Tuesday 15 August: Apocalyptic climate predictions do nothing to engage the public

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

468 thoughts on “Tuesday 15 August: Apocalyptic climate predictions do nothing to engage the public”

  4. G’morning all,

    Sunny over the McPhee’s. Nice day in prospect. Wind West-Sou’-West, 11℃ rising to 21℃. Up early to go to Chichester to do a little work in daughter’s new house.

    Serious point of the morning. Be in no doubt that the war in Ukraine was made by the so-called Neo-Cons in Washington DC. RFK Jnr gives the story to Tucker Carlson exposing Zbignieuw Brzinzski as the progentitor of antagonism against Russia since 1992 backed up by Kagan, Wolfowitz , Nuland et al. George H W Bush and James Baker promised Gorbachev that NATO would not move one inch further East after German re-unification. The Clinton administration undid that.

    It’s 1 hour 22 minutes but very much worth it. It starts with RFK talking about why he has no Secret Service security. The Ukraine story starts at 12:40.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN5A6lhjV0c&t=1567s

    The US Military-Industrial Complex which is profitting hugely from the war is owned by Blackrock, Vanguard and Statestreet which are deeply involved with the WEF. Well, what a surprise.

  5. Watch: robber gang armed with bear spray ransack California department store. 14 August 2023.

    Dozens of masked thieves used bear spray to take down security guards before stealing around $100,000 (£78,800) worth of goods from a department store in California.

    A gang of between 30 and 50 people descended on Nordstrom, a high-end clothing store, at the Westfield Topanga Mall in Woodland Hills, near Los Angeles.

    They used bear spray to incapacitate security guards before they made off with handbags and designer clothing, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

    I would put a few quid on something of this scale happening in the UK within a year.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/08/14/california-robbery-flash-mob-topanga-nordstrom-los-angeles/

        1. More than fifty Brands have already shut up shop completely in San Francisco. More to follow. Left wing ideology is the cause. Already happening here and it will only get worse.

    3. That exactly fits the picture seeded in the minds of most honest and sensible people.

    4. That is the second mob robbery in a week, the first ended up with twice the value of goods being stolen.

      1. Watching a programme on BBC 4 last night which featured the violence during the partition of India I commented to SWMBO “that’s why we don’t want them here”. Critical of my attitude to the musk-rats as she has been, I could see a penny beginning to drop.

    2. It’s a cultural issue. We shouldn’t interfere. The rape and murder of young girls is perfectly natural and to avoid cultural sensitivities we should all look the other way.

      1. Obviously the Police did look the other way until after all the suspects left the country.

        You will also notice that they have been determined not to reveal the names of the suspects unlike

        any British suspect who is always promptly named by the Police.

        1. The Police and Courts are complicit in the death and rape of young girls in this country.

          They said an international manhunt had been launched where what they should have said was they knew exactly where the men had fled to…Pakistan.

  8. Banning the AfD would be a brutal assault on democracy. Spiked. 15 August 2023.

    This is one reason why the elites’ anti-democratic machinations have only increased support for the AfD. They confirm that the established parties would rather silence populist voters than engage with their concerns.

    All of this recalls Bertolt Brecht’s 1953 satirical poem, ‘The Solution’ (Die Lösung). With ‘the people’ having lost the confidence of the government, Brecht poses the question: ‘Would it not be easier… for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?’

    The elites say they are defending democracy. But their aim is to put troublesome voters back in their box. Make no mistake, the real threat to German democracy comes not from the populist right, but from an increasingly authoritarian establishment.

    Ditto the UK where the Elites have legislated oppression into the system.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/08/14/banning-the-afd-would-be-a-brutal-assault-on-democracy/

    1. ‘Would it not be easier… for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?’ One man’s satire is another man’s blueprint.

  10. Apocalyptic climate predictions do nothing to engage the public

    Only the mask wearers take any notice

    1. I have this inkling for a fantasy novel to be published in 2033, when C.S.Lewis comes out of copyright.

      ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’ which then led to the seven Chronicles of Narnia were inspired by the author’s biblical studies, and his desires to make the message therein in a form that might appeal to children. The last of these ‘The Last Battle’ came out in the year I was born.

      What interests me gives rise to the question – what happens after the Apocalypse? In both the Revelation to St John and ‘The Last Battle’ the authors duck the question with a ‘happy ever after’ copout. This is not good enough. Postmodernists like me want to know, since we may well have to deal with life after the Apocalypse, or the generation of our collective grandchildren might, and both tomes are after all addressed at children.

      It is all very well pointing our cameras at the ruins of the ancient capital of Hawaii and blame it on climate change, but their concerns are no longer with preventing the disaster, but with reconstructing something worthwhile out of the ashes.

      We may stay awake at night worrying what might happen if an anticyclone hung over Europe for months or even years, combining a long drought, a heatwave, and careless oiks with matches and self-combusting motorcars, but more to the point is what do we do about it afterwards.

      2. sosraboc, as far as we remember, Sir Tim Barrow was given a knighthood for being a dedicated Remainer.

        We suspect that he wasn’t pushing very hard for Britain’s best interests.

    3. “It only serves to illustrate how deeply the Stonewall protection racket has penetrated the health service. As many as 30 NHS trusts are signed up to its extreme version of trans rights.”

      More public money down the drain in their crazy and insidious ‘pronoun’ rubbish. If I’m gasping my last they can call me whatever they like and not waste time asking me to choose…

  12. People are stabbed in London every day, for all sorts of reasons,
    How come when two homosexuals are stabbed there is public outrage, its a funny old world.
    They call it a hate crime.
    I cannot think what the call a normal everyday stabbing.

    1. The whole concept of “hate crime” should be removed from law, which should be about people’s actions, not their thoughts. If I’m stabbed, I don’t particularly care about the motives of the stabber.

      1. If you examine the etymology of the word ‘paedophilia’, you might discover that in a modern context it is a love crime and considered far more heinous than anything mere hate might produce.

      2. John Paul Sartre was preoccupied by the existentialist idea that the consequence of an unintended action was morally insignificant but an intended action which did not have any consequences was morally accountable.

        Caroline has studied the likes of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus and can speak rather more coherently on the subject than I can. However the Monty Python Team look perceptively into the question of individual freedom

        https://www.google.com/search?q=Monty+Python+Jean+Paul+Sartre+sketch&oq=Monty+Python+Jean+Paul+Sartre+sketch&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCTE4NzcxajBqN6gCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:aebe3801,vid:l2KmnZSnqIs

        2. Jesus already addressed this question with regard to adultery…
          Sartre of course was an intellectual tosseur – victims of stabbings would probably beg to differ!

      3. The fact that ‘hate crime’ exists is more than sufficient evidence to clearly show that the Thought Police also exist.

    3. The BBC has a dedicated alphabet-people reporter. The first time I heard of it was after these stabbings.

      Meanwhile, the Khan creature has vowed to “…stamp out hate crime. It’s also a tragic reminder of why we need Pride”. That’ll lose him a lot of votes in some parts The Lost City. I expect he’s glad that Woking’s not on his patch.

      https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/two-brewers-clapham-gay-bar-stabbing-attack-police-b1100524.html

  13. Dear BBC,

    Stop gloating!

    President Trump is innocent unless subsequently found guilty by a Jury of his peers in a proper court of law.

    2. Guilt is an existential state. In a criminal court of law, we presume innocence unless and until guilt is proved beyond reasonable doubt. In a civil court, the burden of proof is the balance of probabilities. In the court of public opinion, we are free to presume or suspect whatever we please. None of us here assembled is likely to be called for jury service in respect of any of the Trump’s forthcoming trials.

        1. Imagine that you commit a crime, unlikely as that may be. A smart lawyer gets you off. Innocent in the eyes of the law, but guilty nevertheless. I say as much, you sue me, the burden of proof being lighter in civil courts, I win. (Ask O J Simpson.)

      2. Being found Not Guilty doe not mean you’re innocent. It may mean the evidence was not strong enough to convict.
        I was the usher in a youth trial about 15 years or co ago. The youth was found not guilty as the evidence was weak. As he was leaving the courtroom the Chairman of the Bench called him back and said “don’t do it again”.

        1. I got called for Jury service last year despite being over the age – I had to write to them to ask to be excused. You’d think they’d check before choosing you

    3. Innocent of what? There cannot be a politician successfully elected anywhere that has not conned the public.

      1. Trumped up charges of course…. a follow up to the Russia Hoax and politically motivated articles of impeachment….

    4. They are presumably throwing as many indictments as they can at him, in the hope that they will manage to get a judge bent enough to get one through, and bar him from standing as President.
      Plus of course, they are driving Hunter Biden, the Federal Reserve buying 40% of new US debt with freshly printed money and the BRICS summit off the front pages.

      1. The appalling judgement in the recent civil case Andy Ngo took against the Anti-Fa who beat him up snd left him brain-damaged shows that US justice is dead in the water. The lawyers are corrupt and the judges too.

    5. HA! HA! HA!
      So sweet and old-fashioned you are. The verdict is given before any evidence is heard – didn’t you get the memo?

  14. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Yesterday we visited daughter and family in Southampton. Lovely to see them all but the ghastly weather took the edge off it, bearing in mind that Janus Towers was bathed all day in glorious sunshine during our absence. The spray on the M27 had to be seen to be believed. I marvel at the eyesight of some drivers, who were happy to whizz past us, sans lights (and any sense).

    Today we are promised full sunshine and 20°C here on this part of yer sarf coast. We shall be lunching inland with friends, but only after a visit to their local pond with the aim of finally getting our 11-month old pup to do what should come naturally to Labs (apart from eating) – and that is swimming. Our previous three were all strong and confident in the water and now it’s the turn of No4. Fortunately our friends have an older Lab who swims there every day, so we are hoping that this will inspire her to get in and enjoy the fun!

    1. You are not alone – I am always astonished by the super-human powers of such drivers in fog and spray too!

    2. Motorway driving is an absolute pain , thank goodness we haven’t ventured very far for a few years , even our local touristy roads are busy and a nightmare sometimes .

      Hope your pup enjoyed her swim.

      We had a showery warm and sunny day yesterday, and were very busy .

      Moh’s golf was cancelled because of the supposed AMBER weather warning that never happened .

      We loaded the mower into the car , and he took it to the garden mower repair people , then later went to Dorchester to buy a bedroom chest of drawers ( pine ) from a wonderful 2nd hand emporium , had another browse around for cars , came home at lunchtime , put some washing into the washer and a few hours later it was nearly dry on the line

    3. Sounds great except for the awful drive. Many on our roads now are only drivers, not motorists. There’s a lot difference.
      Since we had to say goodbye to our lovely Lab on the 1st of April it’s left quite a noticeably gap in our lives.
      We live near a river and it was difficult to get her out of it sometimes.
      Enjoy.

      1. Sorry to hear that, Eddy. I’m sure all dog owners will share your pain at the loss of a faithful friend.

        1. A lovely animal. She knew when I wasn’t feeling well and came and put her head on my lap. A true friend.

      2. I’m convinced many of the drivers have a) never read the Highway Code and b) have probably not passed a UK test. Losing a dog leaves a big hole in one’s life. It was two years in April that I lost Charlie and I still miss him, despite having acquired two more.

  15. Good morning, all. Blue sky all around at the moment with a forecast of sunny intervals for later.

    The Climate Change fraudsters are banging on about cattle, sheep, humans etc. all of which they want to cull – Greta what’s her name, needs to be careful what she wishes for – but turn their gaze away from real events and the science that explains the events and the post-event outcomes. Their determination to ignore the natural world should be their undoing but does anyone remember reading/hearing about this natural event back in 2022?

    Tonga Eruption Blasted Unprecedented Amount of Water Into Stratosphere

    As a greenhouse gas water vapour puts carbon dioxide into the shade.

    “Water vapor accounts for about 97 percent of the total (natural plus man-emitted) greenhouse warming of the planet.

    (Google)

    There is speculation that carbon dioxide causes the warming that then increases the level of water vapour… …Then there’s the Tonga eruption.

    “We’ve never seen anything like it,” said Luis Millán, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. He led a new study examining the amount of water vapor that the Tonga volcano injected into the stratosphere, the layer of the atmosphere between about 8 and 33 miles (12 and 53 kilometers) above Earth’s surface.
    In the study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, Millán and his colleagues estimate that the Tonga eruption sent around 146 teragrams (1 teragram equals a trillion grams) of water vapor into Earth’s stratosphere – equal to 10% of the water already present in that atmospheric layer. That’s nearly four times the amount of water vapor that scientists estimate the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines lofted into the stratosphere.

    Short NASA report and looping video of the underwater explosion at:

    NASA – Tonga Eruption

    Oh, and to add to our woes, Mount Etna has erupted. Perhaps John Kerry, Biden’s ‘Climate Tsar’, would care to comment?

    https://twitter.com/JamesMelville/status/1691203801040949248

      1. Send kaht across to put it in order, perhaps he’ll fall into the crater.
        Or at leat choke.

  16. Russia using bombers to convince West war is slipping out of control. 15 August 2023.

    A series of interceptions of Russian jets near NATO airspace may be an attempt to make the West nervous about supporting Ukraine, a defence analyst has said.

    Military analyst Professor Michael Clarke told Sky News that Russia wanted.

    Ukraine’s allies to think the war is “slipping out of control” when it flew planes north of Scotland and in international airspace the Netherlands is responsible for on behalf of NATO.

    But the RAF’s Typhoons that intercepted Russian bombers this morning also had a message: there is “no way through NATO airspace”.

    Well for a start they are not jets and they are very nearly as old as me. In any conflict they wouldn’t last five minutes. It’s quite obvious the Russians fly them to calculate response times and the locations of radar sites. This sudden lust for publicity over something that has taken place with monotonous regularity for nearly sixty years speaks more to the UK’s nervousness than Russia. Judging by the MSM coverage the PTB sense that they are losing the propaganda war for Ukraine.

    https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-russia-war-latest-possible-reason-putin-is-letting-wagner-boss-sit-easy-attacks-near-nato-border-worrying-putin-to-visit-china-12541713

    1. “in international airspace” So not actually breaking any international agreements? It’s the same when Russian ships transit teh English Channel – this is not news, and as has been pointed out such actions are routine and have been going on for years!

    1. Such an upsetting start to the day.
      Same old story behind so much hate and death and the abuse of young girls. Presumably the grossly distorted Islamic mindset.
      But our media seems to be extremely reluctant to tell us anything about it.

    3. Good morning, ogga

      I posted a link above to the DT story before seeing your post.

      What warped idea of honour do the perverted people have whose concept of honour is to slay an innocent child?

      I am beginning to think that Britain is so lost as to be far beyond redemption. We are too near apocalypse – we are at the edge of Niagra without even a barrel.

      Kent: Is this the promised end?
      Albany: Or image of that horrow?

      [King Lear]

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cf8f93207274a0f4c88d541f3f40a1be91a21a8033cc6dc2abbf7fed917494f6.png

    4. Good morning, ogga

      I posted a link above to the DT story before seeing your post.

      What warped idea of honour do the perverted people have whose concept of honour is to slay an innocent child?

      I am beginning to think that Britain is so lost as to be far beyond redemption. We are too near apocalypse – we are at the edge of Niagra without even a barrel.

      Kent: Is this the promised end?
      Albany: Or image of that horrow?

      [King Lear]

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cf8f93207274a0f4c88d541f3f40a1be91a21a8033cc6dc2abbf7fed917494f6.png

    5. That almost looks like a doll’s face and she is wearing make up too. Obviously a death sentence at the age of 10.

      1. Make-up, big earrings and non-islamic dress. All enough to earn her punishment.
        The question must be asked, why did the father’s family get custody? Was the system scared of being called “islamophobic”, or was the case heard by a sharia court, as anneallan suspected?
        What’s the betting these awkward questions won’t be asked?

    6. Why is this pretty 10 year old child wearing make up? Was this a betrothal photo where she was given to a much older man?

  18. Last night I made comment about drinking in a pub formerly called The Antonine, but now called The Lion and Star, indicating I didn’t know the reason for the name. I remembered as I was going to bed. Until the mid 1980s Kirkintilloch had up to four iron foundries and these were the last two. The Lion Foundry was one of five foundries that made the old red telephone boxes. There is a plaque at the bottom f the back of each one station which foundry made it.The others were Carron, Saracen, McDowall Steven and Bratt Colbran.

    1. We have a stove in the dining room which was from Smith & Wellstood, the foundry on the canal in Bonnybridge. The man who lived here at the end of the 1800’s worked there, and the lane we live on is named after him.

  19. Morning all 🙂😊
    Apocalyptic conditions right at this very moment, not a cloud in the sky.

  20. Sara Sharif, 10, described as ‘beautiful’ and ‘amazing’ after being found dead in Woking
    Mother Olga Sharif paid tribute to her daughter as police launch murder investigation
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/14/woking-murder-inquiry-girl-found-dead-alone-surrey-police/

    It seems that this was a so-called honour killing. Though the DT is happy to mention the child’s Polish heritage on the distaff side they do not mention the fact that the three men suspected of the killing have already left the country and have probably gone to Pakistan.

    Britain and its traditional values are being systematically destroyed and rather than addressing this the PTB are more than happy for it to occur.

    1. The father (presumably one of the killers) was a “lovely man, always with a friendly word – well-known and respected taxi driver”… etc etc etc

    2. Good morning Richard ,

      There seems to be a murder everyday now . I spoke to my younger sister who has lived in SA for nearly 60 years , she keeps up with current affairs in the UK , and even she is shocked by the deterioration of everyday life here .

      Last year she visited the UK , stayed with us and other relatives in North Yorks.

      Our parents used to own a house in Walton on Thames , so when we weren’t in Africa we were there for leave periods etc , or me at B/school , blah blah .

      London was a different place then .

      My sister stayed with SA friends in London and she visited all the usual tourist spots .. including Westminster Abbey , she was a little girl at B/school when her year lined the route near the Abbey for the funeral of dear Sir Winston Churchill .

      Anyway , poor Laura was shocked last year to see the filthy state of London , and she was the only white tourist amongst many other foreign nationalities who were traipsing around the Abbey , that she burst into tears , and was consoled by one of the tourist guides .

      She was shocked at her reaction , because like her, we remember a different time , when Britain was safe , friendly and reliable ,or was that a childish illusion?

      1. Not an illusion. When I was a child we never locked our back door and there was never any problem. Our neighbours (white, English) looked out for us and we for them. I used to travel miles on my bike without a worry (sparsely populated countryside) and walk my dog in the woods alone.

  21. What do you think of this . https://twitter.com/mrsmalkin1/status/1691247839383298049

    I remember visiting Cork nearly 40 years ago when my younger sister came over SA. We travelled around and made our way south.

    Thar was the first time we had visited Ireland , despite the fact our mother was born deep down in beautiful Southwest Cork, her own family were/ still are part of the legend .

    Her parents moved to England just before WW2 . She then joined the RN as a Wren , and the rest is history . She married a Protestant after the war and was excommunicated by her whole family , especially so by her uncles who were Jesuit priests based in London .

    My poor father felt my mother had been cursed , especially so when she was killed in a car crash when she was sixty.

    My sister and I visited the convent where she was educated in Clon########, and the nuns were as old as the hills , remembered her , and blessed us , and forgave our dead mother !

      2. Pakistani flag raised at Cork city hall today.

        Pakistani flags even hanging in the chambers, noticeably larger than the Irish flag.

        Good morning Bill,

        Sorry that was a bit of a muddle .

  22. More confirmation of the descent of man noted by Grizz. Apparently, influencers on TikTok have persuaded young people in Southampton to overdose on paracetamol, the winner is the one who spends longest in hospital. Sheesh…. (Radio 4).

    2. The species has not been fit-for-purpose since the beginning of the 20th century. Being clever is not a mark of intelligence.

      Any being that routinely and continuously trashes its living space does not deserve its place on the only planet known to support life.

      1. That nature that condemns its origin
        Cannot be bordered certain in itself.

        [King Lear]

        1. Have you memorised, verbatim, all the Bard’s works?

          Or do you just have a jotter, filled with all the quotable ones, ready for instant use?

      2. It’s Canada, if the real women objected they could be de-banked, lose their jobs and be social pariahs.

      4. What about the sports associations having the balls to say no?

        Many grants and funding opportunities require the applicant to commit to the lgbtq racket. Saying no no men in skirts would lose federal funding but even so, they need to stand up against Trudeau inspired bullying.

        Hardly a word in the Canadian media.

  24. YouGov threatens to quit London for New York as City exodus grows. 15 August 2023.

    British pollster YouGov has threatened to shift its listing to New York amid an exodus of companies from the London Stock Exchange.

    The market research firm, which was founded by Stephan Shakespeare and former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi, said it was considering the move after expanding its business through a recent takeover.

    Mr Shakespeare told the Financial Times: “I think the markets are better at supporting companies like ours there.”

    These people can smell the coming crash and are hedging their bets.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/08/14/yougov-quit-london-new-york-city-exodus/

        1. Hmmm. That was implied in my comment. YOU go to YouGov and they give YOU the answer YOU want.

  25. ‘Morning All

    Medley Part 1

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  28. Since The Sun stopped its Page Three feature The Daily Mail has endeavoured to fill the mammary needs of its readers by showing bare-breasted girls all over the place.

    However, nipples are taboo – they are anathema and must either be covered with the skimpiest brassiere bikini top or an added black patch over the naughty bit. Occasionally the DM overcomes it bashfulness by letting its reader have a visual feast by showing a picture of a bra-less girl in a transparent shirt.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dbb8c978e2a79e5f3bee3d4cf41882471d560bfdbf0ec1cba7ccca2e8fc3fbff.png

  30. To be honest this is not a headline I’d thought I’d ever read in my lifetime………

    https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/145/298/973/original/3e4542d6df142f4e.jpeg

    Rest of Part 2

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    1. That’s a Sainsbury’s bag. I recognise the orange elephant motif.
      I’ll get me coat…

  31. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story, still sleepy and playing catch up.

    You Get What You Pay For
    The late Queen Elizabeth was visiting a hospital, and during her tour she passed a room where a male patient was masturbating.
    “Oh my God”, said the queen, “that’s disgraceful, what is the meaning of this?”
    A doctor explained: “I’m sorry your majesty, but this man has a very serious condition. His testicles are constantly over-full of semen. If he doesn’t masturbate at least 5 times a day, he’ll be in excruciating pain.
    “Oh, I’m so sorry,” said the Queen. “I was unaware that such a medical problem existed.”
    On the same floor, they then pass a room in which the Queen could clearly see a young nurse giving a patient fellatio.”
    “Oh my God!” the Queen shrieked. “What’s going on in there?!”
    The doctor explains: “Same problem, better health plan!”

    7. So it wasn’t a humour implant they gave you ?

      Welcome back Tom, you have been missed.

    1. I didn’t get married until I was 41 so I had many years as a bachelor so this was a song with which I identified (before the corruption of the word gay) and I quoted the refrain in the speech I made at the wedding breakfast:

      When he fancies he is past love
      It is then he meets his last love
      And he loves her as he’s never loved before!

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIoGE2ntZrg

        1. Only just home, last evening. Taken to HairMyers Hospital in East Kilbride, last Wednesday @ 04:00 and on the operating table at 07:00 to have a Stent put into the same heart they wouldn’t do 21 years ago! Eventually sent to Dumfries Royal Infirmary (DRI) and incarcerated until 19:00 yesterday 14/08. Now just glad to be free and at home.

          Many chores to get through.

          Love and hugs, Tom xx

        2. Only just home, last evening. Taken to HairMyers Hospital in East Kilbride, last Wednesday @ 04:00 and on the operating table at 07:00 to have a Stent put into the same heart they wouldn’t do 21 years ago! Eventually sent to Dumfries Royal Infirmary (DRI) and incarcerated until 19:00 yesterday 14/08. Now just glad to be free and at home.

          Many chores to get through but will talk later.

          Love and hugs, Tom xx

  34. The sun continues to shine – so – off to the garden. The Wet Office was lying about rain later.

    Play nicely. And DON’T upset the slammers.

  35. Albanians find new smuggling route to UK

    A NEW migrant route has emerged with gangs offering to smuggle people in lorries from Spain to Portsmouth.

    Albanian people smugglers are providing passage from Santander on the north coast of Spain to the south coast port of Portsmouth for £14,000 per person as an alternative to crossing the Channel. It also avoids the improved border security set up for those travelling via ferry and Eurostar from France.

    The cost is four times the £3,000 to £3,500 charged by people smugglers to cross on small boats but the route is less dangerous and, if successful, migrants are less likely to be picked up, identified and deported back to Albania.

    Migrants crossing the Channel on dinghies are taken by Border Force for processing by immigration officials at Manston, near Dover, with the prospect of being deported back to Albania under a “fast-track” returns deal agreed last year between the two countries.

    “If they arrive on a small boat, they know that they are likely to be sent back to Albania,” said an immigration investigator familiar with the trade.

    The route is advertised on social media including Tiktok.

    An increase in the number of illegal migrants attempting to enter the UK via Portsmouth and Poole has already been reported by the UK borders and immigration watchdog.

    The number of Albanians crossing the Channel on small boats fell significantly in the first five months of this year to 2 per cent of arrivals, down from 28 per cent last year.

    Is it not beyond time that war was declared on smugglers and illegal immigrants and with shots (in the first instance) merely fired across their bows?

    Failure to take heed of those shots should be be followed by a more direct means of defence-of-the-realm.

    1. “but the route is less dangerous ”
      The Bay of Biscay will cull quite a few of them hopefully.

        1. The ‘safer’ route is a total nonsense though. 600 miles vs 24 miles in a packed giant dinghy is going to halve the number of arrivals.

          2. I really should read before I write. Why isn’t it possible to check passports in Santander before departing on the ferry and searching lorries at the same time?

          5. I suppose they haven’t implemented the same border control as at Calais/Dunkerque. It’s all such a farce anyway, because they can go to Ireland and cross into Northern Ireland with no checks at all, can’t they?
            I think this whole story is just stirring the pot.

    2. Surely it would be cheaper and safer for them to buy a ticket and disembark at a safe port.
      No ones will stop them, or turn them back when they land, so far more than 100,000 have done so.

        1. Cameron organised a few of those to fly in to our RAF bases.
          I just wish one of our political divots would sit down and explain exactly what they are trying to achieve.

      2. 1,200,000 did that in the last year alone, although 600,000 left but they would have been well heeled in the main. Airlines are under remit to check before boarding that the traveller has the correct permissions to land at destination.

    3. The real issue underlying the tacit acceptance of migration is that there will be many back home watching the trailblazers. A few deaths amongst the hundreds of thousands getting through is a small risk compared with remaining as a goad herder for life with occasional bouts of tribal killing sweeping through the village. The boats need to be stopped with force although there is nowhere in Europe that will ever do that. So we are stuck with politicians huffing and puffing and the slow decline of our services as the numbers arriving inevitably increase. Many commentators have mentioned improving the conditions in the places where these migrants originate. Well, colonialization has been tried and is not wanted. So force is the only means to send the correct message. That’s not going to happen, so we are stuffed.

  36. 2 -1 in Auckland. Well played Spain, but I feel the ref made a few wrong decisions regarding Sweden.
    I expect she was only following orders.
    https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=cda181e22e6759ddJmltdHM9MTY5MjA1NzYwMCZpZ3VpZD0xYmJmYTA3NC1lZWY2LTZjZmQtMzEzYS1iMzFmZWZlYzZkNzkmaW5zaWQ9NTE1MQ&ptn=3&hsh=3&fclid=1bbfa074-eef6-6cfd-313a-b31fefec6d79&u=a1L3ZpZGVvcy9zZWFyY2g_cT1mYXJld2VsbCthbmQrYWRvK3RvK3lvdStmYWlyK3NwYW5pc2grbGFkaWVzJnFwdnQ9ZmFyZXdlbGwrYW5kK2Fkbyt0byt5b3UrZmFpcitzcGFuaXNoK2xhZGllcyZGT1JNPVZEUkU&ntb=1

  37. Only hip hop artists hold a candle to Cole Porter, says Fry

    HIP HOP artists are the greatest songwriters since Cole Porter, Stephen Fry has claimed.

    Since Porter’s witty lyricism in the 1920 and 1930s, innovative songwriting has been pioneered by The Beatles and the Nobel Prize-winning Bob Dylan, but it has been claimed that none have matched the wordplay of rap.

    While admitting his age makes him ill-placed to judge modern rap music, Fry, 65, singled out the US star Kendrick Lamar, 36, as the first pop artist for a century who has proven as adept at using language as Porter.

    Porter, who died aged 73 in 1964, enjoyed a string of Broadway hits in the 1920 and 1930s with songs noted for their humorous lyrics. Lamar’s lyrics are laden with expletives and racial terminology in the manner typical of most rap music and also include the form’s characteristic complex rhymes, often internal, and humorous wordplay. He has won numerous Grammy Awards and earned a Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2018.

    Speaking on the BBC’S Front Row, Fry said: “Language is such an important feature of being human and it is so overlooked.

    “We use it to order pizza on the phone or whatever and to ask where the nearest toilet is.

    “And yet the beauty of it in its ordinary form in speech is as great as its form in poetry, when people delight in it. I’m aware that with someone of my age and background even mentioning his name is absurd, but Kendrick Lamar and some of the hip hop artists understand that about language.

    “They use language in a way that is more delightful, more filled with texture, complexity, patterning and real sort of joy than has been used in popular music for many years.

    “Since Cole Porter, probably. I know I’m not alone. Language is the gift of us all and is under-celebrated.”

    Fry’s admiration for rap has been shared by other prominent figures in British cultural life. Oxford professor and renowned poet Sir Geoffrey Hill was full of praise for the art form, saying in an interview before his death: “I think the Shakespeare of this century would certainly learn from rap.”

    Methinks Ms Fry is being provocative. Either that or she has completely lost the plot.

          1. Am I not the only person who has noticed the recent trend in over pronouncing Ks and Cs in speech ?
            Especially TV announcer’s who seem not to be able to speak Einglich proparlee hinit.

    2. I suspect he is tiring of his toy-boy husband, 30 years younger than him but probably worn out already, and yearning for a big bl*k boy with an enormous rapper to keep him warm and active in the boudoir.

    3. Actually, I think he has a point. Much of it is rubbish, but some is really creative with language, playing with stresses and internal rhymes in a very lively way. I wouldn’t have thought this before watching “Eight Mile” – yes, a film, so polished up, but the rap battles really felt like the sort of creativity that can happen with poetry or music in good company open to improvisation.

      1. I take your point, Katy, but (seriously) do you really wish to listen to this stuff for more than a few seconds without your brain exploding? 🤯

        I am certainly not capable of doing so.

        1. 🤣 No – my pore brane has enough on its plate without heaping those particular coals on it!

          That said, I did use to listen to an Eminem track before auditions, to drown out other singers’ voices and borrow some cocky, upbeat energy. Weird stuff, music.

    4. I have always been a fan of Noël Coward’s lyrics.

      Do you remember the song about Nina from Argentina who refused to dance and ended up marrying a man who had acquired a wooden leg in Venezuela and thus did not dance.

      This verse is particularly appealing:

      She declined to Begin The Beguine when they besought her to
      And with language profane and obscene she cursed the man who taught her to
      She cursed Cole Porter too.

      And here is the Master performing it:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnD8_2jaqA4

  38. Three suspected Russian spies arrested by counter-terror police. 15 August 2023.

    Three Bulgarian nationals suspected of spying on behalf of Russia have been arrested and charged by counter-terror detectives following a major national security investigation.

    The BBC has revealed the defendants were held in February under the Official Secrets Act by Metropolitan Police officers and have been remanded in custody since.

    Hmmm.? No comments allowed. There’s nothing to pick away at here because it doesn’t actually tell you anything. The basic charge is milquetoast and hardly worth the reading. The involvement of the BBC, it’s political convenience and the supposed orientation of the accused along with their low social level invites one to suspect that the whole thing is a fabrication

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/15/three-suspected-russia-spies-bulgaria-nationals-arrested-uk/

  39. Bad maths isn’t something to boast about, says Riley

    ‘We need to change the way we speak about maths, change the attitude and not be scared of it’

    RACHEL RILEY has said that people should not be “proud” of being unable to do maths.

    The Countdown star said joking about being awful with numbers perpetuated a negative attitude towards numeracy, adding: “You wouldn’t proudly say ‘I can’t read’.”

    The 37-year-old insisted giving up on maths as too difficult instilled fear of the subject in younger generations.

    She told Sophie Ellis-bextor’s Spinning Plates podcast: “The biggest indicator as to whether you can improve your maths skills is if you believe you can. We do have a problem in the UK with numeracy – 50 per cent of adults are at the level you’d expect of an 11-year-old. Again, it’s lower for women.

    “And we’re passing on negative feelings and fear of it to kids and I think we need to change the way we speak about it, change the attitude and not be scared of it and not feel intimidated and just give it a go.

    “Even if you’re going in and trying to help your kids, over the pandemic more people were having to do more maths to a higher level than they did before, as they were helping their kids for obvious reasons.”

    The mother-of-two added that people still fail to understand what mathematicians do, and that the subject could do with a celebrity champion – similar to what the physicist Brian Cox has done on television to popularise science – to encourage more children, particularly girls, to stick with the subject.

    “The world has changed so much, you know that if you go into science, technology, engineering, maths, you’re going to get a job and potentially the job you’re going to get if you’re a student doesn’t even exist yet but you’re going to be employable,” she added.

    “I think the more we can encourage kids, and I like to encourage girls especially as there’s still this gender difference, perception and numbers going into study.

    “So, if you tell a girl ‘you’re not good at maths’, especially at a young age, or anyone really, they implant that.”

    If 50% of adults are at the level you’d expect of an 11-year-old, what does this say about the atrocious standard of teaching (and parenting) in the UK today?

    2. We home-schooled our boys. I am no mathematician but I taught them Maths up to the Higher Level GCSE and they both passed with flying colours. Christo is an aerospace engineer working with robots and Henry got a distinction in his M.Sc in Computer Science and Data Analytics and is employed to write programs for artificial intelligence. His fiasco has just been awarded her Ph.D in Maths and is doing research as well as university lecturing.

      (All those mentioned here: me, Christo, Henry and Jessica, are hideously white Caucasian!)

      3. “His fiasco”?

        Are you saying that your putative daughter-in-law is a debacle? A shambles? A farce? It would take a brave man to tell her that to her face! 🤣

        1. She is a delightful girl. A friend of mine referred to his fiancée as his his fiasco about 50 years ago and I have used his malapropism (or Dogberryism?) ever since. Before I was given the green light to marry Caroline I had to solve the son-in-law test. I gave the same test to Jessica and she passed it.

          Yer’tis:

          You are given 12 spherical metal balls which look identical. However one of the balls is either heavier or lighter than the others.

          You are given a balance but no weights so you have to find out which of the balls is the odd man out and whether it is heavier or lighter than the others by just weighing them against each other.

          You are allowed just three weighings.

    3. Just chanting times tables from age 6 until they are drilled in would improve numeracy
      dramatically
      But that would be “oppressive” in this modern world*
      *Used to “sing” them on car journeys

    4. Nobody told me I wasn’t good at maths; I discovered that for myself when I kept getting the numbers wrong! I have dyscalculia.

  40. Smithsonian to return brains stolen from minorities

    Restitution of remains taken by museum to ‘show superiority of white people’ will get under way

    ‘It’s like an open wound. We’ll have no peace because we know this exists, until it’s corrected’

    THE Smithsonian Institution in the US will return human brains stolen from ethnic minorities as part of a racist plan to “demonstrate the superiority of white brains”.

    A years-long investigation by the Washington Post has revealed that tens of thousands of human remains, including 255 brains, are being stored by the Smithsonian.

    The institution, a publicly subsidised body created by Congress, is made up of research facilities, 21 of America’s top museums and the national zoo in Washington DC.

    Most of the remains are held by the National Museum of Natural History.

    The collection is thought to be one of the largest in the world and includes mummies, skulls, teeth and other body parts, representing an unknown number of people.

    It was started by Ales Hrdlicka, an anthropologist who founded and curated the museum’s physical anthropology department in 1903 until his death in 1943. He was seen as one of the country’s foremost authorities on race at the time and worked to prove that it determined a person’s physical characteristics and intelligence.

    Lonnie Bunch, the natural history museum’s director, said the institution would try and return the brains.

    “I know that so much of this has been based on racist attitudes, that these brains were really people of colour to demonstrate the superiority of white brains, so I understand that is just really unconscionable,” Mr Bunch said.

    “I think it’s really important for me as a historian to say that all the remains, all the brains, need to be returned if possible, [and] treated in the best possible way.”

    They include that of Mary Sara, an 18-year-old girl whose brain has been stored for more than 100 years.

    She lived in Alaska and was a member of the Sami indigenous group. She died of tuberculosis in Seattle in 1933.

    The Washington Post tracked down a surviving first cousin, Martha Sara Jack, and other relatives of Mary Sara who said they were unaware that the Smithsonian had taken her brain.

    “It’s kind of like an open wound,” Fred Jack, the husband of Martha Sara Jack, said. “We want to have peace and we’ll have no peace because we know this exists, until it’s corrected.”

    According to the Washington Post, the Smithsonian’s collection includes at least 30,700 human bones and other body parts, including 255 brains.

    Only four of the brains are recorded as voluntary donations.

    Hrdlicka promoted his belief in white superiority, and wrote of important “differences” between the brains of black people and white Europeans.

    He promoted the idea of a “racial brain collection” to research the brains of people, especially indigenous people and black Americans. In 1904, he created a manual instructing others on how to collect body parts and conceal the marks of an autopsy.

    The majority of the brains in the Smithsonian’s collection were removed from the corpses of African Americans and indigenous people.

    It is unclear whether Hrdlicka and other doctors took the brains illegally.

    The remains were taken from graveyards, battlefields, morgues and hospitals in more than 80 countries.

    The National Museum of the American Indian, which is also part of the Smithsonian, said it still had 454 remains and had repatriated 617.

    Will someone please explain to me, in clear unambiguous terms, what the hell is “racist” about scientifically proving that one race of the species was able to invent many technological marvels that amount to much more than a blanket, a bowl and a stick?

    Especially when that blanket and bowl were manufactured by someone with a far higher intellect than those holding them!

    2. The people running the Smithsonian appear to have smaller brains than the ones in their collection.

      1. I’d rather make my own faggots (and savoury ducks, and haslet). That way I know what’s in them.

    8. Surely physical characteristics are influenced by race – think Ethiopian marathon runners, black sprinters etc. Also ethnic features. It doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing.

      1. That is very true. You see a lot of negro runners and sprinters, but you see very few swimmers and cyclists among that racial stereotype.

    1. Think of me on Thursday. My younger gets his results. And the papers have nothing except that marking will be tough, the unis want to max out on foreign students who pay more and there’s no accommodation because landlords are selling up and the Govt. wants to use student accommodation to house illegal immigrants. What a sh:t-show.

      1. I will keep my fingers crossed for good results!

        University seems to be over now, at least for those who don’t want to be debt slaves. I don’t think many degrees are worth 50 thousand pounds at whatever extortionate interest rate they are now charging! It seems like a terrible scam to put these poor kids into life-long debt (cancelled after 40 years now, as they won’t have been able to pay it off in that time!)
        I hope your boy will find his way anyway.

  43. If Caroline Tracey is looking in – we hope that the Assomption Mass passed off without the need for the Gendarmerie

          2. Not by me – I was playing the keyboard and so otherwise occupied. Somebody was snapping away. I’ll get them in a few days (because I collate the parish newsletter!) and will post some for the Nottlers to enjoy.

          3. Please do. Can’t wait. Especially as we heard today that the famous “repas du quartier” which we helped organise in Laure for years – has been abandoned. Grande tristesse.

    1. There are numerous similar in the area and in Bergerac itself.
      We are very fortunate with good restaurants to suit most pockets, lunch menus right the way up to Michelin starred.

      1. Their menus sound similar to how you describe those dinners where all the older villagers go to get stuffed.. 3 Hours for lunch and this restaurant provides a bottle of wine with each course. Then there’s the cheeseboard !

        There is nothing like that near me and if i could find one it would be expensive compared to what they charge in Bergerac.

          1. It’s the only thing i miss about France. I tend to go on holiday for the local cuisine and alfresco dining.

      2. I remember my first trip to Paris. As the travel guide said: there were restaurants to suit every pocket. There were expensive restaurants, bloody expensive restaurants, and f*cking expensive restaurants.

        1. …and the stock Parisien answer to the question, “Parlez-vous Anglais?” is a straight, down-the-nose “Non!”

          2. “Seems like a nice boy, eh?”

            I’m a crusty old septuagenarian with a bad French accent

          3. I would normally use my schoolboy French but i didn’t know how to ask for athletes foot cream. Stuck up bitch. It was as bad in Fauchon. Ladies on thrones sitting behind ornate desks and if you pick something up you get a tongue lashing and a slap on the wrist. I wonder how they are handling the flash mobs of looters…

        2. I found the Parisien seafood bistros reasonably priced. I also went to a posh joint in Rue Madeleine. They didn’t charge extra for the cockroaches and the veal was good.

        3. Even in central Paris, if you were with a local, you could find excellent, reasonably priced restaurants. Once you had been introduced to the things to watch out for it was possible to do so without assistance.
          Small family run places, off the main drags, were happy hunting grounds for me.

          2. I got hold of another guide and found many splendid, reasonably priced restaurants. One, in the middle of nowhere, was a family run concern. I (and my three male colleagues) entered the place and the woman owner asked us what we wanted. I told her to just present us with some wholesome typically French food (as would be cooked in a French household) and we would eat it. She was overwhelmed with pleasure at this and brought us all a Kir Royale, on the house, as an aperitif.

            This was followed by a delicious hors d’oeuvre, a wonderful main course and scrumptious dessert, all of exceptional quality. The price she charged us was unbelievably low and she insisted on hugging us all as we left. As she said, our recommendations were worth much more than any advertisement.

            And no, she hadn’t picked our pockets whilst hugging us!

  48. “Restaurateur” does not contain the letter ‘n’….!

    Pedant alert!

    I’ll get my apron and tray………

    2. Curiously the French word “restaurant” is used, here in Sweden but, for some inexplicable reason that even they don’t begin to comprehend, they exchange the ultimate ‘t’ for a ‘g’. “Restaurang” makes no logical sense to either them or us!

      “Pronunciation” is also routinely misspelt (and voiced) wIth an unnecessary additional ‘o’ between the first ‘n’ and ‘u’. Jeremy Paxman was a prime culprit on University Challenge. His successor, Amol Rajan, thinks that the letter ‘h’ is pronounced “haitch”.

      1. In the Languedoc, “restaurant” is indeed pronounced “restaurang” by locals. Just as the wind – “vent” – is pronounced “vang”.

      2. Probably due to this event

        When did Sweden have a French king?

        1818

        In 1810, Jean-Baptiste-Jules Bernadotte, a celebrated marshal of France under Napoleon, was elected crown prince of Sweden, went to Stockholm, acted officially as regent during the illnesses of the aged, childless king Charles XIII, and in 1818 became king, as Charles XIV John..

        https://www.google.com/search?q=French+rule+in+Sweden&oq=French+rule+++in+Sweden&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i546l4.33099j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

  50. The sinister campaign against cash is pushing us towards a dystopian digital future

    Cash is costless, anonymous and easy to use – so why are we so keen to get rid of it?

    KEVIN DOWD • 15th August 2023 • 10:00am

    For a long time, it appeared we were sleepwalking into a cashless future.

    Only 23pc of payments in 2019 were made in cash, down from 60pc a decade ago. Since 2017, cash use has been declining by around 15pc each year. Few seemed to notice; even fewer seemed to care.

    But the Nigel Farage debanking farrago has been a rude awakening. Cash matters: according to the Bank of England one in five people consider it their preferred payment method and 1.1 million people rely on it for their everyday spending.

    The former MEP and broadcaster is right that there has been a concerted, sinister attempt to drive out cash – and many members of the public are worried.

    A recent poll found that Red Wall voters overwhelmingly believe people should have a right to pay cash in shops. They are worried that small businesses are having accounts closed after refusing to go cashless – and those fears are not unfounded.

    It quickly became clear, once Farage spoke out over his experiences, that this was not an isolated incident, nor was it limited to money laundering regulations.

    The rot extends across the UK banking sector. And it is being facilitated by a regulator which, according to some Tory MPs, is “making and applying vague rules, including those known as ‘principles’, which are open to varied interpretation”.

    Since he launched his campaign against de-banking, Farage claims to have received “dozens” of reports of companies having accounts shut because their banks did not approve of how much they were trading in cash.

    It is true that everyone needs a bank account to function in today’s economy – and financial exclusion warrants greater attention. But it appears that lenders feel they have the right to de-bank people if they don’t approve of their political views or cash transactions, legal as those might be.

    This leaves people exposed to the whims of bank staff whose views will be at odds with much of the population – including those in Red Wall constituencies. If they don’t like you, there may be consequences.

    This is wrong in principle. It is not the banks’ business what legal activities customers participate in with their cash, nor their political opinions.

    It would be easy to believe that the decline of cash is natural progress. As our lives have become increasingly digital, so too has our economy. Cashpoints are disappearing from the high street. And during the pandemic, such were concerns that cash might help spread the virus that the People’s Bank of China started to disinfect notes in affected regions.

    The Reserve Bank of India advised people to use electronic payments. Many businesses decided to take up the offer of fast, cheap and seamless digital payments by going cashless.

    But make no mistake: the war on cash has been going on for a long time. Those waging it have been telling us for years that cash is “inefficient” and preferred by those operating in the underground economy.

    In truth, cash is still efficient for many payments and using it for money laundering is becoming a thing of the past, having been overtaken by Amazon gift vouchers or, at scale, banks or accounting firms.

    These myths have been peddled not just by the sorts of executives who de-banked Farage, but by large payments companies who may benefit from the abolition of cash through higher fees and increased profits.

    It has a whiff of elitism, compounded by the number of local authorities hiking up parking fees for drivers who pay in cash, not to mention those phasing out pay and display altogether.

    Sutton Coldfield Council has sparked anger by increasing charges by 50pc for those who don’t use the mobile app. Critics have rightly pointed out that the policy was discriminatory and digitally excluded those who paid at parking machines, with the Buckingham MP Greg Smith insisting: “councils should not seek to rip off those who still want to use a pay and display machine. While the vast majority now use parking apps, there are many who can’t or don’t want to”.

    Others have warned the technology is fallible, signals can fail, and some people – perhaps those with poor eyesight or arthritic fingers – will struggle with the technology.

    It is not too late to fight back. The Government is already changing the rules to compel banks to explain why they have closed an account.

    The Chancellor has ordered an urgent review into how widespread this practice is. But that isn’t enough: we need a system in place which ensures a fast and effective appeals process. Banks should face penalties if these are upheld.

    For the older generation, who often depend on cash, the dominance of digital payments is exclusionary. But the abolition of cash would deprive us all of its benefits.

    It is a very efficient way of handling certain transactions, and is costless and easy to use. It doesn’t need a password, and it can’t be hacked. It is more difficult to corrupt than many digital currencies. Cash is anonymous and, traditionally, this has been viewed as one of its greatest benefits.

    Of course, there will be those eager to take the shift to digital further. In Sweden, thousands of people have inserted microchips, which can function as contactless credit cards and even rail cards, beneath their skin.

    WeChat users in China can register their palm prints to pay for rides on Beijing’s airport express line, using only their hands at designated turnstiles. To some, this will mark progress but I suspect that, to many more, it represents a dystopian surrender of basic privacy rights.

    Back to those voters in the Red Wall. The big question is whether everyone should have the legal right to pay by cash. This is a major public policy issue and we need to have a proper debate about it. I think they should.

    Kevin Dowd is professor of finance and economics at Durham University

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/08/15/the-sinister-campaign-against-cash-dystopian-digital-future/

    BTL:
    Daniel Burrell
    Cash is not costless, anybody who thinks this is a moron. If I run a business and have to spend time, and money arranging bags of whole cash to take to the post office and stand in a queue to deposit, then it’s only cost less if I don’t value my time or count the fuel spent getting there.

    There’s a cost to me when somebody hands me a fake £1 coin.

    There’s a cost when I have to spend my free time counting cash manually, weighing it, having it rejected at the post office, recounting, and overfilling bags.

    The only legitimate people I’ve seen who say cash only are village fetes and chuggers. The rest are all taxis/plumbers who are hiding from HMRC.

    @Daniel Burrell
    lou cd
    Daniel, that really isn’t a very far-sighted post.

    Cash is certainly costless when compared to debit and credit cards.

    The latter charges businesses for each transaction, and this will most certainly get worse if cash is taken out of the equation because there will be nothing else available to resort to.

    Furthermore, if cash is gone, and CBDC is introduced, your every move and transaction will be monitored, and certain transaction can be shut down at the drop of a hat, or for the “wrong” opinions, which is already happening now.

    I despair when I read posts such as yours because it is indicative of the short-sighted mindset that so many have.

    If you paused for one minute to think about this, you will see and understand that the main imperative for getting rid of cash is that your money will then be at the mercy of someone else.

    @Daniel Burrell
    Sou Tanglie
    Quit whinging. If I offer to pay cash and am declined, I go elsewhere. You can choose, so can I. But don’t start an argument with a customer, never works.
    ____________________________________________

    Paul Walsh
    Lose cash and lose freedom, it’s as simple as that. If we lost the ability to own cash, every penny you possess could be seen and controlled by the state. Every penny you spend would be monitored.

    Some or all of your wealth could be removed at the press of a button if it’s considered you have too much or you have expressed thoughts the authorities don’t want expressing.

    Your ‘money’, if that’s what it would still be called, could be electronically ring-fenced for purchases the authorities approved of or prevented or limited for use on purchases they don’t.

    It would even be possible to charge people different amounts for the same items according to social credit scores.

    Ambition would disappear as the concept of saving for the future would disappear – why would you do it when the state might remove some or all of your savings at a stroke if they thought it necessary?

    The possibilities are endless and it would be a dystopian nightmare with the state in complete control of our lives.

    @Paul Walsh
    Random Name

    The state can already do all these things. Even if you kept all your wealth in cash under the mattress, the government could redefine legal tender and make your cash worthless. They can remove your wealth via taxation and if they suspect and subsequently prove you are not declaring all your wealth, you go to jail.

    Alternatively, if you keep your money in a bank account and simply withdraw cash, well they can freeze your account and deny you access to funds.

    I suppose you could always go back to the barter economy and start breeding chickens.

    @Random Name
    Hard Rain

    A very naive response. People like you worry me. You’d give up your freedom and live under bondage for convenience. Sad.
    ____________________________________________

    Hathor Hathor
    Banks and businesses are responding to customer behaviours. As reported in the article there has been a dramatic decline in the use of cash, that is not the result of people being ‘forced’ to use digital means of payment but because many prefer to use digital means. Obviously, some feel threatened or worried about that, which is normal for any change. But please can we dump all the madcap conspiracy theories.
    ____________________________________________

    ‘Hathor Hathor’ and ‘Random Name’ feature several times. Their arguments are remarkably similar to other supporters of total digitisation not only in this column but also on other forums. The argument is always the same: resistance to digitisation is the preserve of ageing, Luddite conspiracy theorists and when they’re all dead, we can get on with our brave new world. Indeed, they sometimes seem scripted, though in reality they’re probably cutting and pasting. There is a cold, hard, dead rationalism to them.

    After a while it becomes tiresome to repeat the defence that those who wish to retain cash are not technologically illiterate or subscribers to conspiracy theory. Indeed, they may hardly ever use cash but they know the dangers of a cashless society. Once it’s gone, the customer is ‘owned’.

    A penny piece may be financially worthless but it’s societally priceless.

    2. WE don’t want to get rid of cash – it’s the government and that’s because with no cash they can have complete control.

  51. The sinister campaign against cash is pushing us towards a dystopian digital future

    Cash is costless, anonymous and easy to use – so why are we so keen to get rid of it?

    KEVIN DOWD • 15th August 2023 • 10:00am

    For a long time, it appeared we were sleepwalking into a cashless future.

    Only 23pc of payments in 2019 were made in cash, down from 60pc a decade ago. Since 2017, cash use has been declining by around 15pc each year. Few seemed to notice; even fewer seemed to care.

    But the Nigel Farage debanking farrago has been a rude awakening. Cash matters: according to the Bank of England one in five people consider it their preferred payment method and 1.1 million people rely on it for their everyday spending.

    The former MEP and broadcaster is right that there has been a concerted, sinister attempt to drive out cash – and many members of the public are worried.

    A recent poll found that Red Wall voters overwhelmingly believe people should have a right to pay cash in shops. They are worried that small businesses are having accounts closed after refusing to go cashless – and those fears are not unfounded.

    It quickly became clear, once Farage spoke out over his experiences, that this was not an isolated incident, nor was it limited to money laundering regulations.

    The rot extends across the UK banking sector. And it is being facilitated by a regulator which, according to some Tory MPs, is “making and applying vague rules, including those known as ‘principles’, which are open to varied interpretation”.

    Since he launched his campaign against de-banking, Farage claims to have received “dozens” of reports of companies having accounts shut because their banks did not approve of how much they were trading in cash.

    It is true that everyone needs a bank account to function in today’s economy – and financial exclusion warrants greater attention. But it appears that lenders feel they have the right to de-bank people if they don’t approve of their political views or cash transactions, legal as those might be.

    This leaves people exposed to the whims of bank staff whose views will be at odds with much of the population – including those in Red Wall constituencies. If they don’t like you, there may be consequences.

    This is wrong in principle. It is not the banks’ business what legal activities customers participate in with their cash, nor their political opinions.

    It would be easy to believe that the decline of cash is natural progress. As our lives have become increasingly digital, so too has our economy. Cashpoints are disappearing from the high street. And during the pandemic, such were concerns that cash might help spread the virus that the People’s Bank of China started to disinfect notes in affected regions.

    The Reserve Bank of India advised people to use electronic payments. Many businesses decided to take up the offer of fast, cheap and seamless digital payments by going cashless.

    But make no mistake: the war on cash has been going on for a long time. Those waging it have been telling us for years that cash is “inefficient” and preferred by those operating in the underground economy.

    In truth, cash is still efficient for many payments and using it for money laundering is becoming a thing of the past, having been overtaken by Amazon gift vouchers or, at scale, banks or accounting firms.

    These myths have been peddled not just by the sorts of executives who de-banked Farage, but by large payments companies who may benefit from the abolition of cash through higher fees and increased profits.

    It has a whiff of elitism, compounded by the number of local authorities hiking up parking fees for drivers who pay in cash, not to mention those phasing out pay and display altogether.

    Sutton Coldfield Council has sparked anger by increasing charges by 50pc for those who don’t use the mobile app. Critics have rightly pointed out that the policy was discriminatory and digitally excluded those who paid at parking machines, with the Buckingham MP Greg Smith insisting: “councils should not seek to rip off those who still want to use a pay and display machine. While the vast majority now use parking apps, there are many who can’t or don’t want to”.

    Others have warned the technology is fallible, signals can fail, and some people – perhaps those with poor eyesight or arthritic fingers – will struggle with the technology.

    It is not too late to fight back. The Government is already changing the rules to compel banks to explain why they have closed an account.

    The Chancellor has ordered an urgent review into how widespread this practice is. But that isn’t enough: we need a system in place which ensures a fast and effective appeals process. Banks should face penalties if these are upheld.

    For the older generation, who often depend on cash, the dominance of digital payments is exclusionary. But the abolition of cash would deprive us all of its benefits.

    It is a very efficient way of handling certain transactions, and is costless and easy to use. It doesn’t need a password, and it can’t be hacked. It is more difficult to corrupt than many digital currencies. Cash is anonymous and, traditionally, this has been viewed as one of its greatest benefits.

    Of course, there will be those eager to take the shift to digital further. In Sweden, thousands of people have inserted microchips, which can function as contactless credit cards and even rail cards, beneath their skin.

    WeChat users in China can register their palm prints to pay for rides on Beijing’s airport express line, using only their hands at designated turnstiles. To some, this will mark progress but I suspect that, to many more, it represents a dystopian surrender of basic privacy rights.

    Back to those voters in the Red Wall. The big question is whether everyone should have the legal right to pay by cash. This is a major public policy issue and we need to have a proper debate about it. I think they should.

    Kevin Dowd is professor of finance and economics at Durham University

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/08/15/the-sinister-campaign-against-cash-dystopian-digital-future/

    BTL:
    Daniel Burrell
    Cash is not costless, anybody who thinks this is a moron. If I run a business and have to spend time, and money arranging bags of whole cash to take to the post office and stand in a queue to deposit, then it’s only cost less if I don’t value my time or count the fuel spent getting there.

    There’s a cost to me when somebody hands me a fake £1 coin.

    There’s a cost when I have to spend my free time counting cash manually, weighing it, having it rejected at the post office, recounting, and overfilling bags.

    The only legitimate people I’ve seen who say cash only are village fetes and chuggers. The rest are all taxis/plumbers who are hiding from HMRC.

    @Daniel Burrell
    lou cd
    Daniel, that really isn’t a very far-sighted post.

    Cash is certainly costless when compared to debit and credit cards.

    The latter charges businesses for each transaction, and this will most certainly get worse if cash is taken out of the equation because there will be nothing else available to resort to.

    Furthermore, if cash is gone, and CBDC is introduced, your every move and transaction will be monitored, and certain transaction can be shut down at the drop of a hat, or for the “wrong” opinions, which is already happening now.

    I despair when I read posts such as yours because it is indicative of the short-sighted mindset that so many have.

    If you paused for one minute to think about this, you will see and understand that the main imperative for getting rid of cash is that your money will then be at the mercy of someone else.

    @Daniel Burrell
    Sou Tanglie
    Quit whinging. If I offer to pay cash and am declined, I go elsewhere. You can choose, so can I. But don’t start an argument with a customer, never works.
    ____________________________________________

    Paul Walsh
    Lose cash and lose freedom, it’s as simple as that. If we lost the ability to own cash, every penny you possess could be seen and controlled by the state. Every penny you spend would be monitored.

    Some or all of your wealth could be removed at the press of a button if it’s considered you have too much or you have expressed thoughts the authorities don’t want expressing.

    Your ‘money’, if that’s what it would still be called, could be electronically ring-fenced for purchases the authorities approved of or prevented or limited for use on purchases they don’t.

    It would even be possible to charge people different amounts for the same items according to social credit scores.

    Ambition would disappear as the concept of saving for the future would disappear – why would you do it when the state might remove some or all of your savings at a stroke if they thought it necessary?

    The possibilities are endless and it would be a dystopian nightmare with the state in complete control of our lives.

    @Paul Walsh
    Random Name

    The state can already do all these things. Even if you kept all your wealth in cash under the mattress, the government could redefine legal tender and make your cash worthless. They can remove your wealth via taxation and if they suspect and subsequently prove you are not declaring all your wealth, you go to jail.

    Alternatively, if you keep your money in a bank account and simply withdraw cash, well they can freeze your account and deny you access to funds.

    I suppose you could always go back to the barter economy and start breeding chickens.

    @Random Name
    Hard Rain

    A very naive response. People like you worry me. You’d give up your freedom and live under bondage for convenience. Sad.
    ____________________________________________

    Hathor Hathor
    Banks and businesses are responding to customer behaviours. As reported in the article there has been a dramatic decline in the use of cash, that is not the result of people being ‘forced’ to use digital means of payment but because many prefer to use digital means. Obviously, some feel threatened or worried about that, which is normal for any change. But please can we dump all the madcap conspiracy theories.
    ____________________________________________

    ‘Hathor Hathor’ and ‘Random Name’ feature several times. Their arguments are remarkably similar to other supporters of total digitisation not only in this column but also on other forums. The argument is always the same: resistance to digitisation is the preserve of ageing, Luddite, conspiracy theorists and when they’re all dead, we can get on with our brave new world. Indeed, they sometimes seem scripted, though in reality they’re probably cutting and pasting. There is a cold, head, dead rationalism to them.

    After a while it becomes tiresome to repeat the defence that those who wish to retain cash are not technologically illiterate or subscribers to conspiracy theory. Indeed, they may hardly ever use cash but they know the dangers of a cashless society. Once it’s gone, the customer is ‘owned’.

    A penny piece may be financially worthless but it’s societally priceless.

  52. The sinister campaign against cash is pushing us towards a dystopian digital future

    Cash is costless, anonymous and easy to use – so why are we so keen to get rid of it?

    KEVIN DOWD • 15th August 2023 • 10:00am

    For a long time, it appeared we were sleepwalking into a cashless future.

    Only 23pc of payments in 2019 were made in cash, down from 60pc a decade ago. Since 2017, cash use has been declining by around 15pc each year. Few seemed to notice; even fewer seemed to care.

    But the Nigel Farage debanking farrago has been a rude awakening. Cash matters: according to the Bank of England one in five people consider it their preferred payment method and 1.1 million people rely on it for their everyday spending.

    The former MEP and broadcaster is right that there has been a concerted, sinister attempt to drive out cash – and many members of the public are worried.

    A recent poll found that Red Wall voters overwhelmingly believe people should have a right to pay cash in shops. They are worried that small businesses are having accounts closed after refusing to go cashless – and those fears are not unfounded.

    It quickly became clear, once Farage spoke out over his experiences, that this was not an isolated incident, nor was it limited to money laundering regulations.

    The rot extends across the UK banking sector. And it is being facilitated by a regulator which, according to some Tory MPs, is “making and applying vague rules, including those known as ‘principles’, which are open to varied interpretation”.

    Since he launched his campaign against de-banking, Farage claims to have received “dozens” of reports of companies having accounts shut because their banks did not approve of how much they were trading in cash.

    It is true that everyone needs a bank account to function in today’s economy – and financial exclusion warrants greater attention. But it appears that lenders feel they have the right to de-bank people if they don’t approve of their political views or cash transactions, legal as those might be.

    This leaves people exposed to the whims of bank staff whose views will be at odds with much of the population – including those in Red Wall constituencies. If they don’t like you, there may be consequences.

    This is wrong in principle. It is not the banks’ business what legal activities customers participate in with their cash, nor their political opinions.

    It would be easy to believe that the decline of cash is natural progress. As our lives have become increasingly digital, so too has our economy. Cashpoints are disappearing from the high street. And during the pandemic, such were concerns that cash might help spread the virus that the People’s Bank of China started to disinfect notes in affected regions.

    The Reserve Bank of India advised people to use electronic payments. Many businesses decided to take up the offer of fast, cheap and seamless digital payments by going cashless.

    But make no mistake: the war on cash has been going on for a long time. Those waging it have been telling us for years that cash is “inefficient” and preferred by those operating in the underground economy.

    In truth, cash is still efficient for many payments and using it for money laundering is becoming a thing of the past, having been overtaken by Amazon gift vouchers or, at scale, banks or accounting firms.

    These myths have been peddled not just by the sorts of executives who de-banked Farage, but by large payments companies who may benefit from the abolition of cash through higher fees and increased profits.

    It has a whiff of elitism, compounded by the number of local authorities hiking up parking fees for drivers who pay in cash, not to mention those phasing out pay and display altogether.

    Sutton Coldfield Council has sparked anger by increasing charges by 50pc for those who don’t use the mobile app. Critics have rightly pointed out that the policy was discriminatory and digitally excluded those who paid at parking machines, with the Buckingham MP Greg Smith insisting: “councils should not seek to rip off those who still want to use a pay and display machine. While the vast majority now use parking apps, there are many who can’t or don’t want to”.

    Others have warned the technology is fallible, signals can fail, and some people – perhaps those with poor eyesight or arthritic fingers – will struggle with the technology.

    It is not too late to fight back. The Government is already changing the rules to compel banks to explain why they have closed an account.

    The Chancellor has ordered an urgent review into how widespread this practice is. But that isn’t enough: we need a system in place which ensures a fast and effective appeals process. Banks should face penalties if these are upheld.

    For the older generation, who often depend on cash, the dominance of digital payments is exclusionary. But the abolition of cash would deprive us all of its benefits.

    It is a very efficient way of handling certain transactions, and is costless and easy to use. It doesn’t need a password, and it can’t be hacked. It is more difficult to corrupt than many digital currencies. Cash is anonymous and, traditionally, this has been viewed as one of its greatest benefits.

    Of course, there will be those eager to take the shift to digital further. In Sweden, thousands of people have inserted microchips, which can function as contactless credit cards and even rail cards, beneath their skin.

    WeChat users in China can register their palm prints to pay for rides on Beijing’s airport express line, using only their hands at designated turnstiles. To some, this will mark progress but I suspect that, to many more, it represents a dystopian surrender of basic privacy rights.

    Back to those voters in the Red Wall. The big question is whether everyone should have the legal right to pay by cash. This is a major public policy issue and we need to have a proper debate about it. I think they should.

    Kevin Dowd is professor of finance and economics at Durham University

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/08/15/the-sinister-campaign-against-cash-dystopian-digital-future/

    BTL:
    Daniel Burrell
    Cash is not costless, anybody who thinks this is a moron. If I run a business and have to spend time, and money arranging bags of whole cash to take to the post office and stand in a queue to deposit, then it’s only cost less if I don’t value my time or count the fuel spent getting there.

    There’s a cost to me when somebody hands me a fake £1 coin.

    There’s a cost when I have to spend my free time counting cash manually, weighing it, having it rejected at the post office, recounting, and overfilling bags.

    The only legitimate people I’ve seen who say cash only are village fetes and chuggers. The rest are all taxis/plumbers who are hiding from HMRC.

    @Daniel Burrell
    lou cd
    Daniel, that really isn’t a very far-sighted post.

    Cash is certainly costless when compared to debit and credit cards.

    The latter charges businesses for each transaction, and this will most certainly get worse if cash is taken out of the equation because there will be nothing else available to resort to.

    Furthermore, if cash is gone, and CBDC is introduced, your every move and transaction will be monitored, and certain transaction can be shut down at the drop of a hat, or for the “wrong” opinions, which is already happening now.

    I despair when I read posts such as yours because it is indicative of the short-sighted mindset that so many have.

    If you paused for one minute to think about this, you will see and understand that the main imperative for getting rid of cash is that your money will then be at the mercy of someone else.

    @Daniel Burrell
    Sou Tanglie
    Quit whinging. If I offer to pay cash and am declined, I go elsewhere. You can choose, so can I. But don’t start an argument with a customer, never works.
    ____________________________________________

    Paul Walsh
    Lose cash and lose freedom, it’s as simple as that. If we lost the ability to own cash, every penny you possess could be seen and controlled by the state. Every penny you spend would be monitored.

    Some or all of your wealth could be removed at the press of a button if it’s considered you have too much or you have expressed thoughts the authorities don’t want expressing.

    Your ‘money’, if that’s what it would still be called, could be electronically ring-fenced for purchases the authorities approved of or prevented or limited for use on purchases they don’t.

    It would even be possible to charge people different amounts for the same items according to social credit scores.

    Ambition would disappear as the concept of saving for the future would disappear – why would you do it when the state might remove some or all of your savings at a stroke if they thought it necessary?

    The possibilities are endless and it would be a dystopian nightmare with the state in complete control of our lives.

    @Paul Walsh
    Random Name

    The state can already do all these things. Even if you kept all your wealth in cash under the mattress, the government could redefine legal tender and make your cash worthless. They can remove your wealth via taxation and if they suspect and subsequently prove you are not declaring all your wealth, you go to jail.

    Alternatively, if you keep your money in a bank account and simply withdraw cash, well they can freeze your account and deny you access to funds.

    I suppose you could always go back to the barter economy and start breeding chickens.

    @Random Name
    Hard Rain

    A very naive response. People like you worry me. You’d give up your freedom and live under bondage for convenience. Sad.
    ____________________________________________

    Hathor Hathor
    Banks and businesses are responding to customer behaviours. As reported in the article there has been a dramatic decline in the use of cash, that is not the result of people being ‘forced’ to use digital means of payment but because many prefer to use digital means. Obviously, some feel threatened or worried about that, which is normal for any change. But please can we dump all the madcap conspiracy theories.
    ____________________________________________

    ‘Hathor Hathor’ and ‘Random Name’ feature several times. Their arguments are remarkably similar to other supporters of total digitisation not only in this column but also on other forums. The argument is always the same: resistance to digitisation is the preserve of ageing, Luddite, conspiracy theorists and when they’re all dead, we can get on with our brave new world. Indeed, they sometimes seem scripted, though in reality they’re probably cutting and pasting. There is a cold, head, dead rationalism to them.

    After a while it becomes tiresome to repeat the defence that those who wish to retain cash are not technologically illiterate or subscribers to conspiracy theory. Indeed, they may hardly ever use cash but they know the dangers of a cashless society. Once it’s gone, the customer is ‘owned’.

    A penny piece may be financially worthless but it’s societally priceless.

  53. Turn up for the book. For those few who follow rugby union:

    The petulant thug Farrell has come out of the “disciplinary panel” SCOT FREE. Red card rescinded.

    Now tell me rugby isn’t as corrupt as soccer.

    2. The worst thing about it is that the England squad would have performed better without Farrell and with Ford and Smith at No 10. Now with Farrell there their meagre chances are even meagerer(!)

      Now that one of the scrum halves (Jack van Poortvliet) has twisted his ankle and has had to withdraw then maybe the Gresham’s boy, whose English your MR thought was poor, will have the sort of end to his career that Stuart Broad had when he hit a six off the last ball he faced and took the last two wickets to give England a victory. Imagine the jubilation if, in the WC final against France, in the last minute of added time with France leading 20 – 16, that Ben Young sells a glorious dummy and weaves his way through the defence and slips over in the corner for the try that gives England the World Cup!

      1. Dream on!

        That Gresham boy has long been a joke. He is pathologically-conditioned to routinely box kick and give away possession. He is beyond useless and the fact that he has kept the far-superior Danny Care — who has a real rugby brain — out of the England side for so long defies rational belief.

        2. I have never understood what hold he had over various England selectors that enabled him to be picked match after match.

          It would be interesting – if depressing – to know how many points he gave away in the course of his apparently endless career.

          1. Any side with even a half decent, side-stepping, fast back three must have rubbed their hands with glee whenever he was picked.
            I strongly suspect that many matches were lost after he kicked the ball away and the opposition either scored almost immediately or England found themselves pinned down deep in their own half and held to a narrow defeat.

            Flat track bullies under Jones and now Borthwick.

        3. I have never understood what hold he had over various England selectors that enabled him to be picked match after match.

          It would be interesting – if depressing – to know how many points he gave away in the course of his apparently endless career.

    3. The prawn-sandwich munching, pink-gin brigade are terrified the team will exit the World Cup before canapés are served.

      1. With that tosser in the side, that is virtually guaranteed.

        The coach is lumbered with a player who – at any minute in any game – is liable to smash an opponent so hard that he may be unable to play for the rest of the season.

        Total disaster.

        1. The prawn-sandwich munching, pink-gin brigade, Philip, is what Will Carling (when England captain) called the RFU (Rugby Football Union: the faceless, chinless wonders who run the sport).

  54. ‘Written out of the history books’: the British spy who planned Iranian coup. 15 August 2023.

    Seventy years ago, the fate of Iran hung in the balance, when a US-UK coup to oust the elected prime minister appeared to have failed. The CIA was ready to pull the plug on the operation, but a 28-year-old British intelligence officer, monitoring events from a clandestine base in Cyprus, insisted on persevering.

    The coup – which took place this week 70 years ago – ultimately succeeded, Mohammad Mosadegh, the leader who was popular in Iran for nationalising a British-run oil-field, was detained, and the Shah flew back to Tehran, strengthened.

    Most intelligence work is collecting information. It is rare for a spy to change the course of history in the way this MI6 officer, Norman Darbyshire, did in 1953. British interests were restored in the short term but the shah went on to become a reviled dictator, paving the way for the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the state of enmity between Iran and the west that has endured ever since.

    This is so often the case. The Intelligence Services act on some short term misinformed premise and long term disaster ensues. The present Middle East and the associated migration problem is largely of our own doing. We have destabilised and impoverished large areas of it and at the same time shot ourselves in both feet. Many of these countries were actually thriving and their populations happy to remain there until we decided to help them find Freedom and Democracy. Whenever I look at the pictures of those young men getting off the channel boats I consciously remind myself that they don’t love us and they have good reason for it!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/15/written-out-the-history-books-the-british-spy-who-planned-the-iranian-coup

    1. I wonder … “the leader who was popular in Iran for nationalising a British-run oil-field“???

    2. I wonder … “the leader who was popular in Iran for nationalising a British-run oil-field“???

    3. We have no idea how Iran would have turned out had it not been for the overthrow of Mosadegh. It’s too simplistic to say there would have been no Islamic revolution otherwise.

  55. In a link I posted yesterday https://www.hawc-observatory.org/news/index.php#hawc_sol2023 scientists have not predicted the recent unexpected rapid increase in global warming that we have attributed to apocalyptic anthropogenic induced climate change.

    Instead, in quite a recent discovery, they have made observations about solar emission of gamma rays that challenge the very foundations of scientific knowledge but nevertheless establishes a correlation with the well known phenomenon of the 11-year sunspot cycle.

    The scientists can’t use current scientific knowledge to explain what they have observed and are genuinely puzzled as to what is going on.

    Yes, apocalyptic events are happening right now and I see ‘end of the world’ YouTube videos every day now. But there is increasing evidence that what is happening to our planet is not primarily due to human activity and is beyond our comprehension. The dinosaurs didn’t make a very good job of looking after it!

    1. Aliens are creating the conditions that will wipe out humans but leave the planet in perfect condition for their colonisation.

      Obviously that’s rubbish.
      But in all honesty, is it any less likely to be correct than a lot of the science that is supposedly settled?

    2. My father was a geologist and he always told us that the impact humans have in the overall scheme of the world is virtually nil, even if our short-term impact may seem devastating. He was also a great evolutionist and his mantra was “survival of the fittest” – where “fittest” means “best adapted”.

      The Earth’s climate is ever-changing, for all sorts of reasons that are still not understood. I have fun taking our groups of pupils to a local abbey which dates back to Norman times: in the 17th century, “climate change” caused regular flooding of the river, and so the monks raised the ground level of the monastery (and so also that of the upper floors) by over a metre. Today, visitors see the stone outlines of half-size doors in the walls, and holes half-way up for the old floorboards.

      It is up to us to adapt to the climate, not the other way around!

      1. I have often thought we should be working more to adapting to the climate, rather than trying to ban anything fossil fuel related!

          2. Talking of surveillance, at lunchtime today I popped into M&S but they’d sold out of the item I was looking for and just for once, I got what I wanted in Waitrose instead. It’s usually the other way round. Anyway, when I got back to work this popped into my gmail. I didn’t buy anything and didn’t have my phone with me. What the heck!

            Edit: I almost always use cash when I shop in M&S White City – but I did let the assistant scan my “Sparks Card” yesterday, so maybe…?
            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a8ff0047a36f510ffb5beb92e2f748f049d48bae2c61c7720d1d7dbb98eaa1d0.png

          3. They are not only listening but watching too…

            Did you use a card in store for anything at all. A cup of coffee perhaps.

          4. Nope, nothing. The only thing I can think of is that the timing was coincidence and it was due to letting the assistant who served me yesterday scan my Sparks Card when I paid cash for a t-shirt.

          5. That was probably it.

            Though surveillance is becoming more intrusive, hotels would keep copious notes on their guests so they could welcome them back in the way they expected.

            More recently there was an article about Italian restaurants around lake Como keeping records on low spenders and low tippers.

          7. Muggers are now using portable scanners to read your cards as you walk by. That tinfoil is becoming more and more sensible.

          8. That’s very creepy! I get things like that from Morrisons, but only after I’ve shopped there.

        3. Happy belated birthday Jill! I missed your appearance here yesterday – I hope it was a good one!

          4. Happy Birthday, Jill – enjoy Friday (anticipation) and especially enjoy your Saturday (celebration) and your Sunday (recovery!).

        4. Happy belated birthday Jill! I missed your appearance here yesterday – I hope it was a good one!

  56. Bribes and hiding at home: the Ukrainian men trying to avoid conscription. 15 August 2023.

    The man, who asked for anonymity to discuss the matter, admitted that he had paid a $5,000 bribe to escape a potential draft into the Ukrainian army and service on the front lines in the war with Russia.

    “I knew there was no way I would be able to sit in a trench, so I took my savings and contacted a ‘fixer’. Everyone knows where to find them. I paid in cash, they sent me to a hospital to do a spinal MRI; the hospital gave me a medical report claiming I had a major spinal defect, and with that I could get papers allowing me to leave the country. I had the feeling that, at every stage of the way, people knew what was happening and were getting a cut,” said the man.

    The whole process took two weeks; the man was able to leave Ukraine and now lives elsewhere in Europe.

    This has sort of snuck past the censors. Worth a read!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/15/bribes-and-hiding-at-home-the-ukrainian-men-trying-to-avoid-conscription

      1. Can’t really blame the young men. I bet none of the children of the elite get conscripted.

    2. Zelensky and the U.S have knowingly thrown a generation into the meat grinder. They now use conscription of young men and old to create the illusion of having an army. They don’t.

  58. Conspiracy theory re Maui fires?
    Prime area owned by native Hawaiians has been devastated and for what? The story doing the rounds is that the local inhabitants had refused to sell their properties: now, many do not have a property, only the land.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bc26818a7cea623b5951ac5aafa404355b36f064d3a3a1e13b613e6b1f70806a.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e8b51c07cf24b1429fe5aec54957ffeb87e4d402d2e477479c51de5ee7e79473.png

    https://twitter.com/efenigson/status/1691404580267974656

    1. The whole thing sounds a bit fishy.

      “Disaster capitalism” is so much more efficient when you make the disaster too.

  60. Par Four today.

    Wordle 787 4/6
    ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
    ⬜🟨🟨🟩🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Me too.
      Wordle 787 4/6

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

    2. Lucky three. Happens occasionally.

      Wordle 787 3/6

      ⬜🟨🟨🟩⬜
      🟨🟨🟨🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Lucky three. Happens occasionally.

      Wordle 787 3/6

      ⬜🟨🟨🟩⬜
      🟨🟨🟨🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    4. Downwind the bogey group
      Wordle 787 5/6

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

    3. Don’t kiss the baby! That’s how cold sores are spread between the generations.

      Congratulations to all BTW.

    4. Congratulations to the parents and lucky you.
      Kiss and cuddle him as often as you can. By the time they’re 10 they become trainee teenagers and only speak in grunts and don’t want close contact. :-))

  62. The Grimes: Lord Patten’s son-in-law guilty of acting as shooting getaway driver

    Oh how sad that Lord Smug’s daughter left the court sobbing…..

        2. The rumours about darkies are mythical.

          One Jamaican woman once told me: “You ain’t had it right, honey, till you had it WHITE!”

    2. Patten was rejected by the voters of Bath. Indeed he is one of the most loathsome men in public life but he must have dirt on everyone to continue coming out of the sewer without the stink seeming to stick to him.

      After losing his seat as an MP in the general election in Bath he became the governor of Honk Kong, then an EU commissioner, and then the chancellor Oxford University.

      He also outfilths that other Chris called Bryant!

    1. Funnily enough, re the “how did they allow this to happen?” meme, I’ve just read “The Stable Boy of Auschwitz”. The way it all happened was frightening and had disturbing parallels with present times, particularly with regard to dobbing in neighbours. When I went for my physio appointment I was asked if I could wear a mask. I said, “no” and that was the end of it. Apparently there have been some “respiratory infections” – ie some patients and staff have gone down with a snuffle.

        1. It may be that they weren’t initially; they had relaxed the requirement but reinstated it. My physio has been masked up all along. It makes understanding what she’s saying very difficult!

          1. My dental hygenist and her assistant now wear masks and plastic visors…..I can’t hear what they’re saying. I wouldn’t want to be wearing all that all day.

  65. That’s me for today. Some ladder work carried out successfully – though stiff now. Time for some refreshing medicine.

    Have a spiffing evening enjoying yourselves while you still can (and take that any way you want).

    A demain.

  66. Evening, all. Despite the black clouds, we haven’t actually had any rain, so I’ve managed to get a bit of clearing away (you may recall, a tree came down while I was away) done. The green bin is now full to overflowing and won’t be emptied for another week.

    The climate doom-mongers seem to forget the tale of the Boy Who Cried Wolf. They’ve been scare-mongering so long (and been proved wrong so often) that even if a catastrophe were to be imminent, we’d say, “meh!”

  67. Just about to watch a 1950 film noir called NIGHT AND THE CITY, directed by Jules Dassin, starring Richard Widmark and set in London. After that I shall read another 25 pages of TRUST, the current Book Club book. So, much earlier than normal, I will wish you all a good night, chums.

    1. Talking about 1950s film noir, one of my favourite films of the genre has a similar name. Edge of the City (1957), starring John Cassavetes, and a very young Sidney Poitier, is a stark drama about a drifter with a mystical past who assumes a new identity in a strange city and tries to get employment as a stevedore on the docks. It is a violent but compelling account of life in those days and the acting is of the highest calibre.

    2. Talking about 1950s film noir, one of my favourite films of the genre has a similar name. Edge of the City (1957), starring John Cassavetes, and a very young Sidney Poitier, is a stark drama about a drifter with a mystical past who assumes a new identity in a strange city and tries to get employment as a stevedore on the docks. It is a violent but compelling account of life in those days and the acting is of the highest calibre.

  68. Starting? The attack on meat eating from narrative following rich people.
    A Google search on the topic and this popped up.

    Eating even small amounts of red meat, such as beef, pork, or lamb, may increase the risk of diabetes. A 2020 study showed that eating just 50 g red meat or fish each day can raise diabetes risk by 11%…

    Can’t wait for the minced smoked locust sausage, a side order of sweated nettle and dock leaves dressed with a dandelion jus.🤣

    Our hunter gatherer ancestors must have had a serious time with diabetes – surprised we’re here – or perhaps it’s all the modern day processing that’s the problem?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/16c09b24b8779f84b282d3c907fcaff64161b5bb0f64629c40d13dc8a4cc5ac4.png

    1. Indeed, Korky.

      It was the global corporations and big pharma who put out the lie that eating meat (and animal fat) will kill you, and that it is healthier to use seed oils and that sugar is not bad for you (since all their processed food is mainly sugar).

      It has now been proved that this is one of the biggest lies ever told and the net result is that countless people have suffered obesity and chronic ill-health, whilst being perpetually hungry on their carb-and-sugar-laden diet.

      With regard to hunger (caused by the consumption of sugar and carbs), here is my own personal journey:

      Why we get hungry.

      On the topic of hunger, it has quite a simple explanation associated with how we evolved and developed as a species.

      Humans emerged as hunter/gatherers; this means that the species naturally acquired its necessary nutrition by hunting animals and fish, and by supplementing this by collecting nuts and berries. This gave them a natural diet that was high in fat and protein, and very low in sugar and carbohydrates. This diet not only sustained them it made them strong and fit and helped them develop the biggest and most active brain in the animal kingdom. Eating such a diet — one that is still kept to by many indigenous tribes around the world — gives you all the necessary nourishment and has the added benefit that a fat-and-protein diet does not make you feel hungry soon after eating it. That fat and protein nourishment gives satiety, a feeling of fullness that can last for a few days. In those prehistoric days it was vital to be sated after a meal, since they never knew when the next big meal of hunted animal or fish would come. This is similar in all carnivorous species, wolves and lions for example; it might be days before they can catch their next meal so being sated is a necessary survival stratagem.

      The problem with humans is that we became too clever for our own good. We invented agriculture and that was to be our downfall, nutrition-wise. With the advent of farming we started to grow vegetables and grain crops, the products of neither being natural food for the species. Those vegetable crops contained very little protein, almost no fat but were loaded with colossal amounts of sugar and carbohydrates (which are, intrinsically, sugar). Agriculture came about as a result of necessity. A species that had outgrown its natural place in the world and was rapidly overpopulating the planet, without any curb on its doing so, needed more food than it’s hunter/gatherer nature could supply. The husbandry of farm animals supplied one necessity but this was by far overtaken by the growing of grain crops and other fruits and vegetables, all of which are low in fat and protein but high in sugar and carbohydrate content.

      The human gut was not used to eating such a diet and tried hard to adapt. Unfortunately the body’s natural urge is to resist change. This growing consumption of high-carb, high-sugar, low-fat, low protein foods changed the metabolism of a naturally carnivorous/moderately omnivorous species. One detrimental effect was the incremental rise in obesity. This was mainly triggered by the fact that the consumption of sugar and carbs drives hunger, a previously unknown concept. A short while after someone eats a high-carb/high sugar diet, they become hungry again. Tests were conducted on rats. Those fed a carnivorous diet stopped eating when they felt sated. Those given a high carb/high sugar diet could not stop eating and gorged themselves becoming morbidly obese after a few days.

      Not only that, since the industrial revolution, when agriculture started to dominate the planet, the rise in human obesity has been matched with the exponential rise of diseases that were hardly known to our ancestors. The unstoppable rise of: heart disease, atherosclerosis (fatty deposits in artery walls), hypertension (high blood pressure), strokes, cancers, type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, macular-degeneration, inflammation, fibrositis and DNA damage (among others) can be directly traced back to the advent of agriculture and the eating of its products.

      Moreover, this increased eating of carbohydrate and sugar-laden meals gave rise to the quite unnatural concept (fallacy) of the necessity to eat “three square meals a day”. As you would expect those with a vested interest played heavily on this myth; the mass manufacturers of carb-laden foods encouraged this silliness, to the detriment of the species but the enrichment of those producing massive quantities of the sugar-filled pap. One meal a day or, as in my case, one meal every other day, has a long historical provenance of being far better for the constitution and health.

      These are the reasons why I have returned to the hunter/gather instincts of my forebears by eating lots of meat, fish and fats; while cutting out all sugar, ‘processed foods’, and high-carbohydrate items of food. As a direct result my physiology now more closely resembles the natural state that it enjoyed for millennia and my nutritious and delicious high-fat, high-protein diet ensures I do not suffer any pangs of hunger.

      The moral is: eat fat and protein — stay sated, fit and healthy; eat sugar and carbohydrates — remain hungry, unfit and a vector for disease.

      That is why I made my choice and I am now reaping the benefits.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AbwnEYxhvk&list=WL&index=31
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVsxe9v72C0

    2. We know why the reason bacon is being targeted and it is nothing to do with those additives or global warming pig farts. it is to do that fucked up Jew Ed Millibandwagon tryin to eat one on camera. He even looked nauseated as he shoved it in his gob. Dale Vince is a cunt.

      1. Sorry, Philip, a cunt is a useful thing – I love ’em, but Dale Vincent is just useless.

        3. Welcome back to NoTTLe-land, Sir Jasper. I hope you are now feeling better and ready to entertain us each morning with your jokes.

    3. What the still sane members of our population should be really suffering from in relation to the morons strategies is a dustinct act of fur cough. Spreading to all of them ASAP FOAD.

    5. What’s actually needed is a compulsory 10-minute finger-wagging video lecture before each purchase of tobacco products, including vomit-inducing imagery of diseased lungs. Failing that, enforced confinement to a re-education camp until you’ve been thoroughly purged of any desire for such things. Also, all branding must be horrific, with product names only allowed to emphasise premature death and abject misery.

  69. Good evening.
    Thoroughly lovely day with old chum and her rescue dog (Corgi / Jack Russell cross). First time we’ve used the dining room in the Dower House.
    Rescue dog – v. overweight because one previous owner was old and the next terminally ill – got on well with Spartie.
    Our friend has worked hard to get Peanut’s weight down and it is gradually working.
    We took the dogs for a walk, and the chubster ran around in a way that had both of us watching open mouthed.
    At home, she negotiated the stairs well and jumped around as if thoroughly at home. MB and I were touched that she enjoyed herself and felt so relaxed as, prior to her adoption, she had had an isolated and boring existence with unsuitable food that made her look and feel bloated.
    p.s. We also enjoyed our human friend’s company!

      1. It’s amazing how much pleasure you can get from just watching a happy dog enjoying life; particularly one with Peanut’s sad history.

        1. Dogs are the best! I get a lot of pleasure from Oscar wanting a cuddle before bedtime (even if he is noisy insisting on it!). When I think how he didn’t want to be touched when I first got him, he’s come a LONG way.

          1. That is such a rewarding experience, you have worked wonders.

            New pup and I had great fun with the sweeping brush yesterday evening. He saw me sweeping the kitchen floor…. a quick sniff, then….. oh no! not the sweeping brush! – and a swift gallop round the living room… then back for another tentative sniff/look (is it still there?….. oh no! It is!) then another gallop with a few yaps and wuffs this time…. this was repeated probably at least another five times….

            My happiest times have been walking Poppie around the fields and copses, and now our new little dog who is shaping up.

            Dogs are the best.

          2. Oscar used to hate the vacuum cleaner and the broom. He would attack them. Now he has to be moved so that the floor can be cleaned where he was lying!

          4. I keep my pair indoors when I mow. They would want to “help” and I don’t want them getting hurt.

        2. It is one of life’s greatest, and simplest, pleasures. There is nothing quite like it. 👍

  70. I can no longer think of anything to write in response to these ‘initiatives’…

    Welsh Labour Government to fly flags for asexuals, aromantics and bisexuals on public buildings under LGBT plan

    Secretary of State for Wales accuses the administration of prioritising virtue signalling over tackling NHS waiting lists in the country

    By Daniel Martin, Deputy Political Editor and Nick Gutteridge, Political Correspondent • 15 August 2023 • 7:46pm

    The Welsh Labour Government has been accused of prioritising “woke virtue-signalling” after it ordered public buildings to fly flags celebrating asexual and “aromantic” people. The party’s LGBTQ+ action plan calls for “appropriate flags” to be raised in government, council and NHS buildings.

    The plan said the flags of “underrepresented communities” should be flown, including those representing bisexual, asexual and “aromantic” people. Aromantics experience little or no romantic attraction but are able to enjoy sexual relationships.

    David TC Davies, the Welsh Secretary, accused the party of prioritising virtue signalling over tackling NHS waiting lists in the country.

    “Just this week it was revealed that many Welsh patients have no choice but to go to English hospitals to receive treatment, rather than continue to languish on a Welsh NHS waiting list,” he said. “It would appear that Labour’s prioritising woke virtue signalling over reducing the UK’s worst waiting lists. Labour desperately needs to focus on the most pressing issues facing families.”

    The flag for aromantic people consists of horizontal bands of dark green, light green, white, grey and black, and can be flown on June 5. The bisexual flag, flown on September 23, is pink, purple and blue, while the asexual flag is black, grey, white and purple. International Asexuality Day takes place on April 6. All these flags are separate from the general rainbow flag.

    The flag plan is part of the LGBTQ+ Action Plan for Wales, published by the Labour-run Government. It states: “Appropriate flags raised in public sector buildings, particularly from underrepresented communities (eg bisexual; asexual; aromantic).”

    The instruction indicates that other LGBT groups with flags of their own could be granted their own flag days in Wales. It comes after the Government challenged the Labour-run administration for its waiting lists, which are worse than those in England.

    Mr Davis added: “More than 30,000 people in Wales are currently stuck on a waiting list for over two years. This crisis has been engineered by the Labour-run Welsh Government, which is completely responsible for running health in Wales.

    “Also under Labour’s watch, Welsh pupils now have the lowest literacy and numeracy skills in the UK, in addition to employment growth continuing to lag. It is outrageous that Sir Keir Starmer credits Welsh Labour’s abysmal record as a ‘blueprint’ for a Labour government.”

    The Welsh Government has been approached for comment.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/15/welsh-labour-fly-flags-asexual-aromantic-bisexual-lgbt-plan/

      1. Because – .the support for all this LGBT etc etc etc undermines the family, which is the greatest support network ever devised by nature. Govt has to smash this at all costs if it is to achieve its one world government marxist aims. Oh, and all the sexual stuff that goes with it.

        1. I read that as ‘aromatic’ and wondered what the Sheepsh Welsh have against people who use scent.

      3. Someone with BO or halitosis
        BTW happy birthday for yesterday Jill hope you had a lovely day

      4. I quote from above:

        “Aromantics experience little or no romantic attraction but are able to enjoy sexual relationships.”

        Sex without love, in short.

    4. Why have a flag for a group of people based on their sexual proclivities? Why ‘celebrate’ it?

      1. That’s in UKIP’s mini manifesto (I found it in the car while I was waiting for my appointment yesterday and since I seemed to have left my book behind I only had that to read).

      2. As should ALL devolution, Return the power to Westminster and make sure we return a sane and thinking Parliament.

        How? I haven’t a clue, since we have an insane, unthinking electorate.

    7. Flags for all!

      I can just imagine those, oh so earnest, members of the Welsh Assembly glowing with pride as they agreed to this nonsense. No embarrassment, let alone shame at their childish thought processes: of course the person who came up with the idea wasn’t being childish. That person and others are working to an agenda and leading their feeble minded colleagues astray.

      I am certain that I know what my Welsh, and one-time fervent socialist, father would have said about this. He never used English four letter words but had a wonderful clear way of expressing himself in English, both the spoken and written word. I think he knew a few words of Welsh but speaking that language wasn’t an issue with him.

    1. Thanks for that, MIR. As I postulated earlier: the fact that ‘hate crime’ exists is more than sufficient evidence to clearly show that the Thought Police also exist.

  73. I’m out of here for today. Earlier I had what my parents generation would have called ‘a funny turn’.
    My BP went through the roof for no particular reason. Probably the reaction to medication.
    But it’s impossible to get a gp appointment for at least three weeks.
    That’s me done for today.
    Good night all.

    1. They should be monitoring you closely after your procedure. It could be a reaction to the Amiodarone.

      1. They have just left me to get on with it.
        I’m not going to contact the cardiology department from the reply after my complaint it seems every single thing that had happened, including the two year gap between diagnosis and treatment, was my fault.
        The secretary has lied and denied knowledge of telling me to phone the St Barts booking department to make my own appointment.
        This is what we are up against.
        I’ll ring the cardiology nurse’s later today. Although they didn’t appear to be interested last time I phoned them.

        2. Do you have a cardiac rehab nurse? Ours has been very supportive, even though she wouldn’t have him on the course, she has kept in touch. She wanted the monitor back though, so he dropped it off a couple of weeks ago now.

  74. Utterly off topic… again…

    We’ve had the village fete of the Assomption this evening, (Caroline and Richard can tell you the religious bits).
    Lots and lots of people, ages ranging from babes in arms to grannies in wheelchairs.
    The village do includes fireworks, food stalls aplenty, booze and lots of weird games.
    Family sack race relay, pony rides, fish a duck, skipping over a giant rope.
    One of the “games” is family tug of war, another is water slide into a pool.

    BUT the real eye opener was the “throw a hand axe at a block of wood”.
    The idea is that you get five throws to split the skull of your enemy, depending on how close to the centre of the head that your axe lands; it only counts if the axe is embedded in the wood!

    France, this evening is a great example of why I love living here.

      1. This one had zero health and safety, the axes were going over and around the target and nobody appeared to care who was watching from where!

    3. I remember about 42 years ago, camping with the current Ms Mola in Brittany, Erqui I think, winning a live duck at something like your village do. A very friendly atmosphere and excellent grub and booze I recall.

    1. SIL took an LFT which was neg after Syncope but following admission to A&E he tested pos after PCR.

    2. SIL took an LFT which was neg after Syncope but following admission to A&E he tested pos after PCR.

    1. That’s just totally beyond the pale, but now seems to be how the system works. The father should be hurled from the roof of a tower block.

      1. How can anyone who is ‘literate’ behave in such a disgusting and monstrous manner.
        It seems brain washing and banging his head on the ground has instilled lunacy.

    3. Another POS bringing its vile culture to Europe. This is probably what happened to that poor 10 year old girl near Woking.

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