Friday 19 April: Smoking is too deadly to remain an option for future generations

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

720 thoughts on “Friday 19 April: Smoking is too deadly to remain an option for future generations”

  1. G’day! It seems I have beaten all the slowcoaches who sit and wait for Geoff.

    D’oh!

    2. G’day Grizz

      Did you know that there’s a red tailed cockatoo named after you?

      Tasmania
      Love nest: how a musk lorikeet fell for a red-tailed black cockatoo

      Two parrots have formed a unique relationship after arriving at a Tasmanian wildlife sanctuary

      https://youtu.be/E8CLGOfjeLw

      After struggling to bond with members of their own flock, a matte black cockatoo and bright green lorikeet have become unexpected friends.

      Greg Iron, director of Bonorong wildlife sanctuary in Tasmania, described their relationship as being “love at first sight” for Raphael, a musk lorikeet who was previously kept without a permit.

      “He’s just obsessed,” he said, adding that George – the much bigger red-tailed black cockatoo – was “probably a bit bewildered” at first.

      “The second Raphael was in the enclosure … it was like ‘you’re the one’,” he said.

      It didn’t take long for the relationship to be reciprocated, with the pair spending, at most, five minutes apart.

      “Ninety per cent of the time they’re very close to each other … quite often Raphael will be tucked under George’s wing, particularly when it’s cold … like a mother chicken with its young.

      “I always have to stop and look at them when they’re snuggled up together because they’re just so happy.”

      Iron said staff were initially wary of potential aggression due to the difference in the birds’ sizes, but there’s been nothing but affection between the two.

      The cockatoo and the lorikeet
      https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/01335f51611f1214ef857adb3f893fda7c8a441a/0_155_1536_1631/master/1536.jpg?width=620&dpr=2&s=none

      Raphael and George both experienced difficulties bonding with musk lorikeets and red-tailed black cockatoos. Photograph: Petra Harris

      Iron said the relationship between the birds was “unique”, as different species tended to be ambivalent about each other. The pair hadn’t formed meaningful relationships with the other animals, he said, and George had interacted less with the female red-tailed black cockatoo than he did with Raphael.

      “We wouldn’t separate them now,” Iron said.

      “George is probably the best-looking boyfriend in all of Bonorong. The other [musk cockatoos] must be a bit jealous.”

      Iron said that while he had “no idea” why their relationship was so strong, the two were probably “entertainment for each other”. Birds were social animals and being removed from the care of their past owners was probably traumatic, he said.

      Both Raphael and George experienced difficulties bonding with musk lorikeets and red-tailed black cockatoos. Raphael was separated from other lorikeets due to squabbling.

      “George had only really connected with people … I think he thought he was a person.”

      Iron said the pair had generated “lots of questions” among visitors, who were often surprised to see Raphael emerge from under George’s wings.

      “I think people get a bit of a fright … there’s this moment of complete inability to process what’s going on … this tiny little bright green thing is suddenly popping out against this beautiful matte black.”

      Some visitors took their thoughts on the pair to social media.

      “This is really beautiful … could really teach humans a thing or two,” one visitor wrote on Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary’s Facebook page.

      “I saw them yesterday,” another wrote. “Didn’t realise they had a thing going on.”

      1. G’day, Citroën.

        Elusive little drongo! I caught up with his cousin, the Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo Calyptorhynchus funerous on my first visit Down Under in 2002, but ‘George’ has thus far evaded my company.

  7. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) story
    TREE FELLER

    Two Paddies were working for the council works department. One would dig a hole and the other would follow behind him and fill the hole in.
    They worked up one side of the street, then down the other, then moved on to the next street, working furiously all day without rest, one man digging a hole, the other filling it in again.

    An onlooker was amazed at their hard work, but couldn’t understand what they were doing. So, he asked the hole-digger, ‘I’m impressed by the effort you two are putting in to your work, but I don’t get it! Why do you dig a hole, only to have your partner follow behind and fill it up again?’

    The hole-digger wiped his brow and sighed, ‘Well, I suppose it probably looks odd because we’re normally a three-person team. But today the lad who plants the trees called in sick.’

  8. Sunak vows to end Britain’s ‘sick note culture’. 19 April 2024.

    Mr Sunak will say: “We don’t just need to change the sick note, we need to change the sick note culture so the default becomes what work you can do – not what you can’t.

    “Building on the pilots we’ve already started, we’re going to design a new system where people have easy and rapid access to specialised work and health support to help them back to work from the very first fit note conversation.

    “We’re also going to test shifting the responsibility for assessment from GPs and giving it to specialist work and health professionals who have the dedicated time to provide an objective assessment of someone’s ability to work and the tailored support they need to do so.”

    So that will be no change then?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/19/rishi-sunak-sick-note-britain-gp-sign-off/

    1. It was the Blair Government that tried this – at a time when Cameron’s “Caring Conservatism” was seen as the nicer option. They employed specialists in hounding the disabled, armed with quotas and cloth ears.

      I know that the issue is not that these people are unfit or unwilling for employment; rather it is the futility of “actively seeking work” in the face of hostility and appalling treatment of “lesser people” in the guise of Management Best Practice, where the executive bonus takes precedence over avoiding gross miscarriages of justice, that renders people unfit to put up with it, and therefore makes them unemployable.

    2. This was already allegedly done back in the noughties with the work focused health assessment. But the system was largely just a mega opportunity for a big corporate purveyor of computer algorithms.
      The difficulty is that large numbers of people are on long term sick benefits because of conditions that are difficult to verify or can’t be verified at all because they self report symptoms but have few or no clinical signs and there are no lab tests that be used. Some of these people are 100% genuine; some are 100% cynical; but in many instances of ‘mental health’ or ‘ME’ the situation is more complex and our current system of just letting people have the benefits without being required even to turn up to sign on is reinforcing damaging patterns of behaviour that make the conditions worse.
      Devising individual plans of phased-in work is a good approach if it can actually be delivered. But I found it a bit worrying just now listening to a BBC when it seemed to be implied that the government thinks this is something that pharmacists can do. Pharmacists have a specific training and are skilled in their own sphere ie knowledge of therapeutic drugs but now – despite not being trained in diagnosis and management of complex disease – seem to fill in any role that was once done by a GP.

  9. DT Editorial

    News that the Scottish government is to ditch its flagship target of reducing carbon emissions by 75 per cent by 2030 will come as little surprise to those who have long argued the country had set a goal it could never realistically reach. Ministers north of the border had missed eight of the last 12 annual targets, and been warned that the milestone was unachievable.

    This ought to give others pause for thought, and none more so than Sir Keir Starmer. Labour’s goal of a decarbonised electricity grid by 2030 is now a clear outlier. The target would mean wind, solar and nuclear powering the grid almost exclusively within six years. It is unlikely to prove any more attainable than Holyrood’s abandoned pledge.

    Shadow energy secretary Ed Miliband may speak the language of climate jingoism, insisting that Britain must have “ambition”, but the question remains how net zero can be reconciled with prosperity given the massive costs involved. Competitively priced energy is vital for economic growth. Polls have revealed that, while voters are keen to do their bit for the environment, they have less appetite for higher bills and compromised energy security.

    It may not be easy for Sir Keir to row back on this pledge following his “Green Prosperity Plan” U-turn. It was finally dropped in February, but it should have been obvious that spending up to £28 billion a year on green technologies was incompatible with promises of fiscal discipline. Last year, the UK became the first country to halve its carbon emissions since 1990. The SNP has been forced to acknowledge that further efforts to reduce emissions must be realistic. The clock is ticking for Labour to come to a similar realisation.

    This is how Net Zero dies – endless deferments as neither the resources nor technology exist.

    1. I can see it now. ‘The reports of the impending death of Net Zero are exaggerated,’ claims Miliband minor. Apologies to Mark Twain.

      We can but hope that common sense and sound judgement from our political class prevail re destroying what’s left of our economy by following Net Zero policies. Then I woke up.

      Net Zero will die as you predict but getting the politicos to admit to that before they complete trashing the economy is a forlorn hope.

      Good morning, JD.

      1. Good morning KtC. The EU is already gutting it of any urgency. Our EU loving political classes will of course follow their master’s actions.

  10. Islamists and the woke Left are uniting to topple the West. 19 April 2024.

    The first step to fighting this fundamentally anti-Western communalist movement is to recognise that it exists. The second is to vigorously police our laws against intimidation and harassment and in favour of free speech. The third is to deprive it of its institutional purchase: repeal the Equality Act, remove all ability to recruit or promote people by category rather than as individuals, refuse attempts to rewrite our history, to change names, topple statues, or suggest that Britain has always been “diverse”. The fourth is to kick out of the Conservative Party anyone who isn’t comfortable with this.

    And yet another convert joins the fray. I’m sorry Mr Frost. It’s too late. The West is finished.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/18/islamists-the-far-left-and-woke-are-uniting-to-topple-west/

    1. Has David Frost now renounced his peerage and is he free to run for Parliament?

      If he does I hope he will stand for the Reform Party.

      The Reform Party may or may not be the future but the Conservative Party is the past and the sooner it has been killed and the death certificate signed and delivered the better.

  11. Islamists and the woke Left are uniting to topple the West. 19 April 2024.

    The first step to fighting this fundamentally anti-Western communalist movement is to recognise that it exists. The second is to vigorously police our laws against intimidation and harassment and in favour of free speech. The third is to deprive it of its institutional purchase: repeal the Equality Act, remove all ability to recruit or promote people by category rather than as individuals, refuse attempts to rewrite our history, to change names, topple statues, or suggest that Britain has always been “diverse”. The fourth is to kick out of the Conservative Party anyone who isn’t comfortable with this.

    And yet another convert joins the fray. I’m sorry Mr Frost. It’s too late. The West is finished.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/18/islamists-the-far-left-and-woke-are-uniting-to-topple-west/

  12. Raman Subba Row was one of England’s finest amateurs and helped save Surrey

    Initially a proficient opening batsman, Subba Row later rose to prominence as a cricket administrator and an ICC match referee

    Scyld Berry, CHIEF CRICKET WRITER
    18 April 2024 • 5:47pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/cricket/2024/04/18/TELEMMGLPICT000374394897_17134583192870_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq6E2HGKFmoMiy3-JR93xthJBRpMObPOR9TUVvfHRgFOQ.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Raman Subba Row averaged over 40 in 260 first-class matches CREDIT: Shutterstock/Douglas Hess

    Raman Subba Row, who died at the age of 92 on Thursday, was not only one of the last amateurs to represent England at cricket, he was one of the best. Subba Row became known to the next generation as a chair of the England and Wales Cricket Board, or Test and County Cricket Board as it used to be known, in addition to being one of the first ICC match referees.

    As a left-handed opening batsman at Cambridge and Northamptonshire he was steady and useful, but when he moved to Surrey – still an amateur – he went right to the front. He was good enough to score 300 in a championship innings and to average 46 in his 13 Tests for England, before he retired from all cricket at the age of 29 to make a living.

    England, strangely, had never had a left-handed opening batsman of note before the second half of the 1950s, when suddenly several came along as suddenly as unsynchronised buses. Geoff Pullar of Lancashire was stalwart rather than silky, Peter Richardson had more of a flourish, and even Willie Watson tried his hand up the order, but Subba Row soon took his place as England’s number one. Most left-handers favour one side or the other but Subba Row, having been leg-sided in his youth added some fine driving through the covers.

    A century in the West Indies on England’s 1959-60 tour was his first stamp on Test cricket. Australia won the 1961 Ashes series 2-1, but Subba Row made the highest aggregate of anyone in that series on either side, 468 runs. He scored two centuries while all the other England players made one between them.

    England might well have lost the first Test of that series without Subba Row top-scoring with 59 in their first innings and chiselling out 112 in their second while Ted Dexter made a more dazzling 180. In the second Test at Lord’s he again top-scored in England’s first innings, but this time it was only 48, and Australia won by five wickets. These were still the days of the Lord’s Ridge, on a length at the Nursery end, so batting without a helmet or chest protector could be a lively experience and not for the faint-hearted.

    England levelled the series at 1-1 in “Trueman’s Match” at Headingley, and they were winning the fourth Test at Old Trafford as well while Subba Row and Dexter were reprising the finest of Cambridge Blue batting as England chased 256 in almost four hours. Their second-wicket stand of 110 took only 84 minutes. England reached 150 for one. Then they collapsed against Richie Benaud, bowling his leg-breaks round the wicket into the rough outside the right-hander’s leg stump. The rest is history; so too England’s chance of regaining the Ashes.

    Subba Row graced his last Test at the Oval with 137, his third and last Test century, which saved England from another defeat. The crowd rose as he walked off for the final time. To retire aged 29, having cracked Test cricket, was quite something even then let alone now. He wanted to run his own public relations firm.

    Drawing on this experience he played a crucial part in saving county cricket, and Surrey in particular, from bankruptcy, along with an unsung but brilliant behind-the-scenes administrator Bernie Coleman. “This place looks like a dog-track!” guffawed Gubby Allen, the eminence grise of English cricket, when he visited the Oval after Surrey had taken the revolutionary step of selling advertising to stop the old ground falling apart. “Gubby, without the advertisements it would be a dog-track,” Coleman replied.

    It was logical that Subba Row, with his commercial acumen, should become chair of the old TCCB before it became the ECB in 1997. Before then he had been England’s tour manager in India for their 1981-82 tour, and the Indian origins on his father’s side came in useful when relations between the two countries could have become prickly. He kindly contributed a foreword to my book about that tour “Cricket Wallah”.

    In later life he became one of the first match referees when they were introduced in the early 1990s. ICC General Manager of Cricket Wasim Khan said: “It is sad to hear of the passing of Raman and I would like to extend deepest condolences on behalf of everyone at the ICC. He was also one of the earliest ICC Match Referees, officiating very ably in different parts of the world.”

    Subba Row officiated in 41 Tests and 119 ODIs from 1992 to 2001. He would have been even better known had circumstances allowed him to play 41 Tests.

  14. Good Morning,
    Yet another miserable damp day greets us here in Co Antrim, hopefully the weekend might be drier, we could do with some sun.

    1. That officer is an idiot. Does he not understand that a fair proportion of those on the pro-Palestinian march are Jews, appalled at what is being done in their name. Quite a few Jews, and Israeli Jews at that, appreciate that stirring up hatred is not the way to get the nation of Israel to be recognised by all, and the march of history accepted even by those nostalgic for the old Palestine.

      Assimilation within Israel of those who were once Palestinians does require the sort of religious tolerance that is taken for granted in Britain, and supported by many but not all indigenous Britons. Whether such multiculturalism is a good thing is a matter for debate, but it cannot be presumed that all Jews are pushing for an exclusive Jewish state with the Gentiles treated with great brutality. Moses himself reminded his people that they too were dispossessed and sent into exile, and should be sympathetic towards others in a similar plight.

      I for one would be delighted to see a few kippahs worn by the marchers.

        1. I would if there was one near me, although since I am a Christian, I might be regarded as a fake-Jew.

          1. I thought you’d say that. A quick train ride into London for the day…
            You can wear one as an act of solidarity with the people you regards as decent Jews, i.e. those who don’t believe Israel has the right to defend itself from genocidal terrorist organisations.

          2. “A quick train ride to London”. Do you know how much that costs these days? Why should everything centre around London anyway?

            You have a warped concept of “decent Jews” and not one I share. I have made it quite plain that everyone has the right to defend themselves from genocidal terrorist organisations, not just genocidal terrorist organisations masquerading as a national government.

          4. I have not forgotten, and none of them are antisemitic except in your somewhat warped eyes. I have often expressed my admiration for the Jews. They do not deserve Netanyahu and his aggressive cronies.

          5. Funny how the pro-Palestinians can wear Palestinian regalia even though they are not Palestinian.

          6. It’s the “I am Charlie” syndrome.

            I am not remotely Kurdish, yet I flew one of the flags in my garden in sympathy, after attending an anti-Erdogan rally in Vienna. I will not fly the Palestinian flag though. Although I am most sympathetic to what they are having to endure, which is similar in spirit to what the Poles and the Jews had to put up with during their hostile occupation, I prefer that they feel confident in assimilating within Israel, and that the governing Jews have it in them to honour Palestinian loss of sovereignty and at least treat them as they would wish to be treated.

          7. The Israelis are not carting Palestinians off to death camps, in fact they are going out of their way to minimise Palestinian deaths.

            You really need to take a closer look at what actually happens in Israel itself, where Muslims are treated far far better than Jews are anywhere else in the ME and what happened in Gaza, before the invasion, where Jews were forcibly evicted so that Palestinians could enjoy autonomy, but chose the route they have.

            The Palestinians have brought virtually all this upon themselves.
            Don’t kid yourself that the Muslims in Gaza are not wholeheartedly in support of the eradication of Israel.
            Don’t kid yourself that they didn’t vote for Hamas, knowing full well what Hamas represent.
            Don’t kid yourself that they didn’t know about the tunnels and exactly where they were placed.
            Don’t kid yourself that when there is eventually a ceasefire that the Palestinians won’t start attacking all over again while Hamas remain in control.

          8. Is not forcible relocation into camps lacking basic amenities that are then bombed “carting Palestinians off to death camps”? “Minimising Palestinian deaths” seems to bear the morality of a cat with a mouse, eager to keep it alive a bit longer to maximise its play value. Nobody seems to be counting those buried in the rubble though. In comparison, this barbaric salvo of rocketry sent over by Iran this week resulted in one little girl in intensive care with shrapnel injuries.

            You seem preoccupied with Muslims, but have nothing to say about Christians living there and in the West Bank. There is one particular holy place of pilgrimage in the West Bank, the birthplace of Jesus, that is suffering petty persecution from the Israelis. You are right though that Christians often suffer worse persecution in lands governed by Muslims. It’s no excuse though to join in the fun.

            You also presume with the same glib generalisation used about unanimous Jewish support worldwide for Netanyahu and his partners, that all Muslims are in support of the eradication of Israel. Most, I suspect, do not care either way so long as they can pray five times a day and go about their daily lives in peace. In fact, Jews make excellent customers, and there’s one thing a lot of Muslims enjoy more than religion and that is trading.

            They last were able to vote for Hamas around 2007. It is hardly a working democracy, but then lots of sovereign nations aren’t either. Even in Britain, electors are faced with a Hobson’s choice, where none of the options are fit for office. Hamas came to power after the Israelis bombed out Fatah, which was sticking its neck out proposing to recognise Israel as part of a peace settlement. Considering the threat that is real enough, voting for Hamas may well have been like voting for Churchill when the alternative was Chamberlain. The current Israeli Government is not making things easy for a pro-Israeli party in Gaza and the West Bank right now.

            The tunnels are a routine civil defence mechanism, especially when confronting the enemy’s use of air bombardment or ground invasion. Yes, they can also be used offensively, and this too is a traditional tactic. They are not foolproof, since they can be flooded or gassed, and entries and exits can be ambushed. The best military tunnels are secret and well-disguised. Mossad seems to know where they are though, or maybe they don’t and are just smashing everything and everybody knowing that the law of averages will take out a few tunnels. If Hamas have any military sense, guess where they will be hiding their hostages.

            You are right in that a ceasefire is all too often a tool for the belligerents to rearm and regroup and do not necessarily guarantee peace. While Israel has the troops and ammunition to crush an enemy, they have no interest in a ceasefire, whereas Hamas is desperately trying to get some of its allies on board. There is one other player in this war – the humanitarian aid organisations who want a ceasefire so they can provide this aid without being constantly under fire.

          9. You are utterly deluded about Gaza, Hamas and the Palestinians.

            Your comments about the tunnels are laughable, in fact beyond that, they are pig-ignorant.

            I have NEVER stated that there is unanimous Jewish support worldwide for Netanyahu and his partners.

            I do believe that very significant numbers of Muslims would be delighted to see the eradication of Israel and the removal of all Jews, and for that matter Christians, from the holy lands.
            I also believe, strongly, that Islam is a poison that will attempt conquer the world if given half a chance. Show me a single Muslim dominated country that is as tolerant of other faiths as Israel is of Muslims.

    3. In the 1930s that officer would have been arresting Jews while the British Union of Fascists were on the streets.

      1. The suggestion is that they change the way they look. Cut their hair. Stop wearing a Kippah. Stop wearing those hats and coats. Perhaps they should also all go and hide in the attic.

        1. Apparently saying that “Christians should stand up for themselves” is enough to earn you a home visit from plod, who would of course hardly turn up if you were burgled.

          2. Unless you were burgled by Christians.

            Now, there’s a thought. If anyone on here gets burgled just say there was a strong sense of incense in the air and kneelmarks on the deep pile. That’ll get the fat plods scurrying over.

        2. I wonder what would happen and how long (literally) anyone who “suggested” Muslims should do the same, would last.

          1. They would quickly form a flash mob and riot. The police will continue their policy of appeasement. We know where that leads.

    4. Fair cop.. caught in the act of “existing”. Next up, arrested on suspicion of Intention to exist.

      2. I think, therefore I am.

        Good job René Descartes is long gone or he would find himself being frogmarched for simply thinking.

    5. Was the Constable’s name PC Savage? The Jewish man could have been arrested for ‘looking at me in a funny way’ or ‘walking in a loud shirt in a built-up area’.

  16. Police must acknowledge they are ‘institutionally racist’, says top officer. 19 April 2024.

    Gavin Stephens, chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), said policing needed to avoid being defensive and admit the scale of problems in order to gain the support of local communities.

    The former Surrey chief constable who took over at the NPCC last April said: “What I’ve found, over the last 11 months, is that some groups simply won’t work with us or take us seriously if we don’t accept the diagnosis of institutional racism and say it out loud.

    So his solution is simply to cave in to this ludicrous assertion?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/19/police-force-uk-racism-gavin-stephens/

  18. 386223+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Any chance of running a comparison survey to see over a time span, how it compares with supporting / voting lab/lib/con taking into consideration these past three plus decades also.

    Plus there is now a real chance that we will be invited to join a major conflict as in WW111

    Well meant advice,

    Hey! Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag. And smile, smile, smile. While you’ve a Lucifer to light your fag, smile, boys, that’s the style. Whats the use ..

    As a nation of self inflicters we, in no way, can be bettered.

    Friday 19 April: Smoking is too deadly to remain an option for future generations

    1. My mother smoked all her adult life and reached the age of 80.
      I know few people now who smoke – it’s dying a natural death and needs no more laws to stop it now.
      It’s been killed off by the tax and the pub ban.

      1. It does have a tendency to go in cycles – there was an upswing among youngish people in the 90s – but I agree that current laws are enough. Laws that creates arbitrary thresholds, such that people are treated differently according to whether or not they get under the wire, fuel resentment and encourage people to find ways round them.

      2. My dear old Uncle Dick started smoking when he was 13 and continued to smoke both cigarettes and a pipe for the rest of his life. He also enjoyed his daily pint of beer and a glass of scotch whisky every night.

        His vices finally caught up with him and he died in 1989 at the age of 91.

  19. We see that Rodric Williams, one of the lead solicitors in prosecuting and imprisoning sub postmasters with bogus,

    inaccurate or totally false evidence has been dealt with by the Post Office. How?

    The Post Office has promoted him…… to be Head of Redress.

    He must have something very powerful on the top people in the Post Office.

    Does anyone else think this a bit too sleazy?

    1. Grattis på födelsedagen, John. Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, hope it’s a good ‘un.👍🏻🍷🎂😊

  21. Another par today

    Wordle 1,035 4/6

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

  22. I saw on GB News last night Andrew Bridgen addressing a virtually empty House of Commons about Covid jab damage.

    However the gallery was packed and he was cheered so loudly that the deputy speaker threatened to have the House cleared.

    What clearer indication can there be that our corrupt MPs are totally out of touch with the people?

    2. Just the thought … the very notion … of the concept of the altruistic politician is sufficient to make my arse laugh.

      1. Grizzly, a short quote from a long article:

        In their book Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, first published in 2012, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson provide over 100 case studies of why societies fail.

        Their conclusion is that nations end when trust in institutions dissolves.

      2. Grizzly, a short quote from a long article:

        In their book Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, first published in 2012, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson provide over 100 case studies of why societies fail.

        Their conclusion is that nations end when trust in institutions dissolves.

      3. “Nobody’s Perfect!”

        [Osgood Fielding’s final line in Some Like It Hot.”

        I mean to do some good in spite of mine own nature.

        [The Bastard Edmund: King Lear]

    3. Absolutely spot on.
      They (most) are complete and utter unwanted junk.
      Poor Andrew Bridgend has been shoved into a basement ‘office’ with no daylight. But he spreads more daylight than the rest of them put together.

    1. His attempt to join Reclaim was not wise or productive – if only he would join the Reform Party – it would give it a specific focus on this outrageous plot by the government and the opposition to suppress all debate and information.

  25. Good morning all.
    A somewhat less cold start to the day with a tad below 6°C on the Yard Thermometer. Dry but with an overcast that could turn to rain.

    So who the FOXTROT had MP Mark Menzies locked up and, had the local party had free reign to appoint their candidate, would he have ever been selected?
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68851004
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/93f15fed7a1d012bcd94923002bba40a16ece5bc63b37e89cfad1a5190d77b35.jpg

  26. France’s seizure of villa belonging to Putin’s ex ‘illegal’. 19 April 2024

    The Kremlin has condemned the seizure of a £7.6m palatial French villa linked to Vladimir Putin’s ex wife as “illegal”.

    Nicknamed Suzanna, the palatial, art deco home was purchased for €5.4 million in 2013, with renovations totalling up to €3.5 million, according to French media.

    The villa, 300m from the beach, is reported to be owned by a real estate company controlled by Russian businessman Artur Ocheretny, who is married to Lyudmila Ocheretnaya, the former Mrs Putin.

    More politically sponsored thieving.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/18/frances-seizure-of-villa-belonging-to-putins-ex-illegal/

  28. Scientists uncover missing link between junk food and cancer – which could explain explosion of tumors in young people
    A study found that chemicals produced when eating junk food raised cancer risk
    Junk foods like red meat and sugar could inhibit cancer-protecting genes

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13325199/poor-diet-increases-cancer-risk-young-people-scientists.html

    However, the team cautioned that since the study was carried out in cells rather than people, more research is needed on the topic.
    The research adds to a long list of studies suggesting that diet could have an impact on cancer risk, particularly colorectal cancer.
    Research from the Cleveland Clinic, for example, found that people under 50 who ate diets rich in red meat and sugar had lower levels of the compound citrate, which is created when the body converts food into energy and has been shown to inhibit tumor growth.

    No doubt eating bugs and man made proteins is far healthier.
    Tell me, how much research has been put into the long-term effects of eating bugs and lab rats, sorry, laboratory proteins?

    1. Experts say mRNA injectables are still very profitable so any pathetic excuse for the consequences will do. Tobacco revenue must be falling anyway so that can be dispensed with now without too much impact.

      1. It’s the certainty of experts that gets my goat (is goat red meat?).
        At least this study acknowledges its limitation at the cellular level.

        1. We were served goat when working in Nigeria. It’s almost indistinguishable from lamb.

      2. And, as I posted earlier MPs are not interested.

        There is not just a solitary elephant in the House of Commons: the place is packed with pachyderms – several elephants, an inappropriately horny group of rhinoceroses and a spattering of hippopotami.

        1. Hey – pachyderrms are good! Not those creatures in the House of Frauds and shysters.

      1. Red meat (and its fat) is the vital, nutritious, delicious, life-giving and sustaining food that formed the natural diet of our species and its ancestors for well over four million years.

        Human health only started deteriorating exponentially after it largely replaced meat and fish with vegetation and grains, a mere 10,000 years ago.

        1. I have a recipe that turns red meat into junk food. You may wish to try it.

          Bash out a fillet steak and fry to your idea of doneness. Allow to rest.

          Butter two thick slices of home made bread. On the other sides spread a soft blue cheese like Roquefort.
          Put the beef on the Roquefort and then the other slice of bread on top.

          Both sides of the sandwich should be butter side out.
          Fry in a little ghee or clarified butter until brown on both sides.

          Serve with a green salad on a windy day so it blows away.

          1. As I’ve told you many times before Philippipoos, fillet steak is an expensive way of buying bland beef! Feather blade steak is best (I bet he looks it up!).

            I got the best fried sandwich recipe on thr labelof some Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce: Cheese and ham pan sandwich.

            Make a sandwich of ham (or bacon) and cheese with buttered white bread. Soak the sandwich in a mixture of beaten egg, 1 dsp of milk, 1 dsp Lea & Perrins, salt and black pepper. Then fry in lard until crispy on both sides and the cheese has melted. Serve with tomato wedges.

            It is beyond yummy.

      1. Nearly everyone we speak to have had problems of some sort since that was released amongst us.
        And strange how the usual (the so called hierarchy) have had virtually no reach whatsoever. Fore warned definitely.
        And now there’s a huge effort to try and get people to have boosters.
        Heads and brickwork comes in to mind.

        1. My heart attack appeared completely out of the blue.
          My GP was staggered when I reported what had happened.
          I don’t know if it is down to the vaccine, but I’ve had problems that didn’t register until the vaccines. Possibly old age, and a sample size of one, but anomalous neither of my parents nor any of my grandparents had similar issues, so it probably isn’t hereditary.

          1. I had been clear of Afib for at least 4 years. It came back a week after the first jab and went off, then came back and became permanent after the second jab which coincided with a flu jab. I refused boosters. My GP agreed. And many other medics I spoke to on the 4 year journey agreed with my point of view.
            One of my friends a few years younger very fit for his age. Had a sudden heart attack was taken to hospital and then died after a fatal stroke.
            And three longer term friends died during that terrible period, but all three had underlying health issues.
            My BP is now around 120-135 I didn’t get out of breath walking to and from the surgery, home up hill.
            Safari so goodie.🤞
            But four years after the outset.

        2. None of my friends and family have reported adverse effects from Covid-19 vaccines.

          My ongoing health problems stem from before 2020. None of my Covid-19 vaccines and boosters have aggravated or added to them.

      2. My poor brother has just had 2 lesions removed. One excision was planned but when the consultant checked him over, he found another which he said had to be removed immediately. The initial one was probably a BCC, but brother couldn’t remember what the ‘urgent’ one was called. (Not the sharpest spoon in the drawer, but knowing my brother, he probably didn’t really listen) Several other excisions are planned for the near future. In the 4 or so weeks between initial consultation and the excision appointment, both his cheeks (more or less full cover) and part of his neck have developed angry redness, which I thought might be eczema, rosacea or similar. But the consultant has told him it is Bowen’s disease, to be treated with special cream. When I had to use this same cream last year on several small areas, the pain became extreme at times. Goodness knows what having to treat the whole cheek (or both at same time, depending on the consultant’s instructions) will be like.
        That’s a heck of a lot of skin issues to appear in a short time. I think he had the 1st 2 convid jabs and at least 2 boosters.

        1. My OH had three of the Pfizer jabs – and not so long afterwards his heart trouble started. Triple bypass, A-fib and then a cardioversion. Lots of meds now for a previously very fit and active man.

          1. Of course, it’s just coincidence that he had 3 conjabs…….
            I suspect that a lot of us are ticking timebombs.

      3. I simply cannot work out why so many people fell for the scam.

        My GP tried to ‘advise’ me to have the jab. After my response to him he never attempted to again.

    4. More experts stirring the pot.
      I wonder if they have ever considered how humans have reach this point in their extremely long history without their opinions. 🤔

    5. Sorry, I’ve got to refute all their arguments by slapping a verse from the bible on them:

      “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.”

      Slam dunk, argument won. I thank you.

    6. I have an urgent desire to meet, face-to-face, those cretins who still tell us that red meat is ‘junk food’.

      They will not relish that meeting!

      2. They probably get paid $100 every time they say red meat is bad for you. We all know what the agenda is now. There is a danger that all his cancer fighting work would be debased in the public eye.

  29. Yeah! Damn those who muck about with the clock! Noon should show midday … worldwide … every season, without fail.

    3. Beware the Ram of Derby and the spirit of Grizzly which sometimes lurks and prowls and prowls around like the Troops of Midian!

      1. Unfortunately the spirit of Grizzly was exorcised the last time he ventured to visit his home town and birthplace. He found it to be an irreparably damaged pastiche of the glorious market town it once was.

  32. Indeed.

    And I always wonder which meats come into the “red” category in these claims.
    It strikes me as yet another sneaky offshoot of the climate change scam.
    I wonder who funds the studies.

    1. I listened to this earlier and saved it for putting up later!

      Quite sensible, I thought. He has been ignored in his efforts to get to some of the truth: the PTB’s reticence in the matter of the jabs only adds to the feeling that they know how bad it is and are terrified of the truth coming into the public domain. Too many reputations in danger of being trashed and too many possible lawsuits (and criminal charges?) in the offing.

    2. Never a packed house.

      Members should be forced to attend such debates on pain of losing their seats (and prestige, and stipend, and corrupt sinecures …)

  34. Morning all 🙂😊
    Back to normal outside grey. But our islands seem to attract much more than bad weather.
    Smoking is obviously not very healthy but surely education would have been the way to stop people from doing it. Not a ban. Its going to encourage tobacco smuggling the same longterm ongoing problem we have with drug smuggling. Something else our political idiots can’t control. As is also people smuggling. It couldn’t be more obvious how to stop it. but our DHs in Wastemonster and Whitehall are less useful than single one off pan handle.

    1. If only common sense was common, and not so sadly a deficiency in the hallowed halls of Westminster and Canterbury cathedral.

      1. So many of them have built their financially rewarding careers on long term hate.

    2. If only common sense was common, and not so sadly a deficiency in the hallowed halls of Westminster and Canterbury cathedral.

    1. Mr Kerner better lookout. The Disinformation Police will be all over him like a rash.

      1. 385223+ up ticks,

        Morning JG,

        To fear the three am knockers I do believe, is to encourage them to greater odious efforts.

        1. Morning ogga, exactly so. Truth is like a bubble in a fizzy drink. It comes to the surface whether you like it or not.

    1. Hope you have a wonderful family weekend, and that the weather is kind to you! Have fun!

    1. Laken Riley murder suspect released over lack of detention space
      This photo, provided by the Clarke County Sheriff's Office, shows Jose Ibarra, 26, on Friday, Feb. 23, 2024. Ibarra was arrested on charges that included murder and kidnapping in the death of 22-year-old nursing student Laken Hope Riley in Athens, Ga. (Clarke County Sheriff's Office via AP)
      This photo, provided by the Clarke County Sheriff’s Office, shows Jose Ibarra, 26, on Friday, Feb. 23, 2024. Ibarra was arrested on charges that included murder and kidnapping in the death of 22-year-old nursing student Laken Hope Riley in Athens, … more >

      Print
      By Stephen Dinan – The Washington Times – Thursday, April 18, 2024

      Homeland Security released the illegal immigrant accused of killing Laken Riley into the U.S. because it lacked the detention space, according to his confidential immigration file.

      Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, read key parts of the file into the record at a Senate hearing Thursday.

      Jose Ibarra, the man charged with the Feb. 22 slaying, was released under Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas‘ power of parole, which is supposed to be used in limited cases and only when there is an urgent humanitarian need or a significant benefit to the public.

      Mr. Hawley said lack of detention space doesn’t meet either of those standards and so Mr. Mayorkas broke the law in releasing the suspected killer.

      “Now we all know that the reason he was paroled into this country is because of lack of detention capacity, which you and I both know is not a valid reason,” the senator said.

      According to the file Mr. Hawley read into the record, Mr. Ibarra entered the U.S. on Sept. 8, 2022, and was quickly released on parole.

      Nearly a year later, in July, he reported to immigration authorities in New York and was fingerprinted. The results showed he had “a criminal history,” Mr. Hawley said.

      In September Mr. Ibarra was arrested in New York on charges of injuring a child, but the case wasn’t prosecuted.

      In November he applied to Homeland Security for a permit to work legally in the U.S., and it was approved in December — after the department had the records of his criminal entanglements.

      “He had a criminal record to start with, he’s in the country on illegal grounds, you have falsely and illegally allowed him in, he commits a crime against a child, it’s expunged,” Mr. Hawley said.

      Mr. Mayorkas declined to talk about the details of the case and wouldn’t say whether he had read his department’s file on Mr. Ibarra.

      “I do not want to speak to the particulars of the case, given the pending prosecution,” he said, though he said “our hearts break” for the loss of Riley’s life.

      Mr. Hawley swatted Mr. Mayorkas for giving two different answers about Mr. Ibarra‘s case in testimony to other committees this month.

      “Why did you change your story so often?” Mr. Hawley challenged.

      “I’m confident that justice will be vindicated in the criminal prosecution,” Mr. Mayorkas replied.

      Mr. Ibarra was released from a facility run by Customs and Border Protection.

      Detention capacity has also been a problem in the country’s interior, where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the chief deportation agency, has been struggling to hold people.

      Even as he’s acknowledged a lack of ICE beds, Mr. Mayorkas has asked Congress to cut bed space further in every budget he’s submitted.

      Detention space for illegal immigrants has been a major problem for the Biden administration. Even as he’s acknowledged a lack of beds, Mr. Mayorkas has asked Congress to cut bed space even deeper in every budget he’s submitted.

      In 2022, 2023 and 2024 he asked lawmakers to reduce bed space from 34,000 to 25,000. Congress rebuffed each of those and even upped the number to 41,500 beds in the new bill.

      Mr. Mayorkas‘ latest budget again calls for a cut, this time back down to 34,000.

      He told senators, though, that he would be willing to accept money for more than 50,000 beds if it’s coupled with other changes in immigration law.

      • Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.

      2. I’d say this is a deliberate decision from Democrat leaders linked to funders like Soros (and agreed by Obama and FBI) to provoke MAGA Republicans into vigilante actions.

      3. There is plenty of room in the North Atlantic ocean, it’s only a one trip in a helicopter and some concrete boots.

    2. Amazing how our local councils around the country can force new housing projects onto green belt and agricultural land. But have not taken into account that due to their lack of quite simple assessment, that has lead to hundreds of thousands of illegal invaders arriving. Many of whom are criminals.

  40. Smoking too deadly? Regrettably for you Mr Sunak how I choose to risk my life is up to me. There are far greater dangers than smoking in life, e.g. trusting in an MP’s words. That’s almost suicidal frankly.

    If it is all the same to you, old boy.

  41. I got married 55 years ago today………it all went pear-shaped somewhere along the way…… we separated in 1990 and I eventually divorced him. Married again in 1997 and we’re still together!

    2. Congratulations to you and your Hubby.
      Enjoy your celebration weekend. 🤩🥰

      We are 50 years end of August.

      1. I was young and foolish when I married at 20! You were a bit more mature, I think……

        2. If I had married my first fiancé we’d have been divorced within a year!! 🤡

      2. The anniversary of my current marriage is not till July! We’ll celebrate that then.

          2. I realised that when I read below. My eye sight is up the creek, I should have had the cataract removed last month but three days before the op my eye filed with blood with an infection.
            Where’s Old Bill ?

          3. Away doing family stuff this week. I think he wrote that he’ll be back on Tues, 23rd. Not sure if it being St George’s Day is significant!

          6. He says he is dealing with family matters and will be back soon. Probably Sunday or Monday.

    3. I had two attempts, both futile, so I decided that I would never again go through any formal ceremony of matrimony.

      It turned out to be an excellent decision.

      2. I waited until I was old enough to have good judgement before getting married – until that age my judgement was extremely shaky!

        One of my contemporaries and best friends – a woman whom I had known since she was 17 and I was 18 – said to Caroline: “Marrying you is the best thing Richard has ever done.” She was right.

        Some people have good judgement at an early age – some never acquire it! One of my sisters had the good judgement to know at the age of 20 that she had met her soul mate and she became pregnant in order to force my parents into letting them marry. They are still very happily together 68 years later. She passed on this good judgement to the child who was in utero at her wedding and she met the great love of her life at primary school at the age of 6 and they married at the age of 22 and have been married for 45 years.

        My other sister and both Caroline’s made poor matrimonial choices.

    4. A wise guy told me that the key to happiness is to “marry the second one first”. 😂😂

        1. And to be a friend, not just a spouse or sexual partner.
          We approach 42 years marriage this July.

    7. I don’t know if “happy anniversary” is quite the right response to that post 🙂

    1. According to the internet the generations are as follows.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/afe96ab9d7df935f743f1832d1f50a15f260fd4110ef4a4cffc8f5f26c594780.png

      My son Christo b. 1993 and my son Henry b. 1995 both managed to raise mortgages and buy their first properties in their 20s.

      We bought our first and only property in 1988 when I was in my early 40s and Caroline was in her mid 20s.

      Caroline is a Boomer; I am a Pre-Boomer!

      Here is Charles Trenet’s song for the Boumers!

      https://www.google.com/search?q=boum+charles+trenet&oq=Boum&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7MgkIARBFGDkYgAQyBwgCEAAYgAQyDQgDEC4YrwEYxwEYgAQyBwgEEAAYgAQyDQgFEC4YrwEYxwEYgAQyDQgGEC4YrwEYxwEYgAQyBggHEEUYPdIBCDUxMTZqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:fd4fa856,vid:ac1oBkZqXBg,st:0

      1. British Gen Z brought up under the cursed years of Blair and the wrecking crew.
        It explains a lot.

      3. Ah, you beat me to it – I just looked this up as well. I’m a boomer of course and I bought my rabbit hutch aged 39, in 1994. If I move out of London I could maybe afford a bungalow or a one/two bedroom flat but for a single woman living in “West Central”, a rabbit hutch has to do and while I’m working, it’s advantages outweigh its disadvantages.

        1. My crazed teacher friend moved from Surrey, bought her current house in Dorset for cash based on the sale profits… when one approaches retirement, it’s quite attractive to not have a mortgage!

      4. We are part of the bulge as it was called in Lancashire I am 1947 ans Mrs N is 1948. I do not know where the 1955 comes from. We bought our first house in 1967/8

        1. I suggest that 1955 marks the emergence from post-war austerity and the beginning of an economic boom.

          2. The start of ITV/ITN News and, as a recorded medium, the birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll. It was all downhill from there. Across 1954-1955 the BBC broadcast the documentary series “War in the Air” which is available on DVD, all seven and a half hours of it and it’s still considered a classic of the genre. Certainly wouldn’t be made now.

          4. It was also the year I was conceived. Then … boom … nine months later I appeared.

      6. I am a Pre-Boomer, as was my dear late wife, and we bought our first house in 1970, the year we married. It cost £3,725 for a new 3 bedroom terrace house across the border in Suffolk. I was 21yo and my wife was 18yo. A great start to 50 years of marriage.

        1. If you were 21 in 1970, you were born post war so surely that makes you a boomer?

          1. 1949.
            The people born just after the second world war are the authentic baby boomers. The people born after 1950 were just added on years later and until recently had never been considered as such.
            And what is a baby boomer about someone born in the 1960s?
            It was really an American expression anyway referring to all the Americans born when the troops came home at the end of the war living through a new prosperity.
            As I understand it there wasn’t a baby boom in Britain in the late forties. Just a Labout government and ten more years of food rationing.

          2. I agree – I thought that the baby boomers were those who were conceived after WW2.

            It ended in Europe in May 1945 (VE Day) and in Japan in September 1945 (VJ Day). I was born on July 1st 1946 so I was possibly the result of a celebration a month after the second end of WW2

          3. I was going to correct your date for the end of conflict in Japan, however, while the Japanese surrendered and hostilities ended in August, the document of surrender was not signed until September 2nd, still marked as V-J Day.

          4. 70 – 21 = 49

            According to the table that makes the Dandy Headliner a pre-Boomer.

          5. I was using Rastus’s scale i.e. Boomers from, I think, 1955. I always thought that immediate post-war was Boomer-time but it really doesn’t matter, does it?

      7. I was born in 1956, and two of my brothers were born in 1948 and 1964. Generationally, I feel closer to my elder brother than my younger one. It is said that one identifies culturally closest to the year when one was 17 years old. There was a big change around 1963, with the arrival of the Beatles and the permissive society, which puts those born in 1946 on the cusp. The next big change was in that hot summer of 1976, when free love and sandals gave way to punk and yuppies. This puts the next cusp with those born in 1959.

        1997, with the Blair landslide puts the next cusp with those born in 1980. These are the millennials, and it could be argued that Rishi Sunak is our first millennial PM. The start of Gen Z is regarded as 1996. Go forward seventeen years and we have 2013. A few years after the Great Fraud, this was the year when perhaps we gave up on the validity of our institutions, and was when the Single Marriage Act was passed and both Gaza and Ukraine were attacked in earnest for the first time.

        I would argue that today’s children are still part of Gen Z, but a big change might be imminent if war breaks out and there is a change to the general breakdown of civilisation. This then might put the next generational cusp after 2007, but I don’t feel a big change happening quite yet.

  43. ‘Morning All

    It seems the satire of my youth has become public policy today from “Call me Loretta and I want to have babies” to this……….

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teSPN8sVbFU

    Rest

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ac91a89a377f1f9821abb68940de827a8003e897ac686fbf391012e1e3bfded6.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4398b7358ebadcad2f01986051789a35d47c7dfacffeefba5c6b5ea7eb6899b9.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7102772c7020fe0554b29e42eb78f1ca4b794f6af458a493bda399e3dd16b0a5.jpg

    1. I see Cheshire’s finest managed to by-pass two knife crimes, one gang surprise-sex, twelve car thefts and one false alarm intruder.. on their way to ‘visit’ Joey Barton not once but four times in three days.. for saying Eni Aluko is not very good at her job.

    2. I see Cheshire’s finest managed to by-pass two knife crimes, one gang surprise-sex, twelve car thefts and one false alarm intruder.. on their way to ‘visit’ Joey Barton not once but four times in three days.. for saying Eni Aluko is not very good at her job.

  45. Simple. A great deal of money and effort is put into stopping the 350 whereas the 1 is met with no resistance whatsoever – other than that of the natural world.

  47. Wordle 1,035 4/6

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

    2. A rare birdie for me today

      Wordle 1,035 3/6

      🟨⬜⬜🟨🟩
      ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Superb choice .
      When I’ve got my laptop up I’ll place my entry of which is Herbert Howells St Paul’s Catherdral service .

      ( I do love your choice )

    2. That was what I least liked about an otherwise superb series. Prissy choirboys do nothing for me.

    3. A magnificent setting……but not the winner because the Magnificat which goes with it is, frankly, not very good.

    1. Professor Maarten Ambaum, a meteorologist at the University of Reading:

      “The UAE does have an operational cloud seeding programme to enhance the rainfall in this arid part of the world, however, there is no technology in existence that can create or even severely modify this kind of rainfall event. Furthermore, no cloud seeding operations have taken place in this area recently.

      “Cloud seeding, as its name suggests, generally involves spreading fine particles into existing clouds into which conditions of wind, moisture and dust are insufficient to lead to rain. In this particular case, there would have been no benefit to seed these clouds as they were predicted to produce substantial rain anyway.

      https://www.reading.ac.uk/news/2024/Expert-Comment/Cloud-seeding-did-not-cause-Dubai-floods-expert-says

      1. Some of the other experts, no doubt.
        I am not placing my money on this bet, but I always wonder how they can be so utterly certain that what appears to be a minor alteration won’t suddenly expand into something Gatesastrophic (sic) almost instantly. Avalanches being such phenomena.

        Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it can’t.

    2. Where do all these idiots get their ideas from ?
      Why cant they do something useful ?
      It’s like Kahnt and his You lose schemes, hasn’t he noticed that wind blows away smoke for a fire ? Therefore the same thing happens to all the invented pollution he’s bothered about.

      1. It was of little help during the London smogs. The fetid air lingered for days on end killing thousands.

    4. At least they don’t live in Toronto where they are talking about a rainfall tax that will be applied to any part of your property that is built on or paved.

      1. I loved Canada as a child, and lived in Toronto among other places.
        Trudeau has done to Canada what Blair and his wrecking crew did to Britain.

  50. I’ve just done something that reminded me of an old joke.
    People use to call my Grandfather spider man.
    I thought it was because he carried out heroic deeds and rescued people from disasters.
    But as i grew up I was disappointed to hear that it was because he couldn’t get out of the bath. on his own
    Which is what I have done to a small helpless creature.

    1. Two elderly ladies in a care home sitting in chairs all day.

      One says i think my bottom has gone to sleep.
      The other one says …Yes, i can hear it snoring.

      1. One of them kept leaning over trying to ‘snore’, thinking she was falling over the carers kept straightening her up. She was so annoyed.

      2. Two old ladies sitting in the sand
        Each one wishing that the other was a man.

        [Lonnie Donegan]

        1. 2 old ladies in the beach sunbathing. A guy with no clothes on walks past. One of the ladies had a stroke – the other couldn’t reach in time

  51. Does one sympathise with Phizzee, suffering these morning, noon and night?

    1. General: Extreme fatigue, exhaustion, palpitations, incoherent speech and difficulty concentrating
    2. Flu-like: Fever, chills, generally feeling unwell
    3. Neurological: Headaches, brain fog
    4. Eyes: Burning, bloodshot, blurred vision, watery, itchy
    5. Nasal: Congestion or runny nose, sneezing
    6. Laryngeal: Dry mouth, sore throat, hoarse voice
    7. Muscle: Muscle tension in the back or neck, muscle weakness or stiffness, sore muscles, heavy legs

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13318143/allergic-orgasm-scientists-seven-post-coital-flu-symptoms.html

    1. Not me. Gave up on sex years ago.

      They have increased my Ramipril and now i have to contend with itchy rashes around my ankles and wrists.

      2. I had an outbreak of itchy red bumps on my hands about a week ago. They were particularly prominent on my right hand on the knuckles, index finger and thumb. I compared them with online images and my best guess is hives. Several things can set it off – although this was the first time I’ve had it – amongst them food intolerances and adverse skin/chemical contacts. I hadn’t eaten anything unusual nor had my hands come into contact with a new product, as far as I know. Just in case, I washed my hands thoroughly in antiseptic soap. They’ve since disappeared as fast as they arrived, so I’ve had to dismiss it as a one-off with no knowledge of how to avoid a repetition.

        As for Ramipril, I’ve been taking a 2.5 mg daily dose to moderate raised blood pressure for several years without the effect you’ve experienced. The trouble is, we don’t all react to new medications in the same way. If you think it’s the Ramipril, there are alternatives which might be more suitable for you. When I was in the Royal Brompton in 2019, my Ramipril medication was switched to Amlodipine – I don’t know why – but when I was recuperating at home, a district nurse tending my surgical wounds noticed I had swollen ankles. It transpired that Amlodipine was causing water retention, so I was switched back to Ramipril and the swelling disappeared.

        1. I probably just need to get used to the higher dose. I had far worse reactions on amlopidine and lercanipidine.

  52. Remember Labour in 1997 ran on the theme “Things can only get better”.

    I suggest they run this year on “Things can’t get any worse”.

    PS Both themes were/are, of course, deceptions.

    1. Given the general level of erudition amongst Labour members they will be singing “Things can’t get no worser”!

  53. A foursome!
    Wordle 1,035 4/6

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

  54. World demands end to missile strikes after Israel attacks Iran
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/#source=refresh

    Arsenal – playing at their home ground, The Emirates, scores an unexpected goal against Tottenham, the side associated with Jewish supporters. Tottenham then strikes back and score two goals. The line judges and the referee then decide that Tottenham is responding too well so they tell Tottenham to take their goalie and their strikers off the field.

    1. Don’t for get the name of the road the ground is in Richard. That’s not a popular part of speech at the moment either.

    2. ‘Line judges’? In football? Rugby has touch judges,

      Linesmen (properly) are now, risibly, called “assistant referees”

      1. I’ve never agreed with the rebranding of linesmen. While it’s tempting to explain it away as an effort to satisfy women officials, I suspect it’s more likely to be an attempt to raise the status of linesmen.

        Another term I dislike – although it was for a new feature of the game rather than a renaming – is technical area. I’d rather it was called something like coaching area, sector or zone.

          1. Box is even better than area, sector, zone and suchlike.

            Cricket commentators refer to field placings as regions and imply that there is more than one boundary by referring to the short boundary or the long one. Both get my goat.

  56. By my mathematical logic, Israel having fired one missile at Iran which fired 360 at Israel, has the right to fire another 359.

    2. Indeed it would. A light to lighten the gentiles, and to be the glory of Thy people Israel.

    1. To be honest I prefer to hear it sung more simply by a normal congregation. These fine choral versions strip the raw pathos and beauty from it in my opinion.

      1. I like to hear it sung and there are some beautiful setting but occasionally it’s good to just say the words.
        The Song of Simeon.
        Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace : according to thy word.
        For mine eyes have seen : thy salvation;
        Which thou hast prepared : before the face of all people;
        To be a light to lighten the Gentiles : and to be the glory of thy people Israel.
        Glory be to the Father, and to the Son : and to the Holy Ghost;
        As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be : world without end. Amen.

        1. I say it to myself when I’m not too tired to do compline at the end of the evening. It’s utterly beautiful and simple and profound and the KJV version is majestic.

      2. I do agree but I am just following the brief -) which was The best setting for the Magnificat and Nunc Demittis.

        I understand the Squire told Op yesterday that he has a background in Choral music and I suppose in Cathedrals whether singing and / or conducting . He menioned to you Byrd, Tallis , Stanford , Noble Howells and Leighton . I chose Howells in Trinity College Cambridge but its prpbably wrong .

        1. I enjoyed singing the Stanford setting of the Jubilate when I was at school This renndition during Covid Lockdoen was excellent::

          https://www.google.com/search?q=stanford+jubilate+in+b+flat&oq=Stanford+Jubilate&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBwgAEAAYgAQyBwgAEAAYgAQyBggBEEUYOTIHCAIQLhiABDIICAMQABgWGB4yCAgEEAAYFhgeMg0IBRAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMg0IBhAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMg0IBxAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMg0ICBAAGIYDGIAEGIoF0gEJMTE5MDVqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:1bb0509d,vid:2OtfdOo_178,st:0

          5. I’ve had to correct a lot. The autocorrect kept changing Howells to Howell for a start. Matins went wrong several times etc etc. I will forgive it as it’s quite a useful feature most of the time, but I can never seem to rid myself of the habit of pressing post without checking! I think about 90% of my posts end up being edited, half of them for the autocorrect. However, as a point of honour I never alter something I meant to say, even if it turns out to be factually incorrect. 🙂

          6. I don’t have the excuse of autocorrect, I’m just clumsy and a very poor typist.

            I try to remember to add “edit for….” when I do alter something,.

          8. Slightly slower tempo than I would have liked, but very nice. The Asian looking girl, top row, 4th from the right, doesn’t know what she’s doing!😂

        2. I remember meeting Kenneth Leighton aged 18 or thereabouts. He was Professor of Music at Edinburgh at the time, I seem to recall. I was staggered by his speaking in a broad Scottish accent…..I had never before met anyone in his social position who spoke anything other than RP.

          2. I do very much love regional accents they are just so very much part of the UK . What I cannot stand is Estuary English that some politicians use due to immigrants finding accents difficult to understand.

      3. Pah! Congregations are there to listen at evensong. They may be allowed one hymn at the end if they sit still for the rest!

          1. Yes that was rather lofty of the Squire, congregations matter just as much, even more then those who play the music

          2. I like evensong at a cathedral where the music is performed correctly by properly trained singers. The congregation benefits as well, since the whole ensemble, music, King James Bible and building combine to create something greater than the sum of its parts. No one can be spiritually uplifted by a quavery old lady or her male equivalent strangling a Parry anthem, accompanied by a wheezy old organ.

      4. P.S I’m sure your church in a rural area sings wonderful choral music in God’s own county 🙂

    2. To be honest I prefer to hear it sung more simply by a normal congregation. These fine choral versions strip the raw pathos and beauty from it in my opinion.

    4. And you are right. Congratulations. Howells St Paul’s service is indeed the best 👏👏👏👏

      1. Thank you Squire, I just wondered what you’d think and thought of Howell St Paul’s service. Great minds and all that 🙂 Good afternoon btw.

  59. The SNP face an electoral calamity. 19 April 2024.

    Another day, another difficult headline for the Scottish nationals. On Thursday, the party’s former chief executive, Peter Murrell, was charged in connection with the embezzlement of funds from the SNP.

    The party’s dominance of Scottish politics is already under greater threat than at any time since Alex Salmond spectacularly won an overall majority in the 2011 Scottish Parliament election. Over the last two months, polls for this year’s Westminster election have on average put the party on just 33 per cent, twelve points down on 2019, and only neck and neck with a revived Labour party.

    This must be thoroughly disheartening if you are a believer in Scottish independence; probably worse even than if you are English and living in the UK. They have believed what these people have told them over many years, voted for them and the betrayal has been total. They have trashed literally everything in Scotland and are now revealed, not only to be liars, but crooks. You could be forgiven for giving up on politics entirely. It no longer delivers anything it promises.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/19/the-snp-face-an-electoral-calamity/

    1. The entire SNP ruling council could be caught red handed in a children’s home abusing young children and 30% of Scots would still vote for them. Depressing doesn’t describe it.

      1. I fear that hostility to England trumps all else when it comes to the voting intentions of a substantial minority of Scotland’s electorate.

    2. I’ve just got my postal vote through for the London Assembly. What a bunch of total and utter jokers and mediocrities.

  60. That’s one job jobbed!
    After yesterday’s matter of the Bungalow, the next property to me down towards Cromford being flooded, I’ve just secured the place, for a 3rd time.
    Doubt if it will stay secure for long, but I have a scarecrow notice up warning that the place is being videoed that might, or might not, put the buggers off!

  61. The Rwanda Bill is a sham. We have no choice but to leave the ECHR. 19 April 2024.

    As I warned when I resigned from the Cabinet, the Bill is legally and operationally flawed. It still allows illegal migrants to make drawn-out individual appeals, fails to carve out Tony Blair’s Human Rights Act sufficiently, and provides inadequate protections against activist injunctions from the Strasbourg Court. The holes in the Bill will mean that the immediate detention and swift removal of recent small boat arrivals will be vanishingly rare, if at all.

    It was and is a scam. It is not intended to work. It is a distraction intended to postpone any real action.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/18/the-rwanda-bill-is-a-sham-we-have-no-choice-but-to-leave-th/

    1. The political capital expended on a bill which will barely dent the number of those irregulars who have arrived on our shores in recent years, and who will continue to do so, is quite extraordinary. It has not demonstrated to the public the determination of this administration to tackle a problem. On the contrary, it has highlighted its utter impotence.

      1. It has also drawn attention to the fact that Sunak is – to tell the truth – determined to keep levels of both legal and illegal immigration as high as possible.

        1. If it were not for the effort being made to get the Rwanda bill through parliament, I would agree with you.

    3. A good article by Robert Jenrick MP, Minty!

      “The ECHR: Time and again, it prevents us from pursuing our vital national interests. “

    1. She must be standing on a platform. The proportions of the man alongside her do not suggest that his height is more than a foot less than hers.

        2. Actually if you check against the background you can see that it is the chap not the girl who has been photoshopped.

          1. Well-spotted. Without the comparison photo, you might be hard-pressed to see the manipulation.

    3. She’s only 3 inches taller than he is, so the difference is entirely down to the photograph.

          1. Gerard Batten’s Gettr post says this:

            Gerard Batten
            @gjb2021

            1h

            This is what mass uncontrolled immigration has reduced Britain to. Being Jewish on the streets of London can, by means of itself alone, mean a likely breach of the peace (by Jew haters) & possible arrest.

            Who said ‘terrorism never wins’? Yes it can, & often has. What is terrorism? ‘The threat or use of intimidation or violence to achieve a political end’.

            Islam was founded & spread on intimidation & violence. Its tactics & strategy never end.

            It contains an embedded image captioned thus:

            Shocking moment Met police officer threatens to arrest man for being ‘quite openly Jewish’ at pro-Palestine march

            It has a link to this report on LBC radio’s website.

            Shocking moment Met police officer threatens to arrest man for being ‘quite openly Jewish’ at pro-Palestine march

            19 April 2024, 00:04 | Updated: 19 April 2024, 07:25

            By Emma Soteriou

            The man – who was wearing a kippah on his head – was trying to cross a road in the Aldwych area of London when he was stopped by police.

            A video shared by Campaign Against Antisemitism from the march last weekend showed the man saying to the officer: “I don’t want to stay here, I want to leave.”

            The officer responded: “In that case sir, when the crowd is gone I will happily escort you out.”

            The man then attempted to walk across the road before being blocked.

            “I don’t want anybody antagonising anybody… and at the moment sir, you are quite openly Jewish. This is a pro-Palestinian march,” one officer said.

            “I am not accusing you of anything but I am worried about the reaction to your presence.”

            He later added: “There’s a unit of people here now. You will be escorted out of this area so you can go about your business, go where you want freely or if you choose to remain here because you are causing a breach of peace, with all these other people, you will be arrested.

            “Your presence here is antagonising a large group of people that we can’t deal with all of them if they attack you… because your presence is antagonising them.”

            The clip also showed an interaction with another officer, who said: “I am trying to make sure you are safe and that no one attacks you or your group or anyone else, that’s all.”

            The Jewish man responded saying: “I’d like that too but your sergeant here has told me that because I’m Jewish, it’s antagonistic to the crowd and it’s dangerous for me.”

            “I’m not saying that,” the second officer said.

            “But he’s just said that,” the man said. “Do you have any idea what it’s like being a Jew in London at the moment?”

            He continued: “Let me tell you, this goes on every Saturday, you probably know it, your colleagues know it. You guys are on the front line. The route changes every single week, you never have any idea where it’s going to be.

            “Because you’re Jewish in London, you now have to cross these huge groups of people. It’s intimidating enough and now look at the number of police that are around her… I’m just a Jew in London trying to cross the road.

            “I’ve been told repeatedly by the Met that these are completely safe for Jews, that I should have nothing to worry about and yet here I find myself in this bubble.

            “This guy has just been shouting at me and shoving me because I want to cross the road.”

            Speaking about his experience later on, the man said he sympathised with frontline officers who are put in “impossible positions” every week.

            Responding to the clip, the Met said: “We are aware of this video and fully acknowledge the worry it has caused, not only to those featured, but also anyone who watches it, and will review the circumstances.

            “We have always said that we recognise the conflict between Israel and Hamas continues to be an issue of concern for many Londoners, and this includes the regular protests and marches in central London.

            “Everyone has the right to travel throughout the capital in safety.

            “We will meet and discuss with anyone who wishes to organise a march or protest ahead of 27 April.”

            It comes after officers were previously filmed telling a Jewish woman that swastikas shown in a pro-Palestine march needed to be “taken in context”.

            Jocelin Weiss told police that she saw the Nazi symbol being displayed on banners during a march through London.

            She was told that displaying a swastika was “not necessarily anti-Semitic” nor “a disruption of public order”. The furious activist asked the police officer in what context a swastika could not be seen as anti-Semitic.

            One officer replied: “I didn’t say it was or it wasn’t.”

            A Met Police Chief Inspector then interrupted and said: “A swastika on its own, I don’t think is…”

            Speaking on LBC’s Nick Ferrari at Breakfast, Ms Weiss said she believed there was a lapse in education and training in the Met police.

            She said the pro-Palestine marches were “out of control”, adding that “you don’t need to be a master of semiotics” to know the meaning of the swastika.

            The American documentary maker told Nick: “I think it’s a lack of literacy. I wasn’t educated in British schools, I live here now, I really do love London, but I don’t know what education there is in regards to literacy on this issue.

            “Clearly there is a gap. There needs to be anti-bias training programmes in regards to anti-Semitism with the Met.

            “There is clearly a lapse in communication and a lapse in this training – whether that comes from the Community Security Trust (CST) I’m not sure but there needs to be a training in this regard because there’s a lack of education.”

            https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/met-police-officer-threatens-arrest-jewish-man-breach-peace-pro-palestine-march/

    2. When did the Silken Kilroy write a notice proclaiming his presence on the walls of the UKIP’s latrines?

      1. 386223+ up ticks,

        Afternoon R,

        Nothing at all wrong with KS, no treachery traits and certainly no cottaging in park public toilets as with the crypt political crap creeper
        the majority voter elected to power, three times, and this latest tosspot who has been at it for years renting rent boys, that is one lab/one tory as for the lib/dems they are ALL queer bastards anyway.

  64. 386223+ up ticks,

    Afternoon G,
    Not mucn leg movement needed then to bring him to heel.

  65. I must admit I know very little about kevball..

    Didn’t Glen Campbell sing a song about a linesman from Wichita?

    2. There are reports that Scotplod were at her house in Duddingston this morning! Well, I say reports – I read it in the Scottish Sun!

        1. Albany is category B sex offenders. You should remember that Sos, after being an inmate there.

          1. The other inmates told me about you having been the one who perjured himself at my trial, which is why I was released on appeal, without a stain on my character.

          3. The other inmates wrongly assumed that you “knew” me, in the biblical sense, so they were too frightened they might catch some filthy disease to approach me in that way.

            It was the reason they felt sorry for me and told me you had lied at the trial.

          4. The only reason i lied at your trial was because you would never pay your Girls a decent wage for all the hours you made them spend on their backs.

  67. Recently sent an item Royal Mail ‘Special Delivery’. System is very informative in that one can check online exactly where it is at any given time.

    On delivery, signature is received and picture taken as proof. Had thought the latter would be a beaming recipient cradling the package like a new-born baby. However it turned out rather more enigmatic as picture shows. My first thought was that the item had perhaps been drop-kicked over a wall, but was assured it was simply handed over.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/30a804237ed2ac3a2a3df4ed80800a6b9ab323c2a82723c8b57d61aae5c5fe90.jpg

    1. I’ve just taken in a delivery from Yodel. Nice young bloke, Eastern European, no humour! Checked the address then wanted a photo. I (naturally) posed – ta da – and he said ‘No face please’!

      1. He was trying to imitate a Scottish accent, what he actually said was:
        “nice ass lass”

      2. All my delivery drivers except for Sainsbury’s are foreign looking/born. I found them to be very polite.

        At least they have come here to work.

    3. My Spec delivery had no picture and a scrawl for a signature. It could have been done by anyone. No confidence that it has actually got to its destination.

  68. The answer to yesterday’s question about the best setting of the Mag and Nunc is:
    1/ Herbert Howells St Paul’s service
    2/ Herbert Howells Collegium Regale service
    3/ tied between Dyson in D and Stanford in G. Dyson selected for the challenging top B flat and Stanford because it requires an exceptional soloist.

    1. Very interesting finalists and winner, a very interesting competition, thank you for putting it up .

      I was going to add Holst but did not which was wise 🙂

    2. I guess that Howells could be regarded as ‘Marmite’ music – you either love it or hate it. This applies to the choir that I sing in – most members, including the musical director, absolutely love it, while two of us can’t stand it. I regret to say that I’m one of those two. When we were singing a piece by Howells I described it to the chap I stand next to as ‘dreary formless non-rhythmical harmonic mush’, and he replied that he could see why I might think that, but he still liked it. That’s the thing about music – liking or loathing is a very personal thing.

  69. The answer to yesterday’s question about the best setting of the Mag and Nunc is:
    1/ Herbert Howells St Paul’s service
    2/ Herbert Howells Collegium Regale service
    3/ tied between Dyson in D and Stanford in G. Dyson selected for the challenging top B and Stanford because it requires an exceptional soloist.

  70. Thought I’d Wordle before viewing. Almost another hole in one.

    Wordle 1,035 2/6

    🟨🟨🟩🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. I feel a bit underperforming here with a miserable birdie!!

      Seems like it was pretty close to a number of people’s start words……

      Wordle 1,035 3/6

      ⬜🟩🟨🟨🟨
      🟨🟩⬜🟨🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

        1. Yes, most of the top used letters are in there – apart from t which is in mine!

  71. New question. Who composed the best setting of the mass?

    NB. This must be of a length that can actually be used in a service so you can all forget about the likes of Bach’s mass in B minor and Beethoven Missa Solemnis.

    PS there is no correct answer here, I’m just interested to see what people like.

    1. @squirewestern:disqus

      Very interesting indeed – Excuse me but you might want to put this post up again here this evening when many more music lovers turn up on Friday evening .

      I hope we’ll have until tomorrow to chose ? I shant be here this evening but I’d not want to hold anyone up.

      The first thoughts –
      Walter Frye’s Missa Flos Regalis
      Byrd’s 3 masses
      Howell’s an English Mass
      Britten Missa Brevis

      Thinking cap on

        1. The Britten is an interesting choice, being for upper voices only. A good work, but not in the same league as, say the Byrd masses, in my opinion.

          3. Our music teacher, Miss Burden, was a character and very popular. When I went on a visit to the school many years after she’d retired and died, I could still feel her presence in the music room.

      3. The Howells mass is ruled out, I’m afraid. It is a concert item, never intended for use in a service,

          1. Sorry, no. It has to be appropriate for a standard one hour Sunday mass. Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei.

        2. It’d be a very good idea if I lose this time Squire. So that’s good

      1. The western wind mass is lovely as is the Byrd 4-part mass, the latter being my favourite of his three settings. Palestrina must get a shout as well – missa aeterna Christi munera? I’d also nominate Schubert mass in G and Mozart missa brevis in F K192.

        I like the photo of Canterbury cathedral on your clip.

  72. Well done those lasses!

    EXCLUSIVE: West Virginia Girls ‘Step-Out’ Of Track & Field Meet To Protest Transgender Competitor
    Dan Zaksheske
    PublishedApril 18, 2024 10:31 PM GMT-4|UpdatedApril 19, 2024 8:03 AM GMT-4

    On Tuesday, a United States Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a West Virginia law that bars biological boys from competing on girls’ sports teams cannot be enforced with regard to a 13-year-old who competes on the girls’ track and field team at the athlete’s middle school.

    “The defendants cannot expect that [this athlete] will countermand her social transition, her medical treatment, and all the work she has done with her schools, teachers, and coaches for nearly half her life by introducing herself to teammates, coaches, and even opponents as a boy,” Judge Toby Heytens wrote in his decision, according to the Associated Press.

    It’s important to note that this ruling does not impact the West Virginia law – it only applies to the individual in this particular case, since the individual began transitioning in third grade, prior to hitting puberty. However, the ruling does potentially pave the way for other, similar cases.

    On Thursday, several girls “stepped out” during a meet to protest the inclusion of the transgender girl at the center of this case.

    https://www.outkick.com/sports/west-virginia-girls-protest-transgender-biological-male-track-field

    1. What’s grade 3 – something like 7 to 8 years old and that person seriously understood the lifelong implications of the sex change mania?

      1. The report speaks of the trans-girl’s social transition, which would ordinarily mean that the transition is superficial – just outward appearance. Nonetheless, by age 13, many youngsters have begun passing through puberty. There is no mention of the trans-girl taking puberty blockers, so “she” might already have begun to acquire the physical advantages that males usually have over females in athletic events.

    2. Apparently the boy won the shot putt, whether any of the girls would have beaten him is unknown.

    3. It’s the only way to stop this nonsense, as sports governing bodies and now courts seem to have lost their commonsense.

    4. What will become of the 5 girls who stepped out? Will they be sent to a re-education camp to have their thinking treated? Might they be barred from all future competitions until they have confessed their irrational hatred of the “girl” – a “girl” just like them?

      1. A question that is not ever addressed is the vast number of women transitioning into Men who want to be allowed to compete in the Men’s weight lifting events at the Olympics. This is causing great unease amongst born-male competitors who have been training all their lives for this competition.

        1. I trust your contribution is a light-hearted one, Richard, as female-to-male transsexuals receive no physical advantage when competing against true males in weight lifting or just about any other sport you can think of.

          9. K. It’s sent by repeaters when they have reset and are ready to receive a message.

          11. Sometimes it’s not so obvious yes, but I like to think that most Nottlers can tell the difference.

    5. My mouse says it’s not fair being expected to move the cursor around as he identifies as a banana and wants to sit in the fruit bowl.

      1. I should be careful about talking about your “mouse”, Sue. Some people use the word as a euphemism … 😘

    1. Both my wife and I had letters marked from the Prime minister this morning.
      It’s some sort of survey with 16 questions. And at the end who are you likely to vote for and perhaps why.
      I think he might be in for a bit of a shock. The way I see they tories have stuff the country with Illegal invaders and increased everyone’s cost of living instead of stopping the boats.
      If labour get they also eff up everything they come into contact with in a more hateful manner towards the majority.
      So ad far as I am concerned I’m going to vote for a change. Reform.
      You are just not paying attention to public opinion Richie.

          1. Why?
            He was appointed, and not by the voters.
            I’m sure there must be other examples, but for me he’s the most egregious example of a PM foisted upon the electorate.
            Even Robert Jenkinson had more experience and validity.

          2. I’m not going to apologise for expecting that the Prime Minister ought to work for us.

          3. He certainly ought to, but he doesn’t. He and the government need a reminder about just who they work for.

  74. S.S. Robert Gray.

    Complement:
    62 (62 dead – no survivors).
    8,600 tons of general war supplies.

    At 03.13 hours on 19th April 1943 the surfaced U-108 (Ralf-Reimar Wolfram) fired a spread of four torpedoes at a Liberty ship and heard two detonations. The U-boat had to dive because the ship fired with guns and fired at 04.43 hours a coup de grâce that missed, but a second coup de grâce at 05.59 hours hit in the stern. The vessel caught fire after ammunition exploded and sank rapidly by the stern about 550 miles south of Cape Farewell. This must have been the Robert Gray (Master Alfred Rasmussen Lyngby), which was reported missing after straggling from convoy HX-234 during the night of 13th – 14th April. All eight officers, 31 crewmen and 23 armed guards (the ship was armed with one 4in, one 3in and eight 20mm guns) were lost.

    Type IXB U-Boat U-108 was sunk on 11th April 1944 in pontoon dock at the U-boat base in Stettin by bombs during US air raid (8th AF). Raised and decommissioned on 17th July 1944.
    Scuttled on 24th April 1945 in the Oder River near Swinemünde. Wreck raised by Soviets in summer 1946 and probably scrapped at Stettin.

      1. It’s five years since he’s done a long drive and it would mean going round Birmingham. I don’t think the coach would have been any easier.

        1. Yes , makes sense .

          A long drive anywhere for me is beyond my energy level now. I used to drive forever , but the standard of driving on the roads from other people is frightening .

    1. “War is when the government tells you who the enemy is.
      Revolution is when you figure it out for yourself”

    2. I defend EVERYTHING that I believe in — against all comers — with all my might.

  78. The latest on the weather after a frightening fore cast of a freeze and lots of snow is…..a heatwave at the end of the month. Experts predictions eh. Best just to let it happen.

      1. Justa few bars of Chopin while I tried to let Helen know our ETA. He doesn’t really play by ear – he needs the music.

  80. A Jewish man near a Palestinian demo in London told by a police sergeant:

    “You are quite openly Jewish, this is a pro-Palestinian march, I’m not accusing you of anything but I’m worried about the reaction to your presence.”

    How long before being “openly” English becomes an offence near a Palestinian sympathiser? It’s not about the law anymore, methinks.

    1. “Do your job copper”. This is aiding the “look what you made me do” violent fanatics.

      This how it rolls Mr Policeman: You do your job. If you can’t do it on your own call for back up. If there’s still a situation, call for more back up. That being the case stop future gatherings. If that is not adhered to more police will be required and so on and so on.

      In this short sighted approach our chatty copper blissfully ignores the problems he or she stores up for later. Seems about right with so many things these days.

      1. Yes indeed. The action preventing a breach of the peace is just one step prior to the actions of arresting someone found committing a breach of the peace. The police have power to do that, instead. They could just as easily go over to the demonstrators and suggest that they go home, since they suspect them of being about to boil over thus causing a breach of the peace.

        It’s only an academic point, but it shows that the police have more than enough power to choose other solutions. What then is the guiding principle they employ every time? Answer: your identity rules. Evidently we have now a multiple tier society that is policed with fear and favour, not without.

        1. All true.
          But, imagine that you are the poor sod on the beat.
          Choice:
          1 Chase off one individual
          2 Try to chase off 100 individuals, get yourself kicked into three weeks next Sunday.
          Which does any policeman, (apart from the masochists) choose?

          Until the politicians state clearly and unambiguously that the police will be supported, however many skulls they crack, it isn’t going to happen.

          1. Hmm… I have some sympathy with the poor sod on the beat; however, if you don’t want to stand out from the crowd, then I’d say the police is probably not the career for you. I’m thinking Gary Cooper here. Every day ought to contain a High Noon if that’s your job, I’d say.

    2. How long before being “openly” English becomes an offence near a Palestinian sympathiser?

      How long before being white anywhere in England…

    3. We are dangerously close to that situation. It’s what the plan seems to have been. They knew our idiots would fall for it. The pro palestinian demos should never have been allowed to take place.

        1. Probably wasn’t even using a rainbow crossing either! Definitely guilty.

          Edit: it’s not funny at all…

        2. Probably wasn’t even using a rainbow crossing either! Definitely guilty.

          Edit: it’s not funny at all…

      1. Yes, I remember that well. As Bob Monkhouse might have said, “They’re not laughing now.”

  81. Pompous Par Four!

    Wordle 1,035 4/6
    ⬜🟨🟨🟨🟨
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    1. Uplifting three here.

      Wordle 1,035 3/6

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  86. Controversial university ‘race researcher’ who wrote that equality between white and non-white people is ‘based on lies’ is dropped by Cambridge college after backlash from students

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13327677/Cambridge-university-race-researcher-equality-lies-dropped-backlash-students.html

    Certain views and research will never, ever, be permitted even though some things are very clear, certainly in physical characteristics.

    According to Varsity, the letter stated: ‘The Committee first considered the meaning of the blog and concluded that it amounted to, or could reasonably be construed as amounting to, a rejection of Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI and EDI) policies.’

    It added: ‘The Committee concluded that the core mission of the College was to achieve educational excellence and that diversity and inclusion were inseparable from that. The ideas promoted by the blog therefore represented a challenge to the College’s core values and mission,’

    It was not the first time his comments had caused outrage, after MailOnline revealed in 2022 that the Faculty of Philosophy knew of a 2019 paper authored by Mr Cofnas in which he argued that people of different ethnicities have different levels of IQ.

    Students at the university have previously launched a petition against the researcher’s continued employment and organised protests following his blog posts.

    1. Everything that is shoved in our faces now, is based on lies.
      It’s a recent occurrence to try and mislead everybody out side political and even fake intellectual circles.
      Some one needs to tell them nobody believes a word they tell us.

      1. Remember the mantra – there is no such thing as the truth, only perception. This means that if you control perceptions you dictate the “truth”.

    2. Mr Cofnas is correct of course. DIE will never produce “educational excellence”. It does however facilitate the real aim of the egalitarian myth. To exert control.

      1. I do quite like the Ocado/M&S range but i’m not an idiot. Though Ocado are beginning to think they are as they are owed millions from M&S.

    2. People who feel they don’t need to budget in any way will just think…ooh scraps…i remember those…and chuck them in their trolley. Supermarkets should be running government departments. Give people what they want at a price they can afford.

          1. 😂. If I remember correctly the repulsive shirtlifter affected to believe that the mushy peas were guacamole.

          2. Yes Squire, apparently when he was out canvassing in his own constituency (Hartlepool ffs!) he went onto a chippy and did his ‘man of the people’ schtick ordering fish and chips – ‘and some of your excellent guacamole’ pointing to the mushy peas.
            The even more funny thing is that he goes apoplectic with rage if anyone so much as mentions the story.

          3. I wonder if anyone has ever thought to offer him “nibbles” of crackers with a mushy pea dip just for the joy of watching the expression on his face when he tries it? I would have 😆🤣

          4. He maintains he never said it and it was a hit job on him from Conservative HQ (cant believe they could be that smart/funny!) but there are other individuals who claim it is true, great story either which way!

        1. Usually your food porn make me salivate, Grizzly. No offence, but that looks rather disgusting, a la school dinners.

          1. I’m a northerner (you may have noticed) but “Yorkshire caviar” is an essential accompaniment to proper fish and chips (i.e. deep-fried in beef tallow).
            Mine tastes nothing whatsoever like that travesty in tins or that muck sold by southern chip shop owners.

          3. Lidl in Sweden don’t sell them. That’s why I make my own, and cure my own bacon, and make my own sausages, and bake my own bread, and crumpets, and oatcakes …

    4. When a boy, after attending the Life Boys in the evenings, we would ask the chip shop for a Penny worth (or Penneth) of ‘scrumps’.

      This sometimes involved a short wait while customers were served first. We were allowed to smother the scrumps with salt and vinegar as well.

      1. I watched this last night and had to laugh when she accused JR-M of jumping on the feminist bandwagon. She jumps on every left-wing woke bandwagon going and you are right, she is incapable of any real thought, never mind deep ones. She reveals this all the time in that she refuses ever to consider anyone else’s point of view. She literally cannot think anywhere except inside a left-wing woke echo-chamber.

      2. Nepo-twat? (great name btw!) Is she related in any way to IOM TT legend Joey Dunlop? If not, who?

          1. Probably not…

            Possibly a distant descendant of John Boyd Dunlop, the pioneer of the pneumatic tyre – and yes, another Scotsman with a massive beard!

      1. GBN tries to get some balance by fielding various leftie wokeists. Unfortunately, some of the women who fill the role seem to be devoid of reasoning or humour and Tessa Dunlop is the prime example, being also devoid of even basic good manners. I am happy to listen to Matthew Laza, Stephen Pound or the guys from Novara Media. I can even cope with Benjamin Butterworth but I reach straight for the remote when Tessa Dunlop appears.

        1. There are a couple more that are, if anything, even more slappable, All pretty, though. GBN seems to have a weakness for absolute bimbos.

          1. There are certainly quite a few whose opinions appear to be based on nothing except identifying with the bien-pensant Remainiac left but on a 1-10 scale of those I’m most likely to put on mute, (with 1 being not at all and 10 being always) TD and Nina Myskow both score 11.

          2. There’s some bint called Narindra (Paki racecard, seriously thick) and another called Amy something or other (blond curtain cut, ditto) both of whom would score in the high 20s on your scale.

          3. I think you’re referring to Narinder Kaur who, I assume is a Sikh. I haven’t seen her for a long time so assumed she became too grim even for GBN’s rent a half-wit collection. As for Amy Nickell, she is laughable in her stock repetition of wokeistry. But at least Amy Nickell isn’t egregiously rude and unpleasant like Dunlop who clearly thinks that having a PhD in Rumanian history means she knows everything and everyone else knows nothing.

        2. But this is good. These people should be brought on and exposed to the sunlight of reasoned debate. They can’t cope with it.

        3. When you say “guys” from Novara Media, you mean the men yeah? Because there was that one woman over there who was rather enthusiastic about October 7th.

    3. JRM: “…discrimination must require action, not a lack of belief…”

      This has parallels with the Michaela school case, where simply not having a prayer room amounts to an act of prejudice.

      1. Exactly, her school is secular which means no-one has a prayer room so it is not prejudice.

      2. This morning I listened to Birbalsingh’s account of that incident in conversation with Peter Boghossian. I found it startling and worthy of serious concern. Coincidentally I have just posted here her description of those events.

    4. What a stupid cow she is. Gives us women a bad name.

      Edit. And what’s wrong with being a pedant on very important matters such as this? It’s the lack of pedantry, the sloppy thinking, that’s got us into the mess we are in.

      1. Quite right. Would a judge be accused of pedantry if he insisted on accurate terminology?

      2. Quite right. Would a judge be accused of pedantry if he insisted on accurate terminology?

      3. ALL Lefties, socialists, communists, totalitarians, and suchlike detritus are COWS.

        And that covers BOTH sexes.

      4. A good point in your edit. Linguistic pedantry in a law maker is surely a good thing? She then is oblivious to her own pedantry in her constant appealing to the dictionary definition, the core of her argument here.

    5. I can’t bring myself to watch or listen to this woman. When I have done so she has struck me as exceptionally arrogant, rude and unpleasant.

      1. She was comically unprepared and started off insulting Rees-Mogg and GB News and it fell flat because she’s facing a reasoned debate and is utterly stuck.

        2. GB News has overburdened itself with low grade air-headed women such as Amy Nickell-Turner, Rebecca Reid, Joanna Jarjue and Tessa Dunlop and men like Benjamin Butterworth and the totally odious Michael Crick.

          1. The only name I recognise is Michael Crick. Thats likely to remain the case as I’ve seen very little of GB News and I’m unlikely to change my viewing habits.

        3. And deeply patronising to the other guest – “I’m twice your age…the likes of you…”.

      2. She is true to form then Ms Sapola. Your description is spot on, without even watching or hearing a word.

    6. I am not a “Non-” anything! Non- suggests, implicitly, an intrinsic negative quality.

      Any idiot referring to me as a “non-feminist” I shall tell them that I am a Masculist.

      Any cretin calling me a “non-smoker” I shall tell them that I am a fresh-air breather.

      And so on …

          4. Sometimes what appears nasty is gentle teasing.
            Many of the Nottlers have had their disagreements in the past and know the trigger points.
            Generally it’s done with a smile.

            I’m the exception; I’m naturally unpleasant§

    7. I am not an advocate for anything. I don’t want special treatment nor do I give anyone else special treatment.

      The problem is, these days such an attitude is considered insane.

    8. Imagine how hellish it would be to live with a woman like this. She is entirely odious.

      1. Tessa Dunlop – this is my first experience of her – I found no worse than mildly disagreeable. “Entirely odious” leaves few words in the OED to describe monstrous women such as Magda Goebbels, who had all her children murdered using cyanide capsules.

  94. A startling first hand account of the intimidatory moves contained within the Religion of Peace. In this section Birbalsingh makes for a reliable witness as she went about her work as an educator. Things quickly got out of hand within the school then from outside including death threats and Klan strength racism towards staff.

    https://youtu.be/3taXF-cjLBc?si=53AwneFy_EdxteG3&t=41m37s

    1. “Educator”? Really, I must pull you up on the use of that ultra Woke term. Plus, it’s just horrid.

      1. I’ve never seen it as a Wokeish word. I thought it was appropriate in Birbalsingh’s case as she is very much an educational facilitator, setting up the school then steering the ship as a non-teaching Head. But I take your point for consideration and thank you for the catch.

        1. They like the word “learners” as well. Instead of teachers and pupils. All part of re-educating us.

      2. Totally agree. I was horrified the other day when a young friend of mine referred to her 8-month-old baby’s carer at the daycentre as her “educator”. Mind you, my friend is Swedish married to a Canadian and living in Montreal so I shouldn’t have been too surprised! I told her it sounded distinctly Stalinist and actually, she agreed!😁

        1. We home-schooled our two boys as we sailed around the Mediterranean until they went to boarding schools for their Sixth Form Studies.

          Both are independent young men. Both have good degrees. Both have good jobs. Both have bought their own properties. Since leaving university they have been fully employed and haven’t asked for any financial support from us.

    2. Birbalsingh’s the Blues
      In bars of twelve or less
      I’m a stranger
      To the land
      To this wilderness

      1. All things are possible
        But happen less and less
        This is my country
        These are my reasons.

        Well, quite 4G.

  95. Fascinating what one can unearth about the insanities of an organisation when one really starts digging, using one’s friends, contacts and the internet. Boy are the Archdeacon and Bishop in for a whole world of pain and don’t know it yet. I’ve turned into a private investigator all of a sudden.

    2. Jim Rockford? The iconic – ‘ Leave your name and message and I’ll get back to you’……..

        1. Reminds me of the (very) old joke where the ancient Wing Commander was addressing the School about his exploits in the Battle of Britain.

          ‘Anyway’ he says ‘We saw these Fokkers at nine o’clock and decided to engage!’

          The class breaks up with sniggers and titters. The teacher jumps in.. ‘Just to let you know, class, that Fokker is the name of a German warplane, isnt that right, Wing Commander?’

          ‘Well yes it is’ he harumphs ‘but these Fokkers were flying Messerschmitts!’…. I’ll get me coat.

      4. I’m visiting my son in Sussex and three flew over his house today Squire. I think they go from Biggin Hill the Beachy Head and back.

    7. Or cannon. How’d you fight off the dinghy’s without armaments? There’s not even hard points.

    1. Love it.
      Our lovely lab use to know how to behave.
      But she did once do a poo right out side a cafe in Loo Cornwall. We did know she could read 😂😆

    2. Mongo and I have been visiting the children’s hospice this morning. It is very difficult for me, especially as you ‘see’ all the faces no longer there.

      When we came home Mongo went outside and sat in a hedge. I know how he feels.

      1. You and Mongo do a good an excellent job in the community.
        I hope that one day your efforts will be recognised with a suitable public service honour.

        Edit for accuracy

        1. I’m just the driver. He does the work. He really is quite something, as he dashes about, wagging that great bruiser of a tale, sitting with people, walking alongside them.

          He’s very good with the old people as well as some are simply sticks and he is careful and slow and always there to support. This is a dog who’s 83kg lean, who’s head is a good metre off the ground and he’ll walk beside a little lady who’s 5′ as she leans on him down the corridor just as he’ll race a little boy in a wheelchair.

          Someone posted a picture of a dog with the caption something like ‘Lo, I send my angels to you in different forms’ and I thought, that’s my boy there.

          1. ‘Lo, I send my angels to you in different forms’ and I thought, that’s my boy there.

            And you’re correct

          3. God said…”I’ll send them without wings so no-one will guess they are angels.”

      2. That’s really hard, man.
        Good on the both of you. Sending hugs to you both; please advise when more needed. Wish I could be more use.

      1. M&S won’t prosecute as the publicity would be so horribly negative it’d do more harm than good.

        Thus do thieves get away with it. Far easier way would be to simply publish their statement on food banks and their donations and end it with ‘there was no need to steal from our employees and customers.’

  102. I’ll be off for the day.now. Good chat’s as usual.
    I’ve been watching Bill Bailey in Western Australia yes
    been having fun. It makes me wonder why we came back to the UK to live. WA is wonderplace.
    And off for a walk in Hertwood forest in the morning. A fairly new plantation, but attached to elderly woodland with millions of blue bells in flower. And into one of the three local pubs for a beer after.
    Good night all. 😴

      1. He needs a haircut but he’s not a bad singer. Not good but not bad. I think due to a calling he’s home now.
        WA is well worth a visit next time your south of the equator.

          1. He lives on a farm near Elt Ville by the rhine not far from where we lived ( Bad Kreuznach) in Germany.

    2. There are still some excellent ones around eg Hook Norton’s Twelve Days and Titanic’s Plum Porter.

        3. Have you tried Dancing Duck’s Dark Drake Oatmeal Stout?
          A meal in a glass!

          2. I’ll look out for it as I like an oatmeal stout. Woods used to do one but the brewery has closed, alas. 🙁

      3. … and Hobson’s Postman’s Knock Porter is very good, as is Fullers London Porter.

    5. In London in the late Sixties, Guinness’s Porter was available in the markets after midnight, Johnny.

    6. On reflection, I’ve had Porter over the years, but I wonder whether the beers that have been presented as such were the same as those described in the clips.
      I used to enjoy mild and bitter, I wonder how many pubs can still produce a pint, drawn by proper beer engines off separate barrels?

    7. Many of the US craft breweries sell something called a porter but the name appears to be given to any strong dark beer that they make and frequently ruined with some weird flavour, just to make the beer sound attractive.

      Ws an example, last month we tried a barrel aged, German chocolate cake porter that they claimed was over 14% proof. It tasted absolutely disgusting, as do most of that type of beer.

    8. I have a very occasional pint, about once or twice a year. I usually prefer a stout when fancying a dark ale, but cask, not Guinness.

  105. Evening, all. Have finally managed to get my veg plot dug, weeded and spuds planted in it (rather than in a potato grow container). These are Saxon. All is set fair for sowing more veg now (peas and more salad veg) over a period of time.

    Who appointed the letter writer to be God? Even God allows us free will. It seems the fascist writing the letter thinks we should have no choice at all. I don’t smoke, but I don’t agree with banning things.

  106. Made a beef & veg pie today!
    First time trying a suet pastry and it came out rather nice!
    It actually started off as a beef stew and then I thought, why not make a pie with it!

    And that’s me off to bed.
    Good night all.

      1. Look up the old Sunderland favourite, puddings in the corner. Basically a suet dumpling on top of mincemeat in thick gravy.

    2. Just made a beef casserole. Cooling down now to overnight in fridge before slow cooking it in the Aga all day tomorrow,

    3. Since becoming a Catholic, I sometimes make a stab at cooking something fishy on a Friday.

      I had some cheap fish pie, which is mostly potato, which I improve. First off I bake it for 20 minutes. I cook some mushrooms in butter, add a little chopped celery, some onion, some mustard, some yoghurt, salt, pepper, mixed herbs and Worcestershire sauce, then add some diced frozen fish fillet from the freezer and some milk, and poach the mix for a few minutes until it’s the consistency of vomit. I then put a layer of mustard on the fish pie, then some veg – last year’s runner beans from the freezer, a bit of cabbage after slicing off the bits that went slimy, but I have finished up last year’s marrow, which went all liquid on me. I then take a straining spoon and take the mix from the saucepan and add a layer on the pie. The liquid then makes a tasty soup as a starter. Finally some grated cheese on top and then bake it for another 20 minutes.

      Tomorrow, it’s back to the shoulder of pork which has has various regenerations over the last week, but I am finally getting to the end of it. I made a stew of it, prepared to the consistency of vomit, for the freezer. I suppose it will do for visitors, if I have any.

      I also managed to get some eggs from the honesty box side of the road half way to the next village. Scrambled and mixed with assorted veg, they can be made to the desired consistency. A bit of pink colouring gives it the appropriate colour, but mushrooms turn it an attractive shade of grey.

  108. 385223+ up ticks,
    en
    @gjb2021

    7h

    This is what mass uncontrolled immigration has reduced Britain to. Being Jewish on the streets of London can, by means of itself alone, mean a likely breach of the peace (by Jew haters) & possible arrest.

    Who said ‘terrorism never wins’? Yes it can, & often has. What is terrorism? ‘The threat or use of intimidation or violence to achieve a political end’.

    Islam was founded & spread on intimidation & violence. Its tactics & strategy never end.

    Shocking moment Met police officer threatens to arrest man for being ‘quite openly Jewish’ at pro-Palestine march – LBC

  109. If Sue Edison is here – good luck for the Save the Parish conference in Bristol tomorrow. One of our churchwardens is attending.

    2. That’s good. Hope it’s well attended. I’m meeting up with a church friend who now lives in Reading. Need to be up early in the morning. Paddington isn’t my favourite station and it’s now necessary to walk miles to get from the tube to the mainline. Will report back on the conference!

      1. We’re very interested how we can get out parish assets back from the Church Commissioners. They’re worth quite a lot.

      2. I noticed the change at Paddington when we were there in 2022, first time since 2019. It was quite different and disconcerting.

  111. I have sampled English wines on tours of vineyards but they’re mainly white wines and very dry or sparkling .

    1. We don’t have warm enough weather to grow red grapes. Now 2000 years ago when the Romans were here they could grow red wine as far north as York but that was before global warming.
      The best you might get in the south maybe a Pinot Noir but Alsace is about as far north as it grows now.

    2. We don’t have warm enough weather to grow red grapes. Now 2000 years ago when the Romans were here they could grow red wine as far north as York but that was before global warming.
      The best you might get in the south maybe a Pinot Noir but Alsace is about as far north as it grows now.

  112. First time from Headcorn in Kent (former RAF Lashenden) over Dover, along the White Cliffs, waved at by people at Capel le Ferne, loop the loop and barrel rolls. Second time from Biggin Hill over the Weald of Kent. Only barrel rolls, no loop (ATC restrictions). It was quite fun listening on the RT to the airport controller telling the waiting aircraft as we were about to take off, “after the Spitfire” 🙂

  113. Look at the way Mohammed claimed to have flown on a “horse” to the temple mount in Jerusalem.
    That was claimed purely to try to undermine Judaism and Christianity, both of which predate the death cult by hundreds of years.

    Islam is founded on lies, lives on lies, and kills on the back of lies.

  114. I know dogs have a remarkable sense of smell but today my dog did something I’ve not seen before. We were walking on a sea estuary when suddenly she dashed off in a completely different direction, stopping between 120 and 130 yards away. (Being a golfer one becomes quite accurate at estimating this sort of distance). She then returned with a dead dogfish – a favourite of hers (but definitely not mine)! To scent it from that distance is quite remarkable I think.

    1. I’ve always been amazed how dogs can be very boisterous with strong fit adults but incredibly careful and gentle, even solicitous, with old people and young children.

        1. We had a borzoi that was incredible like that, likewise my parents had several large lurchers the same, one a large deerhound cross who was quite brilliant with very young children. Both dogs would never react even if toddlers pulled their fur.

          1. I like both cats and dogs, as most Kitty’s do. Cats are very fussy and don’t trust just anyone, they’ll not be fussed about 6ou 3ither

    2. She then returned with a dead dogfish

      A cannibal, now if she had came back with a catfish……

        2. I don’t think JD likes cats – they’re too independent:-)

          3. Audrey & Kitty have blocked you for the weekend for being horrible about cats . Ill unblock you when felines are safe from peril
            It’s been suggested that AA, Peta, Richard etc make sure you are not near them with a sack and rocks – cats know who their enemies are and who they can trust. 🐈 x

    3. She has a fondness for fish maybe ? 🙂 that is a remarkable sense of smell. Labradors are very remarkable dogs . I miss having a dog, always had one as a child and until relatively recently.

  115. Flying horses were quite common long ago – remember Pegasus? I think they were wiped out by global warming.😂

  116. Good night everyone, sweet dreams and don’t let the bed bugs bite 🦠 🙂 xx

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