Thursday 11 April: Strasbourg’s climate ruling shows why Britain should leave the ECHR

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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804 thoughts on “Thursday 11 April: Strasbourg’s climate ruling shows why Britain should leave the ECHR”

    1. 385914+ up ticks,

      Morning AS,

      🎵
      But the cat came back cos he couldn’t stay away.

  3. Good morning, chums, and thanks for getting us Thursday’s site up and running. We were all getting rather worried about you.

    Anyhow, I did today’s Wordle in four. Here are my results:

    Wordle 1,027 4/6

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

  4. Perhaps he’s waiting for comments to hit the magic 1,000 07:30 – I’ll post here Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) Story
    THE BLIND COWBOY

    An old, blind cowboy wanders into an all-girl biker bar by mistake.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d0f6c08f514ecdf6808fa3d1bc949bb6d22af06dc73f3b2d3c947c7adb2fa0e1.jpg

    He finds his way to a bar stool and orders a shot of Jack Daniels. After sitting there for a while, he yells to the bartender, ‘Hey, you wanna hear a blonde joke?’

    The bar immediately falls absolutely silent.

    In a very deep, husky voice, the woman next to him says, ‘Before you tell that joke, Cowboy, I think it is only fair, given that you are blind, that you should know five things:

    1. The bartender is a blonde girl with a baseball bat.

    2. The bouncer is a blonde girl with a ‘Billy-Club’.

    3. I’m a 6-foot tall, 175-pound blonde woman with a black belt in karate.

    4. The woman sitting next to me is blonde and a professional weight lifter.

    5. The lady to your right is blonde and a professional wrestler.

    ‘Now, think about it seriously, Cowboy. Do you still wanna tell that blonde joke?’

    The blind cowboy thinks for a second, shakes his head and mutters…
    ‘No, not if I’m gonna have to explain it five times.’

  5. Biden issues warning as Iran ‘prepares to launch missile strike’ on Israel. 11 April 2024.

    Joe Biden has warned Iran not to launch an attack on Israel, amid reports of an “imminent” missile strike targeting the country.

    The US president said his commitment to Israel’s security was “ironclad” and that Washington would do “all we can” to protect it from an attack by Tehran in retaliation for a strike in Syria that killed senior Iranian generals.

    On Wednesday evening, Bloomberg reported that US intelligence officials believed an attack on Israeli soil was imminent and could involve “high-precision missiles”.

    Yes. All coming to the boil! Take your holidays early Nottlers!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/10/joe-biden-warns-iran-attack-israel-reports-missile-strike/

    1. When Israel was attacked on its own turf, the reprisals were swift and devastating.

      If it is not to be singled out for special and favoured handling, what makes Biden think (is he up to that?) that any other nation would not feel a precedent has been set for similar action to be taken following a sovereign attack?

      It seems that the morality of Realpolitik prevails. Iran cannot counterattack because it does not have the defensive resources to deal with a counter-counter attack and come out of it in good shape. Sometimes restraint is wise, even though Neville Chamberlain learnt the hard way the cost of restraint, and Churchill the necessity of tackling Realpolitik at any cost.

  7. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/11/public-sector-destroy-whats-left-uk-economy/

    Fantastic article by Matthew Lynn. The public and welfare sectors are vampires with their fangs well embedded in the neck of the private sector. We need a Van Helsing to stick a stake through the hearts of the lazy, greedy swine.

    A kindergarten class voting for extra ‘break time’ perhaps? Or a crowded pub voting for free beer? There are probably more foregone conclusions we could all think of if we put our minds to it.

    And yet when the Welsh government assembled a group of “experts”, consisting of senior public servants, to consider the weighty issue of whether they should all work four days instead five for the same amount, or even more, money, it was hardly a huge surprise that, after carefully considering all the evidence, they decided that on balance it was a great idea.

    Even the normally lethal point that it might be “racist” – because four-day weeks might discriminate against “frontline” public sector workers more likely to be from ethnic minorities – couldn’t deter them. In reality, the UK’s already pampered and over-privileged public sector elite is drifting inexorably towards taking Fridays off permanently, and given the vast size of the state has reached as a share of the economy, that will destroy any prospect of economic growth.

    With its growing reputation as a laboratory for batty Left-wing ideas, it was always likely to be Wales that took the lead on moving towards a four-day week. Under the leadership of Reg Kilpatrick, who has spent over 25 years working in different roles for the administration in Cardiff, it formed the Workforce Partnership Council to consider whether the country should switch to a four-day week.

    The council included those world-leading thinkers in innovation and dynamism such as the trade unions, Unison, the GMB and PCS, plus the Powys, Flintshire and the Vale of Glamorgan councils, as well as Natural Resources Wales, the Hywel Dda University Health Board and the Velindre NHS Trust – all of whom, I can’t help noticing, are either organisations directly paid for by the taxpayer, or else are unions that overwhelmingly represent public sector workers.

    Oddly enough, it doesn’t appear there were any major private companies involved nor, heaven forbid, any entrepreneurs trying to get a new business off the ground in Swansea or Wrexham, who might have provided an alternative point of view. The committee did pause to consider some of the drawbacks, such as whether a four-day-week might be discriminatory, or indeed whether it might mean that more staff were needed.

    Even so, it concluded those obstacles could be overcome, and it was a fantastic idea: “A four-day work week can improve productivity, employee well-being, and environmental sustainability,” it said. Apparently “reducing work time by 20pc can lead to a 16pc reduction in carbon emissions, as well as lower costs for recruitment, training, and sick leave”, while it can also “enhance work-life balance, gender equality and mental health for employees”.

      1. We still run our courses (Caroline is 62 and I am 77) but we are having far fewer students with us than we used to; but now that our children are independent and earn far more money than we do and we have no outstanding debts we make as much money as we need to live comfortably.

    3. It is a good article, but I don’t think it says anything we didn’t already know, though tbf it can’t be pointed out often enough. I find that Matthew Lynn has gone off the boil a bit in the last few months.

    4. Seems to me that the public sector in Wales is arguing for a 20% reduction in staff. If only more of the public sector would join them. Why stop at 20%? With a little effort (no sniggering at the back), they could probably lose 50% of the public sector ‘work’ force, especially those who still ‘work’ from home. The Whitehall carbon footprint would be slashed in no time.

      1. Could they be retrained to do anything useful though. It would be very Chairman Mao to force them into manual labour but one wouldn’t want them on benefits anymore than sitting on their arses at home pretending to be employed.

  8. Yes, this ruling – one of many – does show why we should leave the ECHR. It’s lunacy on steroids, absolutely absurd and dangerous in the extreme. But our insane ruling class will approve of it and do nothing but use it to force us into ever more poverty and serfdom.

    1. 385914+ up ticks,

      Morning TA,
      I know it’s a stupid question seeing the voting pattern these last three decdes but,

      What if we rejected being forced into ever more poverty & serfdom ?

      The refusal I know would be unbelievable but, bear with me, what then if.

      1. They have no intention of allowing us to reject it. (See the latest plan by Imperial College and Oxbridge to close all UK airports by 2029, ban beef and lamb and put a freeze on all building in order to meet legally binding net zero rules. If we did by some means manage to reject it it would mean capsizing the whole establishment, and I for one doubt if we can do that by democratic means, but if we did, we would then have to take on the US establishment, including the likes of Blackrock, Gates, Soros etc who are pushing this insanity – unless the Yanks manager to capsize their lunatic establishment.
        Rejecting Net Zero would, of course, have no affect on the climate.

        1. 385914+ up ticks,

          Evening TA,

          If my memory isn’t failing me then we, as a nation have been in this situation before,
          lest we forget, Tommy Atkins didn’t have any mates then.

          It was us, in our millions that allowed this to happen, mainly via the polling stations, so it is down to us firstly via the polling stations to rectify, if to no avail, then sad to say weight of numbers in a very forceful manner.

          1. Hope you are right og. Tommy Atkins had the nigh on full backing of a nigh on homogeneous nation in which the political establishment were nigh on as patriotic as the rest. Something has changed since then. Something.

          2. 385980+ up ticks,

            Morning TA,

            1939/45 unity won the day, unity must once again play a major part.

            After politically killing off Mrs Thatcher, RIP,
            construction of the road to RESET was put into top gear and that requires peoples consent.

            IMO “I am NOT consenting to that, whatever”
            must be the order of the day.

  9. What a lovely ‘Thought for the Day’ this morning! Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg spoke of selling seeds in the market, which may not feed people today, but seeds restore beauty and love to the land when the madness can be made to end.

    2. About time too. A permanent red light and derail the children’s mad gender crusade hopefully.

      1. Have you a garden? Do you have moles? How do you get rid of them?

        (I have tried everything but I have now given up and the moles range free)

        1. I got rid of mine by burying wine bottles, just leaving the necks above ground for the wind to blow over.

    1. This underlines the utter and depressingly insensitive neglect shown to culture by politicians from all parties.

      During Lockdown, I was ritually ignored by my betters when I insisted that the most important Government department was the Department for Culture, Media & Sport, and that instead of their ideological preoccupation with privatizing (sic) or marketizing (sic) Channel 4 or the BBC or for that matter “Diversity” with all the lunatic and very expensive horrors that entails when it concentrates on gender or race, they should concentrating on upholding and enhancing national morale in difficult times.

      This certainly includes making beautiful shrines of our war memorials, which I feel is money well spent.

    2. Money has to be found to pay for all those ‘Heads of Sustainability and their management teams.

    1. Hmph. Don’t waste your money. Handkerchief or a torn up bedsheets will do the job.

  16. Rishi Sunak faces Cabinet revolt if he quits ECHR

    Since the departure of Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick, it is believed just a handful of ministers would back the move

    Charles Hymas, HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR
    10 April 2024 • 10:32pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/politics/2024/04/10/TELEMMGLPICT000373276915_17127837938590_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BquOv8qdqAtg5F-Rc30df4df4Xpit_DMGvdp2n7FDd82k.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Rishi Sunak welcomed Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, to 10 Downing Street on Tuesday CREDIT: Simon Walker/No 10 Downing Street

    Rishi Sunak will face a Cabinet revolt if he decides to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

    At least 12 Cabinet ministers are understood to oppose leaving the ECHR including Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, and Alex Chalk, the Justice Secretary.

    Since the departure of Suella Braverman as home secretary, and Robert Jenrick as immigration minister, it is believed just a handful of Cabinet members would back quitting the ECHR.

    It comes amid growing calls from Tory MPs to quit the ECHR after a landmark ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg on Tuesday that governments have a duty to protect people from climate change.

    Mr Sunak last week threatened to leave the ECHR if Rwanda flights continue to be blocked as he said controlling immigration is “more important” than membership of the convention. The latest polling has found that half of Conservative voters believe Britain should quit the ECHR.

    On Wednesday Mr Sunak said “enough is enough” as he vowed to ignore the Strasbourg court if it tried to ground deportation flights. He signalled that he would go ahead with the flights even if the court issued a Rule 39 injunction in an attempt to prevent their departure.

    The Cabinet ministers opposed to leaving the ECHR outnumber those in favour by two to one. The remainder are said to be either undecided or to have not disclosed their position to colleagues.

    Mr Cleverly is said to stand by what he said in an interview last year when he warned that leaving the ECHR would undermine the Government’s attempts to stop the boats given the importance of international cooperation.

    Last November Mr Hunt said he did not believe the UK would leave the ECHR under Mr Sunak’s premiership, adding: “We don’t want to do that.”

    Other Cabinet ministers against leaving the ECHR include Tom Tugendhat, the Security Minister, who publicly declared his opposition, warning that it underpinned the Good Friday Agreement.

    They are also believed to include Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary, Victoria Atkins, the Health Secretary, Victoria Prentis, the Attorney General and Simon Hart, the Chief Whip.

    Those supportive or open to the prospect of leaving the ECHR are Kemi Badenoch, the Business and Trade Secretary, and Steve Barclay, the Environment Secretary who came round to the idea after being asked by Boris Johnson to review measures to stop the boats, and David TC Davies, the Welsh secretary.

    Mrs Braverman said on Tuesday that she does not believe Mr Sunak would ever adopt a policy of leaving the ECHR.

    She told LBC: “My view does still stand, that ultimately to regain control of our borders properly and faithfully to the British people we do need to ultimately leave the European Convention on Human Rights. Judging from my conversations with him [Sunak], he never agreed with me on the proposition that I just set out now.”

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

    Raymond Forster
    9 HRS AGO
    And therein lies Sunak and the Tory party’s problem, it isn’t a ‘conservative’ party anymore, it’s somewhere between Labour and the LibDems/Greens.

    1. This is the fault of Johnson and Farage who, between them, completely buggered up Brexit.

      Johnson did not want a proper Brexit in the first place which is why he and Gove arrived in Brussels at the last minute to stop Frost holding firm on Northern Ireland and fishing. By not contesting seats held by remainer Conservative MPs in the 2019 election Farage gave carte blanche to a Parliament left with far too many people opposed to Brexit. These people are determined to stop UK’s exit from the ECHR.

      I am not fooled by Sunak now saying he is prepared to leave the ECHR – if he wanted this he would have done it as soon as he became PM.

      1. You cannot blame Mr Farage. The Remainers had almost killed Brexit in Parliament which is why Johnson called the election. Mr Farage was genuinely worried that Johnson might not get a huge majority to overcome his own Remainers and thought, quite rightly, that defeating the Remainer dominated Commons was worth the sacrifice of the Brexit Party.

    2. I think I read that Sunak kept postponing a meeting with Suella about immigration. He kept postponing for a year or so until he sacked her. He has no intention of curbing immigration.

    3. I think I read that Sunak kept postponing a meeting with Suella about immigration. He kept postponing for a year or so until he sacked her. He has no intention of curbing immigration.

  17. 385914+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Thursday 11 April: Strasbourg’s climate ruling shows why Britain should leave the ECHR

    Playing the devils cobber, would we judge ourselves to be able to be independent of the ECHR as our voting pattern over the last near four decades surely proves otherwise.

    48% of the voters in 2016 didn’t want independence of any shape or form, a multitude of the 52 % post referendum promptly returned to supporting / voting for the lab/lib/con pro eu coalition party, who in turn swiftly set about demolishing democracy ( with the majority voters consent) over the last three plus decades with things worsening daily.

    If the political / pharmaceutical trials of an untested medication
    as in many cases mandatory JAB/or/JOB, not awakended peoples to this odious treacherous stance via the lab/lib/con
    WEF / NWO cartels true intentions, then we may as well accept
    allahs teaching, get the prayer mats out, and nut the deck in full bike rack fashion, as in FULL submission.

  18. Good Moaning.
    A thought triggered by the photos of the slammer celebrations in Manchester.
    (I have committed the sin of cutting a pasting my contribution to the DT.)

    “Thank goodness chivalry is not dead in England.

    As the scenes in Platt Field, Manchester show, there are still men who would not allow their womenfolk to be caught up in such distressing situations.

    I have got that right, haven’t I?”

    1. Gratifying to see that, although there isn’t a Test match on, when there’s a slammer gathering it still rains in Manchester.

      1. Matthew 5:45 – “That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust”.

  19. Good morning all.
    A beautiful start today and, after yesterday’s 1°C, its an almost warm 8°C today! Blue sky with wispy clouds scudding about but little wind here.

  21. Let Ukraine strike military targets in Russia with Western weapons. 11 April 2024.

    From American bombs to British and French cruise missiles, Kyiv’s Western partners provide their most potent weapons on the condition that Ukraine only use them within its own borders (including Crimea; the Ukrainian peninsula occupied by Russia since 2014). This restriction is a mistake, and one easily remedied by simply informing Ukraine that it has been lifted. Amid gridlock in Congress and delays in European ammunition production, Kyiv’s Western allies can help Ukraine overnight with this one change in policy.

    Yes it would be one change since shortly after it would become WWIII. Vlad is not going to sit back and allow Russian territory to be directly attacked by a proxy NATO attack. This may be unfair but it is the way things are.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comment/2024/04/10/russia-ukraine-war-putin-sanctions-mike-johnson-us-aid/

    1. Ukraine with its old Soviet and domestic made drones has already knocked out 16% of Russia’s refining capacity (65% is in reach in Ukraine’s current weapons) and Putin is reduced to going cap in hand to BeloRussia and Kazakstan for petrol.
      The Americans are begging the Ukrainians to stop but why would they unless the West commits to ongoing military support?
      Z is playing a blinder.

      1. Indeed, and the resourcefulness of the Ukrainians is astonishing – I don’t think anyone expected that. If Z ever was “controlled” by the US (which I never believed) he isn’t now.

        1. All the US Proxy war instrument stuff is utter nonsense and just repeated Russian propaganda.
          As they say – necessity is the mother of invention and the Ukrainians have put the corrupt gangster Russian state to shame.

          1. Agreed, and the people buying into it have no concept of the history between Ukraine/Russia, nor do they want to know.

      2. If you think that putting significant numbers of young men and women into a meat grinder is playing a blinder, you are totally blind to what is going on in Ukraine.

        Zelensky is ripping the heart out of the Ukrainian population.

        1. No, it’s Putin that’s doing that and inflicting similar on his own people. This would all stop if he’d withdraw his forces to the pre 28 February 2022 lines.

          1. The problems in Ukraine are a direct result of US, NATO and EU meddling. Putin’s actions were as a result of the treatment of the Russia favouring Ukrainians.

            If it does become WW3, as you appear to hope it will, I blame the West, not Russia.

    2. Ukraine with its old Soviet and domestic made drones has already knocked out 16% of Russia’s refining capacity (65% is in reach in Ukraine’s current weapons) and Putin is reduced to going cap in hand to BeloRussia and Kazakstan for petrol.
      The Americans are begging the Ukrainians to stop but why would they unless the West commits to ongoing military support?
      Z is playing a blinder.

  22. Let Ukraine strike military targets in Russia with Western weapons. 11 April 2024.

    From American bombs to British and French cruise missiles, Kyiv’s Western partners provide their most potent weapons on the condition that Ukraine only use them within its own borders (including Crimea; the Ukrainian peninsula occupied by Russia since 2014). This restriction is a mistake, and one easily remedied by simply informing Ukraine that it has been lifted. Amid gridlock in Congress and delays in European ammunition production, Kyiv’s Western allies can help Ukraine overnight with this one change in policy.

    Yes it would be one change since shortly after it would become WWIII. Vlad is not going to sit back and allow Russian territory to be directly attacked by a proxy NATO attack. This may be unfair but it is the way things are.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comment/2024/04/10/russia-ukraine-war-putin-sanctions-mike-johnson-us-aid/

  23. G’morning all and the 77th,

    Cloudy overhead Castle McPhee, breeze in the South-West and warmer at 12℃ with a forecast of 17℃. Should stay dry.

    Con Coughlin, normally a bit of a joke, takes a justfied swipe at the Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton today.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/239808cec07bb3606a72e8f6c3e8488a20d1d9ab545e91aeffd2c91a0ba0b3a5.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/10/lord-cameron-is-becoming-a-diplomatic-liability/

    The team at UK Column News which included Charles Malet, a former Guards officer, however, took a slightly different approach yesterday:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/466e747710b3c7634e5d32a14d3eaf93ffc84603f4c32c07a8305852f8c4f15c.png

    The sickness of David Cameron’s mind included boasting during his press conference with Blinken about the ‘lethal aid’ UK has provided for Ukraine – Storm Shadow missiles and a squadron (one!) of Challenger tanks. In trying to persuade congress to part with more cash for Zelenskiyy he went on to say:

    “I would argue that it is extremely good value for money, for about 5-10% of your defence budget half of Russia’s pre-war military equipment has been destroyed. This is an investment in the United States’ security (and ours)”.

    So, a proxy war in which over half a million young men ( and now women) have been killed and countless more maimed and psychologically wounded is a ‘good investment’.

    UK Column is right.

    You can keep my dividend, Cameron.

    Worth listening to. It’s at the start.

    https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/uk-column-news-10th-april-2024

    Oh, I almost forgot, he’s signed a UK-Ukraine defence pact. A dangerous man.

    1. Coughlin may not be popular in these parts but he is frequently correct. He’s a foreign and defence policy man of the school of Mrs T and RR who believes in a strong and assertive West and knows that the world out there is bad and getting worse. Poseurs like Cameron, who helped wreck our military are disasters for Western security interests.
      Put your money where your mouth is – double defence spending and cut the welfare and public sectors to pay for it.

      1. The Armed Forces need to be restored to Cold War strength basically. There may be a re-balancing between Land vs Sea vs Air assets and numbers but basically a Cold War level of spending is needed.

        The trouble is, how would you train up the required personnel when much of the experience is gone. The RAF is in dire straights and would take at least a decade to reach a front-line strength of 30 operational fighter squadrons again. As far as our defence industry is concerned, we’d have to buy jets direct from the US reserves. Old F-16s anyone?

        To have an idea, listen to what Tim Davies, a former RAF fighter pilot instructor has to say:

        https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/winging-it-why-is-the-uk-training-ukrainian-pilots

        2. But having closed and sold off so much of the MOD Estate, where the FOXTROT do we put them?

      2. The Armed Forces need to be restored to Cold War strength basically. There may be a slight re-balancing between Land vs Sea vs Air assets and numbers but basically a Cold War level of spending is needed.

        The trouble is, how would you train up the required personnel when much of the experience is gone. The RAF is in dire straights and would take at least a decade to reach a front-line strength of 30 operational fighter squadrons again. As far as our defence industry is concerned, we’d have to buy jets direct from the US reserves. Old F-16s anyone?

        To have an idea, listen to what Tim Davies, a former RAF fighter pilot instructor has to say:

        https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/winging-it-why-is-the-uk-training-ukrainian-pilots

      3. They won’t. They’ve been brainwashed into thinking that the ‘world out there’ is good and that we are bad. Thing is that people of Cameron’s milieu have no judgement whatsoever about people. None. They have a distorted view of humanity because all their lives people have sucked up to them. Brits don’t suck up which is why they don’t like us. Lots of high profile meeja mutts are the same.

      4. They won’t. They’ve been brainwashed into thinking that the ‘world out there’ is good and that we are bad. Thing is that people of Cameron’s milieu have no judgement whatsoever about people. None. They have a distorted view of humanity because all their lives people have sucked up to them. Brits don’t suck up which is why they don’t like us. Lots of high profile meeja mutts are the same.

    2. Good morning Fiscal M.

      I like this DT letters comment , in fact I enjoy the comments better than the actual letters.

      Pauline Maridor
      8 HRS AGO
      Oh, my giddy aunt! Recalling the highs and the lows of our history and standing in the world, I feel so downhearted.
      The British government are just embarrassing us all at this point. Appearances are important on the global stage.
      However, the UK’s appearance as a once very grand old lady who has not noticed her dress is tucked into the back of her knickers, and everyone is laughing at her bloomers whilst she swans around thinking she is the height of dignity. A very poor metaphor…to describe our representative, Cameron the Lord of Chipping Norton.
      It seems that the Americans humiliated the noble ‘Lord’.
      Unsurprisingly, it has been reported that Mr Trump was basically negative towards Cameron when he visited Mar-a-Lago.
      Even the Speaker, Mike Johnson refused to see Cameron
      Cameron has been snubbed by the most senior Republican in the US House of Representatives who refused to meet to discuss approving a new aid package for Ukraine.
      Proof positive of Britain’s waning influence in the international arena.
      Crikey, this is much more of an insult than Obama removing Churchill’s bust from the Oval Office!
      If we needed any evidence that Cameron is unfit for high political office, especially diplomatic office, there it is.
      Striding the global stage as our top diplomat requires statecraft, discretion, and trust; skills this man sorely lacks.
      We should NEVER forget Cameron is after all, heir to Blair!
      Then I realise that both Sunak and Cameron are WEF golden boys! Worrying times indeed.
      I make no apology for my mockery of the ‘great and the good’, none whatsoever.
      On that happy note, I’m off to enjoy a night-cap. I’ll skip the Horlicks and settle for a Lagavulin single malt – Slàinte mhath.

      A

      1. It is to be hoped he has been snubbed BECAUSE the Americans see him as a WEF puppet.

      2. He was also snubbed in France after the Bataclan atrocity. Merkel and Macron linked arms in “unity” and there was Cameron shoved to the side looking desperate to be included. My favourite recently was the Republican woman saying that frankly he should look after his own country (not Ukraine) and that he could kiss her ass! He’s an embarrassment. Trump will have his measure.

    3. He’s very concerned about the borders of other countries, but when it came to ours…

  24. There is something very evil indeed that a monstrous twerp like Cameron has been recalled to government. Who ordered the complicit Sunak to do it and why?

    1. Indeed, but the French police are well trained in the use of firearms and make few mistakes. Would you put guns in the hands of today’s British plod?

      1. I’d like a gun in my own hands now, thank you very much. Second Amendment Rights for the UK! 🔫. And not a water-pistol like this.

          1. Yes, I think I can remember how to load, fire, strip-down and clean those too. Like riding a bike.

          3. Apparently the Accuracy International Anti-materiel rifle, the AW50 is available in a silenced version which, with low velocity rounds, emits a sound broadly comparable to a .22LR.

      2. I’d like a gun in my own hands now, thank you very much. Second Amendment Rights for the UK! 🔫. And not a water-pistol like this.

      3. Many British armed police have handed their guns since they know their superiors and politicians will sell them down the river.

  28. Morning all 🙂😊
    Weather dull and not worthy of a mention.
    It seems to me that ever since it’s establishment the ECHR has set certain precedents, with so many more often than not,
    ‘invented issues’. Rewarding the human inability to use common sense and perhaps help one’s self in becoming a better person or citizen. There are now many people who make a living from this and it’s obviously a failure with its assistance to wrong doing idiots who just like to cause trouble for the rest of us.

    Sun’s peeping through now.🌞

  29. 385914+ up ticks,

    Lest we forget,will these councils still be in power after the next voting opportunity ?

    War memorial flower beds torn out by cost-cutting council
    Public gardens across Britain face being stripped of decorative plants in efforts to save cash

    1. Labour have always been good at hitting the “old codgers”. Just remember that Gordon Brown destroyed the best occupational pension scheme in Europe with his swingeing taxes.

      1. The problem was that too many of the “silly old codgers” voted Tory so they had to be taught a lesson and reined in.

    2. I expect his tax free expenses claims would be massively (100 plus times) higher than, the after a life times work, annual basic UK pension payment.
      Just another rich out of touch turd.

      1. 385914+ up ticks,

        Morning KP,
        I got a feeling he is, as in,robbing the serf to
        give the lord a rise, 300 sobs signature is hardly enough to purchase one a lunch with a good port.

    4. Yo Ogga

      Perhaps the $%^&ard would like to come and have a word with me, about his comments re ‘us oldies’.

      I started work 11/09/1961 and retired on 02April 2003, during that time I was unemployed for 3 days (miscalculation of holidays due) between jobs.

      That equates to

      41 years, 6 months, 22 days

      15,178 days can be converted to one of these units:

      1,311,379,200 seconds

      21,856,320 minutes

      364,272 hours

      15,178 days

      2168 weeks and 2 days

      Be interesting to know how much Income Tax, National Insurance, Purchase Tax/VAT/ savings tax etc I have paid

      2. A Lifetime of Taxes

        OLT (and others) – here are a few figures for you to laugh at.

        Being an anal-retentive Capricorn (we who keep lists) I have an Excel spreadsheet that contains details of all my Income, Superannuation, National Insurance etc since I commenced work in the UK as a graduate in 1963. My first actual graduate job (1962-63) had been in Amsterdam on a little over £300 a YEAR. I stuck it for 6 months (through the Cuba Crisis and that awful 1962-63 winter) then returned to UK to take up a job as a Research Assistant to a University professor at £675 a year – double what I was earning in Amsterdam. Heaven! I kept all my pay slips for years – until spreadsheets came along in 1979.

        Income tax for the first YEAR 1963/64 was £80-19s-0d (that’s £80.95 for you young ignorant decimal-freaks), a year’s National Insurance was £30-19s-2d (i.e. £30.958 in decimal) and a year’s Superannuation was £8-18s-6d (£8.925). That’s £554-3s-4d (or £554.1667) nett after deductions. In April 1965 I got married on £852-12s-6d a year gross (£852.625 decimal), that’s £710 nett. My fiancée was a young teacher earning more than I was, but we decided to bank all of her salary and live on mine.

        Less than 18 months later, in 1966 I moved to a job in Carshalton on the princely sum of £1492 a year gross and we were able to get a mortgage on a house near South Croydon on the basis of our joint income and having saved all my wife’s income for 18 months. I bargained the house price down from £5,750 to £5,350 because the owners had committed to buy a house elsewhere and we were ‘cash buyers’.

        With up to 10 jobs, I have never had an ‘Income Break’, so I Know EXACTLY how much I have earned and how much National Insurance and Income tax I’ve paid. My most lucrative job was made redundant in 1994 and the follow-on job with the NHS (GP Fundholding – remember that?) was also made redundant by Tony Blair in 1999, so with both sons off my hands I decided to retire 25 years ago. How things have changed.

        EDIT: Yesterday I had a message from HMRC that they are going to increase my Tax Code for 2024/25 by an amount which will take a further £1,100 a year more tax than planned. Just wait till Rachel Reeves is Chancellor!

      1. Les Flics put a few more rounds in to make sure there was no expense of a trial.
        Well done.

      2. I don’t normally enjoy watching, or even watch, a person being killed in a video because I know it’s real and not acted. In this case, however…..

  33. The socialist state hates people to be self-sufficient – but when people are not self-sufficient and are dependent on the state the state will desert and betray them.

    2. I think we all know why TB. The MSM are managed by the garbage at the top. Collectively they are bringing our once safe country to its knees.

  35. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/068cacbaa4d18f0d94fcd3d2192ac9c35fc6ef09d6e3a347e13db446f5de4475.png
    “Britain is a nation of litter bugs. It’s not easy to stop them, but can we at least try?” Victoria Moore, DT, 11/04/24.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ff22346de271e69cb20ab25e7731d133de0baf5eaeee28ccb7a949b5d55961d5.png
    A homage to the British obsession with rubbish collection. Sculptor, Tom Waugh, DT, 11/04/24.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/522899c6dd3722b18c9c30517d821ee2924f50396633206ab864e4842def299d.png
    Fly Tipping: Britain’s Rubbish Nightmare. ITV, 11/04/24.

    All within the scope of one national newspaper on the same day: An article telling how the nation is one of obsessive litter bugs, backed up by a television programme on the associated epidemic of fly-tipping.

    Followed by an article on a sculptor who considers the very opposite: that the nation is obsessed with tidiness and the safe collection and efficient disposal of rubbish.

    Well, at least one of them is confused. But which is it?

    1. Tips should be open longer, and councils should not charge to remove larger item or at most a token charge.They had a far better system in Germany when we lived there. In Germany abour 3 or 4 time a year. on the given day you could put any items outside your house. for 3 days people could help themselves to what ever they wanted. Then council trucks would remove what was left. It was a week of mess but I never saw any fly tipping.

      1. My son in Switzerland furnished his flat with bits people left outside – folding table & chairs…..

      2. Those with large enough gardens could have a bonfire patch. It’s what we used to do back in the day. It would take pressure off the refuse collectors to a degree.

    2. Tips should be open longer, and councils should not charge to remove larger item or at most a token charge.They had a far better system in Germany when we lived there. In Germany abour 3 or 4 time a year. on the given day you could put any items outside your house. for 3 days people could help themselves to what ever they wanted. Then council trucks would remove what was left. It was a week of mess but I never saw any fly tipping.

    3. Would help if they provided more and larger bins as well as emptying the bloody things!

      1. It amazes me that, during a “cost of living crisis” pupils from 3 nearby state schools have the money to constantly chow down on crisps, chocolate, filled baguettes etc…. and slurp away on coffee, bottled water and countless cans of Monster.
        This diet doesn’t seem to do much for their eyesight, as they cannot spot the waste bins every 100 yards or so – including one right by the school gate.

      2. Yo Mr G

        Will not be one from
        Bradford
        Luton
        Telford
        etc

        They all have alreddy been deflowered by the ‘Chosen Ones

    1. Hang on there ogga, that Trudeau using the army for law enforcement did not make it to any of the media over here – yet!
      I shall see what I can do.

  40. We must attack Iran if it strikes Israel. 11 April 2024

    An attack on Israel by Iran seems imminent. President Biden says his support is “ironclad” and that the US would do all it can to protect Israel. Britain too has a clear responsibility to stand alongside Washington and Jerusalem if Iran launches a significant attack. That means Lord Cameron’s words, “We stand up for Israel’s right to self-defence”, need to become more than mere platitudes and the UK should be ready to take direct military action against Iran.

    Would it be too much to point out that our meddling in the Middle East has been a catastrophe. Not just for them but for us as well. Israel and the US seem well able to take care of themselves without any assistance from our depleted resources.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/11/we-must-attack-iran-if-it-strikes-israel/

    1. He’s forever young, Bill. The age he was when he left this world. What would he have made of the nonsense that has characterised the last few years?

      1. He had no apparent interest whatever in politics. He voted only once – to leave the EUSSR. Quite unprompted. Both boys did…rather to my surprise.

        1. My elder son is a sceptic about most things – especially EU, climate, covid, etc. unjabbed. Things are a little more difficult with the younger one since we fell out over dinner (re Brexit)one night in 2018. I haven’t been back to Switzerland since then although he’s been here and on the surface things are ok, but a lot is left unsaid.

    2. Whenever either of my ‘boys’ has a hard time, I think of your son and realise that neither side has been tested to that level – so far.

      1. Thanks, Old Bean. As PT once said, “You never get over it; you just get used to it.”

  42. ‘Morning All

    Slept in so avoided the “Where’s Geoff” panic just shows how important NoTTL is in our lives…Well Done Sir!!

    Meanwhile

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e5cbde563ef2890e9a010de6efc34e139213e4a90b71bd7a989a85d7b0f83889.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5f6b9dc2141e57bc0a5947218ab3433c1e0504a29314bab27281b388d40936b0.jpg

    Nah,promoted more like

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/624504e278f3c82e38924227dae62cd0b3af6878325399280db8d08efeb3e310.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f05018a58c212967eef8707ae182b5b3b63312b3bb36b6d50fabea930fe64421.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9abea360802a4546eb315889d75542e0b7aa226189421d90cffded2ca168b2a4.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ab55b3474fdd332a882ff2790e3a6f87bb1d32c9af3eb5a566bbe8686ef31f20.jpg

    1. I remember when I was whining in the car my mother said: “Richard, if you don’t stop crying we shall stop at the next lay-by and I shall give you something to really cry for.”

      I didn’t so she did.

      Every time we subsequently passed the lay-by of justified chastisement I cheerfully exclaimed : “Look, that’s where Mummy gave me something to really cry for!”

      A year or two later I was put in the charge of a dear old aunt. As usual I was behaving disgracefully. Finally dear Aunt Kitty could not take it any more and she said:

      “Richard, If you don’t behave yourself I shall smack you!”

      “Will you smack me as hard as Mummy or as hard as Daddy?”

      Trying to sound fierce my mild-hearted Aunt Kitty replied

      “As hard as Daddy!”

      “That’s all right then!” I said and she collapsed laughing and I escaped the smacking I so richly deserved.

    2. I might try and find out where My MP lives, he’s not replying to my emails 6 weeks should be long enough surely.

  43. Good morning chaps. Just about to do a spot of gardening before the rain comes later.
    However it occurred to me when I read about the awful Cameron saying what good value for money the war in Ukraine is; versus his hatred of Israel that hypocrisy really does know no bounds.

  44. Ukrainian parliament passes bill broadening civilian mobilisation to boost fledgling military manpower. 11 April 2024.

    Ukraine’s parliament passed a controversial bill on Thursday that will change the rules on civilian military mobilisation in an effort to address fledgling manpower among its forces.

    The legislation, which must be signed by president Volodymyr Zelenskiy before it becomes law, is seen as crucial for Ukraine to address what military analysts say are major manpower problems as it fights a better armed and larger foe.

    A full, final text with all the amendments was not immediately published on the parliament’s websites but it was clear that a demobilisation date for soldiers who have spent long periods fighting on the frontlines a chance to return home has been scrapped, a highly sensitive issue for the many thousands of people who joined the army when Russia’s launched its full-scale invasion.

    There is real potential trouble there at scrapping the demobilisation rule. These men, the survivors from the beginning, will rightly feel they are being cheated. They have done their bit and been betrayed. This is an army on the cusp of disintegration.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/apr/11/russia-ukraine-war-live-russian-strike-in-north-eastern-kharkiv-region-kills-three-people

    1. British soldiers mobilised in 1939 were not released until 1945 at the earliest. What of it?

      1. If they signed up for a set period, rather than the duration they are being betrayed. If they want to carry on they can sign up again.

        You really do enjoy young men getting killed don’t you.

        1. I’d have thought national emergency would override everything.
          Your last comment is beneath you.

          1. I stand by my last comment.

            You are a cheerleader for this conflict and one can only conclude that you really do enjoy watching what is unfolding in Ukraine in the hope that Putin is defeated and Russia collapses, calling out for more strikes right into Russia, calling for more arms and munitions, calling for greater financial support.
            .

          2. I don’t think anyone with any sense wants Russia to “collapse”, though many would be glad to see them defeated and the back of Putin. I also don’t think anyone who supports Ukraine’s right to sovereignty “enjoys” watching what is unfolding – quite the reverse I should think.

          3. And just what do you think would happen in Russia if Putin was overthrown?
            And just what do you think will happen in Ukraine to all the pro Russian peoples who live in the east?
            I’d bet my pound to your brass farthing that the Azov Brigade will have a field day.

            Ukraine has never really been a sovereign state as such, merely an agglomeration of peoples with dissimilar aspirations, which the West has been stirring up in an attempt to harm Russia. Even the passing of Crimea to Ukraine by Russia was done on the mistaken belief that Ukraine would remain outside the EU and NATO.

            And I’m afraid that I really do get the very distinct impression that the anti-Russian’s on the blog are glorifying in what is happening. It reminds me of the way the Americans were involved in Vietnam before they were forced to put boots on the ground, supporting a regime that wanted to impose on the whole country but where the peasants wanted to live their own lives.

            If the West had treated Russia with decency instead of contempt at the break up of the Soviet union we could have had a good friend against two far greater dangers, Islam and the Chinese. But what did the West do? Rub Russia’s nose in it at every opportunity, with EU and NATO expansionism.

          4. Crimea was always part of Russia, but was transferred to Ukraine in 1954 when both were in the USSR.

          5. I also think that the position changed when Ukraine stated to make overtures towards removing the Russian Fleet’s rights at the naval base.

          6. It was the Crimean Khanate for 300 years. Catherine II conquered it in the 1790s and the Turks (with the help of Britain and France) fought the Crimean War and took it back in the 1850s, only to be defeated in WWI and lose it again.

          7. The Russian people don’t want to see the back of Putin. He opposes the WEF globalists and it’s they who want him removed. The Russian Orthodox Christians have a blind spot where the Jews are concerned and that’s unfortunate but it’s a separate issue.

          8. I would say that the support for Alexei Navalny would indicate that quite a lot of Russian people want to see the back of Putin. If he hadn’t been a real threat he would still be alive today.
            he opposes the WXEF globalists only because they are after the same thing that he is – totalitarian control.

      2. Like my father they were signed up for the duration. No one made them any false promises.

      3. I’d argue they were fighting for their country. A set of values, ideals against the tyranny of the socialist oppressor.

        Crimeans probably feel the same about Ukraine.

        1. In 1991 Crimea voted with every region of Ukraine to go with an independent Ukraine rather than Russia.

    3. Thing is, It’s a bit like demanding I fight for a united Ireland. The region has really, really old, complicated geopolitics. That area is ethnically Russian. It speaks Russian. It votes Russian. It is, geographically part of Ukraine but there’s a reason why Ukraine was shelling it before Russia ‘invaded’ and a reason why the locals under ‘Russian occupation’ haven’t bothered to fight back and why Russia has stopped. It isn’t invading Ukraine. It’s supporting its citizens.

    1. They were stupid to apply them. The theft of property carried out here was just disgusting.

  46. From my home front.

    The latest increase in the hated carbon tax went into effect on April 1st, people were not amused. Six provincial premiers called for a meeting with the boy emporer to discuss the tax, he refused because as he put it they had met in 2016, there is no need for another meeting.

    Last night, all opposition parties voted together to pass a motion demanding that numbnuts meet with the premiers in a televised debate. We are gleefully waiting to see how Trudeau responds to this affront to his divine rule.

      2. Yet folk did vote for him. It all comes down to a complete lack of democratic control.

        When the state has to ask permission of the public to do something, there is democracy.

        Where the public have to ask the state there is tyranny.

    2. Isn’t it about time there was an election. Do you think Trud is deranged, he sounds similar to Idi Amin, but in Uganda any opposition would soon be eliminated. I assume he has supporters in government. It all seems a bit strange that a dictator in all but name can get away with such outlandish policies.

    3. Isn’t it about time there was an election. Do you think Trud is deranged, he sounds similar to Idi Amin, but in Uganda any opposition would soon be eliminated. I assume he has supporters in government. It all seems a bit strange that a dictator in all but name can get away with such outlandish policies.

    1. Designs? The writer is semi-literate. It’s certain registrations that are being excluded.

      1. Yo Alf

        The Barbarian Rugby team will henceforth be renamed as The Oh So Nice Boys xxxxx

    4. So all those whatever wave Western Feminists arguing that wearing the hijab is liberating, much to the chargrin of ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali, I assume they would be OK with this yeah? Who recalls that recent BBC Asian Network’s Nadia Ali purring about wearing the hijab? I seriously doubt she would be up for this.

      1. The feminist idiots will tell you this is an aberration and not representative of Islam. Usually because, like, they know a muslim who’s not like that.

        1. My sons were very surprised by what happened when what they thought of as a very moderate Muslim friend of theirs married a non Muslim. The woman was immediately expected to change from a dancing, drinking, music loving individual into a modest one and even wear a headscarf and obey his demands. She changed/was changed into a cowed individual.

          I don’t know the current situation.

          1. My late cousin’s daughter married a young doctor whose father is Muslim and his mother an English woman who converted. The wedding was in church – Grundisburgh – and the parents were there but didn’t go to the reception as drink would be indulged in. The mother wore a hijab and wouldn’t shake hands with any man not her husband. Two of their daughters were bridesmaids in low cut dresses – they enjoyed the reception. The other daughter appeared to be a strict Muslim and they soon disappeared.

            Since her mother died I rather lost touch with this family – they had three daughters.

          2. The few marriages I know of between Muslims and non Muslims have not ended well.

            Worse even than inter racial marriages.

          3. I presumed Husein was brought up Muslim but he appeared to be not religious. The two younger sisters who were bridesmaids were definitely not.

          5. I don’t know, I suspect she may have been in shock, he was just one of the lads as far as everyone was concerned.

          6. Fancy that. It’s OK when they do it. Nothing to see here, move along.

            I seriously doubt we will be hearing that storyline being featured on The Archers.

    6. Akin to the witchcraft test. If you drown you’re innocent and if you float you’re a witch so must burn. Either way you’re dead.

    7. How nice and diverse. Who wants our boring, stuffy old Enlightened attitudes on women’s lib, when we could go back to the 17th Century. And you must admit, it’s more exciting than the ducking stool.

  50. Mail to John Redwood’s Diary…….

    Puppets, Collaborators, Stooges and Operatives!

    Shapps is yet another Gates/Soros puppet and owes his defense position to them via puppet Sunak.

    So does Cameron. He’s been a Soros collaborator since 2005 and that’s why he’s back, thanks to collaborator Sunak.

    Billionaires’ stooge and Net Zero fanatic Lord Adair Turner is the same. Placed in various positions, including the Climate Change Committe and the Energy Transitions Commission, to serve his billionaire masters and appointed by a series of billionaires’ stooges since the 1990s. Ennobled by Soros’ operative Blair to give the cover of respectability.

    The Collaborators, Puppet and Stooge Theater is so transparent and the billionaire plot so obvious, isn’t it, Mr Redwood?

  51. Terence Carney. R.I.P.
    Another pointless sacrifice on the altar to multi-kulti dictatorship.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/11/asylum-seeker-murder-pensioner-palestine-crime/

    “Asylum seeker accused of killing pensioner ‘for sake of Palestine’

    Ahmed Ali Alid also accused of attempting to kill a Christian housemate who had converted from Islam

    Telegraph Reporters 11 April 2024 • 11:06am

    A police cordon was set up in Hartlepool after an arrest was made in the case Credit: Raoul Dixon / NNP

    An asylum seeker randomly murdered a pensioner and tried to kill a Christian housemate “for the sake of Palestine” eight days after the Oct 7 massacre, a court has heard.

    Ahmed Ali Alid, 45, had been living in a shared home with three other asylum seekers in Hartlepool, Co Durham, at the time of the attack.

    Mr Alid tried to murder Javed Nouri as he slept because he regarded him as an “apostate” for converting from Islam to Christianity.

    After attacking Mr Nouri he then ran into the streets in the early hours of Oct 15 last year, where he “chanced upon” 70-year-old Terence Carney who was taking a dawn walk.

    Mr Carney saw the knife in Mr Alid’s hands and tried to evade him but was overpowered by the younger man, who stabbed him six times while circling around him, Teesside Crown Court was told.

    Jonathan Sandiford, prosecuting, told the court: “Mr Nouri was a Muslim who had converted to Christianity and the defendant would therefore have regarded him as an apostate or murtad.

    “When Alid was interviewed by the police, he initially thought that he had killed both Mr Nouri and Mr Carney.

    “He said he had wanted to kill them because of the conflict in Gaza and to further his desire that Palestine would be free from the Zionists, by which he meant the state of Israel.

    “He said he would have killed more people if he had been able to do so, had he not injured his hand in the act of stabbing Mr Nouri and Mr Carney.”

    Mr Alid denies murdering Mr Carney, attempting to murder Mr Nouri and assaulting two female police officers who attempted to interview him after the alleged attacks.

    The trial continues.”

    2. F*cking hell. Another old boy gets murdered. R.I.P. Recall that dear gent getting done in in Hartlepool?

    3. Next steps: absolute media blackout. Complete suppression of the story. No mention on the nationals. The Daily’s given a story to publish from the approvals press office in the home office. The family silenced by police threats.

      Pretty soon the murdered innocent by a criminal illegal gimmigrant will be just a statistic and then that base will be changed to fiddle the figures.

      What won’t change is any repeal of stupid law that allows the scum to pour in invasion level numbers to pollute this country. They should be met by a volley of arrows as frog invaders were before. If border farce get in the way, so be it.

    1. And typically not struck off, but should be struck with something fast hard and heavy.

    2. The first paragraph:

      “ A top NHS consultant has been struck off and branded a danger to patients after he secretly trawled the dark web for ‘young incest’ child porn, before blaming his behaviour on stress from the Covid pandemic”.

  53. Our poor old village bridge. 504 years old and used as a shortcut by HGVs between Devon and Cornwall. The Tamar has been in almost nonstop spate for literally months. Large trees have been bashing into and wedging against the piers. Lots of granite blocks have come loose and this will only be a temporary fix with bags of cement apparently until summer and the river will be much lower. The blocks that have been ‘washed’ out will be close by. I find it hard to believe they’re going to reopen the bridge tomorrow.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6391dcf41bec076908bdbf5eea8ddbf9f7eec94ce569c68aa3ca79a0bebb44b3.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/187ac3e27085baad42c67934739dd07028fde7eaf355346aebd5267b023b7d64.jpg

    1. That’s a beautiful medieval bridge and the first above the Saltash suspension bridge over the Tamar. It’s miles round to the next one which I think is the A30 near Launceston.

          2. You’d think that was a basic nowadays, wouldn’t you – and easy and low-cost way of fulfilling a gallery’s obligations to its donors and to the public.

            Well, that was what I used to think before being forcibly turned into a cynical old bat… 🙄

    2. That’s a beautiful medieval bridge and the first above the Saltash suspension bridge over the Tamar. It’s miles round to the next one which I think is the A30 near Launceston.

  54. Our poor old village bridge. 504 years old and used as a shortcut by HGVs between Devon and Cornwall. The Tamar has been in almost nonstop spate for literally months. Large trees have been bashing into and wedging against the piers. Lots of granite blocks have come loose and this will only be a temporary fix with bags of cement apparently until summer and the river will be much lower. The blocks that have been ‘washed’ out will be close by. I find it hard to believe they’re going to reopen the bridge tomorrow.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6391dcf41bec076908bdbf5eea8ddbf9f7eec94ce569c68aa3ca79a0bebb44b3.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/187ac3e27085baad42c67934739dd07028fde7eaf355346aebd5267b023b7d64.jpg

  55. I’ve noticed how all you Putin apologists get nasty and personal almost immediately.
    I support the right of Ukrainians to defeat the Russian invader.
    It’s a defence of national sovereignty. It’s not that hard to understand.

    1. Putin apologist? Not really, just someone who doesn’t think Russia is the evil incarnate that you do.

      I’ve also noticed how all you warmongers want more and more human meat for the grinder, when will you ever be satiated?
      And if that seems personal, rest assured that it is.

      There could have been a negotiated peace months ago, but Oh No, the US, NATO and the EU wouldn’t countenance it.
      You people really do love your wars when it isn’t your children getting killed.

      2. Putin doesn’t want peace, he wants Ukraine and always did. If he gets it, those pro-Palestine idiots out there will get to see what genocide really looks like.

        1. I very much doubt Putin would/will do that but I certainly fear Zelensky’s mob would.

          2. The same people who were being attacked before the invasion for expressing pro Russian sympathies, look up the Azov Brigade’s history and Ukrainian pro German activities in WW2.
            Some Ukrainians were more Nazi than the Germans themselves, and as Mr Adams would no doubt comment, they haven’t gone away.

          3. I know about both. There are plenty of European countries where some citizens were more Nazi than the Nazis themselves, Austria probably heading the list, but most were actually east European. They never go away, they just get a different name. In Britain at the moment they are called pro-Palestinian protesters.

          10. When? The Ukrainian/Russian war in the Donbas started in 2014, he didn’t become President until 2019. If Russian-speaking Ukrainians were slaughtered, perhaps it was because they were trying to slaughter Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians?

          11. Not possible. This happened after the USA/EU/NATO Coup that overthrew the elected government and installed Zelensky and his cronies in 2014. You may call yourself what you will. Then the slaughter began. We know it was the work of the Neo-Nazi Azov Brigade.

      1. You’d think surgeons would know better, wouldn’t you. Obviously the operation paid well. How disgusting.

    9. How did he manage to get a GP, let alone one to refer him for such stupid surgery.

      It’s only going to get worse,a dmission to medical school is now based on dei criteria.

  57. No, it was started by Putin sending in paramilitaries organised by the FSB. Igor Gerkin is quite proud of his role in it.

    1. What happened in Ukraine in 2013/14? Why did Yanukovych flee? I expect that was Putin’s fault as well…

      1. He fled because he reneged on his electoral policy of steering Ukraine into the West such as joining the EU. The population started protesting, he ordered security forces to open fire and then lost control and fell to a popular uprising.

        1. …and who tore up the Minsk agreement?

          To whom did the Azov Brigade report, whilst slaughtering 14,000 Rusian-speaking Ukraines.

  59. Hello I am Kitty, my main account being that of Aethelflaed the Mercian Queen, of which I don’t use very often but have only used here and at Archbishop Cranmar – I have two other minor accounts for reason of protecting myself and privacy for reasons i wish not to say but you know me as Aethelflead – Ive been a nottler for 8 years and Rastus has my birthday on the Nottler list ( Dec 10th ) This account Is Terpsichore or ‘ Muse of Dance ‘ has come under abuse elsewhere – I also post with Terpsi ( this account ) at the Spectator . There is another small account of which as been at both the Spectator and here – Anyway hello .

    2. How do you manage to keep all your personas separate Kitty? Must be very confusing, or do you indulge in conversations with yourself?

      1. PS – my main account Is no longer in use and shall be deleted .
        I have been very open and believe that loyalty is everything.

    3. Hello Kitty! As Terpsichore you are more than welcome in my life. (I’m the one who has run orf to Buenos Aires to tango…). 🙂

          1. Just call me blurt. My neighbour Gaz wants to build a larger garden shed and put a minibar in it. Kaz is dead against it. They were round the other day and i said that i thought it was a great idea. Kaz was giving me the side eye. I turned to her and grinned….just call me blurt.

      2. Running off to Buenos Aires for an Argentinian tango sounds rather splendid 🙂

    4. I have wondered what had happened to you! Welcome back! Is your axe still in your handbag?

      1. Hello, yes I still have my axe in the handbag along with a marmalade sandwich 🙂

    6. I had a piece of my latest, unburned cake, date and walnut loaf, a few minutes ago. Good to see you again.

    7. I had a piece of my latest, unburned cake, date and walnut loaf, a few minutes ago. Good to see you again.

  61. Nothing special:
    Wordle 1,027 5/6

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

    1. Lucky today
      Wordle 1,027 3/6

      ⬜⬜🟨🟨🟩
      ⬜🟨🟨🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      2. Wordle 1,027 4/6

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

    2. Lucky day for me as well

      Wordle 1,027 3/6

      🟨⬜🟨⬜🟩
      ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  62. Iran’s threats to strike Israel ‘unacceptable’, says Sunak. 11 April 2024.

    Rishi Sunak has branded Iran’s threats against Israel “unacceptable” amid concerns of an imminent missile strike.

    “The threats from Iran are unacceptable and we, like the Americans, fully support Israel’s right to defend itself against that,” the Prime Minister told broadcasters

    If you sliced this clown in half it would have globalist lackey written through his middle.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/11/israel-hamas-war-latest-news-iran-attack-us-biden/

    1. It was Geoff who suggested the second account ( this, my Terpsichore account ) way back when all the disqus upvote bot was around .
      The Saxon Queen gives me strength and Terpsichore is the classical side of me . Unfortunately this account has ventured onto some dark places where I’ve been bullied, mocked and abused. My enemy tells me that it doesn’t matter if I change my name or account because I’m always spotted by my character- my eccentricity, warmth and openess but having a spare one makes me feel brave for awhile – like I don’t need to hide beneath a table when online .

    2. It is pretty, though. We used colour codes for weather in our ops room wall maps in the RAF – plan to route your flight by the dull colours and avoid the pretty ones ( dark blue = blue skies; red = fog)

  66. It is pretty, though. We used colour codes for weather in our ops room wall maps in the RAF – plan to route your flight by the dull colours and avoid the pretty ones ( dark blue = blue skies; red = fog)

  68. Ex-Post Office boss ‘hugely apologetic’ for celebrating when pregnant postmistress was jailed.

    A former Post Office boss has told the inquiry he is “hugely apologetic” for celebrating when a pregnant post-mistress was jailed. Seema Misra was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2010 after being wrongfully blamed for a £74,000 shortfall in her accounts. In an email sent to Post Office executives including Paula Vennells, David Smith wrote: “Brilliant news. Well done. Please pass on my thanks to the team.” In his witness statement published today, Mr Smith wrote: However, knowing what I do now, it is evident that my email would have caused Seema Misra and her family substantial distress to read and I would like to apologise for that.” Mr Smith said his comment of “brilliant news” was in relation to Horizon being “proved to be robust following the testing of evidence in the trial”.

    Bollocks – Effing liar, he meant every word.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/11/post-office-inquiry-live-latest-updates/

  69. Ex-Post Office boss ‘hugely apologetic’ for celebrating when pregnant postmistress was jailed.

    A former Post Office boss has told the inquiry he is “hugely apologetic” for celebrating when a pregnant post-mistress was jailed. Seema Misra was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2010 after being wrongfully blamed for a £74,000 shortfall in her accounts. In an email sent to Post Office executives including Paula Vennells, David Smith wrote: “Brilliant news. Well done. Please pass on my thanks to the team.” In his witness statement published today, Mr Smith wrote: However, knowing what I do now, it is evident that my email would have caused Seema Misra and her family substantial distress to read and I would like to apologise for that.” Mr Smith said his comment of “brilliant news” was in relation to Horizon being “proved to be robust following the testing of evidence in the trial”.

    Bollocks – Effing liar, he meant every word.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/11/post-office-inquiry-live-latest-updates/

  70. 385914+ up ticks,

    I’m just musing, thinking if one of those cloud seeding pellets hits God in the eye then I believe those political gangsters in parliament will really be suffering from climate change reality when digging themselves out of a million tons of skunk shite that had descended on parliament.

      1. The Routemaster was a proper bus in many English towns and cities in the 1950s. Chesterfield Corporation’s bus service ran them.

        1. Routemasters are biscuit tins on wheels. The AEC (and Leyland) RT buses were proper vehicles with a chassis and an interchangeable body. And a pre-selector gearbox.

          1. We had Leylands too. Especially those with a side aisle on the top deck with long bench seats that took five or six passengers.

      2. They were quieter running than Leylands. I did my engineering apprenticeship at AEC.

    2. I used to catch the 78 from Liverpool Street to Peckham in the 60s when I was courting my 1st wife (then girlfriend).

  72. Good news. The garden knife that “went missing” yesterday.

    This afternoon, the MR remembered that she HAD used it; that she HAD put it in the barrow with a load of garden rubbish; and that she HAD tipped the load onto the bonfire pile. And she FOUND it.

    God moves in a mysterious way….

      1. To such people nearly everything is caused by climate change. It’s the modern-day version of ‘thunder is caused by the gods’.

    3. All comment is superfluous.

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/04/11/danielle-johnson-influencer-eclipse-killed-partner-baby/

      Influencer worried about eclipse pushed daughters out of moving car and stabbed partner to death

      Astrology ‘healer’ who posted weekly ‘aura cleanses’ shoved her toddler onto the freeway before slamming her car into a tree

      Josh White San Francisco 11 April 2024 • 6:27am

      Danielle Johnson told followers that the solar eclipse was ‘the epitome of spiritual warfare’

      An astrology influencer who was worried about the recent solar eclipse stabbed her partner to death before pushing her children out of a moving car on a freeway and then killing herself, police said on Wednesday.

      Danielle Johnson’s body was found inside a car that had slammed into a tree in the Los Angeles area on Monday.

      Police believe she stabbed her partner to death at home in Woodland Hills in the early hours of Monday before hurtling down the major 405 freeway before dawn.

      Johnson, 34, shoved her children – one aged nine, one aged eight months – out of the moving vehicle onto the busy highway. Only the nine-year-old survived.

      Johnson, who peddled weekly “aura cleanses” on her website and described herself as a “divine healer”, told followers on Monday that the impending total solar eclipse in North America was “the epitome of spiritual warfare”.

      “Get your protection on and your heart in the right place,” she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, last week under her online pseudonym Danielle Ayoka.

      She told more than 100,000 followers: “The world is very obviously changing right now and if you ever needed to pick a side, the time to do right in your life is now.”

      Partner ‘stabbed through the heart’

      In the early hours of Monday morning, Johnson fatally stabbed her partner, Jaelen Allen Chaney, at their apartment in the San Fernando Valley area, about 25 miles (40km) north west of downtown Los Angeles.

      The couple had an argument that turned violent, and detectives found a knife “with biological evidence” at the scene, authorities said.

      Police who went to the family apartment found a trail of bloody footprints and the body of Chaney, a 29-year-old US Air Force veteran. He had been stabbed in the heart.

      “Their door was wide open, there was blood on the floor leading into their apartment, and then a trail of it in the hallway leading up to the elevator and I saw some blood on the walls,” one of Johnson’s neighbours told LA’s KABC-TV.

      According to the Los Angeles Times, Johnson tried to drag her partner’s bloody body out of the apartment, but gave up and dragged the body back into the apartment kitchen.

      After killing Chaney, Johnson then fled in a dark-coloured Porsche Cayenne SUV.

      Child, 9, was holding infant sister when she was pushed out the car

      Shortly after, at about 4.29am local time (12.29pm UK), police and fire services were called to an emergency on the 405 in Culver City, roughly 10 miles west of LA.

      When officials arrived at the scene they found Johnson’s infant daughter with major injuries and her older daughter with moderate injuries.

      The infant was pronounced dead at the scene, while the older daughter was taken to hospital.

      Johnson slowed the car, opened the passenger door and then told her nine-year-old daughter, who was holding her infant sister in her arms, to get out of the car.

      “When the daughter didn’t do that she then forcibly pushed her out of the vehicle, in the middle of the freeway, while moving,” Lt Guy Nolan of LAPD said.

      The infant was struck by a passing vehicle, authorities said.

      Johnson drove her car into a tree in an apparent suicide, authorities said

      After abandoning her children on the freeway, Johnson sped off at more than 100mph.

      Half an hour later, she crashed into a tree in Redondo Beach, on the Pacific Coast Highway. Investigators believe the crash was a suicide.

      Johnson’s body had been so disfigured in the crash that identification was difficult, the Los Angeles Times reported.

      The surviving child has been placed in the custody of LA’s Department of Children and Family Services.

      Police are still investigating a motive for the violent incidents.

      “The only witness we have for this crime now is the nine-year-old girl,” Lt Nolan said. “There’s just very little information we have, other than: there was a verbal altercation that turned violent and it ended in tragedy.”

      Johnson described herself in her Twitter profile as a “reiki master teacher”.

      On her website, she offered “home purifying cleanses” and a daily “grounding” subscription.

      Last Friday she posted on Twitter about the upcoming solar eclipse: “WAKE UP WAKE UP THE APOCALYPSE IS HERE. EVERYONE WHO HAS EARS LISTEN. YOUR TIME TO CHOOSE WHAT YOU BELIEVE IS NOW. IF YOU BELIEVE A NEW WORLD IS POSSIBLE FOR THE PEOPLE RT NOW.” “

  78. Vivienne Stern

    CEO, Universities UK

    London WC2

    Her application to also take “The MRD Seat” at Universities UK is pending

  79. As a By the way”:

    Hands up all you posters who know University Graduates who can:

    Lay bricks, carpent, repair cars, wire a house, drive tractors, paint, plaster, change tyres, shopkeep and so on:
    the list is endless without touching the medical profession (except those in the Admin side.

    We need people who can do things

    2. My son is pretty handy. (At uni he won the communications prize but he hardly ever communicated with his parents!)

    3. I can do all that and more as a graduate of the university of life and an ex RAF apprentice

    4. I was taught to change a tyre when I was a child. My father had chronic heart disease so he directed operations while my sister and I did the heavy lifting (also for gardening, creosoting the fence, painting and decorating etc etc).
      I wouldn’t be able to change a tyre now as I’d never get the wheel nuts off.

      1. Yo Lola

        You were probably taught to change a wheel. not a tyre

        Pop into your local Quik Fit depot, to see the difference

    5. I’m a university graduate (several times over!) and I can paint, plaster, change tyres, run a shop, drive a tractor (and a pony and trap), repair cars (simple ones) lay bricks and do simple carpentry. Now I’m arthritic I have to employ people to do it for me.

      1. Yo Conners

        You are a Nottler and we would expect that from you.

        Yoou did not get a honours degree in Coronation Street or Flower Arranging, which appear to the norm now though

    1. It’s a phrase that has suddenly emerged this year, first seen in a CoE advert for an anti white fragility advocate. The phrase seems intended to destroy the notion that the indigenous white population of these islands has any legitimacy of residence or being the vast majority.

      1. I also ask what is this Global Majority?
        It isn’t Black Africans, nor Arabs, nor South Asians nor East Asians. There isn’t one.

        2. No race has an absolute majority, but I suspect that the Han Chinese have a simple majority.

          1. No and I included them in the East Asians. The Chinese are 1.4bn out of a global population of 8 bn.

          1. It has also been pushed by various Black Supremacist movements IIRC. I thought it rather menacing when I first heard it. “Black Nation of Islam” likes this sort of thing.

    2. Yes. A Neo-Marxist buzz word. They hate white people, who are now a substitute for Capitalism.

    3. What is the global majority? Are they implying that an Iranian is the same as a Zulu?
      Perhaps white Europeans should go on a tax strike and see how Westminster Council manages to pay their ‘Global Majority’ staff.

    2. “Get yer tits out for the girls, mate!” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it?

    2. What’s also interesting is that looking at the reported numbers of other parishes around here I don’t believe a word of them in terms of regular attendances. They are almost all over declaring for fear of closure, which magnifies how much CF they pay. We under declare so we pay less. 🙂

      1. I have a feeling our wrecktorette is over reporting the attendances. They still can’t pay their full Parish Share.

    3. What’s also interesting is that looking at the reported numbers of other parishes around here I don’t believe a word of them in terms of regular attendances. They are almost all over declaring for fear of closure, which magnifies how much CF they pay. WE under declare so we pay less. 🙂

    1. We are British and also European. But whites are certainly not the “global majority”.

  90. Left Wing Has Spent Decade ‘Trying to Shut Women up’ For Transgender Ideology, Says UK Health Minister

    https://media.breitbart.com/media/2024/04/GettyImages-1241663355-e1712839389747-640×479.jpg

    (Is the Great White Whale on the right of the photograph the fragrant Lady Nugee? I fear it might be)

    The UK Labour Party is hypocritical to now endorse the deeply critical Cass report on transgender drugs given it has been “part of the ideology, the culture wars” for the past ten years, a government health minister says.

    Dr Hillary Cass published the full, nearly 400-word NHS-ordered report into the state of children’s transgender “services” in the health service on Wednesday in which she made a series of serious criticisms and recommendations. The Left-wing Labour Party — gunning to become the new government at national elections later this year — was quick to say it would adopt all 32 recommendations made by Dr Cass, but present Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Victoria Atkins angrily slammed the rhetoric as hypocritical given — as she claimed — Labour had been part of the problem all along.

    The report had shone a light on “bullying” and intimidation in the debate around trans issues in the United Kingdom, with Dr Cass herself saying she’d been attacked for leading the review and said the environment was “exceptionally toxic”. Reflecting this, Atkins said on Thursday morning that Dr Cass had been “incredibly brave” in her work and said “a culture of ideology and dare I say it intimidation ahs been allowed to trump the interests of children and the basis of clinical evidence” in an interview with London broadcaster LBC.
    *
    *

  91. A Tory MP has backed Lee Anderson to win his Ashfield seat at the next general election, prompting calls for him to be stripped of the Conservative whip. Mr Anderson, a Reform UK MP, announced today that he will not campaign against four Red Wall Tories at the election, including Nick Fletcher, because they are his friends.

    Mr Fletcher, the Tory MP for Don Valley, tweeted in response: “Ashfield has its greatest champion and I hope they appreciate what he has done for his home town and his country at the next election.” Mr Fletcher also said “we both need to be back in Westminster”.

    The Liberal Democrats said Rishi Sunak needed to “find his backbone and kick Nick Fletcher out of the Conservative Party”.

    With a bit of luck they will kick him out and he’ll defect to Reform.

  93. Thank you for blocking me, I no longer have to scroll past your sanctimonious bleating over how put upon you are when people don’t agree with you.
    I suspect wibbling will be benefitting too.

    1. Confession – I had to unblock a certain person to see if he was the suspect, I was right. (There are others. Life is too short. I would avoid them in the street if I knew similar in person.)

      Edit: Now blocked again. Phew!

      1. Someone who was complaining yesterday that one of the other posters had not treated her with the respect she feels is her due. I suggested that she left it at the Spectator, Wibbling also made a spiky comment as did you, as it happens.
        She appeared today under a different guise to complain again and was advised to block people.

        1. Ta. Blimey, what did I say? I do remember spotting that spat and sitting on my hands but clearly that was not a successful stratagem.

          1. Nothing remotely offensive.

            The odd thing is that as far as the spat was going I tended to be more sympathetic to her than the other participant; had I really been intending to be unpleasant it would have been very clear.

    2. I read in the newspaper yesterday that there is a new simplistic scrabble for those who have a reduced vocabulary and find the original scrabble too difficult.

      4. We had junior Scrabble when I was a wee girl. The board already had words on it so players just had to place letters on the squares but there was a bonus of you finished a word (I think, my memory is a bit hazy about how it worked).

  98. Another TV programme I won’t be watching again. Countdown.
    What the producers are doing to our TV screens is totally unessesary.
    I’ve never seen anyone on there previously who has had to provide proof that they are Christian Jewish Hindu Budist Roman Catholic.

    1. Not something I’ve ever been tempted to watch. There are very few things now worth switching it on for.

      1. The TV content gets worse every day.
        We record most programmes now.
        Skip advertising and be selective of the content.

        1. I stopped watching TV years ago. I’ve stopped streaming now in light of the general iingrained Leftist propaganda. It’s DVD box sets from yesteryear, YouTube and the like or more generally audiobooks.

      1. It’s about introducing fake diversity on to our TV screens when it’s really not all a necessary as the programme has never been able to fill the obvious gaps. But do manage to force diversity upon us. Which is obviously trying to make some sort of specific point. That I feel doesn’t prove much at all. Put it this way they won’t have any one dressed up as santa 🎅 at Christmas.

    1. The DT describes him as ‘being surrounded by his family’.
      Those ones he hadn’t murdered presumably.

    2. The DT describes him as ‘being surrounded by his family’.
      Those ones he hadn’t murdered presumably.

  100. Anyone seen Lacoste today?

    Watch: Dental surgery on ‘Australia’s crankiest crocodile’ almost ends in disaster

    Zookeeper injured as team of staff try to restrain 15.5ft-long animal Elvis in New South Wales

    Nick Squires
    11 April 2024 • 3:39pm

    https://youtu.be/zwMg0030r2A

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2024/04/11/TELEMMGLPICT000373527844_17128449565570_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqRo0U4xU-30oDveS4pXV-Vv4Xpit_DMGvdp2n7FDd82k.jpeg?imwidth=960

  101. Today’s completely loony thinking comes from the retired soldier and the DT’s resident warmonger, Richard Kemp. He suggests that if the US attack Iran, we should be in on the charge. I don’t know how many rag head wars we need to lose before it sinks home that poking a wasp’s nest has only one outcome. We have enough trouble on our streets from slammers protesting a conflict that is nothing to do with us. One can only imagine the trouble if we actually attacked Iran. Maybe it’s a good thing that we have run down the forces and given all our ammunition away. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/11/we-must-attack-iran-if-it-strikes-israel/#comment

  102. It’s just been reported OJ Simpson is dead at 69 .
    His next trial will be before God.

  103. Good article – excuse the length as it is paywalled.

    “Late last year, Moody’s downgraded China’s sovereign credit rating. On Wednesday Fitch followed suit. Predictably, Beijing responded with “disappointment” and rebutted the implicit critique of their economy. There is now a clear contradiction between realistic Western views on the headwinds facing Chinese growth, and Beijing’s public claims that all is well.

    Xi Jinping has spent the last decade trying to revive the Chinese economy. It is becoming increasingly clear that he has failed. Like it or not, he now faces a choice; to recognise that China’s strategic prosperity depends on a shift away from zero-sum confrontation with the West, or to cling on to dreams of an alternative international order led by the Chinese security state in collusion with allies such as Russia, Iran and North Korea.

    The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) knows perfectly well what trouble it is in. Around the time of the Moody’s downgrade, an annual top-level meeting set economic priorities for the coming year. State media was remarkably candid about how dire the situation had become, citing weak demand, excess industrial capacity, depressed consumer confidence, and warning of “certain risks and hidden problems”.

    If it had wanted to go into more details, it could also have brought up intractable youth unemployment, a shaky stock market, the threat of deflation, the collapse of private entrepreneurial confidence in CCP policy, depressed local sentiment, massive drops in FDI and, above all, the total lack of indications that Xi’s current fiscal policies were capable of reviving GDP growth.

    After the December meeting, officials were tasked to promote positive views about the prospects of an economic upturn, including by early release of positive data. In March, Xi Jinping told a group of US CEOs that the Chinese economy was now “healthy and sustainable”. As the first quarter of 2024 draws to a close, Fitch is taking a different view. It’s hardly alone in this; in January and February, FDI into China fell by almost 20pc year on year.

    This shouldn’t be surprising. China’s real estate crisis continues to fester and local government debt is out of control. Nothing the CCP has come up with to date has effectively addressed either issue and the longer the crises continue, the more difficult any resolution will become. Government attempts to crack down on debt-funded construction in 2021 simply triggered a slow-motion crash. Evergrande ended up in liquidation, and Country Garden now appears to face similar risks, with the real estate market in utter disarray.

    Meanwhile, the economy is mired in what Goldman Sachs believes could be up to $13 trillion (£10.3 trillion) of local government debt. The latitude given to provincial governments to fund themselves through land sales and construction fuelled the real estate boom. Now the local government funding vehicles set up to operate this edifice have collapsed, and Beijing appears unsure of what to do next.

    Long before Xi Jinping emerged as China’s paramount leader, it was evident that the CCP fears nothing more than the spread of popular unrest. Until recently, it justified its governance by pointing to economic results: delivering solid growth and providing the masses with optimism and promises of future prosperity.

    Now the target growth rate is at 5pc, their lowest in years, and still appears to be barely within reach; there is already scepticism that this figure was reached last year. Fitch, for its part, has cut its growth forecast for China from 4.8pc to 4.3pc.

    What actually happens may never be known. Chinese economic statistics are at best a rough guide to what’s actually happening in the country, and the CCP leadership is terrified of major disruption. A truly dire set of figures might simply be massaged into something more acceptable – and less likely to pose disruptive risks to public order.

    Despite Xi’s attempts to maintain that all is well in the economy, serious Party alarm is becoming manifest. Orders have been given to the regions with the biggest problems to stop launching new projects and to suspend some already underway. In some of these, including the port city of Tianjin, just 70 miles from Beijing, public debt to GDP ratios reportedly stand at over 100pc. In the increasingly likely event of large-scale default, public unrest is more than possible. This, in turn, will have significant consequences for the West.

    China’s foreign policy has been driven by the strength of the domestic economy. Xi’s take on the current crisis has been to step up spending on internal repression and external belligerence. There will be many in the Party, not to speak of the populace at large, who know that this is disastrously misguided.

    If China wants to return to previous levels of FDI from the free world, then it must do more than reverse vexatious regulatory measures in the current trade war with the US-led West. It will need to dial down its geostrategic posturing, ceasing direct and proxy aggression over Ukraine and Taiwan. This, in turn, may well require a new leader – a prospect Xi Jinping will be keenly aware of. The Chinese president knows that he is on thin ice, needing a return to economic growth – or a sufficient win over the West – to restore his status. We may soon learn which way China intends to turn.”

    2. Probably the best thing that can happen for the world is that China’s economy goes into a steady decline, putting an end to their expansionism and maybe even triggering a revolution against the CCP.

      2. I always hoped that would happen in the USSR. And it did. That’s why Russia is no longer a problem for the world.

  104. A pedicular Bogie Five!

    Wordle 1,027 5/6
    ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
    ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
    ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
    ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Infested with a 5 here too.

      Wordle 1,027 5/6

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

    2. I made a good 1st letter guess.
      Wordle 1,027 2/6

      ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. During WW2 they had to transport a consignment of shells up to the front. It was essential that these remained completely dry and so Winston Churchill placed an order with Durex to make latex rubber waterproofing for them.

      He was aware that these condoms might fall into enemy hands so he insisted that each box was clearly and boldly marked

      “Made in Britain. Standard Medium Size.”

      so as to demoralise the Germans.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8c5496f91c42f684cea50104d710d2dd80448522e8bce04696b96f403578cf1d.png

  107. OJ Simpson dies aged 76 surrounded by his family. 11 April 2024.

    OJ Simpson, the former NFL player whose controversial double murder trial was played out on screens across the world, has died aged 76.

    A statement issued by his family on Thursday said he had “succumbed to his battle with cancer” on Wednesday, after his diagnosis was first reported in February.

    The ones that are still alive presumably?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/04/11/oj-simpson-dies-aged-76-cancer/

  109. https://thecritic.co.uk/ ‘ In Praise of Centibillionaires ‘ a superb article.

    When small businesses are free to make lots of money then everyone benefits.

    Quite so it’s called the entrepreneurs creating wealth and not tied down by the state and high taxes. the wealth providers .

  112. I have just had a handful of bumf*** for voting Tory delivered by the bloke across the street. The envelope had my correct name and address hand written on it with no stamp, so obviously posted by a local activist.
    Delivered to the wrong address when it is clearly written on the envelope, and they want me to vote for them.

    ***About to be returned sans stamp, and a snotty letter telling them they have squandered an 80 seat majority they could have used to return this country to the British and actually given us the Brexit we told them to give us.

    2. I had a propaganda leaflet from the Con candidate this morning. He’s styling himself “MP” because his current (Welsh) constituency will disappear in the gerrymandering reorganisation. It provided a good laugh before I put it in the grate.

  113. No and I included them in the East Asians. The Chinese are 1.4bn out of a global population of 8 bn.

  114. I see Starmer is refusing to back Growling Ange 100%
    I should think he wants rid of her – only a couple of years ago she was preparing a coup against him.

      1. Ah – la Confedération Générale du Travail

        The ginger growler WILL understand that. Right up her, er, street.

  116. I must love you and leave you to go and have dinner, no burnt cakes like my father Alf the Great made but I shall dance around the kitchen as Muses must do – it improves the cookery . 😉

      1. You’re still my main father, Zeus won’t mind me saying that, you can both go to the pub and discuss your wayward daughter 🙂
        Good to see you again too .

    1. I can be smug and say that all our appliances except the dishwasher (which is Taiwanese and made in Poland) are German – and made all over the world whereever it’s cheapest.

      Imagine if we did the same – oh! We do. And the profits and jobs are created there as well. Imagine if they were made here.

      2. Yes, we were having PCBs populated in a Welsh valley. The production was terrible and expensive. I was then introduced to an American company in Singapore. Cheaper and beautifully produced and only £.0.50 for each batch to be flown in.The work ethic is so different.

  118. Me too, Lola. The first time I felt genuinely glad that my mother was dead was the James Bulger murder, a level of evil that she would have not been able to countenance.

    Increasingly, I am also grateful for Father’s later exit. They would be completely bemused by the gross betrayal of all that they had fought for. And as for Grandpa, who fought in both world wars….

  119. Me too, Lola. The first time I felt genuinely glad that my mother was dead was the James Bulger murder, a level of evil that she would have not been able to countenance.

    Increasingly, I am also grateful for Father’s later exit. They would be completely bemused by the gross betrayal of all that they had fought for. And as for Grandpa, who fought in both world wars….

  120. That’s me gone for today. Turned out quite pleasant – risked shorts, again. Potting on apace in t’greenhouse. Lost knife found. Reflected on birth of my boy – in the (then) appalling Crawley General Hospital. Mum not allowed to wash her hair; fathers not permitted to hold baby….we checked out after 48 hours – with a harridan sister screaming at us that we would kill the child!

    Last night we watched part 2 of a PBS America prog about “The Somme” (yawns, I know) but seen from BOTH sides. The presenter is a chap called Peter Barton – whom I have met and who is quite good.

    Of course, for the effing telly he has to have a stupid hat, a satchel (as though he is carrying his sandwiches) and walk in and out of shot. And appear to be totally alone in yer France – as if we did not know that he had two cameramen, one sound man, a drone, a director a translator, scriptwriter, gofer etc etc….

    For those interested (ad it IS very gripping at times – even if one is very familiar with the story) – here is a link:
    https://www.pbsamerica.co.uk/series/the-somme-1916-from-both-sides-of-the-wire/

    Have a spiffing evening

    A demain.

  121. I have a funeral to go to Monday afternoon. Neighbours wife died. They haven’t lived here very long and she only has a brother who isn’t coming. Too old and infirm. I have been knocking the doors of the neighbours i know to rustle up a crowd to support him. Looks like i get to be his second and travel in the limo. So very sad to be alone.

    He showed me a montage of photos of their holidays in Turkey. Happier times. I had it framed for him as it is going to be part of the memorial at the Crem.
    I barely know them so i’m not sure why i am so upset.

    1. Pretty sad turnout for a life – reliant on the kindness of a stranger for the funeral.

      1. I think that is the reason it upsets me. At least he will know there are neighbours to call on if he feels the need in the days/months to come.

      2. My father packed out the church for his funeral. My mother we don’t think we’ll fill the front pew.

      3. I’ve been to quite a few funerals of military veterans whose only “family” is service people, serving and retired. They always get a good send off.

    2. I imagine because you’re a human being who is able to empathise with the loss someone else is feeling.

      It’s good of you, Phizzee. Death’s lonely enough.

      1. I live in a cul de sac of bungalows. Mostly elderly. Funerals are happening quite regularly now.

        1. When you’re a churchwarden you see a lot more funerals than weddings sadly.
          Which reminds me – I must put our charges up now the Vicar’s gone…

        2. There is a point where we all become immortal. We live forever not in body but in the memories of those whose lives we have touched.

          1. The majority of people here retired and then bought a bungalow for their old age. There is quite a turnover !
            My kind of people though. No children making noise and nuisance. Another upside is sharing produce we have grown. I get figs from one of them. Apples from another. All very pleasant. I’m the longest time resident. I moved here in 1989.

      1. One a mortal man who did once exist and our greatest Anglo Saxon King and the other a primordial God of Greek metamorphic tales 🙂

        1. Can you name the 12 Olympians? I remember Zeus, Hera, Athena, Aphrodite, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Hermes, Dionysus and Demeter but the other two names I always forget. I heard someone in the office today read out loud a reference to Dionysus and her pronunciation was bizarre. She’d clearly never come across the name before.

  123. Daft bit of Wibbling life – Junior came home with me nearly a week before the Warqueen did. Those were not fun times as the NHS gave us bugger all and we expected to be a team and suddenly the ‘your turn’ plan fell on it’s bum.

  124. “Daddy, Mummy ate the last sausage roll and Mongo’s hungry.”

    “Do you mean *you’d* like another sausage roll?”

    “Yes please. I will share them with Mongo.”

    “Then could you say that, please? You shouldn’t pretend.”

    I don’t know how to break this cycle of his wanting something and asking as if someone else does. I’ve gone wrong somewhere. We try to be really straight with one another and the Warqueen no longer ‘alludes’ or ‘hints’, she simply says what she wants.

      1. Wot wot? Junior wants something but asks as if someone else does rather than being honest and saying he wants it.

          1. No, while she likes pastries she pretends to prefer salad. nigh decade of marriage has proven offered steak and a custard choix bun or a bowl of lettuce and tomatos she’ll go for the steak and pastry.

          3. She tried to go vegan at one point and dropped a cup size, so I put a stop to that toot sweet.

    3. Does he want to feed Mongo the dog half his sausage roll ?
      that’s very thoughtful, dogs like sausage rolls but maybe the boy wanted it all for himself and thought you’d say no .

      1. He probably would, but it’s the I want something but don’t want to ask, so I pretend someone else does so you’ll give it to them then I can have some.

        He’s a complicated fellow.

        1. Maybe he thinks you might say no, he’s a quick thinking little chap and realises that Mongo would like the sausage roll too and projecting his need onto the dog. I remember as a little girl saying my dog wanted sherbet and a lolly but my parents knew my dog hated sherbet so I was stuffed .

          1. I’ve never said he can’t have something. I just worry he’s going a bit funny and as you say putting the demand on someone else.

            Mongo is a LOT easier to say no to. Annoyingly, he can also jump on the worktops.

    4. He’s a little afraid of you saying ‘no’, and so he is projecting his need on Mongo; quite normal.

    5. Enjoy it, he’s only young, tease him gently.

      “OK I’ll give one to Mongo do you think Mongo will share one with you?”

      1. I noticed he was giving Mongo his unwanted cabbage and sprouts. Those are not ideal for dogs so had to tell him to stop.

        Because of course, pastry and sausages are!

        1. I think Newfies are some of the best dogs there are.

          My family had many dogs yes Phizzee, I know what you’re thinking. but my particular favourite was our Samoyed

          The Labrador ate almost anything

          1. I have a neighbour who has kept a succession of them. They are always sweet tempered dogs but, oh, the drool!

          2. I’m guessing your neighbour had Newfies, I can’t recall my Samoyed drooling.
            I agree re the Newfie temperament. A friend had two and was considering a third but she became pregnant, so another was out of the question.

          5. Labs are garbage disposal. People should get a council tax discount for having one !

            Just spoke to the ‘Breeder’. Going to breed from Harry the Stud. Would you like a puppy? £2000 to you. Seeing as you is my friend.

          6. Thanks for the offer, if what you’re writing about breeding value that would be a bargain.

            HG was bitten on her face when she was small so dogs are not on the agenda.
            She was lucky not to be scarred but she has still retained a fear of dogs.
            My parent’s Lab used to bound up to her, grab her wrist and take her to wherever I was in the garden or the house.
            At first it terrified her, but when she realised what the dog was doing she was more relaxed.
            Sad, because I would have loved to have had a dog.

          7. They fill up my life now.
            I was twice bitten by dogs in the village i grew up in. The first a neighbour and the kid my age begged me not to report it. To my eternal shame i said i wouldn’t if he bought me a bag of sweets.

          9. Nice. But no. Four for a penny. Still haunts me though. Learned behaviour from my supposed betters.

            I still have a visible scar on my knuckle where the dog bit me. I also have other childhood scars. Unlike Earl Spencer i don’t have a book to sell.

          10. Ooo… nasty. Poor lady. Hope there’s no scarring.
            Similar happened to me, aged 6, but followed by a series of anti-rabies jabs, as the dog was “behaving weirdly”, apparently.

          11. None.
            Your parents must have been very worried..
            And of course the dog’s owners will have been worried for their dog too.

            };-O

  125. Zelensky didn’t become President until 2019, not 2014. I am aware of the reputation of the Azov brigade by the way.

    1. Check where I said, you can call yourselves what you like, the fact he didn’t hold a (rigged) election until 2019 is irrelevant.

        1. He may have been elected President in 2019 but he replaced the previous President in the 2014 Coup (not-elected)

          2. Peta, I think you need a reality check about what really happened in Ukraine in 2014.

            It’s all out there in various media.

            Zelensky didn’t do it, he is a puppet placed there to overthrow the elected Ukrainian govt by a cabal of The USA, WEF, EU and NATO. Putin felt deprived of a Russian satellite state and saw his fellow Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the Donbass area being slaughtered by the Azov Brigade. And the Minsk Treaty was torn up.

            Further reading: https://www.google.com/search?q=Minsk+Treaty&oq=Minsk+Treaty&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i22i30l4.9102j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

  126. Sorry if I’ve missed something, but what has happened to Angelina Komnena? All her posts have disappeared!

      1. Thanks Tom! I missed most of today! Been to my first soft play area! The twins loved it – me not so much!!🙄

          1. I thought about it! Blimey, it gets very warm despite the size of the place!

      2. Not in their entirety. I had a browse through yesterday evening’s comments to see what this is all about and several of Angelina’s posts remain.

    1. Rumour has it that your husband also thinks that your feet should be held closer to the fire…

  130. Mostly hair. He gets on to the chair, then the worktop. If there’s no chair he’ll pull it across. Usually he just wants a fuss as it’s the only level except when I’m on the floor that he can put his head on my shoulder.

    Wiggy used to do it but he was statuesque and imperious, not a drooling flop bag.

  132. I had my first browse in a Dunelm store yesterday. I had no idea towels came in so many colours. I noted that the café was busier than the shop floor.

      1. These days it’s whatever colours are fashionable each season. M&S likewise. I have a cream coloured towel I’d like to replace but currently the choice is white or bright yellow and nothing in between. I’ll bide my time.

        1. I bought a full set called ‘Hunter’s Green’. When I wanted some spare hand towels the nearest were a couple of shades paler.

        1. I still have towels bought from Peter Jones in 1981 in a lovely shade of old rose that has barely even faded. Clearly standards have slipped a lot!
          Are the curtains left unhemmed so that you can adjust the length yourself, or just curtains without hems?!

          1. I still have blue Christy towels I bought in 1996 – they’ve barely faded and are still fluffy. Aaarh. 🙂

          2. I think the idea is that you can hem them yourself to exactly the right length (assuming, of course, they aren’t too short in the first place!).

          3. That would make sense then. I would suggest that if they are too short in the first place then someone did their measuring wrong and that isn’t the fault of John Lewis!

    2. We get quite a bit of stuff from Dunelm.
      The cafe in their Colchester branch is on a mezzanine, so you can happily people watch while enjoying your coffee and cake.

    3. I’ve always liked Dunelm, it has a homely feel about it. Bought quite a few kitchen items from them.

  134. You can tell a lot about a woman by her hands. For instance, if they are around your throat, She’s probably slightly upset.

    5. And if they are both around your shaft, just smile? Asking for all us not getting it… :@(

  136. I see the loons have sprayed paint all over Labour HQ. Temper tantrums, grandiose claims, moral high ground claimed. I began to feel a little sympathy for Labour, it really is a right old mess, but then my critical thinking kicked in. The Leftist philosophy generates and nurtures righteous resentment, which then poses for a photo op. LOOK AT ME. I hope the Labour Party at least presses charges.

      1. Right Off topic Obs, there’s a good prog on bbc2 about the Nusfjord ‘hotel’.
        Interesting but better to watch than be there.
        Dramatic scenery but warmer to see on the TV from my armchair.

  137. I see the loons have sprayed paint all over Labour HQ. Temper tantrums, grandiose claims, moral high ground claimed. I began to feel a little sympathy for Labour, it really is a right old mess, but then my critical thinking kicked in. The Leftist philosophy generates and nurtures righteous resentment, which then poses for a photo op. LOOK AT ME. I hope the Labour Party at least presses charges.

    2. The trouble with slips such as that of Reform UK is that they are leapt on by mainstream media and will merely confirm to the bulk of the electorate that the party is incompetent. Not that the established ones are any better but it hardly incentivises people to vote for change.

    1. I’d love to see them. I’ve taken two trips, both in November which is supposed to be a good time , one to Iceland and a cruise to Tromso but nothing either time 🙁

      1. I don’t go there as often as I use to.
        My elder sister and BiL use to live in West Common. Not far from Eric Morecombe.
        His old house was demolished and 4 detached built on the land. Probably 2 Mill each.

  144. Here’s one for you.
    On the bus this morning, there was a lovely young lady, all slim, with a lovely long wool houndstooth coat.
    Thought to compliment her on her coat, but then restrained myself – since she was about 1/3 of my age, and I’ll likely come across as a creep and upset her, which isn’ t the intention at all.
    What should I have done?? What I did, ie nothing, or compliment her on her sense of style… ?

    1. In such circumstances I still compliment them, but only on the way past or out.
      It often happens in the hotel, where people are attending a wedding and they are “dressed to the nines”
      It’s surprising how many turn around and say thank you.
      OK, I know it can be threatening, but most adults accept it as a compliment, and I’m careful only to comment to older women, ie those who might be my children’s ages.

    2. OB,

      Listen to this … Years ago there were 3 Russian owned ships/ tankers moored in Weymouth bay , why , I have no idea but they were there for months ..

      Weymouth has a small Marks and Spencer store on Weymouth front overlooking the sea and the beach .

      One day , when I was a bit younger and lither than I am now, I shopped in there for new bras, yes , you know , boob tubes, and as I browsed around choosing . I noticed a man looking at me , eyeing me up , smiling and quite clearly needed contact with me ..

      I looked at him , raising my chin and the rest of me , and he then boomed in one of those Topol type of deep voices , Aghhh..

      He then curved his hands like in a figure eight .. and touched my arm … and indicated towards the bras , said something odd to me , meaning my shape , bra size and I then said to him … “For you, your woman ” , and he said yes .. apparently I was his wife’s shape and he wanted to buy her some undies .. so I helped him .

      He was a warm funny man, with a very deep voice , and wadges of money , and I helped him choose some undies for his wife .. finding appropriate sizes etc .. and he was so grateful ..

      He presented me with some flowers later , and kissed the top of my head !!!

      So , there’s a story and a half .. just pay compliments as you think fit .. and feel happy.

    3. What I usually do is approach the person and say “Excuse me, I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but can’t help but compliment you on your dress sense.”

        1. Surely that would be: “Excuse me, I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but can’t help but compliment you on your undress sense.”

    4. Best to keep quiet because there are so many creeps about, it’s not good but if I were a young woman now I’d think it was creepy. Like the people who pop up on Facebook and say how much they admire your comments and want to be your friend….I block those. My mother got creeped out many years ago when I was 13 and and I got a letter from a man. Predators have always been with us.

    5. You should have said to her “My wife admired a similar coat to the one you are wearing , please tell me where you bought yours from “

    6. All that was needed from from you was a nod and smile. If the lady wished more she would have responded.

    7. I’ve never enjoyed comments from strangers, male or female. I think you did the right thing.

      1. Exactly the feedback I wanted! Thanks! I don’t want to make the lady uncomfortable.

  145. Turning in now. Erin’s watching the apprentice. Yuk I hate these TV programmes.
    Night all.
    I think I’ve just been fired 🤭👆

  146. An interesting linkage.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-13298143/OJ-Simpson-dead-Caitlyn-Jenner-reacts-Kardashian-family.html

    CJ is a transexual, and as far as I’m aware hasn’t been a promoter of transexuals competing as women in women’s sports.

    For those who may not know, Caitlyn was formerly Bruce, one of the finest all round athletes of his generation.
    He doesn’t make a big issue of it, just lives his life as a she.
    Good luck to him.

    1. There was a conversation with him and ?? (forget who) in the DT magazine a week or two ago.

      1. I didn’t see that.
        He was competing in my era and was a superb athlete, one of the very best.

    2. Bruce was an Olympiad. He was also in the film of the Village People. Interestingly that most of the actors weren’t queer.

      Straight Guys do Gay better… lol
      For a real Trans as opposed to someone wanting to get into female safe spaces she is a leader.

      1. If all the others behaved as s/he does there wouldn’t be a problem.
        The freak shows spoil it for the genuine ones.

        1. Ooh. what do you expect from me at this time of night? !! I’ve already got in trouble with Bill.

    3. Sos, I am totally baffled by this Daily Mail story. Male athlete now living a quiet life as a Female, good friends with OJ Simpson and yet one of the family (I can’t work out who) ends up defending OJ Simpson who is then acquitted but later re-tried, all the while everyone involved go on holiday together. As I say, I am totally baffled by who is who in this saga.

  149. You really have to admire the French, at the end of the day, they quietly get rid of their economic migrants and proto-terrorists by getting them to pay thousands to criminal gangs to dinghy them across the channel, costs them nothing and they have removed hundreds of thousands.
    And the ECHR does not care for their welfare one iota.

    2. They are probably using the £500million (?) the British Government promised them to stop the trafficking (payback for Waterloo!)

    3. Don’t forget that our idiots in Wastemonster and Blackhall are PAYING the French to police the beaches! You couldn’t make it up! Unfortunately, you don’t have to.

  151. Important to tell your loved ones that you love them. Before it’s too late. I know several who are dead now, and I never said owt ‘cos I was frit.
    Just screwed up the courage to tell SWMBO the reasons I love her: All the wonderful things in my life came through her – our two sons, for example, so well brought up and smart… Afraid the emotion got the better of me (I am a Yorkshireman by birth, we aren’t used to handling that kind of emotion…) and so I blubbered like, well, add your own ideas.
    She’s still the best.

    2. Good to know you finally bit the bullet, Paul. Well done and I’m sure you both feel better for it.

  152. One of the hardest things I ever did.
    Who’d a thunk, eh? War zones, Africa, you name it, and the worst I can do is to tell the lady I love more than aything in life, why I do so?
    Jayzuz, I’m a total git, really.

    1. She’ll appreciate your words all the more for the difficulty you’ve had in saying them. She’ll know they are not just sincere but also deeply felt. Too many “I love you”s can run the risk of cheapening them.

      1. Thanks. Appreciate that comment. Not used to being so overmanned by emotion that I can’t even speak.
        Not that I ever made much sense, but even so…

        1. She’s been married to you long enough to know that she got caught by a good ‘un.

          What you now need to do is to tell her that all the Nottlers sympathise and understand what she has to put up with…

  153. He’s actually an example to them all.
    I can’t help wondering how he/she would treat those opportunists if she got half a chance.

    2. He did a good talk with Sharon Davies the swimmer who was competing around the time all the East Germsn women were dosed upnn steroids and testosterone. His sympathies are definitely with yer proper female athletes.

    2. Thanks, Jill. Love you.

      Should have said it before to SWMBO, but I’m not so good at expressing emotion (a Tyke…) but yesterday seemed like the right moment.
      Also included (as per posts here) the music I associate with dear departed friends… these break me up, too, so it’s perhaps best explained.
      The hardest is relating this https://youtu.be/7O049oi2Dxw?si=7-2K1BasOPCwBw3b (not by choice) to a lovely Scouse friend who killed hersoel with pills, in her car, leaving husband and two small boys.
      I’ll never be able to get by this; what kind of a friend was I when she needed a friend? Too late, but to learn for the future. Maybe I can make a decent human being in a few hundred years time?

      1. You sound a bit tired and emotional tonight Paul……. I think you’re sincere, and definitely not a creep.

        1. Life is tiring… a few pints with an old mate, and a follow-on from last night. Best to get it out in the fresh air (and, yes, alcohol has been taken – SWMBO says “booze on board”) but being a tight-arse, it’s difficult to share these things without.
          Sorry.
          Upbringing was that emotions were streng verboten (public school, doncha no)… awkward to get past that.

        1. Been building over a few days.
          Finally it was right to tell SWMBO (cc the boys) the reality. Basically, I’m a soppy mess, and it’s only SWBMO who keeps me together – and I’m dead proud of the lot of them.
          I find it’s OK to remember “absent friends” – and that my weird brain asociates music to them means I can select time and place to remember them – and shed atear or two.
          The Vivaldi chose itself: Elaine was obviously is such a bad place that she saw no way out. I wish she’d turned to friends for help, but the first I saw was a newsfeed… Thtaat was a tough day. How the track became associated with her, I don’t know.
          What is important is that I now do and ping frienfs in whatever media, to be sure they are OK. What I can do if they are not, I don’t know, but being sure they are OK is important (despite most being no longer alive…).

    3. Thanks, Jill. Love you.

      Should have said it before to SWMBO, but I’m not so good at expressing emotion (a Tyke…) but yesterday seemed like the right moment.
      Also included (as per posts here) the music I associate with dear departed friends… these break me up, too, so it’s perhaps best explained.
      The hardest is relating this https://youtu.be/7O049oi2Dxw?si=7-2K1BasOPCwBw3b (not by choice) to a lovely Scouse friend who killed hersoel with pills, in her car, leaving husband and two small boys.
      I’ll never be able to get by this; what kind of a friend was I when she needed a friend? Too late, but to learn for the future. Maybe I can make a decent human being in a few hundred years time?

  155. I sincerely hope that I’m not reading between lines that are not there, but is everything right with your own health?

    I would hate to hear that all is not well.

    1. So far, so good. Thanks for asking!
      Had MRI a month ago, of my head. Asked the technician afterwards, had they found anything? Answer: No.
      So, empty skull?? Erk!

  156. Lovely! Absolutely,wonderful, Belle.
    My problem is, lack of confidence (and booming voice… ) so an expectation that the compliment would be unwelcome – as seen so often in the press and elsewhere. Literally, I have no idea if a woman would appreciate a compliment from a grey stranger over her clothing. Or, hair (there’s been some spectacular hair-do’s recently). How does it work? Are personal compliments only welcome from known men? (BTW, my social antennae broke off when I was born… so I’m only capable of upsetting folk or creeping them out :-((

    1. Just sniff at them and say:
      “Hi, my name’s Joe,
      Biden don’t’cha kno’.”

  157. Compliments, more often than not, go down very well. Just don’t do it up too close, and be moving away as you say it. You’re not looking for a conversation, just making a positive comment. Most ladies, young and old, will appreciate it, unless they’re totally paranoid/woke.

    1. I should say that most new people that I speak to are at my local, which is an extremely friendly place and it’s quite easy to assess what someone’s reaction will be.

      2. There was an article today in the Daily Dim from some sort of psycho Infuenzer where they said you are likely to be more wonderful than you think you are. When i realised they were talking about you i agreed with every word !

  158. Evening, all. We should, having voted to leave the EU, have left ALL the EU institutions and repealed all the EU laws, just keeping any that might be useful, rather than adopting them wholesale and not repealing any.

    2. People who witter on about how the ECHR is not an EU institution are lying by omission. It may not be an OFFICIAL EU body, but it has, effectively been captured by Brussels and can, de facto, be taken as part of the EU apparat.

        1. A cynic might conclude that those still in power don’t want to leave the ECHR to make it just that little bit easier to rejoin the EU….

        2. It’s even a condition of becoming a member of the Council of Europe. The UK was one of the CoE’s founders in 1949.

          The European Convention on Human Rights is the first Council of Europe’s convention and the cornerstone of all its activities. It was adopted in 1950 and entered into force in 1953. Its ratification is a prerequisite for joining the Organisation.

          The European Court of Human Rights oversees the implementation of the Convention in the 46 Council of Europe member states. Individuals can bring complaints of human rights violations to the Strasbourg Court once all possibilities of appeal have been exhausted in the member state concerned. The European Union is preparing to sign the European Convention on Human Rights, creating a common European legal space for over 700 million citizens.

          https://www.coe.int/en/web/human-rights-convention

        3. It’s even a condition of becoming a member of the Council of Europe. The UK was one of the CoE’s founders in 1949.

          The European Convention on Human Rights is the first Council of Europe’s convention and the cornerstone of all its activities. It was adopted in 1950 and entered into force in 1953. Its ratification is a prerequisite for joining the Organisation.

          The European Court of Human Rights oversees the implementation of the Convention in the 46 Council of Europe member states. Individuals can bring complaints of human rights violations to the Strasbourg Court once all possibilities of appeal have been exhausted in the member state concerned. The European Union is preparing to sign the European Convention on Human Rights, creating a common European legal space for over 700 million citizens.

          https://www.coe.int/en/web/human-rights-convention

      1. We haven’t had democracy for some time, it’s just it wasn’t as blatant before.

  159. Well, chums, I had an enjoyable Curry meal with chums this evening. Now to put out the week’s rubbish ready for the bin men to collect tomorrow morning. Then off up the stairs to bed. Good night, sleep well, and see you all tomorrow.

    2. Yo Elsie, Ma’am

      Youse awfully posh if you have an upstairs.

      Ours is full of boxes, case, insulation etc

    3. The landfill waste collection here every other Thursday usually happens after 11am, so I was in no hurry this morning to put the bag out at the crack of dawn, nor yesterday evening, come to that. I ventured outdoors at 9:30 only to find that the bins had already been emptied. I didn’t hear a thing. Never mind. I’ll just put out double in two weeks’ time. Not that there’s a great deal, so there will still be plenty of room.

      1. Even better with a slice or two of pepperoni.

        I’m currently having a fad for Wyke Farms Aged Red Leicester. Red Leicester is usually a pleasant if rather bland and rubbery cheese. This mature version, however, has a much better flavour and texture.

        I’ve only found it in the Home Bargains discount store. It’s not even mentioned on the Wyke Farms website.

        https://wykefarms.com/

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

    3. God kveld, Tom.
      Sees i morgen, da. Ikke så tidleg, en voksen mann må sove godt.

  168. I didn’t mean to imply that if you bought curtains that are too short it would have been JLP’s fault.

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