Sunday 9 July: From pylons to heat pumps, net zero policy is out of touch with reality

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

526 thoughts on “Sunday 9 July: From pylons to heat pumps, net zero policy is out of touch with reality”

  3. Why the King’s meeting with Biden will be much more than mere formality. 9 July 2023.

    The King may not have the late Queen’s experience and international reputation, but he is a gifted diplomat and much liked by world leaders. It is as well, for the president’s visit comes just when Anglo-American relations appear strained. The King, being above politics, is well placed to improve them through deploying the soft power of the Crown. As well as at the late Queen’s funeral, he and the president met at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow in 2021, when His Majesty was still Prince of Wales. There should be little or no ice to break.

    Much bull about the non-existent Special Relationship.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/07/08/king-charles-joe-biden-special-relationship/

    4. Special relationship be like USA say “Jump”, UK say “How high?”

  4. 374298+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Sunday 9 July: From pylons to heat pumps, net zero policy is out of touch with reality.

    As any deflection material should be, as the peoples are saying LOOK at what the political hierarchy are proposing now, the real WEF /NWO with royal seal is successfully fulfilling its agender
    beneath the radar.
    IMHO these coming by-elections MUST show some form of opposition as weak as it may seem at, least it’s a start to build on.

    The other option is quit & submit before any other innocents are killed subduing the indigenous under the WEF / NWO, with royal seal banner.

  5. ‘Morning, Peeps. A modest 19°C here on yer sarf coast today, but with a high humidity. What we need is lots of rain and a cracking good storm…

    From today’s Letters:

    SIR – I concur with the conclusions made on the Government’s policy (or lack of sensible policies) with respect to the future of cars and fuel (“Why the 2030 death of the petrol engine will have to be delayed”, report, July 2) – as do a growing number of my colleagues in the House of Commons.

    There are huge risks in stopping cars and vans that use combustion engines being made from 2030, leaving electric fuel as the only option. There is a lack of available supply of electricity, charging points and general infrastructure capacity, as well as an over-reliance on China for the battery materials, which are not abundant.

    Even the European Union has woken up to this issue. Its ban starts in 2035, and, even then, it will allow combustion engines in new vehicles as long as they use synthetic fuels. Our Government seems not to be interested in this pragmatic and common-sense route.

    The Transport Select Committee has recently asked the Government a number of times for clarity, but fudge, evasion and head-in-the-sand responses are all that have been received so far. We even asked Mark Harper, the Transport Secretary, to have another go at responding to the committee’s March 2023 “Fuelling the Future” report, as his first effort was so inadequate.

    The Government needs to wake up. It has listened to the metropolitan elite green zealots and EV evangelists for far too long. It needs to start listening to the grown-ups in the fuel and vehicle industries, as well as the wider public living in the real world.

    Karl McCartney MP (Con)
    Member of the Transport Select Committee
    London SW1

    Well said, Karl McCartney MP, better late than never I suppose. You are no doubt off a few Ministerial Christmas card lists this morning! With a majority of only 3,500 you may still be gone at the next election though. Going down fighting?

  6. 374298+ up ticks,

    May one ask,

    Have we any marines left to tell this too ?

    Dt,

    Rishi Sunak is a Conservative Brexiteer doomed to be denounced as a wet, woke remainer
    The PM is by most measures to the Right of Boris Johnson, but this is an era in which vibes trump reality

    1. To the right of Carry-on Johnson.
      An ageing man placating a pushy princess.

  7. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s funny

    Talking Dog

    A guy walks into a bar with his dog and tells the barkeep that his dog can talk. The barkeep says “Yeah, sure!”

    He looks at the dog and asks, “What would you like to drink, poochie?”

    The dog answers “I’d like a Guinness please.”

    The barkeep looks at the guy and says, “You’re full of shit! There must be a transmitter in his collar.”

    The guy says, “I’ll take off the collar and leave the room, and when I’m gone ask him something else.”

    So the guy leaves the room and the barkeep asks the dog what would he like.

    The dog answers “You better make that a Bud.”

    So the barkeep says, “That’s cool man. But could you do me a favour? Here, take these five dollars and go next door to the corner store and get me a pack of cigarettes.”

    So the dog takes the cash and goes out the door.

    The guy walks back in the room and asks where his dog is, and the Barkeep told him about the corner store.

    The guy screams, “Oh no!” and runs out the door after the dog. As he turns the corner he looks down an alley and sees his dog humping a French poodle.

    The guy yells to his dog “Hey! You’ve never done that before!”

    To which the dog replies, “I’ve never had 5 dollars before!”

  10. 374298+ up ticks,

    Dt,

    Voters aren’t stupid enough to fall for Labour’s smoke and mirrors on Brexit

    Despite Starmer insisting that ‘Britain’s future is outside the EU’, the electorate clearly think a leopard can’t change its spots
    Despite Starmer insisting that ‘Britain’s future is outside the EU’.

    DO not, don’t, bet the house on it, we could NEVER have got into the odious state as a nation without the continuation of the majority voters input.

    1. Have we already forgotten StasiBlighty when a worryingly high percentage of the “bulldog breed” happily co-operated with the repressive measures?
      The answer would appear to be “yes” and they haven’t gone away, you know.

  11. From pylons to heat pumps, net zero policy is out of touch with reality

    Those on line that were calling everyone against this policy tin foil hat conspiracy theorists must now be feeling a bit silly

  12. Morning all,

    Heat pumps that will keep us awake all night, pylons that will be offensive to the eye during the day and now we have the electric car – a useless replacement for the quickly becoming obsolescent internal combustion engine.(ICE).

    But now with the increasing demand for new ICE cars after 2030 and the currently declining sales in all types of domestic transport why is it being proposed to find a new source of electricity that doesn’t require pylons and supplies the shortfall in power due to not investing in national grid capacity?

    Of course all that power can be sourced from EVs after they’ve sucked as much power as they can out of the grid in the first place.

    It’s called V2X (Vehicle 2 Everything) because EVs are the key to the future energy source after the grid has been sucked dry by heat pumps and the few EVs that are still lying idle at home:

    OVO is currently trialling vehicle-to-everything (V2X) smart charging technology. This will allow customers to power their homes with their car and sell surplus energy back to the grid, decreasing reliance on fossil fuels and reducing energy costs.

    https://www.electrive.com/2023/01/23/volkswagen-and-ovo-energy-launch-v2x-trial-in-the-uk/

      1. Quite right Ndovu – I needed as much electrical power storage on wheels as possible with the ability to provide electricity when the lights go out. It made sense to buy an EV that I hardly ever use instead of a mobile scooter that I’m not ready for yet.

          1. Not yet.
            I have tried out the cooling however with the EV parked in the sun by putting it in dog mode. This maintained the cabin at 22 degC in a blistering hot sun for about two hours without using any other vehicle functions. This cost 1 kWh energy from the traction battery which would have reduced the vehicle’s range by one mile and require cheap rate electricity at 14p/kWh to replace i.e. £0.14

            The EV saves traction battery energy in cold weather with an option to heat just the driver’s seat and the steering wheel.

      2. Quite right Ndovu – I needed as much electrical power storage on wheels as possible with the ability to provide electricity when the lights go out. It made sense to buy an EV that I hardly ever use instead of a mobile scooter that I’m not ready for yet.

      3. Quite right Ndovu – I needed as much electrical power storage on wheels as possible with the ability to provide electricity when the lights go out. It made sense to buy an EV that I hardly ever use instead of a mobile scooter that I’m not ready for yet.

    2. Batteries are not an energy source. They are an energy store. They need charged from an energy source before they can store and pass on energy. Hydrogen is an energy store and transport medium, similarly to a pipeline or the grid. Energy needs fed in at one end before it comes out of the other. And the feeding in & out process contributes to something like 70% losses…

      1. I don’t think heat pump advocates realise how much Hmmm they make particularly when the fan bearings wear out.

  15. Good morning all.
    Dull, but not raining after yesterday’s weather with 11½°C on the yard thermometer.

    I had planned a bus trip into Derby yesterday, but looking at the forecast abandoned the idea.

    Why are undocumented arrivals on our shores allowed to roam about with no restrictions?
    As a minimum, those without papers arriving on our shores should be held in secure accommodation for investigation. They should also be photographed, DNAed, fingerprinted and, where they claim to be minors, examined to confirm their real age.

    1. Prison camps being a good suggestion.
      No mobile phones, either, or trips to the city.

      1. Migrant centre branded inhumane – because the Wi-Fi is slow and it has no local hair salon, inspectors say
        Derwentside removal centre in Durham was deemed ‘inhumane’ by inspectors
        A private GP only visits twice a week and it does not have its own hair salon
        Inspectors also said the women-only facility is a long drive from the South East

        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12278613/Migrant-centre-branded-inhumane-Wi-Fi-slow-no-local-hair-salon-inspectors-say.html

        2. There’s a dozen or so “Turkish” barber salons that could decamp to Derwentside removal centre from Colchester that wouldn’t be missed.

        3. These comments would have been unbelievable only a few years ago – slow wifi, no hair salon, a doctor only twice a week when the rest of the country is struggling to see one at all – they could have been lifted directly from the average sitcom.

        5. I have stayed in four star hotels where wifi was crap and they also lacked a hairdresser, Should I sue Marriott for their inhumane conditions?

          1. Big difference, you or your company would have paid, gimmegrants get it all free, so it will never be good enough.

          1. My internet is in the slowest of the slow ranges and mobile signal is by prayer or a following wind..

  16. Good morning, everyone. Off to Dorchester to play in the Area Final of the National Top Club competition.

  17. New NATO top meeting in Vilnius next week. Several members, including UK & USA, want Ukraine to have accelerated membership. Oh, good. Nothing like poking the bear.

    1. I thought the US and Germany were somewhat lukewarm on the subject.
      Britain is indulging in another spasm of emotional incontinence; the “Brave Little Belgium” syndrome that ensnared us into WWI.

          1. …and my Daddy was there, Mons star & bar, wounded, commissioned in the Field Aug 1915.

            Also partook of WWII.

      2. At least we had an internationally recognised obligation towards Belgium.

  18. Good morning, all. Cloudy with a risk of rain – bet it misses us.

    The climate catastrophe is what we used to call pleasant summer weather!!

  19. Good morning, all. Bright but cloudy here. Forecast hints that light showers are possible.

    This is how the likes of Khan et al. present their data i.e. the devil is in the detail that these charlatans omit from their pronouncements.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/05d378a7013f68931e744e70b7f95d9e5532f277f8ba0b94e1196d87943d600d.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/45b36dddb31e3d93ff760c6072d0ca2aa5007a2b6f18a523b636a1956e0a9052.png

    Computer models and strategically misplaced thermometers/heat sensors are being used to drive policy. Lying politicians and their tame activists will literally be the death of us.

    1. I’m no scientist but working out the average temperature of the planet on a specific day cannot be all that precise

      1. Indeed, how many locations were selected, and what’s the distribution of temperatures? -65C to + 68C, or something like that. So a bit higher than “average” or otherwise, doesn’t mean much. Calculated for 20 locations, or every 20 square metres? And how was it the day before or the day after?

      2. Bruce phoned from near Melbourne Victoria yesterday. They are fed up with all the rain. And he’s run out of logs for his wood burner.

    2. And note the use of computer models that have proven so inaccurate in other fields such as the recent scamdemic.

      1. How on earth did the human race manage to survive for hundreds and thousands of years without
        all this information ?

    4. I wonder how many weather stations there are across the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Arctic Ocean and the Antarctic Ocean. Just a thought.

      1. I don’t know if it still goes on, but when I was in the RN we sent weather reports from whichever bit of sea we happened to be in at regular intervals every day; mind you we only seem to have a couple operational ships left, so …

      2. There are probably quite a few weather stations in canadas north Nothing helps increase the temperature as well as placing the thermometer in the middle of forest fires.

    5. I wonder how many weather stations there are across the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Arctic Ocean and the Antarctic Ocean. Just a thought.

    6. It has no meaning to it. It’s like the ‘average priced house’ it doesn’t exist.

    7. Good morning Korky,
      Unfortunately, far too many of the unthinking, uneducated masses will believe all the hype, and continue to clamour for nonsense net zero, all while rushing around to catch their flights to Costa-del-Chav.

    8. Computer models?

      They told us that it was just calculated from all of the weatherstations worldwide. Surely all that needed was a calculator.

  20. Good Moaning.
    Decided against going to the Tendring Show and pottered around at home.
    My idleness was rewarded: I Found The Missing Patchwork Quilt!!!
    And a good many other things that we were vaguely aware were missing.
    Onward and upward; into the attic – a.k.a. the dust filled sauna.

    2. They might help their ’cause’ if they stopped ramming it down our throats.

        1. Whoops! As the saying goes, a slip of the tongue…..
          I’m sure others can find alternative unintended comments …..

  22. G’day all,

    A wet start to what was supposed to be a dry day at McPhee Towers. Heavy rain expected around midday. Rain with dry spells or sunny periods with showers? You choose. Wind in the South, 14℃ going up to 20℃ so below seasonal average, Happily I’m going fishing (again).

    The interesting thing about George Osborne’s wedding wasn’t the ‘Just Stop Oil’ nutter, it was who was on the guest list: Emily Matliss, Jon Sopel and Nick Robinson of the BBC, Mark Carney along with the usual collection of failed Prime Ministers, Foreign Secretaries, Health Secretaries and so on. And Michael Gove. And Hancock. A veritable Who’s Who of WEF supporters.

    By their associates shall ye know them.

    1. Like him (I don’t) or loathe him(I do) They didn’t deserve that JSO attack on their wedding day.
      I take your point about the guests- what a collection!

      1. I agree with your comments about the sleazy guests, but I’m amazed that he didn’t have armed security

        arranged at both the wedding and reception afterwards..

        1. The woman was disguised as a respectable guest – apart from her shoes! She must have been lurking outside the church during the service, as villagers were wont to do for weddings – there were some of those at my first one in 1969.

    2. Oh dear perhaps he’ll now realise what a knob he actually is. But we won’t hold our breath.

    3. Good morning FM (Could you apply for First Minister role?),
      Billy-no-mates had to invite somebody, so a quick call to rent-a-failed-politician or al-beeb stooge came to the rescue. Slimy ex-politician invites slimy lefties to wedding.

    4. No mention of the poison pen emails in the Mail at all – very fishy, but then so is Osborne.

  23. From the Gatesograph letters today:

    SIR – On Monday I visited the revamped Waitrose in Chelsea, searching for kefir, kombucha and kimchi. I had no success, so I asked the customer service lady for help and she looked blank. Never heard of them. No wonder Waitrose is doing badly.

    A J Weston
    London SW3

    Says it all, really. And I’ll bet A J Weston is unaware of the satire he (or she) has created.

    1. This is a satire ———– I’m surprised that the DT didn’t spot it.

      Waitrose staff all have a mobile which tells them instantly whether an article is in stock, and where in the shop it is.

      If not in stock the mobile tells them the nearest Waitrose that has it in stock.

      .

      PS: Very witty name. The Weston family owns Fortnum & Mason.

    2. If he was really that desperate he could make his own. It’s not racket science.
      Oh no that’s Wimbledon. 😉

    3. A J Weston might have had more luck in London with exotic foreign food like mince and onions, potatoes and cabbage.

  24. From the Gatesograph letters today:

    SIR – On Monday I visited the revamped Waitrose in Chelsea, searching for kefir, kombucha and kimchi. I had no success, so I asked the customer service lady for help and she looked blank. Never heard of them. No wonder Waitrose is doing badly.

    A J Weston
    London SW3

    Says it all, really. And I’ll bet A J Weston is unaware of the satire he (or she) has created.

  25. From the Gatesograph letters today:

    SIR – On Monday I visited the revamped Waitrose in Chelsea, searching for kefir, kombucha and kimchi. I had no success, so I asked the customer service lady for help and she looked blank. Never heard of them. No wonder Waitrose is doing badly.

    A J Weston
    London SW3

    Says it all, really. And I’ll bet A J Weston is unaware of the satire he (or she) has created.

  26. Morning all 🙂😊
    Grey again and rain likely for today and the next seven days.
    The trouble we seem to have with all these energy saving ideas and how our political classes appear to readily absorb the latest ‘planet saving technologies’ they seem to be mislead by grossly over stated and so called expert’s. And probably getting bungs from the industries that they appear to support.
    No wonder the world is in such a mess.
    We sat out with our neighbours yesterday evening it was Rob’s 82 birthday. You’d never guess if you knew him.
    He showed us a brilliant bound folder he has created for his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
    It’s base on a book of suggestions, as in where did you first do…… nearly everything in your life. It’s about 30 pages and he has included many photographs, I’m going to borrow the original book.
    I want my grandchildren to know that I stood six feet away from Eric Clapton, was greatly impressed but at the time had no idea who he actually was. And many, many other things while I can still remember.

    1. That’s a really good idea, Eddy.
      I like it. I’ll see if I can do likewise.
      Bit of a problem with photos, though…

      1. Follow the way I wrote, Not A Bad Life

        1). Listed all the addresses with dates.

        2). Bullet points of what I remembered happened there.

        3). Expand the bullet points into little stories.

        It works, now available on Kindle $5 USD.

        429 A5 pages – 143,571 words.

      2. Follow the way I wrote, Not A Bad Life

        1). Listed all the addresses with dates.

        2). Bullet points of what I remembered happened there.

        3). Expand the bullet points into little stories.

        It works, now available on Kindle $5 USD.

        429 A5 pages – 143,571 words.

      3. Same problem with the photos. Obs.
        But I’m going to Google earth and photograph the homes were my ancestors Iived all those years ago.
        And Queen Mary’s Nursing home (now a private residence) in Hampstead where is was born. A long time ago.

  27. Morning folks,

    Thinking about the much touted BBC scandal, my bet is that it’ll be some hapless conservative the powers that be want to throw under a bus. All this stuff about how surprised we’ll be suggests a look, conservatives aren’t as decent as you thought, scenario. Would they really expose a woke darling, however disgusting his/her private life might be? As for the likes of Attenborough, you don’t shoot a cash cow. Want a natural history film to sell well? Get Attenborough to do the voiceover. I may be wrong and I know I’m a cynical old bat, but…

      1. Me too but I doubt it is. He may be a knob, but he’s a careful knob.

      1. Loads according to the mad Remainers who still think that the BBC was in favour of leaving.

    4. You’re probably right. They’re just getting our hopes up for nothing!

  28. I think the Wet Office and the beeboids have employed “Professor” Ferguson to produce a computer model for weather prediction…..

    Irritating to watch the live weather radar and see the rain falling in King’s Lynn to the west and Norwich in the east – but NOT here.

    1. The Met office assumes climate change is real into their calculations. That’s why they’re wrong so often.

    2. I do hope they employ Ferguson for their next scam as well, because that should flag up to most people that it’s all a hoax right from the start.

  29. An article in the DT today says “China is preparing for war”

    The article says: “Then there is the rhetoric. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is in Beijing for talks aimed at easing some of these tensions.”

    She is being roundly mocked in the US for repeatedly bowing and grovelling to her Chinese counterpart. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e13eac275d23a2b73119b5a02b9db112b3b1ccaed82a56a155d92d813ede224a.png

    The photo above, and especially the associated video, tells you all you need to know about the Biden ‘administration, and its foreign policies, especially with China, and why the once mighty USA is hardly taken seriously anymore.

    1. Paying respect to your host is surely a good thing? I would hope our lot do it.

      1. I don’t think the Chinese have much respect for female western leaders.

  30. Apparently Air Force One landing at Stansted this evening.
    I hope he forgets why he’s here.
    Coming across to stir things up even more in Ukraine. Don’t these idiots realise people’s lives are involved.

    1. RE, from what’s gone on since early 2020 I don’t think these idiots give a toss about those they consider non-elite; that’s a more kind description than their forerunners in 1930s Germany used, untermensch i.e. subhuman, but the sentiment’s the same.

  31. ‘Morning All

    Medley Time

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1905e422a81b3cd32315064fa201f866448973611cfe4674d9d1904a951dbcfd.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d8302f0dae050c8c5cd10528ceb273faf01bc17a6f2d9ea72021c1356a228902.gif

    https://scontent.fbrs4-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/347419928_756805219785782_3460019364101169544_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s640x640&_nc_cat=1&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5cd70e&_nc_ohc=BOA1CrjhTqkAX_yArhi&_nc_ht=scontent.fbrs4-1.fna&oh=00_AfBnZrU3IYpkVFOvnkY2rgZA_a_YWNlxmxuWEG4Yp1A0wA&oe=64AE8E36

    https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=568,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/142/362/474/original/f2b63bcb1d635522.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8d19f73f6e3461d474a0d15d9e830eac04f663c502c6deddd772201edca8d1c6.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b020c432e0d3c12cbcd1322e11a48dfc4b14de6326c59a61c487e2f242a3bc71.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cd6b34bd16c8ac5d9602b7d494e76c68a5102b125c7ed2374d99afe444a62568.jpg

  32. In other news, “Archbishop of York Brands Lord’s Prayer ‘Oppressively Patriarchal’ for Saying ‘Our Father’”. The CofE has gone woke, no wonder it’s going broke!

    Welby, the imposter in Lambeth Palace previously declared that God is “gender neutral“. among other efforts to involve the Church in left-wing issues, such as illegal immigration and climate change.

    A friend wrote to Welby to ask why he involves himself in political matters when he should be concentrating on the institution of which he is head.

    Surprisingly, Welby replied to my friend, saying that he has every right to engage in politics because he is a member of the House of Lords. Ergo, bishops should be banned from the HofL!

    I take an interest in this because my father was one of the last of a breed of sporting country parsons. He was so disgusted by his then archbishop, Michael Ramsey, that he vowed never to allow him into his parishes. He must be turning in his grave!

    2. The father figure offers protection and resources. The mother figure is loving and tender etc. Whereas a mother would struggle to give birth to more than twenty children, a fertile male could procreate the start of an entire tribe. King Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud is said to have fathered in excess of 120 children.

    3. The father figure offers protection and resources. The mother figure is loving and tender etc. Whereas a mother would struggle to give birth to more than twenty children, a fertile male could procreate the start of an entire tribe. King Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud is said to have fathered in excess of 120 children.

    4. This morning’s service was full of references to God the Father, from the Credo and Gloria to the Lord’s Prayer. I was told that the Archbishop of York didn’t quite say what the media say he said, but there’s no smoke without fire.

        1. White is a sign of being distinguished. Or should I qualify that by saying, white hair?
          After all, I don’t want to be blocked from my bank account.

          2. Thank you, Mum2.

            I’m very distinguished as both hair and moustache are pure white.

          3. I’ve gone so white, I’m going pink & shiny.
            Like a walking, talking bellend… 🙁

    2. It was Jasper Carrott who uttered the calumny:
      ‘He isn’t even the best drummer in The Beatles’.

  34. Well the latest Al-Beeb show “Find the next nonce” has been a blazing publicity success eliciting denials from such luminaries as Vine Lininigger etc

    I’m sure thje witch hunt will lead to the perp being severely dealt with…….

    https://media.greatawakening.win/post/ijdSq17m0buB.jpeg
    Cynical Rik wonders what news is being buried this time……..
    Edit
    The internet’s ben busy……..
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/615c7d9c74d3a6f3d8ec96a148b608adec01a5fa104ddd822d1f82cb620882b9.png

          1. It mentioned a star and talent, so sadly that discounts the jug-eared buffoon.

          2. I’m having a conflict here – I’d like it to be Jeremy Whine, and Linekar, and Packham and …

  35. Fine and sunny here now – we didn’t get the digging done yesterday, though I cleared a patch. We’ve now buried our dear little Lily, next to Sam, who died in 2017. I feel better now that’s done. The ground is very hard and stony with only a foot or so of topsoil, so I hope it was deep enough. There’s a heavy stone on top.

    2. I’m very sorry for your loss. I haven’t been here for a couple of days so missed your sad news. Burying one’s pets is a very important event.
      I still remember when our boys held little funeral services as they buried their guinea-pigs in the garden. The plot is still marked by their specially selected pebbles.

        1. Thank you, it’s improving and a lot less sore – apart from where my specs sit, and I have no control over that.
          My main issue, and it’s very trivial compared to what Lottie is going through, is that I can’t yet wash my hair – yuk! regardless of the weather, I will use a little sunhat when I go back to the hospital on Tuesday.

          1. Thank you for the up-date.

            Seems as if it must be healing.

            Wait until it starts itching – then resist the temptation to scratch,

          2. I think it is healing ok. I’m now getting the occasional sharp ‘twinges’ – they warned me that could happen, and it is just a sign of healing.
            At least I know what to expect for surgery 2 in mid-August – by which time I hope the nose has healed.

    3. Sometimes it is better to let a pet go than to allow it to suffer any longer.

      I put off taking my last cat to the vet for longer than I should have done, it was a big mistake,

      1. Magnificat had vanished for a couple of days before we received a call that he was at their place and unable to walk. Before the 2 days absence, he’d climbed up the outside of the house to come in the bedroom window, as he had for over ten years, so didn’t seem more than usually elderly.
        Then we collected him, and it was clear he was ready for the final drive to the vet. That was about seven years ago.
        He was a real cat, and we still miss him.

        1. Over the last few months, Lily had taken to sleeping on the draining board by the kitchen sink. She had good springy legs and was still able to jump up there even on her last day. But she stopped eating.

          Forty years ago – Tiger – lovely silver tabbly – had a stroke, but seemed to be recovering, with whatever the vet had given her, but on her last evening, she’d gone to say goodnight to the boys, then went outside and didn’t come back in. We searched high and low in the garden, but the neighbour found her under their beans – she’d walked up a plank that was leaning on the fence, and dropped over the other side – as if she’d committed suicide. I’m sure they do know when their time is up.

          1. I think you’re right- if we hadn’t had a fenced yard, I think Toby would have wandered off into the woods.

      2. You can never do it too soon, but you can often do it too late.
        Where there is life, there is death.

        1. Too right. My first dog, Toby, a Manchester Terrier cross, had 3 ops for tumours and was in distress. The day he was booked in for the last time, he tottered to his feet and went to fetch one of his toys, he wanted to play, even though he could barely stand. It further broke my heart.

  36. Fearful Germany preparing to block Ukraine’s Nato membership bid. 9 July 2023.

    Germany is set to insist on delaying Ukraine’s accession to Nato over fears the move could take the alliance to war with Russia.

    An alliance source said Berlin would use the annual Nato summit in Vilnius, Lithuania this week to urge others to focus on security assurances, rather than membership proposals, to help Ukraine defend itself in the absence of accession.

    Germany is of course suffering the effects of the Baltic Pipeline stab in the back from the US. They can see themselves being left here to hold the baby when it all goes wrong. They will not only be fronting up to Russia but be much poorer. France divided and in a state of semi-civil war and a broken UK will not be much help.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/07/08/ukraine-nato-bid-block-germany-fears-putin/

    1. Time to let the EU take over the eastern wing of NATO, leaving the US to bail out Canada and protect the northern border.

    2. I’m with the Germans on this issue. Other than the stab in the back, the US appear to have overlooked some basic NATO rules; no country currently in conflict can join NATO, no NATO member can call for Article 5 if they have instigated a conflict with another country. Ukraine fail on both accounts.

      Perhaps more worrying is the notion from Biden that Ursula Fondoflyen should become top dog in NATO. The last thing NATO needs is a complete and utter failure as a domestic defence minister ruining the show. Not to mention that the Brussels / Strasbourg gravy train should be kept at arms length from any armed forces.

    3. Berlin is, of course closer to Russia/Ukraine than Washington, and will remember what happened the last time they and the Russians fell out.

  37. A few cars are now appreciating in value and these are the internal compustion engined ones some of which are expected to be serviceable for up to 20 years which is more than can be said of EVs.

    https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-12160659/Used-electric-cars-nosedived-value-2023.html

    In any costing excercise you have to consider the whole life costs of owning your investment and that depends on how long you can keep it whilst it still works. Unfortunately as we get older the age of the owner has a bearing on the ownership period and the question now becomes how long you can own it whilst your own body works.

    1. Hard to predict future running costs when politicians play god and impose ever excessive carbon taxes on fuel.

  38. 374298+ up ticks,

    BB,
    Cracking Coalition? UK and Spain Call on Biden to Not Send Cluster Bombs to Ukraine

    More apt,
    Cracking Coalition? UK and Spain Call on USAs Miden to Not Send Cluster Bombs to Ukraine

  39. Weird, or what? Looked out of my porch window to check if it was still raining – Anne got part of her wish – and I noticed that the driver’s side rear window of my car was open. On close inspection both the driver’s and front passenger’s windows were open. Now, they weren’t open last night when I parked. A little rain had got in but that was the least of my worries: how the hell did the windows open themselves?
    I drive a Volvo V40 R Design and I’ve had it from last October, and it’s a lovely car to drive. A bit thirsty but a really nice car.
    A search on the internet and lo and behold this window opening lark is part of the specification. It’s controlled by the key fob lock and unlock buttons.
    The internet site has a number of people that did not know this function exists, add one more to that list. Checked it out and it works perfectly. Sometime between parking last night and when I discovered the windows open I must have dwelt on the unlock button, and down came the windows. Can’t remember doing it but perhaps my childhood sleepwalking has returned and I’ve no-one now to tell me that I’m doing that again.
    Panic over!

    1. That has happened to me a few times. Still not sure exactly what the key combination is, but when I walk away from my car parked on the road, I always glance back to make sure the windows are closed!

    1. Corruption is an age-old concept; however, this modern cartel of bent, power-crazed brigands have raised it to an art form

    2. The lizard elite have many such groups, I think, all with slightly different functions.

  41. Just popped in to mention the book I spoke of earlier.
    A Grandparents’ Book
    Our story, Our Life.
    A Record of Your Life, for Your Family
    Flame Tree Publishing.

    1. It’s a very good idea. There are so many things I would like to know, now I am older, but there is no-one left to ask.

  43. I wonder how many people are going to find themselves sued or locked out of social media for incorrect speculation on the BBC nonce.

    I know it’s extremely unlikely, but what if it’s a honey-trap?

    2. Afternoon Sos. I’ve just caught this on the 1 o’clock news and it occurred to me as I was watching that despite all the professed ignorance they must all know who they are not talking about!

      1. Of course they do.
        Like the alleged (?) reason behind the founding of Childline.

    3. Nonceum dorma! Nonceum dorma!
      Tu pure, oh Principe
      Nella tua fredda stanza
      Guardi le stella che tremano d’amore
      E di speranza….

      Nonceum sleep! Nonceum sleep!
      You too, oh Prince
      In your cold room
      Look at the stars that tremble with love
      And of hope

    5. If you opt out of having a TV, you can opt out of being interested in all this. I crack a few jokes, but I can practically guarantee that when the name is finally released in a theatrical gesture, I won’t even have heard of them or know what they look like.
      These people only occupy space in one’s head if one lets them.

      The really important news this week was the gold backed BRICS currency. They’d even sacrifice Gary Lineker if it meant the plebs not catching on to that!

    1. That’s huge!
      If they can be shown to have deliberately misled the public, then their no-liability clause becomes invalid, or?

    2. Yet it’s another example of government pointing the finger. They were the ones who chose the vaccine. The state pushed it on us. The state threatened endlessly if we didn’t comply. Will they ever take the blame for their behaviour, or just constantly blame someone else?

      They blame super marets for food prices, ignoring NI hikes, corp tax hikes, massive energy costs, crippling fuel duty and a hiked min wage.

      Then it was energy companies for ‘profiteering’ when 30p of the 42p of a cost of a unit of energy is tax, or subsidy, or a levy or a punishment tax to make people use less energy to meet their pointless targets.

      It is the government’s fault. It istime they were held responsible and made to pay for it before the election came around as a reminder to the rest to start building power plants, abandon the green twaddle and cut taxes.

      1. 374298+ up ticks,
        Afternoon W,
        The electorate
        cannot have both as in, casting a lab/lib/con/current ukip vote and commence with a healing campaign for these Isles.

  46. A couple of days ago someone wrote a letter to the DT lamenting the lack of ladybirds in their garden to mop up the glut of aphids.

    Well, I can assure them where they are. I’ve just been out into my garden and the air is thick with them. I’ve never seen anything like it, there must be hundreds of thousands of seven-spot ladybirds flying around and landing on the shrubbery (as well as on me!).

    I’ve tried to photograph them but my camera won’t pick them up in flight. Today is the second day on the trot of 28ºC and clear blue skies.

    Yesterday’s entomological event was clouds of flying ants, but that was nothing compared with this biblical plague of ladybirds.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eb747cf63acd8881269c182bab8846a88eaebd8b735e335715716c9372c4d7e2.jpg

    1. Some years ago we visited Cromer with our younger son and his family.
      You would never think that lady birds could be frightening, but they were everywhere.
      You walked through clouds of them. The grass was a heaving mass – no way could you sit down on it. And there were drifts of dead ladybirds in the gutters. Every surface was covered with little bodies or barely breathing insects.
      It was actually spooky.

      2. I got home from school in CT one day to find half of the front of the house covered in the blighters. Somehow they’d found a way into my son’s room and he was doing a whirling dervish routine trying to get them.

      3. That was probably the same time when Dr. Daughter went on a trip to Bacton during one of her Guide Camps at Hautbois House, Coltishall.

    3. I think there are loads of them around too. I’m beginning to get 1976 vibes…

  47. From a DT article abut the Buck House refurbishments.
    “It will take 18 months to clear 70,000 objects from the north wing, which houses the royal apartments, followed by two years of construction work on the wing.”
    Huh; amateur hour. Try down sizing from Allan Towers.
    p.s. did I mention I’ve found the patchwork bedspread? AND the Christmas wine glasses.

    3. We’ve been in the new Lake Lodge for 2 years and I still haven’t found a few items of posh family china…..they’re here but where?

    4. We mislaid several tools at Firstborn’s place – like plasterers float. Not tiny. Searched for ages, but they’re gone. Guess the only way of re-finding them is to buy a replacement…

      1. Works every time. Are you sure you weren’t plastered when you lost the float?

      1. How many times do I have to tell you? You’ll be lucky to get 5 -/- out of anyone here.

        1. That was the name of my Maine Coon cat….mad as a March hare but great fun.

  51. Off any topic I’ve seen here today, but I used to use Pesky Fish – and very good they were too. However, they went “off air” last year and according to the website were due back at various times, but nothing happened. Their latest post said they would be back in “Spring 2023” – it seems that might have now shifted to “Summer 2023” although the page I looked at still said Spring. Anyone have any better info please??

    2. I described the Warqueen as sultry once. She didn’t speak to me for 4 days. It took me three days to notice and on the fourth I realised she had misheard sultry as slutty.

        1. You are Phizzee and I claim my £5 (or whatever the prize-money is these days)

          3. How are you today Paul? After your surgery I hope you aren’t over doing it too much. Sit in a chair, drink beer and give orders;-))

          4. I refuse to ease off more than is absolutely necessary. There’s too much to do, and keeping going at a good tempo retrains the body. One isn’t a quitter, like all on this site. Made of sterner stuff (at least, in public!)
            How is it with you today, Ann? Have you tried the morphine gloop, or maybe waiting to see the Dr and ask for patches (as per a Nottl post a day or so ago)?

          5. Gave in at 4 this morning and had a teaspoon of morphine. I shall ask for the patches though, seems like a good idea. I can’t eat and am struggling to do the basics. Still, KBO.
            I am made of stern stuff but this is getting to me- plus husband has not been well today either. We just try to keep going.

          6. NTTL will supply love, prayers and energy as needed. Hope it’s enough.

  53. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12276469/Worlds-biggest-eaters-REVEALED-countries-consume-calories.html
    This claims to be a list of how many calories people eat by country. But it can’t be correct, unless all those old calorie counting books were wrong!
    I used to measure the calories of everything I ate as a teenager – nowadays, I usually eat 2000 – 2500 a day, which is a bit more than I ought to.
    I can’t believe the average is 3422 per day in the UK – if I ate that much, I’d be the size of a house after 6 months!

    Oh well, it is the Daily Mail, I suppose.

    1. When I was training for tournaments I’d be eating 4000 calories a day. My problems came about when I stopped training and got a job…. and kept eating as if I was.

    2. I just checked and discovered that 2 bottles of 12.5% white wine makes about 1,200kcal, and I eat perhaps1,500 kcal.

      1. Two pints of 5% ABV larger = the equivalent of a cheeseburger & chips. On the other hand a double gin & diet tonic water is just 80 calories….

    3. Don’t forget, that’s an AVERAGE. Somebody in the land whale department will be consuming so many that it shoves the average up.

  54. 374298+ up ticks,

    May one ask,

    How about we have England batting for us in parliament.

    1. Constantly throwing away good positions, blaming the opposition for their own mistakes but sometimes rescuing themselves with individual heroics against the odds?

      Isn’t that the history of England/the UK over many centuries?

          3. It was in a Victorian children’s magazine, I think. My mother used to read it to us as children.

    3. You don’t want to mess with the Northern New Englanders, I can tell you!

      2. Hello LotL, I was reading a bit on Twitter of people saying that they lose weight in Europe and put it on when in the US, due to the differences in the food.
        You spent a long time in the States, did you ever notice this effect?

        1. Yes, because everything is supersized. I did put weight on at first but with swimming I managed to control it. One thing in the US is that you always get a salad.
          The steaks are much better there though!

    5. Just waiting for the UK to decide that throwing out newcomers is a good idea.

      1. I cannot stand Ben & Jerry’s and their virtue-signalling shyte. Have never bought their over-priced ice cream, and never will, even if it’s the last ice cream in the shop!

      2. Bud light is effectively free with discounts pushing the price way below the price of bottled water. Hopefully the same will happen here and we will be able to afford some of their expensive stuff.

    2. The 1611 version is the one I know by heart. I have, however, left strict instructions that it is NOT to make an appearance (in any way, shape or form) at MY funeral!

        1. It was sung at my mother’s funeral. I always find it upsetting, but that was particularly affecting.

          1. Know what you mean.
            My beautiful friend in Sicily, a married lady with kids, killed herself way back at the end of the 90s, and there’s a piece of music I associate with her that always cracks me up when I hear it.

    1. Also Rugby
      Eddie Jones’s Australia have been thumped by the ‘Boks.
      Doubtless he’s coaching all the flair out and replacing it with elephantine thugs, as he did with England.

  60. Lieutenant Singh Judge VC (25th May 1923 – 18th March 1945), 15th Punjab Regiment, Indian Army.

    The citation reads:

    The KING has been graciously pleased to approve the posthumous award of the VICTORIA CROSS to:

    Lieutenant Karamjeet Singh JUDGE (IEC. 5504), 15th Punjab Regiment, Indian Army.

    In Burma, on 18th March, 1945, a Company of the 15th Punjab Regiment, in which Lieutenant Karamjeet Singh Judge was a Platoon Commander, was ordered to capture the Cotton Mill area on the outskirts of Myingyan. In addition to numerous bunkers and stiff enemy resistance a total of almost 200 enemy shells fell around the tanks and infantry during the attack. The ground over which the operation took place was very broken and in parts was unsuitable for tanks. Except for the first two hours of this operation, Lieutenant Karamjeet Singh Judge’s platoon was leading in the attack, and up to the last moment Lieutenant Karamjeet Singh Judge dominated the entire battlefield by his numerous and successive acts of superb gallantry.

    Time and again the infantry were held up by heavy medium machine gun and small arms fire from bunkers not seen by the tanks. On every such occasion Lieutenant Karamjeet Singh Judge, without hesitation and with a complete disregard for his own personal safety, coolly went forward through heavy fire to recall the tanks by means of the house telephone (a telephone positioned on the back of each tank to enable infantry to talk to the tank commander withour exposing themselves by climbing up to the turret). Cover around the tanks was non-existent, but Lieutenant Karamjeet Singh Judge remained completely regardless not only of the heavy small arms fire directed at him, but also of the extremely heavy shelling directed at the tanks. Lieutenant Karamjeet Singh Judge succeeded in recalling the tanks to deal with bunkers which he personally indicated to the tanks, thus allowing the infantry to advance.

    In every case Lieutenant Karamjeet Singh Judge personally led the infantry in charges against the bunkers and was invariably first to arrive. In this way ten bunkers were eliminated by this brilliant and courageous officer.

    On one occasion, while he was going into the attack, two Japanese suddenly rushed at him from a small nullah with fixed bayonets. At a distance of only 10 yards he killed both.

    About fifteen minutes before the battle finished, a last nest of three bunkers was located, which were very difficult for the tanks to approach. An enemy light machine gun was firing from one of them and holding up the advance of the infantry. Undaunted, Lieutenant Karamjeet Singh Judge directed one tank to within 20 yards of the above bunker at great personal risk and then threw a smoke grenade as a means of indication. After some minutes of fire, Lieutenant Karamjeet Singh Judge, using the house telephone again, asked the tank commander to cease fire while he went in with a few men to mop up. He then went forward and got within 10 yards of the bunker, when the enemy light machine gun opened fire again, mortally wounding Lieutenant Karamjeet Singh Judge in the chest. By this time, however, the remaining men of the section were able to storm this strong point, and so complete a long and arduous task.

    During the battle, Lieutenant Karamjeet Singh Judge showed an example of cool and calculated bravery.

    In three previous and similar actions this young officer had already proved himself an outstanding leader of matchless courage. In this, his last action, Lieutenant Karamjeet Singh Judge gave a superb example of inspiring leadership and outstanding courage.

    — London Gazette, 3rd July 1945.

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2f/Karamjeet_Singh_Judge_VC.jpg

  62. Par Four today.

    Wordle 750 4/6
    🟨⬜🟨🟩⬜
    ⬜🟨⬜🟩🟩
    ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. a bogey

        Wordle 750 5/6

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

        1. And I was sober.

          Wordle 750 5/6

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

    2. Bogey here, stupid guess for par.
      Wordle 750 5/6

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

    3. Bogey for me

      Wordle 750 5/6

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

        1. I had a sit in a Harrier at Wittering (and again at Brooklands after they had been decommissioned).

    3. Had plenty at Linton-on-Ouse together with JP3 & 4 (Jet Provost). 1964/65.

    4. Had plenty at Linton-on-Ouse together with JP3 & 4 (Jet Provost). 1964/65.

    4. Not my aunt and uncle; Uncle Alf’s Morris Minor was a convertible (and it let the water through because there were cracks in the canvas).

      1. My Morris Minor would let water through the gaps in the floor but the roof was the best part of the car.

        Strangw how you can remember stuff from years ago – PUJ 134

    6. A long time ago, when I was a student I had to borrow £15 to buy a 1957 Morris Minor in Birch Grey as a second car! It’s just as well I did because within a month my first car a rather sad Morris Traveller died for the lack of grease in its King Pins….

  67. It’s gone dark and there is thunder creeping in from the West, but not raining YET.

      1. Ooooh! I can see big black clouds coming from the direction of your house Bob!

      2. Still dry here but we’re doing a swift walk this evening to look for nest sites etc, so it’s bound to rain then.

  68. Afternoon, all. My friend delivered my phone this morning – great relief! Mind you, he had to machete his way up the garden path because the torrential rain last night had brought everything down to earth! At least the flood had soaked away so he didn’t need wellies.

      1. She got her own back by getting a better paying job than me.

      1. I certainly did. My brother had no choice; he had to do National Service (I was too young).

  71. The rumour online is that it is someone with the same name as a famous anti-viris program! I can’t bring any Seamus McAfee to mind though!

  72. Cheats version of the Welsh anthem:
    My hen laid a haddock, one hand oiled a flea,
    Glad farts and centurions threw dogs in the sea,
    I could stew a hare here and brandish Dan’s flan,
    Don’s ruddy bog’s blocked up with sand.

    (Cytgan – Chorus)

    Dad! Dad! Why don’t you oil Auntie Glad?
    Can whores appear in beer bottle pies,
    O butter the hens as they fly!

    and the music:
    https://youtu.be/9wcuwDXFS5Y

    1. I heard a good phrase from Francis Hunt on the Delingpod – “The Land of my Passport”
      Sums up long-term expatriates’ views of their homeland perhaps?

      1. I can’t do anything in elsh, so I’m impressed already, Conners.
        Fine usic from the Male Voice choirs.

          1. Gets me in the heart everytime, as I understand it so well, yet I play it over and over – and nothing gets better.

          3. Dhu, I know the valleys so well, especially Treorchy.

            I wonder if you understand Hieraith.

          5. Pity, there’s no translation – I doubt you speak Welsh well enough to translate.

        2. Mentioning male voice choirs, when I was teaching we used to have an end of term revue. One of the Welsh teachers put on a skit using a recording of a male voice choir. The stage was in darkness – all that could be seen was a row of miner’s lamps and the glorious swelling of music and massed male voices. Gradually, the lights came up and Tony was all alone on the stage with a plank on his head on which there was a row of lamps!

  74. I like the idea that Clarkson’s Farm has done more for British farming in two six program series than Countryfile has done in over thirty years.
    But that’s the ‘B’BC for you.

  75. I wonder if anyone can help. I seem to have mislaid a counter-offensive. I was promised one months ago and then, when it finally appeared, the supplier stated that it was a series of mini-offensives. Since then it’s gone very quiet. We were promised that the arrival of Western tanks would sweep the infidels into the sea but that didn’t happen and it’s not covered in the warranty. The supplier claims there is a lack of human resources though it appears to be on the wrong side. The latest news is that there is a shortage of ammunition such that the parent company (USA Inc) has authorised temporary issue of assets mostly condemned as inhumane.
    The only good news is that my local Compliance Centre is issuing free Ukrainian flags with every 3rd booster. Apparently, wrapping yourself in the flag after vaccination will not only protect you from all known (and some made up) viruses but also from non-existent WMD ( © A Blair 2003).

    1. Never mind, just check your bank statement, I am sure you will be happy with the contents of your account.

      1. My bank account is safe. I’m with the Islamic Bank of Holy Jihad (Cleethorpes branch)

    2. Don’t worry a delivery by TNT is on its way…..to sort out the clusterfcuk….

  76. DT letter: more cheerful than usual.
    Kindness at Waitrose
    SIR – In late June, following a procedure at Lincoln County Hospital, I went with my husband to Waitrose for a light lunch before shopping.

    In the café we selected sandwiches and, as I approached the counter, the assistant complimented me on my colourful tunic. I explained that I had chosen cheerful clothes in anticipation of an uncomfortable bone marrow aspiration that had taken place an hour earlier. I then asked for a tea and a coffee and the partner said there would be no charge, as I’d had a traumatic morning. I was astonished at her spontaneous kindness. The till receipt recorded: “Reason: it’s on us”.

    My husband and I subsequently shopped in the store and on arriving at a checkout, where a new partner was being mentored by an experienced one, we were asked by the latter if we had found everything we wanted, to which I replied: “Yes, including unexpected kindness”, and related my experience in the café. At this, the mentor darted away and returned carrying a bouquet of pink roses, which she gave to me saying: “And these are from us”.

    We were completely overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers. We are not regular customers of Waitrose, and it was only our third visit to that store.

    Delia Hearmon
    Grantham, Lincolnshire

    1. You have reminded me of my husband’s experience in Sainsbury’s yesterday. He still uses a crutch and was having trouble doing the bagging etc. The cashier lad asked if he wanted help and then went and got him a chair to sit on and then the lad did all the packing.
      We too often forget that there are still many kind people in this country.

      1. Too right, LotL. I was surprised and charmed at the number of young people who offered me a seat on a crowded Tube last Wednesday.

        1. Yes, we have experienced that on the buses- when we were fit enough to travel that way.

      2. My till ladies at Moffat Co-op, often, not only pack my bag for me, but heft it into the trolley.

        It all helps.

      3. There are! Surprisingly many. To be celebrated at every opportunity, and one should make an effort to join in, too. Too easy to be a sour, miserable bastard.

        1. Much easier to be profuse in thanks and make ’em feel good about themselves.

          They make a difference.

      4. My 18 year old lad broke down on his way up to the Midlands to visit his grandparents. He limped off the motorway and found a garage (the type that mends cars) and they filled the car up with oil and sent him on his way with the rest of the (big) bottle of oil. He apparently offered to pay but they wouldn’t have any of it. I think the garage was in Bicester so if that was you on Tuesday lunchtime, we thank you.

    2. A lass was in front of me in the queue at the Tescos a while back. She didn’t have enough to cover the cost and desperately unhappy went to get some monies out of the machine.

      I was in a hurry so I paid. It was only 40 or so and I hope it helped someone a little bit.

      1. That’s generous. I’m once paid the bill for a very confused old gent in our corner shop who couldn’t get his cash card to work. It was only a tenner or so and then I felt guilty in case he thought his card worked and tried to use it again.

  77. “Dr Ahmad Malik
    @DocAhmadMalik
    ·
    2m
    I just found out from a young friend that despite paying £200 a month for the last 5 years, his student debt has risen from an original £27000 to £80000.

    Meanwhile politicians waste billions on failed covid track & trace, PPE & now Ukraine.

    I detest our politcians.”

    Can somebody who was paying attention in the maths class in the Lower Fourth say whether this adds up? If so, then – bluddy L!

    3. The issue is that the interest starts building from day one of uni. The rate is RPI plus 3%, although I think it is capped at 7% at the moment. (The refugee assimilation loan is interest free). Courses may be longer than the usual 3 years and you may not reach the repayment threshold salary, around 27k, for a while. Meanwhile compound interest is doing its thing. A three year course will cost £27750 at the moment, that is before living expenses which were assumed to be £10700 last year. Most will never pay off their loans. The best strategy might be to exit the country as the repayments are made through the tax system, broadly at 9% over the threshold, although this rate varies. Confused enough yet! I have one going into her second year in Sep…

      1. University education is too expensive and administrative costs are far too high. What folk don’t see is that a lot of universities attract a lot of the same sort of folk who the civil service does. Hidebound, unwavering, inflexible, no concept of customer or cost attitudes.

        The difficulty is practically everyone has a degree these days. Heck, when my late father graduated from Kebble he was a genuine rarity. Nowadays most anyone goes and you need an advanced degree to stand out.

      2. 14 years ago our younger son left university with a student loan of £27,000. He did two first degrees. He started with a geography degree at Newcastle, realised during his second year that this wasn’t going to lead towards a proper job. We persuaded him to continue and see how he felt at the start of his third year. He completed his geography degree (“if I’d known it was going to be so easy I’d have worked harder”) and then did a four year engineering first degree at Newcastle. He did not have a science background except for the usual GCSEs, no science A levels. He got a 2.1 He has, this year, aged 39, just finished paying off his debt. He is probably the only engineer in the UK with a degree in geography as well. I have told him that this will give him a unique perspective.

    4. Yes, it’s egregious.If we can’t make the loans interest free we should fix the interest rate, front load it and that’s the amount you pay back. Let’s say 10% (I’d prefer 3, as education is the great leveller)all the fellow pays back is 29700.

      The other side to this is university places are falling as fewer people go. If the debt were better structured, or even offered by the universities they could compete on not only the value of the education in the workplace but also the way their debt is handled.

      2. The student loan company is a company domiciled in Scotland. Oh, the irony.

    5. If he’s paid back £12,000 on the £27,000, but now owes £80,000, then I hope it wasn’t an accountancy degree. He should seek professional financial advice.

    6. Dr Ahmad Malik just how long might it take before you realise that all of our political classes and the whole of Whitehall are absolutely fur king useless. What is refer to as Their brains are absolutely rotten. In fact Sewage.

  78. On an off today we’ve had our three grandchildren here for a few hours.
    The two elder are just on their way back home with their Nanny. My good lady.
    Our 8 in October eldest is taking it all in.
    In the background I had 007 on the TV. There was a scene with some men standing high on a precipice. I asked the lad what he thought this guys name was.
    He said with a very short assessment. Cliff.
    …….you’re learning young man. 🙃😉

  79. That’s me gone. The effing rain NEVER came. Just the humidity and heaviness.

    Have a spiffing evening thinking just WHAT was in the Osborne e-mail……!!

    A demain.

    2. English summer Bill, I or even ‘one’ would have expected you to have been use to it by now. 😉😊🤩

    1. Perhaps he wants a bit more than the normal kickback?

  81. Top Tip #36:
    Don’t tell the entire World about your top secret offensive before you start your top secret offensive.

    1. Often if you’re moving masses of armour and materiel about it’s very difficult to not have it seen.

    2. Didn’t the nonce arrive on airforce one at Stansted Airport today ? …….Just askin’ 🤔

  82. Latest Breaking News – the internet has crashed in The Netherlands, people are advised to update their Rutte

          6. Shame here? Most of us are old lags here and know each other pretty well, even though most have not met. We like humour and rally to support each other as when it’s needed. It’s a good support line.

          8. Old lag yerself!
            Some of us are attractive, up & com… ok, we’re old lags.

  83. Yesterday we celebrated a relative’s 90th Birthday inThe Cottage in the Woods. This was the view this morning before breakfast…

    Hang on a mo …the photo is still being printed!

  84. Ladder manufacturers are say their ladder rungs are now further apart than they were twenty years ago because people are getting bigger.
    They put it down to Climb It Change…

  85. Getting a bit concerned about my visit to the new Asian dentist tomorrow,

    Apparently they are teathout Muslims

  86. Just when you think it couldn’t get any worser….

    “The Epoch Times has learned that controversial new guidelines from the National Education Union (NEU) also tell teachers to put an end to “boy-girl” classroom seating as it could “distress” trans or non-binary students.

    The official guidance—agreed by NEU’s executive committee—has been slammed by campaigners who say it will create a “hostile and untenable environment” for pupils, parents, and teachers “who do not agree with transgender ideology.”

    Among the newly published advice, the union has included its own definitions of “transphobia” and “trans.”

    It states that “transphobic behaviour” can be anything a complainant “reasonably perceives” to create “an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them.”

    The NEU’s definition of “trans”—which “goes further” than the Equality Act 2010—says “trans people need not have had any medical transition to be considered trans.”

    Transandmental Education…..

    1. “The official guidance” – not really official. The NEU is a teaching union not the Department of Education.

      1. Even so, the mere fact that they are advocating this drivel indicates a malignant sickness within society.

        1. The lawyer lady on Free Speech Nation (GB News) earlier this evening was convincing in her explanation as to why the CPS is wholly captured by the trans ideology.

    3. When I was teaching we never had boy-girl classroom seating. Der Fuehrer (the German master) ran his class on merit – auf der Leiter (on the ladder – as your marks improved, you moved up the ladder), I just let them sit where they liked unless they were disruptive, in which case they were moved.

  87. Hanging baskets are just the start of the civic war gripping Salisbury

    The council is ditching its beloved floral displays in the name of biodiversity – yes, you read that correctly

    JUDITH WOODS • 6th July 2023 • 8:00pm

    Throw a cordon militaire round those petunias! Sandbag every marigold bed! Do we have an extraction point for the lobelias yet? Well identify one sharpish; who knows when Salisbury’s leaders will mount their frontal assault on the city’s floral displays?

    The last time there was a major skirmish round these parts was in 552 when the Battle of Old Sarum saw the Celts roundly defeated by the Saxons.

    Fast forward to 2023 and it’s not quite the War of the Roses (mind you, that’s only because there aren’t any) but I think we can confidently predict the current mutiny over municipal plants will go down in history as the Hanging Basket Hostilities or perhaps the Battle of the Begonias.

    Salisbury’s achingly woke council is mounting a crusade against the terrible curse of trailing verbena and far too busy Lizzies, brightening up – oops sorry comrade, blighting – the pedestrian zones.

    Yes, they are bright and cheerful, much-loved by locals and much-photographed by admiring visitors but it has been decreed they must go due to their lack of biodiversity. No, that’s not a misprint.

    Because biodiversity, like every other sort of diversity, is always better. Better than tradition, better than custom, better than civic pride.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a92d070f96ac1b4fcbbb83131303de34eea7180c85877cd27784b5565ab74072.jpg
    Gilbert the dragon, in Salisbury city centre, cost £700 to water last year
    CREDIT: John Lawrence for The Telegraph

    Earlier this week Salisbury City Council, which is run by a “rainbow” coalition of Labour, Liberal Democrats and independents, voted to replace the familiar exuberant displays of blousy blooms with “living towers” and “parklets”.

    Me neither. But, Dear Readers, I have practised due diligence and googled so you won’t need to. Living towers appear to be vertical planters and terribly useful for growing tomatoes. Parklets (not to be confused with pikelets) are sexed-up benches with a bit of greenery on the side.

    According to the city’s environmental services manager, Marc Read, there’s no time like the present to axe Salisbury’s beloved baskets in the name of combating the global climate change emergency. Quite the bold pledge, although whether he’ll get a namecheck at Cop29 remains to be seen

    “In recent years, we have seen an increasing appreciation and understanding of the importance of the natural world,” said Read. “With greater public interest in this and a demand for more nature-related pursuits, such as gardening for wildlife, there has been no better time to bring a natural aesthetic to our city centre.”

    Hands up everyone who saw the phrase “natural aesthetic” and thought “weeds”? Not even the pretty weeds like ivy-leaved toadflax (incidentally my favourite plant), herb robert or henbit deadnettle but the annoying ones like bindweed and hogweed.

    In some respects what is happening in Salisbury is a microcosm of a wider trend, a clash of values taking place in towns across Britain.

    Last month Sheffield’s Labour-run city council was forced to issue a lengthy open apology for misleading the public, the media and the courts in a bitter dispute over its “flawed” programme to fell 17,500 street trees – many of which it now accepts were healthy.

    In March, Conservative-run Plymouth council ordered 100 trees to be removed from Armada Way under the cover of darkness, leading them to be branded “monsters in the night”. And last year a philanthropic gardener who paid for and planted more than 2,000 bulbs along a mile-long stretch of barren roadside in Southport was left heartbroken when council workers mowed them down just as they reached the height of their beauty.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8abe1e498914dca2b8dd4d1738b0494d970464bc9f08925d79817da8db76fb16.jpg
    The hanging baskets are to be ditched in favour of ‘living towers’ and ‘parklets’
    CREDIT: John Lawrence for The Telegraph

    Back in Salisbury, there are murmurs the council may have missed the eco-boat; just last week, the Royal Horticultural Society said that rewilding gardens didn’t necessarily promote biodiversity and attract insects and pollinators because the spaces might revert to scrub or simply be dominated by a single species.

    And gardening royalty Alan Titchmarsh and Monty Don have also warned against an entirely hands-off approach. Don went so far as to dismiss the increasingly prevalent notion that a rewilded space was “somehow worthier and more moral” than a carefully maintained one, labelling it “puritanical nonsense”.

    Salisbury councillors have also agreed to think about calling time on “Gilbert”, a floral display in the shape of a dragon, amid concerns 30,000 litres of water was required to water it last year at a cost of £700. Why they didn’t simply ask local tradespeople to use their waste “grey” water to keep it alive remains a mystery.

    And why not simply chuck the pollenless geranium and sterile pansies from the planters and deftly replace them with bee and butterfly-friendly flora? No need for a fuss, much less a fracas.

    But for a city whose motto is ‘Unity is Strength’, there’s precious little shared vision. The Tory opposition leader Eleanor Wills has pointed out the “comical level of factors” which governed the decision, including “recent global events, supply issues, political changes and environmental pressures”, wondering aloud whether the war in Ukraine can be held responsible for Salisbury City Council banning hanging baskets.

    That raised a smirk until it was pointed out that Conservative-controlled Wiltshire Council is proposing to concrete over the local garden centre to build 590 houses, leading to the not entirely outlandish suspicion that the hanging basket imbroglio is a deliberate distraction from the threat to green fields. Busted.

    Salisbury’s 2023-24 budget for floral displays and watering is £30,000. In theory a sustainable planting regime of grasses, stinking hellebore and a job lot of swamp milkweed ought not to cost nearly as much. We’ll wait for the accounts, shall we?

    Meanwhile as this unholy row rumbles on, I suggest tourists head post-haste to the cathedral city, to enjoy the hanging baskets before the axe falls on them forever.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/07/06/salisbury-hanging-baskets-rewilding/

    “In some respects what is happening in Salisbury is a microcosm of a wider trend, a clash of values taking place in towns across Britain.”

    Yes – between those who hold onto the quaint idea that local authorities are meant to serve the public by sweeping the streets, cleaning the drains, cutting the grass, managing the schools et al, but who instead see them imposing their vain, dimwitted, unscientific and sometimes perverted views on the public who they regard as their social, intellectual and moral inferiors.

    1. I refuse to shop at socialist Sainsbury as, again, they shew how ignorant they are of Great British values.

      Does it ever occur to them that we like and appreciate floral displays?

      We understand the love and hard work that has gone into creating them, not withstanding the ignorance of the hobbledehoys who would denigrate them and have them removed from our sight.

      Complete and utter bloody fools.

    2. So silly. They could just spread wild flower seeds in every available bit of verge or park, and re-plant the city floral displays with things that attract insects and don’t need a lot of water, like lavender.

  88. The Left’s war on correct grammar has betrayed the poor

    Sir Keir Starmer’s attack on private schools is an attack on the high standards that help children to achieve articulacy

    SIMON HEFFER • 9th July 2023 • 9:00am

    Sir Keir Starmer’s complaint about inarticulacy among schoolchildren seems aimed at successive Conservative governments. They have not improved matters: but when Sir Keir refers to the inferiority in “oracy” many young people have in comparison with the products of private education, he really refers to how standards have been driven down in a state sector dominated by Leftist ideology.

    For decades, teaching unions have encouraged inarticulacy by urging a policy of not correcting grammar, or words used wrongly. When anyone has sought to improve articulacy – to help the comparatively inarticulate not merely to speak better English but, as an important preparation for that, to be able to write it – they have often found themselves attacked by academics who believe this contrary to the natural development of our language. A decade ago, when I published two books on grammar and correct usage, I came under such attack.

    It is ironic that some journals of the Left in Britain adopt the highest standards of written English, while many who read them patronisingly believe such standards unnecessary for the masses. My grammar books proved popular, not least because so many former state system pupils realised the handicaps they endured in the real world, in getting jobs and advancing their careers, because of their deficiencies in spoken and written English. It is a relief that the Leader of the Opposition now recognises their plight. I hope he understands and admits the causes. Presumably, he would have more success confronting his co-religionists in their ivory towers than successive Conservative ministers enjoyed.

    This is Labour’s self-inflicted wound. The allegation that now mainly only those from elite backgrounds succeed is also, if true, Labour’s fault, after its near-abolition of selective schools. Ludicrously, Sir Keir seems to imagine his project to improve articulacy will be helped by marginalising private schools through removing their charitable status, and whacking 20 per cent VAT on fees. He seems to think this will give the Treasury a windfall he can use to recruit more teachers and raise standards. It won’t. It will raise very little money, drive families out of the private system, cause schools to fold, create a super-elite of those who can afford to stay, and assist the collapse of the state system as tens of thousands of children demand places there.

    The decline in teaching foreign languages has also harmed facility with words. Michael Gove sought to reverse this when education secretary, a job he did superbly and from which David Cameron stupidly sacked him for upsetting the teaching unions. This has all served to create a cadre of people with little idea how to deploy their own language, let alone others.

    Rather than seek to restrict excellence in education – which will be the unintended consequence of Sir Keir’s policies – he should recognise the damage the Left has done through decades of imposing a class analysis on education policy, especially in its “anything goes” attitude to the teaching of English.

    If he wants to take “background” out of the equation in determining who achieves articulacy, then he should consider reintroducing the selective schools his political forebears so happily destroyed, and which ensured that bright children from any background had the chance to emulate their more privileged contemporaries. In education, as in all else, the secret is to seek to level up.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/09/the-lefts-war-on-correct-grammar-betrayed-the-poor

    Really, Mr H! ‘Level up’?

    1. Starmer, by not thinking through the consequences, shews himself up for the ignoramus he is.

    2. Grammar (selective) schools have been proven to promote social mobility. As for teaching modern foreign languages – you’re on a hiding to nothing when the pupils haven’t a clue how their own language works.

      1. It was as a result of my own English and Latin background, I was able to learn and comprehend, German, French, some Swedish and some Spanish.

        Oh, and understand where and why, commas and other punctuation is necessary.

      2. I passed my ULCI in Oral English.

        (Union of Lancashire and Cheshire Institutes.)

          2. I passed it twice because I did two sets of A Levels and it was a requirement that we sat Use of English when we sat A Levels!

  89. I’ve had quite a decent day, and I don’t want to spoil it. We’ve been watching old Doc Martin progs. For the past hour. A Brilliantly written series.
    So I’m ‘taking an early bath’. Another glass of red beckons.
    It goes against his principals. He’s such a god awful miserable git 😉🤔
    Slayders.

    1. I’ve had Junior watching the Darling Buds of May – the David Jason one, not the multiculti travesty vomited out recently.

      Mongo is walking – well, hobbling, but a bit zoned out by the painkillers. Otherwise he is ok. He and Junior are sleeping beside the outside patio doors with some netting for moths but close enough for Mongs to hobble out for a wee if he needs to go.

      1. Get Junior onto the HE Bates books when he’s a bit older- wonderful stuff.

      2. Yes that DBoM was brilliant.
        As you say repeats of past successful series are very rarely worth the time.

  90. Going to try bed with a teaspoon of morphine. Wish me luck, I have had enough.

    5. A Spoonful of morphine helps the Grigio go down
      The Grigio go down-wown
      The Grigio go down
      Just a spoonful of morphine helps the Grigio go down
      In a most delightful way!

    1. What I don’t understand is why plod haven’t arrested him for inciting assault.

    2. Note that this criminal is only inciting violence towards women (“TERFs”), not towards men, who would be able to hit back.

  92. Sergeant John Carmichael VC MM (1st April 1893 – 20th December 1977), 9th Battalion, The North Staffordshire Regiment (The Prince of Wales’s).

    On 8th September 1917 near Hill 60, Zwarteleen, Belgium, when excavating a trench, Sergeant Carmichael saw that a grenade had been unearthed and had started to burn. He immediately rushed to the spot shouting to his men to get clear, put his steel helmet over the grenade and then stood on the helmet. The grenade exploded and blew him out of the trench. He could have thrown the bomb out of the trench but realised that by doing so he would have endangered the lives of the men working on top. He was seriously injured.
    He was evacuated to No 53 Casualty Clearing Station at Bailleul and was visited by his Divisional Commander, Major General Hugh Bruce Williams, and Carmichael told him “I didn’t think I was doing anything extraordinary.” When he wrote to his mother, who had heard he was wounded, he told her he was recovering well, but mentioned nothing of his VC award. The VC was presented by King George V at Buckingham Palace on 22nd June 1918. His injuries were so severe that he never returned to the front and spent most of the next two years in a Liverpool hospital.

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/25/John_Carmichael_VC.png

    1. My Physics teacher had no fingers and half a hand when I was a teen.
      It was said that he’d slammed his steel helmet over a grenade and held it down, blowing his hands to bits. Quite possible.
      RIP.

      1. When I was quite young it wasn’t at all unusual to see men with one arm. Our Pearl Insurance man lost a leg in the desert. Removed by a German surgeon.

        1. I remember one of our toughest school teachers weeping during a remembrance day school assembly….

    1. This drama is getting such great publicity from the BBC that one can but wonder whether it’s a smokescreen

      for something much more serious?

    1. It would be good if they were to start eating some of the bluefin tuna that are causing havoc off of Cornwall’s south coast. The tuna are probably too fast for them though, and we don’t have enough large seal colonies to support GW sharks.

    2. There’s only one important word in this article.

      The word COULD.

      In other words, it’s all just speculation.

  99. Although I have a hacking cough and a slight temperature and a runny nose, the chaps in this household have had a Good day.

    Husband played golf today.. another competition , and has been asleep for a few hours . Tomorrow he will be up early to travel to play Somerset Wiltshire border / cannot remember where.

    No one son raced 5K Park run yesterday, and did very well 19 minutes and how many seconds , and today he competed in a 10k cross country and he was satisfied with his result , but arrived home covered in mud and scratches on his legs.

    I will be here dog sitting again and doing stuff , which is never ending , keeping order .. My lungs feel really raw , and when I cough it hurts .

    What are the BBC on about , who on earth has been an idiot?

    1. Sorry to hear you’re not well – have some vitamin C & D. I thought you’d been a bit quiet lately. 🤫 ❤

    2. You need to go out for a weekend with some girlfriends and let the boys cope with the cooking and the dogs.
      Let your hair down for a bit, Maggie.

  101. Goodnight and God bless, Gentlefolk.

    It’s already 01:30 and I’m back on night shift.

  102. Now 1.45 and going for a spoon more morphine- ain’t working. I am so weary. See y’all tomorrow.

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