Saturday 10 February: It’s time for the Democrats to face facts about Joe Biden’s fitness to lead America

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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507 thoughts on “Saturday 10 February: It’s time for the Democrats to face facts about Joe Biden’s fitness to lead America”

  1. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) story
    THE LAST CHANCE SALOON

    There I was sitting at the bar staring at my drink when a large, trouble-making biker steps up next to me, grabs my drink and gulps it down in one swig.
    “Well, whatcha’ gonna do about it?” he says, menacingly, as I burst into tears.

    “Come on, man,” the biker says, “I didn’t think you’d CRY. I can’t stand to see a man crying.”
    “This is the worst day of my life,” I say. “I’m a complete failure. I was late to a meeting and my boss fired me. When I went to the parking lot, I found my car had been stolen…
    …and I don’t have any insurance. I left my wallet in the cab I took home. I found my wife with another man and then my dog bit me.”

    “So I came to this bar to work up the courage to put an end to it all, I buy a drink, I drop a capsule in… and sit here watching the poison dissolve; then you show up and drink the whole bloody thing!
    But enough about me, how’s your day going?” Read into it what you will but I hope that all our MP servants enjoy the big gulp they’ve taken from the poisoned chalice.

    1. The MSM still has him as an uncontrollable beast – which is patently untrue.. All very visible propaganda

    2. PUTIN MOCKS CARLSON FOR ATTEMPTING TO JOIN CIA

      Last night, an interview with Tucker Carlson and Vladimir Putin aired, the first Western journalist to speak with Putin since Russia invaded Ukraine. If you were hoping to watch something enlightening, you may be disappointed…

      The interview started with Putin slapping down Carlson’s suggestion that his invasion of Russia was because of worries about the US: “Are we having a talk show or a serious conversation?“. To be fair, Tucker was more of a Jimmy Fallon than a Jeremy Paxman…

      After a half an hour rant on the history of Russia from Putin, the Russian President took a break to mock Carlson for trying to join the CIA, taunting him saying, “thank God they didn’t let you in“. Carlson’s silence makes one wonder if that was a career path he should have pursued instead…

      1. Contrast Putins monolog on history with Biden’s inability to remember important stuff.

        1. I haven’t even watched the interview but given the western media reaction i know where the truth lies…

          1. I dipped in & out according to the timeline. I thought Putin came across as very well informed, coherent, controlled and highly intelligent. Of course, he was speaking Russian and the soundtrack was in English, so the translator may have added some polish (shine) to Putin’s statements.
            It certainly made Sleepy Joe look like an old man with dementia – rather similar to my Mother, in fact.
            But you should watch it yourself and make your own judgement.

          5. I saw no ranting. Putin stated that he wasn’t interested in a sub-tabloid ‘gotcha’ interview (so beloved of the bBC et al) but wanted a conversation. He then spent 25 minutes laying out the history of Russia from the 9th century onwards. There followed a further 90 minutes conversation covering more recent events in and around Ukraine.

            This in the same week that Biden is let off of criminal charges regarding the handling of highly classified documents, because he’s too senile to remember when he was Vice President!

            There’s a couple of after show videos of Tucker commenting on how he perceived the interview. From what I’ve seen, by allowing Putin to talk he has blown the legacy media out of the water.

            Tucker obviously hit a nerve as everyone, from Killary Clinton (she of the debunked Russian collusion theories…debunked, yet still bandied about by the Leftwaffe media) upwards, lost their minds in a frenzy of froth. Even the former bBC droid Jon ‘another beauty’ Sopel was whining on twitter that he preferred to report ‘facts’. This from the clown who has reported on the collusion theories as if they were gospel. Perhaps his TDS is terminal.

            As an aside, this is Tucker Carlson’s 63rd twitter interview. Each of which lasts around an hour, allowing the interviewee the time and space to lay out their point of view. Tucker’s occasional interruptions are merely to clarify the interviewee’s comment. He covers stories, much like Mark Steyn does, that the supine legacy media would rather you didn’t look at too closely.

            Edit to add; it’s his 73rd twitter interview.

          6. Biden having documents in his garage and being completely let off compared to Trump being prosecuted.. it really is a two tier system over there.

  3. Going back to bed soon where a duvet and a hot-water-bottle awaits me. Been up since 03:00 so need some zeds.

    1. Thanks for staying up until you had posted this morning’s (recycled) joke, Sir Jasper. Enjoy your zeds.

  5. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/51c979e1e7fab62b7b77944407f85758b906c6df/0_0_6048_4024/master/6048.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=eff913c92cba0d4db3529f3c4ae6b2a1
    Aba, China
    Giant pandas enjoy refreshments at the Shenshuping conservation and research centre.

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b69f7fbca22367615fe32fde95da4d24966ca237/0_0_5472_3648/master/5472.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=9c3579cba863ed18a5d7d0cf7353275c
    Aberdeen, Scotland

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/3fd83c72d44de42ca063ebd2b914d895e3c9a520/0_0_3000_2118/master/3000.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=9acb56235e3b13ac8a19201eb4ef81c2
    Maasai Mara nature reserve, Kenya

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/519c8c1b0c654e75a4a99ba3fb503037655bd8f1/0_213_4076_2446/master/4076.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=561f6dcc39290a929f439a29ca5a67a7
    Svalbard, Norway

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/40c24761fba4bddfd1c8840bc43ceb37813402bd/0_0_4000_2666/master/4000.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=3ed6c6124d105b47e876be2e7eb68354
    Frogs gather around frogspawn, some of the first of the season, at Buckfast Abbey, Devon, UK

    1. Good morning, Citroen1. Where did you get that lovely photo of me trying on that lovely green hat on a recent trip to Kenya? Lol.

  6. Good morning, chums. I hope you all slept well, as did I. I shall have a quick look at today’s posts before disappearing to work on today’s Wordle. See you all a little later.

  8. SIR – Peter Rosie (Letters, February 7) recommends a return to the “fee-per-item” model of dentistry that was in place when I was young. I have doubts.

    I and most of my contemporaries had all our back molars filled routinely,
    even when there was no need. I have suffered the results of this
    vandalism ever since, with deteriorated amalgam fillings. It is also
    worth noting that my son and most of his friends have no fillings at
    all, and my dental hygiene has always been excellent. I haven’t “needed”
    a new filling since the old model was abandoned.Alison Levinson
    Hastings, East Sussex

    It’s a shame all those dentists that tortured me as a child are now dead. If they weren’t i would kill them.

    1. These “tricks of the trade” are not limited to dentistry, especially when they provide a statutory service.

  9. I think the most interesting point that Putin made – was that it was Poland that started the Second World War!

      1. Refusing to surrender is regarded as a hostile act, warranting the total elimination of those impudent enough to support these aggressors.

  10. Wordle 966 4/6

    Did it in four today:

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

    1. Worst Wordle ever here!
      Wordle 966 6/6

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

      1. Not quite that bad
        Wordle 966 5/6

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

  11. A long way from home

    SIR – Reading about “migrating” milk bottles and fish boxes (Letters, February 7)
    reminded me of a family holiday in Scotland in the 1990s. We arrived by
    train at Mallaig, on the west coast, to be greeted on the platform by a
    luggage trolley bearing the message: “Not to be removed from King’s
    Cross” – a journey of more than 550 miles, which involved at least two
    changes.

    Max Ingram
    Emneth, Norfolk

    Another Nottler letter published !

  13. SIR – While in France, my wife ordered a mojito cocktail.

    When it arrived it didn’t taste quite right, and the waitress was called
    over. She produced a straw and asked if she could taste it.

    After about half a minute of deliberation, she offered her verdict: “Madame, the cocktail is not the problem. You are.”

    Craig Heeley
    Badminton, Gloucestershire

    I do hope they tipped the waitress 5 centimes.

      1. Joe Biden’s garage with – allegedly – state documents in collapsing archive boxes.

        (He should have asked me for assembly tips.)

    2. Crumbs , I thought what was a photo of our spare bedroom doing on line , clue that it isn’t , because the golf clubs , all four sets of them are in the garage in their bags!

  18. Easy online banking

    SIR – While I appreciate that some bank customers would like branches to remain open (Letters, February 9), is this really necessary?

    I haven’t been in a bank for many years and can manage quite well,
    through a combination of online banking and using the facilities of the
    village post office.

    I am 77, so it’s not an age thing.

    Anthony Dunn
    Rothley, Leicestershire

    What are you going to do when they close your village post office?

    1. Last night, after a very enjoyable, but expensive meal, my so called premier banking service declined my card! Luckily I had just enough left on a pre-paid local currency card [not from my bank, as it happens] to cover the bill and enough hard currency to cover the tip. Not impressed – all very embarrassing! Resolving this will, I expect eat into what should be holiday time!

    2. I popped into my bank yesterday…… DVLA had sent me a cheque, yes they still exist, for the refund of my road tax for the now got rid of car. Why they sent a cheque when I had paid it with my debit card is beyond me but so what. Yes I could have used the HSBC App to do it, but I refuse to download that. Still had to use a machine to pay it in, seemed to take ages as it whirled inside doing its checks so hardly quicker than the old way at the counter. Yes times have changed and I do most things on the computer but there are times when a physical branch is essential.

          1. And how far to the post box?
            I don’t know for us – likely the nearest town, where the post office is… ah!

        2. Yes. The PO has envelopes for the big banks. I do that rather than schlep into town for such a piddling job.

          3. When i was in business and money was tight i would phone the bank and describe the cheque and the amount and my bank manager would allow me to draw against it. Those were the days when banks actually had contactable managers.

          4. My mother insists on writing cheques and when my sister and I just photographed them she was shocked.

            Mainly because she’d hoped we hadn’t noticed she’d not signed them.

          5. Assuming you have an internet bank account, look for deposit cheque option. You take a pic of the cheque, quite simple.

          6. Assuming you have an internet bank account, look for deposit cheque option. You take a pic of the cheque, quite simple.

    4. I still have some Euros in my wallet from the last time I was in Germany, so about 3 years ago. No pounds or Kroner, as I haven’t used cash for a long time now. Goes OK so far.

    5. Our village post office closed some years ago but we have a van coming for an hour on Mondays and Thursdays. Other than that it means a trip to the next village for the post office.

    6. Mr Dunn is probably so excited about the message “Your call is important to us” that he doesn’t hear the next part “and you are number 132 in a queue”.

    7. Mr Dunn is probably so excited about the message “Your call is important to us” that he doesn’t hear the next part “and you are number 132 in a queue”.

    8. Mr Dunn is probably so excited about the message “Your call is important to us” that he doesn’t hear the next part “and you are number 132 in a queue”.

  19. Right! I’m off downtown. Hopefully something will crop up to write about while I’m gone. See you all later!

  20. Morning all 🙂😊
    Same old weather.
    And Same old in the White House, it’s shows just how questionable the status of the USA is. As are the leaders in most Western societies at the moment. What happened ?

    2. The Democrats stole the election with fraudulent posted ballots during the extended overnight counting procedures.

  21. Good morning all.
    A bright start with 0°C on the Yard Thermometer. A dry morning forecast with rain this afternoon.
    T’Lad has arranged a couple of loads of logs from Crich Tramway where someone’s been doing some tree felling, one for him and one for me.

  22. SIR – Given the well-publicised problems facing the hospitality industry and the ever-increasing cost of living (Money, February 7), not to mention the growing problem of obesity (report, February 6),
    I am surprised that pubs and restaurants still invariably serve only
    standard-size portions. Yes, some menus offer “small dishes” or “light
    bites”, but this is not the same as offering a smaller portion of a main
    dish.

    In common, I am sure, with many others, my friends and I
    are frequently overwhelmed by the enormous platefuls establishments
    present us with, some of which will inevitably end up as expensive food
    waste.

    Since any cost involved in designing and managing a “small
    plate” menu would be significantly less than paying to make food that is
    then wasted, surely this must make sense – not just economically and
    ethically, but also for the sake of the nation’s health.

    Tony Stone
    Oxted, Surrey

    I recently went for a pub lunch for a Sunday roast beef. The portions were so enormous i took home enough food for the next 3 days. In one tub there was 10 ounces of cauliflower cheese !
    I have always believed a Sunday roast should be generous but there are limits.

    1. Faced with huge meals like ‘The Synday Roast’ puts me off completely.
      I read that airlines are going to start weighing passengers. What are they going to be able to do except overcharg them ?
      It’s the passengers in the adjacent seats that suffer.

      1. Had to be weighed, with bag, once for a flight in a small plane (B-N Trislander) into the desert. JUst stepped onto the luggage scale.

      2. I’m the same. I’m out to lunch today and i have decided i’m having steak. It normally comes with a large selection of vegetables. Today it will be with a small green salad.
        My brothers are proper gourmands. The elder one orders two main courses at the same time ! They both look like Mr Creosote and i’m 9 and a half stone.
        As we are going to a tapas restaurant i will impress, brag and boast by ordering in Spanish. Un solomillo raro. I’m just a big show off at heart ! :@)

          1. Just got back. Lucky the restaurant was mostly empty. A RN Commander, A CPO and a Royal Marine. I don’t think i have laughed so much in my life.

            3 dry Martini’s but one doesn’t count as i had one for my starter. 2 glasses of Rioja, and a cognac.

            My friend Antonio (the Spanish Ambassador) said he was considering retiring in the next few years. I said to him that he would then have the time to accept a dinner invitation from me and i would show him what proper food is like…

    2. There is nothing worse than coming away from a meal in a restaurant still feeling hungry!

      Smaller helpings would be quite acceptable if second helpings were offered!

  23. Apropos the Putin “Poland started it” point – by chance I was listening in the night to Chips Channon’s Diaries for 1938/39 – and his contemporary view was that Danzig was German and that it was not worth the UK getting involved in any war about it.

    1. Indeed. And it wasn’t just Kaiser Bill who thought that Britain would not stand by Belgium.

          1. No, but if they had understood the consequences of their actions would be uncomfortable, they might not have gone there in the first place.

  24. Reposted from late last night.

    Saturday 10th February, 2024

    Korky the Kat

    (aka The Dandy Front Pager)

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f322dbf7b81182fef12df9f66e4cb507af873cad47e6205aaeb67fba50500246.png

    (You certainly deserve a bottle or two of Fizz to celebrate Three Quarters of a Century!)

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0c01bad37d6e80ede0777043dc536ca16892c5b4e3ea5f1144846b72fa840ba3.jpg

    and very many happy returns

    With very best wishes,

    Caroline and Rastus

    3. 🎶Happy birthday to you KK🎶
      I hope you have a lovely day. 🥂🍾🍻🍺🤩🤗Cheers.

      1. It’s a bit of a milestone, larger than any score I made playing cricket.

        Thank you, OB.

      1. I was about earlier and then the weather hinted that I could spend some time in the garden.

        Thanks, Ndovu.

      1. Shopping, gardening, cooking sausage rolls and eating the latter at a social this evening.

        Thanks, Grizz.

  25. Another family birthday today, we have two now 4 years old grandchildren. One party today and one tomorrow.
    I feel that it’s all rather extravagant, we didn’t have recognisable birthdays back in the days.
    But it’s good fun for the guests. I hate to think how much these events cost the parents.
    I dare not ask.

    1. Morning RE

      Don’t want to spoil your fun, but I do hope you and yours have had your shingle jabs .. small children can be snotty and infection ridden this time of the year .

      1. Morning TB thanks for the ‘tip’.
        I had shingles about 50 years ago.
        Not nice.
        Erin’s had her jabs but after my more recent and terrible experiences I am now totally anti jab.

        1. I had shingles 5 years ago – painful and nasty. I did have the shingles jab before I went anti vax.

      2. Shingles comes from your own chickenpox virus gone dormant in your body, only to re-emerge when the immune system is under extreme stress. You cannot be infected from chickenpox ridden children, unless you have never had chickenpox in the first place, in which case it would be chickenpox you would acquire. And then the virus goes for a long snuggle to re-emerge years later as shingles.

    2. Having birthday parties for the (grand)children goes away awfully quickly – I miss the little parties, cakes, toys, silly games a lot. We don’t have grandkids so I can’t use my party skills hones on out two boys to any useful effect. Bummer.

  26. Good morning all ,

    Cloudy and sunny here , 6c.

    Coughed like a dingbat last night , got up to go to the you know where , then before I got back into bed , helped myself to a lid full of cough medicine, and spilled it , sticky gunk everywhere !

    Re Biden , I guess you have to be very very wealthy to be a POTUS,

    Britain is heading in the same direction .. Sunak , who will be ousted , and replaced by Cameron ( my nightmare ) or Blair back replacing Smarmer 🙄

    1. Years ago (possibly early 2000s), it was reckoned to cost £40,000 to become a successful Conservative MP; as in all the campaigning up to the election.
      You can probably double that by now.
      I doubt the cost for a candidate in any party is much different.

      1. If the rumours are right that might rise significantly as volunteers say ‘up yours’ to the next generation of woke, Left wingo socialists (on either side of the house).

  27. The Large Waistband of the Law?

    “London’s Metropolitan Police ordered thousands of trousers with plus size waistlines last year, with one officer requiring a pair with an XXXXXXL waist.

    The revelations, which came from a Freedom of Information request, suggested the Met is the UK’s largest police force in more ways than one.

    The figures shoed one male officer had a pair of trousers ordered with a whopping 62 inches waist while the largest trousers ordered for a female officer were a size 44.

    Slightly smaller sizes ordered included two pairs of 54 inches trousers and four pairs of 52 inches trousers.

    While the most common size for plus size male officers was a 40 inches waist and a size 20 for their female counterparts, according to figures reported by The Sun.”

    1. Dear God… SWMBO isn’t even 62″ tall! She could stand in that waistband. I thought there was a need for a level of fitness in the police? Maybe they should bring in a Combat Fitness Test for all warranted officers?

        1. With a lardass like that, could restrain them by clenching them between the buttocks.
          Urgh! Mind bleach, quickly!

      2. I can picture the scene, it would be like the images of someone standing in the skeletal mouth of a large shark.

    2. The 62″ officer must be deskbound. Probably investigates financial crimes on a computer.

  28. 383170+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,
    When you have issues of this serious a nature in-house Britain, then the American problems take second position.

    Saturday 10 February: It’s time for the Democrats to face facts about Joe Biden’s fitness to lead.

    We MUST truly face the facts in England first & foremost.
    https://youtu.be/wwdRfbPrGIY?si=cOHfZiJQNYI2Lx6T

    1. 383170+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      Don’t know about gearing up for the coming General Elections and the re-play of musical chairs with no chairs deducted when we should be gearing up for fast track
      ( Tommy Robinson)
      OLD BAILEY use in regards to what now passes for politicians within the governing cartel.

      Take note the hand washing has already begun among the political kapos breaking into a trot, soon if justice is to be served, prior to breaking into a gallop.

    2. Thought provoking film.

      If the video is a “conspiracy theory” it’s a very well planned one.

      Highly recommended for viewing.

  30. SWMBO has been watching Youtube, a programme about the differences between women and men, physically speaking.
    It involves kneeling down, then bending forward to put your elbows on the ground, then – holding the position – clasping your hands behind your back. Men cannot – you get a faceplant in the carpet.
    SWMBO can, and I cannot, do this successfully.
    My Engineer brain tells me the centre of gravity for the man is too far forward, most likely due to his longer body, and so physics is against/with you…

      2. When I struggle to get up off the altar steps in church I always remember the story Peter Ustinov told about when he was knighted. He said the Palace issued a form beforehand that asked him to tick one of two options. Can kneel or can’t kneel. He said a third option was needed. Can kneel but can’t get up again.

        1. I think that should be Option 4.

          Option 3 applies to me. Can kneel, providing there’s a fixed object to hold on to, as I haul myself upright. Otherwise, the laws of physics kick in, and I become detached from my prostheses. Hasn’t happened very often, but explains why I mostly wear convertible walking trousers…

    3. I won’t even attempt it, Paul. While it wouldn’t have altered my decision, in the pre-amputation discussions. no-one mentioned centre of gravity.

      So it was that a few days after the operation, I attempted to sit up in bed for the first time. I’ll leave you, the Engineer, to join the dots…

    1. Clucking bell. Get rid of them. At least stop damned well paying for them. Stop them breeding and they’ll die out but to be forced to pay for that tide of effluent to ruin this country? Bugger off.

  33. ‘Tone deaf’ Home Office celebrates World Hijab Day
    Civil servants criticised for promoting event, despite own guidance that says forcing women to wear the garment may be ‘persecution’

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/09/home-office-world-hijab-day-asylum-claims/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-onward-journey

    BTL from S Woodside

    So women having their faces obliterated by black cloth and being beaten if their hair is not fully covered is for “their own protection” Eh? The Koran does not demand that women’s faces are covered; this is a later demand by Muslim men who want to keep women in a state of subjugation forever.
    I am beyond disgusted that our own Home Office is sending out emails marking World Hijab Day.

    Will they be asking us to promote World Female Genital Mutilation Day next?

    1. All the civil service departments related to home control are now staffed by immigrants – how many white immigration officers do you see, for example, when passing through a UK airport?

    3. If you were in an Arabian sandstorm, a headscarf would be a sensible thing to wear.

      A lot of the hadiths about the subjugation of women come from Aisha, Mohammed’s young wifelet, who in later life drew up a lot of the rules about women. What I cannot fathom is why the Shias, who were promoting Fatima’s and Ali’s claim to the Caliphate, and are dedicated to the memory of Khadijah, Mohammed’s first wife and a high-ranking woman with her own power base, should feel it a good thing to subjugate women. I learnt from my Iranian penpal, a doctor, that there is more about St Mary, the mother of Jesus, in Islamic scriptures than there is from Catholic sources.

      I suspect this is a red herring. The true reason for the hijab is to prevent abuse from men. The sight of a beautiful head of hair would awaken passions in men that would lead to these women receiving unwelcome attention, what would today be called “abuse” or “sexual harassment”, but in my mother’s time was regarded as normal courtship. This might explain the agreement between feminists and Muslims over the need to subjugate men, which I find personally deeply insulting.

    4. A friend who work in the Foreign office (and is, I think the’r only Conservative – not that he ever lets that out) regularly tells me that the place is overrun with the dversity.

  34. Michael Deacon in the DT just gets better and better:

    “If there’s one thing Jenny Leong can’t stand, it’s racism. The Australian Greens MP proudly describes herself as “a committed anti-racism advocate”. On her Twitter/X page, she says: “If you’re sick of us talking about racism, imagine how sick we are of being subjected to it.” And in her profile, she offers a helpful word of advice to other users. “Remember, don’t be a racist.”

    Message received. I have just one question. How exactly did this noble anti-racist end up declaring at an event held by the Palestine Justice Movement that the “tentacles” of “the Jewish lobby” reach “into the areas that try and influence power”?

    I don’t know about you, but it strikes me as a surprising thing for someone who’s against racism to say. After all, the idea that a sinister “Jewish lobby” seeks to “influence power” using its octopus-like “tentacles” appeared in the propaganda of the Nazis, a group not known for its staunch anti-racism.

    When video footage of her comments spread online a few days ago, eight weeks after the event, she apologised for having “framed an argument in an inappropriate way that has caused offence [and] had antisemitic implications”. In future, she promised, she would “do better”.

    I’m sure she will. It is curious, though, how many Left-wing “anti-racists” appear to have a slight blind spot when it comes to one particular minority.

    Still, it’s rare for them to use the term “Jewish lobby”. They usually remember to use that handy euphemism “Zionist” instead. No doubt they’ll take extra care from now on.”

  35. Ten barrowloads of logs carted and stacked. Having a break. Colin and his mate work so fast…….

    1. A chum asked why our gym instructors were so fit. I lookked at him, wondering when he’d get it. As he wasn’t going to I said ‘it’s their job. If we did this all day instead of sitting in front of a computer we’d be that fit.’

    2. Two van loads of logs acquired from Crich Tramway.
      One off loaded at t’Lad’s and the other here.

      1. We have enough cut today for at least two years. All that remains (!!) is to barrow it to the wood store and stack it…..

  36. MD again:

    “Be my baby

    A mother in West Sussex has complained after a children’s soft play centre hosted a special event for grown adults who enjoy dressing as babies. According to the local newspaper, The Argus, “The over-25s event offered a ‘nappy change room’, baby food and ‘a lovely story time’ with milk and biscuits.”

    It would be easy to mock this sort of thing. But I think we should refrain – for a simple but important reason.

    Each new generation of progressives needs its own oppressed minority to champion, in order to demonstrate how much kinder and more virtuous they are than the rest of us. Now that all the obvious groups have been taken, however, I have for some time been wondering which marginalised community will be the next to benefit from the Left’s patronage. I see no particular reason why it shouldn’t be the turn of adult babies.

    None of us knows what the future may hold. But in 10 or 20 years, it’s perfectly possible that righteous young Left-wing activists will be marching in support of adults’ rights to wear romper suits, suck dummies and play with the nice teddies and dollies at their local crèche.

    If you don’t believe me, it’s worth noting how the soft play centre responded when The Argus inquired about the adults-only event. A spokesman said: “Who are we to judge and discriminate?”

    By displaying such prejudice against these poor, marginalised, middle-aged infants, the mothers of West Sussex may well find themselves on the wrong side of history.”

    1. Of course, then on Saturday afternoons , they all assemble in their very expensive prammobiles with engines , to make up a team to play with a football for 90 minutes .

      Sulking like mad when they fail to achieve a win win situation .. as they splash around post match in their bath or showers !

    2. I had my 8th birthday party at Wally’s Windmill. A soft play centre. I was taller than the ‘you can’t be any taller than this’ sign. They let us all in, but I’ve never forgotten it.

    3. In a normal society all these people would have been immediately committed to an asylum and ‘sectioned’ for their welfare and that of the rest of us.

      Then I woke up and realised that we do not have a normal society.

  37. Oh for the time when adult babies were honestly referred to as imbeciles. (Predictive text got that one right!)

  38. Any group that favours one race over another is by definition a racist. This would include Zionists and BLM, and quite a few “anti-racists” are actually projecting their own racism onto others. One notorious example was the accusation by the Duchess of Sussex and Oprah Winfrey of a whole nation being institutionally racist, when it was they that took an innocent speculation that could be made by any relative of a newborn and twisted it into something racist. The consequence of that was the British monarchy was estranged from the 5th, 6th and 7th in line to the throne and a working age royal. Likewise that Link organisation for wildlife charities with the palpable tautology that the English countryside, populated largely by indigenes is somehow indulging in colonial oppression. It is Link that is the racist here, and their infiltration of heritage organisations in Britain is nothing less than racist colonialism that should be resisted by anyone who actually believes what they say they are arguing for.

    As for Palestine and Israel, this is an argument between who are the indigenes and who are the settlers. Since all the Abrahamic religions admit converts from any race, and the region has long been an interbred mix from both Mediterranean and Arab civilisations, race is largely irrelevant.

    1. I wonder if, in a few years White southerners will have the same problems with immigrants infesting the north.

      Heck, some Scottish nationalists still carry out bombings despite England funding their every whim.

      1. I’m a white Northerner, but have lived in Surrey for over 20 years. In the urban parts, they’re already here. Woking (I was there earlier today) proudly boasts the first purpose-built mosque in the UK, dating from 1889.

    2. I go along with everything you say apart from your remarks about the Jews and Zionism. At a minimum, a definition of Zionism,to quote Americas favorite dictionary, Merriam Webster: “an international movement originally for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel.”
      The Jews never willingly relinquished their land, they were forced out and it has been their desire to return for a couple of thousand years. Hence at the Passover Seder and at Yom Kippur, you will hear Jews declare: “Next Year in Jerusalem.”, the ancient capital where the Temple is situated, now the Temple Mount. The temple has been there in one incarnation or another since the 10th century BC. And despite banishment and exile, there has always been a Jewish presence there. Indeed the Ottoman Turks recognized the Jews as the indigenous people of so called ‘Palestine’. Of course the Palestinians never draw attention to that rather awkward fact. Archaeological digs give thousands of testimonies small, such coins and jewellery, to enormous buildings such as the temple mount.

      On the other hand you will find in that land, no ancient Palestinian buildings, no coins, no record of kings and no trace of a nation of so called, Palestinians. There is no historical record of any sort that establishes them as having any right to that land. Those charlatans are an invention of the modern era, people who have no claim.Indeed the majority of them, from DNA evidence, makes it clear that they are a mongrel lot from various locals around the Mediterranean Sea, not one people. The Jews, while them may have intermarried with others while in exile, all carry DNA making it clear that they are one people.

      The problem of Palestine is a political one fogged by cowardice on the part of the West, and myth perpetrated by ‘Palestinians’ There is no right to a Palestinian state because it already exists, it’s called Jordan, that is what it was created for. All a two state solution will do is create perpetual conflict because, in the main this conflict has nothing to do with “indigenes” but with the ideological contamination of Islam which will not and cannot tolerate Jews in its midst. As long as there is a Gaza or a Palestinian National Authority there will always be conflict. These lands need to be returned to Israel and the Palestinians need to be booted out. And, by the way, in the land controlled by the PNA, Christians are also persecuted and, pretty soon, the Christian presence in the Holy Land will disappear. 100 years ago Bethlehem was 84% Christian, now it is 22% and continues to decline. The same goes for all places in Palestine that are traditionally Christian.

    3. “Any group that favours one race over another is by definition a racist.”

      The human species is tribal. It’s the natural condition.

      The Middle East is about Arabs v. Jews. It’s very simple.

      1. No it’s more complex that that. Christians, Yazidis, Kurds, Turks, Persians, Egyptians, non-Jewish semitic tribes such as the Syrians and Lebanese and all sorts of crossbreds are neither Arab nor Jew, neither are converts or immigrants necessarily in accord with the traditions and culture of either, even if they claim their status. The Arab v. Jew is primarily about Palestine v. Israel. Few Arabs are content with the state of Israel, and few Jews are content with the state of Palestine. Beyond these two tribes, it’s a matter of opinion, and many outsiders are happy to use either name interchangeably.

        I use ‘Israel’ when referring to the modern State, and ‘Palestine’ when referring to the historic one from Roman times to the mid-20th century. Some though refuse to adopt the new name, much as Jews refused to recognise the name given by Emperor Hadrian. That is their choice, and I acknowledge that. My own country goes under a variety of names, some historic (Britain), some geographic (England), some are nicknames (Blighty), some pompous (Albion) and some internationally recognised (United Kingdom). All are valid. The one name that is now invalid is the geographic term British Isles, which includes all of Ireland, and can be a bit sensitive.

        The French have their own name for the English Channel, which removes the referral to England, but curiously one of their provinces is called Brittany (Bretagne), distinguishable from Big Brittany (Grande Bretagne), an unspeakable island to the north with very strange culinary habits and an aversion to natural wholesome sexuality, and is God-given for the French to mock.

        1. “The Arab v. Jew is primarily about Palestine v. Israel.”

          You agree. Today’s Middle East conflict is Arabs v. Jews.

    2. I postulated, decades ago, that this would probably happen.

      It was clear that the world’s human population was raging out-of-control and that the planet — in particular, the balance of nature — was being destroyed by one, over-entitled and irredeemably stupid, organism. I forecast, back then, that if the human population of the planet wasn’t reduced, drastically, by famine, drought, natural disease or global warfare, then someone, at some stage, would have to take steps to do something about it.

      It seems I wasn’t wrong.

      3. The globalist parasites are not needed even for depopulation. The fertility rate globally has dropped massively since the sixties and globally is hovering around 2, which is replacement level but shows every sign of continuing to fall, and the reasons for it vary widely depending where you look. This country would be getting smaller if it was not for the immigration. Others have a worse problem – like Russia. If that is what we want, or if it is not, are we and others prepared for the stresses on our economies that will be consequent?

        I think it’s important to call what we are currently seeing by its real name – invasion. The scale is distinct, and we are seeing gloibalist-corrupted governments who invite this so that they get the obedient voters they want to replace those who, as we do, see and reject their criminal parasitism.

        2. The Chinese by their one-child policy ensured that their population by now is insufficient to maintain their industry. Which is why they relaxed it a few years ago and allowed two or three per couple. A whole generation of Chinese people with no siblings, aunts, uncles or cousins does not make for happy relationships.

    5. 383170+ up ticks,

      Morning KtK,
      Regarding your post, everything is pointing that way.

      Otherwise have a good day.

    6. Depopulation? good idea, start with the Muslims then the Arabs and continue until there’s only us whiteys left – result – no more racism

  41. Curiously, no mention of the immigration issue which is causing so much trouble but RDD is correct about the Bombay Bogshite.

    Ireland is fast becoming Europe’s nastiest nation

    Its image is changing fast thanks to its cheap shots against countries like Israel, Britain and Taiwan

    RUTH DUDLEY EDWARDS • 9 February 2024 • 8:14pm

    Ireland, which loves to be loved, is seeing its reputation transformed into one defined by a sullen, mean-spirited pettiness.

    Every week we seem to witness yet another example of the ugliness that is fast taking over public life in the country, in which innocent bystanders are forced to take sides on a purely political matter. This time it was the turn of a women’s basketball match in Latvia.

    Like so many other sports teams in Ireland, and like other apolitical targets of the sinister Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, the basketball team had come under heavy pressure from Irish Sport for Palestine to boycott fixtures against Israel. But for the Irish team this was a vital EuroBasket qualifier. Had they boycotted it, they’d have been effectively banned from competition for the next five years.

    Some players chose not to travel. Then a member of the Israeli team said in an interview that the Irish side were “quite anti-Semitic and it’s no secret”. Cue absolute outrage from Irish commentators, and the Irish team deciding not to partake in pre-match arrangements like exchanging gifts and formal handshakes. The game was played behind closed doors.

    It’s a telling incident. The Emerald Isle has built its tourism industry on visions of friendly, welcoming citizens. The reality is a country that is becoming increasingly nasty.

    I disagree with my countrymen on many issues, because many are congenital virtue-signallers who love to support the popular, easy side of any controversy. The conflict between Israel and Palestine is a perfect example.

    Fuelled by rampant Republican anti-Semitism over the years, what had been a low-key distrust of Israel in parties such as Sinn Fein seems to have turned to hatred. And hatred is what the Irish Republican leadership excels at spreading, whether it takes the form of terrorism (as in the past) or the propaganda they still devise and popularise so brilliantly.

    They have long attempted to identify their cause with others who similarly claim to be freedom-fighting victims of oppression. But the role of these carefully selected “oppressed” groups – Palestinians, South Americans or whoever else comes in handy in the pursuit of power in Ireland – is purely to follow slavishly the Republican script.

    Sometimes, this leads to bleakly amusing scenes. I had to laugh when I saw that Palestinian activists were apparently ejected from a Solidarity Rally for Palestine event in Belfast on Wednesday night because they were noisily demanding that Sinn Fein boycott the White House on Saint Patrick’s Day. If you ride two horses, you are liable to fall off.

    And it’s not just Sinn Fein. Perhaps nowhere is modern Ireland’s new character better summarised than in the current Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar. When he’s not calling for a ceasefire, or carefully avoiding mention of why an Irish-Israeli girl was missing (answer: she had been kidnapped by brutal terrorists), he’s cosying up to China, insisting that Dublin’s position is that the small democracy of Taiwan is “part of China”.

    An odd position for an Irish politician to hold, given the country’s own history with Britain, but fully in keeping with how pressure from Republicanism is corrupting politics.

    Of course, some things don’t change. The Irish government has spent the past few years taking cheap shot after cheap shot at the UK, over Brexit, over Northern Ireland, over the Troubles and frankly over anything else you care to name.

    Anglophobia is always a winning card for Irish politicians, and inflaming dislike of their neighbours a small price to pay for those precious Republican votes.

    Ireland’s reputation as a friendly, good-natured country is going up in smoke. If things carry on this way, it’ll soon be gone for good.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/09/ireland-fast-becoming-europes-nastiest-nation/

    3. I don’t think it’s a new thing – we’ve only been to Ireland once – in 2003.

      We’d booked a three night stay in the South West of Ireland and had a meal before retiring to our room. The food was not brilliant and we had to ask for some extra cutlery. The people in the bar looked at us as though we came from outer space. We went up to our room – the bed was like a concrete block and the shower was dirty. In the middle of a sleepless night we decided to check out asap.

      We spent the last couple of nights at a lovely B&B so it wasn’t all a disaster. But not high on our list for a return visit.

      1. We stayed in a few B&Bs in 2006 around Bantry and the Dingle peninsula and they were all great. The evening meals in the pubs though were crap. Must admit the draught Guinness was perfect though

    4. Read the true history of Ireland and it’s far from the Guinness-soaked greenery that they love to present to others. And to tell themselves. They have a very long history of unpleasantness.

    1. I don’t understand why big fat state continues to think it knows best. every decision it makes makes our lives worse. Rather than doing the sensible thing, and (to quote Billy Connelly) just sodding off it pushes even more of the same idiotic ideas.

  43. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/02/09/ftse-100-markets-news-latest-germany-inflation-sp500-live/

    Everywhere big government goes, meddling in markets, it makes a complete mess of things. Either shortages, debt, inefficiencies, bad technology forced over better, unemployment and, eventually, true chaos in starvation.

    Why don’t they just sod off? Why can’t the hectoring morons everywhere from Whitehall, to the EU, to UN, WEF, world bank just bugger off? Why are they so convinced of the superiority of their cause? What gives them the right to believe they know best when, clearly, evidentially, their sort always make everything worse?

    1. 383170+ up ticks,

      Morning W,

      “Why are they so convinced of the superiority of their cause”

      Because their cause has the majority backing of the peoples, and it has successfully been so since the M Thatcher era.
      Political crime pays
      handsome dividends
      witness more than one run of the mill politico’s becoming millionaires.

      1. No, ogga, they don’t have the backing. They might get the vote but look at the voting population. It’s collapsing as people are disenfranchised, disgusted and uninterested. Many are disenfranchised so utterly there’s no point bothering.

      2. Because most people prefer to coast along without thinking too much.
        That’s why the feudal system lasted for 300 years.

    2. Yet most people want things re-nationised.I keep asking them, name me one thing the govermnent does well. They used to say collecting taxes, but they cannot even do that.

      1. They want simple solutions, and politicians are good at offering them. Even if they’re complete rubbish.

    3. A significant number of politicians are narcissists and borderline psychopaths. They are utterly convinced of their own superiority and have no capacity to care about others. A toxic combination. And the worst part? It is in large part our own fault. We elected these people. Yes, I know, they’ve manipulated the systems and the media, but still it’s obvious that these cretins are wrong’uns, so why can’t most people see them for what they are and vote accordingly?

      1. During our psychiatric nurse training, politicians were given as an example of psychopaths.
        Our tutors tactfully added the prefix “creative” to the word.

        1. That must have been a while ago. I can’t imagine modern training saying something like that. The students would be in fits of tears and off to the nearest safe space!

  44. Ah, but you’re forgetting the fundamental hypocrisy of the Left wing mind. *She* cannot be a racist as she is perfect. Everything she says is righteous.

    They’re mental. All of them. A step away from foam mouthed berserkers parroting gibberish.

  45. ‘Morning all

    Cynical?? Moi?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0ae5cbe057ddb80f235a475572e4b58d38143269d83190824e1583b7dd1a4adb.jpg

    https://twitter.com/KTHopkins/status/1756027795099001212?s=20

    Rest

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7e1b467e6810e608c2a37a2d49250c9d57a94e38e7fad1fcad23e44986e5caed.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2ea7125fbb1fcb6aad185a8323ff184bfd74c30d412d90dd6f822b9d70992058.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0c246ef73e65efca47ed482d67975361939a49e839b63600ea0358d571362f0b.png

    https://img.patriotpost.us/01H7FT32CD0KSE57KM0NP58E79.jpeg?w=290&dpr=1&q=75

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/130fb50df00d645c290e201dd4559f714a537187f3568d6234b7aca9cdcdb11c.jpg

    2. One cannot help but notice the disparity between the effort expended in hunting for Madeleine McCann compared with the search for Abdul Ezedi.

      2. I acknowledge, however, that Ezedi was last seen leaning over Chelsea Bridge railings but not seen leaving the bridge. I can see why the belief is that he went into the Thames.

        The Met said yesterday its main working hypothesis was the attacker had ‘gone into’ the River Thames after being seen leaning over the railings of Chelsea Bridge on the night of the incident before disappearing from view.

        He was last seen at 11.27pm on Chelsea Bridge – around four hours after the attack on Lessar Avenue in Clapham. He was never seen leaving the bridge area.

        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13068249/Police-divers-start-searching-Thames-body-acid-attacker-Abdul-Ezedi-believe-entered-Thames-near-Chelsea-Bridge-night-attacked-ex-partner-two-daughters-eight-three.html

          1. Not necessarily. If the current was strong he might have been swept far downstream or even out into the estuary. Police are looking for a corpse.

        2. I guess it all depends on who actually saw him on the bridge.
          If the police were looking for him I’m sure someone would have phoned and told them.

        3. As he purchased a bottle of water on the way we’re pleased that he was refreshed and well hydrated.

          Did they find the bottle on the bridge?

          Or did that also mysteriously disappear?

          The senior police officer on the lunchtime news appeared overly anxious to convince everyone that he had disappeared.

          Of course, that could be that the Police know perfectly well where he is, but for some reason don’t want to tell.

          1. There’s so much lying and dissembling these days by authorities that your last sentence was my first thought, Janet.

          2. They will probably find the plastic bottle next

            but you must allow time for an officer to go to Tesco and buy one.

      3. Yeah, well.
        Portugal – particularly in the summer – is warm and sunny.
        London in the winter – not so much.

    1. “Charities directly supporting the report … submitted to the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Race and Community, chaired by the highly respected Labour MP Clive Lewis.”

      Aha! A regular race-baiter and a thoroughly unpleasant piece of work.

    4. Boris Johnson is full of shonet and guilty as Hell. Johnson is a globalist shill and needs must be prosecuted for his many crimes from his involvement in Covid to his tinkering in Ukraine.

      2. 3834170+ up ticks,

        Evening C,

        Seconded ASAP.

        A large enema filled barrage balloon must hover above a parliamentary full house
        on a shite flushing mission
        some time very,very, soon.

    5. Vlad.

      Zelenski, the leader of the most corrupt country in Europe, was corrupted by Boris Johnson.

      This story was in the MSM at the time of the outbreak of the war but it has been conveniently forgotten by the warmongers – one of whom, it seems, was not Putin!

    1. Agreed.
      And My word, I absolutely hate all the pointless rabbiting that goes on before at half time and after the game.

  51. Russia could attack Nato within three years, warns Denmark. 9 February 2024 • 3:56pm

    The Danish defence minister has warned Russia could go to war with Nato in as little as three years.

    Troels Lund Poulsen, who also serves as Denmark’s deputy prime minister, has joined colleagues from the UK, Sweden, Romania, Germany and others in raising the alarm about increased Russian defence spending and manufacturing.

    “It cannot be ruled out that within a three- to five-year period, Russia will test Article 5 and Nato’s solidarity. That was not Nato’s assessment in 2023. This is new information that is coming to the fore now,” Mr Poulsen told Jyllands-Posten, a Danish newspaper.

    BELOW THE LINE.

    David R Crawford.

    There was no logic or justification to why Putin attacked Ukraine, but he did it.
    Just work on the basis that Putin is irrational and expect the worse from the sociopathic homicidal maniac

    David Arundel.

    They don`t have to because it is obvious.

    Putin wants to regain the whole of the old Soviet Union and some, he has even made remarks about Alaska.

    It shows you what a dangerous man he is, he has fooled the Russians and they are dying in their thousands for his ambitions.

    Assuming (a big ask) that the posters are not 77 Brigade Trolls it is difficult to know who is the more deluded. The Danes who have abandoned critical analysis in favour of second sight or the commenters who have no understanding of the present let alone the future.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/02/09/ukraine-russia-war-latest-ammunition-gap-us-funding-live/

    1. I just do not believe that Vlad has any intensions beyond the mission in Ukraine, he has plenty of land, resources and energy. The second issue is that he has not done particularly well to date against a single enemy albeit Nato in the background. A weakened Russia and a readied Nato is not likely to see Vlad opening another front, its pure fantasy to keep the war going. I actually feel for the Ukes who have lost a generation.

    2. It seems as if the ‘They’ are once more trying to stir up trouble for no particular reason at all.
      Why don’t the “We’ have some insiders who could get rid of these pointless monsters.

    3. That’s not what I heard in his interview, that he wants to take the whole world. I thought his explanation for Ukraine was reasonably logical, and some of the comments he made interesting.

      1. Agreed, he’s got far too much experience and commonsense to try to take on the whole world.
        He’s seems to be one of the only few sane leaders of all of our countries in the so called western world.

        1. And, TBH, the adventure in Ukraine hasn’t gone so well. No decisive victory, not for NATO either.

      2. Agreed, he’s got far too much experience and commonsense to try to take on the whole world.
        He’s seems to be one of the only few sane leaders of all of our countries in the so called western world.

      3. The Western media simply stuck its collective fingers in its collective ears proclaiming lah-lah-lah we’re not listening….. It took some interesting paranoid mental gymnastics and manipulation of the facts for the media to come to the conclusion it has done – ordered no doubt by the WEF and associated politicians.

    4. The Vikings once conquered a large part of Russia, along the Volga and Dnieper rivers. It seems ludicrous to suggest that the Russian Federation has any ambition to return the complement.

    5. It is also possible that Canada will invade the USA in the next five years.

      Extremely unlikely but Trudeau does despise Trump and since we have no navy or real air force, we may as well just trot over the land border for a bit of pillaging.

      Could and might! Two words that allow the media and politicians to spread panic and uncertainty.

  52. Update on yesterday’s bereaved friend: Firstly, thank you all for your contributions – experience always helps. Secondly, Friend has support from bereavement counselling; yesterday was the first anniversary of his wife’s death, and it hit him hard, but now he’s improving, enough to be discussing getting back to railway modelling.
    Thanks again!

  54. We had a muddy walk with out Pip spaniel this morning , it was a lovely morning , skylarks were singing here above the field near us . Pip had a walk first thing this morning on the heath, Moh took him whilst I washed up( broken dishwasher) , sorted the laundry out , and put son’s heavy work clothes through a good wash.

    I expect I have mentioned before , my stuffed up rt hip and jagged left knee, but since September when we said good bye to darling elderly Jack spaniel, I have managed to speed up my walking and exercise and am putting mind over matter by just walking more energetically now .

    Poor Jack was so slow and lame that I dithered around for him on walks , and hung back whilst Pip galloped around or Moh supervised Jack and I walked a little faster .

    Today’s walk was here https://www.southwestcoastpath.org.uk/walksdb/61/, just a couple or so miles or more on a stoney muddy track, but there were signs of spring a blue sky, and a lovely blue sea.

    There was a chilly southerly wind on our outward walk , and I stopped every so often to check the track and edge of fields for fossils .

    Quite a few people were out and about . Worth Matravers attracts hordes of visitors , and the pub The Square and Compass is a magnet for tourists and regulars , besides being full of an eclectic collections of fossils , delightful for many .

    Moh is trying to watch the Southampton match.. oh dear, Huddersfield are 2 goals up.

    2. Thanks, Maggie. I’m only slightly envious. When I was in possession of a pair of biological feet, I managed perhaps 25% of the SWCP. Plus several other visits to your bit of the coast.

      These days, the problem is uneven surfaces. Until one loses them, no-one ever appreciates their ankles. They’re fiendishly complicated things, and totally overlooked. So, my BK prostheses enable me to walk. But they are rigid. So all the undulations and imperfections in terrain, have to be dealt with by one’s knees. Cue discomfort.

      One can have microprocessor-controlled ankles for around £20k. Each. But obviously not on the NHS (at least, not if you aren’t an illegal migrant)…

      1. Oh my goodness Geoff ,

        I do understand everything you are saying , and feel badly for you . Ankles and knees take a lot of punishment but special prosthetic limbs should be provided on the Nhs , just to keep brilliant bods like you moving .

        Paths are uneven and slippery , and I had to be very careful . You should see the land erosion re cliff falls , very frightening .

        Walking great long difficult distances are a rare thing for me now .

        Moh walks nearly five miles or more when he plays golf .. up and down and has an excellent energy level , but is wiped out when he comes home and has to check his sugar levels .. and I tell him to drink those rehydrate things … a fried egg sarnie and soup usually encourages an afternoon snooze !

        1. We have problems with ice, and lumpy ice on paths. Lots of it – starting about January and lasting until spring.
          I’d hate to do that with no ankle control.

    3. Thanks, Maggie. I’m only slightly envious. When I was in possession of a pair of biological feet, I managed perhaps 25% of the SWCP. Plus several other visits to your bit of the coast.

      These days, the problem is uneven surfaces. Until one loses them, no-one ever appreciates their ankles. They’re fiendishly complicated things, and totally overlooked. So, my BK prostheses enable me to walk. But they are rigid. So all the undulations and imperfections in terrain, have to be dealt with by one’s knees. Cue discomfort.

      One can have microprocessor-controlled ankles for around £20k. Each. But obviously not on the NHS (at least, not if you aren’t an illegal migrant)…

    4. We (ex and I and boys) stayed at Worth Matravers once many years ago. Maybe 1984. Also went to Bovington to the tank museum as he used to be a tankie.

      Little daffs are coming out in our garden and also the little purple crocuses in the lawn. Washing dried well in the wind.

    1. That’s very kind of you, it was taken just four days ago by our seven year old grandson on his birthday with his grandad’s camera. I’m 77.

        1. 2.1.47 is the date of my birth. I am fortunate not to have to take any medications and I keep away from the nhs as much as possible.

          7. Snap. The GP is there to do what I tell her.
            Preferably, I would do my own prescriptions – all one of them.

          8. Exactly. I am not the property of the state, nor the nhs. 12 years ago our gp wanted me to take statins because (statics showed) I had a 10% of having a stroke or heart attack within the next 10 years. I told him that meant I had a 90% per cent of not having either of those and I rather liked those odds. And I’m still here, no heart attack nor stroke. In the final analysis I belong to me, and me alone and then, my family. The state in all its guises does not enter this equation.

      2. An unhealthy Par Four!

        Wordle 966 4/6
        ⬜⬜🟨🟩⬜
        🟨⬜⬜🟩⬜
        ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟨
        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      4. Me too. Enough clues in the starter word.

        Wordle 966 2/6

        ⬜🟨🟩🟩⬜
        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

        1. I was hoping for the same, and ended up with THIS!
          Wordle 966 6/6

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

        2. I was hoping for the same, and ended up with THIS!
          Wordle 966 6/6

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

    2. Yep – that was a try the TMO bottled it after changing his mind. Mind you Scotland should have taken the 3 points at the end of the first half

      1. And France should have had a penalty try, after the very dodgy high tackle by the Saffa..sorry..Scotsman..van de Merwe!

      2. And France should have had a penalty try, after the very dodgy high tackle by the Saffa..sorry..Scotsman..van de Merwe!

      3. And France should have had a penalty try, after the very dodgy high tackle by the Saffa..sorry..Scotsman..van de Merwe!

      4. And France should have had a penalty try, after the very dodgy high tackle by the Saffa..sorry..Scotsman..van de Merwe!

    3. Don’t tell me some fat bastard sat on the Scone of Stone and broke it !!!!!!!!!!
      Perhaps they can buy a Chinese knockoff in plastic and pretend to the Throne……

      runs away wildly flapping arms and screaming

    4. Don’t tell me some fat bastard sat on the Scone of Stone and broke it !!!!!!!!!!
      Perhaps they can buy a Chinese knockoff in plastic and pretend to the Throne……

      runs away wildly flapping arms and screaming

    5. While I keep an eye on scores, I stopped watching when they mucked about with the Laws and allowed lifting in the lineout.

      1. Yep! It’s really not the game I grew up watching. Looking at the two recent deaths of Barry John and JPR, and thinking of Andy Ripley etc, these guys were build on normal lines but were super fit and could really move! Not the over sized lumps they are today. Jona Lomu excepted! When I saw him at Murrayfield I was absolutely spellbound!

      2. Yep! It’s really not the game I grew up watching. Looking at the two recent deaths of Barry John and JPR, and thinking of Andy Ripley etc, these guys were build on normal lines but were super fit and could really move! Not the over sized lumps they are today. Jona Lomu excepted! When I saw him at Murrayfield I was absolutely spellbound!

      3. I stopped watching all sports when they started kneeling. I was distraught to give up on the cricket, but needs must.

  57. S.S. Canford Chine.

    Complement:
    36 (36 dead – no survivors).
    General cargo and coal

    At 14.35 hours on 10th February 1941 the unescorted Canford Chine (Master Neil Macdougall), a straggler from convoy OG-52 since 8th February, was hit underneath the bridge by one G7e torpedo from U-52 (Otto Salman) about 165 miles southwest of Rockall. The ship broke in two and sank after being hit amidships by a coup de grâce at 15.35 hours. The Germans later observed a lifeboat under sails at the sinking position, but the survivors were never seen again. The master, 33 crew members and two gunners were lost.

    Type VIIB U-Boat U-52 was decommissioned on 22nd October 1943 at Danzig and used as instructional boat.
    Sunk on 3rd May 1945 at Neustadt by rockets from four British Typhoon aircraft (175 Sqn RAF). Wreck broken up in 1946/47.

    https://uboat.net/media/allies/merchants/br/canford_chine.jpg

  58. I wish I was younger as well pm .

    My energy levels are zilch .. 77 next month and I am aching all over now . The path was muddy and uneven , Moh has a longer strides and gets on with things , I had to stop and catch my breath, I used to be able to chatter as I walked , not so now , Covid seemed to have knocked hell out of me .. including the first set of jabs .

    I can remember clearly things I used to do .. with out any effort !

    2. My energy levels are not so good but what I’ve never had is stamina. Metaphorically speaking, I was good for a short, fast, sprint but the cross-country? – don’t even think about it. That sustained level of energy I simply don’t have. I have a friend who, at the age of 68, did the 100 km south coast Jurassic challenge in 24 hours. I couldn’t run to the end of the village green. Roll on a few years – five years in fact – and several vaxxes later, friend now has myocarditis and a broken neck from when her heart gave out and she fell to the floor, coming round to find a chair on top of her. Her running days are over, she cannot turn her head to either side and her heart problems are ongoing. We just have to do the best with the cards that have come our way.

      I am amazed at the lycra-clad cyclists that tear through the village, all conversing with each other. I don’t know how they do it.

      Perhaps in the spring when the weather is better a walk every day over similar terrain to today’s walk will get your energy levels back. And ‘soft going’ with all the rain we have had is hard on the feet, legs and thighs and we need to stop more frequently to catch our breath.

      You really do live in a beautiful part of the world. I am so envious!

  59. I wish I was younger as well pm .

    My energy levels are zilch .. 77 next month and I am aching all over now . The path was muddy and uneven , Moh has a longer strides and gets on with things , I had to stop and catch my breath, I used to be able to chatter as I walked , not so now , Covid seemed to have knocked hell out of me .. including the first set of jabs .

    I can remember clearly things I used to do .. with out any effort !

  60. If Chessum committed a “foul” by tackling an opponent – then that really is the end of rugby union. And the pint sized Kiwi “ref” should seek other employment.

    1. After the other debacle with the spot kick I think people will stay away in future. I’ve never seen anything so stupid in sport in my life.

      3. There’s not much consistency, is there. Ford stepped sideway again to take the conversion. Went ahead with no Welsh challenge. To me that says yeah, we realise we took the mickey the first time – but we got away with it.

        It was obvious Ford wasn’t ready to start his run up the first time. But then, I’m English!

  62. That’s me for this busy day. Walked five miles IN THE GARDEN – moving logs and debris. Tons (literally) more to shift over the next few days.

    Off to the Village Hall to help celebrate the brand new “Big Screen” that has been acquired.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain. In the rain.

    1. No garden here, Bill. Just 3′ deep snow, and it’ll be that way for a while. So, I’m relaxing with alcohol… ;-))

  63. 383170+ up ticks,

    The RAF base picked to house 2,000 asylum seekers – in a village of 1,000 people
    Much-storied RAF Scampton was chosen by the Home Office to become a mass asylum centre – a move which sparked furious protests.

    May one ask ,do the majority voters realise just what they are kicking in the teeth with every lab/lib/con coalition vote cast ?

    The really grotesque thing is the party before Country voting pattern is for the best of the worst, in name only,criminal cartels.

    The doors of the home office really should be bricked up, with the criminally insane inside, and a LARGE DNR ( the enemas are so fond of using ) outside.

    1. 383170+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      Surely Og these 1000 villagers
      outnumbered two to one and only heaven knows what in the way of illegals, should have the right to be armed.

    2. Why don’t we build/borrow an airbase in, say, Germany and put a massive hanger in there with, say 4 floors. And pack that fll of gimmigrants?

      Then it it were to accidentally have any problems we could simply call it a training exercise.

  65. 383170+ up ticks,

    Boris Johnson: Rishi Sunak has to call me first if he wants election help
    Conservative strategists want to deploy former PM on campaign trail later this year

    Question if I may boris, do you really think you will get day release.?

      1. My lad is in Cardiff in an England rugby shirt apparently. He wasn’t so happy at half-time!

        My daughter came up from Southampton to play hockey for our team and we had a lovely afternoon. She just set off 20 mins ago to avoid the Twickenham traffic.

  67. If Biden is unfit to stand trial, he’s unfit to lead America

    His mental decline can no longer be denied, even by his allies. The USA, and the West, deserves better

    DOUGLAS MURRAY
    10 February 2024 • 5:23pm

    Complaints about Joe Biden’s mental state are nothing new. As a senator he was capable of the most bizarre word-salads. Claims of incoherence dogged his vice-presidency. And in the run-up to the 2020 election Donald Trump repeatedly asserted that “Joe’s not really with us”.

    Perhaps they overdid it. Ahead of the 2020 election all Biden had to do was turn up to the right lectern on the debate stage and not forget his name for voters to be satisfied that Trump had been overstating things.

    But if one thing can be said with certainty after the past week, it is that Biden has not got better in the past four years. The Democrats have been so desperate to avoid a change of candidate in an election year that they willed the 81-year-old president on, always knowing that they may be one verbal or physical trip from disaster.

    That disaster has now come in the form of special counsel Robert Hur’s report into Biden’s handling of classified documents. The report concluded that any trial would not succeed; “Mr Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory”, while reasonable doubt could be inferred from his “diminished faculties in advancing age”.

    In his interview with the counsel, Biden apparently could not remember when he was vice president, forgetting when his term of office began and when it ended. He did not remember “even within several years” when his son Beau died. He also, among other things, had a “hazy” memory of the Afghanistan debate.

    The report landed like a thunderclap in Washington. And a clearly stung president did what his advisers should have advised him to absolutely not do, which was to appear before the press.

    Politics aside, it was a pitiful sight. The president was clearly hurt – who would not be – by allegations of mental decline. He was especially wounded by the allegations that he could not remember when his son had died, immediately changing the terms of that discussion and implying that the report said he had in some way forgotten his son.

    White House aides must already been on tenterhooks. After all, in the days prior to this press conference Biden had on two separate occasions suggested that he is communicating with the dead. Last Sunday in Nevada he said he had spoken to President Mitterand about recent events. François Mitterand died in 1996. On Wednesday he said at a campaign fundraiser in New York that the late German chancellor Helmut Kohl had talked to him about his concerns around Trump’s behaviour at the 2020 election. Kohl died in 2017. Biden had also appeared to forget the name of Hamas, referring to them as “the opposition” before being prompted by a member of the press.

    So on Thursday night when Biden left the lectern, was called back by the media and actually returned, White House aides and any Democrat voter must have winced as one.

    Clearly not on his best form, Biden was wooed into the matter of discussing the Middle East, a subject which could confound the memory of someone half Biden’s age on top mental form. Biden proceeded to talk about his negotiations with “the president of Mexico, Sisi”. President Sisi is of course the leader of Egypt, not of Mexico.

    Republicans like Senator Rand Paul leapt on the moment. Referring to a Trump campaign promise, Paul suggested Biden announce that we’re “Gonna build a wall with Gaza and make Mexico pay for it and boy are they gonna be confused”.

    Republicans have had fun with Biden for years. But this week the spectacle became very unfunny. It was just sad. The sort of moment when a person’s loved ones should step in and gently say something. Instead America is stuck with a question: if this is the president, who is running the show?

    ***************
    Peter Jordanson
    1 HR AGO
    Who is running the show?
    This is St Obama’s 3rd term.
    Loads of his staff still in positions of power and has never left Washington after he left office as has been the US convention for many decades.
    His appearance at the WH when he was mobbed and Biden ignored by literally everyone was so telling as to where the power lies.

    Deborah Quinn
    1 HR AGO
    Thanks Douglas. Keeping Biden in post is elder abuse at this point – I don’t like Biden or his politics but he is evidently losing his mental faculties (making him a vulnerable person by definition) and is being made to do so on the world stage – the Democrats are an absolute disgrace 1) for depriving this man of his dignity, and 2) for dodging US constitution bc it doesn’t serve their re-election plan. Biden clearly isn’t in control, which as you say begs the question – who is running the US Presidency?

    1. When you watch the video of the secret service agent clearly panicking as Biden completely ignores his signal you have to accept it’s now simply not fair to keep him in office. He’s clearly ill and needs medical help and to be allowed to retire gracefully.

      1. Yes. This is now becoming as stomach churning as bear baiting.
        “Biden had on two separate occasions suggested that he is communicating with the dead.”
        It’s important to keep your voters onside.

      2. With the amount of damage the man has caused when he was more compos mentis, perhaps not even knowingly now, he should just be smothered with a pillow.

    2. “Mr Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory”, Up there with “Recollections may vary”; spoken by a much older monarch with all her faculties.

    3. He was never in charge to begin with. Merely a front man. Started out as unconvincing and now even the halfwits can’t deny it.

  68. Well, MB must have a 21st Birthday more often (did I mention I’m carp at maths?)
    Had to get creative with the orange sauce for the duck breasts as I’d forgotten I used up the Cointreau before Christmas.
    Any way, Birthday Boy was happy and I’m now helping him finish up the rose Prosecco. Roughly 1/3 Birthday Boy, 2/3 Chefette.
    No bias, but that ratio sounds all right to me.

  69. Some of the very early Spring flower varieties have sprouted and add a welcome bit of colour:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/39b842a05e67302809eece0cb914c7871552c0dc463c0f0d9a139b74bea884b9.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/84c9a0eb203c60072e1b8d9ecb40f72b682f87d8139e81eadcd9fff28e64e981.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/83c0206d55e3d9d501fd06bbe27755da231ccfbd9c66d433432d1087f07a1aea.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/182bc043cc0e866ce8715d6ebec15298f934780c3a1b422c407a0329a91f5b37.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f75e399f58f20e556f024a9c27308a47edfaa14099dc7386d7abb27d1e8ff29f.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/106fd8d7c44454784f0f19d1bb5502e4d0234e30f1bf295e5250336542905c6c.jpg

  70. …edited. That’ll teach me for hanging around with sailors even if some of them are Gin soaked retired Admirals.

      1. Yes. Barthday lalunch. Many maymany i only had one cock…um tail. I wash. Daaaaaaaaaaamn this auto incorrupt.
        I apologise to you Mola. I have

          1. Guess what. I am here and able to respond in a let us call it a ‘normal’ fashion. I have not only had a lovely day with friends but one surprised me (after we had said no presents). With a pewter gilded stags head whisky crystal glass.

          2. I am so pleased you had such a good time! And a lorra, lorra, laffs. The world would be a better place if more of us let our hair down.

          5. Good friends. Good company. One of them happens to be a reformed PFC hooligan.

            when i arrived…..obviously first through the door….I ushered my pals and they were greeted with hugs and stuff from the (me mate) the Spanisheshish Ambassordores….Antonio looks the twin of the king of Spainglia. You get the vibe?
            After a while and laughing so much i thought i aught to fart outside and at the sane time have quick smoke.

            It was at that point in my life that the thing i needed most was a five feet long bench seat in the shape of a sausage dog. You won’t believe me but every word is true… I will produce. BHF being next door to the restaurant. you are going to kill me for it but i could not resist……HOW MUCH IS THE DOGGIE IN THE WINDOW.,,,,,,,,,
            Besides the dog at £160 the lunch bill for six two no drinkers and two piss artistes plus puds was in excess of my card…….and this was what i liked about it. My friends all started offering up money. I had already paid before we sat down.

        1. Oh shush. Phitsee is beinf attended buy his bursted frends. He;s okask. No needs far alarms…
          Okay … Over four hours 3 dry matinees, 2 big glasses of red th9ngies and then some one gave me coffee ? Why? Though they did have the decencty to add a cognig to that

          1. Ooooooh, I hope you are ok in the morning….. you need to drink some water…. at least three big glassesful.

          2. Medical advice is to drink 3 liters a day. Doctors also say stop drinking alcohol and stop smoking. They lost me a 3………………….

          4. It was fun. We had lots of laughs. Not even a little bit pissed. Still………As Scarlett said. . .

    3. Congratulations – you are patient zero of the yet undiscovered next COVID electoral viral variant.

      1. Can you send me a lock of your hair to sniff? I promise not to wank over it lie Biden does…………..

          1. Prior to my alcohol infested lunch today i had my hair do doned. It was rather bouncy and i didn’t want all my Navy friends i was suddenly available so i stuck my head under the head and applied some rum so they would be diverted. it sort of worked. Sorry. The dogs are barking. There appears to be a queue.

          2. Prior to my alcohol infested lunch today i had my hair do doned. It was rather bouncy and i didn’t want all my Navy friends i was suddenly available so i stuck my head under the head and applied some rum so they would be diverted. it sort of worked. Sorry. The dogs are barking. There appears to be a queue.

          3. Just visited that link. These hormone treatments can have unexpected consequences for the unwary.

            What am i to do with an eight inch uncircumcised cock with no where to put it?

            BTW….I’m on ‘Only Fans’. Membership is £15,00 but i give discounts for drugs plus you get a free voucher 2 minute video if you are a friend of Michael Gove………………One of my best customers.

      1. Thank you John. When i walked into the Bar/Restaurant as you were ordering some drinks and i said hello…your face lit with a smile. I won’t ever forget that reaction.

        2. Happy Birthday, Phillip! It sounds as though you’ve had a lovely day! Sending good wishes to you, and the doglets! 🎉🎂🥂🍷💕

  71. The petition “End the UK’s membership of the World Health Organization” now stands at 100,141. Not that it will make any difference but we have tried in the only route open and available to us. We need to remind these people, these Rt Hon members of parlament, that they work for us, in the strongest terms pssible. The petition runs until April so if you haven’t already signed it, please do.

      1. One of the reasons he is so wealthy is because he lives rent free in their heads.

      1. Pastry? Are you mad? These are Scots!!! A little salt on the cardboard is sufficient !!! You profligate woman you .

    2. Idealistic non meat dairy restaurants suddenly have to find the money to pay their Bills. For some weird reason local labour left wing twat councils don’t offer them a discounted rate. Can’t imagine why…………….er yes..i can.

    1. Unfortunately, Vehicle Excise Duty (‘Road Tax’) is not hypothecated i.e. it is not set aside to pay for roads and road maintenance. The proceeds just go into a central pot where most other taxes go, for all government expenditure.

    2. And when did they decide that we should fund the construction of car parks with our taxes, and then have to pay to use them?

      1. As with Star Trek some things seemed improbable but are now reality. People walking along the street seemingly talking to themselves like mad people but they are talking in real time to someone on the other side of the planet.

        1. Seen today as I was driving past a coffee shop
          Drive Thru Open, Free WIFI

          Some people really need help if they cannot buy a coffee without their internet safety

          1. After a procedure at the hospital i needed something to eat quickly. Drive Thru MacDonalds. I said into the speaker what i wanted. He said do you have an app? I said what? He said…do you have an app? I said i’m sorry i don’t understand what you are saying. He said what would you like to order? I said..I’ve already told you. I’m too old for this world !

        2. There’re still some folk “walking along the street talking to themselves like mad people”.

        1. Earlier.

          I believe after WWII with the election of a Labour government, dismissal of the great productive industries we had founded to serve the War, the growth of Trade Unions and the stifling of enterprise with the creation of an unfunded welfare state which ‘gifted’ us Welfarism.

          Inevitably government grew and ever since has sought to interfere more and more with our otherwise peaceful and purposeful lives.

        1. AI doesn’t have a best. The clue is in the A (artificial).

          Nothing artificial will ever supplant natural.

  77. I’m off to bed.
    A dry day forecast for tomorrow so I might get some logs chopped.
    G’night all.

    1. The same thing happened with HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Queen Elizabeth. They were so short of dock yard workers they relaxed the security checks on Polish workers for the finishing touches at Portsmouth. Security is an effing joke.

  79. I have to sign off now otherwise all the love i have been feeling from mu butch Navy friends and the Testogel my Doctor prescribes is likely to put you in danger. ..ahem…

  80. 383170+ up ticks,

    He is the tory (ino) party asset at knife play, he once done for a whole nation,then charged them postage for it.

    Dt,

    David Cameron put ‘knife in Israel’s back’, says ex-US national security adviser
    John Bolton makes reference to Foreign Secretary floating possible UK recognition of a Palestinian state

      1. The Kingdom of Jordan does not cover those Palestinians living west of the river who have conflicting ancestral claims over the land with Jewish settlers.

        There have been many mistakes made by well-meaning but ignorant Westerners since the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. Partitioning, forced exile, ransom and siege all create retributions that can take millennia to resolve.

    1. Thank you very much. I had a very nice solomillo raro for lunch. Harry got the leftovers. You would not believe how ripe his farts are this morning. I had to open the window ! :@(

      1. Happy birthday dear Phil! Have a super day. Are you cooking or going out for lunch? ❤🍷🥂🧁🍨🎂🍰

      3. Many Happies, Phizzpop, so what’s for lunch today, a slap up McDonald’s? 😂😂😂. “ Harry got the leftovers. You would not believe how ripe his farts are this morning. I had to open the window ! :@(”. You sure it isn’t you?!!!! Much love from me and Alf.

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