Sunday 17 March: When will the Tories wake up to the danger Vladimir Putin poses to British security?

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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639 thoughts on “Sunday 17 March: When will the Tories wake up to the danger Vladimir Putin poses to British security?”

  1. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) story
    THE IRISH FLAGPOLE

    Two Irishmen were standing at the base of a flagpole, looking up. A blonde walked by and asked them what they were doing.

    Paddy replied, ‘We’re supposed to be finding the height of this flagpole, but we don’t have a ladder.’

    The blonde took out an adjustable spanner from her bag, loosened a few bolts and laid the flagpole down. She got a tape measure out of her pocket, took a few measurements, and announced that it was 18 feet 6 inches.

    Then, she walked off.

    Mick said to Paddy, ‘Isn’t that just like a blonde!

    We need the height, and she gives us the bloody length.

          1. I don’t/won’t work to dead lines. I had thought to have a lie-in this morning. I might tomorrow so,, yah boo, sucks.

          4. JD, don’t be so mean to our Sir Jasper. His morning jokes, most of which make us smile if not always laugh out loud, are a kindness he does for us all out of the goodness of his heart.

        2. Humour is whom you are. I’m not being personal, sir Jasper. Maybe I should have written ‘humour is whom one is’. Some people just don’t have any.

          1. Thank you, Mum, for your understanding. I think the Speccie drained some of its contributors of a sense of humour.

          2. Well, yes, SJ, I had blocked that particular person a few days ago before I entered the coal bunker for a few days. None of us come on this site to be deliberately combative (except Sos of course but he’s forgiven as he is one of us and it is mostly combativeness with a sense of humour). We don’t need people looking for trouble in these troubled times, many of us have difficulties and enter nottle’s door in the hope and expectation of some thought-provoking light relief.

      2. You’re welcome to contribute a daily funny of your own.
        Like “Duelling guitars”, the two of you could compete daily for the most upticks.
        ;-))

    1. Good afternoon, just got back from Bath after a wonderful weekend and have done a bit of essential food shopping. Now relaxing with a nice cup of tea whilst catching up on NoTTLe, news, emails, etc. etc.

  3. Good morning. Well, not really, it’s vile out there – thick low cloud and heavy drizzle.
    Be interesting to hear what the Archdeacon says later.

  5. AI has failed Google. from BBC

    In
    February, Google apologised after its recently launched AI image
    generator created an image of the US Founding Fathers which inaccurately
    included a black man.

    Gemini also generated German soldiers from World War Two, incorrectly featuring a black man and Asian woman.

    It also immediately “paused” the tool, writing in a blog post that it was “missing the mark”.

    1. No no no. That wasn’t an accident. That was by design. AI (or ‘search engines’ wonks are programming in an obsession with diversity.

      They’ve realised if they don’t, the truth gets out and that’s the last thing Lefties want.

      What we have is NOT artificial intelligence. These are manipulated search engines returning natural language results.

  6. Morning, all Y’all. Bright and sunny after wind, rain and snowstorms yesterday. Energising, so it is.

  7. “What do Alexander the Great and Winnie the Pooh have in common?

    Same middle name!

          1. Morning, Tom!
            Yes!! I was looking for another “The”, but having just woken up, was struggling.
            Nellie the Elephant comes to mind, too.

  8. UK should consider conscription to deter Russia, says Nato ally. 17 March 2024.

    Britain should consider conscripting citizens into the military to deter Russian aggression, a key Nato ally has said.

    In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, Latvia’s foreign minister called on Nato countries to consider a “total defence” model in which large numbers of citizen-soldiers can be called up at short notice.

    TOP COMMENT BELOW THE LINE.

    Common Sense.

    Yeah, good luck with that – around half of our population hates this country and has no allegiance to it, whilst the other half thinks what’s the point of fighting for your country when it’s unrecognisable and you’re hated anyhow.

    I was surprised at the comment reaction to this article which is in itself quite surprising since it is only recently that I have become aware that I share this view. I no longer feel any allegiance to the UK or its Governance. It no longer bears any resemblance to the country into which I was born.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/16/britain-conscript-citizens-army-deter-russia/

    1. I don’t know if anyone else came to the same conclusion as I did.

      Conscription would certainly deter the illegal boat people.

      2. Only if they were included in the conscript, Sir Jasper. I have a strange feeling that govt would want to keep its replacement safe from danger.

    2. I don’t know if anyone else came to the same conclusion as I did.

      Conscription would certainly deter the illegal boat people.

    3. I believe National Service was done away with primarily because of the enormous cost.
      Also, if there is a threat (is there, really? Russia has almost knocked itself out with Ukraine), it’s now, not in 2 years time which is the quickest the scheme could be set up.
      Instructors?
      Military equipment?
      Ammunition (in short supply)
      Camp accommodation and facilities?
      Political will?
      Nope, someone is talking out of their arse, as usual.

      1. The costs now go in benefits to that same demographic. At least they learned things with National Service like how to make their bed.

      2. National Service doesn’t have to be military. It could be served in any national organisation e g hospital Porter, postwoman or postman, school gardener as well as some white collar jobs for those with quality.

    4. Key years in defence spending after 1960 seem to be:

      1970 – a flattening out following a steep decline during the Macmillan and Wilson governments.
      1984 – the resumption of the steep decline after the Falklands war.
      1997 – a flattening out following a steep decline during the later Thatcher and Major governments.
      2010 – a modest resumption of the decline during the Coalition government.
      2019 – a modest increase during the Johnson government.

      I suggest that contrary to the old “King and Country” image of patrician Tories, post-Thatcher Conservatives actually give a higher priority to tax cutting over national security. Otherwise, it may not be defence, but military adventurism that boosts MoD budgets, such as the Falklands, the Iraq war and the Arab Spring.

    5. This isn’t 1914 or even 1939, past times when patriotism was high on the agenda and expected of the people. The politicians who would drive conscription literally hate Britain and its white population. In addition these self-serving politicians have their loyalties directed towards the globalist cause.

      In their detestation of ‘White Britain’ these same politicians are filling this country with people and their cultures that do not find accord with both the indigenous and many of the long settled immigrants that have been successfully assimilated.

      Britain is no longer an homogeneous country, thanks to the rabid politicians following their agenda, and after all the cultural destruction wrought by their divisive policies they will require an awful lot of luck in trying to implement conscription. Who, in their right mind, would join a military that is, like the country as a whole, in rapid decline, under provided with the tools to do the job and led by woke people?

      Lions led by donkeys: plenty of the latter but finding Lions of the likes of 1914/1939 will be an almost impossible task thanks to politicians’ destructive policies.

      1. They will have to do something bad to get Britain into the next war. Expect Milei being put up to invade the Falklands, supported by China, or something along those lines.

    6. The Left hate the UK. They’d far prefer to destroy it. The idea of the nation state repels them.

      Yet they’re utterly, completely dependent on it as a focus of their hatred. The enemy isn’t Putin. It’s those who hate this country and what it stands for.

    7. I got to that in about 2003 (Gulf war). I went from completely patriotic Briton in 1997 to understanding that my country hates me if they can’t crush me in about six short years of Blair rule.

  9. Good morning all.
    Not really a good start though, it’s 4½°C outside, chucking it down and we’re off for a day out at Statfold Barn.

      1. Exactly – the quiz show Pointless define country as “by country we mean a sovereign state that’s a member of the UN in it’s own right” – I don’t think that applies to Wales, so shirley Gething isn’t “Europe’s first black leader” ????

        3. Wales is officially classified as a ‘Subject Nation’ after the conquest of Wales by Edward I which took place between 1277 and 1283. It is sometimes referred to as the Edwardian conquest of Wales.

      2. Exactly – the quiz show Pointless define country as “by country we mean a sovereign state that’s a member of the UN in it’s own right” – I don’t think that applies to Wales, so shirley Gething isn’t “Europe’s first black leader” ????

      3. I spent three years at a Welsh university; when the Welsh speak of the “nation” it’s Wales and only Wales they mean. Never mind who pays their funding and they are part of a United Kingdom.

        1. My niece went to Cardiff and encountered a lot of anti-English racism. My husband once applied for a job in Cardiff and, while looking round the department, was subjected to a sideshow of the person who was showing him round having a conversation with another colleague in Welsh. These were hospital consultants in a University hospital, not a couple of farmers looking for a new shepherd. The message was clearly understood and it was their loss.

    2. I find it ironic that Humza, the head of the Scottish nationalists would far and away waste Scottish tax payers money on Palestine than Scotland – a country he seems to hate.

      This waster will be exactly the same.

  13. When will the Tories wake up to the danger Vladimir Putin poses to British security?

    When will the Tories wake up to the danger the Tories pose to British security?

    1. They don’t understand the problem. They don’t seem to care that 30 million foreigners has done irreparable damage to my country. Labour wanted a voting block, the state wanted welfare dependence. It’s utterly disgusting what the Left have done so spitefully.

    2. Putin doesn’t need to be a threat to us – our own government are destroying Britain for him, from the inside!

    3. Oh no, are they still running with that fantasy that Putin is interested in destroying Britain faster than they can do it themselves?

      1. Just another foreign squirrel hoping to divert attention from the failings of Westminster/Whitehall over the past 30 hears, hoping that it saves them from being exposed as the real threat to the UK

  14. Hangover four today

    Wordle 1,002 4/6

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

    1. Started out so well here…
      Wordle 1,002 5/6

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

    2. Special prize for the first that can correctly identify its ‘What Three Words’ location.

      1. Reminds me of the Dutch boy who saved the town from flooding by putting his finger in a dyke and saying:

        “Can you imagine what would happen if I pulled my finger out?”

    4. Has he become a What Three Words place?

      Oops, I should have read below first!

  16. Good morning all and 77th troopers,

    Grey and wet at McPhee Towers, wind in the South going South-West, 10℃ rising to a possible 15℃ later.

    Well, that’s another Six Nations over. Yesterday was a ‘nearly but not quite’ day for a dogged Scotland who stuttered in attack and a resurgent England who had defensive lapses while the bottom of the table is a very unusual place to find Wales.

    I wonder what the ethnic make-up of Greenwich Council is? Need one ask?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/01295b4d3cbdeed967e6ffa5534f7d5305e14017418c3919aa81204af9ad76f3.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/16/award-winning-fish-and-chip-shop-ordered-to-take-down-union/

    If they’re allowed to get away with this it will be the whole of London before we know it.

    1. Presumably being a Conservation Area wouldn’t stop the construction of a mosque or pagan temple?

  17. ‘Morning All

    I note the unflushable turd of conscription is back in the headlines,nope not going to work this time either……..

    Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5dccd076e7358dea293038e3fb8c02c698e2e041b61fd56d90bc6f09684aff31.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1d438b11bae629840316099277fd33730e5f6a57015478102393c4069cdeaa6b.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c3ca0e9a306401bc1775fb27c5e1e6067d02d018bd5fce415b3bd6336cf28b3f.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e9dd14bbd606a8c10e839eb568f4a74682102e7a80a1b7d1af12250ec2e76163.jpg

    https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/160/117/120/original/dd6243a564d5d47b.jpeg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/07a56bd8fcbd119984371c6ee321f6b2422b05d0ebf19dd4ecc301e736bf90a9.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/907384037df52b66df1bd4822b41752c3cc90e2afa297cbe3732ef58c3e3c4a8.jpg

    1. Folk willkeep voting Tory and Labour. Cmically, there are some who’ll say ‘I won’t vote Tory, they’ve not done anything. I’ll vote Labour’ completely forgetting that we’ve just had 25 years of a labour government.

      Folk don’t understand what causes inflation – they blame super markets

      They don’t understand why enrgy is expensive – they blame ‘profiteering’ by energy companies
      They don’t understand why they have less money every week – they blame their employer.

      They blame unemployment on ‘greedy employers’
      They want more money, but they want it to come from someone else – who they perceive of having more than them.

      At every turn, the ignorant morass of humanity whinge, whine and complain happily ignorant and stupid. All the while, big government rolls over their rights and freedoms, creating the problems.

      Government likes this.

      1. I wanted more money (not a great pension forecast so Im saving while I can) so I got a second job.

        1. How dare you be self-sufficient! Actually, the way things go these days, doing the right thing is actually the wrong thing as you are penalised.

    3. My word that’s a striking revelation, there is more honesty in cartoons than reality.
      Not sure what number three was in reference to.

      1. The ethnic Russians who live in the Ukraine’s eastern regions that were attacked by other Ukrainians. Far too complicated for me.

    4. Re Halal Easter eggs,

      I mentioned ramadanadingdong and one of our secretaries (Mus) complained. I reminded her that she had frequently used the word Chrimbo in December.
      She withdrew the complaint.

        1. I’ve heard on the rumour Mill that she has created a job in a different dept and will soon be handing in her notice.
          It’ll be good to reappoint – the other secs were carrying her anyway.

  18. Good morning everyone,
    Having a quick sneak onto here while visiting family (that Canadian lot, minus the wife 🙂 )are otherwise occupied.
    No wonder local authorities are going bankrupt with such silly salaries paid to, no doubt, numerous staff, never mind eye-watering, outrageous compo payments.
    Did this woman disclose her pre-existing ADHD and other ‘disabilities’ at interview? Given those ‘conditions’, was she even suitable for her role in the first place? She appears to have been a fairly recent employee, “her probation was to be extended.”
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13205581/Sacked-council-officer-PTSD-helping-Grenfell-fire-victims-wins-4-6-MILLION.html
    That’s my pop-in finished – small grandchild calling, ” Grandma, where are you?”

      1. Thank you. It’s them (minus the wife) staying here. Chaos! We’re both having to bite our tongues …….. Such fun. But we are enjoying spending time with the children, especially as my surgeries and son’s citizenship process stopped them visiting last year. No word of us going there this year – suits me!

    3. This kind of thing turns job interviews into exercises in trying to spot how woke the other party is, so that you can avoid employing/being employed by them.
      There is a well known short video on the internet of a youngish American woman explaining why she will never hire anyone who puts their pronouns on their CV…she gets it!

      1. They were probably white males so they don’t count.
        I fail to understand how such a massive sum is justified.

    5. Note the comparison between the compensation to her and the Doctor versus that awarded to crippled Veterans!

      1. As I have said several times in the past, I am thankful that I gave up the law in 1996. Had that woman come to me for advice, I’d have told her to get a life….

  19. I gather from the paper that, at least, England did not disgrace themselves. Apparently they were in the lead with a minute to go – and someone fouled and the French nicked the 3 points and won. WHY do teams frequently do daft things in the final seconds – when all they had to do was keep calm and win?

    Is it worth watching the recording?

    3. You are unlikely to see the ‘foul’, not least because it was in France and the French TV camera coverage isn’t a patch on the British.
      I love rugby but it is bedevilled by the role played by refereeing decisions that could often go either way. They try to address that at elite level by using a TMO but for a lot of the time, one man’s foul is another man’s acceptable or even good play, particularly at the breakdown. One can only hope for consistency but that is often a vain hope.

      1. When I read the report, I did wonder whether the “foul” was a fix and that the ref was in cahoots with yer French.

        1. Some idiots on the DT sports BTL think Scotland were in cahoots to lose to Ireland!! 🤣🤣

          2. Take the English out of the equation, and the Scots would be full circle back to fighting each other.

      2. But that is the same for all sports. That’s why there isa referee, to make a decision.
        Some might not go the way you think they should but the same can be said by the other team so it balances in the end.

          3. No worries, Johnny. If it’s any good, it bears repeating. Like a good curry.
            😉

        2. Obviously to a small extent but I can’t think of any sport apart from rugby where the decision making is so complex and so subjective. Cricket may come close with lbw decisions but rugby often requires decisions about what happened under a pile of bodies , was A holding on or was B preventing release, and so on. There is also the judgment of intent that has crept in to decisions of card or no card.

    5. It’s worth watching until the final minute when an alleged ‘no arms’ tackle was made by an English player – it was suspect but the ref being an Australian made it a definite foul.

    6. Perhaps it’s just what the ref had planned.
      G’day Angus the Gardener you just clipped it in time.

    7. Yes. I only saw the second half but it was good. At 30-31 you just knew a penalty would decide it.

  20. In the light of the Saturday events in London and the recent decision by Hunt to give £1m for a Muslim memorial, The Reverend Dr Gavin Ashenden, former Chaplain to HM Queen Elizabeth II, has a very important message to all of us about the growing influence and power of Islam in the politics of the United Kingdom. We will ignore it at our peril. It should go viral.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT-pIPYcxFo

    2. One day soon I imagine saying such things, let alone recording and publishing a video about them will be cause for jackboots to kick down your door and indefinite jail time, followed by brainwashing to ‘re-educate you’.

      Gods I hate this government.

      2. We all do…..let’s get rid of them and vote Reform. There’s nothing more to lose.

        1. I’ll hold my nose and do it until a proper Nationalist Party arises from the ashes.

          2. Of Course. Something with a catchy name like, oh, I don’t know, perhaps “Alternative for Britain” would seem to fit the bill.

          3. Of Course. Something with a catchy name like, oh, I don’t know, perhaps “Alternative for Britain” would seem to fit the bill.

    3. I had a private dinner with Ashendon a few years ago and he is right on many issues, but in private I realised his main beef with the CoE was thwarted ambition. He was desperate to be made a Bishop and was passed over. He’d have been far better than most of the Useless Bishops we have today but I did find him more than a little repellent.

      1. Interesting! And he was made a sort of bishop in a continuing Anglican group, but he didn’t stay in it long.

  21. Morning all 🙂😊 and bejaysuz 🇮🇪 six nation’s champions and St Patrick’s day.
    I wonder how far we would have to go fro here to get a better choice on the weather menu? It’s awful again.
    And how is Vlad a danger to British security, when our useless government has ceded to every growing demand made by Islam and openly allowed hundreds of thousands of immigrants to simply walk unchecked into our country.
    The only danger to British security is our own government and Whitehall.

      1. Morning SM I turned in at 8:30pm. Apart from A ‘bathroom visit’ I slept through ’till 8:30 am. I must have been exhausted. But feeling much better thanks, but still coughing.
        Out to lunch with old friends today.
        A few absentee’s sadly. But that’s what happens when we reach our 70s plus.
        And I’ve been finding little stickers on my upper body and legs. From all the medical testing 🤗 😀

        1. That was a good sleep !
          I have found myself walking around in the supermarket with the wrist identifier bracelet the following day. You are not alone.

          2. I only remembered to cut it off last night. Along with removing all the dressings where the blood tests and canula’s were plugged in.

        4. You have my sympathies.
          I’ve been felled by a tummy bug and am missing Sunday lunch with good friends.

    1. A girl with a lisp went to the Orgy of the Gods.

      After an earth moving and thunderous encounter with one of the gods her paramour announced:

      “I am Thor!”

      “Tho am I but I’m thatithfied!” was her lightning reply.

  23. One sentence that tells you the book is set in the 20th century:

    Then it took him a quarter of an hour to find an empty phone box and call Caswell.

    ‘The Conduct Of Major Maxim’ Gavin Lyall, 1982.

    1. Good book, that. I like Gavin Lyall’s writing, but not sure he’s still around.

  24. At the end of the trial, the judge then stated that the man with the stammer would probably never finish his sentence.

  25. ‘Coal-box’, a German pony who was found and adopted by troops of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps on the Western Front. Albert-Amiens road. September 1916.

    “Coal Box.” The nickname for a high explosive German shell fired from a 5.9 howitzer which emits a heavy black smoke.

    British infantrymen called a heavy shell, which burst in thick black smoke, a ‘coal box’ or (from the black boxer) ‘Jack Johnson’; to a German it was a Schwarze Maria; and to a Frenchman a gros noir.”

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/edeb8fb722366bab32c79f7f2ee5305d04f09220f4874e936a1f288239e5c54c.jpg

      6. Apparently during Victorian times, London Zoo imported an elephant from Berlin.
        It proved to be disobedient. Then someone clocked that it was used to obeying commands in German.

  26. It is very depressing these days that match fixing in many sports appears to be rife – so one is no longer certain that a result is true.

  27. This story came to me in an e-mail from a friend of mine who used to teach Physics and Chemistry!

    ❤ SENIOR SEX ❤

    The husband leans over and asks his wife, “Do you remember the first time we had sex together over fifty years ago? We went behind the village tavern where you leaned against the back fence and I made love to you.”

    Yes, she says, “I remember it well.”

    OK, he says, “How about taking a stroll around there again and we can do it for old time’s sake?”

    “Oh Jim, you old devil, that sounds like a crazy, but good idea!”

    A police officer sitting in the next booth heard their conversation and, having a chuckle to himself, he thinks to himself, I’ve got to see these two old-timers having sex against a fence. I’ll just keep an eye on them so there’s no trouble. So he follows them.

    The elderly couple walks haltingly along, leaning on each other for support aided by walking sticks. Finally, they get to the back of the tavern and make their way to the fence The old lady lifts her skirt and the old man drops his trousers. As she leans against the fence, the old man moves in.. Then suddenly they erupt into the most furious sex that the policeman has ever seen. This goes on for about ten minutes while both are making loud noises and moaning and screaming. Finally, they both collapse, panting on the ground.

    The policeman is amazed. He thinks he has learned something about life and old age that he didn’t know.

    After about half an hour of lying on the ground recovering, the old couple struggle to their feet and put their clothes back on. The policeman, is still watching and thinks to himself, this is truly amazing, I’ve got to ask them what their secret is.

    So, as the couple passes, he says to them, “Excuse me, but that was something else. You must’ve had a fantastic sex life together. Is there some sort of secret to this?”

    Shaking, the old man is barely able to reply,

    “Fifty years ago that wasn’t an electric fence.”

    1. The Con party will be able to hold their conference in the phone box next to the Limp Dumbs if this goes on.

    1. How old are leprechauns? Old enough to remember when rainbows were black and white.

  30. After commenting on the video about a free organ donation which you may have found a bit on the large side for you, here’s one you can buy to configure for your own needs depending on your available space:

    https://youtu.be/pBAVXXyrvak?si=_okd1WaY6rjv324X

    This organ really has nothing to prevent you pulling out all the stops.

          4. You never do!! Not in front of those frail old ladies in the care home – they would all get wildly over-excited! You dirty old man! Three cheers for Spikey!

    1. Not a good look to accuse your opponent of cheating.

      The thing that used to make the English better and more dignified than anyone else was that they accepted the judgement of the ref or umpire even when the ref or umpire was wrong.

  36. It’s very tempting to think so. I wonder what Borthwick thinks. Has he said anything?

    1. I’m not quite sure what the Taxpayers’ Alliance is for since it sets its face against standing candidates in elections.

      1. They root out waste of our money that national and local governments take from us.
        If they question candidates or sitting‘representatives’ then at least we are aware. And it might be difficult for us to find out. They are not owned by the MSM.

  38. Some thoughts for today:

    Those who jump off a bridge in Paris are in Seine.
    A man’s home is his castle, in a manor of speaking.
    Dijon vu – the same mustard as before.
    Practice safe eating – always use condiments.
    Shotgun wedding – A case of wife or death.
    A man needs a mistress just to break the monogamy..
    A hangover is the wrath of grapes.
    Dancing cheek-to-cheek is really a form of floor play.
    Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
    Condoms should be used on every conceivable occasion.
    Reading while sunbathing makes you well red.
    When two egotists meet, it’s an I for an I.
    A bicycle can’t stand on its own because it is two tired.
    What’s the definition of a will? (It’s a dead giveaway.)
    Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
    In democracy your vote counts. In feudalism your count votes.
    She was engaged to a boyfriend with a wooden leg but broke it off.
    A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
    If you don’t pay your exorcist, you get repossessed
    With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress
    The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.
    You feel stuck with your debt if you can’t budge it.
    Every calendar’s days are numbered.
    A lot of money is tainted – Taint yours and taint mine.
    A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.
    He had a photographic memory that was never developed.
    A midget fortune-teller who escapes from prison is a small medium at large.
    Once you’ve seen one shopping centre, you’ve seen a mall.
    Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis.
    Santa’s helpers are subordinate clauses.
    Acupuncture is a jab well done.

  40. Charles Spencer reveals family nanny banged his head together with Diana’s with a ‘cracking crunch’. 17 March 2024.

    Princess Diana’s brother Earl Spencer has revealed that their nanny would “crack” both their heads together with a “cracking crunch” when they were young children.The Earl, who has spoken about the violence and sexual abuse he suffered when he was sent to boarding school at the age of eight, has now revealed that he and his sisters also suffered at the hands of their nannies at home.

    In an interview with Laura Kuenssberg to be broadcast on Sunday he claims that one of the nannies that looked after him and Diana, named in his book A Very Private School as Nanny Forster, “used to crack our heads together, if we were both found to have done something naughty, obviously without my father’s knowledge, but it really hurt”.

    I’ve just caught a glimpse of this on the BBC. I have to say that I’m sceptical. Spencer himself is hardly a convincing figure anyway. He has three older sisters of whom Diana is the closest by three years. Did they really share the same Nanny? One would have thought a nursemaid more appropriate. Were they really so close that they might have been punished together for a mutual offence? Head cracking hardly seems likely on an infant (dangerous too) and by the time he was of an age Diana one would have thought beyond such measures.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/16/diana-earl-spencer-brother-nanny-abuse-kuenssberg/

    1. Is this anything to do with being a “crack head”?

      Just asking for a friend.

      1. You know them all well? Sarah and Jane were fine when I knew them many years ago and anything but ‘dross’.

        1. Fair point – the younger two of the former Earl’s children were the ones I had in mind.

    3. There is something intensely pathetic about a middle-aged man writing a “poor me” tell-all, never mind one from as privileged a background as he comes from.

  41. Charles Spencer reveals family nanny banged his head together with Diana’s with a ‘cracking crunch’. 17 March 2024.

    Princess Diana’s brother Earl Spencer has revealed that their nanny would “crack” both their heads together with a “cracking crunch” when they were young children.The Earl, who has spoken about the violence and sexual abuse he suffered when he was sent to boarding school at the age of eight, has now revealed that he and his sisters also suffered at the hands of their nannies at home.

    In an interview with Laura Kuenssberg to be broadcast on Sunday he claims that one of the nannies that looked after him and Diana, named in his book A Very Private School as Nanny Forster, “used to crack our heads together, if we were both found to have done something naughty, obviously without my father’s knowledge, but it really hurt”.

    I’ve just caught a glimpse of this on the BBC. I have to say that I’m sceptical. Spencer himself is hardly a convincing figure anyway. He has three older sisters of whom Diana is the closest by three years. Did they really share the same Nanny? One would have thought a nursemaid more appropriate. Were they really so close that they might have been punished together for a mutual offence? Head cracking hardly seems likely on an infant (dangerous too) and by the time he was of an age Diana one would have thought beyond such measures.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/16/diana-earl-spencer-brother-nanny-abuse-kuenssberg/

  42. A classic betrayal?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4a7f71f31d13f4736df175b66b3db3b55ef73f1849c3cbfbe9261a79d7a06144.png

    Both cheeks of the WEF’s arse in Britain.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a4b275ccaf28b59626c6bdf6ce362f18a86c848f924ab0fd0ac8d763d182b0b9.png

    Speaks for itself.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/12f29187f3675bc958072c2c3be3c21067db35eb298cd7e3290a051a85421955.png

    WHO on a Biblical mission?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1e6a99a65a9bbf0ab42146da33e655fb303248c20b4a4db2f917d159186fdbf2.png

    UK’s destiny?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/51451678a35720af92ed53991c6c3a536392a4104212c51acec328e79a021410.png

    1. The state can’t build anything. Better use of public money would be… oh, hang on. The answer is not to have it stolen in the first place.

  44. Labour will undoubtedly be far worse. That’s the negative reason – but is there a single positive reason for voting for the Conservative Party? You could argue that in using the scumbag word Angela Rayner was accurate. “The truth”, as Oscar Wilde’s Algernon observed, “is rarely pure and never simple.”

    Families hit with £1.4m inheritance tax bills on gifts
    Grieving Britons are taxed heavily as relatives died within seven years of gifting
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/inheritance/families-hit-with-14m-inheritance-tax-bills-on-gifts/

    BTL

    Before the 2010 general election Cameron said that the Conservative Party would raise the threshold for inheritance tax to £1m. In terms of today’s value that would be about £1.5m – a 50% rise would be necessary to keep up with this.

    Today the threshold is £325,000. Nearly 5 times lower than what was promised in 2009.

    You can’t blame Covid or Brexit for this disgraceful betrayal – but you must blame the Conservative Party. Just as you must blame them for totally ignoring their promises on immigration numbers. Tens of thousands they promised; half a million we got!

    1. World Economic Forum Young Global Leader David Cameron was undoubtedly working for Soros just like World Economic Forum Young Global Leader Tony Blair. Soros specialises in infiltration and subversion and, with large dollops of dollars, it works!

    2. Given today’s house prices (and thus the need to help children/grsndchildren), it’s diabolical that the tax-free annual allowance remains at £3000, the same as 1981.

      1. It’s simply sickening that the state thinks it has any right to take what people have earned and already taxed dozens of times over. If parents have put off spending money in favour of saving and want to give that to their children that’s a good thing. Fiscal prudence should be rewarded. Good practice in deferring spending is just that.

        However the government wants you to pour your money into the economy as soon as you have it, because Keyensian economics (a discredited stupidity) promotes that any spending is good spending. This is why government pours money down the black hole of waste – because to it’s orthodoxy, anything is better than nothing.

        1. Fiscal prudence should now be interpretted as organizing assets and income to maximize state support whilst accumulating the latest electronic toys as well as enjoying multiple beer fueled package holidays.

          Why buy a house and pay off the mortgage just so the state can hit your estate with taxes that your kids cannot afford to pay? Much better to live in a council house and teach your children how to play the system and get free housing.

          2. You can’t always guarantee that the neighbours will be pleasant, even if you own your own house.

    3. Given today’s house prices (and thus the need to help children/grsndchildren), it’s diabolical that the tax-free annual allowance remains at £3000, the same as 1981.

    4. They’ve lied and cheated about everything. Every single thing they do is utterly the opposite of what they should have done and everything they say is utter horse manure. Which is unfair on horse manure.

    5. That’s why I don’t mind Mother’s money being paid to her care home – in vast amounts. Otherwise, she’d be taxed on it, and so better that private enterprise and caring folk get the money than the scumbag government in the UK.

      1. Been there Paul but what boiled my piss was we’d saved that money yet there were people in the same home who’d never done a days work or paid any tax during their life yet getting the same care for free.

        1. Indeed. Same at Mother’s place. The Council pay if you can’t afford to / run out of savings.
          Still, it’s reputed to be the best around, the people are very kind, and it’s Mother’s money after all. I’m sure she’d prefer to be well and at home (she doesn’t have one now), but this is the best alternative we can find.
          If I turn up hidden savings, I don’t plan to let on until the final reckoning, though.

          1. Yes the council pay when you run out of money but they take your pension and give you £20 a week back for spending money. I didn’t begrudge the money as I knew she was getting the best care

        2. But it’s a dilemma, isn’t it? You scrimp & save all your life, only to find that wastrels get the same benefit but without the 50 years of hard work with little reward. Maybe the definition of “rich” needs changed – to someone who has £10millions rather than £thousands in savings and assets?

        3. But it’s a dilemma, isn’t it? You scrimp & save all your life, only to find that wastrels get the same benefit but without the 50 years of hard work with little reward. Maybe the definition of “rich” needs changed – to someone who has £10millions rather than £thousands in savings and assets?

    1. I’d have thought the Hindoo Teapot would have abolished “Saint” Patrick as racist. A hate crime in one word.

    1. Although DNA profiling says say otherwise, Scots and Welsh will object to the use of Anglo.

    2. I think she should be asked to explain herself. In logical debate these sort of Lefty ranters are exposed as gupping morons. The stupider she looks the more Anderson’s profile grows.

      Confront the Left. They’re stupid. They will ALWAYS make themselves look dumb.

  48. Talk about poking the Panda!

    “Taiwanese Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng confirmed on Thursday the presence of US Army Special Forces soldiers in Kinmen, a group of islands that are controlled by Taiwan but located just off the coast of mainland China.

    Some parts of the Kinmen islands are just 2.5 miles away from the mainland Chinese city of Xiamen. The presence of US troops on the islands was first reported by Taiwanese media last month.”

    2. Dems need an excuse to cancel the November election to keep President Donald J Trump out!

      1. Good Heavens, Pretty Polly, I thought that you had not just gone AWOL but had actually deserted. I don’t always agree with what you post but you avoided ad hominem attacks so it’s good to see you back.

    3. Most US “Special Forces” are not all that special when compared to UK Special Forces so I don’t think that this revelation is all that.. well, special.

    2. Her full time job was Director of Public Service Reform. That sounds more like a national level position than a local council position although I suppose that government can afford wasteful duplication.

      I can see that the council would have assigned a senior manager to oversee assistance to the tenants but that job title leaves the impression that she was one of many.

      Not a bad payout for a desk jockey who suffered ptsd after the unaccustomed stress of having to earn her salary.

      1. Why whenever these sort of posts turn up does the exact opposite happen? The state never reforms. Oh, it has endless programs and ‘change’ pathways, but nothing ever improves.

        1. What real incentive does the state have to reform? It’s never short of other people’s money, it is responsibility-free, there’s never any requirement to perform, just to kiss the right ass, tongue according to grade.

      1. There surely is. Rishi has been leading the pall bearers round and round in circles for so long that they have worn out their own trench without altering the inevitable ultimate destination of the ‘Conservative Party’ in the grave where the headstone is already in place. If only one could be sure that Rishi and his pals were in the grave before the coffin and corpse was dumped on top of them.

  51. Well, a load of admin in relation to Mother’s dementia dealt with, this beautiful sunny Sunday. Lots of bank accounts identified, lots of bank accounts needing traced, a box of papers ping-ponging around in Barclays, and a very helpful gent in India on the chatline.
    Spring is here! I actually feel energised and cheerful for once (a quality pint of IPA helps!).
    Unfortunately, job not complete, but at least started.

    1. Starting something is definitely half of the task! Now you can no longer procrastinate!😘

      1. Is that a challenge?
        ;-))
        At least I now have a list of things to do, with websites and telephone numbers. That’s a good position to be in.

    2. My mother’s affairs were almost organized.

      We did have a complete history of bank correspondence to go on. Unfortunately it was the cover letter that came every month “Please find your statement enclosed”.
      That was it, many years worth of cover letters but not a single statement.

      A nice IPA sounds good. They favour strong stouts over here, high test but undrinkably strong taste. I just found that the supermarket has an app that you can use to check which draft beers are on tap.

      1. A good stout is a thing of joy. With reasonable alcohol content, it can keep you warm and cozy in the winter, and cool in the summer – all by adjustment of the cooler. Flavour in spades, bitter and smooth, but not somehing you can glug down. Sigh…

        1. That sounds like you are describing a decent Guinness, the opposite of the local brewery efforts around here.
          At least 8% proof, some up to 12% and infused with flavours that hide the beer taste. I tried a pumkin stout, it was like chewing on a cinnamon stick.

          1. Pumpkin stout? Yukk! I prefer my beers to taste of, well, beer (stout); but 12% is too strong for beer, and amplifies the flavours excessively. 8% is about the upper limit and only if well chilled – like Carlsberg Leg Opener Special Brew.
            A 6% stout similar to Guinness is perfection in a pint tankard.

        1. We think that the actual statements were put out with the rubbish along with the envelopes. After she went into the hospice we went through the flat a number of times looking to find details of her supposedly prepaid funeral arrangements.

          All we found was a stash of never used Mark’s and Sparks sweaters and enough morphine to have us contact the police to ask about disposal of the tablets.

          1. Surely it’s the ones from the last six years that matter? Is there any evidence of the prepaid funeral arrangements? There may be an industry regulator for these companies, so you could enquire through that. Or, a payment may be shown within the last few years’ bank statements (which should be available from the bank/s concerned to the executors).

    3. Think how much worse it is going to get for future generations trying to sort out a relative’s affairs that are entirely on computers and/or in the cloud with no passwords available to them.

  53. EXCLUSIVE City bosses tell Chancellor: Our investments are crippled by the EU’s £7bn savings bombshell

    Most respected figures in finance among those to sign letter to Jeremy Hunt

    They argue regulations mean Britain is missing out on a fortune every year

    Controversial rules being applied – despite Brexit – to British investment trusts

    https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-13204513/City-bosses-tell-Chancellor-investments-crippled-EUs-7bn-savings-bombshell.html?ico=mol_desktop_home-newtab&molReferrerUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailymail.co.uk%2Fhome%2Findex.html

    Anyone still think we have left the EU?

    1. The political class are intent on doing as much damage to the economy as possible to drive it into the ground so they’ve a reason to go to the IMF. The IMF will then say ‘you must rechain to the EU and adopt the Euro.’

      The smirking scum will then say to the public ‘Oh, it’s terrible, there’s nothing we can do…’ and happily sign up to it, with lots of gravitas laden photos and then popping champagne corks at achieving their goal.

    3. Nope. It was soon clear after we voted the “wrong” way we would never get what we voted for.

  54. Max Hastings on Radio 4 – Winston Churchill was a racialist murdering b*stard responsible for the death from starvation, malaria and other diseases aggravated by malnutrition, population displacement and unsanitary conditions of three million Indians during WW2. (Churchill just might have had other things on his mind at the time.) Hasting said that Churchill is one his heroes . . . His hero! Can’t image how nasty were the ones he considered imperialistic xenophobes -i.e. White English men.

    Another overpaid turd-faced parasite living off the backs of UK tax and licence payers. He should be shit! (Can’t say shot, I could end up sued for millions, if not billions.)

    1. I’ve read a number of Hastings’s books and while insightful and replete with detail he was sometimes critical of the British Army and the tactics employed when compared to the German Army.

      The fact that the British Army was a majority civilian force conscripted to fight, up to that time, the most professional and ideologically driven Army known to history isn’t always appreciated by the public.

      A very good revisionist book that spells out in detail how the British 2nd Army was formed, trained and tactically prepared to overcome the more professional German Army is:

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/caeabfc409c98a6ce2f8276b93e54b61f219d0148c19ae5cfb2a61645c8d2777.png

      With the 2nd Army being the last field Army the British could deploy for probably a decade it had to fight to its strengths; artillery being a major component. Another restriction on Montgomery & Dempsey was Churchill’s demand that the 2nd Army remained in being at the end of the campaign. Perhaps the criticism of Montgomery’s caution should be seen in that light. In the end the 2nd Army was successful in battle and remained in being.

        1. Blimey, you’re on form! I’ll have you know I’ve just vacated the kitchen having cleaned it! Cheeky mare!

    1. I suppose we could beg Vlad to pick off Wastemonster, Luton, Rochdale, Birmingham, Bradford and a few others. I don’t suppose those are the places the Express has on its list?

      1. I don’t think Vlad is that daft. All those places you list Sue are probably doing the dirty work for him…..

      3. How can you have a comparative (bigger), which compares ONE with ANOTHER, and a list of SIX?

    4. Vlad’s been caught by the bus and cycle lanes in Colchester.
      I too wish to nuke the Town Hall.

  57. Food News.

    I won a competition for Heston Blumenthal to cook at my house using only
    ingredients I had at home.

    It was amazing, we had a fantastic Vietnamese coconut curry with lime
    and coriander foam, mint and teatree jelly, cocoa shea butter sabayon
    and finished with a frozen lemon and ginseng tea.

    In the morning the wife said all her toiletries had gone and one of the
    cats was missing.

  58. I made a call today.

    I said do you prefer to be shafted from in front or behind?
    She said ‘I beg your pardon!’
    I said ..Sorry love i’m from YouGov…will you be voting for Sunak or Starmer…

  59. Comment on D FExpress:

    Just had a vote in the pub, this was the top ten, everyone wanted on Putins wish list.
    1, Corbyn
    2:Dianne Abbot
    3,Kier
    4, David Beckham
    5,Gary Lineker
    6, Katie price
    7, Gary Lineker
    8, Lenny Henry
    9, Gary Lineker
    10, Gary Lineker

        2. Unless he has started Tweeting nonsense like His Goaliness and the Sweedish Doom Goblin, then no.

  60. Comment on D FExpress:

    Just had a vote in the pub, this was the top ten, everyone wanted on Putins wish list.
    1, Corbyn
    2:Dianne Abbot
    3,Kier
    4, David Beckham
    5,Gary Lineker
    6, Katie price
    7, Gary Lineker
    8, Lenny Henry
    9, Gary Lineker
    10, Gary Lineker

  61. Literally, not a day goes by without Boeing suffering some major incident, whether it is doors and tires falling off, runway excursions, engine fires, hydraulic leaks, pilot seats flailing around the cockpit and slamming the yoke and, OH YEAH, a “suicided” whistleblower who told a close friend if anything happened to him, it most certainly wasn’t suicide. Well, we can now add one more: a United Airlines flight – because it’s never American or Delta… always United – that took off from San Francisco International Airport Friday morning landed in Oregon with a missing external panel, abc7 reported citing to officials.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0bf91aaaf24fc1216aca35c4b7cc2eb0fcc47ccd19b8a0a5d2abe6bfd776f056.png

    1. Years ago our flight from Honolulu to Auckland was delayed. When the big boeing finally arrived, there was a lot of duct tape on one of the engine covers after it had been patched up in LA.
      Nothing instills confidence like seeing a mechanic crawling over the engine with a big roll of tape (we were stll in the airport, this was not mid flight).

      1. Air UK (now defunct) had a 6.00am flight to Amsterdam from Edinburgh. During the winter it wasn’t unusual to see the mechanics on ladders with the Holts de-icer, when I drove into work!

    2. Years ago our flight from Honolulu to Auckland was delayed. When the big boeing finally arrived, there was a lot of duct tape on one of the engine covers after it had been patched up in LA.
      Nothing instills confidence like seeing a mechanic crawling over the engine with a big roll of tape (we were stll in the airport, this was not mid flight).

    3. To quote the united web site

      Our mission is to create a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace and world.

      No connection to the ongoing maintenance issues. They do fly airbus as well, no reported issues there – yet.

      1. Surely, their mission is to fly people to where they want to go, and land the right way up?
        Or, have I misunderstood?

    4. To quote the united web site

      Our mission is to create a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace and world.

      No connection to the ongoing maintenance issues. They do fly airbus as well, no reported issues there – yet.

    5. Too little competition in the aeroplane industry these days. If the US government were not so aggressively protective of Boeing (whilst at the same time criticising European governments for doing the same with Airbus), Boeing might be in better shape now. But why bother when you know that the government will always cover your back?

  63. After a bacon and sausage sarnie at the Pamphill Dairy, I had a bit of a bimble around Badbury Rings. The two photos of the beech trees are of the avenue that runs for a mile or so past the Rings and Kingstone Lacey house.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/20c3051f6271ab440a1c5adba458602e3ae4f729ce9591559e22fa9983b6a1d4.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4a867afc8a61f95359c512708fe33196d9ac9e56f352d7f3fa7e0d6fa537769b.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c5901d9585df5a030bd6eb19638fb01047a4f85ccd95e5aa3891319f8a743a44.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3ca2191976ab74dd85a4875c78fa3d6f8652805c876da21c6fe7bcf5b926745b.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a96670ed0c81eee7f5fa7c759a54bbeebe7c8619902c6dd8793cd52b6dda1680.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/76b648e8cdd798dc04a5bce5fc7768d438e96a84c2d79934f30803f87a4ec2c7.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2371beaa9a727d28bc1980cb4917416b29c8c8ed281186316b0f581222a2d6da.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/34ca94c979b556e4d8d4dfc469eb786976019c93369691abf079dcb3aec4e17f.jpg

    1. Love the flower photos. SWMBO has some similar that she had made up into birthday cards.

    2. We popped over to Pamphill a few weeks ago , snow drops were just finishing , we parked the car down the lane from Cowgrove and had a very muddy walk with the spaniel .. then it started to rain again .

      Shocked to see the huge housing estate built in the football ground , nr the cottage hospital , and surprised to see the amount of cars parked in the grounds of Kinston Lacey, the population of the area must have doubled .

      We moved here from there over 24 years ago , our walk this morning near Arne was tranquil and undisturbed . We were looking out for the calls and return of Osprey , nice southerly breeze might have brought them across the Channel back to their nesting site here ..

      I am sure we will soon see some swallows etc if the weather remains mild , and hear an early cuckoo .

      I always remain optimistic .

        1. There was a valley in Spain in the Pyrenees we visited a few years ago and the cuckoos were calling to each other all over the place, lovely to hear as the sound floated up the valley sides in the stillness of an early morning, but they never stopped all day. We used to hear them here in South Cambs when we first moved in, then they stopped but just in the last two years we have heard them once again.

  64. Wordle today:
    Wordle 1,002 4/6

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

  65. Oh I once sat in a plane on the runway at Heathrow while it was defrosted so that we could take off. Landed a few hours later in Larnaca in 21c and bright sunshine. (Went to Cyprus for New Year.)

    1. Lucky you. I frequently sat through the whole deicing process but the plane never seemed to arrive anywhere warmer.

    2. Normal for Norway.
      De-icing stand at the end of the runway. De-ice, then de-part. Best place for it, so little time for ice to re-form.

  67. Too much choice again
    Wordle 1,002 4/6

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

      1. I saw too many options so I was just trying a word that would give a clue to the second and last letters. It didn’t really help.

  70. . . . But I didn’t win anything on Friday’s lotto.
    Wordle 1,002 2/6

    🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Took me 5 today.

      Wordle 1,002 5/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      🟩⬜🟩⬜🟩
      🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
      🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      ETA: Well done.

    2. Took me 5 today.

      Wordle 1,002 5/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      🟩⬜🟩⬜🟩
      🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
      🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      ETA: Well done.

  71. Oi Laffed

    “I just expressed a view about Caribbean politics down at the pub, and now the police want to arrest me for Haiti speech”

    1. Socialists don’t ponder. Their brains are wired differently from ours. They seem to possess no capacity for rational thought and no ability to foresee the consequences of their own actions and decisions.

    2. Penny Dormant is bad but Grant Shapps is a truly disgusting piece of work – neither are the answer to the Tory Party’s self inflicted woes!

      2. If the Tory Top Team were dogs, they should all make their final visit to the Vets this week.

        PS. Don’t forget to pick-up that dirty dog from Henley way and all the other PMs since 1990.

  75. Acting Flight Sergeant Arthur Louis Aaron, VC, DFM (5th March 1922 – 13th August 1943), Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, No. 218 Squadron.

    Air Ministry, 5th November, 1943.

    The King has been graciously pleased to confer the Victoria Cross on the undermentioned airman in recognition of most conspicuous bravery:

    1458181 Acting Flight Sergeant Arthur Louis Aaron, D.F.M.Tooltip Distinguished Flying Medal, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, No. 218 Squadron (deceased).

    On the night of 12th August 1943, Flight Sergeant Aaron was captain and pilot of a Stirling aircraft detailed to attack Turin. When approaching to attack, the bomber received devastating bursts of fire from an enemy fighter. Three engines were hit, the windscreen shattered, the front and rear turrets put out of action and the elevator control damaged, causing the aircraft to become unstable and difficult to control. The navigator was killed and other members of the crew were wounded.

    A bullet struck Flight Sergeant Aaron in the face, breaking his jaw and tearing away part of his face. He was also wounded in the lung and his right arm was rendered useless. As he fell forward over the control column, the aircraft dived several thousand feet. Control was regained by the flight engineer at 3,000 feet. Unable to speak, Flight Sergeant Aaron urged the bomb aimer by signs to take over the controls. Course was then set southwards in an endeavour to fly the crippled bomber, with one engine out of action, to Sicily or North Africa.

    Flight Sergeant Aaron was assisted to the rear of the aircraft and treated with morphia. After resting for some time he rallied and, mindful of his responsibility as captain of aircraft, insisted on returning to the pilot’s cockpit, where he was lifted into his seat and had his feet placed on the rudder bar. Twice he made determined attempts to take control and hold the aircraft to its course but his weakness was evident and with difficulty he was persuaded to desist. Though in great pain and suffering from exhaustion, he continued to help by writing directions with his left hand.

    Five hours after leaving the target the petrol began to run low, but soon afterwards the flare path at Bone airfield was sighted. Flight Sergeant Aaron summoned his failing strength to direct the bomb aimer in the hazardous task of landing the damaged aircraft in the darkness with undercarriage retracted. Four attempts were made under his direction; at the fifth Flight Sergeant Aaron was so near to collapsing that he had to be restrained by the crew and the landing was completed by the bomb aimer.

    Nine hours after landing, Flight Sergeant Aaron died from exhaustion. Had he been content, when grievously wounded, to lie still and conserve his failing strength, he would probably have recovered, but he saw it as his duty to exert himself to the utmost, if necessary with his last breath, to ensure that his aircraft and crew did not fall into enemy hands. In appalling conditions he showed the greatest qualities of courage, determination and leadership and, though wounded and dying, he set an example of devotion to duty which has seldom been equalled and never surpassed.

    The gunfire that hit Aaron’s aircraft was thought to have been from an enemy night fighter, but may have been friendly fire from another Stirling.

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/ArthurLouisAaron.jpg/220px-ArthurLouisAaron.jpg

  76. A couple of hours ladder work completed. Very mild – but “damp” air. Am going to watch the England game.

  77. A dismissive Birdie Three!

    Wordle 1,002 3/6
    ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Me too.

      Wordle 1,002 3/6

      🟩🟨🟩🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. And me.

      Wordle 1,002 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      🟨🟨⬜🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Well done, you lot, boring boring Arsenal par for me!!

      Wordle 1,002 4/6

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

  78. That was a very enjoyable day at Statfold, but after the couple of disturbed nights I’ve had, I’m bloody knackered!
    Will sort the pictures out later and put some on here.

  80. Much as I dislike blaspheming. Jesus wept! “Oh….no John, no John, no-o John, No.!

    It was enough of a pisstake putting the rhyming slang git into place as “Chancellor”, then ennobling the hog desecrator to slime back into a place of power – but this?

    NO!

  82. Years ago politics was declared beyond parody. it now seems it has even moved beyond that (whereto I know not)

    2. Possibly just evaporated as ran out of believers? Bit like the EV (yes still under the tree), which no-one will insure. Some kind of victory, I guess :-DD

      1. Hello KJ – lovely to see you here, you are still “unavailable” to me in the Speccie :D! Last time I heard about the EV it was parked next to the wood-pile waiting to self-combust😁

        1. Thank you so much PJ, I have no idea what’s happening with Disqus and Spectator, I’ve lost contact with a few. Fraser Nelson is a disgrace in his own lifetime as a journalist, imo. The EV is where it was, and where it will bloomin’ well stay…:-DD Hope you (and cats) all OK. Footie exciting this pm! Will keep an eye out for you now 🙂

          1. it is a great delight to see you here, KJ. There is presently a weird group of spexiles on a very kind (and different) forum. They have welcomed us so generously and recognise how bruised we are by the direction taken by Fraser and his (can’t think of a word), but fear being overwhelmed.

            I am gratefully enjoying their restful hospitality and the respite that it provides, (trying to contribute positively) and I hope that you will too : )

          2. Thanks opopanax – back at you 🙂 On the Spectator message board, there are names I don’t recognise, although a few more familiar ones now. Geoff is such a good guy, we’ve exchanged messages over a number of years. Fraser Nelson is an absolute boy, no-one knows why he’s done what he has (and seemingly continues to). Perhaps something to do with keeping subscribers away whilst the Redbird negotiations ongoing. Thankful Jenrick put that back in its box. Yes, will keep checking in on you now :-))) thanks again for great welcome.

          4. Neither do I (much), it’s just on the box…I like to see the children enjoying it, along with their dads 🙂

          6. Hi Steph, good to see you again, hope you and yours all well and happy. What larks with all this nonsense…think quite a few have cobbed their Spectator sub!

          8. There now seems to be a few different Disqus a/c….if I access one, can’t access the other etc….I would join the ex-subscribers, but I still appreciate some of the writers (and comments) on Spectator. No idea what’s going on. Let me know if you learn the trick of coping with it, meantime hope you and yours doing well 🙂 Edit: and now I can get on the Spectator OK, but can’t access the Disqus a/c linked to the Spectator, only the one linked to nttl.

          11. No I can’t either but I can comment , just so hard to find them afterwards lol , all OK hope you are good x

          12. I’ve managed to work out I have two separate Disqus a/c, Steph. The one for nntl and TCW is KJ13 and the other KJ1 is Spectator – that one seems to be some sort of a stripped down version. I think Nelson has done a poor job at Spectator, alienated quite a few subscribers. Other than that, yes all good..gaining on it anyhow and hope you are too x

      2. Hi Kj! Very relieved that you are still protecting yourself from the evil EV! Every day there is a new disaster either revealed or suppressed on these things.

        1. Thanks opopanax and Hi back 🙂 NFU guy said all car insurance is difficult to get right now, and very expensive, no chance with EV – guess what, suits me..:-D Seriously, they are a potential danger, more so than petrol/diesel. Sales have plummeted following fires, as they should. Good to find you :-))

  83. That seems to be what is in place. Although there are still wonders available in the moment (see some of the lovely photos above and True Belle’s post). This moment I am about to go and feed the horses and enjoy their appreciation, as they will mine. Courage, mon brave!

  84. This afternoon’s daffs and our first tulip:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8365aff2debc014224d1d862cced7f79bf68b443c45148f15daa977891af2a33.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ca10b3433fc67977b3ef48e7c4de7b73e3e679f0d9b8b7f8cd27d9cb83aa7fc9.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d6e527b90f542daa330701960c4df8341b0c3c3f63d23f60e36674658c94ecf8.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/de2ceac95618d10130d9187c425d6c617334b8069bb888a030f0b86b77c65ba6.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/201e113854180fe306021dc59dcc81ee31b4749b32cfbe4927cb1e2734675a6d.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/63beb9a8c1a9efa1b81587ec31808017480892b8e02a3d0ac20779e1665276f7.jpg

        1. I’m still not at all sure whether it is Duck or Duct – butt (and it’s a big one) it is incredibly useful in all sorts of intractable situations- for example – you can make a waterproof equiboot (for poutice) in the pouring rain and pitch dark in a muddy field by judicious use of this miracle tape

          2. Duct tape is a generic term for the – usually silver coloured – tape, used to.. er.. seal ventilation ducts.

            Duck is a brand name. They make various tapes. Some of which might be used to seal ducts…

        2. Maybe she’s sleeping with that woman called Bryony who is Piers Morgan”s sister?

  90. Well – it WAS a good game – with some excellent tries. There were times when it brought back memories of rugby long ago. I expect I’ll be shot down in flames – but, for me, it IS good not to have Farrell poncing about, thuggishly. And what a cool head George Ford has.

    Nice sunset – and so, with a glass in my hand, I’ll bid you good evening.

    A demain.

    1. Farrell more than anyone has held back English rugby for a decade in a partnership from Hell with Ben Youngs.

      2. I would put Eddie Jones as the principal perpetrator.
        His tactics require a Youngs Farrell style of play

          1. That wasn’t clear from your post.

            Farrell more than anyone has held back English rugby for a decade in a partnership from Hell with Ben Youngs.

          2. Bill was discussing Farrell and Ford and I was agreeing with him so I thought the context was clear.

        2. Eddie Jones is a disaster – God knows how he exerts such a swami-like level of control over the media??

          2. Yes, it was – but I suspect, maybe unfairly, that that is his limit. A lower level job like that just doesnt have the degree of scrutiny of managing a Tier one Nation.

      3. The problem you’ve got with castigating the Youngs/Farrell axis is that England were pretty successful with that combo and they were both good lads (I knew Ben’s Dad, Nick, through a mutual friend, Dick Greenwood) who gave 100% – although I would agree with you that England could have done better in that period.

        1. Oh come on 4G. Youngs had a terrible pass and Farrell was a hopeless general of the backline and was prone to red mist syndrome. Together they were dire and England won despite them, not because of them.

          1. Farrell is a total warrior and I would follow him into Hell (to quote you!) like all his teammates, and that is a fantastic quality in an international player. He’ll be back, if only for the fact that he is statistically one of the greatest kickers of all time (I think he’s 3rd/4th?).
            Youngs’ pass wasnt any worse than Danny Care’s (or Alex Mitchell’s for that matter) – there are very few scrum halves these days that make a difference there – Dupont??

          2. Youngs’ greatest gift was his ability to burst into attack like Dawson did, but under Jones and partly due to Farrell’s limitations he rarely did. He has what I call a one step pass – pick up the ball, take a step while deciding to whom to pass, then pass, giving the defenders time to close in. I used to play scrum half and that’s a cardinal error. Farrell’s just thick.

          3. Scrum half, eh? That explains a lot – a bunch of yappy shortarses with anger management issues ;-))

            I’ve met Matt Dawson – not impressed unfortunately, he seemed to be struggling with a lack of reflective surfaces…..

            I actually presented him an award at the RFU awards dinner (my company sponsored it and the MD deferred to me because of my Rugby background!) it was live on Sky TV!!

          4. Oddly, I wasn’t!
            Whatever his character deficiencies he was still our best in 25 years.

          5. Hard to argue – World Cup Winner and all that, more importantly an impressive captain on ‘Question of Sport’ (not joking on this one, have you seen what a joke, woke pile of shit that program has become??).

          6. I don’t watch BBC!
            His breakaway try for the Lions that turned a Test Match on the Lions Tour of SA was arguably his greatest.

  92. Last post. England WAS robbed (taken from The Grimes online):

    England are right to feel aggrieved that they lost to France on Saturday night thanks to a rabbit-out-of-the-hat refereeing decision in the final minute.

    Ben Earl, the No 8, was penalised for making a no-arms tackle on Romain Taofifénua in the 77th minute. Thomas Ramos later kicked the goal and France won 33-31.

    I’m afraid it was another bad call that changed the result of the game, something we are seeing increasingly often.

    The incident happened right in front of the referee, Angus Gardner. None of the players reacted, the play continued and then later the television match official, Ben Whitehouse, interfered. If he had said nothing I don’t think we would have been talking about it afterwards, or jumping up and down about the fact that a match-winning penalty had been missed.

    It was a tired tackle at the end of a high-intensity game. Earl made a number of tackles of a similar nature that were not penalised — why penalise that one? You either penalise all of them or none of them.

    Technically you could have penalised it, and technically the TMO is allowed to intervene here as it was a potential incident of foul play. However, he should have let it go.

    Gardner, the Australian, is an incredibly experienced referee but the TMO, Whitehouse, is not. He has been around a while, and been a TMO at several Tests, but why should he overrule Gardner?

    1. It was, technically, a penalty for a no-arms tackle, no doubt!

      The problem is, as the writer notes, there are a number of these in every game, particularly in the close quarters stuff.

      The match officials, being only human after all, are more alert to potential foul play in the key moments in the match.

      So, rightly or wrongly (?) they weren’t robbed – it’s just one of those things……

    2. I see your comment in the Times (I’m assuming it’s you) is currently the most recommended – well done!

      1. Good grief. I rarely look at the “notifications” (or whatever it is called).
        I must have struck a nerve!

  93. Musings from the sick bed.
    Why when you are ill, is healthy food so uninviting?
    Cake, on the other hand ……

    1. Maybe cake is healthy in some situations? The wisdom of the body tells you what it craves, but not why.

      1. “Dost thou think that because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?”

        [Sir Toby Belch: Twelfth Night]

    6. I’m wondering If I’m the only one here who hasn’t eaten cake since I was a kid.

      1. I think it is a lady/woman thing while the blokes are out hunting carrots for their cakes !

      2. Well you wouldn’t fit in at MIR Towers, where daily cake is obligatory!

    7. That Electro Therapy not working? Try upping the the voltage…sitting in a chair…!!! pzzz.

      If you still can eat cake and keep it down you are not ill.

      As you well know. Chicken bone Broth. With Vodka.

      1. I know i am ill and need to stay off work if the thought of either a cup of tea or a glass of wine is unappealing. It may be at 6 am I cannot face a cup pf tea, but the thought of a glass of wine doesn’t turn my stomach; or that at 8 pm I could happily drink a cup of tea, even if I couldn’t face a glass of wine. But both…then I know I am truly ill. It’s failsafe – works every time.

        Sadly it usually means I am never unwell enough to skive a day off work.

        1. I know i am ill and can stay off work whenever i like. I have no no work. I also have no failsafe. For some reason i am too rich to qualify for any type of benefit.

  94. Just received from Brother, pictures of paternal Grandparents that I never before saw. Emotional moment… I never met them. Grandmother looks just like Father, square and determined. A scary lady.

    2. I didn’t know you have a brother – does he help at all with your mother’s care?

      1. Different mother. So, strictly, half-brother.
        He helps. Also, he’s ten years older than me, has a load of family background that I don’t.

  97. How’s this for irony? I love music (not all of it), and singing and have a huge playlist and well over 100 CDs, yet am totally incapable of making a single note or beat myself. How does that work? Was I a bad person in a previous life, or…?
    I mean, I can hear and feel the emotions, so can fell a tear, but to squeak in time and on note… forget it. Doesn’t happen. It’s a bummer.
    For example, when the Pope (John Paul II (the one with balls) visited Wales in 1982, they sang this at Cardiff airport when he left. Most moving. https://youtu.be/V0P-1V5dSD0?si=NGCSTyuR9P4fOmIm

    4. I do prefer the passionate solo tenor – especially the final high note! Something I’m hoping to negotiate with a dear friend, if I die first, for my funeral : )

        2. Quite ! I really hope not. But I love my friends and family so much and I want them to have a good time when I die (and I know how to organise such things) because I also know that they love me back, not that i deserve it, but life is magnificent – generous – as well as aweful

      2. If he’s a dear friend, do please let him know that a recording would suffice if needs be. It’s possible to sing whilst grieving, but bloody tricky!

        1. Our choir managed it this morning; our organist is terminally ill having bravely battled against cancer for a long time and has gone home to die now nothing more can be done for him. The Psalm (51:1-13) was a bit wobbly.

    5. ‘Evening, Paul. I’ve encountered a few ‘tone deaf’ people over the years – mostly in choirs I’ve inherited. But it’s said that true tone deafness is very rare. With appropriate training, practically everyone can sing in tune. Sadly I’m not equipped to give that training. I’m blessed sorry, cursed with perfect pitch. If you asked me to sing an A flat, I’d struggle, but the first note / chord of anything I play is invariably what I expected it to be.

        1. Most electronic instrunents do. Re. tuning, my bugbear is that one of our smaller churches has a single bell, which – if rung while I’m playing a voluntary – screams ‘out of tune’ at the quite elderly Technics piano.

          1. Technics unfortunately now defunct – I used to have a Technics U-90 organ, top of the range

    6. Most people have the ability to sing. Most modern singing teachers, certainly those who have experience with younger learners, should have the ability to set you on the right track. Turning up at a choir though you are generally expected to have some ability to tune the voice, with the exception of absolute beginners choirs. These days I am hoping choirs would be able to point you towards some next steps if not currently appropriate for you, not hurl condescending abuse your way. I’m sorry to hear that.

  98. I bought a can of drink while I was out from an ice cream van and got talking to the guy serving about cash and using it or we lose it. He didn’t know about the Canadian truck drivers having their bank accounts frozen.
    He does now.

    1. Could be a case of people who actually work for a living 24/7 are unaware of what is going on…until it is too late.

  101. Hmm. How did we manage before TMOs???

    Pain in the proverbial. OK if – AND ONLY IF – the ref asks for help.

    1. Honestly dont disagree Bill, we could debate the rights and wrongs of TMO and its bastard love-children forever (it works well in cricket!), but they’re here now and we cant uninvent them!
      I think a sensible move forward would be that the referee has to give an on-field decision. If it goes to review there has to be incontestable proof that the ref has it wrong. I’m sure people may jump in and say that is the case now but it is evident it is not enforced and there seems to be a never-ending to-ing and fro-ing leading to real dissatisfaction with the ultimate decision!

      1. Make it similar to cricket, let the on-field referee decide.
        But, given the complexity of judgement calls, allow the captains to go to the TMO.
        Two incorrect appeals they get no more.

        The opposing captain can appeal, if the ref is right and the captain is wrong that’s an appeal gone, if the captain is correct he keeps two appeals

        1. Not AI. Someone with time to kill, and Sibelius on their computer. I’ve used Sibelius to produce rather more mundane stuff for the choirs (when we had any). Impressive stuff…

          2. No. It’s the industry-standard notation software. I’ve used inferior copies in the past, such as MusicTime. On one occasion to transcribe an anthem for the St Edmundsbury Diocesan Choirs Festival. Sibelius would have done a better job.

          3. B- b- but if you can make it orchestrate and do variations on a simple motif shirley that’s the same as AI? or are you saying that the person played the individual parts *themself* (I know) and then transcribed it? Don’t understand.

          4. No. Think of it as digital manuscript paper. each part would have been ‘laboriously’ entered . They could have possibly been ‘played in’, but I doubt it. Each note played still needs to be given a length. But notes and phrases can be copied and pasted. And easily changed in pitch.

            It’s years since I used it thanks to bloody Covid. I don’t even have it on the current ‘pooter….

          5. So you would still need the skills to actually write it (the music) out on a stave? Or could you (for example) sing the different parts to it and it would transfer those to a written score?

  105. The ECHR that was written by British lawyers as a lesson for Europe’s despotic nations has been utterly perverted. From rewards for IRA murderers to sanctuary for criminal immigrants, it makes a mockery of due process and the idea of the protection of the innocent from an over-mighty state.

    The ECHR puts the rights of terrorists ahead of Britain’s security

    The latest report into the Troubles is based on a worrying premise

    DOUGLAS MURRAY • 16 March 2024 • 7:00pm

    For a quarter of a century now, this country has indulged in a culture of official “inquiries” and “reports” into the war in Northern Ireland, at a cost of hundreds of millions of pounds.

    This month, Jon Boutcher published the latest, an “interim report” of his Operation Kenova investigation into the agent known as “Stakeknife”. It caused a certain amount of media attention – largely because of Boutcher’s claim that the infamous double-agent inside the IRA may in fact have cost more lives than he saved. But there has also rightly been criticism that the entire report is based on the premise that the security apparatus of the British state may have failed to comply with the European Convention on Human Rights’ Article Two “right to life” obligations.

    Having had an opportunity to go through the 212-page report in detail, I would suggest not only that there is much wrong with it, but that it exemplifies a thoroughly misguided approach.

    Firstly, because, like all such inquiries, the dice are loaded from the beginning. Lord Saville’s inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday famously took over a decade to produce and cost around £200 million. After my book on that inquiry was published, a number of government officials assured me that, comprehensive though the Saville report was, my work had reassured them that the culture of “inquiries” should end. It didn’t.

    In 2010, there was the inquiry into the 1997 killing of Billy Wright in the Maze prison. Coming in at a mere £30 million of costs, the inquiry could not even address such central questions as how the guns used in the killing got into the prison. The family were not happy, and nothing significant was revealed.

    Since then we have also had the Rosemary Nelson inquiry (£46.5 million) and the Robert Hamill inquiry (£32.6 million).

    So what do we get for this? As usual with such reports, the team behind Operation Kenova decide to start from the very beginning. Boutcher’s report takes 163 pages to really even begin. Along the way, we are treated to such things as a five page “brief history of the conflict”, endless, repetitious passages about the families of the victims, and overviews of practical obstacles to the inquiry’s work.

    Once the actual subject of the report emerges, it provides almost nothing. Boutcher does not even confirm that Freddie Scappaticci – who died last year, and was named as the agent over 20 years ago – was “Stakeknife”. Nor does he identify any of the victims of the head of the IRA’s internal “nutting squad” (the IRA unit dedicated to questioning, torturing and killing alleged informers).

    Boutcher comes to a few conclusions, but few of his workings are made clear. There is little to no fresh insight into the Force Research Unit (the shadowy organisation tasked with handling agents in Northern Ireland) and no obviously useful recommendations.

    His main conclusions are perhaps inevitably critical of this country’s various security agencies. But his advice is so thin as to be either useless or purest, peacetime hindsight.

    For instance on the matter of agent-handling, he concludes that “The state has a duty under Article 2 to conduct an effective formal investigation of any suspected wrongful killings and this duty is enhanced in cases where state agents may have been responsible for perpetrating or failing to prevent the death.”

    There are at least three main problems with this. The first is the obvious fact that none of this is useful in conflict. Especially not in a conflict against a terrorist organisation which hid among civilians, killed and intimidated anyone they liked and then got away with it.

    The second is that the Stakeknife inquiry, like all the other costly and high profile “legacy” investigations to date, largely focuses on failures of the British state during a war. Everyone knows the answer to this complaint – which is that the state is expected to be held to a better standard than a terrorist group.

    But if that equation once held true, it no longer does. Sinn Fein – the political wing of the IRA – has been in government in Northern Ireland since the return of power to Stormont and is a political force in the Republic of Ireland.

    One of those Boutcher spoke with for his inquiry (though to no evident effect) was Gerry Kelly, former member of the Provisional IRA. At the time Boutcher spoke with Kelly, he was spokesperson for policing and member of the Northern Ireland Policing Board.

    There is nobody in government in the UK with any connection to Stakeknife. There are plenty of people still at the top of Sinn Fein and in positions of influence in Northern Ireland with personal knowledge and involvement in killings during the Troubles.

    Still, the main failing of the report is indeed Boutcher’s insistence that even a dirty war in the past ought to have been fought under the standards of Article 2 of the ECHR. Personally, I am amazed that this claim is still being made.

    It is now 23 years since the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled against this country in the case of Kelly and others vs UK. That case related to an IRA unit of eight men who were killed in 1987 in Loughgall. They were killed by the SAS as they were advancing to a police station with guns and a primed bomb.

    More than a decade after their relatives were killed, the families of the dead terrorists took the British government to the court in Strasbourg, which ruled that the ECHR’s Article 2 “right to life” had not been observed. The court ordered the British government to pay £10,000 of compensation to the families of each of the dead terrorists.

    Now the UK faces yet another investigation into the killing of lawyer Pat Finucane. This will be another costly and doubtless unilluminating mess. And we can of course expect no such inquiry into Finucane’s activities as a member of the IRA. A fact that was revealed by this paper 21 years ago.

    Until the Stakeknife report, it was clear that the culture of inquiries was not just expensive but exceptionally one-sided. We can now add “un-informative” to the list of complaints.

    Douglas Murray is the author of ‘Bloody Sunday: Truths, Lies and the Saville Inquiry’

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/16/echr-puts-rights-of-terrorists-ahead-of-britains-security/

  106. Evening, all. Happy St Patrick’s Day, Passion Sunday. I attended a strange service this evening – the sort of memorial I am used to going to in November for All Souls. I was required to attend in my capacity as chairman as three former members were being commemorated.
    When will voters wake up to the danger which the current three parties pose to British security? Vlad is no danger at all.

    1. “I was required (by whom*)to attend in my capacity as chairman as three former members were being commemorated.”

      Why do you support ‘officials’*’? who are driving the church into the ground, Conners? And why do you conceal their identity?

      1. I was required by other members of the Association and the widow of one of the deceased to represent them. Two of those being commemorated were founder members, so it was felt appropriate that an “official” presence should be in attendance. In other words, it was a request I couldn’t refuse. I don’t like supporting other churches than the one I normally attend, whose (female) priest sticks to the traditional names for feasts rather than using the common purpose modern descriptions and performs all the correct actions wearing the correct clothing. I’m not sure she’s enamoured of the top brass either.

        1. If I were in your position, Conners, I feel that I couldn’t let your church die by default. Your female priest appears to be your ally?

          1. I have left my previous church, lacoste. I no longer want to go back. It’s my new church that has a good vicar. The old church is being destroyed by the wrecktorette. I was only saying this morning over coffee after the service that I think the atmosphere there is now so toxic, the hierarchy so useless, that the situation is beyond repair. I am on the electoral roll of my new church as well as the list of readers and was asked by the vicar if I’d take part in the dramatisation of Palm Sunday events next week (I don’t have to ride the donkey!). I will have completed my three year stint on the PCC of my former church at this year’s APCM (if it ever takes place) and can’t stand for another 12 months. Unless something drastic happens I shan’t be standing again. I remain on the committee of the Friends because the wrecktorette has nothing to do with that (the other committee members make sure of that as we are a law unto ourselves!).

          2. PS the memorial service was at a third church, which I don’t normally attend except for “official” functions, like the collation and licensing last week, or civic services like Remembrance Day when I normally lay a wreath.

          3. I hope we get a dry morning next Sunday. I don’t suppose the donkey will mind – and we’ve been told that the children can ride it this year – but I’m not fond of processing in the rain. Frizzes my hair, dears! We assemble in the hospital courtyard and process across Smithfield rotunda. Far enough to get very wet.

          4. I, too, hope it’s dry. We don’t have far to go, just down the hill into the churchyard and through the south porch. Once we’re inside going round the church we’re okay. It’s nice to have the palm fronds and the incense as well as the donkey (and the children from Sunday school dress up as shepherds in a nativity play to hand out the palm crosses).

    2. Given that some individual as jailed for 2 years for having stickers that said that white lives matter, plod should be on the case.

    2. You just click the box marked ” view on you tube” Have a look and comment if it does not work please.

      2. Indeed, I’m OK with tech. More a remark for other readers. Had a a listen, enjoyed, thank you.

  112. I liked this comment on the DT letters page

    JG

    Jamie Graham
    2 HRS AGO
    I am posting this on every article of relevance:
    Yusuf al Qaradawi, spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, said:
    ‘With your democratic laws we will colonise you; with our Quranic laws we will dominate you.’
    Karl Popper said: “Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”
    Islam is an Ideology, a collection of ideas and beliefs, not a race or ethnicity. Just because an ideology is based around conceptions of God or divine communication, does not make it any less an ideology; it does not receive some special dispensation making it impervious to criticism (indeed, it should receive extra scrutiny if that ideology claims precedence over political and legal structures, as Islam does).
    Make no mistake, the ideology of Islam is the enemy of secular liberal democracy. Every society it infects becomes more violent, segregated, repressed, and ignorant (prove me wrong).
    It is easy to see, from any historical record, or any current metric regarding economic, cultural or social outcomes, that Islam is a cancerous ideology. It makes half the population (women) second class citizens (or outright property); it imposes a positive feedback loop of circular idiocy; a bland mono-culture of arbitrary chauvinistic rules backed with the threat of violence; it seems to be in constant conflict with every other ideology on the planet; it has the explicit goal of dominating and subverting all other societies and belief systems. Given free reign, it nearly always creeps towards some form of totalitarian Theocracy.

    I am confident all Nottlers will agree.

  117. Another day is done so, I wish you goodnight and may God bless you all, Gentlefolk. Bis morgen früh.

  118. Labour’s private school tax raid ‘could cost taxpayer £1.6bn a year’
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/17/labour-private-school-tax-raid-taxpayer-vat/

    BTL

    This is the Old Labour Policy of envy, jealousy and spite.

    Parents who send their children to private schools have paid their taxes and are entitled to receive state education for their children. By not using this entitlement they are saving the state the cost of educating their children and if they have to take their children out of private schools the state sector will be swamped and it will cost the state far more than it hopes to gain.

    Why have the Conservatives been so reticent in pointing this obvious fact out? Is it because the Conservatives are now just as mean-spirited and anti-private sector as Labour?

    Will Farage (Dulwich) and Tice (Uppingham) go to town on this issue? And why are Hunt (Charterhouse) and Sunak (Winchester) so nervous about defending the system from which they benefited.

    (We have had a substantial number of students on our French courses from each of the four schools mentioned above!)

    1. Sláinte!

      (Doubt there are many around at this hour, but for me it’s nearly 2 a.m. and I am toasting the hope that this nasty headache os not actually dengue! 🤣🤣)

      1. Dengue is not much fun, hope you prove to be all clear soon? My brush with it turned out to be Chikungynya, quite unpleasant!

      2. Salud, Ashesthandsust! Espero que pierdes el dolor de cabeza rápidamente y que disfrutes de unos buenos “Zedos” como dirían Sir Jasper.

  120. Wordle 1,003 5/6

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

    Monday morning’s Wordle solved in 5 and posted here at the end of Sunday’s posts.

    3. ‘Evening Geoff, only just seen you, hope the eye doing ok….ongoing Disqus problems, today is Thursday 21 Mar on my calendar…

      1. Hi Kate. New Speccie comments are poorly disguised Disqus. With all the useful bits removed. Laser treatment on 4 April, meanwhile things can be somewhat blurry. Join us at nttl.blog if you wish – quite a few Speccie posters have come across.

        1. Hi Geoff, as I suspected, what is Fraser Nelson thinking 🙁 presumably cost cutting. I wonder if that’s OK with Disqus? I made a note in my diary when you mentioned laser the other day, I feel so sorry you have to go again, hope this time not so long before the blur abates. I know quite a few Speccies have moved to your blog – I miss them, and I do check your blog out most days. I still like the columnists on the Spectator, the main reason I still subscribe – not sure how long I’ll stick with it, maybe moving to printed version wean me off. Thanks for messaging me, I appreciate it…all the best to you, Kate x

          1. ‘Evening, Geoff, hope you’re doing ok eye-wise…here’s an update might be of interest…Better Half been following Carnivore Diet (as Jordan Peterson) for several weeks…lost weight, blood sugars now in check, in short all numbers inc BP good. Went to see GP who, it turned out, is doing similar for same reason, also doing well. So I wondered if you had any knowledge/experience of this? All the best, Kate.

        2. Hi Geoff…took me a while to find you 😀 how did you progress with eye laser, trust all good? BR, Kate.

          1. Hi Kate. Zapped with thousands of lasers, there are still a few out of focus ‘floaters’, but I’m hoping the bleeds have been curtailed. And I can see the pooter screen without the ‘obscured glass’ effect. Thanks for asking…

          2. Most welcome, Geoff…I haven’t had the experience personally, only accompanied him. He hasn’t looked back since the last dose which sounds similar to yours, lots of zapping. All things crossed you’ll be similar. Love, Kate x

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