Sunday 16 July: What exactly is Conservative about a PM who raises taxes and shrinks the Army?

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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450 thoughts on “Sunday 16 July: What exactly is Conservative about a PM who raises taxes and shrinks the Army?”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story

    Revenge is A Dish Best Served Cold

    This was a huge wedding with about 300 guests. After the wedding, at the reception, the groom got up on stage at the microphone to talk to the crowd. He said that he wanted to thank everyone for coming, many from long distances, to support them at their wedding.

    He especially wanted to thank the bride and groom’s families for coming and to thank his new father-in-law for providing such a fabulous reception. He wanted to thank everyone for coming and bringing gifts and everything, he said he wanted to give everyone a special gift from just him.

    So taped to the bottom of everyone’s chair was a manila envelope, including the wedding party. He said that this was his gift to everyone, and told everyone to open the envelopes. Inside each manila envelope was an 8 x 10 picture of his best man having sex with the bride. He had become suspicious of the two of them and hired a private detective to trail them weeks prior to the wedding.

    After he stood there and watched the people’s reactions for a couple of minutes, he turned to the best man and said “F— you,” he turned to the bride and said F— you,” and then he turned to the dumbfounded crowd and said, “I’m out of here.”

    He had the marriage annulled first thing that Monday morning. While most of us would have broken off the engagement immediately after finding out about the affair, this guy goes through with it anyway as if nothing was wrong.

    His revenge: Making the bride’s parents pay over $32,000 for a 300 guest wedding and reception. Letting everyone know exactly what did happen. And best of all, trashing the bride and best man’s reputations in front of all of their friends, their entire families, i.e. their parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents, nieces and nephews, etc. This guy has balls the size of church bells. This is his world; we just live in it.

    2. I’m afraid I don’t really like schadenfreude, Sir Jasper. As a joke, it is funny, but the groom’s behaviour is just as bad as that of the bride and the best man, in my opinion.

  2. Morning, all Y’all.

    Why can’t we have some heatwave up here? Barely made 14C yesterday, and a whole day of rain & drizzle. Warm enough for teeshirts is all I ask…

    3. No heatwave here – yesterday was a day of rainy, thundery squalls and high winds. Today quieter but grey sky.

  4. The human cost of Net Zero. Spiked. 16 July 2023.

    In 2021, Jeremiah Thoronka was making a name for himself in clean-energy technology. The then 21-year-old Durham University masters student had invented a device that uses kinetic energy from traffic and pedestrians to generate electricity. It certainly sounded groundbreaking. In a pilot project in Thoronka’s native Sierra Leone, two devices had apparently provided free electricity to 150 households and 15 schools.

    Thoronka’s work clearly impressed awards panel judges. In 2021, he picked up the Commonwealth Youth Award and the Global Student Prize, which was presented to him by filmstar Hugh Jackman at a virtual ceremony, broadcast from the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Thoronka was the man of the moment. There was a profile by the BBC, an invitation to give TED talks and, in May 2022, an audience with the pope. He was celebrated as a green-tech innovator, someone setting a clean-energy example for the world to follow.

    The accolades have continued to flow. Last month, at the Green Tech Festival in Berlin, he won the Youngster Green Award for 2023. It was this that prompted German journalists to ask if it might all be a little too good to be true. They contacted the organisers of the Youngster Green Award and Greentech Festival to find out a bit more about Thoronka’s pilot project. After all, it sounded incredible. But the organisers said that wouldn’t be possible because the pilot had since been dismantled. They asked if the device was being used anywhere else, and were told that it wasn’t. One journalist even asked if there were any videos, blueprints or other documentation of this unprecedented breakthrough. Again, nothing was forthcoming. In fact, no one could tell journalists much about the device or the pilot project at all.

    This sounded so incredible (the article) that I googled Thoronka. He appears to actually exist with the whole raft of endorsements and awards credited to him here. The BBC coverage is particularly interesting.

    David Swanston, deputy principal at St Vincent’s School in Liverpool, was one of 10 finalists shortlisted for the Global Teacher Prize but missed out on the $1m (£747,000) award.

    Mr Swanston has helped pupils with visual impairments for more than a decade and is currently working on the development of rugby specifically for the blind by modelling game play and creating ball prototypes using textures and electronics.

    Mr Swanston, originally from Falkirk, Scotland, he said he was “destined to be a teacher” having been “inspired” by his PE teachers as a child.

    The reality here must be that the Global Students Prize is a farce. It is a recent invention by an Indian entrepreneur with doubtful motives. The prize committee, assuming that there is one, is obviously composed of technical morons. The really depressing part is that everyone, including the ever reliable BBC have gone along with this ludicrous scam. It’s a typical Emperors New Clothes scenario. This because it has pushed all their buttons. Net Zero, Climate Change and last but not least Mr Thoronka is black and can therefore do no wrong.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/07/16/the-human-cost-of-net-zero/

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-59245209

    1. Morning Minty and all.

      If the article is true is seems that the establishment has got what it desires most….Net Zero!

    2. These sorts of scams are as old as the hills. Why should they stop in modern times?

      I have myself developed technology that can take the contents of my bowel movements and turn them into a nutritious and tasty paste that will save the world from starvation when Russian bombing wipes out the food supply that was destined anywhere within shipping distance of Odesa.

      On this very page, you are privileged to have the honour to be given the first opportunity to crowd-fund my business. In true ‘Dragons Den’ fashion, piles of £50 notes would be quite acceptable.

    3. The Jeremiah Thoronka story

      As soon as I read this piece (late on parade this morning) I thought ‘that’s been done – and patented’. Pavegen was invented by Laurence Kemball-Cook in 2009, when he had just graduated from Loughborough University. His family live fewer than 2 miles from me in Canterbury.

      According to this Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavegen: “The development of the first prototype of the Pavegen flooring tile was funded by a Royal Society of Arts International Design Directions prize. The tile that converts kinetic energy from footsteps into electricity, while collecting data about walking traffic patterns”. It is already installed all over the world, including at the London Olympics in 2012.

      “For his invention, [Laurence] was chosen as Businessman of the Year at the PEA Awards and presented with a Shell LiveWIREGrand Ideas Award. He also was named as honorary Enterprise and Innovation Fellow by Loughborough University”.

      I wonder how different Mr Thoronka’s device (which seems to have sunk without trace) differs from Laurence’s Pavegen. Perhaps he thought to Google ‘Energy From Footsteps’ and decided to withdraw.

    4. Different but similar; I am currently reading a novel by a black immigrant to Britain. It suffers from being far too wordy, and I strongly suspect that the editors didn’t edit it as they ought to have because the writer is a Sunday Times bestseller, and is black.

  5. 374512+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Morally in mindset & physically corrupt, have been openly since major had a curry on the taxpayers carpet.

    The whole kit & caboodle are as bent / treacherous as a nine bob reichsmark, there are too many pointers as too when and who took the WEF /NWO shilling but take it they did, and that pairs odious agenda is now fully operational supported by the same
    party (ino), before Country diehard treacherous fools.

    Dt,
    Letter: What exactly is Conservative about a PM who raises taxes and shrinks the Army?

    ZILCH.

      1. Weakness demonstrated by the British Ambassador to Gibraltar inviting the Spanish government

        to send in their army to garrison Gibraltar.

        We note with displeasure that the British government has not refuted this offer

          1. It won’t be Gib objecting.

            Never forget that Gib voted 95% to remain in the EU.

            We suspect that the ambassador was just reflecting that fact

          2. He’s another one who, either doesn’t know about or has conveniently forgotten, The Treaty Of Utrecht 1713.

    2. At a time when Europe is under attack from mass immigration it doesn’t seem to be a good time to kick off this old chestnut

    3. While the Spics constantly bellyache about Gibraltar, they routinely keep mum about Cueta and Melilla.

      Strange, that.

      1. Their argument is that they held both Ceuta and Melilla before Morocco was a country.

        The conveniently forget the Treaty of Utrecht 1713!

  8. Good Morning Folks,

    Windy sunny start here, I suppose I’ll have to tie up the hollyhocks

  9. UK to launch ‘Apollo mission of nuclear fusion’ in 2024. 16 July 2023.

    When man first set foot on the moon in 1969 it brought to fruition the dream of John F Kennedy, who wanted to do it “not because it is easy, but because it is hard”.

    Now Britain, with its plan for the world’s first nuclear fusion-powered plant, is having its own Apollo moment.

    Nasa’s expertise and innovation took the former president’s speech from grandiose oration to reality in just seven years. Government scientists in the UK are channelling the mantra of JFK and the space race to build Step, a fusion energy power plant generating unlimited power with no waste or emissions, by 2040.

    The UK is a failed state. It’s institutions have essentially collapsed. Like most Third World polities it as at the mercy of predatory forces. Asset stripping public utilities is a large part of this activity. This, like Net Zero, Covid and HS2 is yet another project to steal taxpayer’s cash.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/15/step-nuclear-fusion-chief-britains-apollo-moment/

      1. Morning Bob. Vast sums have been spent on Nuclear Fusion without result. That some second hand project in the wilds of Nottinghamshire is going to work seems vanishingly unlikely!

        1. Even if it did work it would be suppressed by the powers that be, as it would interfere with the plans for great change, decline and the reset.

          1. Better spend time on developing the submarine nuclear fission packages for distributed civilian use.
            Make them even safer, fully automated, and secure.

        2. Do you remember John Betjeman’s ironic poem about the Village Inn which like many things had already been ruined in his day:

          “The village inn, the dear old inn,
          So ancient, clean and free from sin,
          True centre of our rural life
          Where Hodge sits down beside his wife
          And talks of Marx and nuclear fission
          With all a rustic’s intuition.
          Ah, more than church or school or hall,
          The village inn’s the heart of all.”

          So spake the brewer’s P. R. O.,
          A man who really ought to know,
          For he is paid for saying so.
          And then he kindly gave to me
          A lovely coloured booklet free.
          ‘Twas full of prose that sang the praise
          Of coaching inns in Georgian days,
          Showing how public-houses are
          More modern than the motor-car,
          More English than the weald or wold
          And almost equally as old,
          And run for love and not for gold
          Until I felt a filthy swine
          For loathing beer and liking wine,
          And rotten to the very core
          For thinking village inns a bore,
          And village bores more sure to roam
          To village inns than stay at home.

          …………

          It’s now nuclear fusion of which we peasants must talk!

      2. Morning Bob. Vast sums have been spent on Nuclear Fusion without result. That some second hand project in the wilds of Nottinghamshire is going to work seems vanishingly unlikely!

      3. The problem I have with my country is that it is happy to spend its thought and time in the PR, the style, a fancy buzz-name like ‘Step’, and above all allocating vast amounts of money to be spent on executive bonus packages and status symbols, but with scant respect for serendipidy and imagination that such projects can emerge, with very little money and very little expensive self-assurance.

        You raise the subject of film studios. It has become fashionable to have huge blockbuster budgets to produce action movies, which have all the popular features specified by the analytical algorithms, but are effectively uninspiring dross. A few years after I was born, Oliver Postgate, Peter Firmin and Vernon Elliott produced a series of delightful stories that delighted two generations of children, and artistically were way better than any Hollywood blockbuster. Yet it was a bloke pushing bits of cardboard, expertly drawn, around a shed in Kent to the accompaniment of a single bassoonist improvising. The budget per show would be hundreds of pounds, not hundreds of millions.

        A generation later, Aardman Productions created an Oscar-winning show by pushing lumps of plasticine around a shed in Bristol. They were enticed by Hollywood with the promise of making a big budget movie, but found the experience miserable, and were happier in their shed until it burnt down.

        1. The original Hitchhikers Guide – a budget in shillings, and very well thought through stories, as there were, effectively, no effects to hide behind, so the story and acting had to carry it. The movie – overpriced crap. No story, no jokes (yer Merkins don’t do subtle jokes) but loadsa effects. Like an action movie, where everything blows up all the time – whoopdy doo.

    2. What rubbish. It’ll never happen. The UK is a can’t do kind of country. Shit, can’t even do low-tech stuff like have a comprehensible fare structure on the railways, let alone anything complicated like fusion.
      My first real job, aged 24, was safety case work for Hinkley Point B PWR – I worked with failure analysis, and moved on aged 28. It’s STILL not producing a watt, and I’m now 62.

    3. “…unlimited power…”

      Not power but electricity – for fixed installations.

      Transport remains the great challenge in the world without fossil fuels.

  10. What exactly is Conservative about a PM who raises taxes and shrinks the Army?

    There is nothing Conservative about that but there is a lot of globalist puppetry

    1. Bonjour Bill.

      A warm and balmy day in Conques s/orbiel, though. (Come back to us!)

      God willing we’ll be there in a couple of weeks.
      Auvergne next week though and decent weather there too, I hope.

      1. Don’t forget to go to Laure. Mention my name! That’ll get you a good larf!!

        1. Afraid not.
          Still making London safer, allegedly.
          Next week seems more moderate, out there.

    1. Note the circle within the triangle behind his head.

      These people need to stand back and take stock of what they are doing.

      1. “Round like a circle in a spiral like a wheel within a wheel.”

        What about the circle in a triangle – of what is it symbolic?

        Remember this song?

        https://www.google.com/search?q=jeremy+taylor+windmills&ei=xrKzZKXiJfPVkdUP2b2R8Ak&ved=0ahUKEwil3ZzV75KAAxXzaqQEHdleBJ4Q4dUDCA8&oq=jeremy+taylor+windmills&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiF2plcmVteSB0YXlsb3Igd2luZG1pbGxzMgUQIRigAUiVOVD6BVjFHXABeAGQAQCYAZcBoAG6CaoBAzEuObgBDMgBAPgBAcICChAAGEcY1gQYsAPCAgoQABiKBRiwAxhDwgIOEAAY5AIY1gQYsAPYAQHCAhAQLhiKBRjIAxiwAxhD2AECwgIFEAAYgATCAggQLhiABBjUAsICBRAuGIAEwgIHEC4YigUYQ8ICBxAAGIoFGEPCAgYQABgWGB7CAhcQLhiABBjUAhiXBRjcBBjeBBjgBNgBA8ICBxAhGKABGAriAwQYACBBiAYBkAYSugYGCAEQARgJugYGCAIQARgIugYGCAMQARgU&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:498d3c1e,vid:rie1Pz-2GBQ

        1. I must admit that Faye Dunnaway played the rudest game of chess in that film. I may have had impure teenage thoughts when that film was shown.

          Circle inside triangle is a masonic symbol.

          1. PS – the petit resto in Laure is “Le Lauranais”. Closed Sundays. You’ll enjoy it. Tell the girls that you are acquainted with “Beel” (autrefois domicilié dans la rue des Tisserands) and they’ll show you the bits of furniture we let them have!!

          4. Sorry. Its not a restaurant – its our family’s house out there. You would have seen it on the left driving from Villalier to Conques.

          5. Ah. Though I know the road – or, at least the turning in Villalier towards Conques, I don’t think I have ever driven along it.

            Nice big house – a lot of upkeep, I imagine…

          6. Yes. But only inhabited in the summer so really the main upkeep is the roof to keep the water out.
            But my brother has started going there in April and October so they’ve put double glazing in the downstairs rooms.

        2. Windmills of your mind? Drug induced hallucinations – a great song nevertheless

      2. The Royals are very hot on symbolism. I think they know perfectly well what all the symbols mean.

    4. You can vote out a President and elect a different Head of State after his/her term has expired…

      1. 374512+ up ticks,

        Morning A,

        We in the past have used the chopping block with great success.

    5. We suspect that he is being fooled by the WEF.

      There is no place for royal families in the New World Order, and any promises other wise should be treated with great suspicion.

      1. “… any promises other wise should be treated with great suspicion as lies>”
        Fixed it for you, Janet – and good morning, BTW!

      2. “We suspect know that he is being fooled by the WEF.”

        …and another fix, Janet.

  14. Good morning all.
    A dull, damp start with 9½°C, but not currently raining.

    We were woken at 7:30 by a knock on the door. Getting out of bed, dressing and investigating, we found the driver of last night’s incident stood on the doorstep and, as he told us, he was very very sorry and claimed he’d lost the back end of his pickup coming round the corner, for which he was very very sorry, and he was very very sorry he had driven off as he didn’t want the vehicle blocking the road and didn’t come down because he’d banged his head , for which he was also very very sorry and would make sure all the damage was covered.

    My wife took his details, later saying he still smelt of alcohol and is passing his details on to the police.

  15. Good Moaning.
    Peter Hitchens in the MoS.
    Speaking personally, I thought Ben Wallace was spot on with his comment.

    “Mood is changing on war in Ukraine

    Defence Secretary Ben Wallace’s tetchy remarks, suggesting that Kiev has responded to our generosity with weapons by treating us like an Amazon delivery driver, are a sign of a big change of mood

    I think the nations of the West, especially the US, are tiring of the war in Ukraine. What can it now achieve that has not already been achieved? Russia has been stopped in its tracks.

    It will be incredibly costly in men and money to do any more. Even here, where amazingly ill-informed gung-ho politics still dominate the debate, there is a cooling. I think Defence Secretary Ben Wallace’s tetchy remarks, suggesting that Kiev has responded to our generosity with weapons by treating us like an Amazon delivery driver, are a sign of a big change of mood. I doubt he would have spoken about this if everyone in London was happy about the way the war is going.

    About time too. The West’s Ukraine policy has filled cemeteries with thousands of Ukraine’s best young men and will continue to do so until we recognise the need for a negotiated peace. I think all responsible people, in this country, whatever their positions have been so far, must begin to accept that this is not some game that we are cheering on, but a profoundly serious combat in which others are dying, losing their homes or suffering terrible injuries.

    Of course, in all wars, the young (in my view often too willingly) respond to their leaders’ calls for sacrifice. Their families struggle to prevent them doing so. But in later years, we all tend to recognise that much of the death and maiming was unnecessary, could have been avoided and could certainly have been ended earlier with no significant disadvantage.

    I promise you this will be the case in Ukraine, unless we reject the all-or-nothing faction’s calls for endless war. Can we please skip this stage and save a great deal of needless mourning and pain?”

    1. Mood is changing on war in Ukraine.

      Morning Anne. There has been a change. The US has realised that Ukraine is not going to prevail no matter how many weapons we give them. They are now going for negotiations.

    2. Next up:
      A negotiated peace.
      Then use the immigrants pouring into Europe to replace the lost young men of Ukraine to rebuild Ukraine and replace the mostly white predominantly Christian population with a diverse multi-cultural melting pot.

      1. Problem with melting pots is that the scum floats to the top.
        Just saying…

      2. I think Peter Lavelle at RT is probably right that Washington will claim victory on the grounds that, “Putin didn’t reach Paris”, on the pretence that Russia wanted to conquer Europe and not merely secure her own borders and protect ethnic Russians.

        1. Imagine this:

          Russia may actually have only used a fraction of its very best weaponry, but Europe has busily depleted most of its stores, which have already been run down thanks to politicians breaking their countries’ armed services to improve their welfare states. The populations of the states are woke and weak and soft.
          Russia decides to really go for Europe hard.
          Could Europe survive a blitzkrieg without going nuclear?
          Would North America join in, would China sit idly by?
          I’m a pessimist, it doesn’t look good.

    2. Time to book an appointment at an Apple store – with a bit of luck staff at their ‘Genius Bar’ will sort it for you

  18. Morning all 🙂😊
    Still very windy and grey more rain forecast.
    After yesterday’s experience with the Lovely newly arrived family member, politics can take a backseat. I can’t bring myself to care about all those nasty horrid people and all their shite.
    How did they all become so bitter, so cruel and so twisted.
    Slayders. 😉

    Porridge or toast ?

  19. Good day all,

    Bright sunsine at the McPhee’s for now but some cloud will be building. Achance of some showers later. Wind Sou’-West, 14℃ going to 17 or 18℃ so continuing to be cool. Climate nuts take note.

    If you wanted to find an example of a deluded man you need look no further than the ramblings in the Sunday Gatesograph of Daniel Hannan, a man I used to think of quite highly. I don’t know what sort of pill he’s swallowed but swallowed one he has. A debate between him and Colonel Douglas McGregor or Scott Ritter would be something I’d love to listen to.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/15/take-away-russias-nuclear-weapons-for-putin-is-finished/

    BTL comments are a mixed bag and range from these:

    Bill Stickers
    Has the author been smoking……………..

    John McRory
    To think I loved him over Brexit.

    To these:

    Wallaseyan Teal

    Russia has started a war in Europe which by and large has been free of major conflict – except when Russia wants to grow its Empire into neighbouring territories.

    Russia not only invaded a neighbour without provocation, it has attacked civilians and committed outrageous war crimes.
    Further, throughout this conflict, Russia has made threats to use nuclear weapons on any liberal nation that has criticised it.

    So this is not anti-Russian propaganda, this is the nature of a free press reporting the facts.

    David Law

    Kazakhstan did not attend the last economic forum in Russia.

    India has just ordered US weapons.

    Turkey supports Ukrainian membership of nato and released Ukrainian heroes early.

    Japan and South Korea are backing Ukraine.

    Canada is one of the biggest donors of lethal aid to Ukraine.

    Finland and Sweden have joined nato.

    Russian assets have been sanctioned and reserved for the reconstruction of Ukraine.

    Hannan is right – Putin is in deep trouble.

    1. Both Wallaseyan Teal and David Law are barking up the wrong tree.

      Russia was provoked and, despite trying to identify world-wide support for UKraine, watch the USA start negotiations for peace.

    2. Russia vs Ukraine was an ideal war from the US perspective. Much better than Afghanistan or Syria or any of the other current conflicts, because Europe could see it as an attack on one of their own.
      This was presented as a willingness on the part of Europe and NATO to supply armaments and money to Ukraine as well as an opportunity to observe effectiveness of Russian equipment and such things as drones and other precision weaponry.

      From the military industrial perspective America could destock outdated munitions both directly and indirectly and create a market for new equipment. They could also test how well what they had worked against a significant power as opposed to Jihadists and guerrillas. That suited the Pentagon and the industrialists down to the ground.

      In addition, with sanctions and confiscations they could harm Russia economically. On the trade front if the Russians turned off the gas America could supply and if they didn’t, well America could arrange for the pipeline to have a nasty accident.

      Eventually what was not ceded to Russia would be rebuilt and again who would benefit from contracts?

      It all stinks.

      1. You missed the bit about making energy overly expensive for Germany, which would severely damage their

        economy, and leaving the USA the sole producer of heavy industrial items.

        Smart move by the Americans.

      2. You missed the bit about making energy overly expensive for Germany, which would severely damage their

        economy, and leaving the USA the sole producer of heavy industrial items.

        Smart move by the Americans.

    3. I have to admit that until a week or so ago, I hadn’t realised Sweden was not a NATO member.
      If asked, I would have havered over Finland because of its geographical proximity to Russia.

  20. Trying to open the beehives for an inspection and to add a new storey for honey collection, but every time one gets dressed in the ridiculous suit and netty hat, it hisses down with rain, thus stopping the operation before it started. Sigh… Needs done, ideally early in the day before the little buzzers are fully awake, but the rain buggers that up.

    1. When we first came to France Caroline did some interpreting and translation work while I got on with the work on the house. During this time we called our enterprise: Services de Langues Tracey.

      A friend of ours called it The Traceys’ Tongues!

  22. https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fpersonal-banking%2Fmortgages%2Fus-house-prices-inflation-bank-england-interest-rates%2F
    For years, folk have moaned about how expensive housing is, and now that it looks like prices might drop, they are moaning again.
    Did nobody actually think what a fall in house prices actually means? Not only has your nest egg slimmed a lot, but it may be worth less than the loan you have on it. So, if you want to move, you’re going to have to take a loss. Add to that the number of mortgage defaults rising, and mortgage rates will rise more, thus making the situation even worse as people cannot affort the inflated prices, so they fall more.
    It’s a real problem: Landlords are universally bastards, so you can’t rent a place if you get a new job needing relocation, as all buy-to-lets are the spawn of the Devil, so the jobs market begins to stop up, and economic performance falls, inflation continues to rise, and yaay! Stagflation for all. Joy!

    1. In completely unrelated news, Lloyds Bank apparently plans to become Britain’s biggest landlord.

    2. Over the long term house prices rise. Heck, the state is importing over 200,000 people a year who will all want housing. That’s a city the size of Soton.

      The harder the state makes buying a home, the harder it makes it for landlords the less workers will be able to afford a home and the more wasters will get one – on the worker’s taxes.

      The imbalance of ownership will tilt to such a degree that everyone will be state dependent.

  23. I stared and stared and started at this after the second line and couldn’t think of a single word that would fit then suddenly a flash

    Wordle 757 3/6

    ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
    🟨🟨⬜🟨⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. I wandered through a few options before finally arriving at the answer
      Wordle 757 5/6

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

  24. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dcc78a8f48bb2ee6c6e6e78eb502b11b59aa32d21425586d73d7f80e40e10245.png
    [From today’s Conservative Woman]

    A couple of BTL comments:

    The bottom line (if you’ll pardon the expression) is: ‘Are the allegations true or not?’

    If they are true Edwards deserves the opprobrium he is getting; if not the the Sun newspaper should be sued from arseh*le to Christmas (to borrow a phrase from Tusker in Paul’ Scott’s novel ‘Staying On’).

    Talking of suing, is the invertebrate Chris Bryant still hiding from Nigel Farage behind the shield of Parliamentary Privilege?

    and

    I can sympathise up to a point with those who are standing by him.

    I used to work in a boarding school where several of my friends and I had suspicions of a colleague who was also a friend. Of course we had no evidence and we did not look for it – it was just a topic for gossip and we did not really imagine that the gossip had any serious foundation.

    However our friend and colleague was convicted of paedophilia and sent to prison. Apparently this did not cure him and after release he committed the same offences again in another school and returned to prison.

    Most of us loathe the idea of sneaking or ‘grassing’ – indeed public school people probably have the same attitude towards grasses as the criminal fraternity do.

    1. Good morning Mr T and everyone.

      Today’s primary school teachers take the subject seriously, and it is known as ‘safeguarding’. In Bradford and similar cities, the situation may be different.

  25. Useless household objects.

    I have a lamp-post that doesn’t post lamps.
    A pressure-cooker that doesn’t cook pressure.
    A wheel-barrow that doesn’t barrow wheels.
    An air-fryer that doesn’t fry air.
    And a vacuum-cleaner that doesn’t clean vacuum.

    Does anyone else have similar useless inventions hanging around?

    2. And, no doubt, will still harp on about Net Zero even though nobody is able to state exactly what it means apart from impoverishing the taxpayers.

      1. It means nothing. It is a tax scam. The whole point of it is to ensure it can never be met. The state is desperate to make energy so expensive that demand is driven down to meet those targets but like fuel, people can’t just use less energy, so the taxes garnered soar.

    3. They’re all hypocrites. I suggest that the joilers be presented with a world without oil. Once they’ve lived in that for a few months they can see if they like it. If they don’t, then they go back to it. if they do, they go back to it.

      I’d give them 2 days before they start asking for toothpaste and soap and we simply say… no.

      They’re fools who should be given a dose of the reality they want – and a damned good kicking.

      1. I think it is deliberate on the part of the govt, to channel the public anger away from where it rightfully belongs (govt) towards this Just Stop Oil group of terrorists.

    3. I didn’t appreciate you were going to scrape the old paint off and redecorate it for them. I take back my mean comment about landlords!

        2. I thought it was a dance that was not advisable to tackle when you’re drunk.

  31. Council leader Bella Sankey said on Saturday night: “These are very sad scenes in our city this evening.
    “On behalf of the city council I want to give my thanks to the emergency services for attending the fire at the historic Royal Albion Hotel in the heart of our city.
    “We urge everyone to continue following advice from emergency services and to please keep away from the area.”
    Firefighters from Preston Circus, Newhaven, Hove, Lewes, Eastbourne, Pevensey and appliances from West Sussex assisted with dealing with the blaze.
    The 219-bedroom hotel, which was built in 1826, is run by Britannia Hotels.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/29ae361d2b6dfeafd1ea2c200a9c36ced7fdb23be9cf94903f46779eee4e4fa1.png

    1. The tsunami of crmiinal welfare shoppers must end. They’re illegal immigrants. Every single one must be removed. I don’t care if that’s to a remote island – move them there and forget about them. If Left wing lawyers complain then they can go as well.

    2. There’s also a fire at a disused hotel in Scarborough;
      One might wonder what’s going on. Stopping it being used?

    3. The Albion is an utter dump. It deserves to be burned to the ground. That hotel was probably considered too squalid for the dinghy people.

    1. Thank you for posting but I’ve no longer got the strength or fortitude to open the link and read the contents…..

    2. Anyone who questions whether or not a trans woman is a woman should see a TERF accountant.

      2. Why are they not called trans men? After all, it’s a man who is transitioning.

        In fact, lets just call them mentally ill. That’s what they are.

        1. However did we get to this state of affairs – I just can’t .Adam and Eve it!

          2. Adelina and Everard I suppose were abbreviated when bibles appeared in short form.

  34. Just been out to pick a couple of pounds of Cobra beans. Lots of tree debris all over the place – including three large branches from one of the lime trees. Lotsa work to do this arvo….

    1. I thought they were already defunct. (I think that’s the right spelling).

      1. 374512+ up ticks,

        Afternoon Alf.

        The side of patriotism run out of silver spikes some time ago

        The lab/lib/con coalition, WEF / NWO
        ALL successfully progressing and via Dover ,building daily.

    2. 374512+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      The political pinstripe cowboys / girls / its, currently via consent of the majority voter and royal seal, will have the United Kingdom’s herd
      hogtied and branded if they have their way.

    3. Elections are pointless now. We do not live in a democracy. Until we can demand the repeal of law, the removal of MPs and decide whether the budget passes or not we’re simply a dictatorship interrupted by pointless elections that are designed by the blob to ensure nothing ever improves.

        1. 374512+up ticks,

          Afternoon Bob,

          “They” have, the jab of death is financed most part via the
          taxpayer.

      2. I wonder what perks these guys bestow on their private security guards to dissuade them from using a silencer and creeping in at night?

      1. 374512+ up ticks,

        Afternoon S,

        The way things have shaped up these last near forty years that could very well be the best of the current options.

        By elections are mounting could it be the political enamas sense an end is nigh.

  36. There is a story in The Sunday Grimes about tickets for a concert by Taylor Swift (odd Christian name – but I suppose she is a Merkin).

    There is also a photo of her in action (as it were). Why does she appear on stage in her underwear?

    Anyone have suggestions?

      1. If you can sing properly, you get an audience without flashing yer bits.

        1. As I did yesterday at Belper Corn Exchange when someone booked in for an open-mic slot failed to turn up!

          2. I certainly charmed the ladies in the cafe there!
            Could get VERY tempted!

          1. But will part of my screen go fuzzy (or even Grizzly) if I should go for it?

          3. I made my mind up right from start becuae I don’t play videos with the limited data budget on my holiday router.☹️

        1. Middle names are very often based on the mother’s surname or a name handed down the generations.

          My mother’s middle name was Cameron – I’ve not discovered where that arose, as it was a middle name given to her grandmother, but with no obvious origin. Still the youngest male in the family still has that name.

          1. Was he a mighty hunter? Nimrod was a common name among huntsmen – one of the Champion family was a Nimrod.

  37. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/49e3ec4d09aa6b23ffbf0e1c20c2a46d869d48f40b4e7a2d7263ce261f8e124b.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/189016b5fbd12c271da6887b6b1af99030510f28bdb676a65c172aea7522e39e.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c9ec05031363e9d75b5a5d6ff36f408b76766909591faa09cc9080b41d464a13.jpg Where’s Philip?

    Remember the ‘colostomy bag’ that I showed you on Thursday? Well, last night I cooked those marinated pork belly ribs at a constant 65ºC for three hours in a sous vide bath before smoking for half-an-hour in my BBQ smoker. I served them with a home made barbecue sauce and a side dish of stir-fried vegetables (onion, garlic, ginger, chilli, mushrooms, yellow pepper, bamboo shoots, broccoli and carrot with oyster sauce, 5-spice powder, dark-and-light soy sauce).

    It went down a treat.

    1. Looks great. A shame you had to eat it all by yourself. What did you have for pud?

  38. Just back from a trip into Derby Uni students’ accommodation to pick up some of Student Son’s large times to bring home.
    Where the hell we’re going to put them, together with the rest of his stuff, I’ve no chuffing idea. The DT is still trying to sort out the ton of stuff she brought home after her mother died several years ago!

    1. The recovered stuff from Mother’s place still lives in boxes at home. Plan to start sorting it net week.

      1. And you’ll still be planning to “sort it next week” in six months time!

    2. With us starting the process of moving, it looks like we will be on the Christmas party list for the recycling centre and various charity shops.

      1. Last summer, Marie Curie took stuff that others wouldn’t, such as lovely big picture books, clothes and so on, and were universally grateful. That was good, because Father died in one of their hospices, so it was good to give them something back.

      1. They would be horrified if they met a giant version of themselves in reality…

        1. Not me, Boss, leopards don’t have spots, only cheetahs have those.

          Leopards have rings. Jaguars have rings with a spot inside them.

      1. She became a cult figure in France.

        I first became aware of her existence when she appeared in the film Blow Up with David Hemmings and Vanessa Redgrave.

        The cleanliness of her appearance was in very sharp focus against the grubbiness of her lover, Surge Forward.

        https://www.google.com/search?q=jE+T%27AIME+MOI+NON+PLUS+YOUTUBE&oq=jE+T%27AIME+MOI+NON+PLUS+YOUTUBE&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIICAEQABgWGB4yCAgCEAAYFhgeMggIAxAAGBYYHjIICAQQABgWGB4yCAgFEAAYFhgeMggIBhAAGBYYHjIICAcQABgWGB4yCAgIEAAYFhgeMggICRAAGBYYHtIBCTE0MTM4ajBqN6gCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:35eddc85,vid:k3Fa4lOQfbA

    2. From Going Postal:-

      SeekingJusticeUK
      25 minutes ago edited
      Tribute to Jane Birkin.
      Judge Dread – Je T’aime
      Used to listen to this version in “The Jock Bar, (‘Haven van Texel’) Amsterdam 1975
      Judge Dread – Je T’aime (Moi Non Plus) – Reggae – 45 rpm

      https://youtu.be/6LfbUKbFd0w

  43. Afternoon All

    Late Medley

    https://media.patriots.win/post/0IkYFAUAUcoW.jpeg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/117d1bd75b1bfb33107eb8ee1a46b2229740ad90fb326003aaf9fe237fce462b.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b0be63e7feda3ec219f78522df1954bcc75150b35ef680aa7f1f3cf85f57b351.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/40827a487c241032279f7805c38e01993bf0a6eb84b15c2a7b35492fe2738982.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ec087547cdfe9081b1ffe3d3347e22d4f912fed6bd7cae0ada82afebdb3ca551.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2b9677a5d8ddba73589464ef400ab57e79b151e24d8eff661e91566810c092af.jpg

    1. I may have misread this sentence:
      “I have been told a different, secret story about Erdogan’s turnabout: Biden promised that a much-needed $11-13 billion line of c…”

  45. How times change!

    Me (Gen X): There’s a bottle of Monbazillac in the fridge, have a glass if you want
    Daughter (Gen Z): No thanks Mum – alcohol is terrible for your body!

    1. I have a daughter who apart from Brandy butter (at Christmas) is and has always been completely Tea total and doesn’t even drink tea or coffee….

      1. I guzzle Assam tea (not as much as BoB though) and just one ‘flat white’ a day from my espresso machine is enough to satisfy my daily caffeine intake.

  46. How times change!

    Me (Gen X): There’s a bottle of Monbazillac in the fridge, have a glass if you want
    Daughter (Gen Z): No thanks Mum – alcohol is terrible for your body!

  47. Here’s a chat from a few days ago between Liberty&Finance and Alasdair Macleod. Note that both participants work for companies that sell gold and silver. Alasdair Macleod knows a lot about geopolitics though – particularly interesting are his take on the BRICS currency (he thinks it will happen quickly, and that people don’t understand gold any more) and his thoughts on the differences between the West and the rest of the world (political freedom here, but no freedom to make money vs no political freedom outside the west, but less regulation)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iynYCEAtrI

    1. It occurs to me that the reason for the war in Ukraine is to make Putin unpopular at home so that Russia ends up in turmoil and the partnership with China & BRICS falls apart and puts an end to their drive to a gold backed currency thus saving the $ and by extension the US economy (& the rest of the West) from implosion.

      1. They certainly want to bring Putin down. But I think it’s also a last looting spree before the fiat dollar collapses.

      2. It rather annoys me that no one picks up on the statements of Putin expanding the Russian Empire whilst no one mentions the way the West has expanded it’s empire into former Warsaw Pact/Soviet territory.

    1. I read a response which went something along the lines of Djokovic was a bad example of a sportsman by not being vaccinated.

      It made no sense because they couldn’t separate the ideology of covid 19 and state control from the man choosing to not need something.

  49. Gosh – that was hard work. There is an awful lot of wood in four branches – and a great deal of waste trimmings. Two minutes after I began work, in the sun – a sharp downpour made itself known. Lasted five minutes….

    If I were Robert, I’d have a mug of tea…!!

    1. I was given to understand (Eng Lit A level) that the correct term for waste tree trimmings was in fact Trash. And indeed in a 1977 edition of The Concise Oxford Dictionary – there it is: “fragments or loppings of trees”….

          4. Snedding is the process of stripping the side shoots and buds from the length of a branch or shoot, usually of a tree or woody shrub. This process is most commonly performed during hedge laying and prior to the felling of trees on plantations ready for cropping. WIKIPEDIA.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snedding

    2. Since you logged off there has been a somewhat dendritic thread below on pruning and the such like….

  51. Mean while…

    “California Approves Math Curriculum Promoting “Social Justice” Over Standard Skills”

    BTL Comment:

    ‘If Shanika gets 5 million in reparations and Jamal slang 500,000 fentanyl doses at $10 per, how much does whitey regret not picking his own damn cotton?’

    1. That clown is just waiting for the next pandemic to be declared, so that he can spring back into full lockdown mode!

        1. This nursie role is a bit tedious. Every six hours hand out painkillers and check the wound (hideous).
          We are doing fine. Her little walker is being thumped around the apartment with a lot more confidence than yesterday and so much better than Friday. The way things are going, I might even be able to get to the gym this week and relieve a few frustrations.

          But enough about us, everyone looks for updates from you.

          1. We care for each other, Richard.
            Glad to hear that She is gaining energy. Can only be good news. :-))

          2. Back to square one, I’m afraid. A very bad night and woke up yelping with pain so am back on the paracetamol.
            Without going into gory details, I did some research on the throwing up and loo etc and it seems likely I may have some internal bleeding.
            What triggered it I have no idea but it certainly adds to the pain and worry.
            However, I have managed to get some jobs done today, albeit slowly.
            KBO chum.

          3. Dear LotL – you WILL badger/hector/yell at the horsepiddle tomorrow, won’t you?

          4. I’ll begin on the phone as the skin cancer clinic is only Tues and Fri. Their time is more important.

          5. If that doesn’t produce a result, I’ll go round and burn their houses and slaughter their firstborn. The HAVE to wake up and pay attention.

          10. Is there nobody who will take your pain management seriously, Ann? This is not only painful to live through, but painful to read as well. In 2023, surely to Christ there is someone who will pay attention and sort it for you?
            Sending top-up hugs, BTW.

          11. Oh no, don’t get into that as well. Wifey went through that some time ago, it was fixed by a quick operation but for a few days it was very worrying.

            May I be allowed to top up the top up hugs that Paul is sending.

          13. I prefer to remember California from years ago when we used to go down there on holiday, it was nice and civilized then.

            Much like London really.

          14. Agreed, Richard, I was last there in 1976 and it was quite civilised.

            Today, I believe it’s a shit-heap.

            That’s what socialist dogma does for you.

          16. No, Dear Ann, it’s you who needs to, and does, KBO.

            We’re all rooting for you, carry on, girl, you’ll get there.

  54. If American cluster bombs can help end the war they will save thousands more lives than they will cost . 16 July 2023.

    The U.S. rationale was straightforward: the DPICM was designed with Soviet ‘human wave’ infantry tactics in mind. And that is exactly what is happening today.

    Russia is marching thousands upon thousands of men into this meat-grinder conflict, with little concern for their lives.

    Provision of these munitions to Ukraine is a win-win-win.

    If these purpose-built weapons bring the war to a speedier conclusion, they will be worth it.

    This solution fills a looming artillery shortfall and buys time for our defense industries to ramp up production of 155mm shells.

    Yes let’s kill more people it will stop more people being killed!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12300913/MARSHALL-BILLINGSLEA-cluster-bombs-help-end-war-Ukraine-save-thousands.html?ico=livefeed#comments

    1. “… a looming artillery shortfall …” – so anything left that goes BANG! then?

    2. It will make all the most productive fields and farms inactive for decades which is their real aim.

  55. I note that “Ben” Wallace MP (“I’m a soldier doncha know”) is packing it in.

    Call me a cynic – and many do – but I rather distrust former junior orficers who relish every opportunity to put on camouflage kit and join real soldiers for an hour or so.

    I’d like to hear the views of NoTTLers who are former service personnel.

    I doubt he’ll be missed.

    1. He’s probably been reprimanded for saying Zelenky’s demands are like shopping at Amazon.

          2. Calling hospital tomorrow as the skin cancer clinics are Tues and Fri- so your guess is as good as mine. I suspect I will be sent for an ultra sound but who knows.
            Sorry to moan all the time:-(

          7. We’re here for you to sound off to – all of us are hoping you will get some treatment and will be hoping for a good outcome for you. I hope it help to know that we are all here to support you through this.

          9. Just read back your last few posts and I’m so sorry you’re feeling so rough. It’s bad enough that you need treatment for the skin cancer which you should have had so much earlier, but to hear you’re getting internal bleeding from the painkillers is just terrible. I just hope they can do something for you and very soon.

  56. Par Four today.

    Wordle 757 4/6
    ⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜🟨🟨🟨
    ⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Me too.
      Wordle 757 4/6

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

      1. And me.

        Wordle 757 4/6

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

  57. From https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/tony-blair-nhs-private-sector-strikes-sky-news-interview-b1094627.html
    Tony Blair: NHS is ‘not serving its purpose’ and needs more private sector involvement
    Millions of people are languishing on NHS waiting lists after a wave of strikes by workers in recent months

    Tony Blair has said that the NHS is “not serving its purpose” and called for more private sector involvement.

    Millions of people are languishing on NHS waiting lists after a wave of strikes by workers in recent months.

    More than 600,000 cancelled hospital appointments have been blamed on strikes and further misery is expected as consultants walk out on Thursday.

    Asked if the NHS is providing a good standard of service, Mr Blair replied: “No, at the moment. In some respects the staff do a great job in difficult circumstances

    “And I think the general experience of people is if you’re in really acute difficulty, then then it still does provide very good care.

    1. BTL:
      Arfur Towcrate
      3 hrs ago
      A war criminal should not be given the oxygen of publicity

    2. “Millions of people are languishing on NHS waiting lists after a wave of strikes by workers in recent months”.

      Bliar just can’t help himself can he? The waiting lists are because of the scamdemic you damned lying POS !

  58. I see Jane Birkin has died……….. who could forget the “heavy breathing” song?

  59. I made the error of mentioning to the MR that the Serb was trailing. A mistake any husband could make!! Now the sodding telly is on…..and I fear supper will be deferred until the match ends….

    Carlos Becker seems quite good for a young ‘un.

    Anyway, I shall sign off and take to the bottle. Have a spiffing evening. We have been watching a docu on PBS about D-Day and the Normandy campaign. It “presented” by a really tedious English bloke (togged up in – you’ve guessed it – camouflage jacket PLUS fake black Citroen car….)
    accompanied by a Yank former soldier who DOES know what he is talking about… Not all bad. Can’t imagine how it ends….

    A demain

  60. Where’s Rastus?

    You may enjoy this article, my friend, from the Sunday section of today’s Sunday Telegraph:

    Book-lovers, ignore the sneering – and defend the creative-writing MA

    The great University of East Anglia course may be at risk amid cuts. The future of British literature, argues Claire Allfree, is at stake

    “What is the difference between God and Malcolm Bradbury?” a student once wrote on a lavatory wall at the University of East Anglia. “None. Both are said to be everywhere yet are hard to see.”

    Whatever comment that student was passing on the author and critic’s apparently casual teaching practices, the point about Bradbury’s influence remains every bit as true, 23 years after his death. The creativewriting MA he established during the 1970s at UEA remains the gold standard of its type, the first of its kind in the UK and with an alumni list that reads like a roll call of late20th-century British and Irish literary talent: Rose Tremain, Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro, Anne Enright, Paul Murray, Diana Evans. If success can be measured in prizes, then the three Bookers, seven Costas, two Women’s Prizes and one Nobel won by UEA graduates are hard to beat. Certainly, it’s hard to think of another institution or person in the past 50 years that has had a greater influence on what we, as a nation, read and write.

    The news that the UEA’s current debts of £30million

    The write stuff: Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro and Anne Enright are only three of many great UEA alumni threaten Bradbury’s legacy has therefore been met with understandable dismay. McEwan has called the subsequent decision that, of the proposed 36 redundancies in the academic staff, 31 will come from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, as “gross bureaucratic folly”. The university says it “anticipates very few redundancies” from the creative-writing course, but that hasn’t reassured the 750 signatories, including current and former students, behind a letter of protest published in The Times.

    Arts and humanities degrees are under siege across the board, of course, as cash strapped institutions (and government funding decisions) prioritise Stem subjects and vocational courses. Even so, the diminishing of UEA’s writing MA – a course of global reputation, whose tutors have included Angela Carter and the critic Lorna Sage – feels like a major shift in the weather: a threat to the idea of the novel as an artform honed through expertise.

    Before Bradbury set up the UEA creative-writing MA in 1971, there was no such thing as a creative-writing degree in the UK. The feeling, both in academia and the wider culture beyond, had been that writing was something one did by oneself, possibly in a garret, using God-given talent alone. The literary imagination was innate, and not something that could be cultivated or, perish the thought, bought. Bradbury, however, was always an outsider to mainstream thinking, and in the decidedly non-Oxbridge, nonmetropolitan wilds of Norwich, he was keen to create, as the academic Lise Jaillant has pointed out, “a literary powerhouse… as a reaction against existing models of literary success”.

    Rejecting what he regarded as the “British custom of amateurish isolationism”, Bradbury modelled his creative-writing course on the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop, established in 1936, in which a dozen or so students would gather on a regular basis to critique each other’s work. From the beginning, the emphasis at UEA was on reading, on rewriting one’s own work, and on using the literature of the past as a guide to best practice. He was well aware that the concept would be met with profound scepticism. The course, he later said, “was generally regarded as a dangerous American invention, like the vacuum cleaner and the hula hoop, and certainly not one that had a place in the literature department of a British university.”

    These days, 96 British universities offer more than 400 creative-writing courses between them, and that’s before one counts up the proliferating online courses variously run by established authors, teachers, private institutions, publishers (including the in-house Faber Academy, set up in 2008) – not to mention complete unknowns. Many of the best use the workshop method, in which a piece of work is deconstructed and discussed in front of its author, but some follow a conservatoire approach of one-to-one tuition. Their shared aim is to teach their students good writing, but also, invariably, how to get published, which is not always the same thing.

    Still, those who incorporate vision with rigour have the potential to become literary movements in their own right. The Dublin-based Stinging Fly, which as a magazine launched the careers of Sally Rooney, Nicole Flattery and Kevin Barry, now offers writer workshops and is one of the most powerful literary forces in Ireland today.

    In America, MFA creativewriting degrees are so ingrained in the culture that they have literally shaped the country’s postwar literary imagination: prominent graduates include Jay McInerney and David Foster Wallace. There, it’s practically a prerequisite to becoming a novelist in the first place: some publishers won’t look at the work of an author without one.

    Bradbury, meanwhile, regarded his UEA degree as having almost single-handedly changed the shape of the British literary landscape. While chairman of the Booker Prize in 1981, he gave a speech arguing that UEA writers such as McEwan and Angela Carter “have shifted the novel away from the median realism and provincialism that was so influential in the 1950s, towards largeness, moral strangeness, fantasy and grotesquerie”.

    Of course, criticism of these courses has raged for as long as they have existed. Some people accuse them of now producing interchangeable writers and “cookie-cutter prose”. Because nearly all involve fees, they are also accused of elitism and prioritising the white-middle-class experience, although with many courses now promoting diversity and inclusion, that’s no longer so much the case.

    Most profoundly, they are accused of legitimising a culture of prescribed ideas and expectations, in which students of variable talent assume that merely by completing a course that tells them how to write, they can become a writer; that they legitimise the delusion that everyone has a novel in them somewhere, and thus enlarge the dreary sea of mediocrity churned out by today’s self-publishing industry.

    Yet the truth is that the best creative-writing courses increasingly do the job that the editors in our publishing houses used to do: selecting the best and shuffling out the rest. Unlike publishing houses, they also place an emphasis on old-fashioned technique, rather than on the ideology of the day. They embody a paradox: that writing can be taught, but that only the most talented can become writers.

    The truth of that is in the pudding. Fiction needs visionaries such as Bradbury to push it towards the large, the strange, the fantastical and the grotesque – and to find and cultivate our best writers. It would be an irony of the most absurd, depressing sort if the institution that made modern British fiction a force to be reckoned with on the world stage is the very one now threatening to diminish its reputation.

    1. They used to service the Battle of Britain flight at Cranfield when I was there. The coughing of a Merlin starting was enough to see crowds come pouring out of the offices and laboratories – and a run-up on the tarmac was a real treat, with about six blokes draped over the tail to hold it down.
      Once, walking along a road there from one lab to another, a Spitfire flew between the poplar trees by the Flight hangar, completely in plan view! (so, about 90 degree bank – to fit between the trees!) Came from the Sir Stafford Cripps building carpark, wingtip about 10′ of the ground, whooshed between the trees, and was gone out over the airfield. Amazing experience!

      1. They flew past us last year while we were having our Jubilee party – special fly-past!

          1. One of the last Vulcans did a display at South Cerney about 10 years ago – tremendous noise!

          2. Indeed.
            Had a flypast when I was seven or so, at an airshow at Leicester East airfield, folowed by a Lightning, doing full afterburner in a vertical climb out of sight.
            No wonder I have tinnitus…

          3. I have it too – but probably not caused by aeroplanes.

            I think mine stems from a rail journey from London in 1966. I was on my own in the carriage as it rattled through the tunnels with the windows open. i remember the shock wave hitting my ears. My hearing was never the same after that – my right ear was painful – probably damaged my ear drum.

          4. Mine made much worse by a volley of gunfire right close (within 2 metres or so), without hearing ptotection.

          5. I have it too – but probably not caused by aeroplanes.

            I think mine stems from a rail journey from London in 1966. I was on my own in the carriage as it rattled through the tunnels with the windows open. i remember the shock wave hitting my ears. My hearing was never the same after that – my right ear was painful – probably damamged my ear drum.

  62. I’m feeling a little hoarse, so will take some cough medicine and go to bed. Good night, chums. No doubt I will wake up in the early hours and therefore come downstairs again to do a few more jobs.

    2. I too, shall take my sore throat to bed, very soon.

      I’d really like to get a good night’s sleep but doubtless, I shall be seeking tea around 03:00 – 04:00 as usual.

      1. 3am to 4am is known as The Witching Hour for the very reason that it’s the commonest time to wake and have difficulty getting back to sleep.

        1. Well, Sue, I don’t have little witches in my bed but I’ll take your word for it.

        2. …..Now could I drink hot blood and do such bitter business as the world would quake to look upon…..

          Or words to that effect.

          1. You carry on with your hot blood, Ann.

            Like you ,all I want is a good night’s sleep.

          1. It’s not far to our en suite, but still not easy to go back to sleep sometimes.

      2. I managed two hours’ sleep (7 pm to 9 pm) then up for three hours (9 pm to midnight). Now back to bed for more Zeds. Good night, chums.

      1. I take a vitamin D tablet daily, Ndovu. If I can’t sleep properly I may come downstairs again and have a hot toddy of warm milk and a slug of whisky.

        1. That should help you shake it off – but vitC is good for infections. Or citrus fruit if you can’t get out at the moment.

  63. Evening, all. There is nothing remotely conservative about any of those in Westminster pretending to be so. There hasn’t been since before Cameron. We far right normal people don’t have any representation.

      1. I remember I was staying with my aunt and uncle in’92 and uncle was bellowing at the telly because of Maastricht. I didn’t realise at the time……..

        1. I bought and read the Maastrict treaty text – I have it still. More than dumbass Ken Clarke did – he boasted that he signed it without even reading it.

        1. He did – just a trading organisation! When we got the referendum in 1975 I voted to stay – to my shame – but then I was just a young mother and knew no better.

          1. I also voted to stay. I was working in freight forwarding at the time and my older colleagues said thet EEC membership had streamlined procedures etc. I don’t recall being told about the monolith which followed.

  67. We watched the tennis – shame Djokovic lost his cool and smashed his racket in the final set but he was very gracious at the end.

    Then we had our dinner – smoked salmon and prawn starter with the last of a bottle of Kiwi Sauvignan, followed by roast lamb with roasted peppers etc, and other veg and some tiny spuds fresh from the garden, with a bottle of 2019 Black Stump.

    All while listening to Bach cantata 170 sung by Andreas Scholl.

      1. We’re now checking up on our swifty chicks – two of the first brood left a couple of days ago, one still in the nest. We have two chicks about a week old in one nest and another two tiny ones a day or two old in another box, so we will have swifts to watch till near the end of August as they’ve been quite spread out this time.

    3. Djokovic certainly made an impression durung his game with Alcaraz – it was on the net post!

  68. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/07/16/ukraine-russia-war-latest-news-putin-zelensky/
    The United States is running low on mortars as it continues to support Ukraine, its national security adviser has warned.
    Jake Sullivan said Mr Biden’s administration had upon taking office found that overall stocks of 155 munition, the Nato standard ammunition used for artillery rounds, were “relatively low”.
    The White House realised it would take a matter of years, not months, to replenish stocks to acceptable levels.
    “President Biden ordered his Pentagon to work rapidly to scale up the ability of the United States to produce all the ammunition we could ever need for any conflict at any time,” Mr Sullivan told CNN.
    “Month on month, we are increasing our capacity to supply ammunition,” he added.
    5:20PM
    Ukraine ‘on defensive’ amid fierce battles in Kharkiv
    Ukrainian forces were on the defensive against Russian assaults near the eastern city of Kupiansk, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said.
    “For two days in a row, the enemy has been actively attacking in the Kupiansk sector in the Kharkiv region. We are on the defence,” Ms Mailar said, adding, “fierce battles are going on, and positions… change several times a day.”
    Elsewhere, she noted Ukrainian forces were “gradually moving forward” near Bakhmut.
    “There is a daily advance on the southern flank around Bakhmut. On the northern flank, we are trying to hold our positions, the enemy is attacking,” she said.
    “In Bakhmut itself, we are shelling the enemy, and the enemy is shelling us.”

    1. They will either bog down for a long war of attrition, or they will have to have peace talks.

    3. And when Putin’s advisors say:
      Now’s the time to strike, we can go straight through Europe, because they’ve little in the way of defence?
      Take out airstrip one (aka UK) and it’s over.

    4. So are they low on mortars or artillery ammunition? Or does someone not know the difference?

    1. As Britain has given up on large swathes of industry, it is earning it’s living by selling property and land to the world at large.

      2. “ earning it’s living by selling property and land to the world”

        Aka prostitution

        1. As I wrote the sentence I had an image of Britannia underneath a red. lamp!…..

  70. I am heading to bed soon- got a few jobs done today, finally, and very slowly.
    Your kind comments have moved me and I can’t thank you enough. One day this will be over…..
    Hope Y’all sleep well and pain free.

    1. 374512+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      See the latest COVID-19 information on Twitter

      This page does not exist, but did it is the question.

  72. S@H has been delving into the depths of the attic and has pulled out a photo album from the early ’70s depicting skiing in Glenshee in ’72, POLEX 72, including Shingle Street near Orford Ness and Phantoms at RAF Woodbridge and general shots round the now demolished Maidstone Barracks, then home of 61 Field support Squadron, RE.
    Some photos have been damaged, but I’ve got a lot of scanning to get done!

  75. Our Prime Minister is backing the wrong side.

    Ex-comedian, ‘President’ Zelenkyy is a dangerous, ‘Biden-NATO’ proxy; this could lead to deployment of – tactical nuclear weapons – and WWIII.

    1. Our toy Prime Minister hasn’t got a thought in his head apart from what his bosses tell him!

    2. If that does happen, heaven forbid it does, it will be the yanks who drop it on Ukraine, blame the Russians and it’s bye bye human race.

  77. Back up for a while- can’t settle and face bad. Another glass of Pinot won’t kill me and to be honest, right now, I wouldn’t care if it did. See you tomorrow.

    3. “…right now, I wouldn’t care if it did.”

      Not a good feeling, Ann, take it from one who knows.

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