Tuesday 12 December: An Israeli perspective on war – and how to achieve a lasting peace

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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544 thoughts on “Tuesday 12 December: An Israeli perspective on war – and how to achieve a lasting peace”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolk. today’s story

    You Bet

    A deaf-mute walks into the chemist to buy some condoms. He has difficulty communicating with the pharmacist and cannot see condoms on the shelf.

    Frustrated, he finally unzips his pants, places his dick on the counter and puts down a five pound note next to it.

    The pharmacist looks at it, smacks down another five pounds, unzips his pants, lays his penis across from the deaf-mute’s member, then picks up both notes and stuffs them in his pocket.

    Exasperated, the deaf mute begins to curse the pharmacist wildly in sign language.

    “Look,” the pharmacist says, “if you can’t afford to lose, you shouldn’t bet.” </spoiler

  3. Good morning, chums. Enjoy your day. For me it’s a major session reading Barbra Streisand’s autobiography.

    3. I can recall taking my great grandfather’s banjo to the guitar maker to be repaired–this was 40 years ago and the instrument was made in the 1890s. I said to him I liked the ivory tuner buttons. Ivory is, of course, now a complete “No No” and he said that they were “Ivoroid” a plastic- plastics based on celluloid had been around for a while by then. It is beyond stupid to think that plastics can be removed from the world. Certainly, the microplastics that get into the water and food chain are a major concern and disposal is something that needs to be looked at. When I was a young, a plastic washing up bowl lasted forever- now they crack and are thrown away so rapidly and I met a chemist who mentioned durability in terms of how they are manufactured and the content. Maybe, we need to move away from the throwaway world a bit- people chuck away clothes and as in the video above- plastics are a huge component in clothing.

  6. Wordle 906 5/6

    Here’s today’s result:

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

    1. Made a silly mistake on my third go, hence the four

      Wordle 906 4/6

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

      1. Same as always

        Wordle 906 4/6

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

  7. Channel Churchill and reclaim UK’s role in leading support for Ukraine, Sunak urged. 12 December 2023.

    European leaders are urging Rishi Sunak to channel Winston Churchill and reclaim Britain’s role in leading Western support for Ukraine.

    Allies want Britain to step up as Germany, France and the US struggle to maintain their backing for Kyiv, senior diplomatic sources have told The Telegraph.

    Sunak as Churchill! The mind boggles! If anything tells you about the parlous state of the West it is the dearth of leaders.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/12/11/channel-churchill-uk-lead-support-ukraine-sunak/

      1. Sunak and Starmer chanelling effective but dead politicians because that is all they have. Pathetic arsewipes.

    3. Why, why, why did the U.K. ever become the main cheerleader for this proxy war. We’ve apparently sent mining ship/s and amphibious landing ship/s, or promised to, and European “allies” are urging HMG to make like Churchill! What allies?

      I hope to God that the newly installed Camoron doesn’t start flexing his muscles. Why can’t U.K. just say we cannot afford more support.

  9. ‘Morning All

    Medley

    Ahem

    https://twitter.com/AvonandsomerRob/status/1734269029613813785?s=20

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3fb2af0bb31b3c6153b9b829b29af87a9522d859c0557844ff4cabd38a41b2d0.jpg

    https://i.pinimg.com/originals/41/ed/a4/41eda4493d5e0154404bb3a96cbdedce.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1aec67f2f359af8bc8e0131e1efb3afaa45b16d8b70fb6bece16c397bbac8110.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/59530a0509edf6d2c86bdfe85189f9f63e4aac4b296afe7ab748bd72fc6fd2be.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d4cbdd8e8e315706c2d9c0075e48b5b82df93c5a4fcbd9cf5d9a199ce115295a.jpg

    1. The last one…
      Here is your airline ticket.
      Where am i going.
      I don’t give a fuck.
      But i have a cat.
      Not anymore…Do you like my new hat?

      …come back here and you’re dead.

  11. Good morning all.
    Still dark and with a tad over 3°C on the yard thermometer, but at least it’s not raining.
    Yet.

    2. Good morning, BoB. You told us a lot about the problems you had with the unhelpful medical authorities when you went to see your stepson yesterday. But how did the van’s exhaust problems work out? Did the initial treatment do the trick on your long trip?

  13. 379424+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    December: An Israeli perspective on war – and how to achieve a lasting peace

    I would imagine its order of play is first, protect the peoples via holding your own council and listening to no outside influences, bearing in mind the initial attack, and the breach of security that could be seen as a “assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand” moment by some. to add reasoning where really none was needed, to the current conflict.

    An “if only” moment being, if only England had
    a ball sack on par with Israel we, the indigenous, would be residing in a far better land than we have chosen to reside in, via the polling stations, today.

  16. William Hague is saying how terrible it is to be in opposition.

    Well how does he think Conservative voters have felt these last 13 years.

    1. Little Willie Hague doesn’t “think”. He simply drones on believing he is a world class statesman.

  17. It was dark, I realise, because it was still night AND because it was raining hard. Despite having three very comfortable beds in a warm porch, G & P were “sheltering” in the garden and came in disguised as ginger sponges. Rain now gone. Quite mild out.

  18. Massimo
    @Rainmaker1973
    A new ocean is forming in Africa along a 35-mile crack that opened up in Ethiopia in 2005. The crack, which has been expanding ever since, is a result of three tectonic plates pulling away from each other.

    It’s thought that Africa’s new ocean will take at least 5 million to 10 million years to form, but the Afar region’s fortuitous location at the boundaries of the Nubian, Somali and Arabian plates makes it a unique laboratory to study elaborate tectonic processes.

    There are still some big unknowns, including what is causing the continent to rift apart. Some think that a massive plume of superheated rocks rising from the mantle beneath East Africa could be driving the region’s continental rift.

    Each plate boundary in the Afar region is spreading at different speeds, but the combined forces of these separating plates is creating what’s known as a mid-ocean ridge system, where eventually a new ocean will form.

    The three plates are separating at different speeds. The Arabian plate is moving away from Africa at a rate of about 1 inch per year, while the two African plates are separating even slower, between half an inch to 0.2 inches per year.

    Photos here. Looks quite big already in the place where it was photographed – I wonder when water will first come in.
    https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1734103068029985252

    2. The people standing alongside it give a sense of scale.
      I didn’t notice them initially until I opened the link.

  21. Good morning, all. Heavy rain shower when I awoke. Radar showing band of rain clearing eastwards.

    The Covid Inquiry here is drawing a great deal of criticism at the moment. Has anything like this interview been heard? It’s from the USA but there are a number of eerily similar features of this nurse’s testimony with what was happening/happened here. Make of it what you will.

    Click on the ‘Show More’ link to watch the video.

    https://twitter.com/JohnBeaudoinSr/status/1734402628191133816

  22. Not only are we not going to exploit the shale gas which lies under our feet but it looks as though the Falklands oil-fields may not be exploited either. When did Defence of the Realm, which to my mind includes ensuring energy and food security as well as border security, cease to be the No1 priority of the British Government?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0838b0cf8f286badc60e4b4430d1fccb50f239d867528b34be49d9e01fa16416.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/12/cop-promises-are-killing-the-falklands-oil-bonanza/

    When will Britain have an energy strategy which will make us independent of the oil and gas which comes from some seriously unpleasant countries? Why is that not our government’s aim?

    1. If the UK ceded the Falklands to Argentina, I would bet a considerable sum that the natural resource would be developed.

      Probably going to the highest bidder, be it American, Russian or Chinese.

      1. SOS, that was one of the new Argentine President’s election promises-

        “to exploit the oil reserves in the Falklands”.

        1. So I recall. But it would need us either to hand them over or for them to take them by force, unless we and the islanders gave Argentina the mandate, but even then I think it would be done by the highest bidder..

          I think I’m betting on a certainty.

          1. Some contributors to this website have pointed out that the British Forces are no longer capable of protecting the Falklands from foreign invasion.

          2. I agree.

            If you enjoy special forces yarns read Patrick Robinson’s Ghost Force, written in 2005.
            It describes the loss of the Islands by force and then an eventual settlement where the Americans develop the oil.

          3. The British government are no longer capable of protecting the United Kingdom from foreign invasion. In fact they are aiding and abetting it.

    3. When China gives the go-ahead, the Argentinians will take the Falklands anyway, and what are we going to do about it?

    4. When did Defence of the Realm, which to my mind includes ensuring energy and food security as well as border security, cease to be the No1 priority of the British Government?

      Shortly after Klaus Schwab’s penetration (as he so often boasts about) of the Cabinet. Ooooh Errrr, missus.

  23. Not only are we not going to exploit the shale gas which lies under our feet but it looks as though the Falklands oil-fields may not be exploited either. When did Defence of the Realm, which to my mind includes ensuring energy and food security as well as border security, cease to be the No1 priority of the British Government?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0838b0cf8f286badc60e4b4430d1fccb50f239d867528b34be49d9e01fa16416.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/12/cop-promises-are-killing-the-falklands-oil-bonanza/

    When will Britain have an energy strategy which will make us independent of the oil and gas which comes from some seriously unpleasant countries? Why is that not our government’s aim?

  24. 379424+ up ticks,

    Dt,

    UK will donate amphibious ‘raiding vehicles’ to power Ukraine’s Dnipro offensive
    British-supplied machines form part of a new coalition with Norway to strengthen Volodymyr Zelensky’s navy

    I believe Amazon are handling the next day delivery direct from Dover, after the daily invasion discharge is completed.
    These political overseers cannot be beaten when it comes to organised treachery.

    4. North Africans are far more skin colour conscious and proud of their pale skin than we are, in my experience. They will regard this as an insult by ignorant Americans who think that all of Africa is black.

    1. That’s the result that all the little ninnies who boycotted Barclays and slept outside the South African embassy in the 80s wanted, right?

      2. Apartheid may have gone from South Africa to be replaced by something worse.

        One thing that also seems to have gone is the joie de vivre which this show embodied.

    3. For goodness sake. What is wrong with these fools? First we cut off salads due to cost of energy, now, when we import so much food, … no. The political class need to be erased.

      1. …and those who don’t have at least one English/Welsh./Scots/ Irish Grand-parent, also need to be weeded out of our institutions and sent packing..

        No cultural values akin to our own

  29. One Nation Tory MPs will vote for Sunak’s Rwanda bill. 12 December 2023.

    The One Nation group of Tory MPs has said it will vote for Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda legislation despite “concerns”.

    Damian Green, the chairman of the group, said: “We have taken the decision that the most important thing at this stage is to support the Bill despite our real concerns.

    “We strongly urge the Government to stand firm against any attempt to amend the Bill in a way that would make it unacceptable to those who believe that support for the rule of law is a basic Conservative principle.”

    Of course they will! They know that it is load of cobblers that will allow mass immigration to continue!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/12/11/one-nation-sunak-rwanda-bill-conservative-immigration/

    1. Stop right there. Did folk know the rwanda plan only allows for 300 criminal welfare shoppers? More than that pour in every day.

      Why is big fat state not doing the only thing that should be done and repealing all the laws that prevent us going out with a gunpoint and saying ‘sod the bleeep off.’

    2. If the Conservative Party can self-destruct now then the sooner a proper right of centre party could emerge.

    1. Obviously a far-right, extremist trouble-maker.

      Did no one explain to the coons that the railway staff had put the piano there for people to play?

    2. He should have played “From the river to the sea”. Then the Muslipolitan perlice would have applauded him.

    3. This is a disgrace.

      Islam is incompatible with British culture and way of life.

      Either Islam must go or our culture must go. They cannot co-exist.

      2. That makes me so angry. I know it’s Christmas but this needs to be met with an extreme reaction. What was the piano there for? Who put it there?

    4. Companies don’t want unlimited immigration. Where do idiots get this stupid idea? It is big fat state that wants more gimmigration to pretend GDP is going up.

      1. Wealth per person is far more relevant than GDP

        India is in the top 5 as far as GDP is concerned but it is a very poor country as far as its citizens are concerned as it is near the bottom of the Wealth Per Person Table.

    5. Isn’t the piano there for people to play?

      Oh…i forgot. Music is haram and can lead to lascivious behaviour like clapping and smiling.

  31. It would be so good to have one of these little devices, similar to those that remove the ads when recording TV programmes. A very interesting programme playing now on ‘The Life Scientific’ on R4, about a scientist who can make good use of excess carbon dioxide, thereby sparing us all the economic ruin of conventional “Net Zero” disciplines, as supported by Davos and the Americans.

    Unfortunately, it’s a real woman, so I knew the inevitable question about male domination would swamp the show, and the scientist then use up what she has to say with anecdotes about how women are hard done by in science. This is de rigeur with the BBC and comes up every time.

    I turned her off, but a few minutes turned her back on and she is now talking about rocks, which is much more interesting.

    1. Just listened to it. All very girly. She touched briefly on the matter of extracting the C from CO2 and reusing it, but skirted round the unasked question of where would the energy come from to do this. Or has she discovered the chemical equivalent of perpetual motion?

      1. It seems to be a variant on the electrolysis of water. This would normally produce oxygen at one end and hydrogen at the other. She seems to have found a way of breaking down carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and oxygen, and then reacting the CO with water to produce hydrocarbons and more oxygen.

        You are right in that it requires energy to make it happen. I imagine the key to all these processes is cheap electricity when the sun shines, the wind blows or when the radioactive rock degenerates, which does not rely on when we put the kettle on watching Strictly, or charging up our SUVs after the school run.

        Trees do much the same thing using carbon dioxide, sunlight and water. They release some of the oxygen and use the rest to make wood. Which is useful.

        1. CO2 is such a stable molecule, I really can’t see this being economical. But to CO2 fraud fanatics, no amount of over-printed fiat money is too much to pour into the pockets of whichever charlatans set up a carbon factory to extract the piss carbon.

          1. Pity you crossed out the amber nectar. It is a valuable source of phosphorus – a valuable plant nutrient.

          2. When CO2 is exposed as a con they’ll move on to nitrogen. They’ve already tried this for fertilizer.

            Truly, government needs to be taken out, thoroughly beaten and told to go back and do better.

          3. I thought they’ve already moved on to methane?

            Why anyone still believes this rubbish is beyond me!

        2. CO2 is such a stable molecule, I really can’t see this being economical. But to CO2 fraud fanatics, no amount of over-printed fiat money is too much to pour into the pockets of whichever charlatans set up a carbon factory to extract the piss carbon.

  32. An article in today’s Conservative Woman refers to the wokeness of Waitrose celebrating Gay Pride Week.

    Could Tesco steal a march on Waitrose by celebrating Straight Amour Propre Month?

        1. That’s what they do nowadays!

          My favourite is the Road sign saying: RALENTIR which tells you to slow down. I would rather like to see a sign at the entrance of a church saying: REPENTIR.

        2. Modern French is a bit of a disaster area. Try these for fun:

          Yaourts natures; produits vaisselles – the plurals on nature and vaisselle are just plain wrong as they’re nouns, not adjectives. Seen everywhere in supermarkets!

          “Écrit le nom des notes” – an instruction seen repeatedly on a music theory teacher’s worksheet. (I’d rather see the infinitive, quite frankly!)

          “Nous vous avez écrit l’année dernière” – this, in a national circular we received from the tax office. If they can’t conjugate their verbs, no wonder they can’t do any proper bookkeeping!

          And don’t get me started on the fortunately unpopular (for the moment, at least) écriture inclusive! Here is a sample:
          “Tou.te.s les Français.e.s sont inquiet.ète.s et ils.elles vont choisir le.la meilleur.e. candidat.e.”
          Unreadable, quite frankly.

          1. Further to this : on uploading my reply above, I noticed that Disqus has automatically made le.la into a link! That is just how unreadable it is… and yet the current government, backed by the civil service, are pushing for all administrative documents to be written like this. Horrors.

          4. Very confusing for a poor English person who learned correct French grammar and is trying to decipher what they have written!

          10. What’s this? The French only have two words: Eh and Hoh.

            For example, your average French person is asking the way to the bus stop:

            Eh hoh, eh hoh hoh eh hoh!

    1. If the raped girls had been adults at the time I might believe it, but they were children. They were mechanistically raped by pakistani muslim paedophiles and the state stood by and let it happen – even endorsing it.

      When the abused girls spoke out, plod visited her to threaten her into silence.

    1. Why is the man homeless at all? The state has proved it’s happy to put criminals up in hotels. Why won’t it do the same for British homeless?

      1. He comes from Limerick and has Mental Health problems, so I would think he’s a candidate for deportation back to Paddy-land and let them look after him

        Sounds hard-hearted but we already have 700,000 sucking on the tax-payers’ teat.,

      1. Naturally.
        I’m sure it will feature a lot of “he brought it on himself.”
        I take the view: there but for the Grace of God…

          1. On minimum wage.

            How does a person in this situation hold down a job when there’s nowhere for them to live and how do they afford somewhere to live on that wage?

          2. Black up and walk to Dover.

            Seriously, I don’t know. I thought there were hostels for homeless people. But I suppose they have all been requisitioned for the invaders.

  35. What the modern world can learn from Napoleon, Part 2 – don’t just win the war, win the peace. 12 December 2023.

    It therefore does not matter how much modern equipment, for example, the West throws into Ukraine: a decisive stroke by the Ukrainians is impossible. The Russians designed a campaign and in spite of many tactical failures, carried it through. They now hold what they always intended to hold and, taking the long view, they await the inevitable failures of Western strategic patience and a settlement on their terms. They might not have won a decisive battle in the way that Napoleon would have understood it, but they have created decisive conditions – and that could just be enough.

    This man has written these two excellent essays in the TCW about War. His understanding that it is not battle that is decisive, but the political result, is almost certainly correct. No one; at least no one with any sense has ever doubted that the Israelis will win the military conflict but one senses that they have already lost the latter for hearts and minds. It has damaged their reputation irrecoverably. He’s probably right about Ukraine as well. Vlad is much happier recently. He senses that he can now never be thrown out of the Donbass after the failure of the Ukie counter attack and that thus the machinations of the West have been fruitless.

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/what-the-modern-world-can-learn-from-napoleon-part-2-dont-just-win-the-war-win-the-peace/

    1. “It is not the battle that is decisive, but the political result.” A pity that many politicians do not understand the basics of Clausewitz. War is politics by other means, the problem is war is one of the biggest money spinners that exists, especially attractive if it is someone else is doing the fighting.

    2. “It is not the battle that is decisive, but the political result.” A pity that many politicians do not understand the basics of Clausewitz. War is politics by other means, the problem is war is one of the biggest money spinners that exists, especially attractive if it is someone else is doing the fighting.

  36. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/12/11/family-breakdown-triggered-wealth-gap-young-old/

    Lord King has a point, but he doesn’t mention that state policy has ensured the family has been broken.

    Our tax system is desperately redistrubitive, with far too much of my income going to people who have not and never will earn their own. If I cannot build up a nest egg for Junior, he comes out of university with £30,000 of debt, let alone being able to buy a house.

    Then there’s 25 years of massive, uncontrolled immigration. In my old home town, where there is nothing, a 2 bed terrace, a run down mess of a place is now £90,000. Why? Because the town has been packed full of pakistanis and supply and demand rules. There were 50 million people in the UK 25 years ago. There’s over – according to Tesco who are infinitely more reliable than the state – 82 million now.

    The state has also deliberately set out to destroy the family. Brown removed tax breaks for married couples. Sharing the tax allowance was made difficult. If you both worked, you had to pay childcare – where if you didn’t, the workers were forced to pay yours.

    If you don’t work and pop out a sprog the father doesn’t pay anything because he’s likely on welfare and you get a house at someone’s expense. The less said about housing benefit distorting the market, the better

    Big government has assaulted the family unit relentlessly for over 25 miserable years. No wonder our divorce rate has soared – because government wanted to make that easier as well.

    The wealth gap exists because the state has set about destroying the most efficient, wealth generating, next generation producing, least crime committing unit – the nuclear family.

    1. But it’s worse than that. “Diversity” laws and mandatory corporate reporting on “diversity” means your Junior (and my two) are at the bottom of the heap when it comes to being recruited. It os lawful to discriminate in certain situations, as we know. I am truly despairing for the future.

      1. Yep. When did we get to such a hateful term as racism in the form of ‘positive discrimination’? If they’re incompetent, they shouldn’t be doing the job not getting a free leg up into it.

        1. Don’t worry. Companies will need more of the efficient employees to do the actual work that the die-versity hires don’t.

          Seriously wibbling, the most successful of the younger generation in my extended family are the two – both young men – who effectively wrote their own careers while they were teenagers.
          One left school with four GCSEs (but a network of international contacts from years of animating and programming online) and the other turned down a place at a top university to play in a band. Both are now out ahead – and they’re both still in their twenties.
          Close behind them are several more who also have their own businesses but didn’t go to university.

          Our children will not have the same career structure as we were brought up to expect. It’s far more important that your son learns how to teach himself stuff than that he learns to obey and fit into the school/university system.

          3. Many of the young kids in these parts went to university and got a degree but are now happily working good jobs that have nothing to do with the subjects they studied.

            Far better to ignore university and get taken on as an apprentice electrician – you get paid and there is no overwhelming student loan to pay off.

      2. I pity the white boy from a poor family. Every support system is for girls, foreigners or lgbtq++ deviants, the boys in need are just ignored.

        1. Folk like my godson. He’s on a scholarship to Winchester boys and will likely head on up to Cambridge to study nuclear physics but then what? Will a potential hirer see his ability or his colour? In which case – that’s pure racism. State enforced racism.

    2. But how to put it right? The centre of balance has tipped so far now that restoring it (reducing population, for example) will be impossible without an appalling epidemic… Ah!

          1. OK, follow the example already set by Marxists, smash their heads in with pickaxe helves to save bullets.

      2. The simplest place to start is in phasing out child benefit sy over 5 years. If we stop paying people to breed they will. In return, offer married couples with children (adopted or natural) a tax break but only once, regardless of how many children they have (to put a stop to the muslims). Then start with housing benefit, over a longer period, say 10. Stop the state being able to buy property. It buys with someone else’s money, dictates what, where and how to build and breaks the market.

        All married couples to share their tax allowances – if they want to. That helps single earner families to keep more of their own money. Stop giving single mothers a free house. They have parents, they can look after them. A child should be planned for, thought about, not simply a way to get more of someone else’s money.

        Oh, Lefties will hate these. Some may argue it’s unfair on women who are coerced. There is that danger. But it’s wrong to punish everyone for the sake of a minority. This is what government is for – to root out and protect the edge cases, not control the majority.

        1. There is merit in what you suggest but the devil would be in the detail. What about heterosexual couples who are in long-term stable relationships but are not married? What about same-sex marriages? Cue for endless protests.

          I have mixed views about “single mothers” – it’s unfair to penalise them but leave unscathed the men who sired the children and, in many cases, departed.

          1. 1. Spouses and formalised civil partners only. That should fix that.
            2. What happened to the Child Support Agency? It was supposed to track down the absent fathers and make them pay.

          2. 1. Spouses and formalised civil partners only. That should fix that.
            2. What happened to the Child Support Agency? It was supposed to track down the absent fathers and make them pay.

          3. If it were up to me I wouldn’t recognise gay marriage at all, and certainly not children within it as that is an option given up by their lifestyle choice.

            At that level the child is for the adult.

            And yes, there’s a host of problems and if you were /are married and she does a bunk leaving you with children suddenly you need support. This is where the CSA should receive a percentage of monies extracted from the avoidant spouse – force it into a market.

    3. If it cheers you up, it is debatable whether any traditional University course will be worth three years and and an enormous debt at x% above base rate. Them Unis will need to stuff their campuses with foreign currency Bames, because few Brits would want (or be able to) to pay high fees etc when most white collar careers will be destroyed by AI.

      1. I think there may be a clue here:

        “Researchers at Imperial College London “

        Remember “Professor” Ferguson and his “Million dead”…..

        1. There was also a comment re obtaining inconsistent or incomplete data.
          Par for the course for ICL.

      2. In Britain they manipulate the figures by making sure that you die before you can get into the hospital.

        As the old traditional joke goes…

        You get ill.
        USA: It’ll cost you 450 000 dollars
        UK: We’ll treat you for free, come back in a year
        Canada: Go kill yourself.

        1. The problem with the NHS is it still costs half a million.

          I’m not esp. well at the mo but I could go visit a doctor, (I saw a nurse) and get treatment and prescriptions. They even called today to ask what my SpO2 was. This was good.

          However in September last year I was hospitalised with 2 massive infections which turned out to be kidney stone related. I’m still waiting for them to be removed (and if you’ve ever been poked in the side, imagine that, all the time, for 18 months). While in hosp I mostly laid about for 6 hours to be seen and then spent 2 days laying in a room dozing only to be woken up by my bladder.

          How can the NHS be both so good, and so bad?

          I think it’s summarised easily by the walk in centre I visited Friday. A sea of foreigners. Add in trivial injuries – a sprained ankle, a cut someone wanted stitches for that could have been wiped and ignored. It is the being ‘free’ that has people abuse it.

      1. The Norwegian health
        care system is founded on the principles of universal access,
        decentralisation and free choice of provider. It is financed by taxation, together with income-related employee and employer contributions and out-of-pocket payments (co-payments).

    3. That report is B.S.

      How can canada appear anywhere in patient safety when we regularly hear of people dying in ER before they even see a doctor.

      1. I tend to agree.
        It seems to be biased towards early life/birth care.
        It also admits to being incomplete because of non-standardised reporting.
        Canada is still well down the lists.

  39. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6cf2a4ac781a2fa8ad80cf162099dcca92ab073242a1604fa779ba6df9329093.png Here, clearly displayed, is the prevalent attitude of members of a third-world country that is deemed to be acceptable enough to be part of the EU (despite being a mainly Asian country), and whose Premier has a right of veto over other fully European countries becoming members of NATO.

    Oh, I seem to have forgotten what this shithole’s religion is!

    2. The referee in question appears to have suggested it was his own fault.
      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-12853735/Turkish-referee-punched-club-president-kicked-floor-Super-Lig-Ankaragucu-Rizespor.html

      It’s sad to say it but this kind of abuse and occasional assault takes place regularly in the UK at grassroots level.

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-10313877/Referees-leave-football-droves-horrific-abuse-10-000-gone-five-years.html

      1. Yes. There is no need, in rugby, for referees to punch the players. The front and second rows simply do it to each other, all the time, in every scrum.

        1. My chemistry master Tom Martland was captain of Bath Football (Rugby) Club. If he came in on a Monday morning sporting a black eye or limping with a crutch we boys knew he had played at the weekend.

          1. Reputedly Dr JPR Williams broke the bones of opponents on a Saturday, then set them in plaster on the Monday.

  41. We went to Oxford yesterday. Summertown first then the city centre, a place we used to frequent often to shop, eat out, stroll among the Dreaming Spires and in the park and go to the theatre. We haven’t driven in since before the Convid Scamdemic because we had become habitual users of the new Westgate shopping centre car park (£10.20 for about 4 hours).

    The city centre was extremely quiet, much quieter than normal in the run-up to Christmas with the great majority of parking spaces in St.Giles and Keble Street free. Quite pleasant – apart from the Eagle and Child having closed permanently (no respect for C S lewis and J R R Tolkein). I then discovered why. Parking (2 hours max) £6.60 for one hour, £13.20 for two hours. The last time I parked there it was £4 for two hours (or 3 hours in Keble Street). I hope they find the parking revenue has tanked. They (the City Council) are killing the place. All in accord with Agenda 21, no doubt.

      1. Some of us don’t want to use P&Rs; they take too much time when you’ve got 25-30 miles to drive to get there and the same to get home afterwards.

        1. They have one in Narridge. Difficult to find the starting point. Expensive. Maddeningly complicated machine to pay for parking and bus ticket. Bus lanes only a third of the journey – so bus gets caught in the traffic. Takes about 45 minutes each way.

          We avoid like plague and drive to city centre and park.

        2. I used to drive into Oxford frequently when my son was a student – but that was 30 years ago……… the most recent time was last February when we went for OH’s post-op checkup.

          The hospital car park is inadequate but I did manage to find a spot and the charge is much more reasonable that the ones you found in the city centre. In fact, cheaper than Gloucester hospital car park. Not much use when you just want to go shopping though.

          The drive back through the crowded streets was a nightmare as we took a wrong turning. We did check out the Park & ride and it didn’t meet the time we needed to be at the hospital.

      2. Makes you wonder who they think they are and that they can control where people shop and how they get there without destroying the high streets.

        1. The way a lot of high streets are going no-one will want to visit them soon so they will have achieved their aim.

          1. Yes I suspect that they are following the 15 minute neighbourhood plan and they figure that high streets need to go to save the planet

        2. The way a lot of high streets are going no-one will want to visit them soon so they will have achieved their aim.

    2. Park & Ride for the Hoi Polloi, about £4 or £5 for two people, which includes the busfare. Fast trip into the city centre, slow returning to carpark. Still a bargain, if it’s not raining and you avoid buying heavy or bulky items.

    3. Was the 13.20 in the Westgate car park?
      We always park in Botley road car park and walk into the centre. Used to be 2 pounds, but I haven’t been there for a couple of years now.
      After their threats to charge all cars going between zones, it’s simpler to just avoid the place altogether.

    4. I have a friend who was at Queens in the seventies. His watering hole was the Turf Tavern. I remember access to the beer garden from the pub was through a double hung sash window.

      My last drive through Oxford was about five years ago. I managed to park in a square near the property I was surveying. Much had changed and such investment that had been attracted was around the amorphous Said Business Centre, named after Wafic Said the arms dealer whose country residence is near Bicester (designed by Sir William Whitfield for whom I worked for many years).

      As with Cambridge the University has turned away from the Arts and Humanities and fallen in with the large Pharma and biological research sciences. Thus we witnessed the awards of gongs to the wretches who designed the Astra Zeneca clot shots and the exhibition of a gold model of the molecular structure of the death shot in one of the colleges. How apt I thought that Oxford now celebrates failure.

    5. The centre is quiet because the ghastly new Westgate centre had sucked the blood out of the city. Cornmarket is now a mini version of London’s Oxford Street, full of sweet shops and tourist tat.

  47. Life’s complicated when you’re 81…….husband has been trying all morning to sort out his car insurance. He wasn’t happy with the quote from his current insurer, so I told him to try the comparison sites and then go back to his insurer and tell them there were better quotes.
    He’s got that far, then when he’s trying to pay for their better offer, he runs into trouble trying to tap his card number into the phone. He then calls me – I tried to do that but it didn’t work. Then we got cut off, and the helpful (but heavily accented) guy on the other end calls and leaves a message. Then the guy asks for his mobile number instead. OH doesn’t know his mobile number. I have a look on my phone and find it. By that time we’ve both lost the will to live.

    Eventually we see online that the better offer is now the renewal quote so he should now be able to pay online in the usual way.

      1. It seems the keyboard on the landline phone had a dodgy number that wasn’t registering when pressed.

      1. I don’t think I’ve ever done it that way either. I pay my car MOT & service bill over the phone but by voice, not pressing digits, and I’ve dealt with them for many years.

  48. Muscular Vladimir Putin unveiled as star of 2024 calendar for Russian veterans. 12 December 2023.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0a3fde81cf9e019208e6dedef46505ae67efd086fedfdef7c90465d88e5f36a4.jpg

    A muscular Vladimir Putin is the star of an illustrated 2024 calendar being sold by a Russian veterans’ group

    This isn’t an official calendar and Vlad is only on one month. I wouldn’t mind one myself but I’ve just bought one with British Songbirds. Lol!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/12/12/putin-calendar-russia-ukraine-war-veterans/

      1. These veterans institutions of whatever nationality always project an almost Sergeant Rock level of machismo.

  49. Rude ! Don’t look !

    A sadist, a masochist, a pyromaniac, a kleptomaniac and a zoophile walk into a bar.

    The kleptomaniac says “let’s go steal a cat!”

    The zoophile says “let’s go steal a cat and fuck it!”

    The sadist says “let’s go steal a cat, fuck it and torture it!”

    The pyromaniac says “let’s go steal a cat, fuck it, torture it and set it on fire!”

    The masochist then says “meow”.

    1. The lyrics of Jake Thackray’s songs are brilliant.

      This song is about his lovely wife – the rather prolix woman with whom he lived.

      I love a good bum on a woman, it makes my day.
      To me it is palpable proof of God’s existence, a posteriori.
      Also I love breasts and arms and ankles, elbows, knees;
      It’s the tongue, the tongue, the tongue on a woman that spoils the job for me.
      Please understand I respect and admire the frailer sex
      And I honour them every bit as much as the next misogynist.
      But give some women the ghost of a chance to talk and thereupon
      They go on again, on again, on again, on again, on again, on again, on.

      I fell in love with a woman with wonderful thighs and hips
      And a sensational belly. I just never noticed her lips were always moving.
      Only when we got to the altar and she had to say “I do”
      And she folded her arms and gathered herself and took in a breath and I knew
      She could have gone on again, on again, on again till the entire
      Congregation passed out and the vicar passed on and the choirboys passed through puberty.
      At the reception I gloomily noted her family’s jubilant mood,
      Their maniacal laughter and their ghastly gratitude.

      She talks to me when I go for a shave or a sleep or a swim.
      She talks to me on a Sunday when I go singing hymns and drinking heavily.
      When I go mending my chimney pot she’s down there in the street,
      And at ninety-five on my motorbike she’s on the pillion seat
      Wittering on again, on again, on and again and again.
      When I’m eating or drinking or reading or thinking or when I’m saying my rosary.
      She will never stop talking to me; she is one of those women who
      Will never use three or four words when a couple of thousand will easily do!

      She also talks without stopping to me in our bed of a night;
      Throughout the sweetest of our intimate delights she never gives over.
      Not even stopping while we go hammer and tongs towards the peak –
      Except maybe for a sigh and a groan and one perfunctory shriek.
      Then she goes on again, on again, on again on and I must
      Assume that she has never noticed that she’s just been interrupted.
      Totally unruffled she is, and as far as I can see
      I might just as well have been posting a letter or stirring up the tea!

      She will not take a hint, not once she’s made a start.
      I can yawn or belch or bleed or faint or fart – she’ll not drop a syllable.
      I could stand in front of her grimly sharpening up an axe,
      I could sprinkle her with paraffin, and ask her for a match –
      She’d just go on again, on again, on again even more.
      The hind leg of a donkey is peanuts for her, she can bore the balls off a buffalo.
      “Mother of God, ” I cried one day, “Oh, let your kingdom come
      “And in the meantime, Mother, could you strike this bugger dumb?”

      Well, believe it or not, she appeared to me then and there:
      The Blessed Virgin herself, in answer to my prayer, despite the vulgarity,
      Shimmering softly, dressed in blue and holding up a hand.
      I cocked a pious ear as the Mother of God began.
      Well she went on again, on again, on again, on, and I
      Will have to state how very much I sympathise with the rest of the family.
      Give some women the ghost of a chance to talk and thereupon
      They go on again, on again, on again, on again,
      And again, and again, and again, and again
      They will go on again, on again, on again, on again, on again, on again, on.

  52. Can anyone give some simple advice.
    We’re trying to find out the easy way to convert either an Excel for Mac or a Word for Mac name and address list into labels.
    I’m struggling with instructions.

    4. Honestly never done it. There’s a huge amount of things that need to be ‘right’. What is the label software? Do they provide a better approach rather than looking at excel/word as the option?

      I remember this was something my Dad struggled with for ages for their Christmas cards.

    5. Don’t know about Mac, but I can do labels in Mail Merge in Word. You need to know what type your labels are (Avebury, probably).

    6. I’d help you if I could, Alf, but I only use Mac’s own software (Numbers and Pages) on my Macs.

  53. Rwanda Bill latest: Climate minister makes 7,000-mile round trip from Cop28 just to vote – watch debate live
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/12/12/rishi-sunak-latest-news-tories-labour-starmer-live/

    Graham Stuart the “Climate Minister” will make the round trip to try and ensure that Sunak is not ousted.

    When is everyone going to wake up to the fact that the whole Net Zero/Climate Change/Fossil Fuel nonsense is a complete fraudulent scam.

    I am beginning to wonder if even the Idiot King himself does not truly believe in it

      1. Of course!

        Sunak rocked up, gave away 1.6 bn and thought this acceptable. Government insanity of forcing the most expensive energy in the world is forcing up everything. When inflation soars again next year it’ll be because of energy prices. What annoys is how few people seem to understand the link (heck, people are so thick they think Tesco make McVities mini cheddars).

        What will the oafs Shunk do when that happens? Continue to blame energy companies for profiteering – newsflash! Government fixes their profit margins – the ones it doesn’t are the generators, and they’re making a fortune not in profit, but in subsidy – unless they’re a conventional fuel in which case they’re heavily taxed (to pay the unreliable subsidy).

    2. The waste of public money alone should see this individual sanctioned. Is there absolutely no control of expenditure, no need to reply..

      1. I am surprised he can’t find a suitable “pair”; presumably they can’t be trusted if there’s any chance of toppling Sunak.

  55. The feds have announced a national dental plan for us poor Canadians. During the initial rollout of the plan anyone over the age of 87 can apply.

    Life expectancy by the way is 81!

      2. They govvies are probably still working from home so a mail in service would work better for them.

    6. Over 87 and must be fully jabbed ……. desperate measures to increase the jab uptake – though son and DiL were proudly telling us they were getting their latest booster a few weeks ago. I wouldn’t dare ask, but I just hope they haven’t subjected their poor children to further doses.

    1. Apparently the 200 visiting countries were not happy with the truth… err, the final speech from the president. I imagine because he pointed out some unpleasant facts.

  57. Time Magazine People of the Year

    Adolf Hitler 1938
    Joseph Stalin 1939
    Joseph Stalin (again) 1942
    Ayatollah Khomeini 1979
    Greta Thunberg 2019
    Volodymyr Zelensky 2022

    What do they have in common?

    4. What a terrible shame…wait…no it’s not…it’s hilarious! I wonder if Scooter has heard?🤔

      1. A warning to the religious fanatics….curse Israel and the wrathful Christian God will strike you down.

        1. I really don’t understand why they so hate Israel. It takes so much energy and effort and for what? To hate an entire people?

          2. But it’s insane. It’s truly completely insane. It’s like assuming all Pakistani’s are muslim paedophiles. They’re not. Or all Brits wear bowler hats and carry umbrellas. It’s idiotic. It’s stupid.

          9. Israel has recently negotiated licences for gas exploration of a relatively recently mapped field with the large oil companies. The Arabs simply do not want Israel to have the resource hence the accelerated actions to kill Jews and wipe out the state of Israel.

          10. I’m sure that there’s an element of that, and that the Palestinians will claim it’s theirs, although how those clowns could cope I have no idea.

          11. Because their book tells them to. They believe it the word of God, and who is anyone to question that? That’s why Islam is unreformable.

          12. And that is why anyone with any common sense knows that it is impossible in society to integrate Muslims with Non Muslims.

            It is now so long since we have been governed by people with any common sense that we have a societal problem which probably cannot be resolved without bloodshed and civil war throughout Europe.

          13. Remember the very perceptive observation of Julius Caesar about the lean and hungry-looking Cassius.

            “Such men as these be never at heart’s ease when they behold a greater than themselves.”

            The Arabs are not at heart’s ease. They are consumed with hatred and jealousy. The Jews are hated because they are clever, creative and successful. And they have produced the only successful functioning democracy in the Middle East.

        2. Ah, there are not two Gods. The New Testament God who says love thine enemy and the Old Testament God who drowns the Egyptians and smites the Philistine are the same God.

          1. No, they are different Gods but the same, it’s all inspired by Dr Who. Sustainable regeneration.

      1. I don’t know why they’re bothering to push this Rwanda thing. The problem is the endless law preventing removal. Repeal those laws. Stop buggering about.

        But Sunak won’t. He refuses to do anything that diverges, or makes it hard to be rechained to the hated EU.

        1. Rwanda were only going to be taking a couple of hundred. And we get back the same amount in the ones they don’t want. It’s all a smokescreen.

        2. EU, WEF,WHO, UN and the murdering Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

          All with fingers in the same pie,.

  60. It’s time the BBC put Have I Got News for You out of its misery. 12 December 2023.

    Incredibly, Have I Got News for You is now approaching its 600th episode. To keep getting recommissioned every year since its debut in 1990 truly is a remarkable achievement.

    Especially when you bear in mind that, for over 20 years now, the show has been almost unalleviated rubbish.

    For its first decade, it was the sharpest thing on British TV. The decline began in 2002, after the departure of Angus Deayton. Never has the programme seemed more complacently predictable, however, than it does at present.

    This could be equally well served by shutting down the BBC in its entirety and thus improving life for us all!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/12/the-bbc-should-cancel-have-i-got-news-for-you/?li_source=LI&li_medium=for_you

    1. Missing word round.

      According to an etiquette guide what (blank) is now acceptable at the dinner table?
      Paul Merton said. ‘Farting before the Bishop……………….. You can’t say that !

      Paul said. ‘Sorry, i didn’t realise it was his turn.

      1. A British Admiral, a British General and an American Air Marshal were dining with the old Queen Mother when the old girl produced an explosive piece of flatulence.

        The General immediately stood up, apologised profusely and left the room.

        Five minutes later the windy old girl let fly another real corker even louder than the first.

        The Admiral stood up, apologised even more profusely and, scarlet-faced, he stumbled out of the room.

        Five minutes later the sound of Vesuvius erupting seemed to be taking place accompanied by a Stygian stink.

        “Gee, Ma’am,” said the American, “You can have that one on me!”

    3. I used to enjoy it’s progenitor, Radio 4’s News Quiz several decades ago before Sandy Toxic took the chair and ruined it.

  61. Such a pity…my heart bleeds for them…

    Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Named Hollywood’s Biggest Losers of 2023

    Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been named as showbusiness’ biggest losers of 2023, after their belittling on South Park, being dropped from their $20 million Spotify deal and endless “whiny” self-regarding projects.

    The Royal couple’s names appeared in the Hollywood Reporter’s “brutally honest rundown” detailing who had the worst year in entertainment.

    Writer-at-Large, James Hibberd contributed the scathing review of Harry and Meghan’s previous 12 months, from being dropped from their $20 million Spotify deal to being labelled “f**king grifters” by top executive Bill Simmons.

    Hibberd also made mention of the Sussexes’ multiple “whiny projects” from the memoir Spare to their six-part Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan.

    The author claims the pair being brutally roasted on the long-running satirical cartoon South Park was “the pin” that popped their “sanctimonious bubble,” writing:

    After a whiny Netflix documentary, a whiny biography and an inert podcast, the Harry and Meghan brand swelled into a sanctimonious bubble just begging to be popped — and South Park was the pin.

    The show’s 20-minute World-Wide Privacy Tour takedown in March was savage, and was followed by Spotify dropping Archetypes, with a top executive labeling the duo ‘grifters’.

    Royal commentator Kinsey Schofield claims the Sussexes’ making the list will have Meghan’s talent agency “scrambling to figure out what their next steps are.”

    https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2023/12/12/prince-harry-and-meghan-markle-named-hollywoods-biggest-losers-of-2023/

    1. They’re not giving up though!

      Duke and Duchess of Sussex to help ‘educate’ on bias against black women

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2023/12/12/duke-duchess-sussex-educate-bias-black-women/

      The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s
      charitable foundation is to help “educate” judges, medical students,
      teachers and police on how they can overcome harmful bias against black
      women.

      Archewell,
      the Sussexes’ non-profit organisation, is working with the Georgetown
      Center on Gender Justice and Opportunity to train American judges in how
      to rethink “harmful gender stereotypes, especially those affecting
      Black women and girls”.

      2. O dear…shooting themselves in the foot again. Meghan should just re-open her blog and make money flogging lifestyle accessories like her favourite wine, clothes, cosmetics etc. They always seem to want to bite off more than they can chew.

  64. I’ll bet this obnoxious woman could have paired with him but either wasn’t asked or refused.

    The Green MP Caroline Lucas said: “The government’s last shred of moral authority in tackling the climate emergency has been obliterated by this scandalous decision to leave Cop28 negotiations at the most critical moment. Adding insult to injury, if true that the minister is leaving the summit in order to vote in favour of the utterly immoral Rwanda deal, it shows that Rishi Sunak prioritises saving his own skin over saving the planet.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/live/2023/dec/12/cop-28-live-latest-updates-climate-conference

    1. Not really, I’m sure they all made sure they were there for the important cocktail parties and to wash down as many canapés as they could stuff. And to ensure everyone gets a fair slice of the pie, maybe share a Russian tart for pud..

  65. Guess where COP 29 is being held!

    Armenians are deeply concerned about the decision to hold the Cop29 climate talks in Azerbaijan just months after what has been referred to as an “ethnical cleansing” of tens of thousands of Armenians from a breakaway province in the country.
    In September an estimated 120,000 Armenians fled Nagorno-Karabakh – known to Armenians as Artsakh – after Azerbaijan’s military launched an “anti-terrorist” campaign on the region, which had been run by a local ethnic Armenian government. Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, has alleged the Armenian exodus amounted to “a direct act of an ethnic cleansing and depriving people of their motherland”.
    Azerbaijan has since pledged to respect the rights of ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. But Armenians said the decision to hold the next UN climate talks in the country has effectively barred them from attending.

      2. I sit opposite our ESG lady at work. Earlier this afternoon she was talking with another colleague about the lack of agreement at this COP and how bad this was (or some such thing). I muttered under my breath something along the lines of FFS and went off to get a cup of tea. They know my thoughts on this nonsense.

    1. By aligning himself with Tommy Robinson, (NHRN), Gerard Batten HAD to be removed for fear the alliance might actually give the Working Classes a real and valid voice.

      1. 379424+ up ticks,

        Evening Bob,

        ALL those supporting / voting lab/lib/con coalition, to bring the country to its knee whilst verbally abusing the party UKIP with calls of fruitcakes etc etc do they now currently feel proud of their handiwork ?

  67. Just back from walking to the village letter box. For the (almost) 40 years I have lived here, the weekday clearance was at 3 pm . Now – in their “wisdom” – the GPO have changed it to 9 am. Marvellous…

    Mild as muck, out. Have turned off the CH.

    3. Surprisingly, me too.

      Wordle 906 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
      ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  71. That’s me done for today. Damp day with another to follow. Then on Thursday or Friday we have the ritual of choosing which branches of holm oak will be suitable for our suspended (cat-proof) decorations.

    With luck Fishi will be done for later this evening and will leave and there will be a general election to bring this shambolic mess to a conclusion.

    A demain.

    2. Looks like the idiot trudeau at one of his many international conferences/shindigs – trying to give away more of our money but finding himself shunned by all but the most worthless grifters.

  73. Thought for the day
    If Zelensky was in charge of Hamas would he continue to fire rockets into Israel?

    Of course he would, and he would be begging Iran and other similarly minded countries to send him money and armaments so to do.

    And that’s why Ukraine is rapidly becoming a lost cause. Too stupid to realise they’ve lost and need a peace settlement NOW.

    1. I don’t want to be controversial but all these so called single male migrants escaping terror , and the amount of violence and anti social behaviour that appears to erupt , are we importing alien men with Schizophrenia?

      The exact cause of schizophrenia is unknown. Research suggests that it is the result of a combination of environmental factors, such as stressful life events, and genetic predisposition. Scientists believe that an imbalance in the levels of neurotransmitters, which are chemical messengers in the brain, can also play a role in the development of schizophrenia.

      2. Possibly.

        But if it sounds like Islam, smells like Islam and looks like Islam, it probably is Islam.
        And you may be assured it won’t take prisoners in the long term.

      3. When a baby is raised to hate. When a baby is indoctrinated to a single theme. When all their Aunts reinforce this from what they were indoctrinated to …you end up with madness. No understanding of anything else or the ‘outside world’. Everything else is less. Everything else is haram. Everything else needs to be destroyed.
        It is why they have no Art, no Music, no culture but a death wish.

    1. Given that many of a previous Polish government all died in an air crash it was no surprise to see the rise of Tusk. He just keeps floating along the surface like a rather large brown log.

      1. Indeed.
        But they are also ensuring the limping into the finishing line gets worse and worse.
        Death by a thousand cuts, I may have missed an “n” out there.

    1. Mental health issues, Muslims.
      If ever there was a reason to keep them locked up where they are, I suggest this is it.

    2. They want off because there are no women or boys available to rape and under the Koran masturbation is punishable. No wonder they are going mad. That barge would make pretty good holiday accommodation. There is one just like it moored in the Thames.

        1. Rolled out or over? How can these people be so weak and in need of help when they have traveled thousands of miles a lot on foot to get here then suddenly …

    3. An illegal migrant apparently commits suicide and it is spoken of in Parliament. How many suicides are there annually in the UK?

      “In 2019, there were 5,691 suicides registered in England and Wales, an age-standardised rate of 11.0 deaths per 100,000 population and consistent with the rate in 2018.”

      Net immigration up to June 2023 was 745,000, so statistically one would expect about 74 suicides amongst them

    4. He was seemingly happy in France. He should have stayed there. The solution is obvious: either move them all into the Bibby and hope, or stop them ever getting here in the first place.

    5. He’s upset that he wasn’t put in a fully funded and fully catered 4 star hotel, even though the barge accommodation is likely far more luxurious than his proper home.. Nothing wrong with that savage’s mental health.
      As for the charidee ‘worker’ crying in the report, what a gullible fool. It needs to get a proper job.

  78. So Mr COP28 didn’t need to rush back after all.
    No doubt he’s heading to the airport to return for the jamboree.

      1. I was just waiting for them to come along at the tail of the pack of twenty something years old vanguard.

    2. It ends when the political class are ordered to stop it by the public, not their globalist masters.

          2. Always a fascinating subject, Maggie, but I’ve got a pile of books to read so high, that I’ll be lucky to live to get through them. The most recent eel I’ve seen was just an elver of about 4″ long this past spring. It was in a puddle on the path by the Tamar just below us. There’d been a heavy cloudburst and the river had risen and covered the path then receded. I thought at first it was a young grass snake, but it took about 6 attempts for me to pick it up and place the slippery mite back in the Tamar. They can travel overland if conditions are right and wet.
            Anyone who would like to know about the sea, the fish in it and man’s attempts (always to the detriment of fish and the oceans) to catch those fish would do well to buy “The Unnatural History of the Sea” by Callum Roberts. It’s amazing and depressing but always fascinating.

  80. A Scotsman is having a drink in a bar and gets a call on his mobile phone. He hangs up.
    Grinning from ear to ear, he orders a round of drinks for everybody in the bar because, he announces, his wife has just produced a typical Scottish baby boy weighing 25 pounds.
    Nobody can believe that any new baby can weigh in at 25 pounds, but the Scotsman just shrugs,
    “That’s about average in Scotland, folks. Like I said, my boy’s a typical Scottish baby boy.”
    Congratulations showered him from all around and many exclamations of “WOW!” were heard.
    Two weeks later the Scotsman returns to the bar.
    The bartender says, “Hey, you’re the father of that typical Scottish baby that weighed 25 pounds at birth, aren’t you?
    Everybody’s been makin’ bets about how big he’d be in two weeks. We were gonna call you… so how much does he weigh now?”
    The proud father answers, “Seventeen pounds.”
    The bartender is puzzled & concerned. “What happened?
    He already weighed 25 pounds the day he was born.”
    The Scots father takes a slow swig from his beer, wipes his lips on his shirt sleeve, leans into the bartender & proudly says,
    “We had him circumcised.”

    2. “Grinning from ear to ear, he orders a round of drinks for everybody in the bar”

      It stopped being a credible tale at this point, Spikey.

  81. Have you noticed that the DT letters tend to split into one of two subjects?
    SIR – he government needs to reduce the tax take and spend less.
    SIR – The government should fund xxx better, with an immediate increase in grants.
    How does that work?

      3. Works for me!
        My bank account can receive any currency, and the number is 01 234 5678 90

  83. 🐾 POEM OF A DOG
    I’m the one who’s always waiting for you.
    Your car has a special sound that I have imprinted on my senses, I can recognize it in a thousand.
    Your steps have a magic bell.
    Your voice is music to my ears.
    If I see your joy, it makes me happy!.
    Your scent is the best.
    Your presence moves my senses.
    Your waking up wakes me up
    I contemplate you sleeping and for me you are my God, I am happy watching your sleep.
    Your look is a ray of light.
    Your hands upon me, hold the lightness of peace and the sublime display of infinite love.
    When you leave, I feel a huge void in my heart.
    I keep waiting for you again and again.
    I am the one who will wait for you all your life today, tomorrow and forever:
    I am your dog.
    Mike Robinson

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/18d837ffd38420ad73556c25897396e119f2368e06030ee90901114888fc3641.jpg

    1. When I peg it, if there is a heaven of sorts, I want to see Wiggy again, and Claudius. Keep the Warqueen in another room, just let me see those two.

    2. Ben Sixsmith in the Spectator, on the death of his dog:

      “ It has been four months since my dog died and I still feel like something is missing when I open my front door. At first, I can’t quite work it out. Did I leave the heating on at work? Should I have gone to the shops? Am I in the wrong flat? No, what’s missing is the patter of paws, the inquisitive nose and the affectionate barrage of fur.

      After your first dog, there’s a solid chance that you will never live doglessly again

      Lola was 14 when she died, which is old for any dog but especially for a German shepherd. She used to lie in the centre of the flat I shared with my then-girlfriend with an unencumbered view of every room so that she could monitor proceedings. Now, the whole place feels emptier.

      Losing a dog may not have the same spiritual complexity as losing a friend or family member. But what I miss is the simplicity of our relationship – the natural joie de vivre that dogs are blessed with. I could come home from a tough day at work and be restored to happiness by the force of good cheer that radiated from her welcome. Dogs turn up the happiness in a home as effectively as a thermostat turns up the heating.

      Not that their emotions are one-note. They are very empathetic and dutiful creatures. Whenever I was sick, my dog would march into the room and stand beside my bed, watching the door, as if my enemies might choose this moment to attack. (Now, when ill, I’m dangerously vulnerable.)

      Besides, it is good to care for something – good both for its own sake and as preparation for life. I don’t want to sound like the sort of person who introduces himself as a ‘dog dad’; having a pet is obviously not like having a child but that doesn’t make it meaningless. Having a nice walk with an appreciative creature means more than browsing Facebook in bed. Hell, even mopping up mistimed pee is a productive challenge to one’s stoical capacities.

      Since my dog died I’ve been tempted to get another. I’m sure I will at some point. After your first dog, there’s a solid chance that you will never live doglessly again. But I haven’t found one yet. I still need to get over my last dog. A pet isn’t like a jacket or a phone. You can’t pick up a replacement and carry on with life.

      Dogs – and I’m sure that the same is true of cats – have their own personalities and your relationship with one can never be identical to your relationship with another. Lola was an especially charismatic hound who loved people as fiercely as she hated pretty much any other being (except for her rubber pigs). It would be unfair to think that I could slot another dog neatly into a Lola-shaped hole.

      Besides, there are downsides to dog ownership. There are small ones, like your socks doubling in fluffiness when shedding seasons arrive or your pockets filling up with plastic bags. But there are also bigger ones. If you want to travel, for work or holidays, then you have an adoring elephant in the room. Perhaps your friends might be willing to look after your canine pal – but perhaps they wouldn’t be (and perhaps, depending on the dog, they wouldn’t be your friends any more after the experience). You could take them to the kennels, but that could be a sad and expensive ordeal. Dogs can be miserable when you leave them to go to the gym, never mind when you leave them to go to France or Hungary.

      There is freedom in knowing that I can just drop everything and go to the mountains over the weekend if I want to, or book a foreign trip for my next holiday without wondering about where I’m going to leave the dog. As an expat, I’m looking forward to coming to England at Christmas and it wouldn’t feel the same if I knew that I was going to be leaving a furry friend in the kennels for a lonely holiday.

      But I know I’ll get a dog before long. It’s almost as inevitable as the new year. Yes, it might mean not going to the mountains and it might mean putting off that foreign trip. But how much will all that travelling be worth if I end up coming back to open the door to a silent empty hall?

      1. I agree with all of that, except “I still need to get over my last dog.” I don’t think one ever does. Therefore I think it is better to get another dog sooner rather than later, time is short, so much shorter than we realise. We used to say “when Poppie is no longer with us we’ll go on that river cruise..” When that day came, we realised that our faithful little travelling companion was all we ever wanted, the river cruise and other such-like holidays had lost all sense of importance in our lives. The relationship between man (and woman) and his/her dog is all we need for fulfilment.

        1. When MOH died, I knew that going abroad was not going to be an option if I had a dog. I’d rather have a dog than travel.

          1. That is how we feel, too. Travel is fleeting, gratuitous, ephemeral. A dog is for life and so much more.

      2. I’m not going to read that. My Oscar will be 9 years old next spring. To be honest I hope he lives past my lifetime. He’s adored by the rest of the family and I hope he gets over me with just the odd flash of remembrance of all those treats.

        1. My Oscar is 14. I knew when I got him he would only be lent for a while. I hope I’ve made whatever time he’s got left as happy as possible. When I was ill this morning, he was by my side, licking my hand. He couldn’t do anything to make me feel better, but he was there for me and he sympathised.

      3. Why couldn’t he have taken his dog to the mountains? I take mine everywhere except for museums where they aren’t allowed.

    1. We did our duty today and attended one of our grandchildren’s Nativity Play – “Manger Mouse” (she played an angel). Couldn’t understand a word, but enjoyed the songs! (Still don’t know what it was all about, and what part the mice played).

  85. Is the world still turning on its axis? It’s dark at the moment, unlike the daylight which came before. I just have to hope there will be light tomorrow. If not, it means the sun has been switched off.

    2. I was a womble and on Monday, when it was warm, a bit breezy and thought this’d be ideal to dry the bed linen… and at that point put it in.

      And of course, it finished at 4. When it was dark. And it’s rained since.

      1. When I first saw it, I wondered if the cremation had taken place early, but fortunately the coffin was removed before too much damage.

      1. Ah. I’ve been helping with the final clearance of my late mother’s house and haven’t read everything here.

    5. A bit of a shock for the family, but if that happened during my funeral I’m afraid my family would be in absolute stitches with comments about “Typical bloody Dad! Making a fuss to the end!”

  91. Evening, all. Not been a good day; something I ate at the wake yesterday disagreed with me, so I’ve been feeling rough most of the day. Thankfully, a bit better now. I stepped outside to put some recycling in the bin, turned my ankle and fell down in the wet. Fortunately, just bruises.

      1. It was such a stupid, but easily done, thing to do. I have a step down from my back door and as I put my foot down, my ankle turned over and then I went flying. I have a handle to assist alighting, but I had my hands full and didn’t use it. Memo to self – use the handle!

        1. Could the fall have been as a result of a sudden drop in Blood Pressure – that’s when I’m most likely to fall?

        1. I don’t mean look. Just aware. I fractured my ribs so often that i had to know what my feet were doing even if i couldn’t feel one of them.

    5. Ouch! Glad it’s not worse.
      I bet you felt a bit silly and used a bit of strong language!

    4. Yo and Fanx Boss

      Check this definition out

      A Bed is a piece of furniture for sleep or rest, typically a framework with a mattress.

  95. We’re watching Yorkshire Dales snd Lakes on 4 catch up. Stunning scenery, hill farming, canoeing on the fast running River Swale. Written snd commented on a Yorkshireman. Utterly stunning commentary and scenes. This is food for my towny heart. Recommend.

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