come across in deciding whether to accept medical intervention is the diagnosis of atrial fibrillation,AF which I was deemed to have had after a doctor saw my ECG. It can now be ‘diagnosed’ by a computer based analytical device, KardiaMobile.

      The medical definition of AF is a heart rhythm that is irregularly irregular and the KardiaMobile has been the subject of NHS evaluation. I don’t believe an appropriate treatment can be prescribed from an interpretation from such a machine which seemingly displays the trace of an ECG waveform on a smartphone. This is basically an example of an implementation of the way Articial Intelligence is starting to be used to validate a clinical diagnosis and effectively we are already moving into an artificiallly intelligent world where an individual is convinced by a machine that there is something wrong with them.

      1. On the other hand, my OH knows his heartrate is double what it should be and he is very breathless, yet the beta blockers he’s been prescribed seem to have made no difference.

        1. It took me many years of learning how my heart worked to discover why my GP prescriptions for lowering blood pressure were not working.
          I found that a feature called Qt interval in my ECG was abnormally long and could result in dangerously high heart rates for my age. It took a complete drug washout and a subsequent spell on a cardiac ward in hospital before a consultant managed to find an appropriate drug combination to lower my heart rate from the previously high resting level of 85 bpm to around about 60 bpm.
          Nevertheless there was no explanation of why the cardioversion pathway I was put on was abandoned after I challenged a diagnosis of AF based on my ECG. Neither did I get any confirmation that my ECG indicated a long QT interval.

          I’m continuing with medication I left hospital with seven years ago with no adverse effects and a significantly reduced resting heart rate.
          I can’t think that there is any rational explanation for the way the drugs I’m on seem to be working. I see my hospital cardiologist annually and try not to challenge the treatment he suggests when he notices my significant heart rate increase when I move from lying down for a 12 lead ECG to a sedentary BP measurement.

          It’s still a mystery to me as to why bisoprolol should work for me and not for your OH but it is possible that individual responses to multiple drugs may be relevant.

          1. Yes – I’m sure people react in various ways to their drugs and my OH needs to be assessed again to find something that works for him. However getting an appointment before the end of time seems to be difficult these days.

    3. Sorry, am too busy to check every detail. The EU AI Act is not, and will not be, as far as I am aware, an Act of Parliament.

      The European Union executive, known as the European Commission, creates EU law via ‘Directives’. The EU Parliament’s main role is to revise all proposed directives; they are then approved and transmitted to the governments and legislatures of all the Member States.

      Ask yourself if there is any point in legislating to control a work in progress, which is what AI is.

      Of course, as Araminta might possibly note, the EU functionaries are trying to protect their own jobs and careers.

      1. “People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do…” Isaac Asimov.

    1. I’ve made the Warqueen iced almond paste filled pastries as well as just out of the oven croissants and scones for lunch.

      1. Yummy. I like almond flavour. I know marzipan is love it or hate it but I’m especially fond of it with a good dark chocolate.

        1. Aside from the tray of half chocolate shortbread, yes.

          She is much happier these days and not just because she’s getting fed properly. Not standing on train platforms with Turks leering at her, or having to leave at a certain time to catch the ‘walking security bus’. Might simply be getting up at half 7 instead of half 5 and working a 3.5 day week.

          My only worry is she’ll be bored as much the Newfs, she craves learning and mental activity but at a scale that leaves most standing. She has talked about a doctorate though. I know she’s never given up on medieval French women saints, but it could be Fourier and the history of sheet music. Who knows.

    2. I don’t often eat desserts or cakes but when i see those beautiful patisserie in shop windows i always stop to buy some. Each decorated like mini works of art. I don’t care how many calories are in them. It’s not as if i’m eating six every day.
      I also once a year buy a big box of homemade chocolates from a local confiserie.
      I just don’t binge.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c5a1b5ecfe00e53e015e432c3d1d8d078648ca8a296c076caedf5006d3d6807e.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6930b0e3398a4f57182e3ccb4a8b94084c3aa2be37b1586ec87329b0b5e9f7f7.jpg

  52. I am in no way racist but note that Cardiff becomes yet another city to have a Muslim mayor. Bablin Molik.

  54. Afternoon all.

    I started at 7:00 am and got through the first 6 locks by 9:15. Stopped at a water point and filled the water tank. As soon as I had finished the lock keeper directed me to accompany the first boat in the queue to descend the flight of 16 locks. Fortunately for me the family in the hire boat were content to operate the majority of the locks. At the bottom of the flight in just over 2 hours I treated myself to a late English Breakfast. Now moored up for the day. But wandering the fields of Wiltshire to catch a phone signal!

    2. It sounds, Stephen, as if you where descending Caen hill. I hope it proved all OK for you, It’s a Gargantuan task and good luck for trying.

    3. I’m impressed! Stopped to have a squizz at the flight from the bottom, on my way home, and my goodness that was quite some undertaking!

    1. Trade union mentally has never change from plain nasty. It’s all a bit like the 1970s and the miner’s strikes.
      That led to a pit fall, perhaps this will result in driverless trains.

        1. In some aspdcts Possibly to everyone on the planet Sos.
          You’ve probably stopped over in Singapore on the way to Sydney.
          You’d know how well that entire city works. No train drivers or guards, it all works like clockwork.

          1. Singapore is an amazing city.
            Not only stopped over, I’ve worked there briefly.

            I think AI is most likely to be putting jobs at risk where there is a high degree of automated interaction, signalling for example.

  56. I just had another of my brainwaves,

    Has anyone considered that AI or Artificial Intelligence might be a force for good, as there appears to be a shortage of any intelligence at all in our ruling elites.

    If so we then we should encourage our experts to look into creating an ACS system, Artificial Common Sense.

    Just think of all the money we would save not having to pay for all the mad agendas our politicians come up with, if we let computers with ACS run the country, there would be no socialism, no wokism, no gender pronoun malarkey, no carbon zero targets, no EU or mass migration.

    1. The only AI that could stop our present political cohorts is an Armed Insurrection.

  57. Signing off early. My cold has developed into blocked sinuses. Contacted surgery this morning – seeing actual Doctor at 5.15.

    I’ll look in tomorrow if I am spared.

    A demain. Prolly.

  58. Pretty white girl murdered by Nigerian boyfriend who butchered her .

    Akpomedaye, who was born in Nigeria, met Ms Jedrkowiak online in January 2021 and they dated for around a year before she ended the relationship.

    In the weeks before her murder Akpomedaye, who could not accept the break up, began trying to manipulate her by threatening suicide.

    Kerim Fuad KC, defending, said: ‘It is truly tragic and awful that a relationship once so full of hope and love can have come to this.

    ‘The photographs that the jury were shown of the defendant and Ms Jedrkowiak speak of happiness, love and hope for the future.

    ‘Her life was to be ended by the defendant’s act borne of rejection and jealousy.’

    He told the court Akpomedaye had been ‘slowly falling down a dark hole’, living in maggot-infested ‘squalor’ and facing financial difficulty.

    In the weeks before the murder he told Ms Jedrkowiak: ‘We will be together no matter what. I will find you.’

    Akpomedaye was hurt during his attack, giving false names when he twice went to hospital for treatment.

    He used a bizarre cover story – saying he was a sword performer whose trick had gone wrong.

    But the killer had left a trail of blood leading from the scene, leading detectives to a pond in Gunnersby Park, where he had dumped items he stole from Ania.

    Using CCTV, forensic evidence and phone analysis, Metropolitan Police officers managed to arrest him within 22 hours of Ania’s death.

    He was caught at Victoria coach station trying to return home to Wales.

    Police say he has never shown any remorse for the murder, refusing to answer officers’ questions or attend court for his trial or sentencing.

    Share or comment on this article: Thug who ambushed ex-girlfriend in an alleyway and tried to cut off her head is jailed for life

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12143707/Thug-ambushed-ex-girlfriend-alleyway-tried-cut-head-jailed-life.html

    Extradite him to Nigeria .. they still have the death penalty .

    1. “He was caught at Victoria coach station trying to return home to Wales.”

      There’s lovely, one of the Carmarthenshire Akpomedayes.

      Diversity and multicultural madness.

      1. I’m sure there will be an underground bushmeat market where he could be sold and they would be delighted to slaughter and eat him.
        Win win.

        1. I saw a programme this morning about african originals working for government departments and between them they have stolen around 1.5 million from housing benefits. they were sentenced to a collective 17 years. That is going to cost us a lot more than 1.5 million.

  59. Petition
    Hold a parliamentary vote on whether to reject amendments to the IHR 2005     Regarding WHO

    Just hit 50,000.

  60. A wee Birdie Three today.

    Wordle 711 3/6
    🟩⬜🟩⬜🟩
    🟩🟨🟩⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Yay! And me.

      Wordle 711 3/6

      🟩⬜🟩🟨⬜
      🟩🟨🟩⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      2. A trio of threes

        Wordle 711 3/6

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

    2. Flying high with an eagle.
      Wordle 711 2/6

      🟩⬜🟩⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  61. We went to the shops today… such fun 🙁
    Anyway, I bought a book- Matilda by Roald Dahl. I love his books and read them to my son. I put on my close up glasses and checked that it had not been tampered with- according to the verso page- not so.
    And, an added bonus, it has large print;-)

    2. No government will ever have the courage to do what is necessary. Any proposals would be met by great violence from the Left, still capable of putting enormous numbers on the street, with the police protecting the supporters of immigration against any counter-demonstration.

    3. May as well ask why we fund stonewall as well. Why are we forced to fund all these Left wing abominations.

      Borders are what makes a country a nation.

      1. And this country being a nation is the last thing they want. In Bruxelles the EU has written on the wall, “the nation state is evil and must be destroyed”.

    4. It’s like I repeat: The lack of action to stop illegal immigration means the government approve of it, and by tasking the customs and others to bring the immegrants to the UK, just proves it.
      Braverman’s blethering is just a smokescreen. The UK is to be another failed African state. Look at how many wogs there are in the state apparatus. Barely a white face to be seen anywhere.

    6. The government don’t have any money, they are stealing from the Tax payers.

  63. Afraid of not getting what you ordered with online shopping?
    Ha! Try online dating;-)

    1. The hardest part about online dating is finding someone who clicks with you.

    2. There’s a YT channel, Better Bachelor, that covers many appalling online dating events.
      Glad I’m too old for that carp, and too married.

  65. 372787+ up ticks,

    Could it be that those who have used fear as a manipulating factor be about to sample the scent of fear themselves.

    breitbart,
    British Politicians Are Now Legitimate Military Targets, Threatens Kremlin

    3. Our idiotic Biden’s arse licking sycophants have yet again backed the wrong horse. Ukraine is defeated, will never be part of NATO nor will it be accepted into the EU. If any part of Ukraine is left after this war it will be as a demilitarised zone.

      The EU and UK by supporting the Ukraine in a proxy US war have alienated the rest of the world. We have no friends but only enemies. The US under Biden has been responsible for one disaster after another and our stupid politicians have gone along with the madness.

      Germany is in recession having lost its Russian oil and gas with the destruction by Norway and the US of its Nordstream pipeline. We in the UK are heading the same way with the mindless pursuit of woke WEF propaganda and suicidal green policies.

      We need a complete clear out at Westminster. The fools in office do not represent us or our better interests. They are a corrupt cabal of chancers and life losers.

      1. 372787+ up ticks,

        Evening C,
        I take it,like myself C, without radical change you are not holding out much hope for the future, I am in total agreement with all your
        comment.

        1. We must always retain hope for the future. I believe one of the worst failures in the present time is in the distortion of information by the MSM and in the UK in particular, the wretched beneath contempt BBC.

          We are fed lies and inversions of the Truth, whether the abject distortion of the progress of Ukrainians in the proxy US war, the total failure of trade sanctions against Russia which have United most of the major countries with Russia and against the West, the ineffectiveness of the EU in its foreign policy where its objectives are obscure and the utter incompetence of the glutton Bunter and his emaciated mendacious Indian successor in lending support to a clown in Ukraine in the first place.

          I could go on to point out the corruption and dishonesty displayed in the faux pandemic from unused Nightingale Incubation Hospitals, fake ‘fixed’ tests for Covid, needless social distancing measures and mask mandates, harmful lockdowns, the squandering and rifling of billions in support of the scam, the bumping off of the elderly discharged from hospitals into care homes with Midazolam and the poisoning of a greater part of the population with unclean and ineffective Covid jabs.

  66. Killer ex-boyfriend branded a coward after refusing to appear in court for sentencing
    Dennis Akpomedaye stabbed former girlfriend Anna Jedrkowiak almost 40 times before trying to behead her with a kitchen knife.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/31/anna-jedrkowiak-killer-dennis-akpomedaye-branded-coward/

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f1cb0608f1aaff1ca5d886a8fe80b0766634dd6886a837b32cfe3798522faff6.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6fc769632487c1b7607aa06b30b5cd7c8b8839a6fdcc93a959a47dd833b87119.jpg

    Isn’t miscegenation encouraged in TV commercials?

    4. Miscegenation
      It’s ALWAYS Black Man, White Woman in the adverts, NEVER the other way around. I guess that would look like enslavement.

      If any Nottler can find an example of the latter, I’ll award him/her 5 upticks

      1. I’m sure I have seen white man and black woman (Ebay? Etsy?). She’s looking at a mirror she’s bought on line.

  67. Just been outside to water the plants – it’s perishing out there! Flaming June tomorrow!

    1. Lovely here again. Bought a small watering can today to water the herbs outside. We did have one in previous place but left it behind.

      1. The watering can I use is an old galvanised one inherited from former father in law. It used to clearly say the price on the top – 7/9 but it’s hard to see now. It’s heavy when full but it does the job.

    2. Indeed.
      three weeks to sankthans / midsummer, and I’m still wearing a jumper! Windy like F as well, too much to make sitting out in the sunshine attractive. Bring on the global warming, I say!

      1. I’m still wearing my winter vests – and went back to my cord trousers today. Got a fleecy top on too.

        1. I have had on my fleece onesie today. Normal clothes also worn underneath. CH and gas fire on this evening.

          1. 1st June today and OH is wearing his long johns, a thick jumper and a scarf – indoors.

        2. It was so hot up here today I was contemplating taking my skin off and sitting in my bones

      2. Very nice here but a strong sea breeze. Having a few glasses so I can sleep. Gawd, Paul, I am so weary with this. I just wish it would go away.

        1. I really feel for you, Ann. Wish their was a magic remedy, but… more Merlot might be a temporary relief.
          I’ll keep you in my thoughts, and try to send positive energy wrapped up in virtual hugs.
          KBO, lass!

          1. Thanks for the thoughts. Merlot not a choice- as always good old Pinot Grigio.

      3. Climate change! It’s climate change! The marketing changed precisely because people started to realise it was a scam!

    3. Where are you Ndovu? There’s a breeze here but it’s 21’c outside and far too hot.

      1. Too hot starts about 36-38C, when the air scorches the rim of your nostrils when you breathe in.

    1. I’d forgotten just how glorious Leilani was.

      They keep ignoring the fundamental problem. No, that’s not true. They don’t care about the reasons. They have no intent of ever stemming the invading horde. They just want ever more dross in this country. It’s not just houses – it’s a reservoir for water, a power station, schools, hospitals, police, doctors. We haven’t enough.

      They cannot – cannot – come here. We’re full. 30 million must be expelled.

      1. 30 million in one krystallnacht. Even I couldn’t see that many off, but together, who knows…

    1. There’s certainly a point where you look at how people behave and think ‘of all the things you could have done, you chose to do that?’

      2. I’ve just had an example with a good friend of mine, who rang me up late at night to ask advice and then proceeded to ignore it because it was unpalatable. Hey ho!

        1. Most people want their decisions validated. When you don’t, it takes a lot of courage to change tack.

  70. Evening, all. I think Bill must have sent me his weather for most of the day; it was dull, cold, windy and decidedly wintry with no sign of the sun.

    1. Warm here in Dorset , has been breezy , but I have been warm , wearing a t shirt and jeans .. no need for a jumper or cardigan .

      Moh played golf early this morning , he was wearing his golfing shorts .. and he looks very brown

      Watered the garden before Spring Watch . No sign of swifts , martins , and swallows .. very worrying .

    2. It’s been yet another cold grey day.
      We did fleetingly get a bit of blue sky, nearly enough to make a pair of sailor’s trousers.

        1. We are continuing with our few days of dawn to dusk sunshine, people now moaning we need rain!! Nice temps. too in the mid 20’s by mid afternoon.
          So sorry to hear more of your tales of NHS woes, just keep smiling and muddle through.

          1. I am doing my best Jill. The pain is non stop and it seems that the NHS’s time, as usual, is more important than our time.
            I shall KBO as Paul as said.

      3. Gosh, I haven’t heard that expression in years, my mom always said that, no matter how small a piece of blue was showing

      4. We’ve not had even that just a little bit further north-west than you.

      2. Central heating on here. We’ve got the gas (lpg) fire on too. I’ve got my step-into fleece onesie on and my normal attire underneath (the fleece onesie is capacious). I looked out of the kitchen window whilst preparing dinner and outside had all the charm of a cold, bleak, windswept January morn.

        1. Good evening, Conners. My central heating is always on from 6 am to 8 am and set at 21 degrees Centigrade. For the past fortnight there was virtually no heating in the morning, but for the past couple of days the CH kicked in for the early two hours.

          1. Mine is off until I switch it on – it’s the way it’s wired. I was fed up of going into the loo or the bathroom and stepping into cold air. Last night I resorted to hot water bottles again because it was chilly in the evening. Today I needed something stronger!

  71. Good evening all.
    Finally got logged on the a VERY clunky pub wifi in the Crown Inn in Kemmerton near Bredon.

    Had an enjoyable evening in Droitwich and a lovely, is somewhat chilly, walk round Bredon Hill this afternoon.

    Parked up beside the RC chapel in the village and what a lovely group of buildings!

    Swindon to pick up t’Lad’s tool cabinets and possibly, if there is room for me to sleep in the van, might stop off in Droitwich again as there is a Folk Session in one of the pubs there.

    Totally out of touch with events and will not be online for long.

  72. Good evening all.
    Message from my very ill friend.
    Went up to St Peters today and they said the main reason an injury to my wrist wasn’t improving was because I was given a splint for
    A right hand…. Not the left one as needed
    Good old NHS.
    St Peter’s, Chertsey is a very dangerous place.

    1. Brilliant! Mind you, my book shelf here is a mess. I ain’t working no more 😉
      Listening to some Vivaldi- what balm to the soul he is.
      Husband making some strange dish for his dinner- so I have to stay up later to make sure he doesn’t burn the bloody house down!

    3. I already replied but I have looked at it several times and laughed more every time !
      And I am a wild Librarian… ;-)))

  75. Q: What does a painter do when he gets cold?
    A: Puts on a second coat!

    1. The Cortez woman is nuts. In fact, she is so comical, she’s become a parody of a Lefty.

      1. She should stick to mixing cocktails behind a bar. She is as thick as two short planks bolted together.

        As the man says every doomsday prediction has proven false. We went from a predicted Ice Age to a global warming disaster and doubtless we will return to a new Ice Age which is probably nearer the Truth except that we are due a mini-cooling period.

        Climate has changed for millennia and will continue to do so for future millennia. It is owing to the sun and the influence of the planets in our solar system.

        Likewise CO2 has no effect on climate. This is proven by analysis of deep cores taken in the Arctic ice. The problem is that the extant records are barely 200 years old whereas the explorations in the Antarctic and Arctic prove that the baseline is too immature and recent and wildly wrong.

        We are entering a mini Ice Age.

        As with so many threatened societal disasters the Universities and Research Institutes are the forces promoting this crap. The institutions promote this nonsense because they are funded by governments to promulgate this constructed and deceitful ‘research’.

    3. Really worth while watching.

      If you only watch one film this year let this be the one.

  77. I fear my immune system is awol, we went to to Downham Market on Sunday for the day to catch up with old friends and family, no body seemed to be under the weather and I didn’t get too close to everyone. But some how I’ve caught a cold, sneezing and a sore throat.
    An early night is in order. So ill be ‘popping orff’. Paracetamol and Strepsils at the ready. I’ve had a runny nose and more sneezing than usual for over three months, someone mentioned at the week end it could be ‘Long covid’. Just what was in all those ‘king the jabs ?
    Good night all.

    3. I’m maintaining high vit D pill input. Not had a cold since I started a couple years ago.

  78. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/31/just-stop-oil-wheelchair-london-protest-arrest-taxi/

    Does the wheelchair using protestor know that her chair is literally ONLY around because of oil? Does she? is she ignorant? Stupid?

    We have enough to make the transition to renewables, which are nine times cheaper. We have the technology to make this
    happen, it is the lack of political will that is the problem.”

    No. unreliables are over 20 times more expensive. I know these fools believe anything to suit their agenda but really the lies are boring now. We need coal, oil and gas. They should be made to dig it up – or live in a world without it.

  79. The RAF will pay compensation to 31 men whose training was delayed because of an internal diversity drive after staff were told to stop arranging courses for “useless white male pilots”.

    In an attempt to improve diversity, recruitment officers wanted to suspend selection boards until more women and ethnic minority candidates could be found, emails leaked to the Daily Telegraph show.

    In an email from January 19, 2021, Squadron Leader Andrew Harwin wrote to a colleagues to discuss the make-up of the boards, which place recruits on training courses.

    Harwin, who worked in the Officer and Aircrew Selection Centre, said: “I noted that the boards have recently been predominantly white male heavy. If we don’t have enough BAME [black, Asian and minority ethnic] and female to board then we need to make the decision to pause boarding and seek more BAME and female from the RAF.

    “I don’t really need to see loads of useless white male pilots, let’s get as focused as possible, I am more than happy to reduce boarding if needed to have a balanced BAME/female/male board.”

    The RAF has now confirmed that it will pay compensation to 31 white male pilots whose courses were delayed. Each pilot will receive £5,000, according to Sky News.

    This year the chief of the air staff acknowledged failings after the head of RAF recruitment quit in protest over the diversity drive.

    Group Captain Elizabeth Nicholl received instructions that she believed were unlawful to prioritise women and ethnic minority candidates. In total, she identified 160 cases of positive discrimination.

    Appearing before MPs this year, Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston said that he regretted her departure but insisted that no one had been discriminated against during his tenure.

    “There was no compromise of entry standards, there was no impact on the standard of recruits from any background, there was no impact on the front line or on operational effectiveness,” he said.

    Wigston, who leaves in June after four years as head of the RAF, gave a valedictory interview to Inside Air, the service’s internal podcast, where he reflected on the “period of criticism” last summer over the recruitment problems.

    “What was most frustrating for me during that period was that while all that public and critical commentary was going on, the RAF was delivering a phenomenal operational output,” he said. “But none of that cut through when we were being criticised in the way we were.”

    Ministers launched a non-statutory inquiry when the scandal broke last year. Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, has received the completed inquiry, which is undergoing a redaction process.

    The RAF said: “We will continue doing everything we can to increase our recruiting intake from under-represented groups within the provisions of the law.

    “All individuals joining the Royal Air Force were and are selected on merit and any individuals that were advanced to their training courses had already passed the selection process. There was no compromise of entry standards and no impact on the front line or operational effectiveness.

    “The RAF has identified 31 individuals that missed out on payments due to their entry/course dates being delayed. These individuals have been contacted and all have received the payments that they were due.”

    Of course , you know about bods like Idi Amin and half the African/ Arab despots that have been trained in the UK.. I wonder which side a black fighter pilot would be on when the crunch comes ?

    1. ““There was no compromise of entry standards, there was no impact on the standard of recruits from any background, there was no impact on the front line or on operational effectiveness,” he said.” Yeah, right.

    2. ““There was no compromise of entry standards, there was no impact on the standard of recruits from any background, there was no impact on the front line or on operational effectiveness,” he said.” Yeah, right.

  80. Been a long and tiring day. Totally pissed off with the NHS- sod them all.
    Husband did not burn the house down so that’s one less worry,
    Eddy, feel better and Tom, take it easy.
    Goodnight Y’all.

    1. Sorry it’s been such a challenging day for you, Ann. I hope you get a good night’s rest tonight.

    2. Taking it as easy as I can, I can’t remember when I fell into bed but I didn’t wake until 23:50.

      Now I’ve been staring at the dawn since 03:55 when the birds began their dawn chorus – poor little buggers – they can only sleep from about 10:45 to 03:00.

      I too am a night bird but not by choice.

  81. Right, that’s me off to bed now. Good night, chums. Sleep well and see you all tomorrow.

  82. In bed now with the electric blanket on! And we had the heating on for a while this evening. Flaming June tomorrow!
    Good night all 😴

  84. Morning folks.
    The weather was pretty foul too in the first week of June 1944….

    1. I know – that was my first week in the world.

      Born on Empire day, 1944.

  86. With the Telegraph prating about values and their absence among the crroks in Parliament, this clip is essential, and somewhat ironic, viewing.

    https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fi%2Fstatus%2F1661955991246708736%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR2i7qiv-8C4IFcTueF7Q4IaKuBjlV7uaCjm_8H4RwnuGyKUkPCJ3btF5YQ&h=AT1sSN4GVc7taSbylS6TMfdGIxEDapQk5BHlh6la0c8KRB2PpZlre2keZECzSAZXzdcdlKRGDv-pKGBtUZ86H6kbtnia40VSBBjhylf3jO23eDiDgrQc9N24wrKcf22WPvwS9SLkiZCsl_s6tk-RuvwmzQ&__tn__=H-R&c%5B0%5D=AT2gs4rPC-oG4h07f88XMmcYCywDI4kVi2Zc1e_CYBUMRdLsKAa3fSGvgyBMvaDtlKTcLXP68u9xe4gB_WoKrWKc5TGryacx-ViF-SaFNnkotQtDbEDUjUyG8UgvX7ZS4bGQsYoK8kurvV49U1sVWTsS-KpTYDvKwyFMrKwNcmP7euyy7O40

  87. Omg what a day……Erin has been bringing to my attention that there has been a nasty smell when she has been using our washing machine that resides perminately in our garage. Never had a car in it. There is a manhole which is set in the concrete a slab. She persuade me to lift it. It was half full. We have another below the front drive. Which also took up same problem. No alternative but to get out the drain rods and give it a poke. Apart from the fact we don’t have any drain rods. I asked around for assistance in our road. But in the end I went to Screw Fix. Click and collect. 38 quid. I had assessed if I’d had to get someone in, it would have cost me at the very least three times that.
    But in my condition it soon wore me out. But job (scus the pun) done. Feet up. And a glass of.

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