Thursday 19 October: Unfounded claims about the horror in Gaza will prolong the conflict

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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582 thoughts on “Thursday 19 October: Unfounded claims about the horror in Gaza will prolong the conflict”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolk. today’s story

    Play The Game
    A retiree was given a set of golf clubs by his co-workers. Thinking he’d try the game, he asked the local pro for lessons, explaining that he knew nothing whatever of the game. The pro showed him the stance and swing, then said, “Just hit the ball toward the flag on the first green.”

    The novice teed up and smacked the ball straight down the fairway and onto the green, where it stopped inches from the hole. “Now what?” the fellow asked the speechless pro.
    “Uh… you’re supposed to hit the ball into the cup.” the pro finally said, after he was able to speak again.

    “Oh great! NOW you tell me!” said the beginner in a disgusted tone.

  3. Morning folks.

    A couple of days ago when I looked at the Met Office’s synoptic charts – storm Babet appeared to be being over hyped. However, looking at the latest charts and as well as this rainfall prediction it seems those living in NE Scotland will be needing their Wellingtons Waders over the next few days.

    Edited to say that this video may not play on some browsers

    https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/maps-and-charts/rainfall-radar-forecast-map#?bbox=%5B%5B48.922499263758255,-26.19140625%5D,%5B61.60639637138628,18.720703125000004%5D%5D&model=ukmo-ukv&layer=rainfall-rate&timestep=1697698800000

  4. Morning folks.

    A couple of days ago when I looked at the Met Office’s synoptic charts – storm Babet appeared to be being over hyped. However, looking at the latest charts and as well as this rainfall prediction it seems those living in NE Scotland will be needing their Wellingtons Waders over the next few days.

    Play the video…

    https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/maps-and-charts/rainfall-radar-forecast-map#?bbox=%5B%5B48.922499263758255,-26.19140625%5D,%5B61.60639637138628,18.720703125000004%5D%5D&model=ukmo-ukv&layer=rainfall-rate&timestep=1697698800000

  5. ‘Morning All

    Medley Time

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/259f8fde3e8f5f2ee4fe883284980c4d531254ed9339ceff8d60a751e20a2587.jpg

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    1. Like him or loathe him, Frank Zappa was both highly intelligent and extremely prescient. He also said, “Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.” I cannot disagree with his logic.

  6. Nothing can save Vladimir Putin’s Russia now. 19 October 2023.

    While it is far from inconceivable that Putin foresaw an advantage in destabilising the region, perhaps encouraging his ally and weapons-supplier Iran into pressing its proxies – Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon – into violent aggression, what might sound like strategic genius looks as if it might end up as yet another geopolitical disaster for Russia. If Tehran and Moscow were coordinating their actions, especially in Syria and Iraq, as part of a joint effort to push Washington out of the region, this has seriously backfired.

    There is of course no evidence whatsoever that Putin has played any part in the events in Israel and it is difficult to see any geopolitical gains for Russia from it. Kemp the author of this piece changes his view with every consecutive article. Something of the truth about Russia and Ukraine can be gleaned from noting that the Telegraph no longer allows any comment on the subject.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/18/nothing-can-save-vladimir-putin-russia-now/

  7. Alison Pearson on fine form…….

    What a fiasco the whole electric car thing has become. Too few

    charging machines and then too many charging machines out of service,

    forcing people to drive around for a viable charging point, only to end

    up calling breakdown services for run-down batteries. The mileage the

    cars can do is a lot lower than advertised, unless you drive at 20mph (perfect in Wales,

    but hopeless everywhere else). The cars are too expensive, their

    second-hand value is risible, the batteries only last about 15 years and

    cost thousands to replace. If, that is, you get lucky and they don’t

    burst into flames first.

    Towards the end of his distinguished

    life, the Father of the Lithium Battery told colleagues in Oxford that

    he didn’t think a mass rollout was wise because of the considerable fire

    hazard. How lucky we are that our country’s entire future energy

    strategy isn’t riding on an invention that can explode at will and cause

    fires it’s impossible to put out…

    Oh dear. Time to go into reverse gear, don’t you think?

    Rest of a great article here

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/10/18/electric-cars-ev-sleepwalking-into-disaster-battery-fires/

    1. In a recent speech in Iowa, President Trump poked very serious fun at EVs, e.g. (paraphrasing) he suggested that the real growth around EVs is in the car towing business.

      1. I thought most EVs are impossible to tow and you have to have a crane to move them.

        1. Another reason not to purchase one, then.
          I’ve read that they require a different type of tyre and that those tyres create more wear and tear on road surfaces. I know that at least one tyre replacement company will not handle EVs due to safety concerns e.g. electrical shock. Progress?

    2. Morning all.

      I remember posting that, due to EVs exploding out of the blue, we’d all be paying a lot more for insurance.

      This morning we had a reminder of car insurance renewal. Last year it cost £464.21 including replacement car the same size if in an accident and also. Real down cover.

      This year: £702.07p. £702.”7p. . Alf will be scouring all other companies for like for like quotes.

      2. I had similar (buat not such a huge hike) with my campervan insurance. Last year it was £240 and the same company was quoting £336 for renewal. I shopped around and insured it for £235. I wish I’d gone with them last year!

    1. Good morning, er afternoon, Bill. Just for one minute I read your post as “Grey with effing rain due”. Lol.

  11. Rishi Sunak embarks on trip to Middle East to urge leaders to avoid ‘further escalation’. 19 October 2023.

    Rishi Sunak set off on Wednesday on a two-day trip to Israel and other Middle Eastern countries, where he will urge leaders to avoid “further escalation of conflict in the region”.

    The Prime Minister is expected to land in Israel on Thursday morning, where he will meet Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Isaac Herzog, the country’s president.

    The pretensions of the powerless! It must be like one of the poor relatives coming to visit. He doesn’t even control the Channel!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/10/18/rishi-sunak-embarks-trip-middle-east-avoid-escalation/

    1. Glad to see that the Iranian who had smuggled 10,000 illegals across the Channel was jailed for eleven years.

      Pity that they didn’t confiscate his cash and possessions to help pay for the welfare of the 10,000.

          1. “They” are the biggest danger to civilisation. “They” are only interested in “their” vested interests.

          2. Their excuse for not deporting him is that clearly he’s an ontrapranewer (© Bush Jnr) and good at exploiting people and we need as many of those as we can muster.

      4. He will only serve four years. The last two in an open prison.
        Mandatory 50% off followed by discretionary 25% off for good behaviour.

    2. In boxing terms, a lightweight getting into the ring with a heavyweight.

      Perhaps Netanyahu might explain to Sunak the crass stupidity of importing muslims into your country for no good reason – there cannot be a good reason, ever – other than to meet a globalist agenda.

      1. Good Moaning, KtK.
        This is not a personal question!
        Was your crab apple blossom shrivelled by a biting wind?
        Apparently apples, quinces and – from my observations – cherry plums were wiped out by a couple of hours biting wind last spring.

        1. Something affected both my crab apple and bullace trees this year resulting in a major fall-off in the quantity of fruit compared to last year’s crop. I’ve just checked the blossoming periods and as I suspected, the bullace being a plum it blossoms several weeks before a Bramley so unlikely that the same cold event was the cause unless it got to the nascent buds before blossom time. The ‘June Drop’ affected the Bramley and the bullace did shed some fruit early on.

          1. Well, Korky, there were enough bullace for you to kindly give me a good supply. The bullace crumble I made with it I am currently enjoying as my dessert on alternate days – it is delicious!

          2. Glad you’re enjoying the fruit, Elsie. I was disappointed by the lack of fruit compared to previous years and especially last year. Same for the crab apples although I had enough to boost the pectin level in other fruit preserves. I made 40+ jars of jelly and I’ve started making spicy chutneys with my large crop of chillies.

      2. Our government is absolutely useless.
        We need help immediately. But not even muslim countries want their fellow muslims back. It’s part of the muck spreading adgenda.

    3. Doesn’t he have enough to deal with at home? I’m fed up with our so-called leaders jetting off here, there and everywhere while Rome burns.

    4. Doesn’t he have enough to deal with at home? I’m fed up with our so-called leaders jetting off here, there and everywhere while Rome burns.

  12. Unfounded claims about the horror in Gaza will prolong the conflict

    The recent violence in the Middle East has really shown up the Left in politics and mainstream media for what they are, they profess to be caring and empathetic, but at the end of the day it is just one sided favouritism as usual.
    It is the same at home, with the way they cover Islamic attacks here, their bias is just as much against our native population as it is against the Israelis.
    Note how they always condemn all terrorism when it is clearly carried out by Hamas of Islamic extremists, but they are more specific when blame can be put on Israel of perceived right wing extremists.

    1. It’s Not unusual for vile terrorists to try and turn everything on its head after they have suffered a deserved response.
      After blowing up the hospital, they’re all hiding in the tunnels.

  14. 377776+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    This war is for our fundamental right to defend ourselves and to guarantee our existence
    We will take exceptional steps to safeguard the lives of innocent civilians in Gaza

    Priorities,priorities,priorities,

    All well and good,

    This war ( home-front) is for our fundamental right to defend ourselves and to guarantee our existence
    We will take exceptional steps to safeguard the lives of innocent civilians in England / United Kingdom first & foremost.

    Lest we forget, and once again put party before Country.

    1. Blow me, you must be psychic.
      And your Bramley tree must be related to a neighbouring magnolia.

      2. My Egremont Russet turned out to have been mislabelled when I bought it. By the time it had fruit on, it was too late to complain that actually it was either a James Grieve or a Gala. Whatever it was, it most certainly was NOT a russet!

  18. 377776+ up ticks,

    Dt,
    King Charles has inherited his mother’s ability to steady the ship
    Monarch’s speech at Mansion House proves he has knack for saying just enough without descending into sentimentality

    All the current ruling hierarchy “have the knack” rhetorically as witnessed, but lack the knackers to convert it to action, they use rhetorical appeasement as fodder for fools on a regular basis.

  19. Good morning all.
    A slightly less disturbed night but a foul start to the day with a tad over 8°C on the Yard Thermometer and it is chucking it down, as it was when I was up pumping bilges at 02:00. The rain is forecast to pause at midday for a couple of hours.

  20. Good morning Nottlers, it’s wet and wild out there this morning. Just the day to be driving down to Walsall; in preparation for heading to Huntingdon/St Ives at the weekend for a bit of a social gathering with some fellow former RAF mates. Initially, I thought there were about 40 going but it seems it will be nearer 100. Must remember to pack my spare kidneys.

    3. I’ve stopped going to our RAF reunions – they are always held in the South of England because that’s where the organisers live – if they held them in N Scotland I’d go

      1. Sounds like you are being discriminated against. Bit like this guy…https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12646377/RAF-officer-said-discriminated-against-Scottish-male-Christian-wins-case-against-Ministry-Defence-sacked.html

        Also, anyone wanting to organise a Nottle lunch has the same problem. There is talk of one in the pipeline for North Norfolk next year.
        I might organise a coach so we can park outside Bill Thomas’s house and make rude signs out the windows.

      2. I sympathise. I find it hard to motivate myself to go to Shrewsbury for the ROCA meetings! I certainly wouldn’t drive to the south coast.

  21. Morning all 🙂😊
    At least there is some respite in the downpour but not every where.
    I hope the powers that be are storing it for future use as our population has increased by around a million in two years……oh I have just realised Fond of Lying from the Brussels mafia won’t allow it, damn.
    More beavers any one ?

  22. Good morning all,

    It’s a dreich morning at the McPhee’s but it should clear up as the day wears on. Wind in the South,15℃ outside with the chance of thundery showers this afternoon and evening.

    Blackrock boss backs Kneeler.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/29af2054d8abab8f8a845c3a310856ee559a76bb3fbe11dd91ce150ccf493ea4.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/10/19/ftse-100-markets-news-live-oil-prices-inflation-latest/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-onward-journey

    Fink is, of course, on the board at the WEF and heavily involved with the Trilateral Commission and the Council of Foreign Relations. Following on from the endorsement of Rachel Reeves by Mark Carney, another WEF “high-heid-yin”, it tells us clearly just who the Labour Party will be serving if it wins the upcoming General Election. Add to this the jockeying into position of the Dark Lord and Starmer puppeteer, one Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, for the top job at the WEF and we can see that we’ll still be well and truly kippered if this shower get into power. Sadly, the sheep will vote for them – lambs to the slaughter.

    1. Houston we have a problem !
      We have once more reached a situation where after years of useless political idiots who couldn’t run a bath, have turned our country into a dumping ground. And every thing else they have come into contact with they have eff up.
      No wonder people have lost confidence in Whitehall and Westminster. They are absolutely
      useless.
      But please, let’s not have labour at the helm again, there are two many scars on our culture and social structure from last time.
      Pull you bloody socks up Sunhat and get it sorted

    2. Houston we have a problem !
      We have once more reached a situation where after years of useless political idiots who couldn’t run a bath, have turned our country into a dumping ground. And every thing else they have come into contact with they have eff up.
      No wonder people have lost confidence in Whitehall and Westminster. They are absolutely
      useless.
      But please, let’s not have labour at the helm again, there are two many scars on our culture and social structure from last time.
      Pull you bloody socks up Sunhat and get it sorted

  23. 377776+ + up ticks,

    Check out the massive bike park in downing street.

    bteitbart,

    Anti-Israel Protesters Descend on Downing Street After Media Blamed Israel for Explosion at Gaza Hospital

    These internal enemas are highly dangerous

        1. Just thinking of Bill Thomas. He will just have to go around with a hat and a big spike on the top.

      1. 377776+ up ticks,

        PM,
        Asked the mp for my area if she is attending the Bridgen debate on the 20th.

  27. One may dislike the magazine intensely, and consider it to be a right-wing rag, but it does give its writers the opportunity to comment on current affairs in a very unwoke manner. I read both articles and found myself agreeing with both viewpoints in most areas.

    I accept that Taki may be able to write things others might not.

    https://www.takimag.com/article/the-gaza-conundrum/

    The ideology of the elite, whatever side they’re on, has never solved the problems of the masses, and it will not solve the Gaza conundrum, that’s for sure. Arabs in Europe are screaming bloody murder, as are Jews over in America. The reality is that a minority, Hamas, have gripped the majority of the Palestinians by force, and the innocents are paying the price. On the Israeli side, government extremists in cahoots with wildly religious bigots are as bad as Hamas.
    But before I go on about the morality involved, a few true facts are necessary. I’ll be as brief as possible: Palestinians are like everyone else when oppressed. They rise up. The Jews did it in the Warsaw ghetto against the Nazis, although they knew their chances of success were less than nil. With Netanyahu as head, there is no hope for a Palestinian state. More settlements are being built, more land stolen, and the West Bank is slowly but surely being annexed. A member of the Israeli cabinet, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has been convicted of incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist group. Finally, Israelis seem to have become immune to how Palestinians live under Israeli rule and what it is to be a Palestinian in that unhappy land.
    And what about Palestinian violence and the murder of innocent Israelis, one may very well ask. I wish I had an answer that satisfied all Israelis, but I do not. Suffice it to say that what drove Polish Jews to revolt back in 1944 should explain a lot. But here’s an idea: I wish it were as straightforward as goodies versus baddies. As a Christian, I like to believe the goodies outnumber the baddies by a hell of a lot. Not all Palestinians like Hamas, and not all Israelis like to oppress Palestinians. Both Gazans and Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza are terrified. Intelligent and God-fearing Israelis must see the suffering that terror attacks bring. Vengeance is mine is only the title of a Mickey Spillane novel, and not a very good one at that. The reality of the place is that more than 2 million people have been living in an open prison for more than fifteen years. Gaza is an incubator for hate if there ever was one.

    Now a different take
    https://www.takimag.com/article/jews-and-blacks-their-landlord-and-their-friend/

    I’m hoping liberals’ instinct for taking the side of barbarism against civilization has taken a hit after seeing so many stories of the BLM movement bellowing their love for Palestinian terrorists paragliding into Israel to butcher, rape and kidnap thousands of Israeli civilians, including infants and elderly dementia patients. It’s hard not to notice that the most unrestrained celebrations of the Hamas killers are coming from BLM members, the “colonized,” diversity beneficiaries, the “Indigenous,” non-Western immigrants and other affirmative action cases.
    You unleashed ’em, liberals!
    After George Floyd died and was deified on May 25, 2020, the left’s coddling of black people (and the black-adjacent) went into overdrive. For three years, this Brahmin caste has been able to get away with anything.
    “It’s always barbarians against civilization.”
    They’ve gleefully dynamited historic statues, destroyed industries with their racist “equity, not equality” demands, bullied their way onto corporate boards and into every TV commercial, and openly discriminated against white men to elevate the incompetent.

    1. The living conditions in Gaza before this outbreak look to have been very poor and overcrowded. Not surprising people there were unhappy. They have been dependent on Israel for basic facilities like water and power. But now thanks to Hamas all that has been cut off and they are far worse off than before.
      There seems no end to this cycle.

      1. The reason that Gaza is dependent for water and power is because all the money and material that was give to Gaza to create an independent source for those essentials was stolen by Hamas, diverted to make rockets, build tunnels and make war. But since the majority of people in Gaza continue to vote for Hamas in their fraudulent election, the people made their own bed and thus lie in it.

        Sorry.
        To add, Gaza was left with plenty to make it wealthy by the Israelis when they vacated Gaza, it was a prime agricultural area fully equipped,. The Palestinians themselves destroyed all that the Israeli’s left thus, again, making their own bed of ignorant misery like typical Arabs.

        1. Good morning Johnathan ,

          Should we be regarding Jews as a super race because they have contributed so much intellectually to the development of the culture of modern times?

          1. Actually in terms of I.Q. they are a super race. Jordan Peterson has a discussion about that, I will try to find it but here is what another professor has to say. This is from Quora.

            Bruno Campello de Souza

            Professor at Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE) (2004–present)Author has 1.3K answers and 19.5M answer views

            Originally Answered: Do Jewish people have higher average IQ than other ethnic groups?

            Yes. Their average IQ is a full one standard deviation above the mean for the population as a whole (15 points), which means that the average Ashkenazi Jew is more intelligent than about 85% of the general population.

            The reasons for this Ashkenazi intellectual advantage are not altogether clear. There are indications of a strong genetic component, but there are also social elements, such as a culture that emphasizes education and intellectual achievements, one thing NOT being independent of the other.

            Europe’s long history of antisemitism might have even played a role, by imposing a cruel and unfair form of unnatural selection. Note that this hypothesis is NOT, by any stretch of the imagination, the same as suggesting that only the ‘stupid’ Jews were killed. Indeed, there are many documented cases of world-class, genius-level, Jewish thinkers and artists being persecuted and eliminated in various historical periods. It is merely the consideration that higher intelligence might have increased the odds of survival and procreation in complex hostile sociocultural environments, with possible repercussions both in Jewish culture and Jewish neurology.

      2. It’s the way Hamas treat them and the people never look critically at their fellow Muslims that gets my goat..
        The Hamas leadership live high on the hog and spend much of the billions in aid on themselves and weapons.
        Yet the ordinary Palestinians accept it and blame Israel.

    2. Taki Mag a right-wing rag? I think that’s an indicator of how just far towards the so-called liberal-left general sensibilities have been dragged over the decades. I’d call it common sense. So would have my father and mother were they still alive. And their fathers and mothers.

      1. I read it regularly and find it thought provoking on numerous topics.
        Mostly I agree with what its writers post.

    1. Meat will be taxed into oblivion, ogga.

      Edit: we do have a choice, of course. We can either get out there and rebel in style or we can sit on our bums saying to each other “mustn’t grumble”. We have the latter off to a fine art now so the former will be with some resistance.

      1. 377776+ up ticks,

        Morning PM,

        Where there is a negative there is a positive, Robin Hood never paid tax on meat.

    2. Why should that little git have the right to implement this, what’s it got do with him what people eat.
      The proposed new build programme by labour of 1.5 million homes will wipe out most of the agricultural land.
      Windows boxes roof gardens.

      Please Sir I want some more.

    3. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9c76d3d8c61a95ff5d12fa32204fdb35710bbdcdc40343e7aaa57829d0d97ec3.jpg No bastard will EVER tell me that my diet is “unsustainable” or “unhealthy”. It is far healthier, delicious and nutritious than a plate of fucking weeds.

      Today, my “unhealthy” carnivore diet is: pork brawn, potted beef ; black pudding; fried egg; pavé d’affinois cheese (with a smear of redcurrant jelly); gruyère. It is a delightful plate of porky, beefy and cheesy goodness. (I’m still eating it as I type!)

      You tell the twats, Jeff. I’m with you all the way.

      1. What have you done to that poor egg?
        You do know you can deep fry eggs. In lard if you like.

        1. The bloody yolk broke as I cracked the damn thing. I grew up with deep-fried eggs in lard. Albert and Michel Roux used the ‘fry me an egg’ technique when interviewing prospective chefs. It was their preferred method.

        2. The bloody yolk broke as I cracked the damn thing. I grew up with deep-fried eggs in lard. Albert and Michel Roux used the ‘fry me an egg’ technique when interviewing prospective chefs. It was their preferred method.

      2. According to the daily mail, eating bacon twice a week is bad for you.

        They are all at this meat suppression lark.

    1. The destruction of the EU would be most welcome.

      By the way, have you any information about Ukraine? Info has severely dried up because of Gaza. I get RT but they aren’t saying much. Attention is all on the Middle East. Even Col Macgregor is focused on Gaza.

      1. Morning Johnathan. I’m afraid Ukraine has become the spectre at the feast. Not only have the number of articles dropped severely but comments have been prevented on anything to do with it. It’s not hard to guess why. There has been a reverse in sentiment on the subject. Vlad is gaining support daily!

    3. Unfortunately, the EU (destruction be upon it!) keeps having Mark Twain moments; reports of its demise are greatly exaggerated. It’s dead, but it won’t lie down.

    1. Thanks, Maggie, but for some weird reason, Twitter articles do not show up for me on here. Despite me toggling the “Hide Media/Display Media button”. I have no such problem with any other pictures.

      1. The ‘Crooked’ Spire in Chesterfield – Derbyshire is the area’s best-known landmark.

        You may already know that it’s 228 feet high and that it ‘leans’ 9 feet 6 inches from its true centre.

        A very beautiful photograph .

    2. Apparently it heard that a bride getting married in the church one day was a virgin and, trying to get a sight of such a rare event, it twisted round too far and got stuck.

      2. Another tale had the devil flying over (probably from Mansfield, where he lives) and he sat atop the spire awhile to rest. When he flew off again he forgot to unwind his tail which caused the spire to twist.

  31. Araminta and interested NOTTLERS. This is all RT had to say about Ukraine today. Slim pickings!

    Yesterday’s man: Why Ukraine’s Zelensky is in danger of being left behind by the US
    If faced with a choice between supporting Kiev or Israel, Washington will choose the latter in a heartbeat
    By Chay Bowes, journalist and geopolitical analyst, MA in Strategic Studies, RT correspondent

    Earlier this month, the world was shocked at terrorist attacks on Israel by hundreds of Hamas fighters. Not only did it signify the beginning of a new escalation in the age-old struggle between Jews and Palestinians, it also potentially marked a pivot point in political and military support for Vladimir Zelensky’s Ukraine.

    Before the savage Hamas attacks and the biblically brutal Israeli response, the US and its NATO allies were almost exclusively focused on Ukraine while occasionally glancing nervously toward China. Now, as the Western media spins into overdrive with its gaze firmly locked onto the Middle East, Kiev’s woes are set only to increase as attention shifts away from Kiev and towards Israel, Palestine, and Iran.

    It’s worth noting that prior to the Hamas assaults, the trajectory of support for Ukraine already showed signs of waning. Mere months ago, the idea that previously stalwart allies like Poland would be openly questioning the wisdom of their no-strings-attached support for the war-torn state – likening it to a “drowning man” – would have been unthinkable. Couple this with widespread European war weariness, Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive, and collapsing public support for the war in the West, and it was already facing an uphill battle to maintain support from its “partners,” its people, and most importantly American political elites. The last thing Zelensky needed was a globally significant escalation in the Middle East to draw precious resources further away from the proxy war he is fighting against Russia on behalf of Washington.
    Earlier this month, the world was shocked at terrorist attacks on Israel by hundreds of Hamas fighters. Not only did it signify the beginning of a new escalation in the age-old struggle between Jews and Palestinians, it also potentially marked a pivot point in political and military support for Vladimir Zelensky’s Ukraine.

    Before the savage Hamas attacks and the biblically brutal Israeli response, the US and its NATO allies were almost exclusively focused on Ukraine while occasionally glancing nervously toward China. Now, as the Western media spins into overdrive with its gaze firmly locked onto the Middle East, Kiev’s woes are set only to increase as attention shifts away from Kiev and towards Israel, Palestine, and Iran.

    Another crucial issue has been the calamitous cost of Zelensky’s failed counteroffensive. This long-telegraphed manoeuvre, which was supposed to defeat Russia, has depleted Kiev’s manpower, materiel, and reputation in the West without delivering any gains on the battlefield. Instead, it has done nothing but compound the quietly inevitable sense in the West that Kiev will have to seek accommodation with Moscow and concede territory in the process.

    It is beyond doubt that the emerging conflict in the Middle East threatens the continuity of physical and ‘emotional’ support for the Ukrainian proxy war. That’s not to say that it doesn’t concern Russia – it does. However, it does not bode well for Zelensky. As pressure to hold elections builds, he looks increasingly vulnerable, with a distinct sense of desperation leaking into the narrative. This was subtly evident when Grant Shapps, the new British secretary of state for defence, recently parroted the stock response when quizzed on the ability to “run two wars” at the same time, he responded that “Zelensky will be reminding us all, not only why it’s very important that we still maintain this battle, and show that we can so that Putin doesn’t win, but also don’t get distracted by the wider issues.” He added, “The war in Europe is absolutely at the forefront of our minds.” This reassurance is, of course, exactly the kind of thing that ominously happens publicly when the opposite is increasingly true in the background.

    While Israel’s draw on munitions of the type needed by Ukraine is limited, given the different dynamics of the conflicts, it is likely that the requirement to stockpile munitions for a potentially long war is possible. This would pit the vast Israeli defence and political lobby in the US against a smaller Ukrainian lobby, and it’s exceptionally likely that the former would come out on top every time. Regarding Israel, there’s absolutely no chance it will be ‘abandoned’ to its fate by any incumbent or potential US president. As an example, take the ostensibly “anti-forever war” candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who recently came out guns blazing in support of Israeli retribution against Hamas while casting doubts on the political and financial rationale for continuing to support Zelensky.

    Compare the increasingly troublesome image of Ukraine in the Western press to that of Israel, which is seen by a large portion of the US public as a heroic island of civilization and democracy in a turbulent Middle East. You can see why it’s far easier to position Israel as a deserving recipient of increasingly scarce American military and financial aid when pitted against Ukraine, which is mired in corruption and dysfunction. During a recent interview with Bloomberg, Chatham House CEO Bronwen Maddox summed up the situation quite succinctly when she said, “Given a choice between Israel and Ukraine, the US would in a heartbeat choose Israel,” she went on to clarify that even if Washington is not facing this decision immediately, she “can understand why President Zelensky might be worried as he was already battling to retain American attention.”

    So, as Ukraine tumbles down the running order in the Western media’s newsrooms, several other issues related to the Middle Eastern escalation also look set to impact sustaining the conflict. Russian forces are holding their lines; oil prices look set to rise, destabilizing global markets, and future congressional buy-in for funding Kiev seems increasingly difficult now that Israel is at war. Then, of course, there’s the turbulent political situation in Europe with Ukraine-sceptic Robert Fico’s party winning the recent election in Slovakia. All of this without mentioning the coming winter and the challenges this will place on an increasingly fractious EU.

    It seems that trouble lies ahead wherever Vladimir Zelensky now looks. While a seasoned statesman with the best interests of his people at heart might recognise this and decide to seek peace, Zelensky may simply choose to ignore all of the above in a desperate attempt to remain in the spotlight, on centre stage. All of this while Kiev tries to persuade a dwindling audience that Russia is somehow culpable for the woes of the Middle East, even ridiculously suggesting that Russia is attempting to “frame” Ukraine by giving captured Western weapons to Hamas.

    So, as time runs out for Kiev’s proxy war against Russia, it now seems obvious that the tragic events of October 7 in Israel may define not only the escalation of one conflict but also the beginning of the end of another.

  32. Back from t’market. Damp air rather than rain; VERY mild.

    I saw last night a photo of hundreds of slammers doing their prayer malkarkey in front of No 10. Disgraceful lapse of security. Any on of them could have carried explosives or weapons.

    And just IMAGE if half a dozen Christians had sun some hymns there. Arrested within seconds…..

    I’ll cut and paste an excellent article from The Grimes today by a woman who I often think is a bit daft. Today she isn’t.

      2. Funnily enough I made the same observations as you and Bill last night. They aren’t praying; it’s a show of force to mark their territory and had Christians held a vigil, plod would have arrested them.

  33. Late on parade this morning due to 2 power cuts, didn’t bother firing up the generator. Bit windy but bright with it

  34. Article in The Times today by Deborah Ross:

    “Thus far, as a secular Jew (very), I have felt the need to stay silent about the horrific events unfolding. I haven’t earned the right to say anything. I don’t know enough. I haven’t set foot in a synagogue for years. What if I say something foolish? What if, God forbid, I’m just using my Jewishness to get a column out of it? And how will I know? Can I be trusted? Do I trust myself?

    But I was utterly, utterly floored by the open letter released this week by Artists for Palestine UK with its 2,000 signatories including Tilda Swinton, Mike Leigh, Michael Winterbottom, Steve Coogan, Charles Dance, Miriam Margolyes and Michael Rosen.

    The letter says “we are witnessing a crime and a catastrophe”, that the “‘spectre of death’ is hanging over the territory”, that “Palestinians whose grandparents were forced out of their homes at the barrel of a gun are again being told to flee”.

    They continue with “our governments are not only tolerating war crimes but aiding and abetting them” and conclude with “we demand that our governments end their military and political support for Israel’s actions”.

    I read it once, twice, a third time. Then a fourth. Had the letter been abridged? Surely it’s been abridged. Or I’ve somehow missed a paragraph. Would have to have done. I can be dozy. I’d best read it a fifth time. But it had not been abridged and I had not missed anything.

    The fact is, there was no mention of Hamas. There was no mention of the rape, torture, kidnapping and murder of babies, children, grandparents, young people dancing peacefully at a peace festival.

    The lack of basic compassion and humanity, that’s what was so unbelievably flooring. Is it so difficult? To support and feel for Palestinian citizens — even among my more observant relatives I’ve yet to encounter anyone who believes an Israeli life is worth more than a Palestinian one — while also acknowledging the indisputable horror of the Hamas attacks?

    To hold both those thoughts? It isn’t the most exacting moral test. Even I can pass it and as was once written on my school report: “not too bright”. (It was for physics, but said in a general way.) And isn’t it necessary to hold both thoughts if any kind of peaceful coexistence is ever to be achieved? Otherwise it is truly hopeless?

    What does it solve, a letter like that? And why would anyone sign it? Was Dance bored that morning? As for Rosen and Margolyes, I’ve no idea why they’d wish to be party to it.

    Apart from the lack of compassion and humanity, there just seems to be so much else wrong with it. To talk about “grandparents forced out of their homes at the barrel of a gun” presumably refers to 1948, but where does that get anyone? Should it prompt a game of one-upmanship?

    Should I respond by saying this is a centuries-old conflict that goes back to ancient times and 733BC when the Jews were first expelled from Israel, their ancestral homeland? That thousands of Jews were forcibly relocated then? That the Jewish diaspora began there? How is that … helpful? Should we behave like children, crying: “But I didn’t start it! It wasn’t me!” Would such finger-pointing be in the best interests of dealing with the now?

    Or is the letter just plainly and purely antisemitic? Might you ignore the Hamas attack and offer no commiserations, or a plea for the hostages, because you cannot condemn it? Maybe, even, because you condone it? Hard to believe, but why else not call it out?

    It’s the not-calling-it-out that is so disturbing here. You can choose not to defend Israel. You can be an anti-Zionist. You can hate Israel with every fibre of your being, and many do. But you do have to call such an atrocity out. You have to say it happened. Don’t you? Or do murdered, raped and tortured Jews not matter?

    Perhaps it’s my Jewishness coming out here. Perhaps secular Jews are not as secular as they believe themselves to be. I asked my aunt, who is religious, whether I am less Jewish, and she said, “Absolutely not!” But that was only a poll of one. Perhaps being Jewish is ultimately unassailable, which is why I found the letter so devastating.

    I certainly grew up around some antisemitism. The RE teacher at school called me “the Christ killer”. The family next door called us “yids”. My grandfather, a shoe wholesaler, changed our name from Rosenthal on the grounds “people don’t want to do business with Jews”.

    My childhood was beset by the Jewish holidays that always seemed to go on for ever and come down to remembering how other peoples tried to get rid of us: Passover (Egyptians); Purim (Persians); Chanukkah (Greeks); Tisha B’Av (Romans and Babylonians).

    None of this was anything I couldn’t cope with, to be honest, but it must have left me with a sense of where it could lead to and where it could lead to is right here, in this refusal to recognise what Hamas did, and in this refusal to feel anything for the families of hostages, the parents of dead children, the children of dead parents, or be somehow indifferent to the sight of cot mattresses soaked with blood.

    Israel has often treated Palestinians harshly, and Netanyahu has exacerbated any problems, but that is no justification, or what are you saying? Those babies had it coming? What’s happening now, to ordinary Palestinians, is also horrendous, but do I feel less sympathy for them than for the Israelis? Not at all. Not in the slightest.

    The irony, I suppose, is that in establishing a Jewish homeland where antisemitism could not exist a new kind of antisemitism has been created. What other reason could there be for omitting such an act of terrorism? I did get a column out of this, but I don’t feel I just got a column out of this. I trust myself.”

    1. We will have it here too when the slammers think they are numerous enough. They are territory thieves.

      1. They are already dangerously near the tipping point. Witness their actions – they believe they are untouchable. Thanks to our traitorous government in practice they are. Ultimately it will have to kick off or we shall be utterly destroyed. I’m glad I’m old. With any luck it may not happen in my lifetime.

  35. Hamas and Iran could pose a threat on the streets of the UK, government anti-extremism tsar to warns.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12647261/Hamas-Iran-threat-UK-government-anti-extremism-tsar.html

    I will give the security services a clue…

    Security fears raised as group of 30 migrants climb off boat and are ‘bussed into Britain after only basic checks’.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12647389/Security-fears-raised-group-30-migrants-climb-boat-bussed-Britain-basic-checks.html

    1. It takes an expert to recognize a problem that anyone with common sense can see.

      In the meantime village idiot Trudeau is still blathering on about hamas not representing Palestinians and that Islam is a religion of peace.

    2. Have they only just woken up to that fact? Where have they been during the “lone wolf” (actually terrorist) attacks on London Bridge, Manchester Arena et al?

      1. I think they have just realised that many lone wolves makes a pack. Counting obvs not their strong point.

  36. Anyone know just how many billions (trillions?) of foreign money has been pumped into Gaza in the last 40 years?

    1. Interesting. It was there when i read the paper early – say 4am UK time – but I cannot for the life of me remember what was there. Does anyone have a paper paper???

  38. Good morning & a happy and safe Thursday to all of my dear Nottler friends, my sincere thanks to all of you who have posted expressions of support, prayers and comfort for myself and familes safety and for all of us in Israel on the Coconut Whisperer in the last few days. You are all welcome to post with us on the Coconut & my other blogs whenever you have the spare time.

    God bless & protect you all & your families.And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed, Genesis 12:3

    On a side note, I read with dismay today that the lessons of living with or next door to Islamic barbarity have not sunk in to the SNP party and that the Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf says that Scotland is ready to accept refugees from Gaza. https://www.jpost.com/international/article-769145 As such I question the sanity of SNP voters in voting into power a man who is clearly a Muslim Brotherhood plant.

    1. Scotland will accept Palestinian refugees which no other Arab country is willing to take (having learned from bitter experience e.g. Jordan and Lebanon).

      1. Happy Thursday Aeneas, add to that the bitter experience Kuwait whose Palestinian population sided with & collaborated with Saddam’s invasion & occupation of Kuwait

      1. Anas – misspelling surely the second vowel should be a ‘u’ rather than an ‘a’?

        What an *rs*h*l* this chap must be!

      2. Born in Glasgow to
        Pakistani Muslim parents, Sarwar was privately educated at the
        independent Hutchesons’ Grammar School and studied general dentistry at
        the University of Glasgow.

        2. The very same school which educated Scooter Useless. It also happens to be my father’s alma mater. He was there in the 1930s.

    3. Good day, Hatman. Yousaf always takes advice from his “Imam” before making any decision.

    4. He hates England with a passion and doubtless will do everything in his power to get them to move from Scotland into England.

    6. Hi hatman
      Thanks for your blog, it gives us a better view of the events in israel than our media manages to do.

    7. Happy Thursday, Pud.

      Good to see you safe and well. been worrying about you and your family of late.

      1. Happy Thursday Joseph, I hope you & family are well. Physically I am at home in Tel Aviv and virtually I am to be found daily on my blogs, the coconut whisperer, the sputniks orbit & TGIOF as well as on my friends blogs Words & Brush and Chuck in Cardinals blogspot, links to the 5 blogs are on my profile (Following — Communities) I post as the coconut whisperer on the coconut and as sputnik on on the other 4 blogs, I don’t use my Mahatma account a lot nowadays except for a visit to NTTL . Please drop in any time you like on my blogs

    10. Good morning to you sir, long time no hear.

      Agree with you comments as many do, but too much shouting the from the kneeling opposition is stifling our opinions, and our media are adverse to public opinion.

      1. Happy Thursday Eddy. The one advantage of being in the kneeling position in front of an adversary is you can take him by surprise and head butt him in the goolies & then rise & kick him in the face as he clutches his groin!

        1. We have a few or our so called hierarchy that need their nut rearrange.
          One I’ve used in past was spin side on, slide the outside of the foot down the shin and bring up the knee.
          Just sayin’ ……🤗

          2. Head butt’s can go wrong.
            A long time ago we were at a party in QLD. My good lady twice bent over the record playet to replace the records.
            The same AH stood behind her making sexual motions. Not long after, I noticed him going out into the rear garden. I followed him and he was standing on the top of the sloping garden taking a pee. I put my put in his back and projected him forward. I had no idea how steep or how far or where the slope went. But I never saw him back at the party.
            Good night all.🤗

    1. A young couple were sitting at an outside table at a restaurant with their little baby boy. The infant picked up a 2p coin and swallowed it but it got stuck in his wind pipe so that the child could not breathe. The parents slapped him on the back and shook him but they could not dislodge the coin from his throat and he got bluer and bluer in the face.

      A smartly dressed woman at the next table, seeing what was happening, went over to the table where this drama was unfolding. She picked up the baby, grabbed him by the testicles and squeezed. The 2p coin shot out of his mouth and the woman put it in her pocket and went back to her own table.

      The parents were overwhelmed with gratitude and thanked her profusely and asked her if she was a doctor. She replied: “No, I work for HMRC.”

      1. Very good Mr Richard But! If it were really HMRC she’d have had a rifle around in the pockets of baby, Mum and Dad as well, then nicked their dinner, eaten it in front of them, vomited over them and then sent them the bill.

    2. I’m astonished there’s a tax office in Ipswich! My Dad told me to visit the tax office in Norwich – I told him there wasn’t one. After a grumpy argument of calling the number and finding it disconnected he discovered that lo! I was right and that’s why my tax return was late.

  40. 377776+ upticks,

    Breitbart,

    Israel-Palestine latest news: Sunak says Israel has a ‘duty’ to retaliate –

    Does he appreciate the fact that the decent folk of the United Kingdom have the same duty in regards to their domestic affairs ?

    1. No, in a word. Likewise the arbitrarily drawn artificial line on the map that is Ukraine merits talk of border security while our own very hard and natural border cannot be defended.

      1. 377776+ upticks,

        Afternoon SE,
        May I add,
        “while our own very hard and natural border cannot be defended” all the while the lab/lib/con coalition
        supporter / voter are active.

      2. It CAN be defended; they just don’t want to do it. If the same attitude had prevailed in 1940 we’d have been a Natsi state much earlier than will happen.

  41. The sirens have just gone in Tel Aviv at 2:33 PM locally & I just heard the boom of 2 interceptions near where I live in North East Tel Aviv
    In the last 13 days since Sat 7th October we have had between 2 to 5 rocket attacks every day & night on Tel Aviv.

    1. I cannot even conceive of that situation. It’s insane. There is so much I don’t understand about the situation – why did Israel choose to site there? It’s surrounded by fanatics who are ideologically opposed to it. (I don’t say this as a ‘it’s Israeli’s fault, just I don’t understand the reasoning).

      Then there’s the restraint required to not flatten the place. Heck, folk here get into arguments over parking spaces.

      1. It’s Israell’s ancestral homeland which was made over to the Hebrews after WW2. Unfortunately the Arabs were there too.

          1. London hasn’t been an English city for many years now. And more males of fighting age are arriving every day.

    2. Hi Pud! Good to hear from you. Does the iron dome cause the boom? Hope none of them are getting through. One tries to educate the Fakestinian supporters on Twitter but they’re wedded to their ideology and determinedly dense.

      1. It’s not being thick that stops Hamas supporters – it’s sheer bloody minded refusal to accept the truth.

      2. Happy Thursday my dear Sue. Yes the boom means a successful interception high up in the sky by the Iron Domes “Tamir” interceptor missiles, otherwise its the loud explosion & shaking of the neighborhood due to a hit on a building or a road.

    3. Good to hear from you again, you think you have problems, we have Ulez, 20 mph speed limits and the prospect of another Labour government.

          1. UK Labour is at local level the de-facto Muslim Brotherhood. Soon enough the MB will push for for the Labour National leadership position & it would not surprise me if Sadiq Khan will be their candidate for PM in the coming decade or sooner

      1. Happy Thursday Jules, the boom means a successful in-flight interception of an incoming rocket. If the Tamir interceptor missile misses its target it is brought down by its controllers in an open area, the Tamir missile itself has only a small explosive warhead & relies on physically hitting it’s target or a very near controlled explosion of its small warhead that is enough to destroy or damage the incoming rocket & deflect it away from it’s projected target area.

    5. Keep your head down, Hat. And away from windows – blast does nasty things with glass.

  42. Afternoon everyone. I have just received my Winter Fuel Payment, (WFP) more commonly known as the Pre-Election Bribe (PEB) of £500. This includes “… extra money from the Government to help with the cost of living. This is known as a “Pensioner Cost of Living Payment.”

    Ahhh! The wonders you can perform with other people’s money!

    1. I don’t begrudge the payments, but like everything it’s government deliberately hammering one side to favour another. Why not just… scrap all the levies, duties and costs and put them on those making the demands?

      Unreliables need grid upgrades – make them pay for them. Unreliables don’t work all the time, so stop subsidising them. Don’t fix the cost of energy, just leave it to the market. AS it is, receipients are just getting their own money back.

          1. I think not – you need to be getting Pension Credit or another means tested benefit. Only the basic WFP will go to all pensioners.

          2. Probably easier for me to do than you, unfortunately. Thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.

    5. I received notification yesterday that the Winter Fuel Payment for my dwelling will be £350. I am rather ancient.

      1. I am paying £97 a month for gas and between £60-70 a month for electricity. I am in a small 2 bed dwelling.

  45. Courtesy of Charlie Croker, Pat and Gift of the Gab; all on Twitter(X)

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6a61e3a6813e90748c443d52ce48bb9d3f9a2bcdb20f7994e2c22da22cc1901e.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/44b5067f7f42da87a88cfd33c2324921a8c1ed49ecd989f8f72d2542b477a09f.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3e830566cd5b1e2c7b91c17d71b62ac64a5e631c90609a85fae940bd6588590c.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/948a07ae5d9f055d3f4f54b7876fbe77c9606ff756a5843d137562e16c2067be.png

    1. I lost count of the times I told my brain-dead, mask-wearing relatives that viruses easily enter the respiratory passage via the tear ducts.

      Still they continued to wear their snot-filled disgusting face-nappies.

      2. Our bodies are riddled with bacteria all the time. There are meningococci in the back of the throat that don’t cause any harm until there’s an internal weakness.

          1. I have his complete works on my kindle: Novels, Memoirs, Poetry, Essays, Book Reviews & Articles which includes all his wartime essays and articles. Outstanding value for 99p!

            https://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Works-Memoirs-Articles-Prophecies-ebook/dp/B08VDBR74J/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1PY6SJA5KVSUA&keywords=orwell+complete+works&qid=1697719205&sprefix=orwell+complete%2Caps%2C119&sr=8-1
            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/296dce05c1e570d896e50d2e14e3d7b4a0e6faf2bc2c58cd7de70858dc7ffa5e.png

          2. I have a Kindle and it was useful when travelling to and from the boat in the Med but I mush prefer proper books and I have most of Orwell’s novels and essays in Penguin paperbacks.

    3. Of course they will. You can’t have truth-telling when there’s a revolution to run.

      1. Not far from us every year the bodies of sheep are found dumped just after Ramadan…… the feast of sacrifice. Taken from local farmers fields. For use in Luton.

    3. The car being driven by an Eskimo on a motoring tour of New Zealand broke down; so he contacted the breakdown service.

      The mechanic attending looked under the bonnet and declared, “It looks like you’ve blown a seal.”

      The angry Eskimo shouted back, “So fucking what? You shag sheep!”

  49. We want you to win, Sunak tells Netanyahu in Israel. 19 October 2023.

    Rishi Sunak told Benjamin Netanyahu that the UK “wants Israel to win” as he appeared alongside the Israeli Prime Minister in Tel Aviv.

    During the press briefing, Mr Netanyahu thanked the UK for its ongoing support.

    Quite frankly I found this press briefing embarrassing. Sunak assumed that Israeli’s can’t read and that they’ve never heard of the BBC. I don’t like Netanyahu but I could tell he was wondering “What’s this little two faced creep doing here?”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/19/israel-palestine-latest-news-updates-hamas-gaza-day-13-live/

  50. The ‘Exodus’ at Haifa, July 1947
    Photograph, Palestine, 1947.

    The SS ‘Exodus’ (1928) was a vessel carrying Jewish refugees from France who wanted to settle in Palestine. Many were Holocaust survivors. The British however forbade entry into Palestine of European Jews. Anxious to appease the Egyptians and oil-rich Saudis, they imposed a limit on Jewish immigration. This eventually provoked armed Jewish resistance. The ‘Exodus’ was seized by the Royal Navy and after docking at Haifa was then sent back to France with the majority of its passengers still on board.

    From a collection of 22 official photographs of British military activity around the world from 1943-1960.

    https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=2007-04-43-4

    History is important .. it still has to be referred to .

    The British turned back a refugee ship ..!

  51. 377776+ up ticks,

    The subak chaps greeting the Israeli chap sounded non English more like AI patter, we want to be your bestes mates
    are we certain he is not leggo man ?

  52. Afternoon, all. I’m here because the ground’s too wet for me to finish what I started yesterday and I had to turn the laptop on to retrieve some info to deal with the ongoing problem caused by Halfords overcharging me (the courier dumped the item on my studio porch as I suspected he/she would and I found it when I took Kadi out for his walk today). I ended up having to ring them up and it wasn’t a freephone number. The whole thing has been very unsatisfactory and left me extremely cross. I don’t need any extra hassle – or, indeed, to pay over the odds for something. I have an expensive VED to pay at the end of the month.

    2. Mahatma. Sorry to have missed you. But thank you for popping in and shmor al atzmeha.

    4. I hope you keep well Hatman.
      By the way I use to cycle past Vera Lynn’s home on my way to school and back. Never saw her. She lived in a 1930s style house in the Downage Hendon.

    5. Good day to you, Hatman.

      Good to hear from you.

      Why not visit us on your birthday – and if you let me know when it is I shall put you on my list and post Happy Birthday Greetings?

    1. While the sentiment is correct, if that had been a Jewish sterotype people would have been complaining.

      1. How many Jews have been undertaking terrorist operations in the countries indicated?
        And looking around the pyjamaed ones even in my area, apart from the torch, I don’t think the stereotype is particularly inaccurate.

        1. As I said, the sentiment is correct. Muslims have been causing chaos. My reference to the Jews was not to imply they had been causing trouble but to reference the stereotypical depiction.

          1. Given an appropriate context for the cartoon I don’t believe people would have been complaining unless the stereotype was utterly grotesque, I don’t believe the one here is such.

    1. The day has been much better than we expected. I’ve taken Spartie for a decent walk, rather than hurried scurry through the rain.

  56. Bill. Just found out with reference to your question about money and the Palestinians. Iran gives Hamas a billion dollars per year.

  57. Good morning, chums. Or should I say good afternoon. I was so busy doing things that I’ve only just remembered – I’d thought I had popped in earlier. Still, good to see that mahatmacoatmabag has checked in to say he is OK. Thank heavens for that.

    2. I miss taking our Lottie for a walk so much. I feel lonely ‘with no one’ to talk to, and chuck the ball for.

      1. That’s why I took on Oscar. People don’t talk to you if you don’t have a dog with you! Admittedly, Oscar no longer wants to go for a walk (I suppose that’s fair enough as he’s just turned 14), but Kadi is always up for a constitutional. If I’m going, he’s sticking with me.

  59. CNN news headline – Israel-Hamas war rages as Gaza humanitarian crisis continues

    If the frequent bombs and missiles being lobbed across the border is counted as war rages , I wonder what superlatives they come up with when it actually gets going.

  60. CNN news headline – Israel-Hamas war rages as Gaza humanitarian crisis continues

    If the frequent bombs and missiles being lobbed across the border is counted as war rages , I wonder what superlatives they come up with when it actually gets going.

  61. Why the sudden interest in Sadiq Khan signing London up – four years ago – to the C40 Cities campaign to reduce meat and dairy consumption? It’s not as if he’s the sole agitator for this measure. A total of 14 cities signed up to the scheme initially – of which meat and dairy consumption are just a modest part. All told, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Guadalajara, Lima, London, Los Angeles, Milan, Oslo, Paris, Quezon City, Seoul, Stockholm, Tokyo and Toronto were the initial signatories and they were not all fronted by a horrid little brown Muslim of Pakistani descent, although that seems to be a major consideration in these parts.

    https://www.c40.org/news/good-food-cities/

    Tim Sigsworth of the Telegraph revived interest in the subject last month. The proposals are radical and far reaching, but how would these city mayors impose their hard environmental agenda? I don’t see that they would have the legislative powers outside of their own fiefdoms, although they will not doubt lobby and strive to influence. Meat and dairy products might become hard to find in council canteens and schools, but I’m struggling to see how they will crack down hard in domestic and retail spheres.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/15/sadiq-khan-green-london-net-zero-ulez-c40-mayors-2030/

    1. If I had once been aware of the C40 Cities campaign of four years ago then I have obviously forgotten about it in the meanwhile. It is only when I am reminded of such crass idiocy that I am motivated to comment.

      I shall not be denied access to the only foodstuffs suitable for my species and anyone attempting to deprive me of my natural sustenance will soon feel the full force of my wrath.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12Sza90czz0

    2. Without doing any research I would not mind betting that they were all fronted by horrid little socialists

        1. Of course they notice.

          Ignoring the protests gives them enormous pleasure as well as underlining their power over the plebs.

    3. Possibly people have only just become aware of the C40 campaign and started to realise that it will have an impact on their lives. The Mayor is already exceeding his remit in extending the ULEZ. During the war, rationing was introduced and unless you had black market contacts you were stuck with what you were allowed with your coupons. You had to register with a butcher/greengrocer and had no choice where you went. If cash is dispensed with control over what you buy will be simple.

      1. City mayors do not – yet – have that kind of control over cash and food stamps/coupons. Perhaps the revival of city states is on the horizon with powers beyond the remit of nation state governments.

        1. Or nation state governments (have we actually reverted to being a nation state, making our own independent decisions?) will align with and assist city mayors. Who knows? Ultimately it’s all about control and imposing a world view on citizens. You will comply (or die).

    4. Perhaps local by-laws would enable them to licence butchers – so long as they limit meat sales.

      1. The usual ‘THEY’ would have covered every aspect to annoy the majority of most populations.
        You can bet your boots the only butchers and slaughter house’s will be Halal. Known for its extreme and unessesary cruelty to animals.
        And with that kneeler cur starmer informing our overcrowded country, labour are committed to building 1.5 million new homes on green belt land. We will have to import potatoes.
        All lined up and Coming to a greenfield near all of us.

    5. “The ‘Planetary Health Diet’ could save 11 million lives each year, if adopted universally, while dramatically reducing emissions and supporting a global population of 10 billion people”.

      Saving 11 million lives each year is what they most emphatically don’t want.

  63. A headline from RT that couldn’t happen here.
    “Russia recalls new banknote after uproar from Christians
    The decision followed a complaint that the design omitted a cross on top of the former Kazan Kremlin cathedral”.

  64. Leave Lebanon now, Britons and Americans told. 19 October 2023.

    Britain and the US have urged their citizens to flee Lebanon while “commercial options are still available” amid growing tensions between Hezbollah and Israel.

    The US embassy implored American nationals to prepare “contingency plans” for emergency situations in an emailed advisory note.

    “Make plans to depart as soon as possible while commercial options are still available,” it said.

    The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office called on Britons still in Lebanon to “leave now while commercial options remain available”.

    It is pretty obvious with the movement of forces and evacuation advice that a major war is on the way. It’s no longer just about Hamas. The US and Israel are about to attempt to clear the decks. Syria, Hizbollah and Iran combined.

    Starting wars is no problem at all. Ending them is something else entirely!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/19/israel-palestine-latest-news-updates-hamas-gaza-day-13-live/

    1. Lebanon used to be a Christian country until relatively recently. Now it’s a basket case. I wonder what the reason could possibly be.

      1. I used to teach EFL to a lovely girl from the Lebanon in the mid-70s. She showed me pictures of her country and it looked great. Then the war kicked off and I always wondered what happened to her.

    2. While out walking raise your arms in the air to loosen the back muscles… Wouldn’t hurt to say woowoooooooowooo…either.

      When do you plant the raspberries?

      1. They were planted about ten years ago. Cut back every early spring. Prolific – to say the least.

          5. Be careful they don’t take over, Pip. I started off with one plant about ten years ago and now I have a whole soft fruit patch full (and they are trying to take over adjacent areas!).

          6. Thanks for the advice. I have a raised bed i installed for Bill’s trombetti. Not growing those next year so the raspberries can go nuts if they like.

          7. It may take a year or so. I cut mine down in the autumn. I forget what variety they are, but they are autumn fruiting and prolific.

          9. Presumably the canes will still be a few inches long and you’ll be able to see where they are. Mine don’t need staking at all. They grow tall and sturdy (unlike me!).

    2. I nearly hit someone on a bicycle a few years ago – in the middle of the road, wearing all black and with barely a glimmer of light on the bike. No doubt if I hadn’t avoided the cyclist I would have lost my licence.

    3. Was the child also wearing a black hood as the head doesn’t show up in the black clothed photograph?

        1. So is there a reason why we can’t see the child’s face and hair when dressed in black? I just don’t see why the head disappears.

          1. Shadow.
            I’ve found myself suddenly seeing pedestrians, not just children, dressed mainly in black and suddenly stepping onto crossings in twilight.

      1. Reminds me of the old joke. Taking the advice to heart, a chap went out wearing a white overcoat, white trousers, a white hat and white scarf. He got run over by a snowplough.

    2. I hope your journey there is less troublesome than the one I had yesterday for a pre-op appointment with an anaesthetist. The appointment itself was fine. It was all over within ten minutes. The journey beforehand, however, was a frustrating experience.

      I left home about 70 minutes before the appointment and took a small diversion to the local sub-post office to mail an item by recorded delivery. The sub-post office didn’t have any labels for recorded delivery. That didn’t much matter as I still had time to divert to the main post office in the town centre on the way to the railway station.

      I waited at the nearest stop for an impending bus. After more than 10 minutes it was becoming clear the bus had been cut. Still, another would be along in a further ten minutes, although I would have to abandon plans to visit the main post office if I was to catch my train. After another 20 minutes it was clear the next bus had been cut, too. By now, I was reliant on one more bus to get me to the railway station for a later train which would only get me to my appointment just in time. It had been raining throughout, otherwise I would have walked in the first place, given the notorious unreliability of local buses.

      Shortly before the third bus was due a young woman, also waiting, looked at her phone app which told her no bus was approaching or even on route. I decided to call ahead to let the hospital know I was now likely to be late. They were understanding and said they’d make a slot for me when I arrived. They rain was now easing so I abandoned any hope of a bus arriving and stomped off to the railway station on foot, knowing I would be late but seething at the prospect of waiting for an indefinite period any longer. I also noted that no buses had been passing in the opposite direction. The walk took about 25 minutes and not a single bus passed in my direction that would have been of any help.

      The train – later than the one I had been aiming for – whisked me away on time and I was soon at the next station and marching towards the hospital – Pinehill in Hitchin, as it happens – arriving nearly 30 minutes after my appointment time. The staff were fine and the anaesthetist soon saw me. The rail journey back was quick and uneventful.

      Once back in Stevenage, it was now raining very hard and, as much as I didn’t want a bus I would have been drenched had I walked, so I waited at the main interchange and finally – more than five minutes late – a bus arrived to take me back home.

      I later learned there had been a traffic accident that afternoon on the bus route and that police had diverted all vehicles along other roads, cutting out several stops, including where I had been waiting. None of us at the stop were aware of this and no effort had been made to advise passengers – waiting in vain – to make other arrangements. The traffic accident was no fault of the bus company but to leave waiting passengers uninformed for what, according to reports, was a road closure of some three hours or more, was shabby in the extreme. It’s little wonder that I strive to walk just about anywhere within town as this kind of shoddy service is all too frequent – buses are often cut because of driver shortages or vehicle breakdowns.

      1. How bloody awful for you. Good of the staff to be so understanding.

        I have just got back. No traffic but heavy rain. When i got to the car park the rain stopped. In and out in 10 minutes for the scan. Rain didn’t start again until i got home. Lucky me.

        Scan showed my spleen is normal and my liver is a little fatty but no different from two years ago.

        I do wish GP’s would make a diagnosis on what they find rather than what my lifestyle (drinking) is like.

        1. I’m pleased your diagnosis didn’t ring any alarm bells. Your recent unpleasant experience was probably a passing infection.

      2. That sounds like a nightmare, David. At least round here buses are so few and far between almost no one relies on them if they can find alternative transport. As for trains – they are like hen’s teeth.

    1. Not sure what they expect us to think about body doubles. Not so unusual. As long as one of the doubles doesn’t have access to the big red button.

  69. A follow-up to BT’s piece from The Times.

    Actors’ open letter condemns ‘Israel’s war crimes’ but not Hamas massacre

    Artists for Palestine UK, including Steve Coogan and Tilda Swinton, called for Gaza ceasefire but failed to mention terror attacks

    By Fiona Parker and Craig Simpson • 18 October 2023 • 9:59pm

    An open letter signed by well-known actors condemning Israeli military actions has been criticised for failing to mention brutal terror attacks carried out by Hamas.

    More than 2,000 artists, actors and musicians in the UK, including Tilda Swinton, Steve Coogan, Charles Dance and Maxine Peake, signed the letter. They called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and for “our governments to end their military and political support for Israel’s actions”.

    “Our governments are not only tolerating war crimes but aiding and abetting them,” the note, written by Artists for Palestine UK, added.

    However, it did not mention the terror group Hamas – or the massacres it carried out earlier this month.

    On Wednesday night, a former actor-turned-Tory MP said it was important to address “both sides” and that actors ought to think carefully before weighing in on such a sensitive issue.

    Giles Watling, who sits on the culture, media and sport committee, said: “I think it’s a very complicated situation politically and historically and in this case, it is very important to present both sides of the issue. We must absolutely condemn the attacks of Hamas on Israel, yes, but of course, I have great sympathy for the Palestinian people and the suffering they have endured. But you can’t just present one side and not the other.”

    The Clacton MP, best known for his role as Vicar Oswald in the BBC sitcom Bread, added: “Everyone is entitled to a view, but actors will be aware of the powers of their views and they should try to think very carefully when they weigh in on sensitive issues like this.”

    Meanwhile, David Mencer, former director of Labour Friends of Israel, went further and described the letter as “drivel”.

    He added: “I invite this group of misfits and weirdos to rescue their ailing careers and try their chances as artists in Gaza under the Hamas regime. I promise to sign a letter when they are locked up and beg for their release.”

    Earlier this month, several celebrities who voiced support for Israel in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks faced a backlash from fans. Kylie Jenner took down a photo shared from a pro-Israel Instagram account after multiple followers posted Palestinian flags in the comments and accused the 26-year-old of a “lack of knowledge and care”.

    Meanwhile, actor Ashley Tisdale hit out at the negative comments she received from some followers, writing: “Showing support for Israel does not make a person anti-Palestine and showing support for Palestine does not make someone anti-Semitic.”

    On Wednesday, some of Britain’s most senior Muslim leaders denounced what they described as the “killing and abduction of innocent people” on October 7. In a letter seen by Jewish News, the 15 imams and scholars also denounced “the Israeli military’s subsequent use of excessive force”.

    Among those signing the letter were Qari Asim, the imam of the Makkah Masjid Mosque in Leeds who, until last year, was the deputy chair of the government’s Anti-Muslim Hatred Working Group. Another was Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra, a senior imam from Leicester and former Assistant Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain.

    The letter also called for an “end to all hostilities” and for the Government to “negotiate a ceasefire that can stop the further killing of innocent people”.

    The Telegraph approached representatives of all actors named as signatories to the letter for comment, as well as the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/18/coogan-swinton-letter-condemns-israel-war-crimes-not-hamas

    1. I think we might have guessed that Steve Coogan and Tilda Swinton are strange and unpleasant. I was unaware that Charles Dance was a left leaning political activist.

      1. I surprised that people take any notice of thespians; after all, their job is to parrot lines provided for them by others.

          2. Ah – they don’t NEED to think – simply learn the lines their woke, lefty, anti-semitic pals give them.

  70. An extract from an article in The Times today by Robin Simcox, Commissioner for Countering Extremism (whatever that means).

    “In the aftermath of the single worst atrocity perpetrated against Jewish people since the Holocaust, tens of thousands of British citizens went online and took to the streets, not to mourn the innocent victims, but to voice support for the “Palestinian resistance”.

    Whatever chants such as, “Long live the Palestinian resistance” or “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” might arguably have meant three weeks ago, their deployment in the aftermath of October 7 takes on precise operational clarity: death to Jews, and the erasure of Israel from the map.

    Some of those whose jubilation and support for Hamas’s pogrom was literal and explicit have rightly been arrested. But the overwhelming majority have been careful to construe their public displays of support just below the legal threshold for hate crime, glorification of terror, or public order offences. They are successfully exploiting one of our proudest British values, freedom of expression, to pursue a shameful extremist agenda, the normalisation and promotion of antisemitism.

    That direct connectivity between events thousands of miles away, and the safety and security of British citizens on British streets, isn’t a spontaneous reaction. It is a direct consequence of a permissive environment that has been created for anti-Israel extremism and antisemitism in the UK.

    When cars drive through Jewish neighbourhoods waving Palestinian flags, chanting “F*** their mothers, rape their daughters”, without criminal consequence; when protesters march through London calling for the violent destruction of Israel without arrest; when the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which smears the only democracy in the Middle East as an apartheid state and uniquely singles out the Jewish state for economic boycott, is rife on British campuses, in trade unions, and on the hard left; when a direct action group, Palestine Action, is able to wage a campaign of criminal damage, intimidation, and vandalism against Israeli businesses in the UK; when hate preachers and hostile state actors are able to peddle antisemitic conspiracy theories in British mosques and educational institutions; and when Hamas’s patron, Iran, can brazenly threaten British citizens and other nationals in the UK, without any apparent consequence, is it any wonder that we find ourselves where we are?

    We cannot continue to permit vast numbers of people to come to the UK and tell them that they do not need to integrate, that they can live parallel lives, in parallel communities, and maintain certain values and ideas that are at odds with British values.

    In the years since, consecutive Governments have failed to produce any meaningful policy to address this.

    They must, because simply put: the failure of multiculturalism leads to extremism. Allowing people to maintain parallel lives in our communities, without being part of our communities, has produced and will continue to produce the sorts of people committed to extremism and committed to undermining our values.

    The hatred that we have witnessed in recent days on British streets and online, is not only a cause for alarm among the Jewish community. It must be a wake-up call for the government and for all decent people.”

    I imagine such obvious common sense could cost him his job…

    2. Why does “too little, too late” spring to mind? This should have been said years ago before we got anywhere near this state. It isn’t as though there haven’t been warning signs – slammers on the streets of Luton with placards calling for beheading the kuffar should have set off alarms.

    3. “When cars drive through Jewish neighbourhoods waving Palestinian flags, chanting “F*** their mothers, rape their daughters”, without criminal consequence…”
      If you have Jewish neighbourhoods and Muslim neighbourhoods then it’s already too late, because you’ve imported the Middle East. This grim situation has been entirely predictable for around half a century.

        1. That was my first thought but maybe Richard meant that no news is probably better than what he fears the actual news would be.

          2. I thought it referred to good news being of no interest to the masses, hence “no news = good news because there is no bad news to report”.

        2. My understanding of the phrase is that if the news is likely to be bad it is better not to have the news – thus: No news is good news and while we do not know there is still hope.

          From the Cambridge online Dictionary:

          No news is good news.
          idiom saying

          said to make someone feel less worried when they have not received information about someone or something, because if something bad had happened, they would have been told about it.

      1. I have to admit, Lotl pops into my mind several times, especially when I am looking for something to read. I do wish we could know how she is….

    5. The latest I could find from her:
      LadyoftheLake says:
      September 5, 2023 at 3:23 pm
      Thanks SoS and others. Have been in Hospital about 2 + weeks. Have had some nasty falls and have been in a lot of pain and my cheek is giving me hell.
      I have been in lots of pain and my face is killing me!
      I escaped today, thank god,

    6. I emailed her 10 days ago and have had no reply.
      I have had one idea but it’s a long shot and I don’t know whether if it succeeded, I would be over-stepping the mark.
      I hate to think of her alone at such a terrible time.

      1. Go for the long shot, Anne. I think we all hate to think of her alone at this awful time and I am sure she would understand your intentions are for the good.

  72. Britain must proscribe Iran’s terrorist cabal. 19 October 2023.

    The Prime Minister’s visit to Israel is an important statement of solidarity in the wake of the horrendous terror attacks. It also recognises how much is at stake for Britain in this unfolding crisis. What is happening in the Middle East presents a growing threat to the safety of the British public, not least from the terror-sponsoring regime in Iran.

    As the head of MI5 acknowledged this week at an unprecedented Five Eyes joint intelligence summit, Iranian activity inside Britain has been a concern for years, and it could now get even worse. Indeed, Iran has been posing an increasingly serious danger for some time. Since the start of 2022, the police and MI5 have prevented an astonishing 15 attempts by Iran to kidnap or murder British nationals or individuals based in Britain.

    Yes I live in terror of Iranian Commando’s galloping up the M1 and slaughtering the population. Not! No one likes the Ayatollah’s of course but they pose no threat to us here in the UK. The real danger to us is invited in courtesy of the UK Government with generous Social Seciurity payments and free accommodation until they decide to off us! All this anti-Iran rhetoric is in aid of demonising them so there will be no concerns raised when the US attacks them shortly!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/19/britain-must-proscribe-irans-terrorist-cabal-irgc/

    1. I fear you’re wrong on this one.
      I have little doubt that Iran has sleepers in the UK and that they will be used when the Mullahs think there is an opportunity.
      These people are utterly ruthless and plan for the long term.

          1. Definitely in the mosques. All sermons (or harangues or whatever they are called) delivered in mosques should be in English (and monitored).

  73. Britain must proscribe Iran’s terrorist cabal. 19 October 2023.

    The Prime Minister’s visit to Israel is an important statement of solidarity in the wake of the horrendous terror attacks. It also recognises how much is at stake for Britain in this unfolding crisis. What is happening in the Middle East presents a growing threat to the safety of the British public, not least from the terror-sponsoring regime in Iran.

    As the head of MI5 acknowledged this week at an unprecedented Five Eyes joint intelligence summit, Iranian activity inside Britain has been a concern for years, and it could now get even worse. Indeed, Iran has been posing an increasingly serious danger for some time. Since the start of 2022, the police and MI5 have prevented an astonishing 15 attempts by Iran to kidnap or murder British nationals or individuals based in Britain.

    Yes I live in terror of Iranian Commando’s galloping up the M1 and slaughtering the population. Not! No one likes the Ayatollah’s of course but they pose no threat to us here in the UK. The real danger to us is invited in courtesy of the UK Government with generous Social Seciurity payments and free accommodation until they decide to off us! All this anti-Iran rhetoric is in aid of demonising them so there will be no concerns raised when the US attacks them shortly!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/19/britain-must-proscribe-irans-terrorist-cabal-irgc/

  74. Furious French wine-makers destroy crate-loads of Spanish sparkling wine and pour gallons of red over the streets in protest over cheap imports of booze from neighbouring country.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12649759/French-wine-makers-destroy-crate-loads-Spanish-sparkling-wine-protest-cheap-imports.html

    I am sure that the Remainers must be impressed with the way in which amicable trade relations and cooperation are the hallmark of dealings between EU members.

    The French have also been known to destroy strawberries coming from Spain because they feel it is completely unfair of the Spanish to exploit their warmer climate to get their fruit on the market before the French strawberries are ready.

    Les chiens mangent les chiens, n’est-ce pas – même dans une Utopie?

    1. That was going on when we lived in Laure – with Spain being only 1½ hours away.

      On one occasion, they drained some large storage tanks at Trèbes – tens of thousands of litres – believing that the owner was storing Spanish wine. Turned out to be French wine from grapes tended by the people who drained the tanks….

      Ils sont cons les français….

      1. When we first came to live in France in 1989 we heard one day that the streets of Lorient were flowing with blood-coloured red wine which had arrived by ship from Spain.

        And at about the same time French farmers were setting fire to container lorries full of live English lambs.

        Of course the Spanish and the British joined the Common Market long after the French who were founder members of the Six so if they didn’t know the rules and didn’t like it they could lump it.

        And I believe the French have still not paid the EU fine for continuing the ban on UK beef after it had been lifted and, as everyone knew, there was just as much Mad Cow Disease in France as there was in the UK.

          1. Absolutely correct.
            It unfortunately describes our weakness. And it’s being more than taken advantage of.
            Our politicians are pathetic.

          2. That’s because our history is so different from that of yer continentals. We have a great respect for the rule of law, unlike those across la Manche.

        3. The French governments are no friends of Britain but then they did get rid of most of their thinking people.

    3. That is French people buying those Spanish strawberries. The frogs set fire to our live lamb lorries too. Fuckem is what i say. I avoid as much as i can all French produce. Not only because of their attitude to Brita in general but also their protectionism. Bof !

      2. And steal our fish and scallops.
        Don’t put the undersized fish back but sell them on their unregulated street markets. Who’s going to say anything.

          1. You can’t be sure Sos, but I suspect you’ve seen them in French Markets.
            And other EU rules broken.
            I saying I think the rules set out by the Brussels mafiosi are stupid. It’s not unusual. As are most of the rules we suffer from the pompous out of touch plonkers.

        3. Yes i know they do. They caused ever such a fuss in the markets when inspectors ordered them to use the proper species names for the fish alongside.

      3. I haven’t drunk French wine since the shenanigans over our voting to leave. In fact, apart from port and sherry, I haven’t drunk EU wine since then. If I could get decent fortified wines from elsewhere I would.

          1. Thank you, that’s very interesting. Unfortunately, it seems all the places that produce fortified wines are in the EU.

  75. Time for me to go. A very mild day – though there was damp air it didn’t rain. Though it will later on and most of tomorrow. The Wet Office is suggesting that we all may die from drowning. I’ll take my chance.

    I commend the two articles from The Times. Rare these days that that once great newspaper of record prints two sensible pieces on the same day.

    Have a spiffing evening.

    A demain (weather permitting!!)

  76. I’m reading Rory Carroll’s “Killing Thatcher”

    Anyone who thinks that there aren’t radical Muslims in Britain today who are capable of doing similar to the Brighton bombing , AND don’t have access to the materials to do so is deluded.

  78. US issues rare worldwide terror warning 19 October 2023.

    The State Department has issued a “worldwide security alert” for US citizens, citing increased potential for extremist attacks and violence against Americans.

    The rare caution advised all American nationals abroad “to exercise increased caution”, warning of heightened tensions “in various locations around the world”.

    Ramping up the rhetoric. Probably be a couple of False Flags!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/19/israel-palestine-latest-news-updates-hamas-gaza-day-13-live/

    1. Certainly ramping up, but equally Yanks will be targets in any Muslim country, and I include UK, France, Sweden, Belgium etc etc in that definition!

  79. I have to admit I haven’t been reading the reports every day but if they’re all like this then the Covid enquiry will undoubtedly reach the conclusion “lockdown was good”.

    Sunak’s giveaway gimmick was certainly deserving of criticism but not for the risk it posed to the public as suggested by these believers. I expect that if called, Carl Heneghan and Sunetra Gupta will be treated not as expert witnesses but as suspects.

    Covid inquiry: Sunak called Dr Death by top scientist

    The government’s new chief scientific adviser described Rishi Sunak as “Dr Death, the Chancellor” in private messages sent during a crucial pandemic meeting, the Covid inquiry has heard. Prof Dame Angela McLean made the comment in a WhatsApp exchange in September 2020. The government’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme had been running that summer. At the time, there was fierce debate about the need for social-distancing measures to control the virus.

    On Sunday 20 September 2020, then Prime Minister Boris Johnson called a Zoom meeting of scientists to discuss the government’s response to sharply rising Covid infections. Dame Angela, then chief scientific adviser to the Ministry of Defence, who co-chaired the influential SPI-M modelling group during the pandemic, was one of the attendees, along with her colleague Prof John Edmunds, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).

    Then Chancellor Rishi Sunak also dialled in, along with senior Downing Street officials including Dominic Cummings, the government’s chief medical adviser, Prof Chris Whitty, and the then chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance.

    And on Thursday, the Covid inquiry was shown a private WhatsApp exchange between Dame Angela and Prof Edmunds, sent at the time of the meeting, which refers to Rishi Sunak as “Dr Death, the Chancellor”. Prof Edmunds told the inquiry he was unable recall if that had been a specific reference to the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, which had subsidised food in pubs, restaurants and other hospitality venues over the summer, while Covid cases had been low. But in earlier testimony to the inquiry, he said he was “still angry” about the policy.

    “It was one thing to take your foot off the brake – but to put your foot on the accelerator,” he told the inquiry.

    Prof Edmunds told the inquiry 45,000 people had just died – and while the pub and restaurant sector needed support, the government could have just given them money. “This was a scheme to encourage people to take an epidemiological risk,” he added.

    The Downing Street meeting had also involved scientists from what Sir Patrick described in an email as the “let it rip” brigade.

    That included Carl Heneghan, a professor of evidence-based medicine at Oxford University, and his colleague Prof Sunetra Gupta – both of whom were critics of several lockdown-related measures.

    And in her WhatsApp exchange, Dame Angela uses an expletive to refer to an individual – thought to be Prof Heneghan – and his evidence, to which Prof Edmunds replies: “Every statistic is wrong.”

    The Covid inquiry is taking witness evidence in London until Christmas, before moving to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-67163232

    1. Of course there wasn’t any sharp rise in infections. There were just useless PCR tests classed as “cases”. How do these people justify the simple fact that they didn’t change their own lifestyles one iota? That question will be carefully avoided.

      1. People are still testing now and staying at home in isolation if it shows they’ve got “covid”. I’m still seeing people in masks walking about the street.

        2. They are either public sector employees or work for large bureaucratic companies.
          Or just pathetic.

          1. In one case it was an elderly (retired) church-goer who didn’t want to pass covid on. I don’t know about the mask-wearers. A lot of them look surprisingly young.

      2. Fear not, Our Susan – there are fuckwits in this village who do a covid test every time they have a sniffle. And again when the sniffle goes “just in case”.

      3. The social divide is such that part of society sees us little people as almost a different species. The problem was (is always) *us*, not them. They, being Good, would just Know How to Behave. We heathens couldn’t be trusted to do the right thing, so had to be coerced and corralled. Easy.

        2. It was far worse than that. For as long as I can remember the public has dutifully taken their children for their vaccinations (proper ones) and kept the ill at home. But when was there ever orders to stay at home, when did we ever have to test ourselves to find out if we were ill? In fact parents used to have measles parties and mingle with others rather than isolate people.

          And when did we ever have such overwhelming publicity on TV, radio and even in the streets about a disease? Psychological warfare pure and simple. HMG deliberately frightened people out of their wits about a novel disease. And when before have the whole of the first world countries acted exactly the same with lockdowns, social distancing, isolation, no more than 6 people together, go to the pub and sit down and you could remove your mask, in fact the more I think of all the ridiculous rules and regulations they dreamt up I can’t believe h how so many people did exactly as they were told.

          1. Oh, I couldn’t agree more. Utter lunacy; I shall never forget the relief of hearing Mattias Desmet on mass formation for the first time (even if he couldn’t pronounce ‘mass’ at the time 🤣).

            I was just ruminating on the specifics of how people could know that they disregarded the rules, but thought others should be punished for doing so.

          2. I had measles. I have no idea whether my parents engineered me to have it. I was in bed and missing school for the duration. Perhaps it was worth it. Not long after, my eyesight deteriorated, a known after effect of measles, but maybe entirely coincidental. I’ll never know, but perhaps it was worth it.

          3. I had measles. I have no idea whether my parents engineered me to have it. I was in bed and missing school for the duration. Perhaps it was worth it. Not long after, my eyesight deteriorated, a known after effect of measles, but maybe entirely coincidental. I’ll never know, but perhaps it was worth it.

          4. As a child, I’d be admonished by my parents to do as I was told. It was ingrained into many of us.

    2. Isn’t the whole point of the enquiry to report that lockdown was good? Never mind the suicides, the loneliness, the sick and dying being left alone, the non-treatment of possibly life-threatening illnesses.

    3. I doubt the value of social media messages sent in the heat of the moment. If I flinch at the sound of a loud bang, is it to be taken as a considered judgement on the risk I faced? I’m startled by calls on telephones. I don’t regard my reaction as being a true representation of the danger I faced at the time.

  80. 377776+ up ticks,

    I take it this means due to the saudi visit he will miss the Bridgen debate scheduled for Friday 20th..

  81. Israel defence minister tells troops they will soon see Gaza ‘from the inside’
    Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has told troops gathered at the Gaza border that they will soon see the Palestinian territory “from the inside”, according to his office.
    A statement from his office quoted Gallant as saying:
    You see Gaza now from a distance, you will soon see it from inside. The command will come.
    His remarks suggest a ground invasion could be nearing. Israel’s military have previously said that its forces were deployed across the country, increasing operational readiness for the next stages of the war, “with an emphasis on significant ground operations”.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/oct/19/israel-hamas-war-live-news-today-gaza-aid-rafah-crossing-egypt-joe-biden-visit-rishi-sunak-netanyahu-meeting-tel-aviv-latest-updates

    I hope to God that they go in with cold blood rather than hot, and don’t do to the Palestinians what the Palestinians did to their people.
    Seek and destroy Hamas. Just Hamas.

    1. They don’t go around with badges saying “I am Hamas”, you know.

      But I agree with you about being obvious (to the “neutral” (ha ha)) press

      1. “They haven’t gone away, you know”
        GA

        Flooding the tunnels and paying informers might be a good start

    2. This will be a guerilla war fought dirtily by Hamas who will do their best to ensure that there is a lot of collateral damage of “innocent” Palestinians.

          1. As we saw with Saddam Husein and the hostages, that is the way islam exploits kuffar sensibilities.

        2. That is, indeed, the way it is. Islam does not have the same mindset as most of us, Christian or Jew.

  82. It may be a mere technicality, playing with words.

    Can anyone here explain why there is Anti-Semitism in the Press, but the Muslim equivalent is always Islamophobia?
    I can understand Anti-Semitism as being hatred of Jews, but Islamophobia is utterly different, it’s a fear of Islam/Muslims (claimed to be irrational, but in my view entirely sensible) and I wonder what the nuances might be.

      1. Indeed.
        I know which of the two religions I would prefer to vanish in a puff of Hell’s smoke

    2. Muslims are supposed to be such nice people that any fear they will follow their holy book and chop your head off if you’re a kuffar is entirely irrational. Being against Jews, on the other hand, is a tried and trusted ideology practised by many and thus mainstream.

  84. Better than yesterday at least.

    Wordle 852 4/6

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

    1. Par for me too.

      Wordle 852 4/6

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

      1. Not so good but a birdie

        Wordle 852 3/6

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

        Not that I managed any real birdies on the golf course today.

  85. 377776+ up ticks,

    I do believe that a great deal of what is in this post has been done already, retaliation, not a ripple in the voting pattern.

    The UK is in a MESS ! 🇬🇧🇿🇦🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿
    @GreyER_13
    Spot on from Allison Pearson – Telegraph.👇

    “If terrorists invaded the UK, hunted down hundreds of young people at Glastonbury, gangraped our girls, jeering and spitting on their half-naked bodies and displaying them as spoils of war, abducted grandmothers and terrified children, burned people alive, shot the family dog and turned their living-room into a pop-up abattoir, is there anyone who would seriously suggest that Britons should not rise up in sorrow and rage to take out the murdering bastards who did that to their country?”

    “…I am ashamed of my country’s response. While France was swiftly deporting at least two non-nationals for anti-Semitic acts, it was revealed that the Football Association will not light the Wembley arch in the colours of the Israeli flag because of “fears of a backlash from some communities” and because certain senior officials are wary of “the perception they might be taking sides in the conflict”. Wembley was illuminated in the colours of France, Turkey and Ukraine after attacks, and even rainbow colours to protest LGBTQ issues in Qatar. But Jews don’t matter apparently.

    England players lose no opportunity to take the knee in a performative display to “kick out racism”, but given the opportunity to oppose genocide they fret about causing bad feeling in racist communities. Cowardly, shameful and pathetic.”

    “Israelis don’t have the luxury of cowardice. Courage is the air that they breathe because, unlike the Europeans engaging in minor skirmishes about gender identity and “hate speech”, they have a war to fight against “hate action”. It really is a matter of life and death. That bestows a blazing clarity. As one government minister in Jerusalem snapped at some bleeding-heart reporter from Channel 4 News, “We don’t need moral lessons from you.”

    The BBC’s Hamas terror cowardice shames Britain

    1. Actually muslims have hunted down young people (Rifleman Rigby, the Manchester Arena victims to name but a few) and gang-raped our girls (any number of cities with a large muslim population) and the response has been flowers, tea lights and a fear of a “backlash”. I rest my case.

  86. Imagine a world where there was no religion, but God and the Devil were allowed to choose just one.
    The Devil would go for Islam.
    God would say “OK get on with it, you can have them in Hell”

    2. Si Dieu n’existait pas, il fallait l’inventer. When a person stops believing in something it isn’t that they believe in nothing, they believe in anything.

  87. Look where he’s hoping to send money.
    How I hate that man. Slipping expenditure elsewhere under support for Israel.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12650199/Biden-address-nation-8pm-TONIGHT-Israel-Ukraine-IDF-unleashes-huge-aerial-bombing-campaign-Hezbollah.html
    Biden will address the nation at 8pm TONIGHT on Israel and Ukraine as IDF unleashes huge aerial bombing campaign on Hezbollah
    The president will address the nation from the White House at 8 pm
    He is just back from his seven hour trip to Israel
    He is seeking supplemental funds for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and the border

  89. The State Department has issued a “worldwide security alert” for US citizens, citing increased potential for extremist attacks and violence against Americans.

    The rare caution advised all American nationals abroad “to exercise increased caution”, warning of heightened tensions “in various locations around the world”.

    It came amid anti-Israel protests that have taken place across the Middle East and North Africa in recent days, with some demonstrators targeting US diplomatic buildings.

    The last time a warning of this kind was issued was in August 2022 following the killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

    Washington has also advised US citizens to leave Lebanon as border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah intensify over Israel’s war with Hamas. Britain and Germany have done the same.

    8:08PM
    Russia condemns US veto on UN Security Council resolution
    The US veto on a UN Security Council resolution calling for a “humanitarian pause” in the Israel-Hamas war will have “monstruous consequences”, Russia said on Thursday.

    Twelve out of 15 Council members voted in favour of the resolution put forward by Brazil, which also condemned the “heinous terrorist attacks by Hamas”.

    The United States was the only vote against, but as one of the body’s five permanent members it counted as a veto.

    “In the context of a standoff that is deepening and risks spilling over the borders of the Middle East region and taking on a confessional dimension, the consequences of such a step are monstruous,” Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/19/israel-palestine-latest-news-updates-hamas-gaza-day-13-live/

    Moscow said it was “disappointing” that a resolution that could have contributed to “stopping the escalation of tensions and reducing violence against civilians” was not adopted.

    The US veto “clearly demonstrates Washington’s true aspiration for the region”, the statement said.

      1. Colonel PR
        7 MIN AGO
        20 years ago, Israeli gave Gaza back to the Palestinians, together with all the farms and infrastructure Israel had built. Hamas repaid this gesture with tunnels, rockets, and now massacring civilians.
        They are now holding the people of Gaza as hostages.. ..and captured Israelis too
        The only thing Hamas understands is brute force – like the WW2 Germans before them.
        There is no other way with such depraved people.

        1. Non-muslims will insist on expecting muslims to act by non-muslim (i e Western) standards. They won’t.

        2. What is worth studying is the history between the Oslo Accord of 1993 and the destruction of Arafat’s HQ in Gaza by the Israelis in 2002. Arafat was constantly having to balance Oslo against Hamas and other militants opposed to any relations with Israel. It must have been a constant political struggle, and having his headquarters demolished by the Israelis tipped the balance over in favour of the militants.

          It was never going to be easy reconciling Israel with the Palestinians, and a lot of people had hoped that the Jews’ intelligent liberality, promise of prosperity and cultural support would finally put Palestinian hostility in the past, but it was not to be.

          1. That implies that it was expected that muslims would think rationally. If they did that, the koran wouldn’t be the force it is and islam would have been brought into the 21st century.

          2. They invented universities and algebra and abolished usury (but not slavery, which they are still enthusiastic for), when the heathen were swinging clubs at one another. Quite a few religious scriptures are older than the koran and still in use today. As for rationality, since when did anyone go to religion for that, rather than science? Enlightenment is about the best one can hope for.

            The problem I have with it is that half of it is a warlord’s manual and has no concept of love, and plenty about enforced submission.

          3. I suspect that algebra predated islam. Of course it’s a warlord’s manual; the “perfect man” was a warlord. An ideology whose name means “submission” is bound to have plenty of enthusiasm for enforced submission.

    2. A pause is all well and good, but does anyone seriously think that such a pause would not be used by those fighting Israel to regroup and attack harder?

      1. A pause is the old way to bring the dead and wounded off the battlefield. This is a ruse. The old way people wore uniforms. Terrorists don’t.

    3. ‘The US veto on a UN Security Council resolution calling for a “humanitarian pause” in the Israel-Hamas war will have “monstruous consequences”, Russia said on Thursday.

      Twelve out of 15 Council members voted in favour of the resolution put forward by Brazil, which also condemned the “heinous terrorist attacks by Hamas”.

      The United States was the only vote against, but as one of the body’s five permanent members it counted as a veto.‘

      I didn’t know this. Who were the other two naysayers/abstainers I wonder, and then think something similar should have occurred in the Russian/ Ukraine fracas.

    4. It has no place in a country with an Established (Christian) Church even if its governor and archbishop aren’t Christians.

    5. I thought it was a photoshop meme, but apparently its real. There is no reason for holding prayers at that spot other than as a dog marks its territiry.

    6. So THAT’S the reason for Khant’s cycle lanes.
      Which came first? The racks or the lanes?

    8. BBC’s 10pm News did not show this yesterday. The London news that followed had pictures of the demo and mentioned the mass kneel-in but without showing it. It was described as a vigil for the victims of the blast at the hospital and “Some chanted loudly asking for the British government to do more to help.”

    11. How low can they get ?
      Grovelling doesn’t help anyone.
      How did they get through the gates ?
      Were they all searched for possible explosive or fire arms ?
      I hope the Jewish people are praying as well. And our Buddhists our Sikh’s and Christian leaders. That’ll stop hamas and the rest of the Arab world misbehaving.

  91. Busy day tomorrow. Being picked up at 0800 to crew a friend’s boat from its moorings at Weir Quay upriver to Calstock where it’s being hauled out to overwinter in his boatshed in the village. Then try and walk Oscar. Afternoon will be a delivery of 3m³ seasoned oak logs and all that entails with stacking etc. 1700 at the pub for Friday 5 o’clock club and walk home at 1845.
    At the same time I’ve got to try and watch Australia/Pakistan cricket (0930-1700ish) and Argentina/New Zealand rugby (2000-2200).
    As for cooking, it’s going to be very very simple, eggs or cheese on toast.

    1. Record the cricket and rugby (and avoid reading Nttl until you’ve watched it). I’ve got a busy day, too. Meeting at 11.15, finding the location for another meeting in a few weeks’ time (I’ve never been before and it will be dark by then), shopping and, if there’s time and it isn’t too wet (although it’s been raining tonight) finishing off in the garden what I had to leave yesterday.

      1. I’m slowly going through all the cricket matches on catch Up TV. 8/45 watched so far – and I don’t need a licence to watch

  92. Right, that’s a bit of a nothing day. Lots planned and sod all achieved!
    I’m off to bed. G’night all.

  93. Yo all

    Out of curiosity, I looked to see how much it would cost me to be living in a Londonistan ULEZ and driving my Disco there daily

    £5,445

  94. Heavens above. My idiot leader is still refusing to point the finger at the Palestinians for the hospital disaster a few days ago. Trudeau was quick to quote hamas sources and blame Israel for bombing the hospital but now he is backpeddling and saying that he needs real facts before he can comment.

    We probably will never hear anything, his Muslim voter base is important.

        1. Korea, Japan, Singapore. Coincidentally these countries have the world’s highest average IQ.

    2. An independent investigation is needed in this sort of dilemma. This is the purpose of the UN Security Council. We have two entirely different accounts of the ‘hospital’ attack.

      Intercept evidence from radio transmissions is also unreliable.

      An independent investigation, with forensic examination of debris and so on is required to arrive at the Truth about the authors of the attack.

      Needless to say nothing will alter the positions of Arab propagandists now that the narratives have been let loose.

      Putin has called for the need not to assign claim by either party and that negotiations are necesssry.

      1. I prefer a policy of keeping out of it. It’s all the foreign involvement that is escalating it.

  98. 377776+ up ticks,

    Think about it,

    Potentially we in England have thousands of them, the lab/lib/con coalition party would have it no other way.

    breitbart,

    Brussels Islamist Shooter Illegally Entered Europe by Migrant Boat, Avoided Multiple Deportation Attempts

    1. The best thing for the western powers would be to drop the Middle East and let the Arabs get on with it. The US can continue to support Israel but peace will only be achieved by negotiation.

      The Russians have well equipped aircraft with hypersonic missiles and are threatening the US carrier fleet in the Mediterranean should the US seek to attack Iran.

      As regards Ukraine, the proxy war is lost, Ukraine is a bankrupt and failed state and the US would be well advised to get the hell out of that mess, a mess of their own creation.

      The lesson of the Ukraine war is that the superior disciplined professional Army of Russia is always likely to prevail over the profligate rag bag of comparatively undisciplined Ukrainian amateurs.

      Of course the real failure of the Ukrainian initiatives are that they have an actor as their Head of State, a small man with the ego of a giant and the brain of the size of a walnut. Zelensky was never a Churchill as claimed but more like a Quisling, selling out his country for personal gain.

      There is nothing more to see here.

    2. The best thing for the western powers would be to drop the Middle East and let the Arabs get on with it. The US can continue to support Israel but peace will only be achieved by negotiation.

      The Russians have well equipped aircraft with hypersonic missiles and are threatening the US carrier fleet in the Mediterranean should the US seek to attack Iran.

      As regards Ukraine, the proxy war is lost, Ukraine is a bankrupt and failed state and the US would be well advised to get the hell out of that mess, a mess of their own creation.

      The lesson of the Ukraine war is that the superior disciplined professional Army of Russia is always likely to prevail over the profligate rag bag of comparatively undisciplined Ukrainian amateurs.

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