Sunday 2 July: Planned new reforms should reintroduce top-quality training and service to the NHS

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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473 thoughts on “Sunday 2 July: Planned new reforms should reintroduce top-quality training and service to the NHS”

  2. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story

    Get The Real Culprit

    Little Tim was in the garden filling in a hole when his neighbour peered over the fence.

    Interested in what the cheeky-faced youngster was up to, he politely asked, “What are you up to there, Tim?”

    “My goldfish died,” replied Tim tearfully, without looking up, and I’ve just buried him.”

    The neighbour was concerned, “That’s an awfully big hole for a goldfish, isn’t it?”

    Tim patted down the last heap of earth then replied, “That’s because he’s inside your stupid cat.”

    1. Same here, Bob3, and I’m of for Sunday lunch with friends in a nearby village. Good morning, btw. [Manners, Elsie!]

    2. 374091+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      This is RESET / NWO going physically operational.

      The remnants of England are at the latter end of the softening up period, expect a french type follow on, ALL the pieces are in place, mainly
      awaiting in hotels.

      1. It’s nothing new in France – they have had a lot of churches set on fire, for years now. And there was that priest murdered a few years ago.
        People in Britain are so complacent, I don’t think most of them are even aware of what has happened, or how easily and quickly it could happen here, and suddenly, there would be very few churches left.

          1. Or being taken over by ‘evangelical’ commercial outfits based in Africa….

        1. A Tw@ter comment added to the one posted by Ogga:-

          Nothing new. They’ve been doing that in parts of Africa for decades without the West taking a lot of notice.

          2. The European Conservative is reporting that it happened on 29th June.

        2. No – it’s a poor old priest in France beaten to within an inch of his life.

        3. If you haven’t got a Twitter account you will be unable to see any posts as viewing has now been disabled.

      2. 374091+ up ticks,

        Morning Bob,
        The governing coalition party supporting voters , after the cottaging
        politico lifted the latch on mass uncontrolled immigration never looked back in putting their party before the Country, NO MATTER the evil CONSEQUENCE.

    5. Amateurs.
      The last time a priest was attacked, his throat was cut – just to make sure.

  5. Planned new reforms should reintroduce top-quality training and service to the NHS

    I expect after that it will become the envy of the world

    1. Morning, Olaf’s Relict.
      Just by way of a change, I am spending the day doing …. er … what’s the word I want? Something beginning with ‘P’ ….

  8. Infected blood scandal compensation could cost more than £20bn. 2 July 2023.

    Ministers have examined financial modelling which places the upper forecast for total compensation to be paid to those mistakenly infected with HIV and hepatitis C and their loved ones in the mid-£20 billions.

    The figures have caused concern in Whitehall because the potential amounts involved are so large that they would affect the Government’s overall fiscal picture.

    However, ministers do not currently know where the money is coming from, with the compensation at present “completely unfunded”, The Telegraph has been told.

    The infected blood scandal has been described as the biggest treatment disaster in the history of the NHS.

    Well I’m not au fait with the figures but I would have thought that Covid dwarfs this!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/07/01/infected-blood-scandal-compensation-could-cost-over-20bn/

    1. “Ministers do not currently know where the money is coming from” Well, I do: from the long-suffering British taxpayers.

        1. And our great-grandchildren will still be paying off the debt thus created.

        2. Electronic computer money is endless. Eventually they will come unstuck when the currency no longer has any value.

          1. I read earlier on GP that Argentina have just paid back a $2.7Bn loan to the IMF, in yuan. Currency problems may be closer than we think.

          3. Probably too interesting. Is this the death of the dollar. What’s USD 5.00 in Yuan. Maybe I have to change my Kindle charging.

    2. “Ministers do not currently know where the money is coming from” Well, I do: from the long-suffering British taxpayers.

    3. Well I’m not au fait with the figures but I would have thought that Covid dwarfs this!

      That’s one of the reasons why the government et al. are ignoring the facts and have set up a whitewash inquiry. Another reason is if the truth came out those responsible would be lucky if they ended up in prison, the unlucky would…

      1. Just so long as Elf’n’Safety check the stability of the lampposts first.
        We wouldn’t want to do anything illegal.

  9. Infected blood scandal compensation could cost more than £20bn. 2 July 2023.

    Ministers have examined financial modelling which places the upper forecast for total compensation to be paid to those mistakenly infected with HIV and hepatitis C and their loved ones in the mid-£20 billions.

    The figures have caused concern in Whitehall because the potential amounts involved are so large that they would affect the Government’s overall fiscal picture.

    However, ministers do not currently know where the money is coming from, with the compensation at present “completely unfunded”, The Telegraph has been told.

    The infected blood scandal has been described as the biggest treatment disaster in the history of the NHS.

    Well I’m not au fait with the figures but I would have thought that Covid dwarfs this!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/07/01/infected-blood-scandal-compensation-could-cost-over-20bn/

  10. Good morning, all. Sunny – and with the same old gale from yesterday.

    No news, I see.

    1. Interesting. I have mentioned before my friend who was a senior bod at HSBC for 30 years and at the end was required to be “reverse mentored” by a very young black lesbian Canadian. At which point he retired. Maybe that’s what they wanted all along.

      1. I’m not interested in the political views of anyone who is de-banked – the point is that the banks shouldn’t be policing people’s political activity!

        1. Exactly.
          Aftenposten over here had a triumphant article on Farage “The architect of Brexit” leaving the UK – it didn’t say anything about be de-banked, which is the whole story.
          Sent them an email with links to UK papers, but no response. But then, they are pro-EU and anti-Brexit, so why would they report the real story and not some old hooey?

        2. Morning all.

          HMG led the way when it confiscated Russian money and assets. It was always on the cards that it would not be the last time it happened and to the little people.

  12. This isn’t just migrants vs French?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/31f41bff8e095da3e6a02815e8a14ba0f179fdfd86a10628b8689310c032b133.jpg

    Islam is the biggest divider between north Africans and French – apart from that, they have a lot in common. North Africans go out and block the street with burning tyres every time the government wants to pass a law that they don’t agree with. French are notoriously prone to revolution, as we know.

    PS: and “Macron’s treason for the WEF” – I remember when Macron was elected, and there were long lines of idiot French voters at the consulat in London saying earnestly “we must prevent the far right being elected at all costs.”

    Technocracy is even worse than either fascism or communism, because it thinks it doesn’t need the people at all.

    1. I remember Macron walking the long walk to his ‘inauguration’ – for want of a better word – in the evening darkness, accompanied by not ‘The Marseillaise’ but ‘Ode to Joy’.* I thought it treasonous right from the start.

      *I think it was ‘Ode to Joy’ – I am sure someone will put me right if it was not. But it very definitely was not ‘The Marseillaise’!

  13. Good morning all.
    10°C and it’s turned cloudy. Dry at the moment, but there looks to have been a light shower overnight.

      1. Poppiesmum thinks not 🙁

        But all publicity is good publicity for this issue that most people don’t even seem to realise is happening.

    4. Hello bb2 – i saw that back in April and it was refuted by others. It seems to be doing the rounds.

      On another matter entirely, I seem to be locked out of Twitter, I get the message “Something went wrong, Try reloading” or “Wait a few moments, try reloading” sometimes accompanied by a message I have exceeded my tweet limits. I understand that other people had this problem yesterday, I hoped it would be resolved today. I can access my Twitter notifications, so I can see that others by ‘liking’ or retweeting earlier comments have got access to Tweets. I have not been accused of any ‘Twitter crime’. All support is pre-worded tick-box and my question is not one of those which is pre-planned.

      Any ideas, bb2? Any Nottle Twitter users? Anybody?

      1. They’ve restricted the number of tweets you can view per day to 600, unless you pay the subcription.
        It sounds high, but if you follow a lot of people and scroll past a lot without reading it, it would be fairly easy to hit 600, I should think.

        1. Thank you, bb2, I thought that might be it having heard rumours but I wish Twitter had announced that. A little information box where the ‘try reloading’ pops up would have been helpful, I wasn’t sure whether the subscription was rumour or not – it seems a very unprofessional way of going about things. Some of the stuff one scrolls past is simply dross, 600 tweets is not very many – about 20 minutes. I expect I’ll have to pay, I wake early and Twitter helps me not to think sad dog thoughts, it forces me to think about other things.

          1. It was a banner headline on GB news last night! I doubt the beeb got round to it!

          2. Ah, thank you, Sue. I don’t watch any tv now. We got out of the habit in France when the ‘beam’ was narrowed in 2012. We were too far south to receive it and we didn’t watch enough tv anyway to warrant an international subscription. When we returned home in 2018 it just all seemed so much noise and distance had given us a different perception. And we were disgusted with the bbc’s political stance. A banner headline on Twitter would have been helpful!

          3. Personally, I’d get rid of ours as well, but…..husband, and well, that’s it …..!

          4. I’d be quite happy to ditch the telly but OH does like watching the sports and occasionally there are good music programmes like the recent Cardiff Singer competition.

          9. Twitter scrolling is quite stressful, I find. They are always collecting more information about you, do you like this tweet etc. I do learn interesting stuff, but even the accounts I follow post about 1 in 5 tweets that really interest me. It wears you out. Perhaps the 600 message limit is good for one’s health.
            I do sympathise about filling the early morning – is there anything else that you could look at, like videos? They force you to slow down to the pace of the presenter.
            Thank you for the info about the tweet, by the way. I did wonder, as if it were true, it should have been picked up by more people.

          10. Sozzinski had a line on it; I’ll attempt to explain as this moggie understands it. The current limits are a temporary measure as Elon and co. carry out ‘data scraping’. This appears to be in response to the next step up from ‘bots’, where unscrupulous entities are farming twitter accounts for personal information.

            Although I was under the impression bot accounts were halted, I still get a couple of alleged floozies with only a couple of followers who have decided to follow me.

            Twitter is hosted on over 500,000 servers, so one can only hope he’s more successful this time.

          11. Thank you, Feargal. I came across something on Twitter a short while ago which I have copied and posted here on Nttl – I was given access to Twitter about 1.00pm this afternoon after 24 hours disruption. I didn’t know you were on Twitter, I’ll give you a follow. Yes, in the last few days I have had more than a few Chinese floozie porn merchants following me (with very few followers themselves) all of whom I blocked. Are you Feargal the cat on Twitter?

          12. Yes but apparently I’m currently unable to follow you back due to some mystery limit. A limit of less than one!

          13. Not to worry…. Twitter is in a very strange mood, I have found at the moment I cannot ‘like’ a comment as it ‘may be automated spam’ (with apparently some sort of evil intent…!). Sosraboc informed me that I had inadvertently posted the data scraping information on yesterday’s blog, so I have deleted it, it was quite long and your info was much more succinct.

          14. As I mentioned on here, or GP, on Tuesday I was informed that my twitter account had been highlighted (by whom?) that it may be automated spam. I was limited in likes but RTs were verboten, for three days.

            I do RT many comments from the likes of Zarah Bukake and Sally-Ann King, which are very sharp, humorous and robustly rude to the Leftwaffe. Which is fully deserved.

            I had some clown asking who I was and intending to report my account as a bot. This was a few weeks back, perhaps they just had a sense of humour failure…it seems rife in the Leftwaffe ranks.

            I’m sure once Elon has secured his servers things will return to ‘normal’, much to the chagrin of the ill-informed, gloating Leftwaffe.

  15. The world is watching in disbelief as France tears itself apart. 2 July 2023.

    When the riots broke out, I was at the Tocqueville Conversations, a conference on the Ukraine-Russian conflict. There eastern Europeans ¬– Poles, Ukrainians, émigré Russians, together with Brits and French and Americans and Spaniards – watched in increasing disbelief such wanton destruction perpetrated in a country at peace. “They’re destroying the social compact which is essential for democracy”, Sławomir Dębski, the noted Polish historian and geostrategist, mused. We had been discussing the cost to Europe of rebuilding post-war Ukraine: the French among us started worrying about the cost of rebuilding parts of Marseille, Lens, Bordeaux, Paris.

    The social compact in the UK is already dead and buried! The Ukraine-Russia “conflict” must be the biggest squirrel in history!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/01/world-is-watching-in-disbelief-as-france-tears-itself-apart/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    1. No, it is NOT France tearing it’s self apart, it’s been torn apart by it’s migrants.

      1. You sometimes wonder whether God deliberately put white people in Europe, black people in Africa and brown and yellow people in Asia knowing that if they were all mixed together there might be trouble.

        Black is black and white is white and when the twain do meet
        Confusion rules o’er all the world and rocks God’ judgment seat
        But when white yields without a fight and crawls away in fear
        We’ll know that reason has been slain and Armageddon’s here.

    3. The world isn’t watching in disbelief as France tears itself apart, it was all entirely predictable.

      1. And has been predicted for quite a while. A bloke called Powell was the first voice in public, as far as I recall, and that was 50 or so years ago.

        1. Good morning, Paul,

          I posted this yesterday:

          A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.

          [Mark Ch.VI vv4-6]

          They didn’t believe him, indeed he was reviled for telling the truth and those who repeat the truth he uttered are still reviled and vilified.

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4c4d5d517a44e64a7bf3062b61457db9afe3fb017fb77dff749b30800c643819.png

          And against all the evidence the PTB will continue to refuse to accept that he is being proved right.

      2. And has been predicted for quite a while. A bloke called Powell was the first voice in public, as far as I recall, and that was 50 or so years ago.

      3. We might be watching in disbelief as it’s reported, given the PTB’s propensity for hiding inconvenient truths.

  16. There was an interesting article on the Dutch farmers also in today’s Terriblegraph.

    A short comment on people, however. I was listening to GB News’s Headliners from last night where they a had some comedian I’ve never heard of being asked by the host about his thoughts on Net Zero. They guy said along the lines of, “I believe in recycling and not wasting stuff” and this is the problem we are up against. So many people think “Net Zero” is benign and is just about “recycling and stuff”. This guy then said he would vote Lib-Dem (sic). Of course again he thinks the Lib-Dems (sic) are a protest vote without knowing how dangerous their insane policies are.

    1. I too believe in not wasting anything, not making a mess, but that’s not net zero. Net zero is not living.

      1. I think everyone of a conservative bent is very keen on not wasting the earth’s resources. I am probably the youngest person in England who still darns socks. But as we all agree, that isn’t the same as “Nut Zero”.

        1. We’ve always been “waste not want not” here – but ‘nut zero’ is really something quite different. There is no “climate crisis” – the climate is very stable and certainly nothing to worry about in this temperate country.

    2. CO₂ is constantly being recycled, it is one of the staffs of life of our planet.

      1. Would that be Eid Davey, the pseudo muzzie?
        Did you have a lovely birthday, Rastus?

  17. Good morning all,

    Sunny at McPhee Towers this morning but it’s going to cloud over a bit later on, wind in the West, 13℃ and it looks as though it will struggle to break 20℃ today. Not July temperatures. I wonder why that could be?

    From the Gatesograph letters:

    Tourism is making a dummy out of Edinburgh

    SIR – I have just returned from my home city of Edinburgh, where I was deeply saddened by the effects of rampant over-tourism, particularly in the ancient Royal Mile and Grassmarket areas.

    These once-beautiful, historic places are now filled with restaurants and bars, which spill out over the streets and pavements. Tacky tartan souvenir shops, cashmere woollen shops and whisky-tasting rooms have also spread like Japanese knotweed, obscuring the true attractions of a medieval town centre.

    Street artists, which were once an annual delight during the festival period, are now ubiquitous and predictable. Tour guides dressed as witches or extras from Braveheart clamour for business and lead mobs of bovine-like customers through the throngs of tourists struggling to find space in the high street, wynds and closes, while buskers and bagpipers compete for listeners through a cacophony of noise.

    Edinburgh, such an elegant and timeless city of historic beauty and wonder, is drowning in this massive wave of visitors, while the council is seemingly turning a blind eye to an unregulated tourist industry.

    Without a vision for the future, Edinburgh is in danger of becoming little more than a Disney-esque tartan theme park.

    Peter Ferguson
    Hertford

    Well, Peter, it is not in danger of becoming little more than a Disney-esque tartan theme park. It is one and has been for decades. The Royal Mile has always been a mile of Tartan kitsch.

    I knew Edinburgh well in my youth since my family lived 20 miles to the West of it. There was a very frequent train service from our village into the city, so frequent that I could go to school in Edinburgh, come home for high tea then return to the city for evening activites on occasions. Although I went to university elsewhere I kept returning to Edinburgh throughout my 20s and early 30s but less frequently in succeeding years. I felt it was a place which had a beauty and quality of life which few other places in the British Isles had ( I was biased of course). No more, apart from the spectacular topography of the place that is.

    The last time I was in Edinburgh was in 2019 when I was there for a week. The changes were shocking. Princes Street Gardens were littered, filthy so seemed uncared for and Princes Street itself was a sad sight compared to its glory days. We were booked into a hotel on the Royal Mile and the route to it had to be along Morrison Street, Bread Street, through the Grassmarket and along the Cowgate. The state of the road was appalling. I was glad I was driving a hire car and not my own. While I was there I went to a school reunion ( actually the main reason for the trip which we turned into a holiday). More than a few of my old school friends who hadn’t moved away lamented the state of the city and said they felt it was run for the benefit of the tourists and not the residents. I couldn’t disagree.

    Is there anyone else here who knows or knew Edinburgh? I’m interested in your views.

    1. Been there a couple of times when staying with Scots family. Not been there in years. My hometown is London and we all know what’s happened to that….

    3. The last time I was in Edinburgh was for a Van Morrison concert at the Playhouse last March. Got the train from Linlithgow and walked from Waverley to the top of Leith Walk! What a ghastly, shambolic, glass fronted mess that beautiful city has become! No more open views of the Observatory and Calton Hill, nothing visible to the West and North, just acres of high rise tat, topped with some building which looks like a conglomeration of a Walnut Whip and a dog turd! Hellish! I used to work in Chambers Street, opposite the National Museum of Scotland and, as you say, it has become a pot-holed detritus-filled tip! And don’t start me on Waverley station…😱
      There you go, Fiscal! My rant is over!

        1. It all started with the incompetent fool, Alistair ‘Eyebrows’ Darling!

          2. I think he died. I’ll go and check!
            I was fibbing! He’s not dead, but he lives in Hendon!

          3. I think he’s still alive……..

            He did do one good thing – when the Icelandic banks crashed & burned, he got our money back.

      2. “What a ghastly, shambolic, glass fronted mess that beautiful city has become!”

        This could be said of many towns and cities throughout the land, whether they be historical or unremarkable.

    1. That is spine tingling.
      I’ve never forgotten going to a church service in Russia; the place was packed. Not just with little babushkas in their scarves but also Russian hard men – complete with black leather jackets – wandering around with candles.
      No pews, everyone stood or pottered about. I would imagine mediaeval English churches were similar.

      1. There is in Berkeley, California, a very High Anglican Church where there are no pews everyone stands, women must wear a scarf, incense billowing everywhere, and the vicar does mass with his back to the congregation with his cope held up by two alter boys when he is blessing the eucharist and the wine, everything is done in Plain Chant. It is about as Medieval as you are going to get. I took my last mother in law there because she was a staunch Roman Catholic who looked down on all the rest as not proper. But this church outdid the Catholics which, very nicely, shut her up.

        1. I attend a high church Anglican service. We do a lot of standing, but we do have pews. The priest (we had a locum this morning) chanted most of it.

      2. When I went to a Greek Orthodox service in Kavala, there were no pews. It is the origin of the phrase, “the weak go to the wall”.

    2. Beautiful place! So much more stunning than the Blue Mosque! Probably because it was built as a church!

    1. Was just thinking about posting that! I do hope she’s OK although probably taking it easy.

      1. The last bit is most important.
        And how was your night, Ann? Restful, I hope.

        1. Not really- up in the wee hours and stood looking out the window for a while.

          2. I am in the PG Wodehouse school of thought when it comes to tea. Drinking tea can kill you. I believe it was Fruity Biffin who was advised by his doctor to cut down on the booze and drink tea instead. He went to Fortnum’s and bought a pound of tea and was killed by a Hansom Cab crossing the road.
            So drinking tea can kill you;-) I hate the bloody stuff.

          3. “Drinking tea can kill you” Don’t for heavens’ sake tell Robert…{:¬))

          4. Felling ash trees seems more hazardous to my mind. They might not topple in the opposite direction as intended.

          5. Whilst I do have the occasional tree fall in not “quite” the right direction, I’ve not had one go totally the wrong way yet!

          6. Good morning Ann

            I am working my way through all of P.G. Wodehouse’s books in my collection at the moment. I am currently reading the stories Mr Mulliner relates in the Anglers’ Rest as he drinks his hot Scotch and lemon..

      2. The last bit is most important.
        And how was your night, Ann? Restful, I hope.

  20. Good moaning.
    It’s being so cheerful that keeps me going. Any chance Douglas Murray could become dictator?
    I’d settle for him ruling Blighty: the rest of the word can go hang.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/01/the-left-now-wants-utter-abolition-of-britain-as-we-know-it/

    “The Left now wants the utter abolition of Britain as we know it

    Time and time again, this country’s most innocent pleasures are made grist for the modern grievance mill. I’ve had more than enough

    Douglas Murray1 July 2023 • 5:54pm

    Imagine the following fantastical idea. An inquiry is set up into the nature of something – anything – in modern Britain. It is staffed by the usual combination of quangocrats and wokeistas. Its job is to investigate whether everything is hunky-dory, or whether there could be some – any – evidence of past injustices.

    The participants know that top marks and maximum media attention are always awarded to such committees if they manage to pin the label of “systemic racism” on the thing being investigated. What are the chances they come back and say, “Actually there’s nothing to see here. Everything looks fine”?

    The answer is very near to zero, as we are now reminded on a weekly basis. Scouring our past and present and declaring it “institutionally racist” or somehow insufficiently inclusive has become the abiding bureaucratic game in modern Britain.

    This week, it was the turn of cricket to be so described. A report by the “Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket” (ICEC) found that English cricket allegedly suffers from “widespread and deep-rooted” racism, sexism and elitism. Urgent reform is apparently badly needed. Goodness.

    You can tell much about this preposterous inquiry from its name. “Equity” is, of course, not the same thing as “equality”. “Equity” means equality of outcome, and has nothing to do with either equality of opportunity or merit.

    If true “equity” was ever arrived at in cricket, or any other sport, it would mean both sides always ending up with the same score, and nobody either winning or losing. It would mean people with no aptitude for the sport playing alongside those with the greatest aptitude. As for “elitism”, well – once again – elitism is a rather important thing in sports. Like elitism in academia, it ought in fact to be the aim. Not in keeping people out, but in only allowing in those most deserving of a place there.

    But in some ways this is to duck the issue, which is this: I am afraid that like much of the rest of the public I can no longer bring myself to be bothered. Perhaps there is racism, sexism, class-ism, able-ism and even elitism in the world of cricket. Perhaps there isn’t. The ICEC report makes for very thin reading and thinner still evidence. But I am simply no longer bothered about such claims by bodies which seem guaranteed to have put the black cap of the hanging judge on their heads before hearing even the first piece of evidence or any case for the defence.

    Like many others, I am simply fed up, bored and increasingly angry about everything in this nation – including its most innocent pleasures – being put through the modern grievance mill.

    Of course, it isn’t at all remarkable that our country is filled with disgruntled malcontents and hand-wringing self-haters. What is remarkable to me is that institution after institution simply gives in to them. Where did all the adults go? Did they just leave the room and give it over to the people who know nothing yet forever instruct the rest of us to “educate” ourselves?

    Look at an institution like the British Museum. The sole purpose of its director and trustees is to safeguard one of the great national collections of international treasures. It is not a museum of Britain. It is a museum of the world, that the world comes to see. But look at what the people in charge of it are obsessed by.

    The former chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, is now chairman of the museum and has proved as much of a damp rag in that role as he was in government. He seems to have that perpetual Conservative-in-midlife-crisis desire to be loved by people who will never love him and whose opinion shouldn’t bother him anyway. In his new position, Osborne seems to be mulling the giving away of the museum’s treasures. All the talk is once again of returning the Elgin Marbles. Instead of making the argument for why this nation has these treasures and why we are best placed to preserve them, the discussion is led by people who behave as though the museum is holding on to a set of stolen goods, rather than a legitimately purchased collection.

    The British Museum may not be the museum of Britain. But if such a place does exist then it is our great cathedrals and abbeys. Yet these places too have decided to turn on themselves. Just this past week we learned that St Paul’s Cathedral had used its promotional website to attack Winston Churchill and Lord Nelson. Among other things, it described Churchill – whose funeral, of course, took place in St Paul’s – of being an “unashamed imperialist” and a “white supremacist”.

    Why would they do this? Because where our national religion once stood a new one now stands. As the Anglican church has become simply Extinction Rebellion at prayer so other religions have moved in to take its place. Chief among these is the religion of self-destruction: the religion of warring on our past, and especially taking out all of our great accomplishments and heroes.

    The practitioners of this new religion tell us that in every aspect of our past and present, we should feel deep shame. Sometimes they even pretend to share in this shame themselves. But, of course, it is a fraud – as they are. These people are not filled with shame. They are filled with pride. Pride at standing over our past and pronouncing themselves better than it, wiser than it and – yes – braver than it. What would Churchill know of bravery compared to a social justice warrior in the church of the latter-day masochists?

    Much of the modern Left and the weakling Right simply wants the deconstruction of everything in Britain as we know it. This is why they ignore the sins of other countries and cultures while inventing some of our own.

    Well, I suggest that they have had their day. They have overinflated their currency enough. It is high time that they were told that the racket they have been indulging in is simply no longer welcome here.”

    Douglas Murray is author of ‘The War on the West’

    1. There’s a reason I don’t play cricket, and it’s not because of lack of access or racism, it’s because I’m shite at it. I can’t catch (no stereo vision), I can’t run, I can’t bat (no stereo vision), I can’t bowl (a klutz). I can stand around with hands in pockets, I can do the scoring and work the scoreboard. In fact, I was so bad that, at school where cricket was compulsory, I would be jeered as soon as seen wearing anything white. So, I also hate the sport.
      However, as far as I can see, opportunity is available to anyone who wants to play, as cricket clubs are everywhere in England – you have to have talent, application, and be arsed enough to tun up to practice and training. That’s all. No club will turn down a future Garfield Sobers just because his skin has a different hue to the clothing.

      1. (G Sobers – up there with the worlds greatest Yorkshirement, Trueman, F and Boycott, G)

      2. Sort of parallel reasons for why I turned from soccer to rugby. Couldn’t dribble and nutmeg for toffee but I could barge people out of the way.

      3. I don’t play cricket because I can stand and watch daisies grow on our on lawn.

        1. I have never known daisies grow as quickly as they are doing this year in Brittany: just a couple of days after mowing the lawn is white with daisies again. Is it the same in Britain this year?

          1. Yes, but dandelions also. We don’t have to garden here in the home for Deranged Gentlefolk but the flowers are everywhere. I like them.

      4. It’s that nasty little hard red ball I never liked. And I could hardly lift the grown up bats we had to use.

      5. I’ve also never worked for a company who hasn’t taken on the best person they could find for the role at the time they were looking. Yet now we all have to meet “diversity” (sic) targets.

    2. Douglas Murray has been almost alone on the front line of this for some while but there are glimmerings that others at the Gatesograph are beginning to ‘get it’ in the wider context of the UN/WEF/Soros/Gates world coup. Lotus Eaters were talking about it yesterday.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvf8CBbwX0U&t=204s

    3. Any chance Douglas Murray could become dictator?

      How we wish. And he’s gay as well!

    4. Good morning, Anne

      A BTL comment under this article in the DT poses the following:

      Q. What is the quickest way to close your bank account?
      A. Express a ‘right of centre‘ opinion.

      How soon will James Delingpole and Douglas Murray be ‘faraged’ – i.e. robbed of their facility to hold bank accounts in the UK?

  21. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9bdb006ceb11361ac8209953c3d48f18bcb9670237741ac8ff0055b088da9d9c.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/02/rishi-sunak-stealth-tax-raid-jeremy-hunt-onslaught/

    BTL

    Why did Liz Truss imagine in her wildest dreams that appointing the odious Mr Hunt as chancellor would save her position as PM or be remotely good for the Conservative Party or the United Kingdom?

    Was she subjected to blackmail? And if so will she ever give us the details and tell us why she capitualted to it and of how and why Hunt got into power?

      2. Then, since she gave in, she needed replaced, and to make plain why she was thrown out.
        They can’t stand the healthy rays of sunshine illuminating their foul path.

    2. Truss threatened to undermine the enforced declinist policy of big government. Cutting taxes would have had us shooting away from the haed EU and so the globalists set about destroying her and imposing their man instead. The Lefty Tory party desperately wants back in to the EU and enforced Sunak.

      The rest is history. We’re paying for their malice.

  22. ‘Serious threat’ remains at Zaporizhzhia plant. 2 July 2023.

    Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that a “serious threat” remains at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant; as Ukrainian forces are advancing “despite lacking essential resources”.

    Looking through a glass darkly is a piece of cake compared to today. There has probably never been an age where the truth has been so obscured. Deliberately one might point out. At least the peasants in Biblical Times were just ignored when Paul wrote the quote.

    Educated after a fashion nowadays, but lacking information we have to largely guess at what is actually happening. This story about the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant keeps surfacing. I suspect the reason for it is that it is preparation for a False Flag operation by the Ukies. The reason for it? The counter–attack has failed and their army has collapsed. Unless they do something drastic like dragging NATO into the war they are going to lose. This would be bad all round. Bad news for the US. Bad news for NATO and bad for the EU. A release of Nuclear Radiation might provide the Political Leverage to bring about a consensus for War between NATO and Russia.

    Keep your eyes open!

    https://news.sky.com/story/russia-ukraine-war-latest-kremlin-may-take-formal-control-of-wagner-putin-somewhat-weakened-by-armed-rebellion-says-trump-12541713

    1. In my view the idiocy of this whole affair is that if the Russians really are prepared to blow the plant, they would have little or no compunction about using tactical nuclear weapons in an all out war with the West.

      1. Morning Sos. The idea that the Russians would do such a thing is inherently stupid but it is one of the few things that might bring about NATO involvement!

  25. ‘Morning All

    Sadly it appears Weasel Zippers an american conservative site where I stole some of my best memes has gone pop

    So here is a truncated Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cf7527853dec02455d32638100d0555890f09c96a1dceef5c34bb3aaba35f299.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fb9c0e7a5e442d61106d2b44da48bc903646507658d2d5148bfbd68483f1a593.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6eba743f5a8e0751caada1987ea77e367eede02ac05087f8439d70ba4a8a4399.jpg

    https://twitter.com/LozzaFox/status/1674807082334208003?s=20

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b299566c6814b0d9c0b5e92a6a1452607f187940911a6616b51104c33eefe2af.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/35301c83e7c81e68e81d4401ed54099b682e52ad6ff54b33df9166b310eae223.jpg

    1. That’s one of Laurence Fox’s best ever tweets, imo.
      It’s a bit long to cut and paste, but the gist is that we’re all to blame for the banks closing people’s accounts based on political opinions, because we’ve all tacitly accepted cancelling people like Tommy Robinson and Katie Hopkins from mainstream media, at the same time that they had their accounts cancelled.

      (note from me; I cancelled PayPal when they closed Tommy R’s account, because I thought that was such a very shocking and wrong thing to do).

      2. If we disagreed with it, what could we do? I don’t use twitter, farcebook, paypal or a host of others. I don’t want to. Am I endorsing the ‘cancellation’ of Robinson? No. I think he should have been left alone. When he breached an order plod should have asked him to move away, but the state wanted to silence him.

        Frankly, this whole farce comes about because the state promotes homosexuals – why, I don’t know. No one careed until the activists started using it as a lever to destroy society. No one wants the gimmigrants here but again, the state forces them on us as a client base. The problem, in both instances, is big government enforcing this absurdity.

        1. Apparently not one person in the audience at BBC QT supported the Rwanda plan for gimmegrunts, not one. And FB announced that”the audience was carefully selected with a Conservative majority”!

          2. But I don’t think it’s necessary, just send them all back where they all came from and let them out their own houses in order. It’s not our liability or our obligation to sort it out.

          3. A Conservative majority from a strong Labour seat. Something smells off.

      4. Being a part time idiot, I bought something on Ebay and paid by debit card, rather than Paypal. Turned out the large company (not) supplying the item was about as truthful and useful as a Tory majority of 80. Firm owned by private equity. Complaints dealt with by bots. Staff of Eastern Europeans. Eventually got my money back. Am developing an anti-globalist itch.

    3. There’s an advert for something on ITV X that is entirely black staffed. The blurb says it is “like nothing you’ve seen on British TV”. No, I think, it’s more like something for African TV.

    1. Perhaps I should email Yorkshire Bank with a selected quote from the Koran?

  27. Just got something useful done. Yaay!
    Damaged door on Mother’s triangle corner cabinet is gluing.
    Catshit evicted from litter trays.
    Much superfluous stuff put in appropriate pile for recycling, binning, taking to electrical return.
    Shelves installed.
    Fire alarms re-batteried and reinstalled.
    Tables now restored to being a table, not a storage shelf.
    Mother’s Attendants Allowance confirmed to be being paid.
    Now a coffee… Sigh…

    1. Those few who understand the power grab will vote against it, but the rest of the sheep will ensure that the WHO succeeds. Last year it was the African countries that scuppered their plans but they may not come to our rescue again.

  29. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3ddb77805bd8b1d859ed10634a23179e35797ddcd683d9fe979161e0f34c54e8.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/07/02/we-can-topple-mark-rutte-form-government-dutch-farmers/

    James Crisp-Crap must be one of the worst ‘journalists’ working for the DT – he even rivals Bryony Gordon!

    The sooner Rutte goes and the sooner the Netherlands leave the EU the better.

    Eva Vlaardingerbroek is the person to lead Holland:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/74cacce5ac4c99b6d6d9dafce61c96feb4249a0b328cb20f33a3b98e15b2b06a.png

    She is not just a pretty face – she is seriously intelligent and sensible with it.

    2. We need an example to follow and get rid of our mob of useless politicos and the top judiciary. They are rotting at the helm and the good ship Britannia is about to run aground.

  30. Right…….. got to get ready to go and wo(man) a stall today with information about swifts for the local Nature Festival. Back later on.

    2. I admire the double gibbet, though it might be a little low for your average Swedish malefactor. Is that a butcher’s block in the foreground?

      1. 1. The “double gibbet” is actually a cantilever on my wall easel supporting my array of cool (daylight-rated) LED spot-lamps.
        2. The “butchers block” is a sturdy pine table upon which I do my lino-cutting and printing.

        The entire studio was designed and built by me.

          1. The ones I use are called Airam LED Day light GU10; 980 candela; 6,500K; 6W [50W equivalent]; which give off a white light tending towards the blue (cool) end of the spectrum to give an approximation of natural daylight in order to render colours (in paintings) true.

            The ‘warmer’ yellow-tinted lights give a false impression of colour and are of no use in art.

        1. Like our place, then… tidying is progressing in the right direction.

    4. All I can say is, “blimey!” That looks more like a store room than a studio.

  32. London Pride: Seven arrests as Just Stop Oil protest delays parade

    Before the parade started, LGBTQ+ members of Just Stop Oil called on organisers to condemn new oil, gas and coal licences. “These partnerships embarrass the LGBTQ+ community at a time when much of the cultural world is rejecting ties to these toxic industries,” they said in a statement. LGBTQ+ people are “suffering first” in the “accelerating social breakdown” caused by climate change, they added.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66074939

    JSO alphabet people falling out with LP alphabet people.

  33. Three teens charged with murder of boy found stabbed in London canal
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66078488

    Victor Lee is a white boy. His case won’t get many headlines unless, perhaps, he’s a caravan Lee. It’ll be a while before we get to know the background of his murderers because they’re all under 18.

    Just another day in London…

    1. ALLEGED killers. Innocent until found guilty, unless your surname is Farage.

    2. There was a stabbing in Bedford the other day as well, that didn’t get much of an airing in the media.

    1. Page impressions for twitter were costing a fair bit in the hosting department, so Twitter has decided to convert readers into users in the intent of eventually making them payers.

    2. I wouldn’t comment on that clip, Rik, because it looks contrived. There is no clue that the voices used related to the still picture presented.

  35. Why isn’t Sunday’s NoTTL online with its own page? I have to go via Saturday’s….and Geoff’s link to today’s page.

      1. So I assumed. But why?? Every other day for the last ten years has had its OWN page….

        Just asking.

        2. I couldn’t find it either, Bill. Can only assume Geoff gave it a slightly weird name that means it ended up well out of sequence on the page.

          2. His link finds the page, but it just isn’t listed at the top of the NTTL page in Disqus site. Tried to find it, but can’t.

        1. It is like going up a ladder – you must have stood on the rung so you know it’s there in the first place and then you can then go up again in the future.
          It does mean thar you must ask Geoff how to get there to start with.

  36. Shades of Tommy Cooper here- husband has gone to B&Q to get a plank. He wants to put a shelf up in the kitchen. Gawd help the poor cabbie on the way home. Then he’s off to Asda, mainly to stock up on paracetamol and Kanga for me. He’s worried. I’ll let you know what happens re the plank-;))

    2. They do sell these things called shelves that’re pretty handy as well. Your plank fellow knows don’t have to make everything from scratch?

  37. 374091+ up ticks,

    May one ask,
    If today’s quota of invaders turns up with baggage marked up as LOOT. will they still be welcomed by the governing parties supporter / voters.

    May one ask,
    As it is only a matter of time before replication of france is on English doorsteps, will the RNLI be justly accused of treason as in aiding foreign enamas to deploy against the realm.

    A life saver without doubt, would be to form town militias in large numbers and surround every contaminated hotel come barracks, also mosques, ahead of the shit hitting the fan.

    1. Stopped donating to the RNLI and removed them from my will a while ago, due to their enabling this invasion.

      2. Doesn’t make any difference. When we stop voluntarily giving money, the state makes up in tax. Every time border farce bring back an invading horde of muslim parasitic freeloading welfare shoppers they break the law, but the state wants them here as spite for Brexit.

        The only thing that will stop this is the public getting out there first to stop the criminal scum getting here in the first place. Border farce arrive and find nothing but bodies. Rinse, repeat.

    2. Why are we villified for trying to remove them when every country of the dozen they’ve wafted through has done absolutely nothing? Why is France not criticised for them living in tents?

      Why are we always forced to hold to a better standard? Why, when they sqawk for help in the channel can we not launch a flight of arrows at them to get rid of them?

      What is the point of having a border if the state refuses to enforce it? We just need to repeal all those laws that ram our country open the scum and get rid of them.

      1. 374091+ up ticks,

        Afternoon W,

        We have four obstacles that are obstructing us from regaining a Country of decency, lab/lib/con and a multitude of tribal, family tree voting dangerous fools.

        1. A bit early for Zebedee to say time for bed and if Florence runs off with her knickers down in the afternoon, well…

  39. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=We9JLi4A-lE Here is an intriguing conundrum. Certainly for me and possibly for many others. The available evidence suggests to me that the unstoppable rise in human stupidity may be directly attributable to the incremental upsurge in the consumption of sugar … in all its forms.

    My theory is this: increase your sugar/carbohydrate/alcohol consumption … and get more stupid by the second. I base this upon the unassailable fact that during the 20th and early 21st centuries, the human species has become demonstrably and exponentially more stupid while, during the same time period, the consumption of sugar and processed food has gone through the roof.

    I would certainly welcome a proper scientific investigation and analysis of the topic. Preferably one not financed by the food industry.

    1. There is evidence that fluoride, now widely consumed via toothpaste and deliberately contaminated water supplies (yes, I know low levels can occur naturally in some water sources) lowers human IQ.

        1. My hygienist told me, “You’ve got a mouth full of amalgam fillings, why would you worry about fluoride”. She has a point. I just try not to swallow.

        2. The prescription toothpaste is quite high in fluoride, I was prescribed it but took one look at the ingredients and didn’t use it. I carried on accepting the prescriptions, though, I wasn’t up for an argument with the dentist. We have a fluoride filter in our water system.

      2. It is said that that is why the Swedes are so docile and accepting of left wing ideals – high levels of naturally occurring flouride in the water. No wonder they want to put it in ours (industrial grade). I have also been told that fluoride is an ingredient of Prozac.

      3. I still remember our chemistry teacher going off on a rant against compulsory fluoride in drinking water. I can picture her now. C. 1982. She was a good (strict) teacher.

      4. We’ve had fluoride in our water supply here in the midlands since the 60s. It was tried in the Netherlands but was ruled out on the basis that it was compulsory medication. When I moved home to Birmingham after 22 years in the Army, my teeth were pearly white. Now, my dentist tells me, they are less than pearly due to fluoride discolouration. These days, many of my generation take much better care of our teeth so fluoride should be a matter of choice, not in the water supply.

      1. At home we never add sugar to anything we eat or drink or knowingly target foods that might contain more than we might need to survive.
        I’m hoping that when I am finally taken off most of them current medication I might lose some of my body fat. I’ll never be fit again but at least I may be able to take walks as I use to each day

        1. Being diagnosed as diabetic meant that we cut out all added sugars and only eat fruit-shaped fuctose. Result: slow but setady reduction in body fat and waistline, and I used to be hot all the time (body dealing with sugar) and now I’m not. Did me a favour, really.

    3. I must be getting really stupid then, as I take sugar in both tea and coffee (White & Brown respectively) and ginger ale with my whisky.

      1. Do you know what Tom- I don’t give a damn anymore. I will eat what I like and drink what I like and I always have and always will ignore these childish warnings. Sure, if one has an acknowledged health condition, that’s one thing but otherwise, stop meddling in our lives.
        This state it treating us all like infants and it’s bonkers.
        We eat quite healthy food because that’s what we both like but I do not need any govt idiot to tell me, nor any of these so called bloody experts.

        1. I don’t know about him Corri but I often like, in coffee, what I call a slug (of whisky) in a mug and 3 spoons of brown sugar.

          1. I too like two lumps of sugar in my albeit large coffee mug.

            I love red and white wine and enjoy Mediterranean style food. I try to exercise regularly, but not too strenuously, and have an App called ‘Thrive’ on my phone which is linked to my hearing aids.

            Today, Sunday, for example, I scored 58/100 with 5750 steps out of 10,000 steps, 15/30 minutes exercise and 10 hours standing.

            There are so many aids available to helping us keep a little more fit.

    4. I’m already involved in a long term investigation into the effects of alcohol. I’ll let you know the results when I’m done.

      2. I’m no stranger to hops and grapes. No spirits though – I just don’t like them.

  41. We are still a plankless household. Cab driver safe and well ;-)) Quite relieved actually as the last thing I need right now is a lot of drilling in the kitchen.
    ‘Allo,’Allo on TV tonight. A laugh!

  42. The French model is now tragically broken. 2 July 2023.

    The great danger for France is that this is not a one-off explosion of fury at an isolated incident, but a consequence of the abject failure of the French model. For decades, while tourists have wondered at the architectural and culinary marvels of the country’s cities, many high-rise suburbs have been abandoned to poverty, criminality and gang warfare. France’s integration and immigration systems are broken. Crime and violence are horrendously high, even in normal times. Islamist terrorist attacks have been shockingly common. The education system, once world class, has deteriorated dramatically and fails vast numbers of young people. Discrimination, racism and anti-Semitism are far more rife than they are in Britain. The country’s anti-capitalist, dirigiste model, its high taxes and its social “protections”, have locked huge numbers out of meaningful employment and delivered even less growth than in the UK.

    I can read all this, it may even be true, in fact I suspect that it is true, but no one in the UK should gloat about it. The situation here is far worse. One doubts that the British authorities could deal with one tenth of this disorder; the means simply do not exist. Here the State itself and its moral authority have essentially collapsed. Appeasement not confrontation is the order of the day. It is worth noting that in Mr Farage’s recent travails; like Batley Man, not one person in Westminster could be found to speak up for him. Britain is a failed State. Its institutions are dead. It is running on empty and like all bankrupt entities ,moral or economic , its creditors will one day wake up to it and it will subside into absolute ruin.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2023/07/01/the-french-model-is-now-tragically-broken/

    1. Mr Farage’s recent travails; like Batley Man, not one person in Westminster could be found to speak up for him.

      Likewise, Andrew Bridgen MP and all the people damaged by the now outed useless and dangerous “vaccine”. The silence surrounding the disaster that is the Covid response is deafening. 640+ MPs keeping to the narrative that has been exposed as a fraud and an as attack on the people. As the thrust of the narrative moves from Covid to Net Zero/Climate Change the same gutless voting fodder follow the choreography designed by the globalists and WEF. They disgrace the great history of Britain and the HoP.

  43. The French model is now tragically broken. 2 July 2023.

    The great danger for France is that this is not a one-off explosion of fury at an isolated incident, but a consequence of the abject failure of the French model. For decades, while tourists have wondered at the architectural and culinary marvels of the country’s cities, many high-rise suburbs have been abandoned to poverty, criminality and gang warfare. France’s integration and immigration systems are broken. Crime and violence are horrendously high, even in normal times. Islamist terrorist attacks have been shockingly common. The education system, once world class, has deteriorated dramatically and fails vast numbers of young people. Discrimination, racism and anti-Semitism are far more rife than they are in Britain. The country’s anti-capitalist, dirigiste model, its high taxes and its social “protections”, have locked huge numbers out of meaningful employment and delivered even less growth than in the UK.

    I can read all this, it may even be true, in fact I suspect that it is true, but no one in the UK should gloat about it. The situation here is far worse. One doubts that the British authorities could deal with one tenth of this disorder; the means simply do not exist. Here the State itself and its moral authority have essentially collapsed. Appeasement not confrontation is the order of the day. It is worth noting that in Mr Farage’s recent travails; like Batley Man, not one person in Westminster could be found to speak up for him. Britain is a failed State. Its institutions are dead. It is running on empty and like all bankrupt entities ,moral or economic , its creditors will one day wake up to it and it will subside into absolute ruin.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2023/07/01/the-french-model-is-now-tragically-broken/

  44. This is a great idea: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66058835

    However, the assumption of benefit from legal protection also has a cost. As has the education to read and write. Oh, and the language you’re using to achieve your end. And the roads built. In fact, the general privilege of living in a rich Western country has a cost as well.

    You want 1.2 million. We’ll charge you 3m You can pay the difference in slavery. Learn your damned place you spoiled, privileged, stupid, lazy freeloaders.

  45. How is it that the “world beating” Engerland creekit team is so effing useless?

    Just asking…

    1. Nah, it’s the umpires who are useless. And the Aussies are cheats…

      TMS would have been good listening if FST, Sir Geoffrey or the great Don Mosey had been in the box.

    3. I watched the entire day’s play today and I was royally entertained by some outrageous batting (from Stokes) which was tempered by some brainless, gormless, air-headed idiocy (from Bairstow).

      2. Definitely had his brain switched off, but it could have happened on the 2 previous balls – it did inspire Stokes though

  49. Seems the troubles in France is spreading – now in Lausanne, Switzerland.
    🙁

    1. This is what it will take I’m afraid before Hoi Polloi will wake up to what is being done to their civilisation.

          1. Elsewhere it’s reported that the insurgents were mostly of a dusky hue – hence the expression: ‘Hue & Cry’…..

  52. Another Birdie today.

    Wordle 743 3/6
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
    ⬜⬜🟨🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Par today.
      Wordle 743 4/6

      ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
      ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
      ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. I gave it five…again.

      Wordle 743 5/6

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

  53. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9a51249942e1c3ef62884f6c35852a89964962371a631e88d1eb92e535831190.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/64bf0033b488d919d46bcc4a3d6a2e9df2a8b45465076c6233786da3b4e22dfc.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9b19fee524915c270732ccbfb3637a2fd882716ac37c35cb74c16948366b8287.jpg

    This morning, Tim5165 asked about the “butcher’s block” in my art studio.

    Here is a better photograph of it — it’s my lino-cutting station. I designed and made the carousel unit for storing my lino-cutters in order to keep their razor-sharp edges from getting blunted and for ease of transport. The rollers (“brayers”) are kept on hooks to avoid damage to the roller cylinders and the slab of half-inch plate glass is for inking.

    Last year I also designed and made a screw press to use as an alternative to the roller press.

        1. Tidiness is your middle name!

          I envy such skill. I cannot join two bits of wood together with a hammer and nail

          1. Tidiness? I wish!

            99% of the time I’m ankle-deep in shavings and sawdust! I also regularly ‘forget’ to put my tools back where they live!

    4. Why on earth do you have a ‘lino-cutting station’, Grizz; perhaps you run an industrial flooring business?

  56. I don’t care what the question is- but booze is the answer. I can’t cope with much more.

  57. Research suggests that vitamin D may help protect us against heart attacks, dementia and cancer, and that it acts as an are you getting enough?

    Anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and antiviral agent. So the question is…

    Most of us have a vague awareness that the “sunshine vitamin” – vitamin D – is associated with good health, an awareness accompanied by a suspicion that in the UK’s gloomy weather, we don’t get enough of it. But an everincreasing volume of medical research is suggesting specific ways in which vitamin D can help to protect against serious conditions; and it is also becoming clear that taking it supplementally is just as effective as metabolising it through exposure to sunlight.

    A recent landmark study published in the British Medical Journal concluded that vitamin D supplements could help to reduce the risk of heart attacks if routinely taken by the over-60s. Previous research has suggested taking vitamin D supplements in old age can help prevent dementia. So should we all be taking them?

    Vitamin D is the only supplement that the Government broadly recommends for all adults – and even then only during the autumn and winter months – and yet its direct benefits remain hotly debated within medical circles. While most of us know it to be “good for healthy teeth and bones”, in recent years it has been associated with far more wideranging health claims. During the Covid pandemic, it came under the spotlight after it was reported that the people who had the most severe cases of Covid-19 also had low levels of vitamin D. However, subsequent research suggests that this might be because the disease itself reduces the body’s levels of vitamin D, and that having low levels of vitamin D isn’t a predictor of how badly you will get Covid-19.

    Why do I need vitamin D?

    The reason why most of us associate vitamin D with teeth and bones is because, just over 100 years ago, it was found that deficiencies in this vitamin could lead to children having rickets, a condition that results in soft, weak bones and bone deformities such as bowed legs. “Vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium and phosphorous from the gut,” explains Dr Milli Raizada, a GP and senior clinical lecturer in primary care at Lancaster University’s Medical School. “That calcium, in turn, mineralises bones and strengthens them.”

    For a long time, this was thought to be the only benefit of vitamin D. However, as Prof Martin Hewison, director of the Institute of Metabolism and Systems Research at the University of Birmingham, explains, in recent decades, the science has moved on. “Around 25 years ago, people found that the vitamin D receptor – the molecule that transmits the effects of vitamin D – is present in many more tissues than just the intestine. It’s in cancer cells, in muscles, in the immune system

    – all sorts of places that are not related to the prevention of rickets. So people started looking at other roles it might play and some studies have shown that it seems to slow the growth of cancer cells, it can regulate immune

    system cells, it can act as an anti-inflammatory agent and promote antibacterial and antiviral effects in immune cells.”

    But most of these functions have been observed in animals or cell cultures, which is why there is still not conclusive evidence that the same is true in humans. “A number of studies have shown that people with autoimmune diseases, such as type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis, are more likely to be vitamin D deficient. And there are other diseases, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, where patients generally have lower levels of vitamin D than the healthy population.”

    But, cautions Prof Hewison, these studies show association, not necessarily a causative link. “The only way to find out if higher levels of vitamin D will prevent disease is to supplement people with vitamin D over a long period of time and that’s a very difficult, and expensive, thing to do.”

    Hence the controversy over the true benefits of vitamin D.

    What is vitamin D deficiency…

    Vitamin D deficiency in children can cause bowed legs and rickets, but in adults it’s more likely to manifest as general tiredness, bone pain and muscle pain. And, as Dr Raizada flags, it can also make older people more susceptible to falls.

    A blood test carried out by your GP can establish your levels of vitamin D, but according to NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) guidelines, you would be unlikely to be tested unless you were showing symptoms associated with a deficiency.

    “People susceptible to lack of vitamin D include children, those over 65, women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, and anyone who has problems absorbing the vitamin, or issues with the kidney or liver, which help metabolise vitamin D,” says Dr Raizada. “Because much of the vitamin D in the body is synthesised by the body through exposing the skin to the sun [see below], darkerskinned people, who have more melanin in their skin, may also be deficient.”

    However, what is meant by deficient varies around the world. Here in the UK, vitamin D levels are measured by looking at the number of nanomoles (nmol – a very small unit of weight measurement) in a litre of blood – less than 25, and you’re considered deficient, 25-50 is insufficient and over 50 is sufficient.

    Prof Hewison believes that the UK should be more aspirational about vitamin D levels in the population.

    “In North America, they say that you should be targeting 50nmol/l and above,” he says. “But over there they add it to milk and orange juice. Here in the UK, not only do we not do that, but when the Science Advisory Committee on Nutrition set out its advice in 2016, it advocated aiming not to be below 25nmol/l, which seems a timid approach.”

    … and can it cause hair loss?

    “We know that vitamin D plays an important role in the hair follicle and affects the hair cycle,” says Dr Ben Esdaile, a consultant dermatologist at Skin & Me (skinandme.com). “There are a number of studies that show a correlation between low vitamin D levels and hair loss.”

    However, that does not mean that taking a load of vitamin D will suddenly make your hair grow back. “Conclusive studies to show the benefits of vitamin D in correcting hair loss are limited,” he admits.

    What are good sources of vitamin D?

    While diet can be a source of vitamin D – in oily fish like herring, mackerel and salmon, as well as egg yolks – it’s not a good source, and so even here in the UK, where there’s not much sun, we still get 90 per cent of our vitamin D from exposure to the sun.

    “Our skin naturally contains a precursor to vitamin D,” explains Dr Raizada. “When the UVB rays in sunlight hit the skin, they start the process of converting this precursor of vitamin D to a form that the body can use.”

    According to consultant dermatologist Dr Anastasia Therianou (drtherianou.com), someone with Caucasian skin needs around nine minutes of sunlight between midday and 3pm. Those with darker skin would have to stay exposed for more like 25 minutes. These figures are based on not wearing sun protection and 35 per cent of the skin area being exposed – roughly what you’d be showing off if wearing a modest pair of shorts or a skirt with a T-shirt. A little daily sun exposure is better than going out once a week without sun cream for an hour, as it balances your vitamin D needs with the skin cancer risks associated with UV.

    However, Dr Therianou points out that if someone has a sunsensitive condition, such as lupus or skin cancer, it’s best to get your vitamin D from supplements.

    Of course, here in the UK we don’t really have a lot of choice in the matter. In fact, because of the lack of sunlight in this country, the NHS recommends that between September and March adults take a daily supplement of 10mcg (micrograms), or 400IU (international units). The research suggests that this will be enough to ensure that 97.5 per cent of the population have a level that is equal to, or greater than, 25nmol/l.

    And those at risk of deficiency – people with darker skin, housebound adults, or people who cover up a lot when they are outside – should continue to take it all year round. Other groups at risk of deficiency include patients who are taking drugs such as orlistat (also known as semaglutide or Ozempic) that stop fat absorption. And people with a high BMI.

    “It’s very common for people with a high proportion of adipose tissue, or fat, to have lower circulating levels of vitamin D,” says Prof Hewison.

    It is a generally-accepted principle that Vitamin D is a necessity for good health. Having said that, even before I read the above article (in today’s Sunday Telegraph) — and also before I had watched the YouTube video (appended, below) that states taking Vitamin D in capsule form is nowhere as effective as eating a diet rich in the vitamin or obtaining it from sunlight — I had made the decision to stop taking it in capsule form and, instead, I rely upon eating nourishing food rich in the substance. I am slowly reducing my need to take any form of medication and I am already feeling the benefits.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ul-hYTaQ4I&t=571s

    1. I take a Vit D3, twice a day and I haven’t had an MCI since March 2017. Maybe that and the whisky are doing my poor old heart proud, even if it is ⅓ dead.

  58. That’s me for today. Quite nice – apart from the endless, strong wind. Ladder work successful – though a lot more required in the coming week. We have three wisterias – which, after flowering, go completely mad invading the roof and gutters. So two more to be done.

    Great excitement — the MR has arranged a trip up Lunnon on Wednesday to see the two “new” Rembrandts for sale at Christie’s – plus a chance to meet grand-daughter at the auction rooms. There is also a recently identified Gentileschi. It’ll be a nice day away from the flies of Fulmodeston.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain – if I am spared.

        1. No, Italian. Both father and daughter were renowned artists though the daughter, Artemisia, is more popular now.

          1. Thank you, Sue, I don’t have Italian in my portmanteau and there’;s nothing like it Spanish.

            Looked sehr Deutsche to me.

    3. Gosh, another foreign holiday. Lots of sunshine as well by the looks of the tanned residents.

  59. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/02/britain-not-accept-economic-oblivion-productivity-boost/

    The solution is very simple. Cut taxes, shred the state. A 20% cut in public sector headcount, starting with HR and DIE, green, abolition of net zero, repeal of all laws relatinng to the gimmigrants, end child benefit completely within 7 years, reducing by a percentage each year. Impose failure penalties that apply to civil servants directly on failure of a project. Move the NHS to an insurance model paid by the department of health itself paid by completing those cost claims.

    Pay HMRC on the basis of calls answered and problems solved, not simply for existing. Adopt the Singaporean or Swiss tax codes. Both reduce the tax code – and this is the real headline figure – by 125,740 pages.

    1. All sounds plausible and achievable – especially if snivel serpents pay, depends wholly on their competence to achieve the desired objectives.

    3. Oh, if we only had a Conservative government with an 80 seat majority….

  60. Right you ‘orrible lot – take note, for this is a bit of positive news.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/02/google-quantum-computer-breakthrough-instant-calculations/

    A quantum computer is an important breakthrough not because it is computationally faster, but because it can be in both states at the same time: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/quantum-computing-explained

    It’s a bit Schrondinger’s cat, only for computers.

    (That is a horrific explanation, but go with me here)

    A true quantum computer is vastly more like a human brain than a normal computer – we can accept the illogical (it’s how Lefty’s brains function, after all – oi! Stop it! You said you were being positive!)

    Now imagine the geometric leap forward that makes for true artificial intelligence – not the glorified search engines we have now, but true advances in *intelligence*. Logic no longer applies – the irrational can be considered. Decisions can be ‘irrational’. A bit like a fighter jet has to be unbalanced to be agile, true AI has to be able to assume the irrational – the ‘wrong’ answer as an acceptable response, given the context.

    This is important because it steps away from long speils of ‘racism is bad, muhkay’ programmed in, but leads to the machine saying ‘It depends on the perspective of the viewer’. It makes for nuance by adding uncertainty.

    Of course, we are decades away from this sort of approach and self programming – but when we get there it promises genuine progress, a real advancement in our way of life – not the backward, Dark Age enforcement of the Left (stop it!) for our entire society – our entire planet.

      1. Shouldn’t they be spending their time looking for ordinary intelligence first, particularly amongst politicians

  67. Goodnight and God Bless, Gentlefolk. I have to abort early as I’m lacking lots of Zeds.

  71. Evening, all. I note the use of “should” in the headline letter. It does not necessarily mean that it will.

  72. Third time of trying….the woke household (haha) at Lake Lodge is watching ‘Allo, Allo tonight.
    Anyone else having problems with posts disappearing?

  73. Well I’m not sure how the powers that be are going to pass the recent events in France off in the mainstream media, tens of thousands of lone wolves with mental illness sounds a bit implausible.

    I expect they will do what the always do, ban all reporting of it while going on about far right racism

    1. Macron does not appear interested in the social unrest in his country. It is as though he considers himself above it all.

      Macron like our own Sunak is not a leader but an administrative bureaucrat with pretensions to some higher office. This invasion of the African sub continent into Europe will not end well. Expect much the same hostility here in the UK the next time an illegal immigrant or coloured criminal is tasered or shot by Police.

  74. Just watching GB News’ “Free Speech Nation” and a super interview with a (Hispanic) American discussing the case in Mexico where the MP has been jailed for “misgendering” someone.

    Some comedians don’t appear to be very clever but there are several on GB News who never fail to impress me.

    Simon Evans is hosting tonight. He’s fabulous.

    (For the avoidance of doubt the normal host is great too. But Evans is brilliant)

  75. What lovely afternoon we had, 19 including the three lovely young children. As a family gathering this will never happen again. As a grandfather I’m so privileged to have been involved.
    Our family gatherings are wonderful.
    I’ll sleep well tonight.
    Good night all.

    1. You’re a lucky bugger, Eddy.
      Congratulations! Got to be some good in the world, now and again.

      1. Just had a phone call from my sister in law. She is now a high court judge and will become a Dame once the King does his stuff.
        I am so lucky with my sister in law and daughter in law- simply couldn’t ask for better.

      2. I can’t tell you about all the fun
        laughter, family jokes and wind ups, mainly golfing we had. I absolutely loved it all.
        It cheers me up no end.
        Lovely food and a lots of delicious wine.
        I love my family.

    2. ‘Night night, Eddy, Sleep well in the arms of your family.

      I just wish I had such.

      My closest relative – my daughter – is in Tasmania, more than a few miles away.

    1. …and boy, do I need altering.

      I hate ’em all. Parasites on our British Isles.

  77. Tell the truth, and then get dumped by a woke bloke.

    Tory ministers at war over grooming gangs as Suella Braverman loses support of close ally Steve Baker for saying British-Pakistani men are ‘predominantly’ to blame for problem

    What kind of lying tongue-tying, bunch of wet wazzocks desert a colleague who has “race” on their side and can say true things that a white man never could?
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12250723/Tory-ministers-war-child-sex-abuse-gangs.html

  78. Going to bed now…. hopefully to sleep. I don’t want to dream. I wish you all peaceful slumbers.

  79. https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fbusiness%2F2023%2F07%2F02%2Fbanks-warned-uphold-free-speech-accounts-blacklisted%2F
    Banks warned to uphold free speech after accounts blacklisted
    Chancellor ‘deeply concerned’ about bans on customers who hold controversial views
    Hmm…

    The controversy flared up again last week after the leading Brexiteer Nigel Farage revealed his account had been closed by his bank. A vicar was also dropped as a customer after criticising his lender’s stance on LBGTQ+.

    1. And yet this awful government talks about seizing money from the bank accounts of Russians and Russian companies.
      What country would invest in a country that might seize your money.
      The damage these idiots are doing to our reputation is beyond repain.

  80. Good night, chums. Sleep well, and I hope to see you all tomorrow. PS – Some very good news: my computer problem seems to have sorted itself, although I suspect it was caused by my “suppliers” Virgin Media working on the local network over the past several days. This has saved me a small fortune. Good night, once again.

  82. I’ve been watching repeats of Becker, a US sitcom of the late 1990s/early 2000s in which Ted Danson plays an irascible doctor in the Bronx, NYC. It’s much underrated in my view. Maybe it’s not a classic but it certainly deserves a mention now and again and stands up well against Cheers, Danson’s most successful vehicle.

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