An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its commenting facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning. Persistent offenders will be banned.
Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.
Morning GG
Morning everyone.
Good morning, chums. Rain here has stopped for the weekend, so I may get out and about more today. And as Sunday will be really sunny, it’s an opportunity for some washing, drying and ironing.
Babies and truth die together in Israel-Palestine. 14 October 2023.
The beheaded babies tale originated with a report on Israel’s i24News site by reporter Nicole Zedeck, from her interview with Israeli reserve soldier David Ben Zion. Max Blumenthal and Alexander Rubinstein reported on October 11 that Ben Zion is a notorious radical leader in Israel’s West Bank settler movement. Among other things, he called on rampaging armed settlers earlier this year to wipe out the Palestinian village of Harawa, which settlers attacked and burned several times.
Media around the world quickly picked up the i24News report, and the Israeli Prime Minister’s spokesman said that babies and toddlers “with their heads decapitated” had been found at the site. CNN, among others, reported beheadings and “ISIS-style executions”. When journalists asked a spokesman for the Israeli military about the story, the reply was, “We cannot confirm but you can assume it happened.”
Within days, though, the Israeli foreign ministry and armed forces and some correspondents said there was no evidence for the beheadings, and the White House said that Biden was quoting press reports he’d read. It seemed clear by October 12 that no evidence existed to confirm the baby beheadings story. It was fake news, planted by an ideological warrior to stoke tensions in the heat of battle.
This is just in the cause of truth. It does not excuse the murder of the children because they were not killed in a particular way. Nevertheless it is a reminder to keep an eye open for propaganda.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/10/13/watching-the-watchdogs-babies-and-truth-die-together-in-israel-palestine
I’m surprised that blowing a baby’s head apart with a rifle bullet doesn’t count as beheading.
Thanks for that imagery, Sos.
People need to stop trying to hide the reality.
First casualty of war etc…..
The babies are still dead, just not in a way that reminds us of Anne Boleyn.
‘Morning All
There may be trouble ahead
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Rest
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https://twitter.com/Andyplumb4_/status/1708724804579168339?s=20
Gosh; the Eyties spik good English.
There’s a Naples in Florida?
I did wonder that, but was too lazy to check.
I know there are several Colchesters scattered around the world.
One of the posts (are they still called tweets?) some way below that last one:
https://twitter.com/Kimmi520381244/status/1712936689847390465
Hordes of hateful, parasitic savages.
Good letter from an FRCS:
“ Can Sir Keir Starmer really be so out of touch with the reality of the problems that the NHS is facing?
At the Labour Party conference, he stated that he would clear the whole of the NHS waiting-list backlog in one term of office (report, October 12). Does he not realise that the present crisis is multifactorial? It is a consequence of widespread shortages of nursing and medical staff, not to mention the breakdown in GP services – much of which was brought about by the last Labour government’s ill-judged GP contract, allowing primary-care doctors to be paid more for doing less.
Another relevant component of hospitals’ troubles is an appalling lack of capacity. In 1948, at the inception of the health service, there were 10 beds per 1,000 people. Now the NHS admits to only 1.9 beds per 1,000, far fewer than in many other Western nations, including Germany and France.
The European Working Time Directive has further complicated the matter, severely restricting the number of hours that medical staff can work.
I saw no evidence that Sir Keir is aware of these problems, which constitute a major roadblock to reducing waiting list numbers.“
Smarmer is a modern day politician living in the Information Age and if he was really interested in ‘saving the NHS’ he could, and should be, aware of the NHS’s travails. His glib assertion that he would provide a cure-all in 5 years is absolute tosh.
The West, which once declared such principles of democracy as freedom of speech, pluralism and respect for dissenting opinions, has now degenerated into the opposite: totalitarianism. This includes censorship, media bans, and the arbitrary treatment of journalists and public figures.
These kinds of prohibitions have been extended not only to the information space, but also to politics, culture, education, and art – to all spheres of public life in the Western countries.
And,they are imposing this on the world; they are trying to impose this model, a model of totalitarian liberalism, including the notorious cancel culture of widespread bans.
Vladimir Putin.
I spotted this quote on one of the Spectator’s threads and pinched it. I’ve checked and it’s genuine.
The content shows a grasp of the modern West that is in its way quite astonishing. That someone who lives in Russia and who is not exposed to it on a daily basis. should understand it so thoroughly! Vlad’s reading must be gargantuan!
One could not imagine its equal here. Biden could not tell you where Russia is, let alone describe its political zeitgeist.
By some bizarre freak of Politics and History Putin is probably the only World Leader left who is still Western in the traditional meaning of the word. He embodies those values that the West has abandoned. Country. Family. Christianity. These were the foundation stones of what was once the Greatest Civilisation that has graced the planet. They and it exist no more
Such leaders still exist in Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary….
That’s why they are out to demonise him.
377654+ up ticks,
Morning Each,
Letters: How it feels to be a British Jewish parent unsure if your children will be safe at school.
Priorities, priorities, more to the point How it feels to be an English parent unsure if your children will be safe at school,
if from external nasty creatures then from nasty creature teachers & drag queens.
The political class is in denial about the true crisis now afflicting Britain
The party conferences changed little because the two sides seemed to be offering too much of the same thing
Impossible seeing as they orchestrated it over these last forty years aided and abetted via the polling stations and a multitude of tribal fools.
The party conferences changed little because the two sides
formed a coalition/ united anti English front thirty plus years ago and never looked back, only forward down the road to RESET.
Diagnosis,
Keep up the regular voting pattern to have us down and out as a nation.
Good morning, all. Bright, clear and dry here. Haven’t ventured out but forecast is for a much cooler day than yesterday. Bulb planting delayed from yesterday is on the agenda following early visits to the butcher and Lidl.
.
Had my weekly fix from The Highwire yesterday. Jefferey Jaxen’s report had a segment on what is being proposed re air travel. Straight out of the C40 Cities’ playbook. There is a great need for more reports on this subject and the other ‘recommendations’ whom the likes of Khan and other would-be-tyrants, I’m loath to adorn these reprobates with the word leader, want to impose on people.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c0d697eca545f9147b268995eef4dd5a2496fe48dfae7d323f9342604dbb40f6.png
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I wonder how the countries which rely on tourism will cope (edited from “care”, which I never intended to write).
https://www.flightaware.com/squawks/view/1/7_days/popular_new/93918/NetJets_agrees_to_purchase_up_to_1_500_jets_from_Textron_Aviation
Don’t worry MIR.
The Elite will still be holidaying, but in their private jets
They survived the ‘Scamdemic’ by probably believing that there would be an end to that nonsense in the not too distant future. And they were right.
These proposals are the death knell of the mass tourist trade which should come as no surprise when one finds out who is behind these ideas i.e. the Davos Set, the globalists, the Trilateral Commission (Smarmer’s buddies), authoritarians e.g. Khan etc. These people want to lock everyone down into their 15 minutes cities project, better known as concentration camps.
Apologies for using a very hackneyed phrase but: the sooner more people wake up and believe us, the ex-conspiracy theorists, the sooner these C40 City and divers other charlatans will have to run for cover. Remaining dozing or semi-comatose are no longer options.
This evil is one of the many reasons for my current ‘deep downer.’
I have lost the desire to travel abroad, frankly. Flying is such a hassle, even when I was travelling overseas that I chose to go to Aix en Provence by TGV rather than fly to Nice or Marseille.
Good morning, all. Blue sky. Chilly.
I saw a bit of correspondence here recently on bank accounts for our overseas residents. This caught my eye in today’s Money section, if it’s of any interest:
“British expats face being locked out of their pensions because of UK bank account closures linked to Brexit.
Most pension providers can only pay into a UK bank account. However, lenders have stopped serving many overseas customers, leaving them scrambling to access their savings.
Retirees are also struggling to move pensions into drawdown, buy annuities and make changes to their contributions as post-Brexit rules mean pension providers are less likely to offer cross-border services.
Under HM Revenue and Customs rules, in order to transfer to a new British provider, customers need to be resident in the UK. This means many pensioners face expensive and complicated overseas pension transfers, which can see them lose up to 25pc of their pot to tax, to get their money.
Paul Beard, the founder of Alexander Beard Group, which advises people moving overseas, said he had been contacted by dozens of retirees about pension providers who refused point blank to pay out. He said it was a dereliction of duty and contravened rules introduced by the Financial Conduct Authority in July.
Philip Teague, at Cross Borders Financial Planning, said a worryingly large number of pension providers were creating barriers for expats.
“We’re starting to uncover some big problems for our clients who have got these very vanilla regular pensions,” he said, warning complaints will end up with the Financial Ombudsman.
Sources at pension funds said the problems were primarily caused by banks reviewing which accounts they allowed non-residents to have after the UK left the EU. Barclays offers expats a global account, but they need to maintain a balance of £100,000 to avoid a monthly charge of £40. At HSBC, customers must save at least £50,000, have a salary of more than £ 100,000 or already be a “premier” customer.
Providers also cannot open new pensions for expats because HMRC requires that anyone starting a scheme ordinarily resides in Britain.
Telegraph Money understands that many expats are having to transfer older policies. Some pension funds also require that a customer receives accredited advice in the country they have moved to before a transfer can be made, which can incur a high commission fee.
A spokesman for the Pensions Regulator said that concerned customers should follow complaint procedures.”
Not sure what this has to do with Brexit, quite frankly. Well before Brexit, it became impossible for expats to have a personal bank account in the UK and the banks simply closed existing accounts. The larger banks offered the possibility of opening a new account with their offshore branches on the Isle of Man or Channel Islands.
It’s just an excuse to blame Brexit (which we have not got).
I saw a bit of correspondence here recently on bank accounts for our overseas residents. This caught my eye in today’s Money section, if it’s of any interest:
“British expats face being locked out of their pensions because of UK bank account closures linked to Brexit.
Most pension providers can only pay into a UK bank account. However, lenders have stopped serving many overseas customers, leaving them scrambling to access their savings.
Retirees are also struggling to move pensions into drawdown, buy annuities and make changes to their contributions as post-Brexit rules mean pension providers are less likely to offer cross-border services.
Under HM Revenue and Customs rules, in order to transfer to a new British provider, customers need to be resident in the UK. This means many pensioners face expensive and complicated overseas pension transfers, which can see them lose up to 25pc of their pot to tax, to get their money.
Paul Beard, the founder of Alexander Beard Group, which advises people moving overseas, said he had been contacted by dozens of retirees about pension providers who refused point blank to pay out. He said it was a dereliction of duty and contravened rules introduced by the Financial Conduct Authority in July.
Philip Teague, at Cross Borders Financial Planning, said a worryingly large number of pension providers were creating barriers for expats.
“We’re starting to uncover some big problems for our clients who have got these very vanilla regular pensions,” he said, warning complaints will end up with the Financial Ombudsman.
Sources at pension funds said the problems were primarily caused by banks reviewing which accounts they allowed non-residents to have after the UK left the EU. Barclays offers expats a global account, but they need to maintain a balance of £100,000 to avoid a monthly charge of £40. At HSBC, customers must save at least £50,000, have a salary of more than £ 100,000 or already be a “premier” customer.
Providers also cannot open new pensions for expats because HMRC requires that anyone starting a scheme ordinarily resides in Britain.
Telegraph Money understands that many expats are having to transfer older policies. Some pension funds also require that a customer receives accredited advice in the country they have moved to before a transfer can be made, which can incur a high commission fee.
A spokesman for the Pensions Regulator said that concerned customers should follow complaint procedures.”
‘Morning, Peeps. A drier but much cooler day in prospect.
SIR – Following the Labour conference, I am still not sure where the party stands on the unions. Will it give in to their demands? Strengthen their cause to bring more misery?
Gill Noakes
Crowborough, West Susse
Ignoring for the moment that Crowborough is in East, not West, Sussex (and not ‘Susse’) Ms Noakes must surely understand that Labour is hardly likely to turn its back on its paymasters? Can she really be that naive?
“According to the UK government’s website, Baroness Gillian Noakes DBE has been appointed as
the Conservative Party Member for the House of Lords Appointments Commission ”
.
……..so either she doesn’t know which part of Sussex she lives in, or much more likely some
political mischief maker is trying to embarrass the real Gill Noakes.
Well spotted.
I love the smell of rhetoric in the morning.
377654+ up ticks,
A tad understated,
“looks a bit fishy”
should read Billingsgate on steroids & charlie.
https://x.com/weisman_joe/status/1627682336459333633?s=20
Good morning all.
After yesterday’s wet start, a brighter one today with a clear sky and 3°C outside.
Cromford Apple Day today so will be assisting with my own apple press.
Give me strength, another naive letter:
SIR – With regard to Labour’s plans for education, wouldn’t it be better to focus on raising the standard of state schools, rather than attacking independent ones for providing the standard that parents want?
Alison Brightwell
Bridport, Dorset
Unless Ms Brightwell (!) was born yesterday she must have realised by now that Labour instinctively always wants to drag everyone down to the lowest common denominator, whereas reforming state education requires brains and dedication. So much easier to pursue the politics of envy and perhaps make a few pounds along the way, and to damage or even destroy much of the private education system in the process. Besides, where will the Labour front bench send their own children after that??
Can’t have ‘students’ aka pupils being encouraged to think for themselves.
They might notice the litter around their schools and do something about it.
Reforming state education is impossible, the unions won’t allow it.
Not just the unions. Even some parents hold their children back. Mine refused to allow me to go to college. They expected me to go out to work and contribute to the household. I went anyway.
Good Moaning.
Bright yellow thing in the sky; we’re all …….. oh, write the script yourself.
Still recovering from granddaughter telling me last night that I’m ‘wise’. She’ll grow out of it.
Does she also believe you’re early to bed and early to rise.
:-). She’s not THAT deluded.
Can’t comment on the wisdom (sorry), but having a cople of decades under your belt, you will certainly know “stuff”. That’s valuable in itself.
Morning, Anne!
My response is usually along the lines of “As you will be when you’ve been around the block as often as Granny and me.” There then follows a further explanation of what ‘around the block’ means…
‘Moaning, Annie.
Fine BTL comment, BTW.
Good training you can’t beat it Anne.😄🤗
How old is your grand-daughter ?
Nineteen.
Plenty of time to become disillusioned.
SIR – I am among those – a silent majority, I believe – who are angry about the lily-livered decisions by the BBC and the Football Association not to overtly support Israel in the aftermath of Hamas’s heinous terrorism (Letters, October 13).
It is high time that those of us who see things this way become a vocal majority.
Linda Mansfield
Newcastle Emlyn, Carmarthenshire
Perhaps appropriate, in the light of recent events by the BBC and others who should know better:
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I was not a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
Nowadays, when one does speak out, they come for you first.
It’s noticeable that little git in London is no longer using his favourite phrase, ‘hate crime’.
When it is now more obvious than it ever was.
‘Morning, Herr Oberst. This BTL caught my eye:
Trevor Anderson
4 HRS AGO
Deborah Turness: “All throughout our coverage we have told audiences that Hamas is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UK and many other governments.”
Cobblers and utter lies. The phrase has been: “Labelled as a Terror Organisation by other nations including the UK.” The word “Terrorist” has not been used. However:
BBC Website 23 May 2017 re the Manchester Bombing:
“This is the worst terrorist attack in the UK since the 7 July bombings in 2005, in which 52 people were killed by four suicide bombers.”
BBC Website 19 June 2017:
By Katherine Sellgren
BBC News family and education reporter:
“News of a terrorist attack is always frightening, but for parents there is the added dilemma of what to say to their children.”
They appear to have forgotten, conveniently, that “Terrorist” for Islamist murderers has been used at home, but not when these “militants” are slaughtering Israelis. They also commonly used the word when describing IRA murderers.
Splitting hairs in defence of their persistent bias on most political subjects is a vast part of their arrogance and self-indulgence. On a lesser subject, but nevertheless an important one, has anyone ever heard them state a balance of any kind on climate change?
Scrap the licence fee and let them suffer the consequences. They live the life of Reilly from our funding of 70% of their annual revenue. That’s an anachronistic outrage.
* * *
And so say many of us!
Good morning all,
A fine Saturday morning has dawned at McPhee Towers. The season has properly arrived with the wind in the North-West, 8℃ and 11℃ the forecast ‘high’.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/110af8061cfb852e8ae1cfac3203f1e6e402bb1a5b0a446cc3d990686e9496ce.png
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/14/hamas-israel-new-world-order-middle-east-iran-saudi-russia/
Isn’t this what it is supposed to help to do? As Ben Ruben pointed out on UK Column News yesterday, it is entirely possible, I’d say probable, that both sides are the ‘bad guys’. This attack was a year in the planning; a captured Hamas terrorist has told us so. Are we to believe that the Israeli security service, Mossad, did not know about it in advance? How was it that the border with Gaza of the World’s most secure state was so easily breached? Why did it take FIVE HOURS for the IDF to arrive on the scene. Why were large numbers of the IDF moved from the Gaza crossing area to the West Bank prior to the attack? What is the real direction of the Netanyahu government in Israel? Was Hamas Isreal’s creation in the first place? For what nefarious purpose? Bret Weinstein’s Dark Horse podcast with Efrat Fenigson, an Israeli dissident journalist and one-time IDF intelligence operative at the Gaza border raises the lid on some of this and more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_IAH7PnS_E
Meanwhile I’m off to the market and then I’m going fishing.
It’s a bonkers idea and just one more attempt to further sideline traditional marriage (if that is possible). However, by far the most chilling aspect is this: “Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry”!!
https://mailchi.mp/c4m/labour-to-deem-live-in-couples-as-married?e=566cce1391
White Van Fan.
Oh dear when I see names like Thorn Berry I know what to expect.
Sloe very bitter and stabbing rhetoric.
A waste of gin.
And I also saw meddlesome in one the laybore gatherings.
Lady Nugee appears to have done well out of marriage.
I’m not so sure. I’ve been with MOH for 43 years. Two grownup kids but we’re not married. Our wills would be a lot more simple if what she suggests is enacted.
Morning all 🙂😊
Lovely sunny start, but I think we’ve learnt not trust a forecast.
Lots of Jewish people in the UK are extremely worried that certain members of other religious sects will start taking revenge on their families. Because Israel quite rightly punished the terrorists Hamas for the death and destruction the caused for no reason, but inbuilt and practiced hate and the long standing medieval mindset that includes extreme ignorance. Never give in to this threat, as our own stupid and useless political classes have.
Now in the ongoing process of completely wrecking our country.
Charles Liddell
14 MIN AGO
Martin Ross’s letter should send a shiver down the spine of everyone on this forum. Being born in 1959, I was brought up in a Britain that had only recently participated in a world war to rid the world of a murderous tyranny whose goal was the total extermination of the Jewish people. British open mindedness and tolerance were emphasised. Now we live in a country where some of its people openly celebrate the killing of babies, children and the elderly by a murderous terrorist organisation, and where official reaction could best be described as ‘equivocal’. The (in)action of the Met Police outside the Israeli embassy and the craven FA outraged and sickened me, and don’t get me started on the disgraceful BBC. What has happened to the Britain I love?
We, the silent majority, are with you and your people in these dark times Mr. Ross. You are not alone. EDITED
Had you not noticed, Mr Liddell, Britain is now stuffed with wogs, who mostly approve of the actions of Hamas, and since the buggers are everywhere, will not tolerate support of Israel in any way.
Apparently some one during a TV prog known as news watch in a debate used the phrase ‘the black guy’ to allow the person to join the debate.
It’s brought the country to its knees and now been removed from the records completely.
Our country is stuffed. Thank-you so much political idiots. You are absolutely pointless.
Roll over and beat whitey up.
I expect the name Whitehall will be removed from the English language pretty darn soon
Except we’ve not *been* silent. We’ve been silenced. Raise a concern about muslim intolerance, bigotry or criminality and the state sets out to destroy you. Try to argue that they’re welfare dependent wasters who have no place in the country and they’ll go for you. The state broadcaster, after a terrorist event screams on someone who refutes it. The wider press describe these creatures as mentally ill lone wolves. Never muslim terrorists.
The state machine does everything it can to promote, endorse and support this barbaric group of savages at every turn and the state closes ranks to ensure nothing ever gets said against the muslim. Plod even go for the victims of muslim atrocity.
Word.
12y sentence increased to 15?
OK, a step in the right direction, but the tw@ will still be out in 7½y.
https://twitter.com/BeardedBob7282/status/1713102848295076272
Will he be deported at the end of his sentence?
Decapitated would be better.
Yes, we would prefer that as well, but we think that principle would require primary legislation, and
our appeasing MPs would be unwilling.
The media says we are running out of prison places , why can’t the majority be kicked out of Britain .
Let Sharia law be their justice .. Muslims cut off limbs and lash , don’t they or is that only a punishment for women and children?
They do it to everyone.
https://twitter.com/DaveAtherton20/status/1712882840281448948
‘Morning, BoB. In my view he should not be able to apply for a full licence until he has passed an enhanced driving test and then the IAM test. Should he be sufficiently stupid to drive like that again he should then lose the ‘right’ to drive on our roads for the rest of his days.
He should never be allowed to drive again, ever.
Passing a test is one thing – he’d probably do that easily. The issue is the attitude of drivers with valid licences. Passing a test would not stop him making the same selfish decisions.
Good morning all,
Sunny start to the day, now a bit overcast .. and a crisp 8c. We haven’t put the heating on yet .
Son is running in the Weymouth 5 Park run this morning , started at 9am .
Moh nearly choked with a coughing fit last night .. lasted ages , then he eventually settled down . Steam from boiling hot water in a bowl helped .
Shame it wasn’t the dishwasher steam which I forgot to switch on .
Hah!
I can trump that one.
I checked to see how the dinner was heating up, only to discover I had switched on the oven but forgotten to put the casserole in it.
I blame sun spots.
p.s. Is YOH drinking enough fluid? Or does he ignore your advice?
We’ve been having the heating on for several weeks in the mornings and evenings. Mainly because OH since his illness feels the cold a lot more. He’s lost a lot of bodyweight and that was muscle, not fat.
Steak, eggs and exercise for him. walking or cycling. Use bake bean tins as dumbells.
He gets too out of breath for exercise these days but he eats good food. After having played sport for most of his life, he’s had to adjust to pottering about in the garden. The muscle loss is due both to age (80) and infirmity since his heart op.
Gardening is gentle exercise. As long as he keeps moving and not slumped in a chair.
He’s always busy doing something.
Has he still got the cold he was suffering from? Do you both take your vitamin D?
Morning all, cold and windy start today
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/68077f3a7105437828ae15b75b9e0be0ddb6f3a19364429bca697b0926608be8.jpg
Excellent!!
We used to sing this at pre-primary school to help learn our numbers backwards
10 sticks of dynamite hanging on the wall
10 sticks of dynamite hanging on the wall
And if one stick of dynamite should accidentally fall
There’d be 9 sticks of dynamite hanging on the wall
9 sticks of dynamite,
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
1 stick of dynamite hanging on the wall
1 stick of dynamite hanging on the wall
And if one stick of dynamite should accidentally fall
There’d be no sticks of dynamite and no blasted* wall!
(* The epithet changed as we grew older and less innocent)
I knew it as “Ten Green Bottles”.
We had:
10 green hand grenades hanging on the wall
10 green hand grenades hanging on the wall
And if one green hand grenade should accidentally fall
There’d be no green hand grenades and no bloody wall.
We used to sing this at pre-primary school to help learn our numbers backwards
10 sticks of dynamite hanging on the wall
10 sticks of dynamite hanging on the wall
And if one stick of dynamite should accidentally fall
There’d be 9 sticks of dynamite hanging on the wall
9 sticks of dynamite,
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
1 stick of dynamite hanging on the wall
1 stick of dynamite hanging on the wall
And if one stick of dynamite should accidentally fall
There’d be no sticks of dynamite and no blasted* wall!
(* The epithet changed as we grew older and less innocent)
There was a young lady called Alice, who used a dynamite stick as a phallus. They found her vagina in North Carolina, and parts of her anus in Dallas.
Shocked, I am.
No wonder the BBC is in the state it is in!
She went out with a bang.
We are definitely doing lunch again…soon !
I have been trying to find the article I read about those of the Jewish faith being a minority on this overpopulated planet .
Jews have been persecuted for centuries , and Israel selected as their promised land is the only real home they will ever know and have .
PS I appreciated the tone of this letter
SIR – Ben Wallace, the former defence secretary, says “Iran will want Israel to overreact and stray beyond self-defence” (Comment, October 13).
Israel – lest we forget, the world’s only Jewish state, occupying a tiny percentage of the land mass of the Middle East – is facing its most perilous moment since the Yom Kippur War in 1973. It is surrounded by well-funded, hostile, state-sponsored terrorist groups which, as we have seen, are willing to replicate Nazi-era atrocities.
This is no time to be calling for Israeli restraint. Israeli self-defence requires the total removal of Hamas from Gaza. Moreover, pre-emptive strikes – including against Hizbollah members residing within sovereign Syrian territory – may prove essential to deter further terrorist attacks that pose an existential threat to Israel’s survival.
Philip Duly
Haslemere, Surrey
A history of Israel before 1947.
https://x.com/HotBrandMedia/status/1712183989996322962?s=20
All true, but why did Balfour refer to Palestine in his Declaration? Why did the League of Nations call it thus when they put it under British control?
Answer is that it is the Biblical name for the area and the Ottomans used it too simply as a matter of convenience. There were no Palestinians in the modern sense in the Area at all because they simply didn’t exist. The Arabs that came in adopted the name thus giving themselves the false pretence of having been there all the time and people who don’t know any better fell for it and assume the Arabs are Palestinians. Truth is that almost all of them are from elsewhere, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria etc.
SIR – I suspect that most people in Gaza do not support Hamas. Hamas
controls the place and apparently brooks no opposition. So Israel’s
actions could well affect a large number of people who simply have the
misfortune of dwelling in a small area run by a terrorist organisation.
Hamas, having organised and carried out a lethal terrorist incursion into
Israel, is no doubt well prepared for the Israeli retaliation, and may
well suffer less than the general population. I don’t doubt that it is
using that population as human shields.
My fear is that the damage the Israeli forces are doing may end up increasing support for Hamas.
Nick Eckford
Harpenden, Hertfordshire
That’s one opinion i suppose. How many Muslims report on their neighbours or hear things at a Mosque and then inform our security services? Wake up Nick !
You get what you vote for.
377654+ up ticks
Morning JN,
Seconded with bells on.
How come Egypt successfully defeated and contained the Muslim Brotherhood. Which is why their border with Gaza is closed of course. They can do without inviting in Hamas as well. Cultural and racial relativism is bog-wash.
Something he’s not bringing up in his letter is, Hamas have always used school grounds and any public areas to launch their disgusting attacks on Israel. They have even gone as far as placing children’s toys, on long gone buildings from previous retaliation from Israel. With mature weed growth in the ‘recently demolished’ buildings.
Terrorists are absolute Liars.
Nick Eckford lives fairly close to me.
Shall i pop round and see him ?
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ecd467e7ec8def6ae90a87e8a544e3a27b090feac3786d7460b92c09cb1dfb4c.jpg
That’s the thing about furriners – they all look the same to me.
I remember that one, three times rescued.
I wouldn’t. He doesn’t sound as if he has all his nuts and bolts.
I have a large spanner.
I was watching a report last night concerning Hamas instructing the people of Gaza top stay in place and ignore Israeli instructions to leave. The Gazans know, of course, where Hamas is. So people started walking but avoiding the places where Hamas forces were hiding. This gave the Israelis a clue and, with other indications, they wiped out several Hamas sites. Clever trick on the part of the Israeli’s. But the same report also pointed out that the people instructed to move were only told to get out of one half of Gaza and it isn’t so monumental as is being pretended. It is a distance of about 15 miles. The entire length of Gaza is only 27 miles. The same report dispelled the myth of Gaza being the most densely populated place on earth. It turns out that it isn’t even as densely populated as Manhattan or Tel Aviv.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c9a795684b07747039d4dad3f8204105b34be1afba00fee9832ee3de425516f9.jpg
And who is in our prisons? You’d think they’d be mostly white folk, and you’re right, but there are incredibly disproportionate numbers of blacks and ethnic middle easterners in there as well.
Bluntly, the state imports violent people and we’re forced to pay for them for the rest of their lives.
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04334/SN04334.pdf
Just pay your inflated heating bills and shop at ALDI; like the rest of the population.
Don’t you mean shop lift at Aldi, like the rest of the population ?
The prisons in the UK are full to overflowing 99%+. The government has known about this problem for sixty years or more. In 1991 the law was changed so that criminals would be released after serving only half their sentence. They should have built more prisons and deported/exiled those that were born overseas or first or second degree immigrants. That would have reduced the crime rate enormously and obviated the need for more prisons. I am in favour of offering them voluntary self-exile or continued imprisonment at the half-way point . . . and bring back the death penalty for 1st degree murder.
Just done a survey with the leftie YouGov. asking questions about Israel but not the same questions abot Hamas. About 80% of the people that take their surveys are left or far left.
“YouGov – the pollster that gives you the answer YOU want”
At a price.
provided its on the left.
Good Lord.
You were actually asked questions about current affairs? They obviously don’t know your political leanings.
I only ever got questions about men’s cheap toiletries and day-glow orange juice.
US and Moscow call Russian attacks in the east a ‘new offensive’. 14 October 2023.
Russian forces attacked the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka for the fourth day in a row on Friday, with both Moscow and Washington deeming the intensified fighting a new offensive in Russia’s 19-month-old invasion of its neighbour.
What happened to the Ukie counter attack that was going to sweep the Russians out of the Donbass and Crimea?
It’s a little early yet but I think they are going to dump the Ukies in favour of attacking Iran! This would be much easier and the results more profitable!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/oct/14/russia-ukraine-war-latest-news-updates-putin-zelenskiy
Didn’t the Ukraine send all their recently acquired missiles to Gaza ?
Possibly just as Israel was told by the US to donate its artillery shells to Ukraine.
.
Similar to Hitler’s Wacht am Rhein offensive in the Ardennes in 1944: lack of resources, especially fuel, for job in hand, and far too optimistic objectives for the armies to achieve.
The Battle of the Bulge, as the Allies knew it, did cause disruption and many casualties but it harmed the Germans more than the Allies. Learning from history appears to be a lost art.
US and Moscow call Russian attacks in the east a ‘new offensive’. 14 October 2023.
Russian forces attacked the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka for the fourth day in a row on Friday, with both Moscow and Washington deeming the intensified fighting a new offensive in Russia’s 19-month-old invasion of its neighbour.
What happened to the Ukie counter attack that was going to sweep the Russians out of the Donbass and Crimea?
It’s a little early yet but I think they are going to dump the Ukies in favour of attacking Iran! This would be much easier and the results more profitable!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/oct/14/russia-ukraine-war-latest-news-updates-putin-zelenskiy
They say that Islamophobia is an ‘irrational fear or dislike of Muslims‘.
If this is an accurate definition then most people – and especially Jews – need another word. There is nothing irrational about their feelings towards people who condone the beheading of children.
Nothing irrational about it. Just change the definition to ‘justified loathing’ rather than fear.
It’s pretty simple Rastus. You simply remove the first two letters of ‘irrational’ and you have the correct phrase.
The trouble with being a cynic is that modern life proves you right. I have always struggled with the concept of NHS charities ever since they nixed the WRVS newspaper trolley that used to trundle through the wards.
A DT article:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/14/the-real-tragedy-of-sir-tom-moores-wasted-millions/
“The real tragedy of Sir Tom Moore’s wasted millions
The funds could have been spent on lovely new cancer centres, but were squandered on trivial projects
14 October 2023 • 7:00am
Captain Tom could so easily have had a more profound memorial
For the family of Captain Sir Tom Moore, there cannot be much pleasure in their new spa pool. The centrepiece of the leisure complex they so ill-advisedly built following the phenomenal success of the Army veteran’s fundraising efforts has come to symbolise their fall from grace.
In an extraordinary television interview, Captain Tom’s daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore did her best to justify a decision to keep the £800,000 proceeds of three books he published amid a huge outpouring of public support for his NHS fundraising efforts during the pandemic. Holding back tears, she also defended accepting an £18,000 fee for appearing at an awards ceremony, despite already being paid £85,000 a year as interim head of the foundation established in his name.
During a brutal 90-minute grilling by Piers Morgan, she and her husband repeatedly insisted that they had done nothing wrong – and that the late veteran wanted them to keep the profits from his writing. The impression given was of an ordinary family thrust into a spotlight for which they were totally ill prepared. Fundamentally well intentioned, they appear to have lost their senses as the money poured in, making a series of catastrophic misjudgments, including in relation to the lucrative spin-offs that capitalised on Captain Tom’s name.
Their wretched self-justification made agonising viewing. Yet the real tragedy is not the tarnishing of their personal reputations – but what happened to the astonishing £33 million the late veteran raised for the NHS.
Donated during the first lockdown by people all over the world touched by Captain Tom’s determination to walk 100 laps of his garden in Bedfordshire before his 100th birthday, such a huge sum of money could have done lasting good, had it been used on a small number of capital projects. It was more than enough to build a new hospital wing in his name; or open a state-of-the-art diagnostic centre; or construct a string of beautiful respite centres for patients suffering from a particular condition. The charity Maggie’s, which provides free cancer support and information in unique centres across the UK, offers the perfect template.
Maggie’s stunning buildings typically cost significantly less than £5 million to construct, and are wonderfully life-enhancing for the thousands of patients and their families who use the tranquil spaces at the bleakest of times. Something similar with Captain Tom’s millions would have left plenty for running costs.
Instead, much of the cash was devoted to hundreds of trivial short-term initiatives. Instead of doing something big, the umbrella charity NHS Together decided to divide it evenly between some 241 member organisations, each of which received £35,000 in the first funding wave. For hospital trusts with multi-billion-pound budgets, this was like tooth fairy money.
Darlington Memorial Hospital spent part of its allocation on “welfare packs” containing sandwiches, drinks, energy bars and toiletries for nurses; as well as providing staff with individual lockers, so they no longer had to share. London’s Charing Cross Hospital opened a free pop-up shop offering fruit and snacks.
North Devon District Hospital spent £50,000 on a new staff shower block; while in Wrexham, part of the money went on replenishing tea, coffee and mineral water for nurses.
Of course, the army of selfless doctors and nurses who put their lives on the line during the frightening early days of the pandemic were deserving beneficiaries.
Nonetheless, those who dug deep to support Captain Tom’s efforts are entitled to be deeply disappointed that the NHS’s colossal taxpayer-funded budget was not sufficient to provide such necessities – and that those magnificent charitable donations were squandered on here today, gone tomorrow dreary basics.”
So – as I feared the money was just frittered away.
Quelle surprise, n’est pas?
I didn’t contribute. I don’t think it wise to encourage old farts. :@)
I didn’t contribute Bill. My faith in charities of any kind has been completely erased.
i didn’t either – I thought the old boy was misguided.
My charity legacy will mainly go to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya.
Interesting.
https://twitter.com/DougAMacgregor/status/1713059114564112817
I wonder whether Israel is taking out the top half to destroy totally and utterly the tunnels and dumps and then allowing the bottom half to return to a massive tented camp, before moving on the do the same in the lower half.
They then occupy as the controlling power before rebuilding.
If the non-Hamas civilians ( if there really are such people, I’m sure Humza Yusaf and his family can tell us) then see that a life as an Israeli is better than a life as Hamas hostage perhaps some level of peace can be established.
It would need utter ruthlessness towards any infiltration by terrorists.
A wonderful photo:
Three Avro Lancaster B Mark Is of No 44 Squadron, Royal Air Force based at Waddington, Lincolnshire, flying above the clouds. Left to right: W4125, `KM-W’, being flown by Sergeant Colin Watt, Royal Australian Air Force; W4162,`KM-Y’, flown by Pilot Officer T G Hackney, (later killed while serving with No 83 Squadron); and W4187, `KM-S’, flown by Pilot Officer J D V S Stephens DFM, who was killed with his crew two nights later during a raid on Wismar.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3e091d739db990599a50491e4926005853ee73f322ad249efc49684eeabf9c34.jpg
Labour and the NHS
SIR – Can Sir Keir Starmer really be so out of touch with the reality of the problems that the NHS is facing?
At the Labour Party conference, he stated that he would clear the whole of the NHS waiting-list backlog in one term of office (report, October 12).
Does he not realise that the present crisis is multifactorial? It is a
consequence of widespread shortages of nursing and medical staff, not to
mention the breakdown in GP services – much of which was brought about
by the last Labour government’s ill-judged GP contract, allowing
primary-care doctors to be paid more for doing less.
Another relevant component of hospitals’ troubles is an appalling lack of
capacity. In 1948, at the inception of the health service, there were 10
beds per 1,000 people. Now the NHS admits to only 1.9 beds per 1,000,
far fewer than in many other Western nations, including Germany and
France.
The European Working Time Directive has further
complicated the matter, severely restricting the number of hours that
medical staff can work.
I saw no evidence that Sir Keir is aware of these problems, which constitute a major roadblock to reducing waiting list numbers.
Malcolm H Wheeler FRCS
Bonvilston, Glamorgan
Labour…the party of the worker. How many Labour MP’s or their family members have to spend 12 hours in A&E like the ordinary folks have to? Do any of them have to wait 1 to 2 years waiting for an operation? Often in pain?
I will tell you ‘Comrade’…………………..None.
No-one ever looks past nurses and doctors when discussing the state of the NHS.
We are unable to open clinics because we haven’t got enough receptionists. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. We have advertised four times for reception staff without success.
Then there is the lack of investment in the estate and estates staff. We have had to reduce our clinic lists by about ten patients every day because of a room’s being unavailable because of a leak which was reported eight months ago.
We have lost three computers following leaks from the roof.
The roof fell in in one of the admin offices after a heavy rain. Fortunately, this was at the weekend, not when there was someone working in there. The roof leaks were reported repeatedly for four years before any action was taken.
We have cockroaches in the toilets – indeed three of our four staff toilets were condemned about a month ago so now we have a near constant queue for the toilet.
Will the press stop banging on about the poor nurses and doctors and highlight the parlous conditions the rest of us have to put up with?
Yes, there was a heating engineer on this forum or Telegraph BTL who explained that he was asked to repair a boiler for an autoclave system but it needed a replacement. No funds available….
I feel for you. I really do. All the staff i have met have been fantastic.
Maybe you should paste that to the newspapers?
Anyone besides me finding it difficult to access NOTTLERS. This is my third attempt and it took a long while. First two ended in failure to connect notifications.
No problem with me. Straight on as usual with Chrome.
Thanks Bob and good morning! Just struck me that perhaps it’s Nord. I will turn that off and see what happens.
Thanks Bob and good morning! Just struck me that perhaps it’s Nord. I will turn that off and see what happens.
Had a glitch five mins ago. Error message – then retried and got in.
Perhaps my third try coincided with the problem being fixed? It would have been about 5 min ago or a little more.
Just found out it’s Nord. Turned it off and connection was instant. But Nord interfering is odd in itself, it should not do that at all.
GCHQ? They don’t like us. Morning Johnathan.
Hi Araminta! Sun today. I wonder for how long?
It took me ages yesterday.
It could be caching, you getting an old version of the site and the site trying to serve you a new one, causing conflict?
Is it just NTTL causing the problem or are other sites affected?
No other sites were effected but the NTTL thing came up twice.
Morning all,
What rain last night. It was biblical. It took me two hours to drive the five miles home from work. Roads flooded, cars abandoned. Its a wonder the sky could hold so much up water in the air before letting it all go.
What you Arking on about?
…at least you got home safe.
It’s the Car park 🚢🛳
We got it just as I was coming out of Morrisons with a week’s shopping.
Next time, try forward gear. (emoticons)
I needed a propeller.
God was crying for his people.
A plan by Hamas thwarted, thank God
‘Top secret’: Hamas planned to target Israeli schools, ‘kill as many people as possible’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGhMZoGFSzA&list=TLPQMTQxMDIwMjNAUDiQNOMP2g&index=6
It seems to be OK in the world for Hamas to target innocents, but not for Israel to reply in like coin.
Off now to whack a few balls around – have to watch I don’t trip over something like I did last week – my knee is still colourful and tender.
Be careful and enjoy your game , tennis?
Ping-pong
Table tennis……. I could hardly lift a tennis racket!
Allahu Akbar Austria!
Hamas supporters are out in force – Austria’s future is an Islamic one!
Christianity is no longer the first religion; Islam has taken its place – Christianity is out, Islam is in!
“In Austria, the Catholic faith is in decline, Islam is on the rise. There will be far fewer Catholics in the future, while the number of Muslims and non-denominational people will increase significantly, experts predict.
In 2046, one in five Austrians will profess Islam. In Vienna, Islam will be the strongest religion: in 30 years, one in three Viennese will be Muslim.
Catholics will only be;, 42 percent in the country, dropping to 22 percent in Vienna”.
In 1971, Catholics represented 78.6% of the population of Vienna; in 2001, just over half; in 2011, 41.3% and in thirty years Catholics will be only one-third of the total.”
https://twitter.com/roadto1Bsats/status/1713127132967387239
The Gates of Vienna have been breached.
If religion didn’t exist the earth would be a happier place – there’s none based on fact anyway
The Soviet Union, where atheism was enforced, wasn’t a particularly happy place.
Ah but, to a socialist socialism is a religion
That was due to communism
“Religion is the opium of the people”. Karl Marx.
‘Opiate of the masses’
“When a man stops believing in God…”
I’m neither communist or socialist and I don’t believe in God. ‘God’ was just invented to justify people being kind and generous to each other. In our modern society, It’s clearly not possible to be kind and generous, as indoctrinated people of certain religions see this as a weakness to be heavily exploited. These people certainly stand out in any crowd.
Look at those two vile bitches in Camden yesterday ripping the pictures of kidnapped adults and children from buildings in public view
Not only a discus sting hate crime, littering as well, they should be arrested and put in jail.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/posters-of-missing-israeli-children-torn-down-by-palestine-supporters-in-london/ar-AA1i7VdY?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=7a57bb889a744c6c89da3fa678c608b6&ei=53
What? some superior being – and there can be only one, but one, according to some followers orders you to kill anyone who doesn’t believe and other followers who are encouraged to love everyone? I prefer to live my life under christian values without having to believe there’s someone watching me all the time. The muslim ‘faith’ in the dreams of a nobody (probably under the influence of drugs) beggars belief and is only followed by the brain dead/brainwashed
The world has got to get a grip for the sake of the survival of modern humanity.
Watching these anti-Israeli demonstrations in the UK, unthinkable while we were still a more or less homogenous society, strikes me as a warning that, in the future, we will have our own Gaza’s to cope with. Our government has certainly sown the seeds for that in refusing to make people assimilate into the British way of life. I wonder how long it will be before some sort of clash does take place?
Not long.
Labour wonk at the door. No doubt grubbing for a vote. TOld him we’d be better off government going away forever.
Although I did say to him ‘Gas. We want gas and due to the climate change act we can’t get it.’
I assume nothing whatsoever will happen, but it’s an example of how ineffectual they are and if they do provide something it’s a win.
But vote for them? Dear life no.
Just get on with it………
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/foreign-students-and-workers-who-praise-hamas-could-be-expelled-from-uk/ar-AA1i6QW1?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=7a57bb889a744c6c89da3fa678c608b6&ei=38
“Could be”. Once the ooman wights lawyers, wasters and wonks get involved it’ll cost the tax payer hundreds of millions and not a single one will have moved so much as an inch – likely they’ll all get more money.
But, but they don’t have any hoomun Riaghts.
Blair was actually quite clever in this. The HRA has, of course, nothing to do with rights whatsoever. It is a control system designed to restrict what you can say and do. Tacking rights on just gave the state the faux moral high ground to limit freedoms. It’s entire ethos is antithetical to the UK.
He and his old room mate one of the legal beagles in parliament fiddled with the laws and those of treason. He would be behind bars now if he hadn’t have gotten away with it.
I refer you to the film The Ghost Writer.
“Could be”. Once the ooman wights lawyers, wasters and wonks get involved it’ll cost the tax payer hundreds of millions and not a single one will have moved so much as an inch – likely they’ll all get more money.
https://twitter.com/daft_we_are/status/1712947507964137946/photo/1
Enough is enough .
“Everybody suffers from Multiculturalism, because Multiculturalism is no culture, it means that there is nothing to be loyal to, nothing to belong to. Any culture that wants to survive has to have an agreed culture and a common language.”
Peter Hitchens
Islam is totally incompatible with British values.
Absolutely spot on. imagine our grandchildren being forced to kneel and wear that outrageous clothing.
Something has to be done about this, it is becoming obscene, as well as totally obnoxious.
https://twitter.com/daft_we_are/status/1712947507964137946/photo/1
Enough is enough .
“Everybody suffers from Multiculturalism, because Multiculturalism is no culture, it means that there is nothing to be loyal to, nothing to belong to. Any culture that wants to survive has to have an agreed culture and a common language.”
Peter Hitchens
HMS Royal Oak (08).
Battleship (Royal Sovereign).
Complement:
1,260 officers and men (835 dead and 425 survivors).
At 01.16 hours on 14th October 1939 U-47 (Günther Prien) fired a spread of three torpedoes at HMS Royal Oak (08) (Capt W.G. Benn, RN) and the British seaplane tender HMS Pegasus lying at anchor in the harbour of Scapa Flow, then turned around and fired a stern torpedo at 01.21 hours. Prien claimed a hit on the seaplane tender, misidentified as HMS Repulse (34), but one of the torpedoes apparently hit the starboard anchor chain of the battleship and both targets were undamaged.
At 01.23 hours, the U-boat fired a second spread of three torpedoes which hit HMS Royal Oak (08) on the starboard side and caused a magazine to blow up. The battleship rolled over and sank in 19 minutes. 386 of the survivors, including the commander, were rescued by the drifter HMS Daisy II (Skipper John Gatt) which had been alongside as tender.
Type VIIB U-Boat U-47 has been missing since 7th March 1941 in the North Atlantic south of Iceland. 45 dead (all hands lost).
https://uboat.net/media/allies/warships/br/hms_royal_oak.jpg
In the CW this morning a Mr Fugi says that there is no evidence that Hamas beheaded children.
I replied to his comment on my post about the definition of Islamophobia (which I posted both here and in the CW) as follows:
There seems to be plenty of evidence.
But whether or not there is evidence of child beheadings many people are far too happy to condone unprovoked attacks and humanitarian atrocities against the Jewish State and the Jewish people throughout the world and this is beyond contemptible.
The CW took this down I must admit I am rather surprised that the CW did so.
If you study Ethics/Moral Philosophy you have to be aware of the Naturalistic Fallacy – that it is not rational to ascribe truth to value judgments because these are based on opinion rather than fact.
In my view the existence of Evil is a fact even though I accept that there are philosophical problems in expressing such a view!
“Mr Fuji” appears to be a raving anti-semite. Just my observation. I’m considering blocking him. Life is too short to argue with idiots.
It’s there now. Maybe taken down for moderation and then seen to be acceptable???
I might quibble about some of the specific proposals for legislation but the analysis is spot on.
However, Frosty is just a bit too nice, polite, softly spoken. Is there some steel in there?
I find it hard to forgive Lord Frost for caving in to the EU over Northern Ireland and UK Fishing waters.
On the eve of the agreement being made both Johnson and Gove arrived in Brussels and a deal with the EU was struck including surrender on both these key issues even though Frost had been adamant that he would not budge.
So why did he budge?
It is very disappointing to think that he lacked the courage and integrity to stick to his guns.
Did he meekly give in to Johnson and Gove who ordered him to cede or was he blackmailed?
I was watching tv prog last evening about Cornish fishermen and the hardships they have to endure because of stupid political decisions. One of them referred to the spineless behaviour in our politics and the need to grow a pair and say NO ! The Gove appeared on the screen. It summed it all up very well.
…..
https://x.com/idan_bg/status/1712922970010550757?s=20
BTL: “Red on the outside, red on the inside.”
Doesn’t the BBC have any cameras?
It’s certainly not a Banksy (●’◡’●)
Is Victoria Derbyshire, as an extreme leftie, involved in the March for Palestine organised at the BBC?
What does “Props to the security team” mean?
Clearly they didn’t do their job very well.
Properties? Propolis? Is someone going to hand them wigs, fake spectacles and walking sticks?
Props means ‘due respect’. Now BBC does street.
Thanks! What is the origin of it, do you know? I hate words being used randomly that don’t mean what people think they mean – there has to be a route by which a new meaning develops!
It originates from the music genre of HipHop. Props from proper to propers meaning proper respect. Children have always developed their own slang and language variations. Enough of it and it becomes mainstream. Languages evolve. As you are aware.
Thanks. I can tolerate it better now!
Just to the right of that picture is this. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5aca6ca9caa1e0aa4a4b05d4e7e2aeb0badf84018a6f574c5d052317bcec3697.jpg
I’ve never held back from telling people what they do not want to hear. I never shall.
BTL: “Red on the outside, red on the inside.”
377654+ up ticks,
May one ask, where will these displaced persons finally settle will it be in a, Islamic state, because if so and due to the voting pattern England is wide open to more occupation with London, Birmingham & Blackburn seemingly already fallen.
The question is “Will England qualify as an Islamic state ?”
Two other pieces of news of interest: New Zealand has voted for a Conservative government (but not on the BBC which describes it as centre-right), and Australia has votes against recognising ‘indigenous’ people in the constitution.
After reading the TCW piece about the Australian land grab vote disguised as aboriginal rights, I can only say “thank goodness!”
Well done Australia. Hope the vote is honoured.
Why Australians must vote No in this racist Voice referendum
The BBC march in support of Gaza is well attended!
I hope the right type of people filmed it and it will be available on the internet.
I went up to the West End on the day of the supposed anti-Iraq war protest. It was actually dominated even then by Moslems carrying placards baying for Jewish blood. Not what was reported but it’s what I saw.
It was a long time ago:
https://youtu.be/FkGnPeBLB2k?si=-lSFprUWzbnfZipk
BBC Verify
Paul Brown, Jemimah Herd, and Rollo Collins
Posted at 12:4712:47
How we verified video of strike on fleeing Palestinians
We’ve been reporting that at least 12 people, including young children, have been killed in a strike on a Palestinian convoy fleeing northern Gaza via a designated evacuation route.
We were able to do this because of video footage from the aftermath of the strike, which we verified the location of.
Understanding when and where a piece of video was filmed is key part of understanding major developments in conflicts like this.
At BBC Verify we analysed two videos of the strike on a convoy of vehicles heading towards southern Gaza. The videos are highly disturbing, with images of numerous dead bodies – including young children – that are far too graphic to show.
However, they also offer details as to the location of the incident.
We knew that the 45-km Salah al-Deen road, which runs north to south across Gaza, is being used as one of the main evacuation routes. Local reports also suggested the strike had occurred on this road.
The footage shows a central reservation and several buildings whose aerial profile and arrangement we were able to match to a particular section of the road.
Free-to-use online software which analyses the angle of shadows told us that the footage was shot at around 17:30 local time (13:30 GMT) – presumably shortly after the strike.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-middle-east-67108364
So they’ve verified the filming location. Has anyone named the movie yet? A very experienced film researcher (who worked on the Cold War series with Jeremy Isaacs) told me that the only way to verify the source of war footage is to obtain it directly from the cameraman who shot it – and to know his credentials of course.
It was the conceit of ‘Verify’ that prompted me to post it. And there is, of course, an implicit accusation in respect of the strike…
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ecb8ec8c0322c40c781cb5915b3bd458ba993e2aa495cbd22a1574b50a4d0794.jpg T’other day, when I posted a photograph of my Thursday fry-up meal, which a number of NoTTLers thought was ‘massive’ (it wasn’t, really); I pointed out that it represented a quarter of my weekly food intake. In fact it may have been a bit more than a quarter since my Sunday meal last week (pictured above) comprised just a small slice of pork brawn, a small slice of pork liver pâté, and a few pork scratchings, with a tiny teaspoonful of Branston Pickle (small cut).
The net result of this diet is that, this morning, I recorded my lightest weight in over 25 years, having lost 1·4kg [3lb–1oz] over the past seven days. I am now 25·5kg [4st–0lb–3oz] lighter than I was when I started my diet. I feel much fitter, sharper, and I sleep like a log waking fully refreshed every morning.
Don’t go out in strong wind…
There’s a strong wind out there right now. I don’t want to end up like another piece of tumbleweed.
Same here. Was recovering the stack of roof panels, one by one, that had distributed themselves over the farmyard when a particularly malevolent gust bowled me & the panel over! B***ardissimo!
Isn’t that a version of the Atkins diet? Small amounts, protein only?
But most impressive results! Congratulations! New (smaller size) clothes time…
Thanks, Paul. Some clothes are already feeling a bit loose but I’m not done yet. No, my diet is simply a carnivorous diet. I eat meat, fish, eggs, cheese and anything of animal or fish origin (especially fats), with some dairy. I’ve cut out all carbs, sugars and alcohol and only occasionally nibble on the odd leafy veg (definitely no roots). I’ve not felt this fit for over 40 years.
Excellent! Good on you, Grizz! Now you can get out there and pull!!
A few years ago, I lost a good deal of weight, and the depressing part was all the lovely tweed jackets no longer fit – they made me look like a schoolboy trying Daddy’s on for size. That was heartbreaking.
Good excuse to get more that actually fit, but Norway isn’t the place to buy smart tweed.
Forty years ago I bought a lovely sheepskin coat and a ‘suit-length’ of top quality woollen material to have made into a three-piece suit. I bought the sheepskin coat a bit too small with the intention of ‘shrinking into it’. I never did! I didn’t have a suit made for the same reason.
I thought I would try a similar diet a couple of years ago. It’s not cheap 🙁
I find eating four meals a week massively cheaper than eating 21–28 meals a week (as most people do).😊
377654+ up ticks,
Australia today, England via the polling stations tomorrow,
And boy have we asked for it.
Indigenous ……..
Let’s prosecute our own people, yeah, that’s a great idea Crispin.
Start with that butcher Blair and his war criminals
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12630183/Pro-Palestinian-Tory-MP-Crispin-Blunt-UK-complicit-war-crimes-Israel-Gaza-prosecute-UK-government.html
Gay-boy Blunt is an idiot. If he joined a ‘Support Palestine’ march he would end up flying from the roof of a tower block without a parachute. Even his public hatred of the Jews wouldn’t save him.
Would he enjoy being tossed off before being tossed off?
Wouldn’t put it past them to take it in turns to ram a load of those ‘gay’ 50p pieces up his fundament before his farewell flight.
Last of tidy in the farmyard, ready and battened down for the snow.
Now relaxing with a bath-sized glass of gin & tonic, youtube on TV. Finished doing things for today, shooting competition tomorrow, to come last in.
Sigh…
Shooting competition tomorrow to reassure yourself that you can still remember which end to point at what, and to exercise your laughing-at-yourself muscle. 😉
Indeed.
And, it’s difficult but not insurmountable, so it’s a challenge and fun, too.
Last time it was a revolver I shot, this time autopistol – my lovely plastic Walther P.99.
Sounds great. Enjoy!
Thanks! Hope the rain holds off.
Ode to Gaza
I’m shootin’ in the rain,
Just shootin’ in the rain,
What a glorious feeling,
I’m happy again!
I’m struttin’ like a Turk
or Iranian berk
I’ve shot me a Jew
killed a Hamas or two
I’m a Blair of my time
Thus a murderous swine
Like a Bush or Obama
I’ve got Biden for Karma
I’ve got a smile on my face!
I’ll walk down the lane
With a happy refrain,
Just shootin’, shootin’ in the rain!
Owed to Gaza.
No effing thing. You had it all already and pi$$ed it up the wall.
Indeed.
And, it’s difficult but not insurmountable, so it’s a challenge and fun, too.
Last time it was a revolver I shot, this time autopistol – my lovely plastic Walther P.99.
I don’t suppose you have the time and facilities for target practice.
I’ve got just the place for you to practice. And out of the weather.
SWIA OAA and SWIA OPW. Sitting ducks.🤭🤗
I’ve been in my work shop, I’m a bit worried about using plastic cutting/ chopping boards, to protect our kitchen work tops from damaged. We Might be damaging our health.
So I just been cutting up some spare hard wood, to make a small replacement wooden chopping board.
Glued and cramped, I’ll plane and smooth it tomorrow.
He just goes out and takes pot shots at slammers.
There’s an article from 30 years ago, on our local shopping centre’s 30th birthday. Lots of happy faces, people dressed in suits(!), and no blackfaces anywhere. How things have changed.
My post codes are the West minstrels.
No…….I’d never have guessed!!
Nice!
We have a number of end-grain block chopping boards bought from IKEA some decades ago.
There’s a TV chef (can’t recall who) who has a slice of treetrunk. Locely, so it is, and a decent size.
We can shoot at Firstborn’s farm, have the wood to build a trget frame, but haven’t done so yet (too many other things to do).
I have a nice African hardwood chopping board which my first OH gave me as a Christmas present nearly 40 years ago……. he also at various times gave me knives, a slow cooker and a laundry basket…….. after that I chose my own presents. I have to say the chopping board is a good one and is in use every day.
We have lots of logs in the woods near us I will bring some of the longer ones home split them an see what I can get.
We had a delivery of free logs a couple of months ago – our neighbour has sawn up most of them for us, still some large ones to be done. We’re very lucky here with our good neighbours. I managed to roll the smaller ones down the drive, but I couldn’t shift the big ones…….then they were there, moved by magic.
Gorgeous (though very blustery) afternoon. Going into the garden.
Gale force up here but with a bit of blue sky coming over I cut the grass – the minute I’d finished it came down. No, not rain, bruddy hailstones. Mug of tea and some homemade carrot cake beckons
I’ll be there in about 4 hours! Save some cake! 😘
OK! 5 hours!
#metoo!
Better hurry – it’s moreish 😘
Oh haway pet! Divent eat it all!
I’ve left a slice for tomorrow 😘
I’ll be there in about 4 hours! Save some cake! 😘
OK! 5 hours!
Oi Laffed
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/66c26529b10ae6bc0b45793530ef95aa923f7b219de54098470020cd253a2e9d.jpg
Yes.i’m going to hell
I’m already waiting for you… 😀
I’m already waiting for you… 😀
See you there
See Ya.
At least someone else will be paying for the heating.
Feeling a bit sorry for the French
What sort of politicians import an ancient tribal dispute and millions of its people to their shores?
British or American politicians?
Crap like ours?
After his comments on Israel, Gareth Southgate’s halo has well and truly slipped. 14 October 2023.
People who work in football have just as much right to free speech as the rest of us. So if they want to express forthright opinions about political issues, that’s their look-out. I would merely add one small caveat.
Once they start expressing forthright opinions about political issues, they can’t afford to stop. Because if they do, they risk being thought hypocrites. Or cowards.
One man who may be reflecting on this unhappy truth is the sainted Gareth Southgate. While managing England, he’s enjoyed gushing acclaim for his progressive stances on Black Lives Matter and LGBT rights. On Thursday, however, he found himself obliged to comment on an even thornier political issue – and he looked squirmingly uncomfortable.
They are all hypocritical toads. Where’s that prating crisp muncher from the BBC?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/14/gareth-southgate-israel-comments-halo-slipped/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr
After his comments on Israel, Gareth Southgate’s halo has well and truly slipped. 14 October 2023.
People who work in football have just as much right to free speech as the rest of us. So if they want to express forthright opinions about political issues, that’s their look-out. I would merely add one small caveat.
Once they start expressing forthright opinions about political issues, they can’t afford to stop. Because if they do, they risk being thought hypocrites. Or cowards.
One man who may be reflecting on this unhappy truth is the sainted Gareth Southgate. While managing England, he’s enjoyed gushing acclaim for his progressive stances on Black Lives Matter and LGBT rights. On Thursday, however, he found himself obliged to comment on an even thornier political issue – and he looked squirmingly uncomfortable.
They are all hypocritical toads. Where’s that prating crisp muncher from the BBC?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/14/gareth-southgate-israel-comments-halo-slipped/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr
Par 4
Wordle 847 4/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
🟨🟨⬜🟨⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Par four yesterday, surprise three today.
Wordle 847 3/6
🟩⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩⬜⬜⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
And me.
Wordle 847 3/6
🟩⬜⬜⬜🟨
🟩🟨🟨🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 847 2/6
🟩🟨⬜🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
A struggle today
Wordle 847 6/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟨🟨🟨⬜🟨
⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/14/christoper-luxon-nz-pm-conservative-party-election-ardern/
“Farmers hail election result as New Zealand Conservatives set to oust Jacinda Ardern’s Labour party
People voted for change after six years of a liberal government led for most of that time by Jacinda Ardern
14 October 2023 • 11:34am
Prime Minister-elect Christopher Luxon and his wife Amanda wave to supporters during the National Party reception in Auckland, New Zealand Credit: Shutterstock
New Zealanders resoundingly elected a new conservative government on Saturday, as incumbent Prime Minister Chris Hipkins conceded that Labour’s six years in power were over.
The National party’s Christopher Luxon said New Zealanders had “reached for hope and voted for change” after a campaign dominated by an increasingly difficult economic situation and a backlash against the Labour party’s environmental policies among farmers.
“It’s a weight off our shoulders,” said sheep and beef farmer Joe Lloyd, watching election coverage on TV from his living room in the Waikato region. Mr Lloyd had been hoping for a National-ACT coalition, and put his vote behind the minority party due to its staunch stance on standing up for rural communities.
Alastair Reeves, another Waikato-based sheep and beef farmer, said he was “thrilled” about the new government. “Labour pitted urban New Zealand against rural New Zealand, and undermined our businesses by painting us as the polluters of the planet. We’ve been bombarded by regulations. They did everything they could to knock farmers’ confidence,” he said.
Saturday’s result was a dramatic contrast to Labour’s landslide victory under Jacinda Ardern’s leadership in 2020.
Mr Hipkins bowed out of the contest with just 85 per cent of the votes counted. The National Party and its coalition partner were projected to win 61 seats – enough to secure a majority in New Zealand’s 120-seat parliament.
Formerly the CEO of Air New Zealand, Mr Luxon campaigned to “get our country back on track”.
The message resonated with a population suffering under a cost-of-living crisis and worried about unprecedented spates of violent crime.
In the small town of Waikanae, about an hour’s drive north of Wellington, butcher Terry McKee said the spiralling cost of living was the single-most important election issue.
“Things are tight for everyone. Interest rates, fuel costs all drive costs up, but I don’t know what another government is going to do,” he said.
Many New Zealanders also hadn’t forgiven Ms Ardern for how she handled the Covid-19 pandemic.
Policies like barring overseas New Zealanders from returning home, enforcing harsh lockdowns, mandating the vaccine and refusing to face up to mandate protestors camped outside parliament, all contributed to her declining popularity before her resignation.
While her policies helped New Zealand maintain its impressively low death rate, the country’s High Court went on to deem some of the government’s pandemic policies as “unjustifiable” in a functioning democracy.
The agriculture industry had it particularly tough under Labour’s six years in power. It weathered an onslaught of green initiatives that were cricised by farmers and opposition parties as unnecessary at best, harmful to the country at worst.
Had Labour remained in power, one of these would have been the world’s first tax on methane belched and farted by livestock – by 2026. A bitter pill to swallow, New Zealand farmers felt, given they are some of the most greenhouse gas-efficient food producers in the world.
Speaking to the Telegraph after securing his seat in the Rotorua electorate, National’s spokesman for agriculture Todd McClay said his party would go through Labour’s farming policies rule-by-rule.
“The ones that aren’t actually achieving anything, the ones that are just adding cost, we’ll either take them away or fix them to make them better,” he said.
“Morale in rural New Zealand is at an all time low, and we need to fix that. We are an export nation, producing high-quality food and fibre that the world wants, and we need our farmers to be doing well because that’s how our economy does well.”
While National has said it would delay introducing a methane tax (and when it did, support farmers to make sure it was manageable), ACT has promised it would hold off until competitors of New Zealand’s agricultural sector introduce ones of their own – thereby levelling the playing field. Mr McClay said this was something that would need to be ironed out during coalition negotiations.
Mr McClay reiterated that National was committed to meeting New Zealand’s climate change reduction obligations, and said that the country’s farmers were, too – they “just want sensible rules around how to get there.”
Mr Reeves agreed. “I just hope they will listen to farmers, and science,” he said of the new government. “Labour were all about ideology, not outcomes.”
Ah – another far-right government,,,,
Only in the warped minds of the Beeb and fellow travellers….
Afternoon M.Thomas and all
“Labour pitted urban New Zealand against rural New Zealand, and undermined our businesses by painting us as the polluters of the planet. We’ve been bombarded by regulations. They did everything they could to knock farmers’ confidence,”
Coming soon to a country near you (again).
On the down side, NZ no longer have an entrant for the Grand National.
Excellent!🐴
Maybe they’ll find another Lord Gyllene 🙂 (I know you meant horseface Adern, but LG was NZ bred and he won).
This lady deserves to be better known.
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (born Cecilia Helena Payne; Wendover in Buckinghamshire, May 10, 1900 – December 7, 1979) was a British-born astronomer and astrophysicist who proposed in her 1925 doctoral thesis that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Her ground-breaking conclusion was rejected because it contradicted the scientific wisdom of the time, which held that there were no significant elemental differences between the Sun and Earth. Independent observations eventually proved she was correct. Her work on the nature of variable stars was foundational to modern astrophysics. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3e/Cecilia_Helena_Payne_Gaposchkin_%281900-1979%29_%283%29.jpg/800px-Cecilia_Helena_Payne_Gaposchkin_%281900-1979%29_%283%29.jpg
How can that possibly be, the science would have been settled.
/sarc
Did she have a sister called Cynthia?
I’ll get me luncheon vouchers.
No, but for ten years her brother was married to Dilys Powell.
Ignored because “the science is settled”, eh? Where have we heard that before?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12630283/Hamas-arrested-Met-Police-pro-Palestinian-protesters-London-officers.html
I wonder what makes our bleeding hearts think that many of these people won’t be busy sabotaging any war effort should Britain unfortunately but not impossibly become embroiled in a war against an Islamic country, such as Iran?
Will we need to intern them all?
Will we need to intern them all?
Do it now.
Ah – but there is no prison space available. All serious criminals will be sent home.
To Rwanda?
No – to their English homes – and they will be told to pretend they are in gaol.
And export them ASAP.
Could go the whole hog and inter them.
Dig for Victory: https://coyotepr.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/dig-for-victory-poster-768×1140.jpg
The one-legged digger.
Dig For Victory.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/362bb6f24d094b8a96578c996693d1da115b9e64cc0133b33a1d6b732287a777.jpg
When they outnumber the white British I’m sure they will thank us appropriately…
The
FinalGreen solutionWe have Blair to thank for this
Wiping our noses in adversity
And now for some lavatory humour:
Surprised there isn’t a sign advising
against drinking the water….
I have always preferred sexual dirty jokes to lavatorial ones
This one from pre prep-school days has very little to commend it and I suggest you keep it hidden behind the spoiler.
No dear, pull the plug like everybody else.
Mummy mummy , I don’t like grandma.Well leave her and just eat the chips
We used to say ‘flush it’!
‘Pull the chain’ in my day…………..
Richard and Sue are VERY young!
Girl gets dumped:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2c74ba9823b1d9c7ca19268f5f60c94c637ba32950be04779b90b79b174e0073.gif
Is she a midget?
No, she’s not a. midget – her boyfriend tipped growth hormone down the bowl instead of toilet cleaner.
Tinkerbowl.
England Football Team (New) Logo:
https://ww2gravestone.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Schutzstaffel_Abzeichen.svg_.png
Gareth Southgate and Larry Gineker will unveil the new team badge outside Broadcasting House. In explaining the new logo Larry said the ‘bended knees’ represents the homage due to the BLM and
depressedoppressed people everywhere.Interesting article in Daily Sceptic of the MSM/German Plod’s reporting if attacks on the AfD co-chair the other week. Seems he was attacked after all!!!
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/10/14/afd-needle-attack-after-a-week-of-politically-motivated-denial-prosecutors-admit-afd-co-chair-was-assaulted/
Aside from the Federal Republic of Germany, is there any other developed Western nation where the police, the press and the political establishment react with such obviously calculated indifference to serious assaults on leading opposition party officials?
No. Here they would frame them and send them to gaol.
Chuck ’em all out. They obviously don’t like or appreciate western culture. Wouldn’t that be wonderful.
They weren’t bothered by attacks on Farage and just about every UKIP candidate – it wasn’t until Antifa targeted Jacob Rees-Mogg that the attacks stopped – or perhaps none were reported any more?
My husband watched “Have I Got News For You” last night on Al-Beeb (i know, i know – but in his defence he’d had 3 pints of beer and was very merry) and reported back that all the “jokes” were at the expense of GBN.
Clearly GBN has them rattled.
Glad to see the Met keeping the streets safe from terror supporters
https://twitter.com/millwalldocks/status/1713182534845042760?s=61&t=Y0IVE-UcdX8lOqxTEHXI9w
Oh Wait………
Nice that PC Mo has his priorites in order
Far right terrorist tries to incite trouble at peaceful protest, eh?
I will say, he was brave. Poor man.
I am in accord with the three little words at the end of the video. Apologies to people here who were Plod in a previous life. I have no time anymore.
Was that Corbyn?
You look at the masses of them and think… what the bloody hell is happening? They don’t work. They’re uneducated. They’ve no useful skills. They actively hate this country. That’s a welfare dependent, uneducated violent mob of fanatics walking about there. Why are they permitted here? They bring nothing to this country whatsoever.
Get. Rid. Of. Them.
Yes Mr Wibbling, we get the picture, so please stop going on and on about Tory MPs.
Magazines stuffed for tomorrow’s competition – 120 rounds 9mm in 15 round magazines, & a couple of boxes in the bag to re-stuff magazines between stages. Heavy belt order, and that’s why a good pistol belt is a stiff belt – Firstborn (who’s competing too) and I bought our gear from Germany, and the bels is a two part arrangement – a soft inner velcro layer that goes through the trouser loops and a stiff outer that presses onto the inner & carries the load. Easy to don & doff, and very effective.
Take care – don’t want you passing out or falling down again.
#metoo.
Really embarrassing with a loaded pistol in one hand… disqualified. I guess, then I woulddn’t be last!
You could do yourself or someone else a mischief!
Hopefully not – pistol shooting is one of the safest sports around – with the safeties built in to the guns, the procediures and so on.
One will do one’s best.
Maybe he should stick to firing from the prone position.
Good luck for tomorrow, take care
Quick Draw McGraw or Yosemite Sam…
Is that a shootout between Hanna-Barbera and Looney Tunes?
In our resident shooter’s case it’s the Beatles.
What do you want for supper?
https://scontent-cdg4-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/380280084_285157247630666_1767281193140149408_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s960x960&_nc_cat=1&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5f2048&_nc_ohc=ENtb7Rg-cr8AX_HMqz0&_nc_ht=scontent-cdg4-2.xx&oh=00_AfBUwGwVHTM5hVRuBXt2JTl_3XTC0KADqSoWpctyeXN_lA&oe=6530A02F
‘Afternoon, Peeps. Busy day, just got back and now catching up.
Apologies if this has already been commented upon…headline in the DT:
“Kevin Spacey cancelled by West End cinema despite acquittal
Friends and colleagues of the actor are outraged as world premiere of first film since being cleared of sex assault charges is scrapped”
I wonder what part of ‘not guilty’ is beyond the management’s understanding? Anyway, next time I am in London I can absolutely guarantee that I will avoid The Prince Charles cinema like the plague, even if it’s the last one still open!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/86946f7a9fe25b5f83083ce994a0c4c06e184751dc44df618ba7b9d4f08434b0.jpg
https://twitter.com/DouglasKMurray/status/1713201464728760420
377654+ up ticks,
I do wish we, the indigenous of England, were friends of sunak.
https://x.com/weisman_joe/status/1627682336459333633?s=20
That is a perfectly fair, even handed, moderate and open, normal response for anything that might harm the people in charge.
Do stop being a conspiracy theorist.
From your post one might think these people had something to hide.
How dare you, how VERY DARE YOU.
/sarc
What a match, fantastic plays by both sides.
Luck,? Yes. But you earn your luck.
Wales Argentina.
RWC
I enjoyed it.
So did I, even though I was supporting Wales.
As long as it was a good game…
The result was in doubt until the last few minutes, as it should be at the highest levels.
The massacres are only enjoyable for the skills shown by the top team.
Excellent!
The Argies just seemed to have more oomph.
The Welsh only had 20mph
Are you saying that the reverse Drakeford dummy wasn’t a good tactic?
What a brilliant result. Stuff that, Drakeford and your 20 mph limit!!!!!
I’ll watch later. Settling down in my chair for the big one.
If it is even half as good as it should be it will be a fantastic match.
Come on yer Michaels!
Despite “recent” history I am a big fan of Argentina – if you recall, I took my lovely daughter there last year on holiday. I am currently waiting for my flight to Singapore – a week long business trip.
Anger, tears, blame – and a thundering message to the EU: How the remain campaign reacted to crushing leave defeat – with Metropolitan elites warning: ‘We now know where we stand in our own country’
Oh, it’s in Australia is it?
Sorry, my mistake.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12630341/Yes-campaign-Aboriginal-Australia-Indigenous-Voice.html
It takes a heart of stone…
You rang, sir?
I don’t really follow what it’s going on about. Do the aboriginals not currently have an MP in parliament? Did they want a specific body to push through bespoke legislation?
The article doesn’t return the referendum result, either. Or any background!
They do, and in population terms more than their share.
I don’t think so, but as the “Yes” side didn’t actually lay out what they wanted, who knows?
As to your comment
The article doesn’t return the referendum result, either. Or any background!
Really?
I think that is fairly clear and conclusive, but who knows?
It’s a land grab dressed up as indigenous people’s rights.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/why-australians-must-vote-no-in-this-racist-voice-referendum/
Mr Global has schemes in different countries across the world to push people off the land under one excuse or another. Last year for example, they had some “nature conservation” conference that merrily decided behind our backs to return a huge proportion of the world to nature – humans to be herded into cities. Don’t even repeat their propaganda that humans are too numerous and a cancer on the earth’!
That’s me for this day of several haves. Cold and wet; dry and cold; sunny and cold. Picked 40 kg of Howgate Wonder apples. Chance of a bonfire tomorrow.
Have a jolly evening – we are watching Michael Cockerell’s videoed interviews with politicians. Tonight Woy Jenkins – who was terribly unfaithful to his fragrant lady wife. What on EARTH can women have seen in the little squirt? (as it were!!!)
A demain.
A couple of points from the BBC
apparently 50% of Gazans are under 18. That rather suggests it isn’t too dangerous to breed like rabbits.
Old women asking what have they done to deserve what is happening?
Perhaps if you hadn’t brought your sons up to hate Israel and to attack Israel at every opportunity things might have been different?
I fear that it’s only just started:
And it’s going to get worse; much, much worse
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12630283/Hamas-arrested-Met-Police-pro-Palestinian-protesters-London-officers.html
The Left wing state forced them on us. These are welfare dependent, uneducated, not working wasters. Why? Why are they allowed to stay here, polluting this country with their horrid attitudes?
Quite!
How about to foment what you, and many others, feel about them thereby creating dislike leading to hatred and finally conflict? All the while they outbreed us. For some unexplained reason the people responsible, politicians of all stripes, hate the English/Welsh/Scots/NI Irish and want us gone. IMHO moslem invasion followed by fake “vaccines” isn’t a coincidence, it’s part of a ‘long-game’.
This BBC report is quite measured. It suggests a mostly peaceful protest. However, this bit amused me:
The London protest began at the BBC’s headquarters in Portland Place, which was vandalised overnight with red paint splattered over the building’s entrance.
In a social media post later on Saturday, activist group Palestine Action claimed responsibility for daubing the building in “blood red paint, symbolising their complicity in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people through biased reporting”.
Palestine Action appears to consist of people who regarded the BBC as pro-Brexit.
Own goal by the pro-Palestinians?
This BBC report is quite measured. It suggests a mostly peaceful protest. However, this bit amused me:
The London protest began at the BBC’s headquarters in Portland Place, which was vandalised overnight with red paint splattered over the building’s entrance.
In a social media post later on Saturday, activist group Palestine Action claimed responsibility for daubing the building in “blood red paint, symbolising their complicity in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people through biased reporting”.
Palestine Action appears to consist of people who regarded the BBC as pro-Brexit.
On a “first world problem” note. I am on the plane and browsing the movies but there is nothing i want to watch. I remember a conversation on Wednesday night with a member of my motor yacht club (check me out!) who is being gradually bankrupted by the actors’ strike. Not just in Hollywood apparently but over here. His business is “film sets”. He is selling all his assets, one by one. Very sad. He’s a nice man.
Thought for the day (decade?)
Israel get enticed into Gaza by the Hamas terrorists deliberately, so they attack Gaza from the North.
They deploy most of their army and reserves and press south, clearing Gaza of Hamas.
They are then attacked from the North in force, from Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, all supported in the background by Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Turks.
They are forced to fight North but are then attacked by Egypt from the South.
Muslims win.
End of Israel or WW3?
The Arabs are no match for the Israelis.
The Arabs have a lot of vocal and aggressive supporters in the west though, which is probably what this is all about.
That’s because they are no involved.
A bit like our political idiots. All gob and no action or involvement.
But when push comes to shove and their brethren are having the crap beaten out of them by Israel, will they continue to just wave flage?
I fear they will attack Jews and pull the whole of the west into the conflict. It was depressing to see how many idiots were marching today who have nothing to do with this dispute but have just leapt onto the latest way of controlling their emotions.
One to one, yes.
Two to one, probably.
Three to one, possibly.
Four or five to one, doubtful.
Six to one? No chance.
They would have to go nuclear.
End of Israel or WW3.
The Jews, who I admire in the main, do have a history of suicide before subservience.
eg Massada.
I agree that is not simply a hamas death wish. The barbarians know that Israel is going to realitate harshly against Gaza, the destruction of Gaza is probably just the next step in an overall plan to destroy Israel.
Ukraine might be our saviors if it keeps Rusia out of the ww3 party.
Perhaps if they and thir allies
attempt an invasion on Israel the Israeli government will launch a nuclear attack. It might be their only option to stay alive.
Then we’re all in trouble.
The Muslims know that the US is weakened by Joe Biden carrying out Obama policies, has lost authority especially in the Middle East, has foolishly depleted its arms and financial resources first in Afghanistan (loss of Bagram Air Base and surrender of tens of billions of materiel to the Taliban) and then in its proxy war lost in Ukraine. Add to those disasters the stupid energy policy which has deprived the US of its energy independence.
Arabs are prepared to wait decades but will seize upon any evident weak leadership and have done so.
The supposed Palestinians are being used as a front by Hamas and its relation Hizbollah to fight a proxy war with the US. This war is being financed by and via Quatar. The supposed Palestinians are a rag bag of the Arabs unwanted by Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan plus Syria from whence many of them came.
Martin Bashir ‘coached Princess Diana to say certain phrases during Panorama interview’
Crew member who worked on the production claims discredited journalist spent hours training the Princess to help her deliver lively answers
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/14/princess-diana-martin-bashir-panorama-interview-training/
BTL
I cannot make up my my mind for whom I feel the more sorry – Prince Charles for having married an air-head who shared none of his interests, or Lady Diana Spencer for having married a desperately dull and pompous sententious old prig.
Evening Richard
Not only is Charles a desperately dull and pompous sententious old prig, but he must have been an absolute grunty fumbly nightmare to have enjoyed a sexy romp with .
Poor young Diana must have been very disappointed to have been used as a brood mare , with none of the raunchy excitement her future lovers offered her eventually.
And those ghastly sausage fingered hands! Eurgh 😱
All the better for caressing
Bleurgh 🤮🤮!
Tickle tickle tickle…
Yes yes yes … fat fumbly fingers and hairy ears 🤮🤢🤢
Not quite the King.. but the poem is about Wagner
Wagner
Creeps in half wanton, half asleep,
One with a fat wide hairless face.
He likes love-music that is cheap;
Likes women in a crowded place;
And wants to hear the noise they’re making.
His heavy eyelids droop half-over,
Great pouches swing beneath his eyes.
He listens, thinks himself the lover,
Heaves from his stomach wheezy sighs;
He likes to feel his heart’s a-breaking.
The music swells. His gross legs quiver.
His little lips are bright with slime.
The music swells. The women shiver.
And all the while, in perfect time,
His pendulous stomach hangs a-shaking.
Queen’s Hall, 1908. Rupert Brooke .
That is really sleazy! Conjures up such pictures!! 😳
I have a copy of Rupert Brooke’s poems which belonged to my father.
Brooke describes disgust and revulsion very well.
I organised and ran the School’s Reading Prize when I was a schoolmaster. The winner one year read this poem by Rupert Brooke and then went on to read law at Bristol University and is now a KC who is leader of the Western Division of Barristers.
(He was in my English set and got a Distinction in the English “S” level (Scholarship) Paper)
Jealousy : Rupert Brooke
When I see you, who were so wise and cool,
Gazing with silly sickness on that fool
You’ve given your love to, your adoring hands
Touch his so intimately that each understands,
I know, most hidden things; and when I know
Your holiest dreams yield to the stupid bow
Of his red lips, and that the empty grace
Of those strong legs and arms, that rosy face,
Has beaten your heart to such a flame of love,
That you have given him every touch and move,
Wrinkle and secret of you, all your life,
—Oh! then I know I’m waiting, lover-wife,
For the great time when love is at a close,
And all its fruit’s to watch the thickening nose
And sweaty neck and dulling face and eye,
That are yours, and you, most surely, till you die!
Day after day you’ll sit with him and note
The greasier tie, the dingy wrinkling coat;
As prettiness turns to pomp, and strength to fat,
And love, love, love to habit!
And after that,
When all that’s fine in man is at an end,
And you, that loved young life and clean, must tend
A foul sick fumbling dribbling body and old,
When his rare lips hang flabby and can’t hold
Slobber, and you’re enduring that worst thing,
Senility’s queasy furtive love-making,
And searching those dear eyes for human meaning,
Propping the bald and helpless head, and cleaning
A scrap that life’s flung by, and love’s forgotten,—
Then you’ll be tired; and passion dead and rotten;
And he’ll be dirty, dirty!
O lithe and free
And lightfoot, that the poor heart cries to see,
That’s how I’ll see your man and you!—
But you
—Oh, when that time comes, you’ll be dirty too!
She was chosen for him to provide the heir and the spare. It didn’t matter that they were so unsuited.
Evening, all. Been a cold, but sunny, day here; blue, almost cloudless, sky. 8 degrees C. Here ends the weather forecast 🙂
Was having a discussion with a friend who was collecting for Marie Curie today (it helped to pass the time). She (which surprised me, as she’s married to a Lib Dem) was not very welcoming about the immigrants we’ve had foisted upon us. It does explain why I’ve been seeing so many foreigners in this rural neck of the woods.
Sunny here too, most of the day – but we had a heavy shower mid-afternoon.
We had rain later, too (and it’s raining now). I gave up on trying to plant the bulbs. If it’s fine tomorrow I may manage that after church.
Very sunny here today – cold night though with the first frost.
I think we had frost last night – and probably tonight, too. I fear for my fuchsias because I didn’t manage to get them into the greenhouse (although I did get almost all of my daffs planted).
Off topic ,
What do you think of this, there you are climbing Mont Blanc , and you find something amazing .
A climber thought it was too good to be true when he found a box packed with gems said to be worth €300,000 in the wreckage of an Air India flight on Mont Blanc.
He was thrilled when he was allowed to keep half the stones as a reward for handing them in to police. When he decided to sell them and had them professionally valued, however, he discovered that his first instinct had been right.
According to gemologists, his share of the emeralds, sapphires and rubies was not worth €150,000, as he had been told, but only about €5,000.
He put them up for auction anyway. Then came another, more welcome surprise this week, when they fetched €25,690, more than five times the valuation. The climber, who has remained anonymous, told French television after finding the gems: “It was a huge surprise and I said to myself, ‘This is too good to be true’.”
He found the hoard in 2013, high on a glacier where the Air India Boeing had crashed in 1966.
He handed them to police and they were kept locked up to give the owner’s family time to claim them, but no one came forward. Under French law, they were then divided between the climber and the town of Chamonix, which gave them to the local Museum of Crystals.
“They must have belonged to a precious stones trader who was flying from Bombay to deliver them,” a spokesman for the museum said.
The gems were divided into small lots for the auction. One buyer, Agnès, who declined to give her surname, said: “I bought them for sentimental reasons. I’m taking them as souvenirs of what happened, although it was a tragedy.”
Debris from the site has been emerging as climate change causes the glacier to melt. One of the airliner’s wheels became visible three months ago.
The flight crashed as the pilot descended towards Geneva for a stopover. The 117 passengers and crew all died. The accident was attributed to a misunderstanding between the Geneva control tower and the pilot, who mistakenly believed he had already flown over Mont Blanc.
Other items from the flight have been found over the years, including newspapers and a bag of diplomatic mail.
The gems were spilling out of a metal box near part of the undercarriage. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/gems-discovered-mont-blanc-climb-value-auction-k6rhs85fl
Slightly off topic….. 🤗
A few years ago we (I) drove from our home to Tuscany. A long but enjoyable journey, after two days in the lovely town of Annecy it rained very heavily. We passed through the Mont Blanc tunnel and low and behold the sky was blue and the sun was shining. And the scenery was beautiful. I’ll never forget it.
We loved our visit to Tuscany stayed at Stigliano. HPB. Visited Pisa on the way back. Flew home because our car had broken down. A 2ltr VW TDI passat. The pezzo injection system had packed up. The Italian garage we took it to lied saying that they didn’t know what was wrong.
I had the AA bring it back to the UK. And used a hire car.
On the day we arrived home a letter on our mat telling me that VW had recalled the vehicles to make repairs.
It has cost three thousand pounds to have it returned by trailer. Never trust an Italian mechanic. They lied and knew about the recall.
What started off as a lovely holiday, must have ended up as a real headache ..
But your drive to Tuscany sounded well worth it .
Pot luck with garages eh ?
The AA organised the garage on the out skirts of Sienna.
The garage wouldn’t tell me what was wrong, not even an error code. But they knew, there was a guy at the HPB site who spoke fluent Italian. They wouldn’t tell him what was wrong and that was when I contacted the AA and asked them to send the car back to me and UK.
When it had been delivered to our local garage and I collected it after the free VW repair. There was a plastic carton of screen wash in one of the side pockets of the car boot. Someone had stabbed it and it was leaking. Two pairs of walking boots had metal bottle tops shoved in side them.
We had planned to visit the Italian lakes on our way home, we had to settle for Pisa, a 5 star hotel and a free hire car. And a free flight to Luton and a cab home. This was about 12 years ago.
I hate to think what would happen now.
Good job we had the insurance with the AA.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/daa0f0977ac1bfccf155a7bc35aa329536d87dbe84861963839086094774868c.jpg
We must remember loyalty bravery and sheer determination .. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2023/10/13/pippa-latour-last-survivor-french-section-soe-wireless/
Pippa Latour, ‘fearless’ last survivor of SOE’s French section who posed as a teenage soap-seller – obituary
She hid her codes in a flat shoelace, which she used as a hair-tie, and when strip-searched by the Germans she threw it casually to one side
Pippa Latour, who has died aged 102, was the last survivor of the French section of the Special Operations Executive which was ordered by Churchill to “Set Europe ablaze!” for the occupying Nazis.
She was interviewed in November 1943 as a prospective agent, and an initial report described her as “a simple-minded naive ingenuous girl with a love of excitement, full of a confident optimism in which judgment plays no part… She is no more than a child in her gestures, behaviour and outlook and has no grasp of the realities of life. Quite unsuitable.”
A sense of revenge may have motivated Pippa Latour, however, since her first boyfriend, whom she had known while she was studying at Underwood’s College in Portsmouth and then working as a Wren at Helensburgh, had been killed when the battle cruiser Hood was blown up in the Battle of the Denmark Strait on May 24 1941.
The WRNS only offered her administrative work, so in November 1941 she transferred to the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (the WAAF), hoping to be more directly involved in the war. There, her talent for languages was spotted and, in September 1943, she recalled, a group of about 20 were taken away for training.
“It was unusual training – not what I expected, and very hard. It wasn’t until after my first round … that they told me they wanted me to become a member of the SOE. They said I could have three days to think about it. I told them I didn’t need three days to make a decision; I’d take the job now.”
Latour proved fit and fearless, and handy with a .22 pistol (a 9mm was too heavy for her). She already knew Morse code and she spoke Swahili like a native, French and English very fluently, and fair Hindustani. The SOE brought in world-class instructors to teach unconventional tactics: the former Royal Marine and Shanghai policeman “Dangerous Dan” Fairbairn taught how to kill silently, while a cat burglar was brought in to provide a crash course on lock-picking
“We learnt how to get in a high window and down drainpipes,” Pippa Latour recalled, “and how to climb over roofs without being caught.” She became a star pupil.
Her arrival in the field was heralded by a message broadcast by the BBC – “Le vin rouge est meilleur” – in the early hours of May 2 1944, when she parachuted from a USAAF bomber into German-occupied Normandy. She worked under various pseudonyms, including Genevieve, Lampooner, Paulette or the less subtle Routal, and her task was to be wireless operator to the Scientist II reseau or network, led by the siblings Lise and Claude de Baissac.
Despite damage to her wireless set, two days later she was on air, and she spent the next month reconnoitring her area. Eventually she had 17 wireless sets hidden in outlying farms over an area of 100 square km, between which she cycled, posing as a teenage soap seller. The key word for her ciphers was SMOKEGETSINYOUREYES.
Her area was difficult, thick with German troops and Gestapo. Enemy direction-finding (DF) on her transmissions kept her constantly on the move, and she narrowly avoided arrest on several occasions.
The Germans disguised their DF vehicles: once as a vegetable delivery van, which was attacked by the Resistance, while another time she had to pause transmission when a suspicious laundry van came too close. Twice, houses which she had used for transmitting were visited by Germans, but each time her coolness of mind enabled her to face the danger, once by feigning scarlet fever.
With the Allied landings in progress, re-supply was difficult, and Pippa Latour lacked all but the bare necessities of life, not even having a change of clothing or footwear. She carried her silken, one-time codes, inserted with a knitting needle into a flat shoelace, which she used as a hair-tie. Arrested and strip-searched, she casually threw her hair-tie on her pile of clothing and shook her hair to show that she was not hiding anything: no one thought to examine the hair-tie.
When, finally, she was obliged to operate from fields, she had to fling the aerials over high hedges to transmit. Nevertheless, she managed to send 135 error-free coded messages, mostly containing targeting information to help bombers hit enemy positions. Pippa Latour’s operations only ended when the advancing US Army over-ran her, and she was held prisoner briefly until she could be identified. By October 9 1944 she was back in the UK.
SOE proposed to return her to the WAAF, where she now held the rank of Section Officer, but she protested that she disliked sedentary indoor duties, and instead volunteered to parachute into Germany. She was equipped and briefed for this new mission, but it was made unnecessary by the rapid advance of the Allies, and in June 1945 she was discharged.
Pippa Latour was appointed MBE (military division) and awarded the Croix de guerre (avec palme bronze), but the assessment for her post-war employability read: “A bit scatters. Knows no fear – apparently through naiveté. Always wanted to be doing something dangerous but had no idea it was dangerous.
“Thought it all rather fun – and couldn’t she go to a dance, please? – anywhere would do – at the Feldkommandantur [local German headquarters]? What’s that? Oh! what a lark. But she produced the goods when growled at, and I think Scientist must have been very unpleasant to deal with. Tons of guts. Wants to go on with the work, provided it’s dangerous enough.”
She was born Phyllis Ada Latour on April 8 1921 in Durban, the daughter of Philippe, a French doctor, and the former Louise Bentley, a South African. Her father died when she was three months old and her mother remarried, to a racing driver, but then died, leaving Pippa orphaned. At the age of three she was sent to live with her father’s cousin in the Congo, where she led an outdoors life, being educated at home and then at Kenya High School, Nairobi, before moving to England in 1939.
After the war she married an Australian engineer, Patrick Doyle, bringing her four children up in Auckland, New Zealand, after living in Kenya, Fiji and Australia. They divorced in the 1970s.
For many years she kept silent, troubled by the thought of the civilian deaths caused by the bombing which she had enabled. “I didn’t have good memories of the war, so I didn’t bother telling anyone what I did,” she told the New Zealand Army News magazine in 2009. “I knew I would have been owed campaign medals, but I wasn’t interested in any if the people who had helped me in France did not receive them too.
“My eldest son found out by reading something on the internet, and my children insisted I send off for my medals. I was asked if I wanted them to be formally presented to me, and I said no, I didn’t. It was my family who really wanted them.”
In 2014 she was appointed a chevalier of the Légion d’honneur by the French government in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Normandy. Despite her stoicism and bravery, in her last years she suffered flashbacks which crowded upon her mind “like a swarm of bees”.
Her biography, Phyllis Latour: Last of the Secret Agents, by Gabrielle Rothwell, will be out next year.
Pippa Latour, born April 8 1921, died October 7 2023
Wow, Maggie, we won’t see her like again.
Now THAT’S how to put a talent for languages to good use. Damn!
Wow.
Brave lady. We could all do with legions like her.
Respect. RiP, Pippa.
We must remember loyalty bravery and sheer determination .. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2023/10/13/pippa-latour-last-survivor-french-section-soe-wireless/
Pippa Latour, ‘fearless’ last survivor of SOE’s French section who posed as a teenage soap-seller – obituary
She hid her codes in a flat shoelace, which she used as a hair-tie, and when strip-searched by the Germans she threw it casually to one side
Pippa Latour, who has died aged 102, was the last survivor of the French section of the Special Operations Executive which was ordered by Churchill to “Set Europe ablaze!” for the occupying Nazis.
She was interviewed in November 1943 as a prospective agent, and an initial report described her as “a simple-minded naive ingenuous girl with a love of excitement, full of a confident optimism in which judgment plays no part… She is no more than a child in her gestures, behaviour and outlook and has no grasp of the realities of life. Quite unsuitable.”
A sense of revenge may have motivated Pippa Latour, however, since her first boyfriend, whom she had known while she was studying at Underwood’s College in Portsmouth and then working as a Wren at Helensburgh, had been killed when the battle cruiser Hood was blown up in the Battle of the Denmark Strait on May 24 1941.
The WRNS only offered her administrative work, so in November 1941 she transferred to the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (the WAAF), hoping to be more directly involved in the war. There, her talent for languages was spotted and, in September 1943, she recalled, a group of about 20 were taken away for training.
“It was unusual training – not what I expected, and very hard. It wasn’t until after my first round … that they told me they wanted me to become a member of the SOE. They said I could have three days to think about it. I told them I didn’t need three days to make a decision; I’d take the job now.”
Latour proved fit and fearless, and handy with a .22 pistol (a 9mm was too heavy for her). She already knew Morse code and she spoke Swahili like a native, French and English very fluently, and fair Hindustani. The SOE brought in world-class instructors to teach unconventional tactics: the former Royal Marine and Shanghai policeman “Dangerous Dan” Fairbairn taught how to kill silently, while a cat burglar was brought in to provide a crash course on lock-picking
“We learnt how to get in a high window and down drainpipes,” Pippa Latour recalled, “and how to climb over roofs without being caught.” She became a star pupil.
Her arrival in the field was heralded by a message broadcast by the BBC – “Le vin rouge est meilleur” – in the early hours of May 2 1944, when she parachuted from a USAAF bomber into German-occupied Normandy. She worked under various pseudonyms, including Genevieve, Lampooner, Paulette or the less subtle Routal, and her task was to be wireless operator to the Scientist II reseau or network, led by the siblings Lise and Claude de Baissac.
Despite damage to her wireless set, two days later she was on air, and she spent the next month reconnoitring her area. Eventually she had 17 wireless sets hidden in outlying farms over an area of 100 square km, between which she cycled, posing as a teenage soap seller. The key word for her ciphers was SMOKEGETSINYOUREYES.
Her area was difficult, thick with German troops and Gestapo. Enemy direction-finding (DF) on her transmissions kept her constantly on the move, and she narrowly avoided arrest on several occasions.
The Germans disguised their DF vehicles: once as a vegetable delivery van, which was attacked by the Resistance, while another time she had to pause transmission when a suspicious laundry van came too close. Twice, houses which she had used for transmitting were visited by Germans, but each time her coolness of mind enabled her to face the danger, once by feigning scarlet fever.
With the Allied landings in progress, re-supply was difficult, and Pippa Latour lacked all but the bare necessities of life, not even having a change of clothing or footwear. She carried her silken, one-time codes, inserted with a knitting needle into a flat shoelace, which she used as a hair-tie. Arrested and strip-searched, she casually threw her hair-tie on her pile of clothing and shook her hair to show that she was not hiding anything: no one thought to examine the hair-tie.
When, finally, she was obliged to operate from fields, she had to fling the aerials over high hedges to transmit. Nevertheless, she managed to send 135 error-free coded messages, mostly containing targeting information to help bombers hit enemy positions. Pippa Latour’s operations only ended when the advancing US Army over-ran her, and she was held prisoner briefly until she could be identified. By October 9 1944 she was back in the UK.
SOE proposed to return her to the WAAF, where she now held the rank of Section Officer, but she protested that she disliked sedentary indoor duties, and instead volunteered to parachute into Germany. She was equipped and briefed for this new mission, but it was made unnecessary by the rapid advance of the Allies, and in June 1945 she was discharged.
Pippa Latour was appointed MBE (military division) and awarded the Croix de guerre (avec palme bronze), but the assessment for her post-war employability read: “A bit scatters. Knows no fear – apparently through naiveté. Always wanted to be doing something dangerous but had no idea it was dangerous.
“Thought it all rather fun – and couldn’t she go to a dance, please? – anywhere would do – at the Feldkommandantur [local German headquarters]? What’s that? Oh! what a lark. But she produced the goods when growled at, and I think Scientist must have been very unpleasant to deal with. Tons of guts. Wants to go on with the work, provided it’s dangerous enough.”
She was born Phyllis Ada Latour on April 8 1921 in Durban, the daughter of Philippe, a French doctor, and the former Louise Bentley, a South African. Her father died when she was three months old and her mother remarried, to a racing driver, but then died, leaving Pippa orphaned. At the age of three she was sent to live with her father’s cousin in the Congo, where she led an outdoors life, being educated at home and then at Kenya High School, Nairobi, before moving to England in 1939.
After the war she married an Australian engineer, Patrick Doyle, bringing her four children up in Auckland, New Zealand, after living in Kenya, Fiji and Australia. They divorced in the 1970s.
For many years she kept silent, troubled by the thought of the civilian deaths caused by the bombing which she had enabled. “I didn’t have good memories of the war, so I didn’t bother telling anyone what I did,” she told the New Zealand Army News magazine in 2009. “I knew I would have been owed campaign medals, but I wasn’t interested in any if the people who had helped me in France did not receive them too.
“My eldest son found out by reading something on the internet, and my children insisted I send off for my medals. I was asked if I wanted them to be formally presented to me, and I said no, I didn’t. It was my family who really wanted them.”
In 2014 she was appointed a chevalier of the Légion d’honneur by the French government in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Normandy. Despite her stoicism and bravery, in her last years she suffered flashbacks which crowded upon her mind “like a swarm of bees”.
Her biography, Phyllis Latour: Last of the Secret Agents, by Gabrielle Rothwell, will be out next year.
Pippa Latour, born April 8 1921, died October 7 2023
What a game.
So much for Northern hemisphere dominance.
Brilliant match. The right result too, I feel.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer neighbour.
/sarc.
My best mates wife is in Auckland at the moment. She’s a born and bred Kiwi.
There is no such thing as a bad New Zealand team. They just proved it again. It could have gone either way but all things considered, NZ deserved the win tonight. What a game.
I knew Ireland were jinxed when they kept calling them the number one side in the world
Good night all. 😴 its that time again.
Lol you all thought I’d be of-line, up in the clouds above Ansbach. But it turns out business class passengers on Air Sing (a lot cheaper than BA) get free wifi. And I have discovered the Kiwis won! Well done! The day just gets better and better. I met some Kiwis in the Lounge. They were ecstatic over the election result!
Edit: Air Sing is fabby-tactic.
Goodnight, all. Early start tomorrow.
Good night, Conners – and Oscar and Kadi.
https://twitter.com/darrengrimes_/status/1713180162664137026
Where is this ?
Clearly, they must be deported.
Even more clearly, they won’t be.
So many targets…
Portland Place, Maggie. That’s All Souls, Langham Place on the left. It appears to be filmed from the roof of Broadcasting House…
You don’t see any of them when we are remembering our war dead. In fact they want us dead.
More footage of the man who was arrested in London for flying a British flag.
You can fly foreign Palestinian, Israeli or Ukrainian flags on British streets, but you’re arrested for flying a British flag… in Britain.
Shame on the British Police. This is why no one respects them.
https://twitter.com/BFirstParty/status/
https://twitter.com/BFirstParty/status/1713238497480327609
All the police involved in this farce should be sacked and lose their pensions.
Why so many to arrest one man?
For his own safety…
How many went on the invasion of Laurence Fox’s home?
How many are interested in shoplifting or burglary?
It’s almost impossible for them to lose their pensions. Even if they commit murder…
Disgraceful – how is that an arrestable offence when government buildings fly it
Good night, chums. I’m off to bed now. Hope you all sleep well. Laundry day for me tomorrow.
The Ukrainian offensive has failed according to Budanov who might prefer an heroic defeat as opposed to a compromise. If I were Zelensky I would top myself before Budanov emerges as the next leader and has him shot. US attention and financial and military support is now to be directed towards support for Israel.
Meanwhile Ursula and the other fools at the EU to their great indignation are being ignored by the greater powers. The EU is now perceived as a comparative minnow in the wider geopolitical arena. The EU has been utterly stupid in dutifully following the US in Ukraine (and other melting pots) and as ever the US is happy to dump them as they have done others for a century.
I dare not contemplate what the great powers make of the UK, probably thinking the UK is half a caliphate already judging by the demonstrations by Palestinian flag waving militant Muslim Arabs polluting our streets yet being enjoined by nutters from the LGBT ‘community’ and other crackpot alphabet persons, Build Large Mansions and Antifa.
Good morning, all – Sunday’s new page is here.
Morning Squire. Thank you.
Clear skies and a great star-field here at the moment CH going full blast….
Morning Sir, I’ll have to stop going bed so early. 😉
Thank you and good morning to you.