Saturday 6 January: Navy recruitment failures leave Britain vulnerable at a time of growing danger

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its commenting facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be banned.

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

596 thoughts on “Saturday 6 January: Navy recruitment failures leave Britain vulnerable at a time of growing danger”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolk. today’s little list

    I THINK I LIKE GETTING OLD – ON BALANCE.
    I used to be able to do cartwheels. Now I tip over putting on my underwear.
    I hate it when I see an old person and then realize we went to high school together.
    I told my wife she should embrace her mistakes… so she hugged me.
    My wife says I only have 2 faults. I don’t listen and something else….
    I thought growing old would take longer.
    I came, I saw, I forgot what I was doing. Retraced my steps, got lost on the way back, now I have no idea what’s going on.
    The officer said, “You drinking?” I said, “You buying?” We just laughed and laughed…. I need bail money.
    I think the reason we are born with two hands is so we can pet two dogs at once.
    Scientists say the universe is made up of protons, neutrons and electrons. They forgot to mention morons.
    The adult version of “head, shoulders, knees and toes” is “wallet, glasses, keys and phone.”
    Life is too short to waste time matching socks.
    If you see me talking to myself, just move along. I’m self-employed; we’re having a staff meeting.
    My doctor asked if anyone in my family suffers from mental illness. I said, “No, we all seem to enjoy it.”
    I don’t mind getting old, but my body is having a hissy fit.
    Camping: where you spend a small fortune to live like a homeless person.
    Project Manager. Because Miracle Worker isn’t an official job title.
    I told my wife I wanted to be cremated. She made me an appointment for Tuesday.
    THINK! (It’s not illegal…. YET)
    I’ve reached the age where my train of thought often leaves the station without me
    If you’re happy and you know it, it’s your meds.

    1. Thanks for today’s meds, Sir Jasper. (And Good Morning, btw.) I must add that when I reached your sixth line (“I came, I saw, I forgot what I was doing” etc) I was in the process of drinking a morning cuppa. I almost spat a mouthful of tea all over my computer. Lol.

  8. ‘Wokeism is destroying the industry’: why modern TV ads are so bad. 6 January 2024.

    “Wokeism is destroying the industry – ads are being used to push agendas and ideology,” he argues. “I think a lot of the CMOs don’t know what they want to see so when an agency comes and wows them they buy it. It’s social engineering over selling.”

    TOP COMMENT BELOW THE LINE.

    John Dalby.

    Every family seems to be mixed race or everyone is black or gay or disabled or something. Go woke go broke.

    Oddly enough in a long exhaustive article the author fails to notice Mr Dalby’s observation. This despite it being glaringly obvious to even the most jaded TV Viewer..

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/why-are-modern-tv-ads-so-bad-amazon-netflix/

      1. Wokeism is destroying the industry’: why modern TV ads are so bad

        Netflix, Amazon and Disney+ are forcing us to watch more and more ads
        just as ads are more unwatchable than ever. What went wrong?

        Stephen Armstrong

        5 January 2024 • 5:26pm

        Irritating: the ‘Daisy Daisy Daisy’ ad for Marc Jacobs

        Credit: YouTube

        As a happy new year present, Amazon Prime subscribers received an e-mail on January 3
        warning them that “Starting February 5, Prime Video movies and TV shows
        will include limited advertisements. No action is required from you,
        and there is no change to the current price of your Prime membership. We
        will also offer a new ad-free option for an additional £2.99 per
        month.”

        At least it was a fairly neutral read. Back in November
        Disney+ sent out an unnecessarily enthusiastic equivalent to the media:
        “Disney+ in the UK introduces its highly anticipated ad-supported
        subscription plan.”

        Highly anticipated is one way of putting it.
        Grudgingly accepting the inevitable might be another. The idea that a
        service you already pay for should now insist on showing you adverts
        outraged even those in the ad business. One client at a large company –
        who preferred not to be named as “I’m going to have to do business with
        those assholes” – complained that “I am a Spotify subscriber. I pay for
        the service. But I get ads. I’m in advertising for a living and I think
        that’s a bit much. Free TV carrying ads, fair enough. But it feels like
        we’re paying twice.”

        The problem is, streaming’s original business
        model hit the buffers. It was fine for Netflix to borrow heavily to
        fund programmes based on its subscription revenue when it was the only
        player. But then came Amazon and Apple and Disney+ and Peacock and Max
        and YouTube and Paramount Plus as well as the remaining cable platforms
        and, in the UK, ITVX, Sky, Britbox and BT.

        ‘Terrifying’: ads for the Tesco Club Card

        Credit: Youtube

        Then the cost of living meant consumers started dropping subs –
        in the US, the autumn saw huge rates of churn as consumers switched
        between platforms. So-called FAST TV channels – aka “free, ad-supported
        television” – like Pluto, Roku and Tubi arrived and programme budgets
        kept on rising. Taking ad money seems like a simple solution, right?

        In
        November, Netflix announced its ad-supported tier had reached 15
        million active users at the end of its first year – a tiny slice of its
        247 million subscribers. The company has been hiking prices on its
        ad-free options to nudge more consumers over, as commercials offer more
        revenue per user. Why aren’t people leaping at the cheaper option? Maybe
        it’s because ads these days are terrible.

        A casual perusal of
        the likes of Mumsnet, Reddit and the usual social media channels reveals
        a rising frustration with the low quality of adverts flung at us today.
        Amongst the most despised were the terrifying Joker face Tesco Clubcard
        ads where shoppers acquire a giant, rigid distorted leer, plus anything
        from Verisure – with woefully hamfisted scripts such as:

        Homeowner (opening door to chap in jacket with Verisure logo): Hi

        Chap: I’m Jack.

        Homeowner: Thanks for coming so quickly. Our neighbour was just burgled.

        Chap: Oh, that’s awful. No worries. We’re here to protect.

        Homeowner: You mean you can install today?

        Chap: Yes!

        And at the upper end, the Marc Jacobs Daisy Daisy Daisy comes in
        for some scorn – three waifs in white petticoats with daisy chains dance
        around in a field in a heightened state of ecstasy, sometimes holding
        hands in a ring o’ roses and at other times caressing an enormous bottle
        of perfume as if it’s a pagan totem. The buzz they get from sniffing a
        daisy suggests someone has sprayed the field with a new CIA chemical
        weapon. At the end, they grin inanely at the camera for far too long
        endlessly repeating “daisy daisy daisy daisy”, seemingly confirming the
        CIA theory.

        “The consumers don’t like them, and they don’t
        perform for the client,” says Rob Rhode, a former creative director
        turned copywriter. “Commercial art that is truly art – like the 1984
        Apple ad – how many people are capable of creating an ad like that? Less
        than one 10th of a percent. We are inundated with an
        unimaginable amount of crap. Go back to first principles, put the
        customer first, respect their intelligence and give them a reason to
        buy. Instead, we have lots of loud noises, silly gimmicks and gags. It’s
        cartoonish brazen rubbish and customers see through them.”

        The
        problem, according to Laurence Green, director of effectiveness at the
        Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, is that advertisers are
        having to adapt to an increasingly rapid change in media environment.

        Guinness’s ‘Surfer’ ad, directed by Jonathan Glazer in 1998

        “For 300 years print was the dominant advertising medium, then TV
        for the next 40 years, then internet search for 10 years, then social
        for three,” he explains. “How we consume has changed beyond belief.
        There are very few shared experiences these days. We don’t have those
        moments where 10 million watch – we don’t have the communal ties.
        Meanwhile, the likes of Google and TikTok lowered the barrier to entry
        so you can be an advertiser for £100.”

        There has been, he points
        out, value capture by the tech industry which is working directly with
        advertisers who have tiny budgets and usually no creative agency.
        Because so many tech giants are US-owned they expect advertising to
        operate in the hard sell advertising culture spawned in the US – which
        is all about aggressive direct selling. The data-driven, ad cookie world
        they’ve created has a knock-on effect all the way up major companies.

        “I’ve
        sat down recently with chief marketing officers who say that 10/15
        years ago their job was to get good copy on air,” he explains. “Now it’s
        to manage a 300 person marketing science team doing 360 marketing – the
        time they can give to great creative is limited.”

        The 1992 You’ve Been Tangoed ads

        Credit: Youtube

        Green was one of the founders of the ad agency Fallon, which
        achieved fame through its creative quirkiness and brand building success
        using ads such as the drumming gorilla for Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. The
        2007 ad was a full 90 seconds and simply showed a man in a gorilla suit
        air drumming to In the Air Tonight by
        Phil Collins. First, broadcast at the end of August, it had six million
        YouTube views by November and boosted Dairy Milk sales by almost 10 per
        cent.

        It came at the end of a glorious few decades in British
        advertising – 1984 saw Ridley Scott’s Apple ad and Levi’s Nick Kamen
        Heard it Through the Grapevine commercial which heralded an era
        including the Gold Blend Couple, You’ve Been Tangoed, Harry Enfield’s
        deranged Dime Bar/Armadillo campaign, Jonathan Glazer’s surfing horses
        for Guinness, Mel Sykes putting a flake in a pint of Boddingtons and the
        strangely moving Heinz ads featuring a long distance lorry driver and a
        Ladysmith Black Mambazo soundtrack hailing the hard work of a family
        man.

        These ads became national talking points and turned the
        creatives responsible into stars. And many of them, Rhodes believes,
        would struggle to get made today for more than budgetary reasons.

        “Wokeism
        is destroying the industry – ads are being used to push agendas and
        ideology,” he argues. “I think a lot of the CMOs don’t know what they
        want to see so when an agency comes and wows them they buy it. It’s
        social engineering over selling.”

        Green doesn’t buy this argument. He points out that the most
        talked about ads of recent years don’t fit any agenda beyond “not being
        dull.” He cites the crazed “raise your arches” McDonald’s ad, where an
        entire office communicates its hunger for a burger through oscillating
        eyebrows over arthouse music weirdos Yello’s Oh Yeah, the touching
        Cadbury father/daughter garage spot where a dad tries to cheer up his
        girl during a long night shift and the heartbreaking Last Smile campaign
        from the Campaign Against Living Miserably which featured beaming
        smiles on the last photos taken of people before they committed
        suicide.

        “We are walking our way back towards humour and brands,”
        he argues. “Google are beginning to roll back the use of cookies while
        GDPR concerns about privacy are kicking in after the wholly unregulated
        internet. You’re less likely to be chased around for a week by ads for
        something you’ve already bought or looked at once.”

        As we’ll
        likely be watching a lot more ads this year, wouldn’t it be better if
        there were more ads that might actually engage us? Green believes the
        fact that tech companies like Amazon and Netflix are selling ads will
        help improve their quality.

        “Amazon spends millions of dollar per
        episode on its shows and it won’t want tedious ads alienating viewers,”
        he argues. “We will be back to rewarding advertising that compliments
        content in the same way ITV used to. All the evidence shows that
        advertising that is interesting will save you money because people
        remember and love it. It’s like reality TV – the only thing that matters
        in casting is not being dull. I think this is the start of the
        counter-attack.”

        2. Google are only rolling back cookies because they have developed even more intrusive ways of monitoring us!

        3. Ads pass me by as I don’t watch them. If there’s something we want to watch OH usually records it so we can fast forward through the ads.

          1. I stopped watching anything on the commercial channels over a decade ago. If there is something i would like to see like that Chateau program on C4 i watch it on catch up.

            I have a way around to zap the adverts.

            When you start the program it detects adblock. Turn off adblock and refresh and start the program. When the program starts pause it and turn adblock back on again. It then plays without the adverts.

          3. My viewing is ‘restricted’ to on-demand services, mainly Amazon Prime. I enjoyed the ad-free viewing (other than the promotional material before the actual programme. Over the past few months, I’ve noticed a trend for films to be offered via Freevee, which inserts ad breaks into the films. So I ‘miss out’ on these films, happily I may add.

            Changes are afoot, as from next month Prime will include ad breaks in their tv shows, unless the viewer is willing to pay another £2.99 per month to avoid such intrusion. Looks like I’ll be reading more in future.

    4. I thought advertising was supposed to be aimed at people like me, so I aspire to some goal and buy the product to achieve it.
      Those actors don’t resemble people like me – standard monochrome, hetero, just a bit elderly … so I don’t connect but instead take the piss.
      ps: When does wokeism get to the Stannah Stairlift ads?

  9. Wordle 931 5/6

    Managed it in five today:

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

    1. My son suggested the correct answer for the third guess, but I thought I knew better!
      Wordle 931 4/6

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

    2. Par four for me.

      Wordle 931 4/6

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

  10. This is a racket that should have been snuffed out a decade ago

    Crackdown on ‘phantom’ net zero energy projects fails

    Queue for grid connection grows even longer after surge in speculative schemes

    Jonathan Leake
    4 January 2024 • 7:06pm
    *
    *
    **************************************

    Hugh Tredegar
    1 DAY AGO
    2021
    http://shet.news/gzlo6
    … a reality check for the deluded Greens is overdue?

    A small, ever-so-green, 100-megawatt wind farm needs 30,000 tons of iron ore; 50,000 tons of concrete and 900 tons of non-recyclable plastic.
    For the same power from an ever-so-green solar farm you need to increase that by 150 per cent.

    An electric car battery weighs half a ton, making just one requires shifting 250 tons of earth somewhere else on the planet.

    All require what are called ‘rare earths’, so a phenomenal 200 to 2,000 per cent increase in toxic mining, processing and shipping is required somewhere else on the planet, usually from unregulated regimes with very lax environmental standards.

    Solar and wind have weather-dependant limits, but we need energy ALL the time, so we have to have permanent back-up. The giant Tesla factory in Nevada would take 500 years to make enough batteries to supply the USA with electricity for 1 day!

    After 30 years and countless billions in subsidies wind and solar supply less than 3 per cent of the world’s energy. On top of that, like all machines ‘renewables’ are built from non-renewable materials – and have to be replaced time and time again, so definitely NOT a one-off cost.

    To accommodate 2,000 MW of gas or nuclear power generation requires the same area of two 18-hole golf courses. Whereas, accommodating 2,000 MW of wind power requires an area the size of Belgium!

    Then, of course, you still need 2,000 MW of gas or nuclear power to accommodate those hundreds of occasions each year when wind and solar power is producing absolutely nothing.

    Renewables will undoubtedly cause far more environmental damage to wildlife.
    Instead of ‘saving the planet’ rampaging renewables are actually devouring it!

    George Herraghty
    Moray

    1. Even if the quoted stats are overstated, the environmental damage caused is concerning!

    2. Morning, all Y’all.
      It’s 09:30. Temperature -19C. There’s sun, but very low, just about touching the hilltops. No wind. Water hasn’t fallen as liquid for quite a while now, so much so there are warnings about grass fires, it’s so dry (assuming grass is actually exposed to the air).
      The whole country runs on electricity – a few have oil heating – and solid fuel (mostly wood) to supplement. No gas mains or similar.
      Renewables don’t cut it.

    3. Plus the enormous subsidies we have to pay these wind/solar farmers, and even more insulting we have to pay to switch them off when it’s too windy!

  11. G’morning tootle monde,

    A grey dawn breaks over McPhee Towers but there will be sunny periods later, wind in the Nor’-Nor’-West and chilly at 4→5℃.

    Occasionally something crops up in our nation’s decline which just takes one’s breath away. This is it for me today.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bcade3f28dc6f22d9e3c65db0283c54b267b8666d6a3c4457f06d34c35bd943a.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/05/navy-advertises-on-linkedin-to-hire-nuclear-rear-admiral/

    This is for the controller of our small nuclear deterrent force, for heaven’s sake! What has been going on in the Royal Navy? Shouldn’t it have ensured that the succession to such an important position was clear by managing the careers of a small number of likely candidates who would have been identified while they were in more junior positions?

    I suspect the same failures have occurred in the RAF which currently has the first non-aircrew Chief of the Air Staff who is an engineer by trade. What next for CAS? A woman transsexual admin officer, of course.

    I think we have to face the fact that we have a government which lacks the will to defend the nation and armed forces which are so small that, pretty soon, they will be incapable of defending us if they aren’t already.

    1. They’ll get one of the gilded management class. Paula Vennells or Adam Crozier, for example. Wonderful, just wonderful.

  12. 381479+ up ticks.

    Morning Each,

    Saturday 6 January: Navy recruitment failures leave Britain vulnerable at a time of growing danger

    CRAP, The front door of these Isles has been open for decades by design via the governmental odious political overseers, and openly since the Dover daily intake was realised.

    The WEF oriented, with royal seal, current governing political body should have had a naval 24/7 patrolling the English Channel, made up of high speed confiscated inflatables.

    There is no safeguarding these Isles in any shape or form on the WEF / NWO agenda and seeing as the governing cartels are WEF assets , we are in dire danger, unless radical change takes a hand, via the polling stations.

      2. 381419+ up ticks,

        Morning FM,
        Polling stations ( being nice) first then I am in complete agreement with both you and Mr Kipling on the “beginning” old Rud didn’t only make good cakes.

  13. Baffling (to me, at least) headline from Daily Mail today:

    ‘Woman, 56, who was knifed to death in crashed Lexus before man, 18, was killed by a train moved into £2.5m mansion after splitting up from husband and ‘kept herself to herself’, neighbours reveal’

    1. I didn’t realise they used the random Daily Mail headline generator to produce actual headlines for the website!

        1. I know nothing about him other than his illness and the publicity from his wife. He appears to have suffered for a long time. Perhaps he can rest in peace now.

          1. He was a researcher – special advisor to Peter Mandelson. He was highly involved in ‘lobbygate’ and the smearing of Tory MPs.

        2. I had to look up who he was. He’s been used for such a lot of propaganda since he got ill.

    2. Now that I’ve read the article I suspect that the 18 year old had knifed the woman but was himself killed in making his escape. It’s unclear whether the knifing caused the car crash or happened shortly after. As for the headline, clarity would be improved if a comma or the word “had” had been inserted after “train”.

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12932369/Woman-knifed-death-Lexus-man-killed-train-village-mansion-shocked-neighbours.html

  14. It’s high time Adam Crozier accounted for his role in the Post Office scandal

    It’s right to wonder how former Royal Mail boss managed to avoid the spotlight

    BEN MARLOW ASSOCIATE EDITOR
    5 January 2024 • 10:00am

    It is years since the appalling truth about the Post Office submasters scandal began to emerge.

    Yet it is hardly a surprise that questions still continue to be asked about what is now confirmed as one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British history. An ongoing public inquiry led by Sir Wyn Williams is now the focus of the inquisition.

    Nor is it unusual, given the scale of the cover-up that allowed hundreds of innocent Post Office employees to be wrongfully convicted of fraud over a period of more than two decades, that some continue to see conspiracies.

    The premiere this week of ITV’s dramatisation of the scandal, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, has prompted viewers to ask about the omission of former Royal Mail chief Adam Crozier from the four-part drama.

    After all, the Post Office was part of the Royal Mail during his time in charge so was he left out because he went on to become the channel’s boss? He was also a director of ITV Studios, which produced the series.

    ‘Adam Crozier is conspicuous by his absence from Mr Bates V The Post Office. ITV censorship?’, asked one viewer on social media.

    ITV was quick to reject any suggestions of subterfuge.

    “Mr Bates vs The Post Office tells the story of the Post Office scandal from the perspective of a select group of former subpostmasters who formed the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance, led by Alan Bates. Alan’s campaign for justice only began to make headway when Paula Vennells was promoted to chief executive, so that’s the relationship we dramatise,” the channel protested.

    Nevertheless, it’s right to wonder how Crozier has managed to avoid the spotlight in relation to the scandal.

    The widespread criticism of Vennells is perfectly justified. She was in charge of the Post Office from 2012 to 2019 – part of the period in which more than 700 subpostmasters were prosecuted for theft, fraud and false accounting on the basis of flawed data from its disastrous Horizon computer system.

    And it was during this spell that the truth came to light largely as a result of Bates’ brave campaigning.

    Postal minister Kevin Hollinrake has said Vennells “ultimately [had] responsibility for what happened” for the simple reason that she was in charge, which is undeniable. Calls, including from Bates, for Vennells to surrender her CBE seem fair too given the immense suffering that was caused.

    The idea that someone who oversaw such a disgraceful episode could retain such an honour is absurd.

    Some people wrongfully went to prison. Many others lost their homes and life savings trying to repay money wrongly thought missing. Four people took their own lives and as many as 60 died before they could get justice.

    Yet, Hollinrake’s assessment is also a somewhat selective view of events given that the prosecutions pre-date her reign by many years, and there is a risk that in the clamour for someone to take the fall, that the role of other senior executives is overlooked.

    Surely Crozier should face the same scrutiny? He may not have been a director of the Post Office, nor the person who implemented the doomed Horizon programme but he was chief executive of Royal Mail between 2003 and 2010 when the Post Office was still a part of the Royal Mail.

    He may claim he was focused on turning around the parent and left matters such as the hounding of innocent sub-postmasters to underlings. If so, let’s hear it.

    True, the spree of unjust private prosecutions was well underway when Crozier arrived. In the same way that Vennells was responsible for the prosecutions that took place on her watch, doesn’t the same apply to Crozier?

    Hollinrake himself has stated that the resultant public inquiry “should identify who is responsible”, so why has there been so little, if any, focus on Crozier’s role?

    Vennells, albeit under immense pressure, has at least had the good grace to apologise – and repeatedly too. “I remain truly sorry for the suffering caused to wrongly prosecuted subpostmasters and their families,” the 69 year-old said last summer.

    Crozier has managed to remain silent on the matter, a position helped in no small part by the fact that the inquiry has not thus far called him to give evidence.

    Even former employees who have had to testify have pointed out the glaring discrepancy, with one telling the inquiry last year: “He should be here answering questions”.

    Crozier’s failure to come forward is particularly untenable for someone who has forged a reputation as the FTSE’s “Mr Fix-it” despite the fact that it didn’t take long for things to go backwards at Royal Mail, ITV, and Asos, once he’d departed.

    Perhaps he has his head down again given the long list of problems and languishing share price that continue to plague BT, where he has been chair since 2021.

    Or is it his strange aversion to the publicity that goes with high profile jobs that has stopped him speaking out? The Scot told the Guardian in 2007: “I hate it, absolutely hate it. I will go to enormous lengths not to do public things – because it is just not me.”

    Contacted for this column, BT says it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to comment because of the ongoing inquiry, which is a cop-out of enormous proportions.

    With Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey claiming this week that he was “deeply misled” by Post Office bosses on the Horizon scandal while serving as the postal affairs minister between 2010 and 2012, immediately after Crozier’s departure, there are still serious questions about the conduct of senior executives during this bleak period.

    Friends of Crozier add that he stands ready to help the inquiry in any way he can, as and when requested.

    It is time one of Britain’s leading business figures and chairman of two FTSE 100 companies made himself publicly accountable for his role in the Post Office scandal.

    The first words out of his mouth should be an apology to its victims.

    1. I think there has been a systematic computer robbery , and someone has had access to the mainframe , and is now probably smugly living the life in Dubai or somewhere like that .

      I also believe Britain is being drained dry, the PPE scam is an example ,

      1. Something that continually bothers me is what happened to the civil servant responsible for giving Mone the cash?

        Have they faced any penalty? After all, it’s their job to vet the company. I imagine they didn’t bother, as their boss said don’t bother, ad their boss’ boss said don’t bother because the minister – Sunak – said don’t bother because he was too busy knifing his boss to get the job no one elected him for.

        Why does no one ask ‘hang on. What about the bloke who handed the money over?’

        Horizon is interesting to me from a technical view in that no one considered the software might be buggy. No one thought ‘let’s test the issue, verify the bug, look at the code.’ It was simply blamed on the users. The only reason I can think that happened is because of an almighty management failure to investigate, appalling project operation and deliberate transference of blame.

    2. Te state closes ranks to protect their own. They simply do not care what the costs are. They cause ruin then move on, safe that the other incompetent, mendacious, spiteful corrupt fools around them will protect them – as they protect others.

      It is only when you stand against the state that it fights you.

  15. Good morning all.
    Still getting light, dry, very light winds and the not quite Old Moon is clear in the sky.

    1. What the hell was that? Big, brash and immodest, just like the man himself. If I were American, I’d not bother voting if he and the senile Biden were once again the two main players on offer.

      1. 381419+ up ticks

        Morning DW,

        If only England’s politico’s suffered only from being big, brash and immodest instead of being more of the treacherous ilk, we the decent peoples would be on a winner.

      2. I see it as a carefully calculated production designed to rouse a patriotic spirit in potential Trump voters (who are not all knuckle-dragging morons as the left wing media would have you believe).
        There were too many quickly flashing references for my liking, but then I am the worst person in the world at following video cues. I can’t even follow the plots of movies. However, young people are used to following video instead of reading, and Americans probably recognise most of the faces – I think a lot of them were Democrats who have been involved in scandals.
        What raised my eyebrows were the open references to the Kennedy assassination and the WEF. The stakes have been raised, and if Schwab and Gates can’t see that they are being set up as the fall guys at this point, more fool them!

        1. I recoil from productions such as that but there is clearly an audience for it, probably of the kind that bellows “USA, USA, USA” at sporting events and political rallies.

        1. In which case I’d pick one of those candidates who always come a very distant third or worse. It wouldn’t matter which as none ever come remotely close to securing any votes from those elected to the Electoral College.

    2. How is he going to prevent the votes being falsified. 82 million people did not vote for sleepy Joe. If they can do it once and get away with it, they can do it again and again.

      1. I don’t know Sue. Cynical people think that Trump is on board – there are certainly boundaries beyond which he won’t or can’t go.
        The vote-rigging last time was so blatant and yet so well covered up by the entire media that I don’t see they can have an exact re-run of last time. Even the dimmest might start asking questions.
        If I were running the election this time with the goal of getting a compliant Presidency, I’d probably run a powerful, anti-establishment independent figure to split the Trump vote in a credible way. Ramaswamy is such a candidate in the Republican party, not sure about RFK Jr. If I wanted to own this election, I’d make sure I owned Kennedy too.
        In that scenario, it doesn’t matter to what extent Trump is on board with the agenda or not, because you’re going to win all ways. They only have to provide a credible reason why Trump lost.

        1. IMHO Ramaswamy is the only other viable alternative (albeit a distant second to Trump). There’s a video from an interview on NBC last week where he calmly demolishes the ‘interviewer’ (a clone of any of the scripted muppets currently infesting the bBC/Sky/ITV news rooms) as she attempts to call him out over such nonsense as white ‘privelege’.

          Meanwhile, the GOP machine is attempting to undermine Trump by foisting Nikki Haley on him as a running mate, much as they nobbled his time in office with Mike Pence, who cut and run when the heat was on.

          Whoever gets the nomination, I’m not convinced Biden can remain hidden in his basement until next November, as his litany of failure is shown to the American voters. Though I am sure a compliant media will do all they can to stifle such publicity.

          1. VR is good, but he’s a shill apparently. Made a lot of money in a very short time and then popped up as the “people’s candidate” for the Presidency.

      2. “It’s not the voters who decide anything, it’s the man that counts the votes who decides everything!” (c) Joe Stalin, IIRC.

  18. 381419+ up ticks,

    Post brexit a victory for the peoples, right up until the peoples returned to supporting / voting once again for the pro eu coalition lab/lib/con party, abandoning the party that initially .gave them the victory.

    The downhill trend started as soon as victory was announced
    and with no opposition in place ( via a fools mindset as in “no need of UKIP now”) the coalition never looked back in regards to constructing with some success the ” road to RESET”

    Britain grants asylum to greater percentage of migrants than most of Europe
    Application approvals have doubled since Brexit, hitting high of 75.1 per cent in year ending September 2023

    We now cannot surely be beaten world wide at rod making, English rods are found to be best regarding English backs.

    Conclusion, we are our own worst enemies.

    Britain grants asylum to greater percentage of migrants than most of Europe
    Application approvals have doubled since Brexit, hitting high of 75.1 per cent in year ending September 2023

    1. Hang on. In the first paragrpahs you state that the political class set against hindering Brexit, then you argue that it’s our own fault.

      Which is it? We have no say over these creatures. When Soubry and her wonks were going to the EU to undermine our own negotiations we couldn’t stop them. We couldn’t even make them pay their own bills.

      When parliament voted against ‘no deal’ we had no choice. It was forced on us. Suggesting the public are to blame is unfair. The UK is NOT a democracy. We do not get a choice in our government’s decisions. It lies habitually. That’s why voting numbers have been collapsing. It is why Boris won the majority he did. Not because they wanted Boris, but because they were sick of the politicking, infighting and arguing to overturn the referendum attempted out by the entire establishment.

      Blame lies with the refusal of the state to be constrained by the basics of democracy. They hate it. That’s why voting is pointless. Not because of political parties but because whoever you vote for, the state wins. Nothing changes except for the worse because that is what the edifice wants. The voting process is akin to spitting on a 10 mile hile, 50 mile deep edifice of granite.

      1. Ogga’s complaint is that, despite repeated “betrayals”, people still do/did not vote in their millions for parties such as Reform, Reclaim, Heritage, Gerard Batten’s UKIP.

        1. This is because they vote reflexively. Few people vote for rational reasons. Hell, some people voted for Cameron because they liked his hair.

          This is why universal franchise should be revoked.

          1. I fear the means by which it would be determined who is fit/not fit to vote. Would we all have to be subject to a test of our rationalism? Would inclusion/exclusion be permanent or would everybody be reassessed at intervals or before elections?

          2. In my view far simpler. Are you, or have you been a net tax payer. You could argue that providing social good is of value but I’d just keep it to those who actually pay for society.

          3. Would “net tax payer” exclude state employees? After all, they receive more from tax revenues than they contribute towards them. Even more complications arise if you were to try including indirect taxes in the calculation of who is a “net tax payer”.

          4. I agree it’s a hopeless calculation, but I think yes, it would have to – after all, the public sector is a Labour stronghold that happily consumes more and more taxes.

            And I’d go solelyfor direct income tax.

            It’s a dredaful way to return value. I know many people who clear hedgerows of litter, who clear the drains near them with jet washers, who mow grass for elderly neighbours. I’m saying they’ve no value when, in reality they’re what makes the nation great.

            But: the nation doesn’t work. Too many people who take continually contribute nothing. Worse, they actively make the world worse for those who are forced to pay for them.

        2. This is because they vote reflexively. Few people vote for rational reasons. Hell, some people voted for Cameron because they liked his hair.

          This is why universal franchise should be revoked.

      2. Hang on. In the first paragraphs you state that the political class set against hindering Brexit, then you argue that it’s our own fault.

        Hang on,
        Correct,
        They were pre / post referendum,
        eu asset parties , as a one off the peoples gave the eu asset parties lab/lib/con a kicking then quickly reverted back to supporting them, “they” being still in eu asset mode.

        The peoples are still up for playing musical chairs type voting, with three chairs three parties, when the music stops / starts there are still three parties, three chairs.

        1. 381419+ up ticks,

          O2O,
          May one ask,
          If voting is of such a useless nature in by-elections / General Elections, it still finds favour with the majority of peoples ?

          2. 38141 up ticks,

            DW,

            Very droll,

            My honest belief is a misguided faith in the party name earns the kiss of consent X ,regardless of odious recent or past pedigree.

          3. Or, perhaps, because of “odious recent or past pedigree”. Some people actually want these parties do.

  19. Good morning everyone.
    I wasn’t able to see beyond the first part of the article, but that snippet alone was enough to raise the blood pressure. The whole asylum system is anti-British, anti-safety/security and completely open to fraud.
    We need, as a matter of urgency and survival, to leave these dangerous, interfering organisations, including the WHO, which continually go against the democratic rights of normal people and our supposedly sovereign state.
    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-european-court-has-become-positively-immoral/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=BOCH%20%2020240106%20%20House%20Ads%20%20HT+CID_2a62a93fde1c8b8991e52d7d943707d2

    1. Interesting to read/hear on a number of USA websites that the southern border invasion is being used to bring in a large number of young men of fighting age. Now where have we heard that before?
      Steve Bannon often refers to the numbers being imported in terms of combat divisions. Little wonder that the likes of Biden want to confiscate the people’s guns.

      2. Ah but, yeah but, they’re all fleeing from war zones/risk of torture etc, such danger that they leave behind their mothers/sisters/wives/children and can go back on holiday once they have gained rights to remain in the civilised world.

  21. Earlier in the week we had a story about the Met trawling to find evidence of crimes in Gaza (though quite how this fits their jurisdiction is not clear to me). Now there are calls for the Met to look into Epstein’s alleged crimes. Again, what business is this of UK Plod? Don’t they have better things to do, like fight crime going on now, in London?

    It’s like all these Woke (mainly) women who run companies these days. Implementing DIE carp is infinitely easier than actually getting on with the job they are paid to do.

    1. There will be some lovely, all expenses paid, holidays to be had chasing down Epstein.

      Gaza less so, but once Israel has cleared it the area might be safe enough for a few holidays in that region too.

      1. TBF, to Met Plod, the annual Madeline McCann Golf Tournament in Portugal must be getting a little old hat by now. I suppose the non-policing heads of sheds must have similar thoughts as our politicians/bureaucrats, that if their efforts are failing at home, get involved in a foreign squirrel.

    2. Rather like the Madeline McCann story. So many “leads” have popped up over the years that another group of officers has to be sent to investigate. I’d love to know what connections the McCanns have.

      1. Our elder son was talking about that case last night.
        He has children the same age as the McCann offspring and his family had used Warners hotels for their child care facilities.
        Apparently for €10 euros, child minders who patrolled the floors and checked on bedrooms, could have been hired (not that much even in 2007).
        I hadn’t realised that a public road ran between the apartments and the area where the parents of the several families involved were dining.
        Putting aside the awful event, imagine if one of the children had woken and sleepily toddled across an open road.

      2. Well it seems they know the German guy was the culprit, but proving it seems to be another matter.

  22. Opinions vary over the years. When I was born the worst weather ever brought the country to a halt post-World War 2 … Snow and floods. I remember my parents worrying about the weather so much, that we were carted off to Africa to live. Rumours from the weather wallahs were that a minor ice age would ruin temperate countries. I enjoy wading through this link https://premium.weatherweb.net/weather-in-history-1650…/ thank goodness for diarists! 🦉

      2. We are. It’s only a matter of time. The current interglacial period, the Holocene, in which human civilisation has arisen and flourished, is already 11,000 years old. So far in the Pleistocene Ice Age which we are still in and which began, I think, about 2.7 million years ago ( I’ll have to check that) there have been about 44 cycles of glacial period/warm interglacial period. There is no reason to think this will not continue. Look up Milankovitch cycles and ice ages. Of course it won’t bother us but there is every chance that in 3,000 years or so much of the Northern Hemisphere will be under a mile of ice once more.

    1. Brand spanking new, too (first flight was less than three months ago): theres comforting, not even having the excuse of “service fatigue” available as an explanation. Are Boeing operating as a British Leyland tribute act ?

      2. Belove Boeing changed their fabrication model with the /(/ – much outsourcing of aeroplane modules with concurrent detachment from the quality model, leading to all kinds of 787 issues, carried over to 737 MAX models.
        How is it that subcontractors can build a part of a plane cheaper than Boeing, remind me… oh, yes, by being more specialised and so effective, or by cutting out work.

    2. Brand spanking new, too (first flight was less than three months ago): theres comforting, not even having the excuse of “service fatigue” available as an explanation. Are Boeing operating as a British Leyland tribute act ?

  25. Good morning, all. Very late on parade. Bad night – then overslept. Sunny, dryish and breezy outdoors.

    1. Morning Bill, Ditto but we had more bloody rain overnight. I am going to have to get a canoe to shopping, We are surrounded by flooded roads.

      1. Good morning. And a Happy New Year.

        Although the ground is wet – I think we are very lucky in this part of the country.

  26. Morning all 🙂😊
    The Usual out side.
    Looking forward to our grandson playing football for his village team this morning.
    Astro Turf. Much better for little lads than all that horrid mud.
    Headline emphasis yet another mess our government and their colleagues in Whitehall have made.
    Is there any end to all this ? It reminds me of an old saying. “Forgive them lord for they know not what they are doing”. But as it seems that they do know,
    then why exactly are they doing it ?

  27. Avro Lancaster B Mark III, ED724 ‘PM-M’, of No. 103 Squadron RAF pauses on the flarepath at Elsham Wolds, Lincolnshire, before taking off for a raid on Duisburg, Germany, during the Battle of the Ruhr, 26th March 1943. Three searchlights (called ‘Sandra’ lights) form a cone to indicate the height of the cloud base for the departing aircraft.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0c459bd2cc1beb1a31666dd24ad7bf5e1f8962fd8a9e94a84a10f16e7bac8536.jpg

          1. I love the energy of his paintings, but have to admit I like his name even more (no, not the Eric bit…) It conjures up such visions! Were I to tell you I was invited to a dinner party tonight given by an ancient and utterly ravilious Greek lawyer, I suspect you’d know exactly how much I shall enjoy it!! 🤣🤣

          7. Snap. I find them very moving.
            I have never forgotten the exhibition of his works at the Dulwich Gallery some years ago.

    2. They used to have just one light at Liverpool Airport (Speke) which shone vertically and they just measured the angle where it hit the cloudbase.

  28. The Daily Mail has its usual sycophantic article about Kate’s upcoming birthday.
    I read the following with horror
    “In the early part of the year the Princess will make public the work of her ‘business task force’ which has been investigating the role industry can play in child development.

    And, to be fair, it’s to her immense credit that she has already attracted the involvement of some huge businesses – Lego, IKEA, NatWest, Unilever, Avila, Deloitte, Co-op and Iceland – just months into the project.”

    How about no role for industry in child development?
    Big business involved in the care and education of toddlers – NO, no and no again. How about women staying at home for their pre-schoolers, who should be educated by their PARENTS? Parents in the vast majority of cases have their own children’s interests far more at heart than some conglomerate of corporations. They always drag out an example of an abusive parent to justify this kind of thing, but it’s just the latest reach of the predator class into the family.

    2. All part of the state takeover off parents’ role. The state wants to own our children to do with as they will.

    4. I wonder if she will return all the bribes/gifts they send her…I bet she keeps the Lego.

    5. How about men interrupting their careers and staying home to look after their pre-schoolers?

  30. Biden warns US democracy could fall if Trump returns to White House. 6 January 2024.

    Joe Biden has warned that American democracy could fall if Donald Trump wins a second term in this year’s presidential election.

    In a campaign speech to mark the third anniversary of the Capitol riots on Saturday, Mr Biden has accused his leading Republican opponent of embracing “political violence” and warned voters: “Your freedom is on the ballot.”

    The speech – Mr Biden’s first campaign event of the year – gave examples of Mr Trump’s links to the “mob” that stormed the Capitol in January 2021 and his plans for a second term in the White House.

    Lol! Democracy is already dead in the US courtesy of the Democrats!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2024/01/05/joe-biden-warns-democracy-could-fall-donald-trump-election/

    1. Attempting to bar the presidential candidate who will hand you your arse in a sling come November (the fraudsters will have to really up their game if they want to change the result and make it appear legitimate) doesn’t exactly sound democratic. Mind you, Bidenomics doesn’t sound or, for that matter work, as a basis for running a country sensibly. Now, running a country into the ground…

      Bidenocracy: a contradiction in terms.

    2. Not to mention the thousands of dung beetles in Wastemonster Whitehall and the Lords.

    3. Thanks for that, Annie. I’m glad to hear that you and your Bill are slowly returning to the life of the living. Having watched the trailer you posted of MR BROWN vs THE POST OFFICE, I am pleased that this is an ITV production, so will try to watch it on catch-up. But the trailer is advertised as “the greatest miscarriage of justice in history”. No – that is the scandal of the Covid-19 jabs. I guess we will have to wait until ITV or the BBC produces a similar documentary-drama on Covid-19 jabs for the general public to wake up and see the truth.

      1. When it comes to scandals and bullying by over-mighty corporations, we are spoilt for choice.
        Shame I left the tumbril in the garage at Allan Towers.

      1. Thanks for the cue to post this!

        Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
        It isn’t fit for humans now,
        There isn’t grass to graze a cow.
        Swarm over, Death!

        Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
        Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
        Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
        Tinned minds, tinned breath.

        Mess up the mess they call a town-
        A house for ninety-seven down
        And once a week a half a crown
        For twenty years.

        And get that man with double chin
        Who’ll always cheat and always win,
        Who washes his repulsive skin
        In women’s tears:

        And smash his desk of polished oak
        And smash his hands so used to stroke
        And stop his boring dirty joke
        And make him yell.

        But spare the bald young clerks who add
        The profits of the stinking cad;
        It’s not their fault that they are mad,
        They’ve tasted Hell.

        It’s not their fault they do not know
        The birdsong from the radio,
        It’s not their fault they often go
        To Maidenhead

        And talk of sport and makes of cars
        In various bogus-Tudor bars
        And daren’t look up and see the stars
        But belch instead.

        In labour-saving homes, with care
        Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
        And dry it in synthetic air
        And paint their nails.

        Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
        To get it ready for the plough.
        The cabbages are coming now;
        The earth exhales.

    5. Glad you’re coming out of it too. I had a bit of a night sweat last night and now my cough has disappeared.

  32. Well, we have had an Epiphany. All the decorations have been taken down. Cats mystified – though like exploring the boxes in which baubles are kept!

    1. Decorations remain up until Jan 13, St Knut’s day (Tjugondedag jul) in Sweden. In some countries they remain up until Candlemas (Feb 2).

      1. Ours are foliage cut from the garden. Already drying out and dropping leaves and needles! Best to follow English practice and clear the living rooms!

        1. clear the living rooms!

          Bill, please leave the furniture and electronics where they are

    2. All ready done all back in the loft. Just in case we need them again 😉 you never know.

      1. Decorations down, but an awful lot of sorting and sifting to do.
        Boxes vaguely labelled “Xmas Decs” need a thorough purge.
        We wimped out and transferred the boxes from the attic at Allan Towers to the attic in The Dower House.
        Now comes the reckoning.

        3. I know, I found a great big box that from the writing on the box contains yet another forgotten man made tree.
          Some other time……

    3. Our tree was de-decorated last night and Grad. Son has just helped me get it up the “garden”.

  33. We’ve Just come home from watching number one grandson playing in his local football game.
    Result 6-5 and he was presented ‘man’ of the match trophy. 8 years old. No faking injuries, no diving, no rolling around, no wreckless tackles, shirt pulling, etc etc. No money involved.
    Just Good fun.

    2. Brings back happy memories of watching our grandson when he was that age.
      Now aged 20 he plays in friendlies at university.

  34. As i was bedridden over Christmas and missed out i decided to have a blow out today as i’m feeling a lot better Half an Epoises and a large wedge of Stilton. A few biscuits, chutney and some plain crisps. A glass of hock and…..a large Taylors which Harry Kobeans gave me in the Summer.

    No…no… i don’t need any help thanks… :@)

    1. We’re all in the queue outside now.
      Good your feeling better Phiz it’s a horrible feeling….

        1. But you forced yourself and now you’re feeling better.

          It gives hope to us all, well done.

      1. Pretty much over it now thanks Alf. Just in time for the next hospital visit. Colonoscopy this time. They obviously find me an interesting specimen seeing as they want to see me so often.

        1. Had numerous colonoscopies over the last 25 years and recently had something much nastier, a flexible cystoscopy. Eye watering, painful for weeks after and a UTI. Over it all now thankfully.

        1. Delighted to hear that you’re feeling a lot better, Phizzee! Enjoy your delayed celebrations! 🎄🥂🎅🏼💕

    5. I thought it has been quiet around here lately!! Happy to see you back on form with your ready wit!!

    1. When the truth finally escapes its easy to see how justifiable it was to refuse.
      It seems it was all clearly a media cover-up.

  36. The Claudine Gay affair reminds me that we need a reckoning on how the “intersectionality” project is going.
    The idea was that after centuries of being kept down by racism and sexism — although that didn’t seem to hurt accomplished black women like Barbara Jordan, Condi Rice, Jessye Norman, Zora Neale Hurston and on and on — black women would finally be given a fair shot. Think of all that untapped talent!
    But so far, intersectionality has mostly placed a lot of black women in high-profile jobs far beyond their abilities.

    I think we’re all on board with the idea that one shouldn’t be denied a job because of his race or sex.
    What we’re learning the hard way is that no one should be given a job for these characteristics, either.

    https://www.takimag.com/article/black-women-in-charge/

    https://www.takimag.com/article/black-women-in-charge/

  37. Politicians are often takers.
    They take our money (and freedom) in the name of achieving goals they rarely achieve.
    Elon Musk and Sen. Elizabeth Warren may be the best examples of maker and taker.

    Warren shouts, “Tax the rich!”

    She especially wants to tax Musk, the richest man in the world.
    In her eagerness to grab his money, she spun a scandal in the media, claiming Musk paid no taxes. She went on TV again and again to tell people that in 2018, “He paid zero!”
    It was true. In 2018, Musk paid no federal income tax. But that was only because his pay was entirely in the form of “stock options,” and that year, they gave him no income.
    But at the very moment Warren launched her “zero-tax” screed, Musk was paying the U.S. government $12 billion — more tax than anyone has ever paid in history.
    Warren didn’t mention that.
    “Our world needs fewer Elizabeth Warrens and more Elon Musks.”

    https://www.takimag.com/article/are-you-a-maker-or-a-taker/

    1. Politicians like to be on top of everything they become involved in.
      The word scum is quite appropriate.
      They produce absolutely nothing of benefit to those who ‘club together’ (are taxed) to support their evil ways.

  38. “When a decompression happens, it is imperative that everyone on board
    gets an oxygen mask on. The risk of developing hypoxia happens quite
    quickly, which stops people from thinking logically,” said Prof
    Braithwaite.

    Parliament needs some of they masks.

    1. I am perfectly certain that I would not have been thinking logically if I had been in the seat next to the door…

        1. It seems that the blow-out occurred shortly after take-off. Passengers were still wearing seat belts and I imagine the aircraft was well below cruising altitude.

          https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-safety-board-investigating-alaska-airlines-boeing-737-max-9-emergency-landing-2024-01-06/

          Nonetheless, any passengers seated near the hole who were not wearing seat belts would, indeed, have been sucked out of the aircraft. A boy’s shirt was torn from his body.

          https://news.sky.com/story/could-boeing-737-max-be-grounded-again-after-mid-air-window-blowout-13043080

        2. Maybe the person in that seat had their seatbelt on?
          Note to self; if next to door or window, keep seatbelt on for entire flight.

  39. ‘Afternoon All

    Nicked comment

    Former sub-postmaster (mistress?) Jo Hamilton from Hampshire who was one

    of the victims of the Post Office scandal says ‘It’s not just a

    computer problem – this is absolute corruption at its worst,

    state-sponsored corruption.’ She is pressing for criminal prosecution,

    pointing out very reasonably that crimes were committed. She’s dead

    right, state-sponsored corruption in every walk of public life is what

    we have now, we must be nearing the bottom of the barrel.

    Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e133bc3ac11279b3d177232a74a8f03eaa74212c6dec9509de5ead332c099204.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fcb4c5a9aa992fd80d59079c1b2022838dc4f53cca26aa6c3678a513a2373f70.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fde9b42257a5deade8bcd279490d3b0e57326edb4a6659e423e449a9f863bc94.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1d92b4106abd4629cdb96fadbf5302cfba34c6c3a65098bb1db57f650aced8e5.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4e15606c228cefe52349005f250a66516685a3842f4c377dba751dd3cfa63bd9.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3ab1290f05aee12a5a8792d895ce7a5b3e65a06a8eedb351fe1ffa55a49828ef.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1ae97f5e9d428ab1ae868d3cc396a23ebf95e74ce1bd91ca77915b56d1f5203d.jpg

    1. A man of truly surpassing evil. The lower left picture betrays something of what is inside!

  42. Hezbollah claims 62 rockets fired at Israeli post – as key shipping route remains under threat. 6 January 2023.

    Hezbollah claims it has fired 62 rockets at a key Israeli observation post as a “preliminary response” to the assassination of Hamas’s deputy leader this week.

    As tensions grow in the Middle East amid Israel’s war in Gaza, fears of the conflict spreading to more Western commercial ships also remain – with Iran warning of an “all-out battle with the enemy”.

    Ramping up nicely. Time to buy your iodine tablets!

    https://news.sky.com/story/israel-gaza-war-hezbollah-claims-62-rockets-fired-at-israeli-post-as-key-shipping-route-remains-under-threat-13042973

    1. The autopilots used in the small seaborn drones could easily be adapted to run much bigger ships.

      Imagine the damage that a drone the size of a tanker packed with explosives aimed at one of

      the ports in the Arabian Gulf.

      ………..or the Thames Estuary.

      Just imagine.

      Because your Government won’t.

      1. Perhaps that is what Iran has in mind for the straits of Gibraltar. Then the same in Suez.

    3. For blood pressure?
      But how long is it going to take our media to start telling the truth. It’s pretty obvious that several if not all of the middle Eastern countries have been behind hamas for decades.
      Israel needs to be backed up and heavily supported by the West. We have already succumbed to certain aspects of islam. Certain aspects of kindness have been seen as weakness to be taken advantage of.
      Hence the position we are now in.
      How much further are we all expected to roll over to their adgenda of hate and destruction.

        1. I’ve mentioned this before, my father spent sometime in Algeria and Egypt when he was in the RAF and stationed there in WW2.
          From his personal experience. He said to me many times, “Never trust an Arab son”.

          2. I have worked with Egyptian “engineers” and may may appear friendly and hospitable but would stab you in the back as soon as look at you.

          3. We went to Cairo on our journey to Oz, manage to get separated from our group in the Ciaro museum spent too long a sanding next to Tutt.
            We asked some one where the exit was and he wanted a friggin tip.
            I told him to get stuffed. We found our own way out.

      1. 381419+ up ticks,

        Afternoon RE,

        They are still very much in daily evidence, only minus the partitioning walls.

    2. On using formula milk…”My baby is still getting the nutrition that they need”

      ‘THEY need’, not ‘she needs’ or ‘he needs’?

      Only a week old and already damned. Pity the poor baby, then child growing up

  44. Dog’s sit-down protest on Scafell Pike forces mountain rescue to save the day. 6 January 2024.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/284fc88ef6cab4fe22a07358ca60c2c7a24a7f0965654d02083322949aaa1957.jpg

    The dog sat down and refused all attempts to coax him into carrying on with the walk.

    As darkness started to descend and with the walkers failing to check in with loved-ones, family members had no option but to call in mountain rescuers, who trekked up the 978M (3208ft) peak at 11.30pm on Tuesday.

    As the rescuers approached they were able to locate the stricken climbers because Dexter began to bark and howl when he heard their approach.

    But when no amount of coaxing, pushing and pulling could persuade him to leave his perch, the eight members of the rescue team were forced to camp out on the mountain with the dog and its owners and hope for better luck at daybreak.

    Ah! The England that I loved and that is now vanishing into history.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/05/mountain-rescuers-called-out-to-40-kg-dogs-sit-down-prote/?li_source=LI&li_medium=for_you

      1. The dog weighs 6st and might be unwieldy and tiring to carry over a rough-terrain descent, even if shared by two.

          1. I still think that would be difficult over rough terrain. What might have worked would have been to continue the descent without it. I suspect it would have followed of its own accord as the party of climbers began to disappear into the distance.

          2. Reminds me of

            What do you call a dog with no legs?
            Woodbine because you can take it out for a drag.

            Can you still get Woodbines?

          9. Gosh – I remember when the NAAFI van lady sold them at 1d each. One could buy a packet of 20 for 1/11d

        1. Good afternoon. I haven’t read the article but someone should have taken responsibility.

          2. The dog has ascended several other peaks without trouble. Why it refused to continue on this one is a puzzle.

      5. You simply can’t. If they don’t want to move you either wait them out or… just wait. If Mongo decides he doesn’t want to move he simply can’t be. He doens’t know he’s the same weight as your average car. He’s just decided to stop.

        I’ve tried pulling him and he’ll dig in to th epoint of hurting himself. If I go to lift him he’ll struggle and wriggle and a massive dog makes a lot of fuss.

        Then fundamentally you’ve got something with sharp teeth that doesn’t want to move. No matter how well trained there’s a reason for the stoppage.

        1. I understand there being a reason for the stoppage. The dog could probably sense trouble ahead.

          2. Doesn’t have to be. Newfies sometimes just decide they don’t want to. They will simply stop. In that way they’re a lot like teenagers.

    2. Half open a tin of dog food. Waft it in front of dog. Then walk slowly away.. Dog will follow.

          3. Billy Wells. There is a very famous Rank film starring Norman Wisdom, where at the beginning of the credit Norman appears dressed as the bombardier, wallops the gong, and a crack appears in the gong and a piece of the gong falls to the floor. (obviously a stunt with a plaster gong). If anyone can find the clip and post it on here I would be very grateful.

    1. We have been promised a spell of drier but colder weather. It seems as if that wet front is reluctant to drift into the North Sea.

      1. Been dry here today and reasonably bright. Was 6 – 7 C according to the car when I went out this morning but I didn’t take a coat.

    3. Recently back from a 4 mile walk along the canal from Dundas Wharf to Avoncliff. Had hoped to take tea in the Cafe at Avoncliff but it is closed until mid-February. Never mind the pub, ‘The Cross Guns’ opposite will be open to slake one’s thirst with a pint of Apple juice (ABV 5%). Bugger! Notice on door: “Closed due to flooding” What? The pub is at least 50 feet above the river!!! Cross? I was livid (and thirsty)!

    4. After our long cross country trek yesterday, my legs are aching so much I had to get a lift back up the hill after watching this mornings football.

  46. 381419+ up ticks,

    breitbart,

    Tanks for Nothing: Majority of German Leopard 2 Tanks Not Working in Ukraine

    Courtesy of the lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled / controlled
    immigration coalition party, regarding a large portion of the underworlds foreign population, we are suffering the same in England.

  47. Have you noticed that no one – apparently – gets ‘flu any more? Always “covid”.

          1. Isn’t that the name of the waiter at your local Italian bistro, Bill?
            “Hei-a, I’m-a Lurgi, welcome-a to dinner. Tavolo for-a two-a?”
            😉

  48. MoD spends millions on ‘dirty tricks’ campaign to deny support to wounded veterans. Unease over ‘disgraceful’ use of expensive private eyes to track suspected fraudulent claims by ex-soldiers.

    In 2021/22, defence chiefs paid out £135 million in compensation.

    Two observations – defence chiefs did not pay out £135 million in compensation, the taxpayer did. Second, why shouldn’t the MoD make efforts to detect fraudulent claims? What would be useful would be some metrics – how much was saved versus the costs of the surveillance and was the cost less than the savings?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/06/soldiers-fraud-claims-mod-private-investigators-lawyers-com/

  49. There are some real berks in and around UK politics…

    Good riddance to Chris Skidmore – China’s useful idiot

    While he burdened the UK with his net zero nonsense, Beijing used coal energy to power ahead

    ROSS CLARK 6 January 2024 • 12:16pm

    The future, according to Chris Skidmore as he announced his resignation as an MP on Friday, “will judge harshly” anyone who supports the government’s Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill. Sorry, but it will be even more severe on Skidmore, as the man who committed Britain to economic suicide and failed miserably to inspire the rest of the world to do the same.

    It was Skidmore, lest we forget, who drove the 2050 net zero target through the House of Commons in 2019 – without, it now seems, the faintest idea of how it was going to be achieved. All he did appear to know was that it was going to stimulate a huge economic boom for Britain.

    In Skidmore’s fantasy world, the net zero target is going to create 480,000 green jobs by 2030 and boost the economy by £1 trillion – figures he trotted out in his review of his own policy commissioned by Liz Truss. Presumably, if it means homeowners having to pay many thousands for heat pumps and motorists being priced off the road, well that is just tough because – in that familiar assertion – the costs of not doing net zero will exceed the costs of doing it.

    Net zero is creating “green jobs” alright. Skidmore has already landed himself one: professorship at the University of Bath, focussing on, er, net zero policy. But many of these green jobs seem to have one thing in common: being in campaigning, PR or regulation. As for the industrial jobs actually making, inventing and developing things, we don’t seem to be doing quite so well as some might have thought. How many wind turbines do we make in this country – which is supposed to become a “wind superpower” at some point?

    However, we do seem to have stimulated a boom in green jobs elsewhere. China has around 40 per cent of the world’s renewable energy jobs and produced, according to 2021 estimates, 44 per cent of the world’s electric cars. But here is the thing: China doesn’t even have a legally-binding net zero target of its own. Under Western pressure it has set a vague aspiration to eliminate net emissions by 2060, but there isn’t much more than that.

    It is doing very well out of the commitment to net zero made by Britain and other Western countries without taking the plunge itself. How come? Cheap energy, for one thing. China is building plenty of wind and solar farms itself but not at the cost of trying to live precariously on intermittent green energy alone. Even now, a majority of power generation in China – perhaps the power being used to manufacture our wind turbines and electric car batteries? – is from coal.

    The world is a far messier place than Skidmore’s student-level politics would have it. Rishi Sunak has opted to grant licenses for new oil and gas extraction in the North Sea because he can see, as can anyone with a clear head, that it will take decades for the world to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels. Other countries have come to the same conclusion, expanding their oil and gas production even while muttering platitudes about net zero.

    The Government is also betting on a green technology where global leadership is still up for grabs: carbon capture and storage. It might not turn out to be commercially viable, but it could massively boost our chances of getting to net zero. And if it does, then it will also eliminate the objections to the continued use of oil and gas.

    In the meantime, UK-produced gas and oil might help reduce emissions as well as boost domestic energy security. Why? Because at the moment we are importing large quantities of energy in the form of liquified natural gas (LNG) from the US and Qatar – shipping it across the world at a cost to global carbon emissions.

    Skidmore might see himself as a man of high principle. By flouncing off and causing a by-election he has not just thrown his Conservative colleagues to the wall, he has demonstrated he still can’t see the huge millstone he has put around the neck of the British economy.

    ******************************

    Edward Maszka
    JUST NOW
    “Good riddance to Chris Skidmore” Unfortunately parliament and the House of Lords is 100% full of people who think that Britain on its’ own can make a difference to global warming.

    A Hughes
    3 HRS AGO
    Idiocy abounds in Westminster but Skidmore (and May) were in a class of their own.

    anthony bucknole
    JUST NOW
    Ah but, this Government has annouced that since 1990, our country has reduced its’ carbon emissions by 50% which hasn’t made a blind bit of difference to global Temperatures.
    That doesn’t matter to our moronic Political elites, who persist in completely wrecking our economy.
    They will not be happy until the poor and cold are stringing them up from lamp posts.

    1. Oil is not a fossil fuel. Supplies of oil are inexhaustible as deposits are constantly replenished by the Earth’s core. Those nodding donkeys have been nodding in California and Texas for a hundred years.

      Edit: A sane and sensible energy policy would be-to utilise our existing resources including coal and gas in the interim and invest heavily in nuclear.

      1. Many reservoirs have been depleted to the extent that no more can be recovered, and new need drilled.

          1. I’m working on a field development in the North Sea just now. Drilling and production platform cost somewhat over $US 1 billion. Operating costs pretty horrific, although we’re doing our best to reduce these.
            And those who hate oil & gas queue up to make a fuss, but don’t seem so picky when it’s cold & dark, like now.
            The nodding donkeys are used onshore when the reservoir pressure is so low the stuff needs pumped – the offshore fields typically contain (compressed) gas, which one uses to push the oil out, the last thing you do being to blow the gas down at end-of-life of the field.

          2. Hate oil and gas? If someone said ‘Oi, matey, we’re bringing gas to you this year’ I’d be counting the seconds. When they rocked up I’d be making the mugs of tea and setting up arc lights so they could work through the bloody night.

          3. Many are led by climate Will o’ the Wisps to drown in swamps of stupidity.
            (not sure that’s the right mythical destructive fairy, but Wikipedia cannot be wrong… advice sought)

    2. Virtue signalling is all very well but when you destroy your own country’s economy with policies such as Net Zero to help your rivals’ economies to flourish while your own withers away your virtue signalling is not just virtual stupidity it is real stupidity.

      And when you allow uncontrolled immigration to destroy the lives, morals, laws and culture of your indigenous population and impose unsupportable loads upon your health, educational and housing systems then it is not virtue signalling it is sin signalling.

      1. But the green con allows the political class to trough and so will keep pushing the scam as much as possible.

    3. Sometime in the future the global warming climate change net zero farce will be seen as the biggest con trick and scam in the history of mankind.

    4. The climate hoax has never, ever been about the environment. It is solely a get rich scheme for scammers, con artists, wasters, statists, Lefties and wokers.Another attempt to force socialism through weaponising the weather.

      It has nothing to do with science, fact or even rationality. It’s just a con.

      1. Lots of people like to feel scared, so they support this. Others like to tell the rest of us to behave like them, so they are in, too.

      2. Ardent believers think it’s about nothing but the environment. They are truly convinced that a catastrophe awaits us unless radical changes are made to the way we live our lives. Are they hoaxers or hoax victims?

    1. The original police were organised and run on military lines. Discipline, honour and respect. So much better. Then the Marxists got their claws in. Accusations of institutional corruption and racism, where only a few instances actually existed. Bean counters with interest solely in balancing books and not fighting crime. Political correctness and chiefs playing politics. What a mess it is now.

      Perhaps Peter Hitchens was right (again). Time to scrap the police as they are and start again from scratch?

      1. I would agree with that. It is also time to do precisely the same with the BBC, NHS, Judiciary, Education, all political parties, etc …

        1. This is all very well but nobody with the desire to do these things has the power to implement them and I’m very confident that none will have the power in what remains of my lifetime.

  52. Just watching a documentary on the Costa Concordia sinking – nobody should have died there, it didn’t even submerge FFS.
    A short piece to camera about the youngest to die – a little girl. Found by a fireman, blocked in by a glass door, under water. In the arms of her Father. That was and is a difficult image to process, very upsetting. At least the wee lass didn’t drown alone.

    1. Wasn’t this a deliberate running aground Oberst? The Captain was one of the first ashore and despite orders never returned to the ship.

      1. No evidence it was deliberate grounding, just a dumbass thing to do – sail close to the shore at night, and banged in to a small submerged rocky outcrop. Tore a huge gash in the hull, and CC rolled on to her side and settled on the seabed. Those that died (12 only) were below decks, in their cabins at the time.
        The captain did indeed run away from his responsibilities in the evacuation, but there was a lot of bad practice allowed or encouraged by the management. Captain went down for 16 years (“joke” intended).

  53. A nice little Birdie Three!

    Wordle 931 3/6
    ⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜
    ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. A foul 5 today.

      Wordle 931 5/6

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

    3. Par for me.

      Wordle 931 4/6

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

    4. Par again

      Wordle 931 4/6

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

  55. That’s me gone for this Epiphany. Decorations taken down – three boxes of dry foliage to start the next bonfire! Perhaps a walk tomorrow – the Wet Office says it will be dry!

    Have a spiffing evening. That Bates v PO telly was remarkably good in so many ways. Not often you read that from me..! One just hopes that some good can come from it to the benefit of the victims. I see the Muslipolitan police are “looking into possible fraud” by the PO. Well – if they took tens of thousands of pounds from people who didn’t owe a penny – and put it in the “profits” – that looks criminal to this old-fashioned legal brain.

    A demain.

  57. 381419+ up ticks,

    He would say that wouldn’t he.

    Dt,

    Islamic preacher claims Zionists are plotting to ‘control the world’
    Sheikh Babikir Ahmed Babikir, who compares Hamas with Nelson Mandela, is accused of using anti-Semitic tropes

    1. Mandela was a terrorist who killed men, women and children indiscriminately and refused to renounce violence when imprisoned.

  58. 1. The Civil Service is now the size of the population of Sheffield.
    2. Whitehall bureaucracy costs every household £850 per year.
    3. The number of tax collectors has increased almost twice as fast as new doctors and nurses.
    4. There are now more tax collectors and customs officers than people serving in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force.
    5. Just one department – Work and Pensions – employs more people than there are soldiers in the British Army.
    6. An extra 511 civil servants were employed every week last year.
    7. The number of new bureaucrats and support staff in education has increased twice as fast as the number of new teachers.
    8. 88,000 extra people were employed to work in education last year; just 14,000 of these were teachers or teaching assistants.
    9. The number of NHS managers is increasing three times as fast as that of new doctors and nurses.
    10. The extra size of the NHS bureaucracy since 1997 would pay for over 400,000 hip replacements.
    11. For every extra police officer, almost one more bureaucrat has been employed in the Home Office.
    12. The running costs of the government offices of the regions would pay for an extra 5,000 nurses or doctors.
    13. Council inspections cost local government £1 billion a year.
    14. There are more external targets on schools than days in the school year.
    15. 12 pages of paperwork land on each head teacher’s desk each day of the school year.
    16. 15 new business regulations have been created every day since 1997.
    17. A criminal’s arrest takes, on average, three and a half hours to process.
    18. For every job the private sector lost last year, the public sector took on almost two jobs.
    19. There are more Defra bureaucrats than there are dairy farmers in England.
    20. The increase in the Government’s advertising budget since 1997 could have paid for an extra 17,000 heart bypass operations.

    Oliver Letwin, Shadow Chancellor, July 2004, Daily Telegraph.

    A mere trial run by Mr Brown’s Boys!

    1. 381419+ up ticks,

      Evening WS,
      Old olly, who used the park litter bin as a major part of his filing system.

      1. ..and who inflicted the poll tax on Scotland and got into a bit of trouble for describing Broadwater Farm and other similar events as ‘behavioural, not social’.

      1. Wouldn’t be surprised if there were more civil servants at the MoD than members of the armed forced these days!

    3. Lots of numbers, but;

      “1. The Civil Service is now the size of the population of Sheffield.”

      Annual Net Immigration into the UK is a larger figure than the population of Sheffield.

    1. it beggars belief that anyone would want this senile old duffer to be president of anything, never mind the USA.

      1. There is no choice for voters this year, both candidates are too old, as far as I am concerned!!

          3. Perhaps I am finally turning into a “rebel without cause” but I have never liked or trusted Mr Trump and there is nothing I can say about Mr Biden that’s not been said before. But please don’t faint, my first aid skills are somewhat dated now!!
            ;-))

          4. When he appeared as a Presidential candidate I hoped he would be a Reagan and deliver on his rhetoric.

            Sister, was I disappointed!!

          5. The fact that he didn’t deliver is because he couldn’t deliver, the way American politics are meant that he couldn’t get the required support? He was stymied whichever way he turned.

    3. If the Republicans cannot put forward a candidate that is more appealing to middle of the voters than that walking catastrophe, they don’t deserve to win – and it will not be because of election fraud.

          1. There are no pockets in shrouds, but Biden’s hands will be in your pockets long after he’s gone?

      1. He did.
        Whether it was a fix is the question.
        The answer is almost certainly “yes”

    1. I doubt that those granted asylum in Poland are either Blacks or Muslims.

      More likely Ukrainians, Belarusians and those from other Slavic states. Oh, and Britain’s of course.

  62. I had a little walk around the country park down the road this afternoon.
    Mr. and Mrs. Swan appear to have chased last years kids off:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8ffe2a7c572bcaf20766584ee795e8dce8d0da0cd3df812de3e7797fd674ecac.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a767bb5d32ca2b15356b0debc8f17964ca2e6d5cafa38a91a1ff7a0234ed4f81.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a7246262391ed230d786ba66e2950f286152695ec7b4fa01ff9298369a74538f.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e51ba8b230b4a7a74ff19443c78da4ab4c3b9dfdb55c412110c42b7d4a958ab5.jpg

      1. Cygnet is better, swanling is a modern word invented by people who didn’t know what a cygnet is.

  63. Victim, victim, victim.

    Bank worker wins £490,000 payout after being unfairly dismissed for using the N-word in anti-racism training session – and says middle-aged white men are ‘bottom of everything’

    It left the woman leading the exercise apparently so ‘badly distressed’ that she had to take a week off – a ‘key reason’ for the decision to dismiss Mr Borg-Neal for gross misconduct.

    The former mayor and councillor blamed dyslexia and successfully claimed disability discrimination.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12933351/Bank-worker-wins-490-000-payout-unfairly-dismissed-using-N-word-anti-racism-training-session-says-middle-aged-white-men-bottom-everything.html

    To put this into perspective:
    The national living wage is approximately £24,000 PA on a 40 hour week, so this guy has been given roughly 20 years free money. I have very little doubt he could get a reasonably well paid job now.
    Good work if you can get it.

        1. I’ve got one, but I tried to get a blue badge as I have trouble walking. I was shut down on their website, they without any investigation told me that I did not qualify.
          Just another Whitehall fix up against our entitled population.

          1. Presumably your doctor could help.

            ooopps, silly me, you can’t get to see your doctor.

          3. I sent him a letter about two months ago. No reply. King useless.
            I’m supposed to be having a lazerguided steroid n knee injection Monday morning. So far no cancellation. Due to another doctor’s strike.

          4. Good luck.

            I suspect they will have cancelled your visit and the letter cancelling it will arrive in February…

          7. I have one more chance of getting my knee fixed tomorrow morning.
            I’ve not had a cancellation notification so far.
            It’s been a bit of a nightmare on and off over the past thirty years.

          8. Fingers crossed. I have had mention by the physio now of a steroid injection in my knees, having previously been told there was no chance of one in my hip unless I paid for it (2x£4k a year!).

          9. Keep pushing.
            If you need backup, email your local PALS. Patience Advise And Liason Service. Tell them about the situation you’re in. It has always worked for me.

      2. You can’t say it at Scampton. Some idiot complained and the guides were ordered to refer to him only as “Gibson’s dog” (despite the fact his name is on his grave just outside Gibson’s office).

      3. Conrad wrote a novel “The Nigger of the Narcissus”. Conrad was born a Pole and was a sailor for the early years of his life. The Narcissus was a rusty old steamer.

        Enoch Powell was ridiculed for his use of the term “grinning piccaninnies” whereas “piccaninnies” was a common term for years before his speech.

        Piccainnies derives from the Portuguese and merely means “small”. Powell being masterful at languages and Professor of Greek at Oxford will have chosen his words carefully.

    3. What would happen to Guy Gibson today if his dog started chasing the deer in Richmond Park?

    4. Anti racism training? The most offensive, divisive and insulting sort of drivel imaginable.

      Let’s imagine someone stands up and says ‘white people, especially men are privileged.’ Utter balls. That sort of sexist, racist tripe is the root of the blasted problem. It labels. The Left love to label because then they can erase the individual.

      1. The more labels, the more compensation is available for offending those thus labelled.

    5. The worst thing is, he had to bring dyslexia into it to win the case – rather than just argue that the training course was crap and the rules re safe space had been broken. This is such a stupid thing and the fact he gad to fight it on dyslexia grounds is frightening.

      1. It’s like the children’s game, top trumps.
        Dyslexia beats deaf, blind beats dumb, stupid nigger beats all comers.

  64. Our first snow this winter. There’s about 4inches on the ground and no sign of tapering off yet. The meteorologists are proving right for once, with up to 8inches forecast before the storm ends overnight.

    1. Why TF does the Daily Mail want everyone looking suspiciously at their neighbours to see who’s a psychopath?

    1. It’s going to be a black. It’s always a sodding black. It’s almost a cliche.

      What sickens most is that this problem in this demographic is not being addressed because – for some reason – it’s considered racist to stop kids killing one another over drugs.

    1. Thing is she doesn’t also go for Labour ones who are just as egregious.Yes, they’re all oiks of the lowest order, and they should be kicked repeatedly in the gonads to learn their place but Vorderman needs to apply some consideration of balance to her complaints.

      1. She’s retaliating against those who attack her.
        I don’t like her politics, but more power to her elbows

    2. Mutton dressed as lamb.
      Pity as she’s not a bad looking woman for her age. I’d say a 4 or 5 pinter at the Brompton Stomp “Grab-A-Grannie Night”.

      1. More men find her attractive than women find me attractive, so I won’t cast the first stone…

  70. Oooh i have just been to Dalston, and Hackney, on my friend’s 60th birthday beer jaunt.

    She is a beer sommelier. She doesn’t think that’s such a big deal (but i do).

    Anyway we have been drinking the day away and i have been matching her beer for beer. She knows her stuff and it’s been great fun. From IPAs through to some very nice stouts. Anyway on the way home now – a long day.

      1. Young’s beers are no longer the same since the Ram Brewery in Wandsworth was shut down and production was moved to Bedford.

        1. Another brewery I use to favour was the one that was flooded in Cumberland. Jennings, they made Snek Lifter. Now moved brewery to Staffordshire.

  71. That’s sufficient wood sawn & chopped to fill the Pantry Stack. Now I can get other jobs done!

    With which thought I will sign off wish you all a good night.

    I will however leave you with a thoughtful documentary which, given the furore in the USA over Claudine Gay’s plagiarism, raises several questions about American Acedemia.
    https://youtu.be/m8xWOlk3WIw?si=Q9UW0lqTzEtvojRX

    1. Claudine Gay, like Joe Biden, is a proven plagiarist and fraud. She owes her position at Harvard to Black Privilege.

      Yes you got it Black Privilege.

  72. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/06/rishi-sunak-pledges-curb-benefits-public-sector-cut-taxes/

    I want to keep cutting taxes, he says. No, you don’t. You’ve continually hiked them to offensive levels.

    “I’m very clear, I want to control public spending, I want to control
    welfare, which we’re doing and because we’re doing that, and because
    we’re being disciplined with borrowing and our debt, we’re going to be
    in a position to cut taxes.”

    Does he actually believe that? State waste is off the scale. Debt is our entire GDP. He’s just a spendaholic socialist.

    1. It’s just blather. Its only purpose is to assuage those who might otherwise depose him. There’s nothing you or I can do about it other than to assassinate him. He would, though, be replaced by another of like mind, so the assassination would be futile.

    1. They are given food. They’re given money if they’re not given food.

      For goodness sake. This is tiresome. Get rid of them. No one cares how anymore.

      1. Your last sentence is simply not true. There are many thousands of people who will defend these people to the hilt.

        1. The Suwanee Ribber,
          Far, far away,
          Dere’s wha my heart is turning ebber,
          Dere’s wha de old folks stay.

    3. It’s been happening for at least twenty years PM, that long ago some newly arrived Poles had been killing our local birds. And fishing illegally in the river.
      And as usual nobody gives a toss about laws that have been up held for centuries being broken.
      But park your car in the wrong place and…….unless of course you’ve been cloned by someone elses registration number, your nicked.

      1. One of the problems with migrants is that they are not used to the rule of law and societal norms. Basically anything goes in the homeland where its every man for himself rather than existing in a structured society. Its not that we dont have our own criminals and fringe society, but they were a controlled minority. Now the minority behaviour threatens to become the normal due to numbers and the threat of violence.

        1. Agreed entirely and remember also they have never been asked to take a driving test.

      2. Carp is a national dish in Poland. It comes in a clear jelly from a mould with what appear to be pieces of carrot and complete with bones.

        The Poles have emptied local fishery ponds around these parts, many living in Haverhill where they have replaced many a Haverhillbilly.

        Hungarians take the sheep for goulash.

        2. Thanks for that corimm.
          The guys fishing all looked a bit on the large side to speak to.
          I know part of the river Lea is a private area fenced off for a fishing club. But of course they are required to put their catches back.
          But the notices re the licences in the
          public aeras seem to have all gone now.

  74. We’ve been watching The Post Office Scandal.
    My word what a terrible time those people had. Even worse than I ever imagined.
    I think it displays what an absolute bunch of AHs that are employed in our civil service etc. That we pay for !
    I just hope there will be changes involved and exposure of all the shite that was knowingly involved. The arse covering lies from these people would fill a reservoir.
    So as Ronnie and Ronnie would have said, it’s Good night from me.

    2. The women who broke through the glass ceiling to achieve senior positions in large companies more often than not bring the shattered glass down on the poor sods working under them.

      It is much the same with those given senior positions in universities, Harvard and Yale for example, on account of being female and black. People should be judged on their merits not by their gender, sexual orientation and skin colour.

      I will refrain from rattling on about our first black woman MP and point simply to the moronic Kamala Harris, Fany Willis and the ghastly cow gunning for President Trump in New York whose name I cannot recall.

  76. Just got home from the Wigmore Hall and managed about 5 minutes of Mark Dolan on GBN. I can’t be doing with all the bitching about Prince Andrew and Epstein from people who completely ignore the Moslem gangs who abducted and abused 10 year olds in Rotherham, Rochdale etc.

    The concert was nice. Ian Bostridge performed Schubert’s Schwanengesang accompanied by Saskia Giorgini, who also played solo Liszt. (No Brahms!)

      1. It’s funny that Epstein ran an under age brothel for ten years, but the only person named

        as a customer was Prince Andrew.

        Perhaps there’s some deal by which American citizens can keep their names secret?

    2. I can’t see that there is anything more to say about Prince Andrew. The girl in the photo was obviously star-struck to meet him and she was over the age of consent in this country. He paid her a large sum of money and that should be the end of it.

  80. Evening, all. Late today because a) I have dismantled the trees (3 outside and 1 in), taken down the decorations and b) attended an Epiphany service, which went on a bit. I had no idea Oswestry had a Bishop, let alone one that could lecture for hours during the homily and the congregation not hear more than one word in ten!

    1. You should know by now that some preachers just like the sound of their own voice. A few years ago, we (URC) had a young visiting preacher (I think he was Methodist because they tend to go on a bit). I think he thought he was Billy Graham’s successor – 40 minute sermon. I switched off after about 10.

      1. I thought it was just me not able to hear (I’ve got a head-cold related hearing problem at the moment), but I looked around and just about everyone had switched off and when I asked at the end of the service what the sermon had been about, nobody could tell me!

  81. Saturday 7th January

    The Lady of the Lake’s birthday

    R.I.P. Anne – You are fondly remembered by many of us Nottlers.

  83. Just what is it that Google does to Chrome that requires an update almost every week?

  84. Watching Joe Biden and Blair on recent podcasts makes me bilious. The moron Biden is the most disgusting piece of lying filth I have ever witnessed post Blair. Blair himself has acquired the appearance of the Devil. Biden the appearance by contrast of the Walking Dead, aka a Zombie.

    These wicked liars need to be brought to justice and the sooner the better. Utter filth, both of them.

  85. 391410+ up ticks,

    Pillow ponder,

    How would one cut welfare when in mounts with every incoming tide.

    Dt,

    Sunak pledges to cut taxes by curbing welfare spending
    Help for taxpayers in spring to be followed by additional pledges in run-up to election

Comments are closed.