Thursday 3 August: Shoplifting is hardly a ‘low-level’ crime for long-suffering victims

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

579 thoughts on “Thursday 3 August: Shoplifting is hardly a ‘low-level’ crime for long-suffering victims”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, Not so much a story as curiosities.

    Did you know…
    The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime-time television were Fred and Wilma Flintstones.

    Coca-Cola was originally green.

    Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.

    Hawaiian alphabet has 12 letters.

    Men can read smaller print than women; women can hear better.

    City with the most Rolls Royce’s per capita: Hong Kong

    State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska

    Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28% Percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%

    Cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400

    Average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000.

    Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.

    The world’s youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.

    The youngest pope was 11 years old.

    First novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.

    111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

    1. Those last two are REALLY interesting. I can see how the Maths works for the final one by doing a long multiplication sum on paper.

  4. America’s only hope is for Trump to withdraw from the election race. 3 August 2023.

    For any normal person, the burden of defending against criminal indictments, as well as civil lawsuits (which could significantly damage his personal finances), would be more than enough to re-orient his priorities away from politics. The time involved to prepare for multiple trials and the magnitude of the legal jeopardy Trump faces should impel him to put other matters aside to concentrate on his serious risk of criminal convictions and substantial civil damages.

    I’m sure that is the purpose of the prosecutions but thankfully Trump is not normal!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/02/donald-trumps-criminal-indictment-is-stirring-up-a-constitu/

    1. Who wrote that load of tosh? Trump is on a mission and pulls in tens of thousands to rallies when Biden couldn’t fill a telephone box.
      The Democrats and the RINOs know that with the support that Trump has it would be nigh on impossible and certainly implausible for them to steal the next election. Hence, one phony indictment after another while Biden and his debauched son get a free ride.

      1. Morning Korky. It’s John Bolton whose opinions, views and attitudes are for sale to anyone who can afford them!

        1. I can’t agree with you on that, Minty. When I read John Bolton’s book on life inside the Trump administration, it showed that Trump was a difficult man to work for, but he (Trump) certainly is ten if not one hundred times better than Biden.

          1. Morning Elsie. I base my judgement on Bolton on his willingness to work for anyone regardless of their political orientation!

  5. ‘;Morning All

    One for Grizz…..

    https://twitter.com/MarchersMedia/status/1686709809830096896?t=Em1CFRmCcuZmyp-EJ3oXUQ&s=19

    Rest of the medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/98f33fbe550e25d350c02f304399cc8dc855a5e57b633b4fcf49a7cffab1e070.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c7f2ca9e9fef6d35cc830b27f9015d519808733c415e3e73a4cab85f8f581dfc.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/adc2fc3345807396be1385a11688e59b5d4e64ccb15378377bbbc895f046ab6a.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2ec6cbb4dcbf3e94fcdce7471bca20b9b0bcf804d249e995aa00a8c58297fbaf.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7290f096a244f17cf954824a25debc62ec82ce65f2d2ec078e5cb6717a4b7d85.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8536497d5bbe89a40d48d2dc734405aea65664a2f2de41e6568243c6a18f7090.gif

    1. Wait, what? I saw that police photo yesterday, assumed it had been mis-captioned and it was some children being shown round a police station.

      1. The local primary school used to have mini plods. Nothing but a PR exercise to persuade the younger generations that the police are good guys who are only there to ‘help’ us – unless, of course we are victims of actual crimes.

    2. Wait, what? I saw that police photo yesterday, assumed it had been mis-captioned and it was some children being shown round a police station.

      1. Hmm. The teacher’s comment looks to be in the same hand as the pupil’s…

  7. John Campbell asks the question that everybody would like to know the answer to, except of course the WHO, Big Pharma, and all those politicians who may have something to hide. It comes at 6 minutes into his latest video on the WHO’s Report on excess deaths during the Covid panic. The WHO graphic below shows excess deaths spiking at the same time as the beginning of the mass vaccination programmes. Apparently no one cares to examine whether the administration of the vaccines actually caused the huge rise in excess deaths?:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVX-jK90HCM

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d5a6c9d36119ef3e93ce20553a1c15bc8ae2fd7767503662210a70ac2666aa51.png

    2. The so called ‘vacation program’ was designed to attack those people with underlying health issues.
      And to seep into our imune systems.
      I had three friends with underlying health problems who were wiped out after taking the jabs and boosters.
      I came close as I am sure many thousands of others did.
      Strange how hardly anyone in office was effected, except for Bore-us.
      Who was back on his feet in a blink.
      And the Australian nurse who looked after him vanished in case someone turned up to ask her questions.
      I believe she’s in the US now.

    2. There are two types of people. Those who divide people into two types and those who don’t.

  9. Good morning, chums. A dry day today, just the job for some time spent in the garden, which will not be possible for the subsequent following monsoon days.

  10. Good morning, chums. A dry day today, just the job for some time spent in the garden, which will not be possible for the subsequent following monsoon days.

  11. Britain is now an elite dictatorship where majority opinions are crushed. Allister Heath. 3 August 2023.

    Yet we live in a very different political reality, one in which public opinion is flagrantly disregarded whenever it doesn’t align with the views of the ruling class. Westminster has become cartelised: the large parties are committed to an unrealistic dash to net zero, refuse to discuss the gargantuan cost involved, and omit to mention that Britain’s carbon emissions are about 3 per cent of China’s. On the great subjects of our time – family policy, the size of the state, the NHS and even planning rules – there is little difference between Tory, Labour and Lib Dem MPs, disenfranchising millions.

    The intellectual conformity is stultifying, and has been reinforced by the emergence of an all-powerful Blob, the nexus of mandarins, policy advisers, quangocrats and other government agents, a class of “public servants” who don’t really like the public and are increasingly convinced that they have a constitutional duty to constrain and contain elected politicians. They are experts at delay, prevarication and lawfare, and are cheered on by the Left-wing activists who have taken over the legal profession, our cultural institutions, academia, charities and even many big companies.

    I applaud Heath’s description and his awakening to reality but Nottlers have known all this for several years!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/02/britain-now-elite-dictatorship-majority-opinions-crushed/

      1. Morning Ndovu. Yes there seems to be a gradual awakening, though then again, it might be that they just think that there is no longer any point in denying the obvious.

        1. Could it be that the Barclay Brothers have lost control of The Telegraph and this is a new policy from the new owners? I certainly hope so, since I find it hard to believe that it is a gradual wakening.

          2. Agreed.
            And that court case against him opened my eyes as to how corrupt the US Injustice System is.

          4. One of the Barclay brothers died some time ago and I believe the Telegraph has been taken over by, I think, Lloyds Bank because of the surviving brother getting into financial difficulties.

      1. On the contrary, Annie. I much preferred to read the full article which you printed.

    3. So do I, but he still go some way to go before he’s fully awake. Or maybe he is but the editor won’t publish it.

    4. The problem lies in Whitehall.
      They run the system and our lives governments make very little difference.
      Politicians are too lazy they are only in it for personal gain.
      After every election has taken place most of the votes were cast against the incoming government. We have no democracy whatsoever. Whitehall just take over again.

  12. Good morning all,

    Light cloud all day at the McPhee ranch, sunny periods with the wind Nor’-Nor’-West, 15C with 20C forecast. Another day painting daughter’s new home beckons.

    Nick Robinson, BBC R4 presenter, moves in very constricted circles:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/02/nick-robinson-says-nobody-wants-uk-version-fox-news-farage/

    BTL comments give him short shrift. Hers’s a couple:

    E A Roe
    Nick is so isolated that he still think Fox News is the same as Fox News of five years ago. It’s Sky News Australia that we want now

    Heyman Howman
    Little Nicholas needs to widen his circle of acquaintances, maybe outside londonistan?

    Seriously, what is the point of DT articles like this? Who cares what Robinson or any of his ilk think now?

    2. Moving in constricted circles?
      Robinson is nothing more than a nasty person who continually makes sure that the BBQ spit is turning to keep the public roasting going.

      1. He is one of the nastiest and most vindictive people on the BBC. Mind you he was very ill so he is hoping to milk us for sympathy

        1. I use to listen to radio 4 every morning. People with his attitude completely put me off.

  13. Good Moaning.
    Girlie day in London with granddaughter beckons. We round it off with a visit to my alma mater to see her student chums put on a play that they are taking to the Fringe. I think Grannie may need to be very understanding this evening.

    Here is a corking article by Allister Heath – honorary NOTTLer.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/02/britain-now-elite-dictatorship-majority-opinions-crushed/

    “Britain is now an elite dictatorship where majority opinions are crushed

    Start listening to the voters on cars, crime and wokery, or there’ll be an uprising even bigger than Brexit

    2 August 2023 • 7:59pm

    Britain’s deranged war on cars, our looming ban on gas boilers, the debanking scandal, the failure to prosecute crime, the attempted cancellation of women, the sabotage of the Brexit agenda, the scale of migration: welcome to anti-democratic Britain, where the beleaguered majority is increasingly subject to the whims of an entitled, activist elite that often seems to despise the people over which it exercises so much power.

    All the policies listed above share a devastating commonality: they are deeply unpopular, and would be crushed in a referendum after a fair campaign, were the politicians courageous enough to grant the public a say (in the case of Brexit, they did, of course, and continue to this day to resist implementing the revolutionary change implied by the vote).

    In a truly majoritarian society, one where the demos actually exercised kratos, no form of crime would be tolerated, and certainly not burglaries or muggings. Nobody would dare to indoctrinate school children with extreme trans ideology, and the green agenda would be centred around urgent technological innovation rather than seeking to prevent working people from flying to holidays in the sun.

    Yet we live in a very different political reality, one in which public opinion is flagrantly disregarded whenever it doesn’t align with the views of the ruling class. Westminster has become cartelised: the large parties are committed to an unrealistic dash to net zero, refuse to discuss the gargantuan cost involved, and omit to mention that Britain’s carbon emissions are about 3 per cent of China’s. On the great subjects of our time – family policy, the size of the state, the NHS and even planning rules – there is little difference between Tory, Labour and Lib Dem MPs, disenfranchising millions.

    The intellectual conformity is stultifying, and has been reinforced by the emergence of an all-powerful Blob, the nexus of mandarins, policy advisers, quangocrats and other government agents, a class of “public servants” who don’t really like the public and are increasingly convinced that they have a constitutional duty to constrain and contain elected politicians. They are experts at delay, prevarication and lawfare, and are cheered on by the Left-wing activists who have taken over the legal profession, our cultural institutions, academia, charities and even many big companies.

    Thus even in the rare instances when the Tories attempt to think the unthinkable and respond to public opinion, as with the Channel crossings, the system does its best to block any change, empowered by quasi-constitutional legislation such as the Equality Act, the Climate Change Act and our membership of the ECHR.

    The upshot is an extraordinary disempowerment of the electorate: is it any wonder that some voters fear we risk becoming a democracy in name only? Take the absurd war on cars: a tiny minority of activists, council planners, devolved administrations and ministers are seeking to discourage the mode of transport that the vast majority of the population relies on. Or consider immigration, which is a lot higher than the public would like: all potential solutions to reduce numbers while preserving the economy are lambasted as gimmicks, meaningless or self-evidently stupid. The Tories have promised to cut numbers in every single one of their manifestos since at least the 1990s, and yet aren’t even pretending to try any longer. How does this not disastrously undermine trust in politicians?

    Until recently, all parts of British society bought into the democratic ethos developed after the great voting reforms of the 19th and 20th century, or at least paid lip service to it. It was deemed snobbish to dismiss the views of ordinary voters out of hand, and borderline insane to seek to reverse the expansion of the consumer society.

    That consensus, already left fragile by the Blairite legal revolution and his massive increase in the number of university graduates, was finally shattered after the 2016 Brexit referendum. Most of our institutions are now controlled by a pseudo-meritocratic elite convinced that only it can prevent the masses from reverting to ignorance, racism and prejudice.

    Our new ruling class is paternalistic, messianic even: in a post-religious age, it has taken on the role of priest and saviour of the common people. It still occasionally feels the need to legitimise unpopular ideas by pretending that they garner majority support, hence all the polls “proving” that people support net zero. Yet when asked to pay the price in terms of actual cash or drastically reduced convenience, the public immediately rebels.

    There was a time when we worried, rightly, that the tyranny of the majority was the main threat to freedom and prosperity; today, it is the tyranny of the minority that poses the greatest danger. Our new task is to prevent the majority from being oppressed: how do we stop the capture of every institution by the radical Left? How do we make Parliament more representative, and reduce the power of the Blob? One answer would be to use a lot more referenda, as the Swiss do; another would be radical reform of the Civil Service, turning ministers into CEOs with proper control over mandarins.

    I’m well aware that the majority can have bad or evil ideas, or vote for maniacs. We need to retain – and in some cases, further develop – protections against majoritarian abuses, even if some of the current ones are no longer fit for purpose or have been hijacked. Elites have helped drive much good social change in recent decades, including by fighting racism and prejudice against all sorts of minorities.

    But the pendulum has swung too far away from majoritarian rule, and too much power handed to social engineers. Today, the problem doesn’t lie with the public, which is largely tolerant and liberal-conservative, but with the elites, who have become authoritarian and anti-democratic, captured by wokery and a dislike of material aspiration.

    What we call populism, in the current British context, is really the majority trying to reassert itself. Voters are developing a new form of class consciousness; “motorists” are becoming a political force. The Ulez fiasco is acting as a gateway, normalising opposition to other excesses.

    The message to politicians is clear: start listening to the voters again, or else Britain will soon face a popular uprising orders of magnitude greater – and more unpredictable – than Brexit.”

    2. By popular uprising does the author mean a purely political uprising, a physical version or both? Both, would be my choice: politicians, even those supporting change e.g. Tice, Fox Kurten need to be terrified of people power.
      There is one problem that needs careful consideration, that is the ‘Army’ that the politicos have been importing for the last few years. Under the guise of being ‘frightened downtrodden asylum seekers’ we have in our midst around 100,000 young men of fighting age garrisoned around the UK. I very much doubt the politician’s description of this horde as much as I doubt anything that comes out of Westminster.

      1. 100,000 young men of fighting age …who can communicate with each other in a language probably fewer than 1% of us understand

    3. We “risk becoming” a democracy in name only??? We ARE a democracy in name only.

    4. I agree with most of it but dont think this has a place in the argument:

      …the green agenda would be centred around urgent technological innovation rather than seeking to prevent working people from flying to holidays in the sun.

      Plenty of working people manage without a holiday in the sun, intact just two generations ago this would have been a very rare happening. Why is it now being treated as an entitlement, a right, even?

          1. Yes, we have been taught one thing – certain “protected” people have been taught that applying a big multiplier. A big, big multiplier.

      2. Excellent point, but am too busy to discuss. Cheap foreign holidays are akin to bread & circuses. It is a case of control by distraction & marketing.

      3. Because they have worked for it. Mr and Mrs Bloggs fly once a year. Politicians use jets and helicopters all the time.

      4. Lord Shawcross was in Atlee’s Labour governments and said:

        “We are the masters now” – this is a misquotation from what he actually said which was: “We are the masters at the moment and shall be for some considerable time.”

        When my mother-in-law – a woman of patrician stock – saw her char lady off on her holidays the charlady said: “We’re flying to Majorca. It’s our turn now!”

        Trust the mean politicians to want to take away the plebs’ turn!

      5. I thought it was more to highlight that working people wouldn’t be able to fly while the elite would. For the latter it would be an entitlement.

    5. I think Alister Heath has access to all the emails vw and I have sent to our useless MP over the past 10 years.

    6. He just need to take one tiny step and acknowledge that the CO2 fraud is a baseless fraud, and that the institutions didn’t get taken over by accident – it was pushed by Common Purpose and WEF graduates.

  14. The world knows Putin is too scared to use nuclear weapons. Svitlana Morenets. 2 August 2023

    In the early days of the full-scale invasion, the West took this seriously: would helping Ukraine mean risking a nuclear war? But it didn’t take much imagination to see an alternative horror: if Kyiv fell then the Baltic states would be next in line and we’d end up risking nuclear war anyway. Appeasing an aggressor can be the most provocative act of all.

    The West found its courage and faced Russia down. And what happened? Western weapons poured into the battlefield; Ukraine hopes to join Nato when the war ends; and the only change in Russian nuclear posture has been the alleged transfer of tactical nuclear warheads to Belarus.

    Morenets is a Ukrainian propagandist and the problem with an assertion like the headline is that you only get to be wrong once.

    One of the most surprising aspects of this war is Russian restraint in the face of ceaseless provocation by the West. I put this down to Putin’s personal influence which seeks to limit the hostilities and casualties so that they will not inhibit any future negotiations. The unpleasant truth is that a nuclear strike on Ukie forces inside Ukraine proper would have real advantages for Russia. Their army would be decimated and the “counter-attack” would be seen to have failed and their forces no longer able to resist a Russian advance to the Dneiper. It would also shape the subsequent settlement in that the Europeans would come to see that the Russians were serious about their borders and the threat posed by NATO.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/02/vladimir-putin-is-too-scared-to-use-nuclear-weapons/

    1. What is all this carp about “the Baltic states will be next”? The US and EU have been meddling [and making loads of dosh] in Ukraine for years while carefully ignoring the way Ukraine was slaughtering its own [Russian speaking] people.

    2. What an incredibly stupid headline. Western journalists appear to think that the Russian leadership is as childish as they themselves are. The danger is that our immature politicians also believe it.

    3. International relations function like plate tectonics, or a version of ‘rock,paper,scissors’. Viewed from a distance the events in the Ukraine appear to be a resurgence of animosity between the Catholics and Jews on one side, and Orthodox populations on the other. (note the schism of 1054 AD and then the sacking of Constantinople in 1204 AD)

    4. International relations function like plate tectonics, or a version of ‘rock,paper,scissors’. Viewed from a distance the events in the Ukraine appear to be a resurgence of animosity between the Catholics and Jews on one side, and Orthodox populations on the other. (note the schism of 1054 AD and then the sacking of Constantinople in 1204 AD)

    5. International relations function like plate tectonics, or a version of ‘rock,paper,scissors’. Viewed from a distance the events in the Ukraine appear to be a resurgence of animosity between the Catholics and Jews on one side, and Orthodox populations on the other. (note the schism of 1054 AD and then the sacking of Constantinople in 1204 AD)

    6. I take issue with Morenets idea that this is a ‘full-scale invasion’. It is a limited military operation to provide protection for the Russian speaking population in the east of the country; who, lest we forget, had suffered eight years of bombing and shelling by their Ukrainian ‘countrymen’.

      If it had been a ‘full-scale invasion’, I doubt that there would have been the conveyer belt of visiting ‘celebrities’ and politicians throughout such an invasion. Kiev, contrary to Ukie propaganda, is obviously a safe place. How else to explain Boris walking around in a lounge suit, when he chose to strap on a flak jacket to visit Liverpool?

  15. Good morning all.
    For a change it’s a fine sunny morning with blue skies and scattered clouds, slightly cooler at a tad over 8½°C.

    A run to Darley Dale recycling this morning.

  16. Morning all 🙂😊
    Brightish but cloud building for more rain later.
    But it’s lovely and green across the countryside.
    And shop lifting as far as I can make out has been mainly carried (scus the pun) out by the particularly horrible people who have been allowed into our country to take any advantages they can and because their ‘status’ in our society, they know they will getaway with it.
    And the authorities are currently far too weak and pathetic to do what they should be doing. Unless of course you are driving a vehicle, they then know who you are and how to make contact.

  17. 375069+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Thursday 3 August: Shoplifting is hardly a ‘low-level’ crime for long-suffering victims

    It does show criminal intent, a sort of apprenticeship in crime
    working on being a master criminal prior to becoming a
    politician / policeman.

    A crime, is a crime, is a crime.

    1. A very junior constable fellow – who is a bit of a ‘lazy wide boy’ complained that not only was catching shop lifters a waste of time – as you’d sit outside a shop for hours only for something to happen elsewhere, then not get there in time – but that ‘no one lost anything’ and even if you did catch them, the courts would let them off with a warning after 18 months during which time they’d be stealing again. As (apparently) you can’t compound charges he said there was simply no point bothering when there were ‘better things to do’.

  19. Rats cut off town’s internet by chewing through broadband cables. 4 August 2023.

    Parts of Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire were left without internet for days after rats chewed through broadband cables last week.

    Openreach, owned by BT Group, said the event was extremely rare and affected its network in Tring.

    Businesses and homes in the town and surrounding villages served by the same exchange were impacted by damage to the cables.

    Nesting rats chewed through the ducting, outer casing and multiple cables, equipment so tough it would typically require a drill to penetrate, according to Openreach.

    They are obviously Russian Rats working for Vladimir Putin.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/02/rats-cut-internet-in-tring-hertfordshire-by-chewing-cables/

    1. A few years ago we had a lovely girl on one of our courses who had a shaven head.

      We discovered that she had previously had beautiful long hair down to her waist of which she was very proud, She discovered that there is a charitable organisation which uses natural hair with which to make wigs for children with cancer whose chemo-therapy has made them bald. Our lovely student had her hair cut and her scalp shaved so that she could give her beautiful rippling locks to those desperately unlucky children with cancer.

      My father introduced me to the short stories of the American writer, O. Henry when I was a boy. For those who have not come across his stories I recommend The Gift of The Magi about a girl with beautiful long hair.

      The Gift of the Magi O. Henry


      One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

      There was clearly nothing left to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

      While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the look-out for the mendicancy squad.

      In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name “Mr. James Dillingham Young.”

      The “Dillingham” had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, the letters of “Dillingham” looked blurred, as though they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called “Jim” and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.

      Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a grey cat walking a grey fence in a grey backyard. To-morrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn’t go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling–something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honour of being owned by Jim.

      There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 Bat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.

      Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its colour within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

      Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim’s gold watch that had been his father’s and his grandfather’s. The other was Della’s hair. Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out of the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty’s jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

      So now Della’s beautiful hair fell about her, rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

      On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she cluttered out of the door and down the stairs to the street.

      Where she stopped the sign read: “Mme Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds.” One Eight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the “Sofronie.”

      “Will you buy my hair?” asked Della.

      “I buy hair,” said Madame. “Take yer hat off and let’s have a sight at the looks of it.”

      Down rippled the brown cascade.

      “Twenty dollars,” said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.

      “Give it to me quick” said Della.

      Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim’s present.

      She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation–as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim’s. It was like him. Quietness and value–the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 78 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.

      When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task dear friends–a mammoth task.

      Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.

      “If Jim doesn’t kill me,” she said to herself, “before he takes a second look at me, he’ll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do–oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents?”

      At 7 o’clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.

      Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit of saying little silent prayers about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: “Please, God, make him think I am still pretty.”

      The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two–and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was with out gloves.

      Jim stepped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.

      Della wriggled off the table and went for him.

      “Jim, darling,” she cried, “don’t look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold it because I couldn’t have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It’ll grow out again–you won’t mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say ‘Merry Christmas!’ Jim, and let’s be happy. You don’t know what a nice-what a beautiful, nice gift I’ve got for you.”

      “You’ve cut off your hair?” asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet, even after the hardest mental labour.

      “Cut it off and sold it,” said Della. “Don’t you like me just as well, anyhow? I’m me without my hair, ain’t I?”

      Jim looked about the room curiously.

      “You say your hair is gone?” he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

      “You needn’t look for it,” said Della. “It’s sold, I tell you–sold and gone, too. It’s Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered,” she went on with a sudden serious sweetness, “but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?”

      Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year–what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

      Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

      “Don’t make any mistake, Dell,” he said, “about me. I don’t think there’s anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you’ll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first.”

      White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

      For there lay The Combs–the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped for long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise-shell, with jewelled rims–just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.

      But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: “My hair grows so fast, Jim!”

      And then Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, “Oh, oh!”

      Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

      “Isn’t it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You’ll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it.”

      Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

      “Dell,” said he, “let’s put our Christmas presents away and keep ’em a while. They’re too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on.”

      The magi, as you know, were wise men–wonderfully wise men-who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

      https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/1-the_gift_of_the_magi_0.pdf

      1. Jo in “Little Women” had her hair cut off for charity. I forget which worthy cause as it’s yonks since I read the book.

      2. Both of my nieces and the Warqueen did this. She’s growing out her bob just to be able to do it again.

      3. One of the best-looking women I met had a shaved head. Women seem to have attractive skulls, not the lumpen things men have, and so smooth perfect female symmetry is really attractive.

    2. French women accused of liaising with Germans during the Occupation had their heads shaved in humiliating acts of retribution.

      1. Including more than a few prostitutes who used their liaisons to gather inteligence for the Resistance.

    1. I wonder why there is so little sympathy on this forum for those sad, confused and disturbed men who pretend they are women in order to steal women’s prizes?

      1. Bonjour Mr Tastey and everyone.

        a) Prizes: “Thou shalt not steal”, and that instruction is almost certainly older than Judaism, although the original Hebrew word may mean ‘kidnap’.

        b) since the dawn of humanity, people have been aware that physical and mental characteristics are inheritable.

      2. I don’t want to see him banned, rather it isn’t fair that women have to compete against him.

        Any preconditions aside, his choices aside – a man is physically stronger, faster, with faster reflexes. The Warqueen’s relatively fit and was doing 100kilo dead lifts yesterday but that’s half what I can lift.

        1. How many transmen who started life as female want to compete in sporting events on level terms against men? Not as many transwomen who started life as male but want to compete against women!

          I wonder why this is!

          The obvious solution is to have 4 classes: i) Men; ii) Women; iii) Trans Men; and iv) Trans Women.

          1. Basically I agree, but there are events that call for dexterity rather than power where men & women can compete on equal terms – such as rifle shooting. The Norwegian national championships are on at the moment, and the women are marginally better than the men. Rally driving would be another example.

          3. In some equestrian and sailing events women can compete and win on level terms with men.

            (e.g.s Princess Anne – Ellen McArthur)

          4. Racing is an equality sport. The fillies can run against the colts (but get a weight allowance) and female jockeys compete against their male counterparts on an equal footing (except in France, where they, too, get a sex allowance!). Younger horses also get a weight for age allowance because they are less mature.

      3. The telling word there is ‘disturbed.’ Inadequate men who don’t care a hoot about fairness.

    4. Someone posted an article yesterday about these things. He’s never been banned from competing in women’s events, he just doesn’t fulfil the criteria to compete in them.

      1. Happy birthday, may you blessed with the ability to speak in tongues, for this year at least.

    3. Rastus, as a Teacher of French, I guess do you don’t find the pronunciation of a soixant -neuf a bit of a mouthful?

      Anyways, Happy Birthday Mola.

      1. Actually I used to be an English teacher.

        I speak French fluently but my accent is not as good as it should be but our French friends like it and the French women pretend that they think it charming!

        We have a French Only conversation rule when our students are with us and if ever I make a grammatical error or get my pronunciation wrong then Caroline will correct me in front of the students as it is better for their morale if she criticises me rather than them.

        I sometime ask Caroline what she has been teaching in the morning so I can make a mistake with a subjunctive, a declension, a conjugation or a preceding direct object over lunch which we take en famille with the students. This enables Caroline to use my howlers as a teaching aid!

          1. Or – better – Winston.

            “Froncaises – Froncais – say moy Churchill key vue parle”

        3. I had the same system with my dear, late chum Gérard. He and his wife, Nadège, were both teachers and always gently, unobtrusively corrected the worst of my solecisms.

        2. Happy birthday. We’ll avoid the fish puns – neither the time nor the plaice.

        3. A very belated Grattis på födelsedagen (I am late to the party!) to moly. Hope it’s continuing to be a belter! 👍🏻🍷🎂

    5. I know you said earlier that you don’t really do birthdays, molamola, but I’ll wish you a very Happy day anyway! Hope you have a good one! 🎂🍾

    7. Happy Birthday, molamola! May you have many more yet to come! 🥂🍾🍰🎂🎉🥳🍺

  24. 375069+ up ticks,

    WW3 Watch: Poland Sends Combat Helicopters, Extra Troops to Border After Belarus Military Violates Airspace

    Shades of our yesteryears, if, as in the past British boots are required on the ground then they must come via a compulsory
    political intake, all ages, then volunteers from the national herd.

  26. Here’s a good puzzle for anyone who enjoys puzzles

    1 1 1 = 6
    2 2 2 = 6
    3 3 3 = 6
    4 4 4 = 6
    5 5 5 = 6
    6 6 6 = 6
    7 7 7 = 6
    8 8 8 = 6
    9 9 9 = 6
    10 10 10 = 6

    By insertng maths symbols between the digits, make the above into correct sums. You can use any maths symbol, but can’t insert any other numbers e.g you can use square root, but not square as this would need an extra 2.

    Answer later today

    Ps Remember your BODMAS

    2. Thank you for these, good to get the grey matter woken up. Still working on 1, 8 and 10…

    3. That’s a new one which I’ve not seen before. An older, similar, version is this:

      1 1 1 = 3
      2 2 2 = 3
      3 3 3 = 3
      4 4 4 = 3
      5 5 5 = 3
      6 6 6 = 3
      7 7 7 = 3
      8 8 8 = 3
      9 9 9 = 3

      It didn’t have a 10 involved though.

    4. Here is my attempt. 80% success rate!

      1 1 1 = 6 ?

      2 + 2 + 2 = 6

      3 + 3 – 3 = 6

      4 + 4 – √4 = 6

      5 + 5 ÷ 5 = 6

      6 + 6 – 6 = 6

      7 – 7 ÷ 7 = 6

      ∛8 + ∛8 +∛8 = 6

      9 – 9 ÷ √9 = 6

      10 10 10 = 6 ?

      2. Not bad Grizz, except you can’t use cu e roots as you’ve introduced another number – the small 3 in the root.

        Here’s a hint if you want to look
        Use the factorial function

    1. It is a fraud. Academics have a long and dishonourable history of going along with dishonesty rather than rocking the boat.
      It is well known in Oxford that colleges will do anything to avoid scandal, for example.
      Remember Roots? They knew that was fiction for years, but kept pretending it was true.

    2. Follow the money. Those promoting the tax scam get rewarded, speaking roles, teaching posts, research funding. It is part of university entry requirements now. If you don’t agree with the abuses then you don’t get the money and are basically ignored.

    3. MH follows that site. So much totally unscientific, unbelievable balderdash. None of these dramatic claims have anything to do with reality, just agenda driven nonsense from crazy models designed to throw out the ‘correct’ result. Garbage in, garbage out.

    2. No, Mr Windsor. We need a strong, Right wing government, low taxes, free markets, rampant capitalism, abundant cheap energy, small, controlled, constrained government brought to heel by an active demos.

      You don’t seem to understand – communism does not, never has and will never work.

      1. It’ll work for him – it always works for the elite, amongst which he has been cunning enough to place himself…

    3. By the poppy he’s wearing, I’m guessing he made the speech last year, soon after his mother’s death.

      1. As HM died in early September, it would be at least a month after her demise unless he was wearing a poppy for an inordinately long time (usual advent of poppy season, apart from on TV, is Nov 1st).

      1. Anne would be a better King. After all, if female thespians can be actors, why can’t a princess become King?

          1. She wouldn’t want it. After all her Royal engagements she tries to live as normal a life as possible. Being Quing she would lose that.

    1. The Left have ruined this country. The foreigners are just the remnant the rest of us are left to deal with.

  31. The Head of the UK anti terror force was spouting off today on the radio about how many young people are being radicalised. The term ‘far-right’ being thrown in to flavour the report and suggest that 20% of these cases are now instigated by the young; the implication, but no proof, that these cases are all right wing plots. The remaining 80% were merely referred to as terrorist plots. By omission, what she should have said was that most of the planned atrocities were by slammers. The right-washing goes on…

  32. We used to say:

    “It cannot be true that the US election which produced a win for the Democrats and Biden as president was rigged by the MSM, the FBI and the Democratic Party? This is a foul conspiracy theory.”

    After the incessant witch hunt by the Democrats to indict and cancel Trump and put him in prison I am finding it very hard to believe that the election was not stolen by the Democrats. If they could’ve done it why wouldn’t they have done? And if they got away with it once they are surely planning to get away with it again?

      1. In my experience of francophone men, they tend to shake hands with each other unless they are close friends or family.

  36. I received a response to my complaint…sort of…

    Dear Philip,

    Many thanks for sharing your feedback regarding the surgery.

    We are very sorry to hear the service from the practice has not met the standard you expect.

    Please see this as written confirmation your complaint has been acknowledged and passed on to our Complaints Team who will investigate your case and be in touch within twenty-eight working days from today with a formal response.

    We trust this information is helpful and believe we will deliver you an improved service in the future.

    Kind Regards,

    My bold

    1. 28 days. Gosh.. They clearly hope that you’ll be a goner by then – so the file can be closed.

      Half an hour of applied common sense would sort it out.

        1. This year?

          Seriously – I’d reply very politely thanking them and suggesting that it could be sorted rather quicker.

          2. I expect they will take longer as someone was ill/holiday. Then it will be a mealy mouthed response absolving themselves of any blame. All i wanted was an appointment made.

  37. Oxfam brands GDP ‘colonial and anti-feminist’

    Charity argues fixation on the metric leads to policies that ‘directly harm women’

    By Gabriella Swerling, SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS EDITOR • 3rd August 2023

    Oxfam has branded GDP “colonial and anti-feminist” amid calls for women’s domestic work to be valued as an economic metric. The charity added its voice to calls to move “beyond GDP” (Gross Domestic Product) – the main measure of a country’s economic growth based on the value of goods and services produced during a given period.

    Oxfam said that failing to take into account unpaid care for a child or sick adults, or domestic work such as cooking and cleaning – much of which is carried out by women – means these activities are invisible in the formal economy and not properly valued .

    As a result, it said that GDP is “anti-feminist and colonial because it sustains a framework of value creation and productivity that only counts what can be monetised”. Furthermore, their work is “ignored by official statistics”.

    The charity added: “Market relations are given precedence over family and social relations, individualism over solidarity and interdependence, rational choice over wellbeing. Women are rendered to the ‘private’ sphere and their work is invisible. At the same time, GDP has helped erase indigenous and alternative conceptions of what can and should be valued.”

    etc. etc. etc. …

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/03/oxfam-brands-gdp-colonial-and-anti-feminist

    3. I think women should be given $5 million each for their domestic slavery. Only if they are black though.

    4. Simple solution send a these people back to where they came from. They had managed to survive well enough to make the journey of mass expectation. But didn’t get what they had expected or indeed wanted, let them off the hook.

    5. There’s a grievance looking for a reason to exist. I hope they add gardening and DIY to the list.

    6. This is the same Oxfam whose “workers” were caught sexually exploiting girls in Haiti?

  38. Bonfire not co-operating. I gave it a god talking to and said I’d b back in half an hour.

      1. BUT – I remembered a tin of 20 year (otherwise unusable) diesel……

        Worked a TREAT!!!!

    4. Where are Extinction Rebellion when you need them, though on second thoughts, you’d probably have nowhere left to live if you got XR on the job. Proportionate behaviour not being their strong point.

    5. Last time I had a bonfire I was reduced to splattering that liquid they use for summer barbecues on it.

      1. Lit one with petrol once.
        Problem was, splashed petrol all over it, went to put the can away, and when I came back and applied a burning roll of newspaper, it had built up a wodge of fumes inside.
        With a Whoomp!, the bonfire, now burning merrily, was evenly distributed over the garden.
        Be careful with flammables!

    2. No chance of getting the money back but once he has confessed shoot him in the knees. Then in the stomach. Then go to lunch.

      1. I wonder when it became almost obligatory to include really fat people in adverts?

          1. That looks like one of the ads. in the Monthy Python Big Red Book…sole props. Mr. and Mrs. Ernie Scrotem.

          2. That looks like one of the ads. in the Monthy Python Big Red Book…sole props. Mr. and Mrs. Ernie Scrotem.

          3. Sadly tens of thousands found a spell inside a concentration camp resulted in extreme weight loss….

    4. The song that sprang to my mind was “jelly on a plate, jelly on a plate, wibble wobble etc.”

    1. My first thought was that it must have been a slip of the the tongue or wrongly thinking that infamous means very famous. The BBC’s apology suggests it was an inadvertent slip, but the Complaints Unit says it was inaccurate and not appropriate, but that doesn’t mean it was accidental and unknowing. The word might very well have been deliberately chosen based on someone’s personal view. Sally Nugent was probably reading from an autocue, therefore not personally responsible for the offence caused.

  42. Blasted British Airways – we flew with them on our last holiday [over an hour late both flights] and are due to fly again in September. Just had an email saying that “for operational reasons” they have had to change our seat booking. Apparently we can view the new seats in the “manage your booking ” section of their website where “the affected flight will be highlighted in red”. Snag 1 – the flight isn’t highlighted; snag 2 if you select “choose a seat” it only shows 2 rows of seats, none of which are available! The email won’t accept replies and the website suggests using Twatter – so far I’ve been waiting over 20 minutes for the bot to transfer me to one of their “very busy” agents!

    3. A friend had to spend all day sitting waiting to go to Greece a few weeks ago when they cancelled her flight at the last minute ( a morning one) and the next one wasn’t till the evening.

  43. I see the eco-trerrorists have clambered all over Fishi’s “multi-million pound” Yorksheer house and covered it in plastic.

    The reassuring news is that the perlice “are attending and engaging with the protesters”.

    Not arresting them or clubbing them to death. “Engaging…”

    1. One wonders how many genuine terrorists have seen this and are now thinking “Brighton Bomb”

    2. Isn’t plastic made from oil? It should have been something organic…like manure.

      1. nah that cant be right you cant put plastic in your car tank doh

        (I find writing without punctuation and capital letters quite difficult but my older work colleagues and I see a trend emerging among our younger colleagues, which often makes it frustratingly difficult to understand their email messages. I clearly need to perfect the art of writing garbage – no sniggering at the back there!)

        2. I certainly agree with you Sue.

          It makes reading it difficult, and certain people here are guilty of some of it. Certainly not using commas!

    4. A well maintained property looking at the images of the windows. I wonder if he pays council tax plus?

    1. “In a week that has seen roads in northern England under water, while
      those in the Med are on fire, it’s time to recognise the need for more
      funding to protect existing transport networks from runaway climate
      change. The moment has come to bring National Highway’s plans for a
      future of ever bigger roads down to earth.”

    2. 6 months to July 1st Greggs made profits of 844 million and is opening 150 new shops. Wilko should sell pies.

      1. We have a quite large store in town but I’m an infrequent shopper. I find Home Bargains more convenient. It’s next door to an Iceland Food Warehouse where I get 10% off for the over-60s on Tuesdays.

        1. I have to travel at least 13 miles to get to a Wilkos. When I was studying in Wrecsam I used to go there regularly as it was a short walk from the Institute.

    1. There have been quite a lot of suspicious looking ‘young ladies’ playing for African and Asian sides in the recent football matches.

      1. Take my four for now!

        Wordle 775 4/6

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

  50. BBC apologises after presenter brands Dambusters Raid ‘infamous’. 3 August 2023.

    The BBC has apologised for calling the Dambusters Raid “infamous”.

    Presenter Sally Nugent used the term in a BBC Breakfast segment on the 80th anniversary of the RAF 617 Squadron’s blitz on the Nazis during World War II.

    It prompted two viewers to complain to the corporation that the description breached accuracy and impartiality.

    I take no umbrage here. I assume that Ms. Nugent thought that infamous was the superlative of famous!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/03/sally-nugent-dambusters-raid-infamous-bbc-breakfast-apology/

      1. But the word might have been deliberately inserted IN the autocue by a person with a nefarious motive.

    3. What a load of pseudo
      academic dick heads.
      Do Have they no sense of shame?
      Parts of our country were completely flattened by German bombs.
      An exterme and supremest
      war against humanity.

  52. UKIP Agricultural Spokesperson Retweeted
    Joe Stanley 🇺🇦
    @JoeWStanley
    ·
    19h
    *Whisper it*

    Food sustainability is complex.

    Rice is massively water hungry, contributes to huge nitrate pollution & is responsible for 10-20% of human methane emissions (on a par with livestock).

    But we don’t see calls to stop eating rice. Just beef. Weird.

    2. Livestock farming commits three “sins” – environmental harm, climate harm and animal exploitation – rice-growing just the two. It allows you to feel both virtuous and guilty at the same time.

      1. Lots of animals are killed in arable farming, and what’s the environmental harm from a herd of cows in a meadow?
        As for climate harm, that’s a theory which has been proved to have no substance.

          1. 😉
            I was going to mention the people in the fields but thought it might go over some heads.

  53. Where’s brash and trash when you need some useless news?

    There are twelve stories about Trudeau and his beloved in todays serious newspaper.

    We don’t care, honest we don’t give a damn.

          4. Anything to do with the sexual liaison Trudeau is rumoured to have had with a minor?

    1. Clearly getting off to a head start and “for £2 on deposit he’ll sit upon the closet and write you name in finest crayon*”
      *
      There’s a green eyed Yellow idol
      On the road to Katmandu
      And a ladies a little further on
      Where for a penny on deposit
      You can sit upon the closet
      and see sights that are worth half a crown!

      1. He has had a lot of stick from wokes.
        Apparently, you are not allowed to say that a head has female features…gender being a soshull constkukt and all that.

          1. Perhaps he should say they are talking heads and they’ll say whatever they are programmed to do 🙂

    2. Isabel Oakeshott is currently Richard Tice’s squeeze. I wonder if she is growing increasingly aware of how little impact he and his Reform Party are actually having? If the Con/Lab/Lib stranglehold cannot be broken now then will it ever be?

    3. I had a missive through from County as part of my parish council duties. Shropshire is in deep financial doodoo, but apparently they can afford a whole department devoted to climate change. My advice would be to get rid. That would save a lot of money, not to mention the irritation felt when somebody in Shirehall tells me to switch lights off when I’m not in the room. That’s something I’ve been doing for years.

  56. Worldcoin is a crypto created out of thin air, whose creators have had the wizard idea of giving away a few free coins to anyone who scans their iris and gives the data to Worldcoin.
    Wonderful little data harvesting wheeze.
    Now it has been banned in Kenya – of course, in Britain, people are still free to be conned out of their private, personal data.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/406348a50466bd4fd35e19b5754423073b281df7751ff90c910d0a7b62c8be03.jpg

  57. Worldcoin is a crypto created out of thin air, whose creators have had the wizard idea of giving away a few free coins to anyone who scans their iris and gives the data to Worldcoin.
    Wonderful little data harvesting wheeze.
    Now it has been banned in Kenya – of course, in Britain, people are still free to be conned out of their private, personal data.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/406348a50466bd4fd35e19b5754423073b281df7751ff90c910d0a7b62c8be03.jpg

  58. Interesting call from coroner’s office. Wanted my husband’s middle name, was he a smoker, Yes, did he drink, Yes but not as much, and then, had he been covid vaccinated? I said no . after the first 2 jabs we said no more and neither of us has has covid.
    Post mortom early next week and they will let me know.
    God, I am tired and despite sleeping much of the time I can’t bear much more.

    2. Shock and bereavement is exhausting. You have to go with it and sleep as necessary. Also the stress hormones coursing around your system will make you feel awful too. They can take weeks to settle down. I find Bach’s Rescue Remedy helps, it may be simply that I feel I am doing something to help myself which is the main source of the effect, a crutch, but usually an hour after I have squirted the RR twice on to my tongue I realise that my mood has lifted (nothing dramatic, mind) and enabled me to get on with simple tasks for a while.

    3. Don’t bottle it up and suffer alone. Use us and your local friends. If he’d had the first jab, surely he had been covid vaccinated? A post mortem is usual in the event of a sudden death, even there is nothing suspicious about it. It will eventually get better, but it’s very tough at first.

        1. Could the painkillers that you are taking be making you more tired?

          No reason to panic, just go with the flow for now.

          1. Yes I think that is part of it. I’d take a break if it didn’t hurt so much.

          2. Unless you are driving, stopping the sweeties might be a mistake. All of this sleep might be a bonus.

        2. It’s very hard to lose a soulmate and after such a relatively short time together. Concentrate on the happiness you’ve known and console yourself that at least you had that.

    4. With your bereavement and your health situation, you are having an incredibly rough time. So much for you to deal with and get your head around. Is your son going to fly in?
      Do look after yourself, and try to get some rest. Have you tried Nytol (ask at Boots/ Superdrug pharmacy counters, own brands work the same) – I have found them useful and quite effective. Useful for getting much needed sleep when you have so much going on.

  59. She’s right. Drop Trump

    You cannot win a pointless argument. You cannot force understanding. All you can do is stop. Walk away, put on your earbuds, pick up a book, but stop arguing. Specifically, Republicans, talk about the crisis at the border, Biden officials who defy the law, the explosion of crime in Democrat-controlled cities, critical race theory, the trans madness. Talk about anything but Trump — and especially Jan. 6.
    He’s right about one thing: This isn’t about Trump. It’s about destroying the Republican Party.
    We can’t win this fight, Republicans. All you can do is walk away. Move on from Trump and let the media amuse themselves perseverating about Trump. Just stop.

    https://www.takimag.com/article/breaking-trump-still-an-idiot/

    1. If they keep Trump and Biden as candidates, one recent survey suggested a tied election in 2024. I don’t see that helping cure the divisions in the US.

      Maybe time to look at merging canada and the US then splitting into three new countries – the weirdo lefty west coast , the lefty east coast and then a sane central 3ntity.

      1. Ah but…
        There would be flight from the looneries into the sane central entity, those fleeing would continue to vote Democrat and the centre would collapse too.
        Perhaps a De Santis Kennedy ticket could cure the malaise.

        1. De Santis seems to have WEFfer friends and Kennedy is supportive of Ukraine and certain aspects of the ‘covid’ fiasco.

          1. None of them are ideal.
            It’s getting something that reduces the extreme wokery that is needed from my perspective.

        2. On balance, yes. There are problems with both DeSantis and Kennedy and for that matter, with Trump too but the perfect candidate doesn’t exist.

          1. If they can pull back on defund the police, BLM, LGBT+, child mutilation etc, etc, then I’ll put up with imperfections.

    2. Personally, I would like to see both Trump and Biden removed from their political parties, including Harris…..we need new blood…it’s all so depressing…

      1. I agree

        I had a theory that the plan was for Biden to retire on health grounds after two and a bit years so that they could have their first female President as a black woman, who would get around 10 years in the White House pushing a woker than woke agenda.
        Then they discovered what an absolute complete and utter waste of space she was, so have abandoned that route.

      2. There’s a whole pack of aged politicians in both houses that should be put out to grass so that they can enjoy their last years.

        I might be reluctant to go for youthful leaders that appeal to the voters, look what we have been stuck with in Canada. You could end up with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

      1. Putting them on a moral par is already denigrating those fighting against the criminal Biden regime. It’s the mafia in the White House that’s shaming the US, not their opponents.

  60. China has made its first strike on the West. 3 August 2023.

    Before it’s too late, not only America but all of its Western allies and partners must grasp that the Chinese Communist Party – and not the unfortunate citizens it rules over – looks like an enemy and acts like an enemy because it is our enemy. Will it take catastrophic cyber attacks on our civil critical infrastructure and our militaries being brought to their knees before a shot is fired for our politicians to wake up?

    BELOW THE LINE.

    Adam Anonymous.

    What, exactly, is left to save?

    No, seriously. Can you define what I’m supposed to defend? A ponzi debt scam called an “economy”? Open borders, underprivileged rapists, white guilt indoctrination, French cities on fire, censorship, rainbow flags and drag queen story hour?

    At this point, why should I give a damn if China or Islam inherits the earth.

    Mr A.A. has a point.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/03/china-has-made-its-first-strike-on-the-west/

    1. At least if China inherits they will do something about murderous Islam. Also, it’s not as if we would be under any extra control or surveillance.
      Learn Mandarin !

        1. China is also discussing limiting to two hours use on smart phones for teenagers and no connection after 10pm til 6am. Sounds sensible to me. Just imagine the uproar from libtard lefties here.

          Added bonus if they were to do it here would be to put a crimp into the activities of county lines drug sellers. Though Michael Gove might be disappointed.

          1. It is sensible, but should be implemented by parents. Their power seems to have been usurped by the state in China.

            China is a template for how the elites want to put us into slavery.

          2. The state has been usurping the power of parents here and for some time. Its aim is to control people from cradle to grave – the family, particularly the nuclear family, gets in the way.

          3. I think parenting has taken a turn for the worse among quite a lot of indigenous Brits.

      1. I’ve never been keen on that song. It smacks of forced jollity. Not one of his best, to say the least.

        1. I liked it when I was a nipper but I couldn’t work out the lyrics. “Those days of soda and pretzels and beer”, means nothing on this side of the Atlantic.

  63. Calling all Canadian NoTTLers. (That’s you, Richard).

    What’s the real gos about Trudope???

    1. His girlfriend gave birth to a monkey, which turned out to be more intelligent than its father.

      1. His boyfriend gave birth to a monkey, which turned out to be more intelligent than its father.

          1. I know – I set these things up for you. I posted them this morning. Such DARLING photographs of such DEAR DEAR friends.

          2. “Different to” is very acceptable. Again, H.W.Fowler, the guru (and many other authorities on English usage), says so. Only the vapid Americanism, “Different than”, raises the hackles of everyone, including many Americans.

          4. Sir Ernest Gowers, p.220, The Complete Plain Words: “There is good authority for different to, but different from is today the established usage. Different than is not unknown even in The Times:

            The air of the suburb has quite a different smell and feel at eleven o’clock in the morning than it has at the hours when the daily toiler is accustomed to take a few hurried sniffs of it.

            But this is condemned by the grammarians, who would say that than in this example should have been from what. Different than is, however, common in America.

            Bill Bryson adds (p.60, The Dictionary of Troublesome Words): “There is a continuing belief among some writers and editors that different may be followed only by from. At least since 1906, when the Fowler brothers raised the issue in The KIng’s English, many authorities have been pointing out that there is no real basis for this belief, but still it persists.

            Different from is, to be sure, the usual form in most sentences and the only acceptable form in some, as when it precedes a noun or pronoun (‘My car is different from his’, Men are different from women’). But when different introduces a clause, there can be no valid objection to following it with a to (though this usage is chiefly British).”

    3. How the hell would we know. The press here is completely in hock to the Liberals after a six hundred million dollar payoff (sorry, media investment) and the latest row over facebook paying for news sources only increases their revenue.

      Two rumours.

      One is that he’s gay and the other is that he is screwing Minister of Foreign Affairs, Melanie Jolie.

        1. Trudeau did show up at a press outing a few days ago with a big plaster right in the middle of his forehead, maybe Sophie clonked him one.

      2. Unfortunately, my son has been ‘brainwashed’ by his wife and in-laws into thinking Turdeau is the best thing since sliced bread. I’m ashamed of his political views.

        1. We know a few like that Trudeau can do no wrong, anything he does is excused.

          Question Chinese election interference or invoking the Emergencies Act during the Freedom convoy and you are just repeating the divisive conservative attack. There is absolutely no talking to them.

          The latest is immigration. With Trudeau inviting in 500,000 immigrants every year, the infrastructure is completely overwhelmed but if you dare to suggest that immigration is put on hold until there is adequate housing, education and medical care then you become a bigoted right wing extremist.

  64. Par Four today.

    Wordle 775 4/6
    ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
    🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. And me.

      Wordle 775 4/6

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

    3. Bogey here.
      Wordle 775 5/6

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

  65. That’s me for today. Bonfire took MUCH longer than expected or hoped. Still chuntering on. Will burn all night – I hope – and then we can finish it tomorrow. After I have been to nurse – yet again – 16 weeks…. Still I think this really will be the last visit.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

    1. I always have to play Vobes’ videos at 1.5 speed, but he does come up with interesting stuff sometimes.

  67. I’m going to have a drink even though the Doctor said not to. If it means i end up dancing on the table, ripping off my shirt and flashing my freckley bangers so be it. Good night.

  68. Greenpeace invasion of PM Sunak’s residence.

    They should have been apprehended immediately upon entry to the property.

    Failing that, IMHO, once they started climbing to the roof, they should have been shot dead as potential assassins.

  69. Evening, all. Mirabile dictu, it has not rained heavily here today! Just a few large drops while I was walking Kadi. They didn’t develop into anything, so I was able to do some work in the garden with the aid of a friend and his chainsaw. The tree that came down while I was away has given one of my apple trees a serious list. As for the headline, as has been proved, the way to tackle ALL crime and get it under control is zero tolerance. Quite the opposite from what the incompetents nominally in charge are doing.

    1. Been dry here too!
      Though the load of washing I got hung out failed to completely dry.

    2. We’d just got the gazebo up and the stock under cover when the heavens opened about 4pm. Torrential downpour which lasted about 20 minutes and turned the ground into a quagmire, and it was already fairly muddy. At home, about five miles away, there was nothing.

        1. Tomorrow might be somewhat wet! It was dry today and fairly quiet so we had time to watch a bit of the dressage. We had to rejig the tables to get the sides back on the gazebo and we might have to keep them up tomorrow.

  71. What the government apparently thinks the major risks are:
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12368301/The-89-biggest-threats-life-Britain-pandemic-Russian-disruption-oil-supplies-Artificial-Intelligence-volcanic-ash-clouds-governments-National-Risk-Register-revealed.html

    Number three under “Societal” is “Reception and Integration of British nationals arriving from overseas.”

    Why would large numbers of Britons suddenly flood back to the UK? Doesn’t seem to make any sense to me.

      1. And those rocking up on the South Coast, demanding board & lodging. Surely they are all British too?

      2. That’s what I was wondering. Or perhaps the civil serpents see the whole world as future British citizens…

        1. Oh to be younger and have a choice of destinations, at our age we are pretty much stuck here or here.

          1. I sometimes wonder if my son ever feels some aspects of life would be better back here. Annual leave for one, the harshest parts of winter too.

    3. What about including, under “conflict and instability” the daily invasion by hundreds of undocumented, illegal, alien and uncivilised parasites?

        2. Nothing civil about them. I think the term ‘snivel serpents’ was coined by a Nottler.

    5. The biggest dangers are the endless daily invasion of hundreds of dangerous parasites and the net zero nonsense.

  72. From the DT letter about the atom bomb development:
    “It was a British discovery in March 1940 (by Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls in a basement at Birmingham University) that it should be possible to produce a pineapple-sized core that meant delivery by an aircraft became viable.” – ironic, the names and “British”, no?

        1. The Late Molly Owen, mother of David Owen had a King Charles Spaniel which she called Oliver……

    2. It was discovered in Britain and they were probably naturalised. Unlike today’s “British” they were probably on our side as well.

    3. “It was a discovery in Britain in March 1940…”
      To be fair, Sir Rudolph Peierls came to live permanently in Britain when he was in his mid-twenties. Otto Frisch was working in Britain from 1933 to 1943, and returned from the USA in 1946 and lived in the UK for the rest of his life. He was granted British citizenship in 1943, in order to be able to work at Los Alamos.
      Frisch’s aunt was Lise Meitner, who eventually escaped from nasty Germany and was able to settle, albeit somewhat unhappily at first, in Sweden.

  73. UK warns ’25 per cent’ chance of ‘catastrophic’ pandemic that would claim nearly a million lives in Britain

    https://www.gbnews.com/news/pandemic-news-catastrophic-coronavirus

    That’s the headline. Then you read the text to discover it’s a highly unlikely outcome. Who is scaremongering here: the government or GB News? The government report quotes a range of 5% – 25% over a five year period. To put it another way, a range of 1% – 5% in any one year. Then the worst case scenario quotes 840,000 deaths. Is that really nearly a million? If I were 84 years old, I wouldn’t say I’m nearly 100. I thought GB News would not be the kind of news service given to alarmism. Yet another disappointment.

    1. Are you sure about the 5-25 in 5 years converting to 1-5 in a year?
      I would look at it as being between 5 and 25 every year. It could, and probably will be nil.

    5. A 25% chance of a catastrophic pandemic over a five year period is exaggeration in the realms of Neil Ferguson.
      I think the headline is warranted, because the prediction is wild.
      We’ve all lived through a great number of five year periods without catastrophic pandemics in Britain.

      1. But the next one is being organised by Bill Gates and his gain of function laboratories. He will pick the date and inform WHO to declare a universal panjamdemic.

    6. And of course my cardiologist stressed that having AFib resulted in a 2% per year risk of having a stroke. I am not overly worried about that risk, it seems this pandemic is the same order of magnitude. (and I certainly didn’t worry about the covid one…).

      1. Water is filthy muck, I seldom consume it in its natural state.
        Passed by inspectors, fish copulate and crap in it, animals swim in it, it full of strange chemicals to make it healthy, what’s to like?

          1. Odd one that, I get the impression that most wildfowl water birds shit on the shore.

            Over fliers, on the other hand…

          2. Got to keep the ring closed, I expect, or they’d fill up with water and sink!

        2. Luckily our water tastes so bad over here that it is undrinkable.

          Oh for last year when we lived in the country and got our water from a well

          1. Firstborn’s (untreated) water comes from a well. Colder than a witch’s t!t, and beautifully flavoured, no swimming pool flavour at all. Tested, and biologically inert.

        3. I was taught that matter can neither be created nor destroyed in which case everything we eat and drink has been through millions of bodies, of all sorts, in the last 4.6 billion years.
          Pleasant thought isn’t it.

          1. There’s a saying that everyone alive has breathed in molecules of oxygen that Julius Caesar* also breathed.

            *Insert ancient historical figure of choice

            n.b. Its energy that can be neither created nor destroyed

    2. Few people know that drinking too much water, and particularly too quickly, can kill you.

        1. I was told by a Doctor i needed to drink 3 liters of water a day because of Polycythemia.

          Since that time after numerous blood tests i have been hospitalised on a drip for 48 hours for having dangerously low levels of potassium. I am now on vit b compound 3 times a day and zinc, magnesium and iron supplements.

      3. You beat me to it! I was just about to say that, we are warned about drinking too much bottled water, too quickly during heat of the day.

      4. I was taught to increase consumption of sea-salt in hot climates – and occasional home heatwaves!

      1. Or wine, Aeneas; that would be my preference these days!

        In my youth, 8 pints of Guinness on a Saturday night was no problem!

        1. Aged 18 and working as a farm labourer, I once had 20 pints on a Saturday night – Gales Ales. Then up at six to get back to the harvest. No hangover.
          I can’t even think about it now without feeling queasy. 🙁

        2. “Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities” (1 Tim 5:23).

          “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy”.

    5. It must be more than 20 years ago that I read of a case of a young man in Britain who died this way. He had been advised that drinking water before going to bed after a big night out would prevent a bad hangover. He drank so much that he killed himself.

    7. I don’t believe this story. There are things we’re not being told.
      When I had an ultrasound scan of the uterus, I was told to drink 1.5 litres of water beforehand. I did. In one go, not over 20 minutes. It had no ill effect whatsoever. Just meant that as soon as the scan was finished, I was desperate for the loo!

      1. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
        Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
        All the Kings horses and all the Kings men
        said “F*ck him he’s only an egg”

    4. 2 eggs boiling in the pan. One says to the other ” blimey its rough in here”. The other replys ” thats nothing ,just wait till they take you out, they smash your head open.

      1. Two sausages in the frying pan. One says ‘Getting a bit hot, isn’t it?’
        The other one says ‘F*ck me. A talking sausage.’

    1. That is happening right now. Farage exposed a part of it. I wonder how long before people wake up.

      1. He certainly did. But we have not yet been offered euthanasia to er, ‘solve’ our problems.

        New puppy has just knocked over poppiesdad’s glass of red wine….. all over the floor…. the second in two weeks – thank heavens for Vanish.

        1. They are adorable aren’t they. For a guest to keep doing that they would be consigned to the dog house !

          1. No, it had soaked into the carpet, he was more interested in the vast swathes of kitchen roll mopping it back from the carpet…. then the Vanish being squirted…. and then that being mopped up. There is no sign of the stain now, and there was rather a lot of it, a large middle blob and then splashes heading to all points of the compass!

      2. Several hunts have woken up – they have been banned from taking card payments at fund-raising and/or charity events because they are on the proscribed list.

  77. “A 19-year-old trans-identified male broke down in tears after a Guernsey Royal Court jury unanimously found him guilty of rape on July 28. Despite the serious crime, Freddie Christian Trenchard, also known as Alyssa Christine Trenchard, was released on bail pending sentencing.

    Trenchard, who was born male but identifies as a “trans femme,” was first reported to police in February of last year, though the crime occurred in the summer of 2021.

    The assault is said to have been committed after Trenchard invited the victim to his home in the small island community.

    Despite testimony from the victim in which she details crying throughout the attack and screaming “no,” Trenchard’s defense argued that no intercourse occurred and even accused the victim of being motivated by transphobia.

    Trenchard was released into the community until sentencing, which will take place at a yet-unspecified date later this year.

    A representative for Guernsey Women’s Rights Network (WRN) who attended the court proceedings told Reduxx that the sexual attack was described by legal professionals as having been committed by a “transgender female” with “her penis.”

    Jane Roper explained how Trenchard was referred to with feminine pronouns and the honorific term “miss,” even on occasions where the crime was being referenced. Roper said it was “bizarre” to hear statements such as, “Miss Trenchard then penetrated [the complainant] with her penis,” and, “Miss Trenchard then ejaculated on [the complainant’s] back.”

    No one apparently bothered to re-educate Jane Roper on the modern gender ideology that governs our Brave New World before she made such disgusting and hateful observations. Women absolutely have penises too, as explained by Newsweek via a thinkpiece titled “Why a Woman Can Have a Penis: Gender Identity Myths Explained”:

    ???????

    2. Why are so many men who trans whilst keeping their penis rapists?

      Answers on a postage stamp.

    3. Maybe the community will administer the necessary punishment, thus saving the Court and the States money. I hope.

    4. Before any trans woman can be called any sort of woman it must have a willysectomy. Once a man says that it is a woman it should use the pronoun it and only when it has no penis should anyone refer to it as a she.

  79. It’s not rained here for 20 minutes so I’m expecting a hosepipe ban at any moment…

  80. Just looked at the cost of 4 seats from Oslo to Newquay for MiL’s birthday in October. We’re four, and the prices range from a little over £100 each return, to £4,500 each! And an overnight! Via London, Amsterdam, Belfast.
    Didn’t intend to buy the airline… gee.

    1. A word of advice. They use algorithms that notice you are visiting their site. Better to use a VPN otherwise you will find the price increases.

        1. In booking tickets for flights or accommodation i would change the geographical location of the VPN each time also.

      1. There used to be one from Gothernberg (Goteborg) to Newcastle and it called at Christiansand en route.

          1. Could be Welsh, look you. It means star. It is a female name. One of my Welsh-speaking friends named her dog (bitch) Seren.

          2. “Prominence 912 m (2,992 ft)
            Ranked 13th in British Isles”
            It ain’t true though, is it?

    2. It could be made a bit higher with some scafellding.
      “Don’t tell ’em Pike!”

    3. Nul points for working out how the writer deduced that Scafell Pike was the third highest peak in the UK…

  85. A dry day with a load taken to the tip, a bit of shopping done and a couple of hours bramble pulling.
    Now I’m off for a bath then bed.

  89. Going to take a little morphine before bed. As before, the prescribed pills have upset my stomach- with obvious results- enough. Been to bed a lot today but not really slept so going to try again.

  90. Here is a (there’s more than one) solution to the puzzle I posted earlier


     1 1 1    = (1 + 1 + 1)!       = 3!    = 3 x 2 x 1  = 6

    2 2 2       = 2 + 2  + 2           = 6

    3 3 3       = (3×3) – 3        = 9  – 3   = 6

    4 4 4         = √4 + √4 + √4    = 2 + 2 + 2 = 6                 

    5 5 5       = 5 + (5/5)       = 5 + 1  = 6

    6 6 6       = 6 / (6/6)       = 6 / 1      = 6                         

    7 7 7      = 7 – (7/7)     =7 – 1     = 6                                                        

    8 8 8    = (√(8+8/8))!  = (√(8 +1)!  = √(9)!   = 3!   = 3 x 2 x 1            = 6

    99 9   = (√9 x √9) – √9    = (3 x 3) – 3    = 9 -3    = 6

    10 10 10              = (√(10 – 10/10))!            = (√ (10 – 1))!     = (√9)!  = 3!        = 3 x 2 x 1            = 6

    2. Hi Stormy. Please can you explain 888 = 6, I don’t understand that one.
      ETA: Am not familiar with the ! Symbol.

      1. The I is the symbol for ‘factorial’ which means multiplying a number by all the numbers down to 1
        E.g 5! = 5x4x3x2x1

      2. 8 8 8    = (√(8+8/8))!  = (√(8 +1)!  = √(9)!   = 3!   = 3 x 2 x 1            = 6

        I thought 8 was the hardest. I could see in my mind how it should work but took ages to work out hw to write it down. The key is getting the brackets in the right place.

    3. Hi Stormy. Please can you explain 888 = 6, I don’t understand that one.
      ETA: Am not familiar with the ! Symbol.

    1. 375111+ up ticks,

      Morning O,

      Overriding it ALL is the simple fact that the
      People have the untapped POWER, but power without unity is power – less.

    2. First they came for Tommy Robinson…
      And I said nothing because the media had assured me that he is a crook and an islamophobe.
      Then they came for the Truckers’ Convoy
      And I said nothing because it was all an awfully long way away.
      Then they came for someone living in my road
      And I knew nothing because he felt guilty, because debanking only happens to extremists like Tommy Robinson.
      Then they came for Nigel Farage.
      And he kicked up an almighty stink and refused to be shamed.
      But by then it was almost too late.

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