Friday 23 June: It is time the Government took back control from the Bank of EnglandFriday 23 June:

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

558 thoughts on “Friday 23 June: It is time the Government took back control from the Bank of EnglandFriday 23 June:

  1. ‘Morning all! Off to the Royal Highland Show today! Chance of rain 15%!

    1. Have a lovely day, and do come back and tell us what you saw!
      I still miss the Royal Show.

      1. Will do bb2! It’s raining now…..🙄🌂🌧️☔️
        Our SiL is showing sheeps! He won last year!

      2. Will do bb2! It’s raining now…..🙄🌂🌧️☔️
        Our SiL is showing sheeps! He won last year!

  2. ‘Morning all! Off to the Royal Highland Show today! Chance of rain 15%!

  3. Good Morning Folks,

    Cloudy start here

    Many thanks for all the kind messages of condolence from yesterday

  4. Morning, all Y’all.
    Windy & raining, and 11C max temp in Reykjavik today.
    Trek home starts shortly, so it’s likely I’ll be mia for most of the day.

    1. ‘Morning Paul! Got home safely? Wishing you a very happy birthday, and hope you have a wonderful day! 😘🎂🍷🍾🌹
      Sorry! Didn’t read properly! Have a safe trip!

      1. Just about to go for airport bus. Home late this afternoon, if all goes according to SAS new plan.
        Thanks for the birthday wishes! 😘

        1. So let’s get this straight you are going to storm the airport bus SAS style?!

          Happy Birthday by the way!

        2. Its your birthday? Well, yes a superlatively good day with lots of treats to you.

    2. Happy birthday.
      Do you always transition to Miss Farrow on the day?
      I hope you’re home in time to celebrate.

    3. Many happy returns. I expect you will be luxuriating in the warmth of Norway when you get home!

    4. 🎶Happy Birthday to you, Paul 🎶 🎉🍰🎂🎉🥳 may you have an uneventful journey home.

    5. Hope you’ve had a good birthday.
      Was the trip a present or did you treat yourself?

    6. Happy birthday Paul!🎂🥳🎉🎈🎁🎊🥂🍷❤ Have a super day and a good flight home.

    7. Happy birthday and safe travels. Maybe they’ll let you have a go at the controls as a birthday treat?

      1. Thanks, Feargal.
        I used to be a glider pilot, but now I’d prefer the engines keep turning!
        😁

    8. Happy, happy, day, Paul, Have a great day.

      My ex has her birthday on the same day but she is 1946 vintage, a tad older than you.

      1. Thanks, Tom.
        I’ll be studying your recipes later, when stopped travelling.

  5. It is time the Government took back control from the Bank of England

    Another one of Blair’s great ideas bites the dust

    1. It was very much ‘ensure control but pretend independence, all to pass the buck of blame while being responsible.

      When Mervyn King was writing to Brown every week to tell him to stop being a reckless fool it was obvious the bank was not independent.

    1. I always thought the best bit about a holiday near the coast was swimming in the sea

    2. The last time I had a swim in the sea was 50 years ago – Corfu. I got an ear infection from the experience and I haven’t swum in the sea since.

        1. Thanks for the laugh, I must check more carefully when I reply to you! It was a student backpacking, greek islands sleeping-on-the-beach sort holiday, very uncomfortable if you weren’t feeling well! It required antibiotics to clear it.

          1. I shudder at some of the stuff I did as a student in the 1970s. But I look back with great fondness – and I’d probably do most of it again.

        1. In Malta they cut pools from the rock which has channels to the sea. It’s like floating in a warm bath.

        2. I don’t swim very well, I didn’t learn (this is somehow not the right word) until I was 18, and I am not water confident; for me, the whole point of swimming is to keep one’s head well above the water. I am also uncomfortable seeing large bodies of water, photographs and especially paintings can set it off. I think its called thalassophobia. It developed when I was 8 or 9, I remember the occasion, it abated in my late teens but has returned with a vengeance latterly. Perhaps it responds to the anxieties of these times in which we live.

          1. I hated the school swimming trips to the baths and avoided them as much as I could. The gym mistress pushed me in and I came up spluttering and was pulled out by her assistant. It put me off for life and I was already lacking confidence prior to that incident.

          2. That is terrible. I was affected by school swimming lessons but my experience was not like yours – I was terrified of being pushed into the pool by other children who threatened to do so (for a lark, of course). Our gym mistress wasn’t sympathetic. I spent the years being terrified before swimming lessons (and also maths lessons, the maths teacher had a special way with humiliation until I simply couldn’t think during those 45 minutes). We simply didn’t have the opportunities to become ‘water confident’ in those days.

          3. I was gingerly walking down the steps and hanging on when she gave me a hearty shove and I was in and under. Certainly never confident.
            Maths was another matter – the maths teacher was an expert at throwing the board rubber. I kept my head down but never got the answers.

  6. 373676+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Letters: It is time the Government took back control from the Bank of England

    Reality,

    Letters: It is time a genuine patriotic GOVERNMENT formed from peoples of long term ENGLISH stock, then took back total control from the eu the WEF & the NWO.

    Consider anyone that voted tory (ino) party in 2019 as, party before country, enamas of the state.

    Consider anyone that voted labour in 2019 as, party before country, enamas of the state.

    Along with lib / dems these form the lab/lib/con mass “government ” controlled / uncontrolled, paedophile umbrella,
    mass killing, raping & abusing of children, lies, deceit,& treachery,
    with a great deal of it done by the “protecting” political overseers themselves.

    Someone tell me WHY would one give these political cretinous reptiles their kiss X of consent ?

    1. When the Bank of England asserts that pay rises are responsible for inflation – not tax, not energy rationing and price hikes, not rent controls forcing house prices up, not debasing the currency for 20 years but individual tax rises – when the public sector has gone on strike to demand, and been gifted them by a (ideologically) weak government – it is clear that the BoE is complicit and not remotely independent.

  7. Russia ‘plotting nuclear terror attack’ at Zaporizhzhia plant. 23 June 2023.

    President Volodymyr Zelensky claims Ukrainian spies have intelligence that suggests Russia is plotting to release radiation from Europe’s largest nuclear plant.

    In a video statement, the Ukrainian president said Kyiv was sharing its information with international partners about the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia plant in southern Ukraine.

    “Intelligence has received information that Russia is considering the scenario of a terrorist act at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant – a terrorist act with a release of radiation,” he said. “They have prepared everything for this.”

    I’ve noticed on the threads that the Ukies appear to be losing credibility hand over fist and this is despite the large numbers of Establishment Trolls who habitually appear in support of anything that is published let alone to suppress dissenting views. This isn’t surprising. It’s pretty obvious that they are congenital liars. Nearly everything in their repertoire is fake. The false Child Abduction story. The Genocide, the War Crimes, the Atrocities, as activities of the Russian State, are simply propaganda of the worst kind. It is only a compliant MSM that gets it published. This story is typical. The Russians are really going to release radiation in a facility that their own people occupy? That would obey only the vagaries of the wind? That would draw down the world’s censure for recklessness? I don’t think so!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/22/russia-ukraine-nuclear-terror-attack-zaporizhzhia-plant/

    1. Thing is, I have no doubt that some of it is true – and worse. The problem is no bugger believes them – or should, plenty do because they’re mindless drones who like being told what to think.

  8. Good morning, all. Another bright start to the day.
    A month or so ago I received a reply from my MP, Will Quince, to the email I sent re the treatment of Andrew Bridgen MP in the HoC on March 17th this year. The reply did not in any way address my concerns re Mr Bridgen but contained a long missive re the efficacy etc. of the “vaccines” from Maria Caulfield MP.
    I commented on this reply a few weeks ago but since then new evidence on “vaccine” efficacy has been revealed in the USA.
    A reply to a FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act) request in the USA has revealed that the head of the USA’s CDC knew in January 2021 that the “vaccines” did not stop infection: this is right at the start of the “vaccination” roll-out. Nevertheless, this information was kept away from the public who were continually bombarded with, ‘safe and effective,” claims, and “vaccination” mandates.
    All emphasis is mine.

    CDC Director Rochelle Walensky knew that Covid vaccines did not stop infections in January 2021 but continued to claim they did and promote policies based on it, a newly released email reveals.
    In the email dated January 30th 2021, Walensky says that then-Chief Medical Advisor Anthony Fauci and then-NIH Director Francis Collins were also aware of the situation.
    She wrote: “I had a call with Francis Collins this morning and one of the issues we discussed was that of vaccine breakthroughs. This is clearly an important area of study and was specifically called out this week here.”
    “Francis is also discussing with Tony [Fauci],” she added.

    Contrast that information available in the USA from January 2021 with the following statement from the UK government over two years later. It’s inconceivable that the British government do not know what the USA’s CDC etc. knew back in January 2021.

    From Maria Caulfield MP Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Mental Health and Women’s Health Strategy 39 Victoria Street London SW1H 0EU
    Dear Will, Thank you for your correspondence of 21 March on behalf of your constituent, Mr Kat, about COVID-19 vaccine safety.
    I apologise for the delay in replying.
    All vaccines used in the UK COVID-19 vaccination programme have been through a rigorous approval process. The UK has some of the highest safety standards in the world and the independent Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is globally recognised for requiring high standards of quality, safety and effectiveness. The mRNA COVID-19 boosters approved for use in the UK have also been through similar rigorous approval processes by the European Medicines Agency in Europe and the Food and Drug Administration in the United States.
    Each potential COVID-19 vaccine is assessed by teams of scientists and clinicians on a case-by-case basis. There are extensive checks and balances required by law at every stage of vaccine development, and it is only once each potential vaccine has met robust standards set by the MHRA that it will be approved for use. Both mRNA and non-mRNA vaccines have already been administered as booster doses. Most of the doses administered in the autumn booster programme were mRNA vaccines.
    Data shows that COVID-19 boosters have been highly effective in reducing hospitalisations and death, with the mortality rate consistently lower for people who have had at least a third dose or booster dose than for those who are unvaccinated or received just a first or second dose.

    If the “vaccine” does not stop infection i.e. fails in its primary function, what is the point of the “vaccine”? In addition, one has to believe that a novel air-borne respiratory virus actually exists in the form that has been widely promoted.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2ead2953c03aacf7bfdab2e2f4a3d1014050c3c5b9d02243e3a93dcb7b8db34b.png

    Daily Sceptic – As Early as January 2021 Walensky Knew Vaccine Didn’t Stop Infection

    1. Regrettably I didn’t keep a BTL comment which contained 5 graphs plotting weekly vaccination totals for 5 major countries, alongside the total deaths recorded weekly in those same countries. The data if true appeared to show a corresponding increase in deaths 6-8 weeks after the increase in the vaccination programmes. If I recall the roll out of the vaccination programme started in late autumn so it is possible that the increasing number of deaths was due to seasonal factors much like influenza deaths in the winter.
      I tried to find weekly deaths data for the UK for the five years prior to 2020/2021 to compare the figures but was unsuccessful.
      What I found really interesting was that as there was a corresponding reduction in the vaccination programme there was a corresponding reduction in the weekly number of deaths in all 5 countries. I suspect this is one aspect that won’t be investigated by the Covid Inquiry.

      1. Vax roll out in the UK started in December 2020 with the very elderly. Then went down the age range.

      1. Ndovu, the words ‘test/testing’ do not appear in the quote. Caulfield uses the weasel words ‘approved/approval’ as a cloak to obfuscate the issue of there having been no rigorous testing.
        IMHO the lie is the final sentence: If, as we now know for certain, the “vaccine” does not stop infection how can she possibly claim for a fact that the reduction in hospitalisations is due to a “vaccine” that doesn’t work. Likewise, the reduction in deaths: deaths are a known: what isn’t public knowledge is what was really responsible for the deaths. The PTB are currently completely baffled by the sudden rise in excess deaths but are supremely confident in the numbers who died from CV-19? Why should those two facts be believable coming from a government that has lied and obfuscated throughout the Scamdemic?

        1. The excess deaths are largely CVD related or cancers. Any of them could have been caused by the toxic jabs.

    1. Carlson is leading us away from Trump and towards Kennedy. Genuine support for RFK or just a new face of the Orange-Man-Bad establishment line?

      1. I’ve no idea. However, he does highlight how warped and controlling the traditional news outlets have become.

      2. https://www.takimag.com/article/trump-is-the-medias-new-david-duke/
        Coulter is not a fan of Trump, but she writes sense.

        Interviewing former Vice President Mike Pence on “Meet the Press” this past weekend, literally every question Chuck Todd asked was about Trump. Why are you running against Trump? Were the midterms about Trump? What do you think about Trump’s position on abortion? What do you think about Trump’s position on Social Security? What do you think about Trump’s position on Ukraine? Should Trump’s trial be completed before the election? What if Trump is found guilty? OK, let’s move off Trump and talk about your campaign. Do Trump supporters like you?
        We get it, media. You dearly want Republicans to nominate him again so you can kick back and enjoy the GOP’s fourth consecutive loss.

        A list of the first 5,000 things voters care about does not include Trump. How about the open border, spiraling crime, fentanyl, homelessness, deaths of despair, inflation, jobs going to foreign workers, cities and states collapsing under the invasion by illegals, boys in girls’ sports, bathrooms, prisons and sororities?

  9. Good morning all.
    A pleasant 12°C outside, dry with a grey overcast.
    No overnight rain.

    I don’t know what happened with Disqusting yesterday, but I stopped betting notifications through, having to F5 to see new posts, then, all of a sudden, about 9ish, I got the the whole afternoon’s postings in one hit!
    At which point I gave up and went to bed.

    Picked up from Faceache:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/140ce12abeb48cbdf5c56ffe7cfa323f1f3443394ab090d94c591f2462c4e4ad.jpg

  10. It now seems that they knew pretty much immediately that that little submarine had imploded, but they still ran that fake theatre in the papers for several days.
    I was listening to Catherine Austin Fitts on TNT Radio this morning, and she talked about psychological warfare, i.e. controlling how and what people think via the media and a host of other ways.
    It isn’t the “silly season” and the media have no honest excuse for this behaviour. They cannot expect rational people to take them seriously.

    1. I didn’t. It seemed like theatre, a pantomime from start to finish. I still wonder if there were any people actually involved within the ‘vessel’. Would we have heard about it if there had not been any ‘stories’ to cover out there? It was so convenient. TPTB knew the Australian vaccine report was about to hit the world and there was the Hunter/Biden fiasco at the same time, and they knew the little submersible had imploded last Sunday. I don’t get involved with any MSM and haven’t done for years, I look at the DM as its free, mostly with an attitude to see what are they telling the public now.

      Good morning bb2.

      1. Good morning, poppiesmum

        You may very well be right – it certainly buried quite a lot of bad news for several days.

        1. It’s what they do – when something ‘major’ is splashed across the headlines is the time to look for that which they are trying to hide. They have been doing it since 2001 at least and seems to be known established practice after Jo Moore’s comment “a good day to bury bad news” regarding 9/11.

          Edit: Oops, manners – Good morning, Rastus.

          1. I thought it was the death of Princess Margaret that set off that comment about burying bad news.

            Do you remember the time David Cameron told his kids just as they were heading off to school to ignore piggy taunts? That must have been good for burying quite a few bits of bad news.

    2. I wonder how clear the recordings from those hydrophones, presumably used for submarine tracking, are and if they need to be analysed first?

    3. One wonders whether the Yanks kept quiet on the off chance that they could learn something new about other countries’ deep underwater capabilities.

    4. I can understand why the story was kept running; not just to sell news, but also to help families prepare for the inevitable.
      There are arguments for and against that approach, but the chosen narrative is understandable.
      It’s the boy for whom I feel so sorry; if what is claimed is true, what a Father’s Day present.

    5. Good morning, blackbox2

      You may very well be right – it certainly buried quite a lot of bad news for several days.

    6. I certainly don’t. They have become a laughing stock, especially the BBC with its ludicrous ‘BBC Verify’.

  11. G’day all,

    Light cloud obscures the firmament at the humble McPhee abode this morning but it’s going to clear to be a lovely day again, wind West-Sou’-West going Sou’-West, 15℃ but expecting 24℃ this afternoon.

    A most enjoyable afternoon at the Avon yesterday. This corker took a hare’s-ear nymph fished deep and it was a struggle keeping him out of the weeds. Measured at 19″ long and in prime condition that makes him nudging or just over 3lbs.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/267cd5f8ce87d6321b3e1fd6e24e7074c6426e0f5ec2c8284d7d9e58913414bd.jpg

  12. G’day all,

    Light cloud obscures the firmament at the humble McPhee abode this morning but it’s going to clear to be a lovely day again, wind West-Sou’-West going Sou’-West, 15℃ but extpecting 24℃ this afternoon.

    A most enjoyable afternoon at the Avon yesterday. This corker took a hare’s-ear nymph fished deep and it was a struggle keeping him out of the weeds. Measured at 19″ long and in prime condition that makes him nudging or just over 3lbs.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/267cd5f8ce87d6321b3e1fd6e24e7074c6426e0f5ec2c8284d7d9e58913414bd.jpg

    1. How do, Paul?

      Na then; lad, tha’s catching me up (again!). Grattis på födelsedagen, and enjoy your deep-buried puffin (and chips).

      Sithee! 👍🏻🥃🎂😊

  13. Good Moaning.
    Thoughts triggered by Friday appearing – yet again. Not moaning, just more of a realisation.
    Emailing a friend, apologising yet again for practically disappearing off the face of the earth, has brought home to me just how time consuming house moving is AFTER the event. It’s not just the obvious things like packing and bloody paperwork, but all the odd little trips to sort out something as mundane as paint or waiting for workmen to arrive and to keep them fuelled with tea/coffee/cakes …. sorting out utility suppliers etc…. precious hours and days dribbled away.
    Altogether, we have now spent a year selling, buying and sorting at both ends of the process.
    And so it continues.

  14. Good grief. Paul is only six years older than my elder son!!

    Hope he has a spiffing time with the SAS today!!

      1. It’s a college level affair, not usually held annually.
        A lot of coincidences occurred, particularly with one victim being an old boy of Pembroke and the relatives of the dead are lashing out, quite possibly because they feel guilt for not dissuading the people involved with the dive.

  15. Good morning, chums. Another busy day for me today (what’s new?) so I shall now read Sir Jasper’s morning joke and then log off until later this evening. Enjoy your day.

  16. 373676+ up ticks,

    Rebuilding a nation
    Can’t the impounded yachts, requisitioned houses and frozen art collections of sanctioned oligarchs be confiscated to help Ukraine?

    Sort of rob pete to pay paul, the United Kingdom political overseers would be good at that.

    This rebuilding a country lark I take it is ukraine, first you help the problem fester & mature then you come up with the reconstruction plans, destruction / reconstruction = mega bucks.

    England is going through the latter stages of the destruction phase,via builders WEF / NWO guaranteed a shite outcome but the majority of the voters are happy when they see “their” party
    lab/lib/con talking a good fight.

      1. Maybe we were naïve in assuming the state would be dutiful and do as we expected them to. As they are paid to do.

    1. 7 Years of the state causing mayhem to achieve it’s goal of chaining us back to the hated thing.

    1. I’m here now Jules, thank you for worrying but you needn’t. I have a Social Worker appearing at 10:30, so decided to lie-in this morning.

        1. She seems to an all round caring person who is trying to get me a place in Annan, on the West Coast where I wont be as isolated.

  17. Lord Frost’s ten policies to save Sunak and the tories from oblivion:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/22/my-ten-policies-to-save-rishi-sunak-from-oblivion/

    1. Get tax and spending back down to Blair-era levels over the next 10 years. Tax, spend, and government regulation are at their highest since the Second World War, and are choking economic activity. The Blair era is hardly ancient history: we can get back there.

    2. Open Britain to trade. The Pacific trade deal, the CPTPP, is great, but go further. Abolish most tariffs, including on food imports, over three years, and deregulate the vast apparatus that constrains British food production.

    3. Delay the net zero 2050 target. Abolish the deadlines on boilers and EVs. Get fracking and build low-carbon modern gas power stations and zero-carbon nuclear. Stop wasting money on green levies and if we must use renewables make them stand on their own two feet.

    4. We need a pause for breath to absorb high levels of immigration and rebuild social cohesion. So reduce legal migration to 100,000 over three years, and keep it there for a decade, through a binding cap on visas.

    5. Build more houses. We have a four million backlog. Lowering migration will help but change to the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act is necessary. We need a major national effort to identify housebuilding areas, mainly in south-east England, including on the green belt, and if necessary driving it through by a national referendum on the whole plan.

    6. Freeze social spending in cash terms. Cut back the scope of universal credit; increase the state pension age, gradually and fairly, to reflect increased life expectancy; and reform the tax system so it no longer discriminates against the family.

    7. The NHS will never work as well as European systems. So establish a Royal Commission to explore how to change it to a European-style social insurance system over a generation. Meanwhile, stop adding new burdens to it – especially not a National Social Care service.

    8. Abolish the Equality Act and replace it with a simple non-discrimination duty. Make positive discrimination illegal. Scrap government spending and law-making on diversity. Ensure the full range of political, social, and historical opinion is taught in schools, and that parents have access to it. Forbid medical transitioning to the opposite sex below the age of 18. Finally, scrap concepts such as “hate” or “harmful” speech and pass a Free Speech Act protecting free speech online and off.

    9. Pass a Government Modernisation Act, to give ministers and Parliament real control over appointments and budgets. Review the scope of devolution and make it harder to hold a Scottish independence referendum.

    10. Finally, so voters can if they wish complete the work of taking back control that began in 2016, offer all-UK referendums within five years on the European Convention on Human Rights and on continuing the Windsor Framework arrangements for Northern Ireland.

    There’s room to argue about almost all of this. But something like it is surely the starting point for an optimistic vision of how the country would be different with another five years of Conservative government.

    If we can’t communicate that, then we won’t persuade anyone – and then the election, when it comes, can have only one result.

    My ten points for Lord Frost:

    1. Why stop there. Let’s get back to Edwardian era tax levels.

    2. We will need some protections while we rebuild manufacturing. That is a ‘must do’.

    3. No. get rid of it all together. And the ridiculous Climate Change Act.

    4. No. Complete moritorium while we clear out those with no right to be here. Then make sure we educate and train our own people properly so we have few if any skills shortages which could be filled by migration if we have to. Britain is FULL.

    5. No. The South-East is overcrowded. We MUST NOT build on green-belt land. ‘Brownfield’ sites only.

    6. Cut social spending, especially free hand-outs to migrants both legal and illegal, but protect pensions while weaning the working-age population off benefits. Cut taxes commensurately. Reward marriage and child-rearing through income tax cuts.

    7. Just do it. No need for a Royal Commission.

    8. Yes but ban ‘medical transitioning to the opposite sex’ altogether but protect the genuine few, very few, inter-sex people.

    9. End devolution. It has been a dreadful experiment.

    10. No need for referendums. Just do it.

    You might win then, Frosty.

    1. Everything on his list could be done tomorrow, not over ten years. Sunak doesn’t want to. Hunt certainly would refuse. Both men are taking orders from somewhere else, passing them on to a remoaner state machine with it’s own agenda.

      What is good for the country is irrelevant. They didn’t get the cataclysm they wanted from Leaving the EU so they’re forcing it.

  18. 373676+ up ticks,

    Funny thing that, he was shod ,not wearing shoes.

    U.N. ‘Expert’: Religious Liberty Must Yield to LGBT Demands

    After making this comment he came up from a bending position

    and pulled up his trousers.

    1. China, the Middle East and Africa are all in the ascendant and the UN wants that too. Ain’t ignorance wonderful, eh?

  19. Morning all 😊🙂
    Back to grey.
    Have a great birthday Obs I’ve been meaning to go to Iceland 🇮🇸 for some time but we can’t travel anywhere until I’m fixed up.
    Have a great day 🍻🥂🍾

    Probably with our government is they are not in control of anything. They simply don’t have a clue. Public opinion is very important and they should be more focused on that.

  20. https://www.takimag.com/article/world-gone-cuckoo/
    Dalrymple writing sense as usual.

    There are other manifestations of the civilizational death wish, indeed there are hundreds of them, large and small. The pulling down of statues, the revamping or even destruction of museums, the rewriting of history (not in the sense that it is always rewritten in the light of new research, but in the desire to reach and impose a politically useful conclusion), the censoring of literature, the denigration of cultural achievements, and so forth, are all signs of a death wish. No civilization can long survive a complete loss of confidence, all the less so if there are external enemies and real dangers threatening it.
    Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make Woke. We have countries facing severe economic and other problems, several of them conceivably catastrophic in outcome, whose intelligentsia and an increasing proportion of whose political class concern themselves with pseudo-questions such as whether—to put it graphically—it is right for a male boxer to claim to change his sex to female and subsequently beat the living daylights out of a woman. Only people who hate civilization in general, and their own in particular, could possibly think this a real question, or answer in the affirmative.

  21. British extremists are importing tactics from the US hard right. Their target? Family drag shows. 23 June 2023.

    Drag and cross-dressing have been a part of British cultural expression for centuries. From Shakespeare plays to pantomime dames, and the late Barry Humphries’ creation Dame Edna Everage; playing with representations of gender in all its forms has long been widely enjoyed by audiences. Drag shows are a modern expression of this tradition, which is now being threatened by a coordinated campaign to silence it.

    More than 50 family drag events in the UK were targeted by protesters from June last year to this May, according to data gathered by our researchers at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). Ten shows were cancelled or postponed before they even took place. At the ones that did go ahead, small groups (rarely more than 12) using abusive and confrontational tactics routinely accused parents who were taking their children to the events of supporting paedophilia, or threatened to perform “citizen’s arrests” on the drag queens performing at them. Clashes between protesters and counter protesters or police broke out at a number of them.

    The groups spearheading this campaign often have ties to white supremacist movements or far-right extremism and have appropriated for political aims legitimate discussions about what is suitable entertainment and education for children, and at what age. They push a “groomer” narrative, reviving a decades-old attempt to baselessly associate the LGBTQ+ community with paedophilia.

    The headline alone is a lesson in sophistry and misrepresentation. Extremists? i.e. people who dislike the imposed LGBTQ zeitgeist. Hard right? Lol. I wish that it existed! Family shows? For the Munsters? The rest is no better. Shakespeare was prevented by the laws of his day from including females in his casts. Pantomime dames are just that, pantomime, they have no deeper meaning apart from slapstick entertainment. Edna Everage is an outrageous creation meant more to reflect Australian values than inculcate a belief in an alternative lifestyle.

    I have no doubts that the intent here is to create a culture that is tolerant of Paedophilia, encouraging even. Had I my way it would be suppressed as vigorously as the Lord Chamberlain policed the Elizabethan stage!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/22/british-extremists-us-right-family-drag-shows-children

    1. How long was it between the decriminalisation of homosexuality and buggery and the CofE happily accepting it?

      That Patricia Hewitt and Harriet Harman were both keen to reduce the age of sexual consent suggests that the wheels have been in motion for some time to ‘liberate’ child molestation. Of course the Harpies rather lost their nerve and denied it when the newspapers published stories about their support for PIE (Paedophile Information Exchange).

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/46789b06a1d158f41f750d95884926b69029fcf7a819ae2a2d2f2225beed0a20.png

      1. I don’t know about Hewitt, she seems to have left politics but Harridan Harperson is still being a political nothing, inasmuch as her chairing of the ‘Privileges’ committee was an unmitigated disaster.

        The sooner Ed has the Balls to take her out of society, the better.

    2. The practice of having people hanged, drawn and quartered is also a long standing British tradition much enjoyed by many as an entertaining spectacle. Perhaps we should revive it on that basis?

      1. After drawing and before quartering you got to see your intestines, still attached, thrown on the BBQ.

      2. What a splendid Idea, Sue.

        Not only for murder but it should include rape as well.

        Sorry, Geoff, not too bloodthirsty I hope , but the current ‘Justice’ system is too wet these days.

          1. Certainly have Maggie and I said:

            Thu, 22 Jun, 11:49 (1 day ago)
            to halseyhouseadmin, Colin

            Good morning,

            I’m writing as an Ex RAF airman who was taken in by RAFA when my relationship in Mid-Suffolk broke down.

            I’m Norfolk born and bred and feel like an exile here in Moffat, in The Scottish Borders.

            I’m now 79 and not in the best of health,

            My pensions (State and a small private one) give me an income of £1,190.24 and benefits are currently £567.74

            Despite being well travelled for work, I will feel a lot easier and less lonely and isolated, if I can return to my home county.

            I have copied in Colin Lee, the CEO of the local RAFA branch who is, I think, aware of my current unhappiness.

            Anything either of you can do, will be much appreciated.

            Regards

    3. People are so divided now, I really don’t see how this can be fixed except in the most catastrophic way imaginable.

    4. Female impersonators, as we used to call them, are largely comic characters. Modern drag artists are overtly sexual. There’s the difference.

    1. Don’t forget Macbeth’s Porter’s warning about drink and the Brewer’s droop!

      Macduff : What three things does drink especially provoke?

      Porter : Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance: therefore, much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him.

      1. One of my mum’s favourite quotes. Many years ago I had a flatmate who used to get her boyfriends drunk then drag them into bed and complain that they were all impotent. She never figured it out.

  22. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s disgusting story

    Know Your Scents

    Two blonde girls walk into a department store. They walk up to the perfume counter and pick up a sample bottle.

    Sharon sprays it on her wrist and smells it, “That’s quite nice, don’t you think, Tracy”

    “Yeah. What’s it called Sharon?”

    “Viens a moi.”

    “Viens a moi? What the fuck does that mean?”

    At this stage the store clerk offers some help. “Viens a moi, ladies, is French for ‘come to me.'”

    Sharon takes another sniff and offers her arm to Tracy again saying, “That doesn’t smell like come to me. Does that smell like come to you?”

    1. Good morning Tom,
      Good job I wasn’t drinking my morning tea as I read that.
      Sharon and Tracy strike again. 🙂
      In or first house, a regular shout/screech came from a net summoning her two delinquent-in-the-making daughters. ‘Sharon, Tracy, get back ‘ere now.’

  23. Her Imperial Highness, El Warqueeno went with her friends to Ladies Day at Ascot. She proclaimed ‘[expletive] chavs got in.’

    Gone are the days of decent dresses, sensible hats, no tattoos and the generally better spoken class. Apparently it was like ‘a pikey party.’

    Apparently got photographed and was most put out.

  24. Good morning everyone,
    I had a good chuckle at this spoof report.
    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/learning-like-cats-and-dogs/
    Seriously though, why on earth I’d anyone, let alone supposedly intelligent and educated teachers, pandering to this nonsense?
    Children ‘identifying’ as cats or other animals are clearly have either big behavioural issues or are in need of psychiatric treatment.

    1. They’re just kids being kids, I think. Shame on the adults who aren’t drawing boundaries between childish fantasies and responsible adult life.

      1. Playing at cats and dogs was a popular game at playtime in the school I worked at. But they were 4, 5 and 6 year olds. Teenagers, other than those having a laugh/testing the boundaries for a day of two, are on a different level.

        1. Even GBS wrote a play (Androcles and The Lion) in which a chap dressed up in a lion costume was one of the principal players.

        2. One of my maternal grandfather’s favourite jokes to wind up his kids when they were very young was, “Let’s play dogs – you sniff my bum an’ I’ll growl”! A proposition disgusting enough to bring them up short.

      2. I suspect that these kids are just taking the mic out of the teachers and schools.

    2. Or they are trying it on in order to see if they can take the stupid and gullible teachers in? Imagine a boy renowned for his flatulence telling a teacher that he identified as a skunk! Imagine what he would say to his friends:

      “I told Mr Squeers that I am a skunk and the slly old fool believed me!”

      It is hardly surprising that schools don’t want parents to know about the absurdities up to which they go.

      1. Read Dr Malone’s post which I’ve linked below – it’s another sinister import from the USA.

        1. That’s closer to the truth than anything, I’d imagine. With education having nothing to do with the child and everything to do with indoctrination I can see the child making these daft declarations and the school being too frightened of challenging the orthodoxy of the state to refuse it.

      1. Indeed. I think a few Nottlers must have missed recent discussions on the subject.

    3. No one tells them no. These are spoiled, indulged children who lack boundaries and usually a family structure.

  25. This article in TCW mentions in passing the 100 000 “ghost children” who never returned to school after the covid lockdowns.
    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-uks-ex-chancellor-and-ex-chief-medical-officer-now-question-school-closures/

    Does anyone know any of these children personally?
    How many died, like the handful that were publicised as having been murdered by their parents and step-parents?

    I would imagine that most were either sent abroad, eg to India or Pakistan to be educated, or their families emigrated, or else they are now being home-schooled. At a guess, the home-schooled cohort is the greatest?

    That would represent a lot of children that have been pulled out of the death-grip of state-controlled education. Expect a clamp down on home schooling soon.

    1. We home-schooled our two sons up to the age of 15 as we sailed around the Med and they went to boarding schools in England for their A” levels and university studies.

    2. Allegedly around the world 8 million children go missing each year. Many get caught up in child trafficking, many pass through Ukraine, which seems to be a centre for child trafficking

    3. My grandson is one. Profoundly deaf and now losing his speech as well. The school can’t / won’t give him the support he needs. My daughter a single mum, will most probably have to give up any hope of starting the business she was trying to get off the ground. And the business? Providing support for autistic / neurodiverse kids.

      1. The burden placed on working single parents by the insane lockdowns was appalling.

        I am thankful that mine were old enough to learn by themselves, but I saw what friends with young children went through.

  26. A UK court on Thursday dismissed an appeal by an environmental group against Sizewell C nuclear power plant project, ruling that the government’s go-ahead to project was in line with the law.

    In the autumn budget statement last November, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, reiterated the plans of Boris Johnson’s previous government to back nuclear power generation in the UK as a means to help the country generate cleaner energy and reach net zero by 2050.

    Hunt said that “we need to go further, with a major acceleration of home-grown technologies like offshore wind, carbon capture and storage, and, above all, nuclear.”

    The government thus supported the previous consents given to the Sizewell C nuclear power project.

    Sizewell C, being developed by France’s nuclear power giant EDF, is expected to meet 7% of the UK’s energy needs for at least 60 years, the French company says. Sizewell C is designed to be a 3.2-gigawatt (GW) power station generating low-carbon electricity for around 6 million UK homes. By replacing fossil-fuel power, the new nuclear plant in Suffolk is expected to avoid around nine million tons of carbon emissions each year.

    The project’s approval, however, was challenged in court by the group Together Against Sizewell C (TASC), which argued that the government had failed to adequately consider the environmental impact of the project.

    “Our members remain appalled that potential risks to Suffolk’s wildlife and damage to their special habitats have not been taken into account, despite warnings from Natural England,” Rachel Fulcher of Suffolk Coastal Friends of the Earth said early this year.

    But Judge David Holgate of London’s High Court dismissed on Thursday the legal challenge to the approval, ruling that the government’s consent was in line with the country’s energy policy.

    The legal challenge is an attempt “to rewrite the government’s policy aims by pretending that the central policy objective is … to produce clean energy, without any regard to diversity of energy sources and security of supply,” judge Holgate wrote.

    1. So, when is Sizewell C to begin generation? Not 2050, if Himkley C is anything to go by. I worked on that project early in the design phase late 1980s – still not producing…

    2. “Our members remain appalled that potential risks to Suffolk’s wildlife and damage to their special habitats have not been taken into account…”

      It is true that the shingly coastal habitat of that part of Suffolk is unusual and that a few hundred yards of it may be lost. However, I would be more inclined to listen to the utterances of certain environmentalists if they were to protest about the loss of habitat to land-based wind turbines, the sum of the area occupied by these being many times that which will be lost in Suffolk to a single nuclear power station.

  27. We get home next week. Not exactly looking forward:

    https://www.northnorfolknews.co.uk/news/23598777.fulmodeston-plagued-swarms-flies-chicken-farm/

    This plague has caused all village hall catering to stop. Many people are finding it difficult to prepare food in their homes. And effing Banhams say(a) they have done all they can and (b) if you live in the country you must expect these things. I’ve lived there 39 years and have never seen anything remotely like it.

    Council – of course – as helpful as a chocolate teapot.

    1. I see it was closed down three years ago and reopened this year – things are no better then. Just imagine the swarms of maggots before they fly off…… We live in the country and there ‘s nothing like that here. This particular chicken farm must be very unhygenic.

      1. It is – it is shocking. We all assume that Banhams are bribing the councillors.

        1. What did they do during the time it was closed? It doesn’t sound as though they cleaned up.

          1. It was a poultry breeding outfit – kept for seven weeks then slaughtered. So it was “cleaned” every 42 days.

            Now it is a egg production unit. “Cleaned” ONCE A YEAR……

          2. A good way to tackle house flies /bluebottles/ mozzies etc is to use the hose /wand of a vacuum cleaner (switched on of course)!

          3. I’ve just been using ours to tackle the carpet munchers……. why we went for a wool carpet is anybody’s guess. We knew better when we bought the upstairs ones.

        1. Why so? I rigged up a frame for our bedroom window to keep moths and gnats out.

          1. We had those in France and they really are very good. Under normal circumstances we couldn’t manage without them, but one year a ‘neighbourly’ French farmer decided to manure his fields during July. The stench was awful, but the swarms of flies for days was truly dreadful. We did manage to survive inside with the use of the mesh door screens. Eating outside was impossible.

          2. Meh, there is no really good solution for doors. We have long net curtains, where the net pieces overlap each other, and you have to fight your way through them. Very tedious.

            I would certainly put nets screens over the windows though – if you can, as British windows don’t tend to be made those.

      1. I have those; it means I can have the windows open all night and not get bitten.

  28. 373676+ up ticks,

    Britain SHOULD stop funding foreign wars
    Britain SHOULD stop funding foreign peoples ( Welfare)
    Britain SHOULD stop the Dover invasion.
    Britain SHOULD operate turn around service at Dover for illegals.
    Britain SHOULD stop the needle killers.

    As long as these political serpents find support & votes under the banner of the lab/lib/con/current ukip WEF / NWO coalition, the only change will be for the worst.

    ticks,https://twitter.com/RogerHelmerMEP/status/1672191748926210048?s=20

      1. One of the reasons, it is thought, that Sweden didn’t go the full monty is because the Swedes are already well down the path of being well and truly programmed for the brave new world of enslavement that is being planned for us.

    1. My father’s mother decided to remove my father from Blundell’s because he had, at the age of 13, knocked out a prefect of 18 who was bullying him. He ended up at Monkton Combe and became captain of rugby and head of school and I went to prep school in Bath and so we both knew the valley where the Titfield Thunderbolt was filmed quite well.

      1. Pleased to say it isn’t mine. Last night the Muntjac deer were playing hide & seek in it. How do I know? Well the male deer kept barking out ‘coming ready or not’ . At least that’s what I thought he was barking … ( I know you are thinking he’s not the only one!)

      2. ♫”One man and his dog, went to mow a meadow!”♫

        When I was little I used to hear that song and think there was a place called Mower Meadow.

        1. Like me and mice in plicity, From a hymn- forgive me for my simplicity and I asked my mother where plicity was and why were the mice there.

          1. And in “He who would valiant be”………..I thought it was “Gain stole his aster.”

      3. A friend of mine, a lovely woman called Cat (Catherine) was a Swiss exile in the USA. She hated her native country for its anal retentive tidiness, amongst other things she swore that the Swiss would go out at night and mow the mountain meadows.

        1. Not sure she wasn’t pulling your leg. I watched Heidi as a child and it was the cows and goats that did the mowing. Admittedly they did wake some people up as they started their sit on mowers.

          1. It was a metaphor, I suppose about how tiresome she found her native countrymen & women. I never believed that what she was saying was meant to be taken as literal.

        2. If the UK had only a fraction of Switzerland’s anally retentive tidiness, it wouldn’t be the filthy slum that it is.

          1. Too far south, Johnathan but we have a Luggershall in Norfolk as well.

            Desperately hoping to move back to Norfolk, soon.

            Looks like I got that wrong. Ain’t one in Norfolk .

            Blast, Bor, I coulda swore!

          2. There’s one near Tidworth – used to drive through Ludgershall on the way to Andover.

          3. “But then there are no non-natives to speak of.”

            The ancestrals are just as guilty in most parts of the rubbish dump.

          4. Only some parts of it. When people don’t have to contribute toward a place they don’t care about it. This is why when you get nice villages and towns you find the same attributes.

          5. Not here. In more than 6 years I have never seen a policeman and never heard of a crime being committed.

          6. Take a trip to any town of more than 40,000 people and watch the natives fouling their own nests.

  29. Some damned Leftie wanting to tax rich people who play with submersibles so that poor people can cross more safely into Europe.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/columnists/article-12224037/DAN-WOOTTON-new-Titanic-disaster-united-world-equal-horror-admiration.html

    Aware of the backlash, she doubled down, adding: ‘The Titanic submarine is a modern morality tale of what happens when you have too much money, and the grotesque inequality and sympathy, attention and aid for those without it.’
    Migrants are ”meant” to die at sea; billionaire’s aren’t.’
    Those comments referencing the equally upsetting story of the migrant boat that sank off the coast of Greece, killing at least 78, had already drawn intellectually dishonest parallels between the rescue operation for the passengers on the Titan.

    Pro rata I would suggest that the illegal migrants are using significantly more of their total wealth paying people smugglers, knowing the smugglers’ boats are dangerous and not seaworthy, than ever the billionaires were for their stupid vanity adventure.

    1. The people on board the submarine weren’t doing anything illegal, whilst those on board the migrant boat…

    2. DAN WOOTTON: The new Titanic disaster united the world in equal horror and admiration.
      Meh,not here,5 cretins chose an elaborate suicide method in a submersible apparently made out of fairy liquid bottles and sticky backed plastic,the only horror I have is the wasted acres of newsprint and the futile rescue attempts when it seems the USA navy recorded the implosion as it happened
      Still kept Hunter out of the headlines etc etc
      Cynical old sod me
      Edit forgot this
      https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1672016733102813184?s=20

      1. They already knew it had imploded? Why all the speculation about the oxygen supply? And the race to get there in time?

        1. To cover and distract you from extremely important events elsewhere in the world that were happening. And it worked.

      2. They already knew it had imploded? Why all the speculation about the oxygen supply? And the race to get there in time?

    3. No, welfare shoppers are not meant to die. They make a journey, fully aware of the illegality and muggins has to pay for that. I don’t want them to die. I don’t want them here in the first place. They, like the rich fellows, took a risk. With risk must come consequence.

      I don’t see why we bring them here rather than returning them to French waters.

      I can’t care about illegal immigrants dying at sea. It’s not nice, obviously, but they had options of applying legally and being refused, improving their own nations or welfare shopping and they must accept the consequences of their choices.

    1. I’ve been much more brutal in my political stance but the Warqueen is fairly normal. Her view is that you work. If you physically cannot work – and are not trying it on – then you should be supported. However, we’ve both worked with blind, disabled, agoraphobic, claustrophobic and all sorts of other ailment – characters who operate without issue, given support. Alongside that she believes you should pay as little tax as necessary to provide essential, shared services. This precludes any support for childcare.

      She supports practically everything that brings the money to the service – environmental health, education, transport (such as toll roads). She’d have no bother paying to use the roads to go to work as long as that was the only tax levied and it was hypothecated.

      As almost no tax is hypothecated, and it all squandered away on whatever big government wants, services are poor. There is no market. If one road is doing very well, and needs more repair or widening, then the money raised from it can be spent *on it*.. Instead, big government spends that money on whatever.

      Her attitude toward such as travellers and illegal immigrants is simple: give them nothing. Round them up and put them in a metal barn to starve. They’ve contributed nothing, they should get nothing. Interestingly her tax ideas would be fairer as you pay for what you use – you can’t avoid it but there is no at source taxation.

      1. https://twitter.com/bo66ie29/status/1671974576962633730

        The way we were , when I was a little girl , a schoolfriend put this in my autograph book

        Some bums are white
        Some bums are pink
        But in Africa where Maggie has been, all bums are black

        Schoolgirl autograph books were full of little observations like that !

        The so-called Protestant Ethic then prevalent held that man was a sturdy and responsible individual, responsible to himself, his society, and his God. Anybody who could not measure up to that standard could not qualify for public office or even popular respect.

        1. I’ve got that in mine as well………..

          Along with “The sun is up, the bird is on the wing………but that’s absurd – The wing is on the bird”

      2. Yes, there’s disabled and disabled. One of my colleagues appears severely disabled. He’s not only wheelchair bound but his head is permanently tilted to one side and he has a bad speech impediment. However, he can type and if you were to read his email correspondence, you wouldn’t believe there was anything wrong at all. Holding a conversation face to face requires effort but he has a good sense of humour and a healthy cynicism.

    2. In my opinion, ladies of more advanced age are much ‘hotter’ than those skinny, inexperienced ingenues (like those shown on your photo)l.

        1. The majority of my lunch guests are ladies of a certain age (older). They are far more interesting and have tales to tell, are appreciative and don’t drink like a fish. Ask Hertslass and Ashes !

          1. Wasn’t there a saying about older women – “they don’t yell, they don’t tell and they’re grateful as ‘ell”

      1. It’s all subjective. When I studied Philosophy as a student I learnt that part of the naturalistic fallacy was the mistake of ascribing philosophical truth to a value judgement.

        A pretty girl does not always grow into an attractive woman. Indeed many a woman who was not especially pretty at 18 becomes far more attractive than the pretty girl at 18 becomes.

        Catherine Deneuve was always an attractive girl but she was not as pretty as Brigitte Bardot; however in middle age Catherine was far more attractive.

        Mind you my wife was very pretty when I met her and now, to my mind, she is even more attractive than she was – that is not just my opinion!

        1. Most topics are subjective.

          Socialism, veganism and transvestism are not, though. They are all symptoms of an incurable brain disease.

      1. I’ve said it here before: Eva’s one of my pin-ups!

        Mind you I have always though Dutch girls were very special!

  30. Worthy of Nanners

    The Male cycle explained:

    (1) When I was 13, I hoped that one day I would have a girlfriend with big tits.

    (2)
    When I was 16, I got a girlfriend with big tits, but there was no
    passion, so I decided I needed a passionate girl with zest for life.

    (3)
    In college I dated a passionate girl, but she was too emotional.
    Everything was an emergency; she was a drama queen, cried all the time
    and threatened suicide. So I decided I needed a girl with stability.

    (4)
    When I was 25, I found a very stable girl but she was boring. She was
    totally predictable and never got excited about anything. Life became so
    dull that I decided I needed a girl with some excitement.

    (5)
    When I was 28, I found an exciting girl, but I couldn’t keep up with
    her. She rushed from one thing to another, never settling on anything.
    She did mad impetuous things and made me miserable as often as happy.
    She was great fun initially and very energetic, but directionless. So I
    decided to find a girl with some real ambition.

    (6) When I turned
    30, I found a smart ambitious girl with her feet planted firmly on the
    ground, so I married her. She was so ambitious that she divorced me and
    took everything I owned.

    I am older and wiser now, and I am looking for a girl with big tits.

      1. Yes, that disillusioned me. Before I knew that I was all for him as President.

      2. So sad that he is so disillusioned to believe that nonsense,

        I was taught to look for the ‘lie’in believe.

        Perhaps that’s why I’m such a cynic.

      1. Are we sure about that though? The Clinton/Obama/Biden/Pelosi/Kerry/Gore/Bush clique has been in power for a LONG time. Maybe their masters have decided to put them out to grass.

          1. They want my email address to read it.
            Real, professional election fixers own all the candidates…

          2. Really? That shouldn’t happen, try again if you would. I had no difficulty accessing it at all.

          3. Who would begin to believe the Washington Post or any merkin MSM They all lie.

        1. “The Clinton/Obama/Biden/Pelosi/Kerry/Gore/Bush clique.”

          When did Bush become a Democrat?

  31. Apologies for being the spectre at the feast but I have just emailed my son and it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write.
    The painkillers are horrible but necessary although don’t seem to work very well. At least the Pinot is going down better now and I don’t give a shit how early it is.
    I hope Paul and his family get home safe and sound and that he can enjoy his birthday.

    1. I remember receiving a call from my Father, that he’d been for tests and investigations, and has Oesophical cancer. Inoperable, and fatal in a very high % of cases. As it proved.
      It’s no fun receiving the message, either.

      1. Are you home now?
        Indeed re your comment. My old school chum is going to phone me tonight and my sister in law over the weekend.

        1. Not home yet, but in the car. Bags didn’t make the transfer in Bergen, so they’ll come later – we hope.

  32. Late on parade today,cor blimey what a night trying to sort out help for elderly next door neighbour who rang my doorbell at 2am asking me to help move her husband’s body which was lying on the floor (it wasn’t)

    Thought she may have had a stroke so tried to get an ambulance whilst she muttered nonsense got her drinking water as I suspected dehydration as a factor and an hour later she was much more lucid

    Paramedics and her daughter arrived just after 5am and so back to bed

    Now the Medley

    https://twitter.com/BernieSpofforth/status/1671845122475012096?s=20

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/43c56c6353bc375549dd548bf5cae5db1b00d7094a00b7744d95af5b28f116aa.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0c62f6ca21910541cb3e1b2b5eafd1a020006342ca68d3a7e93d0e3b85188ab5.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e47175457a2a9ec2e676126291ddec0cb88aa06999ed347e1f19d91bfc20f319.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b1aba361c7e4d6dee76c86461d97e8aec0eb6fa3d12b25ea60e7db73f5407bfa.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ac854fcde33ccab671cf2f43ecdfeda96051500a2c9ca333812b1785c8b6cb73.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/622234766f0b274b283458b2688539c0db7e42cce319368eb7ccf2da9a1387a7.jpg

    1. Re the first one- I first thought it said Librarians… I was going to come after you with my stick;-)

    2. Have Lloyds filled in the dots yet about how they intend to transition from being the UK’s biggest mortgage lender to the UK’s biggest landlord, or are we just supposed to be wild conspiracy theorists and figure it out for ourselves?

  33. All things that are planned go awry.

    Moh had a hospital appointment which was booked 2 months ago , in order to have a breathing test.. re his heart murmur problem , he should have been making tracks now .. but phone call this morning from hospital to say their machine was broken , so now cancelled until further notice .

    Moh should have been playing golf this morning , plus practising for a 2 day match tomorrow and Sunday .

    1. But Housie, thou art not to blame,
      In proving foresight may be vain:
      The best laid schemes o’ NICE an’ Men
      Gang aft agley,
      An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
      For promis’d joy!

      (With apols to R Burns Esq)

    2. But Housie, thou art not to blame,
      In proving foresight may be vain:
      The best laid schemes o’ NICE an’ Men
      Gang aft agley,
      An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
      For promis’d joy!

      (With apols to R Burns Esq)

  34. A man has been charged with attempted murder after two people were stabbed at Central Middlesex Hospital in north-west London.

    Matteo Bottarelli, 43, of Central Way, Park Royal, has also been charged with two counts of threatening violence with a bladed article in a public place.

    It comes after two men, believed to be aged in their 40s, were attacked at the hospital in Park Royal on Wednesday.

    Mr Bottarelli will appear at Willesden Magistrates’ Court later.

    Armed police were called to the hospital at 13:18 BST where they found the men with injuries thought to have been caused by a mattock – a type of pick-axe.

    Neither is in a life-threatening condition, but one of the men’s injuries “may be life-changing”, the Met Police has said.

    The suspect was initially arrested on suspicion of two counts of attempted murder but following police inquiries, he was further arrested on a third count.

    The third person did not sustain any injuries, police said.

    Mr Bottarelli was initially treated for injuries, but was later released into police custody.

    The incident is not being treated as terror-related.

  35. From a private, retired police officers’ FaceBook page:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/41694827ed9ea289ed4f04285759d02d6beaad29d16e461cf0c2fa34309acd95.png

    DISGRACEFUL.

    “Our investigation will consider whether the actions of the van driver were influenced by the police car’s presence shortly before he collided with the two pedestrians.”

    Our humble opinion: this HAS to change.

    We are absolutely ruining policing in this country. We are putting cops off getting involved in anything, chasing anyone, being proactive, or catching criminals.

    We, the public, need to decide what we want, and quickly. We also need to be vocal about it, because the only ones shouting at present are those that are anti-police and therefore they’re the ones who are being listened to.

    Do we want police to be robust, and act without fear or favour, catching criminals and making those that cause misery for the rest of us to pay? (We mean in jail time and or confiscation orders… this isn’t a Batman movie, sadly.) 😳

    Or, do we in fact want police to STOP chasing people altogether, to cease stop searching people, to let anyone under the age of eighteen act with complete impunity, to stop enforcing laws and just to not bother unless the streets are literally on fire?

    We can’t have it both ways.

    Successive governments, the mainstream media, PCC’s and Police Chiefs (many, but but not all) have let this happen on their watch for the last two decades. Maybe longer.

    Arrest people, but if they fight you and you fight back, you’ll likely be investigated for a year or more.

    Chase people, but if they get hurt, or hurt someone else, it might be your fault, and you’ll be investigated for a year or more.

    Go to crimes and investigate them, but be quick, because there are less of you covering a patch of several towns and cities than there are working in a single branch of McDonalds. Oh, and whilst you’re being quick, and probably diverting to something else, if you forget something, or make a mistake, it’ll be your fault and… you guessed it! 😊 You’ll be investigated for a year or more.

    There are myriad examples, but that’s the gist of it.

    All the while, we’ll tell you that “being investigated” doesn’t actually mean you’ve done anything wrong; the same thing that we tell members of the public. However, whereas they are entitled to a swift resolution, with you we will take twelve months or more in most cases, and the whole time you’re expected to carry on spinning all those same plates whilst knowing that you could lose your job if someone who’s never done your job disagrees with a decision you made in a split second – having had over a year to get to that same decision.

    It’s incredible really.

    What this country DESPERATELY NEEDS is the Personal Responsibility Act 2023.

    It would be quite simple.

    Something like, “If YOU, of sound mind, make a conscious decision and do an act which results in damage, or harm to you or anyone else, the responsibility rests with you and no-one else.”

    Evading law enforcement is NOT a defence.

    If police are acting in accordance with the law, and performing their lawful duties on any given day, THEY should be fully protected by law.

    When a criminal fleeing police causes damage or harm – or even worse, death – to innocent civilians, it’s absolutely perverse that people even consider blaming police.

    The only person to blame is the person fleeing. THEY could have stopped at any point. It should be an aggravating factor overall that sees them jailed.

    You’ll see some people on Social Media declaring “feds shud let him go cuz he wuz only in a nicked car an not doin no harm” or some other nonsensical bollocks. These are the same people who will proudly declare that they rang the police to report their neighbours playing loud music, and the police didn’t come. Just because they make the most noise, doesn’t mean that they’re right.

    Policing simply needs to stop pandering to such people.

    In fact, Police Social Media Pages would do well to turn off comments from the public altogether. You can still speak to them by DM, it just stops the police detractors from banding together and making noise.

    This is a bit of a rant, but why? Because we honestly care about the state of policing, and whether you like it or not it affects every single one of us. Crime seems rampant on the streets and we really feel for those who pull on their uniform to go out and face a barrage of hate from some of the people they have literally joined the job to protect.

    Let’s also not forget that if you’re lucky enough to work in Police Scotland or Avon and Somerset, you’ll also be in the unenviable position of facing further hate because of the public declaration that your Chief Constable’s have made. It’s absolutely INCREDULOUS that they feel that that’s not going to make life so much harder for Bobbies serving in the community – some of whom have hostile areas to police already.

    Anyway … we don’t know what the answer is, but perhaps some of you do?

    As always, our heart goes out to those that pull on a stab vest and lace their boots before going out there to fight the good fight – as well as the rest of you because you’re all cogs in a very important machine.

    We just hope we’re not going to see the #ThinBlueLine break in our lifetime.

    Stay safe out there.

    1. Plod haven’t helped themselves first with draconian enforcement of law during lockdown and later with refusing to enforce existing law over the joilers. They caution a Christian teacher and protect the muslim protestors threatening to kill him. When pakistani muslim paedophile rapists were mechanically raping children they did nothing – in the interests of ‘community’ yet leap on a woman praying outside an abortion clinic. The brat scum black kid is continuing his harrassment and plod arrest, then he’s let off 3rd time now. A bloke wanting to get to work beeps the joilers and plod threaten to arrest him – for doing the right and legal thing of using his horn to make people aware of the danger his car repersents.

      I am not endorsing the woman’s actions, or the teacher’s choices. but law is law, not interpreted and cheerful to apply as and when.

      Law must apply equally, to everyone or it is not law. The politicisiation of the police must end, and soon – from within the ranks.

      1. The surreptitious politicisation of the police started 45 years ago. It was formulated by an all-party agreement on improving police pay and conditions, but there was a caveat. A secret caveat. The police would no longer be citizens, publicly appointed and deriving their authority under the Crown. They became governmental stool-pigeons, appointed from wherever, and deriving their authority at the whim of parliament.

        Police officers on the street (when you can find one) act directly by government diktat. They are expected to put their lives on the line but get no support, from any quarter, when things go wrong. The rank-and-file officer wants … wishes … to do a good, proper job, but he/she is prevented, by politicians, from doing the job that Sir Robert Peel envisaged way back in 1829.

        How do you envisage that ‘the ranks’ will put a stop to this politicisation? They are prevented from withdrawing their labour, on punishment of imprisonment, by virtue of The Police Act 1919.

    2. It’s not just plod, George.

      When you DO get them into court the Judiciary is so wet, that they are let off with a mild slap on the wrist.

      Bring back hanging for both murder and rape, and the birch (in public, pants down) for those under 25 who have committed public nuisance acts – The humiliation will prevent them and their buddies even thinking about it.

  36. 373676+ up ticks,

    Dt,

    Do not let scientists rewrite Covid history. Lockdowns in America were a disaster
    As the UK Covid inquiry continues, we must not forget lockdowns failed and destroyed the lives of millions.

    Even those that put the party before the safety & welfare of the country, that would be the majority voters, MUST heed past history, and the similarities with the present in regarding
    lockdowns / incarceration, first the selection followed by the evil actions.

    Currently with some refinements, dancing etc,etc.

    They had welcoming orchestras in some camps, Lest we forget.

  37. Some BLT philosophy this afternoon:-

    Anastasias Revenge
    14 HRS AGO
    Off piste – I came across this – and there is a life lesson for all those who have their hands out for unnecessary government support… a message from the real world.

    A father used to say to his children when they were young: — When you all reach the age of 12 I will tell you the secret of life. One day when the oldest turned 12, he anxiously asked his father what was the secret of life. The father replied that he was going to tell him, but that he should not reveal it to his brothers.

    — The secret of life is this: The cow does not give milk. “What are you saying?” Asked the boy incredulously. —As you hear it, son: The cow does not give milk, you have to milk it. You have to get up at 4 in the morning, go to the field, walk through the corral full of manure, tie the tail, hobble the legs of the cow, sit on the stool, place the bucket and do the work yourself.

    That is the secret of life, the cow does not give milk. You milk her or you don’t get milk. There is this generation that thinks that cows GIVE milk. That things are automatic and free: their mentality is that if “I wish, I ask….. I obtain.”
    “They have been accustomed to get whatever they want the easy way…But no, life is not a matter of wishing, asking and obtaining. The things that one receives are the effort of what one does. Happiness is the result of effort. Lack of effort creates frustration.”

    So, share with your children from a young age the secret of life, so they don’t grow up with the mentality that the government, their parents, or their cute little faces is going to give them everything they need in life.

    Remember
    “Cows don’t give milk; you have to work for it.”
    ~Author Unknown

    1. Love Hollyhocks, they are so quintessentially cottage garden. Cottage has to have a thatched roof!

        1. That is stunning. we’ve looked at a small holding, a couple of acres and a smallish house. It’d provide a barn for our stuff.

      1. I almost bought a cottage with a thatched roof but.the day after I got the survey the bank interest rate went to 16%.!

          1. I think it was about 1982 when the rate shot up to ridiculously high levels. The surveyor was hampered by the seller in trying to report on both the roof structure and the well so I pulled the plug.

    2. Isn’t it funny how bees love honey?
      Buzz, buzz, buzz, I wonder why they does.

        1. Dear boy, as I have told you before- you will lucky to get 5 /- here never mind £5;-)

      1. It’s getting to the heart of the matter. I love the way it’s little furry body is covered in pollen.

        1. It must be 16 years since I took that photo, in the back garden of my cottage in Briston (just a couple of miles up the road from Bill).

  38. Well, here you are, folks, a once in a lifetime opportunity. This will never happen again. I am the lady in the front row with the sunhat. Photographed in Spain, La Jonquera, up in t’hills overlooking the largest lorry park in Europe, which could actually have been a million miles away. Our two sons are on the back row in blue and green, Poppie is obviously on the front row.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0a7da1d3df73a78225411639939ab3e953bae4d4579749b0a0e898856d76c632.jpg

      1. No, the lady and her husband far right are friends we met in France during out first year and we still meet up every so often. The two girls on the front row are the wives of our sons each in front of their husband. The white haired lady is Rebecca’s (younger son’s wife) mother with her father standing behind. Charles (my husband) is the one in the middle in the back row looking as though he needs a haircut. He did indeed need a haircut and was told so by his son!

    1. “I am the lady in the front row with the sunhat.”

      Ah, the pretty one. 😉Don’t tell Poppiesdad that I said that!😬

      1. She is indeed pretty but, what is more important is that she is attractive – which is far better!

    2. What a lovely photo, and how elegant you look. And Poppy there too to share what looks like a happy meeting!

  39. I’ll have to stop this displacement activity and go and do the weekly shop. Back later, folks!

  40. Just back from a very hot beach. Two nice swims. 4,304 steps achieved. Getting easier!

    Must sign off – French chum coming for an apero shortly. Have a super evening.

    A demain

  41. Par Four today.

    Wordle 734 4/6
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
    ⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜
    🟩🟩⬜🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Another five for me.

      Wordle 734 5/6

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

    2. Better than yesterday, but not much.

      Wordle 734 5/6

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

  42. We have only scratched the surface of Putin’s war crimes. 23 June 2023.

    It is time for the UN to get serious and back a demilitarised zone, enforced by Chinese troops, around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant .

    The Eastern Front is a harrowing film about the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine. It documents, in forensic detail, the war crimes being perpetuated by Russian forces. Putin has already been indicted by the International Criminal Court for forcibly taking children from Ukraine into Russia. After this documentary, you can add torture, indiscriminate attacks against non-combatants, and the use of white phosphorus munitions to burn out civilians. Not in the film, but we can also add the blowing up of the Kakhohka dam. This has rendered vast tracts of farmland useless and left millions without clean drinking water.

    This guy is seriously unhinged. It’s only a week ago that he was telling us that the Ukies were going to sweep the Russians aside with their new British tanks (all 14 of them) and march on Moscow. That the Chinese are going to take over the running of the Zaporizhzhia power plant is even more unlikely.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/23/we-have-only-scratched-the-surface-of-putins-war-crimes/

      1. Are you back home now? Hope you had a good holiday in Iceland and Happy birthday for today!

        1. Yes, was lovely, thanks. Love to go back.
          Thanks for the birthday wishes.

  43. Husband watching the Guns of Navarone and I have an earphone and listening to blessed Vivaldi; if I get it in my head I can hear it whenever.
    Had the most beautiful email from my son which made me cry like a child.
    You will have to forgive spelling errors as I so full of pills…. no more until 8.30.

    1. I am so glad you have heard from your son, I had wondered if you had been able to get in touch with him but didn’t like to intrude. Now go and listen to Vivaldi and relax, and think positive thoughts!!

    2. Just KBO, Ann, we’ll all get through this with you.

      I’m doing my best with the whisky and I’m happy that your son is supporting you.

    3. Pinot and pills – good combination 🙂
      Once I have seen the next consultant on Monday (to be assessed and a treatment plan drawn up), I will let our older son know. (He’ll throw a hissy fit if I don’t tell him, and he later finds out.) His DPhil research was on skin cancer so he may be interested.
      I told younger son last weekend; if older son finds out his brother knew first, the sh** will hit the fan!

        1. Thank you.
          Keep drinking the ‘anaesthetic’ – just like chocolate, it’s good for the soul if nothing else.
          Why do horrid things never seem to happen to all the nasty people in the world?
          Which day is your scan?
          Hope you get a decent night. Goodnight Lotl.

    4. I’ve got another pack of meds to take for 6 days now.
      I had to spend 3 hours in the minor injuries unit at the QE2 today.
      Gout was the diagnosis, so while I take the tablets, no booze for me for a week. Not that it’s been proven to actually cause the problem.

        1. Pain and problems walking, one of my big toes swollen was more painful than you could ever imagine. I’ve only take one of the two a day (six day) Colchicine tablets. And the swelling has gone down already and I can walk with out the limp.

    1. Is that the same one?

      Take her out and shoot her.

      Me, yes, I’m an old-fashioned Nazi. I just hate socialists and their ulterior motives.

        1. Too right, maybe shooting is too good – a slow and painful death maybe more apt for a witch of this sort,.

      1. Sadly the video was removed from Youtube, but there was an exposé of the Nazi name calling incident where an agent provocateur was shewn winding up the name callers and then passing something on to her Chief of Staff during the incident.

        All the time the look on her face indicated that she knew EXACTLY what was happening.

        1. I think I saw Bob, it went on right up to the trades entrance at the commons.

    1. Hi bb2! Had a wonderful day at the RHS, must have walked about 100 miles! Saw Princess Anne, SiL got a third for his ewe and 2 lambs, and the grandchildren had a ball! They’re all staying in their caravan tonight at the show ground and I wish them much luck with that!! Old man and I are knackered so may be hitting the hay very soon! Couple of pics tomorrow!

          1. The Mail went on about Princess Anne wearing a dress she had from 1978. I don’t think it was that one but the colour is similar.

  44. A water company boss has angered customers by blaming a hosepipe ban that will hit households across Kent and Sussex next week on people choosing to work from home.

    South East Water, which supplies more than two million homes and businesses, will impose the first new hosepipe ban of the summer on Monday. The company left thousands of customers without mains water for as long as six days earlier this month.

    Its stocks of untreated water are in a good position, with its largest reservoirs either full or close to full.

    However, David Hinton, its chief, executive, claimed today that a change in lifestyles had put its treatment works under too much pressure. Working from home was a “key factor” behind the hosepipe ban, which is designed to rapidly cut demand and could involve penalties of up to £1,000, he said.

    “Over the past three years the way in which drinking water is being used across the southeast has changed considerably,” he wrote to customers. “The rise of working from home has increased drinking water demand in commuter towns by around 20 per cent over a very short period, testing our existing infrastructure.”

    Hinton, who has been paid bonuses worth more than £350,000 in the past two years on top of more than £520,000 in basic salary, also blamed a recent hot spell and low rainfall since April, which he said had boosted demand for tap water, in part because gardener’s rain butts had been depleted.

    “Our reservoir and aquifer stocks of raw water, essential to our water supply but not ready to be used, are in a good position. However, demand for treated mains water, which takes time to process and deliver, was greater than we could meet,” he said.

    “Over the past week we have needed to find water to supply the equivalent of an additional four towns the size of Maidstone or Eastbourne, every day.”

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/south-east-water-blames-wfh-for-hosepipe-ban-b3kd38nbl

    1. The man’s nothing more nor less than a bloody fool.

      Get your own house in order first

      1, Build reservoirs.

      2. Dredge rivers.

      3. Stop dumping your shit in the rivers and seas.

      4, Straighten up and fly right.

    2. Perhaps those who run these companies are trying it on, again.
      You can’t blame all your mistakes on the customers. You sound like the stupid politicians.

  45. Kenya’s national human rights body has launched an investigation into allegations of killings and assaults by security guards at a Del Monte pineapple farm in Thika that supplies most British supermarkets.

    A joint investigation by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) published earlier this week uncovered claims from villagers of violence by guards at the plantation, including three alleged killings in the last four years.

    The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights said it was “greatly concerned and disturbed” by the alleged incidences of human rights violations.

    The commission, which was established by an act of parliament in Kenya, also called on Del Monte to “take immediate actions to ensure effective remedy” for those who have alleged violence.

    Del Monte said in a previous statement that it took the allegations “extremely seriously” and had launched a “full and urgent” investigation into the claims. It said it is committed to international standards of human rights.

    The vast plantation which covers at least 40 sq km (15 sq miles) is the single largest exporter of Kenyan produce to the world and directly employs 237 security guards. Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Waitrose, Ocado and Morrisons are among the supermarkets that stock its fruit. Tesco said it had suspended orders on all products sourced from the farm until an investigation is concluded.

    Guards on the farm are typically armed with wooden clubs called rungus, whose use in security is legal and common in Kenya, but the claims investigated by the Guardian and TBIJ suggest their use of violence has been excessive.

    The deaths reported include the allegation that a man died of injuries last December aged 52 – a week after four people claimed they saw him being beaten and stamped on by Del Monte guards.

    Last August another man, aged 22, was found dead on a road by the farm. Two men who went with him to steal pineapples that night claimed they had last seen him being beaten by Del Monte guards on the farm.

    Five Del Monte guards were also charged over the death of a man who was allegedly beaten to death on the farm in 2019, according to court records. The five former guards, who were immediately sacked by Del Monte after their arrest, have been in prison awaiting trial for nearly four years, with no date yet set.

    In a statement signed by KNCHR’s head of public affairs, Dominic Kabiru, the commission called on state agencies “to hasten and conduct structured investigations”.

    Pineapple thieves said they were reluctant to report alleged violence because they were afraid they would be arrested for pineapple theft. The Kenyan police service has not yet responded to requests for comment.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/23/kenya-human-rights-commission-to-investigate-alleged-killings-on-pineapple-farm

  46. Had a bit of a stressful day. Signing off early.
    Probably in bed by 9 pm.
    Oh well that’s life eh.
    Slayders.

          1. I hope you had a good birthday.
            And you were kind to the local religious leaders.
            You didn’t reckyervik.

  47. Just had a long conversation with an old school chum…. we laughed about things we got up to at grammar school. She doesn’t sound very different. She denied any blame in the small explosion in the chem. lab.
    Am waiting until 8.30 when I can take some more bloody pills and then may well head to bed.

      1. No, it was the two of us. Heat a test tube which we had to heat and cool down as fast as possible. The two Einsteins decided that that the best way was to run it under the cold tap. Boom.
        Outside the Head’s office 10 mins later. Now you know why I focused on Lit;-)

        1. Nothing as explosive behind me focusing on sciences instead of arts and language. The English teacher did frequently go overboard within rants at my lack of knowledge of basic English literature and would never accept that not everyone had a copy of Shakespeare’s works at home.

          1. Shock, horror- you mean you didn’t have have the complete works of Shakespeare? :-))

          2. Gosh! I thought everyone did! I have my mother’s complete set, plus her Thackerays, plus all the Shakespeares in one big volume………..
            One of the reasons we bought this house was all the nooks and crannies and room for lots of book cases.

  48. Goodnight and God bless, Gentlefolk, Time for my bed and a a swift prayer for Ann and others suffering. I know, I’ve been there.

    I hope to meet you all again in the morning’s light. Slainte

  49. I’m off to bed.
    Might not be on here after tomorrow morning, meeting up with an old Army mate for a whippet racing weekend!!

  50. I’m off to bed.
    Might not be on here after tomorrow morning, meeting up with an old Army mate for a whippet racing weekend!!

  51. I think I am off to bed shortly. Apologies for bad grammar and spelling today. Taken pills and had some Pinot but not much grub- no appetite.

    1. That boat full of ‘refugees’ should never have been allowed to set off when it was so overcrowded. He has a point though, that it was overshadowed by the Titan.

        1. OH here has been watching the womens’ cricket. Now we have the swift camera on – with the latest arrivals who moved in last week, tucked up in the sparrows’ nest and they have laid an egg.

          1. They have grown a lot! Even the last to hatch.

            We have three chicks in box 3, getting quite big now; one in box 5, and the other egg didn’t hatch. In box 14, after the fight the other week, and the eggs being ejected, things have settled down and they are now incubating three eggs. So box 16 chicks won’t fledge till late August. So we now have four breeding pairs.

          2. The walls and eaves of chateau sosraboc are currently full of birds and bats.
            The sparrows and the redstarts and nuthatches are in constant arguments over which bits are theirs.
            We have several bushes in close proximity and a couple of bird baths at either end of the terrace. It’s amusing to see how the pecking order works out, it varies from day to day.
            Unlike winter, where the nuthatches dominate the feeders, by sheer force of personality/aggression; now the sparrows are in charge, purely because there are so many.
            The redstarts and blackstarts guard their own but don’t join in the communal quarrels.
            Woe betide any bird who enters their smaller territory, they come at them like banshees, even the bigger doves and pigeons give them a wide berth.
            As evening progresses the bats dominate, there is a very short spell when both are out, but it soon becomes clear who is in charge at night.
            The bigger songbirds, blackbirds and the like, tend to keep to the creepers that grow on the Western walls and in the bushes and trees near the boiler house. The top predators are in the woods and strike daily, bird-less feathers are a frequent feature.
            One of my particular favourite moments is watching the owls as they start their patrols across the grasses. a slow swoop and a sudden drop and then a bird with a shrew or mouse rises and departs.

          3. Sos
            Your acreage sounds like paradise .. how lovely to just observe so many varieties, and take notice of their little habits .

            There is worked farmland within a couple of hundred yards of me . Shortage of insects and no summer visitors this year.

      1. Of course it was.
        The Titanic tends to grab headlines.
        Had they not been “visiting” the Titanic but rather a treasure ship in the Bermuda Triangle, I doubt it would have even been on the local news.

      2. Biden was advised by the US Navy that the Titan submarine had imploded on the Sunday of the dive.

        Biden and his gang of tyrants chose to keep this fact from the US people in order to distract from yet more negative news and whistleblower evidence about the Biden Crime Family and
        incriminating Joe in treason.

        Obama likes to think of himself as a great former President. He is none such but a corrupt grifter second only to Biden himself in the ‘worst President in history of America’ stakes.

  52. I suppose all the thousands of unemployed are attending Glasto including the doctors on strike, nurses, train drivers, the Blob, passport bods and teachers etc . Hell bells the tickets cost a fortune. I thought the country was in a financial dwang and food banks are a necessity .

  53. Definitely off to bed. Pain killers are sodding useless.
    I wish you all sleep and peace.

  54. Edited for clarity.

    Re the submersible and comparisons with the Greek tragedy.

    The idiots on the submersible were spending money they had gained from creating prosperity or providing services in their own countries, or being members of families that did so.

    The migrants were fleeing countries where they could/should have been creating prosperity, providing services or using their skills to build the countries they were feeling from. And that totally ignores the fact that they should defend their own; most are single males of fighting age.

    Unless you are prepared to create at home, why should the rest of the world support you in their countries rather than yours?
    It particularly enrages me that when having arrived they expect their hosts to provide everything and also change their way of life to suit them.

    1. Apparently the overloaded boat was also full of women and children down below, who were the most likely to drown as they couldn’t escape.

      1. I read that too.

        Typical of that particular culture that they do a reverse Birkenhead drill.

  55. Am I having a nightmare?

    Migrants will be housed in MARQUEES across the country under new Home Office plans – after it was revealed Border Force has intercepted more than 3,000 refugees this month
    A total of 10,962 people in 246 small boats have arrived in the UK so far this year
    READ MORE: Albanian small boat crossings surge after a winter drop-off

    The Home Office is planning to house hundreds of migrants in marquees across the country.

    The government’s plans come as today it was revealed that the number of Channel crossings by people in small boats so far this month is now higher than the number for June last year.

    According to official figures, 312 asylum seekers were intercepted in eight boats by UK officials yesterday.

    This brings the official number of migrant crossings this month to 3,303 in 68 boats – an average of 49 people crammed into each inflatable dinghy or other small craft.

    More people thought to be migrants arrived in Dover earlier today as people smugglers took advantage of the weather of low winds and no rainfall.

    Border Force vessel Ranger was spotted this afternoon patrolling the 21-mile Dover Straits after dropping a group of migrants at the port.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12227635/Border-Force-intercepts-3-000-migrants-month.html

    1. No problem that they are to be housed in marquees so long that those marquees are surrounded by high security fences and entry/exit is VERY strictly controlled.

    1. I’ll start the pedantic stuff. It was a submersible not a submarine, and it ain’t missing, its whereabouts, squished as it is, are known.

      1. I don’t believe a word of most of it, all utterly unbelievable. All I accept is that a) yes, there probably was a submersible, b) it apparently imploded last Sunday c) its whereabouts were always known.

  56. As far as BBC bosses are concerned, this year’s Glastonbury festival coverage is all set to be a huge success for the corporation.

    With a ‘record number of hours’ on BBC1 and what has been billed as increased ‘scale and accessibility’ of its ‘iPlayer offer’, the Beeb has been hyping up this year’s event for weeks.

    But one thing it is less keen to promote, amid the giddy build-up to what one industry insider has branded the ‘Generation X Proms’, is just how many of its staff decamp to the five-day music festival in Somerset.

    You will be hard pressed to find any mention of the roughly 500 workers it is estimated the BBC will be sending to the festival in its press announcements about the event.

    (Not surprising, perhaps, given that many in the industry reckon the total could be far greater, though the corporation has described speculation that it could be as high as 1,000 as ‘completely inaccurate’.)

    Nor are you likely to read about the sky-high cost of putting up these workers in local four and five-star hotels that many of them are believed to be staying in for the entire five days.

    Rooms at the Charlton House Hotel – understood to be one of the BBC’s main bases – cost up to £400 per night.

    And the expense of airing this year’s festival, which is said to run into ‘several millions’, has not been made public either. It’s all enough to make the increasingly put-upon licence fee-payer wonder whether this budgetary excess represents value for money.

    The multi-million-pound figure should come as no surprise, however, given that the BBC’s blanket coverage of the event – which is featuring top acts including Guns N’ Roses, Sir Elton John, Lizzo and Blondie – will be spread across its TV, radio and online services.

    The staggering array of outlets producing shows from those famous fields in the West Country includes BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, BBC4, Radio 1, Radio 1 Dance, Radio 1Xtra, Radio 2, Radio 6 Music, Asian Network and Radio 4. Then there are numerous live streams on iPlayer and further audio content on BBC Sounds.

    And it’s not just specialist music shows that are getting in on the act – numerous mainstream shows are too.

    Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour was broadcast from Glastonbury for the first time yesterday, bringing listeners ‘the latest from the festival’, while Zoe Ball’s Radio 2 breakfast show was also based there.

    And BBC1’s prime-time magazine programme The One Show has been reporting live from the festival, as have the corporation’s news outlets. Even the CBeebies Bedtime Stories slot will be broadcasting Glastonbury specials after the festival.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12228385/PAUL-REVOIR-BBC-afford-send-500-staff-Glastonbury.html

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