Wednesday 7 February: How British banks became synonymous with poor customer service

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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473 thoughts on “Wednesday 7 February: How British banks became synonymous with poor customer service”

  1. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) story
    THE POWER OF PRAYER

    A bar called Drummond’s in Mt Vernon, Texas began construction on an expansion of their building, hoping to “grow” their business.

    In response, the local Southern Baptist Church started a campaign to block the bar from expanding – petitions, prayers, etc. About a week before the bar’s grand re-opening, a bolt of lightning struck the bar and burned it to the ground!

    Afterward, the church folks were rather smug – bragging about “the power of prayer”. The angry bar owner eventually sued the church on grounds that the church … “was ultimately responsible for the demise of his building, through direct actions or indirect means.”

    Of course, the church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection to the building’s demise.

    The judge read carefully through the plaintiff’s complaint and the defendant’s reply. He then opened the hearing by saying: “I don’t know how I’m going to decide this, but it appears from the paperwork that what we have here is a bar owner who now believes in the power of prayer, and an entire church congregation that does not.”

  2. ‘Morning All

    Much frothing and hysteria about Tucker /Putin the lat interview by NBC is hilarious I don’t know how I missed it………

    https://twitter.com/HansMahncke/status/1755002093813874905?s=20

    Chemical Abdul…..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/47504ae6bcf2eacfe02b66c64ba5c06c4cd2b8c282b7f38b54044607cbc29ee1.png

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a81acca6d3a6e170df01fab538eee43f24e7a1de0d905ef4dbfe75f3714256af.png

    Rest

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/049e69237d07ecb992f2852cbf39f2dac2d51d3a9215a32ab5a33857999acf04.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2cc818c14bdf28d5068eaa019f341ea7388a4ec20f164d26a40f929e566caee5.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0f0fc5d5b1104f19c95f3fb3055c26360afe7885c4f46ed99df4860f5e00cff2.jpg

    Finally,ahem………..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9fd671849f842c34e9ab483e327aa0d7a38f36a12704330389b2daf89f87624a.jpg

  3. Good morning all.
    A cooler -1°C this morning after the less cold starts over the past few days. Dry at the moment and actually forecast to stay dry! I might get those logs stacked today then!

  5. How British banks became synonymous with poor customer service

    Weren’t they all nationalised after the banking crash and are now all working towards the great reset program

  7. Good morning, chums. As usual my Wordle attempts for today were posted at the end of last night’s page – I did it in six, i.e. I only just scraped through. Enjoy your day.

    2. I had more fun tries than you
      Wordle 963 5/6

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

  10. Good moaning.
    Scorching article by Allison Pearson.
    Here is a taster:

    “Obviously, bishops always tell God’s own truth. So it was a bit odd to be shown a document called “Supporting Asylum Seekers – Guidance for Church of England Clergy”. Various points covered within are as follows:

    Help finding suitable legal advice and assistance.

    Understanding the case – if you really want to get alongside the person.

    How the Home Office addresses the role of faith in asylum claims.

    Letters of support.

    Lifts to meetings and court dates.

    Help with money, meals, accommodation, etc.

    If a claim is refused, can we mount a personal campaign?

    Good heavens, it could almost be mistaken for a How To Guide for political activists in the Church trying to do whatever they can to help bogus asylum seekers remain in the UK!”

    1. Good heavens, it could almost be mistaken for a How To Guide for
      political activists in the Church trying to do whatever they can to help
      bogus asylum seekers remain in the UK!”

      I append the BTL comment I made on TCW two or three days ago:-

      You will recall the piece of human sewage who blew himself up outside
      Liverpool Womens’ Hospital a few years back. The local ‘paper, the
      Liverpool Echo, did a pretty thorough investigation into the matter and
      discovered that the Office of the Bishop of Liverpool (I name James
      Jones) was running a racket to smuggle illegal immigrants whom they knew
      to be illegal- specifically including the bomber- into the UK under the
      radar of the authorities by, basically, not only taking them at every
      word they uttered but also coaching them in which words they should be
      uttering.
      So yes; the Echo was investigating. And then, all of a
      sudden, as if a switch had been flicked, they weren’t. And you’ll find
      nothing about the specific matter of the activities of the Bishop’s
      Office online, either. Well, well.

  11. Car insurance, currently with Aviva, is due for renewal. In view of CEO Amanda Blanc’s woke need personally to sign off new white male job hires, have changed to different company.

    Aviva sent email asked why I was leaving, so replied with: ‘Your CEOs values do not align with mine’.

  12. And here is the full, unexpurgated AP article.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2024/02/06/chemical-attacks-barbaric-cultures-evil-acts-british-soil/

    “When will we stop men from barbaric cultures acting out their evil ideologies on British soil?

    No civilised nation should accept the importing of patriarchal, women-hating attitudes that put our citizens at risk

    6 February 2024 • 8:20pm

    When I first heard about the appalling acid (as we then thought) attack on a woman and two children in south London, these were my slightly garbled first thoughts:

    a) Some kind of “honour” attack carried out by an enraged man of South Asian origin on a woman he believes he has lost control of.

    b) Punishment for perceived female “disobedience”, teaching her a lesson she will never forget. Literally “loss of face”. Horrifying.

    c) Inflicting mutilation on her small daughters to make them “damaged goods” as future brides and cause yet more anguish to the mum.

    d) Attacker almost certainly man from patriarchal, misogynist culture who should not be able to import those barbaric, women-hating values to civilised Western country like the UK.

    e) Generalised dismay that hundreds more young men from such cultures are arriving on our shores every day and they are treated as “asylum seekers” rather than as what they are – a potential threat to the safety of women and children.

    I wasn’t too far out, or so it may prove. An Afghan who hid in a lorry to gain entry illegally to the UK, Abdul Ezedi (the alleged attacker), is now the subject of what the Metropolitan Police amusingly called a manhunt “at pace”. As opposed to a slightly more laid-back, mañana manhunt, perhaps? Ezedi is rather easily identifiable, since he appears to have burnt off half his own face (good, serves him right), yet he still hasn’t been caught and there are suggestions he may have found shelter in east London.

    What even I, in the depths of cynicism about our criminally inept Home Office and broken, insanely generous migration system, did not foresee was that the alleged attacker would be an asylum seeker whose claim had been rejected twice, but was then accepted after he had been convicted of a sexual offence in 2018.

    How could this possibly be? What is a man like that even doing here? You may well ask. In what nation with the most basic concern for the welfare of its citizens could a refugee who had already proved himself to be a menace to women be granted the privilege of British residence? Home Office guidance says that offences which cause serious harm prevent a person from being granted asylum, but Ezedi was able to out-victim any potential victims. Having converted from Islam to Christianity, his lawyers (paid for by the poor bloody British taxpayer) could argue he was at risk of persecution in his native Afghanistan. At his third appeal, the tribunal judge appears to have focused on the fact that Ezedi’s recently-acquired faith (ahem) would place him at risk from the Taliban. Some hapless priest helped out, reportedly telling the tribunal that Ezedi, a Halal-observant Muslim according to neighbours in Newcastle, was a “committed Christian”.

    Every single person and institution in that witless, delusional chain of events is to blame for the fact that a woman is in hospital right now, heavily sedated and horribly disfigured with “life-changing injuries”, quite possibly blind. (The two girls, happily, have been discharged from hospital and are expected to make a good recovery.)

    I give you those responsible, ladies and gentlemen: the judge who ignored the guidance and gave Ezedi a third-time-lucky chance. The immigration lawyers who made big bucks from arguing a bad man’s flawed case and allegedly taught him all the tricks and loopholes. The Home Office, which should have made representations during the appeal hearing that Ezedi must be denied asylum because of his sexual offence; except staff at the Home Office don’t seem all that bothered about illegal migration, do they? James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, who presides over this lethal farce; the Government, which could leave the European Convention on Human Rights and kick out nasty pieces of work like Ezedi, but prefers to maintain its “international reputation” and record on human rights while endangering its own citizens; the Church of England, and other Christian organisations, which take sanctimonious delight in baptising suspiciously large numbers of asylum seekers and to hell with what the British people want.

    And, finally, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby who told the House of Lords in a speech against the Rwanda bill that asylum seekers are “of great value” and Christian tradition was to “welcome the stranger” while accusing those of us who want an end to illegal migration of “shrill narratives that all who come to us for help should be treated as liars, scroungers or less than fully human”.

    No word as yet from our archbishop about Abdul Ezedi, who treated a woman as “less than fully human” when he allegedly threw chemicals in her face. And who was only at liberty to do so because some useful idiots helped him convert. How can Justin Welby possibly stay on as Archbishop when Christianity itself has been weaponised to protect the bad and harm the good?

    Any parents who want to get their child into a sought-after Church of England school will tell you about the hoops of sanctified steel they must jump through while providing proof of weekly church attendance over a number of years. Compare and contrast with the 40 illegal migrants on the Bibby Stockholm barge who are “converting to Christianity” – that’s almost one in seven of the 300 aboard now attending churches under the supervision of local faith leaders.

    Does anyone of sane mind seriously doubt that this is a revolting charade, a game! You could call it, “I Was a Muslim Until Tuesday, Get Me Into There!” Far from apologising, as it should, the Church has the cheek to attack Suella Braverman for saying that, during her time as home secretary, she “became aware of churches around the country facilitating industrial-scale bogus asylum claims”, with migrants “directed to these churches as a one-stop shop to bolster their asylum case”.

    Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, the Bishop of Chelmsford, denied the allegation, writing in this newspaper: “Churches have no power to circumvent the Government’s duty to vet and approve applications – the responsibility for this rests with the Home Office.” Claims that a person may be “fast-tracked through the asylum system, aided and abetted by the Church are simply inaccurate,” huffed Dr Francis-Dehqani.

    Obviously, bishops always tell God’s own truth. So it was a bit odd to be shown a document called “Supporting Asylum Seekers – Guidance for Church of England Clergy”. Various points covered within are as follows:

    Help finding suitable legal advice and assistance.

    Understanding the case – if you really want to get alongside the person.

    How the Home Office addresses the role of faith in asylum claims.

    Letters of support.

    Lifts to meetings and court dates.

    Help with money, meals, accommodation, etc.

    If a claim is refused, can we mount a personal campaign?

    Good heavens, it could almost be mistaken for a How To Guide for political activists in the Church trying to do whatever they can to help bogus asylum seekers remain in the UK! We are being taken for fools by the kind of people who declared only this week that Turkey is not a safe country to deport migrants to; yes, that’s Turkey the major British tourist destination. By smug progressives who say that the corrosive attack “raises questions about violence against women and girls” in general, rather than specific and urgent questions about the wisdom of allowing thousands of young men from “honour” cultures that treat females as male property to join our advanced, equal society.

    For a typical example of this ghastly, simpering breed, look no further than Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary, who told Trevor Phillips on Sky News that the Clapham attack is “not really to do with asylum”. What part of a twice-rejected asylum seeker being offered asylum after a sex offence and thus being free to allegedly carry out a barbaric attack is “not really to do” with major flaws in the asylum system, Gillian? You expect that kind of sophistry from a Lefty lawyer not a Conservative Cabinet minister.

    Let me leave you with another far from exhaustive list:

    Tom Roberts, aged 21, murdered in 2022 by an Afghan asylum seeker who pretended to be 14 years old.

    Lorraine Cox, aged 32, suffocated and dismembered by a rejected Iraqi asylum seeker in 2020.

    James Furlong, 36, David Wails, 49, and Joseph Ritchie-Bennett, 39, three friends stabbed to death in a park by a Libyan asylum seeker whose deportation was prevented because of “turmoil in Libya”.

    Emad Al Swealmeen could have killed mothers and their newborns when a bomb he was carrying detonated outside a Liverpool maternity hospital after he had completed a Christianity course run for asylum seekers.

    Emily Jones, aged seven, throat slashed in a park in 2020 by Eltiona Skana, an Albanian who smuggled herself into Britain on the back of a lorry and claimed asylum on the grounds that she was a “victim of traffickers”. Emily’s parents told the court that their beloved daughter “would still be alive today” if her killer hadn’t been granted asylum. “The family would not want any other family to suffer in the same way.”

    But they will. Tragically, and unforgivably, they will. Unless the system is urgently reformed, you can be sure that many more innocent people will suffer and die because our Government and our national Church place more value on the human rights of asylum seekers with beliefs that are entirely alien to our culture than the wellbeing of British citizens.

    All together now: “What are those people even doing here?” “

    1. Read about a third of the article and gave up in despair. We’ve seen this scenario, or something very similar, being played out for years and still nothing is done to address the problem: in fact the government and its agents appear to delight in pushing their plan, it has to be a plan as no one is so incompetent as to rinse and repeat the same mistake over decades.

      The political class of recent times has betrayed the Nation with malice aforethought.

      1. They’ve certainly betrayed the nation.
        How many are intelligent enough to have done it deliberately is a matter of debate.

    2. …..an asylum seeker whose claim had been rejected twice, but was then accepted after he had been convicted of a sexual offence in 2018.

      What planet are these dangerous, traitorous decision makers living on that they think it is acceptable to allow such evil, dangerous savages to remain in the UK? The same goes for the deluded higher clergy who should never be permitted to hold high office. Would any of these people invite even a single one of the uncivilisable savages to live in their house with their women and children?

  15. Clapham chemical attack suspect being helped by others, say police as new footage released. 7 February 2024.

    Detectives have said they believe the Afghan asylum seeker suspected of carrying out a chemical attack in Clapham is being helped by others, as officers began to “target his associates”.

    Officers from the Counter-Terrorism fugitive team have been tracking Abdul Ezedi’s movements following the attack, in which a 31-year-old woman and her two children, aged three and eight, were doused with an alkaline substance last Wednesday.

    No kidding? I would never have guessed.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/06/clapham-suspect-abdul-ezedi-being-helped-police-footage/

    2. 382046+ up ticks,

      Morning AS,
      There was a bearded islamic specimen on line yesterday
      openly stating ALL felons of the same ilk will be given help,
      surely aiding & abetting in the raw MR PLOD.

  16. Wordle 963 4/6

    🟩🟨⬛⬛🟨

    🟩⬛🟨🟨🟨

    🟩⬛⬛🟩🟩

    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  17. Good morning, all. Overcast and calm.

    There’s been a few of these and the performances are not what is expected from the POTUS. However, my concern is with Tice’s comment: it is oh, so bland. One politician having an empathetic moment with another.

    Biden is seen as the POTUS, ostensibly the leader of both the free world and the most powerful nation on Earth. Of course, there are people who do not believe that tosh and performances like this prove those people have a strong point in their favour.

    Mr nice-guy Tice states “This is sad…” when an incoherent POTUS is the tenant in the White House. Tice needs to man-up and say it as it is if he has to have any credibility as a politician of note.

    https://twitter.com/bangerbloyce/status/1755124289592811641

    2. I find it amusing that people still believe he won the Presidency legitimately, given how obvious his cognitive decline was in 2016.
      Are they REALLY saying that the majority of American voters are that stupid?

      2. I find it quite sinister that in the MSM and politicians of all sides in the UK in 2020 backed Biden who was clearly anti-British rather than Trump who was and is much more pro-Britain.

      3. I am utterly convinced that the election was rigged and that Trump actually won. I collected a large amount of videos on You Tube that showed glaringly suspicious activity and almost all of it has not been sufficiently addressed. Ballot boxes of votes appearing from under a table after counting had stopped but individuals continuing to count these magic ballots. Two trucks of ballot boxes vanishing. Officials covering windows so that people could not see what was going on. Republican auditors being kept away from ballot counting. Experts testifying that certain outcomes were impossible for various reasons, proven tampering of ballot machines simply not addressed, fictitious addresses, fictitious people, the list goes on. Fake addresses and fake people were especially prominent in Nevada which turned Democrat. Knowing Nevada well, I believe that the state is Democrat as much as I believe that North Korea is a democratic paradise. I believe that Biden is a crook of the first order, corrupt to the core, senile and a gangster that should be in jail along with Hillary Clinton.

    1. if the king was being ‘open’ about his cancer, he would end ridiculous speculation by giving simple information about where the cancer is. No need for further detail, just where. Or is it in his ‘unmentionables’?

      1. I agree – it’s either tescticular or bowel …….. which will render him speechless (He’s either talking bollox or through his arse)

        1. It’s unlikely to be testicular – that tends to strike younger men. My money is on either the bowel or bladder varieties.

        2. He’s either talking bollox or through his arse. Business as usual for HRW (His Royal WEFness) then.

  19. 383046+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    When will we stop men from barbaric cultures acting out their evil ideologies on British soil?
    No civilised nation should accept the importing of patriarchal, women-hating attitudes that put our citizens at risk

    Many of those very same citizens are masters of their own demise via the polling stations.

    We are now, owing to their continued dangerous addiction of putting party before country, and any intelligence thoughts of the safety of their own kith / kin /children is not even considered, consequently we are wide open to daily abuse.

    Truth being the majority voter really is a tool currently, of the ruling political cartel.

    1. I see this article and others in a similar vain quite positive. A few months ago these sort of articles simply didn’t exist, now there has been quite a few of them. I see it as an awakening of the mainstream, the dam of Islam being beyond criticism weakening. It will embolden mainstream politicians to speak out and then, perhaps, action will finally be taken against the barbarians within the gates. If we are lucky our very own Geert Wilders will appear and because we have a ‘winner takes all’ system he will be able to act. Geert Wilders win actually demonstrates the uselessness of the proportional representation system.

      1. 382046+ up ticks,

        Afternoon JR,
        I do agree but, sad to say the majority voter is of such a nature that as we near the General Election time they will slip into “party before Country” mode once again.

        I pray that I am wrong.

          1. 382046+ up ticks,

            JR,
            Not for the people suppressing / manipulating / treacherously treating political cartels, NO.

            “Daisy the Cow”in place of
            NOTA to me carries a stronger message one of fresh clean air, support for dairy herds, support for farmers in general, and lets not forget carnivores.

            NOTA to me now means
            taking the knee and a form of submission

  20. Good morning all and squaddies of the 77th,

    Dull and drizzley over Castle McPhee in the N W Hampshire borderlands. Wind in the ENE, 4-5℃, rain later.

    On Saturday night Neil Oliver had Bret Weinstein on his show. Weinstein has been down to the Darien Gap in Panama (graveyard of Scotland’s colonial ambitions pre-Union). What he found is disturbing.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp6ZfoHqkCo

    Back to painting the main bedroom.

  23. Thumbs up (so far) for MBNA.
    I ordered a garden storage shed/box from an online company that turned out to be hooky. Reading the reviews, particularly during the past couple of months, revealed all too many customers had had the same experience.
    Yesterday, I spoke to MBNA, and the lass who deals with refund claims accepted my story and returned the money. Until 7th. March it’s on a temporary basis while they pursue the company to fulfil the order. If unsuccessful, the money is mine to keep. I expected it to be a right rigmarole, but it was easier than I thought.
    Maybe mine was not the first case.
    Avoid Garden World Online. The reviews on Trustpilot are ‘interesting’. Just wish I’d checked first. In this case, lessons have genuinely been learnt.

    1. A good lesson.
      When spending any money always read the reviews first. And i don’t mean on trustpilot or checkatrade who both pay people to leave positive reviews even without buying the product.

      1. I lost all faith in Trustpilot when it rejected one of my [positive] reviews as it claimed I hadn’t bouhgt the item. I sent them a copy of the invoice, which they wouldn’t accept as it “had no date” – I pointed out that the date was clearly visible as the mix of letters and numbers on the top right of the invoice, and pointed out that if they really were that stupid and/or incompetent I wouldn’t bother ever taking notice of their ratings again. Surprisingly I had no reply!!

    1. I think a better way of describing him is a balding, ginger, over privileged whiny little shit that needs a good thrashing. He alone is reason enough for a republic.

  25. How the Government could fix the dental crisis
    SIR – The present NHS dental contract has all but killed off NHS dentistry in this country (“Queue that shows the state of NHS dentistry”, report, February 6). It provides a cap on the Government’s NHS dental cost, but it is grossly unfair and actively discourages dentists from taking on new NHS patients

    A return to the previous fee-per-item contract and the freedom to set up a new NHS practice without needing an NHS dental contract would very quickly improve the situation.

    Unfortunately this is unlikely to happen, as it would require a huge increase in NHS dental funding.

    Peter Rosie BDS
    Ringwood, Hampshir    e

    Moh and son use an NHS dentist in the town nearest to us , and their dental charges are quite hefty for work that is required , which is rare .

    My Denplan monthly fee has risen to £65 per month .. I am really irritated by that . I have four dental hygienist appointments a year and two 6 monthly check ups with the dentist , I also have to pay huge sums if I require a crown or anything else .

    Have any of you who have Denplan insurance , had a huge increase recently?

    1. There are horror stories in the red tops about people who had horrific results from medical and dental treatment in Turkey.

      I went to a fully qualified dentist in Marmaris in 2006. He did the following work: two extractions, 6 crowns, 3 bridges, a deep filling and a clean up. The work was excellent and indeed it is all still in place and has not caused me any trouble. The total cost: €1200. (Under £1,000 at the then exchange rate).

      I think that one is wise to find a dentist who is warmly recommended (as Denys Peleven was) by numerous fellow yachtsmen we knew in the marina.

      It is the same with builders – one must look at the past work they have done and speak to their clients before commissioning them to do work.

      1. People who are contemplating seeking dental treatment overseas on cost grounds need to be aware that NHS dentists will refuse to attempt to repair or rectify any such treatment which turns out to be defective. A private dentist will, of course, provide such a patient with a private estimate for the cost of repairs and further work which might turn out to be necessary. My opinion that Rastus has been extremely fortunate that none of the 6 crowns and 3 bridges he received in Turkey 17 years ago has ever needed any further attention is based on the wider perspective afforded me by 40 years of seeing 25 patients a day for 5 days every week. Caveat emptor.

    2. My Denplan is £33 a month. Two check ups and 4 half hour hygienist. All dental work including crowns is covered. The only thing i pay extra for is laboratory work.
      It depends on the state of your teeth into what category rating you are placed.

  30. Good morning to all. A normal gloomy day in West Sussex. But, all the same, I hope everyone has a good day.

    3 videos to start, two on the Ukraine disaster and one of a dog that made me laugh this morning. A laugh is better than sunshine!
    Why is Tucker Carlson Interviewing Vladimir Putin?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OfbNaJEpQc

    The most important video on Ukraine | Prof. John Mearsheimer
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emD1cN2xEz4&list=TLPQMDcwMjIwMjTuwC_0znM9AA&index=2

    Puppy realizes he’s at dog park, goes absolutely bonkers
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MVGBG6nmUA&list=TLPQMDcwMjIwMjTuwC_0znM9AA&index=3

  31. Why resurgent Ireland can’t afford to reunite – yet. 7 ebruary 2024.

    Two years after its collapse, Northern Ireland’s devolved government has been restored thanks in part to an emergency £3.3bn funding deal.

    With it comes the province’s first-ever nationalist leader, inevitably reigniting talk of a united Ireland.

    First Minister Michelle O’Neill has said she thinks there could be a referendum on reunification in the next 10 years, which she has described as “a decade of opportunity”.

    There is a terrible irony here. That country for which they have plotted and murdered for so many years is about to be obliterated by the forces of Mass Immigration. It’s position is even worse than that of the UK!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/02/07/why-resurgent-ireland-cannot-afford-reunite-yet/

    2. “Humza Yousaf says Islamophobia is “getting worse”, including in Scotland.”

      About bloody time too.

      1. Islamophobia (a fear of Islam) should be ignored.

        Islamomisia a hating, loathing and detesting of Islam is what most people feel.

      2. Islamophobia (a fear of Islam) should be ignored.

        Islamomisia a hating, loathing and detesting of Islam is what most people feel.

  39. Did I say good morning?

    Bucketed down with rain last night .. Moh has a golf game today , he was up at 7am , still raining .. my goodness the dear Lord works in mysterious ways because the rain stopped 5 mts before Moh picked up his trolley battery , flask and golf shoes .. so off he went at 8am !!!

  40. Pam Moorhouse, fought for the restoration of the UK’s traditional counties – obituary
    ‘Councils continue wiping out our history and denying it,’ she said, ‘but people feel loyalty towards their traditional area’

    7 February 2024 • 6:00am

    Pam Moorhouse, who has died aged 77, was a retired factory worker from Grimsby who spearheaded a campaign to restore the 92 traditional counties of the United Kingdom, whose role had, in her view, been eroded by government diktat.

    The rot began with the Local Government Act 1972, implemented in 1974, which redrew the administrative map, supposedly to reflect changing economic realities. Ancient counties were renamed; others disappeared altogether; new counties were created from scratch. Out went Westmorland, Cumberland, Rutland and Yorkshire’s three Ridings, and in came Merseyside, Avon, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Humberside and Cleveland.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2024/02/07/pam-moorhouse-fought-to-restore-former-counties-obituary/

    A very interesting obit , and an even more interesting comment .

    1. I thought Rutland (our neighbouring county) still exists. MH was born in what was the North Riding of Yorkshire, and he refuses to use Cleveland when filling in forms.

  41. Brussels Blinks First: European Union Scraps Key Elements of Green Agenda Amid Standoff with Farmers

    https://media.breitbart.com/media/2024/02/GettyImages-934216868-1-640×480.jpg

    The farmer uprisings across the continent have forced the globalist European Union leadership in Brussels to back down from key elements to its green agenda to achieve “net zero” emissions — for now.

    Following major wins last year in The Netherlands, tractor protests from farmers secured another significant victory against the globalist agenda on Tuesday, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen scrapping plans to require the agriculture sector to cut methane and nitrogen emissions by a third by 2040.

    Brussels is also set to backtrack on plans to cut the use of pesticides in half during the same time frame, which farmers have argued puts them at a disadvantage to foreign agriculture imported into the bloc under free trade deals at cheaper costs due to their countries having less stringent environmental regulations as the EU.
    *
    *
    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/02/06/brussels-blinks-eu-scraps-key-elements-of-green-agenda-in-standoff-with-farmers/

        1. Its still going strong though. Just saw a clip on Twitt of a Welsh fisherman saying they’re being driven off the water by ever more ridiculous regulations, the latest one is a medical and you aren’t allowed to work if you don’t pass.

    2. Beware EU globalist lackeys promising to backtrack and embrace change.

      Goes for the shower inhabiting the HoP, also.

    3. Populist uprisings could bring about the death of the EU.

      Funnily enough Britain would very probably still be in the EU had the EU been prepared to make any concessions when Cameron went with his begging bowl to plead with them. The fact that the EU was so pig-headedly determined not to give Cameron an inch doubtless made many people vote for Brexit.

      Instead of the Great Windsor Surrender Sunak should have deployed fleets of tractors, combine harvesters and silo lorries full of slurry in Brussels.

      1. Too much change in society these days is by revolution rather than evolution. The Common Market was a great idea but trying to force its citizens into a political union over the course of a lifetime was too much. The arrogant politicians wanted to direct the outcome rather than build the foundations and let the institution evolve with the will of the people.

      2. We’d still be in it if Blair’s government had exercised permitted controls on freedom of movement from the east.

    4. No, they didn’t scrap it.

      They merely delayed it until the dust dies down, and more squirrels appear.

      PS: eekhoorn is squirrel in Dutch

      2. I saw one clip from France where the farmers had dumped a heap of manure on the motorway, so the police thought that was a good place to set up a road block of the remaining lanes. The tractors simply steamed over the heap and carried on.

    1. Will be interesting to see what is done here to reduce the spread of the interview. I note that covid discussions online still all come with government info attached.

    2. Putin is a sharp cookie He’s also ruthless. If Tucker pushes him, he disappears. Not immediately, but one nasty day he’ll have a ‘car accident’ or some such.

        1. Our lot usually goes with slit wrists or sxual high jinks gone wrong. The Russians prefer high rise buildings. I believe the Yanks favour car or plane crashes…

          2. Back in about 1986 I remember an article called something like “Why have so many top scientists been found dead?”
            There was a real spate of them in the early 80s.

      1. I enjoyed the clip of a previous interview by MSNB/CNN? Putin’s response to a leading question left the hapless interviewer speechless.

  43. For a good dose of cynicism visit the following TCW article. I am relieved I am not the only cynic in this world – life and its exploitations have made me so. I identify most closely with comments two (Refusenik)and four (Lomas – this last one from Twitter). This will be my last comment on this particular subject. Just don’t fall for any upcoming new jabs this time, they will exploit our emotions to the max to get their way.

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/king-charles-iii-diagnosed-with-cancer-buckingham-palace-says/

    Bev
    Speculation on social media about Charles getting a new modMRNA cancer jab and a lo and behold, a miraculous recovery.
    Has anyone seen the message from Tony Blair Institute for Global Change?
    “With 21 therapeutic cancer vaccines in development globally, the world is on the cusp of a cancer vaccine revolution. On #WorldCancerDay learn more about our proposals to transform the UK’s approach to #cancer care.” Then a link to their website.
(emphasis mine)
    Tony ****ing Blair not wanting to miss out especially after hearing Gates brag about making $20 billion on vaccine investment.

    Refusenik
    Let’s not forget Boris’ brush with Covid death.
    If anybody believes that was genuine then I’ve got some magic beans to sell them.
    I smell another rat but that is my default setting in a world of relentless lies.

    minorthing
    This personage would be getting a medical check every 24 hours of his life I would think. How long have they known something not right? The riffraff got a warning last week? week before? as a foretaste. The man himself has stated that we’re all here to serve the planet and the quicker we expire the better we can pay our obeisance to it so I’m sure he’s not too alarmed if he’s been warned he can put his money where his mouth is quicket than forecast. Probably not. The one person who will receive the best medical care to keep that dead heart pumping as long as poss. My question is why now has this been released? What bounding, scurrying squirrel are we now to watch searching for it’s nuts while we’re on the eve of destruction? The riffraff are rising up and putting all carefully laid plans at odds and the globalists are beginning to feel the heat and it ain’t the planet that’s boiling.

    Brian Lomas
    @BrianLomas10
    Easy one. Charles tries new experimental mRNA cancer jab.
    It miraculously cures him. Millions fall for it, and pharma cashes in.
    Millions actually accelerate their cancer and die helping to further depopulation agenda. It’s genius.

    2. Isn’t it curious how those who for decades used to rail against the evil of ‘big pharma’ as representing the worst of capitalism are now utterly uncritical of it?

    3. No surprise that Charlie doesn’t seem to have opted for a homeopathic course of treatment.

    4. The new cancer treatment is a good idea. It clearly need proper testing as the ‘vaccine’ wasn’t, but the idea of getting your own body to fight against cancerous cells is the obvious one.

      Save from the real advancement of nanotechnology it’s our best hope. I’ve no wish to see Charles ill and would certainly hope this raises the issue of cancer – what it is, how it works, how it is treated to the public.

    1. I wasn’t aware that James Hewitt had cancer. It’s not been reported, to my knowledge, in the MSM.

  50. Back to 4:
    Wordle 963 4/6

    ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
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  51. Ireland’s anti-Varadkar rebellion is just getting started

    A chasm is opening between the pro-immigration elites and the public who suffer the consequences of porous borders

    MICHAEL MURPHY
    7 February 2024 • 12:49pm

    Leo Varadkar’s flirtation with open borders has awoken the sleeping beast of Irish nationalism. A nursing home in Co Dublin which was being considered for housing for asylum seekers has this week been destroyed in a suspected arson attack. Hundreds of people have thundered through the streets of the capital in recent months, brandishing Irish flags and chanting “get them out” about the government as part of an anti-immigration protest.

    The public has grown tired of the state’s ever-more porous borders and inadequate public services. This has mostly manifested as peaceful, local demonstrations against the housing of asylum seekers in small rural towns and deprived urban areas.

    But Monday’s demonstration took on a more nativistic, muscular tone. One seldom sees streams of Irish tricolour flags outside of an international sports fixture – and the anger of those waving them was palpable.

    There was an air of sedition. Protestors lambasted the government for “taking the Queen’s shilling”, an old term for Republican apostates. Sinn Fein, the traditional home of bellicose Irish nationalism which is nevertheless supportive of mass immigration, were called “traitors”. And the unprecedented number of asylum seekers arriving into the country in recent years – up nearly 200 per cent from 2019 to 2022 – was repeatedly cast as an “invasion”.

    “There’s thousands of patriots here today to oppose this new plantation”, one protester said.

    “And if the people of Ireland don’t stand up and stop this invasion, Ireland will be gone forever…Cromwell himself would blush about what’s happening in this country.”

    That many Irish people are now framing their fight against mass immigration in existential terms is a significant departure from the comparably pedestrian issues of housing, services and GDP, which have dominated Irish politics over the past 30 years. But that this is being spoken of in the language anti-colonial struggle is a development which should alarm Mr Vardkar’s government.

    Since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, nationalism has become a largely innocuous force in Ireland. But over the past year, there has been spate of more than a dozen arson attacks on migrant facilities, and venues wrongly thought to be housing migrants, with no arrests made. This is a fringe but potentially combustible new form of political violence in Ireland – aimed at the government’s immigration policy, which it seems unable to get a handle on.

    There are also mainstream political revolts afoot. More than a third of people in Ireland say they would now consider voting for a party or candidate with strong anti-immigrant views, according to a recent poll. This is a first for Irish politics and could sway next year’s election.

    The Irish government often says the mass influx of asylum seekers cannot be helped. Ministers are wont to remind the Irish people of their need to fulfil Ireland’s “international obligations”. This has stoked anti-EU sentiment, with the Irish government regularly described by immigration sceptics as “puppets” for Brussels. This further lends itself to the sense of Ireland being under the cosh of a new empire – one that is aloof from the concerns of ordinary people.

    In Britain, vast post-war migrations into the country were often justified by a misplaced sense of guilt over the legacy of the Empire. Brits were told they owed a duty of care towards their former subjects. Sceptics could be dismissed as hypocrites in their selfish dereliction of this obligation.

    But Irish history is different. Many Irish people view their nation as a historically oppressed underdog, which won its freedom after a bloody and bitter struggle. This story – immortalised in the canon of Irish songs, literature and films – can tug on the heart strings of even the most sober Irish people.

    It is a potent genie to let out of the bottle. But the Irish government’s cocksure loosening of the state’s borders – widely perceived to be at the behest of the EU – is breathing new life into Irish nationalism. People are beginning to ask questions that have been set aside for some years. What does it mean to be Irish? The more nebulous the gov’s criteria for “Irishness” becomes, the more the Irish people’s definition is likely to contract.

    1. The same applies to Ireland as U.K. In 1995 the Barcelona Agreement was signed by the EU for all countries, without, as I under it, informing the people.

      “ The Barcelona Agreement is based on four basic principles and requirements, which practically includes:

      Europe opens its doors to Islamic immigrants.

      Preventing laws that violate the rules and bureaucracy of countries that hinder the interests of Muslims and their religious practices in accordance with the teachings of the Qur’an.

      Facilitate the spread of Islam in Europe.

      Presenting and promoting attitudes that present a positive image of Arab and Islamic culture.
      The educational materials of schools in this field should focus on the sins of European culture against Islam and pay attention to positive propaganda. “

      These 4 are the main points of the agreement. We are stuffed!

      2. Bur, but, but… I thought we had left the EU and all it’s rules and “agreements”!

    2. The Irish establishment: “We must examine carefully the opinions of the demonstrators in these most unfortunate disturbances and attempt to persuade them that immigration is good for the country, the economy and Europe.”

      The UK establishment: “Farage’s fascists did this!”

      And then there’s this:
      ‘This has stoked anti-EU sentiment, with the Irish government regularly described by immigration sceptics as “puppets” for Brussels.’

      It’s been so for years…

      1. Twice the Irish voted the wrong way in a referendum.

        Twice the Irish were told they had to vote again and if they voted the wrong way again then the EU would cut the money going to Ireland.

        On both occasions the Irish capitulated and did what the EU told them to do.

        Would it be too cynical to suggest that when there is a choice between Irish independent patriotism and money then money will be the preferred choice?

        The obvious solution would be for Ireland to leave the EU, reunite with Northern Ireland and rejoin the UK!

    3. You have to love the Irish. Even when it’s nothing to do with us, they can’t resist a dig:

      ‘Protestors lambasted the government for “taking the Queen’s shilling”, an old term for Republican apostates.’

    4. In Britain, vast post-war migrations into the country were often justified by a misplaced sense of guilt over the legacy of the Empire. Brits were told they owed a duty of care towards their former subjects. Sceptics could be dismissed as hypocrites in their selfish dereliction of this obligation.

      I can’t recall it being expressed this way until very recently. Why would those of us (the overwhelming majority) who were no part of the overseas empire have any responsibility or feel any guilt whatsoever?

  52. Well – a morning well spent. 9.30 – emptied the manure bin of the last five barrow loads. 10.am The first of eight trailer loads of replacement arrived. 12.30 Manure bin fill to brim. Lunch. Meanwhile I had walked 1½ miles round the garden.

    So a quiet afternoon indoors!. It is also a gorgeous day. Dead calm. Dry. Chilly but doing the heavy work made one unaware of the temperature.

    Have I missed any news? Thought not!

    1. Well done. As you say good weather. I spent three hours jet washing the moss off the composite decking patio and a composite decking walkway. Followed by planting three shrubs one of which is a camellia grown from seed.

    2. I hope you realize that your activity is a crime against humanity.

      Growing your own food in an allotment may not be as good for the environment as expected, a study suggests.

      The carbon footprint of homegrown foods is five times greater than produce from conventional agricultural practices, such as rural farms, data show.

      A study from the University of Michigan looked at how much CO2 was produced when growing food in different types of urban farms and found that, on average, a serving of food made from traditional farms creates 0.07kg of CO2.

      The impact on the environment is almost five times higher at 0.34kg per portion for individual gardens, such as vegetable patches or allotments.
      Telegraph
      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/22/carbon-footprint-homegrown-food-allotment-increase/

      1. All evidence that government is trying to kill us off. Let *them* starve for a change. Have the wasters political class take the costs.

      2. Take no notice of all these stupid reports.The sooner you do the happier you will be.

      4. But how much CO2 in getting the goods to the shop, then the shopper going to buy them and take them home. Compared to walking down the garden to my veg patch?

  53. Afternoon all 🙂😊
    I’ve been busy on a new venture, meeting local people in my village. At the Men’s shed.
    Coffee and a chat with some nice local guys.
    I’ve committed to use my skills to make a new ledged and brace door for the village football changing room. They have plenty of decent timber available.
    And chatting with one chap, I mentioned Scarborough. He said he had relations there.
    It turned out that we are actually related. His grandmother was my paternal grandfather’s younger sister. It’s a small world eh !

      1. I think he’s got a copy of the same version of the family tree I have. It goes back to around 1740.
        Mainly in and around Scarborough.
        I’ll see him again in couple of weeks.
        He was a part time wood wind instrument maker. Flutes and Piccolos. As well as being a teacher.
        I showed him a photo of the guitars and ukuleles I have made.

          1. No just a completely off chance chat.
            🤗
            He spent most of his married life living near York.
            His grandmother, My great aunt I had never met. Aliso went north back to Yorkshire but her husband was killed in a ww2 n air-raid.
            What an amazing coincidence.
            I think I’ll buy a lottery ticket 😆

          2. I’ve discovered a few rellies via family history research but nobody quite by chance like that. One thing led to another and I found my 3rd cousin in NZ via the Forest of Dean Family History site. We met in Cairo in 2007 as we were both on holiday at that time. Later he came to the UK and spent a weekend with us. We are still in touch.

            He arranged a get-together of all the NZ side of the family in 2011. During his research for that (which resulted in a book) an old Victorian photo album emerged with a lot of photos sent from the family still in Bristol. Some great photos of our joint relations.

            Through him I was able to find my father’s cousin in Devon – she is still alive at almost 97. Her daughter Penny is my second cousin. I didn’t know them prior to this – but while my Uncle was alive I got him to identify some children in a photo taken by my father.

            Another 2nd cousin on my mother’s side (I had known him when I was a child) found me some years ago. We had a get-together and he gave me a lot of family photos. Sadly, he died a few years ago.

          3. Fantastic story. It’s not easy but it seems well worth it.
            I have also discovered the lady who is the image of her grandmother, lives in Mijas Golf. Spain, we almost bought a new apartment there about 20 + years ago. But changed our minds last minute.

        2. You share the same talent for woodworking then – I remember you making a guitar a few years ago.

  54. Will anything reconcile William and Harry? 7 February 2024.

    It is, as yet, unclear as to how the meeting between the two went, although given their recent moves towards a reconciliation, the potential for awkwardness has largely already been defused, despite the unobliging things that Harry has written and said about his father over the past year.

    My own personal experience of family feuding leads me to believe that you can have a cease fire but reconciliation is not possible. I tried for many years to normalise the relationship between my sister and myself but it was a one way process. As soon as circumstances aligned it was broken and remains so to this day.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/will-anything-reconcile-william-and-harry/

    1. Likewise Araminta. I did not speak to my sister again after an argument some 50 years ago. She died a couple of years ago and I didn’t bother to go to the funeral. I’m not a hypocrite. When siblings break faith there is no fixing it, in my opinion.

      1. My eldest sister not only physically assaulted me she also grabbed my other sister by the throat and broke one of my brother’s nose.
        She also stole our father’s body. He had been living at Ringwood for 15 years with my other sister and she expected him to be buried there. The elder one wanted to grandstand the event with all her husband’s family and had the body released from hospital without anyone else knowing.
        She also decided i was to be one of the pall bearers. I only found out as the coffin was being removed from the hearse.
        There is so much more of the manipulative scheming bitch which i won’t bother to tell.
        There is no chance of a rapprochement.

          1. Her husband and his brother both threatened to kill me because she told everyone i had attacked her ! She got her story in while i was still in shock. My mental health improved tremendously when i stopped having anything to do with them. Years old now.

          2. A friend of mine has been having issues for a few years with her two older sisters. If their mother was still alive, she’d have dealt with it pretty sharpish. A woman you didn’t mess with.

    2. I have no siblings but my OH and his sister haven’t had any communication (apart from being allowed to attend her son’s wedding) since shortly after their father died in 2000. Her two children are fine, however, and we have a normal relationship with them.

      1. Afternoon Ndovu. These personal wounds cut deep. Sometimes to the very essence of who we are. Foregiveness is usually beyond reach.

    3. I was thinking this evening about my relationship with my brother; he blamed me for being my mother’s favourite, but I resented him because (as the elder) I thought he got preferential treatment. Either we’re both deluded or our mother was equally mean to both of us!

  55. Telegraph Sour grapes. The video of Tucker explaining his action is a truncated version, needless to say. The full version is thew one I posted for NOTTLERS today at around 9:30 this morning.
    Tucker Carlson isn’t ‘brave’ to interview Putin, he’s the only Western journalist allowed to
    Russian president has granted almost no interviews with Moscow-based correspondents from TV and newspapers in West since Ukraine war began
    Standing in front of a Moscow skyline, Tucker Carlson announced that he was about to do what other Western journalists had failed to for the past two years: sit down with Vladimir Putin.

    In a video released on X, the former Fox News anchor claimed to be undertaking what “corrupt” mainstream broadcasters would not – by airing an “unedited” interview with Putin to allow the viewer to “decide for yourself”.

    He said that Western media outlets had shunned Putin, preferring to sit down with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, in “fawning pep sessions” designed to give a one-sided view of the war in Ukraine.

    What Carlson failed to explain to his audience is that since the war began, the Russian president has granted almost no interviews with the Moscow-based correspondents of Western outlets, and has avoided all press appearances where he could be asked difficult questions about Ukraine.

    Instead, Putin has preferred to speak to Russian state-controlled outlets, which publish stories heavily controlled by Kremlin censors.

    Carlson is not the only Western journalist brave enough to interview Putin – he is the only one allowed to.

    “Does Tucker really think we journalists haven’t been trying to interview President Putin every day since his full scale invasion of Ukraine?”, wrote Christine Amanpour, the veteran CNN correspondent, in response to his video on Tuesday evening.

    “It’s absurd – we’ll continue to ask for an interview, just as we have for years now.”
    In his four-minute promo for the interview, the broadcaster also neglected to mention his fellow US journalist, Evan Gershkovich, who covered Russia for the Wall Street Journal. He has been languishing in a Russian jail for nearly a year on espionage charges that his family maintain are bogus.

    For Russian journalists, even describing Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as a “war” and not the Kremlin’s preferred “special operation” could land them in prison.

    The Kremlin decision to allow a sit-down to Carlson’s independent “TCN” online channel follows years of the anchor questioning US opposition to Russia, and his suggestion that Mr Zelensky is a “dictator” who is “closer to Lenin than George Washington”.

    The fact that Carlson is the only Western reporter Putin is willing to speak to may well reflect more harshly on his reporter’s credentials than he believes.

    1. I wonder how many of the other journalists have promised to do a completely unedited interview with the President of Russia as TC has?

  57. The Danish photographer Soren Solkær first saw starling murmurations as a child near Wadden Sea in the south of the country. After photographing the phenomenon for three years in the marshlands of Denmark, Solkær’s new work, Starling, published by Edition Circle, expands his scope to trace the birds along their migration routes to the Netherlands and Italy

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/40317b5e17bb12d505ef356e1c0098d573972052adc698a1756b792736b99e7e.jpg

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/353266bb1910bf174ef10eb062bc03192404bc6f/0_0_2000_3000/master/2000.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=3506c0bd94f9577741747e25f2719fa6

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5cf72ef3f79cbbc6cdd85e0c6e950912a0daa1f3/0_0_2000_1333/master/2000.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=60968c18ccc2e73c1cab2783c2ee0d5f

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e5d439423160258699c3c97141433057fcb2fadc/0_0_2000_3050/master/2000.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=358110fc3ed10a1608f7e370c7772d7a

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e58af14f8279bb677abe3479ac1d109f675a89f4/0_0_2000_1333/master/2000.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=78a956bfcbdbb9878e8a790c697d132e

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/adf67f1ad8e019082d56eaef83c29a04eef02ca1/0_0_3000_2000/master/3000.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=12fe0faf6fe95f7d742c38ea3a7f3e75

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/12a5c4bfb4d566c7204e9716708c90fa37ba43d2/0_0_2000_1331/master/2000.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=29b24ed4ebc7fc1ac718c8886000172c

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2024/feb/07/flights-of-fancy-starlings-murmurations-in-pictures

    1. Very good, but the writer should be informed that the Wadden Sea is not in the south of Denmark. It is situated below the Friesian Islands on the border between Germany and The Netherlands.

      1. You tell ’em Grizz, but I suspect that the guilty party is some goofy sub-editor at The Grauniad.

      1. Over the years I have known many birds who have behaved very strangely. They all try to blame us blokes.

  58. Just came across this on Twitt, for a person who has had a lot of cosmetic surgery, fillers, botox etc “a face like haunted Tupperware”

      1. We lived in Grays Court near the Camber Dock. We spent much of our time at the Cathedral. and the Royal Naval Club. We could never beat the choir into the pub after Evensong.

        1. I occasionally went for a drink in Old Portsmouth. The Sally Port normally. Sometimes the George as they had a piano.

          2. The George had a young lad to keep the Bar and cellar tidy. 30 years later after Naval service he married my neighbour. Small world.

          4. The George had a young lad to keep the Bar and cellar tidy. 30 years later after Naval service he married my neighbour. Small world.

      2. My late brother – while serving in the Royal Navy (at a time when it had lots of warships) – lived in Farthing Lane, off Penny Street.

        2. Farthings
          When I was in Primary school in 1946 we had a Brenda Penny and a Terence Farthing, both in my class. Yesterday my 49-year old son asked how much a Farthing was worth. He could scarcely believe it when I told him it was a 1/960th of a pound.

          1. My grandsons think that £100 is a couple of rounds of drinks….{:¬(( Or a tank of petrol.

    2. Plenty of bloody good pubs and I presume the Still & West was still a Gale’s house at the time?

        1. Got taken over by Fuller’s and promptly shut down.
          The brewery is now a block of flats.

    4. Interesting video – but appalling camerawork. At one point he says “in the background you can see..” just before he pans away from the background during “in the…’ and nothing is seen of the place at all.

  60. Starry skies over South Downs national park: astrophotography competition – in pictures

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/bab0ccc491b001ee9d027b22dbf210c277b86b48/0_170_3500_2100/master/3500.jpg?width=980&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=2ea56c40fa797fe4315da4876afd92e2

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/924090a53ed0bee9d17f80cf5ffa8a56facd3503/0_0_3500_2389/master/3500.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=2c684d66e111828d8d82fb70e8f5cbc1

    There are some very good images but I think they are better viewed if you go to the Guardian website (I dare you!) rather than cut ‘n paste efforts

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2024/feb/07/south-downs-astrophotography-competition-in-picture

    1. In the vernacular of my grandchildren…”totally awesome”….How I envy those who see these magnificent sights, let alone capture them for all to see!!

    2. The bottom pic was the view i gazed at from night time fishing on Chesil beach. Stunning and humbling.

      1. Had some totally clear winter nights at Firstborn’s place, out in the countryside with no ambient light. You realise, once your eyes are accustomed (pupils like a dinner plate…) that the sky isn’t black, it’s actually pale grey, there are so many stars. Shocking, and humbling. Makes one think of deities…

        2. The skies in the Gobi desert were amazing. We lay in the yurts with the vent open so we could see them.

  61. Back from a coffee and cake meeting this morning with old work friends. Just catching up with emails etc. Keeping on top of what’s going on seems to take time.

  62. Phew!
    Most of the logs to be chopped & stacked chopped & most of them stacked and not having a break whilst Grad.Son stacks those left to stack.
    I’ve 6 or 7 sawn elm logs to finish off chopping, a couple about 12″ dia.
    By close of play I should have at least ¼ of the newly repaired hollybush stack refilled.

    A shocking example of NHS incompetence that Wes Streeting appears to be ignoring, but as this post says, it did happen in Labour run Wales:-
    https://twitter.com/KulganofCrydee/status/1755134616048894297

    2. Beremy Jowen: A gifted Leader of the BBC Propaganda Battalions. A person/thing who can talk down its nose and out of its Rrse at the same time.

    2. Do they even begin to understand that owls need freshly killed warm blood to feed on or do they imagine bird seed will do? There was a guy in my class at York Art School back in the 70s who kept an owl but he fed it properly and had no qualms about what that entailed.

    3. In ‘The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin’, some of Old Brown’s dietary requirements are incorporated into the story. Mice, moles, minnows, beetles, honey and eggs.

      1. The Arab Princes all have birds of Prey. Culture..innit. .. at least they are not eating them.

  65. We should be weeping..

    Sir Sajid Javid is among the potential candidates to become the next chairman of Standard Chartered.

    The former Chancellor has reportedly been approached about leading the London-listed bank when its chairman José Viñals steps down.

      1. I took the picture because i didn’t think she would be old enough to know what David Cassidy looked like in the 70’s.

        Are you suggesting i look like Cousin It ?

      1. Not you as well !!!

        I am not Cousin It !

        Looks rather sexy don’t you think… :@)

        Mellisa hairdresser said i don’t look anything like 60. I said…I know.

    5. That looks good! My hair always looks good when my hairdresser has sorted me out – I just wish I could get the same results when I dry it myself.

      1. This one you can just run your fingers through because the shape has been created. If blow drying use a round brush.
        Follow me for more tips. :@)

        I have to laugh because most of my friends have had to shave their heads because of male pattern baldness. I get quite a bit of friendly abuse over my luscious locks. :@)

        1. I’d love to go back to layers, but my hair is thinner than it used to be and I’m not sure even blow drying would help layers. maybe I’ll save the photo and ask my hairdresser if she thinks a similar style would work on me …. and how long it would take to grow it back out again!

          1. I take after my mother.Thick wavy hair. When i was a child my hair was red/ginger…ooh the abuse at school !
            Now it has settled in to auburn and grey while those same people have no hair i try not to be smug…teehee.
            If your hair is thin then you do need a professional hairdresser to create a style that complements the shape of your face.

        2. Join the club – I visited the barbers twice last year and not at all so far this year…

      2. There are gels you can apply before blow drying which protect the hair from the heat. Also never use the hairdryer on hot setting. Never apply the hairdryer to the roots.

        I think i’ve missed my vocation. All my mates just need a bit of pledge.

        1. That’s your trips sorted – tour the country, visiting Nottler ladies for advice on our locks.
          In the past, I’ve tried assorted gels and mousses, but then my hair just ends up looking grotty sooner than without. Still, if my biggest problem/difficulty was my hair, I’d be laughing. If I should come back in a future life, and only one change was allowed, it would be to have good eyes.

          1. Sorry Mum about your eyes. Always seek other professional opinions please.

            As far as hair goes…the less products the better. Hair spray is the worst ! They all tend to leave residue in the hair and the most important thing is your scalp. Which will regulate itself. Just a little moisture creme rubbed over your hands and through your hair should be enough to protect it from the elements.

          2. I need to visit the optician anyway. Overdue, but other health issues had to take priority. Last time, about 18 months ago, apart from vision getting even worse, I was told I had the start of cataracts, which I’m fairly sure have progressed. But my eyes are nowhere near as bad as my poor brother, who now has retina problems as well as extreme myopia, cataracts and other issues, and may not be able to drive not too far in the future. I’m thankful for small mercies.

          4. Thank you. We’re a good bunch! I remember all the support we gave to poor Anne (LOTL) last year.

  71. Amongst the BTL comments I came across this proposed slogan for the Reform Party’s propaganda campaign:

    * People used to vote Conservative to stop Labour getting in.
    * People used to vote Labour to stop the Conservatives getting in.
    * Kill two birds with one stone -Vote Reform and stop both Labour and the Conservative getting in!

    1. I really wish that people would! How utterly foolish do we have to be to vote continually for parties that do us ill? Worse than that, parties that actually do their worst to us and openly laugh about it.

        1. I do hope so! Been waiting so long for change, it feels like it’ll never come. Just a little hope from somewhere. Anywhere, really.

  72. Another pillar of Queen Nicola’s woke legacy has crumbled

    None of her mistakes can compete with her insistence that transwomen are women. Facts were always going to catch up and overtake ideology

    TOM HARRIS
    7 February 2024 • 2:51pm

    Former Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon departs Edinburgh International Conference Centre after giving evidence to the COVID inquiry
    Former Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon departs Edinburgh International Conference Centre after giving evidence to the COVID inquiry
    The SNP government, having earned a reputation as the UK’s most enthusiastic proponent of trans rights, has now conceded that there could be a fatal weakness in allowing patients to change their sex on medical records.

    The latest announcement from the Department for the Bleedin’ Obvious comes in the form of a draft policy that admits to “unintended negative consequences” of a trans-inclusive policy, which allows patients to wipe references to their biological sex and instead be recognised in line with their gender identity.

    It’s the final nail in the coffin for what is left of Nicola Sturgeon’s legacy. So committed was the former first minister to trans ideology that she pressed ahead with the Gender Recognition Reform Act (GRRA) in 2022, allowing under-18s to change their legal gender, and opening the door to anyone, whether or not they suffered from gender dysphoria, to self-identify as their preferred gender after only three months and without the approval of a GP.

    The debate inside the Holyrood chamber was less heated than that outside, where concerns about the Act’s impact on women’s rights were airily dismissed by MSPs and women’s groups were smeared as transphobic. Even the shocking case of double rapist Isla Bryson could not persuade Sturgeon that transwomen were anything other than actual women.

    Until now, the devolved administration has insisted that altering a trans patient’s medical records to reflect their “lived identity” has led to “improved patient experience” and “enables better healthcare planning”.

    Perhaps the conclusions of her own former officials will persuade Sturgeon and her successor to acknowledge that biological and medical realities should trump ideology.

    The proposed new guidelines acknowledge a “clinical risk” if medical staff are kept in the dark about a patient’s birth sex. It warns that some medical tests could be misread and incorrect treatments given as a result.

    “The classic example of where this could create a problem is in haemoglobin, where abnormal readings can be a red flag for cancer,” one clinician working in Scotland told The Telegraph.

    “The healthy ranges are different for men and women, so if it is assumed a sample has come from a male when in fact it’s from a female, really vital information could be missed.”

    It might also be pointed out that a transwoman, who is biologically male, might evade the necessity of regular health checks on her prostate if doctors accept her stated sex at birth as accurate.

    The SNP have created a tangled political mess north of the border with their unnecessary – and unnecessarily aggressive – stance on trans rights. Having recognised the unexpected support of the Scottish public for the UK government’s unprecedented decision to prevent the GRRA receiving Royal Assent, Sturgeon resigned from office a year ago. But her successor, Humza Yousaf, quickly fell foul of the same issue. Perhaps seeing the veto more as a constitutional outrage than as a purely policy issue, he insisted on pursuing legal action to overturn it. He failed and is being forced to pay costs to the UK government.

    It’s reassuring to see the Scottish medical establishment finally offering some home truths that undermine an ideology that is detrimental to trans people themselves. But why did it take them so long?

    Nicola Sturgeon’s toxic legacy will take many years to escape. But none of her mistakes in office can compete with the hubristic, life-threatening insistence that transwomen are women. Facts were always going to catch up and overtake ideology; the question is, how many lives have been adversely affected in the meantime?

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

    John Kelly
    1 HR AGO
    Is is encouraging to see that Sturgeon…failed solicitor and failed politician…is now being widely recognised as the intellectually short changed dimwit that she always has been, rather than the astute , on-the-ball leader she pretended to be.
    It has taken a while, but the reality of the Sturgeon myth has finally been exposed.

    1. Tom Harris appears to be taken in by the pronoun nonsense. “her prostate”. No, Tom Harris, it is HIS prostate.

    2. Just think of the number of ‘former’ men who would die of prostate cancer because they insisted their notes classed them as women.

      2. Look on the bright side (although some men do) it’s unlikely they will get Breast Cancer (unless of course such cancers are generated by hormone treatment….?)

      3. Look on the bright side (although some men do) it’s unlikely they will get Breast Cancer (unless of course such cancers are generated by hormone treatment….?)

    3. Just think of the number of ‘former’ men who would die of prostate cancer because they insisted their notes classed them as women.

      1. Secretly?? She’s been waving her metaphorical dick all over the place since she was in nappies. She was born with an irreversible inferiority complex which she counters by being an overt nasty thug aiming towards her objective of being feared.

  75. I must have read at least a dozen reports before I found the confirmation that Brianna Grey was born a boy. Predictably, Max Headroom made a big deal of Sunak’s remarks in the HoC today. The Fakir may be a useless piece of nothingness but he was correct about the kneeling hologram. As for Max, he should keep quiet on sensitive moral matters, given his history as DPP.

    The murder of Grey was as nasty a business as any. The murderers were just two more products of our hideously broken society but it won’t be long before someone decent and reasonable is murdered for pointing out decently and reasonably that a person cannot change sex.

    Quentin Letts: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13056823/QUENTIN-LETTS-Sir-Keir-Starmer-Rishi-Sunak-Brianna-Ghey-landmine-priggish-disbelief.html

    PS Has anyone noticed how Max sounds more and more like Millipede The Sandwich Man whenever he expresses his indignation?

    1. If they have any sense, the Conservatives during the GE campaign will bring up Starmer’s support for BLM and that infamous kneeling photo with Rayner, and his equivocation over transgenderism, and use these two nonsensical views to great advantage.

      1. I fear your first five words are a bit of a giveaway….

        There is neither a jot nor a tittle of sense of ANY kind in the Conservative party.

  76. I must have read at least a dozen reports before I found the confirmation that Brianna Grey was born a boy. Predictably, Max Headroom made a big deal of Sunak’s remarks in the HoC today. The Fakir may be a useless piece of nothingness but he was correct about the kneeling hologram. As for Max, he should keep quiet on sensitive moral matters, given his history as DPP.

    The murder of Grey was as nasty a business as any. The murderers were just two more products of our hideously broken society but it won’t be long before someone decent and reasonable is murdered for pointing out decently and reasonably that a person cannot change sex.

    Quentin Letts: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13056823/QUENTIN-LETTS-Sir-Keir-Starmer-Rishi-Sunak-Brianna-Ghey-landmine-priggish-disbelief.html

    PS Has anyone noticed how Max sounds more and more like Millipede The Sandwich Man whenever he expresses his indignation?

  77. Subsidy harvester heading down the plughole…

    Wind farm operator forced to cut hundreds of jobs

    Ørsted quits several global markets and scales back offshore projects amid strong headwinds

    Jonathan Leake
    7 February 2024 • 11:37am

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/business/2024/02/07/TELEMMGLPICT000347269789_17073054828610_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqeTmIrq9zkcsW-fo5t5CZSPyAUXpAtaMiNrZ8pA7Y1Zk.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Orsted operates the Walney Extension offshore wind farm off the coast of Blackpool
    *
    *
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/02/07/wind-farm-orsted-cuts-jobs-scales-back-offshore-projects/
    ***********************************

    P Roberts
    5 HRS AGO
    Orsted UK, announced cost-cutting measures including hundreds of lost jobs.
    AMTE Power, a high-performance battery developer, has called in administrators.
    Britain’s biggest oil and gas producer, Harbour energy cut 300 jobs in response to the North Sea windfall tax.
    Britishvolt collapsed after burning through £100 million of our money.
    Honda closed its plant in 2021 due to a need to “accelerate” its “electrification strategy”. The 3,000 people that lost their jobs were promised they would quickly find new jobs. Well, that went well didn’t it!!
    Last year, BMW announced it will end production of the electric Mini in Oxford. It is going to China where it will be built using cheap energy from coal.
    Jaguar Land Rover had been planning to build a battery gigafactory near Bristol or Redcar, but after a row with the Government over the level of state support, has threatened to move to Slovakia.
    Ford’s laid off 3000 workers squarely at the door of electrification. The redundancies make up just over 40pc of Ford’s European product development team, which includes designers, engineers and testers.
    Volta Trucks all elecric UK division has applied for administration and intends to appoint insolvency experts Alvarez & Marshal. The collapse puts roughly 600 British jobs at risk.
    British electric van maker. Arrival, once valued at $13bn (£10bn) has gone into administration after burning through $1.5bn without having sold a vehicle.
    Oxfordshire-based Arrival Electric has appointed administrators at EY to find a buyer for the business, 170 jobs lost.
    The problem is obvious, except perhaps to Westminster politicians.

    Richie Rich
    5 HRS AGO
    Out will go the begging bowl. Despite some of the highest electricity prices in the world the subsidy junky renewable’s industry is dependent on high energy prices & tax payers cash. Today’s subsidy junkies will be tomorrows zombie companies.

      1. I’m no fan of ‘wind farms’, on or offshore, but making an area out of bounds to netters and trawlers is always a good thing as it makes a fish sanctuary where they thrive. Also not sure about fish being happy with all that undersea cabling and electric fields. that must be present. You’d think there has been some research gone into it but perhaps not.

        1. There’s also high-frequency vibrations from the rotating blades transmitted to the sea through the towers to consider.

          3. It seems that LF vibrations are produced by wind turbines.
            “The Environment Protection Agency has revised the Statutory Order on Wind Turbines to include mandatory limit values for low frequency noise.

    2. I see small pubs and restaurants closing regularly. The rise in interest rates is beginning to have a significant effect as more come off fixed rates and with no prospect of energy prices returning to previous levels, I believe the economy is in for a rocky time ahead. There may be poetic justice with a crash developing just as Labour get into power. They might then be blamed for the next 5 years of austerity/misery and there may be some conservatives around to pick up the pieces. Cheers, mine’s a half..!

      1. 2025-2030 is going to be a bad time whoever is in government, maybe 2024-2030 and beyond.

          1. Well, all HMG inflicted. Don’t mean to be pedantic but it is our government making all the wrong decisions.

    2. Don’t mention the dentist to me! I went for a check up today. Nearly £30 and £60 for the hygienist to clean the bottom set. My usual (English) dentist had morphed into an Indian (I think) who was very difficult to understand given he wore a mask and had a strong accent.

  79. These people are utterly deranged.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0fb67f09446ed1b2af065fb8def406b21ead8e267d895531050226f5fc8d0fe1.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/07/british-countryside-racist-white-space-charities-claim/

    Wildlife and Countryside Link, a charity umbrella group whose members include the RSPCA, WWF and National Trust, made the claim in evidence provided to Parliament on racism and its influence on the natural world.

    MPs in an all-party parliamentary group (APPG) were informed that the British countryside has been influenced by “racist colonial legacies” which have created an environment some fear is “dominated by white people”.

    Duh, could that be because Britain is a European white peoples’ homeland?

    Several charities support report

    Link is headed by Richard Benwell, the chief executive and a former Liberal Democrat prospective parliamentary candidate, who worked as a policy adviser to the secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs in 2018.

    Link operates as an umbrella organisation for its influential members charities, including the RSPB, the Woodland Trust, and Friends of the Earth.

    Several have directly supported the new report, including the League Against Cruel Sports, and The Countryside Charity, formerly known as the Council for the Preservation of Rural England.

    Froglife, an amphibian conservation body, and the Bat Conservation Trust have also supported the report, submitted to the APPG for Race and Community, chaired by Labour MP Clive Lewis.

    The APPG last year called for evidence on the links between “systemic racism and the climate crisis”, focused on the idea that ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected by climate change.

    Contrary to the popular expression “you couldn’t make it’ up you very much can make it up these day and the mad reality will be along in just a few moments.

    If I ever come across one of those arrows pointing towards Mecca when I’m out and about it will be removed.

      3. They only feel safe in ghettos made of bricks, concrete, tarmac, glass, rubble and shit!

        Not much of that down in Dingly Dell or The Hundred Acre Wood.

      4. Nothing. It just doesn’t appeal to them. Do we have to herd them into trucks and transport them there?

    2. Would minorities feel happier if they took a ramble in a jungle. I can suggest a continent where they have plenty and they will probably feel very much at home.

    4. Oh, stop whining, useless pieces of shonet. Grow up and get a life. Or fcuk off and die.

    5. Dominated by “British cultural values”? What else would it be? Surely, national parks and countryside in Africa and other effnic homelands are ‘dominated by their culture’ (or what passes as culture to them), and quite rightly so. They can’t have ours! There is absolutely nothing stopping any non-indigenous Brit from visiting any of our National Parks, NT buildings or countryside anyway.
      I am sick of everything British and British people being expected to change to suit incomers. Nobody is making the ungrateful, permanently offended scrounging scum be here.

    6. …the links between “systemic racism and the climate crisis”…

      ????????????????????????????????

    7. I am disappointed in the CPRE but apart from them it’s the usual suspects. Is the Masai Mara racist?

    8. I suggest it is a cynical manoeuvre by the Right and Global Business interests to discredit all environmentalists and wildlife charities, so that they can go about making big money trashing nature with impunity.

      There is no connection between race and the environment, and it is malicious and false to suggest that there is. Furthermore there are national security implications in an “umbrella organisation” which presumably is siphoning away donations intended for wildlife and heritage protection towards a spurious gang of fifth columnists. A hate campaign against “whites” is an assault on the indigenous population of this country, and is itself as gross a form of colonialism and systemic racism as any.

      I am preaching to the converted though. It seems that they have separated decision-making from the people, and that we no longer have any say as to what is done on our behalf and with our money. We are told to like it and lump it, and they call this “democracy”.

  80. I see that The Grimes and the DT are mocking Carlson’s Putin Coup”. And that the EUSSR is thinking of banning him from entering the Western Gulag.

    Funny that.

    1. I wonder how many national security secrets will ‘accidentally’ be on his personal computer for his new employers.

  83. I must love you and leave you. The MR is at her Keep Fit class so I shall make use of the time to finish the excellent:
    A Northern Wind: Britain 1962-65 by David Kynaston. Extraordinary to read about those far off times when I was still articled. Brings back so many memories. A real page turner of a book. I commend it.

    Market tomorrow – in the rain and cold – but at least three days hard work in t’garden have paid off – AND I feel a bit fitter (or less unfit!)

    A demain.

    1. Just finished reading “Beyond the Wall” by Katya Hoyer.
      East Germany appears to have been an embuggeration to the Soviets.
      And, as probably most of us suspected, far more friendly with West Germany than the rhetoric would have us believe.

  84. Please, please, please may we elect these gents as Honorary NoTTLers. They’re quite obviously bonkers and like to have fun…

    The very furry goat-men of Bulgaria: Charles Fréger’s best photograph

    ‘It takes about eight goats to make a single costume. The wearers have to be fit as they’re very heavy – and they spend three days in them, jumping around, dancing, drinking too much and posing for selfies’

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/45896a30256216651d066b64496df2b07e214efb/0_0_1000_1311/master/1000.jpg?width=700&dpr=2&s=none

    2. 🤣🤣🤣 Lord – can you imagine how they must smell after three days’ drinking and carousing clad in several ex-goats?

        2. I’d call them Twistletons’

          (After P.G. Wodehouse’s character Pongo Twistleton)

      3. Your comment reminded me of a girl I was at school with. In the 6th form, she liked to wear her afghan goatskin coat in class. Goodness, I can still remember the smell – especially when she sat close to the radiator.

      4. A bit like my Morris kit after a 3 day meeting of the Morris Ring or even just a Day of Dance!

        1. The worst of them need eliminating, or at least permanently removing from this country and all other civilised nations.

    3. Unless Reform have a candidate I can vote for I’ll not be voting. None of the others are worth a rotten carrot.

    1. Bliar (spit) knew exactly what he was doing when he deprived the British of decent firepower.
      I’m not talking about Army stuff – the kind of arms used in Hungerford – just normal guns and pistols.
      Now only agents of the state and criminals have anything worth the name.
      We were deliberately rendered defenceless.
      I certainly felt less threatened in the days when the general public could own guns.

      2. I actually think that both Hungerford and Dunblane were state-sponsored to provide the excuse to disarm us.

        2. There have been conspiracy theories about possible drugs allowing the gunmen to be hypnotised into carrying out the murders.

          1. Quite. The fact they placed a 70 year D-Notice on the Dunblane files says it all. There is also a strong whiff of Gordon Brown and his Freemasonic brothers in the Dunblane affair.

          3. No, and the story of the Dunblane gunman being a freemason is also incorrect. His uncle of the same name was.

  89. It was only a matter of time. Not only should weigh-ins be standard for any of these lardies, they should have to buy 2 seats as well. Maybe it only applies to Finnish Air’s smaller aircraft, where passenger weight has to be balanced across the plane, but it’s a start.

    “An airline has announced it will begin weighing passengers with their carry-on luggage in order to better estimate the plane’s weight before take-off.
    The controversial move comes from Finnish carrier Finnair, who told media they began ‘measuring’ passengers departing from Helsinki on Monday.”

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/297088f151f2ecc0c12de5067cda56cb96439ceb1f749e8185fcf87df82efa3c.jpg

      2. Last time I looked, somebody that size could block the toilet for the entire flight.

    2. Such a lard-arse could cause multiple deaths by compromising evacuation procedures – at several stages.

      The recent 100% successful evacuation of a huge Japanese airliner (Airbus 380?) – at a secondary Tokyo airport – was because native Japanese passengers are mostly slim and fit.

      Fat Finns should not be allowed to board!

  90. Still to read the last few pages, but I have found this an extraordinarily gripping read:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fcecac487dc1d2c4e6e03016852ebf54369efafa1dfcbbc238867ef792231827.jpg

    It is 1792 and Europe is seized by political turmoil and violence.

    Lizzie Fawkes has grown up in Radical circles where each step of the French Revolution is followed with eager idealism.

    But she has recently married John Diner Tredevant, a property developer who is heavily invested in Bristol’s housing boom, and he has everything to lose from social upheaval and the prospect of war. Soon his plans for a magnificent terrace built above the two-hundred-foot drop of the Gorge come under threat.

    Diner believes that Lizzie’s independent, questioning spirit must be coerced and subdued. She belongs to him: law and custom confirm it, and she must live as he wants.

    In a tense drama of public and private violence, resistance and terror, Diner’s passion for Lizzie darkens until she finds herself dangerously alone.

    1. Oh that was recommended to me a few years ago for book club. I’m the end we chose a different book. But good to know for future reference. Why is it called Birdcage Walk?

      1. My own Book Club chose it for Book of the Month a couple of years ago. I wasn’t overly impressed.

        1. I can’t say that the synopsis made me want to put it on my list of books to read. At the moment, it would be about 790th anyway 🙂

  91. the World has truly gone mad!

    “Rory Stewart tipped as next chancellor of Oxford University
    Former Tory minister emerges as the front runner as institution prepares to hold online vote for prestigious but largely ceremonial role

  92. 382046+ up ticks,

    Dt,

    Cut benefits instead of relying on migration to bring down debt, says OBR chief
    Plus: David Miles warns that welfare reform is vital to shore up Britain’s finances

    Should read,

    Cut benefits / welfare out instead of relying on migration to bring down debt, says Ogga1
    that would stop the daily invasion, then work not shirk for those already in – house, until input warrants output.

    Plus: David Miles warns that welfare reform is vital to shore up Britain’s finances

  94. They do things properly in France….

    Sex tape scandal rocks French politics
    Doctor’s assistant allegedly used incriminating video with ‘very influential senator’ to avoid being sacked.

    A sex scandal has sent shockwaves through France’s senate after a female medical assistant reportedly used a sex tape she filmed with a senator in his office as leverage to gain favours and make her “untouchable”.

    A doctor working at the senate, where the average age is around 60, is said to have complained to human resources about his assistant and requested her dismissal last October, according to Le Canard Enchaîné.
    However, when he informed the assistant of his intentions, she reportedly told him she was “untouchable” and “protected by a “very influential senator”
    She then allegedly produced “unequivocal” footage she said she had shot of her having sex with the unnamed senator in his office “with his trousers around his ankles”, warning the doctor she could “get anyone I like fired”.
    According to Le Canard, Gérard Larcher, the senate president, was made aware of the tape, sent to him by the senate’s secretary general after he had received a complaint from the doctor, but did nothing for three months.

    When the Senate finally acted, instead of sanctioning the assistant, the upper chamber launched “dismissal proceedings without notice or compensation” against the doctor, who they accused of “providing paid outside services”.
    However, the Senate’s disciplinary office made no mention of his status as a witness in the sex tape affair.

    Le Canard said that the doctor did not wish to comment on the matter, nor did his lawyer. Mr Larcher also declined to comment.
    According to Le Canard, the assistant was directly imposed on the doctor by the senator involved in the sex tape and was said to have benefited from favours in the form of a 45 per cent pay rise.

    Who was it who said : “All’s fair in Love and Whore”?

  96. Evening, all. Climate armageddon is about to descend on the Marches. Schools have been closed and the roads gritted inches thick – all because there is a threat of snow! Snow in February; well I never.

  97. Madness.

    If I say something sane such as.burning natural gas is cleaner than burning coal. then I wil be in contravention of a proposed new law in Canada. Penalty could be a fine is up to $500,000 and two years in clink.

    It’s called the Fossil Fuel Advertising Act.

    2. There are actually systems that are built into coal-powered chimney stacks that remove lots of nasty pollutants. They could be made even more efficient at this if more money was spent on this type of anti-pollution than is chucked at nonsensical Net effing Zero.

  100. Good night, chums, I’m off to bed now. Sleep well, and I’ll see you all tomorrow. Bonne Nuit, Buenas Noches, etc.

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