Tuesday 23 April: London’s Jewish community deserves better from the Met police

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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724 thoughts on “Tuesday 23 April: London’s Jewish community deserves better from the Met police”

  1. Good morning, chums. Happy St. George’s Day.

    Wordle 1,039 X/6

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    Another Wordle failure – 3 in a row.

  2. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) story

    HI-HO SILVER

    The Lone Ranger was ambushed and captured by an Indian war party. The Chief proclaims, ‘So, you are the great Lone Ranger! In honour of the Harvest Festival, you will be executed in three days! But, before I kill you, I will grant you three requests. What is your first request?
    The Lone Ranger responds, ‘I’d like to speak to my horse.’
    The Chief nods and Silver is brought before the Lone Ranger who whispers in Silver’s ear. The great horse gallops away.
    Later that evening, Silver returns with a beautiful blonde woman on his back. As the Chief watches, the blonde enters the Lone Ranger’s tent and spends the night.
    The next morning the Indian Chief admits he’s impressed. ‘You have very fine and loyal horse, but I will still kill you in two days. What is your second request?’
    The Lone Ranger again asks to speak to his horse. Silver is brought to him, and he again whispers in the horse’s ear. As before, Silver takes off across the plains and disappears over the horizon.
    Later that evening, to the Chief’s surprise, Silver again returns, this time with a brunette, even more attractive than the blonde. She enters the Lone Ranger’s tent and spends the night.
    The following morning the Chief is again impressed. ‘You are indeed a man of many talents, but I still kill you tomorrow. ‘What is your last request?’
    The Lone Ranger responds, ‘I’d like to speak to my horse – ALONE.’
    The Chief is curious, but he agrees, and Silver is brought to the Lone Ranger’s tent. Once they’re alone, the Lone Ranger grabs Silver by both ears, looks him square in the eye and says, ‘Listen very carefully, you deaf and dumb heap of s**t, for the last time – BRING POSSE!’

      1. ‘Morning Elsie! We were at your old stomping ground yesterday! Went to Largs for a Nardinis!

  3. Morning, all Y’all.
    Hopefully, about to rain. Need to wash the winter dust away.

    2. Good morning, Bob. I hope things go well with you and your stepson. As for the clip, why am I not surprised?

  7. Endemic misery is pushing the UK towards a civilisational catastrophe. 23 April 2024.

    All this got me wondering whether Britain – a country flailing in the wreckage of its own broken and stubborn dreams – may indeed be in the grips of an epochal mental health epidemic itself. Rishi Sunak’s bid to clamp down on “sick note” Britain is understandable. But it does rather gloss over the possibility that the crisis is all too severe, particularly for the young.

    I don’t know any young people so I am unable to form any personal opinion about their mental health. If they aren’t affected by the massive dystopian propaganda of the MSM they are tougher than I am. Only my age and experience enables me to fend it off. There is obviously a concerted effort to convince the general native population of what can only be described as cultural fabrications of the most unhinged kinds. Men are Women simply being its most obvious invention. Fear itself is propagated at all levels.. Health, Guilt, both personal and historical. Imminent doom from manufactured threats; none of which you can do anything about. Worst of all are the Lies. The sheer inability of the Political Elites to speak the truth heralds the end of all Trust and Faith in the system. Its collapse is inevitable.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/22/endemic-misery-is-pushing-the-uk-towards-a-civilisational-c/

    1. Young people who still buy into the mainstream narrative are going a bit crazy, I think. Many are just opting out though.

    2. The sheer inability of the Political Elites to speak the truth heralds the end of all Trust and Faith in the system. Its collapse is inevitable.

      Wherever I look there are blatantly lying and hypocritical politicians in authority. In the western ‘democracies’ the trend appears, like so many other events, to be in lockstep i.e. politicians deliberately making themselves and the ‘democratic’ process unpopular and worse, apparently unworkable and not worth supporting.

      Is the destruction of trust and hope etc. in the democratic process another facet of the globalist strategy such that their technocratic approach – in reality an autocratic system controlled by the globalists through the use of advanced digital technology – will appear more appealing to the downtrodden masses? It’s clear that the globalists abhor the democratic process and want it destroyed, what better way to do it than employ and control the elected/positioned politicians to do that very thing.

    3. O perilous fyr, that in the bedstraw bredeth!
      O famulier foo, that his servyce bedeth!
      O servant traytour, false hoomly hewe,.
      Lyk to the naddre in bosom …

      (Chaucer: The Merchant’s Tale)

      The enemy within: the fire in the hearth or the mattress, the adder in the bosom, the apple rotted by the worm from within, the Trojan Horse.

      Our traitorous PTB have openly welcomed all our most dangerous enemies into the very heart of our nation.

      1. A belated good morning afternoon to you, Rastus. At first I thought you were quoting some Irish poem about O’Malley, O’Flannigan, etc. Thanks for the translation. Lol.

    1. ‘Morning Feargal! I was looking all over for you yesterday when the old man and I had a pensioners day trip to Largs, for fish and chips and a Nardinis ice cream!

      1. When I lived in Irvine we often went to Largs – the/re is/was a fantastic ice-cream vendor.

          1. It’s amazing it’s still going, if you read some of the pathetic comments on Tripadvisor! People are sooo whiney!

          3. I thought ice creams in Scotland were started by Italian POWs after World War II who liked the country so much that they decided to stay and started up ice cream businesses to earn a living.

          4. You are probably right. I remember in Glasgow from the late 1950s several Italian families – Nardini, Capaldi, Tortolano, Zavarroni (probably a few others too) – either selling ice cream or fish n chips

      2. I’m down in Prestwick, so a bit further away than even a stray cat would venture. Hope you had a fine time. After a slow start, it’s warmer and brighter today.

    2. ‘Morning Feargal! I was looking all over for you yesterday when the old man and I had a pensioners day trip to Largs, for fish and chips and a Nardinis ice cream!

  13. Sunak vows ‘nothing will stand in our way’ on Rwanda flights . 23 April 2024.

    Rishi Sunak vowed this morning that “nothing will stand in our way” of getting Rwanda migrant deportation flights off the ground after his plan was finally given the green light by Parliament.

    The Rwanda Bill is set to become law after a lengthy standoff between the House of Commons and the House of Lords ended just after midnight.

    Mr Sunak, the Prime Minister, said the passage of the Bill represented “not just a step forward but a fundamental change in the global equation on migration”.

    I hear that they are going to pay these people some unheard of sum to get on board the first plane. It will then take off and land in Edinburgh!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/23/rishi-sunak-rwanda-bill-nigel-farage-james-cleverly/

    1. I’m fed up with being gaslighted by the media. It was obvious from the start that ‘Rwanda’ was nothing but a fairytale. Apparently the Rwanda government have disposed of the housing stock that was going to be used to house the ‘refugees’ anyway.
      The media goes along with this nonsense and then they describe the likes of Tommy Robinson as a “self-styled journalist.” I really can’t take them seriously at all. None of them. They’ve squandered huge names like the Times and the Telegraph – I won’t pay a penny for their rubbish now and increasingly I have little patience with people who are still sucking it all up and suspecting nothing.

  14. Good morning, all, and greetings on this cold, wet St George’s Day. I expect that is a hate crime.

    I’ll be reporting fully later.

    1. From GuidoFawkes:

      Good news for Labour supporters: St. George is the patron saint of some Palestinians.

      Bad news for Labour supporters: it’s the Christian ones.

    2. Good morning. Welcome back. I hope you got all that family business sorted out. :@)

    4. A late Good Morning, Uncle Bill and the MR. I went into the city (Colchester not The Smoke) to see a friend for coffee wearing my red rose this morning. No comments or looks from anyone. Nor did I see anyone else, wearing one. Not an even a comment from my friend, perhaps because she is Chinese and wasn’t aware of the day’s significance. But at least we exchanged a lovely hugs – I am a bit of a hugaholic.

      1. Surprised you were not arrested. FAR-right trouble-maker!

        Yikes – edited to avoid writ.

        1. Some people allege that I am far-right, but I have never been called Fat– right. How very dare you, Sir? I shall see you in court – know any good lawyers? Lol.

        2. Some people allege that I am far-right, but I have never been called Fat– right. How very dare you, Sir? I shall see you in court – know any good lawyers? Lol.

  15. Met Police Officer Admits Protest Ban Against Tommy Robinson May Have Been Unlawful

    A top officer of London’s Metropolitan Police admitted at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court that a dispersal order banning activist and self-styled citizen journalist Tommy Robinson from a protest in the city may have been unlawful.

    Tommy Robinson, 40, was arrested on November 26th for allegedly refusing to comply with an order to leave Westminster after the Campaign for Antisemitism reportedly told police that he would not be welcome at a demonstration they were holding in the area at the time, despite Robinson’s long history of supporting Israel and the Jewish people.

    During a hearing on Monday, Met Police Inspector Steve Parker-Phipps told the court that he had made an error on the dispersal order against Robinson, the BBC reports, claiming that due to his laptop battery “dying”, he mistakenly put the date of November 24 on the form rather than November 26th, the day of the protest.

    Robinson’s barrister Alisdair Williamson KC asked the inspector: “This document is not correct, is it?… Can we have any confidence that there was a lawful order in place?”

    “No,” replied Inspector Parker-Phipps.

    For allegedly failing to comply with the dispersal order, Robinson was doused with synthetic pepper spray, handcuffed, and arrested by the police.

    Prosecutor Jonathan Bryan told the court that the activist had become “resistant” following the order to leave the area.

    “Organisers of the protest had made it clear they didn’t want his presence,” Mr Bryan said, adding: “He wouldn’t leave the area.”

    Robinson has denied refusing to comply with the dispersal order and said outside the courthouse on Monday that police body-cam footage, which officers allegedly said had been deleted, would have shown him informing police that he needed to wait for his colleague to bring him his car keys before leaving the area.

    Robinson also asserted on Monday that he was not within the prohibited zone at the time of his arrest and that the police had not taken into consideration his position as an independent journalist when ordering him to leave the area.

    The trial continues…

    1. For allegedly failing to comply with the dispersal order, Robinson was doused with synthetic pepper spray, handcuffed, and arrested by the police.

      If memory serves me correctly Tommy was pepper sprayed after he had been handcuffed! .

      1. And directly in the face, which is against the rules for use of such a device.

    2. Tommy Robinson has worked for Rebel News and also had/has(?) his own news channel, so calling him a “self-styled citizen journalist” sounds like a media establishment desperate not to admit that independent sites are eating their lunch.

      1. Just by being himself he shows them up for the liars they all are. He has clearly suffered persecution from the State Police and ‘they’ have nothing to say on the matter.

      2. His grammar and syntax may not be up to Grizzly’s demanding standards but he certainly strikes a chord with many people – and not just the lumpen proletariat.

        Such men are dangerous, said Caesar of Cassius.

        The MSM and the PTB loathe, despise and fear Tommy Robinson for his rough and ready truth exposes their smarmy lies.

  16. 386357+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Tuesday 23 April: London’s Jewish community deserves better from the Met police

    Surely the WHOLE of the indigenous population of these sorely abused Isles deserve better treatment from the painted up, highly selective, dyslectic,guardians of the unlawful.

    A prime example I would say, as far back as rotherham
    the police neglect of foreign paedophile victims come to light via the JAY report on the sixteen year cover-up,
    leaving the children running the gauntlet,gaining lifelong mental scars, this was in the name of
    peace-keeping policing, “lest we forget” and many WILL as we near another General Election.

    Saint Georges day today, this nation should be sailing into the future under its own well established, well earned via blood losing, national flag, sadly I do believe that is now history, awaiting to be changed.

  19. Got there in the end . . .
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    1. Similar!
      Wordle 1,039 6/6

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    1. My mother in law would have said ‘Aye! She’s fair pittin’ on the beef!’

  22. Taken from yesterday’s Guardian. Article by Ashley Kirk

    UK general election opinion polls tracker: Labour leading as election looms
    UK politics – latest updates
    Mon 22 Apr 2024 10.50 BST

    As 2014 came to a close, it seemed Ed Miliband would be the next prime minister, with the Labour party leading David Cameron’s Conservatives as the general election approached.

    But when the May 2015 results came in, it was Cameron who headed back to Downing Street.

    Miliband’s loss is still fresh in the memory, with Labour strategists nervous that Keir Starmer’s large polling lead could erode as the general election nears.

    While Labour’s lead in voting intention polls is significantly larger than Miliband’s in 2014, there are several underlying data points that explain those anxieties.

    When looking at the feelings the public holds about the main parties, Ipsos polling shows many people view Starmer’s Labour party in a similar – if not worse – light to Miliband’s as they both approached election time.

    The proportion of those polled who said Labour was fit to govern was 31% in April 2024, compared with 41% in September 2014. Only 24% of people now say that Labour has a good team of leaders compared with 31% then, while 39% of people say that Labour understands the problems facing Great Britain, compared with 52% then.

    These numbers show that the public has not changed its mind significantly on Labour. In fact, on all four of the measures analysed by the Guardian, perceptions are more negative than in 2014.

    The big difference between 2024 and 2014? The crash in support for the Conservatives. Only 12% of the public thought the Tories had a good team of leaders in September 2023, compared with 40% in 2014. And 15% thought they were fit to govern in April, compared with 51% then – a drop of 36 points in 10 years.

    Gideon Skinner, the head of political research at Ipsos, said: “In many ways, perceptions of the Labour party’s image under Keir Starmer are not that different to under Ed Miliband – even down on some measures. The main difference now is that perceptions of the Conservative party today are very much worse, so when it comes to making comparisons Labour are well ahead, including, of course, in voting intentions.

    My words: We clearly do not have a democracy when a party is allowed to govern when it is considered unfit to govern by 69% of us. The article itself is worth looking at at the graphs did not copy over to this post.

    Even worse, when we all know that the 31% of the electorate who believe Labour fit to govern will be loss contributors to society in some way. I personally think that if no party in a GE achieves 50% of the vote then a cross-party government must be formed. The threat of that would soon remind the Parties who they represent when they start canvassing – and to stick to the policies the electorate wants.

    By the way, only 15% polled thought the Conservatives Fit to Govern. 24% thought Labour had a competent set of leaders as opposed to the Conservatives on 12%. The national conversation should not be about who will win but how to develop a fit form of governance. Both parties should hand their heads in shame at such results. This is not democracy and these people do not represent the majority of the British electorate.

    1. The other big difference is that a sizeable number of people are now ‘awake’ who were not so in 2015 and 2019.

    2. I agree. Plus we ought to have a “turnout” threshold: if the turnout is lower than 66%, the election is void and no more elections for another year.

      1. We need to do something. We simply cannot have a situation where wildly unpopular, ruinous and even traitorous parties are allowed to govern us for years at a time. This is not democracy. It’s a racket which increasingly bolsters the self-advancement of a small cabal of zealots.

  23. London’s entire community deserves better from the Met. At the moment they are about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

    1. Maybe it’s just that our expectations are unrealistic. Why would the government pay the police if not to do the government’s bidding?

      2. The money we knowingly hand over to the councils covers approx 25% of their expenditure.
        It barely covers their pension liabilities.
        The other 75% that pays for the services we can see or expect comes from central taxation.

    2. Sadly, like Scotland, the majority who can be rrsd to vote – possibly multiple times – are still doing their ‘civic duty’.

  24. Morning all, a quick rambling but bear with me it all makes sense. First, snippet from the very interesting obituary of Terry Anderson, held hostage for 7 years 1985 – 1992 in the Lebanon (prev. known as the Paris of the Middle East IIRC):

    “ He arrived in Lebanon in 1982, as the country was descending into chaos. While there he became a great friend of the British journalist Robert Fisk, living three floors below him in a house on the Beirut seafront.”

    Second, Sherelle Jacobs discusses the young struggling to adapt to a chaotic and competitive world they haven’t been prepared for. Michael Deacon talks about the phony patriotism of Sir Beer and the Leftards who hate this country.

    Finally, this podcast between Katherine Birblesingh and Peter Boghossian. There’s a transcript feature now so you don’t have to listen to these podcasts, you can read them. But amongst other things, she says this fad for “child-centred learning” is ruining children because they don’t inherently know anything and they need to be taught facts, not “anti-racism and “black culture”. And that we are failing children by not teaching them facts. But that it’s mainly the Left which hate her, for teaching small-c conservative values such as self-reliance and doing one’s duty. And not espousing Lefty values, which she should as she is black (according to the Left). Anyway well worth listening to/reading. Katherine is of course the headmistress of the Michaela School which recently won the “Muslim prayer ban” court case.

    https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/conversations-with-peter-boghossian/id1650150225?i=1000652672575

    My point, of course, is that we are well on our way to becoming the Lebanon.

    1. We are certainly experiencing Hard Times at the moment but I am not sure that Dickens wanted his readers to empathise or sympathise with Mr Gradgrind!

      “Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!”

  26. Britain to send record military aid to Kyiv to help Ukraine keep the lights on. 23 April 2024

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/86dec32e0a022e525791bc355a1b81e37452255246c18222c547ec3ecffc173b.png

    Britain is sending a record package of military aid to Ukraine so the country can keep the lights on this year, Rishi Sunak has announced.

    The Prime Minister unveiled £500 million in extra equipment, including air defence missiles, to thwart Russia’s bombardment of power stations.

    He also pledged to donate hundreds of armoured vehicles, 60 boats – including raiding craft – and four million rounds of small-arms ammunition to help Kyiv through a “difficult summer”.

    AS the UK’s Defence Forces diminish into non-existence.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/22/britain-to-send-record-military-aid-to-kyiv-for-winter/

    2. I guess an Indian millionaire knows the value of nothing .

      Whose money is it , and where is it coming from, says I who is taking her newish car to the garage because the roads are so unkempt and so full of holes , poor car has damaged a spring .

    3. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Taking the UK nearer to war with Russia to aid US and EU expansionism.

      1. Putin well understands that the people of the UK, as opposed to the leaders, are generally well disposed towards Russia and despise the Zelensky regime.

        I am sure that much the same applies to the Americans.

        What we witness is utterly misguided and vengeful fools in western governments acting out their childish prejudices against Putin. We have the silliest venal dwarf of a Prime Minister in Sunak, a small man with a small brain who has no right to his position.

    4. Meanwhile the American are sending $60.84 billion to Ukraine. But in the same package absolutely nothing for ordinary Americans who are struggling because of the mess that Biden has made of the economy.

      Joe Rogan STUNNED by a FURIOUS Tucker Carlson on New Ukraine Bill
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-VCYKppAn0&t=1009s

      It’s worth watching this whole thing.

      1. Alex Christoforus on The Duran has suggested that the billions passed by Congress for Ukraine are to close the accounts, the weapons having already been supplied and likely wasted on the battlefield.

        The billions are to enable the MIC to restock the US arsenals and to pay off the corrupt politicians and lobbyists promoting the war in Ukraine. The proof of this theory is that immediately following the vote to pass these packages for Ukraine Zelensky is demanding yet more of everything.

        Anyone with half a brain could see that Project Ukraine was a catastrophic misjudgement by the idiotic and infantile western leaders. The war in Ukraine was lost in the summer of last year and the position of Ukraine is now irrecoverable.

    5. Old, very old, military adage ‘Do not reinforce failure’.

      All the independent reports indicate that Ukraine is done. Recruitment for more fodder for the charnel house is a failure and as experienced personnel numbers diminish, who is going to use these armament donations to good effect?

      Sunak is a bit part actor on the World stage and the sooner he is gone… I should type ‘the better’ but with Starmer in the wings that’s not possible. We’re in deep, deep do-do.

  27. Worth an hour of your time:

    Neil Oliver just shared: “Podcast: Neil Oliver Interviews… William Keyte ”

    On Patreon

  29. Andrew Bridgen’s masterly speech on excess deaths – to almost empty benches

    Kathy Gyngell April 23rd: https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/andrew-bridgens-masterly-speech-on-excess-deaths-to-almost-empty-benches/

    BTLs

    Derek Reynolds

    Reform spurned Andrew Bridgen on his stance on ‘vaccines’, and whilst of all the other alternatives to liblabcon are unlikely to scratch the surface of parliament, Tice has spoilt the ship for a h’aporth of tar.

    The upcoming disaster, is that Labour will see us re-apply for joining the already disabled juggernaut of an EU. How hopeless can it get? We already have the French willingly escorting the new ‘invaders’ across the channel, in cohorts with the Sunak government. In come thousands a week, out go (a work in progress) via Rwanda (a few hundred at best – and the cost!). It’s comparable to painting the Forth Bridge with a toothbrush.

    Percival Wrattstrangler

    If Tice had more than half a brain he would realise that he is going to remain on the wrong side of history for as long as he fails to see the damage that has been caused by the Covid 19 vaccines gene therapy.

    We need the Reform Party. But the Reform Party needs a wiser and more intelligent leader.

    1. Many people were caught up in the hysteria of covid (whatever that is/was) and they lost any ability they might have had to think things through. That a wannabe political leader followed the hype and supported an untried novel treatment for a suspicious novel disease is worrying. A cautionary approach would have been a better look.

      1. Trump is also avoiding mention of the poisonous mRNA jabs. All he has to say is “They lied to me too. I wrote the perfect contract requiring the vaccine to be safe and effective”.

  31. Morning all 🙂😊
    Same old out side and the same old in politics.
    What we need is a night in shining armour.
    Where is St George’s day being celebrated today I wonder ? Errrm answers on a post card.
    Apparently one in eight of labour voters think St George’s day is deliberately designed to be racist…..only one in eight ?
    I’m not sure that it’s just the Jewish communities that deserve better from the (uk) police. The basic concept of our human dignity and public order, is under threat every single time a forgien flag is brandished on our streets. Let alone the masses of angry marchers involved.
    St George is belived to have Turkish, but of course he may have been of the Christian faith. But his representation is supposed to have been as defending the young and fair lady from the ravages of (the dragon) which is supposed to represent Islamic beliefs. But there’s no going back as the Dopey Wokies would like to be taking place.

  32. Good day all, and the 77th,

    Happy St. George’s Day. Skies are clearing well over Castle McPhee, wind still in the North and it’s a cool 6℃ outside rising to 10 or 11℃ later.

    Doc Malik, Ahmad Malik, is a Scottish-Pakistani ex-muslim and also an ex-osteopathic surgeon who woke up during the scamdemic. He freed himself from what he now sees as the tyranny of the pharma/medical establishment and reinvented himself as a podcaster and blogger on Substack. He also has his own website https://docmalik.com. In a very short time he has produced an impressive array of interviews with people who have something to say to all of us.

    Among them is Sasha Latypova, a former pharma and medical device R & D executive, who would rather have been a professional artist. Her own Substack is entitled Due Diligence and Art. Here she is in conversation with Doc Malik about the agenda behind the scamdemic. Strap in for a very disturbing ride as she describes how our governments wish to destroy Western nation states and kill as many of us as possible in the process. No-one is coming to save us, she says, we must do that for ourselves. It may seem daunting but it is far from impossible. Simply do not comply with anything.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fa5ffbb0a3c58d5505dffeb36a26fda56d9af2f3ce49e890156ff6983ecdc038.png

    https://docmalik.substack.com/p/152-sasha-latypova-on-the-covid-19?utm_source=%2Fsearch%2Fsasha%2520latypova&utm_medium=reader2

    A useful updated Summary of Everything and quick links to evidence is on Sasha’s Substack. Here it is:

    https://sashalatypova.substack.com/p/summary-of-everything-and-quick-links

  33. Good day all, and the 77th,

    Happy St. George’s Day. Skies are clearing well over Castle McPhee, wind still in the North and it’s a cool 6℃ outside rising to 10 or 11℃ later.

    Doc Malik, Ahmad Malik, is a Scottish-Pakistani ex-muslim and also an ex-osteopathic surgeon who woke up during the scamdemic. He freed himself from what he now sees as the tyranny of the pharma/medical establishment and reinvented himself as a podcaster and blogger on Substack. He also has his own website https://docmalik.com. In a very short time he has produced an impressive array of interviews with people who have something to say to all of us.

    Among them is Sasha Latypova, a former pharma and medical device R & D executive, who would rather have been a professional artist. Her own Substack is entitled Due Diligence and Art. Here she is in conversation with Doc Malik about the agenda behind the scamdemic. Strap in for a very disturbing ride as she describes how our governments wish to destroy Western nation states and kill as many of us as possible in the process. No-one is coming to save us, she says, we must do that for ourselves. It may seem daunting but it is far from impossible. Simply do not comply with anything.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fa5ffbb0a3c58d5505dffeb36a26fda56d9af2f3ce49e890156ff6983ecdc038.png

    https://docmalik.substack.com/p/152-sasha-latypova-on-the-covid-19?utm_source=%2Fsearch%2Fsasha%2520latypova&utm_medium=reader2

    A useful updated Summary of Everything and quick links to evidence is on Sasha’s Substack. Here it is:

    https://sashalatypova.substack.com/p/summary-of-everything-and-quick-links

  34. Tice is doing exactly what he’s supposed to do – soaking up disgruntled Tories whilst not really rocking the boat at all.
    Fox is also playing his role nicely – never forget that he’s an actor, and his current role is loveable, crazy amateur politician.

    If they’re in the media, they’re controlled opposition. How often do you hear about UKIP or the Heritage Party or the Social Democrats?

  35. I really admire that chap he’s nailed it.
    We have some burty men repairing pot holes in our road. I was talking to one yesterday and he told me that he had a bad reaction to the covid jabs and he knows others who have been laid up.
    BTW we have to pay for the pot hole repairs, it’s a private road. But they do a very nice job.

  37. 386357+ up ticks,

    Morning R,

    The brexit / reform party has been a roaring failure from the start its only
    success was in vote splitting and taking down a successfully building party that had ALL the ingredients of being a winner.

    This reform has the farage taint in its make-up.

  39. 386357+ up ticks,

    May one ask,

    Do the french / english political overseers share the
    proceeds from the MURDER INC. channel crossing campaign.

    Maybe after the coming General Election, england, via the polling stations, will be in a position to open up another landing beach-head to support dover.

    Five migrants die crossing Channel
    Child reportedly among dead after small boats get into trouble leaving French coast for England

  43. Good morning from the Anglo Saxons Kingdom of Mercia, Audrey and I .
    Happy St Georges Day .

  44. 386357+ up ticks,

    There’s a question that should be seriously considered,
    ” How many indigenous died on foreign beaches as in Normandy plus, 6th june 1944, for the protection of homeland beaches” “Lest we forget”

    Five migrants die crossing Channel.

  46. Being a bit of an Eng.Lit. nerd, I found this article interesting.
    It is long.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/shylock-and-the-nazis-the-truth-about-shakespeares-most-infamous-character/

    “Shylock and the Nazis: the truth about Shakespeare’s most infamous character

    23 April 2024, 5:30am

    None of William Shakespeare’s characters are more controversial than Shylock. The moneylender from The Merchant of Venice may be the most famous Jew in Western culture other than Jesus. But what kind of Jew is he? Is he a collage of stereotypes who has been useful to antisemites, including the Nazis? Or does he represent the Jew as cruelly vilified, a tragic victim of persecution?

    Shakespeare, who was born 460 years ago today, could never have envisaged the way in which the events of the 20th century would change the way we look at Shylock. Yet it’s impossible now to watch The Merchant of Venice without thinking of the Holocaust. To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric, Theodor Adorno wrote. Auschwitz has also changed the way in which we think about Shylock.

    The Nazis saw Shylock as a useful tool of propaganda

    There’s no doubt that the Nazis saw Shylock as a useful tool of propaganda. In 1933, there were more than a dozen productions of the play; another 30 followed over the next five or so years. In 1938, shortly after Kristallnacht, the play was aired over German radio. In 1943, when the Nazis declared Vienna ‘Judenrein’ (free of Jews), the renowned Burgtheater celebrated with a performance of The Merchant of Venice. Shylock was played by Werner Krauss, who had also performed in the notorious Nazi propaganda film Jud Süss (1940). A Viennese newspaper critic described Krauss’s appearance as such:

    ‘With a crash and a weird train of shadows, something revoltingly alien and startlingly repulsive crawled across the stage. . . . The pale pink face, surrounded by bright red hair and beard, with its unsteady, cunning little eyes; the greasy caftan with the yellow prayer shawl slung round; the splay-footed, shuffling walk; the foot stamping with rage; the claw-like gestures with the hands; the voice, now bawling, now muttering—all add up to a pathological image of the East European Jewish type, expressing all its inner and outer uncleanliness, emphasising danger through humour.‘

    The theatre critic Siegfried Melchinger saw the play and made the connection clear: ‘Behind the Jew we can see the wicked man of the fairy tale, the unearthly man-eater, the bogey man, who, just like the witch, will finally have to be shoved into the oven.’

    But such foul depictions did not start in Germany in the years during Hitler’s rise to power. Even in the early performances of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Richard Burbage portrayed Shylock as grotesque, wearing a red wig to associate him with the devil. The emphasis on his Jewishness as the reason for his financial exploitation arose during the debate in England over the Jewish Naturalisation Bill of 1753, at a time when the actor Charles Macklin deliberately chose to dress in Jewish costumes in his performances of the character in Drury Lane. Humanising Shylock only began with two great Shakespearean actors of the 19th century, Edmund Kean, who brought dignity to Shylock, and Henry Irving, whose tragic Shylock was an austere, dignified patriarch of the chosen people, seeking vengeance only because he had been abused.

    English actor Edmund Kean was one of the first to humanise Shylock (Credit: Getty Images)

    Actors may have started to humanise Shylock, but it was Christian theology that Shakespeare used to shape the plot of the play. A villainous Shylock more concerned about his money than humanity drew from Judas’s betrayal of Jesus for silver. In the play, the character of Portia, proclaiming the virtues of Christian mercy against Jewish pedantry, ultimately used a legalistic argument (‘shed thou no blood’) to defeat Shylock, deprive him of the ‘pound of flesh’ he demanded and and punish him without mercy. Through this, Shakespeare was using, but also challenging, Christian stereotypes.

    Gotthold Lessing, a leading intellectual of the German Enlightenment known for his philosemitism, wrote the play Nathan the Wise in 1779 as a retort to the antisemitic image of Shylock. Modelled on Lessing’s good friend, the Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn from Berlin, Nathan combines compassion, forgiveness, and generosity with nobility and a powerful intellect. He is not shrewd, like Shylock, but wise. Yet at the end, neither Shylock nor Nathan is left with children who remain Jewish; bad or good, the Jew has no future.

    Despite its reputation as antisemitic, the Victorian novelist Maria Edgworth used The Merchant of Venice in her work to overcome negative stereotypes of Jews. In her popular 1817 novel, Harrington, the protagonist attends a London production of The Merchant of Venice where he sees a beautiful woman in a neighbouring box shedding tears as she watches tragedy befall Shylock. His dislike of Jews, instilled in him from childhood, is transformed and he falls in love with the woman, a ‘Jewess’.

    In Yiddish productions, Shylock’s fate was tragic, sometimes mitigated by having Jessica return to her father. After the Holocaust, the ‘pound of flesh’ took on new meaning. The great Yiddish actor Maurice Schwartz changed the courtroom scene: Shylock was awarded his bond and raised his knife to carve a pound of flesh from Antonio – then paused, silent, and dropped the knife, calling out, ‘Ikh ken nit, ikh bin a yid.’ Jews don’t kill. The Jewish audience of Holocaust survivors wept.

    A sympathetic Shylock was also depicted in productions in apartheid South Africa that identified Black Africans with Shylock’s fate. Blacks were persecuted and vilified, their land and culture stolen from them, just as Shylock was dehumanised and left destitute.

    A very different reading of the character arose in China, where The Merchant of Venice remains popular and available in several translations. Under Mao and the cultural revolution, the play presented Shylock as a feudal usurer and Antonio as a despicable rising capitalist. More recently, as economic policies shifted, Chinese productions have shown sympathy for the racial and religious oppression Shylock suffered and approval for his capitalist efforts.

    The Jewish audience of Holocaust survivors wept

    Arab rage over Zionism most dramatically politicised the play. An Arabic translation was first performed in Cairo in 1922, focusing on the monetary rather than religious elements and omitting Shylock’s forced conversion to Christianity. Instead, his usury was equated with Zionism: the demand for a pound of flesh symbolised the Zionist appropriation of Palestine, leaving Arabs to identify with Antonio as victims of the Jews. A 1945 Arabic revision of the play, The New Shylock, portrayed him as a bloodthirsty member of a network of Jews purchasing Arab land as their pound of flesh. The trial scene was a debate over the Balfour Declaration, with Shylock demanding a pound of flesh from Britain.

    The Merchant of Venice was the first play staged in Hebrew at Tel Aviv’s Habimah Theatre in 1936, during the early weeks of the Great Arab Revolt. To derogatory cries of ‘Hep-Hep’ Shylock appeared wearing a yellow badge. He was portrayed as a heroic symbol for Jewish perseverance despite persecution, and his victimisation as a rationale for Zionism.

    For the Israeli Left, though, Shylock could also represent defeated Arabs. In a famous scene in the 1986 Israeli film Avanti Popolo, set during the 1967 war, Israeli soldiers in the Sinai desert come across two stranded Egyptian soldiers, begging for water. One of the Egyptian soldiers, an actor in civilian life, falls on his knees and recites Shylock’s famous speech, ‘I am a Jew! Hath not a Jew eyes?’ to which the Israeli soldier responds, ‘He’s got his roles confused.’ Both Egyptian and Israeli soldiers, the film argues, are stranded and are at the mercy of politicians.

    How does a play inspire both antisemitism and its repudiation? Is Shylock cruel because he is a Jew or do Christian mockery and scorn incite him? Alexander Granach, a great German-Jewish Shakespearean actor of the 1920s and 30s, embraced Shylock as the essence of ‘spiritual strength and great loneliness’. Karin Coonrod’s 2016 production held in the Venice ghetto had six actors portraying a multifaceted Shylock.

    The play has been read both as an indictment of Jews and as a critique of Christian society’s cruelty toward them. Shakespeare’s brilliance is his demand that we refuse binary categories and resist reductions of the play to a narrative of oppressor and victim. Although Shylock’s great speech (‘Hath not a Jew eyes’) concerns Jewish bodies, the play focuses on his inner life: his response to being spat, spurned, and cursed by Christian society, and demands our attention to its moral cost to that society. The enigma of Shylock – as stereotype or victim – will continue to endure, hundreds of years after its author died.”

    1. Thanks Anne, that is worthwhile article to read. Quite amazing how many transformations Shylock has gone through according to who was putting on the play. !

      1. I was 13 when we studied the MoV.
        Even at that self-centred age, I felt extremely sorry for Shylock. So lonely and even betrayed by his daughter.

    2. Although I’m about as far as is possible to be from an Eng.Lit. nerd, that was very interesting indeed. Two things come out for me: firstly the extent to which different people or groups of people project their own preconceptions on to the drama in their reading of it, and secondly the potential for dramatic representations to influence the attitudes, actions, and behaviours of people towards others who are similar to the characters portrayed in the drama.

    3. I had the great fortune to see a performance of it in Chichester in the 1980s, with Sir Alec Guinness playing Shylock. I saw it more as an examination of human nature, rather than an invective against Jews. There is a bit of the Shylock in all of us, and often there has to be a working response to greed and malice that is not itself malicious.

  48. I’ve just seen a clip on the bbc news about terrible erosion in Brazil. And houses collapsing into a huge newly formed gully. Water pouring through it.
    Although the bbc mentioned the well known fact that millions of trees have been hacked down. Mainly to support and further corporate greed. They were more focused on ‘climate change’. When it’s perfectly obvious the trees use to soak up the rain and the roots held the substructure together and in its place for thousands of years.

    1. The same thing has happened in Thailand and Burma. The great teak forests in the hills have been ruthlessly destroyed and the result is that million of tons of earth are collapsing as huge areas are ruined because of the lack of trees and vegetation. on a yearly basis the land continues to erode into desert, as the rain water, without a means to hold it, is going straight out to sea. It is effecting the great rice growing areas in the lowlands, as without the fresh water, salt water from the sea encroaches on ancient farm lands that have been fertile for centuries. Already thousands of acres of land have been rendered unusable because of this process. For the short term gain of lucrative profits from teak trees, sold mainly to the Chinese, Burma and Thailand are destroying their patrimony inevitably impoverishing themselves for the foreseeable future.

        1. Which brings to mind. I wonder how the famous Ceders of Lebanon are doing?

      2. Exactly so.
        And they don’t seem to realise why the levels of the oceans have been rising either.
        Or maybe they do but don’t like to admit it’s caused by human greed.

      1. Indeed – Horus slaying a crocodile. Christian iconography simply adopted (or adapted) pre-christian imagery.

        1. Several religions have their Flood myth.

          “The Gilgamesh flood myth is a flood myth in the Epic of Gilgamesh. It is one of three Mesopotamian Flood Myths alongside the one including in the Eridu Genesis, and an episode from the Atra-Hasis Epic. Many scholars believe that the flood myth was added to Tablet XI in the “standard version” of the Gilgamesh Epic by an editor who used the flood story from the Epic of Atra-Hasis. A short reference to the flood myth is also present in the much older Sumerian Gilgamesh poems, from which the later Babylonian versions drew much of their inspiration and subject matter.”

  50. Well – we went to Malta for the week. A cold and very windy Malta! No chance of swimming – or even paddling. Extraordinary place – a cross between the early 20th century – tiny shops alongside on narrow streets next to 21st century blocks of brand new flats (2 bedroom = €1½ million). Totally mad driving on very congested roads….thank goodness we did NOT rent a car!! Very efficient bars and restaurants – friendly, accessible and delightful staff. We ate out three nights – because we had a self-catering flat and the MR adores shopping for food when abroad). For her birthday – we went back to the first one – and had a splendid meal and reception. Very good local wines. And beer.

    We went there to study the prehistoric temples – and went twice to the exceptionally well laid out Museum of Archaeology. The temples are extraordinary. We were mesmerised by them. My best bit was overhearing a visitor say, “Well, it’s joost a lot of stones…”!!

    We eschewed hired cabs – BOLT is the new fave Maltese one and used public transport – buses and ferries. Mainly very good though on our outing to the furthest temple complex, the once an hour bus was half an hour late…Phlegmatism seems inbred in the locals!

    Apart from the general feeling of welcome – two things stuck out. Rubbish is collected every weekday; and streets are cleaned over night – so that the sort of appalling, endless, filthy litter that is universal in the UK is unknown. The other thing was – for six of the days – a TOTAL absence of cats. Knowing that the Maltese “delicacy” is rabbit….I did wonder. Then in the middle of nowhere we observed a well-fed feral ginger cat. And on our last day half a dozen in Valletta.

    Malta is helped by the glorious colour of the local stone – the view from Sliema (where we stayed) to Floriana – outstanding. We got used to a lot of walking up and down steep hills in the towns.

    Worth a trip – especially if you can go when the weather is warm….

    No photographs. The MR made a policy decision not to take any.

    1. The driving may seem mad but they don’t have many accidents.
      Cats don’t like rain as you well know.
      I kept your secret. :@)

    2. It all sounds wonderful, lovely memories (except just the slight drawback of the weather). I often wonder at the people who take lots of photographs are perhaps not really seeing, nor experiencing…). Your comment regarding the “joost a lot of stones…!” made me smile – I made exactly the same comment about Stonehenge yesterday, that it was just a pile of stones which no-one really knows anything about (plenty of guesses though) except that the stones came from Wales…. It is the first time I have taken that attitude towards SH, I must be getting old. Sorry to be such a philistine.

      1. I first heard that just a lot of stones remark back in the mid 70s and from a head of department at Ravensbourne College of Art, with respect to the ruins of Carthage which she’d visited and not had the creative imagination to appreciate.

      2. Some years back, a couple of friends took their then 15 year old daughter to see the Grand Canyon.
        Several hours of driving were involved.
        Daughter’s reactions was a grumpy “So what. It’s just a hole in the ground.”
        Amazingly, she survived and has recently presented her parents with a couple of grandchildren.

        1. Visited the Grand Canyon parking lot. Terrified of hights, can’t cope with videos, let alone the real thing. I stayed in the car until everyone returned.

          1. MB and I have only seen it on film.
            We both agree that the car park looks like a good viewing place.

        2. I know….. I recall our younger son grumbling, at about the same age, when we were taking an aged relly out on a day’s trip from her residential home in Ilkley, around Wharfedale “once you’ve seen scenery, you’ve seen it!” The same lad travelled with us in the car down to the south of France with a white plant-pot style sunhat with a brim over his face and top of his head with earpods stuck in his ears. The romance of foreign travel….? Pah!!

    3. So you didn’t have your phones out recording everything the whole time??
      It sounds lovely and very interesting.

      1. We were among the very, very few who didn’t. Indeed, outside one shop, some f*ckwit had left his mobile on a bench. An expensive error…

          1. Went there just the once. OK but it was very windy. Tiffany’s and Giorgio’s were more sheltered.

          2. I find the general standard and choice of food is brilliant. You can pretty much go anywhere and get a decent meal.

  51. We all deserve better policing – but we will not get it with the malevolent, lunatic woke globalist establishment we have. Policing is now thoroughly politicised and wholly captured by woke left wing sociology types who swallow unthinkingly the the whole woke cult’s insane orthodoxy, from the idiocy that crime is society’s fault and criminals are victims, to the utter lunacy of DIE, diversity, inclusion and equity, and even the barking mad critical race theory rubbish.

    Nothing will change until we take action to stop it the top down woke, globalist cultural revolution that is driving all this, starting with never, ever, voting for one of the woke globalist DIE parties of Labour, Tory, Libdem and Green.

  52. “Five migrants die crossing Channel” According to the Telegraph. Somehow I feel a very un-Christian indifference to this news. But I did find this article to be interesting.
    “Endemic misery is pushing the UK towards a civilisational catastrophe
    The young are struggling to adapt to a chaotic and competitive world they haven’t been prepared for.” By Sherelle Jacobs. She does seem to publish some thoughtful pieces. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/22/endemic-misery-is-pushing-the-uk-towards-a-civilisational-c/

    1. I like Sherelle Jacobs and she is very thoughtful, but I think she is starting to over-think things. She is dead right though, that many of the young are not equipped through their education these days to deal with either competition or adversity.

  53. While on holiday I avoided all news as far as possible. However, I see that the distinguished Scottish campervanista has been arrested. For how long will he be under suspicion, I wonder….?

    And that Kneejerk Fishi was appalled at the treatment of the Jewish chap at the hands of the Muslipolitan police – but thinks that it chief is doing a great job.

    Did I miss much else?

    2. Hi Bill! Nice to see you back. As for missing anything. Nothing much has happened in the news. Although the Jewish guy that got Tommy Robinson arrested and pepper sprayed for wanting to attend a pro-Israel rally, almost got arrested himself for looking overtly Jewish. Karma is a bitch. As they say.

      1. ‘Arrested for being Jewish’. Where have we seen that before?

        The muslim horde should have been forced to their knees by plod. This is only going to end one way.

        1. What it tells me is that the police have no spine and do not deserve respect. They should lay into those breaking the law but instead, they go for the innocent going about their legal business.

          The reality is that the Jewish guy should have backed Tommy Robinson who really means it when he wants to back Israel. The establishment, weather it be politicians or police, are simply mouthing what is of advantage to them so that they can continue in their cowardly way not confronting the real problem, Islam. We all know that Tommy Robinson is a scapegoat because it is convenient for the liars and do nothings that “rule” us.

      2. I hadn’t realised that it was he who got Tommy Robinson arrested, though I do remember that he was told he wasn’t welcome at a pro-Israeli rally. As you say, Karma. Although the police were out of order, especially in what they said to him, and any law-abiding citizen should be free to walk around London, there is little doubt in my mind that in fact he was being provocative in trying to cross the street through a pro-Palestinian rally while wearing a yarmulke.

  54. ‘Morning All

    Topical medley

    https://twitter.com/dvatw/status/1782657942371639573?s=46&t=vKlFhsxSFVUgpulHwoj79g

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/621fd7d1ca527eecb906dddefde74e6bb28583a9f9f00a1919dc6607cd9928b0.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8db84a7d49028b5f6948eec7ae17a9ebedbbb30c7809c73faafa262fb769a46a.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c9dd2e662cab76bd3659035cab06d90e334748e8edbc63bc8bb1ebc70726256a.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ee12ae0fda0922999f85f26b16d7ff5f96ef9f2bc9cee5aa816afdf59c6408be.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b295d72d2a96751fb3cd2e220b89a408bd12edbbae1c691d7f4acae8401585aa.jpg

    1. Reported to the Muslipolitan Police as hate crime (and incitement to hate slammers).

      1. Sadly, we already have plod forcing culturally (just not ours) acceptable behaviour.

        It is funny how few people seem to realise what they’re giving away. You ask them if free speech gives you the right to offend. They say no, that’s wrong. Wrong, maybe, but should it be illegal? Yes, they say – and so liberty dies.

        1. The problem for those who prefer liberty and freedom is that they are now outnumbered. The majority want the lives of others to be proscribed.

          1. Those who are willing to give up freedom for safety end up with neither freedom nor safety.

      1. A Liberty bodice would be cosier.
        Especially worn with lisle stockings held up by rubber buttons.
        (Oh look, Uncle Bill’s gone a funny colour.)

    3. A long time ago the Warqueen did a photoshoot in that same pose – St George’s flag in a bikini. She still has the bikini.

      1. Thank you Delboy.
        We had our open morning on Saturday. 40 turned up and 36 signed up for more coaching. If all join it would swell our membership by about one third. Unbelievable but it was a bright and sunny day. 9-45 ‘til 1 pm.

    3. Good news, Alf. I’m glad you’ve not been blocked. I hope you draw comfort from the decision.

  56. Russia warns Europe: if you take our assets, we have a response that will hurt. 23 April 2024.

    Putin says the West unleashed what he casts as an economic war against Russia but has touted both the resilience of the Russian economy, which grew 3.6% last year, and the failure of sanctions of stop Russian trade.

    The Kremlin has repeatedly said that any seizure of its assets would go against all the principles of free markets which the West proclaims and that it would undermine confidence in the U.S. dollar and euro while deterring global investment and undermining confidence in Western central banks.

    All perfectly true of course.

    https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-warns-europe-if-you-take-our-assets-we-have-response-that-will-hurt-2024-04-23/

    1. Next up – alcohol duty to hike 50%. A few years later – alcohol rationed, you can only buy it if you’re over 30, then 35, then 50.

      In the meanwhile there will be a tax on sugar, then meat, then rationing of same.

      The state pushes a long game of banning, authoritarianism, oppression until we’re down to Soylent Green. Of course, this is all part of the hoax of ‘climate change’ and the tax scam lie of net zero.

      1. Why does the state pretend to want to protect our health when they want to kill us with poison jabs and euthanasia’s assisted dying schemes as soon as possible when we are no longer economically productive?

        I can only conclude that they don’t just want to kill us – they want to keep us as miserable as possible until we do die!

      2. 386357+ up ticks.

        Afternoon W,
        🎵,
        At the foot of the hill was a neat little still where the smoke curled up to the sky…..

    2. “What is the reason for the excess death rate?”

      “Well, we don’t actually know. But it has nothing to do with the Covid jab. Absolutely not, no way”.

      Well that’s me convinced then.

      1. This chart plots alcohol-related deaths to the end of 2021. It shows that the sharpest rise was in 2020, the year before Covid-19 mRNA vaccines were administered.

        https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/12/08/15/65382833-11517271-image-m-45_1670513872714.jpg

        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11517271/Covids-hangover-Record-number-Brits-died-alcohol-specific-causes-year.html

        As for 2022, The Times reports a slight increase on 2021, therefore 2020 will tell us more about the three-year increase than the two which followed.

        It marks a slight increase from the 1,245 cases in 2021, but a 25 per cent rise from pre-pandemic figures in 2019 when 1,020 people died. The latest figures show that 836 men and 440 women died as a result of alcohol.

        https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/alcohol-related-deaths-rise-25-percent-in-five-years-zftmj8k5g#:~:text=It%20marks%20a%20slight%20increase,as%20a%20result%20of%20alcohol.

    3. People have been getting pissed for at least 8000 years. Wine is the oldest alcoholic drink and goes back to at least 6000 BC. So now I can’t recall…what happened three years ago…mmm…errr?

  59. Sunak thinks Rwanda plan is going to succeed and get him the election. He doesn’t get it. He just doesn’t seem to understand. It’s not about Rwanda, it’s about stopping the boats. Stopping the invasion. About stopping the invasion of this country.

    The boats will not stop. The invasion will continue.

    1. How many does Sunak expect to send to Rwanda for processing when 500 are landing every day?

      Just because they are sent to Rwanda doesn’t mean their asylum claims won’t be accepted.

    2. It’s not the boats that need stopping, it’s the constant flow of non-indigenous people by whatever means. The boats are merely a means to an end.

  60. One pleasing thing about Malta was that there were very few slammers. And only one mosque in the whole island… There were little enclaves with halal butchers etc. But they were not conspicuous as they are in Blighty.

    3. Valetta was infested with smelly Libyan soldiers on the one occasion I visited Malta in the late seventies, the era of Dom Mintoff.

      Wonderful architecture and I found a bookseller in Valetta from whom I purchased several books by Quentin Hughes including The Building of Malta published by Alec Tiranti.

      Tiranti had a bookshop on Charlotte Street specialising in books on Architecture. Quentin Hughes had been Professor of Architecture at Liverpool University prior to taking the seat at Malta. Hughes produced scholarly books on the fortifications on Malta.

      The massive domed church in Mosta and the lovely town of Mdina (we bought the glass vases) were memorable.

          1. Good for lolling around on all day. Though very hot outside the Palazzo was cool. There was also an interior fish pond. How the other half live !

          1. I make friends easily because i am a nice person.

            I was renting one of his apartments in St Ursula overlooking the Grand Harbour. Not one of those cheap Sliema squats with the lower classes.

          2. We were very pleased that we chose Sliema over Valletta. Much jollier – especially in the evenings

      2. I fear you would not recognise Valletta now (apart from the obvious ramparts etc). We went to Mdina/Rabat and to Mosta. Quite outstanding.

  61. Good Morning All.
    A rather pleasant morning here in Wiltshire.
    I just returned from a wonderful massage session so muscles released and I can get around more quickly. The Fidget pup had better take notice 🙂

      1. When Micheal is here Fidget is all over him like a rash – she is a total tart and loves men.

  63. The idiots in control at Trinity College Cambridge has returned four spears to the Aboriginal community at La Perouse, in Sydney. They were taken from the natives when Capt Cook first encountered the warlike tribe. Safety first!

    Should come in handy if they want to kill some more illegal immigrants (The Brits). There’s fousands of ’em in Sydney.

    2. Well they would, wouldn’t they (with acknowledgement to MRD). Most persecuted minorities don’t have the courage and steadfastness of which martyrs are made.

  65. 386357+ up ticks,

    This is from a politico WEF asset twat who rhetorically & actionably calls “welcome” to all daily invaders, do come ashore and wipe your feet ALL over england.

    Sunak says Europe must spend more on defence

    2. WHO are as trustworthy as a rattlesnake with migraine.
      They will use weasel words to lock down the world as soon as Xi Pingpong sneezes and nods his head.

    3. Just remember that the UN Charter on Migration, which Treason May had signed on our behalf in December 2018, was also non-binding. Look where we are now.

      1. As I have said here many times – people are not fully aware of the fact that Theresas May is an extremely evil woman.

  67. And given that the persecutors are fanatical typical Muslims you can guarantee that there will be martyrs.

    1. After spending a lot of his time in Algeria and Egypt during his RAF services during WW2. My father said to me many times. “Never trust an Arab son”. I think I know what he meant.

  68. The Law brought low in the USA

    Trump’s persecution has put the rule of law itself on trial
    The State of New York’s reputation for legal excellence is imperiled by the criminal cases against the former president
    Richard Porter

    The civil and criminal cases brought by the New York Attorney General and the New York County District Attorney against Donald J. Trump raise the question: what is the role of law? Is law a ritual for, or a restraint on, the exercise of power in New York?

    The rule of law is an ideal and an ideology that defines, delimits and restrains the exercise of power by the powerful. With roots in Aristotelian thought, the rule of law entered Anglo-American legal traditions with the Magna Carta in 1215, which established written constraints on the King’s exercise of his power.

    Then, in 1636 when Sir Edward Coke, a judge appointed by the King of England, informed his King that judges schooled in the “artificial reason” of the law, and not the King himself, interpret the law. Coke established for the first time that law is independent of the King’s will; law is not whatever the guy with power says it is.

    One hundred and forty years later, our Founders took Law one step further, enshrining in our founding documents the idea that each man was created equal, under God only, and endowed with rights that are not subject to the King or any other earthly power. In the US model, God vested sovereignty directly in the People, empowering ordinary people to form a government of and by equals to serve the People and secure their Freedom, instead of ruling over them.

    The flaw in the Rule of Law is that it’s still a human exercise, prone to the virtues and vices, passions and perspectives of the ordinary people in the system. There are more than 3,100 judges and justices in the New York State Unified Court System who wield the state’s power either by election or appointment; not all of them have Sir Edward Coke’s chutzpah, wisdom or persuasive skill at the “artificial reason” of the law.

    Which brings us back to New York’s cases against Donald J. Trump and the question these cases raise as America and the world watch: Is New York a rule by law or a rule of law State?

    In her civil case, the Democrat Attorney General Letitia James sought, and the Democrat judge imposed, fines and punishments intended to essentially bankrupt the billionaire Trump. These punitive measures were justified by real estate valuations that, if and to the extent they may have been wrong, fooled and hurt no one, while also making it practically impossible to appeal.

    Not a good look for New York, and so the appellate courts, more institutionally concerned about the state’s reputation and standards, made it easier for Trump to appeal the civil judge’s extraordinary order and breathtaking fines, slashing by more than two-thirds the bond required for an appeal.

    Now we are at the start of a criminal trial brought by a single county’s prosecutor against the former president of the entire United States – and lawyers everywhere are reading the indictment and Statement of Facts, scratching their heads and wondering: how can the judge let this case go forward? On its face, the indictment appears to have fatal flaws.

    For example, the indictment was filed and the case was commenced more than 5 years after alleged crimes occurred, which is the statute of limitations for felonies in New York. The indictment alleges a business enterprise records violation for checks written on, and recorded in, a personal account not a business account.

    The indictment does not make clear how the “intent to defraud” element of the charged crime is satisfied, nor is it clear what second crime the alleged inaccurate business record was intended to further or obscure.

    The Statement of Facts suggests that perhaps the checks written in the amount of the Cohen invoices were intended to obscure a violation of Federal campaign laws, but these facts have long been known, and the bodies responsible for enforcing those laws did not allege Trump violated those laws. Prosecutors also appear to suggest that the payments violated state tax laws, but in what way is a payment that increases net tax collections by the state a fraud on the state?

    Digging further into the record, Trump’s lawyers made these obvious arguments and others in a motion to dismiss last year, which the judge dismissed two months ago. To be diplomatic, I found the opinion unconvincing and conclusory. Read the opinion yourself – how would you characterise the Acting Justice’s reasoning?

    This is a huge case, and it’s not just about Donald J. Trump. The elected and appointed officials who are bringing and hearing this case on behalf of the People of New York should understand that New York and its legal system are on trial too. The world is watching, everyone knows Trump is the Republican nominee for President and that these Democrats hate Trump with a sometimes blind passion, so the ordinary presumptions of fairness and regularity are under the microscope.

    New York is a global commercial center because of its legal system, and the wisdom of Judges now long passed such as Benjamin Cardozo and Learned Hand. Millions of contracts and trillions in transactions depend on New York law because it has been stable, commercial, neutral and clear, and to New York courts to enforce those laws in a fair, impartial, intelligible and predictable manner. The rule of law in New York has deep roots and broad reach, but it’s still a human enterprise that will thrive or wither based on the reason and courage of the people who comprise the system.

    Don’t screw it all up just to screw Donald J. Trump.

  69. Tommy Robinson has been found not guilty of ‘illegally’ attending a pro-Israeli rally – but only because the useless Met Police filled out the wrong date on the dispersal order.

    Tommy later said: “The point I want people to understand, I’ve just said I’ve won. Have we won? Do we have freedom? For the last six months I’ve been banned from entering my capital city, while jihadists have taken over our capital city, week in week out with the grace of the police allowing them to. I’ve had my restrictions, my right to a family life, I even went to court to ask whether I could take my children to the Christmas lights turn-on and I was refused that opportunity.

    “For the last six months I’ve had to go to a Muslim police officer and ask permission to come into my own capital city, of which one of the meetings was to interview a member of Parliament. That Muslim police officer refused that request. That is a police state, that is not freedom. The judge today stood on the side of truth, but I have been in these politicised buildings too many times.

    “This is the eighth time I’ve been in court on this offence at a cost of £60,000. This is about lawfare, the process is the punishment. You may come here and get a victory, but they’ve had the victory, they’ve controlled any opposition to Hamas on the streets of this country by banning me for six months, that’s what they’ve done.”

    We all need to support Tommy Robinson.

  70. Soiled nappies and karate: AI-rendered Putin biopic to be released. 23 April 2024.

    Originally titled The Vor in Law (a term used for elite organised crime figures), the film also incorporates footage shot by Ukrainian film-makers during the Russian invasion. The film’s trailer includes shots of Putin wearing a soiled nappy, taking part in martial arts, and confronting Boris Yeltsin. Originally titled The Vor in Law (a term used for elite organised crime figures), the film also incorporates footage shot by Ukrainian film-makers during the Russian invasion. The film’s trailer includes shots of Putin wearing a soiled nappy, taking part in martial arts, and confronting Boris Yeltsin.

    Produced and financed by the CIA!

    https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/apr/23/putin-ai-biopic-readies-for-release-besaleel

  71. Dangerous Labour will be a threat to anything and everything people hold dear.

    Listen to Reeve and be afraid, very afraid. No stranger to WEF says it all. Human rights to be violated with her vaccine army to administer covid and flu jabs – despite all the evidence that they don’t work and have been responsible for a wide spectrum of harms, including death. Authoritarian and batshit crazy and people will vote for this person.

    https://twitter.com/juneslater17/status/1782405362357784820

    BTL

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7d79b188de5e06ca292ebaeb84f49c127f18ed4e1f7590a94d461fffd4491210.png

      1. There is some evidence emerging that shows medications other than THE jab are being contaminated with the junk that is in THE jab. La Quinta Columna, a Spanish research group, exposed this some time ago. Now, Dr Jane Ruby in the USA is covering this issue. They, whoever they are, appear determined to pollute humankind’s bodies and processes.

        1. Woodland 10 miles south of Nashville, it seems.

          NASHVILLE, [Sunday] Aug. 2 [1964] (AP) —Jim Reeves, 39 years old, the country‐music singer, and a companion were found dead in the wreckage of a private, single‐engine plane 10 miles south of here today.

          Mr. Reeves’s body was identified from a driver’s license taken from the wreckage. The other victim was believed to be Mr. Reeves’s pianist and road manager, Dean Manuel, 30.

          The plane crashed Friday night on a return trip from Batesville, Ark.

          John Kane, a Tennessee highway patrolman said the plane was demolished. The engine was partly buried.

          The plane crashed in a wooded area just off U.S. 31. There was some evidence of fire in the wreckage.

          https://www.nytimes.com/1964/08/03/archives/jim-reeves-country-music-star-killed-in-tennessee-plane-crash.html?auth=login-google1tap&login=google1tap

  72. Bit strange how the BBC have been ignoring the daily dinghy boat channel crossing for years, now the Rwanda bill has passed they are all over it, boat sank today, with drownings in French waters.
    But somehow they portray it as our fault and is on our collective consciences.

    1. As you pointed out elsewhere, his victory was on a technicality. It won’t stop the hounding.

      1. Quite. There appears to be no comment by the Bench on Mr Robinson’s claims that “20 police lied”…

    2. “Beeaking”.

      Is that the Magistrate? Or is no one capable of spelling correctly these days?

      1. Many will think that spelling errors ought not to detract from the importance of the story, but I cannot help thinking that they diminish it. It looks amateur and casts doubt on the rest of the report.

        1. It simply shows up those who post such reports as the retards they are.

          I may feel some sympathy for Stephen Christopher Yaxley for how he is treated, but I cannot begin to like him.

          1. I must say I have friends with whom I disagree just as there are people whom I dislike but with whom I agree!

            Tommy Robinson might not fit easily into my social circle but I would be very happy to have a pint or two and a chat with him in the pub.

        2. Back in the ’70s I was told, during teacher training, that I should NOT correct the pupil’s spelling and grammar as it “inhibited their creativity”. I said there was no point in their being creative if nobody could understand what they wrote. It’s a wonder I passed!

      2. The problem is computers doing the writing. The system has yet to be perfected.

        1. The problem is no one is skilled enough, or intelligent enough, to proofread before publication.

      3. I’m at a loss to translate, Grizz. I have absolutely no idea what the headline means.

          1. or an article about baby ducklings?
            Once had a sweet trifle-like dessert in Netherlands called Potjes Beekveldt.
            Excellent, so it was.

  74. I see a boat load of people just drowned in the channel and Fishi is going to spaff more arms and money at Ukraine.
    It’s amazing how fast our government and media works when either supporting its favourite cause, or getting upset about people coming over to colonise the country getting into trouble and not being helped enough to take over.
    However when it comes to the concerns of the people who have to pay for it, if you are the wrong sort of person; they either make your life hell via the bought and paid for judiciary and police, or at best completely ignore you.
    Liebour of course will be worse and can’t wait to get revenge on the people who don’t agree with them , which as far as I can see is most of the public so we are in for a very rough time.
    Oh how I miss the 20th century!

  75. A gentle reminder.. you can’t vote your way out of this current corrupted mess.
    And what’s more it’s going to get x10 worse under Blair MkII.

    Your only slimmer-than-slim vague hope is for a large $ donor to bribe&beg Prof Matt Goodwin to take a sabbatical and gather up all the Right wing parties.. Reform, SDP, UKIP, Posie Parker.. make an announcement standing next to Nige, and tactically vote against the uniparty in every seat across the land.

    1. The “vague-hope” I have is that I wake up one morning and find that it was all a horrible dream!

      1. Aged 5 I was convinced that it was all a dream and I would soon wake up. 63 years later…

    2. It is actually time that Goodwin put his money where his mouth is. The thing I have against him is that everything he writes is behind a paywall. He makes highly relevant points as one can see from YT podcasts but his writing is for paid subscribers only. Tells you a lot, in my view.

      1. David Starkey too.. he bangs on about what should be done.. and always claims “Never say never..” about entering politics.
        So, David, Nigel, Matt.. this is pretty much The Last Chance Saloon.
        After GE24 it’s gameover under Blair II.

    3. It is actually time that Goodwin put his money where his mouth is. The thing I have against him is that everything he writes is behind a paywall. He makes highly relevant points as one can see from YT podcasts but his writing is for paid subscribers only. Tells you a lot, in my view.

    4. You can’t vote your way out because the electoral system is weighted in favour of the two major parties. Look how UKIP was able to triumph in the European elections because of the PR system. Had there been a FPTP system in play Nigel Farage would never have got anywhere and Brexit would still be an unfulfilled dream.

      2. unless.. unless.. the outrage gets so extreme + a couple of sploding hissin backpacks + a leaked secret recording of Sir Starmer discussing Rejoin with Campbell & Mandy.

        1. I wonder what the odds were in 1922 that the Liberals would die and Labour take their place as the big party that wasn’t Conservative?

      1. Sadly, I am thinking along those lines.
        We all know that revolutions eat their own.
        I worry about my grandchildren, as the entire western culture seems to be pursuing the same destructive path so they have no civilised bolthole.

    5. Did you see what the stupid woman was trying to feed it on? Sugar water, boiled egg (cannibalism?), peas and yoghurt FFS! No wonder it wanted to die.

  77. Potholes are now a conspiracy against drivers. 23 April 2024.

    As if HS2 was not a big enough scandal as it is, I am beginning to wonder about the money that was supposed to be freed up by the cancellation of its northern legs. Last October the Government announced that it was making £8 billion of pothole money available for road repairs – enough, supposedly, to resurface 5000 miles of road.

    Where has this money gone? There is not much evidence of proactive pothole repair around my way – I can’t remember the roads being in a worse state. And it seems I am not imagining it either. The RAC received 27,205 calls to broken down cars disabled by pockmarked roads in the 12 months to the end of March.. That was an almost 10 per cent rise on the previous 12 months.

    It would, I think, be reasonable to presume that the famous roads declined as the Roman Empire collapsed. Shortage of cash and the maintenance of highways is a strategic requirement with no obvious short term returns. They are usually the first signs of an expanding civilisation so it is not perverse to assume the opposite.

    Not just its institutions but the very fabric of the West is falling to pieces.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/23/potholes-have-become-a-new-front-in-the-war-against-motoris/

    1. Pot Holes are so bad I have to take longer driving routs to avoid the worst of them. Yet I see vast cycle routes being constructed. and no one one them.and of cours they pay nothing for them.

      1. Perhaps all drivers should do what a friend of ours told us a couple of years ago.
        He said that he was stopped by the police on suspicion of drink driving.
        His breath test was negative. So the cops asked him to explain why he was driving so slowly and weaving across the road and back.
        You’ve guessed it,…….pot hole avoidance.

    2. I read that, we gave several large and dangerous pot hole on a main road near where we live. The many people who have complained to St Albans Council have been told at the moment they are not deemed as deep enough to warrant repairs.
      Shame we all recently paid our council tax.
      The ‘cash shortages’ could be because people have been stealing millions from public funds. And have seemingly gotten away with it.

      1. The ‘cash shortages’ could be because people have been stealing millions from public funds. And have seemingly gotten away with it.

        I regard this as one of the unreported scandals of the times. I cannot prove it for obvious reasons but I’m pretty sure that massive peculation and embezzlement of public funds is continuous.

        1. I very recently seen reports of thieves stealing public funds. Including massive embezzlement of benefits.

        3. People renting out their council houses and failing to repay their discount for example?

          1. Oh the irony! I’ve received an invitation to a talk on forcing my local council to do more to combat the climate change emergency and loss of biodiversity. I’m not going because ensuring they stop building on green fields creating urban hotspots and refrain from cutting down mature trees and grubbing up well established hedgerows is guaranteed NOT to be on the agenda.

          2. Ours are the same. St Albans Limps put out a brochure tell people about what they have been doing locally. Which is basically eff all.
            But have not mentioned a single word about the 200 odd houses that they intend to build on green belt agricultural land. Which will of course result in the destruction of many long established mature trees and hedge rows.
            We live in a smallish but lovely village, it’s going to be completely wrecked by these stupid idiots.
            They keep saying there is a housing crisis/shortage. No, they are too many people on these small islands. Especially England. Its sickening what they are getting away with.
            And all these bloody invaders come from countries that are enormous compared to ours. But because of the draw of a free life. They can’t be bothered to put their own ‘house’s’ in order or their Country and living standards.

          3. Similar is happening round here; we’ve had two massive estates built on farmland (600 + in total) and the locals in the nearby village are up in arms about more building on green fields that will turn their place into a mini-town. They’ve had enough of building.

          4. That’s about 2.500 more people.
            People in modern day politics are absolutely insane. They are wrecking everywhere and everything else they come into contact with.

          5. Questionnaires we’ve sent out to find out what our parishioners (Parish Council rather than PCC) like about the area return a high priority for green spaces, countryside, no more house building, community spirit. County is intent on wrecking all of that. More than the people (for whom there will be no GP provision, dental services or jobs in the area) it will mean a similar number of cars to further jam up the roads and deepen the potholes. At the same time, County has a “climate emergency” department!

    3. Yesterday I was shopping in one of Colchester’s better streets.
      It still contains a few private shops – albeit blighted by a collapsing cinema that has been empty for 20 years, while crooks and councillors bat the problem back and forth between each other.
      What struck me were the weeds being allowed to grow in the cracks between shop walls and the pavement.
      A small sign, but one that suggested nobody cared.

  78. Britain will boost defence spending to 2.5pc, Sunak announces. 23 April 2024

    Rishi Sunak has pledged to increase Britain’s defence budget to £75 billion a year by the end of the decade, taking it to 2.5pc of national wealth.

    The Prime Minister unveiled the biggest uplift to military spending in a generation which will add £23 billion to the military budget over the next six years.

    Words without meaning.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/23/britain-boost-defence-spending-2030-rishi-sunak/

    1. One of the BTL comments:

      “There was a man on the last Hamas march with a plackard saying “Death To Israel.” The police did bloody nothing. So I openly say “Death To Islam!””

      It would be interesting to see how the police would have reacted had a member of the St George’s rally actually marched with a banner saying this.

  81. Phew!
    Back from Stoke and step-son is, perhaps not OK, but as OK as he is likely to be!
    Yesterday’s problem was alcohol related and the neighbour who phoned me had actually called 999 for help.
    The comments from the note they left behind stress that he is a vulnerable adult who is not receiving sufficient support.

    I sorted out his medications and took him to a doctor’s appointment. Not particularly impressed. Still, we shall find out as time goes on.
    Because of his mental state, he should have a bus pass which we applied for 4 weeks ago when the lady in Stoke Library told us the form had to be scanned and to be sent via e-mail to the Dr’s surgery. No one at the surgery appears to know anything about it, so another trip to the charming lady in the Library who has sent another e-mail to them.

    Another problem has arisen.
    His rent has increased. So I compiled a letter and we handed it in to the council offices for the housing benefit office.
    BUT! He is now on Universal Benefit and that needs to be dealt with via the Benefits Office!!!
    So, that’s another letter to write!

    Because of his uncontrollable spending habits, I’m also taking back control of one of his accounts and need to ensure that his Universal Benefit is paid to the account I’ll be controlling.

    Still, such things are sent to try us!

    2. You’re a good man, Bob. Poor lad would be in a terrible mess without you lurking in the shadows to keep him straight. Nobody else seems to give a flying one.

    3. I feel for you Bob. There are times when I feel relieved that the vulnerable adult I have to look out for is so severely learning disabled that even our local NHS commissioners no longer question his need for round the clock support. I worry greatly about what will happen when we aren’t there any more but it is so much worse for friends who have adult kids who are less cognitively disabled but have serious problems and get little or no support.

    1. I used to read a blog by a Magistrate and another one by a serving police officer. They were both stopped in their tracks. People used to comment on the posts like they do here but that site seems to have no comments at all.

      1. I suspect that almost everyone who is employed who is posting on Nottle would swiftly find themselves out of work if their employers and customers knew what they were posting here.

          1. My social media posts would only be scrutinised if I were in front of the cameras and that isn’t ever going to happen. I never mention, comment on or “like” anything on X/Twitter that’s connected with or about my employer.

          3. Ah, I see no point in hiding behind an assumed name. I refrain from mug shots but apart from that…

          1. Don’t remember, I’m afraid. I just recall his name because of the Dickens connection.

    2. “As if that’s not bad enough, Robinson will undoubtedly now receive tens of thousands in compensation as a result of his unlawful arrest and detention.”
      what a spiteful little blogger

  83. Sunak unveils biggest military spending increase in a generation
    Britain will boost defence spending to 2.5pc, Prime Minister announces, as he calls for Europe to follow suit

    DT Headline

    He knows he won’t be in power to do it; we know he won’t be in power to do it; he knows we know he won’t be in power to do it.

    Why doesn’t the sad little man pack up now and move to the US.

    3. How will the budget be balanced – which posts lose… Oh, sorry, money is infinite.

    1. Cloud seeding seems to have been a normal practice in Wales for thousands of years.

  85. St George’s Day rally in central London turns violent as brawl with police erupts
    Far-right groups may be heading to the event opposite Downing Street, say police

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/st-georges-day-london-far-right-police-whitehall-football-fans-b1153337.html

    There seems to be a relatively small area allocated, and the total time seems very limited compared with the Hamas marches.
    I recognise that may be down to numbers but it is noticeable.
    I also observe that very few of the marchers are wearing face coverings in the way the left wing, pro Palestine marchers seem to.

    1. According to the DM the police banned face-coverings for this march, but never for the Hamas ones. I wonder why 😕In fact, in reality there were only a few scuffles rather than “violence erupting” so one has to wonder if the police themselves didn’t provoke them. It really wouldn’t surprise me. We can’t have people being proud of being English can we, unless they are “far right” or “football hooligans”.

      2. On the video clip, I think I saw someone biff a police horse on the head with a black stick. He wasn’t wearing a St George’s flag and immediately disappeared into the crowd.

        1. I read that it was an umbrella – sounds like someone who had nothing to do with the march but was just there to cause trouble for the marchers.

          4. Biffo: Beano. Korky: Dandy.

            The only thing I liked about being dragged to the barber’s shop — for my statutory short-back-and-sides — was the facility to read: Beano, Dandy, Topper, Beezer, Victor, Hornet, Wizard, Lion, Tiger, Eagle, Valiant, Hurricane …

          7. My Barber certainly had. I never saw any Dostoevsky, Goethe, Proust or Joyce in there though.

          9. I call our Korky

            The Dandy Front Pager

            He’s certainly one of the best and he deserves front page billing.

          13. Biffo: Beano. Korky: Dandy.

            The only thing I liked about being dragged to the barber’s shop — for my statutory short-back-and-sides — was the facility to read: Beano, Dandy, Topper, Beezer, Victor, Hornet, Wizard, Lion, Tiger, Eagle, Valiant, Hurricane …

      3. From the video on X it seems the police kettled them and they pushed through the police cordon. They were pushed and trampled by horses. They had no weapons, only banners.

    2. The DT BTL remarks are coming so thick and fast it’s hard to read them. All that I have read are saying the same thing and it’s not in praise of the MET. Hope springs.

  86. The Internet was supposed to free us. Then those in control got worried.
    If a policeman or magistrate speaks of their experiences in real time without contravening policy or law they should be allowed to do so. Both magistrates and police are supposed to be members of and servants to the public.
    In essence they were showing up inept and or corrupted procedures/bosses.

    This is why they were silenced more than a decade ago.
    They weren’t bad mouthing their employers they just spoke as they found.

    We can all now see how important it is to those in power to control the narrative more than ever before.

    1. I agree regarding the likes of whistle-blowers, they should have some protection.

      What I particularly object to is the way people can be pilloried, hounded and banned for “wrong think”.

      1. I don’t believe either of those two regarded themselves as whistleblowers at the time. Not forgetting Magistrates are not employees.

  87. I’m not sure you’re correct here.
    I think the point he is making is that public funds have been wasted and because of the police incompetence there may also be compensation covered by the taxpayer, more money wasted unnecessarily, which would apply in similar instances had it been the left-wing equivalent of TR.
    It would be interesting to know the total cost of this fiasco.

  90. We should all have joined the St George’s day marchers, perhaps we should have one every week, on a Saturday for the foreseeable future? As the police have no problem with Free Palestine flags they can’t object to Free England ones and since swastikas have to be taken ‘in contect’ so too will calls for a new crusade, Pope Urban II was right.

    ‘From our rivers to the sea, England shall be Muslim free.’

    1. Speaks volumes.. plod faces & kettles the St George’s faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar right crowd.. whereas they protect & face outwards with Hamas supporters.

    2. Be fair. She doesn’t have much else to do nowadays except slouch on the couch. Not surprising really given how she treated everyone/colleagues over the years.

      1. She hasn’t turned up at the wee pretendy parliament for quite some time, and has just cancelled a visit to Westminster!

      2. I did wonder. Please God, no. We all ready have Rosemary’s Baby ruling the once delightful Canada.

        1. I don’t believe her. Lavender marriage and female friend! Unless it was the turkey baster.

  96. Saying ‘back in your day’ could be unlawful
    Using the age-related expression could amount to unwanted conduct, a tribunal judge noted

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/saying-back-in-your-day-could-be-unlawful-p53p7rdg2

    Saying “back in your day” to an older colleague could be the latest workplace legal trap, thanks to a judge’s comment in a case involving a nursing assistant.

    Patrick Quill, a specialist employment tribunal judge, said that the “barbed and unwelcome” expression used to highlight a age gap between co-workers could amount to “unwanted conduct”.

    The judge noted that older workers could sue under discrimination law over the use of the comment because it “related to age”.

    His remarks came in a ruling in the case of Margaret Couperthwaite, who is in her sixties. The nursing assistant sued for age harassment in a claim alleging that a younger colleague suggested an operation had been free under the NHS “back in your day”.

    Couperthwaite’s claims for discriminatory dismissal, disability discrimination and harassment were dismissed because the tribunal found that the comment had never been made — but it noted that such a remark could have been unlawful if it had been.

    A hearing in Watford was told that in 2018 Couperthwaite had started working as a personal nursing assistant at Hilton Nursing Partners, which is based in Ashford, Kent, and provides discharge services to the NHS.

    Couperthwaite was twice promoted at the centre but since 2014 — when she received a cancer diagnosis — was receiving a “significant amount of treatment”.

    Her manager, Joanna Stevens, called Couperthwaite to a sickness disciplinary meeting in 2021 after it was deemed that the nursing assistant’s absences had “hit a trigger”. Couperthwaite was given a written warning and complained that she had not been promoted to team leader that same year because of her age.

    Later in 2021, a colleague, Kelsey Ford, who was described as “a lot younger” than Couperthwaite, was said to have commented to her about a form of elective surgery: “Well, back in your day it probably was free, but I would not get it free now.”

    Couperthwaite was dismissed soon afterwards for not wearing a mask and PPE at the home of an elderly patient while coronavirus was still prevalent.

    Dismissing her claims for bullying and discrimination, Quill said that there was no evidence of the date or context in which the alleged “back in your day” comment was made. The judge said that Couperthwaite was unable to recall specific details and that she made no complaint about the alleged comment until after she was sacked.

    But the judge noted that the panel would have been “likely to accept” that the phrase “back in your day” related to age.

    The judge continued that “subject to being satisfied about the context of the conversation, we would have been likely to accept that such words would have been unwanted conduct, by being an unwelcome and barbed highlighting of the age difference”.

    Employment tribunal rulings and judicial comments do not create legal precedent, but can be used as a guide for other cases at the same level.

    2. So we are now to be sued for what we haven’t said.
      Back in my day that would never happen.

  97. Good late afternoon from Audrey and myself.
    Happy St Georges day. I shall find suitable music .
    Jerusalem being the most traditional hymn .

    3. As he’s had both hips replaced, maybe he’s concentrating on the wrong area.
      Removing the ‘tache would knock more years off his age a darn sight more cheaply.

  99. Defence spending in UK to be put ‘on war footing’, Rishi Sunak says – 23 April 2024.

    There is nothing more ethical than defending our way of life from those who threaten it.

    Now all of this will put us at the forefront of the global defence industry, allow us to hugely ramp up defence production, and give our armed forces the capability they need to keep us safe.

    May the Lord Krishna forgive him!

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/apr/23/global-system-refugee-rights-risk-rwanda-bill-un-council-europe-conservatives-rishi-sunak-labour-uk-politics-latest-updates?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-6627bde48f08f2c421482711#block-6627bde48f08f2c421482711

    1. The threats to ‘our way of life’ come from politicians and the hordes of 3rd world parasites they keep importing.

    1. You’re too young for her anyway Scudiero, she’s thankfully past her childbearing age 😉

      1. I believe I’ve recounted before the story about her nickname at university being ‘Seaweed’?
        Because only the tide would take her out!😂

  102. A vagrant Bogey Five!

    Wordle 1,039 5/6
    ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
    🟩🟩⬜⬜🟨
    🟩🟩⬜🟩⬜
    🟩🟩⬜🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. I’m with you

      Wordle 1,039 5/6

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

        1. I assume he uses and discards as many letters as possible. Well he did get it in 5, unlike us logical people who took 6 goes today!

    2. Skin of teeth. Too many options.

      Wordle 1,039 6/6

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

    3. I made slow progress too.

      Wordle 1,039 5/6

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

    4. It couldn’t happen, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s what Markle really thought (and hoped) that could come about. Barking mad.

      1. I can believe it. It’s exactly the kind of idea that might occur to someone from a showbiz background who doesn’t really get the Head of State thing – from a purely showbiz point of view, it makes perfect sense.
        Or someone who wanted to water down or abolish the RF.

  106. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-are-the-english-embarrassed-about-st-georges-day/

    I took a peek into the Spectator articles this morning and saw this ‘ why are the english embarrassed by St Georges Day’.. The Spectator is becoming more and more left wing by the moment . The same article heading as they had up last year – lazy. I did venture into the claustophobic reply boxes with Terpsichore to respond but I didnt bother to go back and see if there was a response to a comment i made 8 hours ago. Bad form Spectator – such a negaitive leftist unpatriotic article . The English are not embarrassed by St Georges day – you are and so are the left as they commit cultural genocide .

      1. Clearly both Quentin Letts and Ella Whelan fall into this category. Talk about the facial expression denoting someone else’s fart in a lift. (On GBN at the mo). Disappointed in both, but Ella is one of the related reasons I don’t subscribe to Spiked (incurably, doggedly Leftie, despite the evidence and their own conflicting observations) And I have come across Quentin socially. He is a superficial snob, though amusing. The kind of person to whom a well-turned snub is more valuable than a great work of art, as *someone* once said.

    2. B
      Bucksfan
      3 hours ago edited
      ‘This phenomenon has existed amongst a certain type of English person for years. In 1941 George Orwell wrote

      “In intention, at any rate, the English intelligentsia are Europeanized. 
They take their cookery from Paris and their opinions from Moscow. In the 
general patriotism of the country they form a sort of island of dissident 
thought. England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals 
are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always 
felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman 
and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse 
racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably 
true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of 
standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a 
poor box. All through the critical years many left-wingers were chipping 
away at English morale, trying to spread an outlook that was sometimes 
squashily pacifist, sometimes violently pro-Russian, but always 
anti-British.”

      Nothing has changed there’s just more of them!’

      I too was put in mind of George Orwell when I read this article.Nothing new about this.

      1. From 1885. The high Victorian era.
        Koko ‘s little list in The Mikado.

        …. “Then the idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone,

        All centuries but this, and every country but his own;”

      2. It’s strange to think that until Blair had enjoyed the pleasures and hypocrisy of the left during the Spanish civil war he was a dyed in the wool member of that English intelligentsia.

        1. Do you think so? I always thought he was critical of the left even before going to Spain.My opinion is that he was intellectually honest in his opinions and writings.
          This extract, I’m sure, (although I haven’t checked this) is from ‘Notes on Nationalism’ written in 1945 long after his Spanish adventure.
          The important thing is that the results of the lessons he may have learnt on his life’s journey have given us much food for thought.
          I forgot ‘Orwell’ was merely a pen name and your use of ‘Blair’ rather disconcerted me as it brought back unpleasant memories of a celebrity couple I used to read about.

          1. I guess it’s how one reads the books, and particularly the order one reads them.

            I think I read “The Road to Wigan Pier” first, which gave me the impression that he erred/leaned to the Left.

          2. Oh, he was a socialist, but very critical of communist intelligentsia. It’s been years since I read the Road to Wigan Pier, published just before he travelled to Spain, and my memory is imperfect but I think I remember it being critical.
            Doubtlessly, as happens to all of us who spend time in Spain, he learnt a lot about politics.

          3. Well worth revisiting.
            It’s odd how Nottle works.
            I’ve been conversing with an old Etonian earlier this evening.
            Orwell wrote Down and Out… and an indirect line connected me with the Nottler, a Headmaster, a bisexual who was marginalised and working in kitchens as a washer-upper.

            It’s a small but strange world.

          4. Down and Out in London and Paris I also read long ago. I understood the Paris restaurant, where the waiter used to spit in the soup before serving it to the wealthy diners, was Maxim’s.
            That and the dreadful English austerity of ‘tea and slice’ when he returned to London are some of the few things I remember about the book.
            Must read them all again.

          5. I think my favourite of all his novels is ‘Coming Up For Air’. An interesting account of pre World War I England, and the atmosphere just before the Second World War.

  107. Yes I know……it’s early, but we have things to do, yesterday we decided to get away for a few days. Fed up with the weather and so many others things. ‘We’ yesterday, have Booked a holiday at HPB Rocha Brava, we’re off to Portugal in the morning for 7 days. I might be able to pop in and see what’s happening with ‘you lot’. 😉 But bye for now all. Take care.😎🤩

          1. We arrived at the apartment about 5pm lovely and sunny gentle breeze.
            I’ve had remove three layers of clothing since we left home.

    2. 🎼 Collect for St. George – Harris
      🎶 Radcliffe Responses:
      🎼 Evening Service in F – Ireland
      🎶 Give us the wings of faith – Bullock

      Would someone decode this for me?

        1. I suspected as much and whilst in this case I have some sympathy with the Met, it does look like fix and even conceivably agent provocateur.

          1. Yes. They already weeded out a guy with a sign saying hamas are terrorists. Anyone waving a union jack would also be warned/threatened or taken away. And as we have seen to day…anyone with a cross of st George would be treated also as agent provocateur in our own country.

            Mustn’t upset the muslims.

  114. PENNY MORDAUNT: Britain needs its own Iron Dome just like Israel – so it can protect itself from Putin and Tehran’s drones and missiles

    Britain’s skies under attack: As Putin hacks holiday jets and calls for an Israel-style Iron Dome for UK grow – what would home-grown defence system look like?

    And just how much of Britain’s defence budget would that take, assuming it protects more than central London?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13339451/britain-iron-dome-missile-drone-putin-iran-penny-mordaunt.html
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13340197/Israel-iron-dome-britain-penny-mordaunt.html

      1. But it isn’t really, is it? I mean the sentiments are fine but musically? Meh. Elgar’s worst work.

        1. These songs are emotionally powerful, Squire, regardless of their merit to purists (proper musicians?) like you. I was thinking that when watching the one below about reclaiming our country. Naff? Maybe. Effective? Yes. A Noel Coward quip springs to mind – “Amazing how potent cheap music can be”. Just think of some of the stuff that accompanied our youth, first loves etc. that will still move to tears and effect time travel.

          1. Noel Coward….now you’re talking. ‘The stately homes of England’ etc. Great stuff. ( though Bach et al will roll their eyes.)

          3. That stuff is words set to music. If it was too ornate the meaning of the lyric would be lost. No more of his “London Pride” though. Probably would be deemed hate speech and kettled by the Met.

          4. I think ‘The stately homos of England’ would be more appropriate for dear old Noel…..

        2. It is undoubtedly his most famous (Enigma Variations included), so unlikely to be his worst – I’m more of a Vaughan Williams man, myself.

          3. Absolutely. He apologises for it but excuses himself on the grounds that everyone needs to make a living.

          4. I guess so.

            Robert Plant, of Led Zep, famously hated ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and wouldnt do it live. Made him a fortune though……

          5. though not a VW fan myself, GGGG. Not substantial enough for me – too wibbly. I do think the Squire is being a musical snob on this occasion, for no good reason – except that some do despise popularity. The kiss of death.

          6. Yes, I know what you mean, Opo, but there’s nothing wrong with ‘easy listening’ on the classical level – if I want depth and psychotic I actually do like Stockhausen (honest!).

          8. No no no – you have to let your preconceptions go…. it’s masterful, raw and incredibly thought-provoking (that’s my shot at Pseuds Corner for this week!).

          9. But I don’t want music to be thought provoking. I want it to be silencing and sublime.

          11. That meets neither of my requirements (not that I am familiar with it) – but I have heard of them and that will be the kind of cheap music we were talking about before – a glorified earworm.

          13. I can see what you are driving at, but no thanks, AA. Bach is my God, musically, and Mozart comes a close second. others in the same vein.

          17. Get a grip. Cello concerto, Enigma variations etc etc. Pomp and circumstance is rubbish.

        4. Well, musically great or not, i think it magnificent and do applaud it. Time after time.

  116. I am signing off now. Sunshine – after a wet, bitterly cold day. More of the same tomorrow, I gather.

    Have a spiffing evening.

    A demain

    PS – a travel tip. We went to and from Malta via the despicable, appalling, overcrowded ghastliness that is Stansted Airport. But, in her infinite wisdom, the MR had spent £35 (or so) on “Fast Track” to get through Securiddity. (£8 each way per person) WORTH EVERY PENNY. Even when the famed passport facial recognition wotsit didn’t work for me and I was dragged away to “seek assistance”. We still reckon we avoided at least half an hour of endless queuing.

      2. Not so nice here, bloomin’ cold, wet. Far south-western slopes of East Anglia. Farming country.

        1. Sheep country here. Lots of lambs and menacing signs warning dog owners to keep dogs on leads.

          2. You need to take a trip here outside the tourist season. If you live in a modern English city of any size you will be surprised. Round here the population is effectively 100% white and Welsh is the normal language spoken.

          3. Welsh is often spoken here, but more usually it’s completely foreign jabber jabber.

          5. Not at all. Just don’t be offended if in the pub the locals are speaking Welsh. They are not doing it to annoy you, they will be speaking to whoever they are talking to in the language they normally speak to that person. If they speak to me it is in English; if they turn to the person next to them they may well speak in Welsh. They are not talking about you behind your back…..I know enough Welsh to be aware of that!

          6. I’m lucky enough to have travelled to numerous countries and that matches my experience.

            Most locals are usually very pleased that you are spending money in their pubs, restaurants etc. and, again in my experience, are more than happy to chat with me if they have English as well as talk amongst themselves.

            However, I have to say that wherever I have been in Scotland the natives have been hostile and the same applies to a lesser extent in Welsh towns and cities.

          7. I can’t speak for Scotland but round here (the most nationalist area of Wales) I have never encountered any hostility despite my background. The locals take people as they find them and also respect long association with an area.

            Also my family have been here a long time.

          8. We’ve found the locals here to be the same.
            The odd thing is, that openly with us, they don’t speak highly of the English in the Dordogneshire parts of the Dordogne.
            They seem to regard them in the same way I regard Muslims in places like Bradford

          9. Yes but those chaps are French. The French are a dodgy lot. More seriously….they probably differentiate between people like you who have moved there and tourists/second home owners. That is normal in tourist areas, no?

          10. Indeed.
            People moan about them, but I’ve found they could not have been more welcoming, yes there are exceptions, and they have almost invariably tried to sort out any problems we’ve had .
            BT might confirm my experience, but he speaka da linga much better than I do.

          11. You are much more likely to pick up French than I am Welsh. There are very very few locals who do not speak English perfectly. When I was a boy it used to be hill farmers only, but I did meet a girl twenty or so years ago whose English was so poor her friends teased her about it and so she was reluctant to speak it at all.

          12. I don’t want such languages to die out.
            However, neither do I wish people to be forced to learn them.

          13. I’d prefer it if the road signs and notices were not in Welsh. By the time I’ve read the warnings, never mind translated them, it’s probabaly too late!

          14. Welsh is a weird language. It has strange connections to French. Church – Eglise – Eglwys
            Window – Fenêtre – Fenestre
            Etc.

            Oops that’s Italian …the Welsh for window is fenstr or something like that.

          15. I’m not a linguist, cunning or otherwise, but it would be interesting to go back in time to see how the languages connect and diverge, both when and why.

          17. They are Celtic languages. What I found tricky in Welsh was the different number of plural endings and the soft mutation.

          18. It is fiendishly difficult, and so much is fiercely contested by the various officionados

          19. Mutations are the most commonly cited problem for people trying to learn Welsh. My experience is that you need to think what is easiest to say. Stryd fawr or strydd mawr. 90% of the time the laziest version is right.

          20. Not just them. All up the west coast of Spain and France into the west coast of England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland they all have standing stones. Bloody Druids !

          21. You are much more likely to pick up French than I am Welsh. There are very very few locals who do not speak English perfectly. When I was a boy it used to be hill farmers only, but I did meet a girl twenty or so years ago whose English was so poor her friends teased her about it and so she was reluctant to speak it at all.

          22. I can’t speak for Scotland but round here (the most nationalist area of Wales) I have never encountered any hostility despite my background. The locals take people as they find them and also respect long association with an area.

            Also my family have been here a long time.

          23. You really are a little tinker, Squire. When I was airing my road sign and supermarket Welsh you never let on that it is your everyday language! Spank botty.

          24. I don’t speak Welsh as my parents didn’t and I was educated privately. All the other locals do.

          30. Bastards.

            I had my eyes gouged in a loose maul, (they were loose scrums in those days,) playing rugby against them (was that you?), and was never able to wear contact lenses afterwards.
            And they were crap, we thrashed them.

          32. The Bill Thomas academy of juvenile delinquents.

            Our Headmaster married your Headmaster’s daughter, but that was after BT’s time.

          35. There are wild goats but as they are of no value (negative value) to farmers there are no threats to shoot your pooch. I like the wild goats though they are suspiciously more numerous in the last couple of years. Local rumour is that the excess wild goats from Llandudno are being dumped here. All I can say is that they used to be vanishingly rare and no longer are.

          3. Sos’s humour is marginally funnier than yours. He just admits to being a git.

            Checked your post yet?

      3. Stansted was designed by the most overrated supposed Architect of the century viz. Sir Norman Foster.

        Talk about style over substance but its principal defect is the failure to separate arrivals from departures. Basic stuff.

        In addition the overuse of glass cladding makes long waits to board in hot weather unbearable.

        I suppose the degradation of its formerly ample concourse by the introduction of franchise shacks selling crap has impeded travellers but my assessment of its woeful Architecture holds true.

      4. Stansted was designed by the most overrated supposed Architect of the century viz. Sir Norman Foster.

        Talk about style over substance but its principal defect is the failure to separate arrivals from departures. Basic stuff.

        In addition the overuse of glass cladding makes long waits to board in hot weather unbearable.

        I suppose the degradation of its formerly ample concourse by the introduction of franchise shacks selling crap has impeded travellers but my assessment of its woeful Architecture holds true.

      2. No – Norwich – but very few direct flights to anywhere other than oikish “resorts”. The sort of places you’d like.

      1. What he doesn’t seem to realise is you can just sit and have a coffee and let the queue look after itself. The plane is sitting there waiting to be filled.

    2. I am flying the flag. Good job plod can’t see it or I’d be nicked for being “openly English”.

      2. I just played some tunes on the jukebox:

        England’s Glory – Ian Dury
        Fog On The Tyne – Lindisfarne
        Drink Up Thee Zider – The Wurzels
        Wuthering Heights – Kate Bush
        Scarborough Fair – Simon & Garfunkel

  118. Ive been trying for ages to log back on with my samsung tablet but the ludicrous captua boxes you have to tick to make sure Im not a robot would’nt let me in with their yankee ‘ sidewalks ‘ yellow taxis and palm trees – after 6 tries i left it alone – why can’t we have oak trees, black taxis and pavements . Anyway logging in with my laptop is easier even if I dont have much time as Im cooking dinner soon – fishcakes with salad and rice .

      1. I think it might be Friday food, I appear to be having food on the incorrect idiosyncratic English days of having them. This Friday I shall have Fish and Chips and on Sunday I shall have roast Lamb – as it should be .

        1. Just given Lord O something similar but a baked potato in lieu of rice. I guess at the beginning of the week you go light, then build up t’wards Sunday Lunch (with a fish blip on Friday).

  119. ‘Wales to drop blanket 20mph speed limits by September
    Labour transport secretary says councils can start raising limits in six months’

    Ha! Managed 49 in a 20 today,

    1. Youre the highwayman Di*k Turpin of Snowdonia, wearing a hankerchief across the face as you speed past yellow cameras .

      1. We don’t have those anywhere near here. The nearest would be at least an hour’s drive away.😁

          1. Not necessary. There are no fixed cameras for miles around, despite mendacious signs asserting the opposite. Locals know where the mobile speed traps are sited, but they are there so infrequently one forgets from time to time. No points on licence at present.

            Seriously, I can drive from here in Snowdonia to the M4 and I pass one fixed camera. Which I make a v sign at.

      2. Kust make it a keffiyeh then plod will not touch you in case they are causing racial tensions.

        1. 😂 They would know that was nonsense. There are a couple of Muslims here, but they are vampires. Only seen at night in the Indian restaurant. Seriously……this is a very white area.

    1. Love Show of Hands. Have been listening to ‘Longdogs’ an album largely about poachers and fishermen. Great version of Billy Joel’s ‘Downeaster Alexa’ on it.

      1. I do like them very much, such Indigenous rural free spirits, someone dear to me introduced me to them, long ago – before that it was always Beethoven, Tallis and I . I shall look out for ” longdogs ‘ .

        1. It’s the second disc alongside their Greatest Hits abum, although Steve Knightly laughs they haven’t had any.

    1. I just can’t imagine how anyone has the capacity to see and feel all the notes that build that beautiful music in their brain and then to write it down note for note for each instrument. How do they do it. Sheer genius.

      2. A lifetime of study and performance in music with a large dose of humility.

        The greatest composers accomplished similar. I think particularly of Britten and Tippett after Elgar and Vaughan Williams.

        I believe Elgar corrected George Bernard Shaw who opined that Mendelssohn (or was it Richard Strauss?) could not orchestrate.

        Elgar suggested that a young composer should write a symphony but following the structure of a Mozart symphony. Elgar admired Richard Strauss whose music he found both enigmatic and beautiful. Symphony without programme or the ‘tone poem’ quality was Elgar’s ideal composition.

  122. Evening, all. Been a much better day here today; bright sunshine and reasonably warm. Have managed to potter around and do things for once.

    As for the headline, it isn’t just the Jewish community that deserves better from the Met.

    1. It’s been another dreary cold day.
      Short walk for Spartie; when we turned back I could feel him saying to himself; “Thank goodness she got the hint.”

        1. Dolly bares her teeth at me if i try to take her out in the cold and damp. I only have to mention i will invite uncle Sos round if you don’t do the walkies and suddenly she’s raring to go out.

      1. I think the English are a minority in our own capital city now. We certainly aren’t a protected minority, though.

          1. Not in my view! The English are white, European and have indigenous ancestry going back generations.

            You know what the Duke of Wellington said about being born in a stable.

    3. Rather chilly here with spits and spots of rain between brief sunny spells.

      1. It was bright and sunny here but chilly. Have to be careful to keep the chest covered with more than just a T shirt.

  123. Scotty got banned from Twitt recently, can’t imagine why. Reinstated now. Bad language warning
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/561f90c60310893c1d843bf530750e5196858ff1d9a83abc9ebd81bed04a5d0d.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/52d23a1786658bb6de3afea562ddecee91ccd2f4bccb04343a34bfe32ead849a.jpg

    I think we may possibly know a couple of people who speak this…
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d67bf48cc47f4e5703f899705cfe4bce96deeb21ce4441e89deb49d4bfc2e11d.jpg

    1. Fæder ure şu şe eart on heofonum,
      si şin nama gehalgod.
      to becume şin rice,
      gewurşe ğin willa,
      on eorğan swa swa on heofonum.
      urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg,
      and forgyf us ure gyltas,
      swa swa we forgyfağ urum gyltendum.
      and ne gelæd şu us on costnunge,
      ac alys us of yfele soşlice

      English, as spoken at that time. Can you guess what it means!

          1. This reminds me of a story (which I can’t find online) of a hunting party of foreign dignitaries in soviet Russia, the prey supposedly bear. But there were no bears in the region, so the soviets purloined one from the local circus and released it into the woods.

            The hunters all cycled up to the hunting ground and propped their bikes against trees, whereupon the bear appeared, grabbed a bike, and cycled off.

    4. Awful, if true. We were recently told that polar bears were an endangered species because of anthropogenic climate change, therefore (etc.) . However, that has since been proven to be a downright lie. Whooda thunkit? The whole hunting thing is subject to the same sort of non-factual ideology, because humans bad.

    5. Time for an open season on trophy hunters methinks.

      And another on illegal invaders? Tell me what you think!

    6. What normally determines big cat numbers is prey numbers, and vice versa. Encroaching on savannahs and jungles (or wherever) by human population increases is rife. Just look at African population figures. I’m not saying that hunting big game is a good thing, I think it’s terrible, but it won’t be the only determining factor in big cat numbers.

    7. The charge of hypocrisy could be levelled at us. Our ancestors exterminated bears and wolves on these islands. On the other hand we are a warning from history.

      1. Then why rise to the bait…
        You’re as catchable as that Thomas chap the Nottle trout fishermen would be netting you all by the dozen!
        };-))

  128. Ode to a Friendless Church.

    Ben Maton who lost his crematorium organist’s job to an automated music system continued his visit to churches and their organs by visiting the abandoned St Mary’s in a remote Dorset village.

    This video is nearly thirty minutes long but Ben looks at both the notable history and renovation of the building by the Friends of Friendless Churches and attempts to play his classic compostion for an unplayable Victorian organ. I found his video rather sad yet with some consolation at the locals’ attempts to keep their Christian heritage alive:

    https://youtu.be/tsgFxzDR1Co?si=ya-aKN6_vnfa96nr

    1. Haven’t watched this yet – but anyone who cares should join the Friends of Friendless Churches. There are some unloved beauties throughout the British Isles

    2. Parishes around the country are fighting bitter battles to sustain their futures against a destructive and callous hierarchy, and the shallow apathy of local communities. Our situation is now beyond belief, quite surreal.

  129. It’s absolutely freezing tonight and It’ll be just 6c tomorrow here in East Anglia,
    I need some warmth, the sun on my face, they say May will be the same.. I guess global warming won’t be this year. I feel sorry for the baby birds outside. So very cold and I’ve put all my winter clothes away .

    1. That’s why it is not global warming anymore, global climate emergency covers all bases.

      1. It is astonishing to me how they can keep the CO2/warming story going in such cool weather. This is the second cool, wet spring we have had, yet some people still believe the earth is boiling!
        The power of media entrainment is astonishing.

    2. “I wanna feel sunlight on my face.
      I see the dust clouds disappear without a trace.”

    3. I’m with you there, as I’m in east Anglia too!
      Had to get the winter bedding out!

    4. A couple of weeks ago, I thought about putting winter clothes away. Glad I never got round to it. MH is still wearing his fleecy jimjams.
      Tomato, pepper and cucumber seedlings have stopped growing, and I haven’t even thought about hanging basket plants. All of these have been well advanced by this time in previous years.

      1. Mine are in my tiny little greenhouse cupboard, or in the kitchen / bathroom window sill. Brassica and leek seedlings are outside – they’re tough!

        1. I started the seeds off indoors, but they were beginning to get a bit leggy, so I put them in the greenhouse when we had a few warmer days. As we are over-run with ants, there was no way I wanted the seedlings back in the house, even just overnight. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they will get growing again and catch up when we eventually get some sunshine.

          1. I managed to import some small slugs that ate some of my cucumber plants in the night! Pest free at the moment, touch wood.

  132. Well, chums, I hope you all enjoyed St. George’s Day. I’m off to bed now, so I’ll wish you all a Good Night, sweet and restful dreams, and see you all tomorrow.

          1. Sorry to hear that. Try to think or do something to distract yourself. Focusing on it makes it worse.

  137. Good morning, all. Blue sky mottled with white/grey clouds or vice versa.

    Coincidence or something more sinister?

    Traditionally the symbolic star of the USA has five points, now, 17 cities and/or states are re-designing their flags with the eight point star. Whilst the latter represents ideas in many religions it is very much part of the Moon and star symbol of islam.

    The state of Minnesota decided in 2023 that a new flag was required. The original flag is intricate and depicted some history of the state. The new flag is bland with the eight point star prominent.

    Original flag of Minnesota.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/32470fb21a83c81a3b3f3d635dc135806b7ab3c76ef4d7be1e1ff669e270c35b.png

    Re-designed flag.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/841523027d85d86a04e6e966d407a9c875782536c3e7ff247257454a0a1b0ef8.png

    Discussion of what is happening is here

    The flag of St George on display yesterday has been deemed as being racist and elitist by ‘progressives, lefties etc and to some police services as provocative, as witnessed yesterday in London. Meanwhile, the Palestinian flag and the associated chanting of hate and death gets a free pass.

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